Kashmir: A Dreamland with million dreams.

If there is one place in India, every single one of us has wanted to visit at least once in our lifetime, it has to be the “paradise on earth”, Kashmir. And this is true not just for our generation but for people both older and younger. I guess our elders must have fantasized about visiting Kashmir after every movie they saw in their times just the way we have wanted to visit Switzerland after watching every Yash Raj movie. But owing to the political decisions or blunders if I could say and the circumstances, visiting Kashmir was always a farfetched dream for most parts of my school and college life. With the not so good ground realities and the icing done by the ever selective Indian media, most parents never took the risk to travel there. We came as close to Patnitop which 150 kms from Srinagar all the way back in 1998, but had to retreat and settle for Himachal because of the militant activities.

But thanks to forces beyond our control, the place has been relatively calm for the last three years. Mind you, the focus is on the word “Relatively Calm.”The regular feeds and beautiful photographs I received on my facebook page about my friends visiting this “Jannat” on earth added to my existing resolve to visit this place for once. Now if I were in college, I would have simply packed my bags and gone to this beautiful creation of God. But now that I am firmly anchored to my family, I took another step of calling up my senior who was posted in Srinagar to get some check on ground realities. He was more than helpful and even introduced me to his friend who manages a travel company in Srinagar. Anyways, I promised my wife a Kashmir trip on our anniversary given everything stays calm. After all the doubts and confusions and million changes in the plan we finally reached and enjoyed Kashmir to the fullest and even came back safely to now write this piece for my dormant blog.

Like any place worth visiting, Kashmir has its pros and cons. While its beauty is unparallel and comes as a very pleasant experience even after all the hype surrounding it; one has to be careful to not fall in the usual tourist traps in selected places. However, for me travelling to Kashmir ended up being much more than just enjoying its serenity.

The day we reached Srinagar, it was under curfew over the death of a civilian. You can imagine our utter disappointment when we came to know that it could be extended for another couple of days. But to our surprise our tour guide didn’t even bother. For him and rest of the population, curfew was a part and parcel of their lives. He assured our plans would remain unchanged, and he was right. The curfew was only restricted to the businesses being closed. The usual tourist spots were, as usual full of people owing to the peak season. While driving there, I asked if there was any theatre since I wanted to catch a movie may be late night. There came the first shock. Srinagar doesn’t have a single movie theatre. My instant reaction was “is it because a theatre is very susceptible to a militant attack?” I was wrong. “It is to safeguard our culture” came the reply. I tried hard to control my urge to react. So I enquired if they saw any movies at all. They did, on laptops and Television. I could hardly digest the underlying contradictions. Another thing I noticed was the dress code of females. It was surprisingly uniform. Not one exception to it. Irrespective of the age group, right from small kids to elderly females, everyone wore the same kind of clothing. This was once again attributed to safeguarding the culture. I won’t want to comment on this. In places where we live, seeing a Police, often erupts anxiety and bad thoughts. We often relate them to some unfortunate event having been occurred or about to. But there in Srinagar, Thanks to the Armed forces act,  I guess it’s a common sight to see army, CRPF and police holding automatic weapons and guarding the streets. Sitting in the front seat, I couldn’t help but ask our driver who seemed like an educated man from his demeanor, about his view of the heavy army presence. It was then that he seemed saddened and angry at the same time. The next hour or so, he spoke of the brutalities which we don’t hear very often in the news. He even showed his own bullet mark on his leg. He recalled about the torture his family had suffered and how his father was beaten in front of his family. He talked about people from his street that ran away to the neighboring country to the detriment of their respective families. He recalled how he and many others like him are seen with suspicion, wherever they go. He shared his plight on how they were tormented on the source of funds when he was able to construct a 3 storey house for himself. He mentioned about hundreds of missing kashmiri people. He showed what absolute power can do to a place. He went as far as claiming some of the famous names to be innocent and framed. When I asked him if people in Kashmir actually want to be a part of the neighboring country, he was crisp and logical. “Why would I want to be a part of another country, which itself is suffering from a major economic and socio-political crisis?” But he added, How long would I want to be a part of the country that treats us like an outsider and is ready to kill people just on a hunch or a doubt? He raised certain questions over the rationale of army presence to which I had no answers.

After the end of the discussion, some of his thought did seem to be farfetched; however, a majority of his grievances weren’t wrong. He like many others believe amending Article 370 is good for them even though their political representatives would never agree. He like many other knows, a lot of what happens in Kashmir has its roots in deep political and economic ambitions. He like, everyone else, wants and believes that Kashmir one day could be the place, it once was.

