Solitude - A Path to Discover Self

It was in my 10+2 college days, when I came across this beautiful story by Russian author Anton Chekhov, titled "The Bet". This story defines the beauty of solitude and the path to discover oneself.

The story goes like this - Once in a party, a lawyer and a banker got into an argument that which one was better among the two - life imprisonment or capital punishment. The lawyer was of the view that life imprisonment is better, as it does not take away life, and there is always something to live for. On the contrary, the banker held completely opposite views. Soon, the argument spiralled out of hand, and they both got into a bet. The bet was 15 years solitary confinement worth two million dollars, with the lawyer going into solitary confinement for the agreed time period. In a fiery passion, the lawyer agreed and went into solitary confinement. At first, he regretted this bet and cried for the morbid life he was now living. Then within next few years, he got transformed into a foodie, and then into a drunkard. Gradually he learnt to play music and started reading books. He started with fiction, biographies, history, politics, philosophy and finally religious texts. In course of his fifteen years imprisonment, the lawyer was reduced to a bag of bones. But the knowledge he gained in these 15 years made him realize the ultimate truth of life. He learnt to despise the worldly pleasures which are ultimately wiped off by the inevitable death. On the other hand, the banker, who was once a millionaire, was getting bankrupt day by day by fulfilling all the whims and fancies of the imprisoned lawyer. Finally, to save himself from further embarrassment of paying the bet amount, the banker decided to kill the lawyer. Upon reaching the lawyer's cell, he discovered a hand-written note by the lawyer addressed to him. In the note, the lawyer mentioned how he had changed over the years, and had lost the desire for any materialistic pursuits, especially the two million dollars amount, which motivated him to take up the bet in the first place. The banker regretfully cried on reading the note. The story ends with the lawyer forfeiting the two million dollars, by escaping from custody, minutes before he was supposed to win the bet.

In our day to day life, sometimes we come across situations where we get emotionally bankrupt like the banker. These situations can be anything like the loss of a loved one or break-up with the "Someone Special" or the betrayal of a friend. In such situations, we need to play the lawyer and seek some solitude. Solitary confinement with oneself involves gradually cutting off all forms of communication with the outside world which are not necessary. In today's age, it could be achieved by breaking off from all forms of social networking. Only the necessary communications take place like communicating official matters with boss or team-mates in office or minimal talks only with a best friend. In an atmosphere of solitude, we can discover our own self and the hidden talents we possess. Some people develop in the art of singing, some learn a new musical instrument, while some others develop a hobby of reading. Our soul gets replenished with the newly discovered passions and we spend more time in introspecting things. As the soul gets purified, negative emotions like anger, frustration, jealousy which made us emotionally bankrupt in the first place, get converted to their positive counterparts like determination, focus, dedication and compassion. We learn to prioritize things and let go of negative emotions, along with some of the people, who drain our energy. The void which was once created, gets filled up with love for oneself. This love for oneself manifests itself in high self-esteem and boosted self-confidence. For instance, a foodie learns the art of cooking and gets the self-satisfaction of eating good food. This positive feeling, connects the food entering the stomach and the mind, and consequently the person develops a good health. We develop on the positive cycle of taking pride in doing things and, start our journey on the path of excellence. Since solitude disconnects us from the outer world, we remain aloof from the meaningless competitions which drain our energy like anything; only for the sake of someone else to derive profit out of our daily futile rat race. In short, we admire the beauty of life in moments of solitude as we tend to remain aloof and spend time with our own selves.

“There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society, where none intrudes,
By the deep sea, and music in its roar:
I love not man the less, but Nature more”
― George Gordon Byron

Macaulay Education System - The Makings of a Third World Country

Recently, there was a huge controversy regarding the misogynist and sexist comments made by the two lawyers defending the accused in Nirbhaya case. We the people of India were shocked, not only because of the degraded pervert mentality of the rapists and their lawyers but also by the fact that "How could an Educated lawyer say these things ???"
The problem is the way we define "Education". The system of education that we follow today is the Macaulay Education System. It defines education as the number of degrees one has disregarding the skills one possesses. Now, as per this education system, the lawyers who made such derogatory remarks against the women are "Highly Educated and Qualified". But do they possess the right attitude or correct skills ???

