Draws

Doodles on my brain

My soul

Drinks

From the well of my knowledge

I strive

To bring

Soul to my imagination

Both

Ethereal in nature

Do not submit to my will

So whilst

My imagination flies

To it my soul refuses to be tied

And when

My soul arises sublime

My imagination just watches tongue-tied

Never the twain shall meet

Or so it seems

Perhaps my body comes in between

The day the unimaginable happens

And my soul features strongly in it

I would have created my master-piece!

Poor little me! Thought Arnab, as he trudged along with the heavy back-pack on his eight year old shoulders navigating his way through the crowd, dust and traffic of Calcutta, from the bus-stop to his housing society, just across the street. His mother was almost dragging his little finger with a sense of urgency as if she had this big purpose on her mind she wanted to execute as soon as possible.

Arnab knew the routine. He would be washed and combed and changed into some clean clothes following which he would be sent downstairs to play for half an hour with the other kids of the society. As soon as he would be getting into the groove of the game he would be called back to his home by his screaming mother.

Arnab always wondered why Rishabh's mother never interfered in her son's playtime as cruelly as his mother did. If he ever argued with his mother citing Rishabh's example his mother would only get more enraged and declare with finality that they were not lucky enough to have a flourishing family business and he had to study hard to make something out of his life later on. Arnab decided he wanted to be a businessman when he grew up; after all they were not expected to study much. But whenever relatives or his parent's friends enquired of him, he would meekly say that he wanted to be an Engineer like his father because he knew in his heart that his parents would be pleased by that answer.

Still his little mind and heart rebelled against the daily grind that his mother put him through every evening in the name of studies. He would be required to memorise poems, read and answer passages of comprehension, practice muddling math problems, mug up Hindi grammar and meanings, and occasionally brush up his general knowledge, science or social studies; and as if all that was not enough he had to do his homework in neat, eligible handwriting when all he would be longing to do was scribble on the pages and draw up dragons and monsters with staring eyes and teeth like fangs. Alas! There was no escape from his mother's rigid supervision and each evening he would sit through the two to three hours of pure boredom feeling sleepier as the evening darkened into night.

Sometimes he had nightmares that he was being punished for not doing his homework or that he was sinking under raining books and he would wake up frightened and his heart beating fast, its echoes reverberating in his ears. But day after day, class after class Arnab would undergo the torture of being bombarded with knowledge and by the time he grew up he had lost not only on playtime but a lot of opportunities to explore the creative side of him. So he is preparing for IIT now and he is on his way to become an engineer like his father. He has long forgotten his desire to be a businessman because he has matured enough to sense that his career depended on how well he studied and cleared the entrance exams and not on inherited fortune or family business.

He had this crush on a girl in his neighborhood but he needed to focus on his entrance exams so he kept his feelings well hidden. Now his dreams took him to beautiful places on his bike with girlfriend in tow and a passionate kiss shared under a raining sky and he would wake up all sweaty and feeling excited.

IIT was an experience he would never forget. For the first time hostel life gave him the freedom to spend his time and energies just like he would want to but he was still worried about his future. He knew he had to study harder to make those grades and land a good job in future. He slogged his heart out and managed to stay afloat in a class of geniuses and extraordinarily talented students. Campus interviews gave him nightmares and he would jump up in the middle of the night dreaming that he was the only guy in his class who couldn't manage to land a job and a feeling paranoia gripped him, as if the world is closing in on him. Yet a secret desire to teach had begun to start forming in his head though his parents would hear none of it and wanted him to land a plush job or do MBA. He chose the first option since he had no more desire to study.

Then one day he got married much to the delight of his parents. Everything went hunky dory for a few years but five years later he and his wife were still childless. He dutifully underwent all the tests required of him to check for his fertility and so did his wife. The reports showed that his sperm count was drastically low though all his organs were functioning normally. The doctors conceded defeat after prescribing him numerous medicines to up his sperm count, to no avail. They said that since they cannot locate the problem, they cannot treat it and sent them off with words of encouragement and hope. Then he dreamt that he had become impotent and couldn't perform sexually and that he would remain childless all his life. He woke up sweaty, his heart beating wildly, echoes of the past paranoid feelings enveloping him and all the dreams and nightmares of his past flashed before his eyes and he sat frozen viewing them in his mind's eye.

