Who Am I? Am I You?

Who am I? I am you

Another of my ironical constructs that I begin with the statement “ isn’t it ironical?”

Isn’t it ironical? You wonder you know who you are and yet you never fail to surprise yourself when you dawn upon the self realization that perhaps, there is a different you, ignored, unwanted and hidden in the closet. So who is you? Is it you, the one you think you know or is it you, the one who is a stranger in the mirror. I’ve often wondered who I am and always felt I am the one I know. But then if that were the case, then I wouldn’t be writing this blog in the first place. It all began a few days back when I was on social networking forum called Orkut, in the process of creating a fake id for myself so that I could browse the profile of a person who I thought I had a massive crush on. While it started innocently, just to look into a profile, where I didn’t want my name to be associated or realized, I stumbled upon the quintessential question of who I was. That is how it all started. I’m sure most of my readers are aware of the social networking portals, yet for the benefit of doubt of those who don’t, any member signing into these sites are required to create a profile for themselves. This was where I started another tirade of useless blasphemical portrayal of my self.

As I began to describe myself out there, I realized I had the power to define myself, the way I wanted to. Ultimately and of course ironically, this is what lead me through the journey into my cave. The cave full of icicles of human aspects, which belonged to me, I treaded on towards the unknown. Onwards stepping carefully, I ventured deeper into the cave, where by walls full of icicles were nothing but projections of myself in my mind. Walking on and on, I went really deep towards the never ending end of the cave. It was cold there. Spine chilling cold, icy wall that looked more like a work of art of the human mind. With the faint light that was coming from the cracks on the ceiling, they seemed to glow like the aurora bolearis that dawned upon the skies of Greenland and the north pole.

So who am I? As I started pondering upon the whole issue, my heart started to thunder against chest, as if in a bid to tear apart and break free. Like the drum beats in the tiger hunt in the old colonial movies, where the British hunter sits on an elephant with a gun and the Indian villagers in large numbers beat the drum and the empty cans. Like an anxious yet nervous girl, going in for her first child, not sure of what the outcome may be at the end of the labor, I sat there, staring into the wall, sweating and thinking “Who am I?” I started tracing the journey of my life from as far as I could remember and walked through the garden of events that came across, from the flowers of achievement to the barren land and thorns of disappointment. I carefully looked in the garden, to try and find something common that would perhaps be the common entity that could perhaps help me define myself.

The dilemma of defining yourself, and that too again. Why? why? why is what you ask and I retort back and say why should I define myself in the first place. I don't know who I am and maybe I do and just don’t want to define myself. Perhaps I’m scared and nervous or I don’t know who I am and that’s why I can’t. I’d agree and I don’t find a reason to admit that I’m scared. I’m not scared of being scared at all. Defining yourself as an individual or a pre-specified set of virtues and vices, qualities, positives and negatives is very frustrating in itself. It’s like the preset in the car stereo. Oh! Today is preset number one and hence you accept the prophecy that came from the lord “Thou shall stay kind, compassionate, humble and down to earth” and then some thing happens and you’re not in a good mood or life takes its toll and Vola!! Press Preset number 2.which states “Thou shall avenge the world for your miseries. It a mean world, thou has to survive by killing thy brother and being street smart. Though have weapons of treachery, deception and lie. Thou are now a sworn knave of the kingdom of hell”. Fuck! It doesn’t happen that way does it. You can’t say you are one person and that is the way you’ll stay. It all changes. And before you realize, you change yourself.

It dawned upon me that perhaps that any attempt to generalize yourself is in itself very constraining and restricting from some one else that you might become eventually.

Defining your self very constraining and benchmarking yourself against the defined parameters that I'd define here now might act against me some time later. I know this sounds confusing but then think about it. Today I say I am aggressive and focused. Tomorrow I might not be the same. I remember, a few years back, I was not who I am. I was under-confident. Today I’m not. I was honest and docile, today I’m different. A few years my emotions were my weakness, today they are my strengths. Once I wanted to be cool, under severe pressure for thinking what people might perceive of me, but today I don’t give a fuck. I’m ignorant and oblivious to my surroundings. I used to hate people who criticized me, now I don’t take it because I’m not bothered. And it’s not all about changes. Yesterday, I used to be scared of admitting I’m in love with someone or that I have a crush on some one and it still is the same way today. So it’s not about just changes. But the point is yes humans react to the environment and respond accordingly. And so I do. I have changed drastically. I fool loads of people. But now I don’t find it incorrect. And why should I? May be my perspective has changed to look at things. May be I have evolved but then that doesn’t make me a different person from who I used to be. It’s the same person. One soul and one individual, but with different shades of human emotions and aspects in grey.

It makes me wonder. Am any lesser than who I used to be or am I any greater than the person whom I might become. You see it’s not a war of more or less but it’s a war within yourself to the point you can handle your perception about yourself at the end of the day. You look at a mirror and see yourself physically but if you look into the mirror of your mind and heart, you’ll see a blurred image till the time the self realizations dawns upon you that you are a versatile actor in the stage of a drama called LIFE. I know it because I play different roles. I can be who you want me to be. The you here is not you as a single person but as an environment where I exist and respond to the turbulent situations. I play different roles. To me its not right or wrong. Its about how I react to the person in front of me. Understanding him, gauging him and is expectations from you and then assimilating it to being the person you project. Now you might be saying that this not right in not projecting yourself according to others. But I’d probably retort and say hey, I accept it that this is the way I am. At times people assume things about me and I derive sadistic pleasure by playing this game. An inner satisfactions of gauging and distorting perception.

Life is too fast and just whizzes past your ears like a Ferrari and yoou just wonder what that was. Oblivious you move on and this the way I see it. Who cares and who gives a damn. Just move on in life, not thinking of what people think of you or what you think of yourself. Just be yourself and go on. Why define. In the end, it doesn’t even matter.

Irony is that life makes people change and there are different perspectives about human character that can't be summed up by defining a person as a set of ingredients to the recipe for perfection. If you do try to live by defining yourself, then you are caught on the web of going against your own benchmark that you set once upon a time. Doing so, you snatch away the ebullience and charisma of human life in totality. So then who is me? I’d probably say I’m me and I’m you. Its like a Hollywood flick. I’m different at times but that’s me. Oblivious to the world around you, you just live without the thought of being someone that you think you should be or whom you might be in the distantly near future.

The Imperfection of Perfection : Of the god who failed

Isn’t it ironical? Every article I write actually starts with this clichéd starting line. Ah! The sense of satisfaction that I derive from the act of actually deciding the fate of the entire blog. A sense of perfection driving the control. The maser of the game rolling out the dice with the enigmatic move. Perhaps, like the master of the puppets, controlling each string and each act. Perfection!

So what is perfection? The act of achieving the so called state of being perfect. But then what is being perfect in itself. Perfection is the art or a state of mind for attaining what we consider as the final destination of all human endeavors and the ability to repeat the feat again and again. The ultimate feat that the human essence and spirit actually thinks it can achieve. The exuberance of the human spirit, however, is such that it never bows down. That is probably the irony, while we think and strive for the absolute, perfection always remains relative. Perfection and being perfect are absolute but then what use is it if it stops the dynamism of life in itself with the realization of the contentment of having achieved what should be a threshold of all human endeavors. And it never really is. We try to reach the peak to gain the supremacy and yet we really don’t want the stagnation that the supremacy presents us as an aftermath. And so we run again, run like a zombie in the mindfeild of hunger for the next level. It’s more like a psychedelic void in an infinite loop, and we just run in it. So I guess then perfection is relative right?

