The String of Self Identity

Wake Up Sid (released last year) was especially liked by the young crowd which goes to college. And it was liked not because it was a love story (though it had elements of love like almost all the Bollywood movies) or a war movie or a period movie or it was of any genre which is very popular among the youth but the movie was adored because it touched a string which connects us to our inner self, the string of self identity, the chord of individuality, the desire to live our lives the way we want to, the desire to do what we actually want to do.

Everybody is born to do something specific, something unique, and something different from the rest of the world. And the purpose of an individual’s life is achieved if and only we do that particular thing. And the best thing about our lives is that we get numerous indications from our destiny about what we are made to do, be it in the form of love for a particular profession or passion for doing something out of the box. Sometimes, the indications can be subtle and can tickle the mind everyday in some form or another and sometimes, the indications can be in the form of a big event or an accident which change the course of one’s life.

But the real conflict arises when a person knows what he or she wants to do but is trapped in the jingle of a so called secure future. People say that happiness is a state of mind. I think that the same can be said about freedom. We are free if we have the liberty to do what we actually want to do. We live in a sovereign state and choose our own leaders and those who make policies for us. But do we live in a sovereign state of mind? Do we choose our own careers according to our wishes by listening to our inner callings? And even if we want to do that, are we free to do that? Is the society we live in liberal enough to allow us to do something out of the box and unconventional? Is our family even liberal for letting us experiment with our lives by the way we want to?

The answer to above questions is a big ‘NO’ if we talk about most of the young people of India about whom we boast with pride and with whom we dream of being the superpower someday. And the irony lies in the fact that even if we become the world leader in terms of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) or National Income or some other similar parameters, the Indians would still be running the rat race for a more comfortable life instead of trying and striving for a more fulfilling and satisfying life.

A few days ago, we celebrated our 64^th Independence Day. But at times I wonder about what such celebrations of our ‘physical independence’ mean to our young crowd which bears the burden of bringing the country on the top of the world. For me and all of them like me, these days are nothing more than a holiday (and this year, thanks to Sundays, even that holiday was scrapped). We need and we want to celebrate a day when we are liberated mentally and are free at the mental level.

Everyone in this world strives for happiness and that is the ultimate goal of life. And nobody is happy when the mind is captured in the cuffs of secure future or a comfortable life. It’s time we realise that we can be happy only by connecting ourselves to our inner selves and living our lives the way we want to. And only then we can make our lives extra ordinary!!

Carpe Diem!!

The Difference

Once while talking to Anjali Desai (Co Founder, Seva Cafe, Ahmedabad http://www.sevacafe.org/ahmedabad.html ) about education in our country, I came across a surprising but worrying reality about education in our country. Anjali is a journalism graduate from University of Texas, Austin and has seen the education patterns in both the countries. Talking about the difference in Indian and American kids, Anjali said:

“The kids in India are smarter and more intelligent than their American equivalents till they put their first step into schools. But once they cross the age to be at home and start going to school, the American kids start outsmarting those in our country.”

The reason for this, as she told, is the family environment provided to the little ones in Indian homes. While a kid in India has mother and grandparents in most houses (a long line of aunts, uncles and cousins is also there in joint families) to interact with and learn from, a kid in America is left to the care of maids or crèches where he/she doesn’t have anyone to talk to or play with. And hence, Indian kids are a lot smarter owing to the healthy family environment.

But the real trouble starts when the child starts going to school. While a school in America gives all the freedom to the child to explore himself/herself, a school in our country is aimed at teaching, or rather feeding a fixed amount of information into the child’s brain without actually teaching the real value or meaning of what is being taught. And needless to say, the freedom given to children in schools in no more than that which was given to African Slaves in America. A good student is one who wins the rat race by get a high score in examinations. But nobody is bothered about the heavy loss of free thinking which the child has to undergo in order to get adjusted to that rat race. On the other side, the freedom given to kids in America makes them think about things themselves and then they are allowed to choose, based on their interest, what they want to do or study. And, of course, the stress area in not only getting grades in exams rather it includes a lot of things like sports, extracurricular activities, community service and what not. And it’s obvious that in these situations, a child will be smarter, free thinker and able to take real life decisions without much trouble.

