One of the most important democratic elements of today's world!
Wars are fought, people are killed, governments are toppled...over this basic human right!
We - as part of today's mainstream society...and an integral ingredient of the country and world...often write thesis, analytical articles and debates defending this right...
But in a single day’s life...there are often situations and circumstances when we willingly disregard it....sometimes in workplaces because of fear of a stinker from the boss...sometimes at a gatherings because of fear of being ridiculed by friends....sometimes at home because of fear of hurting others... sometimes in our realtionships because of fear of rejection.... and even sometimes on roads, on public transports because of the fact that anyways you say will not matter anyways...
Strange but its very true...not only do we stiffle our own voices, opinions, thoughts and feelings....we often encourage our friends, our family and even our children to do the same....
You send the deliverables to the client...after exceededing your normal 8 hours of a day’s work ...because you don’t want your appraisal to be affected and the increment to be deducted... even if you keep cursing the boss and the company with all your hear!
You entertain people you don’t care a hoot about and ask them to extend their visit too...even if you feel like shouting “Get Lost” at them and throwing them out of your house!
You sound as shocked as your peers when they ridicule the latest escapade of the hot girl in office...even if you would like to be in her shoes!
You keep spending the warm nights of the summer tossing and turning in the noisy fan...running on the invertor...praying for the AC light to turn on!
You agree to get married...because you are expected to...even if you would rather live all your life alone...and then turn yours as well as someone else’s lives into a misery!
You keep working in a MNC as the high-profile Project Manager ....when you would rather be at home looking after your family and cooking snacks for your children....because you know that even thinking such a thing will be considered as blashphemy and ungratefulness!
The freedom lost..the power of speech gone...we into hypocrites... unfamiliar with our own eyes looking back at us from the mirror...
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Monday, July 13, 2009
When every right thing seems wrong...
There are days when nothing seems right...
The first cup of tea turns out to be lukewarm!
The water in the bath is boiling from the sun outside!
The courier guy hands you the credit card bill as you are about to leave!
A man decides to fight with his wife while driving and bumps straight into another car...causing massive traffic jam on the way to office!
The darned office lift gets stuck and you have to climb six floors!
When you reach the office, huffing and puffing, you realize you left your cellphone in your car!
And last but not the least, the rest of your team decides to go on emergency leave together...leaving you to tackle the humongous workload!
Then there are also days...when all this is hardly noticeable....when you feel generally high on life...and nothing...not even a stinker from the boss ... has the capacity to spoil your day...Yes, indeed such days do exist...but their frequency is going down as the years pass...And when you see...someone...in this phase of life...you actually sit back and notice and feel envious...!
Is it to do with getting older and more experienced or more engrossed in day-to-day life...or is it the general attitude of some people to be Mast and follow the mantra of Chill, Chill, Just Chill!?
I sometimes wonder...if it is only me...or there are more like me....who face such situations???
The first cup of tea turns out to be lukewarm!
The water in the bath is boiling from the sun outside!
The courier guy hands you the credit card bill as you are about to leave!
A man decides to fight with his wife while driving and bumps straight into another car...causing massive traffic jam on the way to office!
The darned office lift gets stuck and you have to climb six floors!
When you reach the office, huffing and puffing, you realize you left your cellphone in your car!
And last but not the least, the rest of your team decides to go on emergency leave together...leaving you to tackle the humongous workload!
Then there are also days...when all this is hardly noticeable....when you feel generally high on life...and nothing...not even a stinker from the boss ... has the capacity to spoil your day...Yes, indeed such days do exist...but their frequency is going down as the years pass...And when you see...someone...in this phase of life...you actually sit back and notice and feel envious...!
Is it to do with getting older and more experienced or more engrossed in day-to-day life...or is it the general attitude of some people to be Mast and follow the mantra of Chill, Chill, Just Chill!?
I sometimes wonder...if it is only me...or there are more like me....who face such situations???
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
A tryst with fate...
