So Far So Good

The month of August has particularly been prolific. 31 days, 31 posts. So far so good. If this continues, (which I don’t think will for long), I might end up with 300 posts by the end of this year. The problem out here is what is called the writer’s block. When you write a lot, after a point of time, you go out of topics. You don’t have things to write. You start repeating yourself, become monotonic, and then the reader feels he is kind of reading the same thing over and over again, and ultimately gets bored and leaves your blog. But that, fortunately, won’t be the case here. Ask me why.

The sole reason is that I have a great plan for September. I am not sure how much I’ll be able to carry that out, but if things go well, you might see a number of posts in September too. Most of them will be issues I think, though some might be verses as well. I have suddenly grown a new fondness for verses. And also, backstage, what am I doing? I am preparing the manuscript for my next story. That comes as a surprise, no? I am not going to reveal the topic out here, because I seriously don’t know how good it is going to go, or how long it is going to take me to finish it off. But yes, soon enough, I think. And apart from all that, we also have Project SMID – a new initiative, about which I’ve discussed in the previous post, and which, if goes down well, might inspire a lot of other people around the world, which would be in fact, my greatest accomplishment of all time.

What else have I been up to? So, if you’ve been following my personal posts, you’d be knowing I have been taking up courses for Cryptography 1 and Machine Learning. Well, now, I have finished my course on Cryptography, and so am kind of a cryptographer Level 1. Just kidding. There’s still some time for Machine Learning to end. I have my exam in the mid of next month, so I need to devote a bit of time there too, and probably that is the reason I should stop posting now, for at least a month. But, procrastination, is a bitch. And the more I have thought about stopping to write my posts, I have written only more.

But all’s well that ends well. This month was good, nothing bad happened with me; I also started some work back in my office, which mostly includes analyzing a lot of code and finding out stuff, but I don’t want to get technical right away, so maybe I’ll talk about that later; also I don’t know how much I can talk, so yeah, that’s there too. Anyhow, time for me to stop this month. Will see you soon with lots more. And if everything works out well, I might end up with 300 posts, just as I had written at the beginning of the post. Now that the post is turning around a full cycle, I am going to stop.

Bye!

The Somnambulist

The rains came with thunder today,
Reminding me of a day gone by,
When you’d held me to yourself,
And sniffed and cried,
You were afraid of the lightning,
I remember.
Whilst I ran, getting wet in the rain,
My clothes drenched, my hair all wet,
You stood inside a building,
Making sure the rains never reached you,
It wasn’t until it had stopped thundering,
That you stopped sniffing,
I remember.
You were my dream,
I the somnambulist,
Walking towards my dream each moment,
Never realizing my folly,
Or what I moved towards,
Always being directed back to my sleep,
By others who thought they cared about me.
Today the rains have come with thunders,
I still remember that evening we spent,
And even now as I get wet,
I see you amongst the people inside the building.

Two Worlds

I kept walking though I knew,
I had lost my way a while ago,
But the crowd moved so heavily,
And in such vast numbers they walked,
That even if I wanted,
It was too late to turn back.
But then I suddenly saw your hair,
And though you were quite far,
I thought I might make it to you,
If I cut through the people,
And purge towards you,
But then you disappeared.
The sun was right over my head,
I, too tired to walk any further,
But were I to stand I would be,
Stamped and trampled by others,
So never stopping or missing a beat,
I walked the path everyone took.
No one seemed to care where it was going,
As long as there were others on it,
They had a belief in each other,
But looked at me with wary eyes.

Suddenly there was a fire,
And everyone started running in all directions,
I was lost,
The people I held faith in were all gone,
Every time I followed a path,
It divided into two and there were,
People on both the paths.
There was no road less taken,
And not one not taken,
All were stuffed, like raisins in a cake,
Finally we reached a river,
And some of us rowed a boat to the other side,
We will start a new world now,
And though now you aren’t there,
Though I can’t see you anymore,
I know somewhere,
You’ll start a new world too,
And maybe one day,
Our worlds would meet.

The Guy of Air

He was invisible, as if made of air,
And nevertheless he kept pulling me towards him,
I couldn’t see anything, except the room I was in,
And still I was being dragged by something.
My mother saw me from faraway,
Frightened, she ran away too.
I could see him slightly now,
The air had a thin figure made into it,
As if he were of plasma,
But it was only air,
I woke up,
I was dreaming, and I ran to my mother,
She told me it wasn’t a dream,
And that she had seen it,
I was scared,
Closed all the windows,
Tried fighting the dummy air,
But it suddenly started pulling me towards it again,
And I fell down from the bed,
But then I woke up,
And my mother was sleeping beside.

She Didn’t Fly

I put her out of the cage, on my table,
Kept a few grains in front of her,
Hoping she’d eat them,
Or at least fly away,
She didn’t fly.

I thought she’d cherish her freedom,
Dance around for a while,
Then fly into the sky,
Be forever free,
She didn’t fly.

It seemed to me she loved the cage,
Maybe she just loved me,
The cage, her world,
Who’d she fly to?
She didn’t fly.

