A QUESTION!!

I have got a question that i want to ask all lovers(successful ones) -
('You' refers to both the lovers put together)

You walk hand in hand;
You talk to each other on the phone for endless hours;
You express your love again and again at the drop of a hat;
You hangout at all famous places in the city and empty your father's earnings;
You buy presents for each other almost every other week;
You look into each other's eyes and claim to have discovered the world;
You write really boring poems praising each other's beauty;
For nothing at all You keep your hand on your heart and start feeling;
You order a single ice cream and spend two hours sharing it;
You fight for no reason and then spend the entire week apologising to each other;
You ride together in a bike and then spend sleepless nights wondering whether someone you know might have seen you;
You plan your future to the finest detail(which includes names for your future offsprings);
You begin and end each day with a I Love You message;

Well this is my question:

Is it because that you are in love that you do all these things or
Is it because you want to do all these things that you claim to be in love??

I believe that you people have got nothing to do.... you are so bored with life that you mutually decide to end your boredom by opting to fall in love which provides you with the above choices to keep you entertained! Ya i know what you will cry out: SOUR GRAPES!! Ya maybe that's true! :) But still it doesnt make your love any better!!

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PRAISE IS NOT PRAISEWORTHY!!

Life unfortunately has no guidelines. Neither does it have any purpose on its own. The purpose we believe our life has, is just an assumption. Truthfully speaking we don’t even know why we have been encumbered with this life. Each one of our lives is a mission without a specified target and most of us are reluctant missionaries. We have all been recruited whether we are willing or not…. Since we have not been given a purpose in life, I think the only purpose of each of our lives is to find our own individual purposes in life! To each man his own purpose!! The system of life is really intelligent! But eventually it makes fools out of us. The system works in such a way that whatever a man believes to be his purpose, that eventually becomes his purpose. So initially finding the purpose is the only purpose! As time passes whatever man considers to be worthy of being a purpose, so it becomes. The obvious solution would be to do whatever one loves and eventually one will end up finding his/her purpose in that. Such a purpose will not only keep the person happy but will also help him to attain the highest amount of satisfaction… Very simple eh?? But then all that is simple isn’t easy. And moreover man is never ready to believe in the simple. For him things have to be complicated, puzzling and difficult to find! Anything that is obvious, helpful and readily available loses its value. That’s one of the reasons why gold or diamond is valued a lot more than copper or coal. Just think! What would be diamond’s value if it was found in every other rock. And maybe thats why a girlfriend's love is given more importance than parent's love! When such an atitude prevails, would a person believe you if you tell him that his ultimate conundrum in life – the purpose of his life is as simple as finding what he loves doing most and doing it as best as he can. Life holds its value only as long as it is difficult to understand and is surrounded by an aura of mystic divinity! Life is interesting only as long as it is a puzzle handed down to us by some divine power and life has value only as long as its purpose can be explained in difficult to understand, hi-fi words like –

1. To serve God



2. To find the true meaning of life(why don’t they refer the oxford dictionary???)



3. To realize the power of the divine being who created us and to align our life with this higher power



4. To attain salvation



5. Add any other crap which you hear daily from your parents, teachers and every other human being

What if this in’t the truth?? What if actually we aren’t special beings sent by a divine power to complete his work on earth?? What if the purpose of our life is as simple as doing what we love? Well that’s when we realize that our life isn’t special…. The notion of us being just as normal as any dog in the street and any other animal or insect in the world is too difficult for us to digest! So we end up fooling ourselves and believing in a purpose that is not only overly optimistic but also entirely euphemistic.

What harm you might ask is incurred in having a sense of being special?? A lot I believe! Though every man outwardly propounds a larger than life purpose, inwardly he knows that he has no idea what his real purpose is! Not ready to search for his actual purpose, man invented two substitutes: money and praise! That’s when mankind started its journey to doom. Man lost not only his purpose in life, but lost his life as well to these two substitutes. Man’s greatest weakness is that whenever he is in doubt, he follows the crowd. That’s why we still commit the same mistakes that were committed aeons ago. Atleast once in his lifetime, every man doubts his purpose in life and that’s when his actual purpose gets substitued by praise and money! Life then becomes a business. For everything man did, he expected remuneration. Outwardly money was the reason man worked. But there was a bigger, inner reason… PRAISE!! Money played a major role in determining man’s purpose. But money is actually a disguised form of praise. The money you give a person for his work is actually an indirect indication of the amount of praise you shower on him. And there are things that man does for which he doesn’t expect money in return. Praise is what man looks for in those circumstances. Thus directly or indirectly, praise became man’s only purpose in life. Praise became man’s justification for living on earth. No man is ready to believe that his life just happened by accident. Every man believes that he is special and the praise he receives is his justification for his speciality! So the more praise a person receives the more special he is! Hence praise became the solitary purpose of every person’s life. And the future generations blindly followed their ancestors! (Like my father always says: “If so many of them are doing it, then it ought to be right”!! The fact that humans are mere copycats and that we might as well be copying the mistakes of our ancestors is not taken into consideration!)