I was triggered to write on god and perfection today as I was just driving down the NH8, in the sweltering heat of Delhi. You look at the world around you. You are always a part of it and yet, there are times when you just step aside, out of the entire paradigm and look at the labyrinth or the prism in which we exist. So complex and vast and yet so full of life. What are we and why are we? You just look at everything in a very critical view and just question everything. At times you derive pleasure by just looking at people and analyzing them and being aware of the predictability that people have in their lives. The unpredictability about the predictability of people is in itself too exotic and intoxicating to miss the speculation. Though you and me are part of the same prism as well and once we step back in to the crystal ball, we are back into the same grind and entangled with the life that we are not in a position to step out of it again and again to look at life and human nature in a holistic nature. So today being one of those rare days when I was just looking at everything being a part of the oblivion, just kept on smiling to myself as I thought about people. Think of people and you realize that your life is nothing but an aggregation of interactions with other people, the environment, and also an aggregation of human nature and emotions.

Have you ever wondered what might be the notion of perfection vis-à-vis human life. Everyone does say that perfection is relative and yet when you talk of people, you do realize that no body is actually perfect. Its just a state of consciousness that we all try to attain in all our actions and behaviors. God makes all of us equal almost in every aspect and when a baby I born, a soul is brought onto the earth, it is so pure. Totally devoid of any treachery, any manipulation, any deceit, any self or ulterior motives. The word is pure. The word is sanctity. You look into his eyes and you see something that you know you never see everyday. And that is Angélique, Céleste. So naïve. That is perhaps the moment of truth that any father and mother go through when they give birth a new born. Joy that can perhaps not be redefined by words. And the as days progress and the infant evolves and adapts to the world around. Days, months and years pass as an individual develops and somehow he is aware of the surrounding in which he exists and he becomes one of us. The innocence and the purity fades away into the oblivion and what remains is what we call a self that can exist independently. One that can manipulate and get things done. One that can survive and one that can fight it out. It’s a cruel world and I admit you have to deceive, you have to lie and you have to wage a war to get ahead at every step. Perhaps on the route to so called perfection.

So somewhere on the route to attaining the materialistic perfection , we actually lose the celestial perfection imparted by the lord himself. Where is the sanctity? Where is the purity that god gives every time he creates a soul? The innocence, the absolute purity. Have you wondered whether god himself is absolute or is he relative.

Gosh! This is indeed a war of absolute and relative. Or should I say the relativity of absoluteness. No, the reason why I ask this is because if god was absolute, then there would actually be nothing more supreme than him. While I would rather not delve into personal believes which usually range in an entire spectrum from the atheist to the narcissist to the believer. Irrespective the level of personal belief, for an extreme, I’d rather think of god as a figment of human imagination and under the hypothetical case of the existence of supreme power dictating the various aspects of human life, I’d move on to my previous question of relativity of god. The reason why we have the notion of a superior power is because of the need for a belief to depend on someone who is more evolved and one who is perfect. One who can not err, whatsoever. The one, whom we can confide everything and who holds infinite power. When some thing doesn’t happen the way we want, we probably pray or reckon that it might be a test for something good that may happen in the near future. Irrespective of the case, but this gentleman sitting upstairs is actually one who never commits an error and is the statement of perfection. Perhaps that is the reason why we strive for perfection. A thirst for absolute power.

And this is where I err. God is not absolute. I think it is relative. Because even the perfection we perceive him to be possessing is actually flawed if look into it carefully. Why else would you think of a birth of a soul who would probably never be the clichéd normal human being. One who is deprived of the normal birth. One who we as a society term as challenged, handicapped, retarded or may be spastic.

How can you justify when an individual is not as equal as the majority of the rest. We as a society give him the tag of handicapped. Just one word that probably summarizes everything and you think you have done your part. A wise attempt of the society to classify and segregate and give them a few benefits. That is probably all that they have to give. What about acceptance. What about making them a part of us. What about showering them with love and affection, being able to understand them and their differences and just being subtle about it.

How many times does it happen when some one “special” probably screams in the crowd and all you do is look at him with all the hostility and strangeness that you can. You look as if you look at a beast or an animal. Just by the virtue of the fact of your evolution as a so called worldly normal human makes you blind to look at something that might be different. Have you ever wondered what that scream is? Have you wondered that there may be a possibility that in future you might be the one who screams? Or perhaps someday you’ll be a parent or a relative to someone who might be so called “special child”. How would you react to that? You do not possess the goodness to let someone special just exist alongside with you. Perhaps the metrics for benchmarking are different. You might be conforming to the ISO standards of human adequacy on physical and mental terms. But then when you analyze yourself, you’d probably find that perhaps the realm of insufficiency is not as pronounced as the person who is probably on the road.

Ever wondered what that scream was? It is a scream of anguish. Perhaps at just the unjustification of god’s perfection. The god that failed. The imperfection in the perfectionist. The one who makes majority as same and yet deprives a few. His imperfection gives the world people with physical, mental disability.

The shriek of pain at the unjustification of this world and of fate. As a person who can’t be accepted by society, because of the virtue of having been endowed by god or by fate and there is nothing he can do to tackle it. As a parent you just keep wondering as to what happened and why it happened. The scream of the parent who is always in love with his child irrespective of any disability or so called relative deficiency. The anguish of their souls that exults at the thought of the future and the unpredictability of their own lives. As a parent you know that you devote and dedicate an entire lifetime for your baby. But then immortality is the intoxicating power that no one has. And so, despite giving your own entire life, you are always worried, what would happen to our child after us? Who and how? What would happen? The biggest dilemma that any parent faces when they think about their special child. Physical disability does restrict perhaps mobility and various aspects, but what in the case of the mentally challenged, the ones with delayed milestone, the ones who are autistic.

Perhaps I focus more on the mentally challenged more, due to personal reasons and preferences, but in such a case, the individual affected is not on the road of attaining the so called materialistic perfection. While as a brother to one who is so special, I realize the agony about the unpredictability of future of human life and the way it affects our concern. While every moment we shower our love and affection, and yet you see the concern of what would happen after us? And trust me, that does turn out to be the biggest questions.

You do love but you do also shriek with pain at times at the god that failed and the unjustification of the proclaimed perfection of the almighty up above. You just wonder why and you wonder how things would be after yourself. But then at times when I see the face of the ones we love so much, and you see the gods perfection there. Despite all the so called worldly imperfection, you see the perfection in their smile. The clear innocent smile makes you forget all the pain and the tension and sorrows. You just realize that perhaps this is gods own way of defining another type of perfection. Perfection of absolute purity, devoid of deceit and treachery. You look into the deep blue eyes and the simple hug and you have a sense of contentment of your life. The sense of dependability that a special child presents you with is in itself a gift of lifetime and contentment that very few are fortunate enough to receive. The gift of god who might not be in synergy with the definition of the worldly state of perfection but I look at it as a different perfection. Gods way of preserving the purity that he present all of us with but somewhere we lose it in time. But these kids, never lose it. The Angelique, and celestial purity is always preserved in them. They might not understand the worldly things and might not be independent. But the dependence of the lives of these kids on yours is one that is a precious gift. And you see the immense perfection of god with a different perspective. Perhaps, the tradeoff between the divine, untouched purity vs. the our perception of perfection.

Rape of Democracy: Can we do something?

India! The world’s biggest and perhaps greatest democracy. Doesn’t it feel good to be a part of such a system? Does it not raise your shoulders with pride? Does it not fill you with a sense of egoism and nationalistic pride? Well as far as it concerns with proving mettle with democracy in terms of familiarizing with the protocols of diplomacy, bureaucracy and the process of elections, we seem to have been mastering the art to perfection.

