insanity / ennui

salt river and the snake..

2011-05-24T19:48:00.001+05:30

it takes a very long time to get unused to something in life, especially if it's the good things of our small little petty existence..
thank god it's raining outside. at least some succor to my heartburn..
i seem to be sighing a lot more.. taking a lot more deep breaths.. i'm this close to shutting my phone off. i guess it's always the worst before it gets better. or so i choose to rationalize and fool myself.

imagine having to censor each word, each move, each action. difficult life ahead.

and all i want is a classic 500!

2011-05-03T06:31:00.003+05:30

early morning chill.. rain drenched asphalt.. steel..
the stirrings of a city.. other stirrings as well.

quarry..

of course, the inspiration yet doesn't follow.. but like an old man trying out some viagra for the first time and settling down to check the effects on him with a dose of free porn on the internet, i wait titillated.. maybe i'll be able to paint again. maybe i'll be able to write again. perhaps the words will flow just as the river erodes the island regularly and relentlessly. perhaps not.. why does it feel like i've done this before. a yes and a no. this has been the crux so far. so far being just the last couple of years.. can i read the old books again? will i fall in love with the pages like i did the last time.. just as i'm afraid to go back to an old boyfriend after a breakup, i'm scared to read a book that i love the second time.. what if? what if i don't enjoy it so much..

what if i'm just rehashing.. just like i found out that be 23 if you like jokes, you've probably heard them all.. at 30, you've written it all?? no more new thoughts?? what's wrong??

23 days: a tale of toughening up

2010-01-21T12:51:00.002+05:30

it's been a while since i wrote anything, and now i realize that unless i feel very passionately, i don't have words.. think what you may wanna of that.. i realized that i'm very passionate about myself, what happens to me and whatever is mine, is of my utmost concern.. i just can't take it if what i perceive as wrong happens.. and i gotta get out of here, this little pond where each frog thinks he's the cock of the walk.. Nah, man.. you're just another toad. and where you sit is yet another toadstool..

i've had to do some things which i never thought i'd need to.. all this while, i was under the impression that merit counts.. sure i was never naive, i knew a little bit of networking and some right posturing also would go a long way.. yet, i never knew that sheer idiocy or stupidity or vindictiveness or vengefulness or laziness (i haven't been able to pinpoint the reason as yet) could hold sway in today's world.. but then all's well..

i still don't know what i'm made of.. i still don't know if Gurdieff was right.. in those 23 days, i've kicked, screamed, shouted, flexed my muscles, made noise enough number of times.. the days of despair i can count as 5 perhaps.. those days, i turned inwards completely.. didn't want anyone to know how strong i felt inside.. thing is that today, i still don't know what happened, how and why.. it's all a big mystery..

The Aufbau Principle

2009-06-24T09:31:00.001+05:30

“You just sit there… don’t look up. Don’t look in the eye. Don’t look! …act as if he’s invisible. He’ll just go away… or else the light will turn green and soon you’ll drive away. You’ll be home and then you can forget about it.” These are the first thoughts.

A deeper thought if ever taken reveals that one never wanted to forget about him. All of the ignoring actually means that he was never in your mind. The teeming million poor people are never in our minds. In fact no one else ever is. I know for a fact.

How did we ever organize ourselves in this society this way? Who made the rules? I am embarrassed, but I’ll tell you. I ignore all those little boys and girls begging at every crossing in Delhi. I don’t look at them in the eye. I look through them. I act as if they’re invisible. I roll up the window. I rev the engine. I rush away as soon as the light turns green. I don’t want to give any money as I know that one coin will bring in twenty more outstretched palms. Or will it? I don’t know. I’ve run away every time. I’ve never checked it out.

Who put them there in the first place? Is that very naïve of me to ask? Should I just let that question be? Can I ever find answers to that question? Or will it be entirely clouded with concepts of economics, development strategy, political will, gross domestic product, manufacturing sector, insurgency etc etc etc ad nauseum.

The simple fact of life: “hungry stomach needs food” has today been confused and manipulated to such an extent that we have nations of obese people co-existing in the world along with malnourished nations all in the same world. But it doesn’t matter right: it’s not your country, it’s not your home, it’s not your problem.

Who is to blame? Or is it not about a blame game? The ancient Indians would have us believe it is karma. Some are destined for greatness, some are destined for poverty. Or is it that some work harder than the others? What is the role of equal opportunities? What if I am a closet literary genius of the Swahili language? I just never got the opportunity to blossom that talent, having been born in India. Or is it that I was never meant to?

of longing and belonging...

2009-06-01T09:22:00.002+05:30

as days give in to other days and nights give in to rainy mornings, one wonders at the sense of delight God must feel with his little toys.. US

He plays with our hearts, or bodies, our cars, our houses and He presumable has fun... oh! right, lemme play with that road.. a little tweak and voila! An accident... else, it's Ah shit.. missed again! heard that joke?? let's just put this girl there and that boy there, they'll meet after so many years, but wait!! Things can't be easy, even after they meet, lemme put some other factors like work for instance and keep them apart..

Let's make him enticing, but let's have them stay apart.. each day a struggle, each moment a bit of pain.. Well, when they meet sparks fly asunder, but the yearning.. Oh the yearning..

Why?

present

2009-05-30T18:38:00.003+05:30

I'm in a dangerous mood... wanna do something crazy and spontaneous... i hate my existence where each moment is recorded and tagged and verified and corrected and placed in custody... He can't come, i can't go.. I yearn. Oopli tuplis..

Why do we work? So that we have ample time for leisure... i work and then work some more.. so does he... i wait, so does he.

...sigh...

Three nights: a thought on certainty

2009-05-25T08:34:00.004+05:30

'No matter what the axiom system, truth will outrun proof'.
In the quest to understand the reason for our being, we’ve invented everything: science, mathematics, astronomy, God, movies, economics, love, babies… while the fact of the matter is that we just need nothing save for some smiles, a warm touch, a kind voice, a longing glance… All of the latter is so that we belong to someone, or that someone belongs to us. Why this need to possess? Let’s just leave everything to fate, everything to chance; chance that has ensured that today I’m unattainable. You know what I mean.

Firelit evenings, morning drizzles, fresh fruit, butterflies, fireflies, morning, noon, night… drive in, drive out, wave, kiss, hide in the crook of his shoulder, fight, make up, make out, bleed… Imagination keeps pulling my thoughts to texts and sub-texts. Another life, another world, another phone. It’s all conjecture now: what if…what if…what if…

What if what? This is it. This is me. This is the fact. This is the truth. This is the proof. Is there any need for any axiom or theorem? Now or ever?
NO
This is it. This is me. This is the fact. This is the truth. This is the proof.

kohl lined eyes

2009-04-10T21:36:00.002+05:30

“Sequoia sempervirens – always green, always alive.
They’re (MBeere) an ancient East African tribe.
They believe that trees are imperfect men... eternally bemoaning their imprisonment – the roots that keep them stuck in one place.
But I've never seen a discontented tree.
Look at this one – the way its roots are gripping the ground.
I believe it really loves it.”

Men are imperfect…stuck to one place by virtue of a job, loved ones, family, friends… Man is his own prisoner. Ever so once in a while he gets to take another into the dungeons. That is accomplished by flattery, by genuine attraction, by anger, by disapproval, by grief, by love, by hatred, by affection, by desire, by succor. The one imprisoned thus, however is to blame. He gives in to the emotions of the other. Emotions that play on his own deadly sins, his weaknesses and his strengths which have now transformed into gargoyles of negativity. To break free one has to imbibe the statuesque nature of the trees. Or rather the acorn which is the entire potential of a giant oak, standing the test of generations, watching over whole villages that live it it’s shadow.

Perhaps trees love the earth so much that they intend to kill us in our sleep with all the carbon dioxide that they produce after sundown… Well, jokes apart, and aside the fact that I’m a bit rusty (after all, I write nearly after a year), I must confess that all I’ve seen in the course of the last couple of years is discontentment…discontentment among men to be more precise. And this process is further emphasized with the now-ongoing process of the right of choice. The land of skippers and princesses, the world of cops and robbers, the level playing field of bombs and guns: all pitted against each other in the crazy chess smorgasbord. Mate and check mate. Constant and ever changing!

Trees…eternally bemoaning their imprisonment…the roots that tie them to one place. Men eternally free to walk around, yet he who seeks a wife, a house, a family, some land, some money so that he may be shackled and tied down to one place. Perhaps society is just too scared of the free radicals; it would rather compartmentalize and put every one in the right pigeon hole, the right cubicle, the right honey comb.

And then people cut down trees!

sheer inertia

2008-12-01T12:47:00.002+05:30

every word that i think of as the first word to begin the first sentence of a first paragaraph seems cliched. if not cliched, then it seems utterly useless, or else if everything fails it seems un-necessary.......................................................................................................................................

short story

2008-07-31T00:48:00.002+05:30

the chicken and the duck

2008-06-10T10:37:00.004+05:30

softly kneaded into the senses was the taste of honey
she put her tongue to it cautiously
exploding in a fury of rain drenched skin

hands that sought another's
lips that craved another's
chocolate and vanilla rum truffles

senses tested beyond their limit
all other deviations shut down one by one
until sunlight poured in through the cobwebbed window panes

a small corner of the room was lit up
she sat there gazing into her soul
as he lay sleeping, content and caressed by spent love from last night

of love and other demons...

2008-05-31T09:15:00.007+05:30

“Jesus won’t save you.”
“No. Momma He will.”
“He won’t because you have sinned. He will save you only if He loves you.”
“Momma, Jesus loves everybody; sinners, even me.”

Telling isn’t it? Little children scared by their parents into submission to the world of religion that the child doesn’t understand, more often than not, the parent doesn’t. God has to love us sinners more than the saints for we need him the most. He shall have to put faith in us, for we need most forgiveness. He shall have to pay more attention to us, for we need Him.

The little novel by Marquez talks of good, of evil, of love, of passion, of deceit, of gods that Christian religion doesn’t understand, of madness, of solitary sorrow, of debauched misgivings, of addictions, of the eternal human caprice to want to reach a place where morality can be left at the doorstep and deep breaths in the arms of the forbidden beloved shall not be looked upon with a disapproving eye.

The little girl Sierva Maria found peace in the lies that she told her European parents, in the songs she sang for the African housemaids, in the arms of the priest Cayetano Delaura in the cold dreary prison cell of the convent, in the moment when she knew that it was her last breath. The priest was doomed by his education and direction in life when it was confronted with the bounteous beauty of life. Vows of celibacy are just so trite. Love is what steps out of the hackneyed path. The Marquis’ love for the mad woman, Abrenuncio’s love of horses, the Bishop’s love of the motherland… the Abbess’ love for herself all lead to but one path.

Madness, solitude, anger, tantrums, love, sex, drugs are all sedatives that set humans on the track of domesticity. Some hide these afflictions better than others. Others hide their illicit affairs. Each act of pure physical love gets mired in terms of adultery or prostitution. Each act of romantic love is an act of cheating. We sinners need God most. God needs us sinners the most. Ours is the symbiotic relationship.

Walk in, flit out, sift through, take stock, have some recourse, make demands, let go, hang on… where does it all lead us? Nowhere to go, nowhere to hide; look for kindred spirits, look for redemption, look for those arms that never was for us in the first place. He doesn’t exist. If he does, he loves someone else. He wants someone else. He lies in bed with you but he sleeps with her. You sleep with someone else. You’re all alone. You’re on your own. You drink, you forget, you see someone else.

