My guest post on Bhavia’s Blog – The Utopian Indian Society

Strange things were happening in India. It was smeared on television. There were heated debates. Astrologers were shrieking about doomsday. People were terrified and desperately trying to seek solace in their Gods, unaware of the fact that God himself was responsible for their unbelievable situation. He was laughing uproariously. How did I know? We had a code word – Lightening bolts.

Read my guest post on Bhavia’s blog if none of that made sense. 🙂

Here is the link – The Utopian Indian Society.

And do read the introduction about me written by Bhavia in the post. It is unbelievably sweet and made me blush to a shade of beetroot red.

Hell material

So the thing is that I died and stood somewhere between the gates of heaven and hell, with Chitragupta looking at me and opening up his magical books in which he keeps tab of all your sins down to the last cockroach you flushed down the commode for fun.

“Creature, you have to go to hell,” he said giving me a go-on-and-don’t-waste-my-time look.

“Excusez-moi?!?” I said. I looked around believing that he might be talking to a cow soul who was following me on my way up.

It was then that the clouds parted and Yamaraj descended like a feather from the upper floor of the floating city.

“What’s all this brouhaha?” he said raising an eyebrow at Chitragupta.

“The creature refuses to go to hell.’

‘And why is that so?’ Yamaraj said as he brought his huge nose sitting on a neglected garden of a moustache close to my face.

“What sins have I committed? Why am I sentenced to hell?” I said squeaking like a mouse.

Yamaraj told me that he was not supposed to give reasons and follow the protocols, which he admitted, have been changed in the last few centuries. I argued for more clarity but he was adamant. I stood my ground. This went on till eternity.

Suddenly the clouds parted again and a light shone through.

“YAMA! If you cannot do your bloody work of kicking creatures towards heaven and hell properly, let me know. I will replace you with Rajnikant. The next time you disturb my beauty sleep by your clamour, it will reflect in your yearly report card,” God thundered.

Yama shrank a foot and Chitragupta hid behind his tome. The spotlight moved on me.

“What is your problem creature?” it bellowed as it intensified.

“I am a human!” I said. Frankly I was disturbed beyond words to be addressed like a mosquito.

“Everyone is a creature here. You are not different from a cockroach in my eyes. It took me an awful lot of God hours to create both of you.”

“Surely humans are more complex to create?” I suggested.

“Do you fly?”

“No.”

“Do you have antennas?”

“No.”

“Can you squeeze through cracks?”

“No.”

“So there. A cockroach can do things you can’t do. Stop swathing in your false idea of supremacy, stop wasting my time and tell me your problem.”

I patiently repeated everything that I had patiently told Yamaraj. God laughed. It was like a mini earthquake. The spotlight shook.

“Have you killed anyone for me?” he asked.

“Excusez-moi?!?” I said.

The clouds grew darker. I was scared and close to wetting my Ariel white robe.

“No,” I said, now sure that God was not very good at French.

“Have you raped a woman in my name?”

“Holy moly. No.”

“Did you behead a man? Cut him to pieces? Did you kill people with guns for me? Did you explode yourself in a crowded market? Did you fly a plane in a building? Did you smash children on a wall? Did you torch a train screaming my name?”

“No. And that is why…”

“…you should go to hell,” God completed the sentence for me.

Stunned silence. I was sure I have landed in the wrong place – some sort of alternate villainous heaven-hell-swap reality.

“You see creature, I changed the rules a few centuries back. I realised that love would not make you remember me. If all the creatures cuddled and played ring-a-ring-a-roses, then I, their bloody creator, would vanish into oblivion.”

“But you sent prophets, avatars, your own son, messiah to teach us to love you and each other.”

“THAT was a mistake,” the clouds grew dark again and there were distinct sounds of thunder. Yamaraj motioned me to shut the fu*k up.

“But people are waiting for you to make a comeback.”

“Bollocks!”

I wanted to tell God that he was bordering self-blasphemy but I kept quiet.

