For now you may feast on one of the major contributors:
Edit -1:
Given that the PGP2 farewell is finally done, and so are my exams, and that I'm drunk as a skunk senseless/sleepy, with specs rendered useless from an ill-fated post-party footer challenge, perhaps its best this edit ends right here. Not even Rita ji's miraculous strains can revive the needy self in me, which, having waited several days for its own sunshine, now is threatening to call out a strike. An unheeded call at this stage of deserved attention, could only lead to nine-stitch preventabiliy moralled fables that were once part of our Class V syllabus.
Cheers duniya!
Cya soon! :)
Edit - 2:
Its been tooo long now.
PGP2 farewell done - self recuperated (sort of at least!) - visit to Shantiniketan done - returned home (got 'complimented' for my poetic looks on the way as well!) - went gaga with my nephew - met up with friends - finished 'Siddhartha' - and today met up with N, the bestower of joy, and then heard from S, the perfect creation, after a gap that seemed like a zillion years.
Many last straws have been dealt. Please don't die on me now. I'm here.
- - -
This post came to me first, walking around campus, near the grand audi, a night before the exams (the first of which was none other than the legendary CorpFin!).
It may be traced to that slightly sinking feeling, of the impending departure of the wonderful pi-batchers from the hallowed portals of jokaland. It was an emotion, more like a growing torrent of awe, fast-paced perspective setting in, and above all, a beautiful combination of nostaligia and consciously temporal sorrow.
I don't know exactly what I want to say here, but I guess it would be fitting to describe that which forms the title to this post. As I had scribbled down those n days back (given that writing is more conducive than speaking, at least to me). Or wait, that should perhaps wait till the end. Yes, at the end it will be.
All one's life, one is blessed to come across people, who affect the manner in which one looks at things. And as one grows beyond the familiarities of home and its people, one grows smaller in a world growing at a rate greater than 163 times the speed of sound in vacuum. In such a time, in the midst of all the chaos, one finds one's self grappling with new facts and truths that life lovingly packs in the kaleidoscopic fabric of confusion, illusion, delusion, and the ilk. While all of this contributes to all that makes life beautiful, and indeed worth living, it certainly does leave the self rather tired, withered, and generally, in search of occasional rays of light that may find oneself suitable enough for their grace and presence.
In this world; this time; this epoch of increasing loneliness (different from solitude one may note); this dimension that pushes one deeper and deeper into its dark recesses; here, one learns the true value of man's 'society', and the wonders that were all around all along, waiting for one to take a break from one's own absorptions.
In Jokaland, one was fortunate enough to have come across several such gems. And one pauses, and thinks of the days that have been before that; and the same is found to hold for those long stretches as well. One finds oneself remembering everything: the thass after Spic events, the inane number of CV mentoring sessions, and subsequent drafts thereafter, the many 'Aanandam' moments that punctuated our mutual existences, the first intimation of escape from the dreary clutches of this incredible week; EVERYTHING comes rushing back to one, as one ambles around campus, the night before one's exams.
One is filled with a sense of grave, impending loss, till one's deepest apprehensions are transformed to a collective spring of undying hope and life. This happens, through the strategically positioned role of the perfect one, at the holy hour when:
"OMG! How/when will we ever meet again? :( "
changes to:
"As this beautiful chapter draws to a close, know that we will meet again. :) "
And with that, all of one's fears of losing one's prized treasures to the bottomless ocean of the world, vanish, in a gradual yet powerful display of His grace. One realizes that those who would be stepping out of one's existence tomorrow, would even then remain part of the same elemental ecosystem, and thus potently alive, and inexorably present in their being.
Some things never change, they say. While one does not necessarily fall in this, one is comforted to catch a glimpse of a complex underlying framework, by which changes in the environment, and those in the self tend, perhaps, to mirror each other, if not directly, then at least through the round about manner of negating indifference. For the lay amongst us, the latter is simply the process by which 2 entities change by themselves, in a manner which naturally drifts their meandering paths apart.
And thus, not without a certain degree of faith, in life, in love, and in Him, one sets out to "give his CorpFin exam - organize the PGP2 farewell - recuperate - go off to Shantiniketan - ... - meet up with some of the most amazing people (N, A, S), one had ever met, gifting to them the greatest asset one could be blessed with: one's vellapan..".
Coming now, to that which forms the title to this post, which was the first visible offspring from the revelations that en-lightened many burdened travails lingering within the self; still unnamed, yet clearer in its importance than ever before, in its conscious existence in the back of one's mind...
There are some things money can buy,
For everything else,
There is that, unnamed,
and gloriously unaffected in its power & might;
Invisible to the unseeing eye,
yet potent even to the stones that mark one's path;
Which reduces the greatest of wordsmiths,
to helpless pedestrians on a dark night;
In which lie a thousand towering questions,
as also the answer to satiate all;
Which cares not for that which surrounds it,
only to find its way through every thorn;
Which fuels the idealists that meander in us,
with no thought for what was and will be;
Which is there always,
Burning bright by the side;
Waiting only for the one,
To open one's eye.
May you find that, and through it,
all that you wish for.
For everything else,
There is that, unnamed,
and gloriously unaffected in its power & might;
Invisible to the unseeing eye,
yet potent even to the stones that mark one's path;
Which reduces the greatest of wordsmiths,
to helpless pedestrians on a dark night;
In which lie a thousand towering questions,
as also the answer to satiate all;
Which cares not for that which surrounds it,
only to find its way through every thorn;
Which fuels the idealists that meander in us,
with no thought for what was and will be;
Which is there always,
Burning bright by the side;
Waiting only for the one,
To open one's eye.
May you find that, and through it,
all that you wish for.
Further, to quote on the awesome duality of its being, from that which awaits the entire passing out pi-batch:
1. The Doors:
"This is the end
Beautiful friend
This is the end
My only friend.."
2. TS Elliot:
"What we call the beginning, is often the end.
And to make an end is to make a beginning.
The end is where we start from."
Sigh.
Hoping that this was a respectable translation of the flood that broke out upstairs, further made perilously challenging, by the timeless battles against Hypnos and his increasingly powerful forces.
Be happy.
Take care.
God bless.
And shine on, all of you! :)
"This is the end
Beautiful friend
This is the end
My only friend.."
2. TS Elliot:
"What we call the beginning, is often the end.
And to make an end is to make a beginning.
The end is where we start from."
Sigh.
Hoping that this was a respectable translation of the flood that broke out upstairs, further made perilously challenging, by the timeless battles against Hypnos and his increasingly powerful forces.
Be happy.
Take care.
God bless.
And shine on, all of you! :)
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