I learnt that sometimes we nurture,
Thoughts of freedom alike,
But given the chance,
Still hold back and,
Do not fly.

Inevitable

As much as you try, as much as I do,
We both know it’s inevitable,
For it’s already true, it’s already true,
My love for you, indelible.
For the nights bring stars,
Oh they shine so bright,
The heart full of scars,
It cries by the night.

Entrenched my love, what should I do,
Ensconced by the fears of how you’d react,
Gratification, only a delusion,
Which wanes as the morning sun rises.
She asked me once, an innocent face,
How melancholy became the prime ingredient of life,
I told her it was inevitable,
It is sugar to the coffee, some take less, some a lot.

Parsimonious God was when it came to joys,
Did not He want us all to be happy?
Where extravagantly He spent, grooming man’s desolation,
A shrewd move, by Him.
Skirmish between the heart and soul,
Neither claims victory tonight,
For the heart is enervated, too languid to love,
And the soul, too wretched to live.

The Hare and the Tortoise

The hare challenged the tortoise,
To a race to see who’s faster,
The tortoise knew what’d happen,
Yet she still accepted to run,
Her love knew bounds for the hare,
She wished the hare knew that,
But never collected her guts to face him,
And so they were here today.

So on a fine sunny morning,
They decided to run the race,
The hare left his crutches at home,
And came limping to the starting point.
He ran on one leg for an hour or so,
The tortoise walking far behind,
Weeping when she thought how much pain,
The hare constantly endured for her.

When he almost reached the finish point,
The hare decided to sleep for a while,
And whilst he was dreaming of the tortoise,
She almost reached the finishing line.
She saw the hare sleeping,
Tired of running on one foot,
And came and sat beside him,
Dozing off to sleep in a while.

When they woke up, his pain was lesser,
The tortoise had bandaged all his cuts,
“Want to continue the race?” she asked,
They laughed and hugged each other.
For sometimes in the race of life,
Slow, steady, or fast, none matter,
But accepting each for what one is,
And still loving them, matters.

Crumbling

They say absence makes the heart grow fonder,
I know it isn’t so easy,
To be away constantly and not be misunderstood,
Wrong emotions getting conveyed all the time,
Trying to patch up on trivial matters,
Shouting at each other, then reconciling,
It’s difficult.
You feel it crumbling down to pieces,
Brick by brick, stone by stone,
You see the cracks in the wall,
Yet you feel too lazy to fill them up,
And soon these cracks grow large enough.
You can still mend them,
But it will obviously take a lot more time,
And even when rebuilt, it will not be the same,
Just like a thread, which when broken,
Can be joined back, but the knots,
Those knots will always be there,
The thread will never be the same again.
So don’t do it, don’t go far,
Don’t worsen it unless you have to,
For once it crumbles,
Everything mixes with the sand,
Not to be rebuilt again.

If Only

If only I could tell you,
How fairies are real,
How faces can change,
How moons can die,
How love can wither,
How cold the summer is,
How my thoughts are frozen,
How I still love you,
How beautiful you are,
How journeys never end,
How smiles get killed,
How you really didn’t care,
How I wished you did,
How I now don’t care,
How roses blossom,
How the sun never sets,
How warm ice is,
How happy I am,
If only I could tell you.

If only I could tell you,
Why I loved you,
Why night turns to day,
Why so many cry,
Why love doesn’t hurt,
Why I never stopped,
Why that day had come,
Why I still think of it,
Why boys like girls,
Why dogs love men,
Why toys always break,
Why nothing is real,
Why dreams don’t materialize,
Why beggars are kicked,
Why names fade out,
Why sands seeps between fingers,
Why lies are good,
Why bruises don’t hurt,
If only I could tell you.

Forever

As I sieve through the photographs,
Each moment vividly comes up,
And with it another thousand moments,
It’s hurting my head, to realize,
That such moments will never be created again.

Do you remember when I complained once,
That you should stop loving me so much,
Lest I become used to it,
You smiled at me and told me straight,
Take it for as long as you are getting it.
I now realize how true that was,
How none of that will ever happen again,
I miss you, now ever more than before,
And wish you were there beside me,
Forever.

Scandals – Good or Bad?

Scandals are useful because they focus our attention on problems in ways that no speaker or reformer ever could.

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Any morally or legally wrong deed that causes dismay and problems to people can fall under scandals. On one hand where scandals expose to us areas which were earlier unchecked and raises a cause to act proactively against repetition of such acts, not all scandals are ‘good’ in the sense that they would help us in a constructive way. Hence I do not totally agree nor totally disagree with the motion that scandals can substitute in a better way what reforms have tried to do.

Scandals mostly happen when people take advantage of flaws in society, and resort to methods like gossip, hurting of religious sentiments, and defaming by bringing down the reputation of people. For example, let us consider some scandals that happen almost every day in the corporate world. The most prolifically occurring scandals consist of those which include bribery or under-the-table acts between officials and the customers. In such cases, it would not stir a nerve within those who are not affected by it even if speakers continue to preach and explain how it is both morally and legally wrong to accept bribes. However, if an official is caught, and it results in him getting a severe punishment, then probably people would pay more heed to the deed and lesser people would be involved in such cases of bribery later. Another case could be where ministers are actually connected with the mob during rallies and who themselves urge the mob to raise an upheaval, all the while trying to show themselves aloof of it. Such cases of scandal widely happen, yet we will never pay attention to such deeds until they actually happen in front of our eyes and we see the consequences that the people face.

