Steam off!

To belong to a group, to feel one with many others....this must be one of our Strongest motivations. It seems to be ingrained in us at a very deep level, for we act upon it without giving in a moment's thought. And at times, we go to great lengths to feel one with a bigger mass of people, inspite of having a slight nagging doubt about the sanity level of this mass. There's security in numbers.

So one of our biggest threats is to be left out of a group. To be excommunicated. To be alone, unwanted, unrecognized, outcasted. It's as if, as social animals, our chances of survival and success are quite slim if we're on our own and without the support of a group (which is also true to a large extent).

The best reward you can give someone is to bring him inside the cosyness of a group and shower him with attention and adulation--- make him a small scale superstar. And the biggest punishment is to put him on the fringes, out of the coveted circle and make him an untouchable. But for that, you need to establish the greatness, the specialty and uniqueness of the group. People should feel, 'Uh, this is where I get my orgasms, this bunch,' and then you have it! They will follow the group like sheep and salivate for the biggest reward..... or stay the hell outta attracting the biggest punishment.

Of course, this doesn't work on idiots who aren't bothered about the carrots and sticks.

Becoming such an idiot should be one of the subtlest but most important goals of your life. Developing a devil-may-care attitude and manifesting it at every given opportunity should be your top priority.

Not that this will get you thrown out, as a result of which you'll starve and die. Na! At the deepest level, you're one with the whole universe and there's no manipulation at that level. You're always taken care of, no matter what!

But having a don't care attitude frees you from all superficial relations. Sooner it happens, the better for you.

Anna Hazaare Zindabaad...

...that's what little Eeshu was screaming on day 2 of the fast. Then he got bored and switched over to other things. Looks like the rest of the world(that is, TV watching middle class India) isn't yet bored with Anna. This euphoria will continue for a few more days until the IPL Cricket fever rises and grips everyone's throat.

Who doesn't have issues with corruption(other than those who enjoy its fruits)? The scams that are making headlines everyday are alarming, so is the apparent shamelessness of those who are perpetrating it, or defending themselves. At a more personal level, I have trouble with it when the telephone lineman doesn't give me a connection until I grease his palms. I cringe when my cousin who's a police constable talks freely about his exploits at making big money in shady ways, because he's paid a bomb to get to that post in the first place.

So when Anna hazaare and others come forward with a fast unto death to root out this menace and bring accountability to those in power, it's like a fresh breeze amidst a hell of a gutter smell. I feel like dancing when the Government agrees to setting up a 10 member commitee, with 50 percent participation from the civil society in drafting the Jan Lokpal bill. It's as if the revolution of Egypt and the middle east has arrived in India too.

After the celebrations and break-dances subside, these are some random thoughts:

* Who selects the five member commitee representing Civil society? What's the Criteria? ( it appears now that they're selected by Anna Hazaare. Super!)

* The Jan lokpal bill that's proposed by the agitating members has some serious issues to be dealt with. It gives unprecedented power to just a few members--power even over the Supreme court of India! And these members, those of the Lokpal commitee are to be selected by an elite group of citizens (Nobel laureates, Bharat ratna award winners, Retired Supreme court judges, International award winners etc). And the decision of the Lokpal commitee cannot be questioned either!.... Do we need to bring in a hammer to get rid of a headache?

* If the fence guards the garden, who guards the fence? With such sweeping powers at its disposal, what's the guarantee that the Lokpal commitee will be free and fair and incorruptible? Are the members of the commitee including its chairman too subject to its jurisdiction? Either these issues are glossed over or nobody's explaining it clearly. Two interesting articles which dissect the Anna movement...this and this.

* This revolution ended in just 5 days and everyone's happy! Uhh!! And they're saying, it's just a beginning. Beginning of what? More such shorty shorty revolutions, telecast live on 24 hour newschannels which'll make all happy? The agitators are talking of electrol reforms, judicial reforms, etc, etc. So who'll sit for fast the next time to force the government to implement them? Blackmailing is good as long as it's done to get an icecream. Annaji says that 'if this is blackmailing, then as long as I'm alive, I'll do it.' What if every other joker goes on a hunger strike to enforce his ideas? What if the agitating Gujjars sit for hunger strike demanding reservations? How about similar hunger strikes in both Karnataka and Maharashtra over the border issues? What if the Kashmir separatists sit for 'anshan' asking for separate statehood? And imagine a media whipped up frenzy which portrays these agitations as 'the next freedom struggle'? Will the government start giving in to all these demands just because you won't eat food until somebody listens?

