Bye Bye Gulati.. !!

A rather unusual independence day today. A day when i finally had the misfortune of seeing a funeral pyre.
The place puts death in a very practical perspective. Outside you see the wall sculpture of 'yamraj' on his buffalo. Inside you can feel him. I saw uncle and aunty when i entered, and I could think of hundred words to say to console them, make them feel better, let them know I care. But at the moment all of them seemed insufficient .
I hated the pandit for the efficiency he went about with. I wanted him to slow down. I wanted him to give us time to say our last prayers. But he was practical as well. He new the mourning would not stop even if he gave time. So, he went on like an expert... making arrangements so that the fire was lit... and stayed lit
And thats how Death is as well. A practical reality. A state of existence which though statistically less probable, comes for all of us. It just makes me value life so much more. And be thankful for a lot i've taken for granted.
Goodbye Gaurav! Today we've given your elements back to nature... thanking each Carbon atom for the structure it once helped build. Now you do us a favor.. fight the odds once again and come back soon
Take care and God bless!

Gaurav Gulati (1983 -2006) 431/ICE/2001

The gravity of death doesn't hit you till its someone really close. Sure I've read about the thousands dying in Lebanon, and I've heard about people dying in accidents and in floods. But nothing shocked me like the news about Gulati. 
  I can see him when i close my eyes. His lank figure, his long canines, his plain formal shirts and his round naughty eyes behind his photochromatic glasses. Enthusiastic in all his endeavours from Coding to Cat. From talking to night outs. He was a sport,  great listener and an intelligent talker. 
  I am still unsure how to react. Gulli if you can hear me buddy.. take good care of yourself mate!! And I wish God would give your family strength to overcome this grief. May you soul rest in peace. You may have gone physically but in our hearts you'd live forever! FULLY!

Life is like that...

"I don't know how it is? I don't get what I like or i like what i do not get. "

All of us end up yearning for what we can't have. Please note I don't mean we don't get what we want. The two are different.

If you can somehow accept the above fact, so many things suddenly make more sense. You may argue and say "why would someone yearn for something he already has?' and thats where you misinterpret my point. Ofcourse no smartass would yearn for something he already has. I , on the other hand, am trying to state that the fundamental reason for wanting things often becomes their non-availability

Why else would a man yearn for a female's boobs? Thats the question that started this string of thought which has now ended in this path-finding insight into human existence. And there is no answer. No other species (unless Discovery and NatGeo channels choose not to show it) shows the same obsession for the female mammary glands. Its just men. We are like.. hide it from us and we'd like to see it.

It explains so many other points. Why we like intelligent girls (okay okay... i mean why we like voluptuous blondes)? Why do we yearn for money? Why we end up doing crazier things like climbing up everest, running 100 metres in 4 seconds, and such stuff. Its beautifully explained.. principle of demand a supply. Make the resource scarce and its demand will spike.

It explains why eternal love is the one that is never fulfilled. Thats because not getting what you want keeps you wanting it. Does it now make sense that in most of our love stories.. romeo and juliette, laila and majnu etc etc, the hero never gets the heroine. I am sure if they had met and not died, the pressure of living upto their hyped up love affair would have made them have miserable lives.

But this law is incomplete. It is equally difficult to get the first or the last rank in the race. Still, the first rank is coveted by all and last by none. Here I guess the law needs a slight ammendment. Okay here is the complete version:

All of us end up yearning for what we can't have easily!

Thats it!! If you make it difficult enought to get but not difficult enought to chase.. i will chase it

Reasonable?

What stops us from asking for what we want? I mean, if you think of it, all of us are creatures of desires and yet something stops us from asking for things we really want. 
Today in the morning as i walked to catch my bus i saw kids boarding their school bus. And there was this brat who was crying his head off holding on to his mother while the bus conductor tried to lure him into the bus. Kids, they can get really unreasonable!! 
But was it unreasonable?? Is it unreasonable to ask for what you want? Infact i think the kid, then and there demonstrated the pinnacle of reason. Of not doing something your heart doesn't want to. The kid knows that no matter what his mother says about school and meeting friends, he would just love being home with his mother. From that age to mine.. we just go on compromising. Accepting things the way they have to be because we are not brave enough to want what we want. And we also redefine reason to mean accepting the stereotypes!! 
I wish people would follow their hearts more often. I wish people took off from offices to meet with their loved ones. I wish people would pursue their dreams and not the ones of the next person. I wish people expressed their love, even if it was not returned. I wish people were not so 'reasonable' after all.