When was the last time you woke up to someone you expected to wake up next to??

here's the look see

2008-04-10T19:51:00.002+05:30

okay people, unless you're absolutely sure you won't throw up, don't open this link. these are pictures of me right before i was stitched up in the operation theatre. it's bloody and gory. my sincere apologies for ruining your day..

http://picasaweb.google.co.in/xanjukta/GraphicPhotosIMSorryIfTheyDisturbYou?authkey=2NkOVp9HfhI

silkworm

2008-04-09T19:02:00.002+05:30

nimble hands sewed up tattered pieces of skin for a good many hours. the story started as we froze like deer in the headlights of the oncoming vehicle or did the grand plan start before that. did i know anything while i cleaned up my room and made space for puru's stuff in my cupboard. did anyone have an inkling? did someone laugh in the great big blue sky or wherever the halleluiah strumming lute carrying angels park their white fluffy clouds??

frankly speaking for some strange reason i can't seem to relate to people who've come and told me if only you'd waited for some time... i'd rather get on with my life (i mean work, marriage. books, music etc) i mean i just wanna laugh. there are just so many corny jokes and one liners that come into my edema'ed brain, and i say then aloud, but it's no fun laughing at yourself unless you can manage a good racous laugh yourself. otherwise, people feel a little uncomfortable and odd at laughing at a smashed up woman. i mean god!! they're quite polite, aren't they?

i've been meaning to write for a long time now. just haven't had the time, and now i've all the time in the world. at least for a few days. (boy! Am i bored out of my wits?) i've contemplated on smell for now. with a smashed nose nothing much works in the olfactory department. i couldn't smell the three day old dried and caked blood in my fingers. nor the fact that i've not brushed for the last three days. what to say of the fresh smell of shampoo that emanated from my head wash today. i can't smell his breath, i can't smell his skin, i can't smell his love. i can only see everything. and i'm scared to soak it all in cos i may start crying being so overwhelmed, which i can't afford cos i can't blow my bloody broken nose.

spread open the anus of a cadaver. a sudden whiff of smell shall burst and shock you. i call it 'the final fart'. what of the teeming masses all around? what should i call that?

systems are down

2008-02-27T19:51:00.004+05:30

i always thought that there would be a defining moment which i'd recognise, which would characterise me or bring to light my possible place... all i find is one day blending into the insignificant other.. is it cowardice to kill oneself or is it an act of courage? i can't seem to find the answer.. is that the only philosophical question left?? whether or not to live!!!

resurrection...or is it?

2008-01-17T16:09:00.000+05:30

The burgeoning of an idea seems so very momentous to the generator that he/she gets carried away in the multiple variants of its expression and implementation. There is never the thought that it might just be a personal matter. People wash it, cook it, clean it, bake it, fry it, ornament it and put it out to dry where the winds of the rest of the human minds may see it, touch it, sense it, feel it, taste it, smell it and revel in it…or just as well criticize and pan it.

Well an idea is just that. There is nothing original, momentous or extraordinary about it. Everyone has them. Everyone constructs them. Everyone discards them. There’s nothing grand about having one of them, a million of them or having none at all. It’s all very simple. Life is just the way it is. Each day merges into each night, which in turn merges into the next morning.

We strive so hard to make ourselves indispensable to the ones we love, to the ones we aid, to the ones at our mercy, to the ones whose mercy we rely on, to every goddamn person, thing or event we think is of value. It is all in vain. There is no place for immortality. We can’t live on in the lives of our children… they can’t search for meaning in our lives, or even answers. We each seek our own answers. What we need are the really good questions… Or are they just fanciful ideas?

birth

2007-09-02T18:41:00.000+05:30

bag and baggage

2007-08-12T11:17:00.000+05:30

A saga of 16 days, 12 places, 25 people, 70 pieces of luggage, 9 railway stations, 2 nuclear power stations, 15 PowerPoint presentations, 11 odd ‘official’ dinners, 8 ‘call on’s, 1 governor, 1 DGP, 5 IGPs, countless policemen, 4 boat rides, umpteen buses, 2 very good cups of coffee, numerous cuppa tea, 1 tea garden, 5 sea fronts, under nourished egos, varied interests, shopping, temples, elephants, liaison officers, good and bad hotel rooms, museums, palaces, coolies, trolleys, digicams, rains, idlis, dosas, south Indian version of laccha paranthas, curd rice, banana chips, AC 2-tier coaches, unwashed clothes (which were washed yesterday, my room looked like a dhobi ghat), 8 novels (Naipaul, Amis, Torday, Anita Nair, Tharoor, Calvino…etc.), 1 book of essays (The Moronic Inferno), cell phones on roaming and fatigue.

DISCLAIMER: The following account has been censored for a UA rating. Reader discretion is still recommended. Please read between the lines for the expletives that have been erased, emotions that have been obliterated, feeling have been un-disclosed, information kept secret and do remember that all views expressed belong inordinately to yours truly and do not in any way reflect opinions of any canine, feline, bovine, rodent, human, organizational or governmental set up.

Rats scurry along in the gutters under the railway tracks oblivious t the people on the platforms. People who are inhaling the putrid smell of fermenting urine and excreta left by travelers like proof of their fetid existences. “Ah! Once upon a time, I was in Gwalior. Of course, I should know. Ask the scum I crapped there!”

No, this is not an invective about the things going wrong with India on the eve of the 60th anniversary of independence. But this is true of the railway stations in India, barring Malgudi, perhaps because it’s imaginary. It must be said though in 60 years the babudom has moved from the teeming compartments that Gandhi traveled to the AC 2-tier where even vendors do not venture. The isolated steel frame, the Ambassadocracy has moved on to Mercdom! This is a tirade of much miniscule a proportion. This is about my life in the past one month.

Okay, it’s kinda cool to be a 27 year old Indian woman and claim to have lobbed a grenade. No, silly, not in Lal Chowk but at the BSF range in Indore. However once all the madness of raids, cordon and search ops got over; we were herded to Tekanpur where we saw Inspector Beethoven at work. Not a Great Dane, the great Labrador that sniffs out explosives and narcotic contraband. Then soon it was time to take the GT Express from Gwalior to Chennai. I had about two hours to kill, one hour cos we had a “buffer” time to account for traffic rush (haha!) and the other cos the train was late. Therefore I observed the rats.

Then followed a crazy mad rush to keep appointments with governors, IGs, DGs, first woman police station in India, Coastal police station, temples before closing time, slow buses (nobody in Tamil Nadu seemed to know how much time it takes to get somewhere, every time we were told it’ll take 3 hours it took us harrowing five!), Cochin Port Trust etc etc etc ad nauseum. What I failed to understand, very starkly if I may say so was at Mahabalipuram: 30 minutes to see all the architecture of the stone carved temples minus the “Five rathas” (lack of time you see), but a two hour lunch at the Taj (not that I’m complaining too much cos I feasted on squid). This went on.

Wherever we went there were also PowerPoint presentations ready and waiting for us. The worst was at Cochin, where we reached by a slow and arduous train at 7:30 pm, changed and reached the Port Trust at 8:30 pm only to be served tea along with what I now believe to be the seminal contribution of Microsoft to Indian bureaucracy. Seriously, walking into the still-being-constructed-light water reactor-way-out-of-timeline was an experience of a lifetime. The same cannot be said of the PowerPoint presentation on the stages and history of nuclear power generation in India.

Food was another issue. I don’t want to see another idli, dosa or a serving of curd rice for a long time to come. Nor do I want the smell of coconut oil in my dal or what they called the sambaar for us “the outsiders”. The appam and mutton stew at Cochin though was to die for, as was the cold cream pie aboard a naval vessel at Cochin. Methinks Cochin was the best part of the trip: the boat ride to the mouth of the river, where it meets the sea, the visit to the Dutch palace at Mattancherry and the Jewish Quarters with its synagogue where I was afraid to step on the blue china floor tiles.

Ooty was miserably cold and wet. Mysore palace was to use Lutyen’s words ‘garish’ and over top. Bangalore was overcrowded and claustrophobic with its traffic and concrete jungle, yet we managed to reach the train station with a buffer of two hours beating the traffic, oh! Lucky us! Kanya Kumari was absolutely delightful as was Madurai with us finally having some time, graciously accorded by the hosts, to visit the cities treats and eyesores alike. Ah, yes! I was in Pondicherry also, which was another hit, run, touch and go visit.

What did I learn? When you’re on the other side of the fence remember not to do this to your juniors in the service.

P.S.: for some pics check www.picasaweb.google.co.uk/xanjukta/BharatDarshan

talk to the hand...

2007-06-30T19:35:00.000+05:30

i've been here before but never with such intensity... do people understand what i mean?

untitled

2007-06-10T14:49:00.000+05:30

save the world???

2007-06-05T20:00:00.000+05:30

earth, the Raven haired beauty

smelt of freshly cut grass,

or, was it her perfume?

whatever! Let it pass.

fallow, barren, infertile,

she's been called too many names

still she empties her womb

never playing too many games

"Die you cock sucking mother fucker", he shouted

as he pulled the trigger

many died, some maimed, all was over,

or do you want me to give a numerical figure?

lizard king (with all due apologies)

2007-05-12T19:46:00.000+05:30

Disclaimer: I'm willing to face the flak!! Bring it on!!

Interesting Story: The photographer is auctioning this tiara, so make your bids.. best one so far is "two shwarmas from maroush" with ""extra"" GARLIC.. and psst.. the photographer is a pig!! Personally, the Human Rights Watch is helping the help throw off his proletariat shackles and sue the m(b)astard

Boring Truth: Let me give you the background... a friend of mine took a picture of his officeboy with a cheap tiara stolen from a baniya wedding bash.. it has a flashing lights... Okay, truth, he found the tiara at a club next to a cheap ass pineapple cake that said "Happy Birthday, Mrs. Bunty"...

Apolo'guise'

2007-04-22T10:54:00.000+05:30

What is the point of picking up a fight if you've got to apologize later... Fights can be fought out in two ways. One with a swift stroke and another with a long drawn out extended series of bouts. A good fight is one no doubt which can settle scores really quickly and effectively and once and for all... Sock the guy’s face and you’re done. Never have to see the person again. This is possible only if the other is a stranger or a passing acquaintance, who doesn’t really matter much in your life. This is the best fight ever. But imagine having one of these fights with someone you know well, someone you’ll have to see for an extended period of time in your life, anything between six months to a lifetime. Then either the two of you are intelligent enough to never talk to each other ever again. Take care that the two of you never cross paths again. At least there’d be some peace in your life. The fight would be an act complete in itself.
But in case you keep running into him either out your own volition or out of his will ’cos he wants to niggle you, then what happens to your life? Ruinous hell where everyday you fight a bit, win a bit, lose a bit, increase blood pressure, remain under constant stress…in short you hardly have much of a life. In this case humans walk into the realm of the second form of battles. The wars of attrition that drag on for long with no rhyme or reason and which have no clear conclusions... This is harmful in the long run, but most human antagonism gets manifest only in this nature. Look at Palestine-Israel; or the two Koreas…or at your squabbling parents... Perhaps both sides want to increment the misery in their lives as well with the other person's lives. Well, who am I to judge that? To each his own…
As for me, I prefer the first split-second decisive act. One slap, one punch, one whack and it’s all over. I guess I’ve had the advantage of that until now because of my age. Growing up, not too many people remain important, a feeling that increases as and when one shifts schools, colleges or universities. Most of your friends will shift out to jobs and other diverse fields. So how does it matter if you fight with them?
Another thing entirely; if you’re in a job and the i@!$#s around you are either your colleagues or your trainers. If you dislike anyone, just ignore and wash them from your head… A better thing to do in the long run because you’ll need some help from them later in life. And by any chance if you’ve opened your mouth and said something which led to a heated exchange, you’re done for. Be prepared for the protracted time consuming sequence to follow. Sharpen your knives. Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer.

