There are no accidents

Ancients say that everything we have ever done has led us exactly down the path we were supposed to tread. They also say that by the same logic, it is impossible to make a mistake.

Take a moment to let that sink in… “There are no accidents”, said Master Oogway; “There are no mistakes”, say these ancient people blessed with universal wisdom. Of course, this engenders questions of free will and begs a full blown philosophical debate, but that’s not where I’m heading right now. I’d like to narrate an incident that really made me think about this concept.

It happened to us in a recent forest trip (yes, forests give one a lot of learnings!). We were on a boat safari on the Kabini River. It’s just one of those things that you do when you go to a place like that. Let me explain. When we reached our resort in the Nagarahole forest, we had a choice of road safaris and boat safaris. We were told that road safaris, though slightly more expensive, were the overwhelming favourite, as one seldom, if ever, spotted a big cat while on a boat.

Since we had a few days and sufficient road safaris booked, we decided that it was worth it, taking a boat trip at the crack of dawn on the river anyway, as it would be a beautiful ride with the forest all along the banks. So, up we got, rather earlier than one is used to, and were in the boat by 5am. The pre-dawn sky made sure the early morning was completely worth it! 

As the sun slowly started peeking out of the horizon, the sky turned into a playground of colours. Orange, pink, grey and white forming a delectable cocktail in the sky. Birds of numerous exotic species perched on branches eerily jutting out of the water, and the river itself, grey in the dawn, daring us to delve further into its mysteries.

The boat had eight other tourists, and one of them, by his speech, body language and dressing, was clearly one of our brethren from the north of our great nation. It is this delightful man that this story revolves around.

The journey started uneventfully enough, at a human level – nature all around us was dancing the most alluring of dances. The boat motored on, showing us sights that opened our eyes more effectively than a triple expresso! Snake birds, serpent eagles, three species of Kingfishers, innumerable Swifts and even a lone Vulture. Somewhere down our watery path, we were also treated to an entertaining show put up by Otters – first diving into the water, and then gambolling all around us, posing for pictures all along! We had forgotten all about spotting a big cat, as the immersive experience went on, completely mesmerising us. 

And this is when it happened.

The venerable northern gentleman decided it was a bit chilly for him, what with the December winds and the watery surroundings, and demanded the boat be stopped for, err… ablutions, the short variety. Needless to say, the faces of the rest of the gathering betrayed a mixture of amusement and irritability. 

The boatman obliged soon – a small island appeared in front of us, and the boat was taken to it and the motor switched off. Our friend nimbly, and rather urgently, jumped off the boat, onto the island, and did his job. As we waited for him to climb back into the vehicle, we were looking around, taking pictures of an eagle that had just taken off from a branch.

Soon, though, the calm interior of the boat wasn’t so calm anymore. As the man stepped back in, the boatman attempted to restart the boat to be on our way, but couldn’t. As it happened, a fishing net had gotten caught in the mighty vessel’s mechanical parts!

As he laboured on for a quarter of an hour, we couldn’t help but feel a little stranded, as the couple of other early morning boats had already passed us by on their return journey…we were quite alone in the middle of the river! Finally, through sheer hard work, the good boatman was able to pull her free from the net, and once more we headed into the deep grey.

Grumbling about the fifteen minute delay caused by our friend with the small bladder, we were less amused now, but still taken by the beauty around us. Thus went our journey until we reached the point where we were supposed to turn around and head back for the starting point. As we were doing this, with no other boats in sight, because they hadn’t been delayed by small-bladdered men from the north, we saw the sight of the morning!

A vision in orange and black, perfectly camouflaged and yet standing out majestically; black stripes that seemed like they were painted by the night itself, and an orange that burnt brighter than the morning sky! A young tiger, no older than a year, walking casually, gracefully, along the banks of the river, in clear sight!

As the clicks of the cameras formed a rhythm and squeals of delight rose from the boat, we realised that ours was the only vessel in this part of the river. All other boats had passed by fifteen minutes ago, and we were the only ones to have had the rare luck of spotting a big cat while on a boat safari.

As the experience sank in, we looked at our handsome friend from the north, secretly admiring his lack of bladder control, and blessing the moment when that fisherman cast the net that broke down our boat!

The return journey was even more stunning, in our eyes! The colours of the sky, the sounds of the birds, the melody of the river and the hum of the boat’s motor – everything was twice as beautiful as before.

As we came away, delighted, Master Oogway’s words became a refrain in my head…

“There are no accidents”

It's Magic!

I loved attending magic shows as a kid. Not just the PC Sorcars of the world, but even regular small time magicians. I remember being fascinated with the concept as a kid since a much older cousin showed me the ‘thumb splitting’ trick. Only when I was in serious danger of injuring my thumb, did he tell me how he did it.

