They say I am abnormal!

Quite often I talk about learning procedure of life and surprisingly people quote my lines to me. The period of last 45 days has been a thorough tutorial for me in terms of restlessness. What I am trying to say is that my restlessness has taught me so much which I could not grasp from any book I have read. I never felt so weird and lost in my life (till date) as much as I felt in these 45 days.

I wonder who am I. A human being, attention seeker, fragile ego, stubborn attitude and loads of such attributes combine to sum up as me.I am a confused vehicle with instant road diversions who is unable to figure out the right path. I look for love in people around me but find no absolute destiny. I am stubborn but have no idea for what shall I fight for. People appreciate me but I have no idea what they want from me. I spend a major chunk of my time on shaping my career but I have no clue of the my mission of life. 

I studied my behaviour closely and found disastrous pointers. I saw I did not need anybody. I was not happy  when I had people around me and when I was alone, I was lost and while people were around me, I kept silent and was still lost All I experienced was disappointment and sadly I did not know what was disappointing me. All  I wanted from life was to be alone and when I was alone, I felt lonely.

I could hardly find peace in any thing.This feeling was exactly what we feel at a road crossing where thousands of fast moving vehicles are around us and we are unable to move. I felt so irritated by that heavy traffic that I wanted to be hit by some vehicle and finish the story in one go.

First I felt that it was all due to work pressure and I am unable to strike a work-life balance which was not true as I was disturbed and lost on weekends also. Then I thought that it was because of the fact that I miss my dear ones as they don't have time for me, but that was also not true as I felt lonely in their presence and mostly ended up fighting with them and taking the blame that I am ignoring them. 

Was that my ego or immaturity or incompetency? No that was not the cause. Was it my stubborn attitude, no it was not. Then what was troubling me? People said I am a complex person and at times they even said I was abnormal. Was it so? No, I am not sure. I know I am unique, but abnormal? I ended up consoling myself that nobody understands me, nobody accepts me with my flaws, they want to change me. The actual story was that I do not understand myself and am unable to accept my flaws and shortcomings. Although I am still thinking.

The sad part of the story is that I am continuing to live in that state right now also, where I am a lost person, I need no one and I know nothing, trying to figure out what I want from life. If you have a clue, please enlighten me.

Learning and living

I have always been blamed for writing about things which are intense and weird at times. I have been happily tagged AJEEB and am living happily with it ( Its good to be different and people who don't understand, term it ajeeb you see)

Anyways what I was saying was that once again I am scribbling about something weird. Usually when I am asked that how is life, I say good or I just smile (atleast when I am in a normal mood, otherwise this response may change, subject to mood risks). What I was thinking was that what makes life good? No, don't think the answer is a hot boyfriend or a sexy girl which sits in the opposite cubicle or the new Iphone 5 in your pocket. The answer depends on how we take life. I take it as a journey, which is a loop of learning and unlearning.

What learning means to me is what you absorb from things around you and not just books ( because if only books mattered then I would have been the wisest person alive ). Lessons can be learnt from the tiniest of the things around, we can even learn things from a person we don't know or like. We need to attract all the learning's towards ourselves. The most effective teacher is time. We learn those tough lessons through our own experiences.

Life is like a ball. The more we absorb from universe it expands, but on the other hand the outer boundary also enlarges which means there is even more to learn. The concept of Nirvana might or might not be familiar to you, but salvation largely deals with learning. We take birth and learn and die and then reincarnations of different types and different learning's and the moment we have learnt enough about life, we get absorbed in the greatest soul, the Omnipotent.

My motive was not spilling this heavy dose of GYAAN, however all I wanted to say was that learn and learn about life, learn whatever you can from people, things, texts, visuals and all the creations of God. If you focus on what you can learn from a person, you decrease the possibility of disliking that thing. The same goes for mistakes and failures, they are not a result of futile effort but an important lesson for you to remember forever.

                                                                           HAPPY LEARNING

Rainbow of different colours

Let me begin with a small and simple question. How was your day? Answers are invited. I can bet on this that atleast every third answer would be a different one. Some regular answers would be fine, good, normal, bad, bakwas etc. Other than these routine ones, there can be more interesting answers as well. My point here is not to check your vocabulary, rather all I wanted to prove is that there is diversity all around us. I can’t assume everyone to think, act, speak or be like me, they have to be different because each one of us is unique.

At times when I cannot agree with my friends or am unable to synchronize with their thoughts, I casually say that we are not clones. By saying this I actually mean that I know that you are a different human being and I acknowledge the difference of the respective views, but this never facilitates me to discard that point of difference. Agreeing or disagreeing is entirely up to us, but we must show some respect for what other person has to say. Lack of such respect leads to arguments and results into bitter end.

Patience is a very difficult virtue. What makes it difficult is the exercise of self control. People like me who are highly short tempered find it an uphill task to be patient enough in daily life. A control on emotions, on speech, on temper is very much necessary to understand what the other person wants to say. Other important ingredient is to free your mind of all the predispositions. Stop being judgmental. Don’t judge things; understand them, to avoid any miscommunication.

It is very important to mark the words that no two persons are alike, they have to be different. And when you understand this fact, there shouldn’t be any fuss over a difference of opinion. Welcome those thoughts, absorb them, bring out something productive and ignore the unimportant ones. Club the crux and invent a masterpiece of thoughts. Take it as an opportunity to build a castle out of different views rather than being a part of chaos. The key is patience and openness. Don’t forget that only various hues are combined to make a vibrant rainbow. Start celebrating the diversity of thoughts rather than complaining that your views are counter attacked by different people or that people hardly agree to what you have to say.

