The Cotton Candy Reward

In the hustle and bustle of work, there’s so much we tend to forget. But there's a few things that stay behind, leave an impression on us that lasts long after we've left the casualty. Some patients might make you question, why in the world did you choose this profession, but others would  just provide you with an answer. In barely 48 hours of casualty/emergency room duty, I can revisit countless anecdotes, with many more to come and many more to cherish.

Day two of casualty duty and among the numerous cases that came, there was a man, assaulted. Broken teeth, a bone or two broken but what stood out was his broken spirit. We called the orthopedician, tried to calm him down and also his family/friends. In a while, all preliminaries done, he was sent for a confirmation x-ray and then shifted to the ward for further treatment, while we quickly hopped on to the next case, forgetting the last, and followed much of the same routine.

At 3 am, tired and wanting a break, we decided to go for a stroll. With that very patient's party were two giant sticks with cotton candy packets, to which we were drawn, quite literally like kids in a candy store! (Being a bunch of “just” 24 year olds). Drooling, I went with a 10 rupee note, asking for as many packets it would get us (knowing it won't be more than 3 to 4). Those people, overjoyed to see the Doctors who saved their friends life, gave us not just a packet, but loads of them. They even refused a mere sum we  offered (which we later forced them to take).

The next statement from them is probably the reason being a doctor is considered so satisfying.

“Aap Toh bhagwan hain hamare liye“
(You are like God to us)

Being in the middle of it all, a cog in the machine, sometimes we forget that patients are people and not just work. These humbling words were a reminder of how Medicine IS a noble profession, how we save lives. And even though it's become more of a business, but when a patient comes back to you, recovered or even recovering, his words are so so much sweeter than cotton candy!

P.S. many thanks to Ramakrishnan Dindigal for the editing :)

#55wordstory:Naughty

He was nice to all the other kids, finished his homework on time and gobbled up his vegetables. Everything leading to this day.

It had been 365 days since the last visit. But this time it would be different.

His eyes sparkling, anticipating the "bestest" present! No chance that Santa could call him naughty this time.

#55wordstory:Meet again as strangers

Two bodies but a conjoint soul they were. In their journey from juvenile beings to responsible adults, they had learnt everything together. Even to love.

A year after their separation, they sat hand in hand watching the sunset. It was all same to a passerby. But deep down they both knew, they were just strangers.

My White Canvas

A touch of blood or a whiff of blue,
A drop of green to add to the hue.
The pride in violet or a little black
For all the darkness in my head, in the back.

The grey of the burnings,
Or the Orange is it, cry the flame within
Or should I stick to bliss
With the pink of the skin.

If with all these shades, is a canvas,
Keeping the painter arise
It Should be a window
Into a task yet to surprise.

But here I stand clueless (a complete blank)
The brush in one
And holding the palette in another,
My empty mind failing to slither.

What should be my first stroke?
Do I have no start?
Or have I exhausted my options?
Have I done nothing so far?

(But wait)
Is the canvas actually blank?
Seems like I've done this all before,
The white staring at me, is it emptiness
Or a reflection of all the shades from the base to the core.

When Thunder Strikes

Thunder and light
Strike with all their might,
Creatures below, all of them mellow.
The senile, their brows with furrows,
The younger for safety digging burrows.
Weaklings go helter skeltor,
And the mother searches for her kids, some shelter.

When thunder and light
Strike with all their might,
Amongst the chaos, is a being
Pristine yet, with eyes too keen.
Pitch dark,
But when it strikes (wow)
The lightening makes everything bright!
Awed at the sight, he finds his way
Its not havoc, its light, it's a ray.

To others how can he explain,
The beauty of nature you can't untangle,
But isnt it just so plain.
Hoping everyone too can see,
The silver line, oh! its just so fine.
When theres thunder and light,
Striking with all its might,
Its nothing to be afraid
Because its such a marvelous sight!

Clearing the webs off this forgotten desk

I wrote something a few months back hoping it would publish in the college magazine and then ill publish it here. But that didn't happen so this didn't either.
Looking at the date stamp off my last post I'm shocked. It took me a while before I could successfully playback the events in my head that happened since then. (Will make one hell of a story!)

