Life is a full Circle.

I guess we use this phrase,quite often to express our dissatisfaction from life.I too have done so many a times during moments of despair and frustration. For the majority of people this is more like a cliche.But there are a few who have been hit so hard by troughs of life that they kind of start identifying with this phrase. I heard the phrase from two such people yesterday. One a successful IIM grad ,well placed in corporate life,but pissed off with the rat race and another an old friend coming to terms with the agony of a break off. Though the later didn't use the exact phrase but she meant something very similar.

My heart goes out to both of them,especially the later one as I care for the immense talent and skills this lady has and all that is going to waste.I also feel sad for them because they are my friends.I don't write my posts with the expectation of someone reading it. I get pleasure in gathering my thoughts this way.But for a change i wish that the two concerned persons above should read this one and if at all i can make some difference to how they think.

Since both these morons are hell bent on the life being a circle. Let me talk about some circles in life. I believe to keep things simple and uncomplicated. For me life is all about two circles. One the Circle of Influence and another the Circle of Concern. These are the two concentric circles and with the circle of concern encapsulating the circle of influence. The circle of concern is the set of all problems ,dilemmas , challenges that we face in life.All the reasons of pain and despair resides here. On the other hand the circle of Influence deals with the sub set of all the above mentioned causes to which we can directly make an impact or issues on which we have our direct control.

I wish the people understand this that all of us will be better served if we try to ignore the existence of the circle of Concern and put all their effort to resolve all the issues that are there in our cirlce of Influence. Also i believe that in order to get things going in the circle of influence, we have to look forward to a fresh ,happy and healthy life without any baggages of past.

I am neither an atheist nor a great believer in religion,but i always believe that to be born as human beings is the greatest gift God has given to us and biggest homage paid to him would be to live the life he has given to the fullest.

Sometimes we stretch things beyond rationale and blame the almighty for all our miseries. If not that then we surrender infront of the challenges life and put up an excuse that may be this is what he wanted. Let me assure you , all of us are equal children of his. He has no role to play in neither our success nor failures. He has given us a level playing field and its upto us on how we charter our course ahead.

I would like to end with one incident that is quintessential of the essence of life that i am talking about. Arthur Ashe was in his death bed, and millions of countrymen used to pray for his well being.He used to receive thousands of mails everyday.

One such letter from a young girl said " Why of all did God had to choose you (suffer from Aids)". Below is Arthur Ashe's reply to this.( i am not sure of the figures he gave, i read this piece long time back)

There are arround 50000 people in USA.

Out of which 5000 are kids who play tennis.

Of which 500 play professional tennis.

Of which 50 play at a GrandSlam of which 4 reach the semi-final, 2 the final and

1 is the winner.

So when i was at the centre court holding the winners trophy in hand , i never asked God why me? So why should i ask now.

Hope

I checked up the Oxford dictionary and the word " hope" has the following meanings.

1) To wish for something with expectation of its fulfillment.

2) To look forward to with confidence or expectation.

I go more with the second one. The questions is that if hope is to look forward with confidence and expectation then can i say i hope for a better future of India. Both confidence and expectations about any phenomenon or process comes from how the thing under question has performed during your interaction with it. As a software engineer i have confidence and expectations from a system if it has a good response time, it gives correct results and it is robust.

But here we are talking about a far more intangible thing ,that is our country. It is very difficult to quantify parameters when u talk about things like nation ,character etc.

I am trying to make an assessment of India as a nation based on a few incidents that i had while dealing with my fellow country men. There are so many incidents in 24 years of my life , but these are the few that will always be in mind.

The first one dates around five years back, i remember its was the same morning when the WTC crashed, well i had a bigger disaster in my life the same day as my father passed away at the Calcutta medical college. Well, this was all at the back of 6 months of illness and 3 weeks of coma. Till today i have not been able to understand the dichotomy in my thoughts after i heard the news that day. At one hand there was a great sense of relief that he got relief from all the pains but again at the other hand there was this deep grief of losing some one close. With all these dilemmas in mind i reached the hospital where loads of my relatives had already gathered. I didn't have to bother about anything as elders took over all the arrangements.

