Just like that....

One thing in which, of late, my luck has been good is my choice of books. Just finished reading this absolutely wonderful book, "Man's search for meaning". I must say, absolutely haunting and brilliant. I had read a book on the same subject, "Night" by Elie Weisel, but i must confess this one is far more gripping than the previous, the way it has intertwined physcology with a personal account of the author's own suffering, the book is absolutely amazing (of course if u can tolerate the extremely gory narrations of the pathos of the camp inmates). Among other things, two sections of the book that really made me think, think really hard are the sections regarding a person's ability to really enjoy happiness after a prolonged period of suffering and the outlook of a person when he is in a position of power after having suffered immensely. Let me put down my thoughts on the first one. Prolonged periods of pain makes a person belief that happiness is something that is restricted to the realms of fantasy and hallucination; its makes a man skeptic; u dont believe that life can actually be good; it all seems a dream and you start believing that like all dreams, this too isnt for real and extremely transcient in nature. And to some extent this is something akin to a self-fulfilling prophecy. Happiness in my opinion is a gradual increasing thing which requires effort to keep it ongoing. For eg: wealth requires management to keep it increasing; love requires attention to sustain; Everything has to be nurtured for it to grow and if we believe that it isnt for real, we wont nurture it and sooner or later it will go away. I am not saying that nurturing will ensure that it wont go away but negligence is just like converting a stroll to a run to the graveyard. This makes me think. What would life be for such people.What would life be when you can see happiness, when it's all around you but you are too skeptical to enjoy it. Think about it, I have seen the look on a diabetic person staring at a plate full of badam-kulfi. If just a plate of sweets can make a person so sad, what would something as grave as being devoid of happiness do to a person. I mean it would reduce a person to sheer biological existence. What is life without happiness? What would life be when there is nothing to look forward to, what would life be with noone to come back to, what would life be when you unlock the house after a hard day at work and are pretty content seeing empty walls. The problem in these situations is not that the current situation is so bad, its a man's surrender to fate and his belief that the situation is there to stay and there is going to be no amelioration ever that literally kills him. God save people from such situations!!!!

Who will cry when I die :)

Was just browsing through the Net that I came across this book; must say pretty interesting title. Now when I was sitting in my house generally getting ready to sleep, this topic came to my mind: What if I die now; what if this is my last night; what if my life were to end in my sleep tonight; who would in all certainties cry for me; cry not because that’s the best thing to do; cry not because it would look un-cool to remain stoic and happy; cry because they would really miss me, at least for some time in their respective lives. Just taking this thought further, I start counting and what amazes me is that beyond my family, I can’t even think of more than 5 names who would I am sure genuinely miss me in their lives, for some time though; of course I am not counting the many condolence messages, “oops I am so sorry, what an young age to die etc” shit that will come pouring in. This makes me think, what an irony; in all these years just 5 damn names. What the hell have I done in my life? What have I achieved? Think about it; Kurt Cobain was already dead at my age; and what the hell have I done? When I am thinking about all this, I am also realizing that our lives actually are damn futile; we wake up, slog out, come back, rest our asses on the couch, watch something stupid on TV and hit the bed again; add a gathering here and there and that’s life. Seriously if I think about it, we all, IIM graduates, supposedly among the brightest of the lot lead such a dull and meaningless life; a life full of material pursuits and literally nothing less; having left no damn mark or our footprints on this world. I also want to state that I don’t want to say that all these material stuff and all is not important but tonight (at 3AM) when I am writing all this, I cant help but think that we live such an ordinary life; how else would u describe a life being remembered dil se with only five people. Only five damn people.