Drishti - the vision

Who are we if not that symbol of excellence fallen from heights? Who are we if not the seeker of greatness strayed from our paths? Who are we if not the storm that can move mountains made weak by our own fears? Who are we if not a noble soul blinded by our own ambition? Who are we if not a brave warrior bridled by the thought of failure? Who are we if not a farmer corrupted by the greed of harvest? Who are we if not the master of our destiny fallen prey to our senses? Who are we if not the reflection of God muddled by the haze of pleasure? Are we not that who was destined to do great things? Are we not that who was created to make the Creator proud? Aren’t we the music that would flow like the carefree wind? Are we not just who we were?

Nostalgia has been one of my favourite words of English language. Not just because it contains in itself a powerful emotion which seems to accord the "Past" its rightful importance over the  much hyped "Present" and the much feared "Future", but also because of the sheer formation of the word itself. The last syllable is open ended which continues into eternity and rightly so, as someday it would indeed engulf all that is present and will be future. It did not break into my vocabulary until very recently (may be as recently as 8 years ago) and for some reason Nostalgia always sticks out in my mind with one other word- Nepotism. May be because they are usually in the same section of the vocabulary lists. Whereas Nepotism is overtly negative and may seem to be unrelated to Nostalgia I have always felt the two words to be very closely related. And together they remind me of human weaknesses. No matter how strong someone pretends to be, everyone at some point

It has been over a month since I came to Nigeria. Life did not give me any hints until last year that Nigeria could be on the list. Coming from where I came from this was not even a remote possibility and no one (Paul the octopus included) could ever have predicted that I would watch the 2010 FIFA world cup in a room on Bonny Island in the middle of the Atlantic. But in the end I did. And I am not complaining, no, actually quite the contrary. I am in fact delighted that i got some new company and a very charged up atmosphere which made the games far more enjoyable than they would have been back home. And then of course Ghana was the icing on the cake. Nigeria has turned out to be quite an experience (this one I am sure anyone could have predicted). Though it is not the usual experience of being charmed by the great architecture or scenic beauty or daredevil stunts or anything like that which are more characterstic of the West. This is an experience in  People. It is about ignorance. Ab

Time to revive my blog. Well why not, in near future this will be one of my few closest links with friends. More on that later. Today I want to say something about the black and white photos. I was looking at some old family pictures and some of them were black & white. Unfortunately none of them had me in it (blame my DOB). But there were my parents and my relatives. And although I liked the coloured photographs quite a bit the B&W attracted my attention time and again. And I realised thats probably because the B&W pics are special in several ways. Just like our own memory storage system they have the ability to preserve the most essential and let go the rest. They leave something to imagination and they boast proudly of being from a different era. Whereas a coloured picture brings out even the minutest detail and you might get embroiled in the blues and the yellows, a B&W keeps it simple, well just as its name suggests - Black or White, letting you stare continuously

I wrote this article in my final year at college for a magazine (I am not even sure if this was ever published). I found this accidentally while organiszing my computer data and thought may be it is worth atleast my own blogpost... The best way to begin this writing would be to quote what one of my seniors’ wrote when I (in my first year then…) asked him to give me an article for the magazine narrating his experiences in the campus over his four years of stay here. He wrote, “It is very difficult even to conceive that one is going to step out of a place which till yesterday seemed eternally yours.” As I sit down to write this article, where I am supposed to tell my juniors what to expect of this place and how to react to it, the reality of leaving this place, very soon, has begun to sink in. I am not exactly nostalgic because I haven’t yet left my SB-1 but it seems to be eluding me. Am I afraid of leaving this place? May be I am, but the question is why? Did I not have a life befor