My days of Dilemma - My path to Realization

I have a pretty clear idea about what my aim is in all the small interactions I have with other human beings out of my circle. To stay disconnected enough to avoid them from affecting me, unless it is someone I care about in which case I try to get them out of their misery if they let me, cause I can’t bear their suffering. This clear idea is not because I am socially awkward or something but because I believe that my happiness is my priority. And I have a very clear idea about when I am happy. The reason I avoid interaction with the other people is that they do not know what their happiness is and this renders them irrelevant and even destructive.

A persons’ philosophy is simply his principles and how he derives them. It is not just a vague theory subject which can get you a degree. It is what one believes and what one doesn’t. What one values. What one considers friendship, love and how one approaches the world. It is ones idea of what constitutes good, bad, ugly or irrelevant. And a very important WHY for all the what’s and how’s. The ground work. The basics. Everyone has an idea about this though it is not put into words usually. It is a simple enough concept. But most never have the patience, and sometimes courage, to think about it.

Many reasonable people can answer the what’s and how’s. Many can’t. But the key word in the above paragraph is the uppercase why. You can’t just give a why not or something to that affect there - that would be saying I don’t know why. You must understand the question at hand, decide its merits and virtues, decide its applicability to you, and then decide whether you accept it or not. And you must decide by your own cognition and reasoning capability. That is the only way to answer the why. And that is how you are sure. The key word in here is you. You must reason and decide.

Though I am not an expert, I’ve got a basic understanding of philosophy because I did not have it by birth and I desperately needed it at one point in life to avoid becoming a slave to the hypocritical society like most people around me. More than a point, it was a phase. I was hypocritical as everyone else, I was conflicted. I did not know whom to believe. I was better off than most at my age because I at least knew what everyone thought was right was not right. But I did not have the why. So I was somewhat doing what everyone was doing with a question mark attitude. This part of my life can be called ‘dilemma’ which had the following characteristics:

1. I was valuing what everyone valued.
2. There was no formula in my thought process to determine what was virtuous, right or wrong. My answers were always hesitant and somewhere in between. I was afraid of taking a stand. I could not judge clearly for myself and ended up feeling guilty whenever I was compelled to decide.
3. I went along believing sacrifice and charity was the ultimate goal of life.
4. I was thinking that happiness of others was my happiness.
5. I just thought beggars were very very unfortunate people who deserved to get money from others for survival. Just like I was thinking that socialism was not bad.
6. I was thinking that inefficiency is all right as long as a person is good natured and basically harmless.
7. I thought keeping in touch with hundreds of people was important. Though I never actually got myself to do it.
8. I felt guilty when I am doing something for my pleasure. Though that did not stop me.
9. I felt proud when doing something which I did not have a vested interest in even though I had no idea why I was doing it.
10. I was sometimes caring about people though deep inside I knew I could never care about them. Because I did not know why I shouldn’t care for them.
11. I was faking concern about things that did not concern me for the sake of sanction of others.
12. And even though I always knew concept of god was superfluous and the way to ruins, I was not clear on the why.

Then somehow, I started reading The Fountainhead and I knew this was the answer. This was right. And I started down this path. Now I don’t hesitate anymore to take a call. I actually know what I believe and why.

Dilemma

It’s another of the thousands of unsuspecting Sunday mornings passing by me.  The plan is to study an approximate of 10 hours so that I can complete a CFA subject out of the many others pending to be completed before the starting of this December. So how does that go? I wake up at 11 in the morning only to be too bored to study, I spend time on music and stuff till lunch time and then relax. Quite a messed up start for such high aspirations. Question, should I eat?

Eating is a sin now. I’ll sleep on the dining table itself if I eat my mother’s masala meat curry with steam rice. But I am too hungry. Resistance sounds really cool advising someone. But I can’t study hungry right! And I can’t study sleeping either. Maybe I’ll eat too little to get sleepy but just enough to ward off the starvation. But its Sunday, its mutton! Oh the dilemma..

The sixty seventh independence day - as no one else is counting

Just got this off my fb page: This happens to be the 67^th Independence day of India. Disclaimer: this was an Economic Times update on my fb – so buyer beware.

Truly we are running out of numbers. Last I remembered, people were going crazy about the half century figure but India is batting faster than Sachin after he completes his fifty. Wait, what’s my age now? Never mind.

So I was thinking why so much fuss about Independence day and its celebration. It’s quite funny to see people upload flags to their profiles to convince themselves that they still are patriotic. I could point it out to them, but then I’ll have no one to laugh at. When I think that the concept of nation is about its geography and borders as I read in the inaccurate geography text books in my high school, the illogical social text books in my high school correct me to say that the concept of a nation is its people and culmination of all the cultures it has accumulated when it was in slavery of the kings or whites, or bureaucrats later (I made that up, the text book doesn’t have the wisdom to say it).

Well, if it’s only about borders and spaces, there is no point in feeling sentimental about it. If it is about people, culture and all the crap that it comes with, the bottom line is the same. It’s more hypocritical than foolish and either ways, no need to feel attached and sentimental about it. I, for one, am starting to get allergic to  people and their stupid notions specifically because they restrict MY independence for the sake of something they are not sure they believe in.

