Writers' block-ed

Time is the essence of our existence. The clock is the instrument of our being. Has it ever felt funny adjusting the time on your wrist watch? No one really gives it that much of thought. But the changes you just made will remain for all of…well..time.

Time is also the truest test of character. So they say. I don’t believe them. They killed kenny. Those bastards. But if there is any semblance of truth in this statement then its an idea worth exploring. At this crucial juncture I find myself, exploring the possibilities for my future, on the threshold of making life altering choices. Its decision time. The more instinctive, the better. Intuition is logic that is hardwired into your system from past experiences. Oh what would I give to glimpse into the past for one last time. To truly understand my evolution…

Flashback:

Its that part in history where the artist formerly know as ‘Prince’ was currently known as ‘Prince’. Britney Spears was conservative-catholic America's Poster girl and sold records and the school canteen sold samosas for 2 bucks. Those were the days..sigh…

( Id like to thank the academy, my mom, dad,pet dog and Eric Cartman)…ok ill cut the pseudo-nostalgic-farcical rendition of a flashback sequence from a Bollywood movie. I'm talking about 5 yrs back for crying out loud…

I didn’t really care that I had to study x-pages in a day, score y percentile in CAT or work my ass of z-years of work experience. Post Graduation and semester end jitters never gave me sleepless nights. Hell, I was more worried if it rained tomorrow and no one would turn up to play ball. Careless…bordering on hedonism you might say. But hey… I guess at that age, we were all kings ( or queens- keep the feminists happy, dad’s advice) of our little kingdoms we built not off steel, stone and gold but of free thought inside of our heads.

Isn't that how we’d all like to live out the rest of our lives? Sadly we cant. Or is it that we just really don’t want to? Why feel guilty/embarrassed/shy/apprehensive ( or whichever adjective it is that ‘holds you back’) for wanting to live life in the most uncomplicated fashion with one simple objective of having fun as long as you are still on the right side of the graveyard gate.

Why do we let the world set out norms for us? Why do we find comfort in conformism or are we just too lazy to explore the counter view? Have the forgotten to ask why and what like we once did? Look at where asking these questions got us – from the cold, filth-infested moist caves of prehistoria.

So why have we stopped asking questions? Ill give you a simple illustration. You’re probably reading this piece knowing that the point of this write up is hovering dangerously close to the “lost and found” department of the human psyche. Lets skip the foreplay. Ask yourself this question… where is your life headed?

Simpler : ask yourself…”what are you doing about it?”

I asked myself the same thing and then I booked an appointment with my therapist to find out.

I’d like to thank the academy…

Keep the faith and thou shall be redeemed to salvation by thou savior.

“ Faith is like electricity… you cant see till it hits smack you smack in the face”

salute 2 sinatra

She was five and I was six
We rode on horses made of sticks
She wore black and I wore white
She would always win the fight

Bang bang, she shot me down
Bang bang, I hit the ground
Bang bang, that awful sound
Bang bang, my baby shot me down.

Seasons came and changed the time
When I grew up, I called her mine
She would always laugh and say
"Remember when we used to play?"

Bang bang, I shot you down
Bang bang, you hit the ground
Bang bang, that awful sound
Bang bang, I used to shoot you down.

Music played, and people sang
Just for me, the church bells rang.

Now she's gone, I don't know why
And till this day, sometimes I cry
She didn't even say goodbye
She didn't take the time to lie.

Bang bang, she shot me down
Bang bang, I hit the ground
Bang bang, that awful sound
Bang bang, my baby shot me down...

i-sore

Clock strikes a tick and that moment goes by
Gone forever, matter not how hard you try
Its upto whether you trudge,try or shrivel up and cry
And this is what i am...

Of black, grays and white... like virtue and wine
A lesson learnt today is a lesson in time
Blurred in the moment..stand on the crossroads; blind
And this is where i am...

Questions and answers...are cryptic alike
Under lock and key... like that mysterious smile
Then a voice tells you to fight the good fight
And this is how i am

They tell us to keep the faith and that God has a plan
Day after day... not one gives a damn
Silent spectator... its man versus man
And is this who i am ?

