How much is enough?

What am I thinking? I don’t know. In fact, I think I have stopped thinking. I seem to be becoming more of a worldly person. Sort of settling down. Bigger flat on rent to accommodate my siblings and spending money frugally and budgeting every single rupee.

Don’t know what really is going through my mind. I worry a lot about what is left in account, how much do I owe, how much do others owe to me and how can I get it back, do I have back up for emergency, can I afford a car right now, should I get a sofa set, a refrigerator, etc or should I wait a bit. I never used to think this way. Something seems to have happened to me. I am also thinking of accumulating more and more things. My mind is always involved in making schemes so that I can make money or invest somewhere which can give good return.

And, there happens to be a tremendous surge in these desires whenever I happen to look at those small EMIs on online shopping sites tempting me and telling me that I can afford those expensive things. That it is good to enjoy even if it means to be in debt.

May be these thoughts were always inside me, maybe I was just deceiving myself into believing that I am untouched by the temptation of material accumulation. Don’t know.

Yet, despite of all this, it just takes a moment to break this delusion of happiness, of this dream of material comfort to fade away like wisps of smoke, if only I happen to put my gaze into those cramped and filthy shanties, full of labors and their family, spread outside my apartments, with no sanitary arrangements and with no light or water supply. The very people who are directly laboring and working to create these apartments do not even get enough so that they can at least manage a decent way of life.

Who is responsible for this? Me, who is wondering how to get more material even after having enough to live and survive or the one who lives in shanties and cannot even make sure that his womenfolk & children have access to safe toilets?

I sincerely feel very sad and I just don't know why. 

That suicidal feeling seems to have overtaken me again. What is the problem with me? I have a job with a decent salary, good enough for me to sustain and which I am doing. Yes, I don't like my job, but then how many does still they seem to be happy. What is it that I'm looking for? What is it that can probably fill this vacuum inside of me? It's not as if I never feel happy, in fact I do, when I get a chance to play cricket with full energy so to say as if I'm deeply involved in it, as if there is nothing which I care about. But, still there's this hole which makes me feel, what am I doing, what could've I done...

It's not that I worry about dying, it's just this dream which horrifies me. I see myself in a room on a bed looking at the ceiling wondering what could have I done with this life. 

As I look at my grandfather's, my parents, and other people's lives, I see nothing which can probably motivate me to do something in life, I see no real purpose. They lived the way millions had before them and millions will after them. So, what's the point? Why is everyone striving so hard to earn and collect materials? What is everyone trying to achieve? What will happen in the end?

Happy New Year 2012

2012 has finally arrived. While some prophesied that it would be the end of world, millions wished each other a Happy and Prosperous New Year. Withal, I wish everyone a purposeful and meaningful new year, this I also wish to myself.

A friend once asked me, “Where do you see yourself, five years down the line?” to which I said, “That’s a difficult one. Give me some time to think.” So, he asked me another question, “Where do you want to see yourself?” and then I answered, “May be first one was easy to answer.”

See that’s the problem, you might learn to do many a things for survival and start making money, but after a few years of monotonous and banal life, it occurs to you that, is it really the purpose of my life? Is it for I was born? And then a fearful thought takes its birth in the mind, “Will I go on living like this and suddenly die without any warning. What is the purpose of this life? Why does this world exist?”, and with passing of every second it grows stronger and stronger. It surely had grown in me and sometimes, it makes me consider the idea of putting an end to this mundane existence. But then comes another feeling, as Tom Hanks said, that I have to stay alive, I gotta keep breathing, because tomorrow the sun will rise and who knows what the tide might bring. It may intrigue someone as to how can I seek an answer in a movie quote, which have nothing to do with reality. I don’t know but somehow it comforts me!

Once again I wish you all a very happy new year… and hey! You too have a great one..!

Well, for me it is very late to write. I am feeling very sleepy but I think if I had to know the answers then I will have to be regular.

Once again today was same as any other monotonous day of my life...I am tired of following and doing same things everyday...running behind same idea of collecting impermanent things...things which are sure to end one day like our ephemeral bodies. But somehow we just cannot detach ourselves from such "things". So, I am running to catch my bus route no. 355 from pragati maidan, once again. See the beauty or more appropriately irony of our life that I am so much troubled by the fact that I couldn't get out at 8.00am instead of 8.12am in a hope to reach office early. I am so troubled by the fact that I missed my bus by a few seconds and then keep thinking about it again and again, that if I had got out of home a few seconds earlier I would have caught that bus. I kept thinking and cursing myself for being so lethargic until only a few minutes later a bus came by and I thought "why was I thinking so much". And then like every other day my ride started to my workplace. I got myself a seat first, put my lunch-box beside me and then stood up to take a ticket up-to 12-22 sec NOIDA, as usual it cost me Rs.21/-, at-least from a couple of weeks. And I was once again troubled when I saw a potential situation of traffic jam near IP Park, but in a few moments that fear was also gone, and again I thought realizing the fact that these thoughts will never end and I can continue thinking as long as I want to, so I decided that this is it, I will never get perturbed again by such small incidents. The ride was over, as usual, in around 45minutes. By the time I should have known it precisely, but nonetheless at-least I remember it. So now I was at 12-22 sec waiting to take another bus to Mamura chowk as they call it. It is a small but yet a very dense village near my office. Now at the bus stand I looked at my NOKIA 6300, the time was 9.10am, so it was 9.00am, my watch or should I say clock of my NOKIA 6300 being ten minutes fast.

Good Night...Guys...if any...will continue tomorrow...

Original Post Date: Dec 21, 2009

I am looking for answers to the most basic questions of our very existence, which no one even bothers to think about. Before I start let me make it very clear, that I do not consider myself anyhow a spiritual person. Spirituality being defined as it had been for ages. My simple questions to all you net savvy people out there, are: Why we humans and other living beings are here? What is the purpose of our existence? Why do we live?

I hope someone takes a look at this blog and hopefully gives me some meaningful answers.

Original Post Date: Dec 20, 2009