Emotional Coup

What do I write upon today? Often as I walk everyday in and around my house and doing the daily household chores in the markets and malls nearby, there are various perspectives that run within my mind. But the tough part is identifying them and then penning them down accurately as the moment when they first appear on the large screen, it is usually not the time when I sit down and write. So, eventually what happens is like after watching the premier show and then walking out of the movie hall, I have to constantly keep reminding my self of various facets of the thought I wish to write upon and soon after reaching home, like a critique, I sit down to write and regurgitate that what is left on my mind. Tough, doesn’t it seem so. Well, I’ll let you into the secret for remembering. I try and remember the feeling that is generated as a result of the thought and consequently, when I am writing, I try to invoke the same emotion and feeling to simulate the feelings and the thought.

You see the biggest gift for humans is their emotions and feelings. While some people totally try to keep emotions aside on top of a shelf, some people are too engrossed in their emotions and get so drowned in them that at some later point of time, they take their emotions as a weakness. How do they deal with their weakness? They try to run from them. However, after running for a prolonged period of time, like Forrest Gump, you come to a point of numbness. A point that can’t be characterized, like the empty space. Call it infinity or call it pitch dark. We run and run so hard away from our feelings and emotions and get mixed up in the rat race that eventually feel empty in our lives and have nowhere to go and nothing to do. Total blankness. A return to where we started. Essentially, it turns into another of that clichéd vicious circle. The truth is that most of us at some point of time come to the self realization that while emotions and feeling are something that we avoid as it brings all the unpleasantness and the hurt, yet we need them to survive and feel life. Its funny, all the good time we have in our lives but we don’t understand the value of emotions and feelings. And suddenly one bad incident and we suddenly realize how painful emotions and feelings can be to handle. This is when we start running from them. But in the end, you start looking at life in a different manner. Once you have been through the pain, you realize the true worth of happiness and learn to look for it around and enjoy it.

Avoiding the pain, the ego crisis and running away from the evident trauma. We run so hard and fast and get involved in the mad race I this world, that there is often no time to ponder on such issues. You wouldn’t be surprised when you see in movies that the hero has to immerse himself in work to keep himself away from thinking of the affair that didn’t work or the love of his life that ditched him for another man or the wife who walked away or died, or for the son who didn’t recognize his father. There may be innumerable of those examples and I am most certain that while we sit and talk of them in a casual manner in our dining rooms and coffee shops, branding them as a mere exaggeration of human emotions, irony is that we all do go through some of those typical feelings often in our lives at some point of time. And then we find that the things we were laughing on are actually happening to us. So you run, but eventually when you finally get tired and stop to catch a breath of air, you realize you are so empty and fake, leading a pretentious life in front of the world, but still feeling so naked and raw as you stand in front of the mirror to look at your self. You are no nude painting of Michelangelo, no aesthetics, jus a naked body in front of the mirror, who has no place to hide, just tired, burnt and bruised. Full of contempt, burning with anger and devoid of positive emotions, you look like a zombie, a victim of witchcraft. You need emotions and feelings to feel full of life. I guess at the end of the day life is a big compromise. Some people make that compromise easily and move and some people can’t and take their time. The things that hurt you are things that you either avoid by shutting your eyes like an ostrich or you just decide to remove your ego and try to change your perception on that particular issue.

Irony is that the beauty of feelings and emotions can be realized only when you have gone through the bad side once. While I don’t intend to state that as a law, and I am sure people do realize the essence of emotions and feelings, yet I could safely say that they are more pronounced once you go through the turbulence. Perhaps this is what makes you more sensitive to the other side. Too abstract! Perhaps but then I’m sure this must be the beauty and I am sure you could connect to you own examples rather than mine.

Without taking this a step too further, I'd just say . Emotions that hurt you. Emotions that make you run away and yet emotions that make you want for them all the more. I guess I myself am in mixed emotions now.

valentino memorablia

PS: All characters inthis blog are purely fictional. Any resemblance to any person living or dead is prely coincidental.