Between a cow and ‘chunnu munnu te papa di gaddi’

2007-04-15T09:48:00.000+05:30

Ai hai… have you seen the traffic in India? I’ve been around…if you know what I mean… And I’ve seen a lot of this country. Rather I’ve narrowly skidded, swerved, survived the roads, actually what plies on the roads. From flashy Mercs at the Bombay Gymkhana to gaudy Beemers at Taj Land’s End, from bassy Hummers in Koregoan to monstrous Volvos on the Ahmedabad-Vadodara highway, from raddiwalah trucks at Azadpur mandi to gannewalah tractors on the Ambala-Karnal turning, from rickety autos near Charminar to polluting state transport buses before CNG revolutionized Delhi, from zooming motorbikes with young boys ogling at college going girls in Kanpur to slow scooters weighed down by a fat father, fatter mother and two plump children in the streets of Karolbagh...I seen it all!

Holy cow! I guess that’s in tradition with my cultural ethos… or is it an expletive?? Did I just swear, mother of god!!! Forgive me father for I have sinned, but I’d like to shoot some of these cows that amble along the road with no thought of the past, present or future and just as suddenly park their arse in the middle of the road, while the vehicles careen, attempting not to bump into each other, screeching to a halt. No one’s loud about it, but each driver at this point of time is cursing all the cows to kingdom come, like there’s no tomorrow. Who let the cows out? Who? Who? Who?

Another question… who issued driving licenses to some of these drivers? Positively nasty, they don’t know when to use the indicators, when to honk and they seem to be driving with one foot on the brakes. In the night the road is a sea of blinking red lights in front of you and a floodlit stadium behind you. It’s a miracle that you get home safe and sound, in one piece, for you’ve been driving with your eyes closed for a long time dodging the full beam headlights, courtesy the fellow motorists. Scream, shout, tear your hair out, nothing works it’s a madhouse out there. Like playing dodgeball, driving in the streets in India is more an art of finding empty spaces and maneuvering the car there and then looking for the next spot. Of course, traffic jams are a different ball game altogether. If you haven’t been in one, you’ve seen nothing of India. And if you haven’t been in one, read no further, ’cos there’s no way you can read about it and get a feel for it. It’s one of those things in life that have to be experienced.

I’ll tell you anyway. You seem to be the persevering type. That reminds me, perseverance is a virtue on the roads. Especially during jams! It’s what restrains you from giving in to your dark side, slitting your own throat, strangulating the driver in front of you, breaking a couple of windshields and shoving the jaw down the throat of the lady who’s on the phone and not moving an inch when the jam has somewhat cleared out. Perseverance and patience and the simple sane knowledge that if you did any of the above mentioned acts you’d have to deal with the cops…and you don’t want that!

Imagine a hot June afternoon, blazing sun that hurts the eyes (in fact it seems like the eyes have melted)… you are at a crossroad and there’s a flashy sedan in front of you. You can see the driver; she’s on the phone and applying lipstick at the same time. Next to you is a fat pot bellied man in a small dinky car; he’s so fat that the steering wheel seems to be performing a gastric bypass surgery. Sweat pouring down in rivulets down your neck, despite the air conditioning in the car. You forgot to bring your own music, so you elected to listen to the radio instead. But that was a very bad choice because the RJ is shouting banal inanities now about audience who’ve written to her about the nature of her mellifluous voice. You think ‘are they crazy? This is the most irritating voice you’ve ever heard. Does her beau stuff cotton in his ears?’ The light is green, but the lady on the phone refuses to budge and the fat man just burped. Small mercies that your car is all boarded up, but you can almost smell the acrid fumes of his puri aloo bhajji breakfast.

Surely, you’ve got to be kidding if you don’t understand what I mean when I say that traffic in India is a whole world in itself. And you’re lucky if you can survive it with a few homicidal tendencies peppered with delusions of nuking the whole place. That’s just the normal mode here.

funny....

2007-03-04T08:54:00.000+05:30

so what does freud have to say about this.... very oral or what??????

Toe-jam

2007-02-25T12:47:00.000+05:30

Disclaimer: All characters, situations and humor in this piece are fictional. Any resemblance noted is purely incidental. All views expressed belong inordinately to yours truly and do not in any way reflect opinions of any canine, feline, bovine, rodent, human, organizational or governmental set up.

Let’s call a spade a spade. Outdoor is not easy-peasy by any stretch of crazy imagination. It is a series of back breaking, bicep enlarging, quadriceps hurting, knee spraining, ligament tearing, wrist fracturing, and shin shattering exercises. Constructed in such a way that it faintly disguises the essence of medieval torture at its core, this recipe has running, marching (in quick step and dheere chaal), horse riding, swimming, arms drill (salami shastra, bagal shastra etc ad nauseum), rope climbing, yoga bending, aerobics, push ups, chin ups, sit ups as its ingredients. All of these activities have specific procedures that have to be strictly adhered to. And all the salami I was conversant with was of a different nature, taste wise.

A hundred and one mostly out of shape bodies, are churned, wrung, chopped, sautéed, fried, baked, stuffed, sieved, curried, spiced, pressure cooked, boiled, steamed and cooked into a strange smorgasbord that, I’m not surprised, no one wants to sample. This assorted amalgam of human fat, muscle and bone bathed, fed and uniformed ends up indoors to the tune of discussions pertaining to law, procedures, prisons, bullet injuries, leadership, knife wounds, dowry deaths, sincerity, honesty, integrity and competencies. Let’s call a spade a spade. Indoor is not easy-peasy by any stretch of crazy imagination. Not when twelve hundred marks are at stake.

Let’s call a spade a spade. There’s nothing that can be done. The 2nd of November means the 2nd of November and it will come only after the months of March, April, May, June, July, August, September and October are over. So how does one sustain and retain the self in the face of such a hard hitting schedule? (Well, the ones really badly hit go to the hospital. However, they have, since the last two weekends been made to realize the folly of their ways. Ask anyone who has had PT and Drill classes on a Sunday…you’ll know what I mean!) The rest, who have kept in the various shades of pink of their health yawn, sigh and doze indoors and shuffle, drag, pant outdoors and thus forth cancel dates on the calendar.

Yet, you ask, how does one keep sane? Oh dear! That’s a wrong question to ask, lil’un! You see sanity has nothing to do here. As the weeks have gone by, I have been privy to the progression/regression of quite a few of my colleagues. Be it the lanky ‘Godfather’, one of the Kerala brothers, who has done everything from nostril flaring like a horse to a staccato ek-dab-ek which still persists while he runs the cross country forever looking for cover behind tiny rocks and shallow ditches. Best thing though is that we’ve arranged a rather elaborate method of saluting, and that keeps me going every morning. The second part in the Kerala brothers’ series is an earnest ‘banana’ youngster who is diligently attempting to learn Hindi and grow a respectable moustache at the same time. He is quite aware of his limitations on both counts though.

Then there is Bhai, who is bummed about going to the hills, actually he spent most of his time here calculating his cadre. Alternately, every week, he was either happy or sad…but as he’s put it best: “it’s all in the mind”. Did I mention, he could be a great playwright and director? To bhai ka cadre aa gaya, aur bhai ko running bhi aa gayi, bas swimming baki hai! Undoubtedly the best runner in our batch, Dulari, is another person who goes to great lengths to maintain aerodynamics. I guess, that is why he doesn’t cut his nails too often, to slice through air…slackers take note. This is a gem of a coaching trick. “O teri”, I can hear Mr. Shin. Too bad, you can’t transplant Maharaja’s. “Jis din meri shin thik ho gayi na…” He threatens… But then he has another strategy planned out with Motey: “End tak expose nahi karenge. Bas last mein position exchange kar lenge.” I’m not sure which way the wind shall blow, but I’m hoping by the last 10 km marathon, we’ll find out. Motey, we’re not quite sure if he was in the Island police or was he at the hands of the Island police. His dexterous digits can not merely sketch but also flick wallets, watches, pens… He’s lost weight, a new name is in order, hmmm… lemme think…

Oh! Mandeepjee ke bare mein kuch nahi likkha to woh na bura maan jayenge.. sorry jee! His biggest issue is changing clothes for that means changing his head gear. Strangely though, he has been asked to wear the turban and not the helmet for horse riding. May be he should swim the same way!

Bringing up the rear are two really unforgettable persons… One Lieutenant Tangri Kebab who keeps us droolingly enthralled with the sight of his muscled thighs and laughing at his aerobic antics. Peeche ka salute is his patented move as is the demo UAC. Any one caught copying shall be punished under Section 30 of LSW Act 2007. “Kitne chakkar lagana hai for writing this?” The other Dr. D, or D Buddha as some people call him. He is the masterful composer and lyricist of famous songs like “Jaane kyon log drill karte hai”, “Drill na kiya to kya kiya”, “Drill se laga le dil”, “Just chin up, chin up”. These numbers can be heard on the lips of everyone who thinks he or she’s not tone deaf and in the minds of the very few who know they are. We think a dedicated radio channel for the two of them should do splendidly, if not, perhaps a recording studio could be arranged. Such talent should not be made to leave the country without a trace.

Let’s call a spade a spade. These people are fun to be with. They make the troubles of the routine quite bearable. Whatever be the cause of this training, whatever it is that I have to achieve here in terms of the profession or the career, methinks life should be great with these guys around…

The Incredible Weight of Being

2007-02-16T06:43:00.000+05:30

Being here that is the premier training institute for police officers of India amidst a hundred people, all apparently the intellectual crème de la crème of the country this year… this batch will soon be replaced by another. The circle of life has a new meaning with the UPSC selection process, yet people refuse to face the truth and hang on to notions of superiority. The real person gives way to fresh blood. Perhaps that is why the country goes nowhere!

Whoa!!! Hold on before you think that this is a subjective vent of anger disguised as an objective analysis of people around me. Where is my sense of humor? I vaguely recall a jocular answer to this query. It was something like – “look at the guy she’s with… She definitely has a sense of humor!” Ok, I’m rubbing it in, but it’s too late to mention that now.

Enough digress; I shall get to the subject related to the incredible weight of being here…in this place…with these people. I have been asked to put on 10 kilos on my frame (for the love of god, I don’t know where I’ll be able to put that). I’m one of the few here who’s on this side of the fence. Where the grass is greener, people have been asked to reduce their weight anything between 1 to 14 kilos… However there are weightier issues. For example the kind of food available and the nature and manner in which it is consumed. Often it is the fear of the body giving way that ensures that we all stuff our faces every time we see food. Hence the efforts at reduction have been met with utter failure. Wherever I see the pants have only become tighter, and they’d like to think those are muscles… Looks like most are broadening their horizons.

Over and above this, there is further burden imposed upon us in the name of attempting to maneuver this girth on the PT field, the gym, the games field, the parade ground, the aerobics class, the yoga mats and the climbing rope. The only ground (quite literally I tell you) where this comes in handy is the WT and the firing range where cushions are handy. At least it doesn’t hurt everywhere and every time the bone contacts with the hard earth. Places I’m hurt are unmentionable, unnamable and unpardonable. Sigh!!

Yet I trudge, plod, dredge and drag myself on each day. Every morning I wake up to the sound of the bugler. He blasts off at an unearthly hour, though of late methinks he has a cold or a sore throat. He begins with a clear sound, short and smart bursts in the right pitch, but within 5 seconds it peters off towards utter flaccidity leaving my mind in splits. We have been instructed not to crack up publicly, audibly or visibly.

