LOVE IV: Someone pleease quantify this !!

I really really really wanted to write something today..on the first...The beginning of a new year marking....a new era in my life...of productivity... grindstones and facial protuberances that have a twin set of apertures and from which disgusting fluids may be secreted (by some) at will.....Of love(i hope) and hope(if nothing else !)....Basically..You get the idea..New year's resolution blah blah yak yak....

MS:I'm serious about this stuff...but hey..it makes for lousy reading !!

Actually..I thought bout a lot of different topics to write about..I thought about new year's resolutions...and then about dance and how it is thrust upon people who may not necessarily like it, even though the general populace does....and then go on to how today's world is all about one's impression on others and how the basic reasons for a lot of uncomfortable customs are not examined but ascribe them all to 'propriety'...and how that sucks....But then i thought another sarcasm dripping tirade would totally ruin my happyboy image...so i reined myself in and ventured once more,as i have previously on 3 other occasions into the region of mystery, the cave of alladin...Love and other natural 'calamities' (My image !!)..Now what i started thinking about was Commitment..And for those that thought that my previous post in this vein was 'gay' and all...well this is kind of a critique or rather....a study of motives and reasons....So here goes nothing...


I talked about commitment as necessary, post marriage...That it is essential for a normal, healthy life....Now, i think that there are some people who would have agreed with me without question and others, who would have thought that some ultra conservatives had brainwashed me...I have heard staunch proponents of both arguments...I have a surprisingly ( i think) conservative view but ..again..it's just a totally irrational view..So i thought.. lemme actually look at the how , why and most importantly the gray areas...So ..uhh..Ok..sorry..lost track of what i was going to say for a minute..

Marriage as i deduced ( and i think rightly so) arose from love..People were in love and wanted to formalise it ...legalise it..Me personally; i think it's a great idea so..i guess I'll work with that...Now the main part...the point of contention...is...Does love last forever....? Does it happen only once ? and the like..
Once one gets into a marriage (i know it sounds very ..'not romantic'..but that's just your perception..I'm perfectly unbiased(yeaaaah right...))monogamy is prescribed as a prophylactic to STD's....But then again...the basic premise that the institution of marriage is based upon...is that the two married people love each other...and if that itself is not true...well marriage in it's original, pure form( as i have deduced/assumed)...loses it's meaning...and hence i feel must be dissolved...However...even more basic is the question 'Does love last forever ?' and it's supplementary 'Does love happen only once?' ..Now..Again..here...a lot of guesses will have to be made....for these questions can only be answered by statistics(something..that i like to use in my arguments but have not too much faith in !)..I think that.. love ..as is the loved..is very clearly a geographically influenced phenomenon...There are a lot of people one may like a lot or rather..could like a lot ....but they will be scattered over the world...of course..one's local cultural influences will cause a lot of these people to be nearby ...( of course a complete antipathy towards one's birth-culture( which is very possible) would have the opposite effect.... but frankly there would be others with the same feelings..) Now...if one were to zoom out and view one's life's timeline..we would ( or could) meet people who we connect with at different stages of our life....Which of these people is the most 'in tune' with us..is purely a matter of luck...So first of all ...marriage must be thought out carefully..because no matter how much you love someone...you should keep in mind the fact that you may very well meet someone..even more 'endowed with endearing qualities'(:P)later in one's life...
I have seen happily married couples who are very similar and others who are very dissimilar...Again ...which pairing suits whom better is hard to say..but i would guess that..there would be a golden ratio of similarities and dissimilarities to make the perfect couple (since I'm quantifying similarities here one can safely assume this is all completely hypothetical...:D)So what i would perceive as a similarity dominated couple or a dissimilarity dominated couple would probably be slight disturbances to either side of the golden mean...
Now...how can one judge how perfect one's current pairing is and how likely is the chance of her/him meeting someone even better suited to him..I don't know..But the most obvious solution...that i can see (and I'm sure you can)..that of never committing ...and just going around taking free samples...(hmm..raspberry crush..and uhh....sunshine bonanza...and...mochalicious ..maybe i'll try cashew nut de leche...!!(Drool drool!))...be warned that it would be clearly unscrupulous and immoral to lick the spoon (Wink wink !)Again..to some this may seem like a perfect solution...but i think that..marriage and child rearing would be an essential part of a good life..so ...yeah..i'd have the strawberry shortcake flavour... (a Baskin robbins flavour of the month(Boohoo)...that i..seriously...fell in love with..(Bastards !))
In the case of the marriage decision..i think most couples rely ...at least a bit on the magic part of it..if they haven't been in other relationships before..then the magic part is very clear and easy...you have no standard to compare it with....so it's awesome...no matter what...in the other case..i think there's some other factor forcing marriage sometimes and in others..( maybe) there is the perception of a greater magic...Now..imagine that one (or both) of the participants in a marriage realises after X years of marriage...that it isn't working out...Should one..just get up and leave....I don't think so..I think ...that by marrying him/her... you have signed a covenant....you have made certain commitments and that it should not be too easy for you to just forgot about that..One goood idea woudl be to write down one's lovey dovey promises and 'I'll throw a lasso around the moon' isms...so that ...that magic may be recreated..so that at least ...one will remember that ...yes there was something...Maybe there still is...

P.S.: Today's world spawns a lot of relationships that are mere reactions to a fad...'Everyone does it..so will I'.. These commitments even, according to me should be more serious and better thought out than they are..

P.P.S.:People are so blinded by 'love' that they don't realise that when they say their wedding vows...they're supposed to mean them and think about them...before saying yes..like every promise...

P.P.P.S.:Of course..if one considers the fact that ....even marriage is just a bunch of rules in a game ( a sub game of sorts to life !)...and that some people manipulate those rules for some distant advantage...then yeah...some of those moves may well be really smart....

P.P.P.P.S.:Once again ..I couldn't help jacking up the sarcasm ..

P.P.P.P.P.S.:The probablity bit is really stupid..i mean..what if i'm thinking so much and making so many hypothetical comparisons that i will find her (oops) only when i'm 50 (PROSTATE !!)

Kota Senti

I was looking at some old pics today....Pics i had clicked in a galaxy far far away a long long time ago...or so it felt(Who am i kidding !!)....I was looking at pics of my stay in kota...Actually ..i had taken my camera there only in the last 2 months ...but the pics took me back...like some old greying 'Nam veteran...I leant back... staring at a point in the distance, transported back...Arriving in kota for the first time...watching my parents' train leave...Scrinching up my face and sniffing loudly...crying myself to sleep, thanking god(and my parents !) that i had a single room....

Tosh....Actually...I spent that first night playing cards...sleeping at 3 if i remember correctly...I remember the first words i said after my parents left...I called up a friend and said " Oye mere dad mom gaye..chal gaandmasti karte hain...!!"
Not to put up some false show of 'big boy' bravado...but i don't think i ever felt alone in my whole stay in kota....I remember many anxious juniors and even more anxious parents coming to me for kota-wisdom later and asking me " What problems did you face?" and me replying ...frowning in concentration.."Uhh...Problems..Nope..can't think of any!!" And y'know..it was true..I took to kota like a fish to water...Oh..the crazy things we did there....I remember this one time..i had gone to the mess wearing this, Quoting my mom.., 'disgusting' sleeveless 'shirt' and a revolting pair of 'shorts'..when one of the mess workers droppped a whole big serving bowl of daal on me..It was thick dal..OH..thick and heavily spiced...And wet....had the texture of vomit....I remember soaking it in a tub and nearly barfing every time i saw that stuff floating around...Needless to say..my mother was over the moon...On her next visit i got an i-pod....

