Burden of Benevolence

How often does it happen that you start afearing the goodness in the people around you? You can’t take how good they can be; how they care for you all the time. Even when you don’t deserve to be treated the way they deal with you. Even when you know you haven’t been at the best of your behaviours; haven’t complied with all your duties that a relationship requires of you; worse: you haven’t even been a good friend.  And still, when you look at them, all you see is a sense of oblige in them, a sense of care for you and a prayer of your own well-being.

There are also times, when you wish that they were not to be so good to you. You know that they are doing all that is good for you but you want it to be otherwise. They like to bring a completeness in your life and provide a sense of belonging and hence security to the new paths of a revamped life you are treading into. However, you wish not to be looked after so much, not to be nurtured and watched over all the time; not to be comforted by all the pleasures that they are constantly trying to offer you. Because sometimes, you don’t want what seems to be the best option for you; sometimes, it’s more fun than the righteousness of life that matters; sometimes, you don’t need the discipline of life as much as the randomness of it. 

Thoughts on Graduation! :P

Yeh Degree bhi lelo, yeh naukri bhi lelo,
Bhale chheen lo mujhse US ka visa,
Magar mujhko lauta do college ki canteen,
Woh teekha samosaa, woh thanda saaa paani..

Woh college ki sabse - purani nishaanee,
Woh chai vaalaa jisko - sab kehte the... jaani,
Woh jaani ke hathon - ki 'cutting' chai meethi,
Woh chupke-se journal - mein jo bheji thi chitthi,
Woh padhte hi chitthi - tha uska bhadakna,
Woh chehre ki laali, woh hothon ki gaali ...

Kadi dhoop mein - apney room se nikalnaa,
Woh project ki khatir - tha dar dar bhataknaa ,
Woh lecture mein doston - ki proxy lagaanaa,
Woh ma'am ko chidana, aeroplane udaanaa,
Woh submission ki raaton - ko jagna jagaanaa,
Woh viva ke kisse, woh pracs ki kahani....

Woh dena bimaari - ka har time bahana,
Woh doosron ke assignment - ko apnaa banana,
Woh seminar ke din - pairon ka chhat-patanaa,
Woh workshop mein din bhar - pasiinaa bahanaa,
Woh slogans banana - woh poster chipkana,
Phir exam ke dino - yaad aati thi naani....

College ki thi - woh lambi si raatein,
Woh doston ke kapre mein - fokat ki baatein;
Woh gathering ke din - pyari mulakatein;
Woh kudiyon ka yuhin - hamesha akadnaa;
Bhulaaye nahin bhool sakta hai koi ,
Woh college ki yaadein - jo ab hain kahani...

P.S. Read it somewhere on the web.. and felt a resonance of thoughts! :P

STEM CELLS OF CONSCIOUSNESS

They link the individual to the universe and overturn the prevailing notion that reality is composed of senseless objects, random events, mechanical cause-and-effect and impersonal laws of nature. Try this new formulation to reinvent youself: 

Reality is created and governed in consciousness. 
The universe is aware of itself.
Creation can be traced to its source, an absolute domain outside time and space.
Every event is part of a single process, consciousness interacting with self.
All separation is an illusion.
Life is lived best in the flow of consciousness, without resistance and obstacles.
Events ‘out there’ respond to thoughts and wishes ‘in here’.
At the deepest level, each of us is a co-creator of everything happening in the world.
Ultimate power rests with those who are most aware.

Courtesy: The Times of India

Delhi 6

Be it the eagerness to watch the much anticipated movie Delhi 6 which is relasing tomorrow or my sheer ignorance of much more serious things in life, but as soon as I looked at the bottom most line of the page, I thought it was another news about the forthcoming release in the Movies section of the news. 

Star Wars…in our own galaxy!

A few days ago as I was browsing through someone’s shared folder on the Local Network, I realized that I have never seen any Star Wars movies. The 6-movie series that in itself defines a genre in the world of cinema had been left untouched by me and, as I came to know later, by most of my friends. So I decided to give it a shot; to try to watch and understand what Star Wars is all about.

But this post is not about why I started watching Star Wars, but that once I started, what I thought about it. Getting down straight to the point, there’s a Jedi counsel in the movie whose primary motive is to restore peace and security in that ‘galaxy far far away’. But what struck me was that they had just become machines, working day in and day out to protect the so-called good people from the bad guys; much like our own United Nations that claims to be the good side and having prosperity of the human race, their chief objective. But the way the Jedi counsel was being shown dealing with problems all the time, it was clear that they were having a busy time; hence depicting the extent of turmoil in the ‘Republic’. 

I was wondering what kind of a world (not in the right sense of the word) was that which had unrest all over, exploiting the limited resources all the time of a force so strong, to keep things under control? Me as an outsider was astonished at the level of grief and distress in that world and had a strong repulsive feeling about it. But suddenly I realized that it was just a reflection of our own world. Our world, this earth, has become (or for that matter, has been) the home of such unrests and wars and pain and misery that Star Wars is just a metaphor of our own world. If someday, an actual alien ship arrives at our doors he would feel the same repulsive feeling towards earth as I had towards the Star Wars galaxy. What image would he take of us humans: a living race that knows nothing better than inflicting pain to its own kind and always in the hunt of innovating easier manifestation of death?

I was discussing all this with one of my friends and he had a strong opinion about all this. His argument was that if there is no bad, the good can not be recognized. So within our world, if we need to understand the beauty of a bright spring morning, we have to go through the cold winter. If not for the wars, we would never cherish peace as much as we do. But does it always have to be the extremes? Why for every plus, there has to be a minus? Can’t there be a neutral zero denomination so that even if we do not enjoy as much, someone else is saved from suffering. 

Take an example of our bathroom showers. We can very well afford to buy a bucket and use it for bathing so that we don’t leave water running all through while we are bathing. But just for a bit of a convenience, we would stand under a shower wasting gallons of water in a day here in Singapore while people in Africa and some other water-deficit regions, die because there is no clean water for even drinking purposes. 

Is this the positive and negative of life we are talking about? Are these the 2 sides of this f**ked up coin called life? Is this the true nature of life where for a part of the human race to move forward, the rest of it has to live in such adverse conditions or worse, die? As for me, it only appears that the human race, in its bid to be ahead in the race – a race with itself – has to compromise its own beings to the hands of death. As one part of us speeds towards the peak, the other part falls further down in the dungeon of poverty, misery and chaos. Unless we find a solution to this inequality, unless the human race can realize the need to stand hand in hand working towards the betterment of the entire race as a whole, this unrest and turmoil will find no end. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said about the sufferers of this ordeal.