Man started evaluating his worth depending on the amount of praise he received. Praise in itself is not bad. Genuine praise when bestowed upon an individual motivates and encourages him to progress further! But there are two spin-offs of praise which are highly destructive and much more widely prevalent than genuine praise -

1. When man receives praise on a constant basis, he gets accustomed to it and becomes addicted. That’s when vanity sets in and man becomes conceited. At this stage man needs needs praise at regular intervals to satisfy his exaggerated feeling of self importance and is ready to do anthing for the sake of praise. Such a man becomes useless, worthless and helpless.



2. Praise when given to genuinely appreciate someone without expecting anything in return helps in motivating the person. But when praise is used as a means, expecting something in return from the other, it becomes flattery! Flattery gets confused with genuine praise and genuine praise gets confused with flattery. In the end, only confusion prevails!

So every person starts searching for (genuine)praise from others and since every other person is doing the same, praise becomes a scarcity. The scarcer it became, the more man coveted it. In the end, man became a monkey doing all sorts of tricks to earn praise from others. The situation became so worse that people started doing what earned them praise and not what they loved. Even when they did what they loved, they expected praise in return. So praise became the primary form of remuneration. You satisfy someone’s need and he will praise you. You be the person your father wants you to be and you earn his praise. Same for mother, relatives, teachers and every other person. To earn their praise, you have to fulfill the standards set by them. In the course of satisfying everyone’s whim and fancy, man lost his individuality. No praise for being yourself!! So individuality was the price man paid for praise!!!

That’s when you realise that Praise isn’t Praiseworthy.

My own experience with praise is the inspiration for this blog. When I started blogging, it was due to the love I had for writing and the pleasure I derived from writing these posts. Unfortunately I wasn’t satisfied with just pleasure. Being the human I am, I too craved for praise. So I sent my blog site address to every person I knew.. ..And waited…. And waited… But others were busy with their own commitments and not many ventured to read my blog. Love for writing wasn’t enough for me. I needed praise as well. Dejected and despondent, I was about to discontinue writing my blog when atlast I got what I wanted. I am grateful to that one person who read every post I read and magnanimously praised me: Archana. Her praise I believe is genuine… no I don’t mean to say that my blog is worthy of praise. Archana has got nothing to gain from me through flattery and hence I believe the praise has to be genuine. Genuine praise instills confidence and motivates…. Her praise was what kept me writing and helped me to persevere through the lean phases. But unfortunately I fell prey to praise and became conceited. My blog writing centered around one remuneration: Archana’s praise. As far as it was readily available, it was fine. Only during the absence of it did I realize how much I had become accustomed to praise. Until I received the praise I desired, I couldn’t think of anything else. That’s when I realized that my love for writing has been replaced by my craving for praise. That’s when I realized that praise isn’t praiseworthy. In small amounts, it encourages you and keeps you going, but when you get accustomed to it, you become worse than a drug addict. I hope my awareness has helped me to break the addiction and hopefully I will again start writing for the love of it!!

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A NIGHTMARE!! OR IS IT A DREAM??

I love daydreaming. It is by all means the best antidote available for a boring lecture. All that you have to do is wait till the teacher has finished taking attendance. Sit back. Let your eyes glaze over and wow!! 50 minutes of fantasy! Described below is one such fantasy that I had the privilege of experiencing recently. Initially it appeared to be a nightmare. But only later did I realize that it was actually mixture of a nightmare and a dream........

