Authoring Ambition

At my age, probably it is not easy for me to vibe with a young girl of 16; times have changed and so also are people and their thinking. My niece today thinks about herself, her future much more than I did when I was at her age. Her concerns today are quite different from mine some three decades ago. Though it is not a good idea to compare people from two different epochs, and yet I feel certain things in life cannot be ignored or taken lightly. Ambition is the hallmark of this generation, and every young man and woman today may swear by it. But it is for us to realize that the very word ‘ambition’ has been much maligned after Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, and therefore it needs some qualification.

Unfortunately ambition is considered something that we should not give in to, because the fruit of ambition could be the fate of Caesar or Brutus. The modern generation, however, is not going to accept the theory of Shakespeare, which is some five hundred years old; modern thinkers and sages might just propose a contrary theory, saying that anyone who does not have ambitions may not succeed in life. The concept of thinking big is in reality an offshoot of this kind of thinking, which is fast catching up among the youth. It has not spared my niece either, though her ambitions are most often toned and molded by family members and friends. But there is fear that this ambition might go out of control if it is not kept under certain tension.

Choosing between two schools is indeed an important factor to realize the dreams and ambitions students nurture deep within; however the schools are merely the media which provide the proper ambience for nurturing of the dreams. The schools are only instruments in shaping the destiny of the youth, but they do not determine the destiny. It would be fatal if we were to consider that the schools are ultimately responsible for our future orientation. For a student who is serious about his/her dreams and ambitions, any school maybe good enough to flower forth, and for a frivolous one even the best of schools may not help much to reach the dreams.

I realized how the peer pressure could throttle the steady growth and nurturing of these dreams in the youth, when a few phone calls threw my niece haywire; it is true that friends would love to stay together and support one another during their school days; however they would soon realize that they cannot stick together all the way; sometime or other their ways will part, and each one will have to find his/her own way. Her friends had informed her that they were joining a “good school” as opposed to the “bad school” that my niece was joining. This thought that she was not admitted into a good school had caused enough of tears, and it took quite a while to make her understand that what makes real difference is self-determination and hard work, and not merely the schools.

The dreams and ambitions of the youth cannot be shaped by peer pressure or convenience; sometimes we hear young people wishing to be what their friends wish; this is a temporary arrangement, and it will soon fail, because the interests and orientations of each youth vary considerably. There are a lot more calculations and reading the signs of the times, which help the parents and other family members to arrive at a particular path to help the youth to reach the goal they have set for themselves. Trust in the guidance of the family, especially of parents, will be a great asset in this lonesome journey of the youth, and it is sure to bear rich dividends at the end. The youth will need to fall back on the resources of this trust and confidence in the near ones, especially when the going is tough. I believe this has been a tough moment for my niece, but I know she understands the dynamics of this process.

Dreams, Sweet Dreams!

There were great men and women in the annals of world history, who had great dreams for the world and for their nation; some of the speeches of great men reiterating their dreams have become models of public speech. But unfortunately not all can dream the kind of dream they should dream; there are limitations all around them; their blissful dreams are rudely cut short by hardcore reality, which drags them to confront the misery, despair and hardship they had been trying hard to forget. But that is just one kind of dream that we often hear about, the dreams which shape and mould human beings, and civilizations. For now however I would turn my attention to commonplace dreams.

Is there anyone who does not get dreams while sleeping? All of us, big or small, men or women, Hindu or Muslim, all of us dream, and most often we have no control over what we dream. In other words, we cannot pre-plan and program our minds in such a way that we should get only one kind of dreams. Luckily human beings have not managed to enter into that part of the brain, which controls every one of our dreams. Thank God for them, we are able to get a glimpse of our unconscious and subconscious mind, and are awestruck at the way our dreams project our personality traits, our orientations and our choices. Ultimately our dreams are truly our true selves.

Psychoanalysts and psychiatrists depend a lot on dreams to get to know the mind of their clients; though we cannot swear by analysis of our dreams and their implications in our daily living, one thing is for sure, they have certain layers of our personality which is not known to anyone, living or dead. Sigmund Freud and his disciple Carl Jung had tried to understand dreams, and Freud’s interpretation of dreams is still considered a masterpiece. But what happens when we get up early in the morning with our minds not able to remember the dreams we had lived so vividly a few hours ago? Some say that often there would be a particular pattern in our dreams, which may offer significant clue to our personality.

