The little thing called 'ME'

Finally, a blog post after a loooooong time! I have been having a recent self realization! I haven't really talked to anyone about it... I call it the realization of myself.

Honestly, this realization should have happened ages ago! This isn't about how good or bad or how awesome or stupid or negligent I am.. It's about how significant I am... And in effect, how significant each one of us are...

There are like two things that drove me to this realization, these two are supposed to be the same, but yeah, they are different experiences because they let me to entirely contrasting conclusions...

The first one is 'Chandni Chowk'. Getting out of the metro station at Chandni Chowk, I saw an elevator that would take you up three levels on a single stretch. And it was FULL of people. Once I got out of the station, I was in a street about 2 to 3 metres wide where there were a million platform shops. And that street was FULL of people. And walking into the unimaginably crowded "gali"s of Old Delhi, it finally hit me. I'm one among 1.2 Billion people... "WOW" was the exact feeling. "Is that how insignificant I am?" I thought. "Maybe... Maybe not! I don't live like the other people, do I? I can still make my life significant." I thought... And with that optimism, I swallowed "Garmaaa Garam Gulab Jamun" and dived into my holiday in North India.

The next one is "CMBT". Back home, I visited our very own Chennai Mofussel Bus Terminus, CMBT (koyambedu). As we had gone on a motorbike, my friend and I decided to park it in the parking lot of the bus station. And we entered the 3 level deep parking lot, to find only a small slot available in the bottom most basement level. And around us- above us, beside us, in front of us and behind us, there were like a million versions of one thing - motorbikes. It made me realize how insignificant my friend's bike was among the multiple thousands of others. And flashing back to the first time I saw his bike and how proud he was, made me realize how each and every bike there has a similar story. "It is pointless", I thought. "I am no different! No matter how significant I think I am, there are people who have reached my stage and been as significant as me! And so," I thought, "the only significant thing you can ever do in this world is to live a happy life that satisfies your heart and mind to the fullest"

The beauty about the realization is that for me, it has happened in what I think is a very crucial phase of my life. It makes me realize that I can have dreams of being happy, but not dreams of being something nobody else has ever been before.

Happiness and success are not written in stone, they are written on brain cells.

US Return!

I was sitting on one of the two hot chairs, wondering how to make my hair-cutting session less boring. I was unwilling to listen to the lame attempt at a spoof on Sun TV while looking at the wall and posing for my hair-dresser. Just then, I saw the mirror and a balding sixty-odd year old man wearing a loose green polo and a pair of cargo shorts filled the hot seat next to mine. His hair had grown wildly and he obviously hadn't visited the barbers' for months.

“Welcome sir! Short? Or Medium?” enquired the other hair-dresser who had been in my locality for well over 10 years now and knew me by my name and even knew where I was studying. A jolly fellow he was and he was entertaining his customer with perfect hospitality. He seemed to know him too.

“When did you return from the US, sir?” he asked.

Modern Righteousness

"I would consider water service to be a better option" said the guy in the black t-shirt who just walked into the tea stall.

The worker in the tea stall was washing the bike there with water and a soft cloth, the owner of the stall (and bike) behind the counter, fetching his customer some cigarettes and small-talking.

"Water service? Water service once a week will cost much more than an hour of Dilip's time" said the owner.

Dilip seemed to be unimpressed by his owner's comment as he frowned at him, squeezing the water out of the cloth, into the bucket of dirty water. He then dropped the cloth and took the bucket in his hand with much difficulty. "It should be tough on an 8 year old boy" I thought.

So, I kept the tea glass on the ground, walked swiftly to the bike, got on and rode it away, rock music playing in my head and adrenaline pumping through my veins. Hearing screaming voices of the owner and the sound of the thrown stones, largely muffled by the "wrrrrroom" of the 4 stroke bike and the pulsing blood in my ears.

The 24th chromosome

There she stood, watching us all, singing something to us from behind the glass. If anything like this was there back when I was 20, they'd call it a zoo. Caged, sparsely fed and angry was she. Tamed by her keepers. She wasn't a creature to be tamed. She was a natural beauty.

Her wings, silver like the moon and feathered with those beautifully streamlined quills! Her beak, sharp as a knife, yet crooked as a hook. Her eyes, blue and glowing, reflecting the bright Sunday sun. Her neck long as a pencil, and legs like shoots of the bamboos that beautified her abode. Her skin ebony in shade and glowing. And her dress for the week, a beautiful red velvety gown that swept the glass floors clean. Yup, she wore a dress. And yes, she was human, almost.

The ripple, the tide and the tsunami.

Once, I was taking a helicopter ride from one island to another in the Andamans. It was picturesque, certainly! And I was at awe, just gaping at the beauty of nature. And then suddenly, into the calm ocean, my friend dropped a pebble. It made ripples in the calm, so beautiful in the blue. And at that moment, a thought struck me, I learnt a lesson, a very cherishable one. I call it "The ripple, the tide and the tsunami".

Finding some shoes to fit into...

