Knowledge

I know nothing but the fact of my own ignorance. Socrates.

On the question of people

A few days ago a dear friend told me that he considered Indians the most awful people on earth. We lie, we con and we cheat and we have no consideration for other people. There wasn't much i could say to refute him. It was obviously a generalisation, but I have seen enough exhibition of such behaviour to not be able to refute it.

But then i read this book about the Rwandan genocide( which in and of itself is another post) and a chap whom the author interviews says exactly the same thing about his own people. Which led me to conclude - human nature??

But then again, in my limited travels in the West, i was struck by the notable absence of security guards and/or cameras anywhere. I could have easily picked up much stuff and walked out the door with no one the wiser. People were helpful and if you asked them for directions they would generally point you the right way.

So people from under developed countries? Is it that if you look behind you, and see the gaping maw of poverty and homelessness and hunger, you automatically claw at anything to keep you from the abyss. Become the kind of person who would lie and con and cheat? But that would naturally lead to the conclusion that rich people do not conduct any of these nefarious activities. And we all know that isnt true....

A question for the ages no doubt.

To paraphrase prince -
Paint if you will a picture, of you and i in a car. It whizzes along on the sleek highway and gradually slows to a halt. Long lines of cars snake out from gates. Gates open every couple of seconds and the lines mover forward. You move into the shortest even though from long experience you know that it will take the most time. So much the better that you join the longest line. At least you will be prepared for the wait. the shortest line tantalizes you, but it never really delivers.
There is a man, dressed in rags. He is old. He has a bowl clutched in his hand and you cannot tell, but he might be blind. He stumbles from car to car, knocking on windows and peering pitifully into them. His face is screwed up into a grimace. You feel a rush of pity for him. Frantically you search in your pockets for a note or a coin of a denomination that is not too large. By the time you find it he has passed on. You unroll the window and gesture frantically at him. He has moved on to the next car and does not see you. The gates open and the car moves through it and gradually speeds up. You withdraw your hand and mutter to yourself - poor old man. And just like that it is forgotten.
We are selfish people, we indians. We are so inured to poverty and destitution that we turn a blind eye and we forget. Don't we have a duty to these people? We who are grossly overpaid to sit at desks and pretend to be Charlie or Belinda to please people of a different country, don't we have a duty towards these people who lead heir entire lives in misery and dirt?

A question of age

The last few months I have been wrestling with an age old question - what do i do with my life? Its been nestled in the back of my brain, rapping at the back door of my subconscious every so often. And every time it does a small part of me starts to hyperventilate.

I'm 24 after all. The hourglass for the first quarter of my life is almost empty and im going to have to flip it over again very soon. And then i'll be on the wrong side of 25. *shudder*.

When i was 18 and 19 or even 20 i used to look at 24 or 25 year olds and wonder why they weren't married. I always figured that by the time I hit 25 i would have it all figured out. My career, my life and be ready to be hitched and have a passel of babies. Boy, was i wrong. Not only do i feel completely unequipped to take care of a person other than myself , the thought itself fills me with the kind of horror normally reserved for road kill and maggot infestations.

But getting back to the point. 24 , a quarter of my life almost over, no direction, no goals and no calling. I would quit my job tomorrow if i had even a vague sense of what i wanted to do with my life. But because of my inborn risk aversion (curse it!) I wont take that plunge until ive found another risk less and (probably) boring job.

What i want from a job isnt much. It's what every one wants from their careers but what very few actually get. I want to like it. I never want to groan about Monday mornings. I want to want to stay late and never have a life outside work and be ok with it because work is just so satisfying.

A lot of people say that they will work at their current jobs for a while, save up money and then quit and do what they want to do with their lives. I think thats an utter load of crap. If you cant take risks and let it all hang out there in your 20's, when will you? When you're forty , have mouths to feed and a ton of responsibility? After a couple of years you get used to the security of having a regular paycheck and your dreams just fade away into the horizon.

The problem with Indians is that we always look for the conventional road. Even now, when i contemplate my own personal crossroads, one path leads towards the dull safety of my current job, one towards the safety(whether dull or not, I cannot speculate) of a masters and another towards the (probable) dull safety of another job. The last, however, is but a track, rough and rocky in parts. It leads towards the unknown, toward possible failure.

