trouble of the life time, life time till now..

** Written 4 years ago, some not particularly bright night, some views have evolved but publishing as it is, as was written then **

As far back as I can remember, I always had my own views, mostly different than those surrounding me. This eccentricity has caused me a good share of trouble and there was a time when I even did not like this difference and tried to confirm or atleast give an appearance of confirmation to the views  of those surrounding me. This was seen as lack of good behavior at home and indiscipline at school. In summation, I was that kid in the class, family and neighborhood whose future certainly was going to be troublesome. I remember one particular incidence from my third year of schooling when i denied copying a work from one of my notebooks to other,  I was confronted by the teacher, who was totally clueless what to say when a student denies to do as asked. She tried to first order me, then intimidate me by taking me to the principal and calling my parents. I was scared as hell ( I must have been as I recall me crying all over my bench), but some how, I just had one question, why should I re-write something, from one notebook to other, which the teacher had no reasoning, a smarter teacher could have cooked up a reason, but I understand now, teachers in our country do way beyond what they are paid and they have no inclination to be more smart, for a kid who is definitely undisciplined.  The end result, I was taken crying to the principal, my parents were called, and thankfully they agreed to take me out of that school the following year.

The schools might have changed over my 12 years of education, but my troubles continued to be bound to this single logic of me thinking I have the right to have my own opinion and state it in public. This led me right into the trouble, countless times, streching from that school room, to the corridors of one of the biggest research institutes of the country. Now surprisingly, two things remained same in all these years of my troubles, me having my own views and my inclination to say them, and people despising me having my own views. I have problem understanding the second equally enough to the first. I still do not understand, why these people in authority, hated even my innocuous, debatable view, debatable because I argued in favor of it, but I assume they hated it because they did not even thought its worth debating against their own understanding of the things. Amidst these condition, I really tried to give up my views and follow instructions, but only for so long, coz to follow, means to not think for your self( “I was once literally told to not use my brain”), but for me following was a series of infinite decision at each step, and each step, I was not able to convince that my foot are following my brain or heart. I needed atleast one to agree with my foot, ultimately, my foot followed my brain and my heart and oops I was again in trouble.

The exact events although interesting, are not the topic of today’s mumbling, I will talk about those some other day. There was so much common between these first and this trouble, but there was one undeniable difference, the power of the authority was of a different order altogether. This was an experience for lifetime, it taught me, that courage is not shouting out loud “like the famous “How is the Josh”, followed by High Sir, its just saying NO when you know the consequence of that NO, its saying NO, against your million of years of evolutionary instincts. I am happy, I said NO. It was liberating, It was a re-birth, but a rebirth in an abyss, so deep, light was just an abstract thought, and thus began the journey, to see the light. Again, contrary to the popular belief, I know something different, or rather am opined to something different, I know, I will not just see the light, but there will be light, soon.

longing

It is a strange feeling; everyone is alone, everyone wants company, and is looking for it in these small rectangular devices, talking to someone on the other side, looking just to a face or hearing a voice which is hiding more than what it is revealing, both figuratively and even sometimes literally. These talks are mostly hollow, how what they are doing is the best, what they are living is the best life, their love is the best, etc. etc., while amidst this I feel both sides know it quite well that it is exactly the same hollow things, which they don’t want to hear from the other, its as if we are all in some default setting where it is quintessential to continuously emphasize how the life we are living is the best, why, why? if that was the case, what are the two people doing talking on this ungodly device, then why was that just before any such talk, there is almost a dread of killing ourselves with scrolling doom, and it was only to break out of that doom, is that we longed for a human communication and we very cautiously called the other person. Then why is it that every such call required a moment of courage to at least put ourselves on the line to be judged that “oh he/she called, they must be free and not enjoying their life”. There are two things every time we call someone, the fear of being judged that we are free in this culture of “forever busy” and this dread that the other person will know that we need that person, which means, our life has something missing. There is this strange feeling always to prove (don’t know to whom?) that we are independently sufficient and the best we can be and there is nothing “misplaced” in our lives, nothing ever “wrong.”

It is a remarkable feat of courage then that we still are able to make that call or drive to meet someone, in spite of the dread of being judged on the abovementioned limitations, and we should be proud of ourselves on this, but rather, when we actually meet/talk, somehow, all we mostly seem to be doing is proving the absence of that dread in the first place by actually starting with the same struggle to prove that how the life is perfect, how we were quintessentially busy, and how this meeting is one-off, an exception in this perfect self-sufficient world of ours.

