Mediocre Perspectives

“I am stressed out. I need to take a break tomorrow”. “I didn’t read that book for the last two days. Even that looks part of my routine. It stresses me out”. “I hate that gang. I get stressed at their sight”. “I have lots of homework today. I am tensed”. These are statements which we frequently come across in our lives every day. ‘Stress’ was not a common terminology used in conversations few years ago. But today it has broken all age barriers ranging from a 10 year old to a CEO in the fifties. Though few might use the word without recognizing its meaning it is true that our society is suffering from a disease of ‘extended stresses’. To avoid prolonged stress it is necessary to understand its purpose. Imagine yourself 20,000 years ago in a forest eating a hunted deer under the shade of a tree. Suddenly, when you sense a lion stalking you, you bolt from the place. When the lion gives chase, you climb faster to the top of the nearby tree. Your breathing and heart rate ar...

4:30 PM Global Standard Time, November 25, 2070, Somewhere on Earth Richard’s legs picked up pace. It was raining heavily but slowing down could be detrimental to his life. He was being chased for the last two hours. His knowledge of this patch of forest has made evasion possible. If he could reach the highway which was a few miles away he could live to die another day. The forests were one of the dense patches which were left on earth. He paused near a mahogany and crouched. The sound of the rain was deafening. He could not see his chasers. Making sure that he had lost them, he slipped his hands into his trousers and picked up his phone. To his dismay, it has been battered thoroughly. He recalled that it should have damaged when he fell before a few minutes. His right leg was severely bruised from the fall. Not knowing what to do, when he rested his head on the bark to contemplate, a bullet pierced his thigh. 06:15 PM Mars Standard Time, Saganom 48, 2557, Somewhere o...

Andy [ in letter to Red ]: Remember Red, hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies. -From the movie Shawshank Redemption Last week, when I went through the newspaper that Sachin has scored a half century in the All Star T20 tournament which took place in USA, I couldn’t help myself from watching it. I managed to browse and watch a 3 minute video of his fifty. It would be unfair to pick a few adjectives to describe the shots which he played. Throughout his career this man has exhausted all the positive adjectives in the dictionary. When I closed my browser my mind was flooded with memories of the ‘Little Master’. I am a rationalist who does not believe in the concept of God. But when Sachin was first adored as the ‘God of Cricket’, my rationality accepted it without any objection. Years later, analyzing reality I believe the phrase will stand the test of reason in the years to come. I remember a conversation with my friend on God. I asked h...

I still remember the first time when I ordered a book online as a second year college student three years ago. I was pretty skeptical but my friend convinced me that it saves a lot of time and the prices are reasonable for a new book. When few hostellers felt comfortable with the delivery of books, others followed. Two years later, recalling the last months in college I could remember a guy with a bag standing in front of every hostel block delivering a range of goods. (From livelaw.in) The growth of e-commerce in India has been nothing short of extraordinary. In monetary terms it is fairly good to say that the growth of the industry is exponential. The principal factors which aid the industry are internet penetration and increasing use of smart phones. The number of Indians who have access to the internet is only close to 10% and the percentage that uses smart phones is not high either. In such a scenario, it wouldn’t be surprising if the exponential growth of the industry i...

I spoke to my friend who has now migrated to Chennai for work. During the conversation he told me that it has just been a month and he was enquired about his ‘caste’ on two occasions. I told him that ‘two’ is quite a high number for a month. Then he told me, “It is not just in Chennai. You migrate to any place in our State; people aren’t shy in enquiring about your ‘caste’. It is the way it is”. I had to admit what he said was true. Being a rationalist who denounces religion and caste, I have always found it uncomfortable when people ask me such questions. But it has to be acknowledged that different questions are raised depending on where you migrate. Your state is enquired when you leave your home ‘state’ and when you leave your country people are interested from which ‘country’ you come from. The details which I filled for appearing for a government examination were rather amusing. Only during the process I realized that my ‘place’ of birth and my ‘native’ district were no...