Your Virtues

“Sometimes the heart sees what is invisible to the eye.”

- H. Jackson Brown, Jr

The times when we smiled and rejoiced the most, were the times when we were free of all the worries and burdens on our weary shoulders. Each of these carefree memories that we have are the most cherished minuscule tidbits of our life. Our life is made up of gazillions of such anecdotes, but for us some stand out among others for some unfathomable silly reason. These are the moments with which we grade the completeness and true merit of our own lives, the more these are the merrier.

And here too as in every aspect of men’s life, to each their own. Some like spending time cooking or gossiping with friends, some like spending time washing and cleaning the same subset of their material possessions again and again repeatedly, and some absolutely weird ones like me enjoy spending time talking to total strangers in bus stands and parks and railway ticket queues. The sheer novelty of the meeting and of that person gives you such a happy high. The chance to say whatever you want to, be whoever you want to and not make an iota of difference to the personal lives of both the parties gives you a this strange thrill that no skinny dipping in the middle of winter can give.

There was this girl in high school one of my classmates was insanely in “love” with. He usually was capable of finding his true love once or twice each semester. We all thought this one was one such worthless endeavor of our Romeo, and soon would find someone fairer and prettier. And he did do the same in a couple of weeks, without fail. But for now he was busy gawking at this girl from school. He circled her home in the morning like a vulture waiting for his prey to leave home for school and follow her there, when the night comes he haunted her neighborhood to get a glimpse of her through the windows kept open to let the air in warm summer nights. This went on and on for a week or so. In the beginning we, as we always did, were busy pulling his leg and teasing him about his current “true love”. But by the end of the third week he got even us believing that he truly must be serious about this girl.

And when a realization like that cracks into the thick skull of any guy, he goes all out to give a helping hand to his brother in arms, and have no doubt love is war, and in high school they get messy. The problem with us was that none of us had any firsthand experience about a real love affair. We all were completely naïve, and it clearly showed in our suggestions and ideas to get the girl to fall in love with or friend.

What sensible girl would think a bunch of roses thrown at her from a car romantic? It almost seemed like a gangster drive by hit. We even got him to write a letter and put it in her bag, not that bad idea, right? Well trust me it is when you mistake the bag and put it another girl’s bag and she turns out to be the class teacher’s niece. Luckily, he forgot to write his name in the letter, truly Romeoesque.

We were bringing out the most stupid romantic ideas of all time, and mastering this art better than Don Juan or Casanova did. We toiled days, then we all got bored of it and decided to take shifts in accompanying our lover boy in his nightly love trysts. One such night, changed everything.

The trouble with love is that it is contagious. Once one of your friends is in its spell, you have this urge to be in it too. You go around everywhere trying to fall in love with every other girl you see. Sometimes you do fall in love but not more than two hours so, and then the next one comes along. 

The problem was that one night, when he was busy gawking at the now all too familiar window, I was busy staring at another. This one was a few blocks away from the girls home and on the other side of the street so the Romeo didn’t have a clear view of it. But I could, there I saw a huge TV and girl in her pajamas a staring at it, the light of the TV falling on her beautiful face. I did not know this girl then, but after that night I began to notice her all the time when we used to go to school. Her name was Priya Cherian, our heroine. She lived somewhere close to the girl’s home and our school. 

We used to pass each other when we went to school, she went to the same girl’s only school that our lover boy’s girl went to. And that common link caught the eye of our dear friend; he started pushing me talk to her, get to know her. Bloody git.

And I did, well just nods and hi in the beginning then we found common ground in our mutual hate for math and I used it to lengthen our minute long conversation each time before and after school. Soon she started waiting for me at the gate of my school to walk together till the crossroad some blocks away. Now my friends had started to tease me, and oddly it felt awesome to be at the receiving end of it. For the first time in my life I was beginning to feel happy about my ease in talking to strangers. She started talking about stuff other than math too, her hobbies, family, friends etc. I supposed that must be a good thing that she is opening up. It felt good to be confided in, the now familiar high was at its highest then.

The one thing I really didn't notice back then was that our lover boy was also walking along with us. I was too busy gawking at her perfect teeth and long hair, I did not notice the spring in our lover boy’s steps whenever Priya came around the corner. I did not notice the weird excited nervous laugh that guys have when they are around a girl they like. I did not notice the lack of interest he seemed to be having now on the girl from school. The nightly trips to her neighborhood to stalk her neighbor became rarer, while the walks after school more consistent. I even caught them walking off ahead without me a couple of times. Soon in a couple of weeks, they were talking more about each other, to each other than anything me. Soon, they started making plans to meet on weekends and holidays. And I failed to notice this all because, I was distracted by another tall 11^th grader.

School ended, we all went on our own way. The tall 11^th grader was soon forgotten and replaced by equally nameless others, each unique, and oddly each with the best smile ever seen on the face of the planet. But the most savored one probably is Ms. Cherian, who incidentally got engaged last week.

Question: Guess who the guy was? Answer: Our own lover boy. The bloody git.

Moral of the day: It is not always so that you are the only one to profit from your own virtues.

Them Half-Baked Social Workers

“No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable.”

- Adam Smith

Okay lets see. Today was a fairly normal day.

