Life, or something close to it.

It may seem preposterous and presumptuous to attempt to write about a diverse a city as Kolkata having spent less than a month with her. I was no more than a guest, the kind she receives in hundreds and thousands every day, maybe a little more than a tourist. But she holds in her arms, friends from my memorable past. Friends who helped me discover a small part of this wonderful city. And she, even in that very small portion, holds enough charm to captivate me and make me write this shameful love letter, a confession my hopeless adoration.
She is not perfect, not by a long way. It’s hotter in mid-October than how hot it is in mid-July back home. The city is crowded in the morning. The city is crowded in the afternoon. The city is crowded in the night. The wrath of the traffic Gods can extend a twenty minute long journey by infinity. She is beset by all the ailments a modern city has to endure, an off-shoot of urbanization. But the way she perseveres through, finding a balance between confusion that is prevalent and the order that is necessary is admirable. She thrives in this chaotic harmony.
She is a picture of diversity, a symbol of variety. She is an amalgam of every nuance of human emotion. She is not without fault, she is not without virtues. She is a rainbow, painted in the colors of the lives of her children. Her children who each in their way offer a short musical verse, which when heard unaccompanied seems rather misplaced, but when put together (sometimes asynchronously) the song of passion that ensues renders Kolkata vibrant and she comes alive. She is a symphony. She is a Goddess.
And when my friend says, that this picture that I have fooled myself into believing is a sham, that I haven’t seen how horrible she can really be, he is right. Someday, I would like to meet her again and suffer the cruelty of her wrath, if that’s what it takes to know her better. But now, when I think of her it’s with nothing but fondness. The times I spent with her were rapturous. The memories I have are all filled with joy and radiance. And when I reminisce, it’s of days that overflowed with an imperfect bliss. That is, until I remember the morning I had to leave her. That day all I felt was the bitter pain of departure, the heartbreak of a good-bye. And as I bid her a plaintive farewell, I couldn’t help but resent all of those who would continue to receive her love tomorrow and the day after that and the day after that, while I had to hopelessly accept that this goodbye meant the end to our affair. A goodbye I had hoped, wished, willed and even almost prayed would stay away. But there were none to listen. An abrupt goodbye that was unfair, unjust and unkind. A goodbye that was unavoidable.

A dying man needs to die, as a sleepy man needs to sleep, and there comes a time when it is wrong, as well as useless, to resist. -Stewart Alsop

The open door offered Amrit an invitation he couldn’t refuse. But as soon as he had seen what was inside his parents’ bedroom he wished he hadn’t. The room was dark, the curtains were drawn, his mother was sitting on an unmade bed and his father was talking on the phone. It was untidy, it was unkempt, it was not the way it should be. By this time in the day, the curtains were supposed to be drawn, the bed was supposed to be made, his mother was supposed to be in the kitchen preparing break-fast, his father was supposed to be getting ready to put on a nice suit. But nothing was like the way it was ever since that night two weeks ago when the blazing lights of the ambulance of lit up the whole neighborhood and took his grandmother away. Since then everything had changed. The cheer that seemed infectious once, had almost completely disappeared. Now it was dull, the air seemed leaden with sorrow, the musty rooms were desolate and his home which was once alive with colours now seemed to be a house painted in black and white. Even his misdemeanors seemed unimportant. The previous night he had stayed up almost an hour past his bed time. An act which would have provoked a very harsh rebuke a few weeks back, now only managed a disgruntled murmur of ‘shouldn’t you be in bed by now?’. His father never seemed to take any interest in any of the games they played together. Everything was different and everything was worse. He couldn’t understand why it was so? His every question was was brushed aside with an involuntary smile. He felt alone. He wished things would go back to the way they were, even if it meant getting a scolding now and then. He couldn’t help blaming his grandmother for all that had happened.
His father was talking to his mother about taking him to see grandma. His mother was not sure if that was a good idea. They were on the verge of an argument when his mother noticed him in the door. She told him to come in.
‘Would you like to go visit grandma?’ she asked.
He wasn’t sure what the right answer was. Truth was he didn’t really miss her. She didn’t form a big part of his life. She used to sit all day in the chair in the garden looking at some flowers and when she did talk it was always a sermon about studies and respect. It was boring. He kept hearing his friends talk about their grandmothers with great fondness. But all she did was take up his play time with her lectures on God and religion. He wantd to say no but he felt he didn’t really have a choice, he knew both of them were expecting him to say yes. So, he nodded.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The hospital had an awful smell. Everyone seemed to be in a rush to get somewhere. There were people crying, people laughing, people bleeding, people bandaged, doctors walking with an entourage of students, doctors alone talking to a patient, nurses attending to a disgruntled guardian, nurses huddled in a corner occupied in a conversation, workers sweeping, workers wiping the floor. It was chaotic and yet everyone seemed to know their role in the chaos. There were no clashes, no obstructions and everything somehow progressed smoothly. His grandmother was in big room with lots of beds. None of the beds were occupied except hers. There was big board that said ‘Nephrology Ward’ on the door.
When he was brought in he was unsure of what to expect. The last time he had seen his grandmother she was stout, her eyes were hidden beneath her big glasses and she was ready to shout at anyone who disturbed her whole day of idly sitting and doing nothing. She was lazy but strong. Now she seemed helpless, weak and tired. She lay in her bed, taking deep breaths from a mask attached to a tube supplied by a big black cylinder. She looked fragile and sick. Very sick. Even just to open her eyes and gesture him to come closer seemed extremely difficult.
Amrit was afraid. He didn’t want to go near. But his father pushed him towards the bed and told him to greet grandma. He went by her side and kept quite. He didn’t know what to say. He wasn’t even sure if she could talk through the mask in between her deep breaths. She tried.
‘Amrit…… how are you doing son?........ how is school?....’
It was horrible. He didn’t want to be here. Why wasn’t someone doing anything about this? There was a doctor on the far corner of the room, surrounded by students. He was pointing towards his grandma and saying something. The students were paying close attention but he couldn’t detect a trace of sympathy in any of their faces. And suddenly all of them broke into laughter. What could possibly be funny? His mother completely unaware of this improper outburst broke into tears. His father held her and started consoling her. Amrit couldn’t quite understand what was going on. Grandma started breathing more heavily. He wished he’d never come.
‘Um, I’m fine grandma. School is going well. How are you?’
‘…I’m fine… just a little…sick. The doctors …… here say…’ and then she couldn’t speak any more. Her breaths became deeper and louder. The doctor teaching the callous students rushed towards us and asked a nurse to make us step out. Grandma’s breath kept breathing louder. It seemed to Amrit he couldn’t hear anything except those deep sounds of pain and suffering. He wished he could do something to help her. Just like she had done a few months back.
He had broken his mother’s vase. The whole day he had waited in his room waiting his for his mother to call him so she could shout at him for being so careless. But the call never came. He went to the living room and overheard his grandmother telling his mother she had broken the vase by accident. He wasn’t sure why she had done it. He hadn’t even thanked her for it. But now seeing her in so much pain, made him wish he could do something. He wanted to help her. To do something, anything, except all he could was sit in this suffocating hallway waiting for what he did not know. He felt helpless. He felt powerless. The sound of grandma’s deep breath kept ringing his ears. The same sound over and over again mocking him, challenging him to do something alleviate the pain, reminding him there was nothing he could do to help the helpless old woman and making him realize that she will suffer more and more with every passing day. It was suffocating, the small hallway, the unholy sounds, his mother’s tears, the doctors’ white coats, the nurses’ white dress, the pungent smell of medicine, the sterile environment. It was all a bit too much. He asked his parents if they could go home.
He cried at the funeral. He thanked her and bid her good bye.

“My object in living is to unite
My avocation and my vocation
As my two eyes make one in sight” – Robert Frost

