Punctuate, for comma's sake!

Once there lived a comma, a full stop, a question mark and an exclamatory mark. They were good friends and laughed and played together.

“Where are we going to play today?” asked the question mark.

“I am not sure. Let us ask comma” said full stop.

“I can suggest an idea, but I am not sure if it will be exciting,” said comma pausing for a second.

I can suggest an idea, but..paused the comma

“How marvellous would it be if we could create an imaginary world and reside there!” exclaimed the exclamatory mark.

Exclamatory mark’s idea appealed to the rest. They urged her to initiate the game and all of them would join in.

Exclamatory mark's idea appealed to the rest...

She began by traveling into an unknown kingdom, which was ruled by capital letters. They felt very important and listened to none. The subjects of the kingdom were in a deep predicament.

Their voices were falling on deaf ears as the capital letters stood tall and out of ear-shot of the smaller letters.

The smaller letters had to find someone as tall as them to talk to the capitals. But who wanted to speak to the arrogant rulers and earn their wrath?

“Though I am tall, I do not have a strong foundation. If the rulers blow at me, I will fly away,” said the double quotes.

“If such is the case of the ‘double’, imagine what will happen to me,” said the single quote.

The discussion continued for many days and these days rolled into months. No solution seemed to emerge and the capitals were enjoying their rule, though the same could not be said of the subjects.

Distraught, they decided to get together and march in protest against their erring leaders.

On seeing so many punctuation marks marching in unison, a pair of parentheses that was new to the area, wanted to know the reason for the protest. In turn the others briefed him about the on-going situation.

After patiently listening to their situation, the parentheses offered to mediate. “I am tall and I can reach them. Well, I can even enclose them within me. But assure me that once they become reasonable you will be willing to live with them happily,” counseled the wise ‘parent’heses.

The rest of them happily agreed.

The parentheses then asked the other punctuation marks to march in unison and attract the attention of the capital letters.

The group made loud noise and raised slogans as they marched ahead.

“Capitals, down, down!” they all shouted together.

On hearing unusual sounds, the capital letters came out of their palace rooms and gathered together. asking each other what the matter was.

When they saw their subjects marching together and heard their slogans, they were enraged.

“Who gave them the audacity to talk against us?” screamed capital A.

“How dare they?” capital D almost lost his head.

“Let us show them who we are!” roared capital S.

But before the power-drunk capital letters could do anything the parentheses enclosed them.

(ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ)

The parentheses pushed them closer together...

They tried moving but ended up hitting against each other. Soon they were hurting each other as the parentheses pushed them closer together.

“Don’t push me,” said capital P to capital O.

“Oh, and look at what you are doing to me,” said capital O.

“You are choking me,” cried capital C to capital B.

“But I did nothing,” said capital B, rather helplessly.

As the chaos between the parentheses increased, the marchers stopped and watched what unfolded before them with amusement.

Suddenly and in a coordinated move the parentheses moved away. All the capital letters fell to the ground, moaning and groaning.

The parentheses asked the on-lookers to go forward and help the fallen letters.

As they had promised, the rest of them went in between the fallen letters, and helped them to their feet.

With the smaller letters pooling together to pick each of the capital letters up, a beautiful pattern emerged.

The world of imagination turned into reality and comma, full stop, question mark and exclamatory mark joined the party.

Parentheses clicked the picture of the happy family that came to be known as language.

“Isn’t it wonderful to see the capital letters in between their smaller relatives, protecting them and taking care of them?” asked the right parentheses to the left one. 

The tall capitals shouldered their responsibilities well. They allowed the smaller letters to laugh and play, while they called out to their mates across the words to discuss matters of governance of the language kingdom. The comma and full stop brought in the much needed pause and break in relationships at the right time.

In the end they all realised, how important it was to give space to each other in every relationship!

Appraised!

A very senior employee of an organisation visited a Guru. The Guru was a wise man and was known for his counselling capabilities. The accomplished executive approached the Guru and told him that his wife was no longer happy with him and he thought that it was high time that they lived separately.

The Guru listened to the man before telling him a story:

Once there lived two leopards in a forest. They were the best of friends and were almost inseparable. One day, as fate would have it, they were caught and put behind bars. No crime had they committed, no charges were filed against them and there was not even an FIR!

They were caught and put behind bars!

They were whisked away to a zoo and were given a place from where they could continue living their lives. They still were together, so what if their surroundings had changed? The two of them decided to adjust to their new environs and continue their life in happiness.

The poor creatures did not know that they were now public exhibits and human beings would stream in to watch them. The innocence that the forest life allowed them was no longer available to them. But the leopards were happy as they were together. To them, nothing had changed. What really had changed, was outside of their frame of relevance.

