Precious child

Today, something touched my heart after a long time. I have always been aware of this weak side to myself. It just doesn't help. Leaves me feeling worthless. Shouldn't my life mean more than just me. It is easy to be lost in one's own pain and suffering and not realize what others are going through. Many holy men talk about looking at others pain before crying about your own. It does help you feel better, doesn't it? Someone else is more miserable than yourself. So you thank god, that you are at least better off than them. I have done that at times. At times when life doesn't seem to be headed the right way. But today, again I feel sorry for them. So much going wrong around me while I just sit back and watch it happen. What is life about? Is it about living moments and cherishing them? Facing problems as they come? Doing something for your country? Dedicating oneself to the religion? To be a successful man and earn loads of money? They all seem quite right and there. Or maybe it depends on the person. Life can mean all this and maybe more and yet not mean anything at all.

Somehow, I never really got it right. It was never a fixed thing for me. At one point life meant riding my tobu cycle. Sometime later it was religion, then parents and on and on. My parents active social life did expose me to a lot. I still remember the fortnightly visits that we made to "Precious child" foundation. On one side I stood holding my old shoes which I no longer used and still unwilling to part with, and on the other side his hands stretching out and the smile on his disturbed face. The rough skin, unkempt hair turning muddy brown, a shirt that must have been passed for at least a decade, and chappals that had been stitched up together. The mind went blank and I watched as I let go of the shoes and he galloped away with them. Sat there in a corner trying to push his feet into them. It was unique. For a moment I wished I had more shoes to part with and bring a smile on all the other faces that stood there watching him try them on.

What touched me bad today, was a detective serial. The detective has his car stolen by a teenage kid. He puts his best into tracing the kid and his car. In the end he runs into the kids house which is more of a stable than a house. In the corner he sat there with his two much younger siblings. All abandoned and freezing in the cold. In front of them is a very small Christmas tree with no decorations on it. The detective was heart broken at the sight and so was I.

I wish life continues to mean more than just me, and that I'm able to live upto the dreams that I see of meaning something to someone. Life is not about living it, but helping others live it. I wonder if my shoes are still being passed on. I wonder if they are still bringing a smile to an unknown precious child's face. I hope they are.

Queer Tharunka 2

Frontcover


Backcover


Innercover


Editorial


My post

As per Cuckoo's request, I have posted the pics of the magazine.

The front cover is ok nothing very gay about it until you look at the minute text and the symbols used. The backcover has a drawing of men lying butt naked. Those who know what gay men do would get the idea. The innercover features the picture of a trans-sexual (a man dressed as a woman). The editorial talks about the magazine and what queer means. Then you see my article. The editorial staff most probably thought that I'm a woman and thus lesbian. So they think that in the post I'm talking about my feelings for a woman as a lesbian. Oh god!

P.S: The text in the images is readable. Give it some time to load completely. Those that dug deep into the thing; Ya i know it is not spelt right but still it is hardly a condolence for my soul.

Queer Tharunka

I don't know what to say today. Seriously confused! When I came here, it was strange. The way people were all so normal about the gay/lesbian thing. Definitely was something strange and different. It was something "Queer". Sometime back, when I started writing this blog, I wanted to get published in university magazine or something like it. Didn't know what to do, whom to approach. so one day, while going through my university's website I ran into this advertisement asking for articles to be published. I was happy and forwarded two of my posts from this blog. A few days later I received a response. They didn't think my articles were in line with the magazine. I was confused as to what they meant. However, a few days later I received an email from the female editor of the magazine telling me how she loved reading my article and that she wants to publish it. I was delighted ofcos. My posts titled "It rained" was going to be published in the annual edition. Then I received an email asking me if I was okay with the article being published under my real name. Hell yes. Why not? Ofcos I wanted it to be published under my real name.

Lesbians are cute. Oh yes. Always excited me. But gay? Oh no. I just can't imagine myself on top of another man. Eeeew! I guess you have to be a man to understand how disgusting the whole concept is. Few days back I was watching this series called "Six feet under". Apart from the other things in the series, one of the characters was gay. Oh I felt so sympathetic. The way society treated him, how hard he found it to adjust and to conceal. The way his family reacted when they found out. Etc etc. In the end, the way I saw things and the way I reacted had changed. It was no more alright to make fun of gay men. I stopped cracking gay jokes. I learned to respect the freedom of choice, the choice to be different.

