Sunday, August 7, 2011

FRIENDS - Old Poem Revisited for Friendship's Day!

This can be fine-tuned a lot now. But I wanted to leave it like that. A baby's prattle should be admired and not corrected. I see this poem that way. Takes me back to my memories of 2002 and my naive in it, as an amateur poet ;-)

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In the hectic world of worries,
There are some queries,
What gives us pleasure?
That is hard to measure.
Sure, Friendship is that treasure.

It is that love and care,
That the friends mutually share,
The feelings that are relished,
Forever, to be cherished.

In any field of battle,
They stand together with mettle,
Throw their arms out,
And put their enemies to rout.

Keep in mind,
They are one of the kind,
Who are really hard to find,
Sure, it is a lifetime bind!

Composed By: Mani Jayaram
Date: 23rd May 2002.
For: A dedication to all those who respect Friends and Friendship.

Tuesday, May 31, 2011

The path might end;but the journey continues ...

A borrowed thought from one of a tamil film song but it meant a lot to me. Isn't it the fact that whatever happens in life, time heals the good/bad and life moves on. Even if we are at a dead-end, we turn around to find our next way. Whether willingly or forced, we have to find our way until time stops us.

Time/Destiny is so authoritative that it doesn't wait for us and on top of it, it makes us wait for it one day or the other. Being a winner always, it never stoops down and makes us look for it accepting our defeat. Nobody or nothing stands the testimony of time.

So what it means to stand against Time. It needs courage, diligence and more than everything, THE FAITH. Believe in what we do, do it sincerely, pierce through the barriers, put all of you into it and you shine. When you put all of yours into a thing, you in turn give LIFE to it.

But, is giving LIFE just enough to stand against time? Life needs to survive/sustain against its mighty opponent, the Time. So how it happens? It needs followers, people who look upon it, get inspired and follow it. Thats how it stands against time.

Has anything stood against time for a few centuries? And even if it is, is it looked upon with the same level of exuberence like how it was looked upon when it was born? I dont see many! Its due to lack of followers that this unfortunate thing happens. For example, there are many architectural master-pieces that were built centuries ago but I always feel that most of them stand as a dilapidated piece without LIFE. How many of us know why it was built, how many laborers were involved in that and how long it took to build them. Only when all of these information exist and gets passed on, we see the architectural piece and the life behind it. And for those pieces for which, we know these answers, life/glory still exists. We lack followers to propagate information and make the life behind anything survive beyond time.

A religion without followers slowly perishes. If we dont cultivate our tradition/goodness/beliefs to our offspring, heritage is gone. According to me 'Marriage' is coined for the same fact. Marriage is a tradition/concept that acts as a follower-factor to reinforce love to offsprings. We follow marriage to make love survive. If it is just about sex and children like in primitive ages, would 'Love' have survived? Anything without followers, gets wiped off eventually.

What do we leave for the next generation? Is our value-system strong enough to raise the next generation. Whether you follow a nice path, or create a new path justify on what you are doing, make sure you are right 100 times and most importantly see if there is a strong following to it.

Ending my thought here ... By slightly twisting the heading of this blog to 'Your journey might end; But the path should continue to exist', I see a new beginning to my above thought ...

Take Care!
Mani Jayaram

Friday, May 6, 2011

And miles to go before I sleep ...

These famous words of Robert Frost, kept moving through the grey and white matter of my thinkcenter for a long time now that I wanted to drain this thought off my brain into my blog ...

In general I was thinking of 'destination'/'destiny' and what role it plays in us! When I was waiting for my shuttle bus to go to office, I was watching a man walking across the street here and there. It looked to me that he had nothing to do and just simply standing out on the streets. So I was thinking what happens to life without objective, aim or destination. Even for Robert Frost, Sleep [or his death as this was one of his last poems] was the destination and he wanted to do a lot before reaching the destination.

We come to office and work for a well defined time just because we know, we have to reach home at some specific time. Imagine there is just work and no home. What defines our work timings in that case? Every thing that starts needs an end. Without this end for every start, life becomes traggic! Lets take 'end' optimistically as destination/completion.

The good and the bad have a start and end. When we face the bad we should be optimistic that it will end sometime. Ideally, when we face the good we should be prepared that it is not ever-lasting. After all, the cliche says 'All good things come to an end' ...

Without end to man's life, what happens! Is there a thrill if it is a bright day always without a night or the vice versa? Even an active day is followed by a peaceful rest/sleep. Isn't it? Nature and Life teaches us the same lesson. It is the crest that defines the trough and vive versa. An end begets a new beginning. It is just that we fail to understand this.

We either go mentally down facing failures or wish to always bask on the success. Lets take the odds and evens positively. Destiny comes for our rescue in ending things that we start. What it means to be successful always? Will we have a target if we are alone on the top. What drives us to go further exploring and unravelling new limits. It is a destination for every source that sets the next level of standards for us.

Will a statement with only COMMAs and no FULL-STOP have a well defined meaning? There is an completion to all things that start. Do we like people who keep on talk without a pause? So it is, for this writing too :-) I stop it here for you to ponder ...

Yours,
Mani

Friday, April 8, 2011

All Life Equal ; Each Life Unique

Crispy yet Powerful! It meant a lot to me the moment I read it. I happened to read this somewhere and liked it so much to place this in my blog.

I would consider this a balanced saying that enforces on both individuality and concern for others. How often do we express the concern for others? Do we respect every being the way we would like to be respected? In this busy world the benevolence, respect and concern for others looks to be slowly fading away. It is also about respecting the feelings of others.

At the same time I also strongly believe that one cant please everybody in life and individuality is an important trait for every being to make him/her prominent in the society. Everybody is unique and that is what makes us visible amidst of million of beings around us. We should not compromise our individuality for others too.

When I mean not giving up on individuality, it is the individuality that is good for ourself and to others. We cant of course be holding a quality that is not good for us or others and say that is our individuality :-) So caring for others the same way you care for yourself gives the balance. Striking a balance between these two is the challenge.

Practice this in any relationship and see the difference it brings to the relationship.

Regards,

MJ