Blind Beyond An Arm’s Length

Lately I have been in a place which seems to be like a busy cross road where lot of lovers would also find themselves in.

In a society like ours, one starts loving the other based on factors like circumstance or it being arranged by their parents or better yet, love for someone is forced by one's family and many more factors which I am yet to discover. How many of them end up setting examples of true love to the humanity is something I don’t have the exact data of. Least I can do is sympathizing them.

But I am not here to write about our society. And no matter in which fancy way two people start loving each other, they are bound to reach this place sometime or the other. The place I am talking about is called DO YOU STILL LOVE ME AS MUCH AS YOU USED TO and the population of this place is quite a lot I must say. Every one of you who end up asking this question to your (in)significant other and all of you (guys mostly) who end being questioned, automatically win yourselves a membership to this place.

Just how long does love stay is the question plaguing the minds of all the residents in this place where I must say I recently got the membership of. But please don’t expect me to answer this question. I don’t know the answer. I just joined this place.

Some say one year and some two. A wise old man did mention that love stays until the lovers get married. May be that’s why all the love stories in our movies end at marriage. No director has been successfully able to make a movie as to what happens after that. Well I think we can guess the later part of the love story seeing our parents. And from their petty quarrels and arguments we can infer how the 'happily ever after' has been like. If you don’t know what I am talking about then as you go home today play that old song which your parents used to listen and see how you mom would remember the first time she heard it with your dad and see how innocently your dad has forgotten. Then just sit back and enjoy the fun.

But I am not here to even talk about that. May be I really have changed. May be I really don’t have answer to the question I have been asked. May be I am really not loving her as much as I used to a year ago. I wanted to know if I was the only person making this mistake. When I looked around I found these happening…..

Few newly married couples I knew decided to stay separate and keep their jobs in these troubled times so that they can have a secure future together when they and their marriage, are old.
What more, I knew this great dreamer who had dreamt of years of she being together with her loved one devoting every minute and every hour of the rest of her life decorating the home she called her nest for her and her loved to live there happily ever after. She is now bored of sitting home and wishes she had her job back.

I also happened to know of a person who used to brave her parents and come great distance to meet her loved one and also the person she loved who spent his nights and days making sure he was there to secure the journey she used to take. Now married the geographical distance has shortened but sadly the same can’t be told about the emotional distance which has grown.

Just when was the last time you got that small call from your loved one while you were at work just to be told that you are still being loved? When was the last time you made that call?
When was the last time a picture of your loved one suddenly popped in your inbox? When was the last time you opened that mail? When was the last time you took a picture with your high resolution cam in your phone which you bought just for this feature?

I have my credit cards taking up the space in my wallet which her pictures used to take.
I don’t even know how we both look together now as I don’t even remember the last time we took a picture together.

But how can that be? I still love her as much as I used to. Or do I?

Pondering on the things I have just mentioned I sat there in the bus waiting for it to start. The driver was unusually stopping at this stop for long. Seemed as though he was waiting for someone. Quickly noticed that he was patiently waiting for a very elderly couple to board the bus and take the seat before he could start just not to overwhelm them.
Did not take long to understand that the elderly man was taking his equally elderly wife for her routine checkup. They seemed so close together which is hard to see even in mother and her child these days. They took each of their steps together holding onto each other's hands. I knew the son of the elderly man who was always ready to take them with him but whose offer was always rejected as the elderly man wanted to do it himself. Both barely able to walk but the man leading his women, he found a seat for her which she refused to take as he had to sit apart. Soon they found the seats they were looking for and the lady took the seat and surprisingly cleaned the seat which her husband was about to take for him to be seated.
Their love had indeed stayed long I thought to myself. To give me some evidence to this prove this fact, I could see the way they used to pass each other that reassuring smile every other minute. It seemed as though they wanted to relish each and every minute of the little life which lay ahead of them. I really knew that there was no doubt that if they had another decade to live, their love for each other would have lived on.

