How many of us have heard of the genocide in Rwanda that killed about 1,000,000 people, wiping away 10% of their population? Yup, that’s a million murders and million dead bodies in a country smaller than the size of Kerala. Frankly, I didn’t know about this. Okay, this did not happen early 18th century or something, this happened in 1994. I was joining college then. Of course I’m not the best informed but a million murders cannot escape anyone’s notice!? What are the chances of you not knowing about a genocide of million deaths that happened in the United States of America?

Before we go to the movie, a very short backdrop of the story. Rwanda is an central African country that was a Belgian colony until 1962. Hutu and Tutsi are the two major ethnic groups in Rwanda. Hutu are the majority and Tutsi are the minority. Unsurprisingly, it was the Belgians who promoted the divide between the classes and ethnic groups when they took control of Rwanda in 1916. They considered Tutsi as the elite and ruling class and gave them key positions. In 1959, the very same Belgians took a u-turn and handed the power to Hutu. When they left the country in 1962, Hutu majority were in ruling power. The Hutu-Tutsi relationship has always been strained since then. The Hutu-Tutsi situation existed in the neighbouring countries of Congo and Uganda as well.

The story starts in the early 90s. There is a constant tension in the country due to the recent incidents of violence. The Hutu movement to wipe of ‘the cockroaches’ (as they would call Tutsi) starts to gain enormous momentum. That’s when the Hutu president of Rwanda gets assassinated which worsens the situation. Hutu take military command of the state and sets on a mission to erase the Tutsi population from Rwanda.

This movie is the true story of Paul Rusesabagina, the assistant manager of a very big hotel in Rwanda. Paul’s father is a Hutu and mother is a Tutsi. His wife is a Tutsi.

In 1994, the genocide breaks out in Rwanda. The radio keeps blaring ‘kill the cockroaches’. The armed Hutus are everywhere. They are in hundreds and thousands. They have all the weapons with them and they have the numbers too. They start killing Tutsi on sight. They seem to take pride and joy in killing Tutsi. The news about the mass murders spreads. Tutsi are running everywhere. They want a place to hide, place to save their lives. As this was a very well planned massacre, Hutu have got them very well surrounded. There is no escape.

It even gets to a stage where the disposal of dead bodies becomes a massive operation by itself. Rwanda starts stinking. Dead bodies are cleared like debris. It becomes difficult to drive in certain roads because of the uncleared bunch of bodies lying around.

The real Paul Rusesabagina recollects:

We all knew we would die, no question. The only question was how. Would they chop us in pieces? With their machetes they would cut your left hand off. Then they would disappear and reappear a few hours later to cut off your right hand. A little later they would return for your left leg etc. They went on till you died. They wanted to make you suffer as long as possible. There was one alternative: you could pay soldiers so they would just shoot you. That’s what her [his wife] father did.

This whole situation was brought out in the movie very well. They make you feel how bad the situation was. They got me worried. You get this uncomfortable feeling when you see thousands of armed Hutu extremists chanting and walking down the roads and killing Tutsi along the way. Absolutely merciless. Be it old people or women or children, they just go on killing them. And there is Paul Rusesabagina trying to save his family.

When all this news comes out, Paul wants to save his family and that’s all he cares. And he feels that he must save his neighbours too. Then he realises that he is able to save some more lives. And he slowly realises that everyone is abandoning Rwanda. The journalists, the red cross, the UN officials, everyone is leaving Rwanda. No one wants to stop what’s happening here in Rwanda. Worse is, no one even wants to know what’s happening here in Rwanda. This wasn’t the biggest story in CNN or BBC and was called ’some tribal violence’. I know why. There is no oil in Rwanda, for starters.

As the killings continue, Paul with no support from anyone, goes on to refuge about 1,268 people in his hotel which has 112 rooms. The power is out. Supplies have stopped coming. There is no administration at the hotel. There is no one to do that. These thousand plus people will have to be fed until the crisis comes to an end. Hutu are hunting for the Tutsi. Paul Rusesabagina, a true hero, saves 1,268 people in a genocide that killed about a million people in about 100 days.

It’s a great movie, as in it brings out the horror and emotions as it should. I mean, imagine a million people getting killed in about 100 days, that’s about 10,000 murders everyday for 100 days. It must have been fucking hell and the movie captures that as much as possible. It is simply impossible to capture a horror of this magnitude in a movie. It cannot be a documentary. It is a movie and there’s a story telling to do. In the process, they had to show the backdrop to make us understand the gravity of the situation. Even though you now know that Paul saved more than thousand people, when you watch the movie, you won’t believe that they could be saved or might have been saved. That’s how well they’ve depicted these scenes.