And it’s not only what or how is being taught at schools, the problem lies in the mindset of Indian parents or society which values success in monetary terms and hence, the only option left for a child to run for what seems to be most profitable in terms of money. No matter whether a child is interested in studying a particular subject, he/she is forced to study that because that subject is important for a ‘secured future’. Forcing the child on a pre determined path might provide a so called ‘secure future’ but is it not like grooming the child into an assembly line product? And as Anjali told, the Indian kids in America are also forced by the parents to take particular courses which might be ‘beneficial for future’.

And hence, here lies the difference in growth pattern of Indian students and American ones: While American students are treated as human beings with desires and inclinations to learn, the Indian ones are treated as raw materials which go to schools to be processed into finished products!!

How do I Feel??

“Hi! How are you? How does it feel when it’s all over? :-)” This is what Saikat messaged me today morning from Mumbai. And this is something many people have asked me many a times in last couple of days. To be honest, I myself have asked this question to me a few times in last two days.

It has been two days since I have left IIT Roorkee forever as a student. Yes, I am an IITR alumnus now. So, how do I feel when I know that I am no more a student of IIT Roorkee? I had heard that the feeling of leaving the campus is a hard one and it’s a bit difficult to control one’s emotion. But seriously speaking, nothing of that sort happened with me though I could realise that some of my friends were quite nostalgic about leaving one of the coolest places in the world (read IIT Roorkee). For me, it was a feeling of joy, triumph, achievement and most importantly happiness for coming out of the college as a lot more mature person than who went in four years ago. I won’t say that I became the best of engineers which IITs are supposed to produce but I can say with ample amount of certainty that every second I spent in the college added to my knowledge base, be it in the terms of learning about life, people and their behaviour, and many other things. But the most important thing I learnt was about myself. I came to meet the true Ashish Agrawal at my college only. And I would always be thankful to that place (IIT Roorkee) that it gave me chance for that, to evaluate myself, to see through myself, to know myself.

Coming back to what I feel.....well, I always dreamt of the day when I would be a graduate and I was waiting for this day for long. And hence, I felt good. And moreover, the last couple of weeks at the college were full of workload and tensions owing to project work, fuss created in the department over the faulty evaluation of the project and then finally no dues clearance. And during these times, I desperately wanted to get away from the college as soon as possible. And so I along with some of my friends came out of the main gate of IIT Roorkee for the last time, one of my friends remarked:

Chalo, finally jail se nikal gaye!!

(Finally, we came out of the jail)

And I even tossed the cowboy hat I was wearing.

Now when I sit at home and have almost nothing to do, sometimes, I think of my life at college, my friends, the people around me. I don’t know when I will see some of the faces, which are very dear to me, the next time. I don’t know when I will be able to hang out with them. May be, I get to see some of them after a long long time, may be I accidently meet some of them in some street in some city like strangers meet. And then may be I will feel the same amount of joy I used to when hanging out with them, may be...........

A Lovely Morning

It’s a pleasant morning today, very pleasant I would say, because still at around 10, the hot sun is sleeping somewhere and cool breeze is blowing. The sound of trees’ leaves and branches moving with the wind produce an enchanting sound, which not only soothes the ears but also gives pleasure to the mind. One feels to go outside and face the wind and its power, not only because it gives a lot of relief from the stuffed environment of one’s room but because it’s music says something, something very special and something very dear to our ears.

Relief from the scorching heat is not the only reason which elates our minds in such weather. There is lot more attached to it. Had the relief from the burning heat been the only reason for the fragrance of this beautiful weather, we would have felt the same in an air-conditioned room with a lot of room freshener sprayed inside. But such an AC room never invigorates our senses. The best of electronic instruments are unable to produce the music which the sound of wind outside my room produces. Why does it happen? Why do all the scientific inventions fail before the small miracles of nature?

For me, this pleasant weather reminds me of my childhood days when, in the months of April and May, I used to go to the school through the pavement surrounded mustard fields on one side and mango and litchi trees on the other. We had the morning classes in the months of April and May and during these months, the fruits on the mango and litchi trees used to be half ripe.  And as every impatient child, I too was impatient to taste the half ripe fruits. That sour mango or litchi looked like the sweetest of all the fruits I used to eat during the whole season. I along with my friends used stones to hit at the fruits so that they could fall from the trees. And every falling fruit gave us the sense of victory comparable to none in the world. And no scientific invention is strong enough to invoke such a pleasurable memory from my store.  

