The 5th Dimension and beyond

If old Brahmin myths were to be taken at face value, it is said that ancient men from India discovered 27 relative ways of approaching a point suspended in any given instance of space and time. Of course, this would also consequently prove that Taj Mahal was an ancient Shiva temple originally called, 'Tejo Mahalaya'. In current times though, Mathematics (referred to as 'Math' in the west and 'Maths' in India) is a mandatory subject in any curriculum around the world. Nevermind that there are communal schools out there that teach children of how their religion is the greatest and all other religions are basically piggy backing off the values of their religion. What is important is that they learn 2*3=6 (I haven't looked it up but I am pretty sure I got it right). So maths or math, tells us there are 4 conceivable dimensions, 3 of which at the least, can be represented on paper. The striaght line, the x and y perpendicular lines and for simplification purposes consider a cube drawn on a paper to re-imagine something in 3 dimension. 4th dimension is more of a cube with an extra leg that connects to any one of the other nodes of a cube and yada yada yada we have the 4th dimension. Doesn't take Ramanujan to search for a 4th dimension gif on Google. So be my guest and find it out yourselves.

Whatever, so imagine, in ancient times, Indians had discovered 27 dimensions of representing a point in space. Or let's call it a problem. If there was a problem at hand, there were 27 ways of approaching it, maybe less but never more. Modern Indian men however have misinterpreted this analogy and now look at a problem as more of a girl and approach them in 27 or less number of ways in hopes of making fuck. Most often, they succeed as there are not many things a point suspended in space and time can do much about it when 27 lines approach it at once but hey, a man's got to try no?

If a point refuses to be approached by 27 or more lines in time and space, it doesn't have much choice. It is forcefully approached., inconsiderate of the fact that this point has feelings. If you scrutinize the situation, it is actually the point's fault for standing there in time and space naked if not in skimpy clothes. Why should a point just lay there, minding its own business? Why not, then, can it be approached and passed through by 27 lines going about their business?

If you still haven't got it, I am talking about molestation, rape and sexual assault on women in India by men. And the blatant defense of Indian political heavy weights coming in defense of these men. If a man needs protection against conviction because of a crime he committed, he needs a lawyer more than a scumbag politician.

Why do we tolerate repeat sex offenders? Why are rapes still so prevalent? How come if a dog gets killed brutally, PeTA strips Madhavan naked and makes him pose inside a cage but when a public servant is raped multiple times not even an eyelid is batted?

M'ladies and not so gentle, man, welcome to India where the cows eat grass, Government eats spectrum, Politicians eat money and poor people starve. What ever may be the situation, mera bharat mahan. Phir bhi dil hai hindustani, AAP will resolve our issues by receiving donations for slaps contests, Congress hai hai, dil mein chupi hai lalkar, lekin ab ki baar Modi sarkar. Jootha japani, zabaan kamini.

A pondering

I was discussing Eschatology over the weekend with my friends. Mostly it was a discussion with incoherent thoughts (My mind was somewhere else) from my side. We then slipped into the main differences between Abrahmic religions and then Hindu views on evolution. I was trying to quote the verse from Rig Veda that is its most skeptical part about the creation of world. I wasn't able to remember exactly. I just looked it up and here it is.

It's a beautiful verse in Sanskrit but for ease of reading, I'll post it's translation I picked from Wikipedia --

 

Who really knows, and who can swear,
How creation came, when or where!
Even gods came after creation’s day,
Who really knows, who can truly say
When and how did creation start?
Did He do it? Or did He not?
Only He, up there, knows, maybe;
Or perhaps, not even He.

— Rig Veda 10.129.1-7

If you think it's misrepresented here, please let me know. 

Not OC. But something I wanted to share.

Stagnant minds are a waste of humanity

The main difference, as noted by a great philosopher who is not me, between animals and human beings is that human beings can think about the process of thinking. And then think further more about the thinking process of thinking and all Inception-esque rhetoric that follows thereafter. So you can picture a scene where you are thinking about something. An animal or an insect or even a dolphin, can't do that. Isn't that a mind blowing fact? Most other things that we do, a chimpanzee can imitate - maybe not as soulfully as we do, but they can get the job done - clumsily. They can be trained to speak, beat drums, eat with using expensive china and maybe, even a little bit of cooking (how hard is it to throw a couple of curry leaves in heating oil?). I wouldn't be surprised if they find a chimp that can read. Why not?