With 58 years of independence and having moved on from a republic with strong influence of socialism and the influence of soviet brotherhood to a state of opening of the Indian markets with jargons like liquidity, liberalization, globalization coming to use, we have proved to be one nation with exuberance and dynamism unparalleled. Going through this roller coaster of transition, we have adapted repeatedly and perfected every nitty-gritty detail about every aspect that would result in us being christened as the World’s Biggest Democracy. Like a fireman having to follow the general protocol every time he hears the siren, or like the monotony with which a bank cashier receives cash at the counter, we know democracy inside out like no one else.

From dirty, petty politics, like a bunch of roadside beggars squabbling for a piece of leftover bread in the garbage can, we have politicians who seem to have left no stone unturned, no situation that they haven’t created and no solution that they haven’t found. In fact I think our politicians should be commended and given a pat on the shoulder in appreciation for their ability to resolve every issue amiably in the most noble manner so that every one derives the pleasure of the orgasm which thy derive ultimately after raping the system. They rape not just system but the people, their expectations, their hope, the morality, spirit and the conscience of democracy, the hard earned money of the tax payers.

This is probably the dynamism of the system. However, scratch the wound and we have merry and gay bunch of problems that still seem to be holding us back from being what we can be. True potential restrained and chained.

Every morning when you read the newspaper you probably have adapted to seeing news of murders and rapes. We might boast of IT and culture. Morality and conscience. The upcoming nation that flaunts a GDP growth of 8%. The sensex reaches new heights everyday. But how does it really make a difference. Is it material at all? When you have the libido of the nation that seems to be dictating and creating future of the nation, such incidents are an eloquent testimony of the virility we possess. When you have the rape of 1 year old girl at Ghaziabad by an uncle. Or the gang rape of women at remote villages Bihar UP MP and other states. Women being paraded naked in the streets of interior villages of Muzaffarnagar district. Being blamed of infidelity after a woman denies sexual intercourse to her father in law results in being tormented, paraded naked in the village and then being burnt alive.

Not just states. We can’t let the states have the credit to them. Our metropolitans are also experts in this art. We rejoice at the fact that Delhi attains the rank 150 in the list of world’s most live able cities overtaking Mamba. We rejoice at Hyderabad and Banglore being considered as more expensive cities in the world than Paris and New York when it comes to providing accommodation to US diplomats. But is it what matters? It seems so fake, when these cities that are being so proudly flaunted also show their dark and ugly face. When foreign tourists as well as college girls are molested, brutally raped and killed. Why? Is it a law and order problem? But we have such an efficient system of law and order.

We boast of the efficiency of the police force but we conveniently omit when a protector of law himself is victimized by his sexual desires and ends up raping a lady in distress who actually was at fault because she had a faith in the system. She makes a foolish judgment that any cop fights to protect the public. And so she innocently asks for help and she is rewarded appropriately. Like the gift of betrayal that Jesus receives from Judas. Like the famous bandit Salvatore Guiliano in Mario Puzo’s Sicilian when he is betrayed by his second in command and childhood friend Aspanu Pisciotta. Do you know what it must feel like? Imagine the days of innocence of you as a child, holding your fathers finger and walking, unknown of deceit and treachery. And the look when for an instance everything changes. The hand that you have been holding in faith is the hand that is selling their daughters from villages of Orissa to villages of Haryana. Its like letting go forever.

It is like the country has gotten into a fetish, wearing leather pants and garner belts with a whip in hand, sadistic pleasure is guiding our system.

Have you ever wondered what would the current decade be labeled as after 20 years. Perhaps the decade of MMS scandals. Where is the respect for law? When the law fails its own people, then these people start failing the law.

Everyday when I drive on the roads of Gurgaon and Delhi, I see hooliganism, vandalism and no sense of security or respect for the system. Violators have their day. Jump red lights, drive like maniacs, talk on cell phones and possibly make a mockery of the law of the land in the best possible manner. Who is going to stop them? The feeling of being above the law of the land is just too intoxicating to be forgotten. It gives a feeling of power possessed by an untamed animal roaring to proclaim its rights. People who follow rules are fools. They are too docile and have to submit to these merry men. The protectors are busy making money on weekends by parking a patrol car in the crossing of DLF and stopping every other car and finding faults like lack of compliance in terms of the sun shade put on your car. Of course they are doing perhaps the most important job. They are such philanthropists who let go of defaulters by giving them a warning. Of course pocketing a five hundred rupee note is just the transaction fee.

In a culture where the “Sab chalta hain” ideology has evolved, it in difficult to fight the menace posed by the hapless situation we are in. there seems to be a shortcut for every thing. It seems we are just beating the system that has been made for us in the first place. Vision seems to be colluded but then you have to move. Mist is a part of every winter but that doesn’t mean that the airports are permanently closed for the whole winter. You adapt and evolve. You upgrade.

I could go on and on. Trust me. But then I just don’t intend to criticize. Obvious question would be what can be done. Trust me at times we Indians keep looking back and living on the past and never care to make improve the present so that we can have the best future. You see movies like Rang De Basanti and it makes you think. Of course every nations has its set of problem. But somewhere or the other, you have to introspect and improve. This is what the debate is all about. Can you pin point and figure out one way of solving the crisis. Ask people to point out the deficiencies and trust me you could spend a lifetime of energy in formulating what is missing in the system and how it is lacking. But that doesn’t solve the problem.

I think we as a country and as a society need to understand only one word. RESPECT. If you know what this means, you have made the job easier. What we lack is respect. Respect for ourselves, respect for our system, respect for other people. True power lies in the power of self-realization and not in any other materialistic virtue. You have to start learning the art of respecting yourself, and the people you come in touch with. Remember you can get respect only if you give respect. Respect the system. If there are rules made, they are made for adherence and not violation. We can pretend to be vast and diverse as a nation, we can be the biggest democracy, but lets stand together to deserve what we earn. Try to make a change. And it all starts from you. I might be miniscule enough to do anything, but I get the sense of satisfaction of having followed the system, every time I drive on the road. There are irrational people who tempt you at every corner of your life to say to hell with the system. But then such irrational people can go on but somewhere or the other, you might get back with them but at the expense of making a mockery of the law. And the next time you are subject to an injustice, you would not be in position to criticize the system because you yourself happened to take things into your hand at one point of time. Respect not because you are scared it might hit you back later but respect because you are a part of this great democracy. And if we all start on an individual level, then surely collectively it would reflect.

True power is not the show of force but the show of restraint. Every one can be above the law, break the system, distort the paradigm, but then that denies the purpose of the system in itself.

A system which respects its people would be truly available when we have people who respect the system. The biggest democracy, would be meaningful when women would not be paraded naked or raped, when the girl child is not killed. When a model is not shot down in the middle of a restaurant and the culprits are free men. It would make a difference when innocent citizens are not killed in the name of suppressing insurgency in the northeastern states or curbing terrorism in Jammu And Kashmir. Hopefully we would not have the RAF, Police and Army killing democracy with absolute power exercised to control a simple agitation. Neither would we have custodial deaths and term our citizens as criminals.

I am sure that we would evolve and give a better India to our next generation.

The best date of life

The best date of my life

Ah! The miseries that today’s materialistic a so called social life that present us at every point of time actually makes you want to break free at one point of time or another. Waking up on a Friday morning after sleeping at 5 in the morning and actually missing the maiden lecture for the day at 9, I decided that today was not going be just another of the typical days with the protocol of existence that we have all developed.

