Fariyaad

कौन हो तुम , मैं तुम्हे नहीं जानता |

शक्ल हुबहू वही हैं , इंसान अंजाना हैं ||

                                        

                                - Nikhil (09 Mar 2012)

 

 

 

Its My Life

This ain't a song for the broken-hearted
No silent prayer for the faith-departed
I ain't gonna be just a face in the crowd  from
You're gonna hear my voice
When I shout it out loud

It's my life,
It's now or never ,
I ain't gonna live forever ,
I just want to live while I'm alive ,
It's my life !!!!

 When Bon Jovi wrote & performed this song, he would probably not have thought that he was about to bring a new revolution. This song is the biggest single hit post 1980’s era. No doubt, it has a great spark to create &  channelize positive energy among the listeners. Bon Jovi asks you to be your own and live the life as you want while being fully aware of its implications. It shows the maturity of the him when he says,

 

This is for the ones who stood their ground
For Tommy and Gina who never backed down
Tomorrow's getting harder make no mistake
Luck ain't even lucky
Got to make your own breaks  

 

Better stand tall when they're calling you out
Don't bend, don't break, baby, don't back down

What an amazing Thought !!! Such a great message with so beautiful lines !!!! No doubt why was this song became an anthem for youths all over the world!!!

 

But what happens in real world ? Why a handful few can only stick to follow this philosophy? What it makes to turn most of the proponents of “Its My Life” into stern opponents when their kids utter “Its My Life, Take it or Leave it, Set me free !!!”? Why many adults even in their 30s start believing that  golden principles and ideologies of early 20s were remote fantasies and idiotic mistakes ? What is that which changes the whole innocent universe of dreams upside down for most of the people ??? Or are we just reading the story from last page of the book ? Does it mean as, most of the people can not do what they want, Bon Jovi becomes an overnight superstar?

 

Whatever might be the real reason, but one thing is sure that Bon Jovi ignites the fire in mind. Somewhere in deep within you can start hearing your own voice which though with so many years of suppression has lost its strength but never lost its edge. It bounds to make think about the dreams and efforts put to build those dreams. And then sets of questions shoot at you, “Why Did You Quit ?”, “What If …?”, “Why Didn’t I Hold The Fort For A While ?” ……

 

Obviously with no convincing answers and to avoid loosing face from one’s own self, people sometimes can take a complete U Turn and try convince others about futility of “Its My Life”. Many can argue that its easy to freak out and say “Its My Life” during early 20s but  life after college is different and there you need to do all sorts of Compromises for SURVIVAL. Unfortunate though but that’s hard reality too.

 

Does that mean, Bon Jovi’s thoughts are out of this word ? Does it mean those beautiful words are only to be listen as a mere song and not to adopt as a serious philosophy of the life ?

People might be having various opinions on these questions. But it reminds me a beautiful dialogue from movie ‘Letters To Juliet’, “Dear Claire, "What" and "If" are two words as non-threatening as words can be. But put them together side-by-side and they have the power to haunt you for the rest of your life: What if? What if? What if? ” It is at that point the lead character realizes the futility of running away from a love  and then at the age of 70 she decides to search the boy whom she left while she was 16 because she did not have courage to revolt against her family.

Many may argue that such things happens only in movies & novels , but I have a counter argument that movies & novels are another ways to express human emotions. They depict that life is really a beautiful thing if you know how to live it and if you have lived it in that manner.   

Just like Lance Armstrong said in his biography, “Pain is temporary. Quitting lasts forever.”

So my dear friends, Its Your Life, though full of compromises, always look for ways in which you can still achieve the real happiness by doing what you like. Follow your passions. Although you may have to put brakes sometimes, never let the inside steam to be vent out due to such unforeseen stops. Just keep it in ready to run position and whenever you find a suitable situation, just run away !!!!!!!!

My heart is like an open highway
Like Frankie said
I did it my way
I just want to live while I'm alive
'Cause it's my life

Encounter With a Politician

It was one of those sunny days when I was coming back to home after a long business trip. Having a transit time of 5 hrs between two flights and fed up with the food plus  straight faced people in Business Lounge, I had decided to spend time at common sitting area instead. I must say it was a wise decision; because soon I found a cute & bubbly girl asking me whether she could sit next to me. In next 10 minutes  I learnt her to be one of the ABCDs and also an avid globetrotter who after her last visit to India was giving a serious thought about taking 1 year sabbatical to explore each & every corner of  India. I was amazed with her thoughts and soon we found ourselves discussing about Incredible India !!!

Slowly our discussion shifted from travelling to Indian Economy and having stayed in China, evidently talks directed towards comparing Indian progress with that of China. It was this time when a middle aged person sitting behind interrupted us and asked politely, “Apologies for overhearing your discussion but I do not agree with your views on Indian Economy’s Indicators”. Without giving us any chance to talk, he explained further, “I am involved with some of those statistics part so if you allow I can provide you the right information” Once again without waiting for our approval, he started churning numbers to weigh his arguments, “Media is very biased and provide distorted picture only to instigate youngsters like you against ruling party.” Whew !!! we realized that we had been stalked by a seasoned politician !!!

