Ravings of a Nomadic Mind

We recently celebrated our independence day, august 15^th came and went just like every year and a lot of official functions were held a lot of buildings hoisted the tricolor and a lot of little toddlers were very happy as they got lots of sweets to eat and got a holiday from school. The significance of independence for most adult Indians has decreased. The generations that fought the colonial powers to over throw their yoke have long gone into the mists of time and those who saw people dying to secure their freedom are in their twilight of their lives. The current generations were born into a free India and breathed free air. They grew up getting used to having every thing their way. But they also grew up in a socialist environment, in an environment were the government decided what they will wear, what they will eat and what they will see on the television. Don’t get me wrong, Nehru’s conservative policy gave nascent India a lot. Majority of our infrastructure set up was due to that policy but it also limited human choice, but the most harm that policy caused was in the fact general Indian citizens looked at the two national holidays of most significance as a sort of official holiday not something that was to be celebrated by the common man. For people these became just two more days were a person could take a break from work and stay at home.

Freedom for me means a freedom to err, freedom to make mistakes and learn from my errors. In today’s environment of terror and stringent security the values of freedom and most important the right to make mistakes has been the most compromised. Today we cannot sneeze in the vicinity of a sensitive installation without being jumped upon by nervous security who thinks you are a terrorist with a new weapon. Today mothers cannot carry liquids on board aircrafts for their babies without tasting it in front of the security in the airport. The President came to visit our campus and we couldn’t carry our room keys in our pockets. We couldn’t have pens in our pockets and could not shake hands with him. Is this the kind of freedom that our fore fathers thought of us to have, one that we aren’t considered of any significance and one that does not give us the freedom of committing error?, where every human being, every citizen is guilty and looked at as a potential threat till proven innocent through means off a very demeaning body search. The world we live in today is fraught with dangers, it has become intolerant, it is starting to loose its patience. A country that was a welcome haven to any one wanting to make it their home today looks at fear at any gathering of minority communities. Our tolerances to the fallacies of our friends, neighbors and our fellow citizens have gone down. A minor spat on a railway station leads to a burnt railway carriage, and wide scale riots in one of the most progressive states of the country. One statement in favor of an anti-dam movement leads to the banning of a movie starring that actor. In today’s time women cannot roam free in our countries capital, in another metro, girls and boys standing together or just talking to each other are frowned upon. We live in a world where Hitler’s fundamentalism seems like child’s play. Young men and women are ready to go to war for some imagined utopia and kill innocent bystanders for a higher cause. They are ready to blow them selves up just to prove a point and hijack planes and crash them into buildings to make a statement.

Leaders fear to reach out to their followers for fear of being shot at or being blown away. People getting on trains and planes give up prayers for a safe journey. People from certain geographical areas or following a particular faith are strip searched in the name of security. One of the most monitored as well as liberal countries had to face the wrath of fundamentalists when its heavily crowded public transport system was bombed last year.

This might sound as a rhetorical question, but what has our world come too? Why have we become no intolerant to each other? when the world is facing other dangers has highly temperamental weather patterns, the uncontrolled growth of diseases like cancer and HIV AIDS we are creating problems that we all could do without. Intolerance leading to fear which in turn leads to paranoia which leads to mistrust, and violence against fellow human beings, all engineered to further some petty human interests.

We have reached a place and time in our history where the threat of big brother is very real and very omnipresent. We have involuntarily given up civil liberties, the freedom of speech and movement and other such assorted rights that our freedom fighters from Washington, to Jefferson, to Nehru, to Gandhi, to Nelson Mandela all fought very hard and long to secure just so that we can protect the same rights. Is this the world we want to live? What kind off legacy are we going to leave our children? Are we going to teach them that hope and dreams and free enterprise were utopian subjects that they were to high objectives and us humans to lowly to keep them so we took them away from our selves?