“And after that I have sent more messengers of destruction than I could possibly accommodate in my office hours, I have instigated creatures to kill each other, to destroy themselves. Somehow, the fact that humans have multiple religions and brain of the size of a peanut helped me in my cause. People remember me more than ever. My name is a money-making machine, which gives me such a high. And since you have not done anything to keep my name alive other than maybe remembering me when the hour was dire, YOU are hell material,” God said as I stood transfixed in the spotlight.

“I have killed ants!” I said as I saw my inevitable doom looming large.

“2,34,453 to be precise,” Chitragupta said looking in his book.

“So many? Who are you? Hitler?” God roared, laughing at his own joke.

“It was an accident.”

And so I was sentenced to hell for not doing anything to glorify God and sitting on my ass all my life. Chitragupta assured me that I would be comfortable there as hell was half empty. It was heaven which was overburdened.

“Bad God. Bad Bad God,” I muttered as I moved towards the gates of hell.

The spotlight which had almost left me was suddenly upon me.

“I heard that,” God said.

“Doesn’t matter. I am already off to hell,” I said.

[images from here]

What is the purpose of your life?

Last Sunday, as I was trotting towards the nearest bus stand with two of my friends as we hurried to catch up our show of  Transformers:Revenge of the fallen, we were halted in the middle of the road by three young chaps. They hailed from a Christian society and were very polite. One of them threw a question at us – “What is the purpose of your life?”

Now, imagine yourself in such a situation. You are all excited and ready to see the latest machine war flick and someone pops the “purpose of life” question in front of you. Its like asking a soldier to choose the menu for the dinner while he is busy dodging bullets in the enemy’s firing line.

“Right now, the purpose of my life is to reach IMAX on time.”, I said and smiled.

“Would you like to have a postcard from us which will entitle you to a dvd about Jesus Christ? Its for free.”

“Yes!”

I could not believe this. They were young kids who could be watching a movie or going on a date. Instead, they were stopping people in the middle of the road and asking them the purpose of life!?! I found those guys too spiritual, in the same way in which they would have found me too materialistic.

When Swami Dayanand saw the mouse trampling on the ShivaLingam, he was devastated. He could not understand that how can the Almighty Lord possibly allow a mere mouse to just walk over his statue and eat the offerings? Asked in another way, if God wants Earth to be the Garden on Eden, then why does he allow evil to breed? Yes, we have all heard about the balance between the Good and the Evil, but isn’t that too lame an excuse for God’s incompetency?

Sometimes I feel that we are obsessed with the unknown. Aliens, werewolves, mermaids, witches, vampires, yeti, fairies, dragons, heaven, hell. God. Don’t get me wrong. I am not saying that I don’t believe in God. I know there is a power which drives us. Its not all about probability, serendipity or theory of randomness. There is something more to it and I am sure that that shall never be revealed to us. That is our destiny. To understand God is to unscramble scrambled eggs.

What I hate is the Glorification, the Spiritualization of the rest of us by a selected few, the sanctification, the cleansing and the conversions. If someone has to come to me and ask me the purpose of my life then either that person is absolutely confused about the purpose of his own life OR my face gives an impression that I am completely purposeless and I am sure that the latter is not true. 🙂

If we have not realized this by now, Religion is a business in modern times. It always was, but now its booming. We have billions riding on it. When a temple can raise a donation of Rs 5 Crores(approximately 1,046, 684 $) in 7 hours, then the sky is the limit. The terrorism industry is an offspring of religion. The politicians use religion to get to the seat of power. We use it as a reason to rape women. We use it to forcibly marry off our children without their consent. Its a way to make instant money on the internet. And if you have no reason to hate your neighbour, religion can be a very tempting bait. And so where is God in all this? Well, maybe he is sitting in a corner and doing this :

I am sure I am born for a purpose but I am also sure that a priest or a spiritual Guru cannot reveal it to me. No one can. I am sure this is something which can’t be revealed. Maybe there is nothing to be revealed, but to understand. I am also sure that chanting a deity’s name or lying in the feet of the lord or donating crores for a yagya cannot be the purpose of my existence.

