Man peeing at a road side: A common sight, still fascinating just for the message it carries...So please check out the video!!!

We had our departmental fest called 'Journo Junction' on 23rd and 24th September. The last session of the last day ended with a workshop on Mobile Filming, in which we were supposed to go out n shoot a 30 sec-60 sec film (based on any issue) in a duration of an hour.
I am attaching the video or film our group made:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvtZ16cbDD0

It catches A MAN PEEING AT THE SIDE OF A ROAD.

Its a bit blurred and perhaps not proper as it is made at the spur of the moment and by using a mobile phone.
Though i agree its a pretty common sight, yet i feel its worth viewing as many times as possible, just for the social message of keeping our city clean. And as it raises a very relevant question- of the dirth of public urinals in the the capital of India. In a nation where population is in billions, we seldom find urinals even at significant public places like markets, big bus stands like that of Dhaula Kuan, etc. We blame the govt and the system ceaselessly for umpteen reasons, still its ironical to see an issue as important as the nature's call going unseen and unheard.
So please check it out and send your comments.

How much more can I cry over the scarred world?

Cant 13th September take the form of the last straw?

13th September 2008, my mum stepped in the 46th year of her life. Quite an ocassion of celebration for us, or was it? We had decided to spend the day shopping and eating out in Cannaught Place. To be more specific, Central Park. We were strolling on the streets when we saw a blood donation camp erected by Blood Bank. Not that we were less interested in the cause, but in my mother's presence it becomes inevitable for me and my dad to go for it ( just to mention, she cant donate blood owing to her high blood pressure tendency), as she feels its the best thing we can gift her and to the humanity as a whole. Anyway, it so happened that the whole thing took around 20 minutes and we came out of the camp at 6.30 PM.

Many things happened in the spur of a single second- an ear deafening noise from a short distance, may be across the road; scary screams of the crowd; people running everywhere in chaos; terror in every eye (perhaps mine also), and last but not the least torn-scattered body parts and blood. I am not pasting any pics or putting any link for the pics on my blog as I believe that is too trivial a thing to embody my blog in such an instance. Its reported in newspapers that 'Grass turned red at Central Park'. The only addition that I can make to that is indeed it had.

It is suspected that Indian Mujahideen SIMI cell led by Abdul Subhan, the techie jehadi from Mumbai and one Qayamuddin are the master minds behind the multiple blasts that rocked the capital. The email confirming the responsibility of the blasts were signed by them. The hate mail is captioned 'Eye for An Eye, The Dust Will Never Settle Down' and says "To dreadfully terrorise you this time, by the Will and Help of the Almighty Allah, we are about to devastate your very first metropolitan center, your most strategic 'Hindutva hub, your green zone-yes! Its your own Capital'". It also boasts of the capacity of the group to strike anywhere.

I dont feel like hitting them hard, nor does my blood boil on such frivolous and worth-laughing-at justifications. I just feel a gelid frustration that- are these minds termite infested to such an extent that they in no way can make out that this can never be an answer to whatever injustice and opression that has been meted out to them? This can never be 'Jihad', as they term it. "No, it's not perpetual war against non-Muslims, but the struggle to do good on earth for the sake of God. Jihad literally means “struggle” or “striving.” It is not, as some have claimed, the “sixth pillar” of Islam." An eye for an eye and so on can never be a solution to any problem. It is just a handy way of injecting animosity in each heart, soul and in many cases the blood of innocent people. It is a vicious cycle that has no end, no goal, just terror and hatred and propaganda. That's what it is.

Recently I watched 2 movies- Mumbai Meri Jaan and A Wednesday. Both of them deal with similar issues. I had a question burning in the gut of my heart. Isnt it really time we actually clean our home off cockroaches? Religion is redundant. Every living being who plays with the laws of nature is a cockroach in this case. Anyone and everyone who kills for his/her own vested interests is a non-believer and someone who defies the rules of the Almighty. That is BLASPHEMY, I believe. I am not a social worker, nor am I some religious fanatic. I am, as Naseeruddin Shah states in the movie A Wednesday, a part of the crowd which consists of the common man who is angry and engrieved to the extent of being gelid, actually. Who is the one who suffers such collateral damages, irrespestive of his religion, caste, color and every ugly distinction which divides and takes over the soul essence, that is HUMANITY.

