Your Virtues

“Sometimes the heart sees what is invisible to the eye.”

- H. Jackson Brown, Jr

The times when we smiled and rejoiced the most, were the times when we were free of all the worries and burdens on our weary shoulders. Each of these carefree memories that we have are the most cherished minuscule tidbits of our life. Our life is made up of gazillions of such anecdotes, but for us some stand out among others for some unfathomable silly reason. These are the moments with which we grade the completeness and true merit of our own lives, the more these are the merrier.

And here too as in every aspect of men’s life, to each their own. Some like spending time cooking or gossiping with friends, some like spending time washing and cleaning the same subset of their material possessions again and again repeatedly, and some absolutely weird ones like me enjoy spending time talking to total strangers in bus stands and parks and railway ticket queues. The sheer novelty of the meeting and of that person gives you such a happy high. The chance to say whatever you want to, be whoever you want to and not make an iota of difference to the personal lives of both the parties gives you a this strange thrill that no skinny dipping in the middle of winter can give.

There was this girl in high school one of my classmates was insanely in “love” with. He usually was capable of finding his true love once or twice each semester. We all thought this one was one such worthless endeavor of our Romeo, and soon would find someone fairer and prettier. And he did do the same in a couple of weeks, without fail. But for now he was busy gawking at this girl from school. He circled her home in the morning like a vulture waiting for his prey to leave home for school and follow her there, when the night comes he haunted her neighborhood to get a glimpse of her through the windows kept open to let the air in warm summer nights. This went on and on for a week or so. In the beginning we, as we always did, were busy pulling his leg and teasing him about his current “true love”. But by the end of the third week he got even us believing that he truly must be serious about this girl.

And when a realization like that cracks into the thick skull of any guy, he goes all out to give a helping hand to his brother in arms, and have no doubt love is war, and in high school they get messy. The problem with us was that none of us had any firsthand experience about a real love affair. We all were completely naïve, and it clearly showed in our suggestions and ideas to get the girl to fall in love with or friend.

What sensible girl would think a bunch of roses thrown at her from a car romantic? It almost seemed like a gangster drive by hit. We even got him to write a letter and put it in her bag, not that bad idea, right? Well trust me it is when you mistake the bag and put it another girl’s bag and she turns out to be the class teacher’s niece. Luckily, he forgot to write his name in the letter, truly Romeoesque.

We were bringing out the most stupid romantic ideas of all time, and mastering this art better than Don Juan or Casanova did. We toiled days, then we all got bored of it and decided to take shifts in accompanying our lover boy in his nightly love trysts. One such night, changed everything.

The trouble with love is that it is contagious. Once one of your friends is in its spell, you have this urge to be in it too. You go around everywhere trying to fall in love with every other girl you see. Sometimes you do fall in love but not more than two hours so, and then the next one comes along. 

The problem was that one night, when he was busy gawking at the now all too familiar window, I was busy staring at another. This one was a few blocks away from the girls home and on the other side of the street so the Romeo didn’t have a clear view of it. But I could, there I saw a huge TV and girl in her pajamas a staring at it, the light of the TV falling on her beautiful face. I did not know this girl then, but after that night I began to notice her all the time when we used to go to school. Her name was Priya Cherian, our heroine. She lived somewhere close to the girl’s home and our school. 

We used to pass each other when we went to school, she went to the same girl’s only school that our lover boy’s girl went to. And that common link caught the eye of our dear friend; he started pushing me talk to her, get to know her. Bloody git.

And I did, well just nods and hi in the beginning then we found common ground in our mutual hate for math and I used it to lengthen our minute long conversation each time before and after school. Soon she started waiting for me at the gate of my school to walk together till the crossroad some blocks away. Now my friends had started to tease me, and oddly it felt awesome to be at the receiving end of it. For the first time in my life I was beginning to feel happy about my ease in talking to strangers. She started talking about stuff other than math too, her hobbies, family, friends etc. I supposed that must be a good thing that she is opening up. It felt good to be confided in, the now familiar high was at its highest then.

The one thing I really didn't notice back then was that our lover boy was also walking along with us. I was too busy gawking at her perfect teeth and long hair, I did not notice the spring in our lover boy’s steps whenever Priya came around the corner. I did not notice the weird excited nervous laugh that guys have when they are around a girl they like. I did not notice the lack of interest he seemed to be having now on the girl from school. The nightly trips to her neighborhood to stalk her neighbor became rarer, while the walks after school more consistent. I even caught them walking off ahead without me a couple of times. Soon in a couple of weeks, they were talking more about each other, to each other than anything me. Soon, they started making plans to meet on weekends and holidays. And I failed to notice this all because, I was distracted by another tall 11^th grader.

