An Apology…..

For the past few days, I’ve been upset about the way things were shaping in college. I’ve been angry with people or rather sycophants who get their way through anything. Who butter polish every one they know of, precisely everyone having the authority to do them some good. Flying like bees around faculty members, going out of their way to flaunt their skills (which I doubt exist!) and leave no stone unturned to make sure they get the best of marks. It does get upsetting at times seeing how blind our mentors can be.
Since its not good practice to hold grudges against people, I decided to apologise. But to whom? I realised I did them no harm. They probably are unaware of my resentment. It’s me who is being tormented by my anger. As it is said, anger eats nothing but its own heart. I realised my anger is actually stopping me from doing any good to myself. It’s preventing me from seeing the bigger picture and believing in the beauty of the life God has created for me and that everything that’s not killing me is making me stronger. It’s preventing me from seeing the light at the end of the tunnel and walking towards it with the faith that everything will eventually work out fine for me, just as it would for everyone else.
It’s actually a time for me to concentrate on making things better for myself, rather than deciding who is worth what they’ve got. In the end, I know it’s me I owe an apology to. For wasting time and energy and fogging my vision. And my best apology would be to live so well that everyone around me would aspire to be in my shoes. And now, I’ll do just that!

Just Me……

Last year(2009)…..My b’day…..Switzerland…..
Time halted…. Wanted nothing more…. I was in heaven…. What more could I possibly ask for? It was the most perfect weekend of my life. At times, we soo need a time out…. A time just for ourselves….. The long walks in the evenings. The Sunday afternoon by the lake, family and friends, some wine, a good dog, kids and PEACE! A time when I could clearly reflect on everything, just everything in totality, going on in my life. When I could just so sort my self out. Somehow I didn’t want to come back home. All the home sickness was gone. I dint want to take any calls. Just wanted to be alone. That was one time when I felt I needed no one. No family. No friends. Just myself. A time when I could talk to myself. When I could hear the sound of silence. When I could hear the music in the air. I had the most peaceful sleep I remember in the recent past. I haven’t felt that peace ever since. Feels like I’m losing myself and need such a time out to reconnect with the real me. The me that is still innocent, all so beautiful, who smiles at bill boards and loves to watch flowers by the street, whose eyes start gleaming seeing the smile on a child’s face, who walks past strangers in a distant country feeling blessed for the fortunate life she lives, who loved shopping in the smallest of shops and felt extreme happiness on imagining her mom’s reaction on seeing everything she bought, the me who is just so strong to keep her head up and be proud of herself even against the worst of the odds, who enjoyed a train ride as if for the first time, the mountains, the scenery….Ahh sooo beautiful!!
I can re-live every moment of that trip in my mind, in my heart. I want to thank God for giving me such a perfect, well timed break whose memories rejuvenate me and give me strength even today. I feel blessed for having connected to nature and to myself in such a beautiful way!

Where are we heading?

It’s a confusing time. We, the youth, believe ourselves to be in a state better than any of the previous generations. We believe we are awakened; we are revolutionary in our own ways. But are we not missing out something in the bigger picture? Are we not over looking the fears of our previous generations who feel we are losing our way? There’s a part of me that wants to defy these fears to fall in line with my peers. But then, there’s a part of me that cannot help ponder over the missing ethics, the loyalties in friendships that once existed, the respect for the Gurus who treated akin to God.

We live in a time where the whole of India rejoices and celebrates the death sentence of Kasaab, a terrorist, who, according to us, deserved this death sentence more than anyone else. Are we not following the principle of “An eye for an eye”, forgetting that it would tantamount to leaving the whole world blind? Everyone is eager to voice their opinion on how apt this decision was (though delayed) but what about the million things going wrong all around us day-today? We choose to overlook the greed of men who molest every woman they come across, if not literally, at least with their eyes and their dirty comments. We choose to overlook acts of domestic violence, bribery and casting couches. And all this is because we are busy criticising a misled youngster who thought he could serve his community and become deserving of the blessings of God for having done what he was told to do.

