An Open Letter From A Liberal to Fellow Liberals

I am Hardik. But the world hardly seems to be interested in the name. Every damn form asks me my native, my religion, my caste, and my gender. Are all these things that important? Well, I don't really think so. But then because everyone seems to be so interested in these details, I thought to dwell into it for a moment.

What could be the reason for my native, religion, caste, and gender to matter so significantly compared to who I am? May be because I was not born as who I am. I wasn't born as 'Hardik', the nomenclature was done later. Rather, I was born a Gujarati; I was born a Hindu; I was born a Patel; and I was born a male. So, this could be the reason they associate my identity to these titles.

Photo credits: http://wallarthd.com/

If life is a castle, and growing up is like climbing a ladder, I have reached to a certain floor of the castle where I have a window to have an aerial view. The way I see it from this window, the 'native', 'religion', 'caste', and 'gender' were my first 4 steps onto the ladder. Then there were few other steps. Then I can see 'education' and 'exposure' as the prominent steps of the ladder which are nearest to where I am standing currently.

The lower storeys of the castle until before 'education' and 'exposure' didn't have windows for me to be able to look outside. So, the journey up until then was more of a one-way traffic - a 'herd mentality' in simpler terms.

Now, as I climbed up significantly, and had the privilege of the window, I started looking out and applied logic to everything that I came across - this included questioning the validity of the first 4 steps of my own ladder.

I knew my native, religion, caste, and gender much better than any outsider could ever do. So I also knew the shortcomings of my roots better than anyone else could. I started singling out illogical things. I condemned casteism, declared myself secular and atheist (partially). I started hating regionalism. I supported feminism and condemned patriarchy too. These all were good things to do. I became a 'liberal' in true sense.

But then, as now I see that howsoever liberal I become, my 'titles' are never detached from me, albeit on paper. I am anyway a Gujju, Hindu, Patel, and a man. And also the fact that if I cut down the first 4 steps of the ladder, I will lose some altitude (read: 'identity'), and may not have the window-view then. I certainly can't afford that.

So, what could be a solution to this? To think a bit differently may be.

Can I be a Gujarati without the stereotypical traits that are often associated to the region? I think I already am.

Can I acknowledge Hinduism for all the good that it offers, and be ready to fight the perils within? Probably, yes.

Can I just accept that I am a Patel, without associating any pride or disgust with it? I think I can.

Can I be a male, proud for the right reasons about manhood? I think I'm almost there.

For I understand by now, that the world is a place full of people who more often than not, don't make sense. In such a place, if I cannot acknowledge my roots for the right reasons, and be ready for improvements within, then no one else could probably do that for me.

So, here I am. I'm Hardik. I am an atypical (yet) Gujju; a partially atheist, secular, and non-fanatic (yet a) Hindu; a Patel on paper; and an equality-seeking, non-feminist, non-patriarchal (yet a) man. I am a liberal with roots.

The world does not need educated people fighting like stray dogs over genders and religions on Facebook. The world also does not need hypocrites who in the name of 'liberalism' accept something and condemn the very thing on different occasions at convenience, and still enjoy the privileges of the same.

Our world is in a desperate need of the people who are willing to do the patchwork from within, for our world is suffering from serious internal injuries.

Hopelessly Motivated

As confusing as it may sound, but that's what I felt after reading few verses from GITA on this Independence Day and then trying to make contemporary sense out of it.

One thing that I realized is that there are multitudes of dimensions, and I got a different message from the same verses than what I got two years back while reading them.

That was about 'fear' and 'strength'. We are taught since the childhood to be strong, so that we can be fearless; and fearlessness is close enough to freedom, if not the same; and things like that.

But can one be truly fearless?

For instance, a great stuntman might appear fearless to the world, but he fears that he doesn't break his bones or suffer any injury which could potentially render him jobless. What is his greatest strength (i.e. ability to do stunts), is his greatest fear as well.

Movie-stars who sound vivaciously independent to everyone, also fear the fading of beauty, fame, and money - all of which are their greatest strengths.

Let alone the stuntmen and movie-stars, what could be the greatest fear of us commoners?

[Side note: 'Commoner' is indeed a funny term to me. It truly represents the person who is so 'common', that he/she is regarded with its comparative adjective form!!]

Being loved, accepted, and acknowledged by the world. And guess what -  failing at that, is our greatest fear too.

So can we be truly fearless? Can we let go of the layers of that fear like a snake lets go of its skin? Probably not so easily, because unlike the skin to the snake, the fear is not superficial to us. It is much more internalized - so much so that we don't ever dare to think of letting go of that fear of not being loved.

We behave well because we have a great need to be accepted by others. We pray because we feel that God will bless us. We believe in Law of Karma because we fear for the outputs of our misdeeds. And so on.

