The three simple rules:
1. Think
2. Act
3. Face the consequence
Thinking comprises of taking into account not just what is practical but what we want, what the ones we love want and the emotional nature of the consequences. It includes scenarios both of honesty and of white-lies. It comprises thinking with a clear head and not revolving around the same set of thoughts with the dumbness causing confusion of a moron. And more often than not, it is about getting your way (something that turns you into a dominating know-all of sorts). It’s about thinking hard and smart. And it takes a 1000 times less calories (if one can count) than worrying or wishful thinking.
Acting comprises taking action and in fact more importantly TAKING INACTION. Inaction is something we are taught to hate since childhood. When stuck with a nasty situation or decision, we ache for action. We feel the suffocating need to do something. Even in the face of certain failure we want to “try our best” so that we do not feel ashamed for not having tried. We have apparently been fed a little too much of the “At least you tried” curry while growing up. How ridiculous will it be then to “give up” simply after calculating the odds and concluding “it isn’t worth the trouble”. Doesn’t sound so ridiculous to read, but try doing it and know firsthand the reaction of not just your loved ones but yourself.
I have had my share of ridicules thrown at me, ranging from “if you had just tried” to “you didn’t because you couldn’t” and after all that I have been through, the only conclusion I can make is that inaction has served me well. But the most difficult and most important learning to be acquired before inaction can do you any good is learning to “Face the Consequences”.
Facing the consequences with utmost shamelessness (synonym: humbly), in my inconsequential opinion, exists only in a certain breeds of people. One of them would be the breed which has gotten the precious and rare exposure of highly competitive environments filled with intelligent people without the direct and tangible reward in terms of money. This exists in premier education institutes. The certainty of a job, uncertainty of pay-offs, inexperience of luxuries and abundance of stubbornness gives birth to the “irresponsible, wasted and lazy” persons who go on to live a life sub-optimal as judged by popular wisdom.
Like any other disease, it affects to varying degrees. Some get completely wasted, some slowly stumble back to the regular path as they grow out of it. But one thing is certain, the true ones never regret a bit of it.
Maybe the epitaph of one of them would say:
“He achieved nothing in his life but he lived and he died a happy man.”
I think the first part would anyways be true for almost all of us…
Sail along… No Stress! No Regret! And take the few decisions you actually can!
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Monday, September 14, 2009
I’ll Know I Thought So
How do we capture a thought, a feeling? We word it and store it in our cupboards and mailboxes. We record it verbatim in videos. We even attach it through memory to snapshots of the past. But mostly, we don’t capture it; it embeds into our being on its own…
Not all thoughts and feelings get captured, nor they linger on forever. Only a few, limited number survive. Some of them we can recall while thinking back, some come alive from triggers attached to them. But the most interesting and perhaps the most important I feel are the ones that come up when we are neither recalling them nor can we locate the trigger.
A laughter would fall in the first, a smile in the second and a tear in the last…
How regularly have we have sat down with friends and family whiling away a good number of hours laughing about the ludicrous things we did (knowingly/unknowingly/drunk). How often we have had those smiles when some songs remind us of fabulous times spend a long time ago. And how rarely have we been glum of a sudden pang running through our bodies for reasons unknown.
Reasons unknown become reasons known and the pain dissipates. We look for the why, we get the reason and we reason the reason. Be it the obvious “Death is Inevitable” or the obscure “He is gone to a better place”, be it the factual “Nobody can see or experience everything” or the illusory “He is still with us right here inside our hearts”, they all serve the same purpose. They move the feeling from where it hurts the most to a more comfortable reasoned place where it stays till we forget and it resurfaces some other day.
My experience tells me the feeling is more potent that we give it credit to be but the reasoning serves its purpose too. Once bitten, twice shy might be overused but that is how our defenses function. The next time we aren’t taken in by surprise, the next time the walls are up. The next time death gives you lesser tears and more humility, for when you see another of the souls-you-know missing, you know it will all come to pass and so will you…
But that August night, that sinister smile, that insane advice, that useless fight… It remains etched in stone. A stone which never weathers, at least I think so... at the least I will know I thought so…
Not all thoughts and feelings get captured, nor they linger on forever. Only a few, limited number survive. Some of them we can recall while thinking back, some come alive from triggers attached to them. But the most interesting and perhaps the most important I feel are the ones that come up when we are neither recalling them nor can we locate the trigger.
A laughter would fall in the first, a smile in the second and a tear in the last…
How regularly have we have sat down with friends and family whiling away a good number of hours laughing about the ludicrous things we did (knowingly/unknowingly/drunk). How often we have had those smiles when some songs remind us of fabulous times spend a long time ago. And how rarely have we been glum of a sudden pang running through our bodies for reasons unknown.
Reasons unknown become reasons known and the pain dissipates. We look for the why, we get the reason and we reason the reason. Be it the obvious “Death is Inevitable” or the obscure “He is gone to a better place”, be it the factual “Nobody can see or experience everything” or the illusory “He is still with us right here inside our hearts”, they all serve the same purpose. They move the feeling from where it hurts the most to a more comfortable reasoned place where it stays till we forget and it resurfaces some other day.
My experience tells me the feeling is more potent that we give it credit to be but the reasoning serves its purpose too. Once bitten, twice shy might be overused but that is how our defenses function. The next time we aren’t taken in by surprise, the next time the walls are up. The next time death gives you lesser tears and more humility, for when you see another of the souls-you-know missing, you know it will all come to pass and so will you…
But that August night, that sinister smile, that insane advice, that useless fight… It remains etched in stone. A stone which never weathers, at least I think so... at the least I will know I thought so…
The Trek – Part 4: Money Best Spent
One hour to dusk and no clue as to where to head. I mean, we knew we had to go downhill. After all, we were almost atop a Himalayan mountain for crying out loud! But that was all we knew. We walked around trying to find a trail, not with the detective seriousness of course, with the laughing chatter of what a mess we are in, the kind of lunacy that takes you over when you are royally screwed with or without being responsible for it… though the lunacy is much stronger when you are not the reason for the mess!
Finally the dude remembered of a place where he thought was a trail and although we (including him) could only find one stone that looked like somewhat cut by humans of eons ago, it was a good enough for us and we headed, like I said before, downhill. I have never really climbed down or up any hill in a completely random manner (that is without a trail to guide) but considering moving down this newfound “trail” meant we had to sit down and push thorny bushes aside with sticks meant it was pretty much the similar to having no trail to begin with. Anyways, an hour and some scary wild sounds later (one of which we were pretty sure was a bear’s), we came down to the valley. And the relief was much increased when we saw a shepherd tending to his cattle. We were still not lost to the wilderness!