As I giggle, chuckle, mumble in my mind, my body stands in the midday sun in this god forsaken piece of Government property, my face and forearms tanned to king‘black’dom come, my scalp dripping each and every gram of salt available in the body along with every bit of the 70% water that I’m made of. One can actually feel the strength ebbing out as the tickled-with-rivulets-of-sweat quadriceps muscles refuse to obey commands of savdhan or vishram. One more thing…I’m learning to incorporate nomenclature like glutes into my regular vocabulary… Man, let’s just call it the ass!

Though the way everything seems to be going, I’ll be lucky to leave this place with my humor intact if not the femur or the humerus. Though the incredible weight of being here may achieve exactly this, I’d rather leave with what I came in… and, maybe a few rope burns!

The Underground Man

2007-01-21T09:19:00.000+05:30

"Notes from Underground" by F. Dostoevsky... I started reading this book because it intrigued me... okay, the person who gave me the book piqued my curiosity too…(just a little bit, though).. Well now I could go on and write about me...but I guess I shall desist from narcissistic contemplations and write about the Underground Man (UM) who harangues about his condition and position in his society. I'm not sure if I can call it his society, because it doesn't exist anywhere else but in his head. He berates this society, he hates it, he believes that he is despised because he is vile and asocial. Yet all along his display of detached anger, he stops now and then, turns volte face on that particular point of his argument. He deliberately tries to take the reader elsewhere. He wants to show the reader that he is an equal turncoat as the UM himself. That is why he pauses with the 180 degree turn only to hear the reader go ‘yeah’ in his mind. Then, the UM wants the reader to also realize that he agrees with the opposite. Quite the opposite! What the UM needs is love, unconditional and accepting all his flaws. All he attempted to do was have relationships with people without having a relationship actually. Maybe he was scared of any little loss that may accrue because there could be always an end to any relationship. Towards the last 30 odd pages of the book, his real self comes to light. He has met the whore but he shames her with his cruel words.

I finished reading the book in the morning today and I am very sad. I didn’t want to let go of the UM. Perhaps because of the compassion in me, but then the book could have been written so that the reader may feel compassion… (You see, I don’t trust the UM or Dostoevsky anymore!) if the latter is the case then I have once again been taken for a ride… slimy bugger…that coot Dosto! Anyway, the UM fell in love with the whore Liza, and he realized it after he was cruel to her. For four days, he remained suspended in love for her. It bordered on the brink of madness. He desperately wanted for he to love him. She does and she comes over to his place to let him know. She is not entirely without shame. Aware, actually of her own status and life so far, she ventures to speak with enormous trepidation. However her hesitant attempts are met with violence on his part. At first he lets her see through to his loneliness, she does and soothes him as he cries upon her breast, bawling like a child. As things lead from one to the other, and time goes on, the UM wants to test her again. After she is dressed, just before she leaves, he presses five rubles in her palm. What he tried was not a test of whether she loves him or not, but whether he could be loved at all. She did not understand him, how could she, when he (who had read so much) could not even do so himself. His act, yes, undoubtedly cruel, seemed vicious to her. Needlessly vicious!! She leaves the house and he turns to see the crumpled note lying next to the couch.

Of course he realizes! Of course he is crushed! Of course he never sees her again! Of course he goes underground to write his harangue! Of course he is lonely! Of course she could never come back or understand him!

He wanted her to save him from him.
She wanted him to save her from her.

None understood the other. None helped the other. None loved the other. None saw beyond his or her self. They both lost, not just the other, but the opportunity to know themselves. The only one chance at passion available for the two of them, yet they squandered it away in an idiotic move at maintaining their egos in the face of social mores and their own unique though commonplace adjustments to them.

ENDNOTE: Dostoevsky should have carried on writing in this style...simple, incisive and provocative. This book was not a success, and so he meandered into the other style of writing evident in the "Brothers... or "Crime...

Duality

2007-01-21T09:10:00.000+05:30

on leadership...

2007-01-11T19:03:00.000+05:30

“I must follow the people. Am I not their leader?” ~ Benjamin Disraeli

To lead or to follow…both these propositions connote and denote significance and importance in a very wide spectrum of responsibilities, both on the part of the leader and that of the follower. Each must choose carefully. The avenues / problems / matters that call for leaders and followers must also be carefully deliberated upon. However, the follower has to be more conscientiousness than the leader. This is true especially in the twenty-first century where causes and leaders abound. It is just as easy to follow an ineffective leader in a just cause, as it is to follow a great leader for an evil cause. On the other hand the leader must be self-sacrificing because he has to set an example for every one. In the twenty-first century, the major feature of the changing nature of leadership relates to the changing issues of concern, the transformational style of leaders and the scope, extent and manner of follower participation.

Before expositing on the changing nature of leadership in the twenty-first century, it must be clarified that leadership, its nature, its purpose, its success or lack thereof is dependent upon certain variables and the complex interdependent relationship between these variables. The entire gamut of these variables is prohibitively exhaustive but if an attempt to enumerate them was made then it would include the following, though not in any order of importance or superiority. The aforesaid variables are: personality of leader, personalities of the followers, faith or lack thereof in the leader of the followers, numbers of the followers, nature and significance of the cause, number of beneficiaries or victims to the cause, reason for choice of the specific concern, nature of potential risks, type of solution that the leader aspires to, kind of solution that the followers expect, the needs of the society at large, political constraints if any, the amount of economic resources available, kind of military strategy if need be, courage of conviction on the part of both the leader and the followers, counter strategies of rival concerns, adjustability and flexibility of followers especially as the leader attempts to change strategy if the big picture so demands, the means to be used to achieve ends and the extent of direct or indirect contact between the leader and the followers.

All of the factors involved in the aforementioned variables are experiencing a sea-change in the twenty-first century dominated by the globalizing influences of instant coffee, McDonald’s, Internet blogging and networking, because of which leadership itself is undergoing a metamorphosis. Gone are the days of yore when only great men and women were leaders. Today practically anyone can be stage-managed to become one, or assume the role of one. This is not to say that there aren’t good leaders like Gandhi, Martin Luther King or for that matter Joan of Arc, but membership to causes and the number of causes as such has grown to such gargantuan proportions that every RWA in Delhi has a leader, some of who definitely are effective and necessary, but for the most of who the less said the better.

At this juncture, the typical classification of leadership styles has to be mentioned because they further elucidate the changing nature and necessity of leadership depending of the temporal and spatial exigencies in the twenty-first century. First, there is the Laissez Faire Leadership Style, which is a “hands off” approach primarily for highly motivated and skilled followers, for example in a specialized business corporation like an architectural firm. The second style which still has a few takers even though it is largely falling out of favor is Autocratic Leadership Style, evocative of the feudal lords in Medieval Europe that led armies to the Crusades. A twenty-first century example would be leaders of fanatical terrorist groups like the Al Qaeda. Third is the Participative Leadership Style which emphasizes that innovation is the only way to success. Panel consortiums like Board of Directors of large multinational corporations exemplify this style. Another leadership style was objectified by Ohio State University and the University of Michigan when they coined the term Situational Leadership, which mainly focuses on the need to change according to the alterations in the situation, as the name suggests, and according to the requirements of the people being led, for example the shifting of the goal posts that occurred in the Oval Office during the Cuban Missile Crisis. The fifth is the Transactional Leadership Style adhered to mostly in large, stationary, almost stagnant institutions like the bureaucracy where status quo is always sought and maintained. Transformational Leadership is the sixth style where the primary focus lies on effecting positive change in themselves, others and the entire organization in exactly the same order with an aim towards progress. Commonly associated with Transformational Leadership are Charismatic Leaders like J.F. Kennedy and Nelson Mandela and Visionary Leaders like Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King who attempted to inculcate ethical values in the followers that would last beyond the duration of the need for a leader or the cause for that matter. Then there is Strategic Leadership which is constituted specifically to outwit competition, for example, Army Generals during war. Team Leadership is yet another style which believes in the old adage “two heads are better than one” and adds “the more the merrier”; and the ninth style, coined by Jim Collins, is called Level 5 leadership wherein the leader embody a paradoxical blend of personal humility and professional resolve. The tenth style of leadership, which is fast gaining importance in the twenty-first century, is brand leaders like Angelina Jolie who is the UN Goodwill Ambassador or late Princess Diana who worked tirelessly against the use of landmines.

The list of leadership styles mentioned above is in no way exhaustive. It is open-ended and subject to change whether in the nature of additions, subtractions, or modifications ad nauseum. There is however, one key ingredient that goes into the making of the leadership style that would be followed by a particular organization, movement or concern. It is power in all its manifestations, utility and repercussions. If power of the leader is coercive then the leadership style would be Authoritarian, if it is referent then it would be an Influential Leadership style, if it were distributive then Participative Leadership style would be the result, if power is based on hierarchy then it would imply a Transactional leadership style and if power was essentially the force of the personality of the leader then it would be Charismatic Leadership style. Hair splitting can be furthered in this classification of leadership, for example if personalities of leaders were taken into account then a domineering man or woman would make for an Authoritarian leader. And if the nature of the followers was taken into account then, huge numbers would qualify the leader as a mass or popular leader; submissive and meek followers would denote Authoritarian Leadership. In this way, many more variables can be entangled in numerous combinations and permutations to create an unending figure of leadership styles, more so in the twenty-first century where the situations that demand leaders are growing at a staggering rate.

It is not as if all types of leadership have undergone a tremendous change. There are quite a few similarities left over, perhaps because the human experience is such that knowledge is always cumulative and incremental, whether it accrues as what ought to be carried forth by the new generation or as what ought to be discarded as detrimental. There are avenues where leaders do not have to meet their followers which existed even in the ancient times like that of scientific, industrial and technological movements where leaders like Galileo, Copernicus, or Einstein, Stephen Hawking never have to meet their protégés. An illustration in the field of economics is the 1950s seminal work on economic dependency theory separately arrived at by Hans Singer in Germany and Raul Prebisch in Argentina based on Keynesian economics. Of course this probably wouldn’t happen today because of the information and communication technology revolution. Most String Theorists perhaps know what the other is up to! On the other end of the spectrum are the military generals be it Alexander, Napoleon, Churchill, General Patton or General J.S. Arora who have to be in constant touch with their soldiers. Exceptions do and did exist like the British army, in the days when the sun never set on their empire, who never had to meet their sepoys directly or today’s deconstructed military command structure where orders maybe radioed in to far flung border posts in lieu of messengers on horses that Aurangzeb sent during his campaigns.

Not all leaders are effective all the time. Some are effective only some of the time and in some situations. The test of a good leader is the knowledge when and when not to enforce regulations on the followers. Take the case of Akbar, while he was a great military leader, a just ruler and a devoted architect, he did not in any form pressure his people to follow the tenets of the new religion that he had propounded. In fact tauhid-i-illahi did not last beyond Akbar’s own lifetime, while he did rigorously enforce taxes. Akbar also delegated authority, like land reform measures to Todar Mal, which goes to show that a great leader demonstrates faith in his team and followers. In the twenty first century, delegation of authority is imperative due to the complexities and details involved in every task of every magnitude. This delegation of authority also prepares the ground for future leaders. A case in point could be made about all the political parties (whether in India or abroad) which prepare young leaders very obviously whether to take upon their youthful shoulders the burden of development of the nation, winning elections or nefarious nexus networking, as the recent sting operations have made it apparent.

