Sarvam ----Sundram-----Gachami
Vidham------------------ Santam

The priest recited the long mantra and which I had to repeat.

Sitting at the ghat along a sacred lake and repeating the long tongue- twisting and never ending words repetition was not an easy task. I was relieved and glad when it came to an end. The brahmin scooped some water from the pool in his hand and raised his hands to let the water seep through while at the same time repeating another mantra which luckily I had not to repeat (gods seemed to bestowing on me their blessings) and saving me from another torture.

The author has been practicing his art of writing since a long time, stories-long and short, into which he tried to find a mirror of reality so as to envisage reality better, when he penned his thoughts on a blank sheet of paper. Nevertheless he found it a daunting task to express his thoughts in black and white on paper. Initially this blank sheet has provided him with all sorts of problems. It seemed to him as if it was stretching miles and miles and to fill it was a daunting enterprise in itself.

The countryside is barren and of little use to the eyes of farmers and agriculturalist but it is of much interest to the people with different outlook. It is specially so to eyes of the people from the towns and cities who long for any country scenes to refresh their souls, supposedly anything other than man-made ugliness will do.

Even in a barren tract of land, there is much to see and admire especially for urban folks who are surrounded by man made structures, which cater mostly for utilitarianism without any recourse to the aesthetic effects. If you look closely there are more dimensions to natural scenes than there are in man made structures.

You can see a woman most of the mornings in many of the central city’s ready breakfast places. She is old and ugly, with a mane of white hair, which give her a menacing look she pretended to be stupid but if you look closely into her face, there is a hint of some controlled intelligent mischief look as if trying to put people off by paying attention to her.

As far as one can remember, there had been dense rain forests covering the country and for a long time it had been the target of commercial loggers and colonial exploiters. As a matter of fact the country was ‘discovered’ by English pirates as a shelter from the high seas when it got tough going for the pirates, being chased by their enemies.

Bishen came of a poor family and had a terrible childhood confronting scarcity, want and hunger. It affected him greatly and he began to ponder on his life’s miserable situation and this adversity made him a thinking man. He began to hate the filth and poverty in which he was brought up and there were days when the whole family had nothing to eat and went to bed on empty stomach. Lot of nightmares ensued as a result, when he was pursued across some burning planes by a skeleton monster of hunger with a trishul in his hand and with that he pierced his chest. That pain brought him out of his sleep with a scream when he realized that his stomach was actually rumbling with spasm of hunger pain.

In the middle of 19th century, a lighthouse was built along the country’s western coast, a coast with its turbulent sea and many shipwrecks. To build a structure like that was not an easy task as it might have been the first such structure in the world.

Soon tenders were put out, inviting engineers and companies to put in their bids. Most engineers were reluctant to undertake such a risky and untried undertaking and only some fool- hardy engineers applied. These were the innovators and had full confidence in their abilities.

‘Red blooded passionate male wanted by a beautiful female, for fun and loving.’

He came across that advert in the personal columns of the local newspaper, thought about it for a few days and then replied to the advert and forgot about it.

One morning he received a letter, which was sent to him via the newspaper office, from one of their box numbers. He opened it anxiously and found a short letter written in a lady’s hand.

‘Dear Passionate male

Please come to such--- an address, next Monday. It is an office where I work as a secretary and will be free after work to talk. Call after 6pm.

Passionate female.’

There was an uncle in a certain town who was forced to go abroad to look for better job to increase prospects for his family. He worked hard in spite of numerous obstacles and difficulties so as to save money in foreign land and look after his family in his native country.

Like so many people, I occasionally suffer from nightmares and I have noticed that these generally depends on the state of health I am in. I often suffer from indigestion and have noticed that when I go to bed with an upset stomach, the frequency of these is increased.

I reckon that our pit of stomach control the energy creation from the food we eat and then to carry it around the body. The body consumes the greater amount of energy for its operation of brain and hence the mind. Any malfunction in the pit of the stomach is bound to affect the mind, especially during sleep time.