Have I turned into a Saint of sorts???

Have I turned into a Saint of sorts???

Have you ever wondered how your life would have turned around had you taken some other path? Have you ever given a second(or say third or fourth) thought to all decisions you make? Have you ever paused for a moment to ask yourself -"Is this what I want or what I need?"

This is me pausing for a moment to think, to reflect what I have become and what I should have become. After 21 years of self repenting in the name of education, morals and values I have come to realize that among the cacophony of people and things in your life, bliss lies in solitude. Solitude brings out the real you, the inner self of you, as philosophers say.

It gives you the space, the time needed to discover yourself, to unlock your inner treasures and to pacify yourself.

What has gotten into me? Till yesterday I was a "normal", happy to go person writing poetry, enjoying music and doing what needs to be done. What am I now? What am I yammering about? Turning all philosophical overnight. Had I dreamed of a sage teaching me values and morals, describing me the concept of inner peace? OR had something unknown  planted this idea in me?  

I don't know! I am still the same person who loves to write, to sing , to socialize yet I have changed, adding to the list of paradoxes my own one(Perhaps among the very few not involving time travel!).From my childhood I had loved to travel, to explore places and as I had grown and developed a sense of good and bad, I decided for my self that befriending strange people does not always turn out to be bad.(I thus turned out be an extrovert, making friends easily). This side of me my 'real' side was overshadowed by my 'virtual' side- "a side focused to do what's needs to be done at the time so that I will be lifted higher in this world, giving a true meaning to this life, as parents would say!". This is my 'real' side talking, working very hard to keep the other side dormant at this moment. As a person of this side, unbounded by constraints of achievements, I will still love to travel, to explore, to befriend strangers, even fall in love with someone someday.

I hope my other side is asleep and doesn't wake to find about the treacherous plot my 'real' side is plotting against it, how my 'real' side is trying to overcome my 'virtual' one with ideas of inner peace, love and solitude, because if that happens a war is in order and I know for now which side is the weaker one and will give up first.

So hoping that it doesn't go 'that' way, I am trying to be as quiet as possible while thinking of these ideas so that loudness of my thoughts does not wake my virtual reality and at the same time I am strengthening my 'real' reality so that when war is inevitable it wins.

We all have something to do in our lives, realizing it is the most difficult task. Now after the realization part I find doing it extraordinarily hard. But I will do it; I will travel, explore and also preach whenever necessary.

I will........

DREAMS

Hey ya!!! I am back on time. This is a poem I wrote a couple of weeks ago titled dreams!! (apt from the image itself) Its short but expresses my feelings clearly!! ;)

DREAMS

I was floating in the sky made of water,

and flying on the land made of air..

I was arguing with a lion and singing with a nightingale,

 living in the land of nowhere.....

I was happy, ecstatic even

with all my dreams and aspirations

carefully woven....

But then came a dragon breathing fire 

instead of air,

burnt me down, not leaving a single strand of hair...

I opened my eyes with Ma besides me,

replacing with routine my last night's glee...

Taking my blanket & instructing me to wake

Shouting and screaming - "Don't you have a life to make??"

I smile at first, remorse follows later,

realizing reality unlike dreams is full of craters...

Still waiting for the day to swim on land,

with life lending a helping hand..

Its been a year since I have posted anything and I am feeling very shameful for that. Not only I have broken the sacred vows of blogging I have been inconsistent in one thing I was consistent at. But remorse is not the solution here, I need to sit up(or lay down!!) take out my wand(in my case its a 'PEN') and finally cast out a spell on my diary. And believe it or not I've done that, many a times. 
But being a writer of some sorts I am a procrastinator which is evident from my BLOG.
But I have shed of my dirty clothes(I think I have!!) and at this moment wearing my new ones(Just to be clear I am in the habit of using a lot of metaphors so take it as one, I cannot type while trying on clothes!).
So here goes my redemption in the form of a poem, which I wrote almost 3 months ago!

Its UNTITLED so deal with that :P, but I will welcome any thoughts on the title.

  UNTITLED

Blasphemy! is what they yelled when we changed our ways,

Superstition! is what they cried when some other GOD we prayed,

Chaos! is what we imposed when in the right direction we chased,

Tyrants! are we called, to break ourselves free from this endless maze...

What are we and what we are not?

shouldn't we decide for ourselves whether we are free or our life's caught?

caught in this bizarre world, the same world whose false values and morals one we fought! ,

fought so relentlessly, so bravely, trying to grow plants in a season of drought....

Is this what this is now?

doing the impossible is what our live converges to, How?

How did this happen?

How did our worship change to blasphemy, to superstition?

Our fidelity to tyranny?

How can a order bring so much Chaos?

Did we diverge from our cause or the world converged into a pause?

If their pause is what are blasphemy, tyranny, superstition , 

then

we are honored to be in this condition

we are thankful to the world for creating this situation in which our thoughts are perceived as insinuation......

BOOK REVIEW : THE CUCKOO's CALLING

The thought of solving crimes has always given me goosebumps, being a detective is so cool. Reading detective novels thus gives the required adrenaline rush since doing actual detective work is out of bounds for now. Since Poe and Doyle a lot of writers have tried to sail in the river of crime fiction genre but only a few of them have got through successfully. As an ardent reader of both of Poe's short stories and Sherlock Holmes my expectations from this genre have been sky high and after them only Agatha Christie has been able to quench my thirst, till now.

Yesterday I completed 'The Cuckoo's Calling' by J.K Rowling writing under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith. I bought the book a week earlier, after J.K Rowling's involvement in the novel was confirmed. As a child I have been a huge fan of Harry Potter series and was eager to read this book. I have not read Rowling's other work 'The Casual Vacancy' so I will not compare Cuckoo's Calling to it.

