It has not been many days since I ran my second 10k run successfully. The last time I participated in the run it was more of a walk than a run. This time it was half run half walk and I completed it in lesser time than I had expected. I was pleasantly surprised by this and I saw the same feeling echoed by most the other runners from HTC.
When I was studying engineering, we learnt in one of the subjects that a less probable event conveys more information. ‘The sun rises in the east’ - hmm… ok… everyone knows this… so what? See what I mean, zero information. But when you read ‘Click here to know xyz about Nick Priyanka’s wedding’, now that’s information (according to news outlets) since the probability of a common person knowing that xyz is miniscule.
Recently I had to visit a hospital in one of the rural cities. It has always been a pleasure to return to a simpler and healthier life of villages. This time around though, there was an undertone of worry because of the hospital visit. My uncle who was a patient there, was hooked up to a slew of medical machines continuously monitoring his vitals. It is difficult to describe in words what I felt when I saw one of the toughest and fiercest person I know hooked up to all those wires, unable to utter a few sentences.
एका टेकडीवर एक छोटंसं झाड होतं
खुंटलेलं, उगाच वेडंवाकडं वाढलेलं
आजूबाजूला सगळंच ओसाड, भकास
ना पशु-पक्षी, ना माणसांचा त्रास.
नुसताच सरसरणारा वारा,
बेछूट, बेधडक भिडणारा
पण तो मात्र एका स्थळी स्थिर
सोशिकपणे वाऱ्याला तोंड देणारा.
जवळच दुसऱ्या एका टेकडीवर
होते त्याचे काही भाऊबंद
भलीमोठी त्यांची उंची
खोडही त्यांचे रुंद.
बाजूच्या टेकडीवरच्या जंगलाकडे
तो रोजच उदास नजरेने पाही
त्याला आठवे तो काळ
जेव्हा इकडे ही नांदत होती हिरवाई.
The present age is often termed as the media age. There are numerous tools at our disposal that cater to our need to communicate with each other. Freedom of expression has become our second nature. In fact we rarely think about what we speak. Freedom of movement is exercised by millions everyday. And many of us are not even aware that we have ‘Freedom of religion’ because rarely anyone has to exercise it consciously. But imagine yourselves living in an age where these freedoms don’t exist. Where hunger is prevalent and people are starving. Where people have to pay ‘jizya’ to go to pilgrimage sites. Where people are not free to celebrate festivals and worship their Gods openly. This was Maharashtra before Shivaji Maharaj. Its said that, ‘The darkest hour is just before the dawn’. The arrival of Shivaji Maharaj was the first ray of sunlight tearing through the heart of surrounding darkness. Shiv Jayanti is the celebration of the birth of a Maratha King in simple terms. But in reality it is meant to celebrate the end of the darkness. This is the day when you end the darkness of ignorance and try to enlighten yourselves with the knowledge of the life of Shivaji Maharaj.
Recently one of my friends posted a question on FB as to why do you travel? He got many responses to the question including mine. Many of the responses had the common thread of exploration, perspective, life is short etc. Even when I was writing my response I wanted it to be brief, but ended up writing quite a few lines. Many days have passed since, and I have visited some more new places and gained new experiences. But it is not always about the pleasant experiences and beautiful locations. Sometimes you are stranded at a bus stop and meet some unpleasant people or have the beautiful image of the place that you have in your mind, destroyed by the ground realities. It is at these times I think to myself, why do I do this? I know this sounds corny, but such questions inevitably occur when you are waiting for the train for 10 hours. (I reached 6 hours early and the universe rewarded my overzealous punctuality by delaying the train by 4 hours. I finished a novel in that time, cleared the candy crush level that I was stuck on for months, had conversation with twins from Bengal who were pursuing MBBS in Bangladesh and destroyed some pigs in Angry Birds who seemed angrier because of the delay.)
I was never a people person
Talking to someone always sounded fearsome
I remember the recesses
when the kids used to play on the playground
And I would be sitting near the window
Watching them go round and round.
Mind you, I wasn’t sad
I enjoyed my own company
People never noticed me
And that is how I preferred it to be.
But then, nothing ever lasts long
How long could I have stayed alone?
As the years went by
I made some friends to remember me by.
When I first came to know that the catholic church had banned Copernicus’ book because in it he suggested that the earth revolves around the sun, I thought ‘What!, its so obvious’. Maybe it was because I already ‘knew’ that the earth is not the centre of our solar system. But now I can understand why the church did what it did. When we hear something getting repeated or experience something everyday, we tend to think that this is how things are. And when we encounter something out of the ordinary it comes as a rude shock.
The ‘babas’ and ‘imams’ and ‘priests’ who call themselves the incarnations of God or claim to speak His word, I always ignore them. The things they speak ring hollow in my ears. My brain is a pretty standard one and it doesn’t like complicated things and elaborate ’truths’. It always tries to find a simpler explanation and that’s why I just try to be a better person. That is enough for me rather than devoting myself to someone to feel closer to God. Being a better person is a huge task in itself, which will never be complete in one’s lifetime. No matter which God you believe in or whether you believe in the concept of God in the first place, you still will be making a positive change just by keeping your moral compass pointing in the right direction. So whenever news of such pretenders getting booked for some crime appear in my news feed I just scroll on. After all someday they have to face the music. You can’t fool everyone all the time.
In my last blog post I spoke about my growing appreciation of history. I also spoke about the relation that history and geography have which is very evident in India. India’s history usually starts with the Indus Valley civilization (accurately called as the Indus-Sarasvati Civilization). Then it transitions to the emergence and spread of Hinduism. I had already read about this in my school History textbooks. But when I was getting reacquainted with history with a new perspective I realized that I know so little about my own religion. And since a large part of India’s history deals with the rise of the Hindu religion, its evolution, the good and the bad elements that crept in, its political nature and so on, I felt that I should start reading about my own religion and get to know it better. Hinduism is a very complex religion to get to know. The sheer school of thoughts that range from one extreme to another and still coexist relatively peacefully makes it hard to study Hinduism. If you want to start knowing Hinduism where do you start?