Category: Random Philosophy Page 15 of 20

Have we done enough this Ramadan ?

On July 2, 2016

Ramadan is about to be over. Saying it went off like a rocket would be an understatement. every year, ritualistically, we look back and ask ourselves, Have we done enough this Ramadan ? Whether we’ve done justice to this blessing bestowed upon us by Allah ?

And then hope that we may get another year to do more. Allah might be laughing at our “Future Plans”.

The best prayer is the one where we feel It’ll be our last. But our prayers are filled with our plans for “what-we-will-do-after” finishing prayers instead of submitting ourselves to the all Merciful Allah.

All those who have fasted know this for a fact that not eating is the easiest thing to do in Ramadan. A fast is not just about controlling our hunger but a fast is supposed to be for the eyes, for the ears and for the tongue.

This month is also supposed to be about Charity. How much have we donated ? Could we have given more to the poor ? Is giving the minimum prescribed Zakat and Fitra(Sadqa-al-Fitr), enough ?

There are still few days left for this blessed month to be over. Hence, let’s all try and make use of it. May Allah bless all of us and accept our prayers. Aameen.

3 AM Thoughts

By farooq

On June 3, 2016

In Random Philosophy

We are trying to kid ourselves when we wish for the unachievable perfection. Feeding the wishfully constructed optimism with tales of our perfect lives. Perfect Selves. Perfect World.

We don’t know where we are headed. Our directionless lives are yet to be updated on Google maps. Our quest to hear, “Your destination is on your right”, is hardly right. It’s not even left. We are just left directionless.

We are clueless about life. A mystery we like to create our own versions of. We think we’ve got the definition. Still, Clueless.

We follow the herd. Damn! We are the herd. Even when we try to peek out to get attention. We follow others, others follow us. The Cycle. The herd.

We answer to questions that aren’t important. We don’t know how to ask the right questions. We fear asking the questions. We are afraid of those answers.

We get frustrated over issues which we won’t remember the next day. We search for things to crib about. We get frustrated when we are not frustrated.

We look for indulgences. Our preferred solution to all our lives’ problems. The unsatisfied urge keeps us hooked onto the queues of new indulgences.

We regret mistakes. But we don’t learn. We push them in the loop to be repeated again.

Where are we going wrong ?

So much of it. And yet, Nothing.

By farooq

On February 28, 2016

In Random Philosophy

Blue sky. Tiny drawing birds. Chirps. Switched on winds. Vrooms and Horns.

So much of it.

And yet, Nothing.

The nothingness captures ’em all, and yet it all stays just in the head. There’s so much we want to talk aloud and yet it seemingly stays inside.

So much of it. And yet, Nothing.

You’d think blurting it out would help. You’d think, so much of it, and yet it’ll stay right where it has always been. Moments pass by, like this wind, which temporarily make us believe that it’s okay to let it out.

We do. A little of it. But add up something new to our existing nothingness.

Hiding behind those smiles, those adventures, those unclaimed territories we’ve established for ourselves, we try to fill the nothingness. We seek missions and move to another on its accomplishments. Either our missions are hollow or we have just too many accomplishments.

So much of it. And yet, Nothing.

We break bonds. We bridge new ones. We mend fences and destroy a few as well. Thinking this would be it. Still, Nothing. We don’t want to feel guilt, neither be bad in the perfectly traditional sense of the word and yet all we seek to do is seek pleasure. Pleasure into everything. Everything selfish. Of course, We are seemingly impossible to please. And in the end, do we get anywhere ?

So much of it. And yet, Nothing.

Why does the night make us think?

By farooq

On February 14, 2016

In Random Philosophy

In the need to get up early I head to the bed (Actually, just a mattress lying at one end of my room). In a bid to attend the morning scrum meeting where your boss has specifically asked you, coz you’re a habitually late, to be on time. And yet, you just can’t sleep!

No, it’s not insomnia. It is just the mind working just a bit too much. Why does it has to do that?

I’d like to believe it’s the fault of the night. Night which has a head of its own and wants us to sit beside him and talk it to sleep. Oh yes, I’ll call it a him.

And no, don’t mistake the night to be calm, it just has too much noise in it. We’ve just learnt to ignore it. There is so much going on with it that we fail to completely understand it.

All it does is, make us think. Not anything concrete or substantially valuable but the mundane stuff. Everything seems so normal to him.

Night is like Mark Rylan’s character from the Movie “Bridge of Spies”. When Tom hanks( his lawyer in the movie) asks him why isn’t he worried about the trial where he might be sentenced to death for being a Russian spy, he replies, “Would that help?”.

