Life, or something close to it.

We are a culture of carbonated beverages, alcoholic happiness and high speed internet. Pursuers of evenings at restaurants on weekends after a week of sitting behind a desk in a chair that doesn't feel right. Followers of work hard (at jobs you hate) and party harder (so for one night you can forget that the job you'll struggle through for the rest of your life, exists). We are slaves to the dismal stories on the picture tube and the three hour long love affairs of people that pretend to understand the meaning of happiness. Slaves of caffeine infested eyes and head phoned ears. Ours is the time of droughts on earth and water on moon. Of greenhouse gases, boisterous hurricanes and unforgiving tsunamis. Starless nights and receding coastlines, pet boa constrictors and endangered eagles. We live in an age of Facebook friends and online romance, diminishing distances and increasing cyberspace, youtube wedding tapes and flixter family albums. High definition celebrities, satellite locations, flat screen TVs and expansive greed. Miniature cellular phones and touch-screen music. Nuclear warheads but infuriating power cuts. Advancing technology but diminishing humanity. Freshly spawned religions but the same good old racism. Ritalin induced concentration and anti-depressant smiles. Of eternal love that last for a month, of poetry that has now become cheesy and web-cam meetings. Of short message services and captured memories. Of teen pregnancy and swift abortions. Split personalities and bipolar disorders. Silicone implants and diabetic amputation. Flying wizards and vegetarian vampires. Mayan predictions, disappearing oil and exponential population. An age of glorious pasts and doomed future. A epoch of changing languages, where vowels have become superfluous and spellings are unnecessary. So welcome to 2010 where if u dnt undrstand wht u r readin' rght now, u're in a plce where u dnt belong n da ppl u want to be wid u, r alrdy chnging dere convictions to be part of dis new age. Where eider u r 1 of dem, or a hopeless old bore. We are victims of our prejudice and perpetrators of our own misery. And it’ll be a long time before these things change. Have a very happy new bloody year.
But, after all of these arguments there is one reason why you should celebrate the commencement of 2010. It is after all, a World Cup year. GO WAZZA!

I am not against god. I quite like the idea of someone watching over us all. It’s like a fairy tale a lot of grownups believe. It’s a way to shift the blames of our inherent shortcomings, because as all of us know, we would have surely succeeded if god had wanted it. The idea of heaven makes us easier to tell children why their grandparents are dead and why snowflakes wont be coming back. And we should embrace everything that makes life a bit easier. What I am against is how God can look down from his throne and do nothing about everything that's happening down here. The people that are born with defects, the deaf, the blind and the dumb, the mentally retarded and the people with missing appendages. How does god allow that? It’s to show us how lucky we are to have all of this, that's what we've been told. Yes, and I do feel lucky to be born with all my senses intact, and the victim, well he's screwed. He just drew the shortest straw. If only he'd been more holy when he was a zygote, he would have had a better life. And how does anyone explain the thousands of innocent lives lost in natural calamities? I know, we are to blame for all the climate change and everything that happens in the future is the result of our past. But god is god. He can do anything he wants. Is it too much to ask for a small wave of his hands that would save thousands of lives. And they all say, god works in mysterious ways. What mystery can there be behind all of this? So many lives lost, while the people who should die, live, and the people who deserve to live, die young. I don’t have the authority to judge whose life is worth extending and whose should be terminated. But god does. And well, he's not really good at his job. And I understand life and death are part of the existence in earth. And people have to die one way or another. And some people lead good lives and some lead horrible ones. This is not my problem with the existence of God.
The problem I have is how he allows everything people are doing, claiming it's his will they are following. Animal sacrifices, religious segregations and terrorism, they do it all in his name. Terrorism has existed long enough in this world for even god to take notice from the proud height of his heavenly abode. How does God allow all these people, to use his name to do the things they do. But can you really blame them? They are doing what they have to do to recruit people and if they can take advantage of a name that everyone thinks is right, then why shouldn’t they? Apparently he has no problems with it. And a promise of heaven for an eternity is a pretty sweet deal. And what makes it even better, is that they think they're doing God's work, that’s what they’ve been told, which leads to a clear conscience. Who are we to question god? If he wants hundreds of innocent people dead, from a device he made someone invent for this very purpose, I am but a medium of his wish, and enforcer his whimsical orders. Either the people who use this pitch are genius or the people who believe in it are idiots. You don’t have to be Einstein to make a fool of fools and even Hitler would be a saint among the demons of hell. And god just allows this to happen. Day after day, he looks down and watches and waits. For what? And I figure there can only be two reasons behind it all.
1. He’s given up hope on us human beings and can’t wait for the apocalypse so he can start it all over again and get it right this time.
2. He agrees with the terrorist and what they are doing is actually god’s work
If I were to believe in god, I’d have to believe that either he's asleep or he's a part of everything that's going on. I’d have to believe that he has empathy for those who take lives in his name. And any god who stays quiet while all of this happens. Who looks down and does nothing except sit in his comfortable cushion of fluffy clouds listening to angels play harp, while lives burn from the flames of hatred raging among the creatures he created in his image, cannot be my god. If this is the image of god that I’ll have been given, that he's a lazy deserter whose mysterious ways are too difficult for me to understand while millions become victim for the satisfaction of his vanity, I’d rather look away. I’d rather not believe he exists than to face the reality of things if he did. So, no, I don’t have a problem with god, but that's probably because I don’t believe he exists. Have a very merry Christmas.

