Thursday, September 21, 2006

CONVERSATIONS

There is a marked difference between talking to someone and making a conversation with them. Everyday we meet acquaintances and our friends but rarely do we ‘talk’ about anything more than what pertains to our daily lives. We meet someone, say hello, make small talk and move on. We hardly if ever try to relate to anyone and strike up a decent conversation regarding more than the daily banter, a conversation where we share our thoughts and try to make sense of our lives.
Such conversations are rare, more so because we are so busy with meeting deadlines and trying to get through the tasks before us that we sub-consciously forget that as humans we should converse, not just communicate. Then one day, when it all gets too much and we need to release all the steam building up within us; we manage to strike up conversations with some special people. These people are generally among our closer friends or relatives and what strengthens our bond with them is the conversation.
These conversations take place in weirdest of places. Sometimes, you happen to talk to your loved one on the phone, sometimes it is a friend you meet at length over a cup of coffee, occasionally you end up conversing with a total stranger. Although these conversations generally leave us elated and feel much lighter by helping us shed some baggage, we cannot willfully arrange for them on a periodic basis. They are sporadic and take place only when you are not happy. You cannot make a meaningful conversation with someone if you are happy and content with yourself.
Some of my satiating conversations (in ascending order) take place in the car of a classmate. That has not happened in the past few months since we passed out of college and will not happen in the near future because the dude is fleeing the country very soon. Damn I am gonna miss him!
The third most satisfying conversations are in the smoking zone of e-square that happen erratically as neither of us is sure as to when we might remember each other. We meet once every 1-2 months but in spite of not having communicated with each other over extended periods, when we meet the conversations take off as if we had never stopped talking and then always end with a shared bowl of soup at the Chinese tapri opposite the famed multiplex. (Yes, the both of us are stingy and see no point in wasting a small fortune on something that is available at the price of peanuts!)
The next is with a friend whom I have known for the better part of my life viz. 20 years. Although we meet with more disparity than regularity, he is the one person who can always lay it out straight for me. His is the only opinion that can change my stubborn decisions.
The most satisfying conversations I have ever had have been on my bike with my best friend. We speak with each other at lengths on such long drives that others would consider a worthless waste of fuel! Somehow, although our meetings take place with ferocious regularity, neither of us ever seems to run out of subjects to talk on (nor does my bike seem to run out of fuel! Touchwood). Yes, it is a girl but what really helps is the fact that our relationship can never rise beyond a platonic stature. I suppose that is what keeps us from bickering about each other as also turning it into a relationship surrounded by a web of lies and deceit!
If you have read this and not liked it, it is alright I did not intend to get a good review. I have written this piece as a tribute to the four of them…

Tuesday, September 19, 2006

for my mates...

We never care, never bother,
No matter the joys, no matter the strife,
We ride together, we die together,
Bad boys for life...

you

In this day and age, dreams will come true,
The only one that can stop you, is YOU!!!

SSDD

Waking up to a brand new day,
Hoping i am gonna live it my way,
But no matter what i hope, what i pray,
Its gonna be the SAME SHIT, DIFFERENT DAY!!!

Say it!!!

Why so often do we stutter,
When what is on our minds we must utter???
Why is so much said, so much heard,
When all that was needed, were a hug and three small words???

moments

Not the moments of joy,
Nor the moments of strife,
It was the moments i spent with Shu,
In which i lived my life!

my life

I have always wanted to live life right,
Never give up, always fight,
To face adversity with unflinching grit,
But my life is what happened, while i was planning it!

