Life is beautiful

2008-01-04T13:25:00.000+05:30

Acta est fabula

The warriors swung their great axes
Till one found its mark, blushing murderous red
Draping the fourth wall with a curtain of villanous blood,
Saw its wielder, his beloved wed

And as the scant crowd dispersed,
The quick and the dead rose to clear the stage
Each washing the play paints from his visage
Joined his mate - to another opera

But the clown sat in stupid trance
For he had worn his mask too long, its colours mixing
With his face till he could tell neither apart,
His living soul from the dead world ill fitting
Into his corpse from the land of the living

Even as he hunched in the empty stage corner
Tears awash his laughing face,
The last of the yellow play lights dimmed
Leaving him acting into the dark

2007-12-27T20:58:00.000+05:30

Break out

The mountain of stone sat
Crushing my groaning back
As my sinews cried in craze
To carry it up the rockface
Like Tantalus of old

Suddenly sense hit me by luck
I threw down my charge shouting "What the fuck!"
And jumped away like a buck
Into thin air

2007-09-28T00:21:00.000+05:30

The present

The children in labour toil, one climbing
The other's shoulders to the pot of promise
And the tallest smashes it in laughing glee to spray
A rain of waking asps on the merry party

2007-09-28T00:04:00.000+05:30

Waking

When the wind whispers past silence's sieves
and the heart smiles in content sleep
When stars do burdens lighten
And naught but love the mind believes
Shall come the strains of lament
As the makers violins weep - in coda

With a flash of searing fire shall the sword of truth be drawn
from the velvet scabbard of lies and guise
Its jagged rust biting deep the ripe womb of dream
And the strangled mouth of the unborn babe
Pay its tribute in blood and tears
To the waking cold...

2007-09-20T20:13:00.000+05:30

Blindness

And I know my sight is lost
For I see the dying world
That the newly blind inherit
Fading into the grey of memories
As the eye turns around to see
The twilight of the darkening mind

2007-08-04T15:19:00.000+05:30

The Wanderer

I fight a losing battle
With those globes of yellow light
lining the night crawling with human flood,
A maddening tangle of hopes, sweat and blood
Alas they are far nearer, and perhaps more bright

Skimming over the windows, shuttered and barred
Is an exertion of little hope
For within, eyes are locked and thoughts jarred,
With fears of the uncertain morrow

It has been the same for quite some time,
This welcome of deafening pantomime
The players in their roles sunk too deep
To recall their lines (or theme) as first ordained

When was the night when hearts last pried,
met under my grace and in joy cried
When the quenchless thirst of the poets heart
drank me and sang beauty's refrain
When my might seeped in wolverine veins
in reinless madness to terror wreck

But all that is an echo from distant past
A taste of kingship not destined to last
What use be - the endless cadence of the heart
If immortality become at last decadent art

But when I in darkness am bereft of hope
with naught but ignominy to elope,
A gentle voice calls me from the shades
Like falling dew from newsprung blades

And so, in those loving pools of the child's gaze
at my forgotten light in chaste amaze
Warmth I found, for my soul to thaw
To hope, to rest, to live and delight
For not the sceptres of kings may try
With the sheer flood of love attempt to vie

Hope is not lost

2007-05-03T20:18:00.000+05:30

Reflections on Dracula:

When one hears (as he frequently does) about that sports star who passed away in the poorhouse, or of the much married and much laid heroine who was bitten to death by a rabid pig (which she was trying to seduce), he is inevitably enveloped by a sense of melancholy. It is very well when the mob tastefully tears the tyrant down from the throne and hangs him from a banyan tree, but the slow decay of ignorage of even the worst tyrant reminds me of the time when I was forced to eat a bowl of overripe and pungent papaya. And when something reminds me of that fateful bowl of fruit, there is no choice but to utterly take the issue into pieces till it can no longer be pieced back intelligibly.

Speaking of ignorage and fading away, the only decadence that is even more depressing than that of a hero is that of a villain. Villains are supposed to die murdered by the marauding heroes – either through the sword’s point as in good old tales or shrieking napalmed in modern commando movies. No villain should ever die of rheumatism and liver disorders in extreme old age in an abandoned warehouse. It simply isn’t fair. But that is precisely what is happening. And the unfortunate devil I am going to talk about is none other than Count Dracula.

One first needs to understand the motivation behind construction of villains in general. The society identifies those threats that are the most fearful to it, and personifies them all under one gory head. Thus, the American scourge 400 years ago, was symbolized by the British admiral (in striped shorts and sporting a patriotic moustache), and at present is the rational man who irrationally argues that all countries are equal.