I for one am a fan of Kashmir. I was humbled by their hospitality and helping nature. I was forced to reframe my opinion about the people of Kashmir. In my 6 days of stay, I was gently made to believe through my experiences that people there are far more respectful and accommodating that in most parts of the country. I firmly believe they deserve to be treated well. I shall certainly visit this part of the country whenever I get a chance to meet such joyous, helping and charming people. And I hope I get to buy a piece of land to build my vacation home in the valley of Kashmir. It’s beautiful and really underpriced!!!

After staring at the blank page for about 15 minutes, I finally did start scribbling or rather typing down this. I could even remember when was the last time I blogged until I saw the date of my last post. Time does fly.

Well writing during college was really easy and spontaneous. Not that I have lost the edge or that life has become mundane. But then there certainly has been a tectonic shift in the direction my life was headed. Though I must confess, it ain’t even close to a lame excuse for me being so lazy when it came to updating my blog. In the quest to find a reasonable justification for my laziness, I got hyperactive trying to analyze the content of my blog. And I realized it was hugely skewed towards romanticism and iconoclastic ideas and college life often acted as a fuel to fire up many more such thoughts. And not to forget the plethora of time I had at my disposal.

I often used a particular quotation “Life is what happens to you while you were busy making other plans.” Sometimes, I feel I am a literally living this line. Or, may be everyone feels so. Once upon a time, choosing between finance and marketing used to be the ultimate question other than of course which restraint to visit in the weekend. As life surged ahead, the complexity increased and n it became about company versus work profile versus salary. In due course, the inquisitive mind led to questioning of the lifestyle, dreams and aspirations fading in the heat of the reality. And then suddenly the bigger calling from family changed it all. And in a matter of days life took a u turn from Mumbai – Delhi route to home sweet home. Somehow I feel my family always knew that in order to anchor me down to the family business, they need to like really anchor me. And what better way than to make me meet someone so special that there is an instant connect and the romantic idea of a soul mate turns into a beautiful reality. And of what I expected to be a rough, dangerous and emotionally tumultuous journey, somehow turned into the most amazing lively and beautiful phase of my life. And somehow, I can’t really give the credits to me becoming a trader in steel & cement where none of what I read and understood in college really matters. It infact, made me actually act on an amazing line again overused by me in almost all my interviews. “Sir, I believe that my ability to learn, unlearn and relearn makes me eligible to be a part of your esteemed college/company.” Don’t know about them but I certainly had to perform all the 3 seeming easy task to be able to survive in this cut throat market.

Anyways, the point of all this was as usual me in a introspecting mode, about all these past months and my new resolve to get back to blogging. 

Living a lie

When voices can’t be trusted

and the smiles are just a lie,

When ears turn deaf and

the heart is left alone to cry.

When promises are broken and

the world around seems to crumble,

Words appear inadequate

and the mind begins to fail.

When loneliness is your only company

Amidst all the friends, and,

the person(s) you love and hate the most

is no different but the same.

When memories are all you have left

and life begins to stagnate

When dreams and nightmares are the same

and insomnia appears desirable

When you begin to enjoy the sadness

and derive pleasure by hurting

When melancholy appears crowded and

crowds appear lonely.

When every pretty girl reminds you

of what you lost years back.

and you still desire the same lap

to stare into that pure and serene face

You know the time has come

When all you do is, sigh

its time to get a life

and stop living a lie.

---Sriram

The Serial Killer(s)

She couldn’t move much but felt almost every heart beat around her. She didn’t have anyone to talk to and was all alone in a dark place unable to see anything at all. All she could hear was some horrifying talks. She was scared but there was no one to comfort her. She wondered what harm she could possibly do to people who wanted to end her. She lay there gloomy and wondering if she will ever see the light of the day. She was barely fed and grew weaker by days.

Very often she could hear some noise unable to make anything out of it. Like a helpless being, she just waited for the moment. She had no to call for help, for no one but only the killers knew about her existence. She was just an unknown soul with no place to hide and run and didn’t understand why she was in the captivity of those merciless serial killers. And one fine day, suddenly everything around her began to heat up. And even before she realized, she was reduced to a piece of medical waste. One of the killers showed some superficial remorse in the camouflage of maternal emotions but deep down both had a sigh of relief.

And the world didn’t even miss a soul. Or, did it?

