Nostalgia
Where does time go?
No, it stays, we go.
Nostalgia keeps it with us.
Straying into past lanes, is there a life more pleasurable?
Little fissons run up my spine, when I think of that stolen kiss long gone.
The feeling, perhaps, was not there then, but it is, now.
Oh dear Past, are you still waiting for me somewhere?
Should I creep down those dark alleys, rich with sonorous echoes again?
The Sunset seduces, but the Sunrise beckons.
The Sunset is safe, warm in the womb of the darkness, I sleep.
The golden fingers of the dawn want to prise me away, but the night holds on to me...
The day seems melancholy, and the night alive...
Darkness approaches soon, but the old night, with the gold dust of memories,
Is unmatched in allure!
Oh dear Past, are you still waiting for me somewhere?
Laws of Time Management
No, this is not self help. And this is not a class on time management either.
These are a few immutable laws of Time that have been in force since, well, time immemorial. Don’t forget to add the time you spend reading this to your productivity list.
However, our little human race always tends to forget these. So here’s a refresher…
1. You always have the time to do what you want to do. However, don’t flaunt that, or the world will think that you have little to do.
2. The First Law of Time-o-dynamics: Time does not move fast or slow at any time of the day. It is in fact, the quantity of food consumed coupled with the conditions of working (a few notable influences are air-conditioning, soft, low chairs and monologues from bosses) that cause this illusion of motion of time.
3. The Second Law of Time-o-dynamics: Complete conversion of time into productivity is impossible. Some amount is always lost in heating coffee.
4. The Third Law of Time-o-dynamics: Time can neither be created nor be destroyed. Alarm clocks will ring even after nuclear fission / fusion (or explosion) has wiped out the world. Amen. Time and cockroaches will survive everything.
5. The theory of Relativity: Running at the speed of light will cause time to slow down.
6. The Corollary of Relativity: As per established scientific opinion, the human race has yet to achieve this speed. Until then, humans have to be content with time running faster than them. (Meanwhile, we need to take those jogging rounds seriously. Maybe that’s why the boss comes early when we are late)
7. Attending courses for time management may or may not increase the span of a day from 24 hours. However, these courses may highlight your work load to the senior management, who in turn, will help you manage your time by promoting you to no-work levels.
8. How to manage your time after attaining the afore-mentioned no-work levels is up to you. Invest in spreadsheet screensavers to qualify for more courses.
9. The Paradox of Wasted Time: Time you enjoyed wasting is not really wasted time. (from a quote)
10. Corollary to the paradox of wasted time: Wasting time is what most people want to do, once they have the time to do it. Friendly advice: Manage your time to be able to waste it.
There you go...after reading this, I sincerely hope you have enough time.
If you think this title is an allusion to "Love in the time of Cholera" think again. You are right!
Being the armchair activist that I am, I just had to comment on the recent developments in the Red corridor of India. Namely, the Naxalite insurgency.
First things first. I don't really understand why everybody on Wikipedia is arguing about who is a naxalite and who isn't. Is a Maoist a naxalite automatically? Does CPI (M) mean CPI Marxist or CPI Maoist? And then what does the denomination Marxist-Leninist mean? Can we have a Russo-Sino-German Marxist-Leninist-Maoist CPI? Guess that's the only permutation remaining.
Kudos to India. Only India can encourage such schism and get away with it. All in the name of tolerance. However, I don't want to comment on the Indian government. All I want to know is the why, what and where of Naxalite insurgency.
It all began 20 years ago(says wikipedia). It really does not matter, when it began. What matters is the alarming proportions it is reaching. And even more alarming is the charming Indian "Head-in-the-sand" attitude towards it. Discussing the recent massacre of close to seventy five policemen in the jungles of Dantewada, somebody remarked very sweetly, "Why are they even doing this? Don't they know they cannot be successful"? Whoa. Cannot be successful? If moving from one tiny Naxalbari and creating an entire Red Corridor extending until the southern reaches of the country isn't being successful, I don't know what else is.