In other cases, however, scandals are far from useful. These mainly include morally binding cases, for example, where people go against their religion in favor for monetary benefits, or where some people are molested by others of the same or different sex. These kinds of scandals are absolutely unnecessary, and the main reason is that everyone of us knows that it is wrong. Proper education and upbringing, and proper reforms taking place can often ameliorate this, and, as the saying goes, prevention is better than cure, we would be better off by not experiencing such kinds of scandals rather than wait for them to happen so that we could learn from them. This is where the job of the reformer plays an important role. If the speaker has good oratory skills, he can specifically point out what problems exist in the society without having us depend on scandals to learn from them.

Hence, the message at the end of the day is that we usually learn the consequences of any type of scandal usually after seeing it firsthand. However, in some cases, knowing what is right and what is wrong, and where the problem lies, beforehand, so that the scandals occur less, speakers and reformers do play an important role in various such cases.

The New ‘Black Rose’

Hello readers! So you must have noticed a few subtle changes in the overall blog, and may have wondered why they were made. This post here is to discuss the changes that have been made in the blog and why they have been done so.

New Blavatar
The blavatar (logo on the blog’s tab and on the left hand of Black Rose) has changed. It now has a white background instead of black. It symbolizes duality in all forms, and that nothing is entirely black, nor entirely white. We need to see both sides to everything, and that will help us realize the true potential within ourselves.

Removal of the Tagline
Over years, the tagline has changed again and again, Black Rose – this, Black Rose – that. However, a change in perspective has led to me believing that Black Rose stands for itself, irrelevant of the tag, irrelevant of what I think it is about, because it depends on what you think it is, and how you connect to it. Each one has his own perspective and hence a no-tagline scheme symbolizes the change where you decide how you connect to this blog.

To Infinity and Beyond
It is a menace to keep clicking show more posts. The new Infinity and Beyond system removes the follow button and stats from the bottom of the blog, allowing you to scroll indefinitely and keep reading as long as you are free. Of course, you can still follow me by clicking on the top bar, beside my blog name. 🙂

No Footers, No Sidebars, No Nothing
Sheer reading. No distractions. No photos from Instagram, no calendars and categories and tag clouds. Nothing. Now use the entire space on your screen only for reading, and sheer reading. Because that is what you came here for.

Removal of the Contact Form
The Contact Me form is no longer available. I realised that most of my readers talk to me, and convey their thoughts through comments on the relevant posts. Hence keeping a separate Contact Me form seemed redundant, and not much used anyway.

Removal of Shaena – the Page
Well, I lost a couple of comments there, but hey, when I was cleaning up my blog I realised, that since most of you have already read the posts and commented on them, there is no point maintaining a separate page for that. Instead, I have archived all the posts together and you can still read them without having to look for them separately here.

Removal of Autumn – the Page
This seemed logical. The extension of the 4-chapter Autumn into a 15-chapter novelette meant a very very long page, and I am almost sure no one has that much of patience when it comes to reading blogs. Taking into consideration the human concentration span, I have converted this into a set of fifteen posts, that is available somewhere under All Posts.

The New Thin One Band Menu
As a result of removal of all the redundancy, we now have a thin one band menu, that takes up minimal space, allowing you to both access important stuff, as well as not get bogged down by its size, so that you can get a better reading satisfaction. 🙂

I hope the new changes in the overall appearance proves more satisfying and that you have a wonderful time reading.
Thank you.

Sand in My Shoes

I remember the evening when we sat on the beach,
Waiting to see the sun set into the seas,
Staying there long after that,
Listening to the rumbling of the waves,
The foaming of it from black to white,
As it touched our feet, you retracting.

I remember you resting blithely on my shoulder,
Humming a tune that I will never forget,
The smell of wet sand, the sea, the saltiness,
The breeze, and all the joys it brought with it,
Earphones plugged in one ear of ours,
Your hair sweeping against my face.

I remember you speaking nonchalantly,
I lost in you, scarcely hearing what you had to say,
You were drowned in your whisky,
And once came this close to kissing me,
But then I turned my head,
And the peck fell on my arm.

We walked on the wet sand, creating footprints,
Sometimes tiptoeing to make children feet,
You sketched out our names in the wet sand,
And stood in front to guard it against the waves,
But the waves did come and wash it away,
And you came back, dripping and laughing.

Was I drunk too? I don’t remember,
But we trudged our way back through the sand,
My shoes were loose, and the sand seeped in,
Making slight bruises on my feet.
I carried you on my back, you were too drunk,
Until we reached the end of the beach.

Sand in my shoes, today they fall off,
I’ve washed them so that they no more remind me,
Of that evening when we promised to each other,
So many things that will never be kept,
But sometimes when I think of happiness that used to be,
I remember the evening when we sat on the beach.

