Digging for Meaning

in cricket. So the day before I played in a tournament organised by the company I work for where I made a cool 54 runs not out in probably 25-30 balls. I even won the man of the match award. Unprecedented. Unbelievable. Unfuckingwhatthefucktasticallyawesomaliciousinglychutzpahanebulous. Apparently, I hit 5 sixes and 4 fours. ya.. quite unbelievable. I don't remember ever scoring beyond single digits ever before. unless it was an underarm match against kids younger than me. (oh yes, i remember playing with my younger cousins 15 years ago and scoring 200+. It just so happened that we were playing in our attic, and not on the ground. but hey.. we had 'one tappa out' (one bounce out) as well. so that evens out. i hope. i chose to believe.) Typically I bowl. More specifically, I don't bat. I suck at batting. My hand-eye coordination is as bad as that of Snake's. Well, at least a snake has the excuse of not having hands. I don't. And yet we languish at the sam...

This entry is in response to a quora question - What will life to be like 50 years from now?   Future gazing is tricky because, we can affect it to an extent. And 'we' don't act unilaterally, and 'we' don't comprehend the 'extent' of our acts and our limitations. Having said that, here are some trends, in no particular order, which might continue for the next 50 years. 1. Climate change : Humanity has dug its own grave with 2 of earth's 9 ecological boundaries in the red zone. Planetary boundaries: Guiding human development on a changing planet. There is no doubt that our efforts of survival against climate change will shape our life in future. Again, since there is no unified ‘we’, we humans compete against each other. So there will be winner and there would be losers. Rich have an upper hand – escape from shrinking shores, access to machines to compensate for toxic weather (Air purifiers and ACs for example), money to buy scarce resou...

 This was written in response to a Quora question .  The question was " Why trend to purchase bullet bikes increased in India? " I think bikes (as most other things) are bought not only for its functional relevance but for its psychological relevance. (If you can commute ably with a 35k bike, why would you spend a lakh more on a bike which essentially is a bulkier, less advanced machine?) The purchase of bullet is purely a matter of fulfilling a psychological need. So the question is - what is the psychological need being met by Bullets and why are more people in India feeling that particular need? Bullet is uniquely manly. While Pulsar is 'definitely male', it is also immature. Pulsar is boyish, bullet is manly. Most fared bikes are positioned to younger audiences. They answer the need of adrenaline rush.. what we call 'potency needs'. Its the quintessential teenage need to feel on the edge. Bullet is not for these men (boys). Bullet has been t...

The rabid in 21st century do not get a Rabies shot. They get to run the nation. The zombie apocalypse is already here. foaming at mouth. brains rotten . fangs out . Out to destroy the civilisation (as we dreamed of in 20th century), unmindfully. The zombies have worn different colors through the centuries and eons, so don't let the color fool you. Saffron, Green, red, cross.. all colors and symbols are rendered in blood of innocent people. The blood of weak ones who refused to become zombies. Hatred is forced through the empty minds and hearts of the gullible through the television sets and newspapers. The TV set is the scalpel and hammer that is used in the mass lobotomy. The talking heads on TV eat out the faculty of reason and empathy from the brains and hearts of the weaklings. All that remains is a tangled mass of raw twitching nerves.  They rove the country in search of other gullible idiots, whose brains they can infect with sordid tales of imagined hurt sentiments. S...

Said A word , said, is like the air that carries it... there, but ever changing. You know it is there, but 'which' air? May be it was made of something else the moment it was said. But now the memory has mutated the word with memories and assumption. It dissolves into maybes and blank spaces. What were you saying? Sorry the word didn't reach my cognition. Maybe it crashed against my ear and fell down. Let me look for it, while you go on with utterly temporary utterances that die right after they are born. Without a keen ear, a spoken word is a still born child. Keen ears and intelligence are the oxygen for meaning making with words. Unless one writes them down.  A spoken word is seldom alone. It carries with it movements, loudness, intonation. They are made of worldviews and emotions... exceptionally unique worldviews and emotions. exceptionally untranslatable unique worldviews and emotions. The rational word is but a small actor in the grand theater of emotions an...

Law intends to govern behavior of a people. Yet, the people seldom know the laws that they are going to be judged by. How could they? If Tesla had sex with lady Madam Curie. and their children were Einstein and Hawkins and so on.. Even then, only the 10th generation of this magnificent gene pool would probably have brain large enough to comprehend the constitution in its entirety and to be able to keep in in mind at all times to actually be able to behave in accordance with the laws and by laws and in laws and exceptions. One assumes, that the laws are based on universally understood moral principles. They probably started with simple understandings such as 'killing is bad', 'don't steal'. But the principles have mutated into a gargantuan puzzle which requires professional parselmouths (lawyers) to decode and game the puzzle. Essentially, what two lawyers and a judge engage is in a queer game in triad of meaning making. Each employs specialised words and chose...

Earth is annoyed with its children. She wants to take a break. Go travel to some other solar system for a change. Perhaps check out that Andromeda Galaxy. She has heard great things about it for ages. She never gets to travel anywhere. What with all the suckling fumbling good-for-nothing children of hers. Arrogant and up-to-no good. She sighs. She shudders. She melts. She thunders. No matter how hard she tries, nothing seems to get across to her children. She thinks, its a phase. The children will grow out of their teenage angst. The shut doors of perception will open some day. hopefully. For now, it is getting too much to handle for her. She is taking a break. Mars agrees to babysit. People wake up to find they can't breath on mars. the end.

