To: The controller, Disaster Board of Examinations

Respected  Disaster board of Examinations,

This is to bring to your kind notice that there is serious increase in causalities and failing people, year on year due to poor education system and flaw in your exam patterns. I, on behalf of the entire disaster stuck council, am writing to you requesting  changes in your disaster exam structure . Listed below are our obligations for your actions please.

A Common syllabus

 If it’s a common test, there needs to be a common syllabus! Its globalization era dude.  So grow up and give us everything that we need everywhere and then take test. Don’t pocket your resources and leave us to ponder. A broken bottle of elixir or an habituating venom, divide and give to us in stake. Because our teacher forgot to teach us how to share!

Pre announced exam time table

 Train us all with one skill at a time! Building bridges, digging wells or fighting fire are entirely different concepts and hence not to be graded simultaneously during the same season. You flood a portion of yours, suck every drop of water from another, burn down jungle elsewhere and still expect us to survive on you whole ? So please, at least tell us what exam it is next, so that we will be well prepared.  

Relaxed exam time

You know how big the textbook these days are. If there is so much to study, of course! there is gonna be enough to write. We haste and scribble and are still not completing your entire exams paper. I seriously request from our entire council to give us enough time to de-silt your bed, built boats and dams, bore well, gather funds and prepare enough bund to hold your rains. You, in no time ring the bell and drain blood down from every face on the open exam ground.

Open book test

Next is the request for an open book test. We have grown up googling brother!  Be it a scorching sun or irresistible tide, we can easily pass if you don’t do shut down our network signals. But you do that as the first thing and make our assessments ever more harder.

No” Out-of-syllabus” questions please!

You are already screwing up hard even if the Deccan dries or Bramaputra  floods. Out of no where why do you bring in new new questions and hardships every year. We are all simple humans with nominal IQ’s. So kindly be merciful on us to first teach and then take test.

Looking forward for your kind consideration and get a positive revert from your end on this regard!

Yours faithfully

Just another exam feared student

And This Distant Music Shall Never Fade

On a phenomenal day even if did the sun desist

 to burn and forgo her blaze,

Her light would not relinquish its radiance 

and her charm shall never melt.

Even the earth, if lose her left over patience 

and the inner fire of her’s suffice,

Her eternal love would not hurt 

and its essence shall never evaporate.

Even if the moon turns clear with no craters 

and cease to take changing phase,

Her wildness would not distort 

and her warmth shall never separate.

Even if the oceans undress her depth 

and summon back her every unceasing wave,

Her secrets would not untangle 

and her grace shall never degrade.

And even if nature get aged 

and all her greens turn grey,

Her symphony would not tame 

and this distant music shall never fade.

In memory of my Rajathi..

You built a mystic world for me and almost effortlessly became my home. A world that was naive and biased. Biased in favour of me. Where everything was absolute and understood. Where , even most fragile of beings would gain strength, simply by thy touch, by thy glare, and now.. by thy memory.

Vision did fade from those oceanic eyes, but it still flared with voice! Your raw and recklessly hanging wrinkles which i used to pull and play, your protruding green veins, countable strands of hair, your hard grown nails and rubber tooth, your suspicious stare, your body wobbling laughter, your sitting and sleeping, your slow reading, your pathetic singing, your eye flooding giggle, your shy, your tickle and every miniscule detail of your top to toe housed such high degree of cuteness that any fastidious creature would easily fall and sink into!

 Alas! What a loss  for thy precious five stone mookuthi! Instead of shining up on your nose, lighting up itself and your face, it is lying locked up wasting it's life in here. You walked up and down the outside concrete stairs and earth beside this house bare foot, not willing to taint your soft, specially made shoes. Now that pair is still lying new , without having a fat cracked foot to stand under. Our  cupboard still confines your warmth, your essence, your smell amid each of its eight yard saree folds. The white polished walls carry your palm prints fair and unfaded.. I forgave each time when u blurted out mistakenly my brother's name instead of mine,. I remained calm when u soiled and coloured my white Lenin shirt in the name of washing, I rushed away as if unnoticed when u stealthy stuffed extra food into my tiffin box.. I didn't yell at you when those pickle bottles that u had slipped silently into my baggage stained my clothes.. but this time you have crossed it.. and I won't spare you for this!

Historic life you lived and most gracefully you did leave. But to our mystic world of fairy tale and abyss, a dead end this will always remain. And here, smoking your memories, adult by thine absence ..stoic and still I stand, indifferent to pleasure or pain.

The Detached Turtle

Hey Baby Turtle! Have you heard about your mother?

The Birth
On a cold bewitching night just as this, along with hundreds of others, your mom hatched out gazing up, looking at those stars up there. She was drawn by the chemistry of waters and hustling currents into the sea ahead, well but then, who would'nt? Dodging all predators imaginable, she carried herself into the turbulent waters knowing little about her tough "Lost Years" ahead.

The Juvenile Age
The vast ocean held multitudes enough to teach her, to test her and gift her. Knowing less about her strength, she surfed mercilessly across the brine all through her " Lost Years" in search of forage, in search of mate, in search of herself!

The Adult
She was wandering breathlessly without any dream, desire or direction until you! In you , your mom found her purpose baby. Carrying you within, she urged to return to this same land where she was born, to honor her birth. So that way, after years of expedition, she anchored herself on this shore to nest you.

After nesting, she buried you all intact beneath the sand under the grasp of nature. Just for those few minutes, however exhausted, she gave you all the care that she could offer. She disguised the nest flat, danced over it, dusted off the trace along with her tears and scrolled back into the oceans, leaving you once for all!

That was your mother, my baby girl...

And it's your turn now. You have an entire ocean ahead to swim over. Off you go my child. And remember to return back like your mother! Strong! Duty bond! and DETACHED!