Skip to main content

Wings of Chances


The beaten tracks belong to the poor, tired, huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the wretched refuse of teeming shores.1  Life’s thrills belong to those who trek on the Vesuvius.  To those whose ships dare the uncharted seas.2

Toe the line if you want to be the winner in athletics.  But there’s little fun running between lines, in circles, over again along the same track.  The dandelions flutter longing to be touched, beyond the tracks. 

The longing of dandelions will acquire wings and fly in search of new horizons. 

If only we could be dandelions.  With longings that grow wings.  We’d leave the beaten tracks and circular races.  We’d discover new horizons.  New ecstasies.

New truths. 

Personal truths are like wings.  They carry us above narrow considerations of nationalism and jingoism.  Above political games and religious terrors.  Far away from the jargon of gurus who enslave. 

Pick your chance.  And grow your wings. Let no shadow fall between the wing and the circle, between the flight and the ratrace.3

Notes:
1.     Inscription below the Statue of Liberty. 
2.     Friedrich Nietzsche
3.     T S Eliot: The Hollow Men

PS.  Written for Indispire Edition 155: #TakingChances

Comments

  1. Absolutely true sir! But often these 'personal truths' ruin my spirit.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It's not personal truths that ruin but their conflict with established systems.

      Delete
  2. Poetic - dandelions grow beyond the tracks and not on the tracks - a thing to ponder over - there is imagination soaring high beyond that gate of rigid notions - we need to cross it - beautiful!!!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'm leaving some beaten tracks, Sunaina, though I never ran on any as far as I think 😃😃😃

      Delete
  3. At times, stuck in the quagmire of dilemma, the tracks blur..to take new chances and rise like the proverbial Phoenix is the mantra and the only way.
    Wonderful post, sir!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. We get stuck in quagmire. Yes, Kokila, that's the tragedy. Worse is that our most beloved people create that quagmire.

      Delete
  4. Absolutely wonderful twist to mundane affairs! Love reading all your posts :)

    ReplyDelete
  5. A lively warp to mundane life.. a great post Sir :)

    ReplyDelete
  6. useful info about academics as well govt exams can be found on http://www.kidsfront.com/

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Adventures of Toto as a comic strip

  'The Adventures of Toto' is an amusing story by Ruskin Bond. It is prescribed as a lesson in CBSE's English course for class 9. Maggie asked her students to do a project on some of the lessons and Femi George's work is what I would like to present here. Femi converted the story into a beautiful comic strip. Her work will speak for itself and let me present it below.  Femi George Student of Carmel Public School, Vazhakulam, Kerala Similar post: The Little Girl

The Little Girl

The Little Girl is a short story by Katherine Mansfield given in the class 9 English course of NCERT. Maggie gave an assignment to her students based on the story and one of her students, Athena Baby Sabu, presented a brilliant job. She converted the story into a delightful comic strip. Mansfield tells the story of Kezia who is the eponymous little girl. Kezia is scared of her father who wields a lot of control on the entire family. She is punished severely for an unwitting mistake which makes her even more scared of her father. Her grandmother is fond of her and is her emotional succour. The grandmother is away from home one day with Kezia's mother who is hospitalised. Kezia gets her usual nightmare and is terrified. There is no one at home to console her except her father from whom she does not expect any consolation. But the father rises to the occasion and lets the little girl sleep beside him that night. She rests her head on her father's chest and can feel his heart...

Being Christian in BJP’s India

A moment of triumph for India’s women’s cricket team turned unexpectedly into a controversy about religious faith and expression, thanks to some right-wing footsloggers. After her stellar performance in the semi-final of the Wormen’s World Cup (2025), Jemimah Rodrigues thanked Jesus for her achievement. “Jesus fought for me,” she said quoting the Bible: “Stand still and God will fight for you” [1 Samuel 12:16]. Some BJP leaders and their mindless followers took strong exception to that and roiled the religious fervour of the bourgeoning right wing with acerbic remarks. If Ms Rodrigues were a Hindu, she would have thanked her deity: Ram or Hanuman or whoever. Since she is a Christian, she thanked Jesus. What’s wrong in that? If she was a nonbeliever like me, God wouldn’t have topped the list of her benefactors. Religion is a talisman for a lot of people. There’s nothing wrong in imagining that some god sitting in some heaven is taking care of you. In fact, it gives a lot of psychologic...

Sardar Patel and Unity

All pro-PM newspapers carried this ad today, 31 Oct 2025 No one recognised Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel as he stood looking at the 182-m tall statue of himself. The people were waiting anxiously for the Prime Minister whose eloquence would sway them with nationalistic fervour on this 150 th birth anniversary of Sardar Patel. “Is this unity?” Patel wondered looking at the gigantic version of himself. “Or inflation?” Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi chuckled standing beside Patel holding a biodegradable iPhone. “The world has changed, Sardar ji. They’ve built me in wax in London.” He looked amused. “We have become mere hashtags, I’d say.” That was Jawaharlal Nehru joining in a spirit of camaraderie. “I understand that in the world’s largest democracy now history is optional. Hashtags are mandatory.” “You know, Sardar ji,” Gandhi said with more amusement, “the PM has released a new coin and a stamp in your honour on your 150 th birth anniversary.”  “Ah, I watched the function too,” ...

The wisdom of the Mahabharata

Illustration by Gemini AI “Krishna touches my hand. If you can call it a hand, these pinpricks of light that are newly coalescing into the shape of fingers and palm. At his touch something breaks, a chain that was tied to the woman-shape crumpled on the snow below. I am buoyant and expansive and uncontainable – but I always was so, only I never knew it! I am beyond the name and gender and the imprisoning patterns of ego. And yet, for the first time, I’m truly Panchali. I reach with my other hand for Karna – how surprisingly solid his clasp! Above us our palace waits, the only one I’ve ever needed. Its walls are space, its floor is sky, its center everywhere. We rise; the shapes cluster around us in welcome, dissolving and forming and dissolving again like fireflies in a summer evening.” What is quoted above is the final paragraph of Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s novel The Palace of Illusions which I reread in the last few days merely because I had time on my hands and this book hap...