An evening in Bangalore

The breeze was chilly and the sun was set. The fairy lights hanging in the balcony since last Diwali were still swaying and cello tape used to stick them had not given yet. The weed was almost crushed and getting rolled into a joint.

The phone kept ringing but I was staring at it, waiting for it to stop, smoked a joint I had rolled and the ringing vanished with the smoke of the joint and so did the anxiety of the call.

The girl next door had started her evening routine of taking a walk back and forth her terrace, wearing headphones, probably just taking her stroll. All the guys gathered around the windows to admire her walk. The Netflix anime playing on TV had no audience left.

We boys grouped on top of each other to get a glimpse of her from the window. She had probably noticed us noticing her but she continued walking. Occasionally flipping her hair when she drew closer to the our side of the terrace. Knowing all well that she was being watched, she didn’t care and neither did we. Making sure to not be deliberate in this game, we gathered a few chairs and started removing the fairy lights from Diwali. It was a one person, five minutes job, it took four guys and twenty minutes that day to get those lights down.

She went back inside after a while and so did the excitement in the guys, the anime had it’s audience again. My phone rang again, the same number, I picked it up and said ‘hello’, almost hesitant, but not enough to show.

‘Are we on for tonight?’, she asked, ‘Yes babe’ I said. ‘I called you half hour ago why didn’t you pick up?’ I wanted to reply with the complete truth but I went with ‘I was busy’. She didn’t complain, I didn’t bother.

End of the Journey

“I’m gonna end my life now” the last thought that probably ran through his head. This simple sentence give him more power and control than any thought uptill this point. “I give up” is what he said when his pain grew bigger than the suffering, we all suffer and suffering is the triumph of life, pain is the defeat. He’s been walking alone in the desert towards an oasis he keeps seeing in the distant sands, the oasis is mirage and he may never find it.

He gave up hope and sulked in dispair from the hunger and thirst he’d been feeling for two days, he’d uncap his bottle just to realise he’s run out of water even after knowing deep down thay it’s empty, he’d uncap it and turn it around but no drops would fall.

He kept walking towards the ‘Oasis’. After the third day it wasn’t anymore about finding the oasis as much about finding a tree to lie in it’s shade, that’s what kept him going but he still wanted to believe in the oasis so he kept moving forward in search for a trees which he believed was sign, the ‘Oasis’ was nearby.

Two more days went by and the ‘Oasis was still as distant as it was five days ago, he was staring to feel the pain of hunger on the inside and the wrath of the desert around him, a cool breeze with the smell of water in it flew by and he thought, “that breeze smelt of life” and his faith in the’ Oasis’ was restored. He was still hungry and felt like his bones would suddenly crack with his next step and collapse with the weight of himself but he kept moving forward now chasing the wind in the desert.

In the sixth day of his journey, unable to keep moving forward as now even the trees weren’t showing up or wind wasn’t blowing. He would be there standing, waiting for the breeze to flow and give him hope, but only the sun looked down upon him, silently, screaming, he had found a tree at last.
Sitting in it’s shade, still burning inside from the hunger and thirst, he felt the breeze again and also saw the distant ‘Oasis’ now clearly within his sights and he started to walk again.

On his seventh day still walking away from that last tree, towards the ‘Oasis’ and a question popped in his head “why did I come to this desert?” and he tried to remember the answer he once knew but had now forgotten, he realised he was chasing the ‘Oasis’ and the winds for far too long and he had no way to get his life back. He could just lie there, on the sand, waiting for his body to give up and die or he could keep walking and eventually still die of hunger the next day. He had lost his purpose, not knowing where he was going and what he’d hope to find there, he tried so hard but he just couldn’t remember. That’s when he decided to give up and he drew his dagger and pierced it right through his chest.

Silent Child

Innocence is like our skin,
Brightest and softest in our infancy.

For innocence is not ignorance or lack of knowledge
But merely the limit of your imagination
But merely the infinite curiosity we’re born with.
As we grow from childhood and through most of our life, we strech our skin.