School ended, we all went on our own way. The tall 11^th grader was soon forgotten and replaced by equally nameless others, each unique, and oddly each with the best smile ever seen on the face of the planet. But the most savored one probably is Ms. Cherian, who incidentally got engaged last week.

Question: Guess who the guy was? Answer: Our own lover boy. The bloody git.

Moral of the day: It is not always so that you are the only one to profit from your own virtues.

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. 

What is love?

"Love isn't about succumbing to every wish of the other person, fearing the outcome if you dont - break up..

Love shouldn't be something that comes to you at gunpoint, the things that you do for love should be done cause it brings you joy, cause it means something to you!

Love should be something that you do for yourself just as much as you do for the other person!!"

via An Irony Called Life (facebook)

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Somebody and Mr. Nice Guy

  

Somebody asks Mr. Nice Guy: 'I hear that nice guys always finish last, and mostly end up alone.. This is the age of jerks and pricks.. Is this true??'

Mr. Nice Guy: 'You heard right, so?'

Somebody: 'Don't you get tired of it??'

Mr. Nice Guy: 'Well, it really depends on how you look at it.. Nice guys are winners before the race even starts, we don't let the game destroy who we are.. We stay true, honest, loyal..o conditions applied anywhere.. We don't SELL OUT, to SCORE MORE!!'

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Ma's Appointment with the Surgeon

“There's a story behind everything. How a picture got on a wall. How a scar got on your face. Sometimes the stories are simple, and sometimes they are hard and heartbreaking. But behind all your stories is always your mother's story, because hers is where yours begin.”
- Mitch Albom

  'For One More Day'

The hospital was huge!

Its large pillars and domes on the four corners made it seem more like a Mughal palace than a place where people come to when they are sick (or to die). There was lush green lawn outside with a smallish angel fountain in the center of it, around which the IN and OUT routes for vehicles were mapped out so that people may navigate themselves within the premises. It was quaint on the outside. Beautiful flowers were beginning to bloom on the decorative plants around the park benches in the lawn. This place reeked of rich monies. There was probably had a rich trustee or a patron, who had donated generously!

But on the inside, inevitably, the environment was gloomy. The whole place stinked, the usual stench of hospitals anywhere around the planet. The smells of medicines, anti-septics, alcohol swabs, maybe a bit of urine here and there. This hospital was just as big inside as it was outside. But the sheer number of people inside it made it seem tiny and crowded, especially around the reception's desk. That was where Vik was standing right now hands on hips and exasperation evident on his face.

Vik had just told the lady at the desk for the hunderedth time that he was here for an appointment with the surgeon for fixing his mother's leg. To which the receptionist has just informed him for the ninety-ninth time that his appointment was for 6PM and he has come in at 6:45PM he will have to wait now. She can only get him to see the surgeon once a gap shows up in the his schedule which was packed for another couple of hours, or he could take a seat and hope that someone else was just as punctual as him had an appointment today and shows up late so that she could get him into their slot.

Vik was always a kind-hearted guy but also had considerable amount of temper under his hood which he always kept in check. It inevitably showed up from time to time, especially when he has had a rough day in office like today.

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He had had an argument with his manager at work just an hour ago,

Their Balls Against His Bat!

“The bowler approached the wicket at a lope, a trot, and then a run. He suddenly exploded in a flurry of arms and legs, out of which flew a ball.”

- Douglas Adams
  'Life, the Universe and Everything'

 Another curve ball comes his way, a googly, a yorker, a killer bouncer right to his head.

What is going on inside the head of the guy with the bat, is it about how or why or what slieght of hand the bowler did to put this challenge in front of him?

Where are the spectators watching right now, is it at the bowler who is standing right the huffing and panting close to the umpire sweating like a pig and out of breath?

Who is the bowler and the fielders gawking at wide-eyed, expecting some action next? Is it at each other, in their shifty restless glorious squinted faces that has been standing there under the sun since God-knows-how-long?

Why is the time standing still?

Why are they all looking at him like that? What are they expecting of him?

4 more runs with 1 ball to go.

