Kochah

While browsing through various social causes on a community site, I came across one called “Kochah”. Kochah is one of the many projects by Farhad Darya; a US based singer and composer, born and brought up in Afghanistan. The project has been launched with an intention to draw the society as well as the governments’ attention, towards orphans and working street children of Afghanistan; who have always suffered. The objective is to reshape the destiny of vulnerable children of Afghanistan, especially the street and under age working ones; who have been a constant victim of more than two decades of war, social and cultural strife in Afghanistan.

The most noticeable thing about this cause is the picture used by its creator, which is of a young Afghani Muslim boy. The boy seems to be crying with his right hand pointing at someone, mouth open as if he is bawling, eyes red with tears and his soul deeply wounded; surrounded by a horde of people standing helplessly behind him. What deeply touched me about this picture is the child’s eye.

Eyes, I have always felt, narrate a story of their own. They have this unique ability to speak about what one is feeling. The intensity might be visible initially and ephemerally; the overall story still being obstinately exhibited. We might be melancholy, jubilant, irate, gloomy or even ecstatic at times; all being evident by close observation of ones eyes.

I could indeed sense a lot of sorrow and also despair in those eyes; which for that particular moment made me think what we have become. How ferociously brutal have we become, with the advancement of technology; which ideally should have been used for the protection as well as development of mankind; is worth pondering over. We need to reevaluate ourselves and actually empathise with these children; it’s perhaps then that we might understand the consequences of our wrong-doings. They not only loose their family or their house but also their youth, because of a war; and adolescence, I believe, is a beautiful phase of every individual’s life; once lost then nothing but a forlorn look is to be found. We need to restore the blissfulness in those eyes or else…. all is lost.

In search of an answer

Loneliness is a strange feeling. There are times when one might have all the material things at ones disposal and still might not be happy. There is this one thing missing which for some odd reason is of acute importance; and at that particular time perhaps the only possible solution for ones problem. Ever imagined why we need someone in our life to make us feel better. Why couldn’t we be self-sufficient and not need anyone.

It is extremely painful to get up every morning pretending in front of others and the mirror that one is absolutely fine. Going off to work smiling when all one wants to do is perhaps be in a pensive mood and not laugh at our boss’s fatuous joke or a colleagues frivolous gossip. Coming back home, hoping that one could get some rest; while all one gets is a horribly long night sans sleep. Life at that particular time becomes a strenuous exercise; not worth performing. Why are we foolish enough to think about a particular person’s well being when the person in question is hardly interested? Why do we even bother to care when the other person thinks that it’s smothering her? Why can’t we just forget about it, live our own life and not bother? Is it really tough to do so? Yes, initially it is, but there comes a time when this whole ordeal becomes excruciatingly arduous. When it becomes unbearably difficult to carry on and we get so fed up with the situation that all we want to do is snap out, somehow.

This is the precise moment when we need to put our foot down and crush this feeling inside. Kill it somehow and stop it from flourishing any further. Do we need a cold heart to do so? Yes we do. Do we need to be inexorable? Yes we do. Do we need to be emotionally unresponsive? Yes we do…. And so we shall; and so we will. There is more to life than just a relationship.

Love, is like magic. But magic is... just an illusion

Why is it so difficult for people to fall in love? Almost everyone, from a child to an adult has a ready definition of love; none digressing too far from one another. If I were to be asked about love, I would perhaps, enumerate thousand wonderful words in the praise of it. Well, there isn’t anyone who would forthrightly deny all the beautiful things said about this strong feeling. Yet, come to think of it, people find it extremely difficult to fall in love. Even if we do, then after a while it’s almost impossible to take the relationship forward. Of course there are quite some lucky souls amongst us who fall in love; and fortunately end up with that very person.

Whenever we think that we might want to fall in love, we, the so-called “homo sapiens” try and rationalise. We want to speculate the current gains and the future losses that might arise from the relationship. I wouldn’t say that being rationale is not good; but to the last thread of it, wherein there is practically no scope for trial; this truly does amaze me. One thing that we perhaps do not realise is that we as an individual are extremely short-sighted; irrespective of us being endowed with greater brain power, as compared to our predecessors. All our assumptions are based on our past happenings or at the max on the things that we hear from people around us. We always ask others what they can give; but never do we try and think what we can give in return for so many things that we want. Compromise is another big question. “Why the hell should I compromise on the things that I want to do.” Never really thinking; that perhaps the other person might also be compromising on a lot of things to make me happy. Compatibility is something that we so rightly want and that too from ‘our’ perspective. The best part is that whenever we come across someone who thinks alike, we are the first to point out that, “Man, you only think about yourself.”

Phew, so much of analysis; and yet we can’t understand that all it takes, is to follow our intuition. We simply need to lower our guards and for one instance get into the flow of things. Yes, we might fall and get hurt in the process; but if we do succeed then there’s nothing like it. We need to believe that some things are meant to happen even if they appear seemingly pointless. But this I guess, is too much to ask for; because sorry to say, we do not work so. Loving someone is definitely not the most important criteria as there are other things that have to be thought about, which are momentous and of grave importance. So what if there is a lot of reason that the other person can see. Well, I don’t see any compatibility; and that’s all that matters because I think rationally. I have analysed everything and I think that there is no scope for us; so what’s the point in trying. On the other hand, the fool all so smitten perennially tries to show how much he loves; fighting a loosing battle.
Ah! Alas, he has lost; it’s the win of head over heart and all he can say is…
“If music be the food of love, play on,
Give me excess of it; that surfeiting,
The appetite may sicken, and so die.”

Her that I love, I wish to be free - even from me

"I hold it true, whate'er befall;
I feel it, when I sorrow most;
'Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all."
It is the feeling of love that Tennyson so fondly talks about in the paragraph from his poem “In Memoriam”; the feeling of endless joy and immense sorrow, both being juxtaposed. Love, the biggest paradox to have ever existed.

All of us have been in love at some point of time in our life; and god, isn’t it wonderful. You know you are in love when you can very minutely separate the beautiful colours from the thread of life. Get up every morning brimming with exuberance; thinking how to make the most of day or rather every moment in one’s life. It feels as though the clock has stopped ticking and one could indeed analyse the beauty in all of nature’s offerings, at ease. The voice inside telling us to see how beautiful a day is, so forget about tomorrow – carpe diem.

Love to me, means giving incessantly; and so I have done whenever I’ve loved. I couldn’t help but give in to this strong and overwhelming emotion, every time. But time and again I have been made to feel, made to realise that is it actually worth it. People asking, “are non-ending tears worth all the smiles and laughter in the past?”; friends saying things like, “is it really worth all that one has to go through?” I have always believed so; and god knows I had reason to do so. Reason which has become quite apparent with time; and with acute self-analysation. It’s nothing but my weakness inside….God, that anemic feeling, which I so fucking hate. I hate it because I don’t see anyone who is worth putting in so much of effort for; anyone who is worth this affection and any god damn person who really deserves it. We as an individual are meant to handle everything all by ourselves; be diplomatic about everything and think, like a fox. Think cunningly and measure every step that we take. Life, sadly has taught me that emotions make people weak. I have felt a “snap” inside of me; a certain point which tells me that it’s time to let go. Time to move forward, not look back and just fuck-it; maybe it was meant to be so.

It is time to set free, the person I am so madly in love with. I do feel elevated but I also feel sorry for the cause that I had believed in. God only knows how much I had loved that person and I couldn’t help but set her free; as this is what she wanted and how can I not give her what she wants. Like all my loved ones she is mine now, forever.