goldenboy

Kabhi yeh lagta hai ki Qamer ke cyber cafe mein internet surfing ke liye aana to sirf ek bahana hai. Main yeha aata hu to uske maujoodgi ki ehsaas mein rang jaane ke liye. Har insaan ek daayra banata hai, apne aaspaas, shaamil karta hai har woh kuch jo uske rooh ko express karta hai. Yeha par uske saaso ke kushboo se saas leta hu, uske maujudgi ke har lamhe mein sajda karta hu, uski mausiki (winamp music) mein doob jaata hu, aur uske din ke rang main rang jaata hu!

Kaun kehta hai ki ishq koi zubaan nahi jaanta. Mera ishq mere maashooq ke ruh ki zubaan ko samajta hai, aur bus uske ehsaas mein kush hai..

I am just a customer here, though I am in love with this divinely beautiful guy. And though his straight identity and religious faith stands between us, he knows and respects my feelings for him.

This relationship knows no name, and love no boundaries…

Life can be a strange journey.
 
The right given to every American for ‘the pursuit of Happiness’ in their Constitution, is absurd, says a book that I am reading now. The writer, a middle-aged rabbi, says that Happiness is a bird that perches on your shoulder when you are busy with other little things in life- things that matter more- like kindness etc.
 
That still seems to me a strange proposition, though I seem to have marched that way after all the other experiments in my life.
 
I have dared to stop looking for happiness and strength in life, by attending to other urgent matters on my list of priority like a job-change, taking up a job that I can look forward to going to, every morning.
 
I have taken a certification in training, and now have joined a technical institute where I train adolescents in English and Personality Development. I have been given the freedom to train them as per my discretion, and that means there are no more Noun, Pronoun lessons for them, or learning the names of vegetables like cabbage which they might perhaps never use in a city like Bombay.
 
My approach is to teach them the way a baby would learn- learning sentences that would be used in a certain situation, building confidence in them by telling them that no matter how poor their English is they have the advantage of knowing two other Indian languages which is a great feat in itself to be proud of!
 
I tell them that we would no longer ‘yearn to learn’ English but would ’seek to master the colonial language’ with a sense of pride in our National identity. I tell them to look in disgust at all the people who use the language as a means of feeling superior to those who speak the local language. I tell them that English is no pre-requisite to build an attractive personality; there are other things that build a personality- like their attitude to life and nature.
 
So, in the first lecture I speak fluent Hindi and make them feel good about their mother-tongue and the National language by telling them how the Japanese, Italians and the French frown on English and respect their local language.
 
I show them clippings from Amitabh’s India Poised campaign ( http://www.indiapoised.com/anthem.htm ), where the Indian Superstar speaks of “two Indias existing in this country, at this great precipice of human history, when the country is turning a new page”. I tell them that they, the new breed of Indians, is the New India.
 
I tell them that Laaloo Prasad Yadav is a symbol of Indian democracy, and not just a laughing stock. I tell the ‘Marathi Manus’ that Bombay would shut down completely if the so-called ‘Bhaiyas and Biharis’ were to fled Mumbai. I tell the students of UP that most of Indian Prime-Ministers were from UP. I tell the Biharis to be proud of their motherland as that was once the land of ancient Nalanda University- where scholars from all over the world met in their quest of Knowledge.
 
I play Chinese Whisper with the class, where a simple sentence in Hindi turns out to be a sex-loaded statement, and inform them of how our own thoughts can distort what we hear and lead to a Communal Riot.
 
That’s what I do now-a-days. Train them in English, by commiting to them that I will not leave my job before they finish their 15-months Course and that by the end of the course they will know to speak Practical English.
 
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I work 8and a half hours a day/ 6 days a week, working in flexible shifts to accommodate batches starting at 6 in the morning, and those ending at 10 in the night.
 
In the India Poised anthem ( http://www.indiapoised.com/anthem.htm ), Amitabh says that the World is looking at the rise of an Energetic new pulsating India, and that every moment people from the Old India that had doubts in their hearts are crossing over to a New India that looks at the sky saying- This is our time to fly.
 
I want this New India to fly, not with the mindset of slavery to a foreign language, but with a heart that is aflame with the sentiment of National Pride. I want to blow into their wings a strength that will allow them to be proud of their brown skin and look at horizons that the older India never dared to look at.
 
