Doors creaked open to azure skies
Whorls of clouds fading out of the sun
Last seeds of pain dissolve in passing winds
A little bit of hope ….
Tag: hope
Lucky, Luckier & Luckiest
How many times have you failed in life?
If you can answer, is it because you keep count or that you have hardly ever failed?
Are you lucky that you have not had many failures? Are you luckier that you have had just enough failures to shape up? Are you the luckiest that you don’t see them as failures?
I don’t have a clear answer.
I would not go to the extent to call myself “Destiny’s Child” (damn! I really used this term, didn’t I?). But I can safely say that I have always been in the good books of fate or lady luck. Maybe I am her favourite pawn to test out theories that revolve around sheer good luck? Things have mostly fallen into place pretty easily – I haven’t really had to toil and shed blood and pant my way to the finish line.
That said, I have had some ‘failures’ in my life. Why the quotes? Because wise people would have called them stepping stones or life lessons.
One major one was on stage few years back that I have written about fairly recently. That taught me humility and the importance of keeping faith in myself. At least, that is what I feel now! Another one rocked my confidence at a critical junction. I couldn’t crack the interview at my ‘dream’ institute for my MBA. I thought that is when I had used up the Midas touch luck had bestowed on me.
I did get into another one equally good and the rest is history. And I thought I got over the rejection. Except that on my way to work, I pass the institute twice a day. And I torture myself by looking at the sign and feel the years of “experience” and “learning” melt away. I am back to stomping my feet. Bloody hell! I wanted an admit there.
Another cliche “it’s fate” is perfect here! This is where I feel that maybe I belong to the luckiest category. That interview was my first one ever and taught me lessons no other rejection has managed.
It also brought me to Goa and more importantly kept me away from Pune where I stay presently. Destiny was hard at work! She led to me to my present company and made me shift here at the most perfect time. The house I stay. The people I live with. And the people staying around. It made me re-establish contact with the right someone at the right time at the right place – Mr. D. A little earlier or later would have probably meant goodbye to what we have now. And that is not the price I’m willing to pay for that admit letter.
Or anything else for that matter.
Every time I tripped, I learnt to laugh at myself and keep faith; perseverance was secondary. Turns out, it was just one step closer to the greater plan sketching out.
That doesn’t mean I don’t feel those pointy twinges of failures – but I can live with them.
What are your stories with luck and fate? Are you the lucky, or the luckier, or the luckiest? I was propelled by Linda’s SOCS prompt “-est.” Base your post on any word you can add the suffix “est”.
Stranger in Me
The reflections lie incessantly
A downpour burning my face
.
Blinded eyes taped over and over
Words belong to the unknown self
.
Dark shadows prowl behind me
A sickening longing to look back
.
Face the unspoken dread lurking
And courage that falters in the end
.
I bend to light a candle for my soul
But the warmth is unbearable
.
Melts my icy skin into hazy vapour
A short-lived death and a dying life
.
At the precipice of a quaking balance
Spirit of the lamp inside fights back
.
A soft prayer of hope that still lingers
And lingers…
I am okay…. Yep! All good…
Not Without Hope
This incidence has been playing on my mind for a while. I have been travelling like mad and this was supposed to be yet another trip to the railway station. However, I was in for a surprise as I hailed an autorickshaw to catch my train.
Who knew that the driver was about to make such a profound impact! He began with the usual – “Going home for the holidays? Where are you from?” Cautious and alert, I responded to his questions. He slowly steered the conversation to professions and life in general, adding his own two cents in the process. And the next twenty minutes unraveled many preconceived notions about life.
He admitted unabashedly that he is ‘angutha chap‘ (illiterate) and yet the insights he offered on the administrative state of affairs would have made any journalist salivate. An engaging man, there was pride laced in his words as he told me about his cousin who had completed his graduation and now had managed to buy a comfortable flat. As he spoke of his children, parental determination flared in his eyes, “Come hell or high water – they will complete their education. They will not be left without the luxury of choice unlike him.” Right now, they are a family of eleven people staying in a small six room house with two bathrooms. As long as his children could study in peace, he would happily continue sleeping in the hall.
Fond of gardening, he tended two gardens – a common terrace garden and one in their balcony that blooms with different jasmines. He handed me one – radiant and delicate. It’s a good day, he said. The flowers were an offering for the deity he frequented. He offered me one more flower seeing the delight evident on my face. He quietly added that he hoped the fragrance was lovely as he hadn’t taken a whiff. “It’s for the Gods. It’s not my place.”
Instinct said this wasn’t a case of blind faith but years of learned and lucid belief. This was a man who had a difficult upbringing but hadn’t let it become an excuse. He had made the best of what he had and not buckled down ! He had adopted a philosophy to make lemonade out of the lemons and have enough to share as well.
More than anything else, he was a reminder that friendly social people exist who aren’t always predatory. He was an example that literacy does not mean that a good old-fashioned interaction cannot be an enriching experience. He showed me that life simply cannot exist without hope.
I thank him.
After a long, long gap I am joining in Linda’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday! I am so happy that I am coming back with an opportunity to share my encounter with this commendable man. The prompt we have is “naught/knot/not” – I really ran away with this one!
Last War for Civilization
I write this to warn you. I write this to plead you.
I write to you what I see.
I see…
Her face faintly lined with dry tears,
Playing the memory of her baby
At her breast.
She had brought him into this world,
Amidst bloodshed and bombing
Outside the broken shelter.
I see…
Him growing up in this grimy rust,
A crumbing urban decay of life
To be rebuilt from scratch.
The moral compass of humanity shed,
Taken over by a lust for immortality
At the cost of a mutated body.
I see…
The perseverence of the expectant mothers,
Sole cradles preserving and continuing
The pure form of life.
A grim and desperate crusade to safety,
Sheer will and determination leading
The last war for civilization.
I see…
A mountain made of sacrifices and grit,
The rape of our Mother Earth that
Has been fiercely avenged.
The smoking lands now have tiny footfalls,
Playing with the brave new foliage
Sowing the hope of future.
I plead you to hold on to humanity. To warn you of the seduction of greed.
Your Future Self
I cheated here. The mutation, the greed and pregnant women being the last carriers of pure humanity was a dream I had a few weeks back (Yes, my dreams are mostly thriller/sci-fi). Grace at dVerse handed me the perfect prompt where we are writing how weird the future can be.
An Armchair Perfectionist 