Let the prodigal return.....

A yawning gulf between
My vision-tree and my reality-plant.

A yawning gulf between
The place I love to live and the place I live.
I love to live under the vault of heaven.
Alas, my existence lives
In the valley of the shadow of death.
Peace has escaped my remembrance;
Delight, too.

But I know a swing of the pendulum
Will change my face and fate.
My surrender supreme
Shall marry my dream-boat
With my reality-shore.

                                            -Shri Chinmoy.

O Lord! lift this dark veil, so I may see the light. Let the light of knowledge shine on me once more. Let the cool breeze of freedom kiss my forehead. Let me fill my lungs with the scent of my earth. Let me hear the birds chirping outside my window. Let me hear the midday siren calling people to lunch. Let me watch the wenches pass with bundles of firewood on their head, on lazy lazy afternoons. Let me see the goat browse on my hedge. Let me see the sunset over the tea gardens, the sunrise in the mist. Let me hear the pitter-patter of rain drops on my asbestos roof. Let me hear the woodpecker pecking on the Bael tree. Let my eyes water with the smoke of the evening dhoop.

Lead me out of this jungle, O Lord. Release my soul from this prison of falsity. Shake me out of this noetic coma, invigorate my moribund intellect. The prodigal son has learnt his lesson; let me return home O Lord!

Schmucks

Watched a good movie- Dinner for Schmucks. Did not find it very remarkable or worthy of critical acclaim, 2* movie. But deals with a very good thought. About how we rate our success or achievements in life, how we sometimes under-rate people around us. People who are apparently schmucks or idiots because they don't conform to rules set out by the society, engrossed in their own pursuit of creativity and happiness.


We who follow the beaten track, run madly after something called 'success'. We like everything safe and assured. We want a huge salary, a big house, a posh car, high society parties. We cannot tolerate people who do not think the same way, who are idiots or schmucks to our perception because they do not conform. People who take 'The Road Not Taken' are not fools; they see things in a different way, maybe in more meaningful ways than the so called 'successful bugger'. As Frost has said,


"And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I marked the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I,
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference."


It takes guts and conviction to follow the untrodden path. Whether we denigrate such people as schmucks or celebrate them as adventurers, as discoverers, as pathfinders, they hardly care. They do what they are out their to do, so fellow consumers mind your own business.


PS: Discovered a new classification for humankind,
           1. Those that are consumers,
           2. Those that are schmucks....
     Looking for more......

Happy Independence Day ??????

Good Afternoon, Its the fifteenth of August, and in India we like to call it our Independence Day. 


I woke up today to the familiar tune of 'Ai mere vatan ke logo.......' playing at full volume from the neighboring building. "What the hell, what's all this racket about?," I thought aloud. I picked up my cell and found three new messages; my friends and colleagues have wished me  'Happy Independence Day'. That explained why Lataji was singing at the top of her voice outside my window. "Cool its independence day man, don't have to go to office. But isn't it Sunday too?" The thought of missing out on an additional holiday, drained me off all enthusiasm. I flopped down back on the pillow. "No, No, think positive, think positive", I said to myself. With renewed sense of vigor, I got out of bed; did a quick round of push ups just to reassure myself that I am in the best of positive spirits. I tried to think of all the good things around me. I looked out of the window, it was sunny outside, a welcome change from the rainy weather prevailing. It filled me with a lot of energy. I said to my self Happy Independence Day; thought I felt a little proud too.


I picked up the newspaper; it said," PM takes charge of games, Clips Kalm... ". That bullshit about the commonwealth games scam, that's hot cake right now. Pakistan grapples with flood situation, aids hard to come by. UN estimates only 18 percent of required aid sanctioned by the world community. People don't want to aid a country that has been eaten hollow by the bug of corruption, a country that supports the viruses of terrorism and militancy, a country torn apart by power factions within the polity. Blah blah blah. 
Its feels good to be on this side of the border at times like this. 


India is moving forward with great strides towards being an economic superpower. We boast our own unique currency symbol. We boast of 'desi' corporates being at the top of the Forbes' List, some of the richest in the world. We have high rise buildings, we have metros and metropolitans, shopping centres and urban haats. We have Tatas and Birlas, the Ambanis and the Mittals. We have sophisticated missiles and rockets; we have nuclear weapons. We have malls at every little town, malls at every corner of all major cities. People have finance, they are buying, they are happy. We are free to go to retail outlets, sift through all exhibits, choose what we please, buy it with credit cards and be happy. Globalisation is the order of the day. There are no exclusive items called 'phoren maal' anymore. Everything is available at your doorstep. Just type what you want, space, and your address and send it to a 5 digit number, you'll have it delivered to your home. Life has become so easy. There is so much money all around, everyone in the city is running after money, in one form or the other. We need money, a lot of it;  money for branded clothes, money to buy branded jewelery, for a car that symbolises our status. Money is practically in and behind everything we do. Yes, we can afford some of the luxuries that we have always wanted to. If this is not independence what is?


