Warum?
Ganz einfach.

Es geht mir gut,
weil die Volgeln singen
weil das Wetter schön ist, die Bäume grün sind und der Himmel blau ist,
weil alle Leute tanzen,
weil in der Nacht tausend Sternen scheinen,
weil nichts sehr wichtig ist.
Und morgen?
Morgen werde ich sicherlich wieder tausend Gründe finden, warum das Leben schön ist!

—-

 

Friends I have few (But who has friends in the city anyways?!)
Was a loner as long as I can recollect
All day I sit on my desk and scribble
At nights on life I retrospect

They called the house haunted
This very house that I live in
(Maybe they saw the cobwebs in the basement
Little realising the art within!)
I do not hear them, let alone see
The spirits that supposedly reside with me

But one night on the attic while I was scribbling
A story about a lonely writer
I heard a slight sound – a knock
Of the door closing, creaking tighter

I climbed down the stairs
Carefully tip-toed
Saw a woman in a white gown
Blonde locks hanging down
Yes, she has to be the one
The ghost at last I found!

Terrified at first, I was stuck in painless silence
Unending, unforgiving, my feet were numb
Crouched on the stairs, heart in mouth, knowing not
Whether to run, or scream aloud!

Then came a second knock
Who could it be now?
It’s been long since I had a visitor
Were there more of them now?

The saintly spirit answered the door
And in came a man from the other world
Together they seemed to smilingly whisper
“There is no-one, we are alone…”

Shocked out of my wits
My life was at stake
Moving back I stumbled on the vase
A shattering sound it did make

They shrieked, and shouted “Who’s there?”
And that was when I rose up in fright
The woman screamed, the man grabbed her
They both bolted out of sight

As they ran, Jon cried out loud
And Matilda nodded in too
“What they said was true, my dear
…what they said was true!”

Like the hearts of joyous souls ring
Like the happiness ocean tides bring
Love is in the air they sing
Love is in the air ~ ~ ~

—————————————————————-

I was born a hard metal
I was a sight to behold
They flattened, twisted and curved me up
Till my skin shined like gold
My head was sharp
My body slim
Maybe they put all their sweat
While carefully all my edges trim
In admiration they saw me rise
I could see my destiny in their eyes

I am a happy little soul
I am glad that I am here
The world seems so beautiful
Forever at all the sights I could stare

I slid down the tunnels
And rolled on the corrugated sheets
Life seemed to move so fast
But now I had company
Of other happy souls like me
They did not talk, nor did they smile
Maybe they were plain emotionless
Or maybe just too shy
But deep inside I somehow knew
They were glad to be here too

I am a happy little soul
I have found others like me
I guess we all share a purpose
To live up to our destiny

Once out of the factory
I travelled far and wide to distant places
Some of us, rusted and broken, named ‘invalid’ and dead
Ended up being discarded
Slowly the truth dawned on me
That the world had place for only the fittest
And I was proud to be amongst the best,
Being a part of the chosen few
Having no color, no race, no religion
Just the faith to do what was due

I am a happy little soul
Grown up, been lucky too
By air, water and land I travelled
To know what I needed to do..

It was long before we stopped
When me and my friends saw light
Sold to strangers who looked down on us
Dropped us down to the ground from a height
We rolled, here and there, amidst thousands of us
It was a congregation of happy souls!
All shapes and sizes these people bought
Picked up, stuffed into barrel holes
To stay tight and firm, we fought
My heart pounded, my mind had a thought
“This is the time (for so long) I sought!”

I am a happy little soul
Finally I found my chance for fame
In a strange smoky barrel
Kalashnikov was its name

As I waited patiently
Time seemed like eternity
Constant sounds of blasts and screams
And trickling blood
Filled the same air I breathe
“The world is not as happy as I thought..”
The dreams shattered, the aura gone!
Suddenly I hoped, not knowing why
Scared for the first time in my life
I wished I had.. never came by

I am a confused little soul
Scared of the truth which hurts
I wish life was faster now
I don’t want this pain to last!

And ‘Boom’ it did sound!
I flew out of the small hole
Making my way through thickets and trees
Breathless, blind and bold
In exact silence I sped through
Stopped for a moment before rushing in
Slipped through blood and to a standstill
Finally realizing my true purpose
The meaning of my existence!
Piercing a human heart, shot from a gun..
I lay dumb and motionless, shocked at what I had done

I am a sad little soul
Lived my life, served my time
All my pride was for nothing
My purpose – to kill a child!

Shameful of my creation, guilt is all I gain
I wish to run away, to be burnt, and never felt again..