Just imagine a world with people who speak only one language or eat only pizza or work only on Windows 7 or wear only yellow colour clothes, the immediate reaction would be, how boring. That’s what the key idea is, if all of us would think alike, life would have become monotonous. So lets respect these difference and celebrate the diversity.

Overcoming the hurdles

I am not a very famous person, though there are people who love me and admire me for what I am. They know me in my crudest form, they know the real me. Some of them often ask me that why do write so much on positive thinking. I have no answer because I don’t write about positive thinking, it is powerful thinking. It is not possible to be positive at all times because there is a saturation point of positive thinking as well, all we can do is to think of best possible solutions. I don’t say control your anger, I say spit it out and relax.

Not everything can go your way, and people like me have this thinking that nothing goes my way. I don’t say plainly accept whatever comes to you, rather be happy with whatever has happened. When you question God, he would hardly answer because he knows you won’t understand the logic, but sometime down the line you will understand why this happened to you. The answer would come to you slowly, be patient. Till then relax and take it easy, which is undoubtedly difficult. Prove it to yourself that you are a tough lad and you have the guts to face whatever comes through. Don’t be a looser, don’t give up, don’t be a bugger, stop complaining and realize the importance of what you have in hand.

We need to understand things rather than being judgmental about them. Shed your inhibitions and apprehensions and then give your life and relationships a fresh start. Don’t heap the beauty of an emotion with the burden of expectations, keep it free from it and then every day turns beautiful with surprising elements. And this is the toughest job, shed expectations. We can’t help but to expect. We want free chilly or coriander when we buy grocery, let alone expecting from people we love. We expect God to take care of all our wishes, we expect our friends to stand by us all the time, we expect our lover to keep loving us forever, we expect our colleagues to keep helping us. Can we stop doing that and then when such things happen, the joy is boundless.

Get into a pact with yourself that nobody owes you anything, and be grateful about their presence in your present. If something has gone wrong, it has to get better with time, provided that you put in some effort to make things look prettier. Today something has hurt me, it has happened because I took things for granted and piled on my expectations, and now I would be brave enough to stand on my own and not let any pain ruin my moment and be happy in the present. Nothing harms you till you allow it to, nothing can break your will till you give up, physical things may be withdrawn but emotions don’t fade till you want. God only wants to turn you into a stronger person every day. Open your arms and tell him that you are geared up. You will face all storms and stand intact, you are a warrior.

And if you still feel sad, think of the best of the moment you have spent, and tell yourself, your will is going to be strong till that time comes back or even better moments come to your disposal. Keep your hopes high and minimize your expectations, life would be fun trust me.

Mister Prime Minister

I have been feeling the urge of having a conversation with you over a cup of coffee, which doesn’t seem feasible in the near future, so I thought of atleast writing this to you. What I have learnt about India is that it is one of the most successful democracies in the world, which has been inherently blessed with abundant diversities. From modernists to fundamentalists, from liberals to leftists, from NRI’s to illiterate villagers, from pearl white to pitch dark, we have all varieties of human existence here. And you are the proud head of such a state (which now sounds like a joke).

The head of the state, which is politically you, is the subject of most of the jokes which lie in my inbox today. I have been an admirer of your intellectual prowess, however, last couple of years and the events which have taken place have completely brainwashed my fondness for you. A political figure, who was mostly apolitical, highly intellectual, backed by vast sea of knowledge, has now become a mere puppet (your de-facto might be the coalition dynamics or Sonia Gandhi or Rahul Gandhi for that matter). How weird does it sound that the PM of world’s largest democracy is nothing more than a rubber stamp. Okay, knowing that the fault is not completely yours and I do pity your situation,but still is it fair enough for a common man to repose his confidence in you?

We are a developing country doesn’t facilitate the masses to avoid the dominance of scams in the newspapers every second day. Poverty doesn’t facilitate bribery nor does illiteracy facilitate crime. All these scenarios depict something which is tantamount to the failure of the system of democracy as a whole. The dirty politics being played in the parliament makes us think of the concept of democracy in India as nothing more than a fallacy, and Mr. Prime Minister do you have an answer to the question that what has given you the comfort of becoming impotent while holding such an important office in such a vast country with enormous human resource at your hand?

We are moving towards a better future, but how? And what is your baseline? Events taking place in every nook and corner of the country don’t say the stories of progress. We encounter that a 5 year old child dies after being stuck into a borewell for 86 hours, a woman is raped in police station when she goes to lodge an FIR about being gang raped, where pilots go on strike, where a majority of people can’t even read or write INDIA, where farmers commit suicides in high numbers, where health and sanitation reforms sound like a taboo, where child labour is as regular as watching porn ( ministers are good at the latter), and the list might go on endlessly. However, we are so busy at handling 2G and CWG, that we can’t even procure the basic living conditions for each one of us, let alone talking about growth, prosperity or development.

As the head of an elected government, you are answerable to each one of us for how could you trod upon our expectations and aspirations and make us a subject of global mockery.  

Sunshine and Rainbows

As I sit down to write this, I am going through a major upheaval within. I feel so restless and so pressurized. It seems as if it is a real tough time for me as God is testing me in multiple chapters of life. And what do I do? Should I be brave and do my best or feel doomed by the thoughts of failure? It’s not that I have never faced failures in life; I have had a basket full of them. From a star to dust, I have faced a major downfall and here I am, back to my saddles, ready for another battle. At the most, I will lose and then again get up to move on.

