Redefining Horizons

Life’s Travelator Once again I was at the swanky airport, yet again on another official outing. The alarmist that I am, as usual I was at the airport well before two hours. With no luggage other than an over-nighter, check in was a very brief affair. I picked up a coffee and walked to the waiting area near the departure gate. This is one place I love. Stepping back from life waiting and watching people or reading, I am normally detached from my surroundings and take flights on the wings of my thoughts. I also watch people posturing and sending non verbal messages to those around. It is a world of make believe, both of making oneself believe what one wants to believe in and making others believe what one wants others to believe. It is a kaleidoscopic display of egos I get to witness. Normally I come out having learnt something or the other. This time was different. Few days ago, I had managed to spend some time with a friend of mine. She was in her late seventies and ...

Reading the Bible and understanding what it means to us in our daily lives, gives us an insight into how the Bible truly impacts our outlook to life. Most of us read the Bible as a daily ritual that we are likely to have grown up with.I was also brought up on a daily dose of compulsory Bible reading.  As a child, when at home from hostel, I always woke up to a dreaded “morning session” of prayers forced upon me by my father. Evening sessions that I had to go through were elongated and tormented versions of the morning experience, with sleep painfully weighing down my eyelids. Each session typically commenced with a reading, selected through the principle of “random opening” of the Holy book. A hymn selected, based on the prevailing mood, followed the reading. My father then led us in prayers and my siblings and I chorused. The entire process was painfully slow in its progress and intense in discomfort for me. My focus, while reading and singing, was on getting over with...

Dad, me, you just don’t try to understand Desperate my daughter, as the situation, I try to understand Against me in my way, why I find you, I don’t understand World’s ways at least now, you need to understand Those little frowns and smiles, I could understand Without words, your needs I could always understand Fleeting time I feel, I failed to understand My little girl, a charming lady, I didn’t understand Your little eyes, once I could always read and understand Angels and demons, your dreams, then I could understand Clinging to my chest, your sleep I could easily understand Your need to be cuddled, by looks I could then understand You were trying to walk, I could easily understand Why I had to hold you always, never fully I could understand You were just teething, from books I could understand Why night long your mom and I cried, I still don’t understand It was just a passing fever, from the doc, I could understand Why your mom ...

That is how I define mankind.  May be I can qualify it a bit. Insecurity Driven.  I am convinced that we are driven more, by our insecurity than by the secure existence we enjoy, both resultant of individual perceptions. Our perception driven insecurities propel us to do what we do and plan to do. More often than not, we dissect our yesterdays, fantasize our tomorrows and miss out our todays.   Each human being perceives life differently. Sitting in their safe cocoons unfettered by perceptions of insecurity, most see life with their own pair of perception spectacles. Otherwise, why do people think and behave differently? There has to be an answer somewhere!   Scriptures tell me that even Adam and Eve were propelled by insecurity imprisoned by their perception. Why else should anybody, sane and cocooned in the most pristine surroundings, amongst the august company of divinity, with nothing to worry about, do that silly thing of eati...

One can only stand in awe when one analyses the way one is brought to this world.  Mystery shrouds the way one fades away from it.  One doesn’t even bother to look as to how one traverses life’s winding paths. It is, as if, one just gets dropped, sneaks around and then is just flushed out. Something like a drop and pick arrangement. Most of us find this ‘drop and pick arrangement’ as our life’s journey in its entirety and find nothing wrong or strange in it. (What the hell can we do about it attitude!). One can truly exist blissfully unaware of one’s own future, divinely happy at being able to forget the past and mostly insensitive to life’s present tense! Blissful ignorant existence! For some, life’s sole mission becomes a quest for answers to few questions. Who am I?  Why am I here? What am I supposed to do? Who will give me the answer or help me find them? How do I know what should my life’s mission be? What is the purpose of my life? Seemingly simple ques...