The pursuit of contentment

The Art of being contented with what life has to offer is a difficult art. By the time you master it... life has nothing more to offer. A graduation by default. A crash course in the same discipline happens everyday. Every day, there is this one frame...this one flash that defines that day. Sit down and reminisce of what you will remember of today in the morrow. Food, id say is the most beautiful metaphor of all... as beautiful as beauty is metaphorically. Contentment : Satiation. Put this into perspective, the morsel you wasted last night or the mess around your dinner plate could have nourished someone somewhere. The question is must you feel sorry for them or your actions. I will not take the moralistic high ground saying " we are criminals and our crime is the unequal distribution of opportunities ". I personally am all for charity, but charity done for the sake of charity is business/obligatory. Obligations and me have a difficult history. and id leave it at that. Charity must not be something you practice for getting recognition. Far from it... the beauty lies in its anonymity...like providence. Coming back to food, the dinner table is the greatest leveler. Not one man doesn't long for the first morsel of food. Beggar and king, eyes twinkle alike. The conversations made on dinner table teach one a lot. I count myself to be unfortunate to have not been a part of any residential educational institution/hostel. Though on second thoughts, id rather live in the comfort of my room with the security of my folks reassuring me from across the walls. The last supper is a classic example of this idea... Jesus, Judah, 10 others... all bonded by a simple diet of bread and wine. all Leveled. People talk about changing the world and not knowing where to start off... just like how I'm looking to study for my engineering examinations and not knowing where must i start from. Changing the world isn't a big deal. The big deal is nature of this change, its impact and its sustenance. Idealistic : every man can change the world. Problem : they don't give a flying fuck... just like me. Caught up in the medley of the mundane. Nuclear pollution doesn't bother me... what bothers me is getting straight A's. I'm no Jesus of this suburbia. If i changed the world, will god read up on microwave devices and circuits. NO But hey, Microwave theories don't tell me not to commit random acts of kindness... By kindness i mean anything that doesn't piss the other person off. If i commit sin, must i do equal amount of good to ensure a date with St. Peter or whoever is heaven's Gurkha. I dunno.. do i believe in hell... i don't know. Do i believe in Life..i dunno.. but what i do know is i believe in Living. That is a fine art...we all must learn.

The selfish they're all standing in line...
Faith in their hope and to buy themselves time.
Me, I figure as each breath goes by,
I only own my mind.

Midnight Musings

Imagine living with a gift.. a gift to see into the future... near and distant alike.. knowing equally well about the consequences of your action. The cause and its effects... the domino-ripple chain reaction that the slightest of changes in your actions might trigger off in the lives of people...some you know and some whom u've never met in your life.
Let us put this gift into perspective... superficially.. all of it seems very rosy.. bet on the winning horse, pick the right stocks, buy the right plots.. money,women,comfort,respect,authority, power-addict... basically the repercussions of being in the right place at the right time...
Life... as you like it.
You conceive the future...you shape it...like that sting song.. every step you take...every move u make...you mould life.
I personally would be paranoid if it were happen to me. Life lived in rewind is a scary prospect. Your like the cursor on lifes seek bar. Every time you move... something happens somewhere.
Every decision of your wd be made and remade. Only to see hw it will effect the lives of the ones u love.
Its scary..most times...a million things on your mind... what would you give to break free... freedom is never free... there is always that price to pay.
So life as you like it...woudlnt be life how id like it to be.
"Life is chaos... you gotta deal with it"
-Max Cavlera

