I am amuse - The critique

I have already talked to Akshaya about it. I will not write an exhaustive review. I dont have energy to do that.

I know Akshaya through his writings at this website. Click on that link,I am sure you'ld like it.

Every age is marked by a force, a predominant force that shapes the psyche of that generation. This force influences us in every conceivable manner, economically, culturally, intellectually and psychologically. I think we are living in the age of corporatocracy. Arundhati Roy, Noam Chomsky and other contemporary philosophers are extensively working in this area and letting us see what is invisible with eyes we are allowed to have thanks to media. And thus every serious, purposeful and responsible writer is bound to express his views, if not his stand, about it. If you click on the above link, you will come to know about his views as well his stand on this. There is no ambiguity, he is characteristically unequivocal about it - he is dead against this corporatocracy, the postmodern evil.

Lets come back to the play. Before the beginning and after the end of the play the organizers profusely thanked the sponsers without whose support the staging of the play could not have been possible. It struck me how Akshaya would have felt then! I realized how awfully difficult it is to be a writer! Even Noam Chomsky needs the support of media to criticize it! And media is confident enough to allow some gadflies buzzing around.

1. The realization that you can hardly aspire to fulfil your dreams without the financial support of the one you deeply despise is emotionally exhausting. Read this. I cant imagine what damage it can do to your self-esteem if you actually go and ask for his help!

But this is what you have to do.

2. You have to keep in mind the psyche of your audience, the english-speaking people consisting of a majority with egos bigger than brains. I am talking about the majority of course. They come to theatre to see highbrow stuff and not the regular bourgeois kitsch. They are well-read people and they have fairly good taste due to exposure to quality literature. So you have to sell them something that appeals to their genteel taste. You must do justice with their high expectations. However, you must keep in mind that your play should, most favorably, give them a chance to relate to what they have already seen. Most of them come to see what they have already seen. This helps them to pass expert comments to the uninitiated lot and feel nice about it. As an Indian, creating something really original could be taken as insolently ambitious!

3. India is a huge country and you are a small person who belongs to a small place having small issues. You might be having a cosmopolitan outlook and all that but you are most likely to be touched by the things that have shaped your thought structure. There are certain regional issues that seems important to you. And as a writer you wish to do something about it. You want others to be sensitized about it. But given the diversity of our culture, you might feel absolutely un-understood or even misunderstood by your audience. It is difficult for a parsi, born and brought up in Mumbai to relate with the issues in the life of a Bengali woman.

So all english-speaking, theatre-going people have a better idea about European life than about the Indian life, whatever it might be. Keep this point in your mind.

Accepting this severely delimits your choice of subject. Now, given all the other considerations and constraints, you are not very much encouraged to raise Indian issues. So, as Akshaya says, give them comedy!

Now I am going to give my review on the play. I have taken two parameters by which I am going to judge the play. One is the choice of subject and the other is the treatment of subject.

1. The Writer: Perhaps writing a good comedy is not easy, so give them something that is in and which has some cerebral quality as well. But what? Mystery? Suspense? Thriller? Good enough for a novel but perhaps not feasible in a play. So invoke psychology, and all the concepts of alter-ego, schizophrenia etc.

The choice of subject was decent. And politically correct. It was, I think, written to entertain and it did the job successfully, I must say. The treatment of the subject was even better. The good acting and quality direction seized the attention of the audience.

2. The Drunkards: Personification of one's alter-ego and presentation of the inner conflicts that wage a war in one's mind. A topping of wit with some twists and turns sprinkled over it. Overall a delicious preparation! Akshaya is a readers' writer and the readers like him for whatever he writes. A brilliant effort.

The choice of the subject was suitable for his debut. Very un-Akshayally he wrote a nensensical play that made some good sense, keeping in mind the other factors that were too important to be ignored. This play could have been staged anywhere in the world, in India or abroad, and aroused more or less similar response. The identity of the audience didnt matter much. This was a safe play that was played safely. It continued to grasp the attention of the audience. It is nice to write for the readers without having to do anything with them! Indian readers deserve nothing better. Indian audience deserve the same.

The plot is, no doubt, interestingly made. Very artfully and very subtly, and in the course of the play, very smoothly, the dominating and the dominated selfs exchange places. The acting was superb and so was the direction. I had gone there to watch this play and I must say that I was not dissatisfied with it.

3. Cross talk: Disappointing. 'I am amuse' dies here. I could see no muse in any of the following playlets. I could see no link between this playlet to the preceeding ones. And I could see no sense, no purpose anywhere anytime in this one. This failed to keep the momentum that had been created by the earlier plays. And it failed to entertain us even. And why the hell this title - 'I am amuse'? Why not 'I am a muse'? And why not something even better?

4. End of innocence: This was about a boy who was reproached and humiliated for failing in mathematics test. His parents contrasted him with his kid sister who was in the same grade and topped the class. Noone seemed to be happy about his extraordinary performance in literature.

I liked the choice of the subject. Comparison among siblings, suppression of creativity of an individual etc are relevant topics to talk about. Our society is yet to find an answer to these questions. So we must be reminded that these issue do exist.

But the treatment of this subject was pathetic. The direction as well as the acting was mediocre. This playlet demended more sensitivity and vision than provided by the director. The boy tenaciously defends himself with the blunt dialogues he is given and imparts little effect on the audience. He is stripped of his dignity and tenderness that would have given more strength to his character. He is made to present his marks in english to justify his being poor in maths and he is made to invoke a number to drive his point home. Instead, his gift in arts could have been shown more subtly, less loudly and more effectively, and perhaps with an element of surprise as well. There should have baan a scene and a situation to do what is done by the boy. This surely would have done more justice to the purpose of the writer. But the writer didnt appreciate the power of the unsaid. And the director couldnt provide the dramatic effect to a good idea. The point is to be understood is that everyone knows what the writer wants to say, the content doesnt matter much here. Here you need to show the ghar-ghar ki kahani in such a manner that the audience realize that it is wrong. Art has a power to convert but there was little art in this play.

5. Down payment: I do not believe in comparisons but its simplicity made it the best. The choice of the subject could hardly have been better. I am in IT industry and I have seen people living their life hinged on credit cards and insurance policies. 'Take loan, shop and pay later' has become a lifestyle. We have become runaway consumers and we readily book a flat, a car and what not immediately after getting a job. We need such reminders.

The treatment of the subject was also good. The plot was very simple and it didnt need much input from the director. I am sure the audience will remember the message of this play long after they will have forgotten all the other.

On the whole, watching this play was a nice experience for me. It justified my riding to Jazz Garden, Koregaon Park, a place I am not very crazy about.

The villains and heroes around us

*continued..

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VILLAIN: This MLA is the REAL villain. But he is not a villain because he is an MLA. Dont get confused by (media-created) stereotypes. Open your eyes. He could very well be an Armani-clad, english (with french toppings!) speaking corporate mogul too. He comes in many forms, he changes faces, he very subtly disguises himself behind the various veils we naively provide to him.

They smile and smile and still be villain. - Crime and Punishment (Fyodor Dostoevsky)

The villain they show in the movies is unreal, a very simplified version of this real villain. This real villain is not loud and vulger. His looks are not abnormally made-up. You can hardly recognize him in a crowd. He is not even a one-man-army. He has, when he is alone, his limitations and his insecurities. This villain is rather a man of system; a part of a greater, much greater structure. He understands the system, respects it, submits to it and is happy with it. He very well understands the mechanism of power. He knows that power doesnt reside in an individual but in the network. This networks sustains him. This network protects him. And so he values his allies or contacts who are placed at (or are chosen from) the strategic positions. He knows the rules of the game. He knows what is exactly happening around. His runs his business smoothly in this perfectly harmonized world, a world of 'prey and let prey'. He is cheerfully sure of himself and he feels unassailable in this impregnable fortress. He is pleasant and sociable. He makes you like him. He asks you about your mother's health and your daughter's admission in the college. He takes pleasure in the trifling details of life. He has no ideal to die for. Infact he mocks at idealists and pities their naivety. He is cool amd amiable. He cracks jokes and keeps himself surrounded by giggling females. For him, morality(!!) exists within the system. He knows of no morality without it. His sense of corruption is distorted; interestingly but not surprisingly, for him disturbing the harmony, the equilibrium of the system is an act of corruption. He accepts the things as they are. He worships the rising sun, the right God. Very naturally, very comfortably he changes his loyalties and rationalizes his priorities. He is pragmatic. He is wise. In the later stages of his life you can hear him preaching about right and wrong, properiety and improperiety and 'money-is-not-everything'. He is necessarily religious and invokes mythological(which are at his fingertips) events and metaphors to support his actions and position every now and then. All his goons are his Hanumans! For even worse things(promiscuity or politics of the most diabolical nature), Krishna is dragged down from heavens. He goes for pilgrimage every year. And finally he builds a temple and settles all the accounts.

