Recent past, present and future.

It’s been a long time since I wrote my last post. Past couple of weeks have been quite hectic and consuming. Being a Govind Bhawan inmate is almost unlucky. I had to change my room because the supervisor discovered that my friends and I had exchanged our rooms. Although I came out unscathed, two of my friends had to bear the brunt of his sadistic nature. Not that exchanging rooms unofficially is a violation of any rule, but vocalizing our grudges wouldn’t have pleased the warden and we thought it better to not get into any trouble with him.

After room affairs and registration were over, the bromidic classes began. Evenings were spent playing tennis and in endless bakar with friends discussing who did what in summers and what were everybody’s plans for the semester. Three, including me, could find only one way to keep ourselves “really” busy and that was by preparing for CAT. Yes, I admit, the same beaten track. First JEE, then CAT. Now although among the three of us I have the least chances of making it to the coveted IIMs, it will kill me if I don’t prepare while others are busy with the same. So we went to Career Launcher’s orientation session and a demo class. It was good. Then we went to TIME for the same. It was good, too. But the fact remains that in Roorkee CL has been faring better. Moreover a senior who made it to IIMA last year recommended CL to me. So it’s CL finally. Let’s see how things unfold in the coming months and whether I am able to handle the pressure or not. The silver lining is that we have quite a light schedule of classes at college this semester, although I dread that the excruciating Machine Drawing practical classes may make up for it.

Meanwhile I finished reading Thomas Hardy’s Return of The Native. Interesting story and mesmerizing style of writing kept me glued to it. Now I am reading The Motorcycle Diaries by Che Guevara. I was also able to lay my hands on a senior’s big collection of movies and since then I have been watching almost a movie a day. I saw The Raging Bull, Finding Neverland, Kungfu Hustle, and Vicky Cristina Barcelona. Except the third one, all are “a must watch”.

So that’s how it has all been lately. Unlike my previous posts, this post has rather turned out to be like a diary entry. May be it’s the efficaciousness of the book that I am reading.

And there She was!!!

The day had arrived. She was coming today. His mind was blank. His lips were sealed and he couldn’t utter a word. Words had failed him today. The moment was indeed very special. He had waited for this moment three whole years. Not a day had passed when her thought didn’t pass his mind and not a night when he didn’t embrace her in his dreams. How he lusted for those curves of her! Mere words couldn’t explain it. He craved to feel her body with his own hands. He wanted to touch her everywhere and slide her hands to that large back of her which had his jaw dropped when he had caught the first glimpse of her three years ago. He would possess her now.

He vividly remembered the day. Just like other people who saw her for the first time he too was awestruck. Her beauty and elegance could seduce anyone. She was a magnate. That day he wasn’t able to take his eyes off her and had stood there for long. She did not notice him. She was the one people craved for. It was that day he had realized what was missing in his life. He had decided then and there that someday he would have her and then he would never let her go. And today the moment had arrived.

A sea of emotions rose and fell inside him as her figure drew closer. He found himself struggling with his thoughts. It was all he had longed for and then too he was more restless than ever. And then she arrived. He remained motionless for a moment. The time had stopped. The thought that one day he would be inside her and ride her had kept him excited enough for three years. It was his day today.

The driver came out of the car and handed him over the keys. “Congratulations Sir, for your new car.” He said.

When God Vanished...

When I was very small I used to enjoy watching Ramayana and Mahabharata on TV. I believed that the people showed in those programs really existed and nothing could shake my faith. God for me had the image of a virtuous man who lived by sound principles and killed the nefarious persons. I actually believed that during their battles the God and the Devil shot their arrows at each other which collided mid-air and although both vanished there itself, God’s lasted longer than devil’s. After a series of such shots, a special arrow shot by God would wreak havoc and finally the devil would take his last breath.
As I grew a little older, I started disbelieving. But why? Here’s the story.
When for the first time I picked up my 9th grade physics textbook, the world seemed an entirely different place. Many incomprehensible things seemed to be more comprehensible than ever. Everything around me seemed to follow a law. I was the happiest person in the world when during the lectures while my classmates grappled with teacher’s questions, I didn’t have to think twice what the right answers were. But I felt sorry when I saw others not being able to discern the beauty of nature that was so manifest in the subject and instead complain about it being tough and complex. Days passed and turned into months. With half the session still to come, I was already over with the physics and chemistry syllabus. I dreaded biology. It ran my blood cold. Mathematics I enjoyed. It seemed to me some obvious facts arranged in the form of symbols.
Months passed into years and I learned more. Newspapers to me were now more than just how many 4s and 6s Sachin Tendulkar scored in the last match or what movie was Aamir Khan doing next. I learned that the parliament, its members, the elections, the president, the army and the wars, the economy, GDP etc. featured not just in the Social Science textbooks. There was some real stuff going on out there.
Meanwhile I woke up to a new consciousness in the form of MTV, Discovery and National Geographic. While I loved these, I couldn’t stand the sight of the daily soaps my mother watched (she still watches them, whereas I have started hating MTV). And then like a storm came the Internet. It brought with it Google and I found a window to the world. Google introduced me to Wikipedia and I realised that there was nothing that I could not know. In all these years I graduated from school and got into college.
And suddenly as if a thunder had struck me, I asked myself if there was any God. Even with all my knowledge and resources to gain more of it, there was no way I could answer this question.
I had come to know in all these years how man controls everything around him, how his actions bring him consequences. And so whenever I saw a person bowing to an idol or murmuring a prayer I felt uneasy. He seemed to me to be superstitious. The tales that I believed so ardently in my childhood seemed to me to be mere tales now. Nowhere around me could I see God. He had vanished into thin air. The question whether God had created man or man had created God stared starkly at me. And I couldn’t ask anyone for an answer. My professor couldn’t teach me. I couldn’t Google for it. There was nothing on Discovery channel that answered my question.
Eventually after a lot of contemplation, I concluded perhaps, it was the other way round. Man had created God, for if he hadn’t, man wouldn’t have remained man. He would have considered nothing other than his own well being and he would have gone to any extent to satisfy his desires. Someone had to be there who man feared and acknowledged as the most powerful of all.
Although I have a feeling that there’s no God, I can’t convince myself. Somewhere deep inside me, I feel blasphemous. I feel as if not acknowledging him would bring me misery and pain. Nevertheless I believe firmly that bowing to him doesn’t please him if you are not kind to others. If you join hands and pray in a temple and while returning home break the traffic rules, all your prayers go in vain. If you spit in public, damage public property, hurt someone’s feelings, there’s no use asking God for help with your problems.
O my God, why do I end up preaching something or other in my posts?