कभी जल थम सा जाता है…

ऐ सागर तूही मुझे बता,

तेरी प्रकृति है वास्तव क्या…!?

- २७.०२.२०११, नेरुल

extended (relatively) chilly winters in this part of the world–Mumbai–are surely welcome, but rather unnatural… but then, i read somewhere that this has nothing to do with global warming; that it was a cyclical thing that happens every few centuries or millenia or so… and i said, well fine, it does not sound like a precursor to that other cyclical thing which crazy people talk about–the end of the world… and then i said, what??… :O… well, in the end, i did contain my emotions, thinking what someone told me–that i think too much… btw, you know, i have pretty much skipped the era where this thinking too much thing started becoming a symptom of  irrational behaviour… but then hey, things happen; the earth moves whilst you are asleep, right!… (and how rude is that!)…

but then, only the other day, it rained!! in the midst of February!! in Mumbai!! i mean, what gives!?… it is one thing to give me a hill station experience, but now this too…? i mean, now i am starting to get back to believe in the threat of global warming… but who cares… probably by the time the earth starts sinking under its own waters, i would already be dead; and hopefully, i would then not have to rescue my children, sitting on an inflated truck tyre’s  tube… (God, i should really get a truck… or at least a tyre… or an inflated tube, just in case… note to self…)…

anyways, so that was that about that… it then got me all nostalgic and emotional… the first rains always remind me of the good old school days… you know, the first days of school… the smell of fresh books… the new uniform… the demanding teachers… the competitive peers… the homework… the exams… the tension… the travel… … … … err… wait a minute… yes, that’s what i said to myself in my thoughts at that very moment… and i asked myself… you idiot… why do you get all emotional and nostalgic about those days…??… you idiot!… you never really liked school that much… you were the one to take a day off at the first opportunity… at one time, on the pretext of getting a tooth fixed… (which did not practically happen since i kicked the denstist when he approached me with a syringe full of anaesthetic… i mean, how is that for ‘numbing pain’?… ).. … … anyways, so what was it that got me all excitedly emotional about the school days… perhaps it was about a few good teachers… and to an extent it was… then perhaps it was about learning… haha, who am i kidding, our schooling system is rarely about learning!… so, getting back on track now…. what was it?…

and then it hit me… it was not about being at school, it was about being able to be at school…. about being a kid… oh how i loved being a kid… and sometimes, as an adult, i still try… but you know what, it used to be so easy earlier… damn, i was so good at it…!

so that, my friends, is nostalgia for you… the nostalgia of childhood…!!

वह पूछना हालो-हवाल,
इसकर बहाने ढूँढना…

नजरंदाज कर मेरे सवाल,
आँखों (में) पहेलियाँ बूझना…

वह बात करके यार की,
मेरे इरादे भाँपना…

‘हम नहीं तेरे कोई’,
कहकर लटाएं सँवारना…

नाराज होऊं जो कभी,
वह नाराजगी से ही रूठना…

मुझे याद है हर एक बात,
और इल्म है ज़ज्बात का…
पर क्या करें, यह रीत है–
हो  इकरार जब, तभी प्रीत है!…

do you think of me too…?

i wonder what has fate in mind -

are my dreams worthy of you?

i wonder what it takes to say -

‘i’d do whatever it takes for you’

i wonder what people keep waiting for -

if its love, then it must be true!

i wonder how long it would be -

how long will this continue?

There is also a saying in India that literally translates into this phrase–’एक हाथ दूर रहना’ (ek haath door rehna). However, being a saying by definition, it has a slightly deeper meaning. It refers to deliberately staying away from something. This something can be various things. The usual suspects are bad habits and bad company–and thus, bad influences in general.

What was interesting for me to notice was how strikingly like-scripted both were, yet how the former had a rather functional reference, and the latter, a philosophical one which can be extrapolated to the way of leading life. And at the same time I am about concur, and put a end to this straight-forward discussion, I can’t help but notice that in their individual contexts, they intrinsically function in a similar fashion to remedy the respective issues. This is something like a cross-industry best-practice revelation to me! Haha… The words remain the same, and at a fundamental level, they both work on the principle of ‘caution is better than cure’–in order to avoid resulting complications, they preach their audiences a rather simplistic order/thumb-rule which make things run much efficiently!

Howmuchever we–the free generation–would like to deny it, the fact remains that some things, some places, some people, and some paths, are best left unexplored; and perhaps, for not just your own good, but that of many a other souls! Or is it so really? Where do you draw the line between learning-form-the-past; and learning-from-your-own-experiences? ;o)

Perhaps I would expand on this a bit more in the near future. For the moment though, on an ending-note, I am going to start a page titled ‘one-hand distance’ on Facebook, to go with this thought. If you find this interesting enough an observation, feel free to join-in!