Yesterday after my usual “riyaaz” I was humming this song

Hue hum jinke liye barbad wo humko chahe kare na yaad
Jeevan bhar, jeevan bhar ubki yaad mei
Hum gaye jayenge, gaye jayenge

It translates to: for whom I destroyed my entire life, even if she never thinks of me, I’ll keep singing songs in her memory.

Theoretically these lines seem fine, but in the movie what he means is that now he will simply roam around the streets, do nothing else and just sing sad songs.

Love is without a doubt beautiful emotion and one time or another we all experience it. We also face rejection and degection, and sometimes also betrayal. Sadness and momentary depression too is normal. But some people get too obsessed and don’t know when to put a stop to their love binge.

These kind of people need urgent help, or counseling. They need to be shaken out the stupor they have gotten themselves into. If not taken care of in time it can be even fatal. I’m aware of 3 cases where people killed themselves because they were ditched for another person. There was a physiotherapist I used to know who had a promising career ahead of him. He was quite happy and upbeat when he was in Delhi. Then he went to Jalpaiguri to start a special school there and suddenly I heard he had jumped off a railway bridge and killed himself. He had been rejected by the girl he loved.

Then there was my cousin’s son who hanged himself because his girlfriend left him for another boy. His mother still hasn’t recovered from the trauma and keeps talking to her non-existent son.

My wife’s nephew told us about his friend’s elder brother who, again, hanged himself when he was betrayed or abandoned by the girl he loved. He was a promising footballer.

It’s totally unintentional that all the three instances listed above involve guys killing themselves for fickle-minded girls. But the point is, by killing yourself or by losing your balance of mind you aren’t proving your eternal love, or you are not going to cause lasting emotional pain to a person who has ceased to have feelings for you. All you are going to achieve is cause a lasting pain to your parents, your siblings, and all those who really care for you or love you. Losing yourself over “unrequited” love is a highly selfish act.

But I think it would be unfair to call these people “selfish”. They are going through extreme mental distress and during this distress the mind pushes either the self-destruction button, or goes into a deep depression where sound decisions are not possible. This period is very critical and the person needs some serious help. It’s not live, it’s an uncontrollable obsession.

Of course folklore, and these days films too promote such extreme emotions. There is a beautiful song to counter this destructive state of mind:

Chhod de saari duniyaa kisi ke  liye
Ye munaasib nahin aadmi ke liye
Pyaar se bhi zaroori kayi kaam hein
Pyaar sab kucch nahin zindagi ke liye

For those who don’t understand Hindi:

It’s not right to abandon the whole world
Just for a single person
There are many things more important than love
Love is not everything in life

It’s very appropriate.

I was quite surprised today when I found out that my daughter’s school was closed for the Teachers Day, to day. We never had a holiday on Teachers Day and in fact it used to be a festive day in our special school. We always used to throw a surprise party for our teachers (although I’m pretty sure it was never a surprise for them due to all the conspiratorial hustle and bustle that persisted for a few days before the Teachers Day).

We also used to perform a skit for the teachers. So the second half of the school (after lunch break) was plain fun constituting of sweet and salty snacks, cold drinks (mostly ingeniously made cold drinks) and drama skit.

In our first building (it was just a “kothi” in Safdarjung Development Area, New Delhi) didn’t have an auditorium or an assembly hall. There was this big front room that otherwise had three classes running simultaneously (with curtain screens acting as partitions) and whenever there was a big assembly or another occasion, we used to empty one corner class and turn it into a tiny stage and the remaining two classes were turned into the audience area. So whatever we wanted to perform, it had to be done in that limited space (with one of the bathrooms becoming the green room).

After the drama skit the main organizing party would rush to the school kitchen and prepare the snack plates placing sweets and namkeens as meticulously as possible. The school helpers (the maids and other attendants) used to provide us copious help as it was also a treat time for them. After all whatever was left went to them.

