Purpose?

After experiencing so many different things in life, I was suddenly hit by this very intriguing question.

"What IS Man's purpose on Earth?"

A child is born and he is the most beautiful thing on Earth. He is sent to school to Learn. To get educated. But in what? And what is this education? What are we learning about? Why are we learning how governments are made, how airplanes are built, how DNA can mutated, etc? What are we learning if, all we are really doing is following what somebody else told us? And who gets the authority to test another person about his 'knowledge' in a certain field? Why is there a 'certain' field? Why doesn't Man learn Everthing? And what is Everything?

Why does one have to set up a 'career' in life? Why are we trying so hard to beat each other when we are supposed to be looking at a bigger picture? What is the bigger picture? Why should we be able to go a Restaurant and get food served? Why is there a need for somebody to cook for us, and why should there be a person to serve? They are people with a lot of questions too. Why should they be restricted to that small space? Man is all of them. The cook, the server, the customer, the buyer, the seller, the bartender, the drinker, the entertainer, the manager, the lawyer, the plaintiff, the defendant, the richman, the beggar, the loser, the prodigy, the actor, the audience, the lover, the hater, the inventor, the destroyer, the creator and also the Killer.

All these are things that man does for himself. Why is the waiter serving you with extra care? So you would tip him and he would make more money. Why is an exotic dancer showing off her body? Not for somebody else's pleasure, but to make her own living. Where is the Man, that would do things for every Thing other than himself? Why does Man have to start a career and do things for his own good? What is success? Man beating Man? Man beating other creatures? Man defying Nature?? How is any of this called Success?


Why are we even living on this Earth?  I still haven't found out a purpose in Life. Are we supposed to just live it out and wait for the day to die? Or are we supposed to do something with this chance of life? It clearly isn't a video game where the character has a clear motive right from the beginning - rescue the Princess. From what I see, we aren't really living. We seem to be surviving. Humans are just trying their utmost to survive. And unfortunately the only thing that's stopping us from 'living freely' is our own Human Race! We've got to beat our own kind to prove a point to our own kind! Sad. 

All this brings us back to something that has apparently become as important as oxygen - Money. It's like opening the Pandora's Box if one starts talking about money. Pretty much everything on this Earth and Beyond has a price. It's a well known fact. Land, rocks, wood, water, shelter, energy, knowledge, experience, happiness, freedom, friendship, love, marriage, divorce, and even death. Nothing has been spared from that ever sticky price tag. Almost all of these were supposed to be available for free. Something happened in the history of the human race that created this thing called Money, and it has turned out to be the root of all evil. It can't be more true that even something as simple as freedom costs money. Today we are struggling to go back to the Moon because it's expensive! It's one of those saddest eras in the 13 Billion Year history of the Earth.

It has come to a point where the "Purpose" of a human being is to earn Money. Purpose - The title of this blog post. So is this what it brings us down to? Earning a man-created materialistic thing called Money? Man does awesome things, there's no doubt about that. But all that awesomeness was for the sake of money? In today's world, it defines who we are or rather sadly, how better we are than the others. Ugh, my brain is filled with that one sound, Ugh!

Earning to live, living to earn, earning to earn, living to live. I don't know which one of these is relevant to human life anymore, but I do hope we choose wisely and find the real answer to the question nobody seems to care about - What is the Purpose of Life?

To India and Back!

So, something was really frustrating me here in Wichita. I could really feel I needed a break, a change of scene. By May, I was absolutely sure that I wanted to go back home atleast for a month. I booked my tickets immediately and was eagerly waiting for that day.

In between, I had to deal with the current issues. But I just didn't want to! You're looking at the fruit, almost in tasting distance but there's glass in between. How do you crack it? How do you crack the final exams of the semester? I didn't know what I wanted to do, or how I wanted to do it, but I needed those last 10 days of the semester to just disappear. How they disappeared is another long story reserved for later, but for now, let's assume I was through with them..

I wanted to buy loads of stuff for home. After a lot of confusion and help, I managed to get my bag heavy enough, that I couldn't afford to load it anymore. Finally, the day came. 26th of May.

The route was pretty long - Wichita-Dallas-London-Dubai-Hyderabad and I was expecting to get bored along the journey, but surprisingly had a friend flying the exact same route to the same destination. Some relief there, but I was still in an odd state where a part of me couldn't believe I was visiting home, and a part of me was lonely leaving friends behind. I was still in some grey area, not realizing if I was in a dream or in reality.

The best part of journey was flying in the A380 from London to Dubai. The leg room comfort and the nearly unlimited choice from the entertainment system really got me impressed with the aircraft and Emirates itself.

On 28th, I landed in Hyderabad, all ready to soak in the subtropical climate. The sight of so many people all over the place really jerked me back to my real world where I rightfully belong. I found my Mom, sister and uncle waiting for me and now I was fully awake! I was home.