We have to in the meanwhile limit our imagination. Quench our curiosity with ever lacking knowledge as we start to grapple with reality.

You begin to feel your skin as a projection of yourself, As how you want others to see you.
We kill our innocence for the sake of this world;
But only little by little, day by day,
Choice by choice, with every choice, we kill the need to know more.

We silence the little child as we grow into adulthood in return for a better grasp on reality, we trade our innocence for every time we understand the reality. Sometimes we fail miserably, sometimes we with find security, respect, comfort or money but never love, only borrowed peace.

Somewhere down the life towards old age, we give up on understanding the reality of life and finally we become children again.
Not knowing how the reality works but always wondering, not understanding why we don’t understand things anymore. Trying to make sense with what little we understand.

Our skin hangs loose from the burden of our choices, like all the deflated realities we tried strech and control.

We die just like we were born, not knowing what lies ahead or what went by.

Silent Child

Innocence is like our skin,
Brightest and softest in our infancy.

For innocence is not ignorance or lack of knowledge but merely the limit of our imagination, merely the infinite curiosity we’re born with.
As we grow from childhood and through most of our life, we strech our skin.

We have to in the meanwhile limit our imagination. Quench our curiosity with ever lacking knowledge as we start to grapple with reality.

We begin to feel our skin as a projection of ourselves, as how we want others to see us.
Only little by little, day by day, choice by choice, with every choice, we kill the need to know more.We kill our innocence for the sake of this world

We silence the little child as we grow into adulthood in return for a better grasp on reality, we trade our innocence for every time we understand the reality. Sometimes we fail miserably, sometimes we with find security, respect, comfort or money but never love, only borrowed peace.

Somewhere down the life towards old age, we give up on understanding the reality of life and finally we become children again.
Not knowing how the reality works but always wondering, not understanding why we don’t understand things anymore. Trying to make sense with what little we do understand.

Our skin hangs loose from the burden of our choices, like all the deflated realities we tried strech and control.

We die just like we were born, not knowing what lies ahead or what went by.

Keep Joking

There’s an eerie similarity between the analogy of chicken and egg with that of a joke and laughter. As is often believed, laughter is result of a joke or laughter is reaction to a joke but it’s not always the case.

A joke is basically a construct of order and chaos, we either go from and orderly situation to something bizzare, like with man walks into a bar joke, where everything is in order untill it isn’t or to complete and utter chaos making sense in the end like it happens with elephant and fridge jokes, the premise is chaos to start with, but it makes sense in the end.

Laughter in a joke arises when we cross the barrier between order and chaos. A joke won’t be funny if the barrier is either too big to cross or too small to cross, we won’t get the burst of laughter untill we are excited to cross that barrier. 

A typical joke though wouldn’t work unless there is jester and an audience. How is it then, that we are still able to laugh on our own accord if we find a situation or a place or a sign board or an expression on someone else’s face funny? When someone asks you why were you laughing, we mostly say ‘ because I found it funny’, you know there’s a joke in there but you can’t put it into words. We can laugh even if there is no joke explicitly laid out for us. Situations like these suggest that the instant laughter we get, is in turn what leads us to dicovering the underlying joke. It is really very challenging to tell wether laughter comes before the joke or after, hence the chicken and egg analogy.

Let’s take the laughter and joke concept and apply it to daily life, we as individuals are capable of seeing a joke where there is isn’t one (atleast not explicitly) in our daily lives. We call it irony, we are fully capable of seeing it in action if we really look for it everywhere but even more so when it is clearly put in front of our eyes in situations when we are crossing the line between order and chaos. It is irony if a predictable situation turns into something unpredictable or vise versa. This very essence of irony is what lies at the core of jokes and laughter in our daily lives.

If we were to use jokes not only to induce laughter in others but as a means to come to terms with the realities of life, what if we joke about the terrible things in life, missing an important train is chaos, everthing after that is unpredictable, what if we joke about it, rather than worry about how we missed it. We would be able to cross from the waves of unpredictability to the shore of certainty by merely laughing about it, ofcourse carelessly joking everytime won’t get us too far either but why not laugh when you can afford to.

