Self Interest vs Awareness

Adam Smith, one of the most relevant philosophers of all time explained to us how the world works. He wrote a book that spanned 5 volumes called the Wealth of Nations and he based his understanding of human behavior on the idea pfself interest postulate. The basic idea that the course of mans actions are dictated by the decision that appeals most to his self interest. A beautifully simple yet elegant idea.

I'm a firm believer in the idea of self interest. I believe that we should act in the way that best serves our interests. Yet if this is true then how is greatness born? Is greatness to be confused with selflessness? Can there truly be an act of selflessness? No says rationale, says logic.
Yet history has proven me wrong. I live in a world wherein I am being proved wrong every second of my life. As I write this, there is some act of greatness being committed in some part of the world that I'm unaware of.

Are these selfless acts borne of a sense of responsibility? An awareness of an abstract responsibility that we have towards the society we are part off. Does this awareness stem out of some perception of obligation? An obligation to your family perhaps? An obligation to your country perhaps? What is the source of this obligation? After all what have you consumed off this society that you have to be obligated for. Isn't obligation always a two way street? If I haven't taken anything then how is it that I am obliged to this faceless entity? I guess it is because at some level I understand that I am a product of my society as much as a product of my decisions. This society begins with my family but extends to the humanity of which I'm part off. The cognitive powers that become me is a gift of this society. And thus stems my obligation and thus my responsibility to this world.

So I guess in a way awareness became indeed the source of my responsibility. Self interest has been replaced by awareness as the driver of man's actions.

What if my responsibility to one entity can be at loggerheads to my responsibility to another? If my responsibility to my family dictates a course of action that is not the course of action that the responsibility to my country will dictate, which is the course of action that I should follow?

I guess the moral dilemma will be solved by choosing the course of action that is dictated by the responsibility that I am most aware off. Since in most situations we are most aware of the responsibility to self we choose the course of action that is in our interest. A mother more aware of her child's needs than probably her own, chooses a course of action that is dictated by her responsibility to the child. A leader more aware of the needs of those who follow him than his own might choose that course of action that might be selfless.

I suppose the capacity for self less action does exist. It only depends on us to become aware of the underlying conditions that precipitates it. Although I might never be able to understand what constitutes greatness , it may have somewhere in it a selfless act. An act born of the awareness of a responsibility to an entity greater than self.

Tell me your secrets

I have a secret.
I have them , dime a dozen
rattling inside a hollow scabbard.
whispering in my head

let me out,you will feel better, he says
little does he know that matters such as this has a life of its own
has he not learned yet?


Will i might to let them out
they still will remain hidden
deep inside the labyrinth of my heart and soul
till they mould and lose their shape

How they were born i know not any more
They just throb every once in a while reminding me some time past
The secrets themselves remnants of a stranger that tickles my memory
telling me his pains, his desires, his hopes, his pain.

On lonely nights , dark days
my company i seek in these hidden companions
who might know more about me than me
these crumbs i have left strewn along the path in the forest i call life.

Aint that just a bitch

Faith is a strange thing.
We start from either of two extremes.
We either go in for a blind acceptance of a belief, an idea.
or we opt for complete denial of it.
As life goes on and as we grow we find our way to the middle of the road.
Somewhere in that middle path of space and time in our mind we find the place where the two reactions meet to form an understanding that we are comfortable with.
Once we reach that understanding we learn to believe it, to trust it.
Give it all that we didn’t or couldn’t in the beginning.
Our trust in that idea becomes complete.. non questioning,
beyond reproach, beyond doubts ,beyond questions

We do this because all of us need faith.. Not in the sense that we need faith in something.
I mean that all of us naturally want to believe in everything.
I want to believe that beggar on the street who says that he needs the money that he asks of me to buy medicines for his sister, I want to believe my parents when they say that they have my best interests in mind, I want to believe my government when they say that they are doing the best they can, I want to believe in god...

But I cant .. not always ... not everything..
I cant because I’ve seen too much , I’ve heard too much, I’ve read too much, I know too much..
I’ve lost my innocence. I’ve lost my faith..


A part of me mourns the death of yet another idea.. the cynical post mortem of yet another institution.. he disdains the contemptuous, cynical nihilist that he fears that he may become... he feels like he is being compelled to grow up too soon.

But the other part rejoices at having grown up.. he gets that feeling which we get after an intense work out.. he feels tired as hell but at the same time he gets that inner glow ..that smug feeling of knowing that you have just become stronger.. of knowing that he is a little more ready for the big fight.. he feels like atlas who has just shrugged.


This is not my story..
This is everybody's story.. From the day we were born we have tried to "grow".. but the more we grow the more we realize that we were better off without it . Yet we already put in motion a series of events over which we do not have control any more. We would do anything to reclaim our innocence.. To be the meek who shall inherit the earth..
but we are meek no more and aint that just a bitch..

The Windows Of Reality

I am a movie buff..I love everything about it..The unrealsitic fantasies, the beautiful people,the dreams ,everything..
Any time that I can spare , this is what I invest it in.
Why?

Hell, some times I come out of watching some stuff that makes me wonder what on earth made me lose 2 hours of my life? In fact that happens more times than I care to recount.

Anyways I guess the reason why I have spent so much of my life invested in an apparent futile pursuit is because sometimes , oh so rarely, you come across a movie that rocks your world.
It ceases to be a mere movie then. It morphes into smething much higher.A celebration of being alive.

In this life that we live, days become months and months become years. Life goes by without we not really noticing it. One day is the much the same as the other. Like a soap opera, if you miss one day , chances are you havent missed much. This monotony grates at us , taking something from us everyday. Our resources of hope and enthusiasm decreases slowly day by day. Making us cynical about everything around us. We lose faith in the goodness , in the greatness of being human, of being alive.
Yet this is not what we want.

All of us have an innate urge to grow..To feel, to see , to know..To experience.

