Truth will set you free!!

The truth will set you free - reads a message boldly scrawled across a book my colleague is carrying; and thus I wonder! Does the truth really set you free, and if it does then does this freedom always lead to happiness? I believe that the ultimate aim in life is happiness (param sukh - and I don't mean Shinde's version of it); so does the truth give that to you? Isn't it true that at times what we believe as true is much more beautiful than the truth itself? That the ultimate discovery of the truth often results in the bursting of a bubble of joy/hope that existed? Is it better to not know that someone has cheated you in the past when it really doesn't affect you any longer? Wouldn't you be better off believing that all your friends, with whom you no longer are in touch, are doing well rather than knowing the truth that one of them is suffering or worse? So maybe the truth does set you free but I don't know if I want that freedom at times. At others I just am content with a distorted truth that makes me feel good. But then is it the truth at all, if it is distorted? What is actually the truth then? The chandelier or the light that it emits?

Us mod se shuru karen...

  Jagjit Sigh sang - 

    Us mod se shuru karen phir ye zindagi.  

     Har shay jahan haseen thee, hum tum the ajnabi.       

     Lekar chale the hum jinhe jannat ke khwaab the,     

     Phoolon ke khwab the wo mohabbat ke khwab the      

     Lekin kahan hai unmein wo pehle see dilkashi!

     Rehte the hum, haseen khayaalon ki bheed mein;  

     Uljhe huye hain aaj sawaalon ki bheed mein. 

     Aane lagi hai yaad wo fursat ki har ghadi. 

     Shaayad ye waqt humse koi chaal chal gaya

     Rishta wafa ka aur hi rangon mein dhal gaya

     Ashkon ki chandini se thee behtar wo dhoop hi!

A song that was relevant 6 months ago is now just another beautiful piece of poetry!! 

Learning to walk

Do you remember learning to walk?
A time when your feet were small!
Do you remember learning to walk?
When first you learned to crawl!

When adventure fought safety off
And curiosity overcame fear.
When pain may be the result,
But independence was dear.

When no matter how hard you fell,
Each time you tried to stand.
And before you stood by yourself,
You stood holding her hand.

When on the second step you crashed,
While on the first you wobbled.
When you cried in hurt and pain
And again you stood; untroubled.

And tiny steps that started,
Giant strides they became!
From walking on to running,
Far away from the pain.

So, from crawling to standing to walking to running,
Do you remember learning?
On your behalf I shall not talk; but I?
Again am learning to walk.

Friends!

Now:

1. Two eight year olds are at a party. One says something to the other. They fight and yell and have to be separated and sent away.

2. Two seventeen year olds are at a party. One says something to the other. They have a fight and walk away.

3. Two thirty year olds are at a party. One says something to the other. The other is offended and says so. One apologises and says it was not meant and they carry on with the party as if everything is fine.

2 hours later:

1. The two eight year olds are busy playing a game of hide and seek together.

2. The two seventeen year olds are still furious and not on speaking terms.

3. The two thirty year olds are saying bye at the end of the party.

Next day:

1. The two eight year olds are running riot together in school.

2. The two seventeen year olds are planning which lecture to bunk so they may catch a movie.

3. The two thirty year olds smile to each other as they pass in the corridor and go on to their work desks.

10 years later:

1. Two eighteen year olds are planning which movie to catch.

2. One twenty-seven year old is the best man at the other's wedding.

3. Two forty year olds are hard pressed to remember where they had seen each other last.


And they ask me why is it so much easier to make friends when we are younger!!!

Three large 100 pipers, two recurring thoughts, one hope and fourteen lines

A pen and paper haven't been hard to find.
The words I search for though haven't been kind!

The past maybe I too often looked at,
The future may never really be fact.

The age old wisdom ringing tonight I sleep,
The road may be long, the climb too steep.

As long as I have you to hold,
Somewhere to be when I feel cold,

I care not for the what the future may be
While the past's something I refuse to see.