From where do I get this feeling? The answer is very simple. We need abundant sunshine in life. That sunshine brings brightness to our days, calms us in the night, tells us that we are beautiful, we are smart, and we are capable of doing what we imagine. All we need is to discover that piece of sunshine. It is there around you, explore your world, something will be there which would tell you that YOU ARE NOT A LOOSER, it would be the feel good factor of your life. It can be anything, anyone. If you ask me for a clue to locate your sunshine, I would say anything, the smile of your lover, the hug from your father or even the pink roses of your garden, the kiss from a small kid in your family or a simple message from your mentor. All of them make you feel great and helps you keep going.

Every morning when you wake up, do you smile? Do you feel that wow it is a beautiful morning? Do you feel glad that you are alive and have one more day to explore this world, learn something new? All of these questions might have the same answer i.e. NO because we take our life for granted. What if you don’t wake up only? And what if you don’t get a chance to say your final goodbye? We all have so many problems, our managers are devilish, our parents don’t understand us, our colleagues hate us, our lovers have no time for us and these petrol prices are all time high. Gosh, life is so difficult and we just hate our lives. Is it so bad? Is it that nothing is good or worth loving in this life?

Or if at all, there nothing worth loving in your life, atleast you are there. While earning your bread and butter, struggling for good grades, working your ass off for a good appraisal, you have forgotten yourself. Parents, spouse, girlfriend, boyfriend, friends, children, neighbour and even watchman are important but what about you? Do you value yourself? How about finishing your work, going home, and after supper, going to terrace with a mug of coffee and feeling the cool breeze blowing over your face? Such moments make you feel alive. They give you strength for the challenges of the coming day. However, we hardly take out time to make ourselves feel good and feel charged up.

I often hear remarks like, “Life is unfair”, “I am fucked up”, “life sucks”, “I am fed up”, “I have had enough” and an entire sea of such small phrases which turn you into a big time looser. Don’t use them or atleast don’t use them seriously. Keep it simple and fun. If you had a bad day at work, come home and tell your sunshine person about it, spill that anger and disgust out of yourself and go to sleep. But please don’t wake up with the same pumpkin face. Atleast you be fair enough with the new day. Don’t pile on things, keep removing the trash out of your life, be it your old bike, screwed up assignment or even a not so happening relationship and most important believe in the line that WHAT IS GONE IS GONE.

New day, new start should be your action plan, love yourself and feel great about what you have. And have some sunshine in your life. And do come back to me tell me about what is your sunshine factor.

Looking towards the horizon

Woods are lovely, dark and deep

But I have promises to keep

And miles to go before I sleep

And miles to go before I sleep.

-          Robert Frost

I have always lived by these lines. Whenever I felt low and disturbed, these lines have played in my mind over and over again. They tell me that no pleasure, no pain should stop me, I should keep moving ahead, every day, every moment. Nothing should obstruct me or distract me.

 Infact life is all about taking up a journey, this journey starts the moment you open your eyes in this world and ends when you close them. The start and end point doesn't matter. What matters is the course taken between these two points. Ask yourself have you made the most out of what you have? Do you feel proud of what you are? Do you complain too much and try too less? You are the best person to judge yourself. No assessment, no appraisal can tell you what you deserve, provided that you know what you are upto and how much you are putting in.

Our problem is that we can’t ignore the unimportant stuff in life. If someone is trying to insult you, why should you even care? However, our general practice is to keep thinking about that same piece of shit again and again. And thus, we make things from bad to worse for ourselves. When someone says you are good for nothing, we actually prove them right by doing more mistakes rather than doing our work even more precisely.

What people think about you should not matter to you; rather what you think about yourself is of utmost importance. People will always pull you down; they will be arrogant and jealous. You need to keep your cool and excel. Make yourself happier and let their jealousy increase. You should accept your mistakes and learn from them and close the chapter, don’t carry it with you for the rest of your life. Stop feeling bad about yourself.

Every new day comes with a new opportunity. Make sure that you thank God for it and when you go to bed, you have something to discuss with him (Other than complaints). We hardly realize how privileged we are to lead such a life, we have abundant opportunities around us, we need to grab as much as we can and keep moving. We need to improve every day, and stop worrying about what has passed. Focus on your today, the days to come will become beautiful automatically.

                                                                              

                                                                 HAPPY JOURNEY

Emotional Dynamics

Girl sees a boy, boy is smitten away by girl’s beauty, and they feel something for each other, confess their love, spend each possible moment with each other, get possessive, live for each other, fight with each other and then become strangers one fine day.

This was such a not so small and cute love story, isn’t it? Truth is usually ugly. And the times we are living in, love is a myth. It hardly exists because it is very difficult to pursue it for an entire lifetime. A very strong force is required to love someone and love the same person till you breathe for the last time. The pace of the world is so fast that love evaporates very soon when it comes to priorities, privacy and possessiveness.

In most of the cases we misinterpret our emotions. Even a hint of liking a person seems to be love and that too with a romantic dimension. We confess it too early and get distracted even earlier. We get bored, we ignore, we blame and then we drift away. There no scope for understanding or empathy, because it is just not meant to be there. We need instant emotions, instant relationships and instant breakups. And in this course intensity and trust is lost and we end up getting into multiple fake and materialistic relationships.

We don’t have time to stop and think that is it really love? And infact how we are even letting our intelligent brains decide that Ok boss, I have fallen in love. Just because you find a girl sexy or a boy hot and you want to sleep with that person, you say you are in love with that person.

