About Vacations

I have worked in various companies in India (two cities) after college for about seven years. Either of the cities are not my hometown or in my state and have vastly different cultures and food habits. Somehow foolishly I have not considered them my "home" when I lived there and would fly to my hometown about three/four times a year and think that I am "home". These would exhaust most of my vacation time. I cannot say for most, but many do this.

I recently started working at a University in a country which is known for its work-life balance (at least on paper). And, I started to realise that I was not quite thinking right about my vacations.

I noticed a colleague who took a month long vacation. Being a naive person I assumed that guy must have gone to some place he feels "home", or to a nice vacation place, I asked him what did he do for vacation, and he told me he was in cottage with his friend and no cellphone connection and he just was there.

It sounded strange to me. But, then I just realised, I never had a true vacation. Because, I always went to my home city or a trip to somewhere for my longer vacation. And, I would become busy with visiting relatives, making up for lost times in long distance relationships, making and sticking to the itineraries if I was visiting places, and other necessary works and no time to relax, which was supposed to be the essence of "vacation". And, I would return to my workplace feeling worse than when I left because this is not my "home" in my mind.

These thoughts made me think if it is necessary to call the place where you live, home, to actually be on a vacation and relax. I felt that some things in life, like the feeling of "home" or relationships, should be a part of your daily lives rather than needing you to always put too much effort into and take from your vacation time just to get that feeling.

What I also realised, that the very nature of work-culture situation at most of the workplaces in India numbs you from a few feelings which you can only feel if you take time to think about. But, maybe again, all these are just about my personal idea of vacation which is different for everybody.

Truth, Knowledge and Realisations

I always felt this unquenchable thirst for knowledge. About everything. I always wanted to know the truth. What exactly is going on behind the scene, everywhere, what is the impact of my words or deeds; how exactly it is affecting the world. As I grew up with a mentality like this, mostly I remain truthful to people (with a few exceptions of not telling my parents about going out with a girl or that I failed in my last geography exams). And, somehow in turn expecting the people to be truthful to me too. I always appreciated if they let me know what exactly they think of me and if some problem arises I preferred talking about it point blank.

As I became involved in this world more and more, I went through many realisations, mostly cyclic. Nevertheless, I still was eager to know what was always going on behind the scene. I always believed truly that the truth can and shall set me free, free from this vicious cycles of realisations. It always gave me the opportunity to come out of an incident and look into the matter objectively, needless to say which helped me every time even if there was no apparent problem.

But as I became somewhat more involved with the people of this world, I came to realise that it may not be always wise to dig to depth to bring out the truth. The very reason that you have to dig deeply, is also the reason of the violence once the truth comes out and somehow suddenly it did not matter anymore to anybody except yourself. To be very frank, what I have realised, people will behave in whatever way they want to behave, no matter what they told you before and in the process of knowing the truth you also come across the "falseness" of their words. Somehow it made me feel that the truth may only matter to a few people and for the rest, is whatever make them feel better.

In this process, I also came to know that I may not like the truth. But that never told upon my strong desire of making the truth come out. What did was my own action also along with others' participation after I made the truth come out from them. Though I heard this many times that it certainly is not wise to know the truth every time, I am not sure about the credibility of the words. Even when I realise that the truth may make things worse, may make me feel worse, I still have this of desire in my mind, like a splinter, to know the truth.

F.R.I.E.N.D.S

I have a friend who once told me that his friends don't think that he has the best personality in the whole world. Rather they appreciate his ways to see life and perhaps also the differences with theirs. There maybe something more to it, but nothing less. I also seemed to understand it, but not quite realised its depth.

I think people become your friend because they just like to be around you. Now beware, one should not confuse friends with walk-mate, class-mate or liquor-mate etc. So friends appreciate that you may be different from them and yet can remain friends. If somebody becomes your friend just because they like one or two qualities of yours, well it might continue to seem as a friendship even for a lifetime and it might not matter anyway, personaly I think its not ideal. Though I sometimes felt friendship is an overrated concept, I think its all because of those xyz-mates. I guess its very tough to find a friend because everybody is busy with their lives and most of them don't give a crap about yours unless it has something to do with theirs. We may not be able to find it. This is just as probable as doing a job which has nothing to do with one's best skills throughout their lives. It may happen. Life is not fair.

I think a friend should be like that feeling which tells you that finish this work and then you can go to him. They won't seem distant. You don't have to ask, they will tell you what was happening with them when you were not around; and you are listening to them because you want to and also not because after they finish you get to talk. And they too are more than willing to know about you. And most importantly it won't seem like a formality. It will happen naturally. Well as far I understand, this is an abstract concept and these are my visualisation. And I don't think there is any right or wrong in this. You go on in your own way. If you are lucky enough, you don't get to suffer for all your wrong doings or unfortunate enough you have to. Everything is coincidence. We cannot ascribe earthly events related to our lives to more important phenomena. Life, rather time, just go on.

