The Hero Of War

This was a poem that was written during Antaragni'12, the cult festival of IIT Kanpur. The theme was to be about a war inflicted state and the dilemma of a warrior between the fear for his state and the love of his life.

It was the time of war, of fierce unending battles

When no man left home without his sword, and no horses without the saddles

The streets were all but vacant, with not even the cattle herds,

No childish giggles on the swivelling fields, no trees with chirping birds

From the ashes of this raging war, rose a valiant king

Who tried to fight the winters, and bring back the time of spring,

Would choose to die for honour, rather than returning empty handed

Led right from the front, through the stormy tides, without leaving his men stranded

But no matter how much he suppressed it, how much he tried to hide

There was a constant fear that rose, with every rising tide

He skipped a beat every time he thought of his lovely maiden fair

Her sugary voice, her deep brown eyes, her long and wavy hair

All he could do, was suppress it all, with a heavy heart

For duty sees no tears, no worries, but only the victorious part

And thus he turns his back on love, gazing at the half-fought war,

For the pride of the kingdom’s all that’s left, that is worth dying for  

To You We Owe

When the mind tires down, and the limbs feel weak,

When the path to be treaded seems narrow and bleak,

When the help from the guardians seems far far away,

You shine like a star, to brighten our way.

The 'mom' gives us birth after all her plight,

The 'dad' helps us take our first step right,

But all that they do, can only take us this far,

Because its you who makes us who we are.

You scold when you see us going astray,

Pat on our shoulders, when we do it the right way,

Be it the day, or be it night,

We know you're standing right by our side.

You teach us what's right, and what is wrong,

To tread the righteous path, even if it was long,

You give us  the courage, to  stand by our cause,

And to keep striving hard, without a pause,

To show you our gratitude for what you've done,

Our gestures seem bland, and our words undone,

For we thank only those, who help us in despair,

But we owe you our souls having always been there.

P.S:- This is a tribute to every teacher that has been a part of a student's life, because everything that we are, and everything that we will be, we owe it all to them..

The Enemy Of The State

This is a tale of no battle of swords,

But of a state in the world of the lords

Where every man from young to old,

Owned a hen that laid two eggs of gold

They sold them away to the neighbouring states

In exchange for food at cheaper rates

In this very state lived an immoral man

Who in his mind had a devious plan

Of coating his white eggs with golden dust

And selling them away, knowing it wasn’t just

The man made merry for the weeks whole two

But soon the king knew his intentions true

He called upon the immoral man

And pronounced him prison for an unending span

Then the immoral man made an offer wise

That caught the king with glittery eyes

He offered to make him a daily trade

Of one golden egg, if he let him evade

The king got lured to his devilish plot

And let him escape, giving no second thought

Soon this con was hidden from none

And every other man now felt undone

Thence the whole town did the same

 Which later turned out to be a cause for shame

The world came to know of their con at last,

The state once honoured, was now an outcast

Soon there was no food left in the state,

Their greed forged poverty to their fate

Every face in the state was now a wreck

As there was no cure for hunger in a golden egg

The filth brought upon by a single man,

Led to the downfall of the entire clan

The lust for wealth is the deadliest might

Which turned out to be the reason for their plight

This was a tale of no battle of swords

But of a state in the world of the lords

Where the men forgot what morals meant

And in the end were left to repent.

PS:- Looking for a topic to write on, i bumped into corruption. And I thought that instead of writing directly on it, why not create a story as well. So just in case this doesn't make sense, Think of corruption :-p

Height Issues

Ever heard of a myth that says, ‘there’s a moment in your life when whatever you say eventually comes true’??? Well, if you thought it was a myth, think about it again. Long long ago (not centuries, just years), there was a time all of us (most of us, can’t say about the nerds who thought playing card games was non-productive :-p) played WWE card games. That time, someday, looking at my then favourite player Randy Orton’s card, I said to my sister “I want to be as tall as him one day.” And then I and my sister laughed real hard thinking it’s as impossible as ‘Phir Bhi Dil Hai Hindustani’ making it to the Oscars. Don’t know if I offended my stars or something, but that very moment, my fate decided to teach me to measure my words before I speak.