 If I say that X and Y are into a relationship, X hasn’t seen Y for last five years, they don’t talk daily over phone, they don’t poke into each other’s personal life and are still happily in love with each other, does this concept sound weird to you? It will sound bizarre but such relationships also exist.

Such people take their own good time to understand each other, they believe in each other and they don’t confess their love to each other after a week of knowing each other.

Why do we need to tell each other that we are in love, can’t it be communicated silently? Don’t we realize it every time we look at each other or every time you read his or her name or when you keep looking for excuse only to catch a glimpse of that person?

 What is the point of getting into complex stuff, attaching expectations and ruining your present for something which will not materialize in future? Why is it so difficult to live the present moment fully and cherish each other’s presence? Why give a name or keep reminding each other of the trauma attached with the future of a given relationship. Flow with the stream and enjoy the tide. If you are honest and truthful and deserve to be together, you would be together, EFFORTLESSLY.

Finding solutions

Last time when I wrote about feeling responsible and not giving up, one of my close friends told me that I know the problem, I address the problem but I give no solution. He actually made me think about this. Infact the size of this problem within my generation is so huge that it has turned into an epidemic. We have eventually turned so materialistic that even friendship has turned jazzy. We want to show off how many friends we have, we have become so cheap we hardly respect our female friends, we have become so carefree we hardly think about life 10 years from now, we don’t plan, we don’t take precautions, we are so used to LET GO that we have become unstable, be it career or relationships or even our decisions.

While thinking about solutions to this epidemic, I could do nothing except to pity me for even trying to find a solution. I mean how am I eligible for doing that? Infact even if I give out a solution, is it going to make a difference? Why should I spoon feed anybody, why can’t you people carve your own paths. All of us differ from each other in an obvious manner, and thus our solutions are bound to be different. I can hardly find a person who is actually trying to bring a revolution or a change for that matter. And the ones who are struggling to make a difference are taken as jerks.

Trust me if I even go and tell somebody that I love reading books, that person is going to come back to me and ask me if I am ok. My approach is firm here, I hardly care what they think about me, yes I read, I write and I discuss, I want to tell the comfort seeking people that it’s high time you better move your ass or you would be left with no chance to do that later and I tell this in whatever way I can. I say what’s the harm in being responsible? Why should you even give a damn to people who say that you are boring just because you focused? It’s entirely your call whether you want to be chased by your girlfriend or you want to chase your dreams. And why should I even come into the picture to tell you your action plan. It is your life dude, action plans should be tailor made for you and you design them, you act upon them and you are the best judge of what is your next step going to be like.

How can an outsider come up to you to tell you about how intelligent or capable you are, rather, your work should reflect what substance are you made of and of course, for this, you need to realize that hidden potential inside you. You have to be focused and honest with yourself. You should stop caring about people who make fun of you; you should smile back to yourself at the end of the day and tell yourself that you are proud of what you are because there is no better you than you. Whatever you are doing is not because you want to prove it to the world rather because it is for your own self. 

Discover what you are

Each one of us is a human being by default (at least the ones who are reading this). We are made up of a different material altogether. We are intelligent, emotional, visionary, sharp, humorous, and compassionate (though finding all qualities in a single man is a rare event). However, each one of us is sensible and senseless at the same time. When we see ourselves at par with the entire cosmos, we hardly have any identity, any existence and on the other hand if we look at our small family or small group of friends, we have a role to play or sometimes multiple roles to play.

World has turned into a stressful place these days, I find majority of people saying that they are not happy, they are sad, depressed, dejected and a pool of all negative emotions which prevail. Infact at times I also do the same. All of us have unfathomable depths of energy and innovation within us, though some of us use it and some do not and some are not even aware of it.

The unaware lot does nothing and is mostly a self denigrator species who feel bad about themselves. They not only underestimate themselves but also think that their existence is a sheer waste. Negative thoughts of all shape, size and hue find a home in minds of such people. They feel depressed and helpless. Such people belong to the vulnerable species that project themselves as victims most of the times.

When we point a finger towards someone we hardly care that our effort stands null and we are equally responsible for whatever has happened. Dreams and goals are two different things altogether. We blame God, our family and all other possible people for our failures without mentioning that we too have done nothing to achieve those distant goals. It is so easy to crib all the time.

Ask yourself that are you brave enough to take the blame of your failures to yourself? First you accept that it’s you who has not given 100% and then realize the sea of energy within you and start afresh. There would be no VICTIM within you then, you would become a warrior

At any point of time when you would want to just give up, remind yourself that “I am a distinct human being and I have my own identity, I have a role to play in my family, in my nation, and the world as well, and I can’t let anyone, anything ruin my dreams. I will stand firm and face my failures and stand up again to give it one more try with a new zeal and after learning my lessons.

Modi and Modesty

For quite some time, I have been seeing Mr. Narendra Modi as the prime contender to the post of Prime Minister. However, last night I was brought out of slumber. Infact I was taken aback that if I can live amidst such misunderstandings, what would be the condition of the common man who cannot spare time and even afford to read statistics and reports about the ground reality. The very next day, I had a clear idea of what image has been projected when one of my friends remarked that BJP was secular party.

It was at that point, I decided that I wanted to be vocal about the real face of Vibrant Gujarat. Gujarat has been the cradle of some very famous and talented personalities like Mahatma Gandhi, Dhirubhai Ambani, Sam Pitroda, Dayanand Saraswati, Ratan Tata, Azim Premji, Vikram Sarabhai etc. Not only this in a very short span of time Gujarat has progressed manifolds, especially post Godhra. Chief Minister Narendra Damodar Modi has been globally acknowledged for making Gujarat a global business hub. Be it industry, or energy, or tourism, or culture, Gujarat’s performance has always been outstanding.