This life is far too short for us to be all that we want to be and experience all that we want to. We can not live every life in our own.

Yet sometimes I get to open a window.A window that opens into another world where eveythings different. For those 2 hours I can be whoever I want to be , to do what i couldnt do , to feel what i wouldnt have felt otherwise.
A geeky scrawny chap can see the world through the eyes of a Rambo. A desperate man sees hope as Rocky. A shy tongue tied adoloscent becomes a James Bond.
we do not just see the world through another pair of eyes,we become another person, we live a life very different from our seemingy dreary existence. We feel love, lust, jealousy, happiness, desperation.....hope. All that god has meant us to feel.

When the 2 hours of alternate reality ends we all come back to life and go through the motions again. But that 2 hours were enough. Like camels we take our fill when we can cause we dont know when the next oasis will come along. We fill up our reserves ready to take on life once more.

An Image On Water

We are all rational beings. I truly believe that.
I believe that common sense , at least in some degree , is very common. Yet, without fail, life seems to be hell bent on proving me wrong.

Obsession would probably be defined as the domination of one's thoughts or feelings by a persistent idea, image, desire, etc. or perhaps an irrational motive for performing trivial or repetitive actions against your will.

Now, if we are all rational beings then shouldnt we able to see for ourselves that obsessions are irrational and capable of great harm? Well we should. Yet history is abound with tragedies caused by a man's obsession. Be it Paris's desperate desire of Helen or Narcissus's obsession with himself.

I find it hard to believe that a man would go so far down the road of desire that he would waste away by the side of an image that he himself had created and then fallen in love with.

However at some level I guess I can appreciate that human compulsion .

For an obsession always comes in the guise of a thought . A thought that comes in and then grows until your every waking moment is filled with it . It grows until the point of madness . A Zahir.

I suppose it seems we all have a little bit of Karna in us .

Karna was generous to a fault , righteous beyond comprehension , brave and basically the embodiment of all that is good in humankind . Yet he was of low birth and therefore rise in society was limited. In his pursuit of higher learning he posed as a man of warrior caste.His lie was found out and in his teacher's indignant fury was cursed to lose all that he had when he wanted it most. Basically, to cut a long story short Karna died on the battlefield because at that point in time when he was in dire need of all the knowledge that he had acquired , it didnt come to him.
Its the same thing with us. At that point in time when we require our sense of rationale most ,it deserts us to fend for ourselves.

Even though we know that a certain course of action might be unwise we are powerless to change course. We have no will to do so.

Narcissus knew that what he saw was merely an image in the water. He knew the result of his course. He just didnt have the will to go back.Paris probably knew that his country would have to go to war , his countrymen would die. He didnt want any of that. Yet that is what he chose.

Kind of makes you wonder if there is any free will at all. As one guy once said "Free will does exist, but it's a perception, not a power or a driving force. The more you scrutinise it, the more you realise you don't have it."

I dont know and I dont want to get into the philsophical marshlands of whether every action of our life is already pre-ordained or whether we are the masters of our own destinies.
What I do know is that when we want something bad . When we want something so bad that the need is the only thing that fills your mind ,then we act in a manner that we wouldnt have otherwise. Our actions are no longer determined by logic as conventionally defined, but by something much more basic. I call this the obsessive logic.
Its the logic that made Narcissus think that lying down by the side of the river until the end of time seem like a perfectly obvious thing to do. Besides, who are we to judge? After all, Narcissus acheived immortality with his actions.

Will we?

In Search Of The Promised Land

I open the papers to yet another report that sings praises to juggernaut of the indian industry. Some new exploit that tickles my patriotism(doesnt make sense though, some dude making a lot of moolah doesnt exactly make a difference to me , indian or otherwise).
Everywhere I look I hear how much life has changed since the " old days". How much "globalisation" has made boundaries seem faded. How the world seems to be pouring in and we seem to be going out.
Its true. I still remember the god awful doordarshan that was my only option. The only shoes were bata.. True, life has changed and probably for the better.
But its not just the industry or the market that has changed in its colours and contours. Its not just the things that I wear that has changed. The way we think , The way we act , everything has changed.
Its not just the economy that is getting liberated. The walls are coming down everywhere. In our living rooms , in our minds , everywhere. We are being taken from our safe cocoons and flung into a whirlpool apparently called life where what is right and what is wrong is not very clearly defined. Cross roads where the wisdom of yesterday says right and the voices of today says left.

Sometimes what would have seemed like the right thing to do might not be the right decision. To be quite honest I have no way of knowing . At the end of the day I just hope that the ends justify the means . Would it? Again I rather find out in retrospect rather than make decisions based on speculations that run against the preferred end.
My parents and their parents before them all lived through a gradual or tempered change in their lives.The value system that was bequeathed generation to generation all bore with them this element that grew in that same gradual way.The element that grew or matured according to their collective experiences of their times . A set of tested functions that are known to produce prefferrable outputs. A culmination of the knowledge acquired through decisions made in lifetimes.
This is the same value system that I have been handed down.
This is supposed to be my frame of reference of what is right and what is wrong.Instead I find it to be a set of hopelessly inadequate commandments.

The result is a quandry that we all face at sometime or the other. The shape and content of which might differ but indecision and doubt runs rampant thorugh them.

We have strayed onto uncertain roads in search of the promised land. Places where our fathers havent gone before us. Situations that they never dealt with and decisions they didnt have to make.
What we do in this new land will determine the tomorrow . For us and for those who come after us.

A Boy of Twelve

Down this road I trudge with not a care I can call mine.
with pennies in my pocket and friends by my side.
just like yesterday and as I will tomorrow
Same road, same people
same shit , a diferent day.

I see him some distance away.
with his tattered shirts and soiled face.
A young back of 12 already bent by life.
hands astretch and askance in tow.

