Let Me Be Myself...

Let me be…

Let me live the way I can…
And let my dreams swell insane
Late night coffee sips and mental drifts…
Some lights; loud sounds; my table mundane
Let me love the way I can…
Cozy afternoons dripping in rain
My old scooter and the feather touch…
Rolling eyes; Ice creams; walking the deserted walk ways...
Let me lead to love the way I can…
Living apart with the pain all slain
The soul striving harder to the roads…
All lost; found and lost again
Let me dream the way I can…
Piercing the clouds;
Prickling the skies…
And picking the stars once again
Let me die the way I can…
Let it be magnificent the way it can
And let these words be the epitaph…
Let the world wait to see me again…!

Surat, 11:57 pm

It is raining! Often I write at the end of my odes something about my mental stance that made me to write the ode. But this time I am running out of words. I actually don’t know what made me pen this. Is it the directionless way of living or the well crafted foreseen failure I fear, I deem…

It is time to hear my favorite track from the film ‘Udaan’. It’s called Azaadiyaan…!

Let me set myself free…!

Amit Purohit The Lone Soldier
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Life has come too far...

My mind has been monotone these days as blunt and plain as a spread sheet I just saved and mailed to my boss. I planned to write an article about love; life and dreams. I ended up writing some poetry over it. Life has been changing all the times. It became evident to me when I found some old friend’s mail in my so called professional mail box. Life has come too far and changes undergone are too swift to be felt. The hustle and bustle of traffic around just seems to swell as days pass. The rivers either go dry or ruin every nook and cranny coming their way. People around me change before I switch between my SAP windows. The red color meant love before and now it signals some sort of delay in some junk of my project. The gliders I see today never kick me to be a pilot as it did when I was 5. Love too succumbed to the pace of life. The black berries are bitter than the cherries I used to relish on. The money in my salary a/c gives me a kick of joy for some seconds. But the pangs are endless when I see my neighbor making his son do geometry and trigonometry.

Life has really come too far. Some set of rules and an alien feeling of getting freed tends to be apocryphal all the time. The loop is set and we are in. Mice are ready; Cats keep chasing. Money and expectations go with the same nick. The only thing that remained the same is my old radio. It is playing now a track from Dev D:

‘kudrat muskurati hai meri nadani pe; Sarghoshi khud se karti hu main herani mein…!’

I deem of an article in motion…!

Life has come too far…
With memories to cherish and money at par
The old photographs make me cry
I used to sit next to her; no matter the teachers pass by
My old algebra textbook and the Shakespearean plays
Life shaped as spreadsheets with formulae at play
Those changing clouds and honey bees sting
With butterflies around; Ringa Ringa roses sing…
Dreams dwell as I see the glider go…
My pants all wet as I find the only coin in muddy row
My father’s fingers; my sister’s palm
And I miss my mother’s warmth…
Life became a station; trains come and pass
Tickets cost me more as I go far
Table clocks; Presentations; Mail boxes
Schedules; Bosses and some more taxes
Cheque Books; Wallets; Blackberries
Travel; Itinerary and some sundries
Love was on the way to loss
With the salary slip shooting beyond no cause…
Time kept running; Dreams keep playing
People keep moving; The smoke does the chewing…!

Amit Purohit The Lone Soldier
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The Beautiful Heart

The Beautiful Heart

1-September-2010
10 pm

It has been more than a month since I had spelt something. I faced writer’s block. But the vista of yesterday’s night inspired me to pen again. She was with me in a train’s compartment. Her broken leg still gave her jitters. We remembered the day when she met an accident. It was raining outside. Surat was on the verge of one of the deadliest floods the city ever witnessed. Her face rested on my thigh. My fingers roved around her forehead. I could feel the war her mind was going through. We were in pain. Inevitable; cold and eternal. The stormy rain drops peeped into the windows of the train. It was cold. The rain drops could not wet the already wetted couple in love. We never knew where we were heading; we had a feeling of togetherness that made the journey clumsier. She tried to close her eyes. The confused beholders of love were helpless. Time twisted their tale of love. Dreams ruined it often. Commitments slaughtered it. The train stopped. We departed. The rains and tears could define the feelings well. The lines of ‘The Beautiful Heart’ were imprinted in my mind. And the happiness linked with every creation of mine was replaced. The rains were in full swing. She stepped back. He looked into her eyes. The cacophony of the station turned mute. Time stood still. People paused. We kissed…!

There were times when she was far…

And I alone with my life at war
She cried and was lost in pain…
When I saw the sunny day and the blunt rain
The day when my shadow looked alien…
And tried to touch her; insane
I could hear the winds blowing…
But failed hearing her scream
The boisterous horns and the shining stars…
Made me think the glaring tear on her arm
The blond rain and the seas’ summon…
Rest is lost; the days pass; the nights inhuman
True love went to flames often…
Cherishes a moment; perishes sudden
Life has answers the more does it question…
Dreams keep rolling; Time ruins often...!