Paul was a hero. He was a hero because he could commit a heroic act to save so many lives. Before 1994, he was a very ordinary man, with his family and children, working as an assistant manager in a hotel. After 1995, he took asylum in Belgium after some serious life threats in Rwanda. He is again a very normal man now. He was a hero, for a short period, when it mattered most. One might wonder why Paul left Rwanda and is living in Belgium. The answer is he wants to live. He wants to live his life peacefully. That underlines that he is a very normal man who went against all the odds to perform a heroic act at a certain time. He did not dedicate his whole life to the people of Rwanda or something. He did not want to bring change to Rwanda or something. All that he did was to be a hero when he can and be like a normal man when he wants to. This mentality is brought out very well in the movie as well.

This is a very inspirational movie. It shows that you don’t have to be in the army or in the politics or be a strong or powerful guy to do such acts of heroism. All that matters is your spirit and determination. And all that he did was very much in his capacity as an assistant manager of a hotel. He did not do anything that a hotelier would not otherwise do. He housed people, he fed them, he made feel comfortable, he made them feel safe. In our walks of life, in our capacity, we can do quite a lot. But we don’t do unless we’re pushed to the limits. Even in this story, if Paul’s family, friends and relatives are all Hutu, he might have tried to flee the country for a peaceful life. It was the fight for the survival of his family that brought the best out of him. We all need to be pushed to the wall to come up with such acts. But we are normal people. But even normal people can do quite a lot. That’s my take away from this movie.

This is one of the most spine-chilling movies I have ever seen. It’s not very often that you’re filled with sadness, disappointment and helplessness after you’re done watching a movie. I was really worried. Really worried that this happened and it happened as recently as in mid-90s and the fact I could know about this only from a movie. Do watch this movie. The sad thing is, this movie would always be relevant. You cannot rule out another such genocide in the future. If I had asked you in 1993, if a mass killing of million people would ever happen, you’d have laughed off. That’s why this movie would always be relevant.

As you can see, the title of the blog is now ‘Critical Thoughts’. The earlier title ‘Random Opinions’ was just good enough but I don’t think it captured the essence like ‘Critical Thoughts’ does. Forget the aptness, the truth is I’m in love with this concept of critical thinking. For those who don’t know, ‘Critical Thinking’ is a very interesting and important concept. The word ‘critical’ might give a negative tone to the word but that’s because of our usage of the words like ‘criticise’ and ‘criticism’. Critical thinking need not necessarily be about negativity. So what is critical thinking?

Critical thinking is the intellectually disciplined process of actively and skilfully conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and/or evaluating information gathered from, or generated by, observation, experience, reflection, reasoning, or communication, as a guide to belief and action. In its exemplary form, it is based on universal intellectual values that transcend subject matter divisions: clarity, accuracy, precision, consistency, relevance, sound evidence, good reasons, depth, breadth, and fairness.

I might have taken you back to your school and college years with that kind of definition. But that’s the most comprehensive way to define critical thinking. Basically what it means is, improving one’s own thinking knowing with the awareness of the common pitfalls, and also continuously improve one’s own thinking . Apparently, good critical thinkers can be very good problem solvers.

Thinking is often casual or routine, whereas critical thinking deliberately evaluates the quality of thinking. The ability to think critically involves three things:

* Using logic, reason and the scientific method over abstract theories and emotional judgements.
* Awareness of heuristics (shortcuts) and biases (errors) that influence human thinking.
* Using these abilities systematically on everything in your life. From that, using the results to make improvements.

It is natural for humans, once an idea is formed, to look for supporting instead of conflicting evidence. The first goal of a rational thinker is that, once a theory is formed, evidence that conflicts with this theory is sought. Searching to be proven wrong, rather than vindicated, is a cornerstone of critical thinking.

Everyone thinks; it is our nature to do so. But much of our thinking, left to itself, is biased, distorted, partial, uninformed or down-right prejudiced. Yet the quality of our life and that of what we produce, make, or build depends precisely on the quality of our thought. Shoddy thinking is costly, both in money and in quality of life. Excellence in thought, however, must be systematically cultivated.

