the magic candle

The high tide,tide after tide,wave after wave...will still cut into the strong stone walls of the fort on its shore...

However long the route and changed political geography,the migrating flock of birds will still return to their nest...

The puppy will anyhow smell its way back to the master who fed it with love and care...

parallels will also come together in a prayer of folded hands...

But I am like a 'magic candle'..which is 'designed' not to give away to the temptation of the wind blowing towards it...

its fate is to make the audience laugh and clap in glee because it gives them the sadistic pleasure of witnessing the 'miracle of the candle that does not extinguish'...

poor candle...how much she wants to be blown away by the 'gentle' breeze...

so much for a pleasurable death....'haseen dard'...

i follow you...

I FOLLOW YOU….

Someone asked me the other day...who is your idol? who inspires you the most?...and i did not have an answer to this...i thought of all the names who did something that the world took notice of...mentioning their name would add glamour to my statement...i could relate to none. I then thought of humanitarians who may have made a mark on my soul...sadly i could delve no further...dignitaries i welcomed, thanked, felicitated on so many public daises...no one touched me ...

Am i without an inspiration?? do i look up to no-one?? am i so non-surrendering???...but how could i not realize i was born out of my own inspiration...my parents...the very reason for my existence...not just because they made a combined effort to bring me into this world but because they taught me and still teach me 'commitment' by being very firmly rooted next to me in a time i need them the most...

Today when my father is on the threshold of releasing his first book, i will like to share a piece of my heart with all of you present here ...a piece of the heart ,of 'his' piece of heart...' me'...with due apologies to Ankur...my younger brother...i still will like to say that the 'first' born to any parents always is 'special' in many ways...my dad gave me the feeling of being special because i always thought his name after mine gave me an identity which no one could ever take away from me...whatever i chose to call myself later on in life ..i was 'born' ‘Radhika Arun Kakatkar' and there was not one moment i felt regret for this fact...this name..this identity always commanded respect because of the fine job that he was doing...because of the work culture he was portraying...because of the subconscious impact he was making on my young mind....

I never met baba more than once a week when I was a child…i must say Ankur was luckier in that aspect...but when I was a child he was more married to doordarshan than my mother...but i remember looking forward to meeting him...listen to him talk to various dignitaries...expressing opinions very very boldly...loving passionately and living life king size...(he also smoked four square at that time) ... i saw him laugh the loudest and cry full throated...both with equal genuinity...and that is how i saw life...whether i realized it then or not...today i do...

One of the most important things a parent can do for a child is to show his offspring the most ‘virtuous’ way of life and ‘not’ the most ‘convenient’…my father did the job very efficiently…most of the times without his knowledge…but mine and ankur’s passion for doing anything that we do with 100% sincerity and 200% commitment is because we saw him do the same all his life…

Today…when i myself am a mother of a young boy...i realise how important my parents have been in my life...they are my biggest court of law...if i win a case in their court...i win it for life...

in my time of need they have stood by me not just as parents...but as fellow human beings who understand my need as a human,even if it sometimes does not fit into their frame work of 'good behaviour'...i feel that is the greatest blessing to have in life...next to having beautiful babies...

i follow you aai-baba...without your knowledge and sometimes mine....

uprooted....

dry leaves..rice shifted from fields,erosion of the soil,cotton seeds floating on air,refugees,emigrants,children on the first day of school....

i understand now what all of them go through...a feeling of being uprooted....a feeling of being torn away from your secure core of existence..a situation being forced upon you telling you that you are not a part of this haven any more...whether you like it or not....this haven was never yours in the first place...

earlier in life i had felt this feeling of 'going away'...the day i was sent away with a tearful farewell by my parents...but i was always prepared for this shift as i had been subconsciously conditioned to the scene since childhood...that one 'fine' day i will have to 'go away'....with dreams in my eyes..which were full of tears nevertheless....i felt settled ...in matrimony....

It was a different setting...space..people...things...situations...reactions...known-unknown...i knew i had to live with it...and i LIVED...every single minute i did...i lived with so much energy that i overlooked...dealt ....battled every aversion...every invasion....every downfall...because i wanted to emerge a winner...a winner in the race i had started with myself...a race in perfection...

but all things big and small do not turn out to be perfect...do they...i could battle every external force but unfortunately the 'core' slipped away....i could not hold on to the 'put on' of every thing being perfect for a long time...the elasticity gave way...the rubber snapped...and i got 'uprooted'....

this time the 'farewell' was with dry eyes...'unexpected...shocking...numb...it has disabled me to the core....i no longer recognize myself in the mirror....i don't know if i ever will...i have dry reactions like dry leaves...a feeling of drift like the cotton seeds...,life seems to erode away beneath my feet...houses seem like refugee camps...where is my 'home'????am i an immigrant in my own world???will i ever have roots again????or am i the child whose parents have gone home leaving it on its own on the first day of school???

i am looking around for a familiar face to call my own...is there one left????

i know what 'partition' means....now i do....