Death

It is said that death is a great leveller. Death is a grisly reminder of the futility of life, the thin line between having it all and losing it all, and what not. It follows you throughout your life, waiting for its moment to strike. Some people live in fear of it, and lose their lives. Some are blissfully unaware and live their lives. No matter whom it strikes, you are reminded of  your own and your near ones mortality. You wish you had a cloak, that would hide you from it, something that would give you warmth from its cold grasp, false though it may be.

Silence. Deadly silence. Forlon faces, tears, memories of a lifetime. Despair. Depression. Cold.

Unhindered, the great leveller toils on. It is the yin and the yang, the feminine and the masculine, life and death. Without one, the other does not exist.

Every start has an end.  All that take birth needs to take leave one day - that is the rule without exceptions, until someone discovers the elixir of youth, an anti ageing medicine, the somras - the drink of gods. Such things happen only in fiction, until science proves us all wrong.

How would this earth be if there were no deaths. Overcrowded ? Stagnant ? Would no death mean no birth as well ?

To write or to type

Recently I had to fill out some visa forms, and when I mean fill out, I mean not to type in, but to actually write with a pen. I had to fill out 3 sets each for me, my wife and my son. That was no mean task - it was some time since I had wrote so much with a pen. My fingers started paining, and I had to take frequent breaks, and do some browsing on fb to keep me going :) 

It set me thinking - that we do not write at all. I know I am generalizing here, but I don't see any of the people I see on a regular basis write a lot. Again, when I say "write", I mean to put a pen on paper. The only instance they would use a pen is to fill out a form (like me) or to put their signature on something.Most of us type, but is it the same ?. All those years of effort put into grooming our handwriting - of no use, down the drain. 

I read somewhere that they had made iPad mandatory in school - I think it was in Japan (where else :D). So their students would probably be writing err typing their exams on the iPad !! The Japanese script looks so beautiful on paper, their words are almost like a painting. But I am sure that this generation would not realize the beauty of it, if they are typing instead of writing.

I wonder if our schools would also change like this - no more cursive writing, and hours of homework to get your handwriting straight. Do you remember the way your handwriting used to slant - sometimes to the right, sometimes to the left and sometimes dead straight. I recently came across some of my old diaries , and they gave me a glimpse to how my handwriting had evolved over the years. I was amazed that in my pre-high school days, my handwriting was hardly legible, and then a transition to legible, and next a transition to neat and structured - whoa, it sure was a trip down memory lane.

We even had lucky pens for exams - the elite among pens, which would be used only for exams. In school, during exams, the number of papers that you were using was a benchmark of how well you are doing the exam, and the more you used, the more envious stares you got. Whether it was because you were doing well, or whether it was because you were indulging in "creative writing" was a completely different story. In college, it definitely was the latter :)

And pen fights - the hours of fun that we had during boring classes - the desk was our playground and the pens our warriors. The next (read now) generation would probably have a flash game/app called "Pen Fight Reloaded", where one could hook onto the network, and shoot rockets and other destructive stuff at other virtual pens. Or probably, pens would be too passe..

Ink pens, messy as they were, were fun to use. Now they have become antique pieces. Recently saw on FB the erstwhile often used Bril ink.

Next time you put a pen to paper, think. This is not something that you do often. Enjoy as you watch your thoughts flow on to the paper

Tailpiece : I am still a copious note taker. I tried switching to the laptop for note taking but it didn't quite work out. With soft copies, you cant quite draw unintelligible figures when you are bored. Maybe there is already an app for that, who knows ;)