Another barfable incident was my house mate Anup scraping out utensils which had contained chicken (had....) about a month ago...from a foot away...Oh...yeah those were the days yaar..Like the time after marathon watching movies ( 4 i think) all night..me and my house mate Abhisek returned..He was taking a leak while holding our house keys in his mouth ...when...yeah...he yawned....Neither of us remembered the last time we had used the toilet.....for..ahem... the big job ( i found this site with a delightful list of euphemisms..http://www.thechurning.com/2005/10/19/final-round-of-shit-euphemisms/) But we held our noses and fished the keys out with our kitchen tongs...(Needless to say ..we stopped making toast and maggi became a staple..!!)and washed them thoroughly with a hosepipe and the tongs with a soaped up rag.....The keychain ..which was the letter 'S' had to go...It was leather you see....

We had a lot of crazy philosophical talks up there on the terrace...ranging from...Why are we here ? ... somewhere, two hot, smart and funny girls are discussing that 2 guys (like us...!) are discussing that two boys( funny how picky we were... even in our daydreams) are... ad infinitum...
There was this one time that we had this crazy idea...we decided that we would let our freezer get clogged up with ice and not thaw it and then rip out slabs of ice and smash them on the floor..Abhisek's mother had come to visit but I was like a man with a mission...i had to do it..SO i called abhisek innocently as if to ask him about some question i was solving but pointing to the fridge...We pulled out a huge..and i mean big ..gigantic... e-normous slab of ice....grinning devilishly at each other ...we hefted it once...twice and smashed it to the ground...It broke into many small pieces (and some big ones...YAAY !!) with a sound like a pistol shot...Man..that was fun..i mean..i know i'm getting cliched here... but..yeah...it WAS fun...and you won't know what i'm talking about till you've smashed some ice yourselves...
I could go on and on..but..i have to sleep....forget it yaar..I can't help it..i'd probably chuckle to myself for an hour before i fell asleep..I'll go on a teeny weeny bit longer..Like the time The lights went off in the middle of the Loo( yesss..I'm talking bout the dusty winds that we learnt about in tenth standard geography...) and all of us rushed out onto the street..One friend of mine..Who had this habit of roaming about in his room bare chested ran out without putting anything on.. and walked for nearly a mile without realising this ...(it was pitch black) Then ..to make matters worse...a fat friend gave him his shirt as he himself was wearing a vest underneath..which let me tell you was not a pretty sight when the lights cam on.... Or that time when..we all gathered in my room to play cards with my small stereo blaring greenday till it was hoarse..My landlord heard the 'noise' and decided to check on me....He knocked on the door upon which we rushed hither thither...with one of us hitting the lights and another the stereo(Dumb Dumb Dumb...)...some lying down on the bed and the last one: Avi...crouching behind my bed....I opened the door..bleary eyed and said..kya hua uncle..He incredulously asked me..(Duh..the lights and music and sounds of merrymaking were LOUD a second ago) "Kya chal raha hai bete ?"All my 'sleeping' friends 'got up' and started looking at my landlord as if surprised..I said.."Uncle ..ye yahaan padhne aaye hain.."....Up popped avi still holding his cards..fanned out and arranged for easy accessiblity saying.." Haan uncle..Schrodinger's equation bahut tough hai.." That stiffled laughter must have reduced my lifespan by an hour atleast but i would trade a year just to see everyone looking at Avi with ..a look on their faces that i can't describe without grinning widely even now....

A lot of good friends,304( a card game..that i swear...can be played for days on end),cyber cafe nightouts,movies, kilos (seriously) of Ratlami sev bought at the wholesale rate and ch***iyaaps : only 99 photographs...Seems unfair na...


PS:Oh..The joy....

PPS:Abhisek Amit Anup Ardhendu Avi Ayush Rajat Manav Mukul Nikhil Prateek Rohan Siddharth Tapan Tarun Tejas ...THANK YOU !!

PPPS:If i have missed anyone out...SORRY and THANK YOU !!!

PPPPS:I must have an eye infection...Better go wash them...

PPPPPS: OOH and Pyaaj ki kachaudi..

PPPPPPS: Junta please add items....

Arbit: Title track...

My later stuff has been very sentimental..and probably not 'readable' unless you know me...and i really want this to be something that is general..that is ...enjoyable to anyone who chooses to read it...So i think i should stray back into the field of...well not me....Sol et's pick up the hat and randomly pick a chit...hmm...let's see...aah...that one..(nice texture ...i must remember to ask mom where she bought this paper..)

So without much ado, but to the long and loud fanfare of trumpets, followed by cymbals, then a triumphant drumroll....let's open it...aah... oh..uhh....(Damn !)...'8 on 30 in PH 105( midterm marks....)' ..(Bloody hell ! I thought i threw that away !!)..Sorry...That must have gotten in there by mistake...Let me take another one out...Oh..Yeah..that's good..That'll do..


"SUCCESS AND HOMOSEXUALITY "

Yeah...Not exactly connected are they....Quite the 'Chalk and cheese'..(Actually more like 'Chalk and 'antelopes shot in such a manner that their femur is still intact but my is their hamstring a bloody mess' ') But hey..I can work with that...Don't exactly have to use them in one sentence, do i ?!...So let's talk about the second first...Homosexuality.....Lot of issues her.. 'Choice or genetic' , Homophobes , Friends coming up to you and telling you that..., then back to homophobes (!!!!) etc..

Let's proceed logically....Animals know by instinct that they must enter into sexual union (SWIVE !!(British for...SPLAT !)) to propagate their species...Passed on to humans....Humans start communicating better...forming ideas..discussing ...Find common ground with other people....Start having friends.... Separately (!) start enjoying sex....start associating pleasure with person who is the other participant....Maybe they're having sex with them because they like that person in the first place ( have stuff in common..)...Love...Marriage....Heterosexuality= Norm.......................................PAUSE.............................................................................................................

Now if we think clearly, an orgasm (pleasure associated with SWIVING !!) can be experienced by either sex without the involvement of a person of the opposite sex....Now you like/love having someone with you whom you like/love (whatever you like/love to call it...!!) ..The idea of male/female(equivalently female/male ( women's lib !!)) conjugal relations arises only as a need for reproduction..Assume you are a person of sex X and you love/like person A(sex X) more than person B(sex 'not X')..and you want to spend your life with A but won't mind a kid with person 'B's 'component' (hahahaha!!!!) and assuming A and you are interchangable ...that it B and A are on good terms too.....Why the hell should any other bloody person have a say about it.......

I believe that a person can swing any way she or he wants to...As for why people are in general heterosexual...Maybe...it's been bred into us over the generations.....We associate chilbirth( only possible with 2 people of opposite sexes) with sexual intercourse (SWIVING !!), sexual intercourse with pleasure and assume the transitive causality to hold ( A and B happen togethe....B and C happen together hence A and C happen together (and C cannot be cause by anything else)) But what really happens is that .... sex leads to pleasure..and sex..with the added condition that the sex of the two participants be different ( or atleast two of the many participants (hey..you can do what the hell you like !) ) be different leads to conception...with a lot of other conditions(teenage boys snigger...teenage girls blush...) that are force majeure ( not controllable by man)..So basically....Re-lax.....Unless your friend has a crush on YOU..In that case..you should tell him/her that ...ya..Dude/Girl..I DON'T swing that way yaar......


