Buried once more

It was one of those boring days,
That it would become epochal
I knew not, before I saw you.
For that moment, my eyes agaze,
Saw our secret, far…
Far away, buried deep.

So out I set, to reach my treasure,
To the endless desert and the mighty river,
To the ruin that once was our city.
In its unplumbed depths,
Buried was our esoteric love,
In a scratch decorated chest.

Trinkets are they for the world,
Treasure are they for me…
The plain golden band you slid,
On my fingers in the life first.
Letters there were,
Filled with faded symbols,
But I read those words of love,
Like I did the first time.

I touch those lovely gifts,
Concealed here by me,
In all our lives numbered.
All high and low in their world’s worth,
But richer than all in mine.
I then, leave a new treasure,
A picture of us when we met,
To feel our love from all our lives,
In our next one when I come back,
Buried here once more.

Bury

Your voice…

I used to think I was in love
With music and the people those voices belonged to
But then I heard you for the first time
Realised what I felt before wasn’t love
Because I know now.

I watched you from so far away
You didn’t even know I existed
Today, I’m walking to you
Thinking so far back.

The world knows your voice is your lifeline
They all know there’s no you where there’s no song
But have you ever thought
Your voice could become someone else’s lifeline
I wish you knew because your voice is my lifeline.

I watched you sing
Through endless hardships
To grow into the man you today are
Each of those days all along,
It was your voice, that soared though the notes
But it was my heart, drumming along,
Forgetting the hard life.

My days’ cruelty bled into my nights
Haunting my dreams,
Pushing me into nightmares.
But you pulled me back, every time,
Through your song playing by my bed.
I then open my eyes
And wish you knew,
Your voice is my lifeline…

Am I teaching or learning?

My experience with people and teaching…

   The art of teaching holds different values to different people. The results of the act depends on the nature of the receptive side as much as it does on the teacher’s.  To be that person, each teacher works differently. So who is a good teacher? Someone who works day and night studying the contents they’re gonna teach the next day? Someone who is very kind to the students? Someone who keeps their knowledge updated constantly? But are those who are certified as teachers the only ones who can be called that? I would say “no”, because I got the experience both on and off the job. 

   I found it in teaching my classmates the portions for upcoming exams. I found it in training a friend to talk on stage. A guy only moderately knowledgeable in English with a lot of stage fright, he once asked me how I was able to just up and talk about things on stage. I ended up helping him. There never was much time in the class to talk about it so I extended the training to texting in the evenings, pointing out the grammatical errors he made and the ones that students usually do. I taught him the importance of confidence, body language and enunciation, how to get them right. I made some tweaks in the way he would talk. The small lessons continued for a few months. I took up more seminars so he could watch and learn even though it was a class filled with typical youngsters who didn’t much appreciate when someone was teaching on stage.

   One day he willingly accepted the seminar given to him. The time came for him to perform. From the last desk he strode to the front, calmly leaned his palms on the front desk, threw a 100% confident smile and said, “good morning!” The chatter all over the class died down and he levelled them all with a look that demanded attention and yet friendly. That day, I learned that I loved to teach not because I can, but because it made me happy to see someone climb the ladder with my help. The countless times I had taught someone something before, I never really gave much thought to why I liked it. But lucky for me, I ended up with a job that had me personally training young minds in English. 

    One such young fellow who happened to come directly under my care didn’t know a lot more than the alphabet. “Who dares to teach must never cease to learn”, said John Cotton Dana. What exactly does a teacher learn? All the ever evolving knowledge out there in the world? Will that be enough? With that student, as I proceeded to teach him beginning with vowels, consonants and articles… I learned to be a teacher who is understanding and patient. 

     There was another smart student who liked to look down on those language training sessions. With him, I learned how  to make a student learn before he knows what he is doing. 

   The more I carried on with it the more I realised being someone’s teacher helps me know so much about the person, and also it teaches me to be a better everything. Before I knew it, I got a chance to teach my sister how to be a writer. Being younger than her, I always looked up to her, who was so good at everything. It startled me quite a bit to be the one who is better at something, even though I knew it was only because I had years of experience in creative writing and she had none. Surprisingly, it was quite an enjoyable journey. I wondered if we were going to be authors together in the future.  But now and then I had my doubts. She is a quick learner, smart and talented. But her urge to write was not as strong as mine. It had me thinking, “she hasn’t discovered her dream yet. She doesn’t even know she has one.” As if to prove my thoughts, every time I asked her she would say “My dream is to make a good living and for us to live prosperously forever.” She didn’t realise that it was everyone’s wish. Everybody wants to earn and live comfortably. 

