The Motorcycle Diaries

Stop cribbing about the system

2010-08-29T03:52:00.000-07:00

People call themselves social activists and sympathize with a number of causes - violent and non-violent, lost and raging. I have one question - does anyone here have the guts or the spine to contest an election, win it and be righteous? U can call the system rotten, but can you change the system? Is there one leader or an individual who will stand up and say I will be honest? Why must a politician always be a social activist who is poor, wearing a khadi kurta? If common good and individual good dont converge, is it right for us to expect honesty, from politicians, from civil servants? Is it not true that I make more money than a district collector or my local MLA, atleast in terms of salary? Is it not true that he is supposed to be more intelligent and a better manager than me? We can call the Maoists right or wrong, but we have created them and impassioned cries of support will only stoke violence. Change the system. Create a social movement. Dont bargain for slices of mango, dont write poetry, dont sing songs, but show the examples. Set an example within the smallest social unit - the family and the extended family. Isolate an uncle or a cousin or a parent who is corrupt, dont marry his daughter, dont invite him for family functions. Treat a corrupt individual like a leper in the 18th century. Let him goad his money and eat it and make love to it and rot away. Is this way too much to ask or too long to read?

Life & Organizations

2010-05-27T16:58:00.000-07:00

It gives immense satisfaction to do something for yourself. When this something you do for your good is also your favorite thing to do in life, things get so demystified. Then we slowly start getting better, improving our work everyday, striving to achieve perfection. The difference lies in loving the work, just as play or rest is enjoyed, just like how a book or a movie is relished. If work be like a hobby, then the world will be a quiet retreat and not some drab shitty noisy city. Every other kind of work is just a trade off for an easy life. There is no human component in things we do at work. We regularly double cross, gossip, quarrel and destruct each other in the name of our management theories. Why were Porter or Drucker ever born or elevated to their exaltedness? They have caused this systematic vanquishing of human values. Manipulating leaders, selfish employees, untrusting organizations, control (manipulation) mechanisms, transactional rewards. Throw out human values, morals and intentions, and we have the perfect professional organization. All management theory is based on theory X. people don’t want to work and they have to be made to work. For God’s sake, the problem is that so many people think their job sucks.

Smarting Smartness

2010-03-11T05:50:00.000-08:00

There is always a smarter way of doing it.

We hear this statement from so many quarters nowadays. What this implies is that there are multiple ways of doing anything, and there is one way that is smarter than all other ways.

The smartest way of doing something is not necessarily the optimal way of doing it by any means.

The smartest way could not always be the way you like it to be done. A person could still choose to do it the way he wants and likes to do it, according to his own set of likes, dislikes, morals and principles, at the peril of being called a simpleton and slowy snively goose.

The optimal way of doing something is not always the smartest, and not always the most likeable way of doing it.

In today’s world , being street smart is being thought of as mandatory. Else there are a hundred people around to con you. But don’t you lose goodness as much as you are smarter? What is the future for people who talk the truth / tell what they feel ? For people who don’t understand pulling the strings ? For people who cant even bargain on the streets? What is fair? And where is faith? – Facebook wall of a friend.

Smartness = 4 x intellectual giftedness
Street Smartness = 4 x intellectual giftedness + personal social emotional factors

Smartness is intellectual giftedness. Intellectual ability to think through a given situation or problem and then find the best way of doing it. The best way to do it could be the most optimal way or the most selfish way of doing it. But the smartest way will be the way that is most beneficial to somebody.

This is what makes smartness differ from street smartness. PSE – personal social emotional factors.

Intellect

2010-02-18T15:05:00.000-08:00

Was driving down to Madurai from Erode. My car has just an FM radio receiver. So I had to listen to whatever Kodai FM, Kodaikanal was playing at that time.

This is one of the many times when I have been left to the mercy of this radio station. Usually the songs played are ones one wouldn’t hear in the normal course of time. With no offence meant to their DJs, the programs are more or less boring.

Then there is this program at 10 am – a debate on simple topics – with views put forward on a topic by the laymen of Tamil Nadu’s hinterland. The moderator is a professor, who tries to make the arguments sound simple than what the respondents put forth originally.

Today’s topic was “Does comparison of oneself to others lead to good or bad?” The topic seemed fairly innocuous for me at the beginning of the drive. The respondents to this debate will be the grocery shop owners, men who run telephone booths, unemployed people, farmers, etc.

But when the arguments started flowing in, I was amazed at the quality of the responses. The ideas expressed were original with a very good mix of real life, cinematic, lyrical and inspirational allegories.

One person from an unknown village near Kodumudi, Erode put forth the following argument:

“comparing oneself with others makes one lose his/her individuality”

This I think is the essence of the whole discussion. He was referring to the moderator as “ayya”. He told the moderator that he was just a 10th standard pass out, running a small grocery shop. Intellect is not dependent on education and social upbringing. It is imbibed through something other than mere institutions.

When I posted this in 2007 in this blog, one of my friends commented thus:

“In fact I would say education, at least the form that we went through actually kills any leftover intellect”.

Intellect is the thought process distilled to crisp. Intellect is the one drop of ocean water that contains unobtanium that can fuel a space ship for 2 billion light years, that drop that is quarried from countless others insignificant. Intellect is the force of consciousness, purified by truth. Intellect is not something that comes on Monday and leaves the next Monday. Intellect is the basis of man’s natural superiority in the world order. Intellect is why we are the top of the food chain. Intellect creates art, inventions, revolutions, books and thoughts. Intellect builds our moral strength. Intellect creates the plane on which we transact with the world, the playing field of thoughts and emotions.

Intellect includes traits such as creativity, personality, character, knowledge and wisdom. Intellect is a property of the mind, which actualizes our abstract thought, reasoning, planning and problem solving, use of language, and learning.

People differ from each other in their capability to understand ideas, abstract thinking, adapting to environments, reasoning in various forms and importantly solving problems through thought. Intellect is never consistent and can not be linear or equal in measure. So a person’s intellectual capability will vary on different times, different problems and different environments, when the criteria for measurement vary. While a poet will be measured for his works’ beauty and flow, so the scientist for his truth, precision and proof.

Dr. Howard Gardner – “To my mind, a human intellectual competence must entail a set of skills of problem solving — enabling the individual to resolve genuine problems or difficulties that he or she encounters and, when appropriate, to create an effective product — and must also entail the potential for finding or creating problems — and thereby laying the groundwork for the acquisition of new knowledge”.

The essence of all definitions I found in wikipedia is this:

Intellectual capability is how effectively an individual deals with cognitive complexities that arise out of the problems he encounters, work he wants to create, knowledge he needs to gain to solve, explain and create.

Intellect is the agent that triggers the intellection in the mind, the force that moves the potential to actual.

When the early Greeks and Indian philosophies likened intellect to God, modern empirical theories have evidently made it a much simpler cognitive function, which it is. So intellect and intellectual capability have become the basis of all consciousness and our standing in nature, because these 2 terms represent our capability to create other than what we get from earth and our capability to determine what happens in and on earth and in the future what happens in other earths.

Our education has depended on memory and not on cognition. Cognition for children stops with outside the school. How does he learn to use a PC? Somewhere we have oversimplified education to black and white, to suit 100 children in a classroom and 100 million children in the country. Our system doesn’t have the time to let children think through problems. Education, from training to intellection, has become the domain of people who don’t want to believe that education is just these 3 words in spirit and 3 more in action care, fairness and dedication.

A something for today

2009-12-04T12:09:00.000-08:00

When the Innocent collapsed
Under the white sky and
For the last time they breathed
The Earth’s womb shook and
Sorrow tore every root
Melancholy were the winds
Silent were the rains
Dark mountains brooded none
Angelic bells rung never more
Love was denounced forever
Archangels were doomed
As was the common man
And silent alleys roam dark
And forever damned souls
Writing grating requiems
And gruesome bawdy odes
Over dead love, long gone.
Godspeed………..

A well trained street dog

2009-11-05T10:42:00.000-08:00

I was driving back to Pondy after meeting a client in a place called Rettanai, a very remote village. I was crossing the GST road and stopped at a place called Kooteripattu X Road for some refreshment.

I had stopped at a typical road side transit point shop. Everything about the shop was temporary, including the coin phone box and the ice box. I was smoking and having a Coke, when it started raining very heavily. A policeman ran into the shade of this shop for shelter and so did a dirty looking dog. The space was enough for the four of us - The shopkeeper, the policeman, I and the dog.

The dog was the shopkeeper’s friend and kept brushing itself against him. I could see that he was hungry.

I decided to buy a Tiger biscuit packet and give him some biscuits. I opened the pack and when I offered him the biscuit, he wouldn’t take it at all. He turned away at first, and when I walked around and put the biscuit near his snout, he sort of pushed it away and turned away again.

The shopkeeper decided to intervene. He asked the dog to eat and then he started accepting my biscuits and wagging tails at me. We finished with the biscuits and he just went off to a corner of the tarpaulin enclosure and sat on his haunches.

This is exemplary behavior and highest discipline, and coming from a street dog, it bowled me over completely. I was asking the shopkeeper how long he knew the dog, and the reply was 6 months. The dog would have been an adult when he started patronizing the shop. Then where, how and when was he trained? Why did he become a street dog? Did he run away? Was he abandoned? Did he lose his way somehow?

Schooling or What???

2009-10-28T08:57:00.000-07:00

They say all men are not made equal. Someone is better than many others and many others are better than most others. There is no state of not comparing in man’s life; there are highs, lows, gradients. There are sometimes small plateaus, but with sheer drops.

As part of my work, I visit and work with schools in urban and rural places. I see children trudging along in monotony, ennui and fear in many many places. Usually the schools that are looked up to in their town are the ones where children are at an unwarranted low. Children need not go through the stress at their age, to simply learn. The parents want the child to learn and develop, the school wants the child to put up a great show – at home and in the tests/exams, but what does the child want?

Children want to learn too, but without being pressurized, threatened and being abused for their personality type. Though no child can tell this like I have said, all the child wants is to have a good time at school while they grow up to be like its father or mother – good, responsible and successful.

In the traditional schooling system in India, children are classified as:
a. The Highly Intelligent – prepares for his classes, never misses an assignment, quick fire in answers, top five ranks in the class, very good memory
b. The Hard Workers – prepares for class, asks doubts, never misses an assignment, is good at recalling answers and usually a very good memory
c. The SO SO Children – usually score first class, but struggle and are quiet in class
d. The Weak Children – fail or just pass cases

The a & b types are personality types that pick up stuff by just listening and reading. They are not dependent on the school for their education, but the school is dependent on them to produce “results” and maintain the status of the school.

The c & d types are different personality types who can’t pick up concepts by just listening, reading and memorizing. They form the bulk of the school’s roster, usually from 40% to 60%. They really need their schooling to accommodate their alternative or majority learning personality. They need their schooling to prepare them for life, for competition and to become good people. Their needs are being ignored continuously, by the theory that every child is the same, (if he can score, why cant you?) and that schools are trying to produce engineers and doctors only, and not human beings.

Let us look at the typical learning experiences of the type c& d school children.

a. He is slow in the class, is usually undisciplined, could be hyperactive and/or neurotic, gets physically and mentally abused for being like this, doesn’t score marks, is continuously lying, hiding.
b. He is picking up learning experiences continuously outside school. He is good at cycling, mobile phones, computers, making clay models, etc. He is better than the a & b types in many things that may be required to be successful in life.
c. He comes to school out of fear for the parents, is going through schooling in fear for the teachers, marks and abuses, and is living through life in fear of abandonment and ostracization.
d. He may have never or seldom gone through a moment of enlightenment in school, even if he has, he won’t divulge it.

If a school makes 1 million in a year, the types c & d contribute 0.6 million, yet they are not addressed. It is a sad state of affairs with parents ignoring their unique child’s needs for the more glamorous “marks” and “career”. Nearly all c & d type children get psychologically malformed due to their schooling.

I have defined the types of children taking cues from how children are actually assessed in school. Many or most people believe that any other method of classification is impractical, blasphemous and sometimes even immoral. It is the fixated practicality of adults that is spoiling our future generations for us.

Medium Vs. Idea

2009-10-17T01:18:00.000-07:00

Diwali is the festival to celebrate the slaying of a demon by Goddess Kali. And there are lights all around us, laughter and so much of fun.

Let me examine what Diwali means to many of us:

a. Loads of discounts on mobiles, clothes, consumer durables – and hence days of shopping
b. Some sort of a gift coupon from the office
c. Bonus and reveling in spending
d. Crackers
e. Sweets
f. Loads of movies – Diwali special programs, special movies
g. Friends get together and party

The media and industry have hijacked every festival and probably gone on and created new occasions to actualize sales forecasts and aid economic growth. Dental health week?

The pressure on an average family to celebrate these festivals in the ‘proper’ way is enormous. We see a frenzy of spending in the weeks leading up to diwali. The richer shop a week or fortnight in advance and the poor in the last week.

Diwali is the triumph of good over evil. But what evil, in myself, have I defeated this year? In the end, the medium always seems to defeat the idea. We are more worried about religion that God. More worried about how to celebrate than why to celebrate.

Even Goddess Kali is not able to set an example for us!

Democracy!

2009-09-04T04:50:00.000-07:00

I was watching television yesterday evening, and the breaking news was the
disappearance of the chopper in which the CM of Andhra Pradesh, Dr. YSR, was
flying.

The chopper went down in a jungle, off Chittoor. A dense forest of 3000 sq.
kms, naxal infested, and dangerous even for security forces to venture into.
Security agencies went into a tizzy. 6000 troops and personnel being
deployed to hunt down the missing chopper. Sukhois flying low altitude with
night vision cameras, army choppers flying with flood lights, tribals and
police on the march. NASA brought in to beam in real time images of the
forest to hunt for any signs of movement.

It was amazing the amount of technology that can be harnessed in a backward
country like ours to hunt down a missing CM. It is a matter of national
shame that the chopper carrying his contingent was overdue on its flight
worthiness certificate, and there was no SOP or standard op procedure in
case something like this happens. Security agencies were caught unawares on
what to do, and thus lost the golden hours when a crash site has not yet
disintegrated totally.

When so much of technology can be brought in to hunt some one very
important, then why can’t it be used to hunt down the naxals? The naxals or
the more popular name of Maoists are increasingly being heard of in the
media, holding vast stretches of the country on tenterhooks, with their
demands, revenge killings, and rampage.

Chattisgarh, Jharkand and a few other states have become their home turf. We
hear from the media that external forces hostile to India are training and
equipping them. The same is said of all movements that disrupt the way of
the democracy in our country. The guns come from abroad, their camps are
situated abroad to train them. But they all are Indians.

Some say that if they were Indians, then why they can’t stand up for their
rights within our system. Why must they wage a war that is extra judicial?

You could see that after every anti-Muslim pogrom, we have seen many years
of ghastly and daring terrorist acts. If any one in the government has any
wits at all, they should stop these pogroms from happening.

People are marginalized when they don’t get justice. Unless judicial reforms
become reality, there will be no peace in our country. Stop the injustice!

Everyone is aware of what happened to Mr. Narendra Modi when he was on the
show “The Devil’s Advocate”. When he was questioned on the Gujarat pogroms,
he was unable to answer. He had the look of someone who was being hunted for
his sins. He had a glass of water, and decided to walk out of the show. The
question that caused such a response was: “What did you do as the Chief
Minister of Gujarat to stop the violence?” The compare wouldn’t let him go
with the usual “we were doing our best”. He persisted and Mr. Modi couldn’t
stand up for his dignity. Mr. Modi was insulted.

I was reading an article about a man who has been in jail for 50+ years. His
family forgot, the nation forgot. He has got a compensation of Rs. 3 lacs
from the Government, but 3 lacs for 50 years of injustice is like wiping
someone’s ass with a coarse 200 grit abrasive paper.

Last week, the Moaists had called a strike in Bihar and Jharkand, and went
about bombing railway stations, tracks and mobile towers. Their demand was
very simple: “Take our comrades to court”. It seems that the police were
holding and interrogating two Maoist leaders outside the law. The Maoists
wanted them to be produced in court and remanded to judicial or police
custody. Now who is with the law and who is against it? The police
eventually took these people to the court, and the strike ended soon after.

It is that simple as this. People who don’t get justice form their own
system of justice. First, the hard core people will be the one’s directly
affected. It will be a small group of 4-5 people, then they will administer
justice on their own terms, then people join in who are enchanted by the
whole quickness and fairness, and then comes the popular movement. Violence is inhuman, but so is injustice. Violence breaks lives, but injustice can rip apart the whole society.
Thousands and thousands of troops are present in the naxal ‘infested’ areas.
They shoot, kill or arrest any person who is deemed a threat to the country.
But a corrupt official or sarpanch or corporator is immune to such a buildup
of hostile opinion and action. Is a revenue official who takes bribes any
worse than a naxal?

The naxal fights to rid the country of corruption. He knows why he is doing
this, but he doesn’t know how else to do it. He is just using the age old
technique of overpowering the system, when people like us would like the
system to change from within.

Where is our country headed? Judges are protesting against calls to declare
their assets. If they are good and honest why must they object?

Where is our country headed? A sensible government, headed by Dr. Singh is
not able to or willing to pass a bill banning politicians with criminal
records from representing the people.

Where is our country headed? A country of such immense potential is closing
its eyes to corruption in the name of progress and economic reforms.

Where is our country headed? When we believe that force is the only solution
to all social evils.

Where is our country headed? The mechanisms that must be protecting the
people and their rights are destroying the lives of people.

The Singur story is a good case in point. There are places where people are
not able to raise a single stick of carrot throughput the year. Industry
doesn’t come up these places. Industry comes up in places where there are 3
paddy harvests a year, monsoon or no monsoon.

1. The WB government acquires land from farmers, through whatever means.
2. The WB government hands over this land at a throwaway price to the
Tatas.
3. Tata’s build a factory on the land and manufacture small cars
4. The people who gave up the land can be employed in the factory.

It is little comfort to note that a farmer, his own master, an entrepreneur
in his own right has to wear trousers and shoes and go to work for the
Tatas. Would a small scale manufacturer of shoe laces ever go and work in a
factory, unless he fails in his business?

How safe is it to assume that a farmer will be employable in a car factory?
A farmer who is uneducated will be sweeping floors and wiping toilet seats
in the factory.

Whatever has happened to pride? What has happened to self respect? Where is
our national pledge of upholding a citizen’s dignity?

People are being pushed around a lot in the name of development. Whether
this is a sustainable mode of development, no one knows. Social scientists
believe we are on course for destruction and anarchy. We are witnessing
signs of it already.

Guru Gyrations

2009-08-31T10:53:00.000-07:00

I have a relative who is a follower of a Concept of Living, as instructed by a Guruji or a Pundit.

She teaches his teachings. She teaches mainly Yoga and Meditation, both profound practices to feel and explore the Soul.

She is old and a widow. She has been through her share of shit, and she has pulled off life well. Her daughters are well settled and prosperous.

She would talk about kriyas and asanas, and how they can transform the way you live your life, bla bla bla.

The Guruji may be right. He could be leading the otherwise blind people towards a harmony.

But our stupid people are T#$%^*&YUIY*&^(*&)(*)(*.

My relatives elder daughter is pregnant. All relatives were invited for a function, a high tea and a great evening at their place.

It turned out that the grandmother had made elaborate spiritual arrangements for the day of the delivery.

a. There was a white cloth in which the baby will be draped first thing after being born. It was the same piece of cloth that was spread over the chair the Guruji sat on. This will seemingly increase immunity, and cover the baby with the Guruji’s graces.
b. There was a silver spoon, which will feed the first mouthful of milk the baby would take. This was the same spoon the Guruji used to have some kheer during one of his tours. This will give the baby some sort of good stomach. I didn’t catch the exact context.

My head started reeling in the disgust at the unhealthy things my mind started thinking at that moment.

The Guru must be a bad man I thought at first, to exploit such people. I even told my wife that the lady must have brought the Guru’s langot and make her son in law wear it to be able to make his wife pregnant. My wife was naturally mad at me. But I didn’t see any difference in my thinking and the lady’s, other than the fact that I was deliberately trying to berate the Guru for exploiting his people.

When I went into things further, I understood that the Guru was not a Swami or a monk. He was just a teacher, who was trying to teach people.( I still don’t understand why a teacher must wear a Buddha and sport a long, flowing beard) In the process he has amassed much wealth on behalf of his trusts and temples, and charities and things like that. He was just running a plain business line. That of serving up one’s soul on a platter. He would tell you how to feel your conscience, how to be good, and how to be true, how to love. He would teach all the tenets of humanity as if it were new. He would add a few things here and there, and then try to make it sound unique and interesting. There would be bhajans and trance sessions, and people are just mesmerized not at what his teachings have evoked, but by the man himself.

He just is plain more intelligent than many of you. You think his eyes radiate a power. You have gone there to liberate a heavy soul. How could you look at the eyes of a man who you think is liberated? You, with your low self esteem have already lost the power to look at such a person in the eye. The Guru is confident because he knows no one would dare to look him in the eye. In the end it is all about the domination and subjugation. People nowadays don’t just need religion to be spiritual, they need to be taught.

The Guruji is exploiting his talents alone and nothing else. He never asks for anything more than attention.

His followers exploit him and other people.

They make classes out of their learnings of his teachings, they form new orders and ashrams. They make money out of his brand aura and create superstitions like carrying away his robes and cutlery. This sets a precedent and I am sure I would see the langot of the Guru on ebay or Christy’s, London for millions of dollars 20 years from now.

In the end, it is the disciple who is outsmarting the Guru. The disciples who went to liberate their soul, end up soiling their soul further. The Guru doesn’t bother either. It is just adding up to more brand awareness.

The Guru is running a perfect business, a public limited company.

a. The promoter drives home in a Merc bought by the company – the Guru does the same thing
b. The promoter invests the returns he gets in the business, and takes home only an allowance, thus he is not taxed – the ashrams buy land, start schools and money spinning operations
c. The promoter is not liable in case of business failure. The ashram can similarly shut shop and need not answer any one, even the Government.
d. A smart promoter would develop his executives to lead his business and be relieved – Gurus have always done the same thing. Hasn’t every religious order faced succession politics, malice and crime, just like our corporate successions?

