It is Funny that You are Never on the Losing Side

  Last night, my friend and I had a long walk through the deserted streets in our neighborhood. And of course, as usual, we were at our rebellious best, questioning the very foundations of the typical Indian society and what followed was a lot of revelations and some resolutions. What better way to question the ‘typical Indian society’ other than to have a conversation on arranged marriage and love marriage. The current generation is at the verge of a revolution, where they start questioning the established norms of an Indian family. They are only too casual in using the questions ‘What’s wrong with it?’ ‘Why should I do it just because everybody else is doing it?’ and many more. But when you come to think of it, every generation has come through their own rebellious face sometime or the other in their life and later have accepted their ‘fate’ as any ‘law abiding citizen’ might do. But somehow I get the feeling that things are different with this generation (meaning, the young adults of today). The circumstances around them are changing so radically that factors like ‘he/she comes from a good family’, ‘they are rich beyond your wildest imagination’ (had to think twice before including this ;)  ) ‘since the family is good the boy/girl is deemed to be the perfect match for us’ have become redundant. Look around you. You will find examples walking out of their door every morning living perfectly normal, respectable lives. And I can assure you, that you might not have thought about ‘what kind of a family he/she comes from’, ‘will he/she be of the same caste and will our horoscopes match?’ etc. The thoughts would be more likely in the lines of (if you are looking for a serious relationship) ‘I wonder if he/she is going out with someone’ OR ‘I wonder if he/she has a respectable job’… the more logical questions.

     The reasons for this change? The current generation lives in an India, which is no longer bound by boundaries of language or caste or religion (a very bold statement indeed and it might be too early too). India is undergoing a true ‘Indianisation’ within itself. Meaning, it is moving from a confluence or a collection of states which is bound together by a common constitution and a set of laws, to the true concept of one nation. No matter how hard you deny that this situation never existed, I would urge you to ask yourself. I refrain myself from providing a number of obvious yet disturbing examples to support my point, but I can certainly provide you examples to prove that the situation is changing.

Step out of your front door and you will hear at least 3 different languages than your own. Your neighbor might be an orthodox veggie Gujju girl having a Punjabi boyfriend. The family next door is more likely to a Tam Brahm boy married to a Muslim girl than your normal ‘same caste, same religion, product of arranged marriage’ couple. What do you find in common in all of them? They have fights every single day, throw curses at each and reach for their partners throats with every intention to kill. But then again, look closer. You also find love, respect and adoration. You will find that they love each other for the person they are. After a big fight at night, they still wake up the next morning finding each other attractive. The boy finds the girl so peaceful and innocent in her sleep that he is teleported back to that very moment when he actually fell for her. The girl realizes that it was he and no one else, who stood by her when the entire world was scorning at her. That’s enough to get things back to normal. Of course, I needn’t mention that absolutism is just a myth that exists in an Utopian society. There is also a chance that you might actually wake up one day to find that the Punjabi guy murdered the Gujju girl because he was sick and tired of her orthodox ways and her paneer curries (there is always a possibility you know).

Now look at the other scenario. You find yourself to be the neighbor of the typical arranged marriage family. Highly unlikely to hear any fights. Equally unlikely to hear a hearty laughter as well. No loud music, no passionate voices. All in all, ‘a well behaved’, nonexistent neighbor. When they make their ‘blue moon’ appearance, you are not likely to throw a second ‘curious’ glance at them. The wife is a silent shadow, who does her husband’s bidding to the last syllable and unsurprisingly the husband is your normal chauvinistic moron who has an aura of pride and superiority (for his own personal reasons). The reverse is also quite possible these days, with the kind of ‘women empowerment’ that is going on. Pretensions become the order of the day, simply because they don’t know what his/her partner wants. They are totally confused about each other’s expectations. And by the time they figure some of them out, they already have a couple of kids and they have to think about their future. Where did they live their lives here? In fact most of the arranged marriages survive due to this confusion which is later followed by the resignation to one’s fate. Life is a vicious maze of exceptions and expectations my friends. Though I have travelled through a road and have showed you many sceneries along the way, this is not the only way you have. 

The onus lies on you to find your road. The one which you will take for your journey forward. If all that you find is a dusty path to start with, don’t be upset. Just realize that there are many who have started from dead ends and had to build a road out of nowhere, and still others who started perfectly with no bumps at all on the way and fell into a ditch, or (God save their souls) fell off a cliff. But at the end of the day you are never on the losing side. Why? I shall leave that to your (perverted) imagination.

