Old & Young

I­’m very bored

This is a boring place

Cried the little boy

With a grumpy face

No dogs to chase,

Not a single drop of rain!

No cars, no cubes,

Nor a single toy train!

No friends to play with,

No songs to sing

Where is the telephone?

To give grandma a ring

I’m staring at the clock,

it needs a repair

Its hands are moving, but

they are going nowhere!

I’m very bored

Let’s go back to our place

This is no fun

Staring into blank space!!

What are you saying?

How can you be bored?

There is an entire world around you

Waiting to be explored!

Phones, tablets,

Laptops and other gadgets

None of them can tell you

All of life’s secrets

What do you do?

Why are you never bored?

Asked the boy to his dad

A little surprised!!

I like to travel

This travel through time

From one moment to another

I do it all the time!

I read the patterns

On the dry summer leaves

Fallen from these short

And tall lifeless trees

I try to stay still

And feel the earth move

And when I don’t feel a thing

I assume,

 It has stopped too!

I sit in a corner

And try to see air

I want to find out

If it is really there

Sometimes I try to

Listen to my heart

And all I hear

Is a rolling horse cart

I shut my brain

And observe and listen

And that has made my life

A lot more fun

You must try it too

To look at things around!

Excitement hides in them

Waiting to be found!

Chapter Four: The fault in our Goals

                On my way back home, I glanced at a book store and thought to myself “it’s been a long time since I finished a book, I should finish one this weekend.” There was nothing ominous in that, until I let my mind loose. When has finishing a book become a goal? Can you really finish a book in 2 days? Wording every word, leaving every letter trailing behind in search of new ones. Stringing every one of them together and waiting for those corners to reveal a new page, a new journey. Why should it be reduced to a weekend?

It is dangerous to let your mind loose. One moment you are strolling carefree and before you know, you are drowning as the mind ever so carefully removes the island of understanding beneath your feet. You either stay afloat and let your mind find firm footing or you drown to discover a new world. That’s it! One moment! A moment of Suffocation! A new world!

I happened to drown today in one of these moments. The new world I discovered is the old one we seem to have deserted. I want to do my Masters! Great, what is it that you want to Master? And can you really master in 2 years? You want to do Ph.D because you want to get in to research? Why? Is there something that troubles you deeply? That doesn’t let you sleep? A problem you would like to solve? An answer you would like to find? You are an Engineer? No you’re not! You are 15% engineer 10% foodie 10% entertainer 15% self-therapist 10% detective and 40% Dead. What have you engineered? I’m not saying pursuing any of those is tomfoolery, rather the pursuit when considered a destination rather than a pit stop for knowledge is.

We used to set the right goals! Exploring space, climbing the tallest peak, curing all ailments. Getting into a space craft isn’t a goal! Nor does joining the Gym, graduating medicine qualify. They are all not ends in themselves; they don’t need to be either. There doesn’t need to be an end. They are all undoubtedly essential to help you move swiftly towards whatever you are after. Somewhere along the way, our break-it-down-to-simple-steps system of spoon feeding has crippled our ability to set the right goals. Most of us never go beyond the most comfortable step. And why should we? Every step comes with its own perks and group of worshipers from the step below. Every step lets you survive and that is the biggest failing of this system of goal setting. It helps you survive! And survival is only another pit stop; the goal is to be Alive. Being alive each and every moment might be a goal worth setting, isn’t it?

Chapter Three : Teaching

A seed grows naturally when you provide air, water, sunlight, soil, and every other thing that it needs, it doesn’t fail! You don’t ask a seed to reflect on its growth, No sir! You provide everything it needs and you wait. Sow a little faith and wait. Never let yourself believe that a child is a lost cause. Never let the child believe he is a lost cause.

No doubt you are a great sculptor, but refrain from chipping those parts. They might not fit in the sculpture you picture, but let them be. Without them, the world would be filled with more YOUs, more “could have been YOUs”, more “imaginary YOUs” – redundant, ghost mirrors.

You might be a wonderful gardener but do not trim those offshoots that you deem un-necessary. Yes, they won’t fit in your garden. They never will. They don’t even want to be in your garden. So, just let them be!

I’m sure you are an amazing artist, ready to color-up their canvas. But, put your paints inside your bag and look closely! Each of those faces has a color of their own.

You drop your chisel, throw away your scissor and put away your bag of colors and then you wait! With that faith, you wait. Sitting by the side of that stone, standing next to that seed, Looking at that seemingly empty canvas, you wait.

And, 

You let it be, the rocks of the mountain

You let it fill, the colors on the canvas

You let it grow, Like a Tree in the forest,

Wild and Free....

Happy Teacher's Day

An Old man’s love

I knew an old man who loved me, but it didn’t benefit him. Maybe it was unconditional, maybe it wasn’t. I remember his wrinkled face, adding another layer of them when he found out I had broken the tap that watered the garden. He chased me around the mango garden before coming to a halt, panting and that wrinkled face breaking into a smile. I remember him waking up before 5 AM, completing his daily chores, which I can barely recall, and carrying me on his shoulders to a bus stop 2 kilo meters away. I wore shoes and his slippers were worn out and yet he never let me walk – may be he feared I would not keep pace with him or maybe the way was filled with thorns! I now realized he never discarded anything without getting the maximum utility.