He got up from his bed, proceeded to his laptop, wrote out his resignation letter and went for a bath. He tended his resignation letter as soon as he reached office and amidst much arguing and advises he picked up his coat and came back home in the middle of the day. He asked his wife to start packing some clothes for himself and herself and then he proceeded to book tickets to his ancestral house in the remote village of West Bengal. His wife did not argue with him since he seemed to her like a man possessed with a purpose and mission. As soon as they arrived in the village he started making enquiries about starting a school in the village. Putting all his money and efforts into it, he managed to open a school in the village in a couple of years time and in the school his wife became the music teacher while he managed the administration and conducted creative writing classes, given his flair for the English language and he made a rule in the school that none of the teachers were to send back homework. For a long time in his life thereafter he was free of nightmares and two years down the line his wife conceived and they had a baby girl he named, Sapna.

Arnab realized that his body was not the one responsible for his fatherless status, it was his lifestyle that had turned him sterile. By making his dreams impotent he had made himself incapable of living a productive life. By connecting to his inner desires and dreams he had let free the constraints he had placed on his creative capacity. At last the factory of his dreams was in production and he was in business for the very first time in his life.

Recently I have been bothered thinking about the women and children of our Indian society. Firstly, let me speak about the children. Tell me how many of you feel that the education system in India is acceptable in its methods and manners as it exists today? Personally speaking, I feel it is totally out-dated and requires some fresh thinking to overhaul it to convert it into a more complete and mature system. Presently it is solely based on a rote method of learning and very biased towards the big performers in class while the average and below average students are cruelly side-lined as no-gooders. Sad indeed! With a population of millions we are still so far from a Olympic medal and not just that we also fail miserably to tap the enormous talent pool in our society in other arenas such as literature, art and music. We are seriously failing in recognizing and encouraging talent and are constantly hankering on bookish knowledge as the path to nirvana, all thanks to our flawed education system.

We need to open our minds to the possibility of grooming well rounded personalities out of our children in school and this can only be possible if we inculcate with utmost seriousness in our curriculum the subjects of art, literature, sports and music from the kindergarten level till the high school level. We need to get over our obsession with grades and marks and recognize each child for what he is worth rather than having stringent grading systems that do no justice to the inherent creative talent of the child because all you need to do to score good marks in the examination is mug up your theory perfectly and divulge it on the examination sheets ditto word to word. Where is the scope for a thinker to develop? Where is the scope for a risk-taker to emerge? Are we all uniform and same in the gifts and talents we possess that we should measure every child by the same standards of examinations which rely heavily on bookish knowledge? Do you, like me, see a serious flaw in our education system or not?

Now secondly, I'll speak about the women. The women in our country are facing a serious dilemma. They are not sure anymore whether family comes first or their responsibility to fulfill their own dreams and aspirations? Some of them are giving up their dreams and career for the sake of their family while others are doing away with the need for a family for the sake of successful careers. Indeed, the dilemma is killing. It is killing because it murders a lot of talented women's dreams and aspirations at the altar of a family life and it is killing because it destroys peace of a lot of families which come in the way of a woman's personal ambition. We need to give a realistic picture to today's girls from the very beginning. The balancing act is an essential part of being a woman and women at some point have to strike a deal between who assumes more importance in their lives- family or career. And if the girls of today want to have their cake and eat it too then they better watch out for pit-falls because however much you may deny it, marriage is a compromise and the sooner one realizes it the better.

I'll leave you folks to ponder on these twin topics concerning women and children of India while I try to salvage the talents I have in my own home and family.

I am a needle in the haystack of humanity. So why bother looking for me? Its near impossible to find me in such a vast sea of faces. My image is reflected in so many eyes and what I see of myself in their eyes is so vastly varied that I fail to establish my own identity. Yet man is encouraged to hold his or her own and not lose oneself in their inter-personal relationships. Is it really practical to do that? Can we wash off the influences that others in our life have over us day in and day out? Can we carve out our individuality without being influenced by what others feel and think about us?

