21.3.06

Bizarre

In the stock market when you hedge your funds against stock that doesn’t exist or has dubious origins or destinations, it is considered a fraud.
The exchange board will come calling and so will Barkha Dutt. With her camera crew and all intention to nationally disgrace you. 24 x 7. At least once.
Your kids will face a tough time in school.
Your comparatively less dishonest relatives will face grief.
So will the ones that are more dishonest but not yet caught.

As Tony says the crime is not in the act of committing it anymore. It is in getting caught.

But for a moment, stop and think. Don’t we do it everyday? All of us?
We commit the very same fraud in our life everyday.
We plan, we work and we hope to make our life better.
Without knowing whether it exists the next second.
We are hedging our life against speculative stock.
Good? Bad?
I cannot say. What I can say is that it just doesn’t make sense.
And it is bloody unfair.

Yesterday a friend passed away. At 32. At the peak of his career.

He went off. Just like that. Out of the blue.
Without even fulfilling the promise of treating me to a drink. At a relatively posh and expensive place, than our regular watering hole.
Without giving me the job he promised to.
Without introducing me to the hot chick in his ‘You vs You’ commercial.
All promises remain. But that is not why I am writing this.

This is because it has made me change the way I look at life. It has made me realize the fragility of life. Convince me otheriwse. But I think this is the divine fast one God himself pulled on us. He made a strict entry process for life to enter into this world. Where the labour, pain and fruit is all the domain of the human being.
But he kept the exit process, or considering the swiftness of it, the exit act all to himself. Leaving behind pain and pain alone. To a lot of people.
"aate ho apni marzi se. jaaoge uski marzi se"
(you come when you want, you leave when he wants).

Wanna play poker with God? Actually we all do.

We actually take life for granted. Like the car battery.
Till the bloody thing gives up on us.
We think of life in perpetuity, like business. As a going concern.
Then all of a sudden, our fraud is caught.
And from a life form we become a memory.

I will miss you V Mahesh.
Not because we had 2 new yearparties together.
Not because you were a rockstar copywriter.
Not because we drank together.
Not because we fought after we drank.
Not because we never had to make up after that.
Not because we have a dozen people in common we love.
And not because you were there when I needed you.

I will miss you Mahesh because I still cannot believe that you’re not there.

5 comments:

Rishabh said...

I dont know what to say.

Partly, maybe because I am scared myself of the fragility of human life.

and partly because, like every creative guy in india, i really admired what mahesh and rajiv pulled off each time.

i only came to know of his demise through your blog. so i am still more shocked than sad.

i had heard a lot about the guy myself. that he, along with rajiv, were the only two non political blokes in the entire O&M network. and that alone, earns them my respect.

i dont know what to say man. i can only try to understand the grief of someone who was close to him.

i always wanted to meet these guys once, whow them my work, get their opinion.

to know that he was only 35, and died if a sudden heart attack, has still not sunk in.

we always complain that life is such a bitch.

but isnt it enough that we are at least alive to complain?

Ajeya said...

i wont lie and say 'i know how you feel'. i don't. but as the great adi shankaracharya once said 'life is like a drop of water on a lotus leaf.' you never know what's in store for you. in a way it's good and in a way, bad. sorry about the demise.

shruti said...

Harjee I could never think u would be so attatched to this man and
U can blame this on the sick conversations we have.But seriously,I have lost friends out of the blue at a rather early stage (I was 14 when I lost my first friend),that its so bloody unacceptable to belive that a particular person will not be there,ever......
But all I hope for u is all the strengh and courage to accept life's fragility and all the pain it causes to us,because of the dead and the living.....
u take care.....

Anonymous said...

Harjee ~ wow. i think yes, we are all guilty of this in one way or the other..simply differ in magnitude.

maybe life does need to be lived like it will end tomorrow.

no fear. no regrets.

doubtless i will fail @ this endeavour. maybe ur post has given me more reason to try..

Anonymous said...

Shot straight from the heart. Right Harjee???? I am sorry about the demise of your dear friend. It does remind you of how unpredictable life can be. I havent lost a dear friend but I lost my grandma last year and it felt quite the same in that she was 97 years and she had been around forever we kinda expected her to stick around forever and poof she was gone and man do i miss that wet noisy kiss she would plant on my cheek.Take care chatting male acquaintance.