Ah, childhood. The time when studies was divisible between class work and homework and was just a irksome hindrance to play time, when math was merely 7 * 5 = 35 without brackets and without signs that I am unable to find on the keyboard, when all plants had were roots, stems, leaves and flowers and what went on within these things were their business alone, when fairy tales hadn’t lost their charm and when the darkness demanded unexplained fear. When the panorama of your future was painted with every color of the rainbow and the possibilities of what you may become was countless. When being a driver, lost in the heavenly orbit of the steering wheel was just as good as a becoming a disease fighting doctor. When ignorance truly was bliss but we were too ignorant to realize what bliss meant. And as the earth kept revolving around the sun, round and round again, slowly we shed our innocence, embraced knowledge, lost our ignorance and grew few hints of cynicism. Cynicism perhaps, is the unwanted but unavoidable offshoot of growth. Innocence and knowledge never agree on their philosophies, innocence lives within its protective shell of unanalyzed and unquestioned delight, knowledge reveals a face of the world smothered with shades of grey, shows every entity inevitably has a good side and a bad side. Perhaps the one who achieves absolute knowledge will either be a self-sacrificing philanthropist or a miserable and lonesome misanthrope.
But then we were neither, our journey though a decade or so old, was still fresh. Changes were a rife though. Science somehow was divided into three different versions of personal nightmares. Plants started having a food factory in their leaves, numbers started having small annoying dots in between them, orbits became elliptical and not oval, history changed from ‘once upon a time’ to 6th December 1988 and ‘thou’ was no longer a misspelled word. The thickness of our books, which kept on increasing became ‘inversely proportional’ to our marks. The rain lost its grandeur and even became a nuisance. The adults couldn’t decide on our maturity level, we were either too young to be performing such profound deeds or too old to be doing such childish misdemeanors. And we found out we could no longer waste our future lives on useless jobs that included driving someone else’s car while they enjoyed the luxurious cushions of the back seat. No, now we wanted to buy cars in the future, not be employed to drive them. We lost our first few options of what we would become. This loss however would be nothing compared to what growth would do to us next.
Our education system decided to make us choose between murdering our scientific ambitions or our artistic inclinations or our commercial brilliance. They asked “Do you want to become a scientist, a businessman or an artist?”, and we had to answer. The possibility of becoming a great businessman cum painter cum engineer no longer existed. We had to decide. The system demanded sacrifices and we were obliged to offer our dreams. We chose. If were a student of arts we were unaware of what happened in the business section of education. Our knowledge started taking a single minded course. We became aware of the way an acid reacts with a base to produce salt but about how gracefully color flows off a brush and onto a canvas we knew nothing. Our window of options of future lifestyles diminished to a few choices. And then we were divided even further.
Now we had to choose again. And we lost another arm of possibilities. If we had decided on science, we had to choose between a pursuit of physics or biology or chemistry, or perhaps a medical degree or a degree in engineering. Every choice we made the future grew smaller. We plunged deeper and deeper chasing a singular purpose and lost so many other offers life had once presented. We kept losing the colors of variety from our lives. But what could we have done? This was the primary criteria of growth. Life always offers choices; it is either this or that and every time we chose ‘this’ we lost ‘that’. Why is it that growth requires such sacrifices? When the world has so much to offer, why is it necessary that we confine ourselves to a singular path? Of course there are a few who pursue all that their heart desires and defy what the world demands, but we are normal people. We follow. We choose and we devote ourselves to our choices.
Up till now we’ve been asked to make a lot of choices and we’ve done all that was required. Now when we look back and take a moment review our choices and ask ourselves, were they correct? What would our answers be? Maybe they were right, maybe they weren’t. A few among us brave/stupid enough may even decide to go back and start all over again, which is commendable/condemnable. For the rest of us, we hope that even if it may not appear now, perhaps in the future we’ll come to the conclusion that life was lived right, that all those choices that we made were justified, all those options we left behind were excusable and the life we are living is the life we always wanted to live. The future still awaits with fresh options, demanding more sacrifices. And we will offer those sacrifices, we have to, it’s the price we must all pay to be called a ‘grown up’. Life, we realize, is a journey from “you can become whatever you want to be” to choosing a single paying job to sustain our way of existence. And when asked why it is this way, an infuriating answer awaits: This is the way of the world. And since we are a part of this accepted society, we must do as it says.
A bitter regret does sting my heart, I do not wish to go back and change my choices, I have made peace with my decisions, I just wish I had the knowledge I have now when I was making my choice between becoming a driver or a doctor.

If your gonna screw up, do it while you're young. Older you get, the harder it is to bounce back.”- Winston Groom

‘A revolution is an idea which has found its bayonets’ -Napoleon Bonaparte.


How far astray can someone wander before he is deemed unsalvageable?
There is supposed to be a fire in our soul that rages with great fury whenever a situation calls for a revolution, an uneasy feeling that gets stronger and keeps getting stronger till we have found the courage to stand up for what we believe in. But somehow I am unable to find anything in mine, there are no enraged flames, no stirring of soul. I have become a docile pet to society, my soul has become obedient and calm. I can see that a change is needed and yet somehow I am able to dig out excuses to not be a part of that change. I can complain, that I do very well, but how is it that my heart is not furious, that my blood doesn’t boil when I see what I see around me? All I can muster is a sense of disappointment and a few words of pity. And yet the books I read want to help me free my mind and songs I hear want to help me strengthen my heart. How wrong is it that I do not follow what I know is right? Were it not for acceptable hypocrisy, perhaps I wouldn’t even read or listen, because if I am to be honest I know I am doing great injustice to those who write what needs to be written. A writer wants his ideas to be understood and acted upon. What good is a life changing book if you don’t change your life after reading it? What good is a revolutionary song if it doesn’t strengthen your rebellious intentions after you hear it? Is it fair to the writer, that I appreciate what he writes and yet do nothing what he says?
Che Guevara was a great man, to me the greatest. His thoughts were profound and his actions courageous. What he wished I wish the same. What his thoughts were, so are mine. But what he did I never have. I have wishes and thoughts but no actions. And actions are the most important. If I do not act on what I’ve read am I more than a punk who thinks his duty is done if he puts on a Che Guevara t-shirt or gets a Che Guevara tattoo? That was not what he wanted. He wanted to inspire revolutions, not marks of the decadence of our materialistic civilization.
When he said, “I don't care if I fall as long as someone else picks up my gun and keeps on shooting.” he understood that he was no more than a soldier and the revolution was bigger than him. It should not end with his death. If such a time should come in my life will I be able to give up my life for a higher cause. Will my selfish self even let me believe that there is such a cause? Will I be able to pick up a pen to write when it is imperative that I write? Will I be able to pick up a gun when it is imperative that I kill? Right now as I sit in my cushioned chair, with a warm cup of coffee to my left and a cellular phone to my right, I would have to say no. I will not. I am a product of my society, my civilization. I worry not about the blisters that I will get on my foot if I walk too much. Such savage days are behind me. I am now accustomed to the backseat of a four wheel drive. I now worry about the air condition in my new car. The injuries I am afraid of are not a torn muscle or a fractured bone because of a hard day’s work. I am no longer a barbarian toiling under the harsh sun. I am now diseased with asthma and numerous other allergies, the allergens to which I helped create and branded it a side effect of development. What is it that I’m becoming? A slave to technology, a placid example of a good citizen, a follower of everything that I am supposed to follow? I know that a burning desire to do what must be done isn’t enough. One can’t dive in headfirst into an enterprise on the whims of a wronged soul. But to begin such an action that will lead to profound reformations there has to be that immense want to say “Something needs to be done and it is I who will do it.”
It is bad to be a conformist. To accept everything without asking a question, to compromise whenever faced with adversity, to accept weakness, to be an indifferent passenger waiting for someone else to create the changes and ready to accept such changes even before they are a faction of reality, to not have opinions and ideas, to easily accept self-imprisonment. But what is worse is to be a renegade in soul but a conformist in body. To understand what must be done and yet not do anything about it, to vehemently oppose every wrong policy in our hearts and yet obey all they tell us with insignificant murmurs of dissatisfaction, to know what is wrong and yet do nothing to right it, to know the taste of freedom and yet accept the prison of slavery and be disgruntled about it and to accept such blasphemies under the excuse that it’s the way everyone else does it. What good is being an educated student only to later become an impotent annoyed citizen?
But what reason can there be for me to be writing all of this? Shouldn’t I be doing what I say everyone must do? The books I have read apparently aren’t enough to raise in me such actions of great revolutions. I still have many books to read, many thoughts to sort out, many lives to understand. And all that I have read and understood till now compel to me write this small article just to realize that these thoughts are circling in my head, that I know what needs to be done, that I cannot plead ignorance anymore. But to you its different. You can use this insignificant little piece of writing anyway you want to. You can mock my hypocrisy, you can just go through it and not give it a second thought, it could be your first step towards becoming the liberator your soul has been waiting for or it could be that final push that sends you over the edge into the immense possibilities of unknown freedom. It can be whatever you want it to be. And I leave it incomplete in a hope that if I have a conclusion that ends in failure, may it not be the same for you. May one of us have a triumphant end that brings back things to the way we know it should’ve always been. May there be an absolute victory. A victory for you and me. A victory for our unborn revolution.
Che said, ‘Hasta la Victoria siempre, (forever onwards until victory).’ May it be so with us.

“I am not a liberator. Liberators don’t exist. The people liberate themselves.” Ernesto ‘Che’ Guevara de la Serna.(1928-1967)

A hundred years since the sun went down,
Yet still I wait for the ray of light
That’ll save me from this cold darkness,
A glimmer to help me pass the night.

I walked, I was pushed, cajoled, enticed.
Now I hate where I have come.
I still don’t know where I am going
I wish I didn’t know where I am from.

The black dogs bark and they growl,
They know the smell of a defeated prey.
My body feels weak and my legs tired,
I think I’ll let the black dogs take me away.

Yes let the smoke of my torture rise,
Let the darkness smother me whole,
Let the cold dark night be my truth
And let my misery drown my soul.

For I see my happiness beyond the horizon
And hope is just a shameful lie.
Just a small doubt keeps me breathing,
Maybe living in misery is slightly better than to die.

So I’ll continue to preserve this wasted existence
And from the abhorrent I’ll myself restrain.
Till freedom is returned to my soul
Or till my fragile mind goes insane.

If only I could escape my hatred
From this town filled with soulless ghosts.
But where do I go to leave myself behind?
For it’s the man in the mirror I hate the most.

Now I see a flutter against the fluorescent glow
And my thought makes me question my birth.
Was I born to live this life
Where I have begun to envy a moth?

