Passport

Yesterday I applied for my passport renewal. It would expire on the 7th of January, 2011...just a couple of weeks from now. It was issued to me exactly 10 years back. It was the year that I passed my engineering. It was as-if passport to a new life.
So, I thought of taking stock of how life (the new life post college life) has shaped and changed for us. "Us" meaning some of my friends, some whom I have contact with and some whose news keeps flowing into me through the friends I have contact with. Before I proceed furher, let me clarify some things. I will not take any names; if any friend gets hurt because he/she feels it is referring him/her and I shouldn't have written about him/her, my sincere apologies. Please mail me at amitava.b.chatterjee@gmail.com and I will remove that part immediately. The sole purpose of this blog is to have a look at how the lives and the world has changed for some of us.

When we were in college, my close friend, Sandipan and I used to often say, "We are waiting for the day when we can run out of the college and never return". We had reasons to say so. Precisely, we hated college and I have no qualms in thanking the "teachers" of my college for that.I dont understand what fun teachers get by giving less marks to students and thus find the cynical way to show their power and position. Finally, we did manage to come out of the college and the best part is, with the "Bachelor of Engineering" degree.

I called one friend the other day.
"Hey, what's up?"
"I'm attending the second marriages of friends now!"
"What???"
"Yes, You remember, XXX married in 2004?"
"Yes.."
"Well, he got divorced in 2006 and married again! Even YYY has remarried. And, Amitava, I must say second marriages are much more organised and grand than the first ones. Actually, they already have experience and have learnt from the mistakes of the first ones"
Marriage. Divorce. And marriage again.
For some it is marriage and a rocking married life.
For some it is marriage and a rocked married life.
For some it is marriage and divorce. No re-marriage, yet. Once bitten, twice shy.

For the married, some have kid or kids.
Some are yet to start the process - hesitant about starting it.
Some are in the process.
Some started the process and got rude shocks on the way - medical problem or the trauma of mis-carriage.

For one, it was marriage, kids and then death. A habitual drug-addict, he met a tragic end, leaving his family in shatters.

Some were outstanding in the academic life (unlike me). But then could not make it as they had thought they would. So now they are into hibernation. Several mails and phone calls failed to bring them back. They have chosen to live in isolation. I have stopped disturbing them.
Among the good students, some went ahead and continued studying for the love of it. On the way they picked us some good degrees and then got what they wanted in life.
Some went ahead to study because they did not know what else to do.
Some continued studying perhaps not just for the love of studying but because of somebody else or because they wanted to prove something to the world. Dont know whether they have enjoyed the process.
And some confused souls like me went to work from college, then back to college and back to work again!

We have lost contact with many. Orkut and facebook occasionally brings out some old vaguely-remembered faces. But not all believe in networking sites. For some, I do not like to contact even if they may be in the same city. And thats because we never got along nicely.

Some have decided not to leave their hometown, their comfort zone.
Some have decided to look out for better opportunities in some green pastures away from their hometown, but within the country.
Some have decided to leave the country and settle abroad.
For some friends working in the IT industry, it is all about taking "onsite" assignments and clicking photos with family with the statue of liberty or the Eiffel tower in the background.Then posting on the networking sites and getting "wow!" from friends.

Most of us have put on weights. Some a few pounds more, some a few pounds less.
Most of us are on diet with the occasional pizzas,Pepsis, and Mac-Ds and french fries.


There are once-not-so-close friends, with whom now I share warm relationships and who have become part of my close friend circle. And there are once-so-close friends with whom I have hardly shared a thought for the last few years.
In college we all seemed united. Now, each has a world of his/her own. Its a much lonely life now.
Within the boundaries of the college wall, there were few things we really needed to worry about. Mainly, academics and a job post academics. Now the list is almost endless.

Schools have uniforms. It signifies that all students, irrespective of their social background and economic condition are same in school. Colleges don't have uniform. But, the spirit of the uniformity remains. Ten years on, it is too much to ask for uniformity of any sort.

