A Dead Mind... or is is the mind of the dead?

Sometimes I wonder about people who kill – kill other beings, kill innocence, kill childhood, kill hope, kill peace, kill humanity.

What makes these people the way they are? Their faces bear eternal abhorrence, their gory eyes – I thought I had seen the same gory eyes somewhere in a pictorial display of the Ravana. The ferocious power they seem to contain – power to do what is rebuked by every religion, every faith, every culture and country. Their inexorable power to kill is traumatizing in itself. I look at the pictures. Maybe I am searching in the dark – searching for a trace of empathy, of compassion. Searching for whatever it takes to be a ‘human’.

Searching for a child.

It was in 1990 when I first witnessed the mayhem caused at the onset of a war. My family lived in Bahrain. I thought the word ‘war’ seemed a little strange and over exaggerated. Dad explained to me what war was when he was watching a BBC documentary of Hiroshima. I thought that’s where it belonged – to documentaries, to Hindi movies Dad liked to watch, to history. It was puzzling to me how Afghanistan and Palestine were still at war. I found it somehow interesting to see the pictures on TV and in papers. Now, it was going to be in real. I was wrong about my silly ‘war belonging to history’ theory. And that fact came to me as a rude shock. The Gulf War had already begun.

I was only five then. Yet some reminiscences refuse to just leave my mind at the pretext of child development. Reminiscences of worried faces, of scurrying packing, of my anxiety and confusion to a sudden ‘vacation’ back to India. Why were only Mom, my brother and I on a vacation? A distinct memory, of the Bahrain International Airport, of my face pressed to the glass shield that borders checked-in passengers, looking with tears in my eyes at Dad waving with a faint smile. I knew we were not on a vacation. For, from then on topics like ‘missiles’, ‘American troops’ and ‘Saddam Hussein attacking Kuwait’ seemed like hot favourites – even years after the war ended.

I was now amongst my ‘happy’ cousins and within the comfort of my extended family in Bombay. I missed Dad and secretly and quietly sobbed. Everyone was quietly watching news one day, something about ‘missiles hitting Bahrain’. It caught my attention. I didn’t quite know whatever that meant, but the mere mention of my birthplace and the place where my father now was, just captivated all my senses. The news was followed by coverage on Kuwait war victims. I asked Mom then why are they fighting, not even sure who the ‘they’ actually were. I quiet remember Mom bursting into tears.

At 23, I still don’t have the answer. Only, I have seen more wars and more killings.

“Why are they so angry?” my niece asks me effortlessly as I tune to a news coverage of a riot somewhere in the country. There were people running around screaming and creating chaos. I wondered if my niece knows who the ‘they’ are. It amazes me – how children stumble upon asking the ‘right’ questions so artlessly. Or are they wrong? I read Peter Drucker somewhere as saying “the most serious mistakes are not being made as a result of wrong answers. The truly dangerous thing is asking the wrong questions”.

I now know what may have crossed my mind while asking a similar vivid question when I was almost her age – a vivid innocent ‘wrong’ question from a five-year old was perhaps an outburst to everything that had crossed my patience while I waited to be back with Dad, school, my friends and with Bahrain. Although knowing something was wrong somewhere, the reason was incredulous to me – like playing hide and seek. My wait seemed to be unending and aching.

Maybe it was an expression of angst to the fact that perhaps, it’s all not worth making a child wait to be back to her ‘normal’ life. To be back with her family.

But these people who kill – what do they think? How do they cope with such distress? Do they even ask these questions to themselves? Has the thought ever crossed them? If they suffered, maybe they wouldn’t have hurt others. So, maybe they don’t suffer. Because they have created the problem. The war ended. Life returned to normal. While all the grown-ups around me were busy talking about the aftermath of the war, my mind was caught in a web of questions.

That’s what it takes, perhaps, to be a human – to be a child. I have always held on to a personal belief – that we all have a child somewhere in the world of our subconscious mind. A child who wants his family and parents around him so that he sleeps happily and feels secure; who simply cannot figure out that if its not a game and there is nothing to win, then why are people conflicting; who thinks that his best friend is more important to him than the cast. Alas! It is the ‘matured’, the grown-up who has learnt to differentiate – learnt to bury the child under ‘socially acceptable norms’. The child is, after all, just a child – who continues to question. Waits. Lost. Dead.

Is it then that these people are born? People who are angry – who fight – who kill.

Perhaps… Yes.

The first killed… is the child.

a smile does wonders...

I had met a happy spirit when I stopped to give my sandals to be repaired to the roadside shoemaker on the busy street of Victoria Terminus in Mumbai. The tiring day and the terrible heat had taken the smile off my face and left me in an irritable mood. But the young shoemaker did not seem to want to stop smiling. He accepted the work I gave him enthusiastically and started his work. “How much are you going to charge me? “ I asked in an irritated tone. “Only 30 rupees,” he replied. I asked him to give my pair of sandals back to me saying that I can get it done in much cheaper rate near my house. “OK OK, how much are you willing to pay?” he asked with a smile and in a tone that sounded as though he was having mercy on me by giving me the relief of paying how much ever I wanted. We agreed on Rs.15.

