A maiden's desire

Rainbow dream

The Kiss

My rendition of Gustav's 'The Kiss' which influenced Picasso to paint his own version of it.

The nightmares

Once upon a time there was a man, who lived in a small village. The village was an abode of wild savages, of course they all had different ranks and statuses, some were rich and vicious others poor and dishonest, but the fact remained that they were all savages! Blood thirsty, uncouth, greedy and rather proud of their ways. This village of savages was invaded by a group of wicked white ghosts, who were mean and crafty. They enslaved the savages and trained them to be good slaves through their craft. The man I mentioned above had a genetic mutation and turned into a lofty and noble man. But after this metamorphosis that occurred one night he realized that he had to save his fellow villagers. The plight of the poor got his eyes misty. One night he had a dream, he saw a village, that’s filled with his fellow villagers, they were all free, happy and had abandoned their depraved rituals. He saw a prosperous village which was model for all the other villages in the jungle. The next morning he woke up and conjured up such a spell that would cast the mean white ghosts away. Of course he had to fight with the ghosts they were highly skilled and knew their craft very well. Some of the unfortunate villagers who had grown so accustomed to their servile ways thought the man an anarchist and threw stones at him for being ungrateful.  Some denounced him on the grounds that since he didn’t worship the religion of hypocrisy and greed he’s not even one of them. But these allegations had no impact on the man, he’s resolved and refused to give in! He believed in his dream of peace and harmony. At length, the noble man was able to drive the crafty white ghosts away, with his sagaciousness. But he was unaware of the enemies he’d formed within the village. On the surface the villagers were grateful but in their hearts they resented the old man and wanted to kill him, and so they did! So uncanny was this murder that no one knew. They formed a constitution to fulfill old man’s dream in the reverence of his memory. Of course that never happened, years after years passed, calamities befell on that village, and they reverted back to their old ways. But to keep the beacon of his dream burning they gathered under the trees, behind the bushes and accused each other and powers of the wicked wizard of west who’s trying to take their village away and challenge their sovereignty.  So the dream became a fairytale that mothers told their children at night. Like the shoe fits Cinderella, frog turns into a prince, the princess is saved by the knight, and so, this village presented a picture of peace, freedom and civilization. The sad part is fairytales don’t come true, it’s the other stuff that always come true the one which begins with people dying of hunger, throngs killing teenagers and enjoying it and corrupted leaders gouging public money! The nightmares.

Mulligans

In the game of golf an informal player is often granted a second chance to improve the shot, it’s called a mulligan. Sometimes life gives us the same chance, to take another shot at things, which it has offered before, perhaps to improve or achieve what we haven’t been able to in the past. But I couldn’t help wondering, if what we wanted in the past, wasn’t really what we needed in the first place? I know the sentence makes but a little sense. My whole life has been a story of second and third chances, not that I could’ve not achieve it, if I really intended, but I was ambivalent about things and it took me time to make up my mind and by the time I’d done that, the train had left the station, but no regrets. A boy’s dream is always to see his father proud and approve of him, so has been mine. I always felt that; I was being compared to this or that cousin of mine in the family. My father had a dream, to see me as a doctor one day, clichéd I know, quite contrary to any field what I’d have chosen for myself, I perused his dream anyway, but somewhere along the line I lost all mine, of course I never became a doctor, but somewhere down this path of abstinence, I found myself. As the time passed, so did his constant mentions of my cousin joining the med line and becoming a doctor, it got me wondering perhaps he’d have been his son instead of me. During the course of time, however, this whole second chance thing got me thinking that even if I were given a chance to become a doctor, I wouldn’t! because it is not my calling. But few days back when my father introduced me to his friends and the pride he felt in introducing me for being merely his son got me thinking perhaps one doesn’t need second chances to get the approval of their loved ones. Rather it’s following your own heart and coming to yourself that matters the most. I cannot speak for you all, but it certainly has for me.

Say it right!

One thinks years and years of experience would actually let one know, how to, and what to say at the right time, but alas no! It’s not like I can’t tell right from wrong but there are moments when I feel like telling the other person ‘just shut up’ or ‘get out of my face’ but the common courtesy and growing up just thwarts me to act in such a manner. Of course, considering ajj kay halat when every teen is a fine copy of American liberalism ( of course without they knowing what they are representing, because they are just being ‘cool’ or following the fad) I hear nonsense all the time, girls calling each other bitches or guys calling each other dogs, assholes , mo’fucker ad infinitum. To be honest, I have no issues with they calling each other whatever they deem right, but how in this macrocosm do you tell them they are barking up the wrong tree when they try to pull a similar trick on you? Do you respond politely and tell them to buzz off, or do you simply ignore them? I had similar situation in my freshman when a nineteen year old tried to pull up a trick of the simple sort, I was completely mortified and in retrospect, it’d have been better to punch him right in his audacious face, but I moved on and ignored him. But this very question still irritates me sometimes, why can’t I be extreme obnoxious to person when I want to? Who’s obviously being horrible…and what’s the terrible Punjabi theater kay jokes! So kitschy and redundant…just to bring this post home, I am going to leave you guys with a thought, it’s not that I am uptight or self righteous, but some things are part of our culture and I like those things, etiquettes and manners for one are the things I hope to carry forward in my life and if that makes me old school, so be it! At least, I know how to say it right!

Love matters?

They think being proposed to maybe the highest form of flattery and it may be so…what if before embarking on a relationship one feels a thwart. I remember making fun of the movie ‘the runaway bride’ ; about a woman who’d a phobia of getting married, and I often thought for a movie maybe it’s a good story but in real life perhaps this can’t be! But in my experience of years, I haven’t been able to commit, not even once! The minute people begin to come to close, I move away… The second someone says the most common place sentence in the world ‘ I love you’ I respond immediately, ‘but I don’t feel the same way, I thought we’re just friends’. I have rather undertaken a journey of celibacy without even knowing it. Some of my every close friend, think that I lack the very organ that makes one fall in love, that maybe so but I couldn’t help but think that is it so important to fall in love and have kids and get married. Perhaps the pressure of society is more on women but men in this society are not left alone too. The constant questions of this ‘deviant behavior’ is often badgering, must everyone follow the models set by the society? Besides who is to say, in what form and when ‘love’ might come one’s way. It also makes me wonder is it mere a myth or something real. Is it something one ought to do? like getting graduated, getting a job and getting married? My only consolation in this context is that most of the people in this part of the world are neither graduated nor employed…If this deviant behavior is acceptable by the society then people like me, who stand on the shores of love and never take a dip to soak themselves may also be!