Acceptance

In her bough, no blossom withered
nor ever a leaf did fall.
while season aged hither-
-come autumn,
she has shed them all.

Relief !

 Thought ceased and the mind raced.
 For the singular wish, a search ensued.
 Breath held ,I wished hard,
 With closed eyes gazing up at the dark.
 Gazing up at the dark, I wished hard.
 In my night sky , “a shooting star!"

Struggle

This Poem(?!) was written by Captain Haddock after downing a lot of whiskey! So it turned out to be just a drunken rant! "to those we've loved , and those  we've lost.. Cheers mateys!"

Oh twilight hour
A sailor awaits
The storm aint far
The night is long
Oh twilight hour

The course is lost
No light alive
The storm waves they lash
The sails wont last
Oh twilight hour

The grey clouds
No stars shine through
The bearing lost
The ship is lost
Oh twilight hour

Oh clouds of grey
Wont u part
No stars shine through
The waves they lash
My ship is lost

My sails don’t hold
Oh twilight hour
My ship is lost
Oh clouds of grey
I hold the wheel
Oh waves they lash

The night is long
No light alive
My ship is lost
The waves they lash
The night is long

A single streak
Of lone sun shine
East I see
The wheel I hold
The waves they lash

The waves they lash

The course is set
The wheel is held
The waves they lash
A single streak
Of lone sunshine
The waves they lash.

Love, Ticketless Travel and a Bunch of Punjabis

       The reason why  she ever ended up in Indore, about a 1000 kms north of her home, I will not disclose. Her father could sue me for defaming his family. Just know that she was in Indore because it was her father's bright idea to keep her out of my wicked reach.
         It had been six months since I'd seen her last. I was stuck at home in Coimbatore, with no headway made on the career front. Sneaking out of home for a few hours is a possibility, but sneaking away to Indore was too insane an idea! So I gave rest to that line of thought completely.
         By a great stroke of luck, that  year in April, it turned out that I had cleared my 'Written exams' and was required in Delhi for the interview. It was very convenient to make up a lie about a prolonged medical test and extend my stay by two days in Delhi. And I would, ofcourse, be spending those two days trying to prove her father wrong;that Indore is well within my wicked reach.
From Delhi, I dialled headquarters. 
"Pa, my medical examination is delayed. I'll take another two days"
        The plan was hatched. I make a trip from Delhi to Indore and return in two days time.After which I catch a train to Coimbatore from Delhi. I ran over the plan again before I went to sleep. "Tomorrow, I'll be on my way"
        I put in great effort and woke up early at around 10:00 AM with the help of an alarm. The things I do in the name of love! Inspite of waking up early I could make it to New Delhi Railway Station only around 2:00 PM !! And I had not made a reservation. Ofcourse I didn't , thats way too organised even for me.
       New Delhi station has twelve long platforms filled with commuters, their baggage, rats and paan stains everywhere. I walked to the counters to get an open ticket. There were about six counters and each of them had one quarter of the country's population standing in a que before it. I had ten minutes to get a ticket and catch the 2:30 train to bhopal.
That was when I saw an avatar of hanuman dressed in khakhi--the friendly neighbourhood policeman!
"kya hua saab?" , he raised an eyebrow at me.
"ticket chahiye. bhopal jaane ka"
" 200 extra...."
"nahi.. 100"
"150?"
"tk. 150!" . The subtle art , picked up over years of observation, of 'enticing' an officer  came in handy that afternoon.
      I watched as he walked ahead of the entire populace that was in que, not giving two hoots, and came back to hand me over a ticket with a wink. I dashed to the platform with an open ticket in hand. One hundred and fifty rupees well spent.
I Rushed to  the TTE of that train.
"100?... 150?... 300?.. 500?"
"No vacant seats! "

        Surely a general compartment can't be all that bad. I consoled myself.

        Half an hour later, I was wedged between two non-descript men on a wooden bench inside a general compartment.  In front of me were some travellers from the Punjab, heading somewhere into Madhya Pradesh. The family seemed to have a grandmother or two, maybe more, two girls in their early twenties and a kid brother.

