Night

It engulfs your mind and it awakes your senses.

It spills the seeds of desire and dispels the reality.

It teases the evil in you and mocks your morals.

It builds illusions and breaks your will.

It pulls you deep inside and sells your soul.


Don't get entrapped in its spell my friend,

for the first ray of sun crumbles all of it it down

and you will wake up to the scars it left on you.


I feel, in a quite generic sense,

Day and Night are like the good and bad company in one's life.

Embrace the freshness of the early mornings, brightness of the noons, serenity of the sunsets and fight the illusions of  the nights.

The Unprivileged

                                                    

                                                   It was roughly around fifteen years ago. I was in my sixth standard. My father is a hostel welfare officer, whose job is to essentially manage a government hostel. Government hostels majorly have students from the economically backward sections of the society. These are the students from small, remote villages who cannot afford a living in the towns where they come to study. My father was the in-charge of such a hostel with 100 odd students in which one boy stood out. He was a short, stout and dark skinned boy from a small village who was sincere in studies and polite in manners. He looked neat for a student from government hostel. He wore old but clean clothes and used to neatly comb his overly oiled hair. He smelled like coconut oil. He had the hand-writing of an artist. Also, he used to sing folk songs exceptionally well. Whenever he sang those folk songs explaining the beauty of the villages and the songs with revolutionary undercurrents in his loud, coarse tone, it aroused emotions in everyone who listened. The tragic songs that he sang brought tears to the eyes of listeners. He had a cheerful and heartfelt smile on his face whenever he greeted people. My father liked him and asked him to study at our home in the evenings. We studied under the same roof, sitting beside each other, gossiping and playing most of the time. Whenever there was a power cut in the evenings, everyone in our house gathered at a place and it was time for his song. A year passed like that and he became part of our everyday life. One day he got news from his village that his father got paralyzed. His father, who is an agricultural laborer, who is the sole earner in his family went to work in the fields that day and had a paralysis attack. This boy rushed home and did not return for a while. We later got to know that his father would not recover from paralysis in near future and things got very tragic in the coming days. He is the only boy in his family and he suddenly had his father, mother and two younger sisters to take care of. After some time, it became pretty clear that this boy had no other option but to work and earn money to look after his family. He left to Hyderabad to work in a hotel as a waiter. Around the same time I had to leave my hometown to join a residential school in Hyderabad. Even though he was in touch with my parents as he saved his money with my parents, I could not meet him after that for a few years. He saved every penny that he earned. In six years of time he did the marriage of both his sisters while taking care of his mother and father.

                                          

                                      After a long gap of six years, I met him on a few occasions; once in graduation, once while I was working after graduation and pretty recently after I got into my new job. Not once could I ask him how he was doing looking straight into his eyes. I could not, because his eyes spoke volumes. They spoke about ordeal that he had been through. They spoke about the promising boy that he was a fifteen years ago.  They spoke about the dreams that he had to kill in the bud. They spoke about the lost opportunity and inequality in this society. His smile was no longer cheerful or heartfelt. I don’t know if he ever sang a song again in his life after he joined as a waiter. I don’t know how he had suppressed his love for books. Many uncomfortable questions bothered me every time I met him. He could have been in my place if not for the financial status of his family. I could have been on the other side, if I was not fortunate enough to have born in a well off family. I simply could not stand the difference that money has created between us.  He is married and has two kids when we recently met..  He is still struggling to have a decent living. I wonder if anything in this world can bring back on to his face that priceless smile that he had long back.

                                  I know he is just one among the millions of poor our country has. Their stories are unheard of. They have dreams like everyone and they must be waiting for an equal opportunity in the face of financial distress. I have made up my mind to give at least 1% of my salary to one such person in need. I feel, we cannot wallow in the asymmetry of the society. I know for most of us working, we would still be better off without that 1% of our salary. We can still watch movies, we can still buy gadgets for ourselves, we can have food in expensive restaurants, we can still see places around the world. But the person on the other side will never be able to do any of these things in his life, without that 1% of our salary.