I agree the choice is very difficult, keep living life as we are used to and let others keep hurting our children, keep blowing buildings, cars and let anarchy have a shot of taking a place in our lives, or we give up all the freedoms and rights that we hold dear and allow some one of debatable authority to tell us how to live our lives, and dictate history and time. In the first case how long can morality and decency hold out before anarchy and chaos descend on us and ruin all these years of hard work. But the alternative isn’t that pretty too, let the governments take total control of our lives, let security agencies go over our private lives with fine tooth comb with softwares like the fabled “carnivore” from FBI. Evolve into a world where human beings lack free will and free speech. Develop into a species that has two distinct classes one which tells us what to do and the others what to do and when to do, what to eat where to go.

How did we get to such a point in history? And are these the only choices that are available to us. I really hope not, with them life just doesn’t seem worth all that pain and heartaches. There has to be an alternative to these and we have to find them soon or we will end up being something that we dare not contemplate. I leave u with a song from Green day

"Boulevard Of Broken Dreams"

I walk a lonely road
The only one that I have ever known
Don't know where it goes
But it's home to me and I walk alone

I walk this empty street
On the Boulevard of Broken Dreams
Where the city sleeps
and I'm the only one and I walk alone

I walk alone
I walk alone

I walk alone
I walk a...

My shadow's the only one that walks beside me
My shallow heart's the only thing that's beating
Sometimes I wish someone out there will find me
'Til then I walk alone

Ah-ah, Ah-ah, Ah-ah, Aaah-ah,
Ah-ah, Ah-ah, Ah-ah

I'm walking down the line
That divides me somewhere in my mind
On the border line
Of the edge and where I walk alone

Read between the lines
What's fucked up and everything's alright
Check my vital signs
To know I'm still alive and I walk alone

I walk alone
I walk alone

I walk alone
I walk a...

My shadow's the only one that walks beside me
My shallow heart's the only thing that's beating
Sometimes I wish someone out there will find me
'Til then I walk alone

Ah-ah, Ah-ah, Ah-ah, Aaah-ah
Ah-ah, Ah-ah

I walk alone
I walk a...

I walk this empty street
On the Boulevard of Broken Dreams
Where the city sleeps
And I'm the only one and I walk a...

My shadow's the only one that walks beside me
My shallow heart's the only thing that's beating
Sometimes I wish someone out there will find me
'Til then I walk alone...

The world is slowly spiraling out of control and it is up to us to decide what freedoom means to us do we really think that the world is worth living as a free citizen or as Greenday sang we become Jesus of suburbia with no one worth trusting and no one able to trust another human being.

So can you answer me now as what does freedom means to you????

this not some thing i wrote ........................... but love it so here goes and hats off to the author

"He knows a hero when he sees one. Too few characters out there, flying around like that, saving old girls like me. And Lord knows, kids like Henry need a hero. Courageous, self-sacrificing people. Setting examples for all of us. Everybody loves a hero. People line up for them, cheer them, scream their names. And years later, they'll tell how they stood in the rain for hours just to get a glimpse of the one who taught them how to hold on a second longer. I believe there's a hero in all of us, that keeps us honest, gives us strength, makes us noble, and finally allows us to die with pride, even though sometimes we have to be steady, and give up the thing we want the most. Even our dreams."

aunt may to peter parker spider man 2

Ever wondered why children always wish to become some thing heroic. When ever you ask a small child what he or she wishes to become when they grow up the answers are always from a small list of very elite careers. The answer always varies from doctors, soldiers, astronauts, sailors, pilots or some thing else similarly glamorous. No child ever expresses the wish to be a dentist or an accountant. Why is that???? What is that makes them choose professions that are so different from the other fields of human Endeavour? I think the main reason for this kind off infatuation lies in the human need for an icon or a hero or simply something or someone larger than life. A life that is much more different than what they see their parents neighbors around them lead.