When a person enters into the alpha stage of sleep, what we may call the deep sleep, then the body, mind and spirit are in unison, and that is the moment when many of the deep-seated traits and elements of our being surface from our un/sub conscious. When we move from that deep sleep to shallow sleep, the dreams part, and we may sometimes have only traces or tailpieces of those dreams. For one thing, we cannot force ourselves to remember and recollect the dreams we had in the morning, and there is no mechanism to cultivate our minds to recapture our dreams. Maybe in the future, scientists will be able to do that, but for now, we have no way of finding it.

Recently one of our senior fathers had narrated some of the most beautiful dreams he had, while undergoing treatment for typhoid; when I asked him if he had dreams, he told me that he did not dream, but re-lived those glorious moments of the past. There was a sweet glow around him, as he began to narrate them (several times) to me. I am trying to recapture one or two of my past events, which can become the tonic for my soul, so that when I am down and unable to cope with reality around me, I can look up to them and draw consolation and solace. I know some of the seemingly insignificant events of my life, but were shaping moments, will one day pop up during sleep and carve a niche in my self, to show light to my path!

Charming Cheers and After

It is not strange that sometimes the most unexpected people could come in our way and make us smile. It is generally not possible for us to imagine that a hardcore drunkard could reach us safely, when we are helpless, and find it hard to find a way. That is what happened to my friend today, and while narrating this incident, all that she could do was have a hearty laughter. But there is nothing strange that a drunkard may be the right person, when we are caught in a tight corner, and find it hard to find a way; for one thing, the drunkards know exactly what they are up to, and maybe more normal under the influence of liquor than otherwise.

We should be extremely careful when we deal with drunkards, because they may not be as oblivious of what is happening around them as we might think them to be. There are many who feign after having a drink, and some others gain enormous amount of guts and courage after a peg or two. There are very few who can really forget the whole world and enter into a world of make-belief where they can realize all their dreams and aspirations. It would be cruel to pull them out of this state forcefully, by any violent means, though I understand what are the things that the drunkards are capable of when drunk.

A few days ago, a close friend of mine, did acknowledge that he committed a socially objectionable act, under the influence of alcohol, and said he should have been more careful not to drink to the point of not realizing what he was doing. That one moment had darkened his entire life, and he had to go through agonizing moments because of the few minutes when he forgot himself and what he was doing. But that is the story with many a drunkard; many begin to regret for ever giving in to alcohol, which had led them to endless troubles and misery. If we look around, we shall find many who would vouch for this.

We often think that those who are under the influence of alcohol are bound to falter in their steps; it is true with amateurs, but not with veterans. There are men and women, who even after half a dozen pegs of hard drink can walk unfalteringly, and speak as if they had not touched wine. In fact, these people enter into a higher level of consciousness, only when they are drunk, and when they are not drunk, they may appear to be in a stupor. A few months, I was sorry to meet my cousin, who was so addicted to wine, that without it, he was violent, abnormal; but as soon as he had a peg, he was calm and quiet, and was even able to joke.

Not all those who drink alcohol are drunkards; quite a many do drink on social gatherings and special occasions, while some others require it, as if it is their staple drink. I have become rather sympathetic towards who are either victims of alcohol or are unable to get out of the clutches of wine, which may slowly ruin their entire lives. But while we do not encourage drunkards to continue drinking, we take our hats off to the “good” drunkards, who can come to our aid daringly and willingly, and rescue us from the stalemate we might otherwise be languishing in. After all, the whole sky is not filled with dark clouds, we may come across a few stray immaculate white ones too.

The Art of Flying Kites

Makar Sankranti (which generally falls on either 14 or 15 of January according to Lunar calendar) is considered an auspicious moment for the religious Hindus; on the one side we have the Ganga Sagar mela in West Bengal, and on the other the Kumbh mela in Haryana, where devotees dip themselves into the cleansing (?) waters of the Ganges, and get themselves purified. For good many Santal tribals, the occasion is celebrated as Sakrat, the festival of 'eating and drinking', marking the end of the harvest season. For reasons unknown, Sankranti is also a season of flying kites, and across the country one comes across special kites competitions organized during these days.

