Just a Thought: Eight

Between the 2 point of views lies the road less traveled.

Who will be brave enough to tread it is the question.

Be with Yourself

Be with yourself. Yes, I’m not mad and I’m not talking about some utopian concept. I’m simply suggesting that we should be comfortable with our own company. With the changing lifestyle - the glitter of malls, noise & smoke of pubs, multiplexes, we are increasing spending less time to sit down and think where we are heading and even lesser time with ourselves.

If left alone in a room for an evening without television, internet and a mobile away from city, most of us would go mad or think what the hell are we doing here. The loneliness would start killing us. The idea of sitting down and appreciating the silence and calm seems maddening. Most of us would think – “I’m not an oldie to be appreciating all this. I’m still young and energetic”.

Well I’d just say that you are afraid of yourself. You are uncomfortable in your own company. There’s no harm in slowing down at times and spending time with yourself. It’s not that bad. The need to be somewhere else, somewhere more lively or noisy or glitzy is just a way of running away from your thoughts and inner voice. It’s postponing reality for a little more time, but mind you it’s just postponing and not erasing or cancelling it.

I’ll end by quoting Elizabeth Gilbert who has beautifully captured this feeling in a few lines:

“Learn the way around loneliness. Make a map of it. Sit with it, for once in your life. Welcome to the human experience. But never again use another person’s body or emotions as a scratching post for your own unfulfilled yearnings.” – Eat Pray Love

A cricketing adventure

It was the month of March and the Inter House Cricket matches were in full swing. Amar, who was in standard XII and the captain of his house cricket team (Green House) was keen to get the cup home this year. Amar joined the Indian Public School, which is an all boys boarding school in class 1 when he was just 6 years old. In the 11 years of his stay he had achieved what every student would want to and was now a School Prefect. His closest set of friends was from the Prefect body. Just when Amar thought that life could not get better for him, the saga of the cricket inter house began.

Green House had won 2 of the 3 league matches and was already through to the finals. The last league match was between Green House and Red House (considered the weakest team for the season). This league match gained immense importance because the fate of 2 teams rested on it. If Red House won the match, they would play the finals against the Green House. However if they lost then Yellow House (the favorites for the tournament) would be the second finalist.

Now, Amar was in a position to choose his opponent for the finals and was obviously keen on playing the Red House. At this point the only thing that mattered to him was winning the cup and all other things like “spirit of the game” or sportsmanship seemed secondary. Amar decided to loose the last league match on purpose, knowing little that this decision would prove to be his nemesis.

All was well in the evening but trouble started to brew till dinner. Ajay, captain of the Red House cricket team felt insulted that his team made it to the finals on the mercy of someone and Vinay, captain of the Yellow Team simply felt cheated. Both of them were very good friends of Amar but at this stage temper clouded all reason. They began to create negative sentiment about Amar and his act and by dinner all the houses (Yellow, Blue and Red) were against the Green House.

They were jeered by the rest of the school while standing outside the mess, waiting for the dinner to be laid. But the worst brunt was faced by Amar. On the Prefect’s table where he used to have dinner, his friends refused to pass him the food. They passed comments like cheater, match fixer etc. and made him feel like he had committed a murder.

Angry by the reaction that his decision got, Amar took another radical decision. He decided that he would not play the finals and claimed that his team would win the trophy without him. This decision shocked his team members but he convinced them that at this stage with so much negative sentiment against them, this was the best thing to do. The members of the Green team stood by their captain’s decision and were even more motivated to get the cup home.

On the day of the finals, only a small faction of the school could be seen supporting the Green House. Green House won the toss and elected to bat first as that was their strength. They got off to a good start with the scoreboard reading 50/0 in 10 overs. However, Red House struck some unexpected blows and the final score line read a modest 107/8 in 20 overs.

This was a modest total, which the Red House could easily achieve. During the innings break, Amar went to the pavilion and gave a motivational speech to the team, urging them to give it their all. Every run scored by the Red House was cheered and every wicket taken by the Green House was jeered. Despite the hostility and their captain not playing the players were determined and keen to get the cup home.

Some disciplined bowling, a couple of good catches and some stupid shot selection by the batsmen of the Red Team poised the match evenly at the half way stage. The score line read 65/5 in 10 overs. The match could go anyway and everyone watched with bated breath. The last recognized pair of batsmen were batting and another wicket would expose the tail.

The excitement continued till the last over when the score read 104/8 in 19 overs. The tail was batting with 4 runs needed of the last over and 2 wickets in hand. The first 2 balls went for 1 run. The third one was a wicket. 3 runs of 3 balls with 1 wicket in hand. The fourth ball was a dot and the batsman hit the fifth ball in the covers and immediately ran. They wanted to take 2 runs but a brilliant fielding effort resulted in a run out. Green House won the finals by 1 run. Amar and the rest of the Green House students rushed into the field to hug the heroes of the day. The rest of the school was stunned into silence.

