Together & Happiness - A Life Without Distraction

"You won't believe who was sitting next to me at the coffee shop this evening!" a friend came and told me today creating the drama he mastered over the years. He later told me that in the table next to his sat a man without a phone in his hand or even a laptop in his table. According to him it was quite odd and was quite certain that he was deranged as only they could act like that.

While I knew he was trying to be funny, deep inside me I knew it definitely was a rare sighting in today's world. Such individuals are few and far in between.

The world has taken giant leaps over the past century and left behind the old ways of life. The Generation X of the world who was largely responsible for this change are fast turning into senior citizens challenged with the impacts of their own revolution. Some of us are stuck in the middle struggling with the new way of life while still romanticizing with the past.

We conveniently blame our smart phones and other gadgets as reason for not being able to spend quality times with our family, friends and loved ones. But the fact of the matter is these gadgets are here to stay and the sooner we learn to adopt those into our lifestyle, the better it is for us.

Our ability to remain connected to the internet 24x7 doesn’t not mean that we should be constantly surfing the net. Similarly it also doesn’t warrant that we should keep passing on messages to a large group of friends or acquaintances as soon as we receive those from somewhere. There is no denying that we cannot shun those from our life any more as our favourite pastime, reading, too has become digital. Only when we bring discipline in our life we will be able to use these technologies as tools to improve our life and not let them become the wedge that pushes the family apart. Otherwise persons around us shall continue to become invisible as we stay engrossed in our computers, laptops or other handheld devices and each individual becomes an isolated island.

Only when we control what we do, when we do and how we do things in our life shall we create little islands of kissanpur in our daily life and enjoy the joy of being together and happiness or in other word togetherness.

The joy increases manifold when we all go to a new place with our extended family and spend at least a week in a hotel where all we need to care about is spend quality time, laugh together remembering all those sweet memories from the past and at the same time creating memories for the future.

Once upon a time on a Road

“Not everything that happens in our life can be explained by common sense, knowledge, or for that matter, known science,” Ron reflected, quite engrossed in his thoughts, as Ana looked on. It had been long since they last sat together talking about the past. Ron always had many stories to tell, and while he insisted they were all his own experiences, Ana believed most of them were either borrowed from others’ lives or simply made up.

“Today, I will tell you about an experience I had almost 15 years back—but don’t ask me to explain it, because I have none,” he said, and began to narrate a journey he and his friends had taken to Dubai.

That night, Ron, accompanied by three friends, was heading towards the Dubai border. It was a long weekend, and they were visiting Dubai for the very first time. Quite naturally, they decided to drive through the night so they could make the most of their time there. The highway was long and straight, and the real challenge was not speed, but staying awake. The car was a rental, and they took turns driving, with one rule—the person in the front passenger seat had to stay awake and keep the driver company.

Somewhere along the drive, the conversation drifted to the usual stories one hears on highways—strange sightings, unexplained incidents, things that are difficult to believe, yet hard to dismiss. Everyone had their own take on such stories, and while no one claimed to believe them fully, no one dismissed them entirely either.

It was in the middle of such a conversation that it happened.

A sharp, shrill whistling sound cut through the air outside the car. It was loud enough to startle everyone inside. Ron, who was at the wheel, instinctively pressed the brakes and covered his ears. As the speed dropped, the sound disappeared.

They looked at each other, unsure of what had just happened.

Ron accelerated again. The moment the car picked up speed, the sound returned—just as sharp, just as unsettling.

After a while, they slowed down again. This time, there was only silence.

They drove on, unsure whether it was something mechanical or something else. After a few minutes, they tried again—accelerating deliberately—but the sound did not return. Gradually, the incident slipped into the background, and they went on to have a great time in Dubai.

On their way back, however, they experienced the same thing again. The same stretch of road. The same sound.

This time, they did not stop to investigate.

They drove past it in silence.

When Ron returned home, he was shaken to learn that one of his colleagues had lost control of his car and died on that very stretch of road—the same place where they had heard the whistle.

Ana and Ron sat in silence for a moment, both instinctively rubbing their arms, as if to shake off the sudden chill that had crept in.

This post is a part of Write Over the Weekend, an initiative for Indian Bloggers by BlogAdda.

