Tense moments

You are known by what you do. Not by your name or what your parents did. In the long run, what really matters is what you did with your time. How did you spend it? And who did you spend it on? Or with? As long as you're alive, everybody is allotted equal time. Equal number of hours in a day. But the funny thing about time is it doesn't allow you the privilege of understanding what really is going on. Even if you think that you've figured out everything, it doesn't really sum up well. Uncertainties. Which might explain why we are able to point out the patterns or connect the dots only when an event has ended. That knack rarely occurs to us in real-time. Looking back indeed helps a lot but doesn't also mean that we are creatures of the past? Every single moment is passing us by without showing us the courtesy of slowing down a bit. Truth to be told, our entire existence is in the past tense. In such a scenario, the question would rather be, what are you going to do with your future?

Relationship status: *necking*

I'm in pain today.

Go home. I mean, stay home. Plant a tree or something if you can. Because unlike us humans who have body parts that are much younger than them—at any given point of time—trees usually have more than 90% of their system dead or dying...thus relying heavily on the rest for their mere survival. Isn't that something?

Just that neck sprain never bothers them despite having hundreds of branches . :( 

Same shit, different universe

Deep inside, i'm everything that i'm not. A world-class musician, a homeostatic hermit, a fabulous footballer, a funny character, a remarkable convincer, a marketing legend and a successful farmer. The reason why i'm all these different things is pretty much the same why i ain't. Yes, it sounds immensely paradoxical but there is a parallel universe in place somewhere too. And unlike the one we inhabit, it must be having me in an altogether different avatar. I might be playing violin there or i could be that epic sage who can control his body temperature/temper. Better still, i might be dribbling past Messi—be it any given universe, he's meant to play football—out there or i could be making eyes wet with my jokes. I might very well be working on the 94th floor as a prime negotiator for MNCs or i could be pwning the dubious art of selling products to those who don't really need them. If not, i might be happy under the sun in a house overlooking a vast field of rice. Like i said, i could be everything i'm not. I just can't be sure about anything anymore. If you still aren't convinced, then i neither blame you nor me. We just happen to be in the wrong universe right now. 

The ultimate pursuit

They say that when you die, nothing matters anymore. Your possessions, your titles, your debts, your legacy, etc. Nothing. In fact, they did a study on this subject and asked deathbed-ridden people—belonging to different backgrounds—what was running through their head. To make matters interesting, a majority of them surrendered the most childish of replies. One emaciated gentleman even said, "I miss the taste of the soup my aunt made for me..." before adding, "I don't even remember the taste!" And he wasn't the only one who made startling but heartwarming confessions about what really mattered to them when they were inches away from a graveyard. 

Which brings us to the questions: What is it that humans pursue? Freedom? Happiness? Peace? Or everything? 

Freedom is something you gain for yourself. Happiness is something you offer others. Peace is something of a personal secret between you and others. 

So what exactly is it? 

If we presume that it's happiness, then why is it so fragmented and prone to change? Why doesn't it stay the way it once was? Or is it so because we tend to place our onus of happiness on others more than ourselves? If so, will we change? If not, how long before we do? People are unhappy everywhere. It's like the greatest pandemic of all time. Never before have so many been unhappy simultaneously. And this despite the bloom of so-called modernity and broadmindedness. Kids are unhappy and so are their parents. Couples—both married as well as unmarried—are dangling in the flux state of ecstasy and depression. Elders are unhappy for reasons best known to nostalgia. People—both online as well as offline—are stuck in a sad mela of their own although they might either shy away from admitting it or pretend to be too busy to even acknowledge it.

This is what i believe.

There is an equal amount of sadness for everyone around us. All human, irrespective of their physical or mental differences. Everybody is sad equally. The amount of sadness you have in your life—believe it or not—equals the amount of sadness in Angelina Jolie's life. Or for that matter, Bill Gates's. Everybody is sad in their own sour way. Even the guy with an eight-inch jumbopenis is bound to as sad as the one with a five-incher. Do you hear that? That's a sigh of relief. I don't know about you but i feel great about my theory. 

Wait.

But there's a twist in the tale: the amount of happiness isn't equal for all. A Shah Rukh Khan or a Lady Gaga could very well be happier than you or me. The same could be true about that colleague you don't like in spite of several attempts. Even that liftman you didn't give Diwali bakshish to. Yeah, the universe is unfair but it's not cruel. There's a caveat in everything it does or doesn't do. Equal sadness for all but we've got to toil for our share of happiness. In order to crack this code, first decide what are you unhappy about. Is it because of the things you have or because of the things you don't? Once you do that, it'd be much easier to be sad. Or happy. Depending on what you're really pursuing.

