Dear Joe...

We have all had a Joe somewhere, sometime in our life. It could be anyone. He/she doesn't come with labels. Though I have marked Joe with J here.

Whatever, or however our lives are today, a lot of it is because of Joe. For some of us, we couldn't have done well in life without him, and for the rest we could have done a lot more in life if he never walked it.

Few Years Later...

Some more years later...

Two years later...

4 years later...

After a few years...

A lot of years later...

Next life...

If you have anything to say to that person now or you think that I missed out on something, feel free to share it in the comments section. Also don't forget to share this blog.. 

Meanwhile in a distant land.....

Straight isn't always Right!

Some one rightly said : "No matter what, love is always  complicated.

This post has also been published  @thelitera.com

no titles required..

Getting it right??

They never said life would be simple. They never said you will always be successful. It’s not how you deal with success that determines the type of person you are, but it is the way you face failures.

We all have at one certain point in our life encountered a happy go lucky person. They have always been the cause of our distress. Probably when she got the lead role in that school play, and everybody bullied you. Taking revenge on her was the first thing that came to your mind. After all, she was the one who, landed you in this position, right?

Wrong. It wasn’t her because of whom you felt miserable. It  those big guys who laughed at you, that hit you hard. But, wait. You couldn't possibly fight them. That’s was a really big deal. So all you had done was making things rough for that  girl. But, she didn't do anything to you, and was enjoying her own world.

Just because, you are hurt, and you have a lot of problems to deal with, doesn’t mean the other has to have the same. There are always some people, who would never want  to pick a fight against you, and would be sitting in some corner of a  room in their own sweet world, enjoying what life offers.

Remember that not-so-talkative nerdy kid, with shabby clothes, who always tried to make friends with you, and at times forced you. Most of the time he didn’t even understand that he was made fun of. All the bullies just had awesome time making him run around the corridor. Probably that’s how they dealt with their failures. The satisfaction of  being able to make someone else’s life more miserable than their, made things a lot better for them.

Isn’t that exactly what everyone is trying to do now? And yes I am talking about the JNU students.

I am in no way supporting what they said and what they did. Oh, wait. They didn’t do anything.

With the world torn apart by wars erupting between the powerful nations, terrorist attacks killing innocent civilians, and continuous recruitment, forced slavery and trafficking by  non-state actors, we think that the pressing matter at hand is what those students said. Definitely their words made a lot of difference. A lot.  At least, now the rulers and their subjects are on the same page against something.

Ours is a democratic republic and definitely the citizens are the major concerns. It’s the rule by the citizens and for the citizens. And though freedom of speech is guaranteed by our constitution, it should be used judiciously.

Now, just sit down and look back. Remember in 2012 when the girl in Delhi was brutally raped and murdered? We almost had the whole nation raise their voice for it. All of us wanted justice. We wanted to make sure that all the accused got severe punishments so that there wouldn’t be a next time. 3 years later, the scenario stands as, the prime accused is free, one of them died in jail, and the others are imprisoned for 10 years, and there has been countless ‘next times’.  Yes, that’s right. After all the struggle that the entire nation went through, we achieved this. At least that time it was the majority who wanted the same thing and still failed. 

This time, it’s just a handful of college students,  that has brought to questioning whether the college should work.

Yes, it hurts, that a college that functions with the tax payers hard earned money has produced students who think, that those terrorists’ motives were right and they should be fulfilled.

But how, can you judge the whole crowd by a handful? And if the wrong use of your money is what hurts you most, then where were you when the politicians got away with scams? Where were you when our country spent so much on a terrorist who killed hundreds of people on 26/11? You couldn’t fight it that time. Because the fight was against those big guys. 

But this time it’s an easy one. At least if you win this one, you will have the 'satisfaction of A WIN' after so many failures.

I know, many of you would have a different opinion. And trust, me I respect it. I am as much Indian as you are.  I just sit back and imagine, that thank God I don’t have such students in my college. Or else I would not have been able to complete my graduation. 

I wish...

Remember the times we were the most care free people on earth. The times when the biggest tension in life would be to win beyblade and UNO matches, the utmost sorrow to miss our favorite cartoon show and all problems in life would be solved with a chocolate or a new cassette of video games.

