The choice

It was my pride's last chance at survival. The Indian cricket team were to take on their neighbours across the sea in a do-or-die battle. Many scenarios were possible and the most likely that India would qualify in what was a mid-night match by Indian Standard Time. I had to watch it, I just had to.

But the next morning's happenings were decided already, by fate or by my father, I still wonder. Tradition went too far on some occasions and this time, it did. Some pooja at home because some relative had died 300 kilometres away, ten days back. I don't wish to dwell on the bitterness it caused but I couldn't help it. I had to get up at six and yet had to sleep at one.

I decided to go for it, decided to do both things. It's not a decision I regret. I had two choices. Pooja or match. My heart cried out "match" while my father wouldn't let that happen. I created the third choice, "both of the above" and it came off.

I got what I wanted, I watched the match and I gave my respect to the man who had passed away. I did what I wanted to do, but the things didn't happen as I wanted them. My India lost the match and I hardly slept owing to my brooding over the failure and I hardly got up for the ceremony. And after all this, I went to my friends house, came back more dead than alive.

Knocked out for fifteen hours, I was.

Amazing post

http://kipaji.blogspot.com/2010/03/creating-better-from-good.html

I love this post.

A functional anarchy

On my travels, my father just randomly said to me that a certain Indian ambassador to USA described India as "functional anarchy." As I turned this over in my mind, I came to realise how true his words were. "Anarchy" is the opposite of "monarchy." It doesn't mean a democracy. An anarchy is usually a state without a monarch or any kind of leader. There is no order and chaos reigns.

In India, the difference is that there is a "ruler" but that does nothing to help. India is ruled by chaos. There is absolutely no order, no discipline, nothing. Things happen "mostly" and if they do happen, they happen "somehow." By hook or crook, something happens and it moves on.

But what is amazing is that it is still functional. Inspite of all this, trains run on tracks and cars run on roads. Inspite of it, millions reach their place everyday and millions more do what they had planned. And inspite of it all, the economy still grows at 8% annually.

Two things found in India are typical of India. The great Indian "road tamasha" and the monsoon.

The Indian road is something unique from across the vast spaces of my knowledge. Here, chaos is only player. Vehicles continously honk, jump signals, drive rashly and travel to the left as well as the right of the road. Inspite of this, the traffic moves forward, however slowly and accidents are quite rare when we compare it with the frequency with which the laws are flouted.

The monsoon is something different. It is something natural and specially made for India. Although our geography textbooks claim that the monsoon winds travel from south-west to north-east in the general direction of the Punjab plain, the winds rarely travel in that direction is what I have observed. Being passionate about weather, I often waste my time observing things like these, especially during the monsoon and I have found that the wind blows in all directions from all sides yet collectively move towards the Punjab plain.

This is extremely typical of India, where despite chaos and confusion, the country still grows at high rates and overall direction is forward.