This is my life
Nothing shakes me
Nothing shuffles me
Anymore..
I like being
In my own zone
In my own zen
I like being sane
And insane..
I like being
Cool
Hell with the world
Sliming in its own
Stool..
Why should I
Give a damn
To those shouting
Save the common man ?
I am
Not common
This is my life
Why should I ?..
Besides BEST-buses and Local Trains, Auto-rickshaws form the irreplaceable veins of Mumbai. I realized their huge number only when I noticed the traffic jams or rather, the lack of them, when Auto-wallahs recently went on a strike. On numerous occasions I have discussed, at length, topics ranging from Indian cricket to Australian Cricket, from local neta to PM, from society to religion with them on my ride home… and their knowledge has never failed to astound me! (On one occasion, I went on a rampage against an influential UP politician and guess what, the rick-wallah turned out to be his ardent supporter. Thank God, he didn’t ask me to get down!)
Only a rickshaw-wallah has the X-Ray vision and the driving prowess to get you out of the labyrinthine traffic jams in Mumbai. So as a tribute to this King of the Road, I present you two poems that I found on the net (Google, to me, looks like a rickshaw-wallah guiding in an equally complicated maze of websites):
Poem I (Poet Unknown)
Look around, the roads seem strangely quite and peaceful
No noise and Pollution? Nothing running amok like a mad bull?
A flash of lightning, and it jumps out from the frying pan,
Here comes the AutoRickshaw, so watch out Super-Man!
You glide through the roads with poise and grace
Spewing poisonous smoke onto eveybody’s face.
Millions of devotees call out to you every day
You will come only if the driver feels like going that way.
You feast on petrol, kerosene and maybe even Jet Fuel,
You could put Schumacher to shame in a racing duel!
You draw your prey in, promising to make the day sweeter,
Then cheat them out of their money, with the tampered meter!
Preaching through portraits of fables and holy messages,
Bad drawings of Rajnikanth and other Bollywood sages!
You fearlessly roam the city streets like a giant toad,
You truly deserve the title of THE KING OF THE ROAD!
Poem II (Poet: Tom Fenwick)
You hot, perspiring human horse,
I marvel at your bliss.
Are you sad or glad to force
Your bread from men like this?
To grunt and run and pant and sweat
Beneath a burning sun
Your plantain plate of rice to get
When all the sunnings done.
For it’s “Chop-chop” up in China,
And it’s “lekas” in Malay.
While it’s “Juldi Jao” in India,
The burning livelong day.
You grunt and run and pant and pull
To reap your rich rewards;
Your blessings are as bountiful
As strings on monochords.
When I came East I could not ride;
It seemed all wrong to me
I walked, and let them all deride
The cause with “jeu d’esprit.”
But custom is a cunning past;
E’en princess she will beat.
And now you pull me with the rest
Along the dusty street.
And it’s “Chop-chop” up in China,
While it’s “lekas” in Malay.
And it’s “Juldi Jao” in India,
The burning livelong day.
I often wonder when you die,
And leave that sweated shell,
If you will ride, beyond the sky,
Or drag one still in hell!
In his book ‘Hot, Flat and Crowded’, Thomas Friedman writes, “We (Americans) created something called an American Life, one that is very efficient around an inefficient center”. With the forces of Globalization taking over, everyone then wanted to emulate the American life. Everyone was and is chasing the American Dream…big house, nice car, early retirement etc etc…and we are really becoming efficient at it. But then, why everyone feels that we are lacking something in Life? Are we lacking the Center…one created on the solid basis of values and ethics…around which we should build the life?
One distinct example of this is the collapse of global economic system. There is nothing wrong about Capitalism per se or the free market concept. But when GREED takes over and if it is not controlled, we create financial WMDs, as Warren Buffet called them.
When the center is absent or weak, anything built around it, however efficient and elegant it may be, is bound to founder. It’s time we start creating value-based centers in our lives, be it personal or professional.
The following poem has been taken from the blog written by Anu:
When the entire world ran
I also ran along
Without stopping to think
What was right and what was wrong.
I wanted to succeed
But never cared how.
Full returns I’d seek
For whatever I’d endow.
People were mere steps
On my ladder of success.
I cared not for their feelings,
Anxieties or distress.
Everything was a race
A competition I had to win.
I sincerely believed
That failure was a sin.
Very soon my family
Was a mere illusion
‘Cause they had no role
On the stage of my ambitions.
I surrounded myself with friends
Who thought like me
Through their greedy eyes
The world, I began to see.
I revered my friends
Who showed me the light
To great power and triumph
Of such colossal might.
Little did I know
That I was a paltry step
A puppet to toy with
In their race to success.
Broken and destroyed
They left me high and dry.
I was shattered beyond recovery
No matter how hard I’d try.
A recluse I became
Shutting out the world.
Licking my wounds
By myself I curled.
For those who I had wronged
I felt great remorse.
Ashamed of myself
I was filled with self-loath.
Along came my family
At this hour of need.
For their care and concern
I never had to plead.
They had no regard
For my amassed wealth
Their only true concern
Was to nurse me to health.
They taught me to enjoy
The green of the trees
The song of the birds
And the laughter of the breeze.
Never in my life
Had I felt so much calm.
I realised there can be life
Without chaos and alarm.
I learnt to sit back
And live life as it should be.
With love, care and affection
I became a new me.
Enlightened in life,
Here I confess
How I learnt
The true meaning of success.
And the exam season has officially kicked off in India!!
It’s sad to see everyone trying to become the same (Read: Doctor, Engineer..Ohh, that’s it!). Basically another rat gets running in the rat-race. How many times we actually think about what we want to become? It’s the society, your peers and your parents shepherding you all along…and the shepherd himself doesn’t know where he’s heading. Then only because you have marks, you become an engineer whereas your calling lies in Arts…a wanna-be engineer cries foul his entire life when he misses the cut-off by 0.1 percentage..what the heck? Is education depriving the world of good craftsman, good writers, good painters?
Do you have the answer? Or even you haven’t given it a thought yet?