The odds are against him, yes. But do they think that all this pressure they are crushing him with, is going to help his case in any way at all?

Don't they understand the import of this fraction of second in his life?

A Long Time Coming

"I am using the truth, Master Wayne. Maybe it's time we all stop trying to outsmart the truth and let it have its day. I'm sorry."

- Alfred Pennyworth

  'The Dark Knight Rises'

Truth.

Such a fearsome idea, isn't it. A gigantic magnificent elephant in the room; that we all know about but never come out in the open and acknowledge. We see it, sense it, register it inside our brains, and even decipher the outcome of it all. But we never really seem capable to accept it as a fact of life and take in the guts, by sheer sportsmanship.

Not all men are born sporty. Not all men can live with their true faces out in the open for everyone to see.

We all are born capable of knowing and analyzing things that happen in our lives. If anyone says that they didn't see it coming. Pal, they are lying blatantly. Maybe they themselves not realizing that they are.

The Depressing One

“So in the end you try to think of someone else you're mad at, and the unavoidable answer pops into your little warped brain: everyone.”

- Ellen Hopkins

I used to have this friend (you will soon realize why the 'used to' usage here) who thought ill of almost everyone.

 

Except himself that is, obviously. He was always put himself in high regard and always thought he was right in doing so.

 

He was the most cynical, pessimistic, illogical soul probably in all of the worlds that all of the faiths that mankind has been yet been able to invent. You show him the picture of that firefighter who leapt into a burning building and saved a 10 year old girl, and he will point out how and where the guy's hands are in the poor semi-unconscious child's body and call him a pervert. You show him the story of a rich billionaire who has just started out another multi-million dollar campaign to eradicate polio in Africa; he will show you another article where this same techie billionaire had syphoned off billions from unsuspecting customers by forcing them to buy his products. You tell him about the 10th standard girl next door whose study room light was on all night, he will tell you about the time that he saw her riding on the backseat of a bike with some guy who looked to be of her own age.

 

You tell him just about anything that had for some extend a flimsy bit of positivity in it. This prick could come up with something to bring you back down and rub something completely different onto your sunny-eyed face proving to you that the world is simply not worth a single sliver of silver lining no matter what.

 

Well. That was until he happened to fall in love.

12.12.12.

"Enthusiasm is excitement with inspiration, motivation, and a pinch of creative insanity!"

- Bo Bennett

This should be interesting right.

Always thought it would be wicked to witness something extraordinary happening on a date like this. One can’t help but think so, look at what all the pop culture has got us into believing, thanks to the Mayan calendar and the Occult and whatnots.

But each darn time, they disappoint me. These dates just don’t seem to offer anything out of the ordinary. Nothing ever happens! (dates as in the measure-of-time kind, not the other one!)

To add to the burn. Even today I was so close to missing the company bus!

Today could’ve been different, at least in this small thing. It is not demanding too much is it?

Well.. Anyways, there is still the rest of the day left ahead of us. Enough time for us to spice things up a bit. So find time go out with your mates today and do something different yourself, for yourself.

I’m done expecting these symmetrical dates on the calendar to bring something exciting to me, let’s just go ahead and create some excitement for ourselves! (‘Aaj kuch toofani karte hai’ mode)

Hope you all have an exciting 12.12.12 ahead! Stay awesome!

And happy wishful thinking!! :-P :-) :-)

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The Birthday Blues

"Every year on your birthday, you get a chance to start new. "

- Sammy Hagar

Okay. So I was born today. Yes, today 24 years ago I came to this awesome planet and made it extra awesome with my awesomeness.

Okay, that was lame.

But tell me one thing, what is all the whole fuss about?

Take this for example. There was this Prime Minister we had in India, a very ancient but somewhat respected one. That is a rare feat out here, none of the politicians are respected much not in the real sense of it. Fear induced respect at times may be. But not the real thing.

This ex-PM hated celebrating his birthday, but since he was a public figure it was a big deal. His party members made it a point to make it headlines in all the leading newspapers and channels. On his last term of PM'ship he stated that his birthday wont be celebrated this time around.

He said, "I never really found the reason to celebrate every single birthday throughout out pithy pathetic lives. It might be out birthday here today, but it could also be somebody else's divorce anniversay or the day someone lost a leg, or when somebody lost a loved one. What is so grand about today, just because we were born today? Doesnt that only mean that we are now a day older and more closer to our death than our last birthday??"

