The Philosopher and the Lunatic

“You’ve been left with what now? Nothing.”

Yes, it’s true. I have been left with nothing to say as my own. Ever since I started blogging, even my thoughts are not my own anymore. It is like Kahlil Gibran saying ‘your children are not your own’.

Does this men that I am all alone now? What is the definition of loneliness? Is it a state of mind? Or just being alone is called loneliness? Is it really necessary to be with the people or our own choice? What if they doesn’t feel the same?

Is it an offence to try to fill the emptiness? They would say, No. But when we try to the emptiness, the same people will stand up and say, “No, you can’t do this.”

Then, to try to stay alone is again called as ‘running away from the truth’.

I am scared.

I am scared to speak up my mind. Perhaps if I would have been able to do that, it would have helped me in relieving my mind. But I am scared that they will interpret in a way convenient to them, and that is not going to do me any good.

Why cannot I be like some other happy-go-lucky people? Am I taking life a little too seriously? Sometime I even think, ‘enough is enough. Why not take a short trip and ask the creator why it is so?’ But is he there? If he indeed is, and he created everything, is this what his creations are supposed to be?

They say that I am becoming a philosopher! What is a philosopher? If my asking a question about myself makes me a philosopher, isn’t that something that everyone does at some point of the time?

Luckily my mind is still active to think these absurd things. And my fingers are also equally active to pen it down. I don’t know if it is worth reading by anyone, but before I meet Jahangir Khan, I must record my thoughts.

To record the Truth

What is Truth?

What I see and believe is true to me, but is it truth? It is also said that, what one sees and hers is not always the truth! What is truth then? What is true to me may not be have the same meaning for the other person. Is there difference between Truth and True?
Does is also have a time frame? What is true today, can it be not-true tomorrow?

At the church the groom whole-heartedly and from the bottom of his heart said, “I do.” But the same husband is later accused of killing his wife, which he indeed did. Which one is to be believed?

What do I do with the person who used to tell me her problems, seek suggestions, helps, and now does not even want to talk to me? Why should I be friend to the person who is partying with the same group of people against whom she complained to me, and I stood for her? (Does it sounds like someone being ditched.)

I used to tell people, “Please, try not to hurt me even unknowingly, not to talk about hurting me knowingly. One is welcome to be my friend, but if I get hurt somehow, it will be difficult for me to forgive & forget.” And, they DID hurt me. And, knowingly. What do I do now? I am also a human being! Is this what I am supposed to get? Is this what I have asked for? Or am I being taken for ride by the people who I thought are my friends and well wishers?

What is life? What life has to offer? Is just not being dead called ‘alive’? For whom are we living? Are we living for ourselves or for others? If living for oneself is called selfish, why do we have to live for others? Is this not applies to others also? If everyone is living & loving for the other, who is there for me? Is seeking a little love from live is too demanding?
“Socha nahin acha bura
Dekha suna kuch bhi nahin
Manga Khuda sey her waqt
Teray siwa kuch bhi nahin…”

Can one control his emotions? Should we hide our emotions? I don’t know. I don’t even know how to hide one’s emotions. I am an emotional person, very sentimental person. My feelings are visible in me, and I don’t try to hide it. I am as readable as newspaper.

John Lenon said, “You may say I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one.” Then what wrong have I done if I too have dreamt? If dreamers are to be dealt with capital punishment, then words like bed, sleep, dream, etc. should not have featured in the dictionary even.

I am not a loner, but I do feel lonely at time. Recently, at the office when I felt lonely, people started asking me about my family. But I think, being alone is not lonely. Loneliness is a state of mind. One can and feel, and be lonely even in a jam-packed stadium.

Who is a friend? Even the shadow gets lost when it is darkened! To say if from Asha Bhonsle’s ghazal,
“Dil dharekna ka sabab yaad aya, wo teri yaad thi ub yaad aya…”

Sometime even Chitra Singh makes me cry when I hear her singing,
“Jab naam tera pyar se
Likhti hain ungliya,
Meri taraft zamane ki
Uthti hain ungliya…”

19 August 2010

Zia at her new new school

Zia, my four-years-old daughter has just started going to school.

She is very happy. A new school, new Madam, new friends, new uniforms! Perhaps it is the same with every kid. Zia's schooling changed our daily life. Instead of watching TV till late hours, now we have to switch off all sources of lights by 10 p.m. and go to bed.

I have to get up by 5-30 in the morning. I woke up Zia at 6. She does not make a fuss about getting up early. She needs a lot of time to finish her breakfast. From getting up to feed her breakfast, and make her ready for school is my unofficial duty. I enjoy doing that. I am sure all other father must also be enjoying doing this as much as I do. Perhaps some of them do much more.

I heard people telling, let a baby come; it will change your life. How true it is. She really changed our lives. Now, we have only one topic to discuss - Zia. But she is very naughty. She is becoming arrogant. Things she will do what we ask her not to do. Sometime, she is very good, but at times, she just won’t listen to anything. The best part about Zia is that, she is very caring. Anytime, we say about some problem, she will immediately come forward to help us. We feel in heaven palms tries to give us a massage. She might be having some kind of magic in her hands.

