Times of Yore

Here I am again. Hope this is not too much trouble, and I hope you're not addicted. Because if you are, I'm here only a while longer, to be gone, not knowing when I'll return.

No, no, I'm not feeling psenti. Just random shit. Btw, my paper went fine. It was more of a test of my writing skill than actual factual recollection. If I write to the point, I'll fill only 5 lines, but its a 10 mark compre question, so I am obliged to call upon all my writing prowess and vocabulary skills and fill in 8 sheets. 

A simple sentence such as, "Valmiki authored Ramayana" is transformed into "According to historical evidence, which surprisingly conforms to local wives' tales as well as local heresay, one is brought to believe, however unlikely it may seem, that the immensely historically and philosophically important scripture of Ramayana, the story of the ideal man and his quest to hold his ideals dear to him, despite all obstacles was penned down by the great writer Valmiki with divine intervention and under the supervision of the Gods". So now you also know why I blog.

Leaving that aside, yes I am feeling a little psenti and spend a lot of time reminiscing. No, not about BITS, that would just bring tears to my eyes. I try and compare how much things have changed since school.

Remember, in school, we were made to wear washed, ironed and spotless uniforms, shiny black shoes with matching black socks, neatly combed hair and cut nails. And now?? Forget wearing clean clothes, I haven't bathed for a week, and my utterly stinking socks are lying right next to me. I have worn this same pair of socks this whole semester-placements, tea party, cricket, jogging and what not. My hair hasn't felt a comb in years, and my nails resemble claws.

Then I remember the note books. ohhhh, just the thought sends shivers down my spine. The books had to be covered with brown plastic covers, and neatly labelled, with an index. Red lines were drawn after each answer, double for names of lessons. The teachers used to correct each book... can you imagine!! each and every f***ing book. I seriously have trouble believing that. And at the end of the lessons stuff like, V. Good, or V.V. Good. The more Vs, the prouder I'd feel. Just a Good was just not good enough. 

And parents!! that part was seriously hilarious... every now and then, one weekend would be open house, wherein parents were called to receive their wards' report cards and hear their class teachers either complain about their son talking too much in class or not paying attention.

The best part was definitely the monitors. Everytime I remember this part,  just ROFLMAO. Each class had a class monitor, the syudent who stood first in class, who's job was to write down the names of the people who were talking... seriously man talking, not kissing or making out, just plain simple talking. And each added instance of talking would invite a cross next to your name. And the punishments, finger on your lips, kneel down, stand on the desk and murga ban. 

How much things have changed, forget having covered and corrected notebooks, or covered books, or even just books. Ab to xerox notes zindabad. Forget the Vs before the Good, as long as you're Av+ you're jumping for joy.

Parents aren't called for just report or rather grade cards. If parents are called in BITS, most come to know of what happenned reading the mess notice boards. Rest of the parents, the same one's who came every open house, could be congratulated if they know one course you're having this semester.

Monitors aren't selected, Presidents and General Secretaries are elected, with all dhoom and dhamaka. The punishments though less severe, are now nightmarish. I'd go through a hundred murgas, I'd kneel and walk like that from C'not to VK, if spared one meeting with you-know-who. 

Summer holidays with the family are now foreign internships. Anything at all to add one extra line to the resume. Talking of Basic Instint was taboo and now Jenna Jameson moans aloud all day all over Bhagirath Bhawan. Hand held video games used to excite, but now even NFS Undercover seems drab.

We have changed, a lot and seemigly for the better. But are you sure? There were meaningless rules then that we blindly followed and now we have this fake freedom, this 'independence' that we so take for granted. Then, we walked on paths that others had laid for us, and now that we're independent, we take predetermined paths to "success". Are these different???

The purpose of life

What exactly is the purpose of life. Why do we exist? This question recently came to my mind while watching Discovery the other day. It was about the BIG BANG. The scientists made it seem as though all the conditions for life on earth were just a chance affair, the sight tipping of matter over anti matter, energy converting to mass, planet earth at just the right distance and just the right temperature. So from what I understand, science says that life just came about, as in there were chances that it wouldn't have.. but lucky for us, it did.

So what is it that makes us different from say a rock or a puddle of water. Even they are basically made up of atoms and molecules. We are fortunate enough to have just the right amounts of that stuff in just the right places. So when you talk of such a large number of 'just the right amounts', such a large number of seemingly chance events one cannot stop oneself from thinking that there is something divine about life. I believe that there are no coincidences, everything happens for a reason. So the engineer in me, albeit not a really good one began to question, why the FUCK are we here? :)

And I specifically dug a little deeper to ask myself about us humans, as a blog of the purpose of the jellyfish or the lion tailed macaque would surely fall on deaf ears(or blind eyes).

