The Harbor Line - Masked City

Looking out through the glass,

the view is not so nice

There’s an expanse of a slum

rigged in poverty, decay, and vice

It’s bigger than any he’d ever seen before

stretching out on both ends of his sight

It stretches out as far as his eyes allow him to see

only restricted when the window on the wall might

It creeps upon a hill, and still climbing up he reckons

only stopping, where the hill sees a bend

Perhaps it would go over the hill someday,

and start coming down from the other end

Humans live there, millions of them in in small huts

Disgusting to see, poverty, dust, scavengers and shit

He watches them from the 15^th floor,

easily ignorable, for he finds the sky at his feet

He can choose to see the sky, crisp blue and majestic in size

or he may gaze the hill, covered with lush green trees

Not the perfect picture, but it does have its good parts

Raising his eyes, he may choose what he sees

But he sees the slum, the millions the plight the hardships the pain

the scowls the struggle the darkness the bane

He chooses to ignore the trees the sky the birds the lights

He wakes up every day, and contemplates the plights

But, every night when he comes back home

there is no sky or hill or trees green

Darkness engulfs the area, shadowing the landscape

only a splendid array of stars to be seen

Not in the sky, for the city sky has no stars

Each little hut lights one little bulb, and that’s where the stars are

Each lighted up at night, casting out darkness from their homes

Together, lighting his nights up, leaving no trace of their scars

Each light rests against the pitch black sky

Millions of them together, stretching out on both ends of his sight

It stretches out as far as his eyes allow him to see

only restricted when the window on the wall might

It suddenly stops going up,

into the black sky his lights are lost

at nights he lives among the stars

beautiful, mesmerized, engrossed

A pleasant picture to come home to

and he comes home to it every night

to think that something so hideous during the day

can fill his heart with such delight

Perhaps that is the price of beauty

The wounds that make us bleed

they leave scars of glory to contemplate

like he likes to watch them to sleep

He contemplates his own life

his thoughts on his mind and their nitty-gritties

Looking into the glass, he sees his own reflection

and he sees himself, amidst his masked city

Vishal Gupta

21 August 2016

Gatekeeper

Solemn, silent, standing, smiling

Deep thoughts hiding behind deep eyes

Watching her from afar, taking guard

admiring, the Gatekeeper

She takes her stance every morning

Smiling at every passer-by, taking their names

Perhaps she realizes not that she

makes hundreds of beginnings with a smile everyday

I look upon her from a distance

so engrossed in her work is she

But my gaze brings her attention to me

and happily then she smiles and waves at me

Perhaps she has found a friend in me,

perhaps it’s not me but her smile she’s being honest with

perhaps she is just doing her job

hiding joys and sorrows and love and pain behind a façade

But the heart cares little for such depths right now

The heart desires just to stare at her Graceless being

A twitch of her hand when she settles her hair

A look at my eyes when she tries to find respite

Now I know better to fall for a smile,

And I’ve been a fool and I’ve been blind

I have not fallen for the damsel in front of my eyes

I only wish to sit across her and want her to pour her heat out

I wish to know what she knows and feel what she feels

I wish to know her life story and how she became what she is

I wish to know the secret behind her stance and smile

I wish to hold her hand and dance through the night

Crowds pass by her every day

Some she remembers, some remember her

but like all citizens of the modern connected world

I wonder does she feel alone in some way

Does she go back home, thankfully away from the crowd

And sit in silence away from the noise

Or does another kind of loneliness engulf her,

one you realize only when you spend time too much in a crowd

I don’t know, I only saw a girl and admired a smile

And perhaps wish to see that smile again,

and again, and again, and more, and more

Sharing the deep thoughts behind deep eyes

Coming close, for her to shed her guard

the secrets of the Gatekeeper

Vishal Gupta

3 November 2016

Being an IITian (unabashed version)

Quora Link

I graduated from IIT Kharagpur in 2013. This year I complete as many years outside those gates as I had spent in the campus. Over the course of the last four years I have met with countless people with numerous questions regarding life at IIT ranging from hushed topics like ragging, sex ratio, and Arvind Kejriwal to those which people feel are a matter of public discourse like placements, subsidies, and… well Arvind Kejriwal.