Joke about anything and everything you can when you can. Laugh at all the irony in this world, it won’t solve anything but it will atleast give you the boost required to solve it. If we can’t make it better we can atleast joke about it.

Weight of Love and the balance of Relationships

People think about love and relationships like it’s a balance between what both get to do and what both want to do. We can look at that problem as whether to Sync drive or Co drive the vehicle of relationship.

Sync driving is like driving a car with two steering wheels, Co driving is like a single driver car, to be driven by two people taking shifts.

Former would mean that at any given point there are two minds driving in sync and we’re relying on all other circumstances to remain constant to prevent the drivers from thinking differently any second and boom! While Co driving does not gaurentee a smooth sailing throughout as it often happens that the person driving the car for too long may be taken for granted by the other partner which could in turn lead to problems.

When the balance of the relationship is threatened, couples have one of two ways to decide, Sync driving or Co driving. In the first choice, they both do as they fit without interference in each other’s business. It happens usually in the case of choosing a career where both patterns persue their respective careers without much say of the other partner, While one may argue that everyone has a right to be selfish if they see fit. Thinking about it another way would be to look after oneself in any given situation.

On the other hand, Co driving is when the couples adapt each other’s ambitions and goals as their combined ambition and goal. They don’t think about giving up something or doing something for the other as a compromise but rather as a personal responsibility not towards their partners but towards their relationship. It usually happenes among couples when children are involved, they both don’t raise their children for themselves or for the other person but for the relationship. It requires a certain level of faith and dependability on both sides.

Since we exist in space and time, it is important to look at both the journey and the destination. As journey is the time we spend with our partner and destination is the state of the relationship at that point. Looking at it that way, to strike a balance in the relationship, in moment of decision, couples could either decide to ease the situation at that point in time by choosing to Sync drive hence giving both an experience of the journey at the same time, or they could decide to Co drive and ensure they reach the destination. This choice usually depends on what you value more at that point in time, is it the journey that matters more, or is the destination.

There’s one more way to look at it, it’s also about the way it would end. Sync driving usually means the car drives with both the drivers together or it doesn’t drive at all, there’s no way only one can drive.

To Co drive a car would mean to completely rely on the other partner to keep in mind the destination and the journey. Since faith is only a limited currency for we can have only so much faith in someone before we don’t, faith like any other currency, can be mined by being dependable. The upside to Co driving is the option to get out without completely stoping the other’s ride, to break up without doing any harm to the other partner.

In the end, we should enjoy the pleasures of being in love and relationships but not forget the greater power of love and relationships that helps ussustain and thrive in this world and in life. For it’s always better to have someone by your side in the perils of life to relive your pain and to give you strength. Loving means to have someone worth living and dying for but it also means to means to have someone to make something together, worth living and dying for.

Snapshot of our civilization

The first human civilisations were all mostly agricultural as our hunter-gatherer ways were no longer sustainable with significant population growth. We started farming and doing animal husbandry to feed large populations. This freed many of us to venture into other domains like art, construction, politics, and academia. This was the beginning of civilisations, as we started learning and discovering new things over the course of many centuries.

We remained primarily agricultural, up until 300 years ago when we invented steam engines. After that, some parts of the world became industrial civilisations and just like that we had machines to carry out farming on a large scale which in turn freed more of us to work in factories. The need for industries grew during the world wars as we needed to produce more and more to feed the machines of war. The best example of this is the automobile industry; it grew out of necessity during the wars. Most of the auto giants of today were conceived during the war, example Volkswagen. It was a government-owned company, part of the Nazi propaganda to strengthen the nation through industries.