As I sniffed away my tears at the emotional memorial of the King of Pop and missed him more than ever on hearing others perform on his trademark songs...and dedicated the next day to him by hearing all my favorite Michael Jackson numbers...the vulnerability of human life once again occupied my thoughts...
Untimely deaths, sudden onslaught of incurable ailments, accidents, mishaps, unbearable circumstances....I am not a fatalist...but what else can you blame all of this on, if not on fate..?
Karma is another thing...which people swear by...and say...you shall reap what you sow...but having seen many instances of innocent, good, moralistic, and pious people being caught in tragedies and pain...I don't think it really has much a say in our lives...!
So that gets us back to Fate...
As I climbed the steep staircase of my imagination...I saw a big, heavy oak door ...the likes of what you see in Harry Potter movies...labelled FATE.
With an ominous feeling I stared at the four-lettered label and slowly raised my hand to push the door open... Expecting the door to open with a loud creek...I was surprised to feel the door giving away smoothly.
The sudden light almost blinded me as I stepped inside...but then in a minute...it was gone..my eyes returned to normal...and I could clearly see in the dimly lit hall.
Looking around...I was taken aback!
The hall looked straight out of a Hollywood techno movie! The walls were filled with little screens, each with a stylish analogue watch in the corner and a small hanging pendulum that shined like gold. As I moved in front of a screen, it sprang to life...and one could watch a movie with full sound effects.
Getting bewildered by the minute, I moved forward ...watching the action...which was more thrilling than any Hollywood or Bollywood movie combined together...I knew ...that these were real lives...each second of which was captured by a greater camera and a higher resolution lens than anything we could think of.
Stopping at one of the screens, a young girl fiercely typing on a laptop in a well-lit high-rise office caught my attention. She was chatting with someone and her eyes were filled with tears...The screen split in two and I could see a young man chatting with her, sitting in the balcony of an old house in the middle of the night. They seemed on the verge of splitting up...after years of togetherness...
As I looked on...the pendulum suddenly starting swinging...and the screen changed into two still images...one was of them standing arm-in-arm, in a church getting married...and the other was of the girl sitting alone at a beach and the guy happily looking at another girl sitting beside him!
The pendulum kept swinging as their fingers flew on their respective keyboards...As I waited for them to make their choice, there was a loud shriek from the small analogue clock in the corner...making me jump!
The next moment, to my horror.... I saw the girl's huge office exploding and shattering into little pieces of glass and cement!
The TV headlines of 9/11 flashed in my mind!!
Putting a break on the wild wings of my imagination, I came back to reality with a thud!!
Fate or not...I REALLY don't want to know anymore...
Untimely deaths, sudden onslaught of incurable ailments, accidents, mishaps, unbearable circumstances....I am not a fatalist...but what else can you blame all of this on, if not on fate..?
Karma is another thing...which people swear by...and say...you shall reap what you sow...but having seen many instances of innocent, good, moralistic, and pious people being caught in tragedies and pain...I don't think it really has much a say in our lives...!
So that gets us back to Fate...
As I climbed the steep staircase of my imagination...I saw a big, heavy oak door ...the likes of what you see in Harry Potter movies...labelled FATE.
With an ominous feeling I stared at the four-lettered label and slowly raised my hand to push the door open... Expecting the door to open with a loud creek...I was surprised to feel the door giving away smoothly.
The sudden light almost blinded me as I stepped inside...but then in a minute...it was gone..my eyes returned to normal...and I could clearly see in the dimly lit hall.
Looking around...I was taken aback!
The hall looked straight out of a Hollywood techno movie! The walls were filled with little screens, each with a stylish analogue watch in the corner and a small hanging pendulum that shined like gold. As I moved in front of a screen, it sprang to life...and one could watch a movie with full sound effects.
Getting bewildered by the minute, I moved forward ...watching the action...which was more thrilling than any Hollywood or Bollywood movie combined together...I knew ...that these were real lives...each second of which was captured by a greater camera and a higher resolution lens than anything we could think of.
