Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Price of a human life.

Today when I came back from office, Sushanta told me that Mumbai suffered three blasts today, which killed 8 and injured 70. On facebook I saw some talking about the coincidence of the blasts and Kasab's birthday falling on the same day!

This reminds me of 26/11 attack on Mumbai. Innocent people were massacred. The whole country was caught in a frenzy, a state of shock and fear, anxiety for the well being of people of Mumbai. These incidents pushes me to ask this very basic question: What is the price of a human life? What do these terrorists think is the price of a human life? What do you think it is?

A few times I have tried to imagine myself being shot dead or having a close friend/relative killed by these zombies. And I couldn't imagine it. The fear, the pain is too much to bear! Death of even a single person saddens the heart. And while all this happens, I find myself helpless in this situation, and seriously, there is no worse feeling than feeling desperate yet helpless.

I agree that its not always possible to predict the next bomb blast, the time and the location. But why do these blasts even happen? And why Mumbai, why? And why India suffers from so many terrorists attacks?! Is there a solution?! My head spins yet again as I try to calm myself and make peace with the fact that I have and perhaps will always be a pawn in their game (read: politicians, businessmen, bureaucrats) and if unlucky then may become a victim to one of these meaningless attacks.

Mumbai, you've survived before, you'll survive again. Let us all become invincible and nullify the effect of their attacks by our never say die attitude. But by God how much I feel like slowly sucking life out of that person who pushes these so called "terrorists" to kill innocent people in cold blood.

P.S. - Today I read about the origin of the initiative "Spoorthi" and later learned about the bomb blasts in Mumbai! What a difference in initiatives!

Wednesday, July 06, 2011

What makes you feel happy

One of my friends gave me this questionnaire one day which had this question: What makes you feel happy?
I replied to him with the filled questionnaire after a week only because I really had to think about this question. I know what makes me laugh, what makes me smile, what delights me, what excites me but I believe happiness is something beyond all this, something grander.

The answer was so simple, being at home makes me happy! But then what if I didn't have a home. Would/Should that take away my happiness? Now a days I live away from home, does that mean I am not or can't be happy? This argument was good enough to compel me to think a little more.

If he had asked me this question few years ago I would probably had said, "dude, if Microsoft hires me I'd be really happy!" Microsoft didn't hire me, so can I never be happy?!

My definition of happiness has been changing over the years but after reading his question, I had to find a way to at least convince myself that there are some things in life that are or which can provide perennial source of happiness. Instead of specific reasons I started searching for general reasons, common things that happen in life. And then it struck me... I always like when someone comes and talks to me, I always enjoy sharing my ideas or opinions with others, I really feel connected with the other person during the face to face conversation. So I replied, "A good conversation". Most of my conversations have been good.

What makes you feel happy?!

Learn to fall

Our karate teacher, Mr. Babji taught some of my friends and me how to fall when someone lifts you on his back and throws you down. He told us that we should try to fall on the back and try to spread the impact across the whole back by rolling a little on the back. He told us that falling on our back causes less harm to the body than trying to break the fall using hands. This simple yet useful suggestion made me realize that in martial arts, as in life, falling is inevitable. That is why there are some techniques, some suggestions to minimize the hurt, the pain when the impact happens.

When someone says, "I got your back buddy", what they really mean can be correlated with the advice Mr. Babji gave us. In fact, isn't it that most of the times when we fall, we fall on our back (metaphorically and in reality) because nobody volunteers to fall, it just happens. While falling on our back, we can't use our hands to break our fall, we can't see how deep we'll find ourselves after its all over, how hard the impact would be, so we basically have no choice. One should just accept this situation but always have someone or something to make it easier for us. Friends, relatives, a pet or some hobbies like movies, music, sports, writing, workout, gardening etc. can be that cushion to make the fall bearable. We must have something to someone to come to, to share our success and seek comfort during disappointments.