As the wars ended, industries were transformed, we no longer needed shells, armours, and guns. If we think of it, theoretically, physical resources are finite, thus limiting the progress we can achieve by exploiting them. History says that civilisations built around any physical resource are bound to perish, take the Indus valley civilisation built around primarily agriculture. It saw great strides in technology, economy, and culture. It prospered in trade with the neighbouring Mesopotamian civilisation. It had cities with drainage systems better than what we can find in many places today. It was the first to come up with a standardised system of weights and measurements. At its peak, it had a population of around five million. The entire civilisation built around the Saraswati river dried up eventually due to silt deposition caused by excessive farming over the years. Once the river dried up, its economy was no longer sustainable and thus came the end of this great civilisation.

The industries in the post-war era faced a similar crisis, they had the option to evolve or perish, and as always we evolved. Industries are now used to produce goods on a massive scale, and the general population has become a consumer. This marked the beginning of post-industrial society where the majority of the people were no longer required to farm or work in manufacturing.

We now needed something new, so came in the age of the internet. Until now, everything of value was tangible like either goods or farm produce. In this new age of the internet, feelings and experiences were valued like commodities; this was a revolutionary idea.

Something similar happened to industries after the war, there weren’t enough factories to employ everyone. By the extension of this logic, the same thing is bound to happen with the IT industry in the future, when we have enough software and AI, we won’t need those many programmers. We are no longer producing physical goods; the IT industry produces feelings and experiences which we will never run out of.

This highlights the fact that we are no longer separate civilisations, but humanity as a whole is one big civilisation and civilisations thrive not when they produce goods, but when they add value. We as a species have always found ways to add value to our society, and we will thrive until we continue to do so.

Hindu Pakistan- A reality not far away

If they are able to win a repeat of their current strength in Lok Sabha, then frankly our democratic constitution as we understand it will not survive. Because all the three elements they need to tear up the constitution of India and write a new one are there. And that will be a new one that will enshrine the principle of a Hindu Rashtra, that will remove equality for the minorities, that will create a Hindu Pakistan.

– Shashi Tharoor (MP)

If you are a resident of the great nation of India for the past several years (past 4 yrs to be precise), it won’t be hard for you guess what followed next in this chain of events. If you are new then let me clue you in, Shashi Tharoor’s office got vandalized with black engine oil and protesters shouted slogans demanding Tharoor leave for Pakistan. Tharoor later clarified that he still stands by his statement and that they were made in his personal capacity and not on behalf of Congress.

Why did such an academic and learned person with a career in diplomacy make such a statement? Usually, these kinds of statements are just political banter which is to be ignored like the rest of the things that go in our country unless it is associated with Pakistan in some way because then it is a matter of national security and patriotism. Since this statement was related to Pakistan it did require further scrutiny.

“So far what is preventing them is that they need three things to change the constitution. They need two-thirds of the Lok Sabha, two-thirds of Rajya Sabha and half the states. You know, right now they have two-thirds of the Lok Sabha with the NDA alliance. They have more than half the states. They control 20 states and they are in coalition in 2 more out of 29 states. The only thing that they don’t have is a majority in the Rajya Sabha. But because they have so many state governments and the state assemblies elect the Rajya Sabha you can be sure that in four or five years they will have a majority in Rajya Sabha. So the great danger then is that if they have been able to win a repeat of their current strength in Lok Sabha, then frankly our democratic constitution as we understand it will not survive because all the three elements they need to tear up the constitution of India and write a new one. And that will be a new one that will enshrine the principle of a Hindu Rashtra, that will remove equality for the minorities, that will create a Hindu Pakistan. And that is not what Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Maulana Azad, Sardar Patel and the great heroes of our freedom struggle fought for,” Tharoor said.

Now we know the context and all of a sudden, this statement does not seem as offensive as it did earlier. If only the vandals had read this and properly understood the context of this statement before going all out on a member of parliament, things could’ve been different.

According to 2018 World freedom of press index by  Reporters without borders suggests that India ranks 138 and shockingly enough Pakistan ranks 139 out of 180 countries with both countries scoring 43.24. To get more perspective on this ranking, Norway has topped with a score of 7.63 North Korea has flunked with 88.87. India ranks lower than some of the absolute religious monarchies of the world like Qatar, Oman, Morocco. Even if this isn’t shocking enough, we rank lower than a complete terrorist (Taliban) state with no stable government, Afghanistan.

