This is the place which shaped me. Here I was born, not only biologically, but in a broader sense. The values and ideals, for which I still live, have been inculcated in me by this hamlet. I really miss the scenic beauty of this place, with the Damodar flowing in one side, and hills on the other. Far away from the maddenning crowds of the city but affected by the dirty politics, run by small time goons, which is prevalent in every small place.
Well, I am now feeling nostalgic about the place and I don't want to stop writing. I miss, every thing about the place, my friends, my school, the beautiful small temple by the side of Damodar and sneaking out of house with friends to take bath in the polluted waters of Damodar and being scolded by my father if caught. Well, playing that gulli-danda and glass pebbles and running away at the first sight of any of our school teacher. This is the only place where i have been myself in true spirit. Where I have fallen in love, where I have cried without the fear of someone finding me crying.
This is the place from where I have received my best gifts and this is the place where I have lost my biggest treasures. This is the place which I call mine, though I I don't belong to this place...
Sunday, February 18, 2007
An excerpt
An excerpt from a book I recently read, liked and modified:
"Forget me," she says.
"How do I?" he wonders.
"Have friendship with some other girl," she advises.
"I am not in sinc with myself. How do I make friendshipo with someone else," he ponders.
"Even my friends have started complaining that I am not my natural self when I am talking to them. I look like I am lost somewhere even when I am in their company. How do I make a new friend in such condition."
A friend advises, "Erase all her memories, delete all her messages, all her e-mails. Everything that reminds you of her."
"Will that serve the purpose? How will I deface her from my memory? I have her in my nostrils. I had captured her fragrance at the very first meeting and every time I inhale since, the air in my lungs reminds me of her. Should I stop breathing?
"What do I do of the heart, the soul and the body that she has touched? No amount of scrubbing would erase the imprint she has left.
"What do I do of the warmth of her hugs that has heated me so much that I can withstand the most wintry weather without anything else to cover my body?
"What do I do of her taste that has molten on my tongue and still lingers? Everything that I eat becomes more tasty as it is mixed with that taste. Should I stop eating?
"And should I go killing all the cats that crisscross my path? An animal I hated, being superstitious. But I have grown a liking for it. The shrewdenss in the eyes of the cats when it looks at things reminds me of amazement with which she used to look at the feline. I never missed an opportunity to draw her attention towards a passing cat whenever we were together."
He says, "What do I do?"
"Time heals," she replies.
Does time remove the mark of the wound too," He wonders.
"Forget me," she says.
"How do I?" he wonders.
"Have friendship with some other girl," she advises.
"I am not in sinc with myself. How do I make friendshipo with someone else," he ponders.
"Even my friends have started complaining that I am not my natural self when I am talking to them. I look like I am lost somewhere even when I am in their company. How do I make a new friend in such condition."
A friend advises, "Erase all her memories, delete all her messages, all her e-mails. Everything that reminds you of her."
"Will that serve the purpose? How will I deface her from my memory? I have her in my nostrils. I had captured her fragrance at the very first meeting and every time I inhale since, the air in my lungs reminds me of her. Should I stop breathing?
"What do I do of the heart, the soul and the body that she has touched? No amount of scrubbing would erase the imprint she has left.
"What do I do of the warmth of her hugs that has heated me so much that I can withstand the most wintry weather without anything else to cover my body?
"What do I do of her taste that has molten on my tongue and still lingers? Everything that I eat becomes more tasty as it is mixed with that taste. Should I stop eating?
"And should I go killing all the cats that crisscross my path? An animal I hated, being superstitious. But I have grown a liking for it. The shrewdenss in the eyes of the cats when it looks at things reminds me of amazement with which she used to look at the feline. I never missed an opportunity to draw her attention towards a passing cat whenever we were together."
He says, "What do I do?"
"Time heals," she replies.
Does time remove the mark of the wound too," He wonders.
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
Love Exploits - I
AMITABH SHANKAR
Read the other day: To love someone is madness, to be loved by someone is a gift, to love someone who loves you is your duty and to be loved by the person you love is life.