Vctim number one waves him away
"Go away and leave me in peace.
This world is mean to me and I have worries I call mine.
Bother me not beggar. life's a bitch . Deal with it"

Vctim number two throws up his gold laden hands
"Ahh brother , if only I had money .
I would be king and you my vassal
Alas, penury is my unwelcome guest,
he comes and he never leaves. such is life."

Victim number three stops by in his wagon and waves a finger in his face
"A lazy bum , you are.
Work you will not and sweat u abhor
This penny you ask for i can not give
For this i have earned by being my father's son."

Victim number four saunters by, comforted in his complete knowledge of this world and all of life
" Tell me the truth boy , for I already know
you do not need this penny you ask for.
The sun burns above but perhaps you do not feel the heat.
I hear your stomach rumbling but I know that you do not feel hunger
I see you wear rags which are in tatters but I see the robes that hang in your home.
I think you try to cheat me as you do all others.
but I know all so I wont be cheated.
Go away boy, try your luck elsewhere."

Victim number five stops with his coterie a few feet away.
Disgust written large on his face and repugnance written in his soul.
He opens his purse strings brings out a coin.
He waves it in the sky , canting to god.
"This coin I give towards the cause of the gates.
Add this to my account and tell St.Peter to keep them open when I come."
He throws it on the road and walks away with his sight firmly set on the road ahead.

I see that young boy some distnace away
with a question in his eyes and bowl for his hand
and I wonder.
I wonder , who shall I be today?

Lockdown - Lights Off

There was once a dude who very wisely said "Man is born free but everywhere he is in shackles". He wasnt very far off when he said that.

At a very young age me n my God had a parting of ways. As a kid I looked around and all I could see was people pointing fingers at people because of God. People killing seemingly because of God. All in the name of God? Religious discourse happened at my junior sports meet when classmates formed groups and started pointing out why the other group wouldnt go to heaven. These were 11 year old kids we are talking about here.

I cant help but cynically smirk when I hear people talking about a secular utopia where all people come together and live happily ever after. Why?
Because from the time we are born we have been conditioned towards a 'Us' and therefore contrasted against a 'Them' . When the end of a penis is cut I am inititated into a clan. My primary identity. When I choose to abstain from a certain type of food my identity is being solidified. How can you then ask me to ignore this identity of mine and adopt some higher obscure identity that is supposed to exist but nobody seems to belong to.

I never liked religion much. All it told me was what all that I could not do. I couldnt eat this , I couldnt go there , I couldnt do that. So many rules . All for what? What did it give me in exchange? Hell, whats in it for me? But still people all around me seemed to smitten by it. My family so obviously was far down that track. I was even more confounded when my friends also started goin down that track. Guys who until recently had stood with me asking if there was actually a God suddenly goes Halleluijah on me. I still havent understood why?

Sometimes its guys who are branded the social 'unimportants' who join that camp and suddenly they have an importance. They are part of some group socially . They have friends , they have a life. Apparently God has made it all happen.
On the other hand sometimes its the popular guy who makes the choice.Nyways sometimes its guys who already have a life who choose to join the 'halo'.
Sometimes its just people who have gone through so much shit in one life that they just need something to believe . Something that makes them believe that their's is not enitrely a worthless existence. That they are part of a bigger picture.
Sometimes like my gujju friend told me once , everything that can be done is done and we can do no more ,we need insurance. We need to believe that the Big Daddy up there is gonna make things go our way and if they dont then its not our fault cause this was simply not meant to be. .

These were the percipible reasons that I found for people to act in an apparent illogical behaviour. Whatever the reasons and whichever camp they joined , one thing common between all of them was the absence of any freedom after they did. They chose their identities and never questioned anything about it. Not a story not a rule.

People say that religion is nothing but a set of values. A set of values that one chooses to live by. Although all the basic tenets are supposedly the same I find that the values are different. Since they live by different values its no rocket science to understand that at some points these values may bring them on opposite sides of a river.

I imagine a world without any religion to make sure that this situation never comes about. All I got was that if not religion then something else . Nationality perhaps? What I got was that we made religion. If not this we will make something else. We are all born free .Independent minds , free thoughts. However we choose to chain ouselves . To have our decisions made for us. That way if something goes wrong we have somebody else to blame. Responsiblity is more than a word , its a curse.

Phoenix -(Edited)

From the blood that flowed rose the son.
He who was better than the last.

You , who came from within me
fight for me and conquer my fears
fight the world and fight well
Raise me to the heights i dream
Let me feel the flowers that the gods throw down on me
Ahh! I smell a smell so sweet , the smell of success

Never be the man that I was
I was a mere human , weak and soft
You are the one , the god
My hope and the best I have to offer

I bequeath you my mistakes, my legacy
Slump not your shoulders , O Atlas of mine
You are not my past but my future
And for the morrow the world wont be enough

and when tommorrow comes
if ever you decide to come to my grave
spit on my head stone and walk away
but let it be with the world at your feet..

Ode to a Love

I cant quite say that it was love at first sight. You were sleek and a classy shade of silver-gray.
But then you werent mine then and I was forbidden to go anywhere near you atleast not if I valued my highly scarce pocket money. But then thank god that rules were never held very sacroscant.

Our affair started when my parents werent at home. We touched and groped not knowing quite sure what to do next. But I suppose when things are meant to be you dont need an instruction manual. All that changed the moment I was in you, I knew then that things would never be the same again.

Time went by. School , then college and just like that one day you were mine. I ve never looked back since then.
There are but a few times in life that one truly feels alive . Moments that are as rare as they are precious and mine have been behind your wheel. It seems corny I know but sometimes when I am with you I swear its as if there is no world , nothing . Nothing but you and me.
Its like when Im with you Im a different man. There's nothing that holds me back. Not the fear of failure , not my past . Its as if we could do no wrong.