All the greats who became great did so because they held on to their individuality and struck out a new path for themselves in this jungle of humanity. They believed and practiced their individual view-point which may have been considered whacky or cranky by others at the time they first expressed it. So, greatness comes to those who celebrate their individuality and break free from the mould that society created for them.

So, should we all strive for greatness? Or is greatness the dominion of a select few while the rest of us are destined to live ordinary lives? Should I be content in being a needle in the haystack of humanity or should I strive to make myself different and noticeable? The answers to these questions lie out there somewhere but will it be too late before I find them?!

Yes, a philosophy for life! A philosophy that guides us in the manner in which we conduct ourselves in our lives. A philosophy which influences the way we take those important decisions in our life. Do I have one such philosophy that I stick to in living my life?

To be honest till around one year back I did have one such guideline philosophy to fall back upon in times of weakness and confusions. You would surely be interested to know what it is. Well, its the simple and uncomplicated philosophy of "Live and Let Live". I used to believe in this open-minded, all encompassing, beautiful words with my whole heart.

Then a few events changed the course of my life and gave me a totally different perspective of life.I started viewing my pet philosophy as a weak and too forgiving one. It lacked drive and relied more on a passive method of living. It also sounded like a philosophy that an introvert, shying -away- from- any- sort- of- trouble person would choose. Perhaps, I thought, it would have sounded better if it had said "live and Help live" instead of just "live and let live". So my search for a new philosophy started and to tell you the truth it is still on.

I am seriously looking for some guidelines on which to navigate the rest of the course of my life's ship in this vast ocean of life. Any help forthcoming? Just asking. I don't want to adopt anyone else's mantra for living as my own, but I guess, its good to toss some ideas and see in which direction my thought process is leaning towards. All I can say is that I am done with the live and let live kind of philosophy and am looking for some peppy, motivating philosophy on which to base my beliefs and thoughts.

I am all at sea at this moment and don't know what to make of my life. Sometimes I think "Normal is boring" while at other times I am not convinced about "abnormal" being the wise way of life. I am not looking for success in life instead I am looking for meaning in it. Actually I want to know if this illusion called life needs any philosophy or meaning at all. At this moment my state can be called "drifting with the current" kind of living. And if I can be honest about it I must say it is not a very comfortable way of living for me. Trying to fit in to society's "normal" method of living isn't really appealing to my senses. I want to break free.....out of the constraints that my own inhibitions put around me. Can I find the real me?

No. There is no such place which can give me the satisfaction of getting the feeling of having arrived. Why? Well, because no such place exists. Life is a long winding journey through many an undulating, exciting(or even scary)phase and boring, plain periods. When you are on a high you enjoy the roller-coaster ride but when you are down in dumps the whole beauty of living is lost on you.

Can someone deliberately change one's outlook to look at the brighter side of life always? How? Where lies the trigger to a positive outlook? From feeling dull to feeling excited about existing- what can cause such a change? Maybe the answer lies in- Prayers?! Meeting with positive minded people?! Falling in love?! Surely the first two seem to be things and actions you can control but the third definitely is something that happens perchance.

So where do you go from here, my lovely? You have explored questions that can at best be called worthless philosophy. You did start somewhere but you have reached nowhere( or have I?). Dear readers, I had absolutely nothing to work on when I started this blog and I am still feeling lost. Take away what you can from this blog of mine except perhaps the confusion that it so clearly portrays. I could have kept my ramblings to myself but I have decided to exhibit it cause I am sure the comments it would garner might give me further motivation to keep blogging otherwise heavens help this blogger friend of yours!

Before I took the break I played a game. It was also a bait for getting some of you to read up some of my old blogs and play the detective to identify my real life persona. And sure enough option three is the correct guess and most you who have been my regular readers have got it correct. So I'll take this opportunity to thank all those who read my blogs and comment on it- it keeps me going in this rediffiland.

