Idyllic Thoughts

Last week I spent an evening with my hubby on the serene Maravanthe beach near Kundapura watching the aeonian waves splash on the sand and drag away some reluctant sand away. Watching the waves compete with each other, I felt that they were trying, just like humans, to surpass their predecessors on their path to success. Aren't we too engrossed in continually outdoing others in our professional or personal life? This is what compels us to achieve. If there was no competition, there would be idle people all around, with zero achievements and a complete lack of enthusiasm to work and live. And in this regard, I think jealousy can be a positive emotion.

Once upon a time, I felt love was overrated. I thought love was the most overhyped feeling ever. But now I realise that love is like a mixture of a heady potion in which drugs, hypnosis, addiction, vulnerability, dreams, attraction are mixed potently forgetting to add logic, reasoning as seasoning. When somebody loves you, it brings such a happiness that is beyond description. It is like floating up in heavens carefree and looking down upon mere mortals who are unaware of the joys of love. It is also like a personal little fairydom of dreams where no one else has the permission to enter.

From many days, a question is bothering me. I haven't found a satisfactory answer yet. So I'll write it down here. Maybe anybody who reads this may think of an answer. "Just because we are journalists, writers, opinion creators and thinkers, do we have the right to judge others? Either personally or professionally? If not, then how can we write without judging? Our writings obviously focus on judging others." 

See what happens when the ego of one person surpasses the common good of the mass. A lawyer, stopped by the Police for riding with two pillion riders on bike, created ruckus and the incident was reported in the media. This has finally led to attack on scribes. I consider our country a near-banana republic where people live and behave in a manner that is quite not suited for democracy -- they believe what they comes out of their mouth is gospel truth and behave accordingly. Don't you think instead of more laws with each such incidents, we need stricter enforcement of existing laws? But who is going to implement it when the fence tries to devour the crop? 

Modernity has brought along its own interpretation to India. Here, the word means skimpy dresses, vulgar dances, table etiquette, maintaining skin-deep beauty and obscene behaviour, as far as I could see. Our thinking has not become modern, with the ousting of superstitions and embracing a scientific temperament. No, modernity has failed in inducing a modern way, a new way of thinking in us, or in the way we perceive things, events. We have not become thinkers, we have just become followers of a culture alien to us and one which doesn't suit us. I had to write this prelude because I witnessed two contrasting events in the last two days. One was a cultural programme being conducted in front of a house in Mysore, I don't know for what reason. Two very young children were gyrating sexily to the tunes of some song which was unbearable with no apparent meaning. Their parents and other elders were enjoying the dance with a smile on their faces. Their dance was unbelievable as it wa...

Sitting in the bus which was suffocating me with people's myriad smells and presence, I heard a neta speaking at a roadside shamiana at some function in city today evening. He was saying that if Swami Vivekananda was alive today, he would have been horrified or something to that effect. In a matter of seconds that I heard those words, I felt they sound so hollow, that they clang, clang, clang against themselves. Who cares what are these netas' opinions? Because they surely wouldn't be theirs. Here is one Minister who speaks of HIV in theatre festival, with a complete absence of mind and sense that people would inwardly snigger at him. There is one more MP who tirades against his own party members and agenda, holding a press meet every other day just to keep himself floating in the midst of the political vortex. He doesn't undersand that it is they, the elected representatives, whose job it is to correct the administration and carry out people-friendly works. Th...

Once upon a time I used read a lot. I still read, but not about 600 pages in a day as I used to earlier. Then, many of my friends tried to emulate me by trying to read books. Some bought the book  whose outer cover they fancied, kept the book in a shelf for months to gather dust and then in one fine moment of guilt, started reading. None of them went beyond the first chapter. They came to me for help. But how could I help except suggesting to read the topics that interest them?  Now I realise that reading is an acquired taste. And there is one more in that list -- education. Yesterday when I was standing in the bus stop engrossed in an Isaac Asimov short story, a lady near me was pouring out her woes to another lady, that her son dropped out of college in degree first year saying that he had no desire to study and was bored. She said his peers who finished studies got some or the other job but he stayed without any. She sighed saying that she wished he would complete at...