I am back

He He he

I Cry to Die

How does one
Write ones heart down
What does one
Do to cry

Where does one
Go to hide now
When does one
Learn to die

Or does one
Take a breath now
Dull the senses
And learn to lie

Its been sometime now
I have this desire
For you to save me
And kill me while
I sing this song now
A song of hope
This optimist's whine

This pain I cant
Bear to live with
Its not for me
This sickly white

Loved ones wailing
Despair and strife
And all I do
Is watch a wall clock
And watch time go by

Not a finger
I can move
While these machines
Keep me alive

On them I depend
To breathe and live
On you I depend
To use your knife

If you hear me
Do me this favour
Switch off this machines
This man made life

All it take is
A little love son
And some courage

This act son
I do encourage



Random surfing of the net.. brought me to stories... of long spells of coma... and vegetation... and euthanasia.... and they brought me confusion... on ethics... and wrong... and right...

I don't promote euthanasia... I think its wrong... but I feel for those... those that sleep... sleep unwillingly... and die each day... because of life... man-made life...

What do you have to say???

Summertime

The sun at its radiant best. Angry blue skies. Arid earth. Hot collars.

No cloud cover. No respite.

A few harried salesmen and other sundry parched throats trudge along towards their destinations. Beads of sweat wet the foreheads. Their thirsty eyes look up in hope at those delightful soft drink hoardings. High up in the air, the hoardings look down at the tired souls and give hope. Magical blues and revitalizing greens. Cool cubes of ice floating in those tall glasses with multicolored nectar. A sight to quench your thirst while a greedy corner store awaits you.

A sun burnt cart puller. Dark sweat laden skin and thin sinewy muscles bounce off the sunlight while they exert the very last bit of energy left in them. The malnourished man pushes them to the extreme to carry his cross and inch towards his destination and to the few rupees that will feed his family this evening. Each step costs a fortune in blood and sweat, but ironically, is worth only a few pennies. A drop of life trickles down his forehead, works its way down to the bridge of his nose, finds his parched lips, ignores his kiss, finds the chin, drips down to wet his bare chest and dissipates into the wetness of his chest.

The cart puller curses the sun. But then he repents. He is poor. He has no education. But he is wise. He knows deep within, that the sun may be merciless, but the sun is still a friend. Not like the rain.

The sun is always angry. But it is honest.

The rain, it is enticing and beautiful and pleasurable. But it is sly.

In the rain, no one will hire his cart. An empty cart is directly proportional to an empty stomach. Sorry. Six empty stomachs.

Not far away a man in his air-conditioned car looks out at the world. Cradled in his seat of luxury, awaiting a traffic signal to go green, he looks out at the beggar knocking at his window in disgust. The beggar, deformed and probably deranged, brings his sun burnt thirsty lips close to the expensive window pane. He knocks on the window and makes a sad face. A man pleading for life sustaining bread and a nourishing drink of water. A man begging to live.

In his mind, the beggar too curses the sun, for the sun cares not for those who have little. He sides with the rich and roasts the poor. The beggar tries to open his mouth. But his dehydrated lips give up. He mumbles some words that say nothing but mean despair. The man in the car, however, can hear nothing. His ears are tuned to the throbbing music that reverberates through the expensive beige interiors. He breathes in cool air and gestures to the strange life form outside his window. Be gone you creep. “Why the fuck cant they work. If I give him money I know I will end up feeding the beggar mafia”

The beggar trudges away towards other carriers of hope that await the signal to go green. One of them holds the key to nourishment.

And then there are the children. Hopping and skipping to nowhere. Their unruly hair and their oily pigtails braving the mighty sun, making friends with the scorching sunlight.

How can they be unaffected by the mighty summer? Does innocence nourish, shield, and protect. Or is it the benevolence of the sun for those that will, hopefully, one day, bring about compassion that the worlds needs.

The sun lives in hope and burns with anticipation. He lights up those little lives and is optimistic. One day, before he collapses into himself to become a supernova, these little ones will work up the magic of innocence and sing songs that extend compassion. One day they will eradicate sin. On that day, everyone will see the light.

God looks down at the sun. He looks down with a wry smile. A glint in his eye.

“They will not understand because they are not programmed to”

“Not many will understand that my greatest creation is not man or the sun or the water or fire or the planets. Not even the universe. Not love. Not the heart. Not even the brain.

My greatest creation….

Equilibrium….

Which I created in abundance….