First of all its a hard boiled detective novel, so one needs to be very thorough in order to appreciate the story, the characters and the pace of the book. The book introduces a private detective Cormoran Strike, the protagonist to the readers who is a var veteran, wounded both physically and psychologically. There has been a death of a famous supermodel, who jumps out from her balcony in the middle of a freezing night. It is believed to be suicide but the model's brother intercepts the death as a killing. This is where Strike comes in.
The investigation process's description is wonderful and sucks the reader in from the very beginning. The character development is excellent and so are their level of details. The ending is unpredictable yet effective.

One falls in love with Strike's character as the story progresses; sympathizing with him, thinking like him and even envying him sometimes. All in all its a very good read, a definite page turner and I recommend it not only to all crime fiction fans but also to normal fiction ones.

KYA KAROON?

Upne dil ke sagar main khwahishon ki naav dubne se kaise bachaun?

Upne dil mei lave se bhi garam sakt par naram, kabhi na bujhne wali aag kaise jalaun?

Upne aap ko andhere ki kaal kothri chodkar rishini ke mehlon mei rehne ko kaise samjhaun?

Upni ruh ko kabhi na khatm hne wale jasbe se kaise milaun?

Aur sab kuch chodke bephikra paer ke patton ke tarah kaise lehraun?

Ab kya karoon, kaise karoon mai kya bataun?

Kabhi na bujhne wali pyas kaise bujhaun?

Matlabi duniya ke matlabi logon ki baaton se zakhmil dil par marham kaise lagaun?

Aur dukhi man par, zakhmi tan par khushi ka libaz kaise pehnaun?

Ab kya karoon, kaise karoon mai kya bataun?

Pighle aashaon par aarmanon ki baraf kaise jamaun?

Bhikhe dil ko zindagi ki mithas kaise chakhaun?

Bina kisi ki parwah kie, bine dare man mei jo aae zor zor se kaise chilaaon?

Ab kya karoon, kaise karoon mai kya bataun?

Bina kahe kisi pe apna hak kaise jataun?

Tapte suraj se sahara deti andheri raat aur apne man ki gehraiyon mai chupi hui baat ko kaise failaun?

Ab kya karoon, kaise karoon mai kya bataun?...........

INFERNO!!

I never thought that I would be writing a review for a book and that too of a bestseller. Before I begin I want to clearly specify that this post is more of a personal take on Dan Brown's Inferno rather than a critics review. So my views are limited to me only ( of course I am expecting my views to coincide with that of other people too :P ;) ). So if anyone reading this disagrees with me its absolutely fine and he/she has each and every right to voice their views ( as long as this voicing is non violent and non offensive to both Dan brown and other people's views -_-).

This Review might contain spoilers, however I have tried to be as precise as possible.

THOU SHALL ONLY PASS if either you have read the book or don't give a damn about some spoilers before starting a book  ;)

I have never done this before, so how should i begin???? 

Hmm...

Let me begin by indicating that this is a DAN BROWN Novel!!! This guy is like the second bestselling author after GOD! (haha) So critics or people views don't matter in his case, his books will be bestselling no matter what people say. 

Now coming to this book, its a Robert Langdon thriller ( you remeber the phenomenol successes of Da Vinci's Code and Angels and Demons and not so phenomenal success of The Lost Symbol, but all of them were bestsellers). Its the fourth installment in this series and is centered in Florence, Italy. As other Robert Langdon thrillers it is full of codes, detail description of historical monuments, Langdon, in run with a attractive women and each chapter ending in a cliffhanger! The central plot revolves around Dante's classic Divine Comedy's Inferno. Now I have not read Divine Comedy but after reading Dan Brown's Inferno I can tell you guys that it is not a pre-requisite. Dan Brown has explained as much is required in reference to his book. It will  not be wrong to say that this is the darkest Dan brown has gone in his literary career. Exploring the underworld of Dante's Divine comedy through Botticelli's map of Hell is one hell of a feeling! The book takes you through a very interesting ride(more of a treasure hunt, really) and as Dante has described in his book you too will feel as if going from Inferno to purgatory to paradise while reading Dan Brown's book! The only thing I found somewhat irritating was long detailed ( and when i say long it means longer than that of Dan Brown's previous works) description of monuments.What's the internet for?? We can easily Google anything we want to know in more detail. Apart from that Dan Brown's Inferno is ONE HELL OF A READ!!

 It's a  recommended summer read.

I found a website while I was researching Dante while reading the book, it was very helpful. I am providing its link here...

The World Of Dante

And do search for all the monuments,places given in the book. It doubles your excitement!! ;)

THINK OF THE TIMES

Think of the times we are alone,

With nobody there to soothe our soul

Think of the times we want to fight,

With nobody there to make it right

Out there searching for something

Getting everything, still nothing

Think of the times we want to run,

When someone’s pointing a gun, playing us for fun

These times make us cry, sucking us dry

We then ask ourselves, where is happiness? Where is laughter?

Until we realise we don’t know what we are after!

Then we turn to shadows for redemption,

Pleading them to ease our pain end our suffocation

But shadows too cheat us, deserting us in life’s park

Parting ways when it is dark

Think of the times we are alone

Darkness not light guiding us home

Consumed by darkness’s fury

With no Gods freeing us by voicing our case like a jury

Think of the times we are running straight but falling

Falling and falling with no one to lift us high answer to our calling

Think of the times we prefer dreams to reality

Where we are free to create our identity

Where no one questions our integrity and everyone respects our genuinity

These times come in handy but they do teach us a lot

Life’s a spider web in which we are caught

We have to break free ourselves

Our chains can’t be broken by anyone else