When will we become humans....????

For all the kids.... who are either killed or crippled.... physically and emotionally....

Look at the picture above. See the kid bleeding. Profously....

Imagine what he is thinking.

He is thinking....

"I am bleeding. Why? Coz I am hurt.

I am in pain. Why? Coz I am hurt.

I am hurt. Why? Coz a bomb blasted where I was.

A bomb blasted where I was. Why? Because.... erm.... because.... I dont know....

Why would someone blast a bomb? Why would someone hurt me? What have I done? What have my friends done who are dead? who is this man helping me? He is sent by God to get me out of pain. But then who sent the bomb? Who sent me hurt and pain? Someone did.... It has to be someone.... I dont know.... I am too hurt and in pain.... But I will think about this for a long time till I find an answer to my questions...."

Do you think he will find answers? And even if he does, what answers do you think he will find? What would he finally find out as an answer to his question? Someone did this coz it was "right" for them to do so? Is it ever right for someone to hurt innocent people like the kid? If its not and if its still happening, maybe.... just maybe.... it might be "right"....

The kid might try this "right" approach to see how it feels....and then theres some other kid who goes through the same process and tries if its "right"....

Can you even remotely imagine the pain that the 6-7 yr old is going thru????

Probably his friends are dying....

Maybe his family is dying....

Moreover, maybe, just maybe, his feelings are dying....

As of now for me thinking about this is "right".... If it is "right" for you, spare a moment & think of all the acts that are done where people who are not responsible are hurt and go thru pain....

The look in the eyes of this kid is a question to entire mankind....

Hope someone is able to find some answers....

A hurtful act is the transference to others of the degradation which we bear in ourselves - Simone Weil

Nothing.... Yet everything....

For my brother.... My solid support....

For Sunil.... A True Friend....

I was clicking pictures and taking videos on my recent trip to Mathura. I was standing on the banks of Yamuna river and my camera was fully zoomed in the water. I could only see grey picture of the water.

Nothing else.... Just grey picture from on end of the screen to the other....

It was nothing....

Then I zoomed out. slowly I started seeing a few birds, then boats, then the other side of the river, then the plants on the other side, then people and eventually the horizon....

It was everything....

So what is everything? And what is nothing? Is it reality in itself? or our perception of reality? Just because I have zoomed the camera to a point in the river, does that mean nothing else exists? Does that mean I have the right to think nothing else exists? I know you might be thinking this is a silly question.

But lets think about it in context with our life.

We are so very focussed on our tasks at hand, our priority number 1, we sometimes completely forget there are other things that do exist. We ignore some of the most important things like our own self.

Right now while you are reading this, take 20 seconds to think back how many hours in the last week did you spend only and only for yourself? I dont mean work, family compulsion (yes, I know a lot of people who spend time with family coz THEY HAVE TO), forced parties and social gatherings, unwanted trips (just coz everyone is going), etc.

Life has become complex to such an extent that we dont even know what would we like to do if we had time. What brings real peace and happiness to us.

How many times you genuinely wanted to go to that concert, go for a swim session, go for that 10km ride with your friends just for a cup of tea, sit and watch a movie which is not necessarily your favourite and not worry about cooking, go and join those salsa classes (without thinking how will I manage time), to go and sit in the see-saw (YES, u read it right), go for that giant wheel in the fun fair about 10 mins from home, read news paper completely in detail, listen to your favourite music (all the songs in the playlist), read ur old greeting cards & letters, just sleep on the bed and look at the fan.....????

We reach a point in this kind of life where we feel my life is nothing. My cousin is very content, she has a fabulous degree, a bright career, supportive parents, ofcourse with a few challenges in life, but overall her life is what we can in general say "good".

Yesterday she was telling me "I am bored, life is no more interesting.... Its not rocking" To which I said "go home and put down on a piece of paper how would a "rocking" day of yours look like?"

She was not able to. She didnt know what she really really wanted. Because her camera in life is zoomed so much that she is only thinking about things that are on Red Alert or Priority no 1.

This is the situation with most of us. We all think "My life is boring.... Its nothing...."

Is it REALLY nothing????

Or is it that we need to do something to change from "nothing" to "everything"????

Simple.... Happiness....

For my parents.... my support.... everytime.... every moment....

For my sister.... I never realised how strong she is till I became weak....

For Kahaan.... who taught me how to smile....

