Dusserah Buksheesh

Dusserah Buksheesh
October 07, 2008
Last evening while coming out of my office, the security guard outside my office just gave me a long salute.... I never talk to those guys. Not because I am in higher position or ego but it seems I live a no frills life. Then I just walk slowly the guard was just smiling at me and trying to build up the courage to ask me something. I could read his body languages. I could read his name written on the batch hanging from his shirt. His name is Rohan Singh. I just see that man everyday but never knew his name. So I asked him “ What happened? Do you want any thing Rohan Singh? Then slowly he was developing the courage to ask me something. He asked fumblingly “Sirrrr Dussserrrahhhh Baksheeeeshhhhhh”. I just pull out my wallet and handed him a 500 rupees bill. I could see the sparks in his eyes he was like blessing me through his eyes. He could not control his emotions and fumbled few good words for my kids. I just smiled as I'm single and no plans for kids in this life. Just rushed out of the office.

I just picked up a cab. Returning back home. Unintentionally that instance was coming into my mind again and again. It seems as if they are just reminding me something. I just went to my past googling with the word Baksheesh. We were living in a small town when I was a kid. Dusserah is one of the most important festival of that place. During this time the town just come to live with back to back festivals in a row. Dusserah, Gajalaxmi puja, Kali Puja. A famous Durga mandap was there near our house. There used to a circus every year. The ground near the mandap was full of amusement swings, Ram Doli, Death well, Roaming Zoo, all kinds of spice foods like chat, gupchup, Mixtures by the famousSahoo vendor . We had a joint piggy bank made out of used parachute coconut oil tin. I still remember the yellow color tin. I remember I was 8 then. During that time me and my elder brother decided that we will ask Baksheesh to all our brothers and sisters and spend the money for all these amusements and food. We used to get good baksheesh... much lesser than the 500 bill that I gave today but it was much larger that the 500 bill..... Sometimes we used to get unwanted guest from our village during that time. We also spend some of the money on them.....

Its not like that we always do the fun those time. We use to pluck the ground-lotus flowers(Sthalapadma in oriya) from our garden. These flowers just change their colour with sunlight. During morning they are white. As the day day grows they get lighter shade of pink. Towards evening they become dark pink. My sisters used to make a long garland with 108 flowers. Me n my elder brother used to take that offer it to Maa Durga. Though there were many flower offering but ours garland used to be longest on neck of Maa Durga. After offering the garland we used to pray for everybody in our family. Especially a good job for our eldest brother and a good husband for our eldest sister. These two wishes were most important for our family.

How fast 25 years passed. Some of the dreams that we saw during then have been fulfilled.....Some dreams remained as wishes forever........ Some small small dreams fulfilled.

Most of our dreams remained as a dream.........But that does not mean we will stop dreaming..

Now I remember I was never firm on my aim. I was fascinated by many professions. Sometimes I wanted to become an engineer as many of the middle class kids. Sometimes I wanted to become an Army officer specially after seeing defence oriented movies. Sometimes wanted to become a scientist thats the reason why I took Physics during my graduation. But some time later I lost interest in Physics also. Sometime I wanted to join some Government job like my dad. I am glad that I could work for a Government job for few months of my career.

May be this is the main reason why I am always bitting around the bush throughout my career and still bitting around the bush It's not that I work sincerely. I am very sincere and concern about my work. But somewhere I am just lost for the purpose of my life.........

Theory of Adjustments n Compromises….

Most of the times we try to adjust ourselves according to the situation. Life is ok even though I’m not getting what I wish to but what I’m getting is enough for now. There is a global recession the job market is not good even if the present job is like a rut but let me cling to it till the bad days are over and many more thought comes to us. Some of us just don’t want to get out of the comfort zone… It may sound weird but just giving you few examples.


I don’t know who has done these experiments but it’s very interesting. So I thought I should pen it down…

A frog was kept in a vessel and fire was kept under the vessel. The water in the container was almost full just a leap below for the frog to jump out of it. The frog swam merrily. After some time when the mercury rose slowly the frog tried to adjust with the situation. It was less playful with time and temperature. After some time the frog was just immobile at one of the corner of the container and trying its best to adjust with the rising temperature after some time with rising temperature the frog became so week and tired that it could hardly leap out of the water. Finally this poor frog died for the sake of this experiment.


Another frog was taken and put in this container with hot water… Our scientist must be cruel it seems. Please do not share this article to Menaka Gandhi or PETA or else they may sue our scientist for cruelty to animals. You must be wondering what happened to the second frog..Ok let me get back to the topic. This frog just simply sprang out of the water just seconds after it was put into the container.


Unfortunately the first frog is dead otherwise we could have taught him this survival trick…. It died but has given all those frogs among us just to think about our life and the compromises and adjustments we do with the changing situations in our life. I regret not getting this theory few years back in my life. Anyways better late than never. I have been adjusting to situations and compromising with life since long time. But now I have decided to jump out of the container and what about you ????? Still thinking it seems……

Destiny!!!!

Do you believe in destiny????? Are marriages made in heaven? ??????Who maintains the entire data base????? Don’t want to hurt anyone’s sentiments … but how come God manages all these things and who has created God ?

Recently I was watching a hindi movie where God has given a common man the charges of Godship to a common man who has failed in all his ventures in his life. This common man got screwed up listening to all the prayers, temple bells, church bells & the prayers at the Mosques, Gurudwaras n all other religion . This common man gave a blanket approval to all the prayers of that day. … and after that day he saw what kind of blunder he had done by this blanket approval……

Most of the times we decide and write our destiny… questions like why it happened? Why me ? How it happened? Will always bother us but most of the times we are mostly responsible for this whether we accept it or not..