Intermittently, our sad self shows up in these talks, and we do mention our aloneness and our sadness following that uncontrollable urge for human companionship, the problems of the week show through the cracks of the perfect facade, only to realize the other person’s words are also hollow, not realizing that they are fighting the same battle within. In fact, it is only under some kind of toxication it is that we can actually talk, and even the toxications are not strong enough to break us out of our shells of perfect lives. So, eventually, all such conversations (if you can say this conversation) are bound to end with talk about what we are tarined for talking about the best, “work, ambition, goals”, and things we are fed at least 5/6 days a week. By this time, we are already regretting and thinking of the futility of the heroic decision we made to meet to talk, which has lead to this competitive game of proving whose work and life is better, and we start judging the person, sometimes even having scorn for the hollowness of the person, not realizing the other person is thinking and feeling the exact same thing. This is mostly followed by, a continuous list of achievements and plans, and then once in a while, it so happens that we do feel the emptiness in the eyes and words of the other person and see the longing for a real conversation we share, and we see our scorn mitigating and getting replaced by sympathy and finally empathy, we want to give our hand to the person, saying “I understand”, “I too feel it” , but sadly, we don’t have the vocabulary to talk about these feelings, and we just say, “how is life otherwise?”, a question which as meaningless as any other, and bring on the forever makeup…

children…

I am a boy, standing in the classroom, nervous, scared, shaking. Facing the whole class has been one of my worst nightmares, What if, I can’t recite a poem, can’t read prose, and the whole class laughs at me, I always wake up happy that this was just a nightmare, even though the worst kind, which keeps my heart rate jacked. I am a boy standing in the classroom, thinking of my worst fears,… facing something beyond these nightmares, I believe my small child brain did not have the capacity to create the reality that I am facing.

No, don’t get me wrong, I am not saying my brain does not understand my identity, that I am a Muslim, and that somehow, a lot of people are not happy with this. I do, I have seen my abba, who I think is also a Muslim, the other day he was talking about having a different nightmare, where he is peacefully bowing to god in a corner of a train, and then a policeman comes in the train… He stops there while telling this to Ammi, I don’t understand, how is a policeman a nightmare if you are praying? But then, I am just a child, I don’t know so many things. Anyways, he sighed saying, “I was lucky I removed my cap at the right time”, I don’t know, i didn’t understand his story, what is with the cap, How that saved him? My abba is a bad storyteller, I guess, If I was his teacher, i would fail him.

Oh, sorry, I wander-off while talking, yes, i was saying, that I am standing in front of the classroom, and the teacher asked all my friends to come and hit me, she was angry, she was angry I think because I am a Muslim, she is not happy with lack of force in the punches of my friends, I can’t feel all those, i can’t see much as my eyes are all watery, all I feel is a shame, about my small child brain which neither prepared me for this thing in nightmares nor can understand, “what cap I shall remove quickly to be saved?”, i don’t have a cap here in the classroom…… oh now its the turn of my best friend, … to slap me, he looks sad, i know he too has a small brain like me, he too can’t understand any of this, none of us small brains can i think….. but, we will learn, that is what a school is for, “Learning”, isn’t it?

The missing individual in social media interactions.

We all have one time or other, faced this irresistible craving to be a part of an ongoing debate over Twitter or to comment over Facebook or Instagram (I am only aware of these social media platforms, pardon my ignorance) post about how foolish someone else’s behaviors/choices/actions are. Online we are all in a rush to take sides, pass judgments and show compassion as if there is a default setting to which all of us are somehow tuned. This auto-tuning is not surprising as there are numerous pieces of research available now which highlight the fact that the algorithms guiding these sites are designed (or rather they are not designed not to) to create these feelings, to amplify the sense of competing groups. However, when we rush to take sides, we very rarely realize who the person/group we are taking sides against is.

For instance, when we show our hate or anger against a group, minority (or majority), we always tend to think in terms of groups, never being able to ungroup individuals from these groups. On most occasion, this subconscious grouping does not make a difference because the other thing these social media does is create silos of like-minded people; as a result, most of the individuals we interact with in our actual world (outside of the Metaversr FB is desperately trying to sell us) are in the same group as ours. However, sometimes, these group boundaries become fluid, and now our anger or judgment against the group collides with an individual in the group. The problem becomes even more severe when the individual is particularly close to using in the real world. This could be a close friend, a colleague, or a loved one. I feel some readers are thinking, why would I care about this individual, my feelings for a group are real, and if this individual is a representative of that group, then my feelings rightly extend to the individual. I might hide my feeling out of civility, but that’s all; there is no fundamental flaw in this.