Failure! Every time i put a foot down that path a dozen hands reach to pull me back, my own fears not the least of them. I must shake them off. I know this, for my own happiness and my peace of mind. I must. But they whisper to me, these invisible hands... they undermine my hopes and my dreams. They plant insidious thoughts, creeping ike vines through my consciousness. Just a litle longer they say. Stay, but a little longer, on the broad path, the smooth path. And like the coward i am, I do.

I fear that i will stay forever

Day Dreaming

I've been day dreaming about Barcelona recently.

Paris was beautiful, but it left me severely unsatisfied. I was perpetually cold and perpetually hungry and dying from lack of sunlight. Before i was in Europe, I loved those gloomy rainy days, loved to huddle under a quilt with biscuits and coffee and a book. But Europe cured me, completely and effectively.

We left Paris at nightfall, in freaking expensive couchette seats, on a train bound for Spain. We sat on the ground for the better part of that night, talking about life and everything about it, while ticket checkers stepped over our outstretched legs and gave us strange looks. I went to sleep tired, worn out by days of walking and frustration, and wanting to tear out my hair. I woke to sunlight and everything just seemed better suddenly, like the world had spun around and was giving me apples today. The train left us at Port Buo, which could have been in France or Spain, I still don't know which. We could see the sea in the distance and made for it like homing pigeons, through a sleepy little town, stopping only to pick up a croissant for breakfast. And there it was. The blue blue Mediterranean. Sitting there on that pebbly beach, with the sun on my face and the sea at my feet, after the weeks of gloom, from Warsaw to Amsterdam to Paris, ranks right up there in my "Oh! Bliss!" moments.

But anyway, I loved Barcelona. The city felt happy and laidback and serene. And it seemed to be a mild shade of brown. That was my main impression of Barcelona. Brown, and the sense that everything was soft. There is nothing rigid there. There are no right angles . It is a testament to the city's Arabic legacy, I think. The modern art which springs out of nowhere. We were ambling back to our hostel, that night, more than a little sloshed, making drunken silly conversation when suddenly we were confronted with huge rings rising into the air. I stared up for a minute, my mouth open. Then of course, I was struck by the fact that this was really NOT the way home.

I would like to live in Barcelona for a while. For a year or maybe two, I would like to live in a country where, in the afternoon life stops and siesta begins. There is so much of Spain that I want to see. The bull fighters of Madrid. Toledo and Avila. Valencia. Hemingway's mountains where his hero tries to blow up a bridge in the pursuit of love, freedom and communism. Granada.

Big hopes for someone who will in a month, acquire a job which will chain her to a desk for 300 odd days a year.

I love Dave Matthews Band. I do.

Poems

I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope
For hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love,
For love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith
But the faith and the love and the hope are all in the waiting.

T.S Eliot

I always loved this poem. It appeals to me, to a part of me that loves the dreaminess of it and the anticipation.

It is slightly like sunlight through a stained glass window. The light refracts and you are surrounded by a million different colors. You put your hand out and it is dappled with shadows and light. Out of the darkness, he says, there will come hope. All you have to do is keep the faith.

I have never really been able to understand poetry. Much of it is a garble of words to me and i cannot be bothered to make sense of it. But there are some sonnets or verses that u hear, and you stop and u will remember them forever. The Charge of the Light Brigade for the sheer stupidity that lead those poor doomed men into battle. Lochinvar for it's chivalry. Pablo Neruda's sonnet XVII ,because that's how most people (and certainly me) want to be loved. And this one. Eliot won a Nobel Prize for the Four Quartets. It is easy to see why.

Small Joys

A fork in the road. Go right. Go left. End up at the opposite corner of the universe or in front of where you wanted to be. Or a million other places in between.

Is where you wanted to be, where you are? Or where you should be? How do you decide anything? Be sure about anything? Anything could spin you around, screw up your life. Or would you be happy with what you have, whatever it is? Is contentment the enemy now, in this time and place? Do you stop striving for anything, if you are just happy? Isn't that the point? When do you give up the pursuit of happiness and just Be?

Sometimes, the small joys are what make your life worth it. A mug of coffee first thing in the morning. Discovering a new song. Sunlight behind the clouds. Laughing with your friends. It is and should be. Enough.