Color Color Which Color

Remember the game almost all of us played when we were kids? Color Color which Color? What fun it was!!! And lately, I have come to realize that almost all childhood games have a "hidden life lesson" or say a "hidden message" for how to play the game of life. Let us take this particular game for example-Color Color Which Color. I remember I used to like this game a lot, one of the reasons being - that we always used to run out of colors and this made us think about different colors and learn their names! Now, before we get into the "hidden message" of "Color Color Which Color" , let me explain the game. It is a game which can be played by two or more-no limits. The denner shouts out loud a color which the other players must find around them and touch it as soon as possible so that the denner doesn't catch them. If the player fails to touch that color or if caught by the denner before touching the color- then he becomes the new denner and the process continues till the time you just don't run out of colors. Now, the "hidden message"? No, not yet, but I shall explain it very soon. Before that I will talk about my sister, she is equally philosophical like me. I know, I know "philosophy" is boring and anyone and everyone is good at giving philosophical lectures :P But then just listening to philosophical talks  helps you understand ones' personality,  perception and thinking (that is what I think!). Anyway, So my sister - Keerti and I get into such discussions a lot of times and then there is no end to it. It goes on and on and then, we realize that we have ended the discussion on a competely different note than we had started it with. So coming to the point- no! not to the point of "hidden message" of "Color Color Which Color" yet-  but to the point that in one such discussions that my sister and I had, she explained a thing, which probably solved all my guilty feelings of life. She started it with some questions "what defines one's personality?", “Is it the same and never changing?" “Who defines it?"- I had no clue about the answers. So she continued - "Everyone has a different set of personality for everyone, like for example you! You are not the same Kruti as you are with parents or for that matter when you are with your friends... you are different to everyone! You are a different personality to your friends, your parents your sister and so on and so forth! Does this mean you are fake? No! No one is actually fake! No one likes to be fake. You cannot think of different SHADES of your personality to be fake! All those personalities together -is what makes you what you are. You reveal different shades of yourself to different people. You cannot be the same person everywhere! Imagine you being the same person to your parents the way you are with your friends! This explains the reason as to why there is an awkward silence and a cunning smile from your friends when they visit you at home. You need to be you in a way the situation and the people around you - demand. Or else God save you from the troubles you may face! Ah this reminds me of -no it's not the "hidden message"- just wait for some more time! 

Excited, thrilled or amazed, I don't know which word would rightly describe that feeling. The feeling we had when we were told to stage a drama in our college as a part of our Theatre subject's curriculum. We concluded that Prem Gadhvi Sir, (professor for theatre) was not joking when he said that we had to deal with every aspect of a drama - all by ourselves!!!- from story line to directing to performing. It took us one and a half month to decide just on the story line. And then script was fun but required too much of brain storming. Right from the stage of script writing, we had stepped in to the shoes of the characters to get the appropriate dialogues-to get the feel of it. Directing was another major part, which had to be done smartly. My friends came up with amusing ideas and our sir helped us with the execution of it. Believe me it is very difficult to bring a drama from papers to stage. 

That large echoing auditorium everyone standing in troops, holding their scripts, mugging up their dialogues, dressed in various costumes and waiting for their turn to use the stage for their last rehearsal was a sight that gave me an adrenaline rush!!! The day had come when we were supposed to exhibit our play. It was obvious that everyone wanted their play to be the best. The batch had come up with several themes like mime, Indian Pledge, Mystery of the lost train, Family drama and so on. You might be wondering why am I saying all this?The reason I am saying all this is to explain that- no not to explain the "hidden message" - but that our drama was a family drama in which we tried to show the expectations and emotions of various family members and the realization of their family bonding through COLORS. We had related the emotions to the seven colors of the rainbow and named our drama accordingly as "SATRANG". Then we were informed that we were the first group to perform! Hearing this my heart skipped a beat. I looked at my friends, to find some terror- but I could find only Colgate smiles returned to me. As per them it was good that our play would be the first one, we will have that "IMPACT", is what they had said. Their positive attitude made my eyes gleam with enthusiasm  As far as the acting part was concerned, I don't know there is some charm that the stage holds, each actor just forgets himself and gets into the character deeply. Every play went well and it gave us immense pleasure when people came and told us that our play was one of the best and that we acted well.So that was an end to the drama event-an event never to forget!!! 
So yeah about the-no not the "hidden message"- but the one thing I learned from our play was that everyone is made up of different emotions-colors. I feel the color white envisages all other colors, absorbs them! and hence gets its color WHITE (Peace), where as black just reflects all the colors. resulting to its color BLACK (Unrest, Fear). You need to be ready to accept any color in life in order to be at peace with life.There is a constant need to change the color of your personality as the situation and people demand or else you are OUT from the game of LIFE and then probably a denner.
Okay so where was I? The "hidden message"? Oh yes! the "hidden message"! -Common now! You are smart enough to have got it by now ;) The name of the game suggests it all...:)

Live the way you want!