With demons that were or will be.
The knight that battles, a fool is he.

'cause how does it matter what life really meant
As long as the tense of your joy is present.

The difference to being different?

What is it that drives a man to try and stand out amongst his peers?
That seems to be the flavour of this week. I don't know why, all of a sudden I have had a deluge of people this week who were trying so hard to stand out that they almost fell over. And the funniest part is that almost all of them are so plain run-of-the-mill that it isn't even funny. Maybe that is the point. If you are really a stand-out person then you don't have to try to stand out! But returning to why.
Why this urge to be different that makes people, normal ones like you and me (????), to make a mess of their lives, their health, their relationships and whatever else that may matter. I mean, if you have to believe Darwin then the wilderbeast that conform to the herd have the greatest chance of surviving as against the 'hero' who decides to stand apart. If I were to apply that logic to humans I would be making the generalization that humans are a herding people. But we are, aren't we?
So then why do we want to stand out of this herd? Why are we so upset when life gets boring and monotonous? Why does the mundane always draw groans and sighs? Why do we want to find a meaning to living? Why do we have to think that there is a greater purpose to life than the crass one of just being? Why?
Any answers?

To write is to right!

No dramatic opening lines. No interesting topics to write of. Nothing! No! not even nothing or emptiness or a sickening hollow that I may turn into words. No! only the absence of anything, the absence even of 'nothing.' That is what today has me bothered.

I have always thought a world of my abilities to write. What was it that I used to say to the ladies - "my words will always be magic!" was it? And today? Today I fork out the lantern hidden in my satchel and try to light the fire that burnt out in it long ago for the sole purpose that I may set forth along some path in search of those elusive words of mine. But is that the answer? Or is it even the right question?

Its just not my words that have lost the magic, you see. Its all words that seem to have lost their magic to me. Earlier I'd read a piece of prose/poetry and I'd have images dancing in front of my eyes, would have thoughts running through them neurons of mine at such speeds that if I started writing I would stop only for the lack of paper or because an overzealous friend wanted to have a consultation. But today I read a piece, thought-provoking or otherwise, a beautiful play of words, of inflections and tones and of images and emotions and what do I feel? Nothing! (again that absence of even nothingness that I was talking about.)

Why has this happened I question. An earlier me would have gone up to roof (I dont even know what the roof of my apartment looks like and I have been living here for 6 months now) and raged against the heavens and the sky and the elements until I had the answer. I would have gone on silently or screaming or both until I had the answer. But now? Now I dont even know how the roof looks. Why? I ask this question to a placid computer screen and I expect a response. Brilliant!!

I dont even remember how I found inspiration those days. I mean, I never had to look. That lantern in the satchel burnt bright but never needed to be used. And today I need it and it has died out. I didnt write ever for others' sake, I know that for sure. And often I didnt write for myself. Seldom I wrote for writing's self itself but most often I just wrote. No hows, No whys, No whats and certainly no ifs. Then what changed? What went wrong? When did I start traversing the path to today?

I thought maybe I was trying too hard to find the answers. Maybe all I needed was to walk away from it for a while and I would be able to do it again. But it didnt help. I walked away but I failed to reach anywhere.

And suddenly, voila! As I violently strike the keys on the keyboard it strikes me - that maybe I didnt walk away at all. Maybe I have been writing in my head all the time but have been rejecting my words everytime. Maybe what really is happening that while in the past I wrote I didnt judge, I wrote but didnt criticise while today I judge what I write, I criticise and I then again search for the very words that I have just rejected.

The roof it needs my presence today I suddenly am aware, not to rant against the elements but to rant against my ownself. Oh world please pity me for I have started to write, not for myself, but for you!

She's got that look in her eyes!