The Alchemist

She sat in her workshop, night after night,
Testing her mettle against all adversaries,
She had a strong faith in her ideals,
And set to put her beliefs into action.
She knew one day she’d invent something,
That the world would remember her for,
Which would prevent millions from dying,
And make the world a happier place.
People told her she was wasting time,
Cancer couldn’t be just removed,
But she thoroughly persevered, day after day,
Trying to make the correct antidote.

But after months of work, when nothing turned out,
She started losing hope, bit by bit,
Thinking maybe the others were right,
That all this was simply a folly.
She was doing an experiment, when all of a sudden,
She bumped her hand against a bottle of acid,
It fell into an iron rod, all rusty and old,
And lo, in moments, it turned into gold.
She was an alchemist now, she knew,
That so many people had wanted to become,
And if one myth could be achieved so easily,
So could another, she continued, she worked.

Should You Go Ahead?

Educational institutions have a responsibility to dissuade students from pursuing fields of study in which they are unlikely to succeed.

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The role of educational institutions in the life of any student is very crucial, because they form the base for the career and livelihood of each person. In the light of this, it would be quite unjustified to claim that educational institutions should dissuade students from studying subjects based only on guessing and assumption that the student might not be successful in it. There are a number of reasons why this is not truly a responsibility of any institution.

Firstly, the word success is a very vague term. People define success in a variety of ways. Sometimes, a person taking a subject only for sheer interest even though it has nothing to do with his professional career might think himself to be successful if he thoroughly enjoys what he is learning. This is one of those cases where the educational institution might not be at a position to judge whether or not the student is likely to succeed in the course. Apart from this, there might be a number of cases where the institution might misinterpret other reasons to conclude that a student is unlikely to succeed. In my view, only when we are absolutely not interested in something do we start demotivating ourselves against a particular subject. Consider a situation where a particular teacher does not have much communicative skills and is unable to express his views clearly on a subject matter. The student would obviously face much trouble and might not score well in tests; however this does not mean that the student would be consistently bad at the subject because he is not interested. For all we know, he might have really scored well if he were tutored by someone else.

More importantly, in the formation years as a student, he should be allowed to see all possible directions in which he can pursue his career and future life. Outright dissuasion at the primitive stage might be one of the biggest blunders that an institution can make. There are numerous examples from history as well as day-to-day life where students realize their areas of interest much later in life, probably somewhere between their high school and undergrad. Saying that a student should not be taught Science and be dissuaded against becoming an engineer only because he scored less in his middle school is outrageously meaningless. It should be at the discretion of the student to see what he likes, and whether he can carry on with what he thinks is his area of interest, or if he should change to another field depending on his consistent degradation of interest in a particular field. I have seen people who took up a course, failed miserably in the initial stages, yet ended up being one of the best students in the branch. This only shows that students need time for their own analysis, and that they shouldn’t be cut off by the institution rules.

To ameliorate the scenario in which a student is not succeeding in a particular field, institutions, instead of dissuading them, should provide them simultaneously with alternatives. Many universities provide elective subjects which are not related to a person’s field of study. However, some of these might groom the student in other aspects and help him become a more successful person. For example, if institutions find that a certain student might succeed more in management rather than engineering, they could provide him with an extra course on a management subject, say Human Resource Management or Organizational Behavior, and take feedback from the student as to how it helped him.

In conclusion, though educational institutions play a very important role in the students’ life and have a number of responsibilities towards them in order to shape and groom their life, dissuading them against subjects which they are not likely to succeed in seems a bad option because at the end of the day, it is the student’s life and he should have control on what he studies and what he doesn’t, and what he considers to be a successful venture.

A Romantic Poem

I want to write a romantic poem,
One which has princes and princesses,
Write about a lot of love between them,
Which finally culminates into their marriage.
Or maybe about the romance of two,
Simple ordinary people from the streets,
How they met as strangers and fell in love,
And how happy they are today.

Or, how about the romance, the unkindled love,
Between two first-time lovers,
The inexperience, and the excitement,
The feeling of having loved the first time.
But no, I won’t write of all this,
Far too many poems already speak of that,
Maybe I’ll talk of other kinds of romance,
Those that are less spoken about.

I want to write a romantic poem,
But this isn’t quite turning out to be one,
Other than the romance between mind and words,
Which no one seems to care about.
So I’ll probably stop writing now,
Unromantic that I already am,
Leaving romantic poems to better poets,
And maybe go and have a nap.

Stranded – 2

Read the first part in Stranded – 1.

She looked at him, he was still drinking,
He hadn’t said a word in the past three hours,
Wondered how terse he had become,
And wondered whether he even loved her anymore.
The blood on his face had dried to black,
A stream of it from his forehead to chin,
She remembers how that had splashed on his face,
And the axe that he used to kill him.

The boy who was waiting on him came up later,
And told them they needed to pay for the ale,
She explained how their money had been stolen,
How they had been robbed of everything as they came.
He went back to his mistress, explained everything,
The wench was ruthless, she didn’t care,
Came up and slapped her on both her cheeks,
That was the last time the wench ever breathed.

