I wish I was a baby!

Our minds were malleable and empty as babies. There were no ethics, principles, ego, responsibilities, concern for reputation, philosophies that we were forced to live with. We were naked. Naked in thought. It was probably the naivest definition of freedom known to us.

As babies we followed our id - our basic desires. We peed wherever we liked. We laughed, we cried at our own whim. We never scrutinized our actions under the lens of ethics or morality. We never worried about any impairment of our reputation if we cried/ peed incessantly. We were not punished for sleeping late and for being disobedient. People loved us and kissed us for being naughty. We had no responsibilities, but we were the bosses. We were the most privileged member of our family. We never perplexed ourselves with abstract questions about nature and God. At best, we were just interested in knowing how far the stars and Moon are and who lives there. Back then, money had no significance, struggle for money was stupid. Studying was difficult, it seemed like an inconsequential activity we engaged ourselves in, killing our play time and TV time. Academic degrees were waste. Sports was the way to go. All were friends, no enemies.

We grew older. We reached high school. We were naked before. It was somehow shameful to be naked at this age. We clothed ourselves with some amounts of ethics, principles. We started talking in terms of ethical and unethical. Ethical was good, unethical was bad. Gods were ethical, demons were unethical. Politicians were ethical, criminals were unethical. We wanted to be ethical. We also developed principles. Family, friends and schools were among our limited sources. We must be punctual. We must respect elders. We must be disciplined. We must be kind and humble. All these principles had a great fan following. Undoubtedly, we wanted to be principled. This stage provided us a skeleton for distinguishing between entities and activities in future. We were being prepared for the future.

Slowly and steadily time ticked by. We crossed stages after stages. One day we found ourselves to be adults.  Adult life is a challenge. We find ourselves clothed with responsibilities, concerns and philosophies. We have families to look after. Companies to take care of. Stress levels have risen. Parties have become infrequent. Solitude is what one starts craving for. Life has become more demanding. It seems to be a cyclical loop till you take a retirement. We have started pondering on the basic meaning of life more than ever before. We more often than not think about the futility of our actions. We let out a sigh,"I wish I could be a child again!"

But we must understand that life is not just about our desires. It is not as simple as an individual's desire. On a Venn diagram if you plot more than 7 billion sets than the intersection is what one must aim at. Well, primary question that comes to the mind is whether intersection actually exists? Life is about survival and progress at the same time. Survival is impossible without innovation. So is progress. I wish to lead a happy life but so does the entire mankind. In such a case, rules and regulations are very essential. Fair distribution of opportunities and rewards is essential. A framework is required to which we must adhere to with a goal of maximizing our own happiness. This framework has to be firmly rooted in ethics, principles, ego, responsibilities, concern for reputation and philosophies. They form the cornerstones of such a framework.

Adults have the necessary knowledge and discipline to drive human progress. They have the responsibility of the entire mankind. They are the torch-bearers. What you give today is what your posterity will receive tomorrow! We are here because someone in the past did it for us. You were not expected to turn into a crybaby when your turn comes to deliver. At best, we can term that desire to be just a wishful thinking.

Few important tenets

 LIVE LIFE, STOP EXISTING

Unexpected events will happen, try to reduce your vulnerability.

Love family, don't neglect it.

Stay healthy, mentally and physically.

Treasure best friends, they are hard to come by.

  
 Have aims, have ambitions. Eat, drink and sleep with them.

Stay away from regrets.

Don't dare to lose ever in life: trust.

Read. Read about you and me of past to appreciate present and anticipate future,

Becoming productive is one of the best ways of becoming charitable.

Play a sport.

Have a wish list and a bucket list and strive to complete it.

  

DEATH ENDS THIS LIFE, NO IFS AND NO BUTS

Theory of Alternative Paths and Hard-work

In Physics, work done in moving an object from State 1 to State 2 is equivalent to the energy spent in the process. It is represented by W. Mathematically; work done is the integral of dot product between force vector and displacement vector along the path from State 1 to State 2. This is a path independent function in conservative field. In a non-conservative field, work done in moving an object from State 1 to State 2 is a path-dependent function.


