I want to puke

I want to puke. There is so much impurity into the system that I want to take them out, Right here and now. Don’t think that it is just something to do with my bowel movements. I want to puke from all possible exit points..mind, ear, eyes, mouth..even heart..well..not below that. Shall I provide you the reasons?

See, take something from the top, my mind, or ours mind, it has become so complex. It is not just thinking about roti, kapda and makaan, it is thinking about myriads of problems. And what is more troubling is, it is not thinking from a simplistic point of view, like some rishi-muni used to think. Take me for example, I see so many problems around, and when I put my mind into it, I don’t find any plausible solution for any problem, such a muddled mind it has become. It needs to cleanse itself.

Take ears for example, so much of noise, and unwanted noise. If you are living in a mega metro, there are not many serene places where your ears will not be drumming. And amidst so much of cacophony, one cannot think straight, and then how can one put his or her mind properly? Well, you can just say, provided you are reading properly, no fault of mind, etch!!!

Think of eyes next, terrible things happening all around, sad and struggling faces jostling with each other, for a piece of bread, for a penny of metal. One must remember what these modern yoga gurus suggest, if you close your eyes, and concentrate, you will be actually able to close your ears from outside world and will be able to see inwardly. But here is the problem, in these times even closing eyes will not be a recipe for calmness. You need to take those images out of your system which came through your eyes to disturb your mind.

The worst may be my mouth. Two ways of exit here, and how much needed both are! Whatever has been accumulated through our ears and eyes over the years into our minds, we speak accordingly, and then we say, hey, I am speaking my mind. But those are gibberish, and I want to take them out. Of course, what I have accumulated in my stomach is terrible, may not be the worst one, of course not the worst one, with such a dire poverty around. But even then, too much impurity there also, which gives me the physical sensation of puking, daily, at most hours.

Is that all? No. my heart is bleeding. It needs to cleanse itself mostly. It has stopped beating on musical tunes, and the drums which are guiding its beats are too treacherous to let my system remain in harmony. It is the one which is creating imbalances throughout, and is not at peace with itself. However, the question is how to cleanse it? Where can I take my heart out? Where is the ashiyana for all the doldrums it is in? Let me puke my heart here, in consequent writings, to start the cleansing process, which will right go till cleaning my mind and let it start working properly.

LVMR Reflections - Gandhi

It is embarrassing to observe how many Indians misunderstand, despise and hate Gandhi. It is more embarrassing to note how this proportion increases as we move into elitist society. Most of the young Turks of the country blame Gandhi for everything this country has become, and the relatively older generation has apathy sort of for Gandhian principles and philosophies. How relevant are those? Does younger Indian generation need them, or do these people need any principles or philosophies at all?
Volumes have been written about all these, scores of people have gone deep into these matters. And I am certainly not an expert on this, so this is kind of disclaimer that these are all my amateur views.
The basic issues of the country are more or less same; the complexity has increased many folds. A large part of population is still reeling under poverty, corruption, lack of education and religious fanaticism. Oppression is still there and with Maoist violence and terrorism becoming bigger by the day in trying to consume the identity of India, we are in dire need of another revolution to bind us together to take us through this tumultuous phase. Any long-term solution, if there is any, will be based upon some basic principles, be it naked capitalism where money will be the cure of all diseases, or sort of dictatorship where the mighty and powerful take the decision as and when their time will come, or, anarchy, where everyone will go on the course they want to pursue. But it can be Gandhian principles as well, which still echoes through entire nation. It can still be based upon truth and non-violence, and tolerance and upliftment of lowest stratum of the society.
The issue with following Gandian principle is that though they are so simple, yet so deep in meaning that it cannot become a way of life unless completely understood and engrained. Following without understanding it completely will be like worshipping God, because we worship God, because we do not know enough about Him, and so we just follow verbatim what Holy Scriptures and sages tell us. But we have to understand Gandhi, because he was not a God, he was a human, a person with principles and conviction.
Unfortunately, with time, this level of understanding towards Gandhi and his principles has deteriorated. The new generation is trying to know Gandhi through bits and pieces of drama and fiction, with distorted facts and vested interests. They do not have time to go through volumes of Gandhi literature or to think and connect whatever little information they have.
However, one thing we all have to understand. Those Gandhian principles will be valid for all ages, like the Noble Eightfold Path of Buddha. They are not some obscure philosophical thesis, but core human values. The right way in this country is to spread that wisdom.
In many of the countries, military training is compulsory, every young has to go through it for certain period of time. In this country of non-violence, we should make Gandhi Shivir Compulsory. Everyone should spend some time each year; either in classroom, or some camp, or in some activity, to make him or her understand Gandhi and his ideals better. The results may not come instantly, but after some time we will have a force of Gandhi soldiers, making India become a nation the way Gandhi imagined.