Passionate and Inspired

Anger, love, jealously, ecstasy, revenge, happiness, sadness, determination, arrogance, confidence, overconfidence, respect, adoration... the list is endless. I can go on like this. It is really difficult to capture the full range of emotions that runs through your mind. I mean, just take your normal day. You go out on a walk not thinking anything in particular. But as you walk, you start thinking 'stuff' up. A sea of emotions starts coming into your subconscious. Sometimes triggered by the things that you see around you, sometimes by the things that has been bothering you for quite a while or sometimes by things you dont have control over. Or maybe not even any of these. Just an idea that has captured your imagination to the extend of obsession/ to the extend of madness. It starts growing like a virus in your mind that it consumes all your space. You start shrinking in the very presence of the idea. The idea becomes you...you become the idea. It starts consuming your time with futile thoughts, various 'ifs' and 'buts' start to grow out of nowhere. You start seeing endless possibilities and risks in that one idea. Then suddenly with one snap of your fingers you return to reality. I wouldn't mind if the reader thinks (at this point of time) that I am slowly loosing my mind.

 But tell me you have never dwelt on the immense possibilities of a stupid idea that suddenly emerged out of nowhere and fantasized on 'how nice if it were real!!!' Let's take it one step further... what if a remote possibility exists that the idea (let's use 'thought' from now) could actually become reality one day, if all the variables in the equation are taken care of? There my friends is where passion comes from. But sadly, passion can only take you as far as how passionate you actually are about the thought. Absolutism is always and on any day better than feelings stained with dyes of other feelings. Absolute love not stained by judgement, absolute hatred not stained by sympathy and the absolute feeling of revenge not stained by the feeling of weakness. All these are powerful forces which can drive a reasonable guy away from his reason. It can lead a person to make the most shocking of choices if ever presented before him/her. But for the 'protagonist' there is always a reason behind his choice and that for him/her always makes sense. This reason is what we call inspiration.

You draw inspiration from various 'events' around you. It can be an act of love, an act of kindness, an act of cruelty, a feeling of sympathy. The stronger the source of your inspiration the stronger you feel to work towards your goal. If your passion and inspiration are complementary, there is no force on this earth that can stop that idea from becoming true (as long as you are true to yourself). If you are really passionate about something, my friends, you will find the source of your inspiration in the journey of life. Since life always has its way of surprising us at every corner, you are most likely to find your inspiration from the most unexpected place, people or whatever 'variables'.

I stop this nonsensical babbling with another thought, and a warning. What if your ultimate source of inspiration is a woman and her life? And... by living your passion you take one step closer to realizing her?

Warning: (In this particular case) Don't count your chickens before they hatch. 

Uncomfortably Numb

The 'problem' with travelling so often is that it soon grows on you. It grows on you so much that the thought of a desk job, or getting stuck in a single location is enough to start a headache and send your head spinning. The 'problem' with travelling particularly to mountains is that they keep calling you back.By 'call' I mean the voice of a canary, the voice of a girl with the most beautiful face whom you wished a coffee with, an authoritative coach, the voice of your friend you hear after you have downed 4 ales, that whatever be the conversation he cannot be wrong at that time (even if he had banged your girlfriend in the past). In short... persuasive (should have saved you the trouble in the beginning). The idea of living out of a back pack, waking up to the chirping of birds, the cool mountain breeze on your face and the roaring of the wild river in the background is exhilarating. The fact that not a month back I had the perfect days of my life, only makes the sting more potent. I mean, it is not everyday that a southie like me gets a chance to wake up in the Himalayan valley and take a dump on the river side with the ice cold mountain wind blow right up your arse (you get the picture). But that's not what makes it exhilarating (although the thought is scary 'coz shitting was not easy back then). Imagine waking up in a tent with the only constant clue of civilization being the car you travel in and the curt smile of your host standing with a cup of tea, welcoming you to the beginning of the new day.

Himalayas... If you listen carefully, the mountain winds will tell you stories of the old. Stories of courage and sacrifice and hardships and love. The flowing river... the only life line for the people living there. For us as well, in those days. Nature shows you, who you really are. How insignificant you are in this whole design. One higher wind gradient could have triggered a landslide, a little higher temperature could have melted the glacial rivers and flooded the roads earlier than expected. Every moment of our life... nature's charity. She was at her arrogant best. I was nothing. I am nothing. The moment you realize this, you realize there is a lot of room for improvement. Improvement in the way you live your life, the way you treat others. Experiences are there to be seen and lessons there to be learned in every breath you take in the company of nature. You start valuing life. That's when you realize you need a reason to do, whatever it is that you wish to do. Money though a necessity seems insignificant enough, to search for another reason to continue doing the work we do.