                As we made our way through the bushes and a wide variety of other flora for about half a mile, he would educate me on the various herbs that grew in the vicinity. Then we would enter the cultivated lands of the closest village, ready to sow sugarcane. Little talk of growing food and then he would point out shapes the clouds made in the sky and how my school would help me learn more.  He hoped someday we wouldn’t have to struggle in a remote place. Maybe he hoped to own a vehicle or move to a place where a vehicle could reach. He knew his job was done, he never hoped anything for himself.  He hoped so that his grandson wouldn’t have to travel 40 kms a day to get good education, his son wouldn’t have to cultivate his land with just 2 hours of electricity,  his family wouldn’t need to manually fetch drinking water from a well 40 feet below.

“How much did you get?”

He wasn’t great with numbers but Progress Report from school would tell him if all that he hoped would come true. It wasn’t his fault! He saw the difference between his sons and their peers, the only thing that stood out was education and that was simple math for him.

“96”, I replied in an ecstatic tone.

For him, those missing 4 marks represented the missing pieces in my future! Love coupled with Innocence is the toughest thing to deal with.

And turns out, those 96 were enough! We scraped through and his dream did come true! Or I thought it did. 15 years later, I started working in a fairly well compensating job for my negligible skills. And yet, none of this was the source of his happiness.

I was working hard(ly) and was a victim of all the evils that a city life brings – a 

highly active social life with specific protocols to promote make believes. I went home late, stayed away on weekends never knowing what kept this Old man happy was the sight of me having dinner at home. He would wait for my return from office, in those odd days I ate at home, when I assumed he was asleep – he would keep an eye out from under the blanket to call for any second serving I needed.

I vividly remember the day I fell while playing football and suffered a hairline fracture to my left hand. It was a minor injury which had to be operated on and I stayed in the hospital that night. As I returned home, I saw him standing in the balcony (don’t know for how long) with tearful eyes and a fear-stricken face. For him, a surgery is a very big word. People in village seldom underwent surgery unless it’s life-threatening. I can now only imagine what must’ve been through that Old man’s mind, even though I still lack the ability to comprehend why?

I remember the day I received a call from my dad, informing that this Old man, who loved me more than himself, who cared so selflessly was no more. I did not react, I did not cry. When I got home, I was surrounded by people of all ages and places, surrounding that calm old face, every wrinkle representing a struggle. No emotions ran through me that day. I had no tears to shed for him. Now when I look back, I wonder why I hadn’t run through these very same memories on that day. It makes me wonder how far from myself I was surrounding by all those hustles and bustles of the modern machinery that I so imbibed to the death of my emotions.

5 years and a fellowship gone, I’m still searching for those tiny drops to roll down these heartless eyes.

Chapter Two : Moral of the Story

“And the deer was thus saved from the hunter’s net. A friend in need is a friend indeed!”

Isn’t it wonderful to take a stroll down the lanes of childhood memories! These children’s stories sure fly you into the swirling mass of fragments. I try to set up a camp and drift off into its dungeons - a scavenger hunt for lost innocence.

“Bhaiyya, I did not understand the Moral of the story”

Is there a moral? I read the ending once again – quiet unsettling within. The trick is to stay on the line, your line – neither to the left nor to the right for these minds are highly impressionable. I do what I always do, help them find the answer and hope to get some myself. Ever wondered how an answer is not really an answer, but a series of questions?

“Forget the moral, what did you understand from the story?”

“The deer first helped the rat and when the deer was caught in a net by the hunter, rat came and helped the deer. If you help your friends, your friends will help you”

“Excellent. So there is your moral J”

Inadequate! Thoughts trickle down and bleed profusely now.  What if? Could it be the uncovering of the secret door to the foundations of a sick society?

“Why did the rat help the deer?”

Surplus of answers follow but a pattern seems to emerge, most of them on the premise of deer’s good deed earlier or a prior connection between the two animals.

“What if the deer and rat were strangers? What if the deer hadn’t helped the rat before? Would the rat still have helped the deer?”

I let the class ruminate on this for a while.

“Yes”

Umpteen reasons spanning “humanity” to “right” to “good” are thrown at me from different corners. I gather them aware of the quiet condescension that forms in my head.

 “What do you think right or good is?”

The enthusiastic buzz around the classroom has reduced to a murmur, reminiscent of a boring math class or a disturbing movie. Here lies the major fallacy of our educational paradigm, our goods, our rights and those synonymous are all predefined. Woven into its very fabric, it allows little freedom for a child to define his own good, his own right.

But that’s preposterous! How could a simple story of friends helping each other lead to a sick society?

Not caring is not our problem, its thinking that we do that leads to chaos. While the message is clear to an adult (or is it?), a plethora of questions and simper conclusions engulf a child’s mind. There are many ways in which the story could be told, yet only one way where it would not transform into a divisive subconscious. The separation of individuals into friends and strangers, even enemies perhaps, starts with this simple narration of whom to help and why to help? What if the story was told in a different way?

