The True Letter

“Bhai!” (Brother; no blood-relation, but what we feel about people is stronger than a blood-call)

I always love hearing his voice.

Hey, how are you, I asked.

“All good man. I am sorry.”

Huh? Why?

“I haven’t replied to your letter” [A physical letter, written on paper, paid for with postage, to be delivered by a postman]

That’s alright. I have received one from you.

“I know, but I never replied to your reply to that. I want to reply. I want you to know that.”

She had written a letter to me once. On an unruled Inland Letter. There was a lot of space in between the lines she wrote. Maybe she was helping me read in-between the lines. I wasn’t as smart then, also, I thought I was in love. I just saw the empty space between the actual lines, beautiful handwriting, and well, you know what. She also wrote of how she had good intentions to write to me, but, she reminded me that, “the road to hell is paved with good intentions.” I thought I’d re-quote this to my brother. Thought better of it.

That’s fine. I know you will reply. Soon.

“I don’t understand why I don’t write. I have the stationery. I have the will.”

You are, perhaps too focused on writing a proper letter.

“Meaning?”

You don’t need to write a full letter, you know. Just write a big ‘HI’ on the letter and post it?

“Meaning?”

*

Rest of the conversation was of various other things. And while I did give him an answer for his last question, I wondered, what was the “Meaning?” What does a letter mean? To me?

Doing an about-turn and looking within yourself is a difficult thing to do. We rarely do it. It follows, that we have lost (or are losing) the art of looking within. That evening, I turned.

It’s just so nice to receive a personal letter. A small little envelope, with your name inscribed on it in, fat, thin, curvy, thick, elegant, scribbly handwriting. It’s your name. Then follows your address. Whoever sent you the letter knows exactly where you are. The letter comes home. We aren’t having a conversation while I am commuting or when I am down on the street for a late afternoon for a chai and a cigarette. [Statutory Warning: Smoking is injurious to health].

A letter comes to where you are. Home. And then you open the letter. It may be a single page, or pages and pages stuffed in that reluctant envelope, ready to burst at the seams. It’s never the same as having the letter-writer in front of you, but it is the closest. I know, many folks think voice is the closest, but I think otherwise. Written words are. See, letter writing (pen and paper) is not the same as typing on a keyboard. Our thoughts are racing, our pen-in-our-hand cannot keep up. So, we often slow down out thoughts. If you have ever received a multi-page letter, you will know what I am talking of.

The first paragraph is exquisite. Your friend has sat down to write the letter, slowed down the thought process, and the best of her handwriting shows up. One page down. Now the excitement of Oh-I-have-so-many-things-to-share-with-you, takes over. Scribbly text takes over. Spelling mistakes. Scratches. She sees her own handwriting. Slows down. It repeats. Somewhere, the weight of the paper comes into consideration. No more pages! But I have so much more to say. A-ha! Margins! Let’s flout that one rule we learnt in school.

There’s more character to a letter than any other form of communication. Except of course, when we are having coffee together, at the same table.

To write a good letter, we need to be in denial, however; in these times. We have to deny ourselves an instant response. We have to let go, of a response, if that is what it takes. There is sheer pleasure in writing a letter. We have to move away form the instant gratification of the double-blue-tick-mark of WhatsApp and learn to yearn for a postal delivery. For something tangible. For something that’s forever.

*

Take your time, Bhai. Send me that letter when you can. What matters not is that it’s a postcard or an overstuffed envelope for which I have to pay extra postage. What matters is that I get it. You know it, there’s a joy in receiving letters. You have experienced it.

Spread the joy.

A Matter of Faith

In almost every Indian temple, you aren’t allowed to take a photo of the main deity of the temple. Some temples allow it, but without a flash. If you have been to an Indian temple, you will have noticed that the space where the main deity resides, is dimly lit, usually by oil lamps. Taking a photograph of a the deity, in such light conditions, is usually difficult, without a flash. In my experience, this rule applies only to Indian temples. I have not sensed this, severely enforced in mosques or churches.

Why this is so, is not something I can explain. There are a couple of scientific theories about why the deities should not be photographed, but they are based on faith and belief, not hard science, as we know it. Three of my best friends are atheists. My best friend believes in Jesus, though she is not a Christian. Given my engagement with these four people, my personal (inherited; would be more proper) sense of faith is often questioned. I welcome the questions, even, if at times I have no answers. But the questions do not shake my faith. They make me seek a deeper understanding of my faith. And the faith, and its understanding, is personal.

In a recent visit to a temple I saw a couple of my friends, who were faithful take pictures of a the main deity in a temple. One of my atheist friend was accompanying us. I did not see him take photos of the main deity, but if he had, I would not be surprised. Needless to say, I offered my worship in the way I do, and moved on, to take photos of some of the wonderful sculpture that adorned that temple.

I was, I confess, slightly disturbed by the act of my believer friends taking photos of the deity. After a while we left the temple and made our way home.

*

It was one of the most beautiful drives I have had in my life. We were circumferencing a large lake, in a valley surrounded by my favourite mountain range — the Sahyadri. Small village roads, meandering along the folds of one of the oldest mountain ranges in the world, a mountain road, cut across the Deccan Traps. My three companions in the car, juggling the role of the DJ; good music played. We sang along, we laughed: at each other and with each other. I was a bit preoccupied; my passengers thought it was because I had a flight later that evening; and was looking to back as soon as possible.

I was thinking of the meaning of faith. I was thinking of how I was disturbed because someone else did not follow the general belief and custom. Somewhere, in that question, I was asking myself why I was disturbed. It was not a good feeling, and I wanted to understand why I felt that.

*

All of this happened a week ago. And I cannot say that I now have a proper answer; the answer will evolve. I know this much, though: my faith, my sense of my faith is mine. It is personal. I need not seek justification for what I believe. I do not need others to practice what I believe. (For even if I could make them follow, it would be coerced; devoid of belonging) There is no science to it. In the same way that I seek answers, I have to understand that other people do too. They make their own meaning. And how we sense our answers varies from friend to friend. And it changes with time.

Faith matters. But there is no matter in faith.

Crucial Curation

Those who have followed this blog for a while, know of my love-hate relationship with social media. I have been on and off social networks — as if I was punishing the networks — when I got upset with the nature of conversation and interaction that people on the network were having.

