Keep hearing conch-shell murmurs

I have walked on pure sandy beaches holding her hand in my carefree days. I have dug holes in the sea shore, patiently waiting for the waves to come and turn them into wells. Thus she taught me patience. She pointed at the horizon and showed me the countless colours the rising sun gave the sky as her dawn-clothes. She showed me the returning boats with their catch, emerging from the far skyline with the morning sun. Thus she taught me hope.
She would pick sea shells for me and occasionally an uncut pearl that had washed off shore. She would press a huge conch shell into my ear and let me listen to the eternal melody of the ocean. Thus she taught me music.
When time went by, despite her frail, aging stature, she grew to be the mighty ocean in my life. Her kindness was the soothing sea breeze and her smile was synonymous with the rise and fall of gentle waves. It was a sad twist of fate when her life was dragged away by the same sea waves she taught me to love and the same creamy foam that tickled our feet.
It was not only my Achchi whose life was swept away by the Boxing Day tsunami in 2004, but that of so many. After long six years after the tragedy, we still look at the figures of causalities with sense of wonderment and ask ourselves a thousand times why they had to die. The infants, the young and the old, they were all scapegoats of one big sin we all did- taking our ocean for granted.
We gaze at stars and dream of conquering far away planets when we don’t know our backyard well. It is easier for everyone to call the strange light that crosses your skyline a UFO, but it is harder to figure out the causes for half of the natural disasters that hit us when we least expect them.
The ocean has not asked for any of the things we dump into it; tonnes and gallons oil, waste matter and sometimes excess harvest. It was just like we never asked for a tsunami. Those who survived the waters would tell you how murky that water was and how different it tasted from the usual sea-salty water.
The period I hated sea for taking Achchi away soon came to an end. She had all the reasons to love the sea and now so have I. She breathed in the same air that cooled the surface of the ocean and it is time I make sure the surface of the ocean is cool enough for me breath blissfully. Times have changed and so have the obligations and responsibilities.

My Phoenix bird tears

Go ahead and call my tears ‘weak.’ I will show you how my smiles draw in the brightness from the preceding tears. Laugh at me when I cry on your shoulder covering my face with the hands, I will show you how much time I buy to smile again from the tears I shed.
People say, courageous are the ones who hold up their tears not letting them escape their pent-houses. For me, courageous are the ones who could let a tear freely flow irrespective of time or place when it lines up in the eyes.
It needs a lot of physical strength to hold up a tear. It takes even more mental strength to let it just flow, knowing that people are eagerly looking at you, and their curious eyes are demanding for the story behind the open flood gates. You may be the daughter who silently cries to the boarding-room pillow because you are missing your family who lives far far away. Or you may be the lover who, sitting on a bus-stand bench, pour your sorrows out because he broke your heart. Tears just make you feel better like a fresh bath after a heavy day’s work. They can only refresh things up, but they can never become the remedy.
When everything else seems to fail, having a good cry and emptying your heart, can help you figure out things. But tears alone cannot perform miracles. You can make a person stay with you, with your tears, but your tears cannot round up that person’s heart from wandering beyond your radars. Tears can reflect your sensitivity and your empathy. But if you are a regular crier, people will take it as your weak point.
If your tear-glands are functioning well, you should be grateful as most of the people who are labeled “stony” are those who can’t cry not because they do not cry. Releasing their sadness and depression is a difficult task which can even drive them crazy. If the people are to choose between to cry and not to cry, the majority will be in favour of crying as it washes away your wounds and stops bleeding that cannot be treated by a doctor. Your tears are phoenix-bird tears and they do have healing powers when it comes to the scrapings and smarting of your own soul.

I wish to tell you

I wish to tell you that not every man is made in the same mould and the dressings and icings put on them by birth, customs and sometimes their professions shape them to what they are. And if you expect them to have the same attention span or the same length of brainwaves, you are the one to be disappointed and miserable in life.
I wish to tell you that at the end of the day, it is your mother’s food that make you strong, your father’s soothing words that smoothen the rough edges and your siblings’ bed-time talks that give a hassle-free sleep. No matter how far away you are from home a heart does not want visas or train tickets to cross the mile-long distance to be where your roots have grown deep and strong.
I wish to tell you that taking the untrodden path first comes in the expense of bravery. Then you continue to walk down that road with the mere curiosity of knowing what awaits you at the end of the journey. In between the middle and the end, you will begin to love the thorns that prick your soles, the leaves that brush past your hair and the dust that powders your face. You will come to terms with the fact that hard work gives you a blissful sleep and fill you with a sense of completion.
I wish to tell you that every mountain has a slope and every plateau has an edge. Whether you are in your comfort zone or somewhere in a stranger’s land, the best thing about it perhaps is that your stay is not going to last forever. Life is more or less like a sailing ship, that winds and the wildness of waters only decide the direction and the speed of the voyage.
I wish to tell you that dreamlands can get flooded with realities and the little cocoons and bubbles you build around you can shatter without prior notice. The ground reality is that you are spinning with the world that is revolving around the Milky Way or you stop at some point and let the world spin at its own accord. Either you become the traveler or the pensioner, but you can never become the Milky Way.
I wish to tell you that love is not necessarily a tedious sacrifice. The Buddha, Jesus Christ, they all had huge hearts to love the whole world in the same vein without categorizing and labeling anyone. If you call that humanly impossible, the most possible way to love is to need someone because you love him/ her rather than loving someone because you need him/her.

A gift for Lady Green

All of a sudden, I began to miss the sweet Christmas chill I felt at the dawn of every December. The alien dampness that has replaced it didn’t leave me any space to cheer up.
The chill used to draw dry patches on my face and arms. It left my heels cracked and rough. But, at the same time, it had a strange sense of relaxation. It prepared me to receive the year-end festivities in full cheer and look ahead for the beginning of the New Year. It was then that I realized it was nature’s way of relaxing before making schedules for the coming year.
When the loss hit me hard, I childishly thought perhaps it was my fault that I never said it out loud how much I loved it. Obviously, we have mistreated nature so much that we can no longer expect her seasonal treats and surprises.
Last morning, the Met Department only broke my bubble saying the rainy weather will prevail till the end of the month. In other words, this December won’t be like any other December I passed through in my life; which got me thinking how carelessly we handle things we ought to cherish and how badly we take things for granted.
Christmas comes closer and closer. For those who do not look beyond the festivities and shopping sprees in Christmas, throttling the slender neck of nature with every plastic toy they purchase and every polythene bag they carry around is pretty much of an easy task. Christmas, I see, is a time to feel the pleasure of giving and rejoicing in the gift of generosity. It is sad that we only think of people when we go to present things and completely forget the soil we set our feet on, the air we breathe and the water we pour down our throats. In return to their gifts, we keep dumping the soil with the undegradable materials; we violate the air and pin-prick the flimsy ozone layer.
Perhaps it is not too late to show your generosity towards the Lady Green. If not out of love, it should come in way out of respect and obligation. Take the risk and celebrate the next Christmas in the second Sahara desert, or exchange your gifts in a flood-rescue boat. The decision is up to you!