There comes a time in everyone’s life where one meets a stalemate situation and has no idea how to get out of all the troubles that are happening only and only to him .You look around, and see everyone is happy and think-WHY NOT ME! Then you do some introspection and end up with the conclusion that after all, the problem lies within me and the way I am living my life and that I must try changing it a little bit. You start reading some books and do some self-improvement activities that helps you escape from your real self.  Does it work? Is it the right thing to do after all- to blame yourself and rely on books and motivational movies?

It feels so great to read something that tells us as to how should we be living our lives? Easy, isn’t it? You get tailor made solutions! What usually happens after reading? Let us see. In the beginning, it gives you immense motivation and the hope that you are capable of changing yourself and your life for better. You follow the new suggested “theory” that guarantees a better life, provided, you give your precious time to the new “theory” which has claimed to have changed people’s lives. These days, even I am in one of these phase where in I am trying to understand and explore some “theories” that might help me to understand myself and my life better. This is what happened to me, I followed the “theory” religiously with all faith in it, but then all that sincerity just faded away. It happens every time! It fades away within a month, a week, a day and sometimes the moment I am done reading such a philosophical book and put it down. Why does that happen? Why does this feeling follow us all through our lives? Why can’t we be just happy with what we have and are capable of?

The other day I was watching this movie “Tuesdays with Morrie”- adapted from a book written by Mitch Albom with the same title. It has got some of the most simple and best dialogues which tell you so many things in just about a single sentence. One of my favourite is when Morrie says “Why always be first-What’s wrong in being second?”How great it would be if all the people had the same thinking! Don’t you think all this frustration in life and WITH life comes from the fact that everyone is a part of the rat race! Everyone is just striving themselves and throwing themselves into the deep sea of stress, frustration and eventually disappointment. I would not deny the fact that somewhere even I was a part of this. But now after a bit of introspection, fortunately, I have decided to stay on the shore and enjoy my life. I don’t want to get drowned in this sea where in all I get, is suffocation. Instead I understand my capability and incapability, and do things without any expectation, because it’s the only way you can always avoid being disappointed.  The most unexpected thing happened after exploring all the self-improvement activities -- and it is that I realised one thing and I believe in that now- That in no way I can follow nor do I need to have a life-map giving me directions and instructions on how to live, and how to behave, how not to be angry ever and how to keep calm every time. For if I start doing all of that- I would not be a HUMAN anymore. Having said that, I don’t really mean that all the self-improvement activities are useless. NO! They do help in certain ways-like making you feel that after all there is a solution to every problem and the fact that life can be pretty interesting and good if perceived rightly. It gives you perception and a faith in life. No doubt about that. It’s just that you don’t have to follow each and everything that has been suggested by the “theories”. Well of course you can try some of them, but I am sure it won’t last much- for we human are not programmed to function that way. If you are able to follow it strictly, then please do accept my salute to your determination. But then, wouldn’t it get kind of robotic! I mean how can you not show anger and smile instead when you actually are burning red with anger! It just sounds so impossible and almost not human like. However this doesn’t mean that we have got the license to get angry on each and every small thing. Some people are born with the skill of controlling anger, some are not. So the point being is everyone is different.  You can’t do much about your inherent characteristic though, but then there is always a scope for improvement that comes with self realisation, which is hard to get by sitting and reading some self-improvement book. You need to experience your own bad traits in order for the self realisation and to understand that there is a scope of improvement.

No one has to change himself for the sake of it, don’t have to live the life for the sake of it, don’t have to take lot of pressure to be the best RAT in the lot. Instead he can live life peacefully and work towards changing it only and only if he really feels the need to, change it for adding quality to life, No one has to be the best student, best daughter, best friend, best wife, best husband or whatever just for the sake of being FIRST in the race. Strive for it only if you feel it, only if you want to do it. Don’t study to just PASS in exams, study to add some quality in your life, some perception to your life and eventually to add some happiness to your life. Always remember there is someone who is always ahead of you, so stop running for the finish line, instead run - to enjoy the journey.

Live the life-the way you want! or say...FEEL the life – the way u want!