The construction of Dracula took place at a time when, thanks to a lack of blood banks and anesthesia, blood was at a premium. On a more serious note, the church was upto some serious consolidation and its marketing department probably decided that “Motivation by goal setting” was the best payoff tactic – the goal being saving your life by running from a bloodsucking nightmare of wings, fangs and bad breath. So this terrible creature who perhaps first coined the phrase “blood is thicker than water” was spawned to haunt poor Transylvanian farmers and run away from silver stakes, holy water, werewolves and Van Helsing. However, now blood has been long replaced by brandy and beer in vitality, and Dracula is grossly out of shape. If Dracula subscribed to Darwinism, he would have evolved into an alcohol guzzling monster who haunted breweries and made off with heavy booty. However, villains are involved only in Satan worship instead of Darwinism, so the sad tale of the Count’s decadence.

Since I have some experience in consulting, I would like to start in the typical consulting jargon with the problem of my client (yes, I have adopted him) and run a SWOT analysis. However, on some thought there is nothing to be filled under the Strengths head, unless you count overgrown canines and an ageing harem of 1000 year old brides. On quick summary and stocktaking, one can arrive at the following principal reasons why it sucks to be Dracula today.

1 – Dracula’s traditional strengths have been threatening people by putting the bite on them, a pair of impressive wings and an unrivalled ability to party all night. Looking at the above today, they are either useless or commonplace. The popularity of garlic cheese and onion guarantee that Dracula can come no nearer than a couple of metres from any prospective victim. And given the congestion rates around the place, he would be barely be able to use the wings, and even if he did, would most probably be stuck up in some electric poles. For the record, he has been admitted in hospital thrice after being shot down – twice by boys with airguns who thought he was a bloated turkey and once by a stinger missile from Islamic terrorists.

2 – The only possible competence that could have put Dracula in a profitable position today was his ownership of sprawling estates in Transylvania. Unfortunately, unaware of this real estate boom, he was asleep in his coffin for more than 300 years, only to be rudely woken up by some workmen who were clearing the land for a drilling rig of Gazprom, which had taken over his lands after a deal with the local governor in a bar. Perhaps for the first time in his life, Dracula regretted putting the bite on the land registrar who had come to survey his estate for preparing the ownership deeds 400 years ago.

3 – The question of his unsustainable diet has been a growing worry for the Count. In addition to his woes, he contracted syphilis and gonhorrea from the three people he bit in hunger, literally accentuating the “bad blood” between him and the rest of civilization. These infections also resulted in uneventful nights for the Count, with his brides refusing to cooperate for the needful. His contacts with Satan proved to be to his undoing when he could not enter a church for getting the free food served there to the destitute and the homeless.

Five years ago, Dracula sold his family antiques and carpets (which were rumored to have been bought by George Bush on Ebay) and with the cash he had, hired McKinsey to consult for him on possible future moves. At the end of the four month long project, he was left with a terrible headache and an invoice for twice his asset worth - resulting in his bankruptcy. Dracula now is put up in a budget lodge in the outskirts of his erstwhile estate, the rent for which he manages to pay by working as a construction worker (for Gazprom) at nights.

There is much to be learnt from the decay of this great personality. All those aspiring for immortality would do well to have a one on one conversation with Dracula (it costs only 20 cents) to be enlightened on the futility of living forever when you have been outraced hopelessly by the changing times.

As for Dracula himself, the future remains unclear. His short term potential is to continue working as a construction worker, where his wall climbing and flying skills are much valued. Given that his ugliness and pride stop him from participating in the traveling Gemini circus as an attraction, there is little else left to do, except perhaps hope that a werewolf breaks out from the Hollywood studios and has enough appetite to bite him.

This tale of decadence has a powerful message to the society that constantly churns out ill equipped demons. Given that there is so much talked about social responsibility, let us think twice before creating immortal creatures of horror to haunt our imagination for a few years and then fade out of fashion.

But perhaps, on a philosophical note, the mob will never change, and maybe these fears will come in a cycle again, as most fashions do. In that case Dracula shall go to hibernation again (in a borrowed coffin) and wake up centuries later when people dread his name again. He shall then proclaim his ancestry (after a shave) from the rooftops, and the mobs will flee in dread. With a burst of wings he shall take flight, and shadow the moon.

