Dialogue with God

One day when I was alone at home there was a great thunder and lightning. From nowhere God appeared before me and the following conversation followed:

I: Am I really looking at you God?
God: Provided you are not squint.

I: (adjusting my eyeballs) Why didn’t I ever see You before?
God: Maya had blinded you.

I: Actually I don’t like playing the blind man’s buff but its difficult saying no to beautiful girls. By the way, what brings you down here?
God: Gravity.

I: Please be seated.
God: Thank you.

I: Sorry, I shouldn’t be asking you this but I am too eager to know whether you are Jesus, Mohammad, Ram or someone else.
God: I am none of them. I am God. (Then reading my confusion) The people you just mentioned were not Gods; they were ordinary people like you, who dedicated their lives for the people around them.

I: Then what exactly are you?
God: I told you I am God. I belong to the kingdom of Gods which is up there in the sky.

I: How different are you from either of the Gods that we worship?
God: You seem to be a very ignorant person. Let me start with the basics.

I: I have already learnt BASIC at school.
God: Shut up and just listen to me. You see there are two kingdoms; one that of Gods and the other is yours, the Earth. The names of people you were chanting belong to the Earth and not our kingdom. They took birth on the Earth and died there. Why are you hooked on to the names of people dead centuries back? Even in the recent past there were people of similar creed namely, Mahatma Gandhi and Mother Teresa. Going by your logic even these people should have been called Gods. Then why aren’t these people worshipped?

I: For us God is the one with paranormal powers. Because of our sincere prayers one day He would come down here and destroy all the evils, restore order and make this world a better place to live. He would arrive very much like you. Just before you arrived, there was thundering and lightning i.e. to say that the whole world know that God is here.
God: Oh! That was not exactly lightning. The flashes of light were generated when I encountered friction as I entered the Earth’s atmosphere with great speed. And it thundered when I crash landed on your roof top. Good thing you mentioned about the prayers, I request you to stop praying. Your prayers that are directed towards us adversely interfere with our radio frequencies and we can’t listen to the songs sung by the fairies. And as it is none of us Gods are interested in your worldly matters and don’t expect us to help you out with your problems. If you are genuinely want to change the world then stop wasting your time in prayers. Utilize the same in trying to inculcate the virtues of Jesus, Mohammad and Ram. In short, try becoming better and self reliant human beings rather than vehement followers of a certain God. (Glancing at his wrist watch) I think I should leave now else I would miss a great dance number by Mandakini.

Then as God left there a blinding brightness and I somehow managed to open my eyes to watch Him go, only to see the sun peeping through my bedroom window.

(written sometime in 2000-2001)

Rang de Basanti (an email)

I feel the whole set up has a purpose. I mean different countries, states within a country and so on. The purpose is that since it's difficult to govern large territories they are subdivided so that managing a small region is a feasible task. And assuming that all such small regions would run asexpected the country/world as a whole is a better place to live in.
So it all boils down to how disciplined you are. How much we as individuals follow the rules set up. There's no real need to worry about things that are beyond your reach. If you cannot do anything about militants/naxalites waging a war against supposedly equally atrocious government, you worrying about it is anyway not going to solve the problem. We should be more worried about what we are capable of doing but aren't quite disciplined to do it. These could be simple things like, not littering, obeying traffic rules, paying the tax to name a few. If you feel you are following these, then you could possibly think about changing the things immediately around you.
There's nothing wrong with the system. There are laws and if people break laws there are people who have to ensure that this doesn't happen. But problem is the people. At least somewhere you need an honest person else no matter how many levels of supervisors you have nothing would go as per law.
I don't believe leaders ever have decided the fortune of a stateor country, it's the people who decide it. After all leader is not an outsider, it's one amongst them. Like they say in cricket, a captain is only as good as his team. Now India has it's best playeras the captain but then he can't change the fortunes for us. The rest of the players have to understand their responsibilities.

