To The Shore

I left you on the shore: To wash yourself, to let you live your life your way. I left you there because I saw no other alternative. I left you there because it was the only way for a peaceful existence. I left you, yes I did, because that’s what you wanted. We’d been trying so hard for months to fit in, to make it work for us, but it never did. We were always weirdos for the world. And it is the bitter truth that the world doesn’t want diversity if it threatens them, it only desires diversity that it can co-exist with, understand, and if required overpower. There is no place for two green skinned humans to survive here. There is no way we would be accepted for who we are. The world here works in weird ways you see - humans are divided into so many divisions of race, caste, sex, nationality and so on that it at times makes me wonder if they do really remember their true purpose, their true nature. I guess we’ll never know. It as mystic to us as we must be to them, if they knew us. But they don’t. Nor will they ever know.

You remember when we first woke up to our reality? How frightened we were? How afraid of not only ourselves but also of the world we were? I remember you said you felt “different but in a mixed way”. I’ve always wondered why you said “different in a mixed way”, it wasn’t until our argument few days ago that I realized what you truly felt. I did know but I didn’t. I hope you get it, because it is the only way I can put it in words. Your elation at discovering that we were the ones who were supposed to better life here was un-miss-able. You sang your plans to me for a long while. After that, I saw you grow sad. I didn’t comprehend. But now I know, I feel your inhibition and I’m so sorry to say that it is your inhibition which has made you leave.  To be frank, I understand the world doesn’t want to see us for who we are or get to know us, it just wants us to get into the existing groove of monotony that their lives are. So we paint ourselves. We paint ourselves every weekend from head to toe in paint, into a colour that not only covers our skin but also makes it impossible to distinguish us from other humans. I remember when once the post man saw a little of green on my palm he cursed at me and threatened to shoot me. This was when he wasn’t even aware of the reality of my green skin. We have to live a false life. We have to.

To be honest we were doing so well. Waking up every morning, getting dressed, going to work, coming back and sleeping at night. We had fit in amazingly when suddenly you began to feel different about our mutual plan of living as normal humans do. You started yelling about “not fulfilling our real purpose”, of being sucked into the luxury, of forgetting our roots, our mission here. You wanted to remove the paint, go out in the green coloured skin and do the work you were supposed to do. You wanted to be yourself and were tired of putting up a facade. But. What you don’t realize is that this is the only way we can survive. This is the only way we get to live. If we bared ourselves to the world we wouldn’t receive appreciation, admiration or anything positive that you have in mind; we will instead be ridiculed, punished, interrogated, looked at with suspicious eyes, be subjected to researches and tests. We won’t be able to live.

I’ve tried so many times to make you understand these tiny truths that people appreciate you until you threaten them. I’ve told you there is no place for being real, living without a facade here but you won’t agree. You’ve set your mind on being “The True You”. This hurts my chances of survival here and puts me in the direct purview of suspicion if anything were to happen to you. I’m going to go back and live on with the paint. It is the only way to survive. I cannot allow this. I can’t allow you to be you. That is why I’ve brought you here today, to the shore. To the place where you said you feel nice and real. I’ve brought you here so that you can feel that way always. I’ve brought you here so that you can wash off your paint. So that you can be You.

 

Two Boats

Well it’s been a long journey. And I’m not yet tired. There is still so much left to explore and discover, and even if we run out of things to explore and discover we will have a nice time basking in the memories of our journey. Although a part of me wants that this journey never end, and we travel together all the time, but another part of me knows that this will not be possible. We can’t be in the same boat when we have to travel to different destinations. So unwillingly I have to accept the inevitability of the fact that you and I will travel in different boats for quite some time now.

I know that even though our destinations are different and we both are equally unsure about our reaching them in time, we are guided by the same drive: hunger for achievement. All psychology students will tell you there are primarily four drives in a human being. I consider the drive for achievement to be the dominating one in both of us. After all, we didn’t come onto earth to live and soak in its beauty without contributing to it in whichever way possible. And when we have a chance to choose the way, why not choose the best and make it large?

At times, the way we’ll choose will make us run after it, run all through the day. There will be a point where we’ll feel like giving up on the chosen way and also, on ourselves. Ah! But that is the real test of passion, to hold onto your choice even when nothing around you seems to be making sense. To stay with your choice when the world is telling you to give up. To stay determined. There are ought to be moments when you feel down but remember your greater purpose, the reason for your drive and keep moving. There is no problem if you move slowly; the problem arises if you refuse to move. So don’t.

There will be moments of utter happiness and satisfactions too, enjoy them, but also know that they too, like moments of sorrow are temporary. Remember when Chandragupta Maurya won a battle he did not spend away all night celebrating, he rather started to plan his next move. We need to move with that focus. We need to make our names that large, so that kids centuries after us, know who we were and why we were.

Needless to say there will always be up and downs and we have to face them both with equal courage and foresight. The reason why a term for a roller coaster going only up isn’t coined is because it is highly improbable. The two have to co-exist, up and down, black and white, sweet and sour; that’s what makes our little time on earth worthy of remembering.