Part 2 :SUCCESS...

What is success....Success is happiness.. PERIOD

PS: And happiness includes a good night's sleep...so yeah..take a hint.....

PPS: Of course...SUCCESS elaborated...would be somewhere in that hat of mine.... (!)

PPPS: To understand my thing for the (SWIVING !!) read 'The man from St. Petersburg' by Ken Follet

PPPPS: I'm not a homophobe......but that doesn't mean you get any ideas ...(STAY IN THAT CLOSET !)

PPPPPS: (SWIVING !!)

Death a la Heidegger

Just yesterday, a friend of mine( Divyanshu AKA Bihari AKA Bubbanshu) asked me and some others a question...'If you knew that you had just one month to live....what would you do ?' Actually his question was 'If the world was going to end in a month, what would you do ?' which i misunderstood to be the first question..
But anyway..both questions are equally interesting and require much questioning and soul searching..so i thought hey...lemme not study for my end semester exams (which, by the way are to begin on Tuesday) and write bout this, so that (PLEEEESE) someone reads it and ..i dunno...doesn't study for his/her endsem exams too...so that his endsem preparation would get screwed due to a lot of soul searching and self inspection ( which, i would have done before posting this... so less closer to the endsem(and of course everyone knows that study time varies as an exponentially decreasing function of time left for the exams !!)) so i would fare better in my exams ( we have relative grading here in iit (for all of you (much)lesser mortals with (much)greater sex ratios !!))So basically...yeah...i'm an RG( one who exploits the RG (Relative grading) system)
Leaving aside these trivialities, let me get to the question... or rather questions... Firstly :"If you knew that you were going to die in a month what would you do ?"As soon as I think about dying that too within a time period as small as a month there's a mixture of feelings inside me just bursting to come out...There's sadness, a weird kind of something that feels like pride and a strange nostalgia...I feel sad knowing that a month from now.. Sumedh Shrinivas Ranade will be no more, i will be gone, kaput, finished...A month from now i will be just a box of ashes....(Waiting for this to sink in, with a sombre look on my face, my eyes scan the audience for people wiping tears from their eyes...) (Disappointed... i go on.. !)I feel proud (not so much now !) knowing that there will be people who will still remember me(more fondly perhaps(a la Michael Jackson !)) whenever they laugh , or cry...I also look back and smile sadly, the hint of a tear moistening my eyes...a lump in my throat ...every particle of my body happy... completely happy, for that one moment.....the sum of all the happiness that was in my life.....Then my thoughts jerk back to the present and i think ..'Well, now i have really embarrassed myself in front of my audience !!'(I can hear them... "Wuss ! Wuss!!")...What would i do..
I'd sit up all night talking to friends...not just talking but listening, hearing, crying, laughing and hugging..I'd stay up late till the early morning (!!(credit to Aselin debison)) just reliving all of the moments...the fun that we had...In the morning..I'd bid them farewell... one last time....telling each of them that i love them, that i enjoyed every moment that i spent with them....and it would be true... all of it... it was fun....I'd leave with some clothes and my guitar....Catch the first rickshaw i see and go home...climb up the stairs slowly...savouring every moment of it...then stand in front of my door and put my finger on the bell....not removing it till i saw one of my parents standing in front of me...I'd hug them and tell them that i loved them, not caring if there was anyone watching....I'd stay home for a week...doing nothing...just taking it all in..HOME...My parents,my sister, my room,everything....I'd tell my sister that she was important to me, (Read:that i loved her( but it was getting a bit repetitive!)) and that though i thoroughly enjoyed all our fights, i didn't really mean all that mean stuff i said to her.....I'd stay for a week...just talking to people on the phone and eating every meal possible with my family...talking and listening but mostly just looking and sighing...Then I'd take off ... go to Goa , all by myself...I'd sit in some shack on the beach, reading , singing, listening to music and just looking at the sea....I'd also probably write something similar to this particular post, but longer...something that i hope people will read...But it won't really matter....'cause it's really meant for me..I'd read it again and again...Laughing and Well..Laughing...

When i have just one or two days left, I'd call all of my extended family there and a have a grand dinner on the beach..with all the jokes and the laughter and the aagraha (forcing food onto others when you serve them...after all there's a limit to what your fridge can hold..)!Then I'd walk on the beach alone ...strumming my guitar..singing all the songs i know.... I'd feel all of those songs..even the romantic ones..for though i have not loved...i can feel the 'might have' nostalgia (which is a bit like excruciating pleasure)...then I'd lay my guitar down on the sand and walk on the beach ... wetting my feet a little every now and then (to get the sand off..!)and wait.....


Now imagine....If the whole world was ending and everyone knew it......Would the people i want to spend time with , want to spend time with me ?( scanning the crowd again for guilty faces...)
Do you mean as much to a person as he(or she) means to you ? Are you important to people ? If a 'very close friend' wrote this...would you feature in it ? Tough questions...huh...Think about it...

PS: There are people who will appreciate what i have written and there are others who will scream "Wuss !! Wuss!!"The first may be genuine or they may be faking it because in some life paradigms(their's) it is acceptable to be senti...
The second, i believe are just posing....then again...their reply to this would be"Bullshit !!!"To each his own...for me..i say F**k You..

PPS:All the senti i have written above is punctuated by jokes...i mean every bit of both...the jokes are the just part of my' "Wuss!Wuss!" 'facade that i wasn't able to throw off, but that's good cause otherwise this post would get really boring...

PPPS:I love you all !!

PPPPS: But i'll love you more if you post comments (Wink Wink...)

PPPPPS: Really......

PPPPPPS: I would have the same answer even if the whole world was ending...i thought that came out through the post...People may not agree to my plans but bloody hell...you can't decide every single thing after considering what everyone else thinks/will do

PPPPPPPS: I believe fully (or strongly hope atleast !)that my plans will materialize....after all i'm asking people for just a day...surely i'm that important to people and...fact is....the people who come are the people who i really want to be there...... It is my whole hearted belief that true love/caring is reciprocated equally

Yesterday...

Yesterday morning i woke up early.....early for me that is.....Somehow i woke up a full hour earlier than i usually do...( that my alarm is set for !!) Now i am by nature, very optimistic and a great believer in portents...So i decided that the fact that i awoke early meant that it was supposed to happen .....that i was supposed to attend the class i usually miss and that today was going to be a wonderful day..That everything would go right..(!)-----------------------------
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Yes yes...i can see what you are dying to say..."Pah !!".You laugh at me... Snigger even, at my (misplaced) faith in Life and my misinterpretation of what was probably some insect that probably went up my nose and woke me....but then that's your problem...and anyway i bet you're dying to hear what happened next....----------------------------------------------------------------------
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Well, the day proceeded normally , no surprises or unexpected good fortune... I didn't find any money fallen on the ground, nor was i visited by an alien race that granted me super powers, and even the food in the mess was bad....In fact, i spent my afternoon studying for a quiz that was to be held in the evening..Furthermore i screwed up the quiz and was busy all evening, reaching my room only at 12 30 am...