If you look at the chart of the Earth’s evolution at the top, humans have just appeared. Its amusing how we have pushed the Earth on the brink of collapse in such a short span of time. The rate at which we are going, we will end up being nothing more than a faint flash of existence on the vast timeline of the universe. We can either live for thousands of years in harmony or we can end up like the dinosaurs.

The existence of each generation of humans is a story with a moral at the end. It is us who will be writing the moral for the next generation. Its us who will be deciding whether the next generation will live a life better or worse than us. To give them a better life, all we have to do is to just live our lives without any hatred and everything else will fall into places. Just live.

Now how is that for a purpose?

Fear

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

p.s. This is (again) not an email forward. 😉

Or was my imagination running wild…

This tag is record breaking because it took me a long time to finish it. The longest ever. There was a lot to imagine and create and I hope the results are not awful. 

I was tagged by Su to do this one and I couldn’t resist it because of its uniqueness although I am also supposed to do Nita’s and Sulz’s tags. I’ll do them ladies, I promise! 🙂 

The rules first : 

• You must use all the five words given to you by your tagger and draw pictures using paint or GIMP or any other photo editing tool.
• Each picture must be self explanatory when you relate it to the given word.
• Each word MUST have at least one picture attributed to it.
• None of these pictures should be copyrighted. By this I mean that you have to draw them yourself.
• After you finish the tag, which I think will take quite some time; you need to pass it on to other people with a fresh set of 5 words.

Su gave me the following 5 words : God, light, jet plane, golf and wallet. 

Here are the results:

GOD

 

LIGHT

JET PLANE

GOLF

WALLET

 

So, that is it. It was great imagining those pictures and creating them. I loved doing this tag!!! Hope you liked them!

I am supposed to tag 5 people but I am not sure who all are already tagged. So, I would like to tag anyone who is willing to take it up.  Just let me know in the comments section and thou shall get your 5 words.

Over and out.

The shakable article of faith

Michael Jackson is now Mikaeel after the singer embraced Islam. According to the reports, Jackson discussed religion with a music producer and songwriter of his new album, both of whom have converted to Islam. Michael warmed to the idea and the conversion happened.

This is not the first time when we have seen a celebrity converting to another religion. Half of Hollywood has already converted to Scientology and Quaker and back home A.R. Rehman’s conversion was the most visible one in the past few years. A common man also finds his own reasons for such conversions. Sometimes its for money, sometimes its because of the fear of death, sometimes its for love and sometimes its because of unanswered question which the present faith can’t answer.

Leaving aside the topic of Forced Conversions, according to this very elaborate survey done by The Pew Forum, 28% of American adults have left their faith in which they were born in favour of another. If the change of affiliation from one form of Protestantism to another is included, the percentage stands at a staggering 44%. Also the number of people who do not attach themselves to any faith have increased.

So, what is the big deal about changing religion and why do people indulge in the activity? Most of the children who are born to parents practicing a single faith, tend to accept the religion. The children born to parents with mixed religions tend to change their faith to an entirely new one because to the conflicts and confusions in their mind. It is nothing more than a mean of ironing out the complexities into which they were born. The whole idea of changing the religion stem out of the fact that people strive to smooth out their lives. It has more to do with psychology rather than pragmatism. It has more to do with finding an anchor.

I also believe that once a person has converted, he begins to subconsciously unclog his life. For e.g. the person can be a true blue dipsomaniac but might tend to leave the habit after conversion. This is something he could have done without converting but maybe he just needed a driving force. This does not mean that we can ask questions like – “So, would I be better off if I convert to another faith?”. The question should be – “Do I have to convert to another faith to be better off?”. Most of the times, the answer would be No, but as I pointed out earlier, some people do need a strong driving force, specially when their life had been turbulent.

Another aspect which raises its hood after conversions is – “How much does the life of the person change?” You can read the story of five people who converted to Islam here. Yes, the person has to go through a tough process of making the family and friends understand specially when the religions had always been conflicting. Sometimes, when the person converts for love, its hard to make the family understand specially when they realize that its the whole persona which is going to change.

