BlissTarang

"Log aaj kal bahut jhoot bolne lagey hain" (nowadays, people lie a lot) said Kamleshji this morning and further added, "And that's the biggest challenge of our times". Kamleshji, in his mid-sixties, earns his survival by selling milk packets, door-to-door to about 300 homes. He has vivid memories from 60's onwards. And he believes that "when a society pawns truth for desires, interest rates take generations to repay, and principal is wiped out along with the culture". His statement reincarnated the year 2008 in my memories. Another corner stone of the world. Many corner offices shook up. Some even vanished. They say that the massive financial meltdown was due to holding-trading of an asset class that had a draining-drowning hole in it. But, was financial market, the place where delivery shamed the promise? No. Actually it’s much deeper. It’s called "a man's words" or "a gentleman's promise". We all...

This travels back to when I was in my sixth grade during school days. And I was so fond of collecting certificates. Blindly participating in anything called extra-curricular. The sports day was fast approaching. And I had this special preparation for sports days. Back then, I was a plump lump. And as the sports day would near, I would work extremely extremely hard in fantasizing about winning the most trophies (till date i haven't won even one). And I would suddenly pump up my intake of milk and optimism. The sports day came and sprinted past by. And I had a few participation certificates in my hand. But optimism knocked on my door again. And this time, it was an inter-school fancy dress competition just a few days away. That day, I dressed up as a statue. Some enthusiastic teachers put multani mitti (fuller's earth) all over my body and three layers of them. They even said that the remaining multani mitti would go waste anyways, so might as well stuff ...

By the time we reach the end of today, each of us will have asked approx 1000 questions. By the time we reach the end of our lives, each of us will have asked approx 25,000,000 questions . Let me begin with a small account. Well ! The sun had just begun this morning's punctual labor and was showering gentle bright hope. The wooden door received a sudden childish knock. It made me wonder, "who?" I opened the door. Our youngest neighbor (all of just year and a half) offered a curious smile and walked in. Each time he comes to our house, he is in a mood to teach. And he carries his favorite big basket of "What?". These are just set of some questions crafted in broken-unfinished sounds ...yet to take the shape of what we call as words, but enough to set deep inquiries. His questions are around "yeh kya hai?" as in "what is this?" With the use of "what", he tries to build his personal understanding of the world. An...

  Tabla, sitar, manjira and such musical instruments were painting the evening as a freshly awakened morning state. People around were becoming percussion of heightened happiness. It had already been a couple of hours of this devotional gathering, when suddenly the phone vibrated. And it felt like earth again to Mahendra, who answered the phone in a loud whisper, "I am in a satsang (Hindu devotional gathering). Can we speak later?” And he kept the phone. And somehow we have all been active subscribers of the blurred definitions of the word "urgency", notedly in the wake of mobile phones where everything seems to be urgent.  What this has also done to our Darwinian-selves is to come up with our own unique strategies to avoid calls and messages.  Mahendra too had prejudged that this wasn't any urgency (as Shankar would call everything urgent and notoriously just dial up), and so he ...

He dropped the passengers at Ghatkopar, a central suburb in Mumbai. Looked around. And could see the roads stretching-blending far away into anonymity. It was a different feeling of being alone at two in the night. And when one is sweat-fully tired, there is an amazing sense of merger one feels with everything around. Pramod turned his auto and now decided to drive straight to home. After fourteen hours of road, another hour and a half seemed a mammoth distance. After all, the distance between any two space is called time...and here the space is the mental space. And as he drove, the roads kept pitching ever growing loneliness and darkness. And then his attention froze on something. It was just a few hundred meters away. A young woman with her restless silhouette and shadow. Now he could not allow himself to drive past without knowing if she was ok. And so he made a curios halt. She appeared hassled and in great tension. Fear robs language of its confidence. She ...

  and there are some other tribes too... in a tribe called "desires", "will" is the addicted leader. in a tribe called "actions", "I" is the never-giving-up-patent holder. in a tribe called "experiences", "memory" is a clumsy record-keeper. in a tribe called "change", "self-awareness" is on a long vacation. in a tribe called "reasons", "scuba dive" is banned. in a tribe called "passion", "compassion" is given menial labor. in a tribe called "morality", "spectator sport" rules. in a tribe called "confidence", "survival" is the predator. in a tribe called "stress", "open source coded success-failure" has the highest download. and there are some other tribes too... in a tribe called "happiness", "brands" are a commodity. in a tribe called "karma", ...