Back and forth, in motion!

For the one shot, we have got at this life; it makes sense to make something out of it. However, individually lot of questions will still be left unanswered, at the end of it. My understanding of the whole deal has been fairly simple. It has evolved slowly but quite evidently over the last few years. Let me share this with you. I have had quite a stir with my brother when I remarked that I have stayed in the forest to have gained a certain experience while in a debate with him about something. And my comment pivoted the whole debate to a whole new platform. And he got clearly psyched with it. This clearly meant that the hangover of my stints in the forest has been way too high. It clearly was time for me to come out of it and just carry the learnings from it. Look ahead, fresh.

Well, right now, there are just too many things happening. Thankfully, all of it are the ones which I won’t regret at the end of it, unlike before. I mean, there is a reason why I have started writing here after quite some time. I am just exported to a whole new world; a new world full of possibilities, a new world of positivity, a new world of confidence, a new world of the same world I am living in. I am forced to give a direction to my current articulation and provide a logical sense to it, here. But, that's not my point. I don’t want to do that. I am more at awe with the ambience, the atmosphere surrounding me right now and that, I want to share. The facts, otherwise, are there to see for everyone. Results aren't a silent deal. The world will know when the results are out. For now, I am having the time of life. Of course still borrowing money from family. Without exception, my hands shamelessly reach out to anyone inside the house trying to give me money. Haven't earned a buck for 20 months now! But, I know, I am on a purpose. It is damn exciting and I am really looking forward to work things out.

With all these things in my head, I sat next to the window listening to music, while this private bus was beating the shit around those small curves on our beautiful country roads. I was travelling from a village called Siddapura to Pavagada town. I had just met the farmers there for one of my startup. It is not a place rich in resources. It is quite deserted in terms of rain and also the attention from the state government. It is right at the border between the Karnataka and the Andhra Pradesh States. Even though geographically the village is in Karnataka, linguistically you can almost say it belongs to Andhra. Coming from Karnataka, it was a bit disturbing to see not many locals speak Kannada as much as they do telugu. And the farmers across the border are getting far better support than those in Karnataka. I could only reflect on this and lot of other things sitting inside the bus. 

Filled with people, even getting a seat next to the window, was not that comfortable. The push from the people standing was so high, that the person sitting next to me was literally sleeping on my shoulders. I was sitting on just one, and barely managing to sleep. I could smell his sweat. May be it was mine. The 80's and the 90's Kannada rock music playing so loud that I had to remove my earphones and listen to what was being played instead. It was raining outside. The low lying hills around Dodhalli created such a beautiful ambience. The freshness in the air just took out the sweat in it. It was beautiful; this rush, this chaos. And the thoughts that led me back home. I have always wanted to live this life.

How would it be, that you have always had a dream about something and the next day you get to live it. I mean, you are put into the starting point of it, left alone to absorb the situation and start walking the path ahead. Something quite similar happened with me. I attribute a lot of hard work and perseverance to it. I cannot discount it just to prove my humility in anyway. I will not do that. My life is now completely scheduled. I have heard people complain about not getting enough time to do what they want to do. It has come after quite a journey, this realization, that time is never short. It is never more for me and for you, less or vice versa. If someone says, I don't have time, like I had been complaining until recently; it is nothing but a pile of horse shit. Everyone has got the same 24 hours a day and 7 days a week. Thanks to the relativity example that gives out the perspective view of time. This means, time in a literal sense is the same for everyone. Time is not short, we just feel that way. Time is actually limited, for you, for me and for everyone else. I am happy about my schedule now. The travel frequency has only increased. Of course I am missing my city more now. 

The stay at siddapura was fantastic. I could have done anything to get to live those small things in life I had always dreamt of. It was six in the evening. The tea was served inside the campus, I was staying at. The village panchayat there had donated its land to a NGO I had networked with. I had leveraged on this connection to make my purpose heard loud and clear inside the village. There was this old Hercules cycle parked. My meeting with all the farmers in the village was supposed to happen at 6:30PM. Just couldn’t waste that half an hour. It was just right. The light going down slowly with the sun, the wind picking up pace, the drizzle becoming more prominent and a lot of Indian rollers (Karnataka and Andhra’s state bird) and sparrows’ flying back to their nests, those wide spread fields waiting for some consistent rains for more than a year now, the mist coloured mountains at a distance and the wet country road with greenery all around was just a perfect setting for me to hop onto this old Hercules and go for a ride. I have gone behind my brother to make him spend around 25,000 rupees on a cycle I have in Bangalore. I have seldom ridden it. I took it out of some self-driven rush. Whatever reasons there are, it hasn’t been justified for now. Although cycles don’t depreciate as much as automobiles, I am determined to put it to real good use sometime in the near future. This old Hercules would have costed them not more than 2000 rupees. But the joy it brought me has not been matched by the 30,000 odd kilometers I have ridden on my Yamaha Motorcycle, or the recent Tractor ride I got to enjoy in a village called Komaranapura. Bendre sir called me as it was getting a bit late to meet the farmers in the village. The campus was a good two kilometers from the village and we had to walk. There was a bike. We were on it all these while. But something strange happened that afternoon. He was taking me around and introducing me to all the farmers, school teachers and Panchayat leaders around. Well, I had to return. I did. Just couldn’t control my laughter as soon as I saw Bendre sir. He was no less silent either. It was a long time that I had such a genuine laugh. 

