A black cat crosses the road your path and you stop... cursing the cat for having crossed the road you realise you have 2 choices (a) wait where you are for 10 mins before walking ahead(b) take 7 steps back. All this to ward off the bad effect the black cat cast upon you just because it walked across the road.
This is such a weird practice isn't it? One accuses the cat of 2 things. Of being born a cat and of being born black. I don't think this happens with white cats, grey cats, brown cats or cats of any other colour. Why was the black cat singled out? Me thinks it was because it's black.
Me also thinks that cats are adorable animals. They're graceful, sharp, funnily playful and purr so nicely. So why should a black cat be seen as an evil thing which will spoil your day if it crosses your path? A black cat has crossed my path, i didn't stop or retread and something bad did NOT happen to me because of it.
Now, when droughts occur due to climatic changes, frogs are thought to be harbringers of rain. Why?? Because they revel and croak joyously when it rains? And what do people do when it doesn't rain? They catch hold of 2 frogs and get them married. Poor frogs.
Do humans who do this ensure that one is a 'boy' frog and one is a 'girl' frog. What if they are mistaken and get 2 'boy' frogs or 2 'girl' frogs married. :D
Well, that's not the point. The point is, what kind of a demented mind would think that getting 2 frogs married will bring rain? And then there are the frogs, cursing humans for picking them up from the pond, clasping them tightly in their hands lest the frogs hop away and conduct an alien (to the frogs) marriage ceremony.
1. Do frogs even think of marriage?
2. What makes humans assume that frogs will wish that the rains pour down if they torment them that way? Theyd'd probably wish for just the opposite for having pulled them out of their comfort zone.
Heard of women being married off to dogs and trees? The dog-woman marriage came in a movie and the tree-woman marriage became a big issue when it was claimed that an extremely popular actress was married off to it. All this so that the 'bad influence' that she carries with her is warded off? Warded off to what? The helpless tree and the so-not-thankful-about-the-marriage dog? I'm sure the trees and dogs will take the 'bad influence', multiply it by a 1000 and send it back to everyone around them. If that can actually happen...
So through all this, while us human folks build our lives on superstitions, the animals are hoping that we are fester and die and let them live in peace. Talk about bringing in goodwill to our lives huh...
While our beautiful country becomes richer, technologically advanced, changes for the better we don't seem to want to let go of practices which make no sense. I really wish people would stop making such fools of themselves in front of animals by not following these mindless practices. At the end of the day, that's what it is. Just a mindless superstition...
Friday, 28 August 2009
Thursday, 27 August 2009
The irony of time...
Remember as a kid when we used to watch grown-ups being allowed to do things we were never allowed to do? Hearing something like "You're too young for this" or "She is allowed to because she is much older", was so common. Almost everything that we wanted to do was met with a firm "No".
Ok so we grew older. What we couldn't do at 5 we were allowed to at 10. What we couldn't at 10 we did at 15. Which means that when we were kids we kept wanted to grow older because we thought that those elder to us had lives that were so much fun and ours', at that age, was just plain boring...
I remember vividly when i was in school to have wanted to desperately to complete studying and begin working. Imagine the freedom and money! (it was actually just the money and the doing away with exams). I bet there are many who thought the same way.
Getting a job, first salary, the first day of shopping with earned money was an awesome experience. Getting the independence that was craved for since childhood finally came true. Revelling in it, we took firmer strides forward in our 'work-life'.
And then the realization set in that we didn't really have the independence of childhood. Sleeping late into the day is now termed as childish. We don't get to spend as much time with friends as we used to. Idle afternoons do not exist and most importantly, there are no summer holidays!
And now, we do not want to grow older any more! ha! We always wanted to so far, didn't we?
Now, growing older is synonymous with greying, wrinkles, gaining more weight than what we have already gained, kids (aaaa...!), and finally senility! How ironic, isn't it? What we always wanted, we don't any more..