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HERO: On the other hand our DCP saheb is a poor victim of his own ideals. He burdens his mind with the things that are outdated and that noone takes seriously. Perhaps he takes life a little too seriously. Perhaps he should not. He actually gets distressed by seeing others in distress. Perhaps he should not. Remember Dr Bhaskar Bannerjee in Anand? Remember his angst, his bitterness? Remember his grit with which he fights his own helplessness before the enormity of the monster he was fighting with? Like his other friends, he can not pretend to be pained by the ubiquitous misery around him at one moment and gleefully plan a comedy movie the next moment. Perhaps he should also learn to ignore things. Perhaps he should also learn to forget things.

But he doesnt forget what his father had tought him when he was a kid. He doesnt forget even when his father himself teaches him just the opposite of what he had tought him when he was a kid. He is incorrigibly idealistic. He just doesnt understand that the real world is not that good.

The real world is a place where everyone is converting into bad simply because everyone else is doing so!

To start with, he is a betrayed man. He has been betrayed by his books and teachers. Oh how I wish he knew the efficacy with which the books cover the reality! That realization wouldve averted the disillusionment and heartbreak. He is like a man who was trained in cricket and was sent to a stadium where a football match was being played. And he stood like an idiot in the middle of the playground with his bat, amazed and clueless, amid guffawing spectators. What should he do there? He is like an actor who finds himself totally out of place at the stage. He finds that a different play is being staged. Imagine this situation! He is not required, not wanted but still he is there. He feels absolutely alienated there. What does a hero do here? We'll come to that in a while.

He observes that the real world works very differently from the bookish world. And noone cares or dares to write what actually happens around us. There are things that are known to all but said by none. He wonders why the world is like that. He wonders what to do with his bat in the football match?

Catch 22. Since he can function only within a (legal) framework and the framework is itself a device of the system, it is deliberately not made powerful enough to challenge the system. If he chooses to fight his battle without the (legal) framework then he himself becomes an outlaw, a criminal! He is nothing outside the system. He needs the system to beat it! And of course the system would not allow itself to be beaten. But this was so ridiculously simple! Why didnt he think it earlier? When he realizes the obvious absurdity in his erstwhile expectation, he feels foolish and frustrated.

He might decide to take the things head-on. Then he finds himself living against someone or something. Always. 24*7. His life virtually becomes a guerilla war, he finds himself thinking about the moves of the game he has pushed himself into. This game takes a toll on his personal life too. He most likely becomes irascible and grows sharp claws that hurt those who are near to him. His relationships start suffering. People gradually start avoiding him. After sometime he feels so much lonely that his battle seems to be only for the sake of his ego and nothing else. Perpetual loneliness cast a shadow on his life. He doesnt know what to do. Remember Shool?

Most of the people dont see the life of heroism beyond this stage. They succumb to the mounting pressure. But he, the hero, persists. He has the character to persist.

He starts delivering his dialogues at the stage. He doesnt mind others. He doesnt mind their indifference. He doesnt mind their hoots, their cries, and their vociferous protests. He deflates the self-assurance of the other actors who were banking on his passivity. Now it's their turn to be taken by surprise. Now it's their turn to feel that they are vulnerable too. The audience come to know about the other, the alternative play. Now they can choose between the two. They first step is taken. The first battle is won.

Camus says that the ultimate hero of humanity is Sisyphus* (read this). He somewhat repeats to what Krishna had suggested to Arjun (Karmanyevadhikaraste.. or Swadharme nadhanam shreyah paradharmoh bhayavayah) in Bhagavat Geeta.

A hero exhibits an unflinching faith, an indomitable devotion in his purpose. He stands by his values. He lives for what he believes in and he dies for the same. He might not be pragmatic but then a hero is NEVER a practical man. A practical, worldly man can never evoke strong emotions and respect from us.

The hero makes his own way. He challenges the unchallengables. He defeats the skepticism of others who are too weak to do so. He breaks the matrix by breaking its nodes one by one, with utmost patience. I have recently watched a movie called 'Ek ruka hua faisla'. In this movie, a man, who is the hero, changes the opinion of all his adversaries one by one. Watch the movie to see why this man is a hero.

Popular cinema perpetuates the myth that a vanquishing a villain is a necessary condition for a man to be a hero. Infact even the presence of an external villain is not needed. A man becomes a hero by winning over hsi own frailties that are abundant in anyone of us. This is an important point to understand.

The concept of hero is very interesting, as I see it. Initially people pull his leg, they block his way, they deny him their attention, they make fun of him. Perhaps they do it perhaps because they refuse to accept his superiority over them. Those who are near to him do it out of jealousy and others because of habit. But once he crosses a threshold, they admire him and raise him up. They positively want him to rise higher and shine brighter. They look up to him. He becomes the center of their hope. They fight on behalf of him coz they fight through him. They win through him. They live through him. They need him for themselves. He gives them a direction. He leads them. He frees them.

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win. - Mahatma Gandhi

* Greek Mythology: Sisyphus is forced to roll a block of stone against a steep hill, which tumbles back down when he reaches the top. Then the whole process starts again, lasting all eternity.

My description of villain and hero might seem to you philosophically unteneble or unfounded. It might be dificult to be defended but it is not unfounded. This is what I have seen in my life and I have written it here at the risk of being laughed at in case you find yourself unable to relate to my experiences. Let me say that it is in no way an exhaustive definition or something of that sort. I never intend to do that. I have never done that. The scope of this essay is just a part of what I have seen and felt. I recognize that it is incomplete.

'I am amuse' - the background of the critique

What weakens our existential position? It is a very interesting question answering of which demands a deep delving into the depths of human psychology. I am not going to attempt this question. I am only going to start this post with it.

Lets imagine: you are an honest and idealist DCP and you have waged a war against the local mafia. The MLA is known to be the man behind the illegal activities too. He is the Godfather of the prominent gang operating in the area. You have arrested many goons of his gang and raided his godowns with remarkable success. There is a virtual cold-war between you and him. You can very well imagine the tension involved in such type of battle if you have seen 'Shool'.

One fine day you get a call by your delirious wife about the kidnapping of your daughter from her school. You, being a police officer, are doubly targetted by this. Your love as well as your honour is at stake. You unleash the full force of the police machinary to rescue your child but all your efforts go in vain. Also you can not do anything rash here. You are lying utterly helpless and wretched beside your half-dead wife at your home.

The next day in evening the MLA turns up with his wife to show his sympathy and solidarity at this hour of crisis.

- What to say at this hour of crisis? But I very well guessed they were after you. This is how they are, the bastards, the cowards! This is how they go on doing their business. Murder, kidnapping, and what not, nothing is what they wouldnt do to meet their ends. They have made a hell out of this place. They should be encountered or hanged without trail. They dont deserve any mercy. Is this how you earn money? They are a shame on the name of this place! Even I do business. But kidnapping? Never! Murder? Ram Ram! But look at the irony. The opposition has made me God knows what. I am the most misunderstood man I tell you.

-

- But it's sad that the police is also misguided. I, the humble servant of people, am branded as a thief, a robber, a criminal! Wasnt it for the love of my people I would have committed suicide in grief. But I was and I am hopeful that everyone will see the truth someday. I have full faith in God. God has given me whatever I have and I am sure He will not deny me justice either.

-

- I am bearing this pain for my people. But what makes you playing with your life? And your familiy's life? Look at your wife! I cant see her like this. My wife is also a mother. She can better understand her plight. She urged me to see you and help you in whichever way I could. So I am here. You might consider me your enemy but you can not ignore the fact that I am as old as your father. I have seen the world more than you. No book or degree will teach you the experience I have. You are like a son to me. Seeing you like this gives me an unbearable pain. My heart cries out for you.

