Kaabel

That is how the world is.' Kaabel thought to himself.
Not that he had never heard of that before, it was just that he realised it and it went deep down his understanding. Standing alone amidst the woods in late autumn, contemplating, observing nature, this fact dawned on him.

Kaabel was dejected with life and he had multiple reasons to be depressed. Firstly, he had lost his job due to economic turmoil. Secondly, this had spiralled into various other problems, he had become impatient so much so, that his girl friend broke up with him. Friends were few and had distanced a bit owing to their busy schedules. Parents seemed to be sarcastic towards him and his approach to life.

All this was in stark contrast to the time when his career was on a high. Everyone who was a critic now was an admirer then. Kaabel felt lonely. He felt like ending it all. He walked to solitary places searching solace. Once while he was at a place with barren trees around him, he observed that birds flew away from those dry trees. Perhaps the same birds nested in those trees when the trees were green. 'That is how the world is.' Kaabel thought to himself.

He felt one with the lonely, desolated, barren trees. He discovered some solace. He stood there contemplating when he felt a connect with the trees and communication happened. The trees conveyed a message to Kaabel. The largest and the oldest tree said, 'Although we are barren and feel lonely, we stand strong. What you see today as dry and dead will be green, growing and generous to the world again, soon. Kaabel, all you need to do is survive and stand strong.'

Kaabel hugged his saviour and let his emotions flow free. After that motivational session with his new found friends, he stood strong and decided to be generous towards the world rather than being bitter.

First Crush

I had just turned 16 and shifted to a new locality where I saw this cute girl about a year or two younger than me. I realised how sweet sixteen makes you fall in love at first sight.
I used to cycle around, looking at her at the window and occasionally I would dare to smile. I hoped she would smile back, or come down so that we could talk. The best thing about her were her eyes. They were beautiful, they had a certain melancholy to them. I started smiling at her more often. She never returned my smile. I knew she was hard to impress.

One day, she stunned me. She was waiting for me to come out. We looked at each other. Our eyes looked into each others'. She was ready. She flew a paper plane towards me. I went absolutely crazy at God's generosity.
I cycled full speed to pick the best airplane in the world. I unfolded the plane.

It read,
"I am 15 and married to the 51 year old man who you think is my father. I like the way you children play. Stop smiling at me and have no hopes."

I looked up to where she was. Tears rolled down my eyes and she wiped hers. For the first time, she gave me a smile. My heart crushed that day. I realised what freedom was. I wanted to help her.
It was far beyond me....my first crush.

HINDU RASHTRA

There is too much noise around me. I can sense confusion, certainty, agenda, marketing, religion, politics, all at once. No wonder then, there is confusion in the air. There are big words like intolerant, secularism, pseudo-secular, terrorism and its types, divisive politics, religious appeasement, biased media and more. The reason why I consider them big words, is because they're absolutely unfathomable. These words have multiple connotations and are being used in varied contexts by so many influential people, that a common citizen of India gets all muddled up.

Well, it's the election season. Canvassing and anti-canvassing are part and parcel. But I feel that from the past three years or so, there's a lot of noise on a particular topic - 'Hindustan - A Hindu Rashtra!?.' I must say, I was and I am quite intrigued and curious to understand. Now all the words I mentioned above have been used multi-million times everyday around 9:00 PM in almost every household of the country. The members of these families have been passive listeners and active thinkers.

What is the debate?
"India should be a Hindu Rashtra." There are influential people who either go with the motion or against it. I am a common Hindustani. I listened, I read, I thought, I tried, to understand. So to start with, I feel there's a need to understand the word 'HINDU' in 'HINDU Rashtra'. Where does this word come from? Is it only limited to religion? or Is there more depth to the word 'HINDU'?
According to what I have understood, HINDU is the area between Himalayas and Indusagar (Indian Ocean). Therefore, H + Indus becomes Hindus. This means Hindustan is a country which lives between these. SO Hindu is not just a religion. Everybody who was born and brought up here is a Hindu by geography. I am a Hindu by birth(geographically).

I also feel that every country has a culture. American culture means the American way of life. Japanese culture means the Japanese way of life. Similarly Hindu culture means the Hindu/Indian way of life. To understand this point, let us take marriage as an example. According to statistics, nearly 50% of marriages in America end up in divorce. Americans accept divorcees without judging them. They don't see divorce as morally wrong rather they consider it as practically correct.  Whereas in India the divorce rate is as low as around 1%(source - India Today 20 November 2018). Irrespective of any religion one practices in India, divorce is rare. I don't wish to get into what's right and wrong about divorce. That's another debate. But marriages in India exist generally until death separates the two. Everyone in India irrespective of their religion, works upon her/his marriage and divorce is the last and least possibility. This attitude comes from culture. That is an example of Indian (Hindu) culture. The reason why I cite America and India is that both these countries are democratic and both have citizens following various religions. Hence HINDU is a culture. A christian in India is christian by religious following but HINDU by culture(you may replace any other religion with christian). I am  HINDU by culture.

