Walking in the rain ...

When I stopped by the woods on a snowy evening ...

Finding your 'ism' - A rethink

Few days back I was with these three acquaintances - Mr A, Mr B and Mr C in a railway station waiting room. All of us had hours to kill and as a way to break the ice and start a conversation I asked them all the same question. Which 'ism' you believe in ?

For Mr A it was a simple one to answer. He had a  definite 'ism' in each areas and his convictions were unquestionable and like written in a stone with a hand chisel. But for Mr B and Mr C it was a little difficult, but for different reasons. Mr B told he never even gave it a thought and he is not inclined to do it either. For Mr C the problem was directly opposite one. He actually gave it a lot of thought earlier and he still cannot completely stand behind any 'ism's with conviction

Almost all the troubles in the world can be linked to one 'ism' or the other. But in reality its not the 'ism', who is the trouble maker, rather the problem seems to lie in the way we embrace these 'isms'. There are 'ism's defined for for region, religion, caste, art and even science. Its more like a huge book store with different sections and you buy a book among them. What most of us does is to go in to this store and choose a book based on the reviews already fed in to our unknown, delicate brains.We keep reading and re-reading those books up to a point where we are incapable of seeing any thing beyond it.

But there is a better way of reading a book. First of all forget the reviews and change your route from a book store to a library. Instead of reading only one book, why can't one explore and inhale the flavour from all the books. Instead of being a follower what about being a master of your own 'ism'. Like Mr A having 'A'ism and Mr B having 'B'ism. Like a buffet where you select the items in your plate, like making a cocktail with your own measurements and experiments. In a world where there is room for one 'ism' to each one and every one, there will be no need to fight for your own 'ism'. One will rather focus on understanding all other 'ism's so as to improve their own

I later emailed this thought to our three old friends to get their feed back. Mr C gave it a thumps up. But Mr A and Mr B were a bit reluctant. They shared their concerns which surprisingly was very similar and read some thing like this "When reading one book itself is intricate enough and puzzling some times, the exposure of too'ism's will surely be more complex and we will end up as a generation of confused and lost"

All I have to reply them was "If every one stops when things gets confusing and complex then I won't be writing this and you won't be reading this either. When you were in the first grade even those alphabets were so damn confusing and complex, isn't it" ?

~by a Samist :)

Life - A lookout for its purpose !

What is the purpose of life ??? 
A question that shook and fizzled a lot of thinking brains. In fact non-thinking ones, as always, were never ever bothered about it

Some of those very high thinking brains, they are so involved and intently absorbed in this question that it often ends up like a dog chasing is own tail. Like they put such a lot of thoughts in getting an answer for the purpose of life, that at the end, their purpose of life is nothing but thinking about what is the purpose of life.

Some so called highly successful folks and far more larger bunch of folks who are aspiring to be the those folks, believes the purpose of life is to be successful. Now this is again a funny scenario .. We all know success is often a carrot tied with a stick in front of that old donkey. (not sure if all donkeys eat carrot though !). 
Or let me put it this way, "aspiring success is very similar to aspiring to be rich". Assuming you are not a super duper wealthy guy, let me ask you if you ever wondered why  the top 1% rich folks in the world are still in the look out for more money when they can get every thing money can buy with less than 1% of what they already have ?? We feel this odd, because the scale we use for measuring 'rich' is too damn relative one. I mean, unless you are one among the bottom 1% in the scale of rich to poor, there are some one among that 1% who has exact same question about you. And moreover your answer to that, most probably will be almost same as the top 1% rich guy's answer.

There are some others who imagine themselves to be puppets, and are performing a bigger reality show where some one upstairs judge them with their keen eyes .. The winners get an exotic never ending vacation trip to the most beautiful place beyond their imagination and along with it some very tantalizing perks which can inspire even the weakest of minds. For these folks the purpose is to just make sure they follow the rules of the game along with enough emotional massaging to the judges and to keep them in a flattered mode with the help of those secret and not so secret praises. About these guys, all I have to say is "let the judge(s) alone help them" !

There are yet another set of so called traditional folks, who are very precise and confident about the purpose of life. For them the purpose of life is already defined by people who passed before them and may be for those 'passed away' people it would have been defined by another set of people who passed before them. These folks considers life more like class room assignments. You have to complete the assignment and even a question of 'why this assignment ?' is simply irrelevant and out of place. At the end of the day, if the people around them have similar or better feedback about them compared to the ones who 'passed' them earlier then the purpose is fulfilled and their reward is the privilege to have a sound and peaceful sleep with out the need of turning left and right once in a while.