Many people aren't keen in trying to train their brain to do something. I am not myself least bit interested to learn advanced calculus or modern history. I would rather watch hours and hours of telly and TV shows on Netflix. Read comics. I am such a data consumer that you would think I know a lot about a lot of things. But I rarely remember an episode 24hrs after I watched it. I just keep processing this data as I consume it, but never really do anything with it. The result is that when you look back on your week, all you have is 40hrs at work and the rest is a blur. Like traveling, cooking, sitting with your laptop and texting your friends. The occasional microblogging and reddit-ing. As if I am Ashton Kutcher of Twitter and Trent Reznor doing an AMA on Reddit. Not to forget, hours and hours of browsing through Facebook feeds. Analyzing the current treding topics by reading feeds from friends and family and trying to comment on that. Such a waste!

The more you engage your brain in an activity, the more it tends to develop itself on those lines. The brain is needlesss to say, a very important organ. Which is why it is protected by your skull. Human beings developed hard skulls because they're so dumb that keep fatally hurting their head all the time. So the human body, much more intelligent than the human brain, evolved in such a way that it has hard skulls to protect it's dumb brain. A chimp's skull isn't so hard. Not that I am suggesting chimps are humans (Although we have the same ancestors). But a chimp doesn't hurt its brain in ways a human does.

This pink thing inside your skull, that is as squishy as animal fat, is responsible for soooo many things. It builds magnanimous structures, nano objects, it has the ability to discover the birth of the universe whilst sitting on a hill with just a telescope and so many other things. Why then, would we use it to kill each other? This is simple. Because we haven't fully evolved from being an animal. There is an animal hidden inside us all. Greed is a very animal thing. Sometimes, even animals don't show as much greed as humans do. There is a quote from "The Rum Diary" in which the protagonist says, "Human beings are the only creatures that believe in a God but they're also the only creatures that act like they don't have one". It's true. We break each and every rule in the book that we have for ourselves. Multiple times.



It is very important that the brain is kept to use. Otherwise, it's as good as an deer's mind. Or an elephant's. People suffer from nerve disorders that can cripple the brain. Some drugs that junkies use are equivalent of taking ice cream scoops out of your brain. It is said that there are 10 billion nerve cells in a man's brain, yet, we hardly use 5% of it on an average. Einstein himself, hadn't used more than 8% or something like that. It goes without saying that it should be used for the good. I mean good for the whole universe. Not just good for you. That'd be greedy. Think about it.Mull on it while waiting to get home in rush hour traffic. Embrace good thoughts. Live a good life. Leave a legacy behind you. Rock your socks off!

Dork 2 - God Save the Dork - Faster and funnier

Disclaimer: Only writing this review to recommend and further the cause of Indian light heart-ed English literature. No spoilers. So read away.

Finished this book a month or so back. Most of it on Amazon Kindle and the rest from a copy I borrowed from a friend. It was a great read. Just as some Telugu movie watching friends of mine would say, "We enjaayed a laat saar".

The book is a great follow up to "Dork: The Incredible..", more so because of it's faster narrative. I cannot remember the last time I finished a book so fast.(Not considering the books whose chapters I skipped because they were boring as hell). Easy to read and understand and smile often. There are some really laugh out loud moments in the book. I regret that I had to read those parts at work because I had to control my laughter. In my defense, I was too bored and needed motivation. It is definitely more enjoyable than the first part. Kinda like 'The Dark Knight' of books. Or a "For a few dollars more".

For some non-Keralites who don't know who Mohanlal is, the movie scene references might sound misplaced but let me remind you of all the Punjabi lyrics in Hindi songs these days that irk us, the gults, in ways beyond imaginable. This is nothing different. Go watch a Mohanlal movie or eat curd rice off a banana leaf to warm up before reading the book.

The ease at which you can read this book at the same time find it funny is commendable of the author's efforts. Futurama Fry would say "Not sure if this book is easy to read or I am too intelligent at understanding it". For me, the hardest books to read are those whose words fail to paint a picture in my head. Example, if you read The Death of Vishnu - Manil Suri, I am the reader who couldn't visualize 'the landing'. In that sense, this is the easiest book to read. Considering Robin, the lead character, is the goofy eyebrow-ed guy on the cover of the book, all expressions he has are comical and clearly imaginable. Although I was surprised by the number of expletives in this book, none of them were out of context but underscored the 'lingo' of a contemporary MBA grad from the premier schools in India.

