Straight from the heart……

Dr. Rakesh Sharma

drrakishsharma@yahoo.com

O Mother Nature!

Yer beauty no words could tell or speak,

The secret of it all in serendipity I seek…

 

The clouds, the mountains, the rivers, the snow,

Cast a spell on me wherever I go,

Is this moment for real I would not know,

A delusion/dream or a reality my doubts they grow….

 

The mountains stood tall,

Thought they never could fall,

And then you sent clouds to cover em all….

 

Confused I pondered what happened to them,

The very next moment they were back, what a gem…

 

Chuffed my eyes did devour all that they saw,

The beauteousness of the landscape it left me in awe….

 

What imbecility is it for humans who try n match up to your skill,

What a waste of mind that nature alone did instil……..

 

Introspection!!! …….contd(18)

O darkness!

Come take me away…

For this world is all but a paradox…

Love, emotion, pain n hurt is all but a delusion…..

We see the light,

But what we do not see is that it takes the sun to burn itself…

While we adore the shine…

While we try to discover what we cannot see….

Go away O sunshine…

For your shine is all but a paradox…

For those who adore the shine n its sheen know not…

That it takes to burn oneself…..

We’re all a dream and dream is all that we are,

Dream is all that we live and we live until it’s all over,

Until we’re gone, and all that remains is memories, all that remains is darkness….

Kohlapuri D!!!!

Dr. Rakesh Sharma

drrakishsharma@yahoo.com

Why this Kohlapuri Kohlapuri D!!

Outfit’s colour whitu whitu,

Deeds colour blacku,

Nation’s goin to the dogsu dogsu,

These thugs n goons still fightu,

(n then they have the cheek to say)…

Why this Kohlapuri kohlapuri Kohlapuri D……..

Am sure its not going to take a genius to conjecture as to who all this one’s dedicated to and even more so why. For those who plead ignorance, I would make no bones about mentioning it straight up that this one goes out for our politicians and even more so the incumbent government.

Well kudos to the politicians for instilling this sense of self belief in the common man that no one is inaccessible and beyond reproach (literally) whatever happens. If the recent episodes of shoe throwing were anything to go by, I am just tempted to speculate and hypothesize this rare possibility of the censor board having a role to play in changing the lyrics and therefore the very essence of the song (Kolaveri D), which was meant to be sung as ‘Kohlapuri D’ changed later on as per censor board’s advise.

No wonder on being asked as to what ‘Kolaveri D’ meant, Dhanush gets defensive every time, and goes on to suggest people not to try to get into meanings of the title. As it is he must have had a tough time trying to come to terms with what the censor board had (presumably) forced him to do.

What one gets inquisitive about is also the possibility of the shoe throwers being a part of the marketing strategy of Dhanush, which was to lay the ground for release of the original song (why this Kohlapuri D) so that the public at large would get acquainted to the idea of shoe throwing and therefore the song so that such naïve questions as to what the song meant and why and how was it written etc were self answered.

Thankyou Sir!!!

Dr. Rakesh Sharma

drrakishsharma@yahoo.com

Well its strange how people develop preconceived notions about the kind of respect one deserves or gives to others, whether it was about social interactions or even strangers. We all seem to be so pre-programmed with respect to how we should address others or how others address us.

It was just the other day that I had this little discussion with the guy (basically a cobbler) who I used to stop over every morning while heading for work in order to get my shoe polished. Like always even this time around I asked him as to how much was I supposed to pay for his services. To this he replied “20 rupees sir” and while handing over the money I said “thank you sir”

Well from the look on his face it appeared as if he almost felt that I had tried to condescend. Now I became inquisitive and I wanted to know what exactly was going through his mind, and also as to whether my addressing him as ‘sir’ was the point of embarrassment and suspicion or was it something else.

I questioned him and he said” Saab kyun gareeb ka mazaak udaatay ho (why’re you making fun of a poor man), hum kahaan kay ‘sir’ saahab”

To that I retorted “What is it that makes you feel so small or inferior. You do a great job and what you do is something that you are pretty good at, almost perfect and that is what makes you a master, a ‘sir’, if that is what you ironically find too embarrassing to handle or patronising to accept”

“I was almost a fan of yours, for you were the one I would stop by every time I head for work, just like I visit a temple every morning to thank almighty for all that he has blessed me with. You were no less than a lucky charm, a ‘can’t do without’ factor for me and so many other peoples’ lives who I am sure feel so incomplete without that shine and sheen your expertise brings on to our shoes”

Well he felt humbled but then not before he acknowledged the fact that may be he had reason to take pride in what he was doing in life and that all was not lost after all…..

 

Stranger!!!

Dr. Rakesh Sharma

drrakishsharma@yahoo.com

If ‘I’ was ‘you’ and ‘you’ were ‘they’, ‘they’ were ‘them’ and ‘them’ were ‘we’, what a beautiful place this world would be….

