Honesty is....

Honesty is the best policy. We all have been taught this lesson from the times even before we stepped inside the premises of our schools. We have not only been taught this but also have been trained to be industrious about practicing this learning. Not only was the indolence towards this practice harshly punished, but also we were looked down upon.
Heavily fed and brought up on this nutritious, but a very basic, fact of life, now I am at crossroads of decisions because of this fact. I am not able to digest this fact after almost two decades of eating it. Why should the bug of indigestion hit the digestive systems of my mind when I am in the most comfortable phase of my life? It turns out that the apparent comfort was the mirage that everyone with a mindset like mine wants to seek in the desert of life.
I will start of by explaining the concept of “most comfortable phase” in the most honest way possible. I spent twelve years getting primary education followed by seven years of more education to get a dentist’s tag in front of my name. After this Herculean achievement I realize that- “Hey, I don’t even want to pursue dentistry anymore!” My parents said-“Okay, go ahead, do whatever you want to, but make sure you earn well.” Was this piece of lesson helping me make my decision? I have no answer for this question. The very thought of pursuing any further education was nipped in the bud because of the simple reason that I did not have any money to do that and well, my parents, did not want to finance any of that because they were planning their retirement soon and also I guess that enough was already spent on me. So one thing led to another and I end up in clinical research at a “big pharma company”. The job is good, the people are good, the pay, well, money can never be good- everything is smooth, in fact it is so smooth that I could get married!
The whole world sees me as the person who should not be bothered by anything currently. He is not doing dentistry, nice job and earning pretty good, traveling all over, staying at good hotels- ‘he must be happy’. And that is where my diagnosis lies- “must be’. It is an illusion. Probably I am the greediest person ever, that I am not even satisfied by what life has to offer. The world does not know that the amount of pretense that I have to face in one of the most regulated audited and so called altruistic jobs- Clinical Research. People only seem to be good; people only seem to be involved in the welfare of all the patients worldwide. But, hey who am I kidding. If I just ignore all this, the job is good; the future prospects are excellent and the money that I will pocket will be extremely great.
I would be playing the perfect “holier than thou” bastard right now if I say that I am the only blessed one with the powers of philanthropy. I like my life to be luxurious as well. I also dream of that pent house at Nepean Sea road or the Bentley or the frequent vacations to my own island. Honestly speaking, instead of these I dream of seeing the world and imbibing the different cultures, be a vagabond for a considerable amount of time. Live like a hippie and get stoned (?) at the all the beautiful places around the world. I do not dream of a settled life with wife and kids. I want to quit the pretentious job that I am doing currently and do all the things just described. Work for the people and mingle in their daily lives for sometime (I am not being the bastard when I say this), move on and see some different set of people. During all these adventures of the life meet the woman of my life and make love during the best moments of life. Open up that sandwich shop and put Grilleria on the world food map…concretize Peace and Love in Arambol…take time off to travel and write that book that I have been wanting to….Only if had the courage to be honest about these options….. What is it that is preventing me from doing all this?
Lessons learnt during childhood were not only about honesty but they were also about inhibitions…. “Don’t talk crazy”, “you have to be do something good in life”, “money is so important to live”, “you have to be well settled in life”. I am afraid to be honest about these thoughts to anyone around me, including myself. My friends must want to kill me for this is the only thing I keep talking about. My parents and my sister think that this is only a “crazy phase” of mine and I shall soon get out of it. Even if I do all that, it would be my parents who would be disheartened the most….Not many people in the world can understand me…. People everywhere think that I am the most sane person…it is an illusion. Lastly I would like to put down, honestly, my biggest fear- I may lose myself. I may lose my craziness. I may not be what I am. I could be married and have kids in the next seven years and do what every person is doing as a part of their daily chores. I may stop being honest and turn into a pretentious being…I will be doing well in life…I may have that penthouse, although somewhere in the suburbs…I may not drive a Bentley but a Skoda at least….not own an island but take a vacation to an exotic place every six months…..but then for all these illusions of happiness I will give up my honest self….the one who wanted to travel the world and write a book…live a life of aloofness for sometime in Ladakh…Peace and Love…Grilleria….all would have become a haze by then….It is becoming increasingly difficult for me to stay positive about the craziness that I so badly want to pursue….I can feel myself constantly being pulled into the world of sanity…To practice insanity along side the world where everything is predefined is not an option that I have thought about…but demarcating the two will not be an easy task…or feasible either…
I would want to conclude these often thought thoughts by saying that honesty is no more the best policy… Honesty is being crazy….Honesty is sometimes a delusion…..Honesty is acceptance.. Honesty would lose all its charm unless it is free of all the inhibitions that it is frequently overshadowed by…honesty is courage….courage to be honest, to accept honesty and practice it…all this is something that each one is aware of …but now it is being observed in a different perspective…