 I won't describe too much here because I don't want to spoil the fun. But just FYI: DO NOT READ THIS BOOK AT WORK. Chances are, you might get fired for laughing meaninglessly and on context of not being able to explain what the joke is.


 Final words: Highly recommended and can't wait to get my hands on his third book "Who let the Dork out"
(Not so much but I'd rather read this than the Shiva Trilogy")

Secret of the Nagas - The Shiva Trilogy by Amish- A Crtical Review

So I read this book almost like 5 months back. When a friend of mine, Mega, an avid reader and a LoTR fan, told me that there was an Indian trilogy that was akin to his favorite book, I was pleasantly surprised and picked it up immediately.

The first book - The Immortals of Meluha, was an okay read. Although the plot was more predictable than Satish Kaushik's Hindi adaptions of south Indian films, it invoked questions on who "Shiva", the beloved deity my family named me after was and what he stood for. I enjoyed mulling on those questions and I read through the book in a couple of days and added it to my local library (a shelf with coffee stains, outdated electronics and termites) and forgot the heck about it.

The second book - The secret of the Nagas, unfortunately impressed the shit out of some people who "highly" recommended it to me. I couldn't hang to my male genitalia when I read some reviews about the book and gave Mega a quick call and asked him to send the book to me ASAP. We met for Thanksgiving and I started reading the book at the start of the Christmas vacation of 2011. I must say, those hours I put in reading this book, I will regret thoroughly. I even hate reminiscing the time I read this book and I am putting myself through this torture so that whoever thinks of reading it, should stop thinking and just move on to find a better book. Chicken soup for the soul is better than this book. Yes. It is that bad.


The book starts in the mediocrity of the periodic, fictional (read fake) environment it setup in its previous book. Shiva is a mere mortal with a blue throat, Veerabhadra is a pot-smoking, girl chasing sidekick and Daksha, is a sissy. (Hindu religious fanatics, forewarning, neither the words I just said nor the ones I am going to say in this post are my own and please do not burn effigies of my blog or assassinate my character. These are totally picked out from the book.) The book then spirals downward in its predictable plots and sub-plots. Here are some notes I put in my iPhone when I was reading this book  the first time (and the last time):


- Uses the word 'sprinting' twice in two pages. Almost feels like the author thinks he invented the word.

- This is like a boring Bollywood movie. Although you don't quite enjoy the movie, you watch it anyway either because you are a fan of the protagonist or because you like the songs in the movie.


- Uses the word 'marijuana' when he should be really using the word ganja. Why am I bothered by that, you ask me? Because 'marijuana' is a western word. The word for cannabis in all of India is "Ganja", mainly because the word is of Sanskrit origin. Veerabhadra calling it Marijuana makes him sound like a white teenager from California. Problem?


- He is now talking about Bhaghiratha. Very predictable move by Shiva, saves Bhaghiratha's life. Writing this before I even read the full thing.

- As expected. A very predictable move saves Bhagiratha's life. Veerabhadra says, "Damn, that was too close" like a corporate high school going, hookah smoking, wannabe kid from Bangalore. There should be a 'dude' somewhere in it, and I would've closed it at that very moment.

- He thinks he invented the word 'frown' because that is how many times he uses it. IDK what the editor was doing.

-  Suddenly he hears a noise, suddenly he leaps and blows with sword and suddenly he ignores a whole platoon! Wow, that's an incredible piece of storytelling right there!

- I am listening to Rangeela songs while reading this book. That's how bored I am.

- I got too bored. So I put the book down and heard the whole album instead. My playlist pleasantly surprised me by shifting to Bob Dylan's Forgetful Heart and took me away from the confusing world where Lord Shiva lands in Magadha and is a huge chic magnet and Veerabhadra is chillum wielding girl chaser. Again, not my words at all. Okay, my words but the author's meaning.


- 'Change is the only constant'. I wonder which Veda he picked that one up from. Perhaps from the same Veda where he read that Brihaspathi was blown into pieces by a suicide bomber or a terrorist.

