(To Everything there’s a Season) Burn! Burn! Burn!

From the day he got burned, to the day he settled (I suspect it is in Ireland), I have been a big fan of Burn Notice. I’ll pause writing for a while, while ya’ll snigger and such.

Pause.

Pause.

Done.

You could have stopped reading this post at the first or the second Pause. But here you are. For all practical reasons it seems that there will be no Season 8. I don’t know if you have followed or are following the serial; if you haven’t this may be a spoiler. So if you did not stop reading at the first or the second pause, stop now.

The last couple of episodes have been very thought-provoking. They have teased and often prodded my ideas about belonging, loyalty, true-love, engulfing darkness, and a death-wish. The emphasis on escape is beyond physical escape. The prisons of our mind are far worse than the emotionless iron bars of a cell.

I don’t care to elaborate on each of these ideas linearly to describe what they meant to me. That would be very academic and boring at the same time. Not everything that is academic is boring. Not everything boring is academic.

Suffice it to say, even an otherwise-non-award-winning-(popular-awards-i.e.) can make you think about things. It can ask you questions that you have never asked before. It can make your jaw drop; when it shows something that is happening with you. Or something that you have imagined for yourself in your lonely corners.

<digression>

Paul often asks questions of bloggers: the popular ones, the ones who promote, the one’s who give advice. Who? Why? What? And such. There’s no such thing as popular bloggers. There are a few who market the content, there are a few who don’t. There may be some shades in between, but these are the only two types of bloggers who are there.

</digression>

What we feel is the ultimate reality. What we want to feel is the ultimate fallacy. Fantasy is great therapy, but like anything else, it is hazardous in high doses. (Notice the H-D-H-D alliteration) Smart, eh? A death-wish is not about death. It is about an exit. Many have it, but will never exercise it. Because they think of it as a mortal conclusion. Their what-if calculation is convoluted. And some folks spend an entire lifetime staring at an MS-Excel sheet doing what-if. Spend your time calculating or spend your time livin’. There is no other way. Call.

Our sense of belonging only to our selves.

Our loyalty is due only to our selves.

Our true love is only to our selves.

Our engulfing darkness belongs only our selves.

Our death-wish is about our exit from that which we do not care about. Death-wishes are not about dying; they are about killing: killing all that we can do without.

What’s you death-wish?

Time Travel

And I continue to look for words. (Scroll, to see the length of the post – long one!)

A quest that will forever be unfulfilled, not because I don’t have words, but because I have no idea which one makes sense, when it is most demanded.

owe |əʊ|verb [ trans. ] have an obligation to pay or repay (something, esp. money) in return for something received : they have denied they owe money to the company | [with two objs. ] I owe you 25 cents.

• owe something, esp. money, to (someone) : I owe you for the taxi.

• be under a moral obligation to give someone (gratitude, respect, etc.) : I owe it to him to explain what’s happened | [with two objs. ] I owe you an apology.

• ( owe something to) have something because of (someone or something) : he owed his success not to chance but to insight.

• be indebted to someone or something for (something) : I owe my life to you.

And I have Jack Johnson singing Belle/Banana Pancakes on my left. And a while ago I just finished watching Shikshanachya Aaicha Gho (SAG, hereafter). The first thing that pierced my head was that children, students, should not watch this film. This should have an A certificate. This is one Adult film, if I have seen one. Mahesh Manjrekar has a great capacity to touch you where it matters with most of his movies. The one thing that, I feel, he cannot control, is the Dus Kahaniayan syndrome. Somehow he feels compelled to tell a detailed story of every peripheral factor in the movie. Except for this fetish of his, I think he makes good movies. SAG, is one of them. I will not be reviewing that movie here, but will be talking about it. Obviously, I will talk about it, so risk the rest of the post at the cost of spoilers. But, be also aware, this post isn’t about the movie as such. Yet it will talk of SAG.

indebted |ɪnˈdɛtɪd|
adjective
owing money : heavily indebted countries.

• owing gratitude for a service or favor : I am indebted to her for her help in indexing my book.

