The Place I Call Home..

First post of the new decade.. Wondering where would I be by the end of it. Too many miles to go.. Too many things to do! Phew....

Thought of "Where I belong" struck me while I was traveling back from home (so-called) last December. The Free Dictionary defines Home as:

home (n.)

1. A place where one lives; a residence.

2. The physical structure within which one lives, such as a house or apartment.

3. A dwelling place together with the family or social unit that occupies it; a household.

4. a. An environment offering security and happiness.

b. A valued place regarded as a refuge or place of origin.

5. The place, such as a country or town, where one was born or has lived for a long period.

6. The native habitat, as of a plant or animal.

In India, I'm afraid, all these definitions are used interchangeably. More often than not, people tend to believe definition # 3 & 4 (a) come together. Let me elaborate that further..

I think the inherent nature of human tribe is still nomadic. He tends to move from one place to another in search food and shelter (in our case - job and money). Security & Happiness are the by-products of first two elements in this case. But would you still call such places as home?

Home, in my book, is a place where one finds happiness. It cannot - presumably - be your place of residence or the place where your parents live. Home is a place where people understand you and give you that 'tacit' emotional support. Home is a place where you want to go back - your safe haven. Home is where I can speak up and be heard.

I want to close this post with an open-ended question - How would you define your home as??

Happyness, More of Less..

Perfect start to Sunday morning.. Hot ginger tea, India Vs. Sri Lanka ODI, Sunday Times news paper, and completing my agendas-for-the-day list..

The title "Happyness, More or less.." comes from a track called 'Lucky Man' by a British Rock band 'The Verve'.. I'm kind of moved by the first and last two lines of the song.. Here it goes:

Happiness

More or less

It's just a change in me

Something in my liberty

Oh, my, my

Happiness

Coming and going

I watch you look at me

Watch my fever growing

I know just where I am

But how many corners do I have to turn?

How many times do I have to learn

All the love I have is in my mind?

But I'm a lucky man

With fire in my hands

..

Work of an art by the lyricist, and how true. Happyness is indeed a matter of perception. It's just a small change in you and how you view things. And when you open those doors of perception, will you discover happyness in small, yet significant, things that you may simply choose to overlook in your daily mundane lives. Happyness is a matter of choice. Today every one of us is fighting some kind of war. War against family (yes, i repeat - family), peers, system and society. And you may loose some and win some of those battles. Its now your choice, if you choose to be engrossed in past and hence buried in melancholy or choose to look forward and move on - and stay happy! Some food for thought from one of my colleagues Rahul Joshi (fans call him Mr. Joe) - "We mortals just get caught in the romance of the sadness of the plot till it finally unfolds into a happy ending..". Couldn't agree more!

Guess, I needn't explain why they "Y" in place of "I" in Happiness.. :)

Cheers & have a Happy New Year..

17th Dec.: The Re-Birth Day

The 25th Birthday (of my life so far) was a different one.. It came when I was (and am) going through some paradigm shifts in philosophy and thought (more so thought process). I have been trying really hard to look at things differently off-late, trying to remain unruffled by all the battles that I am facing personally.

Why am I calling it "The Re-Birth Day"?

This birthday comes in a phase when I need to draw some lines.. The lines that would re-define rest of my life. The lines that would change perspectives about how I used to view life. These lines would inadvertently expose me to new battles - with no one to bank upon. The lines which would leave me lonesome and far apart from people - I called my own. The lines where I set priorities. The lines where I choose the road less travelled. The lines when I tread alone. The lines where I need to be strong mentally, emotionally and physically. The lines which would raise many questions but would still be left unanswered. The lines where I choose truth over a bond. The lines where I shepherd the week through the valley of darkness. The lines where I forgive and forget. The lines where I'm - Born Again!

The lines where I lay my vengeance upon thee..

All Those Yesterdays..

Don't you think you oughtta rest?
Don't you think you oughtta lay you head down?
Don't you think you want to sleep?
Don't you think you oughtta lay your head down tonight?

