Memoirs of a 'Shoppingophobiac'

I’ve been to a lot of super markets and malls around the ‘globe’ and no matter where it is, every time I enter one of those dress shops my eyes eagerly starts searching for something and the search more often ends in disappointment .. no it’s not the rest room, you can find that much easily. What I am looking for is rather a resting place, a sofa or a chair or anything on which I can rest my butt with some dignity

It might sound silly to some of you out there, but for the people like me suffering from (or may be gifted with) a condition called ‘Shoppingophobia’ every step taken in the shop floor is nothing short of torture. But who cares about ‘us’,  in this bourgeois capitalistic system customer is the king and they will be given a polished floor and pleasant lighting so that they can walk, stare and finally end up ‘consuming’.. and ‘we’ … we will be sidelined as a some lost souls forced to keep standing and walking like one of those zombies you see in Hollywood movies, trying to find the meaning of our existence in between the jungle of garments

But alas, finally my prayers (?) are heard.. today as I walked in to Lulu at my hometown in my typical melancholy mood resembling one of those poor helpless goats led by the butcher to the cutting stool, I almost left out a yell of joy. There it is….. my key to freedom from the long hours of pain I was getting prepared to. Dressed in Blue, three of them greeted me with a welcome smile. With relief I slowly alighted to the middle one of those chilling steel couches and slowly started to scribble my ecstasy so that at least some of my ailing brothers know it..

Yes, it’s true comrades ... there is still some hope left in this world for us and today when I looked in to the tunnel there was surely a light … a blue, cold light !

If only ... these wishes have an end !

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" !