Kashmir - From Heaven to Hell

From ‘Paradise on Earth’ to ‘Hell for Kashmiris’, Kashmir has seen a change that no one would have ever thought of 20 years ago. But then, as said, suffering shows us really what freedom is, I am sure millions of us already know that by now. After having seen the horrors in the past two decades, who better than the Kashmiris to sway between the two questions: When were we better? When are we going to be?

 

I have lived my life during the period of ‘fight for freedom’ (let me call it so for namesake). I have seen things go from good to bad to worse and now to utter desperation and disgust. I was 8 years old when I got to know that there is something called freedom fight going on. When our family stayed indoors for days I got to know that there is curfew and no one is allowed to leave their homes. I was happy as it meant no school and no studies. One fine day we were on our way back from the school in the school bus. The bus was big enough to seat around 60 students. We were from the age group of 3 to 14 years old. For some reason we had security escorts with us that day. I was doing what any kid of my age would do, but I remember seeing a brick that came flying and shattered our glass window wounding someone who I can’t seem to recall right now. The next thing I remember is that the escorts we had with us that day were on the roof of the bus and I knew that I would be safe. This meant that there would be no school for a few days and later I got to know that I am not going to my school any more. I found out that every student of Army Public School was to quit the school or else face a sure death from the freedom fighters. At that age, I was sad that I will lose my friends and happy to know that there won’t be any more school. Sometime later, I joined a new school and everything was fine as usual accept that every morning I woke up, I used to pray to God that let there be no school today or let there be curfew. On some days my prayers were answered, and on some they weren’t. But I was happy as any child of my age would be.

 

If you are a girl, you would have your own collection of stories that were told to you. Stories about dolls, princesses, fairies, Alice in Wonderland, and all others. For boys, stories of bravery, Aladdin, magical and mystical worlds, kings, Akbar Birbal and others. I had my share of stories from my parents and grand-parents too but the stories that I was interested in most of them were the stories of the fight for freedom going on in Kashmir. There were freedom fighters with amazing names and amazing talents. There were local heroes who could do anything and emerge unhurt. With time there were more characters added. They were from our neighboring countries: Pakistan and Afghanistan. Those from Pakistan were stronger than our local heroes and for me super-men were from Afghanistan. My friends and I did not brag about how strong my dad is, or how I broke stone with my bare hands but about the freedom fighters. It was a happy day if we saw some face-covered gun-wielding man (not in uniform). There were factions they belonged to (not the Justice League) and we argued all day which league did the one we saw belonged to. But I grew up like any other kid of my age would grow.

 

By the time I reached my teen age, I had seen a few dead bodies with bullet holes, seen pictures of scores of mutilated people in newspapers, heard about thousands dead and countless stories how the methods of Army, CRPF, BSF, and other armed forces differed when they had to kill those they took forcefully, when they had to raid a town, village, or a locality, or how they differ in their practices of responding to an armed attack, and some more disturbing ones. I was 13 when I for the first time saw bullets being fired by a freedom fighter who was too close to me to be true. I was in my class full of students when he suddenly appeared near our class window, not more than 15 feet away from me, and emptied his rounds at his assumed target. He vanished, army showed up, kicked our class door, came in pointing guns at us and asking us where the shooter was, dragged our teacher out of the class and beat him to a pulp while we heard his screams and later took few other teachers of our school away with them to interrogate them. Next place I find myself at was near an army headquarter protesting and demanding the release of our teachers. Any other child would have been taken to his parents where they would assess if there is a trauma of some kind that will affect the child. But me (and everyone else from my school), I was on my way home with a few friends talking and creating scenarios as to what more could have happened. At home, I was happily narrating the events of the day to my parents and the next day I was at the same school, in the same class, sitting at the same seat looking out from the same window wondering about the absolutely amazing day I had the day before and imagining every which way it would have turned out to be. Among friends, each one of us boasted of seeing the shooter as if he was the most celebrated actor of our times.

 

Every calendar year, we missed a month or two of school days because of one thing or the other and we thought that every such day brings us closer to freedom and to Pakistan. Indian occupation was not to be endured. My favorite sport was cricket and my favorite team was that of Pakistan. My prayers for no-school-days continued and our lives went on as usual. Some mornings saw me waking up to find that our locality was cordoned by the army. All men (who seemed adults) were made to assemble in a nearby open ground leaving women and children behind in their homes. I would at times accompany the army to our rooms so that they can conduct search looking for hidden weapons. Sometimes they were polite and sensible, but at times they didn’t care about the belongings. Once a man in uniform politely asked my mother if their group could use our kitchen. My mom with equal politeness allowed them in. One of them offered me a piece of bread to eat which I duly chewed on but threw it when they were not watching. I am not sure if it was because of the taste or because of who it came from. These were not some random and shocking events but a part of life. No questions asked and no harm done. If the day was bad for some people like my two uncles (one maternal and one paternal) had one day, they were taken as suspected freedom fighters. They returned next day only after being beaten and bruised trying hard to hide the bruises from children and telling their respective moms that they are fine. These added to my stories and to the stories of my friends. Sometimes the stories were about places where lone women were molested, raped, killed, houses vandalized, robbed, burnt, and other acts they can perform during a cordon. Some of these stories were true and some as made up as ours were. What all we made up while narrating these common incidents among friends is something that makes me laugh now.

