If Wishes Had Wings ...My Heart Would Be The Launchpad .....

I'd Wish For -


Confidence that Life has in Death

Self Control that clouds have over rain unshed

Dependability that survival has on each breath

Sensitivity the blind have to read thoughts unsaid

Hope with which the dry earth looks up as dark clouds loom

Patience with which a tree waits to be in bloom

Humility which rises out of defeat

Dignity by which on sunrise the moon retreats

The keen desire to try and do,

Like a man has when his days are numbered and few



PS - Written in 2001 during Law class! I think subconsciously inspired by Tagore's This Is My Prayer I had read a few years before.
Will add on to this wish list :)!

I'll See You In Heaven ... I'll See You Again

If theres one thing that I remember about this photograph it is that I was looking at you ....& it was you who made me smile. (I'm the only girl not facing the camera! Sitting, second from the right)

I don't remember which Basketball win this was....or the names of some of the players. But I remember telling you that I get awfully tense while facing the camera I either look very serious or burst into giggles and look like an idiot. You had told me to just keep looking at you.

I did....& see what happened....

You're no where...... but you're still there.

To my dear friend.....

Just a few memories that are now left -

Of me praising you on how perfectly you polished your white keds & then stamping them dirty when you grinned proudly and then you reciprocating the favour & us both whitening our keds crazy with chalk on reaching school :D!

Of us returning from school by the Jadavpur Purbanchal bus...running, pushing...diving to get a place. Or hanging on to the bus door while giggling and chattering away.

Of you teasing me about the latest girls school heart throb from the boys school & pronouncing him to be the class's 'Pass Time Passion' or PTP as we referred to him on the sly when he was around in the bus!!! Of you ragging me when he got up to offer me a place to sit :D!

Of me acquainting you to all the highs and lows, figures and curves in Economics & Stats in exchange for you acquainting me to all the highs and lows, figures and curves ruling...well Filmfare :)

Of you and Mannu staying over at my place to get up early to stand in the line for college admission forms.

Of me feeling great that I'd got into the college of my choice...yet feeling bad that you both were not going to be there at the same college.

Of us loosing touch with the passage of time.

Of me getting to know about the shortage of time.

Of me in the knowledge today that those two years were all the time we would have on Earth together.

But Dear Friend.....I'll see you in heaven...I'll see you again

Gandhi Jayanti

Last Friday we visited the State Rooms at the Buckingham Palace where an exhibition marking the 60th Wedding Anniversary of the Queen was on. There were expensive gifts... and there were ridiculously expensive gifts.

But my eyes were seeking the cheapest and yet priceless gift of them all!

The specific gift I was looking for was - a cloth woven from the yarn specially spun by Mahatma Gandhi for the Queen bearing the words 'Jai Hind'. Do read more about it here.

As children we would enjoy the day off at home. My Mother would force us to watch 'Gandhi' the movie by Richard Attenborough. I remember finding the movie very boring and cursing Doordarshan for showing the same movie 3 times a year ... year after year - on Independence and Republic Day and on 2nd October. They're saving money on hiring another movie I would say :D!

With the passing years 2nd October completely lost its significance. It became a day- off between two exams and later an 'unofficial' working day.
If I did enjoy a holiday, Doordarshan was definitely not the channel I was watching!

Two years back I read Louis Fischer's - The Life of Mahatma Gandhi.
Why I read it ...I really don't know....but I have developed an interest in our history.
Maybe because in a strange way I feel more 'Indian' here than I have ever felt back home in India.

Here, after seeing oh- so-many programmes on the many wars Britain has fought... have I developed a great admiration and respect for our powerful yet non-violent Struggle for Independence. Here our experiences seem more real and not just page in my History book.

A friend once remarked that though Gandhiji is probably the strongest symbol of Non Violence and despite being nominated 5 times he was never awarded the Nobel Prize. I doubt if it would have mattered either way to him. Do read the article on the Missing Laureate.

"Generations to come, it may be, will scarce believe that such one as this ever in flesh and blood walked upon this earth". -A Einstein on M K Gandhi

This year I watched the movie 'Gandhi' on tv on 15 August in London..... & my Mother was not here forcing me!

Yes, I guess I'm evolving very slowly....and trying, in a small way, to be the change I (you) wish to see in the world.