Yeh India hai Boss.. Idhar Sab aise hi chalta hai..

“I am a peace loving and law abiding citizen of India. I hate crime and criminals. Terrorists should be dealt with an iron hand. We should follow an Israel approach in dealing with cross border terrorism and an US approach for dealing with in house crime.”

Don't the above statements sound like being discussed at a coffee table, in canteens, at dinner tables or while travelling in a train? The other day while travelling in the Delhi Metro, I was caught up in a similar conversation. After an hour in the discussion, after evaluating all necessary parameters, we concluded that it was due to the relaxed and corrupt approach of politicians and their under-table relations with criminals that Our Great Nation is not progressing. I agreed and alighted at my destination.

On my way back, I found that one of the members of the elite panel who was discussing crime, law and criminal with all zest in the metro was caught by a traffic cop for not wearing a helmet. He passed on a Rs. 100 bill and conveniently went past the cop.

So.. What else should he have done? Paid the full fine and take the receipt? Are you nuts? This is India man.. Idhar sab aise hi chalta hai..

But I keep iterating this to myself. Do we really have a right to comment on the faults of the judiciary or the understanding between the politicians and criminals or say corrupt cops when we ourselves are always ready to buy our way out of problems? Who is at the root of the problem? Are we naive enough not to know answers of these questions?

I have full faith that I or for that sake anyone who reads this will agree that to stop the corruption, belittle the effects of malpractices and curbing down misappropriation of funds, we should actually probe into our tiny hearts and see if the problem is outside or inside. I really don't see any reason why one should not consider that it is his or her personal responsibility to bring in a change.

If it’s not possible to become a demagogue, at least one can become a responsible individual. Just think how much the world would change and become a better place to live if each one of us checks the self and tries not to walk out of the ways of civic societies.

I believe it is difficult, but definitely not impossible to implement these things. But then, Yeh India hai Boss.. Idhar sab aise hi chalta hai..

Solitude is Fiesta

Being alone is something I thought I could never comprehend. I have always wished and imagined myself in togetherness. With family, with friends, with colleagues, with classmates, with this, with that. That always told me one definite thing. People who are alone are either not social enough or not worth socializing with.

But that was me a long time back. Now, when I sit alone and reflect upon myself my life and moments i have lived or just spent, I get to know a lot more being alone than being with people. I have a lot more to crystallize, a lot more than I thought I would ever have to think about. To put what I feel is a cognitive dissonance or a perpetual dilemma. To be or not to be. When I am alone, I want to be with people so that I get to know them better and I can think about them in Solitude. When I am with people, I want to be alone to analyze what I feel or think about them.

Well, quite foolish of me trying to figure out things which hardly make sense. But then that is what life is all about. Man, through the eyes of reason, has since the day of formation has been looking for the answers to the three basic questions as stated in Vedas;
Who am I? (Ko ham)
Where have I come from? (Kuto Ayata)
Why am I here? What is my purpose? (Kim uddeshyam)

So, if I am not content with the amount of knowledge, or for that sake type of knowledge I have, I believe its nothing more than the age old human tendency to look for meaning wherever there is confusion. This is fairly similar to looking for shapes in the otherwise random skies or looking for a pattern in an otherwise incoherently occurring incidences.

I don't know if I would ever be able to complete this quest for the self, solitude and togetherness. It looks as unlikely as finding a solution to the time-gravity equation. But that fact is surely not disparaging enough for me to stop looking for answers.

After all, as they say, Life is Confusion.