Transporting a motorcycle in India

When I wanted to transport my motorcycle from Bangalore to my home in Patiala, I learnt a lot about the options, pitfalls and procedures required in doing so. This article documents my findings so that they may be useful to people in future.

There are three main options:

1. Ride the motorcycle to your destination.

This is the simplest (and the most inconvenient: distance from Bangalore to Patiala is around 3000km) of options and one must consider a number of factors:

a. Even though the ride may be an experience to cherish, do consider that you may only safely be able to do 300-400 kms in a single day. Even on a good stretch of the highway, doing beyond 90-100kmph is not recommended.

b. Riding on Indian highways is not going to be a smooth and safe affair. Most highways in India are not made for prolonged cruising. Many of them may be under various stages of construction. Riding in the rain is ok but one has to be very careful since apart from the loss of traction, visibility will also suffer (if you are wearing eye protection, as you must). Riding at night should be a strict no-no as the oncoming vehicles’ high-beams all but blind you, especially if you are wearing some kind of eye protection (which you must, anyway, on a motorcycle). Be extremely wary of sudden speed bumps (especially when approaching towns) and unexpected potholes.

c. Factor in the cost of petrol, of overnight hotel stays, of the wear and tear of the bike (especially tires), etc.

d. Motorcycles do not have spare tires with them (unless you make special provisions). Other breakdowns may also happen. A breakdown on a desolate stretch of the road will present difficulties. You may be able to hitch a ride (along with your broken down bike) on a passing truck to the next service station but obviously it is going to be very tricky (especially if you do not know any Indian languages). Also, if you are riding an Enfield, most run-of-the-mill mechanics will not be able to do justice to even simple troubleshooting on the bike. You will have to engage an Enfield specialist.

e. If you are transporting a lot of luggage (or even a moderate amount of luggage along with a pillion passenger), this option is useless. Usually a pillion passenger is good to have (in case of trouble), but if you are carrying a hefty backpack (as you would be, on a long ride), it would be almost impossible to also carry a passenger (he/she will be having her own luggage as well). A luggage rack which can take a backpack or two will be extremely useful in this case. You can get one attached to the sissy bar of your bike for Rs100-200 at a spare parts store.

f. You can however, engage a cargo company to transport your luggage via surface vessels while you ride your bike. The charges are usually reasonable (from Bangalore to Chandigarh, DTDC Cargo, one of the top courier/cargo companies in India, quoted me Rs 45 per kg). For luggage, the cargo company will be liable for loss or damage, so make sure you mention the value of the goods on the cargo hand-over form.

g. Carry all papers with you when you ride your bike, i.e.: Registration, license, insurance, and your passport, if applicable.

2. Transport the bike on a truck.

This is a viable option, but again consider a number of factors:

a. You can engage a trucking company yourself (go for one which has a big enough fleet and has experience in transporting two-wheelers). This will be cheaper by about 50% than engaging a logistics/cargo company but obviously you will have to forego dedicated personnel, door-to-door transportation, professionalism, call center support on the whereabouts of your vehicle etc. Also, the cheaper the trucking company’s rates, more is the probability that your vehicle will suffer damage due to careless handling. Most often, the headlight/side-indicators/fuel-tank suffer damage. Almost without exception, some parts of your vehicle will be dented/scratched. Loading a vehicle onto a truck is not a smooth affair unless there be special inclined loading crates etc. and since the bike will be juxtaposed between a lot of varied cargo (some may even sit on top of it), cosmetic damage to the vehicle is inevitable.

b. You can engage one of the cargo companies (especially GATI, which has a good reputation for reliability and quality). They will pick up the bike from your doorstep and take care of everything except packing the bike properly with gunny sacks and padding. Most Indian cities have a GATI branch. Their website (as of today) is useless so you have to call their call center numbers to get information about your vehicle, their fees and charges etc. From Bangalore to Patiala, they quoted me around Rs 2700 for an Enfield 350cc motorcycle.

c. You will have to get the bike securely packed with padding and gunny-sacks. You can just go to the train station and have it packed there and have the cargo company pick it up from there, or if you are directly dealing with the trucking company, usually they have packers moving around from where the trucks leave.

d. In any case, the trucking/cargo company will not be liable for damages to your vehicle. According to them, your vehicle’s insurance will cover any damage. Do make sure, however, that your insurance policy covers transportation of the vehicle in a third-party vessel. Also, since usually there is a deductible in case of damage, and replacing parts on your vehicle is always painful, and the insurance claim won’t take care of scratched parts, I wasn’t very charmed by this safety net.