So now, we see kids and envy them. While they look at us and envy us. :P We have the money, we have grown up but we still wanna go home, throw our bags and run out to play. Come to think of it, if we did that it'd be pretty funny.
But life is just what one's perspective makes of it anyway.
Ok so we grew older. What we couldn't do at 5 we were allowed to at 10. What we couldn't at 10 we did at 15. Which means that when we were kids we kept wanted to grow older because we thought that those elder to us had lives that were so much fun and ours', at that age, was just plain boring...
I remember vividly when i was in school to have wanted to desperately to complete studying and begin working. Imagine the freedom and money! (it was actually just the money and the doing away with exams). I bet there are many who thought the same way.
Getting a job, first salary, the first day of shopping with earned money was an awesome experience. Getting the independence that was craved for since childhood finally came true. Revelling in it, we took firmer strides forward in our 'work-life'.
And then the realization set in that we didn't really have the independence of childhood. Sleeping late into the day is now termed as childish. We don't get to spend as much time with friends as we used to. Idle afternoons do not exist and most importantly, there are no summer holidays!
And now, we do not want to grow older any more! ha! We always wanted to so far, didn't we?
Now, growing older is synonymous with greying, wrinkles, gaining more weight than what we have already gained, kids (aaaa...!), and finally senility! How ironic, isn't it? What we always wanted, we don't any more..
So now, we see kids and envy them. While they look at us and envy us. :P We have the money, we have grown up but we still wanna go home, throw our bags and run out to play. Come to think of it, if we did that it'd be pretty funny.
But life is just what one's perspective makes of it anyway.
Monday, 24 August 2009
Serendipity
2 and a half months ago, my life resembled that of a still lake. Not many ripples. Just being the way it is. In short, placid... 2 and a half months ago, i was sent on a long pending short term onsite (Philadelphia), which lasted all of 2 weeks.
Apart from going to complete some assignment, i was to meet this man i had been chatting with for a week.
We spoke, both in disbelief that i was actually flying to Philly. This was far too coincidental.
No onsite travel from my company is complete without delays, last minute surprises, manager's sudden realisation that the entire setup would be in UK but i'd be travelling to the US, so on and so forth. This obviously resulted in much, although avoidable, confusion. Amidst all of this, there seemed to be something that propelled me towards my journey.
Preparations galore, last minute checks, and i was off. Sitting in the airport with lots of time to spare, i thought about this person i was going to meet. Someone who was an absolute stranger a week ago but was now a good friend. 22 hours of flight were filled with 'butterflies in the stomach' feeling.
So I land, after some really good chocolate mousse cake, and enter an almost empty lobby. I hoped to recognise him through 2 photographs. No one. I walked around, strange new place, damn 'international roaming activated for incoming calls only' was not latching onto any network. Vodafone sucks. Might as well say this while i'm on that topic. I walked down and got the airport helpdesk to call a number. I hear a voice which says "Hey! Welcome.. I'll be there in 10 minutes". Ok so i wait again. Like 22 hours was not enough, right?
And finally we meet. Pleansantries exchanged and all... And then began my whirlwind of a 2 week stint in Philadelphia.
Sandeep, the person i went to meet, and I got along like a house on fire. We spoke almost almost everyday till 12 or 1 in the night. Unheard of from me, for those who know me well. We spoke about almost everything under the sun. And then 4 days after we met, we realised that we should be married. 11 days after we began speaking. That one day, that one decision has changed me life completely. As has similar decisions in others' lives, i'm sure.
I found a friend, a confidant, a life partner all in less than 2 weeks. Strange are the ways of love. Work, which i went onsite for (need to say this because almost no one believes that i went there on work), faded into the background. No amount of nonsensical confusion took anything away from those magical evenings in Philadelphia. If i were in bangalore while that confusion at work prevailed, i'd have been cursing life, people, everything. But as i said, love's strange. Makes the world go around, as they say.