Sometime when we cannot control her, I give her one or two my dose! That works. But it also pains us that we had to spank our little daughter! She is very particular about dressing up. She never lets me go out in shorts. 'This does not match, wear that one', she always says.

She feels that I cannot dress her up properly. And, therefore, every time I dress her up, she will run to my wife and say, “Look what D has done! Is this how it should be?”

The other day I was playing chess with a friend of mine, and Zia said that she know how to play the chess. She asked to get a chess board for her, and she will teach me and Omi how to play chess.

In the PTM her teacher always says, she is not only naughty but is also spoiling other kids. But other than that she is a wonderful child. She does everything so perfect.

Zia’s teacher and our family doctor said that Zia would not have been naughty if she would have had a sibling. But we think that we are blessed that we have Zia. We don’t need anything else.

Jahangir Khan.

How much I know about Jahangir is difficult for me to say, but yes I do know him quite That does not mean that I am his friend. We are pals for a very long time. We used to share our feelings, express our ideas. He is thirty years old, single. He likes to listen to anything that is soothing. But most of the time he listens to ghazals of Jagjit Singh & Chitra Sngh, and of Mehdi Hasans. But his all time favourite is ‘woha kaun he tera musafir, jayega kahan’ by S.D. Burman from the Hindi film Guide.

Jahangir works in a media house. But he does not like to read newspapers. For him newspapers repeats the same story again and again. Only the names and figures got changed. If yesterday in a bomb blast eight dies in Kabul, today in another bomb last some others got killed in Ukraine. For Jahangir there is no difference in these two news ‘Why’, Jahangir asks, ‘why do we always have to say how many died and how did they die. Why can we not say, how many lives we saved, and how we saved so that someone else can also think of someone’s life?’

Jahangir prefers to read advertisement. He says, at least the advertisements says about some new development, be it a product ad or a tender notice. At least there is some news.

I saw Jahangir roaming endlessly in the city. In his free time he likes to watch people of different class that their varied reaction to the same incident.

Although he does not like beggars on the street, he was very excited to see the four-year-old child insisting in helping a beggar. Jahangir says, humanity has not disappeared.

His grandfather named him Jahangir, the one who rules the world. His mother used to call him Jahan. For her, he is her world. But even in a crowd Jahangir feels lonely. He wonders, how lonely a person can be!

I know sometime Jahangir cries. He cries silently. He cries for his loneliness. He cries for not being able to share his feelings with anyone. He cries because he feels that there is no one who really understood him. He cries, because even if he wants to take a break from his daily life, he has no place to go.

Once Jahangir applied for leave from his office. His asking leave itself is a news in the organization where he worked. When his boss asked, what he intends to do with the 'indefinite period of leave', Jahangir said that he wants to go to somewhere where there is no news, no religion, no class. He wants to go somewhere where there is no black and white, and everyone is equal. He wants to go where everyone lives his own life.

Puzzled, I asked Jahangir, is there any such place on earth! And Jahangir said that there is. He wants to go to the mental asylum for some time, how long, he does not know. He says that there cannot be a better place to live in peace and with oneness other than the mental asylum.

I have not seen or heard of Jahangir. He did not even go back to his work either. I don't know whether he really went to a mental asylum, or if he had gone, is he still there or not. I don't know if he is at all alive or not. But I am not giving up my hope. I am still looking for my friend Jahangir.

When one has a friend like ...

Who said, "With a friend like you, who need enemies?"

Am I being too harsh with my 'friends'? I told a colleague of mine, why am I so sharp-tongued! I was not like this earlier.

People has tasted my tongue, and they say, "What have I done for him to be so sharp-tongued?" True, they probably have not hurt me that bad. But, only I know that collectively how much they hurt me.

A more than a decade old friend of mine often used to pull my leg. He often used to blame me for the separation of two friends of mine. Initially I did not react too much. But I made a mistake. I should have stopped him then & there. Now I am paying for it.

I don't think I need any enemy when I have friends like this.

Friends & Friendship

The other day my colleague, Moonmoon, asked, "Firoz, with how many people u r not in talking terms?"

There are a few, I replied. From this to that, and the subject shifted to 'friends'.

I told Moonmoon that someone once said that "if you have five good friends you are one of he luckiest person in the world", and Moonmoon said that she do have.

I am unlucky to have so many friends. In fact, if someone asks me today how many friends I do have, I will have to think. I told Moonmoon that although she is the closest one to me in the organization that we worked together, although she is always helpful to me and I share a lot of personal things with her, I don't know if I can call her a friend the way I think of my friends.

Perhaps the problem is not with people, it is entirely in me. Perhaps I have got very high expectation of what a friend is, perhaps I am not being able to accept their friendship, or it could also be the possibility that some people I know are my friends but I am not being able to see them. Perhaps I am becoming colour blind. Or may be I am too possessive about my friends, and they cannot bear it. There is no end of ifs and buts.

Whether everyone I know over the years are friends or not is a very difficult question to me. Everyone I know is not my friend. Does anyone else also miss their friend? I don’t. I suppose, friends are there for all the time. You miss someone or something that was there but not anymore. And I also do miss certain things of my life, or my past – a past that I cannot visit again.

