Oh to be alive

           As the winter Olympics draw to a close, one is once again mesmerized by the beauty of the human body and what it is capable of achieving, especially when coupled with a beautiful mind. More than the sheer aesthetics of the body per se, it is the functionality that comes into play; sheer grit and determination, pure resolve and the urge to be the best of the best, sometimes at a nail biting tie, at the finish line and sometimes just a fraction of a second away, shows who nets a gold. The Olympics were started nearly 3000 years ago, in Olympia, Greece and were called Olympiads. It is popularly believed that it came into being to appease the Gods, particularly Zeus and perhaps it has therefore been a tradition ever since of creating records and benchmarks that are hard to break, striving every now and then for a higher and more perfect score: both as a personal achievement and as a collective triumph.  History has shown that the best p...

    “ In addition to being a profoundly bewildered man, I am an incorrigible introvert. I am awkward, soft-spoken, ineloquent, and intensely shy. I do not enjoy speaking in public, posing for photographs, or asking other people for money. I dream of privacy, I revere silence, and I loathe any action that involves drawing attention to myself ,” extremely eloquent words by Greg Mortenson the author of Stones into Schools and Three cups of tea. The sentiments reflected in these very succinct, yet persuasive words, in more ways than one, reflect the personalities of several people who go through life being grossly misunderstood for they do not fall into the slots that have so divisively and deliberately become a part of human psyche and populist society, pushing to the borders and brinks people every now and then. Some survive to become stable contributors to society, some succumb way too soon: groveling for the rest of their lives in the darkness of despair or merely t...

Chronologically speaking there are two ends to a year, a beginning and an end. But, perhaps if viewed on a continuum, there is more to it than just two ends. There are several moments in time, ensnared, entrapped; pulsating and/or just being. In more ways than one the year that is, is just about to slip through the fingers with the speed of light and thought or the slowness of a languid afternoon, as one may want to perceive it; the truth is, it is coming to an end.  A word not many of us are perhaps fond of, but, only in every end, is a new beginning.  For some it is like a DNA strand, a complex, intriguing helical structure, imprinted with traces of eons that encapsulate or burst forth in the blink of an eye. Each molecule a beholder, each atom a memory bank, juxtaposed through time. In the run to the end, however, many overlook or forget the beginning, thus leaving the circle of life incomplete, unguarded; open to repetitive contempt. How one wonders would contempt en...

Often when anything bizarre happens in society, almost everyone likes to flee to a higher moral ground. If this is the case in a catastrophe, it is reasonably understandable as all one is trying to do is protect oneself physically and hence survive. Survival is the key, it is a basic and universal instinct looked upon as a means of adaptation. Both, being interchangeable, are to a large degree acceptable in the realm of Nature. There again if only the urge to survive becomes the uppermost need, then there wouldn't be the possibility of allowing another to hang in there, with perhaps just a toe-hold. Self-protection would take on in totality in deciding either or.  And that is just the beginning of the problem. So is it the survival of just an individual or an entire species? In the churning of the universe there is a constant upsurge of waves, only a part panning into view for a while but operating on a very subtle and micro-level are changes that impact eternities. Similarly...

For many their world came crumbling down like a pack of playing cards, or was it quicker, as nine pins? It was the last straw on a camel’s back and in a manner of speaking, the last bastion fell too. The speed, with which it has been crashing down of late, is indeed amazing, annoying and yet intriguing. But, the latest news to hit the headlines, literally hurt below the belt (in more ways than one). The ball/balls (not many have them though), was set rolling years ago, in the Indian firmament, when a super cop was accused of misdemeanor by a lady officer. There was official brouhaha and many a bureaucratic eyebrows and other unmentionables were raised. He first blatantly yet majestically denied it, and then subsequently apologized. Appalled were some in the set-up and many felt that it could/should have been overlooked or ignored by the aggrieved party. Who is to decide that and what exactly is infringement, always remains a debatable question in a lopsided society.   When th...

Matters of the heart in every which way matter! Be it a casual hello or a nod of the head across a street or corridor or just the glint of approval or scorn in someone’s eyes: it impacts us very deeply, affecting our psyche positively or negatively. A deeper insight thus into both the workings of the head and the heart are extremely essential. There are no thumb rules or established theories that would help one to tide over the intricacies of life, but certainly a few universal and time-tested rules could be adhered to, in order to sail through happily, rather than be faced with obstacles at every turn. At the core of our daily lives are relationships, as we are a gregarious species by design and thus default. From the age of hunter gatherers to a settled and more elaborately socializing group, we are up against newer challenges every single day. Old orders are changing, increasingly being replaced by a more global perspective. Cultural lines are thinning, merging or overlapping,...

Courage in the face of sheer adversity, grit and determination when pushed to the wall; aspiring, dreaming, voicing one’s concern, all of it and more is seen from time to time in the world around us. Right from bone chilling tales of escapes from the most horrendously warped regimes, with equally perverted mindsets, to sick minds on the loose in homes, on the streets and just about anywhere, the malaise is deep set. In fact it all begins and ends with the mind.    Pain, suffering, atrocities either experienced firsthand or through another, are all examples of the so called bestial primeval instinct in man; the inhuman side, once unleashed not only devours the perpetrator over a period of time, but wreaks havoc in everything around.  In times or climes such as these, where the world has become a narrower place to live in, there are competitions of a different kind, in spite of the Thomas Friedman model of a flatter, more equal earth, there are huge and glaring disc...