Preparation used to be the greater fun. We had a very relaxed study environment in our special school. On certain days, if we wanted to spend an extra hour on an extra activity, the teachers wouldn’t bother us. Not that it happened all the time, but during certain occasions, it was permitted. So for 4 to 5 days prior to the Teachers Day, we used to spend lots of time collecting money, deciding what to purchase and rehearsing the drama skit in the backyard. Different responsibilities would be assigned to different kids and notes were made. There was hectic running to and fro (or crawling) and avoiding of questions with uncontrollable giggles when asked, “Hey what are you guys up to?”

Some of our parents pitched in too. My mother would get some eatables on the previous day and pack them in such a manner that we would be able to open them in the school without spoiling them. Similarly, my friends’ mothers would do some shopping and packing and together we were able to organize charming Teachers Days.

After our school grew bigger and bigger (fortunately, for us, we had left by that time) these activities ceased to happen due to various logistical problems. From the Safdarjang Development Area kothi the school was shifted to a big building in Hauz Khas adjacent to Gulmohar Park, and then within a few years, from a school it turned into a rehabilitation center and then a research institute. Not a fragment of the old life exists there, but then this is the price we often have to pay for growth and greater good.

If you think what we get and don’t get depends on fate – the circumstances life throws our way – I agree to an extent. थोड़े फूल हैं कांटे हैं जो तकदीर ने बांटे हैं उनमेसे हमको हिस्सा हमारा मिल जायेगा . But I don’t subscribe to this philosophy completely, although I do believe everything in life is random (in bigger scheme of things you’re not even sure if the sun is going to rise in the morning). Think it this way…

You are standing at a bus terminal and hundreds of buses are leaving for different directions. Throwing yourself at the mercy of your fate means hopping onto any bus and let it drop you anywhere. Controlling your fate means consciously deciding what bus to catch and where to go. And this is where the difference between those who let fate handle them and those that control their fate manifests.

Does fate leave you alone when you have chosen your bus? No. Suppose you wanted to go to destination “A” and the bus breaks down on the way. All the buses passing that way go everywhere but to “A”. What do you do? You can either catch one of those buses and see what awaits you, or you can start exploring other options that can take you to “A”, irrespective of what obstacles you have on your way. You can take ride on different vehicles going to “A”. You can start walking.

Life is a collection of random events – call them vehicles – and if you sit on the back seat you call them fate. It’s no use not believing in fate because you alone don’t control your life. Those who seem in command of their fate simply act and react strategically to the randomness they encounter.

"They don’t even allow the handycams inside," cautioned Alka, my wife. "They will take it from us."

We were talking while preparing to go to attend our daughter’s school’s annual function that they always hold at Siri Fort. Video recording devices are not allowed because then people start crowding the space in front of the stage and besides, after the show you’re supposed to purchase the official CD from the school.

"You said despite that many people brought their video cameras and recorded their children’s performances," I said, quite eager to record her dancing on the stage.

Our 4-year-old daughter, Vasudha, was going to dress up in a dazzling lehenga-choli and adorn an artificial hair bun. I myself put make up on her face in the morning as my wife never uses make up and she said that since I have had a few of those weird girlfriends who wouldn’t go to potty without putting on make up, I must have some idea of how to apply it. By the magic of osmosis, I do in fact know how to apply a functional make up.

Obviously I did a good job and our daughter looked like an angel. Without hesitation I can say that it was one of the most beautiful moments of my life and I couldn’t wait to record her while she performed on the stage in that splendid appearance.

So while leaving we took along our Sony Handycam, and as a safety measure I also put in my pocket the Vado HD flip video camera, since people there would think it’s a phone. I put the handycam in my pants’ thigh pocket, as I would be on wheelchair and they mostly skip checking me at the malls and cinema halls and I knew they wouldn’t check me at Siri Fort too.

We easily sneaked in the cameras, as almost everybody in the audience had. The performances were great. My happiness and pleasure had many facets. The vicissitudes of life haven’t allowed Alka and I to go out much and do things that we enjoy doing together, one of them being watching plays in auditoriums. Just sitting with her, watching those highly talented children giving their performances, and waiting for our daughter to come on the stage with her classmates, was the stuff memories are made of.

