Mesmerize

TO BE OR NOT TO BE : A TRUE ENGINEER


Engineers are supposed to be the creators, inventors & designers of new and unthinkable wonders. An engineer is held with so much awe and admiration that the ones aspiring to “change the world “ are now thinking that only engineers can do it(at least I had something of that sort in my mind when I joined VNIT). If a plausible, near accurate picture had to be painted to describe the race for grabbing a good engineering seat, the image would resemble an active fish market in the streets of Kolkata.

But is it really worth all the trouble?

This question rang a sonorous bell in my mind when I faced a predicament, which initially seemed trivial, but eventually dragged me into the deep cavern of self doubt.
The incident marked my endeavor to unravel the secret of abstract knowledge. (Or something like that)

After appearing for my second semester examination in the college my holidays at home were harmonious and luxurious till I turned on the television.

The Idiot box was clearly in a state of disarray, for, the display resembled a paper run over by millions of ants. Obviously it was not a show in discovery channel because the sound coming from the set was disturbing and by any stretch of imagination or recognition I couldn’t dare to compare the screeching sounds with the sounds produced by the speech of a human, harried by a sickly throat problem, trying to explain what the million ants were up to. Even if the ants wanted to, they couldn’t produce such noise. To make sure that the ants were not capable of doing so, I switched over to the next channel and then the next and I had not rested until I had checked all the channels. All the channels had ants running all over the screen. Using my primitive knowledge in the area of television electronics I wisely surmised that even if ants did manage to enter the interiors of a TV, they would die an instant death. After making sure that the signal from the operator was not corrupted I diagnosed the problem successfully. There was a problem with the television!!!

Amazed with the fact that I was able to diagnose the problem accurately using my engineering and observational skills I geared up for tackling it professionally.
I went to my elder brother and presented the predicament in a genuine fashion. The fact that he was an electronics engineer came to my mind during my investigation and finding an opportunity to avail his invaluable professional services I went to him asking for the solution.
Clearly disturbed from the state of delirium he frowned at me acknowledging the disturbance. The description of the events that followed should be carefully noted as they describe the deliberate gestures and movements, carefully practiced and perfected, by an engineer before staging a deception.

He got up nonchalantly, wore his glasses, blinked like a damsel in distress and gave a look filled with an immiscible and antonymic mix of utter brilliance and sheer ignorance. Then he cleared his throat as if to deliver a statement which could force the world into accepting world peace. But nothing of that sort happened and he muttered helplessly, yet airily”I’m aware of the principles involved in its working and construction but I don’t know how the TV works “.

I was slightly taken aback but, needless to say, I felt enormously enlightened after hearing an excuse which could be used liberally when faced with a similar situation because even if anyone tried to highlight our incompetence we could always blame the ‘nasty old system’.

However, the task remained unaccomplished. Who should do it? No, not the electrician, a man with limited knowledge of the complex systems, he may repair the set but my quest for knowledge would be obstructed. An electrician works only according to set procedures taught to him mechanically by ITI (industrial training institute). To showcase the superiority of an engineer over a mere technician, I had to take the thing in my own hands (a screwdriver that is). Armed with the screwdriver in one hand and the power of inquisitiveness in the other, I walked like a gladiator ready to salvage some pride for my clan(engineers), after all it was only a mere television.

After opening the cabinet, I could only stare at the inconceivable collection of slabs with colorful small elements struck to them. As I searched for an hour to find at least some element of familiarity in this chaotic assembly of strange boards and elements, my patience was running away. Finally, my eye caught a board where I could recognize three elements placed on it. Even though I was skeptical about their condition (good or bad) I had no choice, other parts of the board were alien to me. I was like a man searching for treasure somewhere else just because the place where it lay buried had no light.

The elements were the most elementary elements of an electrical circuit- the capacitor, the resistor and the inductor. I just had to replace one of them.
The elimination process I adopted was painstakingly primitive, but nevertheless fundamental tools have carved a way for man’s success. The elimination process was one of those sequences we adopted before starting a game of hide and seek – “inky, pinky ponky, father had a donkey,…………….”. After two rounds of elimination the target was spotted. The resistor had to be replaced.
After soldering the new resistor (which I purchased from the market) in place of the original resistor I closed the cabinet and turned on the television. The picture was crystal clear.

(Rajnikant was performing his famous anti-gravity stunts. Hardly believable stunts I accept, but it satisfies me that at least someone can break the unquestionable and slavery inducing laws of physics, which dragged us through sleepless nights)

I was overjoyed to see that my totally outrageous fluke had struck gold. I then started to ponder over the secret behind the innocuous looking sequence of elimination, it now dawned upon me, that this was not a simple elimination algorithm but, a far more complex transcendental function based on complex laws of probability and permutations, which nobody had, till today, discovered. I was perhaps the first one to make this breakthrough.
I could see the red carpets unfurled before me, The Bharat Ratna badge pinned onto my shirt, my parents unable to control their tears of joy, the physics Nobel was being presented to me, for I had discovered the function which could solve disturbances in electronic circuits. The crowd was cheering me noisily, more noise, but the sound was much hashed, very corrupted. Wait! It wasn’t the type of noise a crowd could generate; it was …… coming from the TV!!

The sound was worse than before, obviously the resistor wasn’t bad. So I had been wrong about the stupid elimination sequence after all, to hell with inky pinky ponky. All my thoughts about the ceremony painfully vanished from my mind. Then with much deliberation I replaced the capacitor.

I sat down with my eyes closed and fingers crossed, and then turned on the TV. I waited with drawn breath. The noise had vanished and instead I could hear the voice of a human Delighted and ready to reconsider the elimination sequence from the human angle, that is, attributing the mistake to me and not the function, I opened my eyes to see ants running over the screen again. Now, the display was cocked! But the sound was perfect!

First, when I replaced the resistor with a new one the picture was perfect but the sound was repulsive, now when I replace the capacitor with a new one, the picture turns bad but the sound system works perfectly. Then definitely, if I replaced the inductor, everything would be normal. Using this common sense, I replaced the inductor with a new one.
Now, surprisingly both went bad. The picture was bad and the sound was intolerably hashed and corrupted.

After employing a series of permutations to replace each component, and getting equally ghastly and varied results I finally decided to end this cat and mouse game by calling in the real professional- the electrician.

He walked in with an air of nonchalance, as if he were performing a routine job. He saw all the elements strewn around and then without saying a word he opened the cabinet and resoldered the old components. Then he switched it on. The picture was still bad and the sound worse than before. Before I could say a word, he tapped the TV on its head lightly. The TV flickered for a second and then gave a clear image along with proper sound.
I could do nothing but gape at the TV for the next few minutes. He said that the problem was so minor that he would not embarrass himself by asking for fees…………….!!

How much do we know ‘practically’?

The same question applies to every stream in engineering. Before I end, I should turn my attention to my own stream – Meta (Metallurgy and Material Science Engineering).

When my friend’s grandpa asked him about his stream he was dumbstruck. Why? He himself had never thought about it. To hide his face he muttered a series of ‘errs’ and ‘umps’, kept beating around the bush, flaunted words like nanotechnology and smart materials and finally told his grandpa that he was too old and senile to understand all these technical things.
His grandfather nodded his head cynically and replied aptly “Son, you are right. I didn’t understand a bit of what you said. Perhaps that’s what engineering is about, understanding nothing.”

