On people

I read a card the other day that said 'Sooner or later, everyone hurts you and that it is up to you to decide whose worth the pain'

The problem with this brand of Hallmark advice is that it is trying to reach out to such a large audience, that it forgets to be specific and ends up being vague and therefore, unhelpful. There's probably another card jumping to its rescue right about now saying, 'Well, hey its better to try  and fail rather than to never try at all.'

Without any criterion specified, how do we decide whose worth it? How do we decide who is our friend or predict which one of them will eventually hurt us? And how does one calculate if a person adds more value than they do, pain, in one's life?

When you're younger, these decisions are easy. In nursery school, you are friends with the first person who shares their goodies with you. In high school, your friend is the first person who smiles kindly your way. In university, it tends to be the person who likes the party in the same way as you do.

Then you cease to be young. I did not add 'one day' to the beginning of that sentence because that is like saying 'once upon a time'. There are no fairy tales, this is one of the things you learn in the painstaking process that is adulthood.

During this process, the same kid who shared his chocolates with you in kindergarten may have grown up with a desire to share more than you are willing. Is he still a friend, even if he no longer wants to be just so? The girl who smiled at you sweetly in school now tries her best to frown you down at every turn. Is she still a friend, even if she is not behaving like one at this time? If along the way, an enemy accidentally does you a good turn, is he your accidental friend?

Perhaps the easiest thing to do, would be to look at intentions. Then again, so many good intentions translate into ineffectual actions, one has to wonder if this system of rewarding intentions rather than results is really working to our benefit.

Still, perhaps we should assume the simplest path as Ockham did. If we were to do this, we would tell ourselves that the kindergarten friend knows everything about us and loves us. Then we would try and reciprocate. The frowns that are directed our way could be protective shields and we will hide behind them.

Then one may think,  what about love at first sight? or perhaps that we needed support at the time and not a shield. Picking your friends on the basis of what you need is a dangerous thing too. Just as we sometimes do not know why we do the things we do, we are not always the best judges of what we need either.

Which brings us back to - how do we know who to let in and who to keep out?

You know, the truth is , I don't know. What I've observed though is that you cannot control who enters your life or even the lives you stumble into. What's more, it seems to me that people cannot add or subtract value from your life. The only person who can bankrupt your life is you. I've never met an accurate accessor of the human spirit either. Whoever tells you that they can gauge the worth of a human being or encourages you to try to do the same thing, is lying.

People are unpredictable and usually so complex that their motives are hidden even from themselves. People will hurt you, love you, bring you pain and pleasure simultaneously, make you laugh till you cry, bruise you with their hugs and push you around with a kiss on your lips. Basically, people will bring you the broad spectrum of life, sealed and stamped right at your doorstep. There is no avoiding them.

This may perhaps be the best way to judge if a person is your friend- have they offered to or do they share a part of their experiences with you? Are they a part of your life? If the answer to these questions is Yes, then you must stop bucking, stop judging, stop examining and accept them as they come- because that is what friends are for.

and if the answer is Yes, then you must take deep breaths and remember the times that you inflicted on your friends, not so pretty parts of yourself. If you're really a friend - and you have to be one to have one - you will not tally the times against each other.

I think what I've concluded is that: people being people and life being life, one can not control either or bog them down with our individual expectations. One must simply allow each to run the course that they are. For the days that this current runs rough or inexplicably against you, you may find yourself pleasantly surprised by the support you receive, from unexpected sources.

Random musings - my favorite past time

A friend and I bought journals the other day and like Camus, decided to write one interesting thing in there everyday. Just something we may notice about the world. Shortly afterwards, I came across a picture in the new scientist magazine - the link for it is http://www.newscientist.com/gallery/wildlife-through-the-lens/6 and I thought to myself - isn't it interesting that these fish should turn into something that they fear?

So here's my first entry into the first journal I've kept since I was sixteen:


Over the passage of time, the flight or fight instinct has been ground into the very essence of all living things. It has ensured that choices are made logically, and programmed us to pick those battles, we know we can win. Another way of saying this is - It teaches us that we must be afraid and what it is that we should fear. It's that way throughout the food chain, indiscriminately working its way to the top.

Given that this is the most primitive of genome codings, one would imagine that the more evolved the animal, the greater its power to manipulate its primordial urges. Conversely, one could trust in nature's wisdom and accept that fear is around for good reason, because perhaps it is. Then again, lots of things that are here for good reason can be shown expendable for better ones.

We may for instance realise what Columbus was trying to prove all along - There is no running away from anything; The universe is structurally designed to ensure that you end up where you started from.

Given that the universe, the earth and even we are all made out of the same basic matter, it is not strange that everything - the physical, the ethereal and emotional follow the same cyclical format of existence. For example, our souls re-incarnate to complete a cycle even as  our bodies serve as vessels to start another and so on...

Similarly emotions follow their own circular paths. If you give out love, you receive it; on the other end of that spectrum, detest a man and he will hate you right back. In that sense, fear is a more narcissistic emotion or parasitical (If one were to look upon fear as an external stimuli, which I don't.) While it may affect one's periphery very much in the manner that the moon affects the tides, it boasts for its victim (or itself) an eternal gnawing.

