HORIZON                                

Heart That Needs Heart

“My heart listens only to the music of heart. The language of mind just forms vague images and figures which I can’t get myself associated with. And for me establishing connection from my inside is very important”, explained he.

 He was in the business of selling hearts. Robust and man of sugar coated words has won many hearts because of his occupation. Like any other renowned man of caliber he too was treasuring gems of name, fame and recognition. That’s what he had longed for fifteen years of low profiled, low ebbed and undignified life. He was a laborer then. What he used to earn he used to consume the same day in eating and getting drunk and used to get mingled in slumber of carefree  life and never had any expectations from it. He had no liability but he was a burden on himself.

On the onset of every new morning he used to wake up with guilt, the biggest self invited ailment man feeds for himself. He with his closed eyes used to find himself in the crowd of world’s second largetst population. “What I am? I am sheer waste in the world full of best human resources. I must gather all my capabilities to be what I am.” He started excavating his real him. He was good in winning hearts, so he started selling hearts.

One came with eyes filled with tears, begging to save him from cruelty of his own people, relation of blood. They had all discarded him as he was not as rich as they were. But they were very poor in feelings and emotions. He was shattered when he came to the seller of hearts, who resolved his problem by making his own family bestowing all her love on him and for him. There was another one who came crippled, left rolling in the tides of time and circumstances. This seller of heart solved his problem by connecting him to a charitable organization and let his heart feel light and joyous.

There was one couple who came with heart rendering cries as they lost their nine year old only son to the most deadly disease cancer, and had no hope to have other child of their own. He melted and took them to an orphanage, where many parent less and homeless small and innocent children welcomed them with their willing hearts, and they left with smiles in their lap by adopting three year old girl.

That was not all. A wife lost her husband in war at border; he helped her to be self reliant for the smiles of her three kids and forgetting her pain of losing her brave husband. He sold her the heart which she had buried with the corpse of her husband. He only could do it in very subtle and quiet manner. He had the magical heart which listened to the untold stories of hearts only and to give these hearts the beats he used to sell hearts.

The buying currency for him was his soft words and ability to win the trust of others. People readily used to agree to sell him feelings, emotions, sentiments at the cost of his humanitarian bent of heart. He was not a preacher. He was not a messiah. He was not any guru. He was not a saint. He was not any leader. He was not a priest. He had no sect. He had no religion. He did not belong to any school of thought. All he was was just his own self: the listener of heart and seller of heart.

People invest in movable and immovable properties but he used to invest in making hearts, spreading smiling hearts and creating loving hearts. He was an illiterate but he started writing a new language: The language of heart whose alphabets were pity, compassion, empathy, sympathy, care and concern. The grammar of this language was connection and formation of relations only. He was so very happy to reside in the hearts of people.

Today he lies on the bed in a small hospital fighting his life because his own heart has failed. The machine is gradually forming a straight line but in between goes up and then down. He is in unconscious slumber, but this time it is not guilt that is taking birth. It is now the prideful heart: ailing but satisfied. It is going to die yet alive in millions of hearts.

He now knows the answer to his question of who he was. He is none other than our hearts which we have shut on the world seeing its brutality and coarseness. We have imprisoned it behind the bars of materialism and self absorption.

The present scenario of setting territories on the basis of religions and prejudices is failing every effort of this bleeding heart. Its business is now at loss.  The irony is it has solution for every painful heart but for its own disease it has no medicine.

Will there be any other seller of hearts born to render its self less care to heart in trouble? The blood is oozing out profusely.

Sangeeta Sharma

SOUL TALKS

 LOVE                                

                                                       

                                                                             Pic  Courtesy: ASHNA SINGHAL

                                                                                                                     DPS INDONESIA 

“Love is surrender”. “Love is care”. “Love is sacrifice”. “Love is selflessness”. “Love is all about pain”. “Love is unconditional”. “Love has no religion” and quotes are endless. People take love as per their notion and acceptance rules. To some it becomes walking talking dictionary of words on love. Are you surprised? Are you thinking that I am going to wrap the very word wearing attire of deception? No, for me “Love is convenience these days.”

You are in love, right? Let’s measure its force in your life. You have fallen in love recently and now trying to woo your partner. You text to your partner on one of the social sites,” Without you my days are nights and nights are days.” Your partner feels at the top of world. The technological heart pops up on the screen. Your technological loving efforts become part of FB messenger or what’s app chats. Love feeling words are read within lines. Your sacrifice in love is all about blocking some not very accepted friends by your partner and using social sites which he/she doesn’t approve. Replying back immediately getting message, talking for hours and sending best of images has become utmost care and source of joy. Your partner gets angry technologically by switching off the gadget. You pine and crave and miss his/her by becoming machine at machine. Love has become convenience in expressions and intensity.

Love tiffs over catching you online till midnight not with your partner but someone else take a turn of apologising and seeking pardon for days and night chats. No ego, you know. How blissful?

The time of writing love letters by pouring your heart full of passionate love has been taken over by “Google search Love letters”. Its softness is all about abbreviating the emotions and feelings attached to it in text messages. Its privacy has confined to thousands of minds working behind the technological set up. Love has squeezed itself to electronic gadget you are carrying and updating it as status on your FB wall. “ In complicated relationship”, “ In love”, “ Engaged”, “ Not single anymore” and these are not the only ones, expressions keep floating every third day rather in some cases every third hour, the most convenient way to let the world know about your love.

