How Many???

How many protests have to take place? 

How many banners have to be painted?

How many slogans have to be shouted on the streets?

How many sleeping politicians have to be woken up?

How many people need to be attacked with tear gas?

How many newscasters have to question those in question?

How many streets need to be patrolled by the cops?

How many complaints have to be turned down by the cops?

How many 7 year old little girls and virgins have to bleed each day?

How many women have to sacrifice their faces with acid?

How many women's modesty needs to be outraged?

How many debates will we have each day? 

How many men will continue to think that they can get away with a rape without a scrape?

How many young girls will be threatened that they would meet with the same fate?

How many rarest of rare cases have to occur, until they are not rare anymore?

How many girls have to grow up with the belief that they can't blame a man for his actions?

How many times will we hear that a change is going to take place?

How many times will we yet again face disappointments?

How many times will we accept defeat and move on with our lives?

How many sorry speeches will we hear from those that don't even give 2 hoots?

How many times will a woman MP be told that she's addressing irrelevant issues when she raises her voice?

How many, Oh tell me, How many....?

Until 'Change' becomes a revolution and a reality and not merely a cool word to use.... 

It's a world full of deluded people!

She only asked for help. She was a victim of the most despicable act of mankind imaginable in my limited spectrum of perception, because only evil can imagine what evil can do. The dignity she had earned through the course of her life, and the dignity which was her basic human right, had been vanquished and stolen from her within a span of a few of the most disparaging minutes of her life… Many passed by…  Many she had begged for help... I suppose none were any more human than those that subjected her to the atrocities that one can only imagine. Lying in a pool of her blood, in her birthday suit, vulnerable and suffering with a pain and an anguish that only her body and soul knew…. Many she begged again, and many passed by yet again...

It’s a world full of deluded people…. Awfully deluded people… People know no more than themselves…  And even themselves, they don’t know any better... If only they knew better, they’d know that we were all part of the same universal soul and what was inflicted upon one, could have been inflicted upon another…

Not one heart melted at the sight of her suffering… Not one eye dropped a tear… Not one soul had the courage to just cover her whatsoever... Not one soul felt any shame... All this insensitivity in a land, that is believed to be the most mystical of all… where people are believed to have found enlightenment…  where people tread from far off lands  to come in search of the meanings and the answers to their lives… where Karma is the essence and the essence is Karma… Such was the Karma…

An innocent soul was victimized, and then victimized further by the insensitivity of the others…  And I still Hope against Hope that it’s not a world full of deluded people… I still hope against hope that there are in fact more enlightened beings, who were (to that girl’s dismay) not present at the time, in that place, or else things would have been different. Half her misery might have been reduced if the right help would have come at the right time… If she didn’t have to beg in vain, only to add to her pain…  If someone would have lifted her at first and not allowed her to suffer some more…

And now the same people, who probably passed her by on that fateful day, are climbing the bandwagon and shouting slogans and expressing disgust and begging for justice. I only hope that they are not the same ones… that they are in fact the enlightened ones, who were not present at the time on that fateful day or else they would have acted differently…  I still hope against hope, in a place, where there is nothing left to hope…..   

A Fortune Called Life

A solitary youth sitting down, under the expanse of an ageing tree

Tries to resolve the questions, of which he wishes to set himself free,

'Strange is this inconceivably mystical game called life

For some it is pleasure, for others a continuous strife.'

'Why is it yet believed to be the most precious of gifts

Which the lord bestows upon us without a trace of thrift'

He deeply wishes to procure the answers

To put an end to the misery that he suffers

From a distance, there flies an answer, through the unsullied air

And comes around and sits close to his rugged feet, very bare

It is a bird that elates the heart and sings of merriment and joy

The nightingale, that has enchanted many a heart, that were even coy.

She plays a tune, a significant tune that pleases him in unaccountable measures

And instills in him again, a faith that from life one can derive a whole lot of pleasures

If one always looks at the bright edges and suitably overlooks all of the displeasing ruins

Even if the tide turns against ones favour, one shall not readily succumb to the wounds.

It is the man who maintains the strongest foothold on the ground

That finally embraces the happiness and joy that possesses no count

A treasury comprising success, prosperity, faith and a certain sense of pride

For achieving what was once thought unattainable due to remarks that were snide.

He gallops like a stallion in the glory of his now satiating life

For he has been through his fair share of undulating strife

The youth’s question thus answered he now gives rest to his mind full of disarray

And with a more resolved feeling of the heart, gets up to retire, and calls it a day.

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Could I Be More Resolute?

“So what’s your new year resolution?” Aren't you almost sickened of that question ringing in your ears every passing year of your life? And you think “What is it to you? Are you going to actually help me keep up to that resolution? No. So why bother?”

The fact of the matter is that we seldom follow a resolution that was made almost a year ago.  If you were asked even a month after you made that resolution, you would decline having accomplished it. 1 year = 12 moths = 52 weeks = 365 days. Do you think each one of those 365 days in the year is alike? The circumstances and conditions under which it is humanly possible to keep up to your resolution, may not necessarily be compliant or present on all of those days. So what about that resolution then? Just goes for a toss, doesn't it? And then you sit and ponder and play this game of convict and jury in your head, trying to reason with yourself so you don’t have to blame yourself completely for wavering.  

So here is my resolution for the new year. That is, to not have a new year resolution at all. I’m going to keep a New Day resolution each day of my life, and I’m going to wing it each day. After all, why do we keep new year resolutions? In the hope, that we can improve ourselves and become better human beings some day. And in that, we target our greatest weaknesses first, which is hardly ever easy to do. You couldn't have started walking brusquely like an adult the moment you emerged out of your mother’s womb.  You started with baby steps. That’s how we all start out. Although it’s great to challenge yourself a little but you can’t make the 5^th goal without having accomplished the first 4.

So I’m going to live each day as it comes, however, keeping my good judgment handy. As per the situation presented to me, I’m going to make my vows, the main aim being –‘doing the right thing at the right time’. We've bred on the lesson that we must do a good deed each day. ‘Now’ is the time to implement it. You see someone in trouble; go help that person, in whatever manner you think it is possible, in your capacity. You see injustice being rendered, you fight against it. You notice that a simple action of yours could make life easier for another, you take that action. One day you realize that you have been putting up calling your grandmother for a while now and you know she is old and ailing and may not be here too long, you call her and have a little chat with her. For all you know, it might leave her so pleasantly surprised and elated that she might want to live a few more days, weeks, months or even years, god willing. You know you are sick and tired of your current job and this was never what you wanted to do in life anyway. You’re neither doing justice to your job nor to yourself. Wind up. You know you have latent talents that you still haven’t exploited. This is your chance. Go hunt for something that you've really wanted to do for a long time, or create it. We have only so many years left to live. If you don’t do it now, you are never going to do it. That’s where you need to be resolute. Remember, if God has gifted you with a certain talent, he has also left an open door for you somewhere, through which you can explore it. But the free will is yours. You choose, whether to walk through that door or not…