This time of the year has suddenly turned out to be such a repetitive ‘torture’ time for the past couple of years that I seem to be caught in a inescapable  time warp and a vicious vicious cycle that I consciously trap myself in everytime I have a chance to get myself out in that part of the year when the autumn leaves come twirling down.

It’s a decision trap... an escalation of commitment .... a supposed impossible dream... a silly deviation of my mind that engraves question marks on many a faces ..... I had smiled at that when I set foot on this path .... so sure that it’s my destiny ...... But this time of the year brings the toughest tide when I stand face to face with all that I am not... all that I lack .... and sometimes it’s difficult to salvage a sinking heart .... hard to tide over a herculean hurdle of my own choice.

More then anything else the silliest part to deal with is  when I lack the nerves to handle it all. It’s true that  true ingredients for success lie within ‘you ‘and it’s disheartening when I suddenly turn into this totally negative domain repelling positivity when I need it the most.....then my cognition goes haywire and I cultivate more and more  poisonous crops (thoughts) of self –defeat.... it grows and grows until my head is brimming with an aching burden of  fear of failure. From there begins the slow crumbling of the sunny dreams I build over years  dating back to childhood.

It’s hard to see myself like that .... cos deep down I know I been struggling to rise above it. Its like stretching out like an elastic band and snap! Coming back to square one with a little ache and bruise on your mind. What is beyond me is how come I haven’t called quits.... on all social scales it’s stupid to be pursuing something like that neglecting all personal endeavours .... and off late I have begin to believe the futility....

But then what’s wrong in being scared .... what’s wrong in losing?..... what’s wrong in trying for the sky and falling over and over again..... and I am gearing up for another fall..... i dunno what it would be this time .... .. frozen feet reluctant to take the plunge... but suddenly collapse into a fall with a pounding heart..... a bungee jump with all protected fall ... but a fall anyway..........  a  headon collision or a cushioned fall......... or may be ..... just may be .... this time I learn to rise ..... I learn to defy gravity.. maybe .... I grow wings this time..... and soar above the vicious cycle........

P.S. Need to say a prayer ..... each passing day....

It was an ordinary Sunday evening as I sat in front of the television with my cup of tea. A leisurely time .Before I could take a sip I was disturbed by strange vibrations and then suddenly the bed started moving too and fro. I reflexly blurted “Is it an earthquake?” and then within a few minutes we evacuated our house and stood outside wondering. A phone call gave an indication of some earthquake in Patna. It were the tremors of a distant earthquake that was clear by now. I had felt the tremors of the Bhuj earthquake a decade back and it was horrifying.  I was reluctant to go upstairs as I felt the 4.8 Richter aftershocks as well and my family agreed when the news confirmed a 6.8 Richter earthquake in Sikkim and a second one of 4.8 Richter scale.

It took time to unfold all the damage and loss of life. The intensity of the earthquake was so high that it could have been devastating had it been a densely populated metropolitan. What we felt was just a few seconds of horror and when the earth danced beneath me I didn’t know where to keep my feet and my thoughts. It was a blank head wrapped in fear. Nothing immediate or remote mattered which I was probably musing over before that sip of tea. The terrain it primarily effected has sparser population has an ongoing power project on the river Teesta by Teesta Urja limited. It was God’s grace that even earth’s wrath and ‘tandav’ could not unleash that great a devastation. It was the day of Vishwakarma Pooja and most workers had not come to work because of the Pooja .What a close miss!!

The Buddhist monastery Sikkim which turned into rubbles , could have been a century old if not for the earthquake. The fateful day being a Sunday the prayers finished at 5:30 in the evening rather than the usual 6:30 pm saving the monks from the earthquake that hit at 6:10 pm. God saved them all.

It took me sometime to normalize . All I wondered was that we are so badly entangled in the thick of thins that we fail to see the fraility of our existence. It was a two second tremor that brought me face to face to reality ........... it is other thing that I inevitably sunk back in the ‘maya jaal’ ... the ‘matrix’ by Monday morning J.  Same old juggling through the day ....racing and whining  endlessly for otherwise ‘meaningless’  goals .