कुछ दर्द अभी भी बाकी है

एक हवा का झोंका आया
और मैं  तुझसे कुछ कह ना पाया
रास्ते अपने जुदा हो गये
पर कुछ दर्द अभी भी बाकी है...

बातें थी जो कहनी थी
दूरी और ना सहनी थी
आगे चाहे जितना बढ़ गया हू मैं
पर कुछ दर्द अभी भी बाकी है...

बारिश की गुम्सुम बूँदों मे
आसू है, नशा है, साकी है
कुछ कहने को ना आज मगर
कुछ दर्द अभी भी बाकी है...

ज़माना वो अब गुज़र गया
जब साथ ज़माना चलता था
अब मिलके भी तुझसे बेचैनी है, खामोशी है
कुछ दर्द अभी भी बाकी है...

रात का अकेलापन आज मगर ये
मुझसे धीरे से कहता है
भूल  गया सब जो कहा था उसने
बस कुछ दर्द अभी भी बाकी है....

(I stay at www.facebook.com/pawas.jain)

A Voice from the Heaven...

He was a few minutes new in the world. Cuddled beside his mother, he was grasping the maximum he could with his button eyes. He was surrounded with equipments, machines and tools. Everyone around seemed to be happy on his arrival. Suddenly an unfamiliar hand picked him up. At once he was troubled at being taken away from his mother's arms, but the next instant he realized that the touch of the lady who had picked him up, was very soft. Tender. Loving. He looked up into her gleaming eyes. She was elderly, but vibrant. In his subconscious he knew that she was someone who loved him beyond all limits. She loaded him with blessings.

He was 2 years old now. He could run around, talk in broken sentences and understand things. The same lady often visited him at his place or his mother took him to her's. His mother told him that the lady was his "grand mother". She always fed him the most delicious items, doted him and concentrated all her single minded attention to his activities. She was very active and took him in her arms with the same exuberance every time. Her face was filled with joviality on meeting him. As usual, she loaded him with blessings of being successful and being happy. He loved it.

He was 5 years old now. He used to go to school and was learning new stuff about the world every day. The grandmother still used to love him like anything. She used to listen to his useless and meaningless blabbering about school for hours. He ran around the house wanting her to catch him and cuddle him. She knew all his favourite food items and used to prepare all of them with excitement and the same activeness  whenever he used to visit. She showered her blessings on him while he ate all the time.

He was 15 now. Teenage was at its peak. Now he used to spend less time with relatives and more time at school or friends. But quite often her met his grandmother and loved to sit with her or talk to her. Now she was old. Her brightness was fading and she looked tired. But seeing him always brought back her vivacity and love. Without a fail, she used to ask him about his meals and his well being all the time. She pampered her to the extent that his mother feared that she would spoil him. He loved it immensely. She still loaded him with blessings each and every time.

He was 20. His grandmother was now frail. She was exhausted and low. But her positivity was still shining like a young girl. She couldn't walk around much, but still had the same enthusiasm of cooking for him. Her visits to doctors and hospitals increased and due to his busy schedule and coaching, their meetings decreased. But despite that, he missed no chance of visiting her in the hospital or at her place. Her face still glowed with happiness and pride when she met him. She blessed him in a single breath.

Few months later. She passed away leaving behind the glory of her life and an era of selfless love and sacrifice. The thread that held the beads of relationships together was now broken. She lay still, lifeless and silent in a peaceful sleep. He looked at her with agony and tears. She was gone for good. But he knew, from wherever she was, she was showering him with endless love and blessings for a lifetime.

(This post is for my grandmother whom I lost very recently. This post is with a sincere hope that she is now settled in a world much much better than this one.)

Let's Take a Fresh Start...

Things have not really looked good in the last few weeks. Politically, economically, financially... in every sense, our country, our fellow citizens have faced hardships. With deaf authorities and mute spectators, we haven't really got a chance to do anything substantial. However, now its a New Year, a brand new time wheel is going to roll and we all have an opportunity to bring a change. A Change in ourselves, a change in our mindsets, a change in how we look around.

However, a laugh is always appreciated! Enter the new year of 2-0-1-3 with a big smile on your face and hope swelling in your hearts. Here is what you could do this year (and probably not do) -

1. Pledge to be a Human - This is for all males who don't miss out on an opportunity to treat women below them, subsidiary to themselves and to torture them in every possible mental and physical manner. It is actually the time you could stop doing it. Be a human, and prior to that, Be a MAN.

2. Procrastinate More - It is always good to start doing new things from tomorrow. So come back to my blog tomorrow, read the rest of the post tomorrow, and take your New Year Resolution on Ney Year 2014.

