The view from my bus window

There are few things in life which are so difficult to understand. They are complex and they are present everywhere, which makes it easy to just look past them, to avoid the mind-boggling.

During my internship, I took the city bus to work everyday, and that was all I needed to see one very very weird phenomenon. The phenomenon of progress. That city is supposed to be one of the most progressive in India. If progress means everyone owning a cell phone and using it to listen to their favorite songs during commute, then yes, there was progress. But if progress means everyone sharing an ideology, a changing ideology, that everyone has access the same set of resources which have been made available to the people, then I can't say there was progress.

The 'supermarket culture', as I like to call it, where everything can be found at supermarkets and people do not look beyond that, is limited to some people. The people with a higher strata of income, the people who live in housing societies and bungalows. There is another section of people, a significantly larger one, for whom this remains something beyond their reach. The resources available to the public are of two kinds, the ones influenced by the increasing western culture, monopolized by the jeans wearing population and the other being traditionally Indian, belonging to the older ways.

I don't know which kind is better, and it is not for me to decide either. But what's observable is the social disparity led by an economic disparity in India. To one side of the road is the big superbazaar, to the other, a sabzi-mandi and some privately owned shops. This is not where the problem lies, the problem lies in the fact, that the people using one do not use the other, they cannot or would not use the other side of the road. We take our 'supermarket culture' from the west, but we don't take their equality of people. In the west, even the hired help of a supermarket buys from the supermarket.

Progress does not only mean new investments and big brands. Progress means that new whatever is available, is available to everybody. If we don't take the entire nation forward together, there is no point to progress. it is like taking your head somewhere leaving your body behind. And you know what happens when you do that, your body falls apart and dies.

What I am trying to say here is that what all is reality for some people, still remains a dream for others. What is basic necessity for some people, still remains a luxury for others.

And when analysed, everything boils down to one thing, population. So many people, so many mouths to feed. Surplus human resource, but no manager. Services provided by one, are given cheaper, by another.

I don't know what the solution to this large scale problem is, but I think more people should pay attention to it, because it is known to everybody, we just choose to ignore it, thinking, this is not my problem alone but if it is your country's problem, aren't you, in some small way bound to help solve it?

All this, I could see, just sitting in the city bus during my internship, the professionals see this everyday. Well, it's time everyone had a really good look around and try to make a change, towards a less unequal country, towards a more progressive nation. 

Dear Girls

Dear Girls,

I have some very cliched advice to give you. Be yourself. Everyone today is telling everyone else to be themselves. You would think, what's the big deal? So, I be a little fake, who isn't now-a-days. I would say, truly said, but it's that fakeness precisely which is holding you back. Holding you back from happiness. Because when you are fake, people can see it, they can tell you are not being yourself, and trust me, that causes a lot of misery.

I know this girl, she is the kindest, sweetest, most intelligent girl I have ever met. She is very beautiful too. But she is a tomboy, or tries to hide behind it. She would love to dress up and look good and be appreciated, but she doesn't. And sometimes you can sense that that's what she wants but is scared. I think she is scared of not being taken seriously as a person if she does that. I don't really know the reason, but I can see that she is holding herself back. If she just is herself without fear and guilt and whatever else she feels, she will probably blast everyone and every stereotype out of her way and be the happiest and most content person around.

Because when you are not being yourself, you are scared, not confident, shy, and then you try to hide behind someone you are not, and that is bad for you, really bad.

There is this other girl I know, she really is herself all the time (well, most of the time). She is her own kind of person, with elements of tomboyishness and girlishness. She can speak for hours on sports and she has a great fashion sense. She is not scared of who she is, or of not being liked. She is the most popular girl in her college (goes without saying, doesn't it?).

See, the importance of being your own kind of person cannot be emphasized enough. You need to be exactly who you are, without restrictions on yourself. The world needs originals, copies can be manufactured in factories. And it's the originals who change the world. And the world needs changing. The world will always need changing and you can't do it unless you embrace your own self first. Be unapologetic for who you are, or what you like. 

But there is one thing you need to remember, being your own self should not be destructive for others. You can say that I identify with being a burglar, so I am a burglar and I don't apologize for it (now, that would be something worth watching :P), Your values, your beliefs, your self should be such that it enhances you without damaging others. Your freedom ends at the point where another person's freedom begins.

And you should not just embrace yourself, but also others for who they are, because there is some magic, some good, inside everyone. What you see in a person is a direct result of your equation with the person. Even the Indian Gods,when angered, tend to be evil and irrational. Everyone has their own brand of good in them, you should try to see it, and let them be, just like you should let yourself be. Don't judge yourself, love yourself.