But again perhaps, he may just lie in a garbage yard, decompose and become WD-40 engine oil after another half a million years of fossilization, only to be disturbed by Gazprom again. Shit happens, you know…

2007-03-27T11:37:00.000+05:30

(Disclaimer: The following piece is a collection of badly strung sentences and ideas connected by defective logic. Consumption of the same has been proved to cause brain cancer in flea-infested bandicoots, and could have the same effects on you too!!! Owing to its defective content and rambling style, it is inappropriate for viewing by anybody)

The Free rider

One of the chief advantages of being a free rider (apart from living longer and happier) is that you are naturally endowed with modesty. Simply because, by definition, a free rider would wait for someone else to praise and glorify him, being above such menial exertions. Having wasted the past few hours in pointless pursuit of understanding financial derivatives, I am glad to apply myself to that very worthy purpose – the glorification of the free rider. Several of us would have, at several points in life crossed paths (and occasionally swords) with members of this exclusive cult. Some of us would have even been as daringly audacious as to attempt free riding ourselves. But if there is a genuine born free rider among my audience, I begin this piece with salutations to him.

One defining feature of the majority of the population is that it has extremely strong views on things that can do nothing about. For instance, if you question a gentleman from the salaried class, he would have powerful reasons favouring his manager facing a squad of tribal warriors with poison tipped spears, but absolutely no opinion on the choice of toilet acid, though he clearly has control only on the second. Similarly, though the free riders are a high and unreachable class, the majority of the ignorant population has powerful views on them. Many would favour a pogrom to eradicate the free riders though they have a better chance of time traveling and making out with Marilyn Munroe. But before deciding what to do with these people, it is important to understand how their minds work (if at all they work).

Being faithful to a systematic dissection, free riders fall into three groups –

(1) The pseudo free riders – these individuals are something like chimps imitating men. They do not have free rider blood in their veins but try vainly imitating them with “cool”, “unconcerned” and “don’t-give-a-damn” attitudes.
However, they fail the panic test – when the stakes become too large, they betray their simian roots by scurrying about like scared idiots.

(2) The pretenders – the members of this class are something like men imitating chimps. Yellow livered at the prospects of a free rider witch hunt, they pretend to be busy and involved in work though they never do any.

(3) The real free riders – an extremely rare class of people who royally free ride without putting any pretense of work. They are frequently also philosophers and romantics who wait for others to come and clean up their bowels after a crap. The reason for them being rare is that they are frequently killed by the ignorant public.

There is a complaint that the free riders have been created thanks to the modern ills of “teamwork” and “corporate culture”. However, if we look back we can find that free riding has actually been much more ancient than one is inclined to suspect. There have been Vedic references to free riding. The Ramayana for instance is a rich repository of free riders, Vibishna and Sugriva being two of the foremost. While the former effortlessly switched from the loser Rakshasa side to the winners and claimed the throne after the messy bloodbath was over, the latter spent his time drinking brewed beer and letching with unsuspecting Vanara maidens while his troops were swatting mosquitoes in the swamps of Sri Lanka.

Coming to the present day, apart from “smartsizing” and “reorgs”, free riders have been the target of general ire. It’s puzzling to see why. Actually, no one could possibly have a complaint against these immortals. The apparent reasons for the public ire are that “there can be no free lunch” and that everyone must work for his share of the pie.

But, on a little thought, one can see the fallacy of this argument. Consider life from the perspective of a donkey, it comes to most people more easily than one would suspect. To the donkey, the master might seem to be a massive free rider, but the fact is simply that the master is cleverer. This analogy, apart from being hideously stupid, is immensely insightful and leads us to my theory (made entirely from such analogies). It goes like this…

If one looks at the evolution of life, it has been a progression of life forms in increasing complexity. This is essential as the resources are limited, and successful species somehow take advantage of existing dumb ones. For instance, we put the bull, the horse and the dog to hard work. It is easy to imagine the cro mangon man convincing the primitive horse to carry his ass on its back with baboon logic and a heavy cudgel. Every successful species free rides into dominance by extracting work from other helpless and dim-witted creatures.

Applying this framework to the present day, it is clear that the free riders of today will become the ruling class of tomorrow. Normal people might childishly protest that free riders survive solely on the goodwill and sympathy of other people, but apparently scientists have found that pack mules in Afghanistan too claim the same about humans. I can envisage a bright tomorrow where free riders will be in charge of everything. However, that would never be apparent to the poor working class, as the rulers would be too tired to officially show their authority. Coming to think of it, it is very much possible that we are ruled by free riders already. So while professors are predicting that computers will take over humanity, it is actually the superior free rider species that has displaced the rest of humanity. You might object on the grounds that physically, free riders are no different from other humans, but I bet the prehistoric orangutan felt the same about the Neanderthal man before it was clubbed on the head and cooked for dinner.