Behind this mask of prosperity and well being, we have an ugly face which has deep scars of communalism and inhuman approach. Gujarat is already bearing the dark stains of Godhra mass killings and this barbaric act was proudly supervised by Mr. Modi. Ask your conscience, how fair is it to kill innocent people in the name of law and order? How sane is it order ruthless killings in the name of religion? And how constitutional is it to give way to communal feelings in a secular state?

How would you explain the absence of muslim settlement within the five-kilometer radius of Ahmedabad University. Or how would you explain the over populous Juhapura which accommodates muslims more than it could have afforded to? What has stopped Mr. Modi from implementing the Central Scholarship for Muslim students when over Rs. 10,000 crore meant for scholarships for muslim youth were returned to the Centre while Gujarat is observing that urban poverty in Muslims is fifty percent higher than even OBC’s (and a good 800% higher than Hindus).  Can Mr. Modi deny that Gujarat has become Hindutva’s main production unit which also manufactures inferior status for Muslims?

When we talk about Gujarat’s progress we need to pay heed certain aspects here. How is the prosperity competing with the rise in anaemia in women and children which has gone up from 46.3% to 55% in 2004? While Muslims are exploited and looked down upon, there are hardly a handful of Muslim prosecutors appointed by the state to stand up for their protection. What accounts for this discrimination? How is Mr. Modi going give a justification for this hostility towards Muslims?

On top of this he has started off his Sadbhavna Mission diplomacy. I wonder if he understands what is sadbhavna! If he can ever come out of his fanatic approach and understand the pinch of losing your family behind the veneer of communal riots. How would he justify his insensitive and barbaric orders? How long would he hide his sinful thoughts under the limelight of progress and development? What he is doing in his state will soon spread over the country. No wonder he may order a massacre of Muslims all over and emerge as the General Dyer of Free India and would be assassinated in a similar fashion. We really need to know a lot about the people we appreciate, for we may not at all be aware of the animal instincts behind the mask of a savior.

The Bhagat Phenomenon

I recently met Chetan Bhagat at Jaipur Literature Festival and got a chance to attend his sessions as well. Well, it was almost a dreamlike moment for me because he is one author I look up to. Yes, we can discuss my poor taste later.

As far as what I remember, I read my first CB novel when I was in class 10^th.  Trust me I was taken aback by the concept underlined by the book. I had never thought in that manner earlier. His thought process had somewhere made a mark in my life.  Today, I am doing my masters in English Literature and I am still a fan of his books. Or rather it’s better to say that I am a fan of his ideologies. I have read all his books and often keep reading them all over again.

At the literature festival, he said that he doesn’t write anything close to literature. May be I too agree to him somewhere, being a literature student. However, he doesn’t even want to write something which has literary implications. Each of his novels has a message, but people don’t want to look towards the brighter side, they want to put it on the scale of literary criticism.

He has written about secularism, education system, corruption and regionalism too. Isn’t this great? The idea of bringing about a change through his writing is good enough. Yes he writes fun stuff and puts spice of love stories in his novels but that’s what attracts attention. How is the message supposed to spread if the mass doesn’t read his books only? Basically, his books are youth oriented and that’s what the need of the hour is. No college going guy would read a boring narrative which speaks about the reforms required in the education system.

He might not have been able to impress the critics but I can very well say that all his readers are (in some way or the other) impressed and may be who knows some of them have even changed after reading his books. We are a developing nation and somewhat conservative as well. We need not shed away our culture and tradition, however, we must be open to change and adaptive to new customs for our betterment. His work somewhere seeks validation of this change and doing away with the existing bad logics and malpractices.

As a loyal reader, I am a hard core promoter of this Bhagat phenomenon and would continue to brag about his books.

Gang Rape of Democracy

Welcome to Incredible India! India is the Land of Sadhus, unity in diversity, land of gods, nature’s paradise and numerous beautiful poetic phrases. Let me try and take you to a long drive or may be soon you would want to cut it short.

The capital of India is New Delhi, which has recently completed a century of being the capital. Delhi is by the way not a very safe place for women and for men too (in case they are rich). Well, there is nothing to panic because, crime rate in India is normally above average levels and is generally acceptable. Anyways, what I was saying was that Delhi has showcased very beautiful architectural pieces and one can always cherish the memories of visits to these sites (provided that you do not become a victim of the lapka phenomenon)

The grandeur of Rashtrapati Bhavan or be it the Red fort or the very peaceful Jama Masjid or the very crowded and full of aroma Chandni Chowk is just amazing and only to be found in India. Needless to say that Delhi is also the cultural, literary and political hub of India. Intellectually speaking, Delhi University has polished some very famous diamonds. To name a few, I would say, Aung Sang Sui kyi, Shahrukh Khan (LOL), Manmohan Singh, Rabbi Shergil, Khushwant Singh, Ritu Beri etc.

I would like to register my apologies, for now I’m going to take the steering towards a totally different highway which goes to the political arena of India. Delhi forms the core of Indian Political cosmos. There is always a commotion in the political passages. We live in times of a political upheaval. We have an incompetent government, an impotent opposition, extremely strong pressure groups who are trying to paralyze the established democratic setup by dictating the policies. We are the mute spectators of a gigantic mass movement (though it doesn’t really count if the mass is actually aware about the intricacies involved with the agenda of this (almost) uprising). There is paid news and sponsored assassinations, commissioned scams and much more filth.

