"I want to die at a hundred years old with an American flag on my back and the star of Texas on my helmet, after screaming down an Alpine descent on a bicycle at 75 miles per hour. I want to cross one last finish line as my stud wife and my ten children applaud, and then I want to lie down in a field of those famous French sunflowers and gracefully expire expire, the perfect contradiction to my once-anticipated poignant early demise."

- Lance Armstrong, Its Not About The Bike

I had been toying with the idea of putting something of this sort up, but couldn't find sentences, which would capture the meaning as good as this one does. Lance Armstrong. The name was and will be synonymous to an epic fight with cancer, a surreal resurgence into life and success, a story which will be told for many years to come but will never be able to relate the true spirit that has made it.

I really only knew Lance Armstrong as a cancer survivor who won the Tour de France 7 times. I actually supported him in the last one, after which he retired. And I didn't even know what kind of cancer he won the fight against. It was stuff of legends, his story of rising up from the ruins, perhaps that is why it was never told in full detail. I didn't even know biographies of this sort existed. Of course, that was before my best friend suggested I should read the book, AND my eyes fell on it in a bookstore. It's important the word AND because I'd never have taken the trouble to look for it, as much of a book-lover I am. Its Not About The Bike changed my life.

This might sound cliche. But life just hasn't been the same since then. I actually managed to see what Lance Armstrong was really like. And the truth is, he was a normal American guy! Legends tell us about the brave way in which he fought the cancer. What they don't tell us is that in that fight, there were humane times too. He just didn't stand up and say," I'm gonna fight this" and go ahead. There were periods when he suffered and suffered badly. There were times when he felt he was losing it all and then times when he got the boost to live on through it.

He talks about his meetings with cancer patients and the way it really inspired him to fight. The book inspires us to fight on. Imagine yourself in a position when you have the knowledge that you have a fatal disease. A disease which can kill you today, may be tomorrow, a position where you've got a chance, but just A chance. Everything else seems trivial. Living looks like the gift you never ever want taken from you. Thats exactly what reading this book has done to me. It really put htings into perspective. Living is what is important, because as precious as it is, it is easily lost. And the losing is not always without pain.

Lance sort of brought a humanness into my life. Every day in the morning, I look forward to living ( except on days when exams have a priority!). And every night, I thank God for a wonderful living. At least I had a day and I know there's gonna be another one. Lance Armstrong's story is not one of legends. It needs to be treated like a normal one to give it justice. Its a story that every single person can learn from. Its a story of determination, perseverance, and the will to live. Its a story of all those times when you think you've lost all that and people in your life bring it back to you. The fight against cancer just wasn't his fight. It was the fight of almost 50 other people who were with him throughout.

I always read this book when I need the motivation to do something. The human element that Lance Armstrong has brought to it, gives me the push to go on. I do believe that this book was the very thing which was responsible for the motivation I got to get into Medicine. I don't mean to develop the need to become a doctor. I mean to study and crack an entrance considered one of the toughest there is.

And Lance Armstrong became a human being, a normal one, just like me. He wasn't one of those ultimately great people you can never even hope to idolise. I found an amazing motivational factor and a great idol. And the lines I've got there on top just capture the entire spirit of Idol.....

"Aaj Chhutti hai?"( Today is a holiday??!!)
- the words of a small child to another child, which I heard yesterday, as I was walking past them.

The innocence was spilling out of those words. In the past three weeks, we, as people have suddenly matured. Life is many ways makes us capable of living by giving us lessons, and in the past weeks we've been learning those lessons, and growing up. But, the words of this unknown child, just made me realise that there is still innocence left in this world. Innocence , whose border is made by the walls of the school and the home it lives in; outside of which is a world which does not affect it, however much it tries. The words made me smile to myself. Not just because of the essence of the sheer joy they reflected, but also because they brought back memories of my own school days, when I too, lived by this philosophy. An unexpected holiday was the best gift your school could offer, and you took it with both hands and used it to its full capacity. Things change so much, and it is ususally a few words which really make you realise that.
We, as people of the world, are so busy with trying to live on in the world, that we forget what it really is to LIVE life; we forget what we were in school, living life to fullest, enjoying every moment of it. Life to us is just about going to work every day, trying to get on in the world, not really asking ourselves what it is that we WANT from the world or from our lives. A child is so care-free. A child does not care what happens around him in the world, simply because he looks at the world through rose-tinted glasses and feels excited about its beauty, its reality and more importantly about the world itself as a whole. he feels that excitement to live on in the world, to reach where we are currently, to do what we do now, simply because he doesn't know that he will change, and look bac at his childhood and say, " Wish I could go back!"

Dedicated to All Those Who Were Martyred in Mumbai

Its been tough to watch mumbai the way it has been. It just makes you wonder what exactly human life has become. And to watch the Taj going down that way, hasn't been a treat. We've all been really disturbed by it all. Things of this kind haven't happened. Bomb blasts we can handle, but this was way beyond all that. The media has been emphasising only on the death of three policemen, but what about the rest? Aren't they all important? And what about those foriegners? Imagine being in a country you don't know anything about and being a hostage there only to meet your end. Its so unreal and scary. Imagine going to a regular day at work, looking forward to cooking lovely meals, looking forward to another day of training, looking forward to meeting your friends for lunch, looking forward to a lovely evening when you are to get married, and then have everything wiped out in seconds.
Innocent people who probably never did a thing wrong in their lives have just been done to death in horrifying manners. At Nariman house, they killed the American Rabbi and his wife. 28 and 29, thats what their ages were. Their two year old son was released, but I wonder how much of pleading they would have had to do for that, how much of suffering they would have undergone in letting their son go, knowing that he would never probably ever know that they had been with him for two years of his life. Its just so inhuman, whatever these terrorists have done. They wanted a JW Marriot at the Taj! Is this the way to move on in the world? An eye for an eye? Its not eyes we're talking about here. Its life, people around whom the lives of their families revolved, people who were loved by at least one other person in this world, sons whose faces, their mothers wished they'd see every day.....children who lived for their parents, to see them come back home everyday to play with them.
What is more terrifying? To see your child's body covered with blood and just not responding? or to see a parent , knowing you will never see him alive again, knowing that one shade over your head is gone........
Its just too gruesome to think about it all. And the worst part of it all is that after all this, it will be put down after a few months as another terrorist attack, the spirit of mumbai will be hailed and it will all be over.
Thats it....just over.....life has become so different from what it was at one time..never thought i'd have to face days like these. Never thought that things would come down to such a low that our own so-called politicians would call this as , " Bade bade sheheron mein aisi choti choti battein hoti hain." ( In big cities small things of this kind happen).
Never did I think I'd be frustrated thinking about my own country, thinking about the plight of people and wondering what we had done to get something of this sort happening to us.
This goes out to all those who've suffered the consequences of the dreadful ordeal we've just faced. Words are not enough. I hope we all act on it, after this at least.