Life is good- full of leisure and peace. But nobody wants to keep it that way anymore. Everyone wants goals and dreams to pursue, everyone wants fame and glory. No one is satisfied with living in ignominy and be considered an under-achiever. So is that the mantra of the present generation- realise your full potential and be counted for something? Is it a crime in the present era to just take it easy and enjoy living only for the sake of living? The new era philosophy stresses on digging up your dream and setting upon pursuing it to reality. What is life without a passion, they say.

Well, I resign. I resign from the rat race. I would not be dragged into this madness anymore. I would strive to be content to be a failure, if that's what it is. I would dictate the pace of my life at my own terms and not be sucked into the competetive, roller-coaster ride that the world is shaping itself into-"Uski sareee meri saree se safed kaisi?" I do not have to be answerable to anyone. I will chew on my food thoroughly and give grace before starting to eat. I will be thankful just to be alive, be content in being just another guy or gal.(Sounds wonderful indeed!)

What do you think fellas?- Do I sound like a loser or a dreamer or are both the same anyways? Well it doesn't really matter what you think, I am my own boss. Nothing you say will sway my mind. My near and dear ones have already started calling me an under-achiever but somehow it doesn't disturb me( It disturbs them).I have no dreams, I have no goals, I just have a will to live in leisure and peace- will you just let me be?

I am planning to take a break from blogging to refresh and rejuvenate my stale thoughts and come back with a fresh perspective for all of us to explore and examine. Meanwhile I am hoping I will be able to read stimulating posts from you to keep me interested and enthusiastic about this blog-world of ours.

My virtual persona may be very different from what you imagine but that's what makes blog-friendship so exciting. It is a chance to exercise our imagination regarding various people by peeking into their minds through these windows of the blog-pages which highlight their mind's workings in a matter of few written words.

Here I am itching to play a small game with you if you are willing enough to participate. I'll paint three portraits of a personality and you will have to guess which one comes closest to my real life persona and you can base your assumptions by going through my blogs. Ready to go?

1. A girl-woman in her early twenties, working in the education arena, petite and pretty, awaiting matrimony with trepidation, have a steady boy-friend and my dream is to start a school someday with my partner.

2.A lady in her late twenties, married since a couple of years, recently shifted to a place outside of India, volunteering for NGO work, nurture a dream to live in my own house in a quaint city of India with two kids and a sprawling garden to pursue my passion for gardening.

3. A woman in her mid-thirties, married with two kids, working in the health sector, with a passion for writing and a dream to write a book one day.

So take your pick, guys and gals and let me see whether I've come close to revealing myself through my writings over the past few months.

In case you are not interested, just tell me what is the one personality trait in a girl(woman) that irresistibly attracts you to her? The question is open to both girls and boys and my answer is "confidence". When I see a confident girl I am drawn to striking a friendship with her but I must be however assured that her confidence stems out of substance and is not hollow or just a facade. Whether or not her confidence is real is revealed as she opens her mouth to talk about issues, trivial and important, and the way she projects her thoughts gives away her real persona.Wat say, folks?

There were these two boys who loved the same girl once upon a time in their school days. Now if it were possible to measure their intensities in terms of loving the girl then both would have had the same parameters. Rishi and Ajay, both lads of the same class with their hearts fixated on the charms of the young lass, a year younger to them, studying in the same school, knew each other's secret desires. That the girl Amrita, was pretty, would be taken for granted considering the number of roses she received on Valentine's Day every year from suitors- right, left and centre.

Well, there we are- with the two lads- star crossed, at logger-heads, vying for the pretty girl's one heart with boundless enthusiasm and subdued enmity. The valentine's day of the year 2000 came in, amid the usual plethora of marketing gimmicks and shops were teeming with the red colored little heart symbols on every item worth gifting- greeting cards, little teddy bears, CD covers, key-rings, lingerie.you name it, they had it. So each of our lads, adorned in the latest fad clothes and armed with their personalized gift, planned to way-laid the pretty lass, express his heart-felt passion for her and try to win over her heart.

Rishi had poured his heart out on a few scented pages and this he had wrapped along with a diary and a greeting card as a gift for his valentine to be. Ajay had recorded a selection of love- songs that best represented his heart's voice of passion and this he had wrapped with a cute little teddy bear and a greeting card. Both chose their auspicious moments and completed the act of giving their gifts. Well, they had to wait a full week before she showed any response and the response came in the form of a friend of hers who conveyed to each of them the earth-shattering news that she was already hooked with a boy her age, in her class and that she had no interest in either of them.