Right and wrong
Rich and poor
Hot and cold
Life and Death
Love and hate
Creation and Destruction
Cyclical
Interdependent

For that which sustains also destroys
One feeds the other
One negates the other
One leads to the other
One balances out the other

Fuzzy logic… yeah… equilibrium…. My greatest creation

Dream Afresh & Work Around

I sit by a waterfall
Refreshed and elated
By the lemony sweet newness
That comes up to greet me
After water meets stone
And a random spray leaps in joy
With wetness and life
Drenching my exhilarated soul

Then the eyes, they open
To a vision of illusory grandeur
The King is on his throne
He, the lord of nothingness
His empire weighed down and numbed
By the repercussion and the sullenness
Of a dreary existence
And biting bytes of the executive kind


The mind should now shut up and get back to work

Have you ever...

Dreamt of a dream
Where you slept in your sleep

Ran a race
Where no one moved

And lost
From a winning position

Then found Success
In failure

And felt victorious
In defeat

Found fortune
And lost your soul

Then negotiated your way
Into losing your providence

Achieved fame
And lost your identity

Desired the Devil
When you finally found God

Felt desire
On a lonely night

And craved for solitude
In gorgeous companionship

If this is you…

Go on

Get up

Be human

Go Places

Start running

Hunt for life

Find Death

And when you eventually get there… look back… and smile… you have lived a full life….

Shhhh...

It's quiet. Very quiet
I breathe in the silence
No one speaks
There's no one here
Just my thoughts
And me, bored
In my fishbowl existence

I speak up - Let's talk
They all join in
Turn up the volume please
Everyone has to be heard
My solitary fishbowl
Now my populated ocean
And my cacophonic claustrophobia

Rewind.

Stop.

Play.

Fail.

Cry.

Cock-Raj

Something has come over me. I was trying to write a short story, which has been lying dormant in my mind since Adam was a boy.

However, the only thought that seems to come to my mind is… cockroach.

"Now, why is this dimwit thinking about cockroaches and then writing about them on his blog?" This, I must confess, is a fair question to ask.

Truth be said. I have no answer.

I have very little control over this dim meandering mind of mine…

Therefore, I cast aside the short story and write a blog post on this pet… peeve…

I convince myself that if my fellow bloggers can write brilliant posts about cats and dogs – Then I should be allowed the liberty to write about cockroaches. Cockroaches are, after all, the creation of the same almighty that created you, cats, dogs, and me.

Now, there are some amongst us who will argue, and rightly so, that only if I had a cockroach as a pet, would I be worthy to write with authority on cockroaches.

I would therefore like to point out that this post does not intend to sermonise about the virtues of having a cockroach as a pet. This post is about a little problem I have and a brilliant plan I have in mind to cure myself of this minor irritant.

I am terrified of cockroaches - especially the big ones with wings.

For some inexplicable reason, the ones that do fly… fly straight at me. There seems to be this peculiar attraction that I hold for them.

Now there are those who have had the opportunity to witness this. They have gone right ahead and formed a number of theories to explain this strange phenomenon.

Some say that it is quite possible that, in my next life, I am destined to be a cockroach. Or it might turn out that I was a cockroach in an earlier lifetime. Others debunk the reincarnation theory and believe that I am destined to turn into a cockroach during this lifetime itself. Wouldn’t that be magical?

Finally, there are those, who to my face, tell me that I am nothing but a cockroach and that it should not surprise me when I attract others of my specie. I have often wondered if these are the only truthful people on earth. It maybe so, that the world is nothing by an illusion, and in this illusionary world, I, a cockroach, look at myself in a mirror and see myself as a man.

Anyway. I digress. As I was saying, cockroaches tend to fly straight at me. When such global calamities strike and cockroaches fly, I tend to mutate very quickly into a superhero. I mean, I can fly and jump over buildings. My superhero avtaar, however, does not need a cape and at times can be found flying around with only a dirty red (and sometimes yellow) underwear. Much collateral damage is caused and many innocent people come to harm when this strange Superhero takes off – with a cockroach hot on his heels.

Now, for those of you reading this and thinking to themselves “what a wuss”, I would like to set matters straight and state that I am not usually a scaredy-boo. I do not, for example, fear scorpions or snakes or mushrooms.

I have, on multiple occasions, had the opportunity of close acquaintance with each of these creatures and have found them to be quite harmless if not friendly.

Then why do I fear puny cockroaches? This most pertinent question deserves a long and lengthy answer, but to cut it short and say it in three words ( I have been found guilty of many a long blog post) – I don’t know.