Flying kites is not as simple as it looks; it is an art, just like singing, music, and dance are; or just as not every one can write great poems, or sing in accurate pitch, so also not every one can fly a kite. Some years ago, I didn't believe that flying kites can be a challenge; when I found a few kites perched on the terrace of our building, I tried to fly it, and what a disastrous attempt it was. The kite refused to soar; I tried to imitate little children so wonderfully maneuvering in order to keep the kites soaring higher and higher, but all in vain. It was a great moment of enlightenment for me: one, not all can fly kites, and two, it is easier for smaller children to learn flying kites than for adults!

But what does the art of flying kites refer to, and what is it all about? Put simply, it is all about the art of maneuvering; it is very similar to the maneuvers that a fighter pilot would make, in order to escape the target of the enemies. Sadly a killer instinct is also made to thrive while flying kites; it is no longer a game to let the kite kiss the blue sky, and wander freely amidst the clouds, but it is also targeted to knock down other kites, and the thread is given a coating with glass paste, which is capable of severing other vulnerable thread. But this is human ingenuity going beyond reason and good sense.

To maneuver a kite in the midst of strong winds is not an easy task; just as a boat which is supported by a mast is left to the whims and fancies of the winds and the tides, so also is the kite is left to the winds; but it is only a master kite-flyer who can turn the kite to face the winds and bring it back home. But there is yet another easy option left to him/her, to let the kite follow the winds, but then one s/he has to make sure there is enough stock of the thread, if one still wants to have an hold on the kite. There is the third option, to let the kite go free by leaving the thread, and just enjoy gazing at the kite freely and gently glide through the winds and going beyond the sight. There is a pleasure in watching your dreams, fantasies take wings of poesy!

It is only the small children who would have the inner freedom and generosity to let the kites go free in the sky, and not make a hue and cry if the thread is snapped and the kite takes freedom to go where it wills. The freedom to let things go free from our hands demands we have the generosity to let things go out of our control, out of our hands. We cannot have the threads of the kite held tightly in our hands, and at the same time let it go free; we cannot keep the cake and eat it. But there is no greater joy and satisfaction than to let the kite glide through the winds in the blue sky, and gazing at it with the contentment that it is in the good hands of the sky and the winds! For like all arts, flying kites can bring us joy, and letting it go free can bring greater joy!

End of the Beginning

We are taken by surprise to note that the year is almost over, and yet another year is about to begin. Even before we could really become aware of this fact, out feet are on the new year, and many of the promises that we had made the previous new year day are yet to be realised; true enough, we have even forgotten what promises we had made. Time waits for no one, and it surely does not pause; it is not like a DVD film I am watching, that I can pause for a while to savor the beauty of the scene, nor can I "rewind" the scene to take note of the details I had failed to pay attention to the previous time. If only we had that privilege to do with time what we do either in memory or in a recorded film, then things might be very different. But for the most part we should be happy that time does not wait for any one, or else we may have too many thing to complain about, and may even curse our fate for asking for the time that does not move at its own pace.

The beauty with time is that you don't need to exert to flow with the current of time; it takes you by force, whether you like it or not. But today I would like to remember those people for whom time is a fierce enemy. I would like to recall to mind what a few fractions of a second could be for a rocket launcher; a few minutes for the one who is one the verge of death, a few hours for the one who is at the guillotene; a few days to a cancer patient. Time is not a pleasant thing that these people can savor, but is what they would like to forget. It is too frightening to think that time sometimes runs short. Christopher Marlowe in his beautiful play 'Doctor Faustus' talks about what time means to Faustus who had sold his soul to Satan in order to gain all worldly wisdom; when it is time, he is on his knees pleading for a few hours, a few minutes or at least a few seconds...

Concerning the differences in perspectives between the east and the west, it is said that the western philosophy looks at reality in a linear fashion, while the east looks at it as a cyclic, and that makes a lot of difference. We have even depicted this idea pictorially, showing a snake eating its tail. The idiom may not be very appetising, but the idea is there for us to understand. Life continues without any beginning or an end; we enter into the cyclic process at one particular moment, and may disappear at another, but the process continues. Therefore the popular adage, what seems to be end is in fact the beginning, makes a lot of meaning. Every end is actually a beginning, and every beginning may also be an end. It is too hard to make a distinction as to which is the beginning and which is the end. In the cyclic process, there is no beginning and no end. It is so very beautiful to flow with the current, which is never ending.

