Words of silence: True story

The other day, while on a local bus, I realized a thing.

It was just another scorching summer day in Delhi. After waiting for over 15 minutes for a not-so-frequent bus service, I felt blessed to have got a seat at least. Beside me, a man made frantic gestures with the hand communicating with another man sitting in front of him. I instantly knew he couldn't speak sadly. I moved to a seat in the adjacent row to observe him. He used a zillion hand movements, some amusingly colourful and some plain-to convey all that for which we need words. I could see the eyes -flinching, opening up, stern, relaxed-all set that one could do with them. The man in front of him acknowledged and occasionally retaliated with little gestures. He seemed like describing an event which he narrated as smoothly as we speak with the crutch of words. I was simply in awe with how expressive a person can get without uttering a single word. I didn't get a slight drift of what the story was but I knew the description was vivid and full of life. I found myself an some others staring at him at times, in amazement. It is that time when you realize how lucky you are to be blessed to have speech. And no matter how many such movies you see , you realize the awe when such special expressive people confront you in real time. After a while, he signaled the other one for destination station and left the bus. He left me with a thought: Do we need words to express. No, I guess.Sometimes, silence can speak and speak better..

Isn’t Ambition same as greed??

 ‘Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.’ A line of thought that did rounds in 2011 centered around the death of iconic Steve Jobs. Quite a fillip for the ambitious crowd! But another line of thought, a rather spiritual one, has always focussed on contentment. To stay satisfied with what you have and bask in its happiness. As I write now, the fine line that separates ambition and contentment remains the perplexing issue.

If being content is suppressing ambition, not wanting more-then contentment is futile. And if contentment is mere suppression of greed, the question that arises is- how are the two entities AMBITIOUS and GREEDY different. Just that the former is seen in good light and the latter is an evil cousin? Or that being ambitious is having bigger aims and having greed is having bigger fantasies? I see no difference. The literal sense only obfuscates the issue. Both are quite synonymous with their intents- attaining A GOAL.


So, What one  should be? Content? Ambitious?For me, one can’t be both content and ambitious at once. If you are content with the present scenario, you will never be that hungry (read: ambitious) for your future goals. As the whole world propagates to strike a balance between the two, I am skeptic if such a state exists.

Its a tough call to pick one. Its infeasible to pick both.
Dilemma remains.