- I am still reading this book hoping to find something interesting. I am not impressed. In fact, I am this close to calling it the Twilight of India.


Tripathi apparently told Mega that the Mahadev we all think assume to have been Shiva was just another tribal mortal and the actual Shiva was Lord Rudra who lived many eons before Shiva. Shiva is just a tribal who became a legend due to his actions. Another conspiracy theorist you heard from.


These authors with their fancy MBA degrees think they are writers when they are not just fooling a lot of naive Indian readers into thinking they are great writers but are also fooling themselves. Their writing is survey-based. Their target audience is the audience as suggested by surveys of a publisher or by their practical understanding of Indian readers of English fiction. I particularly despise the commercial interest, if any, behind this trilogy in invoking a religious genre of books while propagating unproven and sometimes nakedly false theories. If Tripathi hadn't called his lead character "Shiva" and based it on the actual deity, I would've enjoyed reading the misgivings of ancient Indians and the clumsiness of Veerabhadra. I even like the way he portrayed the classical caste system. Shiva is definitely a hero to look up to with his anti-caste remarks and actions. His war-turning skills and acts of valor. I would've still hated his excessive use of the word frown. Not to forget sprinting. And hated his slow paced predictable narrative style. Not to forget the weird obsession he has for making characters from Kashi, pot-smoking tribal people who couldn't protect their own asses in times of trouble.

It is obvious that a lot of research went into these two books as against a lot of creativity. I should curse Mega into getting me to read this book. Especially after saying it was better than Tolkien's LoTR. If the author likes researching so much, he should write non-fiction instead of wasting paper. It could be about how all these bull race loving Magadhans and about the great Ram Rajya. Of course, I wouldn't read it. So wouldn't you. It almost looks like he knew this all along which is why he made this Tomato soup of a story with rotten tomatoes.

I may come off a  bit harsh in my critical review here but it's only an honest opinion. The book irks me to an extent of calling it the Twilight of India. Another Chetan Bhagat in the making I suppose. I hope his next book makes me eat my words mainly because I believe any one can write. It is and should be, irrespective of what others think. It is like dancing on your prom. You know you look funny but you still dance because you want to have a good time. You don't stop speaking because someone hates your voice, do you? Not that I am saying the author will stop writing because of this review. Look at my blog, people have called it a lot of things. Including highly narcisstic, boring, lengthy and bull shitty. I haven't stopped writing, have I?

Just wish I read something else though. Anything at all that won't make me drool while I sleep reading the boring general having a boner looking at that hot princess from Chandravansh.


You guys, if you are really into mythologies, then you should read Ramesh Menon's version of the Mahabharatha. Trust me on this, if those two volumes don't give you gooesbumps twice in every page, I will shave my head... and my unmentionables (if you are into that sort of thing). Do not waste time/money on this book. I repeate, DO NOT waste time/money ON THIS BOOK.

P.S: This is my second book review, I wouldn't take myself seriously. So relax on the comments.

Dork - The incredible adventures of Robing "Einstein" Varghese - A small review

Note: I have never needed to publish my review of a book on my blog. This is something I am doing exceptionally. So book review critiques, shut it.


Dork, or D1 as Sidin Vadukut prefers calling it, is a great book. We have all read Five-Point someone, MBA, Stay Hungry, Stay foolish and all those books written out strategically for a certain group of young Indian readers. We have all liked them. We have only good words for them. What makes this book great is its simplicity in humor. A satire on freshly out of the college MBA grad's life, every page of this book eases its dry humor (and sometimes dark satire) on the reader. Although the book's tone is somewhat like Bridget Jones' Diary which is hardly appealing for Indian readers It didn't work out for me. What did work out though, was the easy flow from chapter to chapter. Doesn't look like a first time author's book. You know what you have to pick up from the local book store if we want more of that, don't you? The Immortals of Meluha (Chuckle).

I am an avid reader of the author's blog. It is funny, witty and classy. I have been following it since 2006. I could dive into the first pages of the book because of my familiarity with its flow of prose. Not sure if a first Sidin reader could ever speed through the initial chapters like I did. Every book lover will enjoy reading this book.

