http://yodhey.rediffiland.com/Diary of yodhey patelen-us I had no friends, no enemies,
Didn't have any plans,
Nor had any memories,
All that I had was,
Empty space in my mind,
Didn't know what it was,
To be cruel, to be kind,
I didn't know what it was,
To be happy, or in pain,
Wasn't even aware,
Of what was Loss, or gain,
It was a pleasant, numb,
Shapeless, flawless existence,
But as I grew up,
It lost its persistence,
More and more definitions,
Were added to my mind,
And the pure truth,
Became harder to find,
Differentiation became,
The basis of perceptions,
There were rules, and more rules,
But with exceptions,
The magnitude of complexity,
Went higher and higher,
The purpose of existence,
Flew higher and higher,



To be Continued................]]>Mon, 19 Mar 2007 12:52:08 +0530http://yodhey.rediffiland.com/blogs/2007/03/19/When-I-Was.htmli rise n fall, once again, like a battle fought,
between my mind n heart, and dnt knw if its fair,
my eyes constantly fight, with her tied and opened hair,
wht makes me forget everything, is her presence,
is it friendship?, ha, tht doesnt make sense,
she's there, I forget all the pains,
all that she wants is, no personal gains,
what is this? , I'll never understand,
but all I ant is, her hand in my hand,
its always like, a beautiful waterfall,
time flows down, but, the bond stands tall,
T don't even know, if its human nature,
but what almighty has got for me, will be revealed in near future.....



-----yodhey-----


]]>Mon, 19 Mar 2007 12:20:34 +0530http://yodhey.rediffiland.com/blogs/2007/03/19/Pepe-.htmlAs per our common faith, on his arrival, our group decided to visit the temple as a custom because my friend had come back from Australia. My dad also supported that plan. He said, "Yes you people should go. Also the operation is on this month's 15th."
I understood what he meant to say. According to our plan we left for Sanangpur early in the morning on 11th February.
After reaching Sanangpur, according to our trend we visited all the temples, including the main Hanumanji temple. One thing struck my mind during my visit to the Hanumanji temple. Tough I had visited this place many times before, this was the first time I felt something pinching me from inside.
This time when I saw into the eyes of Hanumanji's idol, I felt as if they were asking me a question, "Why are you here today?"
The answer was very simple. My cousin sister's heart surgery. One of my friends went to a corner of the main room of the temple and sat down with other people already sitting there. I followed him. When I went over there and sat besides him, another question struck me, "Have you ever sat like this before during your previous visits?"
The answer was no. Previously, every time I visited the temple, I would simply go, stare at the idol, thank him for whatever I have had in my life, utter a simple mantra, offer the sacred coconut to the priest who would make that coconut touch the railings of the room in which the idol is kept and give it back to me, and leave the temple. This was the first time I was sitting in that temple. Then I saw my friend uttering the Hanuman Chalisa. I also wanted to enchant the Hanuman Chalisa. I had learned it by heart when I was 9 years old. To my surprise I started fumbling with the verses! Then I realized i couldn't recall all the verses of Hanuman Chalisa. The reason was obvious. I had not recited the Hanuman Chalisa since last 5 to 6 years/.
Where was my faith all that time? Did I really thank God for whatever I have got in my life or it was just an ordinary trend for me that I followed every time I visited any temple? I wasn't able to answer my own questions. Whatever the reason, I wanted to recite the
Hanuman Chalisa that day. I wanted to offer prayers to God because my cousin was in danger. Is that what we call faith?
Well, I recited the whole Hanuman Chalisa by reading it from a booklet. After that, we went to buy prashad. In this temple, you need to buy the prashad for a specific amount. It starts from 11 Rs, and can go upto more than a thousand Rs. Usually, I always preferred to buy Prashad for Rs. 101. This time also, I bought it for the same amount. But I saw my friend who came from Australia, spending more than a thousand Rupees on Prashad and he was also buying it on behalf of our other friends who were in Australia. Seeing that, I also wanted to buy more prashad. Why? Again the same reason. I wanted to save my cousin's life. Then I saw my othter friends buying oil and holy water. I never buy such things because I used to believe that faith or love for God cannot be measured by the amount of money you spend on Prashaad packets, oil bags or bottles of Holy water. Of course the amount of money you spend there is being used for maintenance of the temple, payroll of employees and maintenance of the Goshala. But this day, I wanted to buy everything for all the money I had but then I didn't. I don't know whether it was out of my rigidity. Or may be it was a simple logical reason that was stopping me from buying loads of all these things. What was I going to do with all the prashad? What will happen if I offered the priest with a big oil container of thousand rupees? Were all my sins going to be washed away? Or was my cousin going to be alright if I spent thousands of rupees on holy water, prashad and oil? The answer was again, no. the money could be used bear the expenses of hospital. But again, there was a blind fear in my mind. What if God isn't pleased with me? What if he is annoyed with me because I couldn't spend even a thousand rupees for his temple? But again it was not my cousin's fault. So he would not punish her. With all these contradicting thoughts in my mind, I, along with ym other friends moved towards our car. As I sat in my car, I had one final look at the temple and I closed my eyes. I remembered Hanumanji with all my concentration and asked him to take care of my sister.

