Life is a long, long path, and there are a small number of us who actually plan it out like a strategic map. You know, with checkpoints and signboards and stress relieving techniques, yoga and hopeless idols like Baba Ramdev for the sake of appearing literate and clued-in. Time is made up of threads which continuously switch around.
When asked to choose certain places I'd like to visit before I die, after being a freckle of fairy dust in Neverland, I chose to be a silverfish on the fabric of the space time continuum. It would be quite an adventure to mess around, trying to annoy all those busy, moving threads, causing the accidental death of a Mandela or the extremely unfortunate birth of an Indian politician.
All the strategies would be rendered pretty much, sorry to say, pointless. However, I'm a sceptic as well. Of sorts. I do believe in checkpoints.
I had the fortune of visiting my native paternal village. Free from duties and responsibilities or anything for that matter that weighed you down. Taunting goats with extra food became a favourite pastime. The rest would be spent making a bucket list, lazing in some hut on the fields.
A bucket list is simply a list of all the things you want to do at least once before you die. Most of the stuff on mine is pretty much impossible.There is no way you would be kind enough to take me to the Comic Con.
Would you?
I'd be...good company.
I swear. I'll try to be polite as well.
No?
If pretending to acknowledge the presence of a higher, supreme being brings peace and a sense of reliance to people in times of mortal peril, then God should continue to be viewed as simply a highly controversial subject and not as a force of irrationality.
People are known to be hands of God. God however, is a very busy man and cannot hear the quibbles of more than seven billion people. So sometimes thousands misread his instructions.
They make idols. Loads of them. Worship them for a week. Then rip them bare of clothes and ornaments and leave them naked on the streets or to pollute a healthy river, which by the way is also, a resource of God.
Saving a life, is the work of God. Helping a hungry child, assisting the impaired. This, is the work of God.
When asked to choose certain places I'd like to visit before I die, after being a freckle of fairy dust in Neverland, I chose to be a silverfish on the fabric of the space time continuum. It would be quite an adventure to mess around, trying to annoy all those busy, moving threads, causing the accidental death of a Mandela or the extremely unfortunate birth of an Indian politician.
All the strategies would be rendered pretty much, sorry to say, pointless. However, I'm a sceptic as well. Of sorts. I do believe in checkpoints.
I had the fortune of visiting my native paternal village. Free from duties and responsibilities or anything for that matter that weighed you down. Taunting goats with extra food became a favourite pastime. The rest would be spent making a bucket list, lazing in some hut on the fields.
A bucket list is simply a list of all the things you want to do at least once before you die. Most of the stuff on mine is pretty much impossible.There is no way you would be kind enough to take me to the Comic Con.
Would you?
I'd be...good company.
I swear. I'll try to be polite as well.
No?
It's okay, I don't care anyway. <Goes to a desolate corner and sounds like Himesh Reshamiya attempting a rock song>
Highly overdosed on caffeine, I lay amidst the very mustard field where Veer Zaara was shot. Since I obviously had no Veer, I simply let my mind wander. It evolved from the extremely ugly scarf in my cupboard I should throw away to whether or not Elysium is the best place after Death. Something tells me Cerberus might be cordial to fetching women.
Night used to pass making up constellations and longing for a friend who'd make your good side twinkle and shine as bright as the stars. Occasionally about debating about the existence of God.
I remember one of my cousins bending down and whispering in the midst of a philosophical conversation, as if he was stating something composed of sheer hypocrisy, " I believe there is no God".
I gazed at him in utter, shell-shocked horror.
Of course there is no God!
The kind of God most people believe in? Wanting offerings of milk and money and young kids? Simply does not exist.
What exactly is religion? It is a set of guidelines people follow in order to become better people. Humans are absolutely incapable of deciding what is right and what is wrong for them, so even their twenty first century selves allow themselves to be dictated blindly by scriptures written centuries ago. Why? Because those scriptures illustrate the paradigm of an ideal and right lifestyle. Because humans could never figure out not to kill one another or over intoxicate themselves.
Some people realized this and exploited it. Now the very same thing used for bringing about peace, became a source of sheer violence. Communal riots.
I'm not an atheist because I believe in many of the selective good things religion offers, ones which don't defy all frontiers of logic. Many claim to be atheists because they think it's cool. I'm not an atheist; I like thinking of myself as secular.
