Story..

The clouds stood guard as they walked through the city. Many times. Many days. Everyday the sun would rise for a new day, and each day was a life , in itself. The hours were never enough, but some how they never ended also. The Endlessness of days and time was all that was in their mind, even when the days skipped past and life needed to be lived. They never thought how the life went foreward, for the world and it’s being had lost existence and importance in thie eyes. The daily life was just something they had to live through before inadvertantly slipping through it all, to a world where noting was more important than them.

Love, the wonderful feeling that had them gripped was the first of it’s kind. Never before. Lost in the depths of an ocean that few dare to cross. Lost in the depths of an ocean that is never the beauty you see when you’re just seeing the beach at sunset. The thunders and the whirlpools were as part of an ocean as the seawind and the beautiful waves crashig agianst the shores. Only the sailor who has been to sea knows it all. And a sailor who knows it all loves the sea more than anyone of us.

I was a sailor. I was just beginning to love the sea. I was beginning to love the voyage, beginning to get the call of the sea, every time I deecided to get off and take some time on the shores, with people. But the sea always beckoned me back, it would call me with it’s soothing lullaby that it sings when everyting is quiet. It calls you with the smell of the sail in the air, everytime you really want to smell. The gentle Crashing of the waves againt your frail ship , the million hands of the sea that always tries to ently rock you to sleep, even when you don’t want to. The sea that takes so much pains to make sure that it’s million hands dosent caress your frail ships too strongly.. The same sea that with it’s angry waves can crash against you when it’s angry.. But even then the sea loves you so much that , even in it’s anger it slpas you so gently that you never break. You just get shaken. You never Break. That is what call you back every time. That caring. That sooting reassurance that you are always in the presence of God. Every bit of water you see around you has the name of God on it, and evey bit of it has some story of The work of God. That calls you back everytime.

IT was never complete, their lives, coz it never can be. When the day is not over even in a hundread years how can the life be over. How can it be complete… It never is.. He always wanted more.. so did she. More life, to love, to live. Life is so short that you never have enough of it when you really want it, and it is soo long that there is too much of it when you don’t need it. Life left him on a bed of thorns. Life was never easy, but to live when you are dead, and to die when you are alive are the most difficult things to do. He did both, one after another, over and over again. Every other second he lives, but every other second he dies. He was left in that state.. In Coma. Never to come back.. She pleaded to the court , to the law, to help him end his life.. Mercy.. Even if everyone turned their heads, she pleaded for mercy. The mercy that can only come trhough cruelty. That can only come through murder. She knew he was wishing the same.. We, the society is always concerned about the body.. We dictate norms for the body, we dictate rules of decency and conduct that cnocern only the body. We never think of the mind and the soul, which should be all that we are concerned about…. We , the society, denied her justice. We the society ruled that his body should live, Never even thinking that we are condemning his soul to death.. She wanted to grant him his soul, we granted him his body. What is left ,is for the society. They, we, can have him . What she wanted was his soul, and that was long dead. She could see God, and saw that his soul was not there. She looked up, and searched. She looked among all the soules whose body had died.. He was not to be found. Where does the dead souls go ? She never knew, so she could never search. He was was at a place where dead souls go. They never go anywhere, for, they are dead souls. They never go anywhere. They linger.. Linger in the darkest corners, the dirtiest places, for that is the sentence, that is their fate.

The living souls who are relieved of the burden that is the body go to God. They see God and talk to him. They tell God what all is needed in the world. The dead souls search fo the stairs that lead to god. They always searchin the dark places, for that is what they know. They never think about looking in the light, for they are dead , and cant think of the light. They wait there for someone to lead them to the stairs. But noone can do that, for neither the living bodies, nor the living souls can see the dead souls. He was the first of their kind , The first of the dead souls. For he couldn’t bear to be a living soul, when she was a living body, and he couldn’t be a living body. You see the living souls can’t feel the pains of the living bodies. They have their own. The dead souls are the ones that can feel both. Of the living bodies and the living Souls.

And that is how the story ends.

Finally...

