A Chair that I Fear

                                       A Chair that I Fear

I had always wished of sitting on a round comfortable chair which would give me a joy of riding in a merry go round. And one day my father fulfilled that wish when I was ogling outside the window inhaling the sweet breeze of air mixed with the charm of the dusk.

“Take it boss, enjoy it!” A blue rotating chair swiftly rolled towards me while my father was standing close to the door smiling. It was a soft cushioned chair with five base assembly and the frictional casters and it had got black arm cap with adjustable seat where one can rest his body and spin or whirl in a desired way. As I placed my beetle body on it I felt excited and pleased that I tied my strong relationship with a chair. It became my choir to sit on the chair and leaf through my books steering it on every corner of the room. Sometimes when nobody was around I used to whirl it until I would feel giddy. I know it was a puerile act but the privilege one can enjoy inside the broad space of one’s one room while spinning and being safeguarded from other’s perception is really hard to attain in our usual time. A person can act or pretend to be anyone or anything in the outside world but inside he always wants to be himself.

Sometimes when my parents would fall asleep, I used to lift that chair tiptoeing upstairs on the terrace to watch the myriad stars shining right over my eyes leaning my body against the flexible back spring of chair. A personal delight and a fear of getting caught at night, gazing at the moon light and slowly falling stars over my sight always used to carry my heart for the miraculous flight but truly my life wasn’t steered like my chair so I always have a fear that someday I would fall like a floating kite.

I often had a hold of my chair that somebody’s weight on it in front of my eyes used to burn my heart into jealousy. I used to feel like the only possession that I had in this world is my chair and I wished nobody would be the heir of my chair. Sometimes my chair used to visit my dream where it used to talk like a real person wishing I would always get attached with it. If my chair would have a real human heart I don’t know what kind of emotions it would hold. May be it would feel my care, my desire and my needs for it.

But the things aren’t always the same. Time changes. Things turn upside down. Same happened with me. The day where the devastating earthquake rattled the whole country and took thousands of lives rendering millions of people homeless, I was sitting on my chair reading newspaper. My parents were outside and I was in home with my chair and as I felt the strong jolt I had to push my chair and run. I just couldn’t notice that I had pushed it so vehemently that it overturned lying prostate on the floor. After I came back when the shock became less intense I lifted it back and saw the sharp bruises over its top. I felt like I had become very rude with the things that always provided me relieving company and comfort. I don’t know how this lifeless being turned into the emotional being that I got the feelings for it as for the people who had lost their loved ones. I know the life of the people can’t be bought back but the chair can be bought again. Poignant emotions diluted in my heart. Mind split. And I felt so guilty for being stupid having feelings for chair which don’t hold any importance for those people who were hugely affected by the quake. After that day I felt like if I have to help people I have to leave and forget my comfort for the well being of others. As I could imagine, those big people of our country who have tethered their pride and prestige on the chair, might have felt the jolt of awakening for their responsibilities towards the country at this crucial moment.

We spent most of our days in makeshift tent and sometimes when I used to enter in my room to fetch my belongings I felt like it is watching me with feeling of disdain and detestation. Once I tried to sit back on it but it gave me a fear of another possible quake .Even at normal times, when I still try to sit on it, my body gets shriveled with fear. I was attached with my chair so deeply that it had a psychological impact on my mind.  It has got spring shock and as I keep my body on it I feel like I am floating on a ship in the middle of the ocean waiting for the big wave to capsize it. I heard that higher authorities of our country has got more comfortable chair in their offices. Do they still feel for their chair or the country? 

Recently I also heard that major political parties are scurrying to form a National coalition Government. Amid this deadly scenario of disaster are they trying to seize the opportunity of being accredited for their work or merely trying to quench their intense thirst for switching power on their hand which had dehydrated them for long.

Now I don’t feel  like my chair is devoid of my affection because the moment I think of those people who have lost their loved one ,I try to foam my emotion comforting my soul  and try to persuade myself that time will change. There will not only be houses but there will be memories retrofitted with love. There will be smiling faces and contended heart slowly marching towards prosperity.

    

Art Of Dying

At what point a person feel like dying? When a person feels much tensed and become completely hopeless or when a person feels so alone and the past memories randomly haunt him/her. Some people may be struggling with cancer or some kind of incurable diseases. Some people have a obsession of thinking. They ruminate over a small issue and end their life because of that. I don’t know how many people had ended their life in this lonely planet but as they did end their life, they had some purposes of doing so.