There are days when you are just bogged down and tired of almost every one and any one and at times no one. Confusing? We live our lives in harmony with other individuals, entwined in a delicate and intricate web. So intricate that at times you forget that there is something that is actually existent in this world. A non-extinct specie and entity called the self. You just go on and go on in the grind, living every day monotonously, with no charm and charisma about your own life. You live in response to the world around you. There seems to be no life on absolute terms.

Tired of people around you, you keep struggling to move on and you do. No doubt that you don’t. While the dynamism and aura of life makes it impossible to be stagnant, yet you still move on slowly in resistance to the surrounding. Like standing in the way of a swarm of people on the busy streets of New York or Mumbai moving in the opposite direction, you stand alone trying to find your way to the other end of the tunnel that seems to be having the light from which people are actually running away.

I mean it was just another perfect day and no the sun didn’t rise from the west and yet it brought a hope in me that may be something would be different. Pissed of with life and the people around you who probably behave irrationally and hurt you, it’s just a time when you don’t want to take shit from anyone anymore. You reject to be the sand bag or the sponge, who keeps taking in everything that comes in your way, just in a bid to be the calm and composed guy who is never perturbed with anything.

Pissed of at what? Well amicable question. Pissed of at one of my best friends who just thinks of me as an agent to clear things with his girlfriend, who use me in the garb of friendship and yet is disgusting enough to suspect me of trying my luck on his lady. Pissed of at another good friend who turns into a bitch and makes my best friend fight with me and bring differences between us. Pissed at the fact that you try to resolve issues but the other person just wouldn’t talk. Pissed of at the person who you love actually turning hostile and not even possessing the basic courtesy that should be extended to an acquaintance, leave alone a good friend with whom she spent most of her times together. Pissed of at relatives who make your life more miserable. Pissed of at a good friend for letting you down by making a promise, not full filling it and not having the balls to admit it to you on your face. No I don’t want you to give me a towel to sob out or play as agony aunt for me. Just the kind of useless issues that emerge. Unreasonable life. Unpredictable people. Unjustified reasons. Unwanted feelings. And yet an Unflinching heart that is still ready to forgive.

You just get tired of variability that life provides with. You don’t want to justify anymore to anyone. To hell with world and who gives a shit any way. With a perfect Hyderabadi rainy day in place, and sweet smell of rain on dry ground, it brought about intoxication in my mind. Getting up and after cleaning my room after ages, hunger stuck its toll. Realizing that it was 3 in the afternoon and I hadn’t had anything the whole day, I decided to just go out and grab a bite.

But the next question was what? No more Biryani, no more fried rice or Andhra meals, I decided I needed a good meal that would make me gain some self-confidence and make me proud enough to say “Hey! I’m the Delhi guy. And what wonderful north Indian meal I had after such a long time.” This prompted a war in my mind with all the possible places I could go to. While I did prompt my roommate to go to Angeethi for a sumptuous buffet lunch, but not surprised with the fact that he is a laze bone and was tired after the days routine, I let go of it. Watching him going into a deep slumber, I just thought that perhaps today, I’ll finally get to date myself after such a long time.

One of those days when you want to enjoy the beautiful weather, and be alone, talk to yourself, listen to some good music. So sporting a t-shirt and a jeans with my Adidas shoes, armed with an umbrella and my Ipod, I ventured out into the rain. Walking all the way from LV Prasad Eye Hospital towards Somajiguda Circle. For those who are not aware of the distances involved, this is a stretch of about 4 or 5 kms. We were going to the new hang out called Bade Miyan’s Kabab Corner next to the newly opened Babu Khan Mall. We as in me and myself, two distinct entities meeting after a long time and trying to catch up with the developments in each others life. Mind you, Hyderabad does turn out to be a gourmet delight and paradise, but finding good north Indian food is quite a tough job. North Indian food as in colorful and spicy Tandoori Chicken and Chicken Tikka’s, lip smacking Butter Chicken, Dal Makhani, Butter Naans, with the green chutney and vinegar onions (“sirke wale pyaaz” as we call it). En-route, started my conversation with myself.

I was just thinking of how miserable we get at times, bogged down by people and issues that are so miniscule in comparison to the magnamity of life. There is so much to look out for than just small and petty issues. You just have to move on and walk over them and not look back. Just a few potholes on the road filled with rainwater and slush and you just have to avoid them. You step on them and you just feel a bit disgusted and yuck but then that wouldn’t make you stop would it. Just let it be and keep walking. So is life. No I’m not a fan of Johnny Walker. To be honest, I haven’t even tried it. But I like the attitude it endorses.

What have rainy days meant to me? Initial days of tea and pakoda with family. Next frame, engineering days – spending days with my girlfriend with romanticism in the air. Frame 3- end of engineer and start of MBA, being a stag, just the days when you open the bottles and booze out to glory. Like they say, “There are just two days I drink! One when it rains and second when it doesn’t”. Frame 4- today, just a day of pure solitude and being happy for no reason. Out of the blue. Not caring of useless people who exist to perturb you and your life. In fact there is a reason. I learn how to ignore issues and be with myself. Letting go of things not in your hand and just being with yourself.

Reaching Bade Miyan, I order a plate of delicious Chicken Reshmi Kabab & Warqi Parantha. Follow this by a trip into Baker’s Inn and feasting myself on a gooey and liquidy freshly baked chocolate éclair and a chocolate tart. I just love it, the choolate melting in my mouth. Emerging from the bakery, I smile at myself for being so nice to myself. But the date is not complete yet. I recalled my train journey in 1st year, when one of our pass out seniors who had recommended Café Odyssey opposite to Classic Jewels at Somajigauda. Just then the Air Supply song “ I’m all out of love” was playing and reminded of Jerry Maguire, the movie I saw just a few days back.

The weather was wonderful. Wind smashing across my face, the slight drizzle alternating with the occasional downpour and the traffic going haywire and coming to a standstill, and the fights I had with my umbrella who wanted to just fly away into the wind. I was just in pure bliss and solitude.

Entering Café Odyssey, I was somehow stumped and surprised with the fact that I had missed out coming to such a great place with a continental and Italian menu. While reading fried Fish with tartar sauce and spaghetti bolognaise made me vulnerable, I settled with a cappuccino, ending my perfect evening with a warm signature. At the table nearby a beautiful couple sitting were incessantly chatting. As usual the guy was quite while the beautiful lady chattered away to glory, I just smiled forgetting all my rough experiences and I just thought that may be someday, I’ll be in a similar position. Perhaps a steamy office affair. But for the time being, I’m just single, not so ready to mingle and I’m just loving it. Despite being roughed up by so many useless ladies, somehow it doesn’t kill the feeling in me, just makes it hide behind the curtains of inhibition.

And so I smiled and watched them chat, watched it rain outside, watched a travelogue on Travel& Discovery and heard some great music. A chat with my mother and my brother, informing them of the beautiful day made my evening. Somehow world was so good and content. People come and go. They pretend to be friends and promise you have unwavering support till eternity. But no one stays. Walking back to my home, I knew nothing else really mattered. No matter who comes and who goes and what any one says, you have to be alone and you have be in love with yourself. If you are in love with yourself, then trust me you have made your life free from loneliness. Second, if you learn how to live alone you would not need people around yourself to remember that you exist. Third learn to let go. Just let things be and be oblivious to your surrounding and do things because you want to.

That’s about it. Nothing more and nothing less.

