Harsha, the Tinker

A recent browsing of the old pictures made me realize how I have changed since joining this place. The photo of a long haired, happy, half-ass tinker. A Tinker(no, not a "thinker") only has weird, half-baked, cynical ideas about his own life. Now I'm this new hope-filled man. I detest him. Cynicism was so much more easier to handle. It was earthy and rooted in the fact that I was not good enough for anything. Hope, on the other hand is a beast and gives you those false ideas of grandiose. Oh tinker, where hath thou gone.

Myself and the feeling like shit

Ive got the blues. Suddenly the lab is deathly empty (at other times its just empty). why care I ask, then I remember a conversation,

A: Dude, what do you want to become in life?
Harsha: hehehehehe......
A: Im serious.
Harsha: I was just going to say, thats a good one.
A: I want to become a professor.
Harsha: whoa, really? But why a professor?
A: Because, you can treat people like shit and walk away with it.
Harsha: Hmmmm....
A: It is the only profession where absolute rational thought is required, but none is expected.
Harsha: Yeah, I guess.
A: Besides my professor treats me like shit, his professor treated him like shit and the entire genealogy is based on feeling like shit.
Harsha: But why dont you aim to be a change agent, like if you wont treat your student like shit, maybe he wont treat his student like shit, the genealogy might still be saved.
A: You foolish nincompoop, its not up to me change things. im just a pawn in the greater scheme of things. How will i affect a change even if I dont do it. So just have fun (at other people's expense) while you're here.

A serious post

Life had always been an unfulfilled dream for him. That is, until he met Arundhati. She opened his eyes to the world and told him "To love, To be loved, To never forget your own insignificance". Her kids Estha and Rahel were the strange and inseparable twins who only wanted to love and be loved. She introduced him to Salman. Salman could dream up a new world in his thoughts and so could his boy Saleem. They talked to each-other, but never talked to each-other. They could tell you stories of someone sending an important letter but not the details. Salman introduced him to Gunter, his alter-ego. Gunter talked about why future novels will not have heroes, "because there are no individualists". Gunter's Oskar symbolized everything he detested. "That midget", he thought. But love was when he loved Oskar. The kid for all his innocence was just a villain. But was Oskar the the villain or was it him.

He went back to Arundhati and asked her about his life. But for all his questions, she only told him, "to respect strength, never power. Above all, to watch. To try and understand. To never look away. And never, never to forget." She asked him not to go. There were people to meet, like Jack and his Buck, Joseph and his Yo-Yo, Leo and his Anna, Ernst and his old man, and many many many more. But he was not to be stopped.

It was on this journey that he met Ganga. He wanted to tell Arundhati what he wrote down in his mind. "Mountains, like love, come in all shapes and sizes. Watching through the window, the Himalayas appeared brown, dull and mighty. Outside, in the bright sunlight they appeared lavender. The rocks were lavender, the snow was lavender, the soil was lavender, the sun was lavender and everything around me turned lavender, except the bluish green ravines of Ganga. I gazed in wonder as the mountains turned green. Suddenly, Ganga herself looked green. Green turned brown, brown turned orange and orange turned lavender, and on and on they took every color possible as my eyes grew larger with joy. A cloud flew below me to dance for the soft and surrealist tunes of the gurgling Ganges. Danced every cloud for now I was above them and Ganga sang with love and abandon. Beauty and love were right here and they came in all shapes and sizes."

He walked and walked and walked. Until he reached the end. A stone pillar in the snow read, "China 7 km". But love was nowhere to be seen. He was driven away by a gruff man for being "stupid and coming here". He fell and fell and realised he had finally reached the end. He was a good listener and joined in the local school as an English teacher. The kids thought he looked funny and spoke funny. For all his sorrow of not finding love, they still thought he looked funny. The gruff man came one day and told him, "Leave you fool, they are coming, and when they come, we wont be here. Leave.....". But he hadn't found love yet. How could he leave. He asked Tawang, she assured him it was here and he would find it. They came. Walking steadfastly into his life. The gruff man left with a few wounds. They came to him steadfastly and told him, "Leave or Die". But how could he leave, Tawang had told him he would find love here. They wouldn't understand. They only repeated, "Leave or Die". Finally, they wanted to get rid of him. For a second, he had a vision and then there was love.

He wondered "What if I were smiling and running into your arms? Would you see then what I see now? "