They say, "history is the best teacher". I assume they mean teaching you to be prepared and face the future. Is past really relevant for future - then be it for an individual, a country or a civilization.
There is a lot that has happened in the past that we know today and there is a lot more that is going to happen in future that we do not know today -- so am I expected to anticipate my future based on my past. How sensible is that?
As an individual, my past was childhood and youth and my future is my adulthood and old age -- I cant take decisions or plan for my adulthood & old age based on my experiences in childhood.
As a nation India had a strange past of being economically very rich at one point of time and then eventually brought down to nothing by various invasions recorded in the history -- but does that mean, we are going to remain like that or we should plan our growth based on that? I heard a gentleman say in a TV show that India had no identity before 1947 so the history before that does not impact India's growth for future. I dont agree that India did not have an identity before 47 but I do agree that history may not necessarily drive our future.
I do not know why but there is a piece of my brain that is not supporting this fact of past being relevant for future but my heart says, it does. Had Prithvi Raj Chauhan learnt from even one of his 16 past incidents, he would have never lost to Mohammad Ghori. Had India evaluated their security based on the past, 26/11 could have been dealt better.
But then I have big question. What is the need to be prepared for future? My past is my memory. Present -- I donot even get to realize when it became my past. Let my future remain a mystery to me. I dont want to get prepared. Coming to world was a surprise to me and many others. My end shall repeat the gesture. I will not let my past decide my future.
I am waiting with my arms open for it to come to me and hug me with its mystery and unknown. No turning back from here on.
Sunday, March 28, 2010
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Is beginning the end?
"I have been blessed with a son, I wish he lives for 100 years". "I have constructed a house, I wish my next 2 generations can live in it". "I have bought a car, I wish it runs fine for atleast 5 years." Not so uncommon statements that we often come across.
Why is it that we start deciding on the length of life of anything that we just start with? So human to quantify the existence of anything around them. They say nothing but the soul is permanent -- though I must accept that the debate on soul is also on.
I am curious to know if it is only humans or even other species like animals, plants, mammals -- the ones we know have life -- have the concept and understanding of life and death? I know they can see or feel a new member in their clan and they can sense the missing one as well -- but do they ever think what happened to the missing one? Why is he suddenly missing? Do they know the concept of END OF LIFE?
This brings in another thought to my mind. Humans celebrate the birthdays with great pomp and show -- well do we celebrate our moving close to the end or moving away from the beginning? I fail to understand why are we so happy about it in either of the case? Or is it that we just try to hide the fact for a while and we make a fuss of all this just to ensure that we overlook the worry associated with it.
We humans think ourselves to be the smartest -- why not, we dont have anyone to challenge it as yet? Or are we the biggest fools and pretend to be what are not -- why not, we just dont want to accept any challenge.
End or death is the biggest fear we humans have. We are so keen on living that we try our best to procrastinate thinking about the only truth in life to the maximum possible time we can. And during all this time we want to celebrate the fact that we are still there.
But we are obsessed with this fear. It is this fear that compels us to think of the end in the beginning itself. We start planning the end in the beginning.
I am one of you. I too am scared of the end. I am not pessimist and neither am I hopeless but I want to overcome this obsession of living. I dont want to keep myself away from the truth -- my birth is history, my end is my future. Let me plan it the best way I can --- " Aakhri hichki tere zanon pe aaye, maut bhi mai shayarana chahata hoon"
Why is it that we start deciding on the length of life of anything that we just start with? So human to quantify the existence of anything around them. They say nothing but the soul is permanent -- though I must accept that the debate on soul is also on.
I am curious to know if it is only humans or even other species like animals, plants, mammals -- the ones we know have life -- have the concept and understanding of life and death? I know they can see or feel a new member in their clan and they can sense the missing one as well -- but do they ever think what happened to the missing one? Why is he suddenly missing? Do they know the concept of END OF LIFE?