"Life's greatest happiness is to be convinced we are loved."-Victor Hugo

I do not believe in fate. It wasn't fate that stopped my alarm from going off that wet monsoon morning making me too late to catch the early bus to college. I was late because I had forgotten to recharge my cell phone's batteries the previous night. But whatever the reason, cosmic or trifle, the result was that I had to take the next bus. And I could've been forgiven if I'd let go of my skepticism and allowed myself to believe in fate just this one time, because from the very next stop she got on that 'next' bus. Suprana. She stood about a meter away from me, holding onto a seat, her clothes drenched, her body swaying with every turn the bus took, with every pothole the bus conquered. In between us was the irksome obstacle of a man or was it a woman or maybe a child or a metal pole, I can't remember. I saw no one else after that. Only her. Her red shirt that clung to her body, her black hair wet and wonderful, her irate gestures on being pushed around by the zealous morning crowd, her eyes that tried to hide under the cover of her glasses. When she got down, I followed her. It didn't matter that this was not where I was supposed to get down, it didn't matter that my stop had come and gone about ten minutes ago. All that mattered was she was out of my sight and I couldn't allow that. I offered her shelter under my umbrella. She hesitated. I insisted, said her books were getting wet. She agreed. Her college was five minutes away. Five silent minutes. For some reason, I became a mute. Either there was nothing for me to say or there were so many things that I couldn't decide what to begin with. So, all the noise that came was from the pouring rain crashing against the nylon of the umbrella. Soundless we walked, she wishing a quick end to this awkward journey, me hoping for a change in the laws of physics which would make it possible for me to equate five minutes with eternity. Her wishes conquered my hopes and soon the five minutes were over.
Five excruciatingly fast minutes.
It was hard to understand her beauty and it's harder to describe it. But it was enough to make me miss the early bus the next morning and the next, and the next. I was late for college every day after that. And with persistent self motivation, one day I was able to strike up a conversation.
She was in her final year in college, I was in my first. Had we been in the same college, a relationship between a junior and a senior would've been difficult to fathom but outside the walls of our academic institutions, the difference in our ages was unworthy of a mention. We weren't the couples that would've graced the pages of Shakespearean literature. We weren't the ideal examples of what love can be. In fact if love is only limited to such notions of ever lasting relationships and inseparable hearts, then maybe what we felt wasn't love at all. There were no promises of perpetual closeness, no expressions of unbearable misery due to unavoidable distances, no statements about the impossibility of life if we were to be without one another. We couldn't reach that edge of poetic love. We never wanted to. Some days the bus journey together would suffice my need for her, some days spending every moment of the entire day with her wouldn't seem enough. It just felt good to be together. And there was nothing more we needed. We shared our sorrows, I used to hold her as she fought her tears that streamed down her gentle cheeks having failed an inconsequential class test, she used to console me, I having lost a game that she would've said was pointless. We used to share our happiness, a kiss for every paper I passed, a hug for every basket ball game she won. We found our escape from the world when we were together. We would spend hours silent, just enjoying being close, away from everything and everyone else, lost in the moment of tranquil breeze and serene sunsets. We accepted that we weren't perfect. Our many imperfections were abundantly clear but it wasn't enough to keep us apart. And in each other we found a friend who would listen to all that was difficult to tell anyone else and who would not judge our mistakes but accept us for who we really are. We drifted further and further away from the world and closer and closer to each other. We missed lectures, classes, parties, celebrations and some other meaningless occasions. We were lost in another world, where time held no meaning. We left the world behind as without consequence morning turned to noon, noon to evening, evening to night and while everyone hurried from their homes to their jobs and back to their homes we danced in the horizon between the realms of reality and dreams. In each other we found our solace, our utopia, our love. It was wonderful being around her.
We were together for a year. After which she was gone.
Like we both knew she would. College was over, now came her struggle for independence and she had to be wherever her future needed her to be. It was an inevitable ending we were both expecting and wishing it would stay as far away as it possibly could. But time never stops. There were no tearful goodbyes, no heartfelt apologies, and no hollow promises because none were needed. There were no explanations necessary because that would just mean what we shared in that one year wasn't enough. I wished her the best of luck for her future, told her to remember me whenever she visited Kolkata again and wished her a safe journey. Her bus left at 4:17 p.m. on the 24th of September. And i stood there under the same umbrella, once again silent but this time alone with no one but my city and her rain. The rain was relentless that day, the Kolkata monsoon's heartfelt wails pierced deep into my heart. She said I was not alone. I closed my umbrella and i let the rain wash away all the sorrow. She made me realise the cathartic rain must in the end give way to the barren wind of the fall. And just like the monsoon, she came in my life for a short time, she made me see happiness can be found in the smallest things in life and then she was gone, just like the monsoon would be, just like everything in life would be, just like life would be. Suprana. Loved and lost.
It was over. Just like that.
I do not know, how people can feel love to such an extent that it would be impossible to live without the person they're in love with, how love can render everything else secondary, how they can promise complete devotion for eternity. Such extreme definitions of love make what we shared rather insignificant but I don't want a reasonable definition for what we had. I believe it was love. And love not because we would be happy forever after in a far off romantic land after we had found a way to compromise between our ambitions and our need for one another. But love for love's sake. We had no reason for being with each other except we wanted to. We were together sharing a bond that we knew would break as soon as she ended her academic adventures but the eventual severance didn't stop us from enjoying every moment that preceded it. We didn't promise eternal alliance because we didn't know what our future held. Our pasts were far apart and there was every chance that our futures could be too, what was close together was our present and we were intent on enjoying the time we had together. There were no questions of 'what could've been' lingering in our hearts, (well not enough to change anything), because we had the world to explore. There simply was so much to be done, we couldn't be tied down with one another just yet. There were people to meet, places to visit, mistakes to be understood, principles to be changed, questions to be answered, thirsts to be quenched, souls to be searched and self discoveries to be made. No matter how wonderful a time we had together, the temptation of a planned future where we would spend our lives blissfully in each other's arms wasn't enough to deter us from the promises of an unknown future of incredible possibilities that lay ahead waiting for us. We were just too young and there was so much to experience, we didn't want to miss out, not on love but life. Because love we had already known. And after she'd gone away, there were no regrets haunting my conciensce, all that there was, was a sense of disappointed acceptance that it had ended a little too soon. A student of literature, she would've said, 'all good things come to an end.', and indeed they do but for there to be an unwanted ending there has to be a good thing preceding it and what we shared was more than good. What would happen after she went away? It would be hard to completely lose someone who understood me so well. And we would continue in any way we could, mostly with the help of modern science, to stay as close as possible but slowly as she dived into her new life, our directions would further repel one other. Our intimate conversations would turn into futile small talks about the weather. Soon we would be exchanging greetings of 'hello' and 'how've you been?' and eventually we would be constrained to a fond memory of a distant past. And then just a small story to share.

Charity begins at home. That statement is not a fleeting collection of words that I was able to come up with for this specific article. That statement is a very well known and symbolic idiom. Symbolic, because it is the epitome of our selfish nature. For us, charity does begin at home and so it should. We need to see that our wishes are looked after properly before we think about helping foreign lives recuperate and blossom. It isn't essential that we be god parents to the entire world, generous and kind to everyone else while we ourselves suffer great misfortune with brave stoicism. That is not how we are. To be diplomatically correct, that is not how most of us are. Our principle of self preservation before all else, shouldn't bear any inherent guilt. It is not a wrong principle; it is a rational and accepted principle. And yet it drains away the essence of generosity. It is good to look after our needs and try to make the world better place for ourselves before we try to make it a better place for everyone else. But its strange how easily we confuse needs with wants. Its not an obligation, and I believe it's not even our duty (moral or otherwise) but its just a voluntary gesture of humanity everyone would expect a human to show. We can be kind and generous with respect to our own fortunes, we can help others in a lot of different ways but still something keeps us from offering that simple but significant help to someone in need. We could easily offer a few things, that in real calculations of our lives would seem superfluous but we don't. I can't understand why. I do not wish to implicate the whole of mankind in this theory of ungenerous souls, this is more an exposure of my wicked heart that somehow has become rather resistant to alien plights and maybe a way to understand and explain such instincts.
Recently, like so many many other times, I was in a rickshaw, stuck in a traffic jam. My theory is that the traffic signals and the traffic policemen have somehow conspired to always make me spend an eternity waiting for a red light that just won't turn green and a whistle bearing arm that just won't wave me through. Such stationary occasions are just the sort of gatherings beggars exploit to earn their living. Now a rickshaw is a very open vehicle, and very suitable for (unwanted) conversations between the individual on the vehicle and the individual on the road. There were no windows for me to roll up and hope the beggar would get the hint and move on and search for someone else to tell his sorry story. So, a beggar approached. He was old but not too old with teeth stained red and a body so thin he seemed to be emaciated. In one hand he held an inhaler for his asthma, his other hand was free, ready to accept anything that was on offer, if there was to be an offer. There we were, him pleading for just a small ounce of kindness and me looking away, the needy and the temporarily deaf. In god's name he asked, show some kindness in God's name. I said your god doesn't know me. But I said it quite softly and I don't think he heard me. Then he showed me his inhaler 'I need it for my asthma.' he said. I told him sorry but I couldn't help him, which wasn't entirely true. I could've helped him. I could've spared some change if I actually wanted to. But I didn't. I had absolutely no desire to offer any kind of help to this less unfortunate human being. Why? I do not know. It was the exact opposite of what I was taught to do. From as far as back as I can remember, I have been taught to help people in need and it has always seemed to me like a rational advice. But the thought that this man is in need and I have the means to if not eradicate but at least alleviate his misery, didn't even come to my mind. It wasn't judgmental. I myself am a parasite, feeding on a rather meager parental fortune, so I have no right to be judgmental. Apparently I have lost my instinct of generosity or I have forgotten generosity and allowed my instinct of selfishness to resurface. All I could think of was the red light that just wouldn't budge. When it did, the rickshaw pulled away, I was gone and he was left standing there, with an empty inhaler in his hands and a bitter confirmation of human cruelty in his heart. But to me all that mattered was that with a simple change of colour from red to green our unpleasant confrontation was over. Now, this is not an outcry of my righteous subconscious, asking me to show some kindness to poor old men, it's just a question of a wondering heart, asking where could I have lost the simple lessons I was taught? Were the lessons right, or am I right now? I do not know, what reasons others have for giving or not giving what they can to the people in need, but for me there seems to be no reason at all, just a lack of desire to be helpful. Maybe this is a frailty of the entire human kind or maybe it's just a sign of an individual's greedy and selfish nature.