People tell me that I should be more careful with you.
But at that point in time when you are growling and the rush is pumping in, I can not be faulted for forgetting to take my foot of the accelerator. Stupid me, stupid , stupid.. yes yes i know..speed thrills but kills.
But i wonder , did that guy who came up with that pearl of wisdom ever know one so fine as you?

There have been times when I couldnt stop shivering after a close save but still the next time the things has been the same..one thing leads to another and a series of events are put into motion over which i have ablsolutely no control. I lean back into the seat with my plams sweaty and my heart pounding and I cant help but wonder who drives whom?
You , who looks so innocent in that metal veneer of yours or me , who postures big but in reality is a puny little puppet in your hands.

I guess in time like everything around us we too mellowed in time. We stopped pushing the limits to see who would blink first, we were beyond it. I knew your every sound and every curve on your body and you always got my mood just right.

Whenever life seemed like a proof for Murphy's law , whenever it seems like the gods have flushed their toilets , all it took was a ride with you. Everything seemed all right again. Things just fell into perspective.

For all that and much more I love you. And I had no idea how much until i actually had to live without you . Now im coming home , Im coming home to you.

Screw It

The world loves screw-ups. Mostly cause they provide a certain vital function . They provide a smug satisfaction to the rest of humanity. Even Gandhi knew the value of a screw up. When u feel that u have reached your lowest low and think that the world couldnt possibly get anyworse just take a look at the poorest man u can find. One who doesnt have a roof over his head or food in his stomach. Well these werent the exact words but for now it'll suffice. They are the refernce point to justify the worth of our own existence.

Mothers use screw ups as the figurative equivalent of a whip. Son , study well and do well in your exams otherwise u will end up like Uncle Bob. Poor Uncle Bob, Bobbie boy here just became the kids boogey man. Nyways the point being that screw up's define what all of us fear : Failure.
They are the ones who have failed so many times that they sort of became synonymous with the result of their choices.
Through most of my life i have been the "good son" or the "good student" or the "good citizen" or whatever title that my conformist behavior could possibly bestow on me . And probably thats y that as far i can remember i have been drawn towards the "screw up". Their faces and names might change but what they stood for never did.
They were the ones who did what i couldnt. Question the basis and veracity of the rules that bound our lives. All of us know that we have to drive on the left but they asked y not the right.
And that pretty much sums up the whole thing. It is dangerous to drive on the right , thats y.
Most of the times their ways of questioning might border on utter stupidity but nevertheless if they don't do it nobody else will. And rules are always made by somebody for everybody else.
If one thinks that all rules are fair id say that would be very naive. With their prodding of the lines that limit our existence they do us a favor by making us realise how far we can go.

My definition of a screw up might seem very similar to rebel . Well most times a screw up is rebel who just fell flat on his face.

The North Star

Choices !!! Damn these exasperating endless sea of choices!
We go through them day in and day out. Its a choice to wake up . Its a choice to live.
Every moment of our ambiguous existence throws a handful of choices and becuase of this we live in perpetual doubt. The agony that flourishes under the shade of the multitude of decisions that we make.

Its always boils down to the cause and effect .. the inifnite possiblities and the incomprehensible consequences. As Hamlet quite eloquently put it " To be or not to be , that is the question"
The apparent freedom that our choices give us is bound by the consequence of our actions.
And thus from that arises poor Hamlet's quandry.

The eternal war in our heads.
"In the right corner in his flaming red shorts we have the challenger from the infernos of hell weinghing 85 kgs and a trident of worst case scenarios in hand . The DeeeeVIL."
"And in the left corner we have the reigning champ from the boulevards of paradise. The ANGEL with his halo of immense possiblities."

hmm...at least its something like that..

It really amazes me that under such a chaotic setting we manage to lead lives of relative sanity.
I think we manage it because at a subconscious level we all run on faith.We know that no matter how much ever we think we can not predict the outcomes of anything possibly worth predicting .After all the ritualistic dilly dallying is done we throw our doubts to the winds and make the jump hoping that theres somebody to catch us.Much like how a panic stricken person jumps out of a burning building in the hope that theres a net below.And it is precisely this what i think makes us most worthy of being called humans.

Some put their faith in Gods . Some others in a fellow human being. Some in ideas and other some in themselves. It doesnt matter what the object of that faith is. What matters is that theres something we can hold on to when the shit hits the fan.

There was this athiest I knew who once made a very interesting analogy between a religious man and a drowning man clutching at straws. I see know that he was probably both right and wrong at the same time.

Right because , yes , any man with faith in his heart is basically a man who is holding onto something in the hope of that thing saving him from the waters above his head.
Wrong , because , he isnt just clawing at air . That thing he might be clutching is not just straws. It could be anything and more often than not its the rope that leads him to the shore.

Am I Free?

FREEDOM!
Something for which people gave up their lives for.
Something about which people never question .

The religion of the 21st century.

Spirituality was the focal point of the intellectual evolution that humanity went throught..right from the dark ages to renaissance and beyond..twisting, turning and metamorphing into what it is today.
Individuality is the new point now. Freedom , Space , Rights .
Do we really have any idea about what these are?
The baby wants freedom from the womb , the child wants feedom from its parents , the parent wants freedom from his job , the employer wants freedom from regulations ,the government wants freedom from opinions.
We all want it but we never seem to have enough of it.
We want choice but when faced with it we are unsteady under the burden of choices .
We want freedom to act but are unsure of where to go once the map is taken from our hands.

I dont know....
I look around , I look at me and I cant help get this cynical idea.. are we really free?
Is there really something called freedom or is it only an idea?
Can I really be free when everything I think and all my ideas have been shaped by the circumstances , people and media around me.
Is it possible for me to have a truly original idea when everything I say and everyting I do can only be a variation of what somebody else has once said or done.
do I sound negative?
I do not mean to be. cause I see nothing bad in that .
but what troubles me is that if thats true then whats freedom? my mind has already been chained . right from the time i was born.
By the stereotypes in my head , by the ideas of a percieved right or wrong planted by a socially right society.
By being a rebel am I going to be free?
But a rebel is only one of the other stereotypes . The one which resloves to act against the society or any socially accpeted rule. But sadly he too is chained , he has unknowingly stated that he recognises the society and that rule as an entity which is why he has to go against it.
He is more in chains than others cause he has lost all freedom. he has to act against every rule .everything . without the freedom to think why and what for?

