Booked for Life - 3

(My latest journey through the leaves of time took me to Afghanistan. A stark, moving and reality-jolting journey, this book has brought with it strength, pain, a need to bring redemption to a few lives and the thought that I've had one too many books and movies on hurting, trying and road-to-redemption Father-Son relationship tales brought to my doorstep, barge in without knocking and seat themselves on my pillow; their gaze piercing, till I give them my undivided attention. This was one of those; as the Goo Goo Dolls would say, 'You can't stop the tears that ain't coming' kinda journey.)

The Kite Runner

Khaled Hosseini

Some day we shall know the truth of a circumstance, a situation, or sometimes of our very own behaviour and this truth will make us mad. But now this mad has to become constructive. No feeling or emotion is right or wrong. It is how you act upon it that is. It is human tendency to react. But it is also human responsibility to rise above and convert reaction to action.

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Exquisite Taste of Life

Ever beside the pure flame of the heat of the Indian summer, comes a drink that refreshes the fierce passion for the fiery eyed beauty of this season. Summer is here. Come, refresh your self this season with the purity of Water.

Have you ever scaled the heights of a mountain? And then when you took that pit-stop, sat yourself down on a ledge by a laughing spout of water gushing forth from the rock, transforming into a babbling brook to empty itself into a crystal clear mountain lake? And while you sat on that ledge you dangled your legs in the stream just to let the gently lapping waters have a crush on you. To let them break, just to do you with a million droplets, to watch them rise and fall and chant your name a million times. To see the waters turn away, pause and rush back to touch you again…and again.
All you hear is your breathing. All you see are the varied hues of dragon flies hovering over. All you touch is beauty. All you feel is purity. Water: crystal clear, peaceful, pure, life itself.
If there is one thing that symbolises life more than any other element, it is water. It makes up 71 per cent of the Earth’s surface, it consists of around 70 per cent of our bodily fluids, and make up and preserve the very building blocks of life.
And there is nothing more refreshing and utterly fascinating seeing water in its most natural habitat originating from a mountain and flowing down to the plains, perennially or maybe freezing up in winter into mysterious and soft snow or glistening ice to once again thaw in the spring and turn the world warm again.
And in this awe-inducing yet known hydrological cycle have you ever looked at the water in your glass and ponder how it made its way there? How does our drinking water fit into this hydrologic cycle? Where did the water we drink fall as precipitation? Did this water percolate down into the ground as part of a groundwater system, or did it remain on the surface as part of a surface water system? What path did this water follow in order to become our drinking water? Have you ever explored the hydrologic cycle and water's journey to your glass?
Water falls as precipitation to the earth. Once it falls, some water percolates into the ground, but some of it crosses fields as runoff and enters streams. These streams empty into the rivers, which cross the boundaries and eventually enter into reservoirs, which then might directly make its way to your tap or purifier and of course ultimately your glass. One long, arduous yet fulfilling journey for the free falling element.
Or maybe it might just take that in between pit-stop at a bottling plant to be stripped off its impurities. Such that, that one sip takes you back up to the mountain, locked in that time zone of your own to rediscover that life is not solely comprised of tasks but tastes. Taste not just for the good things in life, but for the little things that make life good. Water—the exquisite taste of life.

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Booked For Life - 2

(Here's another treasure I found on one of my many treasure hunts across the topography of the book world)

Labyrinth
by Kate Moss
What we leave behind in this life is the memory of who we are and what we did. An imprint, no more. I have learned much. I have become wise. But have I made a difference? I cannot tell. Pas a pas, se va luènh.
I have watched the green of spring give way to the gold of summer, the copper of autumn give way to the white of winter as I have sat and waited for the fading light. Over and over again I have asked myself why? If I had known how it would feel to live with such loneliness, to stand, the sole witness to the endless cycle of birth and life and death, what would I have done?


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Red Strokes - Garth Brooks

(And since I'm on this train of thought...let me add this song, which is my all time favourite country song. Don't remember if i've put his on my blog before, but this morning calls for this to be reiterated.
They say that sometimes a word is worth a 1000 pictures. This song speaks more than just volumes. It talks about love, taking one, from the human to the divine to the sublime.)


