Life - A Paradox

Dive into the depths of ocean
Try not to understand it,
But amaze at its secrets
Entangling weeds and gems.
And its vastness lies beyond-
Far, far beyond my reach.

How can I claim
That my grasp was full?
When I could hold
Only that my small fist could hold
But so wild was my wish,
To explore the hidden treasures
In those infinite depths
Of intricate human life
That I took pride
In my little knowledge
Of what I did see.

How silly of me
To measure its depth
With my small reference mind!
Realized a little later
The vainness of my effort
To study life in a nutshell
Before I knew it.

The different facades of it
Turned my face away
But to see there too
Not a pacifying sight
In the whirl pool of illusions
Desperate to seek the real
Lost myself in it
Which I realized a labyrinth!

How I wished
To break the shell
And see the pearl,
To tear that screen
Of the wide horizon
And seek the infinity...
But the more I seek,
The more it tantalizes me
With its inscrutable charms
And leaving me back amazed,
With a puzzling query -‘What is Life?’

Train & my college life

Trains were always a part of my college life. If the first year of my PG life confined to the mere 15 minutes of train journey, the second year was a step ahead. It was a two hour daily journey to and fro. It all happened when I took the decision to shift to the college hostel, from the serene atmosphere of the working women’s hostel near the temple where I stayed during my first year. The impulse behind this decision was my desire to stay close to the college so that I can get up any time, and leave even late without fear of getting late and also can avoid the burden of carrying lunch. Another thing that attracted me to the college hostel was the big hostel compound full of pine trees, always shady with birds and squirrels chirping and chattering around. I dreamt of sitting beneath the trees and reading my favorite books during weekends.

With these lazy dreams in mind, one fine morning I packed my luggage and shifted to the college hostel knowing very well that it was in a pathetic condition, not having enough facilities, no fan, no proper ventilation and not even a good bathroom. But my wish to stay in the hostel along with my class mates wiped all the other negative thoughts. As soon as I joined the hostel, I realized that my sweet dreams were not going to be fulfilled, because of the various problems there.

The most disturbing factor was the water problem we suffered not only in summer but also during other seasons. Those days I remembered the comfort I had in my home, and thought it was a punishment for my desire to stay in a hostel. (My brother who was staying in REC hostel for his engineering studies, always used to narrate the jokes and funs that happened in his hostel and since then I had started praying to get a chance to stay in a hostel!)

Our hostel had the huge age old belt motor (will look like an antique piece when compared to modern motor) to pump water which broke occasionally starting a life of hell for us. Nobody cared to repair it and to our frequent complaints, the management had the same answer that they were waiting for government funds. Carrying water from well, which was down in a valley, up to our rooms was a Himalayan task for us, as after the class we’ll be exhausted and very much in a mood to relax. We would start drawing water from the well, taking turns, and then carried two heavy buckets on each trip to our rooms. By the time we reached our room, half of the water would be spilt all along the way and anybody standing close to us could hear our heart thumping. Only then we realized how much water we were actually using lavishly a day and how difficult it would be life without water. Though we accepted the situation and took it as a fun initially, consoling each other saying all these are experiences of life, we were beginning to get exhausted as it started taking a toll of our health too. My room mates then decided not to stay in the hostel till the motor was repaired and started coming from their home. For them it was not much difficult as it was only a forty-five minutes bus journey from their home. I too thought of doing the same, but then for me it was not so easy, as I had a two- hour long train journey compared to their 45 minutes bus journey. I hated traveling in bus, so bus journey was anyway a total no no for me.

But, I didn’t have any other option to choose so without any second thoughts, I took the season ticket for three months which I could extend, if the motor was still in the same condition. Thus began the second phase of my train journey, going to and fro to college daily from my home town, Calicut to Tellichery, the town where my college was. (Tellicherry is a beautiful town adorned with may rivers, hills and coastal lines. It still carries the strong signatures of British rule.)

Early morning I would catch the Trivandrum-Kannur Express or Nizamuddin Express and evening I would catch the Chennai –Mangalore mail. These two trains became a part of my life giving me an opportunity to observe myriad kinds of people. I learnt what is meant by ‘crossing’, ‘shunting’ and all the other train related terms which were all odd terms to me before. The first two three days, I was totally confused about the direction from which my train came as sometimes two trains would be arriving from opposite directions. I used to look at the direction where majority of the people looked, (a mistake which I realized soon) but then gradually I learnt which was North and which was South and that I had to go to North. Interestingly, the concept of North and South that I had till then was exactly the opposite of real North and South. (Even now, I don’t know to identify direction if I am in an unfamiliar station)

The Kanuur Express which reached at 7.30 am at Calicut station was most of the time late as trains usually are. I would then miss the first hour of my class daily. My lecturers, who were too good, never questioned or rebuked me for my late comings. They always left me to my own, continuing their lecture after gesturing me to enter whenever I reached late, panting. My friends would then give a meaningful smile which meant “How lucky, you escaped!” if it was a boring class and “You missed it!” if it was an interesting class. Being a bad listener in classes I never regretted missing classes, but I used to feel bad going late. I hated going late and secondly I didn’t want to interrupt my lecturers whom I always loved and respected.