3. Transport the bike on a train.

This is the option I exercised, and despite some inconveniences that I suffered, I recommend this option.

There are two ways to ship something on a train: as luggage or as a parcel. To book something as luggage means you must be traveling on the same train, to book something as a parcel means the railways will take care of figuring out which train to use to send your stuff as cargo. In case of parcels, it may take 2-3 weeks for your stuff to turn up at the destination and only a personal contact (or some bribe) in the railway parcel office will ensure that you know which train is going to carry your vehicle. The rates for railway cargo are in three slabs: Ordinary, Mail/Express and Rajdhani. As is evident, the rates are according to the speed of the train. Rajdhani trains are the fastest trains in India (usually originating/destined-for Delhi). Choose only M/E or Rajdhani, do not choose Ordinary, unless you have a masochistic streak in yourself. The quality of the personnel handling the trains and their cargo is directly proportional to the speed and reputation of the train line.

For booking your vehicle as a parcel:

a. Go to the parcel booking office on the railway station one day prior to the actual day when you want to let go of your bike, and find out about transport charges, packing charges, expected time of arrival of your bike at the destination etc.

b. Get your bike’s registration and insurance papers photocopied and carry them with you the next day.

c. The next day, make sure you carry a pen and a felt-tip marker pen with you. The marker pen is required if the packers don’t have one and you have to prepare an identifying plate to be put in front of your bike.

d. Next day, take the bike to the parcel office so that only a miniscule amount of petrol remains in it (say 200ml). The railways insist that the bike be “dry” of fuel when it is consigned to them but a little bit of petrol is tolerated as you will need it to ride it from the destination railway station to the nearest petrol pump. Remove the bike’s papers from the bike’s compartment and keep them with you.

e. Get the bike packed by one of the packers who will approach you for this job. Expect to pay around Rs 120-150. Remove the bike’s rear-view mirrors (the packers will usually do this on their own) and have them packed between the handle bars and the headlight assembly. Have the bike securely packed and have the packer attach a metal label to the front of the bike detailing the owner, origin, destination, the bike’s license plate number and the current date.

f. Go to the parcel clerk and have the bike booked. Take the receipt. Declare the value of the bike as per your convenience. Up till a value of Rs 10,000, there are no extra charges. Beyond that, the insurance charges are extra 1% of the declared value. It is not a big issue and it is upto you. If the bike is lost (e.g. the train suffers an accident etc., railways will only pay you the declared value of the goods, obviously) On the parcel form, mention the bike’s engine and chassis number as well as the fact that it is packed and free from fuel.

g. Go home and plan the rest of your journey.

For booking your vehicle as luggage:

a. The day prior to your journey, go to the luggage booking office (this is separate from the parcel office) and have a look around.

b. The next day, get a photocopy of your bike’s registration and insurance (as many copies as there are legs in your journey, one copy for each leg), a copy of each of your train tickets, a pen and a felt-tip marker pen and go to the luggage office about 3 hours prior to the train’s scheduled departure time, with a miniscule amount of fuel (200ml or so) still remaining in the bike. You can either carry the rest of the luggage with you at that time itself or go back to your hotel and get it to the train station after the bike is booked (that’s what I did, since one has to go around quite a bit for getting the bike packed and to move it onto the proper platform where the train is going to arrive).

c. Get the bike packed as detailed in the previous section on booking it as a parcel.