This brings in another thought to my mind. Humans celebrate the birthdays with great pomp and show -- well do we celebrate our moving close to the end or moving away from the beginning? I fail to understand why are we so happy about it in either of the case? Or is it that we just try to hide the fact for a while and we make a fuss of all this just to ensure that we overlook the worry associated with it.
We humans think ourselves to be the smartest -- why not, we dont have anyone to challenge it as yet? Or are we the biggest fools and pretend to be what are not -- why not, we just dont want to accept any challenge.
End or death is the biggest fear we humans have. We are so keen on living that we try our best to procrastinate thinking about the only truth in life to the maximum possible time we can. And during all this time we want to celebrate the fact that we are still there.
But we are obsessed with this fear. It is this fear that compels us to think of the end in the beginning itself. We start planning the end in the beginning.
I am one of you. I too am scared of the end. I am not pessimist and neither am I hopeless but I want to overcome this obsession of living. I dont want to keep myself away from the truth -- my birth is history, my end is my future. Let me plan it the best way I can --- " Aakhri hichki tere zanon pe aaye, maut bhi mai shayarana chahata hoon"
Sunday, March 7, 2010
Professionized
"I don't know why but I have been facing this strange problem for the last 3-4 months. Ever since I moved into this validation project, trust me, my life has changed drastically. I have suddenly got into a mode of evaluating everything around me to right or wrong -- it is not just limited to my food, my clothes but even my relationship with the ones closest to me. I even dream validation. Please help me. I want to get out of this validation mode." This is what one of my teammates told me during his appraisal discussion.
Believe it or not, for a moment, I did not know what to reply and help him out of this. I think I tried to justify his situation and advised him something.
This incident shook me a bit. Not because my team member is undergoing this trauma, but I have observed this situation to be too common these days.
Why is it that someone in the banking industry always want to talk something about investment or your money? Why is it that a teacher always wants to talk about the career of any child he sees around? Why is it that a doctor always wants to identify some problem with the person he is interacting with? Why is that any man cannot leave his profession away from his normal life? Why?
We all see this happening all around. We may ourselves be a victim of this. But then have we ever given a thought to this?
I remember probing my friend Venks too often in Boston about his professional life. Not that he was not dedicated to his job or was not serious about it, but he was never obsessed by it. Almost half of his time in office used to go playing ping pong and defeating his colleagues from China and Russia. I know he always had that special feeling whenever he defeated them. And when I used to ask him, " Dude, do u ever work?". I always got a simple and short response, "I do." We often had a chat on difference in being dedicated or committed to your profession and being obsessed with your profession. The latter seems to be a serious disease.
Your profession is just a small part of your highly complex life and trust me it is not worth to overshadow life because of this. Profession is there to be just one of the various means to provide you stability in this world -- one of the various means -- then why so much fuss about it.
I don't know who to blame. Is it the competition out there, or is it sheer immaturity or ignorance? But I do know that the repercussion of this action in ones life of being so obsessed with the professional life is not going to do any good to anyone. Learn to draw a line. I know its easy said than done. But you have to do it. This world goes on without any mercy. The earlier you understand, the better for you. It is important for each one of us to revisit our life and ask ourselves, "Have I been professionized?" And if unfortunately you hear in affirmative, things should change.
Believe it or not, for a moment, I did not know what to reply and help him out of this. I think I tried to justify his situation and advised him something.
This incident shook me a bit. Not because my team member is undergoing this trauma, but I have observed this situation to be too common these days.
Why is it that someone in the banking industry always want to talk something about investment or your money? Why is it that a teacher always wants to talk about the career of any child he sees around? Why is it that a doctor always wants to identify some problem with the person he is interacting with? Why is that any man cannot leave his profession away from his normal life? Why?
We all see this happening all around. We may ourselves be a victim of this. But then have we ever given a thought to this?