എന്തിന് എന്ന ചോദ്യം പലപ്രാവശ്യം നമ്മോടു തന്നെ ചോടികേണ്ടി വരുന്ന ജീവിത സാഹചര്യങ്ങള്‍.. അതിനോളം മാനസികമായി മനുഷനെ തളര്‍ത്തുന്ന വേറൊന്നില്ല. എന്തിന്. ജീവന്‍റെ കണിക ശരീരത്തില്‍ നിലനിര്‍ത്തുന്ന ആത്മാവ് അല്ലെങ്ങില്‍ ജീവാംശം എന്നൊക്കെ പറയാവുന്ന ആ ദൈവീകമായ കണികയാണ് മനസ്സ് എന്ന് നാം വിളിക്കുനത്. അതിന്‍റെ ദൈവീകത തെളിയിക്കാനെന്നോണം നമ്മുടെ നിയന്ത്രണത്തിന് അതീതമായ, അതിന്റേതായ പ്രവര്‍ത്തന രീതി . ചിന്തകള്‍ പലപോലും നമ്മുടെ പിടിയിലല്ലാതെ പോകുന്ന നിമിഷങ്ങള്‍, നാം അറിയാതെ അറിയാതെ ചിന്തിച്ചും ആഗ്രഹിച്ചും അറിഞ്ഞും പോകുന്ന അവസരങ്ങള്‍. ആ ചിന്തകളുടെ നല്ലതോ ചീത്തയോ ആയ ഫലങ്ങള്‍ അനുഭവിക്കാന്‍ വിധിക്കപ്പെട്ടവരായി അതിന്‍റെ അടിമകളായ നമ്മളും ...

My parent's gift.

My heart was as heavy as the clouds that kept creeping up all over the sky as I rode farther and farther along the road, and they all looked as if they could bring about a flood all by themselves. I’ve seen darker (may be as dark) clouds in kerala, during the rainy season and the rain was not novelty but this was different. I was riding MY bull, and that was a different feel all together. I had always dreamt of doing this but may be under different circumstances. But may be it was the mood that made it as enjoyable as it was.

I must have looked a sight on my unwashed bull all covered in dirt and mud and me in and me in an old pair of jeans and a much used khadhi kurta. The unshaven beard that is now as much part of me as anything else must have given me a menacing look along with everything else. I sort if enjoy that look now a days. Keeps unwanted conversation away. Life is never smooth for anyone. Things are never smooth enough for us, or comfortable enough, of cozy enough. But I don't feel that the triteness and plainness of life is what makes it worth enjoying. Many a times I have wondered why I wasn't as rich as many of the kids I know, who can get anything they want when they want it. As A kid I’d wanted many thing but never really got them all. I never got what I wanted, but got what I needed, and that I realize now is the important thing. If I’d got all I wanted when I was young I would have never enjoyed getting what I want now.

I wanted to have a bike when I was in college. It was just a want, and noting more solid. I knew my dad wouldn’t buy me one, and I thank him now for it. But it sometimes popped into my mind, how would it be like to have one, like many of the other kids around. Just zoom around and have fun on the bike. It was never more than a passing thought, may be sometimes the thought just stop over for a few seconds more, but it was just that.

Now I am working, earning, and I the first real thing that I bought myself was a bike. And that too A Royal Enfield. Bullet Electra. I cant ever express in words how much I love my bike, because it is the symbol of a lot of things. It is truly my own, and mine alone. And then I realized after that, how much I an indebted to my dad for never ever buying me a bike. I would have never enjoyed my bike or felt so proud of it if my dad had bought it for me. I’d have loved it as much. But I wouldn’t have felt so proud. I wouldn’t have felt so great every time I start my bike. I got the urge to keep my bike clean and sparkling form my dad. I love washing my bike. It may not be for the want of keeping it shining but more like a sort of bonding. One might be entirely justified in wondering what sort of bonding can happen to a bike, but I do find the experience bonding. And I feel proud of myself when I’m done. Not as much about the work I’ve done, as I feel about having a bike of my own to do the job on.

I’ve seen countless people riding around bikes with stickers proclaiming ‘mom’s gift’, ‘dad’s gift’ or ‘mom and dad’s gift’. But I say my parents gave me an even better gift by not giving me a gift of that sort. I don’t know how or if anyone can understand that but as the unheard melody is sweeter that the heard one, this is a lot better.