Amit Purohit The Lone Soldier
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Love, Honor And Killing.

Love; Honor And Killing


12th July, 2010


A famous newspaper quoted: “If you find something wrong with a newly married couple don’t go for the police go for the Khaps…!”

The TV screens flashed killings of some young couple in the northern parts of my wonderful country, India. I very well know the name of the place; the lobby of people and the date, time and reason when the killings happened. But I don’t wish to mention all here. This is because the sentiments I wish to talk upon I guess is paramount. The media did it the most idiotic way they could with the word honor in bold and red. I turned off the tube. Two of my female friends were confused over honor and mercy killing. I smiled out of a stifle. We need to react and generate awareness on such burning societal issues and the so called young feminine India boasting of ruling corporate and begging all the way for reservation in every nook and cranny of the system was confused. Mercy and Honor. My heart pumped lava instead of blood thinking of the visuals related to the incident. People were doing what human kind and its creator can’t deem of.


Two souls fall in love. They are not of the same caste. Some people in white turbans behave like courts and issue life sentence for the love birds. The so called youth of India executes it. The brutal the execution the more is the pride carried off. The news keeps coming in newspapers. They talk of the northern part of this country. I feel safer in Gujarat. Love is merrier here. And the day I think of this the page 5 of a leading newspaper tells me of a case of honor killing in Surat – where I earn money. Sometimes I think the proactive media has made us notice vices like honor killing these days. Love is ancient and so honor killing would be! Honor, I seem to be in such cases of killing is a mental block. The word mirage would rather suit such notion rather than a mind’s block. The situation goes pathetic when the couple marries against family’s will and remains alive. You read it correct. The situation gets worse as they tackle the tide their home all alone just because they decided to live life at their own terms. Their parents feel like they had been murdered. Casteism was an old man’s thought and now the same is killing his successors.


The Sunset Time


With all these emotions roving and raving in my mind, I thought of taking a break and watching some music videos. And some anchor was interviewing the local police commissioner over the couple’s murder who sought police protection a week ago in the same news room. I thought education has cleansed the minds of my country’s people. I am wrong. Religion and Honor are Everest sized mental blocks of people and people can’t see the sunshine beyond it. It reminded me of the ‘Sania-Shoaib’ marriage episode which followed nasty SMSes, Facebook status and tangy tweets. People just can’t accept the fact and carry life on.


Love is godly. They say it is beyond boundaries and borders. It is because of love we breathe and feel our existence. Killing love and its beholders in the name of honor is itself questioning love’s existence on this planet. This ultimately makes me think of our existence and extinction. We are against the emotion which binds us all. And the worst part is we count on it as our token to unravel our geographic and economic problems.

Sad is the story that all is happening in a country where romantic films run for 25 years at a stretch and the countrymen there kill those who are the real inspiration behind such immortal stories…!

Let me love without the honor part of it; I will be breathing in the end…!
Give me freedom!

Amit Purohit The Lone Soldier.
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Love Is Far...

Love Is Far


8th July, 2010 1:30 pm.

Jammnagar Inter City Express

                  I boarded the train to Ahmedabad from Surat. It was raining hard. I was irritated. The train passed over the rivers and plains. The effect of the rain comes to life when you see it from a river side. You can feel the rain falling from the dark clouds. The winds trying to show its might and ruining the clouds while the river enjoying each droplet kissing its soul. The dry plains went wet in a minute as the rain unpacked its arms over the orb. I felt the sky’s love for earth. I thought of my love which was far and life had travelled miles. Life was too far to let me excise my control over it. The war seemed to be endless. The destinations in life seemed like a carrot hanging in front of my face which moved with the pace I walked. The world seemed like a spinning top with I at one of its edges giving my fortunes away…!

Love was far…
Life was away…
His God too vague…
To enlighten his way…
The rain and its droplets…
Wetted his soul all the time…
And the pain from the heavens…
Questioned his existence every now and then…
The seas of happiness died the way they can…
And the salty sand ruined the merry plains…
The dark rainbow;
Darker the sunshine…
Those praying hands and rolling chants…
All lost in the winding ways…
Love is still far…
Life is still way…
What mattered in the end was his luck…
This too parted the thorny ways…!

Amit Purohit The Lone Soldier
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The Great Indian Bandh

The Great Indian Bandh


5th July, 7:30 am

I don’t belong to any national party. Be it the congress, BJP, RLM, RJD, BJD or ‘ETC’. I started off late today with fifteen minutes behind my schedule. I ran all the way to the bus stop to catch the staff bus. The bus sauntered 50 yards and then some ruffians with an orange tag around their necks stopped us. They asked everybody to vacate the bus. Nobody shook unless one of them pelted a stone and broke one of the headlights of our bus. I was happy. Monday blues suck and we received an automated holiday with a constant fear of our bosses’ phone calls with the cars allotted to our projects catching us sleeping in the second half. I and my three other roommates were happy but our stomachs weren’t. And the rain came to the party. We worked for Larsen & Toubro Hazira. Hazira is known to be one of the largest manufacturing hubs in India. The coastal belt has companies of the likes ONGC, NTPC and Kribhco. But all the buses stood stunned making a queue today morning on the wishes of certain bikers.

