The best birthday gift...

Dear My Blog Reader,

It is my birthday today. Ah, yes, today I turn nineteen. Now I think of it, nineteen years of my lifespan is already spent—what memorable nineteen years they have been. It has been an all round package! Nineteen years full of dreams. Now I will have them back only in my dreams. Do not think that I am feeling depressed; I am not that old yet!

Now, let us come back to our original topic: the best birthday gift that I have ever got. Take a guess, please. What? You don’t know? Oh, how foolish of me! Of course, how would you know?!

Enough of play acting, I guess. Let us become serious once more. I received the best gift on 10th January, 1989 at 7:47 am; that was the time when I breathed freely for the first time in my life. I am thankful to my mother for giving me this gift of life. Nothing can surpass the gravity of this gift.

This was a very short post.
Why?
Because it was never meant to be a long post.

Love,
Shubhabrata.

Being an adult...

Dear My Blog Reader,

It is a long time after which I am posting something on my blog. I thank you for being patient with me.
I had written this piece on 25th April, 2007, while relaxing on the parapet of the roof of my house at around 3 at night. The philosophies and ideals I had till that night have not changed a bit and so, I thought that it would be nice to share them with you.


Before turning eighteen I often wondered why an age limit of eighteen had been set to distinguish between a child and an adult. I confess that I have not found an answer yet. I have always believed that whether a person is adult or not is decided by the level of understanding his or her brain has attained. A wise man had once told me that there are three types of boys in this world—‘under matured’, ‘perfectly matured’ and ‘over matured’. These terms had been coined by him. I understood what he meant by ‘under’ and perfectly’ matured, but I failed to grasp the meaning of ‘over matured’.

Doesn’t the term ‘over matured’ carry a hint of derision? Does it mean that a person should not attain a certain level of understanding capability before reaching a specified age? Doesn’t this remark of his imply that he feels insecure because he cannot match the youngsters with thoughts having frequencies much higher than his? This is not about a single wise man, this is about hundreds of other wise people around us who never seem to come to terms with the fact that the little boy is now an adult and that he has a thinking process that might be radically different from theirs.

We live in a highly conservative society (especially, the so called middle class society); even though we may call ourselves XYZ generation, deep within ourselves, the ancient black hole continues to pull us back. We call that black hole ‘culture’ to hide its grotesque and destructive nature. I would like to ask all those liberal people (parents and children included) who contradict me, why do they feel ashamed to discuss sexuality? It is not as if the young generation will not be drawn towards exploring the individual sexuality. Why, then, do they not explain every bit of this unknown quantity to their children and why do even the young genext feel ashamed of asking questions?

We shout our throats hoarse about equality of women and men. How can they be called equal to men if both sexes do not get equal opportunities? Why, again, are most women married off as soon as they reach a marriageable age? Why do the women accept such outrageous decision? Do they not have any dreams and ambition which they kill off to admit themselves docilely to some screwed vision of few people? We are indeed living in a black hole where a father announces that if ever his daughter runs away from home she will be welcomed with a gun, if she ever comes back, where a father does not hesitate to rape his daughter; where a death sentence is brought down to a level of public entertainment; where street dogs eat little babies, lying helplessly on the roadsides with no one coming to save them; where it is a crime to fall in love but it is normal to urinate in front of everyone.

It is not just about sex and marriage and oppression of women, it is about transformation. And this black hole which we live in, does not allow this transformation to occur. A person, who has turned eighteen, is expected to have gone through a series of mental developments and is ready to venture in to the final stage of transformation of mind. He or she is expected to be capable of handling all the responsibilities that an adult can handle. This transformation must result in the building of character by which the child metamorphoses into an adult and becomes self reliant and self decisive and responsible for him/herself and those around him/her.

Being an adult does not only mean that the person is eligible for voting, having a driver’s licence or watching ‘A’ rated movies. It means that it is time for the parents to step aside from being the rule makers to an advisory role. It is time to start analyzing what you like or dislike, what is right or wrong, to create your own beliefs, to discard all the unnecessary compulsions which stop us from being who we really are. This is the time when the already matured soul becomes truly independent.

