Life and Death

Yesterday dawned bright.

It was Nelson Mandela’s 95th birth anniversary. The entire world celebrated his birthday while he was in hospital, making a speedy recovery. It was good news. He is an icon of hope and an inspiration to me and a lot of other youngsters.

Who wouldn’t appreciate and admire a man who refused six offers of freedom from prison life, for the good of his fellow country men? Thirty seven years in a 2m *2.5m cell and hard work in a lime quarry, no wonder the whole world looks up to him!

I once came across a famous quote from his autobiography, ‘Long Walk to Freedom’,

“In South Africa, it is hard for a man to ignore the needs of the people, even at the expense of his own family”.

(Read the whole chapter here)

This was something that moved me a lot. Those words weren’t merely a combination of letters; it was his life, and to take it all and still rebel! Just the mention of his name brings a fond smile on many faces. That’s how much change he has inflicted in us all. I witnessed how much people appreciated him when he made his public appearance in the closing ceremony of the FIFA World Cup held in South Africa back in 2010.

Musing on this, I spend the rest of yesterday, until I heard a bad news. Vaali, the great Tamil poet and lyricist died at the age of 81. The news came as an absolute shock. He was the only poet to have penned lyrics for four generations of actors. Over 15000 great songs he wrote and movies in which he worked are yet to be released.

His death struck me unlike any other deaths. I never realized how much I appreciated him until I heard that he had stopped breathing. I had never thought of a poet like him growing old; I always felt like he would be around forever, penning introduction songs for actors yet to arrive.

In everyone’s personal favourite songs, (whatever the genre, situation and period) will be a majority of Vaali’s words. We may not realize it, but it is so. That was his specialty.

It indeed ended a sad day.

Pissed off, totally

Workaholics!

Oh, bugger! These people are everywhere! Having newly joined as a trainee in a company, all I see around me is people who refuse to look away from their laptops. I’m surprised to see this though, because this is a place where people are supposed to enjoy working; they play cricket; catch up on latest gossips; get some coffee together. But I still call them workaholics because, honestly, I doubt that they think about anything other than their work, even while playing.

Their laughter doesn’t reach their eyes, the mirth doesn’t last long; they pretend to be sophisticated when all they want to do is have some fun honestly. I have a feeling that these people are not who they seem to be. Like they have two complete faces; one inside and another outside the company of their colleagues. Such a two-faced life!

Alas!

Not everyone is like that though; I’ve met some people who honestly say that they enjoy the job, or not. What annoys me is the pretence and false self-contentment of the majority. Some are so pathetic. They know that they don’t like their job, yet they stick around, because they know that the money is good for their families. They are the pitiable who convince themselves that their life becomes worthy, when living for others’ pleasures.

Then, there is the other kind who feel that they love their job only when they have little or nothing to do at all. When these people are burdened with a heavy workload, they get so cranky and desperate. Oh, my! The look on their faces when they try hard to concentrate and try to retain the weight of their paycheck!

Are these, people who would listen to some stupid ranting of a youngster and try to change themselves? I don’t think so, but that doesn’t stop me from putting down my thoughts.

I’ve seen people who look up to the software community. I’ve seen the desperate longing in their eyes. Why?

It’s simple. Those who are not part of this elite believe this life to be paradise; that’s what they are forced to believe. All they see from the IT crowd is luxury. They cannot be blamed.

Not until they join this industry, that they realize that the life of a software guy is just disguised luxury.

This “software” industry just pisses me off. Already.

My Summer Travels

I visited Trichy during my Summer holidays. I’ve been wanting to visit Rockfort for a long time, therefore I was overjoyed when my father accepted my proposal, but I wasn’t too happy at the fact that I had to wake up at 4.00 a.m.

Once on the streets, I was actually happy that we left early. While travelling from Salem to Trichy by car, we had to first leave the breathtaking Yearcaud scenery behind us. In that early hour, the silhouette of Yearcaud was beyond words.

At length, I saw nothing but trees and highways, but while travelling towards our village I was thrilled by a couple of rare sights. Firstly, I have seen goats, grazing the piles of garbage(!) on the streets of Salem but in complete contrast, I saw goats being themselves and grazing grass.That was the first time(and probably the last) I saw goats being – goats.