We both are similar and not same. I don’t expect you to take the same decisions I consider right, but I do expect you to not take a different decision just because I chose the one you wanted. We can share.

What remains at the end of the day is only how much we contribute, in our own ways, and how close did we get to our greater purpose. I hope we both always remember this and keep moving. After all, there is going to be a time when we both will be on the same boat, for the same destination, again.

This is a piece of work I wrote for my best friend an year ago and never had the wish to email it.

 

Of College, School and Smiles

Hey guys! 

Hope everyone's doing great. My life has been a huge roller coaster lately and even though I get time to post I lack the inspiration at times. Now, when my exams are hardly four days away I feel that I should write (see how weird my brain processes are?) before I get to writing anything let me clear any doubts of any human regarding if college is better than school. No. It is Not. It is so not better. 

Well of course, its more glamorous, and you feel a sense of adulthood when you tell people you're in college, but that's mostly it, no other great perks. It's rather more difficult than school in a way.

 You are just informed about the VAST syllabus, thousand assignments and hundreds of exam. You are responsible for your work.

 Remember those days back in school when the teachers used to correct our "Homework"? Well no one does it in college. Though it is a relief in one sense it is also equally a bane- no one simply cares if you have written anything or not, so when the exams come you're on your own,no one else can be blamed. smart, isn't it? It's fun too.

You have to make your own schedule of study, you HAVE to submit those assignments. No one cares when, how, or where, they just have to magically appear on the teacher's desk on the date of submission. No excuses. This can be done two ways - Either you work on a select portion everyday with a conscious plan of completing it ,or, like me stay up the entire night before the submission day and scribble whatever words related to the topic you can find and pray that your teacher doesn't rusticate you on the grounds of utterly disappointing assignments. Yeah.

Another weird thing about college is that there are no breaks. I mean, hello!? Aren't we humans supposed to eat? College is responsible for half of the malnutrition phases that I mentally imagine myself going through when I'm in the class. What is the use of not assigning breaks? Sure class sessions can be longer and stuff, but wait, if I'm hungry you think I'll be able to focus  in that extended time period ? Let me just eat please! Puh-lease!

A serious thing that troubles me about my college in specific (hope your college doesn't irritate you about this) is the lack of proper sanitation facilities. There are such few open washrooms, the ones that are open are invariably mildly stinky. Though their are more washrooms in the campus they are locked. I did think of going and complaining about it but then I decided that I should inspect all the other washrooms before I do so. So I did. And what I found wasn't pleasing. The washroom was great it had so many facilities, but it wasn't kept that way. It had been littered and dirtied. People had thrown things right on the lid of the dustbin to escape the minute effort of having to lift the lid. So yeah, good hygiene habits and sanitation facilities are very necessary.

But 

Apart from all that college is fun, you have a sense of independence and get to steer your life on your own. So have fun where ever you are whether it's in college or in school, you'll miss it when its over.Smile your way through it all :)

Sunday Morning Strangers

Sunday mornings call for a relax in the daily routine. Sunday also happens to be the day when I have intensive driving session with my instructor. so I wore my running shoes, not because I was going to run but because my instructor prefers to teach me in them.
After a lot of driving, we stopped at a road which was beautifully surrounded by tree and shrubs. After some distance it led to the main road. My instructor stopped the car on my query related to the mechanism by which the brake works. We drew to left and stopped. He drew heavily labelled diagrams  to illustrate the working which were followed by analogies that made it  much more easier for me to grasp the concept. But me, being the kinesthetic personality I am and luckily my instructor was too, we got the car. We opened the bonnet of the car, and were viewing and examining the various parts related to the brake which he had so carefully drawn.
From a distance it must have appeared that two individuals were musing how to fix the car, touching wires and several parts of the engine unable to reach a conclusive decision about how to fix the car and get going.
The road wasn't a busy one, so not many people passed us. some of the passer-bys looked at us with amazement about how could someone possibly get a car broken so early in the day, while few other just gave us sympathetic glances which were supposed to be consoling. Then, just as we finished with the mechanism of the power brake, sir tried to locate it when a motor cycle with two men drew up- probably a father-son duo and muttered some words. The younger one who was driving wore reflectors so I couldn't pinpoint whom he was talking to while the elder looked at me for an answer. I stared at them dumbfounded while sir went on explaining. getting no response, they didn't persist instead left the sight.
After shutting the bonnet, when i began to drive again the words the guy had spoken made a statement in my head which translated to should we fix it for you guys? or call help? I was happy. A random stranger, that too an Indian male (if you know what I mean) had offered to help and that too, without rubbing chauvinism in my face. Getting no answer he didn't shout or do any such thing but rather left the place, that too without swearing abut how stupid people are. pleasant surprise. :)

Dear Stranger,
Thank you for offering to fix my car (and call help if required )while I was studying the engine's parts. I couldn't piece your words together at that moment to comprehend what you exactly meant, but now that I do- here's a big thank you.