That’s a fantastic paragraph. We might not want to admit this – we are biased, prejudiced, partial and uninformed. But we still think and make decisions. May be due to the fact that our thoughts and subsequently our decisions can be faulty, we do get into problems. The quality of our decisions determine what kind of life we lead. There is a reason your office life or personal life is going in a certain way. Most of it is controllable by you provided your thoughts and decisions are good enough. It’s up to you to be aware of the known hurdles for thinking such as bias, distortion, partiality, lack of information or prejudice and ensuring that they don’t bring down the quality of your thoughts. There is a reason why it is said that ‘critical thinking is a way of taking up problems of life’.

Critical thinking is also defined as the art of taking charge of your own mind. Its value is also at root simple: if we can take charge of our own minds, we can take charge of our lives; we can improve them, bringing them under our self command and direction. Of course, this requires that we learn self-discipline and the art of self-examination. This involves becoming interested in how our minds work, how we can monitor, fine tune, and modify their operations for the better. It involves getting into the habit of reflectively examining our impulsive and accustomed ways of thinking and acting in every dimension of our lives.

Errors and mistakes can happen anywhere and everywhere. So they can happen in thoughts and thought processes as well. If the whole thought process is faulty, there is no way it’s gonna give you a good decision at the end of the process. The thing with the errors and mistakes with our thought process is, not many would come to know about the mistake. The result of the mistake in the thought process could be bad decisions, strained relationships, bad image and stuff like that. Those are things that we may not want to admit that those could be a result of our poor thinking. The thinker, which is you or me, would most probably come to know of the mistake. We have the options of believing that we are masters of the universe and not going back to analyse where exactly we went wrong and put the blame on something else or to analyse and identify why we could not come up with a good solution.

Critical thinking is the art of analyzing and evaluating thinking with a view to improving it. Much like professional athletes or musicians must practice to master their sport or art, so must thinkers practice to master their minds.

Come to think of it, I think I’ve always practised ‘critical thinking’ (though I might be a novice at that) without actually knowing that such a recognised concept exists. Many a times my thoughts and decisions have gone wrong. Over a period of years, I’ve learnt to think better. I’ve learnt to decide better. Though thinking is natural, critical thinking is not natural. Biased thinking and prejudiced thinking are very natural. I don’t know how good a critical thinker I am but I’m happy that I have been able to recognise critical thinking and also distinguish normal thinking and critical thinking. I’m sure one can become a better thinker with the practice of critical thinking.

This is an open question. What kind of thinker are you – impulsive, casual or critical? Has your thinking improved over time? Over time, you would have obtained better sources of information and more experience but let’s not mistake them for improved thinking. Unless we have made a conscious attempt to improve our thinking, it would most probably be the same style of thinking loaded with more information and exeprience. Hence my question. This is an instrospective question. You can ask yourself without burdening yourself with the thought of having to admit it to others. Is our thinking casual or critical? I know this is quite a heavy subject but how often do we get to ‘think about thinking’?

I love Osho’s writings. He does come up with some superb stories to explain his points. Here is one of the fantastic stories from Osho on Lao Tzu (supposedly a 3000-year old story). This story is from his book on ‘Freedom’ where he explains and enlightens us on what is freedom. It is not freedom from something or freedom to do something, it is being oneself. He also talks about how the society and institutions have curbed the evolution of man and how they won’t exist if the individual evolves. Read this superb story.

Lao Tzu became very famous, a wise man, and he was without doubt one of the wisest man ever. The emperor of China asked him very humbly to become the chief justice of the supreme court, because nobody could guide the country’s laws better than he could. He tried to persuade the emperor, “I’m not the right man”, but the emperor was insistent.

Lao Tzu said, “If you don’t listen to me . . . just one day in the court and you will be convinced that I’m not the right man, because the system is wrong. Out of humbleness I was not saying the truth to you. Either I can exist or your law and your order and your society can exist. So . . . let us try it.”

The first day a thief who had stolen almost half of the treasures of the richest man in the capital was brought into the court. Lao Tzu listened to the case and then he said that the thief and the richest man should both go to jail for six months. The rich man said, “What are you saying? I have been stolen from, I have been robbed – what kind of justice is this, that you sending me to jail for the same amount of time as the thief?”

Lao Tzu said, “I am certainly being unfair to the thief. Your need to be in jail is greater because you have collected so much money to yourself, deprived so many people of money . . . thousands of people are downtrodden and you are collecting and collecting money. For what? Your very greed is creating the thieves. You are responsible. The first crime is yours.”

