मसण्या उद

उदमांजर नावाचा एक प्राणी आहे. त्याला मसण्या उद असंही म्हणतात. कारण तो स्मशानात जाऊन पुरलेली प्रेतं उकरतो. माणसांत सुद्धा मसण्या उद असतात. प्रेतं उकरण्यातच त्यांना रस असतो. भोवताली असण्या-या असंख्य सजीव आणि चैतन्यमयी गोष्टी सोडून ते स्मशान धुंडाळत फिरत असतात.

अण्णा हजारे आंदोलनाला बसले आणि काही दुर्लक्षीत प्राण्यांना चर्चेत येण्याची संधी दिसली. राष्ट्रीय पातळीच्या वृत्तपत्रांपासून गावपातळीच्या स्वत:ला प्रसारमाध्यम समजणा-या हँडबिलांपर्यंत सर्वाना आपली अक्कल पाजळण्याची आठवण झाली. अरुंधती रॉय पासून गल्लीच्या कोप-यावर बसणा-या रिकामटेकड्यापर्यंत सगळ्या बेरोजगारांना अचानक सुवर्णसंधी दिसायला लागली.

या लोकांची एक सवय असते. यांच्या समोर काहीही टाकले तरी हे खायला तयार असतात. मात्र, खाण्या आधी हे लोक भोकं शोधत राहतात. अर्थात, भारत नावाच्या "जो जे वांछील, तो ते लाहो" या तत्वानुसार चालणा-या देशात त्यांना भोकं मिळतातही. वारा कसाही वाहत असो, आकाशाच्या रंग कसाही असो, उन असो वा पाऊस, थंडी असो वा गरमी, या लोकांना सतत काही तरी टोचत असतं. कोणी काही करायला निघाला की जीवाची बाजी लावून मध्ये बोटं टाकणारी ही मंडळी एरवी एक बोटही हलवायला तयार नसतात.

काय चुकलं हे सांगण्यात सगळ्यात पुढे असणारे हे लोक. पण काय करायला हवं हे विचारलं, की काही तरी गुळमुळीत बोलून सुटणार. यांचे घोडे नेहमी वरातीमागुनच धावतात. चौ-याहत्तर वर्षांचा म्हातारा आपल्यासाठी हे करतोय याची त्यांना लाज वाटत नाही. पण अण्णांसाठी रस्त्यावर उतरण्या-यांना मेणबत्ती संप्रदाय म्हणून हिणवण्यात यांना पुरुषार्थ वाटतो. एरवी हे लोक घरातल्या सर्वात आतल्या खोलीत डायनिंग टेबल वर बसून बायका पोरांसमोर पुढा-यांच्या ढुंगणावर फटके मारण्याच्या वल्गना करत असतात.

बोलण्यासाठी पैसा आणि अक्कल दोन्ही लागत नाही हेच खरं.

Options – Do we have enough of them?

Choices, alternatives, options. Call them by any name you want. If you live in a competitive world, you are familiar with them. And as you are reading this post, I bet you live in a competitive world.

With a little thinking, we can easily reach to a conclusion that we work mostly for having more and more choices in our lives. For us, choosing anything is not as important as having the option of choosing something else. Even if we know that the thing (or person) is precisely something we want, we don’t go for it unless we have some other options to choose from.

This looks very natural when we keep a way out. Something to fall back on. Or “Plan B”, as they call it. But do we stop there? Won’t you like to have virtually unlimited options in every field of your life? Even nowadays, this seems to have become the catch line of many advertisements. All the companies want to provide their customers maximum possible number of choices. “Now choose from 99 colors”, “Pick your favorite from thousands of designs” and so on.

But how good it is? In my opinion, having choices kills your creativity, focus, determination, stamina, and most importantly – your killer instinct. When you are obsessed with having more options, you get diverted from doing what you wanted to do with your most preferred option. When having an option to retire, less people choose to work. When having an option to lose, most people won’t go for that last winning punch.

Too many options make you too comfortable for living a good life. And yet, they don’t seem to be enough. Life is not about what set of choices you have, but it is about what you choose from it.

Self help books - they just don’t help.

Self help books - they just don’t help.

Yes, accept it. And no, you cannot win.

The heroes of all the stories you read in such books never read such books.

You cannot think big. You don't think at all, remember?

If you don’t have respect for your own words, how will you respect those printed in a book?

You cannot change your habits. Not even one, forget seven.

This may sound like a self-help article, but it is not.

Chicken soups are only for your taste. Tongue or mind.

Accept it. You better spend your bucks on a real soup.

Winning the Defeat

Why do we race? Why we always want to stay ahead of others? Why we want to get better grades than other students in our class? Why we want promotions and increments faster than our colleagues? If you stop and take a deep breath, you will realize how short is the life span of the fame you get by staying ahead in one lap of a race. No one remembers you longer than that lap. And no one remembers who lost the race to you. The fact is – there are too many races to remember the position holders of each of those.