Mind and Mechanics

                                        

      

                                        Physics was my favorite subject long time back, before I had to say good bye to it. Physics, like every other science talks about the pattern of behavior of things. Particularly it theorizes the pattern of physical behavior of matter. Somehow, I managed to clearly understand this pattern and hence immediately became fond of it and good at it. There is a state called "stable equilibrium" in mechanics which explains, for example, the state of a Ping-Pong ball kept in a semi spherical bowl or more simply speaking the state of a pendulum at rest. This is a stable equilibrium because if one displaces the Ping-Pong ball in the bowl or the pendulum at rest and leaves them, after some swirling and swinging both will come back to rest in the same position. No matter how much you displace the objects in stable equilibrium, they have a tendency to revert to their original position. Similarly atoms and molecules have a way of organizing themselves into the most stable configuration. After observing myself and people around me for a long time I have found this is true with human beings too. Like chemical compounds and objects in stable equilibrium, I feel our minds too like to come back to a state of equilibrium. This equilibrium is different for different people and one is at peace with himself and surroundings in this state of equilibrium.

                                        Exploring the outside world or learning new things (curiosity), looking inward, having deep thoughts or introspecting (introversion), wanting to be engaged with a big group of people, socializing (extroversion),  the feeling not to think too much, pleasure oneself, relax and appease the senses(Hedonism).. etc are some of the tendencies in human beings. There are many more such tendencies which come into play in human minds in different combinations and different degrees. By mental equilibrium, I mean this combination of different tendencies in one’s mind. An outright introvert can only be at peace with himself when he is alone, thinking about his actions, engaging in deep thoughts or sharing something close to his heart with a close friend etc. Similarly people with different tendencies are at ease with themselves when they have the freedom to act according their tendencies. If one asks an introvert to involve in a loud group conversation which is utterly pointless, he has to strain himself, exert a lot of energy to come out of his equilibrium and go into a new mode.  Similarly an extrovert will be at extreme unease when left alone and asked to enjoy something pleasant on his own. He enjoys talking and that gives him positive energy. The curiosity of an inquisitive person doesn’t die even if you anesthetize him. Even if we try to change our behavioral tendencies, we eventually fall back into our natural equilibrium without realizing. I feel no tendency is bad or good in absolute sense. They can only be good or bad based on whether they are helping oneself to achieve one’s desired goal or not.

                                        

                                         Recently I went on a weekend trip to Lonavala with a bunch of people from office. Majority of them are hyper-active people who could enjoy chitchatting for hours on matters that could seem silly to a 3^rd standard student. They kept pulling my leg about being aloof and silent most of the time. I wondered at their inability to understand a personality type. In spite of the energy that they exhibited through the trip and the fun and humor in their conversations which made me smile thousand times, my best moments on the trip were the ones when I got up in the morning and sat in the balcony looking at the distant mountains, thinking deeply, enjoying the nature from my bungalow.

                                          So, the whole point of my observation is not that one has to accept his weaknesses as one can’t do much about it. I would say there is no weakness at all in the way our minds are designed. One has to choose ones calling by understanding his tendencies. Just like the way every compound on this earth has a unique property and use, we can choose to do something that suits us in a unique way, where the mind does not spend too much energy moving from its equilibrium. This is also to sensitize people regarding different personality types and appreciate the people the way they are. Remember, the best in us comes out when we are least strained.