But, then we had to grow up to be adults to see other kids enjoy the best time of their lives. And, while they complain about it being the worst part, you could pat them and say with a smile, “this is the best thing… You will understand when you grow up.” 

All that remains of the happy go lucky phase of our lives are, the fond time less memories. No matter how old you grow or how troublesome your life is, they will always bring a smile on your face. 

We only wish that we could re live those times. We only wish that life remained uncomplicated, and fear free.

I wish that our problems could be solved with chocolates or cartoons.

I wish problems in the world could be solved by applying filters to your profile pictures.

It was not easy to give up the comfort of our childhood and be an adult. But since we had to, why not be a responsible and a reasonable one. Why not be the adult who lets the children be innocent and care free, and let them gather some memories that would make them happy later in life.

Turn the wheels of the clock and go back to the best time of our lives. All that we see is the little us, happy, playful, annoying, innocent. Now, imagine if suddenly you hear gun shots, bombing. You see blood everywhere, and the friend you played with yesterday isn’t there anymore.  Probably you will never meet him again. 

Next day, comes your turn to leave. No idea where you are going. Wherever you are going, this isn’t going to be the holiday that your parents told you about. The best thing you can ask for at this moment is to be with your parents, wherever you reach.

While all this is going on with you, somewhere, someone in a distant land, sitting in the comfort of their room, just applied a filter on their profile picture or updated a status to support you, or they just found your friend lying lifeless on some country’s border and the photo is going viral all over the net.  Do you even know what being "life less" is?

That’s exactly what is happening right now. Just because we are safe at home now, doesn’t mean we will be safe tomorrow. While we would be acting dead to escape from being shot by terrorists, some one would be hash tagging and posting prayers.

These terrorists haven’t invaded us one fine morning from another planet. They are people like us. Look exactly the same and have the exact same features. He can be the one standing beside you at a party or someone you sit beside every day in the office.

Yes, they are hugely driven by their motives. But, they also gain a lot from it. Probably they are the ones who had gone through a troubled child hood because of their religion or caste and they don’t feel at home in their own country. They might be getting some advantage out of it. Maybe their family’s security is guaranteed, or they are getting their needs full filled.

Whatever it is, the non-state actors have managed to offer them what they longed for, and what the state has failed to.

This shouldn’t be a surprise. Our politicians make more money than our soldiers. We have a tax hike every year. We had one recently too, for “swachh bharat abhiyan”.  Yes, sure we need to fund that. After all, there has to be enough fund to clean the streets after people are shot, right? 

Why should we pay the army, because they risk their life? Its there job! They signed up for it!!

What are we doing? Changing filters??

The recruitment for these terrorist groups happen from the youth. Someone who had never got their share of justice, or was neglected by their own state might just have signed up to join them today. People who have lost their faith in their country can only act against it.

Stop counting lives in numbers every day. When a person dies everyone around them suffer. When an innocent is killed, the whole humanity dies with it.

Yes, it is very difficult to stop this. At this stage it feels next to impossible.

But, did we forget we are responsible adults now. No matter how bad I do in my life, something that I have learnt from my 2 years of adulthood is, “Things don’t come easy, you have to work hard towards it”.

May all the souls of the victims rest in peace. I am sorry, that you had to pay such a huge price. 

 

Right. Is it??

All is fair in love and war, said someone.

The so called “MODERN” world seem to only remember the latter part of the phrase. A world that has given a new meaning to modernization.  While the dictionary still reads the meaning of the word as “relating to the present or recent times as opposed to the remote past”, some of us think it is to be fractious to our cultures.

Having a zero figure or being able to fit your corpulent body into those skinny jeans with a lot of torment, is not called modern. This only means, that we still are in the stone age. We don’t know what is good for us, we are just happy and carried away in the joy of accomplishing the silliest things in life. At least the nomads knew what was best for them, what was important, and what they wanted the future to be. Probably that’s exactly why the mankind has come so far. But, with the type of “Modernization” we are up to nowadays, we are not going any further.

All this while, we had completely been intransigent about homosexuality, tagging it to be abnormal. Abnormal because that’s not the way we are used to be. That’s not OUR perception of right.

