THEM

The authorities were taking no chances. There had been some volcanic activity in the area and hence the decision was taken to relocate the convicts from the island. I, as the warden was just cleaning out my office and was quite pleased at the transitional leave that I would be getting…No more surf and sand for me…I was planning to go visit my parents at their farm and was looking forward to the month’s rest…As I was winding up I spotted a box lying at the very bottom of my cupboard…Puzzled, I turned it on end and read the note stuck to it…It contained the worldly possessions of a man who had died quite some time ago, in fact just after my appointment a year ago. I had asked one of the deputies to get me an address for nearest of kin so that I could mail his possessions to them, but somehow the work had been postponed and the box lay before me, dirty and a little soggy…

I don’t know why I opened it, because normally I would have chucked it into the incinerator, but I did…I opened it…Nothing unusual...A comb, a ring with a green stone of some kind, a notebook and a silver flute that had gotten tarnished. The flute brought back my memories of the owner. Dr Lionel Armstrong, a professor of physics at some well known university, he had been sentenced to 7 years in prison for the brutal murder of his wife and her lover (same old same old…). He played the flute well and in fact, had played once at the Christmas party just after his arrival.. But in the weeks before his death, he had become increasingly withdrawn and quite different from the cheerful character that he had been. At the beginning he had shown only the smallest bit of remorse at his actions and was convinced that he had done the wrong thing, but, for the right reasons. However, in his later meetings with the psychiatrist, he had been morose and didn’t speak except to answer whatever was asked of him. A guard had mentioned that he had seen a strange fervor on the man’s face during the last week, a resolution of sorts…Naturally; I was very interested in the man’s journal, if that was what it was...

I pulled out the brown colored book. It was a diary, published on the occasion of the ‘Centenary of Physics’ and was labeled 2005…The entries however were more recent starting at the time he entered jail…

The entries for the initial months were ordinary, about people he had met and the things he had done…On the whole, he did not seem very distressed, considering he had another 6 years of confinement ahead of him. He seemed happy, talking about the books he was reading and something about a resolution to exercise. He had even enrolled for a course in spoken German. But as I continued reading his journal, the change in attitude that he had displayed in person started showing in the writings too. Below I have given excerpts from his journal... His later writing showed a fractured composition as he shifted from the mundane to the transcendental switching from one to the other as if constantly switching between doing some work and scratching body…as if compelled by some force….

THE DIARY OF LIONEL ARMSTRONG

Day 278

I am worried. For a long time I have been ignoring the thoughts and questions that plagued my head about the decision I made more than a year ago…I have convinced myself several times over that what I did was perfectly justified and that I had made the right decision and that the penance that I was undergoing and will be undergoing would absolve me of the wrong that I have done….But I have my doubts…After all if I cannot trust in the laws laid down by man ( as has been proved a countless number of times) then can I trust in the code of ethics set down by us….Am I right ?? Can I ever be sure…?

Day 282

I cant stave it away no longer …The thoughts about our asinine behavior and our even greater arrogance in failing to see our faults and decadence plague me day and night…I do not know whether to clap for joy at this freedom we have received in doing what we will or cry in pity at the trap set for us by Him….. By Them….For I do not know what is this world that we have been given…is it a boon or a test or merely bait…..?

Day 283

I think of many good reasons….Someone once said “I have such a prodigious amount of mind that it takes me a week to make it up…” This statement comes back to me now…We have been given so much that we get lost….Our capacity for logical thinking is such that a million different logical steps could follow from one given scenario and these would be equally plausible and yet…frighteningly opposed to each other in outcome and intention….We fail to see the guiding forces… fail to see that our logic means nothing, for if there is a controller then his intentions; are all that matter….

Day 307

For many days there has been peace…I am finally able to concentrate my attention on the things happening around me…on things that I can understand…I can reason out problems and understand the complex theories explained in the book that I am reading…Max Schneider’s ‘The tiny colossus’. Not exactly in my field, but hey…it’s all logic….