This entire fiasco has made me believe that there is some thing called as Destiny. Something that kept delaying that onsite till Sandeep and I were to meet. Something that made me travel despite wanting to for 2 years only to meet him.
Which is why i've named this post as Seredipity. The dictionary defines this word as 'The faculty of making fortunate discoveries by accident'. And this is just what it was... An extremely beautiful and fortunate discovery..
Apart from going to complete some assignment, i was to meet this man i had been chatting with for a week.
We spoke, both in disbelief that i was actually flying to Philly. This was far too coincidental.
No onsite travel from my company is complete without delays, last minute surprises, manager's sudden realisation that the entire setup would be in UK but i'd be travelling to the US, so on and so forth. This obviously resulted in much, although avoidable, confusion. Amidst all of this, there seemed to be something that propelled me towards my journey.
Preparations galore, last minute checks, and i was off. Sitting in the airport with lots of time to spare, i thought about this person i was going to meet. Someone who was an absolute stranger a week ago but was now a good friend. 22 hours of flight were filled with 'butterflies in the stomach' feeling.
So I land, after some really good chocolate mousse cake, and enter an almost empty lobby. I hoped to recognise him through 2 photographs. No one. I walked around, strange new place, damn 'international roaming activated for incoming calls only' was not latching onto any network. Vodafone sucks. Might as well say this while i'm on that topic. I walked down and got the airport helpdesk to call a number. I hear a voice which says "Hey! Welcome.. I'll be there in 10 minutes". Ok so i wait again. Like 22 hours was not enough, right?
And finally we meet. Pleansantries exchanged and all... And then began my whirlwind of a 2 week stint in Philadelphia.
Sandeep, the person i went to meet, and I got along like a house on fire. We spoke almost almost everyday till 12 or 1 in the night. Unheard of from me, for those who know me well. We spoke about almost everything under the sun. And then 4 days after we met, we realised that we should be married. 11 days after we began speaking. That one day, that one decision has changed me life completely. As has similar decisions in others' lives, i'm sure.
I found a friend, a confidant, a life partner all in less than 2 weeks. Strange are the ways of love. Work, which i went onsite for (need to say this because almost no one believes that i went there on work), faded into the background. No amount of nonsensical confusion took anything away from those magical evenings in Philadelphia. If i were in bangalore while that confusion at work prevailed, i'd have been cursing life, people, everything. But as i said, love's strange. Makes the world go around, as they say.
This entire fiasco has made me believe that there is some thing called as Destiny. Something that kept delaying that onsite till Sandeep and I were to meet. Something that made me travel despite wanting to for 2 years only to meet him.
Which is why i've named this post as Seredipity. The dictionary defines this word as 'The faculty of making fortunate discoveries by accident'. And this is just what it was... An extremely beautiful and fortunate discovery..
Tuesday, 18 August 2009
Until then...
And there I stood, circled by the others
They know me as I was, not as I am.
The metamorphosis is invisible to them
They stand there with their fingers pointing at me
They seem to say something which I cannot decipher
They want me to be something but they don’t know what
They are a world apart. A void between them and me
They don’t know my world. I wish they did.
They judge me. Their pre-conceived notion plagues their mind from knowing ME.
I smile. And they accuse me of doing so.
Can the mind ever be free from illusions?
Will they ever learn to take others as they are?
They want a perfect life. They want the cake and want to eat it too.
One day they shall see the difference between them and me.
But, until then I shall still be surrounded by them
With them looking at me accusingly
They do not know why
In their eyes I am wrong and they are right.
When will you understand the value of the individual?
Do you want to create clones?
When will the time come?
But, until then I shall be surrounded by them
Until then I shall walk steadfast on my own path.
A path filled with respect to oneself and to others.
A love unknown to others
A path free of prejudices
Until then they shall stare at me as if I am an alien.
There shall be few on my path. But, many more on the other
Until then we shall walk on separate roads. We shall lead separate lives.
My world unknown to you, your world known by me.
Until then I shall be surrounded by them.
With their fingers pointing at me……
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