All's not lost yet....

I once read an article by Subroto Bagchi in the Times of India, and it has been up in my room ever since. It provided a very reliable, though not very easy, solution to one of life's biggest problems. I quote
"We live in difficult times. As people born of tradition, we are more comfortable when there is always someone to show us the path. It deflects our burden of responsibilty to make our decisions. Whatever the reason, we learn to look up to people. Sometimes some of them fail, but we have learnt to take it in our stride. What makes ours a particularly difficult time is that we are seeing so many of them fail at the same time. Some of us feel devastated. Some take it as the signal and the justification to match the conduct or the failing; "If the whole world is this way, why not I?" Sometimes, however, we are fortunate enough to be able to make sense of what's going on to make our own choices. Each of us is an independent, intelligent individual. What the environment around us does is mostly beyond our control. What we decide to deduce and work upon is a function of the choices that we make.
In these turbulent times, when role models fail, we have to make our own choices. When, we do that, we realise that sometimes it is not as hard as it seems to be..."

I was a starry eyed youngster when I came to college. I genuinely wanted to join politics, clean up our bureaucracy, change the world, make a difference and what not. Somewhere on the way, I got lost. From being an ambitious idealist, I started trudging on the road to cynicism. I saw a role model drown in a sea of alcohol and indifference. I saw control of something I considered as hallowed being given to an incredibly incompetent wannabe. I had to work with an over verbose, good for nothing loser whose speciality was shoving his work on others. I saw teachers who didn't want to take classes because the weather was so good. I saw friends who refused to acknowledge my work just because it was 'lit oriented' and unfortunately the college I was studying in was called Manipal Institute of Technology rather than Manipal Institute of Communication. I'm about to be forced to bring about an offical college newsletter called DAMMIT. I have lost count of how many times I've cried in the last two months. There was so much unprofessionalism around, so much stupidity, and so few people seemed to know that everything that was happening was so wrong. Unfortunately, none of us were in a position where we could change that. And then somewhere, I stopped caring. Everything seeemed impossible. I said, "I think we need to become more practical". That day, my best friend told me, "When you said that, a part of you died inside you forever." It tore me apart but I knew it was true. Stuck in a sea of megalomaniacs, egotists and people filled with severe inferiority complexes, and another set of people pandering to their egos, I was literally in the 'I' of the storm. everything was like, "because I don't like it." "because I'm not free today." "because I want it done this way." "because I'm watching a movie and will do it later." I thought maybe I was finally seeing the real world where this level of unprofessionalism was the way of life. Maybe my ideal world had been a utopia all along. Maybe not everyone did a job for the sheer pleasure of doing it, but for getting somewhere or the other.

And then I came across the new issue of Outlook- 12 reasons to celebrate, examples of excellence in unlikely places. Instinctively, I picked it up, as though this was exactly what I needed.
I found my answers in an LLB who is the Sarpanch of gopalpura village in rajasthan, Savita Rathi. she must have fought against every opposition against change, aginst the deep rooted prejudice about a woman giving orders to a bunch of patriarchal, hookah smoking, old men. She must've fought against all the bureucratic hurdles to get grants, she must gone door to door to get donations, for building all the civic facilities. But at the end of it, today, gopalpura is one india's most successful panchayats.
I found a mid day meal scheme for over 1 lakh kids below class V in hyderabad and secunderabad. I found the girls of Loreto Sealdah teaching underprivileged kids from the nearby slums and villages. I found world class doctors dedicating their lives to the cause of saving over 200 lives everyday in the government hospital at Nanded, maharashtra.

You know what, if I try hard enough, maybe I'll still make it. Maybe this struggle is a necessary gauntlet. Maybe this is the test of fire to make fine steel. Maybe it won't be that difficult in the end. Considering what the above people have accomplished and sacrificed, my problems seem so much smaller.

'LET IT BE' by the Beatles plays on repeat yet again as I write this. I'm finally seeing light at the end of this dark dark tunnel. I'll find a way out. I surely will.

Memories

have you ever passed a street where you lived as a child... and caught a waft of something that definitely smelled familiar. be it the delicious aroma of the roadside pani puri stall, or the car mechanic's shop round the corner which, like always, smells of grease, or the fragrance of agarbattis from the shop owned by that extra religious uncle, now old and grey... or a mixture of all of these, and many more... fragrances (or even stenches from the nearby dumpyard, that was almost never cleaned) that somehow evoked childhood memories so old that you yourself don't have time to reminisce about them...

have you ever visited the place where you studied years and years ago, when you were still an eager little child, bright eyed about "going to school every morning"... walked down the corridors where you played i-spy ( which we all called ice-pice for some reason) with your friends, seen the old gong with which the peon used to announce "chhutti" everyday, and had been replaced by an electric bell long ago... gone to the classrooms where you carved your names on tables and played baseball with charts and a duster... sat on the same benches where you laboured through hours of extremely boring 'moral science' lessons. (ummm... i was always a bigtime nerd, i found every other subject interesting.)

have you been dragged by your parents to visit a godforsaken village to meet some distant relative, in a rickety bus which takes more than 4 hours to cover something like 100 kms... have you grumbled all the way about how the ride was extremely bumpy, how it was awfully hot inside that village bus ( express buses do not ply on such obscure routes), and how the smoke from beedis bothers you a lot. but on reaching that relative's home, you realized that it was all worth it... to see that glitter in your father's eyes as he describes how he played in those fields of corn, how all of them used to bathe at the well which is now dry because of years of drought, how they used to walk five kilometers on a dirt road everyday to reach the only middle school in twelve villages... to try and grasp what your father is saying to his grand aunt in hadoti , the local dialect, a language left far behind in the past, as you moved to hindi, english, and even french, but never cared enough to learn your 'original' mother tongue...