It just doesn’t seem to worry about anything. About the upcoming day, about the future or about anything at all.

It is like that friend of yours which your grandmother terms as bad company. It just wants you to sit beside him and not to worry about anything.

But you still do.

You still worry. Get anxious.

Who is to be blamed, you or the night?

Why does the night makes us think?

Random Ramblings

By farooq

On February 13, 2016

In Random Philosophy

Random Ramblings

Sunday is about to begin, while I’m yet to sleep off my Saturday. You know what it means, right? The weekend- the much awaited two days of our lives- is about to leave until another week.

As I rue over the lack of constructive work being done, apart from freeing up some space on my hard drive by watching a few movies and then dozing at ungodly hours, I pen this down. Of course, hoping that at least I’ll get to say that I wrote “something” over the weekend. Also, letting the Google crawl my website a little regularly instead of thinking it to be a lost cause.

It’s amusing how time flies as we finish off one weekend after another, hoping we’d do “better” in the next one. These are like mini new year resolutions which we religiously follow.

Indeed sometimes we do get things done. Clean up our apartments, do the dishes, wash the pile of clothes, repair things, get groceries in between, but these are more of what constitutes “regular” work. Isn’t?

I must point out that my regular use of these “double quotes” are just a forced attempt to push sarcasm. Sort of how I end up speaking these days, you know. Pardon me if that irritates you, but that’s just the way it is.

I had decided to be less serious in 2016. One of the biggest reasons I decided to not write about politics at all. Of course, it was more about not writing On Facebook rather than not writing et all. But, I’ve managed to stay away from it for this long.

It is tough. I mean, that was a BIG part of what I used to write on and now there is this big void.

BTW, If this sounds like a valentine day letter about politics, then I’m sorry. But it’s difficult not to write about it. But those things still hold true. There’s hardly any place for a different point of view or a discussion that’d not end up in someone being called an anti-national. There’s no arguing there.

Anyways, continuing to ramble like this and I might actually end up venting more than I should.

This post was just a pointless attempt to not make myself feel bad for not writing something this weekend. Now that I’ve put down a few lines, it does feel a little better.

Now, I’ll head back to catch a few extra hours of sleep.

In Search of Happiness

By farooq

On October 13, 2015

In Random Philosophy

The search of Happiness is a life long pursuit which never allows us to be content. We strive to achieve it, build dreams of getting to that goal where we assume we will finally feel happy, and yet the goal just keeps distancing itself from us.
Forget about materialistic things, which ultimately doesn’t give us the intrinsic happiness with which we associated it to be, even happiness out of things we love end up on most occasions to be a disappointment.
We love to associate happiness with the perfect picture. The ideal scenario, where we have it all. We ensure that we push ourselves into getting that perfection into our lives. Our eagerness to reach the destination is so much that we forget about the journey itself. In the process, we even forget our initial goal was happiness.
If you ask people what is their aim, would you ever hear anyone say, “happiness”?! I doubt.
The answer would center around goals which were conceptualized to reach happiness, but ultimately miss the objective and become entirely something else.
Not getting them only makes the situation worse. We not only forget our actual objective of becoming happy, but centre the entire failure on the materialistic pleasure we put our hopes on.

Yes, happiness does lie in little moments. When you travel, it’s the journey of anticipation that brings happiness. When you savor a brilliant dish, it’s the aroma and the delight of having it, that brings happiness. When you’re with your family or friends, moments cheer you up. But the happiness gets restricted to those moments, memories of those moments and anticipation of many more of them in future. We do have happy days every now and then. But can we sustain them for long?
This is the point where you expect me to write a conclusion, but then this isn’t one of those posts. This is just a random blabber and a revering thought, and yes an attempt in search of Happiness. Have you found it yet?

A Happy Day

By farooq

On September 17, 2015

In Random Philosophy

Coffee

With a mug of coffee by my side, resting this old laptop on my lap and comforting my bums on this bean bag, I start off writing.

Quantifying the time since I last wrote a blog, would be a strained exercise on my teeny tiny brain, and I’m in no mood to spoil this wonderful day. The weather is bangalorean. Oh yes, we now use it as an adjective for a pleasant weather, of course.

To those celebrating, happy Ganesh Chaturthi. And for others like me, who had a holiday, this happens to be a particularly good day. On most occasions, a holi’day’ gets spoiled by a late night (early morning, I mean) tv-series marathon. The next day when you wake up, it is either about rushing to meet your pals or getting the pending household chores done. A holiday hardly remains one.