3. Don't jump off the cliff because everyone did - This is a personal advice. Especially for start-up ventures. Be original. Please! Yes, originality means a lot of risk taking, but then the more the risk, the higher the profits. Dare to do something new, even if people laugh it off. Because if they don't, then probably your idea isn't new! :D

4. Don't LOL - If you hear something super funny... even if its so funny that it made you fall off your chair and roll over the floor or made the water come out through your nose, even then...Please don't LOL. A 'Hahaha' is still more appreciated.

5. Back-up - Once in a while... err.. Once in a year... or please at least ONCE, back up your hard drive. Its not cool to lose all your stuff in a jiffy of technical snag. Ouch, it hurts!

6. Fall in Love and make someone fall in love with you - Its more of my wish for everyone rather than an advice. May someone fall in love with your faults, is blind to your blemishes and tells the world about your fortitude. Be sensible in love.

7. Be happy with what you have - Sometimes the lights might not work, water faucets may not work, a bulb might flicker, you might miss a bus... But that is not the end of the world (neither was 21st December 2012), so stop freaking out, be thankful for the life you have and dare to change your life and live on your own terms. There is much more destitution in world than low speed internet.

8. Delight yourself with yourself - Make a fact clear in your mind - you are beautiful. Delight yourself with what you see in the mirror and delight others with what they see in you. Be confident. Be Optimistic. A great saying goes "Pessimism leads to weakness, Optimism leads to POWER".

9. Say 'I Love You' - This is very important. Express yourself and say the three powerful magical words to your parents, your family, your best friends and everyone who means a lot. Do not miss that chance ever. Umm.. But this does not apply to your secretary, your neighbour, the girl at your coaching, or your gym instructor.

10. Go Offline - Once in a while, do your offline chores too as there is quite a lot of world beyond this laptop screen and beyond the Google Chrome window. :)

Be Crazy, Make Mistakes, Fall in Love, Be Clumsy, Take Risks... This Age is not going to come back! Wishing a Happy 2013 for everyone... :)

The Way it is Meant to Be..

Over the years and decades, Diwali has become a very behemothic festival of our country. However, over the time ways and perspectives of people have changed. It has become more of a shopping oriented festival and the celebrations have become subdued and understated. Not that it is bad, of course, it is always good when businesses flourish in a country, but the allurement and charm of the celebrations have dwindled. Why is that so? Of course, now people are more "eco friendly" and they decide to celebrate a "cracker free" diwali. But mind you, these are the same environment loving people, who otherwise will use elevators for even a single floor, never use a public transport or their feet to go to closer areas, will never care to plant a single tree, will throw trash on road and spit on walls, use plastic with pride and obstinately, and never care to turn off an electric appliance that is not in use!

Obviously I will give one disclaimer here - Not that I support pollution or I hate environment friendliness, this post just highlights my personal thoughts. But just to look "cool" or just because we want to go with the flow, it is really not in the right spirit to abate the delight and beauty of a festival, which since centuries, has been the pride of our culture. What would it look like to see up in the sky on a Diwali night and not find a single colour up there? Let us preserve the charm of a festival that is celebrated by crores of people across the world. We can do all the things listed above all round the year too, to make this world a better place! And above all, if we keep in mind the legal decibels of noise, we can definitely make crackers a better experience for everyone! After all, just because mobiles have  now become a cause of road accidents, it does not mean, we stop using them altogether!

What I am trying to do here is preserve the culture of fire crackers of this beautiful and colourful festival which offers something for all age groups. Personally, I am in love with this festival for everything about it. After everything is over, and I stand quietly in the balcony at 1 a.m. and look around, I find my face reflecting the brightness of the lights around me, which makes me ecstatic, a distant sound of crackers delight me, and suddenly, a beautiful firework far away in the sky enlightens me. There is that pungent and acrid smell of explosives in the air. I see the left overs of the crackers on the road, and I imagine those cheerful kids who must have had the time of their life bursting them. A Few last diyas are still spreading light in dark corners of the world as the most amazing festival of Diwali attempts to spread the strong message of good over evil and happiness among one and all.

I wish everyone an awesome week and a great holiday season! Let us celebrate the way it is meant to be! :)

The Food Fetish

If the title of this blog post, made you smile with delight and glee, then you are totally a food connoisseur (high-five!). With a festival as bright and ablaze as Diwali now round the corner, it was time to write something for my favourite time of the year. Festivals in India are almost synonymous with food and delicacies. No festival is complete unless kids of the house (and I include myself in this) raid the food items kept exclusively for the guests, only to hear a mouthful from their mothers.