—————————————————————-

Morning of the first day we were two men, Harpreet and myself, sans Malik. Nothing much except a good keynote speech from an IBM fellow, during which I was mostly sleepy. Owing to Antaragni, the campus looked greener, with live drama and street dancing couples hogging the road to the lecture halls, IITK offered a more-than-picturesque scene. The dinner was amazing, with great people everywhere, and the Finnish band ‘poets of the fall’ were gearing up for the rock show, and yeah, Malik was there at last. We were entertained by the huge crowds which had gathered for the cult-fest, especially the ones at the dance events, they were amazing enough to leave a feeling of sadness, considering how many years it’ll take for IITG to come to this level.. *sigh*

The next day was different. The contest was going to be tough, as expected. And our team doesn’t gel pretty well. Maybe this was the first time we were doing group programming. At the breakfast table Malik was greeted by one of his friends from IITB, whom he had met in France, and soon enough the other introductions followed. It was nice and at the same time intimidating, to be competing with these guys. Malik’s buddy was the JEE AIR 10 of our time, and if that wasn’t enough, the AIR 1 was also in his team Cool isn’t it? And pretty much expected… C’mon, even if you got an AIR of 100, doesn’t mean you get IITB CS right?! These people were demigods, and they’ve been to the world finals at Tokyo last year, winning the Coimbatore contest. Man, this one’s gonna be good.

Finally we were there, inside the CC, seated next to a single terminal and lotsa blank sheets. There were seven problems in all, and we had five hours to solve them. Here’s a short description of each.

Alpha-triangle: Objective was to find a triangular combination from a given set of words such that |AB| = |BC| = |CA| and that A.head = C.head, A.tail = B.head, and B.tail = C.tail. Words can be concatenated but cannot be broken down.

Baby: Variations of the n-queens problem, where from an n-rook position, an n-queen position was to be derived, using minimum number of moves.

Card: The magician’s card trick problem, where from a given combination of four cards belonging to four different suits, a missing fifth card should be determined.

Deposit: A variation of the compound interest problem.

Expression: Given a set of characters, an operation table on those characters and a number of strings, the LR and RL equivalence of the strings are to be determined.

Fable: A cat and mouse game in which the least number of steps to change from an initial configuration to a final one is desired.

Garrison: A typical dfs problem to determine the co-ordinates of unreachable vertices in a graph.

Eventually we couldn’t solve problems A and B. And landed up 16th place. NITT guys (read: Prasanna) completed all of them in less than three hours. IITM, IIITH, Univ Moratuwa guys from Sri Lanka and the girls from Taiwan Univ solved all seven in order of increasing time(ranking) It was depressing enough for me and Malik to keep roaming around and not even attend the prize distribution ceremony. Harpreet had left later that evening, and the two of us dared to queue up for the Atif Aslam show amidst thousands of hard-core fanatics. Alas, we had no passes and all there was for us was to watch football in the Hall IX canteen before going to sleep. All in all a good experience, reality check so to say. The only consolation? Tie-ing with the team we met at the breakfast table Atleast we were not last year’s regional champs to be pulling our hair apart!

I know your secrets and you know mine
When you need me, I’ll help you anytime

And if you agree to never fight,
It wouldn’t matter who’s wrong or right

If a broken heart needs a mend,
I’ll be right there until the end.

If your cheeks are wet from drops of tears,
don’t worry and let go of your fears

Together here we go again,
We’ll be friends until the end

——————–

And I drifted away in thy words,
If only I could find the meaning,
Uncountable poems thou wrote,
Accounted for ceaseless yearning..

Intelligence always thou hath,
Emotions largely concealed,
But then as I discovered deep,
Romance oozed from words thy wield!

And when in troubled times,
I sought for the comfort of a friend;
Thy shoulder was there to lean on,
The most priceless thing one could lend..

Amongst thy passions lie the vehicle,
And technicality remains thy forte,
Does make one seem to wonder..
How does one man do them all?!

In our motherland we are all proud of,
But idleness grapples it’s sons;
Atleast there’s one light still shining..
SKG is the beacon for the dunce!!!

Joi Aai Axom!!

I was a teacher in a small town
I was kind and giving
Spent my time with simple children
Teaching virtue and truthful living
“Always believe what is seen by your eyes
Or heard by your own ears
‘Cause a rumour spreads faster than light
And confusion is all it smears..”

Villagers there were many
Part of a superstitious lot
No matter what reasoning provided
Fear still lurked in their hearts
The children simple beings they were
Feared the paranormal too
Scared of the graveyard that lied on the outskirts
Made a point to avoid that route
That led right through to school
And was haunted by spirits and ghouls

One day the sun went down sooner
And it had grown quite dark
I had to walk my way back home
All the way down the long path
But there was this route through the graveyard
That was ‘haunted’ yet was short
Ghosts and spirits are all in our minds
Thinking to myself I laughed
While starting to walk that path
Firmly my beliefs I held.

