Elixir of life..wanna sip?

Just the other day a news item caught my eye. An English bioscientist claimed that advances in science & technology meant that man’s lifespan was set to increase by leaps and bounds. The man who may live for 150 years, has apparently, already taken birth. 150 could gradually become 500 and then, even 1000! Stunned by this revelation, I wondered what man would do for 500 years of his life. Living for so long would be disastrous, to say the least. What would life imprisonment stand for now? With an average life expectancy of 60, if it means 15 years, will it become 120 when lifespans grow to 500 years? What will be the average age of retirement? 400?

Today, people are spurred to make the most of their lives, to excel, to peak only because they know they have limited time on their hands. The knowledge, that one day, not very far into the future, we will all perish prevents us from losing speed and taking things easy. Sure, there are all those moments of relaxation & unwinding. We all need that. But we utilize them to rejuvenate ourselves and get down to business with renewed zeal and vigor. Imagine a life without any constraint of time. People will start taking things too easy, become lackadaisical. The all important sense of urgency will be lost from our lives forever. The purpose of life, itself, will begin to fade away. India, already harassed by mammoth delays and plagued by lazy, errant babus will be in shambles. Politicians here, revel in the prospect of making money for years on end will hit a goldmine, now that they would have 500 years do exactly that! Our wily old ‘Fevicol’ netas, who have stubbornly stuck on to various posts for 20 out of their 50 odd years of existence (a la Kalmadi) will merrily dance to the tune of some cheesy Bollywood number called ‘Lambi zindagani’ or “Life ho to aisi’!

It boils down to one basic question. What does one do for so long? Sure, you can earn your billions and zillions, sleep with every last sexy chick on the planet, travel to the farthest corners of the world and do all the research you want. But all said and done, how much will you do? 500 years of existence is sure to make even the most blessed soul on earth tear his hair out. No one can remain sane for that long, even if he is bathed in the all the comforts life has to offer or endowed with all the power the world has to offer. Keeping up the passion, fervor for life for 500 years is simply inhuman. Man is bound to get tired, mentally and emotionally, if not physically. 500 years of dealing with life’s myriad ups and downs, rejections, dejections, elations, failures, successes, heartbreaks, politics, compromises, disappointments, wins, losses, jubilations et al is sure to take its toll. Man will live like a vegetable for the better part of his 500! The elixir of life is around the corner.. You wanna sip?

Travel Diary-Part 1

Normally, one associates ‘travel diaries’ as lengthy and colourful descriptions of great journeys, far and wide. From Ladakh to Lakshadweep and Monte Carlo to Madagascar, they offer an insight into unknown lands and exotic locales. Well, my travel diary is a little more humble. Or say, meek. It describes my journey on a route thousands undertake everyday, the journey from Pune to Mumbai. The distance between the two cities is all of 150 kilometers, covered in typically 3 and half hours by road. I have traveled up and down this route a zillion times in the past 4 years, by rail, bus and car. So what was so special about this one journey from Pune to Mumbai? Well, for starters, it had a sense of finality to it. It was as if I was bidding farewell to Pune, my surrogate city. Four glorious years here had taken me from a ‘12^th pass’ to a ‘graduate’. And now it was time to leave for Mumbai. On a bike!

Yes, I had bought a bike in Pune, thanks to the city’s dismal public transport system. Many people have contradicted me on the use of the word ‘bike’. Technically speaking, it wasn’t a bike. It was a scooter. A Honda Aviator. These ‘people’ duly point out the difference every time I call it a ‘bike’. They believe that bikes belong to a superior class and that scooters are lowly and ‘cattle class’. It is apparently, quite blasphemous to equate the two! Needless to say, I beg to differ. Not caring much for the ‘coolness quotient’ of the bikes, I think utility-wise scooters have the upper hand. They provide the necessary stability on congested city roads and importantly, offer storage space. Strangely, my mom & dad wanted me to buy a bike (for disparate reasons obviously). While their superior mileage and fuel savings were on my dad’s mind, my mom was drooling over a flashy new bike and thought it would make her ‘laadla’, a dude! I’m sure they exchanged worried glances when I reasoned with them for a scooter. They thought I had seriously lost it!

Moving on now, my Aviator had to be somehow transported to Mumbai. Countless people had given me countless suggestions. Some said that I could have it transported in a bus. Some said truck. Some asked me to play safe and employ the services of the Indian rail. And then some, jeered heartily at the other ‘suggestors’ and asked me to drive it down myself. ‘Exhorted’ is more like it. I didn’t pay heed to them at first. Then the instigations began. That it takes balls to do something like that was agreed upon. Tales of valor and bravery were dutifully narrated to egg me on. That 150 kilometers was peanuts, as compared to the great miles driven by great people in the past, was pointed out. Provocations ran wild. And ultimately, riding my Aviator to Mumbai was the only chance I had, to prove my detractors wrong, was the general consensus! Who my detractors were and what exactly I had to prove to them, I have still not understood!