But the most persistent question of all has been this – “What was the use of studying engineering if you wanted to pursue MBA and investment banking.” And the question is asked with such animosity that I fail to understand if it is rooted in idle curiosity or mere jealousy. So that this point I wish to take it upon myself for the sake of my community I dearly love to answer this question. But before I do, let’s dig a little deeper into the question – What does it mean to be an IITian?

A much as it would surprise the world at large, I think this truth needs to be revealed for once and for all. IITians are people! Let’s read that again and think about it for a moment. IITians are people! Even those who bag Crore rupee packages, about whom reporters from Times of India (who have never heard of the term “purchasing power parity”) so gladly exaggeratedly publish. IITians are people! Including the ones who go abroad. Even those who sit next to you in the office and do the same work as you do. They do not consider themselves superior to you. They do not consider themselves inferior to you. They just consider themselves as people. While some might wonder how come a graduate from an “elite” university can live the same stereotypical average normal life as you do, it is a question that would never cross their own minds.

Take a moment to imagine life at IIT. For 4-5 years the kid is surrounded by hundreds if not thousands of people who “don the IIT tag”. It is not elite or special or high-profile. Its everyday life. For four years. It is not until that kid graduates that he realizes that there are people who consider them to be a unique breed. “So what?” he thinks. They’re people. Sadly, these “people” are incapable of seeing the other person as anything beyond an “IIT tag”. They never understand that IITs are like any other university. There were students who topped the class and there were those who were at the bottom of the class and there were those who had to repeat a year. There was a time when everyone at IIT was confused about where to go with their careers. And most kids there opt to spend the entirety of their lives in the same rat race as the majority of the world does.

By now I can almost feel the comments – “So what’s the point of IIT? Why put so much tax money in them? What’s the point if all we are going to produce are average people, people who go abroad, and what about Arvind Kejriwal?”

For starters, there’re the regular answers. The largest repository for online video lectures in the world, NPTEL with over 4k hours of content, 69k subscribers, and 44.7M hits. While the cynics focus on Arvind Kejriwal IITs have produced alumni of irrefutable repute like Narayan Murthy, Sachin and Binny Bansals, Sundar Pichai, Manohar Parrikar, Raghuram Rajan, Pranav Mistry, Vinod Khosla, (pause for breath) Kiran Bedi, Jairam Ramesh, Rajat Gupta, Arunabh Kumar, Biswapati Sarkar, Nandan Nilekani, and these are only the ones who are still alive. 270 of the Fortune 500 India companies have an IITian on their board. Lastly, a study by Zinnov Consulting shows that the investment on IITians in the last five decades ranges between Rs 20-40k Cr while the contribution by IITians to the economy is around Rs 20 lakh Cr.

But all this is numbers and theory. That’s not what people want. They need the answer to be personal. They wonder what is the point of having a colleague or competitor being an IITian if they do the same work. Actually, they do not wonder. They know with absolute certainty that he struggled unnecessarily and feel proud that they reached the same place taking a much easier path. Hence, they “won at life”, aka the rat race.

Here’s where I differ. The next time you see that IITian colleague of yours just consider his demeanor for a moment. IITians are a humble lot. Society puts them on a pedestal. They are used to living in 77 sqft boxes and showering in a common bathroom. Four years of peers who excel at things ranging from music to robotics instills humility. No matter how good I get at anything I always know a close friend who started out as the same as me and has done it better. Consider the kind of psyche such a person likely to develop. For very formative four years of his life he studied played and ate with people whom he referred to as “friends”. It was the society outside who counted them as different.

Secondly, notice if he is at ease with himself. Is he more or less open in accepting your quirks and eccentricities? Is he socially inept, rebellious, or just struggling to fit in despite his personality conditioned in those years at IIT. Think of how that would have developed. A difference between a good college and any other institution is the amount of freedom given to the students and how students use that freedom. IITs are among the ones who get that right. They not only provide their students with time and opportunity to pursue their passions but also leave no stone unturned in nurturing that passion with the right infrastructure. You like music? Here’s a sound proof room with the latest equipment. You don’t want to use the music room and take the drums to your room? Sure why not! The other kids won’t mind if you’re good enough. Ok. So now you don’t want to play drums but build an iron-man suit for the army? Here’s the money and a team of like-minded people. So you want to take a job because you lack the entre entrepreneurial spirit to sell your invention? Well, no problem. You tried honestly. Move on.

