paradox of my life...

One of the best things about traveling alone is that you get time to yourself and even time to breathe. Well, even on official or personal trips i rarely get moments to spare for me and my thoughts…im like sucked in a race to perform, achieve and ultimately complete. I race with myself and with time. only two competitors. I cant win with time but i can definitely set my dreams as my goals and work towards them. I love the 40 minutes or so i get in a hotel room. when im traveling my thoughts run wild about society, people, culture, what to do, how the world works, what to do next…and that’s the best thing, im my creative and thinking self. When at home, i hardly get a few minutes to think, time just rushes and most of my thoughts land up in the domestic sphere….
Its like what Marx says. When we think freely and let our creative mind wonder and do something we feel our best but in life we just end up fulfilling domestic and social responsibilities and months pass without realizing why we are here, where am i heading, what am a capable of???
Here, in Patna a point comes often in the day when i just don’t know what will happen and where the system will go. It can be very frustrating sitting in meetings with development organizations and hearing them ‘strengthen’ capacities and institutions…but then someone in the state government said “who really wants to live in the field with the people and see it from their perspective”…whats even more painful is that the top most people really have no clue what will work the best, sometimes a voice in me keeps yelling “ask me, ask me, arre just ask me i will tell you what could work, what women want, what the community is thinking”…definitely im not the best but i have talked to them….and when they talk to you about big models, you think of that woman in the remotest part of the village who i couldn’t even understand what she was saying, she was not interested in me and i was unable to understand why she was not interested in me…she had 9 children, behind her house was a field….and open field and nothing else….she was of the lowest caste and class…and when we talked to her, she offered a chatai to sit on…i dint understand most of the conversation….but sitting in the plush office of some organization of the government i dint really feel that all those grand plans they make are really ever gonna reach here.
The real problem in this country is political and economic. Everyone wants to push their agenda and make their ideas work….everyone wants to reap some monetary benefit at the cost of others…sometimes you just wanna raise a magic wand and fix everything and its not that easy if you can change the system and the mind set of the people making the difference….but its tough when you gotta work within the system….now i begin to realize why so many kids wanna be part of public administration…at the end of the day, only and only the government can make a difference in this country, they can mobilize millions and work at scale…and the power they have!!! My god!!! You just need to do one sign and the whole country can develop in minutes. you need to monitor and sit with a stick in your hand, just give orders and every change is possible in this country!!! Wow, the power they get, their big cool AC rooms and the bell that can be rung not just to call for tea or coffee but to call people….i can see the power…and if someone gives you that much power, you can do nothing but get addicted….its amazing how all those people who can make a difference are not doing it or just don’t have the technical capacity and those who want to make a difference don’t have the power and cant do it….
So change remains slow and so much money is wasted in this country which could have just helped in programmatic interventions and increasing and improving supply….
And a new change in me is that i don’t feel hungry. I don’t know. Initially official trips were packed with fun lunches and dinners and you end up sleeping thinking about tomorrow’s breakfast and waking up wondering what dinner will be like!!! But food looses its meaning when your mind is anxious and in debate challenging itself constantly with the problems of the world and searching for the meaning of your existence…
Sometimes there is nothing more peaceful than being away from home and letting yourself think….but at the end i have to go home and get caught in that thinkless, brainless world i live in….where im just another fish in the sea…
If there is anything i want (for my birthday or any day), anything i want to buy and any thing i want to have someday…it is time…time is too precious….and its running faster than all the things we wanna do…
I don’t even have the time to think what i wanna do when i have some leisure time, but how does it matter- i wont ever have leisure time…
In this race, i forget who i am, i forget my own happiness and stop connecting with myself…im just another dumb person working and meeting expectations…when this thought pains too much i just stop thinking of it….and i become indifferent to my ownself.

what i want today

what do i want today? oh before that let me just congratulate myself for the first blog this year and for coming back to the blog. i must thank Sayed who has been the only few to have read many of my posts..and further, he was always ready to talk about these issues!!!!!i really miss debating and arguing over issues...i love coming alive withmy ideas and being close to society, reading and being the researcher. so today im feeling kinda restless..not as restless as i can feel and have felt lately.so why is ishaa restless.because ishaa thinks so much.right now im thinking that there is so much i want to do and when?? where?? how?? am i gonna do it all.society sometimes conflicts with my goals. but im still lucky that i can whatever i want to do very easily...by staying motivated...today i feel like soaring the sky and touching the stars and work looks boring.