A Child’s Perspective

Children have this way of simply saying things that make you laugh and later, think. It’s Sunday morning, my ‘Soon going to be 3’ Year old daughter was busy playing, rambling out things that I can best describe as random. I was just sitting there dealing with the fact that it is morning already. Mornings are tough!

She then paused, looked at me and said “Papa! Sad kyu ho? Tum Gruffalo(her favourite character) jaisa dikh rahe ho.. Theek Karo!”* I was taken aback at first then realized she was pointing at my unshaven, salt-peppery beard and a head of unkempt and mangled hair.

It was as if the child said: “Not happy with something?? Fix it!”. It then struck me how seemingly simple things can sometimes have such deep meaning. It is always so easy to keep playing the past in your head, thinking “what if?” and making alternate personal history in your head based on what  you want to edit in your past. No matter how alluring world of “What if” seems to be, it is a vicious soul sucking trap which is like a black hole that gets stronger as you keep adding more stuff into it.

It made me realize how it is important to shut the magical portal to the world of “What if” and instead walk into the real world through the old but rugged gate of “Why not?”. Take action not just ponder. Good things won’t happen until we make them happen!

A simple line from a child had transformed me from an unwilling participant of life feeling violated just by sensing daylight to  someone who seeks to get something done today.

I got up, got ready and gave huge giggle inducing bear hug to the little one.  

There are things that we can change and there are things we can't. Let’s at least do something we can! Let's “Fix it!”

Sometimes it takes a child’s perspective to give you direction.

*Translates into: "Dad, Why do you look Sad? You look like a Gruffalo! ... Fix it!"

Open Reponse to article "Yeh khulapan jayaz hai ?" Published in Prabhat Khabar 25th Apr

Dear Sir,

This is in reply to the Article "Yeh khulapan jayaz hai ?" published on the front page of Prabhat Khabar, Ranchi edition dated 25^th April’13. It is very unfortunate and to an extent disturbing that your esteemed paper has chosen this particular approach to the issue of so acceptability of the called “Open-ness”.

The only thing more frustrating than the moral-policing – shaming approach to an issue which should have been delicately handled was the little box with statement from the secretary of Ramkrishna Mission alongside.  It appears that it is being suggested that religion/belief (dharma) is the only thing required to “cure” the youth from such (apparent) moral depravity. Is it? If a person does not share a belief in god can he not be a moral and ethical human being? Why do we have to drag in religion in places where it does not belong?

We seem to seek all solutions from the lap of god of whose existence is no definitive proof but we blatantly ignore the dynamics of human union due to which we literally are here. Isn’t it time that this hypocrisy is put to an end?

I have always reserved my objections to the seemingly scandalous Ads published in your paper under the section “Friendship”  and the products like "Japani Ling Vardhak" advertised under the so called “Medical” section which I find to be as misleading as it is dubious to the naive reader  (I find putting the Ad label of ‘Medical’ for potentially untested, unverified, un-certified so called devices,  treatments and ayurvedic  “recipies” is grossly inappropriate ) but this time I am forced to object to the gross misuse of the precious ( at least 2 Lakh rupees worth of space if I am not wrong) newspaper space .

People romanticise about the old times and how morally upright the youth was or so it appeared to be.. Well, the times have changed, the way society interacts has changed, our priorities, lifestyles, means of livelihood, technology around us has changed. We cannot go back but instead of trying to go back we sure can go forwards.

I agree that public display of affection in our midst is offending to many of your readers. Is this the right way to address the issue?  Dear sir, It takes two to tango: did all of those couple photographed agree to them being published on the front page?  Publishing them too is ignorance of sensibilities. We need to reach a point of agreement between conservatism and outbursts of liberty by youth trapped in a sexually repressed society. Why can we not dedicate an effort to that?

I do not see why a reputed newspaper like yours cannot devote space to an effort to bring about respect for women, equality among sexes and foster a healthy interaction between them. Why can we not encourage a society where know the last names (and implicitly the person’s caste) is not important and the ability, dedication and intellect of a person are ?

I realize that this is a topic of frenzied debate nonetheless, I will conclude by saying that shaming and sermons by pious, holy men is the last thing we need to bring about a positive change in the society.  It would be appreciated if the newspaper put an effort to bring unanimity to collective sensibilities of people rather than enforce a regressive and draconian framework of so called morality upon the youth by the means that has been used in this case.