Is there any other reason why we are a HINDU rashtra? YES.
Let me explain with another metaphorical example. India has been known as an agrarian nation even when Agriculture has had lesser contribution to GDP (labour productivity wise and actual contribution). We are agrarian because more than half of Indian employment has been generated by the Primary (Agro-based) sector. When majority of the population is agrarian, we are known as an agrarian nation. In the same way, when nearly 80% population in this country follows Hinduism as a religion, we become a Hindu rashtra. I am a HINDU by my religious following as well.

This HINDU RASHTRA respects each religion, belief and spirituality. It accepts the believer, the athiest and the agnostic as well. Therefore the debate that 'Are we a HINDU Rashtra?' is a no-debate. There is no doubt about it. We are what we are, HINDU - by Geography, by Culture and by majority population's faith.

The Balance

India is a happy nation and more so, today. I can sense a certain satisfaction on the faces around me after how Indian Air Force has avenged the Pulwama attack. Personally, I also feel very calm after what was done. I am an observer and in the process I sense and feel the nerve of people.

After Pulwama, the general nerve amongst the common Indians was that they wanted action, revenge. People easily spoke words like war, mass-killing, cross border activity and what not. Cuss-words, abuse were almost used like prefixes and suffixes.  People were dejected and angry. But they were also hopeful that this government would do something. Surgical strike in Uri had set a certain standard of what Indian army and the current government combined, are capable of.

What transpired yesterday has only been incremental in the set standard. Today, we are a happy and satisfied nation. Thanks to the government and Air force for making things happen.

Having said that, I am happier about something else. I wish to bring to everyone's notice, the true Grace, Dignity and Valour of this current Indian government and Indian Air force.

In the anger that everyone felt, they kept their cool and neutralised only the enemy. None of Pakistan's aam janta has been harmed. We destroyed only the enemy of humanity. The innocent citizen of Pakistan has been untouched and safe. We went deep inside the Pakistan territory, we had tremendous strength and time hence an opportunity to destroy even more. But we didn't. We could have terrified, terrorised them but we didn't. That's the difference.

That's called non-violence. We still have Gandhiji alive within us. But we also have Bhagat Singhji. Therefore the Balance!

I salute my government and my Air Force for not only exhibiting courage but also for the respect they showed towards life, innocense and humanity.

Jai Hind! Vande Mataram!

Karm vs Fate

One thing that has always intrigued me and many others is Karma v/s Fate. A lot of people who are absolute karmayogis don't give much credit to luck or fate. They don't believe that a person meets success or failure due to his fate. On the other hand, there are some who have a simple answer to everything that happens, they say, 'it is destiny.'.

There are others who feel that God or good luck is on the side of someone who is well prepared. For instance, if there's a cricket match between a weak team and a strong team, generally the strong team wins. Strong teams generally prove to be lucky with some umpire's decisions going their way or an unbelievable catch or for that matter a dropped chance.

I agree with this notion that good luck usually favours those who are well prepared. But this doesn't stop here. There's a very popular saying in Hindi " Waqt se pehle aur kismet se zyaada kisi ko nahi milta." which means, No one achieves more than allotted in destiny and earlier than destined.
There are many who believe in this notion as well, the ones I mentioned earlier.

Recently while experiencing all these thoughts, I came across an idea which I felt is worth exploring and sharing. Imagine everyone's destiny being a book. A book in which only some pages are printed whereas many are left blank. We belong to the book and the book belongs to us. All the printed pages are the events that will happen to us, with us, at a prescribed time, as in the book. But the blank pages are for us to fill with actions or in-actions, time used or time wasted, thinking or overthing, being happy or sad, being angry or at peace. These are pages in our control.

I feel the printed pages might not be too many but their impact on our lives must be quite big. There are some things which we just can't explain in life. They just happen for whatsoever reasons. Reasons that might be beyond our reasoning powers. For instance, A person, quite healthy and health conscious, middle aged, fit, a film actress, is suddenly diagnosed with cancer. Or another actress found dead in an unexpected, shocking manner. On the other hand, some old lady surviving a severe heart ailment for years (a true anecdote). These are the printed pages, very impactful. But I am glad we have many blank ones to write on.

So this new year, let us all decide on one thing, that we shall fill in those blank pages constantly with something useful, fruitful, helpful, merry, interesting, relaxing, spiritual, knowledgeable. The rest depends upon destiny!

Mind!

           Too many thoughts, 
Waves flowing through.
              Confusion, frustration, elation, 
Emotions raving through. 

              Money, ambition, career growth? 
Focus drifting through. 
              Personal, social, professional growth?
Importance shifting through. 

              Mornings, noons, evenings, nights
Time flying through! 
              Work, assignments, events,  less quiet, 
Body dying through. 

              Meditate, calm, peace and poise
Noise playing through. 
              Chaos, drama, friends and fiends 
Life sailing through.