Tuesday, November 19, 2019

Water - So Pure

The purest form of water, in a vapour form waiting to condense inside a holy place, inside a bigger cup varying in size, shape, color, some contaminated, some still retaining a little purity. Irrespective of the nature of the cup, the vapour still condenses to its purest form. It takes months to condense and once condensed, the droplet gets its own little cup but still doesn't lose its purity. The cup grows bigger everyday. The tiny cup gets its first few drops of water from where it condensed within. Utmost care is taken not to contaminate the water in the tiny cup. The first few drops added from another cup, even though dirty does not alter the nature of the water in the tiny cup. It often reminds the other bigger cups around it on how important it is to remain pure. However the bigger cups continues to add dirty water to their cups, sometimes knowingly and sometimes unknowingly. Shouldn't the bigger cups know they are supposed to add only pure water to fill themselves, for their tiny containers continues to get daily dose of water droplets from them? Many forgets they feed their little cups and many don't care a damn. 

Time passes and the tiny cups are no longer tiny and begins to add water from other smaller and bigger cups on their own, unaware of their purity. Though the water from other smaller cups are often pure, the water from the larger cups alter their level of purity. After all smaller cups can only add a little water while the larger cups contribute more. Now, the once pure water, get their own nature, based on the level of impurity added to them. Every bigger cup tries to purify the water in the smaller cups they own, by adding as much of pure water as they can. But the bigger cups need to have enough pure water to dilute the impurities in their smaller cups, else they will end up adding more dirty water to their smaller cups. The bigger cups cannot add hot water to the smaller cups, for the smaller cups are fragile and easily crack. Once cracked, its really difficult to hold water in them. Not all cups grow to their fullest. 

The impurity in the water starts to corrode the inner walls of the cups. The longer the water remains impure, the more the cup gets corroded. It's really important to dilute the impurities with pure water still available in abundance, but it's entirely up to the cup to select its source of water. The sooner the cup realizes it's being corroded, the better. The scar left behind by the dirt often never disappears. 

The smaller cups keeps growing and is exposed to water of all levels of purity. The larger cups never stop debating over who contaminates the water in the smaller cups, while every cup contributes in some way to alter the nature of the water in other cups around. It would be totally unfair to attribute the impurity to a certain cup. Water flows everywhere and so do their impurities. They are only diluted and never removed. Some larger cups do not notice the dirty water in their smaller cups for they are hidden by the smaller cups themselves and are not exposed until they begin to corrode. The smaller cups don't realize they get their own small cups when they grow bigger and they need to preserve some of their purity to add to their own smaller cups.

Purest water always comes from the sky above, but some cups don't agree and deny the existence of rain. They try to purify their own water, but remember the impurity can only be diluted and not removed. One can only hope the cups that truly want to self purify their impurities do not add their dirty water to other cups. Contaminating water in other cups doesn't make one's own water pure, they only spread impurity. Nonetheless, cups that don't believe that a source of pure water exists but realize the importance of not being a source of impurity is equally good. 

The cups run around looking to add sugar to their water while letting the salt in them contaminate the water in other cups. More sugar in the water did no good to the purity of the water, but just improved its taste. Little did the cup realize that the purity is what matters the most and the taste was a mere material. 

The cups have grown to their fullest and can grow no more. Now all they can do is replace the water in them. Remember all the impurities the cups accumulated over years that corroded their inner walls? They have developed cracks in the cups and they can no longer hold water to their full capacity. Its now too late to mend those cracks and the cup begins to fall apart. Little do the cups understand the reason behind their existence. All the sugar the cup was running behind to add to its water and all the salt that contaminated the water in the cup were left behind, some added to other cups and some just disappearing with the dust. 

There comes a day when the cup breaks down to dust and after all the water it once held with pride was sucked by other cups, with just one final droplet left behind on a tiny piece of a diminishing cup. The one final drop with the same level of purity as the very first droplet that formed in the tiny cup, evaporates into the air, back to where it all started, in its purest form ever, only to condense again. This time in a different place, in a different cup, forgetting its past and unaware of its future.

Monday, November 18, 2019

What's Breaking?

A breaking news article is enough of a trigger to awaken the judge within us. A judge who comes to a conclusion the very moment a news breaks, purely based on stereotypes and far away from truth. Ever wondered why many high intensity cases run through trials for years? Heavy backlog of cases with never ending accumulation of newer crimes are certainly not the only reason behind this. A judgement pronounced in a case changes the lives of all the parties involved and such verdicts are never provided hastily. How many times have we seen judgements provided by lower courts being altered by a superior court of Justice? Aren't they thoroughly analysed in the lower courts? Every case will be given all the time it demands so as to bring out the truth and avoid convicting the wrong person. That being said, will it be fair to jump into conclusions without even hearing the full story, let alone analysing them. Sadly that's what's being done everyday by most people. Thanks to the zillion sources of news channels that easily manipulates a person's thought process. What's funny is that the same mind that accuses a person or a community due to stereotyping, fails to agree the truth even when it's proved wrong based on evidences and analysis. People are fine with news manipulating their minds as long as it aligns with their perception, even if it's not true. 