If you really want to die then let’s not choose a futile death. If you want to die then choose a brave kind of death. Choose a kind of death that will give you a spark of life at every moment you try to jump into it. Die with passion. With utmost compassion. Die for the whole humanity. Die for your country. Die for your passion but don’t die for someone who doesn't give a damn about you. Die for someone who really does care about you. Feel the breeze of death when you try to inhale the breath of life .If you are alone then that’s the biggest gift you have ever received from the divine. You can educate yourself through books. You can listen to your favorite music. Wake up early. See the dawn. Say goodbye to dusk. Be thankful to the sunlight. Love the rain. Go anywhere you like. A single beautiful soul can impart the rare treasure of love and kindness to the world around it. Smile and help people to smile.

Appreciate being alive in an awesome planet. If you are creative that is a great asset you will ever have. Compose poems, paint, and write your heart out. Sing. Dance. Don’t care about what people say or do. Listen to your heart. Make your own choices. Die an awesome accidental death. Like falling from the mountain while hiking. Doing different kind of adventurous sport. If you want to die don’t invite a death at your own cost. Show the death how far you can go with your life.

Talk to the people around you. At your workplace. At school. College. Wherever you are .Provide them a good listening ear. Everybody has something to say. Listen to them. Keep your mind open. Be curious .Seek for knowledge. Everybody has got something. Help someone with the knowledge you earn from someone. If something disappoints you then don’t think much about it. Forgive the one who have hurt you. Don’t be hopeless. There’s a light at the end of the tunnel. keep a pet at your house. Talk with them. Play with them. They will ease your stress. You will feel relief.

If you don’t find anyone to share your problems. I am here for you all. I may not be good at counseling. But talking with someone if you feel good then I will be glad to provide you my listening ear and understanding heart.
Thank you for reading. Wish you for your wonderful time.

A Saloon Story

                                                                        

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Small saloon in the corner of hectic road. Peoples walking with big mustache, beard, long styled hair, some curlies, some straight, some dread locked, some as straight as pine leaves, porcupine thrones. Does hairstyle reflect person’s personality? What about attitude? Mansoor may not have a proper answer for this kind of question but he can nod and say something out of his deep experience. May be the person who share their stories might have certain impact upon him while he move his scissor and comb on their different styled hair. He may have been shaving his pain like a razor blade over their face. Hair and beard grows time and again. Same is the pain. May be his pain grows faster than the sluggish beard. His youthful and meek face may not have the wrinkles of sadness but nobody knows how many times he has massaged his own mind during those painful moments he had endured. People come to have facial and always envy him about the money he earns. They are mostly those people who are still having the grains strewed by their parents. Unemployed and a true addict of cigarette and weeds. Their dreams are like cigarette fumes. Decaying life. Unconscious in a trance state aided by weeds. Mansoor knows his work but forgets his health because he has to open his shop, pay the rent of shop and his room so he never has a time to eat properly. He is single but he always find himself in midst of the crowd. Even when he returns back to his room late at night he carries that crowd within himself. So he is never a lonely guy. His old mother often calls him and pleads for money. He has to send some money to his village. He don’t want to recall those ,starry nights of thunder and heavy downpour where he was compelled to sleep with hunger glancing at the leaked roofs of his small hut. Hunger didn't scare him that time. A howling and forcing wind scared him which could have anytime blown his feeble roof.

“Hay Mansoor?”  Why don’t you change that music?” A commanding and little annoying voice shifted his attention towards the Old cassette player which his father had bought long before he died of cholera when mansoor was small.

An oily person of mid 30 was sitting on a tool and with half shaved beard his reflected images on the mirror resembled that of a betrayed fool. Mirror wasn't clean. There were patches of dirt stuck like an artistic dot. If one would glance at it deeply they would find different images which was barely conceivable.

A melodious Hindi song reverberated in the room. He seems to have been enjoying it. So he slowly closed his eyes while mansoor began shaving rest of his beard.

Seldom people ask him to change the music. Changing music is not a hard job for mansoor, he is not even unwilling to do that, but the hard thing is to fulfill the desire of every customer who enters in saloon with their own kind of desire to look good in every possible way. He can feel their aesthetic needs. People are gifted with their kind of beauty but they want to embrace the beauty of other.

“How much?”

His face looked like a ragged jeans after shaving. He leisurely puts his hands in the back pocket, took out 50 rs note and lifted on the air giving an unsure look.

“Yes its 50” Mansoor replied just dredging a towel and putting it back on the chair.

Then a ragged face guy took away his red sun-glass parked on the wooden desk. He didn't smile back.

 Mansoor has glued the colorful posters of Bollywood slinky and seducing actress on the patchy walls of the saloon. It aids in stimulating sensual feelings of the customer. It seems as those images calmly hold them for a quarter or an half on the wooden high backed uncomfortable chair. Music works as an ingredient or some kind of additives for fidgeted heart.

