Care to be politically incorrect ?

So many people during the last few days have told me that I criticize too much and that I should, for a change, praise something. So I decided to look into the things I could praise and came up with this extremely comprehensive list :

1. Federer (you know that alpha male of human species)
2. Cricket vis a vis Soccer (man, cricket rules so much, soccer does not even hold a candle to its greatness)

and then I ran out of ideas. The fact of the matter is that there are so many other things to praise but in all those cases, I just cannot be radical enough to piss off atleast some people and till there are atleast some people whose egos are hurt while I praise something shamelessly, where is the fun ? I could praise hindi poetry and classical music but why should I do it if everyone agrees with my point of view ? It will be just like 10 people sitting on a table starting to argue whether Hitler was right or wrong but everyone believing that Hitler was wrong. Such a discussion can never be interesting, far less informative and thought provoking. If I had been at that table I would atleast have started by praising Hitler just so that I could hurt some pointless egos. Its extremely interesting to see how easily people get threatened by a difference in point of view and how easily they assume the status of moral police just so that they could bring normalcy to a world gone haywire by the innocuous opinions of one random guy. I would ofcourse have been mercilessly mauled in that group but I would consider that a bargain. The fact of the matter is that we have far too many conformists pottering about in the society who would rather be politically correct than be themselves or atleast a bit of a sport. They think too much about what should be acceptable social behaviour and are far too afraid to have a radical, even a different point of view (and don't go shooting around with allegations of my being an elitist. If you did get offended by the last sentence then you probably do belong to the generalization I talked about and I can't do anything about it but if you did'nt get offended, so much the better. Its just my opinion and no one needs to go ballistic over it. If someone does go ballistic, I can only have a laugh.). I am not saying that mocking someone in a social gathering when he is demonstrably uncomfortable is right because it is not. If you do that you need to be sent to the gallows in my book because then you are one of those jerks who, in the ecstacy of hogging the limelight, tramples upon the emotions and sentiments of those who are too polite to hit you in the face with a hatchet then and there.

So this brings me to the crux of my discussion. Why do I criticise so much ? Its simple. Its a lot of fun. I am not necesarily a cynic although I do believe in everything I say to atleast some degree. The rest of it is just, what do you call, garnishing. It just so happens that most of the things I do not like (or hate) happen to be things which present ample room for scathing sarcasm on account of their overwhelming foolishness or stupidity. I am principally against them but all the spicing is just so that I could get a humurous point of view. So I decided to make a list of things that I do hate. Its a pretty comprehensive list and I am sure that some of it atleast is going to piss off each one of you but don't develop a hatred against me on account of it because this is what you expect from two different human beings: A difference in opinion in atleast some fields of life:

People who:
1. dye their hair, drink 8$ frappuchinos, wear extreme clothings or baggy pants, follow trends mindlessly, belong to Generation X, buy the latest gadgets, eat meat filled burgers, smoke, drink not because they want it or like it but just to prove some stupid point. Nobody cares. Atleast I don't.
2. sell their morals and principals too easily for money. Most of us have a selling price but still it doesn't stop me from hating it. I might also have a selling price and I hate that possibility because I know that there HAVE been some mortals who never sold themselves from money.
3. are pseudo feminists, "socialites" (what does that mean anyways), pseudo humanitarians, pseudo social activists, pseudo moralists, religious extremists, fanatics (I approve of nationalists though). In essence all those who are trying to be someone they are not. And believe me, it is much easier to spot them than they ever thought possible.

4. Obnoxious, shrill, misbehaved children. There are far too many jerks in the world and I assume they all used to be obnoxious, shrill, misbehaved children. I don't dislike these children as much as I dislike their parents who are just nurturing another future jerk. And did you notice how easily I managed to be entirely politically incorrect !

5. TV shows like Friends, family soaps, american football (man, did you ever see another game which required lesser skill to play. Even Ludo needs more skill), movies like Independence day, KKKG IAALYF Yo!, Titanic etc. They are far too insulting to a human being's intelligence to even be considered for release. I cannot comprehend how they manage to do so well.

6. immorality, dishonesty, too much conformism (as it kills creativity and free thinking), girls who talk about feminism but take undue advantage of their status as girls to move up in society by pleasing their bosses and who would expect you to leave your seat in a bus for them (equality my foot), the bosses who are so stupid to fall in the trap, boys who would rather take the course of empty praise to move up the social ladder than talent and hardwork.

I haven't even scratched the surface and I have so many things. There are surely many more things but you do get the idea why I criticise so much. There is far too much matter out there to make a delicious recipe of humurous bashing. Meanwhile I have decided that I will be updating this only on the weekends unless ofcourse if I decide otherwise :-).

P.S: Oh by the way if you did not get it, I was joking the whole time !!!!!!!!

BullSh*t

I was going through my daily motions of reading the articles on rediff, flinching at every next mention of 'Abhivarya', posting some stinging comments on the 1032nd report analyzing the utterly pointless and quiet disposable event of Shilpa Shetty derogated on Big Brother (Seriously, how can people be so jobless as to have the time to read those junk articles. Now I am sure some of you would say, "But Ankit you also read that article, LOL!!!", and I would say, "So What" and look shamelesly in the other direction)... You know, minding my own business as usual when I came across this article which mentioned this word bullshit and wrote it like bullsh*t and immediately, in the capacity of a self-appointed ass-kicker of hypocrisy, my bullshit detector started ringing like crazy.

I just don't get it. I can almost picture the man who wrote the article. When the moment came to vent his basic anger at whatever he was dissecting, he must have thought:

"hmmm, what should I write, what should I write... Oh yes... bullshit... but that won't be acceptable to the society... hmmm... hmmm... hmmm... how about bullsh*t !!!... Ingenious, Brilliant, Innovative... Man, I rule so much"

and he would have smirked a little, just like Edison would have smirked upon getting his 1022nd patent. However, in all the ecstacy of his stumbling upon this entirely genius plan he forgot one thing: His readers are not unicelled blue green algae and most of them possess enough gray matter to come up with the word bullshit when presented with the word bullsh*t. I assume that he expected one of the two scenarios, either of which will render his stance pretty much void:

1. I hope that people will figure out that what I am trying to say is the word 'bullshit'.
Argument: First of all, thanks for showing so much belief in the mental capacities of fellow humans but my point is that if most of the people ARE able to decode your elaborately encrypted code, doesn't it defeat your whole purpose ? If most of the people can add 2+2 then I contest that bullsh*t is as offensive as bullshit to all those for whom it is offensive. And seriously, we are talking about humans here. Not jellyfishes, not logs of wood, not Ekta Kapoors. Lets give some respect to their intelligence.

2. I hope that people won't be able to figure out what I truly meant by writing bullsh*t.
Argument: Do I even need to present an argument ? Nevertheless, whats the point of using a word in an article when you are wishing that no one will be able to get its import ? And I am sure that you are not doing any justice to your writing skills if you are writing for those who won't be able to make out bullshit from bullsh*t.

Nevertheless, the point which emerges from all this rambling is that if you do not want to offend people (which should depend entirely upon your set of ethics and your own social considerations) by writing some offensive word, don't write it at all. Don't go through the pains of encrypting it in a laughably moronic code only to end up getting decoded left, right and center by most of the humans and even some trained dogs and cats. I could delve into the psychological underpinnings of such an impulse, but I would rather save my and everyone else's time by terming it asyet another shining example social hypocrisy.

Pandit Ravishankar and Ustad Allarakha at Monterey pop '67

If you are music afficionados of any kind whatsoever*, you have to watch it. Full Stop:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=1BqAfNKb0Q4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UApLjfmJGbw&NR

Pandit Ravishankar and Ustad Allarakha in a mindshattering performance in Monterey. Combined video length is 18 minutes so watch it when you have ample time. Look at the spiritual rapture at the end and extended standing ovation. I am floored. Completely floored. I should just shut the hell up here because I don't even have words to adorn such a fantabulous performance.


*well if you like Britney spears or her ilk and your age is in double digits, in my opinion you need to evaluate your life right now. And yes, do tell me so that I can send you to my quarantined list.

Junk Mails

Disclaimer: Everything I say (ever in life) is probably said in a dazed state and probably does not mean a thing and probably is here just so that I (or others) could get a laugh. Please don't go marching on the streets protesting my arrest as an anti-social element. Howsoever crazy the idea seems, I want to tell you that you do have the right to NOT read it if you don't want to.
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Lately I have been getting so many junk forwards, I have seriously considered wielding my hatchet over those unsuspecting innocent souls who, I guess, do not realize that just by pressing a send over the "Forward" button in their mail browsers, they are helping in dumbing down the Internet to levels I had not thought possible (Yes, I have a hatchet. I keep it for emergencies like burgulary, street fights, terror attacks, if I meet Karan Johar or Ekta Kapoor some day, if there are too many children blasting off my ears in an an airplane etc.). The situation has become so bad, I have had to make a mail filter which sends mails with subjects having the word "Fwd" or any of its variants straight to Trash. I had thought of sending an e-hatchet as an auto reply to such mails but realized that I still live in a "civilized" society so probably that won't be taken in the right spirit. Nevertheless, here are some of the common types of forwards people keep inflicting upon humanity even though I am sure they have not had abusive parentage or exploited childhood and the world does not have anything against them:

1. 26 things a boyfriend should do to make his girlfriend love him: Just when you are rubbing your hands in excitement at being in the possession of the greatest set of gurumantra ever, you read the first point and are forced to break your Television just because you would probably have inflicted fatal wounds to your head had you not had some inanimate object to vent your fury upon. It reads, "Say ouch cutely when she hits you". Seriously ? Isn't that supposed to be spousal abuse and violence ? How about my making a video of the hienous crime and dragging her to the court so that I could extract some money out of the incidence upon charges of manhandling, mental trauma and violence and then buying some Round Table cheese slices, which by the way rule so much, I sometimes have to wonder if even God has them in his lunch (because I am pretty sure that God is a vegetarian).

2. Help a child dying with cancer. Pass this email : This kind of mail is probably written by someone (I will call him the 'Hacker!' in the spirit of the 'Dude!') who, I am guessing, flunked his computer course in his undergrad. He is not good enough to code-up a virus which could go to people's mail boxes and kick everyone's ass by transmitting itself to all those present in the address book, so he just makes up a laughably foolish tale of a cancer child who would be saved miraculously, if only you could forward his mail to all of your friends (thereby bringing the tally of your friends to ZERO). How pathetic ! you 'Hacker!'. THE ONE THING YOU HAD TO DO!!!. Even if I wanted to help that poor child, I am too lazy (and probably wise) to send it to all of my acquaintances. You could as well have coded a virus and named it "I-am-a-malicious-virus-but-I-believe-that-you-are-foolish-enough-to-still-fall-in-the-trap-and-open-me-for-I-have-been-effectively-disguised-to-take-advantage-of-your-bleeding-heart.vir" and be sure that with the amount of intelligence I have been gifted, I would easily have opened it. Seriously. Does anyone ever send those mails forward ? Oh wait! How did I get this ?... Where is my hatchet ?

