2013: #55wordstory Themes: Week 1

Theme: Illusion

He woke up with a startle.

Was this a nightmare? Or was this real?

Was he really lying on the hospital bed? Or was that also part of a dream that he was still having?

What was reality and what was an illusion was something he had to decipher.

The hash brownies had played their trick.

Theme: Passion

For ten years, she went to the beach every day. She felt the waves talk to her and come close to her, sometimes touching and caressing her body and sometimes teasing and going away. This was pure passion.

She stopped going to the beach, the day she realized that these waves will always go back.

Theme: Children

The first raindrop was enough to send us into a frenzy. Rushing out with our paper boats, ready to jump into puddles without a care about the world. No stress of daily rigmarole nor the rigour of the daily grind. Free spirit and a clean and creative mind.

Childhood was a great stage of life.

Theme: Sand

Ranbir was born with a silver spoon. All his wishes got fulfilled, making him believe that owning everything was his birth right.

When he started dating Radhika, he started getting possessive about her, which suffocated her.

He did not realize that a relationship is like sand – tighter the grip, sooner it goes out of hand. 

Theme: Dust

It was brought home with great fanfare. The entire neighborhood came to congratulate us. Soon, it became an integral part of our lives, with all events happening around it. It was witness to our joy and sorrow over the years.

Today, the black and white TV is gathering dust with no-one willing to buy it.

Theme: Invent

Churning out stories from thin air!

Creating something on a page, where nothing existed moments ago. With every word, a chain is formed. A series of such chains is what leads to a creation. Sometimes the word limit of 55 keeps the chain small. But, if this is not an invention, then what is?

Theme: People

There were hundreds of them. All had come together to show their humane side. Each of them believed that they were a good human being. As soon as they entered the alley, they were greeted with a row of mirrors. Not a single reflection of people. Each mirror reflected a beast, their inner evil! 

Impatient India – Is it a boon for the Future?

I might be the nth person writing a blog on the gruesome incident that shook the country a few weeks back. There have been numerous articles, blogs, debates that have come up since the day of the incident, with each one of them giving their own view point on the incident, the punishment that needs to be given, safety of women and many such topics surrounding the incident. 

I do not want to be another one commenting on all of this. I want to take the incident and the reaction of the youth after that to talk about the psyche of the youth today and the rationale behind such a reaction. 

To understand this we need to go back in time, at least two to three decades back. We had been independent for about 30 years or so and were taking small steps in coming on our own after being ruled for centuries. Modernization was happening at a very slow pace and aspiration was taking wings for the middle class slowly but surely. 

Everything that one desired had a certain waiting period. If you wanted a scooter, you would have to book it and wait for six months; waiting for a car was much longer. Getting a telephone line at home was an occasion of celebration as one got that after months of waiting with their name in the booking list. One had to save for years before thinking of buying a property and saving for the future/for the rainy days was the philosophy that was prevailing in the country. 

People were so used to waiting that things as simple as speaking to a relative in a different city would mean booking a trunk call a few hours in advance and then being able to connect to them if you were lucky. There was only one channel Doordarshan in the country and one had to wait for a Sunday morning for an episode of Mahabharat or a Wednesday evening for Chitrahaar. News had a certain sanctity and the elders of the house would gather around the TV at 8 pm to watch the news, which would come only twice in a day. 

With all of this, people were patient and willing to wait for the smallest of things. 

Then came the 1991 Liberalisation phase, which was brought in by our current Prime Minister – Manmohan Singh. This changed the face of the Indian economy and put the country on a fast paced pedestal. Cable TV invaded our homes with a plethora of options. You could watch something or the other at any given point of time, day or night. Credit cards and easy EMIs made life easier with the philosophy changing to ‘Why wait when you can do/buy something now. We can pay it off over the years.’ Cars and homes were available without waiting. The buyers for these item started getting younger. 

