When I met The Missile Man.

"Stop the car, there it is!"- I shouted. "Are you sure ?", asked others. "I know that is the one", I replied. Even our driver who was a local guy didn't knew about it, but I did!

A trip was planned to South India. Itinerary included Rameshwaram, Madurai, Kanyakumari and Thiruananthampuram. I planned to buy a book to read during the journey and hence bought 'Wings Of Fire'- autobiography of our late President Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam. We started our journey from Delhi. After landing at Trivandrum(now Thiruananthampuram) airport, we halted at a guest house for the night. The journey to Rameshwaram began early morning the next day.

It was only then that I realized that our loving president now rests in peace at a place close to Rameshwaram. So I asked our driver to stop there as well. As I was reading his autobiography the curiosity to meet him, albeit after his death was increasing. His journey from a place like Rameshwaram, his downtrodden condition in childhood, developing SLV-3(Satellite Launch Vehicle) and AGNI missile and many other such feats are truly an inspiration. When we were about to reach his burial place,I realized, even the driver wasn't sure of the exact burial site, as he was enquiring from people around. We crossed the picturesque Pamban Bridge. I knew we were close. I was finally going to meet him. The driver increased the speed to reach fast only to overshoot the distance."Stop the car, there it is!"- I shouted. "Are you sure ?", asked others. "I know that is the one", I replied. (I had seen the broadcast of his funeral on a news channel which was exactly two months prior to my visit.)

And he was there, right in front of my eyes. The man who helped India in becoming a Superpower, the one who gave us indigenous technologies now rests in peace very close to a sea in serenity!

                                                                                 

In the soft sands,

on the coastline,

with the National Flag fluttering,

and the sea breeze blowing,

is now Mr. Kalam resting!

What an honour it is to have the National Flag besides your grave! If only one tenth of our population can become one tenth as good a person and a patriot as he was, what cannot be achieved? He taught us how things can be done even when failures happen and how things are handled at the helm of affairs. Bharat Ratna, Padma Bhushan, Padma Vibhushan, Indira Gandhi Award for National Integration, Hoover Medal, Veer Savarkar Award, Ramanujan Award are only a few accolades that vindicate it. 

I couldn't meet him when he was alive but I think it doesn't matter because he is still not dead. His spirit is alive and we have to make sure that we preserve his ideology. If only that can be done, he will live forever in our hearts! No doubt why he was called 'People's President'. A non-political person rarely reaches to that level but such a personality was our 'Missile Man' and the 'Most Loved President'- Dr. Avul Pakir Jainulabdeen Abdul Kalam!

It was a coincidence that I was reading his autobiography when we met. I hadn't planned it. I think I may be the first person to do that and I don't know why but I take pride in it. Things are not always according to our will but we should make sure that we are quick to adjust. On this note I'll conclude with lines(he didn't write these lines but quoted them) I liked in his autobiography:

God has not promised

Skies always blue,

Flower-strewn pathways

All our life through;

God has not promised

Sun without rain,

Joy without sorrow,

Peace without pain.

I hope I'll not be charged with plagiarism for copying it!

Choosing the launch pad

How many times do we think about our past? How many times we feel that things could have been so much better? How many times we regret our decisions?

To be honest at least once in a fortnight these thoughts do come up! “Had I [not] done that I wouldn't/would have been this/that”- the thought that haunts us. The regrets of life are not easy to handle. They make us weak and at times can turn into depression. Why do we regret? Why we keep pondering over things which we don't have? Why didn't we choose what we actually wanted to do in the first place? 

According to me the answer lies somewhere in peer pressure and conforming to the situation without a rationale behind it. We often take decisions based on the accepted norms of the society rather that following our own desires. So someone who wanted to become a swimmer ends up becoming an engineer and has no explanation as to why he took that decision. The society has a major role to play. We all want to look good in the eyes of society even if that means squandering our dreams! Why is that we all are in a hurry? Why can't we wait more? Why can't we strive to do whatever we want to do? Why can't we choose the correct launch pad that has the ability to catapult in the direction that we want?

If we have been offered only one life then is it not our duty to make most out of it? Trust me a separate launch pad has been specially designed for all of us. All we have to do is to patiently search for it. The positive aspect is that you only have to struggle in finding it. Once it has been found then there is no one who can stop you from reaching the heights you continuously dream about. Once it is under your control then you can achieve your dream by only pushing the button. The irony is that most of us don't even start to look for it. Some of us give up our search when encountered upon with some minor impediments. If your dreams are big, your struggle and sacrifices have to be bigger!

Most of us want to have the launch pad of somebody else, not realizing the differences between us and that person and end up crashing in the ocean. Still many of us who do try look for the correct one end up choosing the wrong one. These ones don't crash but they take you to Mars against your intention of going to Jupiter. In either case you don't fully exercise your potential and don't succeed!

What should be done in such a case? Well I am not an adept in this subject. I am also still looking for my own launch pad. What I know is that there is no one stopping in starting your search all over again even if you've failed quite a few times. No matter how many launch pads you destroy but don't hesitate in trying the new ones till you are placed in the apt orbit of your life. There is no point in doing what the world is doing because simply the world is already doing it, so do something what the world is not doing.