We all think the Guru is doing charity, by teaching idiots like us. He is just running a school for adults on the subject of living.

Bossing around the bush

2009-08-31T10:52:00.000-07:00

We have a General Manager in our office. He is one of the many in our myriad of levels. They have matrix reportees, and have a matrix reporting structure themselves. It means, he will get to screw people from a variety of departments and in turn is mauled, torn, ripped and raped by Senior General Managers, Managing Directors, CEO’s and Chairmen. It is a pitiable plight for these people neither at the top, nor at the bottom. The guy in the bottom is always safe. He will be subjected to all of the above things, but at a smaller scale.

The junior people in the organization are ‘groomed’ to be plundered, bled and raped in a larger scale. This is called the fast tracking of someone’s career. There is not a single boss I haven’t felt sorry for, for the humiliations he goes through to be successful, to be a progressive go getter, to become a leader of an organization. It looks ridiculous.

There are bosses, and then there are bosses. Every boss is different, and unique.

I had a boss, my first boss, who was an expert in undressing you. He would get a great pleasure to see stand there quivering, covering your vitals for virtual fear of castration. One would always want to take him out with one super blow, because he would always be looking to fell you. I thought I felled him with one nice left uppercut when I resigned from the company and gave my exit interview, but he has come to my company now! So you never punch your boss, even when you are leaving the organization.

Then I had a boss who was slippery as an eel. No one could grab him, and squeeze him. Reneging on commitments, double crossing almost everybody, soft spoken and suave. You would want to murder him, but he will talk you out of it. His bosses would scratch their heads on his logic, but they know something is wrong deep down. They would have the “let me get my hands on you” looks about them. But he was in no way an arrogant person. But he too had a big ego, to make things look to others the way he sees it.

Then I had a boss who was very different from the above. He was gentle, always neutral, unprejudiced, and a perfect gentleman, every bit very selfish. He never took anyone’s side other than his own. It would be a wonder when he would be getting promoted, when all of us who made the performance would get content with ‘better luck next year’. Then we all got together and decided that – OUR BOSS NEVER WILL HARM US, BUT HE NEVER DOES ANYTHING UPLIFTING EITHER. Don’t do good, and don’t do bad. It is a sickening thing to be there with a boss who would be ignoring you for the good you did and also for the bad you did.

Then I have a boss here who talks so much that he trips over with laughter. He tries to be funny, and very often manages to move us to laughter. But he is very bad at subordinating work. He would expect you to pick up things as you go. He would say Vinod is responsible for a, b and c. Amit is responsible for b, c and d. Jayant for a, b and d. So no one knows what he is getting to. Someone would like a, b, c or d, and would get it done. Someone like me who is a bad team player, is doing something like equity trading, and reading google news.

Then I have another boss here, who I don’t know how he became a boss. In meetings, or presentations, he would be the best listener, encouraging you with his wide, wonder filled eyes. Then he would ask the question that is most diagonally opposite to what is being communicated. He is a funny guy. You have to send him a mail, and call him up and tell him that something has been mailed to him. He would be cloistered in his cabin all day, then he would jump out of cabin and would be staring over your shoulder asking the most trivial thing like have you sent me a mail. He never uses his desk phone or intercom. He has become a subject of study for me here in Pune. I would like to narrate something that happened in the canteen with him.

Today, a friend and I were chatting in the canteen, and having some snacks. So Mr. Kutty, I would call him that from now on, walks in, and joins us. I introduced my friend to him. His name is Ramesh; he has joined us just last week. He is from a company called Eicher, my ex employer.

So he asked Ramesh, “So Ramesh how long you were with Eicher?”

Ramesh replies, “Two and a half years, sir.”

Kutty rejoins with enthusiasm, “Who was your boss is Eicher? I have many friends in your ex company. You know, VRVS was a very good friend of mine.”

Ramesh was filled with awe to this Kutty who seemed to know every person in Eicher Motors and especially the charismatic Country Marketing Head of the company.

Ramesh replies, “Mr. Lakshmipathy, sir. He is a GM there.”

Kutty’s eyes lit up with a widespread recognition. It seemed even to me that he would know this Mr. Lakshmipathy.

Kutty becomes serious now. “Let me recollect.” He seriously is trying to plumb into the depths of his memory. “I knew someone by the name of Lakshmipathy.”

Kutty remained silent for a few moments.

“I remember now. His full name is Lakshmipathy Balaji. I do recollect that I have spoken to him once.”

Ramesh, my friend started smiling in a derogatory way, poking me with his glances and pointing to Kutty as if he had made a big mistake worth heckling.

“Lakshmipathy Balaji is a cricketer sir. My ex boss was Mr. T. Lakshmipathy sir, and he has never played cricket in his life.”

I caught the joke now, and started laughing and Kutty, the true sport that he is, started laughing too. Then he abruptly nodded his head, in a very matter of fact manner and disappeared into his cabin. For us it was the turning point of the day. Then things started moving fast, and we were telling to this joke to the PD guys, who told it to the MES guys, who told it to the VI guys, who told it to the Engine guys, so on and so forth.

Bosses are like this. They try to pull smart things through. I haven’t met one boss who tries to prove you wrong every time. Whether he is wrong or right in his opinion, he would get pleasure by proving you wrong. He thinks people accept his opinion because he is more intelligent. People always accept it because he is the boss. They don’t point out his errors ever so often. They expect a boss to know his own limitations. Such a one is respected.

In my organization, a structural change was happening, and senior people who were in the field were rounded up and herded off to an assessment center. It was conducted by a third party agency. The results were rumored to be a negative for almost all the senior people in the organization. They were pulled up during feedback, harshly reminded to lead well, and then sent off with their commissions. Their negative scores or lack of competencies translated to reprimands, and pointed reactionary feedback was deemed enough for them to take up higher responsibility.

A boss who is not a good leader will always goof up with his juniors. They will not respect a person who is their leader, but is not leadership adapted. Leadership adapted means someone who moves into a leadership role, will have to adapt to many things like developing people, training, motivating, etc. Our leaders are never trained to lead. They are trained to boss around, and they do just that.

No company has a leadership policy manual. But every company will have an admin manual, HR manual, compensation manual. No company tells its leaders how to behave. The best the leaders can do is moderate their natural instincts. A very aggressive bulldog can be trained to be a pet. But it is better at being snappy than the good sheep dog.

Leaders have to be trained behaviorally. We have programs that tell the qualities of a leader. But no one tells how these qualities come about in a person.

It is said that assertiveness is a pre requisite for being a good leader. Every leader knows that. But some one who doesn’t know how to assert himself will just finely or roughly ignore suggestions, and term them as stupidity. He will stop receiving suggestions for fear of offending him.

It is said that a leader has to take responsibility. People understand things differently. Some leaders will try to do all the things themselves, in the process choking their juniors’ creativity, professional rigor and self esteem.

It is said that a good leader must be able to advocate his views. People misunderstand their steam rolling into advocacy.

Whatever trainings I have attended on the above subjects don’t even remotely refer to behaviors and attitudes. They focus on matrices ‘copywrited/patented’ and on role plays. Half the time people end up trying to show that they are good leaders even before the whole thing started.

Trainers have to depend on all these ‘tools’ because there are no demonstrable examples of leadership styles. If they are, I don’t know where they are. They can be found in biographies and auto biographies, where people hire writers to write good about them, or are vain enough to write good about themselves all by themselves.

The thing is this: People don’t know how to behave socially.

What the rag picker on Mumbai - Pune Highway called me

2009-08-24T10:32:00.000-07:00

When I was walking back to the guest house today, it was raining a bit. It was trying to rain properly, you know the wiggly rain, between a good hard rain and the moaning, crying drizzle.

It was very still, no breeze, no air. The atmosphere was suffocating, but it always feels good to walk in the rain, so I was just walking down. Sometimes, when we do what we like, we turn back to see if someone else is doing it. Do I look an ass hole? This question burns the nape of our neck every time we follow something close to us. If this close to us thing is far from everyone else, we just cower down into ourselves, biting our heart into submission.

The road, the Mumbai – Pune highway I was walking on, seemed empty. People had taken shelter, in the vestibules of road side shops, within petrol pumps, and within any enclosure they could find. All that was going on on the road, was the art of driving cars over puddles of water, so that the water splashes on the people who are hardy enough to walk in the rain. Even I like doing such things. It is such fun to see people run away when a car approaches for fear of muddying their trousers.

I also was looking around, just to check if I was looking the idiot, getting wet in the rain in Pune, the swine flu capital of India. I guess I must have just gone on walking. There was a rag picker who was well covered with a plastic overall who was diligently and nimbly going on with his work.

“Tere jaise admiyon se swing flu aata hai. Geela hote ho jaan bujkar, foreign jaate ho, najane aids, swing flu late ho……..pagal ho kya?”

“People like you bring swine flu. You get wet for the fun of it, you go abroad and bring aids, swine flu, and what not. Are you mad?”

He was not even looking at me, but he was loud enough for me to hear him, and he was referring to me. There was no one else around.

His wisdom tells him a lot of things. I don’t know in how many dimensions he thought in, but I could work out some number of angles in what he uttered casually.

a. Rich people bring rich diseases from rich places. The un-immunized man does not have the money to get cured of unique diseases. This is true in so many instances. Common flu & cold decimated from the Conquistadors wiped out entire South American civilizations. Transport and travel brings disease.
b. He is classifying me as belonging to a group of people who are very rash, and up to their nose in enjoying life. They try to drown in it, compared to his scraping dust bins day in and day out. At the same time he could be esteeming himself for wearing his odd looking patched up rain cover.
c. He is unable to digest the fact that I take my life so lightly. By god, I could catch swine flu and pass over to my maker very quickly.

I was stupefied, not at that moment. But his sentence kept forming in my mind for the next five minutes. The full import of what he was thinking got to me when I entered the apartment complex. I stopped at a tea shop, was having hot cha, when I saw that I was not alone. People old and young were walking by, though far and few, as if nothing had happened. They were soaking wet, but they never really did mind. So I was not alone.

But what mattered was this. This was the first time, something someone very far removed from my own class of people had said to me had affected me or stuck to me. This is odd. I travel a lot, meet a lot of people, but this is a comment regarding my lifestyle.

Often, we just hear what we want to hear. The rest gets drowned out intentionally at first, but unintentionally later on. I think I am following a fling by getting wet in the rain, and for the rag picker on the Mumbai - Pune highway, I am a perfect idiot, a social menace. That’s a point of view I never expected to be encountered with.

We always form a vision of ourselves, and once we have a pride in our own self, people around us just start portraying our image to us. This becomes our environment, our emotions, our tastes, our friends, our habits, our everything. But suddenly, a rag picker on the Mumbai – Pune highway thinks I am a social menace! What originality!

Sometimes, we just forget that every rag picker, beggar, destitute, slum dweller will have an opinion on us. We just get overshadowed by ourselves and our image. We go to work, read a few things, invest, get married, and yet without knowing, we think this is the right thing to do & the right way to live. We could be trampling a lot of things on the way, without getting off our sleep walk.

Maybe, people like me, and people like you, who have internet in their homes, offices, the connected guys you know, who go to work with their brains alone, who have reduced the labor with the body to a lower social class, are a social menace. Because people like us are what - 2% of India and the other 98% may be thinking of the 2% as a menace.

I know what you will be thinking now. How will the rag picker survive, if people don’t earn enough to throw away stuff? We are making his livelihood, could be a starting point.

Cooking in the Quarters

2009-08-23T06:45:00.000-07:00

I live in a transit quarters run by my company in Pune. It is a 3BHK apartment in a large complex called Empire Estate in Chinchwad, Pune. This is one of the many quarters run by the company in Pune, with probably a hundred in the country. To accommodate executives who are traveling on business or for people who get transferred, and yet are to settle down in their new place, like me. These properties are owned by the top management who lease out such properties to the company. It’s an old boys club. Every ex-CEO will have a thing leased out to the company. However, corporate governance is not what I am thinking of now.

The transit quarters are an eco system of their own. I have been in the quarters in Zaheerabad, Worli, Khar, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Chennai. You will find all sorts of people camping there for the night.

There will be a very old manager, Mahindra for life sorts. Then there will be the new joinee. There will be one protagonist like me. Everyone hates these places, which resemble a temple chatram or a common camping ground like a sarai, where people stay out of necessity. One can see the irritation of all people around, at the white walls, the medimix soap, and the Bajaj almond drops hair oil.

Everyone staying here, including myself, want to stay in a neat hotel, with variety in food. But the company is cutting costs or is being economical.

There have been instances when junior people are asked to leave just because some one more high or important in the company is coming in, and room has to be made for him. It is just irritating to have to pack up at odd times. It happened to me once in 2007, and I vowed never to walk into a company quarters again. Now, I am here again, and the experience has not sweetened much.

The same bland food. One would think the Mahindra transit quarters throughout India have a common menu. Roti, dhal, 2 subji’s, rice & curd. I have been in this place for a month, I have not tasted anything else, not even once. It doesn’t matter which part of the country you are in. The menu is the same.

One Sunday last month, when I was alone here, I decided to cook for myself. I could manage with a couple of south Indian dishes. But the caretakers here took it as a big insult, and would not let me into the kitchen. I tried coercive methods, then sometime later I appealed on compassionate grounds. They decided to make me dosas for dinner, and made me such dosas that I never repeated my mischief again.

I think they have been instructed not to entertain guests cooking for themselves just to make people leave sooner. If I am able to cook to my own taste once in a week, I would be pretty contented to live here, and the company would not want that. So it’s the same atta everyday, so people run out due to the monotony.

What would I not do to have rice mixed in puli kolambu/pulusu. Then curd rice, with a fried fish.

The caretakers are 2 teenagers from Gorakhpur in UP. There are 2 boys, cooking, keeping and sleeping in the house. They are in contract, with a recruitment company that files in boys from the village to work in such places. They can’t speak English or the local language. They are very respecting, decent and well behaved. They have been groomed to provide equal service all across India. Any Mahindra guest house in the country will have someone from Gorakhpur for sure. I don’t know how the connection came about or why.

To get fresh air!

2009-08-21T06:26:00.001-07:00

I live in Pune now. Far, far from Chennai. This seems like a foreign country to me. This is a foreign language they speak. I am unable to get any chilli bajji here, or for that matter many of the things I had taken for granted Tamilnadu.

I have moved into Marketing now. I now handle Product Planning for our company, one in a team of 5 people, managed by a senior GM. I have been in sales for 4 years now, and I am going through a major transformation, at least so I thought when I was asked if I would be willing to move into marketing.

My immediate thought was the escape from month ends and targets. I knew there would be stress in any job, but this would not require a lot of travel. And I could go to office and come home every night to my family.

I decided to make the move despite the not so rosy financial situation we were in. I was of the opinion that one has to make a few sacrifices to get ahead in life, and in the long run, it would be alright.

I had been wrong on a few things.

I never knew how much I would miss the regular travel I have been taking for a nuisance the past 4 years. To go to office everyday is a thing I hate, I realize now.

I assumed sacrifices will be made by me readily. Now to think of selling my beloved motorcycle, the Zahir, and my first car, White. I feel like a morally corrupt person to throw off things. So much for my love of things. But I just cant see my things, my automobiles, bath tub, , being used by somebody. It is like abandoning a pet. Would they feed it properly, would they have a covered parking space, etc. Shit, the list of worries on this front go on like anything. So I decided not to make the both the sacrifice for my career aspirations. I decided to bring them here, and use them as sparingly as possible, without getting caught by the cops. It may seem impractical, so my wife and parents say.

I thought marketing was the natural progression for a sales guy with a management education background. I was excited when I though I would be managing a brand. It was what people do sitting in HQ, telling people how to advertise, how to campaign, how to promote, etc. Now when I am in this shit, I see meetings happening with ridiculous agendas:
• Project Planning of Product planning programs
• Market opportunity analysis process – to develop a template for understanding market opportunities and standardize the process of delivering products/brands/value, etc……blablabla……..
• There will be a meeting tomorrow to discuss the key take aways from the last meeting. Each member is to bring a write up on the above subject.
• The actual amount of time spent in thinking and executing the actual work will be 10%. The rest is spent doing fancy things, completely unrelated.

People are a lot more sophisticated. They like giving things names, making presentations to the top management – mind you, they literally fight for doing this. They like being snobbish, give themselves airs, trying to look intelligent. At the end of the day, they are being strictly professional, just what the employer wants. They would call meeting the customer for feedback as VoC – Voice of Customer. They would call a detailed project objective as PRF – Product Request Form. This gateway, that gateway, Gateway of India, etc. It’s designed to make morons sound intelligent. When I came in, it all seemed very intelligent, but to know what each term means, all these people here are running a swindle. Conning people and getting ahead in life.

People generally try to look very busy. But you go within what they do, they play solitaire most of the time, and they browse wikipedia, google news, ebay, solving the Friday puzzle in our intranet, etc. This means there is a lot of time for people to think about their environment and their colleagues, generally to be idle and think bad and not so bad things about people. Politicking is very common, and from where I came, all this did not matter. You were worth the gold for the numbers you showed in every month’s review. Here it is different. You are worth who you know. Your worth is in being in the good books. A rebel doesn’t fit in, and so does a person with a different attitude.

People in the office are stagnant. One can say this from their blank stares and bland smiles. There is no josh in anyone. There is no laughter in the office. So much work to be done, and people are just wary of small talk and time waste.

I don’t know how this will read to people who have had desk jobs their entire career, but I think this is not what I should be doing. I would become a stupid professor, a jargon crunching asshole and a scheming fox.

To meet 100 new people every day, I would give anything. To stop this suffocation, I would give anything.

His Stroke to Love

2009-06-03T10:54:00.000-07:00

Today I visited my in-laws in Pallavaram. My father-in-law has had a stroke. He had lost control over his left arm and left leg.

It has been a month since, and he has regained his leg. I should say he is recovering well. He is able to walk now, sit down and get up without assistance. But the same is not true with his arm. He is still unable to grasp things. The left side of his face is twitching when he speaks, resulting in wobbly wiggly speech.

He has always been a belligerent, yet simple man. He has not been tamed. He is forgetful, never shoulders responsiblity.

He has retired from a life of 35 years in the civil service. He did very well in his career. After retiring, he had taken up life as a happy & contented old man. Going to all fairs, expos and exhibitions in Chennai. There was not one day when he would be idle, puttering along with his repeated questions.

He started working in the office of a politician. He would go to work everyday, to make 6000 rupees. He did this to earn his pocket money, so he could save his pension.

He has a history of diabetes and high blood pressure. As would be fatalistically expected of such a man, he would never take his medicines in time, characteristic of his forgetfulness and belligerence. He was not exercising, nor was he on a diet.

He just collapsed one day, was rushed to the hospital and he lost one side of the body, thankfully, not forever.

His relationship with my mother-in-law has always been a fascinating thing for me. She is an exact inversion of him. She is everything that he isn’t. She does things that a man ought to be doing for the family. She hates him for making her shoulder all the responsibility.

Their relationship is beyond my understanding. They are from another generation when marriage was equivalent to buying a medicine concoction from a flea market. You had to make the best of what is ordained, as long as the match comes from the same caste, and within the caste, from a good family. They have never known how to love as a man & woman, leading lives of frugality, self-reliance, self-defense and foreboding.

Both of them have never relied on each other for anything other than material needs. Emotionally, they have been far, far apart.

The stroke has for the first time brought them together on a different plane. For the first time in his life, he is dependent on her, for everything including succor and emotional understanding. He is seeing a different woman, 30 years into the marriage. She is seeing a different man, 30 years into the marriage.

I, all of 28 years, saw what adversity can do to an Indian family. It brings the family together. I see how people can rediscover their lives no matter how late. Things that are boring are boring because we are too bored to look at changes. People change, for sure, and we usually just don’t notice it.

I see my brother-in-law doting on his father. His mother feeding him and supporting him in his exercises without a wince. I see him grimacing, pulling a long face, when he is asked to exercise his fingers, but he listens to his wife now. He is meek, accepting, and adorable. He has just realised what a good marriage can do to a man when he is suffering. She has just realised the possiblity that someone who has just been present all this time, unwavering in loyalty, frugal and persevering can be loved. He has anyways been a loyal husband, a prudent father and an unaffected man. He deserves the loving, though it comes only during his suffering.

The family has opened a new leaf. Each one is experiencing a different sensation. They are changing form what they were when I married into the family 3 years ago. I pray they grow to love and enjoy their old age.

Falsificationist

2009-05-13T07:01:00.000-07:00

I visited college today in Trichy.

I was perspiring in the air-conditioned car, my heart was skipping the occasional beat when nearing the campus. The college was closed for summer holidays, and I parked the car and lit a cigarette.

The college hostel now sports a gate, with security, non existent during our times 5 years ago.

The end of the cigarette brought back memories, and I had a lump in my throat, remembering the evening walks, my own kitchen-bedroom, my best friend, the rendezvous with the love of my life, the poetry and the music.

Its surprising how things change. The priorities, the convictions and the inspirations. I have become more isolated after college. Isolation for a man like me is heavenly, Escapist and Falsificationist that I am. The latter I have become after college, with proving things wrong and hypocrisy, especially people and ideals.

Falsificationist is a term I accidentally encountered while I was reading Fooled by Ramdomness by Nissim Nicholas Taleb. I don’t remember in what context he had used the term, but in an instant I realized that it meant me. The futilities of my emotions and the paramount importance my own emotions assume for myself have made this effect.

The same term comes up in my definition when I analyze politics, social issues, cricket and everything. It dawned upon me that I was not only what I thought I was, but also a Falsificationist, whether it is a part of the whole, or this is the whole, I don’t know.

I have gotten over the love of my life, my eternal passion for Her by escaping, and not by resolve. Stealth modes, hiding away Her pictures and selective deletion from friend lists have done the trick.