Well isn’t this world a crazy place, we call certain individuals who we apparently do not know as strangers and the ones who we claim to know as the ones who are close, but then how can we ever get to know anyone else when we do not even know our own selves.

Man in the real sense of the word is a stranger to his own self more than anyone else who surrounds him. I guess this word ‘stranger’ is one that needs to be carefully looked into and thought over, for may be this is something that could quite possibly replace ‘mankind’ as a general term that describes human beings.

For strange seem to be our ways of dealing with life, strange seems to be the way we go about fooling ourselves with respect to claiming to know it all, wasting our precious time and resources over things that are as evanescent as it could possibly get.

Freedom!!!

Dr. Rakesh Sharma

drrakishsharma@yahoo.com

Freedom said the voice,
From whom came the query,
That’s something perhaps none have got an answer to,
Life in itself is one big bondage of whom none can be weary!

At times one wonders what these people mean by ‘Azadi’. What kind of delusion is this very concept of Azadi? Does it mean to be able to decide ones own fate and carve ones own destiny. Well I do not really know of anyone who actually could claim to have had total control over their lives and the situations that they have had to deal with.

So this concept of Azadi perhaps is nothing but a veil that masquerades hidden agendas and vested interests wherein jingoistic fervors are whipped and emotions exploited with many getting bamboozled by this utopian sounding Azadi rhetoric.

All that is at best going to change is who calls the shots while for the common man things are hardly going to change and certainly not for the better. Wouldn’t this world have been such a beautiful place to live in if we all would have understood that life was all about bondage and getting to do things that someone else (Nature/God/ Destiny) decided for us and therefore this human urge of trying to take control over anything and everything we could possibly think of is what further obfuscated life and the experiences while we live through it, for the truth is that ‘freedom’ its just never happens, its only the issues that keep changing but the bondage is here to stay.

The burning train!!!

Dr. Rakesh Sharma

drrakishsharma@yahoo.com

I once decided to board a train just to interact with strangers. While I was settling down adjusting my baggage (basically a sky bag) that I was carrying, I realised that the upper berth belonged to a young lady. Soon I figured out that she was not that comfortable up there and at the same time was hesitant to ask me for a berth swap. Well I volunteered and she gladly accepted, soon we were friends.

Just when we were settling down, a gent barged into the compartment with a baggage that I thought deserved to be loaded on a cargo train. Somehow he stuffed all of his baggage under the lower berths, and thereafter he reclined on his berth.

Now but naturally the pretty lady in the compartment was something that even he wanted to befriend and there he was. He asked the lady if she was going all the way to Delhi and also if she was okay with the way he had adjusted the baggage and hopefully she was comfortable.

Well she did nod her head and said she was fine, but then I knew the look on her face said a lot more than that. And then he introduced himself as lieutenant in the army and that he was headed home to Delhi to attend his elder brother’s marriage (while I said to myself- come to the point bro, you ain’t getting her anyway, the sooner you realise that the better!)

Now this guy realised that he was not going to stand a chance unless and until he didn’t interact with me and outsmart me in front of that lady before he could go for the kill. So he asked me as to where was I headed and went on to add that I reminded him of a school friend of his. I told him that I was an intern and had just finished my medicine.

He thought, that was it, for he presumed that the battle was won already, for a medicine guy would perhaps hardly know anything beyond books and academics which was the last thing a lady could ever be won over by.

So he took off “Hey doc! excuse me but then females find doctors extremely dull and workaholic. What do you say madam” he asked the lady (shreya). Well she just smirked and looked at me as if she wanted a rebut from my side.

Well I decided not to let her down. I asked this army fellow as to which profession did he think was the best and why. Pat came the reply and on expected lines he said” Of course -army, who else do you think can ever match up with what we guys do for the nation and the kind of life that we lead”

Now that was what I wanted, a chance to piss him off, I asked him “dude can you see these hands” and he said “hell yes”. And then I went- baisaab agar yeah haath nahi hotay to aap undhar he reh jaatay baahar nahee aa paatay!!

‘Dr. Karan Singh’ Jammu’s last man standing!!!

Dr.Rakesh Sharma

drrakishsharma@yahoo.com

Many might not be able to appreciate what Dr. Karan Singh went through. From a yuvraj (and king in the making) to having to become a victim of regional vendetta and be a silent spectator to the way the situation was exploited by a handful of valley based leaders, something that the entire nation is having to pay a price for till date.

Well it’s a different matter that chances of his having been able to do much in a situation wherein even the GOI found it impossible to deal with the trimmer and opportunistic politicking of the Kashmiris, who blow hot and cold at the drop of a hat and each time you think that you got to know them they prove you wrong, almost making you feel guilty of having done tremendous wrong, not to talk of human rights!

