Oh, Just a Conversation

It has been a while since someone has ever challenged my thinking, my thoughts. Along comes an old friend. We are separated by geography, but neither one of us gives a damn.

We spoke of the world we live in. We spoke of the world that will bind us to a way of living. We talked of revolutions that we need to cause, to ensure that this country’s promise lives true. It is so easy to be a rebel, with or without a cause. I can parade my slogan and make you slave to a cause by being a predator on the very emotions that you seek release from. I can penetrate your innermost sense of helplessness and be the icon of your most suppressed expression.

For the most of us, our call and support of the unstudied cause is our re-shares on Facebook and retweets on Twitter. Our understanding of the constitution of this country laid wayside, we are flag-bearers of an unknown colour or emblem, just a current flavour. Our dismay of a prevailing situation overcomes our sense of right. Our call is simple – an uproar. Only on the basis of an inherent outrage that we experience; yet feel completely neutered to act against it.

You see, convenience trumps right – hands down, every time they face each other. These are enemies. Staunch. They will never shake hands. A person I respect a lot, once told me: There are ethics, and then there are ethics, and then there are ethics. I suspect, he was on the side of righteousness, but he was warning me about convenience. I have yet to decipher the meaning of his statement – I believe it was multi-layered – but I hope to get there, someday.

We need to put things in perspective.

For  a millionth time – I am grateful for all my friends out there – irrespective of their ideology. They make me a better person.

The Body of Creation

598 posts since December 2003. 599, if you include this one. That’s just one blog (Nah, it’s not an anniversary, but while you are thinking about it, I am 101 behind, for my upcoming 7th Anniversary).

A new-found friend has been devouring posts from Gaizabonts for a while now. She referred to a concept (in her own words) in one of my posts.

These are places where keyword search doesn’t work.

I have no idea which post she is referring to. But if she says I have said it, chances are that I have. I wonder, does an artist (am using a license beyond a poetic one, to proclaim I am one) have a responsibility to remember all that he has created? So if a musical not wafted from the fourth floor at 2AM, does a musician always know it is his composition? Can a painter remember every artwork she ever created? Can a photographer recognise all his photos, even if they have been photoshopped to death?

As a writer person who writes, I cannot recollect everything I wrote; there may be certain phrases, sentences, even passages I will remember — for specific reasons — but the whole body of creation?

Point to Ponder.

PS: I converse with her, and find out that the post she was referring to was Gender Mathematics

PPS: The image is a reference to the context of her post. But, I guess, it has context to this post too.

PPPS: How can you help me write 101 posts before December 28th, this year?

My Line about Myelin

Exercise.

Whatever you do, wherever you go, that is one word that chases you to the far reaches where you choose to hide. On my blogs, that’s one thing that I am not doing. If my blogs could sing, right now they’d be singing “Sparrow in the Storm”, by Labi Siffre.

In the beginning lives the end
Can the foe become your friend?
Easy answers there are none, though
Frightened grown-ups search for one
In these broken bloody times
We need more than TV smiles
Behind the eyes the door is tight shut
Behind the makeup, just more makeup

It seems, often, what might be important to me may not be of much importance to those who read. Or, I make such a mess of a simple idea, that I complicate it beyond comprehension. Or, it is so important that it cannot be trivialised by putting it up on the blog.

It could be about travel – and that is what this blog was really supposed to be about – physical travel, but it has turned out, I am a really bad travel writer. I think it’s about writing about How to get there and what to do there, but there is enough of pedia-kind-of-sites out there for those sort of things. In some ways, however, this blog is about travel: a different kind.

I wrote about issues. Things that affect us at large, but then, it was vitriolic and spewing rancour at best. It didn’t quite help since I usually felt even more helpless after those posts. It’s not that I am not concerned, but I seem to be less bothered writing about them.

I have written a lot about friends and conversations. Those are the things that I enjoy the most. And it is funny that I haven’t written about meeting two new people in recent times. Each of them deserves a post (at least), so I shall refrain from writing more about that here. But it is quite impossible to write about friends and conversations, because in these days, friends are far and conversations are few.

Perhaps I could write about that.

This time the words aren’t as treacherous as the thoughts that refuse to slide down my hand and make the creative dance with my fingers on the keyboard.