Or is it that I am indeed free but I only lack the courage to face my freedom in the eye and tame it, much like how a trainer tames a wild beast. I dont know?
There are so many things that i dont know.
and my mind compulsively thinks about it. will my mind ever have the freedom to let go?

am i free?

Stereotypes (preview to next blog)

do we believe in stereotypes?
i dont know..do i?..hmmm i think yes..
all my life i was taught that we shouldnt judge a book by its cover.
but i do..thats what we all do..i take a look at a person and then try to fit him into some stereotype that i already carry around in my head...y do i do this?
well i think its because i want to make sense of this person in front of me.
i use all my experiences from my infinite wisdom and people i've met in my infinite past to come up with a shape that i think will fit him.
i c the present and i have this innate urge to know how it all went in the future...and thats where this stereotyping comes in handy. i know what happened to that other dude so hey this is pretty much the same deal , give or take a little bit of deviation..

the funny part is that more times than not ill b right..cause in all probability im not the first person whose done this to him, this changing of the imcomprehensible real to the bordering-on-fiction image. every person who he has ever met has done this, starting from when he was born , im guessin startin with his parents.
so anyways somewhere down the line there is a point where all these works of fictions meet. at that point does he become the fiction and the story becomes real..

so am i wrong in stereotyping?
maybe because i just made him conform to my work of fiction. i just took away ,maybe, his last shot at individuality. and now probably he'll never know who he really could have been.

but am i really wrong in stereotyping?
i just made sense of a fellow human being..that could be my way of figuring out a way of how to deal with him best. after all u dont go around saying "wassp ma brother" to some 40 year old primp proper dude standin on the street....hell it could even be my defense mechanism..
it could be n number of things..

since everybody does it and it seems to work fine i say screw it , lets do it...

somethings are not meant to be questioned cause the answers might not be quite as expected.

The Beast

i walk through my forest with a prayer in my heart
blissful paradise born of the truly ignorant

my heart skips a beat , stops , goes crazy
does my eyes lie?
is that a beast ahead?
dangerous and fearful , uncertainity
its a race in insanity - heart or mind
fight , run , act dead , oh god such indecision.

to fight means blood , his , mine , both

foolish heart - what does he know?
what chance have i against this mighty beast ?
i will be crushed , torn and thrown to the winds.
i am too young to die..what do i know of life yet?
go back..return..come back to fight another day.
not today , not now.

foolish mind - what does he know?
where is the honour? where is the love?
i will battle this storm and emerge as my hero
i walk away today and i will never know whose blood
i will live cause indeed life goes on
but i will never know what could have been.
i will use all i have and fight a fight that has never been fought before.
i will fight only to win. to win what is mine.

foolish heart, foolish mind - what do they know?
stand , lay still , do not move.
do not breathe , not a single breath
the beast will move on.
taking with it the ignominy of defeat
i am a wise man of this world
heed my advice for i speak this world's language.

lo behold wise he is indeed
for there goes the beast
with him goes my nightmare
with him goes my dream

my dream , my dream
somebody stop that beast
i want my dream
nay , i need my dream

the beast walks on
unheeding my calls , my pleas
and i walk on through my forest
with a prayer in my heart and hope in my soul

My Zahir

Its another day in another world
a new place with a new face

So many have come and so many have gone.
how many more ? How many more
will i c , will i love , will i part.
How many more will walk with me
walk beside me in the sands of time
as brothers , sisters , lovers
All to fade away into my yesterday

Like a mirage the memory shimmers
in the distant corners of my mind it beckons
so alluring so seductive , it lingers
filling my soul, my whole.

I close my eyes and am taken to it.
living once more in a yesterday of my choice.
colors all bright and the lights all lit
this is life , this is eternity , says the voice.

But then i open my eyes and i see my world
this new place and this new face
and then i know that tomorrow
you will be my yesterday , my zahir.

The Curse of the Indian Male

I was just chattin with this friend of mine who lives in scotland and she was feedin me this theory about why all Indian men in UK are desperate.
That kind of got me thinking...is it just indian guys in uk?
Well the answer was pretty easy. Nah of course not, all of us are desperate at some level.
Just get into any chat room or look into the scrap book (orkut) of any good looking chick and you know what I am talking about.
This takes a lot out of me to admit this but yes I too am desperate at that "some" level that I was talking about...........Some???? Nah on every concievable level is more closer to the truth.

Nyways lets move away from the inconsequential WHO and onto the infinitely more important WHY.

Why are we this desperate? Is it our fault?
The answer is NO..... think about it..
Where are all the good looking single women?? Hell i think they should be put WWF's extinct species watchlist or something. Some among us, the wiser ones , must have gone and picked them up way before...(When my mother taught me that the early bird gets the worm , I had no idea,*Sigh*) Mebbe the child marriage system wasnt such a bad thing after all..
At least that levels the playing field...Now there are some selfish bastards who have and more poor souls who dont....the distance between the have and the have-nots just keeps on widening.

And how did this situation come about?Its actually the fault of you girls. Females have this innate illogical compulsion to sign up for the marathon.....by the time we realise that the 100m sprint that we are practisin for is'nt goin to happen they've already started running and we just sit in the bleachers and cheer for the few among us who actually got to run( we dont exactly sit around to cheer , we are just waitin for them to stumble and fall. Evil , i know, but im sorry , misery just loves company).