Every state is defined by a certain number of parameters. We can assign fixed values to parameters and allow a tolerance level for each parameter. Hence, a State 1 will be generated. We select all individuals that approximately fit into it. We repeat the procedure for another state and name it as State 2. We select individuals that fit into this State 2. For this article’s purpose we assume that State 2 is generally perceived to be better than State 1 and everyone works in order to travel from State 1 to State 2.


If an individual’s course of life (biography/autobiography) is considered as a representative path we will have cluster of paths converging at and diverging from various states. Now we trace those paths that selected individuals take in their displacement from State 1 to State 2. Some will be short and smooth. Others will be long and spiked.


I make an assumption here. I assume that with time, humans realize the differences in probability of each path; probability of ending up at State 2. They identify and accept paths that, if followed, have very high probability to reach State 2 and discard numerous others. This leads me to an assumption of normal/Gaussian distribution of paths.

Now although there are accepted paths of transition between these 2 states, not all can afford to walk on them. Various hindrances come in the selection of an ideal path.

·   It is impractical to hope to take correct decision at every point.

·   Some tragedies may force an individual to alter one’s course substantially.

·   Plain luck (Probability in a sophisticated language)

·   Criterion requirement

·   Mindset/ Thought process

·   Management of other parameters in life

·   Many others can be added

Let’s talk about the qualitative aspect of hard work in life. It’s importance in life, inclusive role in luck/ favorable probability. 

I'm a great believer in luck and I find the harder I work, the more I have of it. 

- Thomas Jefferson

If the power to do hard work is not a skill, it's the best possible substitute for it. 

– James Garfield

There is no substitute for hard work. 

– Thomas Alva Edison

The question is whether all the people who travel from State 1 to State 2 work equally hard? Or is it a function of path chosen? Well, answer to that I might not know. But, one thing I think is at any point making a correction in your path is possible. It will come at a higher cost as you get farther from your desired state. But, if you drift along, shake-off your inertia and get back to work. Have clear aims and ambitions. Your environment might not be supportive but play along, don’t quit. There is a high probability you will find a way to make it to end. Because there always were, are and will always be outliers. But, it took a great deal for each one of them to be an OUTLIER.

What next?

01
03
05
06
07
08
10
11
12
14
17
20
21
?

Life, Maths and Destiny

Life can be a well-defined function for each individual. It must be of the form

L_i = f (p₁, p_2, p₃, p₄, ………. p_n) where;

‘n’ is the total number of parameters that an individual needs to take care of

‘i’ denotes a specific individual.

The quality of life an individual lives has a direct correlation with the value of the function he attains. These parameters comprise of everything that one comes across in life. Time, money, family, friends, love, health, area, clothing, hygiene, heartbeat and many more qualify to be parameters. If I start listing these parameters I might very well grow old and pass away without even nearing the ‘n’_th parameter.

If listing these parameters is so cumbersome; juggling them to maximize the value of the function would be practically impossible. Because of human incapability to handle so many parameters efficiently what happens is a pattern of success and failures, i.e. a pattern of crests and troughs in the n-dimensional graph of L_i. What we humans find impractical and cruel is to accept our mistakes regularly and find flaws in our own strategies. It is convenient to indulge in a blame game with destiny. Also, it is a psychologically proven fact that we tend to remember winners and forget errors. This creates a false positive impression of one’s own self. We find it hard to shrug it off either.

When one is successful one hardly cares for actions and probably never reflects back. But in times of setbacks and depressions, blaming destiny is a wonderful art of consoling oneself, at least it helps one navigate through time, like anesthesia does for a patient undergoing a surgical activity. It would be a lot better if one sat back and analyzed where he messed up in the equation and why the gradient of life suddenly nose-dived. That would really be a helpful exercise and one with an extremely high amount of learning. One factor an analyst will have to keep in his mind is that he is not always right. He needs to view the events from a 3^rd person perspective.

