The irony of life…

“To be or not to be?” Can there be another sentence more poignant with irony than this? Life all around is so full of oxymorons, coexisting with each other, as if it is an unwritten law of life. Perhaps most prominent among the ironies is human nature itself. Isn’t it sad that we spend our entire life in earning wealth, riches and property and finally we are forced to spend all that accumulated wealth and property to gain back that lost life and health. We make palatial houses of royal grandeur, interspersed with captivating lawns and beautiful plantations, laid back swimming pools and Belgian Chandeliers. But in the process we have sacrificed our homes, our personal lives. We build palaces of brick and mortar but forget that what is more important is that love must be present in it. People sadly race to farm houses to carry on their work with greater vitality and lesser disturbance.
We have built aeroplanes, yatches and supersonic jets. In a matter of hours we can revolve around the earth. But we do not have even a few minutes to spare for our unassuming neighbor. We can speak to people across the seas with the press of a button. We have STD, we have ISD, we have instant messaging and a host of messengers and their like. Surprising, isn’t it that we find it impossible to say a ‘Hi’, ‘hello’ or ‘good morning’ or more basic- just smile at someone passing by the road. God creates and brings us into this world with so many hopes and aspirations on us….So much He keeps at stake, just for our sake. So much being our worth, we behave as if our births have not been pre-planned, we behave as if we were born at random, with no will and out of nothing in particular. We are deemed to achieve great things in life, made to ascend lofty dreams, yet we doom ourselves to damnation, determined in the most fanatic fashion not to achieve anything to take a note of.
We have journeyed to the moon, we have vacationed in space, we have threatened to unravel the universe in totality. Unfortunately, having done all that we cannot move an inch within…We are strangers to ourselves, then whom do we know actually? We are prepared and ready to pour out tons and tons of advice in all kinds of matters, yet, when it comes to practicing things, even an ounce of practice gets far beyond our humble selves. We can talk without a pause on and on forever, gossip about all sorts of things, jabber without any inkling of tiredness, but when it comes to our tired and worn-out parents, even speaking a few words gets boring and tiring. When we are small we can ask the same stupid question for over thirty times and we expect an answer every single time, yet when we grow up and someone repeats something more than thrice, the fuse blows out and we pick shades to shower our anger on them.
We are all born rich, but during the course of our lives we all become beggars. We are all born true and innocent, we take education to make us intelligent and we end up as fools sacrificing neatly the fine intelligence that we really were born with. We get wild and frustrated when others do something against our liking and then we go on doing things that we like, irrespective of the fact that it hurts or pricks another person. We run through our childhood, eager to be a young boy and then a man. And once we become men, when life seems to be drawing on our blood, we firmly wish and beg for our lost childhood…a childhood wasted for nothing. We seek a name, fame and popularity, we sell our souls to the masses and then having done all that, we demand solitude, we demand that the world stop bothering us anymore… We smile at people, joke and poke fun, yet we keep our grudges strong and deep within ourselves. We scream and vocalize our supportive thoughts on equality of all when we are being judged, yet when we are offered the judge’s chair, there is only place left for our biases and prejudices and then things like equality are better spoken than practiced.
We waste no time in pelting stones of blame and wretchedness on people who fail in their duties, yet when it comes to doing our own jobs well, we have the biggest trouble because it is because of the wretched others that our job is incomplete. We are well equipped and have mastered talks, seminars and power point presentations, yet we have lost ground when it comes to the simplest mode of communication- PRACTISE….

