The duration of pain...

It’s been a really long time that I wrote something and tonight I just feel like taking my laptop and penning down some thoughts that have been for some reason or the other occurring to me since evening and since there is no reason the thoughts should come to me, I sit back and ask myself. “What is the duration of pain?” or “How long should pain last?” Pain happens and goes away but the scars are deep; they rise in some cauldron of our hearts and engulf us for a long long time to come, long after they have happened; long after you have sobbed your pillows to tears; long after you have stared blankly at that mirror showing the reflection of a person that appears like you, sans all the joi-de-vivre and apparently asking God, “Why me?? Why did it have to be me?”. Long after pain loosens its apparent grip over you, it revisits you time and again in the most unconnected of moments. You never know when the unwanted visitor comes knocking at the doorsteps of your mind and completely derails your present. Somehow the word transience doesn’t apply to pain. It never goes away, it keeps coming back. Hence there is nothing called the duration of pain. At max, it can be broadly categorized into two categories- one when it is all encompassing and the other, when it is episodic. Pain, after it is gone, is extremely episodic in nature. You have apparently moved on in life but then for some reason or the other, the shit thing comes up all over again; you don’t know what triggers that; maybe that gaze at the calm sea, maybe that calling of a particular name; maybe the mention of some topic; maybe the sight of a particular beverage; something or the other will happen and then you have had it. You are lost and deep down you really cry badly. Cry because you have lost something dear; cry because few things you cherished in life are no more with you; cry because you have come to kissing distance with grabbing your dreams and then had to let it just go. Yes, kissing distance; f#$#ing kissing distance. And that hurts. Why? Because having come so close was like a glimpse of what could have happened; and along that journey of getting the glimpse, you have created memories, the same memories, which albeit a source of happiness when there is nothing to look around, is also the reason of pain many a times. If pain is not preceded by immense pleasure, I believe the situation gets highly ameliorated but this inadvertent sequence whereby pain follows heights of pleasure magnifies the sadness and also creates enough memory, which you sigh at; because they have given you a picture of an otherwise sexed out life which in reality and at present is completely (at least on a relative scale) f#@$ed up. Long time back, I was generally talking to a physiatrist and he was telling me that the biggest reasons people decay is because they cannot move on. They just cannot let go of their pasts and look forward to what life has to offer and in this context he was saying that it’s very important for people to remain happy as that will take away their thoughts from the past to the present. To this I generally asked him, “and what if the past has been so damn good that the present can never ever match upto that?” He smiled…I got my answer….

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.

The value of nothingness....

I am on a break...not a sabbatical but just a week long break and one question i keep getting by everyone is so, where r u going, why not take a vacation, why not go home, etc etc. I too initially wanted to indulge in all of these but then i refrained myself and i just stayed at my apartment, not doing anything and from my experience in the last two days, all i can say is nothingness has its own value. In the normal course life is very hectic. Getting up and just running here and there just makes you completely drained by the end of the week and no sonner you realise that, you are already hitting Sunday evening and the race begins again and in the background of all these, this break seems amazing. Last two days, frankly I have done nothing. I wake up leasurely, make my tea, aaram se read the newspaper, prepare my breakfast, ask the maid to make a nice lunch, relax again, watch tv, read a book, go for a brisk walk and just laze around. Thankfully, my house comp is also not working and hence that ensures i dont spend all my time sticking my neck on the screen. Life is very slow and the lack of pace really lets me unwind. I could have gone somewhere but there is value in being with just yourself, all alone for the whole day, no one around and you being able to just gaze into the thin air for sometime more, roll here and then on the couch for sometime extra and stretch ur legs a bit more....there is value in all of these; there is immense pleasure in sleeping without thinking about the meetings the following day; there is immense pleasure in waking up, gazing at the watch and not saying, damn i am getting late...better still, there is immense pleasure in waking up and not feeling the need to gaze at the watch at all.... No wonder the elders talked so much about stopping to smell the roses...Nothingness has its own virtue.....

Colleagues and Friends...

I remember once way back in 1999 when I was in Bangalore and a colleague’s uncle had introduced me to some other people, “Meet Sandeep; he is a colleague of Ramesh.” That day I felt very bad. How could he use the cold word colleague when I actually thought we were good friends? A lot of water has passed under the bridge in the last (almost) decade and I have changed a lot. Today I don’t mind using the word colleague or even a colder one-acquaintance if I find that suitable. Anyways, let us come to the main topic. Is it a good idea to make friends in office or not? I of late have started feeling that it’s not such a great idea to have close friends in office. I feel very strange saying so because both my very good friends are the ones whom I had met during internship; so office has given me my so to say emotional anchors. But those were the days when there was hardly any competition among us, much less back stabbing and politics but today the scenario is very different. Everyone seems to have an agenda, right from licking someone to proving one’s superiority/smartness to passing the buck; there is no dearth of reason why someone out there is always ready to take you for a ride. However it is not easy to remain cold and extremely formal in office. Come on, you spend anything upward of 50-60 hours in office every week. You better enjoy the company over there. Consulting is every worse. You literally spend complete weeks with them when you are out on client assignments hence colleagues are more like friends; you work, you have fun, you share and you even sit by each other and care like a close pal (Senior, if you are reading this, you know what I am referring to) and hence it’s very important to send the right vibes and be friends with your colleagues. However things are not that rosy always. Fact remains that at the end of the day, everyone is here for a purpose and hence there are clashes and conflicts. Worse still, if people are by nature nasty they will hurt you even there doesn’t exist any reason for the same. There’s deceit, there’s camouflage, there’s double standardism, and there is every possible vice that exists in the world present in offices. Balancing all of these calls for a lot of maturity. On one hand you can either be either someone absolutely cold and aloof and on the other you could end up baring your ass for anyone to screw. It’s a tough call. At the end of the day, I still don’t know what is the right path? All I can say is that caution is the key; be friendly but not overtly and don’t spill all your beans to everyone. Be sure they are genuine and never forget that friends also have friends. For the rest, there is nothing which bars from having a good time together, talking some general or work related stuff, being friendly but still having zero expectations and not saying/doing anything that might tomorrow put you in a tight spot.