A few years ago, in a book about a fishing village, I read about a village dog, chasing the town dwellers’ car. This was something I only read. It would be absurd if it happened where I live, but I witnessed this while going on towards the village. A tiny dog, just about a foot in height, kept barking and chased the car. I must say, it was an amazing sight.

Moving deeper towards the village, I was disturbed at the fact that there were plenty of bare lands with boards, of housing plans. The lush greenery was soon to be adulterated by smoky buildings. Those lands had a look of all hope lost. The villages were the only lovable places of India and those would also soon be destroyed of their nature.

This year’s trip to Trichy made me realize the truth in Gandhi’s words,

-“India lives in her seven hundred thousand villages”-

The trip also taught me that India’s life is gradually being sucked out of her, by her own inhabitants.

Alas!

Victims of our beliefs

Indians and superstitions are inseparable. We allow our beliefs to define us. A typical Indian limits his range of thoughts to his superstitions and fancies. We all are aware of the fact that various superstitions exist, even among the well-educated families. Logical reasoning is not enough to uproot superstitions from our culture.

How can we explain it to a person, who discontinued his quest, just because a black cat crossed his path? Poor cat, would’ve been hunting for food. How, possibly can it be an evil omen? Now that I’ve mentioned that, I remember a quote I read somewhere: “A black cat crossing your path signifies that the cat is going somewhere”. Worrying about that cat’s sinister behaviour isn’t going to get us anywhere, so why worry?

If cat behaviour is tormenting us on one side, there are people who don’t want to face widows. What kind of honest reason can they give for avoiding a widow? It’s considered a bad omen if one faces a widow before doing anything auspicious. I don’t think any ‘god’, has told us to avoid or shun our fellow humans. Then why do some people ignore them? Is it a girl’s fault if she obeyed her parents; married the man they pointed at, who just happened to face an unnatural death? People and society make these women vulnerable and then shun them saying they bring bad luck.

My friend accidentally dropped a mirror. It shattered to a million pieces, each reflecting her mother’s angry expression. She wasn’t angry because her daughter had broken an expensive mirror; what angered her was the simple fact that her daughter had broken a mirror. She said that it would bring seven years of bad luck! It was quite surprising; she was an educated and socially reputed woman, but here she was, worrying about a silly superstition. I can personally guarantee that I’ve broken a lot of mirrors before, enough to bring me a life-time of bad luck. These beliefs just don’t work.

We generally tend to blame others. If something bad happens, we blame cats for crossing our paths, we blame widows if our prayers aren’t fulfilled and we even blame crows for cawing if undesirable visitors turn up. We simply blame others and victimize them for our superstitions.

I think we can develop ourselves, only if we could accept the consequences of our own actions, instead of blaming others, in the name of god and superstitions.

More About People

People come in all shapes and sizes. That’s the beauty of life; the variety. There are the good-humoured people who appreciate others’ efforts and views. We don’t find too many such people around here now though.

Then, there is the other kind, who can’t live without disturbing and distracting others, but despite all these kinds of people,variety, to this day, remains to be the spice of life.

This poem – ‘More about people’ by Ogden Nash; I found this in my mother’s treasured ‘Poems for pleasure’, a collection of a few of the best poetry ever found. When I first read this poem, I was amused; how true and how simply said!

Sometimes, when we attempt creative writing, we look to add tough vocabulary because we feel that’s creativity; using words no one else is familiar with. But many a time, the most creative of works consist of simple words. The simplicity of the thought and the usage of words themselves are rejuvenating. We fail to realize this at times.

This is yet another amazing lesson poetry has taught me. They say brevity is the soul of wit, but this poem plainly states that unpolished and naked words can be witty as well.

Coming back to the poem, what a complete picture it gives! And all it says is, more about people.

The best thing about the poem is that it’s undeniable. It is simply and truly said. See for yourself.

More about people

~Ogden Nash

When people aren’t asking questions
They’re making suggestions
And when they’re not doing one of those
They’re either looking over your shoulder or stepping on your toes
And then as if that weren’t enough to annoy you
They employ you.
Anybody at leisure
Incurs everybody’s displeasure.
It seems to be very irking
To people at work to see other people not working,
So they tell you that work is wonderful medicine,
Just look at Firestone and Ford and Edison,
And they lecture you till they’re out of breath or something
And then if you don’t succumb they starve you to death or something.
All of which results in a nasty quirk:
That if you don’t want to work you have to work to earn enough money so that you won’t have to work.

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