Wishing Wants!

“If you don't study well, you will not get a 'good' job when you grow up!.. You will struggle like that rickshaw-puller on the road, and yet the income will leave you and your family hungry”...!!!

That is what the school-teacher used to tell us ... trying to inspire us, to work 'hard'...!

(Even right then, I had 'quixotic' doubts cropping up .. like, 'who then would pull the rickshaws, do the menial jobs, for others at 'good-jobs' to enjoy life 'smoothly'?.. but a very wrong place and time to ask... the cane was 'well within easy reach' of that teacher .. plus... irreversible consequences of 'reporting' to higher-authorities.. of such un-healthy traits... parents would never forgive!.. Principal find it good 'bijness', when replacement-kids would fetch fresh 'donations'!!!!)

Hardly the age to become 'hard' at 'hard-work'! The whole life was about going easy at it! But, that frequent warning coming from 'well-meaning-elders' kept nagging us the whole time! And then a few confusing dictums (not just proverbs!)... “play while you play, work while you work.... the only way to be healthy, wealthy and gay!” (at that age, 'gay' had only one meaning, for us... only now it seems to confuse us! But the consolation is, it was used just to rhyme with 'play'.. no-hard-'feelings'...!!!).

“What will you be, when you grow up?”... kids used to ask each other (though at that age, it simply meant a choice between maths and biology, at the time of 'entering' the 9th class..! And I used to say, “I want to be 'normal'... just normal”.. Most of my classmates used to gape at this reply, but some of them not knowing the value even of their own words, used to say “But for that you need not do anything at all? You are already that! You do seem 'normal'”.. I used to leave it there! If only those kids (now as old as me), would remember.... quite a few of them might be struggling to be 'kid like normal' that they already were,.... then!

So, it was all about what we 'want'.. and then 'wish' for it!

I looked at the wish-list of a few giants in history....

A small spelling mistake, and 'nir-devatwam' became 'nidre-wa-twam' (Kumbhakarna, who had wished for years to eliminate their natural enemy, the Devas, erred while presenting the wish, and the 'grants-commission' hurried to say, 'So be it'... and he became a good 'sleeper-cell' for terrorism-activities!).

Somebody could not even chant properly 'Rama-Rama'... he was advised, to try “Mara-mara” and the phonetic-sequence got transformed into the right version 'Rama-Rama' over a period of time... !!! So, it was not 'exactly' about actions, but the intent behind it... And, there was indeed some design, a clandestine one, that took care of the co-hesiveness of the individual wishes, to remain aligned with the 'cosmic-wish' and effected necessary corrections, when the imbalance was likely to undergo an intolerable-tilt!

It was time to take a look at what yet-another-science tells about the effectiveness of our own 'choices-of-wishes'!.. And some of the wishes 'take-shape' only during the next time, meaning, the whole structure undergoes a change at its very 'base-form' to actualise the wish!

Yes, astrology, with all its unreliability, inevitability, doubts, confusions, and above all, the proverbial-unpredictability!

Wish for lot of power around you--- and we get re-located near a thermal-power station, or still worse, near those huge massive transformers, as a humble watchman with a 12-hour-duty (for 'want' of a reliever often, but ... nature ordained that 'may your wish be granted')... Now, any neurological problem is 'Brother, you asked for it!!'

Wish for lots of cash in our hands, and we end up as a Bank-cashier! Keep counting till you retire, and before leaving, liquidate the debts with terminal benefits!

But, now...

did we 'exactly' wish for 'Mobile-phones'?...

Somebody ... say an alien watching us from the sky above, may feel tempted to conclude... that

no matter what level of poverty/wants/hurdles of life... mobile connectivity, tele-density was high on the wish list of these humans!... Shops at vintage points quietly 'make-way' for mobile-shops.. and people wouldn't even remember 'what was there earlier?'.. At trains and buses, the brief intervals when they are not 'talking' with the mobile, they are plugging wires into their ears, listening to it, all the time! Obviously, talk time and stand-by time of these gadgets enter our wish lists!... (Some where deep within, the 'being' is silently and patiently waiting for the 'listen-time' and stand-up time of our alertness and awareness!... But, this 'being' simply does not know how to market its 'wish-want' list to us... All it can do is simply wait!... Till our own wishes are granted, grants feel fulfilled, fulfillment yields contentment, and contentment seals further-wishes!...)

By the way, the bulk of us now seem to be 'wishing' for that cherished 'good-governance'.... A wish almost thrust upon us...... as a 'shifting-pain' from ....corruption-governance to good governance.....! Are we really ready for good governance, the torture due to it--- entailing adherence to all kinds of strict rules like honest tax-payment, no favoritism, no jumping-of-queues,... etc.?....or, ... is it that a good governance is a consequence, an obvious one out of what we are and not a thing to be wished, or a want to be granted!

Wishfully yours,

psn (17th March, 2014)