the candle and the night

As the day was setting, a tiny candle was lit. The night, proud of its powers made fun of her, “Little one, soon you’ll tire out and I’ll take over.”

The candle replied, “Soon the day will be gone and yes, you’ll get stronger by the hour. But don’t you know, the darker you are, the brighter I get?”

Today I’ll tell you about a similar candle and how it is bringing light to so many lives. And maybe, we all could help this candle burn bright in our own little ways…

Founded in January 2005, Esha is a non-profit initiative that is enabling visually impaired people live a better life. In words of its founder, “We are a team of volunteers spread across the country, who believe in equal opportunities for the blind and work towards the same.”

Esha stands for making visually impaired:
• Self-reliant and independent
By generating employment for the visually impaired
• Sensitizing the non-blind
By interactive theatre workshops
• Partnering with corporates for their CSR initiatives
By conducting workplace accessibility audits

You can help bring this light into more people’s lives.

• Help me spread the word, visit the Esha site www.braillecards.org Bookmark it, twitter it, share it on your Face Book or Orkut profile or write a blog post about Esha.

• Ask your boss or HR department to get your visiting cards ‘Braille enabled’. You can also request them to have an accessibility audit at the workplace.

• Take part in other activities of Esha, like its theatre workshop.

Esha does not ask you for any monetary assistance. All it asks for is an open heart and a desire to bring light where it is needed most.

Remember what the candle said to the night, “the darker you are, the brighter I get.”

Please read and comment

The following questions,

01. In India, is it possible to get braille on your visiting cards?
Yes/No.

02. Do you know of an organisation called Esha - People for the blind?
Yes/No.

and answer in the comments section before July 12th.

thanks a ton,

Adee

कल दोपहर मैंने

कल दोपहर मैंने
बसे-बसाये घरों को, उजड़ते देखा
कुछ बेजुबाँ ख्वाबों को बिखरते देखा
कल दोपहर मैंने
एक जवाँ उम्र का गुज़रना देखा
एक साया जो था सरों पर, उठते देखा
कल दोपहर मैंने,
गली के मोड़ पर वो जो एक पेड़ था पीपल का,
कटते देखा

i tried but could not translate it. maybe it cannot be. so here is a brief detail of what the poem tries to convey.
it tells you how last afternoon i saw some homes getting uprooted; some silent dreams being scattered; saw a life snuffed out in its prime and a benevolent presence over our heads leaving us for ever...how the afternoon yesterday, on the corner of my street, i saw a beloved peepal tree getting sawed.

soul-full at the sahitya academy

religion

a triptych puerile
hanging over the sacrificial altar

a harangue to the old faithful
swaddled in truculent colors

a scrim pulled tightly over eyes
a mind, an extremity familiar

a dirigible in the name of God
in essence, a conflated fear

children's mart / बच्चों का बिज़नस

लकड़ी का एक स्टूल लिया
सपनों से भी खूब बड़ा
अण्डों के तीन क्रैट रखे
दो खाली और एक भरा
एक तरफ़ टाफियों का डिब्बा
पीला, गुलाबी और हरा
एक तरफ़ माचिस की डिबिया
(और) सिगरेट का डिब्बा डरा-डरा
आज गली में नया खुला
बच्चों का बिज़नस, खरा-खरा


a big stool made of wood
bigger than dreams' delight
three crates put over it
two empty, one full of eggs off-white
one side has the candies cool
pink, green, yellow and bright
the other has a matchbox
and cigarettes huddling in fright
and lo behold, a treat emerges for the eyes
the children's mart and a genuine price

openness

i don't why, but feeling very light since yesterday. had decided to open up my mind and heart to new ideas and emotions, and almost freakily, new never-had-before experiences started happening. in two days, i've had enough experiences to lose track of them. seems the world has sensed my state of mind and is working accordingly! guess positive thinking has its effects, after all.
welcome world
:)

its a bollywoody morning

"pyaar ho dil mein to lagit hai sari duniya pyari//hum sari duniya ke, sari duniya hamari"
(if you've love in your heart, then the whole world looks beautiful// we are the loved ones of this world, the world also loves us)

arrived in office riding high on a wave of Big B's (Amitabh Bacchan's) golden era songs. pardesia ye sach hai piya, angreji mein kehte hain ke, mohabbat bade kaam ki cheej hai and so many like these.

its such a bollywoody morning :)

de de pyaar de....

double dhamaka (twin offer)

have mailed to most of my contacts, but still posting it here.

"Last night while going home I became the latest unnamed victim of mobile snatching in the city of New Delhi :) Have got the SIM card disabled but as all my numbers were stored in the phone book (and not on the card), please be mindful of any crank call if it comes. Will try to get my number restarted by the afternoon. Other than that, yes, I would need your phone numbers once again." what's more damaging is that i lost my pair of specs too and would be temporarily debarred from my net duties :(

you can mail me on the id in my blogger profile. look at this way, even if we were not on each others' phone lists, its time we become phone buddies ;)

cheers,

adi

uncricket writing

have just discovered her. and am hooked. yeah baby, for sure. if you are cricket reader, yes, a fan who loves reading about cricket, you must must read her articles. the problem is, not many appreciate the fine art of cricket writing these days. i too cannot claim to be a connoisseur, but Siddharth Vaidyanathan, Sambit Bal, Peter Roubuck, Sir Geoffrey Boycott, Harsha Bhogle and Tony Greig have been my favourites. these are all sensible, clear-headed individuals who write about cricket with a touch of humane inevitability. but then, there arrives this lady and as i said, am hooked for all my worth ;) have a look at some bits of her writing, and then i'll give you the link to her work!