A mind that invaginates at the thought of thought

I have a pen and it has a mind of its own. It spends sleepless nights under moonlit skies wondering what it can generate. It thinks of writing a ballad, a sonnet, a novella or even a long email to someone on the other side of the world. But then it just settles for a blog post. It wants to paint another Mona Lisa but then settles just for making yet another cheap replica. I don't know why it does that. It is very annoying at times to sit with it and not get any results for very long. Why I really enjoy its company though is because when I confess to it with all my sins and all my actions, it jots down a beautiful letter filled with my idiosyncrasies and I take pleasure in reading that letter. I look at my own self with a sense of misplaced satisfaction in that letter. I like my pen that has a mind of its own. Because it takes me through hard times. It takes my despair and converts it into a comic to please me out of it. So what if it paints a cheap replica of Mona Lisa with its words? Not everyone is Davinci.

But there are times when I want my pen to do more than that. I want it to go beyond its limits. I want it to write stuff I haven't seen with my own eyes. I want it to compose a story that I haven't ever been a part of. Can it do so? I have my hopes pinned to it very badly. What do you think? Can it?

To tread the lands of unknown souls is very new to my pen. How do I ask it to go there when I myself haven't been there? Is it possible to create worlds unknown to me when I myself am incapable of doing so with the power of my imagination?

When you look into the history of literature of this world, you will find many stories and legends filled with the ideas of alternative versions of our actual human history that would shock Darwin out of his wits (assuming that all he ever knew was that the earth was created in 6 days and Adam and Eve just materialized into the garden of Eden). Right from the great Greek mythologies to present day series of Harry Potter.


"If you peep into it" my pen says, "you will see that all the alternatve versions of this world contain a common theme."

"What is it?", I ask.

"There is good which is often represented by strong characters like Gandalf the great, Albus Dumbledore always ready to sacrifice their lives for the benefit of a 'greater good' and also are good at taking others lives but know when/why to take them. Then there is evil , which also, has really strong character(s) representing it like Sauron and Voldemort. In the end, the good reigns over the evil and the story/legend/mythology ends."

I think about it and my pen seems right. Good, evil, love and triumph. It is easy to make a story with this formula. Just put new characters in the right spots and map out a plot, add some spicy details and that's it. You have a story. But not all stories pass off as great stories. It should come out at the right time in the right place. J.R.R.Tolkein's LOTR has a lot of history behind it. Wiki it out and you'll know that its occurrence was totally uncalled for but greatly welcomed. Imagine, when this world was passing through the worst phases ever, the II World War, Tolkein had come up with a fantasy like never before. I don't know if it gave hope to anyone. I personally think it shouldn't have given hope to anyone in particular. Why? Because there was no right or no wrong in that war. Japan, although looks like a skinny piece of land on the east, was actually raping the Chinese women by the dozens of hundres IN CHINA and killing its men and children. China never recuperated from these attacks and it eventually became on of the most uptight countries. Japan attacked America and poor America was devastated. It went over and nuked the shit out of the Japanese. The nuke attack was so bad that Japan still hasn't recovered from those attacks. Germany Blitzkrieg-ed the shit out of UK and UK broke Germany's spine later. Poland was attacked by Germany from one side and Russia from the other. America got annoyed by Russia and later started cold wars with it. Fucking Britain broke India and Pakistan up and there has never been even a moment of peace between them since then. So it is not the question of who won the war but who is good and who is evil. You can argue that America, Britain, France and China were just defending themselves. But every country had its own interests in this war. The world was in a huge confusion and even till today no average minded person knows which country is good and which is evil. Reality is so far from the fantasy worlds of great writers.

I hail their imagination, these writers'. The grey matter in their brain must be invaginating into itself all the time and expanding and making new space for more grey matter to form which later invaginates into itself and the process continues. I have hardest time figuring out the names half of my undergrad classmates. I supposedly refrigerated a box filled with turmeric powder and also left keys in there many times. Who am I kidding? I can't even write a good story about that time when Lapaki was picking his nose in front of the kids at Sphoorti and all the kids started imitating him.




My pen is not so talented itself. My pen even has a hard time getting its grammar correct half the fucking time and don't even get me started on the vocab. My pen is too raw for now to create great, captivating and wonderful new worlds that don't exist. My pen is too in-your-face and very frank. So frank, you would be afraid to ask its opinion if you knew it well.

