Red is green..

Long time. No excuse for not writing. I am lazy and I know it! Am trying to revive this and start writing more. Thanks to the people who have been reading lately (seems to be a few actually, surprised to say the least). I am going to try and post something every week, and get back to fiction writing. The most possibilities there, most room for imagination and if no one likes it you can just say they don't have the same imagination as you do. :D. Yes, us writers are egoists.

To begin, I wanted to write of a curious phenomena I come across everyday. Everyday!

My single most priced possession that I have worked to buy and maintain and love is my Bike. She is my baby. We have had conversations, she has stopped in the middle of the highway when I have neglected to talk to her for a few days. And I have had to go, "Come on darling, I am sorry. I neglected you, I am idiot" And then she forgives me and roars! So yes, I love her. First love. Was. Is. Will be.

I have had my baby for 3 years now. Clocked close to 23K kilo meters on it. And once you have rolled that much in Mumbai traffic, you become an extremely irritated man. By every idiot who decides to step on the road.

Let me paint you a picture. It is 11 PM. You have, admittedly, had a very long day in office. You get on your bike, turn the ignition, press the starter, and behold! That sound makes you smile. You get to the road and are gliding peacefully. You see a green signal at an erstwhile busy junction and say, wow, lucky me. Empty road, green signal. Let's power through. You see it now? Do you? Do you see the fatalistic mistake this innocent and naive rider is about to make? Do you see how he is about to trust the system and the sensibility of the human race? Do you see how he is about to be betrayed by the people he lives with.

Because, just as you slow down a bit at the traffic light, look to your left to make sure no one is about to break your gallop of freedom, a human being who does not deserve to be called one, jumps his light from your right, screeches past you at 60 km/h, while you are left with a split second to hit your brakes, pray that they hold, remember what it was like to be hugged the last time and pray it is not your last hug, think of what it would be like if you died here, alone, in the middle of the night, because some one who should have followed a simple rule did not. Your brakes hold. You are safe. You are shaken. You curse. You look around to berate the idiot who just killed you expecting to see him climb out and apologize, yet all you can admire are the tail lights of his speeding away vehicle. You cringe. You compose yourself. And then you wait. Because YOUR light just turned red. You wait, but no one else does. Everyone else jumps the light. You still wait though, because you know what it is like to be this close to death.

This is an actual account. It happened twice, in 1 month. Once with a car and once with a BEST bus, which unfortunately had to stop at the next station and the driver got an earful from me.

While we sit here and fume about how women in our country are not safe, look inside you. How many rules do you break every day. How many times do you say the one sentence that ought to become unspeakable; "Chalta hai yaar!" No, it is not OK. it is not OK to break a traffic light just because you are in a hurry and there is no one else crossing you. It is not OK to think it is OK to do this. It is this fundamental lack of sincerity which is doing what it is doing to our world today. Be sincere. Be fair. You decided to be born as a human being. Now follow the rules. Don't follow them because they are there. Follow them because if you don't, you lose the right to ask someone else why he didn't.

I now wait at every traffic light. It may be 2 AM on an empty junction. It may be 8 PM on a busy junction with every car behind me honking and every driver abusing me, sometimes loudly. But I wait. because I don't want to sleep tonight knowing I broke a rule that could have cost someone their life. Will you do the same?

The simplicity of the complication

For the past few months, whenever someone comes to me for advice, as I am listening to their problem, the first thought that comes to my mind is, "Why is this so complicated? Why is this person not able to understand that the only thing they need to do is strive to make life simpler?"

The answer, is that complications are simple. The way I see it, most people like to keep their lives in a mess because the simple truth is sometimes too much to handle. Also, it is easier to do what your brain says than what your heart is thumping out to you. Admit it, we have all done the easier thing in a choice situation at least once. I have. And it has been short term gain but in the long run, it has always come back to bite me.

So my solution to my own problems? Do what you think is tougher to do. Because that is usually the right thing to do. Lately, there have been some major issues to deal with. It is very easy to get emotional and cloud your judgement. Why wouldn't we be emotional? We are human after all. But emotions don't always help. They NEVER help, is what I have concluded from my various, emm, bad decisions, shall we call them? The only thing that helps when you are emotional is to take a deep breath, think of anything but the situation, and wait for it to subside. Phone calls, emails, texts, any form of communication with the concerned person needs to be avoided, at all costs. A crying/yelling phone call has never done anyone any good.

I admit it, I have done all this in my past. I have sent numerous scathing messages/emails in the throes of anger/despair/jealousy and hurt people. And it is just not something I would do now. Hence, I shut down. In anger, it is always more prudent to take care of it yourself than unload it on others.

As they say, Happiness, when shared, grows. But then, so does Misery.

We need to LIVE life. Simply.