Digging for Meaning

Reasonable people are a rare species. very rare. The world overwhelmingly is unreasonable, always has been. 20th century was a great experiment in trying to institutionalise reasonableness. But alas, we failed in that experiment. and what that messy utopia of rationality has spewed out is a 21st century that is dangerously globalised, unipolar and susceptible to selfishness of a few. If by chance, i meet someone who is, i feel like hugging him/her and somehow ensuring that the person remains a part of my life in some measure through conversations, ideas or projects together.

I am a salmon. It's been a decade away from my hometown, and yet my dreams refuse to relocate along with me. When sleep hasn't claimed me yet, but neither am I awake, you may find me in Nasik. My senses fall back into their default states of Nasik when in-between. The space is of my home in Nasik, the sight is of the things around it. I might be hungry and thinking of eating a laddoo and my hands reach out for the steel dabba stacked on an elevated wooden cupboard stuck on the left wall of kitchen. In my mind's eye, I grope for the dabba momentarily as the search yields nothing - poof. the image disintegrates. I am snapped back to reality with a mild jolt. My mind reminds me of the layout in my own kitchen. There is no airborne shelf, there is no steel container, there is no laddoo. It says, go back to sleep. and I do. _____ I shifted 3.5k km for a less polluted and less dangerous city a year ago. And all was good. I get to walk and how I love to walk. I am truly ...

In the middle of the maelstrom, the saffron vortex of hatred, The man stands battered, by swirling dust of ignorance eyes stinging from all that wide-eyed and yet blind outraging ashamed by his smallness ready to lash out impotently against his own interest against his own people.  ___ Flag bearers must be blind for if they had eyes, they would desert to join the throng at the sidelines screaming to stop the madness. But how can they stop anything without getting sucked into the vicious vortex? unfortunately the only thing the blind understand is the remorseless fist. and the ones with open eyes at the sidelines can't close their palms into fists without succumbing to that old human malady - remorse and guilt. ___ Who with open eyes will take up the challenge of raising and raining fists in-spite of the remorse and the guilt against the hate engineers, the profiteers of commotion, the instigators of dust storms?

Digital connections = Speed. Instantaneous reactions, Instantaneous gratification, Instantaneous outrage and so on. Everything is instantaneous. Or not? Recently, while  my own phone was getting recharged and I had no option but to look around, I saw a person sitting there, with phone in hand. Waiting with anticipation for a like, a comment or some such. The digital slot machine was not throwing up interesting enough things for him. I went away and came back a while later. The man was still there. exactly there. with exactly the same blank face and wide eyed anticipation. And apparently the same screen.  Nothing had changed. He was still. and he didn't know it. We are all still. and we don't know it. In reality, everything is not instantaneous. Our expectations though, are. In search of dopamine hit, we keep refreshing, checking, rechecking... but real world refuses to move with the speed we want it to move. We prod at it with refreshes. We pull at it b...

I live these days in a coastal city where property prices are only going up. I live in an island country where, the debt it owes is several times bigger than its revenues. And my mental reaction is to look at exit doors - be ready to flee, for the oceans are going to claim the land and capitalist vultures are going to claim natural resources - don't know which one will swoop in first, but to me, it seems inevitable. And yet, I see optimism around me. Maybe others know something that I don't know. Or maybe, I know something that they do know but don't want to acknowledge? I tried to understand their source of optimism. Maybe, I was wrong. People are buying real estate at insanely inflated rates, expensive cars and so on. At first I thought that not everyone is an idiot like me who doesn't have too much into savings. Perhaps these are people who have some form of savings - either from inheritance or perhaps they can negotiate better salaries than I do. Something's...

Everyone is an idiot. Everyone. If you can count on one personality trait that a person will default back to at some point or the other, it would be his/her unique but substantial idiocy. And if the society were to be built on a single rule, it should be about people agreeing that  compassion towards others' idiocy is essential for a convivial and pleasant world. What good ever comes from being a cynical, patronizing git, anyways?

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...

A beautiful yellow and white butterfly is hovering outside the window of the metro. Outside, the summer has begun to sting. Inside, the air-conditioning makes the outside look pleasant. The wide rectangles of metro windows frame the Qutub Minar well. The Minar rises and wanes in greenery. Solace for dry eyes, beauty in embrace of a wide expanse of greenery. And yet the solitary little butterfly has chosen to be here, besides a thundering metal and glass caterpillar. The giant caterpillar runs along a hundred times faster in a straight line. The butterfly hovers, flies and staggers undecidedly at its own pace.   It hovers and staggers, two paces ahead, a few flaps of wings to stay put, then sideways and ahead again. It is as if it is searching something down below. Hovering and examining the world below. Maybe it's wallet fell down or a ring. Do butterflies get married? The metro is guarded with rolling barbed wires. The butterfly is hopping from one segment of wire to the ...