We are fallible creatures, easily tempted, easily subdued. With unimaginable desires for things we don't need. We are pretenders. We are cheaters. We are liars. We do things, things which, were they done by others we would chastise them, burn them, stone them. Our sins are always meager when compared. We are capable of astonishing horrors. Our vocabulary describes us. We have needs for words that shouldn’t exist, but they do because we put them in practice with our actions. Why do we have words like pedophilia, genocide, massacre, rape, patricide, holocaust, annihilation, apartheid? These are all testaments of our capabilities and how we have fulfilled them. We are quick to punish, slow to heal, slower to forgive. We are frail, easily betrayed. We revel in false hopes and futile dreams. We are cowards, doing things that are acceptable in everyone else’s eyes. We are pompous, ignorant and we think they can’t possibly be right if they’re against us. We assassinate. We fight. We stab. We kill. We murder. We war. We shake with the right hand and stab with the left. We betray. We endure. We torture. We hate. We are cruel. We are unforgiving. We make the Devil proud, we shout God’s name. We abandon reason. We terrorize. We bomb. We conspire. We differentiate. We are racists. We take advantage. We get richer. We lust. We indulge. We admonish. We preach and we don’t follow. We walk past. We accept. We flatter. We mock. We criticize. We humiliate. We envy. We wait for them to fall and when they do, we laugh at them. We blame. We deflect responsibility. We point our fingers. We judge. Without mercy we judge. Without understanding we judge. Without constraint we judge. With absolute disregard we judge but we fear judgment. We condemn. We do not do unto others, as we wish done unto us. We are despicable. We are appalling. We are lamentable. We are but mere human beings. We are hypocrites.
It’s a good thing god doesn’t exist. If he did he would be burning in shame looking down upon the abhorrent digression of his beloved creatures. Or maybe he does exist and he is.

"We train young men to drop fire on people, but their commanders won't allow them to write 'fuck' on their airplanes because it's obscene! "- Walter E. Kurtz (excerpt from Apocalypse Now)

Yes, what Henry did was wrong and yes, it really is unfair that the French have gotten away with it and the Irish have to suffer the punishment for a crime committed against them. But, it’s time now to move on. What's done, is done. And all that happened, happened. There's but one definite truth in life: Shit happens. The Irish FA can't keep up these complaints every time they get up to make a statement. Bad unfair things happen. All the time. You can't keep putting all the blame on one decision that went wrong. Had the goal been disallowed, it still didn’t guarantee a place in the world cup, the scores would've been tied then. And why don't they look at themselves for failing to win in Dublin? And they're asking for a 33rd place in the world cup. I know it was cruel on the Irish, I know it’s horrible to be on the wrong end of a bad decision but a 33rd place????They want the football governing body to not only bend the rules, but make a ridiculous exception, for being on the wrong end of a single handball decision and after failing to win on their home ground. I have sympathy for the Irish FA but this is bordering on becoming a joke. When the time comes one has to do what one must, Henry did it. Maradona did it. The hand of god... well the french have Gods too. Wrong? Most definitely. But it got his team to the World Cup draw in Cape Town on the 4th of December, which is what matters. Everyone may think what happened on that fateful day on the past was wrong. But that's the thing about the past, it just doesn’t change. We should be looking forward to the draw and hoping for well balanced groups for all the THIRTY-TWO teams. Football, truly is brilliant.

"Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I will meet you there."- Jalal ad-Din Rumi

"A question that sometimes drives me hazy:
Am I or are the others crazy"
- Albert Einstein.