The Death of Reason

It amazes me to see people follow a plethora of beliefs that have no logical base whatsoever. Surprisingly, it is not just the uneducated but people like me who have received 22 years or more of the best education available in the world who give into believing in baseless superstitions. If, after having learnt the complex equations of statistics and probability and having applied Einstein’s theories to even more complex problems, you would still believe that Friday the 13th is an unlucky day, I believe you might as well renounce whatever degrees and certificates you have obtained after slogging it out for all these years.
Think about it, what kind of an idiot gives into believing such weird notions that a back cat crossing your path brings you bad luck? Its just an animal whose colour happens to be black, which in the first place was not its fault. It is plain genetics at work. It is not rocket science that you need to apply here. Simple logic after twelve years of education will tell you that.
So, does this write up warrant the title of “The Death of Reason” only on the basis of having stated a few superstitions? No. I am afraid the issue runs much deeper. The very fact that people would give into believing a notion without reasoning or justification is a worrisome prospect. Imagine a world full of such non-thinking humans. Do you think that education would rub off on such buffoons? What is the probability that such people would be able to apply all that they have learnt in their own lives? Zilch. They have wasted their lives by obtaining education and the condition gets even worse in a country like India where the education is subsidized and the government pumps in huge amounts of money to educate its youth generation after generation.
Still do not believe me? Ok. Lets take this a notch higher. What is the single most important issue that is troubling the youth of our nation? Reservations. Why did this issue crop up? Is it something that has appeared all of a sudden? Of course not. The great men who drafted the constitution of India had debated it. It was to be scrapped after 50 years of independence to achieve a level of equality and create a society where everyone could afford to dream. To have a society where the only thing that could stop you, was you. Did we not achieve that?
Sadly, no. The system was not at fault but the men and women at the helm of the ship were. How can you have progress in a society where people are ruled by the vote bank? I do not detract the democratic system, it is brilliant. It represents the majority but fails to represent the minority. Then again, what is the minority? Life is governed by survival of the fittest so how can you handicap the capable by imposing reservations and taking away the opportunity to learn? Do you expect people proven to be of lesser capacity to be able to perform at the same levels as those better equipped to imply the same?
In all fairness to the sections of the weaker classes who are not as well off as their counterparts, I agree that you deserve an opportunity to be gauged on the same platform as the others. Sadly though, genetics would define you as the weaker link and hence not as capable as your counterparts who have inherited a richer genetic pool. Why the need for reservations then? It is because of the psyche of like-beget-like. The very people who refuse to follow logic, when in power, feel threatened by those more capable than them and hence employ measures to ensure that they are surrounded by their own kind. So, the issue of reservations crops up. Politicians then feel the need to implement measures that ensure their return the next term to suck the life out of the very people who elect them.
It is not their fault. It is ours. How many of us feel the need to actively participate in the machinery responsible for the propulsion of the nation? None in the educated clan. We would rather live our own lives and let someone else do the donkeywork. We like to sit on the sidelines, debate amongst ourselves, criticize the people who are doing the work and then show dissent of the fact that the machine is not performing as efficiently as it should. How could it be performing effectively if the capable people are so adamantly ignorant that they refuse to even participate in the electoral process and do not bother to caste their votes leave alone contest an election. You let losers lead you so do not expect miracles to bloom for you.
Another matter that came up as justification of my view was the recent closure of schools that chose to teach in English as opposed to the local lingua. That decision is plain stupid. I love local languages and they have their own unique flavour and give each individual an identity to belong to. Nevertheless, grow up. English is the language of the world. Yes, it originates from one of the tinier countries in the world but after 400 years would you rather have a study conducted to search for the language best suited to be a universal lingua and then spend the next 400 years implementing it? Of course not. They were smart enough to exploit the major population of the world and so were able to spread their language the furthest. Accept it and move on. Stop criticizing the language and instead work on refining it! It would help a lot more to assimilate it in your way of living than to oppose and fall behind. By forcing schools to impart education in a local language you are only ensuring that the students pass out without an essential skill- that of communication. How do you expect them to learn to communicate with their peers when the pool gets bigger and the crowd is mixed at a later stage in life? Is not such a stand only justifying the death of reason?
This article could go on and on stating practices of apartheid, caste discrimination and so much more. I will leave it to you though to reason for yourself. After all, I wish to re-awaken reasoning by forcing you to think. I cannot stand this slow death of reason that I see around me. So, think…