My only concern in the initial days was how to reach home without getting too late and how to reach early in college so that I won’t miss the first hour. We had our daily practical sessions in the afternoon up to 3.30 pm which I couldn’t miss even if I wished. The late coming of trains was a blessing in disguise for me at that time because otherwise I never could catch the Chennai mail that reached at 3.45 at the station. The moment I finished doing the experiments, I used to hurry to catch the bus to the station. The guard, who was kind enough to wait for a few minutes for regular passengers, would wait for a few seconds if he saw us running through the railway tracks desperate not to miss the train.

But there were many times when I missed the train and had to wait for the next train which was the Kannur – Express that came at 5.00 pm. This happened when I had to do any time consuming experiments and couldn’t escape from the lab on time. On such days, I always missed the Mail. Some times I had to watch it passing by right in front of my eyes and I would go back to the station with a disappointed mind.

The one and half hour of waiting in the platform for the next train was awfully boring as nobody would be there in the platform once the Mail left. I would then think of how to pass that one and half hours and it always ended up in buying a FilmFare or a StarDust and a Pepsi. In those hot summers one would always wish to have something cool. With the magazines and Pepsi in one hand and college bag on my shoulders, I would then find a comfortable seat to sit and read. This FilmFare + Pepsi combination became a routine for me whenever I missed the Mail and I gradually stopped getting disappointed at missing the train. I even started liking it, because then I need not hurry to get back to the station, and could do my labs with full concentration. I don’t have any idea at all as to how many bottles of Pepsi, I might have taken in those days because of this ‘train missing’. Two years back, at home ,when I was watching “We, The People” in NDTV, where Barkha Dutt was smartly handling the pesticide issue of Pepsi, I startlingly recollected the volumes of pesticides that might have polluted my stomach. But those Mirindas and Pepsis were the only rejuvenating factors that made my platform hours refreshing.

The film magazines, though an excellent time pass, were not enough to cover the one and half long period. I would initially start flipping the pages, sipping the Pepsi, and admiring the beauty of actors and actresses, but on reaching the last page, I would realize that there was still more time left for the train to come. Then I would start reading each and every page, enjoying the gossip columns till I ensured that I have read each and every letter in it. Time would be still left which I would spend daydreaming which cost me nothing. This would continue till I heard the siren of Kannur Express. I have always felt that if you day dream, time will fly like anything.

The express and mails were always crowded unlike the early morning passenger trains. Sometimes I had to stand the whole 2 hours or 1 hour till I got a seat. The days when I couldn’t find a seat, I would position myself at the door of the compartment (in spite of my mother’s advice not to stand there), a place which I always enjoyed standing. I used to wave at the small children who used to stand naked near the tracks and stare at the train with curious, innocent faces. It was a pleasure to stand at the door catching hold of the bars and inhaling the strong wind that rushed past by the speeding train. When I stood gazing at the sky, I could see it turning gradually from orange red to total darkness by the time I reached my home.

Most of the time I was fortunate to get the upper vacant berth which most people never took pains to climb. Initially it was a difficult task for me to make a way through the crowded compartment to the upper berth, but then by practice I learnt how to reach there before anybody did, within seconds I boarded the train. Something which I should attribute to the agility of youth. Once I got the berth, it was a comfortable journey, observing diverse groups of people boarding at each station.

By the time I reached home, it would be late night and would be too exhausted to do anything. My father would be reading some books as usual and whenever I crossed his room, he would give me a smile raising his head from the book, a look which empathized with my troubles but which also meant that “This is life”. I just would eat something for name sake and then throw myself on bed without any second thoughts. The next day I had to start the same cycle again.

I don’t know what I really gained and what I lost due to my decision to escape from drawing water. But then I would like to believe that each decision even if it might appear wrong at that time, is directed to give you a different experience of life. Experimenting with ones own life is a fun. If some adventure is involved in it, it is all the more a thrill. If I weigh and see, it was always a gain; because these train journeys showed me the various faces of life, which other wise I would have never known, sitting within the four walls of hostel.

Nostalgia

There are certain memories which come to my mind whenever the winter steps in. I don’t know how to write them in a sequential manner, because these thoughts never flow in a sequence. I can just gather them from here and there and make a collage of it. Probably you can call it an incoherent collection of thoughts.

