The sands of time

In the recent past, I have suddenly found old contacts. People I knew in school, in high school, old friends --- suddenly orkut and other yahoo group mails got us in touch. And there has been a subtle pattern emerging through all that.

All my life, I have been a person who has believed what my parents, my teachers, my books and sayings have said. I have spoken out what I had on my mind --- being open and honest is something I really never could contain. A lot of incidents come to the mind, but some other day, perhaps. However, I never saw the coolness about drinking or smoking or being bad to others. Yes, the recent drinking incident was an aberration, but that is what it was. I have learnt my lesson --- and I'm not going to touch that thing again. But that is beside the point: what I am trying to say here is that there have always been people in my class who did the cool thing. And this cool thing included not studying, being uncouth, bullying others and a lot of other stuff. They sort of formed the gang: the ones who teased others who studied, never forgot a chance to be sarcastic or to pass a comment when you passed. And I had been at the receiving end of it all, I even remember someone practising yelling by doing that at me.

Now, however, as I learn of these people, I come to know what became of them. I shouldn't call them failures in life, but they have not reached positions that I know others have reached. Someone is unemployed, someone else's father is spending millions trying to get his son a useless US degree, another apparently has some record with the local police. And suddenly I am frightened to see myself happy at these people. I don't know --- but somehow the childhood anguishes give me a feeling of vindication. It is a sort of confirmation of the values that I have held so dear to my heart --- that hard work is rewarded, that being good isn't necessarily the foolish thing to do. Something tells me that I am right, and although I still offer my help to these people when they ask for it --- there is a certain feeling of emerging a winner that I feel. And what I don't like about that feeling is, I am not sure whether I am happy that I did well or whether they turned out as they did. But I feel happy all the same.

And the lesson I learnt from it is this: being good doesn't mean one has to be a simpleton. I realise that this had been the root cause of many of my miseries: imagining and believing in a perfect world. But the world isn't perfect, and so one shouldn't walk through life as the snake who never bites. The snake shouldn't lie still when everyone else around him is poking fun. It is perfectly all right to bare your fangs and hiss: just never bite.

Writing it through poetry

Yeah yeah... have been away for a long time now and suddenly came back with a 3-liner borrowed from a movie. But it says so much, yaar... it says a lot. All my emotions suddenly seem captured in those melodies and beautiful lyrics. And D, really sorry for telling everyone in the cyber space about you and your little bicycle trip, dude. I had told you that I'll say this here: sorry about posting info about you then. But you know what, this is my personal place, and I don't care as long as I don't give your identity out. So I think I had the right to say that on my blog: I repeat, MY FRIGGIN' BLOG, and I don't care what you think. Anyway... thats over now and lets hope you've understood things.

Current mood playing:

Ye raat aur ye duri
Tauba teri ye majboori
Ke dil mera dhak dhak doley
Diwana liye jaye hichkoley

Roz roz

Roz roz resham si hawa
Aate jaate kehti hai bata
Resham si hawa kehti hai bata