As a 20 year old who's 75% through with his bachelors, you'd be justified to expect a decent amount of career oriented clarity in me. Well, I request you not to. In fact, I suggest you don't expect that from anyone my age in my position! You're asking me why?? Let me tell you a funny story:

Once upon a time, there was a young boy. He never had worn shoes; till the day came when his eyes suddenly looked down. His head fell and he realized every one of his friends wore shoes. Though there were some tailored shoes, most of them wore a single type of shoe : the slip-on. He asked them where they got the shoes and they said they earned enough to buy themselves shoes. So, our young hero told his parents that he wanted shoes. His parents asked him what type of shoes he wanted. And off the top of his mind, he told them he wanted slip-ons.

Leaky clouds and an improbably happy me!

In the UK, gloomy is gloomy. In Tamil Nadu however, gloomy with the smell of rain is almost as good as nature gets.

After a hot summer afternoon, struggling to manage all the shuttling between my hostel and the Instrumentation and Control Department, I went and sat inside the Control Engineering lab for a (yet another, grueling) lab session! And as I sat there, busily(!!). I was running through my mind on how I would talk to the professor who was planning to penalize me for having low attendance in a course. I was desperate. I was imagining staying back on campus when everyone else left for 70 days during summer! I was feeling angry at myself. A rage was tunneling through my veins but it suddenly stopped dead only for me to realize that there was hardly much that could be done.

“If she says you need to do it again, you need to stay back, Deepak! You need to complete the course. You don’t have a choice” I said to myself. “Pity yourself! But seriously, shame on you!”

I was distraught. I was helpless. The summer looked like a dark time to live in and my life seemed to be full of gloom.

Oh Good God!!

Radical. That's how I see religion. It's not traditional to claim something invisible to be something obvious. It never could have been. Religion has crept in through the ranks of society through the ages and in my opinion it is here to stay. Why?? A few things pop up in my mind as an answer to why god is good for man.

A new lease of life.

They were a cute, young couple. When the two of them started going out, they were just about 17 years old. They had no idea how damaging real relationships can be. They were just two youngsters trying to have fun as they built on to the impulsively planned out future. A bright future ahead of them, supportive parents, gushing young blood and delightfully optimistic minds.

Initially, all the newness of a relationship held their hands through. Everything was a first time. The first date, the first big hug, the first kiss, the first time they said the three words. It seemed like they were on a cloud they would never come down from. Top of the world.

Science?!

When the tall, black haired, Brahmin said "I believe my religion and believe when it says Darwin’s theory is wrong”, I had a conversation within myself.  The two people inside me : the atheist and the son of my parents kept talking and will probably never stop. But I guess there’s a winner nonetheless. Till the day the son finds enough belief in the religion to throw the atheist out of me, the atheist will keep winning. But this is an episode where he actually lost!!

Atheist : Hari can’t be serious!! It’s just the heat of the discussion getting to him!!

Son of Brahmins : I half doubt Darwin too. After-all, nothing has ever been certain. So what if they found fossils? Maybe that was also a wrong theory.

Atheist : So, you’re saying if people proved the world to be round and not flat, they will prove humans are humans and not evolved apes?!

Son  : Yes, I bet you can’t find a fault with that argument of mine.

Happily Ever After!

“And they lived happily ever after”

What does that remind you? Cinderella? Snow White? Any other fairy-tale? I’m sure it’s only in fairy tales that we see a phrase like that. And the reason is simple, because the phrase in itself is quite an imaginary thing.

When we start out moulding our lives, we have a goal in mind. The goal is pretty simple, “A happy future”. But as we live life second by second, we are forced to rethink this goal of ours.

Katrinah Josephina- an interesting song

Katrinah Josephina - an interesting song

When I first time I heard this song I was frankly taken aback by the sheer magic of the music. Then I wanted to start digging into meanings for the song and it seemed to convey this interesting story of a girl and her life with her alter ego. Then slowly, my interpretation of the song took life, took a wholesome form. This story haunted me and has been something I’ve been inspired by. It has been so beautifully masked and covered and the philosophy of the song is so appealing.

A simple question of right and wrong.

Hi, I have been enjoying my days in the US but not without a lot of thinking. More exposure, more interesting people with interesting thoughts and more food for thought. One of the questions that have stood out for me in this trip is the question of what is right and what it wrong. I don't really know if I'll make justice to my thoughts if I write them down here but I have decided to give it shot anyway.


What is wrong??

So, to know what is right, we need to first define what "wrong" is. And the definition of wrong for me can be classified into two - "The society's definition of wrong" and "A personal definition of wrong".
These two aren't exclusive sets. Actually, it can safely be said that the first is a raw average of a huge collection of the various possible definitions of the second. This analysis led me to the basic ideas of right and wrong. The question at this stage became a more difficult question to answer : "Who is a bad person?"

When I tried answering that question with the obvious "A person who does wrong things consciously is a bad person", I hated that my definition did not mention whether the wrong was "socially wrong" or "personally wrong".