Does this sound bleak? Yea well, tell me about it!!.
Now due to some quirk of fate if we actually come across a sexy single 20 something how do u think we would behave? It doesnt take a rocket scientist to predict what happens next.
Its every man for himself...Fight!Fight!Fight!
To the victor go the spoils..very primitive ....very effective...(there must be some reason why these traditions lived on...)
In this testosterone driven tought process of course we are goin to come across as desperate and tryin too hard ..And why wouldnt we?
We are shit out of practice...If there were more of you beautiful lil things around ,single and ready to mingle , then this day wouldnt have come.

But I'm sorry guys this is the way things work.
At 17 they are also single but they are looking for the matured version.
At 21 they are looking to get engaged and you know that you dont want that.
At 24 they are either married or are on the verge of gettin married...either way you dont figure in the scheme of things.
AT 30 ,LOL, WHAT, U STILL ALIVE? go die man, ull just grow old to be a perverted old man.

And that people is the curse of the indian male..
dont blame us for our actions.....we werent born this way....circumstances made us what we have become.

The Great Walls

what is it about these walls that surround me??
they are probably somewhere in vicinity of a meter in height but they accomplish much more than what a simple plank of plywood could possibly do..
Oh in case there is any questions on what i am talking about...Im talking about cubicles...
By definition they are defined as somewhere people can take a nap and trust me , we , IT professionals take that meaning very seriously.
But beside that very obvious effect there are many more..
For starters they may be only a meter in height but in our heads they might as well be the great wall of china.
I know this dude who has been sitting in the cubicle next to me for the past 5 months or so...and even now a "good morning" extracts something that could only be described as something between a smile and a look of utter incomprehension that screams "WHY ME!!!"

Thats not to say that the cubicle doesnt serve any purpose ..... as we all are well aware that there is nothing like a couple 'post it' notes to support an image of the hardworking young lad. Add to that a couple of proverbs scrawled on the walls like "I LOVE WIPRO" and u get a very impressed boss.

However the thing that I hate about cubicles most is the way people live in them.
Yes I mean literally live in them..they just come in and plant their asses in the cushy seats never to rise again. Well at least until the 6.00 siren. Its almost like how animals divide territory.
Once the deed is done its permanent until the end of time or the end of his time in the company which ever comes first.

The worst part is that people are not even aware of the dangerous consequences that this might have. Do u realise how tough it becomes to catch the eye of the good looking girl of the office?
Hell at any given point of time there will be a horde of guys walking around .. We end up cancelling each other's exercises of futility.

Thus leaving one lonely and frustrated as hell. Added to this will be the extra back breaking work that would have been assigned to you because of the 'hardworking' impression that you would have given your boss. That's right people , you just cant win.

I know about these walls from hell and now you do too...

The Hot Chick Effect

What is it about hot chicks that makes us guys sweat?

Well for starters we spent our whole life in the futile but pregnant with expectation wait for that super hot chick to come along and change our dreary lives for the better.
We sit around and swap stories about them with our friends and come up with our fantasies of what we would do if we just got our chance ?the one big break that we so deserve ..what makes it even worse is that when take a break from fantasy land and look around we see the girls from our dreams walking around with guys from our nightmares?the sights sometimes questioning our belief in humanity!!

Why lord do u have such a sadistic sense of humor? we wonder.

Ahh the break?that?s funny .Cause the moment we get that second look from that super-hot chick that we were talking about we have no clue what to do..
Its like getting caught with your pants down.
Well literally, think about it...
Mouth open , tongue out , heart beating hard and not a clue on what to do next.
Desperately thinking about what to say next .. think hard?come on , say something....anything. Well for Christ's sakes at least close the mouth.
The noises that come out then are reminiscent of those that we used to make as babies..
Anything from ga-ga or goo-goo ... to a slightly more mature WOW.

Then depending on the mood we go into either a delusional ego trip or spiralling whirlpool of denial.

Its like a game . Thrust - parry . Some of us play offensive and the majority of us play the wait and watch game ....
How long can I wait before that seemingly momentary lapse of good judgment on her part goes by and things return back to normal so that we can stop questioning the why's and the how's and we can go back to the more accustomed question of the 'what - if'.

That is not to say that the few unfortunate souls who play the offensive come out any better. In all probability the act of opening their mouths will put into motion the chain of actions that will lead to the untimely death of their egos. Crash n burn is a song that is very apt at this juncture.Having learnt from his ill advised adventure the poor soul with a broken dream and shattered ego comes back to his clan .

In the meantime the day dream goddess goes on in life oblivious to the trauma caused around her?and thus the cycle continues?
For ever and ever.

Dreams

what are these dreams that people seem to talking about?
i dream to be a doctor. i dream to be a model. i dream to be a CEO.
evry body seems to be having them. however nobody seems to be able to explain them to me.

are these the reason to live? do these sustain the spirit in a way nothing else can?
i dont know but i sure am curious.

with respect to dreams ive come into contact with different kinds of people.

some seem to have this "dream" but then they hardly do anything to make it a reality.
every waking moment of their life they think about this elusive spectre. this makes them miserable and leave them feeling empty and impotent.

some others have a fluid concept of "dream". it keeps changing. every other day they want something else. each time sure that this what their destiny is. its like each time the goal is setup and all u need to do is to tuck the ball in , the refree comes in and moves the goalpost.

but the people i like the best are the guys who dont seem to have any "dream".
they just go in each day as they want to be that day. dont get confused....i c people who live all the time not as who they want to be today but as who they want to be seen as tommorrow.

the way i see it this 'dream' syndrome is like the blinders that they put on horses . when horses race, the owner straps on the blinders on the face of the horse. this is so that the horse is unable to see anything else other than the race track infront of it.
when we are born , our parents have dreams for us. then we go to school where the teachers have dreams for us. then we grow up and become citizens where the government has dreams for us. all through our life the society has dreams for us. somewhere along the line we take all these dreams put it in a simmering pot(read imagination) and start stirring it. we then come up with a mix that we feel so passionate about . not knowing that the only thing original about it is the ratio in which others dreams have been mixed.

whatever it is , it is probably the most potent of all human creations. its makes people do things that they normaly wouldnt have done. rarely , oh so rarely, it takes human close to God.