For may others out there, there are far more different purposes. But having lectured about all these cases its time for me to share my two cents ..
As far as I think(?), deciding what is the purpose your life is not the difficult the task, but what needs more thought is in deciding on what purpose this purpose should be assigned to. In other words every journey has three parts - a starting point, a destination and then the moments between them, which we normally call - the 'journey'. 

Once we are out from the starting point, for most of us the focus is only on the destination and the journey takes a back seat and we often considers it nothing more than an unwanted delay  .. But the moment you change the focus from destination and spread it across to the journey as a whole, your purpose gets more clarity. 

Try to think about the purpose of a journey other than reaching its destination ... all I can think about is to engage in a spirited ride and simply sit back and enjoy till it lasts !

My Sweetheart !

Finally I met her today morning ..
She reached town by yesterday noon, 
But the office hours pulled me back from seeing her


She is a little calmer compared to our last time meeting a year back.
Slightly more fair and surely more pleasant.


She is just as beautiful as I saw her six years back
Will be around here for a few months 
And this time I wanted to spent some time with her.


My wife also kind of like her, but not as much passionately as I do
May be a little jealous, she don't like me spending too much time with her


When she knocked our door early morning, I sprang towards her with excitement, 
And my wife with her typical nagging style shouted from behind


"You want to go with her then go, but atleast take this Umbrella" !

Solving a puzzle in 10 slow minutes ...

Every time you walk out of our workplace and on your way towards home, what do you think? You could be walking, driving, being driven or may be even flying, but what is there in your mind. Well, I don't know abt ur case, but in my slow 10 min walk back home, I used to think about some random stuff and hardly notice things around me. But one day on my way back I, for some strange reason, I thought of watching things around. I was a little surprised to see the pace in which things are moving outside. People are hurrying all along their way, their walking seemed more like a mini jogging. The vehicles are honking hard and going like a mad bull. Looked as if everyone around lost their lungs and are trying to search and find it before they are out of breath.
I slowly started to think why all these people are moving this fast. Why can't they take it easy and slowdown? May be, like most of the folks around, they also have the wrong conception that by moving fast they can accomplish more things/jobs/responsibilities in their lives. Well that seems reasonable in a normal orthodox perspective. But if you are ready to go beyond reason and break the things to discreet parts and analyze each scientifically, you will realize that it’s a grave mistake. In fact it’s a myth and a misleading direction board in the high way of life. If you were also thinking in the same old ways and is confused, if u wants to solve the puzzle and get urself enlightened, you can continue with the below part where the puzzle will slowly unveil.

Let’s take the situation and break it in to pieces. "If I move fast, I finish more things in life". I'm splitting up this statement and making an equation out of it.

"I move fast" => "I finish more things in life" --à(1)

Now let me process the LHS part first, which says “I” (ie you) is moving forward and is moving fast.

"I” => Moves forward, moves fast --à (2)

I prefer to use one of my favorite theories for this calculation – Relativity theory by Mr Einstien. Relativity theory needs at least two objects for comparison and both objects should be measurable in a same frame of reference. For the second object, I am choosing something that moves in the same direction as the first one and in fact moves pretty fast nowadays. I am choosing “Life” as second object

“Life” => Moves forward, moves fast --à (3)

Here you can see that objects in (2) and (3) are moving in same direction and moves with high speed. Their exact speed limit can vary slightly. To be precise "Life" is a selfless process moving in a constant high speed and seeing the way people hurries through their lives nowadays one feels they are a little ahead of life.

Now as per relativity theory if two objects moves in same direction with a very close speed difference and if you are looking from the perspective of relatively lesser speeding object then the higher speeding object turns out to be moving with far lesser speed. (You can relate this with you sitting in a moving train and another train slowly overtaking you from the adjacent track.)

Hence we can see that the statement “I move fast” if processed in scientific and detailed level will contradict itself and reverses its very meaning.

Coming back to Equation (1), we can see that the LHS part is reversed. Now let me take another simple equality theory,

"If X=Y and X and Y are true, then if X reverses and becomes false then Y also should reverse and become false"

Applying this common sense theory to Equation (1), the final conclusion is that the RHS part also needs to be reversed, and the final verdict is some thing like,

“I will accomplish less things in Life”

Hence the proof !!!

By this time my 10 mins was almost over and I reached my doorstep as well. My better half, waiting for me with a hot cup of tea, asked,

"You walked 10 mins and you are looking tired as though you walked some 10 kms".

I first took the cup of tea and then replied with my typical trade mark smile,

"Honey, may be its just 10 mins but in those 10 mins I did more than walking 10 kms”

“Now what’s that” she asked eagerly

I paused for a moment, took a sip of tea and answered quietly,

“I solved a puzzle”

Flick of an eyelid

He was feeling the cold mud … it was slowly creeping through his legs …or was he going down ?