These logical reasons apart, there is a very powerful indefinable appeal in a true-blooded free rider. It is said that the gods were defined by their unperturbed nature. If that is true, a free rider is no lesser than a god. Deadlines and problems just go whooshing past him as he jaywalks through life, effortlessly redirecting the anvils aimed at his head towards vacant skulls in the vicinity. He looks at you with dreamy eyes of one who knows the truth and agrees to whatever you say, and you close your eyes in triumph of having conquered him. But when you open them, you are alone, like a dung beetle on your task looming like a pile of elephant crap, and he has vanished whistling into the fragrant thin air.

2006-10-16T17:28:00.000+05:30

A Dream

I brimmed over richly with
the sweet fullness of the milk of love
but to break mortal content, there were
dregs at the very bottom - bitter promise

I tried to pick them with sharp pincers
which scarred the white velvet in hate
but the dregs remained there
immobile and leaden - sinking my heart

So I did what I was loth to do
and poured out that milk of love
and watched it flow between
the cracks of parched earth

Then I reached into my empty self
and shook the crystals of covetal free
ah now it was all clean and bright
though alas empty

But beneath those shards of desire
there had been, hidden from me
the very udders of the elixir I had lost
and now they burst forth free
flooding my cup till it flowed
like mother Baucis' of old
over its brim and into the green grass

2006-10-04T00:52:00.000+05:30

Decadence

The sunken eye, the hollow cheek
the broken bones and snapped sinews
the fingers that once beauty fondled
waste away now to barren amuse
The fire of the eye, the edge of the mind
quenched and blunted by the killing blight
of name, fame and shame

For dotage is not the draught that drinks
the light from the living candle,
but the stench of the long burnt wick
that seeps through the still air,
with its cursed half life
living after the flame is dead...

2006-09-23T16:23:00.000+05:30

First Love

A little log sat in the shadows
and watched the fire flicker by,
throwing a dancing light now and then
to her admirer's heart mollify
and as he watched there in wonder
his heart trembled like an aspen leaf
and looked at the yellow flames
with a newfound passion of first love

Ah! her flowing braids
that flamed as she danced
in undying bursts of ecstacy,
to the very music of life
Ah! the blaze of her eye
as she flung fond glances
Ah! the redness of her lips
that sang to the pulse of being

And as the log sat so still,
his maiden's step faltered as she fell-
lower and lower, to the floor
of the cold stone of the fireplace

The little one knew that had to be done,
he smilingly inched to his doom,
and kissed her a kiss of immortal love
bringing her back to roaring life
that he saw with his rejoicing spirit,
which soared upwards to the heavens
and while speeding to the stars, warmed the air
with the smell of sweet sacrifice.

2006-09-21T16:26:00.000+05:30

The silent dance

The ale foam sprayed in flecks
about the merry pub that day
when all peasents fell into step,
The day of sprightly jigs

One boy alone did not join
but sat behind the table cheering on
the other performers with rapture,
lips smiling and eyes shining

"come boy!!" roared the barman,
"let us hear your feet on the boards"
but the boy smilingly saw the floor
where his feet would have been,
and shook his head.

And yet he danced,
faster and stronger than the rest
his heart springing in endless leaps
in his own ballroom of mute love.

2006-09-19T12:30:00.000+05:30

The Victor -

The tall man surveyed the world, from the recesses of his cloak, with a disdainful satisfaction. He was a victor, and no one could dispute that. He was taller than the trees, and stronger than the rocks. He laughed loudly, and lay down on the grass.

A little blue butterfly flitted to the next flower.

He felt a pang of pity.

“What fruitless existence”, he thought, “does this little creature feel, for it thinks not, it wins not, and it lives not”.

The little blue butterfly flew to the jasmine creepers.

He felt irate.

“But how it lives on, unrepentant and stupid”, he growled “ in fool’s paradise!”

The little blue butterfly closed its wings, and settled on the jasmines.

He grew red with rage.

“Shall it ever be at the eyes of idiots”, he shouted, “that quality is beheld, and allowed to fade unheralded. That all the brilliant art from the hands of masters must be in the gallery for the blind!”

The little blue butterfly took off, this time into the vines.

“Do you dare”, he whispered with deadly venom, “challenge the intelligence of mine? The warrior, the artist, the philosopher, the aesthete, the creator and the destroyer?” He rose, and waited in demanding silence.

The little blue butterfly disappeared into the leaves.

“Such is the disdain!” he shrieked, “of ignorance for wisdom. Doomed be the world!!!” and fell down dead.

The little blue butterfly emerged from the vines. It flew away into the sunshine.