One thing that is commonly, and not wrongly, associated with adulthood is career. It is high time to form a clear picture of what you want to become in life and remain inflexible on your decision. Remember that it is your life and only you have the right to decide what you want to make of it. Most people, whom I have met, are absolutely clueless about their goals. These sorts of people end up becoming wrong person at the wrong place. Being adult means that it is time to get off the merry-go-round and take firm steps towards your desired destination.

This is the time when you should take TOTAL CONTROL of your life. I used the word control, not anarchy. Staying out late at night to enjoy the perks of ‘adulthood’ is utter nonsense and ‘unadultish’. Being an adult means that you become responsible—responsible for yourself and for the few people you care about. Unfortunately, this transformation is hard to achieve and most people fail to achieve it. They eternally remain children. They may drink bear, smoke Havana cigars, drive race cars and have a lucrative job but they are no better than children lost without their parents.

Taking control of one’s life is to start understanding the meaning of freedom. Freedom—it is the most important thing that a person can achieve in his/her life. It is the quest to understand the soul and how it is related to the body. It is freedom of mind that has to be achieved. It is the state where we can proclaim loudly and confidently, “Even though I was born in this prison with my hands and legs bound by iron shackles, my soul flew freely over the mountains and clouds and seas and forests. I saw everything, I learned everything, I peeked into the human soul and understood the purpose of its existence… and even now, as my body dies in these shackles, I can say freely that I was never a slave…”

Why am I writing this blog?

Dear My Blog Reader,

I am writing this post as a reply to a comment posted by one of my good friends, Debotosh Poddar, on ‘La vita e bella’. His comment was thus:

“It would be too simplistic a view and an unnecessary romanticism to claim that life is all beautiful, grand and ethereal. In fact it is very often cruel, ugly and deceiving. The beauty that we see is so much more like a mirage that is ever running away from us and only leading us to greater and greater sorrow.
But then happiness must surely exist in life. May be we are only trying so get hold of its shadow and hence we are never really finding it.”

I could have replied in the comments section but this is a better path…


It is very presumptuous to think that I am unaware of the brutalities of life. I have lived on the face of this planet for almost nineteen years (a bit less, if I exclude the years of which I do not have a conscious memory) and I have seen something of this world. I have developed some analytical power through all the experiences that I have had during this short journey and I have developed of a power to distinguish between right and wrong, beauty and ugliness. And I have come to many conclusions about life, also. Though these conclusions are not rigid, they are not arbitrary in any sense.

I believe that life shapes itself up into the way one chooses to look at it. If I choose to look at life as some adventure, life will become an adventure for me. If I choose to look at life as a burden, it will bend my back. If I choose to look at life as a serene morning stroll, I will be able to smell the fresh air of dawn. It all depends on how we choose to see what we see.

I shall take an example, though I am not too sure about its applicability here. Still, to err is human…

Let us step into the shoes of a soldier. He fights, he kills. Let us assume ourselves doing that. The feeling is nauseating. It is painful even to imagine that we are shattering the skull of another person with a rifle. But for a soldier, it is life. It is all about survival. It is all about setting the dial of mind at a certain frequency. A soldier has to look at an enemy as an enemy and not as a person. If he cannot do that he cannot live. Maybe he will survive the bullets but he will not win over his conscience. So he chooses to look at life in such a way that it would be easier for him to live.

Here it is important to understand the difference between leading an easy life and choosing to live an easy life even in the midst of all hardships.

Now I come back to the question that has led us this far into the post. Why am I writing this blog? Why am I so strongly emphasizing on the fact that life is good and beautiful even though there is a lot of ugliness around us? The answer is simple. It is what I choose. I choose to preserve only the beautiful side inside me while being completely aware of all the grotesquery. It does not mean, however, that I shall remain unperturbed by the darker side. I shall analyze the mishaps, see what I can do about them and then let them go. I shall always remind myself that there are things in this world which are so graceful that even the thought of preserving them makes my fight against the hideousness of the world a worthwhile fight.

Will you call this eagerness to lead a happy life, a life of contentment, this determination to hold on to these beautiful things a vain romanticism? Aren’t grandness and ethereality one side of this life that we live? Why should we let gloom to overshadow such wonders when we have the capacity to choose?