Our intestines began cribbing and the first thought that came to our mind was tea. We approached the nearest dairy parlor and found the owner locking the sheds. People requested him but he was helpless. The police stood nearby and so did the ‘bandh’ bikers. The men in brown stood like traffic police controlling the buses rather than bullying the bandh barters. We walked all the way to out flats somehow managing a packet of milk and bread, which charged hundred bucks. Welcome to black marketing! Somehow we managed our breakfast oblivious of the fact that our intestines would be dried all the day. We were happy and our happiness died as we switched on the TV. I was surprised with the scene that big shots of a national leading party voluntarily took the pride in getting arrested while protesting. They felt like the Mahatma or Sardar while getting arrested. We called our maid to get the utensils cleansed as we were planning to call our regular chef in the day time. To our surprise we heard her crying over the phone as some ‘bandh’ monger banged her husband’s head. The chef called us and asked for leave too.

12 pm.

I called the nearest 30 min home delivery pizza vendor. None picked up. I went out in search of Maggi or some stuff and faced locks. I came to know this brutal truth that the medical stores didn’t cater such items. We were hungry and angry. The electricity went off as it rained harder. The afternoons were horrible. The pain in our stomach reflected in our eyes. 4 hours later. We somehow passed the afternoon. The fan that hung off the ceiling started rolling. The electricity was in. We again switched the idiot box. The conveyor of some leading party declared that the ‘bandh’ was unique and successful. I wished to bang the screen. The traffic over the bridge started rolling in too. It seemed the grocery shops were trading. We thronged the shops and ate to life. But the thought that jolted me was the complete idea of the bandh and the atrocities it followed.

6:30 pm.

Bandh is anti people. Some people protesting against fuel hike are actually protesting against people’s comfort. There are unique ways of protesting against things like fuel hike. Why bandh? It is not only anti people it is anti human. The visuals of ambulance trapped in the mid of the roads and patients dying at the crossroads showcase this. We the people make the government and when it hikes prices some of us do this and favor those who promise to roll back the prices if given power. We the people do stupid things like bandh to give away pains to some of the people amongst us. Think logic. The only positive side effects of the bandh were we saved electricity, natural resources a day. This is it. Some of the women craving their husband’s company and some of the children cribbing for their working parents’ company were happy sharing lunch and pleasantries.

Thinking of alternative sources of energy and dependence from things like petrol will be a solution. A country with more than 50% of its population below the age of 45 is shameful thinking like this!

Jaago India Jaago…!

Give me freedom…!

Amit Purohit The Lone Soldier

An irate young Indian.
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My Old School

MY OLD SCHOOL


                                    We all love our alma mater. Isn’t it? And even some one who is left and lost in our alma mater. It may/can be our first love/infatuation. This ode is all about those mesmerizing thoughts of my old school. The blurred memories of the first day of my school are still in this engineering mind. Every one of my porpoises wept, but it was I who confronted the school gate with a smile on my face. I was fervent to learn the ABCs. The origin of the arduous feeling was to read those fancy advertising boards all round. I still remember the hand that kindled me with the knowledge of English and Mathematics. I was weak in performing subtraction, but my Mathematics teacher was no naïveté. She tried hard to imbibe her knowledge in me. The steps of my old school were not leveled properly. We always slipped to one or two of them and ended with a bruise on our knees. Still our peon personified that the faller is the real winner as he/she learnt a lesson every time he/she falls. There was a boy in our class who once rang the school bell exactly 5 minutes before the lunch break. It was the time of our academic era when we were neophytes in looking at watches. Lastly, I only miss the angel seated on the second bench of the girls’ row. Whenever I roll the cavalcade of time I always end it with this rosy chapter of my verve. We were good friends and I used to guide her in Algebra and Geometry. However I was a novice in the calculative crusade still I managed to challenge the tide. I am still in juxtaposition rendering the fact that was it my love or infatuation…?!?

There lies my old school where
I learnt my ABCs
There lies my class where
I learnt those tongue tizzies
My teacher taught me
To subtract and to add
To read and to write
To face problems with glad
Those cozy class rooms
That became the place to gloom
When the exams surround
With the chilled supervision around
There lie my school steps
That taught me never to regret
Even when you fall in a bet
As the faller is destined to get
There lies the ringing bell
That we use to bell
Always a minute before the recess
To get that extra minute in excess
Finally we come across the row
Where I met my first lady love
We used to rhyme this bow:
To be together in any flaw...!
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Myriad Of Dreams

Myriad of Dreams…


21st June 2010

7:03 pm

           I returned from my office and threw my shirt on the floor. I was not in a mood to live the way I was living. With my brain forcing me towards a stable career and my heart mingled for the one I loved – creative writing. I felt myself like a tennis ball jumping over the net now and then. The track from ‘The Better Life’ called Kryptonite became a reality for me. Specially the line which said ‘I feel my body lying somewhere on the sands of time’ I think I spelt the name and the lyrics correct. My balcony faced the bridge they made over the river’s chest. The evening star sparkled as if it were laughing on me. Give me freedom…!