2006-09-11T20:53:00.001+05:30

The Three Trees

He found a sapling in the shade
He bathed it in the warmth of wine
And watered it with the fire of blood
To its ears he spelt words of might
And manured it with the four fruits of decay

The child grew fell and wild
And reached out to touch the skies
His roots rent the earth beneath
And his boughs darkened day to night
_______________________________________________

He found a sapling in the shade
And planted it in softened soil
He wet the roots with scented water
Clipped the leaves when they went awry
And sang to its ears holy hymns

The child grew gentle and strong
But bowed to the starry skies
It gave fruit to the starved
And shade to tired eyes
________________________________________________

A sapling found itself in the shade
Clinging on to hard bedrock
It grew little and grew hardy
Every winter withering its leaves
Slowly it put forth its first bitter fruit
And ate it with the seed

Then it grew silent and strange
The skies feared it and turned thither
At last it cast its second and last fruit
Which shone through its black body
Lovingly burning its mother to white ash
And rose to the heavens, to join the sun
________________________________________________

2006-09-09T01:54:00.000+05:30

The Blossom

A little flower lay on the grass
fresh fallen from the rain swept tree
I picked it up and placed it on my palm
and felt sadness that sunny morn

It was very white, and quite dead
riven from its mother's embrace,
eyes shining with silent tears
of clear and still dew.

But even as I so dreamt,
the flower shivered with new life,
trembling in resonance
with the pulse of my living heart

And for that instant we were one,
two lost children drinking together
in peace and total content
from the fountain of life and joy.

2006-09-04T14:29:00.001+05:30

Happy is the sun, for unchanging is his eye of fire,
But happier is the peasant, his sunburnt back speaking
of change - focal human delight

2006-09-04T14:29:00.000+05:30

Once I was smitten by the fangs
of a serpent - black and venomous
bitter was the touch, and hot as hellfire
but better it was, than when I drank deep
from the poisoned chalice of a friend's tongue,
for sweet was its touch - a goblet from the styx
numbing me to drowsy dotage and cold death.

2006-09-03T00:26:00.001+05:30

The death of Mr. Pip - (A Thought Experiment)

One fine morning, Mr. Pip decided to kill his employer. The feeling that had been festering in him for quite some time, found maturity and fullness with the sour apple sauce that his wife served him for breakfast. That being finalized, he amused himself with the steps in committing the deed, and getting away from it too (for it must be remembered that Mr. Pip was a most careful man). He plotted the issue in great detail, kissed his wife (who was killing their decadent cat by choking her with cream) and left.

Mr. Pip walked into the streets dressed in his very respectable blazer (yes, his favorite pink one with green spots) and corduroy trousers with some unwashed cat urine on them. People waved across to him all the way, for Mr. Pip was indeed a very respectable man. On the way he stopped by the pub for a quick drink. The merry party gathered there shouted for a song, and as always Mr. Pip obliged them. Half way through the dance, he joyfully smashed two beer bottles on his face, breaking one lens of his glasses. The audience roared in appreciation, and the famed guitarist gave Mr. Pip a special song on his white guitar made of human bones secretly smuggled from the grave, which everyone knew about.

“ There goes Mr. Pip,” said an old timer to his grandson, “ what a fine man! And when you grow up, you must be like him”. The boy who was beating a pup to death, cheered on by his friends, did not listen.

Mr. Pip walked on to the city square, where he knew Mr. Smith and his wife would be – in the middle of their own orgies, attended only by the most refined and elite people. In these rich parts, Mr. Pip was not recognized. However, to make sure, he bought an empty tin can and covered his face with it, save two holes for the eyes. And since the dirty yellow spoon was free with the tin, he walked along banging the tin with it.

Mr. Pip looked at his watch – anytime now, Mr. Smith would be out of the orgy halls. Sure enough, there he was, lumbering out on all fours, his hand half way up a nun’s thigh. The nun giggled nervously, raised her skirts a bit higher with one hand (and with the other removed his wallet from his coat). Mrs. Smith came out of the opposite building, half walking, half carried by her lover. The gentry gathered near the gardens.

The mayor, a jovial huge man with enormous moustaches stepped out. “ Three cheers to Mr. Smith and his wife!!!” he cried, “for completing twenty years of married life in perfect unity and happiness”. The crowd clapped. Mr. Smith clumsily clambered onto his feet (he still had been trailing behind the nun on all fours). Mrs. Smith blushed coyly.

Mr. Pip knew that he had to act now. He quickly (banging on the tin can covering is face) followed his employer who was walking towards the shop that sold crack. With one hand, he tapped on Mr. Smith’s shoulder. As the latter turned about, Mr. Pip drew a thin and long blade out of his blazer and stabbed his employer through the heart.

There was a scream

There were more screams

There was a stampede of people rushing to the scene, as Mr. Pip held his murdered employer in his arms. Both Mrs. Smith and the nun fainted. They would have fallen on the ground, if it had not been for two kindly gentlemen who took them to their rooms (and later slept with them). The mayor took control.