Lao Tzu’s logic is absolutely clear. If there are going to be too many people and only a few rich people, you cannot stop thieves, you cannot stop stealing. The only way to stop is to have a society where everybody has enough to fulfil his needs, and nobody has unnecessary accumulation just out of greed.

The rich man said, “Before you send me to jail I want to see the emperor, because this is not according to the constitution;this is not according to the laws of the country.” Lao Tzu said, “This is the fault of the constitution and the fault of the law of the country. I am not responsible for it. Go and see the emperor.”

The rich man said to the emperor, “Listen, this man should be immediately deposed from his post; he is dangerous. Today I am going to jail, tomorrow you will be in jail. If you want to save yourself, this man has to be thrown out; he is absolutely dangerous. And he is very rational. What he is saying is right; I can understand it – but he will destroy us!”

The emperor understood it perfectly well. “If this rich man is a criminal, then I am the greatest criminal in the country. Lao Tzu will not hesitate to send me to jail.” Lao Tzu was relieved of his post. He said, “I tried to tell you before; you are unnecessarily wasting my time. I told you I am not the right man. The reality is your society, your law, and your constitution are not right. You need wrong people to run the whole wrong system.”

Your comments please!

I’ve been wearing spectacles since I was 10. To wear spectacles at that young age is one of the most annoying things to happen. That artificial piece of thing on my body did not please me at all. It’s not like your clothes, watches or caps. There’s a dependency on glasses. You depend on them and you need them. Without them I could not be effective or useful. As a young boy suddenly you’ll feel like you’re a bit physically challenged. It’s never that easy to play any of the sports with the glasses on. I now feel that may be that’s why I was hooked on to chess.

I loved playing cricket. I was never a good player though. I was average at best. I had poor technique and footwork in batting. I was a decent bowler I guess. In fielding, I was hopeless. My wearing glasses did nothing to improve my cricketing skills or form. It’s difficult to bowl with your glasses on. You run the risk of ‘elbowing’ the glasses. So, the underarm and overarm versions of bowling suited me well. While batting, I always dreaded the quicker ball and wearing glasses gave me that unexplainable insecurity.

Once I even had my glasses broken by a hard cricket ball travelling at some speed. May be, if I was a better batsman I would not have put all the blame on my glasses. I didn’t have this thing called ‘hand-eye’ co-ordination. It was so bad that it was like the hands and eyes belonged to different people. My fielding was a joke too. My reflexes were never quick enough to get my palms together for a catch. Especially when the ball is skied up, I used to position myself so well in the zone, only to see the ball pop out of my hand. So my positioning was all right, it’s just that my palms were executing the brain’s instructions quick enough. Not many would realise that when a ball is up in the air, the first feeling you get is to protect your glasses from the falling ball. Easier way to achieve it would be to catch the ball but didn’t I tell you my fielding was a joke?

As a young boy, you had to run a lot. Run in the playground, run to school, run to home, run to the shop, boys don’t simply walk. Running with the glasses on can never be as fast as otherwise. Once again, the awareness of the glass reminds you that you can’t run wild. Holding the glasses with one hand and using the other one for aero dynamic movements was not just good enough. The most embarrassing thing was to see your glasses fall off on the road and then with blurred vision looking around all over to see where it fell. So bloody humiliating it is. Used to feel like a sick old man trying to reach out for his walking stick.

Physical difficulties aside, there was something else too. Bespectacled people were everyone’s bunnies. That was a thing to be made fun of. There’s a range of crazy nicknames and funny one-liners to ridicule the ‘glassers’. By the way, there is no single simple word in English for a bespectacled man. And I don’t want to keep writing this word ‘bepsetcalced’ word because the letters for this word are spread across the keyboard increasing the chances for typos by this untrained ‘typer’. So, let me call them ‘glassers’. To be ridiculed for wearing glasses is the worst insult for a glasser. Most annoying and most irritating. I don’t know if this is still the case in schools. There was also this misconception that the glassers would be very studious and teachers’ pets. That did not help us in joining the mischievous mainstream. Not every glasser wore glasses because they were reading every book published. I used to sit very close to the television and I managed to do this so effectively that I had to enter the glasshood as early as 10 years of age.