“The rat helped the deer because he saw that the deer was caught in a net and it was in pain and it couldn’t witness that pain”

“The rat helped because the deer was caught in a net and had lost its freedom and the rat wanted to give it back”

“The rat helped because the deer was about to be killed and the rat understood the value of life”

“The rat helped because…”

We could go on, with narrations that neither rest in the past deeds nor a future debt. They rest in the present. They rest in the Now. Decisions that arise from the depths of intuition do not suffer from moral dilemmas. It is this lack of clarity of thought that our children suffer from, as they grow into adults under the burden of worthless thoughts that plague them. Can the old stories be viewed from this lens? Thoughts bleed profusely once more as I stroll through those memory lanes probing for gems to polish!

Chapter One : Life Skills

“Bhaiyya, what are Life skills?”

No question has an easy response when put across by a kid, especially a kid like Akram - brimming with intuitive alertness, contemplative curiosity. He had a nonchalant flair for turning the mundane into something existential.  So it was with a sense of anticipation that I agreed to talk to Akram post school.

Akram isn’t like any other kid. Truth be told, Any kid isn’t like any other kid. However, one peculiarly plain commonality is their ignorance of their own potential and the disregard with which we treat them. Have you ever tried treating a kid as an adult? I’ve found this exercise highly amusing! They’ve always astonished me with their ability to pay attention in a conversation, a highly improbable situation while dealing with adults - no more than the first few words have been spoken, an adult's mind is already working with its entire cutlery to serve a pre-cooked response and all your subsequent sentences get drowned. With kids, it is as though they are making a genuine attempt at complete comprehension before responding. As a civilization, we successfully rob them of this skill as they grow up. An adult I feel is but a complicated child.

 “Skills that help you survive. Why do you ask?” I respond.

“This brochure I got on my doorstep talks about an afterschool programme to promote life skills in students. I was just curious to know what they were.”

“Can I have a look at it?” I extend my arms towards Akram. He hands it over to me, apprehensively. His face shows signs of imploding questions. I let him be. Could he sense that my fever for answering far exceeds his desire for answers?

Another comes shooting down his throat before he could stop himself.

“Is it like breathing?”

“Yes and No” I say, pretending to absorb every bit of information supplied by the brochure.

“Bhaiyya, are you telling me that breathing is not a life skill? Or that they are not going to teach breathing?” 

Unable to resist any longer the urge to impart –seemingly complete to one’s own mind – knowledge on a mind that is highly impressionable, ready to accept, “Yes, breathing is a life skill, if you want to call it that. It is a fundamental one, for which you have been trained for your entire life. It’s a skill you already possess in ample amounts. But what our friends in the brochure propose are a different set of breathing skills, the kind which will help you survive outside.”

“When you exit these walls, you will enter a world congested by the complexity of thoughts that will choke you, suffocate you by sheer volume and our friends in the brochure argue that their skills will help you breathe life into your mind, not your lungs. And to answer your question, yes they are going to teach you a different mechanism of breathing - one that wasn’t fundamental to begin with, but has become now!”

As it so happens with adults, seldom does your mind stay on a single train of thought. It has split into multiple tracks and each pursues its own course of highlands and tunnels, of bridges and plains!

“Should I enrol? It seems very important from what you said”

 “Oh, is it?”

I show a hint of annoyance as I try to track back to the source of my thoughts. In my mind, It was very clear where I stood on Life Skills.

“I don’t think it’s necessary for you. You seem to me to be capable of breathing really well – both physical and otherwise” I say and drift into blank space again.

“How do you know?”

Patience has never been my virtue. Kids, like most adults refuse to acknowledge the end of a conversation. I try to hide my disregard, unsuccessfully. Unlike adults, Kids are more attached to their surroundings and can sense the change.

Cries of hypocrisy resound in my head. You invite the conversation, you encourage an inquiring line of thought and you kill it when it doesn’t suit your mood. Why does everything have to be around the “you” – one question rises to the surface, quickly drowned by a more favourable “Why shouldn’t it be?” A quick poll inside the head laps up the second response and a jubilant mood within, stinking of arrogance puts on a mask of authority and I am ready to strike down any further scruples.

“Bhaiyya, How do you know?” repeats akram, alarmed by the lack of response.

I realise that while I was engaged within, my blank face must have raised more concerns in Akram. I wish I could answer in a manner that would put to rest all his suspicions. It is baffling when you know you are right and yet are devoid of words.

“I just know it from our interactions! I wish I could offer you a more satisfactory response.” The dismissive tone  is not missed by Akram. He starts packing his bag, disappointment evident on his face. He mumbles inaudible thanks as he walks along the corridor towards the gate.

He might well have accepted defeat today but I’m sure he will come back with his artillery of questions and armour of innocence the next day. As I drift back to the fragments inside my head, I vow to provide better answers the next day. Akram, like all kids, do not know what it is like to be a grown up but all of us have been children once and ominously ignore it in our interactions with them. I make a mental note to be a better student the next day!