My Encounters With Death

What is the essence of human life? We struggle all our lives to keep things in control. We advance in all spheres of our life and make developments. Human endeavor we may say. We have made advances in technology, business, finance, arts, literature, medical sciences and what not. You name it and we have been there. Each and every possible way, we have grown, evolved and transformed into a force to be reckoned with amongst all the biological species. And yet there is one place where we come to a closed door.

Ever wondered what is the sanctity of life in absolute terms. I wonder and perhaps will keep wondering. Life is so beautiful, something that we all must cherish and live to the fullest. And while we enjoying the prize of life, we forget of a realm that all of us might have to come at one point of time or the other. Death. Perhaps, in every ones life, we do get to see this phenomenon that seems to have no reasons for existence. While the thought of dying doesn’t matter to anyone and yet, the thought of loosing some one in your life is what perhaps makes you most vulnerable.

It seems to be the other side of the cliff, we perhaps never see as one of the places that exist. Standing on top of the Grand Canyon, you can look at the beauty all around, the vast areas that are probably covered by the golden and gleaming sunrays. And we are so overwhelmed with the panoramic view that we fail to look at the other side of the cliff where there is darkness and only shadows of the cliff. Life is beautiful and colorful, but this is one place where there is perhaps no color itself. We are so embattled, and plagued by life and the various issues that we never realize the worth of human life. Why should we? Or should we not at all? But I believe there is a point in time in every ones life when we have our encounters with death and we can do nothing about it. As if some one openly violates you, takes sadistic pleasure in making you bleed drop by drop. The demonic armies of death god ravage you and you can just stand and see your loved ones just slipping away. Away into the oblivion.

What is the sanctity of life? The credibility? I have still not figured out. Perhaps just one second. It is just a fraction of second, which separates life from a body. A second that constitutes and defines your presence and existence in this world. Encounters with death? Of course not vis-à-vis my own life but with respect to the lives of the people around us. People die every second and no one probably makes a note. Is it so insignificant? Is human life so mediocre? Looking at a macroscopic view, it doesn’t. Perhaps when you look at the microscopic view, it does make a difference. For the people who bear the loss, it is them to whom it makes all the difference. These are the people who bear the scar on their faces. The deep gash made by the swift stroke of the scimitar.

When I lost my father, I kept wondering what happened. It was just one second that separated my well-defined realm of existence from one where the very reason of my existence was lost. I recall that single phone call from my uncle asking me to come back home from my engineering hostel because my father was ill. Somehow traveling in the bus and coming back to Gurgaon, I couldn’t solve the puzzle. My father had left for Ukraine a few days back. How was it that he was back in India and I had no clue. And while random thoughts did cross the forbidden line, which I shouldn’t have though about, I felt helpless. Those moments of the bus journey were the worst time when I didn’t know what to assimilate from the situation. I did feel scared expecting the unexpected and yet I just wished that it were all a figure of imagination. Coming back home and seeing so many relatives and acquaintances at home did give me the uneasy and queasy feeling, which indicated that perhaps my worst nightmares had come to be true and yet somehow I lingered on hoping that there would be someone who would tell me that it was all a nightmare.

But the final cut was those words, which changed my life for good. Just a second that separated me from the fact that my father’s life had ended. And it was just that one second when the earth seemed to have been whisked away from right under my foot and time seemed to have stopped in a momentary spasm. People say that with time wounds heal, but I seem to think otherwise. For some time I wished if it was all a nightmare. Flashes of memories appeared before my eyes. Somewhere deep inside you have a faith in life and against all odds, you have a faint glow of expectation. I recall how despite the physical facts, somewhere inside me, I knew this was not true. A faint glimmer that made me think that perhaps one day again my father would right at the door ringing the bell like everyday and I’d open the door to him like I did after every business trip of his.

My fathers body arrived in India after three days of his death and that night I cleaned up the house like always hoping that he is coming back for good. These are probably the moments when one feels so vulnerable and you can do nothing about it. Just accept it and keep moving on in life. Every moment I realized that life is probably the most unreliable entity, which may actually desert you on a lonely highway stretch. And you just wonder why? That’s all. Why?

Various issues emerge as a battle in your mind. What if he was in India and not Ukraine? What if the doctors were experienced enough there? What if there was foul play? What if this and what if that? But these are just battles between the mind and the heart. There is probably nothing that can make you at rest. There is unsurpassed turbulence in your mind and you just wish for one moment to run away. Away into the oblivion.

Times when you have the sudden urge to actually feel the cold steel resting against your forehead, smiling at you with those reassuring eyes telling you that there is peace at the other side. When the cold and glimmering cylinder asks you to give it a chance, to pull the trigger and let the red rose bloom out and blossom on a cold icy night. Only with the hope that you are running through the fields of golden wheat and mustard, where the wind brushes across your hair only to reassure you that life was probably the illusion. A place that gives you the ultimate tranquility from the pressures of life. Just one chance for you to join your loved once again for eternity. But as much as you are tempted, you realize that your life is not just your own but of the people around you as well, those who love you and care for you.

When one of my friends took the decision to end her own life, I seemed visit all those moments once again. I thought I’d be more prepared but perhaps I realized I was weaker inside. It broke my trust for good. Just a friendly reminder that you do seem to be dancing on the tunes of fate and destiny. When the demonic angels are actually playing the cello and violins looking in anticipation for your life. Gradually you come to terms with it and you realize the true worth of life in absolute terms and you want to live it to the fullest. You know that nothing else matters. And you have to move on. Initially you cling on tightly to the past, as if some one is trying to throw you off the ship of memories, and you desperately grip anything you get, with a fear that the memories of the loved ones are the only remnants of the burnt ship you have and if you open your palm, probably like dust it would fly away with the wind.

Another thing that often surfaces in the mind are a lot of unfulfilled realms and expectations. When you sigh with a heavy heart and say, “ I wish, I had told him…, or I wish, she knew…”. A long list of things and wishes that remain unfulfilled and you suddenly find yourself running against time and opportunity. You just sit with remorse and keep on curing yourself of all the time you had with your loved ones and yet you just missed telling them what you wanted to and now you just have a lifetime of wait instead. The anguish at the permanent loss of not only the person but also the opportunity of doing what you wanted to. A regret for lifetime when you just wished you had just a little bit more time. Just the extra time to fulfill all the things that you just can’t anymore forever. As if the door is locked forever and all you have is just the lingering wish. Lingers in your heart.

This is probably the sanctity of life. You just realize the true worth of things in life. Every other time when your loved one goes into the operation theatre, even for a minor operation, you just wait in anticipation outside, when you just hope and hope that you see the person back in life. I have actually gone through such stages of life, and there are random thoughts crossing the forbidden lines. And you can do nothing about it.

Death of relationships is as good as the real thing but perhaps not trivial in terms of loss of life. When despite anything and everything, you actually live in the afterglow of the relationship. When you just clutch on to memories and remember all the good times of the past. Perhaps it hurts more because you can see the person you love right in front of your eyes and you just wonder again why something happened. Why circumstances force you to go through a situation where you are just trying to restrain and cut off yourself from the memories that haunt you in the middle of the night, when you are walking alone on the road or perhaps when you are doing anything or nothing. When you want to go across the line and reach out to try and rejuvenate the relationship but you can’t. You wish the sand in watch glass actually reversed for good. And you again wonder why? What went wrong? Who was at fault? You go through a myriad of emotions for a period of time initially. Hate anger remorse regret hurt trauma and heartbreak.