The most comfortable zone in this technological love is “Virtual Meetings”. Just Skype and distance will not be a hurdle at all. The plus is your date is not controlled by heavy restaurant bills, expenditure on gifts, nice looking attires, accessories and commuting expenses in its preliminary stage. Who has the time to run around trees and sing love songs or sit in parks to be absorbed in its existence? After all, all those are outdated and unconventional these days. Who wants eye contacts and real smiles on the face when there is variety of smiles on innumerable images of emoji in your gadget?

Love effects of sleeplessness are to getting awake and chatting with other friends and groups. After all you have to spend quality time with rest of the social relations. You can do it easily with your love talks with your partner and amazingly without letting him/her feel ignored. After all love means spending lots of time with each other and this way it’s so easy, as easy as falling in love.

Flirt in love too is effortless. Just two windows and the game of flirtation is on, provided your partner has not geeked on you. Do you think I am counting the blessings of “Technological Love”? Read within lines and translate its curses. Convenience is not wrong but its application is wrong. Breathe love in its beauty from head to toe. Mechanical love is short lived and full of impulsive feelings. It blindfolds you to land up in wrong love decisions and relationships as well.

One apple was eaten by Eve and we got that curse as legacy, and one apple is part and parcel of our life which would be inherited by our children. Give a deep thought over it.Experience love in its chaste being and not in its guised face and feel it’s convenient permanency in your life.

Sangeeta Sharma

Soul Talks

ACHE THAT PAINED    

                                                                

He digested his unseen tears. He was not to show his inside struggle, as he was a man. He plodded on the road which was dismal and dark. Thousands of images were crashing and making noise in his mind. The shadowed tree under the spell of starry night became his soul mate in concealing his ache, the ache of love for professional upliftment.

He entered in his house which would not be his in another two weeks. He saw at his wife’s smile less face, as she would be leaving him to drink his ache for lifelong as part of his uncommitted remorse. Things were out of control, as the string was in the hand of his family: family of his wife.

He threw his limp body, with boisterous series of his thoughts of past, into the chair. “Congratulations, Mr. Patel. We are expecting your join on first next month. Meanwhile you start preparing for the project.”

“Thank You Sir!” he chuckled.

He came with his mother’s favorite sweet box in his small cottage. His paralytic father gave birth to smile on his own face after twenty five years of his crippled, dependent and unproductive ailing life. Ayush Patel has seen happiness getting personified in his life that day. His mother’s swelled chest talked million of words of pride for her Son, General Manager: Ayush Patel.

Life on roll earned him everything what his parents desired and wished for him and kept his welfare in their blessings. He accumulated all materialistic joys and quality time for his parents. Their sacrifice for their son’s success started paying rewards. It was the time when destiny showed its deformity to him.

 “The project you were given has been taken over by Ms. Saloni Yadav, daughter of chairperson”, informed his Director to him.

“I have invested all my knowledge on this project”, he explained.

They were not ready to listen to him. He had to leave the company as his services were not required. He didn’t lose hope until he saw the advertisement in T.V and magazines, “FUND YOUR HAPPINESS WITH OUR CARE.” That was his slogan for his project. He felt deceived but not shattered. He was clear of the exploitation of his skill.

“Hi, Ms. Saloni, this is Ayush.”There was a smug smile on his face. She was not at all surprised. She did not offer him to sit, but he sat confidently in front of her looking straight into her eyes. The culprit in her made her take her eyes away on the door of her office. That was so easy for him to melt her with all her deception. They had a deal, deal of Ache.

He married Saloni’s elder sister, who did not know even a word about love. Arrogance, mood swings and power of money never let them smile. It was relationship of empty togetherness. He started suffocating. He was in deal. He was in a fix. In office his wife’s sister was sucking all his energies by over burdening him and selling part of his male ego each day. At home, his wife’s self absorption separated him from his parents, who shifted to their cottage so that he should be happy. Smile appeared to be her life -long enemy. She became more cranky and loud. His deal was getting out of control for him to handle. Yes, she was his deal.

“You are pesticide in my life, making me hollow. I abhor you”, she shouted at him after throwing vase from the table on the marbled floor. He was looking at her with his expressive serene facial gestures and not retaliating. She was just a deal for him and she too knew that he was sold to her. She was repenting her purchase and wanted to get rid of him. This is what he exactly wanted.

He calmly replied,” You do that life long.” That was taken as a curse by her and five fingers got printed on his cheeks. He smiled. She got more furious. She took iron vase from the cabinet and threw at him. He saved himself from the attack. He still did not lose his temper. She became wilder. She started hitting him with her fist on his chest and tearing his shirt. He was as calm and as composed as quiet rivulet. That was height of patience for her. She called her sister in hustle bustle informing of he being violent and attacking on her. He stood and listened everything smilingly.

His so called family of in-laws did not heard pain beneath his smile. They terminated him from his job and snatched every materialistic gains in the form of capital and assets. He was given two weeks time to surrender whatever he earned. He was jobless, homeless and family less person. Agony murdered his desires to be loved and to grow. All avenues of his progress were sealed. He made nightly strolls with deep contemplation as his routine. His solitude became chronic.

His eyes were getting closed in slumber. He wanted to have a long sleep and merge into inexplicable. Just then a cold hand came on his mantle. He smiled from his soul. He did not lose anything. He left everything and everyone to narrate story of his dry tears of unsaid pain he felt, being unloved, and above all of his sad smiles which he used to wear to conceal his attacked male ego. His untold ache left even pain to be pained.

Sangeeta Sharma