It is shameful that a Socialist, Secular, Sovereign, Democratic  Republic and the largest democracy in the world has less freedom of the press than a war-torn country with a totalitarian regime and terrorist rule. As if this wasn’t worse enough, we even slipped two places in the ranking from just last year whereas countries like Afghanistan and Palestine gained two places.

Saying that India has a near totalitarian control and sense of fear wouldn’t be an understatement in the light of these facts and doing nothing about it only makes our situation worse. If we want to become a global capital of culture and freedom, we have to give up our right to get offended and enact to some level, Right to offend because in order to be able to think we have to risk being offended. We cannot have a meaningful dialogue or reach a conclusion without both parties taking certain offences.

Being offended is a beautiful thing as it gives us insight into what matters to us deeply and how it matters to us. It creates outrage but it also creates a window of dialogue where we connect to our human side more than ever and at this juncture of humanity we will edge closer to finding solutions that matter, to problems that matter.

Why Taj Mahal?

It is a mausoleum on the banks of Yamuna River in Agra built out of white marble entirely. Everyone who has visited this wonder will surely remember the first time they entered through the gigantic gates and skipped a breath at its sight. It won’t be an exaggeration to state that it is a breathtaking, awe-inspiring and a truly humbling sight. In 1977, when the United States launched the Voyager spacecraft, it included 115 images of life on Earth. One of them was of the Taj Mahal. In case the ship was intercepted by aliens (crazy expectations humans keep), the people who launched the Voyager wanted them to know that Earth contained a building as magnificent as the Taj.

The Taj Mahal, like every other monument in India, has had its fair share of abuse ranging from theft to defacement. Some of our monuments have received a more BABARIc treatment than the others (excuse the pun). Now everybody knows that excessive pollution of the air and water around the Taj have already deteriorated its condition for the worse and if we act swiftly and effectively, we may be able to save the grand gesture of eternal love from its imminent demise. Surely the government has introduced some photo-op initiatives to save the Taj but nothing concrete has come out of it and any significant progress is yet to be achieved.

Some days ago we came across a news that a radical Hindu militant group that proudly calls itself the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and its bedtime buddy identified as the Bajrang Dal have attacked the Taj Mahal and have vandalised one of its gates claiming that it blocked an entrance to a temple in its premises.

If this incident had taken place in any other country containing any one of the seven wonders of the world, it would have been taken way more seriously than it is in our country. Our entire legislature, judiciary, executive and enforcement have accustomed themselves to function with ignorance. We have a history of being lazy with everything we do and it arises from not out of lack of resources, mind power or money but out of ignorance towards anything and everything unless of course, the issue is Pakistan, Cricket or Bollywood. Our leaders have developed a tendency to run the entire machinery as they see fit without keeping in mind the oath they swore towards the people they represent, the very people that elected them into office, unless of course its election time.

Revisiting the point in the discussion, it happened because more often than not we have news that the leaders of these so-called protectionist, racist and extremist groups claim that the Mughals are the villains that looted and destroyed our ancient culture and more importantly the Hindu religion. They succeed in doing so not by arguing facts and information but by spreading lies and misinformation on a large scale. These groups have thousands of volunteers all across the country and their patrons, some of which are NRI’s. Since they are legitimised and authorised by the government and backed by political parties suiting their agenda they act as the religious front of the government that is supposed to be secular by nature and law because our constitution prevents political parties to favour any certain religion.

These groups have operated freely for the better part of this century with no proper oversight and have thus gained a certain vigilante status in our country. Their members violate numerous civilian and criminal laws as they see fit in the name of protecting a religion. Certain groups are more violent than the others maybe a majority of such religious groups are harmless but even if one of them regards themselves above the law, it sets a bad example for other groups to follow.

Only recently we had widespread violence and allegations over the release of a certain movie that they claimed to hurt their religious sentiments and after a long and hard-fought battle when the movie was finally released, it turned out to be a lie but lives and property were lost nonetheless.