I do miss my childhood days. I do miss my grandma. But I do miss people that I met later on.

I do miss those few days that I spent in company of people like Pranab, Rajiv, Maani, Sumana, to name a few. If I want to write on these people, it can go on endlessly.

Sutapa is my oldest friend. She always cared about me. Whenever I had a tough time, she used to come up with some suggestion to help me out.

Rajiv and I have not met for a long time although occasionally we talk over the phone. Recently while n Face book he alleged that I have changed. He did not say in what sense I have changed, but said that it is our friends in Delhi who said that I am a changed person now.

Changed for what - good or bad? And who’s good and whose bad it is! What is good for me may not be good for another person.

It does not matter to me. The consolation is that, at least someone noticed the changes. As far as I know, the only change in me, apart from falling hair is that I gave up drinking. Some blame it on my wife, Omi, because I gave it up during my marriage. But only Omi and I know that she has nothing to do with it, in face she did not know before that I ever consumed alcohol! It so happened that Omi comes from a family that lives thousands of miles away from alcohol, I knew that if she comes to know that I do drink, she will be shattered. And I felt that, I had no right to do that. And, therefore, I decided to give up drinking at my bachelor party that I had with Sanjays and Manashs and Kalyans and Utpals. Utpal and Kalyan even threatened me that if I give up drinking they will make a show in Omi's presence. They tried but it did not work out the way they expected. Knowing of their devilish plans, I told Omi in advance that I used to drink but now gave it up. And as one of the 3 idiots says, all is well, it was all is well for some time. Then I felt the disappointment of my friends on my not drinking alcohol.

I think, Rajiv was talking about it only. If my giving up drinking makes me an outcast to the people I know, I would prefer to be an outcast rather than go back to drinking. Moonmoon said at the time of need definitely there will be people by my side to which I asked her, can we call a sympathizer a friend? One can hire a rudali, but a rudali cannot be a family. My friends are not threatened by me. They do not have to hide from me. If someone does that, he is not my friend.

Alka Kheterpal has written a nice article on ‘friendship’. It goes as under:

“Friendship is a personal relationship shared between each friend for the welfare of other, in other words, it is the relationship of trust, faith and concern for each other feelings. It is a relationship of mutual caring and intimacy among one another. A friend is one who knows you as a person and regards you for what you are not what he or she is looking in a good friend. Best friend is one who accepts the good as well as bad qualities of his friend and also takes an initiative in correcting and mending them. Friendship is a distinctive kind of concern for your friend, it is a relationship of immense faith and love for each other.

Friendship is all about how much you care and understand each other. It is a pure relationship, which would make your friend smile, feel good as to how much you love him and care for him. It is all about talking, listening and building up a strong relationship loyalty among each other. It is string of love which develops gradually with each others involvement. In certain cases friendship may not last for a longer period and might end up or lose its prime importance of love and regard for each other. There are some friendships which might end with unresolved conflicts and tiffs which mean that this type of relationship were not so strong that could hold on their own in adversity and bad times. Friendship is not about merry-making and fun, it involves equal loyalty from both the partners.

It should be understood that not all friends are best friends. One might come across numerous number of friends in his life but there are very few who will be their during your ups and down. How one should recognize your best friend - the one who will understand your strengths and shortcomings and would be with you in all your good and bad phases of life.

A true friendship does not consist of a huge number of friends you keep but it is valued by its worth and capability to hold you and stand by you in all phases of life. That said finding a best friend from among your friends is the hardest task to do. A lot of people say that the best friends automatically come closer from among a group of friends and you will never have to make an extra effort to do find one. That is how the strong bond between true friends is formed.”

(http://ezinearticles.com/?Definition-of-Friendship--A-Few-Facts&id=1267049)

The definition of friends and friendship differs. There are friend, good friends, true friends, best friend! What is the difference between a friend and a best friend? Or for that matter what is the difference between a true friend and a friend? I don’t know. I really don’t know. For me, there are no two definitions of friends. Muhammad Ali has said, “Friendship is not something you learn in school. But if you haven’t learned the meaning of friendship, you really haven’t learned anything…” Perhaps, I haven’t learnt anything.

For me a friend is someone with whom one can share his feelings, joys & sorrows, pains & pleasures. A friend is someone whom we do feel, all the time.

Unfortunately I do not have such a friend. But that does not mean that I don’t have a friend. I do, and a very good one. My pen is my best friend. It listens to me. It lets me express all my feelings, whether I am happy or not, it does not matter to my friend, and it always helps me to whatever I want to do. I can cry on its shoulders, and silently it tells me, “Firoz, you did what you think is the best. Now look up to another day.”

Not that I always had a very good relationship with the people that I met. But I don’t have any regrets or complaints against any of them; rather I do cherish the memories of all those people that I came across in this world. From each and every one of them, I learnt something or the other, and I am grateful to all of them.

I wish I could have written all the things that come to my mind. But blogs are not like books that can be read at the bed time. Many of you may not agree with my views.

Do I regret for not having a friend? Well, I don't know. I really don't know. Perhaps I will have to ask Jahangir Khan again. But that is a separate story.