But what I really did not know that the lady had an eye condition from long due to which she could not see beyond the distance as long as her arm's length. I also did not know that in that little distance which she can see, she really could not make out the face of her husband who was sitting right beside her. But one cannot know that from her smiles looking at her husband beside and her actions. Yet another example for how blind love is, literally.
May be that’s the reason why they were so close to each other. May be that’s why they held on to each other's hand like that. Or may be its just pure blind love.


On the other hand are we all not blind beyond our arm's length? People we loved in the past today lie right beside us to whom we turn a blind eye. They are the same people whom we used to recognize from far. It’s not that we don’t love them anymore but it’s just we are tired or busy to love them the way we used to. How valid is this excuse or reason, I leave it to you readers to decide.

… And We Still Wait

“Ajeya, Please come here” were exactly the words which woke me up. I opened my eyes to see that I had woken up in a dream. I could hear the voice clearly but could not quiet point out where the voice was coming from the foggy place which lay ahead of me. I set out to find out who was calling me.

I had barely covered little distance when I came across this tree which stood there looking at the sky. I went up to this tree and asked whether it had called out for me. The tree was leafless as the fall had just passed and the spring was not anytime soon. The tree took a moment from gazing at the sky to answer me that it hadn’t called out for me, but of course, it was calling out the sky to ask the spring to come back so that it can be green again.

So I moved on just to find a bee buzzing around a bud. I stopped to ask if it was the one who called out to me. The bee told me that it hadn’t called me and went on to explain how the flower it used to feed on was crushed and it was asking for the bud to bloom back so that it can feed itself and its family.

Leaving the bee alone to its prayer, I left following the voice which I could still hear coming from the thick fog in front of me. I had barely taken few steps forward saw this person looking high up at the eastern sky. Hesitatingly I asked him if he had called me. With a bruised forehead, torn vest and bleeding lips the person looked at me. It seems as though he had just been through a tornado of a time. I had to hear him keenly as he could barely speak up. It took me few attempts and it took him so much effort to tell me that he had not called me but he was asking for sun to come back from the eastern sky so that there be light to search for the ones and things he has lost in his tornado of time.

Words of that person still whispering in my head, I moved on towards a commotion I could see but could not quiet make out what it actually was for. There were men in uniform, people in white clothes and bunch of khaki clad gentlemen waiting for something to arrive. Curious about the happenings here I shouted to ask if anyone there had called me. Soon a man walked up to me to ask me to clear the way for the national pride to arrive. Amazed I stood along with crowd to see how the national pride looked like. To my disbelief I saw a coffin being brought into the crowd. In dismay I asked a lady standing beside me who it was. Overcome by her emotions, lady responded that it was her son who had dreamt to save nation's pride and today the pride had come home but just that he had brought it home sleeping in his coffin.

Unable to hold on to myself, I left the place with a prayer. as I moved on I met a lover who was asking her love to come back, a mother at the dinner table waiting for her son abroad to come back, a wife waiting at the doorstep for her husband to come back and a child in tears at 8 at night, with a happy birthday cap waiting on the drive way for his mom and dad to come back to celebrate his birthday. But none of them had called me.

Just when I was about to lose my patience and give up I happened to see a shadow like figure standing at a distance. This time when I heard the voice calling me I could make out that it was coming from him. Each step I took to inch closer to him, I felt that he seemed familiar. Each step I took to go to him, I started feeling like I was moving towards something which I very well knew but vaguely remembered. But how could it be? Who could it be I wondered with each step? Eventually when I reached him with lots of questions, why was he calling me and so on, I kept my hand on his shoulder which was amazingly as tall as mine. I asked him to turn around to answer my questions. He took a second turn which almost made me feel like an eternity. But what I saw was nothing short of a surprise. It was me. In a second all my questions were replaced by just one, what was happening?
He explained that we always wait for somebody or other to come back. Likewise there is someone or other who waits for us to go back. But we hardly realize this truth and go our ways which are sometimes same and other times separate. He showed me how I did that to myself. He also pointed out how far had I come from myself that I could not even recognize my own voice when he was calling me.
Whose voice can I recognize, how can I recognize the ones who love me if I am so far that I can’t recognize myself.