Another year passes and so does another valentines day, knocking and the world going down for a day with eyes drooling with love and women as usual waiting on top of their porch and penthouses, waiting to be wooed by the men from Venice aboard their gondola’s. Ah! The exasperated sigh of a lonesome man like me who has perhaps never tasted exotic wine and spent an evening with a fine and wholesome lady of stature, class and looks, just await for the best days of my life in anticipation, looking out through the window on top of the tower. Alas! I don’t even have long hair like Rapunzel, in the bedtime stories, locked on top of the tower by her evil step parents, rescued by a prince. Unfortunately, keeping aside the gender difference of Rapunzel and mine, I await year after year wondering what is so wonderful about this one day in the year when you are supposed to be, not by will or choice but by social obligation, to be in love.

I look through the windows, clearing the mist and looking at the world, drool with love on their eye lashes. The excitement is in the air, like a lightening and a waterfall from a cloud burst that has struck permanently from the sky to the earth and is perennially present till eternity. All seems to be a fantasy land. Call me a pessimist but some how I feel left out of the charade all together. While at times I convince my self that I’m above the rest of the maddening crowd and its better to be single than to mingle like the merry men of Robin-hood, and convince myself that it is a matter of choice by way of which I exist the way I do, yet there are pangs of loneliness and guilt for keeping my self locked in the cellars of loneliness, depriving myself of the worldly pleasures and earthly desires. Some where I do wish perhaps there should have been there some one. It is not self contempt or applying first aid to my self inflicted wounds, rather, it is a mere fantasy that even I can afford to live for an instance, though it might look like self pity and remorse, yet giving me the joy of flying without wings.

As I rest on a rocking chair like grandpa’s do in the library next to the fireplace with their pipe in their mouth and brooding pensively, I go back down the memory lane and recall a small instance of valentines that I try not to forget. A normal day in the life of an insignificant soul like me, lost in the oblivion and just hanging around with a special one whom I particularly wanted to say a lot to but perhaps couldn’t as I had emerged from an accident involving the heart a few months before. They say a broken heart takes a lot of time to heel and this new lady in my life was turning out to be the way of fast recuperation out of the ER. A day when the world is feeling special and yet I didn’t and felt weird if I started feeling that way. Somehow past had made me all the more conscious on this one day. Why? Because everyone in the world knew what this day was supposed to be and so my feeling would have taken as a mere wave of over-emotionalism. I felt so naked and vulnerable, cos somehow I knew the girl I approached already knew what I had in my mind and so I took extra care to be just day way I am.

Returning to this particular day, I spent the entire day with this lady and doing nothing special as the world would ordinarily do. Just making sure to be extra cautious, not doing anything out of the league that might hint her that I had something in my mind. For one, I didn’t want to lose her if she got the wrong idea and definitely not considering the bad phase of my life I was going through after my last break up. This girl was my only friend and perhaps more, but I just didn’t want to risk it.

But then this lady was not ordinary as well. She was really special and as it turned out, all the typical mediocre and routine things we did that day turned out to be all the more special and extraordinary. As the day was approaching an end, we recollected the special times we had in the past few months of our acquaintance and how time always seemed to run short when we had all the things in the world to talk about and yet, when we had the time, time froze in eternity as we simply lazed on the grass in the warn sunlight, basking like newly born cubs, devoid of the world around. We walked all day and then made each other read our diaries for one particular day that we wanted to share. As the day approached to an end, we jus didn’t want to let go of the time and wrote thing to each other, in a mortal attempt for immortality of the instance of time. Finally, the day came to an end and as I walked to say goodbye for the day, we decided to venture in towards the college building. Just to prolong the moment that seemed so golden. A moment when neither of us had to say anything as we had done through out the day. Just a silence between us. The silence of reassurance and a bond that was from the heart and an unbreakable faith. It was so surprising how at times after spending years with a person, you might not know him and how a stranger suddenly become so close to the heart as if you’ve known her all your life.