Gradually you move on and then things don’t matter to you. Why? Not because you have forgotten the past rather, you learn to live with the past. The past memories of the loved ones we lose just don’t haunt you any more. They just co-exist. And that is probably what I have learnt in my lifetime. Just keep walking and that’s it. Life is unreasonable. But then what. Nothing just bear it and move on. At the end of the day what matters is your existence.

I guess these are just issues that surface in every ones life. They surface in my mind every other day. I guess there are topics and issues, which might seem to be most useless and inconclusive to talk about and yet quite relevant. Probably one of those philosophy sessions that my friends have to bear after I get drunk. There is probably no conclusion to be drawn. Just like that. Period. And life goes on and what remains are memories. Memories are the gift we clutch tightly and keep with ourselves like a kid.

Just don’t remember how it ended. Remember how they lived and how you were there to see the best days of your life.

Out of my life, where have you been
I wonder if I’ll ever see you again

How is wish, wish you were here

Death is the end of an illusion called life.

I want to break free

Isn’t it ironical? Walking down the road on a hot afternoon, you occasionally wish that it rained and how it would bring relief. You walk on and day after day and there is no respite. At times you forget and yet at times you wish how it rained and poured. Perhaps a few days later, it does and brings you relief and succor, but if its just one of those one day rains, it ends up making you more queasy and restless. The sun seems to blaze harder and fire more than it usually does. And the little bit of relief that was there, seems to have vanished into thin air. You curse yourself and you curse fate. You shout and anguish with all the pain and hatred against the circumstance that you are going through. But does that make you stop, probably not. You keep on going and you hope one day it’ll rain. There are a number of those downpours that tease you with the thought and then leave you high and dry, but one day it rains like never before and you are content with life. Contentment for eternity, till the next season comes. You are happy and you forget your days in the heat, and perhaps the season comes again, but this time you are prepared.

Come to think of your life, and you see it as so similar to the heat and rain cycle. Days of loneliness and wish for the perfect companion. Leading the material life we lead, there is somehow an emptiness and loneliness that engulfs all of us at some point of time or another. There are so many things, so miniscule in nature, that accumulate till a point, when collectively it looks like a big block that brings a man down to his knees. At this point of loneliness, you look out for a person to be with. The soul mate and the companion, the love of the life. And perhaps when you realize that you are so lonely, at times you get desperate. You try to make things happen in your life. Like connecting a dead battery of a car that hasn’t been used for last six months, to a live battery and creating a spark to start the car and charge the battery, we try and try to find that some one.

It is perhaps like the heat and the rain, loneliness followed by days of companionship that seem be so similar. With a new friend besides you whom you think would be the ideal lady of your life, you get the relief that one gets from the sudden drizzle in the month of May. But it is a matter of destiny, isn’t it? If it is one of those illusionary rains, intense discomfort arises from the scorching heat and humidity that follows. It is as if your dream has broken and the bubble has burst. You can no longer see the various beautiful colors that you could initially see on the bubble. The paradise is lost and so you curse god, you curse life and your fate and destiny, wondering why the one you chose decided to drift away. Why the lady you so deeply loved decided to fade into the oblivion. Perhaps the lady didn’t find you attractive enough, perhaps she liked someone else. Perhaps there could be so many other reasons why the girl you want in your life goes away. But then you move on and wait for the next time to rain. You get accustomed to the betrayal that nature plays, but one day it rains and rains and it rains. And you have the satisfaction and contentment till eternity.

Think of it, the cloud always keeps on moving and blowing from place to place. Halts at places, showers a little and then flows ahead again. Now it is a matter of perception, you can feel depressed and lonely and think of the lady as the cloud. In that case, you would keep wondering why she went away, and where she went, assuming the cloud is feminine in nature. You can spoil your mood and feel dejected and feel the pain as you think where the cloud went and how she rained. How passions burst and how your feeling were mocked.

But there is another way to look at it. Think of yourself as the cloud. You move on in life and go to newer places, come across newer places. At times you like the place so much that you finally decide to stay there till eternity. And till the time a cloud finds such a place, it keeps traveling. Traveling till it is on cloud number 9.

You remember the song “I want to break Free” by queen and the moment the line “ Ive fallen in love, Ive fallen in love for the first time….” Comes and it connects. What is fallen in love? During days of courtship, fallen in love is actually being inlove with some one. consequently, during days of loneliness and betrayal, Fallen in love probably makes you think of creating a degraded picture of love. Fallen is not falling down and having suffered, but its that love and the lady have fallen and degraded. Perhaps you deserve more or the lady didn’t deserve you.

Its just a matter of destiny. One who is to be the one would be the one. people say you have to make an effort to keep the love alive. But what is that love that has to be kept alive by making efforts to the extent that it perishes so easily. Some people are lucky that one they wish for turn out to be the ones who become soul mates. Trust me, they are the luckiest of all. But then for those who are not so fortunate, its how you look at things. Keep blaming yourself and hurt yourself, or keep going ahead.and think of the hurt you save yourself from had you continued and been hurt at a later stage with greater level of attachment.

It is not as easy as i make it sound and it always hurts, and it takes time to get over someone, but then soner or later, you do and you have to . Life goes on no matter what.

Having said all that, one of my dear friends once said “wait for the right person n u will get her. Till then live life like an illusion....Every relationship like a dream...

Someday u will have to wake up from it only to realize that it was JUST A DREAM.....”

That day you’ll be on cloud number 9

Rage of the angels

Funny! Isn’t it? As I start writing this article, I am not in a bit of decisiveness to the perfect start for the subject that I intend to brood upon. What is it that I want to write? and what is it that I can’t or that is making me hesitant! Well, rather than just sounding very analytical in an attempt to disguise the pandemonium in my mind, I’ll be honest and start telling you what is on my mind.

Morality! One word, four syllables mo-ra-lee-ti! And yet the most ambiguous word that I have come across personally. So what is it we are talking about. Surely if you know me, then you’d know that I wouldn’t be stupid enough to preach a sermon on morality. For all you know I might turn out to be like a priest in the whorehouse.

Just a few weeks back I was having on of my relatives at my place. When women meet and gossip starts, time seems to be running away for them. Ironically for us men, time seems to stop. My venerable mother and aunt were talking and gradually the course of the conversation took a turn and got onto the recent incident in Gurgaon, when a 19 year old muslim girl hailing from Delhi was found dead at a nearby mall. Supposedly, the lady had died due to a fall from the 3^rd floor after coming out from a pub at 3 in the morning. My mother innocuously not aware of the issue in totality were conversing and overhearing this made me sneer and feel very uncomfortable. My mother and aunt were talking on today’s culture and were amused at the fact that these days’ actresses are paid more for dressing with smaller and shorter pieces of cloths. Naturally extending this theory, they concluded that soon, highest paying actress would be the one for no clothes at all.

This definitely made me smile and my mind drifted to another of those fantasies of mine. But I think I’ll spare you of all those details. Coming back to the tête-à-tête, the ladies were talking of the immoral days we were going through and how today, there seems to be no respect for the culture and women are dressed so skimpily revealing almost everything. This made me so sick and I felt so sad that my own mother was being so orthodox and outdated. I felt like a teenager trying to avoid a topic when his parents try to tell him have sex or something embarrassing and so I soon left the room.

A few days back, I went to meet another good old friend of mine. As per usual protocol, we sat down in a pub and after a few drinks, my friend approached the subject of women and as usual when a few men sit down they obviously brag and boast of their chivalry and adventures with ladies. However in this case, there were only two men and I always innocently listen to all the stories in awe as I surrender right in the start of the duel by getting my hands up. I pretend to be the simple man with clean heart and not so cool.