With whole of the nation, now getting into the festive feel and already done with the cleaning part, people are now busy in preparation of suitable festive dishes. From alluring and appetizing gulab jamun to the fresh, soft and luring kaaju barfis, which I usually consume in scary quantities, Diwali definitely brings a lot for me. While our Southern counterparts indulged in the tasty Mysore Pak and Coconut Cake, along with the sweet Groundnut Barfi, the Northern India finds solace in sinfully ghee dipped sweets like Besan Laddu, Neelam Barfi, Kesar Pak, Poran Poli and many more.

Sometimes I feel that foreign travellers like Marco polo, Duarte Barbose, Captain William Hawkins, and Thomas Coryat should have exclusively explored the Indian delicacies and carried out research on the food here, after all, we are the reason behind the “Delhi belly”! However, people like me have made up for what those guys missed out. I believe, India has always been a food loving land, only our expressions have changed over time. From the verbal scream of "I am feeling hungry, mom...", we have now moved on to "Give me food @Mom... #Hungry" (Updated 2 seconds ago). 

 With types of kachoris being one of the most entertaining topics in parties and meetings in Rajasthan, the best street vendors of vada pao is a much awaited discussion in parts of Maharashtra, especially Mumbai. Almost half of our food loving population wakes up to South Indian dishes in breakfast and moves up towards north as Sun moves from east to west, ending up with Dal Makhani, Aaloo Amritsari and Shahi Paneer in dinner. That is how we enjoy the diversity of our cultures in India!

As Diwali approaches, let us pledge to be prepared to launch an attack on our kitchens and dry fruit boxes in the house, with lots of aggression and bound by duty (Also with a tablet of dygiene in our secret closets). I wish everyone a great Pre-Diwali week and hope that everyone has a food filled Diwali, as smell of freshly fried kachori enters my room performing an imaginary crazy dance. I Rush!

J  

Why We Need 'Kalki'?

Beni Prasad, a Central Minister, goes on record to say that Rs. 71 Lakhs is a very small amount for a scam and absolutely, I do agree with him. In a country with more than half of the population merely surviving below the poverty line, 71 lakhs is indeed a very small amount. And this is just a minuscule example of what our leaders actually are. Whom have we elected through our 'valuable' votes? This is just a mere initiation to my article because this was what woke me up this morning in the newspapers. 

However, I would like to talk a little mythological here. So, welcome to the 'Kaliyug'  - The age of 'Kali': The wrong-doers, the evil, the crooks, the violators and the devils. Maybe its about belief, or a particular school of thought, but to me, it’s about the deeper meaning, the underlying warning and the symbolic message hidden in all our Vedic texts and epics. Let’s have a deeper look –

 Lord Vishu is supposed to be incarnating for the tenth and the final time in Kaliyug as the Ultimate Saviour - Kalki. Supposedly, Kalki is going to arrive on a white horse with a shining sword and is going to slay all the wrong doers and barbarians to death. (If a ray of hope has begun to rise in your hearts, let me make it clear that Kaliyug is said to exist for 432000 years and we have merely survived some 5000 odd years so far... so, still 427000 years to go!) 

The Vishnu Purana says that Kalki will arrive when "practices taught in the Vedas and institutes of law have nearly ceased", there will arrive the final incarnation of Lord Vishnu. Practically, the institutes of law have ceased completely long back. With scams of Rs. 1000 crores now becoming an everyday affair and with the common man being oppressed and mauled at the very peak, I hardly see any justice finding its way in this dark grotto of crime and power.

As per the Agni Purana, when “when the evil men who pose as kings begin to feed on human beings and try to destroy the righteous”, at that moment will arrive Lord Kalki to destroy the evil men. Déjà vu, indeed? We have had enough “evil men posing as kings” who have been continuously looting the people off their money and plundering our resources for their own benefit. In fact, the Kaliyug has probably reached its peak with eminent politicians ransacking the handicapped and poor for their personal pleasures and satisfaction. Feeding on human beings, are they?

Finally, I quote the most apt of all in the current times, the Bhagavata Purana, which goes on to say, “when there exist no topics on the subject of God, even at the residences of so-called saints and respectable gentlemen, and when the power of government is transferred to the hands of ministers elected from the evil men, and when nothing is known of the techniques of sacrifice, even by word, at that time the Lord will appear as the supreme chastiser.”