I was being the usual guy who sits in front of the mapping designer all day dragging objects and coding this and that. You know usual nerd IT stuff. Then this mail comes around lunch time from a colleague. It seemed to be one of those forwards that you get in your inbox from people who themselves got from somebody else, but it being of a huge size (this one was 3MB) you forward it to everyone else you know an rid your inbox of its burden soon after to avoid the out-of-space debacle.

The subject of this specific one was "And we say that we are working hard!!!”

Well well, feeling a tad too sarcastic today aren’t we.

So I opened it, and behold a big picture of a dirty bony kid stood there staring back at me with soiled hands and booger pouring out of his nose. Eww right?

I had figured out the topic of this mail by now. This was going to be another mopey whiny one about malnutrition, orphans or something. Don’t get me wrong I have nothing but love for them, but heck looking at some of the relatives/family one ends up with sometimes makes me feel envious of those buggers.

Anyways, I scroll down to next picture - another shirtless kid (surprised?) with some sort of white dust all over him, maybe concrete.

Unimpressed, I scroll down to the next image - a greasy kid pushing some sort of lathe drill into metal and such

Aha now I see where this is going, lo and behold the next image - a really dark girl smiling and holding a handful of flowers to a car window at a traffic signal.

This was a mail about child labor. I keep scrolling down with back to back images of kids not yet into their teens doing minimum wage work like waiting on tables, cleaning dishes  at a restaurant, picking recyclable plastic garbage at the junkyard etc. There was this one picture of a kid working at a construction site lifting like 5 concrete bricks, each almost as big as his limbs. That I found oddly impressive.

       

Well jokes aside, the pictures were a sad affair and I was especially moved by the one with the little kid picking garbage in the huge almost-mountain of a landfill junkyard. I could only imagine the repulsive odor and disgusting gunk in that place. That child definitely harped on the empathy cord I sadly am born with. 

Getting Almost Killed By A Train

"Here is the test to find whether your mission on earth is finished. If you're alive, it isn't."

- Richard Bach

Today again I was a little late to get out of house in the morning; today again I would just barely reach the railway station in time for my 9:31 train to Thane. Today again I am probably going to bash into a couple of people, at the speed that I am walking. Today again I would partially turn at them, still running at the same time, mumble my apologies and hurry right-on towards the platform. Most of these people that I bash into are as much in hurry as I am, so I tell myself probably they don’t mind my half-baked attempt at being courteous.

Today what was different is that I have just three minutes left till the train leaves the station. I don’t take the over-bridge running over the other railway tracks to get my platform. I decide to just walk over the tracks to reach it as early as possible. A feat I rarely, if ever, do.

You see, in Mumbai local train’s tracks are infamous death traps. Often slippery and have puddle all round, you get your foot stuck in it at the wrong time and you’re a goner. You’re last sight on this sweet planet Earth will be of the big engine compartment of some train coming full speed towards you.

They will have to sweep off your guts and bones from even 50 meters off of the spot where you collided with the train.

When I was in school and living in the Western lines region, I had seen people carry away a guy on a stretcher once. That guy had apparently jumped off of a running train too early and landed right on to the signal posts that they build at the ends of each platform. His face was half torn open and he was clearly knocked-out cold by the impact. Maybe just had a concussion, but the way his body was laying limp on that stretcher anyone could have already thought he was dead. They had tried to cover his face up with a piece of cloth but with the amount of blood pouring out of it, the bloody rag of cloth only made it look all the more horrifying.

An image like that stays on in a kid’s memory.

That was the image that came into my mind that day as I was hurrying over the tracks. I could see my train has already arrived in platform number 1. I had just passed number 4 and was getting over the 3^rd when I heard the siren blast. It was so loud and sudden that at that precise moment, I thought it was already on top of me.

I turned around to my right, real slow. I couldn’t speed up my body while doing that, it was like in the movies, important scenes always happened in “slo-mo”. I guess this is what those directors were aiming at.  I was there gaping at the big engine just twenty-or so feet away from me. I could see the engine-driver inside his cabin yelling at the top of his voice. I couldn’t make out what he was saying, but by the movements of his lips I could guess he was asking me toget off the tracks and showering me with some very tasteful, innovative abuses. I never knew crap-for-brains can be used in such colourful combinations.

But I couldn’t move. I tried again, I just couldn’t.

I looked down at my feet. They were still where they always have been, at the far end of my legs. Larger than normal people’s, on account of my height which also was not of normal people’s measure.

“Idiot, is this the time to be thinking about the size of your beep-darn feet? Move it, before you get crushed to pulp!!”

I look up again to the engine; it was only ten feet away. Now even the driver had stopped with his abuses and was staring at me with both eyes and mouth opened. He got out of the trance faster than me and was reaching at the panel in front of him and pushing levers and buttons right and left.

And here I was still stuck like the deer in front of headlights, ready to be another road-kill just like most of them deer inevitably become.

I suddenly felt myself falling backwards. I land heavily on my backside. Ouch, that’s going hurt bad when I get up. I looked up from where I was the train’s wheels had now started to pass by from the spot where my legs were at just a few seconds back. I looked higher towards the engine, the driver had popped his head out of his side window, again back to yelling abuses at me and also gesturing with his left hand too, the old familiar respectful finger was up.