d. Get the bike booked as luggage for your journey. Once again, declare the value of the bike as you would like to. The minimum amount, which is Rs 10,000 does not attract any extra charges. Take the luggage receipt, and the endorsement on your train ticket and keep the two securely. You will need both to get the bike back. If you have a journey which involves multiple legs, it is my understanding that you will have to book the luggage again at each leg.

e. Once the bike is booked, make sure it is moved to the right platform where the train is scheduled to arrive. You may have to pay the person in-charge of moving the bike to that platform something like Rs 50 or Rs 100 to do so, even though it is his job.

f. Wait for the train. When it comes, make sure the bike is loaded (the railways’ own porter will load the bike and will expect around Rs 20 to Rs 50 as his “fee”). If you contact that porter beforehand, he can do this without you being present at the loading carriage but it doesn’t hurt to take a look if the bike is parked securely in the carriage.

g. Have a pleasant journey and arrive at the destination station.

h. Go to the luggage release office / parcel office (usually near platform number 1) and get the gate-pass prepared after surrendering your luggage booking receipt and a copy of your train ticket. You will have to show the original ticket with the luggage endorsement as well.

i. Go back to the platform and get the bike handed over to you by whoever is in charge there (again expect to pay around Rs 50 to Rs 100 for getting the bike released).

j. Take the bike out of the station and park it in the two-wheeler parking if you are breaking your journey at this station for a couple of days, or get it re-booked for the next leg. If you are breaking the journey, re-book it when you come back to board the train for the next leg and follow steps c to f.

Sometimes, when the train stoppage at a station is only 2 minutes or so, the luggage can’t be booked for that station (since there won’t be time to get it unloaded). I’m not sure if you can negotiate the luggage booking for such a station with the luggage booking office but in the worst case, if you are unable to get it booked for your destined station, book your bike for the previous major stop, complete your journey to your planned destination and then go back the same day or the next morning to the previous major stop (on a bus or taxi) and get the bike released and ride it to your destination (hopefully the two stations won’t be too far apart!). Make sure you carry your original ticket, a copy of it and the luggage booking receipt with you when you go to get it released. It is once again my understanding that leaving your booked luggage at the platform is permissible free-of-charge for something like 24-48 hours, after which it attracts extra charges.

For me, the main complication was that I was alone and carrying a lot of extra luggage with myself in the train and moving around the train station to the various offices with all that baggage was not convenient (if I used porters, each trip was Rs 100 to Rs 200; if I chose to keep the luggage at one place, I had to find someone to keep an eye on it). There are many ways to make this situation easier. If you are coming to the station in a taxi, keep the luggage in the parked taxi and come back to take it when all the formalities of the bike booking are over. If you are disembarking from a train and need to go to the luggage office, have one of your fellow passengers take care of your luggage on the platform while you take care of getting the gate-pass for the bike, or have a porter guard your luggage after you note down his badge number (I am not exactly comfortable with the last option as the value of your luggage may be more than an year’s salary for the porter but it did work for me). In each case, carry your valuables and papers with yourself in a small backpack etc. so that even if the worst happens and your luggage disappears, at least you are not totally helpless. You can also book your luggage in the cloak room on platform 1 provided each piece of luggage is securely locked.

I had to carry my motorcycle from Bangalore to Patiala, with a three day stop in New Delhi. I did not have any problems in booking the bike in Bangalore for Delhi. After I booked the bike, I went back to my place and brought my luggage to the train station. The journey from Bangalore to Delhi was un-eventful. I was mindful of the problems awaiting me at Delhi and I befriended a fellow passenger who was also to disembark at Delhi. At Delhi, I asked him (he had to wait a couple of hours for his connecting train) to keep an eye on my luggage as I got the gate pass for my bike.

I was the victim of a small scam while getting my gate pass. The clerks told me that I had to pay an extra Rs 100 as “delivery charges” for my bike. I told them that I had paid whatever I was asked to at the Bangalore station but they said the delivery charges hadn’t been paid. They asked for Rs 100 (the round figure should have made me suspicious, but I was in a hurry since my friend was waiting for me) and even issued me a receipt for the Rs 100 (God knows what kind of receipt it was, but they made everything sound quite official. Maybe it wasn’t a scam after all, but when I later booked my bike from Delhi to Patiala, I specifically asked if I had to pay “delivery charges” and nobody had heard this term!!).