It has been observed that young minds join engineering colleges expecting a job to land on their laps as soon as they reach their final year in college. Many are also aware that a company seldom asks you questions from engineering curricula in their written exams or interviews (I am targeting IT giants), so any person having mediocre knowledge in computer programming can end up in an IT company. Why then, should we take the pains to study for engineering? Do we earnestly study the subject? Are we interested in it?

The story has no moral but it certainly raises the question we all fear to acknowledge.
The ultimate question.

Are we true engineers?

The Masterpiece

'Dedication and loyalty are virtues of the great'

Chapter 1: the day of placement

One couldn’t ask for a better day to retrospect. Sitting on the grass, waiting for the night to cover me with its shadow of peace, I felt a deep force running through me, the feeling of accomplishment. Placements had just started in our college and I had been quite lucky to land up with a job at the start itself. It was as if my college life was finally getting over. During such moments in life people look out for other people in trouble, which I believe is a sadistic impulse one gets. The touch of fur and hair would remind me of a long haired guy in college who would throw himself on me without provocation, but, unlike his brute touch it was extremely soft and momentary. With a swift turn of the head I could see him. His majesty had to be acknowledged. Silvery white hair, brooding jaws and two eyes which displayed grace were lost on me in an instant. The hair on his body was like grass on the meadow waiting for the wind to work itself through it, the wind, like a mermaid wading through the blue ocean with sheer joy. His domestication and age were apparent from his grace and sublime submission to the work of time. It was strange that a dog from the elegant and sophisticated breed of Pomeranians could be found wandering near a boy’s hostel.

Chapter 2: acquaintance

“Where is his rightful owner?” “What is this pet dog doing here?” “What about the hostel hygiene?” the student mess in-charge was in a foul mood and a fleeting look at the creature basking under the afternoon sun certainly aggravated his irritation. The authorities had handed out several memos to the members of the hostel committee and the content demanded specific budget cuts in the food supplies which were unreasonable at this point of time, since the cost of vegetables were scaling record heights. Some of the hostel mates were quick to notify him about the dog’s history and rendered a calculated narrative which could explain why the creature was enjoying its afternoon siesta out on the hostel lawn bench. The dog had been abandoned by the owner for some reason and ironically, he found some solace in the noisy environment of the hostel. The mess in-charge was able to direct his anger at something else and the dog was perhaps, able to brood over a lost bone. Evidently, his claws had worn out and his latency was quite a concern for many dog lovers in the hostel but there was nothing much they could do about it. His prior domestication and inoculation from the wild had made his body a slave to medicinal shots. Without veterinary facilities the dog was considered as a living host of diseases and some inmates kept a safe distance from him. Some youngsters pitied the mongrel and spared some food occasionally. “We should call him “Stalin”” remarked Basu. Basu was a music maniac and loved to flaunt words in his vocabulary and as any ardent follower of communism; he carried a volume of speeches delivered by Marx in Russia with him even to the rest-room. His belligerent response to everyone’s disgust was a simple statement delivered with conviction, “If Archimedes could frame a theorem in his bathtub, I am just seconds away from self discovery and enlightenment”. Despite Basu’s idiosyncrasies, his discussions were emphatic and engaging, forcing many inmates to believe that he was some kind of a ‘misplaced’ philosopher. However, everyone seemed to like the title he blessed the dog with and Stalin was now ‘unofficially’ the new resident of our hostel lawn.

Slowly, everyone got used to the presence of Stalin and any reference to him helped us distract ourselves from the usual arduous routine in the hostel.

Chapter 3: The incident

The sophistication involved in a dog’s life can be slowly understood by studying their general behavior. Stray dogs divide themselves into groups and clusters where each group understands their territorial limitations. The territories are usually divided according to the benefits in an area and some compromise is reached, which not only allows them to live in a chartered manner but also helps them to claim food in their zones. Any intruder in their zone is unwelcome barring human beings who are apparently their “perpetual masters”. It took only a week before Stalin had to face the native dogs and the incident remains etched in my mind.

It was a cold winter night, and all the hostel inmates were busy with assignments and reports they had to submit the following week. A packed hostel in the night is reminiscent of a busy office on the streets of Manhattan before the close of the stock exchange. The only difference lies in the nature of work and the type of noises that erupt infrequently. The night draped a blanket of darkness over the pavements and roads leading to the hostel. Stalin crouched on a bench in the lawn lazily drawing his eyes to close. Then out of instinct he opened his eyes to see a dozen glittering eyes advancing towards him. The stray dogs of this zone had decided to attack him and this had to be done to assert their authority and rights in the zone. Stalin stood his ground. He had none of the tenacity his opponents possessed and was clearly outnumbered. He had almost decided that it had to be his final stand before death when Basu and I walked out of the gate in the hostel. Basu was the first one to notice the standoff and in an effort to save Stalin, he picked up a rock and threw tentatively at one of the attackers. Following suit, I aimed at two other attackers and visibly stunned the stray animals ran for their lives. Satisfied with our effort we stepped on an old haggard motorbike and drove to the night canteen which was 4 Km from the campus.

We finally reached the gas station to refuel and searched our pockets for money. “Hey, somebody picked my wallet” remarked Basu. “How the hell can you be so careless?” my reprimand did not make any significant impact as our vehicle was comprehensively dry and we were stranded at the petrol pump without any cash at our disposal. “Eh, this is gonna be our longest night together, comrade” joked Basu. I was not in the mood for jokes as I had to forward an assignment next morning and the worst part was that I had no clue about the topic. “Guess what, Stalin followed us to the station” remarked Basu. As the exasperated animal came closer we were in for a special surprise. Stalin had picked up Basu’s wallet from the road, where he had carelessly dropped it, and ran all the way to pull us out of the mess.

Chapter 4: The Final Test

Keeping track of seasons and describing them with passion and panache is a hobby well suited for poets and great writers. However, such changes rarely make an impact on a superficial community which yearns for materialistic benefits just by joining pieces of metals and plastics to conjure a device used by a million lazy people to simplify their lives. The only thing which mattered to us was the mess timetable and whatever they had to offer during the recess.

In the evening, hostel inmates loved to squat on the lawn, making groups and explicitly narrating their chronicles of successes and failures which were inevitably spiced up with infectious laughter rendered by the audience. The clock of life had changed Basu, who by now had developed certain capitalistic inclinations after reading about the ideological shifts developing in socialistic nations. It was still hard to say whether he was an ardent follower of Marx or a Friedman enthusiast, but it did not matter much as nobody ever took his political views seriously. Stalin was an apathetic member of the confluence and he had developed no special interest in Basu’s theories and arguments.

Many people enjoyed their evening walk and some people walked their dogs in the college campus which included the hostel premises. Hostel lawns also served as grazing grounds for numerous cows and buffaloes and soon their open defecation in specific areas caused uproar amongst students who demanded the disposal of cow dung from the hostel. However, the authority thought it was best not to entertain such complaints as students may start demanding more luxuries. In fact, some wardens even publicly spoke in favor of the defecation, specifically relating their childhood accounts of playing with cow dung and slapping cakes on their walls, which were received with suppressed expressions of disgust and dissent. Fortunately, cows realized soon enough that their nature’s call was the topic of a public debate and wisely refrained from public excretion much to students’ delight. This kind gesture earned them the right to roam freely near the hostel premises and agitations were unanimously withdrawn by inmates.