Now i can see you......not sniggering and smirking but wearing full grins that make you look like Satanic priests....thinking..."HAH !!" But the fact is that you miss my point....that i forsee what your reaction is going to be...so as is obvious, i do hold the ace...it's just my hole card ! (google: blackjack !!)Fact is if a cynical pessimistic person went through a day like mine...he would probably have been infinitely depressed and well..... cynical ! But us optimists....well we get through the day...hoping for more.... wishing for more....and you know..maybe ...at the end of the day we do get that....So it's easier for us to get through the tough bits of meat that life dishes out...

Personally if you ask me, all pessimists, just put up a show....acting all cynical, but underneath hoping for something good to happen and believing with all their heart, that it will...And i know that pessimists feel the same about optimists...that really... we are cynical killjoys who just conform to social norms by behaving all happy go lucky and hopeful.....That we just put on a smile....For those who do...STOP !...And for the many, i'm sure, who don't.. CHEERS !


PS: Isn't it obviously better to be happy always, than mistrusting and sceptical about everything...

PPS: And i'm talking about and to the smart optimists here, the ones that know it's OK to cry sometimes....

PPPS: I seem to be getting more senti (that word comes with a lot of prejudice ,...rather let's just say... meaningful !(which again comes with a lot of bias !!(That makes me neutral..on the fence with my anti inflammatory cream !!!)))Well....I had an epiphany...what can i say...

BLAH

　
I am drunk(Ola! Harshad,Potty, Pranay and Vaid...)........To be precise...i have imbibed some alcohol...Though i had never thought about it before this...now...i am sure that i want to write something while i am in this condition or state...whatever you wish to call it...First of all, let me describe this state to you..Those that have been there (here ?) and done this...reminisce ...and the rest .....Well... i will describe it as accurately as i can without making a fool of myself !! First of all, i am completely in control of all my actions...I am of course feeling a bit light headed..and happier than normal..(a fact which some friends of mine believe to be impossible..) In fact, i feel more in control of myself than normal for the simple reason that i feel obligated to prove my high capacity to imbibe alcohol(a parameter very foolishly and illogically assumed to be a sign of manliness) not just to others but also to myself.....I also am in the habit of giving my more irrational feelings (such as love.....actually...only love !!) more of a free hand while my consciousness roams about .... stumbling and rambling merrily ! While there are many people who regard the capacity to drink large amounts of alcohol as a great virtue...there are also the people who consider it a sign of great weakness, if not a sin......Others relent somewhat and consider smoking and further drugs as sins....
I personally,was a staunch believer in teetotalism before i went to college...I maintained from my tasting of alcohol that it was a highly disgusting and definitely non potable beverage and that i would continue to drink the likes of coca cola till death...College set in and the lifestyle there caught up to me, as it does to everyone....My opinion of alcohol was that it was good...if it were ingested in reasonable quantities... As long as one did not lose control completely...the feeling of moondust and teddy bears (!!)was....just great... i also discovered that i could hold my drink really well....due to both genetic and environmental influences (wink !!(:-P))Then finally one day....i bit off too much more than i could chew and.....as is logical ..... puked... The loss of control was too scary for me.....and i gave up alcohol....
This is the 3rd time i have drunk since that day...the first time being 3 months after the day of my bheesma vrath....(!)And i realised that i had lost the taste ....i had stopped liking (or rather hating less than liking the high !!) the taste of alcohol....
But these personal and senti things left aside (i was just rattling out facts to gain back my sense of balance and control...so i would be able to write more than gibberish.. !!) let us get to the crux of the issue.....A friend of mine chided me for smoking as i did (barely...) sometimes when i was drunk (which shall be hereforth defined as having imbibed alcohol.....)Later when i gave up alcohol completely he said that what i was doing was nonsense and that this was too extreme a measure to take...Why i wonder...Both affect a person's health in the long term and due to their containing addictive substances...both could destroy a person's life...Agreed ciggarettes are more addictive than alcohol...but then is not the cutting out of both these mind altering substances a good thing..in fact the best thing to do...So i should drink and be merry but a ciggarette now and then is bad ....Isn't that rather hypocritical ??
Speaking of hypocrites, what about vegetarians...they cry out about animals and how we kill them to satisfy our own carnal natures....well then isn't killing mute, dumb plants even worse...And if the indignant reply to this would be (as it often is, and i have asked a lot of people !)that since i can't hear them, i don't feel bad....then my reply would be..." Then Sir...the fact is that i don't feel bad when i eat animals "....(of course, as compared to that delicious succulent breast-piece of lamb !!)...
Well...as the more rigid puritans would believe (and....of course as any person who has done 'shieat' (as the african americans would say !!!!!! lol)...will tell you that it is our greatest pleasure to behave , in our 'drunken stupor' as we would be expected to behave by our prissy acquaintances ! (sorry guys !!)) one is in a pedagogical mood when intoxicated...that is highly eager to preach about life and other highly significant things....So....once again... confirming your belief...i will proceed....
　
I believe that one should live life as if one had nothing to lose. Voice your opinions out loud...
At worst, If you are wrong, you will realise it and will also have had the satisfaction of having expressed your opinion. Life is too short to be unhappy long... so laugh often.... if it seems as if everything is going wrong ...... remmeber every valley is spanned by mountains on both sides and that the descent must stop somewhere....What doesn't kill you can always make you stronger provided you are willing to learn from it.... The rough translation of a cheesy line from a bollywood movie that i nevertheless like says "Laugh and be merry, cause who knows, tomorrow may never come..."...
Today's cynical world often mocks optimists, considering them to be hypocrites who just smile because it's socially more acceptable....Bull Crap i say...Firstly...the world has become highly pessimist and cynical...secondly...there aren't too many things that really warrant that glum look....Smile when you are happy and when in doubt think about the good times...those to come and those that have passed....and grin like an inebrieated babboon (Let 'em wonder!!)And thirdly...'SOUR GRAPES'.... Just because you have nothing to smile about doesn't mean that everyone who's smiling's just putting it on....
Also...the troubles that most people commit suicide over...Money and Love.... are two of the most trivial things that could ever be....Money....A common means of exchange for goods.... Work hard and the money problems will get fixed.....As for love....it is a wonderful feeling...but in the end there is no one more important than you.... "There is nothing to live for.. " Why ! That's rubbish....live for yourself, even if everything in the world is destroyed ... Suicide is just a great bloody middle finger to oneself.....
Thus endeth my 'Fundae' of life...Those that find them cheesy and optimistic....well i'll just ask them if they can give me another set of rules, so to speak, by which they have lived their life and never had even one dull or depressed moment....Cause i haven't ....so there ....!!
PS: Thus, I continue my tradition of writing postscripts...
PPS:Forgive the i's.... i have no office suite...
PPPS: In accordance with the 'fact' that we drunks are senti..i present to you....'Blah'...
PPPPS: Actually we also take the opportunity to do stuff we've always wanted to and felt scared of people's reactions, because now.... it's all attributed to the effect of alcohol...

PPPPPS: Cheers !!

US: EVERYONE'S SCARED OF THIS POST !!

