Hindu mythology says that there are only three major events in a person’s lifetime: Birth, marriage and death. And it also says that since you are fully conscious only during one of these three events, you better celebrate it with all possible grandeur and make it memorable.

But in the life of an Indian ‘ex-teen but yet-to-be-called-uncle’ youth, there’s one other event that’s as eventful and memorable as the other three, and this one occurs when that person is fully conscious too. Wondering what I’m talking about ? Yes, its the first trip abroad/overseas for ‘higher’ studies.

There is a unique quality in human beings, which gives them an edge over all the other creations of God -the ability to express their feelings. Expressing feelings or emotions is a simple way to understand information for, and about, us. The art of expressing a ‘feeling’ is nothing but the creative de-coding of how exactly the ‘feeling’ wants to come out, so that you can avoid ‘feeling’ the worse for it.
Sadly, in today’s materialistic and fast paced world, expressing one’s feelings or emotions is often considered weak, or foolish.

At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom. A moment comes, which comes but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new, when an age ends, and when the soul of a nation, long suppressed, finds utterance… We end today a period of ill fortune, and India discovers herself again.”
These are the impressive words of the speech titled, “Tryst with Destiny” given by Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru on August 15, 1947. The real struggle for independence of India had begun almost 90 years before in 1857, when a group of sepoys mutinied against the East India Company.

There was this story I read a number of years ago, wherein two gentlemen wait for a third to join them at eight o’clock in the evening for a meeting that would become the crux of the story. A few minutes before eight, one looks out the window, sees no carriage stopping at their door and says, “I don’t think he’ll turn up.” Of course he had valid reasons for doubting the man’s word.
The other says, “He will. He is an Englishman. He will be here on the dot, at eight.”
Sure enough, midway into the clock’s chime, there is a knock at the door and the landlady announces his arrival.

Somebody has said that we choose our friends, while relatives come in pre-made packages. How right that somebody was! It is true that we try to select for ourselves that which we think is best for us, but, often and again, we make errors in our judgements. As Shakespeare has said, it’s better to have an enemy who tells you – on your face – your weaknesses, rather than a friend who hides them from you. With this idea in mind, I have always sought to find a friend who would be a friend in need, and thus become a friend in deed.

Life, in general, may have been difficult for our forefathers, but they were lucky in at least one way. They had very few, if any, dates to remember. These days every day of the year has been marked as something or other, and that is in addition to the birthdays, anniversaries, and the special days that we have to remember. All hell breaks loose if we forget the birthday, or an anniversary of someone very close to us.

Since as back as I can remember Mr. D, our neighbor, I have seen him strolling with a newspaper at 7am in his verandah, after which he would go inside, and then emerge an hour later, fully dressed, lunch in one hand, and rush out of his home and keep running till he found himself inside his bus. A chartered bus. Then at 5:30 pm he could be seen walking back to his house, at a much more relaxed pace than in the morning, after which he would shortly appear for a game of badminton.

These days it is not very uncommon to hear phrases like Twitter will change the world, or that Facebook will guide the way businesses deal with their customers, or something on similar lines. While it is undeniable that Internet is changing the world as we know it, yet by itself Internet can’t do much.

Without the offline world, the online world simply cannot exist.

We’ve heard in many a media reports that Indian judges tend to live in their ivory towers, unchecked in their role while delivering judgments. Here’s one such outrageous example, where a judge actually ignored the constitution and demonstrated that grandest of stupidity is possible even in courts’ judgments. And yet we remained silent! There was a case of a Mr Haribaskar back in the 90’s when he was the Chief Secretary to Jayalaltiha’s cabinet in Tamil Nadu.

“The system is hopeless. It needs an overhaul.” This is an oft heard statement in many a heated discussions. The point, however, that ignored in most such discussions is: “What is this system?” If we look at a country, then the Constitution can be termed as the backbone of the system. It is a well known fact – and often reiterated – that the constitution is above all. I may be tagged as a constitutional extremist, but I have great faith in it. It is like the holy grail of the system in India, superior even to the Supreme Court.