"When I was a younger man, I wondered why I chose atheism. My parents were religious, you would've liked them. They wouldn’t be proud of me now, at least not of my religious views. They taught me all things come from God and all we do should be in praise of him, which quite frankly seems unfair. I mean I want to get something for myself out of my life. But under their shadow I experienced many religious practices, that didn’t seem right to me to be honest. Some of it was even ridiculous but I wasn’t allowed to question. No one was, not even my parents. It was a cultural heritage that had been continually passed on from generation to generation and I guess it was my generation’s turn next. So year after year, I followed what I was expected to follow and did what I was expected to do. No stray steps, no sacrilegious queries. Back then, what my father said was final and what my mother said was infinitely wise and I was a little ignorant idiot who understood the foolishness of his inquiries. Hence, I kept quiet like I was expected to.
But slowly the reach of my parents shadow began to weaken and I began to explore the world little by little. And let me tell you the world is a vile and disgusting place. It’s not like your church with a clean garden and a paved road to the gate. No sir. If I knew what the world was and is, I would’ve declined the offer to be born. Things happened that made me question the existence of the Almighty. And when I was a confirmed atheist I came to a conclusion there were two reasons why I left the holy path.
I don’t want to label it the main reason, so I’ll say the first of the two reasons was: my life started becoming a miserable and deplorable affair. I flirted with depression, well not flirted, to be more precise I fell in head over heels with depression. Every day was every day. I didn’t know what day of the week it was because I didn’t need to, they were all the same. What I did the day before would be the same thing I was doing today and the thing I was doing today, I would be doing the same thing tomorrow. I was alone, desolate and seriously wronged. I mean I felt I was wronged. This wasn’t the life I deserved. This wasn’t the life anyone deserved. It felt like I was being punished when I had done no wrong, at least nothing wrong enough to deserve what I got. But then I looked around, there were so many of us, living the same life with the same complaints. And it couldn’t be that this was the big plan God had for all of us. This couldn’t have been my destiny, to rot in a meaningless existence, doing things no one else cared for, decaying more and more as each day passed by. God didn’t answer my prayers. He left me stranded when I had no one but him. No one can be that cruel. And when I asked people who were supposed to know things, they said, God works in mysterious ways. My life made no sense, I was trying to find reasons to continue living, I was looking for some answers, a hope to hold on to, something, anything. Anything at all and they said, God works in mysterious ways. The best that they could come up with to help me save my life was GOD WORKS IN MYSTERIOUS WAYS. Well, I guess at that point I had an epiphany of sorts. If God had forgotten about me it shouldn’t bother him much if I forgot about him and so I did.
It wasn’t the unexplainable wrongs that were happening in the world that caused my deviation. I knew about Hitler from the time I was little. It didn’t seem to bother me that God gave life to such a person when my life was good. Floods, fires, tsunamis, hurricanes, earthquakes everything was happening long before I became an atheist. And though it seem absurd that God would allow such things to happen, I didn’t really look much into it because He was kind enough not to include me in any of those. Everything the religious people said seemed plausible to me. Had someone asked me why God would allow such things to happen, perhaps even I would’ve answered, God works in mysterious ways. I didn’t become a nonbeliever because of the unfair human suffering the world had to go through. No, they were just points that I could throw at people in an argument about religion. I didn’t care too much about the six million Jews Hitler killed. I agree it was wrong and it shouldn’t have happened, but I only came to know about it after watching a movie. I mean, in the Bible God kills the entire population of the earth except one human family and a few animals. If God is capable of such barbarism, it wasn’t hard to see why Hitler got his life. But once my life took a turn for the worse, everything changed. God became an imposter. It’s strange really, it didn’t bother me much when six million lives were allowed to perish without reason but when my life, a single soon-to-be useless existence, became a tad difficult, everything about God became a lie. I know it’s a selfish approach but…… well I really can’t find something to say to make that sound a bit more acceptable.
My questions didn’t go away though. And since God wasn’t answering I had to look elsewhere. So I began to read, searching for my answers in books. There I found the second reason for my atheism. There were so many things religion couldn’t answer that books could. I read in a book the most amazing questions. It asked, if our children commit the most heinous crimes, unforgivable and inexcusable, will we have the heart to punish them by sending them to a place that uses the most gruesome torture methods imaginable? Is it possible for a father to do such a thing to his child? So, how can God, whom we decree: our kind and generous Almighty Father, send us, his children, to burn in the fires of hell, not for a day or a year, but for eternity. Here on God’s green earth we make a big issue if a father lays a hind in his son, but God has the ruthlessness to condemn his children to hell? Doesn’t seem right.
Books made me see this life is mine and I should do what I wish with it. I have to admit I didn’t do much but I did what I wanted to do, mostly. Though many disapproved, I lived my life, not the way God intended but the way I did and I think it’s acceptable since it is my life. There were so many answers and so many more questions. And slowly, my conviction that I had chosen the right way became more and more strong. I mean we used to believe child birth was a blessing from God not too long ago. We used to burn witches, we used to use shamans to cure diseases. We did so many things because we believed it was what God wanted us to do. Even now, all terrorists believe that what they are doing is God’s work. We can’t even figure out which God is the right God. If Christianity is the correct religion and if the Christian God does exist, then will the Muslims and the Hindus and the people following other religions suffer the same fate as an atheist? Will they burn in hell too? And the people that have never been and will never be exposed Christianity, the people in the small villages of a Muslim nation, are they already condemned without having been given a chance? That doesn’t seem like the workings of a fair God. There are so many things religion can’t answer. The more I read, the more I came to realize there is one rational answer that satisfies all queries and it is the lack of God’s existence. If we were to believe that God doesn’t exist, then everything becomes explainable. The reason behind Hitler would be that bad people exist, they always have they always will. The reason behind terrorism would be people take advantage of blind beliefs to get their dirty work done. Everything would then become simple. Everything would have a rational reason. There would be consequences, I know. Dostoevsky said, ‘If there is no God, everything is permitted.’ I guess the idea of God is necessary to keep certain factions of our society in line. It seems we believe that human nature is inherently inclined to depravity and is in the need of a system that will keep things in check. We have lost faith in ourselves but not in a supernatural being. Religion asked from me something I couldn’t give. A blind and unquestioning faith. If I am to believe in something to save my life and salvage my soul, I will need some proper convincing and religion just didn’t offer that. All my questions remained ignored, they were blasphemies not to be touched. So, religion didn't work to well with me. And unable to fulfill their criteria of unquestioning faith, I became an atheist.
But now lying in my death bed, I have begun to feel apprehensive about the idea of hell. I mean, I don’t want to burn in hell because I was too stubborn to relinquish my atheist beliefs. What if I’m wrong? It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve been wrong. So, I have a proposal to you mister priest. I have amassed quite a tidy sum over the years. And since I’m about to die, I don’t really have much work for it. I’ve decided to donate it all to your church’s orphanage. But in return I want complete forgiveness for all my sins and I want you to tell me that I will not go to hell. I know you need the money. I’ve been to the orphanage and it is not in a pretty condition. And before you accuse me some devious insinuation let me clear out the air by saying yes, this is me taking advantage of your situation. But you have to look at things from my side. I had to choose between making you feel guilty or burning in hell. The choice was pretty obvious for me. Isn’t it good enough that I’m offering all my money to charity or does it have to be that, it should be a sincere I-hope-for-nothing-in-return kind of offer? You can give the children the best meals of their lives tomorrow if you give me my ticket to heaven. So are you willing to offer me my salvation to feed your poor children? It’s your choice. If you say no, you have a clear conscience and the children stay the way they always were, I get another priest, no hard feelings. If you say yes, the children are happy, you get to be the good priest and get a peaceful death. I still can't let go of my atheist beliefs but if God does exist, I just want to have an argumentative point to offer when I have to explain why I deserve to be in heaven. Don’t you think God will be willing to overlook this small transaction to give you the means to feed all those hungry children? He surely won’t punish you for such a trifle misdemeanor when it results in such great happiness. Will he? Well you understand God better than me. It’s all up to you. So what’s it going to be?”