In between I kept recording other performances because one, I wanted to make sure the zooming was able to focus in time (it was taking around 30-40 seconds for the camera to give a clear picture), and two, there were some performances by highly energetic kids and I wanted to show their recordings to our daughter just to give her an idea how well some children perform.

One of the performances had many Sikh kids dancing on Karnatic rhythms and they were really looking cute. Me being a Sikh, Alka (she’s from UP) laughed and commented that I must really be enjoying watching those little Sikh kids dancing on a South Indian tune and she insisted that I recorded their performance by specifically focusing on them. I focused on them turn by turn and recorded almost the entire enactment. The only flip side was, I forgot to press the record button. Alka laughed uncontrollably: Sikhs are normally at the receiving end of jokes that depict them acting strange when placed in certain situations. At that time in fact we both laughed.

Our daughter’s dance performance was almost at the tail end of the entire function and people whose wards were through with their performances had started moving here and there in order to fetch their kids from back stage. We were sitting in the middle section so it required quite an effort to keep the camera focused, and when people came in front of it, it lost focus and again took some time to refocus. Her performance started amidst this chaos.

My entire concentration was getting her in the focus. The handycam was in full zoom so it jumped great distances even if I moved it a little, so it was very hard to focus on my daughter. Alka located her first and shouted at me asking whether I was able to see her or not, but I was so engrossed in trying to focus on her and avoid people that constantly kept obstructing the view that I couldn’t hear her. I was finally able to focus on her. As soon as the show started she brought her partner in front of the group and started dancing there with him. She was in her full glory, totally in command, and looked beautiful. She even directed her partner who kept losing track of the steps and when he got lost in the crowd of the other kids, she quickly found him and tried to steer him in the right direction. In her baby steps and cute movements, she danced on the stage as if she has always being doing that. Watching her in the handycam screen was sheer bliss, although my neck and my arm ached due the stress caused by having to keep the camera constantly in focus due to the moving bodies.

Their performance lasted for a couple of minutes and everybody thoroughly enjoyed it. I followed her with my handycam until she vanished behind the side screen.

After putting the camera down I looked at my wife and she was on the seventh cloud. "Did you get the whole thing?" she asked, gleaming with pride.

"No," crestfallen, I realized. "I forgot to press the record button."

Carpenters, iron smiths and all those workmen and women who use tools pray in front of them on the Vishwakarma day. While cleaning my laptop just now I was thinking, it is good to respect, and pay homage to the tools that sustain you, that help you earn a living and bring food to the table and maintain a roof over you and your loved ones.

There is also a practical reason behind revering your tools and devoting a day to their upkeeping. You can use them for a long time. Your tools are your true gods.

A boy comes to play with my 3-year-old daughter. Whenever he wants something my daughter doesn’t want to give, he says, “Give it to me or I’ll leave.” Unable to bear that aspect, she gives him everything. But still there are some things she can give under no condition, and she knows she cannot avoid giving them if he says he’ll leave.

She hides them before he can ask for them. She knows how to solve complex problems.

Sidenote: As Steve mentioned, I thought I’d post a clarification; that boy doesn’t take things home, it’s just that, whenever Vasudha is playing with something, he wants it, whether he wants to play with it or not.

A few days ago I came across my old teacher’s daughter’s FaceBook profile and sent her a friend request that she accepted within a few hours. While going through her online photo album I saw my teacher’s photograph and it was a unique experience to see her standing with her family just like any other person, wearing, perhaps, a cotton gown and holding one of her grandchildren the way they hold kids in India, by the side, under the arm, resting on the pelvis.

A glimpse of her always transports me to this dreamy, tremulous, enchanted part of my life. I had just started going to my special school. For the first time I was among those who wouldn’t run ahead or feel frustrated because I couldn’t keep up with them. There were merely 6-7 kids there and an equal or more number of teachers. Even during later years when there were 100s of kids and scores of teachers she remained among the most favorite ones.

