Life per se!

It is said that in the last minutes of life, just before the brain dies, a flashback of memories of the whole life starts. I wonder how it feels to relive all those good and bad moments in a few minutes, perhaps seconds. Is it like watching a movie where you are in the main lead? The bigger question is, does it end on a happy note? I guess if you've made some memories worth recalling at the death bed, it'll definitely end on a happy note.

Death is the only inevitable 'natural' thing, which the humans thankfully have not been able to conquer till now. It cannot be averted and is bound to happen when you run out of your breath. But the question arises, are we living 'naturally'? Have we not forgotten the very purpose of life? 

Yes, the purpose of the life is to be happy! Life per se is a journey. You could choose to rush to the end line or could slowly walk through it, enjoying the spectacles it offers. You might finish it first but remember there is no medal for finishing it first, as it is not a race, it is a journey. The ones, who choose to heed the spectacles of life, are the ones collecting memories for the culminating flashback. 

I would say "live in peace to die in peace". I know it is easier said, than done. The time we are living in, is making us rush through our lives and the bigger problem is that it'll only exacerbate. Getting up early in the morning to start the daily routine and working till late at night. This sums up the story of an average person today. It had been okay if this was to continue for a small period of time, but no, this vicious cycle has no end! It is sucking up the life out of life! 

I do understand that it is important to earn but only to meet the ends. Save the rest of time to live life. You would argue that only the ones who have enough can afford to live the kind of life I am suggesting. But let me tell you I am acquainted with people who earn big money but are fed up with life they live. They have everything in life but peace of mind. Yes, strive for making it big but not at the cost of joy of life itself and thereby forgo some of the non-essentials in life.

Start collecting memories today itself. On a personal note I would love a flashback of my memories of me and my Nanu(maternal grandfather) hanging out together. I would love to recall all the beautiful landscapes that I would have seen by then. Also the fun of the family functions and outings with friends, so on and so forth. I will not waste a jiffy on recalling the stress at my workplace, but yes, I would like to cherish all the successful ventures there for one final time. 

So, as an advice to everyone out there who is too much stressed out, and thinks earning money and owning luxury cars and big bungalows is the ultimate telos of life, I would say, sir you're wrong! Take out time from your tight schedule to contemplate on what you actually wanted to do when you were a child. Do all the mad things of the world. Go out there for bungee jumping while listening to a qawwalli and all such sort of odd combinations because life doesn't wait. When the flashback ends, die with a smile on your face, instead of regretting. And remember the old saying “You only live once!!”

Cyclicity of life and death

Sine Graph

On meticulously examining a Sine/cosine graph, one realizes how it just carries on from one crest to trough and then to subsequent crest, rising from the abscissa (x-axis) to its highest point, and then descending to its nadir, intersecting abscissa in between. This pattern goes on. The highest and lowest points have a limit but there is no such condition on X-axis. Similar patterns are observed in the physical world too. The hot air, upon heating, rises from the equator and reaches the tropopause. It then starts to cool and sink down at the tropics, only to rise again from the sub-tropical region and finally sink at the polar region, thereby regulating the temperature of earth. 

The theory of Geographical Cycle of Erosion propounded by W.M. Davis and later tweaked by Walther Penck, presents a similar viewpoint for land forms existing on earth. It is hard to believe that the formation and destruction of such huge land forms is also a function of structure, process and time. They emanate from mother earth due to internal tectonic disturbances and keep uplifting till the highest point. Once the highest point is reached then denudation starts. No matter how humongous the structure is, it gets converted into a peneplain, though it takes millions of years.

There are many such examples apart from the ones above. Now this brings to central idea of this blog. Do life and death also follow a similar pattern? Our sages have been talking about the cycle of reincarnation since ages. We take birth as a little child who struggles to learn and adapt to this world. Then we reach the best phase of our life, the youth. We are young, active and all ready to face myriad challenges of this world. Gradually we again start losing strength and turn senile. We struggle again to adapt with the world. And then one fine day we depart leaving all the sorrows behind. Is it not similar to the Sine graph? Rising from a given point to achieve great heights, and then again falling to the same point later in time? The only thing that is not certain is - do we rise again? 

Let's assume the theory of reincarnation to be true and that we return to this world (may be in a different form), to again live yet another life cycle. But why do people talk of getting rid of this cycle? Why do they want their soul to finally coalesce into the soul of the almighty? Is it not like desiring the whole earth to turn into a featureless peneplain? Come on I want to see the mountains too. The Sine graph doesn't stop. The air doesn't stop its continuous process of rising and sinking. Yes, I agree, there are hitches and glitches at times, but then who wants to shut the whole process?

What happens when your soul meets the soul of the creator? I mean, what's next? Is it the end? There has to be another task. There is no point in ending your cycle of life if you don't have anything else to do? One cannot just wait till eternity (after submitting his soul) for time to end, not knowing, whether time actually ends. Is it not scary? I don't want to get rid of this cycle, if there is nothing else to do after that. I rather prefer taking birth again and again without breaking this continuum to perform my tasks in every birth.  

On the other hand, there has to be an end as well. Till how long can we keep taking birth to struggle again at the same place? If the non-monotonic Sine graph keeps repeating the same unhindered cycles over and over again, isn't that in itself the monotony of the graph? What is the culmination point? What is the ultimate end? Is there an end? After we have performed all the performable tasks (in millions of births), are we to repeat them? Is there any answer to these questions?