I couldn’t resist it…(The title, I mean….)Having written something about the unknown(delightfully devilish, I would have myself believe…but nevertheless, rubbish that exists…(Point is…I wrote )) entitled ‘Them’, which schizophrenic demented megalomaniac could resist writing something (powerfully moving or sarcastically cutting(oh…I dunno I’ve just started haven’t I ), but once again …. Something…) anything… and giving it the title ‘Us’? Who, I ask you? Who?

For all of you still thinking (and I hope that my readership, comprising the foremost brains of my generation (this time I really died laughing) will not fall in this category !)just one word folks: Rhetoric….(OK I’m done pissing off what might be my only reader !)Not me, for sure…..

Us …We….A generation of suck ups, manipulators and two faced hypocrites... (Yes…I can hear you saying …. “Really! You too!!Oh my God!! And to think I went to all that trouble…!!”)That’s us….All that we do focuses on the ego…everything…we look at ways to bolster it and think so far ahead it would baffle Kasparov…Telling slightly varied stories to different people to generate the approval and respect (which is in turn fake …) that makes our day…That one extra fan on orkut….that makes u scream out loud and decide to have that extra cookie…as a celebration…Pathetic…all of us….( only it’s ‘packs of cookies’ in my case !)

Just today…I was chatting with a friend and the topic came round to why I wasn’t on facebook…I replied…I hate social networking sites in general…I just joined orkut to keep in touch with friends who were leaving from kota….I received the ‘hmmm really’ reply…Then I replied….trying to (and maybe succeeding) be funny that, no,…I luurrrrve orkut…I’d be a zombie without friends….if it were not for orkut…sitting in a corner whimpering and drooling, my legs drawn to my chest…. I cut myself every time I lose a fan or a friend…..and worst of all I actually add people that send requests such as ‘Wanna meet a fraandly cute Punjabi boy’……That took care of the conversation….but I wasn’t satisfied….you know people this isn’t what other people want to hear…What they want ( and what’s true) is ‘Ohh… whenever orkut shows me ‘page loading…’…there’s this anticipation …this…glow in my chest…just waiting to see if that brown haired girl scrapped me or maybe to see if that senior in my wing commented on that photo, you know, the one in which I’m surrounded by vodka bottles….The truth is that…every time I see a photo comment the glow stays with me for a day….a much awaited scrap…gets stomach’s sucked in and heads held just a teeny weeny bit higher….’

Yep …that’s us…our friends lists on social networking sites…are full of people we despise and ridicule…And we never send people friend requests …we wait for them to come…making it, in the end…just a bloody stare down contest….Friends…It should be ‘People we barely know through 2 common links…or maybe 3 if he/she is really cool’ Approval and liking is something all of us crave…and we secretly hate those that prance around, telling merry stories, spewing out stolen puns and jokes…Our status messages…oh…. if dogs had an attention span of half the time that we use in thinking up status messages…they’d probably have learnt our language by now….All the clichéd stuff we do believing that we will be perceived as being cool….it makes me laugh….

And this is just the cyber world….In the real world…we do things that are equally suited for a satire…That’s why satires have gone out of fashion…it’s just like our everyday life…so boring….The passing on of stories…and representing them as one’s own…the long words and impressive phrases that are bandied about…..the names of books that we once saw on the editorial page of some newspaper….all these float around the air, are heard and then repeated countless number of times..….i’m sure if we wrote the autobiography of the book ‘A Thousand Splendid Suns’ since the time it appeared (along with a review (and this is important !!)) in TOI we would find that it had travelled all around the world and gone in so many twisted overlapping loops that it would be impossible to find an equation or even several, plotting it’s course….Just murmurs and whispers can make or break impressions…and the fact is, that we have gotten so confused about why a certain thing was said and what effect was it meant to have, that we often think over the most mundane and innocent of statements as though they were octopule entendres…..

Our ego is destroying us…Mr. Gold… (As Guy Ritchie would have us believe) has won……

PS: If you read through this and feel that certain phrases seem as though I have revealed myself and my egocentric pathetic activities unknowingly….be warned that I have read through this post 4 times searching for such clues and have placed these in specific places to katao your chu**ya !!

PPS: Or maybe I just wrote that post script coz it was easier than reading through this highly ego bashing thing….

PPPS: 4 sounds much more believable than 6 or 7 times and so much more impressive than 1 or 2 times

PPPPS: This work is the required analogue of an axiom…..it reveals its purpose and content doubly…through it’s actual content and the very fact of its existence….!!

PPPPPS: Am I cunning and poltu( iit lingo for whatever i wrote above,...) ... or am i just a brilliant satirist... i dunno... Which would make me more impressive?!

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’….

Oh GOD....

This particular ‘thing’ that I am writing has a very (shitty) dubious inspiration…Hmm…let’s see…I won’t really call it inspiration but rather catalysis or rather a ‘coming together of several elements which rouses you to action whereas each individual element wouldn’t get a second glance’ (serendipity?!)...

Ok...So I watched New York the other day… and… (Yes! I like all movies…the bollywood ones as well)well even though the movie itself was unremarkable…(even by my standards) it did remind me of an extraordinary film made on similar lines…Khuda kay liye…What I really mean is ..that it got me thinking about religion…..Consequentially when I read an article in the paper that reported extra grants to Muslim children (for higher education) (amounting to a staggering (pardon the(clichéd) ‘staggering’)112 crores) on the occasion of some anniversary of the founding of Maharashtra it added to my internal ‘religious’(pertaining to religion) debate….

Did god create us?...or did we create him ?….Is he someone whom we dump all of the things that our beyond our understanding and help? Or is he someone who is used to explain all things that cannot be explained? Is he the bottomless pit of faith that comes in where our ideas fail? Or is he (or has he been made into) a gambit in the chess game of politics?(or maybe a scapegoat...!)…Questions about the origin of religion and about how it has evolved (or been shaped :-P) over the years are not as common as those about other aspects of life…simply because they are easily understood…..I mean it’s obvious… since a pot had to be made by a potter and a shirt stitched by a tailor so is it necessary that for humans to exist there must be one who has brought us into existence….something that lit the spark… that stirred the cauldron…we came from somewhere and therefore there must have been a stimulus …that …is god…..

Slowly…this god…who created us evolved into the omnipotent omniscient and all pervading munificent being…this is because…we couldn’t explain a lot of things…and where our ideas..our hypotheses ended….we created beliefs and faith…and since god was truly (obviously ) great…for having created us of course….(such arrogance !!!) was the only candidate…on him was thrust the responsibility of everything including the seasons and the movement of heavenly bodies, not to mention determination of one’s love lives and academic career…Wow…must’ve had a hard time…As we progressed….our ideas (bolstered by evidence) reduced the workload of the ‘parent of our race’ but we still went crying to him after every gastrointestinal twinge of pain…moaning.. “oh god !”( aand..other things as well (wink))

So we attribute to god all that science could not understand..(thus creating jobs for all his PA’s and PR guys)..and some (or many (who am I kidding)) prefer the painless method of pushing everything onto god, including the herculean task of creating the world in 6 days (with Sunday off) So in short we all needed to believe certain things….like a gentle patriarch (or matriarch) ,who would forgive our every sin and would love us for ever…..and forgive me if I sound blasphemous or atheistic ( cause I’m not )but I think all that we needed was a placebo….and as a result…..we prayed to a superhuman person who was attributed with omnipotence …omniscience and others ( sometimes called the GOD skillset) Due to the different places we were born and the comfort level ( as regards god’s looks and qualities) of our ancestors we were saddled with different images of god and different ways of talking to him and pleasing him….