As night fell upon them, they decided to sleep,
Shared the hay that the horse in the stable slept on,
She talked to him about love and hopes,
About the children that she planned to have,
The things she had ruminated on while he drank,
He listened intently, or so he pretended,
Until a point when he dozed off,
Leaving her to herself, still talking intently.

When the sun next rose, the girl woke up,
And as she rubbed her eyes and faced his side,
Lo, her love was nowhere to be seen,
Nor was the horse, the stable gates open.
She leaped up and started running,
Never missing the footsteps the horse left behind,
But after some hours she realized her folly,
Sat down where she stood, and wept out loud.

She learned that day what love was about,
How it seldom stood against the face of adversity,
How people changed, and did not realize,
And how love like all things eventually came to an end.
Her love knew no bounds, then why was she,
Alone today, in despair and turmoil?
Stranded she sat, amidst the sand,
Which would bury her into itself, come tonight.

Stranded – 1

They reached the city gates, hand in hand,
The guards looking at them melancholically,
He choked on his voice, but bravely enough,
Asked them to open the gates for them.
The guard’s eyes met with those of the girl,
All lachrymal, trying to rub off her tears,
Her eyes looked into his and a moment later,
Her vision buried into the sands below.

Then a screech of the gates, and a toll of the bell,
Made it known to one and all,
That the two would remain unwelcome as long,
As they drew breath from this world.
They limped out slowly, eyes forever on each other,
Neither knew what stood against them,
For the sands of time were running loose off their hands,
Nothing perennial in their lives anymore.

Save he, the girl had nowhere to go,
Or to see, or talk, or wail loudly,
But he seemed disheartened, became laconic,
Owned brevity in speech, in thoughts, and smiles.
Once she thought she was in love,
But that sentiment was only ephemeral,
And withered like leaves that fall off in autumn,
Never getting to see another spring.

Their hands had the mark of the city they came from,
And no one else would take them in,
So they walked by day and they walked by night,
Until they came by a petite inn.
As he drank his ale, she thought about him,
How their lives had changed for just one decision,
She thought of the evening when her hands was bloodied,
The blood never washing out, the oceans turning red.

She remembered how she had pleaded at first,
Explaining to her father that it wasn’t her fault,
Telling him how much she had fallen in love,
How she tried not to do so, but all in vain.
She remembered how she had been tied,
Beaten up till her skin almost came off,
She touched her bruises and almost instantly,
A tear silently fell into her wine.

Read the next part in Stranded – 2.

How Cities Reflect Society

“To understand the most important characteristics of a society, one must study its major cities.”

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One of the most important factors that defines a society is the variety within it. A society is not composed of people all from the same background, or following the same practices, and hence it is important to appreciate the variety in a society. Studying the major cities of any society can in this case prove very powerful in understanding what the major principles are that drive the society together.

A person is, to a large extent, defined by the region in which he lives and grows up. For example, in India, people who hail from the northern states differ in many characteristics from people who hail from the southern or eastern states. This is because through generations, different cultures have been imbibed in people. Nonetheless, studying major cities can help a lot, and the reason is this: People from all areas usually flock to the major cities of a society. Hence, if we pick up ten random people in a major city, it is highly probable that they actually belong to different areas of the society and show variegated traits depending on where they come from, for example, in the food they eat, or the clothes they wear. Also, it is important to remember that there will be some characteristics that will always remain uniform throughout all of them. For example in India, irrespective of where you hail from, touching the feet of elders is a sign of respect towards them. In Korea, bowing low is a custom that everyone practises, irrespective of which area they come from. Such habits are universal for everyone in the society, and so a major city could help us in noticing this.

However, every major city is not alike in all perspectives, and these small differences can help in knowing about the nitty-gritty details about the society. For example, the architecture of different cities can help us deduce the overall mentality that persists in a place. Open-minded people, for example, reflect their mentality in houses by building spacious constructions. Another example that comes to my mind is food. The staple diet of different major cities can help us know a lot about the people and the kind of livelihood that they have. For example, in an area with heavy rain, it is more common to see people consuming rice, compared to wheat. Hence, we might see people who are more active than others simply based on their diet. This is important because learning to recognize people according to where they hail from might be helpful in many cases. For example, if a person wants to open an agricultural industry, he would profit more if he hired people belonging to a particular area.

We might also find many differences within the same city. For example, there might be posh areas within the city, and slums on the outskirts. Learning the sentiments between these people, and whether or not religion plays a role in these sentiments, can play a major role in understanding any society. A secular society might at times face dominance by a certain set of people. Hence the different religions also play an important role. This is particularly visible in major cities where people from all parts of the society flock and work together, and it might be interesting to observe the amount of cooperation and competition between various sets of people.

Sometimes, major cities also impact the individual. Many preconceived notions of individuals are broken, and they themselves realize what their society has to offer them. Hence, it is not unusual to find radical changes in an individual after shifting to a major city. To conclude, I would agree with the fact that though major cities might not give an entire outlook, they succeed in giving a rough overview of the society. Studying its major cities can therefore help in understanding the similarities and differences between different sets of people, and how the society overall impacts the individual.