NIGHTMARE:

Following the initial bank crashes in America, more banks follow suit. All American banks close down. American economy totally crumbles. American dollar is no more. All investors lose their savings. When money has lost its meaning, what is the use of a bank account?? Total jeopardy ensues!! Well when Uncle Sam himself is penniless, would the nephews be far behind?? The reverberations of the American catastrophe are felt world wide resulting in the greatest economy crash ever. All currencies become useless... No banks.... No companies... No jobs.... The world comes to a standstill....
Water water everywhere but not a drop to drink!! Irony!! Every affordable commodity is available. But how are the people going to afford it?? All doors are there.. But the people have lost their key: MONEY! People become helpless!! Frustration!! Depression!! No people are experiencing something more than that. Even the gravest word in the English vocabulary would appear to be a euphemism when compared to the actual emotion felt by the people. Just imagine! Generations over generations of the human race have spent their entire lives, toiling day and night to earn money. And overnight it becomes worthless!! Just printed paper!! Till now families have been split, people have committed suicide, men have been murdered , dreams have been shattered, conspiracies have been hatched and every possible act on earth had been committed for the sake of just one bloody thing: Money(or rather the lack of it!!). Looking back everything appears meaningless now. Maybe we should revive Shakespeare from his grave. We need a new word to describe the plight of the humans and considering the graveness of the situation, he alone appears capable of coining a suitable word!! There is widespread mayhem everywhere! It appears as if God decided to have some fun and pulled out the axis on which the entire human race had been revolving!

THE NIGHTMARE ENDS HERE! THE BEST PART IS YET TO COME………..

THE DREAM:
There is no work to pursue, no bills to be paid, no money to be counted, no accounts to be kept……. In short humans are left with nothing to worry about, nothing to feel happy about and nothing to quarrel about. For the first time in the history of human civilization(since the invention of money), man has been left with nothing to do and hence is left with a lot of time to ponder. Not used to being idle, every person uses the free time to ponder over the current situation. Finally every logical man comes to the same conclusion:
The second greatest sin committed by man is the invention of money.(The first one was obviously committed by Adam and Eve) By inventing money, man had tried to simulate God – an omnipotent being which can accomplish any damn thing under the sun and which is respected ,feared, coveted and safe-guarded by every human! But it had turned out to be the devil in disguise. Money had corrupted human minds – it had created dynasties, destroyed them and had created nasty dynasties as well!! Man’s love for himself and his fellow beings had been replaced by man’s love for money. Money divided humans and brought about the concept of partiality! Money ensured that unequal treatment was meted out to the humans. The rich started looking down upon the poor. Education, food, homes, jobs…. All services were now provided based on the emerging God:Money! Naturally the rich got richer and the poor got poorer. A child born in a poor family realized that more than the loss of arms(or legs) or any other handicap, there is one handicap that is the most difficult to overcome: lack of money! Eventually money became the only indication of success and naturally everyone started realigning their dreams and aspirations to suit the current situation: earning money! Hence people gave up what they loved and took up whatever job promised the highest remuneration! Inevitably corruption set in. When you are doing a job for the sake of money(and not because you love the job) and all you want is money(by hook or crook), corruption is inevitable!! In short, money raped its way through the human civilizations creating offsprings such as hatred, corruption,jealousy,envy and many other evils that humans had never even heard of before.
Today though money eventually got the punishment it deserved. But the damage has already been done. How many ever murders a murderer commits, he can be hanged only once! Money has murdered the human spirit, the passion for life, love , comradeship!! Thinking back though it isn’t just money that is to be blamed. Man has an equal share in the blame! Money is like God. You believe in it as a means to further your innermost desires, you create successes. But when you madly believe in it, you create communal riots. Man did the latter!!
Now every man decides its high time to make amendments. In each aregion, a list of people and their passions are noted(Qualifications, job experience and certificates are not necessary. All that is required is love! Passion for doing something!) Each person does what he loves and the output of his play(when you do something for the love of it, its no more a work!) is happily shared with others! Since each man’s interest is varied, as a whole they end up supplementing each other! No money! No wages! No price! When you do what you love, remuneration becomes unnecessary! All that you would be concerned with is doing your job perfectly!! Hence no corruption! No bank accounts! After all that happened only a fool would save something for the future!

Motto: Use all that you need! Give away the surplus!! Carpe Diem!!

Share markets though would still continue to function! No there won’t be a sensex and you wont be dealing with money. It would be a market where you share your surplus resources with others! A place where you give without expecting anything in return! That’s true love!

That’s when it won’t be necessary to die to go to heaven! Heaven will be right here on earth!!!

I was suddenly aware of two large eyes very close to my face!! Teacher!! Back to reality!! I was thrown out of the class with the parting words: “Unless you work hard, your dreams will never come true!” That’s pretty funny!! It would be better the other way round!! If ever my dreams come true, there will be no need for me to work!! I will just need to play!! I will have fun being an author!! I wont become a boring software engineer working for money!! But then will it come true?? Considering the current economic crisis, the nightmare seems inevitable…. But the dream?? About people doing what they love….. And me being an author!! Well both of them appear to be far fetched....

