Them Half-Baked Social Workers

“No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable.”

- Adam Smith

Okay lets see. Today was a fairly normal day.

I was being the usual guy who sits in front of the mapping designer all day dragging objects and coding this and that. You know usual nerd IT stuff. Then this mail comes around lunch time from a colleague. It seemed to be one of those forwards that you get in your inbox from people who themselves got from somebody else, but it being of a huge size (this one was 3MB) you forward it to everyone else you know an rid your inbox of its burden soon after to avoid the out-of-space debacle.

The subject of this specific one was "And we say that we are working hard!!!”

Well well, feeling a tad too sarcastic today aren’t we.

So I opened it, and behold a big picture of a dirty bony kid stood there staring back at me with soiled hands and booger pouring out of his nose. Eww right?

I had figured out the topic of this mail by now. This was going to be another mopey whiny one about malnutrition, orphans or something. Don’t get me wrong I have nothing but love for them, but heck looking at some of the relatives/family one ends up with sometimes makes me feel envious of those buggers.

Anyways, I scroll down to next picture - another shirtless kid (surprised?) with some sort of white dust all over him, maybe concrete.

Unimpressed, I scroll down to the next image - a greasy kid pushing some sort of lathe drill into metal and such

Aha now I see where this is going, lo and behold the next image - a really dark girl smiling and holding a handful of flowers to a car window at a traffic signal.

This was a mail about child labor. I keep scrolling down with back to back images of kids not yet into their teens doing minimum wage work like waiting on tables, cleaning dishes  at a restaurant, picking recyclable plastic garbage at the junkyard etc. There was this one picture of a kid working at a construction site lifting like 5 concrete bricks, each almost as big as his limbs. That I found oddly impressive.

       

Well jokes aside, the pictures were a sad affair and I was especially moved by the one with the little kid picking garbage in the huge almost-mountain of a landfill junkyard. I could only imagine the repulsive odor and disgusting gunk in that place. That child definitely harped on the empathy cord I sadly am born with. 

Regret

In life.. Nothing is perfect.. Nothing is permanent.. Nothing is ideal..

Everything that you see or do or feel now, can change without a moment's notice..

But why should that ever be a reason for you to limit your choices?

Be, do, say, feel, express - whatever the heck you want to!

For what I've learnt in life so far, is this much - 

We regret most is what we must have done in life, than that which we have already done!!

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The Beautiful Woman

"I see that woman everyday, sitting on a bench at the bus stop waiting for her ride.. Saying she is beautiful might be an understatement, she's gorgeous!

But she never smiles, I guessed she's one of those females who's beauty got to her head and now has an attitude problem.. Well hell with her, like I give a damn..

Then yesterday, I was late for my ride and saw the reason for her being at the bus stand.. She was waiting yes, but for a kid, her child probably.. A school bus stops and a kid gets down, helped by two guys.. He was a handicap with limp legs..

The woman, who never smiles, hurries to him with open arms and huge grin on her face..

She has a beautiful smile..

I suppose none of us 'daily-whiners' deserve to witness it, but her child does.. A child who has all the reason in the world to throw down the towel and say 'I quit', but still goes on with his life.. That's strength!

And just look at her.. She clearly could have a better life than having to spend her days tending to a kid with special needs.. But she will stick with him till the end, come what may.. That's love!!" :-) :-) :-)

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Getting Almost Killed By A Train

"Here is the test to find whether your mission on earth is finished. If you're alive, it isn't."

- Richard Bach

Today again I was a little late to get out of house in the morning; today again I would just barely reach the railway station in time for my 9:31 train to Thane. Today again I am probably going to bash into a couple of people, at the speed that I am walking. Today again I would partially turn at them, still running at the same time, mumble my apologies and hurry right-on towards the platform. Most of these people that I bash into are as much in hurry as I am, so I tell myself probably they don’t mind my half-baked attempt at being courteous.

Today what was different is that I have just three minutes left till the train leaves the station. I don’t take the over-bridge running over the other railway tracks to get my platform. I decide to just walk over the tracks to reach it as early as possible. A feat I rarely, if ever, do.

You see, in Mumbai local train’s tracks are infamous death traps. Often slippery and have puddle all round, you get your foot stuck in it at the wrong time and you’re a goner. You’re last sight on this sweet planet Earth will be of the big engine compartment of some train coming full speed towards you.

They will have to sweep off your guts and bones from even 50 meters off of the spot where you collided with the train.

When I was in school and living in the Western lines region, I had seen people carry away a guy on a stretcher once. That guy had apparently jumped off of a running train too early and landed right on to the signal posts that they build at the ends of each platform. His face was half torn open and he was clearly knocked-out cold by the impact. Maybe just had a concussion, but the way his body was laying limp on that stretcher anyone could have already thought he was dead. They had tried to cover his face up with a piece of cloth but with the amount of blood pouring out of it, the bloody rag of cloth only made it look all the more horrifying.

