viva la vida

Mann ki Baat

2018-06-30T01:06:00.002+05:30

Never been political.

Not with Family, not with Friends, not with strangers. Never felt like taking sides.

Never felt the need.

Have always been patriotic. Dreamt of joining the army as a kid. Never had the physical requirements for it though. Still, never political.

Voted in a General Election twice, State Election twice. Was a Presiding Officer of a Polling Booth once; couldn’t vote normally. Still made sure I sent my Mail-In vote. Proud to.

Always voted Congress. Don’t blame me. I’m from Patiala. The Captain did a lot for this city when he was in Power, I saw it with my own juvenile eyes. Saw progress here. Liked it.

Selfish, yes. Always voted Congress.

Heard the accusations about the Centre when they were in Power. Believed them. Still believe them. Although young and immature, still felt disgusted and cheated. Considered Change when the time came. Re-considered. Voted the same way I always have, if only for loyalty to my city, and naught else. Although agreed that saffron felt like the right choice in the Centre.

Heard great things about Gujarat. Visited it a lot of times in the last three years. Saw good things. No lies, indeed. Solar Panels covering the canals and everything. Everything. Asked locals. Locals happy.

Reassured.

…

Subtle changes though.

Felt unnerving, but too little to register.

Subtle. Changes.

Each act, each occasion, is worse than the last, but only a little worse. You wait for the next and the next. You wait for one great shocking occasion, thinking that others, when such a shock comes, will join with you in resisting somehow.

No such shock came.

Subtle changes.

Shocks come in various forms though.

Apathy is weird. It comes as a shock when you realise you’re guilty of it.

Felt guilty one day. Don’t blame me though, I just saw a video of some guy accused by a mob of cow-slaughter being dragged naked through a rural U.P. street, happily escorted by the police.

Forgive me, I’m not used to these things, but I saw a video of some guy accused by a mob of cow-slaughter being lynched, to use the technically correct term, and then I felt conflicted. I questioned my stances and my motivations, and I felt slightly guilty.

Felt guilty because of my fucking apathy.

Never really felt like it before.

Maybe because I never had to. Maybe because not a lot like it had happened before.

Didn’t even take up a whole news cycle. Bit of an uproar but the nation doesn’t deser… want to know about it, really.

Subtle... fucking... changes.

And unnerving, now that it registers.

The News is the news as long as it doesn’t affect you. When it does affect you, it’s fucking catastrophic. For that one cattle trader, it was. It was, for his family, and for everyone like him.

Just because a piece of news isn’t shocking just because it is just a little bit of escalation in absurdity from yesterday’s news, does not mean it isn’t worth being shocked about.

It fucking is.

But the one great shocking occasion, when tens or hundreds or thousands will join with you, never comes. That’s the difficulty. If the last and worst act of the whole regime had come immediately after the first and smallest, thousands, yes, millions would have been sufficiently shocked — if, let us say, the gassing of the Jews in ’43 had come immediately after the ‘German Firm’ stickers on the windows of non-Jewish shops in ’33. But of course, this isn’t the way it happens. In between come all the hundreds of little steps, some of them imperceptible, each of them preparing you not to be shocked by the next. Step C is not so much worse than Step B, and, if you did not make a stand at Step B, why should you at Step C? And so on to Step D.

Never been political.

Not with Family, not with Friends, not with strangers. Never felt like taking sides.

Never felt the need.

Have always been patriotic.

Never took a stand at Step B, never took a stand at Step C. Don’t want to wait till Step E, and this recent Step D seemed surreal for my country.

Felt that it needed to be said.

The statements in bold italics above are from "They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45" by Milton Mayer.

Viva La Vida

2016-06-04T01:01:00.003+05:30

I have not written in... years.
Years?
It seems weird to say it, but it's true.
The last few years have been new. I have experienced the strange feeling of (finally) being a grown up. The strange feeling of the security net being withdrawn under your feet, and your flaws looming ever larger above your head.
The feeling... of this realization, both frightening and challenging that, this you, is the final you. You have metamorphosized into your final form.
You are now a person - in the real world.
No more 'try ball'.

With this change, with this growth, have come new dilemmas, have come new responsibilities.

Like money.
It is no more an endless supply (not that it ever was; nor rather, as it always seemed to be, given enough persuasion). That well is dry.
And a new well has been dug. My own. And I am responsible for it.

And with this great responsibility, comes great power. The future.

Most of my friends and I are shining examples of the second or third generation of the middle class. It's true, whichever way you look at it. I have rarely seen the people I socialize with (the only people, truth be told, who will read this) having had the privilege of tapping into a family fortune. The reason for that is simple - there is no family fortune.
Or more commonly - your family's money is not for you. It is for your children, and their children.
Not for you. You work, you slave, and you better well fucking add to it.

I am 25 years old today. I have, at the very fucking best, and if medicine basically becomes miraculous - 50 more years to live. I have already lived a third of my life. In ten more years, if I'm extremely lucky and I have settled down - I will have lived half of my life.
And so will have she who I have hopefully settled down with.

And what will we have done?
Found a mate. And reproduced.

You know, most apes achieve that. And they reproduce.

The fact that two people love each other so much, that they are willing to commit the rest of their lives to being together, merits a deeper meaning than to just reproduce.
It merits, at the very least, a partnership - a partnership to live together and experience new things together.

Lovely.

We deal with our messes together, sweetheart!
We are become one.

But then the center of a lot of lives becomes money. Yet we all end up earning it, somehow.

Since we're all going to be investing in "property", and since we're all dabbling in "stocks" and oh this or that "startup", and neither and naught of these things are going to make us millionaires - I say fuck...this...shit.

Unless you think you have a winning idea (remember, we all think we do...('bas time chahiye yar')), which you want to invest in and make a fortune off of - other than that, what is it all, but pointless? We will do nothing but sit on money and hope it goes somewhere.

It would be infinitely better if all that I could ever earn were used to travel.
And not to fucking Manali, or Shimla, or Goa.

You know what I want to do? And what I hope and plan my wife and I are going to do?
We are going to fucking Africa, and then South America and Machu Pichu, and Cambodia... and then? Nope... not done.
We are going to see things, Notre Dame, Angkor Wat and the Pyramids and the Sphinx, swim in the Mediterranean, go to Alaska, and... - We are going to see everything we can, before the end.
Fuck...
Yes...

Fuck yes.

Listen, I don't know what the future holds for me. Or for you.

Insignificance is inevitable.

I just want to experience as much of this trip as I can.

For it certainly seems fleeting, life.

Viva La Vida.

Klexos: The Art of Dwelling on the Past

2015-12-26T02:21:00.000+05:30

This is not an original anything.

I just wanted to share something beautiful.

Please play the below clip, and if you like, read the subtitles below it.

It is poetry.

"Your life is written in indelible ink. There's no going back to erase the past, tweak your mistakes, or fill in missed opportunities. When the moment's over, your fate is sealed. But if you look closer, you notice that the ink never really dries on any of our experiences. They can change their meaning, the longer you look at them. Klexos. There are ways of thinking about the past that aren't just nostalgia or regret, a kind of questioning that enriches the experience after the fact. To dwell on the past is to allow fresh context to dribble in on the years, and fill out the picture. And keep the memory alive. And not just as a caricature of itself. So you can look fairly at a painful experience, and call it by its name.
Time is the most powerful force in the universe. It can turn a giant into someone utterly human, just trying to make their way through. Or tell you how you really felt about someone, even if you couldn't at the time. It can put your childhood dreams in context with adult burdens or turn a universal consensus into an embarrassing fad. It can expose cracks in a relationship that once seemed perfect. Or keep a friendship going by thoughts alone, even if you'll never see them again.
It can flip your greatest shame into the source of our greatest power. Or turn a jolt of pride into something petty, done for the wrong reasons. Or make what felt like the end of the world look like a natural part of life.
The past is still mostly a blank page, so you may be doomed to repeat it. But it is still worth looking into, if it brings you closer to the truth.
Maybe it's not so bad to dwell on the past. And muddle in the memories. To...stem the simplification of time, and put some craft back into it. Maybe we should think of memory itself as an art form, in which the real work begins as soon as the paint hits the canvas.

And remember that a work of art is never finished, it is simply abandoned."

There are good times, and bad. And then there are the getting-better times.

2015-01-16T22:37:00.000+05:30

This post is about football.

No, this post is about Manchester United. It won't interest anyone who doesn't have an interest in football. So there.

I often see stats thrown up by television pundits and rival fans alike, about how we seem to be doing as bad, or sometimes even worse, than last season. This seems to be a great example of how stats never really show the full story.

The season David Moyes joined us, we had just won the premier league by an unexpectedly huge margin, been robbed of a great champions league run by an unfair red card, and had just lost to retirement, the greatest manager to have ever lived.

We were on a high. And then suddenly it seemed as if a part of us died. We were un-creative, toothless in attack, spineless in defense. But most of all, after one of the most successful periods ever, we were, as a club, in a place where few of us had ever seen ourselves - desperately clawing for a direction, a vision; we seemed to be lacking our basic identity - an identity which SAF had instilled in all of our minds (not only the players, but the supporter base as a whole).