After that, I don't know from where, but a force, a power, a faith emerged in me. I was suddenly confident about my sister's operation and had more faith in the the doctor than before. And finally on 15th of February, 2007, the operation of my cousin sister was successful. That day I thanked God and decided to visit the temple once again. Ever wonder what God must have told me when I was sitting in the car with my eyes closed?

The questions that arose in my mind when I was walking towards our car that day seemed to be without any logic. So where did all the logic, spirituality, understanding and literacy go? Is it the fear that makes you believe blindly in idol worship, offering prayers, bribing God by spending money on prashad oil etc? Or is it the fear that makes you believe in God? Why couldn't I myself trust my own faith in God? But when I sat in the car and requested God just once with all my faith, things went my way. But how do you define faith anyway?





-- Yodhey
]]>Sat, 17 Mar 2007 11:32:30 +0530http://yodhey.rediffiland.com/blogs/2007/03/17/Faith.htmlAs they walking towards me I could see them walking and running in gangs of two each. They were busy in playing with each other, hitting and playing with their hands, running around carelessly. But as they came nearer, I could see that they were actually fighting with each other. When they came and stopped besides me, I could make out from their facial looks that they were a pair of brothers fighting other pair of brothers. They were abusing each other loudly and carelessly. The younger brother of one group was trying to pick a fight with the younger brother of the other group and elder was doing the same with the elder. Sort of systematic fight. Isn't it?
I ignored them and called on my girlfriend's cell phone so that she could come out as early as possible. As they were loudly abusing each other, I could not ignore them for a longer period of time and as I look towards them, one of the elder brothers, was holding an iron rod in his hand and his opponent was holding a big stone in his hand! The younger brothers had moved away and were holding each other's collars.
The boy with iron rod in his hand was also holding a white ball of cloth in his other hand. I could make out from the way they were carelessly abusing each other and trying to fight each other, that the cloth ball in the boy's hand could have been nothing else but what these street children used as drug to get a kick(nasha). It was a cloth ball dipped in what they called white ink, which when deeply inhaled would give a kick! I knew this because one of my aunt's was a social worker who handled the street children projects.
May be they were fighting for that piece of dripped cloth. It was a sort of war between brothers. The boy with the stone in his hand was threatening the one with rod in hand, "My Stone is more powerful than your rod. I will hit this on your head and you will die you sick bastard!"
The other one replied, "Ever seen my dad in our gully roaming with this rod? I saw him stabbing a person with this one! If I stab you with this rod, it blood will come out your stomach like water! And you will die you motherfucker!"
"Oy!" shouted the one with stone in his hand and lunged in anger towards the one with rod. I caught hold of his hand, snatched the stone from his hand and threw it away just at the right time or else he would have broken the skull of the other boy.
I shouted at them, "Hey you dogs? Don't you have home? Why do you fight? Don't fight here! Go away!"
But they didn't seem to listen to me. The other boy was trying to hit the boy now unarmed with his rod but the unarmed boy managed to escape his attack. It was lethal. The younger generation was fighting bare handed at the far end.
I could not find a way to stop them except for yelling at them. But I felt embarrassed to stop them or beat them up as they were not bothered about whoever was seeing them. But the situation was such that one might have killed, or at least injured the other one badly.
As I looked around, I saw no one was bothered about this. Some passers by shouted at them, "Oy don't fight here you dogs! Rascals! Get lost"
But when they wouldn't listen to them, they were on their way. I saw a few people enjoying the scene! They were laughing at these children! For a moment I felt like shouting at them but then I knew I was no Sunny Deol to yell at these people. After all even I was not able to stop them. What was I doing to stop them? Nothing. But atleast I was not enjoying the situation.
Then, suddenly the gatekeepers of two adjoining office complexes came out and started beating those boys. They beat them ruthlessly with their hands. The boy with rod in his hand tried to hit one of the gatekeepers but the gatekeeper was strong enough to sntach it away from his hands. The other boy started crying and abusing the gatekeepers. The one who tried to attack a gatekeeper with his rod seemed to have no impact of beating and was constantly abusing the person beating him up. This showed that he was on a high(Nasha).
Well, finally the gatekeepers were successful in driving all the four boys away from that place.
I took the parcel from my girlfriend and drove back to my office on my bike. On my way back, I saw the same boys sharing a few pizza pieces outside pizza hut restaurant. They were sitting near the dustbin.
I came back to my office and I talked to myself for a minute or two in solitude. Was this the future of India? And we being the present of India, what have we been doing all these years? Is people's skin so fat that nothing penetrates it? Can't other people feel the same as I felt? Everyone has his or her problems in life but this was striking. One innocent child was out to kill other innocent child! I am not exaggerating this incident but atleast I could make out one thing. That is, what it means to be poor. That day, I didn't see two beggars or street children fighting, but I saw two innocent children, inspired by their on parents, trying to take each other's lives.
Even their parents can't be blamed because they also must have grown up in a similar environment. So, it is a vicious circle. It's a trend. It goes on. But it needs a breakthrough.
]]>Sat, 17 Mar 2007 11:11:59 +0530http://yodhey.rediffiland.com/blogs/2007/03/17/India.html