Little

If little by little
i open my life
if little by little
i bid the hidden away
if little by little
i lift the littlest away
would you find me the littlest?

you would still find me little
when i lift the littlest away
when little by little
i bid the hidden away
when little by little
i open my life
is it that you are little?

Making a change to change makers

Although there is no unified definition of social enterprise worldwide, many believe that social enterprises are just like for profit enterprise since they operate in the same context, and since any type of business only exists as a result of demand from society, there is no difference between social enterprise and any other enterprise. On the other hand, many people from NPO backgrounds, think that classifying social enterprises as one type of ‘for profit business’ will cause confusion in civil society.
So, what is a social enterprise and who is a social entrepreneur? One can find dozens if not hundreds of different definitions across the world. A British Insititue even refers to social enterprise as a ‘state of mind’ because it is really about where your values lie.
To me a social enterprise is one founded by an individual or a small group of close individuals with a common dream, working transparently and honestly, with an objective to bring cultural and/or social and/or economic and/or health (mental/physical) changes.

1KG is a charitable program in China. It was created by Yu Zhihai who once worked as an advertising agent and a Webmaster. As he found himself moved by the poverty he observed while visiting remote regions, he established 1KG to appeal for independent charity works especially for tourists while traveling.
The project calls on self reliant travelers to bring along with them an additional kilo of books or stationery for distribution to impoverished schools and children at their destinations. Participants are called 1KGers on the Net. YU believes that anyone, whether rich or poor, can do something for the less well-off - and for anyone who enjoys backpacking, it happens to be very easy to do.

As you read this a Patient may be critically ill. Whether he lives or dies depends on whether a unit of blood of the right type is available. People run about from pillar to post for a unit of blood in their own city or some another city. There are times when a patient dies for want of blood. And there are time when unscrupulous elements sell blood for money . By donating blood one can make a difference between LIFE and DEATH. With this in mind Khusroo Poacha from Nagpur created Indianblooddonors.com. From Kashmir to Kanyakumari , from the most common blood group to the rarest, the helpline has a huge database of blood donors. It's simple, effective and free and can match you with a donor near you in seconds. Needless to say Poacha has time and again turned down offers to monetize his initiative and earn millions of dollars on offer.

In Dayi county, 50 kms from Chengdu, more than 40% of the farmers raise rabbits, and the profits it brings are higher than other agricultural industries, Many farmers attribute their success to Ren Xu Ping, the famous China Rabbit King. Ren XU Ping started Xuping Rabbit Food company thirty years back with a scythe , a pack backet and two rabbits. Today he is rich, far from being the poor boy that he was with bitterness in his heart. He became happy as he learned to share successful experiences with poor families and making them rich. As of today, more than 0.3 million students have graduated from his training school, most of who have become rich through rabbit husbandary. Out of these around 100 have become millionaires.

The above are just a few examples of social entrepreneurs who I really admire, and am proud to say that the second viz Poacha is a good friend of mine too. Speaking about social entrepreneurs let’s now also speak about the second line social entrepreneurs, the faceless ones rallying behind these social entrepreneurs and the people who help these social entrepreneurs ride towards their goals.
One has only one life but given a choice the same life can make differences in the lives of many people. But how big do we draw the circle as it seems that bigger the circle bigger the sacrifices one have to make . Should the circle be drawn around one's family and close friends or wider, and if wider how wide?. How does one discern and perform the duties one has to one’s family and the dream of making a difference for others who are not remotely even connected. If one chooses a wider circle where would one be eventually headed and would one look back after a few years and stand as confused as one were at the start.
The second line social entrepreneurs are unconventionals who have ideological dreams but as of yet do not have their own independent ideas. Yet, accidentally or by choice rally behind the first line social entrepreneurs towards a shared dream. They may be highly qualified people or the not so qualified, but which ever, have sacrificed a great deal in making the decision to draw the circle just a little wider. At the same time the risk of ignorantly living someone’s dream without reward is high and the dividing line between happiness and the realization that they may have lost many precious years and the chance to accumulate those precious bucks is very thin. They are people who believe that life seems to be guided or channeled by an extra hand and that one is helplessly carried along with the flow towards a destined goal. They may seem just like the next ordinary person but are actually visible or not so visible social misfits who want to have normal lives and relationships but lack certain finishing that they may end up hurting people they care about/love unintentionally. If judged in conventional parameters, there would not be much that pleases too.
The point is if you have come across any of these second line social entrepreneurs, be a little kinder to them and just open your heart a little more to accommodate second or third chances. They may lack in many areas but one common unfailing trait is that they are heart persons and would eventually reciprocate your kindness many multiples eventually, if not by them directly at least by the virtuous divine hand. Bring one down and his circle suffers.