Nothing can be more indicative towards the current state of things. The so-called God-men, in the disguise of yogis, spiritual leaders, the “protectors” of religion, have been found to be involved in some of the most hideous crimes and scandals of all times. The name of God has been used to conduct all types of blackmailed loots and pillages on the common people. The morning starts with a few dreadful cases of rapes and molestations across the nation, with most of the cases going unnoticed or unregistered. With no respect for women, crime at its peak, greed at its maximum, lack of strict laws and more so, the law-abiders, we have definitely transferred the power of government in hands of ministers elected from evil men, who play with the emotions of people in the name of religion, caste, creed, gender etc. and will continue doing so for many years to come.

  

Somewhere, everything definitely fits and no one can rule out the significance of these texts and epics written thousands of years back. These might just be prophecies but living through these times, they do hold a lot of truth, undoubtedly. We are living in the worst times of all, am sure. Or no, maybe worse times are yet to come. Corrupt politicians, greed for power, lust for money and the intoxication of being at the very top has led to the downfall of our righteousness.

Previously, I had always found out ways and solutions for ourselves – vote the right person, raise a voice, speak your heart out etc. But not, looking at the circumstances, I definitely feel, nothing but divine intervention can protect us from further degradation now. May Lord Kalki arrive on the face of the Earth soon!

MEANWHILE, FROM HERE, I WOULD REQUEST MY READERS TO RE-DIRECT TO THIS LINK - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_scandals_in_India#2000s

(I am the Chief Editor of SpringTide Youth Magazine - www.springtide.co.in 

Reach me at www.facebook.com/pawas.jain)

Love, Thy Name is Spoiled

How important it is to be best friends with someone you love? It must be a blessing to experience those weird, amazing and regretful moments in life of being in love with a best friend, where you think “OMG! What an ass I am?” and yet, “Oh dear, mom would be so happy to meet her someday!”

Those moments when she must have left 10 urgent messages on your cell phone and when you called back, she spent two hours painstakingly dissecting those few hurting sentences her boyfriend said to her over their date. And even though you knew her boyfriend was a bloody lunkhead and jerk, you assured her that it was all okay and they were meant for each other. How tough could it be to say these words to a girl you love with all your heart, to the girl you feel is everything to you?

Those moments when she was low with her health, or down because of a fight with her room-mate and you were supposed to be there cheering her up and saying stupid, illogical things to make her laugh. From those play stations to girl problems, sharing everything from top to bottom and still feeling that the conversation could have stretched for the whole night if it wasn't for her college next morning, although not acknowledging a kind of important fact, that you had given up a large chunk of your family/studying/work time for those hours of her ‘cheering up’.

Those moments when she had a boyfriend, who did not like you and yet she met you. Feeling of being obliged by her gesture of meeting you for a few hours without letting he boyfriend know, those secret meetings, those beautiful hangout places you never imagined could exist and  some stupid places which would not have been any fun had she not been there by your side. And when she would unknowingly or unintentionally, put her hand around your shoulder or her hair would touch your face in the auto-rickshaw, she would continue with her talks and you would be lost in the thoughts of spending the rest of the life like that.

Those moments when she would take you to a shady cafe, and though there is nothing “serious” between you two, she flirts with you naughtily and shamelessly which somehow you happen to love beyond levels. You don’t like the beer there, you hate the music, the food ordered is now cold because of the complete ignorance by its buyers, but still you love the whole setting, because she makes it complete. And you punch your fist in the air in your heart and feel “Oh god, I am on top of the world, she has come out with ME!”

Those moments when she is rude and you take it in a stride, when she lets out her anger of others on you and you accept it with a smile, when she abuses you or lets you down, when she makes you feel neglected in a group of few people, when she doesn't acknowledge you in front of her other friends, when she doesn't want people to know about being superbly close to you, when she chooses not to talk to you just because “she doesn't feel like”, when she wants an answer to everything and never consider her duty to answer to your questions ever, when she replies with a “Not possible right now”, to your “Can we talk? I really need to...”, although she doesn't realize that it was because you felt lonely, and then you cried all night long. Yet, you love her...

Those moments when you were sitting on a comfortable couch with her and she was telling a long boring story about some classmate of hers and then you realize that you two were very close. You have your hand around her shoulder and she is resting her head on your arm, you move back her hair and smell them with amazement and caution of not being intoxicated.  She suddenly realises the same and looks up at you... your eyes meet, you can feel her hot, nervous breath on your neck... her heartbeat is almost pounding and then... you touch her lips with yours. It’s a comfortable 5 second long kiss, and you feel you have touched a soul. A moment which made you feel that you have lived a few lives already. A moment you know you will cherish all life long... yet, there is nothing “serious” between you two...

You love her and she loves you back. You have expressed it and so she has. You have been best friends without the care of the world around since ages. But nothing can happen at the moment considering the shackles and obstacles of life. You both are mature, you both are individuals and yet, you know that someday, some time in future, you will be together...