NIGHTLIFE IN COCHIN

after a long wait finally got the tickets for - mangal pandey. which by the way did nothing on the boredom front. cant believe theyd sped all this money promoting a movie that could have been much better just by a little more story telling. wasnt that movies were all about. tellin a story.

nyways then we hit upon this really great idea of explorin the NIGHTLIFE OF COCHIN. (more like seeing if it existed). well the tank was full , thank god for the small favors.

we head out to catch the river front . so of we got to jetty. there are jokes about the smell of cochin but thats when i really got the joke. chased off by the smell and a police jeep to boot we settle on the steps in front of the theatre. there in the comfort of darkness we light up and contemplate the future course of action. the contemplation lasted until the beggar sleeping there started twisting and grumbling. so before the rightful owner of the footpath came to chuck us out we thought it might be prudent to get our asses out of there.

by then our stomachs had started to do the talkin for us. where is a thattukada when u need one? we search from south to vytilla and back. finally, we end up at this place that had the greatest tomato fry. well right then i suppose even rice soup would have been mouth watering.
well nyways after we were done im fairly sure they didnt have anything leftovers.

still are we done ? nooo. when it comes to food its more like with an olympic event with us.
ahoy mates coco tree ahead. those guys really have a good thing goin on there. besides the fact theyre open at 1.30 makes it all the more endearing plus theyve got the most amazing chocolate cake.

covinced that more food is probably fatal we move on. on the way back theres this bridge on the way to mattanchery . we park the car and sit on the bridge until the sun came up . and unless u have ever seen the sun come up in such a setting with water all around u have no idea what im talking about. it is amazing. well u have to be jobless enough to do it in the first place,of course it might help if u cant go home at 3 in the morning.

all in all it was a night that ill remember for a long time to come.

just plain bored 

The Man From KELTRON

Im sure most guys who blog , can identify wih me when I say that I suffer from BLOGGERS BLOCK. Well even if I have only put up like 5 posts in my entire life that should be no reason why I cant be afflicted by the dreaded disease.

So I start thinking( yes im quite capable of the process, contrary to the popular misconception.) and so I decide to write about people. People who we see around us but are different in their own individual way.

I did my project at this place called KELTRON. A typical goverment facility with the high green walls and green buidings that are covered in moss and probably havent seen a do over in the last decade or so. As I like to believe, a relic of our admiration for the socialist way of life. A place still stuck in a time warp of forgotten , better yet, nostalgic pride at being a place of importance. Time passed and inherrent flaws of logic changed the place into a dump for the complacent and the inefficient . Acres of cardinal callousness. In the midst of all this decadence I wonder at this strange , out of place man , who goes through life in search of something that i find incomprehensible. What i find strange about this man is not just his dedication and impeccable work culture but that it thrives in a place that we have heard ,stifles such curious phenomenon.

We all search for excuses. Excuses for what we could not be. excuses for what we are . The easiest of all being I am what I am because of all around me . Its tough to have principles and even tougher to live by them . With all these pressures we really dont have much choice. True freedom is in most times is but an illusion.

Yet what seemed impossible to me was being done by a man not very different from anyone one of us.
Everyday, day after day , he fights against a way of life that we have taken for granted. The amount of perseverance and discipline that it must involve I can not even fathom.

He comes in early. Earlier than anybody else in that entire complex . He is on his chair 15 minutes before the siren goes of at 8.30. From that point he is a one man army until the place closes up at 4.30. Even if there is no work tobe done he sits there till the time the bus leaves. in between there are no breaks , no chit chat, nothing.

According to my estimate in just two months he works on 400 ignorant buggers like myself .That is one hell of a span of control . At the standard rate of the per project sum that the students pay he is generating something close to 13 lakhs. one person churning that kind of money is soemthing incredible.

What he really taught me in the short period that I was there was not how to make a gps system but something that was fundamentally much simpler than that . its just that people are inherently the same but something differentiates one from another.

All men are equal , but some more equal than others.

HONEY I'M HOME

i kinda had stoped postin any blogs.
y? well cmon think about it ? anybody who posts a blog does so just so that people read it and then post their comments on it which is by the way the best part and as i understand : the objective.
well anyways i always thought there was a bit of megalomania associated with it.
besides i never had much to say that i wanted others to listen to.
other than of course the senseless ramblings that is designed to drive the sanest person to the edge of lunacy.


anywho the point is that i kinda realise my folly.
hell if good ol bill thought like me then we probably wouldnt have had romeo or macbeth.
thats is buddy watch out billy boy.
aj's on the scene .I

ok its that time again.
the time i explore my creative side and just about every other thing i can, other than do the one thing they say im supposed to.
hooray its exam time.
man i love this.
stay late into the night having heart to heart talks with buddies over such deep topics.
did i just hear somebody say guys dont have such talks? sure we do!
hey dude did u check out preeti's *** today?
or something like
hey man which do u think is a better name anne or anna?

i swear if i hear one more tragic love story im gonna puke.
everyday its "oh man she was the only one " . thats gonna closely followed by "fuck females man. who needs them?"
after all the goddamn advice ive been giving i guess i must be writing the agony aunt column for the college mag or something.

then after buddy time then its personal time. cmon ajay we've got to study boy. ok here goes .
i take the book and literally dust it. well thats just about as far as we are gonna get cause in 5 min flat im snorin away to kingdom come.

do u know theres actually a guy who came up with a theory for this: about the work filling up the time given for the work.

eaxm time is one of those times when ure always bored . u pick up all these mundane books to read . and anybody who knows me knows that when ajays got 'fountain head' in his hand hes seriously bored.

well let me put it this way . my last blog was one month back. thats when i had my internals.