Highly overdosed on caffeine, I lay amidst the very mustard field where Veer Zaara was shot. Since I obviously had no Veer, I simply let my mind wander. It evolved from the extremely ugly scarf in my cupboard I should throw away to whether or not Elysium is the best place after Death. Something tells me Cerberus might be cordial to fetching women.
Night used to pass making up constellations and longing for a friend who'd make your good side twinkle and shine as bright as the stars. Occasionally about debating about the existence of God.
I remember one of my cousins bending down and whispering in the midst of a philosophical conversation, as if he was stating something composed of sheer hypocrisy, " I believe there is no God".
I gazed at him in utter, shell-shocked horror.
Of course there is no God!
The kind of God most people believe in? Wanting offerings of milk and money and young kids? Simply does not exist.
What exactly is religion? It is a set of guidelines people follow in order to become better people. Humans are absolutely incapable of deciding what is right and what is wrong for them, so even their twenty first century selves allow themselves to be dictated blindly by scriptures written centuries ago. Why? Because those scriptures illustrate the paradigm of an ideal and right lifestyle. Because humans could never figure out not to kill one another or over intoxicate themselves.
Some people realized this and exploited it. Now the very same thing used for bringing about peace, became a source of sheer violence. Communal riots.
I'm not an atheist because I believe in many of the selective good things religion offers, ones which don't defy all frontiers of logic. Many claim to be atheists because they think it's cool. I'm not an atheist; I like thinking of myself as secular.
If pretending to acknowledge the presence of a higher, supreme being brings peace and a sense of reliance to people in times of mortal peril, then God should continue to be viewed as simply a highly controversial subject and not as a force of irrationality.
People are known to be hands of God. God however, is a very busy man and cannot hear the quibbles of more than seven billion people. So sometimes thousands misread his instructions.
They make idols. Loads of them. Worship them for a week. Then rip them bare of clothes and ornaments and leave them naked on the streets or to pollute a healthy river, which by the way is also, a resource of God.
Saving a life, is the work of God. Helping a hungry child, assisting the impaired. This, is the work of God.
He doesn't want anyone killing. He definitely doesn't want a starving kid to stare at a lavish Puja feast held in his name.
I sometimes wish a real human could be as honoured and loved as a Durga idol and then simply thrown away like that. Then I realized, it happens every day.
"Slowly, then all at once"
My pen scraped the now worn out page of my bucket list a million times to write that. Because it would be what real pain would feel like. But I couldn't muster up enough courage. No one can, neither can they prepare for it. I doubt that even after centuries of being treated as such, even the Goddess ever comes to Earth knowing and prepared. Or perhaps the human love they give her out of selfish desire makes her momentarily forget it till the time actually comes.
The pen beside me, I look at the ugly, unfinished sentence. Striking it would make it hard to read, and I wanted to remember this unfinished entry as vividly as possible.
And just like every parent after the kid's all grown up with its own problems to solve, she's forgotten and abandoned to rot. Wondering where all the love went. Thinking about the sweet kids that played on Earth's green fields ages ago. About her kids, who simply loved, cared and helped because it was worthwhile and made them happy.
Thinking till the mud dissolves in the water, till she retreats back to the Heavens, disgraced, but with a smile on her face.
And true courage wasn't just defined by slaying Mahishasur any more; it was defined by coming again every year.
I sometimes wish a real human could be as honoured and loved as a Durga idol and then simply thrown away like that. Then I realized, it happens every day.
"Slowly, then all at once"
My pen scraped the now worn out page of my bucket list a million times to write that. Because it would be what real pain would feel like. But I couldn't muster up enough courage. No one can, neither can they prepare for it. I doubt that even after centuries of being treated as such, even the Goddess ever comes to Earth knowing and prepared. Or perhaps the human love they give her out of selfish desire makes her momentarily forget it till the time actually comes.
The pen beside me, I look at the ugly, unfinished sentence. Striking it would make it hard to read, and I wanted to remember this unfinished entry as vividly as possible.
And just like every parent after the kid's all grown up with its own problems to solve, she's forgotten and abandoned to rot. Wondering where all the love went. Thinking about the sweet kids that played on Earth's green fields ages ago. About her kids, who simply loved, cared and helped because it was worthwhile and made them happy.
Thinking till the mud dissolves in the water, till she retreats back to the Heavens, disgraced, but with a smile on her face.
And true courage wasn't just defined by slaying Mahishasur any more; it was defined by coming again every year.
No comments:
Post a Comment