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Memories Are a Persistent Lot

December 24, 2012

“What I like about photographs is that they capture a moment that’s gone forever, impossible to reproduce.” 

― Karl Lagerfeld

There is something infuriating about memories and recollections and there is something “un-put-down-able” about them. However, as L.M. Montgomery stated in her novel The Story Girl, “Nothing is ever really lost to us as long as we remember it.” Memories can be a beautiful dream or the worst nightmare, I chose to pen down the former today!

A strong man with a gentle heart and the most charming smile I have seen till today, whom I always known to be my father, or “Pa” as I used to call him, is one of the few who makes the recollections even more effortless. 

I was in my 9th summer when he vanished in the nick of time. Since, I was not old enough to understand much, cry or complain, I kept mum. The first year without him was about genuinely remembering him and giving into melancholia. Few more seasons whizzed past and Pa started taking refuge in occasional references. The suspected well wishers and people in our relation kept the flame of pathos alive.

His memories started to fade in the din of growing up. Even his clothes, shoes, wallet and saved-up coins turned cold and disappeared from mind’s vicinity. 

But memories are a persistent lot.

The beautiful walks with Pa, narrative nights and Saturday evening badminton sessions are all relived again and again. Not everything was rosy though. Every Math session I used to have with him ended in boredom and disgust – a mutual feeling. Mental Math, as far as I remember, was a complete jerk that tried to create a rift between us. There were discussions, giggles, lessons and a feeling of protection.

Today, when I look back in retrospection, the only question that crops up is why? Why did everything happen in a hurry? Though, I am not among the ardent takers of consolation, and yet I feel I spend more hours with him, even when he is not around!

“Sharing tales of those we've lost is how we keep from really losing them.” ― Mitch Albom, For One More Day

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We -The Real Strugglers

January 12, 2012


Each of us is a Mujahid. A struggler! Although, terrorism, geographical issues and troubles across the boundaries may have covered a large space of the empty canvas but a few corners are still left unsettled and obscure. 

If we look at life and its uncertainties as an onlooker and ZERO the micro moments, we will find bits and pieces of struggle lying almost everywhere around us.

We all are justice fighters. We fight to meet the targets at office, for that extra dose of blessings from thousands of spiritual babas, to catch a public transport to reach at workplace, to make a special place among employees at office, to search friends and the uncertainty of the future. It is human instinct to fight, to move on with the little baggage called struggle.


The struggle for a man to keep his kids and wife happy with whatever petite amount of salary he gets, the struggle for a girl to look as best as she can in front of her latest crush, the struggle for a bowler to pitch the ball in the correct place, the struggle for Sachin Tendulkar to make that “century,” the struggle for a small kid who lost his parents in a car accident and the chronic struggle of an old man to recollect the memories that bring smile to his face can never be gauged. 

It is no less struggle for us to make a mourner smile and grow up with an insensible heart. The desperate attempt of a deer to not become a leopard’s prey is more than sheer struggle. Isn’t it horrific to see a dog walking on three legs? How grievous it is to find a young boy watching a football match sitting on wheelchair?

In the age of technology and competition, everybody is a freedom fighter. If a kid struggles to free himself from the burden of excessive homework, the less fortunate fight to free themselves from the ugly looking curse called poverty.

The craving of an orphan to find a refuge and warm hug when thunder strikes and the frenzied search of a father to arrange blood for his kid lying in a critical condition are more heartrending missions than the terror-mongers or Congress and BJP struggling to win the elections.

We notice an old man’s habit to mumble but never notice his wrinkles and eyes that crave for care or read the lines that come from a deserted wife or an individual soon to meet his death. Notice the forceful submission of a soldier before a fanatic general and a small school boy who hurts himself while boarding an overcrowded school bus.

Open your eyes and hearts, clear your minds, purge over your ears and beckon on your power of introspection before you can mull over this ubiquitous struggle. One really needs to be a struggle fighter for it.

Salute yourself while you survive with a smile even after constant struggles and remember that life goes on while we struggle to solve its mysteries!

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