As I sat there bewildered, I began to weigh my options. The prospect of actually driving my bike down sure seemed exciting. The heart had leapt up with joy but the ever-cautious mind would need some convincing. But that too, didn’t take long. All it took was one of those transport agents describing to me all the hassles, the ‘safer ‘options involved and his subtle endorsement of the ‘do-it-yourself’ method. A few anecdotes from ‘The Adventures of when that cool uncle of yours was young’, which invariably includes a stunt like this, makes you think “If he could do it 35 years ago, why not me?”

And so, here I was, my heart & mind both convinced that riding my bike to Mumbai was the best option I had. Only one tiny hiccup remained. Mom and Dad. Two words every guy, no matter what his age is terrified of. Of course, I had assured myself of the safety of the exercise. But that had been possible only after deliberately overlooking certain facts and a somewhat half-hearted risk analysis. I had almost bribed my heart into goading my mind into it. Influencing my parents, however, would not prove to be that easy. So I took the path of least resistance-not telling them at all!

At least, that’s what I thought I would do, had it not been for that darned thing called ‘conscience’. I gave my Dad just the slightest hint that I was going to be driving down Monday morning, so that I could at least be absolved of the crime of ‘deliberate concealment of facts’. But how he ended up uncovering the entire plot is beyond me! And then, expectedly, followed the deluge.

Phonecalls dissuading me from committing this huge mistake and messages listing out the various risks and safety concerns involved, choked my cell for the next 2 hours. First, there were stern “No’s” to everything. When that didn’t seem to work, threats followed. And finally, seeing that all was failing, philosophical messages on ‘life’, the importance of ‘sound decision making ’ and the ills of ‘imprudence & impetuousness’ were employed. But this was one of those few times one enjoys being steadfast in the face of cacophonous opposition. And steadfast, I was! Finally, resigned voices wished me luck and pleaded that I take care of myself. Phew. I could almost hear the trumpets playing in the background and could see the sun rising from behind dark mountains! Yeah baby! It was on!

When you weren’t looking...

I observed a rather strange thing the other day. I was standing on the balcony, intently staring at dumptrucks and cranes put a big pipe into the even bigger chasm, dug up in the road in front of my house. Except, they weren’t really doing anything. All, those heavy machines were doing, was to flit around from one side to another, raise their robotic arms only to lower them again and make those characteristic whirring noises only to stop midway. I was excited at the prospect of actually witnessing something interesting happen but it seemed as though the mammoths were deliberately fooling around, conscious by my presence and waiting for me to go away, to get on with their work. How often does that happen to us? The moment we stop and carefully observe something, it seems to lose all its vigor and life. I looked out of the window for a quick glance sometime later and ‘voila’, the gaping hole in the road has almost been filled up, pipe and everything! When did that happen? They were so darned slow when I was actually looking at them!

Countless things in our everyday life fit into the ‘I can’t work while you’re staring at me’ category. Most obviously, the humble clock. Everyone, I’m sure has noticed that the hands of the clock seem to drag themselves, almost unwillingly so, when you sit down and stare at them. That the act is a telling indicator of how jobless you are and is fantastic at putting you to sleep is another story. But as a kid, I remember trying to ‘monitor’ the clock, in a bid to investigate how on earth, my half hour cartoon show got over in a jiffy! Another common experience is with body pains. How many times, have those minor niggles, nasty sprains, groaning aches and throbbing wounds in various corners of the body magically disappeared after a good nights’ sleep? They simply refuse to die down, testing our patience and troubling us with all their might while we’re awake. But the ‘morning after’, its as if they were never there!  

These observations seem simple and profound at the same time. They are evident yet inconspicuous. Somebody might brush them off as ‘frivolous’ and yet somebody might find meaning in them. Unable to contain my philosophical side, I could not help but relate these to life itself. Doesn’t our life, too, zip by like a whirlwind while we are caught up in a plethora of activities, some essential and important, some trivial and avoidable. Buildings are built, cities are transformed, newer and more advanced gadgets take over, mankind progresses and before we take stock, its mostly too late. The kids have grown up, your sweetheart can’t see you clearly anymore and needs a cane to walk and most of those dear old pals have perished. If at all the clock teaches us anything, it is to brake once in a while, to stop and look around. To forget the rat-race for a while. Soak in life. Taste life. To find higher meaning in our existence. And when its time to move on, to store an image of life as it is, in all its still glory. Because one thing is for certain…Life, like you know it, is never coming back.