Thanks...RIP

Death separates, sometimes it nurtures, teaches, enlivens and creates. Death celebrates life.

Thanks for the lessons of your life. RIP

To Swathi

I love you Swathi

More than I ever did
Less than I ever will

Happy Anniversary!

overheard in conversation

A: Mailmen cannot be bad re...we can hitch a ride from them
B: Bad is not a person...bad is a moment.

New leaf...old tree!

I have been asked why I do not blog as much. First, I thought it was lajjiness, then I thought I had writers block, then I called it loss of talent (you know like you suddenly realize you forgot how to swim!) but now I choose to give a different reason.

Background:
I read a couple of blogs, Australo, Iceochrom.,Wifey's (old and new and picture) cynduja and all of them and realized

Conclusion:

• I am not as funny in prose as I am in conversation
• I am not really at cross-roads - much clearer than what I was sometime ago when I was writing
• I do not ponder about emotions and feelings and causes - reason: emotions are too fleeting to think of, supporting a cause still makes sense but I think after a point I get too preachy
• Wifey is much more humorous than I - I believe (if she is reading this...they are called brownie points swathi...)

I still realize I have a knack of coming up with lines that I wish were recorded and played over for people who might need a line or thought at a moment - for feeling better, worse or clear these lines are more or less original to the extent that I word them but the thoughts are not original. Actually, is there ever an original individual thought or feeling. I mean they are responses to an external stimulus so its as much you as the stimulus is responsible for a thought.

Anyways, I will probably continue writing, without getting depressing or hypocritical or preachy...will try to figure out some way to make the time spent on this blog more meaningful than mere window to my feelings...which like I said are really not worthy of a lot of things that might be helpful in making your lives better.

Memories...

Funny...how we are fond of memories never realizing this is just 'A' journey and not 'The'...
There have been many and many more to come...
But my memory-slate will wipe clean with moments chalking new ones...
And the memory-smith watches along patiently till the slate breaks and the moments-chalk crumbles...

Me

I am accused of too little and too late. The blog has not been updated; thoughts have not ceased, will has rested. Imagination still wreaks havoc in mind city and when my legs wander to places with a past and present, emotion writes.
I am not the activist who held those placards at the Gateway, I am clearly not the sympathetic who lit candles at Taj. I did not lose sleep to watch the show on live television. I did not discuss the tales of bravado of people who made it or didn’t at office. I fear.
With a pang of shame that society thrusts into my heart, I make a confession. Society judges me, jungle law, numbers win, Is right popular or popular right? I did not feel so much for the people who died on 26th 27th or later. I knew I was at home with my wife, family and friends were safe and most of all, it was an office holiday. Some UNO at home and wife’s cooking with occasional sound bytes of the terrorists or Barkha Dutt crying on the TV.
Indifference, my primal flaw, my greatest virtue. To a life that is governed by the closed room of money, career, family and happiness. The guy living two blocks away will get shot, I, however, will miraculously miss the magic bullet. She will get raped, my wife is home safe, I do not care. And when I have coffee with friends or dinner at office, I masturbate my thoughts on what should be right or wrong and if the government was right or other blah!
Do I understand the gravity of the terror? No. Do I pay homage to the dead police? Not so much. Do I feel for the dead? Not until they are shown helpless on television. Why?
Am I not the Mumbaikar? Am I not Indian? What the heck? Am I even human?
I am human. I know fear, I know selfishness, greed, jealousy and lust. I love for myself, I live for my needs and I fear death. Like a dog with no master, I roam waiting to trust the next hand that will pet me and waiting to lick the next blade that cuts. Shameless, indifferent and scared. I have no will to change except when my roof is on fire or my food doesn’t come. I have no want to be better except when he is bettering me and I need to beat him. I know I am wrong, I know I will be. Under my cloak of good I lurk. Indifferent, callous and spiteful. And when you look through the hole, you see eyes, filled with the fear of death. You call them terrorist

Simple!