1. Food as love "Jevan zala?  Kay khallas? " (Did you eat? What did you eat for dinner?) Phone lines across the world are clogged with concerns of lovely people. In absence of real intimacy,  families and lovers resort to questionnaire of food intake and bowel movements. In absence of touch they want to ensure the mortal vessels of the their loved ones are well taken care of.  The questions are  not an exercise in inanity. They are expressions of love.  2. Food fetish Idle chat at office lunch tables,  conversations with acquaintances... Across the world, (perhaps the upper middle class world that is not currently being destroyed by wars and proxy wars) people are filling the space between burps and bites with conversations of food and restaurants.  Incessantly.  The virus of foodieitis is spreading faster than Ebola. Everybody see themselves as foodies. A virus that hollows out the brain of thoughts about anything but indulgen...

http://player.vimeo.com/video/89305413 Ideas are tremendously potent. People turn mad in rage and kill. People smile beatifically and help others. People dig up, blow up, fill up, swamp the earth.  People chase imaginary ghosts & Questions & purposes. All their lives. People fetish on foods, movies, shoes, bodies and turn off the inner eye. People lose their sense of reality, their sense of justice, their balance of life. The breath. the breath is lost. The realisation of the breath becomes alien. A moment in silence turns into an eternity of restlessness. "Occupy me" screams the inner child fed on ideas 24x7. The hell that is introspection. the hell that is looking back into our acts in reality.  "Ideas. occupy me." The ants carry stuff for their colonies. What are we carrying, for whom? Our queen bee is Change with a capital C. Change, Change, Change. faster and faster. evolutions, revolutions. No matter at what cost. People chase c...

Have you ever 'helped' anyone? any thing - small, big/ inconsequential, saved the world? By help I mean, of being useful for someone other than self and when some effort/ money/ time would be required to be spent. Truthfully speaking, I haven't much. Upon that realisation, I quickly rationalized that perhaps its an 'ability' - An ability to help. Which is to say, that some people are better at it than others. Perhaps, its just me trying to distance myself from the responsibility or perhaps I have hit upon something here. Anyways, here's the thought process. If the tendency to 'help' is an 'ability' that is intrinsic to individuals, what factors would influence it? (I won't get into the 'born with it'/ learned sort of debate. Sure it can be acquired. Yes we can. :) ) I thought of a few. They could be, 1. Empathy 2. Inner lightness/ inertia 3. Habit of rationalizing 4. Following the norm 1. Empathy I think I am am right whe...

Exhibit A Have you seen posts like these on FB lately? What are they about? A person witnesses some 'wrong' act. He/ She promptly takes a picture of the wrong act. He/she hurries to upload it to social media in an effort to shame the person in question. Earlier, a photograph of a car's number plate did the rounds online. apparently, the guy driving the car had spit on the road. and so on... all misdemeanors that should ideally be sorted in 'real world' of flesh and bones through polite conversations. Exhibit A- Here, a grey haired gentleman opened a door to a cafe for two other gentlemen. The other two gentlemen supposedly did not say 'thank you'. Were they too busy? Were they in a serious discussion, the sort where you forget the world altogether? Do we know anything about them at all? No. We don't. All we have is this one photo that the indignant-FB-guy (IFG) took without asking the two people in question. and look at the reaction - It...

Recently I saw a documentary called ' Superheroes '. Its about a bunch of people who wear costumes and patrol their city streets to fight crime. To be honest, I was a bit apprehensive about watching it; I felt that it would make me cringe. (I cringe seeing people being made fun of. Can't help it. I hate it when people do that to others. I cannot see those TV shows where we are supposed to laugh at someone else's misery/ embarrassment. I hate it when TV shows trivialize real feeling of people or glorify the emotions to turn it into a farce. Just can't stand it.) But it turned out to be a very human story of genuine people who are fed up with the apathy of people around them. Often they were victims first and vigilante as a result of it. It was an act in empathy and escape combined that propelled them to wear mask and attempt at creating a change for the better. It was inspiring to me. Not for the caped crusading (well, not going to happen), but for the beautiful...