IITians are bred in an environment where we learn to be at ease with the decisions we take. Accepting ourselves for who we are. How is it in adulthood before that privilege is taken from us? Social pressures and stigma forces people to live their entire lives wearing masks. IITians are generally uncomfortable with that. We prefer to embrace our eccentricities rather than be embarrassed by them. In process, fighting the uphill battle of the social system. Of you and your animosity.

Lastly, I do acknowledge all the black sheep of my fraternity whom too many people quite callously take liberty in making fun of. But try to notice that no IITian would ever join you in making fun of them. It’s called camaraderie. Look it up. It amazes me how that concept is so lost in the lives of normal everyday people. But the next time your IITian colleague talks to you about his alma mater, take a moment to notice your own feelings. The envy isn’t because he got to go to a more famous establishment. What you feel might be envy arising out of the realization that unlike him, you never knew a time in your life when you were free to pursue your dreams, accepted for who you were, surrounded by people better than you, and yet surrounded by friends.

An IITian understands what “passion for life” feels like even though he might not feel it right now. He has known it in the past. And since he has come out of those majestic gates, he has craved to feel it again. It’s not his tag that makes you jealous. It’s his ability to love a time in his own life so dearly. Not too many people are blessed with 4 continuous years of magic.

Perhaps that was the point of being an IITian. I’m not very sure. After all I’m just a bad engineer trying to survive in the rat race. You cannot trust someone with those credentials, can you? But do watch out for me in case I’m in the same race as you. Chances are that while you were chiding me for having better shoes, I might have taken the lead.

Depression

All of us have suffered through sadness at some point or the other in our lives. Be it the death of a close family member, or a heartbreak, or failure in academics, or a bad boss, pain-in-the-ass kids, or simply the constructs of our own mind. Thing is, sadness hits everyone and everyone has a coping mechanism. Shopping, drinking, eating, sleeping, talking to a friend, sports… different things help us cope up with our emotions. But what if it goes unchecked? If we have problems in dealing with the sadness, it leads to depression. Depression isn’t exactly sadness. Sadness is a passing emotion. Depression is a constant state of being. To mark the difference, note that the funniest people around you might be the most depressed within. Humor is a coping mechanism for depression.

I have been going through a bout myself recently, and would like to share how it is. Like a person having cold doesn’t constantly sneeze, I am not constantly sad. I just fall in and out of extreme sadness spontaneously. When that hits, life slows down and becomes empty. People tell me I look at least 35, while I’m 24 right now. I constantly talk, joke, and mull about the despairs and hopelessness in the world. I usually hold back from generally accepted “fun” activities outdoors. My appetite has taken a hit. My memory, with which I once learnt the colors of all inorganic chemicals in the world, has taken a hit. I can’t seem to be able to concentrate on anything anymore. There is an apparent lack of confidence in social gatherings. And I never want to talk about what is wrong me, on the fear of being judged.

So, I pretend to be happy and excited about anything and everything. But keeping that up is a challenge and soon I start to say offensive stuff around close ones. It becomes very easy to irritate me and slowly I shove people away from myself. I find it difficult to love and care for anyone, not finding pleasure in emotional or physical intimacy. Mornings are generally dull and sad. I often put off sleeping at night just because I know that another day lies on the other end. It’s not being sad any more. It’s being indifferent.

 

Unchecked depression grows and more difficult to hide. Slowly, it becomes easier to stay depressed rather than spending the energy to fight it. I haven’t started yet but the next step is taking “medications” such as alcohol and drugs without an intent to put off depression.

Sadly, there is no real medication which helps fight depression. Things which usually work are being genuine and authentic to close ones – which is difficult for me detached from a family or friend circle. Meditation is also a big help, which is very difficult in the beginning. Because during depression the mind craves for noise and distraction, and never wants to be empty. But only the empty mind can experience the tranquility needed to subdue depression. Regular exercise such as running, swimming, sports, etc. is another great aid against depression. Again, moving out of the house for me is another big chore.