Ofcourse, I must emphasise that I somehow don’t subscribe to the thought process which might lead to a conversion. To me, its something similar to changing your shampoo brand. Its still a shampoo which you are rubbing on your head! I somehow don’t connect to the idea of religion playing such an important part in my life and thus this whole topic fascinates me. I have been to a Church, a Gurudwara and a Temple and I could not find much of a difference. We pray in all of them for a better life. I could not grasp the idea where people stop calling God by a certain name and start calling him by another one. But I would love to meet a convert and understand his point of view.

Have you ever known a person who has converted from one religion to another?

Two interesting links which I found –

The Big Religion Chart

The Psychology of Religious Conversion

Hoodwinked from the slideshow

So…Diwali came and went and all I got was one lousy holiday. Life, it seems, is running faster than I can fathom. A day after Diwali, I got an invitation to view a Picasa album of a friend who is in US of A. She was there with me in Chennai from the last two and a half years and was lured by Uncle Sam at almost the same time when I was being sucked into the whirlpool of Delhi. In the Album, she was performing the evening Diwali Puja with her new friends. Many of my friends who were there in Chennai with me are in USA right now and I am used to watch such Picasa slideshows in which they are standing and laughing with strangers in strange lands, but this Diwali slideshow left me with a slight tinge of envy. 

No, I am not unhappy because I am still waiting for an overseas assignment which seems to be too difficult to grab and which my friends got served on a golden platter AND which, God might just throw at me after sucking and chewing out every ounce of hope from my heart. No, I am not unhappy because I wish to see the world through my own eyes rather than through some bloody Discovery channel AND I know that God might just grant this wish after trampling it under his feet. Yes, I get everything in life….when I don’t want it anymore…when I am done lusting after it. 

Anyways, the point is that, I felt slightly envious(and nostalgic) because I went into flashback when we were all together and had such good time back in Chennai. And now I see them having a good time with strangers. Once I was there in all those slideshows but now I am not there in any of them. Sometimes I feel like a part of those scenes in the movies where the hero is dancing with his servant and thinking about his lady love AND then Voila!! The servant is replaced by the love of hero’s life. Its as if, I am watching a slideshow of the pictures of the great time we had together and then suddenly I start disappearing from the pictures one by one till am not there in any of them. Hoodwinked by God and replaced by strangers. 

But, then come to think of it, isn’t this the story of our life? Just take out all your photographs of past 10 years and have a look at them. You will realise that in all of them, you are standing at one place while the people around you keep on changing. You are the center of your Universe. You are not moving. Its the Earth that is moving around you, bringing new faces to stand besides you. You are hoodwinked out of a slideshow so that you become a part of another one, but the point is that, you are ALWAYS a part of one of them. 

So, yes, I was envious, but then I smiled. Life always come up with its own set of surprises. It never stop amusing you. The way it unfolds is what makes it beautiful. Yes, you can’t get back what just passed you by and you can’t fight the absence of a person or an unfulfilled dream but then you always have those slideshows…the portals to your past and your past’s present.

And GOD, well, I think he is just a child spoilt silly by all of us. 🙂

The Cage

I was sitting on a mat spread lazily on the lush green grass surrounding India Gate when the cage appeared for the first time. It was a sunny winter afternoon and I was in a mood to sketch. My ten months old son was sleeping in a pram besides me while I had sent my husband to bring me an ice-cream. My husband laughed as he closed his laptop and got up because he too loved to eat ice-creams in winters, although they were hard to get. As I took out my drawing pad and pencils and looked at the majestic India Gate, I saw the cage appear in front of it, hanging in mid air.

