Goodbye Twenty Six

It is Aarwen's birthday today. Rather, since its already past midnight, she is already twenty seven. How could I sleep without a blog post?

How does one feel at 27 I wonder? There are days when I feel a hundred and days when I am convinced that I am all of sixteen and this is some muddled surreal dream.

My friends on my online forum (if you have been paying attention you already know of it, for the new entrants it is India Forum where I made friends over a TV show. We call it IPK) posted messages for me. It was strangly overwhelming. Reading their words of encouragement and compliments I almost want to be worthy of those things that they said of me.

I also watched a movie with lazywiz. Imitation Games. Alan Turing who solved the Enigma and won a war. It was for real.

I can't even begin to comprehend how wires and silicon chips form series of what we expertly call binary data. How this binary data displays into legible text and colorful images on our screens, how this binary data streams into music on our headphones, how these series of zeroes and ones transmit over wires, across oceans and get converted to an intelligent interpretation. And how it is the same chip that make the infinite decisions on what should be sent, what should be received, what to decode and what has already been encoded.

I am a software engineer. I have learnt Physics and all about computers and there I sat in the hall as much, or most probably even more, in awe of the invention than the people next to us.

Inventions. The wheel, steam engine, electricity, penicillin, computers. What our children will take for granted just got introduced when I was young. I have lived half my life without internet or a cell phone. 

I have been blessed to not face a war. Not have to know how to go hungry, not watch my country devastate, not see people I love annihilate. I get to be atleast in theory equal to the men around me. 

There is a couplet that I abide by, that I want to remind myself.

"Sai itna dijiye jame kutumb samaay
Main bhi bhuka na rahu saadhu na bhuka jaye"

A rough translation would be.. god give me so much that it is enough for me  and my family, that neither I go hungry nor any good person in need goes away hungry from me.

Think of it that way and how blessed am I! I get to feel inspired to write watching and reading anything and everything. I feel inspired to be exceptional in the work I do. With the person I live I get inspired. I feel loved by him. I love him. I get to enjoy the air, the wind, the rain, the sun, the stars, the grass, the trees, the flowers. I enjoy the words, the silences.

Touch wood.

I will sleep tonight with a grateful heart. Thank you god.

Out of the blue this song played day before and I fell in love with it. yes its time to open the cage and fly. There is so much I want to do, so much I want to be, and the best thing in the world is I have opportunity. It won't always be simple, but it is what I want to do. It isn't something big, but it is still worth doing because I desire it. So, I should do it. 

And if you are about to go too after your dreams, in the process let us pledge to remember to keep it simple, have fun and be ourselves.

Brainwash

Not feeling well. Uneasiness. Perfect time to talk about the book have just read. George Orwell's 1984. Had read his Animal Farm many years ago. The last scene of that book still vividly haunting in my memory. Since then have wanted to read his other novel.

Dystopian  oppressive world. Unattractive, trying hard to remain sane protagonist. Introduces the concept of the all seeing Big Brother. The government would change all the references in text of past events if it did not seem in accordance with what the government was preaching now. Imagine if the past gets modified to what someone wants to be taken as the truth. When you are left with nothing to compare today with. Language was modified so that the words needed to express the feelings of freedom were erased from written record. Slowly they fell away from Human memory. Imagine if the very existence of people is stricken off  if they anger the Big brother. Worse if you are not allowed to show any human emotion. You are conditioned to think your present state of listless ineptitude is the only way of life. The hero tries to revolt. He even had a heroine with him. He had hopes of a secret ally, but in the end everything was just plain hopeless.

A much more recent series I read called Divergent. Human beings have been divided into Factions each of which have a defining characteristic - Abnegation (Selflessness), Candour (Truth), Erudite (Knowledge), Amity (Peace), Dauntless (Courage). When a person comes of age he must select which group he belongs to. leave behind his family and start his new way of life where he is only allowed to be just one of these things. Of course the heroine was destined to be not one but a combination of these. She was divergent. Added benefit is the hero and heroine dynamics in the series.

But these examples are extremes. Is our life today any different? Where we have to like a book just because everyone else is raving about it. To be considered happening you need to use certain phrases. To be accepted you need to have a good profile picture. In Atlas Shrugged there is a musician who disappears the exact moment when the world starts to go crazy over his music. The same music the critics and audience alike, had slammed many years ago. I sometimes wonder if musicians of today will feel like giving up and leaving because of what gets passed off as music these days? And people like it. The words in the songs that are called lyrics. A few have words the rest all have nonsense meant to sound catchy. And still these songs show up on all top ten lists. Creativity. Ideas. Invention. Everyone follows the trend and still more people have to follow everyone and like it.

If a single reality show became a success everyone has to try it out. If a certain format in the news works everyone must listen to that and get bored by everything else. We keep discussing this in our forum how a girl has to be portrayed as a perfect bahu. Who has to think of everyone else before herself. Even before her husband. Who cannot have any wishes for herself. Who must have a self sacrificing hurt air about her rather than just show plain anger.

Yesterday as I came out of my office building I saw a young man sitting on the sidewalk with earphones and a book, quite oblivious to passer byes, obviously enjoying himself. And I thought to myself had there been a girl sitting there I might have been the first to term her a show off who wants attention. How much life has brainwashed us.

Young kids are taught that a certain set of professions are what they must aim for. That branded clothes, watches, cars are what they have to start discussing at an unbelievably young age. They are taught they can't eat food without demanding for an ipad in their hands. 

No wonder it is so refreshing to meet someone who knows what he likes and sticks by it. Think for yourself. Safety is not in numbers but in your head. Stick with what your heart really says. Please.

How hard I try to be perfect when it is way simpler and perfectly acceptable to be imperfect. Queen, a lovely movie that lets us know that though we are girls it is okay to let go. Rani did not fall in love with the decent good looking Russian boy or go back to her remorseful fiance. Instead what I love was she kissed the Italian man whom she thought was handsome. And if slightly prudish me could be thrilled by that and admit it here then I definitely have potential to break free.