Signet of Eternity - by Rabindranath Tagore

The day was when I did not keep myself in readiness for thee;
and entering my heart unbidden even as one of the common crowd,
unknown to me, my king, thou didst press the signet of eternity upon
many a fleeting moment of my life.
And today when by chance I light upon them and see thy signature,
I find they have lain scattered in the dust mixed with the memory of
joys and sorrows of my trivial days forgotten.
Thou didst not turn in contempt from my childish play among dust,
and the steps that I heard in my playroom
are the same that are echoing from star to star.
Where Shadow Chases Light
This is my delight,
thus to wait and watch at the wayside
where shadow chases light
and the rain comes in the wake of the summer.
Messengers, with tidings from unknown skies,
greet me and speed along the road.
My heart is glad within,
and the breath of the passing breeze is sweet.
From dawn till dusk I sit here before my door,
and I know that of a sudden
the happy moment will arrive when I shall see.
In the meanwhile I smile and I sing all alone.
In the meanwhile the air is filling with the perfume of promise.

The voice that held me captive..

The other  day while I was sitting in my room, cozying on my bed.......I heard a voice ..a beautiful voice ...she was humming the song "Rajneegandha, phool tumhare"....I was mesmerized by the voice...the beauty and the volume it carried...I pushed my covers and went out searching for the voice in my wing...when I found her, she was this pretty little girl, practicing in the washroom, for the auditions of SHRUTI' 2011...I congratulated her for her beautiful voice and came out...well, actually I din't...I was standing outside the washroom, listening to her mesmerizing song....;)


I was captivated...searched for the song over youtube and was listening to it the whole evening...loved the video...loved the serenity and the simplicity in it...if you still haven't watched it, I suggest that be the first thing you should do after reading this post...

Isn't it lovely?..

Randomn-V

I was staring off into the distance...The conversation swirled around me... I considered the hymn of the voices around me.... It was an ever-changing melody... rising and falling randomly and I could make neither head nor tail of the chatter... Sometimes the noise would die down and I would expect the song to end, but then it would rise up again, louder and harsher than ever...

I was sitting alone occupying a table...My friend called out to me, waving from the door... I snapped to attention, smiling, pretending to be interested in what was going on... I didn’t stay long, however, and soon I started pretending to read the novel I carried... I was floating off again... It wasn’t long before my thoughts were drifting over forests and valleys of ideas.... They reached up to me through the cloudiness of reality and every once in a while, I caught hold of one and carried it along for a while... I mostly enjoy the flight more than anything...

I was dreaming, wandering, wondering.... The world inside my mind is my escape... The world inside my head is, for all intents and purposes, the real world to me... I am always safe there...I feel safe there... I am always accepted there... And most importantly, I am always wanted there... Reality, for me,is a place of mystery and confusion... Whenever reality upsets me, I would escape to this world to seek guidance... and would travel the long, dark, dangerous roads of my mind searching for wisdom...and this world...my real world.. never ever lets me down...:)


And then I was called back to reality again as the waiter asked me what I wanted to eat. I again snapped to attention, smiling, pretending to be interested in what was going on...

Happiness is Free...:D

I wonder sometimes...what is our goal in our lives...we perform our daily chores...go to schools and colleges for our education...we strive for getting a good CGPA; a well paid job or and an acceptance from Stanford or Yale....But is this our ultimate goal in life??......NO...but then what is??...when we search our souls for an answer...most of us would find something in common - to seek Happiness...

But then the next obvious question arises...What is Happiness??..Almost everyone who believe that happiness in the goal of their lives have a common stand... they believe that if they are happy then their lives are fulfilled...But then there are different levels of happiness...They have to choose between the lower and higher types of happiness...between worldly pleasures and beyond worldly happiness..

No doubt pleasure should be distinguished from happiness, because there is certainly a very big difference in quality..
'Pleasure is simple physical, mental, emotional, or sensual satisfaction derived from external sources. Happiness on the other hand is related to our mind and soul and it involves a deep sense of fulfillment and contentment.'