The network is inert.

Lately, without wanting to do so, I have been away from the networks. [To be clear, I do not consider WordPress as one of them]. It’s almost impossible to be on a network without taking sides. And if you do not take a side, variants of history’s accusations are hurled at you from all sides. Taking sides is worse; the enslavement is unbearable.

While this phenomenon is obvious and in-your-face on digital social networks, it is not limited to them. Shoot first and ask questions later is becoming the norm. Everyone wants to be the quickest draw in the West. And the East. And the North and the South. Amit referred to it as a left-right mud-slinging contest in a recent Twitter thread. It’s not. It’s fact-slinging. Apparently different types of facts. Alternative facts. Your facts. My facts. True facts. Baseless facts. Useless facts. (Yes, I have read people use these pairs).

We are fast losing the ability to discern between opinions, suggestions, ideas, rhetoric, humour even. All these, and more are being abstracted as statements, open for the rest of us to vilify, mock, abuse, and in general – demean. We do not have the time to pause and refer to context. And even if we had the time, where is the context? In less than three minutes we send eight tweets on seven different themes. How does a reader get the context? When does the reader get context?

There is also the question of the platform. Take Twitter, because I have mentioned it a couple of times now. Most of us readily blame the platform for this phenomenon.

The platform is inert.

It has no means or the capacity or the intelligence to expose us any more than what we publish to the platform. The one thing that it has enabled — is give voice to everyone. In these times when voice is free, there’s a dash to be heard. Me, me, me! But no one listens, because everyone is busy talking. And one thing is clear: mostly, people are angry. And it seems like old anger, one which was voiceless so far. And it has become ugly and rotten.

Unlike the different types of facts, that we believe in, we don’t believe that there are multiple truths. We do not have the patience for any truth to reveal itself. Fleeting gratification appeals to our ever shortening attention spans.

*

Jama Masjid, Kalburgai (Gulbarga)

All is not lost however, as apocalyptic this post may sound: as long as you curate.

There are many people who are spreading joy (not by mis-attributed feel-good hackneyed cheesy-quotes on mushy-stock-images) but, by just being themselves, sharing life experiences. These are statements in the true sense. They carry with them, no attributes of opinions, suggestions, and such. There is no compulsion to engage. In this case, the consumption is the engagement.

That’s where curation becomes crucial.

This is not to say that we become unaware as citizens and humans. What’s wrong must be righted.

In the real-world. Not on Twitter.

Faith’s Question

A post has brewed for more than a week now. When it took birth, the sense, it seemed, was of righteous anger. There was a festival in play which signifies happiness and joy, so I did not post. That sense of anger, over the seven days that I celebrated the festival quickly turned into disgust, then into orphaned sadness, and eventually got diluted over the days to placid resignation. The festival is still on; some celebrate it for ten days.

Somewhere between this journey of morphing feelings, I heard, in my head, the chorus of Paul Simon’s Proof looped in my head incessantly:

Faith
Faith is an island in the setting sun
But proof, yes
Proof is the bottom line for everyone. Proof

I was chanting the litany relevant to the occasion, yet this chorus enveloped my mind. Two voices were vying for attention at the same time. One that was coming out of my mouth wanting my mind and heart to feel it; and the other was playing in my head, hoping my mouth would recite it. Words are placeholders for meaning. When two very clear meanings fight, the mind-space becomes a mess.

Festivals are about being merry; I do not deny that. The lack of reverence that I was exposed to however,  caused that sequence of diluting of emotions within me. My faith and my beliefs are an inheritance and I am proud and grateful for that. Mostly, because they were never imposed on me, they were offered to me, for my consideration. I emphasise that phrase because I have borrowed it from a friend, Sagar Kolte, who has helped me understand what being grounded means; that italicised phrase is not mine; it’s his. But that is what I inherited: A context for consideration.

My initial anger, which was dunked in a bucket to let go, came from the lack of reverence that I saw on the street on the eve of this festival. The Ganesh Chaturthi Festival has two contexts. One is personal; the original context of it — a practice to experience attachment, detachment, and selflessness. The other is social, which is rooted in the Indian Freedom Struggle. Both the contexts however have one thing in common: reverence. On the eve of the festival, I saw that there was utter ignorance of either of these contexts, coupled with utter lack of reverence.

I sheathed my anger at that instant and came home. I thought about Faith, that’s when the song by Paul looped infinitely in my head. At that instant, another song by him briefly asked a question of me:

There may come a time
When I will lose you
Lose you as I lose my sight
Days falling backward into velvet night
The open palm of desire
Wants everything
It wants everything. Further to Fly (Emphasis, mine)

There’s so much that churned in my head these seven days. As I rake in all that transpired in the week, I discover that there’s little that I collect; it escapes me like sand through fingers. Who am I to question how someone expresses their beliefs? Like me, others would have also considered what they believe, and act so.

What I originally meant to post has been immersed into oblivion. These are the vapours that remain of the original brewing. Perhaps indirectly, I have questioned the belief of others, which I intended to question directly. After the festival and the immersion, I have let go. I am blessed by what I have been allowed to consider.

I do know the meaning of what I do. I know the meaning, context, and the philosophy of every chant that I utter. And I have reason on my side even when I talk of something (irrational, though it may seem). Those reasons are mine, and mine only. It seems, I have made peace with them. It has taken me 42 years to know this: the nature of beliefs and my reasons of faith are non-negotiable and non-transactional. They are personal. Very personal.

So are yours.

Saving Christmas (And other Festivals)

Soon, most of you will be away, and I hope you will not be checking your emails or your tweets or facebook (Facebook is almost a non-noun now, so I choose not to capitalise it) status updates. It’s a good thing, if you will do that. And, if you do insist on staying online – I hope it is all about you telling me what a good time you are having. So,

Merry Christmas and a Very Happy New Year.

No, I did not say Happy Holidays. Like, for example, the BBC has been doing on its channel.