The only reality is power. and the powerful will always have more leverage with tools. No matter with what intention those tools were made - internet (democratising force), judicial system (equalizing force), democracy (equal voice)... all these tools ends up serving the rich and powerful.  Take for instance the brutal massacres that Ranveer sena assholes kept on perpetrating killing hundreds of marginalised people - Dalits, Muslims, low-caste persons. A decade on, the perpetrators have been declared innocent by high court citing such intelligent reasoning - "When the killers came with intention to kill everybody, how the witnesses survived?"   The high caste judge reasoned that presence of witness is proof of the innocence! and if the killers had been efficient? then in absence of witnesses, killers would have been deemed innocent. Heads I win, Tales you loose. And the unstated rule of land will always remain 'Heads I win, tale you loose' with the r...

The only truly successful meme of 21st century is that of 'Money'. Successful because no other idea has been accepted with such unanimity as the idea of money. A paper with little value becomes fantastically valuable with a photo of Mahatma Gandhi. (or a fish or watch tower if you are from Norway .) And this transformation happens because humanity has collectively agreed to bestow imaginary value upon real substance.  No other idea comes close to the level of acceptance that the idea of Money enjoys. More and more people identify themselves as atheists (so there goes religion). Not everyone believes in equality (the idea of caste refuses to die, The idea of class remains a reality. People are forever trying to find imaginary cues to set themselves favourably apart from the masses). The rise of ISIS and resurgence of Nazi sympathies tells us that idea of democracy and human rights are not as strong as we think they are. Money is the one ring to rule them all.  Idea...

ABCD 2 is dance movie with mediocre dance. And that tells you a lot about the film makers and what they think of their audience. Made by celebrated choreographers with cult following, it is really disheartening to see them do a half-ass job at what they preach.The dances are not path-breaking or  original or even evocative. Most of the dancers do not give their 100% to the performance. You can see the lack of practice and energy in dances. The editor and cameraman do as much, if not more, movements as the dancers. Many Indian dance shows have better choreographed dances than this movie has. This is interesting because, the makers of this film are judges in at-least a few of those shows. Why suck? "Because everybody deserves a second chance." ad infinitum..  But this is the second movie in the franchisee. One expects that they would learn story telling by now at least? or does 100cr business is a reason enough for bad film making and lazy dance choreography? (for a movie ...

I feel that the system is rewarding me well with my career.  Primarily because my career is in advertising industry and as it turn out, advertising is one of the most important soldiers in service of globalisation . So, while seemingly inconsequential, my role is an integral (though small) cog among the many million small cogs that keep this system running. The system needs people who are capable of doing what is required of them. And I am capable enough . Enough - The system only requires a very narrow skill set of mine. That is a small part of the arsenal of skill sets that a typical human requires to progress and thrive in life. I suck at breathing for example. I have terrible hand-eye co-ordination. I have hundred other deficiencies that I would much rather not share with my possible future employer. It astounds me that for all my short comings and a few strengths, I earn way too much in comparison to people who are better humans that me. I am lucky to have just the right...

 Today morning, I got a message from Citibank that a charge of Rs. 1400 was being made to my credit card. The funny thing is, I didn't authorise this. The funnier thing is, my account has been closed since at least half a year. So is the credit card separate from my account? If I don't have an account, how do I access customer service?  In the past, i had willingly let go of around 3000 rs to avoid hassle of having to interact with the robots who sit between me and humans in customer service department of that company. After a few days of frustration, I closed the account and let go of the money in the account. 'Fuck it' is what i said. I guess I will have to say it again. (the luxury of being able to say 'fuck it' is obviously bought by the system as well for me. I am very much a subject of the 'Capitol', not the districts.) This is how the 'system' operates. It's power is not in centralised and accessible individuals. It is in the mesh...

When people are talking about 'the system', what are they exactly talking about? When you fight against the system, who do you exactly fight against? Why are some people successful without much effort, while some languish? Who does the system reward, whom does it punish? Why do people kill each other? What causes people to think that a change is important? and what makes some ideas of changes possible, while some others simply die? When we talk about 'the system' what we really mean to say is - 'power structure'. We are curious about the flow of power. (From where to where? who/ what is the source? how to get some? what makes it flow?) If we believe Hollywood, the System is bunch of powerful humans who conspire in evil goals. (world domination, extreme wealth and so on.) But that can't be true. Humans want to believe that they are bigger than they are. That they have power and control over things that they don't. That they can comprehend the w...

Salman Khan is not merely a criminal , a terrible actor or one of the most influential and loved people in India. He is a new archetype for the 21st century India. He is an archetype that answers a quintessential Indian yearning. Unfortunately the yearning reflects how pathetic and infantile humanity can be. When infants, we believe that we are at the absolute center of the universe, where all our acts deserve recognition and appreciation. To grow up is to grow out of this belief. The 'Salman Khan as an archetype' answers the yearning to be forever an infant. To forever enjoy consequence-less freedom. People refuse to see the bad in him. The 'true fans' of this horrible person get readily offended and aggressive when someone speaks ill of their 'bhai'. When someone points out facts of his monstrosity - killing homeless people , making his driver a scapegoat (what a ' hero '!), killing a harmless animal , domestic abuse , intimidation .... - the fa...