The best a person at any point of time can do is prioritizing the parameters he can practically take care of and parameters that have significant impact on the value of the function. He must then adjust them so that he can get the maximum gradient of L_i. Proceeding in that direction might be the best decision he can make in that given point of space and time. But the problem is that this kind of plain vanilla calculation might just guide him to local maximum of L_i. Like many of us are guided in youth towards alcohol, smoke, substance abuse and so on. They give a temporary high. Long term effects are not appealing though. If a person has a better understanding of road blocks in life, he understands he is aiming at the global maximum. (Imagine a multi-dimensional graph with multiple crests and troughs). He will have to adjust the parameters accordingly. I understand it is tough. But they say one learns from experience. Yes, one does. At least, he would not accuse destiny for every misfortune that shows up.

We can also give a shot at many qualitative questions mathematically. Why with increasing wealth happiness does not increase in the same proportion? Are we happier than our forefathers? What is more important; Health or Wealth? Why is time management important? For answers, just plug in these parameters; find respective gradients and values of the function. It might be so that relationship of L_i and wealth is logarithmic in nature. Similarly, there may be cross-overs for different ranges of wealth and health.

What I intend to convey is that blaming destiny is not a solution. It is a recurring process like a disease that is not diagnosed and treated properly. It will spring up any time. Many times we screw up in life because of our inefficiency in handling and optimizing various parameters when they can be controlled. But we are irresponsible to take care of them. We are negligent and pay the price of our negligence. If we become sensible enough and understand what parameters impact our lives the most, we can position ourselves for a higher quality of living rather than a highly volatile and undeserved one.

I believe, one shapes oneself and one's life.

In 2010

01/01: Celebrated New Year with Abhishek and Mahendra

01/14: 1st 100 ticks, last in the group

01/19: 1st net profit score after transaction cost adjustment

02/05 – 02/07: Navdeep Mama's marriage ceremony

03/12: US Retail Sales (Q: Short, short, short? A: No. Long, long, long)

03/27 – 03/28: Hrishikesh Trip with colleagues, amazing trip though the driver was a sucker

05/06: Flash Crash, People were saving their asses and I made a fortune

05/15: Rajasthan trip with Anti

05/28 – 05/31: Gurgaon – Bhopal (Abhishek’s wedding) – Indore (Kartavya’s place) – Mumbai (Home) - Gurgaon

06/05 – 06/14: Hong Kong trip (IFC, LKF, Peak and more to it)

06/14 – 06/26: Kolkata trip

06/29: Scratcher’s party, last in Gurgaon @ Barbeque Nation

06/30: Transfer, Gurgaon - Jaipur

07/01: 1st day in Jaipur office

07/13: My birthday, first of its kinds till date and I hope, the last too

07/14: Biggest loss incurred, first time had a discussion for stop loss limits

08/13: Tarun’s birthday bash

08/16: Missed my Mumbai – Jaipur flight, started Atlas Shrugged finally

09/07: Highest profit

10/29: Last day at Futures First Info. Services Pvt. Ltd..

11/01: Met Gurpreet Sir, Vanshika and Baijal Sir. It was good.

11/04: Jaipur – Mumbai. Hmm.

11/ 25 – 11/28: Marriage ceremony of Sonu Masi

12/23: Met Dhole

Alien and I

Has it not become increasingly common to compare actions of a Human to a machine and vice-versa? 'Lives of Humans are becoming mechanical with every passing moment', is a statement that has become rhetoric. 'Urban life is responsible for robbing people of their charming and vibrant nature', has become a cliché.

Progress in artificial intelligence is happening at a neck-breaking speed. Human is investing His efforts and brains in automating and speeding up His lifestyle. Robots are summoned for duties that span the entire spectrum; from cleaning of a house to solving a multi-variable 'p'th degree, 'n'th order partial differential equation. To get a rough estimate, in the time You finish reading this article a leading motor-bike company would have assembled at least a double digit motor-bikes, a cigarette producing company would have rolled thousands of cigarettes and a trading algorithm would have generated millions for its Owner.