This line of thinking does make sense. However, the problem is that often these feelings against a group (or in favor of one) are seldom based on our own experiences; in most cases, these are the product of how others react online. Because remember, we are in a rush to take sides fast and express our support or opposition before we lose our attention to the next thing in our doom scrolling. So what happens, in this rush we express an opinion, an opinion which is not ours, directed towards a group we do not know, and it goes in this sink of opinions called the internet and gets lost forever. However, occasionally, it may boomerang and tear the boundaries of the group and hit someone we love or admire.

When this happens, the individual at the receiving end cannot differentiate himself from the group. This instantiation of the individual for a group is not that hard to think logically; after all, individuals make the group in the first place, but we are never ready for such a conflation, and all that is left is a loved relationship with unwanted knots.

However, there is a deeper learning in all this; when we see our judgment against the group realizing into an individual, we are forced to rethink and reevaluate our opinion, judgment, and anger. We see in clear light how flawed our initial decision to rush was. Most importantly, we see that what very often we see as our opinion is actually just our eagerness to belong to a group which very often translates into alienating another group, a group we know nothing about personally.

So next time you feel the urge to opine against a group, think of an individual you know who may belong to that group; you will see your judgment relaxing, your opinions changing, and your anger receding. The need is to find the missing individual in social media groups.

random thoughts … endurance

“Endure” has its etymology in Latin (in (in) + durus (hard)), which translates to latin indurance, meaning harden. For a brief period, I had forgotten this magical word, but just like you have to endure the tides sailing the sea, so do you need to endure the test for endurance. Endurance is not just holding your ground and waiting for the storm to pass, rather it is accepting the storm, moving forward in the storm and hoping that someday the storm will pass and you will be victorious and also being prepared for the reality. Endurance means not letting the past trouble your present while still extracting all the experience from your past, simply put, it is looking the fear in its eyes and saying, I will not budge, I will not give up and I am not scared. It is not about hoping that you will be safe, rather, demanding and enforcing that you will be a better version of yourself when this storm passes.

For so long I thought that the spirit of survival is what makes the greatest of humans and other species, but with time I am realizing, what separates the greatest humans in any field is not the survival but the spirit of endurance. One way to understand the difference is to understand with a similar difference between “surviving” and “living”. Enduring is not just surviving, rather living. Its not just accepting the now but rather also changing the tomorrow, its not just standing your ground in the storm, but rather gaining ground while others will cower. Its not just accepting, but embracing.

So for long I tried to survive, but today, I decided to endure and filter out from my past experience and without being depressed or scared, use it to change the course of the things in the future. Today, I just did not hold my ground when challenged, I moved forward using my past scars. Today I learned the meaning of endurance.

 

random thoughts … evolving

I used to talk to people, friends, colleagues, acquaintances, whatever you like to call them. Yes, I did that not long back, we used to agree, disagree, be angry or even break our talks to talk of something else. This was the time when we used to know that we actually are ignorant about most of the things, we had no clue about politics, economy, poverty or global affairs, we were confused even about the things we were most sure about. Amidst all this ignorance, we nevertheless talked and tried to convince the people against, how our thoughts even though fluid and taking shapes, are more convincing.

In those moments of confusion and half-hearted convincing, often we changed, our understanding changed so did our sides. whatever we are, our thoughts, our still very raw understanding of the world, our lives, all are shaped by that fluidity in our ideas. Without that fluidity, I would have been like a rock which anyhow has to change shape, but only when it is attacked by rough winds for decades. I feel it is good to be a rock, but only if it is preceded by a phase of fluid molten lava because once we take that shape, it is hard to reshape and life passes in a blink. It is good to know, when to change and when to wither slowly and that indeed is hardest.