Those rough and tough guys strolling around the saloon gives bad headache to mansoor. They have made saloon their usual junction for talking mundane things that doesn't make much sense for the ideal person. Their baleful glance and nasty outlook often frighten him .Their very presence in the saloon is like a possible landslide, huge volcanic havoc and terrorizing symptoms of possible earthquake for the feeble heart like Mansoor’s. His hearts beats in a distressful pace, his hands shakes and anger boils inside as they enter into the saloon and use his spray, combs, towels and creams without any kind of formal request or permission. He is aware of the fact that they can be dangerous to him anytime so he has smothered his voice and curbed his courage.

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Today the sun is cloaking beside the cloud. Mansoor knows that it’s already morning..His mobile is out of breath. Begging for battery life. There’s not so much gloomy outside as compared to the gloominess of mansoor’s mind. He has a little sickness escalating from the toes to his head making him look little bit blue and dull on his bed. Yesterday he forgot his lunch, worked like a Himalayan yak or meek donkeys. Ate his dinner at 10 and it was like chopping a big whale into tiny pieces and then eating like a vulture who doesn't know anything about the culture.

He wore his full sleeve shirt. Orange like an orange. Checkered orange. White and orange. It’s like replacing the black with orange in a chessboard.  When mansoor reached at his shop, he glanced at his watch. Needles are resting on the 9 and 12.Small brother resting on 9 and big brother resting on 12.Big brother is desperately waiting for the lean brother doing round ups.

He pushed his shutter. It was hard to push. It needed some grease for sure. Mansoor may have acknowledged it but he always forgets. He usually gets  lost in his routine. There were no vehicles today. He didn't see much people walking on the street. He watched around. Shops were closed. Some half open. Cat or dogs could easily pass through them. But he saw people over there making transactions .He couldn't understand things going around him. Is it a strike today? Some kind of bandha’s? who did it anyway? For what? Will they compensate him for that? He has to pay 400 per day as a rent to the house owner. Do house owner excuses him for this particular day? No he won’t. Mansoor didn't want to go back to his room closing his shop just because it’s a strike. He is earning his living by hard work. He toils around all day long for his living, for his family. He couldn't understand why such kind of strikes is snatching the bread of an honest laborer? One group goes in the power, escalates and dwells in a big tower. With binoculars they watch layman. They haven’t yet observed the real pain of the people in a microscope. There are numerous sides of people and there are numerous slides of pain, of suffering, of dreams, of desires, of wish which needed to be placed in the microscope of the state and observed thoroughly.

Mansoor didn't get chance to ruminate much. He feels as his right to think has been infringed by some strange noises. It soars high like a violent storm hitting the unbolted door. He finds the section of brick smacked at his shop which comes with the nerve-wrecking motions sliding at his feet. Angry crowds enter his shop with the big wooden stick. Mirrors fall into pieces  like his heart. Helpless chair lies prostrate on the floor. Blood comes sprouting from his head. He couldn't understand what those angry faces are yelling at him. He just finds chunks of frustration dotted in their face like an indelible stain. He finds his eardrum resonating a peculiar sound. Then the crowd leaves. He lies there on the floor like a lifeless chair.

Lets Stop Violence Against Women

http://new.myrepublica.com/blog/item/17325-lets-stop-violence-against-women.html

Being Mute for a day

    

“What is your name?”

Today he became interested in knowing our name after a long days of teaching  in our  classroom.

I wrote my name on copy. Stood and handed him. It was weird though .Instead of telling my name, I wrote it in my copy.

He asked, “What is this c..ha..k..r..i..it. My writing wasn't good.

“Chakrit.”One of my friend Corrected it.

“Why are you speaking on his behalf?, Can’t he speak himself?”He frowned.

I Just sat smiling. No words came from my mouth. My friends too became perplexed by my silence.

It was our first period. Compulsory  English. BA 2^nd year. I came late in classroom,10 minutes later after the teacher entered into the classroom.

All of my friends guessed that I was in some kind of  weekly fasting. May be some of them might have guessed I wasn't in a mood of speaking or I was using my silence as a weapon of discontent towards the teacher.

As long as I know myself, all those guesses are not  virtuous . The reason behind my silence was totally different. Very different. If some of my friends would have known they would have considered me mad or too much emotional for something.

My teacher didn't inquire much about my silence. He moved towards the other student to ask their name. I guessed he might have  constructed some perception regarding my silence after the class was over or he simply might have forgotten it as my awkward  act.

Silence was my experiment for that day. I decided that the whole day I will remain silent and will watch the consequences. How difficult will it be to remain silent? To remain mute. Spending a day without a single word casting from my mouth.

Same day at morning when I was heading towards my college , I saw one mute person on my way being teased and bullied by some guys. Those guys were young college students like me. They were irritating that mute guy by touching his hair. They were laughing on his indignation ,his resentment.