Now, who is this Lord Macaulay and how did he contribute to such a mess in India ? Well, he was Secretary to the Board of Control under Lord Grey from 1832 until 1833. After the passing of the Government of India Act 1833, he was appointed as the first Law Member of the Governor-General's Council. He came to India in 1834, and served on the Supreme Council of India between 1834 and 1838. He was a man possessing highest degree of foresight as his plans to make India a Third World country is still getting executed to the perfection.
The aim of Macaulay was to create a class of clerical people who know English. The idea was that these people would perfectly know how to "Obey Orders and not speak up or question them...". This trend of Indians following orders was recently highlighted by Infosys CEO Mr Vishal Sikka. It is not only Mr Sikka, but many other successful entrepreneurs like him who dream of making India a global leader hold similar views. As per this system of education, there are 3 skills which make a man educated - Reading, Writing and Arithmetic. Skills like Common Sense Application, Holistic  Attitude, Problem Solving Skills, Communication Skills, Survival Tactics in Hostile situations, Ability to do R&D take a backseat. After all a glorified English speaking clerk can do without such skills. Besides if an enslaved clerk happens to possess these skills then he might regain his self-esteem and practically use discretion in obeying his master. Besides, if ever the master is overthrown some day in future, the slave will no longer be dependent on him. This was the foresight of the cunning Lord Macaulay. Result is that even after independence in 1947, we have the elite IIT's & IIM's but practically no R&D. This is the result why I am typing my blog on a "Google powered Blogger running on Microsoft Windows 7 on a Dell Inspiron 1525 laptop. The electricity powering my laptop is generated by an Alstom or Hitachi or Cummins turbo-alternator running somewhere thousands of miles away. The huge network of transformers and transmission lines connecting these alternators are again manufactured by Alstom/General Electric and Crompton Greaves respectively". In short, nothing is indigenous and everything is imported from foreign economies.
Now you may be wondering how all of these relates to Nirbhaya case and the lawyers. When skills take a back seat in any education system, the gender stereotyping starts. Cooking, Stitching, Dancing, Singing becomes a typical "Ladkiyon wala" job and Sports, Academics, Being a bread-winner for the family, self defence skills are strictly masculine domain. A dialogue in the movie Chak De India says it all - "Yeh roti belan chalaane waali Bharatiya naariyaan hain... Kahan nicker wicker pehen ke field mein daudengi... ". Now, all of you can clearly relate the statements made by the lawyers and its relation to the Macaulay education system. People possessing high number of degrees, excellent in reading, writing and arithmetic making misogynist, sexist and derogatory remarks ,without applying the common sense that they were born out of the womb of a woman itself.
We complain that the Indian Judiciary runs at a snail pace. Well, this is again a product of the Macaulay system because it does not rely on common sense application. Going by common sense, the Indian Penal Code dates back to 1860. Its aim was to protect the British interests. Anything that was detrimental to British interests attracted heavy or even death penalty. Everything else that did not concern the British Raj was hardly a crime and carried very light or even no penalty. This is the very reason that Waging War Against A Nation charge on Kasab sent him to gallows but Nirbhaya's tormentors, Nithari butchers roam free. Penalty for terrorist activities is death, but for heinous crimes like rape, it is as meager as Rs 5000. This is because, to the British, rape was a social issue and had nothing to do with their infrastructure and exploitative designs in India. Outraging the modesty of a woman or demanding dowry or bride burning was not an act of insubordination by a subjugated slave, so why bother !!
As already mentioned, this bookish education system has made India an import based economy and Indian Rupees gets devalued day by day. We are always under debt from World Bank and IMF. Our defence equipments rely heavily on Russian and other foreign technologies. A nation which is NOT INDEPENDENT in defending itself is as good as subjugated.  Due to the debt ridden condition and import based nature of Indian economy, the foreign funded human rights groups, and bodies like UNO and Amnesty International meddle with our internal law and order problems. They shame us on global platform whenever cases like Nirbhaya happen (Rape Problem in India by German Professor). Ironically when the culprits in such cases are awarded death penalty, the same organizations apply international pressure citing humanitarian grounds to release the condemned prisoners. This is proven by the fact that the juvenile in Nirbhaya case was sent to a correction centre rather than to the gallows even though his crime was extremely barbaric even for an adult to commit. This denial of justice makes people take law into their own hands like the recent Dimapur Lynching Case or the Bhagalpur Blinding Case (Gangaajal movie). Even a charismatic Prime Minister like Mr Narendra Modi is helpless when his fellow 1.25 billion Indians fight amongst themselves out of sheer ignorance and king size ego powered by bookish knowledge. Rather than pointing fingers to "Sarkaar" how many times have we realized that the "Sarkaar" is made up of people amongst us ?? If they lack common sense, then so do we. If they are misogynist, so are we. If they have forcefully implemented this slavery based education system, then how many times have we attempted to do something out-of-the-box ???
In the end, it was Macaulay's foresight and  his slavery based education system which made us a Third World Country. But after 15th August 1947, it was OUR CHOICE to remain that way.
"Every man is responsible for his own actions... And conversely liable for his own inactions..." Choose your destiny...