that is what memories do to you... they come flooding back at the tiniest, most insignificant trigger, and leave you overwhelmed with emotion, nostalgia, and fondness... they make you want to reconnect with your past, to open an old family album and refresh the images which have been blurred by the burdens of time, to smile again at the picture of a one year old you taking your first, unsure, unsteady steps, a picture of your father recieving his graduation degree (in his bell bottomed trousers), look at all the cousins whose weddings you weren't able to attend since you shifted abroad, miss your grandmother, even though you have no recollections of her because you were so little when she passed away... struggle to remember the name of the spectacled girl whose pigtails you were caught pulling... they make you feel guilty for not keeping in touch with old friends, who then slowly faded into oblivion... they make you resolve to visit your ancenstral home the next time you visit india... they make you shed soft tears which speak of so many feelings... they make you want to go back in time and relive all those moments again... jagjit singh was right, "magar mujhko lauta do bachpan ke woh din, woh kagaz ki kashti, woh baarish ka paani"...

the age of innocence...

Today, while having lunch with my friends, we somehow came to the topic of childhood. Reminiscing about our own childhood, we realized how different life was for our parents, and how different it will be for the next generation....

Just imagine, how much has India changed in the last 15 years. We were the first generation to taste the fruits of Liberalisation. we saw the first shopping malls being set up, we saw the telecom revolution, we saw computers becoming household items, we saw Santro and Indica replacing the Premier Padmini and Maruti 800, we saw the first Pizza Huts and Mc Donalds...

But, still, our early childhood was quite insulated from consumerism. Growing up in a mumbai suburb, i can not remember when branded clothes or expensive watches were a matter of honour among us. We didn't spend hours gelling our hair in the right shape, we didn't use tweleve kinds of moisturising lotions and revitalising bath salts, we were too busy playing gully cricket to notice that one of us din't have a doll house full of barbies or the newest Hot Wheels....

I find it very weird when i see little kids cussing as though it is cool, wearing nothing but branded stuff. I feel bad when i see them playing football with the remote control of a PS 2 instead of their feet. I remember, in Muscat, there were hardly any ten year olds who didn't have glasses. Because most mothers these days work, children are left with illiterate 'ayahs' who prefer letting the chota baba play on the computer than have him bothering her. On top of this, because of being the only child, parents usually give in to all his demands to make up for their guilt of not spending enough time with them. Rapid real estate development has resulted in playgrounds being converted to saleable land. And with the increased threats of acidents on the busy roads, kids are forced to play inside the houses. As a result, kids find it easier to make friends on Orkut than face to face.

Some days ago, i had to buy a birthday gift for a cousin who was turning five. my mother and i got so confused, it was impossible to decide what he would appreciate...
"let us get him a remote control car"
"no he already got one of those from his uncle in the USA."
"then let us getting him a picture book"
"haha, picture book, very funny, haha"

After hours of discussions, we bought him a battery operated model of Pluto, the doggie. Like everyone else, i just wanted him to like it. After the party was over, i'd stayed back for cleaning up with my aunt, as my uncle dropped the kids to their places. When we came to my cousin's room, what we saw had us amazed... he was playing with an empty box, turning it on all the sides, trying to fit the flaps in, with a look of deep amusement ... We looked at each other, smiled, and let him continue his exploration. "Thankfully," i sighed, "kids will be kids."

it's raining in manipal

a very close friend of mine asked me something yesterday, "have you ever seen the rain?" and i thought, "have i?"

yes, i've seen the rain. i've seen clouds open up on a daily basis in bombay. i've seen valleys going green from brown. i've seen new waterfalls form in the mountains of the western ghats. i've seen the lightening display its wild untamed energy. i've seen nature showcase her mastery with colours in the rainbow. i've seen floods in the heartland of a state said to be a desert, yeah, kota... i've seen rains which we were sure were the beginning of the Mahapralaya. i've seen the water droplets slowly touch the parched lips of the earth in muscat, where it almost never rains....

and then i realized, maybe i had done more than just see it.......

i've smelt the rain.... the lovely whiff which rises when the soil gets wet for the first time. the one fragrance which cannot be replicated in any way. it smells of motherly affection, it smells of love, it smells of freshness... it smells of all the new flowers and leaves that grow in the season. it smells of delicious kachoris being fried in hot oil ...

and, yes, i've tasted the rain... the strangely sweet feeling in your mouth when you are singing in the park... the delicious pakoras with family in the balcony while it pours outside... curling up with a cushion and a cup of hot coffee by a french window, thinking of anything, or nothing...

and also, i've heard the rain... the gentle pitter patter of of the raindrops on the road, the rustling of the trees in the wind... the lub dup of the heartbeat on seeing that special someone walk across the road with an umbrella. the fright from a thunderbolt and the following exhileration at being alive.... the sound the stereo playing ab ke saawan in the background...

hmmm.... come to think of it... i've also touched the rain. the raindrops sliding down my skin, the wet clothes clinging to me... the wind making me shiver to the core, blowing my hair.... the puddles which put cycling on the roads of bombay next to a tour de france...

i've touched, tasted, smelt, touched, and seen the rain.... but what is more... i've felt the rain. with feelings transceding the senses, i've been transported to a new world by the rains. i've dreamt and fantasised about the rain.... i've grown up loving the rain...