I could clearly see he was annoyed by them. Poor guy was mute .He was trying to utter some word from his mouth but it made him look  clown in front of those guys.  I felt  so anxious and furious at those guys but I was  so helpless .I couldn't do anything. I was afraid of them. They were in group. I felt so guilty afterwards .I decided that I would spend a day without speaking and feel  the pain of that mute guy. Just for a day what would happen being silent. I wanted to experience his single day in my life. Just a single day.

I really can’t imagine the difficulty that I had experienced during that entire day. Specially for a guy like me who can’t spend a day without talking. Teacher and friends had tagged my name in the most talkative person list.

The same day in college, my colic’s  from 1^st year came to ask me whether I would like to join them for picnic after a week. I just nodded my head in a sign of yes. They asked for money and I wrote on my copy.”TOMORROW”

Another guy From my classroom approached me and asked my number. I dialed it on my phone and displayed him. He guessed if I was on Moan fasting. I nodded.

Fasting and me? I laughed inside. I can’t wait a sec if I am late for my meal. But my answer was required to make them silent. Words are required to give much demonstration. And we have a  long history of demonstrating the silence. Once silence is always demonstrated by other.

After a college time was over, one of my classmate came and asked for my note copy. I was already descending down the stairs. I just smiled and walked away. He may have thought me arrogant and unhelpful.

I used to live in rent so I had to cook myself. Every day I used to buy vegetable from the same vender. The young guy, Wearing bull printed t-shirt asked me, ”Today no Vegetable?”

I just nodded and went. Actually I needed a vegetable and I could have pointed and buy but I felt ashamed. There were other person standing there and I was afraid that they would start gossiping about my weird act.

That day I cooked potato curry and Rice and had my breakfast.

My neighbor brother came and asked me if I was interested in strolling outside with him up to the hill. I agreed ,changed my dress and walked with him. He tried to talk with me. About some music and   about the girls I met. I couldn't speak. First he laughed thinking it as my drama. After sometime he got angry and left me behind, returned back to his house being annoyed with my silence.

At evening, our landlady came to ask for my torchlight. I gave. She asked me, if there was any problem in the room, since I was new on the rent. I just smiled and slammed my door. I don’t know what she might have thought about me.

When I was about to sleep, My phone rang. It was a call from my mother. I didn't receive. It rung  until the 11. I slept that day. I fulfilled my promise of being mute.

Now you can imagine how   much troublesome  that single day turned out to me? May be it wasn't that much difficult compared to the life of those mute people. Every mute person   in this world are living that single day for every second of their life. I felt so sad and unconscious. I felt so much suffocating inside not to express my feelings and emotions. I wanted to reply back. I wanted to express myself but I couldn't. If a single day would turn out to be this much exasperating for me then how difficult may those persons might have felt in this world to express themselves?

Why to tease them? Why to laugh at them? Can’t we be their voice? There are such persons in our society who need our love, who need our care and affection. This is just my short example of being silent, being mute .This mute guy represents millions of people who are living different sort of life due to their physical and mental weakness but they are not weak. They are not disable. They are differently-abled human beings like us. Let’s show some humanity towards them. Let’s be united for better and prosperous society.

We cannot feel their pain until we step on the   steep rock they are stepping, until we became the view they are viewing, until we feel their true soul. There are millions of people who can easily show sympathy. We all carry emotions. But we use them for our own problems. We consider ourselves as the saddest person of the world. We often feel jealous of others. We quarrel for trivial matters but have we ever thought once for others? For those who don’t belong to our family? For those who are not in the list of our loved ones? Just for a single day, at least for a single moment think of those people   who are living very painful life. You don’t have to go too far. Just search for that person in your own vicinity .Just think what you can do to help them? Anything. You don’t have to be rich to help people. Just carry your rich heart with abundance of love.

                                                                                                        -Frain Chakrit

Just be like Flowers

What a flower has to do?It just remains there.It doesn't even wish for the water.Neither does it plead sun for the light.It doesn't complain even it get's withered away or dispersed and blown by winds.It faces all the challenges but it never seems to give up.It accepts whatever is provided to it.It never judges things.Nor it shows satisfaction neither a dissatisfaction.It sprouts and bloom so beautifully that it fills the whole existence with profound joy.It's fragrances stir our heart,our mind,our senses.we would like to pluck it,We would like to wear it in our ear,pin it in our clothes and gift it to someone with utmost passion and gratitude.Such a beautiful thing doesn't demand for anything yet it is filled with so much life.so pure.so unsullied.It gives everything of it's own to the existence before it gets faded away.

Can we all give Joy and happiness to the people around us before we die?Without any demands and expectation?Being pure and selfless?How wonderful this world would be if we could just be like flowers?  
                                                                                                   
                                                                                                                               -Frain Chakrit

Library of loving hearts

I wish this world would be the library of many loving hearts.