I have stopped writing to escape from my emotions, and what I feel about things. In the process, I have been wiling away time with books, work and alcohol.

I still manage to dodge responsibility, when it is not for my own good, or for my wife and daughter. I have managed to hide the cells that contain the people I would have otherwise cared for.

Election Time

2009-03-17T10:10:00.001-07:00

Pattali Makkal Katchi – The Party for the Laboring Masses, literally - PMK is a political party in Tamil Nadu, founded on the holy principle of working for the uplifting of the presiding caste of the party. It started off as demanding more benefits and recognition of the caste within the State. Transport Corporations and Districts were named after prominent good people of this caste. There was mass felling of huge trees along the highways, as a means of blockading the state apparatus into making the above said concessions during the 1980s. It all started off there.

And today, the party is prominent in TN & Central politics. The leader of the party is referred to as Maruthuvar Ayya – Doctor ji. The son of this leader as Chinna Maruthuvar Ayya – Little Doctor ji. The latter is the Health Minister in the Central Cabinet.

The party derives its power base, strength from the Northern part of the State.

It takes pure genius to convert a small caste based ideology into a political movement. Hats off Dr. Ramadoss for this.

Dr. Anbumani Ramadoss, as the Health Minister has brought in a lot of new initiatives, bold and very much welcomed by the common masses. The Rural Health Mission, Call 108 for Emergency – EMRI, Ban on Smoking, etc. The list is just characteristic of a young politician who wants to do something when he is in power. In fact, one can admit that it is highly commendable.

Earlier this month, there was a PMK meeting – Ilaignar Uridhierpu Manadu – Pledge Taking Meeting for the Youth, happening in Pallavaram, Chennai. The expected attendance was 5 lakhs ----- yes, 500 thousand!

Pallavaram is a small town just adjacent to the Chennai Airport, with narrow lanes and very bad roads. It is well and very much within the accepted bounds of Chennai, within the City Administration limits. A meeting of such magnitude seemed impossible in such a place.

The meeting started off and there was a huge rush, traffic jams and accidents. The place looked as if a hurricane had passed through the GST road.

I happened to be driving on the GST road that evening. The party workers were little boys in many of the buses. I am sure many of them would not have reached the legal voting age. The hooliganism was just unimaginable. More people were traveling in bus roof tops than in their seats. Unparliamentary abuses for cars and vehicles that obstructed their path. I saw one instance of a MTC driver beaten up for seemingly nothing.

This can be taken as bravado or a rowdyish flourish of so many young people getting together in a gathering of this magnitude. One will certainly feel elated, with or without alcohol, when so many people, purportedly entertaining the same political affiliations, get together to show off strength. This meeting was surely designed to maximize attendance, and hence to show the party’s strength ahead of the elections this year.
What cannot be accepted or digested is the drunkenness of the cadre. The TASMAC shops in the area did roaring business, with people guzzling whatever they could lay their hands on. There was even a riot in one of the shops. This from a party whose leader wants complete abolition of alcohol and tobacco from the country. This was reported in all major TV channels the same evening.

This cant be taken as the problem or aberration on the part of this party. This is the sad state of affairs of Indian politics. The same thing happens everywhere.

While a private company has to take the permission of the City Administration, Traffic Cops and other civic bodies to do outdoor advertisment, political parties are openly allowed to put up banners and other advertisements everywhere, even when they cause inconvenience to traffic.

The audacity of such behavior is just unbelievable. The crescendo is just becoming unbearable in Chennai. The traffic is already choking, and one has to weave around and look out for props and “cut outs.

One is left wondering when a code of conduct for campaigning is going to be implemented in India. When are we going to come out of this large scale chaos?

India is still largely lawless. This is painful, yet forms the foundation of our illusion of our much celebrated democracy.

Breaking News

2009-02-04T12:06:00.000-08:00

I was watching the The News Now Overnight on Times Now. The News started at 11 pm, and now as I am typing this mail at 11:37 pm, i have heard just 5 classifications in the news:

Pak – War on Terror
Obama – I know i screwed up with my list of selected people in my team
People stranded in Borivali station because a train got cancelled
Shri Ram Sene and the fiasco on the pub on Mangalore
IPL 2nd edition mega auction

On this same day, TN went through a bandh in support of Sri Lankan Tamils.
On this same day, a quarter of a million Tamil civilians are continued to be caught up in crossfire.
On this same day, a girl fell into an abandoned borewell and rescued successfully.
On this same day, a tehsildar got arrested for trying to extort money for a land rights transfer.
On this same day, a major accident in TN killed 15/18 passengers in a pilgrimage passenger van.

The list will go on, of the actual news of the day.

This sort of takes away the interest a common man has to his immediate environment, though this is more interesting to watch than a strike in Chennai. I recollect that I haven’t seen one neutral bit of reporting in a long time. Many people who watch News for the News will know.

Sensationalism in Journalism is becoming menace increasingly in our country. A few years down the line, no one will remember what the News is meant to tell listeners.

Take the media in TN now.

Dinakaran, Sun TV, Kalaignar TV, their allied channels are owned by people aligned to the DMK – one will not see any information on anti Govt. issues
Jaya TV, Raj TV are aligned towards the ADMK – one will not see pro Govt. News
Makkal TV is PMK – you will find a mix of all things except news
Star Vijay – Neutral – No news, sadly

Media has become a dumping ground for money, power and vested interest. When one listens to the good old DD News, one is amazed at the spectrum of things one ends up digesting. Believe me; you still will get good, simple, unadulterated NEWS.

Times Now focuses on Anti Terror.
NDTV on Politics
CNN IBN on controversies and talk shows, citizen journalism and mini debates

No one actually says what happened and just that, for the viewer to frame his own perception of the justifications and morals.

I saw a viewer SMS poll on a News Channel a few days back – “Do you think Pakistan will reject India’s 26/11 Terror Dossier? SMS Yes or No.” And the News program featuring the round up of the day featured the result “80% Yes, 15% No and 5% Neutral”.

Now anyone who is not in his sixth round of whisky will be able to tell what this poll is trying to do. How can a common man – of the classic, bully Mob – judge what Pakistan will do? Does he know what India has sent? If so, they are provable, with judicial, forensic efficacy?

The thing that this poll did was to polarize the common man a bit more against Pakistan, with covert influence on a religion, its culture and its practitioners.

I don’t mean to say that these channels mean harm to the nation. They are number driven like a Tata, DLF or an Airtel. People must be made to watch the program. Incentives, motivations and a little tweak here and there, does it for them.

If there is one social evil that needs to be addressed with urgency, it is in the media. This evil will make our people ignorant, complacent and more worried of Barak Obama than a political murder or a robbery in your very own locality.

News need not be told by so many channels, in so many fancy ways. Truth is just the Truth and ideally every version of it must mean and intend the same. But alas.....

Will our people stop activism against politicians and start it against the Indian media? Good media coverage and not TRP can screw social evil, corruption, flesh trade, drugs forever.

Politicians are spoiling our today and the News our future generations.

To be

2008-10-06T08:24:00.000-07:00

To see your child in glee and chuckles
To love your woman like Truth
To swing with the rhythm of the road
To brood over a drink and good music
To see a young tree you planted grow
To earn good sleep in your own bed
To rest in peace over justice served
To see fairness and beauty all around
To feel safe from abuse and cruelty
To feel loved by even one person
To think like the God himself
To dream like this in solitude….

Of Men and Morals

2008-09-09T09:41:00.000-07:00

We were in Singapore last month, our team of 15 people, forming the core of the Mahindra business in the 4 southern states. All of us are educated in premier institutes. All engineers from Anna University, MIT, premier MBA institutes.

We had all gone out on sight seeing on the 1st day and were back in the hotel. Went out to for some shopping and were back for a drink at the hotel.

The second day was again full of sight seeing, with the Jurong Bird Park and Sentosa Island Resort forming the highlights of the trip.

We got back to the hotel at 9 pm, and all sat together for a drink, including our boss, who had come with his family. Had a rollicking time. Till then everything went on fine.

It all started at 10 pm, when some people wanted to explore the night life of Singapore. Me and my partner in customer care, Mr. Nagaraj, stayed back. I was having one drink after another and we were conversing different topics.

At 11 pm, there was a knock, and 3 people came running inside the room. They were looking extremely scared and one of them, a drinker, wanted a drink to calm his nerves. He had a drink and then started narrating what happened to them in their quest to explore the night life of Singapore.

They had all left in taxis, and asked the drivers to take them to some night clubs and one of the drivers was Tamil. He took them to a place where night life, in its literal sense, was being lived.

Mr. Uday was sitting in a table in a bar with a beer. He was looking at the women in the club. Suddenly, a girl came and sat on his lap. She was looking extremely pretty. Uday kept gazing at her, unable to realize that a girl other than his wife was sitting on his lap.

He realized the gravity of the situation and managed to will himself to get off the seat. 3 more guys of a similar disposition and Uday managed to get out of the setup and scramble home to the safety of the taxi. They were back and Uday was shaking from head to toe.

He as scared. He was tempted to buy the woman a few drinks and pay her money to get laid. The temptation lasted a minute and it was a moment of realization for him of his weakness and his strength of morality as well. He was shaken and badly mauled by the experience.

Let us now see what happened to the other 10 people who were exploring the night life of Singapore.

They bought the drinks for the girls, paid them the money, and got laid.

I would recall the instance of one guy, one of my team in TN. He has a son, whom he apparently loves. The drinks and the sex had cost him S$150. He did not buy his son anything from Singapore.

The other guy from TN, 28, got married in 2007 December. His wife is having an issue, 7th month. It cost him S$150 to get laid. He did not buy anything even for his wife or for home. He was the same guy who specialized in taking snaps of asses of women in short skirts and shorts, and boasted about it.

Some people go to prostitutes to get laid alone. Paying for sex, I think, is the basest thing anyone can do with their life and character. Making love and having sex are 2 different things and are confused to be the same thing.

One difference between animals and humans is that the longevity of a relationship lasts beyond the mating process. The relationship is based on love and sex is just an outcome of the love, of acceptance and of an emotion of conduciveness.

When a man pays money for sex, he is not only maligning his own morals, but also jeopardizing the love of his family. Who was a loving father has every possibility to turn into a monster. When money leads to sex, a vital link in the evolution of man’s mind is violated. It leads to guilt and diseases, to the mind and to the body.

What I realized was that no matter what your education is, how much you earn, what your wife does, men require sex for the thrill of the primacy or novelty of the situation or life. A guilty person can’t be a good father or a mother, as a lathe can't turn a square hole.

Tranquebar

2008-08-08T09:08:00.000-07:00

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tranquebar

Selfish

2008-07-24T06:41:00.000-07:00

Selfishness:

It, I would define is, the will to further one’s interests over others’, within one’s own moral precincts. It is the instinct of survival that has been tempered by generations of collective thinking and social taming.

I would like to clarify here that I am making a fundamental differentiation between a wrongdoing and an act of selfishness. A wrongdoing is an act of moral weakness. An act of selfishness is of the will, usually with full effect, because you are doing something over the fresh grave of a conflict.

The conflict is with the notion of “sacrifice”. It is moral degradation that asks or waits for a sacrifice. It is lack of strength that makes a sacrifice. A duty is never a sacrifice, to be remembered. Who claims a duty to be a sacrifice is being selfish.

Being selfish is just one of the means to be independent. This is the way that makes independence inevitable. You would have exhibited your preferences, your priorities and your intentions. You would have played your cards. You are exposed, like a diva under the focus lamp, whose shoulder straps have become undone. You can either cover your vitals and be ashamed. Or you can be light as a newborn foal, and celebrate the innocence of being naked. Your pretences have been shooed away by a momentary expansion of your real self. It is now decided! You have been branded!

Let me be honest, very. Simply put, no man can be not selfish at all. Selflessness is in an ideal man. Designed to make a role model for us, at a time when being selfish could have ruined a pack of hunters, who still held stones for weapons. The results of one individual wanting to exercise his interests and choices would be disastrous for the pack. Such hunters became the solitary jungle men, thrown out of the pack, and fighting for survival in a world where individual choices are violated and disrespected.

I need not be proud of being selfish, just like how I am not proud that I can be cold and unsympathetic. I need not feel self-regret and remorse for being selfish, just like how I am in equanimity with my arts and vices.

Selfishness is demonstrated through acts. Words, movements, gestures and decisions. They are the ends churned out by something as unpredictable as a human mind. The dynamics are complex to break down. The concoction is variegated by the essence of so many experiences and priorities.

People lie. People make mistakes. People do stupid things. People do bad things. People hurt. People hurt. Can an individual’s worth be measured accordingly? The answer would be a loud no among our intellectuals. The answer would be a simple yes from an ordinary man. What matters is “what do you think?”

The Personality – Taking the Mind’s Part!

In psychology, personality is a collection of emotional, thought and behavioral patterns unique to a person that is consistent over time. The word itself originates from the Latin word “mask”. Not meaning an apparatus to plot, but as one to typify or portray.

Various schools of psychology employ various approaches to frame a model to explaining personality. Freud used the ego, superego and id as components of personality. There are behaviorist theories, cognitive theories, trait theories and many more.

All modern theories look at explaining personality, where it is an object of mystery that has to be solved. Emotions, behaviors and thoughts are seen as outcomes of a certain type of personality. There seems to be an underlying principle that is ignored when something is explained in context than in essence. But this is science and it stops with the explaining. Psychologists were trying to understand, not to design a way of life. They did not have nirvana or deliverance or afterlife to contend with. Understanding was the deliverable than devising an approach to understand and use it to one’s advantage.

It is more prudent, in my opinion, to look at the cause to frame a theory, than to look at the action/reaction.

The Buddha explains personality thus:

The personality is of five components:
1. The body – as the substrata of being alive
2. The sensory organs – on which the body depends to feel alive
3. Perceptions – as the process of interpretation of the senses thus felt
4. The activities of the mind – as the process of thinking
5. Cognition – as the process of knowing

One leads to the other. Without the body, there would be no living. This is the physical bulk of the personality. The sensory organs feel, vibrate and function their part. The mind performs the arithmetic, gives allegories, recalls examples and finds the best way to act.

Till now, everything is involuntary. The ears will always hear the music, leading to a sense of joy. The joy is the outcome of the mind. It recalls nice things, beautiful valleys, colorful gardens and cute babies. Cognition is the awareness part, where the self reflects, meditates and ponders over itself and its actions. There is a smile that will bloom on the face at the sight of a kitten, which will sometimes be crossed by “why am I smiling?” This is the self, looking at the personality, trying to understand it.

Traditionally religions have been the channels of framing ways to live, act and behave. In turn, such principles were supported by philosophies that explained the self, its mysteries and the life after death. The Aryan race believed in payback brought about by the actions in this birth. Donate, sacrifice, be virtuous, be religious and abnegate.

Escape from passions and desires are seen as a way of freeing oneself from the mires of the personality. This is because the personality and the self are seen as different. The personality is the mortal, while the self or the atman is immortal. The personality is the direction of the urge of the self in this birth.

Cognition is causal. We are aware of something only when the previous four components have done their functions. The processes that take place because of the senses cause it. Cognition cannot be used as an approach to explaining the personality, since it is a part of the personality.

Personality can be explained and understood only by the self, which is an outsider to personality. One cannot know the quality of an apple by being a leaf in the tree. One has to be a farmer. The self has to look at the personality, isolated.

The self is the idea of a unified being which is the source of an idiosyncratic consciousness in a living being. This is called idiosyncratic because it symbolizes the peculiarity of the self with respect to the other senses that reside in the body and the processes of the mind. The latter are there for a specific purpose. But the self? Why must we have a self? It is because we are unable to explain this something. A substance or a mechanism that seems to reside within us, yet apart from us, and which will come closer only by reflection and not by intuition. The self is deduced by logic. The same cold logic of the mind will deduce the essence of man, the self or the atman.

The self is the life that throbs in the heart. The force that moves the universe. The electric field that causes electrons to go around the nucleus. The God that creates life. The destructive force that can churn an ocean. For us who are tangled with the details cannot see the force that is guiding us on our path. The macro can look at the micro with a mere effort, but the opposite to take place needs a different approach to life.

I have gone into such details to enable the thought process of understanding the cause of selfishness. If one thinks he is selfish, his self is looking at his personality. It is the essence of you that is being critical. The personality as such is causal and has acted in the best material interests of you. The self looks at the interests in a different manner, since it is outside the realm of the personality, though it uses the very same cognition to effect this judgment on the individual.

The self is apart from selfishness or any other vices or devise yet contrived by any mind. Such are acts of the cognition. Borne out of the processes triggered by the senses, and processed by the mind. The self is always divine in every being. The overpowering sensations of the mind, passions and desires overshadow the self, the essence of man.

All turpitude and guilt is only mind deep. Deep down we are all-pure. Till we realize and fructify this spirit within us, all movements and productions are sufferings and are illusory.

Are we then to abnegate and become monks ourselves? I venture forth with the answer “ All beings were selected by a self, the eternal one. It formed our personality in response to the touch and vibrations of our senses and our mentation. We have to respond in this world if we are to sail smooth within this samsara. Not everyone can quit family, desires and passions to attain Buddhahood. Nor does everyone believe in the eternal self and rebirth. The awareness of the self will suffice in this age when individual value is corroded more than ever. People run away, break down and actively and passively abandon their responsibility to themselves and the society. It is better to look at the world as a place where the self has chosen to weave its story, around this personality, in this direction”.

The self has to be acknowledged as being present within us. Not everything of us is flesh, blood and matter. There is enough room within our existence that permits the accedence of the metaphysical; of the abstract, the incorporeal and the obtuse. Once this space is accorded to the self, then it is the ego that is being selfish. Any act is a response to a condition that exists, and is the result of cognition, which is causal in nature. If the act evokes guilt, it is the mind again with its response to the situation created by the act. This situation might also be dealt with by a response.

It is by giving up all that the self can be attained. That eternal bliss is not to be attained by us all. We are creatures that respond. We are creatures that are surviving. We want to live. Death for us is pain, not deliverance. Such is the mentation’s reason. Strong enough, in my opinion, to make us go through life, as we deem right.

So let us set aside the spiritual context of selfishness, or any other quality within man that he deems is unfit for public exposition. The spiritual realm is for those who want deliverance from the cycle of birth, death, sins and suffering. We are talking about the justifiability of an act within one’s mind. We are limited to the cognitive. We are trying to make peace with the mind and the self, by taking the mind’s part. The mind is aware of the self and vice versa, and we are trying to synchronize the both by showing the self the very little choice that the mind has to consider. Let the self be sympathetic, let the mind be flamboyant. Let the path be correct. Let us live to be happy, however futile this life may be.

Submitting:

We all submit, rather surrender our choices for something better. We have the choice of redepositing our choices into the “choice” bank. We can draw out new ones. We can change.

I can surrender resolve to pliability. I can surrender truth to falsehood. I can submit to a life of celibacy. I can do anything!

We always go through a period when choices don’t seem to exist, after the surrender. There seems to be an indomitable scarcity of thought, ideas and action; of choices as such. We despair at these times. When the soul feels broken, when the heart revels in a trough, refusing to look up. There again is always the awakening. For nothing can be left untouched by evolution and growth, can it? We look about, and then amazingly, we walk again. We look for fresh choices to make. We surrender old coins that are not worth any longer, in exchange for newly issued ones.

There is a new attitude to this makeover! People do change, I believe for the good. They submit used choices to new ones. They create new vistas to themselves, where they can see a better view of their future. They rejoice the potency of their decision, proud and defiant.

Selfishness is just such a choice, made unconsciously and sometimes consciously. It wouldn’t be wrong to say that it is bred among us as separate entities; as money, as freedom, as desires, as power, etc. The only crime that selfishness commits on the human is that it conquers him unnoticed, when he does notice, he is in a plot inextricably complex and is daringly in the open.

He who exercises his choices with a will scares people of his potency. He plays to his strength, his smartness. He gets what he exactly wants. He makes bold decisions that decide his own fate. He is taking destiny head on. He chooses to have more control over his life than others.

He who is sure is always suspected. He who thinks for his own welfare always draws flak for his seemingly careless attitude. He who is powerful over himself is always belittled in a thousand small ways. He who is smart is always hated. We are not paragons of virtue. Vices rule our unconscious, moderated by again, taming and social instincts.

A selfish individual not only robs people of their interests, but also enjoys them right in front of the disadvantaged, all the more hurt.

Man has been so well conditioned that he will not advance his own interests till he is insecure, cornered. Insecurity may be imaginary, nothing really. He reacts like an innocent toddler clutching at fire. Will he be burnt? Or will he learn to play & revel in its warmth?

Love and Selfishness:

Love. I would not be doing justice to selfishness if I don’t think of this.

Even as he ascends to your height and caresses
Your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun,
So he shall descend to your roots and shake them
In their clinging to the earth.
He threshes you to make you naked.
He sifts you to free you from your husks.
He grinds you to whiteness.
He kneads you until you are pliant;
And then as he assigns you to his sacred fire, that
You may become sacred bread for God’s sacred feast.

All these things shall love do unto you that you
May know the secrets of your heart, and in that
Knowledge become a fragment of Life’s heart.

But if in your fear you would seek only love’s
Peace and love’s pleasure,
Then it is better for you that you cover your
Nakedness and pass out of love’s threshing floor,
Into the seasonless world where you shall laugh,
But not all of your laughter, and weep,but not all
Of your tears.
(On love, The Prophet, Kahlil Gibran)

Love is a flight toward perfection. We become better with love. We love so that we become better. Self-love is the basic manifestation of love. If it is not within us, it will not come out. One who is deficient in resources cannot give. Love is a conscious effort we make toward someone or something.

Love moves us toward extremities. There is immense happiness, emotions, and passions and there is heart wrenching sorrow and failure too. One who has not loved will never know these extremes. Yet nobody is not touched by love. If love is not perceived in its embracing presence, it is definitely felt in its ghostly absence.