3. Send this to 3 people, you will have your wish........... otherwise.............: Ooooooooooooooooooo. I am so afraid, I could not even sleep properly and had to watch KKKG IAALYF (for those of you who could not decode it: Kabhee khushi kabhee gham, Its all about loving your family, Yo!) just so that I could sleep (too bad that I almost choked upon suffocating mediocrity). I am so damn scared about the possibility of the curse of a junk mail ruining my life, I almost decide to do the impossible and the despicable i.e. send it to 3 friends atleast but then I wake up. The worst part of such a forward is that you see that the person who has sent you the mail has sent it to either 3 or 6 or 9 persons (or whatever number the mail mentions) and realize that homo sapiens is no longer the cleverest of all species. Seriously, I have stopped making donkey jokes. If donkeys ever come to know about this, they will kick some serious human ass.

4. From the desk of Mr......, Burkina Faso : These are one of those mails which claim that they are willing to pay millions of dollars for nothing and the worst part with them is that their subject does not contain "Fwd" so I cannot delete them automatically. But guess what. Their premise is so overwhelmingly foolish, you would believe that all the foolishness in the world has been used up by this one mail, but then you watch "Kyonki saas bhee kabhee bahu thee" and start believing in the infinity of foolishness. These mails are so stupid, they could as well have contained "Fwd" in their subject. Their subject would have read "Fwd: You have won 13 million dollars" and you would have wondered how come such an important and personal news comes to me in the form of a Forward. But if you think like this, you deserve to get scammed by those people. Here is what you do when you get one of these mails: DELETE THEM. Personally, I always send them an e-hatchet in return just because thos fools did not include an "Fwd" in their subject line and wasted my precious time.

There is so much much more but I am bored now. Rest for later.

Sensuality Misinterpreted ?

Ok. Pop Quiz.

Q1. What the hell is wrong with the world ?
Q2. Why are people like Mallika Sherawat, Koena Mitra and Rakhi Sawant still alive ?
Q3. What right do they have to be so damn stupid ?

I was just watching this KBC episode on youtube when my room-mate happened to click on Mallika's new year stage performance. Just as I was watching her shameless antics, I realized that we as a society might be closer to chimpanzees than we think (or perhaps Jellyfishes or donkeys). Nevertheless, I couldn't figure out how on earth could it be broadcasted on national television. I mean, where has all the decency gone ? For god's sake, freedom of expression is one thing and jiggling your undraped body over national television (NEWS!) for the viewing pleasure (or displeasure) of general public including children, parents and elderly is an altogether different ball game. Last time I heard, sensuality was supposed to be expressed more in subtlety than in crassness. When did they change that ? When did the general public lose all its taste for quality ? I would like to answer some of the general arguments in support of such shows that we face :

1. Its a feminist revolution.
Argument: No kidding. Seriously ? Lets just ask Rakhi Sawant what she understands by feminism some day. I have a pretty good idea about her IQ (after reading those interviews) and I can safely say that she won't score better than a mentally retarded earthworm who has had 3 tequila shots. The problem lies in the fact that too many ladies today are ready to climb up the ladder by selling their bodies and are too ashamed to admit it and would rather attribute their behaviour to some screwed up notion of feminism. They have no idea what injustices the feminist movement struggled against but are all too ready to take the shelter of 'feminism' when asked uncomfortable questions like 'Was it so necessary to take your clothes off for an action sequence ?". Why won't they just stand for their beliefs and principles. I guess they don't have any.

2. Its a matter of personal choice. Don't watch it if you don't like.
Argument: First of all, I can safely say that such an argument would either come from one of those metropolitant youths who have far too much money to have any rationality left in their heads or those college kids who, I am sorry to say, have only a preliminary idea of reality because, lets face it, between all their breakups and romances and classes and picnics and parties and discos, they hardly have any time left for rational inquiry (I was not very different so I don't blame them). Nevertheless, do I mind ? Hell yes I do. It would have been fine if Mallika had done an X-rated video and sold her CDs but who gives her the right to come dancing in my living room in all her transparent glory, completely uninvited ? Personal choice, my foot. The next person who tries to be diplomatic and "open-minded" and tries to teach me that I am one of those few orthodox fools who have been left behind in all this modernistic wave will have his hair pulled off and his foot in his mouth.

3. Have it. Flaunt it. (Mallika said this once I guess)
Argument: Agreed. But I am sure you have more. Why not flaunt that. Or am I crossing a sacrosanct territory ? Why this hypocrisy ? Why don't you flaunt it in every possible scene or party or movie ? Because somewhere down below you want to be seen as a serious actress, right ? Well get this, you are not. You probably possess as much acting talent as a charred log of wood. Only you are more annoying.

4. The scene (situation) demands it
Argument: Boy I have heard drivel. High quality insanity. But this line takes the cake. Who are they trying to fool. Agreed that as a society, we have failed miserably but still the average IQ of the nation would be atleast 20 points higher than any of those random actresses. Your veil is as transparent as your dress, missy.

I yearn for those days when sensuality and sexuality were implied. It doesn't have to be gross and visible to leave an impact. Too much detail kills the feel and the emotion of a situation and renders it disgusting. So while I understand that crass sexuality is a reality I have to live with, there is an easy solution which could remedy the situation. Instead of using garbage for making landfills, we could as well dump immoral hacks like Koena Mitra, Neha Dhupia etc. there. Although our environment would start smelling foul with all the garbage around, I for one is ready to live with that. Besides, I am sure that howsoever worthless the lives of such people are, they will atleast make usable manure.

Manos: The Greatest Movie Ever. EVER

If the title, "Manos" The hands of fate, does not strike cold fear into your heart then seriously dude, you need to see a doctor. This is one of those movies which comes once in a century, kicks incomprehensible amount of ass but no one notices because everyone is busy either crying buckets in KKKG (IAALYF) (for those who could not decode it: Kabhee khushi kabhee gham, Its all about loving your family, yo!) or racking their neurons on occult and ultimately futile endeavours like Mulholland Drive or going "Yo! America" in movies like Independence Day and God-bless-America-for-saving-the-world-again-for-everyone-else-is-supposedly-pusillanimous-enough-not-to-be-able-to-stand-on-their-own-feet.

The movie was written, produced, directed and starred (stop laughing) by American fertilizer salesman (I said stop!) Hal Warren as the result of a bet he made with his friends wherein he intended to make a successful horror movie on a shoestring budget. The movie was a complete failure at the box office but later scientific analysis of this phenomenon revealed that it happened because the theatre going public was still caught in the post-modernistic era and the frontal lobes of their brains were not developed enough to appreciate the genius of this great piece of art. Its like Vincent Van Gogh. He did not sell even a single painting all his life but look at the scene now, huh? Who is laughing his ass off now ? I would love to see the sullen faces of those who refused to buy his paintings then. Same is the case with Manos. 3 milleniums from now when homo sapiens will have developed enough to ragard story, coherence, dialogues, direction, acting, screenplay, edition and music as not so necessary elements for a good movie, this movie will kick some serious ass.

The movie starts with a 13 minute sequence where a camera just keeps on looking out from a moving car towards green fields and mountains. It was supposed to be the time when they had to roll the credits but basically those guys forgot this small detail so we just have a moving car for 13 minutes. Now don't think even for a second that this is a complete waste. Boy oh boy. Believe me, you will need to get settled for this movie. You will need each one of those 13 minutes to sink comfortably back in your chair because once the kickery starts, you will have your face rocked off forever. You will have to deal with one corny dialogue after another, one incoherent scene after another, one ham-act after another until you are left gasping for air, your hair all wet with perspiration, your voice barely making its way out of your parched mouth, your life begging for mercy. But mind you. No mercy shall be shown for Manos, the evil master, does not approve of mercy.

Man, I could go on and on and not be able to capture the glory of the movie in words. Lets just say that "Manos" The hands of fate is probably the most interesting event in the history of the universe after big bang i.e. if Big Bang ever happened. If not than "Manos" The hands of fate is THE greatest event ever. Here is a wikipedia article (written by some ignorant moron) about the movie. Don't believe even a single word. You have no idea how far off the mark, the article is :

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%22Manos%22_The_Hands_of_Fate

F.R.I.E.N.D.S S.U.C.K.S

I am sure that what I am about to say might invite a lot of flak but I would still go ahead and commit harakiri by stating something that I think is as axiomatic in the world as the result of 2+2 but nevertheless, is seldom admitted in social gatherings and public, for it carries with it the risk of inducing gasps, incredulous stares and hostile behaviour in fellow homo sapiens. So here it goes:

"FRIENDS SUCKS"

Man I feel so relieved. To even think that a human being could pack such an overwhelming amount of truth in just 2 words might have given jitters to people in the later part of the last century. But seriously, it is not me. Its just that 'Friends' is so crappy, any more words used to describe its crappiness would seem superfluous. Its like if you are trying to berate the actions of hitler. You just sway your head and say what he did was monstrous. You just cannot catch that amount of monstrosity in words so why even try ? Same is the case with Friends. The story of 6 people living in close proximity (literally), doing, well umm... nothing for most part, speaking, well umm... nothing substantial for most part and behaving, well umm... quiet immorally for most part.


Each episode starts with my imagining how much fun it would be to punch each one of them in the face (although for some inexplicable reason they never air this fantasy... I wonder why), then wanders onto exactly three different relationship issues. Each episode features new 'relationships' and after the 3rd episode of season 2, I became thoroughly confused as to who 2 were siblings, who was engaged to whom a few episodes back and why did they break up. I gave up trying to figure out as to why I should laugh at each of Joey's foolish acts (Seriously, if you keep banging your head on the door, a time will come when a sane person will stop laughing) or the smartass comments which the rest of the cast keep on inflicting upon the world for no apparent reason. I contest that the presence of a mere laughing track playing in the background is not reason enough for me give free reins to my zygomaticus major muscle.

To say the truth, there was a time when I used to like Friends but then I turned 20 and realized that comedy does not have to stoop to the level of mindless antics to be entertaining and that things which insult my intelligence as a human being do not deserve any respect whatsoever. I guess Friends is a big hit in India also and the only reason I can see is the complete lack of competing intelligent humour on Indian television but thats a completely different issue.

Before someone asks me, I would like to answer the question: 'If its so bad why do you keep on watching it'. The answer is simple. Its funny. No not the show. I do not laugh because of the show. I laugh at the show. And moreover, its an awesome feeling pestering the hell out of those who like the show :). Its the same reason why I argue with my parents about those Ekta Kapoor shows or with some of my friends about Karan Johar movies or with my roommate about how cricket is better than soccer. I just want to see how mad they will become before realizing that the argument is as worthless as a 5 paise coin.

Fed vs. Rod

I had decided not to write anything before I perfect Fur Elise (:-)) but the latest developments have been so astounding that I could not restrain myself.