Robert Lynd in his essay entitled ‘The Hum of Insects’ sites our connection with some universal music when we listen to the music of wind outside. This universal music keeps us going and makes us feel alive.

“These three noises (the noise of insects, the noise of birds or the noise of the sea) appear to have an infinite capacity for giving us pleasure--a capacity, probably, beyond that of any music of instruments. It may be that on hearing them we become a part of some universal music, and that the rhythm of wave, bird and insect echoes in some way the rhythm of our own breath and blood.”

And for the greatness of the music of nature over that of electronic instruments, the essayist says:

“Insect after insect dances through the air, each dying away like a note of music, and we see again the border of pinks and the strawberries, and the garden paths edged with box, and the old dilapidated wooden seat under the tree, and an apple-tree in the long grass, and a stream beyond the apple-tree, and all those things that made us infinitely happy as children when we were in the country--happier than we were ever made by toys, for we do not remember any toys so intensely as we remember the garden and the farm.”

Doesn’t it say something about our very nature? We are a part of the human race and hence linked to the Mother Nature more than anything else. A child can be distracted and can be kept occupied for some time if she is away from her mother and after some time, the child needs her mother. Similarly, we get the biggest comforts and pleasures of life in the proximity with our roots, in accepting the fact that we are a part of this universe and we require the small wonders and miracles which our generous Mother Nature bestows upon us from time to time, for She like our biological mother understands all our needs and cares for us more than we can think!!

My Mind Speaks

Two months are left before I bid the final Good Bye to my student life at IIT Roorkee. People say that these last few days are the coolest (well, I don't know how is the word defined) and most memorable days of the B-Tech life. One doesn't have much to do, very few classes, no tension of exams, B-Tech project which one never bothers about, and lots of vella (free) time. A person might simply love this and when I was not living this sort of life i.e. last year in the 6th or 7th semester, I used to dream about these days and wanted to live them as soon as possible. But, as of today, I don't really enjoy this kind of idleness. Yes, I am restless and I need something to get myself involved. There are movies and there are books with which I pass my time but that too, at times, seems boring and monotonous. 

So, do I want these days to end so that I can fly away from this place, which I hated a lot at times and loved a lot at other (for different reasons, of course)? Not actually!! But the problem is that I even don't want to stay at this place either. Because I know that perhaps I am not even going to like the job which I am going to take after passing out of this place. I know I sound confused and I certainly am. I don't know what to do with my life or perhaps, I know but I don't want to take my life in that direction coz I am afraid. Afraid due to a variety of reasons. Afraid because of thinking too much about my future. Some people say that it's good to be confused because a confused state of mind makes one think. And when one thinks, one evolves. But at times I think that life is not about certain beliefs and principle to follow. Every aspect of life is subjective and something which provides a solution in one situation can't be as effective in other. 

At times I even think that it would have been better if I had accepted what came to me as a gift from life without complaining (read thinking). And at times I think about the necessity or importance of education which I had till now. Ignorance seems to be a great bliss then.

Does education actually liberate us? Or what we got was just some piece of information, gathered from here and there, and bundled together?

Of Forgery & 500 Rupee Notes!!

A very interesting thing happened today morning. I was sitting in my papa’s office and reading a book and then all of a sudden my uncle, with excitation, handed out a few crisp 500 rupee notes to my father. It took no time for me to make out that the notes were forged and my uncle, owing to his experience with handling notes, had found the ‘truth’ about them just while counting them. And then, out of curiosity, I took those notes from my father and began scrutinizing them. And to my dismay, the notes were exactly the same as the original notes except for two things. The paper was a bit thicker than that of the original note; however I could notice this only after I was told by my father to feel the thickness of the note. And the golden thread, where RBI is written in small-sized letters, was broken.

Well, there is nothing so surprising about coming across a few forged bank notes. One gets to see many of them at different times. But what was astonishingly painful about those notes was the fact that these, even after being ‘exposed’, were not destined to turn into ‘ashes’ (as it is a general practice to destroy the forged currency)?. The client who had given those notes to my uncle was sad that he was cheated by someone else but the other person accompanying him kept on solacing him by saying that he would make those forged notes ‘run’ in the villages. And this made me ask the other guy:
Agar aap pakde gaye to kya hoga? (What if you get caught using these notes?)
To this he replied:
Gaaon me kaun pakdega? Ye to bahut aram se chal jaayega gaaon dehaat me. (Nobody would find out in the villages. These notes would be just perfect if used in a village.)