home alone

Money makes the world go round... not love..not humanity..not faith.. but moolah. The dollar is our new day messiah. Its a cycle.. this cycle of money never has and never will be stagnant. Quite like what goes around.. must almost always come around..
Imagine you make buckets of money on a wager and you lose it the next moment. The very next moment. Are you really justified in feeling a sense of having lost something. because it never really was yours.. now was it. but the stitch on what we call the 'human fabric' is taillored to make us feel guilt and a sense of losing something precious to us. Nirvana on the other hand is claimed only by letting go.
Imagine how would you feel. The feeling of almost there but not quite. Its how life shows just enough of the football for you to make the tackle and at the last second swirves around for you to get a card.
Confusing.. here ill make it more comprehensible. The greatest tricks are the ones that metaphorise life and its idiosynchronacies. The trick that i was talking about is the perfect analogy to " The lord giveth and he taketh away". bull shit.
why does he giveth if he has to take-th(eye roll) it away. why show you hope.. why the glimpses of spectacular magic that leave you with nothing but hazy memories of the illusion and a dropped jaw.
Why does he show us just enough of the ball to go in for the tackle. If its his way of testing our faith then in the words of Eric Theodore Cartman.. its sucks ass.
Its this indifference that is feeding atheism today. People simple dont want to believe and left out hung and dry.
Man has evolved... and hes more pissed off by the second. His waters are polluted, his air smells like shit, his salary is stagnant n hes is not getting any punani. and hes has no1 to blame.. common he cant blame himself now.. can he ?

"Suck up for the quick reward boy... suck up for the quick reward... they said "

Trial by fire... the cost of my desire

I can see into your eyes… I can sense the fear

Fear… a curse I have come to hear

Despair thickens the air, asphyxiating oxygen into submission

Id take a bad hangover over this weird period of transition

Finding our feet. catching our breath, trying to make sense

Tense… intense… choking on elixir minus life’s essence

Is the darkness here to stay? Will it ever go away

Reminding you and me that bullshit does not pay

Come judgment day

Out of luck?

Seemingly stuck?

Like a werewolf longing for the moon

His judgment cometh… and that right soon.

comfortably numb

Irony has a way of rubbing it in. Feeding on your fear and misfortune… irony has a way of being ironical. Its how good morning is an oxymoron. Tomorrow is another day.. just like today was another tomorrow. Nothing has changed.. most probably nothing will.

Stagnancy is the virus poisoning our potential. Stuck in the moment are we?

Do we need a disaster to shake us off this ‘redundant-reentrancy’ mode?

Snap out. Shake off. Laugh and the world laughs with you… cry and the world laughs louder. But, after a while you get bored… at least I do. Bored of this monotony, of the redundancy… how I wish I had the zen skill of filtering visual and aural information… in colloquial terms… ‘The block out’ effect. Focus is the key. Focus has not failed me.

Luck has. Man… do I feel like that kid Kenny from south park. I don’t even see the joke in that anymore.

At times like this… you have to learn to laugh at yourself. If you cant, then you are in big shit my brother. Humor is the perfect antidote. A little extra dose of wit never harmed anyone. At least again it never did harm me and frankly that’s all I care about now.

Ever sat and thought about what the future holds in store for you? Boy, the thought scares the crap out of me. What if things don’t turn out as planned. At the mercy of fate? Helpless again? Whatcha gonna do when karmas gonna come for you?

Scared…don’t be… Do good to others… listen to your professors, practice charity, attend discourses… or throw up your middle finger and just don’t give a fuck. Trudge along. Take things head on. A day will come when the courage of man fails… where he forsakes his friends and breaks all bonds of fellowship… a day of wolves and shattered shields. But it is not this day… this day WE FIGHT!!! ‘

Fight the good fight.

Hey… be a man.. do the right thing.

Make your choices and don’t let the choice make you. Live life on your own terms. Very cliché but I haven’t been able to comprehend its profundity as yet.

wake up ! ( fight club extract )

Warning: If you are reading this then this warning is for you. Every word you read of this useless fine print is another second off your life. Don't you have other things to do? Is your life so empty that you honestly can't think of a better way to spend these moments? Or are you so impressed with authority that you give respect and credence to all that claim it? Do you read everything you're supposed to read? Do you think every thing you're supposed to think? Buy what you're told to want? Get out of your apartment. Meet a member of the opposite sex. Stop the excessive shopping and masturbation. Quit your job. Start a fight. Prove you're alive. If you don't claim your humanity you will become a statistic. You have been warned...

This is your life and it's ending one minute at a time...
Fuck damnation, man! Fuck redemption! We are God's unwanted children? So be it!