Before science came along and explained everything (and I’m thankful that it did!), ancient humans knew magic when they saw it – in shooting stars, in the cycles of the sun and moon, in the rains and floods, in herbs they picked in the forest – everywhere.

So is the magic gone just because science is here? Far from it, in my opinion. We still see it everywhere; it’s just that we don’t perceive magic for what it is. We’ve gotten so used to the wonders of technology in our hands and on our office desks that we fail to recognize them for what they are. Magic is not just limited to J K Rowling. It’s not just about a bunch of people dancing in a circle and chanting incantations. 

Magic is closer than we think. It’s still everywhere.

Seen a video of Hitler making a point in his speech to his supporters? Or to Charlie Chaplin sending you into peals of laughter through his antics? What about Dire Straits in concert, sending one and all into a delightful space?

I was fortunate enough to see magic up close in a recent trip to a forest, during which, my friends and I saw a sight that will probably stay with us forever (in some way or form). There was a baby Langur, not older than a couple of weeks, clinging to a tree, squealing his lungs out. 

We stopped our safari vehicle on instinct, and thought it would be a good idea to see this sight and how it plays out. As the heart-wrenching squealing continued, we wondered whether the baby was orphaned, as there were Langurs close by, none bothered by his cries.

Just as we thought that if this continued, the attention of a predator would be attracted, we saw the mother Langur rushing in towards the little one. The instant the mother reached out to the baby and held him, the squealing stopped. Instantly. Magic.

So go ahead, look for magic – it’s all around us, always has been!

And when you find it, take a moment to reflect in wonder, and that moment will stay with you for a long time…

Evolution might be a myth!

Recently I heard from a rather entertaining Irishman that the probability of a big cat in an African conservation area catching prey is roughly the same as the probability of a pedestrian being knocked down by a vehicle in Britain. Not very high, in other words...

Intrigued as I was with the news, I rewound to about a week earlier, in the middle of our African safari, when we were spotting lions and lionesses by the dozen.


The image I had in my mind of the lioness, a 3-foot tall, 5-foot long 150 kg killing machine was a wee bit different than what we ended up encountering. We were expecting a fierce predator, intimidating to venture near, an animal in whose vicinity potential prey dare not tread. Thank you, National Geographic. What we saw in reality, though, was a completely different story. Lions and lionesses being nocturnal, normally rest during the day. That we expected. That they would look like cute stuffed animals, we did not!


Maybe they were habituated to humans, maybe they were plain bored, I can’t put my finger to the exact problem, but the fact is that they barely opened their eyes when our vehicle was 3 feet away from them! This behavior was universal too. Fearlessness? Maybe. We were still impressed with their demeanor (though that could be plain envy, I mean, sleeping all day long?), their grace, their carriage. Admittedly though, seeing 40-odd lions and lioness sleeping in the wild was a little disappointing.


Till that day.


So there we were, on our way out of Serengeti when we came across the most thrilling part of our trip, one that would stay etched in our memories for a long time. We spotted a bunch of lionesses, on the alert, and a pack of zebras in the distance. Creeping upto the herd, the primary lioness came in plain sight of the zebra herd around 20 meters from them. Zebras are either very brave or incredibly stupid. I mean, lionesses may be lazy, but they are apex predators! 10 meters. 5 meters. Nothing. It was only when the lioness started actually running full speed toward the zebras that they finally realized they needed to get away. And that they did in style, complete with a cloud of dust and all. The hunt failed and the lioness returned to ground zero, with the zebras observing from a safe distance.


Just then, a lone wildebeest in search of water, came skipping and hopping right into the area where the lionesses were. I mean, I have heard a lot about survival of the fittest, animal instinct, sharp sense of smell and hearing etc. The wildebeest demonstrated none of these signs of evolution. Two lionesses took strategic positions and gave chase. The wildebeest did the first intelligent thing of the morning by changing direction midway through the chase, thus escaping death by a whisker. Another failed hunt. That was two on two in the space of a half hour. Given the information that there are a few thousand lions in the East African conservation areas, I was wondering how they manage to catch anything at all! Of course, given the information on the probability of an actual kill, I put it in perspective and realized that just because these predators are primed to chase and kill doesn’t always mean successful kills – in fact, more often than not, the hunts would be fruitless (or animal-less).


Gives one some perspective on human work life…people are skilled in their own ways, primed to execute the job they are paid to do (ok, not all people, but this remains the assumption). But the actual “kills” that meet or surpass expectations are few and far between. These kills keep one alive (in a manner of speaking), but if they don’t happen for a long enough time, survival is threatened. People who make kills/scavenge on other peoples’ kills survive a bit longer. In time, we’re all weakened, unable to perform kills routinely enough, and have to make way for those who can.


How much have we really evolved?