I am the modern man. Cradled in the lap of luxury, I lead my life in blissful ignorance. My wandering spirit is blinded by my monetary pursuits and I am willing to accept such blasphemies, for I am not a nomad. My spirit can be set free, to roam the wilderness in search for unanswered questions, after my body decays. I am plump, fat, and indulgent. I am an image of today's acceptable gluttony. I worry, not whether my next meal will be but rather what my next meal will be. I have a delicate palate and my body doesn’t know how to digest the common garbage. I am insatiable. I want a better phone, a better car, a better of everything I can think of. I think that's not too much to ask. I do not care if the world is burning outside, when I’m inside I want the weather to suit my needs. Desire may be the cause of all human sorrow, but the fulfillment of desires is the cause of most human happiness. And its suits me well that most of my desires can be bought. I do not wish to see the reason behind spending billions of dollars on big fat machines. Technology is not for the pursuit of scientific knowledge, it is to make my life easier. I do not care how a phone works, all I care is if it’s the latest model and can I afford it. I have judged my dreams to be an irrational proposition and my slavery prudent. I have rendered myself impervious to the temptations of freedom. I accept the cycle of mediocrity. It offers me the security of regular income. And when someone says, why you don’t try for a better job, the first thought that comes to my mind is: better salary. A better job doesn’t entail an escape from the dreary routine that I follow, a better job means I do what I always do but I get paid more to do it, so I can buy that car that always teases me so. My society equates pecuniary abundance with greatness and I am in complete agreement. If I want the things civilization offers, I should be willing to follow its rules. I am content with the way I live. Though my questioning soul says otherwise, it always feels that either I’m too young or too old to be chasing transcendent illusions. My soft and well lotioned hands and my sun screened skin need not face the undeserved punishments of nature. Even now when questions scudder through my unforgiving mind, I have the means to tame it so I can follow the secure circle of society. And though I have allowed myself to get lost this crowd of everyday life and though I have strained my freedom by my own choice and though I push myself away from escape every chance I get, no one seems to think I'm crazy. I figure that's because everywhere I look around people are doing the same. I'm not hedonistic or bohemian. I've compromised my lofty goals for mediocre aspirations to save myself from the possibilities of sordid outcomes. I am normal. I am the modern man.

I do not wish to scale the highest mountain. For then, what do I have left to climb? Once I reach the tallest peak, even the smallest of steps that I take next, will mark the beginning of my decline. I do not wish to cross the widest sea. For then, what do I swim across next? Will then the water that set me free feel the same again? I do not have a set objective for life, neither a definite goal nor a divine purpose. I am not in a resolute pursuit of the ultimate. I am apprehensive about a wholehearted devotion to a singular cause that is supposed to hold the meaning of life. And though I am scared of being a complete and abject failure, I am more fearful of any abrupt success. Because if I somehow fulfill the purpose, that I have prepared my whole life for, will I not be then doomed to a life of glorious reminiscence and regrettable future? If I prepare my whole life to climb the tallest mountain or swim across the widest sea, and once I complete it, will I be able to climb any other mountain with the same passion? Will the sea hold the same sense of freedom she once did? All I have in life are just these, my questions. And all I want my life to be is a defiant pursuit of answers. A pursuit of neither the riches of the coffers of Hades, nor the romantic blessings of Aphrodite but just a simple yearning to pass this life in a journey where on my way I manage to collect a few answers and I wish the answers I do receive lead me to more questions, and my thirst keep increasing, till I reach a point where either I feel comfortable with the answers my life has offered or my quest overwhelms me and renders me motionless. But if I do feel content on having learnt all that I wanted to learn, if I do feel satisfied that I know all that I wanted to know, if I can decree my thirst quenched, I will consider my life fruitful, my purpose complete and I will welcome my death. But for now, I wish for courage to never forget what I am and not give up my pursuit of the unknown.

Yes, I pull a Rickshaw



Woke up at 5 today
Same as yesterday
Saw a few more dreams
And crashed back to reality

Life didn’t change
It was just another Wednesday
Or was it a Tuesday?
Differentiating days seem useless.

The pedals seems fine,
The wheels properly inflated.
So begins a new work day.
So begins my destiny.

You look new to this place,
Where do you want to go?
That’ll be fifty rupees please.
You pay because you know nothing now.

A good start with a good customer,
I cheat because it gets me more.
Let me hear about your judgment
When you have to worry about your next meal.

And where do you want to go?
That’ll be fifteen rupees please.
You’ll pay 10? But it’s fifteen!
How about we settle for 12?

You heartless man,
What does three rupees hold for you?
Is it worth depriving me
Of a well earned cigarette?

You generously give five rupees to a beggar in charity
But argue with me for two.
The beggar just begs,
But I bleed for you.

I sweat and I toil,
I pull and I push.
But when I ask for two rupees more
You become a saint and I the Devil?

If you pity a beggar for his misfortune
Why cant you see
From your cushioned seat,
It is my sweat that drips for you.

I pull a rickshaw I know
I’m insignificant in this world.
A hindrance to you, car owners.
A cheat to you, my customers.

But don’t think you’re better than me
Just because you’re in an office from 9 to 5
I know I can’t sell the latest insurance scheme
But can you pull a rickshaw for a day, everyday?

“You see, money to you means freedom; to me it means bondage.” I read this line an equally impressive book and it tore me apart. It made me question so many of the decisions I have made till now. From as far back as I can remember, I have had a strict perspective on what money means in my life. It is, I have felt, a necessary evil. Something that I don’t really want to work for, but it will be impossible to do anything if I don’t work for it. To do anything, I would have to get rid of the financial problems first, and then I would be free to do all that I wanted. But doesn’t that mean all I want are things that money can buy? Doesn’t being able to use money to get the feeling of freedom mean that freedom is for sale?
So many decisions that we have to make has to be between two choices, a smooth easy path that so many before us have followed and have found a convenient destiny and an unknown path that holds ours dreams but offers no promises. The easy path leads us to continuity, which will help us carry on our life the way we are doing, it will let us live in a compromise. The unknown path is a path of extremes, where either we may soar or we may crash. We have to choose between guarantee and desire. I had to make that choice, I folded. I decided on the path which seemed to be easier, secure. For if I made good in this path, I could easily jump across and then go chasing after my dreams. I thought first I would secure my lifestyle and then worry about my aspirations. But now I realize exactly in that moment I sold everything that I am. I became just another passenger of a never ending circle of existence we so casually describe as being normal. Was my lifestyle really worth sacrificing so much for? I didn’t think my dreams would be enough to help me live the way I want to, I lost faith. I feared whether I will be able to retrace my steps if it turned out to be a mistake. What if my wishes were simply a fool’s errand? But can it be called freedom, if I don’t have the freedom to make a mistake? Gandhi said, “Freedom is not worth having if it does not connote freedom to err.” Weren’t what I wanted from my life worth a shot? Did it ever come across my mind that the easier path may be a mistake? Couldn’t it be that I didn’t belong in this road? No, I just saw the end where I will supposedly be making enough money to go on living the way I want to. But how much money is enough money? Is it enough able to have three square meals a day, or do I need to be able to buy a car when my feet are fine, do I need to buy the latest cellular phone, do I need to earn enough so I can satisfy all my desires for material goods? We are the victims of a new world order. We cannot differentiate between need and want. Ours is not the fight for survival, ours is the fight for luxury. For how much would I need to survive? Do I have to earn millions to ensure a proper existence? Wont happiness be possible on a meager salary? No, it will not. Not in this world because we have decided that money is now the standard for happiness. Although not directly proportional, we have concluded that the more money we have the better chance we have at happiness. So, is happiness for sale?
There are two roads that lead to freedom, and we must traverse through both to reach where we want to. One is travel, the other books. For when we travel through countless places and read innumerable books will we achieve knowledge. The questions we have, many have asked them before. And a few have strived and traveled the world searching for the answers. Fewer have found them and they’ve either written it down in a book or passed it on to someone else. All we have to do is find that book or meet that person. But the beauty or the tragedy of it is, we have so many questions and the perfect solution awaits, there are so many books to read and so many places to go, so many people to meet. Knowledge and freedom are synonyms. We cannot have one without the other. To have complete freedom we need to know where the answers for our questions lie. Someone once said, ‘freedom is not free.’ So, what is the price for freedom? Does freedom demand a separation from everything around us? Can we be free till we have something to be worried about? What will I do if my cell phone stops working, will I be able afford a plasma TV when I grow up, will I be able to get the stain off this expensive rug, what if I lose all the money I have invested, what will happen if I lose my job? If such questions still haunt us can we ever be free? Does absolute freedom entail I forget all that I own and worry of nothing other than the untainted pursuit of knowledge?
“You see, money to you means freedom; to me it means bondage.” I do not completely understand what it means, but it’s a notion I can’t seem to get out of my head.