We hardly drove out and it started drizzling outside. So it hadn't rained in weeks and there it was, pleasantly drizzling bringing back that beautiful smell of earth, the moment I landed. It felt good to be there.

Of course, the traffic looked 10 times more than what I saw a year back. Because of all the traffic I could hardly recognize well known places. My mom, for a second feared I had forgotten everything. My memory still needed a major jerk to come back to life. It took me a couple of days to feel absolutely at home. The freedom, or rather the lack of it, was so pleasing!

Bed time was well before midnight. Rising time was well before 8. It was shocking how things just fell into place the moment I traveled half way around the world. Eating habits also greatly improved. I was among my people. In short, it was heaven. I might have made a 100 new friends in Wichita, but once home, I realized I was lonely and lost the last one year.

Before I could even settle down, I desperately needed to drive! I took the 2-wheeler out and just zipped off. I was wearing shorts and flip-flops and I just took off till I almost reached the other end of the city, soaking in every molecule around me. I checked the time and cursed myself for being so negligent and got back home. But that felt like real freedom, driving into the wind, letting it take you where it wanted.

That same evening, I also took the car out. I wasn't sure I would handle it well. The last one year was not only spent just watching others drive, but also learning and adopting to rules that were waaaaay too different from what I was usually used to in Hyderabad. But I didn't let that get in the way. The moment I sat behind the wheel, another whole section of my brain opened up. I was in another world, like how Harry Potter feels the moment he mounts his broomstick.

I drove like I had been driving all my life. Only changes were, I was much more confident now and faster. Those days of driving cautiously were gone. I felt educated in the driving scene. I knew what I could do, and what the other 1000 drivers around me were doing or wanting to do. It was like a shot of some brain enhancing drug. I was impressed with myself.

I thoroughly enjoyed driving around and welcomed the freedom, but there were things to be done, people to meet, places to travel to. After meeting my closest college friends (the ones who managed to turn up), it was time to start traveling. We first traveled to Chattisgarh to visit my grandparents' house. The occasion was not a happy one as my last grandparent had left this world. But, on the brighter side, I got to meet a huge bunch of people, some of who, if not for this, I wouldn't get to meet. Funny how death can bring people together.

But as always going to Chattisgarh is a liberating feeling. The fresh air of the hills, clean sunshine and the scheduled evening rainfall always take away any gloom in the atmosphere. The downside again is the problem with Naxal activity. Jagdalpur is located in the Bastar district, a district I heard some people refer to as the Naxal District. Really sad that once again (just like every other time) we humans are solely responsible for the destruction of everything that's beautiful and worth appreciating.

Once back in Hyderabad, it was the usual meeting of family and friends. My former school mates and college mates were getting married all over the place. Kinda gives a perspective of how quickly we grow older. But of course the youngster in me had some more time left to go. That was proved with the way I enjoyed my last 10 days.

I had planned a "reunion" with a couple of my Wichita friends in Delhi. Friends I had known for less than a year, but simply the best! I had traveled 8000 miles to meet some old friends and family, but instead here I was excited to meet my friends who I was going to meet in Wichita in anyway. Just the change in location, Wichita to Delhi had all sorts of excitement gushing through me.

So after some usual drama, we finally met up and had some of the best days I ever experienced. Much like a young pup released into the open after many days of being locked up, we just soaked in everything we could. We traveled in the Delhi metro (sitting on the floor of the train chatting away like we never met before), traveled in autos, and even man-driven rickshaws! I never knew they still existed in the capiial. Of course we drove the car too when we needed it. We saw new modern places, revisited some historic monuments, went shopping, watched movies, ate random food, drank random things, literally lived like there was nothing to lose in the world.

There were some crazier moments the day I was supposed to leave back to Hyderabad. We were having so much fun outside the airport (dancing and singing, making fools of ourselves, having all passersby laughing at us), that I actually missed my flight despite getting to the airport an hour early! What madness!

I had to dish out extra money to get a flight for the next but I actually do not regret a single penny I spent because that day was even better than all the days we had spent earlier. We drove out to Gurgaon and it started raining. We went to a karting arena but the cars would not be allowed during rain. So instead we started a running race on that track! The guards thought we were clearly out of our minds! More great food and movies completed the day I was supposed to miss. One sad moment was that I had broken my trusty old camera at India Gate. Kind of a fitting farewell at a memorial for the Indian soldiers who gave their life for the country. My camera despite being a point-and-shoot and tiny, taught me so many technical things about photography, something that no human could. For that I will be ever grateful.

After an almost dreamlike visit to Delhi, I was back home. In a couple of days I was to fly back to Wichita and leave everything I called home, behind. Oh, to think of the long flights and loneliness was kinda depressing, but at the same time, I was going back to the place I had fallen in love with. I was leaving a dream behind and entering a new dream. Periods like these make you forget all the problems of the world and just live life - something humans have long forgotten to do. Living instead of surviving.