We arrived the first evening, all fresh and excited only to find that the first day was devoted to lazing around and getting to know our colleagues. The second day dawned bright and we were taken through seemingly boring, yet well-thought-out activities that helped us gain insights into values like team-building, leadership, integrity, communication, etc.

The one thing that I loved that day was how everyone got over their initial feelings of awkwardness. Everyone soon knew each other. Moreover, I was happy being with four or five of my friends during our long walks and playing dumb charades. We were actually good enough to start guessing the name of the movie from just the number of words and a little telepathy!!!

The evening was spent lazing around and it was on one of these walks that we met Edward The Long-Nosed. He was a stone sculpture who was intended to interest us near the reception. And my friend and I adoringly named him Edward. The adjective was obvious since the nose really was around four feet tall!

We were fortunate enough to have a couple of good singers in our group and the evening was spent listening to great songs and some awful ones too!

The next day would bring me one of the more memorable experiences. We were divided into three groups with a team leader for each and a project manager to take care of a basic, seemingly-too-easy task. The different kinds of stress and pressure that each member at different levels of the organization has to undergo could not have been demonstrated more clearly. Though at the end, the task was not a complete success, it taught us more than we can forget in a hurry.

The afternoon was left for us to get to know the place and to use the resort’s wonderful (read over-priced) offerings. Suffice to say, we spent it loitering about.

‘Til humans find more ways to be lazy.

I am no stranger to death…

Death has been my sibling ever since I was one. Even though I was far too young to realize it then, something died in me that fateful day. Something bright; something resembling love. Death snuffs out dreams in a shattering second. People die…

Everyone in my life has left me at some point of time or other; some to the cruel yet immutably relentless clutches of death; others to the indefatigable forces of the journey of life in which we are but mere passing ships. And the ones who have not, are just biding their time. People always leave. That’s how life works. It’s not a surprise then that I am moved far lesser when people die. For what is life without the certainty of death?

Life poses no questions or has no meaning to those who doubt its uncertainty. Immortality takes away the very purpose of life; the urge to live; the will to survive; the quest to conquer. For when you have no fear of death, why should you have a love for life? Watching your dear ones leave you one by one causes you greater pain than can be expressed in words. And yet, knowing that you never got a chance to know them leaves u even more stranded, far more disillusioned and forever hurting..

I am no stranger to death…
This one is for you, mom.
I love you.

The past flashes before my very eyes,
Sometimes hard, sometimes nice.
I see myself standing in a crowd
I want to shout; to cry out aloud.

I want to reach out; to warn the younger me,
To implore him not to grow up into “me”
I cling to the edges, clutching at thin air,
Watching him curse life for being unfair.

I watch him fall over and over in obvious pain
Only to wonder whether there was anything to gain.
I look at the mud clinging to his face
And I marvel at the innocence and grace.

Somewhere along the line I had lost it all,
The smile and the laughter; big and small.
I had turned into the mask I see before me now;
Deprived of joy, bereft of love.

The mirror is nothing but a beacon of life,
The glass shows nothing but a profusion of strife.
Amidst the ruins, I see myself bow,
Clutching at that beautiful strand of life called LOVE!

It was a hot and humid Friday afternoon. Even though an hour of prayers in the stifling heat had done wonders for me psychologically, it had been rather taxing physically. I had come out raring to rush home when I had suddenly remembered that there was a grave that I had wanted to visit for a while now.

Another ten minutes were spent reflecting on the miserable plight that most of us loved to call ‘lives’. Prayers were sent into the heavens and an ardent one along with them to make the rest come true.

It was only when I was on my way back past the other multitude of graves that I had noticed this young man of about nineteen kneeling down and painstakingly clearing the small mound of dirt that had accumulated over the time since the last living soul had been there.

He looked quite ordinary, but I was struck by the extraordinary care that he went to to make sure that a place that was truly outside the wandering curiosity of passersby was as clean as a soil-eroded hillside.

What was it that made him come there, stand in silent agony, and dwell upon memories? Was it human nature to look further into the past than most deem safe? Was it curiosity that drove us, mistakes that needed correction, or mere chance?

As I spent the next few enlightening moments looking at this living soul pay his respects to the dead one, a part of my brain was calculating the futility of life. Was all of it worth it? The pressures, the joys, the sorrows, and the relationships? Would I indeed one day be as lucky as the one beneath the well-trodden earth to have someone who scrapes the leaves off my grave? Or would I rot away without anyone giving a second thought?

May all of us have an equivalent of that young man in our lives.

So what do I want to share with you today? Most of the other bites that I have gotten in my life come either from my little cousins or my nephews or nieces. And then there was one. The real deal this time. It all happened in my third year of college.

It was after twilight and I was walking back from my early dinner. The road back to my hostel was dark and so was my mind. But little did I know that it was only going to get darker and hazier. The one thing I distinctly remember from that night is the split second when I knew that I had stepped on something in the middle of the road. I had looked down and seen (yes, seen) the snake recoil and strike. Once. Twice. And then I had stepped over it, literally jumping out of my skin and onto safe ground.

It took me all of three seconds to realize that not only that I had very little time to figure things out, but also that there was nobody around who could help me. Not a single one had a car that could take me all the way to the hospital 20 kilometers away. I was all alone. Except for my phone, of course. The journey itself would take forty minutes and who knows what could happen in those two score?!

The first thing I did was to call up my dad (who is a doctor) and tell him what happened. He told me he will take care of the things at the hospital, and all I had to do was rush to the hospital. FAST. Man, as if that was the easy part of getting bitten!

Well, suffice to say, I somehow found a guy who could drive me to the hospital in ten minutes or so and about three quarters of an hour from the time it happened, I was lying on the hospital bed with a string tied around my leg (someone had told me that was gonna save me even if God could not!). The next twenty four hours saw me drifting in and out of sleep/consciousness whenever some nurse came to take my blood (oh no! not again!!). I recall fifteen instances when blood was taken from me in those 24 hours. Man, I never knew I could do that! The doctor there told me that I had been bitten by one of those snakes which strike multiple times to push venom in, and that thankfully, even though it had bitten me THRICE (I saw only two of them, but yeah, there was one before that apparently!), there was very little risk in my PTT blood levels. Aw well, so I am not gonna die after all.. Phew! 😀

The one thing I realized during the whole ordeal was that no matter how rich or righteous you are (in my case, read those as ‘poor or evil’), at a point of time, you realize that no one can save you except yourself. Helplessness is not a feeling. It is a condition, a state that we all live through. And that one night took me to a level of helplessness and despair that I knew not existed. Fear is not a thought that floods your mind in such circumstances.

The feeling is dread. Pure, uncontaminated, sparkling dread!