The Unsinkable Bond

She sipped her coffee, rested her elbow on the table and stared at the plants outside her window. She took a deep breath and said to herself, “I have to arrive at some decision. I have to make a choice”.

How she wished the world would come to a still. How she wished everything around her would just stop moving. There are so many questions revolving around her head. “Why does it have to be me….Haven’t I given my best to this relationship?” Perhaps this is life. You don’t know what’s right or wrong. You just have to come to a decision. A decision which will in turn, decide your future.

Priya still remembers the time when it had all started. The hospital, the surroundings, the chaos in and around every ICU. It was all still alive in her mind. She could still hear, see and feel everything. She still remembers the time. The time when the doctor arrived and announced, “Priya, I’m afraid. You have a huge responsibility coming. You sister has been diagnosed with moderate mental retardation.”

The world turned upside down. Everything around her went blurred making her feel dizzy. She felt paralyzed. The doctor of course need not explain what the disorder is. Being a psychology student, she knew everything. She knew she had to take care of her sister herself and be with her day and night. She didn’t know what to feel. She was just helpless. But the only thing she knew was, to be prepared for the worst.

Years glided by since that day. Priya loved her mother and her sister. She gave her best to cure her sister or at least not to make her condition worse. How she loved to look at her day and night. Her sister, lovingly called Angela, was charming in her own way. Priya just loved to attend to her, to teach her, to play with her. Not a moment came when she felt her sister was a burden. While others sympathized with her, she considered her little sister as a blessing. For her, she was the angel in the family. Then the day came when her responsibility had grown further. She became all alone. Her mentor, her idol, her mother was gone. Oh, how she dreaded that day. Her mind went numb. Her only solace, her support would no longer be with her. Once again, her family was reduced to two.

But then, Priya was a strong lady. Her mother had never let her feel the absence of her father. She was raised like a boy. “The matured of the lot” - she had got used to this statement – from school, to college, to work. How this made her so proud. Priya was the wall to her mother. Ever since her father left, her mother had gone through the worst. Watching her mother crying to sleep everyday made her feel helpless. “Can’t I help my mother to move on?” – was the question she would ask herself. That’s when she decided to be a psychologist. Having immense empathy towards others, she was ‘the chosen one’ in this field. Success came to her way easily. Her confidence, dignity, her personality was charming. She walked like she ruled the world. Her smile could make a raging bull jump into the pool of happiness. Her sense of independence made the men go weak in their knees. She was like a magnet. People would be drawn towards her in no time. That’s the time she found her soul mate-Nikhil. He was just the perfect for her. He was her strength. How he comforted her. How he made her feel at ease. He was the only support to her now, the support in raising her sister. In a blink, he became her life.

And there he goes – “I want you to shift your sister to a mentally challenged home”. Could she hear him right? Is it Nikhil? The same Nikhil who had once said, “No matter what, you should always look after your sister yourself and I’ll be there with you”? Her hand trembled. “Do you even know what you are saying”? Then came forth her options – whether she wants him or her sister (who would very soon leave this world too). The words felt like bullets in her ears. How could she leave Angela? She was her sister, her sole responsibility. The bond which she shared was indescribable. What about Nikhil? Why did he leave her in this turmoil? Why had he made those promises when they were never meant to be fulfilled? She had no answers. Nikhil had simply refused to give any. She just knew she had to come to a decision.

Staring at the plants today, sipping coffee, Priya realized the time has come to arrive at a decision. But she was unable to do so. Suddenly there came a hand gripping her shoulders from behind. She looked around and saw her sister. Angela’s eyes were twinkling. It was screaming with joy saying – “I know you’ll be there with me”. Priya took her onto the lap and hugged her. She hugged her like never before. It’s strange how people who are called “mentally challenged” are so purer at heart than the so-called ‘unchallenged’ ones. Perhaps this is when we are at our best. When our mind is like a child and loses that shrewdness which makes us adults. Without a second’s thought she took her phone and typed – “I’ve made my decision. Let’s not cross our paths again”.

That night she went for a walk by the sea face. It was pitch dark. She didn’t know how long it had been since she kept staring at the waves crashing on the shore. Time to time, the cool breeze slapped her by the face. She was devoid of all emotions. The clouds growled, the lightning above the sea made the whole surrounding picturesque. She walked. She walked like a new person. Her body, her soul was numb. Suddenly she felt the rain. The rain which made her see life from a different perspective. The rain which kissed her with love gently. The heavy breeze made the trees bow down to her – for being the way she was. Yes, she was alive once again. Her dignity, her self-respect bloomed like an immortal flower. She was free, in love with life, with herself. She understood the secret – the bond of the sisterly love. The bond for which she is still living. The bond unsinkable.