"I for one am glad that cricket has been democratised. Playing a sport isn't about which level of society you're from or how well you can handle the adulation. It's about talent and determination and a little bit of luck. And if a billion fools are entertained by it, then so be it. And as long as there are still batsmen who are willing to walk before they're given out, and fielders who only appeal for genuine wickets, I'm not going to worry about all those lost gentlemen."

"Critics called Chekhov's endings "zero" endings, because a lot of the time they were blurry and imprecise. He favoured the anti-climax over the climax, because in his view life wasn't about meaningful revelations; it was about realising that this is just how things are. KKR's future isn't blurry at all. Everyone knows where they're heading, but for the sake of McCullum and the rest of his team, and in deference to the spirit of Chekhov (coughing his lungs out quietly somewhere in the ether-world) I hope that tide changes."

"The IPL, which could have been a great platform for modern India to assert herself in an utterly unique way, has already chosen to take the path of commercial success over aesthetic glory. Fine. I understand that advertisers pay the bills. I'm willing to oversee those garish uniforms. I can tolerate any number of DLF maximums and Citi moments of success. But would it really have hurt anyone if, at the end of it all, there was a trophy worth its weight in gold to lift? To silence everyone just for a moment in a way that only something truly beautiful can?"

more of her writing (i think each one put up till now) can be found here. as you read on, you'll find many more observations like these, which make you stop and think, not only about cricket, but about life, lietrature, India as well. and i'm yet to read all of them.

her writing is about cricket, but then about so much more, that it's almost uncricket! why shouldn't i be addicted to a writer like that...

the wanderer / बंजारा

कभी कभी लगता है
के मेरे पैरों का
अपना ही मन है जैसे
कभी भी, कहीं भी
चल पड़ते हैं
इस शरीर को, अपने कांधे उठाये

sometimes i feel
that my feet
have a mind of their own
wherever, whenever
they move on, carrying
this body on their shoulders

thank you

for eyes that woke up to a lovely light; for lungs full of fresh cool air; for a sky that turns gold from blue in a single moment and then red and then blue again; for a father waving goodbye to the daughter he loves; for children playing cricket at eight in the morning; for the temple bell that swings and rings and sings with the wind; for a rickety rickshaw ride that follows all the traffic rules; for a solitary student, studying on the steps of the metro station; for a master of imagery who paints pictures with words, "Later on, she and Father would discuss Grandfather as if he were one of those old unpainted wooden houses that collapsed around them almost daily"; for the strength to climb two steps at a time and still not lose your breath; for the splendid squalor that the city serves to the eyes; for filmy songs playing loud in a cramped bus ride; for a woman that smiles even when she has to run for that bus; for destitute children turning municipal dustbins into play swings; for a migrant family just arrived in the city, the woman's sindoor shining as red as the sun shined in the morning; for a ten rupee ticket that takes you across half the city; for friends who wait for you across the seven seas; for colleagues who smile when they meet; for a girl who slept at one and woke up at four 'cos she has to study for her exam; for a work that is not forced and loved instead; for music that talks as you hum a language you don't understand, yet; for a day that will be remembered for no reason at all; thank you God, for this all.

heaven only kows why we love it so - revised

"We throw our parties; we abandon our families to live alone in Canada; we struggle to write books that do not change the world, despite our gifts and our unstinting efforts, our most extravagant hopes. We live our lives, do whatever we do, and then we sleep- it's as simple and ordinary as that. A few jump out of windows or drown themselves or take pills; more die by accident; and most of us, the vast majority, are slowly devoured by some disease or, if we're very fortunate, by time itself. There's just this for consolation: an hour here or there when our lives seem, against all odds and expectations, to burst open and give us everything we've ever imagined, though everyone but children (and perhaps even they) knows these hours will inevitably be followed by others, far darker and more difficult. Still, we cherish the city, the morning; we hope, more than anything, for more.

Heaven only knows why we love it so."

from the novel, 'The Hours' by Michael Cunningham.

i talked about it here and the movie adaptation, here. do read it if you have time.

yesterday was a holiday and i spent all of it reading, writing and dreaming. after so many months, a day happened when nothing mattered but loads of solitude and the book in my hand. all through the day i did nothing but read, wrote an unfinished piece of prose, one story that is waiting to be formed and one poem that refuses to come to an end; and god i was so contented after all of it, and heaven only knows why i love it so.

polling day

delhi goes to vote tomorrow. it'll be a public holiday, so that people at least don't have the excuse of office, to not vote. i hope that the maximum number of people exercise their choice. it's too easy to crib and comment on a government you didn't vote for, becomes a little difficult when you see what your chosen ones are doing.

16th of may is the result date. i wish my dear country the best of luck.

she can do with a little bit these days

:)

naqab, the veil