And this made me think about the narrow mindedness of that person. Just to save a few thousand rupees, he would actually commit the crime of using the forged notes, and not by his intelligence but by taking advantage of a poor and uneducated villager. But then I thought, what if these notes some back to him in some or the other? Will his cycle go on forever and there would be nobody who would choose to lose his few five hundred rupee notes and save the country from a series of false transactions and dwindling beliefs? For notes are not just pieces of paper, those are the words of trust passed on from one person to the other with each transaction.

He later told that some people in the village have the business of buying forged notes at half the price (written on the note) and using them at different places (and thus getting a full 100% on the investment). I don’t know if the police knows about it or no and why the villagers have not reported this to police. And do people really use this service of selling fake notes?

And that man told further:
Ye note to tilak me de dena chahiye!! (These notes are well suited to be given as dowry.)
This sentence made me think whether the person is so selfish that he would give fake notes to his own son-in law or this was a remark from a man tired and trodden by the ill system of dowries. Whatever the case may be, what made me sad was the fact was that the person represented a very general individual in the society and when he was speaking, it were the words and beliefs of the society. And if a society as such degraded moral values, the future indeed seems bleak, no matter whatever growth percentage we achieve in our GDP.

Suddenly, it struck to me that the person might not be educated. But then I asked myself: Does it really matter whether the person was educated or not? Would the attitude towards the notes have been different in either case?

Rahul Dulhaniya Le Jayega

I am at home after about five months. And I am thoroughly enjoying the ‘tension-free’, ‘nothing to do life’. And equally enjoyable is the constant supply of food going inside my stomach. These days, since I am very much occupied by ‘The Shadow Lines’ by Amitav Ghosh these days, I don’t really need to sit in front of the TV and pass my time. And as a result, I have really lost any kind of interest in the TV this time at home (which sometimes surprises my mother). Anyway, something interesting caught my attention today!! And it was…….oh, please don’t wait for it………..it was “Rahul Dulhaniya Le Jayega” (Rahul will take away the bride)!!

After the death of Pramod Mahajan (who was Rahul’s father) and the drama which followed, Rahul had gained some sort of celebrity status among the celeb-hungry junta of the country. And what could have been a better opportunity to raise the celeb-status in the world of reality shows?? But what baffles me is how is this show still running and who are the people actually watching it!! There is a guy in mid-thirties who is already a divorcee and there are many girls, some of them as young as twenty, dreaming him as their future husband, making plans of wedding with him, and then going to honeymoon and what not!! Well, there is nothing wrong in dreaming of a marriage, love and other things but in that case the person concerned knows who the spouse to be is. It’s just some kind of pagalpan (madness) making such plans with the person you are not sure enough to marry with. In fact, spouse would not be the right word. Someone whom you win after a contest to make him/her as your spouse is no less than a buy and sell of commodity to me, it’s just that the money, here, is replaced by the efforts to win the competition.

The most funny (read fake) part of it is the different kinds of dates on which our groom to be Rahulji goes with his ‘desperate to be brides’. How can the girls actually behave that the guy loves them when they know that he is taking other girls on the similar dates? And isn’t it the person with whom you go on a date adds thrill to it and not the place or exhilaration associated with it? And look at what Dimpy, one of the (un)lucky final three contestants, says after going on an airplane date wih Rahul Mahajan:

Main Rahul se shadi karna chahti hoon taaki wo main aage bhi aisi dates pe ja sakoo.

(I want to marry Rahul Mahajan so that I get an opportunity to go on such dates in the future too.)

And Rahul is looking for his true love in this girl!! Funny, isn’t it? But what can Rahul do or even the producers of the show do when such crap sells in our country? Till there is an audience, there would be crap coming up and killing the time.

Some would say that there was the same drama during ‘Rakhi Sawant ka Swaymwar’ too!! But then everyone knew beforehand that Rakhi is a propagandist and the show is being made for some time pass on TV. And Rakhi, thanks to her exposure to camera glare, knows how to act or even try to act. Rahul didn’t have any such advantage also!! And the junta is bored with one swayamwar already. Difficult to digest another one!! We need better stuff, TV walon!!