The train’s engine was out of sight soon and I looked around to the small knot of people who had already gathered around me by now. There were a couple of older men of my father’s age who invariably had started with their “kids of this generation have got no common sense at all” speech. Mister, you were right behind me crossing the tracks on foot, was your common sense on vacation in Goa today? 

Bloody hypocrites.

What my eyes were searching for, was the guy who had the right sense to pull me off the tracks, than just wait see me turn into tomato ketchup all over the railway tracks.

I recognised him soon enough, he was the guy who I always see commuting in same train as me. He gets off two stops ahead of me.

He mouths, “You alright, boss?”

I mouth, “Yes. Thanks to you!”

He hurries ahead towards platform number 1 without turning back again. I will have to ask his name sometime in future, or buy him a cup of coffee or something. After all you don’t get a guardian angel to rescue you from instant death every day, do you?

(I had missed my train that daythough; wish there was some guardian angel I could keep on a retainer for that as well.)

I got up off my butt, and as I had predicted earlier it hurt as hell. I was not going to walk right for a bit today in office, hope nobody notices and starts getting ideas

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Say What You Need To Say

“The most important things are the hardest to say. They are the things you get ashamed of, because words diminish them -- words shrink things that seemed limitless when they were in your head to no more than living size when they're brought out. But it's more than that, isn't it? The most important things lie too close to wherever your secret heart is buried, like landmarks to a treasure your enemies would love to steal away. And you may make revelations that cost you dearly only to have people look at you in a funny way, not understanding what you've said at all, or why you thought it was so important that you almost cried while you were saying it. That's the worst, I think. When the secret stays locked within not for want of a teller but for want of an understanding ear.”

-    Stephen King

     'Different Seasons'

Mrinal was having a yucky day. And cleaning bedpans the old age home where he worked was not helping brightening his day by any measure.

It's been almost a year of him working here, and it still baffled him how the whole place constantly reeked of urine no matter how many people were hired cleaning and scrubbing the place all day. Every nook and corner of the place stank, even the dinning hall. People were only expected to eat there for pete's sake! He and eight other orderlies were by their job description responsible for keeping the 'inmates' comfortable, how were they supposed to that if they themselves didn't know how to be so. Dr. Gupta had banished that word being used within the compound (so let's just keep this as our secret for Mrinal's sake, shall we?)

Why shouldn't these people be called by their real title anyway? Is this place any better than Tihar jail or Sing Sing? Sure this place is more colorful and has lots of comfy sofas and beds, lush landscaped lawns, people hanging around you all day to keep you in prompt accordance of your medication and all. You don't need to worry about a thing. Well, that's what they'd want you to think anyway.

In many ways this place is much worse than either of those establishments. In that place at least you'd know why you are there. Rape, murder, armed robbery, arson, burglary, jay-walking, anything. You do something, the courts sentence you to a period of time, you go to prison, spend your time in your cell with your cellmates who very well could be like the overly friendly T-Bag in Prison Break. But you knew your cause and its effect, and more importantly you knew that all of this had a deadline, either the one the courts sentenced you for or the one till your master plan to jump the prison walls gets materialized.

In an old age home, you don't have that option. There is a deadline yes, but when you reach it there's is no loved ones or fellow gang-members standing there on the other side of the gate to take you home. Once you reach the deadline to get out of here, well, that means you are dead. Any sane, and most of the insane ones also probably, would want to avoid that by any means possible. Even if that means you have to spend those last years of your life on this planet confined to a wheel chair or a bed, and you need other people to do your basic human functions for you, or that you need someone to remember where your things are and when you are to take your next diabetes pills, even if you don't recall the name of your great-granddaughter when she comes to visit you once an year on your birthday.

The life here could be tough on anyone. Both kaidis/retirees and their guards/caretakers equally. Mrinal knew what he was getting into when he started here; at least he thought he did. This was to be a temporary thing till his scriptwriting gig kicks off, which is yet to happen and by the look of things may very well never happen at all. When you look at Mumbai from outside in, it looks so fast, happening and brimming with possibilities especially when you look at all those big name studios and you dream of being on their payroll for doing something that you like doing the most in life, writing. But this past year has been an eye-opener; Mumbai had lost all its charm that it held in the eyes of an innocent recent English graduate from Gujarat. This city is tough, unkind and too-fast-for-its-own-good. This place once might've been really quite something, but now it is anything but that.

In the past one year here, he had met some really wonderful people in this compound though. Some of these old-timers have lived, by that we mean really lived. Not the kind of nine-to-five existence that most of us do now. There is a circus manager, ex-army vet, ex-politician, ex-IAS, ex-tech guru. There is a whole bunch of ex-some bodies here. Each with their own histories. Each with their own treasure chests brimming with memories of the bygone golden era. They all have done something that they have proud of. They have all seen some really exciting time. Mrinal was part of the Hazare fuss too; he thought that was going to be 'the happening time' of his generation, he is not now too confident about that either.

The new generation has missed out on lot things. Maybe the most that he thinks we've lost is our capability to empathize. And this place really drives that emotion home. Especially on that day in July where it rained all day...

