When the Temple Was a Walk Away

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A five-minute walk required so little thought. I could simply step out. In Malleswaram, a friend turning up at our house in the evening usually meant we were going for a walk. A couple of friends from school or college would come over, and we would head to the nearby Hanuman temple. Afterward, we would stop at the railway station to watch the trains go by, talking, pulling each other’s legs, and figuring out where to get our next plate of bhel or masala puri. Uncomplicated. Even on days when nobody came, I would take the walk to the temple. There would inevitably be a few familiar faces to greet. Then I would lay out a plan with Hanuman so that he could help me figure out whatever was worrying me. A lab exam, a semester exam, a job interview. There was usually something coming up that required his attention. It was comforting to put everything before him. I could tell him what was on ...

The Road Not Taken

Poems and quotes have always had a big impact in my life. Some of them have moved me so much that they have remained embedded in my mind for a long time. I am sure they are unforgettable. Robert Frost highlights the indecisiveness shared by so many of us at different points in life. Even today, there are so many interpretations one can guage from this poem. I have read it innumerable times and each time I have learnt something from it. A masterpiece from Frost reads thus:

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth.

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same.

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

According to me, every word worth etching in gold!!!

Comments

  1. Hmmm...
    So do you want to take the beaten track or the one less travelled ?

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  2. That means like me you also do not know what the hell we are doing with our goddamn lives ;-) !

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  3. That was, is and will always be there!!! Life generally rolls over on you before you realise whether you are on the right path!!! I am not sure whether you have experienced that. Given a choice, I would really want to go back a few years in time and change the basics!!!

    Wishful thinking, huh?

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  4. I agree ! This poem is pinned on my cubicle wall and whenever I am really down, I read it ! :)

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