"Loneliness is such pain, isn't it? … it creates such a painful heat in the heart that sometimes you prefer to treat it with something as cold as death ...”

"Who are you ... I cannot see your face in this darkness"

"How does it matter... anyway you only choose this dark night and the comfort of this quick sand. Well I can understand the limitations of an old man when it comes to choices for a suicide ..."

"It’s not a suicide... I call it a journey to meet someone very close… and how do you know all these... Who are you??”

"Let that question remain there ... you have less time left ... good bye and see you soon"

He felt the mud rising slowly through his chest ... he could feel the cold smell of death. Someone said ‘people will see their whole life as a flash back just before their death.’ But for him it was too late ... the mud started rushing through his nostrils ... he started searching for a ground below. But the dry sand slowly swallowed him more deeply... he struggled to keep his head higher and tried to shout ..

"Hei wake up ... another dream???”

Kalpana was holding his shoulders; rubbing her sleepy eyes ... It took a little while for him to come back to normalcy.

"Yeaah, don't know why ... it was so real ... I was a very old man and there is this quick sand and ...

"Come on ... it’s just a dream"

"But it’s so real honey ... so real ..."

"You should first stop watching all those crazy old movies online... "

"Well honey ... if that was about the movie I watched last week, dear it was Inception, one of the best movies at that time ... and you know what, I watched it first day, second show and ..."

"... it was a Friday 16th of July 2010."

"Sh**, God oh God these girls ... what all they remember"

"Hmmm ... but you might remember 17th July ... don't you ...

"Why not ... our weddin..gg ... no no it was not in that month ... our house warmingggg .. or was it .."

"Enough ....don't struggle ... it was the day when a stupid boy from my class,who didn't even talked to me for three years, came and proposed me and finally end up making my name in passport look even worse by adding his name as my surname ..."

"Goshhhh ... how could I miss that ... that 'special' special class, getting that chalk missile attack from Thomas sir, standing on my knees and looking at that beautiful eyes and seeing that beautiful little smile from my three year long untold love ... I still don't know what gave me the courage to come and propose you just after that class...may be that smile ... and what a change it made ..." he said, holding her closer to him.

"Life is sometimes like that dear, your world can change in the flick of an eye lid..." she slowly whispered to his ears.

"Good bye honey ..." seeing her happy smiling face through the half opened door, he walked hurriedly towards the elevator. He was already late for office.

He was the only one in the elevator and he felt strange. In this peak time an empty elevator is a rare thing.

He pressed Level 0. The numbers 11, 10 , 9 started showing one by one. Suddenly the elevator stopped. Even the floor number display disappeared. He started to search for the elevator phone in that darkness. Suddenly his cell phone rang.

"Hello"

"Hello son...how are you". The sound felt familiar to him.

"I am OK .. I did not get you?"

"Forgot so fast?... we talked yesterday also ....I was watching you going down the quick sand"

He started to sweat,

"Who .. who are you ..?

"I am just an observer ... watching you and all the time and when it’s time to say good bye I just stop by here ..."

He disconnected the call in a hurry. He was gasping and sweat was pouring out.

The cell phone rang again. This time he took the phone and bang it on the floor. Every trace of blood was evaporated from his face ... Suddenly the elevator phone started to ring. With trembling hands he slowly took the phone. It was the same dreaded voice.

"Banging your phone will not make a difference son.... "

"What .. what do you want now ??? Was that just a dream or ...."

"Well .. What do you think?”

"I... I don't know ...and what now ..?"

"As I told I am here to say goodbye ...you have seen enough now … its time for you to go back ..."

"Go back where ..."

"Where you belong ..."

"But this is where I belong, this is my life ... this is all I ever wanted ..."

"I know... and that’s why you are here and believe me that’s exactly why you need to go back son ..."

" But I ..."

"Sorry son ... no more questions ... its time ... Good bye ..."

"Wait ...”

The phone got disconnected and suddenly the lift started to go down in full speed.... it was almost like a free fall... he tried to scream, but his voice was not coming out ... The elevator took a sudden shake and before he could think much, he was thrown up and his head banged to the ceiling ...

“Wake up you #$#% … yes you in the second last bench”

Thomas sir shouted in anger.... He opened his eyes. He saw a piece of chalk in the desk...

"You come here in front of the class and stand on your knees"

As the whole class was laughing he slowly walked to the front of the classroom and stood on his knees.

He looked up watching the smiling face of Kalpana who was sitting on the first bench. As the pain was coming up from the prick he gave to his own hand he kept looking at those beautiful eyes and slowly gave a smile back.....