A simple quote from long ago,

उत्सवे ब्यासने चैब दुर्भिक्षे राष्ट्रबिप्लाबे।

राजद्वारे श्मशाने च यस्तिष्ठति स वान्धब।।

John 8:32 "...and the truth will set you free."

Sometimes you make me feel like I was damn wrong
So wrong that I don't even qualify to be with you
Sometimes you make me find, to my utter dismay that I was right
How do I know which one is in the realm of reality
I don't know, surrounded so much by the virtual reality
Where people have headaches just to send a real letter
Everything is parted from the other and made to stay at their domain
I don't know whether it is prohibited
To just want the truth
Unpolished, without any doping of impurity
I want the truth
Just the truth and nothing else, trust me
without the package of make-belief

As I heard that the Bible says that the truth shall set you free. Like most other sayings, it came to my skull as some vestigial words, until when I actually realised, at least to a little extent, what it actually means to be free. As Tolkien once said "all that is gold does not glitter", though in life we want the shiny stuffs, sometimes it is required to come in touch of purity in its true sense. To cleanse our systems flooded with pretentious thoughts and inputs (both from within and outside) every single day and moment.

What i want to say is more or less like this-

It is easier to perceive error than to find truth, for the former lies on the surface and is easily seen, while the latter lies in the depth, where few are willing to search for it.

-Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe, German poet, novelist and dramatist

Never apologise for showing feeling. When you do so you apologise for truth.
-Benjamin Disraeli, British politician and author

Accepting what I did not want to accept

We often come across situations in life where we get hurt by other people or a situation. We are often told to think whether the person is really important enough in our life to mean that much to us. And, while consoling the person who got hurt, basically it is told to them to just move on and forget the other person.

 I have a different theory. We already know most of the time the issues are which can hurt our feelings. And what happens is that whenever we get amazed by a person or a situation or simply we get used to a situation which has that trait which can make you feel bad, we start to procrastinate to accept that fact. We try to make ourselves overlook those till the point which is just unbearable to us. But the fact of the matter is that people usually do not change drastically to fit into other criteria because they have their own life. In a situation when you yourself are trying to deny the potential of someone/something to make you feel bad, that/they will also deny it till it does by any of its inherent quality which is so natural to it.

 We always try to explain events in the light of our understandings. And when we cannot do it, we stop thinking about it unless you practice to do otherwise consciously. That is the reason behind not accepting certain things believing things will fall into places (to our liking). Our mind always try to analyse a situation with the resources available to it and if you restrain an information by not accepting it, there is a possibility that our mind will not be able to break down the situation which is the outcome of that very information to a level in which your consciousness can understand.

 I have seen that if you accept that certain person act in certain way, certain group of people will always think in a certain way, it is all really very easy to explain everything in you own mind. Reality is after all, how you perceive it. There is a point however to note that by accepting people does not mean to assign a value to it and belittle them, rather respecting their individuality as an independent human being as well as in a certain group. By accepting and respecting a person you give that person a room to be what he or she really is and you give yourself a room to live freely.

My experiences with pseudo-intellectualism

  This is about something I observed in my daily life frequently since I started understanding it and also started to feel the urge to practice it. I am talking about pseudo-intellectualism (don't know if there is some word like that or not). Somehow I cannot do it and probably that is the reason I started hating it from the early days when I started to realise there is a thing like this. There is a note however that I also met several people, who are actually creative and know their business. But my disgust is towards those who fake it. Fortunately, I do not have any friend who practices it. But in daily lives friends are not the only people whom you interact frequently. I feel humiliated when I see people bluff about their capability or mentality to someone whom I care. I always try to make the idea clearer to the people I care if I feel they are being bluffed. Though I realised much later that it really is not a very good idea to do it all the time, but that is another issue. I just want to express my anger which comes from the lack of capabilities to "lie." I could not find a better word for it.

  I also started feeling pity for the people when I see them, even after having full knowledge, go by others' bluffs. And what hurts more is when I see me not getting something because a pseudo has convinced the person concerned. Yes, I know it is a very good quality. I have seen my close ones, and even people whom I just know get carried away by pseudos, told me about it. I am not implying the value of intellect ceased to exist. It just cannot be. What I am trying to imply is that sometimes the one who gets the value does not deserve it. And, when you are the one that gets stepped upon by bluffers, you feel bad. But, with a pinch of pity though.


  I just want to say, I am sorry. For I don't have the quality to confuse people if I can't convince them. It feels so demoralising. I am sorry for I can't buy professional devices just to look like a one when I am not. I am sorry I can't lie to you about a poem and make minor change and claim that it is my own composition. I am sorry I cannot pretend to like some genre of music for it is way to attract people's attention. I am sorry I cannot tell you that I know everything about something. I am just a normal person who wants to get what he deserves. If the programme of lying is not installed properly in one's system, is it the reason enough to deprive them of being valued where it is due or deserved?