Thus, there are leadership traits that carry forth beyond time, space and generations. Based on the leadership variables mentioned at the outset, the nature of leadership in the earlier times was that of kings like Ashoka or Marcus Aurelius, military generals like Alexander, warlords like Chenghiz Khan, religious leaders like Jesus or Mohammed, or counter offer leaders like Chanakya. However, today this scenario has changed because the world has transitioned from autocratic rule to democracy with the advent of West Phalian state system. This shift has increased the numbers of concerns of both the governed and that of the government. This alteration in the international state system has brought with it a myriad of issues to the forefront in all the three levels: systemic, nation-state and individual. Democratic theories of governance have undergone adjustments ranging from liberal to elitist to pluralist to sustainable equity to all the sections of society. With this, an advent of a range of socio-political-economic issues has raised their heads, that demands for specific and special leadership. As such there are the likes of Anna Hazare, Verghese Kurien, Narayan Murthy, Arvind Kejariwal, Medha Patkar, C. Bisht replete in the Indian civil society. Also as the means to organize followers have increased manifold, and access for the formation of associations has eased there are movements like Justice for Jessica and Justice for Priyadarshini Mattoo as examples. A simple SMS or a simple Internet broadcast can do wonders in our societies today!

Just like the various independence movements of the twentieth century in the former Asian and African colonies of European powers produced leaders like Suharto, Nehru, Tito and Nasser, in the twenty first century social and economic causes like poverty alleviation produce leaders like Amartya Sen and Aruna Roy. Practically every activity / issue / cause that has the potential to impact and benefit a large number of people creates leaders out of men and women. Even unjust causes create leaders not necessarily in the line of Saddam Hussein or Ayman Al-Zawahari (some do reform like Muammar Quaddaffi, others like Fidel Castro don’t), but its always 20/20 hindsight when the just or unjustness of the cause comes to the fore. As it is said, one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter; a notable example is post First World War Germany and Hitler’s stature, power, pelf and position. Even the often maligned political leadership has changed its image from that of an apparently all knowing leader amidst a vast range of sycophants, though this variety of leaders still exists, to effective bosses who get tech savvy things done in their constituencies like Chandrababu Naidu. Often, one single determinate act can transform the society, for example Jayalalitha making rain water harvesting mandatory in every household in Tamil Nadu.

Therefore, in conclusion, the changing nature of leadership in the twenty first century has included mass public participation in numbers seen never before, evident during the protests against invasion of Iraq in the streets of Germany, Australia, New Delhi, and Seattle on one side and local causes like the Narmada Bachao Andolan on the other. However both the worm’s eye view and the bird’s eye view demands that there be a merger of global and local concerns because of the inter-relatedness of the issues that affect humanity as a whole, not nations in particular. Health, education, sanitation, corruption, poverty, epidemics, infrastructure, ecological damage is not limited to geographical boundaries. It is true that they are measured country-wise, one only need take a look at the Human Development Report of the UNDP, but the fact remains that an automobile mechanic in Detroit is connected to a call center employee in Pune, dengue can spread from India to Pakistan, the avian influenza virus can reach the shores of Long Island, Oprah’s Angel Network can benefit the poverty stricken people in African countries, and for energy sufficiency in India, it needs to initiate, sustain and propagate discussion for a gas pipeline project spanning India, Iran and Pakistan. Once the true nature and extent of the needs of the people are assessed in all levels: local, national and international, all avenues: social, political, and economic and there is resolve to fulfill these aspirations, there is no end to what leaders can accomplish. The verity of success in the inter-connected world of the twenty-first century is the hallmark of the changing nature of leadership.

“A leader is a dealer in hope.” ~ Napoleon Bonaparte

REGIMENTATION

2006-12-23T18:52:00.000+05:30

What is it that we love most about ourselves? The answer lies in a painful contradictry realisation, at least for some of us. We think we love the fact that we have free will. But, really do we?

Let's take this bull by the horns then... To begin with, no free will in terms of the family you're born into. This takes care of bloody mother tongue, your taste buds, cultural costume... and much later in life, if the need arises, it takes care of home cadre too! Second, no free will about the sibling(s) you'll have... if he's really a snitch, then you've had it with your childhood... if she's bitchy, well your call. Not much free will about the school you'll go to...that ensures your proficiency in English, in a regional language, depending on the nature, quality and capability of the teachers, it also determines to a large extent what your general character will be like. (Of course, ultimately we all have "free will" to determine what kind of people we'll be ;-)

Okay, a little bit of free will when choosing a college or vocation.... or is there? Don't marks in the board exams count? And there are cut-throat entrance exams, swelling numbers of candidates, reservations..or plain bad luck. Next stage, performance in these colleges, well this is where free will comes into play (actually the same applies when in school). It is entirely upto us, whether to be the grasshopper or the ant...

When life gives us lemons, some make lemonade, some make a face (they're trying to eat the damned sour things), and the smart ones get the bottle of Blanco, Joven, Reposado, Anejo or Mezcal (Okay quiz question... find out what these names denote and you'll get what i'm talking about)...

here here kitty...

2006-12-16T17:15:00.000+05:30

CURIOSITY KILLED THE CAT... I DEBATED LONG IF I SHOULD LET THE RIFF RAFF IN ON THIS SECRET... BUT I GUESS IT'S TIME I DID SO... SO THERE... SO LONG!

SALE

2006-11-30T08:01:00.000+05:30

OSTRACISM MAY NOT NECESSARILY BE AN UNWANTED CONDITION, IT NEED NOT BE A PUNITIVE MEASURE THAT EFFECTIVELY CURTAILS THE SOCIAL ACTIVITIES OF THAT PARTICULAR PERSON IN QUESTION. IT MIGHT AS WELL BE A CAUSE FOR CELEBRATION; AT FINALLY BEING LEFT ALONE TO HIS OWN DEVICES, WHERE IT IS QUITE PLAUSIBLE THAT HE MAY REALISE THE POTENTIAL OF THE HUGE OAK TREE BORNE OUT OF A LITTLE ACORN.

WHAT THEN IS THE CAUSE FOR THE USUAL, ALMOST CASUAL IN ITS REACH, FEAR OF BEING AN OUTCAST, OF NOT BELONGING ANYMORE?

HOW IMPORTANT IS IT TO ATTACH ONESELF TO A PERSON, A HOUSE, A CAR, A LANGUAGE, A REGION, AN IDEOLOGY, AN IDEA?

IS THIS THE REASON WHY PEOPLE ACQUIRE OTHER PEOPLE OR OTHER THINGS? BECAUSE ONCE YOU OWN SOMETHING, THERE IS NO WAY YOU WILL UN-BELONG, OR BE LEFT LONELY?

DO YOU THEN FORGET THAT IN THIS PROCESS YOU HAVE ALREADY SOLD YOURSELF!

you're only as little as the things that annoy you

2006-10-20T07:01:00.000+05:30

"Albert Camus wrote that the only serious question is whether to kill yourself or not.
Tom Robbins wrote that the only serious question is whether time has a beginning and an end.
Camus clearly got up on the wrong side of bed, and Robbins must have forgotten to set the alarm."
From STILL LIFE WITH WOODPECKER, by Tom Robbins, 1980

What annoyed Neitzche most was God... I guess since that's taken, I'll have to figure out something much bigger to annoy me... let me mull over what that could be; I'll get back to you about that... But let me ask the same question of you now... What annoys you the most?

The Unofficial Report PICTURE

2006-10-13T05:39:00.000+05:30

The Unofficial Report

2006-10-11T19:58:00.000+05:30

Well, where do I start…with my predicament with a future looming with five people from Bihar, three from Madhya Pradesh, two from Uttar Pradesh, one Kashmiri, one Marathi, one from Tamil Nadu, one from Karnataka, one from Andhra Pradesh and one your truly. Or maybe I should talk about their characteristics: one who is physically uncoordinated, one who writes Aaj ki kabita, one who recites Sanskrit shlokas, one who keeps quiet, three who shout, one who complains about his non-existent blisters, one who teaches botany (okay, I learnt a lot from that quarter), one who mouths silly South Indian stuff and thinks I’m dumb, perhaps simply because of the way I look, one who draws really bad sketches, one who pukes his guts out every time the bus moves an inch and then says blames it one something that he ate or didn’t eat, all of whom take numerous breaks to drink tea, all who showed genuine expression of surprise as they discovered that i'm quite knowledgeable in many areas of academic or practical intelligence, all who were scandalized every time I lit up a cig, or the one who religiously covered his nose at the aforementioned activity, or maybe about the who decided that he loves me too (on top of his girlfriend). Maybe I should mention that NOW THAT WE ARE BACK, NONE OF US TALK TO EACH OTHER THAN IT IS ABSOLUTELY NECESSARY…(although there was one complaint today: Should I be writing an email??) Hah! You wish…sod off!

Now, I guess the itinerary of the trek would make some sense: it included Gangotri, Gaumukh, Dodital, Dharwadhar, Hanumanchatti and Yamunotri. Quite a few kms were to be spent on the bus, however we had to walk 106 kms…. Hence the mammary loss! (Despite the fact that Satya-san told me in Delhi that I don’t look thinner at all….) The terrain was beautiful, despite being Garhwal, I have inherent bias towards the un-spoilt beauty of Kumaon….but man I wish I had better company. Even though I thought I’d stay all aloof to begin with, things turned around as I chatted with an expat bihari who is almost half bong due to educational background… Then on, I calculated that I could be alone and miserable, or stoned and making fun of myself… you see there was initial thing… “Yaar, hindi me batao! Mujhe angrezi nahi aati.” So, I did… but as you well know, I have that massive Jaat influence in my language, man…I tell you, Jaw-Dropping material!

FOOD HABITS:
This bunch of people fuels themselves with tea… Subah ki chai, then another cup… breakfast, then chai, then another couple of tea breaks with maggi and biscuits as and when available, then lunch and tea, then some more tea…maybe one or two cups, even three sometimes, and then dinner and finally….chai…. All the while, between these umpteen, grrrrrrr….tea breaks the group would amble along on the trek… also, food has to be above par… and yes! Chammas lao bhai…katori bhi do…. And the poor guy at side-y restaurant in side-y town in the hills came running with said spoons and bowls, which had manufacturer stickers on them…must have brought them direct from a shop… and one guy actually turns his nose, hides it in the palm of his hand when someone eats anything non-vegetarian. MADNESS! Especially atop the thing that he excavates his nose in public, probes his behind in public, belches loudly in public, yawns for everyone in 300 meter radius in public and commits many other un-mentionable sins...in public.

Anyway, now that I’ve sat on this for too long, I’m getting tired of writing one line a day… I’ll let the picture do all the talking… it is one of the OT’s a fellow trek group member who took a bath in the local tube well and was drying his clothes on the way... Now you now what i was up with...

P.S. i had fun, and i guess i made a few friends...

Raving and Ranting

2006-09-21T08:01:00.000+05:30

What is wrong with me? Has my conduct in life been so far wrong and so inappropriate that I need corrective mechanisms to be put in place so I can function as a right minded cog in the well-oiled (read bribed), much maligned (read the newspapers), oft-abused (ask any citizen) machinery that I am to be part of… Actually the question is: Am I part of the machine or is the machine part of me??? Is this my job, or is this me? I have never been my books, my friends, my parents, my society, my cousins, my lovers… they have been around at one time or the other depending on importance and necessity, but all through it, I have been me.

Suddenly, here I am where there is a conscious effort on to make me feel guilty of being who I am. I like me, I like being me, and I am comfortable with me. Nearly four weeks and I am struggling very hard to respect the ‘others’ for who they are, but their right of swinging their arm, rather their right of using words directed at me, ends where my ear begins. Their words cannot delve deep into my mind, let alone my psyche… if they want to reform someone, go find someone who needs it… I am not screaming for attention, it is not my fault if I look the way I do, wear what I do and think the way I do.