The book : The Razor's Edge by W. Somerset Maugham

Being a moth is difficult. I do not wish to say being me is difficult, that's a given, but just being a member of my species makes life a hard one to live. We are hated creatures, though I can’t understand why. We are almost the same as our cousin the butterfly and yet, they are cherished and we are despised. Just because their wings are prettier than ours, just because their colors are brighter than ours. Is that all the criteria that needs to be fulfilled to be accepted, the color of my wings, the beauty of my body? But we don’t expect anything else from the others. We know, the way things work in this world and we've accepted being hated but we know it's not us who become inferior because of it. We who are judged based on prejudice, do not judge in return. We accept your verdict and we accept your ignorance. Even the change from a caterpillar to a cocoon to a moth isn’t as straightforward and easy as it sounds. Though, through this very transformation I receive from life the greatest gift that can be given. From trudging through the lowest depressions of the ground, I become capable of flight through the ecstasy of the sky. Ah, flying. Let me tell you, there cannot be a better feeling than flying. And ours is not the flight of the white winged dove that seems so divine to everyone else. No, our wings are frowned upon. The common opinion stands that we are despicable creatures, unworthy of something as revered as wings. Angels deserve wings, not moths. But I do not, and will not let myself be deterred into a feeling of shame for being who I am. These are my wings, and I will fly till they can support my hideous body. Your conclusions that my wings, my happiness are undeserved do not make a difference in my flight plan. My opinion of my life is more important than your opinion of my life. My wings are my happiness, my freedom and I will enjoy them without a hint of guilt.
In the last flight of my life, there was this kid, who wanted to go loafing in the darkness. It was a request I couldn’t understand. I found it strange; in fact anyone of us moths would have found it strange. We are uncannily attracted to bright glowing objects and darkness is the exact opposite of ‘bright glowing objects’.
'Why?' I asked him.
'Just look around.' he said.
Kids. We were moths, we didn’t just look around. 'We don’t have time to look around. We have to find a light to feed off.' I tried not to shout.
'What good will that do?' He was beginning to get annoying.
'What do you mean what good will that do? We are moths, that's our destiny.'
'But, we can just as easily dive into the darkness, no one's stopping us. It'll be an adventure.'
'Just follow me, and keep quiet.' The authority that comes with age is amazing. I don’t have to win an argument, at least not fairly, I just have to scold, raise my voice and he has to keep quiet. The strength of his argument is no match to the wisdom I am supposed to have gathered with my years. He sluggishly followed me to a bright fluorescent light on the fifth floor of some building. I landed right next to it. I could feel its reluctant heat, its blinding brightness. It was just what I was looking for, what any moth would be looking for. It was heaven, till he spoilt it. 'What now?' he asked. The most absurd of questions. Absurd because it was a question that didn’t deserve an answer, that didn’t have an answer. Why do men lust after success? Why do beggars beg? Why do cobblers cobble? It’s because they do it. Its what they were born to do. It is their destiny. And after they’ve achieved, what they set out to achieve, is it fair for them to question ‘what now’?
'What do you mean what now? We’ve got our light for tonight.' That should’ve be reason enough. It wasn’t. Not for him.
'That’s it?' he said. Maybe I should’ve shouted at him again.
'But that amounted to nothing. We just flew around, saw a bright shiny object and were drawn to it. Now we lie in its radiance with nothing to do. There was no purpose in that. How can our destiny be so meaningless?' He asked questions none of us would dare go near.
'What would you have achieved if you had gone away in the darkness? Just another story to tell? Will that have fulfilled your purpose? You do this or you do that, there isn’t a meaning behind anything, kid. The sooner you know that the better.'
'But, I would've been on a way I chose, a direction that wasn’t preset for me. I would've been able to make a mistake, experience freedom in its most brazen form. That has to count for something. How much longer do we have to keep continuing this futile exercise? A change will do every one of us good. A change...' he stopped short. One of you humans brought in your big fat fingers and sprayed us with one of your zillion insecticides. We fell. And with us fell our pride, the argument we just had, the authority of my age, the 34 successful flights that I managed, the dreams the kid had, our sense of freedom, all of it, everything, fell. All the experiences I achieved, all the perspectives I developed, all the respect I deserved, lay engraved in my frail body, shrunk into this tiny object that would in a few minutes be ant food. My life over in an instant. What purpose did it fulfill? What meaning did I unravel? What good did my destiny do to me? What benefits did I achieve from the way of the world, which I followed? Would I have had a different life had I listened to the kid, and taken up the offer for an adventure? No, it would’ve been a few laughs here, a few mistakes there but in the end, we would be lying as we were, just as insignificant as the last breath we breathed, just as hopeless as we were then. I, my life, may be forgotten or it may be remembered, I did not care. I was no longer an entity, no longer alive. Time stopped for me that day. The world came to an end.

"The dead look so terribly dead when they are dead."-W.Somerset.Maugham

'Come Fairies, take me out of this dull world, for I would ride with you upon the wind and dance upon the mountains like a flame!'- W.B.Yeats

Dhaka, she's such a tease. Its summer now. Day after day, it gets hotter and more humid. The increase is efficiently steady. And the day I conclude that today has to be the hottest and it can’t get hotter than this, the very next day it does. There's heat, so much heat and there's humidity but no rain, unfortunately. So it’s just the draining heat without any respite, no rain for company, no escape from the sun. Every passing hour of every day is a struggle against the wet, sticky sweat beads and the ever exhausting dehydration. And just when I feel broken down and begin to think how much more of this can I really take, she sends in the smoothest, the gentlest, evening breeze. As if a small gust of air could make up for so much torture, but, it almost does. And though I know I’m supposed to be sulking over how unfair she can really be, the feel of the cool wind against me makes me forget just about everything. The wind is so alluring, it’s almost impossible not to enjoy it.

But more often than not, the breeze doesn’t stay a simple gentle breeze for long, it becomes more powerful and maybe more destructive but for me that's what makes it even better. I do not live along the coastlines, and though I’ve heard of the hundreds who lose their home to this very wind, it’s hard to stay mad at something so pure. It may cause absolute mayhem and take many human lives but by the time it reaches me, it’s just perfect. It may have arrived from a bloody past but when with me all it is, is a very blatant but very pleasant reminder that Dhaka can be wonderful if she wants to. And I know tomorrow, the sun will shine again, brighter and hotter and Dhaka will be back to her normal self, and our love-hate relationship will continue, buts that tomorrow. Today she's in a good mood and the wind is just so heavenly. It's the perfect company, if there ever was one .Why can't she be this way all the time? Even the harsh wind would do, if she’s in a foul mood. It would be hard to walk, it would be hard to drive, and basically it would be hard to move around, with unprofitable disruption of transportation but it would be so easy to smile.

I asked a few of my friends to define life their way. And it was good. Enjoy :

Well, in retrospect I suppose that life could be measured by the experiences that make us what we are. And I would say that we learn more from adversity as opposed to 'joyous' moments because that is when our mettle is tested most and those are the times that make us grow. And I suppose that 'growing' is an important part of life (in whatever way we do ).

its undefinable,its our reality and an illusion.........its complex yet simple.its there yet here.theres this word palimpsestic,i guess lifes like that......multilayered and you keep writing an rewriting your paths.......

life changes. i have been thinking hard myself too and i found out it keeps changing.it doesnt stay the same forever;you may agree with me or you may not,its your choice. life is what you are living right now.

life is stranger than fiction.. its an illusion we have .. we feel its der for us forever and we never know when and where it will leave us and all that mattered.. your i pod.. your favouraite t shirt.. your bank balance wil all be a thing which is non existent..

Its a lemon n cheese cake when chewed eyes closed and sensually, however if we dare to open eyes its youghurt and mayonaise on bread.

Life is bein alive....bein alive is an opportunity given to prove u bein actually alive..making a diffrence by existing.. lets u think and do what u want..dats al dat differentiates us with da non living ..da ones wit no life..me loves my life..me prays it doesnt end soon.

everything u do is life,,,happiness ,sorrow,,,each n every moment u live is life

life is a like you are in a dark and dense forest and you just have a candle in your hand. So you can only see within the range of that candle. Even if you want to plan everything ahead , you cannnot be sure of what gonna happen until you reaach it. ANd the goal is to get out of that forest.

an illusion of what is actually real..

life for me.. has been dwelling in the past .. wishing how i could ve done things better.. and the future how i want to do things...

life is music!! continue playing other's tones , till your own tune
is to be played!

And a few from more distinguished authors:

Life is a dream for the wise, a game for the fool, a comedy for the rich, a tragedy for the poor. -Sholom Aleichem

Life is a long lesson in humility. -James M. Barrie

Life is wasted on the living. -Douglas Adams

The fear of life is the favorite disease of the 20th century. -William Lyon Phelps

The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. -Henry David Thoreau

The purpose of life is a life of purpose. -Robert Byrne

We can't plan life. All we can do is be available for it. -Lauryn Hill

When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained. -Mark Twain

Life is what happens to us while we are busy planning for something else.-John Lennon

And my favourite :

"Life is a zoo in a jungle." -Peter De Vries.

PS: send me your definition at revisinglife@gmail.com and i'll add it to this post.

