* by a traveller #3 *

Today, I 've a doubt flirting with my mind's lack of dexterity to accommodate many of them. The doubt is linked with the word 'commission'. Commission, amateurishly speaking is a charge that a person imposes on us for his aid in some of our worldly tasks. Thinking of this, it all seems like a positive that someone is helping us and we are paying him but this positivity fades away when someone starts forcibly helping us or actually troubling us just to get his pay, his commission. I am especially talking of our government. Next time, you find any of the schemes initiated by the government unrequired or a waste at that time, try relating their reason with commission that the government might be pocketing and this epigram is not out of cynicalness but pure experience.

boast - a tribute to indian army

The only son, he was,
was profusely loved, for the apparent cause.

Of his parents, he was their pride,
but he boasted of his brother
like a high tide

Yes, he proclaimed he had a brother
unique like the one no one could ponder.

Shocked, I quested more of him,
he stated his brother had perfection upto the brim.

Valiant like the striped bengal tiger, he was
he serves his nation sans any pause.

He endures much agony and pain
but his patriotism is congruent of a rainbow for the rain.

His strict discipline sometimes turns bitter
but his determination is too  strong for anyone to deter

Standing at the borders, his gun is bound to dither,
he is my brother, he is your brother.

By a traveller #2

ByAnjali prasad, permanent representative to World Trade Organisation (WTO) from India since May 1, 2014. Do you recognise her? She is the one who has breached the WTO's apparent weighted decision making and has put the argument to increase the food subsidy cap for farmers which had not been pondered upon since a long time but the production rates for farmers have continued rising up since.
I hereby connote that such interruptions or infact clauses should be encouraged rather than been watered down because I have been taught that conflict management adds efficiency to an organisation.

voyage

This, I pick from my gone years,
from the ocean of my earned memories
when I was immature alike the morning sun,
when emotions could kneel me down.

A cloud of reasons I had,
reasons that inflicted on me, setbacks.
Any change, any chaos, any challenge made me console my pierced strength,
made me restart my voyage of life,
this time sans the setbacks, sans the icebergs in the voyage.
Every time, I bumped on a change,
everytime a test forelooked me,
I'd sneak, I'd succumb and
I'd reroute to my goal,
leaving the challenges, all untackled.
Cursing the diverted path, I'd steer the smoother way, the more travelled way,
a path sans the toughness of iron,
a path sans the intensity of noon sun,
a way sans the icebergs that would drift me away in yonder
and miles away, I could see my goal behind all the challenges, left untackled.

By a traveller #1

Today, while sitting in the porch, enjoying the soothing cool breeze prefixing the monsoon showers, I figured out the response to a nonprophetic interrogation by my inner conscience regarding the cause of mistakes that I make in life and the response was the type of thinking that I accommodate, stagnant or progressive. The contrast between the two lies in the level of comfort that they serve us with. Stagnant thinking is easier, keep nagging about your previous mistakes and never grow, never march forward while the progressive thinking challenges us to bypass our mistakes from our success, to write an obituary for them. The decision is wholly ours

*rain*

Pulling down a blue tee
wobbling over plain white shorts,
I athletically belittled the stairs down
to poke my pals, three atop one bike
and off we sped, now four atop the bike.
Below the tires, died some water drops
and on our head, knocked some new borns.
My blue tee, soaked to saturation shed tears when squeezed
as I lived my euphoria, gazing in the sky,
water drops moulding locks of my hair
and the wind busy chilling them
while the bike burned its fuel.

Euthanasia

So, should this intentional killing for humane reasons be legalised? Should the sufferers have a right to die when they have been adjudged the right to live? The second clause seems reasonable to me that if a person does not want to bear his sufferings any more then he/she should not be flanked by any form of emotional oppositions and of course, this legalised suicide should be performed only after all the medical interventions have testified that the sufferings of the patient cannot be cured. Here, I want to connote and appeal that any form of economic intervention in committing euthanasia should be fended by the hospital authorities or the government

'tried'

Everytime I tried to be impeccable,
mistakes ferried my success yonder

Everytime I tried to walk till the end,
the road only rose to its balking steepness

Everytime I tried scripting a revelation,
I lost myself in a impasse, an abyss

Everytime I tried defying the odds,
the odds bitterly retaliated

Everytime, I tried trusting more in me,
a part of my strength vanished

and everytime, I tried to succumb, to give up,
a part of failures, my failures passed me another chance.

'talks'

Account of some overheard spontaneous utterances of office employees among their cubicles.  The talks are initiated by some pawan who is sipping office provided coffee, the taste of which makes it accessibly inaccessible while glancing at some news items on his computer screen.

Pawan( to Amit ) - oh my god, the rail budget is glittering everywhere. Sadanand Gowda is riding fast on his bullet train and his PPP stuff but
(now talks to himself )
Mr. Gowda, a nameplate with your name written over it in black has been found down under some shoes but don't worry, its no problem. since you have shunned populism in your railway budget, it is just an applause for you. Time has changed, you know

( Pawan gestures to Amit )

Pawan - you know Amit, if today anyone, especially a politician has to know the degree of appreciation for carrying out his due responsibility, it lies all exposed in their opposition's intensity of agitation.

