Saturday, March 31, 2018

Ethical vs Practical : The war has just begun within her! (Part 1/5)


(DISCLAIMER : The story, all names, characters, and incidents portrayed in this story are fictitious. No identification with actual persons (living or deceased), places  is intended or should be inferred)

"You are not the Alankrita we know from the years!", all of her friends sounded in unison.

Alankrita is a young, charming and ambitious girl in the faculty of arts in a prestigious university. From the advent of her consciousness; and as it unfolds her life, she has developed a strong ideology about life and her cognitive thinking improved exponentially over the years. To say, she is very mature, is an understatement. Albeit she is orthodox as a person, she has a eye-catching physique, which every girl dreams of. This beauty with brain, is one of the student celebrities in the campus with more followers on her instagram. Boys in the campus are avid for her but no one is on par with her, in the levels of maturity. She has a strong sense of ethics in life, which are building blocks of her ideology. Spirituality is one of her strengths.

Aryan is a handsome, energetic and determined boy in the faculty of medicine. He is studious and has high perseverance, as required by his course. He believes that everything is by choice and not by chance. He is a mother's boy in contrast with the conventional boys. Although he lives in the world of science, he believes in the traditions and culture, which, atheists call as superstitious. As a student of medicine, he always asked himself, whether he would envision the fact of precise time when life(soul) or a metaphysical concept begins in human. The curiosity to know the answer, paved the way for developing passion in him, towards research in stem cells. He decided that any type of implication- either social or cultural in his life, should not hinder him to carry out his passion. Meanwhile, as he is digging in the secrets of almighty, God has a superior plan for him.

Alankrita has immense respect towards the life of others. She proves the fact that - with the sensitive body, girls are given a sensitive soul. As she is unique among the girls, she dwelled into her sensitive soul to realize it. This nature of her, made her the representative of social service wing in her university. She led the wing with all her friends and conducted many service oriented events not only in the campus but also in public. She has an encouraging clan at home, who is her asset. She enjoyed many cheerful moments with her cousins in the vacations and in one of the vacations, the joyful swing suddenly turned into a dramatic  accident of her very close cousin. She ran to the hospital as quickly as possible, to know that her cousin was doing well but there was a huge loss of blood. She rang few numbers from her mobile but no one answered. She realize the importance of blood donation by the virtue of this incident and she immediately calls up for a blood donation camp in the campus so that no one suffers like her cousin in the future.

On a fine morning, the calendar marks up blood donation day. Alankrita with her team made all the necessary arrangements for the camp at the Kalam memorial building on the campus.

She received a text from an unknown number which says, "Hello, a young medical team is going to assist you at the camp, please kindly support them! Thank you! ☺️ "

She replies, "Hello! Sure, we are ready to assist them in all ways possible! May I know who is on the other side?"

Her phone blinks with a text, "I forgot to mention, please arrange some nutritional diet for the donors, otherwise it would lead to problems! Thank you!"

She ran towards her car screaming at her friends, "Urgent! Come fast". Her friends were startled with the high-pitched voice of hers. They thought something has happened to her cousin who was in hospital. But later realized that they forgot to bring some nutritional diet for the donors and that was the reason for her scream. Alankrita is such a type of girl who is very sensitive and reacts extreme even for the small things, which would not only cause inconvenience to the people but also questions her activity.

She drove to the market and bought some food items for the donors. Amidst of busy time, she realizes that she forgot to write back to the text which caused this panic but helped her in the good cause. She grabbed her phone and writes, "Thank you again for timely text about food! Grateful to you! And you have skipped my text about who you are! 😉 "

She keeps her mobile in her pocket expecting a reply. All the arrangements at the Kalam's building fall into place and they are waiting for the doctors team to start the camp.

A bus half filled with people in white aprons arrive at the place. As a representative from the university, she went near the bus to welcome them to the camp. As she was in a formal conversation with the head of the doctor's team, a young male doctor gets down the bus. He was handsome and attractive. She put her ears in the conversation with the chief, while all her eyes followed him and ended with a eye-line match and a 'Hi' by both the parties without a formal word.

Although, she updates her instagram with the details of the event, she knows the importance of a beautiful girl going to the classes of students and encouraging them to donate the blood. She is mature enough to play constructive tricks for a better society. She leads her team to let the students know the happenings of the camp on campus. Undoubtedly many students turned up for the camp and as a initial gesture she hears an appreciation from her professor. She was delighted!

She checked her mobile for the text she was expecting but no notifications showed up as she swipes down her screen. She checked in True caller but there is no information regarding this number. She thought someone is playing on her.