Unfortunately Man never learns from his mistakes!! As and when one form of money loses its value, Man will keep reinventing money in other forms(and his troubles too!!). And what about me?? I will be forced to become a software engineer writing boring programs for the sake of money and I will have to resort to writing such blogs in my free time to satisfy my desires of becoming an author!! :(

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MARRIAGES(DAMAGES)!!!

There are many practices in our life that are so taken for granted that we never think twice about why we follow them or is it really necessary to follow them. In this blog let us take a deeper look at one such practice- Marriage.

What must have been the actual reason for marriage becoming a practice? A man and a woman must have really fallen in love with each other that they don’t want to spend even a minute without each other. So they end up living and settling together. As a sign of love and to exhibit their solidarity to the world, they must have invented the practice of marriage. But the problem with these old time practices is that as time passes the real reason behind the practice is forgotten and only the practice remains. Maybe someone saw this couple (who really love each other) living happily together after marriage and came to the wrong conclusion that marriages are a means to become happy. Well the problem starts here. Man doesn’t realize that happiness is inborn and cannot be obtained by external means. So man ends up searching for it outside and is ready to blindly try out any practice that appears to hold even the smallest possibility of providing happiness! So marriage ends up being advertised as the panacea for man’s woes. A happily married couple is the genuine advertiser. What about the unhappily married couples?? They advertise all the more as they find a sadistic pleasure in making sure that the rest of us commit the same mistake so that they won’t be the only fools!! So in the end marriage has become a practice that is followed by everyone. The real reason people (exception: couples really in love) marry:

1. In India, marriage is the license to have sex! True! And that’s the main reason many marry!!(Foolish people!! See end of post for better ideas!!)


2. The individuals don’t want to appear queer. They don’t want to be left out. So they follow the crowd. Humans are actually sheep in human clothing. We haven’t got the courage to be different! And the fear that they might be missing out on something worthwhile adds fuel to the fire!


3. The individuals are so bored with themselves that they decide that another person in their life could only be an improvement. The more the merrier they say! Unfortunately realization comes a little too late. These people realize that if life is boring as an individual, life is both boring and irritating as a couple!!


4. This is the best one. The married couples can’t stand the freedom enjoyed by the individuals. After all it’s a stark reminder of the grave mistake that they have committed. So outside their homes, these couples put up a great show of really being happy together. The fickle minded individuals fall prey to this act.


5. For the maverick individuals the couples have got a better idea. The couples come together to form what we call the society and collectively blame the individuals of not being beautiful/handsome enough or not being worthy of marriage. They go to the extent of blaming the individuals to be impotent and it eventually works! (After all unity is strength and no one can withstand an insult on his/her manliness/womanliness).
   

Marriages in foreign countries are any day better than those in traditional India! The first time I read a Sidney Sheldon book, I was visibly alarmed. A couple spends many nights together and then suddenly one day the man proposes!! Shouldn’t it be the other way round??? But then I realized that the foreigners are clever. The couples ensure that they are at least sexually compatible before they decide to marry!! Can’t blame them. It solves one major problem. The number of divorces in foreign countries is by no means a valuable argument to prove that Indian marriages are better. Foreigners have atleast got the courage to accept that they have made a mistake by marrying and are ready to make amendments. Take the Indian scenario! An unknown man married to an unknown woman. Marriage doesn’t work. Not enough courage to break up. Within the house they either fight like cats or don’t even talk to each other. When they venture outside, husband and wife- arm in arm and with a pasted smile on their face… Oh darling!!(Oh damn it!). For the sake of the society and to save face, the amount of effort these people take!! They end up wasting their whole lives living in hell!! Incidentally “Marriages are made in heaven” is the cliché used by many. Well maybe that’s why they don’t suit people on earth!!!

Frankly speaking sex is the only thing that appeals to me in an arranged marriage! And I feel marriage is too big a price to pay for that. I might as well follow celibacy or (if I am bad enough) there are more appealing ways to satisfy my desires!! :)

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The Dilapidated House!

One of my favorite pastimes is walking. I along with have Murali have roamed the streets of vellore, our favorite ones being those of Gandhi Nagar East. On one such occasion, we came across a dilapidated house. This house was surrounded by a wall fence which ended in a locked gate at the front of the house. But the walls had fallen down and only the gate still stood the test of time. Got me thinking…. It was queer… It was strange… and then realization struck…. It was philosophical…. This dilapidated house is symbolic of our human lives. That gate is our need for security in this ever changing and unpredictable life… But unfortunately by trying to lock out the world, we end up locking ourselves in!! And just like the ruined house, life eventually gets in….. We lock in our treasures; lock in our prized possessions…. But all we end up locking is the gate… which is meaningless as Death gets in through the wall… and there can be no stopping it…. So maybe we should let go….. open up and let the world in…. no use guarding the gate when there are no walls…… no use hoarding up your possessions and hoping life to be permanent when we know that transience is what life is all about … so lets open our hearts and let life in… Let us let death in through the gate with a smiling face and a happy heart!! Read More!