Originality. Where can we go to, or what can we do to become original? We are 2009years into the A.D. calendar. Counting the years before that, our civilization has spent more than 2500 years of counted time in this planet. During which it has supported more than a billion lives. A lot more. That’s a lot of different men, women and children wanting to be something. To do something original. And since they had the benefit of being ahead in generation, they did it. Leaving us with no other choice but to redo them. We were born to be followers. Do you want to climb the Mount Everest? It’s been done. Write an epic play about unparalleled love? Been done. Free a nation from tyranny? Done. There really is nothing you can do that hasn’t already been done. Even your thoughts, that you think belong to you, someone's already thought them before. It has already stirred up someone else's grey matter before it did yours. There is no being original in the true sense of the word, but like everything else in life, or like everything else in the world, the meaning we give to originality is also tainted.
To be original, means you should be able to break free from the chains of society and severe the shackles of normalcy. Think for yourself. Everyone has an inspiration. Even following on his/her path, can be considered original, though it itself argues with the definition of being original. Leave conformity. Embrace your inner insanity. Listen to the voice that tells you it’s stupid to do such things, but you should do them anyway. Forget the need to rationalize things. The things we consider normal, are only normal because we've been told they're normal. Who has the right to decide what's normal and what is not? They can tell us what is normal or not, because they have the majority of the votes. But we all know their victory is not unanimous. Be a part of the minority. Enjoy being different, imperfect, crazy. Don’t worry about the world. The only they care about results and outcomes. They will mock you for your stupidity, spit on your endeavors and ridicule your thoughts, till you reach success, and then they'll praise you for your bravery. They are fickle minded morons who can only think what they've been told think, to do what's always been done, and they’ll live and die within the security of their four walls. They are rational, secure, safe, sheltered but a bit too sane. There's a very thin line between insanity and genius. Imagine you have a beautiful wife, a castle for a home, a healthy smart kid for a son, a garage of spectacular vehicles, and a job that has the whole population of the area working under you. All in all, a pretty sweet life. Now imagine leaving all of that, to go live in a jungle! Crazy, right? But turn the clock back a couple of years. Okay, a bit more than a couple of years, the same chain of thoughts weren’t crazy or stupid to Siddhartha Gautama. He left all his possessions and went on a search for answers to questions he couldn't understand. He became Gautama Buddha, the enlightened one, eventually. Stupid, crazy and insane to a genius. The same path that made everyone think he wasn’t all that great in the head, made the same people come to him looking for advice. George Bernard Shaw wrote, “The rational man adapts to fit his environment. The irrational man adapts his environment to fit him. Therefore all progress depends upon the irrational man.”
Shaw also said, “All great truths begin as blasphemies.” Let’s say that the world is not flat, that the earth revolves round the sun. Let’s travel South America on an old motorbike. Let’s say time doesn’t move the same for everyone, that energy and mass are interchangeable. Let’s abolish slavery. Let’s make a metal machine fly in the air while carrying us in it. Let’s fly a kite in a thunderstorm with a metal key attached to the string. Let’s fight a well equipped, well armed British army with nothing but non-violence. Let’s die for the sins of everyone else. These are just some of the insane thoughts that cropped up in a few brilliant minds. And the moral of the story is stay away from conformity and think for yourself. Break free from all things normal. And let the people brand you the they wish. You know who you are, better than them. Decide what you want. And chase it.
I myself am no adventurer, and this piece of writing seems to be drenched in hypocrisy. But these are just thoughts. And a hypocrite or not, I love to write. Cheers.

No, not as a metaphor for race. Anti-racist endeavors are a lost casue. Though I am no ambassador for anti-racism, I think like so many other human frailties, racism is rather stupid. But what's even more stupid is trying to overcome it. It’s almost as futile as fighting global warming. It will never stop. The world is just too big, the people, just too many. The ignorance among the masses is the reality of life. It hides under practice, culture, prejudice and it hides well. And every effort to find and end this affliction will all be efforts in vain. The people who are racist now are more than likely to remain so. If they were capable of changing, they would've done by now. They've had enough time. And for the people who aren't racist, well there's no need explaining to them. So no, this is not about racism and how wrong or stupid it is. This is about the concept of wrong and right.
The title is in fact misleading, because wrong and right aren't as clear as black and white. Far from it. There's always the gray portion. Rather it’s a spectrum of gray with a light portion and a dark portion. Because right and wrong, like so many more human notions, is a matter of perspective. It's relative, depending on where you ask, when you ask and who you ask. My actions may be wrong to you in every aspect, almost blasphemous. But for more than a few the same thing would be acceptable, maybe even welcomed.
It's as simple as giving money to a beggar. "Is it right if I give this 5 Rs. note to this beggar?", "Of course, it's right. You can spare five rupees. You have to learn to share your good luck. Be grateful for what you have and help when you can. It's the right way to live." But then again, “Is it wrong if I give this 5Rs. note to this beggar?" "What are you? Stupid? Of course it's wrong. Do you know how hard people have to work to earn that much? Do you not understand the value of money in this life? How will you ever survive in this world?" Both answers are in a way, right, and both are in a way, wrong. We are damaged goods. We can’t even agree on what is wrong and what is right. "Is Hinduism the right religion? Is Islam? Is Christianity? Is atheism the right way?" Every question has a different answer, everyone has a different outlook. Even the vile act of murder, can be viewed on different levels. Don’t chastise me just yet. Let me explain. We all think murder is wrong. No one has the right to take someone else's life. But it's not really that. What we really think, is that murder of a 'good' person is wrong. We don’t want to punish for murder. We want to punish for the murder of a good person. Nathuram Godse killed Gandhi; John Wilkes Booth killed Abraham Lincoln. The vile disturbed lunatic murderers!! That's what we all think about them. For Nathuram Godse he did what was right by him. He couldn’t forgive someone who would allow his country to be ripped apart. And wasn't Booth right in the eyes of the confederacy? He is a murderer now because the Confederacy lost, else he would be a hero. How would you judge if someone had been able to assassinate Hitler. He would still be a murderer, but would he be wrong in your eyes? And if yes, then isn’t the Lord Rama, a cold blooded murderer? Didn't he kill Ravana? Yes, he was a horrible monster, but he had a life. And murder is murder. But whether it's right or wrong, it’s relative.
So how do you do right in this world? There are way too many people in this world and therefore way too many opinions. Too many ways to be right, and more ways to be wrong. So, in my opinion and in my perspective of what is right and wrong, we should all do what is right by us. There will always be people who judge. It's their unofficial profession. There will always be a wrong and a right. It's not necessary to be right in everyone's eyes all the time. Be right in your eyes. It’s only wrong because you live in a society that says it’s wrong. But don’t worry about society or community or religion. Worry about yourself, and be right for yourself. Sooner or later society will come around to see the wisdom of your ways or it won’t, but why should that matter. Make a mistake, but make a mistake on your own notion.