Mobile telephony and Internet penetrated Indian homes at thrice the speed of TV penetration. You wanted to speak to someone, just pick the phone and dial and voila, the other person is there on the other side. Then came the phenomenon of Social Networking, making the entire world a global village. You did not have to wait any longer to share your feelings with the world. The moment you feel it is the moment you share it. You could talk to anyone anywhere in the world Live without having to bother about time zones. 

What all of this meant was that the generation that was born in the '90s and thereafter had never understood the meaning of waiting. They got what they wanted immediately. Impatience was a personality trait for this generation and it was this impatience that led to the occurrence of the entire country coming together, demanding for quick action. Unfortunately, our politicians belong to the era of waiting and they did not realize that statements like “We are looking into the matter”, “We will take action”, “This shall be taken care of”, “Dekthe hain. Kucch karenge” would not cut ice with a generation that wants results now. 

It is this impatience of today’s youth, which could possibly be the game changer for our nation and if this impatience is recognized by our politicians quickly, it will help in forming a better nation. 

Disclaimer: I see this impatience amongst the youth as a virtue rather than vice and I believe that it is this which will help us to dream big, achieve big and make the nation a better place in times to come.

2013: No Resolutions. Just Follow the Es

Another year has come to an end. The lesser said of the year that has gone by, the better it is. 

Once again, we have stepped onto the pedestal of the first day, which will be the harbinger for the rest of the 364 days that lie ahead. We will once again have to start with a clean slate. 

As humans, the eternal optimists that we are, once again there will be New Year Resolutions that will be formed all around, only to wither with the passage of time. The biggest flaw in a Resolution is that it usually gets broken because there is a leash or a constraint of not doing something and as soon as you do that, the Resolution dissolves in thin air. 

I realized this last year itself and committed to not putting Resolutions in place but rather going for something that does not have the fear of getting broken. I flipped the whole concept of a Resolution into something where the more I do something the more I gain rather than constraining myself from doing something. 

I devised a model for myself, which I call the ‘E Model’ as everything that I would like to do in a year can be easily encapsulated in this model. This is a dynamic model and keeps evolving every year, basis my needs. (Did you also notice the use of E words in the last two sentences…just to warm you guys to the E Model that is going to be explained J ) 

Following are the key points of the E Model for 2013 for me: 

1. Extraction: To learn something new, it is critical to extract maximum possible from various sources. 2013 will also be a year of reading, learning and evolving. Extraction is not only about external sources but also about me. This means writing and blogging much more. 

2. Exploration: According to me, one is truly not living a complete life if one is not travelling. I would also like to make 2013 a year of exploration just like 2012, which would mean seeing a few new places either in India or outside. 

3. Experience: What is the point of ending another year with the same and mundane things that you have done before. This is all about coming out of the comfort zone and trying out new experiences of life. It could be a new adventure, a new skill, a new course. As long as it is something I have not done before, it will go as part of the experience. 

4. Entertainment: There is no dearth on the plethora of options that exist out there. What this also means that there are so many movies/shows/songs/music videos that I still have to see, not to forget the ones that will release during the course of the year. 

5. Expansion: This is the new E that I am adding over the four that I had put in place last year. Expansion is all about stretching the borders and boundaries of friendship/relationships/networks. The intention is to strengthen the bonds with the existing set of people in my life, renew some weak ties and also meet new people and form new bonds. Personally, this will be one of the most difficult as well as interesting E that I will venture into and it would be a test and challenge for myself. 

If you go through all the 5 Es, you will realize that they are strongly interlinked and there are chances that while I am following one E, the other is also getting achieved. So if I travel to a new country and indulge in some bungee jumping, it would allow me to explore as well as experience. 

Such a thought makes me find this model extremely interesting and engaging. To add to that, I do not have to bother about it getting broken as this stays valid till the last day of the year. 

The success of these Es would also entail a few other Es though – Execution and Expenditure. Any wrong estimation on one of the two, would lead to not achieving what I set out to do. 

To keep myself on target, I am also putting in place a few quantifiable and measurable targets as part of these Es, so that I can monitor myself as I go along. 

I would conclude by saying “Let’s do Eeet!”