(written- 1st Feb '06)

The end of good times (an email)

Today our project ended officially. Unofficially it ended 2-3 daysback. It was not an ordinary end. Palm, whose project we were working on has terminated its contract with HPS. Prior to this there were around 150 people working on the various Palm projects now, only 20-30 remain that too as buffers. As a result all the contract people have been sent back and only we CDACians are retained.
The bad news is that our team that composed of 14 people has been disintegrated. Of course most of the contract people that worked in our team have secured a job in other companies. But then the loneliness here is unbearable. In our block we were 8 people and there used to be so much of commotion. There used to be papers scattered everywhere. Now the desks are so clean and the whole block is so silent as if it was this way since years. It's very much like some remote railway station. A train comes and there's activity all over. After a few minutes the train leaves and everything goes so quiet.

(written- 29 Aug '03)

The corridor

i was walking along the corridor when i saw a door.initially i was apprehensive abt walking in. so i onlypushed a little and peeped thru. there were allstrangers inside and i feared they were too good forme. i felt i could never get along with them.
but very soon things changed. i started enjoyingtheir company. i walked inside and we were having agreat time together. we were not at all concerned abtwhat was happening outside the room. the room was likethe whole world for us.
then i knew it was time to leave. the room that wasonce everything to me had closed, probably forever.when i looked back, i saw that in the dark there wereseveral such rooms that lay closed.
i continued walking down the corridor. in thedistance i could see yet another door, awaiting to beopened i suppose. i wonder when is this corridor goingto end and where is it going to take me to.

(written sometime in Feb '02)

Discovering a new corner in my old room

yesterday i discovered a new corner in my room atpune. somehow i had never seen it during the 6monthsthat i spent there. as expected it was in one of thecorners of the room. when i went there what i foundwas quite familiar but something that i had alwaysmissed in pune. there was loneliness out there.
u know when i reached pune i was expecting everyoneto be there. let me tell u, we used to be 8 peoplestaying there. but when i entered there was just onefellow there. everyone else had left for their homes.and that person too was leaving the next day(today). ijust cant tell u what i felt at that moment, used tostaying with 7 others and now marooned on an island,surrounded on all sides by loneliness.
but then there was something to cheer abt too. wheni entered my room, all papers and chits were scatteredaround on the floor. and it was a great feeling topick them up one by one and then re-living those timesall over again. plz note that most of the chits datedback to our early days in pune, written for somereason or the other. and not to forget there was thatodour that is always associated with places. i dontknow whether u have ever felt the same abt places. themoment i entered my room the odour took me a fewmonths back in time. and all those events seemed as if they were a story of yesterday.

(written sometime in Feb '02)

Two years in Bangalore (an email)

Yesterday I completed 2 years in Bangalore. Whenever I look back at time it's like you have been blind folded and made to walk. When you open your eyes you have crossed a mountain you would have never dared to cross with your eyes open. Atleast, I would have never agreed to spend the next two years of my life in Bangalore especially with majority of my friends in Mumbai.
Still remember being very critical of this city mainly due to poor public transport (compared to Mumbai) and non Hindi speaking people. However, got accustomed to life here and became more tolerant rather indifferent to the inadequacies. Today I can wait 15-20 minutes for a bus without getting frustated :)
On the positive side of it, Bangalore has given me a job and more importantly given me an opportunity to pursue sports. Without sports life is really miserable, atleast I find it similar to walking on a tread mill; no matter how fast you walk you are going to nowhere. Now that I am in my company's cricket team and also learning lawn tennis, I feel life's become worth living. Afterall wherever you live these things matter more, you should have friends around you and you should be doing what you love the most, rest all things can be compromised.
How long I am going to continue here... no idea. I am too lazy and therefore dislike 'parivartan'. I won't take a turn unless the road ahead of me turns :)

(written- 5th Nov '04)

Irony

A flower bloomed in the deep jungle somewhere
A place where finding flowers was quite rare
Even then the flower was very sad
For this a valid reason it had

Whenever it looked around
It admired the thorns abound
And wondered when it would get as strong
May be in its design something was wrong

