Maaf karo, aage badho!

Pak gaya

Thak gaya

Tu jo bhi bola

... mere sar mein atak gaya!

Ever wondered why, every soul around you is interested in passing on some of their 'royal' flaws on to you. One such bit, is the urge to advise... or even take advise.

Come on, accept it - there are only some very, very few people who have this skill and right to be entertained. Contrary to the popular line, if you've never used your own or worse still end up using only your own, you deserve to hear nothing but '...Shoo...' in varying tones of politeness (or a complete lack of it).

When you give 'advice', you just add vice to another soul. The vice of not having a spine.

Now, I strongly believe, 'consulting' is not 'advising'. When you consult/or are consulted, you impart 'information'... as in D-I-K-W (Data-Information-Knowledge-Wisdom *ting*)

Listen... Listen...Listen to the question.

Understand... or at least 'seek' to understand ONLY the question.

Clarify... not sets of morality statements, not faith, not intention... but the question.

And finally, Answer the question in question, and not your inner urge to feel like the law maker.

Have a spine? No?

You can't go get one... you gotta make your own.

Good luck.

The force within

As usual... the title is misleading.

There's a force within that is born before birth.
And that is the feeling of existence.
A cousin of your ego.

The force that strives for acknowledgment. It is something that grows with all the love and care, or flickers for a lack of it. The feeling when your name is called, and a 1 yr old you knows that it is YOU that is being summoned. The ego of a name being used in any human context is born, surrounded by what the YOU prefers, or is allowed to choose from.

A pitiful dependence and a life long abuse story begins.
The death of your ego is beginning of love, and it never truly happens. The fear of losing your identity, when you look at life through someone else's eyes. The stark variance and common dysfunctions, are truly what brings you together.
Do you really fall in love when you like someone because they are as powerful as you?
Or more likely to, when he is as withdrawn from crowds as you are?

You break free mostly when benefits are at stake (!). Not forever.
The Ego needs a focus in its own way; an unshared attention from you such that it becomes you.

But then the Ego is as young as you...
So if I am almost 30, and I think back... what do I remember of my dad's LIC agent who came visiting his best friend every 3rd Sunday to bitch about the new policies and a great weekend breakfast. He called you last to say you're old enough to get bloody married! You said 'Ok, uncle'... but that was 4 years ago.

Of the sad 40 yr old neighbour caught in a troubled marriage who came to talk to your dad because he had no one else. You slapped his son last Saturday - a much older boy because he was bullying the new kid in the colony. You don't hate him now cause he married a lovely fat girl and loves her like crazy.

Of the lonely madman at the signal you saw growing older and lonelier over 8 years of your rides to school. And finally one day, you saw a crowd around some blood and gore, and two twisted feet. It was a mad Tuesday morning under a hot, humid sun.

Of the local sweet shop, the gluttonous old uncle who owned the shop and loved to pamper little girls. Hi granddaughter was as young as you, when she died of pleurisy last year.

Of the many birthday parties, year on year, till some of your neighbors moved away and then it was time for you.

Your first 'best friend' (or so you were told), who had other best friends too.

The first time a teacher in middle school, said "..you think very differently." And that seemed to answer all your baffling questions at once. So why did you hate it when you faced isolation in a crowd for the first time?! The first 'ting' of enlightenment, indeed.
The odd feeling of a routine, till you're allowed to break free. And they gave it a funny term, on tops - "come of age" - whoa!

Feeling older by the day, a little wiser, more befuddled than ever.

The importance of buying a candle during summers (in case the electricity goes off), instead of a quick call to your best friend from school boarding her flight to NYC, forever. You'd always be in touch!
The first dash of wise willingness to let go of the urge to make an episode of such things.
You teach yourself that life goes on.

You almost forget that lesson, when you meet a guy at work, who loves hanging out with you and is a great beer buddy. He has 2 great kids now and you still pull his leg for how pretty and different they are from him...

You exist because you feel because you have a force within you, that will never just let you be.

Mankind !
You love spaces, don't you? Vast... like possibilities. And more possibilities. Like a sea of inviting progression...
Infinite yet imaginable... and the 'beyond'.

But spaces - Can they really scare you? Like the vastness of deserts, for a marooned soul. Like a punishment, something you'd have to baggage. And it smells like deadwood.