 When you’re a kid, all you do is lean against a wall and measure your height, and then mock at friends who were shorter. In my case, I had always been on the mocking end, except for the time when Arth Shukla entered the battleground (for those who don’t know, Arth happens to be the bestest of my pals, who was also my arch rival when it came to height issues. We shared not just assignments and cricket bats, but also our birthdays, and he walking by my side was the only time I felt short). You visit your family friends and they give you compliments on your height, your class teacher calls you to wipe the black-board off (don’t know why, but at least I, being a primary school student felt privileged doing so), you could stand at the end of the row in the assembly and sleep right through your principle’s epic seeming ultra extended speeches, you could be a teacher authorised back-bencher in the class and eat your lunch whenever you want to.

But since all good things come to an end, the overjoyed feeling of being tall turned into a sudden worry. When you’re out of secondary school, you suddenly realise being 6’(I was 6’ then) at old ancestral places(like my aunt’s bungalow where I banged my head on the door panel and broke a curtain pelmet) was like being Shakeil  O’ Neil to the normal world. And then begins an era that shows you the dark side of being tall. You could not ride your sister’s scooty as both your knee hit either the horn or the self-start and you looked like an elephant trying to torture a poor little mouse when you sat on it(on the brighter side, that’s the sole reason my parents got me a mo-bike, in spite of knowing I couldn’t even differentiate between the brake paddle and the shifting paddle then), you have to start watching your head for not hitting entrances and your keep your hand away from the ceiling fan, your parents(especially mommy) start giving you tasks like dumping things at the attic and taking them out the very next day. You have to change lamps every now and then. In fact, there was a time when I thought that even god was on his sadistic peak, making me change the CFLs every now and then (or maybe it was the electrician who messed up the circuitry). Wiping the ceiling fans was a pain in the ass task that only you’re supposed to do because your servants could enjoy being short heighted and you had to bear the brunt. And slowly and steadily as you reach college, you realise you’re 6’3”, and the places where you used to hit your head with are now touching the tip of your nose. You could neither show, nor see the copies of the friends sitting behind you in the exams as turning back of such a big person would certainly catch attention. But despite all the foresaid troubles that you go through, there’s always an advantage that you’ll have over the rest, and that is, leverage in sports. Right from being able to release the ball from a good height in cricket, to being able to put away high smashes in table tennis to being able to check your opponent from scoring a two pointer at 45 in basketball and finally a high release service in tennis, you name it and if you’re tall, you’ve got it(it’s all ‘ideally’, this doesn’t mean you can head to the basketball court and keep your opponent from making  a count right away, or always make an impeccable serve at the first go :-p). Always think of your height as an asset and not a shortcoming (because you’re already long  :-p, bad joke I know, but a serious request). There might be instances when your friends would call you a giant or something(I was called ‘The Chhattisgrahi Khali’ by the end of my schooling days), but always remember that if there’s a crowd and  they get lost, you’d be the first person they’d look for. And finally, if someone asks you ‘how does it feel being this tall’, rather than saying ‘I wish I was a couple of inches shorter’, say ‘I love being this tall. Because I Always Get To Look Down Upon People While They’ll Look Upto Me’. So, ‘Congratulations’ if you’re tall and ‘Better luck next time’ if you’re not. :-)

A Girl I Met

This was another that I made at the creative writing competition at Antaragni '11( IIT Kanpur). Though it was only an eight lined poem, it was a really demanding one as it was to be drafted based on certain parameters. 

•   The rhyme scheme was to be ABaAabAB, that is, the first, fourth and seventh line of the poem have to rhyme and similarly for the second and the last line.
•  The poem was based on ASTASIAS, i.e. the first line starts with A, the next with S, then with T and so on

                                      A girl I met, couldn’t help but stare

                              Sober though she dressed, looked very divine

                              The rose red cheeks, on a face milk white

                              And all I could do, was wish we were a pair

                                She noticed me gazing with all my might

                                I saw her smile back; and couldn’t resist

                              Asked her for company, pulled her a chair,

                         She was what I wanted and it was my time to shine

            

The Crimson Trickle

This was one of the three poems and four short stories that I wrote at Antaragni's(IIT Kanpur's cultural fest) creative writing competition, within 180 minutes. There could have been various outlooks to the topic, but I linked it to war. Though I didn't win, this qualifies as one of my fastest poems ever written -> 15 minutes :-)

The crimson trickle that the soldiers shed,

to win a war that was never foresaid;

between two nations which were once one,

cost many a families, their only son.

The reason for war, was never explained,

It was only the blood that was drained;

All because, the men that led,

never really cared about the bloodshed.

Call them audacious, or call them fools,

They used their countrymen as their tools;

Only to support their selfish reason,

Their men lost lives in every season.

All the bitterness that has crept,

the serenity lost and the settlements swept

the innocent children and their constant fears;

have now dried out, like their countless tears.