Stopping at one of the screens, a young girl fiercely typing on a laptop in a well-lit high-rise office caught my attention. She was chatting with someone and her eyes were filled with tears...The screen split in two and I could see a young man chatting with her, sitting in the balcony of an old house in the middle of the night. They seemed on the verge of splitting up...after years of togetherness...
As I looked on...the pendulum suddenly starting swinging...and the screen changed into two still images...one was of them standing arm-in-arm, in a church getting married...and the other was of the girl sitting alone at a beach and the guy happily looking at another girl sitting beside him!
The pendulum kept swinging as their fingers flew on their respective keyboards...As I waited for them to make their choice, there was a loud shriek from the small analogue clock in the corner...making me jump!
The next moment, to my horror.... I saw the girl's huge office exploding and shattering into little pieces of glass and cement!
The TV headlines of 9/11 flashed in my mind!!
Putting a break on the wild wings of my imagination, I came back to reality with a thud!!
Fate or not...I REALLY don't want to know anymore...
Monday, July 6, 2009
From the eyes of a fairy...
In the fairyland, it was the little blue fairy's turn to to take a round of the earth and see the amazing life of the earthlings by herself. The little fairy was very excited at this opportunity and felt really lucky to have been chosen for it at such a young age! She knew that this opportunity came only once in a blue moon…and since the number of fairies was increasing day-by-day …due to the increase in number of people dying on earth…it was becoming a chance in a lifetime!
She knew how the veterans of the fairyland ached and hoped for such a day and how those who had been on this trip…came back and yearned for another chance.
When the time came for the lucky draw for choosing the countries that she could visit…which was only limited to one, she could almost hear her little heart thudding away. She had seen the colourful earth many a times from the telescopes installed in the astrological room of the fairyland and wondered about the people living in different parts of that planet. She knew different parts of the earth were called countries and each fairy was only allowed to visit one country at a time.
As the country's name was read out….there was a loud cheer among the fairies…and she almost missed India's name. India…was a country that most of the fairies craved to visit!! Thanking her stars and the elders of the fairyland…the little blue fairy left the palace to prepare for her trip.
As she bade goodbye to her envious friends and excitedly dived into the clouds for her descent, she could already fill the adrenaline pumping inside her …and imagine herself coming back and reciting wonderful stories to all… The round colourful planet seemed bigger and nearer and she could hear different sounds and voices from the subcontinent of her destination.
The first thing that a fairy needed to do as soon as she reaches her destination is to send a ARRIVED SAFELY sign to the fairyland and this is possible only from a structure that was a symbol of the country's power and governance…
In India, the little fairy headed for the parliament's roof…
Being invisible to the human eye, she easily reached the place and started the ritual of sending signals to the fairyland ....but the constant noises and disorder from within distracted her…
Peeping inside, she saw the Finance Minister presenting the Budget for the year….! "What a day to arrive!" she thought.
After finally sending the sign and completing the ritual, the fairy went inside to hear the details and figure out what the budget was all about…
The technicalities didn’t make much sense to her….but one thing which she was really curious about it was the term "AAM AADMI". Who and what was this "AAM AADMI"? She found out that it meant "the common man" but what she didn’t understand was the amount of fuss that was created about it? Isn’t a country's budget supposed to be targeted at the common man?? What was so unique about this one that it had caught the fancy of all and sundry and she could hear the term being flashed in TV channels and websites over and over again and people debating and discussing it at length??
Leaving the issue for Indians to fret about…the little blue fairy caught the sound of a rhythmic video …called "Mere Sang", in which a girl who looked like a fairy herself was dancing…
Trying hard to keep her feet from tapping…she felt her spirits lifting at the sound of the good music!
At the same time, she heard the sounds of a mother praying for the quick recovery of her son who had gone to study to Australia and had been beaten up for being brown-skinned!
The little blue fairy was bewildered and amazed! How can the skin of one’s color evoke such a reaction and situation?!
Looking at her own blue skin, she thought about the numerous colored fairies in the fairyland...who each had a different skin color and wondered what would have happened to them...had they been living on earth!
