If-

IF you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
' Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,
if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!

- Kipling

Invictus

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find me, unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

- William Ernest Henley

PS: Punarnaba, thank you for this wonderful poem.

A vivid dream..

The unfinished white building has been a part of all my dreams ever since I can remember. The dreams, on the other hand, I forget. But this particular dream has remained and I doubt would ever fade away. My alter ego taking me on an introspection ride!

"If ever given a chance to change one thing in your life what would it be? And my answer to it has always been, "Nothing, I have no regrets!!". Feels extremely proud saying in that but the fact is, if given a chance I would have broken lesser number of hearts. That is one thing I would want to undo if I ever got a chance to go back into time. You know why? Its because nothing said or done by someone to you leaves you completely. It lingers on, sometimes forever. It won’t pester you but it would be there, in the background. Its like one more line drawn on your life's canvas. I think I have been smart enough to understand a lot of things much early in my life. One-never try and forget because that is the time when the moments cling on to you with all the strength they can muster, two-talk about it. That’s the best way to move ahead taking all those jiffies along. It doesn't look so difficult then. Life is about moving ahead. Yeah to all the broken souls this would be sounding like yet another lecture but trust me it’s my observation and experience. Nothing remains forever. Neither good nor bad, neither happiness nor sadness. My dad has something similar written in hindi on an acrylic sheet in his office. It says 'Yeh bhi nahi rahega...ha ha ha'. It is so true. One of the biggest facts put in the simplest words.

According to me, the desire to relive certain moments gives rise to memories. Then why the hell would one want to run away from them??!!! Think about it. The deepest and the most understood moments in one's life are the ones that haunt most of us and the most. The constant conflict between the want to feel those moments again and trying to run away from them at the same time plays havoc to our mind and heart. Why bother ourselves so much when we can simply move ahead taking along everything that we have always wanted to? Each one of has that capacity. A leader never moves alone he takes the entire team along with him. That’s how it should be. Leading your own life shouldn't be about you moving ahead and discovering each time when you look back that you are all alone. Let those memories cling on. Let the moments take you in their stride. Come face to face with them whenever they want you to. Look them straight into the eyes and keep looking till its time for one more moment to happen and the present one to pass by. Everything has its time and occurrence and nothing happens before or after that. So even if you try to stop it your attempts would be wasted. Sometimes its clever work to surrender to the laws of nature because life sure comes a full circle...

Its not about making the right choices but about choosing what you want. Its about taking decisions and never going back on them. Its about getting ready to face the consequences once the decisions have been taken. Its about listening to yourself when people are shouting advices in your ears. Its about stopping trying to undoing and redoing things. Its about making one more effort and peeling off all the layers of impossibilities. Its about being there and then moving ahead..."

The whiteness of the building and the brightness of AE(alter ego) was almost blended. The dream has never returned after that but has left behind answers to a lot of unasked questions. These words resound in my head whenever I am confused. Do all of you have one such voice inside your head that comes to your rescue when you are lost? Have you all met your african dancer yet?

A detour...

from proper english and the course my blogs take normally. But this is important as it affects my peace of mind adversely. I am the kind who makes sure every sentence that I write is gramatically correct and I surely take great efforts in doing so. But when I come across stuff like the one written below I have no other option but to express my strong opinion about it! Like many I happen to be a regular orkut user and like many I get hundreds of friends request. Most of them that r ignored str8away but some like these dont leave my head easily, the kinds that slaughter and kill the sophistication of the language sending ten different meanings everytime you read them but never conveying what exactly it had been aimed for!! Even before starting I would like to apologise for using such jargons and abbreviations. But its an attempt to make the blog more opinionated and rebellious!
Read on...


Hi Dear Friend
how are you?
well dear i wanna take attension from your mind,because i hope that
you don't mind. well dear i wanna draw some lines in your honorable
friendships purpose. dear friend i m male and my name is dastagir and I m
looking for true and sincer friends, so if you don't mind then i wanna
make friendship with you so do you like to be my sincer and true
friend???? Well dear i think it's enough for now so now i let you go and
i hope that you will reply me soon. i will wait anxiously your answer.
Take Care of your self
Your's New Friend and Your's Well Wisher
dastagir....


I dont know what goes into the head of Mr. Dastagir when he writes the above lines. I never got around to writing back to him, had no intentions as such but taking the advantage of this being my space alone I am punching down a reply:-


-> First and foremost 'Dear' is a word you dont use for me especially if you trying to grab ma attention!
-> I am fine,thank you very much!
-> You wanna take attension from my mind???U surely have managed to do that!Succeeded in getting ma attention and not attension(puhlease!!!)And I obviously mind!
-> You wanna draw lines where and for what? What on earth do you want to draw lines in ma honorable friendship for?!(Thank god U spelled 'friendship' correctly!).
-> Dear!!! Phew!! 4th time in a row!!! Ur a male! Thanks for clarifying that but thank u, only a stupid dumb man can spare so much time to come up with such a horrendous friends request!
I guessed your gender from the minute I started reading ur attempt to make friendship with me! And yeah you must be looking for 'true and sincer' friends but spare my brains from getting racked by such insensible and folly friendship proposals!!!
-> What is it mister with u and sincerity and truthfulness?? No one has ever told you how painful it is to even have such a scrap like this?!! You wanna make friendship with me? Did i hear that correctly?? It sounded like U wanted to make out!!
-> Even u realised that its enough!!! Gosh!! Am grateful you let me go finally!!!
-> I am sane enough not to reply to your lame friends request- you have made sure of that!
-> After all this you still expect me to accept ur friends request??? u must be kidding me!!
-> Your my wel-wisher! Thank u again for that! But no that wont give u a place in my friends list.

On second thoughts, had you spent the time that you spent in constructing such grammatically incorrect sentences in learning a little bit of angrezi, you could have done much better!!!
How about a Rapidex-learn english in 60 days course!!!