For Starters, I slept in the Prime Meridian time zone. Woke up to the usual office time alarm and gifted myself another 2 hours of extra sleep. Bonus!

Cleaned up the entire place along with the roomie, troubling him to take part in this exercise as well. Followed it up with Chicken Biryani, delivered by Swiggy (Surprisingly, on Time). Good day, Isn’t ?

Days like these are pretty rare. Weekends, come with plans. These weekday holidays, are kinda blessings. Gives back energy to continue with work life. In my case, a much needed one. The new office, seems to have a lot of work. (Interesting work, thankfully). Cycling close to 20km in total over a day, and battling the Bangalore traffic through those seven gears, is indeed another tiring process.

But for all the troubles, there is a feeling of being content. Being happy for all the things one is blessed with. We all trouble ourselves with reaching destinations, and in that simply ignore the journey. It would be terrible to not be able to reach our destinations, but imagine not even enjoying the journey ?

Happiness is in little moments. Small packages. When I crawl out my way through traffic, while others wait for the green. I’m happy that I’m cycling. When at the end of a tough day at work, I have something that I can say I learnt. I’m happy. There are so many things one can be happy about, and yet we force ourselves to ignore those and focus on the things we can crib about.

Let us learn to be happy. Have a happy day, everyone.

An Outside perspective

By farooq

On April 22, 2015

In Random Philosophy

The writer wonders over a cup of coffee, which doesn’t taste good, whether truth is over-rated. It amazes him quite often whether he is guilty of running away from this over-rated phenomenon. He wants to believe that this is one of those, “me-too” moments, which readers of this post might relate to as well. But then, it is just a thought. Out of countless ones, that bounces off the reveries of the writer. The title of the writers’ home itself resonates something similar.

Revering Thoughts.

Years ago, when the writer was still in his troubled teens, trying to find himself a platform to vent and to become better at writing. Incidentally, the pattern of those reasons still lurk in the writings. He is still hung up onto things in the past. The past life, people and glory.

Things have changed. For better? The writer tells himself, for the better. But then it is one of the many things he tells himself. No one knows whether letting go those things was right, or holding onto them have been. Marred by choices, the writer has always ended up taking roads which made him miserable. It ended up making sense somehow. Somehow it is still making sense. Writer is grateful for it all. The good and the Bad. There’s nothing ugly of course.

Coming back to where the writer started this post, the truth. He has a way of losing track of what he actually intended to write, but then as mentioned, in the end it all fixes itself up. Grateful, yes.

The writer always remains confused. He loses track of roads while driving. Always faces difficulty when choosing. Between people. Between food. Between Everything. For a confused soul like him, light at the end of the tunnel flickers until he is near. But is he? He never is. Until somehow, he lands up there. But that is always in the end. The journey is more troubling. It is.

Being content has never been an achievement, it is more of a good-to-have trait. The satisfaction in completing something is always brewing a mixed emotion. The absoluteness is missing most of the time, even though the portrayed version is exaggeratedly different. The need to be larger-than-life or as some would say, social acceptance. This has crept in the writer to the point that now it is all blurry. Times, when this exaggeration cozies up with the absoluteness to bring about an illusion. It remains an illusion, of course.

Nether blessed with a rosy picture nor cursed by something that isn’t like a rose, life doldrums its way towards uncertainty. The writer dislikes these uncertainties, his plans never work out and ends up doing completely different than initially planned for.

Putting on the wayfarers of optimism and constant note-to-self has helped in living. Even with illusions. Such is life. This writers’ life.

Gangs of Gopalpur

By farooq

On March 15, 2015

In Random Philosophy

Summer vacations were the most awaited holiday for us. Planning it for months in advance to get ourselves on Purushottam Express.

Close to one and a half month was to be spent in the coastal town of Gopalpur. That’s where my Granny lived, and where my mom’s home was. And is.

It used to be an overnight journey and then a little more, due to train delays and the commute from Berhampur railway station to Gopalpur via bus. Now, let me tell you, the whole journey from Tatanagar Railway station (Jamshedpur’s Railway station is named Tatanagar), on one side and this hour and a half journey in this bus on the other side, but I’ll still say the train journey is easier. We would dread for this, more so because of the dry fish smell and the fishermen themselves giving us company. Still remember us all carrying lemon or even medicine to avoid vomiting.

But the moment we would get off at the bus stand, the excitement and tiring commute would vanish into the air. Not only because we have finally reached but to see our cousins, waiting for us. Exchanging the Salaams and refreshing ourselves with cold drink in the hot humid afternoon weather, we’d be on.