"Aryan is serving a lot with passion among all of them!", She hears from her friends in a trivial talk.

"Is he the short but handsome guy with a blue stethoscope around his neck?", she asked in  anxiety.

Her friends took her by surprise after hearing her words with a clear description of small things about a guy.

"Yes, he is Aryan", said a girl to answer her question and to lower her adrenaline levels. "As a matter of fact, I felt some good vibes on seeing him for the first time and once again I am proved to be correct with my senses", she said.

She started showing her interests towards him, to see him and to observe his passion and commitment towards his work.

"Why are you doing this to me, take my blood too! I am brown but my blood is red as yours! Take mine!", a guy shouts at the blood testing area.

"What is the problem ?" Aryan asked his colleague who is a girl. 

"Aryan, we can't take his blood as his blood alcohol content is slightly higher than permissible levels", she replied.

"You damn girl, I didn't drink for the past 48 hours as required by the conditions of donating the blood, even if there was a party hosted with alcohol last night!", the guy shouted at her.

"Sorry sir! We understand you, but we can't take it!" she replied him in a pleasant voice as a natural asset to a girl. Meanwhile this news spread like a wild fire and Alankrita ran to the site to cool down the emotions.

"Why the shit you should understand me without accepting my blood" the guy raised her voice against the girl at the test center.

"Sir, Please calm down and listen to me. We are allowed to take the blood whose levels are lower than acceptable limits irrespective of the duration from when they did not drink. If we take your blood now, it may harm other individual in the future, which is against law. And this is very unethical to you too!"

Alankrita sensed that the words are convincing!

"So sir, please donate your blood tomorrow which helps people and I thank you from the bottom of my heart for taking part in the good cause. As a thankful gesture, I myself will visit you personally to make arrangements for your blood donation," Aryan offers an apple to him.

"She is also a young girl who is working for the betterment of the society and I am very sorry to hear harsh words from you against her although I understand your emotion. It would be good on both sides if you would request an apology to her, I request you!", Aryan said in a more satisfying and convincing pitch.

"I am sorry" the guy said to the girl at test center.

Alankrita who was watching this short emotional movie from the distance, thanked Aryan from her heart for cooling down the emotions and paving way for a smooth running of camp.

"He is a champ! He deserves unconditional applause from everyone of us!", She said with her friends.

Her friends senses that something is interesting in her metabolism and started to tease her! "Stop it! I am very clear with myself as of now, I like him at the moment I saw him and I like him more with his actions!"

"Shall we go and tell him about this insta queen ?",  a friend of her put a proposal.

"Will you please stop it here?! What are you gonna tell him ?! What do you know about what I think of him ?! Nothing! So stop and no involvement please!", she said in a firmed voice to check their senses, which thought of something interesting in her metabolism.

As the time is progressing towards the dusk, she is bringing all her strength to talk with him. Even if people are very strong by nature, they tend to struggle to talk to the people whom they admire!

As more donors turned up, they fell short of the certificates issued by the welfare society to the donors. This issue came to her notice when she was in the process of taking steps to talk with him. A friend who passed this information also puts a bug in her ear about losing chance to talk with him if he leaves.

Although being worried with the shortage of certificates to the donars, she was excited to see Aryan walking towards her vicinity.

"Excuse me! Can you please lend me you mobile to make an urgent call to my mobile which I can't find, to call to the welfare authorities?", she finally talked with him!

"Sure, here you go!" Aryan handed over his mobile to Alankrita. First time two names together.

She called to her number which was purposefully kept silent with her friends. She is an intelligent girl who takes the advantage of situation in a right manner 😉.

"Thank you! I am Alankrita!", she offers an handshake.

"My pleasure, I am Aryan",  he reciprocates for the offer.

"Nice to meet you! I was very impressed the way you handled and convinced by your words at that issue with alcohol guy! Thank you for supporting our cause!", she said to him in a girlish tone.

"It's my pleasure to meet you too! Thank you for the compliments! I heard a lot about you, your ideology and your welfare actions from my chief and colleagues who follow you on instagram!."

"Your ideology seems interesting and I am inspired by it", he added.

"That's nice to hear from you, I need to go as I need to make a call to the committee for the certificates,  hope to meet you soon in future! Bye!", she doesn't want to leave but her commitment to her work makes her leave!

"Sure, see you soon!"

The camp ended on a good note as they not only acquired good number of units of blood but also she got his number.

She realized that she would be writing her semester finals next week and starts her preparation. Although back of her mind she wanted to text him, but the fear of exams refrained her from doing it.