What if we free ourselves from these fears? What if we determine that our physical, mental, or intellectual beauty is not bound to the number of 'likes' we get on social media? What if we decide to pray without making a wish? What if we choose to look at the Law of Karma from a different perspective?

Theist or not, let us assume for a moment that God (or Law of Karma) exists, but is dysfunctional at the moment; and things are happening randomly. We (may but let's assume for a moment that we) are not gonna get love in kind for the love that we give out. We are not gonna get accepted as such by the world, even if we are true gems in absolute sense. And even if God is functioning properly, he somehow doesn't seem to like us; what if so? Are we okay with it? 

Do we still have the grit to face the life head on?

What if there's no freaking hope out there? Are we still up for doing our bit in the best way we can?

Rather than a religion (read: fear of God), can we learn to make our conscience as our only guide?

After losing the skin of all the fears (disguised as hopes), if at all we get what we desired to achieve at the outset, then it would be a jackpot.

But are we also willing to let go of hoping for that jackpot?

The day we become consistently-ruthlessly-hopeless-yet-motivated, will mark the Independence Day of our souls.

#FindYourFreedom

The Great Scrolling Mercurial Mess

Well, a lot has been said, debated, and argued upon pros and cons of social media; of the craving for likes; of the ease to connect and still finding difficult to be connected; of the fading realization of existence of things other than virtual reality; of frequent needs of so called 'virtual detox' and stuff like that.

I am not gonna talk about any of those, and I am not even against social media, for sometimes it is the virtual reality that keeps us going when the 'real' things fall apart.

Having said this, I have a different concern with the virtual world. I have a problem with social media for it makes us go through the plethora of emotions of vast extremes in a fraction of time. For instance, I am reading a post on patriotism for a moment, and then immediately I stumble upon a comic video, and soon on a post with righteous political outrage, followed by some gossip about celebrities, followed by some video trying hard to convince me to do some charity, all these supplemented by quirky memes, and WWE posts every now and then in between.

Well, I like them all, but damn, it doesn't let me settle for a singular feeling for a fraction of time. As I keep scrolling down, it keeps me treating as an 'emotional machine' rather than an 'emotional human being'. It turns the switches of emotions ON and OFF so fast, that I can hardly truly feel anything now. A good post will certainly leave an impact, but just for a while, for it will be washed off so quickly by some other random material being thrown at me vigorously. It's also sad because it doesn't leave a room to ponder or reflect upon anything that I just read/watched, for scrolling down is a norm and I can't be the exception. And soon before I realize, the feeling or charm of a good stuff which I just saw is long gone.

Photo credits: huffingtonpost.com

Not only the random posts appearing on the Facebook wall, it is the comments which we get to read. At times, they are hilarious, more often they are not. I remember a time when 'debate' was visualized as a picture of two groups sitting on two tables face to face, and arguing with reasonable logic and facts, either for or against the topic under discussion. Also, debates occurred on very important topics on which a reasonable contrast in opinions could be understandable. There is no such thing in the virtual debates which we witness in the comments section of almost every post on Facebook nowadays. People fight on the most random topics, often unrelated to the original material posted. And there we see a lot of extremist comments, diplomatic bystander comments, lot of abuse, personal attacks, lack of compassion, ill-informed judgementalism, and what not.

We often witness and participate in the clash of clans (e.g. clans named 'Bhakts' and 'Anti-Bhakts'). We often fall prey to believing in something which is created just by a trend, and then the bullying of people who don't follow the trend. People be sarcastic as it is 'cool thing to do' on internet.

The thing we felt while reading a post, is soon vanished as we read the comments. And no, our view is not corrected for good by reading any of the comments, it is simply clouded. For there are so many contrasting arguments that we don't really know who is talking for and who is talking against it. The whole spectrum of this weird randomness leaves us speculating what should be the message we take from the post. The answer narrows down to - 'Nothing'. And then again, as usual, we continue - scrolling.

And more often than not, we end up spending hours and hours scrolling down without gaining anything.

All these things collectively, don't let any feeling sync in well - and perhaps also makes us less compassionate, and emotionally numb in real life too. We don't have great pleasures or great sorrows, for we move on (read: scroll down) too fast from everything.

And silently but steadily, the virtual demon trespasses the realm and turns us into the 'mercurial mess' from the 'beautiful mess' we originally were.


"Well, happy scrolling" the demon says :D

Kickass Trip of a Complacent Crybaby

There are times in life when we are messed up on so many levels. We seek something, but we don't know what is that 'something' which we are truly seeking. We panic as we feel that we are alone in this struggle.

We love to travel, but we don't plan for apparently no reason at all. We crib about our current situation, but are also not ready to get out of comfort zone of the current misery. Probably because we fear a greater misery outside the comfort zone, and so we become ‘complacent crybabies’. We say that life sucks, and we are like okay about it.

