Just for a moment think that you are 12 years back - A story

Many sentiments, once that dazzled with much prominence and urgency, fade way with time or they attain altogether different forms. Human sentiments show kaleidoscopic changes with time and situations. A chunk of my life to confirm this truth......

That day I was a participant in the college song competition. I do not sing so well but I had participated. For me participation was just a further discovery of my talents. Like me, many students cluttered the stage and used the microphone to amplify their hoarse voices. Only very few good singers occasionally appeared among them like brilliant flashes who swayed the audience with their melodious voices. My turn came. I gave my performance. It was full of spirit and energy but was of average order. I was the 33rd Number of participant.

I was daily coming to college from my village covering a distance of 50 Kilometres. The last bus to my village would pass by my college before 4pm. That day I was late to catch the bus to my hometown. I was reluctantly leaving the spacious auditorium because there all the teen agers had gathered and a strong current of romantic feelings was flowing in and through the auditorium. I was unwillingly stepping down the stairs leaving the bubbling auditorium behind me. Like other teen-agers, I was also in search of a beautiful face in whose beauty I could forget the tyranny of my subjects. Young boys and girls were expressing their intense love-feelings with heart-rending gestures while they sang many popular romantic or poignant songs. It was enthralling to witness powerful expression of young emotionality breaking the monotony of educational institutions. I was one among them but I had to leave the place because the private bus will not wait for me. While I was about to cross the entrance of the auditorium, a child like female voice sang a song whose meaning was ‘life lived in isolation is meaningless’. The unusually beautiful voice allured me to discover the owner of the voice. I turned back and rushed to have a glimpse of that girl. From a distance, I saw her. She was a beautiful short-heighted girl with double pigtails and plump cheeks. Her appearance rang bells in my heart. I was dumbfounded for some moments. After her performance, she smiled at the audience and her dimples invited the longest clapping from the audience. I still remember that among the audience, I was the last one to stop clapping.

That day I missed my bus and stayed in a friend’s hostel room.

Mornings came and days passed away but I could never meet the girl once again. When I could not see the girl again, I wanted to listen to that song that she had sung that day. I went to many music stores to get the song. However, I could not tell the lyrics of the song exactly to the shopkeepers as a result I failed even to get a copy of the song as a token of her memory. I could get neither the girl nor the song linked to her magical appearance in my life. Slowly and slowly, her memory receded from the conscious working of my brain but occasionally she would pop up like volcanic eruption from some corner of my mind and would silence my whole being in some strange forgetfulness. This process continued for one or two year.

After 12 years, one day my son was playing with the remote control of the television set. He was aimlessly switching from one channel to another channel. At one music channel, he stopped for a moment. A song was on the screen. My heart responded to the music instantly. I took the remote in my hand, turned up the volume. Eureka! I had found the song, which I was desperately seeking 12 years back. The high volume of the TV made my wife rush from the kitchen like a bulldozer. She shouted angrily, “Have you gone mad? For your kind information, the sound is beyond my toleration.” I answered her, “My dear, just for a moment think that you are back into 12 years and in the college auditorium you are singing this song with a smiling face and I am in the audience.”

My wife could not understand why I responded so imaginatively and emotionally to her enraged voice. She got confused for a moment but later gave a heavenly smile. In her smile, I was lost in dreaming that same auditorium, same gathering, same song but this time my wife had fully replaced that girl...........Somebody shook my hand. When I came to life from my daydream, my 4-year-old son asked me, “Daddy, you will be standing at the audience and mother on the stage but where shall I be?” I lifted my son into my arms and told him, “You would be in my shirt pocket, very close to my heart, son.”

A father

The pending loans and the impending instalments had eaten up the man internally. He is struggling hard to make both ends meet. Growing age and deteriorating health condition cannot deter him from supporting his family. For 34 long years, he has raised the family and still he is supporting his family. Throughout his life, he shouldered the burden of the family and still at his retiring time, he stands tall and gives shade to other members.


To be a father is not easy!

Lesson from a flying bird-a story

The bird in the sky moved its wings repeatedly and went to a height. And from that height it glided slowly and slowly with its apparently motionless but fully spread wings. The movement was like that of a still mind exploring the different layers of consciousness one by one with each circle.


Vima was laying on a grassy land with his face skyward. He looked at the bird, which was pleasantly gliding making circles in the yonder sky. The bird was enjoying a meditative rest and the earth was acting its force on its movement. The bird rested in the lap of nature while the flying body was slowly descending down. The bird enjoyed the gentle wind as the wind buoyed its feathers up. The evening sky splashed all its golden touches on the bird. And the circling bird seemed to represent the joy of the creation.

Vima, got up. The skyward gaze and his oneness with bird filled his life with enough inspiration. Mr. Vimshankar Birla alias Vima was a millionaire but he had no peace of mind. He was only moving his wings frantically to rise higher and higher. In the mad upward ascend he had forgotten to commune with nature. He had forgotten to fall freely under the motherly pull of nature. He had forgotten to rest in the lap of his creator. The bird taught him the lesson of little rest to enjoy the world.

The bird’s fall is a state of inactivity filling the gap in between two cycles of intense activities, where the soul finds harmony with the forces of nature.

A baby at play.

I was travelling in a chair car compartment of a train. I was comfortably seated and by my side a small family was seating with a small attractive baby-girl. The baby in the lap of his father intently looked into different things around the world. She looked with the seriousness of an adult to explore the world that was so new to her. Her hands slowly played over the zip of a gentle man’s bag. She ran her little fingers on the knob of the zip and inspected with all attention. Saliva dripped from her mouth and wetted the collar of her warm cloth she had worn. She was like a tiny scientist.


Before the baby could complete her exploration, the station arrived and the couple in a hurry assembled their luggage and went away. The father held the baby tightly in the rush and distanced the baby from the bag and the zip. The baby was looking fixedly to feel the zip for some more time and the zip was missing the genuinely interested human touch of a clear conscience.

NEW YEAR MUSINGS : MAN and EARTH

The earth completed a revolution around the sun and the year 2010 left the world stage waving its hand and playing a fading farewell smile. During the allotted 365 days, the year unlocked many mysteries and at the same time it also put many fresh questions which miserably confirm the ignorance of man.


The enigmatic difference between man and earth is that the earth moves round the sun like a stoic. No rush, no imbalances, very streamlined, obeying the laws of nature. But man on earth hurries throughout his/her life till he falls flat on ground. Overburdened, incomplete, always antagonistic to the laws of nature, he finally meets a hollowed end.

It is true that the preceding years never appear before the fast galloping human race. But it is always educative and wise to feel the shadow of past years because they teach a lot about our follies. There should always be ‘a looking back’ in every forward progress. More or less, ‘LOOKING BACK’ is a human compulsion as it assures us that we are not disintegrating in a state of inevitable rootlessness.

The days turned over like the pages of a book. The year 2010 dawned and whizzed past swiftly. But man is handicapped and helpless because the swift movement of time is unidirectional. In memory he may pine for the moments that have passed by but he cannot relive them.

The best thing with a book is that you can go back to the previous pages of a book. But this freedom is not granted with time. Time is irreversible and the greatest pity of life is that you cannot sail back on the ocean of time. It is a bloody one-way traffic.