Friday, September 12, 2008

The Wrong side or the right side?


What is right or what is wrong? The answer is random. It really depends on what a person thinks, which in turn is governed by the upbringing and the people she/he has be surrounded with.

What we perceive as correct is what we see everybody doing around us. What ever they do not do is what we perceive as wrong. If we are instructed to do something and are told that it is correct, even though everybody else does the exact opposite, we kind of hear it in utter disbelief and never do that.

A very good example is what I always find on the roads and yet again today.

The road has three lanes, right most for overtaking, leftmost for the slowest and the middle one for usual.  That piece of road is called the Inner Ring Road, a 4 kms of beautifully, evenly paved road; so I speed up.

As I am riding, zipping past the traffic, there is this guy riding slow enough to slow down the traffic behind him. I am on his right and honk, "I am about to pass". The gentleman cooly looks over his left shoulder and moves to the right. 

Damn!

Screech. Brake. Brake harder.

I move to his left and pass him, giving him one really furious, "Condemn you to hell" look, which incidentally I am so sure from behind my helmet is not visible to anybody else.

How many times does that person ride on the road? Given the old make of the motorcycle, I guess almost everyday. For how many years, well many. But still why this odd out of place judgement?

Well, that is what he learnt from his parents, that is what he sees around him, that is what his friends do, that is what people around him do. So he probably believed that this is the right thing; even though what he did was grossly wrong.

And how many times would the same thing have happened to him? Man y a times and he still does that?

Well, if you happen to read this, just don't take right as right and wrong and wrong, use your brain to think, judge for yourself. Learn from around you and make your judgements and keep revisiting them.

Sunday, September 07, 2008

Rain and rain coat

For last 4 years, ever since I bought my motorcycle, I have been a lazy fellow; one of the laziest in the world if not the most.

The city where I live, it rains and it rains as if there is no tomorrow. The worst part of the whole rain thing is that it rains whenever it is time to leave for office or time to go back home after a long day.

For past so many years, every year the same story used to repeat. Whenever I was about to leave it was raining or it would start raining; and every time I used to get drenched. Dripping wet!

So this time I thought it is time to shun this laziness and get proactive. Proactive, after getting drenched for like 5 days in a row and no, the precursor was not the act of getting wet 5 days in a row, but the fact that I do not have those many pairs of shoes. After 5 days, all of the 4 pairs that I have were wet and I didn't have anything to wear to office other than the bathroom slippers. I was so much wet, wet to the soul. Even now I am waiting to find that person who said, "Fire cannot burn it, water cannot wet it, weapons cannot pierce it... " Crap find me that man and I will put him in this rain and ask him, "Kyon, bachoo? Ab aatma bheegi ki nahin?"

So the coming weekend I went to nearest store to buy a raincoat. Interestingly, everybody in the city thought that the day was good to visit the store. There were more souls in the store than the number of items on display or ready to be sold. With nobody to assist, it took me 20 minutes to find the right place to look for raincoats.

I bought a decent one and came back home, smiling. No more getting wet. No more stopping on the way under a tree, no more of this rain.

And ever since that day, it hasn't rained! One day it was drizzling and I thought it to be right time to wear the rain coat and leave in the rain. By the time I could get my stuff and get my motorcycle out of the parking it has stopped raining. 

The other day, bright sunny day, no rain for like miles, I went out without my rain coat and it started drizzling. Luckily I was at home before it started pouring.

What use is a raincoat when it doesn't rain!

Now I know. If you have to stop rain in Gorakhpur, Kosi, let me go there with my rain coat. If you want it to pour in Thar desert or Sahara, let me go there without my rain coat. 

I sometimes feel I kind to glue this rain coat to my skin, and I walk in the rain, it will stop raining, just where I am. Like a cylinder of dryness, right in between the falling drops of rain.

I don't know who is the nemesis of Bhagwan Indra, but for some reasons I believe that she/he is with me in the form of my raincoat.