Finally, after many years of living in fear and many cockroach-human chase sequences, I have, after much thought, decided to face up to my fear. No, I do not plan to spend a night in a casket full of cockroaches. I do not intend to compete in Fear Factor – and lose my life to cockroaches on national television.

I have instead formed a simple and implementable plan. I will adopt a cockroach and bring her up. Yes, my cockroach will grow up to be a daughter to me. I will teach her to crawl, send her to school, protect her from insecticides, lizards, and cats, teach her to fly high, eventually get her married. I plan to grow old and die in the company of my flying grandchildren. Finally, in their company, I will rid myself of my fear of cockroaches.

And yes, for those that have got here and are convinced that I am nothing but a nut, allow me to agree with your brilliant assessment. I am, indeed, nothing but a nut.

But like all good nuts, this nut has a more intricate agenda behind his nutty plan. Please read further if you still have the courage…


Joy - Part 1
A cockroach I will adopt
And keep her, safe, on my loft
She will be a daughter to me
As wonderful as any daughter can be

I will teach her to fly
And reach for the sky
She will be safe
No harm shall come her way

I will teach her to date
I will find her a mate
Of course, she will procreate
Eight hundred times eighty into eight
Million

Ecstasy - Part 2
In time my fellow humans
Your generations shall self-destruct
Your Politics, Your wars, your bombs, your holocaust
Extinct, Kaput, Finito – Ha Ha…There… watch… these morons go bust

But Stand by and Watch Human - My lineage will survive
Be Careful Human – They will Grow, prosper, and thrive
Yes, Its Funny ain’t it Human – laugh at me in mirth
Fuck You Human – Its MY descendants who inherit YOUR earth

You think I am a nut , don’t ya
You think I overreact, fuck ya
Watch this space, will ya
Cockroaches survive holocausts, can ya
Self-destruct soon, I beg ya









Congratulation to those who have got here – You have just read the worst blog post ever. No, I don't do drugs and did not write this under influence...

To those of you who have bothered to read my blog posts until this day and have made a solemn promise never to come back again – Good Bye.

To those who plan to come back in the future – I salute you and I admire your courage.

To those of you, innocent souls, who were misled into reading this because of the blog post name and came here expecting pornography – I apologise.

Ahimsa! Then and Now

In my last post. I wrote about Ahimsa and its relevance to our current circumstances. As a Riposte, AGG put up a very interesting post with a very valid point. Very correctly, she pointed out that an eye for an eye would make the whole world blind. She goes on to say, “Ahimsa looks good on paper, and not in practice. Still, there must be something to it, if it helped us get rid of the British.” Towards the end of her post, she says that she does not yet have a definitive answer.

I can understand that. There is no definitive answer. The reason - there is never one definitive solution that applies to all circumstances, all problems and all situations.

On Ahimsa itself – It isn’t that I think Ahimsa is not relevant anymore.

It still is and yet it always isn’t.

I had, in my earlier post, said that Ahimsa was a very practical solution to a problem of the time. Let me try to explain myself.

Gandhi, a brilliant politician and the man who introduced us to ahimsa, used non-violence shrewdly and wisely. He used ahimsa to bond a fragmented, culturally diverse people and direct their combined energy towards one common objective. As an example, what did Madras have to do with Punjab then... or even now… culturally? How else could he gather the numbers together on one platform to fight one battle, unless he appealed to some collective sensibility?

Ahimsa appealed to our cross-cultural (now Indian) sensibilities of self-pity and self-sacrifice. If you think that I am going too far about our sensibilities, go back to our Hindi film music. We have very popular songs such as “Gunghoroo ki tarah bajta hi chala hun main” OR “Sheesha ho ya dil ho... thooth jaata hai.” Read the Ramayan or the Mahabharata and you will find stories about rishis and saints fasting for years and giving up worldly pleasures to achieve enlightenment or seek an audience with God.

In addition, ahimsa ensured that a people, weakened by years of oppression and therefore obsessed primarily with self-preservation agreed to conflict because the perceived collateral damage and loss of life was relatively minimal.

Whenever, there were mass deaths, such as the Jalianwala Baug incident, it appealed to our “Gunghoroo” mindset… it made us pity ourselves and yet make us angrier and more resolved to beat down the demon that attacked the unarmed.

Ahimsa was a very practical solution, by a brilliant strategist, to a problem of the time.

Yet, Gandhi supported the British in Boer war and helped recruit Indians for World War 1. He also offered “moral and non-violent support” to the World War 2 effort, but this time in return for freedom.

This is not a criticism of Gandhi. I have immense respect for the man, his methods, his passion, and his organisation skills. It is to his credit that he very effectively used the only weapons at his disposal to achieve a very difficult end objective.

