some days you want to die, you even don't care why,

some days you just want to be alone, you even don't know who got you angry,

some days you just want want to bleed,you even don't know how you got the wound,

some days you just want to burn all, you even don't know where from you got the heat,

some days you just want to kill or die, you even don't know why you hate,

some days you just want to shout and scream, you even don't know why can't you sing,

some days the tears just fall, you even don't have an inkling where the water came from,

some days it is just dark for you, you even don't know what happened to the light,

some days you see the end, even though you don't know where the the path goes.

Cry me your heart then, for I will stay,

don't need to worry then, all the dues I will pay,

don't need to to worry for the air then, for you I will breathe,

don't need to feel alone then, for you I will be the world,

don't need to worry about the pain, with my soul I will wrap your wounds,

don't need to care about the flames then, with my love I will burn the flames,

don't worry about the lives lost, with my beats I will throb their hearts,

don't give a fig for the loud voices without, inside you I will echo my calm,

don't fear about drowning in your sea of tears, with my heart I will soak it up,

don't be anxious of the darkness around, with my love I will light up your life,

He died last night in a funny way not that it elevates the gravity of the tragedy, but dying while excreting is one of the most unorthodox ways of dying. By the time this post will be read, his ashes will be lying in Ganga either flowing along mixed with residual chemicals and soapsuds or hanging on to the bank meshed inside the hair from armpits of an old pilgrim. My old asthmatic uncle's death however made a deep impression on my mind and drew me on to work out this piece. Death, this simple five letter word has perhaps lead to more discussions, debates, research and preaching than any other topic. From time immemorial man has been awestruck and terrified both at once by this phenomenon whereby a fully functional living being just changes into a non-living lump of flesh.

Almost all the religions devote a major portion to matters and issues related to death with some going as far as decreeing the right way to die even. The ancient Egyptians thought of a life different to that lived by us on this planet but strikingly similar to ours. They believed that the material commodities of this life along with the organs of our body have an important role to play in the other world. The Chinese, Mesopotamians, Incas and all such primitive societies believed that those who died had a hand in the natural occurrences like rainfall and thunder. When forms of worship evolved into complex an elaborate affairs, things didn't remain simple anymore. Man was always afraid of the unknown netherlands beyond and when they told him that there was someone sitting there already to either punish him or reward him man took heed. Like any animal who understands what being a subject means, man understood and tried to work to make the afterlife better. To pay his dues for safe passage beyond. Dead bodies burned to set the energy free and ashes flown, bodies being fed to vultures to fill the guts of creatures of god and bodies being buried to make them one with the Earth beneath our feet, they are all attempts to prepare for the second phase. Man was wary of both the pleasures as well as pains beyond, so he came up with the concept of freedom from this whole cycle. Salvation was considered the best option and ways worked out by kneeling in front of the heavens or feeding those who hold the authority to speak to him who decides the fates. When will all these cycles, troubles and struggles end? Another great answer was given- Doomsday. If you aren't judged now you will be judged then, there is no escape for anyone. The easiest way to make everyone toe the line and pay their respects to those above was through the gate known as death. Even seemingly contradictory and sometimes paradoxical dictums were given and what is more, they were followed too! Take for example two concepts out of the faithbook of Hindus- reincarnation and the pronouncement that to become a human again you have to pass through all the yonis (species). If they both hold true and if I retain fragments of my past life in my brain, shouldn't I be buzzing or roaring right now? The prophets and demigods held the noose in their own hands and the answer to the puzzle of death in their palm. They were awed, feared and loved all at once.

Science is nothing but an attempt by man to quantify, classify and analyze all that is around him. Science had to come into play and even geniuses like Einstein linked their studies to the concept of a supernatural power and mass energy transformations to explain what happens to us at the end of the tunnel. If only they understood that nature doesn't work in symmetry or on the basis of strict laws and principles.That is what makes nature our masters-it innovates with each passing moment. Even two electrons are never identical let alone the fate of all!

