Random Thoughts

it is strange that even 6 years after leaving home, i feel the same strange tinge of unhappiness that i had felt when i had left home for the first time. 6 years is a long time. i have travelled, and lived through many major parts of india - calcutta, delhi, ahmedabad, bombay etc. i have learnt to live how to take care of myself in unknows places, and how to forget home and learn to live with this sad realization that maybe the comforts of home are gone forever.

but still, it hurts. i miss how my mother used to scold me when i wasted time. how she used to pull the pillow from under my bed when i overslept. how my brother used to play games with me and how we used to fight. and how i used to mock my father's profession, albeit i always managed to have a serious expression on my face. how my grandmother used to tell me that she took more care of me than my mother.

today is one of most pious days of Navaratri, one of the most famous festivals of india. i am in a city which celebrates this festival during this 10-day period like there is no tomorrow. still i am drunk. and i will be in this position when i will go to the pandals to take the blessings of Ma Durga. i really don't have any doubts as to what blessings i will get. i am a sinner, and devi's hands are made to crush siners' heads, not to bless them.

but my point is, for me there is only one god. and only one goddess. if she is happy, i don't give a damn to any other thing in this world. i am not with her right now, and i don't know of any other way to keep myself from thinking about her apart from losing myself in a seedy kolkata bar.

Happiness knows no reasons. And sadness doesn’t, either. A trip to the psychiatrist, no matter how casually you take, is enough to force you to start introspecting. It is not easy to write about such things, which are deeply personal, over a public blog. But still I will try to write about it a bit, without getting into specifics.

I have always known that there is one single thought in life that determines everything that you do, and all the things that you want to. It is like a black hole at the center of the galaxy, which channels all your energy towards a common goal. I used to think that for me, this is the desire to gain prestige. And I had many reasons to believe so. I decided to go for JEE because there were so many from my family who had gone there, and I wanted to live up to others’ expectations. I decided to go for CAT because all my friends were applying, and I didn’t want to feel left out in the race. I slogged throughout the first year, scrapped my social life completely, just to be a bit ahead in the race for glory. It was all for prestige, and ego. Or so, I used to think. The result ? Even after pondering for 10 minutes, I had no answer to the question that the psychiatrist asked me, “So what makes you happy, Rahul?”

After her feedback, now I know, or rather believe, that it is some different engine that drives the car of my life.

The only thing I want to do is to build a little sandhouse which is strong enough to bear all the currents of the river. But I can’t seem to get the walls thick enough. I want all my family to stay there, with me. But I can’t seem to get it big enough. I want all the toys in the world to be there, so that I can play with them when I want. But I can’t seem to have enough money to buy all of them. I want my sweetheart to play with me all day long. But I am not sure she won’t run to some other sandhouse which is bigger, stronger, and whose owner looks better and has a better collection of toys. So I live through the day, dreading that in the night a big current will come while I would be fast asleep and will sweep everything I own. In the night I pray to god to give me a little money to buy a few more toys, and keep telling him until I sleep that I don’t want any other sandhouse near mine.

But I can’t make my house so thick that no current can break it. I can’t make it so big that it will satisfy everybody. I can’t have money to buy all the world. And I can’t keep comparing myself with each and every other person my sweetheart meets. I am human, and I have my own limitations. Whether or not I understand them, I am not sure.

I drink because it takes away my ability to think. I run, not because I want to, but because it makes me so tired that I am not able to think anything once I go to bed. I know I am running. I know I am running to get away from my sandhouse, and all the other problems that it will bring.

What I don’t know is how long will I keep running away from myself. And I don’t know what makes me happy. Life can be much excruciating if your dreams get bigger than you. Sometimes I wonder…… death should be peaceful.

If there is ever a competition for putting names of the articles over songs, I will come straight on top. most of the names of posts on my blog are over songs by coldplay, GnR, radiohead, and not to mention, U2. however, this is not the issue of this post.

Coming to home is always lovely. Though you get bored after 3-4 days and are either sleeping or watching TV, still the food is so great that it is worth all the boredom. Mother always cooks the dishes that she knows you like, and is always asking you to tell her more recipes to cook. and once you sit on the dinner table and put a slice of food into your mouth, I swear you always feel like you have reached the heavens. It is a far cry from the food given in mess that you swallow just to remain alive, not remembering only 5 minutes later what was it that you had eaten. You eat so much that afterwards the only thing you can do is sleep. So you wake up in the morning, take breakfast, go to sleep, wake up and take lunch, again so to sleep and wake up only at the time of dinner.