There are things like natural calamities, accidents etc that are not in our control…. But at least we can control the thing that we have in our control… Can we control life? Here comes the dichotomy of destiny…….. Yes we can control some part of our life & no we can not control our life.. You must be wondering what crap you are reading ? … What made you to read such crap? There is nothing called serendipity in this world. You are here because it was written somewhere that you will read this page. This was just to give you a real life example of destiny.

Luck by chance

Do you believe in luck by chance ?????? Does it happen in any one‘s life………

Luck by chance is a nice movie which portrays the life of a person who has come to the city of dreams i.e. Mumbai to try his luck………… it also shows about some other who just got deprived of the 1% of luck and struggled as TV star or theatre artiste. The over all image of the movie is just a rosy picture of Bollywood though they have shown some dark side of it…………

I’m here not to write any critic on the movie nor do I have the intension to do it. Do you think any retired heroine will get impressed by the dialogue “I’m here because of you “ etc… life is not that easy … I’m a great fan of Farhan after seeing his directorial debut “Dil Chahta hai “ & his acting in “Rock on”. These are the movie where people like me can identify themselves. These movies are just very close to my heart.

I’m writing all these…… may be crap for some of you who come across this article. I was very closely associated with someone who was a struggling actor who came from a small city to this city of dreams to full fill his dreams. He is a one of the handsome and smartest guy from his home town. He tried his networking skills and increased his contacts day by day… I still remember the day when this guy got a phone call from a famous director personally for a lead opposite to some famous actor just like Luck by chance scene. I just remember the glow in his eyes after the telephonic conversation… My eyes were full in tears when I was watching Om Shanti Om when struggling Shahrukh was saying Sreyash Talpade on the bridge about he would have his posters across the city…the same dialogue have been said by him to me few years back………. some how the 1% luck was not in his side and it did not materialize .. Then he got some cameo roles in some other big banners but he was very optimistic that he would get some big lead role in some big banner. Their community believes in the thought that “We may break but we should not bend”. That thought made him not to compromise for any dirty things that are happening in Bollywood and he returned back to his home town. But his struggle will never go in vain. I wish him luck, I still have confidence in him he will do it one day definitely. I will definitely see him in big screen and see his posters across the cities.I always quote him the famous words by Richard Bach “You are never given a wish without being given the power to fulfill it …….. You may have to work hard on it however………………

Vibes

It’s amazing to understand the vibes. Everyday we come across different kinds of people in our day today life. We just give a second look at the beautiful girls or the handsome hunk that we come across. But sometimes we come across few people who may not be very attractive in their looks but we just feel like talking to them and know about them.

The person may be the rick driver or may be some vendor on the streets of just any person waiting at the bus stop or roaming in the mall. It’s our soul or our inner self that draws the attention. I was just thinking what made us to do so. Why does it happen? Why does some thing tells us inside and control our other thoughts and draws our attention?

It’s the language of the soul. Its called the vibes. From our daily karma or work we create an invisible aura around us which the souls only can recognize. Its both positive and negative as well as we meet some people and we don’t feel like talking to them.

I was just thinking how we can develop the positive vibes in ourselves. The first thing that come to my mind is Meditation. Meditation creates a vibrations in our body which does make some sound which only the souls can recognize. Then chanting mantras. Yogas even exercising or even a morning or evening walk can create some positive energy in our lives. I remember I was travelling back from Nanded to Mumabai. A lady in her sixties was sitting in the front berth. By just seeing her radiant eyes I asked her “Mam are you practicing some meditation? “ She just smiled and gave me her card. She is a senior member of some big meditation organization. Also insisted me to join her organization.

Last year one of my colleagues and had gone to Pune for some official visit and my hotel was booked by our office. I insisted on changing the room. My friend got irritated as the hotel was almost full. Finally they allotted us some other room. My friend was little upset with my behavior. He had a quest to know the reason. He used his tip influence to one hotel boy. Finally the hotel boy said that their was a suicide few years back in the previous room.

31st January

I was born on the same day few years back...I'm still bitting around the bush to understand the purpose of my life. It sounds wierd sometimes but it's the truth of life. Everyone runs behind the quest to understand the real meaning of life. Some people may agree where as other just ignore the fact.......Some people are so busy that they may not have time to think all these.

There is nothing called an coincidence in life.... everything happens because it has been written somewhere.. but who has written all these. I know there is Almighty who created everything that we see and that we cant see. But why He has created different Gods for different religions.

An Ode To My Granny

I didn't cry
Nor did I weep
When death visited you
That terrible morning.

That morning I realized
the mystery of life
you were talking
the previous night.

All my days with you
came to my sight
How can I forget you
Granny in my life.

I pray to god
to give you peace
I hope you will stay
at heaven in bliss.

Childhood Days

As a child we always wanted to grow up fast. Upgrade ourself from riding cycle to motorbike, have beard on our face and shave them everyday.......Now we realise that incomplete homework....broken toys were far better than unfulfilled dreams and broken emotions.............

I still feel like going back to the time

When "Getting High" meant "On a Swing"

When "Drinking" meant "Orange Juice"

When "DAD" was the only "Hero"

When "Love" was "Mom's Hug"

When "Dad's shoulder" was the "Highest place on earth"

When "Worst enemies" were "Siblings"

When only thing that could Hurt were "Skinned Knees"

When only thing "Broken" were "Toys"

When "Good Bye" meant "Till Tomorrow".........................