 

Sometimes at nights when we were having dinner, or watching TV (if there was electricity on that night), or talking generally, we would hear a soft knock at the door. A few moments later I would see my parents talking in whispers and later finding out that some freedom fighters are going to stay overnight. They would ask for dinner and my mom would duly cook for them no matter how tired she was or no matter how late it was during the night. They would stay for the night and leave in the morning; at times they would stay for a few days, or would just eat and leave. On such days, when I left for school with my sister, we were told not to say anything to anyone about who is at our place. But I was 13 years old and didn’t know about the worldly secrets people keep. In utmost secrecy, I used to tell my friends all there is to it and at times add a few things like I got to play with an AK-47, a Chinese Pistol (very famous in those times) and hear stories of the adventures of freedom fighters. Then there were other stories of families being massacred by these freedom fighters because they didn’t allow them in late at night, houses being robbed, or politely enough – asking for money, etc. etc. etc. All these were stories. Adults were frightened and we kids were entertained. But not always were we kids this way. We heard that kids of our age and adults too would go across the border and get trained. Those who returned from Pakistan were Pak-trained and others were Afghan-trained. Some even told us that kids were abducted and dumped in these training camps. Reports of thousands of Kashmiris killed at the border were common.

 

I used to walk to my school which was not more than half a mile from home. I used to walk pretty fast. I was all happy and jolly, walking and singing at the same time when I was about to collide with an army personnel who suddenly appeared around the other side of his vehicle. We almost collided but we didn’t. The next thing I remember is that his hand (one hand) is around my neck and I am dangling in mid-air. He told me that he knows what I am and what I can do. I was there for a very short while and then my feet touched the ground. I smiled and walked away as if nothing happened. I was 15. He was a strong man. Do my parents know about this? Not at all. Do my friends know? Hell no. Not that it would have made any difference.

 

By the time I turned 16, I knew almost all about different weapons used by the freedom fighters, whenever there were gunshots fired at night, I would guess which weapon it could be. I don’t know how my success rate was, but I would say every week it used to be a few times when I heard the shots fired. If the shots felt closer, we would duck in corners, or go to smaller less open rooms till there was some calm. As soon as the surroundings were silent, we were back to where we started from. It happened one fine morning that there were shots being fired and they were unusually loud. We assembled in a room which we thought of to be very safe. Some time later, army showed up at our place and pointed at the bullet holes on one side of our house. One officer was adamant that the shots were fired from the inside but calmed down when he saw that the bullets had destroyed half of my sister’s bangles and a few clothes that were hanging in a locker. There was a hole in the bed near the pillow as well. Why I recall that is because while the shots were being fired, my sister was in her room asleep on the same bed with a bullet hole in it. It is a safe guess to say that the bullet came in after my sister left her room. Some more time later we got to know that the fire exchange was a friendly exchange between two patrolling groups of army. One side misfired and the other thought they were attacked. Out house was the ultimate target. Some more time later, our elders were upset while we kids were imagining at what precise moment my sister got off her bed. Some more and more time later all was normal. Just another day in life.

 

All these events were on a decline and amidst all this I left Kashmir in hope to get an education that had caught my interest. I had to leave because no college or university in Kashmir offered the degree. I reached Bangalore and everything seemed as it was. I did not feel free, I did not notice any freedom, or I did not feel as if I was in the land of oppressors. But the only thing that felt different was that there was no army wherever I went. No bunkers, no patrols, no one to stop and ask me for my identification, no traffic chaos because army convoy was to be let go first, no check posts where one had to get down from the car and walk a few hundred meters no matter how hot or how cold how young or how old you were. On one of my holidays in college, I was travelling home and when we crossed the Jawahar Tunnel (in winter) I saw a man (who was travelling in the same passenger vehicle as I was) being punched and kicked because he was sick and said that he could not walk. The rest of us watched as if it was a dog being beaten, not a human being. I knew I was home, but I was happy. I was very happy to be home.

 

My friends and class-mates were from almost all parts of the India. They asked me many questions and no matter what the question was, it always had the same answer: Kashmir is home and you can’t leave home if things are bad. When asked if there was a solution, all I said that India and Pakistan need to fight it over one last time. There were laughs and I laughed too. For the first time I could tell stories that would make everyone around me drop his jaws but I was not to give in so fast. I kept some of them to me and some of them for them. Four years passed and I started working and got into one of the largest IT firms of the world. I went to Pune and was there for a year. Never ever in the 8 years I was outside Kashmir did I feel discriminated based on my religion or my birthplace. Never once. But there were stories from others who faced hardship being a Muslim or a Kashmiri. If it was both a Muslim and a Kashmiri, according to them, you need to be lucky to be treated equally. One year in China now and it is same and different both. Same because I do all the things that I had been doing all my life and different because only one person has asked me about Kashmir, Pakistan and India and the conflict.

