12 Random Memories From My Pensieve

1. I did my first deliberate bunking in class I. Our English teacher was 'e^∞ ' times strict and the only thing that scared me more than her was the baba that used to kidnap `children-who-never-finish-their-food’. On Friday, she used to have two periods and it was my weekly habit to suffer from a xyz disease on that day (till my parents figured out that I am quite prone to diseases on Fry-day).

2. My first crush- class II. Our mathematics ma’am was just sooo adorable. I was her favourite student and she liked me a lot. But it was my fault; I misunderstood her likeness as her love. After a few years, I came to know that she is in love with some other senior teacher who was already married. My dreams shattered! Sheesha ho ya dil ho aakhir toot jaata hai…. :’(

3. My second crush-class III. It took me a year to recover from the past one-sided-relationship and this time it was with a girl. We used to sit together and she had a pretty addictive smile. This time I rejected her. Reason- she had dandruff in her hair. Later, I realised that the dandruff content in my hair is much more than hers. But by the time I realised it, it was too late. :(

4. When I was in class V or VI, I asked a girl in a free period, “Toilet chalegi???” Unluckily, there was pin drop silence in the class while I uttered those words. Everyone was staring at me. I think it was the childhood innocence because I realised the reason of their stares after 2-3 years. Nevertheless, it was my first and last act of bravery.

5. I am one of those talented ones who learned to ride the bicycle twice. I learned it firstly in K.G. and then somehow I forgot how to ride it. Then, I learned it again in 2^nd or 3^rd. Does anyone else have such an experience?

6. I was the first in the class who had an inbuilt stopwatch in the watch. It was quite a rage at that time. We developed a game out of it and used to play it between the periods. Those small things are missing from the life now.

7. I was shouting in the class like mad and a teacher from other class came and gave a tight slap on my left cheek. She was prepared to give a tighter one on my right but in defence, I held her hand in mine (not in a romantic manner). She took my defence as an offence and gave me around 5-6 slaps with full force. Since then, I have never held a hand of any woman or girl in my life (not even in a romantic manner).

8. I was crazy for cricket in childhood. I used to read every issue of `Cricket Samrat’ and had all the issues from 1997 to 2003. Collecting center fresh cricket cards was the in-thing at that time and we used to have setting with the shop-keeper to let us choose the favourite cards. I had hundreds of them. 93 numbered Wasim Akram, 7 numbered Mohd. Azharuddin and 18 numbered Richard Hadlee were the rarest of cards and my prized possessions at that time. These days I think Pokémon cards have replaced them (might be an out-dated information).

9. I had all the cricket gears of my own when I was in class IV or V. Helmet, gloves, pads, bat, wrist band.... u name it and I had it. Though, I didn't have the guard but luckily, I never fell into such a crisis situation. We had tournaments during the vacations and used to distribute trophies (made of wood) to the MoM, MoS, best batsman, best bowler etc. etc.

10. I used to smoke those sweet cigarettes with pride and pretend that the smoke is coming out of my mouth. I think we all had a taste of it. Anyone knows whether it is available these days or not??

Warning: Cigarette smoking is injurious to health and can cause cancer.

11. In class V & VI, my hands (along with hands of a few others) were full of Rakhis on Rakshabandhan and I was very happy to have so many sisters. Silly me!

12. I hated Biology a lot and never studied it seriously even during the Xth boards. But there was a chapter in it in which I scored full marks. All the diagrams and definitions were practiced to perfection. Yup, you guessed the chapter-name rightly!

PS:

1. I do remember the names of above mentioned teachers & friends, but I don’t want to embarrass them. So better let it remain a secret. ;)

2. All those who feel offended can take this post with a pinch of salt. (I think ‘only’ is more suitable than ‘all’ in this sentence. But why take chances.) ;)

3. Those crushes are not the actual type of crushes. Actually, I didn’t know the actual parameters of evaluation then. So, there was nothing serious in it.

4. Some other facts which are not suitable for all age groups of our society are omitted to save my blog from getting an ‘A’ certificate.

5. Any dispute arising out of or in connection with this blog post shall be subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of High Court, Lucknow bench only. :P

Hey GOD, do you exist (or not)???

I had no need for that hypothesis-Laplace.

Hmm….for someone like me, this is not a great topic to start with, I think I can write better (or less worse) on boys & girls…..but frankly speaking, boys don’t excite me and girls are even more complex than god…..so lets come out of our comfort zone(if we have) & lets talk about THE GOD…….

