My mortality

Today out of most...
I am reminded of the frailty of the human body,
the mortality of a human life...
and the never ending and surprising arrogance to think we are immortal.

We are of dust and will soon be dust again,
none...no matter how much of an achiever will take anything with us.
We will end where we began...into oblivion.

Time is short...so short.....so many roads to travel,
so many lives to touch....so many hues to see.
Yet the sand trickles away....bit by bit....slips through the narrow passage of time.

We see it happen to others and yet feel that it cannot happen to us.
We make plans, we have ambitions....we take liberties....
all in vain.
All can be dashed in a breath. A breath that can leave in less
than a blink of an eye.

We are mortal. We are all here with finite time.
Make it count. Make. Every.Breath. Count.
Not for anyone else....but for yourself...
when the time comes....never should there be a regret.

Pearls of hope

Dreams are the white wings we spread to out and take flight,
the tiny specks sitting on those wings are the woven in pearls of our hopes.
Each time we fly,
we are wrangled with fear.
Fear of failure, of disappointment....of incompletion of desires.

Yet we take flight.
We take flight because we hope.
Our hopes are what give our wings strength to dream.

Sometimes we dream alone and find ourselves soaring in the expanse of the universe.
Alone.  Yet, sometimes we share the dream. Though its our dream but when we
spread our wings and take flight, take the leap of faith, we find...
our wing tips touching the tips of someone else who shares our dream.

If we can find the strength to leap, the hope will come, the dream will live
and you might even find the gossamer threads of the dream woven through
the wings of others.... running its invisible webs through....them...and you.....
shining....glistening.....

I am a woman.

I as a woman am offended when in the name of religion women are expected to sacrifice.
Recently I was faced with an argument that a religious practice called Karwa Chauth.
A practice in the Indian faith where women fast all day long without food and water for the long
life of their husband and eat only after the moon is out. I like anyone else would want to wish well on my spouse. Though why the need to fast is my first question and secondly why women? Should it not go both ways? Why can men not observe this practice for the well being of women in their lives? Women who marry them, live with them, give them kids, take care of homes, also cook at times, as per Indian tradition they leave all that they know behind to give the men a life, make their families their own, their parents give dowries, pay for lavish and extravagant weddings, they even get tortured by in laws for in factions like infertility.
The whole premise of my question is why in this time and era do women still fear? Our parents spent as much time, money and love on us as much as men? What then gives men the gall to presume they are superior?  Why sell ourselves short? Why not teach our daughters that they are worth it. They should not settle and never be with anyone who or his family does not respect her and her family which is common humanity.
From ancient times women have been treated like chattel. They were bartered like commodity, they were plundered, raped and sodomized as per convenience. Is it not enough? We have stepped into the 21st century, we aspire to reach the far galaxies and planets and yet we cannot respect human beings equally?
The verbatim definition of feminism is "the advocacy of women's rights on the grounds of political, social, and economic equality to men."
 Is it not time we upheld it and respect women by providing equal rights as a society in India and the world?