-

- Look. I know this gang very well. This man used to wash my car a few days back before his soaring ambition took him away from me, to the path of crime like kidnapping. He may not be with me anymore but I know people who can help us. Only if you want. Your police force, I am sure, will do nothing but endanger the life of the kid. You have been quite childish in the past. You dont understand the practicalities of life. Duty is okay but you should have been more careful and more discreet.

-

- Leave it. Now dont regret what have you done. At your age everyone commits some mistake. Make sure you dont repeat them. You must learn something from your experiences. I would be happy if you treat me as your friend. And you, Beti, dont cry, and dont worry. As long as I am here nothing will happen to your child. She will return home safe. And very soon.

Can you say a NO to his offer? No, you can not because you are a man, not God. Only God is supposed to be get away with Godly moralities because he is powerful and invulnerable. We mortals must prepare ourselves for severe punishments for flaunting moralities.

How would you feel? How would you feel in recieving help from your worst enemy? How would you react? Could you afford to be the same police officer as you were? What would remain the same in you?

Think and look at the question again.

What weakens our existential position?

Note: Whatever, this is not the point. This is just a background for the critique of the play I just watched. And for my portrait of Hero and Villain.

Happy Independence Day

I had been a cynic for a long time. However I had never been in love with my cynicism. I had always wanted freedom from it. I had always wanted to feel the fresh air around me as I felt when I was a kid. I still remember how bright were the days when hope lighted my thoughts. I yearned for the evenings which were full of fun. I wanted to grow young!

I dont know when the shadow of pessimism eclipsed my eyes. I have no clue since when I started looking at the world as if there was nothing new to see. As if nothing new was there to listen and nothing new was there to say. A big sense of all-embracing obviousness rendered me incapable to appreciate the small, innocent joys of everyday life. Very discreetly and very insidiously it took possession of my mind. A perpetual frown marked the shape of my face. Suspicion and paranoia became the complexion of my thoughts. My sun seemed to set for ever.

Suddenly the silence of my life was pierced by a tune, a tune I was waiting to hear since eternity. It was a tune of hope, a music of optimism, a sound of victory which re-created life in me. It was like a magic, like a miracle, as if all the stars came close to me to rescue me from the deathly jaws of darkness. I am feeling enlightened again. I am overwhelmed with hope again. Life is surging inside me again. Though I have nothing with me. But that doesnt matter to me. My hands are empty. But that never makes anyone poor anyway. It's the mind. It's the mind that makes you rise from the deepest ditches. I have nothing with me but hope. And a will. And so I have all. My eyes are moist with this nostalgic youthfulness. Today I am feeling free. Today is my independence day. Today my sun rose in my life. Tonight is my deepawali.

Oh where had I lost myself? But by His grace I am back to myself. I am so thankful to Him! With bent knees, clasped fists held closely to my chest, closed eyes and incorruptible faith I am praying to Him. Oh lord, make me worthy of my goal and lead me to a goal worthy of myself. Oh lord, give me strength. Give me strength to endure the pain that would welcome me in the way. Give me the strength to ignore the temptations that would lure me to the less painful. Give strength to my dreams so that they could break the myth of reality. Give me strength to fight my complacencies. Give me strength to run alone. Bless my purpose and give strength in my devotion. Give me strength to keep myself worthy of your kindness.

I have been sleeping for long. I see no trace of the caravan I was a part of. All I see is a settling fog of sand there. They must have gone that way. Enough of resting and enough of sleeping. I need to run now and I will run now. I will run faster than I ever ran. I will run faster than anyone had ever run. It's a run for life; it's a run for redemption. There are some promises to be fulfilled, there are some dreams to be realized. I cant wait anymore.

- yours truly,
the state of Bihar

Non-vegetarianism and Raping 'the others'

Vegetarianism is one of the very few doctrines I staunchly adhere to. Frequently I am confronted by the question - why I dont eat meat. My non-veg friends start throwing superlatives about the sublimity of the sensual delight it produces in your mouth. Then they urge me to 'try' it. My surname encourages them to assume that I hail from a meatophobic family background. So far so good. But then a very unexpected I-used-to-eat-non-veg-but-quit-it long-back comes as a bouncer and then they are often caught in surprise. 'Why?', they wail in pain. But generally I refuse to speak more about this subject to them. I fear that would create a bad taste in their mouth.

But it was different with Akshay. I knew he is one of them who know to dive deep into meaningful discussions with full fervor without getting too much attached to it. It is a very rare quality which I rarely found in anyone else after Ashutosh.

Without any prelude I put forward my view on non-vegetarianism.

- it is like rape, equally hideous and horrible.
- Why rape? Why not murder?
- I know nothing more inhuman and repugnant than rape. That's why.

Well, that doesn't sounds convincing at first. But there are parallels between slaughtering an animal and raping a person. Let me explain my point.

1. Compare the pleasure one gets by eating the most sumptuous non-veg delicacy to the pain that the animal suffers. Is there any comparison? And any justification? (No, you dont have to justify anything to me. But what about your own conscience?)

Similarly raping a woman or molesting a child for the ephemeral sensual or non-sensual gratification can NOT be justified, in any language, under any circumstances. It is outrightly criminal, inhuman act which is unworthy of any kindness and consideration. It is one of the most shameful thing I know a person can do to another.

There are certain extenuating circumstances where muder can be justified, can be defended, can even be glorified. But I can not think the same about rape. Again, similarly, killing an animal for a fleeting gustatory orgasm is too inordinately cruel an act to allow any sympathy. Yes, doing it for survival is a different issue and a VERY special case. I dont know anyone who has been stranded on an island and was forced to kill animals for his sustainence. But it is routinely presented as a readymade explanation. This is a very dishonest argument and it exhibits nothing but a plain lack of cooperation in a meaningful discussion. You simply can not convince these type of people. They are incorrigibly corrupt.

Again, murder is not always committed by a stronger person. But rape is a power game, or more precisely an overpower game. It is primitive to the core of this word. It is DISGUSTING. Same with non-veg, you kill because you can. But I think it is extremely shallow to exercise might on meek and weak.

- OK. Cool it. They are made to be eaten by us. It is natural.
As you are made to be eaten by a cannibal. As women are made to be exploited by men. As the poor is made to be starved by the rich. History echoes in your voice my friend. As blacks were made to be slaves by Whites. As Jews were made to be unworthy of any human dignity by Germans. As the Chinese were made an object of the most atrocious amusement by the Japanese in Nanking. Anyone can be made to be anything that way.

Would you have this as a categorical imperative - a universal rule? Oh no, you want it to wreck havoc at some selected places, and affect some selected people. And those places should be far from your home isnt? Sorry my friend, you can not live at a safe island that is surrounded by a stormy sea. If you think that you can, you think pathetically. Better outsource thinking to someone else.

This is again a very insincere argument where you know that the person himself is not convinced by his argument. He even wants you to know this by letting go a smile at the corner of his mouth for a moment. Since his stance is absolutely untenable he will try to trivialize it. What else can he do anyways? Sometimes I dont but sometimes I do find this outrageously satanic. The evil seems so deeply rooted in man that every human endeavor towards the establishment of peace seems farcical.

Man! Admit it. You never wanted peace. Peace is too boring for your taste. You always, secretly, longed to see blood. Werent you there cheering feverishly for (or against) Maximus while he was fighting for his life in the Colosseum? Dont you feel the same, dont you titillate your senses in the same perverse manner, when a matador deceives (or fails to deceive) a charging bull? You always wanted to enjoy the sight of soil moist with red blood, you always craved for its sweet hot smell. And you have never tried to even diagnose this very basic problem to cure it. Perhaps you never wanted to be cured. Only when you are plundered, brutally massacred and savagely raped, then only your dormant, nearly extinct faculty of humanity gets activated. Isnt it so? It is all about sides. Which side you are at- dominating or dominated.

2. This let them die attitude has killed us. Because we are also them for them. We have never been serious about solving the real problem. Only when you fall at the wrong side, you crib and wail. Otherwise you rock and roll. And that is why NOTHING WILL SAVE US.