Memories of my life as a student in Brennen College, (a college blessed with a beautiful campus) is something that recur in my mind in all winters. That was my first experience of staying in a hostel away from my parents - the beginning of an independent life. (Something about our college: The College evolved from a school established by the English philanthropist, Edward Brennen, who had made Thalassery his home. The college, which is more than a hundred years old is included in the list of colleges to be granted the University status.)

I was one of the very few students who reached college early, even before the peon came. Though only half an hour bus journey, from my college, I always took the local train as it was comfortable for me, without being crushed in the overcrowded buses I needed to take otherwise.

The train arrived at sharp 7.40 am at the local station called Temple Gate, just in front of my hostel. I got the yellow colored tickets which the person at the counter issued by pressing a machine that looked like a bore well pump. I used to wonder at the appearance of the ticket as it was very different from the computerized one which I used to get from Calicut, my home town.

The compartment of the Caliut –Kannur passenger train which I usually boarded was like a temporary home to me which gave me some time to observe the different types of people. The compartments used to be almost vacant with only a few people who were regular passengers. Men passed time by playing cards or discussing politics. For the ladies, the compartment was an ideal venue to display their new saris and to lament about the exorbitant prices of the groceries. Some of them continued with their knitting starting from where they left it the previous day, quite unaware of what is going on around them.

It was quite interesting for me to observe these people and listen to the various discussions they had. I was the only person who carried a novel with me to read, thinking I would be able to read at least two or three pages, but never could, as my attention would be diverted to the passengers’ mannerisms, or the issues they were speaking of. The passengers in turn, treated me as a ‘kid’ who hasn’t seen the world yet and themselves styled as worldly wise people.

This daily train journey of mine to college was of just 15 minutes long as there was only two stations’ difference between my hostel and college. From the station, I had to walk 10 minutes through a narrow zigzag path full of trees on either sides, to reach my college. It was a pleasure to walk early in the morning through the sandy lane, listening to the chirping of birds. The fresh fragrance of flowers and leaves spread everywhere. Being an early bird to college, I was one of the rare persons who got the opportunity to enjoy the solitude there. The shady trees that adorned the campus would be in full bloom with magnificent yellow flowers and tender leaves. There was a clam silence always in the early mornings. The cement benches were always cold and wet with dewdrops that fell from the leaves hanging from nearby trees.

Fascinated by the puzzles and intricacies of Quantum Mechanics, its connection with universal mysteries, I used to sit, leaning on the wall, beside the parapet of the verandah immersed in my own thoughts. Trying to find a correlation between science and eastern mysticism was something that kept my mind preoccupied in those days as is even now. My mind wandered here and there until the peon came and opened the doors of the classrooms.

Mornings were the only time when one could find the cement benches empty. Once the classes started, all the benches were occupied either by the popular gangs of the college or by the ‘couples’ , a nick name we used to give the students who were locked in affair. We, the senior most students of the college, had to look out for some other places in the campus to sit and chat. We had a very beautiful hilly area at the back of the college, full of green trees and shade, which was popularly known as the “Shanti Van” of Brennen. We used to make occasional visits to Shanti Van to refresh ourselves from the continuous theory classes of equations and derivations.

One of the greatest boon for the voracious readers of our college was an excellent library we had with a wide collection of books. This library was like a secret home to me to where I escaped whenever I could spare some time. The smell of the books with pages that had turned yellow with age gave me an inexpressible pleasure. In my imaginary world, I lived the life of characters of Somerset Maugham, Marquez and Thomas Hardy and racked my brain thinking if Milan Kundera’s novels are justifiable or not.

Back in class, I tried hard to pull my mind from novels and fix it on my Electronics Sir who went on lecturing about the theories of electronic circuits. Electronics, being a boring subject to me, always diverted my concentration from the lecture to the mannerisms and histrionics of the Sir, which I then imitated to my friends when back in the hostel. I would not like to blame my Sir for the boredom, as he was an excellent professor, an author of many articles and books, who even gifted me one of his books as an encouragement to my reading.

But anyhow I was a bad listener in classes and never took down the notes carefully and took the pains of creating notes myself during study holidays. The classes I listened to seriously were Classical and Quantum Mechanics which reinforced the passion for Physics in me and I used to dream of myself doing research at ISRO at some point of time in future (My list of dreams is a long one which I occasionally update, deleting some and replacing it with new ones depending on my moods).

It was a pleasure to sit in the classes of lecturers who breathed Physics all the time, for whom it was a passion rather than a profession. I am indebted to my beloved lecturers, who patiently listened to my odd queries, (which I asked only when I was listening), who advised me not to read too much, but still gave me books to read and shared their knowledge as if to a friend and showed more concern to me than to my attentive friends, and to Physics, my all time favorite subject for imprinting a rational mode of thinking in my mind, when I some times wished to escape from the irrational thoughts. But then I now know that a perfect harmony of both rational and irrational modes is necessary to understand the mysteries of this universe.