As she moved further, she was saddened to see some dead bodies being taken out of a debris....which she found was due to a factory blast! The families of the victims were wailing in sorrow....
She wanted to console them and tell them that they needn’t cry so much as the good souls would turn into little fairies and live in the beautiful fairyland and conveniently forget all about their sufferings on earth....but she couldn’t...so she moved on..
Touching another part of the country, she suddenly came into the tinsel town that she had heard so much about... as she spanned over the new and shining sea link….and heard some people praising and some fretting over it….she saw the poster of an actor on a billboard that had been blackened. Figuring out the name of the actor as Shiney Ahuja…she was taken aback to find out that he has recently been charged of raping his maid!!
Hearing this, the little blue fairy suddenly felt very exhausted…no one had prepared her for such a gruelling turn of events in a single day…
Deciding to calling it a day…she looked for a cool and soothing place to take a nap.....and reached the famous Band Stand...
As she absorbed the refreshing smell of the sea waters and the lulling sound of the waves....she saw a commotion nearby ...two young men were fighting with a policeman...
Moving forward she found out that the policeman had made some comment at the two men, sitting and holding hands on the rocks at the beach....and now the two men were abusing him!
Befounded....the fairy thought to help them sort it out ..but when she found out that there was nothing “illegal” about it, she let it be.....
Sighing, she fluttered her tired wings, and closed her eyes!!!
She knew how the veterans of the fairyland ached and hoped for such a day and how those who had been on this trip…came back and yearned for another chance.
When the time came for the lucky draw for choosing the countries that she could visit…which was only limited to one, she could almost hear her little heart thudding away. She had seen the colourful earth many a times from the telescopes installed in the astrological room of the fairyland and wondered about the people living in different parts of that planet. She knew different parts of the earth were called countries and each fairy was only allowed to visit one country at a time.
As the country's name was read out….there was a loud cheer among the fairies…and she almost missed India's name. India…was a country that most of the fairies craved to visit!! Thanking her stars and the elders of the fairyland…the little blue fairy left the palace to prepare for her trip.
As she bade goodbye to her envious friends and excitedly dived into the clouds for her descent, she could already fill the adrenaline pumping inside her …and imagine herself coming back and reciting wonderful stories to all… The round colourful planet seemed bigger and nearer and she could hear different sounds and voices from the subcontinent of her destination.
The first thing that a fairy needed to do as soon as she reaches her destination is to send a ARRIVED SAFELY sign to the fairyland and this is possible only from a structure that was a symbol of the country's power and governance…
In India, the little fairy headed for the parliament's roof…
Being invisible to the human eye, she easily reached the place and started the ritual of sending signals to the fairyland ....but the constant noises and disorder from within distracted her…
Peeping inside, she saw the Finance Minister presenting the Budget for the year….! "What a day to arrive!" she thought.
After finally sending the sign and completing the ritual, the fairy went inside to hear the details and figure out what the budget was all about…
The technicalities didn’t make much sense to her….but one thing which she was really curious about it was the term "AAM AADMI". Who and what was this "AAM AADMI"? She found out that it meant "the common man" but what she didn’t understand was the amount of fuss that was created about it? Isn’t a country's budget supposed to be targeted at the common man?? What was so unique about this one that it had caught the fancy of all and sundry and she could hear the term being flashed in TV channels and websites over and over again and people debating and discussing it at length??
Leaving the issue for Indians to fret about…the little blue fairy caught the sound of a rhythmic video …called "Mere Sang", in which a girl who looked like a fairy herself was dancing…
Trying hard to keep her feet from tapping…she felt her spirits lifting at the sound of the good music!
At the same time, she heard the sounds of a mother praying for the quick recovery of her son who had gone to study to Australia and had been beaten up for being brown-skinned!
The little blue fairy was bewildered and amazed! How can the skin of one’s color evoke such a reaction and situation?!
Looking at her own blue skin, she thought about the numerous colored fairies in the fairyland...who each had a different skin color and wondered what would have happened to them...had they been living on earth!