I don't know whether I'll ever find answers on the cyclicity of life and death. But one thing that I am sure about is that nature is certainly based on a lot of patterns. If you still don't believe me, start from observing days and nights, the pattern of seasons and then move on to moon and its changing shapes. Even answers to many complex questions of mathematics can be easily found out just by observing the number patterns. You will soon start believing my idea of cyclicity. But the fundamental question still remains- Can the cyclicity of life and death be proved?

When you don't have a topic, but you still want to write...

Sometimes I just have a topic to write about. I eagerly wait for the next Sunday so that I can express my views, on that particular topic. Over the week I keep thinking about little additions that can be done to provide more value to it. How can it hold interest of the readers? How can I make it precise? What should be the appropriate title? How can it cover all the necessary details without getting too long? How will I start it? How will I conclude it? All such questions keep me occupied the whole week, before I actually type the first letter on Sunday. Then I just recall my last week's thoughts and frame them, according to the semantics and lexicons of the lingua franca of the Britain. And the cycle starts all over again.

But there are times when I just can't come up with a topic. No matter how hard I try, nothing pops up. It's amazing how sometimes I just don't even think about it and...Boom! ... Eureka! ...and there I have a topic for the next blog. On the other hand there are times when I think about it for full six days, twenty three hours and fifty nine minutes, but to no avail! I don't know which force works behind it. If somebody knows about that force please enlighten me too! It's kind of annoying when you really want to write and you just don't have a topic.

The story of my first blog is quite interesting. I woke up one morning and as my eyes opened, the very first thought I had in my mind was - What if Reservation is extended to relationships as well? We know reservation is important but we all criticize it for the manner in which it is implemented in our country. I thought of sharing it with the world, and from there the idea of blogging first came into my mind. I penned it down in the most sophisticated manner I could. The thought that it should not hurt the sentiments of the reserved community was my top priority. From there on I started blogging regularly. Today, my resume reads blogging as one of my many hobbies.

I know this only the tenth post and I shouldn't fall short of ideas. But then it is very difficult to think about one which is unique, interesting and worth reading as well as writing, every week. How I wish topics emanated from earth! Blogging till now has been amusing me and I hope it carries on like this. All I have to do is to find a method to come up with more and more topics.  I hope I'll keep blogging without being perturbed by such impediments.  On that note hasta la vista!

Vegetarian by choice, not religion!

A lot of 'Veg vs Non-Veg' has been happening in the country. The objective of this article is not to establish the supremacy of Vegetarianism over Non-Vegetarianism, or vice-versa. The reason I chose this topic is to just present my views on it. Though I feel after reading it, you'll blame me for favouring Vegetarianism.

I was born in a Hindu Brahman family and as a result inherited Vegetarianism. My father avoids going inside a restaurant which has even a single non-veg item in its menu. He argues that the cooks use the same utensils and oil (and other stuff) to prepare both veg and non-veg delicacies, and therefore he doesn't feel like eating there. Don't worry I don't hold the same opinion. Yes, I am a vegetarian but not because my parents are or my religion asks me to be. My parents have never forced their opinion on me. They have left it on me to choose between the two. The only thing they want is that a non-veg item should not be brought at home.

Contrary to father's reason of not eating non-veg, mine doesn't lie in religious beliefs. I am vegetarian because I cannot ruthlessly have another living organism slaughtered just to satisfy my palate. Every time I pass by a butcher shop and hear the writhe of a moribund animal, my belief in vegetarianism is corroborated. At the same time I don't mind eating in a non-veg restaurant, as long as, my dish doesn't smell of another living being's flesh or blood.

There are a lot of pros and cons about both these isms but I find hard to fathom- the religious cons of non-vegetarianism or the religious pros of vegetarianism. I don't understand why people, especially in India, try to find answers of such questions in religious books. People don't understand that the de facto religion of this world is Economics. When it was necessary to prevent cattle, as it had a lot of benefits, the con-man of religion, citing the curses that may befall on one by killing an animal asked not to kill it. When the same con-man found that fish, in the coastal regions, is a cheap way filling the stomach, he allowed Bengalis to worship, kill and eat it. It is economics, which in the guise of religion, permits the Brahmans of South India and East India to have fish (and other non-veg items).

'Jeev Jeevasya Bhojanam' (जीवः जीवस्य भोजनम्)- one creature is another creature's sustenance. I quote this from the Vedas. So does Hinduism permits to eat another living being? If that is so then why are people ready to kill each other in the name of religion? See why I don't understand religion? The modern man also is not so modern. According to him eating chicken, fish, beef etc. is okay but when Chinese kill dog and eat, it becomes the highest order of perpetration. If you like the taste of some creature, you should also respect others who like the taste of some other creature. How are you even different from that con-man? 

I believe if one day the Non-Vegetarians are made to kill the animals by their own hands, instead of just cooking and eating it, at least 70% of them will turn Vegetarians like me, the very same day. The rest will argue that even all the Vegetarians are not good, they also don’t climb the tree themselves to bring down the fruit. Also, just because the trees can’t shout doesn’t mean that they don’t feel the pain. So this debate will never culminate as there can never be a consensus on this topic. Vegetarians will continue to persuade Non-Veggies to give it up. Non-Vegetarians won’t eschew it simply because Veggies are asking them to.

The only way ahead is to wait and watch, and let Economics play its role!

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 !!