I was looking for words. Before I saw the movie. After, I was exasperatedly looking for words. Because, as much as less you have them, they are the only ones capable of saying what you exactly want to say. I am a slave of words in that sense – because I prefer expressing as close as I can get to what I mean, think, and feel. I had no words. They refused to join my party. I offered them an Indian wine that’s winning awards, to no avail. I wondered why. Then I realised, I can be a slave to words, but words are slave to no one. They are open, free and available, but you have to deserve them; unless you deserve them, they don’t come to you.

debt |dɛt|noun
something, typically money, that is owed or due : I paid off my debts | a way to reduce Third World debt.

• the state of owing money : the firm is heavily in debt.

• [usu. in sing. ] a feeling of gratitude for a service or favor : we owe them a debt of thanks.
PHRASES
be in someone’s debt owe gratitude to someone for a service or favor.

SAG is a good film – that could have been 30mins shorter than the editor imagined it to be worth. What’s it about? Good Q. I can’t really say. It comes across as a criticism of the (apparently harsh) education system that prevails in India. That (apparently) shouldn’t have been in parentheses. It does prevail; the education system. Yes, we have problems. Yes students commit suicides because they are under immense pressures. There must be however, something good about this education system. There must be some reason that the IITians and the IIMians (are they called that?) are successful in a walk of life that you can put a finger on. Three years ago I talked of a dance that wasn’t hugely entertaining. In my personal opinion, we have an education system that is unparalleled; the only thing we are missing is acknowledgement of aptitude.There are careers apart from engineering, medical and accounting & finance. And people can excel in fields other than these three contrived ones. Sports – Sachin Tendulkar. Social Services – Medha Patkar. Fashion – Manish Malhotra. Politics (Pick your name, or leave it blank, who cares?). Point is, if we choose to be successful, we can be.

gratitude |ˈgratɪtjuːd| noun

the quality of being thankful; readiness to show appreciation for and to return kindness : she expressed her gratitude to the committee for their support.

ORIGIN late Middle English : from Old French, or from medieval Latin gratitudo, from Latin gratus ‘pleasing, thankful.’

But coming back to SAG, to my mind, it has got nothing to do with the problems of education system that is prevalent in this country. We aren’t missing the content – we are missing the context. There is a repetitive dialogue in the movie about the multiplication of 17×7. It’s 119, by the way. Why is 17×7 important or not? What’s the context of the date of the first fort that C. Shivaji captured? Nothing really, if you are anyways going to leave the country and work for an Enron-like-company in the US. You would be better off knowing facts about the Civil War, if at all.

Why?

appreciation |əpriːʃɪˈeɪʃ(ə)n| |-sɪ-|
noun
1 the recognition and enjoyment of the good qualities of someone or something : I smiled in appreciation | she shows a fine appreciation of obscure thinkers.

• gratitude for something : they would be the first to show their appreciation.

• a piece of writing in which the qualities of a person or the person’s work are discussed and assessed.

• sensitive understanding of the aesthetic value of something : courses in music appreciation.

2 a full understanding of a situation : they have an appreciation of the needs of users | the bank’s lack of appreciation of their problems.

3 increase in monetary value : the appreciation of the franc against the dollar.

It’s always about context. Content, you see, is a eunuch, if not in context. Context gives content balls. So what’s the problem of knowing the ATP cycle by heart? I didn’t know why. Let us say I had a choice in choosing what I learnt. Here’s what I would choose: Process of making an FIR at a police station and the fact that an FIR is made in the local language, always; that when my car is dead and people are pushing it, I need to move it in the second gear; co-operative society laws; how to apply for a passport; content law, so that I wouldn’t buy a PS3 that discriminates against Indian buyers; and a million more things that make sense.

acknowledgment |əkˈnɒlɪdʒm(ə)nt| (also acknowledgement)
noun

1 acceptance of the truth or existence of something : there was no acknowledgment of the family’s trauma.

2 the action of expressing or displaying gratitude or appreciation for something : he received an award in acknowledgment of his work.

