Chapter 10: The aftertaste

You know what is the best part of being in a place like this. You can actually watch life from the stands. You can observe the world like you were an outsider. And I look at the world around me. I do remember a few things.

I remember the school, my mother being always worried about my exams, the friends, that used to come in a variety, some very nice, some born-bullies. I remember the love of my brother and a few friends who lasted through life. I remember daydreaming about life, about future, my first crush.

I remember when I had questions on everything under the sun,

when I couldn’t keep a novel down,

when a movie stirred the passion for something in me,

when the happy ending of the movies really mattered,

when standing up to strangers on right and wrong was the way,

when a news headline on corruption made serving the nation a purpose,

when speeches, biographies and accounts of Gandhis and Mandelas brought with them tears of passion, pride and purpose,

when a smile was enough for me to spend days in the dreams filled with her beauty and love,

when the earthly truths of life from the beggar, homeless, and household help was as important to learn;

when the smell of the wet soil after the rain could draw me out to play,

when the odour of my favourite food could draw me to the kitchen, and stealing a piece felt like a success,

when no sweet was sweet enough and the food was an end in itself

when the smell of the fresh book in the beginning of the year could keep me glued to them for days,

when the good dreams seen with open eyes was better than any Television show,

when watching strangers and wondering their story was the best part the train journeys, or when that window seat meant the world.

Where is that world? Where is that world?

Have I changed or the world around me?

Now when I look back, it seems like an aftertaste, I could hold on to.

Did your kid self do this ever?: Not have water after your favourite food, so that could keep the taste just a little longer. I wish I could too…

But, when I look around I don’t have much hope. We just say that we love data, democracy and that there is development. But, one of the most crucial step in this development is thinking, being able to distance yourself from the problem and think of a solution without any thought to the benefit that you could draw out of it.

With the Start-up culture, we are all turning opportunists, looking at every issue and thinking how can I mint money out of this. If a problem needs to be solved, really solved eventually, how can that be the genesis of a business which keeps making money out of this forever. This just means that we don’t really mean to solve the problem completely ever. We just see this as a chance to make some money.

When a politician does this, we call him an opportunist and corrupt, when an entrepreneur does it, he is a genius and visionary?

As for politicians, every politician is there for a short term, not because they want to but because of design of democracy: Advertising instead of communication and assumptions instead of informed decisions from real communication. Now the first half of the term, she spends this time in showing her gratitude to people who helped her win the election (financiers), provide her means that she didn’t have. Then the next half, she works on the short term goals, gets quick wins, some results that can be measured and can be shown. The second half can be shorter if the government is too strong. Then it would have to spend proportionately more time in making their makers happy and the public good will go further back on the priority list. When we are getting so obsessive about data, development would always be in number of kilometres of new roads built, number of new colleges started, it would never be a change in the social culture, it would never be about the unity amongst the different religions, it would never be about the growth in ambitions of kids in the villages, it would not be on cleanliness. Even if someone talks about cleanliness, like they talk about the support to the ignored parts of the society, it would be a wound they would scratch it just enough every 5 years, so that they can win again, but, the wound stays as it is. Isn’t it similar when a problem is solved through a startup? (Just replace financiers with investors)

Every startup, every politician, the parents (are investors too) and the society as a whole, we learn to just do first-aids, just treat the symptoms. . No one really wants to spend time understanding the complete problem, unless from a pure academic purpose. We have been given the moulds for the problem and standard solutions. We just want to copy and paste.

Copy and paste is really a big favourite of the education system. Nobody really, including yourself has the time to sit down and think about what you need. When you are the subject for yourself, you cannot give yourself enough thought, how can you expect the world to understand your problems. They just put into the standard basket made for everyone. But, when the corners don’t fit and you feel uncomfortable, you cannot complain, because everyone else does too. So, you better adjust! It’s with the education that stereotyping instead of understanding starts!

Nobody dares to ask if we should change the mould or make a few new baskets. That would too… too fundamental. So, we get tired with just the thought of this large monumental change that is needed, start looking at the world with pity and hopelessness. Too sure, you are that even if you said anything, no one else would hear anything. Even if they did hear, they wouldn’t understand anything. And with that bitter feeling, probably from a hole in you, you look at your basket again. You look for ways you can really can have enough to fill this hole.

But how? imagine you have a bowl with your favourite pet fish inside. You keep pouring more and more water in, but, it keeps seeping out the hole. Seeing this happen you work harder and get faster at adding water. You are getting tired, frustrated and feeling worthless as you are sure that you might never be able to save the life of this fish. You blame everyone else for not helping. I am sure you would have thought of changing the bowl in the beginning, but, given that you are human, you would have decided to just do the first aid rather than thinking of just changing the whole basket or this bowl.

