The Passion of Sadness

Every college life gives birth to friendships. Or At least that’s what they say!

And, in this part of world, every parent compelled academic degree is essentially followed by the careers, the 20^th century invention of society. When it all happened to me, she was one of the few friendships survived.

But then in a while, my brain chemicals started reacting from bad to worse as my life had started drifting through some emotional storms. On many such “not-fine” days my replies were usually depressed to her infamous question - “How are you”.

Later during one phone call, she had lost her tolerance in hearing my ever saddening life, and so she suggested, “Well, you sound always miserable, and it’s boring. So get your sadness done before you talk to me again”. And that’s how sadness and I became aliens to some human beings. True story!

Eventually I made my choice up and it was to keep my sadness though it cost me some people. But then why did I make that choice?

Well, this may be because I couldn't bury sadness alive or the fact that it, being a parasite, needs my thoughts to survive all the time or the truth that it is a property of my DNA.

But after all, sadness is a logical emotion. Isn't it? And there’s an emotion that you can feel but still find it useless to share! Oh dear, what a shame! What a shame of being a living thing, let alone being the talking animal!

Indeed, Sadness isn't joyful. Sure, Sadness is not positive. But suffering is a natural fact of human existence and there’s no avoiding of the truth that sadness is part of life.

Wouldn't it be entirely wrong to refuse to face the fact that there are things fundamentally sick in life? And what’s better medicine than “a weeping on your mother’s lap” or “to get embraced in the arms of your loved one”.

Well, in sadness I find my arrogance disappeared, learning the grammar of love & support. Glad, in sadness I have no fantasy flying, accepting bitter truths and reality on life.

Yes, I might sound a little exaggerating here but those artists know what the emotion of sadness means, not probably those people who run after pleasures day in, day out.

Could the art be art, without an ounce of sadness? Yeah, it would be but just “an ink-filled paper of writing or a color-spilled board of painting or a noise-added tune of music or an organized crowd of movie play. Doubtless, they would all be fun but in the cost of imagination, thought, wisdom, senses and life.

Where’re philosophies if it’s all about happiness?

Where’s spirituality without a suffering?

Sadness is that something happening to us, meaning that the life hasn't forgotten us yet, holding tightly in its arms. Isn't it the very struggle of life that makes us who we are?

Sadness may be depressing, terrible and tearful, yet it keeps us moved, inspired and healed.

But then, there you go, the sadness is something you should never speak of, because firstly the society sees it a symbol of weak and secondly it's a silly emotion because it doesn't involves any glamour. Well done, culture-seriously!

Nevertheless, it’s the common language that connects us all to the world because suffering is universal. And honestly folks, I don’t feel alive without a tinge of madness. Moreover, being normal is what actually boring. It’s stagnant, we are no longer living!

Well, Sadness will, indeed, leave me when it finds people for me who listen better to its problems. After all, it takes a heart to decipher the signals of sadness.

As the quote by Grandpappy, saying, "Any fool can be happy. It takes a man with real heart to make beauty out of the stuff that makes us weep."

Happily Sad!

regards,

MP

The Essence

When I see two people slapping each other for a silly accident in roadside; when I hear a leader calling for mass murdering in the name of patriotism; when I watch an artist solely believes heroism is all about shooting and some brutal beating. I cannot help but always wonder.  But then, I realize everybody is not Mahatma Gandhi and his ideas.

No doubt, even 21^st century couldn't avoid the belief on violence, while there was a guy who did it in 1900s. I tell you why.

100 yrs back, people’s mind didn't have as much access to knowledge, socialization and development as now, with the communications. There couldn't be a better provoking then as such when some aliens invaded into your land and order you how to live, while there were the times when people believed that being brave is about killing their enemy, by seeing all the five-sensed animals.

But then, situation, there is this guy who was going to come out and tell people they were going to fight it out through non-violence, for the first time possibly after inventing the wheels. It must be like rewriting the DNA’s of the people who were emotionally attached to bloods.

I wonder how many of us would have even listened to the idea, let alone believing it.

But Believing is everything, right?  And believing in you and the thing you know is all really matters, even if they look silly to others.

He believed in peace and peace must have believed in him. Together, they led a country to freedom, which may be the biggest understatement of all time.