Dusk was fast settling in when somehow, an evening dog walker unintentionally irked a bull and subsequently, the bull started charging at him with blood shot eyes and murderous intent. The dog walker went white with fear as blood drained from his face. The poodle accompanying him concealed itself behind the fellow’s legs and slightly raised his cowering eyes which betrayed a stifling feeling of helplessness. In a flash, something sprang up on the bull’s ear biting into the soft and hairy hide with aggression and skill. The bull was evidently surprised by Stalin’s move and temporarily lost control over its objective. The bull ran in various directions before deciding to shrug Stalin off its ear. The bull rammed him on the ground with a force apparently equal to ten times his body weight. Stalin’s bones would have been pulverized by the impact but he still held his jaws tightly on the bull’s ear. The bull rammed Stalin on the trunk of a nearby tree and unable to withstand further pummeling he broke free. The bull was still in frenzy as the shock of being attacked had almost driven him crazy. While we rushed to Stalin for help the bull swiftly disappeared into the thickets. Stalin wasn’t breathing. The dog walker wiped beads of perspiration from his forehead and stood awkwardly, struggling to maintain some form of composure. “Yeah, what a waste. He was no good anyway. He was more like a roaming box of fleas. I had to abandon this beast” retorted the dog walker. This ungrateful fellow was the erstwhile owner of Stalin. The whole gathering raised their heads in his direction and sensing resentment he hurried down the road without looking back. Everyone was silent. Stalin was lying tangled on the tall grass near the tree and yet, he looked calm. “Maybe this is what they call honor; saving people who no longer need you” said Basu silently. For the first time everyone agreed with him. Stalin had cleared the test; the final test of loyalty.

Touch me not

Does casteism still exist in our country? Most of us would say yes to that even if we haven't experienced it in person but believe me, most of us won’t recognize how crude it is unless we see it for ourselves.Well, it was my turn to be educated about this evil and as they say "Education begins at home".

I was visiting my grandfather's place in Jalaun(a small town near Jhansi(UP)). Its funny how you feel detached from the world in a place like this. Its quiet, the only sounds you hear in the morning are that of a Maulvi praying in a Masjid and that of chirping of birds. Frankly speaking, in a few days you begin to miss the polluted air of the cities!! But that day the calm was short lived.I woke up in the morning and to my utter disdain found my grandfather shouting at the top of his voice."The boy sleeps till 7'o clock. What is he going to do with his life", my grandfather shouted at me. He looked flabbergasted. Its a sin to sleep after sunrise in Jalaun and I didn't know that. He might as well have hit me for sleeping till 7 but something pulled him back ; may be he thought I was too old now to be beaten or may be he was waiting for the right time, right place. Whatever it was, I was thankful to have escaped my bed without a bump on my head.And so it began.After freshening up, I settled down to read the newspaper. They say lightening doesn't strike twice in the same place. Well, in my case, it did."Bring me the Karkatiya, hurry up.", my grandfather snarled at me.I got up to fetch it but stopped mid way. What was I supposed to get? Oh God!, I realized I didn't know what a Karkatiya is!!I went back to him and asked " Grandpa , I don’t know what a Karkatiya is . Can you please explain it to me?"I might as well have asked him to shoot me, it wouldn't have made a difference."You don't know what a Karkatiya is!! What good are you. What do they teach you in your college. Oh my God, this lad is as dumb as they can get.", he shouted.First things first . Of course, they don’t teach about a Karkatiya in an engineering course and if it was such a life altering thing , I should know about it!!As I later found out , he was asking for a screwdriver. OK, that was the news of the day.As the day passed, his anger subsided. I was able to survive the next few hours without being scolded. But that's more than you can as for, isn't it?In the afternoon, a man came to clean up our verandah and the sewage system of our house. His name was Ramlal. My grandparents had given him this job for which he got paid monthly.They also gave him to eat some leftover food on most days. Rest of the days, he got a cup of tea. That day, it was tea.After he was through with his job he asked my grandmother for a cup of tea. My grandmother took a cup which was especially separated from other cutlery items, kept in one corner of the kitchen."A separate cup for him Dadi?", I asked her."Of course, we are brahmins, beta.", she said.These people really think I am dumb enough not to know that."Ya, Dadi, but how does it matter. Wouldn't it be good if we treated him in a more humane way", I asked her."Beta, there are some things in life you should not question. If we are doing this, it is for a reason. Now go give him this tea.", she replied.So I took the cup and proceeded to make the biggest mistake of my life. Ramlal was sitting on the floor with a puppy by his side. I tried to hand him the cup but he insisted, "Sahabji, keep the cup on the floor and I will take it."Thats when it happened. I kept the cup on the floor and gave him a pat on his shoulder."Nahiiiiiiiiiiiii", shrieked my grandmother who was watching us from the door.The man stepped back, his eyes wild as if he had seen a ghost.”Nahi Sahab.”, he said with terror in his voice. Before I could understand anything or ask my grandmother, she ran back into the house.Hell, now even I was scared. Was there something scary that I was missing, c’mon tell me!!In a moment, she came running back with a bottle of water and hurriedly started spraying it all over me, mumbling something at the same time.Now this was embarrassing, contrary to popular belief I do take a bath everyday. By the time she stopped I was half drenched. I was shell shocked. Ramlal was still staring at me as if I was a ghost. The poor puppy had the shock of his life and tried to escape through the closed gate, but only managed to get its neck stuck in an opening."He is not to be touched. Don't you know that? This is gangajal to purify you. Never do this again.", she shouted at me. My grandfather, hearing all the noise, came outside. When he came to know what had happened all hell broke loose. "He is an Achhut. Why did you have to touch him. Are you an idiot? You have no commonsense for God's sake...." I stopped hearing after that.All the neighbors were looking at us in bewilderment. The fact that I had touched an Achhut didn't go down well with any of them. They were looking at me as if I had brought shame to all of them. Taunts and advices started flowing in from all the surrounding roofs.The fact is, I did feel embarrassed for Ramlal. How would have the man felt at that moment when everyone was scolding me for "touching him". Frankly, you cannot feel like a normal human being in such circumstances. After about ten minutes, when my grandfather was through with his harangue on untouchability and my lack of brains, we went in. Ramlal left without finishing his cup of tea and the poor puppy managed to run from the house too. So that left me alone. My grandfather’s reaction showed me how he counted this as a normal thing like waking up early in the morning or knowing about a karkatiya !! By the night, almost all my relatives knew of the incident (Frankly, I wouldn't have been surprised to read about it in the newspapers the next day.) As for me, I barely spoke after that. Once I tried to make my point but my grandfather looked at me with such fury that I almost fainted. After dinner, we had our customary stroll on the roof where he quietly(yes, quietly) explained to me the caste system and the grave sin that I had committed. I didn't dare interrupt him, not after the day that I had.Two days later I packed my bags and came back to Kanpur. But the memory of that incident still lingers on like a ghost. That day I came face to face with a gross reality of “our times”. There are places beyond the metros of our country where casteism and untouchability are still in practice. Small town India has still got a long way to go before it can count itself among developed societies. Nuke-deals and multi-billion dollar acquisitions are good but there are places in our country unaffected by all this hoopla where the basic equality of people is still an issue, of course accompanied by many such evils. Let us not forget that.