 

20 years gone, we have no more weapon wielding freedom fighters, no more guerilla war, no more freedom fighters staying overnight, no more army cordons, and no more gunshots being fired in my birthplace. But there is something very wrong now. 20 years on, when I try and look for the fight of freedom Kashmir has been fighting, I look at it with remorse, disappointment and disgust. There is a new weapon now. Stones. There are new freedom fighters on the streets. Students. There are new martyrs in news. Teenagers. I don’t know if that is how freedom has been fought for or will be but what I know is that this is not what we want Kashmir to be. When I hear that teenagers are on streets pelting stones at army and police, I picture myself doing the same thing 15 years ago. No matter what the cause, do children deserve this fate? What happened that made parents see their children throwing stones rather than playing with a cricket ball. Would I see my teenage relatives do what has been in news for the past few months? What cause are we fighting for? Kashmir issue has been a political, ideological, religious, sentimental, provincial, and every other imaginable concept you can think of. The reason for the fight has been turned into a sloth or a shit-pot that stinks so bad that it is making children lose their innocence. Children who can’t decide what to wear are out to decide the fate of Kashmir. It stinks ever more when the self-styled separatists call it a fight for freedom.

 

I will turn 30 next year and all these years I have lived, what you have read is just a tiniest part of it. There are millions out there whose stories are like mine. There are millions more whose stories will make you joyous and millions others whose stories will make you weep and cry till your heart bleeds. Is what has been going on for the last 20 years worth anything? Ask the parents, who have lost their children, if they would make a different choice for their sons. For them it does not matter what happens to Kashmir. They have lost a part of their life. No matter what you show them and what you tell them, they will mourn and mourn till they are alive or until they die. Would I want my parents to live that life? Would I want to raise my children and give them a life where they would not know what childhood means? I don’t know what future holds. I don’t know what tomorrow brings. But what I know is that we have changed the face of Kashmir for ever. We have destroyed innocence and we are responsible because we did not think when we had a chance to. Is it too late now? For once I want to believe in the adage, “It is never too late”.

 

- 2010

Of Love and Dogs and Bitches

Ever heard of "Kutta Dog Hota Hai". Hell I would like to read about the dogs (with due respects) than I would like to watch any of those love-smitten-crazy-people stories. Hell reading about dogs makes more sense than watching first someone loved by second someone, then the first someone marrying third someone, then first and third producing a young fourth someone, then the third someone dying to never let the 'happily ever after' effect come into the feeble minds of the audience who are busy wiping tears from where the tears fall down from, then the young fourth someone in a bid to play a part manages to make the first someone fall in love with the second someone with the help of a fifth someone but just this time the second someone tries to be in love with the sixth someone who is in love with the second someone and gets to know the first someone through the second someone and finally a seventh someone decides that the three hours are over and we should make the first someone be with the second someone and let them do away with the sixth someone and keep the young fourth someone... Hell, people say that it was a mind blowing story. But what I still love about dogs is that they don’t sing "Kutta Dog Hota Hai" but rather they just do what dogs are supposed to do. I know I have used Hell three times, but trust me I will use it just one more time, not here but at the place where it won’t seem like what it is.

I think I am a normal human being and I tend to think the way things are put across. I like calling a spade a 'digger' and here I am mentioning that the environment has a total impact on what a person writes about. Thinking and talking are two different things. You cant think and talk at the same time. That is why God said 'Breathe woman so that you may pause!' and that is the precise moment when you think. That pause is of such a fundamental importance to Earth that keeps the Moon from crashing down on it. But all said and done, I do get carried away at times thankfully leaving the lunar cycle intact.

Talking about me, I as a person who writes about things I see and feel and I guess I now know the reason why. It is the dogs. The dogs have left such an impact that the bitches (with all due respect to them as well) were seldom allowed inside the house. This being the reason why I can’t seem to write that what people can relate to but at times, I do believe that I write things that people can’t relate to. This is the reason why I write. I believe that it is good enough reason for anyone to write.

Now you might be wondering where I used the word hell and I can let you wonder for some more time. There are two possibilities. One, you know the other you don't. If I get to choose from other few possible possibilities, I would say that you don’t care whether I used the word or not. That is a human tendency. Why would one care if it was or it wasn’t? Fair enough. I wouldn’t care one little bit either. So let us all stop caring (something which we are good at) and keep worrying about something that does not belong to us at all. This way we can be at peace and live a happy life.