Myriads of dreams in my tired eyes…
   Millions of voices I listen all the time
The pace so slow and
   The dreams all swift…
Wanting and Wishing to leave all
   The shackles so rigid and the sorrows shallow
The belief I believed shook all the time…
   The rage all sunken; all mine
The traffic roars on the feeble bridge…
    As it crosses the shabby river…
The evening star I see so clear…
    Standing in my balcony gripped with fear
Someday I go motionless
     Someday I go directionless
Today I went a little ahead..
    With the translucent smoke in the air…
It’s all in the mind; Its all with the soul…
    The brain resisting and the heart beats all foul…!

Amit Purohit The Lone Soldier

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Myriad Of Dreams

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The Love So Far...

The Love So Far...

It feels great to share with you all my hundredth creation on love. It has been almost thousand days by now since I have began writing poems and articles. It has been a busy fortnight. First week went off in finding a house and second getting in along with the alien neighbors and surroundings. I had cultivated a weird hobby since my college times to store all the chat texts I receive. ‘The Love So far’ is inspired from the texts that I received from the one who I think made me feel what living is. I went on reading the texts and the conversation became as animated as yesterday’s talk. I kept my mobile aside, sauntered in the balcony watched the moon grouped by the stars. The only thing now we had in common was the one I gazed now – sky laden stars. All lost was the way we had come in life to achieve the dreams which we thought would be realized and got daggered away in the end…! I closed my eyes, which missed its eyelids resting far somewhere and wrote this…!

I feel her fingers in my palm…
   Rubbing and scratching it all the time
Her tender thumbs and shiny nails
   All this she does to make me go smile…
Often I feel her lips fused onto mine…
   Making me dumb; putting me out of sign
It cuts me off from the world sometimes…
   Animating my warmth; flashing back the rosy time…
I feel the clouds shaping like her gestures
   Makes me laugh whenever I move alone
And when I see her radiant face dancing over
   Makes me look mad as I move along…
My love for her and the way I miss her
   Flows from my blue pen and floats on paper…
With I exposed to the world to compete...
  And the aboriginal soul left somewhere to feel incomplete...!!!

Amit Purohit The Lone Soldier


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Puppets To Life

                                                  Puppets To Life


The puppets to life are here again…
Dancing on the tunes of time…
The stage remains the same; The puppets animate
Times pass; Age still Dominates....

Often I miss my shadow…
Which dances to some alien lights
The sun still rises and dons the dawn...
And winds rattle the sandy dumes....

My heart still feels the fragrance of the rose....
Lost and dried somewhere in my college books
The clock still misses the rosy time…
It timed for a while before sand storms blew

The puppets to life are here again
Dancing on the tunes of time...
Time changes; People change...
The sunken emotions and those dried roses still remain the same....

-Amit Purohit The Lone Soldier

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The Blind Soul

 

The Blind Soul

Life is like standing aimlessly at the sea shore

       Watching the waves frozen as the time roars

The blind soul watches the sun set

       Thinking of the ultimate loss life had met

The nights daunt the energy all the time

       And drains life out of the lifeless soul

Time still roars and dreams dread

       Destiny still ditches; Destination dodges

The blind soul still saunters the frozen shore

      With a sunken hope ignoring life's sore

A hope that someday the frozen waves may flow

      And the water striking the sun rays may glow

Someday the dying dream may come alive

      The blind soul may live till the way it tried. . .! ! !

Sometimes in life you never know where you are heading still you move with a hope that some day you will reach to the destination you thought when you began your journey...!

Amit Purohit
The Lone Soldier

Her Sky...

Her Sky. . .

Missing her is like looking at the sky. . .

With laughing faces peeping in my eye…

Feeling her is like feeling the air…

The more it blows the more I glare…

Treating her is like treating the verve…

Wherever I am, I feel her nerve…

Loving her is like loving my life…

The more I live the early it dies…

Living with her is like living my dreams…

The more I see her the more it means…

Finally leaving her is like leaving my spirit…

The less I think; the more I get into it…!