Yup, it’s true. Selfishness is a virtue. Altruism is stupid. And it’s something most of us have known for a long long time, except we don’t realize or don’t want to. To give a word to the claim it’s called ethical egoism. I didn’t know that till recently, (ignorance is highly underestimated) and Ayn Rand, who wrote Atlas Shrugged, called it objectivism. According to her, the moral purpose of one’s life is the pursuit of one’s own happiness or rational self interest. Which is just another way of saying, be selfish… be happy. We are human beings, selfish by nature. We have to learn to accept our intuition. Being selfish is within us all. But don’t worry it’s not a grim premonition; it’s in fact a full-proof path to happiness. We are selfish by disposition, it’s almost a species thing. Or so you can believe, to placate the guilt burning a hole in your heart or you can accept what I say is true.
All our actions, more or less, are guided by feelings self interest. Let me demonstrate using an example. Imagine you are a scientist with a high-tech, fully equipped, research laboratory, hypothetical situation of course (hence the ‘imagine’). Anyway, so you’re a scientist, researching and trying to find a solution to cancer. You also happen to have a rival, or rather, a peer working on the same thing. If asked, both of you would reply, that you were doing this to help the people suffering with this dreaded disease. Because, we all like to see healthy cancer free people. And, it’s only natural to reply as such, being respectable scientist, it’s what is expected of you. You might even believe what you say. The research continues for months and years, time keeps ticking away but you have to do this, for the people .But just when you are really close to a positive result, your ‘peer’ beats you to it. He somehow cures cancer. After all the drama, the eventual result will be the same, the people will still be cured, cancer will still be driven out of their ever grateful bodies and we will have more healthy cancer free people. In a way you get what you wanted without completing what you should have. This was what you said you wanted. But after all that, will you have the heart, to share the joy that is present in this human miracle? After all this years of research will you be able to be grateful that finally cancer is cured even though you had nothing to do with it? Though it’s what you said you wanted, didn’t you actually want the person to bring about this miracle to be you? Weren’t you, behind the entire philanthropic charade, actually driven by the selfish desires that dwell in the heart of every one of us? Weren’t you a selfish human being? But more importantly wouldn’t you have been happy, had your selfish desires come true?
In the give and take relationship, the giver is supposed to feel better than the taker. I find that very hard to believe. And the people put forward the argument that you feel happier when you give than when you take. If I allow myself to believe this for a moment, even then these are selfish motives really. Because you are giving, first and foremost not because you like to see the smile on their face but because it makes you feel better about yourself. You are actually using the other person’s misery to help yourself to a large helping of that much needed, much desired feel good sensation. And though it may sound horrible, it’s actually not that bad at all. If giving is what makes you happy, then there’s no reason to stop. It doesn’t become wrong if it’s based on greedy intentions. The end result that comes out of it is still the same. The ends always justify the means.
Religion, gives the bribe of heaven, eternity in paradise and the fear of fire of hell. So you don’t do this because you’re afraid of hell, or do this because you want to go to heaven. But in religion things are always done because God said so. And we listen to God because we do not want to anger him. We have to be on his good side when Judgment day arrives. And to be in heaven you have to score good marks at your assessment. Your primary interest is to get into paradise, stay happy and do everything to prevent yourself from burning in earth, sorry hell, I meant hell. Religion, more or less, uses that selfish inclination, to make you follow its path. And then there are other issues of reincarnation and rebirth in various religions that make you do the right things. Not because doing the right thing is right but because doing the right thing gets you better chance at a better life next time around.
We of course, leave out the saints and the enlightened ones from this discussion. Because well, they are pretty infallible, patient, without desires or rather suppressed desires, almost perfect and therefore boring. We, the rest of the population, are human beings, imperfect to the core. And that’s what is good with us. Being selfish is only wrong because that’s we have been told from day 1. But we know, our brain, the rational part of the body, puts self-improvement as the paramount objective. We are individuals, before we are a family, a society, a community, a city, a country. We need to look after our interests first, and if, as a side effect others too get some pleasure out of it, then well and good. If not, at least we are happy and therefore our paramount objective is complete. We can then look ahead to creating a happier society and a happier world. Anyway, this is not a rule of physics that has to apply to everyone. These are just a chain of thoughts, that some may find right, some may find wrong and some may find it right though wouldn’t want to admit it. I am not saying that you have to think only about what will suit you best, before you think about how others think or feel, or what affect it will have on others, before you decide on doing something. No, wait. That’s exactly what I am saying. But there’s a silver lining behind all this. Most of the people inhabiting our planet are pretty miserable, which can only mean most of us are leading religious, philanthropic, altruistic, selfless lives. .(enter WINK emoticon here).