It is a cloudy morning. Really lazy weather – when you wake up from sleep, get your cup of tea/coffee, stretch out on your couch and read your newspaper. It is a morning when you do not think of work. And to top it, it is a Saturday morning. But the poor (financially and otherwise) resident in the poor (nothing financial about it!) hospital doesn’t have the Saturday off. So the wife decides she doesn’t want to work and being entitled to a compensatory off she really has no troubles. Afterall she earned it by working on the last public holiday that people enjoyed. So what does the poor (again f&o) husband do? Change into his bright livery, pack his bag and drag himself to work and sick people while the wife sits back unhappily because she no longer has company on this beautiful morning and no one to nag?

But what does our eternally conflicted and perennially confused hero actually do? He calls his boss, comes up with some classic excuse, chucks his bag into the dark recesses of the cupboard his wife’s been nagging him to clean and puts his feet up to enjoy the weather and the undescribable pleasure of time stolen from work when he realises that his wife has that look on her face! Now for the benefit of the unmarried or the uninitiated or that non-existent brand of creatures who have never experienced ‘that look’ from the wife let us digress and attempt to do what no man has ever done, to boldly go where no man has ever gone before, or atleast returned back sane after going there. Lets go into the psyche of the woman, lets talk about ‘that look.’ What we are talking about here is a sudden change in the body language of a woman. You can never pinpoint what/where this change is. Is it the eyes? Do they have a special effervescence in them all of a sudden? Or is it the colour in her face which suddenly seems brighter? Or is it just the spring in her step and all else that she may be doing? Whatever it is, it is something that is perceptibly there and can be felt by even the most amateur of men. So she seems happy! Then wherein lies the problem? It lies at the cause of this ‘look’(or was it that look?) because not even the most experienced of men can honestly claim to know what that cause might be? Initially when the woman is a new concept to the boy-man this look causes him the greatest excitement. It sends a surge of pure joy through his sinews to see his woman in a state that he in his inexperience can attribute only to pleasure. He tries to find the cause for it and rejoices in its discovery. He wishes for this state to last forever, for this joy to be all pervading so much so that he believes that he may have found something that can put an end to all misery in this world. Some may even send their nominations for the nobel prize (esp. considering the way its handed out on a platter these days). And once our nobel hero has found this cause, which on most occasions is some of kind of longing on the behalf of his fair maiden, he sets out on a voyage to get it for her. The dangers that this enterprise may be fraught with he doesn’t care for, the price(again f&o) he may have to pay for it is inconsequential, all that matters is ‘that look’ in his lady’s eye. It is the same look that engulfed Paris, that set sail to a thousand ships and that led to the ultimate destruction of Troy. But in that carnage it gave fame to many – to Helen, to Achilles and to Homer.

But with time everything will rot! [There are the ones who will argue that with time wine matures but eventually what it actually does is rotting or fermenting or whatever (potato/potaato)]. The boy-man who has rotted/matured into the man now is well versed with this look. He has learnt, with the slightest of glances, to recognise it and his instincts have taught him to keep his eyes off it. But it is ‘that look’! The one that has changed the course of history so many times that history itself has lost count. It is ‘that look’ which cannot be ignored, one that should not (actually cannot) be named. So despite the little sane man in his head crying danger and ringing all kinds of bells he eventually looks and he does not stop at that. He enquires! All the time the alarm bells ringing louder! And although the foolhardiness of his once-upon-a-time nobel aspirations are by now clear to him he still finds the cause, all the while knowing that the consequences are more likely than not, to be troublesome. And whence the cause is found, still most likely a longing from the now not-as-fair maiden, he sets out on a voyage to get it for her. The dangers that this enterprise may be fraught with he now knows but still doesn’t care for, the price(again f&o) he may have to pay for it is no longer inconsequential but still all that matters is ‘that look’ in his lady’s eye. Because with time he has now realized that ‘that look’ too rots. And nothing speeds up the rot like inaction on the part of our gallant knight! What this by now famous look rots into is something best left for a later date. For now just trust our hero’s setting out on his tedious enterprise despite the clanging of his instinctual alarm bells as enough proof of its horror.