I see all this potential, and I see squandering. God damn it, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables; slaves with white collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need. We're the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War's a spiritual war... our Great Depression is our lives. We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won't. And we're slowly learning that fact. And we're very, very pissed off. i am..

n the name of the father...

There are times… and then there are times. If only you had a relay-switch to turn your life off... momentarily so and take in the sights and sounds of the journey that we all call ‘life’, which other times, would have whizzed past into oblivion..

The times when you feel that your mettle is being tested, that the world has lined up against you and that you are merely a guinea pig in God’s elaborate experiment on the String theory. Frustration feeds itself and voila… the domino effect. Things start affecting other things, more dangerously… other people too. People whom you care for and who care for you.

We are all instruments of our instincts. We are designed to act on hunches. The sixth sense, some may call it. Its like being in love. You just know it. Why and how become secondary responses. That is the ‘it’ factor. That what the nike guys want us to do. IT.

Training your mind to achieve goals is hardest thing to do… Its like programming ROM because reprogramming it to achieve a different objective is tough as hell.

Your inhibitions claw you back on the road to salvation. Your fears stuck on the rewind switch in your head. Playing over and over.. sometimes you feel trapped in one of those revolving doors painfully whizzing around driving an asphyxiating sense of nausea.

But you tell yourself, you’re a soldier, your job is The Job; like one of the crusaders; you don’t give a damn what’s right and what’s not; you trudge on and do your job.

You are a pawn cast vicariously as both victim and villain by the vicissitudes of fate for the value and veracity of such shall one day vindicate the vigilant and the virtuous.

You have a fight on your hands. In your mind, with your mind; fighting it in its own backyard aint easy. But if u came here looking for easy meat, god help you !

Take it one day at a time and pepper your faith with belief to exorcise the demons in your head.

AMEN!!!

" screw you guys... im going home "

- Eric Cartmen.

FUCK THE SYSTEM

SYSTEM of a DOWN

There are many things that make you Indian. Things that are distinctly desi.

A penchant for spicy food, amazing sense of conversion of any currency into INR when shopping abroad, unparalleled love for cricket and of course a tendency to blame the system for the most mundane of problems.

Problems that we can do nothing about or want to do nothing about are attributed to the system. Engineers and graduates remaining unemployed, it’s the systems fault. The phone’s dead. It’s the systems fault. Your neighbor’s son isn’t admitted into the top of the line medical college and you are told it’s the systems fault. The Indian cricket team loses a test match or Tendulkar is out of form, the matches are thrown, it’s the systems fault. Worse, you jump a red light and unashamedly pay Pandu fifty bucks and as soon as you are within an earshot of him, you crib about corruption and curse the system again.

The inexplicable ability to find fault in the system and look for reason everywhere but within is something all of us are gifted with.

What is this system? Who is this system? Why is it in such bad shape?

No one knows and quite frankly no one even cares anymore. But all take pride in cursing it. Why is it so? Do we find solace only in bringing others down? Are we so frustrated that we have to blame everything on some thing that quite frankly is our own creation?

This “system “has been nurtured by our very own selfish needs. When we weigh what is right n morally correct against what is faster to get over and done with, righteousness and morality get chucked out of the window. This is the case with every one of us who bend the rules to fit their needs and then have the nerve to curse it when it doesn’t work for you.

To roughly answer the questions above, the system is a mythical entity of our own creation. The babudom that is very prevalent in government offices today is also of our very own doing. Quite frankly put, the system is US. We are the system. Doctors, lawyers, engineers, teachers, students… all components of this well greased machine.

It has already been made ample clear that it is in shambles. Every office is riddled with dishonesty, every company diseased with corruption. Every palm is greasy and every wallet opens out to grease it even more. At least we have come to realize something is wrong. So the next logical question should be ‘what do we do about it?’

Here is the tough part. Introspection is a skill we need to develop before looking for excuses. Instead of passing the buck, we must stand up and be counted. We need to change our thinking, our attitude, ourselves to change the system.