Walking the line

We build our lives on the foundations laid down in our childhood by our parents. As we grow, both physically and mentally, we are bound to build our own ideologies shaped by our encounters with the external world. Our preoccupation with our thoughts and comparison between different ideas is the most decisive factor which shapes our thinking. But what if our notions of ‘good’ and ‘bad’, ‘practical’ and ‘foolish’ clash with what we have been taught as kids.

THE BUILD-UP

Movies are our favorite pastime. Whenever a family outing is planned, a movie is an indispensible part of it. And why not? The phantasmagoric world of the movies does take away the drudgery of everyday life, if only for a short while. So last Sunday, as my father was free from work it was decided that we'll go to watch 'OSO'. The mere mention of a movie infuses enthusiasm and liveliness in an atmosphere otherwise clouded by the omnipresent “Saas-Bahu” sops in the home. It was a welcome break and so it was decided that we’ll got to watch the night show of the movie.

THE BEGINNING

As it came to pass, I had to go to book the tickets in advance for the night show. So, I rode my bike to the cinema hall, and not to my surprise, found that half the population of Kanpur wanted to se the movie that day!!

A long queue awaited me to join it as people literally battled for movie tickets. The bedlam was scary to say the least but since I had promised my movie maniac younger brother that I’ll get the tickets, I had no option but to stand at the end of the long serpentine queue. I knew I was in for a long wait and reluctantly joined the queue. Ten minutes passed and it hardly seemed to move. Ten more minutes and I had hardly shifted. What were they doing at the counter for God’s sake!! Just then a haggard old man came to me. He had weary eyes as if he hadn't slept for days, a long unshaven beard and the only thing that covered his body was a shirt in tatters and a loose pajama.

OLD MAN: Do you want the tickets?

What does he think, I am nuts standing in the queue for no purpose.

ME: Of course I do. Why do you think I am standing in this queue.

OLD MAN: Which show?

ME: The night show.

OLD MAN: Hmm....By the looks of it, you aren’t going to get to the counter. I have the some tickets. How many do you want?

ME: You mean you are "selling them in black".

OLD MAN: How does it matter? You want the tickets, I have them. As simple as that.

A faint smile crossed his face.

He was actually starting to convince me. But before I could but the tickets, my conscience( all that I had been taught from my childhood) took over.

DO NOT DO ANYTHING THAT IS ILLEGAL AND NEVER HELP SOMEONE WHO IS DOING AN ILLEGAL THING.

ME: Don't you know this is illegal. A policeman crosses by and you will spend the next week in jail.

OLD MAN: I know all that. But I have a wife who is really unwell. I need to.....

ME(Interrupting him): OK . That's it. I do not want to hear your story now. Just get off my face. I am not buying any tickets from you.

OLD MAN: Please. I will sell these to you at just hundred for one. That's just twenty more than the normal price. How long will you keep on standing in this line!

Well, his offer did seem to make sense.

WRONG THINGS WILL ALWAYS SEEM TEMPTING. DO NOT YIELD TO THEM.

ME: Look, I am not buying them. There are so many people here. May be some body else will. Now stop bothering me.

The old man finally gave up on me and walked away. I was nearing the ticket counter now. I looked back and saw a long queue behind me. That really cheered me up knowing all those people will have to wait for as long as I did. Yeah, sometimes the devil inside you does take over!!

THE CIGARETTE

It seems like he didn't find any likely takers for his offer. So he was back!!

OLD MAN: See, you are still in standing in the line. Take these tickets. It will help us both.

ME(smiling): Thank you for trying to put me out of my misery but I think I'll stick to my plan. Didn't you find anyone else.

OLD MAN: Most of them are here for tomorrow’s tickets. Look at it this way. You won't get any poorer by buying the tickets from me but I'll be able to feed myself and my wife for at least 3 days.

ME: If you have enough money to buy these tickets so that you can sell them in black, I don’t think you are in such dire-straits.

OLD MAN: This is all I have. I needed to get some medicines for my wife for which I need some extra money. That’s why I am doing this. I don’t even have a home to go to.

Was he telling the truth, or was it all made up. How do you decide? It’s the mother of all questions. Buy the tickets from him, a voice inside me pushed. Was it my conscience or was I being foolish. NO, what the hell am I thinking. These people will say anything to make you yield to them. Stay firm.

ME: Sorry, but for the last time I am telling you. I won’t buy the tickets from you.

Just then the man at the ticket counter announced that only six tickets of the night show were remaining. Six tickets and three people still ahead of me in the queue. OK, enough of morality, its time to listen to reason.

ME: OK. I'll but the tickets from you.

OLD MAN(cheering up): Four tickets, isn't it.

THERE’S NOTHING LIKE A FREE LUNCH. PEOPLE DON’T HELP YOU WITHOUT A REASON SO YOU DO THE SAME.

I probed my pockets and took out four one-rupee coins.

ME: Take these four rupees and get me a cigarette from that pan-shop. Then I'll buy your tickets.

OLD MAN(eagerly taking the coins): Sure. I'll be right back.

Well, as it turned out, the three man standing ahead of me had come to buy the tickets together. Someone called them up on the phone and they cancelled their plans to watch the movie. SO, it left me standing in front of the queue. The man at the ticket counter asked me how many tickets I wanted. I was almost going to answer him when I remembered about the old man. "How many tickets?”, the man asked me.

What should I do. Should I buy the tickets; they'll cost me lesser. Or should I wait for the old man. I told him that I'll buy the tickets from him. "You don't want the tickets then let others buy. Don't just keep standing there", the man barked at me. I looked back but couldn't spot the old man anywhere. May be he just escaped with my money. You know how these people are.

"Four tickets please", I said and bought the tickets from him. Just as I turned there was the old man standing there, out of his breath and with the cigarette.

OLD MAN: Here's your cigarette. How many tickets did you say. Four. Here are the.........

His face went pale as he saw the tickets in my hand. He looked crestfallen.

OLD MAN: You told me you'll but the tickets from me.

ME: I thought may be you...

OLD MAN(Interrupting me, agitated):If you didn’t have to buy the tickets from me , you shouldn’t have bothered me. Its not only my wife who is ill. I am not well either. And I know this is an illegal thing but what else can an old and poor man like me do.

Saying this, he walked away into distance. Was he able to sell the tickets? I don’t know.

THE END

A day later, I was passing through that road again when I saw a crowd gathered at a place.

Seeing the commotion, I stopped to see what was going on.

As it turned out, a man had died on the street. People said he died of the cold in the night. As I looked closer, a chill went through my spine. It was the same old man who had tried to sell me the movie tickets that night.

But the question was, what killed him? Was it the night cold or was it...me. May be, if I had bought the tickets from him, he would have had enough money to feed himself and his wife. May be, he would have survived had I bought the tickets from him. But wait, why was I holding myself responsible. I did as I was taught. I didn't do a wrong thing. I did a practical thing. Anybody else would have done the same. I followed what was taught to me. Or may be, the rules were laid right but I didn’t interpret them correctly. When I was at the ticket counter ready to but the tickets, when the man at the ticket counter had pushed me to buy the tickets, may be that was the TEMPTATION I SHOULD NOT HAVE YIELDED TO. Was I helping him by buying his tickets or was he helping me. Knowing the morally and practically right things isn’t enough. What matters is your ability to judge everyday situations and apply what you think is right. This was the difference between knowing the right path and walking the right path. Following the righteous path is as confusing as it is tough. Its a thin line to walk.