It hated itself for the ease with which the birds kissed it
And esteemed the thorns for the way they could resist it
It was never content with the way it was
And withered one day its heart filled with such gloomy thoughts

But the thorns were awed by the way the flower had lived
It bloomed it kissed which they never did
They wished their hearts were soft and tender
Like the flower which for them was no less than a wonder

(written- 24th Mar '06)

Untitled

There rose a star on the Eastern sky
It's heart filled with ambitions so high
It wanted to change the world
And do things never before heard

It knew it had to leave a mark
By bringing light in this world gone dark
It thought, there ain't a nobler deed
Than helping people in need

But soon it began to realise
That all it had done was to rise
While the world remained as dark as ever
The height taking it away from it's purpose forever

"Such an unworthy life I have led
That it's better to be dead
With this thought it plunged into the sea
And set its remorseful soul free

The same night a sailor was in the bay
And with the help of this star had found his lost way
Blessed are the ones he said
Who show way to people who have strayed

(written sometime in Jul '05)

Random Thoughts

I won’t say that today I am a successful person. Neither in the eyes of the world nor in my self’s eyes. But I am headed to be successful, as the world perceives it. However, long ago I have lost track of what would have been a truly successful life/career for me.
As a child I had heard that at anytime in our life there are two voices talking to us, one that of our heart and the other of our brain. I could never comprehend the difference between the two, in fact I never heard any of these voices or so I felt. When I look back I feel that these voices were always there. I couldn’t correlate that these were the same voices that people were referring to.
I think, today I pretty well know what these voices are all about. Here’s how I classify them: in general your heart’s voice is what you intuitively feel about anything around you be it people, events etc. It is the one that suggests you what to do irrespective of the consequences of your stand. It doesn’t take into account what the world would think about it nor does it care about it. On the other hand your brain always advises you to do what would be acceptable in the world. It tries to take into account possible factors, weighs the consequences and then suggests a solution that would involve minimum risk, minimum difference of opinion and would be most beneficial thing to do in the prevalent circumstances.
Going by the above definitions most of us would be inclined to follow what the brain says since it is the most right thing to do. Rather than ‘right’, it is most advantageous to act that way. Whereas listening to your heart involves risk of failure, dread of being ridiculed by people etc. Somehow the heart often suggests things that the world finds difficult to accept. May be the world and our conscience were developed by different Gods.
Coming back to the point, all these years I have been listening to what my brain had to say. I am talking in context of my career decisions. I remember, as a child I never dreamt of getting into the Software world. I had wished that I could do something for my country. Like a normal child even I had my idols who had done their country proud. I either wanted to become a cricketer or join the Indian Army. But my brain told me that the most secure thing to do would be to have a good academic record and then get a job based on that. And I have done that.
I would like to mention that there’s nothing wrong in following the brain. There’s no materialistic loss in it. But I feel like I am lost. I don’t have any aims in life. It’s like I am in a desert where people tell me ‘your next aim should be that particular sand dune’. I don’t understand what’s the big deal; after all even from there I am going to see the same sand all around. The dream of serving the nation is overshadowed by these petty aims.
It’s challenging to conquer newer and higher sand dunes. Performing well at job or making a century both would make me happy. However, it’s my personal opinion that the intensity won’t be the same. Certainly I won’t daydream about how would I do a certain task, the way in cricket I have over and over dreamt about playing an inning, before the actual match. The same way failures won’t haunt me for days altogether. The only advantage of doing a job in software is that I have become more spiritual in the sense that I don’t worry about the results I only perform my deeds.
Practically speaking do these things matter? What difference does it make if I don’t have any aims of my own? There are well wishing who tell me what to do and how to get ahead in life. I don’t think these thoughts are important as long as I don’t have the courage to follow my dreams. Such random thoughts keep coming to our minds what really matters is what you do in life. If thoughts made people I guess we would have had a Sachin Tendulkar in every lane of our country.

(written sometime in Jun '04)