I don’t know how many of you readers would have realized it by now. But what right do we have to wait for one we love to come back when we never went when our love waited for us to come back.
Time doesn’t wait for us, then what are we waiting for? Should we not take the first step and close the gap between us and our loved one. It doesn’t matter who takes the first step but what matters is how fast the distances cease to exist.

Three sides of the same coin.

Hello Readers,
I would like to begin this with few questions.
How many of us actually think about others while doing what we do?
How many of us do really know what others felt about us while we were doing what we did?
Well, let me explain with an example…….
At some point or other, due to some reason or other, we all would have felt how it is to lose the one close to us.
But how many of us know how the person we lost felt about the same?
In this rather long poem, I have tried to see the same incident by placing myself in the shoes of the things involved. I saw a world of difference by doing so and would like to share the same with you all. For next few minutes I would urge you to let go of yourself and who you are and see the world from the following perspective.
The other day, I could not help but notice how the branch of a tree on the terrace of my house, was bowing down to me as I laid there reading a book under the shade of that tree. The wind was harsh and I could see the leaves being blown from their branch making it look like a rain of leaves. What a wonderful sight, I thought to myself.
Soon a young green leaf fell on the book and joined an old leaf which lay there as my book mark. This reminded me that the old leaf was from the same branch which had fallen a season ago. I suddenly realized that the green leaf was to be on the branch and not cut away from it… The rain no longer looked beautiful ………but looked painful.
This made me think as to what would have gone though these speechless creatures and made me write on their behalf……..

• This is how The Leaf saw it…..

Bit by bit as the leaf leaves the branch,
And begins the travel down to earth, it looks back,
At the branch which held it tight, when
Wind and rain slashed it, days and nights.

Not to part, it cries,
Would have shed the tears if it had eyes,
Would have stuck there till it dried and died, but now,
Hanging by a fiber, it thanks the branch,
For holding it so long.

Halfway down the journey,
It looks at the old trunk, which held the leaf so high,
Leaf, though young, soon is going to die,
Rule of the nature or time's biggest crime?

About to hit the ground, face faces the branch,
Last heard from it was a prayer,
A void to be filled by someone dear.
A leaf at the same spot only greener.

On the ground, pain is all gone, with the life,
Nothing is left but the distance,
Not that separates the branch from the leaf,
That which separates the living from the life.

• Meanwhile The Branch wondered…..

Bit by bit as the leaf leave the branch,
And begins the travel down to earth, it looks down,
At the leaf, which it held tight, now holding on to the last strand,
A leaf so heavy though so light.

Halfway down the lane, it
Remembers the spring leaf was born,
Fluttering at the sight of a slight wind,
Brightening with the drop of each rain.

About to hit the ground, face faces the branch,
Brings out a prayer in the branch this time,
No one takes the spot, No one fills the void,
Not one dear, not anyone greener.

On the ground, pain is all gone, with the life,
Only for the leaf, which left and passed by,
While the branch still hangs, rests for the night,
Till the next fall decides which stays and which dies.

• As I returned to myself, I began writing…..

Things happening, makes me write,
A tale so dull, much to none's delight.
Something stuck in the heart, stuck in the eye
Cannot be brought out, cant be left behind.

I see the tears in both of their eyes,
Which is more valuable? Hard to decide.
Had never moved so much, in so little time,
A moment forever, happened in a while.

Each fallen leaf, I store in my book,
Which I read in shadow of that branch.
Seeing the branch wave to the leaf, do I realize,
Time over is seldom a moment gone, until the hearts, sings the same song.


We see our cities being bombed each and every night. Like the young buds on the ground, we see diseases wiping out lives every time. How much of it can we help stop? We don’t know. But it would be great if we could atleast spare a thought to all those who have lost their near and dear ones well before their time had come.
This would not help them recover their loss, but would atleast let us take a first step in knowing how valuable life is to be lost just like that. And I leave it to you to decide where you can apply these sentiments.
Time destroys…but it heals as well… So things close to us may cease to exist one day, but the memories remain.