Once I got the gate pass, I came back to get my luggage, thanked my friend profusely, hired porters to carry the luggage and went to get my bike. I had to pay Rs 50 to a policeman to get the bike released. I then wheeled my bike to the two-wheeler parking just outside the station (on platform number 12, since the luggage booking office is on platform 12 and I had to again book my bike for the next leg three days hence) with the porters in tow. I parked my bike, took the parking receipt, took a taxi and went off.

Then came back in a taxi three days later, asked the taxi driver to wait with my luggage in the taxi while I took care of booking the bike at the luggage office. That took more than two hours (I did not have a photocopy of the registration, did not have a metal info-plate on the front of my bike (since that was not asked for in Bangalore, and in any case I would have had to get a new one for this leg since the origin/destination were different), the luggage booking guys were grumbling that the stoppage at Patiala was only two minutes and I would have to book my bike only till Ambala but then they found out that actually the stoppage was 5 minutes and they relented on their own!). I booked the bike, asked the porter to transfer it to the correct platform but he dithered, saying that lots of other bikes were also waiting and I couldn’t insist that the bike be carried on the train on which I was traveling (I think he was bluffing, but I didn’t have the time to argue, as my taxi driver was still waiting for me). I paid him Rs 150 and he immediately sprung into action, and started to wheel the bike.

The Delhi luggage booking offices are a big mess, to put it mildly. I left my bike there while I went to get the registration photocopied, to get the metal identification plate made etc. and I was wary that my bike might disappear from there (since it hadn’t yet been consigned to the railways and therefore was still my responsibility). Fortunately, nothing happened; and even though I had walk about 3km here and there (the photocopier is way outside the train station, the id-plate makers are somewhere else and so on…) finally I was able to get the job done.

I went back to the taxi, hired porters to take my luggage to the platform, reached the platform, asked one of them to wait with my luggage (I told him I’d pay him Rs 50 to load my luggage in the train compartment) and went around to search for my poor bike. Unpleasant surprise! It was parked on a different platform than on which my train was supposed to arrive. Enough! I decided to take matters in my own hand. I took the bike and wheeled it to my platform and parked it next to my baggage. About 15 minutes before the train was supposed to arrive, the railway porters appeared out of nowhere and said they had been looking all over for my bike. I told them in a somewhat harried tone that they had parked my bike at the wrong platform and I had to personally wheel it to this one. Well, not even a word of apology! They took the bike from me and said they would take care of loading it.

The train arrived, I had the porter load my baggage, paid him off, and went towards the luggage carriage to check my bike out. (Note: once the baggage is loaded in an air-conditioned compartment, with other passengers being there, it is quite safe to go out of the train and check things out, in my opinion. But to be safer, have one of the passengers keep an eye on your baggage). Sure enough, the bike was loaded alright; to make a long story short, I just paid the loading porter Rs 50 and went back to sit in my compartment, exhausted.

Reached my destination station. There my parents were present to receive me and so there were no complications at all.

Mission accomplished. The charm in India is that even routine things like this take domain expertise.

The mind of a criminal

A criminal is one who does not respect the laws of society.

Every criminal knows that he is breaking the law. Still he does it. He has no respect for the law. He lives by his own rules.

The laws of society operate to keep the animal instincts of seeking unbridled pleasure and of malice towards one's fellow humans under check.

The feeling of being wronged, of being unjustly treated gives rise to disrespect for the laws. If the laws are against "me", why should "I" respect them? An unfair society ends up in a spiral of increasing crime and corruption.

The more corrupt a society, the more fervent the value-instilling machinery. How else can one explain the thousand and one spiritual, moralistic teachers but as the agents of righteousness in a thoroughly criminal society such as India?

The "I" has unlimited capacity for self-aggrandisement and hedonism. When that capacity is thwarted by society, thence arises the criminal tendency.