So as we walked towards the college building, which was empty by now. We decided to take a walk to the first floor, just on the pretext of checking out the library and having a sip of water from the water cooler n the first floor. Mind you, there was a water cooler on each floor, but the one on the first floor was inexplicably special, call it an emotional bonding, specially during after college hours as it gave all the privacy and solace to the couples. So we thought, why not just take a round before we come back and say goodbye for the day. As I climbed the stairs with her onto the first floor, and the sun setting down and the point of time when its little dark but not pitch dark. We walked innocently, holding our hands and just not letting go of each other. A few occasional hugs at the water cooler and a few pecks on the cheeks, before I realized my vulnerability. A few hugs and a drinks of water later, we just didn’t want to let go. A hug that became tighter and longer and fiercer as I tried to pull myself away for an instance, fearing that some college staff or guard might discover us in a compromising position like this. So eventually, I tried being bold and with a tight peck onto the cheek that turned into a wicked cheek bite, I separated and walked with her hand in mine, towards the exit. As I walked, a myriad of emotions engulfed me. Desire, loneliness, not wanting the moment to end and also a fear of coming so close that it might hurt later. All this preoccupied my mind as I walked until I casually started checking out the latches of the lecture halls that I was passing. Just casually until, I found one open. I stopped, took a step behind and pushed the door a bit to find it open. For that instance the naughty me took reign over the normal me, with a wicked smile. I’m sure if I had a camera, I would have resembled the devil himself, with two horns on my head, a long tail and a spear in my hand.

Unquestioningly, I looked at her, who by now was a bit dazed at what I had explored and scared of the consequences and yet desirous of what she wanted a few minutes back. A quick gesture of the hand to ask her to follow, but I could see her mind going through the dilemma of what to do. I walked into the classroom, like an anxious teenage kid and looked out for her, asking her to come in quickly before any one else knew what we were upto. Suddenly my hormonal system seemed to be going into a frenzied chaotic activity, beyond any explanations. And as she walked in, it seemed to be something that we were waiting for. A special moment for both of us alone and cut off from the world. Just the two of us with no society and no qualms. Just a moment of truth. As we walked in and bolted the door, words were an unnecessary tool for the emotionally challenged people. When an action itself could speak millions of words, who needed words. As we walked towards each other, and embraced, time froze till eternity.

No it wasn’t a typical Hollywood flick like situations where there were wilds sparks flying in the air, or like Sharon Stone said in Basic Instinct to Michael Douglas, in the discotheque with a dusky voice “lets get out of here”. It was simple quite moment that belonged to both of us.

A slow embrace and slow dance with the music in our minds and feeling of belongingness. A moment that we didn’t want to lose. As we stood, with my arms around her waist and her hands across my neck, playing with my hair, I realized this was perhaps one moment that I’d probably never want to end. Of course I also realized the height difference between the both of us as I had to stop below to reach her. Nah! That is a an exaggeration and I’m sure she would be furious as she reads this. Well no I didn’t stoop down but yes looking into the difference, I had to put my arms around and raised for an instance onto the air, and then eventually she stood over the slightly lifted slab on the ground, reaching my neck. As I felt her breath on my face and her face on my mine, gently, rubbing her lips and cheeks on my face and forehead, teasing around and I rubbed my slight beard on her shoulder, I could see the exotic look on her face, that made me hold onto her forever and preserve the look for ever. Perhaps it still is ingrained in my mind. Soon we were holding each other tighter, feeling each others body pressed hard against each other, speaking of the insecurity and the loneliness we had been facing for such a long time. A basic need emerged that needed no words of solace. As we looked at each others eyes, the naughty me kept taking control and nibbling here and there till I got a reciprocatory bite on my cheek, as if taking revenge of my past actions. At times my hands wandered here and there but were suitably punished with a pinch or a slap.

It grew darker outside but we didn’t care. Just holding on, caressing and cherishing the moment of togetherness. A few love marks for each other to make ourselves remember of the time when time froze. Seconds transcended onto minutes and eventually to an hour and more, before we heard the loud whistle of the guard outside, which seemed to bring us out of the fantasy void and the delusional trip that we were taking on each others arms. One final kiss and we opened the door to the outside world and as I walked to leave her that night, I knew something had changed. Something that I would never forget. As I walked that night with her out of the room, the world seemed to have changed. For an instance, I was drooling with my hangover. Suddenly nothing else mattered. I realized some thing so basic. I had just had my first valentines day which I would probably never forget. Neither did she. The fact that her hair pin was stuck on my head when we were entwined. Having forgotten it, I walked into the hostel and the mess, with people looking at my unkempt and shoveled hair and giving me giggles and smiles, which I initially took to be a sign of world being in love that day. She on the other hand walked into her hostel, unaware that one of my gifted love marks were right on the left side of her neck, visible to the entire world except her, until she looked at the mirror.

And for one more instance, time froze for ever, even while we were away from each other.

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.