Our very attitude towards 'the other' is vicious and pernicious. Let me elaborate.

It is very disturbing observation that the evaluation of an act is done only after knowing who was subjected to it. For instance- Killing a Pakistani is not so bad. Raping a dalit woman is not that unpermissible. Voting for a corrupt politician is okay if he happens to be of your own caste. Thankfully the stillborn was a girl child!

This apathy (nay, antipathy) has permeated our thought process profoundly. This even vitiate our sexuality. Khushwant Singh encashes this hidden perverseness of ours by writing 'Company of woman' where he strips girls of different religions and communities and tickles the testicles of us animals. Read that book which is far worse than pornography because it tries to render sex a political act. Can you imagine anything more replulsive?

The other has always been too bad to deserve a stay here. They should either be assimilated or purged. You should seduce their girls and marry them in order to convert them. You should divide them and multiply yourself. You should save your holy land from their unholy presence. You should beat them, loot them, rape them and kill them because it is them and as long as you do this to them this is not bad.

This is our morality in practice. And this is precisely why morality is sterile. It has been reduced to academic pastime taken with biscuits and coffee but not with seriousness and respect.

Our practical morality dictates that animals are fit to be killed and eaten because unlike you they are four-footed; because they can not protest; because they don't have political say; because they are weak. They must be, therefore, subjected to wait for a sharp scary weapons to rip their flesh apart before their helpless eyes. And doing that is not crime!

But the same act becomes a crime when someone does that to you or your kid! And you think it will work for you! No it won't. It didn't. Look - the color of human history is black-red - the color of dead blood. This is because of our dual mentality. And you know what - It is abominable! Cutting throat is abominable whether if is accompanied by mantra of Vedas or verses of Quran. There is no escape from death and truth.

It is inhuman to slit throats even if the throat being slit is not human. There are two types of people - those who can slit throats and those who can not. Those who can cut the throat of a speechless, defenseless, animal while looking in its eyes can do the same to your kid as well. This is to be understood at a social level. I am not talking about any particular sections of people, all of us share that cruelty inside us. We have inherited it collectively.

Killing is all about doing it once. It is all about crossing the threshold. Then it is easy. Then numbers dont matter to us. Death doesn't happen twice. Try to understand this. Words fail to describe what I am feeling right now. All I can say is that I am ashamed to be one of us. If human being is doomed to sufferings till death, it is justified because he deserves it.

Open your eyes. Cant you see how interconnected everything is? Take the cock-fight in Lucknow or the fight of gladiators in Rome. They are same. Dont you feel chicken were a cheap substitute for men in Awadh? Wont a visit to the Colosseum would have been a dream come true for Miya Jumman, since he would get to see the REAL stuff? How can we ignore this glaring similarity? It is too seriously related to us to be taken non-seriously.

This is now when I feel that only Gandhi could rescue us from ourselves. Only if we wanted to. But evidently we didnt.

- Then why do you eat plants? Even they have life.

True. But they dont have eyes. They dont talk to us. How much cruelty do you invoke to boil a potato? And what about the Jain hierarchy of senses? Doesnt it make any sense to you?

But above all my intention is to make you realize the disasterous consequences of allowing cruelty to others. We need to wage an internal war against this. Words wouldnt help much. This is not an issue of persuasion but of realization. Ultimately humanity would find salvation through Ahimsa which doesnt just mean not killing but it means not even having a desire of killing. We need to evolve ourselves to reach this height. The evolved world will be made on the foundation of Ahimsa only.

It is not late if we start even now. Camus launched a solo, and successful, campaign to abolish capital punishment in France and the mankind took a step ahead. Lets stop consuming carcass of animals and take one more step. It is highly unaesthetic to convert a beautiful living fish into a disgraceful slab of dead flesh. Let us admire life as long we are alive! Let us respect the sanctity of body as long as we have one!

Have a heart, be vegetarian. If you dont have that at least have a mind. If you dont have that too anyways you are in hell and thats where you will go sooner or later.

My understanding of freedom

Freedom: One of a few words which has become so powerful that it even dominates the meaning it denotes. It has become dangerously and dreadfully popular among those who are awed by the words and think in terms of words rather than ideas. I believe that this type of thinking is worse than not thinking at all. And I tell you that the people who want to display their cognitive muscles through swelling words constitute the majority! The word, the celibrity is leading the majority like a herd of lemmings are led for mass suicide. Credulity kills and so a blind devotion to this word will kill us. Do I sound skeptical? Perhaps I am. But perhaps I am just being careful and I have my reasons. This word has turned into a Frankestein. This word has started to hitler our thought process now, it has become the answer of every question asked, it is now an unfailing argument against every reason. It has grown cancerously in our system. And we are there intellectually prostrated, helplessly, cluelessly, before this enigmatically misunderstood monster, a hyped product of our own elusive, deceitful intellect.

What is freedom? Is it a means or an ends? That's the main question to answer. Do we ever care to think about it? I feel a splitting headache when people use this word as if it has outgrown every possible context, as if this word means something of its own, in isolation, without anything required before or after it! What a shameless submission before sheer nonsense! This is nothing but mental laziness!

For me this word means NOTHING if not followed by at least one of the prepositions 'from' or 'of/for'. Actually it makes sense only when 'freedom for' decides 'freedom from'. Let me elucidate my point.

Suppose I say I am free or I want freedom. What does it mean? It, the word freedom, often sounds intellectually intimidating to us but that's it. It is made to be arrogant like that because it has nothing else in it. It has no content at all. Ok man you are free. Free from what?? Space? Time? Death? Life? Gravity? Market? Media? Instincts? What??????

I can very well be thrown at escape velocity into the vast limitless boundless space but even THAT wouldnt make me ABSOLUTELY free. Yes I could say I am free of gravity but, speaking abstractly, there would be many other forces which would determine my trajectory and mock at my impossible and naive quest for an unlimited freedom. What does this mean anyway? To me its a farce, an intellectual waste, nothing else. How can we be absolutely free as long as I am spacially and temporarily bound. I can not be at two places at a time. And this binding dilimits me and defines me. It gives me my identity. It makes me what I am. At a particular space and particular time, here and now, I exist. I will be lost if I somehow get scattered in all the dimensions of space and time. I am when there is something else so this I becomes meaningful. I am only when I am finite. And finite is not free, for it is bound. So, theoritically speaking, it is this very lack of freedom that gives me my existence. Any false sense (or nonsense) of freedom can only mislead us and misguide us and this is precisely what it is doing. It is breaking relationships. This inordinate longing for freedom is bound to sever every thread we are tied with. It is doing this because we have lost our wisdom, our sense of balance. We have allowed ourselves to be led astray by it. I remember a picture from a story I read when I was a kid- 'The pied piper of Hamlin', a pictute of hundreds of rats following a piper. We are also following a few hip ideas, blindly, without proper examination, we have always done so. And we have suffered a lot.

The pursuit of freedom is like preparing for some admission test. You dont do it endlessly. You dont do it for its own sake. It is unthinkable to do so. Once you are through the test you study the subject you want to. Similarly the attainment of freedom enables us to do the thing we wanted to do. Otherwise freedom has no intrinsic value of its own. In 60s, the aimless youth of US attemped to find some inherent value in freedom per se but we all know that it was a failed experiment. The cool combo of six-string and cocaine could not procure salvation to them. The hippy culture is dead. Some of them burnt themselves out and others faded away.

But it is we who are responsible for it. We have placed disproportionate weightage to this cult word which had initially a beautiful meaning and a promising role to play in our society. Again and again I've been quoting the Greek philosopher Paracelsus who made a beautiful observation and highlighted the value of balance. Let me repeat it because it is germane to do so here: Every substance is a poison. There is none that is not. It is the dose which determines whether it is a poison or a medicine. Wisdom is nothing but a sense of proportion. We must not discard it if we are serious about ourselves. But here we have allowed ourselves to be awed and led by this word-freedom. It seems that freedom has outshined wisdom in terms of popularity.

