The Best New Year Greetings

(A short story written on the occasion of NEW YEAR’s DAY 2016) 
 

From the Pen-APN

With tearful eyes a lovely girl walked away from the college hostel waving a sad farewell both to her hostel and her college. On that day, her father had come with a strong resolution to take her to a new college. And she, like a good girl, came with all her belongings. Her old friends had walked with her up to the hostel gate to bid her adieu. She was sighing sorrowfully and her face was buried in her palms to hide her inmost anguish at leaving her old college. 

She had to leave the college and she had gone with tearful eyes to join in some other college.

Although her untimely departure from the college in the middle of the academic session had surprised me, I, being her teacher, did not feel right to enquire much. Moreover, in a big college where you have thousands of teen aged students such incidents are overlooked. So I did not ask her father about the cause and circumstances behind his abrupt decision to put his daughter into a new college.  But that girl’s crying innocent face had lingered in my mind for many days…….

For a good many days that girl’s name was still on the students’ attendance register although she had already taken her Transfer Certificates. By mistake, the office had forgotten to strike off her name from the attendance register. As a result, while calling the roll numbers, in the class, I used to mark absent against her roll number.

One day the clerk handed me a newly updated attendance register and in that new register her name had been excluded from the existing students’ list……   

Life goes on.

When the old year draws to an end, another year spreads its colored wings to have a new start. It was New Year’s Day. I was playing with my five-year old son. My son was laughing and giggling with me. At this time the polyphonic ringtone of my mobile called my attention. An unknown phone number was flashing on the screen. When I picked the call, a sweet voice of a girl from the other side conveyed me one of the most happy and bubbly New Year’s Day greetings. The cheerful voice unmistakably belonged to that girl who had left our college in teary eyes and grief-stricken voice. Suddenly, a kind of love that I invariably feel for my son got channelized through my mobile and I asked the girl, “What about my little doll? Is she crying anymore?” A happy reply came, ‘No Sir,’ and then it was followed by a wave of delightful giggles like that of my tender-aged son’s.

That day I had just talked a few words to that girl but I was really happy because it made me realize that if I had a daughter, I would talk to her like that. And it was truly awesome to feel like a daddy of a beautiful girl. 

    

A few lines in praise of Dilwale Sunil Grover

(Dear Readers, to understand the true emotional value of this piece of writing I request your goodself to watch the video link first)

http://colors.in.com/in/videos/comedy-nights-with-kapil/watch-now-sunil-grover-wins-srks-respect-with-this-gerua-act-10121699.html  

From the pen APN

Breaking my long silence, or in other words overcoming the writer’s block, I could write today because a well-known comedian’s exceptional performance struck the strings of my heart so deeply that my arteries of emotions which had dried up for more than a month showed new signs of resuscitation. The credit for refilling my veins with fresh emotion goes to the highly talented comedian Mr.Sunil Grover, who, by his impeccable performance, produced a rare type of DEEWANGEE in the show which was aired on 20 Dec, 2015. The wave of heightened romanticism which was generated by the comedian was worthy of viewers’ standing ovation.

Hats off to Mr.Sunil Grover, the man who appears before us as Gutthi in Comedy Nights with Kapil. He is awesome and worthy of all my respect so I cannot but  write these lines acknowledging his soulful comedy that he recently performed in presence of SRK on the tunes of the song Gerua from Dilwale 2015.  

You may not feel what I feel about the act. We may differ from each other in our respective perceptions. And I may not make you realize how I feel but I need you to acknowledge that there was something beneath the comedy which strongly moved my feelings. On the said act his each movement was mysterously engraving his romantic and spiritual impressions on my heart. With all his heart, Mr.Grover was presenting a tribute to SRK in the very presence of SRK. It is nothing new but the uniqueness of the act surfaced when Mr.Grover’s distinctive style of a comedian got spontaneously fused with the sensitivity of a highly romantic person like SRK. The two types of characters got so perfectly mingled in Mr.Grover during the act that it created a homogeneous mixture of pure joy, a joy that had a spiritual appeal. The characteristic romantic vein of SRK and the heightened sense of tribute of Mr. Grover were so well balanced and so well integrated that it had a spiritual expression of unity, love, harmony and emotion.

As a result at the end of the show, I could feel how an emotionally charged man can reflect unsullied poetry and intense romanticism on stage although he spoke nothing before the audience and performed an act of pure comedy. 

Poets, lovers and lunatics are made up of the same stuff. And to be a lover means you are a person who enjoys his/her madness. And in a mad but mesmerizing act, Mr.Grover’s love for SRK exudes a symbolic meaning that the eternal spring of love that bubble up in human heart for another fellow human-being irrespective of caste, creed, religion, sex and social status.  

  

Enlightening High Blood Pressure

From the pen-APN

 

The readings on the Blood Pressure machine went up and up and up and finally the readings told that I have very high blood pressure and I need strict control over my diet and habits. The discovery of high blood pressure in me was surely shocking as well as a strong warning but the next moment I felt it to enlighten my views on life. For a moment I thought how thoughtlessly and irresponsibly I have squandered away my youthful times. I have achieved almost nothing in the bygone years when I was more active and efficient. I was careless and did not have a specific goal in the preceding years. I never minded when I had become the victim of under utilization of my capabilities and my faculties. As a result money, success, glory and its synonymous greatness, as understood in common parlance, were always beyond my reach. In short, I can say I had given the reigns of my life to external agencies which never considered the real worth of the human being inside me.