But my pen thinks I am a writer. It urges me sometimes to write about freedom. Liberty as the west likes to call it. I just might write about freedom. Man understands the importance of freedom like no other creature in this world. Freedom is one thing even an infant bounded by his crib understands. I think it is easy to write about freedom and get away with it. I am not a guy who would take the road less traveled. Because the road that's less traveled these days is usually the road which use for nature calls. It would take great motivation for me to take a road like that and it has nothing to do with freedom.

See, I like my pen with a mind of its own for that. I love it for that. It makes me want to communicate so much more than my fancy iPhone or my landline at work. Pens are good. Pens are strong. Use them properly. (Note to self)

Shredded Cilantro and diluted yogurt

It is really very safe to say that my lame, dim-witted updates on social networks have disabled my ability to vent out my anger on my blog at large. And then there are those reports that the governments of some countries monitor your blogs and feeds I don't know for what weird reasons. Not to forget the desperate recruiters googling you up before/after they conduct your interview.

Fuck that. I am writing.

When me and Lapaki used to meet at bus stops in and around Mehdipatnam, we used to act like we didn't know each other. Don't ask me why. Apart from frigidly avoiding to look at his leaking nose or the dripping oil from his head, I hated the fact he ignored me right back. We all remember our tween years don't we? Well, I do. It was a really awkward period of life for me. If you hung out with Lapaki at bus stops in Mehdipatnam, you'd know what exactly I am talking about. But we shared similar interests. Like our love for Mustangs, Enfields and Emma Watson. You can't say no to a guy who comes talking to you about his dream of Emma Watson. And then we jammed to Roxanne in our living room watching VH1 while my parents were at work.


We screamed together,"PUT ON THE RED LIGHT! PUT ON THE RED LIGHT"

Although we both meant it in a completely different way.

We all are at some point in our lives, embarrassed of our friends. I for one, have only been embarrassed of Lapaki. He setup a standard of embarrassing me that none of the people I made friends with after that, have ever been remotely close to. And that is not a rhetoric. I will give you an example of what happened on a Saturday evening, while we were walking back from the bus stop to our homes. He saw a blind beggar near the signal post begging for money. He threw so much weight in his description of how blind beggars are ignored compared to other socially/physically challenged people and he said he always did his part for them. So boasting of his generosity, and completely ignoring the on coming vehicles at the busy Mehdipatnam signal post, he tried to put 25 paise into a blind beggar's palm when a speeding scooter cut through right in front of a passenger filled bus and the bus driver honked like it was the fucking apocalypse. Which ended up scaring Lapaki so badly out of his guts that he clenched his fists in the old man's open palm which already had some coins in it from earlier donors and scooped a fistful of coins out of it in an involuntary act and stumbled onto a nearby pavement.

The shock filled blind man, raised his voice in a hurried, siren like noise and started cursing and yelling in a language that my ancestors wouldn't recognize and the dumb person that Lapaki is, wouldn't go back and apologize, instead he starts running like the fucking Scotland Yard was chasing him. I am bewildered and am observing all this from a little distance. A bystander looks at Lapaki running away and turns back at me with this disgusting look that I would never, ever forget in my life! I excuse myself and act like I never have seen such a heinous crime myself and walk away from there.

Raging in anger, I am prepared to scream my fucking lungs out at Lapaki when I see him for leaving me in a situation like that. Making me feel like a complete criminal in front of strangers. I listen to some death metal songs and growl some pain away but still can't digest what had happened to me earlier that day. So I text Lapaki to meet up at our regular spot, Moon Rock cafe at Tolichowki.

I wait for him there while he roughly drives into the parking lot on his weathered Scooty and and comes into the cafe whistling like nothing ever happened. He seats himself and orders two tea. Still whistling and looking around the cafe. Then he turns his head towards me and notices me staring at him. He says, "Kya hua yaaron?". Normally, I would beat the shit out of him, but all that death metal jamming sobered me down and I just said, "Kuch nai re by.. accha parsoom Emma Watson neend me aayi, wohi khoobsurat chehra..."


That evening I realised, that there issues could stay issues and eat a little bit of you every moment or you could trivial them off like how Lapaki did. And not let them take control of you, instead you take control of them. Easier said than done but we all need to be reminded of these everyday fortune cookie moral lessons. It sobers us all down.