Oh god. Let the day be simple. Like it was written for a cow from the prairies. Let no sludge of pointless meetings block the flow of my life. Let the fall leaves of ideas float down gently on the fertile soil of my mind. and actions flow in tandem through me unhindered & forceful. and if its not to be please quicken the day and let me go to sleep. amen.

Without letting me know, the sunday sun slipped away, the gathering darkness instigated hungers in my being. the touch-phone remained untouched. the unfinished projects remained unfinished. the story remains, without a start and without an end. must i eat? must i create? must i reach out?  the expanding tired weight pulls down energies... the excess, the excess, the excess!  the meditative escapes into menial chores provided stillness and peace, but no solutions.  what to do? where to go? whom to meet? what to eat?  The mind vacates through the gaps in between the internet browser's tabs. Hammered friday, alive saturday.. sunday with a promise to end. 11 pm. Maybe I can attend to the to-do list. Maybe I can at least start that one idea. Maybe I should just justify the sunday with some useless proofs of my existence. kitchen is a better place for that proof to exist in rather than the internet. But old habits die hard. Click publish, and on with the M...

What's your dream? Really? Are you sure? So are you going to do everything in your power to make that dream a reality? How are  you so sure? What's so special about that one dream? When a thousand things are possible, how can you make yourself focus on a single goal? What gave you that clarity? Tell me. TELL ME.

30 its just a matter of a few years. and there I will be. under the glorious arches of 30-hood.  30 The number shines brightly in my head. Its a milestone that constantly barges into my vision, wherever i may be looking. i imagine it to be a small leprechaun like creature that's running around in 2 concentric circles. One around my head - the constant running threatens to add creases on my forehead. and the other around my waist, where the constant running is adding to the roundness of my person.  30  it constantly asks me to look back. 'Look back!' it screams. and then it tries to hold steady my gaze back into my past. Its a direction I have not frequently lingered on. The opposite direction was much more alluring in the past, and now I live content being in the present. But 30 makes me want to take stock of what i was set out for, and what grounds I have covered. I have never been good with appraisal, and this one will be the toughest. (I am happy with my l...

Sundays are sacred days. Not in a religious sense. But in its ability to shift the gear of time, in its ability to lend lightness and calm energy to the air. Lunch happens late, dinner comes early. Tea and kahwaa materialise by their own whim on the sole strength of habit. Movies and novels can and do get consumed. But its the new lazy toys, Picassa and Photoshop, that witness the deceleration of time. Without aim, the tinkering starts. and ends. Today was no different. Saw yeh saali zindagi, a film that could have done without some of its twists and turns. Then collated footage of lightnings for a future project. Uploaded a few pics to my pinterest page and compulsively checked if someone had liked/ repinned any of my pics. Then gave up after a while. Slept. washed clothes. Then saw another episode of Monty Python. Read a short story by Haruki Murakami about a couple who get hungry in the night and rob a Mcdonald's store for 30 of their burgers. an...

Ah. I so wish to walk the midnight streets of Paris. Woody Allen keeps on making these lovely films filled with so much 'romance' of life, and no matter what you do, you can't escape. you will fall shamelessly in love with his movies. I just saw his 'Midnight in Paris' and feel like booking a ticket to Paris and walk those streets. Well, it happened to me earlier with 'Before Sunrise' as well. anyways. If I were in Nasik or even Mumbai, I would have stepped out and went for a walk now. its 11 pm now. it won't have been a big deal. But unfortunately I am in Gurgaon now. and its foolish to be not inside home/ car  at this hour in the national capital region.Anyways.. (ya, its annoying i can imagine to keep on reading 'anyways' again and again, but ... anyways) ___ 'Dali!' , 'Bunuel.'. Ah, how i would love to meet them. and Gil does. lucky bugger. :P ___ and hands of men so easily rest on women's back, it was magical. :) _...

My laptop is crowded with many unfinished projects. By some miraculous grace of god some are beginning slowly to take some form of completion.This one is a little litany about life in cubicles. No, its no where close to the genius/ insightful/ funny of Dilbert. I didn't intend it to be that any ways. It was more an outlet to what i felt fleetingly at times in my previous job. A little snapshot of the thoughts that crowd around in a moment of frustration. But this frustration had hope, it contemplated the many possibilities. its the frustration of the young. :-)   To be continued.. hopefully soon enough. (the first two pages happened in a weekend a year back. The next two pages were done today. :P I shall persevere. i must. :) )