One, who does not perceive love, will be contented. He will have capabilities that will define his boundaries. There will be no wings. There will be no utopia in the mind. There will be no butterflies in the garden. The spring that embellishes the spirit with a sense of bounty will forever deprive the individual of the warmth that is the extra bit of spice that man tastes over the animals.

We usually encounter situations where we must give up something for somebody we love. If I give up something for something for my beloved, I am doing love’s labor. It is duty. It is duty that is performed without the slightest whimpering. We cannot be selfish to those who love because we will be doing our duty by doing what is required to be done. There is a joy to doing this; else we would not do it. Ignoring the self in making such decisions towards depriving oneself can look romantic at that moment, but will always come back and haunt us. Regrets in decisions lead to discontent. Discontent leads to complaining. Complaining will always come back to “sacrifice”.

Must Selfishness be Vanquished?

Now, we will see if this needs to be branded as bad and hounded out of our realm, else if it needs to be tolerated as another eccentricity of the human mind among many others.

Everybody is selfish. It is hypocrisy if this is refuted. It cannot be challenged. We are human beings. We need to advance, grow, and survive, most of all. The advancements and the growth become the proxies for survival when survival is taken for granted. An average man is assured of physical survival. He will normally not be beaten to death or killed by an expulsion from a group. He will live. So now, the struggle is toward a comfortable existence. I need an air conditioner badly. It has become need. It has become a hygiene factor, without which I am not happy. I want to be powerful. I want to control. I will live unless an accident happens to occur.

So we will be rarely in a position where we will be endangering the physical lives of people by being selfish. Not many people get to that position of power and potency. Being selfish will enable you to be in control, if only your conscience permitted you to be happy with the control so achieved. Being selfish will let you have better things in life. Be it a better income, a better job, a better lifestyle.

It is imperative to understand that being unselfish will not give lives to people who are in trouble. It is sometimes bad to be unselfish, just like how it is good to be selfish sometimes. After all, we may not be making much of a difference.

What would we be losing? We would be losing the goodwill of those who were affected, if it mattered to think about their lot. We would be losing our peace of mind if we believe we have been harsh. We would be losing our self worth if we think we were wrong. If this were the case, it would be best to go back on the decision, since this is a weak mind, with weaker principles and controls.

Selfishness is good. Anything that is considered bad is bad and will be regretted and fretted over. I would not call them selfish acts or motives. They are just bad things done at a time when a bad thought asserted itself.

Selfishness is an act of consciousness if planned, within the ambit of our values. If it is unplanned, it is the essence of ourselves that are exposed through an act. In both cases, it is the good part of us that is acting to do us good. It is not sick to be selfish. It is not a base character that calls itself selfish and acts so.

Then are we here to outdo and outsmart one another, one may wonder. Gathering fruits is different from marauding an orchard. So is selfishness different from mindless acquisition. Being selfish means you pick the best fruits for yourself and not wish your neighbor ate rotten eggs. Then, what he eats need not be your worry, if that can be seen as a crime! If you have an apple to spare, you may even be charitable. Up to your appetite.

When selfishness creeps up from behind you, wake up. You may have your priorities wrong or neglecting your interests and well being. If you think you are unselfish, wake up. It is better to be selfish than a hypocrite. Accept it, live with it.

Conclusion:

I am selfish. I am not regretting it. I am at peace when I can say this to my face and to the world. I am not lying.

It takes a change to acknowledge this. It takes an effort. It takes will to assert oneself. Change.

When we look at the cost of a sacrifice, it will always be worth not making it. Who has not regretted a sacrifice sincerely?

For so long, socio religious conscience has had the better of the mind. A thousand chains have bound rationality. Man has become a slave to his own creation – society. Man is today lost in a multitude of fantabulous theories and myths regarding his existence. Man is an intelligent animal, a bit more sophisticated and with more ambulatory options, and definitely a better mental capacity.

In the absence of a physical territory to guard, when food, shelter and sex are guaranteed, when existence is not threatened, such things that were preternatural to our forefathers have become knowledge to us. Times have changed.

Selfishness is the conduit for our instinctual energies to be spent. It is the intent to live, expressed through a thousand proxies. It is human life, with its own eccentricity. The center point will remain the same, but the circle will never be perfect.

The Elephants

2008-07-08T07:27:00.000-07:00

GangaikondaCholapuram

2008-05-18T04:19:00.000-07:00

I was supposed to be in Tanjore tomorrow. So I decided to make a trip out of the weekend and visit GangaikondaCholapuram - the name may sound long, but it literally means “The Town of the Cholas who conquered the Ganges”. It was the capital of the Cholas when they flourished and their empire stretched from the Bengal to Ceylon.

It is an off beat place in today’s tourist circuit in Tamil Nadu. In fact, it has never been popular, considering its heritage. The village has a marvelous shrine dedicated to Lord Brihadeeshwara – Shiva. Everything about this place can be had at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gangaikondacholapuram.

I wanted to start off at 4 am and beat the midday heat. Yes, you guessed right, I slept happily till 6.30 am and then started off at a very leisurely pace. I was driving my Bolero today, and stuck to 80 kmph, with no work calling for urgency.

Got to Acharapakkam and had my breakfast at 8.30 am and drove on through Vikravandi, Koliyanur, Vadalur, Neyveli, Minsurutti, Settiatope and then reached GangaikondaCholapuram at 12 pm.

I had expected a small to medium sized town with the temple as the highlight, but all I found were dilapidated tea shops and dusty restaurants and a very small village. There is decent infra in place at the village. The village itself is very clean and neatly maintained. The temple complex is controlled b y the Archeological Society of India (ASI) and they have done a great job. Everything that is fragile has been fenced off and the place is very very clean. There are no sacrifices in the temple now, and technically there are no poojas as well.

The Nandi is very very imposing at the entrance and the temple complex is fortified and there are smaller viharas around the main complex. The outer walls are studded with sculptures, but the sharpness of their features is lost, not so on the inside. But what amazes you when you go to Chola Temples is the sheer size of the Main Tower. One has to see The Big Temple of Tanjore and this temple to assess the monstrosity of the folly of erecting such a tower.

The place is exactly 250 km from Chennai – 5 hours at a leisurely pace. It is possible to visit the place and get back to the city in a day. It is possible to couple this with Tanjore and make it a casual 2 day weekend trip.

Tamil Historical Novels

2008-04-16T07:46:00.000-07:00

I have always wanted to read Tamil historical novels. It was one thing I have never got around to doing.

Historical novels are interesting to me in the sense that they evoke a sense of curiosity as to where a particular monument may be now or what would be happening if this were to happen today.

I was at a book store last month, and I bought Sivakamiyin Sabatham, Kalki.

I started off slowly. I have never learnt Tamil in school, except in kindergarten. I have managed to get along by reading sign boards, hoardings and glancing through masala news in mainstream Tamil newspapers. I could not do more than 10 pages in an hour.

But I gained in speed everyday. And as I moved through to the core of the plot, I really started enjoying the story.

The thing with English classics and historical novels is that English novels elicit an awe and involvement into the plot of the story. But I have never seen rural England, London or the downs and its fogs and winters and summers.

When I was reading this book, there was awe at real things I have seen with my own eye. To think that Mamallapuram was created by the chiseling by thousands of artisans for about 20 years is inspiring. The country, Thondaimandalam, went through a long drawn out war against the Chalukyas, several famines and adversities, during which this work was stopped and restarted again and again.

There were so many Jain and Buddhist temples and monasteries in those days. I tried the Archeological Survey website and there are many protected Jain and Buddhist structures in our state. I was amazed to see that I have never heard about them or seen them.

I made it a point to visit the temple which has the idol of the Ganesh which was brought home by the General, Paranjothi, to his village near Tanjore the first time I was driving through the town.

I have started reading the sequel to Sivakamiyin Sabatham, Parthiban Kanavu. It is turning up many more revelations and many new places to explore in our very own Tamil Nadu.

Gas Cylinder

2008-03-15T12:00:00.000-07:00

Was visiting my in laws today. I had just gone out for a smoke to the next street.

I heard a dog screaming down the road. I ran towards it.

The shopkeeper nearby had thrown a full gas cylinder on the sleeping dog. A gas cylinder weighs about 20 kg. He had let it fall on its head, for fun.

The dog’s skull was broken and the whole place was full of blood. It was running in circles, crashing, rising and then running around in frenzy. Its mouth had foamed. I think it had lost its sight. It was running around and hit a wall head on. It walked with a strange tilt. It was unable to balance itself. It kept falling every few paces and letting out a gut wrenching yelp.

The shopkeeper and a teenager were gawking and laughing at the creature. The teenager was shouting, “It’s a murder, murder”, with a smirk of smartness written all over his face.

The commotion had drawn a few people from around. They started asking the guys how it would feel if they had the same cylinder dropped on their heads.

They hung their head down, they were ashamed. One guy said, “It was only a dog”

One onlooker said, “If it was only a normal street dog, you could have chased it away by pelting a stone at it”

A lady on the top floor of an apartment kept cursing the shopkeeper, “You will be born a dirty dog in your next life. I will drop a TV from the third floor on your head”. This lady was making most of the noise.

A cop was riding by on his bicycle. He stopped to look into the row. He gave both the guys a good beating on the spot. Every time the baton fell on their backs, there was some encouragement from the people gathered around.

Everybody had forgotten the dog that had struggled and got away from the crowd. It was lying in a pool of blood panting its last breath in a gutter. It was choking and a few little boys were looking on. Only one of them had tears in his eyes. The others were, of course, learning their first lessons in inflicting pain. They were coldly poking at the dying thing with sticks. I had to shove them away.

The dog died approximately 10 minutes into its struggle. It will be carted onto a garbage tipper tomorrow and disposed of in an unknown dump.

I have felt the death of a man and the death of a dog very near me this week. But the dog’s death seems to have shaken me more than the man’s. In my travels, I have seen many gory deaths on the roads. But twice I have seen a dog beaten to death, and I can recall both to this day to the minutest of details.

A man has many variables to manipulate for his good. But an animal lives with more constraints than a man. It lives on faith and intuition.

To dump a gas cylinder on someone’s head is rank disrespect for life. A rage had built up within me at that time. I felt like puking a long time after I had seen the whole thing happen.

I think our children start throwing stones at dogs for fun, and to tune their aim. Some do family planning operations for lizards and frogs. Some experiment how many wings a dragon-fly can fly with. Some try throwing cats out of windows – cats don’t seem to die so easily from a fall.

How can there be fun in the suffering of another living thing?

Children get trained early on that someone else’s pain is not a thing to fret about, that if the situation permits and if there is the right company, inflicting pain can be fun.

Uthangarai

2008-03-15T04:19:00.000-07:00

14th March, 2008

I was in a place called Uthangarai – a remote hamlet in a corner of the Krishnagiri District. It is on the crossroads between what used to be 2 very busy trucking routes in Tamil Nadu.

Over the years, the significance of the place on the state map has gone down. The roads have deteriorated and the locale remains one of the least developed in Tamil Nadu in terms of infrastructure and industry.

Public transport is very bad or is not well connected. So people have to go in for their own means of transportation. This area remains one of the top rural markets for taxis and vans for ferrying people to Vellore, Salem and Chennai – 3 places where the many business interests of the people here lie.

I had stopped in Uthangarai to meet a customer of ours. I was leaving to Chennai and I had run out of cigarettes. I stopped by at a small shop and asked for a pack of Gold Flake Kings cigarettes.

I handed out a Rs. 100 bill and the shop keeper didn’t have stock, so he walked over to another shop and got it for me. The pack costs Rs. 38 normally. In villages you get it for Rs. 40. But this guy gave me change of Rs. 55 – meaning the pack had cost me Rs. 45.

He gave me a statement before he handed me the change – “Sir, the amount of money you spend on this pack of cigarettes can buy 20 kg of rice from a government fair price shop”.

My casual reply was, “Nothing can be done about that”

Then I asked him, “Why does this pack of cigarettes cost Rs. 5 more?”

He says, “That is the rate the other fellow gave it to me for”

I reply, “If you don’t have the stuff in your shop, how can you buy it for me at a cost higher than the normal cost?”

He says, “OK sir, since you are so concerned about the money, I will return the material and give you back your money”

He returned the money and I asked him, “Why do you think this Rs. 5 is not so important to me? Do you think people make money without working or do I look like a fool?”

He mumbles something and just goes away.

As I was driving back I was wondering – it was a new thought to me that one pack of my cigarettes is worth more than 20 kg of food grain in our country. Is it that the food is cheap or is it that the tobacco is costly?

A man who buys rice from a ration shop buys it at Rs. 2 per kg. I am not eligible for this scheme because I make than Rs. 10000 per annum. I have to buy rice at Rs. 22 per kg from a normal grocer. I bet the guy who tried to make Rs. 5 from me did not know this.

The Killng Groungds

2008-03-13T04:31:00.000-07:00

I was driving down from Chennai to Salem yesterday. The route was Chennai – Dindivanavam – Villupuram – Ulundurpet – Kallakurichi – Attur – Salem.

It is a 4 laner from Chennai to Dindivanam. After that it is the old 2 laner – this stretch of road from Dindivanam to Ulundurpet (90 kms) may be rightfully called the killing grounds of TN. At least 2 major accidents everyday – god alone knows how many get killed from dusk to dawn.

This stretch was just overcrowded at one point of time. Now, a 4 laner is getting ready – work is in progress since early 2007. The old road has not been topped during this whole period. The road has just disintegrated and everybody has to take this one route to reach – Coimbatore, Salem, Erode, Tirupur in one side and Trichy, Madurai, Tirunelveli, Tuticorin and Nagercoil on the other side. It is also the access to Tanjore, Nagapattinam, Cuddalore and the entire east of TN.

Yesterday it was raining heavily right from Chennai to Salem. After I hit the old road, I could see an accident every 10 kms. A whole bus on its belly like a dead cockroach. Huge trailers broken like thin twigs. Small cars reduced to pulp. Trucks parked on the shoulder just sinking into the mud.

Traffic jams everywhere. Till a new road is built and is operational, the old road must be maintained. This is plain simple logic. 10 people killed everyday is a big thing. Nobody reports this and nobody cares. There are no proper “Take Diversion” sign boards anywhere. There are such huge ruts and potholes that a car driver has to think which one to avoid and which one the car can afford to plough into. For all this, the pace of the road is not slow by any means. It is a nerve wracking experience driving through this stretch. Whenever I come this way, my knee aches from the clutch, shoulders from the continuous zig zagging and rough drive. There is no watering place. Everything is dug up on both sides – no entering the by lane for a chaai and dhum.

There was a news article in NDTV this morning. “Fiat takes auto journalists on an Arctic tour in Sweden to prove the ruggedness of the Linea and the Grande’ Punto”.

Professional journalists are chasing sensations and the common man is left to become a citizen journalist to capture the woes of the common man. The whole concept of journalism today has moved from the classical, meaning the traditional news, to the sensational, meaning the production of news out of non news making things. The Tamil media is more concerned about the harangues and bad mouthings between the CM and the Ex CM, Vijayakanth and their whole families ranging from their sons to annis. There are hundreds of banners – good flex banners – of various political dramas – our Lion, our Tamil saviour, our Tamil saint, our Tamil revolutionary. But they don’t add up to much when it comes to saving people’ lives. The NDTV’s and the CNN’s run more programs than news coverage.

When I was in the traffic jam yesterday, my knee was aching, my back was aching, my head was aching. We had been at one spot for more than an hour – no policeman turned up to clear the mess. Every john was cutting in and out of the mess trying to find a way to wriggle through. There was a minor accident where a bus driver violated the queue and brushed a car. One of the doors of the car was gone. There was a big fight. Nobody went home or wherever they wanted to go for lunch. So many man hours lost, so many kilo liters of fuel lost.

An ambulance couldn’t get through. Its siren went off 15 minutes into the jam. Things just cooled off after the person or people in the ambulance died. I think it was the struggle in the ambulance that made us all animals. People were embarrassed and they just relaxed and sat back. No horns after that. It was dead quiet for 2 minutes or so after the siren was turned off. In the end I had dinner in Salem – 330 kms – 13 hours later. The siren is still searing through my head when I am writing this in the refuge of a quiet room.

Maya, after all

2008-03-12T08:37:00.000-07:00

13th February, 2008

It’s a girl! I ran shouting to my mom and dad through the hospital corridor. It was just what I had wanted.

The nurse, an old woman, walked out of the labor room and declared to us that the grandson was born at 9.54 pm. Then the doctor comes out and declares that the girl child and mother are fine. We got a bit mixed up then. There was tension that someone else’s baby may have gotten mixed up and what if we got the wrong baby? What if it was not Maya?

Then we got to know that there was only one delivery happening that night in the hospital. So there was no chance of anything like that happening.

The day we realized that we were going to have a baby, this was sometime in May, I willed the baby to be a girl and my wife to be a boy. I just wanted a girl child named Maya, as if it would be born clutchng a placard reading - annoouncing "Maya".

This wish for a girl child named Maya was born during my first love, reiterated by my second love and just solidified by the third. The solidification was just a longing for a girl child named Maya after I got married. I had secretly looked for a personification of all the good and the not so good I have loved in the 4 women.

I had always expected a dark child, with skin as dark, or rather, as brown as me. To see a pink baby was in itself a shock for me. It was a big baby when born, at 3.6 kg. I didn’t take it in my arms when they gave it to me. Maya was literally pink. One slight mewl or simper threw her face into the brightest red. I was afraid I would hurt her.

23rd February, 2008

I was with my wife and kid till they were discharged. Then I went back to work and didn’t get to meet them for 10 days. And today, Maya is already grown. She is a lot thinner, has darkened out a little bit. Is sharp towards sound and light. This time I couldn’t get enough of her. I wouldn’t let her go out of my arms. I was jealous when my brother in law gave her fond kisses.

I am really angry when people tell me I cant name her Maya. A name according to many has to be derived from the baby’s star sign. Maya was born under the star Bharani – I can name her with the starting syllables Le, Lu, Lo, Li, A, E or U. Now where do I fit the Maya in? Maya doesn’t start with the letter “L”. When I told my mother in law what I had in my mind – naming her Maya and balls to astrology – I got a very scary warning. Her son was named Vinoth – they never thought about astrology or numerology in those days. So he is still not too good at mathematics, has never been very bright or has he been successful in his career, has been divorced, etc. All his life has been ill luck and sorrow. I know that his ill luck has been attributed to the vastu of the house, the position of the borewell at various points in time. But the fact that there is a such a hypothesis is scary to any young father. So much for education, so much for aptitude and such bull. I decided to give the whole thing a figuring over a drink.

I have thought about Angamaya, Aghamaya, Unnatamaya, a hundred other names which fit in Maya as I had conceived my child and have the blessings of the astrological science. Now my people don’t like anything like that. What seems to be fad now is names like Anisha, Alisha, Lekha, Lalitha. Names sported by a hundred people, named by a hundred parents named Rahul, Reshma and Rasagolla.

Laya is a Christian name according to my mother in law. Subhiksha super market is a wonderful name for a girl – father in law. Lathika is a wonderful name – wify. Oh why doesn’t anyone want to name her Maya, the essence of spirituality and Hindu philosophy?

I will bulldoze my wife and her family into naming her Maya. Of course, there can’t be a beautiful girl named anything other than Maya.

2nd May, 2008

We named her Maya, after all! Cheers!!!

How does Maya Vinod Sriramulu sound?

Sutta Na Mila....

2007-12-25T17:56:00.000-08:00

A smoker never really realizes what nicotine does to his head. There is empirical evidence that the chemical activates brain cells in some weird way, which makes the process of thinking quicker and more efficient. Sure I am not well versed with the technical terms involved.

Some people call all smokers idiots. “A fag is a fire at one end and an idiot at the other”. Not all smokers are idiots. The idiots are those who smoke to show off, to make parties and taverns more smoke filled and what not.

Day in and day out smokers are paying a heavy price for their addiction, in recent decades considered an affliction. But for the amount of excise duty shelled out by smokers, many Governments would go near bankrupt. I would question the actual spend of the Government on smoke related health hazards. It may be true in the USA or the EU. But in India, where is the money going? Then why does the Health Minister overdo the whole thing by proposing to print pics of mouth cancer patients on the pack? Does the Government really care about alternate nicotine sources or regulating the amount of nicotine and carcinogens that go into cigarettes?

Isn’t there one thing the society leaves unturned to deny liberty of choice? But isn’t this rebellious spirit of defying the society – to look contrarian to the stereotype good guy/girl – the real essence why people smoke?

I have been put under probation at home. No smoking! I have never heeded the call in 12 years. Today I am trying and the whole thing sucks to the marrow.

A man has nothing else to do in office except chewing gum and drinking coffee. The morning filter coffee at home seems hollow – the same drink that instills profound thoughts with a cigarette. I don’t understand how all those suckers remain non smokers.