I was talking to a very good friend of mine y'day. She is on cloud nine as she has met this wonderful guy and is totally fallen for him. She was going on and on and on and on about how special he makes her feel and how happy she is and how they both are talking about their wonderful future together. All this while I was thinking "Oh My God.... this is not gonna work out.... this is gonna fall and shes gonna get hurt.... this is to good to be true.... u cant meet someone online and a few exchange of emails and you decide to spend the rest of your life with him???? he is too good with words, which means he is gonna be using that skill for the rest of his life and my friend will suffer...." as much as I wanted to say all this to her, I stopped myself. Because she was happy. She was very very very happy. And frankly, she had all the reasons to be.

So beyond a point of her expressing her happiness and my mind constantly telling me "this is a dream and the higher she goes the bigger the fall is gonna be...." I thought why am I thinking like this? Why am I not happy "genuinely" for my friend? Why is it that when I see someone happy, I start thinking about things that will go wrong?

Thats when I realised that you can be happy for someone if you can be happy yourself. Most importantly I realised that one needs to be courageous to be happy. I dont think I have the courage to be happy and laugh like a child who does not care about the world. In my own pursuit of happyness, I have lost the courage somewhere. Every potential incident for me to be happy presents itself in front of me with such beautiful creativity of a threat around it with like a billboard saying "this is not gonna last long...." it scares me and with that my mind starts creating scenarios of what could go wrong instantly validating that feeling with what HAS gone wrong to convert strongly into a belief in itself.

"It is so simple to be happy, but it is so difficult to be simple...."

When I see my 6 month old nephew smiling all the time, I feel happy for that moment. His happiness is filled with simplicity & innocence. Once my wife said while playing with my nephew "how wierd, you dont remember anything about the most happiest period of your life...." to which I replied "thats what makes it the happiest coz u dont remember anything.... its only once you start remembering things the two buckets of good and bad emerge and u hold both of them coz u have to dispose acts, thoughts, beliefs, statements, feelings in either of them.... thats when u start becoming sad, depressed, etc"

Will we ever be as happy as were when were kids???? Will we ever be able to smile back just coz someone is smiling at us and making faces???? Will we ever be able to forget things the next moment and smile to the same person who hurt us????

Will we ever be simple....????

Terrorist.... Is it someone? or a Mindset?

Recent blasts & terrorist attacks shook the lives of millions of people around the world. Some were connected to who died, some were present at the locations, some had a narrow escape, some were to be at those destinations but somehow were not present, some were in the neighborhood, some were hooked to the TV to know whats happening.

Some recall their times of past when they have been a part of something similar. Some way or the other everyone was impacted. Psychologically everyone who was impacted was reacting in someway or the other.

I was reacting too....

I felt this surprise, this shock, then I felt questioning God, then I felt sad for people who died and who went thru this trauma, then I felt weird thinking what goes on in the minds of a terrorist. I am no psychologist so I really cannot do much justice to the psychoanalysis, but there are times when someone like me who cannot even see a deadbody goes thru this rage, this fury over some strong incident that impacted my life. Irrespective of the consequences, we get into this auto pilot action mode and channelise all of our energy to one single objective.

Execute our WILL!!!!

It is one of the most dreadful feelings to ever occur to me. But those were the times I realise that there is a terrorist in all of us. We all go thru this feeling of strong hatred, fury, vengeance, want to do some damage to people responsible for whatever has impacted our lives. However, sanity prevails and we understand we should ideally be angry on people who are responsible for it and not other innocent people.

So then what goes thru the minds of these terrorists which make them cross the lines of punishing the responsible and punishing the innocent? What goes thru the minds of a young guy who shoots a mother who has a baby in her hands and when the baby drops down, without a sweat he kills the baby as well. A baby who is incapable of anything is shot in cold blood.

It is extremely interesting to think that if the same amount of focus and willingness to execute your mission, to the extent that someone is willing to die for it, if used in the right channel, what kind of results can we expect? How would the world be if all those are made to think about the potential that everyone of us possess to plan to the minutest detail, execute and be successful in whatever you wish. Somehow I dont understand it is very easy to fall into this thought process when people have to violate some social norms, some rules. So what makes it so exciting in violating those norms for someone to be able to use full potential whereas the same is not used for rightful purposes?

Does it mean that even after thousands of years, we are still animals as we only care about "feel good factor" and dont care about others?