What the shepherd told us was the plain and simple – you city-dwellers cannot make it to Kareri. We have wondered and discussed quite a few times since then whether we would have been better off if we had just ignored his advice. Nobody has a clue. In fact, I have even wondered if it would have been even more adventurous…
So we took his advice that we should head to the village about a couple of miles south and started walking single file on the narrow comfortable path towards the village. By the time we got there, we were starving strangers coming in from the darkness with a single flashlight (yes, we still didn’t have the sanity to buy more at Mcleodganj) with huge bags on their backs and sun burnt faces that couldn’t be seen. In short, it was dark and we were hungry. The village was as primitive as I would ever see, that is, it had no electricity. Am not exaggerating and I can’t explain more, after all we didn’t really get a chance to explore it! The guy we stopped gave us even better news, namely – “This is harvest season and everybody is busy. We can get you a place to stay but apologies we wouldn’t be able to give you any food”. We had a tent for crying out loud! One we just hadn’t used all these days! But he didn’t budge and said maybe the next village a further down the path. And we didn’t really have a choice.
I was a strict vegetarian back then (now a vegetarian by choice) and the most difficult part for me on that entire trip was when we found a dead cow in the middle of the only trail we had. No, we did not try to cook it! The bad and stinking part was that she had been dead at least a fortnight and the pungent smell from her rotting body was filling up the nose a hundred yards away. And you really can’t hold your breath that long, especially when you have to run and jump over a dead cow with a rucksack on your back. It was indeed the worst experience of the trip for all others turned into good memories once we were past them, this one didn’t.
The conspiracy was widespread. Conspiracy because I still can’t understand why they couldn’t take pity on us and give us anything to eat. We were offering to sleep in the fields! Anyways, the next village had the same offer and we had no other choice than to keep walking south. Even our so-close-to-the-heart-by-now torch was taking her last breaths as we walked on hopelessly… and then we saw light!
It is difficult to understand the feeling of relief that a bunch of guys feel upon seeing a tube light after being in the darkness for a few hours. I am not exaggerating and I will not exaggerate when I say even the dismay was tremendous when we found out that the lights were of an inlet station of a dam. The dreams of shops and food disappeared as we sensed nobody might be there at all! But thank god for making burglars burglars because had they not wandered our society, nor would have the security guards!
The two guards at the station were good human beings. They didn’t have any food (it was still eluding us) but they made tea for us and gave us the good news that there might be a way out. All we had to do was to ask the driver of the vehicle which came in during shift change to double back and drop us to the town. That was our only hope for the night and when he came, we should have fallen to his feet if the need be and given him as much money as he asked for but what we did (and I will remove myself from we here) was to try and negotiate with him to come down from 300 bucks to 200 bucks. Imagine getting stuck, hungry and cold (and maybe even dead) for a mere 20 bucks per person! And that too, Indian currency!
Good sense prevailed amongst us and the driver didn’t get too pissed (although we thought he had when it took him more than an hour to come back) and we reached back to Mcleodganj an hour after we boarded the jeep. Nobody had imagined we had crossed so many mountains and covered so much road-miles that even I was filled with guilt about thinking of the driver as greedy when he had asked for those 300 bucks. Sixty bucks well spent indeed… best spent indeed…
Finally the dude remembered of a place where he thought was a trail and although we (including him) could only find one stone that looked like somewhat cut by humans of eons ago, it was a good enough for us and we headed, like I said before, downhill. I have never really climbed down or up any hill in a completely random manner (that is without a trail to guide) but considering moving down this newfound “trail” meant we had to sit down and push thorny bushes aside with sticks meant it was pretty much the similar to having no trail to begin with. Anyways, an hour and some scary wild sounds later (one of which we were pretty sure was a bear’s), we came down to the valley. And the relief was much increased when we saw a shepherd tending to his cattle. We were still not lost to the wilderness!
What the shepherd told us was the plain and simple – you city-dwellers cannot make it to Kareri. We have wondered and discussed quite a few times since then whether we would have been better off if we had just ignored his advice. Nobody has a clue. In fact, I have even wondered if it would have been even more adventurous…
So we took his advice that we should head to the village about a couple of miles south and started walking single file on the narrow comfortable path towards the village. By the time we got there, we were starving strangers coming in from the darkness with a single flashlight (yes, we still didn’t have the sanity to buy more at Mcleodganj) with huge bags on their backs and sun burnt faces that couldn’t be seen. In short, it was dark and we were hungry. The village was as primitive as I would ever see, that is, it had no electricity. Am not exaggerating and I can’t explain more, after all we didn’t really get a chance to explore it! The guy we stopped gave us even better news, namely – “This is harvest season and everybody is busy. We can get you a place to stay but apologies we wouldn’t be able to give you any food”. We had a tent for crying out loud! One we just hadn’t used all these days! But he didn’t budge and said maybe the next village a further down the path. And we didn’t really have a choice.
I was a strict vegetarian back then (now a vegetarian by choice) and the most difficult part for me on that entire trip was when we found a dead cow in the middle of the only trail we had. No, we did not try to cook it! The bad and stinking part was that she had been dead at least a fortnight and the pungent smell from her rotting body was filling up the nose a hundred yards away. And you really can’t hold your breath that long, especially when you have to run and jump over a dead cow with a rucksack on your back. It was indeed the worst experience of the trip for all others turned into good memories once we were past them, this one didn’t.
The conspiracy was widespread. Conspiracy because I still can’t understand why they couldn’t take pity on us and give us anything to eat. We were offering to sleep in the fields! Anyways, the next village had the same offer and we had no other choice than to keep walking south. Even our so-close-to-the-heart-by-now torch was taking her last breaths as we walked on hopelessly… and then we saw light!
It is difficult to understand the feeling of relief that a bunch of guys feel upon seeing a tube light after being in the darkness for a few hours. I am not exaggerating and I will not exaggerate when I say even the dismay was tremendous when we found out that the lights were of an inlet station of a dam. The dreams of shops and food disappeared as we sensed nobody might be there at all! But thank god for making burglars burglars because had they not wandered our society, nor would have the security guards!
The two guards at the station were good human beings. They didn’t have any food (it was still eluding us) but they made tea for us and gave us the good news that there might be a way out. All we had to do was to ask the driver of the vehicle which came in during shift change to double back and drop us to the town. That was our only hope for the night and when he came, we should have fallen to his feet if the need be and given him as much money as he asked for but what we did (and I will remove myself from we here) was to try and negotiate with him to come down from 300 bucks to 200 bucks. Imagine getting stuck, hungry and cold (and maybe even dead) for a mere 20 bucks per person! And that too, Indian currency!
