I am sorry..

By waking up an entire nation
You have gone to sleep
Its truly a terrible situation
You are a symbol of nation's grief

We called you Nirbhaya (Fearless)..
But did not let you be one that evening...
We called you Amanat (Treasure)
But did not treat you like one that evening..

We have failed in our responsibility
To make this country safe for you
We created this gender biased society
And now we pray for a beginning anew

May be if we reacted this way
For every rape
That happened in the country each day
You would have been among us
Being truly a Nirbhaya, Being truly a Amanat.

I am sorry...

A small tribute to all the Women

Filled with love and compassion
You are nature's most beautiful creation
Strength Vulnerability and Determination
You are such an unique combination

As my Mother...
You teach me what is selflessness
As my Daughter...
You bring me immense joy and pride
As my Wife...
You teach me what is unconditional love
As my Sister...
No matter where world is, you are always on my side

Whenever we wanted to fly
You became our caring wings
Whenever we were down and low
You showed us sweet dreams

You are truly what you are from within
Not what someone wants you to be
Standing up for what you believe in
This world is truly yours and we all agree

Being a woman in itself is so special
That there is no need for a day to celebrate
Every second that we breathe is a tribute
Because it is in your womb that we all originate
                                                                    - Narayan

What if there was a God ?

Although I am an Atheist, sometimes I think, if  God existed ,who is conventionally defined as the creator of everything, what would be his reaction when he sees the current state of planet Earth and the harm that we have done to it. Below is a Poem that reflects this thought of mine.


I created a paradise billions of years ago
With all the  goodness I could bestow
Making it the only place where life can exist
Where millions of species can happily co-exist

As years passed by the natural cycle took over
I put my trust on my best creation
The Man - who seemed intelligent and clever
I let him take over after laying the foundation

As I saw from heaven at this marvel
The Earth looked safe from external danger
Covered with all the required elements
It gave Earth a wonderful shield and cover

Everything was so perfect and well sealed
I was happy and satisfied with my creation
Then, I started seeing holes in the shield!
I was alarmed, The Man called it air pollution!

All these days I could not see what was happening
Now with the holes everything is clearly visible
In the name of development things have gone wrong
Now there is need for more than what is available

This intelligent creature called The Man
Has excelled in every métier no doubt
Seems like he had a very different plan
And what I wanted, I guess he forgot

I had created everything in plenty
For both The Man and the animal
But this fight today is unnecessary
The killings in the name of survival

I see poverty and hunger in one moiety
Development and abundance in the other
Seems like man has forgotten his duty
To maintain nature and be its curator

I had created just one religion - Humanity
To avoid in future, any state of quandary
Today it seems like a different situation
There exists something called as religion

I see a Hindu, I see a Muslim
I see a Christian, I see a Jew
This is just to name a few
More such names exist
That serve no benefit


Man is killing man every day
"I do not do anything" - they say
I keep quiet is their complain
After doing atrocities in my name

I fear to appear again and show my face
For I would labelled by some, to my disgrace
As a Christian or a Hindu
As a Muslim or a Jew

Nonetheless ,it does not look too late
One thought, One step, to correct the mistake
To clean up all the dirt and debris
But I know, you will shrug off saying -"Ah! Its not me!"
                                                                                     -Narayan


P.S.In the poem, I refer to all of the human race as the Man .

Sugar : The bitter truth.

Do yourself a favor - spare 90 minutes and watch this.

Hope

As I rambled along the sea shore
I Saw birds flying high in a set of four
With gentle wind kissing my head
I saw the setting sun turning the sky red

The smell of sand was so pleasant
I fell in love with the ambience
Wanted to hold time and live in present
And enjoy my quiescence

But that evening was not all about beauty
It was not about peace and tranquility
Bringing darkness and ending the day early
The nature did not treat the fishermen fairly

Some fishermen were happy and some were sad
Some were lucky  and  some returned empty hand
How I cursed the sun for disappearing so early
Bringing tears to those who failed miserably

Not everyone can afford to enjoy a sunset
Some enjoy it leisurely and some truly abhor
That evening indeed taught me a lesson perfect
That, somebody’s ceiling is somebody’s floor

I realized how selfish my feeling was
To hold the time and enjoy the evening
A new day had to dawn for a better cause
To help the fishermen make a better living

A new day dawned with a warm daylight
The fishermen smiled at this positive sight
They got ready for another scrupulous day
To fight the sea intrepidly and make their way

Life is not about losing the hope and giving up
It is not about hiding in darkness and to moan
It is about fighting back at every chance and living up
Fighting the same battle that once made you go home

                                                                          - Narayan

Myths about Atheism

I am an atheist (unless zombies plan to attack us tomorrow).  I do not believe in God (or Zombies for that matter). God to me is just like the square root of a negative number - Imaginary. There are some myths associated with atheists and atheism, which I would like to address in this blog post.