It is futile to build a so-called just world by outward adjustments. There is resentment in almost every human being towards the way the universe treats him. No matter how equitable the distribution of wealth, there will always be a lot amongnst us who will be jealous of another's wife or husband, of another's skills, of another's attitude towards life.

The normal man, the one who is afraid, is jealous of the successful as well as the criminal. His jealousy takes the form of flattery and resentment towards the successful, and hate and violence (and sometimes adulation of courage) towards the criminal.

From childhood till old age, the struggle to get pleasure is met by fierce competition and hostility. And if a man thinks that he can avoid getting caught, or if the social morality is not deep enough in him, he will try all manner of tricks to please and sustain himself.

It is only fear, or an instilled sense of morality, that deter a man from committing a crime.

If a society fails at instilling fear, instilling values and morality is considered the next best option. Morality works through the feelings of guilt.

The criminal is one who has manages to thwart both his fear and his guilt. He commits his crime furtively, fearful of punishment, but brave enough to risk it.

The lesser the fear, or the conditioning, the greater the capacity for crime.

As most morality coexists with religion, is it a surprise why atheist (e.g. the communist) regimes are so totalitarian? If guilt has no other foundation than morality, and if morality only works with a sense of absolute good (a.k.a religion), then instilling fear is the only other option, no?

The institutions of society are designed to instill this fear and conditioning in man. As children, we are wont to indulge ourselves, and to expect others to oblige us. But as we grow older, we realize that people tolerate our tantrums and selfishness less and less. We learn to temper our instincts. This social conditioning exists not just in man. In various species of animals, aggression is met with aggression, ambition is met with violence, and so on.

Now there are many ways to achieve pleasure for oneself. Those whom circumstances favour find themselves flush with money and influence, and for them, it is important that the others follow the established laws so as not to threaten their own position of power.

The subservient amongst us try to succeed by following the rules and the instilled morality, and so few of us succeed that way. The instilled morality makes sure that we don't try radical means of upsetting the power structure.

There is a difference between an unfair system and a corrupt system. Systems are unfair if the laws are geared towards serving the powerful. Unfair systems may very well be law-abiding systems. (Consider the capitalist system). Corrupt systems are those in which breaking of laws is rewarded, not punished. (consider the political system in India).
...

After a certain age, the fear of punishment overtakes the enthusiasm of taking risks, because the organism loses the energy to start afresh. The cost of censure and punishment rises in proportion with the cost of starting afresh in life.

Children are not punished harshly. We recognize that their conditioning is not yet deep enough, and so their animal instincts may as yet be forgiven.

The criminal is a failure for society, and as such he is a danger. Such men must be made examples of.
...

What happens to the psyche of a normal enough man if he is caught for something that he considered aberrant but safe enough to try?

There is a whole kaleidoscope of different emotions. A little guilt, a little remorse, a little regret (that he should have been more careful not to get caught), a little learning about what (and how) he should try in future, a little shame, a little fall from grace (which can be covered up with bravado and boasting), a little self-justification (how can one ever admit that one was wrong?), a little cover-up of oneself, a little bit of denial (was it really wrong?), a little bit of resentment towards the ones who caught one, a little bit of ridicule and abuse towards the more moral (those cowards!), a little bit of feeling a hero (one tried something risky, didn't one?), a little bit of sadness, maybe anger towards someone who was an agent of discovery (voluntarily or inadvertently) (what a snitch!), a little bit of rebellious talk against the established order, a little bit of trying to make the best of a bad situation (pleading, manipulating, showing sorrow, expressing that one has been wronged, cunningly trying to win the sympathy of others, lying, ...), ...

Oh what an entity the self is! It is the wonder of wonders.

Does one need to watch a movie or to read a novel, if one knows how to read oneself and one's fellow humans?

Truth is stranger than fiction, indeed.

On Bollywood

This monologue meanders through various psycho-social aspects of
Indian cinema at present. Yesterday I saw a contemporary Hindi movie,
Salaam Namaste. This movie, is in many ways, a representative of the
current neurosis gripping the metropolitan crowd.

However firstly, I would like to talk about three of my favourite
movies from Hindi cinema.