As it grew spookier
Strange sounds seemed to howl
In the darkness lurking shadows
Seem to move and prowl
My heart was pumping hard
A strange feeling surrounded the air
As if someone’s creeping up from behind
Or was it just my mind?
Daringly I walked on
Every step in two minds I took,
Hoping to find my way, with limbs that shook
Telling myself every moment
Not once behind must I look

Suddenly a voice was heard
It grew distinct slowly
A voice seemed to wince
And seemed to weep
It was a girl behind a tree
Face hidden in her knees
An enormous pain seemed to shroud her
Knowing not what it was
I walked right upto her and asked
“What happened, little girl?”

She would not lift her head up for me
No matter how I persist
At length when I bended down to see
A horrifying sight awaited me
There was no face
No eyes, no nose, no lips
A face as blank and pale
As a sheet of paper
Gleaming in the moonlight
Staring fixedly at me..

I took to my heels
As fast as I could
I let my legs run free
In disbelief of what I’d seen

Everything was hazy to me
As I was running out of breath
A glimmer of light came as hope
At the deep end of the road I could see
Someone holding a lantern low
As I neared and stopped to breathe
The man came close to be
“What happened Sir, how come you’re here?”
He inquired in a tone of strange monotony

I huffed and puffed and cried out loud
“There’s a girl without a face..”
“She had no eyes, no nose nor lips..”
“She ought to be a ghost..!”
Calmed down the chowkidar at my story
And came closer still
Held up the lantern high enough
And said these words slowly
“Do you mean it was like this…. Sir?”
And I stared in disbelief
A man without a face.. again
Seemed smiling straight at me..

A gutsy stroke of wind came down
Someone heard a shout
As silence took over everything
And blew the lantern out…

– Adapted from Ruskin Bond’s short story by the same name.

Well the questions are many, but no significant answers exists, thing is these are the same questions being asked since generations on end, without any solid conclusion. Most often the answer will be “I don’t know..” or “It’s beyond us normal human beings’ perception, it’s the order of a higher being..” and then these very people are unsure about the existence of a higher being. So the discussion continues, one answers throws a hundred more unfazed queries and the cycle continues.

But the only real question we ought to ask is, Is there a thing called ‘free will’? Since the earlier posed questions have no answer, it’s meaningless to be even discussing them, maybe the right answer to “Does God exist?” is “I don’t care because it doesn’t help anyways..” The only thing we should think about right now is how the world is around us, how we can make a difference, do what is seemingly right, with the amount of assistance our limited perception provides, and contribute to the society and towards mankind as a whole by nourishing our inner selves with spiritual enlightenment.

At the beginning of human civilization, men were afraid of a lot of things, like rain or fire.. And felt themselves at the mercy of these natural phenomenon, whenever it rained, their crops harvested, and nature blessed them with food and greenery, but sometimes when it turned violent, it would destroy crops, ravish homes, kill livestock and leave families in utter turmoil. Thus came the notion of God, he was a ‘kind’ God helping people with food and health, who sometimes would turn angry and punish them. People began to pray in order to stay healthy, and so that disaster was averted. And regardless of who or what that ‘higher being’ was (is!) their prayers were sometimes answered, sometimes not.. but the mere feeling strengthened the belief of men, and this belief grew stronger, manifesting in various forms and stories to be passed down from generation to generation.

Still today similar problems exists, mankind has become far advanced, we have concrete buildings to protect us from heat and rain, and we are no longer at the mercy of the ‘truant’ God, but sometimes we do have earthquakes and tsunamis which shows that God still rules supreme..

Most religions offers a kind and loving picture of God, but is he really loving and caring? God doesn’t want us to be selfish, jealous and proud, but it seems as if God himself possesses all those characteristics he forbids people from cultivating! Abrahamic religions are centered around the concept of a single God, who is regarded to be the only true God, questioning his authority is punishable under his (nature’s) laws, so people take this to be the supreme truth. But a faith which is based on fear cannot be motivated by love can it? God is jealous of other beings, who are revered as Gods by other people, even though he has proclaimed such beings as devils opposing his manner of righteousness, he is selfish, proclaiming his own views to be the only true path, he is proud, because he deems fit to punish his own followers every now and then by bringing down calamities on them, killing or seriously mutilating them to suffer for the rest of their lives.. Unfortunately God still cannot make everyone loving and caring, war has not gone away, infact it has increased in the past few decades, men has always been selfish, and he’s bended the rules according to his own convenience, men has been fond of fame and power, which has led to the twisted concept of God create hatred instead of love in the minds of men, as a result man has become more intolerant and more insensitive towards people of other religions and culture.

So what do we do now? Do we make this gap of discrimination, misunderstanding and hatred wider? Or do we stop thinking about things useless and learn to tolerate things, people and beliefs as natural phenomenon. Preach in a way to arouse love and not hate, promote selflessness and truth, rather than false belief? Things are much easier said than done.. (to be continued)