Alankrita is a girl with lot of passion towards her studies. She prepared well for her exams and starts her exam tomorrow.

"All the best!", a texted popped up on her mobile.

Due to her busy schedule during her exams she did not care of any notifications on her mobile.

"Aryan!!!", Aayushi, who is Alankrita's friend sitting next to her, yelled his name on seeing the notification.

"What?!" Alankrita is taken by surprise and instantaneously garbs her mobile to check it.

It reads "All the best!".

A smile pops up on her face, on the other hand, Aayushi starts teasing her on seeing curves on her face.

"Aayushi!!!!!!!, tomorrow we have an exam. Read!", she said to her.

"I know that 'we' have an exam and what does you read? 'All the best?!' " , she does not stop teasing.

"Stop it! Leave me alone for some time!"

She thought in multi dimensional ways to reply to that text, but she stick to basics. "Thank you! How does you know about our exams?", she texted back.

"Akshara told me about the exams! Haha!", he replied.

Akshara is a mutual friend of both Aryan and Alankrita but only Aryan knows the fact.

"Oh! You knew Akshara! Cool! By the way I was surprised by the text", she replied.

"I knew about your exams so thought of wishing you luck, anyways I am not going to disturb you more during the exams, see you later, bye!", she received a text.

"Haha! Thank you for the wishes, see you! bye! tc!", she replied!

Alankrita with all her strength in the subject, reciprocated the same on every paper she wrote during the exams. Finally, she completed her exams successfully!

As soon as she finished her exams she texted him. They both chatted for long hours, day in and day out.

They both shared their views, memories etc. like a conventional girl and boy chats.

Aryan shared details about his research and Alankrita showed keen interest on his professional research, not like a conventional girl who does not! 😉

She asked him more and more questions about the research which triggered the things, which Aryan did not touch or think off!

He was very happy with Alankrita's questions.

Sooner but not later their texts turned into voice calls. They both treat each other as good friends, sorry, best friends!

They continued to talk for an year and half the similar way expressing their joy, sorrow to each other. Being a sensitive and emotional girl, Aryan stood by her side in many instances during her weak periods. She felt a feeling of happiness from the soul and secured when she speaks to Aryan.

On the other side, Aryan sees her as a best friend of his without any intentions of love in his heart and also in his texts, at this moment. But he knew that, she is a nice girl with admirable ideology. He is fearing about something!

Alankrita was totally impressed by Aryan, the way he talks, the ways he comforts her, the way he makes her smile, the way he looks at her, the way he stands by her when she needs a person, the way he handles her, makes her think more about him!

She spent many nights with her pillow and blanket thinking about him. As a girl with good cognitive thinking she thought in every angle possible to share her life with him. Yes! Finally she decided to propose him!

On a fine evening in winters during their conversation she texted, "I wish and hope Dr. Aryan as my better half!"

He was shocked on seeing the text as he did not smell anything like that before with her.

She was very excited to receive a reply for the text of her life she sent to him.

"So, did you had your supper?" he acted as he skipped that text, with a diplomatic question.

"Yes! and you?" she replied knowing that he purposefully skipped the text.

At that instant she was taken aback by the way he acted to her text of life. But she loved him to the core and she expressed it with full passion.

Aryan in his leisure time during his research gave a thought about the text he received from Alankrita. He started thinking about the proposal for few days.

They were in constant touch with each other as before, as of nothing has happened in between them.

Aryan, thought that he is thinking too much on the issue, so he decided that he wants to turn down the proposal, not because he does not like her but because he believed that a relation now will hinder him from his research, which is his passion and also he feared about his mother, as how she would react to this!

After few months, Aryan texted to Alankrita saying that he wanted to speak to her. She sensed something fishy with that text as earlier he never asked a permission to call. Her heart started to beat faster and faster on seeing the text. She sat back and relaxed as she was very clear in her mind and in her thoughts. She believes that he is her soul mate no matter what!

The next day, Aryan called Alankrita and said, "Firstly I have no feelings for you! I understand your feelings and respect them! Hope you understands me and finds a nice guy who will be better than me. We shall be best friends!"

She was devastated by his words. She broke down in her heart but she stood strong in the call. There was a feeling of moisture in her eyes. She felt that world has ended!

"Hello Alankrita, Hello... Hello... Hello!" he was on the call but later realized that she dropped the call.

"I am sorry if I am harsh with my words!", a text popped up on her phone.

"No problem!", she texted back with heavy heart.

As friends they talk to each other, not as often as earlier, but they were in touch at least once in a week. Aryan was surprised to see low grades in his test. As a first reason for his low grades he put Alankrita in the list. He thought he was being disturbed by Alankrita.