As the birthdays come and go
The more I understand, the less I know
As the birthdays come and go
Only one thing I know

That, write I must, I realise now. Especially after I read this note from Robert Genn.

I should be writing my lines, if I want to build myelin.

The Blog is Dead!

I remember those days.

I used to torment everyone I knew who could blog, to blog. I have been even called a bully, in that sense. About three years ago. Now, I cajole, very rarely, not to friends, however.

But blogging, as we knew it then, doesn’t really exist. It’s called publishing now. It is called publishing now because we only transmit on to a medium that has expanded enormously. And we transmit at a very high frequency. And, perhaps, because we transmit with such high frequency, we transmit in very small amounts. We micro-blog, we update statuses. In essence, we publish. We publish without context and we publish with mistakes. We publish abstract and we use SMSese (Text-speak for those outside India).

If the blog dies, does the blogger die with it? Are their lives interdependent? I don’t think so. Bloggers immigrate. They become law-abiding citizens of another world, where their ambitions and skills can be put to some use. And the blog had to die. Anything that is difficult is easily overcome by that which is simple. That is the truth by which this world has evolved.

But simple and trivial aren’t the same things. But now, they are often mistaken for one and the same. I have a list of an A-list of bloggers on my RSS feed, which over a period has become the folder with least number of bloggers. And like Paul Simon said, it applies to this list:

Some have died
Some have fled from themselves
Or struggled from here to get there

I made a very strong case (read excuse) of a writers’ block today to a friend and a fellow-blogger. I was reminded, creatively, that there isn’t such a thing – she asked – which other profession has a block?

It was interesting to think about that. A policemen’s’ block. Or perhaps a soldiers’ block. It would be real fun for the kids if they experienced a teachers’ block. A pilots’ block would be real dangerous. You get the point. It all really boils down to impatience. We deny context to what we write, we wring the entire message to a limit of characters; play to a comment and like count; post a photo to substitute a thousand words; and enslave ourselves to URL shortening statistics.

And, continuing with Paul’s Obvious Child:

Well I’m accustomed to a smoother ride
Maybe I’m a dog that’s lost his bite

The blog is dead, long live the blog.

On a Ruby Tuesday

If you did not use your logical senses and native knowledge, you would think that the highway was littered with rock-sized rubies with harsh light shining on them from far above. They gleam and flicker as the light plays innocent and naughty tricks with focus, intensity and direction.

Life moves in a deliberate slow motion in the evening traffic when you return. After a day of fast-paced micro-growth to where you want to get to, it slows down that many million times as you tire yourself further, to get some rest for tomorrow. It can be and usually is a cauldron-pour of frustration even though your self can take it no more. And resigned leaks emerge to release the overflowing vessel to make empty for more vexation to fill you up.

It is the celestial slow-down conspiracy working in your favour, as most pedlars of the new-age self-help spiritualism may have you believe. There is nothing celestial about it. It is caused by the delay in construction of a single bridge and that’s that. The only painful truth that throbs incessantly is the fatigue and numbness of your legs at the end of the day.

Most people are optimists and positive thinkers. They make use of these slow-motion frames to catch up on calling old friends or finally ‘mark-as-read’ that podcast from three months ago. They make a movie that with the audio and visual out of sync. They make it surreal by watching the film while being in it. With extreme righteous indignation, they obey the traffic violation of creating twice the allowed lanes that provide them the hope of delta speed. At the grave of the unborn bridge, they hurl curses and secretly hope that it comes to life soon. Execration and supplication seldom go hand in hand. This ruin of a monument is, however, unique like that.

Notwithstanding all that they experience, the rock-sized rubies that gleam and flicker capture their imagination. The glare hurts them no more, their eyes are numb and have evolved and adapted to what biology did not intend. As the rubies blink, they re-run their day in slow-motion and wonder what could have been and what passed. They smile at that one event and frown upon another. All the good and bad of the day syncronises with the blink of the rubies that pave the road ahead. A fractal-form movie runs in the mind of the audience that is also a character in the movie. To watch their expressions in fast-forward would be the making of the top-ranking YouTube video. All this, while absent-mindedly avoiding every pot-hole and crack; intuitively changing lanes at alternate junctions.