        Sometime during the day I noticed their kid brother swaying wildly  like a monkey near the compartment's exit. I signalled to the girls waving my hands about wildly , "Look! You're little brother is acting crazy! He is gonna get hurt! " . She spat something in Punjabi, the only word of which I could comprehend was "angrez" .  She didnt speak Hindi or English. (or Tamil).
"Err!"  , again waved my hands about.She looked the way I pointed and noticed her younger brother, and turned back to face me, beaming with pride. Probably thinking to herself  "What a strong Tarzan of a younger brother I have! What is this freak's problem anyway, Behan*** " . I stopped after that. These girls might look pretty, but damn they're evil.

        I wish I cud narrate to you in detail all that they conversed about, but my tryst with punjab goes only as far as Sardarji jokes. But it was "Balle!Balle!" all the bloody way . All afternoon, all night. And the train only piled on more bodies into that small compartment as it stopped along the way.

       That night  sitting wedged amidst a mass of alien people, I held my shoulder bag tight against my chest, rested my head and thought of her beautiful face. All the heat, the crowd, the humidity, the hours of travel , and the fatigue--- none of it mattered anymore.

        Reaching Indore the next afternoon with a sore back, I met her in her sister-in-law's home. Her sister-in-law gave us some hope ,telling us how she herself  had fought hard to marry the man she loved. We were left alone after that, and I was thankful.

         Looking back at those few hours I spent with her, it is not words  or events that I recall.There was a certain quality about her, and it always seemed to prop me up in the most subtle of ways. What is most vivid in my mind is that her silence spoke a thousand things to me that day. She was too pained to speak, having spent months alone in Indore, as a consequence of her choice to stand by me and wait. And, I was too troubled to speak, fighting a losing battle for the third time now with  the Union Public Service Commission.
"Will you have some lunch?"
That has always been her manner of displaying affection. Never loud, never openly stated. Forever focusing on simpler things like if I was hungry or whether I slept well.

During the rest of the day  she  shared with me all that she wanted to...
"Look at my certificates; this one I  got from my karate classes in school"
" I wish I could take you to a movie, but we dont have time"
"I want you to see my favourite ice-cream parlour in Indore"
"I want you to see my favourite restaurant in Indore"

        When we walked out of her favourite ice-cream parlour, too dazed in each other's prescence, we forgot to pay the bill. I still remember that even the cashier of  'Top-in-Town',for that was the name of the parlour, was smiling broadly , like cupid's arrow had struck him.

        I had to catch a taxi to bhopal and  hop on a train from Bhopal to Delhi. It was time for me to say good bye.

        Standing by the side of that highway, next to a taxi, I shook her hands with a straightface and bid her goodbye.  God knows why I go into an emotional shutdown during the most critical of occassions, and neither was she  the type who was very fond of public displays of affection; and so that had to be goodbye then, with a handshake.

        The Lord knows what got into her that day, when for a fleeting second she held me in a hug ever-so lightly, and placed a kiss on my neck. Even a feather's touch would linger longer than hers. A breezy hug and a fleeting kiss. She looked her best admired from a distance, and that was how it was meant to be.
She turned to the driver, "Bhaiya, Drive carefully" . Then at me, "Take care. Tata".
And she was gone.

        I wish I could write more on my return journey where I was caught  jay-walking on the platform in bhopal, almost taken to a magistrate, but bribed my way out again  and so on..... but this tale is best narrated another day . Too much love can be dis-orienting ! ;-)

Loss/Grief

I have cast you away.
I refuse to love you anymore.
You may crave for me
But I am not that person anymore.

The searing pain
I wish it not away.
While your battles last
Within me it’ll stay.

I held the devil’s hand,
Slipping from the angel’s hold.
This cannot be your home,
It is soulless , I am told.

I would tear my strength
And send it all your way
Just to buy the Lord’s grace
So my withering greens would sway.

No redemption
Some choices forever stay.
No grace for a fool,
Withering greens don’t sway.