I was watching Spiderman 2 yesterday and in that movie aunt May tells peter parker that the neighborhood children were very sad that Spiderman wasn’t around any more when asked an explanation about her statement aunt may says this is so because people need some one to look up to, they need heroes that they will line the streets to welcome and march behind to fight all that they perceive as wrong. They need someone that they can tell about to their grand children that they were their when so and so did such and such.

this need stems from the fact that almost all of us are made different from each other though we may not lack any thing compared to other people physically emotionally we all differ and that emotional difference creates heroes or cowards among us . I believe that the only difference between heroes and normal people, between people like Gandhi, Churchill and Kennedy and the people who followed them was the amount of time they could stand under a constant barrage of unmanageable odds. They stood and stared down people like Hitler, the British Empire and Kruchev for what they beli8eved to be right. Even though many other people believed in the same things as they did only they had the strength to face down a far superior enemy. To stand behind their convictions and hang on with whatever it takes or no matter how long it takes. Their undying belief in what they thought was right in turn inspired many more to stand up and take their rightful place in history to make things right. But they are not the only heroes out their are far more numerous people out their who perform outstandingly, do heroic deeds create minor miracles out of totally hopeless situation. He exists in a nurse who serves others with total disregard for her own health. This hero exists in the street side worker who sweeps the streets day in and day out for a meager income without any thanks or any other expectations from the rest of the human populace. he exists in the teacher who teaches his students about the immense knowledge out their waiting to be gathered who instill faith strength and character in his or young charges. Mother Teresa was a heroine in the truest sense but so were the others who served with her the other sisters of missionaries of charity.

captain Vikram Batra was a hero but so were the other soldiers who fought by his side some who fought by his side and died or others who had the good fortune to not to become the victims of the enemy bullets. Dr Kalam the president of India is a hero for the younger generation, but so is the father who works 18 hours a day so that his children can have the best of education and future that he can provide.

We all have the potential to be heroes all we need to achieve is face our worst enemies that is our selves and our worst fears which is our own downfall. The day we learn to hang on just a little longer and be a little braver the we learn to see beyond our selves and our miniature little existence we have the potential to out do our selves and more over be heroes.

All of us............. every one of us are humans arent we. and as usuall i belive we are all fallible. we make mistakes. some big some small some of them noticeable others too insignificant. some affect the lives of others some not even ures. but the important thing is that we live on. but some times we live witht he burden of past mistakes that seem so insignificant when recited but seem to turn ure life upside down with uilt hurt and every thing else. why is it that people who love u the most can overlook ure largest discreation but become apopletic about tyhe smalest of things. why is it that the people closest to you will keep reminding of your mistakes day inday out till ure ready to give it all up and jst walk away or u become imune to wht ever they say.

any way to better ttimes and stuff.

yeaterday was Easter when "Christ the lord rose fromt he dead. we celebrated it by having our relatives over and talking havingh good food and stuff i had one of my closest friends over and and he had rought lots of movies from the campus. and we chatted dozed alzed around listend to music. in short we lazed around after a long time. any way we had loads of fun. then in the evening we went to the train station to see of a very good friend from campus who was leaving for home. we fooled around on the station took picture and the fooled around some more. on the station we met an old acquaintance from school who was a pain in the neck then too and he hadnt changed even after all these years. he is woking wiht some bombay firm and had that fake american accent and all. showing off as usual. well anyway we came back and then went shopping with my brother to buy cargos for him

all in all i had a fun day,.

the city spread out beneath the fort like ball gown of a matron, the old part of the city was mostly blue with the houses painted with lime mixed with a blue dye to keep out the searing heat of the indian summer. the fort stood over the city like a ages old sentinel protecting its territory over looking all that passed beneath without expression. right next to the fort stands the masouleom of a dead king from ages past. built in marbel, right outside the gates from the kings grave stands a platform made of red sandstone which provides an excelent view of the city of jodhpur. the city, almost five hundred years old with a population that hardly counts in the larger scheme of things the city of jodhpur stands at the edge of the great thar desert, is my home ive spent all my life here with the exeption of a few months here and there spent chasing, dreams mirages vacations etc etc. i love coming to this platform and sit when ever i wnat to be alone or just sit and think. the peace i fingd here is something unparalled. from here i will tell u a short story, a story that has no heroes only ordinary people, people who make mistakes, find god in simple mercies, people who are falliable yet perfect. people who live each day thinking that they can conquer the world. every day live with the help of thier hopes, aspirations and simple gestures of other human beings. people that they call by the name of friends, family relatives or simply strangers.