LINKAGE

Some mails I have received in the recent past bear strong linkages with my engineering days….new news pouring in from my old friends….So much has changed in the lives of the bunch of teenagers who shared a common wing in the hostel.

A is the new dad in the group.
M got married to an American classmate with whom he shared common PhD courses.
B is busy scanning girls from Orissa. Finally completed his post doc and is ready for marriage
D is still single and probably plans to remain the same for some more time.
C, after a long stay in US, plans to return back to India and is evaluating MBA options in India.

Nice little mails….cann’t help a smile while reading them…

CONSTRAINTS AND IMMATURITY

What is happening to people in this city? Is it the space and time constraints and the severe lack of resources and amenities which are responsible in driving the so called “gentlemen” and “ladies” to such frenzied levels? In the co-operative societies or in the local trains or while driving on the roads, I have witnessed instances when people display a frenzied sense of zero tolerance. People in their apartments are almost on the warfront because of some minor parking issue. Boxing, judo and karate activities are quite common in the local trains. Belligerence is the pervasive attitude on the roads with every vehicle driver assuming that everyone/everything in the world except him/her is stationary. And these are the people who look well educated and well groomed.

The number of local trains is not enough to cater to the needs of ever-soaring influx of people into the city. Apartment builders, in their aspirations to suck out the maximum from the buyers, have raised disastrous structures wherein the occupants staying in these buildings will have perennial and eternal sources of problems to deal with. Roads are not enough to accommodate the rising number of vehicles registered in the city. Government is doing something… but that doesn’t seem to be enough. To add to the woes, time is such a rare commodity.

I am not complaining against certain people or rather against how people behave under certain situations, nor am I a cynic. I am just wondering how living under extreme pressure makes sophisticated and well educated people behave with such degraded levels of immaturity.

(I admire this city…for all the excitement it provides. I respect the people in this city for what they go through to survive here….I have myself experienced unmatched human kindness and support in this city but yet certain experiences are not so pleasant and today’s post mirrors this frustration.)

SILENT ACHIEVEMENTS

Some silent achievements of my childhood which never got their due:

….when I learned to ride a cycle…and finally fell into a rain water filled pit along with the cycle
….when I stood before the whole school and delivered a speech….on children’s day
….when I won my first prize in school....in a fancy dress competition
….when I made my first real friendship
….when I read my first story and enjoyed the experience
….when I motivated other kids to complain against a particular teacher to the principal

PERCEPTIONS

Does somebody’s perception about me really help in infusing additional contentment into my life?

I like to dispute with myself the validity and effectiveness of this question, delinking myself from the views of others. Yet to find an answer…

EXPERIENCE

Experience is such a wonderful thing….makes one what one is. Every experience adds a streak to the canvass of life. How a person behaves bears a strong correlation with his collective experiences.

The other day while I was driving back home the traffic restricted my progress and I had to halt waiting for the green light to flicker. Typical Mumbai, the road was flanked with slums. Just then, I saw a little kid from the slums with an iron rod like thing in his hand. He was making his way through the vacant space between the impatient vehicles. I did not take his presence seriously until I felt a screeching sound that emanates out when metals rub against each other. It was not before this that I realized that this little kid has deliberately rubbed his iron rod against my car. Without seeing, I could estimate the size and the shape of the mark on the car. I looked at the kid and he looked at me…with no regrets…no fear…and then he threw a smile, which was beyond his age and moved ahead through the space between the vehicles. Probably he did the same thing with other cars too.

I felt an instant rage with what happened. Came back home and thought about the incident. A little kid from a devastating slum….his origin…the live he has lived so far….the life he will live in future…his frustrations when he must be seeing the tall towers where the people with cars live…his perception of affluence…no wonder he derives a strange pleasure in making those marks on the cars when he walks through them….

This little kid has experienced the harshness of life too early. Not that my car deserved a mark, but certainly I cannot blame the kid for what he did…I will rather blame his experience…of life he has lived so far.

WHOLENESS

The day before yesterday I hated the new apartment in the heart of Mumbai where we have recently moved into. Yesterday, I loved the same apartment.

Periodic or instantaneous liking or disliking for someone or something is a complicated function of lot of variables. Imagine the flow of a fluid through a conduit….old time physics…any momentary feeling we have about someone or something is like the instantaneous flow of the fluid through a cross-section of this conduit. It can be associated with the properties of the flow at that particular instant. For instance it depends on instantaneous temperature, slope, steepness, boundary conditions of the conduit, pressure, viscosity and many more...

Our complete connection with the same person or the same thing is like the full volume of the fluid in the conduit. It’s beyond instantaneous moments….beyond the cross sections of the conduit….it’s the wholeness of the concept that never stops amazing me.