Well, I have been thinking over the meaning and importance of love in life since my adolescence. As an adolescent I used to think love is the essence of life. Love makes the world go round and I had it for a brief period then which came to an end unceremoniously after her father was transferred. Though we were in contact for some years on phone and through letters, she was married off at a time when I was not standing on my feet, I was still an unemployed man and her parents were in a hurry to marry her. The frailties of middle-class prevailed over me and I didn't have the courage to ask her to wait for some more time. This left me with a sense of guilt inside me and it deepened when some years after her marriage she called me and told me that though she couldn't have me in her life, she still loved me.
It took me about 10 years to get over my first attachment with a girl. Then entered the second girl. She is beautiful, intelligent and matured. Lives life on her own terms. Too independent and very practical.
The moment I saw her I knew, I loved her. This is the kind of girl I would like to live the rest of my life with.
After some initial turbulences, she came close to me. We became friends and on the first given opportunity, I told her my feelings about her. She didn't accept my proposal but we shared beautiful moments together, afterwards. We went on long journey inside ourselves together, sitting at secluded places in Delhi where the love birds perch. Tried to know each other and also learnt a lot about ourselves from each other.
The more I knew her, the more I was attracted towards her. The more I was attracted towards her, the more I loved her. Her strength of character and firmness of determination left me spellbound.
But the impact of our proximity had opposite impact on her. The more she knew me, the more she found me unattractive and lesser she loved me. She found me weak, too sentimental, clingy, possessive, even mentally sick and inhuman. Finally, she shunned me.
I am once again footloose. She has got a better companion. I still long for her. She repents for having been with me. I cherish the beautiful moments we shared together, she hates them. But can she wipe them out of her mind? Can she wish them away?
Anyway, this cannot be the end of my love story. The world is small and the roads are well known. I do believe that we will cross each other once again in the journey called life. Right now, I am wondering how will the story unfold then...
Read the other day: To love someone is madness, to be loved by someone is a gift, to love someone who loves you is your duty and to be loved by the person you love is life.
Well, I have been thinking over the meaning and importance of love in life since my adolescence. As an adolescent I used to think love is the essence of life. Love makes the world go round and I had it for a brief period then which came to an end unceremoniously after her father was transferred. Though we were in contact for some years on phone and through letters, she was married off at a time when I was not standing on my feet, I was still an unemployed man and her parents were in a hurry to marry her. The frailties of middle-class prevailed over me and I didn't have the courage to ask her to wait for some more time. This left me with a sense of guilt inside me and it deepened when some years after her marriage she called me and told me that though she couldn't have me in her life, she still loved me.
It took me about 10 years to get over my first attachment with a girl. Then entered the second girl. She is beautiful, intelligent and matured. Lives life on her own terms. Too independent and very practical.
The moment I saw her I knew, I loved her. This is the kind of girl I would like to live the rest of my life with.
After some initial turbulences, she came close to me. We became friends and on the first given opportunity, I told her my feelings about her. She didn't accept my proposal but we shared beautiful moments together, afterwards. We went on long journey inside ourselves together, sitting at secluded places in Delhi where the love birds perch. Tried to know each other and also learnt a lot about ourselves from each other.
The more I knew her, the more I was attracted towards her. The more I was attracted towards her, the more I loved her. Her strength of character and firmness of determination left me spellbound.
But the impact of our proximity had opposite impact on her. The more she knew me, the more she found me unattractive and lesser she loved me. She found me weak, too sentimental, clingy, possessive, even mentally sick and inhuman. Finally, she shunned me.
I am once again footloose. She has got a better companion. I still long for her. She repents for having been with me. I cherish the beautiful moments we shared together, she hates them. But can she wipe them out of her mind? Can she wish them away?
Anyway, this cannot be the end of my love story. The world is small and the roads are well known. I do believe that we will cross each other once again in the journey called life. Right now, I am wondering how will the story unfold then...
Sunday, February 11, 2007
THE HORIZON...
AMITABH SHANKAR
The Horizon. The meeting point of the earth and the sky. An illusion. A beautiful illusion.
The horizon has always fascinated me since my childhood days, and reaching there has been my secret fantasy. Standing on the bank of the river Damodar at Bhandaridah, I always used to look, across the river, at the eternity. Somewhere far away, it looked as if the earth and the sky met. Across the river, across the woods and across the hills, they meet and that I believed was the resting place of the sun when it sets. Even then the cynic within that innocent child used to wonder if they actually ever meet.