Wake up and ??

Life's been busy and I've been bitchy. I've spent almost a month now bitching about this or that. But enough is enough! No more bitching! Well...maybe just one more time. Maybe I will be a movie critic yet i.e. criticize one to the best of my abilities. So here goes...

So what happens is - I get one day free after a gruelling fortnight and I am wondering what I may do with this great boon God decided to bestow upon this humble (lol) being when I realise Diwali is here and I have no lights! So I buy some and some diyas and a kandil and I also hook them up. Quick job! Good job! They look great.(see the humble part, don't you?) Will post photos as soon as I can find that damned appendage that connects my phone to the computer. Now that's done, so what to do next? Relax and enjoy God's gift? No! I decide on a movie. Against my wife's best intuitions I decide on it! Wake Up Sid! Rave reviews, a thousand friends' recommendations. Lets go I say!

And at the end of it all it was 'wake up jester'? I mean why was that movie made? To preach from a high pedestal? But preach what? The acting was good, the movie was shot classily and all that but what was it all about. And why the rave reviews? Because Bombay, oops Mumbai rules the nation? Because it touched the chords of some of Mumbai's aam janta? Or just because it reminded people of their own need to wake up after college. Maybe that but the movie was alarmingly impotent.

Things happen too easily and too quickly(i mean the movie is slow paced at best but in the characters' life...). Has the director ever looked for a flat in Mumbai? And then decked it up designer style and looked at the bill? And did he find a job and make his bones that quick? (I guess yes!)

So maybe the protagonists are super talented and all but its still a little hard to swallow all the sleeping and then waking up and then the maturity and immaturity and jazzy referential frames. Really there wasn't much that made me feel I wanted to continue watching the movie (maybe the hope that the protagonists would not predictably fall for each other). Kashmira Shah's eggs did hold my attention for a while but that was that. Anupam Kher had one good scene when he kicks his son out (maybe he should have done that like 10 yrs ago instead).

And then they went and did it! Why did they go and fall in love? Because the child in them was still alive and willing to get wet in a jiffy? Dunno! Don't want to know either. Maybe I have lost my abilities to feel and maybe it was indeed a great movie but I certainly didn't enjoy it, least of all my wife's 'I told you so' look at the end. So I wonder what you guys would say if I said that 'Wanted' was a much better movie. Atleast the man was a man. All macho (pronounce makkho) and chauvinistic like all good men (at least A Few Good Men) should be. So what do I say except that movie critique is not my genre and I stick to that statement.

But 'Wake Up Sid' did have me thinking as to what Sid eventually woke up from and what he did wake up into!

Pseudo-blogging

I haven't posted in a while. I wrote two blogs on paper but for reasons technical and mundane didnt manage to 'soft-copy' them (sorry just had to poke fun at that usage of the term). Now what I was going to post about, I have completely forgotten. Well, not so much forgotten as chosen to ignore because it is a lot of solid hogwash inspired by the antics of a certain neurochemical in my cerebral cortex that sometimes makes my wife call me a 'pseudo'! A pseudo what you may ask and I couldn't answer because she never tells me that. So let me guess - A pseudo-poet? pseudo-writer? ...not making sense here! So then what? A pseudo-intellectual? A pseudo-psychopath?That sounds interesting, a pseudo-psychopath! I wonder what he would be like. Would he be like me? But which me? The one everyone sees or the one I see in the mirror? Thats a question to answer later.

What I think she really means when she calls me a pseudo is a 'fake'. Because I have seen her restrict the usage only to times when I really am faking. Thats the whole problem in letting someone get so close to you that they know stuff about you that you can only publicly muse about. So now here's the catch! What would you people call this post - pseudo or not? And if yes then pseudo what?

Now that I have completely stopped making sense I will go on and try and make sense of some poor soul's suffering while the people reading this blog do so of their own.