somebody or something: September 2011

Tuesday, September 27, 2011

New turns on the road..

So the long road unwinds with a twist here and a bend there. I thought why not bend it as much as possible. Squeeze the life out of the road before it gets to you and does you in. And so I landed up at a completely new set up. Somewhere secluded, but connected all the same. Things seem a lot more interesting now, lots of x's waiting to fall into place and annotate the road map. The sense of adventure should never die out. It shows what life could be instead of what it is. Then you can follow it, and who knows your "could-be" might become your "is". But as with difficulty, it is going to be so, no comfort zones. When you are thrown into the wild rawness, there is no place for you to hide. Your true colors show up no matter what clothes you wear or how you look. This is rawness. Stripped to the core. You get to know who you are, whether you are who you think you are or maybe you just like the idea of who you could be and used to that. When you pursue something you know, is going to change you, you will feel that every second is a little less than an actual second. Every breath feels like a lot more of air in it. Every thought is amplified with millions of possibility. All culminating at your discovery of self. Consider your mind, you get a few hundred parallel thoughts, each creating sub-thoughts and flows, criss-crossing the neural, all trying to find a solution to the same problem. You can get so many options, that you can afford to keep other solutions for later. These solutions then add to your map where your conquest takes you. In search of internal glory, something that other people can or will never understand, same as you won't understand so many things in this world.


But what's in a road you may ask? Road stands for a link: A link between two places - From: the place where you "were" and To: the place you "will be". The road in such a case becomes you "are". The road is the present, because there will always be a "will be"(pun intended). There are stark revelations to be made at every one of these corners, the road never ends, the road will never get tired. The only thing true about the road is that it will be with you all the way and that will be the only thing you truly can call yours in this world. 

"Co-incidence is Jo-incidence with a 'c'". That's what co-incidence is, a joke. Laugh when you get it, move on if you don't. Paulo Coelho says in his book "The Alchemist" - "When you really want something, the whole universe conspires so that your wish comes true". May be true ,may not be true. Reading omens is different from waiting for one. It's just a method to understand the situation. That is always needed.

Adventure is always a harbinger of both pain and joy. The road ahead will be difficult, challenging and always taunting that you cannot do it. With the right support from the right people at the right time, truly it would be a complete adventure. Some times bending a road might fragment it, but only to join back at the end. In those times, a lot of self-confidence is going to be helpful, but really I don't have too much of it. I guess I will have to toil through.

It's a feeling of incomparable measure when you first look out into the ocean, trying to find the end of the horizon, trying to get a glimpse at the other side. It's not joy, it's not pain, just pure adventure. That's the feeling when I type this. I have taken this road. Others do ask me "why this", "why not do that", "why not do something from where you are". To them I say, "That's the way my road goes, and I will follow that". There is another poem that has affected me ever since I came to understand it,



"If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;
If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster 
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, 
broken,And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools: 
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
 And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,'
 Or walk with Kings - nor lose the common touch,
if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!"



"If" by Rudyard Kipling.




More about it in my next post. Bye till then.
P.S: Read aloud the poem to yourself, rather than reading silently. You will note a difference :)

The eternal war

"Who are north indians?
Who are south indians?
What about the remaining people?!?!"
- Anonymous.
Ah yes, the eternal war. Who is better, North Indians or South Indians? First let us define who and what are north Indians. The average Indian's dictionary defines a North Indian as "anyone who does not live in the following states - Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka(except people from Bangalore, they are practically North Indians landlocked from their homeland)". And do a boolean ! with India as the sample set, you get the South Indian definition.
So what about the West Indians and the East Indians? Don't they get a chance to fight in this war and get a stake on "the Glory"? Nope, you are all North Indians no matter how east-ish or west-ish you are, no questions asked. And South Indians, you fight between yourselves. Go to Tamil Nadu, people from Kerala and AP are idiots and vice versa. I mean why the discrimination, you are all South Indians, why can't you be united? Maybe they haven't got the new version of the average Indian's dictionary yet.
The war:
It's been going on for a while, I don't know how long. Long long ago, very long ago, well whatever. It stems from parents teaching their kids not to hang out with those kids, "they are not good for you". Goes either way. One knows Hindi, the other does not. One really bad thing about South Indians, they try a lot. They'd rather be a northie than a southie. A northie goes to Tamil Nadu, he/she would speak Hindi and get his/her way through. You know why? The southie would learn Hindi by then!! Same thing, a southie goes to some of the "northern" states, same thing happens, the southie would learn Hindi by then! Yup we scoff at people who are different from us. In movies, the southie movies make fun of northies mis-pronouncing southie language. Shahrukh would go do a "Enna rascala!", and northies go thats what southies do, why din't I know that before. Giving everyone an image, or rather a stereotype. This fuels the war and keeps it going. A northie gang would not induct a southie without the southie making sacrifices, and vice versa and so on.

Another point of exclusivity, any one person from the South of India can be called a Madrasi. That I never get, because there are other cities too! Same way, a Bengali is completely different from a Punjabi, so no point considering them in the same category.

If you want to find differences, don't take the people, take the food. You love different cuisines because they are "different" from your routine. Personally, the food is more important than the people in the locale. No one is going to stop me from eating Bengali Raskadam, Punjabi Butter Chicken, Tamil Paper Roast, Idli Sambhar, Dilli Aloo tikki, Mumbai Vada pav just because I have a problem with some person. By nature, Culture breeds uncultured people. Fight the opinion, not the region, cos its the home of delicacies you have always liked. Let food be your guide.

Differences are the only thing we have, why waste it and try to get the same old stuff from everyone?

P.S: I started writing this a very very long time ago, added the last three blocks recently. But just finished, or tried to, so forgive for the lack of flow.