The fascination with that meaningless creation of the Almighty was repressed deep inside as I grew up and got involved with the more mundane things of life. Having come to Delhi, the metropolitan city, and having been lost in the labyrinthine of a dense concrete jungle, seldom did I find time to look at the sky above, leave alone looking at the horizon, which has been blurred by the skscrappers.
The fantasy had been relegated to oblivion in due days, but for a beautiful twist of fate. I was left alone at a rock on the Jawaharlal Nehru University campus. Alone, all alone I was, with my world by my side and the horizon, my secret fantasy, ahead. It didn't take me any effort or persuasion to plunge into that long journey, which I knew, might never end. The loneliness of the path and the challenges en route didn't deter me. I believed I will have my world for the company and the hardships of the road would be worth it.
I set on the journey then itself, lost in myself, hopeful of reaching my destiny and sure of the support of my world. Soon I realized that the paradox of this journey is that the more distance I cover outside, the deeper I travelled inside. Hardly had I covered some distance that I found that my world is nowhere in sight. My world probably could not muster the courage to come with me beyond some steps, foreseeing the hardships on the road and the worthlessness of the journey ahead.
I was left bewildered but I am still going ahead. Assuming that my world has either lost the way or just couldn't match the steps with me, I am moving on, with a firm faith in my heart that we will be united once again we reach the horizon. With each of us beautiful stories to tell each other about the experiences of our journey. And when on the way did we feel that the journey would have been more beautiful together.
But the cynic within is once again rearing its head. Reaching there is a chimera, the earth and the sky just don't meet. Or do they? Only nobody has been able to reach there.
Anyway, it's simply impossible to end the journey at this point. I am moving on...
The Horizon. The meeting point of the earth and the sky. An illusion. A beautiful illusion.
The horizon has always fascinated me since my childhood days, and reaching there has been my secret fantasy. Standing on the bank of the river Damodar at Bhandaridah, I always used to look, across the river, at the eternity. Somewhere far away, it looked as if the earth and the sky met. Across the river, across the woods and across the hills, they meet and that I believed was the resting place of the sun when it sets. Even then the cynic within that innocent child used to wonder if they actually ever meet.
The fascination with that meaningless creation of the Almighty was repressed deep inside as I grew up and got involved with the more mundane things of life. Having come to Delhi, the metropolitan city, and having been lost in the labyrinthine of a dense concrete jungle, seldom did I find time to look at the sky above, leave alone looking at the horizon, which has been blurred by the skscrappers.
The fantasy had been relegated to oblivion in due days, but for a beautiful twist of fate. I was left alone at a rock on the Jawaharlal Nehru University campus. Alone, all alone I was, with my world by my side and the horizon, my secret fantasy, ahead. It didn't take me any effort or persuasion to plunge into that long journey, which I knew, might never end. The loneliness of the path and the challenges en route didn't deter me. I believed I will have my world for the company and the hardships of the road would be worth it.
I set on the journey then itself, lost in myself, hopeful of reaching my destiny and sure of the support of my world. Soon I realized that the paradox of this journey is that the more distance I cover outside, the deeper I travelled inside. Hardly had I covered some distance that I found that my world is nowhere in sight. My world probably could not muster the courage to come with me beyond some steps, foreseeing the hardships on the road and the worthlessness of the journey ahead.
I was left bewildered but I am still going ahead. Assuming that my world has either lost the way or just couldn't match the steps with me, I am moving on, with a firm faith in my heart that we will be united once again we reach the horizon. With each of us beautiful stories to tell each other about the experiences of our journey. And when on the way did we feel that the journey would have been more beautiful together.
But the cynic within is once again rearing its head. Reaching there is a chimera, the earth and the sky just don't meet. Or do they? Only nobody has been able to reach there.
Anyway, it's simply impossible to end the journey at this point. I am moving on...
Tuesday, February 06, 2007
An ode to love!
AMITABH SHANKAR
Two journalists fell in love and got married. Though I knew both of them by their names earlier also, it only happened recently that I got to work with the woman and I meet the husband often as we cover the same beat, for different newspapers.
A friend of mine always used to wonder what did they see in each other that they got married. The friend has a strong belief that people marry in romanticism and once the romance is over, life becomes hell for those who go for love marriages.
The question always looked frivolous to me. What the hell do you see when you are in love? Don't you know that love is blind? And that's it's beauty. But I always looked the other side when this question was raised.