The (Only One?) True Love Predicament

“This is not a goodbye, my darling, this is a thank you. Thank you for coming into my life and giving me joy, thank you for loving me and receiving my love in return. Thank you for the memories I will cherish forever. I love you, T.”

- Nicholas Sparks,

  'Message in a Bottle'

  

As the title obviously suggests this post is going to be a very soppy self-indulgent one, well at any rate more than my usual ones are anyway. So you very well should know what you are getting into.

Actually, sometimes I think life would be so much simpler if everything came with such a warning.

Right at the beginning of some important chapter in your life there comes a disclaimer - like those before the movies or on the cigarette cases.

("smoking is injurious to health" - really? I had no idea!)

These warnings seems to crop up everywhere. At the violent movies, that most impressionable children are inevitably going to watch; and at the boxes of cigarettes, that most smokers are going to puff out no matter what!

But then I think, just as futile as these disclaimers are in either scenarios; they might prove just as pointless if they were to be placed at some really landmark turning points of our life. Would we change our paths if there were anything that warns us of the dangers or the hurt and pain ahead of you? Would we dare not to have known/had those wonderful experiences that most of these moments bring into our lives?

Suppose at the precise moment that you get out of college and sit for your very first job interview, just before you answer their first question a pop up video blurb appears (like the one in that show in MTV) saying:

"Fun Fact: The moment you answer this question the interviewer would be impressed and immediately decide to hire you. You will agree to work here for considerably lower pay that what they would have easily agreed to pay had you negotiated a little more. They will squeeze your brain and blood for the next four years, robbing you off of all the zeal and innovative ideas you've ever had throughout your college life turning you into just like the pompous vegetable they themselves have turned into!"

Now after seeing that, would you in your right senses ever accept such a job offer?

Obviously no.

But since there wasn't any such pop up prediction available for you at that time, you take up that job and end up being miserable for the next four years of your life just as it had said. You sell your soul to the devil in return for four years of work experience in something that you never had any real interest in. And with people that you don't care lived or evaporated.

That's obviously disheartening, isn't it? But still, this office was the place you discovered your affinity to Beatles and Zappa. This is the place where you will meet a senior manager who will become one of your favorite mentor and stay so even after you leave the company. Also, this could also be the place where you make acquaintance with a girl with whose roommate you fall head over heels in love. Would you dare miss out on all that??

Now, imagine if there were to be such a disclaimer when it came to matters of the heart. But for obvious reasons it should be different from the one above.

After all matters of the heart supersedes in importance over anything else in one’s life, right?

I suppose it must be like the one in the music video of Savin' Me by Nickelback. Just like in the video, here there is a countdown on top every prospective mate in your vicinity, stating the amount of time they are going to stay in your life.

But that’s not enough now is it? There are many other equally crucial and decisive criteria that you will tick off when it comes to choosing someone to fall in love with.

Most often I have heard people, men and women alike, bring up this make-or-break requirement that their prospects just have gotta to fulfill: ”He/she has got to be my soul mate."

Perdóname, senor. What does soul mate mean exactly?

Oxford says, "Soul mate : a person ideally suited to another as a close friend or romantic partner."

Now, tell me what/when/how has any man/woman/others in all of the history of mankind on this planet ever, been able to find anything that has been remotely deemed fit to be described as 'ideal'?

There has always been a compromise. At some level or the other no matter good or desirable that object might be, you always have to adjust with something. Some might argue that this specific defect/quirk is probably what that makes this person all the more dear to them, their One True Love.

When you had imagined your ideal partner in the first place, did you imagine them with all these elfin eccentricities?

Probably not. By definition, these quirks and fancy traits that they have are for the most part their own creations. Unique and very hard to imagine on any person before you happen to come across somebody actually having them. How could one possibly envision them any earlier?

 Another thing that has always baffled me:

Suppose you are married to wonderful person, you love him and soon have a couple of amazing children with this person that you love very dearly. Then many years down the line you come by another guy/gal who seems to be that perfect mate you have always dreamed of. You acquaint with this person and you start a terrific rapport just to find that you and he/she have more in common with you than you and your spouse has ever had in all of your time together.

Let's just assume that you go crazy in love/infatuation/lust/emotion/whatever and leave behind the house that you have built with your spouse of so many years to go live with this person.

Do you imagine a happily-ever-after ending to this tale in every situation ahead?

Might work, might not. This person that you are riding off into the sunset with, could turn out to be the sweetest of souls ever to be born, or just another Axe Murderer or the next Josef Fritzl.

In any case. Could you help me understand what was the fault of your child or of the husband/wife you leave behind?

See where this baffles me?

First Anniversary, at First Job!

“A true balance between work and life comes with knowing that your life and activities are integrated, not separated.”
- Michael Sunnarborg

July the 23^rd, 2013 - exactly a year since I’ve started at the first real grown-up job of my life.

And as stereotyped as it seems to be when it comes to Indians, I actually do work in IT. Still it hasn’t really turned out to be as torturous as they make it out to be.

Maybe that comes later. I don’t know ignorance is bliss, I suppose.

Anyway. This past one year has been a helluva roller coaster ride; loads of twist and turns, sudden ups and drastic downs. But nonetheless a very exciting time indeed.