Ha Ha Ha Ha.......................
I could laugh all through the article and be able to convey my deepest emotions over the Semi Final in Australian Open between Federer and Roddick, but I guess it won't be that interesting a read. So I will try to put in words what can only be surmised in skipped heartbeats and astonished gasps.

So much for the gap being closed. So much for the challenge of the young and the roar of the contemprory. So much for Federer being mortal. If you did not see the cold blooded murder which was committed this wednesday, you have missed one of the greatest spectacles which this creatively stunted society has to offer. It was not so much a victory but more of a virtuoso performance wherein Roddick was just reduced to the role of the facilitator of greatness. He was reduced to the status of a mere spectator (albiet with the best seats in the stadium) who watched helplessly as impossible cross-court passes eluded his formidable reach, as screaching forehand winners whizzed past his ears and as perfectly calculated lobs went soaring over his head. I do not blame his frustration. You are not supposed to be humiliated in such a fashion WHEN YOU ARE RANKED 6 IN THE WORLD. You are not supposed to be broken 5 times straight when YOU HAVE THE FASTEST SERVE IN THE WORLD. You are not supposed to be decimated in such a fashion when YOU HAVE BEEN KICKING EVERYONE ELSE'S ASS.

Federer glided on the court with the aplomb of Galina Ulanova (Ballet). He played with the imagination and creativity of Beethoven. He dominated with the ferocity of the Don (Bradman) and took care of affairs with the promptness and expertise of Holmes (Sherlock). It was such a spiritual experience. Just when I think the world has got nothing more to offer than stale celebrity gossip, depressing violent tales, immoral escapades of trechearous politicians or the vulgar materialistic success stories, something this pure comes up and reinstates my belief in basic human creativity.

There is still a final to go and I am sure that if Federer loses, there will be an army of people ready to kick my ass for my unabashed boasting Fedex's godlike stature. But what the hell. The chances of that happening are less than that of my getting "ALL" of this years nobel prizes and the next field medal :).

Fur Elise

Trying to play Fur Elise on the piano (synth to be exact :( )... No time or inclination for a post till then :)... you can listen to this beautiful beethoven piece here:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=LQTTFUtMSvQ

Hopefully, someday I might also put a link as to how I play and not be ashamed :)

His royal 'Dudeness!'

While writing my last post, I happened to write something about 'Dudes!' but felt that I had not really done justice to their potential with the small mention I made. So here it goes. A humble view of a humble person on the infinite greatness of 'Dudes!' and 'Dudeness!'.

First of all, I should set some ground rules. Any mention of this alpha race of humans and its exploits in this post will only be made inside the exclusiveness of apostrophes and will be followed by an exclamation mark, like 'Dudes!'. It is my way of giving them the respect they deserve and serves to linguistically express my awe and admiration everytime I see or talk about one of them.

So how do you know whether someone is a 'Dude!' or not ? They are an elusive breed you see and like to keep to their own generally. One of the distinguishing factors of 'Dudes!' is their I-don't-give-a-damn-about-anything-under-the-sun attitude which is well supported by their unweildy dressing sense, their habit of making smartass comments for untirely obscure reasons, their overall demeanor of having been extremely bored with the world in general and their general lack of basic hygiene. All of this is fine but the most basic trait which raises a mere mortal to the level of 'Dude!' is their uncanny ability of making the wrongest judgements at the wrongest possible time eventhough they had given as much thought to the problem at hand as was humanely possible for them. It is not really their fault. It is nature's way of saying, 'I wish smiles to you all'. They have a greater purpose than we mortals can possibly fathom. The 'Dude!' is working his butt off to bring happiness and joy to the millions who would otherwise have committed suicide in this depressing world. Whenever you read about an overzealous man getting gored by a bull just because he teased that fool a bit or a brave rebel getting rounded up and beaten by the police just because he did not look back to see that all his supporters had vanished or a politician who has made a living out of making smartass comments over Iraq and now brings smiles to the face of millions by constantly fuelling the episodes of 'The daily show' by making an ass of himself, you know that somewhere out there, a 'Dude!' is silently at work. Somewhere behind the scenes, the 'Dude!', relentlessly, is getting the kicking of his life just so that you could have a little colour in life.

The ironical, almost sad part of this amazing story is that the 'Dude!' never wants to land in trouble. He just wants to lead a simple isolated, quiet life. But fate, acting like the unreasonable villain it is, takes the views and actions of the 'Dude!' at their face value. It doesn't understand that the 'Dude!' challenged the herculean bully just because he wanted to impress his girlfriend or that he cried 'Hail Osama' at the airport just for fun or that he genuinly believed that he could jump from the third floor and land precisely on a bike moving at 60.

Since nature plots such vile a plan against the 'Dude!', the 'Dude!' in the greater scheme of things gets reduced merely to the role of the facilitator of giggles. And we should give him credit for this sacrifice. We should understant that even though 'His holy Dude!' doesn't like it, he suffers to bring us joy in myriad ways. So next time when you see a dog running after a guy who happened to bark at it or someone hanging with his nails on a wall who thought that the chair would be able to carry his 400 pounds or a million other such incidents taking place daily, allow yourself a smile for that is all he demands. That is all he is screwing his life for. The 'Dude', in all his holy 'Dudeness' suffers for you and in return, just demands a smirk.

Independence Day

I am not sure if you have seen this movie or not but I sure do remember watching it in Mayfair theatre in Lucknow (it shut down after this movie) on a hot summer day. Boy, was I happy then. English movies were very rare back then and if I remember correctly it was only the second one I had ever seen. It was amazing. All those planes blowing up left right and center. The evil aliens and entirely unnecessary love stories. The heroic President ( India had Devegowda those days) and his heroic commanders. The rest of the world waiting with its bated breath, watching how America saved the world. Boy, wasn't I STUPID.

I happened to catch on with the movie on tbs this evening and I must tell you, I felt proud at how much I have matured since the time I last saw it. You see, it is one of those movies which are so cheesy, so insanely stupid that they have immuned themselves from any prospective 'spoof' attacks. They are infact their own spoofs. Any more attempts at mocking those movies will only end up mocking themselves. Its like trying to spoof Kabhee Khushi Kabhee gham (Its all about loving your family). For crying out loud, even the title is by far the most hilarious combination of english words ever concieved by man. You see the problem ? No one can mock this. The hilarious rapture that a crying Shahrukh khan, Hrithik Roshan, Mr. and Mrs. Bachchan together can provide can hardly be matched by the directorial muscle of anyone less talented than Karan Johar.

Nevertheless, back to the roasting of Independence day, I must say that the movie is essentially a compilation of 3 things:

1. A beaten to death plot of aliens invading Earth for entirely obscure reasons. I never get this point. Like Calvin, I also believe that there is intelligent life in the universe and it is proved by the fact that it has not tried to contact us. What on earth can we offer them anyways ? A social structure based upon differences, tenuously hanging by the threads of compromises? A morally decaying society and an increasingly polluted atmosphere?

2. Regularly interspersed booms and bangs and shrieks and monstrous fireballs and emotional cliches and kisses and love stories and maudlin sentiments.

3. A heavy dose of badass guys with smartass comments. you won't believe how incredible those guys are. They are the DUDES. Their dudeness shines in their slick, in-your-face, trying-to-be-smart-but-managing-to-be-plain-stupid comments. If anyone on United 93 possessed even a fraction of the dudeness these guys ooze on 9/11, he would just have smiled at the terrorists and said 'Do whatever you want, just keep your voice down' and again went off to sleep, before dying ofcourse.

But the best part of the movie is the premise that the aliens which have travelled so many light years just to see some fireworks on Earth get defeated by a simple virus planted by a DUDE. I was wondering, what if the Aliens had Norton. They sure would have laughed their arse off at the stupid humans.

If you have seen the movie, I am terribly sorry at reminding you your horrible past. If not, I guess you get the idea.

Mass Mentality

I recently came across this documentary which depicted how mass consumerism was consciously introduced in the American society. I saw how the American economy was transferred from a need based system to a desire based system. How ownership of cars was projected as a depiction of male sexuality and how female smoking was consciously projected as a voice again male chauvinism. For a second I thought, god, how idiotic, I am sure the public will be able to see through it all. Well, what do you know, American society today is as materialistically crass as the latest charitable publicity stunt of all those hollywood celebrities and the modern Indian society is following like a faithful dog. It was so sad that I could not watch the full documentary. I hardly hate anyone more than those who refuse to think rationally, build a set a beliefs and have an informed opinion. Looking at the present scenario, I am led to believe that 95% of the human population hardly uses its rational powers, which is another way of saying that 95% of the population is foolish. Not inherently foolish. Just affectedly foolish. Foolish because they do not want to take the pains of rational thinking. Rational thinking - something that differentiates us from animals and jellyfishes and trees and furniture. Good job humanity. It seems that we have come a full circle of evolution.

To all those who buy into the above set of value (or the lack thereof), just some advices so that they can start using their brains for things it was originally meant to do :

- If you think that cigarettes or cars or hard drinks or meat filled burgers accenuate your male sexuality and ego, please be aware that you have a miniscule personality to build upon anyways. If I can pass it off without hurting your ego too much (which I hope to do), you lack the strength of character. The rest of it is just smoke filled partyhouse crap.

- If you think that smoking symbolizes a stance against male dominance, you will be surprised to hear that well, it does not. It was a gimmick started 80 years ago so that 50% of the world population can be addicted to it. I respect women's right for equality (my opinion doesn't matter anyways) but please do not play into the hands of the corporations for attaining it. There is no point trying to look like the plastic faced, personality less, dumb headed celebrities which seem to be pottering every nook and corner of every TV channel and magazine and newspaper. The fact that those ladies do not have anything else to gain respect from except their looks and apparel doesn't mean that you also need to give up intellect and grace for gaining it.

- If you think that you child will feel out of place if he does not has the latest technological gadget or bike or fancy dress or for god's sake english language, you probably belong to points 1 or 2 yourself. Now that you have screwed up most of your life anyways, its time to hammer in some brains into that little brat of yours. Why not try building some self respect in him ? You can either do it by patiently talking to him or if he is too spoilt for that, try giving him a regular dose of lets just say, not so friendly pat on the backs (Seriously, I believe in 'Spare the rod........').

- And if you think that those ads which advertise great tasting dog food really have figured out the culinary likes of your pet, you need to go to an asylum. No, on second thoughts, you should be kept in a museum just to depict how close man got to get intellectually confused with a chimpanzee.

Please, please, think. Don't follow what others are doing without giving it a thought. Spare some time and brains on figuring out why you believe in the things you believe in. Otherwise there is not much difference between a human and a lump of rotting garbage. If you give that lump a shape, the ability to walk, and the ability to talk incessantly, I guess you won't be able to make out the difference.

Well, who am I kidding. 95% of the population thinks I am a nutcase :).