The hostility against Amar and Green House continued for a week or so but then everyone forgot about it and moved on. Things began to normalize and Amar and his friends were back to their normal ways. Amar felt that poetic justice was done.

However, on introspection Amar learned 2 of the most important lessons of his life. Lesson No 1: Though it’s important to be ambitious and aim at higher goals, but the means through which those goals are also important. The seemingly right decisions catch up with you some time or the other if the motives are not right

Lesson No 2: When pushed to the wall, don’t back out. Take a stand and fight back.

Just a Thought: Seven

You reminiscence about old times

Smile to yourself about the silly things you did

Become nostalgic

Wish time could be turned back

Remember long forgotten friends

And then come back to reality and carry on

Heart of India

I visited MP about 2 years ago and i wrote this then. Thought it's worth sharing

Well I’ve been around in Madhya Pradesh for the past 10 days and I thought I’ll share my experience with u all. To start with my perception of MP being a dry and barren state was wrong of whatever little I managed to see of this huge state. I think the topography of the state is quite unique. You have vast stretches of land and in between the planes you suddenly have some highlands (mini hills or plateaus you can say). I found that quite amusing. The black soil in the state was also something new for me. The vast stretches of black soil with patches of greenish yellow vegetation on it was a good site. In fact there is a lot of green cover in the state.

I was staying in Bhopal for most of the time. Bhopal is sort of a dead town or you can say a perfect reflection of a bureaucratic town. The capital of MP is quite relaxed and laid back with nothing much to write back home about apart from a big lake which is decently maintained.

An hour’s drive from Bhopal is Sanchi. Sanchi’s claim to fame is the Sanchi Stupa which is a world heritage site. My visit to Sanchi was a good one. A very quite and calm place, it had a certain peace about its surroundings (or maybe it was because early in the morning me and my colleague were the only visitors there). However, the remains of the ancient monastery and Buddhist temple were worth a visit. On my way to Sanchi I also happened to cross the Line of Cancer (23.5 N – remember geography people). Not that it’s of much consequence but then I have to write something and bore you people.

Next destination was Dewas followed by Indore where I had to do warehouse inspections. Nothing to mention about Dewas. It’s a small district. However, en route to Dewas I saw a lot wind mills on the mini hills/plateaus mentioned earlier. Seems Suzlon has a big project here. Indore was the complete opposite of Bhopal. It was energetic, was far more developed/commercialized than Bhopal and very crowded. Didn’t feel like I was in MP which had been calm and laid back so far. My stay in Indore was for only a night. Next day being a Sunday, my colleague was very keen on visiting Ujjain before heading back for Bhopal. Now I was not interested in going but seeing how badly he wanted to visit the holy temple town I agreed. I tried to go with an open mind but please excuse me if I’m hurting anyone’s religious sentiments, but the experience was not something I’ll want to repeat. After waiting for an hour (quite a lot of it in heat) we finally got the chance to have a look at the shivling and that too for a few seconds. Not to mention that pushing and shoving was common. However, luckily the temple was not dirty. Some relief. Anyways, my colleague was happy and we headed back for our base.

For all those who have read till here and not abandoned the mail midway thanks for your patience.

Light at the end of the Tunnel

The phases of ups and downs are a part of everyone’s lives. What’s important is the way different people deal with them. There are days on end when everyday you get up and wonder why do you have to go through another wretched day. It’s just one of the phases that one’s going through when nothing seems to be working out.

Though everyone knows that there’s light at the end of the proverbial tunnel but what’s important is how one approaches that light. Some might just go in a shell and try to see the phase through, some take it heads on and laugh through it, some begin to lose confidence and feel the light will never show. Sometimes it’s also important to close your eyes when there’s darkness around and walk along the tunnel to reach the light. Whatever the approach, the best part is that the light does come.

So no matter how dark it gets, I think we should get up each morning with the belief that the tunnel will be crossed today. I’m sure the journey will become much shorter that way and hopefully there’ll be more ups than downs in our lives.

To Kill a Mocking Bird

I was quite an avid reader in school. I still like to read but somehow with the distractions in life increasing, the frequency of reading has reduced. Recently, I was reading a classic – “To Kill a Mocking Bird” and wondered why I didn’t read this masterpiece earlier.

The best part about the book is the way in which it conveys important messages without being preachy. The ability of Atticus, the protagonist to stand by what he believes, even in the face of adversity is something that forces the reader to think. The innocence of the kids and how Atticus deals with it, along with laying certain important ground rules that would lay the foundation of their personalities is a lesson which all of us could learn from. The entire emphasis of the book according to me is to get the basics and the fundamentals right. Rest things will fall in place.

Hats off to Harper Lee for writing this masterpiece.