I observed him carefully as he set about his work. He was a young lad of not more than 16 – 17 years with bright happy light-brown eyes. He was humming a tune of a song I thought was from a Bhojpuri film. He was trying to figure out how to fix the heel, neatly without damaging the sandals and analysed all possibilities by curiously checking out the interesting tools he had. He was taking his own time while I was standing on a busy pavement without my sandals!! I was in a hurry to catch the train. The pace at which he was working was beginning to annoy me. However, it was interesting to see him doing his work with such energy and enthusiasm - a work most of us would find so boring and lifeless, that we would choose to just go for a new pair instead of ‘wasting’ our time on the old one.

While I was standing – barefoot (the pavements were very clean fortunately) on the busy noisy street – I wondered what might be the reason for this boy smiling bright. He was sitting by the pavement and repairing shoes and sandals for a meager amount. Perhaps the demanding life and cruelties of Mumbai city had not caught him yet. But then I thought that perhaps it’s not strange of him to smile without a reason – a reason necessarily being money, security, the company of your family and friends. Its foolish of us to believe that there has to be a reason to be happy. If you’ve the security, money, friends and family, there’s no reason for you to frown and be sad. So then, why was this boy happy about whatever he was doing?

“Dekha, ho gaya na ek dum mast,” the shoemaker exclaims with a sense of achievement. I suddenly came out of my thoughts only to be amazed at the excitement he felt at completing the work satisfactorily. He set about to work on the other sandal. And I walked down my mind’s path again. Perhaps we, in secured environments, expected too much from life and ourselves. That’s why we need a reason to be happy and smile. Perhaps, what is important to us is acknowledgment from others than from ourselves. It’s like saying ‘ if you want to be happy, study hard or earn good money, listen to your parents etc. ’. I guess, the cause and effect theorem runs in the Indian race.

Perhaps the shoemaker, has come face to face with the fact that no matter how high we aim, how hard we work, happiness is somewhere within you. There seems to be no meaning in cribbing complaining and cursing all the beings around you for the situation you are in. At the end of the day, you have to live it. Might as well live it with hopes, realistic and a positive attitude and expectations according to your capabilities. Happiness after all isn’t in any ‘How to be Happy’ book or ‘25waystobeHappy.com’. It comes when you realize it is time to stop expecting and start doing what really gives your mind content. It comes when you realize that dream is one thing, ambition is another.

Don’t worry. I didn’t realize so many things standing barefoot on the pavement under the scorching sun. But, I definitely set about thinking while I was traveling in the ladies compartment of the train. Here, I saw faces, tired, sleepy and refusing to smile back at you when you smile at them. They complain about the monotonous routine and how they’d have to go home and cook food and how the neighbour hasn’t yet returned the utensils! These were the working women of Mumbai.

As for the shoemaker, I had paid him Rs. 20 and left happy. I see him by the pavement everyday – the same bright eyes, a wide smile and singing a song from the bottom of his heart.

SILENCE!!!

Language and its power to communicate thoughts and ideas has
been undervalued for centuries now – of course, like most other things that man
created to meet his needs. Little do we recognize the connection between our
urge to communicate and our psychology and personality development. Perhaps if
you give it a moment’s thought, the reason of your frustration may have been
your failure to ‘speak’ out your mind in a heated argument with, lets suppose,
your spouse?

The history of language traces back to our own country. One
of the first languages was Devanagiri, from which, languages like Sanskrit, Hindi, Marathi, Bihari, Punjabi, Sindhi etc have been derived. It was since the 5^th century that a formal understanding and structure pertaining to the grammar and semantic elements of language has been established. But the underlying challenge has been to understand its value, importance and use in every day life, which, I think, Man has continuously failed at.

One reason I cite is the need to comprehend the ethics of
communication – to speak, to listen and to analyze. And that’s where
COMMUNICATION doesn’t take place; and language loses its meaning. Isn’t that
one of the reasons why communities of people take to violence? To
establish a communication and the urge to be heard, which was not met through
use of language in civilized and acceptable ways? And these days, well,
violence is trying to do the communication.

Many that are symbols of development in the modern world
also indicate Man’s dwindling comprehension of language, communication and
their ethics. The Indian Parliament is perhaps the best example (quiet
shamefully, the MPs’ chappals also do the communication there!!!) as would
e-mails be. Like I said earlier, our urge to communicate has a direct
correlation with our psyche and personality. Just think, right now there’s so
much of noise around – because everyone wishes to speak first. How would it be
if we would be patient human beings and decide to listen to the other first? (Please be civlised in your use of language if you've been BLESSED with the opportunity to speak first)...

