To Share… To Love… What better way than words
One day the rainbows were gone
From the heart’s treasure of memoirs
The babyhood fading away leaving her alone
Seizing her tight into a knot of poignant coir
Bleeding knees, running noses and merry shopping sprees
Missing ribbons, socks, belt and worse yet punctured tyres
All was well until they were gracefully big like birch trees
Priorities grew in branches stronger than fire
Into each of their safe havens conveniently they hide
And never saw each other pretending to be blind!!!
Stars mine are quite villainous
They go this way and the other way
Astrologer with his cowry shells iniquitous
Never let them out on a sovereign sway
Over the compass they all conspire
To burn my finger or hit me on the cross way
Saturn takes an off beam turn wanting the worst to transpire
And Jupiter jumps of the colossal orbit
To take me to hell forever
Amidst all; the astrologer scoots in a fit
And the stars and planets together
Play the trick
But at last; a blue face beams larger
Than that of the stars and the planets sick
Pulling me away from the faulty stars
And giving me a new ray of hope in life
Beauty fades love dies
She died again yesterday
And every other day sighs
A moment before passing away
A touch of love that shies
Just before he looks away
From her now ugly countenance
And death for her, inevitable; on every other day
She too had golden days with hair
Waves of thick black and skin as gold as fire
But slowly the wax melts… and the wick inside
Aah!! Sacrifice is her life, fully burnt… dies one day
Remolding itself, “the wax” again
Finds a wick to burn
As it melts in her love!
To mold and melt again!!
I still remember what it felt like
When I put it on my right arm
The metal golden yet matt,
Was mine and only mine!
My chum on my hand
Was carefully laid back into
Its red velvet cushioned bed,
Every time after an outing
Or a wedding!
Its heart shaped dial
Into which every time I looked
I saw his face instead of the ticking time!!
The clasp that held itself
On to my hand with its click
Reminded me of that day
When it was flown all the way from
The Land of deserts
Into my hands!!!
Enchanted and enamored
Were we with each other?
That with all the bangles and bracelets
It glazed on my hands on my wedding day too
And it flew with me from where it had come!
Still very much on my hand
Days went by and …
I seldom looked into the dial
We both were in our Nissan Sunny
On a late night drive,
My taken for granted watch
That lay cold on my hands until then,
Slipped away into a gap between the seats,
Its clasp broken with a click!
A mystery unsolved it is,
That I could never find it from the car!
It just went away, to a place unknown
To be free and to get away from me!!
He wanders off… leaving her all alone
She blossoms and yet withers away so soon
Dwindling into zilch, flouting down
And hitherto on her temple there was not a frown
Tears scaled her apart, nevertheless on her face
Was pasted a smile so striking
She lay there all wilted
And her eyes opened to the hop of her two buds
Her buds ready to thrive
Furthermore could she let them shrink away?
She rose every day and then
One day slowly she slid away
Lifeless and wilted yet on her face
Was a beam of the divine!
Happy Birthday Bapu!
Grandmother: “Keep your Tiffin box in the sink.., I have told you to do that immediately after you come from school!
Janaki: I am busy Ammoomma!
Grandmother: What are you doing there?
Janaki: I am cleaning the house!! It’s his birthday tomorrow!!
Grandmother: Whose birthday?
Janaki: What? I can’t believe this! You don’t know whose birthday its tomorrow? (Both her eye balls became large enough that it felt like it would jump from its sockets!!!
Grandmother: Ok I am Sorry that I am so dumb… Please tell me whose birthday it is…
Janaki: (A submissive look on her face) Its Gandhiji’s Birthday” She said with a big loud sigh “And I want you to decorate the house as well!
Grandmother: Yes Ma’am!!! (Laughs)
Hearing to this conversation I too laughed but then I was astounded by my little daughter’s genuineness, her sheer sincerity towards this great man whom she had never seen or rather known was so enchantingly wonderful!.
October 2nd, Gandhi Jayanthi just goes by like any other day. On TV there is a special mention about how the politicians paid homage to Gandhiji’s Samadhi. And his birthday is a public holiday!! What else do we need? My daughter just gave me a reality check I realized that until now; this day was just a holiday for me and apart from some stories I had heard in childhood, I knew nothing about him! And yes, there is a faint memory of some mere facts we learned in our tenth standard History book! For our 10th felicitation our school gave each one of us a copy of his book “My Experiments with truth” which is there somewhere under a stack of books in my library, back home. What was he? I googled!!! Thanks to Internet!!! And came across these Facts!!!
