Hopelessly Hopeful

We love to live in our small little bubbles. Everything else is the outside world, the make belief. Only our bubbles are real for us, nothing could permeate them, pollute them, as long as we continue to believe that our bubbles are for real. We exist in these happy bubbles, blissfully ignoring whatever that does not bother us. Things happen, but no, never to us, they happen to others. Our bubbles are safe, they are real. We are the master of fake science; the quacks who treat themselves with wrong 'sweet' medicine; the travelers who have no sense of direction, nor do they enjoy their wandering; the masks that hide the real faces, the faces that we dare not see ourselves. But, we exist, we exist in our small little bubbles, because we believe that our bubbles are for real...

When we look at our bygone years, we often say, 'Well, I am wiser now, I will not be repeating those mistakes'. But, do we ever say, 'Good that I made that mistake, I am wiser now because of it'.  As clichéd as the saying might be, it is also true - We learn from our mistakes. Yes, we all do, however, how many of us are really ready to make a mistake? How many of us could say, 'Let's do it, let's take the risk, I might be making a huge mistake, I may fail, but who cares, I would not know if it would be a mistake if I don't do it at the first place!'  We live our lives conditioned around so many factors - our family, peers, friends, society et al. There aren't any scope for mistakes, for failures, we want to blend in and not stand out. So, everyone is taught how to run the race and try and stay ahead of everyone else. Fun part is, this race never ends, we just keep running. And, then we stumble, just like everyone else. That's when we realise ...

Life could be harsh, but at times some things make it worth going through the trite of 'living' it. A rainy Sunday evening spent with your favorite yellowed book, earmarked at several places, reading it again brought different emotions & perspective that you did not feel the first time you read it.  A long-forgotten song that suddenly plays in the car radio while you are stressed out to reach to your next meeting on time, bringing the deluge of memories you shared with your friends in school/college never worrying about a dime in the world. A tenner in your jeans pocket that had been washed & ironed, & you find it just when you are short of a tenner. A poem you wrote when you were a starry-eyed young-thing & loved all that you wrote, & discover it just when you had edited your article for the nth time & still think it's not making the 'cut'. A discolored picture from your childh...

It's not black, Nor is white Definitely not the shade of gray No blues, no reds, no yellows either The myriad color that makes us - us Are colors that are beyond this realm Let us bathe, You and I In an ocean that is deep within Tide-less and clear The crystal water, shines As the sun sets in it Where is that life we seek so much? Where is that place we dream in dreams? Where is that where, Where it holds it all - The dreams, the colors, the water that gives life? Some say within, Some say above Some say beyond this world you'll find I say, why not now I get What I want for Now and beyond...

How would you define grief? Is that an emotion where you feel extreme pain of loss or mourn for something that is lost forever? In whatever manner you want to see it, there is one thing that is common, the excruciating pain, the pain that threatens to tear you apart and make you a walking dead. You feel that extreme anguish and often want to hang on to it, because somehow that grief becomes a thread that binds you to your loss, it makes everything real, that final straw that you don't want to let go. No one can understand what one has lost, it is deeply personal. The piercing pain is theirs and you cannot partake in it. But, you know you can silently stand besides them, wrap your arms around their shoulders and wipe off those tears. You know you can do that, don't you?

What if life is just about moments. You live in one moment and then hop on to the other, without any connection between the two. It is just a series of moments that you live in. But, we mess up these moments with our past experiences or future expectations. And, that is when the problem arises, that's when the complication starts. When you live in the present, you don't worry about what happened 10 years ago or what would happen 10 years hence. The simple fact is, what happened could not be undone and what is going to happen we have no control over it. So, why worry and waste what we have today - the present, the current, the moment to live in. From the Buddha to Osho, everyone advocated this mantra . And, maybe, with practice we can live in the moment, in this present time and soak in it - the associated happiness or the sadness.

At one end of a flyover, I saw men, women, kids fighting to get a bucket of drinking water At the other end, I saw sprinklers spraying gallons of water on lush lawns and gardens What do we need - essentials or aesthetic values?

