“Doubt is useful for a while. We must all pass through the garden of Gethsemane. If Christ played with doubt, so must we. If Christ spent an anguished night in prayer, if He burst out from the Cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” then surely we are also permitted doubt. But we must move on. To choose doubt as philosophy of life is akin to choosing immobility as means of transportation.”

So reads the last para of chapter seven of Life of Pi, the book I am currently reading. But is it that simple to move on? Do doubts let us go? Or, do they just like that little pup in the Hutch ad, follow us, wherever we go, even if we want to move on?

Doubts are like those acquaintances around the corner, which you want to avoid meeting but who always find a way to spot you and hold you up for a while and that while is always a tad longer than what’s required for exchanging pleasantries. In that little while, they always end up asking you questions you didn’t want to answer or tell you things which you never wanted to think about. And then those doubts pat on your back, promise to catch up soon and walk away or so they pretend coz further they seem to have gone, closer they seem to stay.

But am not saying, doubts are always unwelcome…sometimes doubts are good, they are just the speed breakers that prevent you from speeding just for the thrill of it. Not all questions that you don’t want to answer are also the questions that you shouldn’t answer. So while we may never like doubts but then they never wanted to be admired, they just wanted to help which they do sometime.

But problem crops up when we over indulge those doubts or look for them when none is in sight. Doubts don’t need black soil to grow; they just need a bit of uncertainty and bit of “I want to get that absolutely right” kinda attitude. And both these things are in no short supply. So even before turning the ignition when you start thinking of the speed breakers, then you just stick at the garage and go nowhere. Or when you are always worrying about a speed breaker at the next bend then you end up driving so slow that you are always late. It is this part about doubts that I hate.

I have noted that what clear doubts best are time, that’ the best doubticide. Doubts are nothing but apprehensions that stem from unknown or may be an urge to control the future or at least to shape it the way you want to see it. And while lot of people say it and lot more agree that future is not in our hands but may be its not completely true. Future is nothing but a function of our actions in the present. When you wake up next day how often you encounter something you could never have avoided, “bolt from the blue” is something which is so rare that we tend to pass everything as an imitation of that. May be if we can just accept that future won’t trick us but would unfold right in front of us and would be shaped by none other than our own selves then may be those apprehensions would lay low. And time has its ways to allay the apprehensions, clear the clouds of uncertainty and get doubts fade away into a bright day, just what sun does to morning haze. So may be it’s wise to wait for the noon, and then there won’t be a haze at all, so we won’t need to look through it. So what we need is probably the patience to put up with doubts and not learn not to listen to them till we can’t absolutely avoid listening to them.

But would it be too late? I wish I knew…

-siddhartha

Song recommendation:

Listen this one for Gulzar's fantastic poetry, from the movie Jhoom barabar Jhoom.

My personal favourite is the last para...

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धागे तोड़ लाओ,चांदनी से नूर के
घूंघट भी बना लो, रौशनी से नूर के
शर्मा गयी तो........ आगोश मे लो
साँसों से उलझी रहे मेरी साँसे

आ नींद का सौदा करे, इक ख़्वाब दे, इक ख़्वाब ले
इक ख़्वाब तो आंखों मे हैं, इक चांद के तकिये तले
कितनों दिनों से ये आसमान भी..... सोया नहीं हैं, इसको सुला दे

उम्रें लगी कहते हुये, दो लव्ज थे, एक बात थी
वो एक दिन सौ साल का, सौ साल कि वो रात थी
कैसा लगे जो .....चुप चाप दोनो, पल पल मे पूरी .... सदियाँ बिता दे

It had rained all morning. As I stood against the large window on my 50th floor office and looked out, I could see the distant hills shrouded in the cloud cover, I could also see what looked like toy cars from above, making their way through traffic lights and small boats moving slowly through the Singapore river, which was looking more brown than blue after all the rains.

