Short Sighted

The markets are spiralling downwards... investors standing like a goat in front of a hungry tigress, the world is tumbling for many, and the dollar is dipping away. What do I say in such a scenario, whom do you ask where is one going? Tensions are high in the market, job cuts round the corner, clients chasing down wealth manager, 30% growth expectation resulting in capital erosion. Among all this there is nothing much happening in the real world, orders are still coming, people are still working, value is still being generated, and the sun is still shining round the corner.



I realized one thing, people have become very shortsighted, no one is looking at long term, the charts on the TV shows are increasingly becoming hourly, the analysis daily. Whoever generated value everyday, how can one generate profits everyday, and how can it ever reflect in the stock market everyday. I think this game has become a legalized gambling industry... nothing more.

PRAYER

The ventilator beeped on, the monitor displaying troughs and peaks rhythmically, a labored breath hissing its way down his throat acknowledged my arrival into the room, the room swathed in a greenish tinge as if the surgeon has left his aura behind, as I peeped in I froze, drinking in the scene, speechless thoughtless. An emotional shiver waved through my body for a second, rendering me light headed.

I was in the ICU of the Neurology Surgical ward of the Sri Sathya Sai Super Specialty Hospital in Bangalore. The hospital is a free hospital that believes in catering to all, and the message of Sathya Sai preaches adherence to once own religion and the respect and belief of all religions. In the age and times where Hindus and Christians and Muslims insecure about their future are converting and killing each other. Here I stood witness to a phenomena way surpassing religion or any ideal. The phenomena of a mother in prayer.

A mother in all her purness praying next to her hissing boy breathing through tubes in his throat who could only hold up his hand to acknowledge that he exists. The beeps and the lights matching the rythm of her shallow chant, she was reciting the quoran to her child. The child operated by man and supported by machines awaits his body to recover from the ordeal of an operation. A tumour removed from the brain of a rank holder who dreams to enter graduation this year. His hopes and his dreams are now hers, her life is meanigless at that moment wothout him she is non-existant. She clings on to the faith her religion stands for, she looses herself in selfless prayer. Her religion forming a gateway to her wishes. She sniffles and cries when she sees the doctor accompanying me. She draws a deep breath and continues her prayer.

And in the same breath elsewhere the fanatics of religions today render so many mothers childless...

MY GOLDEN SUNSET

The sounds of the universe surround me, the auto rickshaws twitter by, the trucks rumble on, the crows caw and my grandpa mumbles in his sleep besides me. Sitting next to him for the past so many days is a test to my patience, I am the watch and he is recovering from a heart attack at the age of 91. So in a way this relationship is funny. A room surrounded with the city sounds full of hectic activity and here are two souls trapped in two bodies, one starting out with life, restless and full of activity, while the other is exhausted, and wants to rest. Makes me wonder after 65 odd years this is what I am heading for? This thought makes all my petty desires, wants, likes and dislikes, friends and ego issues fly away through the open window. I deepen my breath and pull up my socks and start to rethink everything I was and I want to be.

The golden sunset smuggles into the room filtering through the drapes caressing my grandpa in the eve of his life as I await the dawn to get on with life and discover my path in search of my golden sunset...