Lost but not defeated.

The taste of loss is not as bitter as I was anticipating. The fear of dreadful was killing me but dreadful failed to kill me. It is over and I have lost the battle. I fought till end and never quit. I am bruised and lost in oblivion. Licking wounds, empty handed and alone I reflect and say to myself never mind you followed your dream. I have nothing except my intact self esteem to challenge again the forces who think I am a history. The loss I endure is far more dear to me than the gains that tempt me to forsake my ideals. I am biting my time to reenter the arena.

Of Love and Insanity.

I read a real life story titled "Of Love and Insanity" in the Bangladeshi newspaper The Daily Star. The story is of a young lower middle class guy who fell in love with a girl six years senior to him and belonging to an elite class. The common story is narrated poignantly. I especially like the comment of the writer about love. Here it is

"Stories in real life end in such prosaic ways that one wonders what is the meaning or purpose of all the heart-rending, foolish happiness and sufferings that precedes them. Why do we get entangled in the cobwebs of lunacy called love, when the endings are almost always so mundane?".

Yet we do fall in love, there is no escaping from it. I believe tribulations and elations experienced in love make one wiser not to fall in love again. Love brings pain and severely hampers the cerebral function and eventually brings a period of depression from which the sufferer recovers with phenomenal efforts and at great cost of time. Despite all the sufferings a lover must endure there is no point regretting the experience of love because not to fall in love is to live life too safely and insipidly. I do agree with the conclusion that the endings of love are mundane but without love the beginning and middle are mundane too. With love some part of life becomes exciting and even the mundane ending of love gives life something to reminisce. This isn't a bad deal, is it?

Doris Lessing wins Nobel Prize in Literature.

Since last few years I am following the literary world with interest. I read literary blogs and book review sections of Guardian, New York Times and Dawn. The literary blogs I read with most interest are Chandrahas' The Middle Stage and Laila Lalami's blog. I was keenly waiting for this year winner of Nobel Prize in literature. The announcement has been made finally and its Dorris Lessing of England who has won the prize. Frankly I have never heard of her name before the announcement of her winning the prize so an internet search on her was inevitable. What I found was an 87 years old self taught writer who was born in Persia (Iran) in 1919 and spend most of her early phase of life in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). Her childhood was of much pain and less pleasure and once she commented unhappy childhoods seem to produce fiction writers. Once she asked that what use are men and then answered herself, men had been introduced to "pep up" a slothful, lazy world of women. An interesting answer indeed. Though I believe that all women may not agree to the answer of Lessing. Will I be looking for her books to read? I am not sure. I will read more about her books and then decide if Ireally like to read her books. The most likely book that I will read is "The golden Notebook" as it is considered her best. She is the oldest Nobel Prize winner in Literature.

To a silver star.

The flight was sudden and I found myself traveling millions of light years of distance in a flash. It was a silver star where I landed. I may have seen that star from my home in earth but in my wildest imagination I could not think of reaching that star. I am stunned by my presence on the lonely star far in the galaxy where I see nothing but silver dust and an entirely different composition of sky over me. I have been pulled out of my earthly home and thrown into a new world. The feeling of detachment from everything earthly gives me a feeling of uninvited calm and I feel so lonely that I long for the chaos and mess of the earthly life. Yet the calm all around me is settling on my heart and I feel my nerves relaxed and my senses sharpen.
What was the anxiety that disturbed me while I was on earth? The source of all of my anxiety was in my thoughts, the anxiety was of my own making. What I was fighting for and striving for? Why was I always tense and never allowed myself to detach from the web of mundane activities to create a heavenly calm. Here the silence is profound and I can listen the voice of my thoughts. The voice of my thoughts is good to listen and I regret why I never let silence to prevail there to listen to my thoughts.

I look over the sky and find millions of stars and wonder which one is my earth's star sun. Is it the one blinking on the far southern horizon or the one on the northern sky. I want to talk to the sun and tell it that I am missing its warmth and shine. As I see the sun lost among millions of stars I feel myself so insignificant because having a big powerful sun is what made us human beings think grand. It was so personal to have it as our daily companion that now as it is nothing but one of the millions of stars over there I understand we human being have been living in a state of self delusion. I think about the wars, killings, fights on earth, that earth whose existence is impossible to detect from here and with such spectaculars celestial bodies all around me it would be sheer stupidity to even think about such a wretched entity.

Then a question pops into my mind What has made the earth, sun and universe exist, what has made this silver star alive, relevant? The answer is" my thinking".It is in my mind where universe exists. With this realization I long for my earthly abode to see the rising sun and listen to my thoughts and to live without missing the calm that prevails there too. I can do that now I know.

Smile on your face.

The heart floats on a bouncy sea
Or the sea of my heart is bouncy
I don't know where does the turmoil come from
What I do know is the calm that prevails
whenever I see the smile on your face