Won't call it resurrection, although this place seems virtually like a death bed. But lets just say I'm gonna clean the desk and clear off the spider webs off my workspace!

An Animal Of The Zoo

This post has been long overdue. About 6 months. And at the time I wrote it, I was as heart broken and sad as the cub. As usual time healed wounds and altered my thought process but what I had felt would never do. So here goes...

Criss-crossed wires made of metal
Pedestals here and there
With cosy spots to settle.
A familiar face that I saw every day,
And lots of visitors, too, came their way.

All I had to do was purrr,
Smile a lot and not dirty my fur.
A growl, a paw up in the air,
People are awed, it added to my flare.
A pat on the head, a scratch on the back
Food at a snap and all the attention of what I could dream.
I'm an animal of the zoo,
Love is my greed.

A cub yet to be moulded
All my wants could have been folded.
So To be sent away, I was boxed,
The other animals, had just mocked.
The last that I saw were big pitiful eyes,
Felt like I was the only one who could hear my cries.

Left alone in the forest
Unfathomable was the grief I felt,
The scary nights, how could have anyone dealt.
A cage to hold, someone to preen,
Eyes full of love and food is what I need.
Because,
I'm an animal of the zoo,
Love is my greed.

How could I sleep
When dangers loomed around,
How could I hunt, when I was taught to love.
Where could I have run,
When I thought my life here was done.
How could I even fight back
When I was left there to bleed
I was an animal of the zoo,
Love had always been my greed.

To Getting back on the Feet

A teacher of mine used to say "a cluttered table means a cluttered mind" (some of you know who I'm talking about, and I'd be glad if you stop fantasizing). But the point is my table's been pretty cluttered lately. There is so much going on, and there is much more going on in my mind. I have lots to do (but so do others), I'm sort of under pressure to perform and i have deadlines lingering, still in reality the sky isn't falling upon me right now but in my mind its the dooms day, everyday.

i have been wanting to write from so long, wanting to vent it out, "to share and lessen the bear" but I've made up my mind that i don't have the time to neatly arrange things in a pile too. Which is the permanent damage Ive brought upon myself, like so many other things that i drive myself crazy with. So today i decided "to hell with everything". i decided give it in "procrastination's" face and take the step, which started with reading Firas' post. And now here i am writing my own. It might be among the bad ones (i know there are worst), it might not be fancy enough to cover up for the famine months that went by but it sure is my my metaphor for walking ahead. To my new found ray of light,




Charred up trees, singed old leaves
The bleak scenery and the spider weaves.
What had stood, rose in smoke
Blistered feet without much hope
Scared were the people, to open the eyes
As dreary clouds had filled the skies.
There was cast, a holocaust
Souls without the bodies had died.
But they couldn't, what he could see,
On the horizon, looming oh so far
'fear not the flames' he affirmed
As from them, a phoenix is about to rise.

With the wind

When she told the winds to send you her love
did they stop by and rustle in your ear?
Could u tell
Of what they smelt,
If it was rain or her tears?
Was it pain or just a cry
Calling you oh, so near?
Meet me, she had said,
Meet me at the pier.
Just a glance, a touch, a kiss
demands that seemed so mere.
Yet you couldn't fulfill
Something that to both of you was clear.
Did you not long for her anymore
or was losing love a fear?
When she told the winds to send you all her love
did they really stop by and rustle in your ear?

The mind's play day

There is everything around us. And sometimes there are incidents that change you inside. And its then that u start paying attention to everything that has been staring at you forever.  There are things you want and things that you want from life. I got somethin, as its said, prematurely. Inevitable as it is I couldn't have it. Didn't even want getting it at this point of life, rather hated what I would have loved having had it been a few years down the line.

Now when its gone, when it was made to go why does it feel wrong. Why Is the, then correct ,choice I made making me hollow. Every path that I take, every single turn and every little stop points to what I lost. Whenever I feel I've forgotten and I'm moving on all of it just somehow presents itself to me and there occurs a reverie.
There was nothing else that could have been done. It was a dead end so then It shouldn't, but it does feel wrong.