It is not the time when you work when you feel the pinch to have a quick smoke. It is the temptation every time you turn your head, speak, have something to drink, pass a shop that sells cigarettes. The list above is not exhaustive. Of course I have omitted the toilet seat ritual every morning and evening – there is no joy in shitting anymore.

paravaiyin koottil

2007-12-24T07:52:00.000-08:00

Movie: Thamizh M.A.
Song: paravaiyin koottil
Singer: Ilaiyaraja
Lyricist: Na.Muthukumar

en vaazhikkaiyil vanthathu moone moonu letter
still i remember my first letter

Prabhaa nee ennai thediruppannu enakku theriyum
naanum ammaavum
inge maharashtra-la
thooraththu maama veetla irukkom
nee varrathukko letter ezhutharathukko
yeththasamayam varappo naa solren
neraththukku saapudu
vaaraththukku moonu naalaavathu kuli
antha socks-a thovachchip podu
nagam kadikkaatha
kadavula vendikko
anandhi
anandhi

paravaiye engu irukkiraai
parakkave ennai azhaikkiraai
thadayangal thedi varugiren anbe
paravaiye engu irukkiraai
parakkave ennai azhaikkiraai
thadayangal thedi varugiren anbe

adi en boomi thodangum idam ethu nee thaane
adi en paathai irukkum idam ethu nee thaane
paarkum thisaigalil yaavum
paavai mugai athu theriya
meengal kaanal neerinil therivathundo
kangal poigal solvathundo

nee potta kadithaththin varigal kadalaaga
athil mithanthene penne naanum padagaaga

paravaiye engu irukkiraai
parakkave ennai azhaikkiraai
thadayangal thedi varugiren anbe

unnodu naanum
pokindra paathai
ithu neelaatho
thodu vaanam polave
kathai pesik konde
vaa kaattrodu povom
uraiyaadal theernthaalum
un mounangal pothum
intha puzhu poondum paravaiyum naamum pothaathaa
ini boologam muzhuthum azhagaai pogaathaa

muthal murai vaazhap pidikkuthe
muthal murai velichcham pirakkuthe
muthal murai murintha kilai onru pookkuthe
muthal murai kathavu thirakkuthe
muthal murai kaatru varuguthe
muthal murai kanavu palikkuthe
anbe

yezhai
kaadhal
malaigal thanil thondrugindra
oru nadhiyaagum
mannil
vizhunthum oru kaayamindri
udaiyaamal
urundodum
nadhi aagida
itho itho intha payanaththile
ithu pothum kanmani
verenna naanum kettpen
pirinthaalum manathile intha nodiyil endrum vaazhven
intha nigazhkaalam ippadiye thaan thodaraathaa
en thaniyaana payanangal indrudan mudiyaathaa

muthal murai vaazhap pidikkuthe
muthal murai velichcham pirakkuthe
muthal murai murintha kilai onru pookkuthe
muthal murai kathavu thirakkuthe
muthal murai kaatru varuguthe
muthal murai kanavu palikkuthe
anbe

anandhi
anandhi
anandhi, ooru vandhuruchchunnu ninaikkiren
enga eranganum

All Holidays must END

2007-12-14T09:27:00.000-08:00

My holidays end this Sunday. I have to go back to work on Monday. It’s the same old truck shit.

When you go back to work from your annual holiday, a few things seem really unfair:
1. The next holiday comes only next year
2. The little things you wanted to do during the holidays remain pending – like some maintenance, some cleaning
3. You want to get back to work – the holidays have seemingly “bored” you out

Day before yesterday, I felt this urge to go to office. So I ended up going there at 8 pm. There was hardly anyone still working. I sat in my cubicle and I felt this urge to start working. I promptly left the place.

After my trip on the motorcycle, I have spent this whole week at home. This week, on the 13th, there was a small function at home. Some 40 people would turn up for lunch. My wife and parents were busy cleaning up the place and I was the only one not doing anything. It is indeed great to be holidaying at home. It is even better than holidaying someplace else!

My birthday today was warm too. Good sleep, a mandatory trip to the temple, some very good food.

A cottage to live among the cold mountains,
A warm spring would quench my thirst.
A safe distance from the world I would maintain,
From its bazaars, hard ball and cold calls.
My wife would gather flowers & herbs.
My daughter would sing with the trills.
We would be one with the Almighty.
The dream will never end
The dream will never end….

We all have to wake up from the dream to be shut up again in the cube of reality. The solid and square reality. Sigh.

Happy Birthday

2007-12-13T09:09:00.000-08:00

I turn 28 tomorrow. It is again the big day of the year. Today I rule by virtue of my birth.

I am getting older! A few white hairs here and there. A slight belly – though my wife thinks otherwise.

This year
1. I got married
2. I am expecting a baby next year

It’s been a wonderful year.

I have observed that my life has revolved around 3 things this whole year
a. Family – my wife
b. My kid, enjoying life in his mom’s belly – now 8 months old
c. Money, money & money

There has been very little turbulence this year – emotionally & materially. Smooth sailing is unnerving sometimes and boring sometimes. The turbulent life seemed idealistic. Now it is more down-to-earth. Roll up your sleeves and get your hands dirty with work.

Now I understand why married men are considered steady and steadfast. I am a 100% family man this year.

Cheers! Happy Birthday!

Reclaimed

2007-12-08T05:27:00.000-08:00

The work was getting to my head, to my sensuality, to the health of my marital life. There wasn’t one day I didn’t have a dream of a truck or my boss.

A vacation had been long due and I decided to take it in December. I completed the necessary formalities and fixed the date to be December 3rd to December 15th. I would spend 7 days for my own redemption and the other 7 for the redemption of my marital life.

Day 1:

I drive down from Chennai to Dharmapuri in a car. My motorcycle, The Zahir was at my parents’ place. It was a dull drive in the modern yet boring 4 lane highway. I made the 330 kms without any hitches.

I had a tasty lunch at home made by my mother. Any married guy who eats his wife’s cooking knows the value of that lunch or dinner made by mom. I hogged and I started off to Salem (70kms), my first stop in the trip.

My duffel bag fell off The Zahir just 5 minutes from home. I was still a novice in knots and ties! I made it safe. My first ride on him in 4 months.

I checked in and the tomorrow will be a long day. I had to give The Zahir a good wash and some check up and then I have to ride to Madurai (225kms), my next stop.

Day 2:

With great difficulty I found a Bullet mechanic in Salem and got The Zahir checked up and cleaned. He was glistening like new and raring to go. Oh how I love the thump!

It was 12 pm by the time I could start off from Salem. It was a good ride. Not too hot, but not too cold either. Slight drizzles here and there. And the glorious countryside in December – well fed with water and the result – miles and miles of paddy fields. The Indian countryside gets its beauty after the monsoons, though the monsoons are beautiful themselves. Our threshing floors are our highways and the threshers are trucks and buses. What ingenuity!

I stopped for lunch in a Reliance A1 Plaza in Dhadikombu, near Dindigul, and ate what are the birth right and the craving of every Tamilian born in this world – curd rice!

I reached Madurai at 5 pm and checked into my favourite hotel – GRT. I took my beer to the bathtub watching Guns n Roses on youtube. It is pleasant to take a hot shower after a long day in the heat and the dust – a beer and good music going with it makes it heavenly.

Day 3:

I intended to travel to Kodaikanal today.

I had made some special arrangements for my stay. I wouldn’t be going to a hotel this time, and no, not to a resort either. I am taking a hut in a little village. One has to trek 3 kms from a road that ends suddenly to reach this village. The 3kms are very hard on city slickers like me.

I reached Kodaikanal at 12pm and go to the landing point. The place was swarming with firangees – the eternal wanderers – with matted hair and a doped up look. There were a lot of other Royal Enfields parked – all rented out to these foreigners once they land from wherever they are from.

They are all riding the classic Bullet STD while I am on a more modern Thunderbird. They come to look at The Zahir and try sitting on him and certify that this is a real good looking thing and must be very comfortable to ride over long distances. Boy I was proud of you man!

I started the trek downhill. With the entire load on my back, the very first 10 minutes were hell. My legs were shivering from the effort. I was sweating. I was feeling giddy. Then came the solace of the shop of my contact who arranged the accommodation. He is the Panchayat leader of the village.

A unique village – no electricity, no transportation – only horses, water comes from a stream. I drink a wonderful cup of tea, say hello and go to my home for the next 3 days. It is a decent 1 room house, with an attached bath. A fireplace was there. I have to pay 60 rupees everyday extra for the firewood.

I made it back to Kodaikanal to have lunch and buy some supplies. I love food at the Tibetian Brothers. They serve the best Chinese food in town. I ambled back downhill.

I had brought some whisky and I sat outside the house with a glass of whisky and just sat there doing nothing. I was served with chicken fry made by my host’s wife. It was 6 pm and it started getting very cold. It suddenly became completely dark. I went into the house and made a little fire and warmed my feet and had some more whisky. I have never felt so good after a drink. It was like the skin was cold and the inside of my body was warm. The fire was the only light in the house. I ate chapathis at my host’s house and came back home with strict instructions not to keep the door unlocked, not to roam outside during the night. The village is frequented by bisons and a leopard in the night. The latter makes off with whatever domestic animals that are left unsecured during the night.

I was reading by candle light. It would have been 10 pm and I put out the light to retire for the night. I peered out of the glass window and I could see a dark form in the meadow in the incline above my house. Then I could discern 7 bisons through the dim light from the backyard of my neighbor. I lighted a candle and rummaged through my bag for my camera. By the time I ran back to the window they were all gone.

I went to bed, but I could not sleep though my head was feeling clouded. I realized there was complete silence. The silence of the forest and the mountains. You can hear the breeze, the ruffling leaves, and your own hear beat and breath. No feeling of another human being living except you. Felt eerie.

Day 4:

It was a hard trek back to the base. This time it was a climb. My knees were aching and my lungs very nearly blew up on my ribs.

I came into town and there were phone calls waiting for me. Even though you are on a holiday and even though you have informed all your associates of this, the suckers will still call. In the end I had to check mail and reply to a few.

After lunch it was time for a lazy and slow ride along the picnic circuit of the town. There are the Pillar Rocks, the Suicide Point, the Guna Caves, the Pine Forest and one spot yet to be named and then to the Moyar Point and beyond that nobody can go. This road takes you to Berijem Lake and then to Munnar. This was a bustling road once, but now it is closed since the area is a national park. You have to get the permission of the Forest Ranger at Kodaikanal to enter – no motorcycles and the road is open only from 11am to 5 pm. So whoever goes in has to come out, if they don’t, just what you have guessed – nobody cares. The check-post here lets in some vehicles in the morning, if they decide to take a bribe. The roads are unmotorable after Berijem Lake – it once took us 4 hours to cover the 36 kms to Munnar. There is zero traffic. Nobody would know if one got doomed. At that time, I and my friends had posed as relatives of an eminent politician. We got in by paying Rs. 200 per head. This was back in 2001.

Stopped by at the spot yet to be named. The place is infested with monkeys. There are 3 smalltime vendors there and all three are armed with catapults, sticks and even swords to keep them off their goods. Everytime a car stops they try to climb into the car. They terrify children into screaming and then they run away screaming themselves. There are all sorts of personalities amidst the pirates. The hungry ones go mischieving, the ones that are cold are all huddled together, and the babies are playing in a group unmindful of the 3000 feet drop if they fall. Then a group of 7-8 women jogged along carrying firewood from the forest. The load would be 30-40 kgs and they carry it on their head. They stopped at the shop for some snacks and put down their load. They were casually saying that they came this way because some bisons were blocking their usual short-cut. When they decided to leave it took 2 men to load the wood onto their heads again.

Then back to base. The trek down again. Armed with provisions for the night, with a shawl as a gift for my panchayat leader and some chocolates for his sons, and some more whisky and soda. I am now sitting near the edge of the cliff where the village ends and nothingness begins. It is a pleasure to live like this.

This afternnon I asked my host what it would cost to buy a small cottage in his village. He told me that they don’t sell land or houses to outsiders lest their village become a commercial tourist center. Now they are attracting foreigners and very few Indians like me and making good sustainable money. The uniqueness of the destination lies in its remoteness from the bustle and its proximity to town. Anyways he just told me offhandedly that 1 sq.ft. of land here costs Rs. 100. Just imagine guys, a place with a view – not one building in sight, leopards and bisons in close proximity, strange fruit orchards and no roads at all – all this for a paltry Rs. 100 per sq.ft. Consider that land at 50 kms from Chennai costs Rs. 200 per sq.ft.!

Then I saw an amazing spectacle. A huffing puffing postman walked by handing over letters and cash from money orders to the village headman who then ensures that they get to the more remote hamlets. This is done through the horsemen who transport merchandise to these places inaccessible by anything else other than a horse (they take Rs. 5 as forwarding charges from the addressee). One kg of merchandise costs Rs. 50 and are taken strictly based on advance payment by cash. Everything comes in this way. Chicken, whisky, rice, vegetables, medicines. Not everyone can own a horse. You have to get a license from the panchayat.

An ex-serviceman runs a telephone booth, the only one in the village. It is roaring business here. With all people walking to the further hamlets this is the last communication point.

I then walk over to a church – half built. Some foreign trust had started building it and then abandoned it for some reason. It has an old watchman who gets paid in Euros every month! The villagers think he gets Rs. 10000 as pay for sitting there everyday and drinking sarayam (local brewed spirit) and ensuring that no one of the village enters the premises.

I got to meet my neighbor who runs a little shop for passers by. He is a simple man and looks poor. He lives off his shop and his little parcel of land. His son studies in Anna University, Chennai and daughter in a very good school in Madurai. The great Indian ambition – to uplift the lot of the family.

And back to what I love most. I retire to my whisky and will again write tomorrow.

Day 5:

Time to leave the hills and to go home. There is always a lethargy when have to go back home from a holiday. The journey back seems a long one and one considers even lingering for one more day.

But I had to leave today. There are things to be done at home when the holiday still lasts.

I left Kodaikanal after presenting my hosts with my gifts and settling my bills at 9 am. I decided to go through the Palani route this time round. Stopped in a village called Savarikadu for tea. Two old men were remembering old stories about pythons and their doings in their respective villages. It was an interesting conversation. I could recollect atleast 7 stories being exchanged in 15 minutes.

I reached Palani, then Dharapuram and then Perundurai. It started raining. 2.30 pm. I stopped at a dhaba and decided to have lunch – trucker style. Sit cross-legged on a wire cot and eat your food on the plate on a wooden plank placed across. The roti & dhal was amazing with raw chillies. Then a bowl of curd rice.

4 pm: The rain wouldn’t stop and one gentlemen picked up conversation. He too owned a Royal Enfield and he gave me tips on how to make the chrome shine. His motorcycle, a 1985 Classic was shining like new.

5 pm: The rain still wouldn’t stop. I still had to cover 130 kms to get to Dharmapuri. So I decided to turn in for the night in Erode. So one more day of roaming.

Now I miss home, my wife and my bean bag.

Day 6:

I reached Dharmapuri. I have to leave The Zahir there and head back to Chennai by bus. I once more have a sumptuous lunch made by mom.

I got into the bus at 2 pm and it was one marathon ride in the bus. Reached Chennai at 9 pm.

Had dinner at my own sweet home.

Day 7:

It’s the grind from today to the next holiday. One always gets the urge to go back to the holiday.

I have bought my freedom this year after 10 long months in the drudgery of practicality. When on a ride, distance doesn’t matter. The destination is an end which will be reached regardless of the means. The distance is just space. This space is life.

There is always a charm in traveling alone. People may think you are queer. When you travel alone, when all the static produced by your friends and family is non-existent, you get to watch the world as a spectator. You are living in a transparent shell and observing every little movement of the world. You observe, you dissolve. You don’t feel like you are a traveling mass, but as a wisp of grass that is carried along by the wind.

Wonderful Tonight

2007-09-07T08:05:00.001-07:00

Its time to go home now
From hard work and woe
To my last paradise in life
A caress awaits my cares
An embrace completes my toils
I right away retire to the book
Till nightfall in reflection
Senses tingled there is the dinner
The scent of jasmine lures me to bed
I am consumed in its flame
The breeze washes my body
Her love churns my heart
Peace is just a glance away
From the worries of existence
And the insanity of struggle
Oh come to me darling
Let’s sleep tight till morning
In unison and bliss dreamless....
It feels wonderful tonight....

Satan's Saturday

2007-08-26T20:37:00.000-07:00

The sky rains fury,
Hoary winds rip apart
The small dreams of ordinary people.
The grounds shake beneath
Blind causes and convictions.
Cursed be the violence.
Banished be the hatred.
Stop this gross war.

A appeal to stop violence against innocents.

To

2007-08-02T08:19:00.000-07:00

Did I realize then
Such a one walked beside me
Smiling and loving.

Did I realize then
Such a one walked the earth
Smiling and loving.

Stairway to Heaven - Led Zeppelin

2007-07-20T04:28:00.000-07:00

Theres a lady whos sure
All that glitters is gold
And shes buying a stairway to heaven.
When she gets there she knows
If the stores are all closed
With a word she can get what she came for.
Ooh, ooh, and shes buying a stairway to heaven.

Theres a sign on the wall
But she wants to be sure
cause you know sometimes words have two meanings.
In a tree by the brook
Theres a songbird who sings,
Sometimes all of our thoughts are misgiven.
Ooh, it makes me wonder,
Ooh, it makes me wonder.

Theres a feeling I get
When I look to the west,
And my spirit is crying for leaving.
In my thoughts I have seen
Rings of smoke through the trees,
And the voices of those who standing looking.
Ooh, it makes me wonder,
Ooh, it really makes me wonder.

And its whispered that soon
If we all call the tune
Then the piper will lead us to reason.
And a new day will dawn
For those who stand long
And the forests will echo with laughter.

If theres a bustle in your hedgerow
Dont be alarmed now,
Its just a spring clean for the may queen.
Yes, there are two paths you can go by
But in the long run
Theres still time to change the road youre on.
And it makes me wonder.

Your head is humming and it wont go
In case you dont know,
The pipers calling you to join him,
Dear lady, can you hear the wind blow,
And did you know
Your stairway lies on the whispering wind.

And as we wind on down the road
Our shadows taller than our soul.
There walks a lady we all know
Who shines white light and wants to show
How evrything still turns to gold.
And if you listen very hard
The tune will come to you at last.
When all are one and one is all
To be a rock and not to roll.

And shes buying a stairway to heaven.

Sanity in an Inconstent State

2007-06-09T13:08:00.000-07:00

Case 1

Was engaged in a casual conversation with one of my colleagues about the rule to make wearing of helmets by motorists compulsory.

I heard of this rule coming to effect from 1st June, 2007, about some 3 months back. Everyone knew this. When I woke up on D Day, the headlines screamed “Wear helmets from today – else face fines”. I left for office on my motorcycle, the whole road was dazzling with people wearing new helmets. New helmets have this sheen that older ones like mine lose over time.

Someone was asking me what to do if he wants to buy a helmet for his son, who he drops at school every morning. He couldn’t find the size that would fit him. He bought a bicycling helmet from a sports shop!

Then this person files a PIL – how can women and children wear helmets? There are the usual traditional hair dos and the flowers. The court raised the question of the health hazards that could crop up if helmets were to be worn in a hot country like ours.

The court’s judgment is awaited, and women have stopped wearing helmets altogether, and during the past few days even men have stopped wearing helmets.

In the meanwhile, helmet prices have shot through the roof. Good, branded helmets cost 1000 rupees (earlier 600-700 rupees) and dubious roadside helmets sell for 500-600 rupees (earlier 100-150 rupees).

The common man is buying a helmet for the first time in his life. He is paying dearly!

It gets incredibly hot inside a helmet in Chennai. One feels like dropping the vehicle on the road itself and running for cover – throw off helmets and clothes!

Now no one knows whether one has to wear a helmet or not. The police are not enforcing it; if the rule has been made void - the government is not publicizing it too. Now people don’t know what to do with their helmets!

Case 2

This is about another instance of inconsistent policy making by the government – closely related to my field of work.

School buses the world over are painted Yellow. Yellow is unique in buses – no one paints it yellow anywhere – better visibility for the buses in traffic and the highway – better safety for the children inside.

December, 2006 – The government comes out with an order changing the color of school buses in Tamil Nadu from Yellow to a color called Shell White.

No one knew about this till about February. One fine day, someone in the hinterland woke up. We were asked to repaint our buses to this new color to get them registered – but the catch was this  NO ONE IN THE GOVT KNEW THE COLOR CODE FOR THE NEW COLOR!

We ran pillar to post to find this, convinced our plant up north to produce this color for us alone. We were proudly displaying these buses, when another manufacturer coolly registers yellow colored buses.

So we decided to go meet the top guy in the concerned department to be clarified. He tells us in an offhand, casual manner that the plan to change the color has been put on hold – due to resistance from the general public!

No new order was issued in the gazette to revoke the old order. We got raped by the plant for changing the color specs twice in 2 months – which entails a day’s loss of production.

The Layman's Debate

2007-05-12T00:03:00.000-07:00

Katrin Mozhi...

2007-04-06T04:15:00.000-07:00

Kaatrin Mozhi...
Oliyaa.... Isaiyaa.....
Poovin Mozhi....
Niramaa... Manamaa...

Kadalin Mozhi...
Alaiyaa... Nuraiyaa...
Kaadhal Mozhi...
Vizhiyaa... Ithalaa...

Iyarkkayin Mozhigal purinthu vidil
Manitharin Mozhigal thevai illai
Ithaiyathin Mozhigal purinthu vidil
Manitharkku Mozhiyae thevai illai

Kaatrin Mozhi...
Oliyaa.... Isaiyaa.....
Poovin Mozhi....
Niramaa... Manamaa...

(music)

Kaatru veesum poothu
thisaigal kidaiyathu
Kaadhal paesum poothu
Mozhigal kidaiyathu
Paesum Vaarthai pola
Mounam puriyaathu
Kangal paesum Vaarthai
Kadavul ariyaathu

Ulavi thiriyum kaatrukku
Uruvam theetta mudiyathu
Kaadhal paesum Mozhi ellaam
Sabtha koottil adanggathu

Iyarkkayin Mozhigal purinthu vidil
Manitharin Mozhigal thevai illai
Ithaiyathin Mozhigal purinthu vidil
Manitharkku Mozhiyae thevai illai

Kaatrin Mozhiyee...

(music)

Vaanam paesum paechu
thulliyaai veli aaghum
Vaanavillin paechu
niramaai veli aaghum
Unnmai Uumai aanaal
Kanneer Mozhi aaghum
Pennmai Uumai aanaal
Naanam Mozhi aaghum

Oosai thoongum Jaamathil
Uchi Meengal Mozhi aaghum
Aasai thoongum Ithaiyathil
Asaivu kooda Mozhi aaghum

Iyarkkayin Mozhigal purinthu vidil
Manitharin Mozhigal thevai illai
Ithaiyathin Mozhigal purinthu vidil
Manitharkku Mozhiyae thevai illai

Kaatrin Mozhiyee...
Oliyaa.... Isaiyaa.....
Poovin Mozhi....
Niramaa... Manamaa...