It was a downward slope. Starting from a bad transfer window, going towards a bad pre-Christmas half, and ending with one of the worst ever spells our club has ever seen.
It was, to put it mildly, heart-breaking.

So why is this season better? Why, seemingly, are we more supportive of LVG than we were of Moyes?
Well, simply it's because even though we may have roughly the same results and points as last time, there seems to be a definite uplift in the direction our club is heading. It is - a record-breaking transfer window with some really good signings, a manager who speaks his mind rather than simply acknowledging the greatness of the club he inherits, and (dare I quote him) a philosophy (hopefully).

We had a good run, the last few matches; before Southampton exposed our undoubtedly important weaknesses. LVG seems like a good, nay, great manager, but he still has to earn my respect, as I'm sure SAF had to, back in the day, when I wasn't even born. But atleast to me, things seem to be going in the right direction, overall.

We are in a bad time, yes.

But we are moving towards the good times, slowly but surely.

God I love this club.

Suddenly, 'Grown Up!'

2014-11-13T15:16:00.000+05:30

All my life, I've had this misconception about adulthood. When you're younger, adults seem so alien. A different class of people as it were; people who seem to know what they're doing!
I half expected a switch in my brain to flick on when I turned 18, that would suddenly make me an adult.

But of course, no such thing happened. 18 years is just an arbitrary temporal achievement that most countries in the world have decided makes a person worthy of driving certain vehicles, looking at naked people online, having the judgement to vote for one's leaders and consuming mind-altering substances.

No such switch flicked on, and life continued, much as it had ever done. I still liked playing video games, I still disliked exams, I still had no idea what I wanted to do in the future and I still watched copious amounts of pornography, much as I had ever done.

Relevant Ice Cream Comic #1

Oh, and college is a strange place. You are technically an adult, but you are still treated mostly like a wild adolescent teenager. There are still abstract constructs and rules to keep you feeling like a just-grew-hair-down-there, clumsy, stupid kid. There is a curfew, there are meal times, there's fucking home-work. Of course, it would be highly impractical to not have these things, it is an educational institution after all, and not a four year long party...
Who am I kidding, it is a four year long party, with intermittent breaks for exams to keep you from going too crazy. But that's not the point of this post.

The point is, you never really get to feel grown up those first four years of 'adulthood'. I went from wanting to just play video games all day and hating exams to wanting to just play video games, hating exams and hanging out with a bunch of awesome people who felt the same way.
That's it! I just went from doing all these things by myself to being in a group of people who did all these things. It was simply an incredible feeling of validation. A feeling of 'Oh fuck yeah, I'm not alone in this shit!'

What being an adult gives you is not sudden wisdom and insight about the realities of the world, what it gives you is an excuse. A ticket, to do all the things you ever did, without feeling the slightest bit guilty or having to worry about authority. It feels like a permission slip that goes - 'By reason of this arbitrary amount of time that has passed since Angad was pulled from the womb, he is now allowed to feel like he can do whatever the fuck he wants. Signed, Society.'

Relevant Ice Cream Comic #2

The operative words being 'feel like'. Since, no, you can't very well do whatever the fuck you want all the time. The real world has this weird thing called 'consequences', and this abstract concept called 'the feelings of others.' They're the constraints that keep you from going super-crazy all the time, like you absolutely want to.

No, I realised you don't grow up with the flick of a switch. No, I did not suddenly know what I was doing!

Actually I'm still not sure how you grow up. All I've realised is, that as the clock keeps ticking, life keeps gradually getting more complex. There comes a point when you feel that maybe it's now time you stopped mooching off your parents' pay cheques, and so, as a consequence, it's time you started to look for employment.

But then you also realise that this employment thing will eat into your busy schedule of playing video games, going out with friends and generally being a lazy slob. And it sucks! It sucks so incredibly bad! Because even though it's been six years since you were legally allowed to view obscene images on the internet, you still don't feel any different.

Relevant Calvin & Hobbes

Sure, now you've got a job, people look to you to make important decisions. Decisions that suddenly have large impacts on either large sums of money or other people's lives; as if suddenly you're not still the kid who used to lie to his parents about how many hours he studies a day. As if suddenly you're not the kid who spends hours killing innocent bystanders on the latest Grand Theft Auto. Oh and you are now judged on your ability to make these decisions, and suddenly, your place and worth in the world is decided by this ability to make these decisions.

It is decidedly surreal how the world works.
I feel no different from the boy who couldn't be trusted to decide the number of hours he watches television in a day at age 16. Yet I am now entrusted to drive a vehicle, run an office, or come to think of it, choose the person I want to have kids with (As if bringing a bunch of more idiots like myself into the world is an awesome idea.)
Oh yes, I've certainly come a long way from giggling like a little kid at a fart joke to giggling like a little kid at a fart joke.
And praised be the gods, I still rarely, if ever, know what I'm doing.

Either the whole concept of adulthood is completely wrong, or I swear to God, I am no adult.

I feel no different.

The world we live in, and 'sprituality'... hey SPIRITUALITY!

2014-07-10T00:46:00.002+05:30

I am very passionate about this. I am probably way too passionate about this.

There is one thing I believe very strongly in, yet rarely reveal to the elders in my family for fear of sounding inappropriate or 'out of order' or rude - it is this - very bluntly, knowledge is, for me, more useful, necessary and urgent than 'spirituality'. First, spirituality is not reading books by 'spiritual gurus' and trying to live up to their instructions; that is simply being a student. 'Sri Sri' may be a great man, but I promise you he is not repeating someone else's teachings to you. I'm sure he knows what's up, because he's experienced it. He won't tell you, but to be a great man or woman, you need to have made mistakes yourself, you need to experience this shit yourself.
I haven't myself, obviously, but I wish to, and till I do, I won't take anyone's word for it.

I do not presume to know what spirituality is. My personal idea of it is to be at peace with yourself, at peace with everyone around you, at peace and in place with the world, yet that is and will always be own personal, and perhaps stupid opinion.

I gave my parents both, two unbelievably good books - 'Cosmos' and 'Pale Blue Dot', both by Carl Sagan. I ask them about these books everyday, they rarely seem to have read them any further. I feel sad about this.

I am also linking an article for both of them, and for the rest of the people who read this blog, so that you can read it in your free time at work or otherwise during the day.
Here it is - http://waitbutwhy.com/2014/05/fermi-paradox.html
(Thanks to Alam for that one!)

Now I will rant like usual -

While it's true that, thanks to my parents, I have always had access to the best of the world that has been available, books and the internet, I also realize that generations before mine might not have had it available freely in their years.

I look at people in my own generation who have had access to the same information as I have and see that they do nothing with it and stay ignorant, I feel bad.

When sometimes, in my blog I have said that there is just too much beauty in this world to comprehend, I am not lying. There is. It's depressing that however much I will try, I will not get to it all myself. I will try my hardest but, shit.

For someone as untrained in these things as I am or most of my friends are, there are tons of books to read about the world, the universe and about things that have been and that probably will be. Like the ones I mentioned above that I gave to my parents, there are others - 'A Brief History of Time', 'The Elegant Universe', 'The Selfish Gene', 'The Origin of Species', 'A Short history of almost Everything', oh my god and so many more. Then for the lazy, there are audiobooks, or there are documentaries.

The most common response to when I say something like this, is 'So what? I'm having fun. Life is more than science,'
To them I say, somewhere down the line, when you're old you will feel the need to 'praise god', and 'be thankful' or 'seek forgiveness'. I implore you, before that happens, arm yourself with the knowledge to be precise about what you're 'praising god' for. or 'being thankful' for.

I've been called young and immature when I've expressed these thoughts to older people close to me. Well now, I've grown, and now I call them old and uninformed.

Blink, and realize.

You are an animal. Millions and millions of stupid animals died in order for your ancestors to survive and for you to be born.

You are capable of observing and comprehending unbelievable insights about you and your place in the universe. You are the first of the generations that will have all the knowledge of the world at your fingertips, literally, simply keystrokes away, and only tens of years ago, people would have dreamed of such a situation.
If you are unwilling to pay monetary compensation for such knowledge, you are perhaps the only generation who will be able to get away with stealing this information off the internet without consequences.

You... We... we are special. This is a special time in the world.

There is so much to learn.

Wake up.

I know not what I write about. Tonight, I simply write.

2014-05-03T23:18:00.001+05:30

The paths that we take.

The people that we love.

Where we want to go.

Where they, who we love, want to go.

Never the same.

The people that we meet on the way.

Shooting stars, streaking through the sky.

Fleeting obsessions.

Where we think we'll be tomorrow.

The people we think we'll end up with, there, tomorrow.

Beauty is the saddest thing ever created by him or her who created it.

A curse, for those who behold it. It breeds desire.

It conceives corruption.

I cannot have enough of it.

If only we could share paths. And walk together.

Those that I have loved and I.

Stars, shooting through the sky.

A great shower of lights. Perhaps, in our final hurrah.

Love is a rationalization of our greatest fears and insecurities.

Akin to a fear of the dark.

Happiness exists. I have seen it.

Have known it.