Not tired but ya I do want a break from searching the answers. May b I just ask myself too many questions.

I think it's Give and Take

 Lying awake on the fresh green grass
staring into the darkness,

I close my eyes to drift away,

away from this world
from everyone's hold.
But whats pulling me back is a sound

pounding in my ear, growing loud.

i wish i could write further but then this is no poem, no dream world, no story of tryin to break free. It's what is happening outside my room. Sometimes, yes sometimes i wish to be alone and drift away to a land of dreams with soothing sleep and no worries to bother me. But alas the universe plots a different scenario. Weird dreams to wake me up or loud annoying music to never let me sleep in the first place (like right now). How can the city that slept at 9 all year suddenly get get so loud and irritating?

i think its for all those times that i criticized the place and made fun of the people, their language and how out of place i felt. i think i can even hear them whispering in the most evil way 'hey lets celebrate, its "let purneetha not have peace and quiet" day.' 

And i cant actually believe i'm writing a blog post about it but then i can basically talk a lot so why even a thought.

To getting back what we gave to world, an irritated, sleep deprived me..!!

The Storm inside my Soul

This time around the year i get into my thinking spree. I try to see what changed me in one full year, to reach my birthday again. And eventful doesn't quiet describe whats been happening with me for quiet sometime. Some might call it over reacting and over thinking but then that's not how i see it. initially it did feel "drowning in Low Tide" but then never has the thought to change the things that describe me occur so frequently.

If i say something it hurts people, if i don't either everyone pokes me till the former happens or i bottle it up to later physically hurt "some specific people".
I used to love how could say everything that crossed my mind. For me thinking before speaking was a waste (why electrocute my brain cells for the major part of the day). And never ever had anyone around me objected to that (may be they liked it too). At least they didn't let their ego get in the way but shot back instantly. Any which way i was comfortable with that. But its not the same, actually nothing for the past 6 months has been.

I tried to gel with the "girls", sorry not my piece of cake. Tried being polite to people who annoyed me, didn't work either. Tried thinking before talking but then my words per minute frequency hit an all time low. So then i again went back to "I'm awesome" but stumbled again.

Then I have this violent streak in me but never had it channeled through my actions than in the recent past, it was just verbal. Though i can't be proud of that either, but it has been surfacing a lot. And i really don't like it. Is it because I'm trying not to say everything or is it idiopathic (ya check the dictionary)?
I don't want to say i regret what happened because my pride comes in the way (there are just 2 things that i regret doing in life, so that's why) but then i really want to go back in time to change how certain situations turned out.

Yes, my over thinking has been happening a lot lately. May be its a part of growing up because may be, and just may be people start taking everything seriously.(But half the time I'm intentionally and the other half being unintentionally ignored, so when do people mind what i say?)

Anyways, both these things make me end up not hearing what the other person has to say, instantly coming up with some shit to answer back with and then getting angry because lets face it who wants to be wrong, or even accept if they were.

Yes i have answers which say i need to change, if not everything, some aspects. Being wrong but being politically correct is acceptable i guess. But the thought of wanting to  tamp with the perfect is creating a problem.

Okay the last sentence was a joke just to lighten it up. I cant be saying I'm perfect in the same post where I'm letting out how being me completely hurts people around me and then in turn me (in more than a 1000 or 750 words).
I am hesitant, a lot. Letting go of things that i think describe me is obviously difficult. That's what is making it harder than it seems, losing MYSELF.

Waiting to be untangled, a 20 year old Me :)

Low tide

Left the shore long ago,
rising with the waves
Don't remember when i changed course
but i surely did, i know.

Surviving through storms and rains
my ship had sailed through.
sailors there were many
but the captain, who?

Some became sea sick
And chose to stay behind.
Others had a different destination
And got lost, nowhere to find.