---Amit Purohit (The Lone Soldier)

GET/PGET The Kaam Wali mode (Humour)

GET/PGET The KaamWali Mode…


(Pun Intended, To be read in a lighter mode, No personal experiences, Mere observations)

      In an organization with more than 40,000 employees and over scores of sub units you may find a diversified set of personalities and diversified ways of executing various jobs coming one’s way. The nature of jobs is so varied that the approach to it needs to be branched out so as to complete it in an engineered way. Diversification helps as well as hurts sometimes. This story is not about praising or condemning a diversified company neither it is to give ‘fundas’ over it. Diversification leads to involvement of people from various disciplines as well as various backgrounds. This leads to inter exchange of tips and tricks of making things move over the roll. Interesting psychologies build up, clash and sometimes converts into procedures (SOPs). In a cluster of some 300 odd people with a mammoth job at hand you can have more than psychologies than the head count. One such interesting psychology or one can say brain pattern we are going to discuss in a lighter vein is the GET/PGET psychology. GET/PGET is basically an abbreviation for the newly joined Graduate/Post Graduate Engineer Trainees.

    He is a new contestant to the cycle. He moves around following all the rules of the company and in the process comes to know how to evade the system and get things done forgetting the rules. He is the one who is authorized to do all the tasks over the phone but not on paper. Hence in the jugglery he never gets credit to the things he does and at the end he gets sarcasm from the top notches saying that the training he received since a year is futile. This in turn created a feeling of vengeance in many of the GETs/PGETs. Some of them run for MBA/M.tech, while others go for a job change. Rest clash day in and out with their respective bosses and keep forwarding mails, applying for online IPOs. The word training is basically an apocryphal for him as he never attains it. Even he does, he gets it on the subjects he had never listened to. Needless to say this lands in waiting for tea breaks, enjoying siesta and carry a face saying he was more interested than the facilitator. In PSUs the scene is more interesting. The fellow life in the classrooms for years never meets his seniors and sees his GM once in a blue moon. The world becomes a circle for him a complete circle where he thinks he is at the same level where he was. The only difference in now and then is the money and the follow ups. Follow ups more or less remain the same but the latter is now from strangers in a stringent way.

      The reader might be frustrated because he came here to read about the kaamwali mode which is still not discussed. A gold medalist from an esteemed university comes at the block. He copies and files everything that comes his way. More or less there are unrealistic miniscule projects in his hand which gets delayed due to reasons he can’t even deem of. Moreover, some of the people around add music to his party and he feels like listening Linkin Park/Metallica in the morning. People, more of situations around him make him enter the so called kaamwali mode. He is made to follow people more than to do his work. And the person he follows hates anyone following him. The more or less of the people he follows feels xenophobic when he is around. Days pass. These days makes him enter the kaamwali mode. And the brain pattern of taking decisions begins resembling to that of a kaamwali. We all are in the same mode but all of us are not at the same levels. Let me elaborate on this.

      The calendar just witnessed the dates of Holi. The holiday for Holi was on Monday. A GET/PGET takes holiday on Saturday packs his bag and drives to Daman to hang out. The gang of GETs promises their respective boses to come back on Tuesday and clear the pending work. They never return on Monday. The scene continues till Thursday. Kaamwali mode activated. This made me think and resemble them to my kaamwali who was fired when she did the same the third time. The levels to this mode increase as the GET/PGETs cruise their journey to their so called training to its zenith. Few days before the completion of training and prior to his stake being confirmed, he outbursts the tsunami of emotions in him. He catches his so called boss he never reports to and increases his adrenaline saying he will be leaving forever. My ailing grandma’s personal maid used to say this when she needed some of her old clothes or increment in her wages. The extreme mode of kaamwali activated…! Sometimes there are technical issues in the office and the boss never knows how to shoot such problems but he knows the one who can shoot it. He just offloads the contract and things get done. The mail around roves with he being in the BCC. This lets him down all the way. . . He goes back to the pathetic accommodation provided by the company and calls the one who he needs to talk daily and can’t help around. They too fight over the phone and worse are the mess when her mother’s call is in the waiting mode at the same nick. He takes the first piece of roti with his ailing mother discussing about the food there. His father inquires about his detoriating health.

      He disconnects the call, lights a cigarette sleeps under the towering sky with stars in his eyes and dreaming what he coveted to be and what he landed in…?! He powers the radio and the song it plays goes like this:

“Papa kehte hai bada naam karega, beta humara aisa kaam karega..!”

He covers his face with the blanket in a way that can stifle him, tries to forget the day and fine tunes his alarm clock.

A day comes in his life when he gets confirmed and a new GET/PGET enters the gang. The kaamwali mode never gets disengaged it gets shifted and the new kid on the block now faces the music. You are in the same mode reading this and trying to shift yourself from your regular monotonous Excel sheets…Isn’t it?!

