A Thinking Man

Reflections on Life

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The Grass on the other side

Filed Under: Philosophy

Scenario 1: Santosh called me after three months. It was nice catching up with him. But, our initial conversation got stuck at a juncture where we both didn’t know what to speak next. It has been three years that Santosh moved to the US. How much can we reminiscence about old times? It took sometime for us to ease back into a conversation. He confided in me that he was missing India. He was recollecting all the simple pleasures of what life offered here. And, all the while I was listening to him, I was wondering how nice it would be if only I could migrate to the United States (it’s been a long unfulfilled dream after all), and enjoy what life offered there.

Oh, if only I was in his shoes!

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Time is limited

Filed Under: Philosophy

I was still rolling on the bed debating if I should get up or not. All the things I scheduled for that day popped up in my mind – I had a busy day ahead. I switched on my cell phone and went through the twitter stream and rss feed. My eyes refused to open, so I put my cell aside and pulled back the blanket. The phone rang as soon as I closed my eyes. It was Sundeep, “Ajay passed away” he said.

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A Love Affair

Filed Under: Personal

With a beer in hand one day, my friend asked me – when/where and how did I fall in love with books? I tried to recall: I went to a Christian missionary school and in December every year we had the half-yearly exams followed by a holiday of two weeks for Christmas and New year & I happened to live in a locality where most of my friends studied in schools which declared holidays in January (for Sankranthi) instead of December. So, year after year, I was at school when my friends were playing and at home when they were in school. With none to play around I used to search for ways to fill my free time.

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Responsibility

Filed Under: Philosophy

Do we need bosses to remind us to do our work?
Do we need cops to monitor our traffic?
Do we need invigilators to stop us from copying?
Do we need anti corruption bureaus (ACBs) to stop us from corruption?
Do we need police to stop us from commiting crimes?
Do we need revolutions to push change?
Do we need guns to bring us peace?
Do we need strong borders to make good neighbours?
Do we need bloodshed to remind us the futility of war?
Do we need heinous crimes to wakeup our humanity?
Do we need a “Damini”* to make us more responsible?

Wakeup call

Filed Under: Philosophy

I witnessed a death couple of days back. It made me sad. Made me wonder, isn’t it the end for everybody? All marching towards the same dead end? We all know this, but we still toil all day long to amass toys and trinkets to be happy. Is this ‘smasana vairagya’(a detachment all experience during a funeral) I’m speaking out of? even if I am, isn’t it true? By the end of that day I was back to normal life – talking to friends, planning the future, worrying about the past – I had moved on. But, the uneasiness remained, unanswered, lurking behind my hopes and dreams shrouding them in a veil of vanity, ocassionally questioning me, what for do we toil? what for do we struggle? “Dust thou art, to dust returnest” isn’t it? but, I pushed the questions back into a remote recess of my mind hoping it’ll not be my fate, hoping it’ll not be my end.

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