Interesting Phrases - 1

Without any undue story-buildup, let me present some interesting phrases which are easily encountered in day-to-day conversation and which make a person, not so gifted in the mental faculties like me, think about their meaning and even relevance to the present situation:

1. "Like whatever dude" : I hereby contest that mankind in all its humble ingenuity has never ever come up with a vaguer concoction of words. To even think that a set of just 3 words could convey so much vagueness is overwhelming. Look at the sentence. 'Whatever' in itself is probably the single most confused and vague word ever invented by man. It points to no one in particular. It references no particular direction of thought. And worse, it simultaneously tries to point to and reference every possible subject under the sun. If I were given the authority of replacing 'whatever' with something else, I would rather have decreed that whenever someone needs to use 'whatever', he would rather just maintain silence for 2.3 seconds (written as "Like -------- dude"). See, it communicates as much meaning with a negligible waste of energy. Nevertheless, then the speaker is trying to equate some situation with 'whatever'. Now, I would not have gone nuts if 'like' was a normal word. 'Like', in modern societies is spoken not as a verb or a preposition but as a conjunction (for eg. 'and') and is just used to join sentences so different from each other that every such usage of 'like' is disturbing the sleep of dead victorians all across the world. Nevertheless, even if we take this usage of like in the prepositional spirit, what is the speaker trying to convey ? I might have asked him, so how was the food ? Pat came the answer, 'Like whatever dude', and I with an obviously stunted social comprehension factor is left in the lurch to ruminate over the multitude of possibilities that the food could have tasted like.

Crap!, I thought academia was difficult and art was difficult and a million other elaborately planned human pastimes were difficult. I never thought that I would be so stumped by just 3 words. To the proponents of modern language, I present to thee, my head on a platter :).

P.S: I thought that I would include a few more phrases but this one turned out to have a lot more potential than I expected. So others will have to wait.

Trend-follower

"LOL :)!!!. I m a gr8 frnd LOL :)!!!. Smart, senzitiv nd kool LOL :)!!!.........."

Minus some exaggeration, this is how the profile of one of my friends went during my Orkut days. The moment I saw this, I thought, well, he goes into the quarantined list from this moment onwards. The problem with this statement is that it is too concealed beneath layers of borrowed style and substance to establish any kind of credibility or individuality for the author. Not to mention that the sentence is full of loads of over-the-top lies. I mean, for a second I thought that I had just witnessed the profile of someone who truly embodied the perfection of the human specie like, God or Chuck Norris or Karan Johar. And even if it was the all too great Karan Johar saying these words, even he, in all his immeasurable idiocy would not have been able to carry the burden of the heavy dose of self-aggrandization which permeates the sentence.

Nevertheless, the fact that I came across some kids in the local grocery store today wearing some kind of in-your-face, extreme T-Shirt made me remember the stereotype which underlines such people. They are the same kind of people who would be forced to listen to Britney Spears or for that matter even rock just because their friends do it, use crazy language to express themselves just because its supposed to be cool, drink at parties not because they like it but because everyone else is doing so and they are being forced etc. They buy into the latest fashion trends and happily pay a fortune big enough to provide for the food of an average family for days just so that they could fit in the upcoming social event. They are the same ones who speak english rather than their native language even if it does not serve any advantage just because its supposed to be such an 'in' thing to do. And they are the same ones who, for lack of an individuality, wear forced mannerisms, phony morals and affected beliefs in social gatherings.

I am not saying that people should not listen to Britney Spears or not drink or not use crazy language. But only if they really find it good or useful or advantageous. If such is the case, all the self-righteous snobbish blabbering about how Beethoven is more desirable than Britney Spears is just a load of nothing. And I am not saying that I am any better, but I am trying hard to improve.

The fact of the matter is that those who would only accept an individual if he conforms to some norms expected by that group do not even deserve the friendship or acquaintance of that individual. True friendship does not have a price tag on it and neither does it have rules and clauses. And it is futile to think that someone can fool the world by not being himself. The truth is only thinly hidden and when it becomes evident, its dirty and disgusting. And moreover, everyone gets just one chance to live. What a way to spend that chance if it is spent pleasing everyone else except oneself ?

Finally, for all those incredible jerks who would rather have you do something forcefully against your own wish, I am sure, their stupidity is not something which a quick jab on the jaws and a roundhouse kick on the backside cannot cure :). Just kidding...

P.S: Have been cribbing a lot these days, isn't it ? Hoping that the next post will be a bit more sane.

Federer plays Cricket

http://in.rediff.com/sports/2006/dec/23roger.htm (Federer plays cricket)

Man!!! If ever there was a news snippet which ruled like crazy, this is it.

Most of my friends, even after being Indians, somehow inexplicably are woefully ignorant of the glory of the best game on the planet. They say that the game is suited only for lazy people like me. Well, now you wouldn't call a tiger lying low, in wait for his prey, lazy, would you ? He is just silently waiting for that one moment of weakness on the part of his prey when he can explode with a debilitating burst of energy. My friends don't see the similarity between the tiger and a cricket fielder which I see. Cautious, silent, shrewdly calculating, ever attentive, he grabs on to the ball with fearsom energy when the situation demands.
Alas, they would rather see the glass half empty :).

Nevertheless, well ? Who has the last laugh now ? I am sure, watching the alpha male of human species himself adorn the beautiful game might have raised some doubts about some of your most fundamental beliefs. If you have finally seen the light at the end of the tunnel and come face to face with one of the axiomatic truths of the world i.e. cricket is probably the greatest atheletic activity ever undertaken by man after maybe Pheidippides' legendary run from Marathon to Athens giving birth to Olympics, then welcome to my side. If you are still unsure (read wrong, I like to be politically correct) and would like to believe that you still need a bit more time to accept what is only inevitable, be my guest. In either case, if I may just remind you of the fact that there are only two absolute truths in the world. The first is that Federer rules and the second is that cricket rules. And no scale has thus far been invented which could measure how much the spectacle of Federer playing cricket RULES. The only thing that could have beaten this scenario on this scale of fantabuluousness was maybe Federer playing cricket with Audrey Hepburn on the runner's end :).

What is all this hoopla for ?

First of all, let me clarify that this post is not the result of the weary imaginations of a disgruntled soul harbouring jealous feelings against IITs and IITians. If it serves to strengthen my point of view by giving it a more impartial tinge and if I may mention it without seeming to be a snobbish brat, I too am an alumni of one of these institutes.

I have been following rediff.com for a long time now but have lately seen an exponential increase in the number of IIT and IITian related articles on the portal. As an example, from december 1 to december 18, there have been 25 different articles on the subject which pegs the daily average of journalists, who would rather concoct a crowd-pleasing, easy to assemble article on a subject as beaten to death as the glowing exploits of IITians than doing some real research on a real topic at a healthy figure of 1.388888889 (and my calculator gave up here).

Agreed that the interest in the subject has been revived due to the scheduled Pan-IIT conference, is it just me or do others also think that all this hoopla is turning out to be another cheap example of climbing onto the bandwagon of mediocre journalism, the likes of which seem to permeate every aspect of today's society. Dear God!, the situation is bad enough with all those sensationalistic news channels bombarding us with a new breaking news every other minute. A society which manages to throw up on an average of 400 breaking news per day must surely be incredibly high on pheromones. But I am aware that this is not the case because I know that I have not seen a few accidents, some bank robberies, a dozen celebrity scandals, 2-3 government upheavels, and atleast 5 terrorist bombings on a daily basis.

Nevertheless, the point of all this rambling is that the renewed interest in IITs just seems to be an extension of the general trait of journalism which encourages reporters to write socially pleasing articles. And I thought, I had heard somewhere that news is supposed to shape social outlook rather than reflect it.

The underlying point of the matter is, 4000 IITians do not represent India. The 10% growth which the Indian economy is so hopefully looking forward to, is not one of the miracles at the hands of the IITians who comprise less than .01% of the national population. Agreed that it might be spearheaded by some of them, but the fuel that has kept burning it for last several years are the 23% of the Indian work force employed in the service industry and the 50% employed in the agriculture industry. So while it sounds nice to occasionally hear how an IITian killed a bear with his naked hands or doused a fire with his spit or ran faster then light (with light travelling in vacuum and the IITian in water), I think we have had enough. I am sure that rediff is catering well to all those parents who have a kid in 12th and would so much want to see him/her enter one of those hallowed portals and all those kids who have the misfortune of having such parents, why not start doing some real reporting for change? You know, something that meaningfully affects atleast 5% of the population and doesn't look down upon 99.99%.

uff...

सहमी सी इक नज़्म के सहमे हुये अल्फ़ाज़
कतरों में सिमटती हुई, मन की इक आवाज़
आँखों में सर्द रोशनी की आख़री किरन
दम तोड़ते हुये दिल की आख़री धड़कन
बस एक इनायत की नज़र कर तो दो सरकार
जीना तो था बेकार यहाँ, मौत तो हो साकार !

ज़ालिम तेरे ज़ुल्मों कि ये अब इंतहा तो है
इन रंजिशी नसों में दर्द ही बहा तो है
बस एक मुलाकात ही को, मैं होता बेकरार
इस आख़री एहसान से भी है तुझे इनकार ?
माना भी चलो तुमको ना था मुझसे कभी प्यार
पर झूठ ही कह दो चलो मरने तो दो इक बार

Addled Ads

There are few things in this world which irk me more than those supposedly made-for-the-masses American advertisements which seem to insult my intelligence by being extraordinarily dumb.

They are not the kind of dumb that you see permeating the portals of the world in the guise of under the age of 15 boys who wholeheartedly believe that all that stupid WWF stuff happens for real, all the while managing to convince their dumb parents that they possess a 'serious' opinion about 'real' things. They are not the kind of dumb that expresses itself so proficiently in those teenage girls who regularily manage to shoot beyond 1000 minutes of talk time every month even though they rarely have anything substantial to say and who cannot complete a single sentence consisting of a total of 11 words without using atleast 8 'like's in it. And they are not the kind of dumb which gets personified in those adult men who think that brawn and brashness are the true denominations of manhood and those adult women for whom incessant, almost maniacal self indulgence is the normal way of life. Sir no sir. These ads are bad. They are so bad, you would want to put your head into the working end of the barrel of a 150 mm heavy artillery gun and hope that the soldier operating it is considerate enough to give you the sweet respite of death. These ads are so cheap and mindless, they make even the worst creations of Ed Wood and Karan Johar seem like Operatic masterpieces. Some examples :

Time Warner Cable : 3 guys. 1 dressed as a telephone, 1 as a laptop, 1 as a TV. Trying to hammer in the point that I could get all the three for one low price if I go for TWC. (Ho Ho Ho. That was subtle. Why not just tie those 3 guys in a red ribbon. Then you would be SURE that us fools would REALLY get the point that the 3 come together. You are giving way too much weightage to our pea sized brains here dudes.)