Regards

A citizen hoping to reside in an intellectually free, progressive and open minded India.

P.S. Link to the article for those who aren't aware: "Ye khulapan Jayaz hai? "

99 Problems but 'The Itch' ain't one

We’ve got our share of problems, and we’ve all got our share of regrets. The reason that "regret" is on my mind (No, I have not done anything immoral lately..hah! ) is that I saw this TED talk where this lady named Kathryn Schulz was talking about how we as (normal) humans have to have regrets… well, else you are a sociopath or brain-damaged...apparently .

Interestingly, she had a survey that showed that majority of people regret their education, career and romance related decisions ...ouch.

This got me thinking... I live in a country where most of the kids at school are majorly given 3 career choices at school First: Doctor, Second: Engineer, Third: Others (we don't really care what you do, you're a douche-bag). As a result (not surprisingly) we are bound to have a large number of people stuck doing things they remotely have affinity for. Look at me for instance, I used to sit in an Anatomy class at college trying to figure out which of the dissected human body parts in front of me was the Right lung and which was the left (when I realize that it actually was a liver) and then hook an inflated pillow to a circuit and poke it( to simulate "breathing") just to see the pressure readings change on the laptop….. Now, I am an SAP admin at an IT firm. Boy! I didn't see that coming... or did I?

For crying out loud!  Cribbing about how wrong is your job for you is the 'in' thing these days! Let me tell you one thing: even if you went to the "Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry" chances are that you’ll graduate and still be working for an IT company, maybe in the HR department to befuddle the people into feelings of job satisfaction from their current salary and other such illusions. After all as an HR said: "You are unique does not mean that you are 'useful'... "

Then comes the second stage where everyone wants to have "The MBA" , move into finance, become a banker and scoot to the US/EU to be the 1% watching the rest occupy the streets from atop skyscrapers.

Wait a second! We are back to cliché again! Seriously guys? like moths flying onto a bulb isn't that?

What are we running away from? Yes. We in India have a whole lot of problems... a BIG load… and THAT my friend, is the precise reason why it makes sense for you to stay (if you are as you say.. imaginative and caught at the wrong place) because a hundred problems mean that there might be a more than a thousand different ways to come up with a solution and make something better, or come up with something new. That means, there are a whole lot of opportunities waiting for somebody to grab them. We have got over a Billion people! Even a single rupee from each of them can make you a Billionaire! 

We are a nation of quick-fixers and problem solvers right from mothers using newspapers to soak oily food to auto-rickshaw drivers using a mix of vegetable oils and petrol to save money. Of course we can do it! We have a million things we can improve in all spheres of life. That means what-ever you supposedly "wanted" to do is also included in the list. All you have to do is think, dive in and yank out the bunny by its ears.

Here comes the third part of "The Great Indian Phenomena”: Most of us have got so snug in the blanket of our insipid life that we don't want to budge! It turns out we have become too lazy for our own good. People now rather prefer irradiate themselves to stupid reality shows like "Bigg Boss" and have their brain cells killed and then later on feel a slight tinge of pain when reminded of what they actually aspired to do, which they shrug off and go to bed.

Time to bring in the "Itch”: Remember giving a competitive exam full of multiple choice questions? Wherein if you are not in the top 10 per cent then you are 'no good’… Seriously?! You believe that the 90% of us are ok to fit in a 'not so good' category? No, I don't think so and I know neither do you. Einstein once said “Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.” 

Get the Itch! Don't live a life stamped 'OK' when you can live one that is Awesome!, the one that you'll like  more, the one that you wonder how would it be if you "did that". Take an initiative no matter how small and its better late than never!... else we're back to regret. and no matter how the lady in the TED video tells you to deal with it.. It always will be unpleasant.

Someone said "I'll do it part-time till the day I can do it Full-time" 

Cheers! :)

The TED talk I was referring to: Check it out.

Spontaneity..

Spontaneousness ... what is it.. its a condition when you go on doing a thing without thinking without caring whether its right or wrong... No spell check nor review either!! Why?? I got a reason.. "Liquid Courage" :D ..makes the perfect situation where most of the people do not care what they write what  they say.. Who cares anyway!!

So I decided to give it a try..  so to discover this wonderful yet dreadful experience... It reminds me of a line from the movie - "The Dark Knight" where the joker says - "Madness is like gravity..sometimes it just needs a little push! "..... Well so is spontaneity!! or so I feel as i run amok social networking sites ruining people's statuses and posting weird comments on their pictures.. guess what this also needed just a little push!!

