Wish List 2015

‘2015’ is here to stay for sure, especially because‘January’ has crossed the midway. All the hoopla of ‘Happy New Year’ has subsided. So, something serious or mundane can be discussed without any hype.

Every year, as the new dawn changes the calendar on the wall, we talk about what happened, and what we expect from the coming year. To make the coming time more fruitful or more enjoyable, we take Resolutions to streamline our haphazard life that has not been as it should have been in the year that passed or for that matter in the whole life till date.

Most of these resolves never get realized. They remain dormant in our minds only to appear in next December. Yet, some of us do that ritual year after year, in the hope of improving our life one day.

For personal resolutions, it is easy to associate the hope. But what if we wish for everybody, for our nation, for our planet earth collectively, without any resolve? Maybe it is like a prayer that may get the blessings of an unknown almighty one day… or perhaps it is like a child’s fancy that is never going to materialize… 

...Such a wish will remain a wish forever. 

Yet, to have a list of these is an interesting idea. Maybe one day some of them will be at least seriously discussed.

So, have a look at my wish list for 2015:

1. Work as per choice, not compulsion:

Some of us, the privileged ones, have achieved this. But I wish every single human being on our planet to work only out of their passion, not because a boss is dictating it to be done or one has to do it out of any dire need. Though an ideal situation in theory, it’s never going to be a reality. What will happen to those menial jobs that nobody wants to do and everybody wants to be done, if people work only for passion? Can you recall such essential but uninteresting jobs? There are plenty including a sweeper’s, I guess.

There may be many who would not like to do anything at all except sleeping under the sun in winters, but to wish them would not be prudent perhaps.

2. Violence less world:

            This is a completely unrealistic wish. Violence is an essential evil to defeat the devil. We need the military and the police to protect the nations against the enemies of outside and inside. And we also need individual aggression to confront the wicked people in everyday life. Yet, I wish that the violence would somehow become redundant. So that we don’t need to make weapons, which eat a major chunk of our savings collectively. May our streets would become safe to roam in the night and so on and so forth…    

3. No need of God:

            Sorry, if it is blasphemy… Again it’s a mirage. We all need god in some form or another. Maybe there is an atheist residing somewhere in this same blue planet, but till date I have not met him or her (god knows if she is a female or what!). Still, I wish if we can do without Almighty. The religion would transform to a political party in that scenario, perhaps. With ‘PK’, still fresh from its resounding success at the box-office, this wish may not be too politically incorrect, I hope. How easy would it be to hope without fear in that case, just imagine!

4. Pure drinking water everywhere   

            Drinking water has become a big business because we don’t get pure water nowadays. But the avid travelers can vouch for many pristine places where one gets such drinking water freely flowing from a ridge. I wish the same to be available for everybody without spending a penny. Some of the developed nations have achieved this feat, but for the third world it’s a distant dream. But my wish is not about the technological advancement per se, but about the day when every source of water would become drinkable, though the salty sea would remain an exception for sure. Hello, is there any reverse process of pollution?

This list can be really very long… like the delicious yummy food for everyone, no disease, no corruption, everything goody-goody … But, would not that be too boring? What would the news channels show in that case?

No, we can’t wish for a heaven like situation where nothing is wrong. But, at least we can strive together to make this earth a little better place to live… if not in 2015, then in next year or sometime in distant future…

Is it too much to wish for?   

The future and our children

One of the great minds of our time, Professor Stephen Hawkins recently expressed concern over the futuristic development in the field of artificial intelligence, though its current state of the art aids in his writing and speech. His words are:  

“...The efforts to create thinking machine pose a threat to our very existence... Humans, who are limited by slow biological evolution, couldn’t compete and would be superseded.”

But that future is still very far - certainly not realizable in our lifetime.

And it’s not just a single tool of modern science posing dangers.

Genetics – that tinkering with our DNA - may also unleash superbugs that will destroy our future.

And who can undermine the impact of a nuclear warfare, threat of which can’t be ruled out when its arsenal is already there – ready to strike with a press of a button.  

Before it happens, there are external threats to our mother earth - threat of aliens, of asteroids and meteors, of solar volcanoes.

Plus, who can forget the debate of the global warming, the environmental change, that may again lead to the dark ages!

Amid all such threats, we are digging the soil of Mars, yet unable to feed all the hungry souls of this mother earth.

Will we be able to provide the dignity to all our fellow humans? Is it really a collective responsibility?

Or being part of the nature, are we bound to destroy & create, and live among the dichotomies, waiting for the bright and worse at the same time?

In fact, we need not to wait. It’s already happening. Just look at our children. They are the actual sailor or architect of this future...