It's not that the life inside us has died. It is there, alive, but veiled under the practicality, clouded by the wisdom, compromised by the reason. We often fantasize a miracle whereby one fine day, the veiled life inside us will be able to break the barriers and growl. I call it a miracle because it seems otherwise impossible to come out of that infinite loop called 'routine'. Sometimes the miracle happens, and sometimes we have to make it happen. Well, I can say I made it happen.

Thailand trip - one of the kind and a very special one for me. Special because of many things - to name a few:

·       First international trip

·       First solo trip of more than 3 days

·       First time stay at youth hostels

·       First skydive

·       First scubadive

·       First time on a ferry

·       First time rode a Mountain bike, a Jetski and an ATV

·  Met people from France, China, UK, USA, Germany, Japan, Iran, Ireland, Australia, Indonesia, Nepal, Myanmar, Pakistan, Dubai, India (Delhi, Gurgaon, Chandigarh, Aasam, Mizoram, Bangalore, Gujarat, West Bengal, Kerala, Nagaland) in a single trip.

Photo credits: myself :)

Well, here are few things which I learnt about myself, about travel, and about life from this trip:

·   Everybody is going through the exact same struggle. The transparency of it varies, that's it.

·   We might have been inspired from time to time, by reading or hearing stories about particular type of travel. But, it doesn't necessarily mean that it's our thing. I was and am inspired and fascinated by the idea of RTW trip, and travelling the globe as nomad, with minimal needs, spending few months at each place and soaking in the culture of the place. While, I still want to do that, I have understood that I don't really want to be gone away from home for a very long duration at a stretch. No, I am not homesick, but I like to get back to a place which I can call my own after some time. That's something with me. The sooner we know our genre of travel, the better we will get at it.

·    Journey begins not when you take off for your destination, but when your thoughts take off in the direction of planning a travel. It's imperative to get involved in planning our own trip, to get psyched enough about the trip, to pour our hearts into making it a real kickass travel - rather than leaving that wholly to a travel agent or someone else. I luckily stumbled upon ITHAKA, a group of driven individuals who love to make people's travel an unforgettable experience. And they planned it with me and just made that happen.

·     Solo travel, especially for a longer duration, needs a lot of courage, and it is not everybody's cup of tea.

·      Journey with a group of like-minded people will almost always be more fun than a solo one, but it doesn't mean that we should postpone life waiting for a group trip to materialize.

·    It's apt to expect a journey to be truly liberating and enriching, but expecting it to be dramatic or poetic could be disappointing.

·     Initial homesickness and cultural shock is something which fades in a day or two, so be patient.

·       Having a plan (albeit rough) is what keeps us going.

·       Keeping some snacks and water bottle in a daypack always comes in handy.

·      All airlines and airports have their own ways of doing things, so flexibility is a real need of the hour.

·     At times, we need to learn to communicate without language, which can be a true challenge.

·   Keeping the religious beliefs aside for a moment, having few reservations about food, and learning to eat anything and everything (including non-vegetarian) can make our lives easier anywhere in the globe.

·      Going out is a must thing for human brain to function normally.

·   Kicking ourselves out of the bed is a bigger struggle than most of the other seemingly more demanding physical struggles.

·   As much as we try to make most of the trip, it is not always possible and nor necessary to cover each popular spot at a destination of travel. We need to enjoy what we do, rather than regretting about what we couldn't. Same applies to our daily life.

·     Large oceans are humbling. They teach us that nature is humongous and needs to be respected.

·   Skydiving was phenomenal. The adrenaline rush of falling from an airplane and gravitating towards the ground made me realize that the nature wants us to stay grounded.

·  Scubadiving was mesmerizing. I struggled a bit with the concept they call as 'equalize' the water pressure in ears as we go deep in the ocean, else it may be deafening. Life also demands us to 'equalize' the pressures to keep ourselves balanced, else it becomes very painful.

·     As someone has said, if you can mix somewhere doesn't mean that you belong there.

·      The ordinary at home becomes luxury while we travel.

·    Having stayed at a distance from the routine boring life at home can make us value the family and same 'boring' things again when we return.

·     Travelling makes us more welcoming and accepting of people and cultures which are different than us. I realized this when I found myself talking to a guy with beard, and long hair rolled on his head and made in a shape of huge turban (not an actual turban though), and piercings in his nose. He was from Mizoram and was boarding the same flight with me at Calcutta airport. People gave him weird glances due to his appearance, and were staying away from him, or avoided talking or making an eye contact, but made sure to stare at him all the time as if he was an alien. Yes, he was kind of 'hippie' (to describe his appearance), but that adjective didn't really occur to me while talking normally with him while standing in that long queue.

Travelling adds a new dimension to my perspective every time I do it. I don't have a concluding note to this post. As travelling is an ongoing learning about ourselves, so is life - a 'work in progress' draft :)