Good sense prevailed amongst us and the driver didn’t get too pissed (although we thought he had when it took him more than an hour to come back) and we reached back to Mcleodganj an hour after we boarded the jeep. Nobody had imagined we had crossed so many mountains and covered so much road-miles that even I was filled with guilt about thinking of the driver as greedy when he had asked for those 300 bucks. Sixty bucks well spent indeed… best spent indeed…
The Trek – Part 3: It had just begun
Bullying mixed with reasoning creates a deadly inescapable cocktail that one has no option but to drink. Having woken up with aches in almost all moving parts of the body, I was in no mood to relent to the insane request of another day of trek and I stood (rather sat) my ground for a good half hour! After all, it’s difficult to argue with someone who had already been to the place when he was all of 11 or 12!
It’s not as bad a climb as the last one, we will stop whenever you would want us to, don’t chicken out now, this is a much better place, be a team player, don’t act like an ass… Imagine all that thrown to a guy with a broken body and spirit. All probability is that he would either run away and never see the buggers again or give up arguing and fall in line. Am glad I was not a quitter, for what lay ahead would be one of the best days in my life. Alas, no pictures because the bastards decided on a budget cut!
So the five of us took off for Kareri via a temple called Gauna Devi with nothing but two loafs of bread and a bottle of jam. Something we would soon regret. The trek was steep in the town but afterwards, it became an easy walk on the shady side of the mountain with a nice breeze and good views all around. We moved much faster than the previous two days, passing by villages spread across the terrain. Once warmed-up, even the body was not giving me any trouble. A new lesson about its function but one I haven’t really utilized it ever since haven’t really been able to even gym regularly in the past 8 years. We stopped in the shade of line of trees and had our brunch of bread-jam and that was the last of it. The two loafs were ravished with the calm certainty of at least finding a shack where we could have our regular maggi or at least a bread or at worse anything!
I wouldn’t call it a waterfall, it was more like a pond with running water and huge rocks to create barriers that made it a stepped pool. We plunged ourselves in, playing in the ultra-cold water coming straight from the glacier. Later on, lying on the rocks to dry ourselves and the clothes we began contemplating the next. The real fun was still a couple of hours away…
Our hearts sank, especially mine, when we learned that it was last of the nice walk in the park and the villager pointed us up! Yes, it cannot be defined as an incline. It was up, straight up! The kind better done for a very short duration; the kind just short of needing to drop the rucksacks and use ropes. It took us around an hour to crawl up but thereafter it was the usual arduous trek snaking around the mountain, the only difference between previous days – direct sun, no trees, and landslides. There were parts where the trail had been lost under the debris of broken stones and we risked moving ahead step by step because we had decently screwed-up egos, the risk appetite of lunatics and a hope of food at the temple of Goddess Gauna.
I usually keep my blogs nameless (maybe due to the ingrained belief of “What’s in the name”). It’s natural to me, I have to make an effort to write down or even use a name in the stories I keep retelling to whoever would listen but this time I want to make an exception and scream out the name of the bugger who had weaved tales of the beauty of the temple! But I will stick with calling him The Bastard!
One cannot imagine, or maybe can, the looks and curses we threw at him when we found that the temple was in ruins and abandoned maybe months or maybe years ago. An eerie absence of anyone else was ok, lack of food still fine and the fact that sunset was an hour away would have been fine if we had a way ahead. There was no trail! It ceased to exist… Simply put – We were screwed!
If you put this situation to a bunch of people doing a survivalist course (describing it much more vividly than I could manage), they would inevitably say that the best and the only sane thing to do is to turn around, retrace your steps and if you are lucky you would reach the town before midnight! But we of course did the opposite, the only saving grace being that we were lucky… extremely lucky…
It’s not as bad a climb as the last one, we will stop whenever you would want us to, don’t chicken out now, this is a much better place, be a team player, don’t act like an ass… Imagine all that thrown to a guy with a broken body and spirit. All probability is that he would either run away and never see the buggers again or give up arguing and fall in line. Am glad I was not a quitter, for what lay ahead would be one of the best days in my life. Alas, no pictures because the bastards decided on a budget cut!
So the five of us took off for Kareri via a temple called Gauna Devi with nothing but two loafs of bread and a bottle of jam. Something we would soon regret. The trek was steep in the town but afterwards, it became an easy walk on the shady side of the mountain with a nice breeze and good views all around. We moved much faster than the previous two days, passing by villages spread across the terrain. Once warmed-up, even the body was not giving me any trouble. A new lesson about its function but one I haven’t really utilized it ever since haven’t really been able to even gym regularly in the past 8 years. We stopped in the shade of line of trees and had our brunch of bread-jam and that was the last of it. The two loafs were ravished with the calm certainty of at least finding a shack where we could have our regular maggi or at least a bread or at worse anything!
I wouldn’t call it a waterfall, it was more like a pond with running water and huge rocks to create barriers that made it a stepped pool. We plunged ourselves in, playing in the ultra-cold water coming straight from the glacier. Later on, lying on the rocks to dry ourselves and the clothes we began contemplating the next. The real fun was still a couple of hours away…
Our hearts sank, especially mine, when we learned that it was last of the nice walk in the park and the villager pointed us up! Yes, it cannot be defined as an incline. It was up, straight up! The kind better done for a very short duration; the kind just short of needing to drop the rucksacks and use ropes. It took us around an hour to crawl up but thereafter it was the usual arduous trek snaking around the mountain, the only difference between previous days – direct sun, no trees, and landslides. There were parts where the trail had been lost under the debris of broken stones and we risked moving ahead step by step because we had decently screwed-up egos, the risk appetite of lunatics and a hope of food at the temple of Goddess Gauna.
I usually keep my blogs nameless (maybe due to the ingrained belief of “What’s in the name”). It’s natural to me, I have to make an effort to write down or even use a name in the stories I keep retelling to whoever would listen but this time I want to make an exception and scream out the name of the bugger who had weaved tales of the beauty of the temple! But I will stick with calling him The Bastard!
One cannot imagine, or maybe can, the looks and curses we threw at him when we found that the temple was in ruins and abandoned maybe months or maybe years ago. An eerie absence of anyone else was ok, lack of food still fine and the fact that sunset was an hour away would have been fine if we had a way ahead. There was no trail! It ceased to exist… Simply put – We were screwed!
If you put this situation to a bunch of people doing a survivalist course (describing it much more vividly than I could manage), they would inevitably say that the best and the only sane thing to do is to turn around, retrace your steps and if you are lucky you would reach the town before midnight! But we of course did the opposite, the only saving grace being that we were lucky… extremely lucky…
Friday, April 24, 2009
The Trek - Part 2: And I thought it was over
Gravity and evaporation – two basic concepts. We all study them in primary school but the magic of it all became apparent to us only the next morning when we lingered out of the cottage. Water flows down faster in the hills and the stronger the wind and sunlight, the faster it all dries up. This simple fact had eluded us engineering students. What lay before us was a rejuvenated landscape and an invitation by the snowline. Rucksacks left with the shack owner, we began the best part of the trek.
