"Intelligent?"

Disclaimer: This story was part of a forwarded mail that the author received. This is published as an article, as an effort not to send it around as forwards. The opinion expressed in the story need not necessarily reflect the views of the author. Enjoy the story.

One day, 16years old a girl, heard from her mother that if she does a regular prayer for four years, a divine "Devi" will come to her dreams & give her three boons. So she decided to do it. She completed 4 years successfully, doing the prayer regularly. Now it was a day for "Devi" to come. So she slept early with thoughts in her mind to ask. And, really a "Devi" comes in her dreams. The following narration was their conversation.

Devi: "O Girl, you prayed to me regularly within last 4yrs, so I am very very happy with you. I will complete any of your 3 wishes. You can ask anything you like, but there is one condition."

Girl: "Condition! What?"

Devi: "Do you have a boy-friend?"

Girl: "Yes."

Devi: "When you were doing the prayer, he was waiting for you, so he also sacrificed same as you. Moreover, he didn’t know anything about boon and all, so he is also eligible for the boons. So whatever you will ask, he will get ten times more than that of you. If you are agreed, then proceed for the first boon."

Girl: (After thinking for some time ...) "Yes, I am ready."

Girl: "Make me 10 times richer than the richest person in the world."

Devi: "But your boy-friend will be 10 times richer than you."

Girl: "That's OK."

Devi: "Be as you wish!"

Girl: "Now, Make me 10 times more beautiful than the most beautiful girl in the world."

Devi: "But your boy-friend will be 10 times handsome than the most handsome boy in the world."

Girl: "That's OK."

Devi: "Be as you wish."

Devi: "Now the last boon."

Girl: "O Devi, please give me a MILD HEART-ATTACK."

Devi: "What? Are you sure?"

Girl: "Yes. Very much!"

Devi: "Be as you wish."

Think friends, what happened to her boy-friend; he got a severe heart-attack & died at once, while the girl remained alive. Thus, the girl became the world's most beautiful girl and the richest one, too.

Moral of the Story: 'The Girls are very intelligent! Girls are really more intelligent than we believe about them to be. So boys, be careful!'

Now, girls please stop reading ... boys may please continue till the end.....

******

Dear boys, don’t worry, the real story goes like this. The boy got a heart-attack, TEN TIMES MILDER than that of the girl. So the boy-friend lived longer than the girl, being worlds richest and the most handsome boy.

Moral of the story: Dear boys, the girls are not really that much intelligent as what we believe them to be. So don’t worry if you think that you have girl-friend, intelligent than you. :-)

Smile

The search for freedom is one of the most frequented paths by any individual. The context of freedom conceived by each person would vary in accordance to the ‘attribute matrix’ that exists as part of every one. The shades of origin, nativity, religion, community, education etc would mould the path to the conquest of freedom. Freedom from ethnic disparities, financial and economic imbalances, human rights etc may be the conquests that are featured most in the brain storming sessions of international community. As it is observed by many studies, an ordinary man may not associate most of these issues with his day to day thoughts and concerns. But there is one conquest that is linked with each and every person, the freedom from ‘Nostalgia’, his/her past. I have not seen any person who has had a completely satisfying life. The peripheral projected image in most cases would be deceiving.

Yesterday I saw a movie ‘Autograph’. The movie features the life of any ordinary person, who is on a retrospection. He has a reason for this journey as well, to invite his peers at school and college for his wedding. The initial destination is the village in Tamil Nadu where he did his schooling and we are shown the glimpses of the adolescent love he had then and later shows his love with her three kids. He moves on to Kerala, where he did his graduation and again a beautiful singer steals his heart. The love fails miserably and he is plunged into distress and resorts to the “ever so comforting, alcohol”! The sentiments from his parents urge him to go to the capital city in search of a job. The movie then features the unemployed youth with their tolerable difficulties. The hero comes up with an innovative idea of job search which gets attention of an advertising agency which hires them and suddenly they find themselves on the fast track. In between the hero meets his third ‘friend who is a girl’ who goes out of her way to support him especially when his love from Kerala, now a widow comes back to picture. In the end he is engaged to a fourth girl, who wonders whether he is a ‘love failure’ seeing the hero’s beard.

Now the reason I narrated the entire story is because the person featured in the movie has shades of all of us. He is one person captured by his past. Most of us have different issues. Though the movie could have finished in two hours instead of three and a half, I guess the rewind in our life goes for a life time. Almost every one of us fights this struggle. Some might be lucky to let loose some or most of the past but most are less fortunate. This struggle could make ones life miserable and I have seen many who burn their life in it.

I have followed a method which has made a considerable change in my life. I sure have had an “interesting past” and many who know me would agree on the same. There had been time when all the feelings crept into me. Then one day I saw a placard which said, “Lent a Smile”. It was a display board for one of the charitable institutions urging public to donate for a noble cause and had two jovial faces. The same day, when I was coming back in the bus, I saw a neatly dressed female, in her early twenties taking care of the kids from street. Those smiling faces in the ugly slumps brought a new insight in me. If only I could smile, every moment of my life, the world would have been a better place to live in. I came back and buried all my nostalgia within me and took a third person view on it. I realized that it is not so hard to smile. When I smiled I saw that the world around me had a smile within. I felt so good and energized. It just changed my world!

