Go on, O traveler!

How does it feel to be different? Having a different set of ideas, and standing by those ideas always? How does it feel to be considered as an outcast? Because you don’t know what you want to become in life?

He woke up asking such questions to himself each day. He likes to spend hours in his bathroom, with the tap on, listening to the drops hitting the water in the bucket. He is lost in his own thoughts most of the times, and fears that his thoughts will kill him someday. He loves being around people and discussing, but he finds peace in being alone in the company of some music or his thoughts alone. He wants to give up on everything and hit the road, with or without music, because what he believes is that world is music. There is constantly music around us, we fail to acknowledge it, probably because man has stopped imagining all the beautiful things, and has lost the ability to perceive things as they are, without judging them.

He says, Go on, O traveler. Life is a car and time its wheels. He wants to drive his car, but people often pull and push, hit and run, turn it around and kick it hard. No, that does not affect him, he is still on the driver’s seat. He loves colors, but somehow black and white appeals to him more than anything else. He wants to go back in time, and experience the nature at its best. Maybe be a nomad for a while. He believes that thoughts, thoughts alone are the best friend of man. There is high that the air gives us. He does not blame the world. He feels sad for the people, because most of them are in a bad trip and they don’t know how to enjoy that bad trip.

He has learned the art of enjoying the bad trip and converting it into a good one when he feels like. He hasn't perfected it, but his thoughts often give him confidence and hope. He likes being around his thoughts, he talks to his thoughts, argues, discuss and they together come up with a conclusion. He is just like everyone, with a different set of ideas and thoughts, and that makes him what he is. He falls in love, eats, dances, talks, meets people but everything with a different perspective in his mind. It’s his soul that talks, he chooses not to use his brains when it is not needed. He loves himself, and so he loves his life, he loves everything that God has created, because he believes everything is out there because it was meant to be there.

And that’s why, when he looks around, he says, ‘Go on. O traveler’. 

Educational Institutes and the building mindsets

We always talk about empowering youth. We talk about globalization. We talk about equality. We talk about our changing mindsets.

I have grown-up in a small town, where talking to a boy was a crime. People would talk ill about you, and even the most educated upper middle class women would gossip about how bad the 10-12 years old girls were when they used to talk to boys. Fortunately my parents were brought-up in a very urban family, and never really restricted me on interacting with boys. I always thought it’s just a small town thing, and people in Mumbai must be open-minded (Mumbai was a fascination back then for me). Well, my opinion changed in just a year after I shifted to Mumbai.

Now let’s get to the point. Recently I attended a college festival of a quite well-known college in Mumbai. One of my friends was performing there. I was in the audience when I saw that there was a barricade put in the middle on the sitting area, one side was for girls and the other for the boys, that was the first shock. There were NSS volunteers standing around the barricade. Now what these volunteers were told to do is, not to let any guy and girl talk to each other from above the barricade. That was another shock. There is already a barricade put, there are a lot of volunteers to make sure that people don’t jump over the barricade, there are also teachers standing around, keeping a look on all the audiences, then why are these volunteers asked not to allow girls and boys talk to each other? And look at the irony, there is dance & fashion show competition going on, with all kinds of romantic tracks, girls and guys dancing together, hand in hand. Backstage I see girls and guys sitting on each other, chatting having fun and here they are trying to prove that they are much disciplined?

Well, whatever was the reason, Educational Institutes should be concentrating on educating students, I never believed that colleges should inculcate moral teachings, it should in-fact talk about how prejudiced is the society and talk about equality between girls and boys. I don’t know how right I am but this, don’t talk to each other, stand apart, and watch your friends performing is just not right. It is a very sick attitude.