Now about eating habits of the couple, the woman is pure vegetarian, doesn't eat even onions and her husband has always been a non-vegetarian. Looks like the meeting of the north pole and the south pole.
Because of her taste and upbringing, the woman never cooked non-veg items. She couldn't even stand the smell. Because of his taste, husband didn't like the monotony of eating green vegetables daily and lost his appetite.
And then this happened one day. A guilt feeling dawned upon the woman that her husband was loosing health because of her callousness and thought to do something about it. She left office early one evening and headed directly to Karim's in Nizamuddin. Unfortunately, that day being a Monday, the famous non-veg eating joint in the capital was closed. She was disappointed because she knew that her husband was a great fan of the food from that place. But the heart, she didn't lose.
Called up a colleague to ask which other place should she visit to get good non-veg items. The colleague guided her to Kake-da-dhaba in Connaught Place. She took a bus and not knowing exact location of the dhaba, alighted at wrong bus stand and asked her way to the dhaba from the pedestrians. She had to walk for over a kilometer to reach there.
Then began the biggest ordeal of her life. The meat hanging from the ceiling, she couldn't look at, the smell she couldn't bear. She asked the person manning the counter for the menu and didn't know what to order.
She told the person to give her the best non-veg item there. That didn't solve her problem for the person told her that it's a matter of personal taste. Every item here is fabulous.
She somehow ordered for some sort of chicken. The waiter packed it in a polybag and gave it to her but how could she hold the polybag which was touched by his 'dirty' hand. She picked up another polybag and held it herself and asked the waiter to drop the food in it and fastened it tightly, as if the cock would jump back to life from the curry.
Then she called her husband and asked him not to eat outside. She has a surprise for him, she said.
She reached home at 10 pm, cooked rotis, curries for herself and her father-in-law.
But the worse was yet in store. How would she serve the chicken without heating it again? For heating it, she would have to touch it. There she lost her patience, asked her husband to go to kitchen and do the rest of the job himself. Till now the husband was oblivious of the surprise that was pending. When he went inside the
kitchen, he smelt fishy when he saw the polybag. He opened it and his nightmare came alive. There it was.
He threw the entire polybag in the waste-bin. Called her wife and asked her, "What made you think that I will eat non-veg item brought by you? You don't have to do all this." And all the four eyes were wet. They had their dinner of rotis and curry together.
A small gesture, a little sacrifice and lots of happiness.
Isn't that love? The meeting of the earth and the sky, the horizon...
And I am feeling jealous of them...
Two journalists fell in love and got married. Though I knew both of them by their names earlier also, it only happened recently that I got to work with the woman and I meet the husband often as we cover the same beat, for different newspapers.
A friend of mine always used to wonder what did they see in each other that they got married. The friend has a strong belief that people marry in romanticism and once the romance is over, life becomes hell for those who go for love marriages.
The question always looked frivolous to me. What the hell do you see when you are in love? Don't you know that love is blind? And that's it's beauty. But I always looked the other side when this question was raised.
Now about eating habits of the couple, the woman is pure vegetarian, doesn't eat even onions and her husband has always been a non-vegetarian. Looks like the meeting of the north pole and the south pole.
Because of her taste and upbringing, the woman never cooked non-veg items. She couldn't even stand the smell. Because of his taste, husband didn't like the monotony of eating green vegetables daily and lost his appetite.
And then this happened one day. A guilt feeling dawned upon the woman that her husband was loosing health because of her callousness and thought to do something about it. She left office early one evening and headed directly to Karim's in Nizamuddin. Unfortunately, that day being a Monday, the famous non-veg eating joint in the capital was closed. She was disappointed because she knew that her husband was a great fan of the food from that place. But the heart, she didn't lose.
Called up a colleague to ask which other place should she visit to get good non-veg items. The colleague guided her to Kake-da-dhaba in Connaught Place. She took a bus and not knowing exact location of the dhaba, alighted at wrong bus stand and asked her way to the dhaba from the pedestrians. She had to walk for over a kilometer to reach there.
Then began the biggest ordeal of her life. The meat hanging from the ceiling, she couldn't look at, the smell she couldn't bear. She asked the person manning the counter for the menu and didn't know what to order.
She told the person to give her the best non-veg item there. That didn't solve her problem for the person told her that it's a matter of personal taste. Every item here is fabulous.