We need to do what is right and not what is easy. Take the righteous route even if it means taking longer. Refuse the touts who can get your work done but at a price. The next time you are asked a bribe, you look that prick straight in the eye and refuse and urge others to do the same. Pay all taxes on time. Pay all tolls fares. Don’t spare anyone who doesn’t.

It’s about time this generation rises from its slumber and becomes active in the struggle to make India a better place to live in. The way that it was conceptualized as a free nation 50 odd years ago. This generation, our generation believes in ‘here and now…’ so its here and it’s got to be now or never. We can’t shamelessly let the corrupt gang rape the system day after day. The youth must rise in rebellion against to system for its own good. Quite like the modern avatar of the exodus where the present machinery is exhumed only to find a better society rise from the ashes like a dazzling phoenix. Its time to do the needful, to do what it takes to rid the nation of this disease. So the next time you jump a red light ask for a receipt. Better still don’t jump the red light. So if you think we will take everything lying down or think we care a damn. Think again. The generation has awakened. The rebel is here. Here to stay

Mirror mirror...

A regular day, atleast for me, begins with the teeth-brushing ritual. Key components for t-b ritual are the brush,paste and of course the mirror. The mirror..hmm.. the weapon of vanity. For all that the guys curse the womenfolk to be vain.. they match upto them inch by inch.. only doing it in silence..like how they read womens' magazines to understand..or alteast attempt to decipher the female thinking mechanism..
Now, as i was saying... the first thing that you do when u are about to shave/bathe.. is look into the mirror... This is by far the most real(-est) part of your day. NO pretences, no mask, no covering up its you baring all.. to..well.. you. That is what makes it real. You look into the mirror and wonder how little you have changed from yesterday and how much you have changed from the previous years. The spectrum is enormous. The quiet moments that you spend attempting to gauge how much stubble have you grown and why your hair is how it is.. is just a sham.. its just your minds way of camouflaging what you are really thinking. Its funny, a lot of people dream in front of the mirror but shy away from admitting it. i was asked this by a very pretty girl..once..in the dead of the night.. which was kept alive only by her intellectual stimulus....well.. she asked me.. "when was the last time you spent 5 minutes dreaming" to which i replied.. i never did. now i realised i lied.. i apologise. i dream or atleast try to.. in front of the reflective rectangle of silica.
Its quite natural. the mirror is a very logical tool to read the present in reference with the past while constructing your future detail-by-detail. That explains why the a broken mirror brings one 7 years of bad luck.
Its also one of the few opportunities that you look yourself in the eye and ask questions, remenisce,reason and retort to your own demons. Simple things like this makes ones life real, One get in touch with the inate yet sometimes dormant human fabric within them.
So that makes a very good reason why buddhist monks in their final legs of acheiving nirvana shun the mirror, because they dont want to be reminded of their human-ness.
So the next time you look into the mirror.. ask yourself and not the mirror..some real questions.

Ezekiel 25:17. "The path
of the righteous man is beset on
all sides by the inequities of the
selfish and the tyranny of evil
men. Blessed is he who, in the
name of charity and good will,
shepherds the weak through the
valley of darkness, for he is truly
his brother's keeper and the finder
of lost children. And I will
strike down upon thee with great
vengeance and furious anger those
who attempt to poison and destroy
my brothers. And you will know my
name is the Lord when I lay my
vengeance upon you."

Reverberating Silence

Ever seen those simpson cartoons.. Where there is a evil homer telling HOMER J SIMPSON to do the thing that is best for him.. And there is the angelic homer who advises him to do the right thing.
Has it ever torn you apart... making decisions that you probably have no control over.. the only control that you have is the pretence that you create to satisfy your control-freak nature.. then crib about how you cant help anything. But u can.. im sure you could.. cant you ? Not so sure now. am I ?
The two sides of the same coin.. the two facets to the same story.. the two surfaces of a plane... action-reaction.. the cause and the effect.. it kills you.. all of this.. thinking too fast.. or thinking two slow.. moving ahead.. or dwelling on.. both have its share of side-effects.. the mind is a one of a kind bitch.. it plays these dirty tricks on you sometimes..