In college days, glasses posed me a different problem. I couldn’t wear sun glasses. Goddammit! I was always crazy about sun glasses and I thought I’d look good with sun glasses on. But I could never wear them. The sad part is even if I were to try sun glasses, I wouldn’t know how I look. I’ll hear my friends saying that it’s good and all but I could only believe them. The best I could do was to get myself photographed with sun glasses on. Then I started believing the results of some research that said sun glasses are bad for health.

The glasses have become almost a part of my body now. It’s literally true because the power of my glasses have grown with me. I started with a minus 2.5 and right now my left eye is minus 5.5 and right eye is minus 6.5. Mathematically speaking, the power has reduced but I know that it has increased. But I would never understand how the left and right eye have different powers. There is something my left eye has managed that the right eye did not learn. Poor, I thought I only had a problem of hand-eye co-ordination. If I don’t have my glasses, my life comes to a standstill. You have come close to kissing distance for me to recognise you.

For all the troubles I’ve gone through because of glasses, I must say that I grown to love wearing glasses. Sometimes it’s plain lucky that people presume glassers for learned, educated, intellectual and sophisticated men. Good for us. We can continue to wonder how to locate ‘my documents’ while people mistake us for partitioning the hard disk.

I’m watching the live telecast of the academy awards as I type this. Every award ceremony is an elaborate celebration of success. It’s tough being a loser here, isn’t it? You’ve got little time for the loser unless you’re the one who lost it. Think of yourself as a nominee who didn’t ultimately get it. You’re nominated a month before the actual awards night. You start day dreaming and night dreaming about the awards night. Of course, winning in your day dreams and losing in your night dreams. The press suddenly thinks that you must be the best thing to happen in cinema and people think you should run for the president.

Every single person you meet tells you that you’re going to win. Some of them mean it and some of them say it because it’s a nice thing to say. Every gathering and every party you go to, you’re flooded with wishes and there is expectation all around. The countdown to the night is killing to a point where you don’t want to think about the future. Your wife says that you’ll win it. Your kids say that they know you’ll win it. The one thing that matters is winning. That wonderful feeling. You should win not becauce you were the best of the lost that year. You have to win because you don’t want to let anyone down.

Then comes the betting odds. You’re a favourite to win it. There are opinion polls. It’s you all the way. There are expert predictions. You top the list. Golden Globe Awards. You win it. Your odds improve. Your stock goes up to dizzying heights. You start believing that this is truly your year. You prepare for your thank you speech. Make a quick note of who need to be thanked and all that. You even take some help in writing that thank you note. You keep reminding yourself of things to do and things not to do on the night. You know winning or losing is not the end of the world but you know you simply can’t lose. You wonder why should they announce the award in the show? Why can’t they release it to the press the previous day? This show could be so fantastic then.

Then comes the big night. You walk on the red carpet hoping that you’d carry home that statue when you step back again on it. The awards ceremony begins. You are made to wait for your nominated section. The humour of the hosts does not really amuse you because you simply can’t wait. Inside, you’re screaming God! stop the jokes, get on with the awards!!!. There are so many other inconsequential stuff that you should watch through before yours would be introduced. It’s time for your section. The names of the nominees are called out. The sound of your name chills your spine and is greeted with the loudest of crowd cheer. You’re the favourite after all. They’re opening the envelope. You hold your nerves and try to stay balanced. You’re telling yourself to stay cool. Stay cool like you’ve won this a dozen times before.

And the oscar goes to . . . someone else.

You don’t want to believe it. For once you feel you’re not there. No one thinks you’re there except the dear ones near you who read out to you their quick consolation note. The winner is showered with kisses as he stands up to walk. Every single person looks at the stood up man. All eyes on the winner. You feel so fucking disappointed and unexplainably upset. It’s all come to an end. Fuck the odds, opinion polls and experts. This is the reality. You didn’t win it. You’re gonna leave this place the same way you came in, probably worse if not anything. Getting nominated is no mean feat, but when you do get nominated, you don’t want to stop there and it’s no longer a thing that you cherish most. You didn’t win. The disappointment of not winning is a hundred times bigger than the pleasure of being nominated.

You have no interest whatsoever in being there for the rest of the show. You’re trying your best to take it easy but you can’t. The hosts are still being funny with those one-liners. You still don’t appreciate, this time though for a different reason. You make up your mind. You remind yourself to appear gracious at defeat. You’re being watched and tracked. You remind yourself to say nice things about the winner so that you’re not seen as a sore loser. You’re waiting for the show to end. God, why do they have to award even the short animated films? who cares about them?. Show’s over. Dinner’s over. You’ve played the nice guy well enough.

