Thursday, September 30, 2010

Addiction


Self sacrifice can be an addiction. There are causes and feelings so overwhelming, so overpowering that one could easily give one’s life for it; just give oneself away while still rejoicing the fact that your are attached to something so elemental, so fundamental, so pure. It can only be described as a madness resulting from a heartburn, pining for something. A rush of adrenaline, an aching desire that drives one nuts.

A simple example could be our revolutionary freedom fighters, the likes of Bhagat Singh, Azad, Bismil etc. An outsider will only consider them insane or a maniac. Only a mania can inspire an action like bombing and then standing there to surrender just to get the message through. Only unadulterated passion can inspire a poetry like that of Bismil. If you will listen the song carefully Sarfaroshi ki tamanna, you will realize that it just does something to you. A similar feeling would have led to the ballads of Curt Cobain and other musicians. People just go crazy for music. People like Curt even die for it.

After running out of money with which Anurag Kashyap had come to Mumbai to do something in films, he spent eight months on the streets, staying in lofts, sleeping on beaches and even under a water tank and in the St Xavier's boys hostel. He came from a good family. What inspired such careless, reckless living? It was nothing but the same fever, same longing that cuts through all physical pain, material discomforts. And you enjoy that longing, that feverish attachment, that amalgamation; you have fun; you are at peace with your passion. Socials workers like Aruna Roy who have given their all (she draws a salary of Rs. 100 a day from the organization called MKSS, which she herself had established) fall in a similar league. They are people riding there own theme, undeterred.

Once you find a passion and get a taste of it, you don’t care anymore. You are above physical and material desires. You want to just dissolve yourself, melt away, submerge yourself in that intoxication. Even a distant whiff can start dragging you towards that insanity, that inebriated state where everything else is forgotten. You don’t care about anything else. Such passion leads to genius, to creativity.

I have myself experienced such force, such pulls that if you let go will drag you into blissful self destruction. But its not so easy to break the bonds. Rationality of everyday life come into play. But may be one day I will.

I will end with a quote from the Joker in The Dark Knight - “Madness as you know is like gravity, all you need is a little push.”

Tuesday, August 24, 2010


Kyaa karen,
ke dil hamara tumpe aa gaya.
Aisi bhi kya berukhi,
Naummeed the to kya jikr bhee na karte.

Saturday, July 24, 2010

Leap of faith

Guess who was a regular on front page news during the world cup. Paul, the oracle octopus. When I heard about it I was like … What the fuck?

Are we living in some bloody 16th century? Get over it people. No wait… you know what, you can’t. Because if you could have you would not have been interested in some shitty story about how a funcken octopus is choosing his mussel there by predicting the match. The worst part is you get sentimental about it… and whine about it. You want the octopus to be fried and eaten when he predicts your defeat and you loose. You have nothing better to do. You can not accept that, that bloody asshole, Paul, is just having a bloody run of luck. But no, you have to make a mountain out of a mole-hill and extrapolate and exaggerate… I am like… What the fuck?

You are nothing but pathetic pieces of shit… or you feed on shit like may be a pig, or fungus… you rejoice at mirages… You make a saint walk on water…turn water the wine. And had it been 3rd century this octopus would have been declared Nth incarnation of Krishna, may be after the Tortoise (Kachchhap avatara) or the Hog (Sukara avatara). You need a crutch to hide your flaws…a base to neutralize… a chimera to suck up to… You don’t have the balls to accept… to endure. You need a leap of faith and I am like… What the fuck?

P.S- The blog I know is cliched... but it was fun writing it.

Tuesday, June 15, 2010

MATING CALLS


There are special moments during interaction between people of opposite sex which I would say ‘seals the deal’ for one party. What I mean to say is that at that very specific moment a spark is aroused, a fleeting experience which leaves the heart pounding, giving rise to what can be described biologically as lust or attraction or a mixture of both and romantically as love. The feeling is completely impulsive and no consideration is given to the demeanor, profession or any other trait of the person (these considerations come later). If we peer into those special moments, we will find that they can be very simple gestures intentional or unintentional- a smile producing dimple on a girl’s cheek, playing a fine tune on a guitar, an outsmarting joke, the pump of a fist; it could be anything. A girl could fall for a Rafael Nadal while he roars and pumps his fist after winning a point or a guy could fall for a girl for her sexy walk. Animals also use similar techniques to attract the opposite sex for the purpose of mating. The above mentioned gestures are physiologically no different than a peacock attracting her partner by spreading its wings and or a bird wooing his/her partner by his/her melodious voice. These activities are called mating calls.

The way these actions function is simple. They produce various hormones like testosterone/estrogen and other sex pheromones in the opposite sex leading to the feeling of lust and attraction. This is a commonly known phenomenon in animals including humans. In animals the process mostly ends with intercourse, but in humans, the social needs could lead to an examination of the entire scenario and then finally asking out the opposite party, with the hope that he/she could become your life partner. In most of the cases the attempt fails; primarily because reason comes to play. After all what starts with a twang could easily end with a twang.