Met a lot of wonderful people (AG, KR, PV, RG, TS etc.)

Learnt a lot about the Lone Wolf guidelines (the importance of having a healthy supply of paper soap with you at all times, how to go from full-wallet-rich-as-shit to puny-arse-broke-as-hell in less than a week!)

Had some really great experiences (nomadic solo trips all around the city, rediscovering friendships, and shedding off a few way-past-expiry-date ones...)

As for the things that go on within the office walls. Man, each day is a revelation!

Things seem so different this side of college.

My workplace is in the IT compound of a Special Economic Zone. The best thing about working in SEZs and Tech Parks, where almost always half a dozen big companies set up shop in the same neighborhood, is that you get to meet people from many other IT companies and interact with them. So I kind of have observed some peculiarities and similarities in almost every big MNC I have come across. We are not all that different, you and I. Everybody is just as stuck/fortunate as everybody else.

Yes, I agree I have been away from home since college. So you could say I already know the basics of shacking it out on your own. But college was different. In school you know you are going to have to spend the rest of your time there with the people around you. So you find the most compatible ones and choose to have them around you at all times.

In a corporate, you don’t have that option. You don’t get to choose. You have to make do with what you get because you will have at some point or the other get something done by or for them. Most people won't be so hard to handle or like. As always it depends on your luck, and how much they know the good parts of you (if at all there exists one) and how much you get to know them.

I’ve seen the sense of putting in an effort or time to actually get to know someone is absent here, may be that used to be there a couple of decades earlier in our father/grandfather’s offices; when people that you work with, somehow ended up becoming your best of mates and your child’s god parents. It sure isn’t happening these days!

Their Balls Against His Bat!

“The bowler approached the wicket at a lope, a trot, and then a run. He suddenly exploded in a flurry of arms and legs, out of which flew a ball.”

- Douglas Adams
  'Life, the Universe and Everything'

 Another curve ball comes his way, a googly, a yorker, a killer bouncer right to his head.

What is going on inside the head of the guy with the bat, is it about how or why or what slieght of hand the bowler did to put this challenge in front of him?

Where are the spectators watching right now, is it at the bowler who is standing right the huffing and panting close to the umpire sweating like a pig and out of breath?

Who is the bowler and the fielders gawking at wide-eyed, expecting some action next? Is it at each other, in their shifty restless glorious squinted faces that has been standing there under the sun since God-knows-how-long?

Why is the time standing still?

Why are they all looking at him like that? What are they expecting of him?

4 more runs with 1 ball to go.

The odds are against him, yes. But do they think that all this pressure they are crushing him with, is going to help his case in any way at all?

Don't they understand the import of this fraction of second in his life?

The Depressing One

“So in the end you try to think of someone else you're mad at, and the unavoidable answer pops into your little warped brain: everyone.”

- Ellen Hopkins

I used to have this friend (you will soon realize why the 'used to' usage here) who thought ill of almost everyone.

 

Except himself that is, obviously. He was always put himself in high regard and always thought he was right in doing so.

 

He was the most cynical, pessimistic, illogical soul probably in all of the worlds that all of the faiths that mankind has been yet been able to invent. You show him the picture of that firefighter who leapt into a burning building and saved a 10 year old girl, and he will point out how and where the guy's hands are in the poor semi-unconscious child's body and call him a pervert. You show him the story of a rich billionaire who has just started out another multi-million dollar campaign to eradicate polio in Africa; he will show you another article where this same techie billionaire had syphoned off billions from unsuspecting customers by forcing them to buy his products. You tell him about the 10th standard girl next door whose study room light was on all night, he will tell you about the time that he saw her riding on the backseat of a bike with some guy who looked to be of her own age.

 

You tell him just about anything that had for some extend a flimsy bit of positivity in it. This prick could come up with something to bring you back down and rub something completely different onto your sunny-eyed face proving to you that the world is simply not worth a single sliver of silver lining no matter what.

 

Well. That was until he happened to fall in love.

New Year.. Is it really?

“The future is no place to place your better days.”

- Dave Matthews, ‘Cry Freedom’

I thought first of writing something about the recent mishaps occuring all around the and with me personally, you know the usual sentimental whining about this and that and everything else. How the year was a lot many things, and not all of them especially endearing. How I hope this coming year might bring something new into our lives, some long overdue good news into mine! (frankly thats what I thought of when I started this post, so the contemplative title)

But then I thought, isnt that exactly the same that we do each new year? Write about how things havent turned out like we hoped it would. Make resolutions that we never seem to end up keeping. Dreaming huge dreams that seldom become reality. Expecting things that clearly come under the Unexpectables in your life for the time being.

So this year, no expectation. Zero cribbing. 100% fighting.

I am not gonna just sit back and see what life is gonna throw at me, bear it all silently. I am going to pick it all up, burden it more with my genius and shove it right back!

Only way to change anything in life is to do it by yourself and not wait for things to fall into place by itself. It rarely does!

This year has already started with some really good indications of long overdue changes happening. Lets see what happens.

Regardless of what might happen or might not happen, this one surely promises to be a helluva ride!

So all I can say now to you dearest 2013.. Bring it on!! ;-D

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The Doomsday can still come! The world, as we know it, can still come to an END!!

