Nothing is fair!

Those who advise you to keep working hard and not worry about the reward are nothing but lying! Things in this world at least are not fair. The good things that happen to you are not commensurate with the good things you do. If you start counting the sacrifices that you've made in life for a better return in future, then it'll be manifold of the actual repayment. Then why do people keep saying that the world is a fair place? And why proverbs like 'what you sow, so shall you reap’ are iterated every time? Why can't people accept the way it is? Why do they fool themselves and others by creating such a milieu? Should we not do things because they are to be done, instead of doing things in hope of a future reward?

Yeah nothing is actually fair in this world and neither is it supposed to be. It will be better that we accept the way it is. We all have been given certain tasks to perform keeping in mind our strengths and weaknesses. All we have to do is to make sure that we don't under-perform. If you're not comfortable in what you're doing then probably you're not doing what you were supposed to do.

A perusal of history proves it. How many people, who were not famous, other than your ancestors, can you name? Hardly anyone! Why we are only taught about famous personalities? Is it that only famous personalities did good things? Why do we call Akbar great despite knowing that he had relations with 5000 women [wives and concubines]? Why are we not aware of a single ordinary contemporary of Akbar who practiced monogamy? The answer is because he was never rewarded for this good gesture of showing faith to his only wife! The whole idea is to make sure that whatever you do bears fruit of success because this world is a not fair. It remembers the end rather than the means of achieving the end. Trust me if demon Ravana would have defeated Lord Ram in the epic of Ramayana, we today would have been celebrating win of  love of a brother(Ravana) for his sister(Shrupnakha) rather than celebrating the love of a husband(Ram) for his wife(Sita). And accordingly the epic of Ramayana would have been tweaked to adjust the defeat of demon Lakshmana(because he amputated Shrupnakha's nose) by Lord Ravana. It also would have been rechristened to Ravanayana instead of Ramayana. 

I am not a pessimist and I love to take it as a challenge of leaving my mark in this world by being the best in whatever task I was assigned. Not everyone is born with a silver spoon; some are born with the capability of earning it. If you want to be remembered then make sure whatever you do leads to fruition. It'll be better if you do it in an ethical manner not out of fear of God but because it is ethical to be ethical. I would also suggest to stop lamenting and complaining about your current state as you cannot do anything about it. If you cannot afford to buy a luxury car today then start working for it instead of crying over it which only squanders your chances of buying it even in future.

Yeah some people are born rich or lucky or rich and lucky but that shouldn't make you envious. The only way to outdo their luck is to work harder than them. The good thing about hard work is that it never runs out whereas luck doesn't guarantee that. Also everybody has his own share of luck. We are a lot times awarded credit for things which we didn't work for albeit at that time we don't see our luck working.

The world was never fair and it'll never be. Darwin's theory of 'survival of the fittest' vindicates it. If the world would have been fair, do you think that only the fittest would survive? And for that matter why only a few of them were fitter than others? Proving again that nothing in this world is fair. The fitter ones make sure that others don't butcher their claims on resources and hence eliminate the weaker ones.  

It'll better that we stop fooling ourselves about fairness of this world and start working pragmatically. The world will never care about you if don't prove your mettle and force people to change their opinion about you. Do you know why? Because it would be fair to do so and nothing in this world is fair! 

Social Network and its perilous superficiality

We live in a world where we are disconnected in a very connected manner. We have hundreds of friends on social networks but don't talk to them. We are aware about almost all the activities of our friends but hardly care to find out their feelings. We know the whereabouts of most of them, yet we fail to meet them. What kind of a world is it? So much connected and yet disconnected? Everything seems so real in this fake world of social network. 

How often a birthday notification forces you to wonder about who the hell is this guy and what is he doing in my friend list? How often you are reminded of your good friend's birthday by a notification?  How often less number of likes on your picture makes you think that you're not good looking? How often do you conform to the latest trending issues without judging their veracity? How often you find fifty friends online and yet nobody to talk to? How often you find posts that make sense?

To me social network reeks in anti-sociality. It was because of the advent of nuclear families that the new progeny acquired the trait of adjusting without socializing much with people as there were less at home. But the inherited trait kept alive the desire to socialize. It was against this background that made social network so popular within a few years and the world went crazy. We now have information about our distant friends but are not aware about the health of our neighbours. The new progeny eventually found its way to socialize albeit rejecting the previously existing ways of socializing. We can now talk to world about our views but when it comes to dealing with relatives at home, the situation becomes nightmarish.

I am not completely averse to the idea of connecting through social network and in no way trying to indicate that we should disconnect from this world. I know it has a lot of benefits if used prudently. All I want to convey is that we should know how to keep away from it as well. Not every notification should sensationalize us. The urge of looking at it should be in our control rather than we being in control of that urge. The distinction between personal and pubic life should be lucid. We should know what should be updated online and what should not. It's time to learn to log out of the fake world of the social network and to re-login to actual social world.