It’s time to get back home. Life as usual. No cameras outside your house. No press coverage. No spotlight. They’re all busy with the winners. After the disappointment, you’re yet to meet all those people from your neighbours to relatives to friends. You need to appear cheerful and nice, and accept their ‘you deserved it better’, ‘hard luck’. You hate when people console you. You scream inside ‘I don’t need your fake words. Just get lost’. I don’t know for how many days but you have to endure that. You’re slowly getting tired of it but that’s the way it works. It would have all been all right if not for the hype which you did not create yourselves. They pulled you up to heights and have dropped you as well.

It’s tough to be a winner, but it’s tougher to be a loser especially if you don’t want to be one. It’s true that defeat teaches you more than victory does. My heart goes out to all those who weren’t nominated and who didn’t win despite their best performances.

Do you think sun signs have any significance? I’m a piscean. So I’m an unexciting sober introvert who is not a great company. Well, not entirely true as I was good enough to a find a non-piscean girl. Sun signs do talk about personalities. Some may find it ridiculous to group the whole population in twelve types of personalities. But I don’t think it’s entirely wrong. I mean, the people I know, I would fit them all in five or six categories, not even twelve.

Sun signs were not invented by Linda Goodman. And sun signs are not a thing of Western Astrology. Sun signs and moon signs are described very well in the ancient hindu astrology. There, sun sign denotes the body and moon sign denotes the mind. Sun signs talk about personalities and how someone is seen by the others. Moon signs talk about what emotional side of the person. Therefore, sun sign alone may not be sufficient to judge a person. You need to combine the qualities of the sun sign and the moon sign for a decent package. But sun signs, moon signs, ‘your day today’ and ’signs this week’ are not astrology. They are pieces of astrology which may not make full sense when used in isolation. By now you’d have understood that I believe in astrology. That makes me a bit old-fashioned, isn’t it? Sadly enough, I can’t even prove to you how it works. I cannot convince you.

Some people don’t believe astrology. That’s because they don’t ‘believe’. I believe in ancient hindu astrology. When you believe in astrology you’re either old-fashioned or superstitious or lacking self-confidence. Those are perceptions that are hard to erase. When I say I believe, let me clarify that I’ve never consulted astrology or sought any help from an astrologer or sought to know my future. Now you may ask, is it possible to predict the future? The way I see it, astrology is a science. It has its own methods, formulae and theories. It can predict the future and those predictions can go wrong, just like it happens with any science. Astrological predictions are like those by-pass heart surgeries. There are proofs of concept that it works. But it depends a lot on who performs it and various other circumstances. Just because a by-pass surgery fails we should not be doubting medical science.

Astrologers are like bloggers. To be an astrologer, you don’t need a degree or a certificate. So anyone can be an astrologers. Most of the amateur astrologers give astrology a bad name. Because of them, astrology has even become a joke. Reminds me of the local meteorological office. When they say it will rain, it will be sunny like sun has come closer by a million miles. That’s a local joke because they get it wrong most of the times. That’s why people don’t really take bloggers or astrologers or meteorologists any seriously.

The fake astrologers are like magicians. They show you what you want to see.

Astrologer: You must be a very hard worker. You’ll give anything and everything for your work. Right?
Astronut: Absolutely. You’re right!
Astrologer: You hate lies. You hate being lied to.
Astronut: You got it. My blood boils when I’m lied to!!
Astrologer: You’re a very creative person. You get upset when you’re ideas are not considered.
Astronut: Spot on. Looks like you know me better than I do!!!
(By this time, it is clear that the astronut is willing to get laid. Now comes the business end of the discussions which wins the bread)
Astrologer: You have some loans and that worries you.
Astronut: Yes, it drives me crazy. That’s why I’m here.
Astrologer: Okay now, what you need to do is . . .

Whatever he prescribes, if it works, the astrologer becomes a legend otherwise he can blame it on anything including the fact that the ‘astronut’ had his kitchen facing north and his gas stove facing west.

Let’s be clear. Unreliable astrologers should not mean astrology is unreliable. Astrology has stood thousands of years. I think the basis of astrology could be statistics. Suppose you survey a group of 1000 people wearing blue shirts and 800 of them are very positive-minded. Suppose you survey another group of 1000 people wearing white shirts of which 900 are very pessimistic and skeptical. Your survey conclusion would be that wearing blue shirts generates positivity and creates vibrancy whereas wearing the white shirt makes you negative. When you’re wearing a particular shirt, if 9 out of 10 times, your day has been fantastic, you’d ‘believe’ that it’s your lucky shirt and would wear for the right occasions. It’s all probability based on track record or past data.