Love, is at once happiness and devastation.
Yet I realise true love exists.

The most overwhelming things in this world are the stories each one of us has to tell.

The paths we walk.

Her path.

The sky, waiting for stars to shoot through.

The places we want to go.

Friends, Lovers, Countrymen, Lend me your hearts.

Blink and you've missed it...

2013-10-04T19:57:00.000+05:30

Disclaimer: If it is possible, read it with the music. Or if, unhappily, the music is choppy, pause it and don't worry about it.
Otherwise, the music just adds to it.

"Where's C-Hall?"
"C block? This says E block and F block...and D block. There's no C block."
"The registration is in C-Hall, man."
"I know. B is that way, so it must be...there-"
"First day and we're lost."
We walk towards the huge wooden doors off the main Thapar lobby, when I see her, and she's beautiful.
"Look! God I wish she's in my class!"
This really cute girl, she's with her family, looking at the board we were a second ago, probably looking for C-hall.
"Wish she's in my class."
We're all in the same class.
Friends to this day...somewhat.

*Blink*

Two months later, it's the night before my first birthday in college.

I was out, that night, but I enter my room, there's a cake on my bed, with candles, and the room is a brilliant shimmering orange.
Suddenly out of the bathroom, burst out five of the best friends I've made in college by then.
It is the single best birthday I have ever had. That night, and the day after it.

*Blink*

Aranya '08.
The most enjoyable of all the fests in four years.
Jal. That amazing band.
Aadat. Screaming.

*Blink*

We've bought a friend a backpack for a birthday gift.
Fifteen people have chipped in for a back pack. Well, the girls have also made him a poster. Well, the girls always liked him. He's quite the amazing dancer.
That's why we've decided to fill his newly bought backpack with...condoms before we gave it to him. Well, honestly, I wasn't really consulted. I'm sure I would have protested. Maybe.

*Blink*

We go to the canal.
We take eight medium pizzas with us.
We see a dead body floating in the current. We panic. Fuck the pizzas, really.
We run away. (We ate the pizzas a few kilometres away.)

*Blink*

We bunk a Bhatia math class.
We try to make a student movie. (A student spoof movie really, never panned out.)
I almost fail math that semester.
I don't know how to tell my parents.
I pass by half a mark.

*Blink*

Branches separate, and friends separate, most of us.
We miss certain people.
You try to maintain ample contact.
At times, you succeed.

*Blink*

You begin noticing girls you never noticed.

They got cute over the summer.
Your female friends are suddenly attractive, now that you're in different branches.

*Blink*

Third year?
Lots of romantic gestures, you know?
Things you thought you'd do that would melt a girl's heart, and she'd be fucking forced to ask you out...you know? And not the other way around?
Lots of romantic fucking gestures.
And I ask out a girl. "We're just friends," she says, of course.
"Yes."
We're friends.

*Blink*

Internships, staggered by branches.
Friends leave for six months at a time. It's hard.
But you know, maybe the administration staggered them because they knew they needed to prepare you for how hard it was going to be a year from then...when you left for good.
Anyway, internships.
You make new friends, because friends are suddenly scarce.
Sometimes you make friends very late. And sometimes you make the very best of friends very late.

*Blink*

Suddenly, when you realize that nothing is forever, you grow up.
People come back, people leave. Friends make girlfriends. Friends make boyfriends. You realize that it's the end. You make promises.
The end is near. You ignore it for a while, but it catches up with you eventually. You bargain with time. You plead with time.

*Blink*

Placements. Interviews. Jobs.

*Blink*

You say you will spend a lot of time together. But you have a lot of friends.

*Blink*

Time runs past so quickly.
There is never enough time.

*Blink*

You go away.

It ends.

*Blink*

Four months pass. Convocation. Friends. Reunions.
Parties. Alcohol. Robes.
...
Regrets.
...
Degrees.

*Blink*

The 17 types of women that I have known.

2013-07-05T18:20:00.001+05:30

I can already hear in my head the words that might be used by some to describe this post and me, after reading it - sexist, misogynist, pig... might be popular examples.

But the people who know me well, know that I love, admire, and am awed, inspired and sometimes confused by the opposite sex just as much as the next guy. What is listed below is simply my observation thus far, into the largely incoherent, confusing and expansive female universe that I've encountered in my adult years.

While many women who know me and read this will undoubtedly be tempted to find glimpses of themselves in the numbered categories below, I must assure you that I have (except in very few cases) stayed away from personalizing anything written below.

Also, read it as light-heartedly as I wrote it - very.

Let me finally start,

The 'Wild, "Let's-do-something-craaazzyy!"' ones -
I'm talking about the real deal here, the fake-crazy is another category altogether. These women are genuine adrenaline-junkies. They're usually fun to be around, but when you're just not in the mood to be in the newspapers the next day, she'll waste no time in emasculating you.
'Woohoo! Fuck yeah! Drive faster, pussy!'
The '"I'm bad!", but she's really not.' ones -
These are the ones that aspire to be members of the first category, and will make every attempt to seem that they are. But really, when things seem they might get hairy, she'll freak and you'll feel guilty for the rest of your life. She's usually a pretty good person though, and good to hang out with.
'Let's do something craz- wait, is that a cop?!?'
The 'victim' -
Yeah, her...
Usually someone-you-know's ex. Spends the majority of her time either crying, or calling someone else an asshole.
'Why does this always happen to me? Tell me! Tell me!'
The 'competitor' -
'Anything a guy can do, I can do better'. Not that anyone ever said that she's in any way inferior to men, but no, she still has to put it beyond any doubt. But there is no doubt, I hear you say. No, says she, but I bet if I tried I could put a doubt in your head, since you couldn't!
'You're doing it wrong, wait let me do it!'
Oh and, 'My phone's just better than yours!'
The '"I'm good.", but she's really not.' ones -
Always polite, always nice, always helpful, you know the type. You say to yourself, what a nice person! But then, eventually it comes to light how she's been badmouthing someone to someone else, bitching about her roommate and so on; all the while telling everyone what an asshole you are.
'Awwwwwww...'
The 'I'm such a lesbian, ya!' -
You know, you laugh along when these ones say weird things, because you're thinking, 'hey, guys make gay jokes too.' But then one day she gets so explicit, you almost crash your car into the divider.
'We got so drunk, we kissed, ya!'
The 'I'm a bro, bro!' -
She listens to death metal more hardcore than you, chugs down beer faster than you, swears more than you, wears baggy jeans, doesn't know what make-up is, and best of all, she doesn't make a big deal out of it and you don't care.
All good, but sometimes you forget she's a woman and you almost give her a chest-bump.
'You should've banged that bitch, man!'
The 'All-over-you, until you make a move.' ones -
It may be that the language of 'coming-on-to-someone' is different for both the sexes, but these ones will climb all over you in public, stroke your arm for no reason, play with your hair all day, whisper in your ear so seductively that you'll have to walk bow-legged for a few minutes, but when after a long time of all this, one day you say, 'Hey, maybe we should go ou-'
'No! We're friends! What's wrong with you?'
The 'future-wife' -
Extremely rare, and usually unexpectedly discovered. These ones are usually diamonds in the rough for a long time, and then one day...
'I will! Yes I will!'
The 'I can't go anywhere unless I wear this year's spring line!' ones -
These ones will try on five different outfits, finally choose the latest Armani dress and a matching Dolce & Gabbana handbag, and then with 3 similarly dressed girlfriends, they'll go to the neighborhood rehdi-waala and say, 'Teen paapdi chat aur ek pani puri, bhaiyya.'
Perhaps I exaggerate, but then, no I don't.
'Gooooochiii?'
The 'sex-bomb' -
*wink *wink
You can't tell it to her face but, god! Wayyy out of your league, and you know it, so you never even try. But one can dream.
'I'm up here!'
The 'easily shocked :O' ones -
In her presence, you say something as nasty as 'bastard' or perhaps in punjabi, 'saala', she'll clap her hands to her mouth and shake her head, while you suddenly look around, thinking a bomb just exploded behind you.
I imagine these are the ones who will one day have the 'Mummy ko bataunga' type kids.
':-O'
The 'great friend' -
These are the ones you love, the ones you and your friends love, usually in a quite platonic way; the sweetheart of the group and the one that's picked on the most. She'll end up going out with someone quite outside her circle of friends and you'll warm to him as well, soon enough.
But you know if he hurts her, you'll murder his entire family.
'Stop taking my goddamned hairclip!'
The 'My daddy never loved me.' ones -
I've met a few who said this, and I was always really saddened by it. Popular culture always had me believe there was a majority of 'daddy's girls' rather than those who felt otherwise. I met some in the opposite category too, but surprisingly few.
'Just someone who's not like my dad.'
The '"I'm so hot!", but she's really not.' ones -
These ones walk with the air of someone who has the crown-jewels bedecking her, wondering why more people aren't gawking at them. She'll talk down to you if you ever happen to engage her in conversation, nose in the air, eyebrows raised, while you're just trying to ask her her friend's phone number.
'Don't these people have something else to do than look at me. Hey, hey! I'm talking to you - don't these people...'
The 'Now that I'm not fat, let the proposals fly in!' ones -
Yeah, okay, you're half the woman you used to be, but you didn't have to lose half your personality along with the fat. And they'll constantly remind you how much weight they lost and exactly how they did it.
'Remember when I wasn't so...hot?'
The 'communal-cups' -
I don't want to say more, it'll be too...nasty.
'Sure we can!'