1. Ardh Satya: It is Govind Nihalani's first movie about the impotence a man suffers when he joins the machinery of society. A sub inspector in Bombay, having grown up in a violently patriarchal family is unusually sensitive about justice, fairness and respect for the common citizen. As he observes the injustice and cruelty of the urban landscape, and as he forms a relationship with a woman (a college teacher), he inwardly disintegrates and moves towards disaster, personally and professionally.
   
   
2. Woh Chhokri: It is a TV production starring Pallavi Joshi and Om Puri in which a poor girl, a disowned daughter of a career politician gets bounced around in society, to one exploiter after another, and finally is killed at the orders of her own father.
   
   
3. Ye woh manzil to nahin: Three old ex-freedom fighters get together in the twilight of their lives to see the mayhem of student activism in modern India. They strive for redemption, suffering from a distant guilt about having betrayed a friend; and achieve it in a strange way after trying unsuccessfully to save an honest student leader from death.

As one can see, the three movies weave the tapestry of individual
lives in the context of the larger socity and the culture of the
times. All three can be called tragic movies, in that they offer no
hope for man, but all three are triumphant in that they show how an
individual can cease to resign to life-threatening pressures and
maintain one's integrity. Even though the individuals are common and
suffer from human frailities, a glimpse into their psyche's offers one
the unique privilege of learning about the pressures of modern life.
...

These movies were not mainstream movies. To contrast them to the
the current mainstream movies is useful to show what entertainment
and a movie-going experience means to the modern crowd.

I will state my observations aphoristically, since I am more
comfortable with this mode of communication.

Today's movies are made for consumption, not for contemplation.

As one of my friends put it, today's movies are made for kids and
adoloscents, not for adults.

In the angst of modern city life, of the unending pressures and
nervous tensions, one craves for relaxation and unwinding. The
escapes in a modern city are made for that purpose.

Today's movies do not portray the reality of life. They portray a
dream world. And as the reality becomes more and more bitter, these
movies are more and more successful.

As India's culture and familial structures suffer from a crisis of
values and conformity, either a joint family is celebrated, or
unusually sensitive and friendly parents are depicted, or the family
is ignored altogether in the depiction of a superficial freedom.

Freedom to live as one wants is not the same as freedom from one's
background and instinctual behaviour. Audiences love to see the
traditions and instincts in action, but with a much greater focus on
the individual.

The bodies of the actors and actresses of yore were not perfect.
Today the heroes have sculpted bodies and the actresses have gone into
the nether-world of moden make up.

As the story and the psyche of the characters becomes uninteresting,
to hold the interest of the audience, clothes, cars and toys, locales
and artificially-manufactured comic situations have to be introduced.

Indian cinema heavily plagiarizes from the western movies. Some of
the greatest Hindi movies have been rip-offs and a melange of various
western soaps and movies.

As Indian movies are now shot almost exclusively on foreign locations,
this is another level of escape from the hideousness of the Indian
landscape. Right outside the theatre, one can find blind beggars,
children wearing dirty rags, and piles of garbage. What contrast!

In such movies there is a patetic show-off of the lifestyle of the
west as well as that of the rich living a western lifestyle in India.
There is nothing wrong with western lifestyle, but isn't there a
psychological reason it is sold in media to the masses in poor
countries?

Individuation and personal idiosyncracies becomes more pronounced in
the characters in such movies because people themselves crave for a
recognition and appreciation of their whimsical selves.

Today's movies trivialize thought and depth. Attitudes and narrow
visions are celebrated rather than seen as detrimental to harmony.

As in the daily life we become more and more powerless, politically
and socially (voluntarily or otherwise), power-plays in individual
relationships become more pronounced and the only evidence of our free
will.

Repetition is a routine feature of comic relief in Indian movies. A
mannerism or a particular turn of phrase (either in a kid or in an
adult) becomes the cue for laughter. Representative examples of this
technique are the role of the servant in "Maine Pyar Kiya", of the
Sikh child in "Kuch Kuch Hota Hai" and of the Crocodile Dundee in
"Salaam Namaste".