Kadalin Mozhi...
Alaiyaa... Nuraiyaa...
Kaadhal Mozhi...
Vizhiyaa... Ithalaa...

Iyarkkayin Mozhigal purinthu vidil
Manitharin Mozhigal thevai illai
Ithaiyathin Mozhigal purinthu vidil
Manitharkku Mozhiyae thevai illai

Kaatrin Mozhiyee...

To hell with time

2007-03-31T13:18:00.000-07:00

Give me a vision to cherish and
I would sing alone those lonely roads
Swinging, swaying with the tunes
Mile upon mile I would fly;
Like the butterfly’s gentle caress
I would glide past the road’s woes.
The sunset would be rapturous;
The night sky starry, moonlit.
The horizon would come nearer.
I would turn off time and fate;
I would drift on to the end
Of the road and dreary life,
Humming the honor of captured time.

Kill'em All

2007-03-22T00:57:00.000-07:00

I brought home a mosquito swatter last week. We still have those mosquito repellants, vaporizers and nets, but this seems to be a contraception designed to kill mosquitoes and to satisfy our anger toward those parasites.

It gives me immense pleasure to sit watching TV and casually electrocute one mosquito after another. They literally burn to death. Their bodies seem to explode into little pieces. Those buggers deserve death for biting me.

There have been few other gadgets that one would relish using for the gore quotient. One example I remember is what they call the “pestoflash”. It similarly electrocutes flies to death in convention halls and small hotels.

But in the latter, the gadget would be placed in a corner and flies would flock to the blue light and die a very voluntary but gory death.

But the all new mosquito swatter is better in delivering a mental kick to the user.

a. one can kill a number of flies and count them too
b. one can sit idly and really have a good time
c. one can buy it at 100 rupees with a rechargeable battery
d. one can walk in the road carrying it around and kill flies all the way during the evening walk
e. it is shaped like a tennis racquet, so one can practice serves, forehands and backhands offhand too
f. one can, above all, abuse little mosquitoes when they are dying

These past 3 months have seen these swatters enter every household in chennai. One can buy it from any street corner. I can even now hear the tut, tut from a similar thing from my neighbors’.

To Think

2007-03-02T09:04:00.000-08:00

I hate to go away to the city
From the valley of elephants;
Fragrant music fills the silence
Chirping birds, talking reeds
Fill my heart with beauty
As through the dusk I wander
On the slopes, thinking.
Its worth the labor
To think in silence
To wander pointless
With a mountain in the horizon
With the mind’s aspect bent
To just think and remember…..

Lovers, lovers and lovers

2007-01-19T10:29:00.000-08:00

There are lovers, lovers and lovers……
And then, there are the people who cant stop loving.
Extraordinary fortitude they silently endure.
Theirs is the true love, the love that remains immortal.
They seek love as a need, and they are compulsive lovers.
Crushes and affairs leave them with wonderful essences that last forever.
Theirs is not the love that withers.
Love for them is sustenance.
Love is self actualization.
Love is an instinct.
Love is devotion.
Love for them, is God.

Rich Justice - Poor Justice

2007-01-02T09:02:00.000-08:00

22 skeletons of children found in a gutter in Nithari, near Noida. Killed, raped later, hacked to pieces, body parts possibly stolen, flushed down the shit hole.

This hasn’t been a bizarre high school shoot out. Not the madness of one insane hour, but the cold, calculative, cunning series of acts over the course of 2 long years. All this happened in one little village. One of the countless villages that fall prey to the encroaching Indian city. Where landowners sell off their land to hungry realtors and become domestic servants a decade later.

The accused, a sardar, a person educated in the best school and college in India, with an adult son. Living estranged from his family. Possibly a person of some intellect by the sort of books found in his house.

The accused co conspirator, a young man, working for the former for Rs. 1800 per month. Bonuses for delivering children to the master of the house. Himself the father of a 2 year old child.

The area has reported 50 people missing in 2 years. 45 children and 5 more young women. All cases were reported to the local police station. There was no criminal angle worked in the whole episode. The women were accused by the police of having eloped and the children to have run away somewhere. In a different country this would have become a legendary story, like the tracking of Buffalo Bill.

In India, the bureaucracy, the judiciary and the police are still heaped in a feudal system of working. The value of a crime, a law or an infringement is seen by the material value of the person in society, rather than the wrong that the crime has perpetrated in society’s midst.

Thus a drunk Salman Khan can run over sleeping pedestrians and still be at large. Thus a Sanjay Dutt can possess arms, be proven guilty and still Bollywood will start a signature campaign to let him off, shamelessly.

After 60 years of calling ourselves an independent nation, widespread campaign was necessary to get justice in a case as simple as the Jessica Lal murder case. Shot right in the middle of a restaurant, but the case wound on for a decade. The best criminal lawyer in the country appears for the accused. The case is won and is considered a milestone in India. Why? The rich villain was caught at last.

There was this poll going on in a private channel – “do you think justice in India is different for the rich and the poor?” – 99% of the responders felt the poor get a raw deal when it comes to simple social justice.

If we still lived in the jungles, if somebody was hurt, the accused would be killed in retaliation. Though this may sound hoary, but this is precisely justice. Undeveloped man, in his raw, native style used to get justice with his own hands. But in a developed civilization like ours, there are still the ugly beasts that kill, and there are the vultures than eat the carrion, and there are the maggots that clean up the remainder, and there is the herbivore who is as hapless as on the day he was born. Yes, that’s you and me.

The End

2006-12-17T09:35:00.000-08:00

It all peters out in the end.
The end is forever a tomorrow.
Like the horizon is a mere line
Converging from vastness….
Everything becomes simple
Lines and lines for everything.
Futile, are all our schemes.
Mundane, are all our emotions.
Ennui, are all our philosophies.
Pointless are argument and theory.
Of no consequence is the present
With the end being its essence.
We are made humble in the end.
Everything evens out in the end.

Red Diamond

2006-12-16T09:43:00.000-08:00

I could have stolen the thing,
Out of spite, from Hell.
Fire dancing, guilt frothing;
Yes, miracles are possible.
Dizzy dreams I had of it;
On my love’s treasured breasts,
On her soft fair temple,
In her deep nubile navel;
In a swanky necklace wrought,
With fine platinum clasps;
Adore her grace and charm
Adorn her black eyes’ sparkle
Celebrate her youthful beauty.
I saw today a red diamond.

Today

2006-12-15T10:52:00.000-08:00

A bird in full flight over the horizon
I beheld one morning on a ride.
Every morning has it thus flown
Lashing out toward life’s tides.

The quiet air was applauding
This riot of light and speed
Coming alive from its musing
Of the night’s dark mead.

Could be heard was the moan
Of darkness which fell to light.
Time had crossed the night’s moat
To welcome another day’s blight.

The ghosts are gone for today
Welcome is another new day
With its many a play and foray.
We have sowed freedom for today.

Happy Birthday!

2006-12-13T10:35:00.000-08:00

Yet another year is over for me, and yet another is starting, my 27th. Life has moved along since last year this day.

1. I am in Chennai now
2. I am in a new company
3. I am engaged
4. I will be getting married this year
5. I am being paid 40% more than last year
6. I am carrying less emotional baggage than the past 3-4 years

While the downsides have been a steadiness in emotions, style and habits to the point of complete lack of inspiration, the consolations have been consistency and resolve.

I have witnessed a complete change in myself in relationships and my decisions to keep them where they are meant to be. I think more from the mind and less from the heart. There are a lot of actionable and fanciful impulses that never find expression now. I am more like a mute spectator to my passions than writhing in their futileness and exalting at their power. I am suffering less from life than the past 3-4 years. I am living more in the real world than ever before. There are moments when all this lack of impulsiveness bullies me into a quiet spell. But I come back sooner than before.

There have been periods when my personality has been unable to cope with my profession. Now I am an integral part of my profession. I am more ordinary. I am more docile to emotions. I am able to hold back my impulses. I am smarter now than the tottering idealistic bravado. I am more with the ways of the world.

All these years have been, the past 3-4, a learning experience with adulthood. Now my sights are set toward making money, being successful in my career. To a point entering into marriage has been a major catalyst in this change. I am now thinking of TV cabinets, refrigerators and the necessity of a microwave at home than poetry. I want to buy a car in 2 years, when I will have a kid. I need to have a house by that time. My salary would have to double for that. I need to be selling more trucks today for all that.

Happy Birthday!

Love her so

2006-12-08T09:11:00.000-08:00

We shared the evenings
We shared our lives.
But when we quit it all forever
Sorrow came down in showers.
It took so long to realize
That it was the last goodbye
Now all my days are quiet.
But its way too late now
To part with my shadow.
We still share the stead.
My heart is blinded,
By her brightness.
I love her so
I’ve let her go.

My father and me

2006-11-27T21:14:00.000-08:00

My father has been at my place in Chennai for the past 3 days. This night, he left for Dharmapuri, where our home is. This is a strange feeling I have felt for him. I seem to miss him now.

When I was a kid, I used to worship him. Going around wherever he goes, doing whatever he does. I would never leave his side when he was home for the weekend. He used to work somewhere far away, and my mother used to run the house.

Through our lives we have seen each other in many perspectives. I have him as the proud father whenever my sister won a medal. She was an athlete in her school days. I have made him proud too. And we just used to adore them.

I guess things go wrong between fathers and sons when sons go out into the world. They see the vices of the world and practice some of them, and see the same in the fathers also. Then the super human image of dads just fades away. After which I am an adult and my father is an old man.

Things started going wrong between us when I was graduating. My father was becoming steadily a drunkard. My mom was breaking down into alternating fits of hysteria and depressions, though I think she managed things extremely well for a middle aged lady. I got into my post graduation and went away to hostel. My dad has a heart attack, then the bypass. Then the second heart attack, then the onset feebleness.

I am still unable to accept my father as being unable to beat me in arm wrestling. My arms are a sorry excuse for a full grown man’s. Slowed down. Absent minded. This cant be possible. Will I be like this someday? How would I look?

When you send off an old man, a person who has suffered for his actions, who is still suffering, who is still fighting to come to terms with his present physical and mental exhaustion, what would you feel? You will feel scared at the vision this offers. There will be a day when I will be emotionally alone. When I will be unable to connect with the age and the generation. When I will a fool at using the “in” gadgets. When I will be scared of trusting my reflexes. When I will be feeble. When I will be senile. What would I feel then?

I wandered lonely as a cloud

2006-11-21T02:12:00.000-08:00

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils,
Beside the lake, beneath the trees
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the Milky Way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced, but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee: -
A poet could not but be gay
In such a jocund company:
I gazed -and gazed -but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought.

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills
And dances with the daffodils.

Memories

2006-11-17T09:26:00.000-08:00

Memories never fade away,
Never melting into the dark.
Restraints forced into sway
Smother just its spark.

Tipped toward the earth
Is today’s harsh reality.
Launched toward the sky
Is yesterday’s lost vanity.

Sometimes time wanders along
In meandering, unending monotony.
Then memories awaken from beyond
The conscious mind’s soothing melody.

Love is best made and squandered.
Wars are best fought and regretted.
Beauty is best sought for and detested.
Life is best lived and remembered.

Disorganized

2006-11-13T00:55:00.000-08:00

I am disorganized, in everything I do, everyday.

I drove my car, oops, my company car into the bumper of a bus this morning. I drove it to Trichy from Madurai. I left my luggage in the boot, and I forgot to take it out. Now the car is at the tinker’s shop and I am unable to find him!

I ordered for 10 passport size photos to apply for a driving license, but I haven’t got it from the studio for about 10 days.

My bus to Chennai tonight starts at 11 pm. I am still sitting in the dealership, not knowing how to kill the 4 hours in between.

I haven’t booked tickets for my travel next week.

I haven’t put money into my other bank account. A cheque could bounce in a couple of days.

I am getting married in January, but I don’t seem to have the money to pay for the big wedding. I could end up borrowing money. I haven’t saved in 5 months.

I feel like having a cup of tea now. But I am not going!

Law against violence on women

2006-11-06T02:18:00.000-08:00

Its big news on the channels that are the mouthpieces of the moderate Indian. NDTV, CNN IBN, Times Now. It’s the new law against violence on women.

Advantages:

1. This is a civil law, hence no criminal procedures involved. No need to show bruises scars and other physical evidence, usually necessary to file an FIR
2. Law applies to women in general – the wife, any woman residing in a house and even a live in partner
3. Law applies to physical abuse, verbal abuse, sexual abuse and any other form of intimidation and subjugation of a woman’s dignity
4. If the ruling of the civil court is not adhered to, then criminal action may be initiated by the complainant

Disadvantages:

1. The woman has the option of staying on in her marital home
2. How does one assure the woman of security other than rendering a threat of criminal proceedings, which is not working and hence has brought forth this law?
3. As is always the case, even our criminal courts are slow, civil courts have redressed/judged cases for decades

The channels are doing a stellar job by highlighting the law and actually urging women who are facing abuse to take advantage of this new enactment. The startling news is that woman abuse is not relegated to the lower strata of the society or to any other distinguishable stratum of the society.

I was shocked to see a career woman breaking down in front of the camera because her husband has abused her for 20 years, and she has nowhere else to go. She does not want to leave home because her son would get affected, and hence has not filed a criminal case against her in laws and husband.

I was further more startled to know that parents of even the abused woman usually take the part of the husband, and condemn the woman for bringing family issues to public. The woman is thus cornered, with no one present for emotional support.

Education to women is being promoted to make the Indian woman independent, to protect her against social evil, prejudice, abuse and to provide her with a means to sustain her dignity and livelihood, in case a marriage goes awry. A sound education is necessary to give women the confidence they need to face social injustice.

The reactions to this law, by what I have seen – that social abuse of women is more widely prevalent in India than what is believed to be correct, that is, contained to the lower social strata. And it also shows that our society is still male chauvinistic to the core.

A society is not male chauvinistic because men are dominant. Men are dominant, and will be. It is because women feel meek, helpless and hence resign to their fate of subjugation and daily abuse. Women are not vigorously protective of their rights. This is so because the elders of today still don’t believe in social justice for women. A woman is like this because she is merely a woman, is a simple reasoning.

Women feel weak because they are not being shown otherwise. Many women still prefer to be “home makers” to a career. What will happen if marital life is not a bed of roses ten years from now? Being a house wife is good for the family, but the average Indian house wife watches 10 mega serials a day, has her siesta everyday, has an assured three square meals package all in one combo dish, served in a platter. She forgets how to read and write. Forgets the accounts she studied in B Com. Her skills are focused on making a samosa with as little oil in it as possible. What will she do if marriage is not a bed a roses? She will live on, with the assured combo dish. Is stigma worse than being abused?

Exploitation will happen on the intellectually lazy in the guise of duty. The disadvantaged will always remain so, if they choose to. Walk out if your husband beats you, before he breaks you. The world is bigger than your home. Social revolutions are built on individual instances of courage and not on walls built by the establishment.

I have loved three women till now and in love with the fourth, my fiancé.

2006-11-01T19:51:00.000-08:00

I have loved three women till now and in love with the fourth, my fiancé. I still love the other three, and there are times when my heart lingers around them, fond memories and sweet fragrances. I have never hated them, I don’t want bad things to happen to them, and I want them to be happy.

There are instances when life feels like a compromise, when I have given up a relationship for my own and the other’s good, and I still feel like a loser. Tonight I got the invitation for my first love’s marriage. It feels strange, I still want to call her up and ask her to be with me, after 3 long years have passed. Be my woman and be no one else’s. I am feeling sad.

I don’t know if I am being unfaithful to my fiancé. It’s much more complicated than that I believe. I have never figured out this part of me. It gets me mad to try to figure it out.

“Good people also get bad thoughts, but only bad people actually commit bad actions. Good people and bad people are differentiated by actions and not by thoughts. My mind has the propensity to deliberate in every angle that any person would conspire to act. I am better in my ability to ponder, and yet do what in my right mind is the right thing to do.” I read this somewhere and I bought it.

I think I am doing the right things in life by deciding to be married to a simple girl. I have agreed to be an ox, lugging the load of a family through life. I can’t have a better life.

Sogathai maraithen uyir vali poruthen…..
Suyathai ethuvo suttathadi vandhen……

Oru nalil - Pudhupettai

2006-10-22T10:11:00.000-07:00

Oru naalil valkai ingay yengum oodi pogathu
Maaru naalum vanthu vittal thunbam thedi thodaRadhu..
yethanai koodi kanneer mann mithu vizhunthirukkum
athanai kanda pinum boommi ingu poo pookum
ohh ohh ohh...kaaru vassal vittu vantha naal thootu
ohh ohh ohh...oru vassal thediyae villaiyaattu
ohh ohh oh...kann thiranthu paarthal pala koothu
ohh ohh ohhohoo...kann moodi kondaaal...
ohh ohh ohho
(Humming)

Porkalathil piranthu vittom vanthadhavai ponnavai varutham illai..
kaattinilay vazhgindrom murkkalin valli ondrum maranam illai..
irutinilay nee nadakayillai un nizhallum unnai vittu villagividum..
nee mattum thaan intha ullagathilay unakku thunnai yendru villainge_vidum..
theeyodu pogum varaiyiL theerathu intha thanimaii..
kaarai varum neram paarthu kappalil kaathirupom..
yerimalai vanthal kooda yerri nindru poRz thoduppom..
ohh wow woow...andha Dheva ragasiyam purigirathey
ohh wow woow...ingu yethuvum nillayilai karaigirathey
ohh wow woow...manam veytaa veyiLilay aalagigirathey
ohh wow woow...andha Kadavulai kandaaL
wow wow oohh..

adu yennakku ethu unnakku ithayangaL podum thani kannakku..
aval yennakku ival unnakku udalgalum podum puthir kannakku..
unnakkum illai inthu yennakkum illai paadaiththaavaanai ingu yedduthu kollvan..
nallavar yaar ada kettavar yaar kadaisiyiL avanay mudivu seyivaan..
pazRi podum ullagam ingay balliyanna uyirgal yengayaay..
ullagathiL Oram nindru athanaiyum paarthirupom..
nadapavai nadagam yendru namum senndhu nadithirupom..
ohh wow wow...pala mugangaL vedum seri maatikollvom
ohh wow woow...pala thirupam theyriyum adhil thirumbikollvom
ohh wow woow...Kathai mudiyum pokkil athai mudithikollvom
ohh wow woow...Maaru piravi vedumaa...
ohh wow woow...
(Humming)

Where to now Krishna?

2006-10-17T11:07:00.000-07:00

The world spins on and on
As I tramp on in life listless.
Time turns the world bygone
To art enduring and ageless.

History’s mortals stand up tall,
Amid us, todays impudent dwarfs.
Can we ever beat the glorious past’s call?
Today seems equally an image morphed.

Where do I get my bearings right
When my compass fights for its poles?
The other one within often sets me alight
With passions that set me free to the devil.

Tomorrow’s visions seem enough
To push me off the endless precipice.
The run toward what is this life
But toward endlessness of form?

Pure love has come over in swells.
The spirit broke only to mend.
Buried, but game for the recall.
Now what is this calm in my mind?

Depressed

2006-10-12T23:42:00.000-07:00

When Love is finished
What solace is a woman.
When Beauty is painful
What comfort is content.

Bright sunshine turns cold
At my sight that looms ominous
To the beholder young and old
Is it so vile and bilious?

The fine blooms on the bower
At once turn coarse and sour,
At my sight they do cower
My eyes their tears pour.

Save me oh God from this love.
Is there a clean, poor hearth?
A solitary, quiet, dark cove?
It is peace in love’s dearth.

Elections – No Bar

2006-10-11T07:40:00.000-07:00

Been a long day today. A day full of sales calls, stone quarries and customers, calls from my fiancé, parents, boss, colleagues, travel and sweat. Believe me, one world, a few people and one mobile phone can make a man go stark raving.

I retire to my hotel room after 12 hours of work, eager to get a refreshing drink at the bar, at about 7.30 pm.

No one is answering the phone in the in house bar. I call up the reception to find out why. “Day after tomorrow is the day of elections, sir. No liquor as per government order.”

I ask him if he can serve me in my room itself, he says a flat no. I am left wondering why I must not drink today. Who decided that my thirst for a drink today is abusive to the nation’s sovereignty?

They say very popularly nowadays “vote for your rights, else shut the trap”. Citizen journalism. Lok Paritran. What is all this? Is it my fault that a lot many fools sell their right in exchange to a pint of country liquor? Cant a man drink in peace? Oh can’t a man drink today in peace?

They say “think from the social perspective”. How many of us haven’t taken a cutting chai from a road side shop from a kid as young as 4 years old? Oh what can man change his destiny to, other than to a different form of death? Then what futility are nations, elections and victories other than castrated vanities seeking refuge in a mass of matter due to their lack of intellectual space and density? Ideas and institutions are formed for other people by people who translate their internal quandary into empirical notions.

Fuck all this!!!

Oh I am raving for a drink today! Wish I was carrying a hip flask full of scotch! Merci!

Where are we headed?

2006-10-01T01:58:00.000-07:00

Today, I had to stand in a government office in chennai for 4 hours. The whole place was physically stinking of urine and rotting paper, not to mention the other stench from the system itself. Moist walls, dingy furniture, lazy looking people.

We had to get a paper signed by a big shot bureaucrat. Something of enormous economic interest for our company and to some extent in tax revenues for the government. As is usual in India, there was a broker. A sleek, smooth talker, with all the right connections, always dressed like a plain clothed policeman.

The private sector is used to working at better speeds than the government. We want to get things signed and cleared fast. The sole work of the government employees seems to be in slowing down the whole thing to a point, where there are enormous losses and thus to extort more money for a routine process of paper work.

There are two types of kick backs:
1. for doing something wrong or unlawful
2. for doing what is called your job responsibility

The former can exist anywhere, in any country since it is dependent on one man’s moral disposition or depravity or desperation. Anyone can commit such a crime out of simple needs. It need be out of greed, but out of pure necessity.