Addressing Mental Illness

What is a mental illness? In common man’s term, it could probably be defined as the lack of balance of mind or brain. In other words inappropriate thought process and action that result in the affected individual’s failure to cope with life’s ordinary demands and routines. Early indicators are changes in mood, personality, habits and social interaction.
 

Medically there are more than 200 classified forms of mental illness. Some of the most common types are:  clinical depression, bipolar disorder, dementia, schizophrenia and anxiety disorders. Like all other illness, mental illnesses too vary in severity ranging from moderate to severe.
 

This could develop due to external stresses, internal chemical imbalances and genetic factors or after some accident. But many affected individual succeed in coming out of this illness and learn to cope with the conditions with proper care and treatment.
 

However, the biggest obstacles that prevent people seek professional help and treatment is the stigma associated with mental illness.
 

The most common are anxiety and depressive disorders which are more extreme forms of feelings of anxiety, tension or sadness that most of us normally experience. In India, there are very few people who would or have access to medical professionals when faced with such conditions.
 

In the place where we grew up, I observed something that is probably unique. We had sadhus and sanyasis associated with various sects of Hinduism. They dedicated their life for their Gurus as well as the service of mankind. Some of them were truly learned and whenever any disciple had feeling of extreme sadness they used to use situation out of the holy scriptures and pacify the sadness and help them back into the normal walk of life. I am sure such pious man existed across all religions.

There was a stigma associated with going to a psychiatrist but there was no barrier reaching out to such gurus.
 

Today there are more impersonators, quacks and opportunist in the society making it extremely difficult to trust. Medical supports are available but the society still has to evolve to embrace the sick and able alike with open arms.

 

The Pearl Hunting

The winter before last we visited the Andaman Islands. We bought our air tickets early followed by booking for our accommodation in a government run hotel called Andaman Teal house. Incidentally this hotel did have a web page but no online booking facilities, making us to use postal and fax services. The price was too good to be true for the location, view and our expectations. We were once again reminded that if something seems to be too good to be true, it's probably not true.

Early next morning we moved to another hotel nearby as a stop gap arrangement since the Teal house did not offer the type of accommodation we got used to. We also learnt that the diversity of India also transpires to the functionality of its tourism industry and if you are visiting Andaman, you better coordinate with a travel agency.

We spent the day visiting the other islands and relocated to a place called The Park hotel early next morning. Though it was not the brand that we all know, it finally brought the much needed relief and joy. This hotel was similar to old boarding houses with an open corridor serving the series of guest rooms. The corridor had a distant view of the ocean along with a view of the landscaped garden below that was equally refreshing. Our daughter was by then enjoying the trip with uncle and the grandparents from both sides pampering her.

The beach, which was 10 minutes walk didn't have a name to go by but generally identified as the beach near Rose Valley Resort. It was pristine and almost untouched. The hotel owner assigned a lady accompany us and show around for the first time. My daughter even adopted a puppy on the way who accompanied us to the beach.

After reaching the beach we were all got scattered and a sudden excitement brought us back together. The lady had found a pearl within a sea shell and so did my father-in-law. That was another too good to be true incident.

For the next few days whenever we had time to spare we were at the beach looking for pearls with vengeance driven by the desire to have this unique experience. We found everything from live Molluscs, snail, conch shells, cat eye shells but no pearls. I ended up having serious sunburnt on my arms, legs and feet.

The morning we were leaving the hotel, we met another family who checked in last evening and they excitedly narrated their experience in the beach this morning. The lady of the hotel took them to the beach in the morning where she found a pearl and luckily they too found one on the beach.

Deja Vu!

October of the Wheel of My Life

When I was a young boy, I was restless like others of that age, eager to grow up and be independent. We wanted freedom; we wanted to break free and not be constantly told what to do by parents, teachers, siblings, and all other elders.

Childhood was bliss, and reasons for joy were in abundance. There was nothing that was not worth celebrating, and we particularly looked forward to the festivals. The festive season started with Saraswati Puja in February and ended with Christmas and New Year in December. The days would pass counting down from one celebration to the next. All in all, it was about chasing the next event in the calendar and enjoying life throughout.

As the numbers in the calendar kept changing, we continued to add years to our age, and life began to feel different. Life became front-loaded with responsibilities as we stopped growing up and started to grow old instead. Those dark hairs now got transformed into a combination of salt and pepper. It’s only a matter of time before they turn to salt alone.