The Goatherd and the damsel

outside the rooster’s on his night perch
and the morning sun’s ready for his repast
i look at you sweet love in your beauteous sleep
and desire to hear your sweet and wondrous words
But my purse is light and the hearth is cold

the merchant’s kitchen is laden as his purse
his garden bears tempestuous fruits all year round
naught a fur blanket to cover you 'cept this sheet
but my heart is warm and see his harem’s brimmed
will you not look back and consider my honest plea

look my love look back just once even in jest
see this torn heart beneath this tattered attire
while that palanquin carries you to his threshold
i take my goats to the mountain pasture once again
to sing this lonesome song to the wilderness

Part 2

don't know how to paint and haven't done much but i still worked my butt off for 3 months for this

Monkey

removed-too personal

...........................

Removed-too personal

About dusts in my eyes and home

Where does one belong?.
I wonder if anyone has ever felt detachment and attachment at the same time. A chemical balance so out of equilibrium that sometimes one feels happily unhappy and unhappily happy. A mind so conditioned with the unhappiness and suffering, real and imagined (I suppose), that it does not know when and how to experience what. An overflow of emotions that makes actions and thoughts aligned in the quickest pursuit of happiness or rolling down a highway to self destruction. Family and friends do hold and help one keep grounded but what about the hollow space in their absence?- stabbing jolts of pain with constant throbbing from dawn to dusk, as if the ghosts of punishments from past lives are having a carnival in ode to one’s sorrow.
Learning to be stoic is not an answer and can never be learned anyway. Even if it were possible it would take away the very essence of our presence in this world. We were meant to suffer and to make others suffer, as designed by the divine plan of the divine friend upstairs. Stumbling tragic comics trying to make sense of our lives and only seeing ahead, not really knowing that there are laughs behind while we only try to see the smiles in front. Bereft of real intelligence of which we are given in quotas, we grovel along like worms with perceived views from above.
It’s an insane world and the best way to combat it is insanity. Thinking about it there is no way out (if one would want to skip along this path of the living), perhaps the best way would be to find an insane partner and fight this insane world with double insanity, a childlike insanity. Maybe that is what is Home! A Goa in the sky with lullabies from a thousand diamondback rattles.

Dreams of a starry night

Removed-too personal

betrayed and used

Space space space again……….. What do I write about?, Should I write about the pain and the lack of gain with not a morsel of grain, however emo it may sound. Kind of rhymes though.

So here it goes again. In days of yore sailors would wait in anticipation for their ship to dock after months of voyage and as soon as the ship hit the wood on the buoy and the anchors drop, these fine boys would disappear off into the maze of houses and alleys. The captain and first mate would invariably look the other way as they allow the sailors their hours of debauchery. One would unfailingly find these sailors in the taverns and whorehouses drinking with face deeply buried in tankards of fermented liquid or on ripe and sometimes overripe/rotten pieces of bosoms or alternating between the two. As the hours go by some would find rooms for their temporary comfort and the less discreet ones would do it out on the alleys. For the next few hours, all the months of backbreaking work on the ship with the occasional taste of the captain’s whip and the worm infested food are forgotten. Moments of bliss are spent as the scurvy infected unwashed bodies try to get the maximum that their money can buy of the comfort offered by the ladies of undoubtedly questionable characters. For the few moments bought the fairer bodies offer the comforts of wives and lovers. Even today the practice still carries on from the filthy wharves of the third world to the glitzy and sleazy streets of Holland where such exchanges takes place openly and legally condoned. For the prudish and the morally upright not just the act but the thought of such transactions is one that brings shame and a feeling of filth and unpardonable sin. However on a deeper note one has to understand that there is a perfect understanding between buyer and seller which does not normally stretch beyond, with the transaction being my comfort for your comfort. The seller offers the comfort of her body and the buyer the comforts that his money can purchase for the seller (Of course this is a definition sidelining a few of the evils like child prostitution, human trafficking etc. and assessing the situation objectively). Apart from a few moral laments and the thought of a lake of fire and brimstone, what needs to be appreciated is that such exchanges are done with the utmost honesty. My temporary comfort in exchange for your temporary comfort and the matter ends there. Loyalty, trust, in sickness and in health etc. are all absent which suits the situation very well. Compare this with the hurt that one gets when one finds out that he/she has been cheated, lied to, emotionally kidnapped, manipulated and used. This is in the case of a normal relationship where it is expected to cherish and be cherished and respected. Life becomes a misery when it hits you that you have been played. The hollowness and the sense of emptiness become so big as if to suck all the infinite unhappiness of the world to fill in the void. Imagine what the other person must have thought about while doing what was done to you!. Your sense of betrayal is overpowering and your self respect takes a dump and every single waking moment is spent in trying to drag yourself forward and existence becomes a punishment. And every moment that should be spent sleeping is spent in hollowed waking moments.