“ Nobody leaves this place!!!” he hollered, “ Before we find who murdered Mr. Smith”. “ Officer Stan!!!” he screamed, “ Where are you??”

Officer Stan stepped out of the crowd.

“ That is right” he said, “ No one leaves this place till we find who murdered Mr. Smith. You there!!!” he shouted at Mr. Pip “ do you know anything?”

“ Like hell I do!!!” shouted back Mr. Pip “ here lies my best friend murdered by that black stranger who swept past me, and you stand about asking questions!! I have a good mind to report you officer,” he added.

“ I am sorry sir, ” said the officer in genuine regret, “but do you know how it all happened?”

Mr. Smith groaned. Apparently, Mr. Pip had not done a good enough job. He tried to speak, only to be cut short by Mr. Pip…

“ You know nothing Smith”, he said, and continued to the crowd “ There was this black stranger”, he waved his arms wildly. “ That son of Satan came here with this knife- just look at it. He flung about dear Smith and plunged in the knife, just like this…”

Mr. Pip plunged the knife into Mr. Smith’s heart once more, then again, then again, and once again for luck. Mr. Smith groaned and sank down for good.

“ And I promise you” roared Mr. Pip, “ I am not leaving till this foul murder is avenged!!!”

“ Now, now, my good man” said the mayor “ he was a great friend to all of us. Do not worry”, the mayor’s handsome face was set in rigid lines of heroic determination “ the murderer shall be brought to justice”. He stroked his magnificent moustaches.

“ You better do that,” shouted Mr. Pip, “and fast”. And he went down the lane banging the dirty yellow spoon on the tin can (that was still on his head).

“ That is a real gentleman, that Mr. Pip”, said the millionaire brewer, as he removed the rings off the dead man’s fingers and put them into his own pocket.

The police, under officer Stan set out to get the murderer – dead or alive. They roamed the country high and low for possible suspects.

________________________

They found Mr. Pip sitting in his garden, as he was smelling the roses and hearing the water falling on the little stones in his fountain. They found him alone, talking to the trees and quite obviously mad. There, they clearly and beyond any doubt knew that he was the murderer - the instant they saw him there, ridiculously holding roses and talking to trees. First they sat down and laughed heartily. Then they shot him in the head. They shot him again and again till he was quite dead.

The murder of Mr. Smith was finally avenged.

______________________________

2006-08-25T01:39:00.001+05:30

One Drop
_____________________________________

When silence snakes through in black coils
filling its dark womb with the world,
when the sounds of thought have faded
into the stillborn night,

One drop is what it takes
to fall, into the inert pool
of memories and stir therin,
ripples of thought to cascade into waves,

For quiet's redemption...
______________________________________

When the chalice trembles full
with the crimson fire of blood,
when dying eyes gather lust at sight
of the nectar of immortals,

One drop is what it takes
of hemlock from morgul vales,
to sour the potion beyond form -
from elixir to hell's froth,

For life's breath...
______________________________________

When eleven eyes are held still by will
and the twelfth shines keen,
fixing in its terrible beam the cloud
beyond which lies the brightest star,

One drop is what it takes
in the mind's poise from its high seat,
to cut focus to bone's white
and to cast that sight into red abyss,

For wisdom's price...
______________________________________

When the face streams pure and fair
and the eyes grow dark and fond,
when the full lips with them curve
the beholding heart in helpless plight,

One drop is what it takes
of covetal to welt the soft visage,
and taunt the moons of a moments past
to hollow sockets of ringing mockery,

For beauty's delight...
______________________________________

And when the dusk clouds gather around,
when the doom bells sway without peal,
when the last spark leaves the eyes,
which even to death become blind,

One drop is what it takes
of faith to stand the crushing void,
and rouse the soul, from the claw of nought -
to battle, to life, and to death,

For hope's rejoice.
________________________________________

2006-07-11T01:06:00.000+05:30

Eyes

Great are the eyes that lance the like
Gaining mastery therin
And greater are those that turn within
To lay bare the self's virtue and sin

But fairest are those that see all alike
Which in all beauty take childlike delight
And playing a symphony in joyous mime
Bring to pause, the very wheels of time.

2006-05-13T07:51:00.000+05:30

A Kaleidoscope

I woke from sleep to bright day
sprang on my feet and walked down the way
lined with green grass and yellow hay
roses and marigolds in colourful play

_________________________________________

First I espied a group in gay dance
merry faces in fortune and happy chance
the air was rich with the fragrance
of baking bread and hot croissants

A host of Epicurians!!!