"Wild, dark times are rumbling toward us. And the Prophet who wishes to write a new apocalypse will have to invent entirely new beasts, beasts so terrible that the ancient animal symbols of St. John will seem like cooing doves and cupids in comparison."

- Heinreich Heine,

  "Lutetia; or, Paris" Augsberg Gazette, 1842

I did not know who Heine was at that time, nor did I know why he said that. But in light of recent events I am not sure if anything else would be more appropriate here.

There are times when pop culture, with all of its cliches and overdramatic urban legends, comes out with something so logically convincing and outright bizarrer that the whole world mankind unwillingly (or willingly as an escape from reality) ends up believing it.

21, December, 2012 was one such legend.

People were falling prey to it everywhere. Dozens for documentaries were made, hundreds of websites and forums created to bring together people of this cult to prepare for the "end of time" conflicts, thousands of bunkers and strongholds built in basements and high hills where people shut themselves up for most of the second half of the year. Millions spend on a high budget ($200mto be precise) Roland Emmerich movie on it, which also incidentally earned its maker millions ($770m!)

So clearly, this was a big deal. Or so everyone thought until the day actually came.

It came and it went. Nothing of grave importance occured. It was just another day for most of the planet.

World did not end. Buildings did not crumble like sand castles. Cities did not slid into the ocean. Hot lava did not pour out of the mound in the park.

All that happened was that I missed the bus to work.

Nothing new there even.

We are back where we are. Right?

The Insanely Awesome Life of E. A. Poe

"Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there; wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before."
- Edgar Allan Poe

There are times in most human beings life when they come across something very beautifully awesome that it hurts them why they lived for so long only to discover this gem only now. He starts wondering how amazing his life would have been if he had know about the existence of this beauty much earlier.
Well in my life there has been quite a few of these shocks like Beatles, Led Zep, 'Its a wonderful life', 'Patch Adams', 'Life is beautifull', Harry Potter, Ayn Rand, fried chicken.

And now, E. A. Poe.

I am not really a big fan of poetry, let alone the dark kind. I appreciate songs with poetic sensibilities (one Mr.Paul Simon; Mr.Art Garfunkel can attest to that). But I never really got to like poetry too much. It seemed way to quirky for my taste (coming from a guy who thinks eating icecream with a fork is normal). But E.A. is something totally different. I tried gettting into other famous poet's work, Whitman, Frost etc. But nothing compares to this guy's insane outlook towards the world.

In Indian literature there was a writer Premchand 'Munshi', he wrote in hindi as far as I've read. Mostly short stories based on day-to-day lives of ordinary people of his time. He was an ultimate cynic and had the most realistic outlook towards life. Imagine that, and go atleast a hundred times vicious. Then maybe you would get somewhere close to Poe's domain.

E. A.'s work is probably the most controversial of American literature in his time. Born Edgar Poe on January 19, 1809 he is more known for his tales of mystery and the dark than his more "normal" ones and generally considered "the inventor of the short story". But just how awesome it is, is for you to discover.

There was this one article I stumbled upon that introduced me to him. I was reading about Stephen King's Carrie, it mentioned that this King numero uno in some or the other manner resembled Poe's writing. And well I was of the solid belief that Carrietta White as insanely vicious dark character as can be possibly written. So, I was wondering what this guy who died in 1849 could have done to have inspired this inhumanely carzy girl.

Like they say, ignorance is bliss.

The Birthday Blues

"Every year on your birthday, you get a chance to start new. "

- Sammy Hagar

Okay. So I was born today. Yes, today 24 years ago I came to this awesome planet and made it extra awesome with my awesomeness.

Okay, that was lame.

But tell me one thing, what is all the whole fuss about?

Take this for example. There was this Prime Minister we had in India, a very ancient but somewhat respected one. That is a rare feat out here, none of the politicians are respected much not in the real sense of it. Fear induced respect at times may be. But not the real thing.

This ex-PM hated celebrating his birthday, but since he was a public figure it was a big deal. His party members made it a point to make it headlines in all the leading newspapers and channels. On his last term of PM'ship he stated that his birthday wont be celebrated this time around.

He said, "I never really found the reason to celebrate every single birthday throughout out pithy pathetic lives. It might be out birthday here today, but it could also be somebody else's divorce anniversay or the day someone lost a leg, or when somebody lost a loved one. What is so grand about today, just because we were born today? Doesnt that only mean that we are now a day older and more closer to our death than our last birthday??"

Well he was famous for stubborness, so nobody could push him to cut the cake in the usual grand out door do. So they just did it without him, as a tribute. A reading of excerpts from his famous hindi books and articles. A play based on his life's journey so far etc. The usual.

But no cake cutting by the birthday gentleman himself.

A year later, the party lost general elections, the PM got ousted from his seat. And he never had to suffer through another public fuss over the day he was born. I think he must be just glad celebrating it with his family and close friends. Thats he wanted always right, judging from whatever he said to the media.

Ironic.

Well life is full of such baffling coincidences. I'll try and avoid them on this topic. That politician was 60+ years he has had a full life with loads of accomplishments and surely he must be satisfied a bit with it. Here, I am one-third his age, I have started my roller coaster ride. And I dont want the Irony Goddess to come striking her hammer so soon on my joy ride.