I want to clear it out that firstly I’m not an atheist, I think I’m agnostic atheist (if something like that exists). I’m still searching for the answers about god & my opinion about god can change in the future. Secondly, it’s not a crime to be atheist. A few months ago, a friend of mine just for time-pass asked me, “Do you believe in God?” & I said, “No”. He looked at me as if I’m one of the 26/11 terrorist & my punishment of saying a “no” is to be hanged till death. I don’t rule out the power of faith & the fact that the religions give mental strength to many but the logical part of my mind doesn't allow me to have faith in him. At least, it doesn't allow me to have a perception about the god as it’s given in our holy books (don’t have much knowledge about them).

Now a days, science has developed a lot….it has given answers of most of the questions that the mankind has asked, but with every answer, arises another hundred questions & still science patiently tries to solve the mystery of our beautiful nature. A few centuries ago, we were not well equipped to tell how the basic natural things occur & then we connected our ignorance with god. We didn't know how this never ending universe was made (we still don’t) so we said that the GOD created it. We didn't know how the earthquake & cyclone occurs, so we thought that it’s the GOD’s way to show his anger on us. There are many questions which are still unanswered like ‘What’s the meaning of life?’, ‘Where did time and space come from?’ and a zillion others. And the answers of all these zillion questions are related to him in some way or the other. But for me, our inability to provide a natural explanation to some observations is due to our ignorance of the surroundings & it doesn't explain the existence of god.

If god is someone who created (deliberately) this universe then he must stand above space and time. He should be having a mind that can outlay the idea of this universe and thus has to be a complex one. But then, who created the god?? It’s quite logical that none can create him & if he can exist on its own then why can’t our universe (which has to be less complex than god)??? If he can exist without a cause, then I think the laws of science can also exist without all these w/h questions.

I am perfectly fine with the idea (till now) that god is the initial source of energy from which this universe came into existence and thus the credit of all the matter and the energy of today goes to the almighty. But for me, his role ended there only, after that whatever happened is due to the simple (or complex) laws of Physics.

God is pictured as the supreme-being, he is having the ultimate powers and none can be better than him. But I don’t agree that there can be someone in this world which doesn't have a scope to improve (including the almighty). There is at least a single scope of improvement in this world & there must be a thing whose inclusion/exclusion will make this universe better.

A lot of unworthy things are happening on the name of god. The every other pretending-to-be-gyaani type baba is using the name of god for doing all the illegal things in his backyard. A lot of uneducated people in the world are doing insane things as a consequence of blind faith over god. People are killing each other just for the sake of proving the superiority of their own religion. I don’t think that god created religion to have such consequences & if it’s the human who changed the meaning of religion for their own greed then why doesn't he stop such people???

Once I asked a question related to god to a priest who visited my home. He said that the god is mysterious and I need to have a ‘divine experience’ to realize the power of god. If the god is really such a mysterious entity, then what’s the surety that our ancestors were totally correct about his perception??? And how can we be so sure that the words of Bible, Koran, Vedas or any other holy books are the words of god???

Now you can have a belief on god if you ever had such a ‘divine experience’, and you can definitely share it with us but I doubt that I will trust your words but I can ensure that I will surely give it a thought.

Thus, I think god is just an unsatisfactory answer (for me) of all the questions which are unanswerable at this context of time and instead of believing that he is the answer of all such questions, we should try to learn more about the world and try to have our own views about it. Modern science can explain many natural phenomenon without the need of god and just give it a few years; it will surely bring a clearer picture in front of us.

I know that maybe we will never be able to find out the real god….or may be we are not meant to…..or maybe it’s within us. But till then, we all are free to perceive him as we wish to. We just want a happy life for us and for our neighbours & if we can get happiness and peace by having a belief on him then we should continue practicing our belief.

Have a happier tomorrow!

PS:

1. I referred to god as ‘he’, ‘his’ etc. I just did it to save myself from writing ‘he/she’, ‘his/her’ kind of things. I had no intentions to hurt any human (or inhuman) sentiments at all.

2. The definition of god may vary from person to person. I just tried to express my views on a general perception of god.

3. I don’t believe in god but that doesn't mean that I am a traitor or I want to demolish temples & mosques. They are very much needed to be safe for peace & to save our culture. It’s just that I am trying (pretending) to think logically…..

4. After writing such a long post, I read this article and I think you should read it (and the further links) too. It provided me some very good reasons to believe in god. It might be showing just a side of the true picture but it will surely improve our knowledge.