Undoubtedly, Human progress in the materialistic realm has been phenomenal. Human has defied convention; He has proven conventional wisdom fallible. Human has defied boundaries; He has gone that extra mile. Humans have hailed Scientists for achieving supernatural feats and damned the same Ones for being resistant to intellectual developments. He has been extremely ruthless and mediocrity has been unacceptable to Him. He is relentless, even today.

I have complete faith in one thought, ‘Nothing comes for free, if it does, it’s worthless.’ When Human did set himself standards as great as those He had to pay a price to emulate them. His mechanical lifestyle is a direct outcome of the kind of balance He showed in his professional and personal quests. Valuation of materialistic success probably outweighed emotional satisfaction, which in itself is very difficult to fathom as there has been no reliable quantification of emotions.

After pondering over it all this while I am remembered of my childhood days. Aliens, UFOs, Extra-Terrestrials and high end technology. Aliens must be like You and Me, but technologically advanced. Aliens must be advanced Humans Who have managed to find life or developed one outside Our planet Earth with exceptional technological development and innovation. They have Their civilization based there. Most of Them are portrayed emotionally subnormal and lead mechanical lives in our fiction series. It may be just that They felt nostalgic (a rare kick that makes Them emotional about Their past) or had technology and money (conceptual: medium of exchange) to splurge on an inter-planetary/ galaxy travel that They came around and We happened to spot Them. Big deal, do We not get nostalgic and visit ancient caves?

Emotional interpretation of music

Today, while listening to 'Fade to Black - Metallica' I thought about one of my favourite topics. 'Emotional interpretation of music'. According to me, a song has two parts, to both of which I attach significant importance without any priorities: music and lyrics. 


When I hear a song devoid of its lyrical content, I can feel multiple and contradicting emotions depending on my imagination and visualization. By that I mean, I can interpret an extremely depressing song as one of a very inspirational quality, if it is without lyrics. The point that I am trying to drive home is that lyrics help in selection of 1 or few emotions that an artist wants to convey in the song from an ocean of emotions that a person could otherwise feel.


'Fade to Black - Metallica' is an extremely sad song. When I was hearing it today, I ripped apart it's lyrics in my mind and concentrated on music alone. I thought of musical notes as blows delivered by a person to his pain and sorrow, as his will to fightback against all adversaries. With each advancing note I could imagine him reaching closer to his goal. When the music ended, he emerged victorious. But, then I recited the lyrics and they were screaming of a disillusioned person with shattered self-confidence. 


Hence, I manipulated it's lyrics and made them sound real positive and symbolize a determined person. Here is a beta version of the same.

Life, I say, will shine from today
Brighter, brighter every day
Getting lost within my work
Nothing matters, no one else

I have found my will to live
Now have everything to give
There is so much in it for me
I accept, it won't come for free

Things not what they used to be
Loving one inside of me
Deathly loss, and that is real
Will stand the hell I'll feel

Confidence, bubbling in me
To the point of ecstacy
Fading darkness, fading dawn
I wasn't me, now am my own

No one but I will save myself, it's not too late
Now I can think, think how will I put up a fight

Yesterday seems as though it never existed
Tomorrow greets me warm, now I will just say 

"Come over guys."

Link to original lyrics: http://www.lyricsfreak.com/m/metallica/fade+to+black_20092126.html

I think, with same music and above mentioned lyrics if a song comes into existence, it'll be an inspiring one. It leads me to a question. Is music non-absolute?

Hi Sis.

Hi Sister,

            I avoid expression. Expression of thoughts, expression of feelings at interpersonal level. Probably, I dislike it or feel awkward, am unaware of the reason. But you should know, the feelings I harbour for you in my heart.

            I am lucky to have you. You have played an excellent catalytic role in my life. You stand silently at every step while I climb, just to make sure that I don’t fall. You never reflect in your behaviour, but I strongly believe that you yearn for my success, my well-being as much as I do.

            Over the years I have changed, changed a great deal. You have seen so many phases that I have been through. You have been supportive at each step. Although you do not agree with my decision at times, you respect it as it is my freewill. You think like me when it is difficult to justify myself to people around me.

