Front Bench Harbinger

The cuckoo sings enraptured,
By the beauty of the dawn;
Heralding of me being,
A front bench pawn.

It’s not as bad a place,
As people assert it to be;
There too is a happening life,
For a front bencher like me.

Right under their noses,
Bearing our teachers’ brunt;
And that too let me affirm,
Without a single grunt!

The duster when slammed,
My heart skips a beat;
But there is no heaven other than front bench,
To kill the season’s heat.

The chalk snows beautifully,
As if sitting in the Arctic;
Observance is at its best,
From the teacher’s toe to her lipstick.

The silent whispers of air
Make me feel great;
The door on my side,
Unintermittently throws its bait.

The mumble- fumble of the teachers,
Is all listened to;
We are the ones with that stuck smile,
To make general happiness brew.

Teacher’s pets, scholiast, whatever you call us,
The hustle-bustle on the front bench,
Is in itself an enjoyable fuss.

To construe the situation,
I love each bit of it;
I am the lucky one,
To bag the one and only Hot Seat.

Written as a Class Activity (Army School, Kirkee)

Reincarnation to me…

A little Sweet;
A little sour,
A little close;
Not too far!
All I need,
All I Need,
All I Need…………………………………………. “IS TO BE FREE”!

Can we hear Ishaan from Taare Zameen Par still humming this? There is an Ishaan in all of us! Isn’t it so? I write this article while listening to numbers that soulfully remind me of all the great moments of my life. A life that my parents gifted me with; a mysterious treasure hunt that will lead to the purpose of my living!

My heart skips a beat when I see poverty, drudgery around and even when I ponder over the bad moments that have gone by in my life. Anyhow, now I feel overpowered and great that I’m out of them and leading a happy life. Life’s been always treating me with the best of things possible and I really feel treasured!

‘Past, Present & Future’ are just three terms that describe the most important term-‘Journey’-“The ultimate journey of life” (I told you all, I am being accompanied by songs- Can you hear them playing?) Jokes apart! In a serious vein, who’s actually known what life is? Is it a romantic period poet, a small three-year old who’s been raped or the normal man who’s trying to fit the requisite needs of living into his monthly budget? Life’s so subjective…So very subjective!

My room faces this open grassland and many a times, I just sit wondering that every person is a world within one’s own self! The life that seems so beautiful after seeing a new born seems equally ugly when a twelfth standard student commits suicide due to his IIT miss! Life’s a long journey of hits and misses and we are endowed with only short time frames to prove our wits.

A person, who can really juggle the goodies and baddies of life, has in true sense tasted the meaning of reincarnation and I’m still climbing the Mount Everest! I know there must be questions pounding in your mind to debate on a few points mentioned above, but let’s just agree to disagree as this is …… Reincarnation to me!

Turn your scars into stars

A baby falls, that’s when he learns walking
An orator fumbles, that’s when he learns talking
A lover was left alone, that’s when he understood what’s life
Turning scars into stars is what’s called the ultimate strive!

Life unfurls its beauty at different pedestals and we too have to see the ugliest moments sometimes. Positive thinking, self-motivation and inner peace are a few of the terms that are hovering on our society these days but have we really tried to analyze them with a microscope? Certainly, we haven’t. The ‘sulk mode’ is prevalent in all age groups and none seem to find any solace.

What’s happening?

A man can scar his life with a maybe a bruise, a betrayal, a failure or maybe even abandonment! Just when a butterfly loses its wing, it still tries to flutter the other and move around….that’s what we call LIFE! Should just a moment, an incident or a period of trauma affect your complete life? Not quite! Why are the meditation courses, Yoga classes and stress busters touching newer heights of success? That is solely because they tend to teach you to go easy on life and accept it with all its goodies and follies!

What does one do?

Just sit with a coffee mug and get into the flashback mood and that is when one will realize how the good times always followed the bad ones. If you are a true being at heart, it is impossible that your life is going to be filled with only drudgery as there’s always a bright morning that is going to follow the night! Self-introspection is a must and one should realize that acting waywardly in a crisis situation is just going to intensify the effect and not reduce it! Try taking to practices that make you feel happy and maybe develop a hobby that might calm you down every time you are hurt. Try being the one who analyzes things and intelligently makes a decision as then one would feel like a winner at the end of one’s own war-the war of life!

Hrithik used his extra finger to make statement instead of fretting about it; Vietnam people still seem to enjoy a laugh on the Land of Death that is overloaded with mines and soldiers still fight in Paralympics to win laurels for one’s own country! Try finding a solution rather than just worrying about the causes and symptoms. ‘Never-say-die-attitude’, ‘try, try and try’ and the ‘fighter spirit’ needs to be your motto and you will undisputedly win in life’s RACE!

Go ahead, see the bright, feel the good and the world shall be yours!

(Written for Abhishek Tomar's ICSE Project)