“Does anybody know him? Where did he live?”, a man in the crowd asked.

“I know him. He didn’t have a home”, I said silently.

Conscience at crossroads

Chapter 1: Confession

I am not a thief. I try to earn a living for my family. My life has a meaning and I always wanted to achieve something better. Destiny painted me gray because it left me with no money. One harsh twist of fate left me penniless and I had to indulge myself in a painful activity which tested my conscience.

I pick pockets. I have a wife and a son and they still believe that I work in an insurance company. This is not the story of my expeditions and techniques, but this is the story that crushed the purpose of my existence.

Chapter 2: Beginnings

My father was the most respectable man in the neighborhood. He was hailed as an honest, principled peon in the government hospital situated in the heart of Chirag Delhi (an urban township in 1985). I was brought up near the slum- like government quarters allotted for unskilled employees. My father never denied me anything. He took pains to send me to a good school so that I could equip myself with proper knowledge which, he could never receive. All my materialistic demands were met, as my father would buy me expensive clothes and continued to adorn his ragged, torn dhoti wherever he went. My educational capabilities were below par but my father encouraged me to do better. If I scored very poor marks in a term, my father would go to the janitor’s room in the hospital and shed tears, but he would never show disappointment on his cheerful and gentle face. After many failures and relegations, I reached high school and since higher education was more expensive my father barely managed to pay my fees at school. At this crucial juncture my mother contracted pulmonary tuberculosis and after a few months she passed away in pain and suffering. My father’s dejection was uncontrollable after her demise and her sweet memories accentuated the agonizing void in our lives. Shortly my father suffered from bouts of pneumonia and doctors linked his failing health to the depression caused by my mother’s death. Days skimmed past our deprived lives making each day more difficult and nostalgic.

On the fateful night of August 15th the rain gods poured fresh water on the parched landscape, filling the roots of magnanimous old trees with precious crystal clear water, forcing the birds to abandon their quest to conquer the sky and allowing earthworms to jiggle through perforations, digging their trenchant heads through the tender soil like spiral wires. I arrived at my home in the dark, drenched and tired. My eyes fell on a new cycle placed magnificently on the entrance gleaming from the moon light that shone on its water soaked body. My dad had bought me my first cycle, spending his lifetime savings just to see a large gleaming smile on my face. When I rushed inside the house beaming with joy, I saw my father lying on the ground, soaked in rainwater which was streaming down his nostrils. His pulse was ticking but his body was as cold as a block of ice. He had braved the rain to buy me a birthday present. As I rushed him to the hospital his miserly heart gave up hope and his stubborn lungs refused to admit fresh air in its domain. My father’s last gesture hurt my sanity and this inexplicable grief ripped my heart apart. He was my life, he was my hero and he was my God. That day destroyed all elements of faith in me and since then I have trudged a path of deceit and dishonesty with an impassive heart and a trounced soul.

Chapter 2: Habits

My aunt brought me up after my father’s demise and I spent my youth by taking up menial jobs like selling papers and delivering eggs in the locality. The income I earned from these makeshift jobs would hardly fetch me a square meal. There were days when I would ask myself about the effort my father made to educate me and my utilization of such opportunities. Such questions would increase my desperation and deepened my grief. If I couldn’t study even after working hard in school, why was God sacrificing my happiness at crucial junctures in my life? Why did he take my father away? Why was I the only one to face the burden of incapability along with the loss of dear ones? Why did God deliver pain to my father in return for his honesty? Maybe, these questions have no answers.

My elder cousin was extremely obtuse and insufferable, yet he earned a lot of money. He claimed that he was an insurance agent but I always felt something ominous about his way of life. To unravel this mystery, I kept a close watch on my cousin for a week and followed him like a shadow. He lavishly spent money on filthy entertainment and extravagant food. The only thing he brought home was the salary of an insurance agent. Where exactly was he generating such a huge income? A week later, when I followed him to a bus I discovered his secret. He was the best pickpocket I had ever seen. In fact, his swift catch was so mind-blowing that one couldn’t guess what he was doing. This revelation meant instant wealth at the expense of others, but then fate had been cruel to me and principles had evaporated from my psyche leaving it high and dry. If destiny wanted me to redeem myself and feed myself at the expense of others I was not a parasite but, a social scavenger, one could borrow some hope from people by sharing his poverty. It did seem logical to me that if something is there to be picked, why one should hesitate to grab the opportunity. My starvation gleefully approved my thoughts. My downtrodden life groped for emancipation.

Through observation I mastered this malevolent art and in no time I developed a knack of picking wallets wherever I went. It came naturally to me and I perceived my victims as a bunch of clothes bearing wallets waiting to be picked. The element of risk seldom affected me as I assumed an innocuous semblance warding off any traces of suspicion. My initial conquests were unrewarding and a tinge of remorse downplayed my confidence but the instant returns helped me trounce my scruples. As riches poured in I moved in a modest rented house and as a token of appreciation for my aunt, I sent her gifts every month. This also served as my redemption. The loot sustained my parsimonious expenditure and helped me save some money for the future. Although it may seem that picking pockets would bestow marginal returns, smart pickups and clever prey selection served me well. Soon enough I was married into a poor, unsuspecting family and in no time I had a son and in the true sense, a complete family.

My cousin may have realized that I was using the same decoy (an insurance agent) but to protect his cover, he never asked me about the transition. And I enjoyed success until someone invented the credit card.

Chapter 3: Adaptation

To sustain an occupation, one needs to move with time and change with time. He has to improvise and invent methodologies to survive. After the invention of credit cards and debit cards and various other encrypted cards, my job became more difficult. My riches vanished, largely due to my lavish spending and I was barely able to provide for my family. My hunting grounds were busses and markets where electronic systems were still unconceivable. Even in such places many people carried empty wallets. Even if they had some money on them it was too scarce to even pay for a single meal. Instead of two or three wallets a week, I had to pick around 20-25 wallets in a week and selected random locations in order to avoid investigators, who may discover some sort of a pattern if I operated without caution.

Chapter 4: The final act

As the sun dipped to the horizon blurring its shape at the edges, birds dived through the hanging bliss of orange light decorating the outline of the sky. Every beautiful sight reminded me about the irony in my own life. It prompted my mind to harvest the crop of prudence, and yet my greedy senses groped for redundant pleasures. The bus roared to a stop near the busy fish market and new boarders ascended with a renewed hope of meeting their loved ones at the fag end of the day. It had been a particularly satisfying day for me, picking 23 pockets and collecting enough money to settle my account with the neighborhood grocer. I had decided to resign for the day when I spotted a natural prey.