Don't you think you've done enough?
Oh, don't you think you've got enough, well maybe..
You don't think there's time to stop
There's time enough for you to lay your head down, tonight, tonight

Let it wash away
All those yesterdays

What are you running from?
Taking pills to get along
Creating walls to call your own
So no one catches you? drifting off and
Doing all the things that we all do

Let them wash away
All those yesterdays
All those yesterdays
All those paper plates

You've got time, you've got time to escape
There's still time, it's no crime to escape
It's no crime to escape, it's no crime to escape
There's still time, so escape It's no crime, crime..

The Struggle Within..

Struggle comes in different shapes and sizes. Right from struggling to find a taxi in the morning or trying to patch a broken family..

Eternal struggle is the law of life. How often do we get pissed off, thinking, how unfair our world has been to us when try to compare our lives to those who've had it nice and easy. But the fact remains - nobody can save your ass, apart from the man in the mirror.

I think that father-son scene from the movie Rocky Balboa changed my life..

"I'd hold you up to say to your mother, "this kid's gonna be the best kid in the world. This kid's gonna be somebody better than anybody I ever knew." And you grew up good and wonderful. It was great just watching you, every day was like a privilige. Then the time come for you to be your own man and take on the world, and you did. But somewhere along the line, you changed. You stopped being you. You let people stick a finger in your face and tell you you're no good. And when things got hard, you started looking for something to blame, like a big shadow. Let me tell you something you already know. The world ain't all sunshine and rainbows. It's a very mean and nasty place and I don't care how tough you are it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain't about how hard ya hit. It's about how hard you can get it and keep moving forward. How much you can take and keep moving forward. That's how winning is done! Now if you know what you're worth then go out and get what you're worth. But ya gotta be willing to take the hits, and not pointing fingers saying you ain't where you wanna be because of him, or her, or anybody! Cowards do that and that ain't you! You're better than that! I'm always gonna love you no matter what. No matter what happens. You're my son and you're my blood. You're the best thing in my life. But until you start believing in yourself, ya ain't gonna have a life."

I'm afraid life aint one of a Karan Johar movies. Here, you tend to get thwarted by some or the other situation which are more often than not, are a resultant of your own actions. Sad part is, sometimes you may have to take the onus of some other people's actions and deal with it. So what? Should you sit down and go with the flow? Or you trust your values and take a detour? What if it involves your own near and dear ones? In my case, I choose the latter. During the course of our lives we tend to close many doors and end a few chapters. What's important it is we embrace the change and move on. Opening new doors..

The battles that count aren't the ones for gold medals. The struggles within yourself -- the invisible, inevitable battles inside all of us -- that's where it's at.

26/11: Lest We Forget

Few more hours to the anniversary of one of the most dreadful day in the history of Mumbai and India. A day, that left some permanent scars in the minds of people who witnessed it. For some people like me though, these scars are deep enough to create a pronounced change in mental disposition.

26/11 anniversary has been blown out proportions by myriad news channels, remembering heroes (martyrs, no less), the families they've left behind, and the status quo of the Indo-Pak affairs. But none of the channels, I'm afraid, had the balls (read: guts) to retrospect as to what changes 26/11 has made to our foreign policy. I have my serious doubts (and you would agree) about the current safety the Common Man as compared to the previous year. People are as insecure and vulnerable (you bet, even more) today as they were an year back.. Apart from luckily getting hold of Mr. Kasab (his sheer bad luck, I would believe) and questioning him about some dumb elementary facts, our government has nothing to claim as an achievement. Our Politicos are busy defending Liberhans of the world and creating a fracas over Sachin Tendulkar's Marathi/Indian issue. While Hemant Karkare died using some third class (Made in China, I believe) bullet proof jackets, Mr. Gafoor is busy blaming other "senior officials" who refused the Call of Duty. Pakistan has been known to keep some proven terrorist under "house-arrest". Who cares..

Politicians/Mumbai Police/Pakistan, Balls to You!
At the Common Man's point of view, let me tell you what changes 26/11 made to life.. Today, leave aside CST station, I'm scared to travel in Local Trains of Mumbai. I feel terrified when I'm alone is crowded public places.. I always have a sense of insecurity around me when it comes to visiting unknown uninhibited places..