I personally am very selective in deciding my confidant(e). You have naturally become one among the very few I have. It is hard to hide things from you. It helps a lot to have someone whom you can confide in. It keeps me away from the trauma and frustration or hysterical attacks.

Note that all the way I have loved you for some selfish reason. Go back and reason it out yourself if it skipped your attention. I see nothing wrong in it. Had you been bad to me what was the point in loving you? But...

            Your smile is blissful. Your voice is sweet, you are comforting. You are beautiful, playful. Kindness and generosity are your forte. Boundless patience, unmatched maturity and innocence all tip me off. I lose control and all I can do is fall in love with you.

            Although words are struggling to do justice with my feelings, I just thought you should know this. Thank you. Thank you for everything.

With love,

Vishal.

Trading my Life!

Today morning, I thought of a thought

My life is precious, and also is short

It is unjust to waste it, the way I do

I pondered, shouldn't I really love you?

Clock strikes 11, change in the scene

Am in my cabin, in front of my screen

Bulged out pupils, and a focused mind
Market vector for me, is simple to find

Joys of yesterday, see no sustenance
Hope to find love, has lost its existence
Converted I am, emotionless like a robot
Money is the motive, all that I have got

News come, numbers on screens blink
Ready with moves, need no time to think
Maneuver the mouse, clicks after clicks
I mint big money, in series of swift flicks

Clock strikes 11, I am out of my cabin
Thoughts queue up, brain starts ringin'
Brain cries foul, "Hey! I need some rest!"
Heart overpowers it, takes its tough test

I remember all the good time, spent with you
Today, don't have a moment to spare for you
I realize it now, it would have been better
Had I stayed for long, in your heart's shelter

Life is a race, a terrible race against time
Resting I thought, was the biggest crime

I am a trader, unaware of the cruel end
What I'm trading, is our lives my dear friend!

P.S. : Views expressed above are by no means my personal view points. They are just an imaginary creation!

By an IITian, for an IITian!

Trust me, it will not take more than 5 minutes. Do give a thought to it. Do think broad!!!

Introduction
In recent years, IIT-JEE has become kind of a mania. In the past 4 years, number of IIT-JEE aspirants have rose by around 1 lakh. No wonder, numerous IIT coaching institutes mushroomed in these years. But it has to be accepted that every coaching institute cannot be trusted to guide a student to his/her destination. A category of people have made coaching institutes their business that flourishes at the expense of careers of innocent, ignorant kids. It has to be accepted that not only clearing IIT-JEE is a tough task but also training students to prepare for it is equally tough. It requires detailed planning of syllabus, dedicated team of intellectually stimulated faculty and especially, faculty members who have children's success as their prime objective rather than monetary benefits.

Strategy of these classes to attract students

Now, there is this Universal cycle which all of us are aware of, at least theoretically. A person does a particular task well, his credibility increases, he becomes a trusted name in the society, people come to him for getting the same task done again and again and that person becomes a specialist in that particular field.
Same holds true for IIT coaching institutes. Their business/fame/popularity is directly proportional to the number of candidates selected in IIT-JEE from their institutes. As was mentioned before, numerous coaching institutes have sprung up in these years. Now, if they want to make business out of this seemingly attractive situation they need to show results. If I as a businessman make an entry in this business, I would like people to believe in me and my institute. Hence, I need to show results. But I have no great results to show in the beginning. This would make me think of earning the rights to publish the name of students of other coaching classes who have cleared the examination. And this is really easy. Give students a free test series/ study material/ or some kind of discount and what I get in return is the right to publish their name once they clear this famous examination, IIT-JEE.
Once this process starts, it never ceases because promotional offers are a very valuable investment with high yielding returns. They are also an excellent way to hide one's incompetency. In fact it is a very lucrative way to run IIT coaching institutes. In fact, this is how some coaching institutes are running today in Mumbai. They are exploiting ignorance of students and their parents mercilessly. They do not care about the after effects on students following their abysmal performance in IIT-JEE and related exams, when in reality, it is not a student's fault but fault at the end of these heartless coaching institutes.