It was white and big enough to accommodate at least five men. As people noticed it, then dropped whatever they were doing and started to walk towards it, as if in a trance. I too got up when my husband suddenly appeared and took my hand to stop me. I turned and saw two ice-creams in his hand. The traffic too stopped moving after a few seconds. While the murmurs were gaining momentum, the sky suddenly turned dark. It remained pitch black for a few seconds and then all the colours of a rainbow were splashed all over it, moving like molted lava. Something very similar to the play of colors we see when we pour oil over water. And then that thunderous voice which appeared to be coming from everywhere and nowhere.

“I have placed 100 similar cages all over the world. These cages will be utilized to cleanse the Earth. I have given all of you enough chances but a few more years and I can kiss goodbye to any hopes of a better Earth. Over the next few months, the world will be in a huge turmoil but I am sure that those who will be left behind will be wise enough to find a path amongst the self inflicted human complexities. The ones, of whom the Earth would be cleansed are those who are devoid of even an iota of love and respect for the fellow Earthlings. Terrorists, rapists, molesters, poachers, murderers, drug dealers, corrupt leaders and corrupt Businessmen are the ones who would enter the cages first. All those who have even a small fraction of purity left in them and whom I consider worthy of creating a better future, will stay. All the cages will always remain on the Earth reminding you of what you all have become! As a parting shot, let me also inform you that I am removing all the weapons from the world. Goodbye.“

The skies cleared and for a second it seemed as if it was a bad dream but the cage was still there, hanging in mid air and emphasising the reality. There was such an eerie silence that it seemed as if the Earth had stopped rotating. They say that everyone on Earth heard that voice in the language they understood. I heard it in Hindi while the British tourist standing next to me heard it in English. That was the day when the world stopped and screamed afterwards.

Suddenly a man appeared from thin air inside the cage. He started screaming the moment he realised where he was. He was pleading and asking for help from the bewildered crowd staring at him. The cage started changing colours and turned to orange. Amidst shock and terror, we all realised what was happening. The cage was heating up. The man started jumping up and down to find a cool spot to stand but soon his skin started to stick to the hot base. He grabbed the bars to pull up his legs but his hands got glued to the hot bars. The cage was turning red and the man was melting sending an overpowering stench of burned flesh amidst painful screams for help. My son was wide awake by now and started crying. My husband took my hand and we moved towards our car to get out of there. We sat in the car for five hours before the traffic finally started moving. By that time, the cage at India Gate had taken 300 lives and the screams were ringing in my ears. 30000 people had vanished from the face of the Earth in those five hours. The cage was killing one person every minute. 

*  *  *  *

On the third day from the beginning of the killings, my husband confided in me. He told me that as an eminent businessman of the city, he has given and accepted bribes numerous times. I sat there and listened to what he had to say. I knew all this already but I had accepted him the way he was because I knew that he was beyond repair. 

“I am transferring everything to your name. I might be gone any second. Please bring up my son to be a good man. Not someone like me. I am sorry, sorry for everything.”, he said as tears welled up in his eyes. He cried bitterly that night. For the first time, I felt sorry for him and cried with him. All the property was transferred to my name within the next 15 days. Although I wondered about the worth of all that within a year. 

*  *  *  *

By the end of a year 52,560,000 people were dead. Many of them were notorious criminals and eminent politicians. The world was in a chaos. The stock markets crashed, armies of all the countries were now unemployed and a few countries were left completely leaderless. Some people tried to destroy the cages, while some turned into believers. Despite the chaos, there was a serenity. A tacit calm. People were good to each other. They were hopeful that despite of what they had done in the past, Gods would spare them if they behave themselves now. Fear was driving people to love each other. 

My husband vanished 14 months after the killings started. That day we were having breakfast and talking about our son’s birthday celebrations when he disappeared from his chair mid sentence. I stared at the unfinished toast and the half filled cup of tea for a long time as I didn’t had the courage to switch on the television and see him melt. Those fourteen months were the best time of our marriage. He had completely transformed and I had fallen in love with him.

*  *  *  *

It took the world 30 years to come back to order. Yes, we survived somehow. It became a beautiful place to live eventually. The generation who is running the world now is of my son’s age and they are brought up in an environment were “love” is the only word, the only possible solution. My son got married some years back and I am a grandma now. I had never believed in happily-ever-afters but I am living one now. Of course, I miss my husband at times. I still have that cup and plate in which he had his last breakfast.