With all due respect to all those people who gave away their lives in lieu of public safety and love of mother nation, I think Mr. Chitambaram, and the govt of India need to do some serious thinking about the way forward. Mr. Singh, presently on his visit to US need to learn some tactics of how did they manage to avoid another 9/11 and increase social security of denizens. Nevertheless, for all the common men like us.. Couldn't care less.

Courage: The Cowardly Dog

With anniversary to 26/11 approaching, I'm still perplexed and befuddled by the periphery of an individual's courage.

I intentionally named the post "Courage: The Cowardly Dog" after an animated series on Cartoon Network. The series revolves around the exploits of Courage, a small dog who, despite his name, is ironically afraid of the most mundane things. His fears are normally justified, however, his masters, and Courage are constantly attacked by various monsters, aliens, villains, curses, experiments, natural disasters, and other forms of peril that Courage must face and do whatever it takes to keep them, and himself safe.

Major Sandeep Unnikrishnan's father (the dauntless soldier of NSG who reached martyrdom on 26/11) made a statement that "People want a Bhagat Singh, but in a neighbour's house". How appropriate, Sir. Today, and I resentfully admit, the Common Man is buried in clutter of social obligations. And when it comes to making a choice, and I completely agree, he is paralyzed by his vested interests.

As someone rightfully puts it - "Courage is not the absence of fear. it is the conviction that something is more important than fear". But the question is where do you draw the line? When do you tell yourself, "This is it, I will not take this anymore". Just the other day, in the untimely November Rains of Mumbai, my friend and I were waiting for a cab to drop us home. The cabbies, trying to make the most of the adversities people were in, refused to stop by. 30 minutes went by and we were all drenched, when I realized, this isn't going to happen just by standing alongside of the road, asking them to stop. It was then I took the courage to stand in the middle of the road to stop a cab, and have the balls to be prepared to knocked off - if the driver intends to do so. I jammed the traffic for 5 mins, on a rainy night and on a narrow mumbai road, but then, the driver stepped out and opened the door until I got in.

Courage, I think, is the ability to really stop and look fear in the face. But I'm afraid, you don't find it in many. I'm not trying to claim that a soldier at the border is the only one with courage. But the Common Man shouldn't believe that the daily struggles of survival are replaceable to courage. Your wife, kids and mortgage are your duties, but courage is when you stand up to defend them, and yourself.

I would end this post with an open ended question.. Does the periphery of your courage end at the point when it comes to you and your family?

A Fundamentalist Muslim

Just read a comment by Mr. Bal Thackeray " Fundamentalist Muslim is the biggest threat to India."

Just a quick recall of the real definition of Fundamentalism -

fun·da·men·tal·ism (fnd-mntl-zm)

n.

1. A usually religious movement or point of view characterized by a return to fundamental principles, by rigid adherence to those principles, and often by intolerance of other views and opposition to secularism.

2.

a. often Fundamentalism An organized, militant Evangelical movement originating in the United States in the late 19th and early 20th century in opposition to Protestant Liberalism and secularism, insisting on the inerrancy of Scripture.

b. Adherence to the theology of this movement.

Mr. Thackeray, with all due respect, I beg to differ on your statement. India today is equally threatened by the "in-house" home-grown fundamentalists like you. The only contribution that you have made to Indian politics is to induce the acts of regional violences. The gorilla warfare driven by local "Hindu Fundamentalists" is creating a schism in local psychology..

I think "influential" politicos like you cant be myopic and biased in making statements like these.. Fundamentalism cant be a one-faced coin.. If you dare to call some-one a "north indian" or a "marathi" you are being equally fundamentalistic as any other pro-terror Muslim..

You, Mr. Thackeray, i think, with all the limited days left in your life, have a bigger task in hand, supporting causes which are for the greater good of greater number of people. Shivsena as we know is done and dusted in recent polls..

You need to move on from the petty Valentine Day Protests, marathi/Non-marathi, anti-muslim issues. Making mumbai and maharashtra is a marathi ghetto wont help the cause of anyone.. Neither yours.

Salam India.