food for thought

Ours is a poor country, this is a fact and those who do not accept it and are spellbound by the glittering success parts of our economy has achieved in last two decades are just myopic. But in many parts of this country, or at least in most of the visible parts of this country, this poverty is scattered. You have slums, plenty of them, but between those, you will always find skyscrapers. These two are so mixed now that it has become sort of Indian identity. And this is where Bihar is different from the rest of the country. It has mass poverty, wealth is very hard to find, it is either with old landlords, or with corrupt politicians and their beneficiaries, who seldom flaunt it. So wherever you will stand, you will find ugly poverty, like a black reptile, encircling everything.
Standing on the railway platform of Darbhanga, I was aghast to see the story, faces of hundreds of people were describing. Those open mouths, with flies all around, and over to that, the deep slumber, it has became the way of life for them. A whole generation has undergone in this kind of lifestyle, where there is no style, but a belief that things now cannot be better. The place was so different that it takes an effort to not let depression set inside. The whole environment was gloomy, where you have to scour amongst scores of people to find a happy face. In a country of festivals, all the colors of their lives have merged together to become black, and it must have been ages when their ears have enjoyed a piece of music, because those ears have become deaf now, shocked from the deafening voice poverty is generating, day in and day out, like a scene from the bomb-blast.
There are two parts of the country, one which is competing with the best of the world, and getting all the attention; other which is also competing, albeit with Africa, to go so downhill from where it will be impossible to drag it up. I am both fortunate and unfortunate to witness both parts so closely.

I winced in pain. The newspaper was ahead, big bold words of its headlines ‘Terrorists, Not Maoists’ were dancing around me. It is now everywhere. I freaked out. Now I cannot sleep for 12 hours in stretch when I will be on a Bihar bound train from Howrah. The subject of my reveries will change from how am I going to cope up with the pre-medieval facilities of my village to what last minute action I can take to survive a Maoist manslaughter. With civic polls going on in Bengal, and Mamata Banaerjii getting stronger each day to throw away the communist regime, I could see another puppet Maoist regime after JMM-led Jharkhand. The murderous act was carried out in such a simple manner that I was in instant confusion which one can be more appropriate, cold-blooded or gory. Just remove some bolts and fish-plates and wipe out so many lives. I shivered, not because of cold weather, but pure fear. And this fear was of helplessness, of impotency. This fear was the realization of the fact that everything we are doing, this job, this study, all will have no meaning if we will reach in a situation like so many others in our neighborhood. I was getting frightened more and cursed myself why I took so much interest in history and international politics. I could have remained ignorant and not thought about pattern in uprisings and how they destroyed everything. I was sad, and despite knowing I might be overreacting, I could not get my mind off it.