The men there were of great charm
with loud laughter and voices warm
and lovely damsels with flowing braids
honey on lips and wine in eyes

They sang a strong and loud song
which rang in the ears for long
a clear stream below flying swallows
gurgling a tune in its sand lined shallows

I heard their voices, smelt their ale
and myself rejoiced in that vale
and thought, in mirth's assure
what indeed is life, but pure pleasure!!!

__________________________________

I walked further, my steps fell lightly
but as I walked, the grass thinned slightly
the land grew poor and the clime fiery
ravens croaked and wolves howled dreary

The land of plague and misery!!!

Crushed men sat in broken poise
discarded ones of destiny's toys
crowding sunken eye and hollow cheek
did their defeat and deformity speak

The air reeked with the aromas of decay
hunger and drought in deadly ballet
the trees dropped their arms in thirst
scum of creation that nature curs't

The silence of their lament tortured me
doomed souls never to walk free
and I thought, in penury's breath
what indeed is life, but naked death!!!

_______________________________________

But as I cowered in illness and fear
a mild breeze blew from near
music flitted through dry reeds
waking from stupor long buried seeds

A man walked into the plagued land
with sprightly step and laden hand
from the merry vale I'd earlier been
of fond memories and leaves green

His robes were of bark, his skin dark
in moonless night bright spark
but his eyes, no man could bear to behold
for they flashed like fire, with might manifold

With one hand he held a basket of bread
and the other, a cask of seed
the gushing river followed him slaking
the thirst of the land and its heart raking

Nightingales didnt sing, neither did flowers bloom
or this one arrival kill entrenched gloom
but the land looked up, the hungry eyes lifted
the despair of long, hope slightly shifted

I woke for the third time, third and last
neither a burst of laughter, nor a lament of fast
what indeed was life, but love that never did cloy
and what indeed is love, but measureless joy!!!

__________________________________________

2006-01-30T13:14:00.000+05:30

Dawn

Drugged in bed with my mistress
Dark hair veiling my face,
Lie I as our lips press
Hearts beating in placid pace

Covers me she with her breath
Warm and opium scented,
Taking me to the borders of death
Gentler than man invented

But like steel's kiss on the birth cord,
Sudden is snapped the trance
By a cold wind of some lord
Which does my stupor lance

I wake with a curse, for she has left
For, for all hasn't broken the day
And over many eyes her spell's still heft,
Over their minds, she has the sway

Farewell my lady, farewell!!

Slow I trudge on dunes of white sand
Pale is the moon, the hour's before dawn,
Ahead stretches the ocean, a blue band -
Mother of all, first of first born

A brisk breeze ripples my hair
Cold with salt scent laced,
Rushing from that vast lair
Like a swallow for long encaged

The waves lap with grace
The beaten and dim lit shore,
And recede to rightful place
Again, as since lore

The horizon at east end pales
Into lighter grey than the rest,
Perhaps the sky itself regales
Over some approaching fest?

The cirrus spells itself first,
From the canvas of total grey
Like a trickle's sight in deep thirst,
Starting the grand play

One wisp, two, now three
Appear streaks on the heavens
Springs the design of a great tree
As though to nature's art evince

This strange tree made of cloud
Roots maybe deep in the ocean ground,
Furrows the sky like land ploughed,
Branching through sans bound

And entranced as I stand on the shore
Eyes held to the game above,
Appears first to the sea's gentle roar
A flush of pink, like maiden in love

Climbs the hue through white boughs
Like life blood through empty veins
With shades of red, it slighty glows
And mild light on the clear air it rains

The canopy broadens, and waxes in size
Leaves of light in clusters gather,
The dark night completely dies
Moving to the world's end, or even farther

But what treasure does at the core sit
Concealed by cloud and mist
Of whose power, a vulgar bit
Sent the night racing west

Now, abrupt does the sea pause
Its usual rythm and pounding on rock
And the breeze gaining monstrous mass
Stops to make silence stark

Lo! rises a great rim - heart of fire
Cloaked in cloud yet fluid and clear
Its fell beauty does my heart mire
And desire strikes the soul like a spear

What creation! this fair orange orb
The glittering jewel on the ocean's crown,
Brightening the world with countless barb
And soul in euphoria drown

Passion siezes my drunken mind
And all wisdom does it trounce,
Wishing to the unveiled whole find
So my desire I announce

Alas! what ill have I done

The air steams with boiling wrath
The cloud curtains tear free,
Blazes the sun - flame of god's hearth
Burning in apocalypic spree

Naked tongues of fiery flame
Scorch my eyes driving me blind
And I crumble in a heap in shame
Like before tiger, weak hind

At length I recover from swoon
And gathering sense look around,
First strokes me the fisherman's croon
And then thousand other sound

The ocean queen is clothed in blue
Deep as her deeps themselves,
The grass is green, shining with clear dew
The shore's sprinkled with thousand shells

Of colours of which I have no clue
But no doubt in nature's stock rife
And birds of amazing pattern and hue
Fly past in celebration of life

Isnt the myriad colour and play of light
But the charity of the sun divine,
That though brooks not straight sight,
Paints the world with love affine?