Imagine a child's dream of becoming the greatest there ever was. Imagine two brothers' memory of having a game on a Saturday evening. Imagine searching for five friends to have a match indoors. Imagine 11 of us walking, running, jumping, sliding, heading, tackling, crossing, passing, shooting, saving, scoring, defending and attacking. Imagine the breeze the forty yards of turf feels as the ball rushes over, courtesy of a Lampard stunner. Imagine ninety minutes that gives you every possible emotion. Imagine hundred and ten yards of green heaven. Imagine hundreds of us shouting and cheering in front of a big screen though our cheers don’t really matter. Imagine the five thousand broken hearts that travel across cities to see their team lose. Imagine the seventy thousand hearts that soared when Michael won the derby match on the 96th minute. Imagine the two hundred thousand hands that go up when Andres drives through a wall of defenders at Catalonia. Imagine millions of mouths across the globe shout Goal! , at the same time, as the ball crosses the line. Imagine a nation holding its breath as it watches you take a free kick. Imagine billions of hearts beating for the same cause. Imagine the humiliation of a stupid blunder. Imagine the redemption in a fingertip save. Imagine the chill of an early shower after a red card. Imagine the thrill of a last ditch tackle. Imagine the half time talk of a furious manager. Imagine the cleverness of a chip. Imagine the audacity of a back heel. Imagine winning in the second half, after you were down and out on the first. Imagine the pain of a defeat. Imagine the joy of a goal. Imagine the torture of a penalty miss. Imagine the agony of coming second. Imagine, oh can you imagine, lifting the World Cup. Imagine Steven's fifty yard pass. Imagine Paul's vision. Imagine Lionel's quick feet. Imagine Cristiano's step overs. Imagine Diego's dash. Imagine Roy's tackle. Imagine David’s free kick. Imagine Gianluigi's full stretch for a save. Imagine Ryan's cross. Imagine Wayne's volley. Imagine Ruud's finish. Imagine desolation. Imagine ecstasy. Now gather all these rainbow of emotions: pain, misery, suffering, hate, sorrow, relief, hope, joy, delight, bliss and everything else, and somehow stuff it inside a circumference of 27 inches, put it down, take two steps back. Now KICK IT! Imagine Life. Imagine Football.

This is just a short story, not a life experience or anything like that. Maybe a few thoughts of mine are portrayed, but its nothing negative like I tend to be. So enjoy.

In The End...