Repetition of a particular turn of phrase or mannerism is considered
something which would make a hero/heroine identifiable, but it ends up
making him into a caricature.

And of course, the western standards of physique, facial features and
skin colour are all pervasive in our media. Aquiline noses, blue
eyes, extremely fair skin, prominent jawline in the male, shaved
chests for the male, toned muscles, thin bodies for the female and so
on.

Predictably, therefore, the present-day movies, portray the deep
inferiority that Indians have towards their own selves, bodies and
intellect.

The greatest Indian movies, according to me, are those which are
stories about human beings living in India, whose individuality comes
in sharp focus not because they possess superficial attitudes, but
because they are unable to be mass humans, conforming neither to the
western standards nor to the eastern. Ray's Apu Trilogy and "The
Middleman" and Mrinal Sen's social commentaries come to mind.

Today entertainment is mass-produced in the sense it is adjusted to
cater to what the masses want. And as being a mass man is abhorrent
to me because it would make me accept a set of beliefs (whether
eastern or western) and conformant behaviour patterns, I rejoice in
alternative cinema.

The Pioneers

The discontented are the pioneers of the world. They, who refuse to
take the roads well travelled and instead choose to explore, in various
ways, the way to lasting peace and happiness.

Since my childhood, I have had the good fortune of meeting many people
who could not agree to a conformant life and instead were deeply
affected by the problems of the world and chose to alter the course of
their life in order to find a solution to the fundamental problems of
life.

Going through one cataclysm after another, belonging to one group
after another, following one philosophy after another, becoming
entrenched in the struggles for existence, breaking down at times,
carrying on despite the pressures to conform and to settle down,
withstanding the ostracism of their peers, choosing to give up the
superficial comforts of a secure existence... they had the potential
to be the pioneers of Humanity.

Every person on earth thinks about life and happiness. But these
people chose certain courses of action that required effort, turmoil
and uncertainty.

They, despite the different creeds that they temporarily belonged to,
shared the intensity to seek and find.

Many of them, having been born in India, adopted a particular
spiritual sect. Many of them became disenchanted and lost, confused
and directionless. Many of them suffered doubt, cynicism and a loss of
hope and energy. The instinctual pressures of loneliness, of sexual
desire, of the struggle for financial security, and the entrapments of
authority led us through valleys of despair, of a frittering away of
our vital years, of going around in circles hoping for a breakthrough.

Most of us gave up. Many of us settled down in comfortable careers,
in a familial existence, with the related pressures and
responsibilities, not having broken inwardly through the wall of
discontent.

I had a friend in school, a financially poor boy. He had the vision
of a peaceful society, howsoever misguided. When we all sat for our
matriculation examination, he saw some fellow students cheating and
being helped by the invigilators who were supposed to stop them. He
stood up and complained. But the corrupt invigilators charged himself
of cheating and threw him out. His life broke down after that. He
became a recluse, a drug addict and was finally hospitalized after
many years, close to death. I came to know of his story many years
later when it was too late...

I had another friend in college, who became involved in the Hare
Krishna movement for individual enlightenment. He became conditioned
with their beliefs. He went to the USA to earn money, could not
reconcile his spiritual beliefs with the capitalist society, but
didn't have the courage to leave it all (because the cost was too
high), became an experimenter with drugs, sex and anti-social
behaviour. He became bitter and cynical, and finally reconciled
himself to a personal failure in his quest, and gave up.

One could say that such people did not have the courage to go all the
way, that they got scared and gave up... But this loss of their
pioneering spirit, and their defeat, is a loss for all humanity.
Humanity extracts a heavy cost for being different and this is what is
tragic.

Then there were others who became deeply entangled into some sect,
gave up their careers and families, but could not find what they were
looking for.

When I remember those friends, I remember the first line of
"The Howl" by Allen Ginsberg:

"I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness"

And then the last lines:

"with the absolute heart of the poem of life butchered out of their
own bodies good to eat a thousand years."