And yes, the cage is still there at India Gate. Its a part of that monument now, a part of our existence. But I don’t remember if it has been used since a long time. I go to India Gate at times to have a look at it. To remember the day when the sky turned into a molten rainbow.

The price of being different

How do we react when we come across a woman who is middle aged, successful and not married?

How do we react when we come across a person who is gay/lesbian?

How do we react when we come across a couple who have remarried in old age?

Most of us react in the most inexplicable manner. The reaction starts with amazement and passes to confusion and ends up in a recoil of horror or disgust. We are so much used to live in our own contrived world that a slight deviation lands us in a state of utter bewilderment. We just can’t accept a person who does not think like us and who lives a life which is not considered “normal” by any standard of society. People want other people to be like them and if they don’t succeed then they turn really nasty.

The three instances which I have stated above are too big for many to digest. People cant’ even digest “slight” deviations. As a kid, I was more interested in reading books rather than playing cricket. My Physical Education teacher was a lady who just could not understand me. She always looked at me with such resentful eyes as if I was a pig who just got out of a pool of scum. She tried her best to defame me in the school as I was the topper but I never gave a hoot. I just could not understand that why was I forced to do something in which I was not interested? And why couldn’t she digest the fact that there can be a boy who does not like to play cricket? In such situations, a person turns towards his friends and parents where he expects support and encouragement. Can you imagine the trauma when he finds none? Thankfully, this was not the case with me.

Anyways, this was just a small example. I have known four women who are middle aged, chose to remain unmarried and had fabulous careers. When people are told about such women, they invariably end up making fun of them.

“Oh!! There must be some medical problem. Or maybe she was ditched and she turned into a man-hater. *giggles* “

People just can’t accept the fact that a woman/man can feel complete and satisfied even if she/he does not marry. The person might have a different definition of “Satisfaction” which most of us fail to acknowledge or understand. Its not really hard but many of us don’t have that dimension in our thought process.

A few days back I was having a discussion with a close friend of mine and we were discussing the Gay Pride March which happened in Delhi. My friend asked me that how would I react if one fine day I find out that one of my close friend is gay? This is how our talk went –

Me – Why do I need to react?
Friend – Because its not normal.
Me – What is normal then?
Friend – A girl and a boy falling in love. That’s normal.
Me – Who decides that?
Friend – That’s the way things are.
Me – And who decides that?
Friend – I don’t get your point.
Me – Why should I care about what a person do in his bedroom and what are his sexual preferences as long as I am not asked to get involved? If he is a dear friend then he will remain one. I am no one to decide how a person leads his life. Its his life. I can’t point out fingers at a person who is just living his life his own way. There are many people in this world who do things like killing people, raping innocents, robbing others of their land and money and fooling a whole nation. I would like to point my finger at them.
Friend – Errrr…I don’t know. Guess I will leave him.
Me – Congratulations. You are a part of a vast majority.

Most of us think that nature did not intended it to happen that way but lets not be God and slap our decisions on others. A human must have the right to live the way he wants to as long as he is not hurting anyone. And lets not make fun of people who don’t share our thinking.

We don’t find anything wrong when someone gives or takes Dowry. We don’t find anything wrong when we bribe an officer to get our work done. We don’t find anything wrong when we do illegal constructions on our houses. But we don’t leave any stone unturned to make the life of a person miserable who does not wish to become an Engineer or a Doctor or a person who falls in love at the age of 50 or a couple who decide not to have a baby.

All of us feel bad when someone takes a dig at us but we don’t think twice before disparaging someone. No one likes to be mistreated and told that you don’t fit in. Fit in where? Forming an opinion is good but lets have a rational and logical thinking behind one. Telling a mother that her daughter is a burden and needs to be disposed off(married) as soon as possible is the worst kind of insult you can inflict on anyone. Similarly, telling your son that he has brought disgrace on the family because he is inclined towards a career which is not of your liking is a form of mental abuse.