So just like any other day, I sat down and heard my friend out on his journeys and voyages to the unknown. On how women fell to their knees and submitted to his charm and smitten by his good looks and they purred like sex kittens. Initially, it sounded great and it made me wish I was lucky enough. Who wouldn’t want a favor or a fellacio in the car. Obviously like any perfectly normal guy, I felt so aroused and wished that my lucky days started. Meanwhile, my playboy friend counted out innumerable instances of ladies whom he had taken out for a drink and then in a few days time, he was getting physical, in the pub, in the car and perhaps at times in his own house.

As I kept on listening, there was somewhere something that started disgusting me about him. Some where deep inside there was some thing that was bugging me and I couldn’t get to it. Firstly, I felt sad that my friend was finding it so cool to be the new age Emran Hashmi the wannabe. While I was safe behind the so-called curtains of morality, like majority of us do, who love to make a sling shot and throw mud at others, yet I tried to identify what was it that was making me adopt standards of duality. Perhaps the fact this friend of mine had a girl friend who with all her heart loved him in totality and waited for days when they could be together. She loves him more than he can imagine and is still clinging on to the past memories whereas my bastard friend goes around the city humping on different women with no control on his libido and no care for the lady whom he has promised to love once upon a time.

I had another friend who has slept with many men, perhaps more than 100 but then when I talk to her, I realize she is also correct. She says that abroad, men go through women as if they are going through pints of beer. Next morning they don’t remember. But if a woman does the same she is branded as a whore who is not subscribing to the moral standards of society. She has a daughter with a man she loved so much and who conveniently estranged her. The man also turns out to be my friend who ended up in south American and fell in love with another lady and then again came to India to fall in love with a lady from the north east.

Love! Relationships! This brings me to another anecdote of my life and my past and trust me this is the last one. I know you must be wondering if I’m planning on just telling you stories. Often I have seen my friends fall in love and so called affairs and then profusively praising and expressing their love. With utmost devotion them carrying forward their lives for some time and then more often than not, those relations shattering like infinite pieces of glass. And I wondered how people are so shallow and blindly put things under the tag of true love when don’t even know whether 5 weeks down the lane they might not know whether they might like to continue. Once in my own life I came across a lady whom I really loved a lot and then there was a relationship developing that had no name. True love and yet there could be no commitment as that had already been given to someone else. I knew that the lady in this context was supposedly and officially going out with someone else.

But still I treaded on this dangerous path and as fate had it, we despite the supposed societal rule and norms came close and got involved. There was a compromise in terms of the name to the relationship and there were difficulties but that did not deter us from coming close. It reached a point when separation for even an hour was difficult. And while I always craved for the name and doing everything that other guys get to boast of by being called as a boyfriend, yet I realized that it is not the name but the feeling that really count. Being in involved in a relationship of such a nature where the girl whom I loved and who loved me was supposedly involved with someone else out of cmpulsion was something that was not common. We gradually came close enough to the level that was physical and emotional in nature. This probably the time in my life when I realized how people who never bother about you ever are the ones who take the first shot at you to sling mud at you. Often I had to face the wrath of my other female friends who conveniently told me that I was being immoral and doing the wrong thing. I believe these ladies were playing the role of moral policemen. These were the days when I hated the world for being nosy into everything that they shouldn’t be talking about. A great level of contempt was in my mind and perhaps being the rebel and defying the norms of morality and so called conduct of society, I ended up with public display of affection to level I believe shouldn’t have been done just because of the fact that I was trying to prove a point. How and why the relationship ended is another different story but I realized for one thing that there are times when you have relationships that can’t be branded or named, when you are so helpless and consequently consecrated after being circumcised on the alter of societal norms.

If you notice I have mentioned four short stories with a viewpoints that are all valid. When I sat down to write this blog, I wondered whether my mother was wrong. Perhaps at times one does get a feeling that wearing skimpy outfits can’t be termed as immoral, it is just a form of expression and existence. But when you go to a pub in M block GK, or for that matter any pub and see young school and college girls getting ready to the extent of bending down and submitting to small time sexual favors, it really makes you think whether everything is indeed correct. Of course being at the receiving end as a guy, no guy would refuse an offer for that matter and so it is not just about women. What pains me is the fact that men as big hypocrites as ladies for that matter. Maintaining dual standards and going about hitting on the gas to fuel their libido is not something that I would count as a justification.

At times you do feel that perhaps the viewpoint that our older generation profess at times may be misdirected and orthodox, yet they do turn out to be true for that matter. We as a part of the society love to judge. We judge and judge and judge. But for what. Just to prove that we are so correct, is that not. More often than not, every one derives sadistic pleasure by judging others and trying to set standards of morality. I do the same. Why complain or boast. When I was involved in a relationship without a name and with loads of physicality, I was on one side of the line and when my friend was screwing around while his innocent girlfriend was crying remembering the good old college days of togetherness, I was playing as the judge on the other side of the line. And this is perhaps one of those topics that can’t be conclusive. Every time the bajrang dal or sushma swaraj try to play moral policemen, we cry foul, and yet whenever we get a chance to sling spit balls at others, we pounce on such opportunities.

So the bigger issue is whose morality is correct at the end of the day? Is it my mother who is so against skimpy clothes and cleavage display! Or is it mine when I was in a relationship, which according to people was merely an adjustment to satisfy my sexual urge. Or is it my friend whom I term as a bastard for not being honest to his girlfriend and going around getting small favors? Maybe he is honest, as he puts it, because he doesn’t engage in intercourse.

Sexuality is a very basic tendency of homo sapiens, but that doesn’t mean we have a blind world with engaging in sex implying that we do act as in the animal kingdom. We are different and though basic instincts can’t be denied, yet we have evolved and we need to respect some aspects in life. We might like girls wearing minis and showing their assets but at the same time we might not like our best friends and sisters doing the same and getting the glimpses of horny men.

Sexuality exists everywhere. In the office, in the market place, in the shopping mall, in the bedroom. Every place you talk about. Why don’t you have women perhaps bending a little bit extra to show their cleavage and panties to just get a few favors in the office. The accidental touch, the so called overtly tight friendly hugs, the casual patting and stroking. It all happens. So what do we do! In fact nothing. It is easy to go fucking around the city but it does destroy relations for sure. And then there are those convenience relationships which are open ended with no strings attached. Free and casual sex.

At the end of the day, one can go on and be fascinated or disgusted with what he sees. I don’t say that thing will change as I write. Morality is something that is personal and needs to be dwelled upon by each person by giving time to self and introspecting. It is easy to judge and be the so called critique. But the real challenge at sunset is to practice what you preach. Morality is something that can’t be fixed. It is one of those grey areas. I don’t proclaim myself as the alter of sanctity. I am also vulnerable and tempted. I might say deviating once or twice is correct but not more than that. But then this would probably be when I am on the verge of getting lucky. And when I have no distant chances, I would change my status and view. The then morality would be total sexual fidelity and abstinence from any unfaithfulness.

We twist and distort truth to suit ourselves, we undress it as if we are about to enter it and reach an orgasm. This is perhaps the dilemma or the unfortunate situations. We justify things to convince our self and adopt to dual standards. And this is what id like to close upon. I don’t give a fuck about what the world does. It is me who matters the most and I believe that adopting dual standards and hypocrisy is the worst thing a person can do. So I don’t say don’t have sex with anyone other than your wife and neither do I say do. I just say that define your own code on morality and have the balls to stick by it. You might be a master fornicator but then accept and stand by it. Second, do anything you wish but be ready to face the consequences.

As for me, I walk alone and still finding my own answers…………….