Thereafter we were bombarded with various stories of so called false propaganda by opposition, efforts of derailing economic growth etc for next half an hour !! Fortunately he got a call; my airport friend winked at me and  literally pulled me to the nearest Café.

While we were about to take a sigh of relief, I heard the same familiar voice instructing cashier to debit our bill to him. We knew for sure that those 50 bucks would be costing at least 2 Aspirins and few hours of meditation to come out from all evil scenarios (p.s. happening in our active imagination) of breaking teeth & nose of that guy !!!!

Almost after an hour or so, he stood up from his chair. Thanked us for patiently listening him. Also gave us one last motivational speech “You are the future of India. Even though you do not stay in India, you are our representatives for the world. So please help us spreading right message across !!!!!” And there was a pause.

 
It took us a while to come to our senses and realize that we would be free in couple of minutes !!! Understanding the importance of this freedom and fearing repeat of the drama unfolded some 1 hour back, this time I took my airport friend to the Business Lounge instead !!!

Exhausted by his continuous hammering, I preferred to remain silent for a while. On the other hand, my friend was now in full charge and wondering about having such politicians in US !!! She told me that apart from Obama, she had never seen such passion and fire in any of other politicians !!!! She felt most of the politicians back home were like a shrewd businessman who prefer to do things tactically. Shocked at her admissions, I was trying to figure out whether it’s a genuine one or was that as a result of 90 min of trauma !!!

But somehow I couldn’t resist thinking on her viewpoints. Slowly, I started realizing that she was probably right in a way. The job that man did was spectacular. Its not at all an easy task to interrupt a young couple in an unknown location and talk to them on a worthless topic of Dynamics of Indian Politics for almost 90 minutes despite knowing that the audience is there only because of respect for grey hairs and not because they care for what you say !!!! It requires an exceptionally thick skin and extraordinary patience !!!! Moreover, it requires guts to bombard your ideology with full energy and cheerfulness to an uninterested & atrocious audience.

 The more I started thinking, the more I was getting astonished by various dimensions of the politicians personality. I had faced a lot of office politics & so called political people during my job but when I met the real politician, I felt there was no comparison of that man with any of my previous encounters. There are definitely lot of good things to be learnt from these guys but the most important of those all are (1) “Keep faith on yourself, your ideologies and your communication.” (2) “Have patience till others understand the value behind your ideals.”

Thank God for showing me a lifetime experience.

Malaysian Spirit @ Superseries

In my past 4 yrs in Malaysia, one thing I loved is the obsession of Malaysians for Sports & Music. Go to any café (even Mamak’s shops) and you will find LCD’s placed at each corner displaying Football Match or some Rock Concert !!! Having  ban on consumption of Liquor, Malaysians have discovered spectacularly impressive way of having Mass Hang Over !!!

While drums, bong-pongs, flags & caps start creating its mesmerizing impact on you, the ageless beautiful angels ensure that for no reason you won’t believe that you are a part of some fairytale magic !!!!  Once addicted to this hangover, nothing seems enticing any further.

Yesterday I had one more booze of the same.. It’s a season for Malaysian Open Superseries for Badminton. Semifinals scheduled on yesterday. Fortunately all semis were in between top 10 shuttlers in all categories.  Being a shuttler myself, I did not waste the opportunity to see games of top guys. It was a mind blowing show. As perfectly predicted by Newton’s 3rd Law, for every action in the court was an equal reaction in stands !!!

However, Newton’s 3rd law was no longer applicable when Hot Favourite Malaysian Pair was outclassed by Chienese Pair, !!! Reaction turned from scalar to vector with its direction pointed towards Chinese players and its magnitude was multiple times the action !!!! Whoever defeated Chinese thereafter got a Hero’s Welcome ….

When one of the singles between World no 2 -World no 3 found to be all Chinese, crowd became nervous. Not understanding whom to support, first few minutes were like a sea of confusion where everyone looking across before banging drums or bong-pongs !! Soon the shock wave died and stands started enjoying the game. As they said, beauty wins over brain, slowly the support shifted towards more beautiful shuttler between those two, who unfortunately could not win the match despite the cheer...

The last match of the day was of Local Hero who is World No 1 with Chinese shuttler (World No 3). As expected the whole stadium moved in another world and nothing could be heard except “Boleh !!! Malaysia Boleh !!!” , “Go Red Go !!!!!” and drum beats …. Crowd gone crazy seeing their Hero had edge over his counterpart in the game. Then the golden moment came which everyone was awaiting since the beginning of the day. All the walls of stadium stared shaking when the Hero smashed the winning point. Cheer & Uproar in the stadium was reflecting as if these down to earth people eat, breathe and sleep the sport.      

Unknowingly tears rolled down on my cheeks !!!!