THE ECONOMIC REVIEW COMMITTEE (2002), Singapore

GLOBAL TREND TOWARDS LOWER DIRECT TAX RATES
The external environment has changed dramatically since the 1986 Economic Committee review. Globalisation and rapid technological advances have paved the way for an increased international flow of good and services. Since 1985, world exports have been growing well in excess of world GDP, while global FDI inflows have increased over twice as fast as world exports. New players in the global economy are strengthening their capabilities to compete with countries ahead of them, including Singapore. The most important new player is China. With its low costs and huge domestic market. China has been pulling away investments that could otherwise have located in Singapore or the region.

In today's integrated world, capital and skilled labour are more and more mobile and therefore less and less likely to stay put and pay taxes that are higher than those levied elsewhere. Investors and entrepreneurs can easily shift jobs, goods and capital to lower-tax environments. Studies have found that the average effective tax rates of countries have a significant influence over a MNC's choice of investment location, and the amount of capital invested there. As a result, many countries have been trying to make their tax systems more competitive by removing tax barriers and reducing tax rates to attract mobile capital and talent.

In recent years, the OECD and EU countries have been leading the drive for lower tax rates, as they seek to narrow the tax rate 'gap' between themselves and the less developed countries. Between 1997~2002, for example, the average corporate tax rate for OECD and EU countries was reduced by about 5 percentage points.

At least 15 countries lowered their corporate tax rates in the last two years, including Australia, Canada, France, Germany, India, Ireland, Korea and Switzerland. Germany implemented a comprehensive tax reform programme in Jan 2001 to simplify the tax system and reduce the corporate tax from 40 percent to 25 percent, a massive 15 percentage point cut. Ireland will be moving to a standardised rate of 12.5 percent by Jan 2003. In the region, Hong Kong is maintaining its low corporate tax rate of 16 percent.

Many of these countries offer generous tax breaks for both corporates and individuals on top of these basic rates to attract investments. Further cuts in tax rates are also likely. French President Jacques Chirac has recently proposed a package of tax cuts, including reductions in income taxes by a third . The Japanese government is considering tax rate cuts to stimulate the economy. The Keidanren has recommended a cut in the corporate tax rate from 40 percent to 20 percent .


Competition for human capital is intensifying. Companies scour the world and are willing to pay a premium for top-quality people. Hence, countries around the world are also lowering their personal tax rates to attract and retain talent, and encourage hard work and enterprise. Germany, Ireland, Malaysia and the US are among the countries that have cut their personal tax rates in recent years. Hong Kong's personal tax rate of 15 percent is one of the lowest in the world. Because there is no tax on earnings outside Hong Kong, a large number of expatriates in Hong Kong end up paying income taxes at well below the 15 percent tax rate.

Increasingly, many companies are locating their high value-added activities in places where top management and the highly skilled are willing to live and work. Although our personal tax rates are low compared to many of the industrialised countries, they may not be competitive enough to retain and attract the top tier of global talent, especially since many of these countries are also offering generous tax concessions, thus mitigating our advantage in terms of lower tax rates.

We are, therefore, facing increasing competition, not only from developing countries such as China with their low labour and land costs, but also from developed ones such as the US and Europe.

1986 Economic Committee , Singapore & The Direction of the 'Then' Tax Reforms in Singapore

1986 ECONOMIC COMMITTEE
The 1986 Economic Committee recommended the following key changes in the tax system to create a more conducive business environment to support hard work and enterprise, and nurture both MNCs and local companies:

a) Tax reductions totalling about $1.2 billion. This included a cut in the corporate tax rate from 40 percent to 30 percent (with further reduction to 25 percent as soon as the revenue position permits), a cut in the top marginal tax rate to 30 percent, and a 30 percent across-the-board investment allowance for expenditures on capital equipment and machinery.
b) Shift from direct to indirect taxes as the main source of Government revenue. Specifically, the Report stated that:

"Government should shift from direct to indirect taxes as its main source of revenue. Consumption taxes such as retail sales taxes may be administratively more difficult to collect but are economically preferable to income taxes. They do not penalize companies which are making profits or persons who are putting away savings. Tax is paid only when money is spent on consumption items, not when the money is invested in productive capacity"

c) Remove the existing bias that favours manufacturing activities in our tax incentive schemes. Tax incentives should be broadened, to be enjoyed by both services and manufacturing firms.
d) Move towards a uniform, low corporate and personal income tax regime with minimal selective tax incentives as a long-term goal.