   I decided to take it upon myself to teach her how to find her dream, my biggest challenge ever. I kept prompting her to do things I knew she could enjoy. It definitely helped that I know her pretty well. We’re sisters after all. I tested her response to those tasks, calculating where her interests were gravitating. I brought the options to a very short list and tested her once more on which she would go first to. It took me some time to figure out exactly what she was looking for. Quite unexpectedly, I happened to stumble upon a picture she drew.  I knew well she intended it to be a portrait. But that was not what I saw. “About time!” I said. “Now I know which way to lead you.” 

   I talked to her about toon drawing, the difference between that and regular arts. As expected she turned out to be quite good. Finally after years, she could happily settle with one hobby. “Oh my God! I can’t keep track of time once I start drawing this!” She said. With a smile, I told her “Then this is who you are.” She now steadily walks the path to properly learn the art and become a toon artist. Filled with pride, once again I learn that this kind of teaching brings me happiness the most; Helping people find out who they really are, for I know how much I struggled with my own self. Here we both are now, on our way to achieve our dreams, and of course, I’m looking for someone else I could help. 

The Darkness

Trying out a melancholy…

O the creatures of this earth,

Tell me about your life.
Tell me how you lived,
Tell me how you live,
Tell me how you will.
How do you do without begrudging your life?
Cause this life,
Makes me feel I’m no good to live.
Do I have a purpose?
Do I have a cause?
Even if I do,
I do not belong to
What I do to do.
Will I get to my right place?
Will I get my right space?
To do what I want to do.
Must I do good in what I do?
Should I hate what I want to do?
Or should I love what I do to do?
Should I regret who I am?
Or should I bloom on who I am?
Do I need these failures?
Do I need them to do?
Why do they stop me 
From what I want to do?
Why do they push me 
To do what I do to do?
I’m standing right here,
All alone, in here,
Surrounded by souls
That can never know
What I want them to know.
When will this battle end?
The battle of life…
Fighting as a single on my side,
I face the charge
Of the opposite side
With no one by my side.
Will I win?
Will I lose?
Do I have the power,
To overpower the tower,
And take the flower
Which turns to a shower?
They laugh, They giggle,
They find pleasure,
Where there is no treasure.
Where the real treasure is,
That I know,
But know not how to reach.
What I think of that treasure,
Valuable than gold,
No one knows.
So, is there one who can walk with me,
On the way to the treasure?
Lost in the woods,
I search for a light.
There I see,
A faint sparkle
But alas! It fades,
Fades and fades,
Finally leaving me,
Where I be, but I am no bee.
Not knowing what to do,
My eyes well up,
Calling for help.
But none came then,
So I dried my pool,
With no more wet,
Losing all hopes.
Should I ask for help,
From the souls around me,
To flash a beam of light
On my path to the right,
Or hold my hands and walk
Through the dark of life?
Will I get the light?
Or will I get the hands?
Or will I get the strength
To walk down the aisle?
O the soul nearby,
Can you hear by your ear
My pleas for your help?
Can you take my hands?
And walk me to my right?
Cause when I ask for a help,
I get the line
“Walk to the light”
But please do know,
That the light left me,
Long, long ago,
When I tumbled into this cave.
So tell me now, If I can,
Get away from this 
Dark cave of fate.
I see the devils smile,
Smile at my hurt.
I feel my eyes close,
Deep to the dark, so
O the souls nearby,
Get me out of this dark.

Jallikattu and the modern world

Jallikattu’s past and the present..

  Every person in the world loves one sport or another. When it is a native sport, it gets more supporters and followers and one such attention grabbing sport is Jallikattu, also known as Embracing a Bull in English. Mainly practiced in Tamil Nadu state in India, it is an indigenous sport, that has enthusiastic fans all over the state. Jallikattu is essentially a bull-baiting event, where bulls are let to run freely and whoever manages to hold on to it and retrieve the prize is considered to be of great gallantry. Traditionally conducted during the Pongal festival, which falls in the mid-January, youngsters, mostly men, gather in a large open arena where the bulls are held. A piece of cloth is tied to the bull’s horns along with any other prize material. The name ‘Jallikattu’ itself was derived from the very act practised during the ancient times, where ‘jalli’ or ‘salli’ means a gold coin and ‘kattu’ refers to a stack of the coins or ‘tied to’ in Tamil. The young man who could retrieve the coin was considered the winner. The first bull to be let out is the one that belongs to the village temple and in respect to the temple and the hosting village, it is allowed to run untouched, after which more bullocks are let loose one by one in separate rounds or in small groups of two to six.