Five days a week they live this conflict of pace and slow-down, that keeps them in the same place.

Fluttering Thoughts

This time around, she didn’t challenge me. But a gentle conversation was good enough to push me into writing a very satisfying post, after a long time. In recent times I have not liked what I have written, here. There is a tense tentativeness in the thoughts.

In any case, it seems that I am forgetting the advice from Forrester, and waiting for the clear thought to permeate a cloudy head.

And for the same reasons, I have begun wondering if there is anything called the clear thought, in the context of expressing one. Is this the only noun doomed to be celibate? Never to have a perfect adjectival companion?

Thoughts, at best are caterpillars — they carry within them the future expression of beauty. But unless expressed, they remain just that – ugly, creepy creatures.

Thoughts should aim to become butterflies.

The Road Less Travelled

I went to a place today that was very angry. Deep down, it was sad and hurting, but all it could express, was anger.

I do a lot of play with words when I write on this blog. And therefore a dictionary and a thesaurus are always around to help me find the accurate word. A few asked me after my return — how was it?

I do not have a word or words for that, even a phrase, a sentence, a paragraph or pages, will never be able to explain — how I felt.

I can tell you, however, there were many people, it was crowded.

I can tell you people were distributing free water bottles. I can tell you the police supported and were grateful to every man, woman and child who was there, in body or spirit. I saw tremendous respect in the eyes of the people as they looked at the uniformed personnel at the Taj. I can tell you that there were shivers of goose pimples for a few seconds every few minutes in that forty-five-minute walk that usually takes five minutes. I can tell you, I loudly and proudly sang the National Anthem, more times than I have sung it in the last ten years. I can tell you, there was sloganeering, candles on the streets and at the Gateway.

I can tell you all that I saw, that I did.

I cannot, but, tell you, how I felt.

Yet, a few new meanings were discovered that I hadn’t uncovered after having mined all dictionaries and thesauri.

Solidarity, for example. And fervour. Unity.

Identity.

That last word has been an important word for me. All these days it meant my photo on some paper with my name, endorsed by a government official. It seems that one way to find your identity is to loose yourself in a crowd that is two hundred thousand strong. It emerges within you and engulfs you.

Many asked what will change? Some asked if this is all that we can do?

I don’t know.

What I know, however, is that for anything to start (and survive the test of time) there has to be a meeting of minds. A sense of purpose and a sense of ownership and knowledge of how you fit in.

Well, it just started; all, very well.

A Change of Religion

Posts like these will need to move to a different location. Not that they affect the genre of this blog in anyway, but these are precious, in the sense that they will need a platform of their own for them to transform into action.

My previous post has received some interesting feedback — emotional, even if it is.

In the previous post I was wondering what would fear (instead of resilience) in our hearts mean to the rest of country, especially the spineless Centre. More, an expression of, the heart crying out of the disadvantage that this city faces due to its resilience (Ironic, that in such times resilience has become a four-ten-letter word. One tight slap is due from Anumita, will take it willingly). The post was probably misleading, in a way. But then coherence wouldn’t be he hallmark of any expression in the last three days, would it?

Amit recently started a conversation on Facebook, which has the seeds of becoming something significant in the days to come. I spoke of political activism in that note. Not participation, necessarily. Joining politics is not the only answer. Being aware and active is they key. How many of us really know where we stand as citizens? Apart from our arm-chair views and our deep-hidden desire to shoot all politicians?

I am faced with a very interesting situation in the place I live. There are a few problems in the community where I reside. A microcosm of this country, run on similar precepts that keeps this country on its feet. These problems have been ongoing for a while. And now that I am residing here and becoming more aware of the intricacies of the situation, I realise why we haven’t ever been able to solve the problem.

In order as they occur to me:

One. There is no direct statement of the problem. We seem to be going around the symptoms again and again. We seem to be cursing (no, not looking to eradicate) the virus that causes the symptoms. Not even those that can solve the problem can do anything — they do not know what to solve.

Two. There is too much of noise. So much, that nothing can be heard. Chaos prevails according to choice and the reigning emotion. Any soft sane voice is drowned in the din. Anger spews out where it isn’t deserved. No one knows where it is deserved, it is just randomly spit in all directions, hoping the cause of the problem will stand somewhere in the line of fire; die.