Moonlight on canvas, midnight and wine
Two shadows starting to softly combine
The picture they're painting
Is one of the heart
And to those who have seen it
It's a true work of art

Oh, the red strokes
Passions uncaged
Thundering moments of tenderness rage
Oh, the red strokes
Tempered and strong (Fearlessly drawn)
Burning the night like the dawn

Steam on the window, salt in a kiss
Two hearts have never pounded like this
Inspired by a vision
That they can't command
Erasing the borders
With each brush of a hand

Oh, the blues will be blue and the jealousies green
But when love picks its shade it demands to be seen

Steam on the window, salt in a kiss
Two hearts have never pounded like this...


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Love, Me

(One of the most sensual and soul touching lines I have ever heard in a love poem.)

I want to do to you what spring does to the cherry tree...

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Come Unity Can Be Ours

(This is something i found recently while going through my files. I had written this piece many years ago...maybe 7 years now...but it still chills my blood and haunts my dreams. The language is child-like compared to my normal style of writing. Don't know why I took this style...but i did...)

“I awoke one morning to find blood on my hands; not mine, but that of the child I had killed the previous day. I thought I had washed it off, but it seemed to be still there – staring, invisible, hurting, stinging, screeching. It suddenly felt wrong… so wrong. I wasn’t supposed to feel like this. I had killed before; I had taken lives. But why did I suddenly feel so different?

I got up and switched on the TV it showed the destruction that my men and I had caused. As I watched the scenes, they felt ghastly, even gross. The scenes were eating me inside. I was personally witnessing the mass destruction that I, along with a few others, had created. I felt a stab of guilt. What was happening to me? I realised I was personally witnessing the destruction of my soul, my own mind and my body along with that of my country. I said I was patriotic and loyal to my country. I loved my country. Then did destroying it mean loving it…? Whoa! That thought really hit me. It hit me so hard that I sat back on my sofa and had to hold the armrest for support. It got me thinking. Why had I done this? I said I was helping people. But did killing one part mean helping another part? Why was I doing all this? Why so much violence over one issue. Ayodhya, Gujarat, Mumbai, Godhra – violence everywhere. To build a temple or a mosque or something totally different? Have a puja or not? Kill or not to kill? In the end the whole thing comes down to one issue: communalism; Hindu-Muslim divide. To divide or to unify?

And yet I see places where people are one, irrespective of caste, creed or race. Hindus helping Muslims and vice versa. All religions helping each other. The only question is to live or not to live. I question myself for the third time: Why am I really doing this? For pleasure? What job is this? The money earned is blood money, no doubt… not mine, but somebody else’s.

The whole incident has set me thinking. Why not stop the violence, the bloodshed and the pain and really be patriotic and loving? Let’s make it a free country where one doesn’t worry about violence. Why I am thinking these thoughts do not ask. I’ve had a change of heart, you could say. My fellow terrorists, it took the blood of one innocent child to wake me up. How many will it take to wake you up to the reality of the shackles that bind our country? One, two… ten? Stop the violence now. Let’s make our country free: free to breathe, live and love. Let’s be truly patriotic and give up our violent and evil ways.

“Let’s stop existing and start living!”


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Booked for Life

Every book to me is a journey I have undertaken. An adventure, a treasure hunt, a slice of life, an exploration of self. I may not have physically travelled the world but I feel like I’ve been to so many places. Some creations of the mind, others that exist in reality. On one of my many visits to Planet M, my friendly neighbourhood music man gave me a map to an adventure that will forever be undertaken by me, no matter how often the hands of time turn around. Here is the treasure I found on this exploration.

Bono in Conversation with Michka Assayas

Zahir's Log: April 2007:
I’ve been wounded, jaded, hurt, and hated. But most of all loved. So I locked myself away in my ivory tower. In the forsaken wilderness that I had made mine, the love and life I had to continue living and offering found me in the form of a book. This one.
Through the tumultuous array of conversations between Michka and Bono, I discovered my elusive truth. A deeper understanding into the men I love and who, more importantly; love me. I make no qualms that this has been one uncomfortable, questioning, thought provoking, to-hell-with-my-pride-let-it-fall-like-rain-from-my-eyes, kind of journey. As Bono signs off before he’s ‘gotta run’; “A life unquestioned is not one you should envy.”
I took my first steps down the west wall of my ivory tower with Bono and Michka on either side of me, holding my hands. The earth has turned away from the sun. My journey continues…

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