PROBABILITY

It is almost impossible for such a question to appear in a MATHEMATICS QUESTION PAPER!!!!

We were made to write this stuff during our Maths lecture on Probability. The prof. even said it is a very important question! :-|

What is the probability that the professor knows what to teach?? Probably 0 (zero) :P

A poem on a specific incident during the IV.

The Contrive 

Everything was done 

when they arrived in a van;

Four of them with torch and backpack,

To check everyone in the pack;

With torch in someones hand,

People ran towards their camp;

The four went about with their plan,

Which was unknown to the people in the clan;

The went into every tent,

to check for inebriant;

Presence of inebriant was very much there,

It made no difference to people who weigh;

Everything that remained,

No one knows what happened.

HILLARIOUS

Some INDO-PAK news that makes you laugh!

1. Previously, India was a part of Pakistan

2. Indian terrorist caught for triggering the Lahore blast. The poor Talibani's who had planned and executed the blast didn't get their credit and took responsibility for the attack a day later.

3. Zardari: We will fight till the last drop of blood.
So you have made up your mind you'll have to fight till the last drop of blood.

4. Pakistan High Commissioner to US: We want counselor access for Ajmal.
He had forgotten that only citizens of a country get counselor access. :P

5. We want hard evidence. I some how find this statement very amusing. Right since I was born on 26th December, 1989, I have been hearing the same statement.

I'm sure I'll end up getting more of these due to some great Pakistani Ministers and Diplomats

An open letter to a terrorist - By Kunal Merchant

Read this wonderful letter in Mumbai Mirror on 4th December, 2008. Couldn't stop myself from posting it. A very very good article to feature in Mumbai Mirror.




The objective of a terrorist is not to kill, injure nor maim, but to instill terror in his victims. Your bullets and bombs killed close to 200 people and injured another 400, but your malice victimised around 1 billion citizens of my
country.

Long after the dust has settled, long after the carnage has been moped away and long after we have returned safely home, the impetus of the terror you have instilled in us will then manifest itself. The grief, anger, mistrust and the fear will all turn into hatred.

Then words will become embittered, fingers will be pointed, views will get extreme, the schism between communities will widen, governments will get polarised and violence will be employed.

But aren’t these the very same reasons that led you to our shores? Is it not hatred that you yourself feel? Is it not terror itself that created you? So, the cancer would have come full circle and thus is the apparatus of your terrorism.

When the riots took place in Mumbai, I was too young to understand. When bomb blasts went off in other cities they were too far off from me to notice.

When trains in Mumbai were blown up, I only blinked twice. The night you attacked the Taj, I was having dinner there. Till that night, I had led my life in apathy, ignorance and cynicism.

Just like your apathy which let you take innocent lives that night, my apathy did not let me value those already taken by terror. Just like the ignorance that made you perverse, my ignorance never let me feel for my fellow citizens.

Just like the cynicism with which you marched into my city and ravaged it, the cynicism of my passivity welcomed you that day with open arms. I had allowed you to perpetuate your disease.

That night, I was trapped with a man who had lost all hope of ever getting out alive. Broken, he sat in a chair, his heart gave in and life left his body.

Your bullets and bombs never even touched him, nor must you have ever seen him, but your terror was what killed him. That was what you intended to do — to strangle hope.

That night, I hoped for my life, I hoped that I could go home and play with my dog, I hoped that I could go back to work and I hoped that I would live to grow old one day.

That night, this man paid the price of life for giving up hope, that night I knew the value of life for holding on to it. Hope – that is the difference between you and I.

Because you had no hope. You have no choice, but to choose the path you did. Because I had hope, I now have a choice to pick the path that I will take.

I can choose to do nothing and return to my apathy, ignorance and cynicism and let your cancer run its course, or I can choose to remove my blinkers and put an end to your terror.

My retribution to you and my resolution to your disease is in these choices I have made today. I choose love over hate, knowledge over ignorance, integration over isolation, compassion over apathy, construction over destruction and understanding over force.

Just as you did not care if you survived as long as you created terror, I too don’t care what becomes of you as long as I supplant this terror.

In my last words to you I want you to know that even if you think you have been successful in victimising my entire country – you have failed because I am alive and I will always hold a kindled flame of hope.

Just like only one of you could victimise an entire country, it will take only one of us to destroy your disease.