The world’s changing into too much of averageness, And I will have none of it. Every specific thing that I have known – every festival is being reduced to an abstraction of meaninglessness. Hate me for it, but I refuse to participate in this politically correct (PC) charade

When it is Diwali, I will wish you a very Happy Diwali and Prosperous New year. When it’s Christmas, I will do the same. And I will wish you a Happy Id, depending on when the moon chooses to show itself. Even if it for a moment in that day, I will remember Guru Nanak’s teaching. I will wish you a Happy New Year, when the Parsee, the Tamilian, the Maharashtrain and when the Punjabi celebrates it; when anyone celebrates a New Year (I may not know your new year, that’s another thing). What the hell, if you decide a that a day in the year is a start of the new year, I will wish you then. (Just let me know about it)

I do not do Happy Holidays. Period.

I do not know what they mean. It is almost like wishing you a fun vacation. Which I will do – if you are going on a vacation. But I refuse to do it during a holiday given for a festival. If you look deeper at any festival, it is essentially a time to be with family and friends. To make merry, to connect, to eat together; to enjoy together. And each festival has a ritual, a means — a method — to be with family and friends. Some festivals have protocols. Some fun; some weird. You may not subscribe to them in their entirety, but in your own modified way, you will follow them, let go of your ego and high-practical-scientifically-oriented-thinking for those few days and just be. For most of us, these days, festival holidays, especially if they come in contact with a weekend, are a way to retreat from the daily routine. The significance of the festival is lost to us. Some may think that. I don’t, yet. As joint-families give way to nuclear families, it is the way to go. We still end up doing what we were essentially supposed to do at festivals. We are with family and/or friends and we make merry.

A few years ago when I had wished many of my customers in the US, a Merry Christmas, my colleague, who was based on the US for a while, had chided me for sending these messages. He identified a few of my customers, who were Jews and other non-Christians, and told me that it would be inappropriate to wish them a Merry Christmas. I thought about and acceded to his request and maintained the “Happy Holidays” protocol in the next few years. In my mind, however, I never ever completely agreed with him. He of course, never took the pain to remind me of Jewish festivals when I could wish them, specifically. I later asked him, why none of my customers ever wished anybody in my team a Happy Diwali? My team took the pain to explain that we would not be working for a Thursday and Friday and sent them Wikipedia links about Diwali. Apart from a few generous souls, no one ever wished my team a Happy Diwali. He obviously had no convincing answer. Most of the folks from the US, wished us a Merry Chirstmas, incidentally, in December as they proceeded to their “Happy Holidays”.

Isn’t it blasphemous to wish a Hindu or a Muslim a Merry Christmas? Or, for that matter, wish a Happy Diwali to a Christian? I do not know.

This post may be seen as the cultural incongruence we face, when working with different regions and religions. It possibly is; even, But, we need to make that slight extra effort; we need to understand that abstracting every festival to meaningless averages is not going to help us understand each other better. What will help us, is participating in each others’ festivals. I have been blessed that I was invited to a family Thanksgiving dinner, in the US, where the family kindly cooked chicken for me because they were not sure if I’d eat turkey (I did). I have been blessed that my friend from the UK has visited Lalbaug cha Raja, and participated in the Ganapati Aarti, with me at my home. I have been blessed that my friends, when they have stayed overnight at my place, have offered their morning Namaz at my home.

Most important of all, I have been blessed to have been taught to know and respect cultures around the world and that I can keep this respect alive without succumbing to political correctness. So, whether you are Christian or not, here’s wishing you a Merry Christmas and a Very Happy New Year.

What other people believe and do, does not determine who you are. What you believe and what you do, determines who you are.

The Birth of the Reader

[…] the birth of the reader must be at the cost of the death of the Author.

There was a recent tag on Facebook (whatever happened to those wonderful tags on blogs?) about authors who have influenced you. Multiple people tagged me, and I’d like to say that I was forced to do the tag – reluctantly. I have done a few tags on my blog, and I must say – I have enjoyed most of them. I can’t say the same for this one.

Having said that, I am not cursing whoever started the tag. It was done in the spirit of social Facebooking. We all love being a part of a social movement, while being stationary at our desks. There is some futile fun in that, I confess.

The problem with ill-defined tags is that they coerce you into finishing them.

I have been influenced by everything that I have read – and given the times that we live in – influenced by everything that is published – beyond words – audio, video and imagery. I have been influenced with a significant body of work; I doubt, however, if I have been influenced by an author. The one work that has influenced this thinking had this to say:

The explanation of a work is always sought in the man or woman who produced it, as if it were always in the end, through the more or less transparent allegory of the fiction, the voice of a single person, the author “confiding” in us.

I have worked with a group of people who may never be able to articulate this philosophy, but adhere to it as if their life depends on it. No one adds the signature.

I have been further been blessed that I live with my artist friend, who helps me cement this thinking with her ever-growing work – always challenging me to seek an artist in a work. The signature of an artist, I have called it once. Society almost demands the definition of an artwork that is defined by the artist’s profile. My primary personal influences, for example have been the Panchtantra and Hitopadesh. Let’s violate the primary premise of this post, and quote Roland Barthesfor the third time:

Thus is revealed the total existence of writing: a text is made of multiple writings, drawn from many cultures and entering into mutual relations of dialogue, parody, contestation, but there is one place where this multiplicity is focused and that place is the reader, not, as was hitherto said, the author.

For a person who reads many books used to read many books and is potentially dyslexic, It has been a difficult journey for me to remember authors. Where some body of work has left a lasting remark, I have usually remembered the body of work, rather than the author. I will never be able to quote it verbatim, but I will never forget the message. It is usually the same with music. I remember songs – I can never identify the composer, sometimes not even the singer. This means that I have survived numerous guilt-trips of you-love-this-song-but-you-don’t-know-the-singer-or-the-music-director? kind of accusations. I have persevered many such exclamations, often with difficulty. It took me some time to realise that I am not a Fact-roid. It has taken me a bit longer to come to terms with that. I haven’t crossed page 16 of any book by Umberto Eco. Gabriel Garcia Marquez has been endured with no avail. I have finished four Dan Brown books in less than four days (There was a discount offer from Tesco, so I bought all four). Applied Discrete Structures For Computer Science, believe it or not, is my favourite book.

Two, otherwise innocent, comments on the Facebook tag triggered this post. My list appealed to a few and a few others had questions about a few authors that did not make the list.

Scroll back to the top. and then come back here.

Are we who we are because what we read or because of who we read?

Remains of the Day: 003

The idea was to crunch every month in a claustrophobic post. Last time I did it, it was in May. And I have done only one before the one in May this year.