So, he decided to stop talking with Alankrita and work seriously on his domain. He convinced himself that, if he talks more with her he would encourage the feelings in her and later she would repent. So, as a better choice he convinced himself not to talk with Alankrita anymore. Here he showed the thinking of a conventional boy/girl after a proposal to his advantage.

On the other side, Alankrita stopped receiving replies to her texts, at least  not even once in a week. She was shocked to see his behavior, as he said that he would be her friend. But he believed in herself and her love towards him.

Time had passed but she was with the same kind of passion for him. She texts him on every anniversary day of her proposal, wishing that he would understand how important he is in her life.

Seeing the pain and agony she faces with her pillow every night, her friends tried to convince her to leave him. But Alankrita as a very determined girl, she says, "Even if there is 0.001% (infinitesimally small) chance, then I would definitely go for it! Irrespective of the context, I will go for it!".

She is very strong by her ethics. Her friends told her to leave him and search for her love. She straight away turned down the point of love for the second time.

On a night out with her friends she asks, "You love a person by heart and soul and if he/she does not accept, you go and search for second one, and if he/she does not accept, search continues until you find a positive reply and you say that he/she (with positive reply) is my love! My question to you is, how ethical and genuine your love is towards the first and second ? If he/she does not accepts you, then , you turn down your love? Is this ethical ? And if you got accepted by the first love, you say that he/she is my soul mate and if he/she does not accept and if you go for second and third your actions say that your love is not genuine and ethical in first hand!"

"We agree to the points you say, but, be practical Alankrita, don't be silly!", says one of her close friend.

"If you agree to my points, then why do you say I am silly?! You are unclear in your point and not me", she responded.

"You were a girl who was a dream girl for every guy in our campus. From years, you were struck at Aryan and you did not even notice how your health is being damaged cumulatively", another friend added.

"I am being ill because I am not taking proper diet and not because of Aryan. He was, is and will ever be my love!  I love him no matter what! I don't expect the return from him! If I expects something, it's not genuine from my spiritual ideology. I am being myself and loving him unconditionally. I am genuine and ethical to myself because at the end of the day, I should convince myself than to convince you or others!", Alankrita firmed her voice.

"We know that you have a strong perseverance within you! But what can you gain when he is not ready to accept you? Practically speaking, its waste of time, if I am not harsh! You are wasting your energy and the love you show towards others. It is concentrated on a person who doesn't even thinks of thinking of you!", a friend of her raised her voice.

"I believe in my love and I have hope in it! If I doesn't have hope in it who in this world will have the hope in it! I am ethically genuine to myself and I love being me!" Alankrita responded.

"Let me be more practical, now you are almost at the verge of getting married. Your parents might be seeing best partners for you! What would you say to them?" another friend asks her a straight question.

Alankrita cries! "Am I wrong being genuine and ethical ?! You may see me as being away from practical sense but can you say that the practical theory what you proposed is true and ethical to the best extent?" she said in a low husky voice wiping off her tears!

"You are not the Alankrita we know from the years!", all of her friends sounded in unison.

( Will Ethics gain an upper hand over Practicality or Practicality gains an edge over being Ethical ? Will Alankrita find her Aryan ? Alankrita meaning 'Sense' and Aryan meaning 'Noble' in Sanskrit. Does this Sense make some 'Sense' to meet her 'Noble' ?
To find answers to these questions and many more... STAY TUNED!!!)


Interesting ?!!! Continue to Episode 2

Will be happy to listen to your views on the characters of Alankrita and Aryan, and anything related to the story, post your comments below! Thanks for reading! Cheers!






x

Saturday, March 24, 2018

break-up : letter to a sister!


(DISCLAIMER : The characters portrayed in this are fictitious . No identification with any real persons) 

Toulouse, France
22/03/2018

My Dear Loving Sister,

Hope this finds you well. I write this letter to express my views and opinions. Don't consider these opinions as my requests or suggestions or what so ever. Once again I state, these are just my opinions to give my perception!

Firstly, I respect your decisions in your life as an individual because that's your basic democratic right which law of land has provided to you. So, I respect it. I also agree that, the big decisions we take in our life are not taken in haste but by thorough process of our perception, conviction, thinking and understanding. When we are in good pages of our life everyone supports us, but when we are in difficult stage of life, generally many people will move away, but some will stand with us. I believe from the bottom of my heart that I belongs to the latter 'some' people, not only in your life but every one's life who are close to me.

