Zeitgeist?? # 35, # 36 And # 37 Random Musings For The Day

Is today's "shout out to be heard" world not really for introverts and shrinking wall flowers  ???......

Is a pretty face a prerequisite for a singer or can the voice outshine everything else???

A post on Susan Boyle and her acidic reception on Britain's got Talent on a blog I visited got me thinking.....

Does character assault and bullying start at kindergarten??

Yesterdays - At The O.T

Oblivious to all, pain and blood…she lay, her wounds being sutured, her right leg amputated below her knees…a journey, fending off robbers of her gold chain, a fall from a speeding train…and the volleyball player's dream lay shattered on the tracks. Right now, blissfully unaware of the blame game and aspersions cast on her story.

He was dying; he knew it as did the surgeons…..the woman on the plastic chair looked distraught and scared. A freak accident, her fault. Nobody told her, opening the car rear doors in a busy street could cause a biker a bleeding, painful end. She mulled their fate as those moments passed before her eyes.

They held hands, hope in their speaking eyes, prayer on their silent lips….they shared a loss neither regretted; their husbands shared more than a common affliction. They would be sharing theirs spouses kidney swapped. An uncommon exchange, perfect matches among then strangers.  A difficult sacrifice, would theirs better halves have done the same for them?

Xanthippe Widow

Image courtesy Claude Renault

She stood in the doorway, a creased face, paan stained red lips and a perpetual frown on the face….

A scowl said that I was standing in her way….She grumbled at "today’s kids" and their lack of traditional values….Funny, she should consider a 30 something one…

My friend was irritated at the stooping old woman as she walked fast for her age, despite her cane.

We made our way to the temple, there she was, the one I bumped into…she reprimanded me for not covering my head… I laughed and informed her that in our community only widows of old wore them that way….

Her eyes watered and she slunk away without taking her evening meal, the free Prasadam offered to the devotees.

 I felt guilty, the price of having a nagging voice in the head that enjoyed lecturing to my discomfort.

Back at the cottage I questioned the caretaker about her as she swept the verandah…

Married off at 12, send to live with her in-laws and absentee husband at 14, widowed at 17, the childless, now, 70 year old thrown out of her marital home a year later for being unlucky…Vrindavan had been her haven for the past five decades…

Doing odd jobs, eating at temples, spending the night at the cottage premises…she had it lucky than many others out in the temple town or other places…

Time and people had made her what she was today….and yet she blamed no one but her bad karma for a life without a husband… ironic that mine was alive and yet not a part of my life anymore and nobody seemed (well who am I kidding) bothered by it.

Life for a poor widow in rural India is often a nightmare…the woman’s life marked by the father, husband and then son…she on her own had no voice, no freedom, no rights, no dreams, no hopes…

Long after I boarded the train back to the safety of my home…her face and her story haunted my thoughts….till today…hopefully, the voice won’t nag me about her anymore….

*Xanthippe : nagging, peevish, ill - tempered woman

 344 words to be made into 500

Valiant Spirit

"Akshay" meaning
 'Eternal, immortal, indestructable

 a short post on my nephew  akshay who celebrated his  first birthday last week…he is just one of the thousands of babies born everyday, you might say…but he is special not just because he is my Brother’s kid but because of the fact that he is a fighter to the core…

He was born too early, almost two months before time…a premature baby whose first home after his mother’s comforting womb was the incubator….he was not alone, more than enough company but that doesn’t take away the pain, the fear, the worry, the heartache watching a tiny baby with more tubes than his tender body could hold, more medicines than an adult can withstand….

The thrill of hearing him cry, the joy of seeing the relief on his parents' face when he was certified as healthy enough to be taken home, the satisfaction at seeing him grow slowly, millimetre by millimetre, Grams by grams is something one can only experience…

The picture at the side belies the trauma this sweet angel of ours underwent at a nascent stage of his hopefully long, healthy, happy life. His smile, mischievous ways, tantrums belies the struggles, making them a distant memory best carpeted…

Unstable Undetected??

Glances here, there, everywhere


pain, heartache never ending, relentless...






A brewing storm, clutching at ribs,


Dragon's fire - belching bolts


the heart asunder.


 dull eyes, shimmer less gaze,


blank stares, sees no face


tethering on the edge, 


thin line divides


sanity and craze.






Bright lights invisible


to all save one


pulls on, farther away.


mind craves, falters, yields to


the cold caress of light and dark in turn


echoing laughter off the wall, rebounds.






Flowing torrent as sudden as death,


dim recognition fails, gone for now,


 in the blink of an eye.