THE CANDLE IN THE WIND

( This writing is dedicated to the beloved of every fearless martyr, who, like a candle, melts herself in the greatest of sacrifice and faith, in the hope of keeping the flame resting on her soul, the life and pride of her man, glow unto eternity )

The last of those rays pierced the air,

Birds swaying to the daffodils song,

The setting sun held a rare affair,

Skies swept and swam along,

Like waters dressed in a velvet white,

Embracing upon, like a royal shell,

To cloak the sun in its fading bright,

But despairing within, time could tell,

That the dawn, in arrival, was but far,

Sunset it was, of a soldier’s walk,

Into darkness yonder, the Twilight of War,

A stallion’s footprints, left to mark,

As his lady stood at an intimate height,

With restless hopes, never content,

Of praying through the sleepless night,

To wait unto his dawn, faith unbent.

Courage seeped through flesh and vein,

And stirred within, a million dreams,

Iron heart, never rested in vain,

Prayers etched on the deepest realms.

A knight's march in the armor of glory,

Pride, enthroned in his lady's bosom,

A portrait it was, of the grandest story,

Painted with sacrifice, only love could blossom,

As, destiny, she scripted, held its awe

Head held high in a wind of trust,

Trust laid on the miracle of Love,

That time in eternity would never rust.

On the land of war, twinkled his sword,

Spirit roaring in a wondrous high,

As he saw his angel, lighting his heart,

The battle echoed its gallant call,

He bowed to her Glory, her Sacrifice.

LOOKING THROUGH BLIND EYES

How figuratively effective is a 95 and how inadequate is a 94.5??How fair is it, when a student tagged ‘OC’, of an unaffordable family standard with a better grade than another individual tagged ‘OBC’ of a better standard, isn’t admitted in some reputable institution?

The modus operandi of the Indian education system is perhaps well acquainted with the insensitivity and inadequacy of satisfactory answers to these questions.

Welcome to a world where obscure numbers, averages and percentages dictate the working of young minds; where what you learn stands of no significance to the reality of how much you are tamed to learn. If a human brain can be tried and tested within a narrow band of 100 marks, a DaVinci could have well been as good as an Albert Einstein and a Bob Marley could be on a par with Bill Gates.

Our educational system is a jaded one wherein quantity bulldozes quality. Exams are here to test how much an individual can amass in his mind, without learning to ask those very basic questions we homo sapiens are all born to ask-‘what ,’why’ and ‘how’. If you can be led by what the syllabi tell you and heap up in mind, the innumerable and obsolete theory packed in textbooks, you’re the master of this educational system. And no matter, how intelligent you might be, for all your analytical skills, if you can’t trash in a decent aggregate, you’re always behind the line.

The irony is such that, a twelfth grade student would most likely be learning his Basic English-the noun, verb and the adjective for the zillionth time in his life and his language would be judged on whether he could distinguish between the present, past and the future tense. Language is no subject to clog your mind with theoretical crap. It should be taught as a tool of communication; of effective speaking and writing. It cannot be mastered by hauling attractive scores in lame examinations.

When working with what you learn is the key to understand, here is a system that secludes practicality. The so called ‘theory’ that is learnt in classrooms is secluded from real-time work, when both of them should always go alongside one another. And mind you, these work sessions are again a fodder for a sum of marks which would constitute the practical exam.

Perhaps the most pathetic truth of all is that this system is yet to come up with a honest method to distinguish the good performances from the bad, in its hullabaloo-hyped exams. Here’s the realistic scenario of how exams are evaluated: Most solutions to questions are judged on how many pages they have so painfully been able to consume or the décor of their writing. In the end, post-results, students are sometimes left to ponder over whether they have been done any justice at all. And to re-evaluate their own answer papers in case of any hope that might add a couple of marks, they are to pay huge sums of money, for which, the process takes an agonizingly long time.

Despite the all and sundry promises and propaganda, the government seems to make for the betterment of basic education, the facts stand out as miserable. Rural education, a far-cry, is ailed by inadequate facilities ranging from the unavailability of electricity, books and even proper buildings and sanitation. Poverty-afflicted families stand neglected, while a few of them had to pay bribes to enable their children to access the education services provided by the government. Due to the meager wages offered for teaching staff at public schools, these students are denied good, effective teachers. The deplorable facilities add to the cause and the repercussion is hardly a motivation for these people to work in these institutions.

Has today’s education become a hot-spot in Indian money-making? Well, a single look at the monetary demands of today’s educational institutions might lead you to think that they would contribute to the national budget. If you can shell out a big sum, any institution is at your avail and waiting to gorge your money. Where’s the transparency in all this money-eating? Private institutions should be regulated strictly on their heavy monetary imposition before this country goes bankrupt.