Four hours back, Bendre sir and I were on a bike. The old Bajaj KB 100. Well, doing the rounds meeting farmers and anganwadi teachers, we were heading back to the campus. And that’s when things went horribly wrong. The bike stopped; looked like there wasn’t enough petrol in the tank. But we were fooled. There was enough fuel for us to do two more rounds of the entire village. So the attention quickly turned to the spark plug. We had to remove the battery connection to the engine and clean the whole plug with a clean cloth taking help of a few volunteers from the village. Suddenly there was a pool of people around trying to show concern to the bike which was crying loud enough to sustain the spark. You might have guessed what we would have done next. Yes, Bendre sir got onto the bike and four of us pushed the bike so hard running behind it while Bendre sir shifted gears only to witness the 100cc engine cry even louder. It did nothing good. Except that we were now news! We had managed to gather sufficient no of people to actually have a community meeting and drive a development agenda through. It started to rain. Guess what, I had just enquired about rains at the place and there were no signs of it until then, actually. It started to pour. Four young boys, younger than me tagged along with us as we started to walk back the 2 kilometres to the campus pushing our bike. This journey of us for me, was like reading through a story of a startup entrepreneur who did everything she or he could but failed miserably at the end. Sorry, I might have hinted you at how things ended, but here’s the story now. 

These four young men were relentless and so persevering in their attempt to make this 100cc engine fire and sustain. We reached a plain road. There were no limits to the joy these young men found. It was like – Hi Raam Baabu. There is a spark every now and then at the top. The piston rod is acting very cranky and is stalled by some extra-terrestrial force that is cooling the spark down immediately. We need heat. Your mission should you choose to accept it, is to get the crankshaft moving. The piston rod should move. Your message will self-destruct in 5 seconds! And off they went. All I could think of was Peter Graves on a Mission Impossible Task to save the world, while we took shelter under the trees. 

One guy on the bike and three guys pushing it down the road and up again. These men taking turns just to cool off from all the pushing, were having the time of their life. But there was a lot of concern in it. They had taken their personal time out to help us out. The bike ensured that it didn’t listen a word to these people. They were born mechanics. But the bike knew the ways to deal with them and continue taking rest. You see all the efforts by these men were so pointless, I felt. I had already given hope. I started taking selfies in the rain. Well, there was a huge rock in the background, green everywhere and the road wet by the rain. What else does a person need to have the next Profile picture on Whatsapp. And for guys like me, we are always short of good pictures. I seized onto the opportunity and immediately I hear a roar. Guess what, the engine had started. These guys, made it! Wow. We were all so happy and I immediately ran towards it, as I was the one with no hopes of it starting. Well the startup story I told you about; the entrepreneur had the product in hand now. It had to be tested out in the market.

So this young chap on the bike so happily giving hi-fi’s to each other and smiling so wide, on gear, released the clutch. Guess what, the bike started to go back in reverse! Yes, you read that right. Never in my life had I seen such a thing happen. The bike on 1st gear was actually going in reverse. Damn! The gearbox was seriously confused and totally drunk! I am still laughing as I am typing this. It didn’t take much time for the bike to pass on its hangover to people around. I just went flat onto the road and was hoping to not burst my stomach off laughing. Well, the product had failed to make a mark in the market. And you know why I still remember the effort even if it turned out to be futile; because it ended up really funny. Being an entrepreneur now myself, this was a high point of the entire story for me. The market remembers your efforts for two things- One, if your product is a resounding success. Two, if your product has made a fool of itself. Its okay if you have failed. Nobody gives a shit, except your parents, your wife, your husband or your investors. If you have made a fool of yourself in any case, you are remembered forever. 

So coming back and meeting Bendre sir was fun. We did proceed towards the meeting of the farmers. Things went really well. The discussions these days with the communities I am able to manage well. But the bigger question is, what am I doing about it after I come back with the inputs. Things are getting very real. All those things that I had dreamt of is happening now in real. And it is not as rosy as I thought it to be. To develop trust and maintain it is the single hardest thing to do in life ever. Lot of us fail there; exactly there. At certain point, you realize, you are actually dealing with people everywhere. Forget the system. It is second priority. But even when you are working with the system, it is people there. You know, it is people everywhere. And in cases like mine here, it is people with hopes, people wanting to see light at the end of the tunnel. It is currently dark inside. Not that I am all sympathetic about their situation. I am not. They have to make their own fortune. I don’t believe in free loading as much as I believed in it earlier. And they have to do it putting them in a system which is a flow of information, material and economic exchange. And that is a lot lethargic than we want it to be. I say this for a reason. We all inherently demand the system to be super responsive but are participating so hopelessly in it and making it all lethargic ourselves. 

Participation does not necessarily mean being a part of the government. By the way, government is also nothing but a group of people. And we, by the way, are also people. It is a strange understanding yet real, I feel. As Danny Archer says to Benjamin in the orphanage that, people are just people, you know. That, I feel is so true, in my exposure of engaging with people of all types and professions for the last five years. You either decide to keep quiet and accept the system these people build for you or join them and build one yourself. 

As I started to pen this down, all I hoped was to look ahead, fresh. A few encounters I have had in my life off late is really helping me to just do that. It would not be right on my part if I am not acknowledging the same, just so that I can sleep peacefully tonight, for letting it out of me and in a way thank Mother Nature for everything she has given me. 

What difference does it make to the universe?

All we get is 60 rounds of earth going round the sun

All we have, for now, is everything; a name for later, if lucky

All we can, is, gather memories over memories; sweeter, as we collect

All we should, in this limited time, is to prioritize and choose

And I choose

I choose to respect, I choose to love,

I choose to accept and to grow.

For anything I do otherwise, it just doesn’t matter.

To nature

To the universe