Three. There is no participation. There will always be someone else who suffers as much, who will pick up the gun. From behind the cordons there is strong condemnation; or cheering. No one is willing to pick up the gun and go in; search the problem; shoot it down. Someone else will do it.

Four. No one wants to be the bad guy. We want cordial relations with everyone; we do not want to hurt anyone. Every person is willing to stand behind you, no one in front. Everyone agrees with you, no one is willing to stand by you.

Five. There is no knowledge of your own standing. Who are you in the community? What authority, representation do you have? What are the responsibilities of the office bearers? What is the method for communication? Decorum?

Six. Solution Fatigue. The most important one — the ability to resign to fate and manage a problem in a nuclear way. The easiest way out. Because the community cannot solve the problem, I will solve it for me, even if it is at the cost of other community members. A short-term solution. Call everything shit and walk away. Instant-ness of the world we live in is seeping into the way we look and approach and walk away from problems.

I?

I refuse to resign to fate and the possibility of someone acting on my behalf, unchecked, while I remain ignorant of my duties and rights in a noise that deafens a sane voice that works towards a better future, without fear.

I have a new religion and I follow a new book.

The Fucking Cliché

The Spirit of Mumbai.

Yes, NDTV, CNN-IBN and you other sensation-mongers. The Spirit of Mumbai is a fucking cliché.

But no Mumbaikar uses this cliché. We just go about our work. You made this cliché and now you are tired of it. The fucking cliché.

So, Ms. Barkha Dutt, if you do not have a real question to ask about a situation that you have no way of comprehending, stop asking if this event has gone beyond the fucking cliché.

We heard you screaming out Natasha’s name four times for footage. We know where the cliché is.

Srinivas, when you ask about the death of colleagues to a responsible senior ranking officer and you see him visibly moved — don’t question him about the lump in his throat. He bears much more weight than the branded mic of yours. Vikram, repeating it doesn’t help. It is a fucking cliché.

When you all find the next stupid thing to report, you will forget about this fucking cliché. So don’t take it away from us, please.

It is all that we have. We do not have units of NSG stationed here; we have to wait seven hours before the financial capital gets any help from the centre. In these seven hours, the cliché is what saves the city.

We may not be spared your stupid question; but please, leave our fucking cliché alone.

My City is Hurting

My city is hurting, but seeing a politician’s (or a bureaucrat’s) car stuck with you in the damning traffic that you endure everyday, provides you with a very weird sadistic pleasure.

My city is hurting. And after a while, it ebbs — the pleasure — it is transient. A hundred and forty-five minutes in bumper-to-bumper traffic is something you wouldn’t wish on your enemies. For Only Thirteen Kilometres, No way! But a politician? A bureaucrat? I’d think twice. Thrice. Four times. And more. After all, I have nothing else to do while harsh red brake LEDs imprint a permanent glow in my eyes. I resist, I relent, I don’t wish this on anyone.

My city is hurting. I sense the groan of the roads and streets that take me to work and back. I wish them peace. I wish God-speed to all morose vehicles who once looked beautiful in adverts. I wish them the existence they deserve.

My city is hurting. Reality has been sidelined. The cost of progress is what we are paying for. The most volatile currency in these times is time itself. And it is at a premium. Yet we have ample time for divisive politics. To read about it, to forward arguments in favour of regionalism. We have time to remind our recipients to read emails in favour of regional protectionism.

My city is hurting. There is a tear in the fabric, and thread I have none.

For now.

New Meanings

Space, environment, intimacy and depth have new meanings.

Pride & Prejudice

First, we need to define banchering.

It is an act, in essence; somewhat like behaviour or a characteristic. A bancher is an inanimate object — material and tangible. A bancher need not always exist to be able to bancher. How you perceive banchering depends on your moral and intellectual composition.

For some, banchering is a matter of pride; passionate. Others see it as an unsuitable act, they find various means and arguments to demean banchering. It may be so, that a bancher is the villain really, and may be considered harmful from an objective point of view. Propaganda and lethally slow indoctrination, however, make a demon of the bancherer. What purpose, the cursing attack on an inanimate object? So the bancher itself is never harmed — never made a subject of contest and conflict. The bancherer and banchering become the target.