"Either achieve it or die in the process of achieving it but don't give up your dream."

Uncertainties in life!

The most amazing part of one's life is that one never knows what next life will throw at you. You decide to do one thing and then some things are decided by some other force. The tragedy is, most often the wish of that force succumbs your own wish. Another thing that one can never figure out is how many forces are in cahoots with each other to make sure that your own wish doesn't prevail. Are there many such forces? Is it one?

Theists out of no other choice, term it 'the will of God'. Is it really God? If yes, then why would he rule against my wish? Wouldn't it be nice of him to decide in my favour? At this juncture, an Optimist due to his virtue says 'Whatever happens happens for good'. Dear Optimist what if I deliberately wanted it to be bad? So the worse would it have been, the better would it have been. I generally stop here because now the rest of the world starts calling me a crank head. 

Is uncertainty a vital aspect of life? Let's analyse.

What would be the world like when we knew about everything that is going to happen next? At 3:58 pm there will be an earthquake, save yourself! At 6:06 am a bird will pee on you during your morning walk. On 23rd March, 2038 you'll be blessed with a daughter and you'll name her 'Selfiequeen'! If this were to happen, will the life remain amazing anymore?

Having said that, yes there are times when this uncertainty/the will of God really turns things upside down. You realize that hitherto you had everything till suddenly life took a turn for worse. You start criticizing everybody around. Nothing seems to come your way. The world suddenly gets shattered and there is no ray of hope. At this point I would say the approach of a Realist can do wonders. The first step is to make peace with the current situation. And then look for a window or a keyhole or an orifice which can at least help you in recognizing the direction of light. Then the hardest step is to actually traverse that path that leads towards light, trusting yourself. This is actually better than sitting in the dark and waiting for something to happen. Why would anything happen? Why would that force show mercy on you belying its own purpose of exasperating you? So isn't it better to accept the reality and just move on with the lesson of uncertainty learnt?

And there is a positive side of it too. Not always your will is actually as beneficial to you as the will of uncertainty. And not always does the will of uncertainty makes your life hell. Sometimes unexpected pleasant surprises are rendered to you for free. The only difference in our approach here is that we don't criticize them. We readily accept them as a result of our good deeds of past. After all we are greedy and selfish humans. 

The moral of the story is that we shouldn't be careless about things that are in our control and always expect the unexpected because things that are out of our control will keep playing their role. Sometimes surprising us and at times exasperating us!

The life is not only about achieving telos but it is rather a continuum right from choosing the ways and means to achieve telos to ultimately achieving it. So don't waste a single second in disappointment!

Striking out the right balance

"In India one lives simultaneously in the twelfth and the twenty first  century - as well as in all centuries in between."      -U. R. Ananthamurthy

The above line aptly explains the state of our nation.The oldest continuously inhabited civilization now is in a dilemma. It is facing difficulty in choosing whether to forgo the age old traditions which have made this country possible or to still stick with them. On one hand we have mastered the art of sending satellites into outer space, on the other we still fight in the name of religion and caste. On one hand we touch the feet of our elders to have their blessings , on the other we have now started asking them to take refuge at old age homes. We now have stopped going to Tantriks for medical treatment but our tubectomy camps are killing our women.Now we know how to protect ourselves from cyclones like 'Hudhud' but we still don't have strategy against communal genocide of 'Muzzafarnagar'. 

The first testament of mankind i.e. The Rig Veda, the first systematic procedure for giving a melody to a chanted verse i.e. The Sam Veda, the first civilization, Yoga, the Karma, the Dharma, four major religions of the world, the invention of 'zero', the romance of bollywood, the allure of Kamasutra and what not? We have pioneered a lot of things. It was against this backdrop that Mark Twain once said " India is the cradle of human race, the birthplace of human speech, the mother of history, grandmother of the legend and the grandmother of tradition. Our most valuable and most instructive materials in the history of man are treasured up in India only". 

So should the population of 121 crore forget its age old traditions and start doing whatever the West is doing? No. Rather this calls for bringing out the right balance in our approach. We should not hesitate in carefully adopting from the West only on the condition that we'll indigenize it according to our needs. Simply giving up the idea of drinking 'lassi' for highly caffeinated cold drink will only cause harm in the long run. The time is ripe to shift gear. From the role of a follower we have to switch over to our earlier role of a trend-setter. The 17.5 percent population of the world should compel the world to follow whatever it does instead of following the West blindly!

We stand at crossroads where one path leads to development at the expense of our values and the other leads to preservation of our values at the expense of development. None can be taken without thorough contemplation. The Indian setting is such that we'll have to adopt a middle path. A path where we don't squander the values, a path where we aren't left too much behind in the race of development. This will be a challenge as we don't have many precedents to follow where development and value preservation have gone hand in hand. 


To choose between the comfort of 'kurta-pyjama' or superficial style of jeans, the taste of coconut water or the carbonated cold-drinks, donating to the poor or to temples in the name of God, promoting industries or traditional handicrafts, Sanskritization or Westernization,  Maa or Mummy  is getting difficult by the day!

Evolution has always taken its own course and will keep doing so. I just don't want Indians to lose their actual identities in the process. Therefore striking out the right balance is very important!