* There's a lot of Anna worship going on at present, which is likely to increase in the days to come. This elevation of someone to a demigod status and denouncing anyone who disagrees--this is slightly disconcerting and dangerous. Anyone who disagrees with Anna or takes an opposing view in the debate is likely to be branded a cynic or in cahoots with the corrupt. It was amusing to watch the doubters get cornered and soundly thrashed on National debate on Television, although they raised some valid issues and points. Anna-fanaticism ain't cool even if the old dude is God incarnate.

* I'm sure there'll be lots of tu-tu main-main in the coming days between Anna's people and those in the power corridors. And Anna hazaare will be in the news for many wrong reasons. He'll say something and then retract it or say, 'that was in another context'. His past will be dug and some unsavory bits will be held up(like his support for Raj thackeray). He's already displayed his awe for Sonia Gandhi on one or two occasions(and denounced for that by a few who in turn got thrashed by the rest). He's gonna make a fool of himself but that's okay, I guess.

* Gaurav Sabnis at Vantage point has a balanced view of this whole episode. The old man from Ralegaon, who was relatively unknown until now is getting a bit overwhelmed by this National icon status. People want a hero and they've got one in Anna Hazaare. It'll be tough for him to maintain the herogiri. The awe-struck devotees need to realize that he's human too. That one will be difficult.

Change's in the air but these are early days to call it a revolution or a second freedom struggle. Anna is not a Gandhi fighting three hundred years of foreign oppression. Overhauling the system will not happen overnight. Yet this is a promising start. Instead of taking extreme positions in hailing Anna as a second Mahatma or rubbishing everything, the need of the hour is to think through patiently and stay sane.

Kothigalu...

It's funny how things which are sacred and sacrosanct in your younger years appear foolish and downright stupid once you get past that age, once you grow up a bit and gain some perspective.

When you look back, you squirm uncomfortably for those actions, those thoughts, that attitude which your younger self possessed. You want to travel back in time and kick that bloody fella for being such an ass. You want to shake him up and say, 'hey, wake up. you don't know what the eff you're doing.'

And that idiot is screwing up your life, because what he does will shape your life down the years and you'll have trouble cleaning up all the shit that he caused in the first place.

In the middle of a 'friendly' arguement, she says, 'I know what you did and what you said, 'then'. How could you be so insensitive and such a boot-licking chummy like all those other idiots?.' And I wanna protest saying, 'It wasn't me. He was someone else, so kindly excuse. I'm not him.'

Of course, I am a different person now. And a few years later, I'll be somebody else. Maybe my future self will look back at my present self and feel a terrible discomfort for my current, sacred, precious actions and thoughts. He'll think, 'What a joker! what was he thinking back then? what the hell was he doing there?'

Even more horrible is to live in ignorance of ones own foolishness. And to continue plodding on with the same mindset, the same actions.

Wake up and you realise your lunacy. Try to fix things and years later, you'll have another awakening which'll make you embarassed for all those fixes you tried. Don't wake up at all and you're a gone case.

Being a perpetual idiot seems to be the default human condition, even for the wisest monkey amongst us.

Let this not be the future...

...but it looks like we're heading there! Last night we had smses saying 'don't go out if it rains, it could be an acid rain because of the nuclear meltdown in Japan,....etc.' The rumour mills are busy; even we're tempted to send it across to everyone we know.

One earthquake of this magnitude, a tsunami and the world's shaking. What'll happen if the 2012 scenarios playout, with the alignments with the galactic centre of 21st december creating major earthquakes? What could be the magnitude of destruction and loss and chaos that'll follow such events? Are we ready for that? Can a spiritual awakening help us sail through such catastrophes? Can we(can I) make a cut in so short a period? Practically, I'm bloody cynical, however intensely I wish for a shift in consciousness, for an explosion of Awareness. Let me be wrong.

I've been following brady's blog on and off over these years. He has blogged about the tsunami, the aftereffects, about his daughter who's staying near the turbulent zone. And this is a beautiful piece, shared by Ananda. Stunning.

What's warm and comforting is the reaction of the survivors of this catastrophe. There's no rioting, no looting, no chest-beating dance! The Japanese are picking up the pieces, gathering whatever is left and starting all over again, in silent dignity. It's normal for them--this strong community feeling is a part of their living, but can we imagine such composure here or elsewhere? If such destruction strikes us, I guess, more people will die in stampedes and after-riots than because of actual events.