Should god come, put this in their head,

Or we stand up and say instead;

that all these wars do need to end,

as no one wins, by killing a friend.

The Year As a Freshman

August 25^th, 2010, if I’m not wrong with my statistics was the day I set foot on Lucknow, for the zillionth time, but for the first time as a would be civilian for four years. This place was home to my maternal aunt and my holiday destination for the winters for years. So, technically, I wasn’t new to it. My dwelling was about twenty five odd kilometres away from my university. So my only plausible option was to be a hosteller. There are some things common to all freshman hostellers. For first, you start feeling homesick and secondly, the food. There’s no extra strong coffee (like the ones you got at home) to open your eyes really wide, but a dismal breakfast, different for the entire week, with a pathetic tea, which one could relish only if he made it to the mess(swear to god, the name was absolutely apt)before 0845. The tragic food that we got is worth a vivid description, but more on that later. For now, its just that had we not found the ‘Step In Café’ at the right time, life could have been hell. Apart from the messy mess, the hostel was worth a stay. Basketball courts, badminton courts, table tennis tables, wi-fi(which was a pain in the butt) and spacious rooms. And with all the foresaid, laid a threat, the seniors’ wings across the block. Though the university boasted of being a ‘Ragging-Free campus’ for the past fifteen years, the fear of being ragged always lurked at the back of our mind. We eventually realised that it is indeed no big a threat. As some of our seniors were far too obsessed with being 'the senior ones' to even think of ragging us and the remaining special ones were so caring that you coulkd put their names as your local guardians. They immediately made us one of their own and their company is what we looked forward to.

 My university campus was enormous, with half a dozen different colleges for different streams; all collaged in a haphazard way, as if the architect planned to make a graffiti on the campus layout. The most important thing with any college is that one gets to meet various kinds of people, with different intellectual levels. And as and by you find people of your kind, you start making friends, more friends and still more until you have a gang worth boasting off.

My year as a freshman was a witness to many important prospects of my life. For, instance, I thought I was a very short-tempered, nosy, and potentially pathetic roommate. But I eventually found out that I wasn’t that bad. I had lost all my self-belief due to the way the course of events turned out to be academically for me over the past year. But those small incidences that made my mark in my class made me regain some of it. There were many events that let you prove your worth to the crowd. And just like a hyperactive hornet that sits on every flower, I participated in most of the events. I shed all my inhibitions, whatever there was, and I feel benefitted. On the emotional forefront my life proved to be bittersweet, as for the first time ever, I experienced how it was to feel emotionally attached to a special girl. And it felt great. (though that ‘great’ feeling was only short-lived). My sister, the one whom I enjoyed quarrelling with, came to a very essential stage of her life, marriage. She found a second family, the one of her soul mate’s, as loving and caring as she could have ever imagined.  It also proved to be the time when I started writing for my satisfaction. Whenever, I felt like, I started scribbling on a paper, whatever that struck my mind. And just as accidental as it sounds, I ended up with my first poem ever, at 3 am in the night, just before a Physics exam that was to follow that very morning. And when I was acclaimed by my family and friends, I found my love for writing evolving to an all new level. The things I wrote about might not make sense to everyone, but each one of my posts were dedicated to something (or someone) really influential to me. Having late night coffees in the secretly sneaked in electric kettles, Maggis and all the home-made snacks (which hardly lasted for an hour after they were let out) became a routine. And just as we started enjoying the life, the semester exams shot right at our forehead, knocking us down. And then began an era of brave One-night soldiers who tried to fight their way through the brainstorming subjects. And as per the exams, ‘they came, they saw and they conquered’. Its like every time I took the exam, I decided I’d use the next two days to the fullest extent and prepare for the next exam, but I ended up doing nothing else but dwelling over the same thought all over again, sitting in the next one. And just like that, in a blink of an eye, the year comes to an end. The only word that can describe the mental sate of any freshman at the end of the year is dilemma. The elation of no longer being a freshman, visiting home for a month and the simultaneous sadness of not being able to see my friends who had become an inseparable part of your life creates a dilemma in your mind. You try to figure out where time actually flied. But then, time (as my dad said), has its own state. Its gaseous in nature, expands when you’re bored and condenses when you’re enjoying it. And as you leave, you hope that the year that follows goes as smoothly and proves to be even more joyful and at the same time, be a learning experience to remember forever. And amidst all this, there’s another thing that every freshman prays to god for, a ‘back-free’ semester to follow… ;-)