As she moved further, she was saddened to see some dead bodies being taken out of a debris....which she found was due to a factory blast! The families of the victims were wailing in sorrow....
She wanted to console them and tell them that they needn’t cry so much as the good souls would turn into little fairies and live in the beautiful fairyland and conveniently forget all about their sufferings on earth....but she couldn’t...so she moved on..
Touching another part of the country, she suddenly came into the tinsel town that she had heard so much about... as she spanned over the new and shining sea link….and heard some people praising and some fretting over it….she saw the poster of an actor on a billboard that had been blackened. Figuring out the name of the actor as Shiney Ahuja…she was taken aback to find out that he has recently been charged of raping his maid!!
Hearing this, the little blue fairy suddenly felt very exhausted…no one had prepared her for such a gruelling turn of events in a single day…
Deciding to calling it a day…she looked for a cool and soothing place to take a nap.....and reached the famous Band Stand...
As she absorbed the refreshing smell of the sea waters and the lulling sound of the waves....she saw a commotion nearby ...two young men were fighting with a policeman...
Moving forward she found out that the policeman had made some comment at the two men, sitting and holding hands on the rocks at the beach....and now the two men were abusing him!
Befounded....the fairy thought to help them sort it out ..but when she found out that there was nothing “illegal” about it, she let it be.....
Sighing, she fluttered her tired wings, and closed her eyes!!!
Saturday, July 4, 2009
Bitter sweet events of the week
While the week started off with the end to a wonderful trip to the city of dreams...it was full of eventful days and nights that add to the list of unforgettable memories of life..
Celebrating my mom's b'day amid close and extended family after 20 years was the main highlight of the week! :) Makes you realize how important is family and relatives and how good it feels to be among people who are your well-wishers and a part of you!
Falling and bruising badly of the domestic help....and spending 2 hours in the hospital with her...and praying for her to open her eyes...made me realize how vulnerable one is in the hands of mishaps.
Being hit by a truck at 10.30 in the night and then catching the fleeing truck driver and fighting with him for an hour...was the other incident that shook me...Though the extreme damage to the car made me angry and frustrated....I thanked God that only the car had dented and bruised ...and all of us were fine...especially because there were 3 kids in the car at that time!!
But thankfully, the week ended with a happy note ....with us hosting a surprise b’day dinner for a friend who had faced a tremendous tragedy recently...and would probably have spent the night alone... lost in memories of the past...The smile on her face...made me forget the rest of the unpleasantness that I had faced...
Just a manifestation of the saying...”Life is like that”... makes you realize...how a dull and boring life can seem appealing ... after going though one incident after the other!
So here I am ...waiting for everything to fall in its place...and go back to my day-to-day mundane routine... of going to office, coming back home, attending to household chores and shopping for groceries... seems far better than the recent happenings... :)
Celebrating my mom's b'day amid close and extended family after 20 years was the main highlight of the week! :) Makes you realize how important is family and relatives and how good it feels to be among people who are your well-wishers and a part of you!
Falling and bruising badly of the domestic help....and spending 2 hours in the hospital with her...and praying for her to open her eyes...made me realize how vulnerable one is in the hands of mishaps.
Being hit by a truck at 10.30 in the night and then catching the fleeing truck driver and fighting with him for an hour...was the other incident that shook me...Though the extreme damage to the car made me angry and frustrated....I thanked God that only the car had dented and bruised ...and all of us were fine...especially because there were 3 kids in the car at that time!!
But thankfully, the week ended with a happy note ....with us hosting a surprise b’day dinner for a friend who had faced a tremendous tragedy recently...and would probably have spent the night alone... lost in memories of the past...The smile on her face...made me forget the rest of the unpleasantness that I had faced...
Just a manifestation of the saying...”Life is like that”... makes you realize...how a dull and boring life can seem appealing ... after going though one incident after the other!
So here I am ...waiting for everything to fall in its place...and go back to my day-to-day mundane routine... of going to office, coming back home, attending to household chores and shopping for groceries... seems far better than the recent happenings... :)
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