One day, a group of people happened to visit the zoo. From the attention that these people received, it appeared that they were important. The crowd swarmed around one person who gave commands that were instantly obeyed.

“Must be a very learned man. He seems to know everything about everything” said one leopard to the other.

While the crowd was leaving, the crowd-puller, stopped for a while in front of the cage where the leopards lived. He took a closer look and told one of the persons around that the leopard to his side was more beautiful than the other.

The person nodded his head, as he got the message. In an instant the crowd vanished.

After the crowd left, the leopard that won the appreciation of the important man felt elated.

“I am not sure why he felt I was more beautiful than you. He is a learned man and he cannot be wrong, though I may not completely agree with him” he said, pride and ego overflowing in his voice.

The other leopard was hurt. Very soon the happiness that had prevailed thus far between them vanished. They started moving away from each other. Very frequently they fought with each other and the pride filled-leopard kept taunting his partner, by recalling the words of the callous human being.

The zoo keepers observed that one of the leopards was growing more and more lonely and sad. The other leopard seemed unaffected. A couple of days later, there was an order from higher authorities to move the unaffected leopard outside the cage. The leopard that was losing health could affect the healthy one, they felt. The leopards were moved to different cages.

The leopards were moved to different cages...

After a week or so, the healthy leopard was taken in a van to some unknown part of the earth. When he was lowered, he saw the man who had called him beautiful. He inspected the cage closely.

“Yes, he is the one that I wanted. Now you can shift him to my private park and ensure he is taken care well” he said before leaving the place. The four helpers who were lowering the cage, wanted a break. They left the cage on the ground and after the van left, sat around the cage with a cup of tea in their hands.

“This great man has a dirty side to him” said one of them.

“What does he do with these animals?” asked another.

“He uses a code word which his assistants understand. When he says something is beautiful, it means that he needs it for his private use.”

“What” exclaimed the fourth man!

“He is not alone in the race. There are many outwardly holy people who are dirty inside. Let us focus on our job, lest we may lose our bread and butter” said the first man.

The four of them carefully shifted the cage to its designated spot.

The cage suddenly felt empty as the leopard realized his folly. Without his partner around to console him, the leopard started feeling lonely. His loneliness made him sick and soon he was shifted back to the zoo.

His absence had affected his partner. The zoo authorities decided to keep the two leopards together as both were now sick. In a while they realized the importance of each other and grew stronger and happier!

Arise above your hurt!

Progress has made the world nuclear,

And many believe that we have nothing to fear.

Most of us think we are here to rule,

As the easy life of today has made many a fool!

We think we can question others’ doing-

Making some of us think ‘where’s the world going?’

It is neither your business, nor your right,
To question others, as you know not the battle they fight!

We bother not when someone else is in pain,

Treating all of those around us with contempt and disdain!

We expect the world to stop when we are hurt!

But bother not when hurting others by being rude and curt!

Stop this abuse, kindly stop this fight,

Togetherness is might, and equality each one's right!

Unite under that roof which makes us all one.

And then, very quickly all the damage will be undone!

Let's grow into one positive force...

Let’s grow into one positive force.

And march proudly ahead in our own chosen course.

Forgiving each other without much of a bother,

Contributing towards peace and oneness let us gather!

Come all, let us make ourselves stronger!

Not yielding to the one that loves to be a gossip-monger!

Let us forget the past, let us forget what went by,

Nobody here was born low and nobody born very high!

Rise above all your hurt like the sun.

Stop to enjoy the little things that we miss in the run.

There's just one life, we have very little time.

Before we understand life, we will be past our prime!

To bring a good change, do what you have to.

For later on, you can neither go back, nor can you rue.

Just contribute to the best of your might,

Then relax and enjoy the moment, as it is your right!

Rise above all your hurt like the sun...

Author’s Note:

Sometimes the happenings around disturb us. We lose our cool and behave in a manner that is uncharacteristic of us. These are the moments we regret and it fills us with a lot of bitterness. Instead of calming ourselves down and going forward with our own lives, we are consumed by shame. We are unable to forget the insult caused to us. It pains us. We want to hit back at the person or thing that cause us the hurt.

But at these times, if only we calm down and let matters go, we will emerge stronger. We will grow in not only in our stature in the eyes of others around, but our own self esteem will improve. It may take a while for the hurt to heal, but the hurt must heal.

Let not someone make you what you don’t want to be. Instead focus on those who want you to guide them, who want you to take them ahead. There are people waiting for you to lead, so they may become like you!