So what happens now after a spell of 'unhindered' thinking along with heavy metal music , mellowing down to Pink Floyd and coming up with some really funny engineering marvels and subsequent business models ... Lot of head-banging ending only when you realize that the neighbors are actually banging the door to make you turn down the volume.

In my defense it feels nice to be like an eagle soaring in the sky and having an eye for even the minutest details on the ground.. Its nice to feel that way in a world where in reality you are trapped in front of a desktop the whole day, have absolutely nothing better to do, work sucks, truth hurts , the only thing that grows is the content of fat in your body and the only thing that rocks is 'Iron Maiden'.

Ah..this feels perfect.. but one of the shortcomings of ' Liquid Courage' is that is that you can only have it for sometime.. it wears off with quite some side-effects before you realize what all you have done...clutch your head recollect and then  you scurry back to make up the 'damage done'... its like an Aesop's Fable where the Sage says : Ok Tiger.. time to be a mouse again!!

Good things in life do come is small packages.... sigh..
Anyway... Cheers to life!!!
Burrrp.

All that it could have been...

It is not what I thought it would be....." Kya socha tha kya ho gaya"...

Have you ever had these words flowing out of you?

I find myself bombarded with questions....Why did this happen ? What was to be and what not to be?... who decides this? Who am I to judge that it was supposed to be this way and not the other?

I may or may not have control over what has happened by I sure had control over what I did. What happened was surely affected by my action. Does this mean I knew what might come and ignored it?

We human beings are fascinating creatures...we dream, we think , we imagine of ideas..of places , of situations , of possibilities. We strive to achieve what our conscience told us to be.... By our actions we choose the direction where we want to go, with no certainty of reaching the set goal.

Coming to the second part of this..."The Goal". A simple word which eludes comprehension by the emotional part of a Human's mind....I'm not talking of the "SMART" ( specific, measurable, attainable ...blah blah ) corporate goals, I'm talking about the goals that an human mind intuitively creates when we think..when we dream, we imagine.. For example: I say my goal is "to be happy" ... an easy to comprehend 3 words.

So that means I do whatever I do because I get happiness from it, if not immediately then in the future... Time passes day by day then one fine day I pause, sit down to think were am I on my path to happiness which leads me to recollect what was my "goal" that I decided... Being happy.. lots of emotions attached to the words...

See for yourself.. just sit back close of your eyes and say the word "happy" your mind will be filled with memories ... you are running in the rain as kid..winning your first ever award..riding a bike for the 1st time.. completing school ..laughing with friends.. going to college..getting snug with your first love.. first paycheck.. Then you open your eyes and think " I don't have anything like this now" so does that mean that I am not happy? does this mean I wont be happy ever??

"What could have been"... "what if I had..." Do I dwell in these thoughts of mine?? Its a vicious circle.. the more you think of it the more you let these thought swirl so much so to create a whirlpool that sucks you in... like a black hole that consumes everything that comes near it...

NO i do not want to be sucked into this vortex ..this is not "happy"!! nowhere near it!!

Logically speaking.. thinking about whether I'm "happy" sucked me into a vortex of melancholy does this mean that I should stop thinking of "what is to be" or what "it was" ? Should I live each day as it comes by and act like I have nothing to lose ?? Isn't this a contradiction to what a man is and that a man is defined by this thoughts ? Is a sloshed man at the bottom of a bottle of alcohol "happier" than me, a logically thinking man?

No, because I know that man isn't living in the reality, he is in a world of illusion , same as a man who lives his life taking each day as it comes without thinking of where he is and where does he have to go. The way I think defines me, controls my action and to an extent the things that happen in my life. If I stop thinking then what is the difference between me and an animal left in the streets?

Like everything in life, there needs to be a balance here ... We need to take control of our thoughts rather than to let them wreak a havoc over us.We need to learn how to 'think happy' . Maybe sometimes ignorance IS bliss, but then you need to come out of it and continue the search for happiness....

We dream of the perfect life.. Strive to get there as it keeps eluding us like a mirage..so engrossed are we in this chase, so blinded are we by this mirage that the place we are seems so very insignificant that it makes us unhappy... Is it really so? Pause..look around you ... so many people, so much happening.. Help someone in trouble without expecting anything in return , observe nature, observe how life flows in a city, fall in love, be weird, smile, look at the stars and feel how microscopically tiny part of the universe are we... Do what you like, have a vision, work for it but don't get sad saying you are not there or you will never be. So what if you never reach there.. It was 'your' vision and you worked for it, learnt from your mistakes and kept trying... you had a purpose in life. Every second that passes us by is unique..Do we have the time for contemplating and being sad ? I don't think so...