Saturday, September 09, 2006

GAUGING SUCCESS

How would you gauge the success of someone’s life? I want to try my hand at it.
I suppose the first step would be identifying the parameters on which you would gauge someone’s life. To do so, I believe we would have to ponder over some rather metaphysical concepts, the most important being- What is life? Do not break your head trying to understand the whole reason behind evolution and that first spark that was responsible for the complex process of generation of life. Travel on those lines and very soon, you would believe your life to be a pointless and insignificant speck in the larger scheme of things. Understand that the beginning does not matter and nor does the end. What matters is the journey. Simply put, it is a miracle that we are here and now. It really should not matter why.
This is getting a bit too complex, so to simplify, consider an example.
You are walking on a road you see a soiled lottery ticket lying on the ground. You have the newspaper in your hand and know that the winning numbers are somewhere inside. Various possible outcomes of this situation do well to show what kind of a person you are.
You see it there but it is dirty and you really ought not soil your hands. You ought to get to work soon and anyway, the chances of it being a winning ticket are slim. Maybe one in a billion. For all you know, it could well be last year’s ticket. Ah! why pick it up? You are getting late so move on!
You see it but it is dirty and you have to get to work. It could have been a winning ticket if this were a movie but this is life such things do not happen. In addition, think why would it be there? Obviously, someone threw it away because it was not a winning ticket. Moreover, some moron must have picked it up and justified the tag and then thrown it away to prove that there are more idiots like him. What are you anyway? A rag picker? Get real, move on!
What ticket? I did not see one! I am too busy to be looking at trash anyway.
Hmmm… could it be? Ah! What the heck, it is there so you take a chance. You pick it up and check the numbers…

The result of course, is immaterial, at least in the light of what I am trying to say! Next step, analysis.

The first kind are the ponderers. They will justify the safer path and then spend the rest of their days wondering, what if? They know the options available but are too reluctant to take the gamble. Nothing risked, nothing gained. They end up in a 9-5 job, white collared, salaried life in the upper middle class. They might not have achieved the best in life but they are not worse either. They are satisfied with where they are.
The second kind, are the realists. These are the people who justify their actions by stating the inevitable question- What is life? They are indifferent. Neither too happy nor too sad. Life goes on- same shit, different day.
The third type are the people who are so engrossed with their chores that they forget life even exists. They achieve some pretty big things and manage to reach the upper echelons. To them, work is worship. Before they realize it, they are 40. Relatively satisfied over worked and clue-less they are the kind of people who retire early and end up doing at 50, all that others their age were doing in their teens, viz. chasing women and watching movies.
The fourth type are the risk-takers. Some end up as the giants who graced the planet, while others end up bust. There are no middle path trotters in this category. They give life their best shot and are either filthy rich or clean paupers.
So, which are the happiest?
All of them. After all, one man’s meat is another man’s poison. You could end up in a 9-5 life, pressed constantly to meet unrealistic deadlines but hey, you are never out of your comfort zone. No extremes as each moment is as good as the next. You are content with what you have and did not aspire to achieve what you could not. You are happy.
On the other hand, you could be deeply engrossed and for the major part of your life and then one day realize that you life happened while you were planning it. You deem it is the time to put your plans to practice and though a tad late, you set about doing what you love. The previous part was not as good as this but hey; if you had not lived the previous life, you would not be here. You are content and happy!
You could have achieved everything you set for yourself and then again set out to achieve something that others do not consider realistic. You spend your life being miserable about all you have not achieved and yet garner the greatest joys from trying to achieve them. You are never content but that in itself is your state of happiness!
You might not have achieved anything and be satisfied with the fact that you did not spend your life pointlessly trying to achieve unrealistic goals. Instead, you spent your life admiring the finer points of life. You are not seen in the snazziest cars in town but you can hold your head high wherever you go. You are happy and content.
So, is there a moral to such a long article? Or is it just abstract philosophical crap from an eccentric? Both actually. Just want to welcome you to wherever you are!