After the class, I would be back in my hostel, which, was near a temple. The hostel was remarkable for its neatness. There was a big glass window overlooking the temple, and this window was closed only at night. There was a long desk put beside the window so that we could sit and chat looking at the green paddy fields swaying in the breeze. It was a perfect combination of natural beauty - left side temple, green paddy fields in front and the rail on the right side. At dusk, we could see the regular devotees coming to pray at the temple. I used to wonder what they could be praying so devoutly. There were some guys too, who were regular visitors to the temple, who came there not to pray, but just because of our hostel there. They used to pretend praying and then open their eyes and glance at our window, where we used to sit and chat. And it was a fun to my mischievous friends to sit on the desk in blessing posture, so as to tease the guys who glanced at our window after praying.

The long curved rails that stretched across the vast green fields was an extremely comforting sight. The trains that whistled past at regular intervals reminded me how quickly time flew. The long siren that faded away instilled in me a mischievous spirit to secretly jump into it and escape to some remote places. Standing near the glass windows, gazing into the distant sky, I would wish that I could enjoy that solitude forever.

When the sun shone brightly, it was a pleasure to stand under the yellow rays that crept through the narrow gaps between the windows of my room, to make myself warm. The fog that covering the compound walls, the green leaves turning yellow.. the cold wind that sweeps through your nose.. a silence that spread in early morning, all these winter specialties are sweet memories to me. Winters thus come and go. But memories are still there in a corner of my mind always fresh, which just have to be recollected.

Passion

Shower upon me, my flowers
Your soft silky petals
Whisper me a way to throw off
The overwhelming excitement
Which keeps me ever vibrating
Which makes me embrace this world.
Carrying the heaviness of it
Saturated with electric passions
The string of my heart
Vibrates to your tune!

Allow me to shed,
The points of resonance
In its full harmony
Into a violent action
Or into a tight embrace
Or with endless suffocating kisses
With that sadistic pleasure of mine
That lets you off your mind

Let me welcome you
To that world of mine
But can you stand my passion,
The thrusting energy of my emotions,
The strength of my violent excitements?
My little buds, for fear of crushing
Your velvety softness
That I ever wish to capture
I could kiss only your fallen petals!

Welcome my flowers, to my world
Allow me to quench your thirst
With the wine of pleasure
For its you whom I love
It’s you who knows my pain, thirst and hunger
It’s to your world that I wish to come back
When my vibrations die off
Keep a place in your heart for me
As a cool breeze with sweet fragrance
And a heart full of love
I will be soon back to be with you.

Eight Wonders

Behold a stream
Then I am a floating leaf
Where my destination is
God alone knows.

Gaze at the vast sky
Then I am a floating cloud
Again, it is the slow breeze
That gives me a company.

Wonder at the beautiful night
Then I am a twinkling star
Who now consoles me
No doubt, my dearest moon

Thrill at the heavy rain
Then I am a wet bird
What now amuses me?
It’s the shiny droplets on my feather!

Excite at the brewing storm
Then I am a delicate plant
It whirls me round and round
Who else can give me such a thrill!

Smile at the foggy winter
Now I am a blade of grass
Touch me not!
For you will shed that dew drop
That hangs at my tip!

Amaze at the flushing cascade
Then I am the bubbling foam
Do you hear that splashing sound?
It is my meeting with pebbles below.

Stare at the vast ocean
Then I am the charging waves
Can’t you see my wild desire
To embrace the shore in one second?

Butterfly

Fluttering in the vast blue sky
Wondering at the pretty flowers,
Dancing and sucking the tasty nectar
Let me be free like this forever!

One day rose, one day jasmine
One day dalia, one day lily,
Let me fly from one flower to other
Drinking the wine to delight myself.

My little life is so short!
How I wish to live a little long-
To explore this beautiful world,
And be in a trance of happiness!

Don’t catch me, demons of earth,
My velvet wings are so fragile!
My tiny legs are so delicate!
That I cant stand your grip.

Don’t be cruel to me, allow me to live
Let me fly freely, in the bosom of my mother earth
Let me die freely, in the lap of my mother earth
You can see my pretty body withered when I die.

Enigma

That statue of stone
With its eyes, fixed at infinity;
The eloquence of its dumbness,
And its sky like calmness-
Seems to convey everything
One wishes to know of life!

Its vacuous gaze
Enough to stop my vagaries,
Taught to think of myself
Standing apart from my self
And I saw the different masks
Worn by me so far!
That too, but not to my wish-
To adjust myself,
To the vicissitudes of life!

Coming back to myself, I realize
My identity’ been lost somewhere
To thousand pieces –it has been split
Each playing a different role,
In those masks I chose to wear
How can I curse others, then?
If I seem to myself – an enigma!!