There’s a problem.

If you try hard, use a magnifying glass to see the divider between two months, you may not find any.

And in any case, if that’s the idea, these posts should be called Remains of the Month. But, I have often being accused of being a rebel against structure. I have never known how to react to that accusation; for often I have been accused of being a slave to structure.

It amuses me to no end.

Proof of Life

Chanced upon a not-so-innocent-song about the rains. Needless to say – it brought very happy memories from the days when life was a possibility. Not as artificially predictable as we have made it to be through anxiousness and concerns of security.

When I was in college (1989-92, yeah, really long time go) there was this tea-stall at the Pune University Circle — run by this diminutive, yet regal, man who went by the name of Anna. He made good tea. Notice, the subtle emphasis on the word — good. Like the smell of your grandmother’s unique recipe and the mesmerising visions that your father could paint with words, flowing with ease; this is one such taste. It remains with you forever.

My analytical mind, unfortunately, takes over.

Since Anna’s chai, I have had tea at a gazillion tea-stalls, all over the MH state. I am sure I have had as good tea in at least one of these stalls. It makes you wonder, if it was really the way that the tea that was brewed that keeps the memory alive.

It wasn’t the brew.

It was the environment. There is a word, maahoul — which, I doubt has an equivalent English word. Chai at Anna’s was a concept that we were in love with. One Skid-prone-Kinetic, a Bajaj Scooter and a black Yamaha 100cc bike, if he chose to ever find time for us, from his why-does-he-have-such-an-ugly girlfriend. Conversations of today that were heavily punctuated with loud laughter (in the days when LOL or ROFL weren’t invented and you had to use facial muscles to “Laugh-out-Loud”). Building dreams of tomorrow with almost-Italian-style-waving-bare hands in the thin air of Pune’s December. The clinical dissection of emerging role-models by brash arrogance that was nurtured by fearless dreams.

There isn’t a University “Circle” anymore.

The circle has been sliced and bled dry by sharp and stoic grey plates of thick concrete fly-overs that help you get quicker to where you will not stay anyway. I often go to Pune, and every time I take the fly-over to head towards the Expressway, a late-eighties cell-and-tissue-combination in my heart dies a lonely death. Some psycho-somatic mechanism almost denies entry to those memories.

But, coming back to the point, I hate the rain.

I really do. And ironically, my self-proclained-and-personally-discovered roots are in Konkan, and I spent formative years in Goa. Imagine, I call Mumbai — Home. I think, since I started driving, rains in Mumbai have banged in the last nail in a rotting coffin. But, I try and remember, and, I have never liked rains. Not as a kid, because you couldn’t go out and play. Not as a commuter, because I start two-hours earlier for a thirteen-kilometre ride (and yet I am not sure). There is something about rains that seems so “arresting”.

Go out, get wet!

Right. Water in my mobile phone. Fading driving license; thrice wet since it was issued. Wet currency notes that need to come under an iron. Soggy cigarettes that are anyway useless, because the bloody match-box is a hopeless lump of phosphorous, devoid of a spark, even. They still haven’t invented practical wipers for the glasses on your nose. Can’t take photographs – ever heard of a working wet camera? There isn’t even anything really romantic about the rains, unless you are on film set and have a director who can manage your smallest action. In real life, the girlfriend is always on the 5:56pm Karjat-Slow that is late because of the rains. (And she couldn’t call you because she had water in her mobile phone. Imagine this scene as you wait and watch the shoe-shine boys at Ghatkopar station, for ninety minutes, creating a ruckus with their wooden implements. Continuously. Without a break!)

Rain and wash-outs, have an illegitimate relationship.

I have seen the freshness and the squeaky-clean sense that you get after a rain. Rains clean everything. They affect your thoughts, if you are in the rain. I have had, many opportunities to be in a dry place with large windows and a very comfortable chair. Those (very few) instances where I did not need to get somewhere in the same dry state as when I started, when it was pouring outside.

I love watching the rain.

When rain doesn’t touch me, it does not wash-out anything. It brings back a-small-smile-on-your-face memories. And that dry place that you are in, with a glass of chai that reminds you of Anna (and his well-oiled moustache) and reminds you of Abhijit who can never laugh with his eyes open. Or the glass of Old Monk and Thums-up stirred with your ring-finger, that reminds you of Mahesh’s theory of how love really happens. That place and time is my happiest place and time on the face of this warm and parched earth.

It is not nostalgia. Oh, hardly.

It is not raking in the past like cleaning up the dry leaves orphaned on the ground. It is not a time-traveler’s wish. It is not the pangs of wanting to get back to those times. Neither is it the craving for a carefree life. It definitely is not a judgement on living a life of responsibilities. It is an acknowledgement of how beautiful a life we have led. This life, not any other.

It is proof of life.

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.

Contemporary Casteism

The father of the nation worked hard to eradicate caste system in this country. He wished for a place where all would feel equal. On his birthday, a new system of inequality was introduced. So draconian, it makes you feel that the US is a smoker-friendly country.

When the ban came in effect, I was away, in the UK. Obviously I expected change when I came back.

And what a change! It is now seen in the eyes of every person who watches me smoke. What would have been perceived as simple disgust before, has now changed to complex hostility. And I am no exception. There may be a few good reasons why the ban was called in — one purpose it has served however, unfortunately, is the creation of two classes opposed in personal choice.

The response to my previous post, for example, is an insignificant example. You’d almost think that one side was avoiding commenting on the post to discourage any further attention on written matter related to tobacco.

I am drawn to Asuph’s post about Homosexuality: a meta (or non) normative take. The last piece in that post — the “no rules” are the most interesting. While he writes that with a specific context, it is fairly universal. I would add a fourth category to Asuph’s post:

D. De-normalisation through legislation.

I have observed the ban being brought into force the world over, the initial reactions and eventual resignations. The moment these things are legislated, there is potent belligerence in the air. For example, even some of the tolerant non-smokers have been swayed to extremism (and thankfully, both sides of the extremes — but those are negligible) by these bans.

Someday, you will be on the wrong side of the legislation according to the Recurrently Dividing Set Theory. To borrow and build upon Oscar Wilde’s thoughts, even if I disagree, I’ll defend to death your right to choose; question is, will you?