So we humans who consider ourselves to be the the ultimate survivors, the top of the food chain, the final product of evolution, with large brains(...though this claim seems inapplicable to most people, it is in fact true). So why do we exist?

So I thought that one must delve deeper into what effect we have on the earth. Just as finding the purpose of an ingredient, requires comparison with a control curry (prepared exactly but without the ingredient in question) I tried to think critically about what effect one average human has on the curry of the cosmos. By average I mean, a typpical typical guy,(joke to be understood only by EEEites of BITS-Pilani before 2006 batch) about 30-35, office goer, with many friends, not too affluent but able to subsist, with a family, living alone, friends ad relatives visit often, wife, divorced once, with 2 kids, one from previous wife.... you get the picture right?

I realized that this guy is useless, I mean seriously, critically speaking he could well have not been born, and nobody would give a tiny rat's ass. He is born, lives, has friends and family, he loves, he hates, and one day he dies. What I mean to say is, his life has meaning only in the eyes of others like him, as in humans. He is incapable of causing any substantial change whatsoever.

So I upgraded from the average Joe to someone we humans consider one of our best. Say Bill Gates(for his philanthropy..mind you) or Mother Teresa. These personalities too aren't any different. Sure, they made a big difference to humanity. But the argument remains.

This, I argued was not so for others, that is other fauna. For one, they all play a role in balancing the ecosystem(we(continuing the argument) have done anything but that), and more importantly, they are not conscious enough to really care or even understand the meaning of purpose (this conclusion may remind most of a very famous Calvin & Hobbes cartoon strip). So basically the discussion is moo.

Now this line of thought was getting very depressing! :( We're all useless! So I know why we shouldn't be here, but that still doesn't tell me why we're here. And I'm already so far along into my post, that half of my readers, will have pledged never to return. But I've come so far along and I'm not gonna back out. The scroll will be mine, I will discover the secret ingredient.

Next I thought about what we humans usually run around for. Fame, money, lust, love, success, comfort are what come to mind. But these too were a dead end. We all know that famous people needn't be happy or satisfied, there are too many examples and way too many movies about this. Money, I don't even need to talk about. Nor about lust. Both are shallow and hollow and don't bring in happiness or satisfaction by themselves.

Love was a serious contender, but doesn't really fit the bill. Take my example, I haven't found real love in my life. This is not to say I'm a loner, who hates everyone. I have the most loving parents and some ammazing great friends, but the kind of 'soul-mate'ish, made for each other, Jaane tu waala pyar, I don't have yet. But that doesn't mean my life has no meaning.

Success too doesn't satisfy. Anil Ambani may be more successful than the fourth son of a tribal farmer in Andaman, but that doesn't mean he's happier. What is success, but the feeling of achievement, and that is not restricted to people who have the power to change the stock market to suit their needs.

Comfort also crumples, under scrutiny. Now this deep search got me even more depressed. And coupled with the previous depression, I became one sad guy.

So I gave up, and decided to take a walk. It started to drizzle, and the cool rain drops felt wonderful. After a while it rained harder, but I kept walking. I noticed everyone running for cover, and I was puzzled. Same rain, same water, but different perspectives. It then dawned upon me.

There is no 'one' purpose in life, no 'one' thing that makes us happy, or gives our lives meaning. We all need to go about life and do things that need to be done, just because they need to be done. Not just because they may or may not make us happy. A soldier knows that he may die, that killing another man will bring him sadness, that war itself sucks, but he still does it, because he has to.

The things we do need not necessarily make us happy... meaning that happiness too isn't the ultimate goal. However if you feel that yo want to be happy, and that earning money gives you that, go ahead and do it. If you feel that you need to do something bad, or against your conscience, just do it. But only if it needs and begs to be done. Now this is the hard part. We all know what needs to be done. But we often ignore this calling, because we think too much about it. We weigh its risks and benefits, and often decide against it.

The confusion between what we want and what we need, is what makes us take so many wrong decisions. We often do things, without really thinking about why we're doing them, and we don't do a whole lot of things that need to be done.

Tony Stark first thought that making weapons, and sleeping with sexy journalists made him happy and satisfied, but he realizes that he needs to stop making weapons and make an Iron Man suit. Now wasn't that a purposeful ending?

THE PURPOSE OF OUR LIVES, IS TO FIND THE PURPOSE OF OUR LIVES, EVERYDAY OF OUR LIVES, AND MORE IMPORTANTLY TO FULFILL THAT PURPOSE.