However, for us chosen ones who are blessed by the capitalist economy, Naxalism is as difficult to understand as hunger. We, who overeat and suffer from various diseases of excess, will scarcely know what it means to be deprived. The deprivation here is not even of the luxuries of life, it is of the basic needs of the flesh. Having faith in an ideology that esteems annihilation as a solution to problems must spring from desperation, I would think. It is the same desperation which drives people to suicide when the rains fail...only now the outlet is different. I have to concede that at some level, at some primal level, maybe when I am in a special mood, I can understand the Naxalite ideology. Only the ideology, but never the actions. I don't empathise, and I don't sympathise with them, because killing of the innocent has never ever changed anything for the good.
Yes, not all of them might be going hungry to bed, I agree. Some might just be on the look out for disrupting peace in general keeping with the tendency of trouble making. But what gave birth to this was not this general keeping. The mother of the ideology lies in the typical Indian indecision and inequalities which creep into our daily lives. Poverty gave birth to Naxalism, and poverty fuels it now. When we crush this insurgency, we must remember that we are just curing the symptom. The disease continues to fester, in the hearts and hungry bellies of millions out there in the scrubs of Jharkhand and Chattisgarh. Violence is the mark of many a revolution. And with many susceptible people to fall prey, this violence is going to extend to areas far far beyond the current red corridor.
This is just the tip of the iceberg. There will be no more farmer suicides in Vidarbha. There will be police ambushes this summer. We are moving from strength to strength.
Saadat Hasan Manto
Pinching rhetoric and blinding prose. Not in a very good way either. Manto makes you aware of your darkest recesses painfully. It is like a fix, you know it is going to hurt you but cannot stop doing it all the same.
"Thanda Gosht" (Cold Meat)..the title is enough to send shudders down the spine. So is the story, of the Sikh who abducts a girl during the partition only to realize it is a dead body. Many such stories later, you wonder what this man was made of.
Tried for obscenity half a dozen times (never convicted, though), Manto holds up a mirror in more ways than one. Maybe the blazing riots of the partition have died down and maybe life is smoother now. But are we really past the darkness or is it just that the animal in us doesn't have enough opportunity to come out any more?
Manto leaves us with these uncomfortable questions every time you read his work. He seems to have looked deep, deep into the psyche with a lamp that illuminated the murkiest crevices. The sight is not pretty. Not at all pretty. What is more, will it ever change? Here's to you Manto, for realising the truth early on.
Signs of Ageing
No, this is not an Oil of Olay advertisement. I am moving much beyond wrinkles and dark spots. True psychological signs of ageing. Ones that I noticed myself on this New Year's eve. Read on and pray if you recognise any in yourself.
1. You know you are old when you cannot sing along with the chorus of the song playing at the party. Worse, you have never heard of the song or the band.
2. You know you are old when you look at women dressed in off-shoulder tops and miniskirts and wonder if they are not feeling cold. Or why mosquitoes are not biting them.
3. You know you are old when after two plates of starters, you are wondering where the main course is. Main course is, of course, daal and rice. Or curd rice. Or pulao. Or biryani.
4. You know you are old when you begin every second sentence with "You know, when I was in college...". It is a dead giveaway. No use consoling yourself that you really enjoyed college that is why you keep referring to it. Nostalgia is a chronic disease of the aged.
5. You know you are old when you pull out a stole, or a pull over to wear over your party dress when the party is on, full swing.
6. You know you are old when you stop mixing drinks.
Another one for the alcohol lovers:
7. You know you are old when you stop after two drinks because there is no main course on the menu. (Daal rice, et al.)
8. You know you are old when you carry your own water to party venues because you don't want to pay exorbitant prices for bottles of water.
9. Women, sit up please: You know you are old when you are wearing jeans and a silk top to a party. Of special note: the top doesn't reveal anything below your neck and above the elbows. A dead giveaway again.
10. You know you are old when you start yawning by the time it is 1.30 in the morning, when the best tracks start playing.
I will be back with more soon....till then, watch out for these signs. If there are any in you, then better start getting resigned to your fate. Even Oil of Olay will not help.
India: A Differential Diagnosis
We are never far behind when it comes to our national holidays, are we? Doing the prescribed bit of flag hoisting, singing ourselves hoarse over the national anthem and the song, abstaining from alcohol (for the uninitiated, national holidays are dry days), paper reading and a host of other nationalistic things. Holiday over, duty done and we sit back, because with each national holiday our indian-ness has been re-asserted. (according to us, it has).
