Between Two Ends

Imagine a river. It flows between two distinct pieces of land. Two ends; Two boundaries, Two limitations; between which there is this constant flow of water. Pretty much like life as I see.

For any given thing, present or past, living or non-living, you will hear good as well as bad. You will find people who'd say that a thing is good and also who'd say that the same thing is bad. Two sides to everything, and this is universal. Everything in life is like the water in a river, and everything ABOUT everything is at either of the river's sides.

Photograph by: Apurva Oka

Good and bad, True and False, Right and Wrong, Moral and Immoral, Just and Unjust... there are always, these two thoughts about everything. Life is what lies between them.

- A J Oka

मार्क

भारतात ‘मार्क’ या गोष्टीला सुशिक्षित माणसाच्या आयुष्यात तितकं महत्व आहे, जितकं एखाद्या खाद्यपरार्थात मिठाला आहे. नापास व्यक्ती म्हणजे अळणी पदार्थासारखी आहे. आणि मार्क कमी मिळालेल्या व्यक्तीची अवस्था म्हणजे बाकी सगळे जिन्नस प्रमाणात असूनही ‘मीठ कमी आहे जरा’ अशा शे-यामुळे अपात्र ठरलेल्या पदार्थासारखी असते. 

कुठेतरी वाचलेलं आठवतंय, ‘मार्क हा बुद्धीचा आरसा आहे’ म्हणे. मला नाही पटत. म्हणजे मला मार्क कधी कमी-जास्त मिळाले म्हणून मला कधीच फरक पडला नाही, पडत नाही. याच ब्लॉगवरच्या दुस-या एका पोस्ट मधेही मी याबद्द्ल लिहिलंय, की ‘Marks/Scores are nothing but on-paper intelligence.’

तर या ‘आरशा’बद्द्ल विचार केला, तेंव्हा वाटलं की,

‘मार्क हा ज्ञानाचा एक ‘कवडसा’ आहे; ‘आरसा’ नव्हे’. - अ. ज. ओक

Success

A lot has been written about 'Success'; what it is, what is its value, what makes you want it, what you should do to have it and so on. It is definitely a thing which almost everyone, knowingly, or unknowingly, wants to have, and likes to have. 

So I ask the same question to myself; How does one get success? How does it come? 

and I find a somewhat simple answer.

'Success:- Commit; and it comes'

- A J Oka.

Conscience and Instincts

1) A person waits till the traffic signal goes green. The person accompanying him tries to induce him to go when the signal is still red. 2) A person religiously wears a helmet every time he rides his bike. The person sitting at the back tries to convince him that it does not matter even if he does not wear it and that no one is gonna catch him. 3) A person waits for his turn at a bus stop. All the other people rush past him, catch the bus and laugh at his foolishness. 4) It is illegal to litter/spit at public places. But 8 out of 10 people think 'nothings gonna happen' and still do it.

All these and many other are incidents that happen every minute in India. Hold on; I am not going to say that together we can make a difference and that if everyone follows rules and acts wisely, things can improve blah blah blah. Hell no. I am just looking at these situations and trying to identify a quality that all of us have, but some of us control. Temptation. Temptation is an instinctive characteristic of human nature. Everyone gets tempted to do, to get, to see, to say, to hear, to feel a lot of things. And that is natural. Some, however are able to control the temptation when it is for wrong things.

I see two kinds of people here. One whose instincts are stronger than their conscience, and the other whose conscience is stronger than their instincts. A mixture of both however, is ideal.

'Conscience has to control when instincts and conscience collide. Instincts have to control when conscience cannot decide. - A J Oka.