He was the genius of our class. He used to ask questions that would baffle me. That would have baffled the teacher, though being the shy kind; he never did ask the teachers. I always wanted to see how the teachers would react when he did. He was not book-smart, okay, he was not only book-smart but an actual out the box thinker. He would question almost everything that we were taught. Every explanation led to another question, which meant to him, a chance for further knowledge. It was amazing to listen to his big ideas, his visions, his meanings, his perspectives, his thoughts. We were 17 then. Eleventh standard. And we were best friends. His thoughts were so profound, so intense that after 8 years of growing up, I am a bit ashamed to admit, I still cannot think the way he did all those years ago. His thoughts were philosophical, insightful, deep, and so many other great adjectives that I can’t remember right now. I’m sure he can. He used to be alone most of the time, because he couldn’t really be interested in our trivial conversations. He always wanted to talk about life and purpose and the things I am beginning to understand now. He wasn’t wearisome though. We used to watch football together, he and I. Even on exam nights. I remember a game when United were playing Chelsea, and United played no good and lost. And he before actually celebrating his undeserved victory, he tried to console me. I wouldn’t have done the same. He was something else. “Life is all about happiness,” he used to say, “and nothing more. All we are looking is for a way to be happy.”
Things changed a bit in the next class. We grew older, a bit wiser from all our mistakes, so did his genius brain. He was able to embrace another emotion in his head, though everyone says this was more a matter of the heart. He fell in love. She was vibrant, optimistic, altruistic, a flower child, beautiful. And totally out of his league or she should have been. But it turned out he could be quite charming when the circumstances called for it. So slowly she fell in love too. They found their utopia between her sanguinity and his rationalism. It was wonderful, grand and fantastic, till adversities threatened to disturb the sanctity of their personal heaven. Parents. They wouldn’t hear any of it. After years of development, evolution, preaching equality, justice and all that goes with it, still it was the castes of the two that mattered most to them. For him and her, it was the most stupid of reasons. And on the evening of the day our results were announced, they vanished into thin air. Even I didn’t know where he had gone. Even during this most absurd of times, he still somehow managed to keep his thoughts coherent, perhaps this was the time he needed it most. I always wondered why he did it. I know love is wonderful, something few are lucky to get. But his brain, his thoughts, they are almost impossible. He could’ve cured cancer or something. I was unable to understand how he could give up so much. And all this, for a girl. She was beautiful, she was wonderful but he had the world at his feet. When we are young everyone tells us we can become anything we want to be, which is a blatant lie, but a necessary lie. If we were to realize how concise our opportunities in life really are when we were young, we would become depressed too early, which would spoil the depressive fun of late teenage, where depression really belongs. You want to become an engineer and a sports star? Of course you can, till you are twelve. Then it’s a choice between this and that, which is the beginning of the end. But if you were to tell him, “you can become anything you want to be.”, it would have been true. And he let it go, everything, just like that. A whole important life wasted.
Seven years after that, I became a doctor. Nothing big, just a MBBS graduate. And a few of us went to celebrate our entry into the true medicine field. It was a small bar. I saw him there. He was a waiter. I became uncomfortable, I wanted to leave. Here was my friend, who would have definitely become the most important graduate from our school, and he was about to serve me my drink. How would I even manage to look him in the eye? I felt embarrassed of my achievement; because everyone knew he deserved it more than me. If the world were spinning right, he would have been ordering the drink and me taking down his orders. I looked away. He said hi. Didn’t I remember him? He was almost the perfect person you could meet. We keep talking about how every human being should behave, about dignity of labor but the moment I saw him in a waiter’s shirt, I was uncomfortable. But not him, he saw an old friend and greeted him. It didn’t matter, if he was a waiter, a janitor or a king. Before being a customer, I was his friend. He saw that, I didn’t. Though I was embarrassed and perhaps sad for him, it was I who made the difference between the doctor and the waiter, not him. I saw a friend who had become a waiter, who had never achieved his potential, who had never lived up to expectations. I saw a friend who had gone awry. I saw a friend who wasn’t able to prioritize properly. Quite frankly, I saw a friend who had wasted his life. He? He saw a friend.
After we exchanged our hellos, he, quite simply, asked us what we wanted. From that moment on he became our waiter, nothing else. Strictly professional. By the time we finished, we were the last ones left. When the time came leave, I told my friends, I’ll stay back for a while. They agreed. They were drunk, they didn’t care. I wanted to talk to him. He came out in a pair of jeans and t-shirt and sat across me. “So doctor, huh? That’s nice.” he said. “Yeah, it’s nothing. So how have you been?” I didn’t want to talk about me.
“I’ve been great. Life is good.” That’s what he said. Those were his exact words. Life is good. Life. Is. Good. And even then I didn’t think he was lying. How could his life be good? His was a life destined for greatness, not serving dinner to rich idiots. It was such a waste. There was so much he could’ve done. Serving drinks to me wasn’t what his life was supposed to be. Life is good, that’s what he said.
“Wait a bit, I have something that will get us talking.” Saying that, he walked back inside the kitchen. I knew what he was about to bring. From Russia with love we used to say, when we were young and the world belonged to us. The two of us would finish a whole bottle. I wondered if he remembered that. He came back, in his hand a 750 ml bottle of Vodka. He sat down. He smiled. From Russia with love. He said. And then in silence we had a two glasses, waited for the magic to work. It took about four minutes. After that we started talking. And after all these years of growing up and understanding the way of the world, he still managed to amaze me. I hassled him about his potential, about his brains, about what he could have done, about what his life could have been. He was rational, once. Why did he let go of so much for a girl, for love? There are always a few things that transcend even the power of love. He knew that, he always knew that.
“All those promises, all those expectations weren’t mine.” he began, “ Becoming a successful person with great degrees was always what everyone else wanted of me. It was never what I wanted. They saw my future for me, they predicted my life. But I didn’t know what I wanted then, how could anyone else. It changed after I met her. The one you so casually call, just a girl. You don’t know her like I do. I used to tell you life is about the pursuit of happiness. And well, she makes me happy. I know I am not as smart as I could be, I am not as rich as I could be, I am not as learned as I could be but who cares about what I could be? All that matters is what I am and I am happy. And let me tell you I am happier than I ever thought I would be. So you think it was irrational of me to have done what I did, but look at it through my eyes. It was the most rational decision I have taken. In society’s eyes, yes I was stupid. If I had done what was expected of me, I would have become an example to be followed. I would have been praised and society would have been happy. But society doesn’t know me. Doesn’t know what I want. My life was always simple. My thoughts always were simple. I wanted to be happy. And when the time came, there wasn’t even a choice to be made. I don’t think I have sacrificed anything. In fact I haven’t gotten more out of life than I deserved. And there’s nothing I would change. All those plaudits, all those praises, what use would they have been to me? I don’t want to be worried about what everyone else thinks of me. Shouldn’t what I think of myself matter more? And I think I was right. It is my life and I lived it the way I wanted. I didn’t let expectations of others dictate me. I did what I thought would make me happy. And it worked out more than fine.”
I kept quiet. I thought he was selfish. He denied the world his brilliance, he shouldn’t have done what he did. But he was right. It was his life. He is allowed to do what he wants with it. His thoughts were always so wide. After hearing what he said I wondered if I had lived my life that way. If I was headed for happiness? I wasn’t sure. I was doctor now. And for everyone else, I have done something with my life. But when I ask myself, is this what I always wanted to do, all I hear is silence. His thoughts were still light years ahead of mine. But as we sat talking about old times, I felt proud that I knew a friend like him. He was brave enough to think for himself. He was brave enough to do what he wanted. He was brave enough to live his life. He was my friend. He is my friend and he still, is a genius.