As ‘Ahimsa’ which gave freedom to our land, I feel a smile could bring freedom to us from all our distress. Be it the struggle for freedom from ‘Nostalgia’ or any thing else, any one who could smile at his past is bound to have a beautiful future ahead. The world might not change, but your perspective on it would change and that would change the world for you.

“Smile, for it is a virtue blessed with love”. It could change your life for ever.:-)

A Pinch of Solitude

Loneliness is the most dreaded fear of all people. I have always ascertained it during my conversations, as well as mentioned it in one of my previous articles. A sudden realization that the days ahead would be left to oneself might awake the hidden fears in you. I felt the same on Thursday when I heard that all the inmates in my flat (except me, of course!) were leaving for the weekend. Well, it was not going to be life time loneliness, and hence it should not be anything critical. But my paranoid behavior had something to do with a conversation that I had with a friend of mine, who is soon going to tie the knots.

Off late, I had developed an idea that marriages are just another social obligation. It comes with a whole bunch of responsibility as you are no longer a free body. There is a person whose life has been tied to you and any minute decision of yours would affect the whole relationship. And with kids involved in the picture, the dimensions would go exponential! It is not that I want to run off the responsibilities, but just the realization that I take an awful time managing myself, I would just fall short of a booming relationship. I have had been in relationships before (my closest friends keep count, I do not!) and one thing I noticed is that your life is never the same when you start sharing it some one else. I wished my friend all the best and made a casual comment that I have no intentions of getting married. He asked me to give it a second thought and reminded me of the loneliness that would come upon me in my later years.

Now coming back, I feared that the weekend is going to be dreadful. But lucky for me, it was not that bad. In fact I should say that I had a nice time some good experiences. Friday night was frantic, and I was busy calling any and all of my friends in Bangalore. It was surprising that none of them were in Bangalore, and for people who were in town, they had alternate plans. This was it. I had to take control.

First thing on the agenda was to fulfill the basic necessities. Now, shelter and clothing was the last concern (thank GOD!); food was the first. I went out, grabbed ‘real good chicken’, bread, milk and eggs which could get me through the entire weekend. I finished my cooking Friday night itself which left me nothing to do Saturday morning. I also had a small bottle of Bacardi and a couple of movies to keep me entertained. I decided to extent my search through the www (thanks to my friend Noufal, who incidentally had made arrangements for my transportation as well by gifting me his bike). I found an old friend of mine Arun (pakkaran) who is in Colombo on the net. The chat went on for an hour or so. It was time for lunch now, and with my deliciously prepared chicken and newly cooked rice, I had a nice time watching the movies. I composed my previous article on ‘five point someone’ that afternoon. The evening was spent at Alliance Francaise de Bangalore with a painting exhibition and theater festival. The play ‘Dancing on Glass’ was staged which showed the life of a Software Engineer and a girl who works in a Call Center. It was well crafted and the actors deserved appreciation. Moving forward to Sunday, I had my usual visit to church at 10. The Bangalore electricity department showed their blessing on my solitude as they decided to bunk the power supply for the entire day. So I was left with not much of options than to fiddle with the guitar (which incidentally again belongs to noufal.) Guru called to check on me, which was very considerate of him and we spoke for more than an hour and this was my first verbal conversation after Friday night! By five I went for a book exhibition at Institute of Engineers. I had an invitation from a friend of mine, Mohanettan, for dinner, which had to be postponed to Monday due to heavy rains. Oh yes, the rain was awesome and gave me a wonderful time near M.G. Road, where I was stuck for over an hour! I was waiting there under a tree when two “professional ladies” came near and offered a wonderful night. Was it the impulse or fear, the next second I found myself on the other side of the road in the Ullas Restaurant with a cup of coffee! With a wonderful dinner followed by movie sessions the weekend passed by peacefully.

My friends are back this morning and my days of solitude are over for the time being! One thing I realized is that being alone is not such a bad thing after all. It gives a lot of time to you. But the most important thing that I realized is that if one could be content and happy with oneself, as I was during the later hours in Saturday and Sunday, one could not be let down by other troubles in life. I cannot ascertain that I have overcome my fears, but I definitely know that I would be able to handle my ‘pinch of solitude’ successfully.

Me and Five Point Someone

The art of being happy is the most difficult to master. Greed, which is quintessential nature of every person, places this art at the pinnacle. This is something many people might deny, though aware. Happiness is attainable, though the level may vary from person to person and time to time. Most of us are happy but would always reach out to be happier. We all treasure the happy moments of our life. When I write this down, I am making of treasure of happiness, which is priceless and which would be cherished.

