Futility.

Yesterday was the Annul Prize distribution ceremony of the Asansol Sub Divisional Sports Association. I attended it after a long, long, time. It was in a pretty bad state before, and it has duly maintained its standards. However the funny part is, no matter how bad state the ASDSA is, no matter how much our demands remain unanswered, our State ministers, whichever, political party, ( the last time I was there CPM was in control ), invariably make it to the occasion, some don't,obviously though. As you watch these ministers dressed in thier dhoti - panjabi's or suits, and the boys and girls, vast majority of who are from the semi - urban parts of our town, some incredibly talented, but unaware of the fact, you just begin to realise again how the terms ' Scouting talents ' or ' Youth Developments ' are still misnomers in India on a broader perspective. It makes me, sad, really sad, though in a few months, I would not have anything to do with it. I remember the last time I attended this, I was entering my adolescence, and I had a huge row with mom regarding how I would dress myself up for the occasion. So, as I was approaching towards the dais yesterday, (wearing my regular tracks, and a funk college T- shirt having the words " I only give negative feedback " boldly imprinted infront, hahaha!, and I was pretty sure I was the worst dressed person in the hall) to collect my runner up medal towards the impeccably dressed  whoever minister, it was nonchalance redefined for me.


I have plans. It would be stupid talking about them now, but I do have them in place all right.

changes aren't good or bad, they are just changes.

Listening to the band,watching the children, and thinking of Tariq -- missing the boy already -- I remembered an incident from the prison. In that other world within a world, back then, I moved into a new prison cell and discovered a tiny mouse there. The creature entered through a cracked air vent, and crept into the cell every night. Patience and obsessional focus are the gems we mine in the tunnels of prison, solitude. Using them and tiny morsels of food, I bribed the little mouse, over several weeks, and eventually trained it to eat from the edge of my hand. When the prison guards moved me from that cell in a routine rotation, I told the new tenant-- a prisoner I thought I knew well -- about the trained mouse. On the morning after the move, he invited me to see the mouse. He'd captured the trusting creature, and crucified it, face down on a cross made from a broken ruler.He laughed as he told me how the mouse had struggled when he'd tied it by its neck to the cross within the cotton thread. He marvelled at how long it had taken to drive thumbtacks into its wriggling paws.

Are we ever justified in what we do? That question ruined my sleep for a long time after I saw the tortured little mouse. When we act, even with the best of intentions, when we interfere with the world, we always risk a new disaster that mightn't be of our making, but that wouldn't occur without our action. Some of the worst wrongs, Karla once said,  were caused by people who tried to change things.

Sometimes we love with nothing more than hope. Sometimes we cry with everything except tears. In the end, that's all there is : love and it's duty, sorrow and it's truth. In the end that's all we have -- to hold on tight until the dawn. -- Gregory David Roberts. ( in his book Shantaram ) .