Dilemma of a Dream

I am about to step into something that goes way beyond my capability to understand or analyze or talk about or even write about. That realm is a part of a human being that starts from its first breath and ends at its last breath. It is something called 'upbringing' or 'bringing up'. I have lived among old and young but I never used to think about whys and how’s of life. Kids, as I was, are busy with schools, play, mischief, and what not. I was not one of those mischievous kind of kids, but a sobered down from my early days. Not that I was always good, I have had my share of deeds that are not something I can talk about. How a person lives life as a kid definitely shows up how that person grows up. Some people never get their act together, but some change totally. What I am writing about is neither about the way a human being grows up and nor about how it changes, it is about how we want a human being to be.

I dream of a cute little daughter and sharing all kinds of moments with her, moments my little head can imagine. I believe that my little girl will not cry but will call me to help her out when the time is right. I believe that she will cling to me more than she would cling to her mom in her very very early days. When she is a few months old, I imagine her winking at me when her mom feeds her, just to tell me who the boss is and who belongs where. Thus starting a war between the two of us, a war to be with the mom of the house. I am sure I will help her grow up to be a nuisance in the house and make sure her mom has a tough time handling her, but be at peace when with me. With her first birthday very near she would start anticipating the excitement and trying to be a part of it. When she starts to walk, she would run around house and do all kinds of things that normal kids don't do. She would watch me and her mom cook especially monitoring mom to make sure she does everything the right way, just to emphasize the point that dad cooks well for her. I imagine her stealing her mom's glasses and pretending as if she is innocent till I tell her to give them in. With the sas bahu serials still running, she would be spending more time with me than her mom just to tell mom what is important than watching TV. When it is time to eat, she would always make me feed her, sending a message to her mom that she is not the only woman in my life. She would want me to read her bedtime stories, especially the long ones to keep mom waiting in the other room. She would laugh out loud, step outside her bedroom, and make noise to let her mom know that she is still awake and dad is not coming anytime soon. When she notices that mom has her glaring stare at me telling me that this is not fair, she would promptly say that she is not going to repeat it and calm her mom down, but it is the same way again the very next day. She would make her mom jump and dance around the house but is just like a quiet kid when dad shows up so that mom's complaints have no proof to warrant a private talk between the two of us.

She would reassure us on her first day of the school that she will be fine and we should take care of ourselves and not worry about her. She would promise that the kids at school will not run scared of her because I tell her not to scare them off. On her return from the school on the very first day, she would tell me that the teacher does not know anything, like I used to say most of the times and she would rather be good teaching the teacher a few things. I would want her to be good at what she does, like I always believe in. She would never be afraid of doing what she wants to because I tell her to do so. She would believe in me and never fall for those 'love bites'. With her advancing years, she would ask me how to go about further studies and carry on accordingly. She would know that parents are people who one can always trust and what parents do and say is always for the good of their children. She would never do things that would make me feel bad in the slightest and would say things that would make me proud. She would always be better than what I was in whatever I did. She would always be what I am not and would always do what I could not. When time comes, she would marry the guy I choose for her, believing that her dad always makes the right choice. I know that I am always right, be it for her or for me. I would tell her to dream of having a cute little daughter one day and then share all kind of moments with her, moments her little head can imagine. I want my daughter to be happy when she has her daughter, happier than I was when I had her as my daughter.

All this makes me happy and think that I am going to have a very happy family. No wonder, who would not be happy if all wishes were to come true. But then I find something creepy in all this. Who am I doing all this for? Who am I dreaming for? When I think about this, I feel ashamed. Ashamed because of how selfish can I be. I feel ashamed that I want my daughter to be how I want her to be. Is that why I love her so much? Is that why I am happy because she is going to live her life the way I want her to? All this makes me question myself that am I really 'bringing up' a human being or I am making a robot that does what I want it to do? Are we not bored of seeing the same things every day and doing them the same way always. Would I be bored of my daughter when I see her doing what I want her to do, laughing when I want her to laugh, crying when I want her to do so? Is this how parents bring up their children, to make them what they have in mind? Is this normal? No matter how hard I think about it, I can't see it being normal from any perspective. I don't see myself raising a human being, what I see myself doing is making a miserable life-form which would not know the basic meaning of living, which would not know what being happy is, that would not know what sadness is. How can someone like that make others happy? I still think hard, but I can't assume the fact that I am not being a good father because if a human being cannot call right from wrong, the whole purpose of humanity is lost.

• But humanity is a concept; I have to live a happy life too.
• I cannot see my daughter doing something that will make me unhappy.

• How can I bear the thought that my daughter who I raise and who I give my everything to, will counter my decision when she grows up.
• But how would I know what is good for her and what is not? How would she know what is right and what is wrong?

• I want my daughter to make me happy.
• But do I know what will make her happy?

• I want my daughter to sacrifice everything for me.
• Can I not sacrifice something for the one who I brought in this world?

• I want to hold my head high when I talk about my daughter and say 'this is the girl who I am proud of'.
• Would my daughter say, 'this is the father who makes me do everything'?

• But she is living her life.
• Is that really life?

• I want a daughter.
• Does my daughter want a father like me?

