Ohh America..

Ohh America!!

Born and brought up in the city of Calcutta, i was tuned to life at a distinctly unique frequency. This city on the banks of the Ganges taught me everything that i grew up to be. From the sweet tooth that i have to the hot head teen that i was, Calcutta gets credit for it all.

My typical day as a student here would begin at 3:30 am in the morning. Study began straight out of bed. 2 hrs given to books and then u get ready for school that began at 630. At 2 pm school ended and then began the vicious cycle of tutions. By the time i used to reach home it would be time for dinner and bed.

Work life here is no different! If a person works for 9 hrs he at least spends 3 hours on the road.  After a full week of doing this comes family time and personal time.

Cut to 2011. I work in the US . My day starts at 6 and office ends at 6! My brain is at peace and i have time for a lot of things that i never thought i would have. The cities out there are far far away from the rush and people do actually greet each other, even though they are complete strangers.

The stark difference in the time that one has for one self is what changes everything. In the din and bustle of everyday life, LIFE has taken a back seat. The basic premise of education is that it gives you power to think, power to analyze and power to distinguish the right from the wrong. But if you do not have time for any of this then in my honest opinion it defeats the purpose of being educated. Education is not what a piece of paper says about you. Its about who you are and more importantly who you aspire to be.

Today when i walk slowly on the road, maintain my distance with the person in front of me in a queue or talk softly with a smile on my face, its not what the foreign country has done to me, its how things should be. Roads in America do not clean themselves but its the people who don't throw things on them, help it keep clean.

 It has been written many a times that rather than asking what the country gives me one should ask what one has given to the country. To my dismay the question that i see being asked is ...who cares? Petty personal goals take precedence over the good of the masses. Its not only the leaders that show this mentality but for the most part the people on the road carry the same thinking.

Just like a child stealing a candy when his mum is not looking, shows that he is not yet ready for being independent, small acts of dishonesty talk a lot about the character of the individuals. People are ready to swear and curse on the drop of a hat. Man, if you don't have the heart to forgive what greatness do you aspire to achieve? Letting go is a characteristic of a thoughtful mind. Revenge is for the devil.

In this land of greater than 4000 years of history the erosion of faith kills me. The faith in the victory of the good over the evil, the faith in the act of being good and the faith that if i do no wrong, no wrong shall happen to me as well. This was the principle that was inculcated in me and i believe in majority of the Indian youth. Today i find it missing. I find it difficult to fathom that people have no time for introspection. They have no time to look at what they wanted to become and what they have become.

It is important to keep things in perspective. It not only helps you know who you are but helps you keep your feet planted on the ground. The over achievers are not the loud mouthed leaders but the quiet souls who know what they are doing and why they are doing.

Ohh America!! Why did you give me so much time on hand that i could differentiate with my own brethren. I hope i do not become an out class and in the words of Lord Buddha get to follow the Middle Path!

What on earth is Success?

What in the blue hell is Success?

 This first thing that comes to mind is that Success is relative. Well relative it is. For the less fortunate out there, being able to put food twice a day on their family’s plate is success. For a soldier involved in active war, being able to return home unharmed to embrace his loved ones is success. For a baby being able to walk a few steps without falling is success. For a business conglomerate, to be able to buy another conglomerate at a price considerably below that of market expectations is success. For a con cheating someone is success and for a priest persuading someone not to commit suicide is a success.
Looks like, the path to be successful resembles the most contorted of networks, whose routing table has been embedded in a secure system, encrypted by algorithms tougher than SHA-1 to crack. As the civilization advances parameters and measures of being successful get evolved as well. It adds to the complexity of a problem when someone proclaims success by just digging wet sand and someone on the other hand falls aside trying to flat out mountains in life. Today’s achievements that might not ensure a bright future are also being represented as marks of success.

It’s an age of personal brilliance. People are so busy in doing their own good that they forget about the social nature of humans.  It’s become a norm that people move out of a less fortunate neighborhood as soon as their fortunes brighten up. Yes it’s true that you need a good neighborhood to really enjoy riding your Benz. But don’t we feel for the neighborhood, shouldn’t we give it an afterthought? Doesn’t it deserve a better treatment?  How can we call ourselves successful if all what we have done is added up our own fortune and now live in a better house?  Is your bank balance and living style the only mark of true success?

Yes it is true success, but only when you look at it from the perspective of living beings who have a very low intelligence level. How can just the ability to provide oneself with good food and living be hallmark of success? Unless we emancipate others, provide for them and help in the general uplift of the society to which we belong, how can we call ourselves successful?  True success lies in its universal recognition.  It should be collective rather than divisive. Success in its true form should bring us closer to others rather than alienate us into a particular society.

To me success is not in how rich I become, but in how much wealth I generate. It’s not about how people recognize me today but how people will remember me after I am long gone.  The day I become the person whom people count upon to put meal on their family’s plate, I will raise my hand in success. Until I achieve that, I cannot and will not proclaim myself successful.