She somehow ordered for some sort of chicken. The waiter packed it in a polybag and gave it to her but how could she hold the polybag which was touched by his 'dirty' hand. She picked up another polybag and held it herself and asked the waiter to drop the food in it and fastened it tightly, as if the cock would jump back to life from the curry.
Then she called her husband and asked him not to eat outside. She has a surprise for him, she said.
She reached home at 10 pm, cooked rotis, curries for herself and her father-in-law.
But the worse was yet in store. How would she serve the chicken without heating it again? For heating it, she would have to touch it. There she lost her patience, asked her husband to go to kitchen and do the rest of the job himself. Till now the husband was oblivious of the surprise that was pending. When he went inside the
kitchen, he smelt fishy when he saw the polybag. He opened it and his nightmare came alive. There it was.
He threw the entire polybag in the waste-bin. Called her wife and asked her, "What made you think that I will eat non-veg item brought by you? You don't have to do all this." And all the four eyes were wet. They had their dinner of rotis and curry together.
A small gesture, a little sacrifice and lots of happiness.
Isn't that love? The meeting of the earth and the sky, the horizon...
And I am feeling jealous of them...
Monday, February 05, 2007
Creativity Censored!
AMITABH SHANKAR
Why the great Indian painter MF Hussain has to live in exile? Why there is a furore when cartoons of Prophet Mohammad are published in a newspaper? Why are books banned and why fatwas are issued against writers like Salman Rushdie and Tasleema?
Simply because they were able to express their imagination in their works, which hurt the religious sentiments of few religious fanatics. For having painted gods and goddesses in nude. For having expressed the frailties of a closed society in words and showing it a mirror.
If you don't like your face, break the mirror. Is that the solution? No, nor is going under the knife the solution.
Nudity is beautiful and it is the most celebrated state of being, everybody would agree. Everybody is a voyeur in private. So why do people get furious when it blooms in expression as a piece of art. Haven't our Gods been depicted in nude earlier. Does MF Hussain's being an alien (Muslim) make him ineligible to paint Saraswati? Who knows the religion of those who built Khajuraho, which is celebrated by one and all.
Freedom of expression is guaranteed by the Constitution of India to its citizens except in some extra-ordinary conditions like putting at risk the security and safety of the nation and damaging the peaceful fabric of the country. And if the works of an artist are genuine but it infuriates the public and they go on a rampage, it is the state's responsibility to control them. And if they can't, it is their failure. Banning something is not the solution.
Why there must be a censor board to clip the wings of creative people? Why not our people should have the freedom of choice as well, to see what they like and avoid what they don't?
Not that I have always been a champion of freedom of expression but now I think that the creativity should be unbridled.
I always feel that Hindi literature, of which I am a great fan, has lost too much just because of the restrain of women authors. They don't come out as openly as their male counterparts do, there are social pressures upon them. They haven't been able to jot down their feelings in public for the fear of being stigmatized by their family and society. And those who have dared, like Ismat Chugtai, have done a great service to the literature and to their readers by offering them to in read something about the female mind first hand.
Can't more women shed their prudishness and write something honestly so that lesser mortals like me get to have a peep in their mind and heart, which I think is unfathomable.
Why the great Indian painter MF Hussain has to live in exile? Why there is a furore when cartoons of Prophet Mohammad are published in a newspaper? Why are books banned and why fatwas are issued against writers like Salman Rushdie and Tasleema?
Simply because they were able to express their imagination in their works, which hurt the religious sentiments of few religious fanatics. For having painted gods and goddesses in nude. For having expressed the frailties of a closed society in words and showing it a mirror.
If you don't like your face, break the mirror. Is that the solution? No, nor is going under the knife the solution.
Nudity is beautiful and it is the most celebrated state of being, everybody would agree. Everybody is a voyeur in private. So why do people get furious when it blooms in expression as a piece of art. Haven't our Gods been depicted in nude earlier. Does MF Hussain's being an alien (Muslim) make him ineligible to paint Saraswati? Who knows the religion of those who built Khajuraho, which is celebrated by one and all.
Freedom of expression is guaranteed by the Constitution of India to its citizens except in some extra-ordinary conditions like putting at risk the security and safety of the nation and damaging the peaceful fabric of the country. And if the works of an artist are genuine but it infuriates the public and they go on a rampage, it is the state's responsibility to control them. And if they can't, it is their failure. Banning something is not the solution.
