Long Text Complaints on Facebook

At one point, I thought that people had lost the old art of writing long texts. It went on like that very well for too long. Then truth was revealed to me in the form of some really huge complains they started posting on some company's / online portal's / some shop's / or police's facebook pages.

It was shocking! People who until then posted only photos of their mountain trips 33 times a year on facebook wrote a complain to amazon.com which counted 95893953 letters till last count. Someone who only wrote in one-liners wrote a complain against his car service center which was so huge that I finished reading it in over 3 weekends. The girl with bad handwriting posted against Hyderabad police's apathy which was so impressive; think if she wrote some essay like that in her class 10th exam, where she would be by now? The super smart woman who visited facebook only 3 times in last 19 months used 2 of those visits to post stories of how she was cheated at her neighborhood jewelry shops!

This long text influenza is spreading like influential virus. And it is making life so unpredictable! Now whenever I see the face of a sensible yet funny friend, I fear what lies behind that clean windscreen of his spectacles? Some bad experience at the pizza shop; or some not so cold cold-drink served at McD? Since the days of lizards coming out of khichdi pots and cockroaches coming out of fruit salads are over; the remaining options to surprise us are only limited by imagination!

God please save the writers who write purposeless posts on their own walls. Because the growing tribe of complainers armed with long guerrilla texts will soon outnumber them!

- Rahul Tiwary

Puzzling Life

I realized quite some time back that wisdom comes with age. After every 4-5 years, we can feel that our thoughts and opinions of the past were impractical or not correct. After worrying about it for some time, I made peace with it. So it seemed we just had to wait till our hair started turning grey, and then everything will be okay. Finally, with age we shall attain wisdom. But now it seems that even wisdom has degrees. What appears wisdom to us now, may appear childish again after 5 years! So where does this end? May be never! 

And if we and our wisdom keep growing and changing, then it would also be true for others. What others tell today may be judged as incorrect by themselves after a few years! The realization is scary. Is everything fluid? 

If everything evolves then what we see today is true only for today and may not be so after some time. That makes life confusing for sure. What is the point of doing anything right, when the 'right' could turn 'wrong' just when our way of thinking changes, when we see some new worlds, or when we attain some new version of wisdom? 

Is this why they turn to scriptures; which hold truths which have survived centuries of evolutionary thinking? All rivers meet the ocean in the end. May be until we can see the end, we may mistake a 'river' for an 'ocean'. 

Sometimes it seems everything changes with time. Sometimes it seems nothing changes fundamentally. Sometimes what we can't understand is called confusing. Sometimes what we do understand is confusing. This life is a puzzle. 

- Rahul

From Feminism to Taking a Stand

For quite some time around my college days, I had thought of myself as a 'feminist'. It suited me because I had two sisters. From childhood, we all studied in the same school, were treated with same respect, and saw the same dreams. Why should not my sisters or all girls be able to make their career well and make their own decisions? I was so happy from inside about my thoughts which I found liberating at that time.

After marriage, my feminism evaporated in a phased manner. Having been proud of of my sisters' careers and education, I saw the downside of it as my wife worked and how it constrained personal life. And for the first time I started seeing a new world. Unless by some lucky charm two persons start thinking exactly alike, in the end either of them has to agree with what the other person says. Best would be to do things which both are fine with, but such an option is not always the case. Now feminism gave way to realism. I realized that women also liked things in the manner which suited them. It seemed that our inclination to do "what suits me" was a generic trait.

Looking from the ground of realism, everything appeared different. As they say, things are not always either black or white. Sometimes we are selfish, sometimes the other person is selfish. And a new popular line of thinking said that in the end we all were humans, prone to flaws. No matter how good you are, still you would have some flaws. I still can't say that it is okay to be at peace with one's flaws, but I think we should definitely be aware of them, acknowledge them and avoid them as much as we can. We are not so powerless.

In general I realized that in most of the things, whenever we are taking sides we are actually compromising somewhere and being unfair somewhere. Think of any decision govt takes - if we agree with it, it might be because it suits us and if we disagree it could be because it does not suit us personally. Coming in terms with the real world was like ice bucket challenge done to me. I miss the old days when I could say, "I support this", or "that is bad" and "this is good". Such youthful yet unwise stands which we could take. It made life interesting and purposeful. Having even some amount of wisdom is so boring.

- Rahul