We live in a time where at least some of us care to listen to the stories that our parents and grand parents have in store for them about their school and college days. I’m sure at least a handful of us must be wondering what went wrong that brought us to a stage where we call our teachers names, take pride in abusing them behind their backs and some of us do not even care to respect them when they are around. I cannot deny that it’s not a one sided road; many teachers today don’t match up to the standard of our parent’s Gurus. They feel that being overly friendly with students or pestering them for marks would earn them respect, forgetting that respect has to be earned, not demanded. They probably are not aware of the fact that a teacher can be respected only for his knowledge; for everything else, he can be loved.

We live in a time when almost everything under the sky is justifiable in the name of Progress! Be it our so called ‘relationships’, late nights, the bizarre dress sense or just the way we address of parents i.e. the openness, the answering back etc. I realise how pessimistic I may be coming across as, but honestly, I term it as thoughtfulness. I still believe in the integrity of the youth and myself. Deep in my heart, a fire still burns under the name of ethics, humanity and love. I fuel this fire every time I see my friends go out of their way to help the underprivileged, every time I watch how the youth united to help the victims in tragedies like the Mumbai terror attacks or the floods, every time I have a heart to heart (eye wetting) conversation with a teacher who might rightly be called a Guru for not only teaching me some subjects but more importantly how to live. I still believe that we may be a little off track but we are still close to the path to be followed and can hop on as and when required. I still believe in the beauty of the dawn that gives me hope for a better tomorrow!!!

The function of science is to reassure; the purpose of art is to upset. Therein lays the value of each.

Science is the servant of the mind; Art is the ruler of the heart. Since the days of yore, man has used science as a tool to effectively understand the concepts beyond his normal reach and create and enjoy luxuries not bestowed to him by nature. On the other hand, art has always been used to express the emotions he was going through. It is used as an outlet for the immensely strong whirlpool of feelings a man experiences.

Science is based on observation and experimentation. It emphasizes on a rational line of thought and renders itself to establishing facts and principles that are universally acceptable. If we say its function is to reassure, we mean it helps us find answers to the various ‘how’s and ‘why’s that nature poses in front of us. It defines eternal theories and concepts that reassure us of our essential beliefs and initial thoughts on a subject.

Art, the other side of the coin of human nature, nurtures our soul and caters to our inner being that is far from the reach of logic and factual establishments. As it is believed that our most beautiful art pieces express our saddest thoughts, the purpose of art is to serve as an outlet to those innumerable feelings that we fear talking about even to ourselves.

Just like every situation in life is a shade of grey, i.e. a mix of black and white, the human existence is incomplete without the rationalism of science as much as it is meaningless without the beauty of art. Both these aspects of human behaviour and existence complete the cycle of the growth of an individual’s mind and the development of his soul!

As we acquire more knowledge, things do not become more comprehensible, but more complex and more mysterious.

Ignorance is bliss! The less we know, the more content we are; the more we find out, the more disappointed we are at how little our knowledge is. This universe is like an ocean of knowledge, information and facts. When we gather little drops of knowledge, we are overwhelmed by the vastness and diversity of this mesmerising ocean.
The old aged believe everything, the middle aged doubt everything, the young know everything. This maxim aptly describes the journey one undertakes in life pertaining to acquisition of knowledge. When we know little, our mind is free from doubt. As one progresses in this journey called ‘life’, he finds out that the bigger picture is actually ‘larger than life’.
When I was in grade 7, I first studied the Newton’s laws of motion. They were taught in away that was easy to comprehend and remember. As I reached higher grades, I learnt the same laws in much more complex ways than I had learnt before. The same laws could be expressed in a further detailed manner when I was pursuing engineering. I then realised that as I climbed up the hierarchy of the educational system, there was detailing involved in whatever I studied.
Such complexity is not only limited to the subjects one studies at school or college, but also to the other aspects of life. Taking the case of human behaviour, it is an established fact that every individual is unique and that declaring statements about human behaviour would not be relevant to every individual. Studying human psychology in depth ultimately leads us to the conclusion that it is next to impossible to predict an individual’s behaviour, no matter how much study one puts into the subject.
Thus, in the short span of time I have spent on this earth, I have come to realise that imagination is more important than knowledge since greater the imagination, more is the zeal to transform it into reality. What is already present in this world can be easily found out, and more often than not, the more we find out about something, the lesser is the clarity of the concept in our mind. To reach one’s maximum potential, discovery of the unknown depths of wisdom is required.