Today, as we approach the October of the wheel of our life, we continue to chase days—but now they are the days between one weekend and the next. There is hardly a moment to pause and look around in this journey.

The days always pass at the same pace, but sometimes they appear longer than others, and 2015 is one such example of a long year. This year has been a cruel reminder of a simple truth of our existence—we are mere mortals, with a definitive beginning and an end. Scientists may be working towards “curing death,” but that remains a distant reality for people like us.

For the past few years, the world has been dogged by conflicts and has lost many lives due to avoidable wars in the Middle East, man-made disasters, natural calamities, and natural causes. We have also lost, in 2015, more than our fair share of lives that touched many beyond their immediate families.

On a personal level, I have lost two very dear friends and a few relatives. Both my friends were on the other side of forty. As in The God of Small Things, they were “Not old. Not young. But a viable die-able age.” I have learnt that each day above ground is a celebration and not to be wasted by grumbling or whining about haves and have-nots.

This has been a life-changing experience for me, creating mayhem within my inner self. I felt extreme grief and was distracted by the thought of how everything could change for a person or a family within moments. It is difficult to explain—perhaps just the vagaries of twenty fifteen.

I would be naïve to imply that there has been no positivity or achievement this year, as there has been plenty. But for me, the weight of loss has overshadowed it all. So perhaps this year needs to end sooner rather than later, for it has been unquestionably fierce—but not fast enough.

This post is a part of Write Over the Weekend, an initiative for Indian Bloggers by BlogAdda.

An Art for Drinking Coffee

Last week we went to Mc Donald café for a cup of coffee Latte and when they served it we were pleasantly surprised.

It’s called Latte art of coffee art and I have seen such pictures earlier. But honestly, I never had an opportunity to drink a painting of sorts. The coffee tasted good and the artwork added the little extra that gives us happiness.

Conventionally the decoration is done by pouring the steamed milk on espresso coffee to generate the foam and creating a pattern on the surface of the drink. This art is particularly difficult to create due to lack of consistency in the top layer of the foam.

A little google-search enlightened me further.  I also discovered that a company called “Steam CC” has developed an appliance called “Ripple Maker” which can print incredible beautiful and artistic foam prints like the one above. Read more here.

TV Commercials - kabhi bhi aur kahin bhi

The advantage for people who have been around during the seventies and eighties in India is that they have witnessed Indian television bloom, closely followed by the IT and telephony sector. Then came a revolution of sorts riding piggyback on smart phones, tablets and pads and it combined all of the above into one device.

Commercial break, I remember was not despised so much in those early days of Indian TV. Advertisers then were few and far in-between and the scheduled commercials brought in welcome break for the viewers to run out and complete some chores. This used to mimic the intervals we experienced while watching a movie in the theatre. However, what irritated the viewers were the unscheduled breaks the results of technical glitches. The most hated screen shot of the television that I can still vividly remember is “rukawat ke liye khed hai” or its English translation, “sorry for the interruption”.

When I walked into the TV room of our hostel during college days, I discovered another facet of life with realisation that people could actually cheer a commercial in the TV. Some of the ads were always welcome and Cadbury perks by Priety was one such good example which the boarders were ready to embrace kabhi bhi aur kahin bhi. Chitrahaar was immensely popular then and the lyril soap advertisement surpassed it in popularity and not surprisingly some students even contemplated request Doordarshan to play the advertisement after each song.

Things have changed since then and excessive commercialization has taken over the media with advertisement taking precedence over the program they sponsor. The most effective way of tease a viewer is to deny them when they want it the most and our TV bosses has mastered this art. This philosophy could be seen in action during the cricket matches with commercials kicking in every time something exciting happens in field.

The companies appear to have made it their mission to make us learn their ads by heart. I wish one of these days they take it on themselves to make our kids learn some of their school lessons.

Imagine in place of commercials, multiplication tables keeps repeating for umpteen numbers of times with a small logo of the sponsoring company in a corner. In no time the entire nation will learn their tables by heart. Alternatively they could start repeating some formulas from physics or organic chemistry test books in-between a Salman khan thriller. At the end of the movie students across the country will master classroom chemistry alongside the on-screen chemistry of the artists.

What a noble cause that would serve!

This post is a part of Write Over the Weekend, an initiative for Indian Bloggers by BlogAdda.