The Aufbau Principle

“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...

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

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

'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

“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!