May be a wife who lost her husband in a freedom fight, could tell the difference what Peace makes. And so did Mahatma Gandhi make to this country. When the world politics was stained in the bloods of world wars, he was the gene who repaired it with harmony and non-violence across the world.

He was, is, the testimony to courage and belief. And I just adore him for the fact that he was different to the entire round-shaped world.

When you see 21st century leaders who construct their belief for power and fame, you couldn't possibly imagine for a peaceful world arriving. But then if you are going to lose a half of your people in fighting for freedom, you don’t do any good to your community, after all.

When asked to give a message to the people, he would respond, "My life is my message." But I seriously doubt if we have decoded it, yet.

Happy Birthday, Mahatma Gandhi! Remembering you is not a bad way to spend every October 2. In fact that’s the right way.

To a selfless, courageous and ever inspiring soul!

regards,

Murugapandiyan P

Misgivings

Dear Culture,

Isn't it career Not living, you make?

   as my life misses its soul!

Isn't it material Not intellect, you value?

   as my life acquires misery!

Isn't it belief Not truth, you speak?

   as my life fails at common sense!

Isn't it fun Not philosophy, you prepare?

   as my life learns ignorance!

Isn't it reason Not inspiration, you bring?

   as my life bleeds moving forward!

Isn't it pleasure Not happiness, you offer?

   as my life feels in emotional crisis!

Isn't it insecurity Not dream, you sow?

   as my life cultivates fear!

Isn't it fault Not people, you seek?

   as my life marries loneliness! 

Not Yours,

Me.

Beyond Spirited

Picture yourself being the golden boy of American cycling by age 24, nevertheless, just after a fatherless-childhood.

Regardless, in next to no time, you unearth the fact that you’ve developed an affair with cancer, which conquered your testicle, forging a great empire that stretches all the way from your abdomen, through lung to brain.

Needless to say, your life does turn upside down with a guaranteed 20% survival chances. It is as if the life itself has gone astray, let alone your dreams!

Yet, someway, not alone do you live to tell the tale but you also have your dream all fired up – a record seven consecutive times winner of the “Tour de France”- A single most grueling >3600 km bicycle event that lasts for three weeks.

And.., that’s Lance Armstrong for you, folks!

Each single utterance from the Book: “It’s not about my bike” is just hope that speaks through the disease of cancer. And yes, it’s true I run out of adjectives, as I’m trying badly here to describe the potential of a human being.

When Lance was juvenile, as like every troubled-kid, he started pedaling cycle to just run away from his troubles. And a turbulent childhood always brings a distressed manhood, believe me I‘ve seen it.

“You’ve cancer” are probably the nearly all terrible sentence to experience the phenomenon called “fear”. May be the scene from the movie 50/50 could do a picture to the Lance’s words!

But the worst part in cancer is chemotherapy, as you never know if it does work until the very end of the treatment, let alone undergoing, which is far worse than the actual misery of the cancer. During the treatment, you tend to lose your appetite while the immune system is depressed out. You get your internal bleeding, vomiting, nausea, physical exhaustion, dehydration, etc.

And Life could not be pained extra in such times when you’re given a porn magazine to summon an erection at a sperm bank before the chemotherapy makes you completely infertile.

Lance writes, “Show me the dotted line and I’ll sign. I’ll do something else. I’ll go back to school, I’ll be trash man, do anything, just let me live”.

It’s the trepidation of death, which makes life clear-cut! But Lance took it to a limit, literally where, the cancer had realized itself that it chose a wrong body to live in.

Indeed, in the voice of my heart, Lance needed three combatants to prevail the malignant cells. 1) Treatment. 2) People. 3) Courage.

Likewise, I wish every “tumor-infected” body had access to the lance-sort of treatment, physically. The guilty for being such fortunate did conceive the Lance Armstrong foundation to inspire & empower the cancer sufferers because Lance thought illness is universal.

But, to progress in psychological front, you do need a few people, as the truth draws fine line between life and death, which actually describes the nucleus of friendship, family & love. After all, you would die healthier if only you know you’re going to be missed. And lance had people living the grammar of friendship & love.

When lance believed in courage, he gave him only two choices: “either give up, or Fight like Hell”. And it’s where the human potentials politely speak beyond margins!