Those who didn't quite manage to be prophets or gurus had to say something too. Pope wanted to lie undisturbed and unsung. For him death meant peace. Morrison just predicted The End, nothing else just the end. No secrets, no surprises, no questions and no answers apart from it. However, Vivekananda tried to bring in logic to dogmas by trying to explain logically and in a scientific way yet connecting it to the mysticism of Hindu philosophy. What emerged was overwhelming but still not conclusive.

Both of them used to go to the same pasture daily to graze. As such, Radha the cow and Noori the goat were the best of friends. Feeding and roaming together , they used to talk on a number of topics. However, the most prominent one related to the question of superiority of their masters over them. After days dissolved into weeks and weeks melted into months they came to agree upon the two main onus points of man over animals were the abilities of lighting fire and enlightening their hearts with religion. As both Noorie and Radha had suffered desertion at the hands of their male counterparts after ejaculation, marriage followed closely along with science and politics. Man was indeed great!

Radha sat chewing cud in her shed some nights after this conclusion had been reached. She was thinking about the garden of roses and all other delicious things to chew upon which she was told she will find after death if she stays true to her master. She had told Noori about it too and preached her to do the same though the latter had said that their paths differed. Radha scorned at the prospect, what difference did the paths make as long as they reached the same garden? Her introspection was broken by a strange crackling noise which was followed by the falling of a complete portion of the straw roof in blazes. She rushed headlong out of the door to bump into Noori. Together they reached the top of a small hillock near their village. As they looked down upon the burning mayhem in front of them they could see their masters in heated argument with weapons in their hands pointed at each other. The term cow-piss drinker made Radha shift uneasily and Noori almost fainted due to the shock she got when her master was called a flesh eating devil. Now she knew what happened to all her kids whom he took. They saw flames and blood, heads and swords devour each other before they turned their back upon the scene. Not so great after all! They were better off as animals.

My kite is my own to fly or tear,

my pain is mine to do away with or bear,

who are you to claim my tears ?

who gave you the right to assail my fears ?

who gave you the nod to question my flight ?

who gave you permission to take away my kite ?

I don’t know how to fly yet,

but I will learn soon on that I can bet,

who are you to judge that I have already lost ?

who are you to instruct me what the loss will cost ?

who gave my thread into your hand ?

who said that my trail you can bend ?

I may fly slow and I may fly low,

I know that you reap only that you sow,

who are you to tell me what to sow ?

who are you to say that I can’t row ?

who asked you to teach me how to fly ?

who wants your instructions before I try ?

My friends proclaim that I will never learn if I keep on like this,

but trying, failing, trying isn’t that a bliss ?

aunt says that I will fall and break my knee,

why can’t they let me bleed and just let me be me ?

L: Slavery is not what I do, it is what you do poring over those irrelevant files for the sake of unknown faces and doing something that doesn't give you an ounce of joy while you do it.

After what has transpired in the past few months , the aforementioned statement is highly in peril of losing its credibility. From Google's new privacy policy to the Janlokpal back home, we find that new and complex methods are being devised to shackle the individual in chains that may not be even visible to him and out of which he cannot break even as an outlaw.

However, the case in point is that of Rushdie and how he was forced to not even appear virtually to those who wanted to hear him and that too in his own country. A nation cast out of the furnace of a long and turbulent history and fed by the blood and sacrifices of numerous sung and unsung heroes into a casting meant to uphold the humanest of the humane virtues of man had just failed itself.Hope of the east had lost, just as the west had lost. A nation based upon the ideals meant to invigorate the spirit of liberty, fraternity and justice decisively cast it out and handed it over to those having the urn of intolerance and fanaticism high above their heads. What have the Rushdies, Nasreens and Husains done to warrant such a treatment? Do we still live in the dark ages when Socrates had to to drink poison or Galileo had to assert that the sun moved around the earth in order to save his neck? Do all those lengthy and intricate charters and bills ensuring freedom of speech and liberty to naught more than pieces of shroud in which to wrap up the countries whom the big brothers believe to be a pain in their tender parts? Is it really true that the third world nations are living in not just an economic but also ideological divide separating them from their western counterparts?