But I am not alone. The youth of India, the frontier of the largest democracy in the world is waking up and making the same choices as I have.

If it is terror that has created you – it is our humanity that will give you salvation. The evidence of this has always existed and soon you will see it.

You will be given a fair trial by the same country that you victimised. The taxes of the same people you massacred will afford you a lawyer to fight in your defense.

You will be tried by an impartial and unbiased judge and you will receive justice, though you deserve none.

This is the fuel of my hope, this is the sanctity of my democracy, this is the echelon of my people and this is the beauty of my country.


Yes this is the beauty of our country. and the beauty of our people.

Globalization and Human Relations

“Let’s meet up online today”... “I’ll call you up tonight”... “Come on Skype, it’s free”. Do these statements seem familiar? Yes, I bet you yourself use these every day. Facebook, Skype, Cell phones, Emails, Sms, Conference, Fax. You hear these words and the first thing that comes to your mind is the advancement of Technology. But what does it lead to? --- A sense of belongingness. Gone are the days when u had to make trunk calls once in 4 months or write 4 letters in a year to assure your loved ones of your safety. 10 days delay and their blood pressure would reach at its peak. Some people even suffered a lifetime separation from their families. And now? Your all time companion—cell phones remove this hassle off your mind. So what if you are 100 miles away from home. You still feel oh-so-close.
Thanks to Globalization – which started as an initiative towards economic prosperity by opening up trade routes, eventually led to cross cultural mixing. We now are used to sms languages, so used to that after completing this piece, am sure to read this twice to make sure I haven’t used any. Orkut has become our lifeline. Why not? After all we miss our far-away-living friends so much. And why to increase our bills by calling up when the simplest way is to go online and chat. Or talk for hours and hours free from Skype. And don’t we all enjoy it? Certainly we do. But enough of technology talks. Think of the international exposure we get. Do all of us want to do our Masters from India? Or U.K. and U.S are more preferred? In return what do we get apart from better job and education? Let me think-----‘firang’ friends? This is where the cross cultural mixing comes into picture. We now lovingly accept the enrichment of languages. Ever noticed the newly added ‘Hinglish’ words in Oxford dictionary? Then comes the ‘Adios’…’Sionara’…’Chow’…Don’t tell me even your grandparents used these jargons. Indian music, which was only confined to India, has now spread all over the world. Same goes for western music. Ask a 17 yr old what kind of music does he listen to and the immediate reply comes “Hard rock, Power Pop” and so forth. Not to deny the fact that this taste starts simply from peer pressure. We just don’t want to be the odd one out. And these common likes and dislikes, common topics of discussions tremendously help us to connect with our peers well. Cultural difference becomes a least-bothering issue. In fact, we simply love to boast “My best friend is an Australian”. Not only music, we find this blend of cultures in cuisines too—we all know how popular kebabs have become in England don’t we?
Globalization brings about both evolution and extinction. On one hand, we have an inter-twining culture—learning new languages, connecting to people from different parts of the globe, getting a taste of varying music etc. On the other hand, there’s an increasing dilution of cultural inheritance and stressed relationships. As we leave our footprints on the rest of the globe, we hardly realize the quickly perishing cultural identity as every subsequent generation absorbs more and more global culture (predominantly western). Where are the long-bragged about respect and reverence which we were known to give our elders? Does our so-called ‘sanskaar’ ask us to promote nuclear families by dumping our parents into some old-age home? Is our responsibility limited to providing them with material benefits? We now keep a track of the latest websites in the Internet. But do we care to bother ourselves with the torture the daughter-in-law of our neighbour has to go through? While our parents are counting days for our long-awaited visit in Diwali, we are busy counting the episodes of ‘Friends’ on satellite television—another ‘bliss’ of globalization. Okay, we all cherish the use of emails and sms. But do they hold as much importance as the personalized hand-written letters which we can keep forever as memories? Does your heart take a lift as much when you get an e-card as it does when u get a card via post?
A small town girl from Karnal, marries an American and goes on to serve the most prestigious space research organization of the world—Kalpana Chawla, like many others, never belonged to a single nation. They are the citizens of the world. Having belongingness to the planet as a whole, the children of globalization have made the boundaries between the nations irrelevant.
Globalization, with its numerous pros and cons, has no doubt implanted an increasing level of tolerance and acceptance within the people. Criticize it as much as you want, you still can’t do without it. This is when the saying by Kofi Annan proves right:-
“Arguing against globalization is like arguing against the law of gravity.”