What If?

Ignorance is bliss! Ignorance is bliss. Ignorance is bliss?
What if the most momentous occasion of your life has passed and you don't know about it? What if all your dreams have come true but are yet to announce themselves to you? What if everything you wish for has happened but the universe has conspired to keep you in the dark?
What if deep in the pile of your unopened letters is an acceptance letter for your dream job that you applied for a year ago and thought you'd never get? What if your spam inbox conceals from you the marriage proposal  the love of your life so nervously mailed to you? What if one of the five messages on your phone that you so tiredly dismissed after a long day at work is your father telling you your mother is no more?

What if one fine morning, your daughter messages you, curtly informing you about her marriage? And your other daughter from across the world sends you an email, that she has gotten her dream project, she will be staying there for the rest of her life?

In every line of communication from another human-being, an acquaintance, a friend, an enemy or a sibling, lies a deeper meaning. Lies a contextual meaning. Lies a spiritual meaning. In each word lies a blatant truth that mysteriously eludes your mind. Each sentence conceals a paragraph. In each correspondence, there lies a secret, a personality, a plea, an aura, a spirit, a life and a whole world.

Communication is the most vital human attribute, and it's severe, excess digitization leads to a trivialisation  of human contact. The worst curse the era of "increased communication". Anything in excess leads to trivialisation, but it is our duty to look unto every word, every sentence, expressed by a fellow human-being.

It is never "just another status update", it is words wished to be communicated by a human. Look into it, and you will find meaning. Not yet another message, it could just be a plea. It could just be a wish for comfort.

So, I silently say, "RIP" to the telegram, Few words that never failed to be noticed, a few words that always proved momentous. News that made the difference. That gave us knowledge. Knowledge that immediately gave us a wide range of emotions, but knowledge that eventually gave us peace and solace with ourselves.

Knowledge that gave us bliss.
Knowledge of the ignorance up until then.
A bliss far truer than the ignorance of knowledge.

All Aboard

My father, with some tedious observation, has a knack of bringing out the fundamental principles behind the systems and organisations we see around us.

His take on transportation is interesting, insightful and when you go a little deeper, so damn true. Here's his version of how all transportation works.

Waterways were man's first means of transport, any device that floated. Water though, isn't everywhere, and to get to the end point, the boat/ship/ferry or whichever aqua-vehicle was the user's choice had to have a place to make stop, at the interface of land and water. A landing platform, so to speak. Just a decent beach might do for a raft, a harbour for a large ship. This is the underlying principle for all transport. A landing place, a platform, or as my dad puts it, a "katte". (Kannada for platform, means the same but somehow when told in kannada brings out the sheer simplicity of what every means of transportation is based on). 

Ships have docks, trains have platforms, air-crafts have terminals or air-bases, buses have platforms too. All of which when brought down to their bones are nothing more than platforms at the interface between the user and the means of transportation. A common point. Edge of the sea, edge of the road or the end of the railway track. It's all the same.

Profound thoughts built by simple ideas lend true beauty and perspective to the world. 

Uncertainty

After the efficacy of cute merchandise towards expressing sentiment, vacation is probably the most over-rated entity on this planet. At least it seems so at the age of 18 after the longest haul of studies, studies and more studies. Yes, we all know it, preparation for the exam to gain admission into the "prestigious" Indian Institute of Technology, or IIT, easily the most used acronym from my vocabulary over the past couple of years.

In the middle of the grind, one often wishes to be transported in time to the days immediately following the exam. Early June was the favourite choice then. But as things turned out, if indeed time-travel were possible, then that would have been quite a horrid choice.

The fantasies of how my holidays following some insanely draining work occupied a majority of my upper-storey. And in what came as a surprise, none of them truly materialised. The proposed flooding of my blog with master-pieces, the "cool your heels" picnic to some nearby hill-station with friends, the long, heart-rending talks with family, gala sessions of cricket and football, leisurely evenings, getting wet in the rain, writing some short-stories, none of it. It turned out to be just nothing. Mere existence.

Not that it wasn't enjoyable. I enjoyed thoroughly. I would ask myself, "why am I doing nothing?."

And answer myself too, with a resounding "Because I can".

Yes I did feel aimless and lazy. I did feel I could do better. Help society. Donate blood the day I turned eighteen (a couple of weeks back). Get a voter's Id. Go to a driving class. The many things I had planned.

It did work out eventually. Partially. What prevented a flurry of posts making their way into my blog was not the lack of ideas but an acute lack of willingness to implement the ideas. How much ever I told myself what I wanted to do in the holidays, deep inside all I was intent on doing was nothing. Mental exhaustion was what I figured. Anxiety about the exam, fear of failure, uncertainty about the future. Where would I belong?

And now here I am, remarkably calm despite being further undecided. Teaching poor children who can't afford the best schooling at a nearby NGO. Overcome the temporary allergy to books that was blighting me. Back to my full vigour, and surely it has reached the pinnacle now, garnering enough time, energy and clarity to string together a good long post on my blog. Yes, the writing maybe mediocre. It may have always been. You are the judge, but to me, it is in the ease with which the words flow that I judge my post, not the outcome. That is none of my business.

Vacation is about the freedom of the mind and explosion of thoughts and dream unguided by external factors, not simply long stretches of leisure. Live everyday in your mind like you live a vacation.

I can assure you, my beloved (sparse) readership, that the flow is slowly making it's way back. My spirit has finally overcome the backlog of creativity, the backlog stemming from the excess of logic, reason and analytical thinking requisite for my preparation for the said exams.
And I cannot wait to bring this blog to a higher level of activity.

Until then.
Adios.