Amidst all this, there are speculations and whispers about the next leader of our country who is going to represent India on the global forum. Some pro Gandhi people want Rahul Gandhi to take the lead, irrespective of the fact that he is way too immature and raw for this maddening responsibility unlike his charismatic father Rajeev Gandhi.  Some people are in favour of L.K. Advani who, I believe, is too old and must consider retiring from active politics. The strongest contender of the post of PM is Narendra Modi.

Tracking his record, we can easily map how Gujrat has progressed manifolds under his leadership ( I would give a hint of credit to the team of civil servants as well who are working day in and day out to formulate policies and convincing him to ponder upon the same). However, somewhere the Indian inside me doesn’t seem to be convinced. Picking up Narendra Modi would certainly trample the principle of secularity which is in the preamble of our constitution. No matter how hard I try, I can never forgive him for his barbaric act. The fact that I am a hindu no where allows me to give my consent to his fanaticism.

In addition to these iconic figures, we have some other nominees as well, namely, Sushma Swaraj or Arun Jaitley, Priyanka Gandhi, Pranab Mukherjee etc. No wonder some people might even want a Jumbo Mayawati to be our leader. (A devilish grin) What is more than evident is that everybody is indulged in playing politics and trying to cash on what opportunity they get. These politicians are trying to gang rape the democracy named India. The politicians have no moral and ethical underpinnings. The question is no more about welfare and progress; it solely deals with power and exploitation.

The images they are trying to cast in order to allure votes is so illusionary that the common man can hardly differentiate between the rapist and the savior. What we need to do is to come out of the slumber and go for a reality check. We have to choose those people to represent us who can take our nation to the pinnacle of success rather than dumping us into the heap of backwardness and filth.

Oops, I think I have gone too deep digging into the mines of politics. We were talking about incredible India and this is an indispensible part of our India and we the people. Signing off for now, my dormant volcanoes.  

Conscience affairs

Hi. I am me. That is your conscience. I am your inner voice. I am your guide and spectator. Sometimes I help you while sometimes I seek your opinion. Sometimes you listen to me like an obedient student while sometimes you argue with me like a rebellious prisoner of war. I am there when you are happy, I cry when you are heartbroken, I console you when all your dreams are shattered; I push you when you feel dejected. I am always present in your wrong doings and your sins. I am an unconditional companion who wants no returns.

I teach you how to love, I tell you to chase your dreams, I help you identify yourself and I stop you from committing mistakes. I help you to differentiate between right and wrong, illusive and real, ethical and sinful. However, you tend to ignore me most of the times because the sinful indulgences are far more attractive. There are instances when you are so blinded by the momentary pleasures that you hardly realize that your act is not justified. You indulge in wrong practices and realize only when it is too late.

Then at such moments of self realization, I try to cheer you up by telling you that you are a human being, you are bound to make mistakes. If you make no mistakes, you become perfect and only the Creator is perfect not his creation. You fall and then you realize that the path is full of boulders. You then become more vigilant and next time you make another mistake, but that’s a new mistake. You are wise only when you do not repeat the same mistakes.

Life is a teacher of a bizarre kind. First it takes a test and later teaches a lesson. These are those vital lessons which need not be forgotten because the tests are sometimes very tough and painful. They may leave you shattered and estranged, they may even take away your high spirits and leave you disillusioned. You should never analyze the reason behind why a particular pain is coming to you because you hardly have an idea of what destiny has planned for you. You can hardly imagine what hardships someone else is facing.

You have to be brave. You have to give your best shot. You may fall; you should not keep on lamenting. Shed a tear or two, and wipe them off. Look above to the heavens, and tell him that you are back in your saddle. Tell yourself that you are a warrior and you can fight through the battle like a hero. Come what may, you won’t give up.

So promise me that from today you will live by the line BRING IT ON and I will stand by your side in all the battles.  

Love and Complications

Love has been in existence from time immemorial. I believe Adam and Eve also loved each other. One question keeps on popping up in my mind is that what exactly is love? Love is a very strong emotion, somewhat selfless and platonic. Although each boyfriend girlfriend pair thinks that they are madly in love, which is, in any case, a bizarre misconception (MOSTLY). Plus, every mother thinks that she loves her son endless, which, in any case, is subdued (MOSTLY).

A very interesting plot I came across few days back was that in a daily soap, a scary mother-in-law plots against her daughter-in-law. And the reason was that she loves her son direly and does not want to lose him to his wife. Actually, I have mostly encountered this feeling of conquering the person you love and restricting all others from conquering over him ever again (of course, the gates are open again after divorces).

What makes me go crazy is that why do we become so possessive when we love a person? I mean why it can’t always be a selfless, platonic emotion? Why do strings of materialism and expectations come attached with love? Sense of commitment, demand of loyalty and urge of privacy comes along with relationships. What I believe is that if the bond is true and pure, agenda is achieved on its own without putting in much of an effort. If the mother would not try to superimpose herself and her love, her child would still love her endlessly. Where is the need for planning and plotting, crying and shouting?

Blinded by expectations, we have become so selfish that we always reach out for our comfort zones, regardless what ordeal it may turn out for the other person. We look for emotional soothing and materialization of feelings, without even caring that it would kill the piousness of the bond. When I love you X times, I want you to reciprocate it X times always and shower Y times of my love at times! Even when you love your dog, you expect him to come to you wagging his tail every time you step into the house!

Let’s make love purest of the pure feelings. Let’s not load it with a necessity of productive returns. Let’s just love the people around us. Let’s just love the nature. Let’s become a loving son, a loving mother, a loving wife, a loving friend, a loving citizen and enjoy the festivities of life rather than estimating the costs of different birthday gifts after the party!