Leaves you with no hope sometimes.. then a mirage flashes in front of you.. you know that its a mirage.. that its not for real.. or probably not the right word.. that it is not for ever. momentary... just like the span of the flashing mirage.. but the hopelessly thirsty then longs for the mirage again.. fully aware that its going to get him no-where..atleast not in a position of that persons choice.
There might be times where you have to roll with the times.. just swim with the current.. its especially tough for some who probably don’t identify with the norms of the times..nor respects the currents.. but circumstance make you fall to your knees.. and if you resist.. then its only a matter of time that the baton comes swinging at the back of ur knees... then you have to fall.. even the might Genghis khan did.. so did Caesar..
They all crack.. its only the duration that differs.. time reduces the egos of the tallest peaks to commonplace rubble.. its only a matter of time..

They say truth is stranger than fiction... true because two dimensional fictional character is painted with black or white.. with the occasional dollops of grey.. but real life has characters colored with the myriad of colors..some of the shades inexplicable.. but you love them.. you don’t know why... they are like those weird wall hangings.. that you love .. they don’t go with your room.. they don’t gel with the color. hell you don’t even have a place to hang them up.. but u love them.. if some1 asks you.. why... ? you look them in the eye and pretend that they are speaking mandarin...

Haiku :
Why are you laughing?
This little game called life is
Deadly serious.


“It’s always darkest before it turns absolutely pitch black. "

- Paul Newman

Nihilism anyone ??

After explaining the paradox of the cage-like freedom, a result of being liberated through the death of God and the nature of all life as a will to power, Friedrich Nietzsche predicts the next step in human evolution, the ubermensch (or overman). Nietzsche's outline for the overman as a possible to solution to the paradox of freedom is prevalent in the film Fight Club.

The overman, says Nietzsche, must be willed: we must not be content with our current state of mediocrity, but strive for perfection. Nietzsche points out, though, that if perfection is accomplished, then the process has ended, and growth ceases. The overman seeks to overcome everything she/he has internalized from external sources, especially society and religion. "The striving for distinction," as Nietzsche calls it, is the process of creating something that is truly one's own (a self); through the will to power, the overman reaches self-realization, but does not stop there. Because of the "will of spirit," the overman continually creates a new self by surpassing (overcoming) the old self: by continually taking risks and always accepting responsibility for her/his actions and vaules, the overman lives by her/his self-created values, realizing she/he is these actions, thus acquiring freedom through growth.

Fight Club's protagonist, "Jack" proclaims that he was "close to being complete," to which his alter-ego, Tyler, responds "Never be complete, stop being perfect; I say let's evolve." Tyler echoes Nietzsche's advocation that man should will the overman, and gives Jack the insight that "The things you own end up owning you." When the film begins, Jack has not yet realized that his life has become defined by external sources and not his own will, but he is introduced to Tyler's philosophy that "Self destruction could be the answer".

Later in the film, Jack tells a police investigator "That wasn't just stuff that got destroyed, that was me": he believes that his possessions create his identity (self), but he beings listening to Tyler, who spouts such insight as "It's only after we've lost everything that we're free to do anything." Here Tyler refers to the overman's process of overcoming those aspects of one's self not truly one's creation, but an internalization of external sources.

The theme of the overman as self-creating is exemplified in the film: Tyler tells Jack "You are not your job...the contents of your wallet...your sic. khakis," and once Jack realizes that he is Tyler, he sees that he has created his self. Only when Jack takes responsibility for his creation of Tyler does he experience growth (as per Nietzschean guidelines) and understand his freedom from putting society in the place of God as he had formerly done. Nietzsche would explain Jack's creation of a new person by the end of the film as the will of his spirit and his having overcome everything within him, including his self-created self Tyler. Thus Jack, as the overman in Fight Club, takes responsibility for his actions and values, and endures the process of self-overcoming: he calls the end of the film "the beginning," stating, "My eyes are open. Everything's gonna be fine."

"It is hard enough to remember my opinions, without also remembering my reasons for them!"

-Friedrich Nietzsche