• the action of showing that one has noticed someone or something : he touched his hat in acknowledgment of the salute.

• a letter confirming receipt of something : I received an acknowledgment of my application.

3 (usu. acknowledgments) an author’s or publisher’s statement of indebtedness to others, typically one printed at the beginning of a book.

But, really, lets come back to SAG. Mahesh Manjrekar wanted this to be a movie bout the ills of the education system that permeate and allegedly threaten our future. While he may have wanted to to also talk of the implications that these have on our society; he probably succeeded with an audience like me.

As people who learn – whatever – we have only one [insert the word that I am yet to find; which is close to but not “obligation”] to the system.

To the parent.

Not to teachers or to the system; but to the parent; if you haven’t realised it as yet; the tallest pillar of the education system in India, at least, is the parent. It doesn’t matter if you have become what your parent(s) wished you to be.

What matters is that they thought that you were the one who would change the world. It doesn’t quite matter if you aren’t the Einstein that they imagined. What matters is the height of their belief. What matters is that we have to achieve only a few inches of the height that they imagined. You see, I have come to believe that they only thought of the ultimate success that we could achieve. Unfortunately they could only think in the limited context that was available to them. It was our problem – that we were pulled into that narrow context. We may not be the doctor or the engineer or the IFS officer that they saw in us. But the day we forget and become blind to the star that they saw in us; we have committed injustice to the purest of dreams and sacrifices.

Have you reached here (in the post)? I commend you. This is the kind of post that never is read. Just like the dream of a parent. Never mind the profession your parent wanted to be in; deep down; only because your parent did not know better, all he (or she) wanted you to be is happy an successful.

respect |rɪˈspɛkt|
noun

1 a feeling of deep admiration for someone or something elicited by their abilities, qualities, or achievements : the director had a lot of respect for Douglas as an actor.

• the state of being admired in such a way : his first chance in over fifteen years to regain respect in the business.

• due regard for the feelings, wishes, rights, or traditions of others : respect for human rights.

• ( respects) a person’s polite greetings : give my respects to your parents.

2 a particular aspect, point, or detail : the government’s record in this respect is a mixed one.

Talk to them if they are alive or pay homage, if they aren’t. Tell them, that their dreams and yours have become one, and they are on their way. Tell them that their dreams and yours – have understood each other. The content of the dream isn’t important, the context is – and given that they were a generation before you; they will understand.

Some messages travel at the speed of light; and they traverse universes. Say it, today.

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.

Glastonbury Times

If I was ever meant to learn about rhynes, I would have, somehow or the other. A word has its own way of introducing itself – like tussock – introduced to me when I was learning about the life and times of Genghis Khan. Not that there was any direct connection, but it stuck. Fecund, for example, is another word that has stuck, since my wishful MBA days. Nope, never became an MBA. Call it destiny (experiencing words, i.e.)

Coming back to rhynes, that word could have eluded me for a while even though I spent the last two days in Somerset. It had to be a taxi driver, who began making some reluctant and deliberate conversation once he got to know us as tourists. When he asked us where in Glastonbury we wanted to go, I told him that I had no idea – and we were on a plan of no plan. After some tense silence in the car, he felt the need to make some conversation. The Somerset Marshlands and Moors are not of significant tourist interest in that area, or so I think. Seeing vast never ending wet plains isn’t that exciting – if you have one photograph, you have them all, unless you are surveying. So we got a bit of native information about the Somerset Marshlands and Moors and rhynes. Followed by peat. It was interesting to know about them in more ways than one. For one, I love knowing about a place even if it is of no touristy significance. Secondly, it was very interesting to know something new without having to go to Wikipedia for information. It hasn’t happened to me for some time.

Needless to say – the 25-minute taxi ride became Introduction to Somerset – 101, which served as pertinent education for our day in Glastonbury. The moment I entered the town, I knew I would have loved to be there thirty years ago, while still being in my mid-twenties.

Maybe I was.

There is something timeless about Glastonbury, all the modern signage a reluctant submission to the changing world. Yet, the modern signage (warnings for every conceivable misdeed and disclaimers for every possible future event) doesn’t take away the sense of peace from you. If at all, it directs you towards that elusive sense of peacefulness.