This one is from our Mamajan’s Marriage, with our Maami 🙂 Shahrukh, isn’t part of the picture here, being a tiny toddler at that time, but this is one of those pics where we all are together. Can you spot me ?

Family time it was. The 7 of us will be inseparable for the entire vacations. Most of the evenings were spent on the beach, or on the terrace overlooking the sea or playing something or the other. From hide & seek to Lock-and-key to even Fancy dress competitions, where I’d dress up like a clown most of the time. There is one famous “Court-court” game which makes me laugh even now. 😀

We even used to have birthday celebrations, fake ones of course as most of our birthdays were spread on the later part of the year. Cake was made from grinding biscuits and garnishing it with chocolate. Gifts would be given (and returned later so that it can be rotated to others 😛 ).

Let me introduce all 7 to you in particular order. It was Badi api (zabin), Mobin Api, Sony Api, Me, Arzoo, Nehal and then Shahrukh. One little secret, my name in gopalpur is Anees instead of Farooq (Keep it a secret, will you ? 😛 )

Every night before sleeping, mobin api would tell us some story, something new or something she would make up every night. The following morning, we would all wake up with Duck tales playing on the tv in front of us. What we also had, was a “Who woke up first” competition. After having our Pre-Breakfast of Laddoos or biscuits, we’d wait for the breakfast while watching cartoons. Once it was finished, we’d all head upstairs and apart from any snack-emergency, we’d rarely come down.

There are hundreds of tales of what we would do, and probably a book can be written about the fun times.

Still recall how I used to cry when they’d leave when their vacations used to get over before us. Hated those few days in Gopalpur. Although, before heading for home, we would always stop for a day-or-two at their place in Khurda road, before boarding the train for home. But it was different, Gopalpur became the place for us, because of our togetherness. For 7 of us.

Today, all 7 of us are at seven different places, across countries, states and cities. Our Watsapp group, “Gangs of Gopalpur” keeps us together, thankfully.

There are of course plans to meet soon, but that magic of being those children, being there with little fights, games and fun, can never be replaced.

When I see housing.com with its #Together campaign, it just takes me back to those times.

Here’s to all of you, who have been blessed with amazing siblings, that togetherness is irreplaceable.

Start a new Life

By farooq

On March 10, 2015

In Random Philosophy

Calling out as to who goes the bathroom every morning, or pushing someone to go finish their “task,” so that you can snooze your sleep a little more. That was me, during Hostel and which continued once I started working as well.

How? Well, I lived in a PG with a few friends of mine. Although ‘6’ is not exactly few.

Food was bad. I mean most of the time; I had to spend eating outside. I actually would have explored every eatery in the vicinity. The only time we had to eat was when the month end would dawn upon us.

It was not just the food, but cleanliness too. Living with your friends ends up making you realize how different it is. The adjustment part sucks. More when you happen to be the male version of Monica.

Truth be told, I was not like this. Dirty laundry spread across the room during college was one of the trademarks, but then my roomies were decent too, so It didn’t matter that much then. But, now? Comparatively, I was a Monica. I became Monica. To the uninitiated, she is a cleanliness freak. On an entirely different note, if you happen to have not watched Friends, then skip the post here and watch it.

Finding a flat in Bangalore is tough; tougher is to find a roommate. I didn’t want to live with someone I didn’t know. And the people I knew were scarce in Bangalore. I mean, people I could live with without cribbing about their habits.

But It was time to start over. Time to kick the mood swings because of the place and people I stayed with. It was time to have a home away from home.

With luck, got my college senior back in Bangalore. As luck would have it, he ended up getting a job in my company itself. How great is that ?!

House Hunting began. It was time for #StartANewLife.

We searched it all o the Internet. Got a few leads but either it was the distance from office or just the high rent. Something or the other kept getting in our way. We even ended up hiring a broker for the job, even though we hated it. Who loves them anyway?

All the house hunting websites were so confusing that even after putting so many filters, you just cannot find what you’re looking for. You search for location A, and you get results near F. I mean WTF!!

Nothing seemed to have worked. And then out of the blue, I came across housing.com. We typed in the location, options and lots of options. Not just that, complete info about whether it has been listed by Landlord or agent, map-based search and display, price and negotiating details. All in one place. You might think this is what others have as well, right? But believe me, this is good. Even the UI is very user-friendly.

We shortlisted the options and fixed appointments on the same day, and voila!! We got ourselves a good place in less than 3km from our office. How great is that?

Starting over with the new place, was such a relief. I not only started cooking, which I tell you is one of the best things to happen in quite some time, but I could be at peace with myself. Life has been good. It is good to #StartANewLife