As I said we take big decisions of our life with lot of conviction and perseverance, these decisions should be made after large degree of consensus with the people whom we believe are, well-wishers  of our life. Ultimately, we follow our heart but when we hear people's perception of things, we will know the new dimensions of it. This is very significant because, I believe that life is a practical experience of our perceived or convicted theory. As we say, theory and practical should go in tandem; not only in science but also in life! Of course, we listen to their ideas and see the new dimension of it and we may agree or disagree on it. In this context, people may play with emotions which are very sensitive, but we should only consider the truth rather than carrying away with emotions! When it comes to more personal issues, I agree that there would be some points which could not be discussed even with close ones, but in this case there should be a mutual consent of both the parties facing the issue, because I only believe that, 'Love' is true and genuine which does not have shades. There is no 'fake' love at all, instead of adding 'fake' to the word love, I don't like to name/consider it love at all and undercut the power of 'love'.

As a brother, I see you as a very emotional person from which I know you. Whenever I had a fight with a person on ideologies or anything, I see the positives and think of nice emotional bondage I had with that person, rather than the name of him/her in bad books of mine. This paves path for me to reconnect with that person, because as I said earlier life is nothing but experiences with people. When we think of the nice and beautiful time we had with the person by recollecting the memories and fantasies we thought of, our brain will be freed from unnecessary stuff and definitely we shall be relived psychologically. I think this is the first and foremost thing one should do in the time of crisis.
When it comes to relationships, the first thing people say to me is, neither you had an experience of being in relation in the past nor now and you talk about it. I agree I neither had it in past nor now, but the fact is, I am in relationship with 'myself' from the time my cognitive mind started thinking. So with that experience I speak today. Being committed in a relation is itself a genuine task with lot of emotions, convictions, perceptions and of course love. When we are in this genuine feeling, we arrive at many ideological, behavioral, attitude differences. But the super power of this genuine feeling (I stress 'genuine') is to overcome these differences. This is the sole reason I believe, why this emotion of love still exists in air. Many people becomes prey of these differences as they don't see the super power of this emotional feeling because of many reasons which include impatience, insecurity and I believe in a strong reason that, they don't believe in the 'emotion of love' and are not eligible for this feeling. This is very unfortunate in some terms.

I hear people complaining that love is full of sacrifices and we have to forgo a lot to accept others and I am the only one doing this, he/she does not even care to do a small thing for me . I laugh internally when I hear this. Because, in spiritual sense, our journey is to a place where the term 'I' (here, not only refers to ego) drops down, as the soul of ours and soul of God unites and there is no existence of other thing to advertise us as 'I'. Similarly, I see love as an emotion where two souls meet into one and there is nothing as of 'I', because, 'I' drops down. When there is no 'I', there is no point of sacrifice for someone. To reiterate, when there is no 'I' and 'You', where is the logic of sacrifice?!

Finally, the term 'break-up', I get laugh when people use this term. When we are in genuine emotional connection with a person,  we are already united as one soul and I never heard of a break-up of one soul into two. Even I think a costlier endothermic fission reaction also cannot make this (on a lighter note!) 😉. According to me, where ever there exists this genuine emotional bondage, there, the word break-up does not exists! If anyone claims that he/she is in this genuine emotional bond, they are not authorized to use this word; as that emotion and this word cannot exist together! So, why this word exists?! I only see this as an excuse to find a better person in terms of career, physical, financial, societal norms. These are just my views on the society, this may not directly imply on you, but I am just putting my perception of life in words for your benefit. See the positive side of life, the emotions you shared, the good time you spent together, the fun you had being one etc. Everyone will have gray shades in his/her life. As I said, the word sacrifice does not exist in same place where this emotional bond exists; take the gray shades of the person as an experience to convey him/her, so that gray shades does not turn black. This is one of the good way to solve the issues if we have any.

I agree that basing on the societal, family extensions we are involved, we cannot show the utmost purity what the emotion of love expects/requires. If the differences are large enough and the two souls (not 'one') want to move away, I think the mutual consent is extremely important. Moving away without mutual consent is very illegitimate in my opinion and one who does this, are not only, being not genuine to themselves but also to the pureness of that emotion. From spiritual sense, I see 'break-up' as a ethical divorce and 'divorce' as a divorce abide by law of land. So, mutual consent is significant as emotions are involved in the context.

Finally, as I said earlier, think about the good times you spent together, fun you had, emotions you carried, the fantasies you thought of as a couple and many more good thoughts. These positive things will drive us with more energy and passion towards the ethically right things in our life. Hope you will also be driven to ethical genuine side of your life very soon! I wish and pray for your unity! 

Best wishes and may God bless you!

Your loving brother