Glastonbury is everything astrology, alternative healing, spirituality, and naturalness. I have come to the conclusion that there is good reason for it. I can’t quite articulate that reason. Not yet, at least. The place oozes of art and inspiration for art. From the ruins of the Glastonbury Abbey to the contemporary aromatherapy herbs shop, the place is rooted in all things perceptive, intuitive and sensitive. There is an experience of walking along the streets of Glastonbury that was a never-before experience for me. Well, other than being in Konkan. For me, it was a wondrous walk through history and legend and all things curious.

We walk the path that lies before us. Often not knowing where we are to go. Not knowing whether the journey is the destination or the journey has a destination. In search of a destination, sometimes. Sometimes we walk paths we know we never walked upon, yet the road seems familiar. Perhaps they resemble another road that we walked upon, perhaps we did walk on this road before and have forgotten it.

Some paths are reminders, of things more than memories.

A Good Day

Beating the alarm clock to being awake on a fresh-smelling morning.

A call, long due, that was better post-poned to another day.

Doing work-stuff that brings back fond memories of school; birthing small regrets about things that could have been. Wishful thinking of things I would have liked to do. Glad that I went to school (and remember most of the stuff, a silent thank you to my teachers) Reminders to self of the many things that aren’t done – setting up time to do those things.

Being so excited about work-stuff that you can’t contain yourself. Shaking hands thrice, for the same things. Being yourself.

Of learning about football, in a way that I have never known the game – beyond just great defence and exciting goals. The game, beyond the players. The games behind the sports.

Long conversation on a phone. The need to say a few million things in a few minutes. It is possible.

The dinner of snacks; the inbox full of nice emails, for a change. Food, for thought and the body.

Darwin, daVinci and death of society in a single conversation. liberally sprinkled with college, teachers, friends, home, crabs, chemistry, technology, media, heresy, belonging. A long one that took precedence over the 9 o’clock Owen Wilson movie.

The looking forward to tomorrow.

The feeling of “I should feel different, but I don’t”. Laughing at it, feeling queasy at the same time. Finally watching yet another non-linear movie. Makes you wonder why we see our life in a single continuum. Our lives are non-linear too, it’s just that we don’t always see the parallel tracks. They are all ours.

Was Richard Bach right? Or was Paul Simon?

A good night.

Blogging Being

I like to believe in coincidences. That way it is easier to deal with happenstance than dissect and analyse the ‘bigger scheme‘ of things that we aren’t privy to.

A couple of days ago I found great food for thought (as much as I was tempted to say food for blog, I shall let the cliché survive) on Lorelle’s recent Blog Challenge post. Just the thought sounded yummy and I said so. But I had no idea what definition I would give. I had shied away from it some time ago, when I had asked the same question to a few bloggers. Blogging means a whole lot of things to me and at the time I put my comment on her post, all those meanings were happily rioting against the floodgates that barricade my otherwise unruly thoughts.

Coincide the above with: The day after I did AFJ’s tag, I thought I would give the ‘answer‘ to the tag. But no, it wasn’t meant to be. I ended up running from here to nowhere via everywhere including WordPress WordPress Support. (The fine folks I always talk about). The problem was quickly resolved. Now, the response post wasn’t critical. At all. It could have been posted even after this post – it wouldn’t have mattered. But just the thought of not being able to post on my blog…!
Blogging doesn’t define me (and thankfully so; given the fifteen-odd blogs that I presumably “write”, I would be easily diagnosed with multiple – (and somewhat split) personality syndrome). I do, however, define blogging, and yet the definition is elusive. I talk of the kind of definition that we have all grown accustomed to.

x is y with z features.

A few of you who have been long-standing victims of my obsession with words, meanings and contexts will know my dilemma. What meaning do you ascribe to something like blogging? It is always easier, I believe, to derive meaning of multiple contexts, and blogging lends itself just fine to multiple contexts.