(Pun Intended, To be read in a lighter mode, No personal experiences, Mere observations)

Amit Purohit The Lone Soldier

Mood

Mood…



1 April 2010.


It was a fool’s day. And the greatest fool I assume in my knowledge was me who was fooling his own conscience and doing what I never wished to. I freed my head from the safety helmet and gave my head a shake to drain the perspiration out. I saw the river flowing the way it could, the clouds roving the way it could and the sun light scorching my eyes the way it could. I walked out. I wished to walk till I fall. I went outside the premises and decided to move out. I wasn’t oblivious of the fact that I would get a grudge from some or the other person around the next morning. I sauntered out and boarded the bus to peace. I simply closed my eyes, thought the way I came in life and wrote this…


I remain in a deep sleep…
        All the time with my eyes open
Whatever I feel I never do…
        Whatever I do I never feel
I remain stuck in a place…
        And keep on planning to move places
Time seems to be stagnant as barren desert…
        Fumes of Flames puzzling the traveler
The color of currency makes me go blind…
        I being there since ages and the world turns around
I live in a state I can never define…
       The profit all dispersed and the loss all mine
Little do I move ahead in life…
       Complicating the process; Compromising all the time
Some find me confused other call me mad
       All I do is watch the show; smirking around…!

Amit Purohit The Lone Soldier

Hockey Cricket and Electricity

Hockey and Cricket


It was a Friday evening. My friends were all charged up as the date the calendar christened, marked the commencement of IPL (Indian Premiere League). I entered the so called common TV room. The room has it name correctly chalked as we all had only one TV between 80 people with the flickering cable signals coming in and out of the party. The same room where the crowd was boisterous, when India thrashed Pakistan by 4-1 in the ongoing hockey world cup. The same room where people were pumped up with the advertisement that asked to give our hearts to hockey and the company was somehow successful in gearing up its dying sales figures. People were almost moved by it and some of us promised themselves to follow every match India plays. I was happy seeing this. Our national game’s spirit was revived again. Days passed and so was the escalating spirit of the crowd. There were many like me who were ignorant of hockey rules. Whenever a hockey player used to hit the ball outside the ground we used to shout mocking and comparing it with a boundary in cricket. So was the fever of cricket at the back drop of our minds. Yet it was divulging with the ongoing hockey fever. I must call it flu. The reason being flu is short lived and so the love to hockey was…

I demanded some Maggi in the kitchen and entered the TV room. I saw 10 ten guys glued to TV. IPL’s opening ceremony was broadcasted. Nobody knew India was to take on Argentina and the half time was up. When India played its second match and ended with a 5-2 the same crowd was disappointed. And today they didn’t know India was lagging with 1-0 in the ongoing match. Moreover when they were bored by the advertisements in between IPL’s opening ceremony the tuned into some of the music channels that broad casted reality channels. Many of us even were in the notion that the hockey match was scheduled at 8:30 pm. Some of us even trashed the idea to watch it amidst the break time of IPL. Suddenly one good friend of mine entered and pleaded to tune into the hockey match. Nobody was bothered because India was struggling for the 7th place. Few of us know about IHL (Indian Hockey League) and its concept. Everybody look disinterested and was looking forward to Deepika’s performance. Such was the melting motion of a ten day emotion which hockey created. Debates were fired over the topic to christen cricket as the national game. And the prime squabble in support to it was India’s foiled attempt to qualify for the tournament. Indian, being a host nation got the opportunity to chuck in. A month ago, hockey players revolted for their wages and so were today these guys over Bjorn’s performance after Deepika’s.

BCCI, the richest cricketing board of world and FIH the one struggling for its existence. One who minted money out of the sport that ran in the veins of the 1 billion and the other played the national sport of the country donning that figure. Sometimes, I ponder what would have happened to hockey if it would have been clashed with IPL in means of time and dates. This made me think it is easier to create mass hallucination in a country like India. The same crowd who shunned the reality shows for hockey was unaware of the hockey match. This made me ground that over 45% of this country’s population needed prime and instant entertainment. It is not being supportive to hockey or condemning cricket. It is the wavering phases of the mindset of the class which thinks India would be the superpower by 2020 owing to them. Finally the poor boy pleaded everybody to tune into hockey and the crowd agreed. The TV screen flickered. The same ad sprang up. I smirked and walked out. I had something to write again. Personally speaking, it makes me no difference if it is FIH or BCCI, it is IHL, ICL or IPL. I got a concept to build upon and I was a happy man, although struggling to get a break in the newspaper to write something upon.

An interesting phenomenon occurred when I stepped in the elevator. Two of my friends were cursing IPL as some of its matches were clashing with the EPL (English Premier League). I was oblivious of the fact. But I was again a happy man as there was some sport other than cricket people think of. I reached the top floor and went to the balcony. I do this religiously in the morning and evening. The sunrise from the part of the sky where it kissed the river’s turn inspired me. And the dark sky around the river’s curve appealed me of its radiance the coming morning. Suddenly a mob hurled and arranged themselves in a circle. There was something flickering amidst them. Our locality was surrounded by a chain of slums. Those guys somehow managed a television set, pinned down the cable and looked forward to IPL. Cricket was in again.

