For All The Quitters ......

When things go wrong, as they sometimes will, 

When the road you're trudging seems all uphill, 

When the funds are low and the debts are high, 

And you want to smile, but you have to sigh, 

When care is pressing you down a bit, 

Rest, if you must, but don't you quit.

Life is queer with its twists and turns, 

As every one of us sometimes learns, 

And many a failure turns about, 

When he might have won had he stuck it out; 

Don't give up though the pace seems slow-- 

You may succeed with another blow.

Often the goal is nearer than, 

It seems to a faint and faltering man, 

Often the struggler has given up, 

When he might have captured the victor's cup, 

And he learned too late when the night slipped down, 

How close he was to the golden crown.

Success is failure turned inside out-- 

The silver tint of the clouds of doubt, 

And you never can tell how close you are, 

It may be near when it seems so far, 

So stick to the fight when you're hardest hit-- 

It's when things seem worst that you must not quit.

- Author unknown

The Charge of the Light Brigade

Half a league, half a league,

  Half a league onward,

All in the valley of Death

  Rode the six hundred.

'Forward, the Light Brigade!

Charge for the guns' he said:

Into the valley of Death

  Rode the six hundred.

'Forward, the Light Brigade!'

Was there a man dismay'd?

Not tho' the soldiers knew

  Some one had blunder'd:

Theirs not to make reply,

Theirs not to reason why,

Theirs but to do and die:

Into the valley of Death

  Rode the six hundred.

Cannon to the right of them,

Cannon to the left of them,

Cannon in front of them

  Volley'd and thunder'd;

Storm'd at with shot and shell,

Boldly they rode and well,

Into the jaws of Death,

Into the mouth of Hell

  Rode the six hundred.

Flash'd all their sabres bare,

Flash'd as they turned in air

Sabring the gunners there,

Charging an army while

  All the world wonder'd:

Plunged in the battery-smoke

Right thro' the line they broke;

Cossack and Russian

Reel'd from the sabre-stroke

Shatter'd and sunder'd.

Then they rode back, but not

Not the six hundred.

Cannon to right of them,

Cannon to left of them,

Cannon behind them

  Volley'd and thunder'd;

Storm'd at with shot and shell,

While horse and hero fell,

They that had fought so well

Came thro' the jaws of Death,

Back from the mouth of Hell,

All that was left of them,

  Left of six hundred.

When can their glory fade?

O the wild charge they made!

  All the world wonder'd.

Honour the charge they made!

Honour the Light Brigade,

  Noble six hundred!

—Alfred, Lord Tennyson

A Tree without Leaves

Well, I was on my way back to Hyderabad, – stuck in Delhi – one of the IT hubs of India.

Ah! My first semester result was out, the previous night. Not satisfied, because I know that I can do much better but just couldn’t – and now motivating myself and hoping that this motivation stays for long.

 HOPE is a strong word for the faith departed and broken hearted – in love as well as in life. But we just can’t sit on hope and wait for the conditions to change, with hope you should act towards – what you want. The role of hope is to make you feel that you are on track while you are going off the track. But in certain conditions one can only hope, hope and hope.

Okay, as I was going to Hyderabad during the winter, after the vacation. Train was running late by 21-22 hours and as usual I was enjoying those moments too, the winter of Delhi specially.

Transportation facility was disturbed in North India, but on 9^th January, 2011 – journey date – weather was clean but without the sunshine. And finally around 2-3 p.m., I boarded train with three friends on way back to Hyderabad. It was moving slowly and I could only see the crowd and buildings of Delhi. The view was unable to pull my attention so I started gossiping with my friends and listening songs.

By 5 p.m. the train covered approximately a distance of 300 kilometres and here comes one of my lovable things of winter, which almost choked the lifeline of transport in North India – THE FOG. But in addition to the fog, train was in the midst of fields. I started looking at the trees and saw some funny figures made by them and I took a trip stroll down the memory lane of my childhood – one evening, during a walk with my elder brother, neighbour and my nephew, my nephew drew our attention from chit-chat to something amazing I’ve never noticed before, a figure formed by trees which was looking like a T-Rex and after that we started searching more figures made by trees and we spent all our walk by doing this. That was the first time I saw trees from a different perspective.

The fog in the fields at some places was creating a scene of a dreamland. As I was watching, enjoying and figuring out more figures out of the trees. Some were like cartoon characters, aliens and some like human figures. Almost each and every tree had a companion and some trees gave me a feeling of a happy family – parents and kids. But the tree which drew my attention the most was not making any funny posture neither making any human like figure and just standing in the corner of a field with no companion and no leaves, just standing like a broken and sad person. I don’t understand this scene of nature, where all of the trees were with leaves and having at least a companion, this tree neither have any companion nor leaves.

But this tree made my heart skip a beat in fear and left a question in my mind, what will happens to a person when everyone leaves him/her. This is the most horrifying thing one can imagine.

We can live without food and water for few days but we cannot live without love and friends even for a day. Life without friends and love is just like life without life. In this life we are the tree and our family, friends and other people are the leaves of it – few are greener, few are new and few may be dried one, but they provide us the shade of love, friendship and care, few can provide you the shade of hatred but that’s the part and parcel of this life.

But as I said HOPE can bring you back on track. The only good thing I noticed about that tree was its branches were green. Now I can just hope that one day leaves will grow on that tree again and maybe it will not get any companion but can stand under the shade of its own.

P.S.: Few days back I read a short story from “Like the Flowing River” by Paulo Coelho – ‘The Dead Man Wore Pyjamas’ – which tells about a dead man who was found in his pyjamas in an apartment of banished building and there was no one to notice him and he simply vanished without trace. The interesting point is that no one noticed him or cared about him and he was there in that apartment for 20 years.

 I generally prefer to read at night before going off to sleep and the lines by author – “worse than hunger or thirst, worse than being unemployed, unhappy in love or defeated and in despair, far worse than any or all of those things, is feeling that no one, absolutely no one cares about us.” – took my sleep away and put me again in the same thought that what will happen to me when everyone stop caring about me. But thanks to God he gave me friends and family to care for me.

So make friends not enemies so that at each step of life you get the shade of green leaves not the shade of dried leaves.