Gandhi, by the way, did write to Hitler to try to get the only man who could prevent the war to do so. And in the end the Congress did not end up supporting the British WW2 effort after negotiations failed. The result was the quit India movement.

Some would call this blackmail. Some called Gandhi a wily baniya.

In my opinion, I think he used his weapons effectively. Ahimsa, his first weapon, was only a means to the end – freedom. His other weapon was negotiation. He used that very effectively too. He did as was required, in the circumstances that prevailed.

Would Gandhi use different weapons in different times? I am convinced he would.

Nevertheless, is Ahimsa applicable at all today? I think it is. But to understand Ahimsa, it is equally important to understand the use of violence.

Man has always used violence for defence, for retribution or to exploit an economic / moral opportunity.

My personal interpretation of Ahimsa does not allow me to use violence for either retribution or for exploitation. I would however; use violence for defence if there is no other alternative.

I would therefore never recommend finding the chap who hit the Indian student and bludgeoning him to death OR killing Kasab now. Both are acts of vengeance. Eye for an eye makes the world blind. I buy that.

Neither would I recommend getting children to elbow each other to get into a bus first. This qualifies as using violence to exploiting an economic / moral opportunity. So does going to war with a country to exploit its natural reserves.

However, I would recommend violence if a nation started bombing any country and all peace processes failed.

That in a BIG nutshell, is my take on ahimsa.

Ahimsa… is there still such a thing… The answer my friend… is blowing in the wind… in the winds of change… and the winds blow differently… in different directions… with different answers... to different questions...

Brown but not Out...

Chain reaction. Two angry young ladies. Kadambari wrote something followed by Agent Green Glass. I started to comment on AGG’s blog and realised that I had ended up writing a full-fledged post…

AGG and Kadambari are very angry. And rightly so. Angry with the recent attacks on Indians. And they have a very interesting solution. They recommend that we retain our posture of peace and ahimsa and attack these nations with our largest weapon - Our population.

Procreate and conquer.

Interesting concept and communities and religions have tried this before but with very limited success. This is also one of the reasons why societies, historically, were partial to that the male population. And men could marry multiple times. But I digress.

In my opinion, however, procreate and conquer is unlikely to bear dividends.

When populations migrate, they eventually take on the identity and adapt to the culture, habits and customs of their new adopted land. Over time and generations, the original identity is lost. Third generation brown skinned people living in the UK, for example, ARE as British as any white skinned man is. Loss of jobs to India hurts them as much as it pains a white skinned citizen. Bottom-line – if the procreate and conquer theory succeeds then brown skin may overcome but India won’t.

And some day in the future... we may have brown skinned citizens of one country attacking brown skinned people of another country.

Furthermore, we are not equipped as a nation to procreate exponentially. We prove this to ourselves each day. Moreover, we don't want to continue to create a nation of servants.

Its probably utopia... but the solution lies instead in managing our problem of procreation while at the same time empowering our already massive population with infrastructure, skills and knowledge to take on the world.

History is witness to the fact that it isn’t always the most populous nations or communities that have succeeded in creating new markets. Look at what the English, historically, and the Japanese, more recently, have achieved.

The solution lies in flooding the world with the power and output of our most potent weapons. Our mind and our creativity in “Jugaad”.

Most importantly, it is critical to achieve this from “our shores”. Work harder… in our country… to create our land of dreams… for us tomorrow… for our children…

While this is easier said and done, we have, over the last twenty years or so demonstrated considerable initiative to make this possible. Furthermore, the good news is that even if we achieve success with a fraction of our population, our strength in numbers ensures that returns are massive. It also helps that while the developed world is getting older... we are relatively young.

At the same time, we have to stop lending ourselves to the situation we often find ourselves in...

We have to stop being colour discriminatory ourselves. Oh yes! Indians ARE colour discriminatory. Our markets are flooded with products like ‘fair and lovely’ and our classifieds carry matrimonial ads for “young, fair complexioned men and women”. Bottom-line – A large part of our population still believes that the white skinned man IS superior. This shows in our behaviour and our attitude. Unfortunately, the way the world works… if you give an inch…

We have to treat ourselves, our infrastructure, and our nation with more respect. You will never find an Indian throwing litter on the streets of a developed nation. But bring him back to his country of birth… and he starts flinging garbage missiles out of his car and out of his window. Then we go and blame Slumdog Millionaire of bias. And we think nothing of badmouthing our roads, our infrastructure, our people, our habits, our democracy, our politicians and our everything to all and sundry. As a result, the picture that the world has of our streets and our people reflects on us. A people that thrives in filth… A people that come from the back of beyond.