The greatest healer, it is said, is the time, and if only we allow ourselves to be moulded and shaped by time, there would be hardly any scars. We may not need to carry psychological baggage year after year. Let the waters that flow constantly in the never-ending ocean of time wash away all the fatigue and tiredness we had been carrying upto this very day. Let us not carry anything further to the new year that is dawning. Let the worries and troubles, hatred and vengeance disappear in the waters of time. We are here to start the new year as a tabula rasa, a clean slate to start all thing anew. There is a thrill in starting things anew, because new hopes and new expectations can boost our confidence, and we may be in a better position to handle ourselves and the world around us.

As I stand at the threshold of yet another year, I place all that I had achieved and all that I had failed; let time be the best judge, who can tell me frankly and truly how my days had been spent. I have nothing to regret or complain, because I know if not any one else, at least time will take care of all my sincere efforts. I am here to present myself in the powerful yet gentle hands of time, for her to heal the wounds, strengthen the soft options, soften the hardness of heart, break the stubbornness, join the broken dreams, speak the unspeakable, kill the hatred and vengeance, and to be born as a new being as the sun begins to shine on me tomorrow. Every day brings in new hope, just as every new year brings in new hope that we have still some more time to hold ourselves accountable for the world that we live in, and maybe this day next year, we will be able to stand before time with a little more confidence that we are a little better than the last year!

Dreams that Matter

I have a dream, a song to sing... the song that had won the hearts of millions had also caught my attention. What ever the dreams meant to the psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud and his companion Carl Jung, we know that it is the dreams that sustain our hope for a better tomorrow. But how often we come across people who have no dreams. They are half-dead; even while living, they are like somnambulists, sleep-walkers. But there is yet another category of people whose dreams are throttled at a very young age, or those whose dreams are stolen... those who wish to dream and are only too scared to, because they may not be able to bear the consequences, were their dreams come true. Even to dream of a better future is controlled by the whims and fancies of a select few, even in our own society.

If there is one malady that the world is going through today, it is the lack of dreams... we are so used to the kind of life that we are presented on a platter, that we are more than happy with the things around us, and want no more. A new form of complacency and mediocrity has set into the modern living. One of the greatest tragedies which could sound the deathknell of humanity surely is the lack of dreamers.... When I talk of dreamers, I don't necessarily think of great stalwarts as Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King, Mahatma Gandhi or Nelson Mandela. That was one kind of dreamers who were instrumental in transforming the face of the earth. But we need dreamers who would transform not necessarily the world around, but the small society I live in.

Dreamers are in fact role models that the present world is craving for; role models in all walks of life... hero/heroine worship had been so rampant in our country that we would take so seriously the reel-life heros and heroines, not realising that it was their profession and not way of life. On the other hand the society had been blind and deaf to the real heros and heroines, who had lived and died quietly, without making any noise, and their spirit may live in a handful of men and women whom they were able to touch within the short span of their lives. It is only those who have dream for the world, will be able to stand as a role model... sharing the dream of others is only one way of shaping the world, but it has to evolve from meeting of dreams, not merely adopting another's dream.

Unfortunately at no time of our education in schools and colleges are we taught to dream; what to dream, how to dream, when to dream... these are the questions that are not taken up during our growth period. I am surprised that there are no business schools which have begun courses in dreaming big; who knows it may be a reality very soon. But no one can deny the fact that those who fail to dream are stuck up on the midway, and may remain there all their lives. During my younger days, I used to see my elder brother writing on every notebooks with bold letters "THINK BIG"; but I think I had begun to think bigger than him, after about two scores years.

Dreaming big is nothing that takes us away from the reality we live in; rather it takes us close to the potentiality we are capable of. If I am a tree which can bear ten tonnes of fruits, I should be able to bear all those fruits, and should not be content with producing only five tonnes. That is what dreams do in our lives... pushing us inch by inch towards the full potentiality of what we truly are... And the glory of God is man/woman fully alive... Saint Augustine is credited to have said this, and in our own terms, we would rephrase it as, the glory of God is in human persons reaching their full potentiality. To put in spiritual terms, God is glorified when a human person reaches his/her full potentiality, for the maker knows that the purpose of making this person is greately fulfilled, and that can be the great joy both for the maker and the made.