Seasons Of Life

                                         That was a hot monsoon day. I was at home on an about-to-end vacation. As the noon progressed to dusk the sun shone brightly through the window panes and its rays invaded the room at its will. I was watching TV sitting in a sloppy posture while my family members followed their routines. My mother was weaving embroidery on a sari, my father reclining on a bed and reading a book, my brother sleeping. Weary silence and stillness were hanging in the air despite the TV playing. Even as I was relaxing with a reckless abandon, I kept brooding about the monotony of town life and about packing bags soon for the hectic school life. While these thoughts were unsettling me, suddenly the light receded out of the room through the window panes and they had stopped shining. It was as if the shadows spread out and conquered the room making the rooms dim. Something twitched inside me to go out and see what the weather was up to. But my laziness ignored it as an ineffectual passing cloud. But soon the room took a dimmer tone making the corners invisibly dark and suddenly a gusty cool wind shut the window door open and forcibly entered the room ruffling papers and toppling small objects. I was now delighted by the goings-on and rushed outside to see how exactly it looked while my father asked me to turn off the TV and unplug the wire and my mother asked me to get the clothes dried out in and close the windows. They too loved that weather but they had these other things to take care of. I went to the terrace and was awestruck to see dark clouds spreading out through out the sky from the horizon, in every direction. Darkness descended on the town with an envelope of clouds cupping the whole flat earth my eyes could see. The gusty cool winds added to the beauty of it. Everything turned beautiful in a matter of minutes, the chimney of a nearby mill, the swaying trees in distance, the litter flying off an open dump, the birds flying for cover. Even my self-importance notched up a bit as I stood there with hands on my hips and head raised to the sky enjoying the breeze and waiting for the first drop of shower. The clouds burst open to a deluge after a series of thunders. I went down to the space under the portico where my mom, dad and brother all gathered and were enjoying the rain. That space under our portico overseeing a small garden always held my best moments at home. That is where we always had an evening cup of tea, brushing aside the trivial day to day worries for a while, feeling good about ourselves and talking dreams. Then, we were a unit and my dreams contained only my family, our future. I hadn’t grown up enough to have independent dreams. So that day we had tea under the portico surrounded by the transparent curtain of water shower which made things obscure beyond a point, watching the plants in the garden treated by rain, listening to the pleasant din of the rain and talking about ourselves and future. I savored that moment more than anything in life. I wanted to seize that moment for a long time because I knew when the rain stopped and the runoff settled, we people would resign to the mundane things of life and life would be normal again. I feared that moment might not come again. Even if that moment came, I wondered if we would be able to enjoy that to the same extent. Because, I thought as we grew up we would have personal dreams and personal setbacks in life which might not blend with the mood of the setting. But life repeated in cycles. To my delight that moment came again and again. And contrary to my apprehensions we enjoyed that moment fully devoid of any worries.

                                               I realized life is such. As the parching summers, refreshing monsoons and chilly winters segue into one another, life has it all. Only the life's seasons are not as regular and as definite as nature's. I have gone through several lows in life when I felt I was irreversibly damned and was on the verge of losing all the hope of good things to come. But I knew, if not anything I had a loving family and I slowly tried to work things out. I don’t know whether it was sheer randomness or the mercy of some supernatural force, but I got enough opportunities to get back to normalcy. To everyone who go through such phase in life I say, with little hope, little persistence, little courage just wade through the life. Sure, the monsoon showers of your life will come one day and wash away all the troubles.

Delusions of Grandeur

                                                 These days I am quite depressed to observe how and where my career has been heading for a long time,  more so when I know that I am the one responsible for all that and I have been helpless about that. Life has been a trading of interests for some intangible social benefits. Six years back, I settled with civil engineering since I got it in a reputed college when mechanical was something that interested me. I could not afford one more year for what I wanted. By the end of three years, somehow I liked some of the subjects in civil engineering and wanted to continue doing masters in it from US, but hesitated since I had a job offer in hand and that was recession time. So this time, I let the investment and job security concerns worry me. Two or three months into the job, I felt both technically and monetarily a career in civil engineering was not at all a rewarding one and I found a way to get out, to prove myself again, to study with the best minds of the country and then embark on a lucrative profession. That was writing CAT and getting into an IIM for MBA. This time interests and strengths didn’t matter. I just fancied the idea of hobnobbing with the best minds of the country and listening to intellectuals from various walks of life and finally being looked up to as an IIM grad. After slogging hard for one long year, I have somehow managed to get into a college, not the one I fancied all the way, but the one where I have an equal opportunity to get into a lucrative job. Now I am not any less excited about joining it for the plush job I may get after two years. I feel sometimes that my priorities have changed from time to time but my interests haven’t. When I pause and think whether I am cut out for what I will be doing in future, I get confused and worried. I must admit I was passive all the way for not seriously pursuing what I wanted. Since I don’t like taking all the blame, I would like to put half the blame on this society and pathetic education system.

                              The constraints and factors that changed my direction several times are not too trivial to dismiss. Time, money and social status are slowly getting hardwired in our minds as scales for measuring one’s success and becoming determinants of one's career goals. I think everyone's life is pretty much designed in the same way. Designed on the basis of how much money we want, how quickly we want, how high we want to see ourselves in the pecking order of the social status. A nice flat in a metro, a luxury car, a high paying job in an MNC and a timely marriage are the walls to fend off society's apprehensions about us. These are our ends and they have become more important than the means. I don’t get how many people take up civil services to bring about some positive change in the administration of this country, how many give first preference to computers or electronics engineering if not for the software boom all over, how many desire to do MS in US if they are not allowed to stay there long after they graduate, how many wish to work in foreign banks if not for the huge pay packets. Maybe it is simple supply and demand economics at work. But economics should not be meddling with people’s career choices I think.

