amritanshupushkar10-blog

[amritanshupushkar10-blog]

The City Of Haste

Every city in our beautiful world is beautiful only because there is that something which makes it a city; quite a city. In whatsoever corner of the world it may be, there is that something ‘special’, that quintessential essence, that unmistakable attribute, which breathes life into its very existence and distinguishes it from all the other cities of the world. Be it Stratford- the birthplace of Shakespeare, or Sydney- the house of the Opera House, or Los Angeles- Hollywood, or Paris- the city of dreams; every city has that something different which differentiates it from the different cities in the world.

Today, I wish to talk about the city of ‘haste’…… you got it right- ‘haste’. Days ago, I happened to be at Calcutta- a prominent metro city in East India. And haste is what largely ascribes the course of the daily life of the inhabitants of a present day Calcutta. The morning here is marked by chaos and tumult with crowds of many men and women scurrying over platforms, roads, bridges, pavements, stalls, scoundrels and sleepy mongrels; all in a hurry to catch up with their respective morning chores. More often, the words that escape their lips, desperate to twine into a meaningful expression, seem half-lost into the winds before you are able to half-comprehend what has actually been said to you. Buses and cabs ply on the roads as if wild bulls charging towards infinity. But for the traffic constables around, it would rather have been a near impossible task to cross the roads from one end to another. Such is the haste, the hassle, the indifferent turmoil that characterises the daily thoroughfare of the city of Calcutta, long until the city subsides into the cusp of nightly silence.

As I wandered delightedly alongside the wet streets of Calcutta, a number of things I came across: hotels, restaurants, shopping complexes large and bright, ice cream and pizza parlours, cafeterias, office buildings, business parks, skyscrapers, fish markets, wish markets, lousy subways, misery, pain, limitations, sufferings, art and tart. Everything, almost everything that can be found in a big city, could be found over there, and all of them seemed to impart it the appearance of poetry draped in the sundry shades of the vibrance that comes only with the figments of Imperialism long lost. The place had everything, indeed; except mutual compassion and of course, time. I wonder what all cities have them today in an as volatile a world as that of ours. Yet, I firmly believe that its them that make a city quite a city; irrespective of anything else. For the truth is that most of us live in one city or the other, but very few of us live in real homes. And love is what it takes to build a home, nothing else. Well, am I wrong?

Good day to you!

[amritanshupushkar10-blog]

Those Silly Village Idiots....

The sun setting over crimson hedgerows; the distant rumble of the miller growing faint and the air turning a tad too cooler; these people, they call it a day. Yeah, they do! They cook their meals early and go to their beds damn pretty early, ridiculously early. Much when we folks just start it all in our big, beautiful cities. Strange they are, alien much indeed! Lot unlike us.

They live in a small world, very small. They don’t know many a man. Interestingly, they find time for each other, the people next door. How do they? Maybe, because they are silly old people. They know no History, no Geography, no Economy, no Science, yet, you’d find their radio sets croaking day to day news down late evenings. And they listen. They listen with remarkable intent. Strange they are!

They don’t have facebook accounts, but they have their no-frills accounts running low on money. Still, they don’t give it much a damn. They milk their cattle, till their lands, reap the harvest and pray to God. They don’t know what it means to exhibit. They don’t know how to exhibit. They know no pomp, no false shows of civility. They live and let live. We may choose to laugh at them for they appear so savage, so backward. But do they really care about our opinions, what we think about them? Certainly not. What difference does it make to their lives?

It would seem much crazy to live a life like that. Isn’t it? We are civilized people, educated people and we know how to sneer at such stupid creations of nature that blemish the surface of our earth. Right! These people don’t know how to chase a fortune. They are not like us. They are complacent, self-satisfied beings; not our type. They believe in puerile notions of family and relationships. It’s best they are made understand that they are not fit for this fast-paced world. They are not worth our time, our acquaintance, our energy, everything. Somebody should go and tell them this. However, the point is: do they care?

[amritanshupushkar10-blog]

The Unspoken Reality of My Doctor All of us have been to doctors some time or the other for some reason or the other. In fact, we have so many doctors around us: cardiologists, gastroentrologists, opticians, neurologists and many more. Some of us have family doctors, friendly doctors, local doctors, international doctors, etc etc; all special people who specialise in specific fields of their study. Today I am gonna tell you about a kind of doctor you might never have heard before. These doctors may or may not have a practicing degree. They may not have a capacious, well furnished clinic down the town. Yet, they are clinical and most effective. They may not as well charge anything for their consultancy and the most potent prescription they more often give is: ‘Hope’. Yes! And these are the doctors of the mind and of the soul. The best part is that we need no apples to keep them away. On the contrary, we would always love to have an appointment with them every one day or the other. Its absolutely free, after all!

Incidentally, I have one such doctor in my life and to be very honest, with him being there I have been able to explore multiple dimensions of the mind and that vast reserve of capacity that can be tapped to realise the greatest of our dreams. Since then, I have been a man on mission. The one very precious thing that I have learnt from him is to believe, have faith in self and to be positive even during the most testing hours of our lives. He is the talisman who believes that nothing in life is impossible, nothing is difficult; given we realise that we ‘will’ do it. Courage is what it takes to win the greatest of battles in life and victory comes only when we are willing not to compromise for anything short of it. For winning, we first need to imagine what it takes to win and then the idea should be imbibed deep within and reasonably well so much so that nothing but victory lurks in our sight all the time, all along. For then is engendered the passion, the fury, the madness that sets the road to victory straight. The mind is the mother and the purity of soul keeps us focused on our goal until we have what we want to have. At last, I would like to quote a very remarkable advice my doctor gave me once, “One should strive to ensure that every day in life is bright as a pearl. As such, when we choose to use them all pearls into forming a necklace, it should look brilliant, beautiful and a real specimen of artistry. For a single useless, wasteful day would never be able to achieve that one all important purpose of life.” ‘Well, it’s wartime! Let’s set the wheels rollin’!

And our Doctors will help!