Bancherers continue to take pride in banchering, and the people against them continue cursing, with immense prejudice.

And, the struggle of pride & prejudice continues. They are of equal prowess, pride & prejudice. Neither will ever surrender or offer a truce. And like some super heroes who gain energy and strength through anger, pride & prejudice continue to grow from strength to strength. There is never a meeting point, except the battlefield.

Pride’s raison d’être (in banchering, for example), is possession by passion. A love that has explored itself thoroughly — inside-out and has become very aware of itself and its existence.

Prejudice has a very different reason for existence. It exists for its own sake. It is a hermaphrodite of sorts, growing by itself on a very thin base of misconception. Always unaware of the foundation.

Pride & prejudice collide at the battlefield of silence. Where dialogue is impossible. Where pride will not explain itself and prejudice will not hear anything.

Banchering, over the lifetime of being human, has changed form and structure many times. It is a notation of the cyclic interplay of opposites (to borrow and modify an idea from Heraclitus). Each notation (or form) of banchering has lived a great life and died a mongrel’s death, only to rise again in a new avatar.

Risen because pride will never allow it to die and prejudice will never allow it to live. And in the new form, sides change. Some pride becomes prejudice. And the other way round.

Banchering survives, while pride & prejudice continue the quarrel.

Afraid of Fear?

I have often thought about fear. Suffice it to say, I carry it along. And its cousins. Fifty-nine posts categorised with this, the most basic human emotion, says a lot. Then of course, (by divine intervention, if you have to say it) I stumble on this:

“Nobody is courageous all the time. The unknown is a constant challenge, and being afraid is part of the journey.

What to do? Talk to yourself. Talk alone. Talk to yourself even if others think you have gone crazy. As we talk, an inner force gives us the security to overcome the obstacles that need to be surmounted. We learn lessons from the defeats that we are bound to suffer. And we prepare ourselves for the many victories that will be part of our life.

And just between you and me, those who have this habit (and I’m one of them) know that they never talk alone: the guardian angel is there, listening and helping us to reflect.”: Issue nº 178 – When angels talk

(Via Warrior of Light.)

There are a few stories that follow this wonderful introduction by Paulo Coelho. The context, somehow, is different — I have caught on to the fear aspect; he speaks about conversations with and of Angels. The book, however, is a wonderful read.

In a way, I have always been fascinated by people who have an immortal sense of security. I don’t envy them, neither am I afraid of them. They just fascinate me. Because after all, fear, eventually, is a tool more than anything else. And they seem lacking in it. Fear sends gentle and harsh electric pulses and wakes the lazy neurons. It keeps the faculties alive. Manages responses for future action.

Many have often spoken of the negativeness, that is fear. How it brings us down. How dark an emotion it is. And how, hope, a bright shining light, washes the darkness, that is fear. I see hope as a twitching-fingers-while-you-wait emotion. Hope is hopeless, in itself. Do you Believe in Hope?

Then there are the pedlars of live-for-today. I think it is a fine philosophy. In very absolute terms. Almost carefree, devoid of responsibility. But, someday, somewhere you will have to respond. How will you respond? Response is always post-action; always tomorrow.

Fear stimulates the response. Not the foundation to build storeys of excuses, but the knowledge of your response. The truth of it all. Fear stimulates the self-dialogue that Paulo Coelho talks about.

And I love his last paragraph. As long as I don’t rationalise. It is romantic.

In my conversations with the self (and yes, R, you can now safely assume the madness you speak of; however, others agree [insert appropriate smiley for R]), I have always had a dialogue. The dialogue has largely been one-sided, yet it has been good, engaging and useful.

And I think:

Many’s the time I’ve been mistaken
And many times confused
Yes, and I’ve often felt forsaken
And certainly misused
Oh, but I’m all right, I’m all right
I’m just weary to my bones
Still, you don’t expect to be
Bright and bon vivant
So far away from home, so far away from home

(Not mine, obviously; by Paul Simon, in The American Tune)

Hello World!

A quick note to tell you all that this blog is now back with me. With Atul Sabnis. Thank you all for your wishes and support. Am still working on stuff, looking at the damage that has been done. I’ll be back soon.

When I keep talking about the fine folks at WordPress, I mean it. They rock.