Lets not turn “being different” into a misfortune for the person. Lets not inflict anxiety, depression and anger on someone when we, as parents and friends, can become the person’s real strength. Lets not make fun of people who, according to our dogmatic and sectarian thinking process, don’t fit in. Lets not be the spiteful, purposeless chauvinists we were never meant to be and give some respect to the fellow humans.

[the photo is taken from – http://flickr.com/photos/nickwheeleroz/2220008689/]

Are we in SIMS?

Generally I don’t ask myself such questions because life is already too complicated, but sometimes such extraordinary and unbelievable incidences happen that one is bound to think that – Something is terribly out of place and abnormal. By the time this post will end, some of you might find it really absurd but I have been living with this fact from the past 10 years and I have to get it out of my system.

Don’t worry guys, its not so dramatic but sometime I just can’t believe that something of this sort is actually happening. Those of you who don’t know what SIMS is – Its a game which was first released in 2000 and has sold 6.3 million copies worldwide making it the Best selling PC games in history. The reason why I have mentioned SIMS is that the game provides the gamer an opportunity to control the life of virtual people called “SIMS”. The gamer control their daily activities like sleeping, reading, eating to the important activities like paying bills, choosing a career and conceiving a child. Bottom line – The player is allowed to be GOD. The game always made me think – Are we also a part of such a game right now? Is someone deciding right now about the clothes I will wear tomorrow? Is SIMS a sort of mockery on us, A way to show us that we are such fools who can’t understand something which is so obviously in front of us?

 When I watched Matrix, I had the same feeling. It was as if someone was making fun of us. Someone was trying to tell us that that’s the way things are and even if we tell you blatantly, you won’t be able to realise that. I must be going mad. Well, that is what I used to think.

Although SIMS and Matrix came much later, it was in 1998 when something strange started happening in my life. Once travelling in a bus, I saw a man wearing a blue T shirt. The colour was somewhere near to the colour of “Mashed Musings” written in the Header. It was striped with alternate White and Blue stripes. There was nothing special in that shirt except that I saw 15 men that day wearing the same T shirt at different points of time. Sometimes a beggar was wearing it, sometimes a passerby and sometimes a guy driving a bike. The next day, my Grandfather died. I was not able to relate the two incidences but soon this became a regular phenomenon. Whenever something bad was supposed to happen to me or to the people around me, the same shirt was always hovering in front of my eyes. It was as if someone was always trying to warn me. “Something bad is going to happen. Take care” – That was the message. The number of times I saw the shirt defined the intensity of the mishap. One occurrence meant something very trivial, which I could handle. Five occurrences meant something which would be painful and could make me really sad like a fight and a break-off with a friend(which actually happened). Once I saw the shirt 7 times in a day and my sister’s salary was stolen from her purse the next day in a bus.

At first I thought that its good that I know beforehand that something bad is about to happen and I would always be prepared but as time passed, I started getting irritated. The whole idea of living in a sort of fear that I might see the shirt again started getting on my nerves. I wanted things to be normal and I was desperate. It was not as if I was able to prevent anything. I was just getting a warning. I experimented and realised that if I tell anyone about it, the occurances dropped away. I told a few of my friends about it and the shirt left me alone for a few days, before reappearing again after some months. It has been 10 years and I still see it at times. I have seen it twice today.

I know, no sane person is going to believe what I am writing. Yes its a sort of Omen, but can anyone explain this? I have tried to find this shirt in stores, but have never been successful in finding this pattern. I know this is not something normal and that is why this whole idea of – “Are we in SIMS” came to my mind. Is someone actually playing with us and having loads of fun? I took it as a joke earlier but now its such a normal phenomenon in my life that I feel anxious when I don’t see it for a few days and I am relieved at the same time that life is smooth. Atleast for the time being…

p.s. I was able to click this shirt once when I was roaming on a beach in Chennai. Here is the Pic.