I encourage them to set up their own enterprise (business) and provide employment to more ten people than stay a perpetual employee. I tell them how being nice to the Customers does not only mean being a good fellow-Indian, but also makes a good business sense.
 
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Then on a Tuesday morning, after 17 days of work, I forget to take my anti-depressant when I am already regretting taking up a rented apartment at Mira Road because my new boy-friend would not commit more than an hour to me everyday and does not like my new house.
 
I fail to wake up the next morning at 3:30 am to travel all the way to my workplace in town, and sleep till 12pm. I miss work.
 
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And as I try to reach out to the new India, inspiring them with the truths I found in my ten years of adolescent journey, I  struggle myself  between the old and the new I.
 
I feel scared at taking up the new flight to freedom myself, shifting to a new-rented apartment where I would not be in the proximity of my mom’s care. I feel threatened by loneliness and the subsequent pain.
 
And in all this journey of life, at times I wonder if death tastes better. But for all I know, I better take up the challenges of life, than face the uncertainty of a life after death.

It rained in Mumbai yesterday! In November!

My mom, who always judges the arrival of seasons by Hindu festivals was left astonished, “The Navaratri is supposed to herald the end of Monsoon. Navaratri is long gone, and it is raining!”, she said.

What she spoke is true. The Hindu Calendar over the millennia has accurately kept track of the seasons by marking the arrival of each season with a specific Hindu festival. For example, the festival of Holi signifies the end of Winter and the beginning of Summer.

So yesterday’s post-monsoon shower was a bit of a surprise. Especially when I had been shocked by a documentary just the previous day on Nat Geo stating how in 2 decades London would have temperatures as low as below 30 degrees Celsius as a result of worldwide Climate Change due to the Greenhouse effect. It said that even as you read here, the huge glaciers in the Antarctic are melting and the fresh water flowing into the oceans, increasing sea-levels worldwide. In the future, coastal strips which we have now, for eg. Ratnagiri to Calicut in India would disappear under water. Islands like the Lakshadweep would be wiped off from the face of the earth. Countries like Bangladesh would lose 1/3 of its land to the sea! 

The immediate effects of Global warming can be seen in the recent Floods in the deserts of Rajasthan, and swift-floods in cities like Mumbai and Chennai, which till a few years ago were unheard of.

The Nat Geo documentary focused on how the winters in London would reach   –30degrees Celsius, the agriculture of North America and most European countries would be affected, and the Economy too! This, the documentary said, would result in huge political and social instability and push most of the human population into anarchy.

All this makes me think if this is what is going to happen 20 years from now, will not the most Vocal and aggressive countries of the West like US attack the African and Asian countries then? Would genocide be used as an “essential feature” of Darwinism theory of evolution to justify this?

The way US has behaved in the past and its present history of aggression against other countries based on rhetoric, is sufficient proof for a lay man like me to believe that the scenario is not just a figment of my imagination. If indeed global warming would affect the world as bad as the scientist predict (the chances, they say is 50%), I am sure the US would be the first country to invade a weaker country, and we would have a whole new vocabulary of Human Rights, or maybe a whole new rhetoric to justify the subsequent invasions.

Why doesn’t the US, one of the worst Polluting Countries of the world take the initiative to curb the menace of Global warming in a big way now? History has proved that the US policies are not far-sighted. The best example in memory was the US support to Al-Qaida at the time of Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan. Al-Qaida, the monster of terror that faces America today was created as a result of US policies itself. And later the US itself went on to invade Afghanistan “to combat Terrorism.”

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When it comes to global warming, each one is individually responsible too just like the big countries like the US. 
 

Why, just the other day I was with Stephen Mills, the Director of International programs of Sierra Club, US! (http://sierraclub.org/human-rights/nigeria/releases/mills.asp) An old friend requested me to take this man out to see the Elephanta Caves in Mumbai. He was on a mission to India to apprise us of the dangers we are letting ourselves into, by taking the way that big countries like his, the US, had gone, causing great damage to the Environment.

However all the while that I was with this person, it never struck me once to ask him one basic question – How bad is it (the global warming)?

On the contrary I brooded over a bloodshed centuries ago that had taken place on a remote Island (the Elephanta)

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Climate change is as urgent an issue, that we all need to encounter. It is not just the business of Stephen Mills’ of the Western World, or the Medha Patkars of our country. We need to get together and build a network to pressurize governments against taking up Environmental-damaging projects.

Or soon, we will be having snow visiting Bombay, and no that won’t be fun at all!