Congratulations!!

Are you one of those people, who forward emails full of pumping feel-goodism such as “the only thing worse than an unfinished job is a job never started”? It feels so good to tell people to go out and catch their dreams, because isn’t that just what we have been waiting to do? We occasionally stare at the flat screen monitors in office and dream about the day when we will have arrived!
How exactly, we aren’t sure; we are still waiting for a few things that need sorting out first - marriage, a car, a house, a better workplace, anything. We lie down late in the night after watching some movie, which we have probably seen at least three times before, simply because they push it to our TV at prime time and we dont care anymore. Sometimes, before sleep takes over, we uneasily remember that little boy or girl who once confidently stood up and said “when I grow up I will be so and so!” and wonder, whatever happened in the meanwhile!

So when we come across this bizarre couple who have been crazy enough to decide that, everything else can wait, but not the dream, we tend to follow them closely. Especially when the dreamer is a girl. Especially when the dream entails quitting a plush job to invest twenty four months of her life for cracking one of the toughest competitive exams. Especially when, the other spouse builds a solid net of protection around this girl so that none of jeering or worried calls for sanity from well meaning relatives bump her off course. Together they toil through one milestone after another, as though a single entity, all the while dreaming the same dream.

Then one day, which couldn’t have come sooner, what with the countless nervous visits to the website, the results are out.

You know what the results are, when you look at the man, whose ebullience has somehow deified gravity, so he hovers slightly above ground. Then you know, what really a pay off is. There is no need to stop and wonder, what if, the result had been different? These two people would have still been heroes, don’t you agree? For heroism in our times lies in keeping our dreams alive.

I am not sure how big an impact the Women’s Quota bill would have on the women of this country. I am not sure whether there will be ever an acceptance for stay at home dads. I am very sure that the day there are more couples like these, the need for Women’s Day celebrations would have been obsolete.

Congratulations Niyati and Paresh!! We need our heroes…

A Debate

I remember the day I first landed in Mumbai. It was during my summer internship. I had never before been to a real metro. On a stuffy Tuesday morning, I stood at the VT and looked around. It was bewilderment at first, curiosity next, but the lingering feeling I was left with was mostly that of being like a grain of sand on the beach.
The whole platform gave an impression of some mammoth sized monolithic machine, with a million big and small parts, each rolling into another...There is no way anything or anybody can simply stand and look... one has to morph into some part of the machine and continue grinding... or be ground!
It is probable that I took a very negative view of the situation. In any case I began abhorring the swarm of humanity and secretly resolved to never make this place my home. A few years later, when I began visiting the city more often, meeting with people and growing up in some sense of the word that I began to think about what had happened back then. Now, I need to ask myself some uncomfortable questions.

What was it about the rushing crowds that made you uneasy? Did you get hurt in any way?
No, it wasn’t that. It was just an overwhelming feeling...all the thousands of men and women, so mingled without trace, each must have a story at least as interesting as mine, but to me, standing over there, it didn’t matter. Each of them just made up the - "crowd". Scary part being, I too made up the "crowd" to each and everyone of them. I could be the Princess of Timbuktu or an empty pushcart standing in a corner, how did it matter?

So, what do you think of Self worth? Does it get affected by factors within or without?
Oh, now you are tricking me into answers. Do you want me to say that, on that day standing at the platform, I began having doubts about my self worth?

Hey, I am the one questioning, so you don’t question back. What got you so defensive about the self worth part?
Come on...let’s come back to the topic. Honestly, I did feel for a moment, the way we feel on starry summer nights. You know, when you just lie down on your back in terrace or a courtyard, and look at the millions and millions of worlds within worlds? That feeling when you try to imagine the whole universe spread out for your eyes, our galaxy's place in the scheme of things the solar system, this blue planet of ours, our continent, country, state, village / city / town, and finally you lying down on your back and looking? I have felt a shiver down my spine on such occasions. But I have felt something else too... the beauty of the whole design, the complete poise and perfection with which every piece of matter or no-matter (whatever they call it) is related to each other. Well I am a believer in Intelligent Design...what I saw on the platform was spine chilling in its own way, but I have failed to see the beauty there in.

This means either of the two things - Either your belief of Intelligent Design is flawed (Humans from big cities don’t fit into it?), or you are still making excuses for an overinflated ego...
Hey, now you are not being very polite are you? What is wrong about wanting to have a distinct identity? Haven’t a lot of great people fought for it? Do you forget Nietzsche - "The Noble Soul has reverence for itself"?

There you are again! Quoting people out of context… The noble soul has reverence for itself, and its greatness doesn’t depend on the masses. Why do you fear that mingling your body with the bodies of rest of humanity makes the greatness of your soul any lesser? Or makes the greatness of any soul (even that of other individuals of the "crowd") any lesser?

Well people, I am exhausted!!! whaddya think...?