My mind has been carefully groomed, sharpened and edged to cut through bullshit. Social graces are almost inherent by virtue of birth, personal grace is what I was born with, and my dressing sense has been honed under the scanner of people who revel, celebrate and enjoy the way I look. I will give you the inch that you ask, but do not grab the whole fucking kilometer. In that case, I shall give it right back and twice the intensity at least, if not more. And if you want me to look interested, then for heaven’s sake have something worthwhile on display…

Disclaimer: These are my personal views, does not bear any burden on any organization, person, or combination of the two, whether living or dead, real or fictional in any which way.

ultimately

2006-09-12T07:13:00.000+05:30

the leaf had a name
the name was yours
she stared hard at the name, hoping that the bleak letters would metamorphose into real flesh and blood
wishful thinking...

so she sent the leaf on its way to the ground
there it met with soft earth
it took on the color of earth
they said that it dried up
rain fell on it for days
they said it was decaying

then it turned into dust merging with the soul of the earth
they said it died

Enforced Isolation

2006-09-03T18:26:00.000+05:30

If I could help it, I would never be here... No, that is a lie! I can always help being where I want to be... what is bothering me is the question: Did I really want to be here? And the ancilliary thoughts that creep up as a consequence... If I wanted to be here, did I want to be isolated and unhappy? If I didn't want to be here, then how the hell did I get here?
The next set of queries also arise: is there a way for me to alleviate my condition? Is there a way for me to escape?

The worst part is that in my quest for answers, all I find myself doing is providing myself with endless justifications... I believe that is a very dangerous sign.. it is the path to doom and destruction of my self... just as the mist covers this town in the hills, it seems to me that I'm trying to cover my eyes with the veil of the so-called life, responsibilities and the semblance of societal independence that I hope to get out of my incarceration...

I need to have a job... this is a good job... this job shall provide me with social standing, as i intend to be a single woman... etc...etc...etc...

silly excuses all of them, I do hope I have the intelligence to spot when I'm stopped being who I am and become what I do.. and I do hope I have the gumption to let go then...hope I do not fool myself any further with more excuses then.. right now, I have to give this a shot, and a fair shot at that....I owe that to myself! Or do I?

D-Day in Delhi

2006-08-27T19:51:00.000+05:30

My last post for a while from the comforts of this home... All that is left here are a few of my memories, some photographs, some paintings and some poems...
All set...raring to go...revving up the engine...grrrrr!

flicking the pages of life

2006-08-09T16:50:00.000+05:30

“maybe we’re always strangers…to ourselves the most…and to be reassured of our solitary existence is the only comfort that others can give....”
Puts a real twist into looking for that one person to be with…one person who’ll be there, who’ll love and be loved, who’ll care and be cared for, who’ll be woken up to. Where does one go from something like that? Where do all the dead relationships go? What of the ones in which one is now dead or dying? And what about Mira who loved Krishna who lived five thousand years before her?

I’ve pondered long enough on this… All I find is that I am exactly where I was before. I am still me, albeit changed by everyone I’ve been with, however long or short the duration. That brings me to another point: were they the ones who sought a different life? Did I not choose the same? If fate is something real then the parting was destined. Then did I not in some form (conscious, subconscious or unconscious) desire that separation, even at the very beginning?

Am I just ambling through the designs of life already pre-determined, destined and karmic? Or am I making a choice? Is this really MY life?

Best Laid Plans of Mice and Men

2006-07-21T18:14:00.000+05:30

Bear with me…I’m still in this phase of mind. Gained an objective perspective on emotional disappointment of late. This is my way of making head or tail of that. I’ve thrived on a lot of planning, I must confess. Guess we all do. Show me a person who claims to ‘go with the flow’ and I’ll show you a liar.

So we plan and we plan. Some people make one, while others like me have many contingency plans…if this doesn’t work out, then this might…if not then I have this as my backup…etc. etc. etc. And some plans fructify; others come to nought. Either which way, we lose…precious time. What was the point of planning for contingencies when this is successful? If this was going to be unsuccessful, why did I waste time planning for it?

The only objective look that I’ve found in this entire predicament is uncertainty. As we’re unsure of all outcomes, we plan for as many of them as we possibly can, given our capabilities. These are the games people play and they are the games nations play. If time is what we make of it, then is this how it was meant to be? And while I’m on it let me add another observation, since this deals with emotional disappointment. Why do we ‘pay’ attention and ‘spend’ time? (Particularly in the English language because we do very different things with both time and attention in Hindi or any other Indian vernacular languages…)

Switch

2006-07-08T11:19:00.000+05:30

In his book “Even Cowgirls Get the Blues” Tom Robbins wrote something to the effect that (I’m paraphrasing here) - success closes as many doors as failure does. At first it struck me as completely profound and truthful as did some line in a song by Travis – the circle only has one side. Upon further rumination, I figured both are wrong. The circle has two sides as all other objects, opinions, arguments, viewpoints and counter arguments. And while failure closes that ‘one’ option, success closes the window on all other opportunities. A person gets stuck with success, while failure helps him strive again. Ask Edison, who famously said, “I didn’t fail, I figured out 1999 ways of how not to make a light bulb!”

In 2004, a friend told me, “It would be wonderful if you study hard but fail in this exam”. At that point of time I thought it was a needlessly vicious thing to say. I did fail at that exam; I was crushed. It was the last time I cried. I still remember. 3rd of August 2004. (Well, it took me until February, the next year, to recover resolve, build determination and study again, and this time successfully. Now I find my options quite limited.) The lesson however that I learnt was not to be affected by either success or failure.

About the circle and it’s two sides: inside and outside…it smacks of the Hindu concepts of Karma and Maya. A business tycoon and a typical yogi are the same. One is running towards money, the other away from money. Money thus is the focus. To reduce the sense of dimensions even if one used a point in space, imaginary for both geometry and meditation, it doesn’t amount to much… (Rather it does because a point has some existence.) I guess that is why Sankhya, Nirvana and Kaivalya culminate in absolute nothingness.

Rain!

2006-06-22T16:16:00.000+05:30

a sensation creeps up from behind me,
it is soft and sensual,
it nibbles my ear.

it whispers bottles of life into me,
while i stand stone cold sober,
looking out to the grey skies pouring rain.

this parched land quenches itself,
when will i slake my thirst?
instead i turn around to look at you.

THE AGEING WARRIOR 6

2006-06-12T10:28:00.000+05:30

“Devi…I have something for you”. With that the Warrior held out his hand in her direction. In the twilight it was difficult for the Little Girl to make out exactly what it was that he brought back for her. He had been gone for days now. The battle was long and hard, but evidently he won. Rather he was on the winning side, he was alive after all. He hadn’t even stopped to change his clothes or have a bath. Whatever he had to give must be really important.

The Little Girl reached with her right hand. The Warrior placed something light and delicate in her palm. Before she could see what it exactly was, it moved. She shrieked, taken aback by the animation. Then it flew from her hand and landed near the oil lamp that was burning in the room. It was then she saw it was a butterfly. The beautiful creature flapped its wings slowly…for a moment she was transfixed at the sight. For a few brief moments a tranquil sense of beauty descended upon her.

The brain kicked in after that, “You must never catch a butterfly. Their wings are too delicate. Look at your fingers, they have picked up the color off of those wings.”

“I almost had to climb a tree to get that for you. My men chased it for half a day.”

“Thank you it is the best gift I have ever received. But now will you take it away and let it fly away.”

The Little Girl pondered over it for most of the night. It was like life itself. It is beautiful, but people shriek every time life animates itself. Shrieking is okay; after all, life takes every person by surprise. After that, however it is crucial to gauge the urgency and vitality of life. If only they saw it in the dim glow of an oil lamp…the dance of life was sure to suffuse elation in every heart. Enjoy the brief moments here on earth and then let go.

The Ultimate Human Experience

2006-06-05T08:56:00.000+05:30

Creation of mountains out of molehills, in my opinion is the crux of the ultimate human experience on this earth. Actually it falls more in the realm of society rather than the earth…because the earth is nurturing, forgiving and unconditional in terms of the opportunities provided to all humans. It is the societies that we inhabit that thrives on comparison, hence, competition. If those are the rules of the game, then for the intelligent it is imperative that they play by the ear…or if you will, take the bull by the horns.

Success thus is relative and requires constant upgradation almost on a daily basis. New mountains to climb, new seas to fathom, new horizons to conquer and new vistas to explore remain the key words in this sport called life.

What we choose as our goals, or battles, our hurdles derive from three sources, in this particular order:
- the social conditioning we received as children (including the nature and nurture by parents, extended family and assorted peers),
- the external world and its variegations, and
- the resources that we have within ourselves i.e. our educational qualifications, native intelligence kits, social interaction tools and built-in drive for excellence, efficiency and integration.

Until a point, considering the social system in place, the mountains are provided for us…class X boards, XII boards, graduation, master’s, doctorate etc… sometimes there are pop-ups like the reservation issue. But after all that is done and over the responsibility lies on us to create the next one. Most people choose the path of least resistance and choose relationships as their next goal (I shall love like none other); some choose fiscal matters (I want lots of money); very few take on the nature and purpose of existence itself (who am I, why am I here?).

No one can win here; nobody comes out of life alive. Each and every life will be wasted. How we choose to waste it is the essential query. It is our choice of the adversary and the adversity that provides the answer.

Zen

2006-05-29T10:06:00.000+05:30

Amidst whirlpools of dust
Dervishing in the deeps waters
Spiraling up columns of sapphiric souls
That are unknowing and without hope
Expending in gaudy glitter masks
While the washed is ignored, laughed at or stoned…
There is death of aspiration, burial of illusions,
End of disillusionment, transforming the unseeing and the dying,
Into iridescent contortionists with acrobatic flair

To leave without a trace
In that onyx instance
If given an inch to move or take
Translucent mould of me it shall be you
Like the sway that induces whispering in dry flowers
I would be invisible but within
Transparent essence of you will be me

spinning yarn

2006-05-25T14:36:00.001+05:30

sciolistic tendencies give way to defenseless proclivities
spawning tired ol' bastards that nitpick with astounding temerity
giving way to baseless counter-attitudes
that float like karmic haze all around...
or is it a rank odor of stale cigarettes and pointless perspiration
caught in her own web, the black widow spider eats her own self...the mate long digested.
hydrochloric acid lined intestines churn out masticated peices of innocence, tenderness and affection
What is left?
just a song....
perhaps?
perhaps...

My Father's Hand

2006-05-25T08:16:00.000+05:30

beauty in monochrome

2006-05-24T08:18:00.000+05:30

Rear...as in to aid growth, but also as in posterior anatomy

2006-05-21T20:44:00.000+05:30

Not a moment’s respite…this woman, my mother they say…I don’t know for sure. I’ve been told that she gave birth…but it is only hearsay that she gave birth to me…could have been anyone else…I have to take it in good faith…what if I chose not to? Ah! That is what ails people around me here…because I have chosen not to: a choice that not many make; because people like the stable cocoon of a past, any past, and an equally verifiable illusion of a future. The present is a forgotten bastard, tucked away due to the pressures of societal shame (unwed mother; you hussy!), staring right at your face, but you ignore him to look elsewhere. His face is both ugly and beautiful, you are scared. Present is what is, past may be reconstructed and the future maybe embellished.