So yes, I used to talk, but now, we all seem to just be.

random thoughts … end

I often dream of that last moment, which may be, maybe I am lucky enough I will get to live, if not, the last moment can be just come and vanish. In this dream, I see myself, thinking of all the things not done, all the words unsaid and all the moments not lived. I always see myself with someone, whose face I can’t see, whose face I don’t need to ever see to know that it is you, it is us. It is surprising, how different this dream is from, when I actually, consciously try to visualize the same last moment. The end in my conscious creation has me as a very popular person, surrounded by so many, everyone talking, its a crowd, and I see you, your face, but I can’t feel your presence, I can’t feel us. How can there be such a dichotomy between conscious and unconscious? How does the latter feel so powerful while feeling deeply sad while the former radiates happiness even in all its simplicity? Finally, which one will it be if any in reality? Do I really wish one over the other? I ask these contradictory questions as I feel divided, deep down I know I want the subconscious ending, while all my waking hours I am working on the latter.

random thoughts … anxiety

Fear, it is a feeling, very real, very tangible, ever visible. It is a common belief that action is what overcomes fear, and the belief might be true in most cases. After all, if your fear is from real danger, acting to overcome, will put you in a situation better than not doing anything. However, not all fears stem from real danger, in fact, fear and its biochemical effects on the body do not necessarily stem from actual danger or actual suffering. Most of our fears, emerge from our all-powerful mind, which can create numerous dangerous situations just like it can create millions of bright futures. When this happens, the fear is imaginary or may be disproportional to the actual danger, and thus actions, no matter how consistent, can no longer alleviate the fear or the danger.

The problem is, that we cannot solve what we cannot comprehend, and comprehending imaginary dangers is challenging. The moment we try to analyze its rationale, it vanishes, but the very next moment it is back. I am sure we all have felt this feeling, lived through this fear, if you have you know this is what anxiety looks like. The continuous heaviness of the breathing, continuous fear of something dangerous in the future, continuous unrest even amidst holidays.

random thoughts … love

What would life have been? this question keeps popping up in consciousness. Logically, we can never know for sure even for the most trivial of the life events, then figuring out if something in this complex life is “good” or “bad” is illogical at best and insane at worst. Life is not to be judged I guessed but only lived/experienced.

Amidst this randomness of life, there is a refuge of some certainty, called Love, reserved only for a very fortunate few. I feel you get loved when the higher power is truly in a mood, or maybe truly fed up with your continuous prayers, demands or just seeing your face daily in the morning, so (s)he just gives you someone who loves you and then switches off your channel for a while, knowing that you don’t need the higher power, at least for a while, until you make a blunder and push the love away.

गाँव रोटी सपने ज़िन्दगी

कदम चले थे कभी रोटी के लिए,
हाँ , मुझे तो बस वही चाहिए थी ,
और हाँ , बेटी के लिए एक स्कूल |
स्कूल था गाँव में , रोटी नहीं थी,
टीचर भी नहीं था, सपने ?
सपने तो शहर में भी नहीं थे।

ऊँचे ऊँचे सपनों से भरा था शहर, यूँ तो ,
पता नहीं किसके सपने थे वो , इतने ऊँचे , इतने बड़े |
मैंने खुद गढ़ा , पोता , चमकाया , कितने ही ऐसे सपनों को ,
पर भूल के भी , देख न पाया |
रोटी से ढंकी रहीं मेरी आँखें , और फिर रोटी भी बड़ी चाहिए थी अब ,
तीन से चार हो गेय थे |

एक दिन , स्कूल बंद हो गया ,
ऊँचे सपनों को बनाने वाली मिलें भी ,
अब मैंने देखा, मैं किनके सपनो को चमक से भर रहा था,
सब अपने , सपनों में , सहमे हुए , राजा को सुन रहे थे |

अगले दिन सब, सब थालिया बजा रहे थे , चमकदार ,
कुछ थालियों को तो मेरी ही जोरू ने सुबह चमक दी थी |
हमने भी रोटी के कुछ अंतिम निवालों को मुँह में ठूंसा ,
और राजा की आज्ञा बजाई,
सब अपने सअपनो में फिर चले गए |

हमारी थाली टूट गयी थी ,
रात गहरी थी ,
सुबह ना स्कूल का पता था , ना रोटी का |

सुबह राजा फिर आया ,
इस बार मैंने भी देखा, सुना ,
उसने ओजस्वी लय में बोला , सब अपने सपनो से न निकलें ,
दुश्मन हार जायेगा |
दुश्मन ? सपने ?
मेरी टूटी थाली का इलाज़ बता दिया उसने ,
रोटी के बारे में बोलना भूल के |

राजा की आज्ञा बजाने निकल पड़े सब,
हम भी निकल गए सपनों में रहने ,
पर सपने तो गाँव में ही छोड़ आये थे,
स्कूल बंद हो गया था ,
थाली टूट चुकी थी ,
और रोटी को राजा भूल चूका था
रास्ता लंबा था
और दो नए कदम , बहुत छोटे |