Yet Another Bout of Schizophrenia

I willed the bus to go faster.

I wasn’t in a hurry, the couple, standing in the space for the buggies and the wheelchair, really needed to be elsewhere. Eventually, they got down. I was happy. For them and for me. I wouldn’t need to count tile-flakes on the bus floor, avoiding eye-contact.

I was reminded of “Duncan”, by Paul Simon:

Couple in the next room
bound to win a prize:
they’ve been going at it all night long!
Well, I’m tryin’ to get some sleep
but these motel walls are cheap:
Lincoln Duncan is my name,
and here’s my song, here’s my song.

Full Song

It was an interesting day, I had had. One thing led to another and all that we were led to, was proof of life; tomorrow was worth all the troubles of today.

One exciting and animated conversation was aborted when we arrived at Victoria. People must have been watching me, my mate was probably relieved at seeing the doors open (for me) at Victoria. Thirty-six free newspapers lay on the floor on the connecting tube on my way home. News isn’t the purpose anymore – when most people don’t pay for news. The problem with free, is the problem of choice – the lack of it. Paper is environmentally friendly, waste it as you please. Waste anything that’s bio-degradable.

A fellow blogger and I have had arguments about translations. Which reminded me, Rahat Fateh Ali Khan and Mahalaxmi Iyer’s song, “Bol Na Halke Halke” is in-translatable. Yet there was this question of how I would tell you the experience of that moment.

YouTube video to the rescue.

I wouldn’t dare translate it in English. Watch it.

If you don’t know the language, just think of the moon, its light, how you would steal it; light threads on a beautiful night, of being shy, in your lover’s arms, speaking softly, kissing softly. Trading all night with the currency of dreams, how two-three words took ages to be uttered, their simplicity not withstanding. Perhaps, asking her why I took so long to say the most simplest of the phrases – I love you. She saying, I always knew.

But, suffice it, for now, that even a tomb is a possible sign of love. A signature. The final expression of a love that has been and will remain forever. I have seen many benches in parks in the UK that I have treated with respect. So small in structure, so heavy in expression.

So, while, “Bol Na Halke Halke” (Say it, softly, softly) rings in my ears, I pick on of the thirty-six newspapers on the floor. The newspaper is an instant flashing view of the world around me. Personally, I have been too disappointed with newspapers to give them any credit. Yet, out of habit, I pick this one newspaper that survives on advertisements – and sells for nought.

The world in your two hands for nought.

“Britney must survive on GBP 745 a week”
“LA gangs come to London”

Then an advertisement at the bottom of the newspaper: “YOU could be the next Mayor of London!”

I am immune. Another fellow blogger wonders why I never comment on her posts. She writes about things that are socially relevant – to you and me. To the world that we live in. She makes sense. Perhaps she may understand, now. 2 billion pounds is the amount that, “Churches, mosques, synagogues and other faith communities” contribute to the economy. (We are talking only UK here)

I am 22 pages past, “The God Delusion.” I have to stop. The book questions my ‘acquired beliefs” and those that I held as true.

Just below the above excerpt, a model admits she is “addicted to cheeseburgers – and that’s the real reason she quit Los Angeles to return home.”

Why does Britney have to survive on $1500 a week? Father now controls her spending, but they did allow her to have a credit card, “so she can have her freedom and make choices about how to enjoy her life.” Right. She earns the money, you get to control it. And only because her behaviour is unacceptable. When you buy your next CD – you know who is getting the money. Be aware, small changes around us. Like Britney? Pay her father. She doesn’t deserve it, the immoral calf. A moral code. Your moral code. Her father’s moral code. The social code.

It is 31 degrees C in Goa, India. The heat is on. Scarlett Keeling’s murder. They covered it, we covered, they were negligent, we screwed up, they screwed up, let’s have intellectual fog in 31 degrees. Fog. Any fog is nice.

Control

Parents

Blame

Shift

Responsibility. Rather assignment of responsibility. What is responsibility? Who is?

Brian Paddick promises not to have high rises in London. Ken promises more. Ken promises cycles for free (first 30mins only) in London. Green. Whatever happened to the phrase – paint the town red. We will soon see a different colour. Let’s borrow two bikes for 30 mins. Let’s paint the town green. Cities yearning to be a village.

I am now a believer. I wasn’t, before. I believe: global warming is a serious problem. It is a problem of extreme magnitude. The amount of attention we give to this problem obscures the real problems. Poverty, hunger, disease, illiteracy, disparity, urban crowding, cultural misunderstanding, and such. Global warming affects us all. It blinds us to the real problems that truly affect us all.

Budget is due – the highlight – it is a green budget. “Despite fears that voters are losing interest in eco-friendly issues, he [Alistair Darling] will target high-street chains such as John Lewis in the greenest ever budget.” Oh, and of course, “Above-inflation rises on cigarettes and alcohol.”

Statistics.

The new open-source toy that we discovered. Open and indifferent to abuse. “3m – the amount of plastic waste (in tonnes) generated annually in the UK.”

But enough about the newspaper. Your newspaper doesn’t look any different. And you know so, yet we fight about issues.

The mood is discordant. The music in my ears, “Bol Na Halke Halke” (now on repeat) is incongruent with the world I live in. I see movies like “Love, Actually” and the next morning I step into a different world. I have been to Heathrow more times than I have ever taken a flight. (here is some trivia for you – I have never been received at Heathrow) I have my own scenes of people meeting their loved ones (think: last scene of Love, Actually) and that has been far better than the ‘voice-overed’ scenes of the film as true as they may be. Yet, the constant “will destroy your unattended luggage; don’t smoke here; report suspicious items” announcements are as real as the tears of the grandmother seeing her grandchild for the first time. Believe me, 99% of people I receive at the airport turn up 45 minutes later than they are supposed to. I get to see many scenes. So many scenes of people meeting people as they cross boundaries.

We know all is real. All is important. Why this dissonance? How do we survive this simultaneous irony? Did we miss something? Something important?

In an effort to set the world right, we are living in a world that is terribly going wrong.