Back then we didn’t know she was the wife of the Reserve Bank of India’s governor, Bimal Jalan. Yes, we knew her mother was a published Hindi author but beyond that, she was just our beloved Meenu Didi we always desired to be taught by. Sadly, she rarely did. More than a teacher, she was an administrator, a manager. She taught us only when there was no other teacher and she mostly took our Hindi class, telling stories, encouraging us to interact and express our own points of view. While playing in the corridors of the school we would see her passing by, never without a smile, or a few loving words. Even those small glimpses used to fill us with joy.

In the beginning months the school didn’t have transport. Parents themselves had to drop and pick their kids. My mother was a teacher and she used to pick me up after her school. One day she was late. So late that all the children had left with their parents, even the attendants were gone. But none of the teachers left, and we were all waiting at the gate for my mother. I panicked and started crying.

She quickly came to me, sat by my side, hugged me and said, “We’re all going to be here with you, nobody is going to leave until your mother is here.”

The way she said it, I still remember it.

After about a year or so she left for England (I don’t precisely remember but she left India) and she stayed there for a few years.

Teachers are often an important part of your life and it is rarely the other way round. For them, you are just one of the students. You may feel that they treat you better than your classmates, but in most of the cases you’re just, as I said above, like any other kid in the school, simply because there are so many students and a teacher has to care for everybody.

There was a time I used to say, without hesitation, that she’s like my mother. So when we heard, after a few years, that she was coming back to India, my happiness knew no bounds. We knew the date on which she was to come. She came, but she didn’t rejoin the school immediately. We eagerly waited, and then went on with our lives. I don’t really remember when she started coming to school again.

She was not the warm, smiley person we had known. She was polite; she still smiled the way she used to and she still carried her inherent charm, but somewhere, a wall of formality had cropped up. She was no longer the friendly person we knew. I really don’t know what happened. Maybe she was always like that and our childish eagerness to render a halo to every person we love made her what she was for us prior to leaving the school, or maybe something had snapped. Or maybe from 6-7 kids we had grown to more than 50.

After that initial snapping whenever I saw her I felt the distance growing. She had become like one of those higher-ups you are only supposed catch glimpse of occasionally, and you can only talk when they talk to you, otherwise you politely keep quiet. Even the smile that used to trigger a thousand blooms seemed official and detached.

Nonetheless, when I saw her photographs, the trinkets of memories that sparkled were knitted from those initial days. I’m glad for that. I’m glad I have had such people in my life.

Personally I’ve got no problem with ageing being optional. Why should people die of old age if they don’t want to, and if it is medically possible? In ancient scriptures we often find mentions of people living for 100s, or maybe 1000s of years, so even if it is not true, this concept of living for a really long time has been alive forever.

Scientifically and philosophically, we can live for ever if our consciousness can survive without a body. Even in terms of body, old age happens due to wear and tear and if somehow this wear and tear can be stopped, or better, reversed, we can remain young forever. This doesn’t mean all illnesses and accidents are ruled out (if possible, why not?), but if somehow this process of wear and tear is halted, a big problem is solved.

I feel scientists should consider multiple possibilities. What about changing bodies if ageing cannot, for the time being, be stopped. Stem cell research shows that we can grow body parts. We can grow our bodies, and then get our brains transferred to the newer body when we want to.

If somehow our “self” learns to live and function without a body even then we can become ageless. Why bind the soul, the real existence, to the vortex of biology?

Are you feeling depressed and dejected because things are not turning out the way you had wanted? Do you think the world has turned miserable and not worth living in. Are you deciding to become a terrorist or sympathizing with them because you think the world is full of injustice and bias? Although I normally don’t like comparing adversities because we all have our own threshold levels, there are some adversities that can simply never be compared.  Take for instance being born without arms and legs.  Just imagine a single day without your thumb.  I found this video on Steve’s travel insurance blog and couldn’t resist posting it here. I don’t believe in saccharine encouragement and saying good things to people merely for the sake of saying them but sometimes you can experience the abundant confidence and determination just by looking at a person’s eyes by observing his or her body language.

Very interesting reading.