There are new ideas and perspectives from Karthik and Kavitha. I'm waiting for more of them on their site, Vishwa Amara.

How to define this...

It's so easy to get emotional and all sentimental.

I was standing on the empty crossroads, listening to the rustle of the old peepul tree, watching my son throw stones at the calm evening river. Part of me was lost in the beauty of the moment,
awe-struck into silence. And the other part was recalling many incidents over the years of my childhood, which were related to this place, to this peepul tree, to the evening breeze of this river. I wanted to pull back those moments from the past and relive them!

And there was this grief that those moments and those people had just passed and faded away, out of reach and gone forever.

There were many places that kindled this joyful grief. I was visiting my native village after nearly a decade. The village hadn't changed much, apart from a few things here and there. Kids had become adults, adults had grown old and fragile and the old had departed. The Sea still roared with a silent majesty. The river flowed effortlessly into the vast blue. Familiar faces smiled back on the roads with 'how're you?' It was like I'd visited it only last month.

Yet there I was, trying to hold on to the memories these places evoked in me. Fighting an invisible pain. Not knowing how to heal this wound. Not even knowing why this wound exists in the first place.

No, it's got nothing to do with 'stay in the present, let go of the past' thing. This emotion beats my understanding. It's not grief... grief or sorrow is not the right word.

It's something subtler.

update: the answer seems to be Mono no aware(the pathos of things)

it's a japanese term which describes the awareness of the transience of things, along with a gentle sadness at their passing.

Back to navel-gazing...

It's like waking up after years and years of deep slumber. Kinda disoriented in the beginning. Then you try to make sense of the surroundings, try to remember things, get adjusted to the light, overcome the initial nausea and soon you're getting clear within....

.......... The mood was a bit sullen at home when suddenly tejas mumbled some nonsense, and said 'painthyow'. We laughed out aloud, the spirits brightend. I ask the kid, 'whats the meaning of that 'paintyow', and he says, 'it means, my head'.

........I was thinking about what G said long back...."your thoughts and emotions exist, they are real, the world you create is real and has a life of its own, at a different level". For me, at the moment, it's only theory, but maybe he said it from his experience, from viewing things directly. If it's true, I wonder at the beauty of it, the complexity and the way it's allowed to come into existence without disturbing(or disturbing at times) the dominant physical reality.

It also creates a hollow in my heart, because of all the dirty thoughts and nasty daydreams I conjure up every now and then. Do they exist and is that drama continuing at some level? How does the impurity or purity of that existence affect my reality here? Is reality one big kaleidoscope of all these subworlds intersecting and coagulating together?

And what exactly is reality? In enlightenment, what happens? Is it like waking up and realising that all this was a dream, and then going back into the dream world, but with the awareness that this is a dream from which I have woken up? What's that I wake up to? Are there layers here, say a higher reality to which I open up even after the first awakening, and on and on? Where does it end?

..........There's a small review of my blog, here. The writers over there have a talent for taking apart a blog, scrutinise the mental health of the writer and then use all filthy/foul expressions in a hilarious way to tear the blog into shreds. Not always, of course, because sometimes they're quite generous when they come across a superb blog. Also, their suggestions for improving one's writing are good. I was expecting a bashing over there and was sharpening my knives to cut their innards incase they got nasty, but no, they spared me, along with some insightful comments. If you have a blog and want some fun, submit and get ready for a reality check.

.......... 'Time's compressed further,' kar said. '7 and a half hours now'. You may not believe this mumbo jumbo but think...doesn't time zip ahead these days? We're already in the beginning of 2011, and it's only like yesterday where we were told,"....by 2011 there will be this and this, and you're expected to be that and something else." 2010 yacked hard at your balls and before you could gather yourself and blink, it escaped. Now you have another bitch in front of you, a supposedly meaner and nastier one. What's in store this year?

This will be year of shedding clothes, for every retard on this planet. People are gonna get naked upto their bones. The signs are already bloody ominous, if you're awake and are watching. How different will the world be from our current situation, on Jan 29th 2012.....Can't hardly wait!

Fear rules our lives

The ayodhya verdict will be out today, by 3.30 pm. There's anticipation that riots will break out, people will kill each other in the name of their god-forsaken religion. Looks like we perpetuate these events by expecting them to happen, by saying 'dont do this, let's remain calm, etc'.

The schools/colleges are closed. Banks, govt. offices too. Not the IT Companies. Many have a half day work scheduled. My office wants me to be here by 7 and leave before 2. They want us to work, no matter what. If they declare a day off, they'll tell us to come work on a Saturday. Scumbags! I look forward to the day these corporates are destroyed never to wake up
again in all eternity.