I could come up with more, but then this post would be too long (it already is), and I'd have to be really reaching to make it interesting.

A lot of the women I've known fall into a lot of these categories simultaneously, some are specific to one, and of course none fall into all. I have tried my hardest not to sound overtly misogynistic but where I seem to have, I ask that you excuse me and know that my intentions were not such.

I am a hardcore fan and an ardent follower of womankind.

And it is my great hope that one day I'll have at least one and hopefully many daughters of my own. And I'm sure their friends will say they fall into many of these categories themselves. Not, it will be my strongest endeavor, No.17, and of course never No.14.

Still, a lot of you might find a lot of that I've written awful and horrible; I urge you that if this is the case, and also if it is not, to let me know in the comments, and I invite you to read further into my blog, and find more things awful and horrible, or perhaps, hopefully, good.

Our many lives...

2013-05-04T22:14:00.005+05:30

If the lyrics are distracting, turn down the volume, but...don't turn off the music.

There are many lives in a lifetime.

Many lives lived for many people.
People that you know...and that you meet, along the way. Many lives, for many relationships.

But some don't last.

And so you die many deaths before you...die.

Lives... unfinished.

But also, lives you live for friends... beautiful as any. Lives in which you're cool beyond measure. Lives of shared dreams, of aspirations shared, of beautiful plans and never-ending companionship.

Of lofty ambitions. And prosperity and fame and of fortune. Lives full of dreams of forever.

Beautiful plans of never...ending...companionship.

And then lives full of regret.

...

Lives for God. For unrequited and unthinking devotion.

Lives of unfounded belief. Of sorcery and magic.
Lives of unreasonable servitude.

Lives full of the sins of jealousy and of envy.

And lives you live for your parents. Lives lived in an endless shower of love.
Lives of unpaid debts. Of unsaid gratitude. With wishes that you'll some day repay them for everything.
These lives also but, of terrible deception. Of lies and half-truths. Lives of almost unfounded fear. Of unshared tragedies and of exaggerated happiness. Of everything being 'alright' for them, but wanting to run away somewhere far away.

Lives filled with a desire to break down and cry in your mother's arms.

...

Lives full of regret.

...

And lives you live...for love.

And not just the one life this... those many lives.

For every single time that that beautiful person crossed paths with you. For ideas and schemes and scenarios devised alone on sleepless nights.

Lives of blind passion. Of oaths sworn with child-like sincerity. Of private dreams and guilty pleasures. Lives of infinite fidelity and endless devotion. Lives of lying to yourself.

If you're lucky enough... Lives full of nights.
Of unbridled instinct and undiscovered passion. Of feral need and raw animal violence.

...

So many. Lives.

Alas, but one life for yourself.

Why I am afraid... of Death

2013-03-07T04:46:00.002+05:30

Like everyone else, sometimes I question my longevity.

Not that I really want to question it, but as part of the human animal, sometimes I question the fact if I actually will live long enough to witness controllable fusion and all that stuff, you know?

Controllable fusion, bad example?

Okay.
No. Not a good way to begin a blog post.

Welcome to another post about life and its immediate incomprehensibility.

Sometimes I question the fact if I may actually live to see, being an almost general lay-person on the issue, a Grand Unified Theory of physics.
...I don't learn from mistakes, do I? Talk about bad examples, Grand Unified Theory?
But.
But doesn't it sadden you?
You might not live to see a GUT?

Dan Brown almost had you believe we had antimatter weaponised.
Wait, what?

But doesn't it sadden you that we might miss so many amazing things that might happen after we're done.

After we're done... I mean after we're done here... dead and all, you know?
I don't like to talk about it, that's how afraid I am.
No, not afraid of death per se. Afraid of what I might miss.

A manned mission to Mars that could even have happened when you and I were alive, I mean.

You know what, forget everything in the future for now.
Will you be alive long enough to read all the good literature that you want to?
Long enough to watch all the good films that you need to?
All the good music that you might have missed?

You know, stupid as it might seem, I'm sorry but I think precious few of us have ever been guided right as to the number of ways any of us could have led our lives.
There has always been a 'pattern-to-be-followed.'
In different forms everywhere across the world.

But what has prevailed is the easiest one of these patterns. Not the easiest one to follow, mind you, but the easiest one to end your life with. The easiest one to live your whole life through with the minimum trouble. It is the path of least resistance.
You will agree that it sounds the most obvious, the most intelligent option, and perhaps I agree almost whole-heartedly that it is!
It is the path where you educate yourself through some established, and more importantly licensed institutions, get a 'degree', a piece of paper that qualifies you for a profession you want. And you 'profess' it.

And then earn money to generally make sure all of your offspring do the exact same thing.
The exact same thing.
With a few details changed.
Usually.

But then sometimes it sounds genuinely absurd to me.
Because.
Because I think you miss so much along the way!

I have strayed from this path of least resistance, a few times in the last few years. And it has led to a lot of trouble most times. Usually in the form of disappointment of conventional expectations.
That, I can deal with.

But.
But it has also led to so many revelations. So many new experiences. So many new emotions.
So many immensely fulfilling experiences.

And having experienced a lot of these 'experiences', realising that perhaps in universally absolute terms they are few, I have become fearful.
Fearful of the fact that I might miss so many more.

I am more fearful of what I might miss of the human experience than I am of what I miss of the materialistic dream, of what I might miss of owning, of what I might miss of earning, of possessing.

I'm not naive. I do realise that the only way to survive is to do something that earns you survival.

But yet I have always been skeptical of social constructs.
Social constructs like 'careers' or 'degrees' or even 'marriage' perhaps to an extent.
These are naught but feeble assurances of what is seemingly a 'good life' (another social construct).

Because with these constructs, you delegate so much of your life to people who have already lived theirs. You cease to be original even before you have tried to be. You are unoriginal and you are oblivious of it.
I have always entertained opinions like 'learn from others' mistakes.' But the fact remains that someone else's mistakes might not necessarily be mine.
I want to learn, yes, but not from mistakes, I want to learn from and build on success.

Even before you die, you miss so much that you could have experienced.

Why am I afraid of death?
Because of the things I still want to see.
Because of the things that I still want to experience other than the mundane and ordinary.

Why am I afraid of death?
Because I have yet to live.

Control & Acceptance

2013-01-31T02:22:00.002+05:30

There was a point in my childhood when I used to have this recurring nightmare.
One particular nightmare.

The stupidest thing is that I could never remember what the nightmare is, really. But I used to wake up crying because of these things when I was eleven or twelve.
All I remember about these dreams is that they involved some situation wherein I had been working at something for a while, putting a lot of effort and commitment into something, and then very near the end, it abruptly was taken from me. Leaving me with a lot of time wasted, or perhaps having spent something that could not be gained back.
It sounds rather stupid, even to me.
But take this thought and this feeling and put it in the worst situation imaginable, and that was perhaps what it was.

It was loss of control.
Loss of control over something you have really invested in.

I have sometimes had this nightmare in the recent past, perhaps two or three times in the last five years.

The reason for the decline in the occurrence of this dream is perhaps the realization and acceptance over time that I am not in control.

No one is.

Acceptance is a version of control.

You will surely disagree.

But.
Acceptance is the version of control we delude ourselves with, everyday.

Your body and it's many wonders and more numerous failings, you control.
Almost.
It's hard enough to control your head.
Your mind wanders.
Weird shit pops into your head at the most inappropriate time.
You say things that shock you later. In the heat.
Of the moment.

Control.
Other people?
Na, you think so? You're unpredictable enough for yourself most of the time.

Remember what you wanted to be?
Remember how good you thought you would be? The good boy, the good girl? The perfect man, or the perfect woman. A friend to everyone.
Angelic.
Incorruptible.

You say it turned out to be impractical, being that. Yes maybe.
But.
Acceptance is the version of control we delude ourselves with, everyday.

Control.

Over yourself, over people you love, over people you hate.
Never had it.
In the first place.
Take it as it comes, is the mantra. One day at a time, is the prayer.

You take chances. And you throw the dice. And when it goes in your favor, you are rewarded with the illusion of control.

When it doesn't...

I have friends who, a few years ago, were in love with each other, young love, stupid irresistible, mad love. And I was happy for them. And I actually thought to myself whenever I met them together that it would be wonderful to party at their wedding. You know, get all drunk, and be happy for them, and all that shit.

Hate.
Each other. Now.

I know the usual. Shit happens.

Yes it does, doesn't it?

You promise to be good. You promise to be true. In front of your God, you promise to be faithful. More than all of that, you promise yourself that you will.
And then you are you! All of your shortcomings.

People? They are inherently good.
People are inherently good.
Laughter track.

Your version of control is the belief that other people will behave in the way that you expect them to.

It works a lot of the time.

When it doesn't...

It doesn't.

