Feelings

What is the feelings

Of the person standing on top of Mt. Everest...
Of the athlete who has just won gold in Olympics...

Of the warrior who looks at his wife the last time before leaving for the battlefield...
Of the victorious soldier returning home...

Of the widow whose husband has died after 50 years of marriage...
Of the bride and the bridegroom about to get married...

Of the passengers of AA11 before crashing into the twin towers...
Of the astronauts of Spaceship Columbia before it burst in space...

Of the old farmer who lost his family in the tsunami...
Of the mother whose son is an infamous militant...

Of the prisoner of war who was once ruler of a country...
Of the convict about to be hanged...

Of the old man on his death bed as he reminisces his life...
Of everyone of us as we grow from childhood to youth to adulthood to the aged!

What's there in a name?

Many people have interpreted the sentence 'What's there in a name?' in many ways and in different situations. I think, this adage has been misused more often than not. I am not going to argue about the line in this piece. I took this line as I thought it is an appropriate title for this piece.

I am Amitava Chatterjee (I shouldn't have said such as obvious thing!).
I am 29 years old (Could have stayed without disclosing my age!)

25 years ago I was Amitava Chatterjee (So what???Isn't it obvious?)
25 years ago I was in my kindergartens in my dear old St. Joseph's Convent,Chandannagore,my hometown, a small town in India.


What am I driving at with the statements above?
I am trying to say that today's 'Amitava Chatterjee' is not the same as the one that existed 25 years ago.
Have I gone mad??
No, is the precise answer.

25 years ago the world was different to that 'Amitava Chatterjee'. It was about the small boy and his small town. the lush green fields of the school. The dream to get taller and look forward to the new class, the new books and the new uniform. The fear of something unknown, commonly called exams. The desperate wish to grow faster and study in senior classes. If I extend it to some higher classes in the primary classes, it was the friendship with the classmates, the returning to home and play in the evening, dinner with grandparents. I don't want to continue writing, as all of us have the same sort of experience. So, I leave it on the readers to relate when they were kids.

And now...only 25 years passed by. Grandparents are no more. This 'Amitava Chatterjee' is some 1000s of miles from 'his' hometown. Laptop and mobile are his windows to the outside world. Feels lost in the world when the internet connection is down. (Feels lost in the world, anyway!) Thoughts have become complex. The relationships and friendships have a different meaning today. There are business case studies; there are report submissions. His thoughts and imaginations knows no boundaries. He has grown up.

Are these two the same person? Or is it the name has remained the same, the person inside has changed. We all change. Everyday we change, as we are influenced by new actions and thoughts. We change and we evolve. I am not the same person today as I was yesterday. Likewise, I will not be the same person tomorrow or some years later. But the change is so small, that nobody understands and wakes up in the morning and says 'God! I have changed!'. But, believe me, you have changed!
Scientifically speaking, each day thousands of old cells die and thousands of new ones are born. It has been seen that every seven years the entire body cells get replaced. So, in any way, over a period of years, we all the change. We are different human being today than we were some years back!

What was dear to you some years back, may not be so dear now. Why? If you were the same person, this should not have happened. If I had an affinity towards something, say chicken fried rice twenty five years back, I should have had the same affinity today, too. Lets put it in a different way. If sodium and chlorine reacted under certain temperature, pressure and other external factors to produce sodium chloride or salt twenty five years ago, then it will do so now...it will do so twenty-five years later and forever, for that matter. Then why is my affinity towards fried rice changed? I liked it so much then, but can't tolerate its smell today! The fried rice did not change (considering it was cooked under same conditions all the time). I say, because I have changed. Our taste for something changes, because we change. We all do. For some the change occurs in five years, for some it may be twenty-five year. But we all change.Whether we admit it or not.

I think when people say 'You've changed!', (one a lighter note, this is one thing wives often say to their husbands!) then they refer to the relative change. When the change between people is different, then the gap of the relative changes widens. You find it hard to get a conversation going with a friend who was your best friend some years back. The reason is, you both have changed differently. Your views don't match anymore. Those two best friends have long been buried. These two persons have different opinions and views. Ironically, those two best friends and these two persons have the same name.

Over the years we all live lives of different people under a common name! Those who live them simultaneously are called split personalities; those who live one after another are called normal human beings - WE!

Coping or Copying?

Thanks to the IT and BPO industries in India, lacs of persons, like me, are exposed to the foreign countries of Europe and Uncle SAm! And, almost everyone who is part of these industries dreams of making (official) trips to some foreign countries or the other. And then take pictures of themselves with the sexy cars and glamorous buildings in the backdrop, and post them on the networking sites. For a change, these dreams are fulfilled more often than not. So, its not a wonder that people aged 30 years, who worked abroad for even 90 days will have 90% of the photos posted taken abroad. Perhaps they associate more with the 'culture' of the foreign land, or perhaps they think that those are the best part of their life. Everyone is happy and no one's complaining.

I do not have, and should not have, any qualms in saying that the countries talked about in the above paragraphs have a lot of good things to offer to the rest of the world, obviously including India and the Indians. So when we try to understand more of their culture and imbibe the better ones in us, it should be a matter of joy and pride to all of us. There is no shame in adapting the virtues from even your enemies! But what I am particularly skeptical about is are we really taking the best from their culture? We generally start with the easiest thing and those things which draw the eyeballs, not the ones that the hygienic - good for the mind,body and soul. One of the foremost things that we imitate (not imbibe) is the English ascent. And we make such fools out of us in the process! Sadly, we do not realise it. Most Indians have a fair amount of heavy regional ascent. So when we pepper the regional ascent with the British or American ascent it feels like having an Indian curry and tandoor chicken with muffins! However,over the years many Indian have developed a more neutral ascent, which is more pleasing to the ear.

To comeback to my point, I am not against using the foreign ascent or getting rid of the regional ascent. The British came to India and ruled for 200 years and for that they even learned a new language - Hindi. They knew that to sustain in the foreign land and make trade they had to adapt to their situation - learn the foreign language. We don't have to learn any new language, as English in one of the subjects taught from our school days. We just , at the most, have to learn to roll the tongue in a different way to make ourselves being understood better by the foreign clients. But my problem is, many people mistake the ascent as the culture. My problem is when parents talk to their kids in India in English. Because in all such parents-kids english conversation,which I, by chance, overheard there is nothing expect a whole lot of grammatical errors and sentences or phrases directly translated to english from the vernacular, with the least botheration of whether they actually exist in the enriched english language. It is one thing to learn something to cope with the situation or adapt the virtues and a completely different thing to copy. We are disillusioned in our thoughts that speaking English will enrich us. We have failed to adapt the virtues that make the Britishers the Brit - their sense of punctuality, their well-behaved and well-mannered culture, respect for individuals, care for life,cleanliness and the list goes on. If the timetable says the bus will arrive at 8:55 am, rest assure, it will come on-dot until something really unavoidable things take place on the way. And if it is late, the driver will apologise. No one can think that the food served - whether it is a big restaurant or a small roadside corner shop - is adulterated. No one's seen spitting on the road or throwing litters anywhere except the dustbins. These are difficult to follow and adapt, by any standard. These are the qualities that make a nation and its citizens superior to others. Alas, we only take the superficial ones and pride our aping, not adapting, certain acts.

It would be unfair on my part if I paint a picture which gives the impression that 'all's great on the western front'. But it is also true that we should look at the brighter and better aspects of all that is there in the universe - from the moon to the rose. That's the way we all can be a better human being with each passing day. After all, the Almighty has created us as a human being so that we move and improve from where we are born. Otherwise, HE would have made us trees, who are more controlled by the outside nature, than by the one inside!