So, just to please her if not anything else. I swear:

• I will cut the cake
• I will pick up each of your calls
• I will try to answer all your prying questions truthfully (flexible on this a bit though)
• I will try not to be pissed at people who never call all year and when they call you to wish happy birthday, demand if you have recognised them by their voice or not. (seriously, why do people do that?!)
• I will reply to all the texts personally and not mass forward the templates.
• I will attend to all your RT's and posts on my facebook wall.
• I will enjoy the day to the fullest and also make you all feel the same way too (this I will ensure personally!)

Thanks in advance to all of you. You all are very kind to remember. Feels wonderful to have so many wonderful friends around!!

Thou Art Awesome ;-)

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The Past

"We are not animals. We are not a product of what has happened to us in our past. We have the power of choice."

 - Stephen Covey

Waking up in the morning can be a really grueling thing to do sometimes. You open your eyes at almost the same time as you do every day; its a routine to you now after doing it since the day you were born. Plus you have this mysterious biological clock inside you that all these womens magazine keeps talking about in their every other article. Your whole body feels heavy after the nice rest it has had all night, and now is gearing up for another busy day ahead. Some days you wake up abruptly from a nice dream and you try hard to recall what the whole thing was about, but you find it hard to do. Some days you wake up thinking about the same things you were thinking of when you went off to sleep, mostly some romantic tryst with someone special to you. People might spend their whole day gossiping and throwing hatred at everybody around them, but they always end up thinking of loved ones before dozing off. Somebody from both past or present, or even someone they wish to have in their lives in the near future. 

Reminiscing in such thoughts is such a wonderful feeling in the first few waking minutes. Not always though. Some days you wake up to something not so pleasant. You have a lousy dream. Or even someone around you talking to somebody else and tidbits of their conversation leads you to recall some part of your past that you really are trying very hard to block out and keep trying desperately not think of. But now after listening to these conversations it is inside your head, and there is no escaping it. You end up thinking about these unpleasant moments in your life of which you’re too proud of, your utmost low point. Now you have no choice but to spend those first few glorious lazy minutes of the day stuck in your not-so-glorious past. That is so not the way anybody wants to start off their day. 

Human beings are the most blessed, and probably the most cursed, one of nature’s children. And the reason for both is the same, the strength of our minds or rather more specifically our ability to remember and feel. A stray dog might not recognize the kind old lady that had given it some bread to eat when it was hungry last winter and will run away from her when she comes to pet it a few months later, but it will always remember to pee in the self same spots without fail like clockwork to mark his territory. Thats mostly due to its brain is hard-wired to sticking to a routine, than to remembering any seemingly non-consequential data about some withered old member of another species. Sometimes I feel they are so lucky. They do not have to remember anything from the past or deal with the emotions created as a consequence of remembering them. They don’t have to feel guilt, shame, anger, frustration, angst or sorrow. All they really need to worry about in life are the three basics for their existence – food to exist, shelter their hide from the harsh weathers and sniffing each others’s butts. 

We on the other hand are not that fortunate. We remember. Each of our actions, reactions, feelings etc is all locked away in the seemingly endless recesses of memory space inside our head. And our memories are capable of bringing out a wide array emotions like joy, sorrow, content, angst, anger, peace, guilt or just the plain old dreadful nagging feeling called regret. All these feelings can be dealt with; once you’ve spent it all out of your system, it is over and done. You just need someone to blame it all on. The people around you, the cat, the dog, and the stupid lazy lady down the street, or the all time favorite, the government. Most of them just need a little venting off, and time. Then poof, it’s gone. 

The Night Of The Wrestler, The Rich Kid And The Crazy Bitch

"Peace cannot be achieved through violence, it can only be attained through understanding."
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

He never thought he would find himself in such a predicament. He always thought that he was above such petty casualties of life. And most around him believed it too. He always seemed so casual, so at ease with himself and the world around him. He was the centre of all the action, was always a fun guy to be around. He had the way about him like he ruled the earth he was walking on; people somehow had started to think so too. People loved him, and always found reason to be around him. He was a man’s man. Some envied him, most wanted to be him. Women loved him, he loved them back. Each and every single one of them, he never distinguished one from the other. Always spread his love and attention around. But then something happened. Someone happened.

All through his school and college life, he had been conscious of the effect he had on the people around him, especially those of the opposite sex. He was tall, not bad looking but his real trump card was his wit and smile. From as far as he can remember, everyone told him he was going to break some hearts when he was grows old. He took that seriously I guess, always found himself to be living in a bit too many hearts at once, making guest appearances in one too many poor adolescent and some not so young women’s nightly fantasies, each a bit sinister than the last one, each getting weirder and even more paranoid as he progressed along the in years.

Somehow he managed to keep his wits about him and not get too carried away by all this. He kept doing well at school; got all the grades required to get him into a well-reputed architecture school in the capital city. In college too, in spite of all the girls in his class going gaga over his shoulder long hair, which was a craze back then, he still stuck to being his self. He never was lonesome, had the company of the best of people around him wherever he went. The geeks, when he wanted some homework done. The queen bees, when he needed something else done, which they got done using their jock boyfriends. Sometimes a lonely spinster, or even some married, female teacher of the college had a weak spot for this boy and he had his way no matter what.