Change is critical. Change is constant. Unfortunately, we hate change. We are Indians. So remain our habits. Even in Rome, we do as the Indians do. We lend ourselves to caricature.

We compete on cost. We fear competing on quality. We forget our ability to do "Jugaad"... our ability to conjure up solutions. We underestimate our creativity... And we are looked upon as cheap.

Ahimsa is history. Ahimsa was a very practical solution to a problem of the time. Ahimsa was not an excuse for cowardice. Ahimsa should not be used as an excuse for cowardice. Two men beat up one. Three friends of the man being beaten up stood by and watched. They came from the land of Ahimsa. They offered the other cheek… not theirs… but that of their friend. They were non-violent… not by choice… but by compulsion… They were cowards. Cowards attract bullies. Remember school. I don't recommend violence. But if you are dragged into it. React.


If we smell the salts... wake up... change... be practical... not just radical... think... create... improve... little by little... each one... everyone... the possibilities are endless... and brown will be the colour of choice... of success... of opportunity...

Finally... a day where we all go colour blind... Ah... Utopia... maybe... but feels good...

Making a Case for Singledom

I am now pushing the outer limits of what our society defines as being of a “marriageable age”. My friends who have grown up with me appear to be falling like nine pins all around me. As they fall, I see a number of these strong fellow dissenters turning conformists. At every given opportunity, on every given occasion, over every single drink, after every few sentences, these new born believers make all possible efforts to draw me into their ranks.

In no time have they moved from drawing up lists of potential downsides to sermonizing on the many apparent virtues. Non-acceptance and strong arguments against these sermons are now looked down upon as “poor” excuses of an unreasonably adamant mind.

And add to that mix a very strong portion of "concerned" relatives. If you dont get the picture yet... your possibly married...

But I refuse to be cowed down. I stand tall as a dissenter. And my rationale… Tim Harford has been able to articulate my thought process best in his book “The Logic of Life”, he writes:

“Imagine a young man who is thinking of trying a new drug. He knows that everybody who tries it loves it, at least at first. Then some users find their lives degenerate into an increasingly desperate and futile attempt to recapture the initial buzz, leading to the pain of cold turkey or the anguish of eternal, unfulfilling addiction. Others seem to enjoy the highs and remain quite content for the rest of their lives. He has no way of knowing into which category he will fall. Is it rational for him to ingest the drug?

Now, replace ‘drugs’ with ‘marriage’ and ‘quitting’ with ‘divorce’ in the above paragraph.

I am yet to know, with any degree of certainty, on the category that I belong to. And I am happy to wait patiently for enlightenment.

And while I wait, I am busy enjoying every minute of ignorance. I am free. Free to come and go as I please without having to answer to anyone. Meet, interact and love as many wonderful women as I can. Indulge in as many vices as my conscience allows.

Free from guilt and free from the sort of personal responsibility and accountability that, to me at least, appears to add little value. Free to put the most productive phase of my life to optimum use.

For those who make a case for the need for companionship in the long run - In the long run we are all dead. Why bother.

I am happy. I love my life mate… And I don’t do drugs :-)

My Blog Rules...

I have no idea on what I will write here... I don not know why I blog... I don't even know if I can write... write well that is. What I do know is that I need a release.

And that is probably all I will do. Vent.

It is possible that over a period of time, the content on the blog will automatically fall into some sort of pattern. But I will make no attempts to achieve that deliberately.

I also promise to refrain from making deliberate and concious efforts to think of topics to write on.

I don't know who will read this. It does not matter if no one does.

I don't know if I can write and contribute to the blog religiously. I don't think that I have the discipline to write regularly and I will make no efforts to make a disciplined effort to do so now. I will write only when I want to and when I feel like . And if I ever write again, I don’t claim that I may have something specific to write about.

This blog is likely to be a narcissistic effort at self indulgence.

I promise myself never to make a conscious effort to read, re-read and edit once I finish writing.

I will refrain from making any efforts to be politically correct.

I will express myself even if I am likely to hurt sentiments - even my own.

I will be spontaneous (if I ever write again).

I will not refrain from naming names

I will forever be incognito. Yes. I am a coward.

I will not claim that the rambling on this blog are opinions or statements that I have absolute and complete belief in. My opinions will change as the information that I have changes.

I will contradict myself. Across different blog entries and even within each blog entry

I do not claim that I will never plagarise.

I will, in all probability, never stick to the edicts that I have stated above.