Some time back, a question was put to me. This was the day I got my first job.

“Is this the happiest day of your life?”

“Yes!”

A month later I confronted another question. Now I had got my first salary.

“Was the last month the happiest period of your life?”

“No.”

“Why? This is all you dreamt of. This is for what you had your grilling sessions at college!”

I smiled and walked away.

Two years down the lane, I picked up a book ‘Five Point Someone’ by Chetan Bhagat. I picked the book because on the cover, just below the title it was written “What not to do at IIT!” IIT was a dream destination for many of us who came into engineering. Being the person I am, I ended up at REC, Calicut; the best in Kerala. Vimal, a friend of mine from college, said the book was interesting. It was priced cheap (just Rs.95/-) so got a copy. I came back home and dropped it on my bed in my usual fashion. Roshan, who is my roommate, picked it up and by the time I came back from my usual night show sessions with Manoj he had finished the book! This was interesting and I took it the next day morning.

The next five hours was the best five hours I had in a long long time. As I started reading the book, the entire episodes of my life at REC unfolded one by one. The day I came into college for the first time, the intimidating speech from the Principal and HOD about the regulations, my first ragging sessions (though my seniors were kind and never bothered me), the first test in which I got (along with many of my classmates) a zero, all these came before me. I could feel the wave moving inside me. The three characters in the book Hari, Ryan and Alok were there in my campus, though with varying shades. The five pointers are the mediocre students that we could find in any college. They are never bad, as put forward by our heroes, they are the ones who maintain the balance! (I used to adorn the position, until when I reached the final year, when I had serious challenge to my position and was pushed up by my classmates. I ended up 2nd in class in my S8 interns!) My Profs, did not have beautiful daughter like Neha, with whom I could fall in love with, but I made a substitution with one other in the campus! Vodka parties on the top of the ‘insti’ were exactly like f-attic (the final year hostel). Tests and assignments were tackled by the unconditional ‘Cooperate to Dominate’ policy (one does and others make copies!). (Though, one incident that happened with us was that a friend photocopied an assignment and submitted it. When questioned he just answered, even if I write it would be the same thing!) I guess because Ryan did not play any instrument or IIT did not have a band, it was never mentioned in the book.

The book made me realize that my days at college were the best in my life. All that I ever did there is so much missed in my life. The author has done a superb job by narrating the life at college. I could feel myself in every frame of the story. Chetan presented me with happiness which would be cherished for ever.

Now that I am happy, the greed in me urges to be happier by going back to college!:-)

Sanity

It is a common belief that sanity is the common denominator of a normal society. The attributes conferred to being sane are defined as the natural delimiters of social behavior. In this context an ‘option list’ is presented before any one who choose to be social, from which he could possibly opt those attributes with which he identifies himself the most. On a progressive scale, this starts from being a kid and would take him through his entire life, or may be till a stage in life where one finds himself above any and all of these confinements.

Most of us could see these pictures if they have the courage to make a time travel. My folks wanted me to pick just one chocolate at a party I attended when I was two. Then I was asked not to make shabby noise when in a crowd, had to keep time tables to study mathematics and history when I liked literature, had to do engineering when I preferred arts. I was told that I could not share a friendship with the some kids in my block, not to speak to my closest girlfriend for more than 10 minutes at a stretch, and the day I went out with her for lunch was a disaster. Once a grown up, these restrictions may not be imposed on by others, it would be self imposed. I might decide that I would just have a single plate of chicken at the buffet, or just limit to the first drink I take; and now with my wife and kids special care should be taken when dealing with ladies! :-)

I don’t wish to imply that this is/was the same with every person. But in one way or the other each one of us has had restrictions imposed on us. I even do not wish to say that all of the restrictions were bad. I just wanted to make a note that some of the restrictions make no sense under many circumstances.

One may not need any ESP to understand that this opinion would be criticized to a large extent and that many arguments may come against it. I would say that all of it could be explained by the attribute, ‘hypocrisy’. I have heard most of us say out loud that ‘one of the most cherished things in my life is the time I spend with myself.’ This statement could be rephrased as ‘I prefer my loneliness’. What I always felt is that loneliness is the most feared state of life by any person. I know a person who commented, “I’d rather die than be alone”. Another who would not dare to ogle a women or speak to one freely but dreams of sleeping with every good looking lady he ever saw, and many who say, “Work or no work, I need my breaks and vacations” and would spend night outs completing the next project.

Now coming back to the question of sanity, the fundamental definition of being insane is to act or behave in a way different from the majority of the crowd. Have you ever noticed that usually we also cross the fine line between being sane and insane? But we own a mind which would prudently return us to our original state and this ability of ours is what I call being sane.

We need one another to lead a healthy life. What is important is that we culture an ability to accept others as they are within ourselves. This would give us the ability to visualize an issue in many different perspectives which would help us identify the different attributes of our behavior. Once we get this figured out, the world would be a lot better to live in.

“Know yourself to live better.”:-)