We all know Mahatma Gandhi as the man who led our country to freedom. But we know little about some smaller and more astonishing facts about his life. The following are some facts about Mahatma Gandhi that are mostly unknown:
The committee regrets not giving him the Nobel Peace prize to this day as the award is never given posthumously. (Source)
(Source)
(Source)
He was in Kolkata fasting for religious harmony.
(Source)
Mahatma Gandhi promoted football in his non-violent campaign against racial discrimination. (Source)
“Live as if you were to die tomorrow.” Throughout his life Mahatma Gandhi did things that were inspirational, things that nobody thought he could do and made sure that he lived up to this line said by him.
Some interesting facts about Gandhiji
Once during a train journey a British asked Gandhi to get out of the train as he was considered as a ‘black’. But Gandhi refused as he had the ticket with him. The British and the Railway officer cruelly pushed Gandhi out of the train. This is a sample of Gandhi’s bitter experiences with British.
While in England in 1931, Gandhi made his first radio broadcast for the United States. The first thing the people of the United States heard the Mahatma say was, “Do I have to speak into this thing?” Gandhi was basically very helping and concerned about others. Once while he was boarding train one of his shoes slipped and fell on to the track. He instantly removed the other shoe and threw it near the first one. His intention was to help the person who would find the pair and help himself.
His life aims were truth, non-violence, spiritualism, religiousness, honesty, discipline, loyalty, aspiration and so on. All these excellent high qualities made him the Mahatma which means a great soul. Gandhi was extremely punctual. One of his very few possessions was a dollar watch. Just before he was assassinated, on January 30, 1948, Gandhi was upset because he was ten minutes late getting to a regular prayer meeting.
He was a lawyer, but what a lawyer! He said, “I realized the true function of a lawyer was to unite parties riven asunder.” Thus, he spent his twenty years in practice “bringing about private compromises of hundreds of cases. I lost nothing thereby—not even money, certainly not my soul.” The year that Gandhi arrived in London to study law was 1888, the same year that Jack the Ripper and his horrific murders dominated the British headlines.
Gandhi was funny! One example: When asked by a reporter what he thought of Western civilization, Gandhi replied, “I think it would be a very good idea.”
He corresponded regularly with Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy.
While in England in 1931, Gandhi made his first radio broadcast for the United States. The first thing the people of the United States heard the Mahatma say was, “Do I have to speak into this thing?”5
The same caisson, or gun carriage, that bore Gandhi’s body during his funeral in 1948 was used in 1997 for Mother Teresa’s funeral.
In the Zulu war of 1906, Mahatma Gandhi commanded the stretcher-bearer corps, which comprised of Indian volunteers formed to treat the British soldiers injured in this war.
He worked as an editor for several English, Hindi and Gujarati newspapers in India as well as South Africa, including the Harijan, Indian Opinion (South Africa) and the Young India.
Mahatma Gandhi’s autobiography titled An Autobiography of My Experiments with Truth, which gives a detailed account of his life till 1920, was published in 1927. In 1999, HarperCollins publishers declared it one of the ‘100 Most Important Spiritual Books of the 20th Century’. Mahatma Gandhi was chosen for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1948, but he was assassinated before it was conferred to him. In response to this, the Nobel Committee decided not to award the Peace Prize for that year. In 1999, Gandhi was declared the runner-up for Time magazine’s ‘Person of the Century’ title (which eventually went to Albert Einstein.)
He had a set of false teeth, which he carried in a fold of his loin cloth. He put them in his mouth only when he wanted to eat. After his meal, he took them out, washed them and put them back in his loin cloth again.
Mahatma Gandhi spoke English with an Irish accent, for one of his first teachers was an Irishman.
During the freedom struggle, he wore nothing but a loin cloth , but for years he lived in London and used to wear a silk hat and spats and carried a cane.
He was educated at London University and became an attorney. But the first time he attempted to make a speech in court, his knees trembled, and he was so frightened that he had to sit down in confusion and defeat.
As a lawyer in London, he got nowhere at all. He was practically a failure there. Years before, when he first came to England, his Irish teacher made him copy the Sermon on the Mount, over and over again, purely as an exercise in English. Hour after hour, Gandhi wrote “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. . . . Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called the children of God,” and these words made a profound impression on him.
Later, he was sent to South Africa to collect some huge debts; and he tried to apply there the philosophy of the Sermon on the Mount. And it worked. Clients flocked to Gandhi because he settled their claims peacefully out of court and saved them time and expense.
His income during those days in South Africa touched fifteen thousand dollars a year! Something still a dream for most Indians !
However, despite this worldly success he was not happy. On seeing the untold misery of millions of his fellow countrymen; on seeing thousand of them dying of starvation; the worldly success seemed cheap and unimportant to him. He gave up all his money and ‘took the vow of poverty, and since that time, he consecrated his life to helping the poor and the downtrodden.