Why there must be a censor board to clip the wings of creative people? Why not our people should have the freedom of choice as well, to see what they like and avoid what they don't?
Not that I have always been a champion of freedom of expression but now I think that the creativity should be unbridled.
I always feel that Hindi literature, of which I am a great fan, has lost too much just because of the restrain of women authors. They don't come out as openly as their male counterparts do, there are social pressures upon them. They haven't been able to jot down their feelings in public for the fear of being stigmatized by their family and society. And those who have dared, like Ismat Chugtai, have done a great service to the literature and to their readers by offering them to in read something about the female mind first hand.
Can't more women shed their prudishness and write something honestly so that lesser mortals like me get to have a peep in their mind and heart, which I think is unfathomable.
Sunday, February 04, 2007
Professional Hazard: Liking criminals!
AMITABH SHANKAR
Call it professional hazard.
After having covered the crime beat for about two years, I have started sympathizing with the criminals.
Not that I condone their heinous crimes but I sympathize with them.
No, I don't want to become Mahatma but I am overwhelmed by his statement: Hate crime, not criminals.
Try to understand them. What made a criminal out of a man whose moral values are the same as are ours, who lived with us and among us? Did he fail the society or the society failed him? Isn't it the failure of the society that it wasn't able to make the conditions available to him in which he could have grown as a law-abiding citizen, like the rest of us?
Every criminal is a subject of research. His educational qualifications, the place where he was born or brought up and the kind of society he lived in, whether he was a habitual offender or has just fallen apart, are all matters of interest. What was the first crime he committed? Was he caught or not? What punishment was meted out to him when he was first caught? Was it proportional to the offence he had committed and what was done to rehabilitate him then itself?
And then I have a feeling deep inside that all of us are criminals. It is just that we haven't got caught till now and our offence is not big enough to make headlines.
And then there are crimes because there are laws. Once I was talking with the investigating officer of a case in which a man had attempted to commit suicide after stabbing the love of his life. The police officer said that the girl was living with the man for the past one year and had promised him that she would marry him but on the day of the incidence, she refused to marry him on the pretext that she couldn't marry against the wishes of her parents. The man tried to cajole her to marry him and also threatened her that he would commit suicide if she doesn't marry him. The woman didn't relent after which he stabbed her and attempted to commit suicide. Luckily, both of them survived and the man was booked for the offence.
The police officer said had it been the man who had done what the woman was doing, he could have been booked for rape. Wasn't the man raped depending on the same logic? Why do we have different laws for different genders? Emotional abuse is no less serious than the physical abuse. Period.
Call it professional hazard.
After having covered the crime beat for about two years, I have started sympathizing with the criminals.
Not that I condone their heinous crimes but I sympathize with them.
No, I don't want to become Mahatma but I am overwhelmed by his statement: Hate crime, not criminals.
Try to understand them. What made a criminal out of a man whose moral values are the same as are ours, who lived with us and among us? Did he fail the society or the society failed him? Isn't it the failure of the society that it wasn't able to make the conditions available to him in which he could have grown as a law-abiding citizen, like the rest of us?
Every criminal is a subject of research. His educational qualifications, the place where he was born or brought up and the kind of society he lived in, whether he was a habitual offender or has just fallen apart, are all matters of interest. What was the first crime he committed? Was he caught or not? What punishment was meted out to him when he was first caught? Was it proportional to the offence he had committed and what was done to rehabilitate him then itself?
And then I have a feeling deep inside that all of us are criminals. It is just that we haven't got caught till now and our offence is not big enough to make headlines.
And then there are crimes because there are laws. Once I was talking with the investigating officer of a case in which a man had attempted to commit suicide after stabbing the love of his life. The police officer said that the girl was living with the man for the past one year and had promised him that she would marry him but on the day of the incidence, she refused to marry him on the pretext that she couldn't marry against the wishes of her parents. The man tried to cajole her to marry him and also threatened her that he would commit suicide if she doesn't marry him. The woman didn't relent after which he stabbed her and attempted to commit suicide. Luckily, both of them survived and the man was booked for the offence.
The police officer said had it been the man who had done what the woman was doing, he could have been booked for rape. Wasn't the man raped depending on the same logic? Why do we have different laws for different genders? Emotional abuse is no less serious than the physical abuse. Period.