I have no rights to raise any issue or any complain because I had primarily failed to estimate the true worth of myself. So I never aimed at greatness. My life cannot be taken as an exemplary life till date. However, I am not hopeless. There are numerous examples strewn all over the human history that many great men were very ordinary and obscure in their earlier lives before they stumbled upon true greatness. Such examples invariably bring new hopes and new energy to start life anew with changed terms and conditions. I was in a fifty/fifty situation. It was because I never knew whether I have a second innings or I have already run out of my allotted time.

I was looking at the blinking heart icon of the monitor while the physician was taking the blood pressure readings. And at the same time I earnestly prayed and hoped for discovering a treasure trove of humanity before the blinking heart icon departs from me.

My physician looked rather serious at the worsening condition of my heart. I looked into his eyes, got up from my seat and in the style of Rajesh Khanna, in the movie Anand, I sermonized, “Oh Doctor! Why worry? Be happy. In my youth I had heat in my blood and…… now there is pressure in my blood.” Drawing my face close to Doctor’s, optimistically and enthusiastically, I concluded, “And this pressure will push my engine on the track to greatness…..Yahooo! The journey begins now. ”  

A Ginger-like Man

From the Pen-APN.

A few days back, I had adopted a charming habit of sleeping like a log for hours. I thought if I gave adequate rest to my mind, I would become mentally smarter and more productive. So I never missed an opportunity to fall asleep as soon as I could. Being a teacher, my profession demands that I should be mentally super-active and my brain should be endlessly resourceful. And sleeping was the most attractive option that I chose for this purpose. However, recently, I had to change this enjoyable habit. Because the more I slept, the wider the girth of my waist became. I was not sure whether my mind was getting fertile or not but it was clearly perceived that my waist and tummy were gloriously enlarging. Their growth was so stupendous that soon I had to change the size of my trousers. Almost all of my old trousers could no longer girdle my waist. 

Now I get up early in the morning and after leaving my son in the school van I go on a four-kilometer walk. As a result of such morning walks, I now feel that my body has become more agile but the physical strain invariably reduces my mental potency. My mind seems sluggish. I observe that my lightning fast brain has now slowed down its pace a bit. And I feel a vacuum in my mind while responding to other’s witty remarks. Yesterday, a colleague told me, “You are a ginger-like-man. You bulge out from all possible points of your body.” I looked at my body shape and realized the truth of his comment. I could only simper at him. I failed to give him a befitting reply. When I thought for a befitting reply my mind betrayed and made me a vacuous nothing.  

Presently, I am attacked by two unpleasant things. First one, my brains seems to weaken and the second one-my body is bulging out. I resolve to work hard on both the fronts. So I speed up both my morning walk and the rate of writing. Morning walk is meant for the body and typing out new articles is for the mind.

The roots of my problem lie in the easy-going nature of my profession. I am a teacher so I am living an incredibly easy life. I have a plenty of leisure periods and a good number of holidays. In the holidays I have no work but I am paid in full. It is the best perk that comes with my job. I have excellent facilities to make myself the laziest person on earth. My quarters are close to my college so I need not travel to my work place. I am paid for talking in a class and making red marks on the answer scripts of my students. In the market area, I have my chains of students who would gladly carry my house-hold consumables to my residence while coming to college. As a result I rarely go to market. Only at the end of a month, I go to the shop-keepers to clear my month-long dues. The shop-keepers receive money with smiles and say ‘namaskar’ when I leave their shops. They are happy and I am too. Conducting extra-curricular activities is an inalienable part of my responsibilities. As a result I naturally become a witness of all enjoyable dances, moving dramas, heat debates, beautiful paintings, cordial NSS camps of students. All these joyful activities really add spice to life.   

In such circumstances, bulging out of shape is the natural outcome. I have no regrets. If someone calls me ginger-like, I shall not complain because I may be bulging out irregularly like ginger but if you take a bite of me as a human, I am still hot and flavored like the ginger, the king of spice.   

A glimpse of self

From the pen-APN

 

I will fly despite all resistance. I shall rise to new heights discovering new skies. I am a tiny wave in the flow of human civilization. Many waves of human consciousness have splashed before me and many more will also appear after me. I stand for a while in the flow of consciousness and dance with lovely brilliance. Soon I will dissolve in the oneness of the universe in a deep calmness of an all-embracing light. Like a spiral of pure energy, I will gyrate and gyrate until I am fully assimilated in the the all-pervading consciousness. I thin out slowly and slowly and spread unfathomably. My breath slows down and I mingle in everything conceivable and inconceivable.

Now I am the beats of your hearts. I am the sparkle of your twinkling eyes. I am the coldness of a dead corpse who has died with his lips open. I am the uncountable number of waves on the sea that break upon the sandy shores. I am the crab that is moving sideways on sand and buries itself somewhere. 

The sea creatures, the birds and the setting sun all assume my colour. A man half-drunk, carrying his load, lurches forward and I see him carrying the flame I am made of.

I sleep in the arrows of Ram, the avtar. I form the sharpness of that arrow’s nose and meditatively embark a journey through Ravana’s darkness. I see how the light around me cuts through Ravana’s darkness and meets his darkest core and enlightens it with tremendous effulgence.

With the wind I encircle the world, through the swamps and over the deserts, across the seas and on the rivers. Clouds and tall trees speak through me. Hens, pigs, goats, cows, tigers, cats, dogs, peacocks, fish and crocs breathe me. 

I am everywhere. I am the stars in the distant sky. I cast blue lights sending out peace and deep embraces of love. I am the mass; I am the medium and I am the method.