A few days back, a friend of mine told the most absurd of things. He said we were the best creatures on this planet. I couldn’t help but laugh. We, human beings, the best creature? We maybe the smartest, most progressed, technologically developed, articulation capable and evolutionally advanced. But does that make us the best creatures on Earth? First we have to know how do we judge someone, on how good they are? Are we good because we are able to communicate, plan, have more needs than hunger. That just makes us advanced, gifted. That doesn’t make us good. The age of the robots and artificial intelligence will soon be upon us, and they will be able to do all that we do a hundred times better. So, when that time comes, will they be the best creatures?
If we judge on compassion, then I guess, we are capable of being the best. But right now, we are far from it. We are capable of kindness, empathy, care, sympathy, love and all those wonderful things. But at the same time we are also capable of cruelty, contempt, disdain and hatred, and how! We are caring. We understand the pain of others. History is scattered with people who could be nothing but images of God. But history is also littered with people who knew nothing but evil.
Our earth is just about as big as a speck, in the amazingly vast universe, yet we are able to create borders to divide it amongst ourselves, the people. We differ in caste, social status, religion and we think, scratch that, we know every other caste or religion is on the wrong side. We are right. If we are poor, the rich seem beneficiaries of ill-gotten plunder, if we are rich, the poor are insignificant insects who are only there to dirty and populate the earth that belongs to us. We differentiate ourselves from others, but we do not become individuals. We group up, we form mobs, we share beliefs, we follow religions, and we die for our groups, our mobs. We die for our religion, we kill for it. We move headlong onto war, we sing praises for those who killed for our country, those who died for it. We are villains to the enemy, they are villains to us. We spend more and more money on the fight against terrorism. And I am not against trying to rid this world of terrorist, but they, who we brand horrible, vile and wicked, are people too. We are all human beings, but we are ironically deficient in humanity.
The history of mankind has seen people like Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., Gautama Buddha and others, who are the great ambassadors of mankind. But where can we hide Hitler, Stalin, Idi Amin Dada, Ruhollah Khomeini and so many more. The better things we are capable of, the purity of the things we can do, our goodness, our righteousness, our virtue would make even God proud but our malice, our immorality, our sin, our vice, the evil we are capable of would even put the Devil to shame. I don’t know which creature is the best in the world. Although I do know, we can become the best creatures to tread this planet. We can, but we are not and we probably will never be. The end of the world can only be so far.

God. Where is he? What is he? I do not know. I do not believe in him. I am curious to know why so many people do. I don’t think I have it figured out yet. For me it’s a challenge to rationality, to reasoning thoughts, to the thinking mind. How can I believe in something I cannot prove to be true. But I guess, that’s the charm of faith, you believe though you can’t understand. He works in strange ways people tell me, and I ask, why? Why can’t he make everything simple, why does everything have to be difficult? He could make life easy for us. It’s not like he has a point to prove to anyone, he is the all knowing almighty. It’s almost beautiful, the faith and devotion people have, it’s something I can’t understand and maybe that’s why they think I am ignorant, though I think the same of the people who believe. Everything has an explanation, there’s a reason behind why things happen. Except I can’t explain God and his ways, and many people who do believe in him can’t either, yet they trust him, without any hesitation. Why? My mind isn’t bright enough to grasp such a phenomenon. I argue, that people need God to have the fear of being watched. They need to feel that if they do something unholy, there is someone watching that sees all and hears all, someone there’s no hiding from. So to please him, they think twice about doing such wrong deeds. But for me and most of the people I know, we have a clear perspective of what is wrong and what is right. All our lives we have been taught exactly what is wrong and right: this is right and that is wrong. So after all these years of relentless teachings, I have come to understand the way right and wrong works. And before I think of fearing God for doing a wrong deed, I already know it’s wrong. So before I feel ashamed of doing what I am doing, I can think of what I am doing, if this is what was taught to me, if this is who I am, and without relying on the punishment I might receive from above I can change my ways, if I deem what I am doing unclean. My principles, that I have forged over days and months and years, can be my guiding light. I can do right, without being told that it is right. So what role does god have in this drama that is my life?
But I know I am wrong. Hopelessly wrong. God is not the petty scorekeeper that I make him out to be. People don’t believe in him to make him a statue of fear and wrath, no people believe in him because he is a source of hope. That’s what people look for in him. Hope. It’s something underrated, highly underrated. When things go wrong, and everything is as hopeless as it could be, and the world is dark as the night, and everybody has become a stranger, who will you turn to, where can anyone turn to? I don’t know. Perhaps I can offer you explanations on why and where it went wrong, what you could have done to avoid them. It wouldn’t do much good though, because when you are feeling the bitter tremors of agony, you don’t want to hear where it all went wrong, you want to hear how I can make every wrong into a right. But I won’t be able to do it, the future and the past are beyond my control, my rational brain believes all we have is the present, and the present for you is pretty unforgiving. But the believers, they turn to their God, who is all receiving, the sinners and the worse sinners, he doesn’t care. He is all forgiving and he, without any discrimination, offers hope, without an explanation, without reason. Hope for free. And when such a time of despair comes in my life, as I rot in my anguish, desolation and misery, I will envy all those who have a thread to hang on to, who have been offered hope as I slowly decay in the merciless darkness, reasoning out why everything happened. Then I will be vanquished, defeated, broken. But until that day, I will keep questioning.

A few days back, me and a very good friend of mine were discussing about restriction and how they spoil everything. And the discussion went to a point where she said restrictions would be like writing a whole paragraph without the alphabet 'C'. And it's true, writing without the alphabet 'C' is not only difficult it also makes the writing incomplete, but i gave it a try.I guess restrictions also offer challenges. Hope she gets to read this sooner rather than later.


