Weekends.....

Of the many things that I’ve grown up learning into this IT industry, is the importance of the days called ‘weekends’. Usually, we find accustomed to such 5-day-working schedule right from our college days. But, then Saturday was just another holiday, an added advantage, sort of icing over the cake. We never understood its importance as we never sweated through our days called ‘weekdays’, back then. But now, it’s this Saturday, which is the most awaited. Saturday, indeed, has become a ‘celebrity’ among all the rest of the six peers of his, and we whole-heartedly despise Monday, amongst all, as if it’s the villain. Somehow, Sunday has lost its charm the way it had, in the school days.

Anyways, the point is, we now desperately wait for these two days to arrive so that we can do the things that we can’t during the weekdays, or simply not do anything at all! To which, I’m reminded of a question that most of us are either frequently struck with or even like to pry…..”How do you spend your weekends?” As if the answer can somehow help us measure the quality of a person’s life. Or that even spending a weekend is an art in itself! Mostly, my answer to the question is “Nothing, just relaxing..” and this is subjected to further scrutiny by the questioning body as “how is it possible that you do nothing on weekends?” and then there is piling up of some unwanted advices as “….you should go out with your folks……watch a movie……meet old friends……go partying…call the relatives….etc. etc.”

Initially, it would even make me give a little thought over the ‘art of spending a weekend’, but then I realized that I do exactly what I expect from a weekend. First of all, “..doing nothing…” isn’t an absolute phrase, it’s just a metaphor that means “…doing nothing that might interest you, or amuse you…” and why should it when it’s YOUR time, not anyone else’s. Secondly, I don’t believe that ‘doing nothing’ means ‘wasting time’. Instead, it’s the time we spend it with ourselves, completely.

For me, ‘doing nothing’ comprises of some movie watching which is mostly a pleasurable time and in my case, it even leaves an impression (commonly known as movie after-effects) which might even strike a chord within. Then there is some random roaming around the market place or the garden, to get some fresh air in and feel lively. Usually, after buying stuff (you always need to buy something on every weekend, even at a mere sight of a shop!), I just sit down with a coke can and look around. I look around at people who’re looking back at me, possibly both of us trying to figure out that have we ever seen each other before (every one of us has déjà vu!). I look around at people who’re as busy as they might appear on any other day, as if the weekend doesn’t make much difference to them. I look at few couples who’re happy together, and I feel good as they bring smile on my face due to the momentary lapse of realization of my own loneliness. Then there are people whose smile cannot conceal their sadness, and they constantly try to create an illusion of themselves having a jolly good time, even when they probably wish to be somewhere else, or with someone else, or may be alone. Then there are eyes searching for some shop to buy from, or someone to meet, or maybe they’re the ones doing the same thing that I am, just searching for emotions in other’s eyes.

This ‘seeing around’ is so intense that we even lose track of time, just sitting at a place. By every passerby that we notice, somewhere we start creating our own picture of him, portraying his personality in our own imaginative ways. His each action or movements adds a blend to his impression in us. We may continuously erase, redraw and add colors to that image but we might not realize whether the personality we’re drawing matches the real character. And from here begins the reign of our ‘judgment’. We start acting upon that image instead of the real character. This leads us to either overestimating or underestimating others. This thought process has to be controlled and can be done only by allowing it to flow, make impressions, draw images, but not FRAME them.

So much for so less time! Now, it won’t be fair enough to judge ‘doing nothing’ by just sleeping or being lazy, will it!

Choices..

In every phase of life, and for every Action or Decision that we take, we spent most of the time dealing with CHOICES. I have a different understanding of the two words – Choices and Options. Options are something that might be derived of all the POSSIBILITIES, but Choices are those ‘options’ that are derived from the FEASIBILITIES. These feasibilities will depend upon our own willingness, or on someone else’s, or they might depend upon the situation.

What makes me feel or write about such crappish philosophy today, is the fact that for quite a long time now, I’ve been struggling with these choices. It makes me feel so helpless at times when the mind and heart do not conform to one another that I simply want to shut myself from everything, shred the responsibility and carelessly pick one.

There are times when opportunities allure us so intensely that one overlooks the options, and form choices just on the basis of the fragility of his own state of mind. This is worse as his decisions or actions might change the course of life so drastically that he might not even be able to look back and pin-point what went wrong, if it does. It hits him so badly that he might forget at all what made him take such a course.

But, the worst condition is that when he’s not the one to make the choices. It’s being served to him and he has to choose. Firstly, the limitation itself chokes him and then the consequences of each choice leave him crippled, nauseated and frustrated.

Right from the day when we started recognizing our identity and began creating memories of ourselves, we were thrown into this vicious dungeon of choices. To buy bicycle or a football? ‘cos you can’t have both of them. To take Science or commerce? Here we didn’t have much to choose because the day we enter our last two best years of school, the devil of ‘competition’ grabs us from both his hands, ready to engulf our childhood and innocence. And then there’s no return.

Engineering or simple bachelors in Science? Or a diploma in Computers? Once done with them, which college? Which stream? Which company? Which Technology? In these choices, somewhere a cricketer or a painter or a musician or an artist is already strangled in no time. And when we do realize this vaguely, we are already doing the same with our own children. Even the realization of this trap doesn’t free us even then, or lets us free the ones that we love. Why is this love had to be like the handcuffs? We feel handcuffed throughout our lives, by our parents, by our expectations, by this ruthless world where the ‘right to live’ has been changed by ‘earn your living’ rule. Why do we pass these same handcuffs to the coming generations? Where is our freedom? Where is the CHOICE?