We are being told, glibly and irrisponsibly, to break every bond. Man is so delighed with his discovery of challenging conventions is that he is not thinking twice before throwing the baby with the bath water. But is it not potentially devastating? It has to be. It is too convenient an idea to be making sense. Unless you know what freedom is for how would you know and why would you bother to know what it is from. It is the for which decides the from. If the from is decided without the knowledge of for then freedom becomes not just useless but a threat to one's well-being. Without this for, freedom is a mark of curse, it's an ill-omen which would bring doom in life. It makes us wander in the infinity like a dead leaf swayed by the most flippant gust of air. It strips us of our gravity, our roots.

Hermann Hesse says the first statue a child breaks is that of his father. This is how he comes out of the shadow of his father and becomes a man. How true! But it could be fathomlessly detrimental for the future of a child if he takes this at its face value. Talking personally, I am not an obedient son. I have never been perhaps. I have defied norms, stopped worshipping or participating in puja, threw my janeu and so on. I always strove for independence. But there was an unsaid conract between me and my parents. I never disobeyed them just for the sake of it, just to be different or just because it made me feel great. Never. I freed myself from these things for some reasons which appeared reasonable to me and then to my parents too. My parents could very well have been unreasonable. But in that case also I was doing it with a clear purpose and not because someone said so. I never fell in the traps set by those who define what is in for the youth. I have always been anachronistic in my own ways.

Finally, One needs to realize, very urgently, the poisonous side-effects of the gratuitous misuse of this word. Terms like free-trade, free-market, free-will etc are floating in air in such an abundance that it chokes our imagination. Half of them are quixotic and are used as a verbal trickery, as trump cards against every other argumant, and others are ridiculous. As ridiculous like a character in Crime and Punishment who wants his wife to indulge in adultery just because he is in love with his self-image of a progressive man who allows his wife to be free.

Those who grow on me

I read. Gradually I feel my taste has become more refined. Or perhaps I feel it should be so. Under the influence of the rising demands of my elevated taste or its pressing supposition, I have started reading the works of art which are percieved to be read exclusively by the people of superior taste.

I read a few great works of prose by some of the icons of literature. It includes Dr Zhivago by Pasternak, Hundred years of solitude by Marquez, The stranger by Camus to name a few. I shared a common feeling while reading each of these books- I found each of them overestimated. I finished the last page and closed the book with a sigh of relief.

The next feeling was more remarkable. It started with Dr Zhivago. Somehow I felt that I was not able to forget that snow covered landscape that the author has painted before my mind. This was amazing because I had dismissed the book with the verdict - 'overestimated'. I read the lines again which I had underlined when I went home. I was thoroughly enthralled by it this time. The genius of Pasternak was revealing itself to my mind which is, I admit, difficult to be permeated by if not impervious to the novel ideas. I was slightly ashamed of my ineptness but more than that I was happy to discover it, though late. One of my friends used to call me tubelight. She was right.

This incident of late realization was not an exceptional case, a deviation. And for my good. Marquez made little sense to me and I rated his next book 'Love at the times of cholera' better. But my lack of understanding couldnt enjoy its stay in my mind for long and a sudden realization evicted it forever. The image of Pietro Crespi and the butterflies following him occupied my dreams and reveries. I felt the way I looked at the world changed with time. It's he who developed my sense of imagery and more than that- the faculty of olfaction. Now I smell songs, smell words... I can smell each page of Arundhati Roy's The God of small things or Rut aa gayi re (1947 Earth) because I had met Marquez in the way.

The stranger was covered in a train journey. But it look me a long to uncover it. Why this fuss all about was my unsaid response. Later on when the picture Camus created refused to escape my mind, I understood what makes things great. Unlike 1984 which gave me goosebumps every minute I read and faded sooner than later, the stranger was anything but love at the first sight. But he was not in hurry either. He took the little space I contemptuously gave in my little mind and slowly started growing making even my mind grow with him. It was extraordinary!!

Good books dont end with their pages. They start with their last pages rather. They grow within us. They sustain us. This is what i have realized and written on the last good book I have finished (if this is a right word)- Narcissus and Goldmund.

The relation between a good mind and a good book is like a friendship of two good human beings. As a subhashit(Sanskrit-word of wisdom) says - the friendship of petty people is like the shadow of first half which reduces as the day progresses whereas the friendship of noble people is like the shadow of seconds half which grows larger with time.

Dont you feel the same? With books, with music, with people?

I was relieved to find myself loving the last great piece of literature I read- Old man and the sea by Ernest Hemingway. He must be a great man to have written such a beautiful book. It is far far better than any bestseller self-help book you will see in the market. And here I am talking about only one feature of this great work - its ability to inspire. I think it is, at least in parts, one of the best explanation of the widely misunderstood shloka as I undderstand it- Karmanyevadhikaraste ma faleshu kadachana...

Ravana and Oedipus Rex

I saw 'Hanuman' a couple of days back. It's a cute movie with a few thought bytes randomly thrown to the people. I am fond of animation movies so I bothered myself to ride to the theater after around 4-5 months. I find them so beautiful! And even surrealistic sometimes!

Before I digress let me come to the point I wish to talk about. Let me first brief you about what Aristotle has said about Greek Tragedies in his Poetics. He has conceptualized it and postulated three main elements of tragedy; 1.Hubris, 2.Hamartia, and 3.Catharsis. Hubris is excessive pride and arrogance, hamartia means the fatal mistake which causes the fall of the protagonist, and catahrsis is the purgation of negative emotions.

I had read Oedipus Rex by Sophocles in my last year at IITD. Yeah he is the same Oedipus of 'Oedipus complex' fame who kills his father and marries his mother and later on gets popularised by Freud.

Oedipus is a gifted child with extraordinary abilities. But he is accursed and doomed to bring terrible disasters upon his father, the king. He is sent away to be killed in a jungle but the kind hearted servant spares him. He is raised by someone else and grows as an man of strength and values. One day he gets to know about his accursed fate that he is to kill his father and marry his mother. Absolutely shaken, he decides to leave his parents as well as the city. In the way he encounters his real father, the old king, and thoroughly disturbed he was, gets into a scrap with the king. Fuming with anger he kills the old king. Then he comes to know the custom of the city- one who kills the king gets the throne and marries the queen. See how his destiny finally catches him despite so much human protest. Terrible things follow later on..

This is representative Greek tragedy. The protagonist is a man of high stature endowed with the best qualities but one weakness- hubris. This hubris prompts him to commit an act far below his dignity, the last error which opens the doors to hell- hamartia. The simple audience, fully in awe of the man, realizes what can hubris do to them if such tragedies befall such great men. Their negative, distructive emotions gets purged, fully or partially, and they feel a cathartic experience. Also, it demosntrate divine superiority over human beings.

Now I think I am done with the background.

Lets come back to Hanuman. Perhaps our ancient philosophers were aware of this technique of purgation. But they could not theorize it as Aristotle. I found striking similarities between the characters of Ravana and Oedipus. Ravana was not a petty man, a backstreet rapist. He was a man of knowledge, power and principles. He was a devout Shaiv brahmin who could rock the Singhasan of Indra too. Let us ignore mythological details and just say that he was an elevated man. Not selected by Sita in her swayamvar, he was seething with anger and at last his hurt vanity made him do the lowliest act- abducting a woman for amorous fulfillment. (This is one of the many versions of mythology but this is what they showed in the movie.) That ultimately becomes the cause of his fall.

Can you find the similarity? I found it so amazing!!

main aisa kyon hoon!

Sometimes I feel ashamed of everything that I have written here. I am feeling so right now. And it is a very curious feeling. I dont know if I should be feeling like this. I dont even know when should I feel like this. All I know that I am feeling shameful for whatever I have done here. And as I write here, this feeling is subsiding slowly. How can the cause of a malady be the cure also?

Writing is a product of one's thought process or it takes one away from his thoughts in order to save oneself from his own thoughts?

Can thinking and writing be done simultaneously? One of my friends justified his misspellings and other errors in his essay by saying that he was too engrossed in his thoughts. Perhaps he was right. Either you stay connected and recieve signals or you disconnect. Later on you write down. But sometimes the thought bytes vanish as soon as the cognitive radar is disconnected. I dont know if I am making any sense but it happens with me. So you tend to scribble whatever comes into your mind. This leaves the essay poorly structured. The form suffers for the sake of content.