That’s what rains do sometimes; they turn rivers brown, skies grey and moods blue. Persistent rains have a reputation of bringing up what has long been buried under the soil or hidden under the wraps of time. Or may be rain is just one of the many occasions when time and life conspire to put you in a spot where if you slip, they may just blame the rain.

It has stopped raining sometime back but the glass window was decked with rain drops and they were acting as a reminder that just a while ago these grey clouds in the sky were not so quiet and disinterested. But soon wind would dry up these rain drops, will that be the beginning of a past fading into oblivion? Can past be forgotten so easily? Someone, somewhere few hours back must have hoped that it rains all day, he must have planned his day around those rains - a little getting drenched in rain, a little staying cuddled in bed, a little taking walk in the wet ground and a little waiting for the rainbow. Would drying up of those last drops of rains be also the drying up of all those little dreams? Should he look at the heaven and hope for more rains or should he just get on with a day where it rained just in the morning, just for few hours. And what if moment he gets out after coming around the fact that there would be no more rains on the day, heavens open up. It not only rains, it pours. Would it be a dream come true or a double jeopardy?

I looked up to see if skies look ominous enough, but they were maintaining a secretive silence. I was as dark about fate of those clouds as those clouds themselves were. May be it would rain, may be it would not. May be best thing to do going forward is to take a walk in the cool breeze and may be best thing is to just wait to get drenched. How often it is said that, live life as it presents itself without bothering about how it would be. But there are those tricky bends in a road called life, where you just can't help but think about the turn that it would bring. Isn't it ?

It must have been few hours after this when I finally noticed a ray of sun breaking through the clouds announcing with élan the fate of the day. There were no more raindrops on the window panes, river was not as brown as it was in the morning, sky didn’t seem that dark, just that my mood was still blue. But if with time everything else can change then I knew it’s just a matter of time before last color brought out by rain would also fade away.

And it did, sometime during the day - the blue did turn into green….

-siddhartha

Success didn’t come easy to me, but somehow I have started believing these days that it didn’t take a hard way either. And a lot of times, when we don’t get something the hard way, we don’t seem to remember how much it meant to us.

Its good to aspire, ambition is what gets one going. But it’s equally necessary to take a moment’s pause and look back that how far have we come and feel happy about how lucky we have been.

As a kid, at school we used to say prayers daily. In the morning, we used to pray to the God probably to make it a nice day, at lunch we used to thank Him for the daily bread and at the end of the school, we used to thank him for all the good He did to us that day. May be we should do it not just at school. I don’t remember when was the last time I closed my eyes and thanked God for all the good He has done to me, for all the success He has brought me, for all the sorrows and pain He has kept me away from. May be I took God for granted, just like I have started to take all that I have achieved for granted.

When success just become a trophy on your table and you start forgetting all that brought you that success, everything that was rewarded by that success, moments that were spent chasing it and struggles that you went through for it then you stop being deserving of that success. You cease to be the guy who succeeded. You would still be called by the same name but may be name is all that you would share with the guy who earned his right to be called successful. And the moment you cease to be that guy who succeeded, you would cease to be the guy who will succeed.

And I think I can’t let that happen to myself. I can’t let myself forget that success might not have had come to me in a heroic manner but it took a lot of me and it meant a world to me. And it does a mean lot to me. And I value it and am thankful that I have it. By being ungrateful even to my own self for what I have achieved so far, am actually insulting all my dreams, all my hard work and all the hopes that I have carried.

And that’s not me and that won’t be me.

-Siddhartha

It had happened only twice in last 25 years. Even on those two occasions it rode on chariots of death. First time, on death of a popular woman prime-minister and second time, on death of pretense of secularism in Indian politics. So when it happened again last week and there were no vultures to be seen, our naïve media analysts called it a miracle and started prophesying “beginning of a new era in Indian Politics”, yet to be sworn in Chief Minister of UP was being hailed as future PM. It was such a drama that could be seen nowhere but in our country. Just in case it’s still not clear am talking about Mayawati’s BSP getting majority in UP assembly.