He had his merry way throughout the first and half way through second year of college. The Christmas holidays were close. He wasn’t going to be able to go home this time, not that he cared too much. But he really hoped to extort some money from his dad to buy him a new car, the old one was getting out of fashion. He was still having a brainstorming session, devising a strategy for this mission, in the dorm lobby when he heard a loud yell from the floor above. He ran upstairs, and found a girl running into toilet at the end of the hallway, sobbing. He also heard noises of footsteps rushing upstairs to the floors above and the slamming of a door.

He spent quite some time outside the toilet, pondering whether he should go in or not. He never before in his life has been at this spot, where he had to choose something for himself. He was always told what was good for him, decisions where always taken for him. And wherever this wasn’t possible he always went along with the crowd and did what they did. He never really thought for himself. And at this moment, he had to. He can either, go back downstairs to his sofa and think of ways to get a brand new car bought from his rich father’s money. Or, he can open this door and find out what really happened here a few minutes ago. Luckily for him, this time again the decision was made for him.

The door suddenly opened, and out came the craziest looking woman he had ever seen. She was almost as tall as he was, but stick thin, had funny eye glasses on which made her eyes look huge. This wasn’t one bit funny because the look in those eyes right then was murderous and that scared the living crap out of him. This was the first time he had looked anyone so angry. He was always used to people being hunky dory around him, de had never known a lousy day in his life and if were there any such day his dad’s riches were always at his disposal to make him feel happy happy again. The girl stormed out of the doorway, right past him hardly noticing him or the slightly perturbed look on his face. A part of him was glad that she was gone, but a part of him was offended by the fact that she was the first female ever in his life who had totally ignored him so offhandedly. And the curiosity got the better of him and he followed this clearly insane character up the stairs to the floor above.

The Apple Tree

"All men dream: but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dream with open eyes, to make it possible."
- T.E. Lawrence

Right from the humble naked beginnings of our lives, we humans are taught how virtuous and rewarding it is to live life in a righteous, courteous and truthful way. We are taught how it is every human being’s moral and social duty to be an ethical, compassionate and caring member of the civilized society. We are taught to say please when you are asking for something, to say thank you when you have got it, and sorry when you have got it and for some incomprehensible reason broke or misplaced it. We were taught that there is no problem in the face of this all forgiving planet that cannot be solved by just sitting across a table and discussing over it, and not debating over it. We have been taught by the very pillars of our society that we students call teachers, apart from the many other more creative names given to by their loving pupils, about the many dignified personalities in the pages of history who have made their mark on the timeline of this planet through their generosity and humanity.

We are programmed to care.

And for most of our childhood, we sincerely do. We confidently ran around naked in the neighbourhood with our mommy running behind with a diaper in her hands yelling for us to stop, we played with total stranger’s children in the sandbox in the park, smiled at strangers and waved at them. We were are truly amiable. The world was one big happy playground. And then, we become teenagers.

Just like no one knows why Lady Gaga or Himesh’s songs go to the top of the charts every time, no one really knows why teenagers are angry all the time. Back in the 60’s maybe they had lot of reasons, the unnecessary conflict in ‘Nam and then the Cold War and all. Even in the 80’s their anger is understandable may be, anyone would have been driven to the loony bin if they had to withstand those disastrous hairstyles for too long. In the 90’s they probably got pissed because they all couldn’t get enough of the cool new “happening” thing, computers. And now in this millennium probably they are enraged over all these new privacy laws and whatnots have propped all-over facebook, or that they have less likes on that special status they have put up after pondering over it longer than they have ever done with any history paper at school.

Well, seems like teenagers always found a reason to pissed off about, cannot really blame them for that. They have lived all their preteens being the good child, they have just come to know about the good that could from being bad. They get this high on disobeying rules, talking back to their folks at home, do what they feel like and the many other essentials on the to-do list of a regular Devil-May-Care personality. And they stick to this routine for the rest of their teens. But that never lasts too long though. Before you know it you are in your ugly 20’s.

This part of human existence I am all too familiar with, on account of my actually going through it right now. The 20’s is that wonderful period in a person’s life when one of two things can happen, (a) he/she becomes the luckiest person on the planet and doesn’t changes a bit from the naïve brat that he/she was as a teenager, or (b) he/she wises up to his/her responsibility and falls into the deep cesspool of the “real world”. And when this person does start thinking about his future, about what he is going to do with this life of his, he starts dreaming.

The early parts of the 20’s are wonderful. You spend your days dreaming about the possibilities of the future, and you stay up at night to dream some more. The truth of the matter is this part of your life right here, is where you actually are the happiest and the optimistic you will ever be in your life. You will feel invincible. There is nothing and no one that can bring you down and there is nothing that you cannot do and no plaque on which you cannot put your name on. You have a bounce in your walk, you have friends all around you who love you, even your folks back at home begin to forget what a pain you were when you were a teen. The world truly feels like your oyster. And the sad part is you really begin to believe it. As everything that’s good in this planet, this feeling also sadly doesn’t last long.