It is interesting to analyse your state of mind and try to find out the reason for your emotions. It is interesting because it is, I feel, next to impossible. At least for me it is. My mind is too muddled to examine itself. You might have noticed that I am using 'I feel' very often instead of the polpular alternative 'I think'. But the problem with feelings us that they mislead too often. Thinking has its limitations but it hardly loses its grounds.

O my mind! I am unable to understand you because I am unable to detach myself from you. I am too close to you to see you.

This sense of shame is partly because of comparison. The more I attempt to jump out of the pit of mediocrity, I admit, I see it myself sunk deeper in its jaws. It is really frustrating to realize that you can not write what you can be proud of. Why is it that we can not create what we can appreciate?

Should I forget it or come to terms with it, or fight with it?

At lunch table

Usually I don't discuss philosophy at lunch table. But today it just happened. One of my colleague was lamenting over the age old problem of loneliness.

-what should I do?
-make yourself prepared to live alone.

The first thing is to be understood that the methods of reason will not be effective when the problem is emotional. Here the solution is simple- do what you feel like.

The popular remedy was to make a girlfriend. I didnt and I still dont see any merit in this suggestion.

I vaguely remember my childhood. Like junior Phillip Carey* I was fond of this class-mate. We used to sit together in the class. We used to share our happiness and sorrow and our little childlike thoughts too. We used to roam around in recess and used to share our food too. I didnt feel like eating when he was not around. My memory regarding him reminds me to this amazing thing: my jealousy and consequent fury when some other guy used to talk to him. I used to feel terribly insecure. I dreaded if he would leave me and go away.

Today I dont remember his face or even his name. Today I realize that friendship dies with time. It is subject to the cruelty of the clock.

Love. I wouldnt say that its doesnt exist. But it doesnt exist in the way we think it does. We feel similar attachments towards opposite sex. We take time and experience to understand that the nature of this longing is very generic not specific. You realize that you CAN live without her/him(your only one) when she/he goes away. Someone else comes in the way. You live unabashedly cheerfully even after the most treasured ones leave you. Sometimes later your life runs smoothly and you even detest the prospect of their coming back into your life. Time teaches. Time trains.

Love facillitates sex, justifies sex; it runs away from sex only to come back to it, drooling and disgraceful. And given everything, love is utopian. It is imaginary, unreal, farcical

When these poetic idols are demolished, you begin to worship the real God, that is time. Then you begin to realize that companionship of a casual acquaintance is far more meaningful than the memories of your best friends. With time, friendship becomes meaningless. People use their friends only to flaunt their social status. It all becomes so embarrassing and burdensome. We go to our friends in our crises seeking consolation. But it comes costly. You pay later through your nose.

Relationships are luxury. And soon they become your necessity.

yeah... back on track :)

Well, I said, and to require the help of medicine, not when a wound has to be cured, or on occasion of an epidemic, but just because, by indolence and a habit of life such as we have been describing, men fill themselves with waters and winds, as if their bodies were a marsh, compelling the ingenious sons of Asclepius to find more names for diseases, such as flatulence and catarrh; is not this, too, a disgrace? - The Republic (Plato)

Intolerance is the word. Absolutely uncompromising intolerance towards the very thought of reconciling oneself (huh!!) with the new fact of sedentary life - the arrogant outgrowth of .. be ready for the anti-climax ... potbelly :) People tend to first tolerate the insidious intrusion of this abominable protrusion in their life, then gradually come to terms with this disgraceful sign of 'perrenial pregnancy' and finally accept it as a part of their anatomy.

The remedy is intolerance. That's the best contraceptive to combat unwanted 'pregnancy'. Dont tolerate it. Dont come to terms with it and never accept it. We need to keep the fire of intolerance burning inside us, the all-consuming and all-purifying fire. After all every battle worth fighting is internal, isnt? Oh I digressed, well this battle doesnt demand blood, sweat would suffice. And it is worth fighting.

All this bullshit means, in a nutshell, that I have re-started jogging after a long hiatus and I am very happy about it. :)

Lets exorcize the ghost of adiposity and obesity away.

Sloth is sin.

Run.

Why dont you reveal yourself to me?

I walk through a lonely lane, in the powder-blue dusk. On my left I see the sun, after its daily chore, descending the stairs of sky with heavy steps; leaving nothing but a scattered, smouldering fire fainting in the arms of steel-gray clouds. To my right is an array of huge cemented, hollowed bricks, piled up all along the way. The oppressive silence, made conspicuous by the harsh chirrup of crows, gawks ominously through the dimly lit hollows of the bricks.

Suddenly someone calls my name. I stop. I turn my head but see noone around. A hallucination! I continue. I hear the call again. I look back, only to see the black-clad shadow of gloominess unobtrusively painting everything around in its own colour. I try to wade through the air that seems to be heavy with the eager anticipation of the unknown. I remember, I have heard this call before too. I take a tentative step further. But this time the call was somewhat different. I keep on walking. There was a sense of urgency, a cry of pitiful warning!

Keep walking.

This is the last warning!

I feel the hardness of the air in my lungs.

It is just a call, not a message. Or perhaps it is a message. But I am not able to decipher it. All I sense is that this message is important.

Yesterday evening too I felt a ceaseless churning, a violent stirring in my soul. I could feel it even physically. It was a dull but growing pain in by chest, shooting from my stomach and almost choking my throat, as if something struggled to release itself from within me. But after sometime it subsided and I slept. I woke up again, in midnight. And I found that my breathing was not regular. Out of consternation I paced in my balcony, till the depressing sight of the moonless night made me bored and go back to my bed. I lied down and tried to sleep till I became tired of trying. Finally I gave up in frustration. Then I slept.

Did yesterday die yesterday or is it still living in today's body? Is yesterday's illness is related to today's illusion? Does my caller want to save me from something which is ambushing around the next corner with bated breath? Is this restlessness, this dissatisfaction a secret language in which my destiny is talking to me?

Or this is one of the many 'nothing buts'? Nothing but a product of my imagination only to be disposed of as early as possible?

Why dont you reveal yourself to me? I would not make any mistake in recognizing you. I have already figured out how you would look like. I know your eyes. There is, there has to be, a connection between our souls. Let me once peer into your eyes and I will pick out the other end of the thread. Show yourself. I'll pledge myself to you and redeem myself.

F.R..E...E....D.....O......M

Yesterday night a strange phenomenon occurred to me. I was, as usual after returning from my office, lying on my bed with a novel in my hand. Suddenly an unknown voice, as if from my within, started talking to me.

-Abhishek, imagine that... I ask you to leave this place right now, at once!

And you have to depart from here never to come back again. Suppose you can not say no to me. Or suppose you yourself feel like doing so. Where will you go? Any idea? You are not allowed to go to your family, your friends or your relatives. Nor to your organization as well. All the doors you can knock are closed for you now. Now tell me. Think for a while. You can take your time. You are standing outside of your appartment and you have to choose your path. Which path would you choose?

-What the hell is happening!!