I quite resisted the temptation to trash those articles because frankly I knew it’s just a matter of time when this new beginning would crawl back to old routine and reality would give me far better grounds to talk about tragedy awaiting Uttar Pradesh or should I call it a new face of tragedy.

So to begin with read this :
http://www.ibnlive.com/news/politics/05_2007/mayawatis-cabinet-dominated-by-tainted-ministers-40545.html

Of 19 cabinet minsters in Mayawati’s cabinet, ATLEAST 10 have criminal charges, am sure finding as many as 9 non-criminal ministers must have been very difficult for the lady. And then there is a long list of MoS and MoS with independent charge etc.

Then there was this piece yesterday where more than 120 bureaucrats were transferred as soon as she took up the power.

And the most ridiculous one 3 bureaucrats suspended because some tiles in Ambedkar Park are broken. Talk of vengeance politics at its ridiculous best.


Truth is nothing has changed, there is nothing historic or momentous about what happened last week in UP. In a state where it is said that बिटिया और वोट जात के बाहर नहीं जाना चाहिऐ ( daughter and vote should be given only in the same caste) , all that Mayawati got right was demographic profile of various constituencies and utterly weak opponents. That’s it and that’s all.

In an election where 45% people voted and winner got 33% vote-share of those polled, you don’t need to be Phd. in maths to know that mere one in seven people wanted the new CM of UP to be the new CM of UP. But as things stand, with some intelligent manipulation of media, Mayawati can also do a Lalu. We are all afflicted by short-term memory, it wont take us long to forget what these people stood for but we would just get back tired from offices, listen to senseless commentries from senseless news channels and would begin to believe that Lalu is a management guru and Mayawati is princess of India.

Sitting few hundred miles away, I know what happened in Lucknow would never make any difference to my life but I wish it had atleast made some difference to lives of people who live there but I can see it won’t and that’s a real tragedy.

Late last night, I finally gave up on a story I was trying to complete for last 5 days. It was something I really enjoyed writing when I started, it started pretty well with a nice flow, a generous sprinkle of wit, humour and spontaneity of moments and a gradual build up the way I like.
So why did I delete it then? Because my story had lost its soul. Every piece of writing that claims to be real has a soul just like everything else which is real. And moment that’s gone, all we are left with are pretty but plastic creations.

When I began writing, I was working on a vague idea I was carrying. I thought let me build up the story and in time that idea would crystallize and I’ll have my end. But the idea never crystallized, rather it evaporated and all I was left with was a collection of words which impressed me but didn’t inspire me. For last few days, every time I struggled with the end I re-read those 3000 words and every time I read them I fell in love with what I had written. And obsession reached such a state that last night I almost zeroed in on a hackneyed end just for the sake of completing the story and at that moment I realized how futile my whole struggle is.

It was as if, some distant but dear relative of a guy is dying, doctors have told the guy that it’s just a matter of few days and nothing more could be done. So to show his love & respect, this guy gets a beautiful and splendid coffin made for his relative’s last journey. But doctors being doctors, they were proved wrong, and the distant relative recovered and survived. But our poor guy was in so much in love with the splendid coffin he had got made that he went around the whole neighbourhood asking people if someone 5’7” and not too fat would be dying in their households because he has this great coffin waiting for them. Love for the relative has long gone, its love for the coffin that’s left.

Ridiculous right !!!
That’s exactly what I felt when I went around looking for an end just so that a collection of words which seemed good to me can call itself a story. So I read the whole thing again dispassionately, looking beyond words and clever conversations. And then I realized how life less my story had become, frankly its spirit had long died and I was just carrying the corpse.

Sometimes we get so consumed by our creations that the spirit within us which inspired us get dwarfed. And it not only happens with creativity, it happens when diligence gets dwarfed against success that it has brought, it happens when learning gets dwarfed against adulation that it heralded and it happens when what we want gets dwarfed against what is expected of us.

But late last night, I didn’t let it happen and just for this once I don’t mind giving up.