Are they ready?

For ‘good’ to win against the ‘bad’, they need education as well as values. We have created a huge amount of information in every field and that percolates in the curriculum but what about values – that are equally important if we want to save the destruction.

Perhaps the values come from the religion also. But the organized aggressive conflict in the name of religion, as seen in these times, is not ready to spare even the children. What happened in Pakistan is an extreme unimaginable act. But, in various forms- whether the religion or the greed, it is happening in our country also. Our Nobel winner Mr. Kailash Satyarthi can testify for some of them.

And it’s not just about this side of globe. Many parts of the world are not far behind in abusing their children.

So, with a large chunk of children not keeping pace with the rest would eventually create friction. This will lead to destruction with or without technological advancement.

Nobody can justify the cowardly act of terrorists, but we should also understand how such fanatics are being created at every second all around the world. After all they were also children a few years back and have been raised by somebody.

What are we doing that our children will not imbibe such barbaric behaviour and will ensure that artificial intelligence or nuclear technology would become only a boon, not bane?

Taste the Moon

Memories are like the pages of a good old book. 

Flip them and a character or scene emerges out of the blue. And you try to locate its place and time automatically, mesmerized by the chance discovery.  

Here is something similar I discovered recently.

I am still trying to figure out who has written it and when.

The graphics is of course mine, a part of series called ‘Meditation’ that I made around the same time when - many years ago - I first found this:

“The world is troubled
With a lack of looking 

I sing my songs

The world sleeps 

I see the sky reflected in my teacup

I move the cup

And I tilt the sky 

The flying crane is shadowed

On the mud wall

My shadow touches his

And I ride the bird 

The stars are mirrored in a pool 

Of rain

With my hands I scoop up the water

I have a handful of stars 

I group the branch of a tree

The wind blows

And the tree shakes my hands 

The moon shimmers on my glass of cognac

I drink

And taste the moon 

I climb on a fig tree

And look down

The earth has fallen 

All the world

All the world pours in at my barred window

I lower the my lids

And dam the flood”

On the way to Jaigarh fort and looking towards Jalmahal 

Confession

Yes, I liked SRK in ‘Rab ne bana di jodi’ in which the heroine does not recognize him in the absence of his moustache. - Dumbo! but yes, I liked that and I am not ashamed of it.

And, I have seen many of Govinda movies in a C-class Cinema Hall full of smoke.

Yes, I graduated from a college that nobody recognizes. And, I can’t drive a two-wheeler, not even a bicycle.

Yes, I feel awkward in the parties - maybe because I can't drink the booze. And I never danced, perhaps never can. 

Also, I bought a guitar but could not learn. I also tried synthesizer playing a song by rote, but just that. I forgot it and never could understand the difference between ‘Sa’ and ‘Re’. The melody is an alien for me, yet I can judge the singers of Indian Idol.

Yes, I fear a lot – of darkness, of dogs, of heights, of strangers, of many other things.
And of course, I write what nobody reads.

Yes, I am a loser who wants to be ‘somebody’ – I don’t know what that means actually.

And I am becoming old, perhaps really old that youngsters call me uncle. So, time is running out for me…

Yet, I dream day in and day out…that one day…

 Sunrise at 'Havelock Island'  January 2012

Collateral damage

December 31 to January 01.

One more change of year...with protest being the talk of the town.

Among all the hullaballoo about the safety of the fellow gender and our patriarchal mindset, we may be missing what lies beneath: the lust for more... be it wealth, the comforts, or mere gratification... with never ending appetite...

The cities with increasing slum areas, the villages with almost the have-nots, and everyone vying to become a VIP in a cocoon... where are we actually heading? ...towards shopping Malls, Multiplexes, air-conditioned offices in high-rises, craving for ultra-luxury all the time... creating the dirt on the side-walks as an offshoot!

So, when somebody equates the individual hurt with collateral damage in policing, we cry foul forgetting that it’s always happening around us.

The innocence of children and sensitivity of adults both are becoming extinct with rapid progress of information explosion. The news of a crime doesn’t affect us anymore as it used to be...

Despite such great surge of passion on the streets, the incidences of crime against women or for that matter any crime, are increasing with each passing moment. 

In fact, the gatherings and marches themselves are lucrative opportunities for the eve-teasers and pickpockets. And testimonies of their victims speak of a truth we easily ignore.   

A bleak picture, maybe an exaggeration, but that’s what I feel today as new calendar is replacing the wall…

Wish it would be a better place some day...

Still, the party is on, welcoming the new dawn, with the zeal of ‘braveheart’ intact in the hearts and ready to face the collateral damage…