Real victims of war

Twilight sets in across the fields;

sweet are the smells of the daffodils

The skies, cast in a reddish hue,

beckon the little soul, albeit somewhat close

The little boy runs off to play;

steps on a mine, a device to kill and decay

His mother awaits with steaming rice

Her little angel would be home in a trice!

Little did she know, her angel would be no more

But as she sees the damage done

She screams out to the heavens above

Why do you spread the message of love?

O Why do you spread the message of love?

Clutching the corpse to her bosom,

And a knife deep inside her heart

In vain, she breathes unto him

this life, that she now longs to depart

She runs across the fields; she runs helter-skelter

What for is this war? Who will give me an answer?

But, no soul heeds to her cries, alas, no soul heeds to her cries..

Just then the heavens speak, "your child is safe in our arms,

protected from mankind, may you learn the lesson of love

pray, do not question the messages from above".

This is about the innocent victims of landmines, where most survivors are maimed for life. I couldn't bring myself to put up a picture as its too repulsive. This poem is in response to 3WW

An Ode to a Banyan tree

O Merciful ‘n’ kind banyan tree-

In thy shade thrive the Lord’s other beautiful beings

Thou welcomes the burning molten rays and,

Tranforms them into a mothers’ protective embrace!

Does it not ache thee, when thou arms are cut and bleeding?

When gratitude is forgotten, what difference does it make?

In our cunning and naivety, we often forget;

The more we cut, the more we burn and suffer.

This is my humble attempt at weaving a poem from 3 given words!! Please check out amazing write-ups at 3WW: Three Word Wednesday here.

Another encounter ...

The only constant in my life these days are the ‘encounters’ I’m having. Though infrequent, they happen nonetheless. And the sad thing is that, I have no control whatsoever! All hell breaks loose, once the horoscope results are positive. A date would be fixed for the ‘encounter’’. Not any date but a ‘good’ date based on "auspicious-ness" of the date.

In an ideal world, I should be delighted with this ‘encounter’; our horoscope match was a record 32.5 points ! Surely, the heavens had scripted our union, only this union would bring the much required marital bliss and whatnot… But, even the heavens weren’t aware, even the heavens didn’t know what I was to know on that late Sunday evening.


This guy was at the meeting place earlier than the schedule and immediately called me to say "yey !! me first me first" not in the same words though but it meant the same whatsoever. I reached at sharp 7, one look at him and I was sure the heavens have committed a grave crime; what were they thinking? For starters, he had blood shot eyes, enough to scare the angelic, innocent eyes I had! Fear crept in; somehow I knew the evening wouldn’t be a pleasant one. Let us give him a name. Let’s say 'Mr. Red eyes'! So, this Mr. Red eyes does the 'man thing', he leads me to an eatery and after much jostling and compromising, we get a shared seat! Yes, the AC room was there; nearly empty, so cool, so inviting but Mr. Red eyes had other plans.


The mental questionnaire was shot at me rhythmically and systematically irrespective of whether I had finished answering the previous one or not, but who's listening anyways! My answers would test our compatibility, just to confirm with the 32.5 the heavens had fixed. Quite pleased with the first two lines of any answer, he would shoot the next question at once. Time Management. I say!


The last thing I remember is getting a seat near the kitchen, me sweating like a pig and answering queries about horoscope, love and expectations.. Coming to expectations, when Mr. Red eyes realized that my mouth was all dry and thirsty, he called for the waiter. I thought 'OK, he's human after all!" I asked for a chilled sprite, which fortunately wasn’t available, so I wondered what else would quench me, but before that Mr. Red eyes ordered for 2 hot coffees. Hmmm, expectations sure got fulfilled!


The next thing I remember is coming back to my smarts. All the while he talked about himself in a strange manner, something superior reeked out of him. I knew one thing for sure. I will repay him somehow and with interest. After listening keenly, I realized that he was proud by virtue of being born as 'Brahmin'. The devil in me awakened at once. I knew how to repay!


I told him all kinds of stories about Brahmins and how stupid they can really get sometimes. he he he... that set him up, all fire'n'smoke in the cockpit (pun intended). All you people do is eat smelly fish and other creatures, you have never learnt, analyzed or documented any holy scripture; nor will you be able to do so with your brick-heads. We come directly from the Aryan race, Tamil (his language) was developed from Sanskrit and is the mother of all Dravidian languages and so on and so forth...(By the way, aren't the Aryans and Dravidians two separate races?)


Anyways, who cared? Triumphant as I was at that time, I realized his chattering about himself ceased and he began to look at me with curiosity. I'm sure he was wondering how can the heavens choose a lowly Dravidian woman with a Big Mouth for a princely Aryan man who is god's gift to any woman!


Well, after that I had the time of my life. I said the coffee was really good, the ambience was just amazing and how grateful I was that we met here and so on and so forth...He was glaring all the time!


So that was it. Another of these encounters over! I wonder how many marks did I score in the questionnaire after all that gyaan on the races! Mr. Red eyes didn’t call back. Thank Heavens for that!

Loss and longing

Often I wonder when I look up at the sky
The twinkling stars in the moonlit gaze
Are these the spirits of the loved ones gone by?

Thou, the creator of the dark, mystic alibi
Pray, tell me which star shineth the least
Pray, tell me which star dulls the most

And would thy sky be any less brighter,
Had thou let go of thus star?
For its precious to me, this little star

And if you would heed
To all thy children, every precious star
Would soon be given,

And I wonder who would look up at your dark alibi;
Who would long to see the once twinkling sky?
For these little stars are more precious

And if truth be told, it would be all dark and scary
So thy alibi would take all our precious spirits
And put them back as stars into thy sky!