I guess I have to stop dreaming and start thinking. I believe I have to make a hard choice, something that will make a proud father, not just a happy father. At times, happiness is not the only reason we live. Human life, as many of us don't know, goes far beyond the boundaries of happiness

Picture Source - valeriebrooke.com

A Solution to a Problem of a Solution - A Thought

One needs a reason to write. I have been thinking of one such reason but when you see a lot of choices given to you, you prefer the best one out of them. It so happens that I when I write, it goes into something personal something that cannot be shared. That takes the priority. But overtime themes build up in your head and one fine day you just have to let it out - today seems to be one such day.

Much has happened in the last few months. Beginning with my changing cities, my beloved changing countries, improvised work same returns, new habitat, changing thoughts, hundreds of people killed, money melting, and surprisingly a new year comes out of nowhere, and what not. At times you just want to let it go. But when you think about it, what is "it" that you can let go? One thing I can think of is let everything go and go to Himalayas. People have done it in the past, people will do it again, though the reason why they will do it is totally different than what it was centuries ago but the motive is still the same. I felt doing "it" too. While I was feeling it, something stuck me real hard and it came from no where. Here is the question again, what is 'it'? I tried hard to look for 'it' but I failed, I found nothing, but what I remember is that something did hit me. It must have been like something that has been in front of you all the time but you can see only from the corner of your eye. It somehow missed the corner of my eye. But there are other worse things I can think of that hit you and you don't see it coming and you don't see it go as well. One such thing is chewing.

Talking about biomechanics of the human temporomandibular joint during mastication, or simply the process of chewing, that is one time when you are really hit hard by something you can't see. At a force of about 847N for men and 597N for women things can get pretty rough. I feel the need to argue that why a man's bite out-forces that of a woman. We talk about gender equality and the likes, why would a woman bite 350N units less force than that of a man? Guess these are laboratory tests and must have involved some kind of discrimination against women. We should report this to WHO (Women Heckling Organization). Alright, coming back to the point of something hitting you when you are masticating or so make it simple to avoid any WHO activity, let us call it chewing. Something hitting you real hard while you are at it goes this way: when you are chewing the softest thing you have ever put in your mouth and you are in the realm of an amazing feeling - feeling elated to have grabbed something that soft, feeling elated that you are biting into something that is very soft, feeling elated that you are actually chewing the soft thing. While you are into that amazing feeling, feeling exactly like you feel when you are amazed, out of nowhere you hear that CRICCCCCCCH sound.

Now there are many sounds one can make while chewing. Those can be sounds of satisfaction, sounds of your teeth grinding against each other doing what teeth do when they grind against each other, sounds of your singing while you chew, or sounds an open mouth makes while chewing and the likes. But the sound that hits you is the scary CRICCCCCCCH sound of something between your teeth that should not be there at the first place. Then there are reactions. The first and foremost, you stop chewing. Second you look around as if you are looking 'inside' your mouth. Third, you start chewing (oh yes, you do) ever so slowly to see if that sound comes up again. Fourth, you roll your tongue in your mouth to feel if you still have your teeth where you last left them. Fifth, you think of spitting out whatever you have in your mouth. Sixth, you look at the stuff you were eating (if there is any left) as if it was the culprit. Seventh, you pick up the remaining stuff and put it in your mouth very carefully. Eighth, you chew as if your life is hanging on to it. Ninth, you keep looking at the still left over stuff that you were eating. Tenth, you feel your teeth every time you swallow whatever you had to swallow.

While you do all this, you still wonder what hit you. No matter how hard you try, you just can't find the source of the sound. The chewing rhythm is broken and no matter what you do to concentrate again on chewing, you just don't feel too good about the soft thing in your mouth. So what happens is that for a moment you feel good about chewing the soft thing in your mouth. A moment or two later you feel bad about feeling good about it. Then you feel good about feeling bad about feeling good about it and, satisfied you just finish off the soft thing you started eating. But you still wonder what hit you.

Coming back to my thought of letting it all go, I was hit by something that I could not see. It must have been a thought that you think of when you are not thinking about it. But when something like that happens, you really don't know whether to think about what you were thinking of or think about what you were not thinking of. It involves a lot of thinking and during this process you either don't think at all or think about something that you were not thinking of. This is what happened to me. I had to deboard the 'let go everything' train. Leaving that thought was like stepping at something which is not there at all, but that is a different story altogether. I am not intelligent enough to describe that. That needs me to cry a bit but I am more of a kind of inside crying person, so I bequeathed that thought into oblivion but it bequeathed it right back at me. So I used a special technique to get rid of that thought, a technique which is not a technique at all. It is just that you think about something other than what you think about as if you were thinking about something. Sounds confusing, I know that. I can do that at times. You can try that on me sometime and let us see if I care.

