we live in the company of complexities

The world moves very fast in a mechanical speed. We constitue the world and as a result we are also moving in a breakneck pace. We realize the truth when the machine breaks down and the human beings, who are half machine with the metallic goliaths, stand on their knees until the machines are repaired and life once again gains its speed. The irony is that flashing speed is now our normal pace of lifestyle.


On 20th Dec, my day seemed completely at stake when the engine of my train gave a choked cry and broke down in the mid-way. I was moving from Baleswar to Bhubaneswar. I was running short of time and reaching the training hall in time seemed a wild dream. I felt I am helpless. I had little in my hands to do anything. At last, I left all thoughts and waited patiently to see what happens next.

I reached the training hall at 1pm.

Meetings, planning, training sessions and wild rush on the roads mark the life of modern man. Long hours of gazing at the computer screens have eliminated the innocent joy of gazing at the stars in a clear night. We live in the company of complexities but forget the beauty of simplicity and genuine human earnestness.

A visit not to pray but to eat.

With a view to eating delicious food we four gathered in the ISKON temple. The day had merged in the evening and beautiful sankirtan and the face of youthful people had filled the occassion. Enjoyin Vada and rassagula with doses of sankirtanam will remind me that I was happy in the evening.

In a journey, life reveals many secrets.

In a journey, life reveals many secrets.


Yesterday, on the website of ‘OBOOKO’ I read a statement that ‘There is a book in every man.’ I took the statement not so seriously, although I had appreciated the idea. But I learnt the truth by spirit when I moved to jaypore on a ramshackle bus on 18th December, 2010. This happened so......

While journeying we take all our vanities with us. We board the bus, the train, or the plane with expressions of tremendous self-importance. It is common among many qualified people to pose an air of superiority when they travel in a public-transport-vehicle, where most of the co-passengers are unknown faces. I have always felt so in me and that day was no exception.

I was sitting silently lost in numerous thoughts of my family, outstanding loans, petty salary, unrealised dreams and so on.

By my side the W.E.O. (welfare extension officer) of Khairput Block was sitting. His tongue was restlessly producing words to declare that he is an administrator and the identity of a lecturer is woefully the least before his job because his job has power and enough sources of income apart from the monthly salary.

His boasting tendency rang a bell in my mind. And I remembered many instances when I have sung my own praises before others. Such memories made me think, ‘I am no better than he is’.

I kept silent to his boastful words.

His snobbishness also reminded me how we struggle throughout our lives to prove that I AM THE GREAT. However, the irony is that we spare no efforts to put a label of GREATNESS outwardly, whereas the inner being is gradually degenerating.

The wheels of the bus rolled down. The wind from the side window swept away most of the officer’s proud words. My mind responded lesser and lesser to his utterances. I deliberately cocooned myself in my own thoughts so as not to listen his boastful words any more. In the mean while an old acquaintance of the officer’s, who was in my hind seat handed over a book and asked my comments on it. A cursory look over the pages made my heart throb in appreciation of the seemingly original work on the tribal community of undivided Koraput.

Out of curiosity when I inquired about the author, I found that the writer is none but the co-passenger who had handed me the book. My feelings of genuine surprise turned to utter amazement, when I learnt that the writer is a driver by profession.

It is our general belief that driving the machines turns a man into a machine-Lifeless and mechanical. We expect that the drivers are meant to respond to speed and traffic signals or at best, they are reflexive. But when a driver goes beyond the normal expectation of the society and can write an likeable book, he forces everyone never to underestimate human capabilities. The unconventionality manifests newer hopes to them who are constantly hurt by the so-called big shots of society.

Smilingly, I looked at the W.E.O and asked, “How many books have you written, sir? You work for the tribal community and what is your contribution to their art and literature?” He listened what I had asked but deliberately looked out of the window at the green trees, that seemed running hind ward as the bus moved ahead.

I got inspired with my own words.

I did not care the chilling cold. My mind prompted and my heart whispered me to set out for the hostel inmates. I opened up my heart’s feelings before the boarders and asked for their complete co-operation to make the up-coming sports meet a grand success. I inspired and at the same time, I got inspired with my own words.


You cannot brighten someone’s path without brightening yours.

I left the hostel auditorium. It was 8pm of wintery December. I came out to the vacant road. The inspiration continued to work in me.

For a moment, the world stopped around me. I became emotional because for two long years I have remained attached with the young boys and girls, all hailing from the lower strata of the society. Today they are sitting in front of me and listening with rapt attention to each word I utter. Tomorrow they will be distant stars whom I can see but I may not touch. Today they are sitting by my side with their body wrapped in woollen clothes but in a year, they will be the travellers whose trains have left my station and have moved ahead. Although in the coming days, I will still be engaged in like a stationmaster, still regulating the passage of other trains approaching successively, they will get down in a newer world carrying my message and my soul’s touch.

I brooded whether I am packing up the right stuff for the modern generation in the tender minds. I became unsure, terribly unsure of my capability.

The night seemed darker and the road seemed lonelier. I stood alone. Looking at the night sky, I raised my hands upward. The chilling cold kissed my hands. Dewdrops percolated my head though my hair. I closed my eyes, with two drops of tears rolling down, begged Goddess Saraswati to spread her whiteness overpowering my darkly littleness.

she will ever dazzle as a deity of love- a story

When I look back into the past to relive my bygone days, my memory betrays. I fail to remember clearly how that girl was like an inseparable shadow of me. I faintly remember those moments but get deeply nostalgic because I cannot preserve those moments. They are gradually fading from my mind leaving my heart blank. The slow but sure loss of my past feelings is making me hollow day by day.

Today, I am pained because after my marriage to another girl, my days are passing one by one and her memory is slowly disintegrating from my mind. It is not that I am unhappy with my marriage but I do not like to forget her numerous impressions, smiles, sacrifices, embraces, tears, kisses and the moments that we had shared together.

The painful truth is that human memory is fallible. It is devised to forget. I am also no exception. I very much realize how the waves of ruthless time has started to corrode many of her sweet memories from my mind. Now, I cannot remember those very incidents, which had deepened our relations gradually. I cannot remember when I first kissed her. I cannot remember when for the first time we had cried together holding each other tightly. I cannot remember on which occasions we had been to the seashore. I cannot remember how she cooked my food and washed my clothes and readied me for the annual function in the college. I cannot remember those numerous day-to-day happenings that had made her my sweet heart.

However, something of her will always remain in my life like indestructible particles until my last breath. It is because in her softness, I had first known the pangs and the giggling of love.

My mind may forget everything about her but my heart has preserved something precious about her, which neither time nor a failing memory can ever tarnish. Moreover, she will ever dazzle as a deity of love in my mental sky for all times to come.