There we will leave them to their fates and catch up with them fifteen years later when they met at the local club, playing squash.

Ajay took a good envious look at Rishi's well maintained physique and asked him what he had been up to all these years. Rishi gave an outline of the manner in which his career had taken him from one corner of the country to another and then asked Ajay, what about him? Ajay said he handled his dad's business and has been doing well for himself. After a little light-hearted banter the topic of conversation shifted to that Valentine's Day. Ajay said he was a wreck after her refusal and had even contemplated committing suicide. Shocked Rishi said he had something to show him if he could come to his house for a moment. Confused Ajay accepted his invitation and drove over to Rishi's house.

As they entered, who should walk in from the doors of the inner room but the pretty lass herself grown into a beautiful young woman Amrita! Ajay's jaw fell and his eyes widened in surprise and before he could say something, Rishi laughed aloud and patted his back and seated him on the sofas.

After the customary greetings were exchanged Rishi related his journey after that Valentine day's disappointing results. He had waited his chance by hanging around her wherever she went and when she went in for Medical studies he did his share of waiting and completed his graduation and MBA studies. In the interval he kept finding opportunities to bump into her and a relatively healthy relationship of friendship flowered between them. By the end of her medical studies she had broken up the long distance affair she was having with her boyfriend of school days and she was single and ready to mingle again. Presenting himself as a candidate came easier this time since she was already friends with him. Things took off from there and he officially became her Valentine eight years after that first Valentine day disaster.

That the relationship culminated in marriage is already understood by us. But what needed to be answered for Ajay was why Rishi succeeded in the end when the he himself failed? Was it the virtue of patience and persistence that did the trick in the end? Did it show him in a poor light in the context of life's battles? Was he poor at trying to convert his dreams into reality? Does trying hard enough and biding one's time for the right opportunity make a success out of someone? Is that what self-made men like Rishi do? Fortune favors the brave; they say. Perhaps it was a combination of all the factors put together. When Ajay said his goodbyes and drove back home that night he pondered on all these questions at length yet, suddenly, when he swerved safely out of the way of a big truck hurtling towards his car, from the wrong side of the road, he just thanked his lucky stars for having survived!

The next leg of his journey, he questioned the importance of destiny in one's life and wondered whether it had a major role to play in some people's life while being of relatively marginal importance in other people's life. Should he consider himself destiny's child for being saved from a major accident that night? Was losing out on converting his first love into a fruitful relationship his destiny or his relative lack of desire to chase his dreams into reality? He drove more carefully to his destination asking himself all these questions.

There I will leave you all readers to reflect on the characters I have represented here and depending on whom you identify with more, to realize whether you consider yourself destiny's child or a self-made man!

You think and think about an unfinished work and fret and fume about its tediousness to yourself. You find it difficult to set aside a date and time for its completion and then it grows larger and larger and becomes a heavier burden on your consciousness than ever before.

Call it procrastination or call it lazyness but this tendency to postpone doing some work can be one of the biggest stress in your life. Now imagine you have overcome that start-up problem and began the work and lo! it now starts to appear easier and easier till you have finished it.So the work was not actually difficult, you were just making it difficult on yourself by imagining it to be difficult!

So how do we escape this tendency to procrastinate or lazyness? Make a time-table. Prioritize and then go about doing things according to the importance you have accorded them. Its best to start with the most difficult one so that by the time you have it out of your way you are a much relieved person.If you can make no plans at least make a start somewhere!

So easy to preach and so hard to practise, hain naa? Well let me confess I dithered a lot before writing this post of mine- I had no topic on hand and my mind was not exactly whirring with ideas. But I made a start and reached somewhere which means that I pretty much escaped procrastinating for another few days.Now I can rest easy till a bright idea strikes me and gives me a story or some gyaan finds its way to my dim-wit mind and enlightens it like this one about procrastination did today.

Till then you enjoy your blogging and stick around for more from me in the near future- if you are interested i.e.