With all that running in my mind, I thought about a solution. What could be an ultimate solution to a problem that bothers us? This is not about the solution, but about the problem we have. There has been something that is bothering us, something that is not letting us live our lives the way we want us to. It could be the happenings around us, the killing, the economics, or the future. It all seems gloomy. I mean, how many of are trained to face a situation that we have never heard of before? Nothing in your upbringing tells us what to do when someone points a gun at you and tries to rob you. What best we can do at that time is left upto how strong a person thinks or how strong a person is. The way you react to such a situation is not what you can plan. I can be a superman in my plans but when it comes to putting that plan into action, and that is when I know what I am capable of. This is one big issue we face in our country. We plan and then do nothing. We think too much and while thinking all what we should not think about, something hits us. That is when we forget what we were thinking about. Reading all what we are doing since the majority of past two decades is shouting at the person across the river 'I am a son of a lion and am not afraid of you' to which the other person retorts 'Did your mom visit the jungle or the lion showed up at your house?' That is where we turn around and think of something else to say. This thinking has led us to one of the painful truth of our existence - ignore what all is happening. What we take care of is what is vital to our living - eat, breathe and multiply. That is what human life is all about, to sum it up. We don’t know what to believe in. That is the worse thing that can happen to mankind and womankind. I have heard people say 'Please go away and mind your business'. I wish everything around me would go away and minds its own business too.

An afterthought: At times when you don't know anything, 'something' is a very nice word to use. Saves you a lot of thought.

A positive response... Men are not always bad.

A rejoinder to a friends blog - INDIAN MEN-what they do and what I see
Read it first, please.

Ah.. dear friend, you seem to be into something classic. Though most of it is what a man will disagree to, I have a few points to mention about the points you have mentioned. So here goes the mentioning:

- Ball scratching. If at all you see someone doing it, consider that person to be single. It so happens that the thing that covers the balls is in need of a daily wash. If that is not done, certain things it covers demands a daily scratch. Guess, next time you notice someone closer to you getting closer to his hanging parts, gift him a nice pack of undies.

- Pissing out is just a natural mechanism that men tend not to flaunt but succumb to. It seems odd to the other species because they CAN NOT do it. You would not see a man squatting down with his clothes all bundled up between his thighs and belly and his rear end out for a show. So women, what you can’t do is not necessarily wrong. haha...

- Spitting. Oh yes, you think men do it, ask women who ruminate too. Yes, whatever they chew. So you can safely take it out from the list. Trust me, you can.

- Alright.. the drink and getting into bed part. Hmmm. That was interesting. You see, it always is reassuring for a woman (I am sorry to be directly rude) that men do not leave anything behind when they are in. So when men say 'for a minute' a healthy average man will take a little less than that to get done with the exciting part. About the beer count, why would anyone listen to a drunken person? And who is complaining of the age and size. 30 is always 25 and 28 is very near to 32. Guess the reason is because women are supposedly weak at mathematics. But then, men never take goats to bed. That is another story.

- The belching and the farting part. This goes into a domain that I really can’t argue on. All I would say that try belching as hard as you can (obviously when you are alone) and surprise yourself with how much noise you can make. Lady, it is the strength of men that gets then all wrong ears. Hehe.. guess you need to be stronger to make a good sound. The F part gets bad at times. A little self restrain is something that always gets the best out of you.

So you see, everything is not what it seems. All you need is a perspective.

Why do we need a god?

Before I started writing this, I decided to surprise myself. I searched for this exact title on internet but I was not surprised at all. There are hundreds of posts out there with the same title. I wonder what I am going to write and how will it be different from others. But I didn’t read any of them. I might read that once I empty my head. Reading what others have written might make me think why we really don’t need a god.

It is not about power, not about being a believer, not about having a blind faith, and certainly not about letting yourself believe that your life is not under your control at all. Why do I need to believe that my god is better than the all other gods available for taking? Just like a kid telling the other, 'my dad is better than your dad'. Makes me wonder how this word dad changes into god once you know that your dad is old and you need something new to boast about. I am yet to come across any such person who told me that his god is bigger and better; I would for sure challenge him for a 'god fight'.. Hell yeah, his god against mine. That will draw huge crowd and guess what, I might make some quick money too. Works out for me. I find out who the better god is and make some money with my god fighting it out for me. Is that not what we all look for? Find out who is powerful and rake some money up in the process. It won’t take a long time to switch sides, no harm done. But the only thing is how do we find our gods? Gods have no numbers on Yellow Pages, no addresses and yes, no blogs too. But if faith can move mountains, it can find one god too. So let us leave it upto faith for the time being.

So the eternal favorite question, why god? A question talked about by millions of faith and million other faithless. What is faith? Is it something that you are born with or something you develop? I don’t know a lot of people, but I have seen many. Of all I know, we are all born with a faith. A faith that whatever our parents tell us is right. That frame of mind is something that we have till we begin to use our own mind. That is when we think and see what could be right and what is wrong. Certain things take us time to get over with and many other things we don’t remember. Our fears are something we overcome in due course of time when we face them. But there is something that lingers on in our small head. With a few exceptions, there is one thing stays with us for the rest of our little lives. That thing is the faith in god and in the unknown. Some people consider it to be their prized possession, but for some it is a shame if they talk about it in open. Some deny it because they don’t want to be laughed at in this technologically advanced time and some hide behind it to ignore their failure in life. Some figure out that god is just another fairy tale character that was to help them pray for things they could not have when they were kids and by the time they figure out that gods do not post letters and send gifts they are big enough to shop for themselves. This is what god is to most of the people I know.