Day 308

Why? Why is this happening to me? It’s like a twisted mind game where my realization warrants my participation….Last night I heard them…I heard them speak to me….Praising me for having understood what I have and yet at the same time chiding me for ever having believed that I could have reasoned it out….They fight amongst themselves… They are matched in every sphere save their intention…. They drive me to a double torture... one is comprehending and debating their powerful arguments and the other is arguing my capability and right to think of these in the first place…Am I a pawn or just some lowly form of controlled intelligence…It could have been any way…either end of the spectrum….but my position in the middle of this range tortures me to unbearable limits….Please God let it stop…..Or You make it stop. One of you….

Day 309

The fight rages on in my body now...but I have noticed that if I concentrate on the normal aspects of life I can mute their voices at least to some extent….but my concentration lapses and I find myself in the midst of the fray…..as if my entire existence is being fought over but I myself can have no part in it….I am compelled to physically injure myself to stop this feeling of helplessness creep over me, tearing at one side of my body and then the other, and tearing at myself inside at whether these actions are indeed mine or just a sideshow in the main game…..

Day 310

The guards took away my food plate and fork…It seems that I ripped my body to shreds with it last night….By just concentrating on the enragement at my privileges being taken away I can keep myself sober enough to write this….for it is a drunken state that I am in…..drunk with realization….the realization that there is nothing to realize….it is like being fed a series of commands…

Day 312

Today I had some respite….I had a fight with some guards and it was during this fight that my mind could actually think for it’s own reason by itself, not being forced to listen to the arguments…..I realized that our ethics may be flawed….that we can never really believe anything…no rigid definitions…..no theories, no arguments…For example, I realized that if 2 tennis players always served an ace to their opponents during a match, the viewer watching that match only and that too for the first time…would believe that there is no service that isn’t an ace…If this is true…then why isn’t it possible that our world is merely a one time tennis game, with the masters serving aces to each other….cleverly executing every move to perfection…thus forcing us to believe that those were the only moves that could be played…

Day 316

I am bleeding badly and was in the solitary confinement room for 4 days…Those days were horrible….No stimuli of any kind. Nothing to see or hear….hence 4 days of torturous body clawing sessions as I tore at myself unable to bear the loss of control that this enclosed room caused….And my brief respite during the fight only convinced me that my predicament was real…and not just some mental sickness that could be cured …

Day 320

I can feel them closing on me….feel them convincing me of their views….AS I said….they are opposing but yet reconciled in one very ironic ….very horrendous way….that they are also exhaustive……that they are all that exists….they are the world….and everything beyond it….Oh God…!!...So futile does this sound….and how do I address Him…The You and I the That and This …the Yin and Yang……They seem to be heading for one great climax…I am to be rid of all my doubts…convinced…..once and for all and I fear the truth that awaits me at the end…..

After this….his notes were gibberish…most of them about ordinary things….but for that growing fear of some impending doom…some truth that awaited him…..some horrendous truth…..fractured sentences grammatically incorrect and a lot of miss spelt words…as though the truth would set this all right…….

He was found…..10 days later in his cell ..Dead….his body was horribly scratched…though the wounds were of his own making…..the autopsy revealed that he had died of a heart attack ….but the expression on his face….it was of surprise of shock….and something told me that this expression could only be seen in such circumstances….when the person that bore it could no longer explain it’s significance……

POST MARRIAGE (WORKING TITLE : ARE YOU HAPPY NOW MOM ?!)

Coming back to the very popular (as discussed earlier…could be that I have a multiple personality disorder) topic of Love, marriage and the happily ever after ( or not…) I realize that I forgot to reflect upon the last phase of this highly intriguing topic… Commitment….This is the most controllable and hence the most important part of the whole ‘journey’ that is considered an important part of life…………

Love is the spark that starts it all (of course u have parents to strike the flint when there is no automatic combustion... (Read: arranged marriage))Marriage is the coal and lighter fluid that u have to start the blaze and finally the big logs that burn slightly later…that’s commitment....Commitment to your love; that spark that at one time seemed brighter than a thousand diamonds….but at some times may seem like it’s burning out….consuming itself….

