RIFLE RANGE BOY

You are made to believe that the way to do it is divine. That, the effort that you put in your work is like serving God. That, you are performing the Almighty's job on Earth. You do not have to display your piety for others to see. All you have to do is to serve, everything else will take care of itself. You follow suit.  Then you realise that life cannot be all work. The people that you thought you have been sacrificing all your life for suddenly turn their back against you. They start hurling accusations of this and that. That you had been shortchanging them; that that is your job - your only job is to serve them. You, on the other hand, thought they would be eternally grateful to you for you had sacrificed everything for them in the course of your vocation. You thought yours was a calling. It, apparently, was not. It was just another job. You are just another spoke in the machinery of society that moves it forward. The tale that the people before you told were just t...

Fig. 1: Are we going there? ©FG   “What have I got myself into?” I asked myself as I gazed out the hotel lobby in McLeod Ganj, Dharamsala, admiring the snow-capped mountain which seems so high almost reaching the heavens. I convinced myself, “Of course, we would not be going there. It looks too high for comfort.” Sheepishly, I approached the guide to ask, “Just how high are we going?” “You see that snow," pointing at the same peak that I had seen earlier. "We will try to scale the snow line and see how far we can go after that,” he replied. I felt a lump at the back of my throat. Not wanting to be a spoilsport or an attention seeker, I just kept my trepidations to myself. Come to think of it, in hindsight, all the fears and uncertainties proved unfounded. All our faithful weekend boot camp pieces of training under the auspices of our masochistic slavedriver leader dubbed ‘Commando’ apparently did not go to waste. Maybe it was slightly more strenuous than a walk in the p...

So you think you are just. You have done enough suffering in this lifetime and now you want a reprieve. You think you deserve a break. You seek your outlet through divine path. You feel it is your duty to serve Him after being tortured all these while. You realise your days on Earth are numbered and you want to cajole Him to catapult you up the ladder of rebirth. This is the impression I get after hearing about all the prayers in which you are right in front to conduct, the special sacred functions that you wriggle to be present to collect your brownie points for the after-life. You sing hymns over hymns of devotional chants to be blessed. And you feel that you are exemplary to how a human should live. You feel that you are kind and follow the path of righteousness. Unfortunately, all your actions do not translate to zen in real life. The perception that people around you have is one that is so negative. You paint a picture of someone who is conceited and self-centred. You are inter...

Heard an interesting podcast recently... There was this 15 year old girl in Wisconsin in 2004 who became febrile and started losing her coordination gradually. Exhaustive medical investigative procedure came to zilch. And her condition was deteriorating. She was almost in and out of coma. While engaged in small talk during the visit by her old paediatrician, the mother mentioned about their visit to the church the previous month and how the animal lover part of the girl helped a stranded bat in the church. The bat was injured was flying helplessly banging into the glass and missing the exit. Her Good Samaritan deed earned her a bite on the hand which the family nursed it as per a usual wound. That struck an alarm... Bats, bites, rabies...Unfortunately, rabies had 100% mortality rate. The doctors could not do much but put her in a dark room, minimise stimulation, supportive care and slowly ease her path to meet her Maker. Left with Hobson's choice, the family kept on doing the o...

There are many websites talking about plethora of subjects leaving us all spoilt for choice. The readers should develop the maturity to critically evaluate its content and to take things with a pinch of salt and not to gulp it whole like what a python would do. There is this blog on Hinduism which crossed my path as one often does when they float across the cyberspace. I thought it was interesting as it explained the relevance of various Hindu festivals, the significance of certain Hindu practices and such. Through it I came to realise that almost everyday has its auspiciousness. Some of the explanations were pseudo-scientific (looking from my nimble minded lens) in nature. For instance, one of the reasons why one should frequent the temple is that it would help to transmit positive energies to its devotees. The offered rationalization is that the direction of the construction of temples along N-S magnetic lines and the placement of copper under the deity generates positive vibes. ...