This man was sitting just in front of me and his wallet was gleefully peeking out of the back-pocket of his pant. I removed the wallet in a flash when the bus jumped on a speed breaker, and held it firmly in my hand. As I got off at the next stop, I recovered its contents and threw the wallet off the bridge into the depths of the river Yamuna. Pleased with my latest catch, I reached for my back-pocket to produce my wallet. I was in for a shock. My wallet was gone! It took me some time to realize that my alacrity in stealing the alluring wallet had cost me my own wallet. As I turned my dejected face to see the bus dash past the bridge, I noticed a man running towards me. He was the fellow whose wallet I had picked. As I turned my face to avoid him, he waved, gesturing me to stop. He finally stopped in front of me and said “Hey mister, you dropped your wallet on the bus. It must have fallen from your pocket while you were getting off”. I was standing still as a stone from the fear of getting caught and doubted his intentions but he smiled and continued “Today is my son’s birthday. I was going to the market to buy him a cycle. I had to work overtime and withdraw a part of my life’s savings to pay for it”.”He will be so happy to see it”. “Anyway please take your wallet, and please don’t thank me, God is great and he always helps people in trouble”. Uttering these words he handed me the wallet and ran behind another bus to catch it. Before I had any time to react, the bus sped away on the road as if nothing in the world could stop it. All the contents in my wallet were intact. I was still clutching the crumpled notes stolen from the man’s wallet. The image of my father flashed in front of me. I staggered down the road with a blank face and a trampled soul. The money in my hand was representative of my sins.

My father would have hated me today…

Long live Mediocrity

When you just thought that things could never ever get worse, the HRD ministry has proven again that it can surprise you and surpass your wildest imaginations. Here’s the deal. 50% reservations for SC ST and OBC people in the hallowed offices of the IITs. When did anyone hear of such an outrageous act of defiance against the meritorious and the deserving? When you have not yet imagined the full fledged ramifications of the quota system, you see the final nail driven into the coffin of merit.

No points for anyone for guessing the fact that it’s an election gimmick. The elections are near and the government is unstable and they are desperate to use every last arrow in their quiver. But the arrows are not aimed at the enemy, but at self-destruction, at the heart of the country’s future. The UPA is unwittingly removing big chunks off the foundation of our nation. This point is an axiom. I don’t have to prove it. It’s so evident from their clause, which says that the rule can be revoked next year, if it is not filled ‘despite all attempts’. A sure-shot ploy to remove it after the elections next year.

Everybody knows that the IITs have pioneered India’s revolution in the education sector, especially in the IT sector. The brilliant students have no doubt been at the forefront of it. But the great minds behind the innovation have been the professors who have guided and shaped them to endure ordeals of humungous magnitudes. It is so thoroughly a disgrace for them to have comrades who share the prestigious podium by default because of their caste and not their grey-cells. There should be a limiting point for anything. Things should not be dragged infinitely. What is the basis in having the quota for professors? How are they going to justify this? What sense does it make to have a quota in teaching? The reason that everyone should be given equal chance to succeed should stop at the school level. They stretched it and got it into college. Even after providing so many undue chances, does a person still need some bypassing the merit list? If so, I feel that the person is a complete failure, not to have utilized all the opportunities thrown at him all along.

What next? salary to the ‘qualified professors’ for just sitting at home? I think that it would be a better option than to utilize their ‘skills’ and spoil the party. Just sit at home and have the cash. Don’t teach us and worsen our already precarious position. Already we are a nation filled with a huge chunk of mediocre and lazy people who want the government to provide everything free of cost from food, water, electricity to even satellite television and more recently color television. Our country has got a very small number of entrepreneurs and high thinking leaders for the population and intelligence pool that we have, compared to other countries. Does the government want to demean it even more? We are a country constantly in war with ourselves and it is left to the elite few to get back some semblance of sanity into our ravaged lives.

No one cares a dime about the country going to the dogs. It so thoroughly disgusts me to read such farces and gimmicks by the elected officials early in the morning when I open the paper. A very nice cartoon depicting the trust we have on our leaders has appeared in the Times today. A lie-detector fitted on the podium where a politician renders a speech. Aptly captures the mindset of the totally disgruntled reader who is so thoroughly helpless. Waiting for the dawn...

Snap

Half the lights were off and almost all cubicles empty. It was half past eight in the night and the only people remaining in the office were guys with deadlines staring at them or those who had nothing better to do in the outside world. Me? Well, I certainly don’t fall in the former category and I like to think that neither do I fall in the latter. In my case, its just that, this was due. Don’t understand that? Well, let me introduce myself. I am the Lord of work-shirkers. If ever there was a man who escaped from work to catch the six o’clock show or, for that matter, to go smoke while ogling at the neighborhood girls, I am the inspiration behind all that. Or, well, to be more realistic, if my Project Manager had the privilege of murdering someone without getting prosecuted, he would make me run circles before finally finishing me off.

So considering all that, I decided to stay back today just to see how it feels. To be honest it was a bit unsettling at first. It seemed like the whole world was passing me by as I sat here stagnated in my office. Another guy packed his bag and left. There was not a whisper to be heard. But gradually, a kind of quiet began to settle in my mind. This was new!! I felt a sense of belonging. I felt like exploring the office as if I was a tourist visiting an old fort. I wanted to see how it feels to have coffee alone at half past eight. I strolled to the coffee machine. It was off. So it was really that late!! I had outlasted the coffee machine today. Deeply satisfied I returned to my desk, packed my bag and left with a sense of triumph. As I stepped outside, I instantly felt the need for a smoke. I pictured myself proudly walking down the lane that leads to my house as lesser mortals sat fixated in front of their TVs in their underpants. Suddenly my phone rang. It was Nada. It feels good when you can brag about how hard you work in front of your friends. As for Nada. I knew he didn’t gave a f*** about all that. I picked up the phone.

Me: Hey, how’ve you been?

Nada: Stop this nonsense you asshole. Where the f*** are you. What’s all this noise?

Oh!!, before we go ahead, let me introduce Nada. First things first, I don’t have the slightest clue why we call him Nada. The name just stuck and I couldn’t care less about the reason behind its inception. He liked it, we liked it, that’s all that matters. He is a bizarre six and a half foot monster who tries to pass off as a likeable guy. Or is it the other way round!! Well, anyways, he is studying at IISc. I met him long before he crossed this realm of what was humanly possible. I mean c’mon, the guy is at IISc. We wasted away our lives in college, me more than him and ended up as two smoke machines who talked about all that never concerned them. As much as I hate to admit it, he was always right about things.

Me(With a smile): I am returning home from work.

Nada: What the f*** were you doing in office so late? Shagging off to some sleazy south Indian porn??

Hmm, didn’t knew the adjective ‘sleazy’ works with porn too. Ever heard of non-sleazy porn?

Me: Just stayed back for the heck of it. You know, should try everything at least once. What’s up with you?

This is how each of our conversations begin these days before we get transformed into two half-sober(half-intoxicated)guys smoking away in that room in the VNIT hostel.

Nada: Dude, hasn’t life become too mundane. Its like all I can remember is slogging my a** 10 hours a day.

Me: At least you are doing something purposeful, something you like. Look at me, its like I have hit a dead-end and there’s no way round it.

Nada(Made his thinking sound): I think its human tendency to get caught up in insignificant details. We miss the larger picture. Just think, even if you were in an MBA school, you would still be whining about the work load and stuff. May be its in our psyche to never get satisfied.

Me: Ya, you are right. But this is totally different. How do you define satisfaction? I think we both understand that our frustration does not root from lack of materialistic pleasures. May be its something much deeper, a longing for some unordinary experience. You know, something part of the larger picture. In that case we ain’t missing the larger picture, or are we?