Ilaaka was around 5 km from Triund, set right where the ascent for the mountain pass began and the trip there was nothing less than awe-inspiring, and risky. The awe-inspiring part was the constant view of the snow-laden mountains, cool breeze and wilderness, the risky part was the 2 feet wide trail and the valley waiting to feed on one missed step. The rule of the game was to keep watching your feet as you go. You curse, you laugh, you scream, you sweat, you tire but you keep watching your feet. We would stop from time to time, gather around and enjoy the view but while walking the only thing we could appreciate were the small pebbles on the trail. Look at the big picture? Hell NO! In places like these, life is in the details…
We did have our share of moments. Dipped our fingers and one walkman in the ice cold water coming from the melting snow, clicked someone dangling from a tree trunk and casting his droppings like a bird in the valley below, climbed up to a cave only to chicken out lest there really was a bear inside, prayed to the lord when it seemed impossible to climb down from the cave, lay down on the edge of a rock barely supporting itself on the edge of the cliff, dived to catch the Frisbee only to realize it might have been the last dive, tried to take a shortcut from the already short path only to get stuck and scream for help. And more than all this, we evolved from acquaintances to friends…
All journeys should end in a circle. You go from one route, you come back through another. Else, it becomes kind of boring as the landscape has nothing new to offer and just in case you happen to be coming down a hill, it’s damn hard on your legs! Long before we had reached the town, actually more like halfway, I was done for. My legs were shaking, my toenails hurting with every step. At least on the way up, the frequent stops used to act as refreshers. Here, nothing helped. But climb down we did, for we obviously had no alternative. A long shower, a good dinner, a relaxed hour later I lay down to sleep, happy to have completed the trek, to have had so much fun and looking forward to just recuperate for the next couple of days. That was so not to be…
Ilaaka was around 5 km from Triund, set right where the ascent for the mountain pass began and the trip there was nothing less than awe-inspiring, and risky. The awe-inspiring part was the constant view of the snow-laden mountains, cool breeze and wilderness, the risky part was the 2 feet wide trail and the valley waiting to feed on one missed step. The rule of the game was to keep watching your feet as you go. You curse, you laugh, you scream, you sweat, you tire but you keep watching your feet. We would stop from time to time, gather around and enjoy the view but while walking the only thing we could appreciate were the small pebbles on the trail. Look at the big picture? Hell NO! In places like these, life is in the details…
We did have our share of moments. Dipped our fingers and one walkman in the ice cold water coming from the melting snow, clicked someone dangling from a tree trunk and casting his droppings like a bird in the valley below, climbed up to a cave only to chicken out lest there really was a bear inside, prayed to the lord when it seemed impossible to climb down from the cave, lay down on the edge of a rock barely supporting itself on the edge of the cliff, dived to catch the Frisbee only to realize it might have been the last dive, tried to take a shortcut from the already short path only to get stuck and scream for help. And more than all this, we evolved from acquaintances to friends…
All journeys should end in a circle. You go from one route, you come back through another. Else, it becomes kind of boring as the landscape has nothing new to offer and just in case you happen to be coming down a hill, it’s damn hard on your legs! Long before we had reached the town, actually more like halfway, I was done for. My legs were shaking, my toenails hurting with every step. At least on the way up, the frequent stops used to act as refreshers. Here, nothing helped. But climb down we did, for we obviously had no alternative. A long shower, a good dinner, a relaxed hour later I lay down to sleep, happy to have completed the trek, to have had so much fun and looking forward to just recuperate for the next couple of days. That was so not to be…
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
The Trek - Part 1: Triund and the Thunderstorm
Exercise Regularly! Quit Smoking! Exercise Regularly! Quit Smoking! Exercise Regularly! Quit Smoking! Exercise Regularly! Quit Smoking! Exercise Regularly! Quit Smoking! Exercise Regularly! Quit Smoking!
The feet screamed, the lungs sighed and the mind cursed as I dragged myself up the rocky trek which would lead our gang of five to Triund, apparently a nice place. The rucksack made things worse and it sure was not my idea of fun, at least back then. It’s not like I would be satisfied with just sitting at a foothill restaurant taking in the view while I wined and dined but I could definitely take things a little slower! Alas, being the youngest member of the group, I was being bullied into pushing myself to the limit. Thank god they realized that it would be simply impossible for me to carry the 20 extra pounds (in the form of a tent) and I was to drag myself and my rucksack with a hateful bottle of rum, shoved in at the last moment, to the top. Every extra kilo mattered and I didn’t even have the capacity to claim my fair share of it!
Slowly and not so steadily I managed to keep pace (by reducing theirs at times) and approximately an hour before sunset we reached Triund. That was one hell of a first impression! After the rocky climb, sweet green grass welcomed us atop the mountain with the huge one-piece rocks giving it a pre-historic feel. Amazing would be an understatement for the beautiful sight and the relief of finally being there combined to raise my mood to the extreme. Standing on the green lawn and staring at the ice-laden mountain right in front released an adventurous yet peaceful smile from deep within. The country’s nearest snowline that felt so far away while sweating on the trek now seemed just an arm’s length away.
There were just two small shacks which served basic food and a mini-cottage of the tourism department up there. Most climbers apparently trekked up in the morning and went back towards the evening. There was just one more tent on the ground, a brother-sister duo. We finished our tea and started our amateurish attempt at erecting our own. The wind was a bit strong but with the help of stones we were almost finished (after all, amateur we might be but we were 5!) when the brother-sister pair started dismantling their own. On enquiring we found that a storm was coming. What? We didn’t see any sign of it. The wind was strong but not so strong! And we were anyways erecting our tent in a safer place. But since we also knew our expertise on the matter, we decided to undo all the hard-work and dismantle our tent lest we lose the tent and with it the security deposit. And then it came!
The storm was fierce and it didn’t take more than a couple of minutes to reach full strength. We ran and took shelter inside the smaller-than-a-car shack, laying our rucksacks one on top of the other and huddling together in more or less the same way albeit horizontally. Then we finally realized that after all it might not be that most climbers “liked” to go back in the evening, there was only one cottage and hence only one tent when we reached. The cottage was an alternative, a very important alternative, in case of a storm. So essentially, we were a stranded lot. But that didn’t stop us from enjoying our soup and maggi and laughing out loud about the situation we were in. I don’t know why but it has been a habit of the gang to laugh harder and harder with every increase in the degree of screw-up we find ourselves in. I guess we find the “what a fool we are!” realization quite amusing.