Days together in the ocean
life seemed like the ideal plot
the perfect place, free from the world
the sailors left were the perfect lot.

i thought i could see things through
but i had created a bubble.
the clouds circled around,
Everything was so subtle

But then suddenly lightening struck
All across the sky
Bewildered was everyone
i thought of just one thing, me why??

The days became dusty dry
without the sun's shining smile
Or the ocean's clear laughter
it was just raging rains, don't know what it was after.

Dropping the anchors wasn't a help
the steering i tried to glide
like always i was the creator of my storm
what a shame, i was drowning in low tide.

Puzzled Life

Out of the box

Scattered on the floor

The little kid jumbles the pieces

And runs out the door.

A game for him

But what about the blocks

Innocence of the kid,

Adulthood mocks.

The morning grass is waiting

To wet your feet with dew

To make you feel

As the day, New.

But the bare feet are lost

In the race up to the top

Everyone is dancing to a tune

Till dead they drop.

Pulling and pushing

That's just the way

Drowning in money

Is how they want to stay.

Signs and signatures

Authenticating documents
mercury levels rise

but, Alas, no amendments.

The pieces still lie

Will the puzzle ever be solved

Or like life

It'll unjumble on its fall.

My bouquet of Friends

Fourteen years of school (or more preferably Pre College). Period. I’m not going to be quote clichés saying I remember how on the first day I couldn’t stop crying because I didn’t want to go and shit like that because I most certainly don’t remember my first day of school And I’m sure most of us don’t. It’s not the classy building, not the reputation of school or the teachers (no, not even the weirdest) BUT the most silly, foolish, random, hyper active, weird, freaky, retarded bunch of friends that make us want to relive those days...

It’s been two years since I left school. Though the first year I just thought I was on a vacation till it hit me, when I joined college. There is nothing that I can probably complain about my college life. I live, I laugh, I enjoy, I lie, and I fool around, sleep in class and obviously even bunk. It’s awesome. But when I’m at college (I’m sorry, I’m guilty) I don’t even think about those flowers that I picked in school, the best thing that ever happened to my life- my buddies, my friends, my chums. The smile that settles on my face when I see a familiar name on the phone’s screen is indescribable. And despite the fact that I can go on talking for hours together when you call, I hardly take the initiative.

I have no clue why.

I picked some friends when I was so little I could hardly even spell the word, some when I started having secrets, when I got into that AWKWARD stage of my life, when I needed a hand, a shoulder And when I needed someone to walk along. All of them left a mark, even those that went wrong. And there certainly were “friendships gained and lost” each year but there are some who surprisingly still chose to bear with me. I am glad that they did because the world would have been a shitty place without them.

I know none of you listens to me after a point and my shouting doesn’t help either. I know my uncontrollable bouts of laughter after my own poorest of jokes makes you go “face palm” and that super detailing of stories that I do is annoying too. But i also know that you’re going to miss all that nonsense the moment you realize that 6 months is a long time. That’s what’s been on my mind since the time it struck me (At around 7PM today), watching a bunch of the amazing people drive away.

I hope i faked my smile well while saying goodbye because I sure as hell haven’t been able to put one back since.

A gift From a friend

Here's something different that i wanna share. The title being ironic for the day because what i got today was in no way a gift.

But anyways getting back where i was. There is loads of stuff on this blog that has been a Broth of my own Brain but this post, this poem is FOR me. Atleast when it started it was. Though the "poet", after editing it and making it a hell lot more awesome still claims it is, i find it hard to believe. It started as nonsense as usual but you would be surprised what "my" company and 4 continuous hours of MBBS lectures can bring out in somebody.

(And hulloo "one track mind"ers its NOT by my boy friend..!!)

with lots and lots of thanks here is a post publically showing my appreciation

The Girl Sitting Beside Me

Like a flower blooming in every season

She rejoices, the scent of air is enough a reason

Like the forever lush green grass, she never withers

Along with her even through the narrowest path, happiness slithers

Being filled with light, no scars shall sear

She dances with delight at the tunes only she can hear

Her own distinct nest of joy and bliss she weaves

Oh can’t you see her trying to catch the flying golden leaves!