It had happened. We had again started one of those talks that lead to nothing but gave us some intangible satisfaction. Well, satisfaction is always intangible so the word intangible here adds another level of ‘intangibilty’ to it. Or at least I think so.

I ‘was still strolling on the street outside my office. I felt no hurry to reach home. The cigarette had burned out so I immediately lighted another one.

Nada: I get what you are saying but unordinary experiences are appropriate once in a while as wake up calls from our deep slumber and not as part of our daily routine. May be our lives aren’t boring enough for something unordinary to happen just as yet. May be we aren’t born to lead adventurous lives.

I smiled at the thought.

Me: Ya sure, but routine leads to a certain comfort zone which can be dangerous. Men need doses of adrenaline to keep them on their toes.

I saw this beautiful girl standing some hundred meters from me. She was wearing a T-Shirt and a Jeans, had long hair and was standing near the bus stop as if waiting for a bus or an auto rickshaw. Needless to say, the information had to be passed on.

Me: Dude, the thing I am talking about is this. Now there’s a girl standing some distance from me. If this had been a chance encounter and I had been talking to her rather than you, that would have been exciting.

Nada: I understand. I am going through the exact same thing but don’t jump on her, for God’s sake.

Me(Laughing): Don’t worry. It takes a degree of insanity to do that and I am not drunk enough.

Meanwhile, I kept walking towards her. Obviously, that’s a male tendency (every guy does it, no exceptions).

It was nine o’clock now and the area looked deserted.

Nada: If she talks to you don’t cut the call man. Let me overhear. I promise I won’t make a noise.

The pun in his voice was unmistakable. Still, somehow I hoped it would come true. I was standing at a distance of some feet from her now. When you work in IT and still have no girl friend, you tend to hang on to the tiniest rays of hope.

Me: What would you have done if you were in my place right now? Doesn’t this have the potential to develop into something out of the ordinary?

Nada(Laughing his monster laugh): Dude, I am pretty sure nothing is going to happen. Not now not ever. Its as simple as that.

I heard a vehicle approaching us and wished it was not a bus as it would mean she would go and I would have to go too. I just wanted to stay there for a while talking to Nada as he shattered my confidence into pieces. Suddenly a jeep stopped right in front of us. Two policemen stepped out. They started saying something in Telugu which I did not understand. I didn’t knew if the girl knew Telugu and just stared at them. One of them approached me and to my utter disbelief held me by the shirt. The other one was shouting at the girl who also didn’t seem to understand a word of what he said. Before I knew, we were pushed into the jeep. I hadn’t cut the call and Nada was shouting at the other end. He didn’t understand either what was going on. In all this chaos, one of the policemen turned to me and reprimanded me in Hindi saying that he will teach me a lesson for engaging with prostitutes.

It all made sense in a flash. She was standing there alone on the deserted road in the night. What else it could have been!! What a fool I was not have realized that!!

As they drove us to the police station, I tried to argue my case with the policemen, but they were not in a mood to listen. The call was cut. I thought of calling Nada back but decided against it. How could he have helped me at this moment. I was furious at the girl, furious at myself and somehow furious at Nada. If he hadn’t called me at that time, I wouldn’t be here. In times of despair, one tends to lay the blame on anyone and everyone. Nada was not to be blamed of course, neither was I. I had asked for something unordinary in my life, and had got a spoon full of it.

Our hands were tied and the girl did nothing but sob all the way to the police station. She tried to convince the officers that she was not a prostitute but neither did they understand much Hindi nor did they let her speak much. After all, which whore would actually say she was one. I was stuck there with the policemen, the whore and staring at least a night in prison.

We were locked up in different cells. Nada kept on calling me incessantly but then they confiscated my cell and my wallet and all that was left of me was a ghost of a hapless man scared to death. In situations such as this, the biggest fear one has is of being ostracized. Physical wounds can never hurt as much as psychological ones. Even if I was proved innocent and let free, it would leave me with the fear of being ridiculed.

I heard a woman officer slapping the girl in the next cell. Now the girl had stopped talking. All she did was crying and the more she cried the more she got beaten. I felt a sense of hope that they would let me go free and deal with the whore afterwards. She was now the only one I was furious at. A policeman entered my cell. I could have shit in my pants right there. I did not know what to expect. Would he hit me, or just shout at me. I hoped he would just shout. Its strange how in dire straits, we hope for things which seem inconceivable normally. He slapped me so hard I fell to the floor. Two more knocks and I was rendered unconscious.

In the morning, I was let out of the cell, fined and let off with bitter words. My left eye was swollen and blood had dried under my nose. As I left, I saw the girl sitting in her cell, her face a mess from all the crying and slapping. She stared at the floor, no motion, nothing.

Last night felt like a distant dream. I remembered talking to Nada before the unthinkable happened. Upon reaching my flat, I washed up. As my roommate had gone to visit his parents in Delhi, I was alone. There was just one thing left to do. So I called Nada.

Me: Hey

Nada: What happened? What the f*** happened last night? Did you get into a fight or something?

I told him the whole incident. He was shell shocked.

Nada: What the fuck!! She was a whore. You should have slapped her twice before the policemen lay their hands on her. Are you OK now?

Me: Yes. I asked for it, didn’t I. Something out of the ordinary.

Nada: Relax yaar. It wasn’t your fault, you know that.

Me: Guess God was trying to tell us how blissful our ordinary lives are.

Friends visited and I told and retold them the story. It felt good to hear them say that I was innocent. Somehow, it reassured my faith in myself. It is at times like this that men are most vulnerable, they need someone to believe in them to regain their self esteem. Days passed and the wounds began to heal. I almost forgot about the whole incident. On a Sunday morning, I picked up the newspaper and ran through it quickly. On the local news page, something flashed before my eyes. It seemed unreal. There was the story of this girl who had been taken away by police while she was waiting for her friends on a street some days ago. They had mistaken her for a prostitute and put her behind the bars. A chill ran down my spine as I read the story. She had been mentally unstable since the incident and what I feared the most had happened. She had committed suicide.

I was almost unable to think for some minutes. I felt a rage of anger surging inside. I needed to shout, shout out aloud at the top of my voice wishing my throat would seize. I had been cursing the girl all this time and as it turned out, the real victim of the night was she, not me. Tears surged up, I began to perspire. The only thing I could think of at that time was calling up Nada.

Nada: Hey, what’s up punk.

Me: She committed suicide.

Nada: Who?

Before I could answer, he knew it. For a minute there was silence on both sides. It was the first time we had failed to talk to each other.

When we are little kids we are taught to be considerate, to look out for each other. The truth is, when we face things on which we have no control, it all comes to nothing. Man is said to be a social animal but society to man is only useful as long as he is not threatened. Under threat, we are beasts, our notion of help and social morals dropped at the first sign of danger. Then all we know is that we have to escape, at any cost. That is what I did with that girl. We learn all the crap in schools and life needs just one moment to show what a mockery we have made of ourselves. This is how life, in a snap, can take away the rosy picture we have painted for ourselves and show us how we look when stripped of the fakeness with which we carry ourselves around.

It was the first time Nada had let me talk on for so long and as I told him this, I knew it was instantly true. At last he spoke.

Nada: Out of the ordinary experiences are meant to teach us lessons which we should follow in our ordinary lives. You learnt it, what else can you ask for.

As always, Nada was once again right.