Life. The undying mystery of our existence is astonishing, amazing and quite frankly exasperating. How far does a man have to go before he finds his answer to the ultimate of all queries, what is life? And it will be his answer because I think each of us has a separate answer to be found. In fact, each of us has a separate answer for the separate periods of time that we are going through. What I felt life was, around ten years ago, isn't what I feel now. The meaning of life for me has changed, drastically but also inevitably. Our definitions of life change with time, and so it should. Nothing stays the same. Change is unavoidable. So, for me, (believing that it’s meaning is ever transient), life is the present. And it’s not necessarily along the lines of 'live life as if it’s your last day' mantra. No, none of that, because more often than not, circumstances dictate our course of actions, or rather we let it. Life simply put, is the present. What you are going through now, is life. It might be a rainbow of happiness, with sunny skies and rosy beds. If it is, that's really good. There is no reason why it can’t be so. Or, your present maybe horrible, a dreary tread through the unrelenting motions of frustration that echo day after day after day. If that's what it is, well, tough luck, that is life. The future may change everything. But the future is an illusion and nothing more than a fictional apparition. There is every possibility that things may get better and the struggles you put in today may reap you benefits that you so deserve and you may bring about a change. But change isn’t a guarantee of better things to come. You then plunge into another phase in your life and find a new definition, it may be more blissful or it may be more miserable. Life knows no justice. It knows neither compassion nor disdain. It doesn’t measure out equal amounts of happiness and sorrow to hand out to everyone, so each of us is happy and sad in equality. Happiness and sorrow are your achievements. All life gives you is your present, what you have now, this moment that's alive. The past is gone, it’s dead. You may linger with your memories of how good it all was once, but that is nothing more than a few thoughts circling in your head. It is romantic to remember the good old days, but unfortunately futile. The future is just a hollow promise. It’s something to pin your hopes to, just so to avoid the feeling of absolute dejection. Hopes that maybe based on nothing more than a sincere, illogical wish. The present however, is real. The present is all you have. The present is all you'll get.

"Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment" - Buddha.

"It seems a shame," the Walrus said,
"To play them such a trick,
After we've brought them out so far,
And made them trot so quick!"
The Carpenter said nothing but
"The butter's spread too thick!"

"I weep for you," the Walrus said:
"I deeply sympathize."
With sobs and tears he sorted out
Those of the largest size,
Holding his pocket-handkerchief
Before his streaming eyes.

"O Oysters," said the Carpenter,
"You've had a pleasant run!
Shall we be trotting home again?'
But answer came there none--
And this was scarcely odd, because
They'd eaten every one.
- An excerpt from The Walrus and The Carpenter by Lewis Caroll


When times are harsh and the days are bad, it doesn't take much time for them to get worse. This seems to be the inevitable protocol of bad luck, bad times lead, without fail, to worse times. There is no reprieve, no concession but a constant order of inescapable misery that keep piling up till even a hazy ray of light seems to be as bright as the sun, and we confuse a sliver of hope to be the answer to our prayers, God has finally remembered us. We offer our thanks, we offer our praise. We never wonder why he always lets us go through all that suffering for so long. Can we dare ask what was he waiting for? No, by then our strength to question has been replaced by a willingness to feel grateful to anyone or anything that’ll throw the dog a bone. An angel of god, he'll be to us and we'll be his debtors, his slaves. And god will feel good about himself on having helped an insignificant little man, and we’ll be thankful to our true savior for rescuing us. But what of all the agony we endured, what of the eternity of unanswered prayers, of unjust punishment. ‘Them? Well they’re all in the past. What you need to do is look ahead.” We’ll agree. We’ll keep quiet. We’ll follow.

The fisherman knew about this. Knew about it through experience. Years and years of unwanted experience. Seven years ago, he didn’t catch a single fish for 23 days. He stopped praying on the 24th day. He didn’t catch a fish for another 12 days. When he finally had a decent outing on the 37th day, he wasn't grateful to anyone, he didn’t thank anyone. He ate. Weeks of living off borrowed money, saving every penny, eating only when absolutely necessary had left him hungry. So he ate. If there was someone he should to thank when things are going right, he had every right to blame this entity when things aren’t going well. Since, he had decided not to blame anyone for all the misery he had to go through, he would not thank anyone for his happiness. If he had to go through all his pain alone, he would enjoy every bit of his pleasure alone. He would definitely not share his fish.

Days had just turned worse again. He still liked to say days were just bad, not because he was an optimist but because he knew there was whole level of worse still encroaching. Years and years of unwanted experience. The glass is never half full. It had been two weeks since he had caught anything significant. Today, all that might change. Though he didn’t pray for good luck or divine blessing, he still hoped.

He was out in the sea before the break of dawn. His small boat gently swaying with the waves. He rowed to a calmer area, with his rope already cast, he waited. The hours passed by. The sun was vengeful, with all its fury concentrated on the small boat out in the sea. He took a gulp of water, careful not to drink too much. Time kept moving on. 'This used to be a good spot', he thought, 'have I grown too old? Can’t I tell where I can catch a fish and where I can’t? Is this what it has come to? How can I call myself a fisherman anymore?' The water was almost over. This was the ultimate joke, he thought. There was water as far as he could see, but it was as if he were stranded in a desert. There were so many things he could’ve done in life, but…. It was about time he headed back. 'Two weeks and a day', he thought. Then he felt a tug, but it wasn’t just a tug, it was a pull and a strong pull at that. And in that moment he felt true happiness, there was no past, no future, no God, no Devil, no Right, no Wrong. For that moment, life was now, there was no other time no other place. The world shrunk to him, his boat and the fish. He pulled, the fished pulled back, he pulled harder. One pull at a time, slowly he won the battle. He was a man, adept at his job, the fish was just a fish.

It was a big fish, would get him a good price at the market. Should he wait? There may be another one to be caught. But it was getting dark, and with no water things might turn ugly. He will have to head back he decided and hope tomorrow is just as good as today, or maybe even better. He smiled, let’s not get carried away.

'Please let me go.' he heard. There was nobody around, except him and the fish. Was that the wind? It sounded very clear to be the wind. Was he going insane? Slowly the fish opened its mouth again, 'Please, let me go' it said. 'I have a family.' the fisherman kept quiet, it wasn’t the wind. The fish pleaded again. 'I won’t' he said, not I can't, but I won’t. Because he could, all he had to do was, catch it and throw it back, but he wouldn’t. 'I will not, throw away what I’ve caught. Regardless of whether you are actually talking or just a hallucination. You have a family you say, so did every other fish I’ve caught, if I let you go and feel good that I sacrificed my stomach for a life I will have to endure the guilt of the hundreds of lives I didn’t save. And I feel no guilt, you are like every one of them, by which I do not condemn you but praise them. And I will do what I want to, not because it’s an obligation but because it’s a choice. Even now, when my life seems desperate, I still have a choice. I have survived two weeks on failed expeditions another day will not make a difference. But I choose not to. I choose to, to put it honestly, kill you so I can survive in my terms. I will not patronize you and tell you how sorry I am, because I am not. I feel no guilt or sorrow in having to do what I do. Because what I do is not wrong. You might think it is, you might I am a monster but that is irrelevant. I know what I am and what I do. If I feel sorry for taking your life, I will in essence condemn my entire existence. What I do is not wrong and I am not sorry. I am a fisherman, this is what I do. You're having a bad day. And when days are going bad, it doesn't long for it to turn worse. I know through experience.'
“But I have done you no wrong. Is your need for a few pennies of more value than my existence? Isn’t my life worth more than you being able to afford a good meal.” the fish pleaded.

“No, you have done me no wrong. But this is not your punishment. I do not intend to kill you because you deserve it for your sins. I am not here to issue judgment, no I am here to fish. Me killing you is not about you, it’s about me. This is what I do. Your life is not more valuable than a good meal, not to me, not to all those who will bargain with all their might to get a piece of you. You may disagree, but we have our own perspectives. What you think is the greatest blasphemy, it is for me a daily routine.”

“Have you no mercy?”

“No. Not when I am asked to think that my life’s work is a business entangled in cruel murder, not when I am asked to show mercy that will make me question the work I do. I am a ruthless murderer to you, I am a mere fisherman to the world.”

“You are a heartless man. I pray to god you die in the worst circumstances.”

“I am an honest man. I spoke the truth. I do not wish to mock you with gentle words. You deserve the truth. I hope your prayers are answered.”

The fisherman ate a hearty meal that night. He died three weeks later. For once god was quick to listen.

"When I was still a rather precocious young man, I already realized most vividly the futility of the hopes and aspirations that most men pursue throughout their lives.”- Albert E.


The world spans 12,756 kms in diameter; I am less than six feet tall. The universe has been in existence for more than 12 billion years, I will be 22 years old soon. The world itself is no bigger than a miniscule pebble in the universe. It is to the universe, what a grain of sand is to us: irrelevant. And you and I share this small piece of rock, which meanders around the sun in weary repetition, with six billion other people. So is there even a sliver of a chance for us to attach some sort of significance to our lives.

Nothing lasts in this world. In the long run, everything comes to an end. Death is the ultimate tragedy, the final victory of time over our fragile bodies. Inevitable, unavoidable and inescapable. The only true destiny of our lives. And the reason why all we tend to do is eventually meaningless. The rules we make, the promotions we achieve, the treasures we enmass, what good are they when we are no longer around to enforce them, to celebrate them, to enjoy them. What we can achieve with our lives is infinite and what we do achieve is pitiable. We want innumerable things, but the concise nature of our lives leaves us with unfulfilled wishes, unsatisfied lives and a bitter disposition. What reason was there to do all that we did? What purpose did our life fulfill? We persevere day after day, following empty instructions and for what reason?