'Hey dick! Get lost!', I was about to snap but didn't. I felt an impulse to ignore it but since it sounded interestingly challenging I let my imagination obey his directions and wander in the directionless world that the voice wanted me to see and feel. I saw the picture of the building I live in. It stood tall behind me and was ready to bid me farewell. I felt like turning back and looking at it but my ego forbade me. Bemused, I looked at the street and the shops arrayed along the both sides of it. I gazed at the various stalls of chai, pan and juice etc. I saw stray dogs who were an inseparable part of the picture. I observed people coming in and going out and doing their daily business. I felt I was seeing them for the first time though they looked somewhat familiar to me. The whole scene had a strange novelty. Perhaps I was too busy to pay attention to its mundane details. But now I was watching everything purposefully and hence meaningfully. I wanted to find my role in the grand play being played at the biggest stage of the world. I wanted to enrol myself in the institute which was better than any man-made one and which never denied admission to anyone. My future was lying at one of these ways which went through this point. And I had no clue about that. I knew as much about it as any passer by did. How curious it was! I was sharing my ignorance with people as if I was sharing my destiny too with them. How could that be possible? I vainly tried to listen to the voice of my intuition. Frustrated by the nothingness of my mind I began to look around in search of something unknown but useful. I noticed a man who took some goods from a shop, mounted on his bike and rattled away to some unknown destination. My eyes followed him till he turned round the next corner and disappeared leaving nothing but a small cloud of dust crawling at the road. 'Where would he go?', I thought. How inexplicably amazing is that I can't feel his experiences; his pain and pleasure, his small anxieties and big aspirations, his life! I cant even feel how an apple tastes to him! I can only imagine about him, but that will be my imagination, wont it? No matter how much I try, I can not be him. This thought made me a little sad. But I didnt disturb the chain of thoughts. I had right only on my experiences. And this was my only duty to live my life and feel my experiences. I was sent here to make my mistakes and learn my lessons. I was supposed to let my life live within me. I had to find myself and internalize him. Or rather I had to find myself and externalize him. But did I know myself? I had seen my face thousand times but never my identity, my self, my soul! How could I find him when I had never seen him? Who would help me recognizing him? Where would I find those eyes that would help me in seeing myself? Would any mirror guide me? No, mirrors only misguided. I remembered Dorian Gray*. This is what a mirror does to a man! A spasm of horror shook my spine. It's incredible! How often do we realize it? And what the hell was I thinking!! I had to make a decision. I had to move ahead. Do we know where to go when we are left free, completely free from every attachment and every bondage? I never ever pondered over this and now this question was demading an answer, inexorably, urgently.

I visualized myself outside my appartment wearing a T-shirt and knickers. My hair was unkempt and I was hardly looking like myself. I felt naked in the market.

- No, not this way!

- Fine. You can choose your attire and wear your confidence. See to it that it doesnt lose its luster with the crease of your clothes.

- Can I take my credentials with me?

- Aint they with you? What are you when you dont have them? Have you earned them or they have earned you all the luxuries you are having?

I again saw myself standing amid the bustle of market and beeps of cars. The sun shone over my head. I felt the heat and missed my air-conditioned office. The first drop of sweat tickled my forehead. Sweat! I had forgotten its existence long back. I used to sweat profusely when I exerted myself physically. Now it's all the things of past. I even felt like piercing my skin to see my blood too, if it still ran though my veins. Where was I living, away from my sweat and blood? I remembered I had renounced sports long back. My romantic-self rebelled against this realization. I asked myself that who the hell I was now? I had been the one who never stopped playing cricket in the evening even during my board exams!! What had I made of myself? Whose life was I living? What for?

I took a deep breath and felt the air. I opened my eyes and saw the broadness of the day with a childlike joy. I felt a strange new freshness in the air. I marvelled at a bird flying in the vast blue sky. And the clouds!! Cheerfully I imagined stuffing them into my pillow to make it fluffy! What a cool cushion it would make!! I gazed at the blue sky and felt the wind brushing my face. The whole wide world revealed itself to me, with all its immense and infinite vastness, for the first time or long after an eternity. And I realized that it's time for me to condition myself as per the new reality, infact the reality. I could not afford to feel disdainfully indifferent to its mundane business anymore. I had to fit somewhere. Yeah, fit somewhere. This is what I've been doing since I dont remember when. Still I was so confused how to do it without someone telling me where to do it.

Why was it so difficult?

First family, then relatives and friends. They formed a protective layer around me. They decided on my behalf in the various stages of my life and I comfortably played the role they chose for me. I was given healthy and tasty food without my having anything to do with farming or farmers. I couldnt live for five minutes without a fan but I was not to touch a single wire. Then schools furthered the superficiality of living. It was like sliding in a long groove without bothering anything about anything. Everything just happened. The schools took my years and gave me grades as interest, without making me face any sphinx-like question the real life poses later on. After all I had paid fees just to keep me from thinking, hadnt I? For years I had never been short of assignments and examinations, and numbers as well. And I learned nothing but numbers only. The sepoy mutiny in 1857, the production of tea in Assam is x and the GDP of India in 1994 is y and the minimum age required to contest election is z. Noone ever talked about my real face and the mirror which reflected my real face. Why would they? Now I realize that it's my personal question and I have to search the answer; it's my cross and I have to carry it on my shoulder. It's my right and my duty.

I was kept away from the real life by the many devices of society. Perhaps I was not mature enough for that. IIT Delhi, eventually the great red fort was also won. I had a strong shell around my body now. I was no more vulnerable. I was no longer at the mercy of the vicissitude of chance. By now I had subconsciously developed a sense of fear from uncertainty, from maturity, from reality. My natural desire to explore the wild world of nature had starved long back. I tethered my horse with a nearby tree and relaxed in the cool shadow in the splendid forest of Karakoram. I never had to suffer the scorch of sun.

Finally I found a niche' in the corporate world. Now I had to only follow the foorsteps of my predecessors and continue my journey in a large caravan towards a business school. Perhaps I wanted another shell around my body. And there were many social institutions which earned by mass-snailification of men and women.

Yes, all of us are snails. Safe within our shells we drift disgracefully towards a destination that doesnt beckon us. We've bartered our wings for these shells. But this sense of insecurity has pervaded our psyche so profoundly that no number of shells can make us feel safe. The quest for the next shell is nothing but an attempt to forget the loss of our wings.

The world had stopped being a huge laboratory for my experiments, my edification, my emancipation, my illumination and my salvation. It had reduced to be a playground. The shell-mongers have repeatedly said that it was a battle-field and we need their shells for our survival. Yes, we were not living but extending our survival.

God knows how many thoughts assailed my mind. I realized in the end that I have things but I am nothing! The voice had come to wake me up from my long slumber. It wanted me to appreciate the importance of being over having. I had exhausted my mind but could not imagine myself going out further than the first corner. I am still thinking about it.

I understood that freedom is coming out the these shells, these institutions, these certificates and degrees which define and delimit us. Renunciation of these shells that obstruct the sun and our growth would be the triumph of the being over having. We need to relinquish the petty rights which under-compensate the freedom we are made to forfeit for their acquisition. This is the way to humanization which essentially passes through de-snailification. It is, no doubt, a continuous and difficult process and a struggle within. But nothing of value or worth comes cheap.

* The picture of Dorian Gray - Oscar Wilde

Devil in the den of God :)

Click it to enlarge it. This place is Notre Dame, Paris.

let it kill if it thrills

* Contains black humor *

Riding a bike at a speed above 100kmph is fun even when you don't exactly hate and want to get rid of yourself. It is however a superfun experience if you do so. It is interestingly amusing if you are vaguely aware of your suicidal instincts but the amusement doesnt diminish if you don't, it only changes its colour or shade. If you have someone with you to pretend fear and lock her body with yours then nothing is like it. But it is like sleeping, its yin counterpart, it is no less lovely even if you are alone. In fact it is a very nice way to celebrate the listlessness and the loneliness in life. Speed is a nice refuge, like alcohol or books or work or whatever and it fills the emptiness of our life. It's an effective therapy too. It helps us bear the banalities, inanities and slowness of life. Whatever it is, it is fun and that's what matters.

So my pulsar dhooms at Bombay-Pune highway. My sony makes my riding more musical. She gets me drunk with ecstasy. I dont drink and so I dont know what drunken driving is like but this is too good for me. I rouse my heart from its monotonous chore of keeping me breathing. Come on! Let me give you a life you li'l fella!! I make it dance on its own beats. Beats are anyways more musical when they are not unlimited in number. How dear the life is on the verge of death! Just like land on the edge of a cliff; ever been there?

One suggestion: Never forget to wear your helmet. It helps your folks to identify you if something unromantic happens. Uncertainty kills them more than your death. So do wear your helmet. Anyways getting your skull crushed is quite an unaesthetic idea. It might disturb the scene for happy people. Why having them pretend solemnity instead of love!

*****************************************

Yesterday I borrowed two thought stimulants from this world. Let me give them back.
The ideas were already in my mind but here they are expressed beautifully, precisely and succinctly.

- "Strategy! I've had no strategy in life. I owe everything I have to serendipity."

(Courtesy:http://anksy06.blogspot.com/)

- I agree to whatever you say about India provided you agree to the fact that the opposite of it also holds true.
(Courtesy:Ashutosh Mathur)

The abhinterpretation of (anti)cheering

Perhaps it is again one of my nonsense interpretation of an equally nonsense observation. But I promise that it is an "original nonsense" and I hope you would not find it boring. That qualifies it to be packed in words and presented to you for your cerebral consumption.