A path less trodden

So, what do I write about after more than a year’s hiatus? Well, it’s going to be another religious blog. But no, this is not going to be just another piece that wants to bash either side for the heck of it. This is what I am writing to myself. To provoke my consciousness, and probably remind me of what I thought of the whole process on this particular day and age, of my swing between atheism and agnosticism. When I say agnosticism, it’s more towards atheism and more about why things are the way they are and about a sense of belonging that is still hard to totally get rid of (I know I don’t make much sense here, but so does religion).

What makes us have such a misplaced trust in religion? Why is it the only area of hope? Most people have placed the argument of a mental satisfaction and sense of calm arising out of religion. But that is because you have trained it in that particular way. Evolution says that even without religion we would think on the same lines and have the same values. (Now, those who say that there is no evolution and that the earth is 6000 years old and all the fossils were planted there can stop reading here. I am not even talking to you. You are beyond hope and I really admire you for your profound dumbness). And no one can answer this better than Dawkins in his god delusion. I have always thought about how we would behave without law and order which he talks about in his book. We are basically ethical beings, who want to protect our gene and this is actually the basis of altruism. Hence, we don’t need religion to be good. Rather, we can use religion to be evil. Like jihad, religious violence, witch-hunting, sati, killing for apostasy and so many other things that make a bottomless list.

You say that god is all-powerful, has the knowledge of the past, the present and the future. But excuse me, what are we doing here with our lives? Richard Dawkins put forward this argument in his book that god can’t be omnipotent and omniscient at the same time. If he is omniscient, he has an all pervading knowledge that makes him realize our future. But at that very moment he ceases to be omnipotent, because he is not potentially changing anything that happens in the future, because he already knows that how it is going to happen due to his omniscience. Even assuming that there is a god and that he is omniscient, what is his purpose in creating life and letting it flourish in all directions, but still knowing everything that is going to happen to them. What is the fun? Unless he is a megalomaniac trying to display his power, this is not a very intelligent thing to do. Or he is so childish that he is playing ‘world’ in his spare time? (Spare time from what?) And to think of it, he does not even have other gods to show off to! Another analogy, under the assumption that there is a god and he is omniscient, is that is he knows all then future and everything that is going to happen, then what is the use of us praying to him? Since, he already has a predetermined course, your prayer is of no consequence in his master-plan. And assuming that your prayer is heeded, why would a god whom you portray as an embodiment of perfection, choose you over someone who is much more deserving, and has worked harder to reach that level. If he does that, I don’t think great of a god who values your devotion to him higher than the hard work required to achieve it. I see a megalomaniacal person on the brink of bigotry. You can ask me, ‘what is the purpose of life?’ It’s mind-blowing and simple. There is no purpose in life. Life was a random chemical accident. Well, not exactly random since statisticians will be quick to point out that randomness is not random. Ok, chemical accident. Probably you were told that you have a greater purpose in life so that you don’t ‘randomly’ kill yourself. I think that life runs for survival and survival runs for life. That’s the perfect couple there.

Throughout our parables and mythology, we have come across gods who are less than perfect. They fight, they kill each other, cheat their enemies, destroy enemy families, are jealous, sometimes cowardly and other such attributes that I would not associate with someone I am supposed to worship. Well, why should I? This also brings us to an interesting aspect. You cannot deny the above mentioned attributes, since they are recorded. You cannot also ask me to neglect such aspects and concentrate on just higher philosophies, because they are based on these basic facts. The whole story of the god’s imperfection, their constant bickering with each other and them trying to propagate their ideology has an uncanny resemblance to contemporary kings. I am greatly persuaded to believe that the great philosophers and writers who wrote down the scriptures merely reflected the persona of the society they were living in. It could be a tribute to the various kings who guided the life and their conquests. Another aspect that points towards this is the morals and the kind of living that pervaded in the society, which is reflected in the books. They just put forward what was best according to them. Though we conveniently neglect theses irregularities and say that times have changed, we still retain the god aspect of it. In reality, we have regressed more into the ritualistic aspect of it.

It s totally not right to base our life on some Stone Age and bronze ages books. Take the Vedas for example. The scholars who have done extensive research on them give an estimated date of 1500 BC for the earliest of them, the Rig Veda. Some other proponents of Out of India Theory date even back by a couple of millennia. And our very own Vedic philologers give an estimate of of 10000 to 15000 BC for them. More the reason to lose faith in these texts, which are nothing but hymns in praise of the celestial Agni, Indra, Vayu, Ashwinis and prescribe methods for animal and other ritualistic sacrifices. I think this is totally unacceptable since what we are doing is precisely praying to nature. Why don’t you guys pray to electricity, magnetism, volcanic eruptions and earthquakes? They are also a part of nature and deserve their rightful status in front of the wind god, fire god, lightning god and rain god. It’s because there was no electricity or magnetism in the minds of the ‘authors’ then. This proves my point right that the texts are contemporary worship manuals. I think most present day pious people will be offended to hear that it contains a whole chapter on soma, which was predominantly known to be psychosomatic. If not that, at least a mind-altering drug. Even conservatively assuming that all they did was produce extreme mental stimulation and high sense of alertness, it can still be associated with banned stimulants like steroids. The Brahmins were said to have used them in their study and temples prepared them on a regular basis. And one theory even talks about the movement of Mesopotamians to India because of the abundance of soma there. So going by today’s standards, I can’t use them. This is just another example to show that these books are contemporary literature and contains what the society believed in.

The Vedas are also said to be sanatana and apurusheya, meaning eternal and not man-made. The explanation is that every time the universe is destroyed and created anew, Brahma hands it over to the next set of people. So in the sense, they don’t have a beginning. So, why doesn’t he make that special appearance once again and solve this problem once and for all. Again, we are said that the Vedic society was virtuous and we are in kali yuga and god does not set foot on this dump anymore, other than to destroy it. Well, going by present day standards, we can’t call them very virtuous. They practiced ritualistic animal sacrifice, used hallucinogens/stimulants, practiced rampant polygamy, polyandry and above all had a flourishing caste system, which people placed in high regard. Religious practitioners (aka rishis) cursed and turned people to stones without any remorse, regret or regulations (supposedly). Kings could take anyone to be their concerts and sex was out in the damn open. The society which considers premarital sex immoral and multiple sexual partners in a lifetime as a great immorality needs to take a peek at the Vedic society that practiced that, before calling them the best of times. The whole point of the above tirade was to question the sanctity of these Bronze Age (Iron gets mentioned only in the later day yajur veda) texts and their dominance of our lives.

Now, what about karma? I don’t have any need to go into the specifics of karma. Why would you want to believe in such a concept? Because you were told to? Imagine your dad keeps beating you all the time, but will not tell you why he is doing that. So, you keep thinking that you are being whacked for something you did wrong, but don’t know what (unless your dad is a weirdo or sadomasochistic bastard). Imagine you become amnesiac sometime in your life. Imagine that you are incarcerated for the rest of your life for some crime you did before you lost your mind. That would be some good ‘purpose of life’, wouldn’t it? Or even imagine a 75 year old man incarcerated for a rape he committed when he was 18. There is no point. That’s the same with karma. It’s stupid to be punished for what you did in your previous birth, even if something like that exists. I rest my case.

P.S. I haven’t capitalized god deliberately. And I have a lot more to write, but not in this one.