God created world to mess it up

"Living through the tides of time, feeling ecstatic one moment and the then fathoming the depths of grief, life is the high and the low;Swinging between joys and sorrows, oscillating like the pendulum from one extreme to another; life is the left and the right;

The thousand miles a river travels to meet the ocean again, the trees grow from seeds to turn into seeds again, Born of the soil you become soil again.

Ultimately, A journey of thousand miles is no different from not having moved at all; growing tall by several feet is same as having not grown at all, and to have lived a 100 years is same as not having lived at all. Then what for must you live this life, then why must you feel the pains and pleasures and the highs and the lows and the lefts and the rights…living is futile and meaningless.

"The thoughts were resonating in my head as I figured my way through the traffic to the hospital where my cousin delivered a baby girl a few hours back. People honking all around me were reaffirming my faith that God created a good for nothing world to mess us up, to colour us in the hues of bliss and then to be able to put us through agony. Somehow managing some parking space for my car and escaping the drama scene with only a few scratched on my car I went into the hospital asking for my sister.

With my head hurting and veins throbbing I carried my tired body inside the room where my cousin was resting. She looked totally exhausted. The nurse was helping her with a cup of tea. She gave me a faint smile which only made apparent the pain she was going through. I held her hand and sat by her for sometime looking at her baby in the cradle.

My cousin's mother in law kept asking me if I wanted to hold the baby. The baby looked so fragile and thinking that I might hurt her I said a polite no each time. After noticing how fondly I had been staring at the baby, aunty told me that the kid would be fine and she put the baby in my lap.

I had never held something so incredibly small and delicate in my hands before. In those little hands and feet I saw how beautifully God operates and binds us in the bonds of love and hate. I was resenting God all the while and here I was when I stood face to face with God's alluring schemes. A child so helpless that it makes mightiest hearts melt.

The joy of putting your head in your mother's lap, of holding your father's finger, of being blessed by your brother of holding hands of your lover, looking at a flower and smiling, talking late night with your friends, hearing your boss shout and then say well done. God really created the world to mess us up I thought and smiled with a tear in my eye.

With that the baby started crying N in the cries of the baby I saw my Bal Gopal smiling at me, "Of maya you are born, in maya shall you live" said he,

My dreams breathe again...

Standing in the rumbles of kotla, under the open sky with cool morning breeze blowing in the heat of May with my head resting on your shoulder, I sneaked a peek at the blue above and then the flight of bird caught my eye bringing to life a thousand dreams. Dreams to go high, to fly, to be myself, to walk alone with you by my side, to run, to jump and to go wild.

The overprotected kid finds its way!

My first visit to Gurgaon left me bewildered amongst tall buildings, posh malls, the mirage of wealth and the cars buzzing on the broad flyovers and the narrow broken roads. The first rendezvous with suburbs of Delhi was marked by Intimidation with confusion and awe smeared all over my persona. A friend dropped me in front of my soon to be office but I did not know my way back home. My soon to be colleague at office showed me the way to a bus stop near my office. Walking from my office to the bus stop I was the bird who had lived all its lives in a cage and did not how to fly in the free air, like a dog that has lived a tamed life chained to the doors of its masters never seen the world beyond the area that the chain allowed it to explore.

I took a bus from Gurgaon to Delhi but it is not as simple as it sounds. My home was 35 kms away from where I was and the journey was not about taking a bus. The next that came was the sight of Qutub Minar with the sun setting in the background. It then occurred to me that Gurgaon was hours away from home. In a couple of hours I was standing in front of the bus stand close to AIIMS & Safdarjung hospital. I had crossed Green park, Khel Gaon, etc. and now I was headed to Dhaula Kuan and Ridge. I had only heard these names leave alone having travelled to these places alone. The overprotected kid was out of the protection of her dad who would pick her up from wherever she was stuck and dropped her wherever she needed to be. On my first day to college, I was the only student whose father dropped her in front of the college gates. It was a lot like the first day in school. Thankfully, he did not insist on meeting my lecturers to ask them if they will take care of me.

Answering if I can learn yoga or karate or swimming or singing or dancing or painting et al. go for a movie, go to a college trip etc. have been the most torturous questions for my dad simply because he never wanted to (and never did) say “yes” to them.

But Gurgaon is the city that found me all my freedom, independence and all that I wanted. Its tall buildings, the ones I looked at in awe when I first entered the city housed all my aspirations, nurtured them, helped me identify them and gave me the confidence to bring my aspirations my reality.