Not only this, but we see that most of the people prefer to compete with the people they see or directly interact with. We conveniently forget that there are classes outside our class and there are offices outside our office. But we never bother comparing our performance with the students or colleagues. We mostly prefer to compete within a very closed group of people.

Now, the question is ‘why do we do this?’. Why such a strange behavior? Why do we get so happy when we beat the student next bench or the employee next cubicle, even when we certainly know that there is an endless stream of more bright students and more efficient employees? Why we want a better car than our neighbor? Why a better kept lawn? Why better jewelry than your kitty party fellows?

The answer lies in very narrow minded tendency of human brain. You don’t want to see yourself win as much as you want to see others to lose to you. That is why we want to compete with the people we can see or directly interact. And that is why I would like to win in rowing than in any other race, because only there I can see others losing to me.

But if you want to do better in life, get out of that pond. Winning every battle doesn’t matter, winning the war does.

Problems are to stay…

If you are reading this, I can bet that you have, at some point of your life, discussed the difference between humans and other animals. Then we come across many answers – opposable thumbs, language, sharing, laughing, greed, intelligence, rape (yes, rape! Think about it) etc. But I always feel that these answers are only partially true.

When I think about human behavior, I always wonder why a very obvious feature has always been neglected. This feature, in my opinion, has made this world as we see it. This feature has divided the animal kingdom between humans and other than humans. This feature has given us all our failures and successes. And this feature is – we, humans, always look for trouble.

Now don’t confuse this with curiosity. Monkeys and cats never ask for troubles, they are just curious. That gets them in trouble. Likewise, many animals get in trouble because of hunger or thirst. But this is not the case with humans. We get in trouble all the time because of all the reasons that animals have. Also, in addition to that, we have a natural tendency to ask for troubles.

If you look around, you will notice that humans either tend to unnecessary pile up wealth and fame, or they tend to destroy it. Both ways, they ask for more problems in their life. Only because of this tendency, we have discovered all the corners of the world and also we have terrible road accidents. Only because of this tendency we have business tycoons and also we have lives ruined with alcohol. Only because of this tendency, we like to solve puzzles and also we like to watch family dramas in typical Indian daily soaps (as if we don’t have enough to care about in our own lives and so we need to worry about the problems of billionaire families on screens).

No matter what you do, or you don’t do – all of us always want a certain amount of problems and troubles in our life. If somebody is not so bright in studies, he is already in trouble. If he is bright, then he will not study – asking for problems. If he likes studying too, then he will go for the toughest course! And we like to talk about our (or others’) problems too. If suddenly we change our attitude and decide to keep problems and troubles out of our lives with united efforts, we certainly can. But then, what will we talk about? And what will we live for? And if you think further on this line, this is the very reason why communism failed, isn’t it?

So if your life is full of problems, it only means that you are human!

The Gift

To give this topic a typical predictable start – all of us, at some point of our lives have taken and given the gifts. Different occasions, different people and different gifts. Gifts could range from a pen to a honeymoon package. From a paperweight to a house. From a movie ticket to a car. Anything.

But hey, this is not a guide about “what to gift your grand-mom at her 88th birthday”! Or not even some personal experience of mine about “how I got the most amazing gift of my life”. This is just about a place of gift in our lives.

A show-piece or a daily utensil, we always value a gift on the hands giving it to us. Surprise or not, the gifts make us excited and anxious. If you really want to know your deepest feeling about someone, recall what you hoped was there in the wrapped gift pack he or she held on your birthday.

But gifts also represent our life. Yes, they really do. Life is like giving and receiving gifts. Sometimes they are surprise gifts, sometimes expected. Big and small, costly and not so costly, even good and bad! But most importantly, life is all about opening the gifts. Once opened, no matter what’s inside, we lose  interest. It’s the process which makes results valuable.

Loving the Perfection

I see everyone is in search for perfect partners. They want him/her good-looking, fair, well-mannered, educated, intelligent, matured and so on. Often, we hear them asking for contradictory things. They want somebody sincere but fun-loving, strong but tender, matured but mischievous, tough but sensitive etcetera. I believe movies, especially Bollywood movies and Internet has played a major role in this. Because in those worlds, everything is so perfect. They look good, learn good, earn good, think good, do good and end good. We have gone to such an extreme in this mentality that the ideal human figures we imagine are almost impossible to occur naturally.

But, that is not the issue. It’s your choice what you want to chase. But have you ever thought the after effects? Have you ever thought that the perfect humans often act like machines? That they can be so predictable? That we also need faults and mistakes to love somebody? That sometimes, deficiencies and disabilities are your strongest allies?

When you start with unnecessary high degree of perfection (or with such a perfectionist) you may know in advance where you will end-up. This not only kills the fun, but also denies the unlimited possibilities. Not only professionally, but also socially. Would you like to be in a relationship with no ups and downs? Would you like to play with perfect kids who don’t scream or break stuff or jump in dirt? Perfection stops you from being adventurous or taking risks. Perfection always underperforms. We all may think that we love the stars on screens, but that’s not true. After all, accepting each other with their shortcomings is love, right?

I may not have expressed myself in fully correct way here. But hey, when did I say I am perfect?