A HEALTHY CONVERSATION

Me - Dear God.. What is love?

God - Dear human.. love is a myth ! At least now it is.

Me - I don't understand. Why now?

God - Firstly, I didn't create the word. I created the feeling. Much similar to how I created Anger, Lust and Hatred. A feeling is omnipresent. You humans have started describing this feeling through this word. More importantly, love is not always between a boy and a girl.

Me - Even if it is between a boy and a girl, I still don't understand why it is a myth.

Aphrodite - I will tell you. The world that you live in does not adjust. There are no sacrifices. People just don't care. They mistake infatuation for love. Just because someone is good to you doesn't mean you should fall in love with them. That stage is called respect.

Me - What are you talking about? I have friends. I care for them. I can sacrifice a lot for them, and I still do.

Parvati - You do that. How many people around you would do that? We are living in Kalyuga. This is as far the civilization can go. Twenty years ago there used to be big families, people used to stay together, eat together, live together. Do you know what has given way to this disintegration ?

Me - Practicality. Everyone wants freedom. Everybody has their own thinking. It's better to stay away and be in good terms than live together and keep fighting.

Aphrodite -  So that proves that people now don't sacrifice.

Me - Umm... Maybe! But that's not what I was talking about. I was talking about "Love" in a relationship.

Eros - Ok let's talk about relationships. You were in one. At that time you felt she was everything. But then what happened? Things didn't work out. At that time you used to think you are in love and now you are not. This is not the feeling that I created. Love is ephemeral. It does not start or stop. That's why I say that it is a myth.

God - What is your take on friendship ?

Me - Don't ask me. For me it is everything. I am happy when I am with friends. I feel relaxed. You could see my true self then. I would go to any extent to make my friend happy.

God - That is what I call love. The point is, you can love anybody, not just a girl. As long as there is one person in the world who loves you in this sense, you should be happy. But people today are not contempt with anything. They want a partner. This time they mistake lust for love!

Me - Now you have confused me. First you said that love is a myth and now you are saying that you can love your friends. What is going on?

Kamadeva - Complications are in your head my son. I can see everything very clearly from here. Everything in this world is temporary, only feelings are not. People do things that make them happy. You should do things that makes everyone happy. Once everybody realizes this, there will be nothing but love!

Me  - You can see clearly? From where ? Where are you?

ALL - I am in you.

Me - What? Who are you?

ME - I am YOU!

India, Hierarchy, and the North Pole!

It's quite evident that India is rowing through a host of social, economic, political and what not issues today. There are differences with neighboring countries (Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh), non-neighboring countries(Italy, Iran, Israel), or for that sake, even within the country. The GDP is diminishing, poverty rates increasing, illiteracy left manhandled and political fiasco. Cricketers are criticized, Cricketing events are criticized, ministers are screwing up. We can pretty well say that we are, if not approaching, surely headed toward the doomsday scheduled at the end of the year. But trust me, all this is absolutely NOT what I am going to put up in this post :D (which you would have been guessing by the title) I think that is better left for the experts and the tabloids.

In fact, it's entirely abstract - based on general observation. Let me start with a line - "It all slows down at the top !" Let's see how I can relate India, hierarchy, and the North Pole to justify it. What makes up for a complete cycle of night and day? I think we can roughly say it's Dawn, Day, Dusk and Night (ignoring other phases if there are , any). Dawn spans usually for 3-4 hours, similar for Dusk and the rest of the time divided between day and night. Thus making up for the complete 24 hr cycle. But all this is where we are, where we live. Have we ever wondered if this cycle is the same everywhere? Or Not? Let's say, perhaps, at the North Pole too?? It will be really interesting to note that a whole day at north pole is actually one calendar year. Which means we have 3 odd months of Dusk, similar for dawn, and roughly 4 months each of daylight and no-light ! All this has something to do with Earth, Sun and Geography. But the point here is, if we start living somewhere at the North Pole , a normal 24 hr day would get extended to 365 days. Would that mean going by the normal standards, we would brush our teeth once a year, probably bathe once in 2 years, or going further, eat just once in 3 months?? I think it would be convenient now to say that life has considerably slowed down as we moved toward the top!