Amit - ( claps )you sit here applauding Gowda ji and there the boss is ready with one of his most dangerous grimace. Are you done with your report, the great pawan ji??

Pawan - ya absolutely brother, I have very smartly adorned the previous year report with a better font and have also increased the font size, all for none other than my respected boss
( to himself ) - respected boss? wow, what an irony!

Amit - ha, great but till previous year, English reverberated in our office and presently our boss has been profoundly inspired to join hands in our home ministry's hocus pocus of demanding all documents
in hindi. So, you will have to work or atleast translate your adorned report !!

( amit whines ) - All is stupidity bro, it feels like halting an already late train at a crossing to wait for the rajdhani. The government work is already tortoiselike and now this hindi chapter will bring only further hitches.

( by this time a boy, in his 10 or 12 from a stall at the other side of road enters with 6 cups of tea )

Pawan - are chothu, aaj fir late ho gaya, yaar ab to india mein bullet train bhi aa gayi, tu bhu jaldi aaya kar

Chothu - bullet train to theek hai lekin jis din vo pass wale uncle ki pension time par aa jayegi na, us din aapki chai bhi time pe hogi.
( pawan and amit exchange dumbstruck faces )

Chothu ( waits till every employee takes his glass of tea ) - vaise sahib, ek joke sunau aapko, aajkal market mein chal raha hai, lekin mujhe samaj nahi aa raha

Pawan - haan, haan suna

Chothu - ek baar ek function mein sare bade khiladiyon ko bulaya gaya, india se, foreign se, har sport ke. Sab khush the, ek dusre ke gale lag rahe the lekin do log na to hath mila rahe the or na gale lag rahe the, batao kaun?

Pawan - yaar chothu, salman shahrukh hi honge lekin tune bhi to players ki party bulai, tu hi bata kaun the?

Chothu - sachin, Sharapova

( pawan and amit again exchange surprised glances but eventually laugh out a little )

Pawan - yaar amit, indians are strange,  no? I mean today they want sachin, tomorow they will ask, do you know mr. Kejriwal? Ridiculous yaar !

( now to chothu, after citing the sachin - sharapova incident ) - ek baat bata chothu,  tujhe pata hai sharapova kaun hai.?

Chothu - haan sahib, suna hai achcha lawn tennis khelti hai or dikhti bhi achchi hai, aajkal customers bad gaye hain sahib isliye meri jankaari bhi bad gayi hai

Pawan - badiya hain chothu, yahan hamari smriti iraani ji ki degree ka ata pata nahi hai or tu bina degree ke hi sabse aage nikal raha hai
            
             *end*

The line of poverty

So, the Rangrajan report regarding the poverty line and the count of poor in india has been presented.  Statistics bulging out in the report are in total conflict with those holding place in the report presented by Mr. Suresh Tendulkar, one of the finest economists of india. This Rangrajan report was been impatiently awaited after the Tendulkar report had fixed the poverty line to an arguably low level which actually acknowledged the then government of reducing the BPL population in india. Skipping the statistics, I straightaway highlight a flaw, in fact a blunder in our way of working. The count of poor is based only on a poverty line. Did we focus on their actual areas of expenditure,  did we think how much they have to spend on their treatmemt when a lack of hygiene in their vicinity makes them a host to various dangerous infections, did we consider their expenditure on their hectares of agricultural lands? Other counties around the world are al erring in their take on the poverty line. For ex - in Europe, poverty line is the basic cost of food multiplied by three. What do they think, a poor person will eat food three times a day and that's over, will he not have other needs?

Secondly, these benefits and favours for the BPL card holders. This has only diverted from our eventual aim of curbing poverty. Everyone is in a run to catch a BPL card and the laggards in the race are agai the poor people who actually deserve the favors but lose them to greedy with a muscle power.
Here, I appeal to reinstate the strategy once initiated by the UPA government to distribute the favors for the poor based on the their conditions and needs instead of whether they have a BPL card or not.

Among all the other things, I applaud this retake on the poverty line by the Rangrajan report. The previous low poverty marking had left many poor devoid of their BPL cards and thus the favors. To claim all those favora, they would have sold theor agricultural lands to settle in urban areas where the povert line is high. So, this new mark has in fact maintained the agricultural produce, a major contributor in the GDP of the country.

little bird

Placing in the center, her favorite muffin,

she assorted her daughter’s tiffin.

Leaning beside her daughter with a merry grimace

her hands brushed her daughter’s innocent face.

To wake her up, she patted her in succession,

every pat, deluged with love and affection.

She dressed her daughter in a way,

she looked adorable like a night sky, just to say.

Garbed in a red checked skirt,

buckled over a white shirt,

she hosted a headband, glossy, red and bright

over her hair, parted from the right

Her black, polished shoes made her walk with ease

and shrouded her long socks, little short of her knees.

Feeding her a teaspoon of curd,

the mother dropped to school, her cute little bird.

welcome monsoon

like kids wait for a falling star,
your showers, we await,
for they fall, quelling the dictator in the yellow sun.
the vicinity brightens up on your arrival
like colored illustrations cherish a plain text
the leaves greener than ever boast of their renaissance
the roads make way for your showers, enjoying after a long serving for the sun's heat,
courtyards and balconies go crowded with awaiters who admire you, celebrate with you till the sun returns, this time with a seven color pattern.