The attack on the Taj Mahal was not an isolated incident but rather a part of a bigger pattern of systemic, homegrown lawlessness and an environment of fear. These groups hurt whoever they want and destroy whatever they want without the fear of prosecution. We as a country have to remember that whenever incidents like these happen it is not just a loss of property and heritage but also the loss of something greater than anything, we lose a chunk of our democratic spirit a chunk of our freedom.

If we want to live in a prosperous and advanced country we have to prevent the erosion of the largest democracy in the world. We can refurbish and rebuild property but we can not rebuild an identity. Our democratic values will cease to exist and with it, the India we fought for will cease to exist.

 

 

I’m not proud to be an Indian

Today is the day I’m proud to say that I couldn’t care less about Dalits, SCs, STs or India as a country for that matter. I don’t give a flying damn if a few (or many) youths think the constitution isn’t strong enough to protect them or the fact that India has won 66 gold medals or the rising prices of petrol. I don’t care that someone named Deepika Padukone wants to become a producer or whether some Radhika Apte is going to star in a Hollywood flick. Facebook evil incorporated can steal all my data and give it to ISIS for all I care. Today I am numb or at least I want to be, just like The GreenDay writes in a song “Tell me that I won’t feel a thing so give me Novacaine”.

All that has happened in our country or in the world is insignificant, trivial and negligible in the face of what has happened in the past couple of days. It is with a heavy heart I say that I read about the recent rape cases in the newspapers and I cringed, I closed my eyes and I sighed like I did every time I read such news which is shamefully common in our country. This time it was an eight-year-old girl. I want you to take time and register the cruelty of this monstrous rape, register it so deep that you skip a breath everytime you hear of it and then ask yourself whether you’d like for such a barbaric society to exist; let alone be a part of it. If this doesn’t move you then take another moment and factor in the fact that there are people who are willing to rally to support the accused and label the victim as a “threat”. Let that sink in.

The insensitivity and the emotional ineptness of our political leaders and media had ceased to amaze me up until this point. I was hit with heart-wrenching sorrow when I saw OUR political leaders, the very people we cast a vote for to represent our society have the audacity to turn this gruesome act into a political one, which still would have been digestible considering the misfortune of our politics but to make it a communal Hindu-Muslim issue is way below the belt even by our standards, yet we are secular country. We live in a sick society, a sick and deranged society where men think they should rape an eight-year-old girl to teach her community a lesson — a society where the very police we entrust our protection with would be a party in it. No matter how much we lie to ourselves and shield ourselves from this, but the reality remains intact, we all belong to the same society. We share our law, our constitution and our nationality with the same people who committed the crime and the people who supported them.

So today I’m not proud to be an Indian, today I’m ashamed, today I’m stricken with grief and sorrow. There is nothing unpatriotic about feeling ashamed of one’s own country and its actions. Don’t let the constant blabber of our politicians and media undermine the cruelty of what has happened, don’t brush it off as just another incident because it isn’t. There are very few events that have the capacity to change the course of nations and we may very well be on the brink of witnessing one. This time it isn’t about freedom from colonial rule or about race or nationality for that matter, this time it is about humanity. It does not and should not matter what caste, colour or country the victim or the accused belong to but what should is that a shameful and horrible act has been committed and we are insensitive enough to even discuss what religion has to do with it.

We are still a developing nation and there is nothing wrong with aspiring to be a great nation but first before we start building bullet-trains or smart cities before we start protesting about reservations and who should get them; we should aspire to become a decent country first. A country where our women and girls are safe from the vicious predators and religious bigots. A country where we are sensitive and compassionate towards each other. A country where all get equality and justice no matter our religion caste or nationality, then maybe we can aspire to be a great country we once were. All said and done repeat after me with clenched fists swinging in the air “Bharat Maata ki Jay” until we lose its meaning and oh I forgot! It is Bharat Maata, mother, woman; too bad we can’t rape her; or can we?