I do not particularly believe in destiny. Or in fate. I am not advocating fatalism.
I believe in resignation.
I believe in acceptance.

Acceptance is the version of control we delude ourselves with, everyday.

A small town boy...

2013-01-08T22:24:00.002+05:30

I've enjoyed my time in Mumbai till now, I really have. I might say I haven't at times, but now, looking back at it, yes I have.
It is really the first time I've been on my own. Starting afresh, no ties.

Free.
More than ever.

It has been hard, yes, and it still is, most of the times, remembering the comforts and the pleasures of home, and the people I've always known - my family, and my friends - the people I grew up with, and my hometown.

It's a wonderful place to live in, you know... Patiala. Indisputably magical.

Although I'm sure everyone has that to say for their hometown. But I've had this opinion confirmed by a lot of my friends who came from a whole lot of other places, to study in Thapar.
I have had a ton of batch-mates who miss Patiala more than they miss the places they grew up in.

This may be me being nostalgic, or home-sick...or whatever.
Veterans of living in hostels may scoff here. You're quite right to. But this is not me missing my home. This is me missing a city.
A greater home.
A place that is now a home for every generation of graduate that passes through Thapar every year.
However much they might hate it, or feel frustrated with it during their stay there.

When I was still in class 12, I had convinced myself that whatever happened, I would not attend engineering college at Thapar.
Because my father graduated from there.
How pathetically juvenile was that thought...
I would even go to some place less reputed, but I wouldn't stay for four years in Patiala, I could not!
It was unthinkable.
I needed to go to a fucking 'metro'!
I needed to see the world! There is so much more out there! I would get stuck in Patiala if I stayed there.

How passionately I hate that version of me now.
How pathetically...juvenile.

'A Metro'.
What an illusion.
Sure, I can go to a huge fucking mall whenever I want to, and shop!
When I want to go out with friends and go crazy, sure there are these supposedly 'hot' and amazing places we can go to, splurge on overpriced shit, hang out with a lot of fat-walleted and tiny-brained people. Where the topic of discussion is more often than not the latest iPad, or the new uber-expensive restaurant in *insert posh area reference here*.

But do you remember where we used to hang out?
The canal? That 'Khansama' truck outside of Columbia Asia?
I want a canal, man!
I want that serenity.

Whenever I go home, I make sure I spend at least one evening with friends at that unbelievably sacred place.
Ironically, it is where we once saw a bloated corpse floating along the way, and then panicked.
Ha! Where else?
It's weird I know, reminiscing about something like that, but every memory acquires a romantic feel to it, given time.

It had everything, man, it did, that city. It does.
Short of an airport.
I never had to think to myself, oh hey, I'll have to go to such and such place to buy that. Or to do that.
It has everything. It does.

I go back now, and I never want to leave.

It's been a while since I went into Thapar itself. A small town in its own right.
Remember the lawns?
There was a time, I think in the beginning of my second year, during the monsoon, when the chemistry lab gardens were flooded because of the rain.
Half a foot of water perhaps, engulfing the entire lawn.
A group of friends and I came up with a contest, with each of us putting in twenty rupees in a plastic bag, sealing it and then throwing it way into the lake that had become of the chemistry lab lawns.
Whoever got to the plastic bag first would win the 160 rupees in the plastic bag.
I got to be the guy who threw the plastic bag into the lawn, unwilling to jump into the lake myself.
I did it, and five guys wrestled through the water and mud to get to the plastic bag, shoving themselves into the water along the way, and in the end wrestling for the money. The winner found that I had secretly pocketed the cash before throwing it out, and a memorable controversy ensued.

...What am I even talking about?

Nostalgia is a drug.

“I felt a pang -- a strange and inexplicable pang that I had never felt before.

It was homesickness.

Now, even more than I had earlier when I'd first glimpsed it, I longed to be transported into that quiet little landscape, to walk up the path, to take a key from my pocket and open the cottage door, to sit down by the fireplace, to wrap my arms around myself, and to stay there forever and ever.”

― Alan Bradley, The Weed That Strings the Hangman's Bag

Go back...

2012-11-25T03:00:00.002+05:30

Kings of Convenience - The Weight of My Words (Four Tet Remix) by BallgameTracks

You're light headed.
What a day!
She looked at you!

You met your friends afterwards.

You went back in time.

...

You talked back to that professor today.

You bunked that class, even though you know you're short on attendance.

...

Today, you worked at something you don't really like.
You feel like you don't want to work like this anymore.
You need a break.

But she looked at you!

You met your friends after work, though.

It was like you went back in time.

...

You're light headed.

You'll be more light headed soon!
You're looking forward to a good evening; the decadence of youth.

...

Time.
Machine.

You're going to think about those halls.
It will be like going back in time.

...

The laughter!

It's infectious.
So...much...hope!

...

Go...back.
Any...possible -
way.

That one time.
Five o' clock?
That one place.
Everyone.

The noise!
So much...fucking noise.

The momentary awkwardness when the girl you asked out that one stupid time walks past.

Did she just look at you?

Wait, did you just go back in time?
Wait, what?

Oh...
That round was on you.
You love the people you're around right now.
If only you could go back in time.
...
Get excited about juvenile things.
Fight! Fight! Fight!
So...much....love!

Oh and you know what?

She looked at you!

...

Or...

Schrödinger's Relationship

2012-11-15T00:52:00.000+05:30

Pursuant to my earlier requests, or think of them as 'directions for use', please allow for the uninterrupted playback of the song below, and I suggest you put in your earphones.
Also, in the beginning the song may seem not all that good, believe me it gets so much better, and it enhances this reading experience.

Oh and this article is not about physics. The next two paragraphs are simply necessary in order to explain the title of this post.

Schrödinger was a physicist in the early 20th century. He is most famously known for his thought experiment, popularly known as 'Schrödinger's Cat'.
While a full explanation of this experiment, and it's underlying mechanics would take a much longer and a much more boring and more uninteresting post (however so much you might find this one to be).

At its most trivial, although do read this carefully carefully, think of it simply as follows -
There is a cat. It is kept in an opaque, steel chamber. In that chamber, in a setup that insulates it from any interference from the cat, is a tiny amount of radioactive material - so tiny that in the course of an hour, there is equal probability of the radioactive substance releasing a single atom because of decay as there is of it not releasing it. This radioactivity, if present, is to be detected by a Geiger counter (essentially a device which detects nuclear radiation). On detecting radiation, the geiger counter is to initiate a mechanism that releases deadly hydrocyanic gas in the chamber, which would kill the cat.
Now at any given moment, without observation, the living status of the cat, is a smeared function. Smeared as in, it is a superposition of the cat's states of being either living or dead because of the probabilistic nature of the atom's decay inside the chamber. It is a simultaneously decreasing and increasing function of the probability of the cat's being alive or dead, respectively.
In pure layman's terms, theoretically, at any given moment, Schrödinger's cat is both alive and dead, at the same time.
Again, purely theoretically.

Of course, on observation, the cat's status of being either dead or alive can be determined.
This is simply one of the many seeming absurdities and parodoxes in quantum mechanics.

Moving on, as part of my increasingly absurd insights into human relationships, I propose 'Schrödinger's Relationship'.

When I was very young, there were husbands and wives, and there were other, single men and women who were friends.
It was a purely deterministic environment. You were either married, or you were friends.
I wasn't mature enough then perhaps, to know too much about love, its infinite traps and its own fallacies; or aware of attraction - physical, sexual or otherwise.
But alas, I did become aware eventually and bam! Four states - friends, love interests, girl/boy friends and spouses.
Later, as I became older and lost some of that little boy innocence, the interests category was infused with the first real probabilistic uncertainty - degrees of attraction. Of course, around this time, I was beginning to see the signs that friendships sometimes turned into attraction, which sometimes turned into girl/boy friend relationships, which had the potential to turn into marriage.

Lines were starting to get blurred everywhere. You get the idea.

This is all of course, quite general, and not really the subject of my post. The subject of my post is 'Schrödinger's Relationship'. This special little bugger is a real bitch.

Now, remember 'Schrödinger's Cat' -

There is a boy and a girl. They are kept in relative proximity, say they spend a period of time together, perhaps school, perhaps college, or work...perhaps chance brings them together. In that proximity, there are lots of stimuli - there are biological stimuli, psychological, spatial, visual, fuck even olfactory stimuli. There is an equal probability that these stimuli, in the course of these two individuals' interaction will cause them to engage in a blatantly obvious sexual relationship, and please do not misunderstand me, by sexual I do not mean the physical aspect of it, I use the term merely to distinguish it from the platonic alternative. And by blatantly obvious, I mean that everyone is aware of it's existence, including the participants. There is an equal probability of this happening, and that of it not happening.
But here in lies the rub.
This is still a probabilistic setup, and the relationship status of these two damned souls is smeared.
In pure layman's terms, theoretically, these two people are both just friends and dating at the same time.
Again, purely theoretically, the poor bastards.
Of course, on observation -

Wait...
This here is the real bitch of the matter.
Observation.

What if these two people, unaware, blissfully unaware, unobservant and innocent, carry on like this - smeared. Neither here, nor there.