This is the prime reason why I am writing this blog—to look at the beautiful side and be fascinated by it. I wish to present this blog as a breath of fresh air to those who are disgusted by life’s ugliness. Isn’t that a job worth doing? Will you still call this proclamation—La vita e bella—a vain romanticism and a very simple approach towards life? It is the toughest way, friend, it is the toughest way…

Something I noticed about dreams...

Dear My Blog Reader,

I noticed something about the dreams we have and I wish to share this revelation with you. Of course, you might be very much well acquainted with this phenomenon; in that case, pardon me in advance for repeating that which is a known stuff to you. For those of you who have not realized this revelation, this is what I have to say to you…

This afternoon, while battling with the engineering mathematics book, I had drifted in to a short nap. While I was asleep I had a dream. I do not remember much of what I had seen in the dream. It had something to do about getting lost in a huge dark room. While the subject matter of the dream may be unimportant, something struck me about this dream. Not just this dream, but many of the dreams which my conscious mind can recollect had one thing in common. They all appeared real.

Never once, during a dream, have I felt that what I was seeing was just a figment of imagination and something unreal. I had always broke into cold sweat when something frightening had happened inside that dream, revelled with joy when something good might had happened, cried with horror when I had watched a love one die… but never, even for a single moment had the thought oh-this-is-just-a-dream crossed my mind. In fact, some of those dreams had been so real that their effects did not easily fade even when the dream had broken.

For example, once I had had a dream about a gem that looked like a diamond from the top but had a flat base. I refer to the jewel as a touch-stone; I am not quite sure of what the term means, maybe it refers to a stone which reveals its properties when touched by someone. That is what the gem in the dream did. It established a telepathic connection between the person who touched the stone and another person with whom the user wishes to communicate. In addition, the stone filled the person, who touched it, with a boundless, inexplicable euphoria. In the dream I touched the gem and suddenly I was surrounded by white mist and I could hear a voice uttering my name. At the same time I was feeling immensely happy for no apparent reason at all (maybe it was because of the voice inside my head, I do not know). Instantly, I woke up. Even when I was awake I was buoying with joy. It felt as if I had actually touched such a wonder stone! Then after sometime, the feeling faded and I knew that it was a dream.

The point is that, while we are inside a dream we are barely (never, actually) aware of its presence. Everything we see inside a dream, however absurd that thing might be, we never question its realism. It is not until a dream is broken that we recognise a dream. Even though we are aware that we would have a dream almost every time we sleep, even though we have had dreams for all our lives, even though we know so much about dreams, its patterns, its cause and yet a human mind fails to recognise a dream when it has one. How is it that we are fooled every time?

Is it because of the innate human flaw of comprehension? Is it because we go on appearances, completely oblivious of the fact that appearances can be deceiving?

O reader, when will we finally see…

About love and life...

Dear My Blog Reader,

Here I am talking about one of those many things which make our lives beautiful. It is love...the eternal enigma. The essay I have published was written by Saikat Chakraborty, one of my very good friends, when we were in the eleventh standard. That was two years ago. I am publishing this piece with his full knowledge of it.

I will write my take on love in the next post. Till then enjoy this extraordinary piece...

LIVE— LOVE— LAUGH.

“True love” is a durable fire,
In the mind ever burning.
Never sick, never dead, never cold,
From itself never turning. –Bertrand Russell.


Love: it’s about passion, it’s about feelings, it’s about sense and sensitivity to small things, it’s about comprehending the large; it’s about the inner self, it’s about the outer unknown. Love is that tree which gores its roots deep into the earth but spreads its branches into the heaven; it is a tree that bears fruit eternally, a tree that can withstand the tempest, a tree that can value the modest. It has the serenity of the Divine, the calmness of Nature, the tranquillity of the deep seas, the vigour of the sea waves, the turmoil of human hearts. It is not about getting someone with whom you can live, it’s about finding someone without whom you cannot live; it is not about knowing the price of everything, it’s about preserving the value of everything; it is a sweet poison, not a poisoned sweet. Love is a thing of mind, a prized possession of the heart, a thirst for life. It is a versatile word for the expression of beauty, the charm of something indefinable. Love is a child’s privilege, a friend’s right, and a patriot’s might. Love is the driving force behind everything and everywhere, from science to literature, from philosophy to psychology, from wars to peace, from grief to happiness!