On Republic named India

To start with, I would like to congratulate all of you (especially Indians and may be NRI’s as well) on the 63^rd Republic Day. It was on this day that the Constituent Assembly adopted the Constitution of India. And for those who are simply not aware, Republic means “a form of government in which the people, or some significant portion of them, have supreme control over the government and where offices of state are elected or chosen by elected people”.

Indian Constitution is the lengthiest constitution which derives various features from other constitutions. As far as what I have learnt till now is that Indian Constitution is a beauty and has very well catered to the needs of the masses. We have been a shining example of democracy which functions with unimaginable diversities. There have been disturbances, internal as well as external, there have been problems, economical, social, and cultural and many more and we have survived all of those.

What seems more disturbing is that we don’t value this inherited constitution and its features. One of the most prominent features of our constitution is Fundamental Rights which has its origin in the Bill of Rights. Most recently an encounter of a fundamental right being in news was that of ”Right to Freedom”. Freedom of speech and expression can never be taken literally. There has to be a cap over it.

Is it really difficult to express yourself in a way that it doesn’t hurt someone else? Why do we have to express ourselves only in context of a controversial issue? We need to respect each other’s religion, culture and moral underpinnings. Freedom of speech comes with a sense of responsibility as well where you have to make sure it causes no harm. Only because contempt of court is a legitimate concept, you respect the courts and just because there is no provision of penalizing for defamation, you can spill trash about anything?

M.F. Hussain and Salman Rushdie are not the only protagonists here. There is probably a species of people who like to make controversial statements. Be it Mayawati or Poonam Pandey or Baba ramdev or Bal Thackrey or Rahul Gandhi. They all seem to be blinded by enmassed publicity. The anti graft crusader Anna Hazare has also delivered totally senseless remarks and then stated that they have been blowed out of proportion. Being an artist or a politician or a celebrity doesn’t give us a license to talk insensitively. 

We should make the most out of the things we have and try best to bring out positive out of it. When we have fundamental rights, we should use them make our lives beautiful and dignified rather than targeting a group of people, intentionally or otherwise too.

Banished conscience

We are living in an age of revolutions and rebellions, Libya, Egypt, Bahrain and still counting. And why do we have to go too far?  Our own country is going through a major upheaval. Lately we have been experiencing too much turbulence; black money, corruption, scams, and political instability. There has been a wave of negativity all around. People are reflecting lack of trust in the government and administrative institutions.

Every day when common man picks up the newspaper to read, he crushes the newspaper and throws it into the dustbin. It depresses him to the core. Each common man has to struggle to earn his supper. He bears the expenses of his children’s education, his family’s health, and numerous other expenses which keep on popping up. And amidst all this trauma when he sees pessimism all around he feels so helpless and frustrated.

Corruption has been a burning issue in the recent past. Baba Ramdev (who had been decorated by black ink few days back) has been a pioneer in initiating the movement. Anna Hazare and Co. has entirely given a new shape to the Jan Lokpal Movement. Parliament was disrupted and politicians have displayed an entirely new dimension of how to blame the government for everything happening (all over the globe) No wonder that tomorrow if Obama looses the senate elections, Mayawati would say that Rahul Gandhi is responsible for it.

The toothless government has been so bloody impotent in this whole scene that we cannot repose any confidence the Parliament i.e. the highest policy making body of our nation. And we come to a draft of a Jan Lokpal Bill which Team Anna has rejected completely. Question of the hour is that if Team Anna has to do the policy making for us then why do we need to have a parliament in the first place? Why is Team Anna so rigid? Such adamant attitude reflects nothing except the fact that this whole scene is moving towards a positive entropy (for those who are not aware, Entropy is defined as ‘a measure of the degradation of the universe’.) I can hardly see a point in out and out rejection of the proposed bill. The adopted draft can be put to practice and we can eventually figure out the negativities and amend them subsequently.

If this course is followed, we can restore normalcy in the political arena and the civil society, however, Team Anna would not really look upto this because they would rather go for a politically motivated and attention seeking course where one man is seen as anti corruption crusader and attention is fetched in the name of Gandhi. This game plan has easily targeted the youth who lacks orientation and vision. There is a large section of the society who has supported this movement only because they live by the herd mechanism or only because they are seeking limelight.

In the due course, the conscience of such people is on a self imposed exile and needs some intense counseling for they are totally unaware of what they are endorsing and where this is leading them to!

Behind the bars

The day I opened my eyes, this world welcomed me with open arms. Initially, I liked only the lady who kept me in her womb. Later, I learnt that she only got me here. Slowly, I started loving all the people at my home. Then I grew up a little and it was time to attend school. I could not understand why my father was so stressed. He was a rickshaw puller and earned well. We ate twice a day, however sometimes my mother did not eat and we ate all the food. At last, my school started. For a few days, I could not see any teacher but sometimes I got food to eat in the recess.

As the years passed, I started learning that we were a poor family. I was not supposed to demand any toys or new clothes. I felt very bad but I had no choice. My tears only made my mother sad but she could not get me my demands. Eventually, I stopped asking for anything. Somehow, I could not do too well in academics. Reasons could be figured out easily. I never bought books and teachers hardly came to school. In any case, nobody even cared at home. They only wanted me to finish the school education.

After finishing the school, I had somewhere built up this dream that I will at least enroll for graduation. The blow to my dreams came the day I confided this to my mother. The reasons she gave were emotional and financial. We could not afford any kind of investment on my education plus it was time that I was supposed to play a pivotal role in terms of supporting my family financially.