People often give me advice like “be happy” and “cheer up”. They don’t understand that this is a really shitty piece of advice. Like, they’ll say, “be happy” and I’ll be like “damn! That’s awesome! Why didn’t I think of that?” What they don’t understand is that depression is like any other medical problem and it physically hurts, often to a point where you feel that the human body was not meant for so much pain. Often, I’d have anxiety attacks where the world would go black and I’d suddenly go into a panting sprint. It happens suddenly. Like I’d be walking down the road and suddenly I’d start heaving, and I know that it’s hit. My breathing would become shallow and my brain would stop working and the only thing I’d be able to do in that moment would be to concentrate on breathing. Find a bench, chair, or sit on the road side and just breathe till I get back to “normal.” Everyday tasks such as making breakfast or doing the dishes becomes a challenge. Life grows boring, like a 10 season show on Star Plus you have absolutely no interest in. And for the unproductive time I was wasting, I felt guilty. Mirrors become a problem. I started hating the face I saw in the mirror. I hated every breath that I took. The future becomes hazy and it becomes difficult to plan events for me.

Depression hinders with the sleep schedule. It can seriously mess it up. Over time I’ve experienced insomnia (not being able to sleep), hypersomnia (sleeping too much and not wanting to leave the bed), sleep paralysis (the closest thing you’ll ever experience to death), and lucid dreaming (not bad, but shouldn’t happen unintentionally among normal people).

People often respond by explaining “real problems” to me. How kids are starving in Africa (somehow it always starts with that), or how they faced real struggle of poverty and starvation in “their time”. Somehow this is supposed to make me feel better, as my problems aren’t marginally as bad as theirs were. People tell the dumbest things. As if they have the right to decide what I should be depressed about. It doesn’t help, but only adds to the guilt. It basically leads to a state of loneliness and helplessness, with no recourse.

So what do you do in such a state? The first step to solving a problem is acknowledging that it exists. It takes an immense amount of courage to be able to say to yourself, “I’m depressed. I need help.” You need to say it to yourself. And then you need to say it to someone else. “Happiness is within yourself.” That’s bullshit. Happiness is within you only as long as you’re happy. Else it’s a struggle. Get help. Get a friend. Get your family.

There isn’t really much advice I have for the people who are depressed. But for those of us who aren’t, I need to say this. We live in an increasingly depressed world full of competition and crowds that make one feel very lonely. Look out for signs if a co-worker or family member or friend might be depressed. Call upon any friend you haven’t heard for in a long time. Connect! Perhaps you can save someone.

A Moment Frozen In Time

Silent echoes of a moment frozen in time

Beckon to me memories left behind

What werest thou, O love of mine

Were you my bane of existence

or were you my shrine

Never before hath I loved so wild

never had I ever fallen so blind

never hath my senses abandoned me so

never could I ever have loved you O more

Remembering the time, when your skin was on mine

Looking deep in your eyes, I could see them smile

Angel face that yours, invited me to glare

Flesh, thoughts, soul, had all I bared

That soft touch of your gentle lips

The sound of your heartbeats, their rises and dips

Your raspberry voice you calling my name

My gentle caresses, to please my dame

Memories, reappearing like the morning dew

of nights when I fell asleep against you

or of the fights we used to have

come to think of it, they weren’t so bad

My princess you were, my angel my queen

my Goth my love my days my dreams

My first thought of the day, my last goodnight

My light in the dark, my will to fight

For I never grew tired of that pretty face of yours

Like a personification of beauty as Keats wrote

Yet your strength was what I admired the most

So much in beauty, but not a bit otiose

For each time you were hurt

you came out stronger than before

for every time I saw you bleed

I couldn’t help but kiss you more

And each of those kisses today

haunt me as reminders of days that were

And I think of times when I truly lived

and of times that never truly were

Glowing soft gentle skin of yours

I yearn to graze and gaze it both

Muzzle, supple, graceful motions

to calm sleep of magical potions

Silent frozen echoes beckon

Haunting me at dusk and dawn

And as I stand at the Reaper’s entrance

I ask if you my bane of existence

or were you my deliverance

Vishal Gupta

5 April 2016

Mumbai