Well he was famous for stubborness, so nobody could push him to cut the cake in the usual grand out door do. So they just did it without him, as a tribute. A reading of excerpts from his famous hindi books and articles. A play based on his life's journey so far etc. The usual.

But no cake cutting by the birthday gentleman himself.

A year later, the party lost general elections, the PM got ousted from his seat. And he never had to suffer through another public fuss over the day he was born. I think he must be just glad celebrating it with his family and close friends. Thats he wanted always right, judging from whatever he said to the media.

Ironic.

Well life is full of such baffling coincidences. I'll try and avoid them on this topic. That politician was 60+ years he has had a full life with loads of accomplishments and surely he must be satisfied a bit with it. Here, I am one-third his age, I have started my roller coaster ride. And I dont want the Irony Goddess to come striking her hammer so soon on my joy ride.

So, just to please her if not anything else. I swear:

• I will cut the cake
• I will pick up each of your calls
• I will try to answer all your prying questions truthfully (flexible on this a bit though)
• I will try not to be pissed at people who never call all year and when they call you to wish happy birthday, demand if you have recognised them by their voice or not. (seriously, why do people do that?!)
• I will reply to all the texts personally and not mass forward the templates.
• I will attend to all your RT's and posts on my facebook wall.
• I will enjoy the day to the fullest and also make you all feel the same way too (this I will ensure personally!)

Thanks in advance to all of you. You all are very kind to remember. Feels wonderful to have so many wonderful friends around!!

Thou Art Awesome ;-)

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The Catalyst For Change

"All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another."

- Anatole France

When I was about to leave home for the first time for college, most people around me were of the view that something of huge importance is about to happen in my life. Somehow this single act of getting out of ‘the nest’ is about to change me, my way of thinking, likes and dislikes, even way of doing things. They said, up until then my life was within the very safe protection of my family. Where I didn’t have to ever worry about being alone, uncared for, nor getting my laundry done and neatly ironed. At that time, it all seemed like every other long lecture that the wise elders used to give; some of these used to go longer and more boring than those that began with ‘when I was of your age’. I never could understand the compulsion for adults to give these repetitive telecasts of the same subject again and again, on an uncomfortably frequent basis. I never will until I reach their age, comes their immediately reply if I were to foolishly present this question to them. Never expect a straight answer from them, you’d never ever get it.

The thing is, even after months and months of getting into this college I couldn’t figure out what would be this mysterious catalyst within these four walls of the campus that was going to change me so drastically. Yes, I was alone and had to do everything by myself. Mother wasn’t here to tend to my needs and to provide me with her delicious food. I had to make do with whatever we could find here and try to survive on the stuff they called food and expected us to swallow. Yes, this was all new to me and so where the people here. But I was always able to make friends wherever I went and soon there was a huge mob of people that knew me and that I knew. So there really weren’t really many places around the campus town where I’d ever find myself lone for the remaining four years of college yet to come.

The college I went to was 400 kilometers far from my hometown Mumbai. So it was a one night of travel to go to and from there to home, so usually it was sometimes weeks or even more that I go to eat mum’s food. And throughout my time away from home, and even now, that’s probably thing that I miss the most. The food wasn’t that bad in the hostel, but as most things in life the monotony of it killed its novelty in time. Fortunately, the roomies that I got were all also a bunch of indolent, bamboozled, languid buffoons like me. And darn did I have a helluva time with all of them. We were a group of solid 16 idiots, give or take a few at any point of time. The best thing about it was that we met during the first weeks of college itself and we stayed together through most of it. Had millions of fights and gazillions of arguments, but as I’ve seen in most guys. None of these squabbles lasted more than a week, after the initial violent outburst. Guy friendships are simpler and less maintenance than with the female specie.

The Apple Tree

"All men dream: but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dream with open eyes, to make it possible."
- T.E. Lawrence

Right from the humble naked beginnings of our lives, we humans are taught how virtuous and rewarding it is to live life in a righteous, courteous and truthful way. We are taught how it is every human being’s moral and social duty to be an ethical, compassionate and caring member of the civilized society. We are taught to say please when you are asking for something, to say thank you when you have got it, and sorry when you have got it and for some incomprehensible reason broke or misplaced it. We were taught that there is no problem in the face of this all forgiving planet that cannot be solved by just sitting across a table and discussing over it, and not debating over it. We have been taught by the very pillars of our society that we students call teachers, apart from the many other more creative names given to by their loving pupils, about the many dignified personalities in the pages of history who have made their mark on the timeline of this planet through their generosity and humanity.