1. Atheists are unhappy and angry people.

OK ! We agree we are not as happy as Tom Cruise. Other than that we are as happy as anybody else is. We do get angry ( especially when we watch terrible Adam Sandler movies or the silly Twilight series), apart from that we are cool!

2. Atheists have no motivation to be good and morally right, simply because they do not believe in Hell or Heaven or Karma.

Firstly, I do not believe you need an external motivation to behave in a morally correct way. Secondly, if you are being good only because you believe the goodness will return to you or you will go to Heaven, aren't you being plain selfish?

Morality is "independent" of the existence of god. You should not be moral just because somebody is watching you from up there. Values,morality, sense of right and wrong come from people around us. It comes from the society we have created and it will evolve with time. Today everybody condemns slavery and thinks it is immoral. But it was a common practice in the earlier days. Whether you believe in God or not is immaterial. Most of the holy scriptures condemn things like violence, killing of innocents, stealing etc. It is because of the common thread linking all religious scriptures -  the people.  So atheists, just like other people, who are a part of the society, share the same sense of morality. 

A fact : The countries with lowest crime rate are those countries where the majority of the population are irreligious. 


3 .Intolerance towards other religion


Apart from Scientology, we are cool with other imaginary stories. We do not believe in them, but we are cool.  That Xenu stuff is downright silly and hilarious dude ! We are not intolerant towards religion and we do not set out to destroy religious places (religious fanatics are doing it to each other anyway) but surely intolerant towards the violence that is caused in the name of religion.

4. Atheism is a belief

Just like the way people believe we use only 90 % of our brain. ( Wait! If you still believe in that myth then you truly are stupid ).  Atheism, is being without any beliefs and rejection of faith, derived from Atheos , a + theos  = without + god(s) and associated beliefs.

PS: We do believe in Spider-man, Superman and Batman.

5. Life is meaningless and without any purpose for an Atheist

False again. We do have purpose but we cannot beat Deepak Chopra to that. On the contrary we believe life is precious and is a one time opportunity to do our bit to make world a better place to live for our future generation (of course we don't believe in reincarnation and stuff like that) and we should make the most of it while we still exist. 

6. Atheists are mass murderers

This is the one that cracks me up the most. Making Hitler and Stalin the poster boy for atheism, people often cite them of examples of what atheism can lead to. Hitler and Stalin are examples of the dangers of  communism and fascism which themselves are too much like a religion  and contain dogmas giving rise to cults. They were simply sick minds who were lured by the power of power. It is just a matter of co-incidence that they happened to atheists (although Hitler was a Catholic according to some sources, but I would never say its because of his religious belief he did what he did. He was simply twisted! ).

I find it more absurd to believe in God and thinking there is a higher force controlling everything than to believe that there is no God or higher force and we are responsible for our actions and its consequences. I do not need a psychological crutch or a consoling avenue to deal with failures and depression in life. I would rather prefer to analyze it rationally, learn from it and move on in life!

As Armand Salacrou once said - ''The existence of a world without God seems to me less absurd than the presence of a God, existing in all his perfection, creating an imperfect man in order to make him run the risk of Hell.''

बचपन के लम्हे

A small poem that talks about the unadulterated joys of childhood, which becomes a luxury later on in life.


बारिश की वोह पहली बून्दें
जो आसमान से गोध में  आ  गिरे
फिर मिट्टी के  संग बून्द मिल जाए
एक ताज़ी सि नयि ख़ुशबू  जगाये

याद आ रहे हैं वोह लम्हे

बचपन की नादान शरारतें
वोह माँ का प्यार से समझाना
वोह बाबूजी  का प्यार से डांटना
आनेवाले कल की परवाह न करना

याद आ रहे हैं वोह लम्हे

अब शरारतें नादान नहीं लगती
नाहि बारिश लगती है प्यारी
मिट्टी की खुसबू जैसे भूल गया हूँ मैं
अपनी ज़िन्दगी में ऐसे उलझ गया हूँ मैं

अब सिर्फ यादों में खूबसूरती समेट कर रह गयी
उन यादों से बचपन कि  हसीं लम्हों को चुरा के
बेपरवाह बेफिक्र अपनी बचपन की ज़िन्दगी
एक बार फिर से जीना चाहता हूँ मैं


                                                               - नारायण