How Bad is Technology?

As people rely more and more on technology to solve problems, the ability of humans to think for themselves will surely deteriorate.

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Technology has proved to be the most important pillar on which the world resides today. However, as of everything, technology comes with its boons and banes. To say that relying on it to solve problems would decrease the human ability to think would be too extreme to be correct, and at the same time, it is not entirely wrong either. There are several instances where indeed the use of technology has led to people becoming completely dependent on it, but at the same time, there are many other instances where human thinking has not deteriorated by technology.

If we take a look at the current trend of communication and technology, lots of people today own a smartphone, which, by far, has impaired human thinking the most. One perspective that supports this is that millions of people depend on how the application developer thinks. We could take the calculator for an example. It is not unusual to see people using their calculators for even the simplest of calculations. Thus, technology has made the human lazier than before. He refuses to think because he has at his dispense a machine that can do the thinking for himself. Consequently, we waste a lot of time using the benefits of technology for very trivial operations.

On the other hand, there are numerous instances where technology has in fact complemented human thinking, or at the least, has had no effect on human thinking. For example, transportation would not have existed without technology. Human thought as to how to make it more intuitive, for example, learning to make airplanes streamlined by observing the structures of aerial creatures, or the submarine by seeing the anatomy of fishes, certainly shows that the ability to think has in fact increased manifold. Yet it saves huge amounts of time for us, helping us in working constructively without wasting much time in transit. Communication is yet another area where technology has indeed proved helpful and has not impaired human thinking. In fact, it has boosted human thinking to achieve better communication methods, which we can see if we compare the technologies of today such as Wireless, Bluetooth and mobile communication to those about two decades before.

Technology also helps us in conceptualizing numerous things in a more visual way, helping in effective human interaction. Without technology, many concepts which were in blueprint earlier, would never have been materialized. We can see this clearly from the numerous blueprints made during the era of Da Vinci, and how so many of them have been realized lately. Also, with the increase of technology, people now have much more free time to innovate for themselves, so that they can come up with new solutions, and they also have time to lead their lives more peacefully, by leaving the work to machines, which in some cases, proves beneficial, because of the fact that a machine is less prone to making errors, unlike humans, who tend to make errors when they are tired or have more than one thing on their mind.

To conclude, though it might be true in a small number of cases, the areas where technology boosts human thinking exceeds by large. Hence the advent of technology cannot be considered to deteriorate human thinking.

Does It?

Do you still wake up the same way like you did,
When you were in India?
Does the sun still share its light the same way,
Like it does in India?
Do the trees still shed leaves in autumn like they did,
When they were in India?
Do people still talk about love and hope,
Like they did in India?
Do you still exchange gifts in Id, like you did,
When you were in India?
Do they still look the same, like they did,
When they were in India?
How does it feel different then?
Pray tell me, what is different?
Does not the moon shine bright at night,
Do not the fields grow crops anymore?
Does not the rooster still crow in the morning,
And does not the smoke come out of chimneys?
What has changed then, how are you different?
Does it not pain when your loved ones leave,
Does it not hurt to give birth to a child,
Are you not loved by your neighbors anymore?
What has changed, how is it different?
Do you still get the smell of wet mud,
When it rains in India?
Do you still hear the shouts of Holi,
Do you still see the lights at Diwali,
Do you?
How is it different then, than what it was,
Pray tell me, I don’t understand.
Why do you fight now, when you didn’t fight then,
Why do you, what has changed?

*inspired from the song ‘Husna’ by Piyush Mishra*

The Mendicant

He looks at me with his silent eyes,
Asks me for some money so that he could live his day,
But how can I give him when I have so less,
Wouldn’t I spend it on myself?
No, there are others who would feed him,
And I am sure he lived yesterday without me,
And so he will live today as well.
But I hope everyone doesn’t think so,
Because if tomorrow I don’t see him,
Wouldn’t I blame myself for it?
No, the others are equally to blame.
He looks at me with his silent eyes,
A child in his hand, whose eyes remain closed,
I have never seen it cry, is it dead already?
Does he carry that to gain sympathies?
Why doesn’t the baby cry?
All babies cry, why doesn’t this,
Did the crying disturb him so much,
That he took its life, yet refused to part with it?
Only yesterday I saw someone giving him some clothes,
Yet even today he wears those ragged,
Did he throw them away, no he wouldn’t,
Who might have taken them from him?
Who does he work for, what does he do,
A mendicant he dresses, but who is he?
Is he one of those who works undercover,
Looking for the right person to kill,
Or is he a puppet whose strings are taut,
Being pulled all the while by someone else?
He looks at me with his silent eyes,
And hopes I would know what he means.