I Roll

Last time I almost sprained my hip because of that never ending rocking. I'm talking about my bus ride here. What's the perfect recipe for a sleepless night and a lot of sprains? Take an all night bus ride, add a crappy diesel engine that groans like it is going to die, fill it with an air conditioning that goes back and forth from sub zero to melting point of human body , place yourself beside someone from the species of Homo obese snoreicus and sprinkle some bed bugs. There! You are done.

I'll get my tickets booked in another travel company, I decided. So I walked into the Omni bus stand to look for a prospective carrier that night.
" I need a ticket to coimbatore, in a Volvo please. An air conditioned push-back seat in the front".
"Our Volvo's have only semi-sleeper seats, sir"
What's the difference I say ! Its the same thing.

I moved on.
" I need a ticket to coimbatore, in a Volvo please. An air conditioned push-back seat in the front"
"Yes sir. We can accommodate you tonight"
"Ah! Splendid. Where's the bus parked?"
I walked towards the "Volvo" with my ticket.
Standing in front of me was an air bus, nothing differentiating it from an airbus of the ordinary Indian make except for some bold stickering on the window panes that read "Volvo Volvo Volvo Volvo Volvo".

After an long argument I managed to get a refund on my ticket. I repeated the routine and finally found a carrier of my choice and managed to get accommodated there.
"Photon Travels! " . Now, that's what I'm talking about. "Speed of light ,baby !" , like Austin Powers would say. Nothing like a classy carrier , and a creative name that invokes images of Max plank and Einstein.
e = h v
e - energy in a photon
h - Planck's constant
v- frequency of the electromagnetic wave

She was painted in glorious yellow, and I walked towards her. As the distance between us closed I noticed that she wasn't as appealing as she had looked , when she was hundred metres away.

I won't judge a booked by its cover, no! But, I sincerely couldnt help noticing that this particular Volvo looked like it ran in the Brazilian grand prix , like it tumbled down the same hill -- three times in a row. I recollected that Volvo , in Latin, means "I roll". Did the manufacturer have this in mind when he named it?

I got my ticked punched, and stepped into my roller coaster. The key turned in the ignition. The exhaust note was unmistakable. Now, I'm sure that this Volvo's engine is that of a retired helicopter's , and was picked up cheap by some hippie in an army junkyard in Ladakh.

The bus began to move towards Coimbatore now. Remember the recipe for a sleepless night and a lot of sprains?
I whispered to myself in Latin , "Volvo!! I roll".

The Little Lessons of Life

I sat there chewing on the sugarcane that grandma gave me. It came right from her kitchen garden. She'd watered the few sugarcanes for ten long months. The last time I visited her, the canes were only waist high.

"A lot of people have been asking me for the sugarcanes. But I told them they were there for my grandchildren, and the canes can wait there till they come"

Kerala is a sight to behold when the monsoons roll in. The summer heat was trying harder to gut the land. As a child , whenever I visited my grandparents in the vacations, the summer evenings where invariably spent in the stream that flowed a few hundred meters from home. I will always remember that stream where I tried to learn swimming in knee deep water.

Then there was Vignesh, my childhood pal. We werent really the naughty types, except for that one time when the green mangos in Sivaraman's garden tempted us.We spent an entire afternoon standing outside the fence of Sivaraman's mango garden flinging stones at scores of green mangoes . After over an hour , maybe two, and a few hundred stone throws, my throw found its mark. And , we watched in awe as a mango got freed of the tree's hold and sliced through the air to fall on the ground bedded with dry leaves. Hitting a mango had been easy, compared to the risk involved in jumping Sivaraman's fence and collecting the trophy that lay on a bed of dry mango leaves.

That evenin I walked back home, grandpa stopped me.
"Did you hit mangoes from Sivaraman's garden?"
My pulse was racing now. I was not prepared to face the shame of gettin caught.
"Sivaraman is your uncle. He is related to us. Next time walk right in and take what u want"
This was worse. I was hoping to be a martyr , not a moron.