In ode to betrayal here is a song from one of my favorite bands, Crowbar:

I gave my heart and soul to you my friend
You let me fall
If you could only see what's in my heart
You'd take my hand
I've lived this life as a man would do
Why's it so hard to find the truth?
My faith is strong within myself
I bleed of pride
Inside
I won't forgive
You can't take it back now
It's to hard to swallow
No words
No conviction
I've found the truth inside myself
But I am still doing time
Opened my eyes to what is real
This world is hard
It's cold
It's agony

Crowbar- Existence Is Punishment

Goodnight to you!

Musings

Space space space ...i don't really know what to write about but there is this incessant itch inside me to write whatever is cruising through my thoughts. The only problem is that there are no commas to the continuous and disjointed mini stories that keep on flowing through the network of ganglions and receptors in my grey matter. By the way i wonder how much of it has rusted due to my continual abuse of it through the years.
I work...a snitch...i am falling asleep ...snitch....i eat snitch....i workout...snitch...sudden thoughts so powerful, so emotional and sometimes so enlightening that i almost attain nirvana or dream of being a savior of humankind, but as sudden as they come they fade into oblivion the same way. The bad part is that like the fall after a cocaine high things get so bad that even pulling a minute of further existence becomes a torture. One minute Begees is singing staying alive in my head and doing a disco and the next minute a dark song by the cure eats away the reason for my very existence.
Some or most people, depending on the environment i am in at that particular period, would call me lucky for what i have but what i have learned is that the feelings of luck, happiness and wealth are just subsets of a transcendental state of being and not anything static that one can define. I do sometimes feel gratitude for what i have and what God or destiny (for the atheists) has given me and get so drunk with joy that life becomes very meaningful but another moment a dog living on the street outside my home may feel more lucky than me i.e. if a dog can feel lucky.
I like the joy of a good book, the fall of rain on the balcony, the sight of wooly clouds with the backdrop of blue sky, bliss from the church, a motorcycle ride, a dance floor full of chicks, a case of beer before me, the face of a happy beggar when i palm him/her with a 50 rupee note and so on and on, but then poof, such joys evaporate.
No amount of bliss that the face of a lover or her caress offers remains ingrained for long within me. I do want to find the one but more often than not , maybe because of my suspicious mind or my fear of what lies beyond, one becomes another and this another becomes another and the one becomes the ones. Hell no, i have not found the one (maybe vaguely this one time) and am truthfully skeptical of finding the one.

And so it goes, and so it goes...simple fact is that we are all ants and as an ant i need a sanctuary.

Not to be confused with a loser, after all boys don't cry, i am trying my best to reinvent myself and be a better man. I don't want to feel sorry for myself either, only assholes do that (Line borrowed from Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami). I have attended church dutifully without anyone's coercing for the past month and a half and had even surprisingly stopped the stone cold steve austin beer guzzling act for the same period. Let's see where it leads.

The shit that i am writing right now, which may bear a close resemblance to the ramblings of a teenage emo head, may make me so embarrassed tomorrow that i will immediately delete this post or add some modifications, but right now it summarises the state of mental being (defined exactly by the erhu solo of the first video in my previous post) i am in so i'll just post it as it is . And hell i don't care who reads it anyway, i am not the type of person who selects topics with care and then do a few rounds of edit before posting. I write without a care and then just slap it on to my post.

Goodnight.

My father's house

I went to church today with a backpack full of yellowed books
the books i came to buy in the nearby flea market
but the music of the church bell saying come on home
was too familiar for my dusty feet to deny

I went to church today after a gap of six years
in between maybe one or two but always leaving my heart behind
t'was the same though that saw me through the door today
and into the last row i sat behind strangers a sinner at rest

I went to church today with a heart stoned and laden
but when the hymns started my heart fluttered
and my hands reached for the hymn book lying near
three in all i sang with gusto even though two i never knew

I went to church today but the pastor's message half i heard
the book i flicked in random and the presence of my father i felt
i silently cried into his arms with no one near
when i finished and looked up a better man was born