Category: Life Ordinary

  • A Matter of life and death

    It is not about death. That is a process that starts as soon as we’re born. It is the reminders of mortality that has led to my aversion for hospitals. Mangled body parts, groans of suffering that beg me to put the sick person out of his misery. Painful messages that tell me that I’m really not in control.
    It is not about control. That is a process that stops as soon as we’re born, or perhaps way before that. It is the reminders of the hands that decide my destiny that nauseate me. Faces begging for answers as to why it had to happen to them. It warns me of age, and a clock ticking somewhere.
    It is not about death. It is about groping frustratingly for answers that seem to elude me. It is about wondering if I have missed my destiny, and wondering if everything I experience is a clue to something that I’m missing, and the futility that I’d experience if I kept missing them. For, it is when I walk through hospital corridors, that I painfully see the possibilities- physical and mental wrecks of what were once, human beings, it is then I realize that it’s life I’m afraid of.

    Until next time, live

  • No more holy days…

    Last week had a very holiday theme to it. Technically, there was only a day off, but the particular day was different for different places..and work places. I had the day off on Wednesday and D had an off on Thursday. Well, a far cry from the good old days, when the Puja holidays was an eagerly awaited annual event.

    Its appeal lay in the fact that school books could be ‘legally’ laid aside for a few days. I still remember treating the occasion with all the seriousness it demanded, and even including comics in the book-ban. As i grew older, non-school books were gently eased out of the process. So were many accessory rituals like the early morning bath and going to the temple.

    Zoom to now, when the single day off is just another holiday to me. D does try her best to retain the last vestiges of an occasion that now exists only in the memory archives. But the link to the original event is all but severed.

    There are two losses that i mourn for. The first is of character – the character that differentiated and defined each of these holidays. The character that made sure each of these holidays created specific memory associations (our memory, i think, used folksonomy long before web 2.0) that would last decades after the holiday was last celebrated in the way it was meant to be. The memories now created are just another multiplex movie and a few ‘upto 50%’ off deals. I think we are celebrating more, only we have forgotten what we’re really celebrating. (pardon the generalisation) The second is of the innocence – individual more than collective. From the child who had oodles of faith and belief in the sanctity of the rituals he undertook, and derived great pleasure from it, to the cynical adult who battles hard to regain his faith, albeit in the form of spirituality.

    until next time, keep the faith

  • Superzero

    He supposed he would just have to go through with it. After all they had warned him of this about 5 minutes after they started. He remembered the exact words “ ..aur aise shuru hua Drona ka safar” They were right, with a small modification – from then on, the audience was forced to suffer Drona.

    until next time, drone arrgh!!

    PS. It also inspired me to get verse  –

    Ticket ke paise khona, aur theatre main jaake sona..

    Yehi hain Yaaron Drona, jise dekhke aaya mujhe rona…

  • The Art of Giving

    There’s a theory about the internet I read somewhere that i keep bringing up in different contexts. It goes that if collective consciousness is the path to God, then the internet makes a great first step. To be in touch with the cosmos is perhaps the ideal state in spirituality, and while the cosmos does extend a lot beyond our planet, we could definitely start with being connected here first. And it is in this regard that I rate the potential of the internet to be very high.

    Every time we log in to facebook or orkut or twitter or any social medium out there, we come across people and things we didn’t know about before. It gives us perspective and changes our perceptions about who and what we are. And that reminds me of another quote that I keep using, from the Matrix series “….I do not see coincidence, I see providence. I see purpose. I believe it our fate to be here. It is our destiny…” To me, that rings very true for the web. There is a reason why a tool like this has been brought into the life of arguably the smartest species on this planet, and I for one, believe that its role is to further our evolution and bring back things that were lost somewhere along our ‘progress’ – compassion for fellow beings, and the willingness to contribute to things that lie beyond our selfish interests.

    And with that, I end my droning foreword, and would like to introduce to you, this website I came across – Rang De. No, this is not about Bollywood, but about adding color to others’ lives. I’d written about it in my other blog, and finally registered last week. The idea is to extend micro credit from socially conscious folks to the financially disadvantaged. And mind you, its not charity – you get back your money, with a modest interest.

    So I’d like to tag you guys on this. If you’re reading this, I request you guys to check out the site, and write about it (if you have a blog) or spread the word in any way you can. I have just used it for the first time, and  just got a report on how my investment would be spent. So maybe you can start with a small amount and see how it works for you. But we do so many trivial tags, maybe we could do one for what seems a noble cause. It will hopefully connect us and give more meaning to lives – ours and others’.

    until next time, add some color

  • Once in a year….

    He was very happy, someone was cleaning his toilet. It’d never happened before, in almost a year since he’d begun using this place, right on the main road. But just as he began his morning rituals, the man threw a bucket of water. He flew away, looking for another statue, wondering why today was special.

    until next time, happy gandhi jayanthi