In 2001, my mind and the leaflets of the passport had one thing in common. Both had no stamps, no seals. Pretty-much blank and didnt know what to expect from future. Ten years on, 40% of my passport has been stamped with visas of different countries and sealed and signed here and there by the different emigration officers around the world. Records that cannot be deleted or wiped off. Even I had quite a few good, bad and ugly experiences in these last ten years of my life, never to be forgotten and cannot be erased.
The new passport I am applying for with 60 more blank pages is for another ten years. It is perhaps life's own way of telling me to take a fresh look at the next ten years of my life with the same zeal and enthusiasm that I had ten years ago, when I got my first passport.

Acknowledging the limits

When I was a small boy, my father used to bring wall papers, We pasted some of them on the walls of our room. One such wall paper had a beautiful picture of a boat sailing and the background was that of a setting sun on the distant horizon.The caption read "Lord! Your ocean is so vast and our boat is so small." Somehow I still remember that picture and those lines. And as days go by, I feel that perhaps there is no truth more universal than those lines.

The intent of the blog is not to demean any human being or his achievement; it is to highlight the fact that our achievement is almost insignificant to that of the Almighty. We scaled the sky-kissing mountain peaks, we went to the Moon, people swam across oceans , travelers walked across continents and went to the poles. We hail all these achievements as outstanding. No doubt they are commendable.But they are commendable within the boundaries and limitations of the capabilities of human beings.
In the first place, the achievements that need to be hailed are the creation of those mountain peaks, the Moon, the oceans and the continents. We hardly acknowledge the fact that most of our outstanding achievements are those where we came face-to-face with Nature and were able to leave a very small mark over it, where we added a drop of water to the ocean. Our problem lies in the fact of taking the ocean for granted and adding all the significance to that tiny drop.

We have created robots, computers and super-computers and think that they are highly
sophisticated gadgets. We hail them as proof of the fact that we are almost there when it comes to creating something close to the human being. Firstly, the fact that we acknowledge that we intend to create something close to human beings is testimony to the fact that we think creation of human beings is the be-all and end-all creation in this field. Secondly, the truth is, we are nowhere near to creating something as complex and as compact as human beings. The simple fact that to decode the human body functions there are millions of doctors and lacs of super-speciality hospitals is a testimony to the fact. And yet there are many mysteries in the body of the human beings that doctors and scientists are yet to crack. If any body parts goes wrong and stops functioning then we get to realise more how limited our knowledge is. Each part of the body is created with surgical precision.

Even if we take other animals in the animal kingdom, we are inferior to many in many aspects. We dont have the smelling power as strong as dogs; we cant fly or track our distance and direction like the migratory birds and other animals, we cant see in the dark like cats, we cant leap and jump like monkeys, we cant swim like fish, we cant sense infra-red rays like the bats do in the dark...the list is endless. Overall, we are a better package than these animals, but not in each and every aspect. When we went out to invent airplanes, we designed it like birds; when we went to create something that can swim in water, we created submarines that are designed like fishes. Aren't we actually imitating the Ultimate Creator - the Almighty? And yet, both airplanes and submarines need so many radars and satellites to guide and control them, unlike the migratory birds and fishes. This proves, our inventions, however sophisticated we think they are, fall way sort of those created by the Almighty.

Let me take another example. The fastest man in the world runs 100m in a shade below 10 seconds. It is a great achievement. But, a great achievement within the limitation of human muscles and speed.If we take the figure to a leopard, then its way below norm in the leopard kingdom. Their average speed is something like 75kmph. Doing a bit a maths, it comes out that they run 100m in approx 5 seconds! So, in their kingdom perhaps only a very old leopard will take the time that the fastest man in the world takes!
So, what I am trying to say is, we are achieving and striving to achieve the best within our limits and capabilities. In some cases, we are trying to duplicate some things. While these may be a huge commendable thing in itself, we should not lose sight of the bigger picture. We should not confuse the drop of water with the ocean.And this should make us humble for all the achievements that we think we have done in our life or as a human being.

The duplicate of Monalisa is,at the end of the day, the duplicate of Monalisa. The painter might have given his best and feel content with his achievement; his friends might applaud him for the same, but that does not make him Leonardo Da Vinci and he must never think him so. There is,but only one Leonardo da Vinci.