Blogging is spaces. It is about the spaces that we inhabit, in the world or the worlds that we create for ourselves. We believe we know our space, we are protective about it, often possessive about it. A blog becomes just that and a bit more. It allows for a meandering exploration along those in-between white spaces in between our worlds; those that we don’t often notice and hardly care for. When we are in the white space, when we see from that vantage, we see a lot of colour. There is a vigorous sense of being alive.

Blogging is fear. It is about two types of fear. One that we are able to overcome, often through anonymous blogging, a way for expressing that the otherwise imposed social rules of engagement do not allow us to. This is not floccinaucinihilipilification. Some of the best bloggers are anonymous and it doesn’t change a thing about the beauty and insight in their writing. At the same time, blogging causes fear. Well, fear is too strong a word, but after a while the material attachment to the post-count, comments, stats and therefore the readers, brings a tense sense of holding on. The blog becomes as human as we are. It has flesh and blood – and it has feelings. The cycle continues.

Blogging is judgement. Of every word that dims a few pixels on your screen. Of every post that was born of a thought that refused to disintegrate and crumble at the feet of your neurons; that insisted on being born. Of every reader who reads your post and says something, or doesn’t. Of the blog round the corner that often times does a tad better than my blog. Of the blog round the corner that often times does a tad worse than my blog. In these hallowed halls, where you become the judge and the accused in half-duplex, all is seen through a discerning eye. All is sliced up and spiced up, and given a permanent place, assigned a value.

Blogging, however, is mostly expression. An otherwise delinquent thought becomes a well-behaved angel and sits smartly in a post. And a million such, together create that wonderful experience that is not the author; the blog is seldom the author – it is the author’s projection of colourful thoughts like a festive London Eye on a moonless night, spinning at its own happy whim and in its own blissful frenzy.

And yet I haven’t done any justice to what blogging means to me. The most important context of it all; the most elusive: a blog’s cajoling nature that urges you to articulate more and articulate better (which has yet to work perfectly for me, what with the high level of abstraction that my discrete words adorn).

Ever had a dream, when you felt that you were in a deep dark abyss, falling and rising at the same time, lit up at both ends? Then you know what I mean.

Old Man; Old Pack Horse

A long, almost white, beard flowing down to the table. He was looking straight ahead at infinity along the plane of the half empty ale that he had apparently finished. An ornithologist perhaps or a physicist who had that question about quantum physics – a metaphysical question about the sense of existence – possibly questioning his own and of this young man who observed him in a fleeting moment as he walked past him. He is probably a photographer, I imagined – romantically seeing myself a few years from now – as much as I hate to have a bald head.

While my good friend and I were discussing the nature of conflict and delving into the past to find an answer that would somehow make us even more agitated (though that wasn’t the purpose) as the evening came to a close, in the Old Pack Horse, he seemed to be looking at the future.

Old age, we have all come to believe, looks towards the past for answers, even consolation, about the present. In this case, it seemed exactly the opposite – the young were analysing history – forming a context of the present on that basis – and looking towards multiple indeterminate futures. He seemed to be able to look towards the future just like that.

It’s not just experience – which he seemed to have loads of – that enabled looking into the future – neither is it divine intervention – an inexplicable phenomenon that allows visions into the future. It is one thing to look into the future – yet another to determine it.

On the large wooden table, the single figure, the pint glass half-filled, his ragged clothes exuding a confidence that even a Savile Row suit could not. It was some sort of a fishing jacket – the ones with more pockets than you need. From his left, through a stained glass in an ornately decorated frame, the late night sun cast hesitant shadows across his glass, made the smoke from his cigarette seem as fluid as his thoughts – shades of grey that I had never noticed. I didn’t notice his eyes; I often do not – because the face is a more comprehensive expression than just the eyes. Yet his eyes were resolute in looking to whatever he was looking at – no wavering, no blinks, no hesitation.

Is it possible that such an expansive thought can be captured in a passing moment?

There must be some reason that some images speak with you, even, if unfortunately, you don’t ever capture them on camera.

Environments Matter

Environments matter. Like anything else