Euthanasia...

Human life has dignity at every age, and taking of innocent lives can never be justified.

But what if the life loses a reason to live...

What if when life flashes in front of your eyes someday, all that you see is impending death...

Or what if life ceases to flash in front of your eyes...

'Euthanasia' is a very sensitive topic that needs to be addressed with a lot of care. I strongly believe that Man should be allowed to live and die with dignity.

My poem " Euthanasia " strives to take a deeper look into the psyche of a man without the will to live...

Death denied; though abandoned by life;

I lie on my bed and stare.

Stare at the blank ceiling of my room

And try to recollect, for how long I’ve been here.

As blurred images from the past, flood my mind;

And reminiscences of a fine young gentleman

That was I some years back; come to my memory.

Not of this decrepit old man, that I am today;

Old not in terms of years but suffering

For I have suffered more than I can endure.

Paralysed from neck downwards, I plead

Death be mine; for I have loved you,

Loved you more than anything else in my life.

But life they say is precious

And should be lived to the fullest;

What if it holds only misery for you.

But then today I wish to die

For living is, but a banal existence;

And let no man say, that I longed for death

Because I did not love my life; I did.

But I loved death more, much more.

The wonder machine...

" The Wonder Machine " could have been versed better as well...

Till the twentieth century the greatest invention was the wheel

From the Paleolithic to the Neolithic age man moved ahead with zeal;

Before the Phoenix rose once again and with it did a machine

A machine so incredible, which the world had never seen .

One more hint I can give you is that Babbage was it’s father

You need not get surprised because the machine is the computer .

The computer which brought forth the 2nd Industrial Revolution

And the revolution nurtured an amazing sense of passion;

A passion to challenge the formidable unknowns

And to know the unknowns, the people would unturn every stone .

The digits it could handle were one and zero

George Boole became the world’s greatest hero;

ENIAC and EDSAC were the world’s first devices

They performed such tasks that bailed us out of crisis .

Internet brought the world more closer

E-mail and chat rooms were a result of this wonder .

Robots could work till Eros would turn old

Their efficiency and accuracy was something to behold;

Artificial Intelligence was a miracle, which people hardly knew

Before Spielberg in AI proved it to be true .

The computer is a phenomenon, beyond compare

For it accomplishes that, which others do not even dare .

A dream comes true...

Read Jeff Sackmann's article, " 750 or Bust! ", and cannot deny the fact that it left me on a high, specially the paragraph where he writes...

" You'd probably agree that it's important to have realistic goals. To set such goals, you need to know something about the goals you're setting ... and I suspect that a lot of people pick their target GMAT score without knowing enough about the challenges ahead.

I say this because I've been hearing from an awful lot of people lately who are determined to score a 750 on the GMAT. That's a 98th percentile score--and, in case you needed reminding, it's curved against a very, very motivated pool of fellow test-takers.

Now, I don't want to discourage anyone from shooting for the stars. But it's important to recognize a few things.

First, no business school in the world has a median GMAT score above 720. That means every single MBA program you could possibly be applying to is accepting half of their applicants with GMAT scores below 720. " 

I wrote my GMAT today and scored 750 with a maximum achievable 51 in the Quantitative Section and a 39 in the Verbal Section.

It has been a long cherished dream to do my MBA from the hallowed institutions of the world and finally...

Finally I have an opportunity to do so...

I sojourn on to pursue my dreams as you pursue yours...  

Desire...

One of my very early poems which I think I would be able to write differently if I wrote it today...

In this world of a billion men

Who lust for power, money and fame.

I ventured out to discover

What man really desires;

Do we wish for love and peace as well

Or only glory, honour and plentiful wealth.

And I met a young lad in his teens

An aspiring engineer; he said he was.

Some distance further, a young lady I met;

A social worker, toiling for a noble cause.

And all whom I got acquainted with

Had lofty ideals and thoughts sacred.

And desired to be someone important in life;

And I realized the truth; the simple reason

Why we men are unhappy still.

For I saw and met all but one

One who would desire to be a good human being.

11th September...

If there is one day in this decade that changed the way we perceived life, it would be 11th, September, 2001...

Life was uncertain, but this singular incident transcended all levels of uncertainty.

How would it feel to stare at the Wright Brothers' invention darting at you at around 400 miles per hour ?

How would it feel to experience a free fall from the 100th floor of a tower ? 

I penned " 11th September, 2001 " on the next anniversary of the terror attacks that changed the dimensions of life...

A pile of dust in which lay the twin tower

Brought an end to the dominance of the Superpower .

America was no longer “ The Invincible Nation ”

For the collapse of the towers, had shaken her foundation ;

The motive behind the attack was quite unknown

As the airplanes, were into the building flown .

Laser guided missiles aren’t as accurate as them ever

As Wright’s invention was on 11th September ;

Ground Zero symbolized this monumental blunder

In which, were demolished structures that touched the blue yonder .

