22 Crossroads

Patriotism. What does it mean to us? We are the youth of the country, the supposed to be future of the nation. What do we make of these three syllables? We are the progressive section of the society, marching forward, taking India to a better and brighter future. But have we really ever paid any attention to it? Have we ever spared even a figment of our fertile imagination for the same? Let’s have a look. I am twenty one years old. That’s right, old enough to be legally married under the laws of the state. I have no future plans. My future is as directionless as India’s foreign policy. I don’t know what I want to do with my life, apart from earning money. I study in an institution that runs on the ever cherished, ever cliché taxpayers money. My tuition is subsidised. The dollar-face Lincoln says, "Ask not what your country has given you. Ask what you have given to the country". Rather than giving anything to the country, right now I am actually taking away a large chunk of th

Where does the need arise? Where is the desire born? The desire to know the meaning, to understand the realms of the so-called reality, to know the answers, to comprehend those answers and then to create meaning out of it. The greatest mysteries of life lie hidden – hidden beneath the soul. And while man reaches far and wide in search of answers, resurrecting and devouring all that lies in his way, he is too naïve to look within. For there the answer lies – the answers to the quintessential questions, plain yet profound, simplistic to the limit of being outright trivial, and yet governing the unfathomable , unreasonable method behind our madness. Why are we here? Why were we born? What makes us special? Herein lays the desire. Herein lays the hunger, the yearning – to be someone, to make a difference. How wonderful would it fly! How wonderful would it be to be invisible! How wonderful would it be to be invincible, to be able to bend space and time, to walk through walls, to hold fire i