The Ferrari who sold his monk
I just bought my niece a small nice barbie set house. She shook the whole world up when she saw it in the gift shop. For the next one week, there was only one thing on her mind, that pink-colored barbie house. Nothing else. She looked at videos on youtube of the same house, scrolled through Flipkart, Amazon, and clung to my shirt every time I stood in front of her.
“Buy me that barbie house na chachu. Next week you will get it for me?”, her innocent little black eyes pierced through my soul.
“Of course I will darling.”. I really thought she would just forget about it in 2–3 days though.
Question: “What do you call a male barbie?”
A barber :p.
After 1 week of procrastinating and emotional blackmail, I finally had to get it for her. She seemed happy. Really happy.
This reminded me of my own childhood. I shook down my uncle for 1 week straight until he bought me that Ak47 machine gun, a toy obviously. Then he gave me a hot wheels car and track set on his own birthday. My brother gave a set of Noddy books, and a WWE fight set next year. One year, father brought in a bat, some year he brought in an automatic truck toy. I always thought I would be really happy with such gadgets and toys when I was a kid, but somehow after some time the excitement always faded away and the toys winded up abandoned in some corners of the room. I don’t think I even have a single of them now, maybe lost somewhere.
It seems so stupid that we as humans are making one mistake collectively on a huge scale. What’s that you might ask? Let’s see.
A few years ago, I wanted to play this game NFS Most Wanted, a racing game for computers. It is one of the most famous game series developed by EA Sports. My PC didn’t have the required configuration. Worst yet, my father wouldn’t buy me an extended RAM, the game CD, and a graphic card just for the sake of gaming. Unfair. I thought of it all day. I watched gameplay videos, I looked at websites from where I could download some patch to run it on a lower configuration machine, and whatnot. One day, a friend invited me to his house to play games on his PlayStation. We played some multiplayer games, had a few snacks, at which point I asked him to hand me over the controls because I wanted to try the NFS game. His mistake he gave it to me. I stood up only after I had played for 4hours straight. I guess he slept at that time, don’t really remember, I was so much in the game. But that was it, after that, I never really felt like playing computer games anymore.
There have been so many instances in my life, and I am sure in yours as well, where we felt like we can’t be happy until we get something we had aimed for. I can’t be confident until I lose some weight, I can’t be happy until I have a closet full of branded clothes, I can’t feel satisfied until I am super-rich. These demands to the universe are so silly and child-like.
Consider this, if my niece would never have seen that barbie in the toy shop, would she still be unhappy that she doesn’t have a barbie?
If my friend would never have told me about that NFS game, would I still longe to upgrade my PC to play that game?
Now, my goal is to have a solo visit to the Himalayan valleys and meet the Himalayan masters, if they exist. I think I can’t be happy until I do that XD.
Has someone hurt you in the recent past? Has someone hurt you a long time ago? Has it already happened and ended in the past or is it still happening? Does it make sense to fret about it then?
It takes a brave soul to ask such questions and a braver one to answer them honestly. Decide which one you are.
Moral of the story: Don’t take your niece near any toy shops :)
Rajat Upadhyay
If I could start again a million miles away. I would keep myself, I would find a way.
