The reality “spurt”

Once in a while, nowadays more often than not, I kind of question myself, mainly on the terms of “what is it that I am actually doing with my life”. A few moments where I do a self-analysis, when I think how lucky I am, when I think about the majority who are much more unfortunate than me, when I curse myself for not acting in spite of knowing these, for being the most selfish a person could be by knowingly ignoring the rest of the world.

On one fine Sunday, when I was immersed in such thoughts, I decided to put these thoughts into action, one way or another. I wanted the world to be a better place, a place where the first thought of a parent when they get to know the gender of the baby is not dowry, a world where child marriage and child exploitation is unheard of, a world where parents do not act because “chaar log kya kahenge”. I wanted the world to be a place where love, logic and reason would triumph over anything else. More than anything else, I wanted to make sure that these do not end up as random thoughts, but rather invoke an action.

And that is when I formulated a plan which would cater my needs (read: selfish) and satisfy the “human” in me. It was basically to move to a rural/backward area in India with the aim of helping others. I wanted to be a teacher, as that had been my “dream-profession” after I failed to qualify the Medical Entrance. I wanted to help the poor kids, and engage in night-education educating the adults. I wanted the people there to know that there is a huge world outside theirs; I wanted them to know the basics of science so that they could overcome the illogical aspects of religion. I wanted them to know what freedom actually means, so that they could make well thought of decisions. I wanted to tell them that females should be treated the same way men are treated, and that caste system is evil. I badly wanted to uplift them through education and awareness.

A new reality had dawned on me, and I was trying to think and sort out all the queries and (all possible) roadblocks that I would have faced. That was when I heard the washing machine alarm, reminding me to transfer my clothes to the dryer. “Damn it, Now I have to take the clothes from the machine and put in the dryer one by one! I just can’t imagine why these people make it so hard, and why they cannot make a machine which does both, and possibly even iron the clothes”. And then, I had the “second” reality "spurt" in a span of ten minutes or so. Erasing all my thoughts, I transferred the clothes to the dryer. And, everything is back to “normal” again.