According to him, the cancer was the single best thing that ever happened to him. He says,“When I was sick, I saw more beauty and triumph in a single day than I ever did in a bike race”.

Now, “Connecting the dots” is all I may well remember here, said by Steve jobs, as the cancer, in another hand, provided Lance enough pain & anger to live & win 7 consecutive “Tour de France” titles.

As the saying goes "When life gives you 100 reasons to cry, Show life 1000 reasons to smile". 

After all, he is such a street fighter, that one thing which all my heroes commonly share!

And so, if we think we run the toughest life here, maybe we should spare a thought or two for the millions of people like lance, living the death in the haplessness of cancer being incurable in such rare cases.

When I finished reading the book, I just told myself “fight like hell, just the way lance did”. And everybody please!

with hope,

Murugapandiyan P

The Intellectual fools!

My first semester at the Anna University was surely anything but awkward. First of all I couldn’t take off my eyes from our girls since I hadn’t been to any of the co-education before (but not much later I found out they were all started scaring me off with their spoken English!).

As my entire schooling was done in the medium of Tamil at my village, the class room environment really started bafflling me, “Ok wait, what’s going on here? Am I in another planet or something?”

All I knew then in my village was this coconut trees & paddy fields but the city culture only talked about fancy trends & stuffs. It was such a nervy start even my mother tongue was not coming off my mouth properly in the class room filled with the brightest students in the state.

In fact, the stage fear had just started teaching me some leg dance. you could ask the last row desk how I used to stuff my head under it, every time the teachers fired questions randomly. My poor English did limit the stories I could write in exams which resulted in arrears.

Okay fine, now I could hear you yelling at me, “why this idiot is telling me all this?”

Ever since I read about this suicide (Coz she couldn’t cope with engineering studies) of “Ms. Thayriya lakshmi of Anna University”
(more :http://expressbuzz.com/cities/chennai/%E2%80%98Teachers-taught-me-well-but-I-couldn%E2%80%99t-cope%E2%80%99/383233.html) I was upset but thinking that she could actually be kind of resembling the above story, given the motive of the suicide! But the only difference might be that she is not as numb as me not to feel humiliated in front of the environment she had never been before.

And hence my mind had started firing some queries which my heart really couldn’t able to ignore.

1. Did she value the “paper made” mark sheets & the “time made” semesters above her “once – precious” life?  Sadly, Yes!

2. Did she prefer to end life when she thought that a failure of her would damage the “so-called pride” of her parents?  Piteously, Yes!

3. Did she find anybody around her telling that no matter what, self pride is second to nothing? Rudely, No!

  Okay, why in the world a person would ever think that a life could be all about just a degree?

  Thanks to the awesome (!) culture. One part of it doesn’t know what education is & another part doesn’t surely know what college degrees are meant for!

  Stupidly, The Culture makes the people to solely believe that Education is here to learn how to earn! And in the end, it doesn’t leave any self pride in the people for what they’re living! And they never find what’s worth over what in  the life?

  Without doubt, all the village parents (incl. mine) pursue their children’s degree along with a “bank loan” and ultimately put the children to believe that “Life is lost if they fail to complete the college”.

  These parents actually live & die every day with insecurity about life that puts a heavy price tag on lifes such as this girl’s. “What if I fail the college?, can’t I come back and plough the land? Isn't there a pride?” But these parents literally kill their children with the weapon of circumstances! They don’t understand that the degrees are one of the stupid ways to earn a life, let alone it’s a fake pride.

  Nonetheless, she could cope with the new world along with the society’s blind expectation!  

  But the shameful part is when she fails to find somebody to tell her that “hey, it’s not a big deal! We’ll get this thing done next time. In fact you need a much bigger reason to get yourself hanged”.

  And I know how a college campus like Anna University looks like. You don’t get many friends or teachers there to motivate yourself really up. And they hardly speak about passion & life there.

  Unless they lift themselves up, the inferior students would stay inferior for the whole four years only to evade the embarrassment in front of the city grownups. And eventually the tougher ones survive and innocent others end up with the option of “give up”.

  I know the worst thing is to blame others!  But all I am trying here is to be these people’s voice because once I was one of them! And I kind of knew how it feels like!

