Book ReView: Glimpses Of a Golden Childhood

It happens when we listen to Osho or read him, we get connected to Buddha if he is talking about him, we feel the presence of Kabir around when he simplifies his melodious bhajans and dohe for us and when he unfolds Mahavira, we can feel how it would be like sitting beside Mahavira. 

         
Osho talks almost on everything. He suggests the solutions to the problems we are facing today or are likely to encounter tomorrow.

 But ten years before, reading or listening to Osho was like becoming the part of conspiracy against the world.

       
 We would meet Osho through his CDs, books and meditations but they were like the secret meetings held at the rendezvous. It was so because our parents and our grown up relatives (so called) wouldn’t allow us to read this rebellious master.  Still we read many of his books and listened to his discourses as many as we could dare to.

        
By and by, his literature and enchanting voice ignited the rebellious spirit in us and we (my friends and I) started breaking the chains to get in touch with him.

      
His all books and cds are treasures of wisdom and happiness but what I love the most is ‘Glimpses of a golden childhood’. 

The mere remembrance of the book makes me feel as if a fresh morning breeze is caressing me. The book is a beautiful account of Osho’s childhood experiences which he shared with his closest disciples. Osho told as he recalled, without the sequence. His disciples wove those beautiful incidents into a marvelous book.  

       
The tone of the narration is soft and tickles the readers. On some pages you would burst into laughter and every page would bring an insight for you.

     
‘How he met Gandhiji at a small railway-station at around 5.00 in the morning and donated one ana to the charity fund Gandhiji was raising, it was the only coin he had’, ‘how he made the ghosts in his village to flee away’ are the incidents which leave the reader rolling with laughter and make their eyes wet with their elements of innocence.

       
I wish rather want to shout and urge that everyone should read this book and sip the elixir of wisdom from ‘Glimpses of a golden childhood’ of an enlightened master.

11 FACTS YOU MUST KNOW ABOUT YOUR FELLOW BLOGGER

One the very first day of the ultimate blog challenge, I would like to put my ‘being’ before you. 

I share the things that have shaped me as an individual.

Lately it’s been a trend to put everything in numerical, like ‘10 books you must read in 2015’, ‘20 facts you need to know about your future spouse’, ‘25 ways to make your marriage a success’, ‘30 mantras to stay happy after divorce and break-up’ ‘ 35 facts you must know about your second marriage’ etc. 

So to take a leap into blogging challenge I tried to muster my absurdity in eleven points. You can call them (if you wish) ‘11 facts you must know about your fellow blogger’. I would be happy to know yours too.

Here I go-

1.  Usually I am an introvert but ready to become extrovert in the company of beautiful people.

Now it’s a bit weird. You would think that this is the answer of a person who doesn’t know exactly who he is. You are right. I am an occasional introvert and opportunistically extrovert. When it is good to be inside I enjoy it and when it’s good to be outside of myself I make the most of it too. Ok I have a term for it- ‘ambivert’.

2.   Love to read and eager to talk about the books, movies, music and unexplainable things in life.

3.   I like to confuse people around me because doing so I bring them to my level. I believe two confused people are the liveliest and most entertaining of all. As two happy people double the happiness of each-other and two miserly fellows darken the misery of each-other, in the same way two confused people heighten the confusion in the atmosphere.

The more confusion, the greater the fun.

4.   My motto- ‘take it easy but don’t be lazy’

There is a thin line between ‘taking easy’ and ‘becoming lazy’. I often mingled the terms in the past and regretted a lot afterward.

5.   Love to explore the funny sides of things.

6.   Love to love and get loved.

7.   Very choosy about friends and foes.

8.   Beware …….Can’t keep a secret….!!!

9.   Believe in ghosts (in the stories) and would like to invent few more.

10.  Can’t tolerate cheaters.

11.  I Hate gossip mongers;

I used to be one once. So I know how entertaining business it is to poke nose in others’ business and how it supplies the continuous scratching to our itchy mentality like those family soups. I know how hard it is not to fall for gossiping.

So take it from me-‘gossiping is the most shameful use of your time’.

THE SEPTUAGENARIANS

 He was lying on a bed in a hospital. On the right side of the bed a monitor was seen showing the ups and downs in the breath of the patient. An oxygen mask covered most of his face. A blood bag was hung on his left side to a stand providing the new blood to his old, wrinkled body. The needles were injected in his left hand. His eyes were closed. The whole body was motionless except a slight up-side down movement of his belly and the oxygen tube.

‘Can we lend our breaths to someone?’ she thought and prayed she could do it. She was sitting beside his bed waiting for him to open his eyes and recognize her at once.

‘Getting his lost love might imbue in him the desire to live’, she prayed.

‘We will meet once again in life, I bet’ he had said in his characteristic perky voice some 50 years ago while she was bidding him good bye forever. She too had wished the same but she hadn’t expected their meeting on this turn of life.

The day he was admitted to the hospital directly from Savera Old-Age Home, her son had left her there. She felt like coming into a vast desert of loneliness. She felt lost. Her son turned his car and said, “I will come once in a month to pay the bills, till then take care, love you mom!” she didn’t get what he said. When she woke up from her reverie she only saw the clouds of dust the car had left behind and the last few words of his son echoed in her ear-‘love you mom!’

A maid took her to room no-7. Sitting on the bed in her room she saw through the window the blurred images of an ambulance parked in the yard and some apron wearing people taking a man into it onto a stretcher. She asked the maid about the man.

‘He got a paralytic stroke’, she said in an unconcerned voice.

‘Who is he?’ her next question.

The maid became irritated by the questions but she didn’t want to be rude to the old-woman on her very first day.

‘His name is ‘Ramakant Vaidya’, he is from Mumbai, he was a teacher, happy?’ said the maid at once trying to get rid of the newly arrived ‘good for nothing’ septuagenarian.

‘Oh my god!!!’  Lata mumbled and sat on the floor. She couldn’t breathe properly. The feeling of profound joy and the deep sorrow surrounded her in the same moment.

Whatever, an oasis had emerged in her desert-like life right then.

 image courtesy: google

         

A BROTHER AND A SISTER....

No matter who’s younger, who’s elder

They are brother and sister until forever

They fight, they hug, they cry together

With all hues of rainbow they color each-other

They come to life to enrich the lives

They share chocolates, sorrows and joys

They have the same origin but different destinations

They board from the same place to reach different stations

She teaches him what softness means

She gives him lessons how love wins

He makes her tough, fearless and dare-devil

He teaches her to stand and fight the evil

They grow hand-in-hand looking beyond the sky

They never know when they’d depart and why

One fine day, a new life she embraces

Fighting the tears with smiley faces

A piece of his heart, he feels, is going away

He comforts himself ‘no one is to stay’

His life misses something, his heart misses her

She comes back on Rakhi, fills the home with pleasure

Rakhi ties their lives, a shield of love

Leaving behind the memories, a treasure-trove