PS: Earlier bouts occurred here

Come, Have a Drink

As he walks, Mostly Barefoot, on a sidewalk on the digital highway (UPDATE: Unfortunately, this blog has been deleted), he stops for a while and scatters a few gems where he stands. (Reminds me of The Shawshank Redemption, a la Andy Dufresne, walking in the afternoon sun, scattering the collection of the night)

Usually a beer drinker, the first time I tried a cocktail was because someone whose opinion I respected insisted on it. So I tried it, but really, found nothing to change my loyalties alcohol-wise.

My blogging experience is unfolding a bit like that long ago drink. A few sips into it, there is some kind of new activity at taste bud level but nothing at conversion level yet.

So I came here looking for the recipe, to learn more about the stuff in my glass. Guess I’ll look around some more. [Mostly Barefoot on Blogging Being]

As much as he insists on the analogy above, I think blogging is an acquired taste for him. He does bring about an important point though, and while the recent ‘theme’ seems to be about blogging and such, I thought I’d let go of my footwear and have drink too, barefoot.

Frankly, I like the analogy up there. The blogosphere becomes one wonderful bar, types of drink are the bloggers and each drink a post. Like him, I mostly drink beer, but have a white wine, once in a while.

The comments, oh the comments are the wonderful conversations at that table in the corner over there. You see them folks? That guy with the ale, and the one beside him with the bitter. See her? With the glass of a white wine and of course that guy over there with a Bloody Mary. They usually have the same drink – but their conversations vary — and though their drinks differ, they have something to talk about — something all of them can relate to. Once in a while he has white wine and she has a Bloody Mary, but mostly they stick to what they drink.

They talk of the friend who used to have rum and coke, he doesn’t come to the bar anymore. And of course the one who would have nothing but red wine, she sits at the bar, doesn’t come at their usual table these days.

A couple of drinks later, they look at their table, there are a few empty seats. They look at each other and slight curve of nostalgia lines their smiles.

The bar door opens and they all see him entering. Seems like a guy who will be comfortable at this table and have a conversation.

Seems like a lager-kind of a guy.

Tags: drink, bar, wine, ale, bitter

Lost in Translation

A few years ago, I attended a Pujo, which was being organised by a friend. He is a quintessential Bong, with one exception, which is perhaps his defining character — he doesn’t eat fish. In fact he quite hates seafood and I don’t believe it has anything to do with the delicacy of his constitution.

Her idol was in it’s grand splendour and I was spellbound by the vision of the Devi. By itself, such imagery can easily evoke strong feelings of contemplation. I had a chance to get closer to the idol, my friend being the organiser and all, and he introduced me to his uncle. An old person, with a twinkle in his eye. More friends joined in, in an attempt to get closer to God. I stood away, the spell of the vision and the environment, lurking heavy on my head. My organiser-friend walked up to me and asked me what the matter was. I said I didn’t know, just that I seemed to be overwhelmed. It was, perhaps, I said that this is the first time I ever attended a ‘true’ Pujo. I also mentioned, in a muttering manner, that I was overwhelmed. He smiled, he has this uncanny way of smiling, a unique one when he thinks he knows what you are thinking about, which he usually does. It isn’t rocket science, but I have seen him smiling proudly in such instances. He pointed to his twinkly-eyed uncle, and said:

“I was speaking with him a while ago, before all of you came. I think I know why you are overwhelmed.”

“Why?”

“There is an amazing metaphor in what you see, you are experiencing that, yet the ability to decipher it, is what overwhelms you.”

“Ah.”

“You see the demon being slain at the feet of the Goddess? That’s our ego. When we pray to the Goddess, in effect we praying to her to help us slay our demons – one of them just happens to be our ego.”

“So all the imagery here is a metaphor? Of sorts?”

“Possibly.”

I smiled back at him. He did the same. He seemed to be glad that I approved. The rest of the friends came to wish him and our conversation never went any further.

Unfortunately.

Since that day, I have yet to attend a Pujo. No reason.

A couple of months ago, I happened to see India’s latest entry for the Academy Awards. Eklavya. A large section of the film hinges on a dilemma in interpretation of the philosophical premise taken from the Mahabharat, which is Bhishma‘s, about the interpretation of something as complex as Dharm. Basically, Bhishma says that Dharm is that which appeals and feels right to the mind (the intellect or the conscious mind). (Read this article by A. V. Srinivasan, [apologies; broken link, will update when I find the source] especially the fifth and sixth paragraph). For those of you who have studied Vedic Philosophy more than I have (or know Sanskrit more than I do), you know that I am over-simplifying it. I know I am. There is a much larger context to the dialogue, which I am not presenting.

Hopefully it won’t dilute the thought I am wrestling with.

Making meaning is difficult — a common meaning, especially. A standard meaning that most of us can take as a premise and argue about. What, for example, did the bleeding demon under the feet of the Goddess really represent? Was it ego? Was it weakness? Was it fear? Was it a single representation of all that I wish to conquer? Was Ramayan a story of morality or obedience? Or, deep down, was it a love story? A tragic one at that. In your mind, who would you qualify the real villain of the story? Was it Ravan, who caused such distress and war or was it that dhobi (laundry-man) who made a arbitrary statement about the character of Ram and Sita. In pop-culture, you notice many references to Ravan; hardly any references to the moral laundry-man.

The words I have heard all my life about the interpretation and meaning of Godliness whiz past me like sub-atomic particles in the quest of anti-matter. The question, however, isn’t about God.

All stories have been relegated to just that — stories. The premise, the dilemma, the philosophy, the context, the essence – the meaning of stories has been pushed hard, back into deeper recesses where we may not touch them, where we may never experience them.

But, we should.

Being Converted

The last few days were really difficult. Actually the dilemma had been going on for a while, a few months in fact. The turmoil had often come to boil and the leanings had wavered many a time. With each wind that blew from either direction, with its own power.

This one is going to be the slowest post I ever wrote.

Religion, when you free it from the shackles of the rituals and the frenzy, it is just a way of life – a way to achieve a place closer to God. Yet, what remains, if you take away the very attributes that allow religion to it be?

Nothing, the way I see it.