One simple man!

Women are simple, simple lives and even simpler needs. Period.

What do we ask for in a man? Nothing much, just that he is a good man with a little bit extra thrown in for good measure.
And, when I say ‘a little bit’, I mean just that ..a little bit

Is this asking for too much?

Please overhear the following tapped conversation between a simple woman and her man in an ‘ideal’ world…

Simple woman (SW): hullo, sweets, I’m missing you so much!
Man (M): oh honey…I miss you too, lets catch up for dinner tonight?
SW: yeah sure… ‘m dying to see you
M: great honey, now you get ready while I come to pick you up at lets say 8?
SW: hey sweets..that’s perfect! Its 10 to 8 and I’ll be ready in a jiffy!
M: right, I’ll be at your door sooner than that…miss you honey..byebye
SW: byebye and the door’s open!

And now, overhear the same tapped conversation between the simple woman and her man in our world (a world where women are misconstrued as cryptic crosswords and god alone knows who started this baseless rumour) …

SW: hullo, sweets, I’m missing you so much!
M: WOW… any plans, honey? (mono-thought process)
SW: long time… let’s meet up… ‘m dying to see you
M: yeah sure… me too dying to see you, honey (tonight’s the night! yey)
SW: Can you come to my place at lets say 8?
M: sure, honey! Anytime for you (WOW..ain’t I lucky?)
SW: byebye sweets, catch you soon
M: byebye honey (yeah yeah..catch you alright!)

At sharp 8 pm, the door bell rings…

SW: hey sweets, is that you?
M: yes, my highness…just open the door and I promise to serve you for the rest of the night errr sorry… rest of my life
SW: tonight’s the special occasion..i need to get ready, dear… just 5 mins, ok? The steps beside the gate are quite soft and cosy sometimes.
M: no probs, honey…you take your time… I can wait forever (deeply pondering what’s the special occasion !)

After 20 simple minutes have passed by…

M: honey, these roses are losing colour… (sounding pale as the mosquitoes had a bloody treat out of him!)
SW: jus’ a minute…I wont be long, sweets…this occasion is so very special, dear
M: yeah, that’s so true honey (worried about the occasion ..forgets all about his plans… shaking his brains… her birthday? No; our first date? No, It never happened as yet; our first kiss? No way…that’s pending…I remember that…ooops, no luck)

Another 30 simple minutes later…

He is all white with severe red bumps all over… all excitement of the night has vanished… he just longs to drown in the champagne he’s bought and sleep off forever….

She opens the door, looking all pretty and pink what with her ‘newly bought for the special occasion’ pink and gold bordered organza saree.

SW: hey sweets, what happened to you?
M: you look so beautiful, honey (barely opening his eyes)
SW: thank you dear… you know tonight’s our ‘special occasion’… I’m so excited!
M: yeah, me too, honey (what’s the occasion and why the hell is she dressed up like a Christmas tree?)
SW: remember sweets, you dropped me here at these very steps (now opening the champagne bottle with the simple intention of celebration)
M: yeah, I do honey (rattling his brains even harder now…when did I drop her and how does it become a special occasion?)
SW: remember how drunk we were, fresh from Adi’s party? You literally dropped down here…I fell in love with you all over again, sweets! (pouring the champagne and serving him)
M: yeah, that was so special, honey! (toasting the champagne and sipping it slowly to bring in some signs of normal life, still wondering what was special!)

So, that was it. The simple woman and her man celebrate their first important occasion together at the steps of her home. It was exactly a week ago, when he had dropped her home from a friend’s party and she fell in love with him and decided to keep him as her ‘warrior prince’ forever. Thee, dropped me safely home, surely wouldn’t thee stake thy life for me?

And I wonder why they say that rocket science is easier?

Statistics and me!

Alright, I am not discussing about my vital statistics here. Not that, there is any problem with it, (by virtue of the inherited genes! ) but hey..this isn’t any ‘Chick-Lit’ blog…. This is my blog … me ‘the woman of substance” me the “Smart Alecca’! An encounter with a ghost and that set me up… yeah, I had started thinking now. Why Vin chose statistics or did statistics choose her?

Let me solve using a simple syllogism here. (I swear it was simple when I first started!)

An explanation of the sets and the very logically connected statements thereby:

S: Science students who either don’t get into medicine or engineering or aren’t interested in it anyways or weren’t compelled by extreme parental forces
CS: Confused science students but who have the right to choose their calling in life (courtesy: parents!)
UCS: Unconfused science students who always knew what they will graduate in since kindergarten

All S’s hate frog dissections and practical applications of calculus
Some S’s hate rat dissections too
Not all S’s took up ‘science’ in junior college by own free will
Some S’s simply love to pass through semesters without ever a glance at the textbook
Some S’s are girls
Some CS’s prefer music over dissections or numbers (is music course offered in Mumbai University?)
Some CS’s regret their smarts in choosing unpopular subjects eg. Statistics
All CS’s love the physics practical experiments
Not all CS’s have found their calling in life or in chemical bonds!
All UCS’s have been CS’s at some point in time (mostly during deep ponder!)
All UCS’s are girls
Not all UCS’s prefer ‘girl’ subjects like Botany or Zoology!
Some UCS’s are enchanted by the probability of the unknown…

Conclusion: Vin has no other subject left, she has to take up statistics!

I’m still figuring out the Venn diagram for this one. Can somebody please help? !!