Thus came religion……now once the era of wars was over and people ( in general) no longer thought it was ‘good fun’ to invade that ‘nice green plateau’..(post the crusades…)our erstwhile rulers realized that it was fair sport to divide and rule…to first create strife among the people and then gloriously unify them…(or take the side of the bigger votebank !)…Expected….because fact is….giving education grants to muslims for the maharashtrian foundation anniversary makes absolutely no sense….I mean…don’t insult our intelligence by writing this yaar…But hey….Assembly elections are fast approaching …really sorry guys. I forgot. My mistake…but since I have started this blog…I can’t just forget about it (like those half sneezes y’know)…

So what the broad idea I take from this line of thought is that….divide and rule has always worked….and…the best divisions are those that are the oldest and most sacred…like religion…or….(drum roll announcing another hot topic) caste….I mean awesome….i personally feel that all these similar tactics that politicians have used for years should be dropped now. We figured it out is what I feel like screaming. I mean grow up guys….be intelligent ….think of new stratagems to brainwash us into voting for you…cause we aren’t that stupid (or are we?).I mean reservations for ‘reserved’ and backward classes that exceed 50 % …If they’re minorities….reduce the percentage...If they’re financially weak give them money not seats. And if they’re dumb then it’s stupid..

I mean if you’re better at running do you run giving your weaker opponent a handicap especially when your whole life may be at stake…(objectivism…Refer to the works of ayn rand)

I mean whenever I discuss this with my mom and say that… smart people have got to be distributed equally among the Brahmins kshatriyas vaisias and shudras (nature is unbiased)…my mom replies that maybe the castes were initially a way of showing status and intellectual superiority (lets get out of the intricacies and talk of just SCST and non SCST ) and genetics worked slowly to give non SCST’s an advantage…then I say..ok they’re dumb…why all these altruistic feelings then…..let them clear exams on their own merit and give them infrastructural assistance like books and finance etc…that’s logical…do we help intellectually weak students from non SCST families….no….and that brings us back to (DO(e) a deer a female deer !!!!) divide and rule…..

PS: My feelings are every bit as strong as they appear to be… (And if they don’t come off as strong then they’re stronger…)

PPS: Two wrongs don’t make a right….if they were ill-treated in times of old….then do you give them unfair advantages now…

PPPS: I waste all my time writing logical arguments opposing all this stuff…everyone knows this and we don’t give a damn…

PPPPS: Oops…forgot the OBC’s….!!

FURTHER JUSTIFICATION FOR THE BLOG NAME

Are we living??...or are we just being lived…?? Do we control our future….?? Or is our path predetermined by some mysterious force toying with us (GOD…I mean if we have no choice then making us feel that we do and then getting all confused is just sadism…)Are you destined to do things that seem to have been ‘the wrong choice’ in the future...Can we really do anything we wish….Or do only the successful ones remember their (once great, now mundane) goals; the people who fail forgetting their ‘potential’ in a wave of pity and ‘helplessness’…Does serendipity favor the brave….or does GOD just play a mean game of chess….these are not questions really just rhetoric….for most people (and I mean most !! )have firm beliefs as regards the question of destiny v/s choice ….A few do exist who are confused…but most either believe that their lives are predestined and that they must surrender to ‘The Flow’…or…that a man can achieve anything that he sets his mind to…..

I … (“Like always” you would say..(Possibly with a smirk (or maybe a resigned sigh)))...prefer to sit on the fence…and use copious amounts of cream on my behind (Oww…)…I mean who can really say what is true….causality is not easily proven, even in non spiritual terms…so when we talk about whether GOD has a plan and created a complex algorithm that makes us exactly as indecisive (or not) as we are in order to make us feel that we have arrived on the conclusion after much deliberation (or that we’re cool impulsive rebels!!)..we’re just kiddin ourself that we can reason it out…because to do that one must have an accurate idea of god’s psyche…and here we have issues about his (or her) existence(Yes. I’m biased…)…

What I personally believe is that we do have a choice at least till the moment of choice …that is the time when we make that decision….What I mean to say is that once a decision is made…there could have been no other decision that one could have made...because at the decisive point( haahhahahha) our biases psyche and our personality could have made us make only one decision…That is till ‘the point of possible parallel universes(dl: died laughing a hip substitute for lol which is bloody clichéd)’ (infinitely many of which exist) we do have a choice, but the mini choices that we make along the way that , in the end create our final choice..again have the same construction, making everything inevitable and planned but that’s not true…read through again… and you’ll see that every thing is inevitable just in the split second before it happens…before that …It is all open….

One’s personality and frame of mind at the exact moment of a decision make that decision redundant and a sure thing….. but since that personality and that frame of mind are bound to change the next instant….we’re back to square one…fact is that all the instantaneous personalities of a person are defined by what he was in the previous moment …and thus going back in time (haha) one will come to the conclusion that we are what we were born to be…but really….one never knows what he or she is made of….so through life…as we make our decisions we see what we are…and thus it makes life a journey to find oneself…because in the end it’s our life that makes us who we are….and of course I would have to agree that one’s parents and teachers play an important role by making certain decisions and instilling (or trying to) certain biases and ideas in us…..But…then that kind of explains life…something controlled by your genetics and environment and a journey to find yourself…the choices are open because till you make them you don’t know that you are the person who can only make a certain decision…it is in fact the decision that makes you aware of the fact…..

Another thing that one get’s tired of hearing is.. “Oh..I would’ve done it…I mean I have the potential…I was just too lazy..I mean…I had the potential..” Now I feel that potential is a word that can only be used in terms of light bulbs and the like…I mean…..a thing like that is proved only once your ‘potential’ is converted into something tangible….something observable…so stop crying about the coulds….and walk in the woulds…..

PS: the last line is something I read in some ‘chicken soup for the soul book’It’s highly preachy and ‘self help’ y but…it’s nice…

PATRIOTISM

Patriotism….love for one’s country…The pride felt at all things Indian…be it a 1000 year old temple or a 20 year old hotshot computer programmer….It is lost we say in today’s world where the kids(sounds funny, me saying this..!!) ape the west, be it the fast food, choice of clothes, cavalier approach towards commitment or ‘disrespect’ for parents and elders…

We (the generation of today...) seem to think that all these superficial things, increasingly unhealthy lifestyle and increasing important of self are what made and make the western world successful and rich…Is this really the price one must pay for progress. I don’t think so…Fact is, if we, the Asian continent or even just the Indian subcontinent, were left to our own devices we would have progressed as much as the west has now; maybe at a slower rate…but differently… maybe with less perversions in our lifestyle than they exhibit now…It’s true many of our customs were unhealthy inhuman and above all unequal…we were divided on the basis of our parentage and gender….but who’s to say….that these would not have been wiped out as we progressed technologically….We had our share of visionaries and reformers….Justice Ranade (hehe) Sardar Patel, Babasaheb Ambedkar, Ishwarchandra Vidyasagar among others…