 I was happy back then. I felt secure in the remotest part of my country, despite the fact that, that week Andhra Pradesh was burning due to Telangana, Delhi was on high alert due to terror threats and I looked nothing short of a terrorist with my long beard and locks. In fact, I felt nothing could go wrong as long as I was on the road. Half broke, fighting for every breath I took, trying hard to stay awake due to fatigue, yet... nothing could go wrong... nothing did. It was perfect. Perfection that I cannot draw any parallels with. That sense of complete happiness which has come so often in my yesteryears but seldom come nowadays, not more than a teaser even if they do. I am blank now. A kind of numbness. Incompetence to think intelligently. Like the pool of thought is draining slowly away from my mind. Nothing that I am doing right now makes sense. Waking up, dressing up in 'business formals', clocking hours of doing nothing in office. I am not sure if it is because of the emptiness that filled me after the trip. I would like to think not. It is deeper than that. I do understand that absolute happiness for the entire lifetime is a myth. But whenever things get out of hand I know the mountains and the rivers and the forests will be there to cool my mind and guide me to peace.

But inner peace...that is something that I would have to find myself.

The Trip That Was-Part 1

Probably it is too late to write about something that happened a year ago. But that is what memories are for. To be recollected down the lane, to make us smile when we are sad, to give us inspiration when we need the most and most important, to make us feel good about ourselves.

As I sat chatting with my friend about the year that passed, my mind was carried away to that scorching summer of '10, when three guys packed their bags and left the comfort of their homes, to witness one of the largest human gatherings that has ever happened in the past, nor might never happen in the future. Nothing did they have other than tickets to reach their rendezvous point and the tickets back home from the rendezvous point. For a brief period of time, they were joined by another rogue, who risked his neck, by travelling ticketless overnight because of another rogue in the pack, who had booked tickets for him, but it was for the wrong day. The latter was me :)

This post is not about taking the reader through a detail of the trip as it would be impossible and absolutely humiliating to my ego. This is about a few re-affirmations made during the duration and also a realization that human limits is where we define them to be.

Seldom do we feel that nothing can go wrong, everything is perfect and "I have the whole world at my feet". Seldom do we have a spring in our step and seldom are we not burdened by the umpteen thoughts that keep running in our mind like express trains and we standing right in front of it. How ironic when you realize that the cities were alien, notorious for fraudsters, the cash factor was thin and we had not a familiar soul around us. Ironic also because all the 'rogues', including the 'part-time' one, had their lives pretty screwed up at that time, either in the personal front,professional front, or... it was just screwed.

In the end, it was 10 days of pure ecstasy, a test of endurance, a fight against the harsh forces of nature and a fight against the inner urge to succumb to the comfort loving 'civilized' 'city'zens whom we had left behind along with the shiny shoes and ties and computers. Did I find my true self during those days? I definitely hope not...because no matter how much kick ass those days were, I love my parents. But, God I wish to have another of those kick ass holidays!!!

What makes the Beautiful Game so Beautiful

What is it that makes football so special? Being an ardent fan, I have pondered over this like a zillion times, but in vein. A bladder with air covered in animal skin. That’s all that is. But it has millions of followers all over, maybe even more than most of the religions. But what is it that makes football so special? Why are people so passionate, so fanatical about this game? What makes football the most popular game on Earth? I have no answer for this.

The pure ecstasy that fills you when you play the game can only be felt and not described. You have to live it to understand it. The feeling is nothing less than flying a jet, or having an orgasm. Every time, the game entices me in a way least expected. The feeling of absolute freedom, as if you have nothing to lose sets in as soon as you take to the field. But, if it’s a game that matters then the scene changes. Winning at any cost. Spill your blood, break your bones, I don’t care. Push your limits. No game challenges you so much, to push yourself. No other game makes you realize your limits and urges you to break them at the same time. No other game can make you feel wise and stupid at the same time. The pride you feel when you succeed, the sadness that engulfs you when you lose, the anger that encompasses the mind when things go bad, the guilt you feel for a mistake made, the disappointment you endure for letting your team down are all absolute. Nothing else lingers in these feelings.

The game grows in you like the taste of beer. But once you are ‘addicted’ to it, there is no getting out. No matter how hard you try. I tried hanging up my boots a year ago. But even after a relatively long gap of 8 months when I took to the field, I found myself playing with the same intensity and craziness as I used to. Nothing changes. Your body may grow old, your outlook might change, you may grow as a person, but whatever it might be, once you are on the field, you true self presents itself without any curtains.

Saying so much about the game has left me wanting to play the game. I am off to where I belong. Only if I could do this for every single day of life, until I die.