If we cannot banish our fears, we are always prisoners to them; in one way or another. Some may end up their slaves, forever living our lives to the tune of their wishes. So it may happen that we will never see an acrophobe at the top of the Eiffel Tower. A boy who fell off his bicycle one too many times, will never know the thrill of straddling a Harley. A girl who saw Jaws too early in life will never know the pleasure of swimming in the open sea.

Then there are those who may attempt to take a French leave from their fears. This too, can be a counterproductive route to go down. Such people may find that the farther they run, the closer they are to where they begun.

People who are afraid to admit that they are not children anymore, may run amuck rather than plant roots. Responsibility may escaped through day dreams or drug addictions or even hedonistic excitements, but constantly seeking frontiers too takes its toll. One sees such people everywhere, eyes jaded and faces old.

Men who are afraid of being alone, may try to distract themselves with wealth, power and the women that come along with it. Waking up next to a stranger, or at best, a siren, is essentially being alone. Similarly a woman whose scared of being fooled or getting hurt, may find herself unable to see clear toward sincerity. She may alienate herself against any chances of being loved. In essence, for her, everyday is a fresh heartbreak.

I suppose the problem is atomic, we seem to be built to chase our own tails. Still, we have also proved ourselves to be voracious learners blessed with the capacity to grow beyound what we personally know.

Perhaps, given this, and also the eternal nature of this same passage of time that taught us to fear; we will hear the 'Whooop!' of  a man who sees the arial view of Paris for the first time (It really is fantastic.) We will see the ying and the yang united by contentment and trust. People everywhere may decide to confront themselves and embrace their fates.

We may find, given the intricate weave that is space and time, that once this happens,  ripples are felt far and wide.

It may happen that those who feared ridicule and prejudice will bring into the light, their special powers or that those who have long feared oppression will stand united and taste victory. The possibilities are infinite when there is no fear limiting the horizon.

Winter in Delhi

It’s a day in the city just like everywhere else. Only in cities, time’s an amateur marathon runner; It seems to be desperately trying to adhere to some pre-set pace, sometimes allowing excitement to add wind under its feet.

It is mid November weather in New Delhi. Winter is ready to take over everyone’s lives, and like a cold-hearted woman, she seduces you at first with promises of pleasure. So, for now, the air is fresh and the skies are mostly blue. The city thinks its stepped out of a cold shower.

During this time, the metropolitan people are more alive and more active. They do not wilt away into air-conditioned rooms and afternoon siestas like they did during a few weeks ago, during summer. The sun, rendered near redundant, is like the last king of a long and celebrated bloodline of stars.

Sporting baubles and boots are the pretty young maidens of his city. Moving from here to there, being everywhere, reaching nowhere. They pass a group of urchin children.

“Didi, paise dedo, didi. Bhook lagi hai, didi. Khaana khaana hai. Sukhi rahogey; shaadi hogi… sundar didi.” Such lies fall out — literally— from the mouths of babes who long ago learned deceit is survival skill.

A longhaired beauty teases one of the children. “What if I’m already married? You’re saying divorce ho jayega is wale se? Phir doosri shaadi? Touba touba!”  Toothy smiles on both sides testify to them enjoying the banter. She is too young to be married — only sixteen. The kids aren’t hungry either — they ate from a nearby dhaaba an hour ago. Harmless as the dishonesties are, the girls extend no alms. Neither beggar nor brat is any better for it.

The children will eventually find themselves a sucker. Some day the girls will meet a person who genuinely needs a hand. The question is, who will recognize the truth then? To be fair, naivety, through no fault of its own, is easier to spot than sincerity.

Eye on target, the children run around their mark. Before he knows it, he is parting with his small change. Men are easier to fool than women, some studies say. The urchins could help verify these results.

The sucker — the mark — will then go about his day with a chest swollen with good intentions and pride at fulfilling them. He opens a few doors here, smile a bit more than usual there. No sense in breaking a streak, he thinks to himself. Eventually he will be on his way home, joyful heart near busting and he may find his wallet gone. Streaks find a way to get broke.

On days it is not too smoggy, people will visit the older parts of the city. Old buildings, filled with loud and confused people moving through crazy and colourful things. If one was following society as a person, this is Indian culture in its tweens.

There's old men smoking beedis and spitting out paan. A man with a beard till his knees is driving around two young boys in his cycle-rikshaw. They talk incessantly; are boisterous and cheerful. The tired old man is none of these.  Yet, his mind is full with thoughts of a young wife waiting in their jhuggi with a cup of rice and watery lentils.

Old ladies bustle about picking up diamonds and dreams for their daughters. Haggling, screaming, pouting are the accepted mannerisms here. Still, no one would dare push a woman around. They are content to stare from a distance. It’s unclear which is the better way.

The sun may like shining on the Red Fort on such days. It bathes in warmth the road that leads up to the majestic structure. Here a mosque, a temple and a church reside side by side on these roads — as do the temple-goers, the 5am-crooners and the bible-readers. Because it gets around, the sun sees that a more socially mature city remains in uproar about a mosque being built near its churches and schools.

As time speeds along, it becomes the moon’s turn to watch over the city. It wrestles with shadows to indulge in voyeurism.

If the moon is sentient, it may be thinking that we’re all pretty fucking pathetic. Millions of us crammed up in a tiny little space ball and still living in fear of being alone. Here is the moon, singular since time immemorial and not a single droplet to be found. Now that is what you call proud. Or maybe, just like all the pretty girls, the moon’s all cried out.