Puppy Love!!

I have never had a pet in my life..... Thanks to my parents.. They feel that bringing me up is in itself a tough task!(I dont blame them!) So the observations and interpretations in this blog are purely from an outsider's point of view and the inspiration for this blog can be zeroed down to my elder sister Nivedhitha Devi(she loves dogs) and two pups: Scooby and Max(belonging to my friends Terror and Police respectively)
I always used to wonder why there existed such a close relationship between humans and dogs.. Nowadays human-dog relationships are far more stronger than human-human relationships! On first thought i couldnt really comprehend the reason for this man-animal relationship. But if you delve deeper,there lies an interesting lesson. Dogs are the embodiment of unconditional love. Man's greatest fear is rejection and in this context by rejection i refer to unreciprocated love. I have spent sleepless nights worrying about my love being unreciprocated. Not just from my girlfriend. Consider this scenario: I am reading a book. My Father:"Karthik I love you"! My typical reaction would be:"Father are you alright? Any problem?" Typical human behaviour. Dogs reciprocate your love faithfully and unconditionally. They dont ask for love. They are always ready to give. And you might doubt your father's,mother's,sister's,wife's love. But you never doubt a dog's love.. its always there.. happen what may.... you fail an exam,it still loves you..... you go broke... it still loves you... UNCONDITIONAL LOVE..... Thats what we humans fail to nurture! Imagine this: Twilight time - your pet dog sleeping on your lap... Ah thats bliss! Beats even a date with your lover hands down! Apart from all this one prominent attribute that makes a dog a far better companion than a human:

A dog wags its tail while a human wags his tongue!!!

Isnt that reason enough??? Maybe thats why DOG is a reversal of GOD. If love is what GOD is,then maybe DOGS are the reincarnations of GOD(Hindus stop looking any further! You have got your tenth avatar KALKI!). Maybe they made a mistake in english when they defined PUPPY LOVE as the temporary love of an adolescent. A puppy's love appears to be the only permanent form of love! And dog isnt just man's best friend. It is man's best lover as well!!!

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Why hold on when it is better to let go??

Accepted! Perseverance is by far the most important entity required for success. But on second thoughts maybe it! There are times when it is better to let go rather than hold on. Atleast thats what i feel. Dont get me wrong. I dont mean to say that it is heroic to chicken out when the going gets tough. Perseverance takes a lot of courage,strength and confidence. But i believe there are instances when a lot more of the above is required to let go than to persevere. Why? There are times when we obviously go wrong and when realisation strikes its always easier to hold our head high and persevere, rather than question our actions. Its easier to hold on because to let go we need to accept that we have erred. And that is no man's cup of tea. But what's the use of holding on when we are clinging to the wrong branch in the first place? Maybe thats what Peter Drucker had in mind when he said:

"There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all".

Progress doesnt lie in simply holding on.... Maybe we should learn to question our beliefs, let go of the past and start anew.... and that isnt easy. There are times when perseverance is foolish... That marriage that isnt working.... That hatred you nurture... That course that we should have never taken up in college... Maybe its high time we let it go and free ourselves.. Obviously there will be people who will snigger behind our backs and call us chickens... Ask them to hold on. They will never understand the power of letting it go......

P.S I aint a self improvement guru. I myself am caught up in a course that i should have never taken up in the first place... and i am still holding on to it for the past four years. So i dont exactly practice what i preach. Havent got the courage to do it either. Letting go i believe is an interesting idea and i felt that i had to put it in writing. I am new to writing. This is just my second post and i aint very fluent in english. This blog is an attempt to improve my english. Looking forward to your comments on how i can improve my writing skills. Read More!

My First Post

Finished reading Jeffrey Archer's Prison Diary yesterday night. Inspired me to start writing a diary..... Decided to start a blog instead.... Diaries are too conspicuous and the last thing i want is my family members getting hold of my diary.... that would be really embarrassing..... kind of hinders your freedom of expression when you always have a lingering doubt that your diary might be discovered by your parents...... so here we go.... this is my first post.... and i hope to add a lot more...... and if possible try reading Prison Diary..... liked it a lot..... Read More!