We are programmed to care.

And for most of our childhood, we sincerely do. We confidently ran around naked in the neighbourhood with our mommy running behind with a diaper in her hands yelling for us to stop, we played with total stranger’s children in the sandbox in the park, smiled at strangers and waved at them. We were are truly amiable. The world was one big happy playground. And then, we become teenagers.

Just like no one knows why Lady Gaga or Himesh’s songs go to the top of the charts every time, no one really knows why teenagers are angry all the time. Back in the 60’s maybe they had lot of reasons, the unnecessary conflict in ‘Nam and then the Cold War and all. Even in the 80’s their anger is understandable may be, anyone would have been driven to the loony bin if they had to withstand those disastrous hairstyles for too long. In the 90’s they probably got pissed because they all couldn’t get enough of the cool new “happening” thing, computers. And now in this millennium probably they are enraged over all these new privacy laws and whatnots have propped all-over facebook, or that they have less likes on that special status they have put up after pondering over it longer than they have ever done with any history paper at school.

Well, seems like teenagers always found a reason to pissed off about, cannot really blame them for that. They have lived all their preteens being the good child, they have just come to know about the good that could from being bad. They get this high on disobeying rules, talking back to their folks at home, do what they feel like and the many other essentials on the to-do list of a regular Devil-May-Care personality. And they stick to this routine for the rest of their teens. But that never lasts too long though. Before you know it you are in your ugly 20’s.

This part of human existence I am all too familiar with, on account of my actually going through it right now. The 20’s is that wonderful period in a person’s life when one of two things can happen, (a) he/she becomes the luckiest person on the planet and doesn’t changes a bit from the naïve brat that he/she was as a teenager, or (b) he/she wises up to his/her responsibility and falls into the deep cesspool of the “real world”. And when this person does start thinking about his future, about what he is going to do with this life of his, he starts dreaming.

The early parts of the 20’s are wonderful. You spend your days dreaming about the possibilities of the future, and you stay up at night to dream some more. The truth of the matter is this part of your life right here, is where you actually are the happiest and the optimistic you will ever be in your life. You will feel invincible. There is nothing and no one that can bring you down and there is nothing that you cannot do and no plaque on which you cannot put your name on. You have a bounce in your walk, you have friends all around you who love you, even your folks back at home begin to forget what a pain you were when you were a teen. The world truly feels like your oyster. And the sad part is you really begin to believe it. As everything that’s good in this planet, this feeling also sadly doesn’t last long.

The Invisible Man In The Sky

“Okay, let's look at the logic. You create man. Man suffers enormous amounts of pain. Man dies. Maybe you should have had just a few more brainstorming sessions prior to creation. You rested on the seventh day. Maybe you should've spent that day on compassion.”

- Patch Adams (1998)

Show me one human being who doesn’t have problems in his life. Show me one person who doesn’t have issues. Show me one person who doesn’t have some skeleton in his closet that he/she trying desperately to forget. Everybody has their own reason to be pissed at the Creator for the way things are going on in their life and around them. We all have scores to settle with Him. We all have questions that we hope to ask Him when we reach the pearly gates up top. Why should we just blindly trust in Him when He was the same guy who created the all this pain and suffering in the first place?

Recently I had this pack of relatives visiting us, the whole array of quintessential variety of familial bliss. The whole house was filled with their bags and clothes and jabber. This guy became the VP of so-and-so company. This guy’s kid got employed in so-and-so MNC. This guy’s experimental procedure worked and his tumor got removed. This guy celebrated his 93 birthday on a beach. This guy died and left that woman a huge fortune. This guy divorced his wife for his neighbor. That family had to move to another city because of debt. That couple had to move to another state because of an alleged affair of the guy with the neighbor’s wife. That woman’s children are fighting for the family estate while she is on her death bed. And on and on went on their “this-just-in” news telecast of our huge far-reaching family tree for our own private pleasure - Familial bliss.

Then suddenly some genius brought up the topic of going Shirdi, to a temple there. I was not averse to that trip, I had gone there a couple time before and liked the place. I said I’d come along too, regretted it the very next instant. The whole woman folk of our household were the only ready to go the trip and they being true their species got into a navigational frenzy and put a gazillion places on the list that we could visit cause it comes “on our way”. Most of these places were temples which I thought went with our trip to the Shirdi. But I still till today don’t understand the reason of three malls and five shopping centers and God-only-knows-how-many roadside shops that we stopped that seem to pop up “on our way”.