I started working as a sales boy and tried to earn to my fullest capacity. Somehow no matter how much I earned, it always appeared meagre. At times I felt very unfortunate and frustrated about our financial situation. I did whatever I could but things were never improved, sometimes my father’s illness, sometimes my mother’s pain. There was no end to the need for more funds. And one fine day, one more addition popped up. My family wanted me to get married.

I was already imprisoned in the cage of poverty and now, one more shrinkage in that cell. It was a difficult life behind bars where you can’t dream, you can’t expect too much out of life, you never dare to think of future because you are so busy thinking about supper. My marriage left my family in debt and added one more mouth to feed. I felt so irritated and messed up that I could not even enjoy the marital life.

AND NOW LIFE HAS TAKEN ONE MORE STEP

Today, I have become the father of a baby girl. I am not sure whether I should welcome the angel or start working harder to save her from the ordeal I am facing. I feel so helpless at this point of time that I can’t think of a way out of this pathetic life. And there are millions others who are facing harder situations in life. I wish a miracle which helps all of us to feed our family, and educate our children so that they do not hesitate to dream.

The notes of an old building

I am an old building which stands at the end of the road, opposite to the famous coffee and ice cream parlour. I have seen at least a hundred springs here. People of all ages are happy about my existence because I have been a witness of the long struggle for freedom of my nation from the colonial rule. I see the sea of traffic every day, I see couples fighting, parents scolding, friends chatting and innumerous such events every day. I have been seeing all this for a long time now.

Rewinding the bioscope of my life, I pause at the fight for freedom by the people of this nation; the freedom fighters have delivered long zealous speeches in front of me. Many of those have been even killed in front of my eyes. I have mourned with them and I consoled them. I even had tears in my eyes when I saw them suffer. And that glorious moment, when we became independent, I can never forget that joy.

These days, that joy is missing. I fail to revive that sense of pride while I think about my nation. The youth today doesn’t reflect similar energy and enthusiasm. There are no more conversations about what I dream of doing for my nation. Infact, the whole vibe is missing. They no more feel the special feeling of being a pot of energy. Everything has been covered with the quilt of dormancy in the season of cold heartedness. Everybody seems so overwhelmed with the inherited asset of independence that they hardly care about the ongoing degradation of the nation. They seem to be burdened by the legacy of their freedom struggle than to carry it with pride.

The most shocking fact is that the youth hardly cares about the so called “Patriotism”. They want to go to college, gossip around, complete the course and grab a job abroad. The next level plan may include marriage, children and other personal stuff. And one fine day, they would retire from their jobs and spend the last days of their life in a hospital or asylum or if lucky, with their grandchildren.

At some point, I find them selfish, doing nothing at all for the land which has nurtured them. Then, next moment I conclude that I am expecting too much out of this spoilt, instant food lover generation.  Why am I trying to see a Bhagat Singh among this dating freak lot? I would never be able find that spark here because they have got this freedom free of cost. The day it would be snatched away from them, I might see the same old fire. Mind you, I MIGHT.

It comes from the heart of a feminist

Recently, I read a couple of reports which stated that girls must resort to conservative dressing if they really want to stay away from any kind of stain on their existence. I was left wondering that are there girls on this planet who would actually like to be raped?

I could barely swallow the fact that these set of thoughts had come from the likes of an educationalist in Bangalore and a senior police official. Obscene dressing is taken as an invitation to sexual abuse. Are we kidding ourselves? 

Was the attire provocative when an 80 year old lady was raped? Or when a 2 year old child was a victim of sexual abuse and murder?  Have we breached the basic sanity levels while making such weird observations that girls wear short dresses to arouse the boys? Was it an invitation when in 2005, Imrana was raped by her father-in-law? Was the tribal woman so seductive that she was subjected to a gang rape by the policemen when she had gone to lodge an FIR about her missing husband in the police station? The women who dress up in totally covered attires are completely insulated from sexual assault?

Wearing sleeveless dresses or a Capri comes at a cost of your dignity in a nation which has embarked on the path of modernisation. Why do we go towards hypocrisy when we talk about modernisation? Are we really progressive enough to move on from the concept where women are actually treated nothing more than mere sex objects? Can we open our eyes to notice the fact that men are not open to accept the fact women deserve equal status in society and they are not inferior!

The bottom-line is that  eyes which have no respect for women rather they are brimming with lust and blinded by superiority complex can spare no women to be victimised be it a two-year old kid or an eighty-year old lady, whether it is burka clad women or a bikini clad model.

My journey

We all are sent to this world by Him for a special cause, which can be accomplished only by us.We are all special in a unique way. And that is why I'm also special. The people in my life add to this feeling and they make me feel blessed. The story isn't all sunshine, I too have gone through rough patches and mind you they are just patches and that is why they don't define my journey rather they are just a part of it.

Like everybody else who falls into my age group, I am also aggressive and arrogant, but that doesn't stop me from being intelligent ( and even smart at times). My failures have depressed me as well but they don't stop me from trying once again. Yes, there are certain loopholes in my life, but they don't make me a complete messed up person.

I'm totally aware of what am I doing and what are my goals ( both short-term and long-term). My dreams are big, but they don't stop me from enjoying my present. I am serious about my life but that has not turned me into a pumpkin faced girl. I am witty but not over talkative. Yes, I'm greedy for chocolates and slightly craving for coffee yet I'm balanced. I pray when I'm sad and I cry when I'm overjoyed.

That's me and welcome to my world.