In...limbo...oh.

Observation.
Here is where you have to make a choice. Here is where the beauty of a probabilistic function is forced into becoming a draconian deterministic choice. Either here, or there.
When one of the two decides to observe their relationship, casts an observant but critical look over it, it cannot exist in that glorious smeared state any more. It has to choose to either exist in one state or the other.

But to observe it or not to observe it, that, there, is the god-damned question.

To make it blatantly obvious, or not to. That, there, wins you the million dollars.

Thapar! Now that I'm out... Le premier poste

2012-08-19T22:36:00.001+05:30

There are people from Thapar you never met, or seldom ever... never talked or very seldom talked to.
These people who you feel a weird camaraderie with...

Acquaintances that never really turned into friendships...

Buckethead - Sail on Soothsayer by XEn

Sure those friendships were something else entirely, but that's stuff for another, different post. This one, this post is about the people who you kind of knew, but really didn't...

It's a strangely comforting feeling that there are people like you in the world, hopeless romantics, repressed artists, people you think you would've been great friends with, but just weren't...

In Thapar I say, because I have a feeling that Thapar is a sort of place which (in my time atleast), attracted these people (not all mind you, but many)...these people who were always, in the true sense of the word, brilliant...brilliant as fuck.
Not the academic IIT kind of brilliant, nor the social LSR kind of brilliant, a very generic brilliance...
A very well rounded brilliance, if you will...

You all can relate with this post, you from Thapar who're reading this, you know exactly what I'm talking about.
A very repressed brilliance perhaps...

So okay, half the people I know in Thapar could've gone to an IIT, had we slaved for a few more months... So of course there were people there who were painfully aware of this and spent the next four years of their lives trying to desperately compensate for this fact. They compensated for this in various ways (including dating people from IITs...)
I'm not talking about these sorry fucks.

I'm talking about the people who made peace with the fact that this was where they were going to spend the next four years of their lives and they spent these four years being awesome as hell.
And they made those four years awesome.
In very different ways.
A very varied brilliance infact...

A brilliance that made a narcissistic man like me feel mediocre at times...
Only at times though...
I jest!

I'm talking about that amazing guitar player, that guy with the amazing voice, the girl who, when she danced silenced entire auditoriums... the football player who still trolls football forums not giving a fuck about what anyone says, the guy who got into microsoft and still had ten times more fun in four years than most people around him...that poetess, that guy who started out as a compensating could-be-IITian, but met wonderful people who made sure that when he left, there was no place in the entire world he would rather have spent the last four years in...
X-men who made entire hostels laugh and talk!
A very unusual brilliance...

These people, most of them you never really got to know, or not as well as you would have liked to.

But you share with them something sacred. You share with them years of shared experience, you share with them tradition. At the heart of it, you share with them a badge of honour!

It's a good feeling...
It's a hopeful feeling.

Her!

2012-08-10T00:25:00.002+05:30

Her.

The word will lose meaning soon, I shall repeat it often. Her.

Her.

You know her. That one. Yeah.

Yeah, you remember that time you met her. What was that first conversation you had with her? God it was awkward! But it would turn into something so awesome so soon. You never knew!
Did you tell her? You were lucky if you did.
Or well, some of us were. The rest of us, we never told her.

Now, so many years later, we're so many years older.
Do you remember her?
Of course you do. You remember her, some days, or if you're one of the unlucky ones, you think of her everyday, that one bird you lost.
You smile when I call her that one 'bird'.

What have you become?
Are you the same man who fell in love with her? It's been so long. Do you even remember her?
Of course you do. You remember her, some days.

You have that song, you do!

Her.

And you listen to this song and you think about her.
Do you remember that time you met her? What was that first conversation you had with her?

What was the last conversation you had with her?
You remember that last conversation better than you remember the first one, don't you?

Do you remember she hurt you?
Now you do. Remember...

It's been years. It's fading, your memory of her. You don't remember her face. Like the rain, it falls and it washes away every day at a time.

Sometimes, as you plug in your earphones as you go to work/class in the morning, you think of her. As you're crossing the street, you think of her, crossing the street in the opposite direction, and you lock eyes, and you realise she misses you as much as you miss her.
But...
She's not really there, is she?

Yeah, but you don't remember her.

Plug in your earphones.
You know her. That one? Yeah...

Yeah, you remember the time you met her...

The answer to life, the universe and everything is 42

2012-06-10T06:53:00.001+05:30

I consider myself to be a logical person.
I guess when your entire education has closely revolved around finding logical solutions to problems, there is little else you can hope to be.
I tend to look for meanings behind things, try to reconstruct scenarios, work out otherwise mundane stuff just because I can't help it.
I also can't help but come to the logical conclusion, that there is no meaning to it all, the grand question of life, the underlying principle of existence, the reason why we are all here. It is just not there. There is no grand solution, no profound answer, no meaning...and for all that 'great' people say, they are usually as lost as we always have been.

Also, as part of my continuing experiments with good music and my more emotional outbursts on this blog, I'm embedding this video here -

Press the play button, then pause it and let it buffer. I'll let you know when it would be best to play it, a bit further ahead. (Thanks for listening to a horrendously demanding writer, as somebody he's lucky to have reading what he spews).

Back on topic, Douglas Adams, author of the brilliant and awesomely comical 'The Hitchhiker's guide to the Galaxy' had it right when he said that the smartest computer ever invented by any beings of the universe seemed to have calculated the answer to the ultimate question as '42'.
It is as coherent and as meaningful as an answer like this can possibly get.
I feel horribly frightened sometimes when I see people who I meet everyday, usually much older than I am, but with very little more insight into what it's all about! It confirms my recent belief that I might never find meaning in existence.

Oh, and you can play the video now, I guess. (It gets a bit loud near the end, so keep the volume sane.)

If it's all about getting ahead, getting the good degree, passing the right exam, bagging the perfect job - it has no meaning...
If it's all about finding the right person, having the cutest kids, living the perfect life - it never really happens. People are happy for a few years and then they either resign into a routine or break apart their families. Either way, it has no meaning...

The thing is, I don't think we can ever be happy with anything constant. We're wired to get bored. And there are some things you're just not allowed to get bored of.
You're not allowed to get bored of your wife, you're not allowed to get bored of your career, you're not allowed to get bored of sanity, you're not allowed to get bored of conformity, you're not allowed to get bored of normalcy.

I see some daily wage worker on the street. He's smoking a 'beedi'. He's smoking his death and staring out into nothingness.
He is not unaware of the fact that he is not rich. He is also not unaware of the fact that he will never be rich.
I see this daily wage worker smoking a 'beedi' staring out into nothingness and the trivialness of it all suddenly hits me. I could've been born him. And it's all fun and games to say, 'He could've made something of his life, or you could've made something of it were you born with his.'
Bullshit, that man's destiny was pretty much sealed the day he was born.
He is not unaware of the fact that if he dies a fraction more comfortable than he is now, he will have been immensely lucky.
And he'll still father seven kids before he dies. He knows more than any of us will ever know that life is a cruel fucking bitch. And he will still bring seven more sad souls into the world to live miserable lives.
Not miserable because of material reasons.
Miserable because that's the last laugh that life is going to have, I'm sure; she will, in your dying moments put on a wicked smile and say, 'Gotcha!'
'You had the perfect life, you had the cute kids, you earned your money, but man...I win!'
So if the result of the game is already fixed, where is the meaning in playing it, especially with rules that rarely even let us enjoy it.
In the current social construct of a good life, no one gets to have it.
I'm slowly venturing into the abstract now...
If it's such a game of dice, why are there even rules?
Rules favour players who follow them because the game rewards these players for not breaking them.

I want a better victory. I want a more complete and final triumph than any that I can get playing with these rules.

My victory will perhaps not be generally acknowledged to be one, but in my dying moments, when life finally reveals herself to me, I want a victory that ensures she'll smile and say, 'Well played.'

And then I will say to her, 'Well tried.'

Things that I have learnt...

2012-05-18T00:22:00.000+05:30

In all honesty, this will be random...as it comes to me -

These things that I have learnt in my life...