 What happened to the tolerance that we boast about having? Even primeval people were more tolerant, and open to new perspectives. That is exactly why we do not rub stones to ignite fire anymore.

With less than 2% of the population of our country being public servants, we don’t have enough police or enough courts to attend to those thousands of piled up cases, but we definitely have enough police force for beating up unmarried couples. The judiciary forgives a juvenile for brutally raping and killing a girl and makes sure to hide his face from the outside world, but the same judiciary is okay with beating up couples in public for just being found together in hotel rooms on the grounds of “public indecency”.

Well, I am not sure how far the nation follows the constitution, but its judiciary surely needs to get a dictionary.

All this, in the name of preserving cultures? Does this culture give us permission to kill a person for eating beef?

With over 270 million starving people in the country, we are more worried about what a person eats. 

Oh, wait! We were protecting our religion, right? We worship the cow. We were protecting our god. We were punishing the people who disrespected him.

Well, I don’t know how far the mankind is going to go, but we surely have come a very long way. We have come so far, that now we think we can protect God.

We have come so far, that we think the one who created us, needs our help to be protected.

So far, that we don’t trust his justice anymore. Rather we take up governing in our hands and serve justice on his behalf.

So, at the end of the day, we have succeeded in making India MODERN, NORMAL, CULTURED, RELIGIOUS and RIGHT. Or should that be “Bharat”. After all changing names make huge differences.

Just average things??!!

There has been endless times that we feel giving up is the only option we have. That to accept defeat gracefully is the best thing we can do.

Back in school, all of us came across those popular kids, who were every thing that you were not and always wanted to be. They looked great in their school uniforms, their grade sheet looked good, there houses were no less than an exhibition of trophies in every field possible under the sun. The moment you enter their room, you rethink the whole purpose of your existence and the possibility of starting all over again.

If you never went through all of that, then yes darling, you are the person I am talking about.

 Personally sometimes I feel like punching all those movie makers and writers who make a less than average loser personality their lead and by the end of their story they manage to become the most successful of the lot. We connect with them at the beginning of the tale and by the time we turn the last page, we are completely convinced that, I am going to win.

It motivates you to the extent, that next day at your sports prelims you are ready to give long jump a shot. Standing in the queue you see all those state level athletes of your school performing and you think, today is your day. You are going to perform better than everyone. All the people standing around would clap and woot for you. All your crushes who have friend zoned you for a zillion times would come up to you and ask you out, and you would turn them down in all your glories. After all, they are late!

Yes, today is going to be the day when everyone will learn to value you.

When your turn finally arrives, you speed up to the line. You know you are going to have the longest jump anyone has ever seen.

But before you realize you already landed, probably less than half the way, in a puddle from last night’s rain.

It’s the end. You just became a laughing stock and you wish you had Harry Potter’s invisible cloak.

Now you probably need another story to motivate you.

Yes, these incidents did happen with me a lot of times. A LOT! And I also know that whether people admit it or not, I am not the only one.

Yes, it feels bad. It feels unjust.

Injustice will always be a part of our lives. We will always have that one happy go lucky friend who enjoyed every moment of their life, while we would be struggling to settle down in life, and still end up at a better place than us.

Its frustrating. You want to hit someone in the face.

But, have you ever considered the other perspective of it?

You have experienced it all in life. You know how cold the water in the puddle was. The tickling of the small tadpoles in it. The sudden adrenaline rush before falling. The pain of struggling. You have come out stronger, from all the heart breaks that you thought you wont survive.

You no more do stuff in expectation of a certificate or a medal. You do it for the love of doing it. You do not need to put on your best clothes everyday to maintain your standards. But when you do, you turn heads.

You experience all the emotions in life, and you would probably be having a photo album with all expressions a person can have.

Trust me, you are strong and lucky .You have had every feeling under the sun. Every time you fell, you have stood up, ready to fall again. You do things for yourself and do not need to prove anything to anyone. Your hardships have taught you to always stand up to take your stance, even when you are left alone. No matter what happens, no matter how hurt you are, you are confident that you will move on, and begin again.

 You are the coolest person you will ever come across!