An image like that stays on in a kid’s memory.

That was the image that came into my mind that day as I was hurrying over the tracks. I could see my train has already arrived in platform number 1. I had just passed number 4 and was getting over the 3^rd when I heard the siren blast. It was so loud and sudden that at that precise moment, I thought it was already on top of me.

I turned around to my right, real slow. I couldn’t speed up my body while doing that, it was like in the movies, important scenes always happened in “slo-mo”. I guess this is what those directors were aiming at.  I was there gaping at the big engine just twenty-or so feet away from me. I could see the engine-driver inside his cabin yelling at the top of his voice. I couldn’t make out what he was saying, but by the movements of his lips I could guess he was asking me toget off the tracks and showering me with some very tasteful, innovative abuses. I never knew crap-for-brains can be used in such colourful combinations.

But I couldn’t move. I tried again, I just couldn’t.

I looked down at my feet. They were still where they always have been, at the far end of my legs. Larger than normal people’s, on account of my height which also was not of normal people’s measure.

“Idiot, is this the time to be thinking about the size of your beep-darn feet? Move it, before you get crushed to pulp!!”

I look up again to the engine; it was only ten feet away. Now even the driver had stopped with his abuses and was staring at me with both eyes and mouth opened. He got out of the trance faster than me and was reaching at the panel in front of him and pushing levers and buttons right and left.

And here I was still stuck like the deer in front of headlights, ready to be another road-kill just like most of them deer inevitably become.

I suddenly felt myself falling backwards. I land heavily on my backside. Ouch, that’s going hurt bad when I get up. I looked up from where I was the train’s wheels had now started to pass by from the spot where my legs were at just a few seconds back. I looked higher towards the engine, the driver had popped his head out of his side window, again back to yelling abuses at me and also gesturing with his left hand too, the old familiar respectful finger was up.

The train’s engine was out of sight soon and I looked around to the small knot of people who had already gathered around me by now. There were a couple of older men of my father’s age who invariably had started with their “kids of this generation have got no common sense at all” speech. Mister, you were right behind me crossing the tracks on foot, was your common sense on vacation in Goa today? 

Bloody hypocrites.

What my eyes were searching for, was the guy who had the right sense to pull me off the tracks, than just wait see me turn into tomato ketchup all over the railway tracks.

I recognised him soon enough, he was the guy who I always see commuting in same train as me. He gets off two stops ahead of me.

He mouths, “You alright, boss?”

I mouth, “Yes. Thanks to you!”

He hurries ahead towards platform number 1 without turning back again. I will have to ask his name sometime in future, or buy him a cup of coffee or something. After all you don’t get a guardian angel to rescue you from instant death every day, do you?

(I had missed my train that daythough; wish there was some guardian angel I could keep on a retainer for that as well.)

I got up off my butt, and as I had predicted earlier it hurt as hell. I was not going to walk right for a bit today in office, hope nobody notices and starts getting ideas

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Each Time You Fall In Love

"Love does not begin and end the way we seem to think it does.

 Love is a battle, love is a war; love is a growing up."

- James A. Baldwin

Each time you fall in love,

You surrender a part of your soul to the other person.. 

And she gives herself to you!

Each time you fall in love, 

You give up on your vain dreams to make both of your dreams come true.. 

And she does the same for you!

Each time you fall in love, 

You see the beauty of your being in the way her body trembles at your touch,

and the way you can make her heart beat slow when you kiss.. 

And she measures her beauty by the hunger in your eyes,

and the way her shy smile takes your breath away!

Each time you fall in love, 

You strive to become a better person because she deserves it.

And she is already the best, cause you ain't met nobody that makes you feel so special the way she does!

And she is precious for-evermore cause you know you will never meet someone like her ever again!!

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Your Greatest Fear In Life.. Is Something That Is Good For You!

“Fear doesn't shut you down; it wakes you up”― Veronica Roth

We all live in fear of something..

Fear of ghosts, spiders, vampires, heights, werewolves, depths, dark, insects, ants,

Fear of ex-girlfriends, ex-boyfriends, ex-lovers, ex-in-laws, current in-laws,

Fear of failure, intimacy, sorrow, calamities, extra work right before you leave office for the day,

Fear of strangers, strangers with weird physical abnormalities, strangers with inappropriate obsession with twilight characters,

Fear of, well, anybody with an inappropriate obsession to do anything with twilight,

(Clearly, I have an aversion to twilight a tad too much!)

Fear of wealth – having too less of it, and if you have some fear of losing all of it,

Fear of thunder,

Fear of lightning,

Fear of your folks finding out the pile of nasty stuff you did in past that they don’t know of yet!

Etc etc..

The list seems to go on forever!!

You always notice a little nervous sneer, breathlessness, cold skin, goose bumps, shivering, hands and feet doing things out of one’s control or a rich shade of red in faces of people whenever they feel they are in harm’s way.