Let's talk about Hierarchy now. Something which most of us would readily associate to would be a corporate one. We join as Trainees, become Technical Analysts (or TAs), move on to become Team Leads (TLs) and then finally Project Managers, Senior Project Managers, Group Project Managers (PMs, SPMs, GPMs etc etc). I think all of us would agree that the ones who ploughing the fields are the Graduate Trainees - fresh into the organization (with little salary), and doing most of the laborer's work. They can be made to sit for long hours and do most of the technical stuff. As they become TAs and TLs, life becomes easy - there is more pay, less work, usually involving supervision of the fresh entrants and allotting work to them. Climbing further still, the PMs have to do most of the tracking work, maintaining files, reports etc. The SPMs hold occasional meetings and discuss general agendas. The ones who leave office earliest are the GPMs and other seniors. I think here too we can say that life slows down as we move to the top? In this case, the corporate ladder.

Now let's take another example - concerning India ( as that is what's left now :] ) . This one is solely based on experience and is absolutely open to criticism. Let's talk about Mumbai and Delhi. The latter being above (to the north ) the former. Try going at any important local station in Mumbai on a Sunday even as early as 5 am in the morning, and you will see people flooding from everywhere - in short, the place being completely crowded and everyone in a hurry - to go to god-knows-where ! Now compare this to Delhi, step out at 9am (obviously again on a Sunday ) even at the heart of the city, the Cannaught Place, and you will see it almost deserted. People just don't care to get up. And it's also a well observed fact that people in North take life slowly - they are more of the relaxing type. And this does not in any sense mean that I am condemning the Mumbai lifestyle - in this case its just a comparison between two different ways of life. Coming back to the topic, I think this would also somehow justify the statement that things slow down as we move to the top !

Three different examples, from three completely different spheres, still all coming down to the same conclusion. Makes me feel if everything is somehow bound by a set of universal laws that govern everything. We can see their applications in all subjects related to the Universe. Let me leave you with a commonly known phrase and leave it to you whether you can somehow relate it to what we have already discussed.

"The ladder of success is never crowded at the top!"

So what do you make of it ?

There is always a plan, and there are two things associated with it. Firstly, it is extremely hard to discover it, and secondly, even if you do find that out , you damn sure won't be able to follow it.

The Wor(l)d, Literally ! does not and will never post any of my personal experiences ever. It's all about pragmatism. In life, in everything. Some of those facts are stated below. You are free to ridicule them, although you may find it hard to do so.

1 . I am sure a majority of the people reading this are either students, or working professionals. I myself am one, working in an IT company. Believe me there is hardly ever any time to do all this. But it's all about the choice. I'll come back to that later. So we all have our workplaces. Next time when you go to the cafeteria for the afternoon lunch just strain your eardrums a bit and concentrate on the voices you hear around you. And soon enough you will realize that half the world around you is always complaining. If it's college, then the culprits would be parents, or girlfriends, or appeasing to those who don't have one, girls! It could have been the other gender as well but since I am one of them, I would rather use this one. Anyway, if it's office, then there are salary issues, incompatible flat-mates, room-mates, and yet again, girls! The point is in our daily life we are so bugged by these everyday matters that we forget to live, stay happy, and enjoy. If we have a hundred reasons around us to stay sad, then we do have a couple more to stay happy. You would more likely be complaining about having to wash the clothes than exult over the fact that you atleast know how to. It's always about what we choose to control us. Thus, the choice!

2. The evergreen adage that the grass is always greener on the other side never goes on deaf years. And yes, I do mean years. If you think about it, you probably have what you wanted five years back. But in those five years so many more desires have cropped up that the same accomplishment seems so diluted. When we were five, we wanted a cyle. Sooner or later, we had it. Then there was the desire to sit on the front seat whenever someone got the car out. After that, controlling the stearing or probably the gear box while dad was still driving meant everything. And we never really got satisfied till we got to learn to drive. All these things are inevitable, and part of growing up. And this still does not explain the common phrase. What explains it is that there are so many other things that we associate with this growing up that we realize were never a part of growing up and we never really had to gorge on them. When you're alone, you want friends. When you have them, you want girlfriends. When you have it all, there comes a time when you want some time for yourself. If you're living with parents, you want to live independently. If you do, you want them to be around. The very people who you love being with while meeting once or twice a day become ________ when you start living together. I guess we all would fill the blank with a different word. Two things can be concluded from here. Firstly, the lesser we expect, the happier we are. Secondly, too much familiarity breeds contempt!

And these two points will have the limelight in the next writeup.

PS - Like I said, you may find it ridiculous, but you cannot completely disagree with me!