*Incoherence, if you could detect, is regretted.

Statement: Connivance in (anti)cheering by an otherwise unpermissive authority in IITD is a cunning maneuver to preclude potential politicization of youth and polarization of power.

Axiom: SAFETY VALVE THEORY.

- Huh!! I am enlightened! What an insightful remark! Man it's a fossilized cliche' for Godssake. - I agree to this point. So what? I agree cliches are not very interesting but anyways the truth doesnt exist for your entertainment. And dismissing a cliche' just for its being a cliche' is not only ultra-cliched but also an indicative of mental indolence.
- But don't you think you are taking it too far?
- Please suspend your judgement for a while. And read on.

The simple idea is to get the extra-curricullar energy of the students drained by allowing nay encouraging them in shouting their throats out for/against something which is absolutely inconsequential. Moreover, this creates an illusory world with an completely erroneous sense of winning, losing and competetion. But it is exciting and it keeps them occupied with the elaborate rules of the game. The observation of these rituals provide them a false sense of integration (and not observing these rituals, in unritualistic way, results in alienation). Every IITian pretends not to know that the distribution of students in various hostels is just a matter of chance and none of the hostels is inherently superior to others. But the more blind mania a hostel-maniac exhibits in his unmitigated pretense, the more flowery laudatory adjectives are showered over him. The award system has been further devised to implement the managerial incentive-punishment trick. Our inherent hankering for glory makes their work even simpler. Lastly the grand exaltation of the purpose provides it a tinge of patriotic loaftiness and makes uttering anything against it almost blasphemous. That's IIT hostel life for you.

Positives: yes there are. This inculcates a team spirit which transcends regional and academic boundaries and provides a platform for cultural-intellectual intermixing that is conducive to the overall growth of an individual. But the reality hardly corresponds to this ideal purpose. Brotherhood developes but not in the way it is desired. Just like drinking together or doing anything 'forbidden', it is developed in the titillation of complicity. It gives you cheap kicks and highs and a misplaced sense of unity and power. Period.

Negatives: how many do you need to be convinced? I'll talk about the confusion of identity first.

To start with, IITians are talented students and they are expected to be responsible citizens and proficient engineers of wherever they choose to live. This opinion and expectation doesnt always allign with their self-images and youthful aspirations. Fine. They want to dudify themselves and blot out the stigma of nerd often attached to them by some nobodies. Above all, they are human before anything else and their individuality should be respected by all. Fair enough. But in the campus their primary identity (what are they there for?) is that of a student of engineering or of anything they like to pursue in academics. The other things come later, including their hostel identity which dominates their minds for most of the time.

My straightforward opinion (not very flattering!) about the 'confusion quotient' of those students who ostensibly got admission in IITD for the higher purposes of playing and 'pataoing' females used to enrage them. These people pretended as if their being sportsmen par excellence secured them rooms in IITD hostels and they wanted me to buy this! Give me a break! And females! Only a major hormonal imbalance in their bodies or an absence of line-of-luck on their palms could draw them to these morons.

The confusion in the identity also takes its toll in intra-departmental activities (for example-departmental elections!). As soon as the feeling of esprit de corps is attached with the hostel and not with the department, the academics loses to mass-hysteria, the significant prostrates before the trivial. This pathetic level of awareness, interest and participation of students is plaguing most of the deprtments in IITs. The young and energetic students can help re-creating the image of IITs and shape it as per the demands of the present technological and industrial environment. But I see the death of dynamism in IIT. They teach the same musty books with mythological technology everywhere. There is hardly any interface with the industry. Science, it seems, is the latest superstition, and is in vogue too. I wonder why I didnt observe this then? Why didnt we make a team and arrange seminars, presentations, trainings, projects for ourselves? No matter what your career goals are, these things always pay. Perhaps I am talking too much. Perhaps I have not said enough. Who knows? The possibilities are only limited by one's faculty of imagination. And the senile profs know it very well. But these losers! They dont want to project that what they teach is redundant or obsolete or even incomplete. I knew it was useless but I couldnt find out the right way. I didnt participate in departmental activities. There is no such thing as departmental alumni e-group or something like that. I dont know if it exists coz I've never come across any such thing. IITs have deteriorated into places predominantly for playing AOE, practising cheap politics, preparing for CAT and selling infamous MMS! Thanks to the crew the ship is heading straight towards the iceberg. And these morons attribute this downfall to the JEE and the coaching institutes (as if they are the prime threat to the national security! Read this) whereas they know too well that they are the ones who should be held culprit for incompetent managemant and outdated pedagogy. They know that sooner than later the students, who in their ignorance or naivete' take them for God, would come to know about their reality. The way out: keep them away from reality. In the rage of hostel wars the students might acquire skills unknown to them but the intentions of the authority is not beyond suspicion. My rhetorics and your credulity is not needed to appreciate this simple point that the people who know what is to be done are not doing anything what is to be done and at the same time doing everything what is not to be done. They give us freedom to fling filthy phrases at one another in the seminar hall but rigidly exercise 'thought-control' in the matters which matter, by the various weapons they possess.

Talking about cheering per se, I would say that I found cheering absolutely ludicrous at most of the places. And anti-cheering UNACCEPTABLE. But in IITs it seems that every contestant needs cheering no matter whether he is a football player or violin player. You can easily find these retarted bipods bellowing outside the debate hall too! Moreover the excessive anti-cheering changes the very nature of game being played. For an instance a match of badminton is decided more on one's thick-skinned immunity to the torrent of oral filth rather than his(sometimes her too) atheletic skills. True, psychological strength should be tested but it is anyways tested in cheering-less matches too. If the IIT- sophomores were given freedom, they would gleefully pack their bags to go and cheer for Vishwanathan Anand! And what this cheering does anyways? I remember a TT match where an over-enthusiastic player used to hit the ball so hard (perhaps with added enthusiasm) that it hardly ever fell on the table. He was not that incompetent but he did so coz he was playing in his own hostel and was surrounded by hundreds of bawling inmates. And the dude desperately wanted 'to beat the shit outta that fuckin bastard'! Only he didnt know how to do it. :)

The students of IITs would not, in my opinion, make a union and negotiate for their rights with the authority. I won't take this that far keeping the brittleness of your imagination in mind. I can contrive reasons to support my belief too. Even you can. So lets spare each other and lets not play the reason-reason game here. But we can never rule out the possibility that the students can participate more meaningfully in the things that actually matter and can subtly alter the power structure within the academic system. The recent initiative by some awakened and sensibly enthusiastic students in the placement cell highlights this point. I will attribute your incredulity, if still there, to the fact that you might be one of those who don't believe that the earth revolves around the sun simply because you have not seen this happening!

Man re..

Man re, tu kaahe na dheer dhare;
O nirmohi moh na jaane jinka moh kare..

Movie: Chitralekha
Singer: Md Rafi
Music: Roshan
Lyrics: Sahir

The poetry of Sahir, the sitar of Roshan and the rendition of Rafi! What else would one ask for? I can only talk about words here and so I would.

Check these lines out-

Utna hi upkaar samajh koi jitna saath nibhaa de,
Janam maran ka mel hai sapna yeh sapna bisraa de,
Koi na sang mare,
Man re..

You need to have experienced the life to appreciate these lines. How true! What are we but fleeting moments living and dying at the same time! Why quest for permanance when it exists nowhere except in our words? And on a second thought, would not permanace steal the beauty from everything that is beautiful?

I had to sail through many oceans to come to you

I had to sail through many oceans to come to you. The waves shoved me back. The winds almost tore my oar away from my hands. The water leapt on and blinded my eyes. The couriers of Death tried to intimidate me. But I remembered your smiling face and lo! my worn-out muscles and bleeding fingers came to life again. The warmth of your memories sustained me in those chilly nights. I didn't stop. Nothing could have stopped me as you were calling me. I let all the forces of the universe do what they could and I carried on keeping you in my mind. It was a trial of my passion for you my love! What and who could have stopped the one whose spirit has been kindled by your divinely fire! And this fire was not made to be extinguished. Finally the ocean parted and gave me way to you.


But then you denied me shore on your isle.