Verizon Wireless : A family of 4 in a shopping mall deciding how to communicate with each other as each one of them is supposedly going to shop at a different place. After deciding that A calls B, B calls C, C....... they finally realize that none of them has a phone. . . . . . Yes!!! its over. Can you believe that ? Not only does it stand for the sheer stupidity which these ads makers have managed to amass, it also manages to shoot off few more working neurons from my already moronized brain, everytime I watch it.

Casino Pauma : A middle age lady: " I won 10000$ ", A balding man : "I won a hummer", An overecstatic asian : "I won 5000$" followed by the directions to Casino Pauma so that I could at once pick up my cell, my keys and a wad of 100$ notes and straightaway rush to the place. Wow! that was easier than I thought. People around the world spend the better parts of their lives trying to figure out how the hell could they increase the sale of their trashbags by 5%. All they had to do really was to get an entirely unconvincing 50 year old and make him blurt out on TV that he likes the trashbags. And ofcourse, the rest of human population forgot to develop beyond the neanderthals, right?

I have too many examples to list here. Rather than boring you, I would sulk in this misery alone :).

Hell currified

Remember the last time when you were at a friend's place for dinner and were served with so bad a dish that you almost wished to have rather taken birth as the chicken on your plate rather than the one who had to eat that chicken. Think of that dish which made you envy the luck of all those 6 billion living people which were not in that room with you and those 100 million dead ones who never had to come face to face with the cruel reality of how bad things could really get. Now multiply the putridness of that dish by the avogadro's number and you will start to get a rough estimate of how screwed-up we managed to make our last culinary experiment.

Yes, I have to say. The world has finally witnessed the nadir of human creativity. Note this day down in your history books for there shall be a day when you or one of your descendents will be asked in an interview, "So what would you consider the most incredibly stupid act of all of humanity". And if, driven by a lack of knowledge, the answer which is blurted out is one of the following : 'Holocaust', or 'Nuclear bomb on Japan' or 'Friends', or 'Karan Johar and Ekta Kapoor', I am afraid, but it will be met with a cold, incredulous, almost sympathetic stare. You shall be corrected as: 'Why? don't you remember the 13th of November, 2006 A.D. when Ankit and K2 managed to show the world that everytime anyone had ever thought that things could not go any worse, they had underestimated the genius of the two aforementioned people by a factor of 10'.

To cut a long story short, from a perfectly harmless assortment of Onions, tomatoes, chicken and a few other peripherals, we managed to concoct something so grosely disgusting that its occurance probably lies at minus inifnity on a normally distributed probability curve. The only constructive result that we could boast off from the experiment was probably the fact that the world was freed of two burnt cooking utensils.

It was really an eye opener. One of the few occassions wherein you just have to give in to the force of nature and your sheer helplessness against it.

Thus spoke Bill

"You will find your own ethical dilemmas in all parts of your lives, both personal and professional. We all have different desires and needs, but if we don't discover what we want from ourselves and what we stand for, we will live passively and unfulfilled. Sooner or later, we are all asked to compromise ourselves and the things we care about. We define ourselves by our actions. With each decision, we tell ourselves and the world who we are. Think about what you want out of this life, and recognize that there are many kinds of success...

...But having an enviable career is one thing, and being a happy person is another.

Creating a life that reflects your values and satisfies your soul is a rare achievement. In a culture that relentlessly promotes avarice and excess as the good life, a person happy doing his own work is usually considered an eccentric, if not a subversive. Ambition is only understood if it's to rise to the top of some imaginary ladder of success. Someone who takes an undemanding job because it affords him the time to pursue other interests and activities is considered a flake. A person who abandons a career in order to stay home and raise children is considered not to be living up to his potential-as if a job title and salary are the sole measure of human worth.

You'll be told in a hundred ways, some subtle and some not, to keep climbing, and never be satisfied with where you are, who you are, and what you're doing. There are a million ways to sell yourself out, and I guarantee you'll hear about them.

To invent your own life's meaning is not easy, but it's still allowed, and I think you'll be happier for the trouble."

- Bill Watterson,
excerpts from "SOME THOUGHTS ON THE REAL WORLD BY ONE WHO GLIMPSED IT AND FLED"
May 20, 1990, Kenyon College Commencement

Intellectual Inertia of the Indian Intelligentsia

It is 9:00 in the night and you are going to have a nice little dinner with your family. You sit down in a comfortable chair and press the red button that sends the television blaring its cacophony at 73 decibles of ear-shredding noise. You hope to be entertained but what you find on the screen is one of the now infamous genre of family conspiracy serials, dished out with ample amounts of glitter and phoney morals and sweet yammering, crying bahus and vixenesque saases and mutely submissive, disgustingly foolish males and plots contrived and impossible enough to send those 5 working neurons in your head into a state of shock induced coma. From then onwards, you assume the role of one of those sub-18 year olds during election times. Nobody cares what you think of the serial. Your family is too disgustingly engrossed in the trash to see that one of their close relatives is about to choke on suffocating mediocrity. And you begin to think, what is wrong with Indian television or more importantly with Indian cultural and artistic expression in general ?

The fact of the matter is that television and movies today constitute a herculean chunk of the artistic facade of any society. Their immense reach far outweighs any other vehicle of cultural expression. Therefore, their content can safely be taken to principally represent the creative quotient of the entire society in general. If this is the case, I am afraid to say, but the country has seldom found itself so devoid of originality of ideas, and the will of creation.

Whereas on one hand the small screen is content at providing airtime to the convoluted, disfigured fantasies of the likes of Ekta kapoor, the silver screen meekly bends down to the whims and fancies of cry-baby directors like Karan Johar and Chopra family. Whereas the small screen blatantly copies every american success story (yes, KBC, Indian laughter challenge and all those reality competitions are shameless copies), imagination and creativity seem to be giving way to obscene vulgarity and violence on the big screen. I am not saying that vulgarity and violence should be wholly abhorred. I am just saying that they should not act as veils to hide the sheer ineptitude of directors at using whatever little grey matter they have been blessed with. I fondly remember the days when a Sunday morning on Doordarshan used to be a worthwhile waiting experience. And I miss the brilliance of a Hrishikesh Mukherjee at weaving a complex interplay of human emotions.

I hardly hate anything more than creations which have to take the support of cheap populist gimmicks to get accepted by the society. Art is a sacred profession. It is so much more personal than technology. Its creation should not be governed by something as vulgar as societal acceptance and money. Sadly, this is what seems to be happening to the entertainment industry in India. Movies and serials try to play into the hands of the college going, big city student populace most of whom think that their last breakup was the worst thing to have hit the society in the last 50 years and who are blessed with stupid enough parents with deep enough pockets to have any kind of discriminatory power anyways. Or they go to the other extreme and try to gain the acceptance of those over-the-middle age parents, who somehow have forgotten what good entertainment used to taste like and have now become numb enough not to raise an eyebrow when an Ekta Kapoor sends any army of intermarried, conniving, glossy and fake actors to throw them into what can only be described as a state of mental anesthesia.

Hats off to those who claim to be the spearheads of Indian imagination. I can only imagine, if the bayonet is so blunt, how ineffective the rifle has become.

Hopeless

ज़िंदगी आज नाउम्मीद थोड़ी कम होती
गर तेरी आँखें उस दिन कुछ नम होतीं

ये सोच के कि तू भी कभी याद करती होगी
मैं तो जीने को तय्यार था
लेकिन उस दिन तेरी मुस्कुराहट में
न संवेदना थी न प्यार था
कुछ कहते कहते ही रुक गया मैं
वरना ज़िंदगी मेरी भी खुश सनम होती
गर तेरी आँखें उस दिन कुछ नम होतीं

इस लिये खड़ा रहा कि
मुड़ के देखोगी एक बार
लिये दिल में एक अनसुनी आह
आँखों में धूल का गुबार
सूखे होठों पे सहमी सी चाह में
झलकती मौत की ज़िंदगी कुछ कम होती
गर तेरी आँखें उस दिन कुछ नम होतीं

Some Thought Experiments

Its an utterly beautiful concept. And it provides so much insight into the nature of knowledge.

Suppose you are sitting in a car and the car is accelerating forward. What do you feel ? Well, a push backwards. Suppose the car is accelerating up. Now what do you feel ? A push downward. Now suppose that you cannot look out of the window of the car. Can you tell whether you are accelerating ? Yes, ofcourse by the push. But suppose you are out in the space with no gravity and you are accelerating at precisely 9.8 m/s^2 (the acceleration with which you fall on Earth). Now the big question. Can you differentiate between two possible situations ? Are you in an accelerating spaceship or are you just sitting on the surface of the Earth ? Well, the answer is no ! So how do you really differentiate between gravity and any other acceleration ?

Consider another situation. Suppose you are in a lift in a very tall building and the lift rope snaps. You start falling down. Will you be able to differentiate this situation compared to one where you are out in the gravity free space ? Well the answer is, to a high experimental degree, no. But everything is not lost and it is this small thing which is left, that defines gravity. Consider the lift example again and also consider that as soon as the rope snaps, you let go of two rocks which you were holding in each of your hands. What happens to the rocks as they fall down along with you and the lift. First of all, they will be stationary to your eyes since you are also falling down as fast as them. But wait ! Everything is falling towards a common center i.e. the center of the earth. So the rocks are not exactly following a parallel path but their paths are going to intersect if the lift somehow reaches the center of the Earth. Hence, if you could measure closely enough, you would notice the rocks coming towards each other extremely slowly. And herein lies the clue which gives the secret presence of gravity away ! Its funny in a certain way. To put it down in a fancy way, Gravity does not manifest itself uniquely by the act of the falling down of an object but by the act of apparent mutual attraction between two objects ! Would the situation be any different, if instead of rocks you had used gold blocks or wood or even electrons? Absolutely not. So in essence, everything irrespective of its material will follow the same curved path which is being followed by the rocks. Here is where Einstein took a big leap in imagination. Is the path of the rocks a property of space itself ? Is there no gravity ? Is it just the curved space which decides the path of the rocks and not some mysterious gravitation force ? In essence, is it just GEOMETRY ! And sure it was. The thought experiment which upstaged more than 200 years of the notion of Gravity.

So I am led to ask. All the knowledge is surely out there. Is it just begging a more insightful eye and a more daring imagination ?

A Suspended Animation ?

Now that I think of it, I have spent the last couple of years of my life in a sort of suspended animation, some kind of a make-believe, beautiful, intellectual world.

I have invented excuses for being transported into this other-world. I have more or less shunned the realization that a 'normal' life outside of my ideal world exists.

First it was chess. My obsession with the game although failed to see me grow into a better player, certainly made me scour its history and strategies and tactics and previous matches and players and their playing styles. During the 6 months of my wholehearted devotion towards the game, I read about half a dozen biographies notably those of Kasparov, Morphy (American player in the 1800s and considered to be the best ever), Capablanca (Cuban player famous for his aggresiveness). I read books about the various openings and attack styles employed in the game. I went through and replayed the moves of the famous games of the past. I ventured into an understanding of the way a machine plays the game differently than a human. In short, I must have 'wasted' almost 6 hours from my daily schedule for atleast 6 months straight.

