Living by the stone

Living by the stone
He carved out figures.
Cut by cut, scrap by scrap
With his little fingers, eroding his worst fears.

Fear that his sweat might be too little
Fear that his pain might be too small
To achieve that epitome of an image
Where corners were points and edges true lines.

A pound of pain, a ton of labour
Never a torture, sheer ardour
Just a constant pegging away at God’s will;
Perfection isn’t ever served on a platter.

Why stone did he choose?
When roses abound and petals lay strewn.
What path did he choose?
That none traversed and little had known.

This query they put, then back he shot:
“What fun there is in mocking the mocked?
Carving out garlands, anyone could
But a canvas of stone, only I would paint.

When a beaten path you all tread,
A new beginning from where would emerge.
Where all treaded the beaten path,
A dead end reached where nothing diverged.”

So back he went to work,
Driven by a desire to leave no stone unturned.
Cut by cut, scrap by scrap,
Thus were eroded his worst fears with his now content fingers.

(A new composition...hope you like it. Comments would, as always, be welcome.)

zzzz...zzzz...huh?

Wasn’t this blog supposed to be done and dusted, you may ask? Well…not yet. You see…it’s difficult to write regularly if you want to be original and interesting at the same time. Some people may argue otherwise…but hey, what the heck; it’s my blog, isn’t it?

So much has transpired in the last 8 months or so, and yet not much seems to have actually happened that I can remember and appreciate distinctly. Life’s just like this…like running frantically on a conveyor belt moving in the opposite direction. You sweat, you tire, you feel so much has happened, but you move too little in absolute terms.

For the fear of becoming too abstract, let me change topics before I am banished perpetually from the art of writing. The last one or two months have been a treat for cricket-lovers and cricket-haters alike, thanks to a new breed of cricket – the T20. Strange, but yes…a treat for cricket-lovers because they are, well, cricket-lovers…and cricket-haters because T20 made the game much easier for them to comprehend and absorb, and they didn’t have to bother about seeming at a loss in a cricketing discussion (T20 doesn’t give you the luxury of so much time for a discussion).

T20 has proved to be a refreshing new dimension to cricket and my initial skepticism which preceded the cup has been superseded by a reassuring feeling that it’s here to stay, grow and capture. After a damp squib which went by the name of the‘ICC World Cup 2007’, T20 has delivered good and promises better. The ICC has been smart and innovative in packaging the format and has, to their credit, been more than successful. Let’s hope that the ICC now handles the T20 format in an economical way and uses it as a platform to enter territories hitherto considered impregnable; instead of looking at it with the “let’s-make-hay-while-the-sun-shines” approach that they have adopted and persisted with over the years at the cost of the sport itself.

Speaking of innovative approaches, I had the great fortune of seeing a refreshingly different Hindi movie called “Johnny Gaddar”. Prasun Joshi once said in a talk show that “in a Hindi movie, it’s not about what will happen… everyone knows that, but how it will happen”. Johnny Gaddar, for a change, invites the viewer to ask “what will happen” also. Its script is highly unpredictable and that is its strongest point. The protagonist vacillates between the innocent and the cold-blooded and his unpredictability builds the premise for the film’s unpredictability. The characters are very clearly delineated and each one of them stands out with a remarkable performance.

My favourite scene from the movie is when the protagonist tosses a coin to decide whether to proceed with his intended plan or not. He loses the toss…but he badly wants to go ahead with his plan...so he goes for a best-of-three…loses again…goes for a best-of-five…and bingo…this time he gets his licence to go ahead. I found that to be a very practical representation of human nature. When you want to or do not want to do something, you always find reasons to do as you like. You just block out the thought that those reasons do not actually carry much weight.

Human nature is, indeed, complex. Sometimes, you just lapse into a state of laziness which you find so comfortable and mushy that you do not want to get out of it. And then suddenly, you wake up one day and realize the rut you were in. Like I woke up today and realized my blog has been rotting for the last 8 months. But human nature also invokes you to make promises to correct your nature. And on that note, I sign off with the promise of delivering more frequently than I have till now…laziness be damned!!

But oh, before I leave, let me inform you that anyone who reads this blog is mandatorily required to post his/her comments....Human nature, what to do?