I was planning to move downstairs after writing this to inquire about the winner of the spat. Suddenly the sunken light of the tube light over my head lost its luminance. GEB took over the spat. And my ears over heard people playing cricket in the verandah under the street light and waiting for the power cut to cease. They even bullied the GEB officials over the phone. They couldn’t afford to miss a ball. Cricket was in again…

I laughed aloud and this gave a final knock of kick to me for penning this lexis…!!!

Amit Purohit The Lone Soldier.

Lost N Found The MP3 Player Story

Lost N Found...

23 February 2010.
7:34 am.

I knew I was late by 4 minutes as per my regular schedule. I knew I would miss the bus to my company. As per my daily habit, I plugged in my 60 day old USB MP3 player in my ears and began running. It was obvious that I would lose the bus but the music in my ears pumped in some optimism in my head. I rushed to the bus stop and found the bus over there. I was happier than our milk man who fooled us daily by giving 100 ml lesser over a liter. I boarded the bus and got the shocker of my life. The late comers have occupied every seat except the one on which driver was seated. There were two guys sitting around the gear box. This wasn’t enough. I saw a girl with brown eyes whom I used to follow day in and out in the company premises. It was for her I used to board the earliest bust scheduled at 7:20am from our locality. Everything in my schedule was as per hers, Lunch at 1:30 instead of 12:30 and catching the earliest evening bus to home. This sometimes made my next morning sour when my boss discovered incomplete SAP codes of the balance material on his desk. I thronged the empty space around her seat and started reading in detail about the Bharti-Zain deal in the newspaper. The track called ‘Summer of 69’ made the atmosphere more vibrant for me. I always hear music on the maximum volume which sometimes raised the eyebrows of my counterpart as the music leaked from the headphones.

This was a habit since last 200 days. Newspaper to the left and music to the right I rushed to the bus that leads me to the place where I get work. I did this handy jugglery because I knew I was no engineer and the place where my office was a hard core engineering village. The news in the paper made my ambition brawnier to write one day for it and the music in the ears led me frame the tune I would play on my guitar and keyboard in the evening. My eyes roved around the ambience. I saw my friends laughing. I saw their lips moving but couldn’t hear them as the music in my ears refrained me to do so. The birds were covering the sky to garner their daily food. The scintillating lights of the old Chinese make music player of the bus were the root cause of the added frustration of engineers around. The world seemed to be a mute motion picture to me. The same sequence of events happened in the evening with an exception – the birds were returning home in a happier mood and so were my friends.

I completed one of the tenacious journeys of my life. I stood all the 45 minutes to my office. However it was a habit in my college days. But the only difference was the eyeballs pinching me all the way. I thanked Samsung to make this miraculous device called USB MP3 player that made my journey smooth. I was oblivious of the events fixed for me in the upcoming hours. I sat for breakfast. They call it Sev – Khaman here and ate it with zeal. I abhorred it. I took 2 dry slices of bread, milk and sat in a corner. The music was still on in my ears. The reason behind it was the saddest Bollywood tracks played by the canteen manager. I love music and couldn’t resist somebody polluting my ears. She sat exactly 60 degree north to me. I know I might have got this wrong because I am bad at deciding directions. For the first time, I unplugged the device, paused the music and kept it on table. I was completely lost in her. The scene was magical when the wintery rays of sun landed on her hair resulting in a luminous figure. I was completely lost in the vista. Suddenly my friend patted on my back and said it was 3 minutes to go. There is a ridiculous rule in our office regarding the electronic attendance. Even if we recorded our attendance 1 minute late via our so called ‘smart’ card, it showed a ‘L’ from the HR in our time sheet. L was for late. Three Ls for a trainee means a call from the HR in his den with a smiling assistant smirking over your slaughter. I had already 2 Ls in the last week. So, I rushed to the punching machine like a Ninja. All in vain I was late by 35 seconds.

24 February 2010.
7:20 am

I entered the office and found my boss missing. I was happier with the third L. My mail box informed me something positive about our project which was stuck since a year. The control panels were ready and we would finish the rest the coming week. I conspired to march to the GM’s cabin opposite to me to inform this. I planned all the way, did some homework, checked some past delivery reports and was ready to get in. Suddenly, I heard my colleague’s cell ringing. My favorite song was his ring tone and it came to my senses that I had lost my USB player. I thronged the canteen in no time and inquired about it with the care taker. He had no clues. I made him understand about how it looks like and on which table I left it. He told me to inquire again in the afternoon. And the answer was obvious. I lost it…!
It was difficult for me to imagine the 1 hour ride of the bus every morning and the same in the evening without music. However I revived myself with a chance to meet the GM. I did the homework all day because he was witty in his questions. At the end of the day I entered his cabin like the Jack Sparrow and informed him about the developments. To my surprise he asked me some project I was never working on. He grilled me hard and blew my mind away with some stagger sharpened remarks, In the morning, I lost the music and now I was facing it from the top notch. I left the office premises with a broken aorta; the music could have soothed me…!
I boarded the bus. The mute motion picture now turned like a cacophony to me. I was one of those who seldom slept in the journey and got bored all the way. Initially it was unbearable. One of my friends sitting in front of the seats cracked a joke over some idiotic advertisement over the radio and I laughed a lot. I began hearing the sounds of nature. I started sharing my comments over the joke. For the first time in the span of 200 days my journey was joyful despite being all fucked up at the office. I heard the chuckling birds with one of my friends sharing his pair of ear phones with me. I realized the joy of sharing in listening and then laughing over the audio. The morning was better than anticipated.