Then it was poetry. As my interest began to grow in this utterly beautiful medium of human expression by my introduction to Ghalib's urdu poetry, I realized the silken genius with which the most eloquent minds spoke. After reading the works of Mir Taqi Mir, Ghalib, Afghani etc. I thought of giving Hindi poetry a try. I instantly became a fan of Harivanshrai Bachchan's prose and poetry and then went on to read many more brilliant writers like Dinkar, Neeraj, Mahadevi Verma, Gulzar etc. I started contributing to the hindi parts of wikipedia and also devoted a blog to writings especially in Hindi and Urdu. This passion has withstood the test of time and I am as engrossed in the field now as I ever was.

My latest craze is Audrey Hepburn, the beautiful actress and humanitarian who died in 1993! Without going into the details, I should just suffice to say that I have done little in the last 1 month apart from researching on her and watching her movies.

Is it wrong ? The way I tend ignore the real world ? I guess, to a rational eye, it is, but the fact remains that the real world is a drab place to live in. It lacks the melancholy beauty of poetry, the intellectual stimulation of chess and the intoxicating allure of those eyes. It does not appeal to the heart and for me, happiness does not lie in it. Nature is beautiful, physics is beautiful, artistic expression is beautiful but the daily chores of life are woefully insipid. They are just an inconvenience I have to live through.

The Ferry Rides

While discussing with a friend today about things unimportant and trivial, we happened to come across some old memories. Old college memories. He, of IIT Bombay with its panthers and crocodiles and snakes and crappy food and dingy hostels and fun life in general. I, of IIT Guwahati with its snakes and crocodiles and crappy food and fun life and those ferry rides across the Brahmaputra.

For the uninitiated, Brahmaputra is one of the most important and mighty rivers of the Indian subcontinent. Originating near Mount Kailash in Northern Himalayas, it traverses the states of Arunachal Pradesh and Assam in North East India before joining the Bay of Bengal. Although to the general public, the river is known more for its depth, its flow, its width etc., for the students of IIT Guwahati first year, the river is known more for the notoriety which it showed when it so mercilessly separated the college from human civilization on the North.

The bus, which plied between our college and the city, although the prudent option, nevertheless, lacked the excitement of a ferry ride across the Brahmaputra. So more often than not, we used to cross the river on a boat. My old memories are especially vivid and dear of those days when the weather used to be overcast. I used to cycle my way from the college to the ferry ghat on the mud path which traversed through a thicket of coconut trees and adjoining straw huts like a snake in a forest. Especially during those rainy days, I relished the touch of the cold moisture laden air, the view of the distant cloud covered mountain tops, the smell of the slightly moistened earth indicating an impending downpour and the sound of chirping birds in the adjoining undergrowth.

The ticket for the ride used to cost about 1.5 rupees (about 3 cents!). The boat had wooden benches to sit and those were covered with a thick tin sheet on the top. I always used to sit on the top where it was open to fresh, cold air and vast, uninterrupted sights. It generally took about 20 minutes for the motorboat to cross the width of Brahmaputra. With the distant sights of shops and houses dotting the North Guwahati shore, the ferry ghat and miles and miles of green forests on the other shore, a faraway, lonely, majestic bridge, an isolated, slightly confused island in the middle of the river, birds trying to compete with the speed of the motorboat just above the water surface, the smell of rain hanging in the air, the taste of wet and dripping, subdued and afraid sunlight, the all pervading noise of complete silence, only broken incidently by the soft touch of cold air on my ears, I could not think of anything non-consequential like the struggles, sorrows and rewards life. I just used to curl up my legs and hold on to my jacket a bit more tightly to counter that ever penetrating cold. But my eyes were always looking into the distance, trying to absorb as much as possible.

A photographer's dilemma

Its not the latest news that the world is a cruel and a partial place to live but nowhere does this cruelity and this partiality manifests itself with more force than in the field of photography.

Consider an amateaur photographer, serenely proud of the latest Nikon digital SLR which shot a thousand dollars out of his bank account, a bit overwhelmed by the monstrous contraption that is his new gadget, but nevertheless, deriving hope from the impeccable scenery in front of him and from the confidence which he gained by reading all those reviews which told him that his newly bought camera takes the most amazingest of all photos.

He looks almost patronisingly at the helpless orange sun, the soon to be captured in a 3/2, infinity of the ocean, and those myriad colours which will soon be mercilessly decomposed into RGB. He cannot help but allow himself that smirk of pity which is the natural outcome on the face of a sadist professor when he recieves the answer sheet of the most hopeless student of the class. Confidently, he aims his camera towards the spectacle in the same way as the first German Panzer would have done against the helpless Polish army and prepares to shoot. And then it hits him. Is the focus right? What should I do with the exposure? The Aperture? The filters? The colour balance?

As he is ruminating over these technical sounding words, mother nature, in one of her infinite wisdoms, decides to give the proud snob a piece of her mind and starts pushing the sun down into the ocean at an ever accelerating pace. The photographer, now nervous, discovers the wisdom in the saying that "something is better than nothing" and arrives at the conclusion that "It is now or never". He selects some settings which he thinks will do justice to both the spectacle and his prodigious talent and clicks.

Back in his home, he shows his day's accomplishment to some of his friend's with the enthusiasm of a 5 year old showing off his new toys. He expects some "Ah so beautiful"s, some "How the hell"s and some jealous shuffles. An uneasy silence ensues. Is it approval? I am sure that they cannot find words to describe the beauty that I managed to capture in these photos. Or is it...? And then someone speaks up. "Its fine.".

Now I do not need to explain that "fine" is the cruelest of all human inventions. It never really intends what it means. You use it when you do not want to be rude. It is, on most occasions, the embodiment of total disapproval, just a nice way of saying "you do not have much future here son!". And our amateaur photographer, howsoever hopeless in photography, understands this innuendo perfectly, if not by his ability at detecting hidden meanings but surely by the utter hopeless despair with which the following words were spoken - "Its fine".

Beauty

And I moved my face closer, the rose petal, shimmering in the redness of health, bent near the edges like a child streching his arms after having woken up from a deep sleep, smelling of diving fragrance, filled most of my view. A lone dew-drop, lying confused on its silky skin, reflected my captivated presence on its silvery, transparent surface. As I moved my head a little sideways, the surface of the drop of liquid shone in the brilliance of a dazzling array of colours as it captured the might and the heat of sun in her humble existence. Queer, isn't it? The fact that something as small and insignificant as a drop of water is sufficient to express the complete beauty of something as harsh as the Sun. You can never realize that beauty by looking directly at it. It does not reflect from the surfaces of rivers and oceans. No amount of power can extract that miniscule colourful beauty from its severe heat and light. And yet. Give it the soft touch of the curves of a dew drop and it melts into a beautiful play of colours. As the wind picked up speed, the rose petal started quivering. The dew drop, now helpless and confused, tried to hold her spot against the inevitable but finally gave up and fell off on the ground below. And all that remained on the surface was a faint and intermittent streak of water.

I waited for some more time and when that streak also vanished into thin air, I decided to move on.

Vanity

Before writing anything I would like to mention that by writing this post, I am pretty much defeating the whole purpose of writing this post. I shall explain this statement at the end.

Recently, I abruptly deleted my Orkut account. People asked me the reason behind this sudden decision to which I replied that I just felt like it so I deleted the account. It was more an attempt to avoid further questions than anything else. In reality, the main reason behind this decision of mine was a growing sense of frustration on my part regarding how blatantly I wasted my time on Orkut. At this point I should make it clear that I never consider anything that I do, a timewaste, till it brings me some kind of pure, unadulterated pleasure. As an example, I have been spending atleast 6 hours daily, browsing for news, pictures, trivia etc. about Audrey Hepburn for the last 1 week but I do not think that it is a timewaste. I do not really care what others think as long as this activity makes me happy.

On the other hand, the problem with Orkut was that I was never able to devote any time to it without a sense of guilt. This guilt emanated from my subconscious realization that most of the things that I did on Orkut or that others do, conceal a veiled sense of vanity. The whole purpose of the site is to cash in on the most evil and most prevalent of all human shortcomings i.e. vanity. And this was precisely the argument which embarrased me, scolded me, jerked me and finally woke me up. I almost despised myself for falling into the trap. So I simply withdrew my account.

This brings me to my all important questions. Where does this vanity begin and where does it end ? How much of it should be acceptable before it gets vulgar and blatant ? In what forms does it reveal itself and finally, is it necessary for the existence of society ?

These are big philosophical questions and I would not dare go into their answers with my limited knowledge and understanding. The one thing I can say is that the fact that I want people to read this itself is a form of vanity which in effect defeats whatever I have been talking about. Maybe I will have to stop someday.

Audrey Hepburn

"A thing of beauty is a joy forever" said John Keats, and seldom has man spoken with such precision of observation and such truthful words. Audrey Hepburn certainly represents that beauty.

That joy manifests itself through those big, wide, innocent, endearing eyes. It hugs to the exquisitely carved features of her face and the perfection of her eyebrows. It drips through the urchinesque, naughty contours of her smile and the intoxicated curves of her hair. It breathes in the slenderness of her figure, in the fragility of her fingers, in the ivory perfection of her complexion and the graceness of her movements.

This admiration is not akin to that of a Julia Roberts, or Zeta Jones, or for that matter any other contemprory heroine. This admiration is akin to the admiration which arises when I see the myriad colours of the rainbow on the frail surface of a soap bubble. This admiration is mixed with the fear that, 'go too close' and the spectacle will vanish. Such a beauty can only survive in the safety of aloofness. It should not realise that I am watching. Like a butterfly on a flower. Like the quantum uncertainities.

And I keep watching, hoping that such works of perfect art should last forever even when I am aware that it is not possible. I hope against hope that those eyes will somehow, always retain their liquid brilliance. That that smile will never get polluted by those wretched wrinkles. That those plaits will keep shining in their silken luminiscence till eternity. I hope, but in vain as reality rears its ugly head. And then I look at her photograph again and for that one second, reality is thrown into oblivion. As they say: "A thing of beauty is a joy forever".

