The posts on this blog deal with common people who try to stand proud in front of their own conscience. The rest of the life's tale naturally follows from this point. It's intended to be a joy-maker, helping the reader to see the beauty underlying everyone and everything. Copyright © Sandeep Dahiya. All Rights Reserved for all posts on this blog. No part of this blog may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without permission in writing from the author of this blog.
‘Embraced by the pining silence
and stillness of these mute
hours,
my detached self grows more independent,
free and aloof like these
misty distances
virginally spread out under
the moonlight,
The silvery mists kiss my prickly
needles
with love free of pride or
prejudice.’
Thus mused the lone pine
Life can be a bit good, provided we know how to save our goodness from being eaten up to fatten someone's badness. It's always a fight between good and bad.
**
The dam of my patience
breaks. I get an ecstatic ease after the release. But someone's life gets
flooded.
**
Some people are so practical
and smart that their brain seems to be scattered all over their body. From that
standard, I find myself pretty dim-witted.
**
By chance or choice, a baby
pink bloom stands out among its spotless white siblings on the hibiscus. It
looks dandy with a stardom of its own. Some things and people get an advantage
right from the beginning.
**
All of us were angrier once.
Ageing is a coolant. It's supposed to be so. If we don't, there is risk of
getting burnt out. So cool down my grayish middle aged peers!
**
What a day carrying such
climatic contradictions! Harmonious blend of opposites! The sky laden with the
darkest of clouds sailing in an azure blue sky. Darkness and brightness
embracing each other to have a feel of the opposite! Sudden drizzles as a dark
cloud lingers over, only to be swept past by a naughty gust of wind. Suddenly
the just-wet foliage of trees shines under the brightest of sunlight as the
September sun peeks curiously and in wonderment how just-bathed nature looks
like! So this shifting canvas defines this September morning: intermittent
interplay of clouded dark and azure blue and the winds carrying clouds in gay
abundance. Drizzles and immediate drying act by the sun. Cool opposites!
**
There may be plenty of nasty
people around. But I'm pleased to tell you that there are far more beautiful
people, so many that they will instantly turn the nasty ones into a pathetic
minority if all of them are visible at a time. They are the hidden gems. The
nasty ones are more visible because it's a kind of shit put at a public square.
To make it more pleasant, this society is run by beautiful people. The nasty
ones are mere speed bumps on the road. In fact, they serve a purpose in
limiting the speed.
**
A geranium needs just a few beams of the early morning sun to spread its smile inside a dispirited room. A sunflower, on the other hand, has to dare for a full stare into the sun’s fiery orbs to grin, smile, laugh or whatever these flowers have the nomenclature for this expression. The night jasmine loves spooky midnight dark to chuckle mischievously perhaps. The sadabahar is unpretentious altogether, no nakhras at all. It is happy to smile all across the year at all places ranging from flower pots to weedy uncemented brick paved yards to even dung heaps. No wonder, the one smiles the best, who does it with least conditions. This smiling spirit gives it the name that translates to ‘ever in bloom’. A garden rose surely is coquettish and has lots of nakhras. It has to pampered with cuddlish care. One has to get many a prickly pinches in managing a smile on the garden rose. But then it compensates very well with its beauty and fragrance. The hibiscus stands as a pretty good smiling lady if you manage her well through her slippery adolescence, given her susceptibility to get in the company of pests and aphids who love her soft soots. Be with her through this naughty time, she then becomes a big-hearted beauty having broad dimpled smiles. The butterflies have a whole lot of petalous boulevard to give rest to their wings on her big petals. The bougainvillea hardly throws any tantrums. It has strong genes for many clusters of smiles. Even the traffic exhausts don’t intimidate it once it gets it smiley momentum. The marigold is the sweet nice eater of nutrients for it eats well to become a dark green fatty boy before it shows its cherubic grin. Mind you, flowers aren’t all about only the velvety soft colorful landing sites for the butterflies, colors for our eyes and scent for our nostrils. Aconitum, the devil’s helmet, kills and viciously chuckles. Nerium oleander is the scented killer. Castor oil blooms can definitely castrate anyone’s pride. Sum and summary is that all of us are good and bad in our funny, quirky ways. We the eccentric pop-ups have an idiosyncratic blend of strengths, weaknesses, negatives and positives, smiles and tears. Blend well with your surroundings. Being joyful is a habit. We can regularly remind ourselves to feel happy on principle. Make joy a hobby, a kind of propensity through practice. Start with flowers. See, how happy they seem all the time.