Vikash

Mumbai Attacks: Role of the Media

In wake of the attacks on Mumbai , it has become almost impossible to avoid the talk of a possible armed conflict with our neighbours. Shivers run down the spine when one reads the leading Indian English dailies on line first thing in the morning. The rhetoric of an armed conflict rumbles across every links and articles on the subject. All the material we read tend to support an armed conflict as the only way to resolve the matter. Every comment and every statement made by some mindless “leaders” on the other side of the border are put on for the public to read as if they were coming form people with lesser mortal brains than ours. Cant we expect a little more maturity from the press and a little bit of direction from them . Rather than going into a mad rush of filling their websites with the insights of there unscrupulous creatures, can they not put some lines extra to it. Explaining , what the real intention of the individual is and why they are making such comments. These “leaders ” who themselves have fled their motherland in fear of death and punishment of what they have led their country give out comments in search of the limelight , which has faded even before it went for a full beam. Press in India can very well do to ignore them, or even if they want to quote them they can explain the REAL purpose of these comments.

Coming to the question of going for an armed conflict, we as INDIANS have a track record of never have gone into it FIRST. We continue to believe that, we wont harm anybody but would certainly give back to the ones who harm us. In this scenario we have to agree that previous attacks on our motherland were not dealt with strongly. Here I appreciate the role of INDIAN Media to have taken 26/11 as a cause and to have forced the Indian set of Power to be affirmative in their actions. But still I feel armed conflict is not a solution. Diplomatic way of dealing with it would be the best options. It would have the same effect of an Homeopathic treatment of a diseasewhen compared to the allopathic approach. Slow to begin with but a long lasting impact.

We all know that our neighbours are very close to bankruptcy. In this hour of economic turmoil if they decided to spread terror in our motherland, it clearly shows their hapless approach of deviating the world attention on their pathetic economic progress report. What they really intend to do is take the two nations to armed conflict and then blame the same conflict as a reason to their Economic mess.What we as Indians should make sure is that we suffocate their economy , without actually going to a conflict. Put on diplomatic pressure on all their international ties, squeeze the supply of funds and brig them on their knees. Let them be taken over by UN and then they would realize the might of words over that of the sword. 

For the above to occur we need the Media and the Press. World wide consensus should be reached that they are the ones responsible for these heinous acts of crime. People should be made aware of what path is being taken and the prehistoric urge of mankind, the urge to fight for existence should be suppressed by this modern way ofresponse. A response so far reaching that our neighbours will be beggars for generations to come.

The act of writing all this gives me such a peace of mind , that i feel i have avenged the comment made by the former army chief of our neighbours stating that India wont DARE…..

Mr. ex (now a quitter) Chief, India is capable of things which your people can not even dream of. You should look back just 47 years in history to see our capacity and that of yours!!

Do whatever you like

Off late I have been growing my hair. It has actually been 14 months since I last had a haircut. I looked up in the mirror recently and saw my hairs parting from the middle all by themselves. That brought up a conversation in my head that I had had with my Mom when I was around 13 years old and had expressed my desire to have long locks. She was of the opinion that if I intended to be perceived a “good” boy by my teachers I should cut my hair short because that shows discipline and that’s what makes “good” boys. At that age I did not have the argument powers with my mom, and was always afraid of one of her brutal statements: “Do whatever you like”. So I matched my mom’s liking with mine and moved on. As expected I completed school, went through engineering college and got a job all in short hairs. Now that I finally do get to do what I want with full support from her, no strings attached, I questioned myself whether I am a different me in these long hairs or it’s still the same guy but with a different look.

I still feel and react the same way as I had done before. Nothing in me has changed that wasn’t there when the locks were short. I still stand by my words, backup all my promises with action and effort and don’t do things just because I can do them. I am inch by inch the same person that was there 14 months ago. Nothing has changed and I am pretty sure nothing ever will change. Then was my Mom wrong? Was it just her own preference that she wanted her only kid to look a particular way, which had prompted her to make up that story about people and their perceptions? Was I wrong in blindly following what she said, did it speak bad about my character and will power? Should I have just grown my hairs long to see what happens and just don’t care what my mom had to say? After all facing consequences of his actions is what a Man is known for.

I gave it a thought and no matter how much effort I put, I could not justify that I was wrong in following my mom’s advice. Well in hind sight its advice but during those days, they were orders. I now realize that the mere fact that I understand the value of inner character and strength was instilled in those years and that it was the direct result of my upbringing. In fact the whole value system in me was formed because of how I grew up. It was a point in my life where I could not have afforded being wrong. Naïve as I was, that age wasn’t for making statements, it was about making yourself.  I had a lot of growing up to do, not just for me but also for my family. Their life was more at stake than mine.

Humans, no matter how open minded they think they are; they do follow set stereotypes more often than not. A fact, that I now understand much better than I did a decade back. So when she said that I would be perceived in a different way, she was actually making this point that I would be type casted and might not get the desired recognition. For a kid being good, is just a matter of how people around him think him to be. This fact, as simple as it sounds, did not make much sense back then. So to buckle down and do as told was not a bad decision on my part.

I always knew “Do whatever you like” means do as told! And once again this conversation brings the same feelings that had I gone my way it would have been a mistake. May be not too big on my part,  as I had the energy of the youth to take me through. But on their part as they would have had a challenging twilight to their lives.

I am glad I followed!!

Vikash