Although this is true for everybody but it is more important for girls because I see that girls have more self-image and self-confidence issues than guys. Don't have issues with your own self, it's perfect. 

Be you, unapologetically.

Love,

plain_jane

Parents

I have been struggling with this post for days now. I am unable to understand how to begin, not sounding too cliched yet making my point. This thing that I want to say is so very close to my heart that I don't know if I know the words to do a full justice to it. Needless to say, it revolves around something very uncool, parents.

Parents, love them, hate them but you can't ignore them. People don't get along well with their parents, specially during the teenage. When parents are the essential enemy. Sure they are irrational sometimes, like my mother and her fears for my safety. Her assumption that every innocent guy I pass during the day is out to abduct me. Sometimes it irritates me, but then I realise she is only being my mom. Other parents have other irritating habits, and we tend to hate them for that. In fact, not fours years ago, I couldn't wait to leave the house for good.

Do this, do that, talk like this, don't laugh like that, it was getting on my nerves. I thought any place in the world had to be better than this. So, I took the first opportunity out, and boy! there was a tectonic shift in my perspective of things. Without my safety net, my parents, I was scared of everything. And they knew I was scared, so they stood by me and helped me. I had hated them, and they knew it, yet they helped me. They helped me stand on my own two feet and face the world. 

Recently, a friend's father fell majorly ill, while he is on the road to complete recovery and every time the news is steadily better, I saw very closely, the shock, the fear and most importantly the impact of such a life or death event of a parent. It is nothing you can ever think of. Even the thought of losing a parent is earth-shattering. Even if you are not on the best terms with them, they will always continue to remain the most prominent presence in your life.

As our parents get older, they can't always keep up with the world. They are not what they used to be twenty years ago. And sometimes we think, they are so stupid, why can't they do this, it is so simple. But they patiently taught us to ride a bike and a car, when they thought it was so simple.

They know what's happening to them, but they won't admit it, because they know we are not ready for it. We are not ready for our parents to grow old. We are not ready to see them incapacitated and frail. Because that would mean the loss of that protective shield, the safety net. We are not ready to let go of the idea that our parents are invincible. But they are not. And love them or hate them, it's time for us to protect them.

Home

Home.
What is the definition of home?
What comes into the category of home?
Probably the place where your loved ones are, the ones who stay by you even when you are at your worst. The place where unconditional love is found.
One such place is you childhood home, the place where you grow up.
I recently had a wave of nostalgia when I visited my home, the place where I spent my childhood. Where my school was. My school is still there, but it has changed. The building is same, the people have changed. I don't recognise any face there anymore. That made me sad. No semblance of familiarity remained. The teachers were different. I know my teachers moved to bigger and better schools and I know where a few of them are but that I would never see them again with a familiar blackboard behind them made me feel that something is missing. That part of my life, of me, is gone and all that's left behind is memories. Some memories I wince from, but would never trade anything to forget them.

My city has changed too. Big roads, big malls. It has always been changing, progressing, but it never felt so stark when I lived there. Things change, sometimes so much so that it is difficult to compare them to what they used to be. My favorite ice cream shop shut down, and my friend who used to live right across from it moved to some other place, got married, had kids (she is much older than me). So many new restaurants and eateries opened up that I lost track. What used to be a single road with a railway line obstructing it's functioning every now and then, has given way to a flyover with cars zooming through it.

My point here is, things change, and keep changing whether you witness them or not. There is change everywhere, even in us. We keep evolving, that is why people change. Transience is the very nature of life. Trying to grab on to things and trying to keep them that way is futile. Beautiful moments are etched in memory and are beautiful because they cannot be repeated. You find friendships in life and you lose them, because you evolve differently. No two people can evolve the same. If you want to hold on to people you have to embrace the change. And sometimes, letting go is best.

You will find no person or place the same as you left them, that is why the concept of home is so abstract. It raises the issue, if everything is changing, home will also change. Yes, the people who make your home will change, they will evolve, but so will you, and if the bond is worth it, your home will embrace you and make you a part of their life.

The day I left home, I stopped being the constant presence, the people left behind fell into a pattern which functioned without me. They didn't need me yet they needed me. They could live without me, but I constituted their home just as they constituted mine. So when I go back, I feel like a misfit in perfect harmony. Because all of us have changed, but somehow we all align perfectly to make the jigsaw complete.

I guess home is, where you depend on people by choice. Where you trust people completely and where you are always a part of each other's evolution. Where geography doesn't tear you apart. And where it is not a-phone-call-a-day kind of commitment but the I-got-your-back kind of commitment. As someone very wise once said, "Home is where the heart is".