I don’t say that I hate going to temples or anything. But too much of anything makes me weirdly grouchy. We visited nearly eight crowded, noisy temples til it was time for lunch. And that definitely put me on the edge. I started to pick up fights with my sister for the lamest of things (read shotgun). I even created a huge ruckus with one shopkeeper over the price of a leather wallet (I still think that Rs. 2500 is too much to pay for a wallet!). To add to the wonderful mood I was in, I was in a car with women all jabbering away about the most inane things, and on the wonderful roads that we have here in our country, filled with as many holes in it as people practically living on the roads. The crowds, the noise and the pollution, the jabbering and exhaustion, what more do need to get pissed off!

By six in the evening, I had somehow completed most of the temple-hopping for the day. We would start for Shirdi on the next day. Only the one last stop of the day was left, the grand finale of sorts, the ISKCON Radhe Krishna Temple. I was looking forward to this one the whole day long. Not cause I wanted to visit this place so bad, but cause I really wanted to get this day done with. Even the anger in me had succumbed to desperate tiredness in my bones now. When we finally reached the place, I could barely lift my behind from the bucket seat of the car. I dragged myself through the bag check, the metal detector frisking (all the more reason to pissed off at Kasab and his lot), took off my footwear, washed my hands and feet. And then I entered Heaven.

Or maybe it was just a good replica of it. The whole temple was made of white marble-like stone. The dome was gold, the pedestal was gold, the idols themselves of pure while were clad in silk and doused in gold jewels. The place was filled “Hare Rama, Hare Krishna” chants, that seemed to come from the walls (probably from the hidden speakers). In an odd state of mind I joined the line moving towards the idol. Followed it as if in a trance and did the whole ritual myself, the washing of the palms, collecting the diya, all the while moving towards the idol. When I reached the mob myself, it was surreal. The whole mob was moving as one with the chants, some chanting themselves. I reached the first pedestal, the first pair of idols, then the next, then the next. They were for some reason very distracting. When you see one, you have these feeling that its seeing you alone and none other from the mob around you (probably sounds nuts, but I swear that Radhaji’s smiled at me! ). Then the line kept moving forward and I was suddenly out of the mob. I put the diya in front of another idol and came onto the courtyard. That’s where I saw the most memorable part of the night, that lady in white.

She was a foreigner, probably 60. There were lots of foreigners here, and like most foreigners who come here, was wearing a sari. But she was wearing the plain white ones that widows wear, that’s what that caught my eye, and the expression in her face. She probably was a widow, probably still in mourning. Here, in India, to escape all the sad faces back home, trying to get back her lost self. In this temple to get some answers from God. She probably came here with a lot of anger, anguish and pain. She came here with a heart filled with sorrows that she could not say to people around for fear of making them sad too like her. But you could never say any of that by the expression on her face. It was content, peace maybe. She was smiling with tears in her eyes, the oddest of expressions on the human face, the rarest one. She did not have any more grudges with God. She got what she came for.

Maybe that’s just exactly why we have religions and beliefs. All this unflagging faith that we have in this invisible man in the sky, is probably to be just able to have this one person who you can trust to have all the answers for your questions. To be able to talk to, when there’s no one around that would understand the things that you want to say. To talk to when there aren’t enough words to express what you want to say. God is probably just another you, the better you, who knows you better than you know yourself. The one who can make sense of everything that’s happening or has happened to you and around you. He knows. And you live trusting that He knows, and find solace in that. And when you die you go to His open arms, greet Him like old friends..

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The Kid

“Oft expectation fails, and most oft where most it promises;
And oft it hits where hope is coldest; and despair most sits.”
- William Shakespeare

I have always had a nagging feeling that I am still not doing all that I can. I am still not using the whole of my potential. It sure seems like that sometimes. People seem to expect a lot from me. And I am very much sure that people are disappointed when I don’t come through. I might have been the same if I were in their place. After they see this guy in front of him as a confident, funny and outgoing person who is smarter the average bear and not without some stuff between his ears. But mostly they just stay within that outside appearance itself and in their own irritatingly stubborn way demand excellence from you. As if you are born on this planet to do this and this alone. To shoot for the stars, be on the top of the heap and be like those uptight pompous pricks who are there already and gloat about it. I am sure there are many others out there like me. Who have at some point or other felt this immense pressure on themselves. Not being able to be who they want to be and to do what they enjoy doing!

