Week 19- Contradiction
The world is a contradiction; the universe a paradox.
#1 Ain't it strange?
Observations derange
Perceptions amaze
Ain’t it strange?
Aint’t it strange?
Ain't it strange?
How truth can be conveyed by lies
Ain't it strange?
How rules can be obeyed with sighs
How honesty is a breach of trust
How an iron fist can rust
Observations derange
Perceptions amaze
Aint’t it strange?
Aint’t it strange?
Aint’t it strange?
How a shepherd gets lynched by a fleet of sheep
How you find it getting more shallow the deeper you dig
Observations derange
Perceptions amaze
Aint’t it strange?
Aint’t it strange?
Aint it strange?
How fishes can drown
Aint it strange?
How you can fly while falling down
How hitting a high is hitting a low
How you can simultaneously smile and cry
and no one would even know
Observations derange
Perceptions amaze
Ani’t it strange?
Aint it strange?
Aint it strange?
How a king can be a laughing stock
While a jester leaves a lump in your throat
How it is not funny no more
While the laughter still echoes
-Nilay Shah (Writer of the Week)
SE, D. J. Sanghvi College of Engineering, Mumbai.
#3
#2 The Fortune Cookie
Crack. The cookie crumbled.
A sick lame habit I built ever since I was a kid, reading fortune cookies every morning.
The fortune cookie was indeed deliciously malicious.
'Today is the first day of the rest of your life' it read. I laughed.
I twisted turned, couldn't really make out why was I particularly restless that night.
It was a bright normal day I was walking across the beautifully lit up dawn across the shores of the surprisingly untamed and unsteady beach. So much so I wanted the waters to come and consume me in them.
I was never suicidal. I hated the term, ever since my mum left my alcoholic dad for good.
So it was again very much amusing to find me thinking such thoughts as, to be consumed in the harsh gray unsteady waters of the beach.
3 days ago...
Crack. ‘Your true love will show himself to you’.
He said he didn't want to see my face. All I could think of saying was F*ck you.
I wanted to live.
I wanted to have things worked out.
But he left.
Happiness is but delusional.
The landlord came I was broke and now homeless.
'Whatever' I thought. I'll live.
2 days ago...
Crack. The cookie crumbled.
‘Wouldn't it be ironic... to die in the living room?’
“Ring ring...” the phone rang.
My sister was found dead on sofa. It seemed she overdosed.
Low life loser. I thought.
Of course I didn't attend the funeral. Why would I even? For a weakling like her, she's better off dead.
Usually stone cold-hearted and determined, I saw my mum weeping softly. I never understood why. She never did when my dad shot himself dead.
Ah. The motherly love and affection.
'That too I'd never understand' I said cursing my gynaecologist.
1 day ago...
I woke up sleeping on some unmanned unnamed lowlife lodge I realized the place next to me was empty, never did I thought I'd feel this lonely.
Crack. The cookie crumbled.
‘A new business venture is on the horizon’.
I roamed about. I needed a job. I got one. Barely pays, but I'll work out I guessed.
I walked home say about 2 am. The work paid very well.
You never believe a fortune cookie. That sh*t isn't worth it.
So I'm up now walking across the shore... And then I just took a dive in. The waves washed me back to the shore.
I opened my eyes.
“Who am I?”
My entire life was a contradiction of the fortune cookie.
But now, I live about a contradicted life I don't know of.
Crack. The cookie crumbled.
The damn cookie was really delicious.
‘How can I help your fortune? I’m just a cookie J’.
-Haripriya Iyer
Editor-in-chief, Scintilla Weekly.
SE, SIES Graduate School of Technology, Navi Mumbai.Editor-in-chief, Scintilla Weekly.
Sugar disguises salt, only by taste would you know
Like evil can wear the face of friends-only their motives don't show
The wounded are obscured by the purpose of the game
But it's evident in the player who's eyes bear it's shame
It seems the wavering road of life stretches to infinity
Because it's short end is covered by the unbeknownst fears of turns we
can't see
A scintilla of hope that some kind of lasting solution might be found
A shadow and that spark is mellowed down
The increase of undeserving secrecy is a mark of a tyrants rule
Only because that high position is being handled by a fool
The pretense of fear can't be seen until thou began to fall apart
Like the drone of a ticking clock or the beat of a dying heart
The determination of a martyr may not be evident in its dreams
But then again when is anything ever as it's seems?
The ship of Theseus - Oh so great
New or old what's your fate?
-Chaitanya Ramji
SE, SIES Graduate School of Technology,
Navi Mumbai.
#4
Well well... isn't contradiction in a way a synonym for life..? Life would simply seem as a void without contradictions. All movements and life itself is a result of contradiction. If we think about it we will realize the subtle pattern of truth, from our goals to aspirations to our moral values and beliefs... Contradictions are everywhere.
The only reason why we perceive contradictions is because of our innate inability to understand that everything is true and everything is false. Consider this statement “GOD IS ALWAYS CHANGING, THEREFORE GOD IS UNCHANGING.” Anything we perceive as a contradiction within the universe would be due to our lack of knowledge. Proof of this lies in the findings of people like Galileo, Newton and others who with their knowledge contradicted the beliefs of our ancestors.
In life, we wish for happiness but true happiness is experienced only when it follows great sadness, we love the light of day but sheer joy is obtained lying below the stars in the dark of the night, we wish success but without failure no success is a true success, we spend half of our lives contradicting our own beliefs and actions and the rest is spend contradicting others.
So let’s each of us achieve our own forbidden fruits and in the process let’s hope that there will come a day when we realize that nothing in life is black and white, nothing in life is true ‘or’ false but everything is true ‘and’ false.
-Shruti Suresh
The only reason why we perceive contradictions is because of our innate inability to understand that everything is true and everything is false. Consider this statement “GOD IS ALWAYS CHANGING, THEREFORE GOD IS UNCHANGING.” Anything we perceive as a contradiction within the universe would be due to our lack of knowledge. Proof of this lies in the findings of people like Galileo, Newton and others who with their knowledge contradicted the beliefs of our ancestors.
In life, we wish for happiness but true happiness is experienced only when it follows great sadness, we love the light of day but sheer joy is obtained lying below the stars in the dark of the night, we wish success but without failure no success is a true success, we spend half of our lives contradicting our own beliefs and actions and the rest is spend contradicting others.
So let’s each of us achieve our own forbidden fruits and in the process let’s hope that there will come a day when we realize that nothing in life is black and white, nothing in life is true ‘or’ false but everything is true ‘and’ false.
-Shruti Suresh
SE, SIES Graduate School of Technology,
Navi Mumbai.