A similar shade of color, expressions and etc symptoms are seen in people when they are exulted, or well, in love.

But neither love nor ecstasy really exists do they?

They are all just things resulting from our hyper-active imagination or by sheer chemical play of hormones.

What makes fear any different from these emotions?

Maybe what we fear the most in life is just another part of our being telling us that there is something going on outside/inside of us that we have to stand up and take notice of.

Maybe it is just another biological alarm-point for us, like getting a fever or wanting to throw up etc.

Only these alarms go off only inside out heads.

And we control our mind to a large extent. So we can very well mold this fear to serve our needs.

Because you see, being fearless is stupid and a blatant lie.

Fear is actually good. It makes you perform better, makes you put your best foot forward.

You think better and clearer when you feel your own butt is at stake!

You see.. Greed for success can make you successful only to an extent, but fear of failure is the thing that drives you all the way to the top!!

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Say What You Need To Say

“The most important things are the hardest to say. They are the things you get ashamed of, because words diminish them -- words shrink things that seemed limitless when they were in your head to no more than living size when they're brought out. But it's more than that, isn't it? The most important things lie too close to wherever your secret heart is buried, like landmarks to a treasure your enemies would love to steal away. And you may make revelations that cost you dearly only to have people look at you in a funny way, not understanding what you've said at all, or why you thought it was so important that you almost cried while you were saying it. That's the worst, I think. When the secret stays locked within not for want of a teller but for want of an understanding ear.”

-    Stephen King

     'Different Seasons'

Mrinal was having a yucky day. And cleaning bedpans the old age home where he worked was not helping brightening his day by any measure.

It's been almost a year of him working here, and it still baffled him how the whole place constantly reeked of urine no matter how many people were hired cleaning and scrubbing the place all day. Every nook and corner of the place stank, even the dinning hall. People were only expected to eat there for pete's sake! He and eight other orderlies were by their job description responsible for keeping the 'inmates' comfortable, how were they supposed to that if they themselves didn't know how to be so. Dr. Gupta had banished that word being used within the compound (so let's just keep this as our secret for Mrinal's sake, shall we?)

Why shouldn't these people be called by their real title anyway? Is this place any better than Tihar jail or Sing Sing? Sure this place is more colorful and has lots of comfy sofas and beds, lush landscaped lawns, people hanging around you all day to keep you in prompt accordance of your medication and all. You don't need to worry about a thing. Well, that's what they'd want you to think anyway.

In many ways this place is much worse than either of those establishments. In that place at least you'd know why you are there. Rape, murder, armed robbery, arson, burglary, jay-walking, anything. You do something, the courts sentence you to a period of time, you go to prison, spend your time in your cell with your cellmates who very well could be like the overly friendly T-Bag in Prison Break. But you knew your cause and its effect, and more importantly you knew that all of this had a deadline, either the one the courts sentenced you for or the one till your master plan to jump the prison walls gets materialized.

In an old age home, you don't have that option. There is a deadline yes, but when you reach it there's is no loved ones or fellow gang-members standing there on the other side of the gate to take you home. Once you reach the deadline to get out of here, well, that means you are dead. Any sane, and most of the insane ones also probably, would want to avoid that by any means possible. Even if that means you have to spend those last years of your life on this planet confined to a wheel chair or a bed, and you need other people to do your basic human functions for you, or that you need someone to remember where your things are and when you are to take your next diabetes pills, even if you don't recall the name of your great-granddaughter when she comes to visit you once an year on your birthday.

The life here could be tough on anyone. Both kaidis/retirees and their guards/caretakers equally. Mrinal knew what he was getting into when he started here; at least he thought he did. This was to be a temporary thing till his scriptwriting gig kicks off, which is yet to happen and by the look of things may very well never happen at all. When you look at Mumbai from outside in, it looks so fast, happening and brimming with possibilities especially when you look at all those big name studios and you dream of being on their payroll for doing something that you like doing the most in life, writing. But this past year has been an eye-opener; Mumbai had lost all its charm that it held in the eyes of an innocent recent English graduate from Gujarat. This city is tough, unkind and too-fast-for-its-own-good. This place once might've been really quite something, but now it is anything but that.

In the past one year here, he had met some really wonderful people in this compound though. Some of these old-timers have lived, by that we mean really lived. Not the kind of nine-to-five existence that most of us do now. There is a circus manager, ex-army vet, ex-politician, ex-IAS, ex-tech guru. There is a whole bunch of ex-some bodies here. Each with their own histories. Each with their own treasure chests brimming with memories of the bygone golden era. They all have done something that they have proud of. They have all seen some really exciting time. Mrinal was part of the Hazare fuss too; he thought that was going to be 'the happening time' of his generation, he is not now too confident about that either.

The new generation has missed out on lot things. Maybe the most that he thinks we've lost is our capability to empathize. And this place really drives that emotion home. Especially on that day in July where it rained all day...