In every relationship, power is never in balance.
The cons in choosing a diet coke over a normal one are far outweighed by the pros.
Driving really slow is sometimes much more fun than driving really fast.
Professors (all the faculty) in TU, their bark is almost always much worse than their bite. Never take unnecessary chances though.
It never hurts to be on good terms with security guards. Even if it costs a hundred bucks a month.
Never talk about a guy behind his back. Guys take it worse than girls. Girls expect it. Guys never do.
Never tell a girl any secrets, unless you trust her enough to have her meet your parents intimately.
Treasure blood relationships. In times of great turmoil and sadness, you inevitably think of them. Personally, I'm a single child, but some of the relationships I most treasure are first cousins, even if we talk very seldom.
Guys make the best of friends, if you're a guy. They will never hurt you knowingly, you will never be jealous of their relationship with someone else, and you can always vent in front of them without them taking it personally.
Guys make the best of friends, even if you're a girl. They will never want to hurt you, they will be jealous of all your other guy friends, making you feel good about yourself, and you can always vent in front of them without them taking it personally. Sure, there will always be a few of us, who will fall in love with you, leaving you with a difficult choice, but it's not our fault. Us guys, we're just built that way, I guess.
Never trust someone when they say, 'Never leave me.'
Always trust someone when they say, 'I'll never leave you.'
Always drive slow on narrow residential roads. You never know when an old lady on a scooty will come zooming down out of an open gate.
If you think you're parked at an awkward angle, you are.
Never offer to pay at a restaurant when with friends, with the idea that the rest will pay you back outside - you'll always end up paying a larger share.
When buying a phone, or a computer, never believe friends' opinions, they are naturally biased because they have spent a lot of money on their own devices and will defend them to the ends of the earth. Trust only in neutral reviews online. GSMArena for phones, and CNet for everything else are good options.
When angry, open up a word file, and write about the things that are making you angry. Make a list. Most things will seem inconsequential once you read them to yourself.
In New Delhi, always stay on the left at traffic lights. (I guess everyone knows this, but thanks dad!)
The night before a long trip, make a playlist of good songs you haven't heard in a long while. You won't even realize when you reach your destination.
When in love, never let them know unless you know for sure that they're emotionally invested in you at least a little. It's the same for guys and for girls. Girls will run away scared if they're not, and guys will not take you seriously ever after unless they are not.
Again, unless you're sure they're equally or more, emotionally invested in you than you are in them, never admit any feelings. It is just making it harder for yourself.
Chances are, in an existing relationship, if you're developing feelings for the other person, the other person is too (unless of course, pardon my insensitivity, you're INCREDIBLY unattractive). So it makes little sense to put yourself out there, and be shot down. It makes much more sense, however, to let your relationship mature on it's own. Then act as it seems fit.
Premature expression (like the other E-word) will kill a relationship in it's infancy.
Guys, never let her know she's extremely important to you. You've already lost if you do; somehow females know this instinctively. We males don't.
(For lightening the suddenly somber mood...) Never fart when you have diarrhoea. It's just plain risky.
A bit of light acoustic music when you're sad only fucking worsens matters. Listen to metal! Listen to misogynistic and dirty, ugly rock! You'll feel better.
People who you've found you have good, interesting conversations with (it's usually about very esoteric topics, with these kind of people), never let them go. I once laughed about facebook's instagram acquisition with someone, and later that night I found myself thinking I couldn't possibly have that conversation ever again, with anyone else. It was an inexplicably wonderful feeling.
A short drive alone, with just yourself never hurt anybody.
A long, loud, crazy and decadent night of partying with tons of people never hurt anybody either.
Your morning glory poo time is the best time to read the newspaper.
A bad day is cured by a good long shower.
A restaurant that serves a good 'keema naan with gravy' is one of the best restaurants in town, if only for that one thing.
A McVeggie has considerably more calories than a McChicken. (Look it up, if you don't believe me.)
Your conscience is not always correct.
God is a concept we were brought up with. Had we been brought up with the concept of atheism, most of us would have been atheists. I, personally am not an atheist, but I believe that the concept of God should be one that is naturally arrived at, not instilled in childhood.
In continuation of the previous idea, this is (to the best of my knowledge) an original quote, 'Spirituality fails where religion prospers.'
Learn how to swim. (Even if you don't regularly swim, it's just better if you know how to than to not.)
If you're less than 25, do not let anyone (read parents), force you to marry. Even if you're older than 25, the word force should come into play when making your decision.
Travel. I know I want to.
Maintain good relationships with the opposite sex. It's unhealthy if you cannot.
A person who is still friends with your 'ex', or your version of an 'ex', is definitely not still friends with you; whatever he/she might say. Do not trust these people. Diplomacy works only in politics, and good friendships have nothing to do with politics.
Do not denounce something just because your parents did. Experience it yourself, and then decide what you want to do with it.
If a relationship turns sour, never be the one who bad-mouths the other. If you do, you'll be the villain no matter what happened originally. Act dignified, even if it hurts you to do so. It'll pay in the long run.
Do not pick fights. If you do happen to pick one, never back down.
Experiment. You will never truly have lived unless you do. You will have lived only on others' advice and/or mistakes and/or triumphs. You will have been completely unoriginal.

Most of all -

Never forsake your dreams.

For those who read this, I thank you...subscribe to this blog (the button is probably just to the right of where this post begins). I promise to only bother you with a post once a month.

Also, add your own learnings in the comments.
I would love to hear them.

You..!

2012-04-20T00:04:00.002+05:30

Before anybody begins to read, I want to ensure that everyone understands that what follows, in bold italics, is not something that I have written, it is something that I found in the vast expanse of the internet, quite a long time ago, and it is something I just wanted to share. It is a passage both wondrous and thought provoking-->

"In the lingering moments before you die, your body releases DMT. The same drug that makes you dream. The same drug found in every living creature. It’s not an evolutionary trick to make you survive. Your body is choosing to release this drug now because it believes your fate its too grim for you to comprehend. So you dream. You dream that everything will be fine. You dream that nothing happened at all. It’s in this moment that your body sits across from you. It tells you “look, like, we’re not going to make it this time.” It shares a drink with you as you recollect the past before soon parting ways back to the atomic ether. Your body does this because it loves you. You have never met anybody like your body. Your body has been with you every day, good and bad. It’s even kept a journal of your life carved in scars. Your eyelashes always wiped the tears from your eyes."

I dare anyone to look into a mirror and find anyone better than the person you see.
If you can, you are lying.

You are the best(est) friend that you have ever known.
You, you shall come to realise, are the only person in the entire world you can completely and unflinchingly trust.
You are the best thing that has ever happened to you. Period.

Here I sit...

2012-03-22T18:43:00.003+05:30

Here I sit, in the back of my parents’ car; my dad is driving, my mom is sitting in the passenger seat, I’m sitting in the back seat like a good boy.

It’s a warm, fuzzy, wonderful feeling.

A few minutes ago, I felt a sudden, inexplicably wonderful regression to my childhood, when such scenes were everyday.

Here I sit, in the back of my parents’ car; with my earphones on, feeling like what Soundgarden would say, ‘Blow up the outside world!’

Here I sit, in the back of my parents’ car; with my earphones, listening to loud Linkin Park and mellow Green Day, just like the teenaged boy who I never grew up from.

A few minutes ago, I just wanted to write this down, to remember this feeling. It is a good feeling. I feel like a boy.

I feel like a boy.

So I whipped out my computer.

You know when you open up a laptop in the backseat of a car, GT Road is suddenly not a single bit as smooth as you remembered it.

The sun was in my eyes, from the right window, just a while ago; there’s a pillow on the seat next to me. I grabbed it, slid down the right window a little, stuck a little piece of the fabric of the pillowcase outside the sliver of an opening, and pushed the window right back up.

There.

Sun problem solved.

I tap my mom on the shoulder, and point out the wonderful thing I’ve just done. She smiles, my dad asks what I’m talking about, she tells him. He smiles too.

I feel like such a kid!

There’s a grin wider than my face on my lips.
This is so stupid.

Why does this amuse me?

Here I sit, in the back of my parents’ car; and now Trapt scream their lungs out.

I’m going to Delhi!
I’m going to meet my friends! This is such a ‘yay’ moment!

Well there’s the slightly serious matter of an interview to get through before all that.

There’s a printout of all the key points in this year’s budget on the seat beside me.

When did I grow up so much?

Here I sit, in the back of my parents’ car; I’m reading about the budget, and about Mahindra Satyam’s merger.

Wait, wait! Back to the regressively (is that even a word?) wonderful moment, wait no, wonderfully regressive moment(yes that's better) I had some time ago.

Here I sit, in the back of my parents’ car; Chester Bennington’s sweet melodious voice slowly starts singing ‘My December’ in my ears…

And I’m a kid again, when I still used to wonder what Chester was so sad about…I didn’t know then…

Wait, wait!

I’m a kid again…

EDIT - uploaded from my phone, yay technology!

My Rant 2.0

2012-02-12T04:20:00.002+05:30

Like my man Harvey Dent says in that Batman movie, 'You either die a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become the villain.'
It's the same thing in torrid friendships. You either get out of them early, all happy and content, or see yourself get humiliated for something that happened so quick you never even saw it coming.

This is me going off on one of my rants again. Oops I did it again... Hit me baby one more time.
Fuck.
I might use that word or one of its many lovely derivatives a lot in this post.
Please leave if you are easily offended, I don't need you reading my fucking blog.

One of my core beliefs is, and I probably read about it or heard it somewhere a long time ago, it is the fact that in all relationships, every single one of them - not just the romantic ones, there is a loser and there is a winner. Take any personal relationship that you have, if you cannot identify the loser in 3 seconds, I'm sorry, but you're him/her. There is an upper hand, there always is...and it may change during the lifetime of that relationship, but someone always has the upper hand. It is always the person who needs the other person less. That, there, is the upper hand.
Now, don't get all idealistic on me, and say, nooo...my relationship with so & so is perfect, we both need and love and cherish each other the equal amount.
Get real.
I've seen too many of these perfect fucking relationships go to shit all around me in the last 6 years to even care anymore.