Divya Drishti - The Divine Vision

It was the evening of 27th Nov 2011, my sister's wedding day. After receiving my friends from the railway station and arranging for their accommodation, I had to go to the parlour to pick-up my sister who was dressed as the bride. When my sister came out, she looked so beautiful that a single drop of tear fell from my eyes. It was a festive mood in the family. The baraat was yet to begin and the general mood was of celebrations. Despite of this festive mood why this unceremonious single drop of tear ??? Her beauty reminded me that this is the beginning of the end. In a few hours from now, she would be married off and go away to a different family altogether. In short, I was feeling the pain of separation hidden deep behind her unparallelled beauty.

During my college days in Burla, I captured this beautiful sunset. Again, I felt the same emotional pain while witnessing this scenic sunset. The pain that a beautiful day in my life has come to an end; and with it, I am one day closer to the ultimate and inevitable oblivion - Death.

Recently, few months back, I had the chance to visit a resort as a part of my official team outing. There I captured this cute little kitten. It was mewing the entire winter evening. So my team mates offered it some food. Still then, it did not even care to sniff the food and continued to cry. Seeing this behaviour, I realized that this innocent kitten was missing its mother. This sorrowful feeling of a child getting separated from its mother touched me emotionally and it felt as if an arrow has pierced straight through my heart.

After much introspection, I realized that all the three events have one thing in common; that Pain & Beauty are two sides of the same coin. The ability to see one behind the other is the Divine Vision - Divya Drishti.

The beautiful and serene sunset in the picture is actually an exploding fireball millions of miles away. So explosive that everything within a thousand miles radius vaporizes. This fiery inferno description of the beautiful red sunset can send shivers through anyone's spine. The negative emotions like pain, fear and a sense of explosive violent atmosphere are always hidden behind the beauty of a serene sunset.

Similarly, the tears of separation flowing down the eyes of a bride during "Vidaai" add to her flawless beauty. But, the moment is an emotionally painful one and it becomes very difficult to remain dispassionate and witness the beauty associated with the pain.

In Mahabharat, only two persons had this Divya Drishti. One was Sanjay and the other was Arjuna.