She wants to be my mother, she needs it, she attempts…to be a bad mother, she succeeds…she dangles carrots, and she fails…she hurls abuses. It is fun for me being as detached as I am right now. You called it “nishkam dharm” the other day; knowing more than me, I guess you are allowed to make observations…I don’t know what it is. All I know for sure is that I’m not bothered by anything…I retort when I feel like, with full conviction and I stay quiet with every cell in my being when I want to. I simply love the fact that I have a choice…and that I am exercising it. Actually, words do not make any sense when I try to say what I really want to say. It’s not as if I love that fact that I have a choice, or that I have a choice or even that I’m exercising my right to chose…I’m just doing it…just being here, right now, almost automatic.

course of action...

2006-05-19T08:48:00.000+05:30

Life sucks...the only thing that i'm sure of right now...
i have no inspiration at all to write something... my days seem too trivial to write about...there is nothing to be happy about or even sad...
complete dislocation... i wrote last in april, more than a month ago...
should i pull the plug???

THE AGEING WARRIOR 5

2006-04-06T08:18:00.000+05:30

This morning he woke up with a dream; the rare and few that his subconscious still bothered him with. He dreamt of a glorious and gory battle against a worthy adversary. The land was lush with fresh grass, the first this spring, and the animals had not yet had a chance to graze here. Over there, where the camps were set up, the grass had become patchy. Some of the horses had taken a bite or two.

Magnificent animals those Arab thoroughbreds, to his right was a dead one. A pike driven through and through the horse’s vital organs sticking out in a sticky pool of blood on a black coat that was still shining in the evening light. Tomorrow the gloss will be gone when the vultures will feast. Isn’t it amazing how vultures profit from a battle? Fast food strewn all over the countryside, a choice of man or animal, of liver or entrails, that will be torn from the bones with sharp beaks and claws, of stomachs that will be filled with the valiant dead.

The Warrior was tired now; the battle cry was sounded just a little after dawn. Now the light was fading. He doesn’t remember how many he had killed today. He had lost count after seven. The adrenaline rushing through his veins, the blood pounding in his ears, the fluid act of wielding the sword combined to orchestrate a perfect dance of death. He was moving to its precise rhythm. The familiar muscular aches and pains had come and gone and come again now.

He was tired now. The man he was sparring with now was an equal swordsman in strength, skill and stamina. He was also visibly younger. That was his advantage. Today was the day, the Warrior knew. He became aware of the gash on his left shoulder. It wasn’t very deep, no; he wasn’t going to die from it. He had survived deeper wounds. The Warrior looked into the eyes of the other. Those eyes spoke of the unspoken code of warriors: fight unto the death. He wasn’t going to give up, so what if the day was nearly over.

The Warrior surrendered. He looked away towards the setting sun and smiled. As the last ray of the sun sank behind the hill the enemy drove the long blade into his heart. The Warrior instinctively knew that this was an honorable death. He could see it in the eyes of the enemy the understanding that this was someone to behead: one clean swift stroke.

It was morning. That was just a dream. Was the honor of warriors to be found only in the realm of dreams?

“What should I do? Where will I find solace? Help me.” The Teacher smiled and said, “There are but two eventualities. The choice is yours. You could teach the art of war to create a batch of new warriors. Or you could engineer a war where you could choose to die honorably.” The Teacher was compassionate; he understood the Warrior’s need to control his own destiny. That is why the Teacher did not tell him of the third but most difficult option: sit down, let it all awash, there is honor in dying peacefully.

“Devi, as I see it…I’ll have to create an army of warriors, that’ll take some training…there are very few men around these days. Then I’ll have to create conditions of war. An epic and glorious conflict where I will die.” “Is there room for a woman in your army?” said the Little Girl, “Will you teach me the way of a Warrior?”

THE AGEING WARRIOR 4

2006-03-09T21:16:00.000+05:30

“Imagine the infinite…close your eyes”, said the Warrior
“It’s impossible…I’ll need forever to imagine the infinite”, replied the Little Girl.
“Yes because wherever you stop, it will set a limit.”
“Hmm…”
“Allah-u-Akbar!”
“Hmm…”
“Do you know that it’s the most simple yet most profound statement.”
“No I didn’t. Doesn’t it mean ‘God is Great’?”
“No…exactly it means that ‘God is big’.”
“Ok!”
“So one day, a Ghazi asked the Prophet: how big?”
“What did the Prophet say?”
“The Prophet gestured towards the hills of Meena and said: He’s bigger than that. The Ghazi asked: what about the Sahara?
- He’s bigger than that. Can you imagine Aa-be-azeem, the sea?
- Yes I can.
- He’s bigger than that too.
- Is he bigger than the Noor-e-shab, the night sky that is full of so many stars and the moon?
- Yes, He is bigger than that too.
- This night sky, which is so big…if Allah is bigger than that then how will I who is so insignificant ever be fortunate enough to see Him?
- Allah is not deedaa-e-chashn; He cannot be seen with the mortal eye. He is deedaa-e-dil and deedar-e-jigar; it is an affair of the empty heart.
- How will I see him? Does He know about us?
- Kam-nazr! When your heart’s eye will open you will see him. When your small eyes can see the whole hill of Meena…this whole huge hill…then the sight of the heart can go farther. It can see Allah. And rest assured, he knows about us. This is why I tread softly upon this sand of the desert. When the eye sees something a relationship is established between the person and the object. Each one of us sees differently, each set of eyes makes a different relationship. Your relation with the sea is different from mine. Thus when the heart is empty and receptive it sees Him. We don’t have to worry our heads about Him. He will care for us. That is why I say that He is big. We are the ones who look up to Him.
- Huh?
- Look here. This desert that we ride our camels on; there is a relationship between my feet and this one grain of sand on the ground. Don’t I know that this grain of sand exists?
- Yes…you do.
- In the same way He knows about us.”
“Aha!” The Little Girl exclaimed at the dawning realization of what the Warrior just told her.
“Devi, now can you imagine the infinite?”
“Tell me more”
“Devi, let me tell you a story that is exactly the opposite. The Buddha was once asked by a member of his congregation the Sangh: I have heard that the Vedic scholars say ‘Satvam tat brihat’, that which is true is also big, if one were to make a rough and crude translation.”
“What did the Buddha say to that?”
“The Budha said: Look at the world around you. It’s so vast, but it is possible to close your eyes in just one fraction of a moment and it is no more. Yet the eye can still see the after-images. So imagine a closed mind…imagine how much it can see. Then imagine what a closed heart can see.”
“Wow!”
“I mean if you look at it in terms of today’s new fangled ideas…it is said that sunlight takes eight minutes to reach the earth. That means we see the Sun after eight minutes are past. And the Sun sees us eight minutes earlier. Never are Surya and Manushya interfaced in real time. The good Hindus of the ancient past have a term for it…they call it YugPath. When Treta, Kali, Dwapar and Sat Yug…all four…merge.”
The hairs on the ageing Warrior’s stood on end…his skin was alive. The Little Girl was amazed…every time he spoke of the Truth he came alive. The Warrior continued, “to translate YugPath as simultaneous is also not possible, because simultaneous takes too long to say and mean in real time.”

The Ageing Warrior 3

2006-03-08T10:11:00.000+05:30

He was an ageing warrior; his body was betraying him everyday. Every time when he pitted his strength against younger partners at sports he was re-introduced to the frailties of age. The need to employ his wits and his cunning grew increasingly as he found himself often out of breath. Soon slyness would leave him too. It was only a matter of time. He knew it. Why, only last night he meekly followed as the Little Girl led his feverish body to bed. And despite all desire to treat his illness callously, he found himself unable to hold his fort. He gave in to her home remedies: soaked his feet in hot water, popped a pill, had a couple of drinks (this was a ritual he couldn’t give up) ate dinner and went to bed early.

In the morning, he felt well enough to classify it as semi-strong. Most of it had to do with the Little Girl; all through the night she clasped his back and drove his fever away.
“I had a dream last night.”
“Strange, so did I”
“In my dream, someone woke me up…I think he looked like the Teacher…and told me that you have a fever. Did you have a fever last night?”
“Yes! I did.”
“Anyway, he told me that I had to grab you…that it was the only way your fever would go away.”
“If you didn’t hold me the way you did, I would have woken up…that would have meant less sleep for me…and I would have woken up un-rested, feeling really shitty for the rest of today.”

There was work to do. Fresh kill to be made in the garb of a business deal, if the taxonomy was right. Most of it was still in the realm of wheeling…no dealing as yet, but there is always hope. The carnivore cannot afford to close both its eyes at the same time, not especially if it hunted alone. Unlike lions that have the rest of the pack to bank upon, the tiger has to prey on its own. Being human, even though he wished he were a tiger, a huge Siberian, the Warrior had little more than keep both his eyes open. In the fickle world of commercial machinations he had to keep his ear to the ground, keep one eye on the future and one eye guarding his back, ensure that the left hand did not know what the right hand was doing and above all keep two or three, if not more, steps ahead of his rivals. In absolute physical terms such contortions seem impossible but he manages because he’s has long practice at it. After a while, even Ashtanga Yoga seems naturally easy to the practitioner. Though the onlookers may be very confused.

“How will you untangle yourself?” asked the incredulous Englishman at the airport many years ago. If his accent wasn’t a dead giveaway, then his attire would have served the selfsame purpose: the white slacks with the button down cream shirt and the hat. His fat, sagging wife, had to be his wife, no self-respecting man would be seen with a mistress that hideous, in a flowery holiday smock that unsuccessfully covered her lardy, lumpy middle aged body yawned. She was perhaps tired of her husband’s inquisitiveness, she was perhaps tired of the heat in Abu Dhabi, she was perhaps tired of her weight…she was perhaps tired of everything.

“I am not tangled at all”, said the Warrior. He was sitting in the Lotus Position, making a perfect pyramid out of his lithe starving body. Was there any other way for a civilized Hindu to sit while waiting at the airport? The Englishman took a step back when he saw the handcuffs as the Warrior stood up. The Warrior was waiting to be deported. Something was the matter with the plane…he was in a brown, standard issue, Indian Embassy blanket and underwear. The Englishman had perhaps imagined his clothing to resemble that of a Fakir…a Hindu sage.

“I think that is an announcement for my flight”; the Englishman beat a hasty retreat dragging his wife along, distaste writ large on his face. He was aghast that he spoke with perhaps a common criminal. It was the 1980’s, but if it were a world today, he could have bragged at his local pub, “I think he was a terrorist.”

The Warrior once again assumed the Lotus Position. Was there any other way for a civilized Hindu warrior to sit while waiting at Abu Dhabi airport to be deported? At least there was water to drink. This was perhaps the worst time to be locked up in prison in a Muslim country. He had followed the Nautch Girl to this place. She had danced her way into his fancy. And then, ever so cruelly, like all beautiful women do, she withdrew letting him know that the affairs of her heart were complicated and that it had room for more than one man.

He didn’t want her all to himself; no, he followed her to see who the other men were, what was their kind, and what was the extent of her involvement with them? In an up-market arrangement in the city, the Nautch Girl was to peddle her talents in front of numerous teetotaler money throwing Sheikhs and hooting South Indian immigrants. The Warrior, yet again after many long years, found himself in a place where women were objects. Yes, he had gone whoring once, but that was eons ago. But he had always been respectful, even if he had paid for it. Here a man tried to grab the Nautch Girl, “Did she look annoyed? Yes she doesn’t want this kind of cheap attention. I must do something.”

The Warrior stopped at the buffet table, nibbled on some salad and quietly concealed a butter knife into his sleeve. Sheesh! A butter knife, but that was the only piece of cutlery that had the delicate balance of a weapon. The others were either top or bottom heavy. Sheesh! A butter knife! Well, international flight regulations did not allow a man to carry a Muella Scorpion, and he didn’t think he’d need one here, so he didn’t go shopping. It was the Sheikh’s paradise; everything was on sale in its well-designed malls.

