Age

I know you. 

We've met before. 

You're an old friend 

from days almost forgotten. 

Memory is a fickle friend. 

Now fading, now making an appearance. 

Weaving through reality and illusion, 

I see this fleeting thought and think, 

'I know you. We've met before.' 

Is it me, is it you? 

Should I reward my mind for not forgetting 

or punish it for remembering? 

The silhouette of your handsome face, taunting me 

to acknowledge my limitations. 

As I struggle, I hear the enemy laugh 

at my confusion. 

Do I know you? 

Have we met before? 

When all along the winds and the dreams and the earthly symbols of time 

have been ticking to warn us of the impending end of all as we know it

Here comes that soft, fleeting memory

Do I know you?

Have we met before?

Fallacies of the rich-poor argument in the context of modern day life

So I've seen this photo floating around the Internet a lot and it was thought-provoking. It's just that, the thoughts that sprang in my mind were a bit different.

I've always believed that while life gives you many opportunities to learn many new things from people around you, whether they are actively a part of your life or not, you learn only as much as you choose to learn. And while even if you assumed that people work towards your success or development, it's a stretch of the imagination to assume that if you hadn't done the things that need to get done, you'd never get anywhere. This post confuses being grateful to your mentors with believing that man does not journey alone. Because in fact, man does journey all alone. He steers his own ship and makes his own choices. Sure others may factor into those choices but rarely can two people achieve the same outcome with the same set of people guiding them.

To trivialise the lack of money or poverty by saying the rich man is stereotypically unhappy or has unfulfilled emotional needs just because of his ability to buy more expensive services is churlish and shallow. Similarly no amount of drinking tapri chai is going to bring joy to someone who is oppressed by poverty. How antithetical it is then that one of the richest men in the country uses his platform to express ill-formed thoughts as advice to impressionable youth. I'm not aware of the veracity of the attribution to Ratan Tata and I haven't done any fact-checking and it may well be that an Internet troll has put out this wrongful attribution.

It may seem that my response is to the semantics of the text but to convey such an important message in such a casual manner that leaves the essence open to interpretation is irresponsible.

Journey

Were it summer, I wouldn’t have heard him come in

Not the crunch of leaves to herald his arrival

No

He came to tell me his stories

Those of mysterious lands from afar

Such as I wouldn’t have seen from my hearth

The pot I was stirring boiled dry 

Until an acrid, unfamiliar smoke filled my throat

But the agony of seeing such wonder through his eyes alone

Numbed me to the small loss of my small home

I listened as he regaled me

Speaking slowly and clearly, as though deliberate

Driving home my ignorance

The lack of romance in my life

I watched him become animated 

And thought I saw a glimmer of mockery 

As he watched me closely

Peering in the darkness of my stone kitchen

At my concealed excitement

When he was finally gone

As suddenly as he came

I took a pen upon paper

And signed on it my name

I told Mama and Papa that I would be gone for a while

I knew in my heart though

They wouldn’t see me until the end of time

Yes, for those far-flung lands that day I set off

One day, my stories would light the fire under someone’s pot

Not a woman, not a man, not a being I was to be

An example, a story, an idea for someone else

That would be me

The capes and the silk stockings, the hard labour of scrubbing the deck

I took hell fire, but I didn’t turn back

Across mountains and seas, I took the roads I came upon

A rolling stone too, I was called by some

The stories I’d heard, they were not all true

But at least I knew, that now I knew

I walked until I tired, and I lay myself down

Under a magnificent oak tree, under a sky with no cloud

I closed my eyes and heard the brook babble

I was home, more than I ever was, in my mansion

Then suddenly, I felt my spirit rise and leave me

Saying goodbye to my shell, continuing its journey…