So why all this? Today the magazine got published. I was happy to see my article featured in it. Very happy, though for a short while! What is Queer? To me it meant being strange or out of ordinary. The dictionary defines it as "strange or odd from a conventional viewpoint; unusually different; singular: a queer notion of justice". I was oblivious to the fact that gay men are often referred to as queer. The magazine is called "Queer Tharunka". It is full of articles relating to homosexuality. Hey, I'm no homosexual. Now I understand as to why they asked me if it was ok to publish it under my real name. Oh no, all the people that must be reading my article now. Gosh. The post gets a whole new meaning. They probably think that Jiwateshwar Singh is a lesbian or probably a trans-sexual. Don't want to hurt anyone's sentiments here but hey, I have officially been labeled as the latest homosexual on the block. Damn! Why do such things always happen to me? Bloody hell! Life just ain't fair is it?

So many

So many things gone unsaid,
So many emotions not expressed,
So many people don't know that I love them yet,
So many of you are not yet dead,
So many set my heart aflutter,
So many yet make it suffer,
So many desires and so many dreams,
So many moments yet not lived,
So many comments yet not made,
So many comments not going to make,
So many nights for me to turn and toss,
So many days I'm going to walk,
So many things I still have to learn,
So many things I'm being forced to learn,
So many why,
So many what,
So many So manys,
So many ends,
So many yuks at this poem,
So many eew,
So many I know,
So many I don't,
So many reasons,
So many poems I will write anyways,
So many don't try to stop me.
So many smilys :)

I know I suck, but hey! Just felt like doin this. Give this man some room aye!

Surprised

Don't know how she did. I still doubt that some of my unfaithful, disloyal, and dishonest friends helped her out at it (Lolz). But anyways she does surprise me. The very first guess she takes is correct. My closest dearest friends have so far been unable to recognize me in that picture. Till date no one has been able to get it right. Pata nahi how she did it, but she did it. Congrats, you are the official winner :). Neeraja to surprised me, but with little help :), but still. None of my friends have been able to get it right, even with help, so Neeraja deserves a special mention as well :).

Lets play

My first school! Don Bosco Public School Chandigarh. LKG UKG KG don't know which order they fall in. Small school. I loved my teachers, both of them. Happy teachers day, sorry I don't remember your names, but I remember that you two were the kindest teachers I ever had. Very sweet, loving, never harsh or rude, never beat me :). Thank you for that!

Can any of you recognize me in this picture? I give you all 5 guesses each. Guess it in one go itself! Lets see now what people come up with :). For your convenience, I'm letting the image remain click-able so that you can access the larger version. Good luck folks!