The Unsaid

Beneath the wry smiles,
That lights up your face,
There is something unsaid,
That you’ve kept secret.
Beneath those blue eyes,
That never get moist,
There is something unsaid,
That you’ve never shed.
When no one’s around,
No one but me,
You’ve tried wearing masks,
I’ve often seen you thus.
You’ve tried to hide it,
And still let it out,
What do you want,
Whom do you love.
Don’t misinterpret me,
Today I might be still,
But deep down in my heart,
You know my will.
Beneath my jokes,
Beneath all the fun,
There is something unsaid,
Which only I know.
For when the sun sets,
For when the moon is up,
No one sees in the dark,
How your hands are cupped.
You muffle into them,
Cry a little sometimes,
Think about the past,
Think about the present.
Broken words,
Incomplete thoughts,
Incoherent talks,
Nostalgic sniffs,
I’ve heard them all,
I’ve seen them all,
Inside that heart of yours,
There is a lot unsaid.
You’ve smiled so much,
I wonder how much is true,
Won’t you tell me why,
You do this to yourself?
I’ve seen your hands,
I’ve seen the wounds,
How was your past?
Don’t you think I care?
Today I might be quiet,
Because others pry,
But when we are alone,
I will ask you why.
Will you tell me the truth then,
Or weave up another lie,
To keep from me everything,
Everything that is unsaid?

The Forgotten

He had inscribed her name on the barks of that tree,
Which has long been felled and a new shrub sits there,
Tell me then, now that her name’s there no more,
Has she been forgotten like the others as well?
When I was young, my father had asked me,
Don’t trees shed their leaves in autumn here,
Just like they shed in their country?
I knew I could tell no lies, and what I should have said,
But do you remember what I told him?
I told him, there are no trees there, father,
Only corpses hanging from the branches of things,
Which once bore leaves, now only bear blood.

Have they been forgotten, every single one of them,
Who made us into what we are today?
I ask you to serenade each and every one of them,
Lest they be forgotten like a stranded island,
Where no one would set foot, but for the likes of us.
But those not human, those like the birds,
Who care not what the island offers,
Impartially they visit, looking for the same things everywhere,
Do you know what we should learn from them?
We should have one goal, only one, towards humanity,
Not towards you, or me, or ourselves as a whole,
But to this world, to this world where we belong.

Let me tell you a story of the forgotten,
Do you remember the people who sailed long ago,
Only to tell us stories of the life this world had to offer?
Do you think they did it for themselves,
Dying in the sun, the storms, the seas and the gales?
I rather think not, but do you remember how they looked,
How they talked and how they craved for their families?
How their wives and children had wailed at their return,
Only to see them not breathing no more.
So let’s promise to ourselves, each one to himself,
And each one to herself, let’s promise to ourselves,
That we’d do something, something greater than the sky.

Or we’d be forgotten like them.

Sunshine on Her Forehead

Through the tiny slit between the curtains,
That blocks her from the outside for most of the day,
Two tiny rays of sunshine slither through,
And fall on her forehead, making a tiny yellow moon.
She knows when the rains come pouring,
A pitter-patter on the windows,
She cannot smell the wet mud outside,
Nor see the birds fly back to their nests.

Sunshine on her forehead, she smiles,
A face of glee forever overshadowing,
Her life of plight that she has carefully masked,
Against day, against night, and against herself.
She dreams of a day when she’d go outside,
She sees her father, his hands wide apart,
She runs to him, and embraces him dearly,
But alas! Then she wakes up.

She doesn’t know how her story will end,
Whether her hero would rescue her,
She dreams of people who are blind like her,
And tells them to be patient, in her thoughts.
She walks up to the door sometimes,
But there are no latches on the inside,
She wonders who locked her up here,
But alas! Then she wakes up.

Sometimes when she sees the slit,
Between the curtains turn to a shade of black,
She knows it is night, and that she must sleep,
Yet never her eyes close, endlessly she stares.
She doesn’t remember the last time she cried,
She wants to wail, tears betray her,
She covers her face with the pillow she has,
It smells of her, she hasn’t known any other.

Yet next morning, when the sunshine,
Draws a tiny moon on her forehead again,
She feels a wetness in her eyes,
And tries hard to cover it with her smile.
She knows this could go on forever,
And wishes she had been dead long ago,
But she promises to herself she’d live through it,
And show to the day another black night.

The Point of No Return

Don’t push him,
To the point of no return,
Quiescence though might prevail now,
The storms will rise with tumultuous waves,
And you won’t succeed in stopping him then,
So don’t push him,
To the point of no return.

He balances on a rope and walks on a leg,
His master drumming nonchalantly below,
Everyone’s eyes up at the sky,
Looking at him with penchant glimpses,
Whilst the tears from his eyes never stop running,
And rains down on them,
Evaporating before they reach their skins.

You’ll elope with him at the stroke of midnight,
To a faraway land of striped zorses and unicorns,
Did you ask him if he is happy?
No, don’t push him,
To the point of no return.
For when he turns, and when he strikes,
You’d be helpless like a sheep amongst wolves,
Do you know what happens to sheep amongst wolves?
No, you don’t, so don’t push him,
To the point of no return.