Without wings, she is flying, wavering among the happy clouds

Lightening up every moment she lives

Falling freely in an abyss of contentment

She is thoughtless about past and future-

The girl sitting beside me…

Extraordinarily weaved into words by
Sankalp Katara

AND
proudly presented,

Revalation

The pebbled path

Had lead me to the street

Uneven and sharp stoned

But i still didn't feel a thing

under my two bleeding feet.

I kept on walking

Unsure of the choices i had made

Blazing lights moved towards me,

my eyes they glared

But about death, little i cared.

Questions filled my mind

Thoughts, i tried to consolidate

Was this how it was meant to be

Or was i playing with fate?

Who was i pretending to be

To please whom and with what intent

Why did i have to be

Someone else other than me

How could it make me content?

What was it that i was running after

Or was i running away?

Was i to be the ocean,

Deep, serene and blue

Or be the sky that was casting its hue?

Pondered on my reflection,

It finally dawned upon me

How from my mind i let it flee

6 billion people in the world

And He sent me just to be ME.

Time to Change The Calender

In 2010 i saw myself cross roads of repentance, frustration, hard work, the joy of achieving my goal, fun and ultimately freedom. All this made me a new person all together. And even though i sometimes miss those days, i certainly don't want to go back there because I wanna move ahead.

30th Dec '10 made me wonder what actually would be new in just two days.The Sun would rise in the same way, the birds would chirp in the same tone, the sky would be of the same colour and all the people would just be the same. So why the hype?

And 31st just made me want to go out and have fun on the last day of the year (which is totally opposite to what i felt 24hrs ago). All these years i had always wanted to go out and party but ended up being stuck up so the clock striking 12 on the 31st had made no difference to me. This year too i knew nothing out of the ordinary would happen (though in my mind i was praying it does) leaving me to wonder the importance of the 1st of January.

For everyone individually the new year begins on their birthday, therefore technically the new year begins on a different day for everyone. Okay I understand that for universal unambiguity somebody chose to fix the dates. But why 1st of Jan to be the beginning? It could have been any random day. 1st Jan doesn't even make sense. A new season does not begin, the Earth isn't the farthest or the nearest to the sun that day, the moon isn't lined in a particular way, or any of that so why chose this?

The Hindu calender in this context makes sense because the new year starts with the start of spring, which marks the beginning of new life with the sprouting of seeds. Also its based on the "lunisolar" activities so the makers definitely put some though into it.

The English calender also doesn't account for the extra 0.25 day occurring every year. Why divide the months and weeks of the year in such a way that you have to make up with a leap year after every 3 normal ones?

The Hindu calender system too doesn't have a perfect 365 day year. And it bothers me that if a universal system has to be followed why not make it flawless? Why rectify after every 3 years?? or add a full month after every 32.5 (even that's not a round figure) lunar months??

If anyone knows logical explanations please tell me because all this seems wrong to me.

Anyways a Happy new year (cliche.. my new year started 2months ago) from "the still puzzled and resolution-less this time" Me

Perplexed

Standing at a crossroad we all call life

I wondering why there’s so much to strive

my head was spinning

but the thoughts weren’t winning

was trying to justify what a life I was living.

the left seemed to guide me right

but the right was wrong

what the hell was I thinking

was the question All along.

What I had was wonderful

But I thought it was just a handful

Did I really want more?

Or should this be the last score

I left my heart to explore.

Felt like i was walking on a balancing beam

Does it have to be as difficult as it always seems

Surprisingly, the answer was staring right at me

But like its meant to be,

The beauty of what you have, you never see.

The underappreciated Best friend

I'm tired of being the one you can fall back upon
Tired of being your 'sweety pie'
It pains me that you forget
There are times when even i want to cry.

I'm tired of acting silly
Just to make you smile
How can you not see
Even i need that once in a while.

I made you stand, gave you a shoulder
But why do i have to do it
All by myself when i fall
And when i find my boulder

So i wish to be all alone, even when i'm down
But i fake a smile, i don't bring up the subject
I make my life frown
Just so that yours can be perfect.