But why not spare a moment and take a peek at the other side of the coin? After 63 years of so called independence, 25 percent of our population lives below the poverty level. Out of the remaining 75 percent, a big chunk of the population do not have enough money to obtain the BPL certification. Do we really know or even care to know how they bear the burden of each day of their lives? The number of farmers committing suicide out of abject poverty and credit burden have run into lakhs in the last decade. Do we bother? Not at all, what's the big deal? 'chalta hain, yaar'. We talk of digital divide as a major problem in our country. What about the economic divide, man? 60 percent of the country's population does not give a shit about digital divide. They have other pressing problems on their priority list. There are still people in India who work their butts off for daily wages of a meager 15-20 rupees, while corporates go on building 30 storey residential palaces with rooftop helipads, or gifting out jumbo-jets. What about those unfortunate people? Have we ever given them a sincere thought? Are they Independent?


A few months back I used to get my vegetables from local vendors in the market area.One evening a new outlet sprang up. It was one of the 'fresh' outlets from a big corporate house.After that day slowly but steadily, the number of local vendors dwindled till finally they disappeared from the area. Well no one can complain, it's evolutionary rule. 'Survival of the Fittest'. You have money you are welcome, if u don't, get lost. Middle class people like myself feel privileged to buy their vegetables from posh, air conditioned outlets, where all choices and requirements are catered to at the same place. It saves our time too. Starting from vegetables to Chinese Diwali crackers, we like to buy everything from these fashionable retail outlets. But what about those poor villagers and artisans whose livelihood we jeopardized, do we ever think about them? Will they ever be independent?


When I was a kid,, my father used to give me a 1 rupee coin every Sunday to have 'jhal-muri'. I used to look forward eagerly to it. It was like a small weekly ceremony for me. But nowadays, I often see knee high kids waving 100 rupee currency notes in front of stores asking for 'toklates'. Isn't it too early to ingrain the culture of consumerism into the  child. What are we trying to do, create a society of buyers, a posterity of insensitive, stupid consumers? I don't really understand where we are heading from here, its all so confusing sometimes. Are we really Independent? Aren't we bound by the shackles of our ever increasing pseudo-needs?  Whatever it maybe, it must be a very pleasing site for Uncle Sam. I am eagerly waiting for this cycle to end, surely a revolution is just beneath the horizon. Till then, fellow consumers, be happy and keep on chanting..............Happy Independence Day. 

My first post.....

Often I stare lazily at the horizon pondering,"What have I done with my life? What is so remarkable?" My thoughts run around each an every nook and corner of my brain searching each file and folder for any bit that could be produced as an answer satisfying this query. The tired grey cells stressed out with the hectic city life, brush off these queries and doze off. My thoughts return with the message,"Nothing, nothing that matters really".


Nothing? How is that possible? What about that prize I won at school? What about that essay competition I won? What about that exam I topped, and that scholarship I won; what about all those friends who love me, guys who stood by me; all those games won, all the medals, all those citations; all those teachers who said I made them proud; all those pretty girls that eyed me, the girl that loved me so dearly; my lovely wife? What about all those people I met, all the hard earned experiences? Do they really amount to 'Nothing'?


Memories return in flashes, random but powerful, un-organised yet meaningful; like fireflies on a new moon night, right there in front but never yielding to pursuit. I never had the habit of writing a journal, never felt the need too. I thought it was for the more fashionable type; I am a very simple person, what need have I of a memoir. It couldn't possibly hurt anybody, for a nobody like me to leave this world unsung of. But with age, I gained in experience.Every experience taught me something so my knowledge grew. With knowledge, I dared to try and understand life, things going on around me. After futile attempts at understanding the nuances of life and all the unthinkable situations it throws up, I finally understood that life is not all about what's going on the outside, it's more about what's within and that which is evolving very fast. Even as we sit and wonder , about how everything changes, we often miss out on a very subtle truth, that we ourselves are changing too. Small, seemingly inconsequential occurrences can swing our perspectives by several degrees.


We are what we choose to be, our persona are actually the reflections of the choices we make. Every small choice we make each day, depends on how we look at the available alternatives, how we perceive them. Our  perspectives are just like the filters that photographers use. A color correction filter, a contrast enhancement, or say a sepia tone filter so on and so forth. Sorry, no its not about photography I want to ramble. My point is that just like these photographic filters, our perspectives decide what we see, what we understand of it and how we react to it.


So, cutting all the idle banter, the point is that I have realized that maybe keying in my thoughts once in a while doesn't really harm me or anyone.On the contrary it may help to track the evolution of my perspectives of life and the world, my progress as a cultivated advanced hominid.


That is why................... PASSING THOUGHTS...