Why I started writing….

It was the night of 31^st December 2011.  I checked the time in my cell phone.  There were few hours left before the last digit of the year would change and ‘1’ would turn into ‘2’ and the year 2011 would end. But it was nothing new. Since my birth, the last couple of digits had already changed 26 times. Each year, I used to celebrate the last day of the year with family and friends with the hope that, the coming year would bring more happiness and success.

But this time it was completely different. I was standing alone in my balcony waiting for the arrival of New Year, a new beginning, and for the first time I was not there with my family and close friends to welcome a new year. Instead of celebrating I was busy fighting loneliness.

I had nothing much to do so I switched on my television to see the celebration that was going on across the world. People were dancing, singing and partying hard. I could not have celebrated alone, so I thought it would be better to watch these people, and be a part of their celebration. However after some time I realized that, watching those celebrations was hurting me more. So I tuned into a news channel and I came to know that, the cyclone that had hit my country few hours earlier had claimed at least 30 lives by then. Then I turned off the television and decided that, I would call my Mom. I talked to my Mom, who was more than a thousand miles away from me. She tried her best to convince me that she was not missing me and I also did the same. 

Those last few hours made me realize something. All of us live in one world. We consume oxygen from the same atmosphere. Yet each one of us has different problems to deal with, each one of us has different reasons to celebrate, each one of us has different priorities in life, each one of us has different encumbrances and each one of us has different expectations from life.

That day I saw people from a different part of the world busy celebrating the New Year which had already arrived in their country. There were some people in my country who were eagerly awaiting the arrival of the New Year so that their celebrations would begin. Then there were some people who were worried about what had happened to their family members after that natural disaster. Some were mourning the loss of their dear ones and some were trying to rebuild their homes.

Maybe this is how the world, we live in works. We are so busy looking for that reason to celebrate our own achievements, our own success that we forget what is going on elsewhere. We limit ourselves to a very small region; by dividing ourselves and by creating borders.

That day I realized that we need to break that barrier and connect with each other irrespective of our origins, religion or beliefs. We need to give someone else the freedom and the time to share his pain or happiness with us. We need to make our shoulders strong enough to carry a person who can’t walk on his own. We need to value what our heart says.

That day I decided, “I will come up with a book and share my thoughts about life, about love, about relationships, about human characteristics, about my country India and about the problem my countrymen deal with.”

I know that some of you may not agree with my thoughts and I am going to take your criticism wholeheartedly with all my love and respect for you all and try to rectify my mistakes.  My experiences of being a young man born and brought up in a small town of India gave birth to all these thoughts which I have put down in this book. In the past four years I’ve lived in many cities of India. So from a small town to several cities, the journey for me was always filled with hurdles.

Like most of you, I too have experienced love. I’ve seen it in a constructive as well as a destructive form. I too have felt the effect of religion, politics, tradition and culture. I too find happiness in small things. I too find my biggest support in my mother.

 

“I sincerely hope and wish that, you will bring a small change in the part of world you live in after reading this book. It may take time and a lot of effort and dedication but I believe that we can do it and we will do it for us, for our people and for our beautiful world.

(A note from my book “I wish and hope”)

Tagged: arindam, being Arindam, Book, Family, Home, I Wish and Hope, India, mother, New Year, thought, United States

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