Well this was something that I got tempted to pen down after having gone through Mr. Mitra’s article in the Telegraph wherein he almost showcased the Indian government as an oppressor (with respect to Kashmir), something that was a little unsettling. To me it seems that past six decades no one in the nation seems to have understood the intra state dynamics of the region. It appears that the only logic and point of view that the region has is that which emanates out of the valley.

This to me seems to be the nemesis of the problem the nation finds itself in as of today, while no one really seems to dig into the reasons why no other region (from within the state) and voices from therein get noticed or even heard. Why is it that the nation in spite of having done so much still gets portrayed as cruel and oppressive from the region’s (J and K) perspective?

Why is it that people like Fai et al have managed to get the better of Indian agencies and it only takes an FBI investigation to figure what these guys have been up to. Well it’s a pity that Dr. Karan Singh seems to be the last man standing, coming from the state( of J and K) and is Indian to core, thereafter all you have is a bench of fence sitters who scream I am a Muslim and  an Indian one day and the next they wonder whether the state had merged or acceded with the nation, one point of time holding the Indian security agencies responsible for the killings in the valley and the next moment asking for more troops when the situation wriggles out of control.

Well that’s how the cookie crumbles in this part of the world, but then to me Dr. Karan Singh, given the handicap is surely a decent bet.

Soundarya Saabun Nirma!!!

Dr. Rakesh Sharma

drrakishsharma@yahoo.com

Well given the embellishment and bamboozling these product promotion adverts keep throwing at the public, one shouldn’t be too surprised over why an otherwise naïve ‘janata’ gives into these promotional gimmicks and falls for the products.

Now just imagine a lady who does a commercial for some cosmetic product or soap and goes on to credit the product for all of her beauty and attributes. How on earth is it possible that a bloody cream or some soap is going to make her look the way she appears to be.

At times I even wonder why Darwin and likes had to work that hard trying to figure how genes, DNA, heredity and all that worked. Had these guys known that a few decades down the line there would be advertisements (if not the products!) that would make anything and everything look elementary and genetics etc a stupid joke.

It’s a pity how companies exploit human emotions almost playing with those for capital gains in order to make their products a success.

What makes the matter worse is when the celebrities, they endorse the product for the sake of those huge amounts of money involved, more than trying to get into the details of the product that they advertise and how genuine the claims of the product that they promote through commercials are.

Well I for one fail to understand as to how rubbing a particular soap while having bath is going to turn an individual into a star or a person for whom nothing is impossible. Man! These ad guys tend to go overboard at times. If only they could carry this statutory message before they take off, something which says that the claims of the ads are not a hundred percent guarantee and it’s all subject to how big a fool the person watching is, in order to get lured by those tall claims!

Help and pleasure!!!

Dr. Rakesh Sharma

drrakishsharma@yahoo.com

There was this interesting character I came across yesterday. This guy (in his mid twenties) was sitting in the OPD waiting area. Since he didn’t look like one who was there for some health related issues, best I could conjecture as the reason for his being there was as an attendant accompanying someone not well.

But then I realised that he was all alone and was seated there for a good two hours. I wondered as to what kind of a guy was he, sitting in a hospital OPD, at his age, something I thought was hard to comprehend and more so when he didn’t have any apparent health issues or someone sick who he was accompanying.

Inquisitive, I called him inside my OPD chamber and enquired as to what was it that brought him there to the hospital. To begin with, he was a little apprehensive, for he thought that I was suspicious of his being there and was trying to interrogate or figure the motive behind his presence.

Well having sensed it, I was quick to offer him a seat and make him comfortable. Then he said “Sir this is not the first time I have come into a hospital OPD. In fact I do it quite often. Although I appear too young to be doing this, but then I somehow am not able to relate with what people of my age are doing, hanging out, wasting away time, seeking pleasures which to me are nothing short of distraction from reality”.

He went on further “I come here and I see how much the world is suffering. People many of them are so unlucky to be dealing with issues of life and survival while some others are absolutely oblivious of sufferings or what these guys have to deal with and how tough life is for some while for others its an absolute gift. I try to have a close look at all the sufferings and this is something that gives me all the energy to stay away from distractions and the worldly ways. I am able to focus on whatever I feel I can contribute to the society as an individual”.

Overawed, I asked him as to what was it that he was doing to help others. He said he used to spare one day in a week to come to the hospital and there he used to try and help senile and infirm people who were in need or poor patients. He used to save a hundred rupees from his limited earning and that he would use to buy medicine or anything that some one would need and he could be able to get with that kind of money.

Well how thoughtful was that! I was bowled over by this guy’s sincerity and integrity of thought and this bona fide caring and concern for the sufferings of others. Although what he was doing might not have been able to change the world or anything, but then it was his intention that I thought was so rare, especially in today’s times when we just don’t seem to care.