To the normal human eye, the Kurukshetra War was the most bloodiest war. Millions of human beings literally slaughtered each other like animals. Human relations reached their nadir and four generations of the Kuru clan bayed for each others blood. The victor was not judged on the area captured, rather on the body count he piled up at the end of the day. Possessed with Divya Drishti, both Arjuna & Sanjay were witnessing something very different - The beauty of destructive creation. Everything was getting annihilated for the sake of a fresh start. But, there were certain conditions attached to this Divya Drishti. The moment one sees only one side of the coin, this divine ability is lost. Arjuna felt the pain of this blood-thirsty war when his only son Abhimanyu was brutally killed. Consequently, he lost the ability to see the beauty of destructive creation. Next day he walked into the battlefield with revenge in his mind, whose sole purpose was to destroy for the sake of destroying his enemies, and not to create a society for the good people. Sanjay also lost this divine vision when he started to feel the pain of Duryodhan dying in the battlefield. The beauty of dharma restored was no longer visible to Sanjay when he felt the pain of the bereaved blind king Dhritarashtra.

We tend believe that this divine vision is no longer present with ordinary mortals like us, and it is embedded forever, deep within the mythological texts like Mahabharat. But the strange fact is that anyone who can appreciate beauty has the inherent ability to feel the pain associated with it. The converse is also true i.e. anybody who is feeling some kind of emotional pain has the ability to enjoy the beauty of the moment. Then why don't we use our Divya Drishti and remain happy in moments of pain ??

The answer lies in the fact that, if we want to witness beauty in painful moments, then we must also be prepared to accept the pain hidden behind the beauty. The latter is easier said than done. Instead, we often choose to ignore the pain hidden behind the beauty rather than accepting it. As they say - "Sometimes knowledge becomes a poison and ignorance becomes bliss". Divya Drishti is all about digesting the poison (Vish) and become one with the almighty Shiv.

A Memorable Train Journey to Kolkata

Prologue: It started 24th August 2012. After passing out of college, it was really exciting to have a room-mate reunion. The venue was Kolkata and our host was Kuladeep. I boarded the train from Rourkela and our third roomie Jyotiranjan was to board from Kharagpur. In short, for the initial 298 Km of the journey, my Nikon L22 camera was supposed to keep me away from boredom. The final 114 Km from Kharagpur was easy and I was hardly bothered about it.

Train No: 12872, Ispat Express.
Coach No. D4
Seat No. 49 (Window Seat)

11:40 - The train hauled by a bulky WDM-3D diesel locomotive rushed into platform no. 4 as the eager crowd literally seemed to pounce upon the helpless train to reserve seats by keeping their handkerchiefs on the berths. I waited till the crowd settled and then boarded the train. With a little delay in boarding, I had anticipated that a typical "Rowdy Rathore" would be occupying my reserved seat with an "Angry Bird" look on face; and I need to show my ticket as a proof to sit on the allocated berth. But, things were much humane & civilized when I entered the compartment. I put my bag on the seat and came out to see the tradition of loco change - The bulky Bondamunda WDM-3D diesel loco handing over the baton to a majestic red Santragachhi WAP-4 electric loco.

11:50 - All the formalities related to the diesel-electric loco conversion was over. The train was tightly coupled to the new locomotive with pressure valves thoroughly checked. All logs were meticulously maintained & signed by the loco pilot & the assistant loco pilot and finally the rear pantograph was raised to power the six powerful traction motors. Within a couple of minutes the humming sound of the motors was overpowered by a more high pitched and loud horn. It was less of a usual horn and more of a typical war cry - "Get out of my way !!! I m marching ahead !!!". With this I boarded my compartment. "Its time to go."

 It took some 10 to 15 minutes for the train to gather full momentum. The rapid changing of tracks seemed like watching an animation movie with the tracks giving way to the sheer brute force of the train.

12:38 - Sitting there in the window seat, I was scanning the beautiful monsoon imagery outside when I heard another similar shrill horn blaring. The variation of the sound pitch reminded me of the 12th standard physics - Doppler Effect. This has to be another train from opposite direction. Within no time, I retrieved my camera to capture the twin of my own train - 12871 Up Ispat Express rushing towards its destination.