Unchained Desire

"Unchained Desire , like melody, flows ceaselessly, irrespective of the 'dynamic' time....still with two beautiful differences....that it does so silently and yet reverberates..."

Someday, somewhere......he would be with me

Let the world be anywhere, he would be with me

Where I'll be, there he'll be

And where there would be..... just our feelings

Where dawn will break, where sun would shine

In the flashes of your eyes

Where I would sleep in your arms

Under the sheath of pale moonlight

Dont know where this world of ours is

Dont even know if it exists (or not)

A world where this life of mine

Has not turned its back on me.....

Somehow, somewhere.....there is an intoxication in our unity

Like the the life gliding from your lips to mine

Yet our thirsty hearts cry, moan and pine

For that singular world

That nests our esoteric oneness......our UNCHAINED DESIRE

There the sky burns, and the land screams

Where are you ...... my joy, my smile, my life?

Someday...... somewhere......somehow......

He'll be with me..............

Those Days Are Gone

Those days are gone
When the blue swan
Sung a sweet song
At the break of dawn.

Those days are gone
When noons were spent
Weaving tales of
Fairies and friends.

Those days are gone
When dusk was seen
Through the rickety branches
Of the Holy Green.

And now I pine
To trace the notes
Of that silent song,
To bathe in the rays
Of my faded childhood dawn,
To see my time fly away
In the charms of fairylands,
To cherish the betrothal
Of the pink and amber horizon,
To discover the hidden treasure
In the old, abandoned church,
To breathe for once, a fresh gust of air
Bereft of all the worldly despair.

As I gather the fallen leaves
The foliage that adored my childhood tree,
I try to fill the emptiness that says
Those days are gone.

Crying over scarred world!!!

It makes me lament to see What Man Has Made of Man!!!


I am supposed to write something about something. And I have tried my level best to trace that something, but in vain. Today when I was watching television in the afternoon, all of a sudden an advertisement captured my attention and I felt that is SOMETHING to write about. It was the Airtel ad, which shows 2 boys from neighboring countries playing soccer, even when they do not share a common language. Apart from being a brilliant piece of imagination to increase sales of the company, I feel it is a fantastic portrayal of human gesture, which is not confined to the concept of boundaries. The advertisement says – ‘there is no boundary, no wall, which can keep us apart, if only we talk.’


Communication is something that knows no barriers and has the immense power to break all boundaries, created by the evil politics of human beings. Both the boys in the commercial come from two different countries, two drastically different backgrounds and speak different languages. Still they are able to convey the simple emotion of accepting each other and being each other’s playmates in the game of soccer.


At this point, I recall an incident that one of my friends happened to tell me. Her father is employed in the Indian Army, so she had the opportunity to live in many places. This incident took place when she was staying in Ladakh. Many Indian soldiers used to live in bunkers near the fencing that separated India and China. There were Chinese bunkers on the other side of the fencing. My friend told me she often used to find soldiers from both the sides talking to each other in a most un-foe like manner. This used to amaze her. One day she went to an Indian bunker and asked a soldier the secret behind these unusual greetings. He simply said, “We talk, share food and laugh together when there is peace both the sides. But the same ‘WE’ slay each other at the time of war. That’s war!”


These lines seem to be so hollow but they say so much. They say that God gave us the supreme power of speech, hoping us to take the process of communication to undefined heights, so that we could talk and reconcile the issues that happen to emerge between nations. They say that God desired us to live in harmony and share the essence of love and humanity, but we erected walls to fragment the common humanly soul and paint the pieces in the dark hues of caste, religion, color, race and what not…in short hatred.


At the end of this very usual piece, I am unable to draw any unusual conclusion. It just reminds me of a poem written by Wordsworth. I don’t remember the words exactly but it expresses the pain the poet felt when he sees the disfigured and tarnished world created by the humans. And it makes him laments to wonder ‘What Man Has Made of Man’.