What I’m trying to say is that each culture; owing to their natural tendencies, where they were born and what they carry in their DNA have different tendencies, different characteristics…different ways of reacting to certain situations…We Indians definitely had the ability to conquer the world…why didn’t we ??Because, simply put it wasn’t in our nature…We are by nature laissez faire …Relaxed…..unbothered and as we say in Konkani, sushegaad… (I love this word…It is what I am…It means sloth taken to it’s extremes...Sigh...)The ones who Veni vidi vici (came saw and conquered… !!)(or tried…)..The Romans… The Britons… The Germans and the Americans… that’s their forte…their thing…..Each culture (not the Americans…they’re just a bunch of immigrants… so club them with the Europeans…!) left to their own would have acted differently…With no one to conquer and (supposedly steal technology ...though I don’t believe that’s all true)who knows the Britons may have been completely different as a people…No one can say…

Coming back to Patriotism and love for one’s country…It is said that today’s youth has a shocking prejudice against the country of their birth… (As regards India ...Could be it happens elsewhere as well)They want to go abroad… to a bungalow and a 2 car family…to social security and malls and fizzy drinks in the refrigerator ...to freedom, to a land of promise…..fed up with the red tape, corruption, nepotism and the stifling environment (metaphorically) in our country…Our social reformers and ‘patriots’ chastise them….scream at them and tell them to be the change they wish to see in the country…Come back….join the government…they say…make it better…

Who’s right…who’s wrong… As always…nothing is cut and dried…black and white right and wrong….As always …there are grey areas and more pertinently…there are points of view…perspectives…It is true that our country’s governance is , in the main decadent, it is also true that we must be the change to see it…also true is the fact that this life is hard, cruel and filled with threat…Sachin Pilot, Madhavrao Scindia, Rajiv Gandhi, Pramod Mahajan.. They didn’t just walk off into the sunset …. Conspiracy theories they may be…but there cannot be smoke without fire and these many brush fires cannot be accidents…..So….where were we…the life is hard….but to win at the Olympics one must train hard…To spend money one must earn it…To see the view off a mountain… one must climb ..it….All this is very good…but …that is only if one wants to…With our life we can always choose our way of living it…So we can go to Switzerland, Uganda, New Zealand or Ulhasnagar if it pleases us to do so…but in that case we cannot crib and wait for a change…

And as for patriotism…it has always been the cause of all battles and wars…I want your piece of land….because it has oil…or game (way back in the BC’s.!!)My people are smarter and more efficient than yours so we will rule over the world…All this talk of stopping regionalism is bullcrap if we fail to see that patriotism is the worst kind of regionalism because each region or sect has enough power to fight for what they want or (worse) claim to be rightfully theirs….All this pride and this arrogance will lead to our downfall. Stop this regionalism…Let us be one as humankind….and if extraterrestrials do exist, let us live in harmony with them…. For no one wins a war…it is war(allied with Death and Murphy !!) that wins them over…

PS: Seriously…..

Duh..just read on and find out ...

I sat on my little thinking chair with a cup of coffee and the latest playboy magazine…on the side table….and well….i thought…I thought and I thought and finally I decided …that I won’t bore you with this bit….So onwards…

A very interesting train of thought is the trains of thought and obsessions of people…Yeah...Thinking about thinking about thinking…ad nauseam… is interesting…(yeah….despite the ad nauseam…)..And I realized...Almost everything that most(wink!)guys my age would discuss would be something related to girls…Why girls pay attention to their toilette and why they gossip or “what the f*&% does she see in him??..” or even long discussions delving into the female psyche regarding their straightlacedness or their superiority, inferiority or equality to men including the significance of Adam’s rib being used to create Eve…..everything including the most silly and mundane conversations to the long raging debates on human psychology and how oppression against women led to such and such a thing……is all related to women…

I wonder what we would discuss if humans develop into the perfect being who would be a hermaphrodite (the final evolved form would be a single entity who would need to reproduce… (or not ??)Duh…whatever…)

So..a few questions…why this unhealthy interest ??...is it even unhealthy??(No...)Is it because I’m in IIT? (Some would be inclined to agree so as to stop reading this here …and some because they genuinely believe it….!!)What intrigues me is that if we have the mysterious Y chromosome how come it’s they who are mysterious…(cause I’ve never read about Men being hard to understand…and I’ve read my share of female authors..)The deep intellectually type men delve(try at the very least) into the female psyche to deduce why they do what they do….The more romantic ones dream about meeting (or marrying if well met !!) their soul mate…and those in between postulate the perfect blend of personality traits and talents(complements and similarities…) that it takes to get …. A mixture of Romeo Juliet and the Curie couple…(they are IITians after all)…So What Ho ?? Why..?? Politics…Life after death…Ideologies of different writers…Computer games…Movies…Music etc…With all this available why does the conversation eventually swing( or maybe is swung ??) towards La femme ..?

Is it because…we are all romantics at heart (Rejoice…girls !!!) or is it simply because it is the most challenging talk at hand….I think both…most people are obsessed with finding and recognizing the right girl…many I know…find them intriguing…and some (as will always be the case…) belong to both the categories….

One of the hottest topics on the block is ‘What girls look for in guys’(and very often..’And then…having found it why do they settle for 50^th best…’(Studio laughter….(egomaniacal remember…))).Also one thing that puzzles me is how some smart guys prefer the not so sharp girls ( and vice versa of course) and some of the most finicky ones (in the discussion) fall for the Plainest Janes that could be…One of my choice theories that I first called the ‘wave theory of love’…(but then changed it to ‘the wave theory of human relations’ so as to not appear to be so obsessed with luuuuurve(I love extrapolation…wait a bit….luuurve…))

The theory suggests that each human being has an amplitude and a frequency associated with her/him(him/her for equality of sexes ..).The amplitude represents all the observable characteristics like looks , smarts, vital stats(hehe) and any other talents and skills…The frequency however is unknown to human kind…I can again suggest that this comprises whatever complexes and biases one has..(For eg. A guy with an Oedipus complex would love a girl who reminds him of his Mother) as also some unpredictable irrational elements that makes love irrational… Ordinarily one likes a person because of his ginormous amplitude… but if the frequencies are close in magnitude….magic…..irrational love…caused by a resonance!! (This explains all the statements about being on the same wavelength as wavelength is =frequency inverse (duh!!))…

In such a case the amplitude of the other person would be equal to the sum of the 2 amplitudes…making it gigantic…. (Sweet theory, huh!)…..So there it is…Liking…defined by large amplitudes….and ….and Love defined by resonance….So the perfect couple would be two amazingly good looking, talented and smart individuals who are on the same wavelength…yes….we all would want that….

As my mother says regarding my craving for 2 servings of cheesecake…

Keep wanting …

P.S. I have met people willing to discuss other topics and we have shitloads of fun doing that…but the vast majority….

P.P.S. The flaw in my theory is that all love has to be bilateral (or the chick/stud has met like the smartest most talented and most handsome guy/girl in the world…assuming all amplitudes are at least of the same order ..)(of course I cant help an ordinary person falling in love with superman(or for that matter with matt damon (oooooooh I love him…!!))in which case an ordinary guy would have a fight on his hands despite the summing of amplitudes …

All love isn’t bilateral…but hey….the theory was good reading material at least..

P.P.P.S. Someone must have thought of this before…cause the statement about being on the same wavelength has been around for ages…but I would love to think I came first( no pun intended… !!!)