Rape of Democracy: Can we do something?

India! The world’s biggest and perhaps greatest democracy. Doesn’t it feel good to be a part of such a system? Does it not raise your shoulders with pride? Does it not fill you with a sense of egoism and nationalistic pride? Well as far as it concerns with proving mettle with democracy in terms of familiarizing with the protocols of diplomacy, bureaucracy and the process of elections, we seem to have been mastering the art to perfection.

With 58 years of independence and having moved on from a republic with strong influence of socialism and the influence of soviet brotherhood to a state of opening of the Indian markets with jargons like liquidity, liberalization, globalization coming to use, we have proved to be one nation with exuberance and dynamism unparalleled. Going through this roller coaster of transition, we have adapted repeatedly and perfected every nitty-gritty detail about every aspect that would result in us being christened as the World’s Biggest Democracy. Like a fireman having to follow the general protocol every time he hears the siren, or like the monotony with which a bank cashier receives cash at the counter, we know democracy inside out like no one else.

From dirty, petty politics, like a bunch of roadside beggars squabbling for a piece of leftover bread in the garbage can, we have politicians who seem to have left no stone unturned, no situation that they haven’t created and no solution that they haven’t found. In fact I think our politicians should be commended and given a pat on the shoulder in appreciation for their ability to resolve every issue amiably in the most noble manner so that every one derives the pleasure of the orgasm which thy derive ultimately after raping the system. They rape not just system but the people, their expectations, their hope, the morality, spirit and the conscience of democracy, the hard earned money of the tax payers.

This is probably the dynamism of the system. However, scratch the wound and we have merry and gay bunch of problems that still seem to be holding us back from being what we can be. True potential restrained and chained.

Every morning when you read the newspaper you probably have adapted to seeing news of murders and rapes. We might boast of IT and culture. Morality and conscience. The upcoming nation that flaunts a GDP growth of 8%. The sensex reaches new heights everyday. But how does it really make a difference. Is it material at all? When you have the libido of the nation that seems to be dictating and creating future of the nation, such incidents are an eloquent testimony of the virility we possess. When you have the rape of 1 year old girl at Ghaziabad by an uncle. Or the gang rape of women at remote villages Bihar UP MP and other states. Women being paraded naked in the streets of interior villages of Muzaffarnagar district. Being blamed of infidelity after a woman denies sexual intercourse to her father in law results in being tormented, paraded naked in the village and then being burnt alive.

Not just states. We can’t let the states have the credit to them. Our metropolitans are also experts in this art. We rejoice at the fact that Delhi attains the rank 150 in the list of world’s most live able cities overtaking Mamba. We rejoice at Hyderabad and Banglore being considered as more expensive cities in the world than Paris and New York when it comes to providing accommodation to US diplomats. But is it what matters? It seems so fake, when these cities that are being so proudly flaunted also show their dark and ugly face. When foreign tourists as well as college girls are molested, brutally raped and killed. Why? Is it a law and order problem? But we have such an efficient system of law and order.

We boast of the efficiency of the police force but we conveniently omit when a protector of law himself is victimized by his sexual desires and ends up raping a lady in distress who actually was at fault because she had a faith in the system. She makes a foolish judgment that any cop fights to protect the public. And so she innocently asks for help and she is rewarded appropriately. Like the gift of betrayal that Jesus receives from Judas. Like the famous bandit Salvatore Guiliano in Mario Puzo’s Sicilian when he is betrayed by his second in command and childhood friend Aspanu Pisciotta. Do you know what it must feel like? Imagine the days of innocence of you as a child, holding your fathers finger and walking, unknown of deceit and treachery. And the look when for an instance everything changes. The hand that you have been holding in faith is the hand that is selling their daughters from villages of Orissa to villages of Haryana. Its like letting go forever.

It is like the country has gotten into a fetish, wearing leather pants and garner belts with a whip in hand, sadistic pleasure is guiding our system.

Have you ever wondered what would the current decade be labeled as after 20 years. Perhaps the decade of MMS scandals. Where is the respect for law? When the law fails its own people, then these people start failing the law.

Everyday when I drive on the roads of Gurgaon and Delhi, I see hooliganism, vandalism and no sense of security or respect for the system. Violators have their day. Jump red lights, drive like maniacs, talk on cell phones and possibly make a mockery of the law of the land in the best possible manner. Who is going to stop them? The feeling of being above the law of the land is just too intoxicating to be forgotten. It gives a feeling of power possessed by an untamed animal roaring to proclaim its rights. People who follow rules are fools. They are too docile and have to submit to these merry men. The protectors are busy making money on weekends by parking a patrol car in the crossing of DLF and stopping every other car and finding faults like lack of compliance in terms of the sun shade put on your car. Of course they are doing perhaps the most important job. They are such philanthropists who let go of defaulters by giving them a warning. Of course pocketing a five hundred rupee note is just the transaction fee.

In a culture where the “Sab chalta hain” ideology has evolved, it in difficult to fight the menace posed by the hapless situation we are in. there seems to be a shortcut for every thing. It seems we are just beating the system that has been made for us in the first place. Vision seems to be colluded but then you have to move. Mist is a part of every winter but that doesn’t mean that the airports are permanently closed for the whole winter. You adapt and evolve. You upgrade.

I could go on and on. Trust me. But then I just don’t intend to criticize. Obvious question would be what can be done. Trust me at times we Indians keep looking back and living on the past and never care to make improve the present so that we can have the best future. You see movies like Rang De Basanti and it makes you think. Of course every nations has its set of problem. But somewhere or the other, you have to introspect and improve. This is what the debate is all about. Can you pin point and figure out one way of solving the crisis. Ask people to point out the deficiencies and trust me you could spend a lifetime of energy in formulating what is missing in the system and how it is lacking. But that doesn’t solve the problem.

I think we as a country and as a society need to understand only one word. RESPECT. If you know what this means, you have made the job easier. What we lack is respect. Respect for ourselves, respect for our system, respect for other people. True power lies in the power of self-realization and not in any other materialistic virtue. You have to start learning the art of respecting yourself, and the people you come in touch with. Remember you can get respect only if you give respect. Respect the system. If there are rules made, they are made for adherence and not violation. We can pretend to be vast and diverse as a nation, we can be the biggest democracy, but lets stand together to deserve what we earn. Try to make a change. And it all starts from you. I might be miniscule enough to do anything, but I get the sense of satisfaction of having followed the system, every time I drive on the road. There are irrational people who tempt you at every corner of your life to say to hell with the system. But then such irrational people can go on but somewhere or the other, you might get back with them but at the expense of making a mockery of the law. And the next time you are subject to an injustice, you would not be in position to criticize the system because you yourself happened to take things into your hand at one point of time. Respect not because you are scared it might hit you back later but respect because you are a part of this great democracy. And if we all start on an individual level, then surely collectively it would reflect.

True power is not the show of force but the show of restraint. Every one can be above the law, break the system, distort the paradigm, but then that denies the purpose of the system in itself.

A system which respects its people would be truly available when we have people who respect the system. The biggest democracy, would be meaningful when women would not be paraded naked or raped, when the girl child is not killed. When a model is not shot down in the middle of a restaurant and the culprits are free men. It would make a difference when innocent citizens are not killed in the name of suppressing insurgency in the northeastern states or curbing terrorism in Jammu And Kashmir. Hopefully we would not have the RAF, Police and Army killing democracy with absolute power exercised to control a simple agitation. Neither would we have custodial deaths and term our citizens as criminals.

I am sure that we would evolve and give a better India to our next generation.