*awesome inspirational advertisement music*
Are you trampled by the moral and ethical code that society has decided for you?
Are you feeling cramped by the way that you're supposed to behave?
Do you feel the need to break free?
Is there something else you'd rather be doing than trudging along society's agreed upon 'good' path?

Well if so, I have the perfect solution for you!
Man the fuck...up! You little bitch, grow some balls!

Drink that beer! Smoke that joint! Read that book! Play that guitar!
Get high! Get laid! Get a BJ! Give a BJ!
Fall in love! Fall out of love! Tell that bitch she's obnoxious! Tell that asshole he's dumb!
Make friends! Make enemies! Get in a fight!
Drive faster than you've ever driven before! Brake harder than you've ever braked before!
And for all you nerds out there... STUDY FOR THAT EXAM!!! HARDER THAN EVAAR!
*awesome inspirational advertisement music ends*

Get laid, goddamit! Oh and yes, I've heard all the arguments... This is so immoral, we're being 'westernised'; oh woe this corrupted youth of today!
I'll tell you what, so many people I know, they need to get laid, they positively need to have SEX... S-E-X!!!
The sexual frustration I see in most people is fucking terrifying!!!
Fuck it, if you couldn't get laid yourself, suddenly it's immoral? All this shit that happens around Valentine's day? It's pathetic! Believe me, in my opinion V-day is a shitty hallmark holiday; it holds no meaning for me what-so-ever, but to outlaw it, like so many vigilantes love to do, is outrageous!

'Love marriage'? Why do they call it a 'love marriage'? Isn't that fucking redundant? What other kind is there? What's the point of marrying if you're not in love?
Oh hey! It's just sanction to get laid, woohoo!!!
Hypocrites.

You know what I'm talking about...
I'm talking about that girl who thinks she's too good for you!
I'm talking about that guy who's a lying scumbag!
That professor who gives you a hard time just because he's in a sham of a marriage, or because his kids think he's a loser.
That traitorous 'friend' you once had who betrayed you like a little bitch.

Fuck them. Enjoy yourself. Live!
Viva La Vida!

Give...and take!

2011-11-18T00:09:00.001+05:30

There is always give and take.

Sometimes all you do is, you give.
If you’re one of the lucky ones, sometimes all you do is, you take.

Remember that girl who you had that crush on in school?
Or that guy…
Whenever you saw her, you made sure you followed her around, for at least a few corridors.
You gave attention.
She never did know that you existed.

Unless you were one of the lucky ones, and all you did was, you took.

By the way, listen to this… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhkHeK3PxwQ
Indian rock is growing up!

Do you…do you remember leaving school? It was hard enough leaving the place you’d grown up in…it was harder to finally say goodbye to that girl, who you had never talked to…that girl who, it was finally evident, you were never going to have a chance with.

Your friends, you’re sure they never realized what they meant to you. They meant more to you than you ever did to them.

Give and take…

You give, thinking that some day you’ll receive…in turn.
The day that never comes.

That girl, your friend…that girl in college, who you always pay special attention to. Yes, her…

You’re always depositing…in that account. There’s bound to be a big return in the offing… It’s coming…soon.

No.

Give and take?

That’s what you do.

That’s what you think.

Take.

You fucking los-

Take!

Because I could not think of a Title

2011-11-12T20:02:00.001+05:30

Do you know that this is one of more than 184 million blogs on the internet?

That is 184,000,000.

The population of human beings on earth just crossed 7 billion.

That is 7,000,000,000.

You are 1.

You and I make 2.

There is so much that you and I have not seen.

There is so much that you and I, given ten more lifetimes, could not possibly see.

There are so many places I want to see.

That yet undiscovered beach on Africa’s western coast. The grand canyon on a moonlit night. The Inca ruins of Machu Picchu. The canals in Venice. Gangotri, where the world’s holiest water body is born. Base Camp below Mount Everest. Stonehenge.

The white light at the end of the tunnel.

We are so afraid, you and I.

We are afraid of consequence. The unforeseen, we are afraid of it.

The dark is unforeseen, and so we are afraid of it.

Death is unforeseen, and so we are afraid…

We are afraid of what MIGHT happen.

A girl will not go out with a boy because she’s afraid that this MIGHT end up messing up their friendship. She does not know that they might end up living that great fairy-tale life, having babies, growing old together. Being happy for the rest of their lives together. How many of us will get to experience that?

A father will not let his son join the navy because he’s afraid that this MIGHT end up in a situation, an unlikely situation, where his son is in mortal peril. He does not know that his son might end up living an extraordinary life, that he might end up finding mates and friends the likes of which he could never have thought of. Brothers. How many of us will get to have such friendships?

A friend will not go on an ‘illegal’ (at home) vacation with his college buddies, because he’s afraid that his parents will find out and it MIGHT end up making things difficult at home for a few weeks. He does not know that this trip will be their last together, one they will remember for the rest of their lives, one which will affect each of their lives in such a profound way… How many of us will get to have such memories?

We are afraid…

Do you know you are standing on a rock, flying around another rock, which just happens to be on fire, at more than 100,000 kilometers an hour? And that this rock has been doing this for the last four and a half billion years?

A girl is in love with a boy. This boy lives a very long distance away. There is absolutely no chance of them being together.

A boy, being a boy, is in love with this girl…this girl who is in love with some other boy. There…is…absolutely…no…chance…of…them…being…together.

What do you expect him to do?

What do you expect her to do?

Do you know that there are more than 7 trillion galaxies in the observable universe?

Most of these galaxies have more than 100 billion stars.

You, sir, are a speck…like I am.

No, wait…we are not specks. The sun might be a speck, or perhaps the Milky Way is a speck.

We? We’re nothing. In the grand scheme of things, when you look at it as a whole, we are a cosmic accident. We are an anomaly in a vastly barren universe.

God? Perhaps he has not yet had time to look over at this side of the universe to see that something is going on here, which he probably did not intend.

Life, we call it. It is inexplicable.

It seems like simple chemistry, yet it is not.

Do you know that the observable universe is a sphere with a radius of about 45 billion light years.

That is 45,000,000,000 light years.

That is 425723778000000000000000 kilometers.

Are you naïve enough to think that you matter?

Yes you are…I know I am.

You will, in this lifetime, or in some other, spend 14 years in school. You will then probably spend 4 years in college. And then for the rest of your life, you will work.

Throughout this, you have already met, or are going to meet, so many unbelievably extraordinary people…they will be your friends, your siblings, your teachers, your lovers, your parents, your children…

We…are afraid of what might, or might not, be.

People will come to be infinitesimal distances close to you. And then, poof!

People will pledge their undying love.

You will swear that things will never change.

You will swear!

And then…

You will swear at the way things turned out.

You…will…swear!

If it makes you happy, do it. You are afraid of what might, or might not…be.

If it is morally wrong, but it makes you happy, do it. Morals, or laws, or rules might, or might not be written in ink, but you are that one unique cosmic accident that got you where you are now.

Nobody has lived your life. Nobody has ever felt what you have felt.

I may be paraphrasing Dr.Manhattan here, but it’s true…it’s true that if out of all those years of evolution, your dad just happened to meet your mom, and that one cell won the race against a million others, and out of everything that has happened in the entire thirteen and a half billion year history of the universe, it all resulted in you sitting exactly where you are sitting right now.

You simply cannot ignore that you are a miracle… and yet you are afraid of what might, or might not be!

If there is that girl who you’ve been putting off talking to for the last six months, talk to her. If nothing else, it will be a flattering experience for her.

If there is that story you always wanted to put down on paper, write it down. If nothing else, atleast your mom will love it.

You do not know what is going to happen . Then why be afraid of it?

Why am I writing all of this down?

At least...

2011-10-30T23:26:00.001+05:30

At least you have a computer to read this post on...
At least you know how to read.

At least you're studying in a good college.
At least you're studying...

At least you don't have to worry about where your next meal is coming from. At least your parents are paying for your next meal. At least you have parents...

At least you know where you're sleeping tonight. At least you know you are sleeping tonight...

At least, even if if someone broke your heart, you know how it's like to have someone who has the capacity to break your heart. At least you have a heart to be broken.

At least, even if you're sad, you've once known happiness. At least you've known happiness.

At least you had friends once, even if you think you have none now.

At least you have money, to drive, to take a bus, a train or some other thing to get where you want to go now. At least you know how to drive.

At least you have a friend to call, whenever you're feeling low as shit, when you feel you can do nothing else except to cry to this person, lay your soul bare.
At least you have a soul to lay bare.
At least you have a friend.
At least you have a phone to call this friend.
At least you have a phone with more features than you care to do anything about...

At least you have someone to thank, for whoever you are now, because without them you could not possibly have been here. At least you have someone...

At least you have the money to go out, have a good time, with people who you think are your friends.

At least your parents trust you enough to not give you a hard time about where you've been the last night, when you came home an hour later than you told them you would.

At least you still believe in your own abilities. At least you have some abilities. At least you think you do...

At least with all your possessions, all your friends, your family, all your achievements, all your potential, at least after all that...at least you think you're happy...

Or are you?