In the night, you are in a light and hearty mood. You switch on the computer, and suddenly you get to know that the most beautiful girl in the world hadn’t had anything to eat all day long. she had come to a promised land and had once dreamed of spinning the whole world with her charm and intellect. Instead, her head spins at 6 in the evening, and you can’t do anything but watch her helplessly as she cries in pain, and hunger. But yes, one thing is common. You sleep for 16 days a day, and so does she. The only difference is, for you it is an option, for her it is a necessity to deal with headache.

Where did it all go wrong ?

when a child is born, people say that it doesn't matter whether it is cute or not because after all, it is the brains that counts. he/she grows, and goes to school. people say that his/her school performance doesn't matter because it is the college performance which matters more in the CV. he/she goes to the college, and now they say the college eduction doesn't matter. reason ? because anyway he/she will have to take some professional eduction. he/she goes on to take admission in an engineering/medical/finance course. now guess what? they say it doesn't matter how he/she performs there because he/she will have to work hard to make himself/herself established in his/her chosen field. he/she works hard, and becomes a person of respect and wealth. now people say that it is the family which matters most, and all professional achievements take a back seat when it comes to family.

you want to give an exam, and all around you people say that it won't matter. the question is - if nothing matters in life, what does? I am looking for an answer for weeks, but always seem to get stuck in the middle of nowhere.

it was three in the afternoon and the road had become very hot. Reema didn't have any slippers on, and her feet had now started to get tired. more troublesome were the stray pieces of concrete, which every now and then used to come under her toes. She had lost the count of the times she had told papa to bring her a pair of slippers. he always promised to bring them a few days later, but always forgot. Reema didn't mind, however. she knew they were poor. very poor, in fact. every morning mummy and papa used to leave her and her two brothers on the pavement and then go away in search of work. sometimes they would come in the evening with some rotis and she had something to eat. on other days she had to sleep hungry. once the aunty living in a nearby tent had given her a piece of biscuit which she had found lying on the street. the biscuit was dirty, but Reema liked it. it was sweet.

Ah, food !!! suddently she remembered she hadn't had anything since last evening. yesterday some big policmen had come and had destroyed all the tents that were there on the pavement. mummy and papa had pleaded with them saying that they didn't have anywhere else to go and that the boys were too young, but those khaki-wallahs didn't listen. so in the morning papa had put her brothers on a thela, had put whatever utensils had been left from the lathis of those policemen, and had told Reema to drive it to another place. she didn't know the place, and papa had spent a good deal of time explaining the route to her. he and mummy would come in the evening to the new place after they would return from the work.

the road was nearly deserted, and there were very few cars. somtimes Reems thought if she had an older brother, who was lost when he was very young. how good would it feel if he owned a car now, she wondered. he would come in his big car, stop by her rickshaw, and give her a ride to the new place. no, no - she thought. if he was that rich probably she wouldn't have to live on the streets in the first place itself. but it didn't matter if he was not that rich. she wouldn't mind if he would just give her some good food and some colorful clothes. earlier she used to feel bad when she used to see girls of her age wearing fancy clothes. she didn't feel that any longer. she had more important things to worry about.

a big boy on a sports cycle was coming from the opposite side of the road and was constantly looking at her. this was strange, Reema thought. usually people looked at her as if she didn't exist at all. had she taken some stuff from him ? that was unlikely, as she only took things that were left on the streets. or maybe he wanted to give her something to eat. or maybe, just maybe, he was the older brother for who she was praying to the god so passionately ? she was thinking these things as he finally took his eyes off her, dropped his head as if he had been defeated in the sole purpose of his life, and drove past her.

Reema looked ahead. all she knew was that she had 3 more turns to take, and it was getting hotter. her hands had already started to ache from the effort of pulling the thela.

P.S.: on a busy road just touching my campus walls, there are homeless families living on the pavement. a few days ago i was driving my cycle on that road at 3 in the afternoon when I saw a young girl, who I have called Reema, pulling a thela. she was carrying her two younger brothers and some household utensils on them. Reema was six years old, and 4 feet tall. the thela was taller than her shoulders.

how would you have felt if you were the person on that cycle, and the girl had been your real sister ?