"Life is strange. And I know there are a lot of meanings to the word. Life is strange in every way. It is doom and gloom, darkness, sorrow, despair and depression and yet its also hopes and dreams, blinding lights and uplifting fairy tales. It has billions to offer, all we want are millions, we get in thousands but truth be told hundreds would serve just fine. Evolution has transformed the fight for survival to the fight for luxury. And life exists in this world, where all of these possibilities are oriented in an unrelenting harmony that is like a bootleg version of an anxiously awaited movie, it’s not as good as we want it to be, but maybe it’s the only we will have and the better version is always so far away.
Life, and the world that shelters it, somehow manage and they will keep managing till the world has had enough. And then all life would stop, the harmony shattered, and the universe wouldn’t even realize everything that has happened. We would all stop existing and the planets would keep rotating and revolving, the universe would keep expanding edging nearer to self annihilation, like nothing’s gone wrong and this life that we fight and struggle to enliven would be as important as a drop of water to the wide wide sea. So where do we stand in this master plan for a grand symphony? What meaning and purpose will we ever find in this momentary flash of ambiguity we give the name life?”

A few days back I was buying a bottle of coke at around 10 in the night, I think. I know what you are thinking, that’s a great beverage, and you’re right, but that’s not what this is about. Anyway as the shopkeeper was getting my bottle of the black elixir, an old lady, thin and in a ragged saree, came up and asked for a bar of soap. “How much for the Vim bar? “, she asked. “Eight rupees for the small one and twenty for the big” the shopkeeper replied not really looking at her. She was a poor old thing, frail and timid. She looked at the two notes of currency she was clutching. A ten and a five, and it was as if saddened by the sight of it. She didn’t have the money to buy the bar of soap she wanted. A simple bar of soap. “Give me the small one “she said and grabbing the polythene with the soap in it, clutching now a two rupee note with the five, was gone, leaving me to ponder on what I had just seen.
I hadn’t witnessed the resurrection or anything spectacular. It was simple ordinary every-day event but it had so much to say. Problems are subjective. They always have been, they always will be. Our problems will always be the most difficult problems and no one seems to understand that and no one ever will, because they feel the same. Sure I have to study for hours every single day, but do I have to worry about saving up five rupees so I can buy a proper bar of soap, that’s what the old lady would tell me. And I would reply, not really and hopefully I will never know that problem. Although I still think it’s not as big a problem as having sleepless nights preparing for a three hour ordeal the next morning and having my entire life resting on the hands of someone who analyses what I do in those three hours. Examination oriented education isn’t doing me any good. We all have our crosses to bear and well it feels my cross is just a little bit heavier than all of yours. And if I ask you, you would tell me the same thing. We are selfish creatures by nature. And for me, it’s not wrong that I feel my problem is bigger than everyone else’s. Along with thinking my problems are the biggest, I also accept that the person who is best equipped to do something about it, is me. If I give importance to my problems and not brush them aside, maybe I’ll work harder on solving them, or get totally crushed by it. It’s all very variable. But problems will always be there, till the end and we will always be searching for solutions. A life without problems would be boring, well at least that’s what I think. It would be great to experience it firsthand. But having a few things to enjoy does help. So I am off to get another bottle of carbonated joy and this time I am taking an extra five rupee, to do my good deed of the day, if the circumstances arise.

It started in the heat of Mexico, took a while in its globe spanning course and relatively slowly it may be, but it has surely reached the humble borders of Bangladesh. Yes, unfortunately Swine Flu has arrived. The evidence? Well, there are the boring statistics that will show me the increasing rate of prevalence of this ailment or I could just look out my window and see faces covered with masks, with eyes that stare at any being that even thinks about sneezing without a cover around their infectious noses. Suddenly everyone is health conscious. It’s not a bad thing to be careful, as the adage goes prevention is better than cure and it does stand true, unless of course if you are in the health business. But a sneeze, doesn’t mean you have the flu, leave alone swine flu. It’s good putting on a mask; it’s no good crowding the hospitals just because you have a running nose in the morning. Just like everything other disease, the aura, the fear of the disease has spread faster than the disease itself. What has happened is that, suddenly cold is become one of the most noticed disease. You could’ve sneezed your way through a class, or coughed through a meeting with a minimum of fuss from your colleagues. But those days sadly are gone. If you are in a sneezing phase now, you better be at home resting, where you and your disease belong. Somehow we are forgetting this is also the season of another disease which has symptoms of running nose and headache. It’s called the common cold, and as the name suggests it’s pretty common.
Although, there is a thin line between stoicism and foolishness. You could be bravely trying to fight off the virus of the common cold when in fact you are getting more and more infected by the H1N1 virus or it could be exact opposite where you are just taking up the doctor’s time in an already crowded hospital. But there is a solution. I could search for the symptoms of swine flu in the internet(http://pediatrics.about.com/od/swineflu/a/409_symptoms.htm), correlate with the symptoms I have, and then prudently decide what my next step should be. But the best thing I can do right now, when I don’t have any of the symptoms, is head out and get myself one of those cheap masks, be a responsible citizen and look down on those who are not.