While I was in school every vacation was invariably spent with grandad. Each day was an adventure with him , and a learning experience. He was holding my hands when I took my first underwater dip. I was hardly seven years old then. Ofcourse in a few weeks I was addicted to freely floating on the stream like a corpse, face down ,for minutes together, an addiction which I'm yet to get over. Lyin face down on water, it is ectastic to look down at the many smoothened pebbles on the river bed, and slowly drift downstream as the current drags ur limp body. It became a regular sight at the stream for my grandad then, to watch me run upstream and float like dead-wood back downstream. Each trip to the stream invariably had to end with me pleading to him that we should stay another hour. Ofcourse the sun was setting, and I did relent always.

During my last visit, he was too old to walk to the stream. I went to the stream with Vignesh. The stream wasn't deep anymore., or maybe I had grown too tall. We sat there and smoked thinking of old times. It was more than a year then, since I had visited him last , and something had nagged me to stay a few days with him. So I stayed with him for two days , which made him awefully proud. He had boasted to his neighbours how his busy grandson had taken two days out just for him.
This time we just sat and spoke. No visits to temples or streams. He had been sweet enough to buy a basket of Neelam Mangoes, and Jackfruits, something he has done during every summer visit of mine--except this one.

This time, I'll have to make do with sugarcanes from Grandmas's kitchen garden. I was thankful for the canes., and for the people who nurtured me. I am thankful for the little lessons in life that I learnt along the way with them. And, the biggest lesson that he ultimately taught me--- to let go.

The prize

It seemed unusual that she had come alone there. Not many people I know like walkin alone by the beach side. There was nothing amiss that evening. The horizon was blue as ever. Lighting the horizon were the lights of anchored ships. The breeze was cool as always, peppered with warm sand. She was alone, no one was coming to see her.

She was not beautiful in the way the world generally describes beauty. But, her' s was a face that had something new to show everytime one looked back. I was goin nowhere in particular. So I stood there, lighted cigar in hand, counting the waves as they touched my feet . She was there, not interested in the waves yet considering them.

I counted the breakers upto eleven, and then lost count, as my gaze lingered on her. What was on her mind now? Another wave broke on my feet. Of all the colours at play that evening , the rays bouncing of her moist skin were the most appealing.

As the last rays of the sun dove in the far ocean, the rest of the world blurred around us.That was when she turned towards me for the first time, and held me in her gaze. She just looked plainly, with neither interest nor intrigue. Any man would yearn for a look more loving from those eyes.

As the breeze flowed by my face, I found myself unwittingly searchin for her scent in it. Such is the power of a woman that she can melt the hardest of hearts and mellow the most raving of beasts. She was a heady mix of all things sweet. And my senses by now were drunk on her presence. My mind was already reaching across all corners to find a merry thing to say. In my thoughts, reason was at war with emotion .

Emotion had the upper hand that day, and I decided to smile at her the next time she glanced this way. Emotion might have won the battle, but the war was far from over. And it so happened that reason had the last laugh that evening as her cell phone broke into song. She spoke with a grave expression at first. Slowly, her face glowed brighter in the starlight , in a way that only love can cause. She seemed more interested in the waves . Her feet played in the sand. She was smiling more now.

She wasn't mine in the first place, yet I felt at loss. I was not the interested in the waves anymore, nor the sand , nor the breeze. Its not nice being the loser always. I looked at her one last time, and she turned towards me too. She smiled. I thought it wasn't for me. "No, she's smiling at u !". So, I walked back that night, with the consolation prize .

Final Feud

In waters,warm , still and silvery hued
as i sink to wage life's final feud,
gazing at me from the heavens above,
are stars that bleed silk and blurry now.
All of life's moments ,dark and light
play out before me this fateful night
While my eyes burn in salt, to the rife
i long to have , just a little more of life.
Like a spume of silver, my final gasp
floats up to the gods,and out of my clasp.
Through my wearying struggle to hold on
only the reaper's arm,extends in scorn.
My screams muffled ,for two minutes now,
"Does it reach your ears, fathoms above?"

Goodbye

Unforseen, it had to come,
Like a cloud of grey, on a summer day.
I am still, but never numb,
My unsaid words, silence convey....

Sleep

Like a strand of silk on a velvet breeze,
through hymns of peace, sleep beckons.
To mellow minds, and troubles ease,
a healer,the moon becomes.