Salman Rushdie is a name that rings alarm bells in the minds of most of the conventionalists. The name rakes up that spirit of rebellion which lies dormant in the innermost corners of perhaps the hearts of us all apart from sometimes even feeding upon the controversy that stems from it. Rushdie's brain lives in a symbiotic relationship with the creations that spring from it and unlike Tolstoy he looks in no mood to run away from those who are uncomfortable with both. His characters and the way he treats them is something that ought to be enjoyed rather than being denounced. He weaves out a mist of truth and fiction , a blend where one is inseparable from the other and which leaves those who come in contact with it in a dizzy euphoria.

The hue and cry over his allegedly foul and blasphemous ideas reeks of the unimaginative and dogmatic philosophy of those up in arms against him. Religion is based upon faith and if faith of one man leads him to believe that a stone houses an elephant god's essence or that a human being can be transformed into a he-goat then who is there to stop a man in theorizing that an angel was mistaken for the devil by the prophet? If at all it shows the mental bankruptcy of those attacking the propounder of such an idea. If Muhammad can be a prophet why can't Rushdie be one too? If he was directed by the heavens to set forth the rules for conduct of man, why can't heavens select another one to clarify what he had left unclear and that too considering the fact that all the heavens have their seeds in the minds of men? What we perceive, what we interpret is limited by our own limits and any attempt to communicate with what lies beyond our limits is sure to be ridden by our own riders that obstruct from us the elusive truth. An elaborate study of the theory of relativity may seem as the perfect cure for these fanatic crusaders. If one man can preach on a topic that doesn't prohibit another from teaching what he thinks on the same . It must also be kept in mind that creative minds soar above the nets and wires that are meant to keep the common man from reaching out into that dimension and making a mess of all that has so laboriously and painfully been created.

Is this phenomenon only peculiar to the historywont and religionwrecked nations of the east cloaked in the misty veil of traditions? No, the larger picture is far grimmer than just the issue of creative freedom. The improvements in technology and the developments of society are increasingly being used to probe into the innermost havens of human thought and create a society where everybody confirms to the given standards. The standards set by the system and certified by the mediocre segment of population that accounts for the majority of it . The communists are as dogmatic about the views of Marx as the Islamic fanatics are about the words of Muhammad. Big Uncle Sam has upped everyone's game by one envisaging newer methods and policies to even peep into the individual preferences and bending of our thoughts in order to evaluate the possible threat from individuals who want to shred the peaceful social fabric to pieces. Even your ideas your innermost desires and impulses are not safe from scrutiny and censorship anymore. The new society will not be of the far flung individuals free yet socializing in new and revolutionary ways to create the world of future, rather it would be a dominion of masses who won't be able to even breathe more than the sanctioned amount of air. To cater better to your individual preferences and choices says Google to the unsuspecting surfer. The worst part of it all will be that the outlaws the renegades this time won't even have Sherwood forest to run to.

What emerges out is a horrifying yet true picture of the modern world with all its comforts and amenities and behold the west is not wild too anymore! What they are trying to present is no more than political jugglery to show their shiny side to the world. The resounding verdict is loud and clear- think in the way that the sheep think or don't think at all, for if you think and want to hunt, we have better guns and nets to deal with the lions now!

yet they tell me that I can't take a puff,

those who hold the bowels of this creation once told,

that all is made of pretty volatile stuff.

Volatile stuff that will go out with a poof,

life and the things will go down the drain,

you may dig down and draw up many a scoop,

yet all the grains you sow will always be in vain.

Mum says I look pale ,

dad says I look old,

like a cabbage grown stale,

that is what I am told.

The man with the rotten lungs on the pack,

the big black warning written at the back,

all scream that I will die if i touch that stub,

yet the small letters on top say smooth stuff.

From where I sit from where i smoke,

there isn't a rebellion within me to provoke,

am not a runaway from home ,

or a yipee yapee hippie all gone wrong,

I don't smoke coz i don't give a damn,

I don't smoke coz my dad imposed a ban.

I smoke as it tells that all inside is the fuel,

I smoke as it tells that all without is a veil,

and though I may fight though I may duel,

my fate in ashy smoke is under a seal.