I am fine

Stuck in Sunday eve traffic, you’re getting bored as heck,
You’ve reached the end of your newsfeed, there’s nothing more to check.
A boy walks by, his dirty clothes make you frown,
And then you think “Why should I care? I’m going to the best pizza place in town!”

His shoulders drooping with dejection and not school bag,
The boy’s pants are his dead father’s, his shirt’s a former rag.
No, he doesn’t have a soul in this world to look after him,
His little brother waits in his slum, unbelievably joyous to the brim.
Earlier in the morning he came first in his class,
He was promised by his elder brother that he’ll gift anything he asks.
The innocent little soul doesn’t know how much his brother gets kicked around,
His hungry stomach blurts out “I want the best pizza in town! ”
The boy masked his helplessness with a smile, he showed nothing in front.
One pizza costs more than his salary for an entire month. Continue reading “I am fine” →

The Elephant Who Learned How to Climb

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No one ever asked him what he wanted to be. Ever since his first steps, his father showed him off to his friends and boasted, “Look at his strong legs, he’ll surely be a Climber!”. The Climber. The one that his parents couldn’t be, despite their burning desires.

So when he was supposed to play with his other friends from the jungle, the little elephant was snatched away from the playground and enrolled to a “jumping school”. Specialized teachers like kangaroos and grasshoppers had been enlisted to clear the basics of these little admitted kids. It was their sole responsibility to train them so that they could be ready for the next step, climbing.

The elephant tried hard. Really hard. Animals laughed as he tried to jump with his round belly, balancing himself with his long snout. Tears got mixed with the dirt as he fell on his face everyday. His sobs were masked by the laughter of his classmates. Still he didn’t give up. He did not want to see his parents upset. In a few years he learnt to leap over small shrubs and bushes, which was enough to get him enrolled into the climbing classes. But maybe it was not worth his bleeding tusks.

Climbing classes included more specialized teachers like the bear and the cheetah. They were considered the best, since they had once taught even a goat to reach the top branch of the famous Old Oak at the end of the jungle. Their other accomplished students, the orangutan and the raccoon, had their pictures carved on every tree bark in the jungle. The elephant parents were pleased to see that they had brought their son to the right place. But no one asked him if he wanted to learn it.

Soon the judgement day arrived. Continue reading “The Elephant Who Learned How to Climb” →

The Jar

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“One order fulfilled, one turn of the lid”
I will never forget this phrase, or its variations, for the rest of my short life.

I still remember the day when I opened my eyes and saw that ugly opaque lid above me, the lid of the jar in which I was kept. Looking around, I found that my jar had only four things inside. A bed, a cupboard, me and my thoughts. The last thing was the dearest to me. In my thoughts I could see myself flying above the hills with the birds, occasionally coming down to eat fruits from the trees and drink from the river. In my thoughts I was not a captive of the jar.

Fortunately the walls were transparent, so I gazed outside. There were others, similar to me, but different in every way. All of them dressed the same. Neither did they talk to each other, nor did they seem to think. Those robots seemed to roam around lifelessly in specific paths at specific times.

At first I was least bothered about my situation. The cupboard gave me almost everything I could ever ask for. Books. Pictures. Food. Fancy clothes. But not people. Not freedom. Soon, I longed for someone to talk to me. I longed to see the bright blue sky for once. So one day, I went towards the nearby wall and called out. Continue reading “The Jar” →

The Carver

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Hands bleeding, blood and sweat streaming, he’s done something laudable,
Twenty hours of carving rock in hell, he did the impossible.
The ending siren tore through the ears and cried with a shrill,
“Behold! It’s a living stone swan, but yet it stands still”.
The carver gives out a sigh, his smile knows no bounds,
The audience goes crazy, but his rivals don’t make sounds.
The teary eyed winner is taken to the factory owner, who says:
“Congratulations carver! You’ve done the best one, by God’s grace!
Look at all those feathers, they seem ruffled and yet so clean!
The texture, strength and balance, it looks so pristine!
Its eyes have life in them, as if God carved them Himself,
Its elegance is breath-taking, totally top of the shelf!”
The carver can’t hear them, his dream has come true,
He did something that everyone had told him he couldn’t do.
He reached a place similar to where his idols had been ;
Like Shakespeare did with King Lear, and Ronaldo with his feet.
The owner is still in awe, “How many nights didn’t you sleep?”
“How many days did you train?”
“Astounding! Just lay on this bed here,
And we’ll take out your brain.” Continue reading “The Carver” →