  May be if there’s one reason to write & read this story, it must be to tell our bros & sis that nothing in life is big deal. And it must be also to tell the parents that being loved is the best pride than what their neighbors probably offer!

  i believe that If we have anything to contribute to this society, it must be some of these intellectual wealths rather than the material stuffs!
  And finally, may her soul rest in peace!

With hope,

Murugapandian P

Ricky Ponting. A Hero.

It was Day 2, first session of the second Ashes Test- Adelaide 2006.

Like every single unique mind that resided at my first year college hostel, I, as well, was totally behind the English cricket team simply because the team they had to play against was the Aussies.

And so, down to hell I hated watching the Aussies and you, ricky conquering the cricket world inch by inch but neatly.

To add fuel to the fire of hatefulness that blazed you always out of my mind, I was often remembered by people to judge your attitudes and character as if I was employed by the angels of truth.

Early morning on ESPN, Aussies were three down and trailing by almost 500 runs. I reckon Matthew Hoggard was in mission demolition and so was the Barmy Army.

And suddenly there was one brutal pull shot like a bolt out of the blue, at the speed as Andrew Flintoff bowled. Indeed, All I really needed was that one hit to the great Australian bight, and i realized then that I’d started loving your game, Rick. I found it very, very irresistible.

It’s all been through till this day when you eventually got dumped from the ODI Aus team, I love your athleticism all the way in spite of those hatred conversations I had to earn from my dear friends (no offense here) every time for being a fanatical rick fan here.

Rick, they say you are not as great as the little master or not elegant as the super Lara or not fair as Gilly or not good as the captain “Mark Taylor”. (But then If you were full of all these, I would probably have been bored of you, rick!)

I love the most in you, is the fighter, true as none, on the possible face of planet cricket earth.

It’s been about the confronts all the way right from the drunken Ricky with a dark eye, after being punched in a bar fight, to the fearless champion to the dumped man’s yesterday press conference!  That’s the warrior fact I loved most about you!

Of course there are some eye splitting leap catches at slips, some stump broken direct hits by the cricket ball threw at some athletic velocity, some Shakespeare like written straight drives and not to forget is those thundering pull shots to the roofs of MCG. i loved it, i cherished it!

You’re truly in a league of your own athleticism and I loved it the like the rhythm of violin.

When you indicated that a yesterday’s stand-in national captain can even go to the Moubray club cricket in Launceston (Hometown) of Tasmania (an island even the Aussies sometimes forget to include in their maps) only to keep some cricketing form for your remaining test carrier, I understood what cricket means to you. So because you drink, breath and sweat cricket like no other.

"I've always been of the belief that I don't mind people trying things and failing”. it may tell you're not after some applauding fairytale finish or personal recognition in the test carrier either. But to me, it reckons how tough bloke you still are?

A tough bloke? Glad you guys asked this (thank you)!

After the 2010 ashes were blown up by the hurricane of the New England, it was the defending championship straight into the world cup.

Soon enough, you were in the news for all the wrong reasons starting with a TV smashing (a batting glove accident led to some pixel blurring in a LCD), a frustrated sign at teammate for a catch colliding and a not walking for a not given wicket (but so is 99% batsmen).

Watching all this unfolded I could not help but wondered if you would get up at all. Just a few more punches and you must go down. Surely you can’t take anymore.

But then I should have known better. Cometh the hour cometh the man!

Like a true fighter you are, you didn’t surrender but instead you did what you do best. You got on the front foot and played a game of your league in the quarterfinal against India (eventually the champions). Isn’t you, gladiator?

Isn’t the courage an unparalleled weapon for a gladiator, rick? And there's no surprise you are a big fan of Roger Federer. 

 Roger and you're the two sort of guys I love most for the kiddingly risking of a well built legacy to just get every last bit out of you because the madly love you are in.

I heard there's a heart too in every gladiator and maybe I’d ask dravid or langer how you feel like personally!

Sadly you're the man who had lost the ashes maximum number times you might be remembered for that. After all, only great people are remembered for their failures and ordinary man for their triumphs.

Somebody said,"it's not over when you're losing terribly... its over when you quit". So till then, I cheer for every cricket ball you combat with, on the grasslands.

The Staying aficionado,
MP.