"The moment you're ready to quit is usually the moment right before a miracle happens . Don't give up .” No one knows who said that, but everyone knows that it is true. Still, how many of us really hang in there – in the dark pit, at the lowest ebb, not giving up hope to do whatever it takes to fulfill our dreams? When the life-giving oxygen is depleted, the throat is so dry that you can’t even utter a word, you forget what hunger really means, that is when you are shown some quick fixes, some quick way outs. What do you do? Take those detours or still hang in there, testing your endurance, just because you have a dream to live. I say hang in there, miracles happen, you just need to believe in yourself...

Warning: This is a very cynical post, do not read further if you don’t want to get offended Most of you did not pay heed to my warning. Human beings cannot stop themselves from doing things that they are asked not to do. They just can’t help it, but it is also not their fault. As per NLP, human mind cannot picture negative words like ‘no’ ‘not’ ‘do not’ and therefore if you ask a child ‘Don’t touch the vase’, what he pictures is he touching the vase, because there isn't an image that described the command given to him. Think that’s pretty much for any of our vices as well. We are asked ‘NOT’ to – Pollute the air, Build houses on river beds, Engage in constant mining of sands for construction, Be greedy, Be corrupt, et al. Do we listen to these ‘nots’, no we don’t. We constantly do what is negative, what is wrong, what should have never been done. Funnily, when things go out of our hands, and we start analyzing the consequences, we are back to the same statements of what one should ...

Most women are like phoenixes, they might get battered, soiled and destroyed, but like a true phoenix, they rise again, that too from their own ashes. What gives them such power? No one really knows. They might look vulnerable, emotional, clingy, weepy and demanding, but with all of these they are also confident, rational, independent, smiling and understanding. Yes, they are the great contradiction, and it is this contradiction that makes them unique, with each claiming a little bit of sunshine. When I see my women friends getting promoted at work, finding a new job, marrying the person they truly love, quitting their jobs to raise their newborns, juggling with project deadlines and school homework, raising their voice against injustice, standing up for their dignity, I feel a bit of a personal triumph myself, only because, I am a woman too...And, like every other woman, I also have a simple desire, to fight for my identity. 

Wonder why Indian consumers never ask these questions? Why these never cross the mind of any self-appointed tech-guru or auto-critic? Why the Government as usual remain inert towards these issues? Why as people of this country, we never question our own motives? Why not probe ourselves: Why am I paying double the amount of money for buying the same phone that my western counterparts can buy for dime-a-dozen? Plus, why am I also not complaining about half the features that do not run on my mobile, restricting access because of my country of residence? What makes us not blink an eye for shelling out half a lakh to buy a smartphone on EMI but turns us into stingy Scrooge and grumpy Grinch while buying vegetables from saabzi walas , haggling for auto fares, protesting against hike in school fees? Why are the auto majors dumping their outdated oil guzzling machines in India and the Indian consumers lapping them by willingly paying a premium? Why we never think of the next petrol price h...

I learnt something today. We tend to reflect our own self in others, we see what we want to see in them, often wanting them to become what we want to become for ourselves. It is never about what they are, it is always about what we are. Our dreams, ambitions, purposes or whatever shit there is in this world, we are just offloading into others, especially on people who are closest to us. Life does not really have a purpose, it is stupidity to go out seeking for one. All you need to do is just walk and the answers will appear, the path will show. That’s so true. And another truth is to be true to oneself, in so many things, we have forgotten who we truly are, what our identity is. We are just the reflection of the other person. It is this strangeness of life that one needs to recognise and once you do, you know exactly how to disassociate, disengage and detach. When you do that, you no longer remains you, you get a new high, you see ‘reality’ in a new way. You realize, there is no r...

Life is not what we make of it, and it is certainly not what we think it ought to be. It is a string of small moments, and every moment we do something, take certain decisions, which fortunately or unfortunately change the way we live our future few moments. But, that doesn't mean we can't change what we did before, we certainly can, all we have to do is to take some other decision in the next moment, and your path takes another route. And, if you don't like that one too, take another diversion and then another. The point, you see, is to keep taking the turns, till maybe, you find a familiar path or a path that looks comforting or crazy or dangerous, depending on what you want from that path and whether you want to walk through that one path only, never deviating. Does that happen? Hypothetically yes, real life, well that's another story, isn't it?