Kind of faculty

As already seen, many of these coaching institutes score low in professional ethics it is quite justified that they would not invest much in their most valuable and at the same time, expensive resource, their faculty. It is said that older the wine is, better it is. These institutes attract faculty in the form of students from IIT Bombay (irrespective of their year: 1st/2nd/ 3rd/4th/5th). They even use this step of theirs to gain popularity by publicising the number of faculties they have from IITs, hiding their inexperience. These student faculties most of the times are temporary. Also, they frankly do not have any reason to feel strongly for making students (preparing for IIT-JEE) pass the exam. Majority of the faculty from IIT student community go to earn money, they do it and come back without even bothering about the final result of the students. So, in a way there are very few permanent faculty to guide students all the way through and in some classes there are hardly any.

Outcome

No prizes for guessing, classroom students of these coaching classes generally do not do well at IIT-JEE and other related exams. But these institutes get their share of publicity because of those promotional offers. They again misguide new students and parents and the cycle continues. One day, this process will become like one of the scams at the Wall Street. I hope that day comes pretty soon and save many nascent careers. Let this be the beginning of that day.

Appeal to IITians

My friends, I have realized it with my first hand experiences that we do try our best to teach students but ignorantly we are not helping them much and many to come (future students of these institutes) to sail through because of the fraudulent system explained above. I feel that as IITians we have strong social responsibility. This tag of IITian is trusted by everyone. People have blind faith in us. It is not at all justified on our part to break this faith for a small amount of money which we all know is insignificant in time to come. Trust me, we won't chase money, money will chase us. So, let us not do this felony anymore.

Signing off,
Vishal

War of Gods

Special thanks to
-Indranil

Lethal souls
Hungry all night
Ready to devour
Anyone in sight
Blood they crave
Blood they get
No remorse
No regret.

You asleep
In your bed
Unaware of
Death ahead
They will come
Rip you apart
Suck your blood
Relish your heart

Money be the cause
Or religion in a way
Whatever you mortals
Prefer to say
All are His means
All are His ways
You are the pawns
Proudly He says

All are selfish
Gods no exception
Evil is a God
Peace His vision
Unending war of Gods
All aspire to be the King
Soon Evil will win
Sooner another Evil will spring

Times change
Not the demons
Always follow
The Satanic sermons
Evil was there
And Evil shall be
Fuck the peace
No tranquility.

She, my Friend!

I have a Friend of mine,
She is my sunshine.
Moments I spend with Her,
Are truly divine.

She always wears a smile,
It makes life worthwhile.
She believes trouble is virtual,
Life, to live, is so simple!

Pretension in Her kingdom is impossible,
Confession is an act, truly unavoidable.
In front of Her, I can behave in the stupidest way.
Crazy! Insane! She doesn't care what they say.

Her presence is like of a morning Sun-ray,
Full of hope and love, cheerful and gay.
Absence is like that of a moonless night,
Full of dread and fear, no hope in sight.

Life is splendid, when I have Her, the One,
With whom I can share the joy and have fun.
Lips broaden naturally, eyes moisten innocently,
Never I realize, I am submitted to Her inevitably.

She asserts no star is far away, no dream out of sight
All I need to do is, step in the field and feel the delight.
She puts Her faith in me, "You will succeed", says to me
"Because, you can fail yourself, but never ever me!"

When I am lost, She comforts me deep inside,
She is my Savior; She helps me in every stride.
If not for Her, I would have a lot to suffer
Because of Her, I have whole life to cheer.

The naive smile on Her face is a fuel to my life,
And pure love in Her heart, keeps me from all the strife.
Trust is a vital ingredient, toughest to find.
"I trust Her, always", only clear fact in my mind.

I am cruel at times, harsh in my lines
She never bothers to rebel, for She is too wise.
I am a stupid, I am an idiot, I find faults in Her,
She is a gem, She accepts all without a word.