When I chose to take a look at my country (on a look, mind you. I belong to the Indian middle class. I cannot besmirch the name of my worthy fellow men by actually doing something). It would be no exaggeration to say I hardly recognize India anymore. Well, for starters, we have done a fair job of independence. A slight catch...the job is restricted to the metropolitan cities.
Let's not dilly dally. There are two Indias. Both are mutually exclusive and in no way, are they indicators of each other. Awesome, how we can compartmentalize and shove away what is uncomfortable! But we are a nation of professional ignoramuses. Or is it ignoramii? Whatever. We are so good at the art of ignoring, we should be paid for it.
This huge, blundering mass of humanity which is trundling under Population Obesity now has to labour with mental illness as well. India is not only a born Schizophrenic (given in heritage) but now, its symptoms are dangerously bordering along Multiple Personality Disorder as well. Let us go back into Indian history which may give substance to these diagnoses. The first symptom of Indian Schizophrenia was the now-eternal problem of Kashmir. First a state is made a part of the country. Then there is a small caveat: what works for the rest of the country, does not work for Kashmir. There are separate articles in the constitution for it. That is probably one of the reasons why Kashmir never got fully integrated into India. The dichotomy remains, and it is a virtual stalemate between India and Pakistan now. Incidentally, India and Pakistan are blood brothers...fraternal twins maybe? Only that one twin was born handicapped. No prizes for guessing which one.
Well, let Kashmir fester. Meanwhile, we will move on to other important things. Like our political parties, for instance. We are a democratic country. There is a very thin, (and very blurred) line between Democracy and Chronic Indecision. Or rather, non-directional steering. I wonder if we have crossed onto the other side. For India no longer resembles a democracy, but a tottering fledgling with no guidance about flight. Various ideologies flourish, and various sections of people across the country believe and act according to their convenience. The result? The country is being pulled in a thousand directions at once, making all progress null and void.
Oh, I don't want to say that the country has not progressed at all. Like Aravind Adiga says, "We may not have drinking water, sewage disposal or electricity, but we still have Democracy". Not only Democracy, we have one mall per street. We have metro rail systems, we have flights, we have roads (well,I never said
good roads. We even have automated teller machines, for heavens sake! How much more can a country progress in six decades? Not much more, I say. We have approximately ten developed cities in this huge country, give or take a few more. I think that is enough. We should be content with what we have. Whoever wants a good life, is free to move to the aforementioned ten cities. We are a democracy, remember? Incidentally, rural India does not even figure in the average Indian's political map. It figures in politician maps. For entirely different reasons though.
The next condition: Multiple Personality Disorder. I see evidence wherever I look. In the financial capital of the country, fifty percent of the population lives in barely habitable conditions. Out of the remaining fifty, thirty belong to the Great Inactive Middle Class and the rest, let us just say, are the ones who get counted when we have feisty slogans like "India Shining" being written.
However, we are bothered about other things of consequence. An actress's bare back on a movie poster should be immediately covered with a Sari, lest it bring down the GDP or makes the stock market crash. A few other things which really can change the direction in which Indian culture moves: tweets, languages in which signboards are put up, depiction of our imaginary Gods and Goddesses in abstract art, movies in which Mumbai is called Bombay (heavens! such blasphemy!), english names of streets and stations (need to be immediately changed to unpronounceable Hindi names, which nobody uses all the same. Give me one true Bambaiya who calls VT CST).
Oh, I forgot clothes, movie actors, cricket, Godmen, Homosexuality and a host of other things. Until these serious issues are sorted out, India will continue to labour under Schizophrenia, Chronic Indecision and Multiple Personality Disorder, without any hope of integration.
Indian democracy is also in an advanced stage of Cancer,eating away at its roots.
We don't have time for the chemotherapy. Besides, it is too expensive.
Life is complete
Sometimes, we wake up and heave a sigh of relief
Sometimes we wake up, and wish the day hadn't dawned yet
Sometimes we wish for respite from life
Sometimes we wish just for a little more sleep
Life would be complete, it is just a wish away...
Sometimes we feel we are the kings of the universe
Sometimes we feel we are just born to do the dirty chores
Sometimes we feel we steer our life
Sometimes we feel something beyond changes us forever.
Life is complete, it is meant to be this way.