The world is not hopeless, it’s just our nearsightedness which is!

But, life is about survival which means being able to add value to other’s lives in these times. Only then I am valued by the society. So, I try to become a teacher, a doctor, a start-up founder!

But, how do I help you when I don’t understand you? So, really I work hard learn to sell to you, to brain wash you that I understand you. Since, your intellect, common sense is also evolving, my chances of being able to convince you that mine is the best solution to your problem might keep changing. Since, I too, like politics, prefer stability over the constantly growing, constantly changing truth, I would work not on changing what I offer, I would work on finding better ways to convince you.

And, so rather than taking efforts to understand you, I would spend on marketing to you that my solution is the best.

So, I don’t blame you for not standing up with me, or for me, neither for not understanding me. I don’t think you cannot, I think you have not given me enough thought. And I don’t expect you to solve my problem anyway. I am alone in this, not a part of a community. If I were a large enough community, I would have had your attention, because, that would mean a larger potential market for both business and both politics.

But, then in each one trying to be unique and different, are we cutting ourselves off from our own community?

If you succeed at it, you would become me, a reject, someone who could be shifted to one of the institutions, as an irony, for people like you (meaning, people who became so different that no one really understands them!).

Once a stereotype is named, no-one really cares to try and understand them, we just label them.

A few of you would also stand up and say a few pieces of truth, you would be freed of your anger, sympathy and would forget it the next moment. You would just let yourself be used by someone for their own agenda. You would really like a few likes and a healthy controversy in the comments. Tomorrow it would be a new day for you.

I am not angry with you either. I know, you understand the problem. But, since, no one has ever attempted to solve this problem, it has become as old and formidable as possible. This makes you feel helpless. You question it and call a rally. You do a good rally: a lot of turnout, good noise and still a peaceful protest. You feel proud of yourself. But, you are no different than the politician or the startup. You really believe that the wound can never heal and you scratch it a bit every time you meet for these intellectual meet ups, marathons, and rallies.

A few of you would also put in your hard-earned money to support the cause while working full time for the business of some other cause. I don’t blame you either. Since, you couldn’t really spend time on this, you are funding other hands to work on this. But, I think, only I who sees the problem, only I who believes that it is a problem, do have a chance of arriving at the solution ever.

I am not made from the same mould as you. And you know that! What’s sad is that accepting this, you don’t even look me in the eye anymore, all because I am a stranger and you can’t say what will offend me! I know how you feel today in these times of over-stretched Individualism.

How far off the coast is my limit, imagined the young boy,

Then one day, Fighting for a dear friend, he wonders how far this support for a friend is not hostility for others,

In love with a girl, who knows not, how far from this love is devotion,

And when does it become sycophancy,

How much of dedication and never-back-down attitude is passion,

When does it become an obsession.

How much of an optimism is optimism before it becomes lunacy.

How far your devotion for your country or your people is patriotism,

And when does it become nationalism, and then fascism.

Should the love for fresh steak feel like crime, then, is being vegetarian enough, or being vegan,

Or shouldn’t I feel criminal when I take more than my part of the natural resources, their home, even the air or the water,

When the world is so competitive, my every win is someone’s loss,

Are the riches really the sign of my success,

When does it become too much,

When does it become a plunder.

When does your passion and love for God become preaching,

And when does it become selling,

In the obsession to run fast enough, we have left the weaker ones back,

Is a faster growth and development of the country so important,

And when does this global hunger and ambition becomes selfish enough,

How right is right enough.

The kid listened to the elders, read the books, spent a quarter of his life in schools,

But, that wasn’t enough,

And he still wonders,

How far off the coast is that right spot,

Where freedom meets justice.

I wish he knew.

He could be happy,

he could have known to be right,

At that very spot, he could feel enough, happy enough!

Can’t we just stop, take time at trying to understand each other. Now that we are all so different, it may take longer to really know each other, but, won’t it be amazing? At that very spot, we all could be happy enough!

And yes I am angry. I question everything and everyone who pushed me to close my eyes to reality and find a more beautiful world in my imagination. I question everyone who questions love in any form. It is not any more just about me. It is about everyone whom we bully, call them insane and ship them away from our eyes. It is about everyone who believed the beauty of his world, or the humanity she read about in school and was disappointed by life, by the world, by you and me!

Somewhere, like a child, I still believe in the goodness in us. I want every child of every age to survive the struggle and see this beauty in this world. You think I am insane?!

Trust me, give that kid in you one small chance to see goodness around. You would be doing more than your bit to make the world a better place.

This story is a part of the series called Alone.