It is this love for poetry that transformed Balmiki into a poet from a dacoit; it is this love for wealth that turned Kauravas against their brothers. The Trojan War, the battle of Ramayana revolved around the theme of love for someone: be it Helen or Sita. Newton discovered this love in science, Shakespeare in literature, Bertrand Russell in philosophy. It’s this power of compassion and love that made Buddha a world renouncing monk, transformed an ambitious king Ashoka into a devoted Buddhist. Love has such powers that can create good of evil, jewel from a pebble and make a paradise of enigma. It is this love that can mould the mind to create a heaven of a hell, a hell of a heaven. This love is all embracing, boundless, fathomless; without it the universe will lose its charm—the sun will rise and set meaninglessly, the sea-waves will strike the shore unwelcome, the air shall smell of melancholy, flowers will not bloom or bloom reluctantly, the birds will forget to sing and the world will plunge into a sea of gloom, despair and darkness. Life will still exist but the purpose of life will be lost. Love is that bubble in the midst of a vast sea through which we see all the colours of the world. It enlarges all the goodness of the universe, hiding all the evils in its golden veil. But when this bubble bursts, it bursts with such intensity that the hearts are ripped apart. The life-blood steadily oozes out, leaving the master weak and helpless. Darkness engulfs the world. Howling wraiths and ghosts obscure the vision of men, while the withering hearts cry silently in the corners of a dark and windowless cell.

But love is eternal, it is something indestructible—it was there when the world was born, it still exists when it is in its prime and it will linger till the end of days. It never fades off and it is because of this love that God proclaimed, “Let there be light!” and there was light and the pendulum of the world started ticking.

La vita e bella

Life is beautiful…

This is something almost everyone seems to accept but never actually able to appreciate. However, let us not burden ourselves with gloom over this matter, for there is still hope for them—for, I believe, acceptance is the first step towards appreciation. Instead, let us talk about life…

That we are alive is such a wonderful thing in itself. We breathe in the air, we drink the same water and we eat the same food (with an occasional variety) not consciously aware of why we are doing so. Now we think of it—why? To live, of course. If I look at it in a precise fashion then I come to a conclusion that is very baffling. I breathed in the same air, drank the same water and ate the same food for all my life so that I may write this essay for my blog, one day. Confusing, isn’t it? Well, that is what life is—it is decked with enigmatic answers. These answers always elude the person who is determined not to look beyond the darkness; but they give a new meaning to life, an urge to continue existing on the face of this planet and to live with happiness, to those who still seek for it. They find those people who appreciate how beautiful this life is.

The beauty of life seek refuge in the smallest of things, like a tinge of blush on a maiden’s cheeks, like in a small gesture of love, in the faint rustling of leaves, the musty smell of moist earth, incoherent babbling of an infant, daydreams, and so on and so forth. Life is like a woman, always eager to show us its beauty. It has even given us eyes to see that beauty. But we choose blindness. We have become so engrossed in cursing what life has taken away from us that we fail to marvel at what it has given to us. Let us choose to see once more…

Have you ever stood below a velvety black sky, dotted with stars? I bet you have. But have you ever been mesmerised by it? Again, I bet some of you have. But how many of you have continued to stare at the heavens for hours at a stretch, so much under its charm that you have forgotten everything else and lost yourself completely into it? Those precious few who have actually experienced such a novelty would understand why I use the term novelty for such an experience. It is like entering into a sea of tranquillity where all the worries are forgotten, all bitterness are swept away. It is like entering into the deepest state of meditation, where only an inexplicable pleasure waits to serve us. In such a state, one can see the shroud of darkness falling apart and the light that it had denied us. We can see life.

Beauty of life need not be as abstract as it seems to. We can find it in the form of music, poetry, painting, inventions (et cetera et cetera) all around us. But as I had said at the beginning of this post, we cannot fully appreciate that beauty. We are so beaten down by the bitterness of this world, at the end of the day, that we are either too weak or too uninterested to open our tired eyes.

But imagine; what if we choose to see again? What if we have the taste of the honeydew? Imagine the happiness we would get. Imagine the relief when all the bitterness is swept away. Isn’t opening our tired eyes a very small price to pay in order to be happy once more? Then why don’t we do it? Why don’t we see past the trifles? In every form of art this beauty of life is reflected; sometimes even through grotesqueness. Are we so busy that we do not have time to be happy; just like the house elves at Hogwarts?