ख़्वाबों के परिंदे

दिल में है एक अरमान

कुछ ख्वाब और कुछ सपने

कुछ कर दिखाने का एक जूनून

मगर दूर हूँ उनसे जो है अपने

दिन के उजाले में भी देखता हूँ एक सपना

रात की तन्हाई में भी करीब है वो अरमान

मगर इस ख़्वाबों की दौड़ में

छूट रहे है कुछ पल ज़िन्दगी के

डर लगता है उन गहरी रातों से

मगर हौसला ना हारूँगा कुछ ठोकरों से

उम्मीद कायम है एक नए दिन की

कभी तो छटेंगे ये काले बादल भी

सोचता हूँ कभी मैं भी उर पाउँगा

आसमान के पार चला जाऊँगा

देख सकूँगा परिंदों को अपने नीचे

सूरज से भी आँखे मिला पाउँगा

फिर भी एक सवाल उठता है जेहन में

क्या मंजिल तक पहुचना ही सब कुछ है

या फिर उन रास्तो में जिन पर हम चलते है

या उन छोटे छोटे पलों में

जो हमें ज़िन्दगी का एहसास दिलाते है

जो हमें जिंदा महसूस कराते है

--- श्रीराम

Random Ramblings

It has been a long time I posted something here. I guess there hasn’t been any recent heartbreaks which could push me into my melancholy and surprisingly the area where I stay doesn’t seem to be blessed with any pretty faces either which could bring up the lost romance. After all one does need some kind of inspiration and a push to be able to carve a way out of the writer’s block. All I get to see or feel when I come out of my room is huge amount of dust Gurgaon has to offer. And I didn’t really want to be another blogger criticising the mismanagement of the city or lamenting the ridiculous extravaganza Mayawati indulges in while hundreds of kids die of a disease. I do not want to throw in statistical bullets on the government for its lackadaisical approach towards almost everything going on. I think Mr Rajdeep Sardesai is enough for all that. And I certainly do not want to step into the big shoes of Karan Thapar who ends up speaking for almost two third of the total time when he supposedly there to interview people. And even if I want to, well the fact is, they would probably not even allow me in their premises. So, let me not get too cocky for my own sake.

I tried completing a half written piece of poetry which I once scribbled after I saw a beautiful picture of a dear friend of mine. But, the mood just didn’t set in. So let me just share the 4 lines I did come up with at that moment.

“She sat there in a silence,

her eyes deep and moist.

As her hair fell down her serene look

She held both her melancholy and the turbulence”

Somehow, I have come to realize that it is insanely difficult to complete a piece which is left incomplete. The original mood and the atmosphere are just so difficult to be recreated. There is another incomplete one which doesn’t seem to be nearing its meaningful destiny. So I guess I will just share this one too.

“Just when I had turned sober

Thinking it might be finally over

In a flash it appeared once again

bringing out the long hidden pain.”

I think it wasn’t too much and over the board when I once remarked to a friend. “Do not look into my mind. You will lose your way in its complexity. Look into my heart; you might just want to live their forever.” At the risk of sounding cheesy and melodramatic, I somewhere can’t agree to disagree from this thought.

Changing the subject, last night I did come up with a thought to scribble on. I was going through my contact details on Yahoomail and came across some really funny, weird, alien, rebellious and innovative Email ids. I could stop laughing at some of those. Some were rock stars while others where heart throbs for some I even had to look up to the dictionary to decipher the meaning. I know what you must be thinking. Of all the people, how could someone who was specifically pointed out by the Placement committee and the interview board to change his email id talk about this. For all that matters he was even notoriously facilitated for the same by popular measure. Well, this is why I didn’t write a dedicated post on this. I didn’t want to give a dear friend of mine another chance to call me a “hypocrite”. :)

For now, I will cherish a onetime memory of having watched a movie alone in a theatre. And by alone, I mean, all alone in an empty theatre. And FYI, it wasn’t some shady movie. The Three Musketeers didn’t seem to be such a bad option either.

---Sriram

When Insomnia appears beautiful

As the life begins to lose its motion

I am stuck in the myriad of thoughts.

When the reality fades into oblivion

Only dried leaves welcome the springs.

When it is easy to look the other way

Or to not look at all

For the journey is often exhausting

And the truth is nothing but bitter.

When the nights and the days seem alike

Eclipsed by the shadows of past and future

Suddenly, the chaos seems to be

more comforting and desirable.

Just when I feel in control

The moment arrives

When it all starts to slips away,

Dropping me into the sands of time.

Day after day as the weeks pass by

I hang on to whatever I can

For when dreams turn out to be a nightmare

Even insomnia appears beautiful.

---Sriram