I am a mortal defined by many imperfections,
She loves them all, beyond any expectations.
Her benevolent act of selfless acceptance,
Is the reason for my unquestioned compliance.

So Obvious I am to Her, She needs none of my words.
"You are just too simple", is only what She utters.
I cry, "God! Please be kind, let me feel the simplicity."
But, I end up thanking Him, for His generosity!

Homicide or Suicide?

(Man on his deathbed to his wife)

Sing with me O babe, sing with me
I crave for it, like I crave for thee
Your voice that tinkles, sounds heavenly
To hear, I’d love to wait till eternity.

Walk with me O babe, walk with me
As you walked, from the day wed we
These are the last steps I will take
Happy and jolly they be, sure you make.

Smile with me O babe, smile with me
Together let’s fight out this grief and pity
I need none of that when you are near
As no Satan, no pain in this world I fear.

Dance with me O babe, dance with me
Like you danced under our apple tree
Mortals are we and I win the old bet
Now, it is a farewell I deserve to get.

(Woman to herself)

I had twenty-four hours before I’d die
And I desired to never see you cry
I know, more than your life you love me
Poisoned you, for you'd shatter without me
Please forgive me, I love thee!

(Man to himself)

I knew you just had a day more with me
Understood, when you poisoned my tea
I felt sad for you, but happy for me
You were the best I ever had with me!
Please forgive me, I love thee.

P.S: Is it justified in the name of love?

Truth

A speck of dust. Let’s do the christening. Dusty. Yes, that is all for the description. For a moment, let’s be sexist and address Dusty by him.

Dusty always wondered how trees could grow up to hundreds of feet above earth and how life existed thousands of feet below water. He was awestruck by the energy of the Sun and marveled when he felt the serenity of the Moon. He knew about huge galaxies and was aware about the infinitesimal molecules. He was always left dumbfounded to find an annoyingly perfect balance wherever he glanced. For Dusty, this Universe was just perfectly balanced. Dusty knew that he was dimensionally insignificant as far as the Universe was concerned. But, he believed he had a specific purpose out there in that seemingly unending Jungle. He was very curious to know the truth- that eternal truth. It haunted him day and night.

One fine morning, Dusty set out on his path in the search of that eternal truth. That was the beginning of many endings and the ending of many beginnings. As he began, he laughed at the illusion of freedom that existed in the minds of earthly beings. He could see that people on earth were anything but not free. He sensed slavery all around. All were enslaved to one or the other materialistic entity. How stupid! Dusty thought. Well, this was the first time Dusty thought of this thought to be stupid. He sensed the existence of evil everywhere. He smelt evil, saw evil, touched evil, tasted evil and heard evil. He recognized his unforgiving role in this arrangement of soreness. His inclusion in this complex web of selfishness, sin and malevolence thrashed him emotionally beyond any mortal expectations. He sighed. He was for a moment shattered by the sudden realization of him being generously responsible for the grief that prevailed. But, the thrust to find that eternal truth kept Dusty going. Dusty moved on.

A feeling of repentance for his sins kindled in his heart. Slowly, he felt he was getting lifted. There was no physical mechanism he could point at. In fact, it was his undying quest that took him higher and higher. As he was rising, he felt himself breaking the malicious worldly chains he found himself entangled in. He began feeling light and relaxed. He could see his fellow-mates still trapped down. It aroused a feeling of compassion in his mind, contrary to what he would have felt on earth- a sadistic pleasure to see his fellow-mates in difficulties. He appreciated beauty the way he had never done before. He relished the purity of nature. He could see lakes and forests, empires and slums. In his mind there no more existed a distinction between the rich and the poor, the powerful and the weak. He could see all, feel all and love all. He felt things the way they were, the way they were actually planned and not the way he wanted them to be. His thoughts were transcending planes after planes. He realized two things- life is beautiful and you must love all. He felt asleep.

Dusty woke up to see the morning Sun and felt a lot better. He did not care for that eternal truth anymore. He found something far better to lead a truly happy life. He started descending the hill at IIT Bombay that he climbed at 06:30 in the morning. Dusty was no one but me, Vishal.