गुस्थाकी माफ़

क्या आपको हिंदी मिएँ ब्लोग करना आता है? में अभी सीख रहा

हूँ। वाह वाह, लगता है बड़ी जल्दी सीख जाऊंगा। पर मेरी

लिखित हिंदी बहुत जादा खराब है। हिंदी की अध्यापिका

हमेशा मुझ से परेशान रहती थी। छोटी और बड़ी "ई" कि

मात्रा में भेदभाव ना कर पाने कि अश्मता ने सदेव मुझे

अध्यापिका के कोप का पात्र बनाया।

जितनी जादा गलातिआं करता, उतना जादा दण्ड प्राप्त

करता। फिर भी जीत मुझे ही हासिल हुई, जब

अध्यापिका ने परेशान होकर मेरी

गलतियाँ सुधारनी बंद ही कर दीं।

इस कारन आप ये पायेंगे की मैंने

बहुत विफलता सै यहाँ पर ढ़ेर सारी गलतियाँ

की हैं, मगर यह गलतियाँ मैंने जान बूझ कर नही

की हैं। इस लिये आप कृपया मुझे अपनी दया

का पात्र बनायें, और मेरी गलतिआं माफ़ करें।

इस कै लिये मेरी आने वाली (?) सात पुश्प्तें

आपकी आभारी होंगी।

धन्यवाद। । ओं में कैया थैन्कूजीं॥

My unborn child 2

As promised, I return to tell you about the poem in the previous post. The poem is written by my one dear childhood friend AH. I'm not in touch with any of my childhood friends except her and maybe a few others. Dad had a transferable job, so couldn't help it, and thus easily lost contact with pals from the era of "no emails". She however is special. She is my mums best friends daughter. Auntie was very dear to me and my family always, a sister to my mother which she didn't have. AH was my third sister to me. I hated my sisters and her as well in those days. Arrey we were small kids, and I think you all remember the girl-boy rivalry in bachpann.

-------
Girl: "Can we play cricket with you?"
Boy: "Sorry, we don't play with sissy girls!"
----
Boy: "Can we come into your doll house?"
Girl: "Sorry we don't have room for dirty boys in our doll house"
-------

Haha, those were funny times, so the thing is that I used to fight a lot with her and my sisters. But then she was the maturer one out of my sisters. So there were times when we both could play without fighting when my other two sisters were not around. And during one such short lived moment of "ceasefire", we both decided to write a poem together. My memory of the poem is very faint, something about a lattoo (top). The poem had 10 lines, I would write one line and she would write the next. So 5 lines each. The poem had soon become a priced possession and we would both narrate it to almost anyone we met. Then there was a poem writing competition at school. Now I had to make my contribution, rite? So I submitted our poem, and only wrote my name for it, she wasn't in my school, thus I couldn't have possibly written her name with mine. Upon returning home, I met her in the evening and told her about the competition. Oh I still remember the excitement on her face, the ear to ear smile, the raised eyebrows, the widened eyes, and how I killed it when I told her that I could only submit it under my name. Sorry but I couldn't do it otherwise. I'm really sorry!

Later, Auntie got transferred and we lost touch. But then we met again last year. Oh I'm glad we did. Talking about our childhood she still cursed me for the poem. Lolz, we were both glad that we remembered it, and the silence that followed the realization as we both dipped into our memories of sweet childhood. Damn! Abhi a few days back I wondered if she too maintains a blog like me. So I googled it up. Sure did find something, sadly she has deleted the blog, and google had only this one page in it's cache. And it was a poem. A poem again! The only poem that I was ever able to write belonged to us both, and now she was still writing poems. Felt strange, that I had nothing to do with this poem. If only I could have contributed in someway to this poem, a poem which we could now publish under both our names together! No school competitions :)

She and auntie are the only people that still address me as Minda, my first name. Abhi writing her an email and requesting her to let me write a poem with her :) and also if she would let me read her other poems if any which she might have written. Not telling her that I maintain a blog, gosh can't let my family know about the existence of this thing :)

P.S.: Not using her real name in the post for the fear that she might google her own name up and run into my blog! The same reason for publishing her poem as a picture! You can't google text which is published as a picture :)

My unborn child!

Ohh no, I didn't write it. I have this habit of googling up everyone. I google my friends, relatives etc etc. So googling up for one such childhood friend, google came up with this in it's cache. She has removed the blog, I don't know why? Nywayz read this for now, and later I shall tell you why this is special :)

Absolute Rubbish!

A strange habit, I know it isn't good. Cursed myself many a times for it. To trust people too easily, to rely on them, take their word for it, to expect something from them, and to give everything in return. Many a times this has caused much distress and pain. But I never seem to learn. It is a part of me somehow. Always had an excuse for it, I'm a Leo and this is supposed to be what I am. Stupid excuse, ya I know, but then I cant help it. I truly am each and everything that is associated with Leos. The good and the bad, without any give or take. Always afraid of being played around with, not wanting to be used or be kept in the dark. Cautious of people that might want to take advantage of me. Cautious of people that might deceive me. Build relations too fast. Networks of trust. Forget and forgive.

Should have never expected so much from you. Don't know why I did. But did I ask for too much? For it was you that told me this friendship was special! All the trust I put into you!

Once again feeling deceived and vulnerable! Every part of me has failed to deceive the agony! Don't know when I would be able to give up on this habit of expecting truth and honesty, for it is all I ever asked from you! Again and again and maybe again!