Do not look for the meaning of life. Your search will be ceaseless, you’re better off searching for the pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. There is no higher purpose, no deeper significance. You weren’t born to do anything except the things you want, you aren’t supposed to anything except the things you wish, you aren’t destined for anything except to die, same as me. You might do very well in your life, even change the way of the world, but that will not be because it was what you were born to do but because it was what you chose to do. There is no reason to be found within your soul, just questions and more questions. Why should we go through the motions, struggle and strive, for a reason that will be worthless, just to live in a wretched present, scavenging of the glory of the past and hoping for a better future but ready to accept the opposite? Why does courage leave us when we need it the most? Why are we unable to find a purpose, a cause to devote ourselves? Why can’t we push ourselves harder to chase our ever elusive dreams? Why are our dreams so ridiculous? How do we trade our instinct to secure a future with a conviction that lets us believe that in actuality our present is vital? Questions and more questions. Where do we even begin our search? All we do, all we accomplish will not justify our lives unless it’s our judgment we seek. If we can be proud of the life we lived, without letting our judgment be influenced by anyone else, then our purpose of life has been fulfilled. The people that surround you will never think you’ve lived a life worthy unless you bring world peace. But they don’t matter. You need to be selfish and find your private meaning of life. You may want to fight for the freedom of your country risking your life in battle or you may want to earn lots of money and relax in your mansion without caring for the world. What purpose can there be in earning loads of money, just to perish in a golden bed or dying for your country just so it can be ruled by corrupt politicians? Who cares, if that’s the life you want then that’s the life you want. It’s always supposed to be your choice. If you scale the heights of success or drown in the depths of failure, it should be a result of your choice. Success and failure are but the end of a journey. And it will only be worthy if it was a journey you chose. All we need in life is a direction. Its our journey beginning in the day we were born, ending in the day we die. It’s just a passage of time. We were born, we’re alive and we’ll die. That is the ultimate truth. We may not the save the world from global warming or cure cancer but we can try if we want. Or we can do anything else we want, without wondering if its our destiny but just because we feel like doing it. We do not have to prove to the world we’ve lived worthy lives, just ourselves.

The reality of life is harsh. We struggle for a cause that doesn’t seem worth the struggle and strive for a future that will never be what we hope. Every day we carry on, knowing that tomorrow won’t be better than today but we do not stop because under the most squalid circumstances we are capable of hope. Hope without logic, without reason. Our fault does not lie in our ability to hope but in our inability to act. We are quick to hope but tentative when we are called into action. We trudge through the repeated, unremitting motions of our existence day after day, hoping for something better but never doing anything to effect a change, just because it’s the way of the world. We rely on tradition, culture, and normalcy. We have forgotten our ability of original thought. We fail to build individual principles, our notions of truth and lies. What we hold as right and wrong, aren’t what we experienced from life. No, they are the convictions of the people who brought us up. We are but mere mirrors of the beliefs of those who sheltered us, and they of theirs who nourished them. It's wrong to cheat, it's wrong to steal, it's wrong to fight. We’ve all been taught and we've accepted without question. It wasn't what we experienced. If we were just allowed to learn it ourselves maybe we would've come to the conclusion that lying isn’t so bad, it gets me out of difficult situations, stealing isn’t so bad I get things for free, cheating isn’t so bad, I get more than what my effort deserved. But we were told these the wrong paths of life, a path we shouldn't play with. So, we try our best to stay far, to stay 'right' and we follow what we’ve been taught, which is good as long as it’s actually right. But we were also taught about the cast system, about every superstition we so arduously follow, about why we should stay away from the untouchables, about why cast comes before love, why faith in God should be without question. Are we not capable of thinking that to discriminate without reason is not rational, that race and cast are illogical, that blind faith in God is what the terrorizes of our era use as their main ammo. We were educated about the flaws of these practices. But the education system of our times is a laughable affair. We do not study to know new things, to understand our subject of choice. We study to pass in examinations. It's not knowledge we're after, it's marks. The thing which is supposed to be our greatest inspiration for original thoughts fails us. What greatness can we achieve if we study about the lives of great men not to get inspired but because it’s important for a short note in examination.
From the day we were capable of original thoughts we've been told what to think. From the day we were capable of individual action we've been told what to do. From the day we were capable of leading we've been told to follow. From the day we were capable of freedom, we've been held captive.
Ours is the thinking mind, the curious mind, the rational mind, a mind capable of amazing discoveries. We can change the way of the world if we take a moment to think, not just play in our minds what we've been taught but actually ponder about the working mechanism of the world. We should take pride in our sense of curiosity and our ability of action. How much more time do we need to understand things need to change with time. We keep moving through, pass each day in detestable normalcy, our potential rotting within the confines of a typical life. This practice that continued unquestioned through generations has now become a habit and will soon turn into an instinct. And then it will be within our genes to fight not to live, but to exist, to struggle not to think but to accept what has been told.
We fight our every instinct that drives us towards freedom, drives towards a cliff and pushes us off into undiscovered lands. We who are yet unaware if our wings are made of feather or of wax. We who might crash and burn or soar through the heights of ecstasy. A dive into the unknown, to not just learn but to experience and build an original perspective. But we dare not follow our freedom path. We hold on to the enticing thread of security that keeps us from plunging into an abyss, an abyss filled with the insane and the genius. An original thought is never a normal thought, and an abnormal thought is never considered a sane thought. That is the price we have to pay for originality. We are either followers of rules of society or we are insane. In this practice of normalcy we've become mere slaves not permitted a thought of originality. We've forgotten in the crowd of society that we are first and foremost individuals. We are capable of questioning the facets of society we feel aren’t right. We need not follow everything society orders us to. A society that is archaic, ragged, and obsolete. We are capable of thought. It’s about time we began thinking.

While watching ‘Jailed Abroad’ in NGC a couple of days ago, I heard what has got to be one of the strangest, if not the strangest thing ever. The episode was about a major who goes to Sierra Leone to disarm the local rebels. When in Sierra Leone he is guided to the disarmament camp by a Colonel of the rebels. Having heard about cannibalism in Sierra Leone, the British major at the risk of being rude asks the Colonel, if he had eaten any human flesh. The colonel replies ‘Yes.’ No expression in his face, no cringe, no hesitation. A simple yes, as if the question he was asked was if he ate chicken. Having heard rumors that human flesh tastes a lot like pork, the major unable to curb his curiosity asks if it’s true, “Do we taste like pork?” The colonel looked at him with visible incredulity. This was the question he considered to be more offensive. He replies, “I do not know. I’m Muslim.” That’s what he said; he doesn’t eat pork because he’s Muslim. He has no problems with devouring human flesh, but pork? That is out of the question. What kind of a human being would eat pork? He answered these questions as if there were no other answers that could be right. There was no guilt felt at the thought that eating human flesh was wrong. What there was, was a lack of guilt at the thought that what he did was in fact right. It seemed a perfectly appropriate to him. Pork? Are you crazy, of course not. Human meat? Yes, please. The hypocrisy that is ever present in every human culture is absolutely amazing.

Today was the first shower of the new season. What ensued was a tree torn apart, three hours of darkness and a drenched me. But it was all worth it, to feel the irrational joy of getting wet in the simple but heavenly drops of water that rushed down upon me, to forget for those few moments of unexplainable madness, everything that able to bring me down so easily and to feel alive in the moment at hand without what I regret and without what I’ve been promised. It’s an extraordinary feeling from such a dull, vapid and ordinary event. In truth, it is nothing more than the water cycle that we had to study so many times in our school years. Water evaporates, cools down and then precipitates. Two plus two equals four. But there are things that transcend the rational thinking. Somehow it is difficult to include the liberating outcome of rain within the confines of the tangible explanations of reason. How can anyone explain the freedom, the joy, and the euphoria of a simple February rain? Such things aren’t rational. But being rational is never that fun, getting wet in the rain however, is. And fun is highly underrated. What happens next? A cold? A cough? Pfff, bring it ON! All worth it. Anyway, here’s a poem I wrote about it.

The first shower

The burdening heat, the unrelenting cold.
The endless reminders of dreams I’ve sold.
I remember it all in cruel clarity,
In every hated bead of sweat, in every shiver of regretted sanity.

Give me a drop of freedom,
A potion to take away the pain.
A drug to numb my senses,
An evening of heavenly rain.

Let it rain tonight without a pause,
Let it drown all that I ever was.
Let it break my chains and set me free.
And let me decide who I will be.

The rain washes away old mistakes,
It directs me to paths un-tread.
It saves my soul and if only for a moment
It awakens in me what I thought was dead.

Drenched in this cathartic shower,
There is no future, there is no past.
Everything I have, began this moment
And it will remain till the moment lasts.

‘Such stupid notions, such ridiculous ideas.
A molecule of water could never do what you claim.
It's just a down pour of a futile liquid.
Your thoughts are indicators of an unstable brain.’

You'd never understand the absolving power,
Of a simple joyous evening rain.
I’d give up the remainder of my sanity,
Just to feel this way again.

The rain stops, a fresh breeze invades.
A deep breath to mark a new start.
The moment has passed, a new one begins.
But is there courage still left in my heart?

Can I carry on after the rain?
Fight on against the heat and cold.
Will all that I fear haunt me again?
Or will I decide how my life unfolds?