 Tamil people take huge pride in conducting the event, participating and winning, it being one of the oldest traditions. How old, we might ask. That’s when the surprising fact comes in. An Indus Valley civilization seal has been found depicting the sport, clearly stating that it was a popular sport in the period, which implicates that the sport was developed somewhere in the beginning of the civilization, making it a very old, if not the oldest sport in the world.

  It is found that nearly 70% of the Indian cows are owned by the economically poor. While it is a generally accepted fact that the best milk in the world is produced by India from its indigenous breeds, from the rate of extinction of those breeds, India will have to import milk in ten years or so. Tamil Nadu used to have about 130 native breeds out of which around 30 now exist. But even those are endangered. Six of those breeds hold a slightly better chance because the Jallikattu sport is to prove not only an individual person’s strength, but also the bulls’. Such bulls are then taken to breed calves in order to retain the high quality. This sport actually ensures the prevalence of those breeds. Sadly, the banning of the sport has threatened this, because once there is no more Jallikattu, the market price of those bulls are to drop drastically and there will be no major use for them. That makes the lives of the cattle owners even more difficult. Also, these bulls will be found useful mostly by butchers, thus increasing their slaughter.

  There is a huge controversy over the experience of the bulls in this sport. Traditionally, the bulls are trained for this. When it seems like the bulls are terrified during the event, the mature and experienced bulls actually lifting their heads for roping their nose or setting free actually shows that the bulls just might enjoy the event as much as people do. The bulls are even seen to tactically jump from the opening gate to avoid being caught, and jump over a person if he falls down instead of ramming into him. Most people fail to understand that Jallikattu and the Spanish bull fighting are not the same. Here, it is nothing more than embracing the bull by holding on to it’s hump. These facts only increase and strengthens the arguments of both parties, the one who say that the animals are in no harm and those who say that the bulls are tortured and terrified.

  When we say ‘native breed’, it is because the particular breed came from a particular region and is found to thrive in the best of its qualities in that place only. This is because each breed’s qualities come from so many factors pertained to the particular place like the climate, natural soil compositions, plants that grow in those lands and such. The beauty of Mother Nature is that no matter how much we try, we can’t obtain the exact same results in some other place. If such breeds go extinct, what happens to the balance in the nature? What happens to the kind of food we get from them? Recent studies reveal that the milk and its products can be divided into two kinds, A1 and A2. Shocking as it may, a mutated protein found in the A1 milk is seen to cause various health defects like heart troubles, autism, cancer, etc., which has been proven through experiments. Surprisingly, New Zealand even labels the products as A1 and A2, even though it has caused quite a stir in the markets. Lucky for us, our breeds give us A2.

  That makes us get back to the one thing that holds the existence of those breeds together in Tamil Nadu. In an attempt to free the bulls from the sport, many non-profit organisations have been seen to oppose it. The Supreme Court of India has banned practicing Jallikattu. Safety measures were already in place to check the bulls, test them for alcohol or any substance that can aggravate them, and then have them registered. But the revoking and again banning clearly shows the extent of dispute between those who want to stop the sport and those who don’t. This year, all over Tamil Nadu, several thousand students were found protesting and rallying against the ban. Even many celebrities and politicians were found supporting the cause. Even though the ban wasn’t lifted again, the sport was still conducted in some places, in an attempt to prove that they won’t back down. This fight has been going on for more than a decade. But the actions it has spurred have caused further distress. Protestors were detained and several were reported to be injured, especially one of the students who is said to have sustained fatal injuries. This has stirred a lot of commotion in today’s youth. Everybody has their own opinions on things. As tiring as it looks, sometimes, it just confuses the mind. It has us thinking.

  Why such a long fight over one thing? Why won’t either of the sides back down? What really is happening?

Indian agriculture – what happens tomorrow?

A few concerned thoughts on agriculture..