I guess, even our brain would be given some relaxation and it’s logic and
cognition area would be enjoying some exercise.

When LOVE slaps you hard in the face..

What happens then? I mean a LOVE BITE sounds, and perhaps is, really passionate and romantic and all… but what if Love bites you back? Does it hurt?

I know it may sound senseless to you but just try to personify Love instead of just considering it as an emotion floating meaninglessly in the heart (our heart doesn’t experience emotions by the way!! It just reacts). It’s a blissful time with Love initially. Romantic moments over coffee, the innocence of the bond trickling like dewdrops, all senses alert and curiosity oozing creating feelings of trust, confidence and, gradually, transparency. You don’t know where it’s all going. But you know you’re the pilot of this plane and you have Love for a co-pilot. So you just want to enjoy your flight.

But of course, there isn’t any flight without experiencing storms and blizzards. And that’s when you know the other side of Love. He just looks like a weirdo then. (Now why am I referring to Love as a ‘He’ is simply because I am a ‘She’). Not necessarily though – that he would turn into a weirdo. He could be all sweet and calm. I mean, at the end of the day none of us can live without Love, can we? But the million-dollar question is how do we live with Love through calm skies and thunderstorms?!

I know I’m sounding like I’m some expert but I’m not. Neither am I a victim of the ‘Love sucks after marriage’ disease. Well, not as yet, I mean. I just realized my turbulences with Love and I thought… ‘Lets blog it’. I am in search for an answer. I’ve heard from tons of people that the rational basis to stay with Love is a wavelength that matches, a mindset that’s similar and beliefs that run parallel. But is it like possible to find someone so similar to your personality? I’m not really sure. I’d prefer our beliefs and thoughts running criss-cross than parallel and our mindsets different enough so we can exchange blows off and on. And still be with Love and in love.

So what happens when this happens? When you find Love whose personality is just opposite to yours? The crap, which is extremely significant and not a crap in reality are compromises, adjustments and changes. But what happens when you and Love grow weary of it, refuse to comprehend the give and take formula and gradually draw away?

I mean does Love become Mr. Bitter Tart (or Ms.) smearing your face? Or does Love turn back (after a few war of words and fists), wink at you with a grin and offer you to be his co-pilot for yet another flight? (You can smear his face then, and say sorry… he he he)

Oh and I forgot. Perhaps, you could be Love.

Bon Voyage!!

Face of Innocence

I dread the moment when I have to see her every morning. I close my eyes or pretend to be busy with my mobile. Yet it doesn’t help my mind drift from her – and the bitter truth that she reflects.

She’s dressed to amuse people who stop at the beam of the red light. Her moves are tuned to the rough music a young lad creates through an instrument. Her tiny stature compliments her feat with the loop to make her look like a dwarf-clown. She swings the ring around her fragile tiny body to entertain the onlookers.

Yet, I choose to turn away.

I look into her big innocent eyes and adorable face rather intensely as she approaches me hopeful for alms. I didn’t quiet know what I was searching for. I thought I would be lost in the incessant depth of her innocence. I’m not sure what I found either. But yes, I couldn’t find the happiness, freshness… I couldn’t find the sparkle in her eyes which surface on my 3 year-old niece’s face, as she looked at the little girl curiously. It was all silent and empty, full of questions – about herself and the world around her. I came back. There were too many questions for a child’s mind to ask. I gave her some coins and she moved ahead.

As the little child beggar went from one vehicle to the other, I looked around at the people. There were young boys laughing at her notoriously; an old man in a car who smiled at her as he gave her alms; and my cousin next to me, who was enlightening me with her school of thought, which suggested I shouldn’t have offered the girl any money as it encourages the children to beg.

I wondered what was it that turns the little girl into an object of amusement on the roads. It puzzles me – was there something that would encourage the little girl to leave the safe haven called home and walk amidst cars mindlessly racing ahead?

I look at her again. I look at my niece. And perhaps I can project their future as well.

The traffic begins to move, as the signal turns green. I shall meet her tomorrow yet again. She shall dance like an orchestrated doll and come to me hopeful for coins, leaving me disturbed.

In her naïve ways, the little girl makes me realize how helpless I am - the little girl begging on the roads for a living.

I wanna be happy!! Or... am I?

I am a mind with my own impediments; on a journey to find happiness. I wonder what it is though – happiness. A word with a positive attribute, or the emotion that I have when I get what I wanted, or is it what people find in whatever best they have?

What it means to us is what brings us closer to happiness or takes us far far away from it. I came across a saying, “ the happiest people don’t have the best of everything, they make the best of everything.” But is it that easy to make the best of what you didn’t want and still be happy? I walk and work towards getting what I want – getting what I think will make me happy. I know there are other things around me that make me as happy as I am today. Why do I, then, feel the need to drive my energies towards the end of the journey? Why do I feel the end alone will give me the happiness I yearn for?

Or have I just not learnt to be happy and am on an unending quest?

Its all very weird.