Aching to straighten up

If you are an attention whore, try to emulate pain. It has our utmost attention whether we like it or not. It's like a friend you don't really ask for but when it's with you, it won't leave your side. Or middle. Or centre. It will stick around as loyally as the solar system works. Painkillers and muscle-relaxers help but they wither out after a while and you're left to yourself. I'm blabbering all thanks to a week full of pain. It began with flu-like fever but ended with a horrible neck sprain. Which is ironical in a way because i accomplished this impossible task while resting with two pillows! I must be the chosen one when it comes to oddities of life. Nevertheless, i learned LOT about myself while i was bed-ridden or train-ridden (and badly wishing i hadn't left home for work). Those nerves in my nape were trying to tell me something. Maybe they were whispering "S-P-O-N-D-Y-L-I-T-I-S" but i couldn't hear them. But one thing was for certain: this sedentary lifestyle where you're glued to a desk with a chair below your bums isn't healthy. We were supposed to explore and travel and get lost and find ourselves. Walking upto the printer back and forth doesn't count as exercise. On a second thought, walking shouldn't be counted as exercise at all. Health matters. You miss it when it's gone. You can't have a crooked neck and move around pretending to be Dev Anand. Nobody appreciates that shit. On the contrary, they'll pity you. And that's worse than pain. Pitying you is your birthright. You can't possibly let others steal that from you. 

The Last Fucker

An old man was lying on his deathbed. The air in his dreary room supported his state of mind. He had a hunch it was his last night on the good barren earth. However, he didn't experience extreme weakness or foreboding of any nature. In fact, he was feeling light. Very. No, not because he was frail or thin as a thread. His consciousness about what really was going on made him feel better about himself. He couldn't figure out his exact age although his memory was sharp about events that shaped his destiny. Montages from his noteworthy childhood filled his wide open eyes. Endless and moralless stories. And then there were unedited sequences from his adulthood too. What he wouldn't give to relive those moments for a bit! Of course, his mortal mistakes didn't escape him either. To his benefit, he remembered the highs and lows with vivid detail. His ability to put blame on him first and then on others helped him avoid distortion of reality. Unfortunately, there wasn't anyone sitting on the edge of his bed to hear what he had to say. Perhaps silence was meant to his last word. Nevertheless, that didn't bother him at all. Come to think of it, the present scenario might have troubled him no less several decades earlier. Not now. There was nothing to regret. His blood was tired of running while his bones couldn't take his body's toll and his breath didn't wish to fight with his lungs anymore. And he completely understood their situation. It had been an extremely long journey. Unless you're a character in Bible, you weren't supposed to strive for more than two centuries in the wilderness. Something our old man understood way too distinctly before drifting away to sleep.

Leaving to stay longer

What happens to words? No, not the ones written down or tweeted or documented in other forms. I mean the words that are spoken out, either softly or out loud. Where do they go? Do they accumulate somewhere? Or do they reincarnate themselves at will? How far can the wind carry the burden of words? Is there a reason why humans are blessed with languages while other living beings are recognized by their calls? Or is it actually a curse? Besides, we made our entry with our usual annoying wail, didn't we?

To NOT answer all these questions, here's one more addition to my list of falling-flat-on-face theories: Words turn into stars and shine. Truer the words, brighter they shine. False ones try to breakthrough but they fail—unlike on Earth—as the laws of sky don't suit them. The sincere ones remain eternal.

Damn. This theory doesn't work in polluted Bombay where the stars have already left. And only the ever-changing moon is left.

Liquid friendship

In Western films, they often show complex protagonists taking a shower. And interestingly enough, there's nothing sexual about the representation. Not much of their body is seen except their upper part. Water, preferably hot—falls on the character's body, usually in slo-mo—for few seconds, if not more. I often wondered what water signified in such accompanied-by-sombre-music sequences. To my guess, it signifies a friend. Someone who holds you, encapsulates you and keeps you safe. Momentarily, even. It doesn't strike a conversation but its sprinkling sound is reassuring. It caresses your skin without judging you. Touch, as somebody recently made me realize, indeed says much more than words. However, wasting water is a sin too.

An excuse to be alive

There's something about 27 Club. It wants you to kill yourself. But you won't, not because you're classically lazy but because, contrary to what your convictions suggest, they won't remember you for long. Less than a handful may while the rest will move on. Speaking of which, does it matter whether you are alive in people's memory or not? Does anything matter? Cliché tells us that nothing matters except those few beautiful moments that greet us every now and then like an untimely breeze. And being human (and inherently selfish) we don't wish to give up on them. Maybe that's why we are still alive, refusing to be members of illustrious clubs that might just accept us for who we are—dead and gone.