Life in Metro/Mega/Supercities
What would you give to live a life of royalty in a happening city - Mumbai in India, NY in the US. Half your life, if you are really serious about it. Because it takes that much time to gain a foothold in places like these. And a life of royalty would mean lots, lots and lots of money. To earn which you will have worked your ass off for 20 odd years. 1/6th of which will have been spent just commuting :). Gosh!! Is there another way to waste a lifetime as this one :D.
Its a dream of everyone (who is not a saint) to be the person I have pictured above. What is the allure of these places? Flashing lights, BIG malls, legendary streets - having an apartment on which is considered an achievement in itself. Basically everything that appeals to the eye. Will any of these matter if you spend a day - a single day, with your eyes closed. Well, will it?
What just happened? It just forced a person, for once in his/her life, to look inside. Glitter and Grandeur so allure a person's external vision. He will not have had the time to digest one view, when the next newer one comes up. And with it comes greed. "I need to have that." Life becomes very short term, changing by the week, disorienting the person ever so often, but with always an illusion of him/her having the control and not the other way around.
I once lived in a small town. A small, sleepy town, with potholes substituted for the roads, where a single road connected the entire city, and a 3 km walk would take you to the other end of the town. Where there were no reknowned food chains, no malls to go and shop at. Where if someone missed a bus, and the next one took an hour to come, he would still not be bothered :). He would just walk his way to where he had to go. Where a person rides a bicycle as though he owns the road, sloooooow and sleepily. A 10am-5pm workday was actually considered tiresome (:D), and the commute from home would usually involve a 5 min walk. Where the people would get together every Wednesday night in the temple, for socializing, but also to thank God. A place where a change took place once in a decade maybe. They like the things to be steady as a rock there, never changing. You visit the place after a gap of 5 years and it would still be the same frame in the movie going on.
But, as it happens ever so often, the youth of the place despise it for its predictability. Nothing really changes!! And that sounds as a cardinal sin to the young. Again, the allure. The external pull is far too strong, and seems to give instant gratification. The internal vision takes a long time (loooooooong time), effort, and committment. Three words which are alien to the youth, almost a crime actually to practice one of them. And so, they go to the supercities, to drown in the sea of lights.
Enlightenment does not come without a cost. And if this is cost one has to pay, to lose half his life, in order to treasure the other half, I would say that in the end it was worth the cost. That is, if the person finds himself eventually. Much better would be, if you did not lose yourself to beginwith.
Its a dream of everyone (who is not a saint) to be the person I have pictured above. What is the allure of these places? Flashing lights, BIG malls, legendary streets - having an apartment on which is considered an achievement in itself. Basically everything that appeals to the eye. Will any of these matter if you spend a day - a single day, with your eyes closed. Well, will it?
What just happened? It just forced a person, for once in his/her life, to look inside. Glitter and Grandeur so allure a person's external vision. He will not have had the time to digest one view, when the next newer one comes up. And with it comes greed. "I need to have that." Life becomes very short term, changing by the week, disorienting the person ever so often, but with always an illusion of him/her having the control and not the other way around.
I once lived in a small town. A small, sleepy town, with potholes substituted for the roads, where a single road connected the entire city, and a 3 km walk would take you to the other end of the town. Where there were no reknowned food chains, no malls to go and shop at. Where if someone missed a bus, and the next one took an hour to come, he would still not be bothered :). He would just walk his way to where he had to go. Where a person rides a bicycle as though he owns the road, sloooooow and sleepily. A 10am-5pm workday was actually considered tiresome (:D), and the commute from home would usually involve a 5 min walk. Where the people would get together every Wednesday night in the temple, for socializing, but also to thank God. A place where a change took place once in a decade maybe. They like the things to be steady as a rock there, never changing. You visit the place after a gap of 5 years and it would still be the same frame in the movie going on.
But, as it happens ever so often, the youth of the place despise it for its predictability. Nothing really changes!! And that sounds as a cardinal sin to the young. Again, the allure. The external pull is far too strong, and seems to give instant gratification. The internal vision takes a long time (loooooooong time), effort, and committment. Three words which are alien to the youth, almost a crime actually to practice one of them. And so, they go to the supercities, to drown in the sea of lights.
Enlightenment does not come without a cost. And if this is cost one has to pay, to lose half his life, in order to treasure the other half, I would say that in the end it was worth the cost. That is, if the person finds himself eventually. Much better would be, if you did not lose yourself to beginwith.
posted by Vineet at
8:16 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]
<< Home