Yep…commitment is verry important (Yes, Damn you word spell check! That extra r is for emphasis….) For, of what importance is the death of one mangal pandey if it does not lead to a revolution….Yes! It’s like a useless sacrifice…love without commitment….It is the death of the beautiful times that could have been, that should have been, but for a lack of patience or unwillingness to compromise….Compromise…there you have it….That’s all that’s required…and not just in marriage but in all aspects of life…And the one thing that surprises me most is how some people refuse to compromise…even in principle (and not practical…is what I mean)….

It’s like you fall in love with someone for who they are and what they do…you make plans and have dreams…..A house on the beach…with two kids and a dog…A getaway every month and long idyllic hours spent just cozying up by the fire..(My… My… is that delicious or what!!)But like all dreams…they go pop sooner or later…The bubble bursts and you’re left with a face full of washing powder….And yup…you spit in each other’s faces…Her eyes don’t seem all that blue anymore and her optimism sounds fake…and don’t tell me …you say he’s getting more depressing by the hour and that cute way that he used to talk to himself seems like the beginning of some multiple personality disorder….Yep…I see the signs…Suddenly the rose tinted glasses used for watching him/her and the world when in the company of the said angel…..shatter…..

Arguments over things as mundane as which movie to rent lead to ego bashing sessions…The trick is compromise….and the fact is that compromise begins or rather began long ago….There are people and I distinctly remember talking to someone with this view( don’t rem. who…) who feel that one’s partner must be perfect she shouldn’t change with time…( I’m sure there are girls who hold this view too..)They fail to realize that being human…he or she is bound to change with time…to become less naïve, more world weary and most importantly: different….The key is changing oneself and learning to love the new person who changes with time, who changes with you….and maybe because of you…This must be bilateral…accept the changes as inevitable…understand why they occurred…maybe you’ll be moved when you realize why she /he ahs changed this way….

The key to having a successful relationship is that whenever you start having a fight…calm down …count to ten ( or hundred…..) and then sleep over it….that has a funny way of changing the most firm of stances….The key is talking understanding and compromising…..

As for your dreams…well…maybe one day if you work hard you won’t need those glasses anymore….

PS: I can understand being unable to actually compromise and be calm and patient when the time comes for it….but hey….agree in principle at least….

PPS: It’s obvious that the fire will be brighter (and steadier) when the logs start to burn….

PPPS: Dear God…

I’m waiting for the practicals !!!

CAPCOM ( !!)

I realized while reading my past entries, that though many of the ideas and analogies that I have written there had been carefully reasoned out (and ‘realized’(Wink)) by me a long time ago, I also saw that many of my analogies…ones that were quite apt (and startlingly eye opening (even to me))….came into my head as I wrote the post…and I put them down as I thought of them and surprisingly when I later reviewed them as ideas, to remove any gross deviations(my arguments still aren’t perfect…just close …(I think )) from logic I realized that they were quite perfect.... Then I realized that this happens to me all the time…when I’m arguing with someone…or as in the example, writing…It was then that I realized that my writing this blog is more than what I had previously imagined (my megalomaniac desire for an audience….(which…being the internet I could imagine to be as large or as small as my mood swings(insanely happy to ‘Imjustakidandlifeisanightmare’ depressed) would require)),it was also a way of putting things in perspective for myself….looking at my ideas on paper(dl:(I reiterate)die laughing a (lame) substitute for the clichéd lol) made me realize what I sounded like and if my stance on the topic really was what I previously had advocated….

Actually the fact is….I am a regular fence straddler( therefore my view changes about zilch either way from ‘getting in perspective’) and that first paragraph was just to confuse the communists and make them stop reading…cause today what I’d like to get in perspective is Capitalism versus communism….the dispute which can be summarized as…

A) I have money and you have none so bugger off…

B) You have money and they have none so give it all to us and we’ll give both of you equal money

Wow that’s a tough one…. I mean who’s right??