Imagine a religion without a name, without its own peculiar rituals, devoid of its sacred texts, sans the frenzied activity, that allows it be a religion different from another religion. The fanaticism that allows the followers of a religion to regale in its success and community is the mark and the characteristic of how a religion comes to be. While the primary purpose of religion is only a discipline, towards a goal, the paths vary. All the defining and so-called corrupt rituals are just the defining characteristics of the way we get there, eventually. We call them baseless, these acts based on blind faith and superstition so that we are ale to make the path towards the goal easier. And as much as we might look down upon them – these are the very means that allow us to recognise and relate to the religion that we follow. These are the very means that allow us to recognise the religion that others follow. An act, by itself, serves to define someone’s religion – the purpose of it, blurring ever so steadily.

All religions have one goal; we all know that, everyone comes to the same place from different routes. We see the people on different routes. We sometimes ridicule them, wonder why they made things so difficult. Sometimes we envy them, when the path seems simpler. Sometimes we never understand what motivates them to walk on difficult paths. We never choose a religion after a careful study; never an informed decision, more often than not, our religion is decided for us before we are born. We follow it without questioning it, take on the dogma without questioning it. Sometimes we renounce it altogether. Sometimes we just ignore it. We have long forgotten the primary purpose of it.

I converted today.

After having spent nearly all my life with Microsoft-based technology (since I was introduced to the computer), I converted to Mac-based technology with my first MacBook ever. I thought hard about this question of conversion for a long time now. I have questioned others and questioned myself about this change of religion.

I have yet to get used to so many things in this new discipline. All things that I once held as true and familiar suddenly aren’t true anymore. All that I once did with my eyes closed, metaphorically speaking, requires an extra effort and learning. The simplest of the tasks demand that I open my mind to a new way of life.

I am typing slowly and learning it all in this very slowly composed post.

It suddenly doesn’t seem to matter much. I haven’t renounced one religion for the other. I have just embraced another one. While it doesn’t make me any more religious than I already am, I think it makes the journey that much more exciting and colourful and enjoyable.

Going to Rehab

That’s what friends are for – they make you see what you already know – and make you put a number to it.

Dang! No addiction is good addiction. Be back when it’s like 35% or less.

Don’t check your addiction index.

Mistaking Judgement

Not all mistakes we commit, come under the purview of the local legal system.

When they do, however, you are governed by them and there is a price to pay. Sanjay Dutt got to know that amount yesterday – six years of RI. While he seems to have a glimmer of hope with the Supreme Court, the meting out of the sentence itself must have been a moment of devastation. Such is the nature of hope, often. Yet hope is a bad customer, when dealing with death.

Apparently, all’s fine in the land of the much-delayed judicial system in the country. Apparently.

In a public court, you stand covered and protected by well-wishers and your legal counsel. What do you do in your own court? What about the crimes you committed for which there isn’t a penal code? For the hearts that you broke, for the lies you got away with. The harshness or the softness of the sentence is yours to mete out. Is that a conflict of interest when you are the criminal and you are the judge?

Depends – will you be more the judge or more the criminal? Where will your loyalty lie? And in being either, won’t you have a context to pronouncing the judgement? Won’t you have the context of being righteous, the context of being sensitive or the context of being politically correct?

And then, this.

The ultimate definition of work-life balance, the desegregation of professional and personal life; I once said the same thing to a person – don’t lose faith in yourself. The punishment and the motivating words contradict to a large extent – you can believe in either. Not both. I see that the person now lives by the applicable penal code. The defined standard is a known evil – recognisable, defendable. The motivating words have no standards – erratic, devoid of substance, undependable.

Where standard penal codes don’t apply, it is better to be human. Where they do, it is better not to be.

Yippi-kaa-yay

The cry sounded out the fourth time, and he was once again in the wrong place at the wrong time. and I so love it when he is in the wrong place at the wrong time. I, however, was at the right place. In a theatre watching 4.0.

Come out to the coast, we’ll get together, have a few laughs…

I’ll tell you the happiest moment, though a bit tentative, I can now plan to buy all four of them on DVD. I am tentative because, I am not sure if they will round it off to five.

You give me this story and I’ll have your baby.

The villains are getting younger, and John McClane is getting older – but the magic is the same as ever if not better. The daughter has grown up and Holly isn’t back in DH4 either. Samuel Jackson was a better partner in crime than Justin Long, but you won’t see me complaining. Justin has got his moments. From Alan Rickman to William Sadler to Jeremy Irons to Timothy Olyphant, I think I am torn between Alan and Jeremy, however. Yet, Die Hard delivers what Die Hard is supposed to deliver. Slightly slow start, as usual, but when it starts, doesn’t stop till all is over.

Said Simple Simon to the pieman going to the fair, “Give me your pies… or I’ll cave your head in.”

The rational mind attempted to intervene, wondering whether the compact disc was a right fit, but the Die Hard passion soon took over, there was no time to think. All is well in the land of Die Hard.

On your tombstone it will say “Always in the wrong place at the wrong time”.

John McClane rules. Period.

Yippi-kaa-yay (Viewer discretion advised, avoid if you get offended by the natural DH language)

In Tolerance

The first time I was meaningfully exposed to tolerance was in an electronic manner. I was learning to put together radios and stuff and had to learn a lot about resistors, capacitors and transistors. Funny, these components, even devoid of the electronics context, are so meaningful.

I learnt putting together radios too early, so I can’t put radios together anymore, all is forgotten. I can however, still turn on a radio and choose a station I like. And I am content with that. But I remember what tolerance meant, as a concept. Wiki now tells me it is permissible limit of variation. I agree – that’s close to what I remember.

I saw the NEFA post this morning, even before I saw the news feeds. I read the other linked posts.

Somehow, I thought of Set Theory, they teach it at a very early age nowadays – my six-year old niece knows that apples are not oranges but both are fruits. They use baskets and real things, instead of Venn Diagrams. But I digress.

In my own mind tolerance is mute acceptance of a thingy without experiencing high levels of disgust. Silence, you see has myriad meanings. Something snaps when that disgust level is achieved. My teacher could tolerate the lack of attention in my class, but she could not tolerate my argument with my friend about Batman’s superiority over Superman. I remember it like yesterday, “I will not tolerate this behaviour in class.” Out I went of the class! In that, was my first exposure to the T-word, but a meaningful exposure came much later. Electronics: trying to get some signal out of a radio. Then in college, we had a Professor, who oh-so-well explained tolerance, and said “OK” in a reassuring manner, every other fifth word. This time, there were numbers and Greek symbols surrounding the resistors, capacitors and transistors. We needed calculators because from being a concept, it was now real. If that dull diode didn’t light up or lethargic needle on the ammeter didn’t move, someone in the chain was being intolerant, or obtuse, I thought. Rather than calculate and get the right number, we adjusted the current or the voltage or something so that the dim diode could redeem this world of darkness. You see, we tolerated the damned diode. Don’t be getting all technical on me – I don’t remember a thing we did in the lab. I just know that we did something and that darned diode did light up. Sixteen years on I still have nightmares about getting that drowsy diode to light up or the potassium permanganate to pipette out colour in that insipid beaker.