To The Fire Of My Heart

I bled in a rain of needles,
as I shed all signs of delight.
It seemed like never ending evil,
"is there no way out of this blight ! "

Then it spread, the void amidst stars,
leaving nothin firm beneath my feet.
The way before stretched too far,
"Maybe, I'm not difficult to beat".

Along wafted your undyin chant,
that broke my fit into a celestial dance.
Your spell broke my defeated rant,
"I will not leave my life to chance!"

Like a streak of silver on my soul
your radiance will eternally hold.
Though I was born a block of coal
" Your blinding light , my story retold."

About Her

Words can soil the sanctity of thought. Yet i am here to scourge my thoughts in word form , for I'd greater injustice do, if i didnt let the world know. Its not like as if i need the world to endorse that she's commendable. This i do ,rather,to shatter the vanity of those that think theyre worthy of praise.

Here is one in whom one'll see simplicity in sophistication.
She's most beautiful-- in form, in spirit and in action.

It is like as if all nature worked in unison, to mould her ,in whom mars and venus find symmetrical utterance...

The Secret Of Life - (dedicated to lily)

It was one of those days when the world seemed a little(so to say) hotter than usual.The mind was in a lull owing to lack of relief, be it climatic or social or intellectual.

A summer in the south,the tropics, is more like getting burnt by touching a hot pan. There is a build up of heat in the beginning of april , that peaks during the middle of the month and slowly fades away by the end of may. It comes like a sting, a painful one that lasts a few seconds; bear with it and its done.

Northern summers can be gruelling. Besides, delhi is a totally different story. It gets warm in the beginning of April, then hotter; then hotter still and it goes on till eternity. Your sitution is more like that grill of tikka that someone forgot to remove from the tandoor.Nothing around to save you, no one to hear u scream; you will have to outlive the heat.There are days in mid-june that'll make a hardline communist mumble prayers begging for relief.


The pool near India Gate and its surroundings of lush grass and tall trees seemed an ideal relief for a season like this. So, one fine afternoon I boarded a 'metro' and gladly faced an army of marauding commuters who mashed the life out of me in the metro coach, all in the hope of spending of spending a cool evening by the pool side.


Later in the evening, I found myself talkin to a municipal employee at the above mentioned destination.

"where is all the water that was in this pool?!"
"we drained it. "
"...why?"
"because they breed mosquitos."
"..so?"
"mosquitos spread dengue"
"oh!"
"and dengue kills people"
" .. ok .. enough.. I uderstand "
Well, they can drain all the lakes in delhi, but atleast the garden was still standing.
I quickly muttered a short prayer thanking god that trees didnt breed mosquitos.The Delhi Municipal Corporation can go to any end.


The heat kept the frontal lobe of my brain in a constant state of stress , as a result of whichmy thoughts that day could not embark on any intellectual pursuit,except for that one conclusion I made that day as I observed a couple ( comprising a male and female of course) cuddling in a shady spot. To be cuddling in a suffocating humid evening like this,love is not just blind but numb as well, I concluded.


The triggerin spark that made me write this episode is, however not the couple(comprising a male and female). It was the secret of creation itself that dawned on me that day as i walked in the summer heat. The joy of a discovery is unsurpassed by any other type of pleasure. At that moment of sheer exhiliration(as a direct consequence of my discovery) I was able to understand why Aristotle ran naked in the streets shouting " I've found it ! I found it ! " . While runnin naked like that in the middle of a town where civilised men and women lived , it'd have been more apt had he screamed "I've lost it ! I've lost it " .


What I had discovered that day, was the secret of creation itself. For everything that God has made there exists an anti-thesis in a manner of speaking. For example, there is darkness just as there is light; there is anti-matter just as there is matter; there is good just as there is bad. All this just flashed in my head when I saw it. God made summers. God also made kulfi ! At that instant when i saw a "Kulfi" ,life seemed so beautiful with all its flaws. And a humble kesar kulfi taught me the meaning of life. So i bought the object that embodied witin itself the very dynamics of the universe, and instantly felt ready and rejuvenated to face another week of summer. So, moral of the story-- eat kulfi in summers.