Smells, Sights, Sounds, Seasons and Solitude

The faint smell of the wet earth from far-away that heralds the beginning of an exciting season of showers tickles not only my olfactory sense, but also the thought process that usually is the sole companion of a solitary soul. It has been a month of minimal work but I would not say that my mind has been idle all this time. Books that talk about wild adventures of dogs or about knight-errantry have kept the idleness at bay all through this time.

As I sit on the window pane in the middle of the almost dead night and contemplate on the mundaneness of life or my conjured endeavors to get some amount of excitement into it, my life starts rolling itself in front of me through the various smells and sights that had all been stored in the memory bank.

The smell of chlorine water of the swimming pool takes me back to the phase of my childhood where I was learning to swim. All I wanted during those days was to get out of the pool campus as soon as possible to avoid the harsh comments of my instructors. But I must applaud my mother for being adamant then about my swimming lessons which have been useful ever since.

The smell of medicines has always been an integral part of my memory probably from the day I was born. My father used to smell of medicines whenever he used to get home from his clinic. The frequent trips to his clinic during the school summer vacations and doing nothing there but sit on his “big chair” and doodle on the prescription pads came back to me. The compounder at the clinic was never satisfied pampering with some home made food. I had never thought that these “do nothing” trips would have such an impact on mind that they would show up after 15 years on a solitary contemplative night.

The smell of the dirty socks takes me back to my computer class in school. The school days were something I am not really proud of and also I would not want them to be a part of my active memory, but they form a large portion of memory none the less.

The smell of the earth that started this entire process helped me touch base with all the holidays in the mountains. I do not specifically remember the minute details of these holidays, but I must have surely enjoyed them as they were coming back to me on a happy note. The smell of the earth also brings back the times when I used to frequent the hills and talk to myself at lengths sitting amongst nature.

The smell of the masala chai comes along with the time spent in Dal Housie with Aniket. We had the one of the best chais till date there. The freshly showered trees, mountains, vacant streets, stray dogs and hot masala chai made for a perfect evening back then. It is dismal to accept that Aniket will not be around much to keep a tab on either his or my life.

The smell of the rotting fish brings back the sight of the smiling faces of all the people at House of Charity. The people housed there are going through a difficult patch of their lives, but one thing they will never forget is to give love without any expectations.

The smell of the sea has to do with the recent memories. These memories comprise of the “dreaming with your eyes open” sessions at Marine Drive, Carter Road, etc. with Rahul.

The smell of the cashew feni, hash in the air, perfumes is as fresh as the entire “finding happiness/peace and love” adventure in 2008. These smells remind me of that happiness is simple-a beach, the moon and the sound of the waves are all you need for a catharsis of divine emotions. The philosophizing session about “how inconsequential we are in this huge universe” with Sar is still so clear. These are things that I will never be able to let go of as a part of my soul is still going around Arambol. Happiness has found a new definition from then.

These thoughts are occasionally interrupted with some kind of a humming sound of machinery in the factory close by. This sound makes me feel so privileged. I feel privileged about the freedom and luxury that I enjoy. Freedom to think about my life in the middle of the night where as there are people who are working the night out to earn some bread.

The smell of the drains and the sewer that comes from a typical stray dog in Mumbai makes me smile. I smile at the thought of this smell because this smell comes from the only living being in my recent life who gives me hug for no reason whatsoever.

It feels good to know how the smells and the sounds have brought the seasons of my life back to me on this solitary night to provide me with the solace that one is on a look out for when he starts thinking too much by himself.