NIGHTMARE ON COCHIN-24

return of the nightmare .
home alone was bliss for as long as it lasted. now my past has come to haunt me. yes my parents are back and this time around they have teamed up with the mother of all nags my geriartric champ my granma.
the going has been tough. especially when they found my prediliction towards the finer aspects of life. it didnt help that in the few months that they werent there the house had fondly come to be known as " THE BAR" , simple and quite eloquent id say.
when u have naked guys running around the house at midnight it doesnt quite help.

it was quite an experinece though. if living alone has taught me anything it is that im totally incapable of taking care of myself.
shit man u have no idea of what a disaster zone looks like unless uve seen my room. when u have ur underwear drying on ur dining table u know u have a problem. now u have factor in around 10 guys pretty much like me who live at the same place. yeah now uve got a idea
about the bigger picture.
ah and the laundry, man i really need to get married real soon.
i had no idea this stuff breeds like rats. the first week uve got only a few shorts and t shirts (bless the soul of levis')
by the time 2 months was over i had a room full of it along with stuff on the bed, the bed post, corners , chairs , tables , trust me , it was bad.
anybody who lives in cochin knows the only thing worse than having to live with the stink of sweaty tshirts it is the mosquitoes that live on them.
when i mean mosquitoes better known as 'kothu' in the local lingo i mean blood thirsty swarms of buzzing tiny vampires that will definitely push u over the edge of sanity if not kill u. if the bite doesnt kill u the sound will. zzzzzzzz in ur ears all through the night.
i wonder how come those guys at hollywood never thought of these guys . they've done bats,piranhas , hell theyve even done rats.
they really arent doing justice to the potential of these guys.

well now i dont need to worry about that i guess. now that mommy and grandmommy have come to the rescue. its ok i guess if uve got a pair of earplugs . ull kinda need it if they find out the bucket that u used to use as ash-tray. but of course i dont drink neither do i smoke its all those bad boys in my class. poor me had a tough time keeping them in line . i raved and ranted not to smoke in the house but alas all in vain.

yeah right if they believed this crap then ive got seriously low IQ genes.

so its back to the nag time . i really dont understand how females can do it . it must be one of those god given defense techniques that they come fully equipped with. i feel sorry for dad . no i take that back. im proud of my dad. with that kind of anger management hes my personal saint.
shit now what do i do . i cant decide. i definitely cant live all by myself unless of course im quarantined or something . on the flip side i definitely cant marry , the way i see it ,its way better to end up in a grave than a sanatorium.

only one more month to go.

when they say time flies fast they sure werent kidding.
4 years went down in a total haze(quite literally).
it doesnt feel all that far away , the day i stood on the top floor of the college n thought what the **** i was gonna do in this god forsaken place for 4 ****** years.
well atleast i was right in that respect i still dont know what i did here for all that time.

lets see.
1. built up a huge capacity for all kinds of psychotropic addictive things .

2. did even more of the shit mentioned earlier.

3. increased exposure - met some really weird people . most of them being my faculty.

4. built up patience - learned a thousand ways to waste time. numero uno among them being simply sittin n yapping.

5. time management - no matter how many assignments u have its one of the commandments of an engg. student to never ever touch one until 12 hours to deadline.

6. grasping power - classes come n classes go until 5 and half months are over. then we start. it would be quite a cliche to say that we dust the textbooks not to mention incorrect. cause the day or 2 before the exam we pool in the money and xerox the stuff. what normal people do in 6 months we do in one day.

then there are all these weird trips.
yesterday for example me and 8 other guys go to this dam.
to celebrate the end of our project.(as if we needed a reason).everybody gets sloshed ,all very shocking im sure,
and then one of the guys decide to find a way though the rocks to the reservoir.he goes down but then cant come up .
so in typical brilliant reasoning we all go down and sleep on the rocks. in the process i managed to be the spitoon of one of the guys . talk about being at the wrong place at the wrong time. last heard he had washed my shirt for the 4th time and the stains were extremely tenacious. wonder what the bastard had eaten for dinner.

ah yes then the fights.
man im gonna miss those. whenever there is a party of 5 boozing count on it somebodys gonna be in a very aggressive mood. put that in perspective in a group of 20 very bored , frustrated guys and u have a very volatile mixture.

the elections and cricket matches here just have to be the most action packed places ive seen.today is the beginning of te cricket tournament n i can bet me arse its gonna be one hell of a match alright. gotta go .cant be late.

A Man who dreamt but never lived

what is it about failure that we are so averse to.
poeple are mortally afraid of failure. that means me too.
but why?
i mean ive fucked up alright(so many times that ive lost count)
but other than one really depressing time i havent known failure.
now i dont mean this in the literal sense. as they say u win some u lose some.
i mean it on a deeper level. when i think about the word failure so many images spring to mind. old man dying alone uncared for on a lonely bed. middle aged man frustrated by lifes demands on him. a man laughed at by society.
a man who dreamt but never lived.
i as a person am mortally afraid of this last image.
but does this fear that controls my life have anything to do with future certainity? what i mean is that if i am conscious of this fear does it mean that somehow i might not have to face it?

the one question thats givin me a obsessive compulsive disorder.
man , i think too much!

The Beginning

ok here goes.
i heard about you from my friend here who seems to be quite smitten by you.wakin up early to wirte is definitely not my style though.

looks like weve got to work this out. heres what im goin to do:

everyday after class im goin to spend some time on this. the fringe benefits will be that i could monitor my portfolio pretty carefully too. doesnt hurt to let the greenbacks flow in does it?

nyways what do i say?

ive got this project presentation tomorrow.
i dunno shit about it though, and im supposed to open the batting
for my team with 15 minutes on the straight!
but then yackity yack was always the only thing i could half well
so lets see.