The Pentagon too wasn’t spared a thought

In this ghastly inhuman plot ;

A plot that tarnished an entire nation’s image

Made the citizens of the world solemnly pledge.

“ Every step would be taken so that no blood flows

Of the innocent people in such dastardly shows ; ”

But as the world still reeks of such heartless slaughters

How do we get back our gift of laughter ?

Life...

This one could have been versed better as well...

We failed to realize the true meaning of life

Nor could we comprehend the worth of sacrifice .

We were supposed to be the Greatest Creation on Earth

Unrepentant though we are at having degraded our worth ;

Responsible are we wholly, for this tragic state,

For warfare and combat, have determined our fate .

“ Where the mind is without fear ” exists no more

Anger and hatred being the only wealth in store ;

This Supreme Being, whose talent was great

But lost has he it in a disgraceful state .

We get just a lifetime to prove our worth

And make should we the most of it from our very birth ;

We were born to fly across the sky

And rise above perils, however high .

But as our enemies threaten our very survival

Challenged do we stand against such rivals ;

Defeat we have to such foes any,

And change we shall our Destiny …

A stranger in my abode...

This is one of my earlier poems that I believe could have been versed better...

Where was the muddy lane, where I walked bare feet?

And the lake where I spent half a day;

And from where did these roads of stones and concrete

And skyscrapers, replace the old houses of clay?

And where were my friends, I left long ago

And my buddies who acted in the pantomimes;

As no face in the crowd, could I conjure

For twenty years was no trifle of a time.

And why looked so sad; the old banyan tree?

Where I spent my blissful evenings

A friend and guide, it was to me

Had befriended none since our parting.

I would talk to it for hours at a stretch

And on anything under this constant sun;

And the letters, I would on its bark warily etch

Seemed to have faded into oblivion.

I had expected everything to be as same as before

Even the barren lands where grass refused to grow,

But a flourishing township and much more

Waited, when I returned from Heathrow.

For time had never been taught to wait

And as I looked down the concrete road,

I could barely recognize our own chalet

And a stranger I felt in my own abode.

A few earlier poems ...

In the following two months, I look forward to posting my earlier poems, ones which I wrote in school...

After penning the " Magic of Mathematics ", my schoolfriends persuaded me to write one each on Physics, Chemistry and Biology as well. 

" Physics is Fun " followed...

When the laws of nature lay buried in the ocean floor;

An emphatic “ Eureka ” by Archimedes showed us the door

Through which man would swim into a colossal shore

Of knowledge, which was further explored by Bernoulli’s oars .

Then came up the unquestionable superiority of Mother Earth;

Which the eccentric Copernicus proved wrong without dearth

Of evidence; and the superiority of the Sun was proclaimed

Which was further enlightened by Galileo’s birth .

With the emergence of Newton; Physics took a new turn;

With the discovery of gravity on the apple’s return

With a momentum that did earn - “ The Laws of Mechanics ”

An incredible thing to learn !

When the world asked for the direction of heat flow;

The maverick Joule on the Physics world did bestow

The Laws of Thermodynamics; elaborated further

By Carnot’s engine show .

When Faraday and Maxwell came to the forefront;

The genius in them made possible an electrical stunt

That laid the foundations of the electromagnetic world

And legends like Einstein were brought in the hunt .

A belief long held was that mass was constant;

Plank and Einstein changed it in an instant

Came up the Theory of Relativity

E = mc² was proof of their ability .

Glory, laud and honour unto Physics the king;

This thro’ countless ages all humans sing .

" The Domain of Chemistry " would not be too far behind either...

It all started with air;

When Dalton in his lair

Proved it to be a mixture

The greatest gift of Nature .

Lavoisier predicted the existence of inert nitrogen;

Whilst Priestley concluded it had life-giving oxygen

In a proportion five to one

To contradict them; there was none .

Mendeleev thought that the periodicity of elements;

Relied on their atomic weight; “ What a great amazement !”

Before Moseley broke the people’s prolonged slumber

By changing atomic weight to number .

Enhanced it further did the genius Neils Bohr;

The world started ringing “ yeh dil maange more ”

And the genius once more established again

The stability of the electron to the chemistry kingdom’s gain .

Rutherford and Thomson are names one cannot miss;

The fact that we had them gives us a sense of bliss

The discovery of Polonium by Marie Curie

Opened up new realms of nuclear chemistry .

In 1828, Wohler synthesized urea;

Thus organic chemistry proved a totally new area

To be explored by scientists as intelligent and able

As Grignard and Wittig who got the Nobel .

Came up the question of the mysterious aroma;

Which Kekule said was not an enigma

But a hexagonal structure called benzene

From which we get phenol and toluene .

From rainbow clouds there flow not; drops so bright to see

As they do so from the Domain of Chemistry.

" Biology - The Origin of Life " was hot on the trail of its competitors...

What life was; remained a mystery;

God sent Aristotle and all was history

Plant life into trees and shrubs, did he classify

And the five elements of life, did he specify .