I don't want to find happiness... happiness will find me.

It's all about YOUR choices...

Life works in mysterious ways... remember being a kid?? and people asking ....what do you want to do when you grow up?? and the kid used to answer... "i wanna be a pilot "or a painter (or an alien as in my case) . Remember what it felt like to have a free mind galloping the entire stretch of the universe no limits whatsoever... then what happened???

Suddenly that kid finds out...ooops.. i'm in college and about to graduate now what!! It's what people might feel after waking up from decade long coma with everything around changed without a warning. And what does one see... some lucky kids had become a pilot as they wanted or a painter...(i hear they're searching for aliens nowadays..) what happened to the rest??


Ever seen dust particles suspended in the air ,floating around on a sunny noon or a lazy winter morning?? Life is like that... we float riding upon particles of opportunities ,countless of them ... but yet each of them flowing with the wind of life from one destination to the other.....every thing seems to be a Brownian motion yet, a directional flow..

So how do we navigate though this disoriented yet organized mess?? In a broad sense there are two ways one can do it... One would be to wait for the particle of opportunity that you think will lead to the place or to jump on those particles of opportunities that seem to be going in that direction.

Second would be to take a rather carefree jump on the nearest opportunity particle that you feel is right and go on that way without having a specific destination in mind, free as a bird....

For the majority of us the prudent choice however would be to take the middle path i.e. go free as a bird but sometimes take a pause and choose a direction towards where you thought you'd be... The outcome of this however would be fascinatingly different... you'd be doing what you're good at and at the same time the fact that you are somewhere in the direction of the place you hoped for would bring extreme sense of self-satisfaction.. a sense of well being... that you made a difference to the field you aspired for....

So going back to the kid who wanted to be an artist and somehow become a businessperson ... so what ?? he/she can deal in art works , promote artists, maybe create an art gallery...the opportunities are many you just have to figure the right one and just hop on to it once in a while!!!

and so ....the kids wanting to be an alien...ah what crap!!! go to sleep!!!...........
( ....it's Star Wars...... i'm YODA!!!)...zzzzz

Of imaginary blossoms and amateur penstrokes...

Hmmm... writing a blog for the 1st time?? well technically no .... fell asleep writing it at 1st ...... but I'd rather confess that i'm a complete novice at this ...

There is one thing odd about the human behavior...
what we take for granted may not be there the next moment and only when it's gone do we realize how deeply , intricately and beautifully we may be connected to it.... it's in a broad context..can be anything a person ,the nature, the environment or as simple as an object or the state of our living.....

We live in a life that achieves an equilibrium with the conditions around us so that rarely an event happens so as to bring a drastic change , what we need to realize is that simple decisions can effect this equilibrium in ways unseen to us and in a magnitude unfathomable...
the decision may be as simple to board a train laden with explosives or just to start a blog!!!



A plethora of ideas buzz in the head like sparks flying off a huge circuitry of the brain...the mind numbed down by the "holiday firewall" created by it which says " ignorance is bliss!!!".
The big question: is an idea worth it?? should one listen to random, sometimes seemingly ridiculous scehemes the crop up in one's head??
well .. i'd say why not?? after all is it wrong to assume that everyone has a "eureka" moment in his\her life?? The point is that people are so engrossed in mundane things that they refuse to acknowledge that they can make a difference .Now i'm not saying that each of us will make a ground breaking invention of some kind but the self belief that it can instill in us if we just open up our minds to "ourselves" !!
If u think u can make bits of left over candle wax into a piece of art...do it!!
If it strikes you to connect all the audio and video devices in different corners of your house to a single computer then do it!!( or at least try..) why be discouraged??!!

Even if we do not succeed or at least partially achieve what thought of , even then it wouldn't it be a tribute to the randomly firing and misfiring circuits up there in your head instilling a sense of joy and accomplishment???

P.S. - the examples may not look so elegant but what the heck!! you all get the point right??!!


P.PS- This is in the memory of a child who had an idea of creating a moving vehicle which used both suction and propulsion at the same time until one Uncle Newton came out of nowhere and kicked him hard in the balls.....