But the concepts stuck. They stuck hard.

Like Set Theory. And set theory is probably another way to describe intolerance (or tolerance). There aren’t just those few faiths any more, you know? X tolerates Y, but doesn’t tolerate Z. There is a plethora of variables now. A single person has multiple faiths. Faith is no more limited only to religion; it is also about lifestyle choices; it is also about standards and values.

What is the tolerance threshold for two people of the same religious faith, one of who smokes and the other doesn’t. Do they tolerate each other because of the same religion or are intolerant because of the lifestyle choice? Add another person and another religion. Permute. Where is the intersection? Add another person; we now have four, add another lifestyle – food choices – organic and non (believe me, this will soon become a faith by itself, if it hasn’t already). Complicate it just a bit by saying that Person A and Person D do the same job but have different standards and values that they attribute to work. Permute and combine. Calculate. How do you depict the Venn Diagram? What are the possibilities and which one of them will hold true? Does the context in which the possibilities occur make a difference?

It doesn’t matter.

What matters is that we now have multiple variables, and the permissible limits are lesser.

The Religion of Convenience

(Alternate titles being: “Of Disposable Gods” or “God as a Commodity”)

You have experienced it. You have probably even been a part of it. Or you have been a passive observer. Being religious — it has always stemmed from a sense of purpose — social protection, sense of identity, wars, or the effects of war. And any religion, in some form or the other, demands compliance and commitment. It advocates a belief system and demands adherence to rituals, observance of rules, and loyalty to that religious community. And if you read the previous sentence again — you may experience the claustrophobia that organised and recognised religions impose. There is hardly any scope for a personal expression. The characteristics of religion are permanent in a way. It’s not convenient.

It’s easier that way.

That’s the basic premise of this unrecognised and unorganised religion — The Religion of Convenience. It begins with a transient sense of purpose — whether you were perpetrating it or following it or observing it. The successful practice of this religion is in the name of the religion. It begins and ends with convenience. When convenience is the basic premise, the rules are as malleable and ductile as the religion itself. It’s much better to construct and therefore deconstruct or even tear down the God of this religion of convenience. Yes, there is a God; the God of Convenience, obviously? This is a religion remember? It has all the tenets of a religion.

There is a belief system; there are rituals, rules, and loyalty. Just like any other religion. There is ostracism if rules are not followed and rituals are not performed. All these, of course, are very convenient.

The believers assemble in a place and carve out their kingdom, with the help of the God. They give it a convenient name and begin the spread of the religion – the crusade. The kingdom often prospers, with the God’s blessings.

The Gods of this religion however, never belong to this religion. They come from the faith of resolution. The most naïve and unassuming participants in this religion are the Gods. And the followers of this religion borrow Gods from the position of resolve that the Gods hold. Then, the fervour and the fanaticism of building the next transient and mortal wave of worship takes birth. Wars are waged, in the name of the God and the religion. And it’s a successful war – so much so that you would believe that it is a war of resolve – like the God (still) thinks it to be.

But, what does an immigrant God know? This religion is deep rooted in a loose sense of purpose and on a shaky ground. And by the time the God gets to know this, the damage is done and the God has been methodically deconstructed and exiled. During this divine ignorance, the battle becomes fierce; the people waging the war, ferocious.

The followers move for their share of bounty, often win, celebrating purposelessness. They grow their kingdom. The kingdom becomes more politically constituted and charged. Followers become claimants — to thrones or seats of honour depending on their ability or their relation with God. The kingdom establishes itself under the aegis of the religion of convenience. In a few cases, it even gains respect. Like any other kingdom under any other religion, this rule prospers, often grows, but never stabilises. Convenience takes precedence over purpose.

The kingdom itself is pretty well-formed. Like any history book that you may have read. There is a King, the image of God, often unchallenged and accepted by consensus. There is always a primary minister, a set of loyalists to the king, opportunists who pendulum their way through the polity, foot soldiers with lesser sense of purpose. There is the prince, childish and unworthy in pursuit of carnal and unsophisticated goals. (You’ll know what I mean if you have seen Braveheart and have noticed Peter Hanly, who plays Edward, Prince of Wales)

And to complete this polity, along comes a mercenary. A defeated warrior, disavowed, and often depraved. Looking for shelter, the mercenary deceitfully identifies with the religion, harbouring ambitions of being able to run a kingdom. (Not all mercenaries are negative characters, see DragonHeart)

The image of peace is disturbed; subjects leave to dwell in more stable and prosperous kingdoms. The king becomes reluctant, reclusive and reticent. The minister takes over, aggressively, still believing in the purpose that doesn’t exist, and hopes in vain that the pitiful prince will take over. The minister usually succumbs to false impressions of being the king. Loyalties begin shifting their postures. The minister becomes the hope for the remainder of the kingdom. Absent and diffident kings make way for worthy rulers. The kingdom prospers again. It evolves, however still doesn’t provide a sense of permanence. Diminishing resources cause plans and programs to change their shape and texture. Devolution is handled with dexterity to increase dominion, resulting in a confederacy.

In the absence of a resolute monarchy and responsible management, the confederacy evolves, which even involves support from the mercenary. The mercenary, influenced by gains, plays both sides. Only chaos prevails and after all permutations, the God is mauled and murdered for the same resolve that caused the religion to germinate and eventually grow. New Gods are looked for. A million smaller Gods emerge and a billion other useless purposes evolve. The religion itself loses identity in the confederate system. Confederates begin operating with microscopic sense of purpose if there is one – other than sheer survival.

That’s the religion of convenience. The convenience of the self, spotted by glimmers of a sense of purpose, and characterised by the lack of resolve.

Deep down a hunger for realising the self.