Add to this, the much debated reservation issues and it just seems to make an exaggerated blend of politics and business. And by heavens, what purpose does this discrimination of caste serve? Not to hurt anyone’s sentiments, If reservation aims to serve the under-privileged individuals, then it’s a catastrophic misery, the government fails to realize that ‘caste’ is, in no way, related to ‘standard of living’. And if there should be any reservation, it should rightfully go to those below the affordable standards and not to any Tom, Dick and Harry just because he belongs to some caste or creed.

The rush toward information technology in the past few years seems to be overwhelming. Engineering and medicine seem to be flooded and have conjured a scenario where the uncertainty amongst students to take up off-beat streams has increased manifold. We need a balance between all employment streams sans the dominance by engineering and medicine. This widening gap should be bridged and only then shall we realize the magnitude of fields awaiting skill and innovation. Cometh the end of the higher secondary and the mad ballyhoo that surrounds the exams makes it look as if the fates of these students are chained to science and commerce. There is such a vast pool of talent in this land that lands in wrong places merely due to the lure of high prospects of income in these major streams.

Education is about discovering abilities within, the love and the passion to take up something and pursue it. It’s not about producing a genius here and there, which ironically, in the language of our lame education tree, relates to ‘toppers’ with good-looking averages. It’s about putting the pieces of jigsaw together, so that everything and everyone can fit in their rightful places. Unless it serves this purpose, education in any form and content, becomes only a weed.

THE ROAD TO NOWHERE

“Y’see, as you all know, madness is just like gravity,

All it takes is a little… Push”

- The infamously famous ‘Joker’ (of ‘Batman’ fame)

For ages to come, this figment of dark humor, the words of one of the Super-Villains of our time, from the frames of a comic fiction masterpiece, will remain brazened in the walls of time. In all its simplicity and an amusing sense of ironical truth, the verses put mankind in its fitting perspective; of what it has come down to, through ages of evolving from a primate species; of its relentless struggle to draw a line between the dogma of good and bad.

Come to think of it, throughout the course of his blotted history, man has never stuck to permanence in what he sees. What he perceives as good at an instant of time becomes ill-famed at the tick of the future and what he once considers as evil transforms to his own self good. He has never conceived this simple yet forceful axiom of reality.

The very testimony to his blindness is inscribed in blood: Through wars, he so wages to prove his own right along the battle-lines. War is not a cause. It is only a symptom of man’s disease of reveling in his fame and unreasoned foresight. If humanity has to be sheared by mere lines of control, let there be no borders and no countries, for all men live on the same blood and soul. And if every man in this planet has to go down by the blade of another, he’d rather kill himself and save some dignity in his death.

Governments, as we see them today, are nothing but a band of men regimenting authority over people who do not comprehend their belief. They throw their lands astray to wake up every morning in the hope of finding themselves, still being the puppeteer. They do not know the power of anarchy; of rebellion and of vendetta.

How do people draw their hearts out every morning to lay their eyes upon scores of tabloids? The pages squabble the same content everyday. Men hurling away bombs like extravagant sessions of blitzkrieg fireworks, wiping away thousands of their brethren; Psychopaths roaming around every nook and corner before people can almost welcome one of them, jigging about with knives, at their door-step; Soldiers treading their lives on a seesaw that balances a million people of their motherland, an act left to darkness by the paparazzi and celebrity scoops that include every other break-up that marriages are so fondly able to offer nowadays, or the private lives of the people around the bend; Parliaments running amok in the mindlessness of uncivil people who brand themselves ‘politicians’ and shout out their propaganda over roofs so as to discover the horde of fools who would end up on their side in fragrant fallacies; The gaping abyss cleaving men on grounds of wealth and mint, a scale that often tilts itself out of leverage.

Over theories and an overflowing number of philosophies, man has tried to answer the numero-uno question that he has posed himself with- The Presence of a force above him, God as he christened it. He has never realized the power of his sub-conscious, his prowess, that all other forms of life lack. God is but man: his thought and hence reason, the food for thought.

He materialized god through Religion, when god has always rested deep inside him, in the form of his belief and thought. He proposed that God was all that was good; and whenever man stumbled across his share of insanity, he heaved the blame onto god.

Amazing, just how much a man could ask himself and pursue those answers through his very own faith. And yet, if only man could stand firm on this difference between the good and the bad, good would have always stood its ground. But instead, he has so often drawn his cannon to the fore, baptizing religion to an affair of blood and gore.

Man’s assault on nature in his hunger to create has been an omen of his under-estimation of the Herculean potency of nature. With very scar, man has made on her, she has charged back at him, only with a greater ferocity. If man has to wage a battle with nature, by the moment his sword is out, nature would have had drawn her first blood in vantage; and when man struggles to strike back, nature would have but vanquished him. Nature sowed the seeds of man on earth, and only she has might enough to wipe him out, for he is only a cell in her universe.

Mankind has sadly been a comedy of errors. Our chronicles have been etched with little apostle for thought and thereby no thought to navigate action. We have journeyed through labyrinths of nothingness to pursue all but ourselves. And by the time man wakes up from his reverie, the hourglass would have given up and the journey would have struck a dead end.