I remember probing my friend Venks too often in Boston about his professional life. Not that he was not dedicated to his job or was not serious about it, but he was never obsessed by it. Almost half of his time in office used to go playing ping pong and defeating his colleagues from China and Russia. I know he always had that special feeling whenever he defeated them. And when I used to ask him, " Dude, do u ever work?". I always got a simple and short response, "I do." We often had a chat on difference in being dedicated or committed to your profession and being obsessed with your profession. The latter seems to be a serious disease.
Your profession is just a small part of your highly complex life and trust me it is not worth to overshadow life because of this. Profession is there to be just one of the various means to provide you stability in this world -- one of the various means -- then why so much fuss about it.
I don't know who to blame. Is it the competition out there, or is it sheer immaturity or ignorance? But I do know that the repercussion of this action in ones life of being so obsessed with the professional life is not going to do any good to anyone. Learn to draw a line. I know its easy said than done. But you have to do it. This world goes on without any mercy. The earlier you understand, the better for you. It is important for each one of us to revisit our life and ask ourselves, "Have I been professionized?" And if unfortunately you hear in affirmative, things should change.
Sunday, February 28, 2010
A day by myself
Lonliness is a strange thing. You never get to know if it is causing a good or a bad impact on you. But trust me at times its just a strange impact and its really difficult to analyze the good or bad in it -- so u better enjoy it.
And here I am -- a 29 year old spoiled brat trying to understand what next. Suddenly I feel away from those friends who once made me forget literally everything. Well, I dont know what to say - I am not sad. But I am just a little too lonely -- something that I am really scared of. But to my surprise today I fought it well. Yes I did. Indeed. I had the day to myself. Had some breakfast that I love but I rarely make an attempt to make for myself. Downloaded & listened to some really wonderful ghazals and sufi songs. Had a delicious lunch (again self cooked) and rarely done afternoon nap.
Chatted with someone in the evening who I was actually missing with sun going down. I also supported and cheered for my country in the World cup hockey opening match against Pakistan. I know we are all brethren. But when it comes to India Vs Pak in any form of life, trust me we are the typical indians. We won the game today.
Pretty soon the darkenss around me will compel me to call it a day -- i think yes. It was a day. All to myself. No worries, no questions/no answers.
At the end of all this, like i said before, I donot know if it was a good day or bad for me being away from the ones I love the most. It was a strange day for me. Something I dont really expect to come too often.
I love the ones I love. I will prefer to be with them than in such a strange day. I miss you.
This is the time when every indian in INDIA atleast is celebrating one of our biggest festivals, HOLI -- a festival of community, a festival of coming together, a festival of spreading love and care for all around you. We celebrate this with a strange attire. We apply colored mud on the faces of the ones we love, we drench them up in colored water and yes that is how we express our joy. Not to forget we do eat a lot of sweets in this condition only -- we dont take pains to clean our selves :).
While a kid, I still remember the extent to which I and my friends used to go crazy and just throw anything and everything (mud & water in all forms) on people all around. It used to be fun.And here I am -- a 29 year old spoiled brat trying to understand what next. Suddenly I feel away from those friends who once made me forget literally everything. Well, I dont know what to say - I am not sad. But I am just a little too lonely -- something that I am really scared of. But to my surprise today I fought it well. Yes I did. Indeed. I had the day to myself. Had some breakfast that I love but I rarely make an attempt to make for myself. Downloaded & listened to some really wonderful ghazals and sufi songs. Had a delicious lunch (again self cooked) and rarely done afternoon nap.
Chatted with someone in the evening who I was actually missing with sun going down. I also supported and cheered for my country in the World cup hockey opening match against Pakistan. I know we are all brethren. But when it comes to India Vs Pak in any form of life, trust me we are the typical indians. We won the game today.
Pretty soon the darkenss around me will compel me to call it a day -- i think yes. It was a day. All to myself. No worries, no questions/no answers.
At the end of all this, like i said before, I donot know if it was a good day or bad for me being away from the ones I love the most. It was a strange day for me. Something I dont really expect to come too often.
I love the ones I love. I will prefer to be with them than in such a strange day. I miss you.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)