Soon, the entire scenery started to fade into darkness and the train reduced its throttle with constant honking. The pitch of the horn changed from the usual aggressive to a now cautious low pitched sound indicating danger ahead. The train was about to enter one of the oldest railway tunnels in India - Saranda tunnel between Mahadevsal & Posoita stations in Jharkhand. Soon all of the outside lush green scenery disappeared into that impenetrable blackness of the tunnel.

A few minutes later, the impregnable dark reality gave way to some light. The train again started to pick up its original speed. But soon the outside scenery again started to get dark. This time, heavy clouds welcomed us with their share of rain. The humid air which got me sweating profusely now changed into a cool breeze. It was moments before a heavy downpour cooled the entire environement and gave some relief from the sultry atmosphere.

14:34 - The train slowly crawled into the platforms of Tatanagar Jn. Memories of my previous visits flashed back before my eyes. For a moment I felt nostalgic about the days when I used to visit my sister... The typical "Bhai-Behen" ka craze for a special cup of cold coffee at Cafe Coffee Day... Or the lazy Sunday mornings tuned with perfectly imperfect cuisines cooked on experimental basis when my sister was learning the preparations of diverse delicacies... I played the experimental "Guinea Pig" for all those "Dexter's Experiments" !!! ;) :D :P
My chain of thoughts got interrupted with a small jolt. After 15 minutes of halt, the train started pulling out of Steel City Jamshedpur to proceed on its journey.

16:07- For the next one and a half hour, the train kept on moving at a blistering speed to enter the state of West Bengal. As the train started to enter Jhargram, memories of the horrific Jnaneshwari derailment became afresh. On the night of 28th May 2010 around 1:40am, Howrah-Mumbai LTT Jnaneshwari Express derailed somewhere around 30Km from Jhargram when another goods train coming from opposite direction rammed into the derailed train. As per official reports 140 people died in cold blood in the dead of night. A few minutes later, the train crossed Ground Zero of the crash where the mangled bogies of the super-deluxe train still lie as a memorial to all those unfortunate people who perished.

It was another 20 minutes when it seemed the train playing snakes & ladders with the curving tracks. The initial 298 Km of the journey was coming to an end as the previously known Longest Railway Platform of the World - Kharagpur was up ahead. I called up Jyotiranjan to know about his position. As the train prepared to accommodate itself in the 1072 metre long platform, Jyoti was just outside the IIT campus. Knowing that he cannot make it in time, I unboarded at Kharagpur to complete the remaining 114 Km in a Howrah-Kgp local.

10 mins after Ispat Express departed from Kgp, my roomie Jyotiranjan arrived. He bought himself a local train ticket to Howrah and our local train was supposed to depart from platform 2A at 17:10.

17:08 - Only 2 minutes left for the local to depart and we are yet to discover Platform 2A !!! :D It took us 5 more minutes of panic mode running on the endless platform to reach the designated part of the platform. By the time we reached, it was empty. The local had already departed. So again back to Railway Enquiry counter.

Me: "Sir... Howrah k liye next local kab hai ???"
Enquiry Official: "Abhi next 6 baje aapko milega... Platform 2A pe."
Me: "Usse pehle koi doosra nai hai ??"
Enquiry Official: "Nai."

Once getting the confirmation, both of us were on a "Jet-Set-Go" mode to literally pounce upon any local that stops on platform 2A. At 17:50, a local train hauled into the platform and within no time, we were occupying two decent window seats. The inside of a local train resembled more like a daily haat. Chanawala, Chaiwala, Pheriwala, Bartanwala and likes were busy achieving their daily sales target. My last meal was at 10:30 in the morning and I was able to feel my stomach carving for some food... Besides, the junk food was stimulating my taste buds. So we both bought ourselves some jhaal-chana n started talking about the good old college memories. It took us another 2 hours, and by 20:00, we were standing outside Howrah Railway Station searching for a bus to Salt Lake City. Finally after 8 long hours the 412 Km awesome train journey came to an end as the trusses of Howrah Bridge welcomed us to the "City of Joy" :)