My salutations to those who did not buckle down, and continue to
further the frontiers of human endeavour in their search for the
solutions to the pervasive and chronic problems of humankind.

After the break-up

What is involved in the breaking up of a relationship? What are the kinds of pain involved in it? How does one "move on"? How does one "get over" a relationship?

Familiarity is one of the pivots of a relationship. Initially the specifics of the other person are found charming not because there is something inherently wonderful about them, but because each piece of knowledge gained about the other person strengthens the sense of familiarity, of possession and of a facile uniqueness. Each of us is different in our lifestyle and idiosyncrasies, and it is adjusting, and becoming familiar, to someone else's lifestyle which gives strength to the relationship. Such adjustments, and the exclusive attention to the other person's needs and desires, can only be made if there be hope of a continued gratification of owning him/her and of the emotional security he/she provides.

Each break-up therefore is a betrayal at some level. The tacit, though ill-thought-out, understanding at the beginning of almost every relationship is "come what may, we'll stay together; we'll be for each other in the face of this hostile world." Both invest time, effort and exclusive attention with the hope that this investment will bear the fruit of pleasure, fulfillment and security. As death, the ending of a relationship is never thought about.

In each (truly loving) relationship, the other person is of the highest value in one's life. Higher than the value of one's blood relations, higher than worries about money and career, higher than one's preferences about food, music and books, higher than one's world-view. One is willing to put all at stake for the sake of the other.

As one puts the other at the centre of one's life, to the exclusion of almost everything else, the break-up introduces an emptiness and loneliess which was not there before the relationship. As more and more adjustments are made, one's thought patterns and psychic fields become more and more entwined with the other.

And why this extreme valuation of the other person? What is the nature of the gratification obtained? Why so many adjustments, sacrifices and hopes? The answer, in one word, is the self. The self within, the illusory identity, is forever lonely and separated from everyone and everything. It needs constant affirmation, sustenance and companionship to survive and to grow. It uses all that is in the world to nourish itself. It is the parasite extraordinaire. It can consume everything and still remain hungry.

...

So, each break-up is a psychic calamity. All familiarity, all adjustments and sacrifices, are left blowing in the wind in an empty desert. All hopes and dreams are blown to smithereens.

Oh, what hope that one won't have to start over! What desperate tugging at the past, to recover what is lost, to again embrace that lost and familiar entity which gave me hope in this alien world (the self is forever alien to the world), which gave me meaning, which gave me strength to do things knowing that there is now a reason to do
them...

The heart-break is an apt term for this. The identity is almost torn apart. It is as if the womb is ravaged as a baby is forcibly removed from its network of nerves, blood vessels and air and food. What is the raison d'être of the womb now? Oh, if only I could die, now that there is no meaning to my existence!

The psychic entity cannot survive on its own. As the hope fades away, it again picks up the pieces of the broken heart and looks again at the world for something new to sustain itself.

As the tentacles of the psychic self which were entwined around the other person start withering, there is depression and restlessness akin to the pre-menstrual syndrome. Oh, all this for nothing! Oh, again I have to start the cycle of hope and pain and sacrifice...

Moving on in these circumstances only means finding other objects to occupy one-self. If too many sacrifices have been made, and the emptiness is frighteningly huge, suicide as a possibility starts looming over the horizon. "I feel drained, I feel no zest for life anymore, my destiny is only pain and loss," ...

Why is moving on easier in modern times? Because the adjustments are not that huge. Because one keeps alive one's tastes, hobbies and preferences and doesn't "give up" one-self for the other. Not that this is any better in the long run. The self is not pre-eminently concentrated on any object now, it is distributing its needs. This is called having one's own space. But its loneliness, the tendency to boredom, its restlessness and a sense of meaningless still remain.

It requires further and more varied stimulation to sustain itself. That is why in modern times, having a lot of "fun" is suddenly so important.

"Binaa nijh roop ke jaane, nahin aaraamdaari hae,
Jatan kar aap ko jaano, tabhee chhoote beemaari hae."

(Without knowing what you are in reality, there is no lasting peace,
Find out what you are with great diligence, only then will the malaise cease.)