Between boys and girls...

Mast life hoti hai...Last night i was talking to a friend of mine and we were planning to take a vacation together. However, neither of us felt comfortable with just the two of us going, cause it would look like a date which obviously it wasnt and now the search begins for a third person, failing which all our plans would go for a toss.. Kya sad case hai; had it been a guy and such a close pal, this situation would never have come...but since its the opposite gender in question, sochna padta hai... In this case it was very frank, mature talk but if you are not a part of a larger group and get along very well, at times it becomes an issue, what will she think, would she read too much into my behaviour etc etc...The situation gets largely ameliorated if atleast one of the persons in question is committed to someone else or if there is a larger group between the two but if neither of this exist, potential for a problem does exist , something very close to... self-fulfilling prophecies For me i can tell that some of my good friends are from the opposite gender and it feels sad when despite things being so platonic, at times u have to make changes eg: chances of ditching this vacation plan just because of our stupid thoughts or our concern of what others would be thinking.... I personally believe that any external party can never tell what type of relationship exists between a guy and a girl. They might be spending hell lot of time together, might be seen together everywhere but that doesnt mean they are having a scene or something and equally possible, they might rarely be together but there could a lot happening...There is this clear line of demarcation, which manifests itself in the basic air which engulfs when u meet which tells the difference and this line is absolutely invisible to another person....Only the people concerned can tell. Proximity, friendship, affection, regard, care....none of them tantamounts to Cupid striking...Its a different ball game all together...

Letting u down...

Life is full of expectations. There are a lot of things parents expect from their children, there are a lot of things our friends expects out of us and at large, there are societal and other expectations but what we cannot help is not meetings those expectations and letting down others. I remember as a kid when at times I used to be really naughty, I would be shit scared of what Mom will tell, “How can u do this” and this emphasis of YOU on what was made me feel bad more and more. A lot has happened since those days of childish fun but even today letting down anyone is as painful as ever. It hurts to see people your own feel sad because of the things u do. I remember going to visit a friend in the hospital who had a bad drunken driving accident. That look on his mom’s face could tell a lot. She didn’t know whether to sympathize with her child or be angry with him. He had simply let her down. Another case I can distinctly remember is a friend who was asked to repeat a year because he was caught cheating. I remember the look on his Dad’s face..it said a lot. I am in no way defending these acts of these people but let us step back and analyze it a bit. Do we always look at the fallouts of our actions when we indulge in things which we ideally should not. Think about it; how many of us actually think before having a drink that we will have to drive back; how many of us actually think before putting that piece of red meat in our mouth that its extremely high on cholesterol; how many of us really bother. When we do what we shouldn’t, we are simply being cool and when we have to face the consequences, we had simply been idiots (as per the same set of people who had called us cool) This brings us to another point- Why do we do what we are not supposed to do? A lot of it depends on the circle we move in, our will-power, our tastes, preferences etc. Let us look into one aspect-will-power. Will-power or the lack of it essentially is nothing but a reflection of the strength of our character which again is based on so many other things. For those who would have seen “Gandhi, My Father” it’s a classic case of a person’s lack of strength. It is easy to say that he let down his father and that he had absolutely no strength of character but has anyone thought, what made him do that? That brings to us to the classic case of cause Vs symptom. His lack of strength was a symptom which was drawn because of the frustration in his early years due to lack of love, lack of opportunities or simply, lack of emotional anchoring. Emotional detachment and aloofness can be disastrous and if your thoughts are always engulfed by these, nothing in the world can make you successful or happy. Returning to the main topic, letting someone down; how do we cope with the situation when we have let down someone? I mean in an ideal scenario, we shouldn’t do anything that would call for a situation like this but when we have done it there is no way we can undo the harm, what should we do. In my opinion the best way is to face it upfront. Many a times postponing a problem only aggravates it. It requires immense guts to stand up and say something unpleasant but a fact in front of someone you love but think of it, cheating and deceit are worse pains to conflict on your loved ones than facing the unpleasant truth. Further, if you are hiding something, chances are very high that you are distancing yourself from your loved ones as well. However its not that easy; if you require guts to speak, the other person also requires guts to listen and that presence of maturity across both the parties might simply not be present. What do you do in that….Well, I wish I knew!!!!