After all this, I wonder if I really need to believe in god? I am a techie. I do something that was unthinkable a few decades ago. I at times think that how can I lie by writing a code that makes me a sinner. Tough question. What if I write a code that says 2+2=3? Will I be called a blasphemer? I wonder if god knew or knows that 'int a' defines an integer in many programming languages. So what is a belief in god to me? Or what it means to a person who makes millions by just selling his underpants to another person? I guess nothing. So when someone asks me that why hundreds from gods creation are killed every day, I tell them that everyone has a bad day, and god has his own. Is it not a bad day for me when I write a piece of code that is supposed to say 'Hello, World' but it says 'I ate the red fruit'? Oh yes, it is a bad day for me. What am I left to do, rewrite that piece of code, create its child code and make it say 'Hello, World'. Is that the reason why we are all here? I hope you understand what I mean to say. If you don’t, please save yourself some time and pray to god.

If you are still looking for the reason why we need a god, you really have that in you. The faith in god. No matter what you read, no matter what you say, deep inside you know that you want to see that god who you believe did all this to you and you want to know the 'why' behind everything. The 'why' behind the reason why you lost your loved one, the 'why' behind the reason why you are living, the 'why' behind the reason why you didn’t get the bicycle you prayed for day and night, the 'why' behind everything that makes no sense to you. There is no reason to believe but there needs to be someone you have faith in, you don’t have to pray but you should know that there is someone you can pray to, you don’t have to be afraid but you have to believe that there is someone watching you. That is the reason why you should believe in God. That is the reason why there is God. When all else fails there should be someone you can think of and blame for your failures. When all you did is good, you should have someone you can thank for everything. You will feel human when you believe that there is God. You don’t have to be a monkey because someone said that your ancestors have been monkeys. You have a mind of your own. Believe in any god you know of, but more important see if what your god says makes sense to you. If it does, you are on the right track. If it does not, read the Theory of Evolution. That will be of more help. Let the things that don’t concern your life not bother you. If you read a gods book which says that there was a man who was born of a goat, don’t let it get to your little head and don’t ask 'how'. But if the same book tells you that 2+2=4, follow that part. It is not to be under control but it is about living a controlled life. One you control your life, you will see that everything else is being controlled.

To leave this where I started, I read 'Why do we need God...' from the first page link in the search result on web. Believe me, I really don’t want to believe in god because "a baby gets killed in the street" for having a negligent father.
 

Celebrating the Good Times

Festive season kicked off well with Eid and we are approaching Christmas in a few more days. It always is good to be with your family and nears during this time, otherwise festivals do not mean a lot. These are the days when there is closeness and love in all. A perfect time to build harmony and relationships.

Talking about celebrations, not being with certain people does not demean a festival, but it makes you feel kinda far away. I cant think of any other word to talk about that feeling, but it is quite different.

While I was feeling the way I tried to say I was, I watched Roja, one of my favorite movies. The movie gives you a feeling of shall I say Terror, Love, Hate, Desperation, and not to mention Patriotism, all in certain ways. It starts off by showing a group of terrorists in Kashmir doing their stuff, continues all the way down south in a small village, and rest of it all the way back to Kashmir. Back in 1992, there was a lot going on in Kashmir and the story has its inspiration from the happenings back then (an important person taken a hostage to get some people out). What is the most impressive thing about that movie is well known to almost every Indian - the music. Somehow it changed the scene of film music in India. Not surprisingly, the song 'Dil hai chota sa' stays as one of my favorite songs.

With the celebrations gone and coming up, I wish all of us a very happy new year to come.

Picture Perfect!!

Pictures - a frame of time. Have we ever thought of a picture considering it to be a frame of time, time that we have lived. As usual, we do not notice things around us unless we are made aware of them. How many of us remember in detail what we see in a picture that we carry all around: be that a picture of someone, or something that we hold dear. We look at what we want to, but forget what completes the picture.

Ask a photographer (not someone who takes pictures) and you will get the answer to your question "What is a picture?" I am no photographer and I am no expert, but I felt that we always miss one thing or the other. It came to me when I was talking to a very dear friend of mine about a picture of ours taken over 20 years back. All I remember from that picture was her and me in it with some of our other friends.

Thinking about it now, what makes that picture is not just the two of us, it is everything that gets captured in that frame. That is what puts life in a picture. That is when we talked about what we did back then and how we were. That is why I believe that a picture is time that we have lived, time that has stopped, time that makes us remember that we existed with someone. So rather than saying "you and me are in that picture", we started talking about the place, the happenings, expressions, surroundings and all other details we could recall. While we were on it, it brought back the memories of that time.