By god’s grace, the brother-sister duo was nice and they took pity on us. On the other hand, considering the mess we had landed ourselves in, it would take a monster not to help us. Anyways, they gave us a small room where we could drop dead for the night in our sleeping bags. So we struggled through the rain to the cottage and lay down our stuff. The night set in and brought with it another realization – we had just one torch and that too good enough only to find a matchbox during blackouts in the city! For the dinner (dal rice at the shack) we had to again go through the hard rain and strong winds. Imagine walking amidst this weather on a rock strewn path when all you can see is the faint outline of the person ahead you and that too intermittently. It does build trust, well at least upon successful completion! So one person with the torch in front, we charged towards the shack, reached, had food, and charged back. We were going to get a lot of this trust based walk on a thin line of the trek in the next couple of nights…
Fear is one thing, free-riding is another and I just hope people don’t act like how we did that night in apparently emergency scenarios and rather give priority to the fear. The cottage was all of wood and through the window all that the 5 sleeping-bagged exhausted guys could see were signs of a fire – bright red flakes of ash fiercely kissing the window. It was cold alright, we were tired alright, all of us might also be afraid but we spend quite some time debating who would get out of his sleeping bag and check out what’s wrong. After a few rounds of pleading and cursing and what not, I finally gave up and rose only to find the wind playing in circles with the leftovers of a campfire. But what if it had really been a fire and even I didn’t give up in time? We were one hell of risk-takers. Grown up we have, hopefully…
Thanks to the storm and slippery terrain, we would not be able to trek further up to the snowline. And so the first day ended and with it the adventure. At least that’s what we thought…
The feet screamed, the lungs sighed and the mind cursed as I dragged myself up the rocky trek which would lead our gang of five to Triund, apparently a nice place. The rucksack made things worse and it sure was not my idea of fun, at least back then. It’s not like I would be satisfied with just sitting at a foothill restaurant taking in the view while I wined and dined but I could definitely take things a little slower! Alas, being the youngest member of the group, I was being bullied into pushing myself to the limit. Thank god they realized that it would be simply impossible for me to carry the 20 extra pounds (in the form of a tent) and I was to drag myself and my rucksack with a hateful bottle of rum, shoved in at the last moment, to the top. Every extra kilo mattered and I didn’t even have the capacity to claim my fair share of it!
Slowly and not so steadily I managed to keep pace (by reducing theirs at times) and approximately an hour before sunset we reached Triund. That was one hell of a first impression! After the rocky climb, sweet green grass welcomed us atop the mountain with the huge one-piece rocks giving it a pre-historic feel. Amazing would be an understatement for the beautiful sight and the relief of finally being there combined to raise my mood to the extreme. Standing on the green lawn and staring at the ice-laden mountain right in front released an adventurous yet peaceful smile from deep within. The country’s nearest snowline that felt so far away while sweating on the trek now seemed just an arm’s length away.
There were just two small shacks which served basic food and a mini-cottage of the tourism department up there. Most climbers apparently trekked up in the morning and went back towards the evening. There was just one more tent on the ground, a brother-sister duo. We finished our tea and started our amateurish attempt at erecting our own. The wind was a bit strong but with the help of stones we were almost finished (after all, amateur we might be but we were 5!) when the brother-sister pair started dismantling their own. On enquiring we found that a storm was coming. What? We didn’t see any sign of it. The wind was strong but not so strong! And we were anyways erecting our tent in a safer place. But since we also knew our expertise on the matter, we decided to undo all the hard-work and dismantle our tent lest we lose the tent and with it the security deposit. And then it came!
The storm was fierce and it didn’t take more than a couple of minutes to reach full strength. We ran and took shelter inside the smaller-than-a-car shack, laying our rucksacks one on top of the other and huddling together in more or less the same way albeit horizontally. Then we finally realized that after all it might not be that most climbers “liked” to go back in the evening, there was only one cottage and hence only one tent when we reached. The cottage was an alternative, a very important alternative, in case of a storm. So essentially, we were a stranded lot. But that didn’t stop us from enjoying our soup and maggi and laughing out loud about the situation we were in. I don’t know why but it has been a habit of the gang to laugh harder and harder with every increase in the degree of screw-up we find ourselves in. I guess we find the “what a fool we are!” realization quite amusing.
By god’s grace, the brother-sister duo was nice and they took pity on us. On the other hand, considering the mess we had landed ourselves in, it would take a monster not to help us. Anyways, they gave us a small room where we could drop dead for the night in our sleeping bags. So we struggled through the rain to the cottage and lay down our stuff. The night set in and brought with it another realization – we had just one torch and that too good enough only to find a matchbox during blackouts in the city! For the dinner (dal rice at the shack) we had to again go through the hard rain and strong winds. Imagine walking amidst this weather on a rock strewn path when all you can see is the faint outline of the person ahead you and that too intermittently. It does build trust, well at least upon successful completion! So one person with the torch in front, we charged towards the shack, reached, had food, and charged back. We were going to get a lot of this trust based walk on a thin line of the trek in the next couple of nights…
Fear is one thing, free-riding is another and I just hope people don’t act like how we did that night in apparently emergency scenarios and rather give priority to the fear. The cottage was all of wood and through the window all that the 5 sleeping-bagged exhausted guys could see were signs of a fire – bright red flakes of ash fiercely kissing the window. It was cold alright, we were tired alright, all of us might also be afraid but we spend quite some time debating who would get out of his sleeping bag and check out what’s wrong. After a few rounds of pleading and cursing and what not, I finally gave up and rose only to find the wind playing in circles with the leftovers of a campfire. But what if it had really been a fire and even I didn’t give up in time? We were one hell of risk-takers. Grown up we have, hopefully…
Thanks to the storm and slippery terrain, we would not be able to trek further up to the snowline. And so the first day ended and with it the adventure. At least that’s what we thought…
Friday, April 3, 2009
I Just Meant I Would Like To Be In Touch
‘You do not stand a chance! It has been months since you had a haircut, days since you shaved and there’s quite some beer on your breath! These Brazilian folks aren’t gifted with the strong sense of smell that Indians are when it comes to liquor but they are a hundred times more concerned about looks!’
The logic of the voice in my head was right and I sunk in my seat with resignation. The bus was taking us to Rio, an overnight journey from Curitiba, from where we would take our flight home, to Nova Dehli. We hadn’t even crossed the city limits and Shukla was fast asleep. Me? I was listening to the voice from the seat behind. Listening to just the voice as the spherical words of Portugese were still giving me a miss.