​   In this present world, how many of us have taken a moment to think about the differences between the history of Indian agriculture and what really is happening now in the sector? The thought hit me during an unexpected moment in an unrelated situation and yet, I was curious enough to think why India’s agriculture has been declining alarmingly. The result is mind boggling really. There are numerous studies and reports on this issue. Every single one of those gives numbers and it started getting depressing to see those that I don’t even bother mentioning them here. There seems to be no point in analyzing numbers and wondering over them anymore. It is high time something was done a bit more than crunching of numbers. On that front, India also has a long history of trying to rectify this very problem and there seems to be very little progress. Now, why is that?

  What has happened to the country which once was an expert in agriculture, that once was the king of the art? What happened to the knowledge and resources that pavexpert ed the way to be so? We do not have even one-fourth of what we had back then. Not the land used for agriculture, the produce or the number of farmers. It has been a few decades since people started thinking agriculture to be an inferior occupation. The several factors leading to the difficulties has made the farmers to work their life off to send their children into engineering so the next generation doesn’t have to suffer like they do. Now what has happened, when farmers all over the country did that? Can we really blame them? No. When we truly take a look into their lives, we see that they are some of the people in the country who have it hardest.

  It has been very discouraging for the farmers to take chances and keep working their fields with very little insurance in case of failures, which have been seen to occur more frequently now.

  It’s a known fact that more and more land gets pushed into becoming areas of residence, corporate buildings or anything that would take it away from agriculture. Moreover, what little land the farmers do own, has a major gap, making it two kinds. Ones who own very little and the ones who own a lot more comparatively. This difference makes the income of majority of the farmers scarce.

  Then comes the issue of irrigation. While the lands are going drier than ever, what source we now have for water is not available to all, to say the least. When looked at closely, the study takes a whole new face, stepping into climatic changes, pollution, global warming, topographical changes and the list of scary observations grows. To do their best in acquiring water for irrigation, they all drill bore wells and suck out what little water is left under. We all know where that is leading us.

  With that little land they have and even less water, farmers mostly out of desperation, started using advanced crops and hybrid seeds. While it looked promising, the effect has been calculated to be devastating in the long run. Farmers are also caught between the old practices and the new technology that they use it without proper guidance and knowledge. It has led not to the betterment of the produce but a stage where we can’t deduce whether the results are the same or worse yet.

  When already the declined agriculture is arising issues like insufficiency and economic inflation, the best of the produce is exported, leaving even little for the country. While it is true that India gets a lot of income through those exports, the effects on the people are not really gainful everywhere, especially the farmers. There is a huge difference between the price they sell the goods and the price it reaches the general public in the markets, the middle men taking the lion’s share of the profits.

  The Indian Government has been seen to take measures to rectify the overall issue. The remedies like more employment in the fields, better insurance against crop failures and attempts on better irrigation seem to be a bit encouraging but the effects are nowhere near what we need. This is just the simplest summary of what India is up against, in terms of agriculture. The detailed studies in truth show cruel results, the kind every citizen should be worried about.

  This had me thinking in a series of ‘what if’ questions that I don’t really have all the answers for, but I believe can be worked out if tired. I believe that it would be possible for the Indian Government (if decided to do so), to allocate vast land areas for Government controlled agriculture. Not just any land, but the places that are made of bountifully fertile soil. Strategic planning can really help in locating such places over not only the fertility factor, but also where the water supply for irrigation from the rivers can be made elemental.

  When that is done, there comes the labour. Now when there is such a large scale attempt, there will be a lot of work needed to be done and hence a requirement of large number of farmers. They can be employed as Government employees with regular and fixed income with perks based on the amount and quality of the produce they can give. This will not only hugely encourage the farmers but also increase the nation’s gross production. For those farmers who own agricultural lands and prefer to stay that way despite the benefits of having a constant income if employed, their produced goods can be processed into marketing through the same board that would work on marketing the results of centralised agriculture. Surely, there would be a lot of people, young and old, who possess a passion for agriculture, as is the case in every occupation in the world, art or no. This, along with national institutes dedicated to agriculture, can ensure good working of the scheme and gaining more crop produce. Even though I am aware that such an effort would require funds of astronomical heights, I believe this will not only regulate and increase the gross production of the nation but also increase the number of farmers occupied, their income, bridge the gap between the prices and in time, increase the net income for both the farmers and the nation itself. The raised rates of the goods on public markets can be reduced also, making it available for everyone within their budgets. On the additional benefits is the more green on the lands, reducing pollution and global warming.

  Being a person who has had not much exposure to agriculture or economics, I am not fully aware of the effects this would have in detail. But in any case, I believe this is doable and wonder if it is worth looking into.