The Night We Fought

Have you forgotten me completely, have you,
Or do behind those new walls you made,
You still sniff into your handkerchief,
And sometimes at night cry for me?
The night we fought, oh, our last fight,
I have not forgotten that, however petty it was,
It was my fault, I should have apologized,
But stupid as I was, I didn’t.
And where did that lead me, do you see,
Tonight I write about you,
Keep thinking of you, and of the things we did,
About the night we laughed, about the night we cried.

Do you think I could correct myself,
By undoing an array of things right from the beginning?
I bet that would take a lot of effort,
Breaking each new wall that you have made.
But that would simply not be enough,
Because before that, a lot needs to be done,
I need to break the walls I built as well,
The ones where I made small windows,
That I could hold to and gaze at the stars at night,
Thinking about the life we led,
Trying to decide between letting it go as it goes,
Or leaping to behold the flying kite.

Moving ahead in life, forgetting our past,
Has always been simple for me and for you,
But holding on to it, that is tough you know,
And I think maybe, just maybe, you will stay,
The others I will all lose, slowly one by one,
We will make it through this, I promise you,
I have faced fiercer storms and haven’t sunk yet,
May be my boat can face one last storm,
Before it gets to the shore on the other end,
Before I finally leave it ashore and walk on the sands,
Holding hands with those the night I fought with.

A Sultry Afternoon

I sat in the main hall, flicking through the channels on the television to see if there was anything worth watching at that time of the day. It was unusual for me to stay awake in the afternoon, most of my family prefers a short nap in the afternoon so that they can continue with their work in the evening more efficiently, and so the house was always usually silent, except for the persistent sound that the tap water made on the base of the sink, “Tip, tip, tip.” But after years of hearing that, I had kind of become immune to that sound, just like the chirps of the sparrows who came thirsty, quenching their thirst from the small bowl kept in the balcony during summers.

After a while I switched off the television, went to the kitchen, scanned the refrigerator for food, scanned all the cupboards for anything that would take more than five minutes to eat, then realized that I was not hungry at all, and came back, sat down and switched on the television again. I had to keep it at a low volume, not wanting anyone to wake up from their deep slumbers on some stupid songs or probably a wrestling match, neither of which was on television then though. I looked through the window and there was a mynah near the bowl of water. I tried to open the balcony door ever so slowly so that it wouldn’t fly away, but the screech of the door gave way to its suspicions that I would grab it and probably eat it right there and then, and it fluttered away almost instantaneously. I stood in the balcony for a while, the sun on my face, causing small drops of sweat to trickle down my spine, but I had to be there. The plants needed water, or they would die.

When I looked up at the sky, the clouds were turning black. It would rain soon, it seemed. The bear cloud was gnarling at the mouse cloud, and the dragon cloud stood still where it was. Then in a moment, the bear turned into a woman looking down on the earth, whilst the mouse turned its face towards the dragon. A dragon that would breathe out water, I thought, muffling my hair clumsily as a girl walked by on the street opposite. And then the wind started to blow, swaying the thinner trees so that they almost kissed the ground, many of their leaves falling on the ground and swirling up into the sky like a tornado. The smell of wet mud arose from the garden beside and the dogs ran inside the buildings, whilst the pigeons started flocking into the big tree opposite. I turned back and went inside, closing the door so that the dust wouldn’t turn in. I have always been fascinated by the dust, they seem to me a way nature teaches us the value of memories, and how we sweep both of them out at some point in our lives.

Slowly, the dust settled down, back to the ground from where it rose. The rain helped it cool down, get down to where it was, and taught us that we cannot fly for more than was intended for us. At some point, we need to go back to where we started, and restart the process, over and over again. The sky had no dragons anymore, the black being replaced by white, and the grey with a blue, which would soon turn red and then black. I had always been intrigued by the various colors that the skies could assume, depending on other factors. It taught me how we should sometimes succumb to the circumstances around us, and become a little more complaisant, without bearing any grudges. For come morning, the blackness would wither out again, giving way to fresh dew, the chirps of birds, and a light to guide us through the rest of the day. And depend on it we must.

Blue

You turned into an owl, hooting and screeching,
All the while trying to tell me something,
My ears dilated, trying to grasp the words,
The tune of the song that you tried to sing.
Was it yesterday, or the day before,
When like an eagle you flew,
Soaring into the skies then swooping down on me,
Nibbling my eyes until they turned blue?

I had the face of a deer, you were the lion,
And I ran as fast as I could,
But I couldn’t outrun you, we knew that well,
And suddenly you overtook and in front of me stood.
The blue of the sky submerged into the waters,
The ripples as the breeze swayed it,
The leaves that I chewed, and you my flesh,
As the sun rose and the sky was yellow lit.

When I looked into the blue waters,
The ripples distorted the face I had,
I looked like a wolf, and smelled blood around,
And the air around was quiet and sad.
Then I pounced on you, and devoured you,
Chew you until the last morsel,
But all the while, you only smiled,
What would happen of us, only time could tell.

Though blood did ooze out from both of us,
My hands were painted with the color blue,
You weren’t of this world, this world knew red,
Pray tell me then, who were you?
For the dream may be untrue, for all I know,
And the things it showed might be undone,
But when the truth would sting us in the dark of night,
Pray tell me, where would we run?