Suddenly i was escorted to the hospital office because i had to do some paper work to get my dad's death body released. All this while i was in a kind of awe or shock blindly following what i was asked to do. I vaguely remember the officer or chaprasi there was a middle aged gentleman in his mid thirties . He asked me some stupid and weird questions and i kept on replying patiently to all of them. Under normal circumstances i would have blasted him out but the time and situation demanded me to keep quite. At the end of all these he said that he is not satisfied with my identity and so couldn't release my dad's body.

Well , enter my uncle , took me out of the room , then went inside and i could see both of them coming out of room in 5 mins laughing. I guessed that my uncle had to bribe that man. Any things got sorted and rest followed.

The incident left a deep impact on me. Not that i was too worked up seeing someone accepting such favors or so, its just because the time and the situation. Here was a boy who was 19 and lost his father and her was a man who was 38 and taking advantage of the situation and making money for something which he is paid to do.

My second such experience is slightly less serious than the first one and is a bit hilarious also.

This is also a recent one. This time i was on the wrong side of WB police. I was summoned to the Police station as a part of the routine police verification for getting my Indian Passport.

I had previously had a verification just out of school when i was about to join the National Defense Academy. At that time i was under the strict instruction of my parents that if the DIO is asking anything weird then just hand over two 100 Rs note and say "Sir apnake Mishti khete dilam" (which in bengali means Sir this is to buy sweets for u). This time since i was working and more independent i decided to be a bit more adventurous. But as they say listen to what your parents say , i didn't and so had a incomplete report sent by the DIO.

Somehow i took this as a challenge, there were many who suggested me that "yaar panchso rupaiye ke liye kya kar raha hain ",meaning why are you so bothered about 500 bucks ( i forgot mentioning in five years their rate had increased from 200 to 500), but i said to myself that i would see to the end of it. After all i was trying to get a document that only proves that i am a citizen of India. I kept going round the offices for 6 months and one fine day i found one DIG of calcutta police who happened to be one of my classmates uncle..... He listened to all my stories, expressed his sympathies told that he will make a call and then my passport will be done in minutes. I was really happy ,but my happiness was cut short when he also told me in a tone of elderly advice ,why did you go through all the mess after all its just 500 bucks.

Somehow for a moment i felt all my spirits dampened, i mean here was DIG who was saying such a thing. I immediately went to the DIB office next day , paid 500 bucks and got my passport in had within seven days...

When i think of the above to incidents and many more like this i find that i am in the same boat as many other of my countrymen. It makes me very weak and insecure about the future of my nation. I makes a mockery of my definition of hope for India.

So i close my eyes and look for some peace.... and then i see the smiling face of this dark, athletic ,big mustached guy in his lungi rowing his boat. I remember we had gone in a big group to the Poowar backwaters in the Kerala. It was a hot afternoon and the sun was scorching. We saw this guy drained in sweat rowing his boat in the backwaters. He was a fisherman i guess. I can assure you handrowing a boat is a very difficult job ( have tried it once or twice). I think this guy was busy in his work and didn't pay any attention to us. Some of the ladies in our group requested him to take them for a small ride across. We warned them that he would ask for a hefty amount at the end. To our surprise he didn't ask for any. We thought this one was a big game player. He then took turns and took most of us for a ride. We were sure now that he would ask for something now. Infact we were also keen to give some to the guy,after he had been good to us. But as it turned out he didn't ask for any and even declined to accept the unsolicited amount that we offered. I can assure you we did offer a big amount , much bigger that what i had to pay the police officer. He didn't know hindi, so he didn't speak much except kept smiling.

We waived him good bye and he kept smiling.

I still remember the smiling face. Whenever i am down or whenever i feel let down by something i remember that face and i feel a kind of calm inside. The point is not that he didn't accept the money, the point is that in days when we software engineers don't even take calls from our residence whenever there is a slight load of work ,this guy who was quite less fortunate and less priviledged than us took immense pleasure in giving us some joy even in the midst of his own work.

When i think of all the three incidents together i get even more confused. I mean what is hope ??? Is there hope??

Then i look at the third dictionary meaning of the word "Hope" and i find my answers.

Its says "The theological virtue defined as the desire and search for a future good, difficult but not impossible to attain with God's help. "

All it means is that there are millions of bad things around but our hope lies in the search for the few good things that we have and taking them forward.