The number 2 (!) thrives in our country. What do you do when I want my client to pay me money for supplying him this month with N number of trucks, when my only goddam work is to just supply trucks? The person who is my boss then will ask money from me for me to carry on doing this. Then his boss, then his boss….

The system is rotting. India, they say is emerging into a major global power through economic growth, robust fundamentals (no one I am sure knows what that means), and a general euphoria that India is hot and happening. Our nation is growing, yes, economically. India is being invested in because of the following reasons:

1. low manpower costs
2. average to good manpower quality
3. an alternative to the leftist Chinese – more security in the longer term
4. English is popular – a robust educational network and universal content
5. the Indian government is ready to be proactive in policy making to bring in investment
6. a resultant consumer market that is maturing slowly into a buyer’s market – a boon for any company with a lot of products, technology and money
7. to sum it all up “a better cost benefit proposition”

Walmart wants to come in. Nokia is already in. IBM is big. Ford, Hyundai, Toyota, Mitsubishi, a thousand other companies from a hundred different industries have successfully set up shop in India.

What we fail to notice here are the following factors:

1. corporates just choose to work around the red tape and slime
2. the attitude is that “get the work done, whatever it takes”
3. what happens when the advantages stated above are not unique to India anymore?

When Brazil or say Egypt offer the very same advantages as India today, which many nations will in the not too distant future, where will we stand then?

Today, land acquisition costs very less in India, so it makes sense to bribe a politician to get the work done. What happens when it is not the case?

There is always a tipping point. Things will slide after that, no matter how well glued. When will we reach this tipping point? 10 years? 20 years?

India cannot grow in the real sense if it does not address the issue of corruption. This can be done only through transparency, centralization and deregulation. India is growing in terms of factories, software companies and refineries, through a better economic proposition rather than a sustainable set of ethics.

India’s cost of corruption is being built into the costs that customers pay for goods and services. No one notices this.

Old Dog

2006-09-05T02:45:00.000-07:00

Near my home, there is a tea shop and a Tiffin center. There is a resident dog on the pavement nearby. It’s an old female, without teeth. It keeps shivering when it sleeps. No not shivering, it is like convulsions reverberating through the whole of its body. It never makes any movements other than to look for food in the garbage nearby.

It’s a beige color, its coat. Its tail is always sagging. It looks slovenly, lazy, devoid of all activity. One can either see it sleeping or lying down doing nothing. Dogs have nothing to do anyways. But still this dog seems to be doing nothing at all.

One evening, I had stopped by for coffee at this shop. I got the coffee and turned around to see this dog wagging its tail at me. There was even a smile on its face, alternated by its convulsions. I could see the whole of its gaping mouth without teeth, and my heart was instantly moved. I thought it was hungry and so I decided to do something about it.

I went into the Tiffin center and got a cake for Rs. 2.50, it smelled nice and was very soft too. I had the temptation of eating it myself, but I went back and held it forward for the dog to grab it. Its attitude now was completely changed. It looked at me coolly, sniffed at the cake and stepped back with an insulting look, though looking pathetic with its nodding head and convulsive body.

I thought it was afraid of me and so I laid the cake down and went back to my bike. The dog came back, sniffed at the cake again and you know what, it sauntered away, with a flourish of arrogance and started wagging its tail at someone else. I murmured, “Bitch!”

I was totally stupefied by such behavior. It set me thinking too. I thought may be the dog wanted some scratching behind its ears or a gentle pat. But can it be? May be it had a case of amnesia, where it forgot what it had asked for some time back. Who would know? May be it did not like the cake! Yes, it did not like the cake. It might have even puked after eating that cake from this shop. Who knows! A kid nearby was eating some cream biscuits, and its charms moved the kid too. It was eating a sweet, cream biscuit after 2 minutes. Superciliousness, I can understand, but from a street dog?

Wanderlust!

2006-08-25T01:07:00.000-07:00

Wanderlust

“All move away!
Hurry, make way!
Here comes me along
On to where I belong.”

Thirsty was my flittering spirit,
Rising from the trodden past.
In my blood was speed
“Romp ahead, my arrogant steed.
I’ll reach those gardens yonder
Where my heart, alone, wander.”

The Gods rolled me out the mellows
The stars led me out of the shadows.
The light paved the road toward harmony.
The throttle showed me to every possibility.
Free I was to sleep under any bough.
Futile were storms that rent and blew.

Then, the ride a fair maiden partook.
Poetry her fragrance and laughter spoke.
Love my parched lips boldly stole.
Proud, I slid down the mossy stile.

I said I would never compromise
Though living with many a surmise.
Hope was redundant yet pressing.
Faith was alive yet dying.

“I’m not where I am now.
I’m not what I am now.
I’m not where I used to be.
I’m not what I used to be.
I’d wandered unmolested by man.
I’d been a free man.”

A thousand births I have since died.
A thousand deaths to be so reclaimed?
A silent night moonless rendered
Is a man’s loving when smothered.
Have nature and growth ever pondered?
So is love even when wistfully rejected.

To “The Wanderlust” – 2003 – 2005 & “TN 33 S 7403”

A thing of beauty is a joy for ever

2006-08-10T02:17:00.000-07:00

A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing.
Therefore, on every morrow, are we wreathing
A flowery band to bind us to the earth,
Spite of despondence, of the inhuman dearth
Of noble natures, of the gloomy days,
Of all the unhealthy and o'er-darkened ways
Made for our searching: yes, in spite of all,
Some shape of beauty moves away the pall
From our dark spirits. Such the sun, the moon,
Trees old, and young, sprouting a shady boon
For simple sheep; and such are daffodils
With the green world they live in; and clear rills
That for themselves a cooling covert make
'Gainst the hot season; the mid-forest brake,
Rich with a sprinkling of fair musk-rose blooms:
And such too is the grandeur of the dooms
We have imagined for the mighty dead;
All lovely tales that we have heard or read:
An endless fountain of immortal drink,
Pouring unto us from the heaven's brink.

Nor do we merely feel these essences
For one short hour; no, even as the trees
That whisper round a temple become soon
Dear as the temple's self, so does the moon,
The passion poesy, glories infinite,
Haunt us till they become a cheering light
Unto our souls, and bound to us so fast
That, whether there be shine or gloom o'ercast,
They always must be with us, or we die.

Therefore, 'tis with full happiness that I
Will trace the story of Endymion.
The very music of the name has gone
Into my being, and each pleasant scene
Is growing fresh before me as the green
Of our own valleys: so I will begin
Now while I cannot hear the city's din;
Now while the early budders are just new,
And run in mazes of the youngest hue
About old forests; while the willow trails
Its delicate amber; and the dairy pails
Bring home increase of milk. And, as the year
Grows lush in juicy stalks, I'll smoothly steer
My little boat, for many quiet hours,
With streams that deepen freshly into bowers.
Many and many a verse I hope to write,
Before the daisies, vermeil rimmed and white,
Hide in deep herbage; and ere yet the bees
Hum about globes of clover and sweet peas,
I must be near the middle of my story.
O may no wintry season, bare and hoary,
See it half finished: but let Autumn bold,
With universal tinge of sober gold,
Be all about me when I make an end!
And now at once, adventuresome, I send
My herald thought into a wilderness:
There let its trumpet blow, and quickly dress
My uncertain path with green, that I may speed
Easily onward, thorough flowers and weed.

A Time to Change

2006-06-02T22:13:00.000-07:00

Its time for another change now. I am leaving Vijayawada for good, to go to Chennai. A different company, a different city, a different life.

It feels good that I am going to my home state. I have always wanted to work in a metro, for the exposure and the opportunity it offers, if not for the company and entertainment value.

I have sort of found a place to live. I have to get used to traveling 17kms to office everyday, from my 1.5 kms now in Vijayawada. I have to wash my own clothes. I have to be thrifty with water. I have to start saving, this I dun no how! I have to learn a lot.

The past year has taught me a lot. Through all the deprivations and solitarian explorations, I have pondered and drilled deep down into my mind. I am more self-reliant now. I now don’t need anybody for my sake alone. No one needs to support me. I am self-sustainable, though I am still not viable to operate financially!

I have learned a new language, the language of my forefathers. I have learned to live in a different culture and still remain original. I don’t mind wearing an odd red tee shirt, but overall, I am still suave, in sense and form.

Whenever I leave a place forever, I have always felt a pang of sentimental and/or genuine regret. This time, I am only too happy to be going from this place. May be I will miss it later, but now I am happy.

Farewell Vijayawada!

2006-05-31T07:22:00.000-07:00

So long, boy you can take my place
Ive got my papers, Ive got my pay
So pack my bags and Ill be on my way
To yellow river

Put my gun down, the war is won
Fill my glass high, the time has come
Im going back to the place that I love
Yellow river

Yellow river
Yellow river is in my mind and in my eyes
Yellow river
Yellow river is in my blood, its the place I love

Got no time for explanations
Got no time to lose
Tomorrow night youll find me sleeping underneath the moon
At yellow river

Cannon fire lingers in my mind
Im so glad that Im still alive
And Ive been gone for such a long time
From yellow river

I remember the nights were cool
I can still see the water pool
And I remember the girl that I knew
From yellow river

Escape

2006-05-30T19:55:00.000-07:00

I could go on like this…..
Toward the dawn, toward light,
On my steed black, in flight.
Escape.
The path moulds to my fickle heart’s amour.
My horse asks for distance ever more.
Unwind my destiny, yet wait till faith
Wilts from within my spirit’s flight.
Lend me speed, call I, to the winds.
Drift me on to places, all sorts.

2006-05-30T02:44:00.000-07:00

Fallow

2006-05-26T11:17:00.000-07:00

~~ Under your feet lies the land, fallow.
Burn those pretences shallow.
Untouched by your hand worthy, shall
These grasses forever wallow?
Under your feet lies the land, fallow.
Burn those pretences shallow. ~~

I am a rock

2006-05-24T03:13:00.000-07:00

A winters day
In a deep and dark december;
I am alone,
Gazing from my window to the streets below
On a freshly fallen silent shroud of snow.
I am a rock,
I am an island.
Ive built walls,
A fortress deep and mighty,
That none may penetrate.
I have no need of friendship; friendship causes pain.
Its laughter and its loving I disdain.
I am a rock,
I am an island.

Dont talk of love,
But Ive heard the words before;
Its sleeping in my memory.
I wont disturb the slumber of feelings that have died.
If I never loved I never would have cried.
I am a rock,
I am an island.

I have my books
And my poetry to protect me;
I am shielded in my armor,
Hiding in my room, safe within my womb.
I touch no one and no one touches me.
I am a rock,
I am an island.

And a rock feels no pain;
And an island never cries.

???

2006-05-23T04:52:00.000-07:00

What a compromise life is. My heart is where it is not supposed to be, where I don’t want it to be. And it refuses to come back to me. It does not seek my comfort anymore.

Why must I experience my suffering? Why can’t I suffer through life without knowing? Why can’t I drag through existing like everything else? Why can’t I surrender forever, this pain for comfort?

To love or not to love?

2006-05-18T00:06:00.000-07:00

Why do I come across women, who want to keep you, but not love you? Who are not willing to take the responsibility to say a no when a guy proposes? If the guy is not lovable, then how can he be a friend?

What is the meaning of loving as a friend? What is the meaning of loving as a girl friend? What is the meaning of lets just be friends?

Why are narrow understandings and shallow interpretations sullying such golden terms like friendship and love like this? Why do women want to keep a guy, and yet not love him or be committed to him?

Is it because I am like this, I want things in black and white; or is it because I ask for truth from people who cannot furnish it for themselves or me? Am I being over realistic or am I being a simpleton?

Purple Haze

2006-05-15T15:37:00.001-07:00

It had been a long day, with all the top bosses swarming down to Bangalore, to give us the pleasure of their wisdom, though unsolicited. The dealers were there too, and it was old wine in a new bottle.

Effectiveness on the field was perceived to be low, and thus we had to go through another round of cleansing and enlightening about the mysterious new gearbox of our trucks, the E2 series is here to stay, and we were discussing or rather being told of the future of the technology. That no one understands the technology is not a point to ponder without some nausea.

Then the dealers left, and the meeting turned into an internal meeting, what with all that went on and on through the day being repeated in the evening. We were let go at 8 pm, from the Leela Palace, apparently a 7 star hotel. I stole all the nice, black pencils that had been kept for our use. I need not buy pencils for a decade now, at the most conservative estimate of my rate of usage of pencils.

I have a colleague in Hyderabad, Karthik, a Tamilian, who earlier worked for Tata. He is from Bangalore. Both of us decided to go get some beer after all this hulla had gotten over. He suggested the Purple Haze. We landed there.

Once the door opened, I was literally hit by the music, smash across my face. Audioslave! We found a couple of seats at the bar counter and ordered beer. We were the only guys in formals that evening, and everyone gave us a desultory glance for our liberty.

It all started off fine with me. The music was great and the beer was good. The people were young and there was a strange sensation within me. Then I started swinging. My head was darting forward and back. And with a pitcher guzzled and with the music, I finally had got to a high.

Then it was a maelstrom of the nirvana’s, erasmus’ and the what nots. Another pitcher and it was getting late and the tempo changed to some slow music. Altogether that night, I had drunk 2 pitchers and 2 rounds of my favorite scotch, nothing much by my standards. I manage to guzzle more at my place with Jagjith Singh, Farida Khannum and Abida Parveen.

We somehow got to our hotel rooms, and the next day I woke up with pain at the back of my neck. Head banging, something I am not used to. But it was an amazing evening. In a pub after a long time. But I had never been to a theme pub before. I rocked!

Strange(r)

2006-05-15T03:36:00.000-07:00

In the dark journey through last night
I had traversed a 1000 miles.
I had come to a different land
From a different land, a stranger
From stranger parts, with strange
Wisdom, with a strange look.
The world is watchin me,
The world is watchin me….
I gaze back, lost, crouched within
I gaze back, lost, crouched within….
I am a stranger, I am a stranger,
They tell me yet again, when
I had just stood tall among men.
A stranger I say is nothing,
A stranger I say is nothing….
What good could you do?
When no one knows you?
What good can happen to you?
When no one knows you?
Oh love, no one knows me here.
They say I am dark within
My deception is glaring thin.
My grave would weep they say
To hold me when I sleep….
For they say, I enjoy my pain
My pain is my design, they accuse.
Oh love, tell them they are wrong….
What good could you do?
When no one knows you?
What good can happen to you?
When no one knows you?
Oh love, no one knows me here.

On a high those times.....

2006-05-07T03:28:00.000-07:00

I was on a high those times.
I had a woman by me, and
The world seemed easy.
She did nothing more than
Make me a mirror out of myself.
She did nothing more than
Soothe those anxious worries.
She wasn’t of much help otherwise
Than to lend some light to the nights.
She could care less, than to ask
For an effort out of my laziness.
She did nothing more than
Love me for my sake folks.
She did nothing but let me know
That I was a man in my right.
She did merely inspire my vanity
To become a gentleman.
She did nothing but court my
Conscience with devotion pure.
I was on a high those times.
I had a woman by me, and
The world seemed easy.

Wish you were here....Pink Floyd

2006-05-07T03:14:00.000-07:00

So, so you think you can tell Heaven from Hell,
blue skies from pain.
Can you tell a green field from a cold steel rail?
A smile from a veil?
Do you think you can tell?
And did they get you to trade your heroes for ghosts?
Hot ashes for trees?
Hot air for a cool breeze?
Cold comfort for change?
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage?
How I wish, how I wish you were here.
We're just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl, year after year,
Running over the same old ground.
What have we found? The same old fears.
Wish you were here.

Hope

2006-05-06T02:45:00.000-07:00

Dil na ummed tho nahi, naakam hi tho hai,
Lambi hai gham ki shaam, magar shaam hi tho hai,

yeh safar bahut hai katin magar,
Na udhas ho mere humsafar,

yeh sitam ki raat hai dhalne ko,
hai andhera gham ka pighalne ko,
(Jara der ismein lage agar)

Na Udhas ho mere humsafar,

Nahi rehnewaali yeh mushkile,
hai yeh agle mood pe manzile,
(meri baat ka tu yakeen kar)

Na udhas ho mere humsafar,

Kabhi dhood lega ye karwa,
Woh nayi jameen naya aasman,
(Jisse dhoodti hai teri naazaar)

Na udhas ho mere humsafar ...

One Phone Policy

2006-05-03T02:30:00.000-07:00

I am going back on my 2 phone policy. I have an office phone and I have a personal phone, to make personal calls.

In February, I could not pay the bill for the Reliance number, because the bill exceeded 6k. I am not able to receive calls in that phone for the past month, and no one has asked why it has been so. Showing that I am talking to people and people are not talking to me.

So from today on, I will stop being a pest, and take care of myself. People who have to talk will talk, wont they?

Eat Well Restaurant, Benz Circle, Vijayawada

2006-05-03T00:53:00.000-07:00

I landed in Mumbai on the 1st of may. Was received by Abe Varghese, went to his room, met Saravana Kumar, another classmate of mine. Found 2 other nice roomies of these guys there, Vishal and Akash.

In the afternoon, Abe wanted to buy a Swatch. So we decided to go to a mall called In Orbit Mall, in Malad. In terms of size, the mall was ok ok. But the ambiance created by the people simply dumbfounded me.

This was the first time I had been to the hep Mumbai. Else it would be a short visit to all tourist places. Women and men dressing so well. Such taste, such style, such physical beauty. And the people generally seem to carry off their styles and fashions very well. Wherever I turned, I could see opulence, indulgence. What else would you call having a vending machine coffee for 25 rupees inside the mall, when it is 5 rupees in every railway station?

I got a bit intimidated by all this. We had lunch there at the mall. I got a quarter portion of mutton biryani for 120 rupees, ended up spending a cool 300 rupees for a lunch for 2 people. Things are so costly. Cost of anything that is not at MRP is 3 times more than what you can get in Chennai or Vijayawada, or for that matter even Bangalore.

It beats me why things must be so costly. The land is worth many crores, each shop pays a rent in lakhs or crores. But why? Its better for me to call Eat Well Hotel, near Benz Circle, Vijayawada for my standard menu à 1 chicken b/l curry, 3 rotis and 1 curd rice for exactly 92 rupees with assured excellent, but unscientific CRM. Life is so much easier this way.

Morals

2006-04-29T20:42:00.000-07:00

It got really hot in Vijayawada last night. So much that I could not sleep at all the whole night. Sweat was pouring down me by the bucketfuls. I tried taking bath twice during the course of the night, but to no comfortable end. It sweated more.

It was 4.30 am and I could stand it no longer. I decided to go out to have a cup of coffee. You have to wear those bloody helmets at all times you ride a motorcycle here in Andhra. Just the other day I paid a fine of Rs. 100 at 5.30 am in the morning! So I thrust my wet head into the helmet and set out to drink some coffee.

There was a gentle breeze, and I felt revived under its caresses. I decided to hit the highway to Guntur, my favorite road. I kept riding for about 45 min at slow speed, enjoying the cool air. My back was aching from the lack of sleep, but I was not tired. My spirits were high. The headlight beams of the trucks were amusing to see in the slight fog that was enveloping the morning. The sun was just about permeating through the murky indifference of the night that was giving up so easily, as happens at this time of the year.

I decided to stop at a motel, in plain terms nothing more than a dhaba, with some cots and chairs lying dispersed by the side of the highway that was getting busier by the moment. An attendant, who turned cold only when I did not want breakfast, but just coffee, greeted me with a cold nod. I got the coffee, and I went around to another small shop to get some matches.

I was lighting my cigarette when I heard a lady’s voice asking for a cup of tea. I turned around wondering what a woman could be doing at such a place at this time. She was about 35 years of age, slightly plump, with long hair and flowers longer than them. She was wearing a very shiny saree that was but a cheap imitation of silk. Her face was all powdered; she smelled of some inexpensive perfume, her lips were colored by a shade of red that could be termed too bright.

It took some time for me to come to terms with the sight of the woman I was seeing. It took only a moment to distinguish her as someone who sells sex. I instinctively walked toward my bike, as if it could shelter me from my own notions of being near such a lady in a public setting. I felt more secure near the motorcycle.

The cold attendant never turned toward her, and she had to ask for her cup of tea more than 5-6 times, when there was no other customer to be served. The shopkeeper was just ignoring her. She then produced some coins as payment. The former satisfied as to the prudence of giving her some tea, gave it to her in the end.

I noted that there was a downcast countenance about the woman. Her eyes were nearly wet by the time she had got her cup of tea. Her face was distorted by some torment that could be discerned even in the dull setting.

I observed that there was some audio playing on a loudspeaker. It was a local made drama in Telugu, with obscenities, as would no parent warrant their children to be afflicted with. Pointed deliberations about embarrassing things, double meaning phrases. There was general laughter at some of the jokes by the truckers present and having an early breakfast.

Sex was being downgraded, sullied and sold. The person who sells it is never happy. The person who buys it is never satisfied. The onlooker is always disgusted, though one may feel all the sympathy for the woman. What is a primal need for an animal is still a primal need for man. Man has grown no more than a dog in morality, though we can state fancy phrases and concepts as accepting prostitution as a necessary evil for the society. We have grown intelligent.

The society maintains its propriety; the individual need not lose morality. For some actions can be classed as necessarily immoral, but can be ignored to avoid the sex drive of men being turned toward adultery and its complications. Aren’t dogs better in morals? They haven’t claimed to possess morals, have they? Prostitution is only an indicator of one individual’s moral decadence? No.

It is the outcome of a moderation of values that is required to make a system work. It is the systematic and cold-hearted work of ingenuity worth our applause. Give a man some easy thrills and he will never question the system. His unfathomable moral gravity will feed him with opium and put him to a guilty, yet tranquil sleep. The greater cause of a group of people or a family can thus be won too.

Feed a country with cheap liquor and opium, there will be no revolution for a hundred years. Feed a man with some thin layer of accession over his actions, and he will not mind complying with another set of morals questionably not his own. When will we grow up? When will we be perfect?