Further it is pertinent to point out that we are being tracked all the time. All our activities are being monitored. The more we exercise it, the more it is easy to track us. Even if we are not involved in any wrong doing and we don't mind authorities keeping a tab on us, why should we make their task easy? At the time when hon'ble Supreme Court of India has stated that storing private information i.e. biometric data about the citizens cannot be made mandatory and has made AADHAR card voluntary(except in a few schemes) in nature, then why should we ourselves give away all our details like that?

Moving on let's analyse who actually are we connected with? Are they all our friends? No. Are they important in our lives? Not really. According to me, we know only a small proportion of friends, out of such a long friend list. Out of the ones we know, we rarely indulge in a chat with them. Even those chats are boring and not at all productive as productive talks are done with well-informed people. Those who are well-informed, they are really not that active on such networks. So is it worth to be connected to the world while sitting in a closed room?

So instead of lamenting over the network issues should we not ourselves switch it off for some time? Should not the propensity to know about life of others belittled? And should not the penchant of sharing everything with the world be subsided? Should that vacuum be not filled in with better things that help us grow as a society? Should we not be playing outdoors instead of weakening our eyes by playing Candy Crush? 

In the cacophony of the discordant voices of the social network we all are losing our own voices. Anyone who plays the bagpiper well uses his talent to mobilize the netizens to dance to his tune. No doubt politicians have started using this platform for propaganda. Anti-social elements find it easy to spread rumours through this channel. In fact the terrorist organisations have started targeting youths for recruitment. And what is the worst part? We are actually falling prey to them. 

No network can guarantee our privacy. We ourselves are to be blamed for creating such a situation. The way ahead is to be more prudent in our dealings online. We have to stop looking at the world outside through the artificial windows of our computers and actually get out of our homes to breathe in fresh air. Having said that all, the irony is I am also using this social network to make people think about how social is this social network.

A short trip to my village!

The last time I visited, I saw my Dadi ji lying in peace in the cloister, as I entered the house (temple). My 12th boards were going on when the news of her demise came. My parents had just returned to Delhi after paying her a visit only to receive the sad news in the morning- as if my father somehow knew that his mother's end was near and planned all of a sudden to meet her. So the next day we all went there to bid her the last goodbye and participate in her last rites. I still clearly remember her burning funeral pyre with the background being decorated by the Supemoon of 19th March, 2011. As if the date was carefully chosen for her. The Gods descended to take her for a new life.

She was bedridden for years and was waiting for the inevitable! When I saw her the last time there was a sense of calm on her face which was missing for past so many years. She finally left behind sorrows of this world! 

It was different this time. After four long years a plan to visit the ancestral village was again made-though again suddenly. Gandhi ji helped us in this trip as Gandhi Jayanti fell on Friday followed by the weekend. The bags were packed, all necessities were kept and this house was locked to start the journey towards the ancestral house.

Despite being born and raised in the national capital, I still am proud of my roots in Rajasthan. People there are so genuinely loving and caring. You hardly find doors kept closed there in the daytime. When here in Delhi you don't know your neighbours, there everybody knows everyone else. Every household is aware of the problems being faced by the fellow villagers. It’s like a very big family living together in a small area sharing and caring for each other.

I thoroughly enjoyed driving through the five hour long journey from the plains of Delhi to the foothills of Aravali. As soon as we entered the road which deviates from the National Highway towards the village we could see our ancestral land which is now sown by my uncle. The very smell of that village is many times more intoxicating than any other drug- so pure and pollution free. Most of the people still recognized me just by looking once and those who couldn't they made the correct guess after looking at my father.

The village has changed a bit. The roads were better; I saw solar powered streetlights, some new shops and houses with better sanitary facilities. And the best thing I heard was people were being fined if caught defecating outside! So policies of our P.M. are indeed working.

I mentioned 'temple' in the brackets above because the house is a temple cum residence. Dau ji's idol is main idol of the sanctum along with other deities present inside the temple as well as outside it. There are many mystical stories of Dau ji's altruism, recited over and over again by my aunties which I cannot fathom, as they pose serious challenges to scientifically radicalized rational mind. 

It is only when you move away from the highest polluted capital of the world you realize that stars are still there! Those constellations, shooting stars and the bright night sky lit by the light of stars and not by the street lamps is still there! And that view is worth dying for! I can carry on filling up many more pages praising the village life but I don't want to bore my readers. So I'll end with a perplexing coincidence.

Last time I visited on the Supermoon of 2011. This time I visited my village four days after the Supermoon of 2015. 2015 and 2011 also differ by 4. Both the times I stayed there only for one day. Is there a pattern?? Was it just a coincidence?? Or did that happen at the behest of Dau ji?? I know nobody can answer those questions. All I can do is to wait eagerly for the next Supermoon !!