He waited till the fellow had to go to the men’s room. The Warrior followed the Fool who had lunged at the Nautch Girl. The Fool took out his penis, aimed at the lavatory and began humming the song that the Nautch Girl was dancing to just a few minutes ago. The Warrior waited till the Fool was in midstream, when he launched himself with the ferocity of a hungry polar bear and cunning of a man who has fought many battles and lived to tell the tale.

“Bloody kafir! He has stabbed seven times with a butter knife. I never knew that they could do such damage. Son of a pig!” The policeman was angry…it was the holy month of Ramadan. He was at Iftar, breaking his fast with his brethren. As if it weren’t enough that nautch girls were performing in the city; here was a man with murderous intent. To commit a crime was unthinkable during the month of prayers. It was a gruesome sight. A man lying in an expanding pool of blood and urine, gasping for air, calling out to God in a rasping voice, with his pants around his ankles. The hotel security had already detained the Warrior. They were alerted by another guest who had thought that now would be a good time to pee.

It was Thursday night. The Warrior was to be jailed until the Indian Embassy could be contacted and until they agreed to take custody. His clothes, his wallet, his watch, his shoes were taken away and he was given a robe. He was allowed to keep his cigarettes. Friday was Jumma when the faithful had to gather to pray; even more so in the holy month of Ramadan. No work was done in Abu Dhabi. The Warrior remained imprisoned…and without food. Saturday and Sunday being the weekend also saw him in the same predicament. Plus this was the holy month of Ramadan. At first on Friday morning, he smoked a couple of cigarettes. Then he realized his situation in the context of time and location. It was then that he decided to chew the tobacco inside the cigarettes instead.

Ultimately on Monday morning the Indian Embassy took his possession. And here he was, Monday evening at the airport waiting to be deported.

The River

2006-03-07T17:49:00.000+05:30

THE AGEING WARRIOR 2

2006-03-04T20:41:00.000+05:30

He was born a long time ago; he doesn’t belong in today’s world of cellular phones, Internet technology, I-pods and satellite TV. Sure, he uses all of these provisions, but only so far as they serve his purpose. Their utility for him is bare minimum. The phone was never meant for anything else but to talk to people, what is this thing called text-ing? Anyway he was a Warrior, he had no extended use for these pansy instruments…give his a Walther and it did feel like he was holding something.

“Devi, I’m not looking for a sleeker model of a mobile-phone”, he told the Little Girl.
“But, the new Samsung is only 33 grams, wouldn’t you be more comfortable with that?”
“When I was in the liquor business, I always carried two guns on me. On a good day, there’d even be the need of carrying a sharp long blade knife. You still think a cell-phone that weighs more than 33 grams would bother me.”
“Hmm… if you put it that way, it does sound naïve.”
“It’s just a phone…new technology means nothing. Even if everything goddamn facility is combined, say an instrument to make calls, write emails, cook, vacuum, wash…heck even flush the toilet people would still gather more things with newer technology, the so called cool stuff. In the end there’s always clutter.”
“Ok, so you don’t want another phone. I get it.”

He smiled indulgently at the Little Girl. She was so young, so fresh, so imaginative, still so optimistic. Her wry sense of humor helped too. When he played Solitaire on the laptop, the only thing he knew how to on a computer, she’d sit by him, the warmth of her thigh against his bony leg and come up with something like, “Nail biting finish…” and chew her nails with a mock look of tense culmination in her eyes as if Senna (god bless his soul) was about to win the Italian Grand Prix. Hilarious stuff…and boy did she tickle…she did. You could even tickle her palm. Often he would hold her in a pincer grip, he learnt it the hard way. If he didn’t hold her tight enough she’d slip to the floor, laughing and shrieking. So he’d pin her down and tickle her ever so affectionately just to hear her laughing while attempting to dislodge herself from his arms. Her face would flush red and she’d be panting. After a while in a voice desperately seeking some relief she’d say, “My heart just sank.” She’d really mean it, he could never understand, could a heart really sink?
“Where is your heart now?”
“It has reached my spine.”

Amazing, he thought as he looked at her. She was all that he wasn’t. She breathed a fresh surge of life into him. He was an ageing Warrior. Not that there were many battles to fight anymore than there were adversaries. He remembered his first, when he was perhaps six years old. He was sent to a boarding school. All around him were older boys… boys with nefarious designs. He was puny, even today he isn’t a big, broad, tall, burly man. Size was never how he won his battles. His strengths lie elsewhere; they have been honed in the war that he waged for thirty odd years. The first skirmish, ah…there he was, a puny boy finding his way through in the big bad world without the caring shadow of his mother’s watchful eyes. He was bullied, bullied brutally, a brutality that only young children reserve for younger children. He found that he had neither courage nor the strength to reverse the injustice. He suffered. He suffered for two long months. Then one day, as fate would have it, the Bully and the victim were both summoned to the Head Master’s office for unruly conduct. The Bully was punching him about some candy that was sent by his mother. As punishment they were to stand in the sun for the rest of the day. In the oppressive midday heat of an Indian summer, he saw the Bully, the cause of his nightmares faint. It was then when he realized that in spite of the size, the Bully was made of the same stuff he was made of. A germ of an idea began forming in his mind. It would crystallize the next day, but he had no idea. That night he didn’t wake up in a sweat. It was the most restful sleep he had had since he came to this school. Next morning it was back to the same routine, the Bully cut him in the line, took his lunch, tripped him and even landed an unfair punch during games. When it was time for bed, after the study hour that followed dinner, the Bully leered at his small frame and made a joke about how great a bitch he would make within a year.

The idea crystallized.

“You will have to sleep sometime. Your eyes will close. Then I’ll break your skull open with this.” He didn’t sleep a wink for the next week. Every night he stood by the Bully’s bed with a hockey stick and repeating the same words. This was his first battle!

The Ageing Warrior

2006-02-26T09:17:00.000+05:30

Resplendent in his glorious armor, adorned with his many swords, long and short, he had a Zen glint in his eyes of battles to win, of heads to severe, of hearts to pierce, of souls to scavenge, of bodies to injure, of unending bliss to endure. Bliss that spurts out of mutilated limbs; he was the warrior. That is how he remembered himself; a man unafraid. You can only inflict as much pain as you are willing to suffer on your self. He was definitely willing to die. He had killed many, some worthy, some not, but each one very satisfying.

Today, he stands in an impotent city, where people have put up lights to brighten each and every corner, holding a faded photograph of himself taken in an era that even time forgot; when he was young and restless. When he knew what he had to do: scalp, disembowel, slash. When the blade in his sure hands would meet vanquished flesh and bone in one fluid moment of grinding ecstasy leaving in its wake incredulous staring eyes fast losing consciousness; ebbing life. Ah! In the dance of death he found the fountain of his eternal life. Age has made him give that up. His own body betrayed him one day. His muscles, his sinew, his bone made a mockery of his valiant attempts to decapitate his last enemy. He resorted to poison instead, feeling and knowing at each step of the way about the depths he had sunk to. Was he the same man who was feared amongst his tribesmen? Was he the same man who had torn asunder the neck of another as if he were a mere fly? Was he the same man who survived countless wounds?

Why hast thou forsaken me?
I am here my son; you have forsaken me.

The warrior knew each inch of the way; he had walked towards madness once. But that was a long time ago and he was a different man. The Teacher had held his hand. No the Teacher had not even touched him once, but he did lead the way. Now with the Teacher dead, at least in body, his spirit still lives inside the warrior, all seemed lost. The warrior had a little less faith. Perhaps not! Perhaps he had taken a misstep; a detour of sorts, a small journey into the familiar comforts of money laundering, kidnapping, cutting business deals, writing letters, reading books of fantasy, drinking goblets of sweet wine…perhaps he needed to do so. This is how he will redeem himself towards madness once again. This time to dwell forever; never to return to the world of rabbits who dress like men and cows who believe they are women.

For now, he remains insatiable, shedding tears into the cosmos, talking to the Little Girl who attempts to provide succor from her lifeless breasts. Under the stars they stand each night awaiting moonrise, the mind that whispers of beauty each passing day, the mirror that reveals the travails of age each passing day, the eyes that show each other who they are, who they have been and who they may become: each passing day.

The Teacher speaks to him every night, the wonders of modern recording technology, but he doesn’t listen to the words. It is the sound of his voice that enthralls the warrior. It is the sound of peace. Peace that the warrior is hoping to find in this lifetime. Peace that will satiate, perhaps! Perhaps he needs to find that moment of glory when he stares into the eyes of the enemy and drives the blade into the throat. Perhaps that is peace. After all, he is an ageing warrior and he didn’t die in battle. The world is made not of men anymore; there are no worthy adversaries. Who shall be his rival? Who shall he spar with? Who shall cut his throat?

Death is the ultimate enemy; the one to who he will surrender. Yes! Death is worthy. He will choose his time and manner of death though. He won’t give Death the satisfaction of catching him unawares. He will not allow Death to decide when, where and how. He was a warrior, he will decide. I am ready, said the warrior.

Foray

2006-02-25T12:15:00.000+05:30

Torn apart, on the edge of abyss, I ride each day, wondering what if I swerve (just a little bit)? What is it that I want but cannot have? What is it that I have but do not want? What scares me most is the answer: I do not know. Somewhere in the deep recesses of my mind a small voice squeaks out another question: Can I ever find an answer that will satisfy, that will satiate, that will fulfill? Again the selfsame answer: I do not know. And as the coward that I am, I leave it at that…

Perhaps it is too bold a burden to presume, perhaps it is too immense a query, perhaps it is just very simple. You know when the answer sits right under my nose, but I cannot see it. If it were a tiger, it would have eaten me by now. Since I still breathe, it definitely wasn’t a tiger; is it herbivorous then? Once again, I leave it at that…

Never before has the straddling of two worlds bothered me so…have I stumbled upon an alternative then…or is it a cocoon…perhaps I have my head in the sand like the ostrich who thinks that the pack of lions can’t see it because it cannot (its head is buried in the sand remember…catch up). Trudging the lines of this carpentered world comes easily: the system is in place and rules are quite obvious. One need only apply one’s mind…or one’s body. Walking the path into the self…ah! Now that’s bloody tough because the Queensbury regulations apply no more. Time and space oscillate with random precision; dark days give in to darker nights leading to feeble sunrises; somewhere in the middle of it all I sit waiting…waiting for audible whispers…waiting for barbaric twists…waiting for fragrance…waiting for gustative delights…waiting just to feel. There’s once hitch, however. All around there are only ashes. And I am the last bit of warmth left in what used to be burning coal. I leave it at that…

What is it that I have but do not want? Everything.
What is it that I want but do not have? Everything!

Quite a dilemma…is it not? Everything is not mine for taking…or is it? If it is, then why have I not pillaged already? If it is not, then why am I debating this point? Quite another dilemma now…is it not? If I write and write and write I may end up with quite a few dilemmas. Perhaps today is not the day…but I wonder would I reach the mother of all dilemmas if I carry forth in this endeavor? Is that the challenge I should pose for myself? Will I be able to face it? Sensory deprivation, the lab psychologists (psychometrist, I believe is the technical term) say, leaves one with a feeling of loss… but that’s still a sensation… Therefore, what is it that can see seeing without seeing? What is it that can hear hearing without hearing? What is it that can taste tasting without tasting? What is it that can think thinking without thinking? What is it that can smell smelling without smelling? What is it that can feel feeling without feeling? Need I say more…I leave it at that…. And it’s all good...

Torn apart on the edge of abyss, I ride each day, wondering how beautiful everything looks…

And I leave it at that.