The travails of a journey called Life
AMITABH SHANKAR
Life is a journey and people meet on the way. The destination people don't know and though so many people have traversed its path, not many have learnt its import. I don't mean that I have learnt it, I just want to learn it and I am wondering if someone can guide me.
I cannot believe that life is meaningless.
How and why do things happen in one's life, which are unexplainable and not understandable, is still a subject of speculation and conjecture. Some people believe that there is a super power which controls our lives invisibly and we are just like puppets. That's why we need to assert ourselves and take the reign of our lives in our own hands. We need to become the maker of our own destiny.
For doing that we need to know so many things but the biggest knowledge is self-knowledge. Knowing yourself, and it is easier said that done.
I do believe that people are microcosms of the universe. They are the reflection of the universe and there is no process in the universe which is not taking place inside the body, the mind and the soul. And by knowing these three components of your existence, in isolation with each other as well as in unison, you come to know of the universe. If you control yourself, you can control the entire universe. By knowing yourself, you become one with the Almighty. Rather, you become the Almighty.
Why do we do the things we do? Are we solely responsible for our acts or even at that stage, there is another force which compels us to act the way we do? Then why do we have to bear the fruits of our actions? These are the questions which have been puzzling me for some time. I have sought the answers, sifted through my mind and thought process, and have not been able to reach any conclusion.
In Srimad Bhagwadgita, Lord Krishna tells Arjun, "Everything that is happening is pre-destined and don't have the arrogance that you are the doer. You are just enacting the role given to you." But then if everything was pre-destined, if everything had top happen, why was Arjun disenchanted at the first place? Was that too pre-destined so that Lord Krishna may show his erudite by delivering the gospel of Gita which is also called the nectar of all the Vedas.
Often do I think that these are just hollow words with no meaning, just to justify the inaction of a nation of lazy people doing nothing. But then often do I have a feeling that I don't have control over my actions, my feelings and my destiny.
I don't decide who gives me company on my path to the journey called life. They come on their own, I know they too don't decide for themselves, and leave on their own.
Some of the co-travellers give you pain when they are with you, some of them give you pain when they leave you. Or do they just give lessons?
Continued
Life is a journey and people meet on the way. The destination people don't know and though so many people have traversed its path, not many have learnt its import. I don't mean that I have learnt it, I just want to learn it and I am wondering if someone can guide me.
I cannot believe that life is meaningless.
How and why do things happen in one's life, which are unexplainable and not understandable, is still a subject of speculation and conjecture. Some people believe that there is a super power which controls our lives invisibly and we are just like puppets. That's why we need to assert ourselves and take the reign of our lives in our own hands. We need to become the maker of our own destiny.
For doing that we need to know so many things but the biggest knowledge is self-knowledge. Knowing yourself, and it is easier said that done.
I do believe that people are microcosms of the universe. They are the reflection of the universe and there is no process in the universe which is not taking place inside the body, the mind and the soul. And by knowing these three components of your existence, in isolation with each other as well as in unison, you come to know of the universe. If you control yourself, you can control the entire universe. By knowing yourself, you become one with the Almighty. Rather, you become the Almighty.
Why do we do the things we do? Are we solely responsible for our acts or even at that stage, there is another force which compels us to act the way we do? Then why do we have to bear the fruits of our actions? These are the questions which have been puzzling me for some time. I have sought the answers, sifted through my mind and thought process, and have not been able to reach any conclusion.
In Srimad Bhagwadgita, Lord Krishna tells Arjun, "Everything that is happening is pre-destined and don't have the arrogance that you are the doer. You are just enacting the role given to you." But then if everything was pre-destined, if everything had top happen, why was Arjun disenchanted at the first place? Was that too pre-destined so that Lord Krishna may show his erudite by delivering the gospel of Gita which is also called the nectar of all the Vedas.
Often do I think that these are just hollow words with no meaning, just to justify the inaction of a nation of lazy people doing nothing. But then often do I have a feeling that I don't have control over my actions, my feelings and my destiny.
I don't decide who gives me company on my path to the journey called life. They come on their own, I know they too don't decide for themselves, and leave on their own.
Some of the co-travellers give you pain when they are with you, some of them give you pain when they leave you. Or do they just give lessons?
Continued
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