A Tribute...

Many a times, since the time I think I have matured in the perception of everyday petty yet profound things, I have been continually amazed at the relationship we share with our parents. I believe it is one of the most unique relationships a person ever cherishes in life.

We do not realize the meaning of being a daughter or a son till a certain age or maturity level arrives unto us. Sometimes we do not at all. The difference, talking in the Indian culture, custom and tradition context, being a parent not only imparts a sea of responsibilities, but also deals with it an automatic evolution of maturity which is just enough and a lot for the grooming up of a human being of tomorrow.
People round the world spend day in and day out in search of some God, some spiritual power. The reason: God is the ultimate self. God is the one who is omni-potent and He is the one who virtually controls, rules and takes care of the world. For example, in the Hindu epics, there is a notion of Lord Vishnu, who is said to be the 'Palak' or one who rears the Universe. Now, I am not talking of looking for a God or God-like personality around us. I am astounded as to how people cannot see the God in their parents! Talking of being a 'Palak", yeah, they are the one who groom up a little kid since its birth into a complete human being of tomorrow!
Again, people in the mundane world get upset over their best friends betraying them or some of their friends not looking up to them the way they expected. No wonder, I have also faced the same set of circumstances. But I have always found my parents beside me through all thick and thin. I now know, parents are the best friends.
After all this revelation even after knowing how much they have done for us, how many sacrifices they have done smilingly and how much we owe to them, are we as their kids, really able to live up to fulfilling all their expectations or at least ensuring them a beautiful later life? Perhaps yes sometimes, perhaps not always. We get so busy with our lives that we forget about some of our responsibilities we owe to the people who have been most responsible for us throughout their lives.
The Indian kind of relationship we cherish between parents and kids is astonishing. I think it is one of the unique of its kind in the world. I do not think any relationship ever had more colors than the rainbow, more threads intertwined than the finest cloth or more meanings associated than the world's largest thesaurus! It is such a commonplace feature, but every sunrise and sunset I feel I am amazed more than I was yesterday! If you ask me what my greatest wish and tribute would be, I would always say, "to be as strong as they have been, to be as responsible as they are, to have the degree of tenacity, to cherish in myself the whole horizon of forgiveness that parents shower on us on our biggest misgivings!"

What We Mean By 'Religion'?

Many people would swear in the names of their most treasured possessions about 'it'; some will fight the world for the sake of 'it'; others will embrace departure from so called mundane world to follow 'it': yeah, you guessed it right, I am talking about 'religion'. Religion, has perhaps been the most temporally persistent enigma of human civilization since the past five thousand years.
It is a strange coincidence that all the societal rules and customs made few thousand years back had very sensible causes behind their inception. Probably, religion, defined as a set of rules, customs and beliefs that a segment of a populace follows, arose from a way to make people still continue believing in themselves and in the things around them, when education, especially science was not a way to explain each and every happenning round the globe.
But this is unfortunate that the good motive to define and reach a set of rules as a religion for the better interest of mankind, did not last long. As the human civilization grew, so did grow man's greed for status and power. The scene remains true even today when while one set of people tries to exploit others in the name of religion, the other set knowingly or unknowingly prefers to get exploited or love to dwell in some fool's paradise.
I disbelieve in this concept of religion or perception of a set of defined rules which are set by some human-identified 'God' or a set of stone idols. To me, religion sticks to a set of defined rules, but those rules are the ones which are dictated by the 'self'. The sole philosophy of all the religions of thw world is how to find the true 'self' in oneself. And leaving aside the accessory rules and customs of those religions, I completely agree with them. And I believe the road to discovering the true self in ourselves is to know our set fo defined rules in life. And that 'constitutes' his or her individual 'religion'.
With a cohesive society disintegrating towards being more individualistic, and where we say "... room for ourselves" and "... live and let live", the notion of 'personified religion' sounds to me the best option towards a more 'logical' living and as an insight to the greater meaning of our lives.

I Await...

I stand by the ocean and watch the waves come and the waves go,
I hunt for the blue wave I witnessed in the night's first snow.
The wave that stole every moment of dusk and dawn,
As its memories beam high and low in my eyes' green lawn.

Every droplet is a ray of hope,
Hope to bring back the colors in my life on the blink of a piano note.
A journey, though meandering, it was,
it got me incredible mirth in the maze of life's wildest Jazz.

So was it much beyond just another passing wave over the passing yardstick of time,
But it construed the lemon in my daily lime.
I await 'midst the sand and the water's dice,
A hope, not to find a blue wave alike,
But I wait to put together and get back the wave of mine,
Which brought for me a whole new world of sunshine.