On seeing the hopeless condition of one tenth of India which was living in a hungry and half-starved state, Mahatma Gandhi pleaded with them to cease bringing children into a world filled with so much misery and want. Mahatma Gandhi experimented with diets to see how cheaply he could live and remain healthy. He started living principally on fruit and goats’ milk and olive oil.
Mahatma Gandhi never visited the US, but he had many American fans and followers. One of his more unusual admirers was Henry Ford. Gandhi sent him an autographed charkha (spinning wheel) through a journalist emissary. During the darkest days of the Second World War, Ford, who was struck by the charkha’s “mechanical simplicity and high moral purpose,” would often spin on “the symbol of economic independence that Gandhi had sent.
Mahatma Gandhi inspired millions of people world over to take the path of non-violence and civil disobedience. 5 world leaders who got Noble Peace prize viz. Martin Luther King Jr. (USA), Dalai Lama (Tibet), Aung San SuuKyi (Myanmar), Nelson Mandela (S. Africa) and Adolfo Perez Esquivel (Argentina) have acknowledged the fact that they were influenced by the philosophy of Gandhi. Yet, Mahatma Gandhi; the man who inspired these Nobel Peace Prize winners, never got a Noble Prize ! We think it is a loss for the Noble – the prize; not for Gandhi – the man who is above all prizes.
Gandhiji loved his Mother tongue Gujarati very much. He wrote his autobiography, in Gujarati. His personal assistant ShriMahadev Desai had translated it into English.
He condemned the procedure of untouchablility and rejected the theory of downtrodden in the name of ‘thazhthappattavargal’. He said, ‘untouchability is a crime against humanity’. To make them proud, he called them ‘Harijans’.
Gandhiji thought, postal cards are cheap and simple communication mode.
Once in 1915, Gandhiji went to Santiniketan and wished Rabindranath Tagore as, ‘NamestheGurudev’. Immediately Rabindranath replied, ‘If I am Gurudev you are Mahatma,’ Then, the prefix of ‘Mahatma’ used before the name of Gandhiji.
He never travelled in Plane. Although he had many powers, he lived very simply. Throughout his life he followed simplicity.
Picture 1: Gandhiji is with Frederic Pethic Lawrence, who was then British secretary for India and Burma. The photo was shot at the former Viceroy House, Which is now the Rashtrapathy Bhavan. Picture 2: The mirror image of the original picture Picture 3. The image taken from the picture is being printed in the Rupee Currency notes Picture 4, 5. The picture of Gandhiji is being used in the currencies.
SOURCE : Internet
Enlighten Yourselves!!!
Happy Gandhi Jayathi!
A mother new born, beautiful and radiant
Perspiration beads on her forehead ; yet happy and weary
Her face so in bliss and ever so complacent
For a bundle to cuddle that poops sleeps and then is hungry…
A mother new beautiful and radiant
Pain that hits now and then in force and vehemance
Yet her Tears flow not of pain but of joy jubilant!
As her baby boy ever so handsome smiles and his eyes dance!!!!
To a man who stood there proud and tall ; a father exultant
With the same face and eyes that dance!!!!
This is for a very special couple
Happy birthday to both of you….cheers to the new born mother and father!!!!!
Loads of love
ANCHECHI
A rewind it is to the black and white era
To a wedding simple and in the temple ;pure
A boy black and handsome without luxury; plethora
Brown and dusky ; oh she had beauty enough to lure!
The album old;I believe had life in it!
Speaking to me in volumes about merry times
Each black page unfolding a story from its pit
The wedding black and white was all cheerful chimes
Forgotten until now in this book of black and white
After decades… still fragrant is their love
And now to the colourful era when everything is bright
However colourless this wedding is in everybody’s sight
It still makes me believe in the colours of love
Happy Anniversary to the bestest 😊 couple of the era
Happy anniversary Daddy and Mummy! !!!!!
A slice of heaven on top of the hill
Trees embroidering the boundary of
what we all thought was merely
A building made of cement and stones..
Divided into rooms full of desks and benches
With names and notes scored on its surfaces..
“Kuppuswamy “with his everlasting smile on the gate
Was the Chitragupta
Though he let in all of us in uniforms
Assemblies under the hot sun
Thought of the day, Pledge, news, Bhavans anthem
Everything was boring then…
Relief swept over when tenth was finally over
Two years of school and then…
It would be over we all thought…
And then one fine day it was the last day of twelfth
Realisation struck!!
Teachers were angels…. failures were memories
Successes were milestones….
And that’s when I knew that… what I thought to be a HELL
Was the real heaven….
And my time in heaven was – over!!
Happy teacher’s day!!!!
anusparsham 