Of course, we arrive at work, resenting, kicking, praying that no untoward incident happens. We work. We go home. 'You are a slave here', nobody says but it's written all over, you just gotta see and recognise it. Even the topmost manager is a bonded labourer here, just that he's a slave with the biggest dick.

Yesterday night, some of us, maybe a few hundreds, prayed for peace at 10. We channeled golden light to the entire country praying that in this battle between the light and darkness, let light prevail, let every individual listen to the voice of sanity and not destroy another life, another's livelihood. I remember Soluntra's advice--that when you send light to a person or to a place, for healing, you've first decided that that person/place is sick and needs healing. So that 'sickness' is reinforced and the effect of healing isn't longlasting or effective. Instead, she says, imagine that place/person as already divine, already healed, already glowing with their innate light and you're just recognising this divinity!

I think what she says makes much more sense. I wanna do this today, do it now.

I wonder if we can move into a new age without this turmoil, without this churning. without cutting out each others' innards. Is it possible? Have we learnt our lessons? Do we even know that there are lessons? Do we even pause to think, to look up, to ponder over the bigger picture?

Ah...this!

I'm standing in that corridor, welcoming people with a smile, cracking a few bland jokes with friends, feeling happy and generally content with life when suddenly it hits me. This realization. As if it was hovering above me all the time, waiting for a chance to jump on me. You call it satori? Not so powerful or earth shattering but similar. And it leaves me thinking, 'yeaaah, so this is what it's all about....'

The realization was simple. That I could no longer be standing there, smiling at people or patting friends' backs. It all could end any moment. And I had no control over this. All these relations, this camaraderie, this deep affection--just a whisper and it vanishes. So fragile! And it's not my whisper either. Like there's this wedding party in some village in a remote part of Afghanistan and all are happy and dancing, and then, there's this faint sound, someone's pressed a button somewhere and moments later, there's only fire and smoke and ash and blood all over. No, not that drastic but you get the drift, right, this someone somewhere thing....

As this realization washes over me, I stand there wondering how it takes me so long to find this out. That those you hold close to your heart, those who held your hands, those who showed you a way--all of them whom you consider your own--, and this purpose of life you get to define over the years.....one gesture is enough to crumble this world. Saw it happen with a few others. Thought it might not happen with me. Had this holier than thou attitude.

It liberates, kinda. Doesn't depress. The more fragile things are, the more valuable they become. So I stand there for the next part of the hour, enjoying every moment of those interactions. Let it end, but while it lasts, I'll savour every last drop of it.

(image courtesy: Christian bothner)

Eat your poison...Swallow your darkness

Only rants for now...

I have issues with people who say, 'don't go by surface appearances, look deeper'. And it gets all the more troublesome when these dual personalities--something on the surface but something else deep within--are those who're close to you. Or who were close but not anymore but still pretending to be(more layers of duality here!). What's deep within is what reflects on the surface. If you're evil, it's there for all to see. If you're good and decent, be good and decent everywhere--in your behaviour, speech and in your deepest thoughts and emotions. Simple sa funda!

If you can't recognise these double-standards, then

a) the trickster is a real smart-ass in concealing his true colours
b) he's plain lucky because you're dumb
c) you know what is what, but are scared to admit--to others, to yourself-- so you pretend.

Choose your pick. Don't wax philosophy.

* * *

Desipundit has died. Not that I was a big fan. I visited it only sporadically and got a few good posts to read. Then it was there, just another blog-aggregator. Yet, I'm saddened that it's gone.

Barry is no more. I'd read just a few of his posts, that too at the threshold point when he blogged about his cancer. His blog too was there, one among the millions in the vast landscape of the blogworld.

I don't consider myself too sentimental. But when something ends, when some relation snaps, when you don't see someone anymore, I can't take it as if nothing has happened at all. Maybe it's a bloody cliche but something in me goes for a toss when I realise that someone I know is no more. Or that I'll not be able to see or meet that person now onwards. Doesn't matter if that person is very close or just a faint acquaintance.

It doesn't apply only for those who die. Even when the dude who's sitting next to my seat for the past 3 years submits his resignation, I feel a lump in my throat. Maybe I shouldn't feel but it's there.

Or when someone who's been a friend for a decade leaves, it's kinda difficult to move around as if he didn't exist at all.

Wish I were more hardened and detached like many others.