Train Journey

बीते हुये महीने में जब देश वापस गया था तो दिल्ली से देहरादून का सफर मैंने ट्रेन से किया था । फ्लाईट से जा सकता था लेकिन मैंने सोचा कि इतने दिन बीत गये हैं, उत्तर प्रदेश की गरमी का अनुभव ट्रेन से नहीं किया । इसी कारणवश स्लीपर का एक टिकट बुक कराया और बड़ी आशाओं के साथ सफर शुरू किया । स्लीपर में जाने का भी एक विशेष उद्देश्य था । आप तो जानते ही होंगे कि जो आनंद चलती हुई ट्रेन की खिड़की के पास बैठकर, खेतों, पेड़ों और मैदानों से छन कर आने वाली हवा की खुशबू और शीतलता महसूस करने में है, वो ए.सी के बंद डिब्बे की क्रत्रिम ठण्ड में नहीं है । जो संतोष स्लीपर की खिड़की के जंग लगे लाल लोहे की छड़ों पर सिर रखकर, एकटक आँखों से बाहर का नज़ारा ताकने में है, वो ए.सी के काँच के पीछे से बाहर कि मिथ्या रंगो से रंगी दुनिया देखने में नहीं है । जो खुशी बारिश के मौसम में खिड़की से हाथ बाहर निकाल कर पानी की गीली स्वच्छता अनुभव करने में है, वो ए.सी के शीशे पे बाहर की ओर पानी की बूंदों द्वारा बनाये, मिटाये जा रहे चित्रों को अंदर से छूने के प्रयत्न में नहीं है ।

लेकिन मेरा मन स्लीपर की खिड़की के संकीर्ण सुख से नहीं भरता है कभी । मुझे तो ट्रेन के खुले दरवाजे की स्वतंत्रता चाहिये । मुझे तो अपने सामने अथाह, अनंत, असीमित मैदान, अपने पैरों के नीचे भागती हुई ट्रेन का तीव्र कंपन, अपने कानों में पहियों के नीचे चीखती पटरियों का क्रंदन और इस मंज़र में स्थिरता बनाये रखने के लिये अपने दोनो हाथों में दरवाजे के दोनो तरफ लगी हुई लोहे की छड़ों का स्वाद चाहिये । इसीलिये मैं अपना आधे से ज्यादा सफ़र हमेशा दरवाज़े पे खड़े रहकर करता हूं ! ऐसे में बाहर शून्य निगाहों से देखते हुये ये मन ना जाने कितनी दुनियां घूम आता है । कितने सारे सवाल पूछता है । कितने सवालों का उत्तर देता है । लेकिन सब चुपचाप, आहिस्ता से क्योंकि जानता है कि कानो में गूंज रहे शोर ने जिस शांती को जन्म दिया है, आँखों के आगे से गुज़र रहे नजारों ने जिस अंधेरे को जन्म दिया है, उसकी क्षणभंगुरता केवल एक आवाज़ के इंतज़ार में है ।

ऐसे ही खड़े खड़े ना जाने कितने घण्टे निकाल दिये होंगे मैने । होश तब आया जब गाड़ी धीमे होने लगी । अभी तो कोई स्टेशन नहीं दिख रहा है फिर गाड़ी कैसे रुकने लगी ? तभी दूर सामने एक छोटा सा स्टेशन दिखाई पड़ा । पूर्वनियोजित स्टाप नहीं था तो मैने सोचा कि शायद कुछ खराबी आ गयी हो । करीब ५०० मीटर खिसकने के बाद गाड़ी मानो ऐसे रुकी जैसे सोमवार की सुबह पांचवी क्लास का कोई बच्चा स्कूल जाने के लिये उठता है । वही आलस, वही हतोत्साह, वही दर्द और उसी तरह रोना । मैने भी सोचा की क्यों ना बाहर उतरके कुछ खाने का प्रबंध किया जाये । स्टेशन पर कोई नहीं था । बल्कि स्टेशन खुद केवल १०० गज का होगा । उस समय ३ बज रहे थे तो मेरे खयाल से बाकी सहयात्री दोपहर की नींद पूरी कर रहे थे । मैं वहां लगी एक बेंच पे जाकर बैठ गया और इधर उधर नज़रें घुमाने लग गया । उस दिन गर्मी इतनी नहीं थी लेकिन धूल बहुत उड़ रही थी । हवा के इस वेग ने खेतों पर फैली हरितिमा में एक बहता स्थायित्ब पैदा कर दिया था । दूर दूर तक फैले सन्नाटे का शोर असहनीय था और इस कर्णभेदी चुप्पी को यदा कदा चीरती कुछ पंछियों की आवाज़ें । जहां तक नज़र दौड़ा रहा था, बस पेड़ों और फसलों की पत्तियों पर हसता हुआ सूरज दिख रहा था। धूल, हवा के साथ उड़ उड़ कर बालों में घुस रही थी और अकेले खड़े उदासीन पीपल के व्रक्ष को परेशान कर रही थी । दूर पीने के पानी के नल से टपक रही रसधार हवा के वेग के कारण अपना रास्ता छोड़ टेढ़ी हो चली थी और प्यासी धरती की त्रष्णा बुझा रही थी । रेल की पटरी इस तरफ भी असीमित, अकेले शून्य की ओर भागती दिख रही थी और उस तरफ़ भी, और इन दो अनंन्तताओं को विभाजित कर रही थी मेरी ट्रेन और यह छोटा सा स्टेशन । सीटी बजने पर मैं वापस अपनी सीट पे चला गया । आधा सफ़र लगभग हो गया था और बाकी आधा मुझे सोते हुये बिताना था ।

Snakes on a Plane

Well I admit it. Moved by my baser instincts, I WATCHED IT. I watched Snakes on a Plane. Not as a part of someone's birthday party but at a cost of 9 freaking dollars. And how do I feel? I have my head held high and am beaming with the smile of self-satisfaction. YES I DID IT AND I WILL DO IT AGAIN.

No matter how foolish the movie seems by its title, one thing is for sure. You have no idea HOW FOOLISH it is unless you have seen it. The only thing more foolish than the movie's premise could be two snakes, dressed in whites and replete with a hat, driving the plane with 10 more snakes serving as air hostesses. But I am not complaining. The movie promised ridiculousness and it broke all barriers of logic. The movie promised cheap thrills and frills and it will take another Ed Wood and the rest of his next life to beat the cheapness of the thrills in this movie. Quiet simply, the movie is so crappy, it has transcended its critics. Their collective expertise is overshadowed by the monstrous ridiculity of the movie. In fact, after the initial jolt, I began enjoying it. For someone like me who is a fan of bad (so bad its good type) cinema, this movie is the pinnacle of human achievement. As someone rightly said, "this movie is quiet simply, the best movie ever made about snakes on a plane!"

Ruksat

आज जब जुदा होने की बात आई,

यह समां इतना रंगीन क्यों हो गया,
मेरा महबूब कुछ ज़्यादा हसीन क्यों हो गया है ।

पानी पे चाँद इतना खुश क्यों लग रहा है,
बीता हुआ वक़्त आज इतना क्यों सुलग रहा है ।

हवाओं की ठण्डी थपकी में आज यह नरमी कैसी ?
रात की कोमल रोशनी में भला यह गरमी कैसी?

और तुम्हारे बारे में क्या कहूं ?

"रंगो, छंदों में समायेगी, किस तरह से इतनी सुंदरता ?"

आज इन आँखों में चांद की शरारत चमक रही है
जैसे कि कितने सारे राज़ इनकी गहराईयों से बाहर आने को बेताब हों
कितने सारे सवाल, कितने सारे किस्से इसकी गर्त में दफ़्न
दिल को कितना ज़्यादा भेद रहीं हैं यह आज
जैसे ना चाहते हुये भी बीते हुये खुशगवांर वक्त की दुहाई दे रहीं हों

और इन होठों पे एक अनसुनी, अनकही दास्ताँ है
मुस्कुराहट इनकी कैद से रहरहकर बाहर झाँक रही है,
जैसे एक डगमगाते हुये, भरे हुये पैमाने से मै की दो बूंदे गिरने को बेताब हों

इन अधखुले होठों पर इतना निमंत्रण क्यों है ?
इस दिल में बेवजह ही इतना कंपन क्यों है ?
इन आँखों के तीर मेरे दिल के पार हो रहे
मेरे सारे हौसले तेरे सामने बेकार हो रहे !

लेकिन ना जानते हुये भी कितनी स्वार्थी हो गयी हो तुम
तुम्हारे इस रूप ने इस कातिलाना मंज़र के साथ मिलके मेरे मन में हज़ार सवाल पैदा कर दिये हैं
इस जुदाई की सार्थकता के बारे में सोचने लग गया हूं।
तुम्हारे बगैर इस सफर की असहनीयता के बारे में सोचने लगा हूं
मैं कितना कमज़ोर, कितना बेचारा और तुम कितनी निष्ठुर, कितनी दूर ।

"इस पार प्रिये, मधु है तुम हो, उस पार न जाने क्या होगा

द्रग देख जहाँ तक पाते हैं, तम का सागर लहराता है
फिर भी उस पार खड़ा कोई, हम सबको खींच बुलाता है
मैं आज चला तुम आओगी, कल, परसों, सब संगी साथी
दुनिया रोती धोती रहती, जिसको जाना है जाता है
मेरा तो होता मन डगमग, तट पर ही के हलकोरों से
जब मैं एकाकी पहुंचूंगा, मझधार न जाने क्या होगा
इस पार प्रिये, मधु है तुम हो, उस पार न जाने क्या होगा"

Hindi or English

Some people recently asked me, "Why have you started posting so many of your posts in Hindi" ? And I kept quiet. Not because of a lack of reasons but because I had too many of them.

The first and foremost reason that came to my mind was an unsaid, subdued sense of revolt on my part against the shimmering facade of a continuously rotting Indian society. Now I could go on and on till eternity without breaking a sweat in reviling and blasting those moms who would rather say "betcha (polluted form of बेटा) corn खाने से stomach में ache हो जायेगा" in the hope that even if her "yet being anglicised" toddler catches a stomach ache on account of the comprehensive impenetrability of her recent gibberish, will atleast move in the right direction away from the poor and pathetic India which is hopelessly polluted by her mothertongue. I could give a million examples without saying an Ah! of those youngsters who try to mercilessly maul language and convert a "my" to "ma" and then to "moi" and finally to "mie" in the hope of forging their unique identity and sounding "khool (polluted form of cool) and who never for a second realize that all achievements both superficial and otherwise, rest on the strength of character and self belief and not on the crutches of a handicapped and bleeding language. I could laugh my ass off at those celebrities who do not anymore possess the talent of entirely speaking in their own language and have to resort to the familiarity of English every now and then. I could laugh surely but I won't as my heart cries out for the apathy which our regional languages have to face in our mass hypnotized nation.

But this is not the reason I have started posting so many of my posts in Hindi. The sole reason behind this is the dawn of my understanding of the subtle possibilities, the creative horizons and succint, inherent power of the Hindi language. The reading of Harivansh Rai Bachchan's नीड़ का निर्माण फिर, Mahadevi Verma's अतीत के चलचित्र, मधुशाला etc. has awakenden me to the immense facets of the language. I can safely say that whereas on one hand English seems to be better at expressing formality and logic, it can hardly match the silken fluidity of Hindi and Urdu at expressing emotions. It seems to me that this effect is do to the overexposure of English and some of its inherent weaknesses. Whereas we all have grown up studying English literature and are cognizant of its twists and turns, a simple verse in Hindi (Urdu) is enough to knock us off our sleep, sit up and take notice. Ironically, this is because of the unfamiliarity with the language which the Indian culture has introduced in us. Second reason is the simple fact that Hindi is better suited to rhymes and verses than English. One of my previous posts (Plight of an English poet) dwells on this. As an example, read these lines which describe the utter hopelssness and cynicism of a poet:

क्या करूं संवेदना लेकर तुम्हारी?
एक भी उच्छवास मेरा
हो सका किस दिन तुम्हारा?
उस नयन में बह सकी कब
इस नयन की अश्रुधारा?
सत्य को मूंदे रहेगी
शब्द की कब तक पिटारी ?
क्या करूं संवेदना लेकर तुम्हारी?