She was travelling alone, nothing unusual. She was gorgeous, nothing unusual. She was tall, nothing unusual again. Then why did I get attracted towards her when nothing seemed extraordinary about her by Brazilian standards? Maybe it was the absence of cleavage which so often takes a guy’s attention away from the face. Maybe it was the fact that I was leaving the country the day after. Maybe it was simply that she was travelling alone and that would make any single man at least wish what I was wishing. It was probably something I will never figure out. I kept listening to her voice and then she too fell asleep and so did I.
The beard and hair weren’t much heavy to carry considering the weight of the confidence I had in me. I had never approached a girl, let alone a stranger. I felt my teeth would fall out of shame for uttering incomprehensible things if I ever dared to. So I slept thinking of the homecoming, of the new experiences in the last one month, and occasionally, of the girl sleeping in the row behind.
The pit stop and the noises that followed woke me up from my slumber. I headed out and in no mood to eat anything, I sat on the bench outside and lit a cigarette. And as luck would have it, she came and sat beside me. Was she eating something? I don’t know, all I remember of that moment is I suddenly managed the courage to ask “Fala Ingles? (Do you speak English?)”. I was so astounded at myself and so delighted when she replied, “A leetal” that I suffered a temporary loss of sanity. Not just that I couldn’t decide what to say next, I stubbed out my cigarette to hand out the lighter when another girl approached me to light her smoke. (In retrospect I have often wondered whether I had a chance with this other girl. She was also alone and it was obvious she deliberately chose me in the midst of so many smokers. But I was uninterested to say the least!).
Her “leetal” actually meant very very little for I would have given her 1 on a scale of 10 for her English skills. But that was better than zero, right? So I struggled through the conversation for the 20 odd minutes we were there and then boarded the bus again. As I was about to settle down on my seat I had another bout of valor and asked her if I could sit beside her. Boy, I was on a roll!
I am a liar. I prefer to call it White Lying. The kind that doesn’t hurt people and yet benefits you. I used to use it so much that friends and family could probably see through them but strangers weren’t that well-equipped. And that night was the one when I probably lied the most ever. When she told the story of her guy cheating on her, I fabricated my sad failed love story. When she told me something about her college days, I had a similar story ready. I was an expert in the Indian way of life. Heck, I didn’t just read her palm lines, I also read the ones on her forehead. Boy, that was intimate! Holding her hand, looking in her eyes and forecasting something that would make her laugh or smile.
I told her I liked her and she took the compliment pretty well. (Only if she could know how much effort it took me to say that the end might have been different.) I told her I liked her, we chatted about something else for a while and then I again told her I liked her. This time she got the cue and then the bubble burst, the light faded away, the hope sunk. She said something in Portuguese. I knew she was saying a polite No but pretended I couldn’t understand and repeated a third time….. “I like you… and would love to keep in touch.”
And then I flew home, bringing with me the image of her face which I drew in the two hours I stared at her while she slept so peacefully right next to me. The eyes, the nose, the hair, the lips and the bangle-sized earrings.
It was her face, yes. It was her face…
P.S. – the one (translated) email I sent never got a response. I am no expert now about how these things work but back then in 2003 I sure was an amateur. What makes me believe that I ain’t one no more? The fact that now I have a real love story to tell and that too with a happy ending.
The logic of the voice in my head was right and I sunk in my seat with resignation. The bus was taking us to Rio, an overnight journey from Curitiba, from where we would take our flight home, to Nova Dehli. We hadn’t even crossed the city limits and Shukla was fast asleep. Me? I was listening to the voice from the seat behind. Listening to just the voice as the spherical words of Portugese were still giving me a miss.
She was travelling alone, nothing unusual. She was gorgeous, nothing unusual. She was tall, nothing unusual again. Then why did I get attracted towards her when nothing seemed extraordinary about her by Brazilian standards? Maybe it was the absence of cleavage which so often takes a guy’s attention away from the face. Maybe it was the fact that I was leaving the country the day after. Maybe it was simply that she was travelling alone and that would make any single man at least wish what I was wishing. It was probably something I will never figure out. I kept listening to her voice and then she too fell asleep and so did I.
The beard and hair weren’t much heavy to carry considering the weight of the confidence I had in me. I had never approached a girl, let alone a stranger. I felt my teeth would fall out of shame for uttering incomprehensible things if I ever dared to. So I slept thinking of the homecoming, of the new experiences in the last one month, and occasionally, of the girl sleeping in the row behind.
The pit stop and the noises that followed woke me up from my slumber. I headed out and in no mood to eat anything, I sat on the bench outside and lit a cigarette. And as luck would have it, she came and sat beside me. Was she eating something? I don’t know, all I remember of that moment is I suddenly managed the courage to ask “Fala Ingles? (Do you speak English?)”. I was so astounded at myself and so delighted when she replied, “A leetal” that I suffered a temporary loss of sanity. Not just that I couldn’t decide what to say next, I stubbed out my cigarette to hand out the lighter when another girl approached me to light her smoke. (In retrospect I have often wondered whether I had a chance with this other girl. She was also alone and it was obvious she deliberately chose me in the midst of so many smokers. But I was uninterested to say the least!).
Her “leetal” actually meant very very little for I would have given her 1 on a scale of 10 for her English skills. But that was better than zero, right? So I struggled through the conversation for the 20 odd minutes we were there and then boarded the bus again. As I was about to settle down on my seat I had another bout of valor and asked her if I could sit beside her. Boy, I was on a roll!
I am a liar. I prefer to call it White Lying. The kind that doesn’t hurt people and yet benefits you. I used to use it so much that friends and family could probably see through them but strangers weren’t that well-equipped. And that night was the one when I probably lied the most ever. When she told the story of her guy cheating on her, I fabricated my sad failed love story. When she told me something about her college days, I had a similar story ready. I was an expert in the Indian way of life. Heck, I didn’t just read her palm lines, I also read the ones on her forehead. Boy, that was intimate! Holding her hand, looking in her eyes and forecasting something that would make her laugh or smile.
I told her I liked her and she took the compliment pretty well. (Only if she could know how much effort it took me to say that the end might have been different.) I told her I liked her, we chatted about something else for a while and then I again told her I liked her. This time she got the cue and then the bubble burst, the light faded away, the hope sunk. She said something in Portuguese. I knew she was saying a polite No but pretended I couldn’t understand and repeated a third time….. “I like you… and would love to keep in touch.”
And then I flew home, bringing with me the image of her face which I drew in the two hours I stared at her while she slept so peacefully right next to me. The eyes, the nose, the hair, the lips and the bangle-sized earrings.
It was her face, yes. It was her face…
P.S. – the one (translated) email I sent never got a response. I am no expert now about how these things work but back then in 2003 I sure was an amateur. What makes me believe that I ain’t one no more? The fact that now I have a real love story to tell and that too with a happy ending.
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
The Moment So Ordinary...