जिन प्रशनों के उत्तर खोजने पड़ते हैं, वे जीवन पर्यन्त प्रशन ही बन कर रह जाते हैं। वो चंद मुट्ठी राख में खाक बनकर किसी पवित्र नदी की धार में मिल कर अपने अनसुलझे प्रश्न का हल खोजते खोजते अनंत सागर की तरफ बहे चले जाते हैं। और जिन प्रश्नों के उत्तर स्वत: फलीभूत हों, इतनी स्वाभाविकता से जैसे कि बगीचे में एक पुष्प खिलता है, वे मनुष्य की चेतना को सत्य के और निकट ले जाते हैैं।
The questions whose answers we have to seek, remain mere answerless questions for the entire life span. They turn into fistfuls of ashes that float in the holy waters of a revered river and keep moving in their quest to find the answers. The holy torrents take them to the ultimate sea where they rest finally with the river itself meeting its resting place. On the other hand, the questions whose answers fructify naturally of their own, like a rose blossoms in a garden, they take one's consciousness to the brink of the ultimate truth.
How to make yourself appear more presentable if you cannot absolutely bring out any change to your own self? Well, our cognition and interpretation of reality is relative and comparative in nature. Use it. Make yourself stand by the side of a still messier persona and emerge as smarter—apparently though—without any change in substance. You will be at least symbolically better. Well, Taliban are far smarter than the last time they were bundled out two decades ago. To make it better for them, they are learning politics pretty fast apart from firing guns. So they may be up for a better innings this time. Given their past, they were almost unacceptable to the world outside Pakistan and Afghanistan. They cannot change their skin altogether. So what was the option? They allowed IS-K, a far bloodier version of terrorism, to stand by them and appear more acceptable and less savage. A very smart game. Please don’t commit the mistake of categorizing terrorism in good or bad terms. These are plants from the same nurseries. Taliban, IS-K, TTP, LeT, JeM and many others are simply different colored plants in the nursery managed by Pakistani generals and the ISI. These are mere chess pieces, move up one, take back the other, sacrifice this one, abandon that one as per the varying situations. The more pieces you have, the better it is. That’s why Pakis keep many outfits under their patronage. You cannot just rely on one. In the face of the gruesome bomb attacks at the Kabul airport by the IS-K, the West now naturally finds Taliban a bit more digestable because may be they are apparently less bloodthirsty. The West should not be too bothered about who rules Afghanistan. They should forget about it for some time. If at all you can do something, facilitate the safe exit of those Afghanis ho want to leave the land in turmoil. Then leave the field clean for the nursery of fundamentalism to thrive unchecked in the backyard of China. Terrorists have no friends. China may think that its clout in Pakistan will be sufficient to keep its Uyghur plans intact. The concept of Islamic Jihad is above and beyond alliance or falling out with outside powers like America and China. China is temporarily part of the scheme just because America is out of it. Its temporariness they will surely taste for much bitterness in mouth with the passage of time despite tea sharing with Taliban leaders. Did you ever see a case where there was a fire in a house and its immediate neighbor did not feel the heat? The Chinese will also feel the heat. About Pakis we need not say anything because to them feeling the heat is a normal part of life. They are used to it. The Talibs have as much a right to rule as the Americans, Russians or Britishers if they can capture Kabul like they have now. Let it be the way it is. Why force a change? When the land is ready for it, the change will come from within. Give resources to the Panjshir valley group to retain their freedom so that this can be used in future. Don’t allow Ahmad Massaud’s land to fall in the hands of Taliban. The West still needs a bit of foothold in the backyard of China. This little space should be sufficient. Use it for geostrategic purposes, focus on ETIM. If you have the guts and resources to nurture it, do it. Recognize Taliban and give them the protocol driven respect a ruling group deserves. It will make them more responsible and bring less mayhem in the lives of ordinary Afghans. Why douse fire if the water you throw also aggravates the embers. At the moment we can try for a better Taliban. It’s prudent to stop the ‘no Taliban’ strategy. Their political office in Qatar has given them some training and experience about how to handle things diplomatically instead of talking through guns all the time. Slowly they will loosen the Pakis grip on their wrist because a grip by an outsider is the least they want. Now they have been focused on ousting America, after some time and cool Afghani deliberation they will prefer to have their hands free of the Pakistani grip. They just cannot help it. They have to shake off any foreign grip. Pakistan has been handy so far in reaching Kabul. But if they stabilize their power for a considerable time in Kabul, Pakistan will be less handy.