I make an interesting observation while I think about it. The picture that was taken when we were somewhere around 4 or 5 years old, after 20 long years, I felt as if I was there. That is the beauty of a picture. It takes you back in time.

I believe most of us will feel this way when you talk in detail about an old picture. It not only brings back memories, it brings back people. I will always say we do not capture pictures, we capture time.

I recommend the movie One Hour Photo if you want to really look at pictures in a different way.

The Mighty Sunday

Sometimes I think that there is a reason why someone writes and at times I feel there is no reason at all. When you write for a reason, you feel you are not writing your thoughts but there is something else that drives you. But when you sit with your mind running all over the place and you take up a pen that is when you write something that comes from within you.

Coming back to the reason why I started writing (huh!) I looked out at what this Sunday has to offer. Last day was good enough for me to have a big smile on my face. Today, not so. While going through my training it was quite some fun filled 15 days. Now when I look at what all I have to take care of for the special Monday, I think that today will be something special, something that I have had a long time back.

Well, I have got a nice looking sun shining outside, clear blue sky (not for long though) and a nice breeze. I will see for how long I can hold on. But knowing me, it can go either ways. As we all call it, "aar ya paar".

When in Rome, do the Romans

Many a time I am amused by what happens around me, with me, or for me. Irrespective of whether you like it or not, certain things stay with you for a long long time. These amusing things are what people like to hear, either to get entertained, or like to know about you, or to pass time for the heck of it. But there is another set of people who you like to talk about the bygone days.

Coming to the point there is a random event I like to talk about. It so happened in 2005 (the year I was out of college) I was travelling in a bus. I managed to find a seat and was lost in my thoughts, I saw a Police Inspector (I wish I remembered his name) who got in the bus and was looking around (for what, I dont know). He looked at me and smiled, came closer and said, "Please get up" which I did with all due respect and he made a sort of old guy sit where I was. I thought to myself, a good deed that was - as I didn't notice someone standing who needs a seat.

With this running in my mind, the inspector says to me "Please, come with me". I asked why and was told. "You are not supposed to sit in that seat as it is for physically challenged people". I looked around for a sign and pointed out to him that there was none, so I couldn't tell the difference.

He looked at me, smiled again and pointed at something written over the window. I looked back at him, and with all the politeness I had in me, I told him that I can’t read that language. He insisted, "Please, come down with me. Let us talk about it". I, as cool as a guy I am, followed the white rabbit.

After walking a few paces he asks me again. "You are not supposed to sit on that seat. You have violated the rule and you need to pay fine". Fuck off, fuck off was running in my mind all the time. I again said that I can’t read the language and to my utter surprise he says, "'Do in Rome as Romans do'. Do you not know this?". I look at him right in his eyes (he was wearing some kind of shades) and I say, "I believe I am in India and I am an Indian". He smiles, and says, "Come with me and let us discuss. You either pay the fine or come with me to the station". I duly ask how much I had to pay, he said, "Only a hundred, which should not be too much for you".

Then it stuck me, I had no money on me. All I was worth was Rs 40. AS I was explaining my financial situation to him, he said, "You have to come with me to the station. There we decide what to do". For the 10 minutes I was waiting for him to collect some more poor souls and get money from them, I was contemplating on running away and then imagining things (like police running after me, I doing the Dhoom stuff on cars, bikes, and what not..). After my movie was about to reach the climax, I find myself sitting in the police jeep (mind you, for the first time, that way). A short (hah!) ride to the station, I go in and I am made to wait for quite some time till my fate is decided.

A long 15 minutes later, I am called in. Believe me I felt like a criminal for the first time in my life, and all the movies I had watched were flashing in front of my eyes while the Inspector and his senior discussed my issue (and all I understood was that they were talking). Then the senior guy tried to scare me saying, "If you don’t pay the penalty, we will register a case on you". On asking for what, he says, "For misbehaving with an inspector".

Then, there was something written on a sheet and I was asked to sign, I said that I am not going to do so till I get that written in English. He promptly says, "So you want all the signs in Karnataka to be written in Kashmiri". (my mother-tongue). The moment I said, "Our national language will do just fine", I knew I dug my own grave. The two of them look at each other and then for a few minutes they talked and finally I was told, "You arrange Rs 100 or you are staying with some thieves tonight" (and he said this pointing to one of the dark corners around). I think for a moment and tell him to get someone come with me to one of the ATMs and I will hand over the money, but I get a denial saying get someone here and get me BAILED OUT...

With all this, I was in a state of mind to take them over. But I never mustered enough courage. I called a friend and calmly explained the situation to him. And while I was waiting for my friend to BAIL me out, I was treated like a hardened criminal. I was under vigil for the one hour I was in the police station. It felt nice to have experienced something of this kind.

While walking out of the Police Station, I pondered over one thing only, is it really important to follow the old adage “When in Rome, Do as the Romans Do”.