The only good thing is that it is a public holiday. But even that’s got an angle. It’s a dry day (again, this info is not from an accurate source and I am too uninterested to google)

You want us to celebrate by holding it dry? I repeat: hypocrites.

Drunk

Here’s to hoping my parents would never find out, never cared about any others who would be interested to find out.

Exactly in the middle of two full bottles of mansion house, I decide to write about how it feels when completely drunk. Before that, I must confess that I am not totally out, so this may not be a truly accurate portrait.

 You suddenly are not afraid of consequences, you want to change wrongs and replace them with rights. You stop thinking about losing your job and think about what ifs. You don’t care what your bosses would say about the faults only they can find. You feel that you are better than them. You don’t care about the years of ambition or the lifetime of frustrations. Your mind spins, or stops spinning, and you feel the calm you haven’t felt the whole week of doing productive work. A bit of comfort, as the wait is over, the wait for the week to be over with and the break to begin. You forget about what you never remembered, but never got to push out of the borders of your mind either – the irrelevant. The Saturday and Sunday of life with your best friends and a raw peg.

The song playing on speakers ‘And nothing else matters’

Service Before Self

On my way back home, I was passing by a school, the name of which I withhold for decency (or not, it is Delhi Public School, Bowenpally) on the big board on the main gate, under the name of the school, was written the tag line “Service Before Self”. It is everything that is wrong with the world.

If you think about it, these people and majority of schools are asking these kids to spend time thinking about some strangers who have needs, rather than spend time on developing their own minds and skills? These strangers are either too lazy to earn what they need or are molded into expecting help without their efforts or they do not have the mind to control their lives and lost. Kids need to learn to earn value and measure it. Kids as well as their parents and teachers. Value of one’s ingenious effort cannot be appreciated when it is asked to be given away, and as a rule efforts cannot be generated without incentives for the person putting in the effort. Value can be earned by paying the price of one’s efforts. Not when it is received because of pity or deceit or force. And value can be measured only when it is exchanged for value, not when you give it away without meaning.

The vicious cycle is this: If a guy is asked to give money or respect without getting anything in return, he may think its force. But when everyone is doing the same thing, he will think that it’s his duty. In turn, another guy thinks it’s his right that it should be given to him without any effort asked. It’s a normal phenomenon in the hypocritical society. It’s also normal that the first guy turns out to be the second when it is his turn.

Of Marwadi Engagements and Brahmin Marriages

If you are an unsuspecting guest, you will be left a bit shaken by the conventions and traditions of Marwadis’ like I was shaken when I attended a Marwadi friends’ engagement just a couple of days back. There are so many things you can crack jokes on that you won’t even mind all the discomforts. And you will not be bored by looking at the expressionless Marwadi faces either. Because that amuses, too.

The concept of a Marwadi engagement is divided into two halves. Like a movie or a cricket match or something else with two equal divisions. The first half involves formalities involving the bride done by bridegrooms’ relatives in specific absence of the bridegroom. The second half is vice-versa. I am not sure whether it is a rule to decorate the bride first and go on to the groom in the second part or the sequence is decided in a coin toss. That wouldn’t surprise me.

It is a custom in India that the marrying couple take blessings of each and every elder who comes onto their path, by touching their foot/toes in traditional India style. The emphasis on this practice is huge in western states. The Marwadi customs, maybe to make it more lucrative for the young ones, have a mandate that every time this toe-touching blessing-taking happens, the elder should give some cash to the young one. And Marwadis being Marwadis give amounts starting from Rs 20 up to a maximum of Rs 100. In some cases, Rs 10 also. In this particular case, the collection of the groom crossed an amount of Rs 1500 from some 100 donors.

The most interesting, actually scary, part of a traditional Marwadi function is the Lunch. God knows how they eat that food but that is the least of concerns. I was accompanied by another Telugu guy and we were called up to eat. We were given a place on floor to sit. We sat, facing each other. Then they kept a plate in between us, served some Puri s and Curries and stuff and asked us to eat. Both of us. In one plate. In fact, people were eating in groups of four and five from one plate. I and my friend ate whatever Puri and curries we could, left out some dishes we could not identify as suitable for human consumption and got up lest anyone would force us to eat rice. I mean, how can two friends meeting after long time mix rice with curries and eat from that single plate without being embarrassed for life about it? Just the thought gave us the creeps.

Anyways, we thought it was a great system to follow for our Marwadi friend when he throws a marriage reception in some banquet hall. Banquet halls charge on basis on number of plates used and these guys use one place for half a dozen people. That’s a Marwadi-level saving of 80% on expenses! Let’s not think about the plight of that banquet hall owner.

I’ve also had the honor of going to a marriage I was not specifically invited to, too, but I am not the bragging kind.

PS: It’s my experience that Marwadi people are as kind hearted as it gets. Also they are very straight forward and a bit sensitive. But I cannot let that stop me from spreading these critical matters. Here’s to hoping they are sportive enough, too.