                             Another thing is our sham education system which puts liberal and creative arts on the back-burner and force feeds us with what sells well. We are not encouraged to read a book, paint a picture, or play a sport all our lives. Halfway through the career if one realized that he was good at something like literature, history, politics, music, or dramatics, he would not have much to do about it. He would be stuck in a vacuum not being able to do what he wanted and not taking interest in what he did. I hate the thing that I haven’t been learning anything with interest for the last two years and still getting away with it because of this false sense of security or purpose acquired from working in this company. I think there are many more phonies around, who do their day to day work halfheartedly or mechanically and still feel some sense of purpose and pride for themselves. What’s the pride and purpose in doing something that you are asked to do instead of doing what you love to do. I call it delusions of grandeur.

The Road To Greatness

This is about the two great personalities of India whose every success makes its hundreds of millions of people elated and whose every failure makes them lament silently. These are the men who have touched hundreds of millions of lives without having added anything concrete to their lives.. These are the men who can bring together a nation by simply putting their skills on display. These are the men who are always present in the collective consciousness of people as icons of india . They are Sachin Tendulkar and A R Rahman. There might be other people from indian soil who are equally succesful in their carees but no one has occupied so much space in the minds and hearts of people of india as them. What did the magic for them to have reached such heights and exude such an aura?.. This is partly because of the mass popularity of the fields they are in. Cricket and movies are like bread and butter ( or rather daal n roti) to Indians and they appeal to us in no ordinary way. Hence Sachin's cover drives electrifies the crowd more than Vishwanad Anand's chess moves and A R Rahmans's melodies mesmerizes us more than M S Subblaxmi's classicals.
But equally importatnt is their unmatched passion towards their arts.Both Sachin and Rahman are gifted geniuses, yet possess a great passion for what they do. The passion which drives one through their highs and lows and gives the joy of pursuing an art for the love of it. Money, fame, ambition, nationalism and everything else are secondary. These are too mild tonics to achieve something pehenomenal like them. Sachin could not have started his career wishing he would score his 100th century one day or break every existing record on earth. If he did wish, I think he would not have achieved this feat. It is just the love for cricket which drives him through evrey innings and makes him perfect the way he work the ball into gaps adding beauty to the game and thus giving sheer joy to millions who watch him. It is also the love whcih has not faded a bit and urges him to continue playing even after 23 yrs of association with the game and achievieng everything one could possibly conceive of. And similarly Rahman's passion is evident in the hard work he is said to put in and the soulful music which comes out of it. His reclusiveness and simlplicity tells a lot about his priorities. Hence I believe the magic lies in finding out one's calling and devoting oneself to it completely. Real happiness is found in doing that. If one does that everyrthing else like money, fame and awards automatically start pouring in. A bit idealistically ,they are just the byproducts in one's pursuit of happiness. Finally these words of Ayn Rand defining happiness, I feel are true in every sense and are close to the values embodied by the duo I mentioned.
"Happiness is a state of non-contradictory joy—a joy without penalty or guilt, a joy that does not clash with any of your values and does not work for your own destruction, not the joy of escaping from your mind, but of using your mind’s fullest power, not the joy of faking reality, but of achieving values that are real, not the joy of a drunkard, but of a producer. Happiness is possible only to a rational man, the man who desires nothing but rational goals, seeks nothing but rational values and finds his joy in nothing but rational actions."
This is a small tribute to the two people I admire the most.

A faraway overhaul.

What it takes to kill your original, inherent self and transform into an entirely different being.

How it feels like to have ur conscience and emotions as altogether oppstite forces ripping apart your nerves.

Here am I, futilely trying to change from an inarticulate self to a persuasive and argumentative self, an ever-clinging emotional self to a stoical self, a laidback introvert to a sociable extrovert, a perpetual dreamer to a pragmatic doer, a smug dabbler to an insatiable learner.


Now it is up to me, whether, in this course of action I dare and reach out to the new self which confounds my beautiful, cosy, self-created world or continually lapse back and wallow in the same.