It's all an illusion

Wise men, sages, philosophers, even the occasional misguided scientist, have all said this about life and everything material at some point or the other. I’ve read my fair share of books that talk about how everything around us is a product of our own imagination, we make our own reality, as we visualize, so we become, and so on.

One of the hardest hitting visualizations of a related theory, of course was The Matrix series. The only difference being that in the said movie, an external entity had created an illusionary world for human beings.

Recently, I read “Hypnotizing Maria” by Richard Bach, and as has been his habit, he made me sit up and carefully evaluate life as I know it. The book takes over where his “Illusions” left off, and leads us into a journey of life evaluation, which, I might add, is never pleasant. Questions like “who am I, really?”, “what is life, really?” etc, start cropping into one’s mind, waking one up from the carefully orchestrated slumber that one prefers to be in the state of.

Confusing, to say the very least, is my state of mind when I think of all this “illusion” business. Afterall, enough people in the world have written about it, the wise old men have spoken about it – surely there must be some truth to the concept, right? And then I look at my life – if I pick up a stick and hit myself really hard (let’s keep that hypothetical, shall we?), I’m pretty sure its going to cause me physical pain – very very real physical pain. Of course, the prophets of the “illusions” theory would say that I have been bombarded with suggestions since I was a child, accepting that if a stick hits me, it will cause the sensation of pain, and further, that pain is an unpleasant situation. They would say that these suggestions that I have accepted, are now so deeply ingrained in the fiber of my being that it is almost impossible to “un-accept” them. Or as Morpheus tells Neo in my favourite movie, “we never free a mind once it has reached a certain age – the mind has trouble letting go”. But the plot is that Neo does manage to let it go – takes a bit – namely, him dying, but he does…

And this brings me to my next question – does it need to take something as drastic as the end of the physical life in order to realize that life’s an illusion? Can’t say about that, but once I die, my life wouldn’t be very real to me, will it?

All in all, though I am still undecided about how illusionary life is, next time someone suggests this theory to me, I’ll probably pinch them quite hard and ask if it felt real…really, only so that they don’t get me thinking!

Everyone says they're fine!

So there I was, generally browsing my facebook friend list, looking at all the gems I’d managed to collect since I jumped onto the bandwagon a few years ago. Nearly 300 peeps were ensconced there, and I know I’ve interacted with all of them at some point or the other (I just pride myself on not adding anyone and everyone to my list). The one characteristic I couldn’t escape was how happy everyone looked (and how good looking everyone was!).

Strange... I’ve been in a number of social situations in my 30-odd years on this planet, and like almost everyone else, I’ve spent time with a number of different kinds of people, in different situations, and what has been an almost unquestionable observation is that people are heavily governed by their moods. Moreover, eliciting a smile from a majority of people is a rather Herculean task. I ask you then, how come, every time I look at anyone’s picture on FB, the person seems to be smiling/having fun (or looking good, for that matter)?

Ok, let me move away from generalizations – maybe some people are genuinely happy, or at least don’t have to make a gargantuan effort to smile or have fun. There are definitely people in my ambit who are sullen to a fault and as a rule find it impossible to be pleasant to others. Don’t get me wrong – my respect for all human beings is unflinching (as if!), all I’m trying to say is that there are people (let’s call them ‘sullens’ instead of people, shall we?), the Sullens (not to be confused with the vampire family Cullens), who are, well, sullen, as a rule, and are not at all ashamed about it. In fact, if anything, they carry this attitude very proudly on their sleeve (and face, and body language…). They’re not apologetic in the least about being unsmiling, unpleasant, and generally being jerks!
I’m sure by now you’re wondering why I bother to have them in my friends’ list – you see, like I said before, I have respect for all human beings (a pinch of salt is in the corner, kindly help yourself)…

So what is it that makes these proud sullens want to portray a smiling image (only) to the social media world? Is it a secret desire to appear warm and friendly? Is it a devious ploy to trap people in the friendship web before attacking them with the reality of their attitude? Or is it just that they’re tired of being sullen all the time, and want to frame that one moment of smiling artificially forever and ever! And since no one asks many questions about one’s profile picture, social media is the absolute best way to do this!

Now I’m no shrink, and I’d rather not get into why sullens are sullen, but I am a regular human being with human weaknesses, and I’d certainly like to express an opinion!
I say lets not single out sullens – it’s a phenomenon that’s pretty much universal – almost all of us like to portray ourselves as fun loving individuals who are forever pleasant and engaged in interesting activities. The real question then, is why is the concept of ‘just having fun’ looked down upon? And while we’re at it, another general wondering – how come people almost always manage to look good on their profile pictures?

Tearing down the barrier

The greatest barrier to communication, they say, is the distance between one man’s thoughts, and another’s (don’t mean to be sexist, but this is how people used to write stuff early last century). In a recent trip to a foreign land, I realized the relevance of this quote.