Inexactitude

If I wrote for a living, I would've been dead by now.

Today, it rained outside my workplace. It usually rains frequently where I live. By the bay of the Gulf of Mexico. But today,the rain was accompanied by beautiful, shimmering and bright, late-afternoon sun. I could feel the earth's warmth rising slowly from my feet till my chest and then till my chin and when the warmth reached my nostrils, it brought with it, a special fragrance. A fragrance that reminds you at the corners of your mind, that this was where you came from and this was where you would eventually be laid, the soil. Your toys, your paper pride called money and your vanity. They all would eventually turn into dust. This reckoning is a great reality check. Sticks your feet to the ground. And all of it, very subconsciously. Like the fucking secret agencies change the course of the world without letting the world know.



And then I traveled to do a personal chore from one city to an other with a friend of mine. I got on the freeway that connected both these cities. Distantly, I saw a grey curtain spread over half of the sky with the evening sun in the backdrop. Then I wondered, sitting in that car and gazing through that sunroof, "What the fuck am I doing here?". Then I kinda left that sudden usher of a fast train of thought, to be mulled upon later.

Right now, I am at the point of time called later. Sitting in a rocky chair and sipping some scotch and listening to "Sympathy for the devil". I am thinking, how did I ever get here? What should I have ever been? I am almost 25 and I don't remember much of my life to have been spectacular or mind blowing. Could I have chosen another field and excelled in it? How would that have been? Better or worse? Is it right that I am drinking and writing? Rather than just writing.

Many a times, men and women are compelled to do things they'd rather not do. Hormonal effects, drug side affects or whatever minuscule/magnanimous reasons/excuses they have had for loosing their usual self and slipping into profane acts are normally portrayed to you or whoever throws a listening ear. Why do we do that?

I sometimes think I ask too many questions. I think that I think it intrigues my readers to read a lot of questions. But it is a bad practice. I am less of a story teller and more of a question-thrower. Maybe I would've been a great investigative journo or I would've been a great Quiz show hos. And if someone like me would've been born a 1000 years ago, then apart from being a fossil buried some 6ft down in the earth, I would've been a great philosopher.

I feel like my nascent writing days coming back to me all over again. I used to jot down whatever came to my mind and I used to post it. After a couple of months when I would go back to read what I had written, I used to feel really awkward reading it. I think this post is not going to be any dissimilar from those posts. But I think all writing is good writing. Whatever you write is ok. I mean why not?

Let us think for a moment that you went swimming. How long do you think you can hold you breath? Maybe 2 minutes at tops. Then you swim a couple of laps and do some backstrokes and try to open your eyes in the pool and see what is in there. You come out of the pool, dry all the water on you, rub the towel under your arms profusely like all other Indians and fat people who sweat a lot and then you come take a shower or whatever and then take a fresh towel and rub profusely again under your arms and change your clothes and undergarments or you go commando. Then you sit back and relax on your couch while your instant food is microwaving and then you feel a tad bit different. You know why? Because you were in a different medium altogether for sometime than the medium you are in right now. Humans evolved from weird sea creatures but we are not so in touch with the medium of water anymore. We 'moved on' So much that there are lot of people who die because they do not know how to swim.

Writing is like that. It is a form of communication too but only, in a different method. A different "medium" if I may say. Just as swimming is good for your health, writing too, is good for your communication. Some people make a lot of money by swimming well and swimming in Olympics and shit and then a lot of people write and make money. See, they both are very similar. Aren't they?

Perspective is a good word. I would define the world with just that one word. Christians look at the world in the perspective of God creating the world in 6 days. Biologists, look at the same world and think we evolved from apes. Scientology preaches that an Alien created this earth. The little farm kid, helping his soon to commit suicide father in his drought struck paddy field by drinking a bottle of pesticide, doesn't give a shit about how this world was created but where is his family is going to get his next meal from.

Making your perspective, the perspective of the world is maybe the most ambitious task there could ever be. Maybe unattainable. Human beings do not realize this. And even if they do realize it, it is not quite easy to settle with it for our race. That is why we want to build a small domain where we can force our perspective on the entirety of that small domain. Thereby, satiating our human needs. Atleast just a little bit. And maybe this is how each religion was formed.


Oh wait, but this is just my perspective.


Thanks.