A few weeks back, I was working for one of my seniors for her thesis work. Her place was like around 1km from my hostel. I used to walk to her place in the morning(my morning starts at around 1pm) and used to come back to my hostel by 7 (our curfew )..During the first phase of her work; i.e the sheet work I used to go everyday for about a week...When the second phase i.e. the model making started, she called me and asked me to come to her place the following morning...I said I'd go...The next morning she again called to wake me up...I got up, but at that time I was soo repelled by the thought of leaving my cosy bed and walking for around 20 mins in the heat of Raipur that I pulled my covers again and slept....and hence chose to have pleasure instead of doing what I was supposed to do..
Now on the day of the final jury, her work was not 100% complete...when I went to the college to watch the jury, she was still working on her model, unlike her batch-mates who had completed their works earlier and were chitchatting...Now that gave me a jolt, and I realized that had I walked to her place that day and helped her out instead of lying cosily in my bed, perhaps now even her work would have been complete like the others...I was feeling kinda guilty...and most importantly...I was not Happy...

Thats because I chose Pleasure instead of Happiness...'Pleasure is superficial and shallow. It is temporary and develops under specific circumstances and springs from specific object or activity. Nothing is permanent in pleasure. Happiness on the other hand is permanent and long-lasting and brings a glow of well being and contentment when something deep withing us is being satisfied'..

Being happy is not a very difficult task to achieve. Happiness is free like natural air or water. It does not cost us anything. We just have to be willing to be happy...Its a matter of choice...In fact life is all about choices...you choose to love others; u love...u choose to hate; u hate...u choose to do well in studies...to do well...u don't choose to do well...u don't...and most importantly...u can choose, if u want, to be happy...and on the other hand u can also choose to be unhappy and miserable...It depends on you what you would like to choose...A happy life can be created uniquely by any person...You don't need any external agent to be happy..And thus you can become what you want to become- A Happy person, or an un-Happy person...because Happiness is something that can be found inside you....you just have to search for it ...;)



References: 'The secret to happiness', The Economic Times, Kolkata, Dec, 2007.

Bewitching Bhubaneswar..

I've been doing my training in Bhubaneswar for almost three months now...and have started having a total different perspective of this place.. As a place, Bhubaneswar is not new to me...you can say that I'm partly brought up in here...when I was young, I used to stay with my Grandma for around 2 years....and after that, every year we used to visit my Grandma's place for around 4-5 weeks...

Bhubaneswar as a city does not qualifies into the list of metros in India...but for someone like me prevailing from a small town in Orissa, it surely is enough...I've been to many other big cities in the country, and like any other outsider, have admired them too... but never before had I looked at this city through the eyes of an outsider..But in these three months, I've been wandering extensively on the streets of Bhubaneswar...admiring the lush green avenues....the ladies wearing beautiful Sambalpuri sarees with large maroon bindis, the sweet language of orissa, the exquisite Odissi dance performed in the the theaters of Rabindra Mandap...the culture this place displays....everything.....

When I was young, my uncle would take me to the Indira Gandhi park, and I would ogle anxiously at the Mickey-Mouse shaped dustbins and the hedges trimmed in the shape of an elephant...I grew up and I was no longer interested in the Mickey-Mouse shaped dustbins and hence stopped paying a visit to the park...and eventually I even forgot the way...... last week, while returning from office, I went to eat Gole-Guppas at the Master-Canteen chowk...thats where you get the most delicious Gole-Guppas in Bhubaneswar...I would advise, the next time you pay a visit to Bhubaneswar,take out some time and go there and you gonna remember the taste for a lifetime....So as I was saying...I went there to have Gole-Guppas...and after I was done there, I chose to walk home rather than taking an auto...As I was walking, I passed the Indira Gandhi park...now they have a fast food center named 'butter n biriyani' and a 'Nescafe' coffee stall in front of the premises.... I decided to have a cuppa coffee there and have a look at the park from the outside...I wanted to go inside...to check if the park still felt the same...check out if the Mickey-Mouse shaped dustbins and the elephant hedges are still there...but decided that it was too late and would not be safe...and my practical mind somehow managed to suppress my emotional mind and I went back home...I decided to visit the park in the coming weekend...

As I was walking back home, the days when my uncle would take me for a ride to the IG park flashed before me...on a Sunday morning, when my uncle would be home, the first thing I would do after getting up was to make him promise that he would take me to the IG park...and he would never protest..I have always been the darling of the family...Even now, someone would always come up with some incident or other from my childhood days which would leave them all smiling... Every time they do such a thing...I feel like I'm precious...and I love that feeling...:P

Bhubaneswar as a place has always been close to the emotional part of me...unfortunately as I've grown up, I've ever since locked the emotional part in the deep dungeons of my heart...But one cannot keep anything locked for ever...it has to come out one day...and spending three months in this place seem to have done it...Its like rediscovering myself..the more I walk on the roads of Bhubaneswar...the more I feel like getting connected to myself...The Real Me.....The True Me......and it definitely feels good...:)