A moment, a glance, a look, an expression can get etched in our memory forever. It makes us think, introspect, philosophize and at times, it makes us smile. I do not know how many fleeting moments like these one experiences in life. I myself can’t recall many and the most profound of these few was the spark in that child’s eyes. I can still see it, I can still feel it lifting my mood, I can still feel the regret of not stopping the car. But had I stopped, it wouldn’t have remained such a special moment. A conversation, a minute or two and the moment might have lost its sheen. It is the noiselessness which keeps such moments pristine and unforgettable even after years have gone by.
The trip itself was nothing less than an unusual experience. Being god-neutral (not an atheist), I did not travel towards the holy places of Gangotri and Badrinath as a part of a pilgrimage. I was assigned to get the topographical surveys done of three airstrips in the vicinity of these regions so that our firm could advice the state government regarding the mountain airports they wished to build. I didn’t even volunteer for the job. I was simply the only undergraduate available at the time who could be thrown around under the pretext of exposure and who didn’t really have either a privilege or a reason to say no.
So off I went, with two Bengali surveyors from Calcutta, on what would be a weeklong trip. Upon reaching the first airstrip at Chinyalisaur (near Gangotri), we lodged ourselves in a Motel with the cleanest beds and least bedbugs. The sum of INR 200 per night without even negotiating should give you an idea of the place. The electricity being moody, the market closing at 8 PM (including the STD booth with a real long queue which I thought of as impossible in 2005) and no mobile network made sure I had no way to stay awake beyond 9 PM. Essentially cut-off from the world, I for the first time was voluntarily waking up at 5 in the morning and by 6 the Bongs would be at their job. What would I be doing? Having an experience of a lifetime… day after day… for three days.
Sitting at that plateau of the airstrip, with cool winds blowing and even that small market miles away, I had nothing to do. No book to read, no music to listen to. It still bugs me if I am all alone and it was much worse in those days. I couldn’t stay alone for an hour without getting uneasy if I came home before my flatmate. I was worse than a wife calling up her husband to enquire when he will be home. But in those mountains, I was at peace. I was in no rush, no feeling of ‘doing something’ came to me as I sat there looking beyond the stream of water at a lone house sitting in a fold of a hill. I loved that house, wondered whether I will ever have one like that, and wished I have one like that. I still do. I imagined how life would be in such a case. Walking down to the riverbed, crossing (the most elementary) bridge, getting groceries from the market and retreating back to my own paradise. A little farm accompanied the house, which would continue inside the fold of the hill. What a secluded place! I would wonder the issues that would come up in living such a life. Even if I managed a way to earn a living from there, the education of the yet-to-be-born kids (wasn’t even married then), the healthcare especially in case of emergencies, the losing touch with friends and relatives. But despite it all, it attracted me immensely, it still does. Someday… I wish… though the hopes are fainter, almost gone… but still I wish…
I had never thought I would feel so much at peace with so few people around me and it astonished me. It amazed me that I sat there one night in the cab chatting with the driver while he drank a beer. It hadn’t really happened since I started drinking and hasn’t really happened in similar situations after that. The three days flew by, like they always do when we are having a good time and we packed our bags and headed for the next site near Badrinath. The road that would take us to the main Rishikesh – Badrinath road was one not often travelled and we saw maybe a dozen or so cars in the 30 km stretch. The villages on the way were beautiful. Not beautiful the way a foreigner would describe almost all villages in India. Beautiful in a sense someone who had seen so many of villages and had become indifferent would stand up and notice them. Even amongst these, one village stood apart. The weather I reckon, and maybe the vegetation too, gave it an almost ethereal feel. The shade by the low clouds, the red hue by the trees, the whistling sound by the wind and the left-alone by the tourists gave it the majestic feel it had about it. So now I had the perfect house and the perfect place to build that house. What was missing? Nothing really. A dream complete. And then with these dreams in my eyes I felt that moment, I saw those eyes…
In the middle of the road in what can be called nowhere (as an insult though), even some distance from that village, stood 3 kids. Couldn’t really figure out what they were up to so far from home. The car honked and the silence was pierced. It irritated me but the kids smiled and became more enthused. As we passed them, I saw what they were up to. They had these fruits they must have collected from nearby and they were playing and waiting for a vehicle which might pass, which might also stop, and which might buy their fruits. Also, I saw the spark in that little boy’s eyes which gripped me and we had gone too far before I realized maybe we should have stopped.
That spark was not of hope of selling a few bucks worth of fruits, it was of excitement which he felt when he saw the car, just the way we used to feel in our childhood when we would rush out waiving in our balconies and scream “Airplane Bye Bye!” It was of innocence… of immense innocence…
It has been four years and I can still see those eyes… I don’t remember the face but eyes, I can never forget…
P.S. - Why did I feel so gripped by it? Almost enchanted? Coz I personally feel the kids half the age of that one in our cities know how to change the wallpaper on mobile phones and what’s worse, they know the price of the phone. The information overload of the information age is ripping off the innocence from these kids… I wish I can save mine. The chances are slim… but still I wish…
The trip itself was nothing less than an unusual experience. Being god-neutral (not an atheist), I did not travel towards the holy places of Gangotri and Badrinath as a part of a pilgrimage. I was assigned to get the topographical surveys done of three airstrips in the vicinity of these regions so that our firm could advice the state government regarding the mountain airports they wished to build. I didn’t even volunteer for the job. I was simply the only undergraduate available at the time who could be thrown around under the pretext of exposure and who didn’t really have either a privilege or a reason to say no.
So off I went, with two Bengali surveyors from Calcutta, on what would be a weeklong trip. Upon reaching the first airstrip at Chinyalisaur (near Gangotri), we lodged ourselves in a Motel with the cleanest beds and least bedbugs. The sum of INR 200 per night without even negotiating should give you an idea of the place. The electricity being moody, the market closing at 8 PM (including the STD booth with a real long queue which I thought of as impossible in 2005) and no mobile network made sure I had no way to stay awake beyond 9 PM. Essentially cut-off from the world, I for the first time was voluntarily waking up at 5 in the morning and by 6 the Bongs would be at their job. What would I be doing? Having an experience of a lifetime… day after day… for three days.