Besides a Lonely Planet Phrasebook guiding us on the Greek language, there was little else we could use to communicate with the locals in a small island off Greece’s East coast.

For, while the big cities and popular islands have a lot of English speakers, obscure little islands get lesser tourists and therefore lesser exposure to the language. In a neatly tucked away settlement in such an obscure island, we found a quaint little shop with some delicious locally made foodstuff (drinkstuff too!). The woman who owned the shop spoke better English than 90% of the island (meaning she could understand nearly half of what we said, without us using the very helpful phrasebook!), and explained with élan, the stories behind everything in the shop – how she actually makes everything from locally available ingredients for eight months of the year, and sells it for the rest of the four. Went on and on for almost an hour, especially as she had problems finding English words for what she was trying to say (didn’t stop her at all from talking though…women!)

What happened next was quite remarkable – a woman we’d met in a shop in another neatly tucked away settlement dropped in, and turned out to be our subject’s mum! Of course, belonging to the older generation, she didn’t speak a single word of English, but was quick to point out to her daughter that she recognized us (no mean feat, as we were the only Indians on the entire island!). Extremely excited about this serendipity, she went on to invite us to a ‘fiesta’ later that evening in a Church owned by the family (seeing as we were ‘close’ friends of her daughter). Greeks are extremely friendly people, it seems…

Following her car through a maze of hill roads (not the one in Bandra), passing about four small Churches on the way (everywhere in Greece, there’s a Church – much like the paan shops in India), we finally reached a hilltop with a quaint little Church, where a bunch of people were busy preparing for the feast. Of course, the woman from our foodstuff shop wasn’t here to translate, and we were left at the mercy of the phrasebook, as no one in this entire gathering spoke anymore English than my friend’s Labrador…

A slew of amusing exchanges followed, including one in which, on explaining that it was getting dark and we didn’t know the way back so we needed to leave, we heard lots of ‘Ohi Ohi’ (NO! NO!); and were told (mostly in sign language, accompanied by the weird sounds that were words of Greek), that the priest would be going the same way, and we would need to follow him, so there was no way we were to leave!

Then something magical happened – the food appeared on the long table, and everything suddenly became ok! Greeks go out of their way to prepare super tasty meals. A great meal later, we followed the priest and were able to get back alright, but the evening turned out to be one of the most remarkable experiences ever – a foreign land, not so much a language barrier as a language great wall, friendly strangers and brilliant food…

My take away on human nature was simple – when people connect at a human level (especially around food ;)), all other barriers disappear – it doesn’t matter if you don’t look alike or speak the same language – as long as your thoughts match, there is no barrier to communication that can’t be overcome!

Appearances can be deceptive...

This oldest of quotes hit me with an unbelievable force in a recent journey...

I had travelled to Pondicherry (now Puducherry, for all you regional jingoists) and it seemed like the short flight and car journey had transported me to an altogether different country! Nothing was as it should've been - I didn't understand the bad words written on the washroom walls, most people understood English (or a highly region-specific version of it anyway), meal timings were all screwed up - if you went to a restaurant at 2.30, it be shut, 'cos lunch, of course, got over at 1, and to top it all, auto rickshaws used the horns characteristic of the BEST monsters, making me jump in panic on more occasions than one, I can assure you!

It was here, in the land where up was down, where a breakdown of appearances happened for me. A really old man (nothing less than 280 years old), wearing only a lungi was the entreprenuer who rented us our means of transport (a 50cc gearless TVS moped - i prefer to think of it as an automatic transmission, compact urban transportation vehicle, ahem ahem).
At first, he came across as a senile, ill-tempered old man, whose English was restricted to "deposit 500 rupee" and "ID card deposit". By the last day of our stay, however, having rented the moped for 5 days from him, we'd delved a little deeper...
We found a grandfatherly figure, who helped us figure a way around keeping the bike (prefer to call it that) beyond rental hours, told us off for roaming about till very late at night (9.30pm), and invited us into his house...a really sweet old man who was only looking for some kind words, beyond which all barriers of language and region evaporated...ok, maybe not all, but the deal sure got easier.

Also, got me thinking - maybe we do judge too fast and too harshly, based on nothing more than appearances. A celebrated book (Blink), by a celebrated author celebrates the human ability to semi-consciously judge everything we need to know about a person or situation in the first few minutes of an interaction - I say relax, and let the person in front of you relax - this way you're likely to see a side to people and situations that you'd miss otherwise.

This is not to take away anything from the human instinct - that is an extremely useful tool - but the fact is that in today's life of extreme distrust in our fellow being, the walls that we build around ourselves sometimes become too tall and solid... Maybe we should just take the time from our busy schedules to give people a chance to let their guard down a little bit.