The Night Spent

2006-04-25T22:01:00.000-07:00

Would you care to come?
When I sleep in my home, alone.
There is only deathly silence now
In a mind that was tilled by love’s plough.
I have played the wonderful game
When like the breeze cold you came
To ascend to my summit of caring.
Never even in my dreams daring
Did I ever see my future with you.
Yet this heart listens not to you
Nor it waits for me for direction.
It soars alone to you, void to the discretion
Of my mind that needs only this silence.
The blood of the cold night was spilt
On the carpet of the morning’s warmth felt.
Would you fell this bout of masquerading?
Would you go farther and be my dearest?

Streets of Philadelphia - Bruce Springsteen

2006-04-25T21:56:00.000-07:00

I was bruised and battered and I couldn’t tell
What I felt
I was unrecognizable to myself
I saw my reflection in a window I didn’t know
My own face
Oh brother are you gonna leave me
Wastin´away
On the streets of philadelphia

I walked the avenue till my legs felt like stone
I heard the voices of friends vanished and gone
At night I could hear the blood in my veins
Black and whispering as the rain
On the streets of philadelphia

Ain’t no angel gonna greet me
It’s just you and I my friend
My clothes don’t fit me no more
I walked a thousand miles
Just to slip the skin

The night has fallen, I’m lyin’awake
I can feel myself fading away
So receive me brother with your faithless kiss
Or will we leave each other alone like this
On the streets of philadelphia

The Dance of the Nymphs

2006-04-01T00:56:00.000-08:00

Vanity Fair

2006-03-31T03:55:00.000-08:00

“It is not that speech of yesterday,” he continued, “which moves you. That is but the pretext, Amelia, or I have loved you and watched you for fifteen years in vain. Have I not learned in that time to read all your feelings and look into your thoughts? I know what your heart is capable of: it can cling faithfully to a recollection and cherish a fancy, but it can’t feel such an attachment as mine deserves to mate with, and such as I would have won from a woman more generous than you. No, you are not worthy of the love which I have devoted to you. I knew all along that the prize I had set my life on was not worth the winning; that I was a fool, with fond fancies, too, bartering away my all of truth and ardour against your little feeble remnant of love. I will bargain no more: I withdraw. I find no fault with you. You are very good- natured, and have done your best, but you couldn’t—you couldn’t reach up to the height of the attachment which I bore you, and which a loftier soul than yours might have been proud to share. Good-bye, Amelia! I have watched your struggle. Let it end. We are both weary of it.”

Amelia stood scared and silent as William thus suddenly broke the chain by which she held him and declared his independence and superiority. He had placed himself at her feet so long that the poor little woman had been accustomed to trample upon him. She didn’t wish to marry him, but she wished to keep him. She wished to give him nothing, but that he should give her all. It is a bargain not unfrequently levied in love.

Nothing much seems to change!

2006-03-19T00:54:00.000-08:00

Nothing much seems to change!
She sat there, looking at the sea.
The bows were swaying lest
Her brows break a sweat disturbing.
The lapping waves were gentle on the pier
Lest a drop of them touches her skin silky.
The birds were quiet, unusually,
May not their flapping break this moment for me.
Seems they were moved too to rapture then.
I had a seen a perfect picture alive.
She turned around and our souls met.
I made her mine and it became perfection.
I knew not what the look meant.
The bleakness of the lone shore was gone,
The yearnings seem to have fled to where
I was headed. Toward a perfect love.
Yes, she loves you, you vastness, I know.
You will live to feel it again, while I will go.
To the next life, away this one fulfilled.
It is dullness now, it is dullness now.

Was it you?

2006-03-19T00:39:00.000-08:00

Who lent fire to my wings?
When I was an ugly duckiling,
Paddling hard below the waterline.
When I was awkward and shy
To fly, to explore and to express.

I am now a falcon, that
Roves the skies in proud loneliness
The sky too big for its strength
The earth too low to fly about.
The roar of the winds yet sways it not.

The sea is too wide for this ship.
Yet it chugs on its course straight
The dawns and the dusks occur on it
As late as nature ordains a change.
The storms never have their say.

This vista never changed but, for ages.
The same gliding beauty across the
Vast plain made live by the deep river.
The beholder far across on the horizon
Never noticed to protest the dull skyline.

But the book keeps the poetry flowing.
The verses never wavered in purpose.
You keep occurring in them
Like the sun and the moon,
Lighting up those bleak passages.

Was it you then?

The Dusk's Doing

2006-03-09T03:16:00.000-08:00

I was riding down the slippery road
When I thought to compose this ode.
The sun was setting into the abyss
When I realized my heart amiss.
The flies were all around, with
The dance seeking the light of death.
Life was all around me, rejoice galore.
Another day stolen from the embracing
Goddess of death, escaped bracing.
The drizzle was talking to me verses
My lips were singing the praises
My hands were raised to salute
The music that flowed from the flute.
Oh what beauty I saw in the dusk.
To the heavens my heart bounds
When pray the mind is unbound.
Isn’t it all in the mind
Our world and our way?

A Parting from the World

2006-02-10T22:26:00.000-08:00

What would the world say
When it finds out?
The years would’ve flown by
I would be among the winds scattered.

My duplicity was not unique.
Never do trust their words, I tell
The child being told my story.
They would have made me an example.

My conceit was not uncultivated.
They all shaped me thus through
A force I could resist in vain.
Who would believe one who is guilty?

My vanity was never out of place.
The teachers applauded my arts,
My peers cheered my tastes.
Who would have seen the rent soul within?

My blindness was but an adaptation.
I, then, saw only the agreeable
I was just being comfortable.
Would the ignored tolerate?

My mask of chastity was for approval
From the world that questions me thus,
Amidst a thousand others’ anonymous.
Can I just go unrepentant?

My actions were reactions
To what was spread on my table.
The sweet & the bitter I took up.
Would my innocence be forgiven?

Oh, let me not stop, for I have braved
To tell my truth now.
I have lived in & not with the world.
I go, hence, to my repose, whence I come.

Onward I would march

2006-02-10T22:16:00.000-08:00

The silent breeze that rustles the
Bleak tree, my hair too, it ruffles,
Like the tender caress of my love
And so the evening ended
In a note of fondness.

It had been shortened, time,
By thoughts and music of you.
What is not yours, love.
This evening is but a small consign
To reflect on your perfection.

My path has been alight,
But I have trusted your eyes.
My mind never sought refuge
From the stinging sold deluge.
What kindness is wrought
From your shaping touch.

The directions lose bearing when
The heart seeks your presence.
The oceans would seem silly
If they were to bar my way.
Onward I would march,
Onward I would march…..

Repairing an Electric Stove

2006-02-09T23:53:00.000-08:00

We say I am bad mechanic. I am bad at numbers. I am bad at cooking. I am the worst driver ever. I would like to narrate something that has disproved that I am bad at repairing things.

I have this electric stove at home. It has heating coils, which heat up when the power is turned on. It suddenly stopped working last month, I did not know why. I really felt like cooking and having homemade food, but was forced to eat out.

Last night I couldn’t sleep. I was hungry, and I had to do something about it. So I decided to repair the stove. I have a decent set of tools at home, though I never use them.

The whole underside of the stove was rusted and the screws were all jammed. I first oiled them, found the right spanner and screwdriver, and slowly opened it. It was after all a very simple apparatus. It just had a connection leading from the plug socket to the heating coils.

I carefully opened the socket, which had a lot of small screws and nuts. I made sure that I put the nuts and the bolts together after taking them out, lest I should lose them. I took the coils out, which were wound around a base of non-conducting material.

And I found that a soldering had gone off from one of the end terminals. If I put the coil in contact with the end terminal, the stove would work again. I don’t have a soldering iron at home. So I open the end terminal and I just tied the coil’s end around the screw.

Half the job was done. Now I had to put it all together. This is the most difficult part. Now you have to remember, and also use common sense and a lot of thinking in general. For its too easy to dismantle, but really difficult to undo a dismantling.

But I managed to do it, because the whole thing was organized properly after I had dismantled the stuff. The last of the things assembled, and I switched on the stove. And yes, success. It worked again. The coils were glowing orange.

Now I forgot to do one thing. I had used oil to loosen the rusted screws. I forgot to wipe the oil off. Now the coil was burning because of the oil. Dumb as I was, contrary to the dexter I had been during the past hour, I poured water on the flames that were growing. And you know what happened? I got an electric shock, and the fuse went off. No power at home!

Then I had to change the fuse in the main fuse carrier, then wipe the whole stove clean of water and oil, and then I made rice, then I made a spicy curry. And at 4 am, I was feasting on some well-deserved food!

So I wouldn’t agree as a fact that I am not good at anything. Just that I take the time to do things that I think I am good at. For the others, I just don’t take the time. An idiot is lazy, to think. A fool is someone who thinks he cannot do something he wants to do.

The Complexcess!

2006-02-08T03:31:00.000-08:00

I have seen many people, wonderful, intelligent and charming and so much more, being cowed down with various inhibitions. And the worst among them is that about the body. It is awkward, but the easiest to overcome, because it is merely about something physical.

This feeling gets deeply etched in the mind when people who we depend on, like our parents or siblings reinforce the compliments made by the rotten souls.

It takes a lot to see beauty. And it takes a lot more to appreciate it. Believe me, there are a lot of inhibitions to appreciate beauty. We may sometimes feel that we are compromising ourselves in the eyes of others by calling something beautiful that we think is so. So to buy a shirt of red color, I have to be brave! To go out with someone, I have to be bold enough. The world thinks it is entitled to make opinions. So much is at stake, for this is Vanity Fair.

The gorgeous displays at the shop windows, parlors and boutiques, they all seem to reflect the perfection that man can create. But there is another dimension too to this. They seem to symbolize the symmetry that man is not endowed with bodily. Such things can be shopped, and made to adorn us. Such as fancy phrases, fancier clothes, anything that seems to elevate our pride.

Whence came this need to satisfy, and gain approval? What else is at stake but our vanity? Is this vanity so powerful that it will stop us from being our own self, for some assumed identity?

Yes, this thingy is powerful, especially since we have seen to what extent people will go, the things they could do, the words they could use, the airs they could throw, the level to which they can stoop, to gain approval. To be seen as “cool”. Liposuction. Piercing. Tattoos. Anorexia nervosa. Fuck man. Hey Dude. A lot of other nonsense.

In this fair of sorts, it takes a lot of character to be actually beautiful. It takes a lot more of character to actually feel beautiful. Such people are the gentle giants among us. Who are the grace that shines on our brows. They bring forth the smiles, and the happiness. Whose mother is not beautiful? Whose best friend is not the most handsome? Isn’t a girl that the guy loves the most beautiful woman in the world?

Vanity so sickens us thatg we all want to be the handsome or the gorgeous. Wanting to seem beautiful for a few people is healthy. But wanting to be omnipotent in charm and agreeableness is sickness. I would rather be me.

Apathy

2006-02-07T01:36:00.000-08:00

I was in Vizag last week on work. I had just had a sumptuous lunch, and was standing outside the restaurant with a colleague.

We saw a group of children ambling along the platform, dirty and ragged. There was much commotion among them because the eldest and the tallest among them, a kid of about 6-7, leading an infant monkey by a leash. The leash itself was not looking inviting to be tied up with, made of very coarse material. The neck of the primate was bruised and red from its bondage.

The child was being admired for having such a plaything, by the other younger children. And the child was no exception at getting carried away. He tried to lift up the monkey by its leash. The monkey was choking. So it grabbed the child’s leg, refusing to let go, in mortal fear.

The boy construed this as disobedience, and seemed to be angered. He grabbed a stick, a sort of plywood, and started hitting the monkey on its head. Of all places, its head. The head itself was as small as a cricket ball. To hit it. He was doing it with the sharp edge of the weapon.

The animal started squealing. It was like an appeal for help. I could not hold it longer, and advanced menacingly toward the boy, scolded him for being cruel. He got scared, and tied the leash to a fence and got busy with some other amusement.

The monkey itself was contented to be left alone. Nobody would know when it had been given something to eat.

I was feeling pretty disturbed by this scene. I could not still understand why somebody would injure something so harmless and delicate.

A few minutes later, the whole troupe of the people started begging to people who were coming out of the restaurant. The watchman at the hotel started asking them to go away. They wouldn’t. An argument started between the watchman and a young woman with an infant.

She was dark, very lean, and probably not more than 25 years old. She was starting to shout at the watchman, and he hit her on her face. She never backed off, and the children of the group were raising a din over the whole thing. Other families that engaged in begging somehow managed to take the woman and the children away. The woman did not cry, but was enraged and wounded, and still had the pride not to break down at her destitution.

Now I seemed to understand the cruelty of the child. He was seeing his mother being beaten up, and for what? A notion called Opulence. He was trying in vain to defend her, by shouting. And no good man was there to say a favorable thing in their defense, when even a monkey had seemed to move one.

Why did I not help the woman? Why did I defend the monkey? Is it because I am an animal lover? Is it because animals are more helpless than humans? Is it because I don’t sympathize with humans?

I am not talking about myself. How many of us would try to save a dog that is being stoned for pleasure? Very few. How many of us will try to help a lame beggar who has tripped? Very very few.

We seem to get scared to touch others. Animals seem less disgusting? No, helping a human is more difficult. If I had helped the woman, I would have to answer the society on a whole, which disapproves of begging. So a beggar can be hit, humiliated or killed. Nobody seemingly needs to question. Compassion takes a back seat to the norms laid by God knows whom.

Whereas think about this. I ask the boy not to hit the monkey. He stops. He ignores it. I am satisfied. People think good of me. I go away. Does the hate in the boy go away? It will come back at what will not retaliate.

Misplaced revenge is cruelty.

So there I was, watching the forgotten monkey, till work called me away. I could have taken away the monkey. I did not. I could have bought the boy a chocolate, and told him to be a good boy from now on. I could have intervened when the man was slapping the woman. I did not. Well, nobody did anything.

They walked away, with their loud and vulgar outbursts.

We all walk away with Apathy.

Hiding

2006-01-24T04:30:00.000-08:00

I am hiding.
Within my world.
Unable, unable and unable.
To cope with the vision of perfection.
The world outside lives and celebrates, in vanity
While I turn like I am in my grave.
I am living just like this world.
Nothing more, nothing less.

O’ what do you yearn for my soul?
Is it the rainbow that moves you to joy?
Is it the green pasture that creates raptures?
Is it the love, never to be given?

O’ what do you cry for my child?
Is it the mother that chided you then?
Is it the memory that makes you choke now?
Is it the dream turned sour?

O’ what do you yearn for my man?
Is it the vision denied?
Is it the conceit you detest in you?
Is it the call now being answered?

Grounded

2005-12-24T02:51:00.000-08:00

Oh if but my prayers were answered …..
The soul would be perched on the summit of your excellence.
I was in the sky, soaring across the sun,
The world was so far down,
I had wings of fire to top my heart’s spire.
I have run out of inspiration
In this cessation of beauty to my senses.
Its but a world now, small and naïve.
I have been grounded, forever.
I am a mortal again, with small worries
And smaller securities, and stronger bindings.
No longer would I see the stars so close
Or be blessed by a beauty so proud.

Birthday Contemplation

2005-12-14T01:50:00.000-08:00

My Birthday Contemplation

Today is my birthday. So I decided to dedicate this little essay to myself, after all I have lived for a quarter of a century.

I was sitting in my balcony last night, and reading. Surprisingly, my music system was quiet, and the air was cool. I suddenly got this urge to listen to one song in particular. It was 11.55 pm.

It was a song by the master Jagjith Singh. I coolly lit a cigarette and sat down on the floor of my room. I started thinking. The moon was shining, unlike the season. And I was moved by a sensation so very new to me.

Here I was, born today, 25 years ago, in some strange place. I was created by love or rather by an act that symbolized love. I had grown in snug intervals, always breaking into the open to find a new path ahead. Sometimes I grew like a newly sprouted seed, and then sometimes I grew into a strong solitary tree, and then sometimes into a creeper that longs for support and will perish in the absence of it.

I was a man now, in every right of the word. I made a living on my own. I aspired for a family of my own. I longed to be loved by women. I longed to create, value and forms. I guess it is so much easier for women to create out of love. The most primitive and highest being bearing a child. But man has to love and explore and create to be satisfied.

In the course of the contemplation, I realized something. I had casually killed a fly that tried to bite me. And I saw many other flies too. The one that I had killed fell limply to the ground, while ants were gathering for a feast. Isn’t it a big cycle? Life feeding on death and death feeding on life. If the both can consume each other, then aren’t life and death the same? The creation of something, maybe love, joy, emotion….

When I live I will create what can be felt now. When I die I will be God. I would have created a new life for the world, by being absent from it. The world would be in a new dimension in the absence of one of its members. I would have reshaped its destiny, even by my death, just as I had altered it by my insignificant birth. I would have escaped from a thousand sorrows, missed a million joys and a multitude of illusions.

Life and death play parallels. Man kills a thousand animals during his lifetime and maybe even a few human beings. Man brings new men into this world, as death simultaneously takes them out of the physical dimension. But where do we all go? Where does death lead us? It cant be that a man dies and its just like a fuse that gets burnt and the electricity just vanishes, lost forever. Life will regenerate into life, even when death play the fiddle close to our ears. Pain will regenerate into pleasure, and pleasure into pain. It’s a big circle, with many concentric circles within, endless. And in the middle is the man, the Supreme Being, with the consciousness and the knowledge of life. He is the perfection towards which our souls move, till deaths do us apart from life. And man will be perfect after death, because death is perfection in our harried souls, the culmination of our strivings and supercilious consciousness

The Going Away

2005-12-11T21:39:00.000-08:00

Last night, I was travelling from Chennai. I was sitting in the bogey, waiting for the train to move. It was late in the night, and there was the usual commotion that precedes a long distance train.

Opposite me was a young chap, with crew cut hair and tough built body. He was having a loud farewell from his friends. When the train left, he was kissing their hands, and the scene was emotional for the observer and for the man too.

I learnt from him later that he was a new recruit to the BSF, leaving Chennai for training. He was going away from home, his girl friend and his childhood friends….all that for the first time in his life.

I told him that not everyone gets such a wonderful farewell, and that he was a lucky guy. He disclosed that all the friends who were with him are army aspirants too, and only he among them had gotten selected.

We all grow up after the first time we go away from home. Till then there are traces of the boy, who keeps showing up once in a while, in a playful moment. After that, its all the man stuff all the way. The friends’ circle, the kind of conversations you have, the kind of jokes you crack, your wardrobe, your language, and all your perceptions. For some, this happens at a very early stage, and for these people there is no major adjustment needed in their attitudes. But for people like the guy I am talking about, and for me too, it would take a very major change that will and has happened.

It is amazing this life thing. It makes you go through so many things, and yet people change always for the better for themselves, this is my own opinion.

Pleasure.....

2005-12-10T02:47:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, I decided to buy a water heater, and I did just that. After that I went home and heated up some water and soaked my feet in it. I was listening to some music and what indulgence! It felt like warmth was entering through my soles and permeating throughout my body. Then I cut my toenails and massaged my feet with oil. Oh what pleasure! Oh what pleasure!

Then a real hot shower, in candle light. Farida Khannum was glorifying my hedonism with her fleeting voice and wonderful lyrics…. Jab us zulf ki bath chali…the water was steaming, like my senses at that time.

We are all hedonists. We will all the time seek pleasure over pain, not because pleasure is good to feel rather than pain, but because pleasure is such a convenient allegory to the assurance of existence. Pleasure creates a stratum where pain seems too remote to be able to affect us. It is like a veil that hides the undesirable from us, though not fully, but enough to assure us the permanence of its expression.

The expression of pleasure is infinitely more complex than the experiencing of it. More difficult is giving pleasure, i.e., making pleasure happen. That is because, in my opinion, pleasure seeks a finer niche than pain, a finer point to converge upon. Pleasure always occurs in multiple planes, with each plane that is surpassed leading to a higher level and higher sensitivity.

Pleasure seeks a gratification of a sense or a need to fulfill, like water that must flow down, if there is a downgrade. So pleasure exists as an object, shapeless and expressionless, till it finds a channel. Then it flows into the spirit, and starts ruling it while it can, till reality steps in rudely. When reality comes into the picture, we realize that we had been put to sleep by pleasure and this creates guilt and moroseness.

What prevails....

2005-11-18T02:27:00.000-08:00

Empty spaces were meant to be filled
By the mighty fires, that start as simmering
Embers in the meadows of Eden.
The vacuum that once drew the molten
Metals together has become greater,
With the fire that died, the metals forever
Remained as distinct as conceived, as they
Fell through into the depths of the earth,
May be to be brought out again, into
Yet another birth and ensuing struggle.
Disparate persons seek a comforting
Fire to come to terms with cold life;
Who go back to the origin of innocence
With the emotions invoked mutually.
There is a calm before a fury,
Agitation before a failure and
Clarity before happiness.
And cold prevails before a fire is needed…
And solitude prevails before love is needed.

The Ghost

2005-10-08T23:42:00.000-07:00

I am a fragrance that was
Once lost in the clouds.

I am a god who was
Once revered in silence.

I am an emotion that was
Once denounced as remorse.

I am a meditation that was
Once broken by a breeze.

I am a tree that was
Once trimmed by a woman.

I am a counselor who was
Once dismissed as a mistake.

I am an elixir that was
Once reproached as a malady.

I am a magical potion that was
Once possessed by a few sorcerers.

I am a mystical herb that was
Once shunned as a wound.

I am a truth that was
Once rooted to earthly reality.

I am a book that was
Once read in obscurity.

I am a brook that was
Dammed by invisible walls.

I am a placid lake that was
Once accused of destruction.

I am the universe that was
Once believed to come around the earth.

I am the man who was
Once loved for the complexity.

I am the raging fire that was
Once sought for its warmth.

I am the silence that was
Once the language of the hearts.

I am the music that
Once made the angels sing.

I am the object of life that was
Once conceived as a theory.

I am the reflection of what was
Once an act of love.

I am a thought that
Once met a poet.

I am you who
Once were innocent.

I am the ghost of the day that was
Once your best to remember.