I used to be all isolated with the dull newspaper as my adherence to music made me do so. I left my haunted room. For the first time I heard the birds chuckle and crossing the rising sun. The milkman’s smirk and shrewdness in his voice made me felt like an alien to all this. The sound of the empty glasses in the chai wala’s rack made me feel the ambience around. I heard all the morning greetings from my friends. The greetings to which I used to answer with a smiling nod. I boarded the bus the mute motion picture began picking its melody. I became an active part of the early morning gossip of yesterday and the way my friends were going to fool their respective bosses for the day. I heard her voice that began chanting some Sanskrit verses in murmurings… The ‘Jai Hind’ from the security guard made me feel some pride. I lost my USB player loaded with some 100 odd songs that I iterated every morning and found the nature in its own sense to me..!

The world came to voice for me…!

Amit Purohit The Lone Soldier

You are Gone. . .

I very seldom do this. One of my blog readers jolted down some of the lines in his flavor. Those lines appealed me a lot. It took me seconds to create a limerick out of it. But due to some illness, I was out of the blogging arena. But I am back with a new one.. Pain and happy ending packed in one...

I hope you like this one...


You are Gone...

Now that you’re gone, I realize
How much you meant to me.
My loss is wider than a starless night sky,
And deeper than a stormy sea.

I miss the comfort of your sweet love,
Your absolute devotion;
Now I’m a fountain of endless tears,
A pool of sad emotion.

They tell me I should move on with life,
That time will heal my pain;
I smile; I nod; I agree with them,
While I slowly go insane..

I am now moving the way I can
Like a lifeless soul
I feel I can and I will
That makes me go to my destiny

I know things will be fine for me
And I will be better than before
I hope the best is still to come
And love in my life is still to cherish

The sun shine is yet to come
That will enlighten within
And I all waiting and wishing to be mad..
Mad with happiness waiting to unlock…

Originally Created by Saideep
Revisited by Amit Purohit The Lone Soldier

I am back from the maximum city. I wrote this poem a week back. But time flew like the hasting birds making it to their home in the evening..

This is a sequel to my poem 'The Passing Days'. It is called 'The Passing Days Continue..


The Passing Days Continue…

Again the sun rises and a dawn begins…
The same smoke and the same siren rings

Zephyr in ambience and the lone soldier at war…
That never ends on the pages of satisfaction

My clutching hands finding the tablet…
That soothes my soaring back…

Which aches a lot as I remain glued...?
To the screen I stare day in and out

My motionless pace and the change so seldom
The loss so dear and the soul so ridden

The free soul covets some space
And the poetic heart badly needs some ink…

All I could do is kill the burning time…
Burning…my dreams and draining my energy

Repent on what I am doing now,
And get paid at the bloody end as obvious…

The same smoke and the same sun
The free birds and the soul buttoned…

The bloody time stifling the free soul
And I bold enough to hold the smile so foul…

--- Amit Purohit (The Lone Soldier)

The passing days

I hold the smoke in my hand...
That emanates from my beer coated lips..
The setting sun in front of my eyes..
And the dream all sunken to catch the clouds..
From the ringing alarm to the rising sun..
I rush to the place where i get work..
The latter never turns out actually..
And the former always kicks me bad..
The dull daily where i wish to land..
And the music in the ears soothes my spirit..
The only sun that inspires me...
And its rays that unleashes the energy within...
The light that illuminates her face...
And i think the radiance all in me...
For a moment i feel transcendental...
For a moment i feel she is next to me...
All alleviated...and all pacified...
Again the day begins that gets my soul drilled..
Again i return to the place where i sleep
With the smoke in my hand emanating from dry lips...
The latter is now a habit..
And the former never turns out to be...
The same setting sun and the birds returning home..
The sunken dream that i just see...
All this has become my life whatsoever it may be...
All this is what i do whenever i feel lone...!!!


--- Amit Purohit (The Lone Soldier)

From the lone soldier's collection.

Sometimes I get confused…

Often I get confused when I walk…
Often I get stuck when I talk…
I don’t know where I am heading…
Neither do I know where I may end…
The only thing I know is my art…
That writes my heart out on paper…
And keeps on dying as the days go…
All I can do is to write and tear…
That makes me never sad and fear…
The fear of my dreams that never came true…
It’s time to tear and forgive the fear…
Forgive myself for not pushing in…
And walk the black pavements to give in…
My dreams, My love and everything that moves around…
---Amit Purohit (The Lone Soldier)