I knew someone like that. A very good decent kid who had never done anything wrong or every wronged anybody. The kind of kid who doesn’t sit on the first benches among the toppers who have the answers for every question the teacher asks and shameless kiss their asses and are proud about. These toppers are the ones who in future take the place of these highly knowledgeable teachers as they rarely are the ones that have the guts or the talent to make it out there. My friend never sat in the last benches either. That was the place for the sleepers and mockers and the jocks of the class. The kids who are funny, naughty and rarely are very good in the marks department. These are ones that become politicians or actors or some big entrepreneur. These are the ones that do something in their life. Then there is the middle benches, that’s where our friend sat. This is the place where those kids usually sit who never were very smart but are very hard working. They never were very uptight or selfish, but were very good hearted. The followed around the smart kids but secretly were jealous of them. They stayed away from the back benchers but secretly wanted to be like them, wanted to enjoy their life a little more they were. He sat among such sad confused souls.

This kid always was the target many jokes around the class. He was from a remote village in Gujarat. He had this weird funny accent when he spoke in any language other than his mother tongue. Especially when he spoke in English he used to goof up in a lot of words and put a lot of ‘d’s and ‘t’s around the words he spoke. We made a lot of fun of him. And he never really took any of to heart. He also laughed along. I liked him for that. It takes guts to own up to your drawbacks and still be able to laugh about it. He did not have a bad bone in his body. He used to help me in math (I never too good at it!). He used stay after class to help me with it, though he never really had to. He always brought a lot of snacks when we went to the playground on weekends to play cricket. He never got pissed at anyone, never had a grudge with anybody in his life. I was always amazed how anybody could be so calm and peaceful. He always walked away when a argument would arise. Back then I used to think it as cowardly, now I realise it was the wise move!

The Truth About Lies

“But better to get hurt by the truth than comforted with a lie.”
- Khaled Hosseini

I have always thought that truth and lies are always interlinked to each other. Each cannot survive without the other. They both are nothing but the two sides of the same old rusted coin. Truth is usually overrated, but then so are the lies. People think that the truth might liberate their soul, which is all nothing but a pile of rotten horsecrap. People want to always know everything. And hear nothing but the truth. What is the point anyways? More often than not we never like the truth any more than the lie. The truth only makes it all the more difficult. It’s so much easier sometimes to just say a lie and get it over with than bring out the whole big fiasco of a truth to light which needs a much longer explanation.

And explanations aren’t foolproof. There are times when the explanations get so complex and twisted and turned such a way that you yourself have got no idea what was it that got you into this mess you are in.

I think that the main reason for lying is our loss of the most precious human qualities, our ability to forgive. We are afraid of each other. We are scared witless that the other person might not understand our helplessness or the conditions and the pressures that we were under at that precise moment which led to the choices or actions we had undertaken. The choices and decisions that got us in the trouble we are in. If we knew that they would understand and forgive us. We would have no hesitation in plainly saying the truth as it was.

I am sure that our mistakes aren’t as grave as crucifying Christ. And even He asked for forgiveness to the culprits who did that to him. No, none of us are Christ. I don’t actually expect anyone to walk on water (would have been pretty cool though). And I probably don’t expect anyone to crucify anybody except their college profs may be (y'all know you want to). If He can manage to forgive at the last moment of his life. Why can not we do that? They say to walk on the path of the Almighty. Then why don’t they do the same. Why can’t they forgive? Why does everything have to be done according to their norm? Why can’t they forgive us if we stray from their path? Is it so unbearable for them to see us defy them? Why can’t they let us be? Judging us and condescending us is not going to help us in any way. When are they going to realize that?

We are young. We are meant to make mistakes. Loads of them. We are meant to learn from them. We have to fall first to learn how to walk straight. Humans did not learn to stand without falling for the first dozen hundreds of years. If you had patience then. Where is that patience now? If you could tolerate and forgive mistakes way back when you were just like a chimpanzee, why can’t you do that now when you are supposed to be the smartest living creature on this planet? May be if you could forgive, we wouldn’t be so darn scared of the truth.

So now that it is quite obvious that not forgiving is not helping much. Why not try forgiving?

Hope it doesn’t take another bunch of centuries to better ourselves this time…

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