Sitting at that plateau of the airstrip, with cool winds blowing and even that small market miles away, I had nothing to do. No book to read, no music to listen to. It still bugs me if I am all alone and it was much worse in those days. I couldn’t stay alone for an hour without getting uneasy if I came home before my flatmate. I was worse than a wife calling up her husband to enquire when he will be home. But in those mountains, I was at peace. I was in no rush, no feeling of ‘doing something’ came to me as I sat there looking beyond the stream of water at a lone house sitting in a fold of a hill. I loved that house, wondered whether I will ever have one like that, and wished I have one like that. I still do. I imagined how life would be in such a case. Walking down to the riverbed, crossing (the most elementary) bridge, getting groceries from the market and retreating back to my own paradise. A little farm accompanied the house, which would continue inside the fold of the hill. What a secluded place! I would wonder the issues that would come up in living such a life. Even if I managed a way to earn a living from there, the education of the yet-to-be-born kids (wasn’t even married then), the healthcare especially in case of emergencies, the losing touch with friends and relatives. But despite it all, it attracted me immensely, it still does. Someday… I wish… though the hopes are fainter, almost gone… but still I wish…
I had never thought I would feel so much at peace with so few people around me and it astonished me. It amazed me that I sat there one night in the cab chatting with the driver while he drank a beer. It hadn’t really happened since I started drinking and hasn’t really happened in similar situations after that. The three days flew by, like they always do when we are having a good time and we packed our bags and headed for the next site near Badrinath. The road that would take us to the main Rishikesh – Badrinath road was one not often travelled and we saw maybe a dozen or so cars in the 30 km stretch. The villages on the way were beautiful. Not beautiful the way a foreigner would describe almost all villages in India. Beautiful in a sense someone who had seen so many of villages and had become indifferent would stand up and notice them. Even amongst these, one village stood apart. The weather I reckon, and maybe the vegetation too, gave it an almost ethereal feel. The shade by the low clouds, the red hue by the trees, the whistling sound by the wind and the left-alone by the tourists gave it the majestic feel it had about it. So now I had the perfect house and the perfect place to build that house. What was missing? Nothing really. A dream complete. And then with these dreams in my eyes I felt that moment, I saw those eyes…
In the middle of the road in what can be called nowhere (as an insult though), even some distance from that village, stood 3 kids. Couldn’t really figure out what they were up to so far from home. The car honked and the silence was pierced. It irritated me but the kids smiled and became more enthused. As we passed them, I saw what they were up to. They had these fruits they must have collected from nearby and they were playing and waiting for a vehicle which might pass, which might also stop, and which might buy their fruits. Also, I saw the spark in that little boy’s eyes which gripped me and we had gone too far before I realized maybe we should have stopped.
That spark was not of hope of selling a few bucks worth of fruits, it was of excitement which he felt when he saw the car, just the way we used to feel in our childhood when we would rush out waiving in our balconies and scream “Airplane Bye Bye!” It was of innocence… of immense innocence…
It has been four years and I can still see those eyes… I don’t remember the face but eyes, I can never forget…
P.S. - Why did I feel so gripped by it? Almost enchanted? Coz I personally feel the kids half the age of that one in our cities know how to change the wallpaper on mobile phones and what’s worse, they know the price of the phone. The information overload of the information age is ripping off the innocence from these kids… I wish I can save mine. The chances are slim… but still I wish…
The Stories So Far…
Hanging out with a couple of new friends last night, without a few beers either in hand or stomach, and telling stories about our own yesteryears, I realized there are so many of them I remember so vividly that I feel reliving them every time I narrate them.
I have no qualms in admitting that I have spend the better part of last 8 years (excluding the last one year as a married man) in a haze induced by alcohol-based beverages. The haze lightens the mood, frees up the conscience and you end up doing stuff which even your sober self considers ridiculous… and that at times does create stories worth telling
But these stories weren’t all lived with Old Monk filled bellies. Most people won’t even find them ‘up to the mark’. These aren’t even stories that changed or shaped my life. These simply are simple stories close to my heart…
I have no qualms in admitting that I have spend the better part of last 8 years (excluding the last one year as a married man) in a haze induced by alcohol-based beverages. The haze lightens the mood, frees up the conscience and you end up doing stuff which even your sober self considers ridiculous… and that at times does create stories worth telling
But these stories weren’t all lived with Old Monk filled bellies. Most people won’t even find them ‘up to the mark’. These aren’t even stories that changed or shaped my life. These simply are simple stories close to my heart…
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Cutting the wire...
I find it amusing, the fact that we behave (and portray ourselves) differently with different sets of people. We take on different roles based on our interest, our image in a specific circle, the situation or (mostly) on the guidelines of our beloved society. Picturing my well-mannered father sitting and cursing with his college friends brings on a wide grin. But all this multiple-personality role-play is something we take in our stride, it is something we grin and bear or we simply do not play at all. What all of this does not do is tear you apart. But there is something that does tear you apart, makes you numb, creates illusions, and causes nightmares…
And that is when your heart and your mind are completely out of sync.
In sync is good, in sync is awesome. In sync makes all decisions so easy and for someone with a strict no-regrets policy, in sync makes life a bed of roses. And when they do behave a little out of tune, I have found it better to follow the heart. After all, it controls the damn emotions and those are the main culprits which cause regrets over things that you really had no control over. A few thousand bucks are nothing compared to a happy day spend with friends and family. Even a hundred thousand bucks… Nah, here the mind takes control!
So you either follow your heart or your mind (rarely in my case) or both of them and life is not so bad. But what when the “completely” out of sync scenario plays out? It’s not pretty to say the least.
Mind it, it won’t really make a difference either ways and regrets would not haunt forever but the equal pull from both sides does make you go through hell until a decision is made and acted upon. The acted upon part being more important as you keep swinging between decisions till it is done with. External factors like parents or wife can help or worsen the situation. Hmmm, not really, coz you agree with them one moment, disagree in the next.
The only solution I guess is to close your eyes and cut the red wire, either the bomb will go off or won’t. Either ways, you pick up your baggage and carry on, in this life or beyond.
Dabas
And that is when your heart and your mind are completely out of sync.
In sync is good, in sync is awesome. In sync makes all decisions so easy and for someone with a strict no-regrets policy, in sync makes life a bed of roses. And when they do behave a little out of tune, I have found it better to follow the heart. After all, it controls the damn emotions and those are the main culprits which cause regrets over things that you really had no control over. A few thousand bucks are nothing compared to a happy day spend with friends and family. Even a hundred thousand bucks… Nah, here the mind takes control!
So you either follow your heart or your mind (rarely in my case) or both of them and life is not so bad. But what when the “completely” out of sync scenario plays out? It’s not pretty to say the least.
Mind it, it won’t really make a difference either ways and regrets would not haunt forever but the equal pull from both sides does make you go through hell until a decision is made and acted upon. The acted upon part being more important as you keep swinging between decisions till it is done with. External factors like parents or wife can help or worsen the situation. Hmmm, not really, coz you agree with them one moment, disagree in the next.
The only solution I guess is to close your eyes and cut the red wire, either the bomb will go off or won’t. Either ways, you pick up your baggage and carry on, in this life or beyond.
Dabas
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