Rat Race

Are we all in a rat race? We are all running - running to achieve something, running to reach for our dreams, running get what we want. But do we know what we want in life? Some of us do, some don’t. Those who don’t are also running just keep the pace with the others.
We all like winners, we all want to be one of them. Nobody likes a looser. Now some believe winning is not important, what is important is have you tried or not. This line is from ‘Little Miss Sunshine’:
“A looser is someone who is so afraid of not winning that they don’t even try.”
How far is that true? If winning is not important then why do they keep scores??! The fact is that when the kid comes back from school and says: “See dad, I got 95”, our first question would be, where did those 5 marks go? We may not like it but we are putting the burden our unfulfilled aspirations on the shoulder of our children.
Most of us spend most of our lives in finding out what we want from life. The sooner we find it, the better. But very few are so lucky. Even if we get what we want, reach where we want to arrive, the question is what after that? The irony of life is, when we have some wants we usually don’t have the means to fulfill them. By the time we earn those means, our priorities change - we want something else.
If we don't have time to enjoy what we have achieved, what is the point in achieving? Today we have cell phones, but don’t have time to talk to our dear ones. We are getting so used to our AC cars that we have forgot how does it feel to get wet in the season’s first rain. While that coffee machine keeps us going during long working hours, we find it hard to recall the taste of tea at the roadside stall with friends. Is it time to stop for a moment, wait and think, think what we have lost in life while we were running in pursuit of our wants?
We are all running. Because nobody wants to be left behind. Because nobody likes a looser. Because we know:
"The winner takes it all
The loser standing small
Beside the victory
That's her destiny"

What’s on my mind today?

Originally uploaded by Rajdeep Haloi

I hate it, this time - this is ridiculous. There should be no concept of time, no clocks, no calendars, nothing. Not a single moment should pass by. That will be so nice, that’s the way it should be.
Three years and six months ago I came to this place - this college, new place, new people-people I never met before, I didn’t know any of them, no one knew me. Time flew by, and then I started knowing those people around me, getting along with them. Then this time played its tricks - a time came when I couldn’t even imagine my life, my world without them, any of them. I didn’t know when, but they became so important to me. Every single moment, when I had those people with me, were so precious. No, I can’t afford to lose them.
Three more months, then this clock, which I always keep on my table, will again make fun of me. That calendar that is hanging there on the wall, will again remind me that I can’t turn that clock backward. If I could do that! God, I feel so helpless.

Then I think - it is not that bad. This time has given me so many precious memories – our adventurous trip to the movies and we bravely facing the seniors’ wrath, slapping one another just to please them. Banging my head, wondering how I can write twelve pages about cat. C’mon man, I don’t even have a pet! We tried hard to figure out whether it was some petrified rubber formation or what they call a ‘Parantha’. Our still-to-be-patented ‘Cooperate to Dominate’ strategy in a desperate attempt to see some decent figures on our exam-scripts! And those few sips of Vodka after which all those incurable lovers listening to one another’s most touching “worth-a-novel” love stories.

Looking back, I feel I am missing something, I feel I want to go back, live that life once again, even if for just one day. Time changes a lot of things...irreversibly. I feel something empty inside me.
And after all these, I’ll arrive somewhere else - a new place, some new people and some more memories. I’ll pick them up, put them in that corner of my heart that is closest to my soul, because they are so precious. I love my clock...
[I wrote this just few days before I left my engineering college where I spent four most precious years of my life.]