Let’s start from the very beginning..A long long time ago there was a colony of apes ( or several) that had evolved enough to be called ‘The First Men’…Among these there were some who were stronger, some who were more logical, some who could sort out disputes well, some who could carve a hell of a war axe, and some who could make food taste better by adding crushed plants to them and ‘burn’ (shhh….cavespeak fer tandoori !!) them just right….So there was division of labour…OR one could argue that such was the case with the various colonies (that is different colonies had different skills)…Anyway, point is, there was division of labour…Then it so happened that for every (dead….) 1000 cooked boar (ferpect !!) one war axe had to be replaced…and that the time taken to make a war axe was equal to the time taken to catch 10 boar…So there was demand and supply…each smith received a 1000 boars (or the equivalent) as payment for a war axe( minus the sage and thyme (dl…)) At some point of time one of these cavemen( who had a hoard of salted boar cause he was on a diet but his wife still bought the meat !) realized that if he could buy 100 axes from a tribe and then sell to 10 different tribes charging a small commission for his trouble and thus sparing the other tribes the trouble of walking all that distance ( or talking to the smith ( f***ing grouch that he was !!)), he could make quite a bit of money for doing practically nothing…Some other sly fox figured that if he went and spoke to the tribe chief (politics…that goes back much further than this !!) about the fact that Broomph’s wife sleeping with Thwark ( as the representative for Broomph)

since Broomph was too busy beating his wife ( or was that hammering ?? dunno !!) then, he’d probably get a cut out of Broomph’s wife’s dowry…( shiny yellow balls…)…so on and so forth….. …Also as the green eyed monster first preyed on this delicate settlement…Brawmth realized that if his cousins Roagle and Toomther were out of the way…( not to mention old man thoovle from across town) he could have a monopoly (or whatever they called it…probably ‘meonlyone’!) in the sage crushing business (not to mention that he would probably marry all the widows !!)..Monopolies… ( or rather the realization that they were amazingly profitable) came into being..So some guys (the ones who thought of stuff like this) got rich while some of them continued hunting wild boar( we-ell maybe they progressed to giraffe !!)…As other smarter people came across better way to do stuff…they got rich…It was then that the descendants of the old smart cavemen realized that such people must be watched carefully or dissuaded from believing in their ideas by getting them stuck in a rut ( or even better….a gutter)..So the rich guys hiked prices…not only to gain security in their oodles of cash and shiny yellow nuggets (lol…aaaaaaaaah) but also to make the poor poorer….Sooner or later some smart hardass came up and he took his place among the rich folk….and unless highly idealistic and a God incarnate…..continued with the old protocol….step on the backs of others and get higher…..

INTERMISSION

Now this whole scenario may sound depressing….but really let’s see what is really conveyed through these….The chances of getting rich reduced as time passed …and the lower you were on the socioeconomic ladder, the tougher it was to climb up….This was till…..the advent of communism…

Finally the people revolted….and eventually by sheer numbers….crushed the ‘imoneoffew’ (capitalists)…The smarter and greedier guys from these revolutionaries… truly believed that they should get something for their trouble ( they led the revolution remember…) and they decided on a plan…they would collect all wealth and then dole it out ….making some book keeping errors somewhere in transit….In short Comrades… we’ll all be friggin rich….Again…as is eventual….the smart guys started the capitalist trends and we got an in-between society as a result…An important part of this development is that somewhere after the socialist/communist revolt…the capitalists and communists studied the other’s principles and psychology…This led to each being less extreme in their views and realized that the other had to exist for society to run smoothly with minimal complaints…simply put…if the capitalists shout at you go crying to the commies…if the socialists hit you…the capitalists will sell you some band aid ( is that copyrighted…(band aid I mean…))…

That’s how it is today…..a very natural evolution of a very normal society which is based on the co operation of completely opposite sides….

Fact is, it couldn’t have been any other way….

PS: Yup…still on the fence…as a matter of fact I just bought some anti inflammatory cream…..

PPS: Food for thought…Funny how all the dystopian societies envisioned by writers are ultra communist and not at the other end of the spectrum…

PPPS: That’s because ‘no choice’ is scarier than ‘only the pretence that there is a choice’….