Now take a bunch of 1000 pisceans and study they personality and behaviour. I’m sure you’re going to find lots of similarities. That’s because, before someone for the first time wrote that Pisceans are unexciting sober introverts that you should avoid, the survey and study must have happened. That is, thousands of years back, before the earliest scriptures of hindu astrology was written. My take is, it is a pattern. I need not be the introvert of highest degree because I’m a piscean but most pisceans could be. That’s statistics. That’s trend analysis and study of patterns. While this is understandable, you can still ask why should all pisceans be so boring? Why Sun in Pisces makes someone an introvert? That’s a bigger question. That’s where the fundamental belief of ‘planets do influence lives’ comes in. It’s like saying, ‘I know blue shirt is your lucky shirt but why?’.

Astrology is not just sun signs and moon signs. It is much deeper. Astrology is also based on mathematics and astronomy. Do not ask me how astrology works? I don’t have an answer. I’m sure this is not the only question for which you and I don’t have an answer. I certainly believe that astrology works because I believe planets can influence the people’s lives. There are so many things that we don’t understand. We call them luck, fortune, God, unknown, unknowable etc. Wait for a few years for a NASA group of researchers to come up with a paper to say that planets of the universe can influence people’s lives. Some might even win a nobel prize for that.

Now, go ahead. Knock me down!

Have you ever boarded a train with no destination in mind? I have. Travel for the sake of travel. I think you should love travelling to be able to do that. When you travel with no destination in mind, you can feel lighter (not just from the baggage pov). You can take time to appreciate things better. You have no worry of whether you’ll sleep off, you have no doubts of which side to alight etc. If the train gets too crowded or makes you uncomfortable, you can always get down and catch another train. Anyway, it’s not that you have a particular direction or destination.

This travel I refer to, happened about 10 years back. Me and my cousin boarded a train with an idea of going to our hometown. Few minutes into the travel, strangely, we agreed that we drop the idea of getting down at the destination. We thought we will just get down in the last station and catch the train back home. Or basically, we were ready to get down anywhere and go anywhere. Go anywhere but return home by evening. I must tell you, it was so much fun. We felt so free.

I’m sure many won’t do that and even if they do that they won’t really feel proud talking about it. Imagine yourself travelling just like that. You gotta update someone on your travel right? You need to explain to someone what you gained out of the travel. You need to convince others why you did something that you wanted to do. Isn’t it?

I know some people say that they want to be like birds. Being able to fly anywhere, to feel free with no hurdles or hindrances whatsoever. In fact, a flying bird is a symbol of freedom. We may not be as free as the bird but you know what, we are more free than we might think. Birds go wherever they want to. Same applies to you and me. We are as free as we think we are. I know, we have certain roles and responsibilities that restrict our freedom but we tend exaggerate this. The truth is we need a reason, a tangible reason, for everything that we do. If you board a train, you need to go somewhere and to do something. We need a real, visible output at the end of any process. May be that’s because all these things are seen as a process. Also because, you are being watched. By everyone around you. You need to explain things that you do.

I want to be able to do things that need not give anything to me tangible. I may not want to get any financial, social or reputational benefit out of everything I do. Do things that give me peace, calm and joy. Most probably these things won’t be very popular. They will attract remarks like “are you crazy?”. I’m an xbox console addict. When I play on xbox, that does not help anyone but me. I don’t hone any ‘useful’ skill, I don’t improve my knowledge, I don’t ‘gain’ anything. But that’s my time. I don’t care if that helps me or not. I don’t care even if people say I’m wasting my time on it. That’s my private time. Try applying this to travel, you’ll feel as free as a bird.

In fact, for everything that we do, including blogging, we have an audience in mind. Being at office, being at home, being with friends, we play to the audience all the time. Aren’t you tired of playing to the gallery? How about doing things that are just for ourselves? That don’t have to necessarily enhance your health, finance and all that stuff. Just doing things for the heck of it, because you love it and you want it. For all that I talk about destination-less travel, I never did it more than once. But the one time I did ‘travel to nowhere’, I realised the joy of it. That joy need not always come from such travels. Just have to do things with the sense of absolute freedom with a sense of I, me, myself.