I would be more than happy to explain them if someone has any problems, but my point is that it is impossible to express something so subtle, so beautifully in English. Its just impossible. Atleast I haven't seen anything comparable till now.

Finally, I would end by urging that please give your languages the attention they deserve. Not because you owe anything to them or because it is your unsaid duty but because you would deprive yourselves of the immense treasures, those languages might be holding within. I will end by saying that I have nothing against English but I simply hate it when it becomes a status symbol in the hands of some non-discerning fools and ends up trampling and stomping our already tottering national language.

15 August

आज पूरे ६ साल बाद अपने पुराने स्कूल के स्वतंत्रता दिवस समारोह पे गया था। इतने दिनो बाद पहली बार यह अवसर आया था जब १५ अगस्त के दिन मैं लखनऊ में ही था। इसलिये मैने सोचा कि क्यों ना कुछ पुरानी यादें ताज़ा कर ली जायें। बड़ी मुशकिल से सुबह सात बजे उठकर, तय्यार होकर साढ़े सात बजे तक स्कूल पहुच गया।

दरवाज़े पर गार्ड ने एक अपरिचित चेहरा देखने पर कुछ सवाल पूछे और सन्तुष्ट होने पर गाड़ी अन्दर ले जाने दी। मुझे ध्यान है कि मेरे समय में गार्ड केवल नाम-मात्र होता था। उसको एक अमरूद दे दो तो खुद ओसामा-बिन-लादेन को अन्दर जाने की अनुमती दे देता। क्योंकि ध्वजारोहण में अभी भी आधा घण्टा बचा था तो मैने स्कूल का एक चक्कर लगाने का निर्णय लिया। जिस स्टाफ रूम में पहले जाने में पसीना आता था और अन्दर पहुचते ही अनायास ही हाथ पीछे और चाल सीधी हो जाती थी, वो थोड़ा निर्जीव सा लगा। ऐसा नहीं है कि अन्दर घुसते ही कुछ नज़रे मुझ पर नहीं गड़ गयी थीं लेकिन आज वो नज़रे मुझे टटोल नहीं रही थीं। आज उनमे वो सवाल नहीं था कि 'बेटा आज क्या घपला किया'। अगर उनमे कुछ था तो बस एक रुचिहीन कौतूहल। प्रिन्सिपल का कमरा वैसे का वैसा ही था और स्पोर्टस फील्ड में भी अधिक बदलाव नहीं था अलबत्ता उसके चारो ओर की दीवारें ऊँची हो गयी थी (हमारे क्लास के बच्चे उसको फाँद फाँद के मूवी देखने खूब जाते थे)। फिज़िक्स लैब वगैरह में L.C.D प्रोजेक्टर लग गये हैं लेकिन वही ३० साल पुरानी काँच की शीशियां जिनके लेबल आज से ६ साल पहले ही धुधले पड़ गये थे, वही पुराने चार्ट जिनको शायद ही कोई बच्चा पढ़ता हो कभी, वही आरामतलबी टीचर्स और खड़ूस लैब-असिस्टैंट।

आठ बजने में १० मिनट पर मौरनिंग असेम्बली की तय्यारियां शुरू हुईं तो मुझे वो दिन याद आ गये जब एक साल बीतने का अनुभव सिर्फ प्राईमरी के बच्चों से हर साल बढ़ती दूरी के रूप में होता था। बारहवी क्लास और हममे और उन नादानों में १० लाईनों का फासला! प्रिंसिपल के हाथों ध्वजारोहण हुआ और साथ में राष्ट्र गान। मैं ये कभी नहीं समझ पाया कि मेरे लिये राष्ट्र गान का महत्व पहले की बनिस्पत अब इतना ज़्यादा क्यों हो गया है। पहले जिसे मैं सिर्फ एक गीत और ज़िम्मेदारी समझता था, अब उसके मायने कहीं दिल से जुड़ गये हैं। और आज जब मौका स्वतंत्रता का था और सामने तिरंगा लहरा रहा था, मैं अपने हाथों पर खड़े हो रहे रोओं की सरसराहट साफ महसूस कर रहा था। हवाओं मे गूंजते 'ऐ मेरे वतन के लोगों' के स्वर मेरे कानों में प्रतिध्वनित हो हो कर दिल की धड़कनों को उकसा रहे थे। मुझे नहीं पता की और लोग भी ऐसा महसूस करते हैं कि नहीं लेकिन मैं साफ समझ रहा था कि उस दिन क्यों पण्डित नेहरू अपने आँसू नही रोक पाये थे।

कार्यक्रम के अन्त में प्रिन्सिपल साहब की एक उबाऊ स्पीच (कुछ चीज़ें कभी नहीं बदलतीं!) और फिर मिष्ठान वितरण (२ लड्डू!)। वापस आते समय सोच रहा था कि उन दो लड्डूओं वाले समय के लिये आज मैं क्या नहीं दे सकता।

A cricketing slugfest

आँखों मे जलती धूप और मुह पे लू के थपेड़े,
पसीने से भीगी शर्ट और धूल धूसरित उज्जड़ बाल ।
रहरहकर नंगे पैरों में चुभते वो कंकड़ हजार,
अगली गेंद से नज़र हटने का लेकिन ना कोई सवाल ।

मुनियों की सी एकाग्रता और गेंदबाज पे पैनी नज़र,
गदा समान बल्ला मुठ्ठी में कसकर पकड़ खड़े तय्यार ।
फील्डर और सीमा का, अवचेतन मन में चित्र खिंचा,
तन गई भुकुटी लो शुरू हुआ अब अगली बाल का इंतजार ।

अपना पूरा ज़ोर लगाकर, गेंदबाज ने फेकी गेंद,
सन्नाटे को चीरती बढ़ती, ध्वनि-सीमा को कर गई पार ।
एक कदम कर पीछे लेग पे, बल्लेबाज ने बल्ला भांजा,
दम टूटा फील्डर का पीछे, आगे देखो हो गये चार ।

उल्लासोन्मादित हर्षित दर्शकगण, चहक उठे और उछल पड़े,
तालियों और नारों कि गूंजों से, होता जीत का अभिवादन ।
बल्लेबाज कंधों पे चढ़कर, प्रशंसा का करता रसपान,
हार कठिन है सहनी लेकिन, उससे भी दुष्कर यह क्रंदन !

-Self

I remember

न जाने क्यों, अचानक आज वो दिन याद आ गये जो अभी तक बीते हुये सावन में मिट्टी की सोंधी महक की तरह दिल के किसी कोने में, धूल कि कई परतों के नीचे दबे हुये थे।

मुझे याद हैं वो लम्हे जब वो आँखें धड़कने तेज़ कर देती थीं।
मुझे याद है कैसे उसके सामने आवाज़ मेरा साथ छोड़ देती थी।
मुझे याद हैं वो पल जब वो एक नज़र एक नयी उमंग जगा देती थी, और कैसे मैं उन पलों को बार बार ज़हन में उलटता पलटता रहता था।
वो कुछ बार जब दो शब्द निकले हों मेरे मुह से।
वो कुछ बार जब दो शब्द निकले हों उसके मुह से।
वो शर्म से उसका उंगलियाँ चटकाना और रह रहकर बिना वजह किसी और ओर देखना।
वो बेबाकी से नज़रों का मिलाना।
वो मीठा सा तसव्वुर और बेसब्र इंतज़ार।
वो किताबों के पन्नो में उस सूरत की ख्वाहिश।
वो आँखों के आगे धुधलके की परत िजसपे वो चेहरा खिंचता था।

वो दिन जब आखिरी बार उसे देखा।
वो शब्द जो ज़ुबँा पे आ न सके।
वो अरमान जो इन आँखों के साथ ही पथरा गये।
कितना कुछ कहना था, कितना कुछ सुनना था,
शायद दोनो ओर से पहल का इंतज़ार रह गया।

और आज इन हाथो में फिसलती जा रही धूल बची है।
वो धुधलाता हुआ चेहरा जिसको अब पहचानना मुश्किल हो चला है।
गये सावन की वो महक जो अब एक याद बनकर रह गयी है।
डूबते हुये दिन की वो आखिरी किरणें।

-Self

Brave New World

Recently, a friend of mine asked me : "So what differences do you find between Indian and American culture ?"
I bluntly replied : "What culture ?"

Huxley's 'Brave New World' depicts a fictional dystopian society where everyone is happy. This happiness is not a result of personal milestones or successes but stems from the complete removal of every social aspect which might some day become a reason of unrest in the society. In this society, individuals are 'created' artificially based upon the demands of 'economic consumption' and 'labour'. Every individual, from birth, is conditioned to do a particular type of work and has the sole purpose of serving as yet another consuming unit. 'Distractions' like love, art, solitude, literature etc. have been conveniently removed from the system so that every individual may serve its purpose of consumption without any undue interruptions. 'Everyone is meant to be for everyone else' so that the pain associated with love and refusals is uprooted from the society. In short, everyone is happy.

While reading the book, I could not help but compare the nightmarish scenario depicted in the book with the present American society in general and the modern Indian society in particular. Having taken the blue pill of mindless capitalism, the dwellers of these societies have now been reduced to mere consuming units. Their lives are dictated by those idiotic TV commercials. Their needs, magnified by the giant corporations which try to sell them everything from nutritious and great tasting 'dog food' to credit cards to cars and what not. The notion that all these material amenities are necessary for emotional fulfillment and happiness is darkly etched in the collective psyche of these societies. Love in these societies, is conveniently compartmentalized into manageable, separate 'relationship' slots so that every 'break up' has the silver lining of being an indication of a new 'relationship'. Sitcoms like 'Sex and the city' expect us to identify with the emotions of the protagonist as she tries to overcome her 50th break-up. What crap!. In such societies, art, literature and happiness which results from solitude and silent contemplation die a cruel death as no one has time for such things. And this behaviour is entirely in accordance with the capitalist views. Its sad that in a place where events like valentine's day, mother's day, father's day and a zillion other days are marked by 10 advanced days of special advertisements of sales and discounts, a 4th of July passes off without even a single mention on the T.V. Sure, it is accompanied by fireworks but they are the prerogative of the Government not the people. Sure, it is accompanied by a host of parties, but I feel that people out here just need an excuse for getting wasted. This is not the sad part. The sad part is that the modern Indian society is frighteningly similar to its American counterpart.