Pain and Value

Pain is the joy of life. A line from famous Madhushala says, Peeda ka anand jise hai, Aaye meri Madhushala (only those who have the pleasure of pain are invited to come to my place). The first question though arise here ‘is it necessary to have the experience of pain? Shall we invite pain to our life?’
In Indian mythology, there are plenty of examples of sages gone through the phase of tapasya to get the desired outcome. We always here and there come across the phrase ‘no pain, no gain’. In my view, the common tendency of avoid pain as long as possible is the way things should be. First, a forced pain is a sadist’s ammunition. Second, the hardships and the pain of that hardship can only be meaningful if it is really we cannot avoid by all means. Take example, for a millionaire’s son, if he will abstain himself from using inheritance for his own growth and instead do everything on his own from starting, is this pain worth of. There can be contrasting views on that, but what I think is that, he should utilize all his resources and then if he is coming across with pain and hardship in aspiring for something which is really beyond his existing capability, it is worth of.
So, pain should not be unwarranted, it should be something which has to be experienced after much resistance. The joy of pain, the experience out of it which can be described only after that phase is passed, but there is a huge learning curve attached. Perhaps the learning from failures is more than the learning from successes. To look back and diagnose the real issues are some of the key outcomes a painful experience gives.
What kind of pain, physical or emotional? Well, all pains are emotional only, because we experience physical pain only when it reaches to our emotional cord, and that’s why people have different level of tolerance against physical activities. 

Heated gold becomes ornament. Beaten copper becomes wires. Depleted stone becomes statue. So the more pain you get in life you become more valuable !!

You and The Shadow

I have this feelin', 'll let you know,
running behind a shadow, in a summer snow.
Tepid legs, but swift like a deer;
why in such hurry, 'll you ask my dear?
The Sun, the snow, skid and the glow;
will you tell me to stop or at least to go back now?
As you listen me, can you feel the steps;
the abrupt breathing, and the rising beats?
Running since the dawn, from the word go;
may be due to blight, or just the want of the shadow.
Oh, this shadow, I dreamt of it last night;
what was the grandeur, even without any height!
Dimension was different, yet there was pleasure;
I even thought of you, albeit with desire.
But as the first ray came, the race has been made;
that shadow was there, though so far and fade.
Aware of the snow, but don't want to be slow;
but you know the blight, now nowhere to go.
Let me be blind, or ask the wind to blow;
or shield me from sunshine, I will take a bow;
My Dear, you drag me from this mirage of the shadow.

The Winner Stands Alone

(thoughts provoked while reading 'The Winner Stands Alone' by Paulo Coelho where a character makes a list of the qualities necessary to be a normal person)

What does being normal mean? Of the sets of abnormal and normal people, which one is bigger? Are they even comparable?

Logically, the no. of abnormal people should be just a fraction of total population. And this is because abnormality is an exception in common sense. So here is a definition of normal people – whose acts can be predicted or explained on the basis of common sense. And who has common sense? – a reasonable and prudent person has common sense. Now, this reasonableness and prudency in thought process and behavior come from experiences of day-to-day life. These activities differ a lot across societies and so does the attributes of normal behavior. In colloquial language, the ‘aam junta – the Mango People’ are those people who are not at top, who need to be taken care of by the power invested, either by them or grabbed from them, in the others at top. But then, those who are at the top are they not normal? They must be the people who have ambitions and capabilities and have harnessed them well. And this is perfectly normal. So, maybe being normal has nothing to with the position in social hierarchy. Maybe psychologists can better define normal behavior, but then they will narrow it down to mental condition and there philosophers will clash with them. Psychologists will say that if you go on with life exactly doing what the median of the population does, you are perfectly normal. They will term you abnormal if your thoughts are different from the herd. They will treat exceptions as abnormal. On the contrary, philosophers will value those with exceptional thought process as the ones who are still normal. So the argument boils down to the factor that whether being normal means to stay in the herd or to rise above them. History has numerous examples of people with eccentricities who had built empires and had performed miracles. They were able to do so because their abnormality had set them apart from the others when they converted their weaknesses into strengths.

The main concern behind this random thinking of mine is our negligence towards people who are not like us. The attitude of terming them abnormal and making them outcast destroys the special gifts bestowed in them. Here is a call for a paradigm shift in our outlook towards all these people.