Enjoy…

And comment…

Death..

Death….Something that has puzzled man for centuries….Saadhus, doctors, and metaphysicists have worried over this particular aspect of human life (smirk..) for years without being able to satisfy even the tiniest majority of people…Why…The eternal war …Faith versus Proof….Practicality versus spiritualism…Religion versus science…

Dr MacDougall even weighed the human body just before and after death, after calculating the weight loss rate due to respiration and other moisture loss…and was convinced that the body mass reduces instantaneously by ¾th of an ounce on death….The soul you say….or maybe a super accelerated loss of moisture at death….Who can say for sure….

It has always been an issue as to what happens to a person after death. Do we pass on to some other world or dimension or sphere of existence…or do we just shut off like a toy after it’s batteries have been removed…Logically it amounts to the same thing….A toy robot ceases to work because some part stops functioning…Human beings die because their heart or brain or liver or any other essential body part stops functioning…But no…we refuse to believe that our death is as mundane an event as a short circuiting in an electrical circuit….and why not….Spiritually….emotionally and intellectually we are superior to any of our creations….so where does all that go …our ideas, our love, our feelings, our opinions ..Where does it go….Where does the robot’s programming go….Nowhere….it is still there …only it has no manifestation….no observable effect ….so it ceases to exist……Is that a suitable explanation…..Does everything that we did, felt, dreamed still remain…..just in a way that cannot be seen or heard or understood…..

However logical one sounds….there will be always that regret and that disbelief …We can’t accept that there will be no paradise for us and no purgatory for all the sinners in this world…We cannot believe that all our good doing was for nothing…all of it will cease to exist…..But then again, I remember reading somewhere that all of our karma revisits us in this life itself…that we must pay for our sins and reap the benefits of our good doing in this life itself then logically what is the need for a heaven and a hell if everyone is going to be on an equal standing after death….We all wish that there is something to work for beyond this life this existence…something beyond our understanding ..We fear and sometimes hope that we will be judged in the future….to compensate for our trusting natures….for the times we were conned and hurt by people with malicious intent….We want them to be judged…we want the terrorists who kill on the grounds of religion to be upbraided by He in whose name they committed so many crimes and destroyed so many people…..sounds like all of us are a highly sadistic race…huh…..Well…not really…..we wish to see punishment dealt where a wrongdoing has been done…We are impractical emotional fools…..

Fools…..not really….When there is an injured dog in a hunting pack, he is killed by the other dogs in the pack as he would have eaten food that could be eaten by another and yet not hunted as ably as he once could…but we humans…..we cry ….we support the old till the very end, trying to prolong the time we can spend with them….We are anything but practical…It is so very obvious that the very fact that we are living proves and justifies our death…Just like a ball going up and coming down….light and dark ….summer and winter……Good and bad….life and death…The balance… If something exists so must it’s opposite…..Yet death in human terms holds a lot of meaning…No one speaks ill about a dead bully….The most stingy and shrewish relative or friend is praised at death……Death glorifies a person…we find it sacrilege to speak ill of one who is dead …..we feel ….that he has suffered enough….

And yes….that is why we are human……the behavior of animals put down to instinct and not practicality, so it seems, to justify our departure from the logical…..

PS: Yes…I know none of this is funny….but hey….I had a senior moment….

PPS:Some people got the impression that i scoff at this impracticality that humans show at the death of a loved one... but the fact is...i adore it....I feel warm on the inside ..and this may sound cheesy but yeah...i love humankind because of it...

Moksha and Marriage(Well... The blog is named arbit(rary)!!)

Moksha…Yup…That’s what the doctor ordered…liberation from the cycle of life and death, which (apparently) is attained by the freedom of oneself from desires….Basically one has to want nothing…Funny huh....And here, our teachers mentors and (blech)self development professionals tell us that the key to living well is to set goals…that is …to know what we want..Try telling your Mom that you want nothing….you’ll get nothing but dry bred without any porridge(or is it the other way around) for the rest of the vacations….sheesh …life is confusing isn’t it…

What did the texts (and various sadhus and not to mention Gautam Buddha )mean by Moksha…freedom from desire…It’s all very well when people are giving you alms to listen to your famous set of Moksha lectures….can you imagine that….

Job description: Roaming the world teaching people about Moksha and renunciation

Daily takings: Well….a Stomach full and yeah...Enough cloth to cover it as well!!

Wow...is that going to make you a find in the marriage market or what..!!!

Speaking of marriage… is it a committed friendship or a friendly business partnership or just a socially accepted way to reproduce…. This is something I fear I’ll never get…on one hand….the institution of marriage (as it seems logical) was invented for the sake of limiting the sexual partners of a person for public health… ()or maybe to commit yourself to your wife/husband to have and to hold, for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and cherish until death do you part?

Or is it a way of earning money quicker…by sharing the rent and the capital goods (whose costs would be halved..: 1 washing machine, house, cooker, microwave, etc)so that one can earn and spend money effectively….but then…where did all the officialdom come in….basically the point of the matter being…why is commitment phobia a very real and very shunned social disorder…because in the end it comes to that…all of the above things can be ensured without the law having a say in it…that is except in the case of commitment phobes..And if these guys are anyway not going to have functional relationships….why the law??

And what about arranged versus love marriages….My mother and I regularly have raging arguments on this topic. My mother argues that if a person cannot find a suitable life partner within his circle of friends and associates…why; what better than some family friend (or acquaintance (smirk))No one’s forcing you to marry her…just see her, talk to her…and marry her only if you like her(sorry people for ignoring the girl’s free will….this situation is very obviously bilateral…just don’t feel like correcting it now…..I apologize to the ladies……and no, I’m not a chauvinist) And as for why one must marry….well …: one house one TV (maybe not 1 TV..) 1 washing machine !!(Yup….real practical is my Ma) And Of course …the experience of marriage is not to be missed!!!

“Ma..But it…it just seems weird …it’s very evident that free will is being eaten up at some point” I whine, partially convinced by her arguments and the large number of enormously successful arranged marriages I have seen…But...then gathering up all my revolutionary spirit and teenage angst I go on, gaining confidence as I speak, “It’s very obvious and logical that 2 people who know each other for a long time and who have met most probably because of some common interests have a greater chance of making their marriage a success than two people who have literally been thrown together…in a situation (generally) highly alien to them…After all we are talking about a pair of lovebirds and a crow +mynah couple….duh…the odds are obviously stacked on one side..”(Note: By now i have attained the size of a bull (or maybe pehle se hi?!)… Pleased at having identified the flaw in my mother’s reasoning!!) “But the fact remains that going on long walks and drives and cooing with another person (of the opposite sex…in general that is (wink)(no I’m not a homophobe either…)) is quite different from washing their underwear and doing their dishes and living with them….And that I know ….because I’m the mother and therefore older (since girls attain puberty at positive ages… !!!)(and hence wiser…)”

I am left sputtering in indignation…..

PS : I think the institution of marriage arose out of the genuine need (or rather desire) of people in love of living together…Kinda like…if people like hitting round things with flat things…you make rules and get cricket or tennis …..

PPS : I totally support the institution of marriage…I can’t help but say that for me…living with someone who I connect with...and who connects with me….working and playing as a team(as man and wife…or wife and man to make it fair(women’s lib)) is utopia……