I am BOSE

(The writer happens to be in one of the MBA classrooms in an educational Institution...)
I am ‘the speaker’- the BOSE speaker in II MBA class. My maker moulded a lot of style into me and shaped me in a wonderful fashion. My insides were very meticulously planned and well laid-out. Above all, my creator got me beautiful clothes. He put a plastic covering on me, dipped in raven-black. Moreover, to give a softer feel to my curvy and well-built body, he draped me in a soft, black net. Man, when I looked at the mirror, frankly, I fell over myself. Believe it or not, I looked at the other guys there on the shop racks- the Ahujas and Peaveys and they looked like colleagues of my grandparents who lived in the 1980’s. Without appearing to be an egotist, I must with all humility, admit that I looked sexy! And when people boast of their shirts, call it Park Avenue, Van Heusen, Peter England, Reebok or Nike...then why should I be prohibited from ‘feeling-off’ with my clothing brand? My maker put himself in my shoes and he wanted me to feel proud of my branded wear. To that purpose he finally put the tag on my clothing-BOSE...
My heart swells with pride every time someone gasps with awe when they hear me utter things. I am new to this classroom and perhaps because of that I am a bit apprehensive, just like a fresher, of what awaits me in the future. The particular cause for concern is the purpose for which they will actually use me. Just looking at the morons who come to use me, speaks volumes about what is awaiting me in the near future. Damn it, I would like to sue these guys! They abuse and misuse me, fools overflowing with ignorance! I still have faint memories of my last birth and every time I remember it, the diaphragm in me leaps in joy. Like it is now, in my last birth when I was new, those people owning me used me for dry, dead-beat speeches by psychopaths and dead logs- politicians in layman’s terms. I was the voice of hundred-odd crazy politicians, more interested in the volume of their talk than the content! This paranoid repetition went on for almost so long that I forgot my true identity. My saviour came in the form of a young, handsome and kind hearted fellow, calling himself DJ Chais or something of that sort. I had been grazing like a goat all my life and all of a sudden when I tasted blood, to my surprise, I realized that I was a lion and not a goat. You should have been present when DJ Chais played a song “Ya Ali....” through me! My heart throbbed like a racing car’s engine and my spirit of ecstasy was so contagious that the entire room shook and trembled with my mania. And from that point of time there was no turning back.
When my owner was depressed, I played for him Beethoven and Mozart. When he was sad, I pepped him up with cheery numbers. When he was alone and melancholic, I gave him Adnan Sami. When he felt romantic, I played him Sonu, Shaan or KK. And when he wanted to forget himself, his worries, his tension, his entire world, I played for him Shreya Ghoshal and all his pains eased... Of course, I too had my share of ups and downs. On one hand, I provided soul-stirring songs of Lata Mangeshkar and on the other hand I was asked to belt out numbers of that black-capped crooner Himesh Reshammia. What little sense of music and appreciation my owner had was lost to that un-understandable bard. Look, because of my good nature, I can make a cuckoo sound sweeter; but please, do not expect me to turn a donkey into a nightingale! That’s being illogical and unreasonable....come on give me a fair chance too!
Well, that was my last birth....It brings tears into my eyes when I remember those bygone days and look at me now...Providing voice to the paralysed ideas of dead borers making so called educative and intellectual presentations! I seem to have partly lost my sanity listening to their weird, insane nuggets of ignorance. Pah! Are there no limits to stupidity? Again, like the last time, I await the arrival of my saviour...some Gen Y who will love me and use me knowing fully well my true potential. And then, like every good servant, I will be proud to have served my master with all my heart and soul...My life will find fulfilment and my master will find his. Then perhaps I will go down in the pages of the book of my master’s life in letters of gold, as one of his most prized possessions. I continue to live with hope like all good people always do...

Loving Chaos: The logical conclusion out of confusion

Man’s favourite deployment of time- chaos management. Perhaps the most common usage of time is to try and manage confusion. Even in the absence of confusion, we employ our rationale and create chaos and then get on to solving it. Hats off to man’s ingenuity in creating nonsense. Where there is pure logic, this awe-inspiring species called man, in the name of hidden complexities, unearths a lot of unwanted, unfathomable insight. But then, isn’t that the way we were brought up? Ever since our childhood we are taught to think complex. Where it is possible to do things easily, we are afraid that after all, the problems cannot be so simple and thus we complicate things. Well, what we really need is perhaps exactly what we lack the most- the love of simplicity.

A knowledgeable person once rightly remarked, “Common sense is the most uncommon thing in the world.” Sounds absurd but surprisingly, it is very much true.The problem is that we are unable to apply common sense. After all our education, we feel that it is an insult to our intelligence if someone asks us something ordinary. Our over-fed yet malnutritioned brains feel humiliated to employ simplicity in their thinking process.

The other day as I was walking along the streets of Bangalore, I confronted a person sporting a T-shirt that read, “I was born intelligent, education ruined me.” It really gave me a sense of relief to know that there was at least someone with such deep insight into life. What is it that makes children so endearing to all of us? The truth of the matter is that they are so innocent and straight forward, that twists and turns just do not feature in their lives at all.

If only the world would begin to work straight, it would definitely be a much better place to live in. But whether we like it or not, whether we accept it or not, the truth remains that man has fallen into a trap of love for complexity and it is difficult for you or me to change it. So even as we complain and fret about it, the best we can do to avoid falling prey to this folly is to think simple, for at the heart of chaos lies simplicity. That’s the sole reason why I love chaos as it gives me the opportunity to think simple and more importantly think common sense. Simple living, high thinking.

The harsh beauty of reality

My watch indicated to me that it was about 7:00 am. I was in a hospital accompanied by my mother, for my brother’s medical check-up. A whiff of cold air from the air conditioner caught my breath for a brief moment as I opened the door in the Radiology department. Huddled together in a corner of the room were a father and his daughter. They acknowledged our presence and went back into their deep reverie. It was an odd sight finding a girl aged less than seven in that room. She seemed every bit normal; moreover, her cherubic face radiated a joy that somehow did not gel with the gloomy walls around. This cheeky toddler was gleefully looking all around the room and she was clearly enjoying herself.
The joyful stillness in that room was shattered with the vomiting by this child. Her father led her by the hand to the washroom. Surprisingly on her way back, the same old cheerful smile adorned her face, whereas her father had creases all over his forehead. She seemed to be taking in every bit of her surroundings and her happiness was contagious.
After a while, the girl was asked to get ready for a MRI scan. They were having a difficult time removing her nose ring when my mother volunteered to help. It was then that the girl’s father revealed to our utter dismay that the girl was blind! He went on to say that she had been a very brilliant girl, invariably standing first in her class every single time. Everything had been precisely positive till she was diagnosed with brain tumor. Sometime before her surgery was to take place, she lost her sight and the world turned into an abyss. Yet her face revealed nothing that she was going through. The vibrant smile that she carried on her face revealed to me her inner strength. That detached attitude will forever remain etched in my memory. That day the little girl in the hospital taught me a few lessons in life that no textbook or experience of mine has taught me till date. I may forget the name or the age of that girl, but the memory of her undying spirit will linger on…