The important thing to note is that although our actions are governed by reason and logic, our instincts for sure are still completely animal in nature. No wonder we at times behave as animals when unrestrained.

Sunday, May 16, 2010



Cigarettes are better than girls- both of them burn your heart, at least the former you can touch with your lips.

Sunday, March 7, 2010

The 21st century middle class Indian guy

Thanks to a crazy Saddam Hussein, without whom we would still (perhaps) have been under the clutches of awry economic policies which were prevailing since our independence. After the socialist strategies introduced by a visionary though unrealistically idealist Nehru proved wrong, a mid course correction should have taken place in late sixties or at best early seventies (some thing which happened with 4 Asian Tigers - Taiwan, South Korea, Hong Kong, Singapore who are now at least a generation ahead of us as far as economic development is concerned). But somehow congress managed to make a fool out of us for another 20 years. It was only because of the fanciful ideas of Saddam who attacked Kuwait that we were able to break our shackles, the results of which are visible all around us. Because of the gulf war the oil prices rocketed, depleting India’s forex reserve to the levels of crisis. “When there are no options left, taking decisions become easy.” That is what our then Prime Minister Mr. PVN Rao had said while he introduced the financials reforms in just 2 days. The rest is history.

I was analyzing the impacts the reforms have had on us and I felt that there is no one in this world today who is luckier than a middle class Indian guy. There are many reasons for this.

Let me begin with the kind of education we enjoy. We generally have fun in our school and no matter how we have performed, we some how get into an engineering college. The 3-idiots team might disagree which such trends but frankly speaking who does not want to take the shorter route. It is also very important to note that colleges are not as expensive in India as in US or Europe and we don’t have to pay our own fee. Unlike the western countries our parents do it for us spending their life’s hard earned money and we are free from the tension repaying any loan. Some times they even pay the donations to get us admitted.

College life begins and since we are in a convenient position to say that we are forced to do engineering (or medical or anything else) which is not our interest, we don’t study at all. We also have the cushion at the back of our mind that even if we screw, we are going to end up in a software job which will give a healthy pay. Again we are well supported by our parents and are given an extravagant pocket money every month which we utilize in sipping lattes in Barista, watching movies in PVR, boozing and spending endless hours on our mobiles talking to our girlfriends (who might well be living in the same city and studying in the same college). These are luxuries which our parents would think twice before spending on even today.

We get out of the college and get a well paying job and no matter how much we sulk about it we have a good time with our friends and enjoy our weekends like anything. After a few years an MBA is almost inevitable and even if not, we are promoted to the next higher level and a Hyundai or Wagan-R starts looming in front of our eyes. We see a challenging and prosperous career ahead. It is not that life is too easy which is important for challenges add fun to life. For example people start planning for weekends on Wednesday in Europe. They hardly work and lead what to me seems an extremely casual life. Or in US where everyday life has been made so mechanical and process driven that you can’t help but feel like a programmed robot. What’s the fun in such an easy going or mechanical life? There is also no fun in being born with a silver spoon in your mouth. A spoilt brat always kept in an over protected environment is generally deprived of the many small moments of pleasure derived from overcoming day to day problems of life; those little victories; those little moments of bypassing the rules; those subtle joys of street romance. Difficulties add new colours to the palette; new flavours to the menu. Life without them would be missing a whole dimension.

Moving forward, our parents ensure that we find a suitable bride even if we may be a complete loser as far as the capabilities of charming a girl is concerned.

There are many other factors which we must not miss. Our society still enjoys a very strong family bond. We respect our parents and will be respected by our kids and will enjoy a strong bond with them. The generation after that i.e. our grand children will perhaps be seeing a time what we see in western countries today. They will move out of their homes when they will be teenagers, find brides of their choice and live the way they want to. The family ties will weaken significantly from what it is today.

Many of these things are true for other countries like China as well. But they don’t have democracy. Although what we see around may be a mockery of it but perhaps its still many times better than China. Freedom is something which is essential; something which no human can happily compromise on.

Last but not the least, its important to be a guy in India. Any given day a boy is still luckier in India today than a girl is. I don’t think I need to give reasons for that.

We are thus in the middle of an evolution. What the Indian middle class is enjoying today is freedom from the clutches of socialism added to which is the freshness of capitalism, the thorns of which are still too blunt. An easy education, an easy job, a cozy salary, a suitable bride, challenges, opportunities, freedom, strong family ties… it actually seems too easy. Or perhaps there is something more to it than meets the eye. After all how long can the spring last? Now that’s something to think about.

Saturday, March 6, 2010


The rich are accursed to live like rich and the poor are accursed to live like poor.

I was baffled to see that the recent book called "The Idea Of Justice" written by Dr. Amartya Sen costs Rs. 699 making it completely out of the reach of the ones in need of justice. Don't blame me if I say that I am waiting for the pirated version to arrive in the market.

Where sex is a completely natural construct, marriage is a purely social construct.