This myriad of flora and fauna one had to name;

And the kingdom classification was Linnaeus’ claim to fame

The “ Origin of life ” was one of Darwin’s hunches

On the island of Galapagos it was confirmed by the finches .

Whilst the knowledge of the micro-world remained confined in a shell;

Hooke grabbed the limelight on discovering the cell

And in this cell, did Mendel find a mysterious presence

Whose experiments gave us the Laws of Inheritance .

As anatomy assumed the pole position;

It was left to Harvey to demonstrate blood circulation

When the body-organs were dissected by Vesalius

Then did the study of medicine actually become serious .

And while Jenner emerged on the sly;

Smallpox was eradicated in the twinkling of an eye

Fleming discovered penicillin, a true panacea

What couldn’t it cure; hay fever, whooping cough and even pneumonia .

The new era of biology was started by the adventurous few;

Among whom Watson and Crick were the famous two

Their model of DNA was something to behold

Since then of the deep secrets of life has it told .

Biology has come a long way from grass to genes;

And of all untold mysteries, it has spilled out the beans .

  

The magic of mathematics...

" Pure mathematics is, in its way, the poetry of logical ideas. "

Mathematics has engrossed me ever since my childhood. I hope to do my MBA and join a Financial institution where I'm able to indulge in some mind-boggling number crunching...

" The Magic of Mathematics " is my first poem and will always be close to my heart just as the subject is...

In ancient times in an unknown zone

Were the seeds of mathematics sown;

As the seeds starting growing into trees

The fruits bore the solution of many mysteries .

Geometry was born and its Father was Euclid

The world was amazed at what he had accomplished;

Descartes ventured out with a point to prove

Put Euclid’s work on the coordinate-axes and made all approve .

Twenty years of effort resulted in Napier’s log

The emergence of Trigonometry was one more cog

In the Wheels of Fortune; now in its zenith position

Since it was the beginning of Pythagoras, the maths magician .

Newton came along and put the world in a shock

When they saw the tree growing faster than Jack’s Beanstalk;

Induction and Binomial were no less in worth

Though he was also responsible for Calculas’ birth .

Then came the problem with the square root of minus one

Which Euler and De Moivre solved with much grace and elan;

All numbers are Complex Numbers is what they declared

“ Wow! They are geniuses ” is the belief people shared .

Boole, the mastermind, brought with him the finest hour of glory

Boolean algebra was a totally different story;

“ Mathematics is the Queen of Science ” is what Gauss proclaimed

We knew that from the ancient times is what the people exclaimed !

And as I ponder over the exploits of Nash’s “ Beautiful Mind ”

I often wonder what keeps the Queen; in glory forever enshrined .

No nightingale did ever chant...

" For oft, when on my couch I lie

  In vacant or in pensive mood,

  They flash upon that inward eye

  Which is the bliss of solitude.

  And then my heart with pleasure fills,

  And dances with the daffodils. "

What could have been the fountainhead of such unabated joy ?

" A host of golden daffodils " ? 

I really do not know what was the source of inspiration for the mystical pantheist, but there is no gainsaying the fact that Wordsworth's poetry has inspired generations to come and I am no different. There's a sort of an eerie feeling that you have when you read his poems and realize that they are but a 'spontaneous outburst of emotions recollected in tranquility.'

Poetry is unpremeditated, but still how do emotions follow a meter ? How come there is never a single word in his poems that seems superfluous ? How come his poems always manage to strum the strings of the heart ?

I don't have answers to any of these questions, but I know for sure that Wordsworth's poems made the world seem a better place to live in...   

Nascent Reflections...

What could be the reason for choosing such a name and what would the theme be...

I believe that Poetry is the most sublime form of unpremeditated art, a pedagogic influence on mind and senses alike, a poignant upsurge of emotions in a relatively impassive and indifferent world..

Or is it something more, something of a microcosm by itself, rendering an Utopian world of uninhibited imagination, with tranquility and beauty at its highest zenith...

Or is it a mirror reflection of man's inner soul, a semblance of the obscure melodies in his mind, a spontaneous outburst of his 'nascent reflections' on life...

Whatever be it, Poetry is more eloquent than words and more articulate than silence, it has power to create and re-create the ecstasy of life’s music, it can move mountains and bend trees, uplift spirits from their grave and freeze time in its trail.

Poetry is older than the hills and will last till the stars burn away, unlike the mortal being who as Shakespeare summarized, "we are such stuff as dreams are made on; and our little life is rounded with a sleep" and inspired me to pen my first acrostic poem.

Every path that I tread, would be lost someday 

Pebbles that I throw would merge with the clay;

Hands that I shake would not leave a trace

Eternity was never a part of my race.

Money in my vaults would lie all bare

Every song that I sing would melt in thin air;

Relations I have, would eventually end

All joy and sadness would finally blend.

Life would be a candle in its dying stage

Immortal thoughts would gradually age;

There would not endure my dreams either

Young or old, everlasting would be neither.