Quoting William Henry Davies:

What is this life if, full of care
We have no time to stand and stare.

No time to stand beneath the boughs
And stare as long as sheep or cows.

No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.

No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night.

No time to turn at Beauty's glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance.

No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began.

A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.

To me life is Nature and Nature is life. And hence, for me, the beauty of life resides in Nature herself. It is often said that the beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder. That is true for me too. I find beauty in life because I find beauty in Nature.

“When you look beyond the darkness you shall find light. Open the doors of your minds. Relax your senses. Absorb the coldness, the quietness, the calmness and serenity of the night. Forget the lights of the cities. Look up at the sky. The stars are ready to serve you. Absorb the pure white light of the moon. She is always with you. You just need to open your mind’s eye to see her. You can feel her sitting beside you, dancing in the meadows, rowing silently in streams. To understand her you must come into her lap. Let the night fill you up with its sweetness. I can see her standing in front of me. She is happy and youthful once more. Try to feel the warmth of her presence. Can you see her?
“She is ethereal; she is enigmatic. She is the queen, forsaken by her beloveds. She is Nature herself. She cares for the world but the world is steadily going away from her. Life full of artificial comforts and lust for wealth is swaying us away from the original meaning of life. It is important to understand this. True happiness cannot be found in the shopping mal or cinema house. To seek true meaning of life, you must go back to the Nature. You cannot move forward if you forget our roots. You must look beyond”.

A cloud across the sun...

Dear My Blog Reader,

This my first acquaintance with you, or rather it is your first acquaintance with me. So this First Post is about myself. First impression matters a lot, I know, and so I have tried to portray myself in a sublime fashion in front of you( the word 'first' is itself sublime, just like the first kiss...). Happy reading.

And oh! Why did I title this post 'A cloud across the sun...'? Well, I am a cloud across the sun...

'The ripples that the silent wind creates on the surface of a small pool of water are an enigma in themselves. When you look down at your reflection in it, you find it changing with the formation of every crest; being distorted, destroyed and remade. You try to see through yourself, search in the depths of your mind-you ask yourself who you are.’

I am, as one might call, an ordinary and normal boy from a modest family. The definition is almost correct except for the term normal. I hate being branded as a normal person. I have always wanted to be different, to make a difference. I often say, “If I become like everyone else then what difference will remain between them and me!” I request the reader not to take me as an arrogant fool- I am merely expressing my belief.

All around me, I see people going to schools for basic and then higher education, then looking for a rewarding job and settling for life and in the process ending the charm of living. Is it so obligatory that to move forward, you must abandon all happiness behind and march proudly into an insane territory? Is getting a job and getting married the end of everything, is there nothing beyond that? I do not believe so. There is too much of magic in this world yet to be tapped…. To quote Steve Jobs, “Stay Hungry! Stay Foolish!”

Long ago I had read in a poem that when one’s vocation and avocation are same can one be called successful and happy with what he is doing. A wise person once told me: It is important to dream, and never let your dreams die; for if your dream dies, half of yourself is dead. I have a dream or rather dreams, which no doubt everyone has. I want to be remembered by the world for centuries for my writings; not as a second to someone but as myself, as Shubhabrata. This is not my only dream, however. I dream of becoming one of the leading businessmen in world (preferably, the leading). It is my dream to start a help organization that would change the lives of thousands of under privileged. The most important thing is that I understand the difference between dreaming and building castles in air. While dreams are meant to last and transform into reality, the other crumbles even before the foundation is laid.

‘Twilight is like God’s indrawn breath, a pause in the progression of time.’ The sight of the death of the crimson red below the horizon gives me the bliss which I, perhaps, get by reading a story book or after designing a particularly difficult program or after playing a fantastic computer game. I have always found the sky to be more enigmatic than anything, an ever changing beauty …. It is my passion to make shapes out of clouds (which, to my dismay, nobody else can see). It is during the times when I stare aimlessly at the star strewn heavens that I get ideas for my stories.

I am that caterpillar which is patiently waiting inside its pupa for the day when it will metamorphose into a beautiful butterfly and break free from all bondages, singing to the wind, saluting the sun, kissing the flowers…savouring its freedom, its destiny.