My father sat beside me in the morning and in all secrecy asked me " So, What have you tried?", all of the engineering final year I was, I told him about my (mis) adventures. And he told me, its too complicated in the world, I was leaving home for the first time, this body is very precious and other such things that only Dad's can say making life feel like a K serial re run.

I left home, its been 3 years a little less actually and I swear i would kiss my Dad's hand and sing in his praise. Life is too fucking complicated. It is.

There are the usual issues like poverty, malnutrition, discrimination and stuff. I have been at the giving and receiving end, which would mean, I would not be allowed to get Muslim friends home as a kid even if I argued that he would let me play his video games and its only coincidental that he cuts his foreskin off, for which I didn't care so much. I would be told not to touch the street kid, he carries germs, not even if I wanted to play cricket with them, since all my flatmates refused to budge during rains. I cannot play with the little puppy, and I shouldn't bring the kitten burnt in the garbage dump to let it live its last moments in peace. See, the giving and the receiving end!.

And as my mind was trying to figure an existence that would let me survive the dual worlds of complete childlike fascination and fascist orthodox south indian conservatism, I learnt that its best to keep things simple. Watch the kitten die, play with the puppy and do not tell mom, let the street kid come to my ground and play and of course, video games took immediate precedence
over friends penal stylings.

I thought I solved the problem. Granny wouldn't know, Dad doesn't mind, Mom can be reasoned with. But then shit hit the fucking fan. Conscience.

A pretty complicated, extremely messed up, very confused Conscience. It has two problems. It questions. It is persistent, like the nagging wife, the snot lump that just sticks to your throat, the popcorn in your teeth, you get the drift.

When I was playing with the street kid,
Anil said, Bastard he can hit the ball for a six, power man, I want to smash his face.
Conscience says, He deserves better man, they all deserve better, someone should, no, they should, no no, you, no, I, yes I should try doing something and I search for NGO's.

When I am with the Muslim friend,
Anil said, He eats meat man, I don't, Its yucky, do not touch that pulao, who knows what was on the plate before, I do not like the smell in Muslim houses, these Muslims are pretty unclean man, eeks.
Conscience says, Hey nice playstation, teach me the guitar dude, oh Quran and all eh!, pretty religious bitch you are :P

When i meet the gay, faggot, homosexual (phew!) friend of mine,

Well my conscience would have said this gay fuck who is a friend of mine, a pretty good one at that…you get it don’t you.

I do not care about the Muslim guy, I do not give a damn about the street kid, I should not be so uncomfortably trying to be politically correct about the gay friend. Cos, had there been just Anil and the conscience, its a little less muddled, but then comes the third party, Society.

Society, it taught me to flinch when i hear a sexist comment, it showed me to care for the guy with no clothes, it wanted me to be sensitive to the racial and sexual minorities. And in doing this balancing act, I am left even more chaotic in the head, I do not want to flinch at MCP's, it adds to my woes cos I cannot change them, I do not want people to judge me on the fact that I visit street kids, cos I do it for a very selfish reason (see, I am sure atleast one reader will be thinking " is he a paedophile"), exactly my point, I want this world to be simple, like it was before my Dad asked me " So what did i experiment with" and now I would tell him.

"Dad, i experimented with my conscience, I am screwed up big time, I know a lot more than probably you do, like the right word for Homosexuals, the wrong things to say to women, the history of feminist movements, the best way to be respected in this society, but Dad, you have one last thing to teach me before you chuck it and leave, How the fuck did you live for this long, and managed to keep it simple?"

I do not know why I wrote this, probably as a prologue to a conversation with JD. But I wish life was simpler, I would only need to bother about the next time I get to watch good porn, or if that hot thing next door will wear skimpy clothes and smoke with her boyfriend so I can lech at her and think in my head " Oh she smokes, she must've had sex also" or when I would tell my sixteen year old kid "You are too young to date a girl, I will break your legs if I see you around her anymore". I want the old world back where all I had to fight was my innocent conscience