The real problem seems to lie behind the fact that news are being perceived more as an entertainment rather that a piece of information. We have started enjoying arguments and debates on everything and refuse to settle for simply knowing that something unusual has happened somewhere. Simply put, we fell for the tactics by news channels aiming to keep us hooked to them. 

Remember the beautiful days when newspapers were the only source letting people know the happenings around them? News was confined to a limited number of pages and nothing more. People were left with just the basic details of what, when and where that greatly limits one's imagination beyond a certain point. Even if one imagined more it never manipulated anyone else in the form of comments or social media forwards. Things were still greatly under control when TV channels aired news for half an hour twice everyday. Those news hours were mostly viewed as a disturbance amidst our favorite programme on the TV. Things were never the same when dedicated channels started mushrooming for just news. Seriously, is everything aired round the clock that important to know? Can't we survive without knowing every other crap in the name of news? It doesn't just end there. News channels go a step beyond in elaborating a news by letting 4 people shout on top of their voice about what they feel might have happened and how they think should it progress and how a certain community is always behind similar incidents happening in the state. Thereon, the core issue is diluted with too many other ingredients totally unrelated to the news and the real problem take a turn towards a common agenda of accusing a certain community of people. The already manipulated and emotionally charged minds starts identifying insignificant similarities that can relate the current incident with a person or a group that is unrelated to the news and the vicious cycle continues to roll and snowball picking up everyday incidents. By the time the first news finds its logical closure, the damage is already done and we either ignore the facts or doubt the judgement. 

It all begins with us being judgemental about every other thing happening around. We fail to filter out things that don't really matter to us and start consuming them which slowly corrupts our mind. A solution to this could be as simple as listening vs analysing something we hear. Listening is enough for one's awareness whereas analysing leads to unwarranted conclusions especially when done without knowing the facts. 

Thursday, November 14, 2019

Compulsive Opinion Disorder

A mental health condition which needs immediate attention and addressing in this heavily connected yet sadly disconnected world of social networks. There used to be a time when people stayed away from matters that doesn't really matter to them. Before the age of smartphones, everybody's world was confined to just friends and family. People rarely paid attention to others people's opinion. A feedback or response that we provided to someone we didn't know was subtle and polite. The most common way to disagree with someone was to say nothing at all. Arguments were never intended to belittle someone or attack them personally. We cared about staying to the point and not deviating from it. I believe the main reason that kept people in their limits when it came to commenting on someone's opinion was 'identity'. Anonymous commenting rarely reached the ears of the speaker. 

How much I wish the comments section on a person's social networking profile was accessible to just a closed group of people associated with the person. That will reduce the number of threats, hatred messages, bullyings in the form of anonymous comments from random people. Imagine if one day we start hearing all the comments from social media in the actual voices of people who posted them. Am pretty sure the noise would deafen every single living being on earth and beyond. Comments have become more of a noise than a voice.

The habit of voicing out our opinion to every other social media post that comes our way is the real cause of these unwanted noise. While the fact is nobody really looks forward to our opinion, but are just posting their opinion on something they came across. A person need not agree with everyone, but that is no reason enough to personally attack the author of a content. Social media has become a breeding ground of stereotyping and hypocrisy. Something that was designed to bring hearts closer is actually making them drift far apart. Taking it easy and moving on is the need of the hour. The sooner we realize this, the better.

While we cannot expect local laws to think through every possible way to end cyberbullying and intensify punishments, what we can really do is be a responsible netizen and treat others with respect. After all behaving ourselves when no one else is watching defines the real "I". 

Wednesday, November 13, 2019

Back to blogging

After a really long pause, I happened to stumble upon my blog recently and felt I should start blogging again sometime. So, here I am with a new post to restart my blog. 7 years is a lot of time and just like anyone else, there has been a lot of life changing events in my journey as well. Change in appearance, place, status, designation and of course hair color. While a lot of things have changed, a few still remains the same and my idea about blogging is one among them. 

It was interesting to read through my older posts after these many years, while a few were surprising too. There are certain posts in my draft which I don't think I will ever publish on my blog as they sound silly to me now ;)

In an era where Social networking has gobbled up most people's time and space, I still think blogging is THE way to note random thoughts without a ton of interferences in the form of likes and shares from random people.

Life of Vijay - The Holiday Season

It was holiday season and the festive mood filled the air, with everyone ready to leave the office early and spend the Christmas Eve with t...