Lets love the sun not with the sight
Of covetous zealot or ruler proud,
But as a benign lord of measureless might
By whose tongue the world sings aloud

For what indeed is the sun, but that mythical fruit!

2006-01-21T21:03:00.000+05:30

Supplication

The fire of thine eye beam
Does to doom poor mine deem
Pray, let a cloud of love mild
Filter thy sight piercing and wild
Let the whip thongs of thy might
Thin into hairs fragrant and light
Wrapping me in warmth - eternal and bright!

2006-01-16T11:41:00.000+05:30

for MM

Atlanta and Hippomenes - the race rerun

Up sprang the sun, setting treetops on fire
The birds in song, marvellous choir
The moon bid adieu and plunged to sleep
Her brother, with fiery arms began the world to sweep

But what host stood on the great plain
Men, women and child in endless train
Theirs was to travel long leagues
To feel on their faces heaven's breeze

Mighty trumpets blow
Flags wild flow
March, march fro

***********

Tresses and manes flew behind
As eyes keen as flames unwind
Roared the company, on mercury's boots
To resounding music of harps and flutes

***************

Of all gallants, tall and bold
To whose glory drumbeats rolled,
Two stood out, from the fold
A monk in grey and a woman in gold

*********

Tigress first, burning bright
Eyes cold, daughter of might
Slender yet wrought of steel
Sight bringing sternest to heel

The braves despaired at her face
Blinding blow from cupid's mace
Sculpture of gods, form perfect
That might, mightiest mind buffet

But she cared not, artemis' maid
Balance and step, perfection weighed
Helm and mail, awful light
Arching shadows in the night

One hand wielded athene's shield
That once gorgon fate sealed
Adamant slab, fire given
Not to be by claw or steel riven

Bitter blade, fell forge grown
Slicing like air, tree and stone
Despatching to doom demon and beast
Horror fork of mars' feast

**************

But who was he, among great lords
Who with the best, did steady plod
Clad in grey, grey and smile
Unarmed, and lacking in guile

Tall and lithe, overgrown child
Fun and frolic, on face tiled
Skin of bark, hair night dark
Jester of mark, spirits of lark

Justborn eyes - centuries old
Deeper than any tale ever told
Kin he was of sun and moon
Stars on his brow, of light hewn

So unlike other men grim
He flowed with laughter o'er the brim
Children, on his shoulder did he bear
He taught them song, love and care

All life he loved, man or beast
And slew not, for fear or feast
Befriended he the wildest hound
With petting hand and music unbound

**************

Time flew, lines thinned
Slow but sure does weariness win
Sand rolled in heros' shoes
Sleep closed on tired sinews

Settled the host in lands fertile
For rest and domestic life awhile
Stale the chase they forsook
Empires made, grew and shook

***************

At last none stood but monk and maid
Elf bard and amazon pride
One sealed in steel and will
The other with just joy afill

***************

But now the race at its last leg
For the lands that eyes sore beg
Were but in sight, but a vale away
But what dread vale, what dread say

Alak! the gate to promised land
Held firm by the darkest hand
rose the morgul lord from his seat
All land trembled with rage and heat

Captains cry, heralds hark
At his motif - dark question mark
Lights fail, boldest reel
At his hammer's mocking peal
One against two, death silence fell
Who would it be, to knock the doors of hell

***************

Quivered the rose, and rose in wrath
Driving the blade into dark heart
Blue the tip, glittering cold
But skin was tough, tough of old

Cracked the tongue into million shard
Fell in malice - hammer hard
Shattered the shield like cowrie shell
And turned to holder, doom's bell

Maid of might, trembled in fright
Lips fell white, nameless blight
Air of death, rattled from foe
Stern queen turned frozen doe

Naked she trembled by the fell king
Ah! what change did the gore bring
Piteous she cried, cried for aid
Strange words, first time said
Begging eyes called him fore
Then she swooned, saw no more

*************

Sudden was slashed, fabric of dark
By beam of light - thin and stark
Flung the monk his grey cloak
Lord of lightning, stature of oak
Joy on lip, wisdom on brow
Power in arm to fell any foe

But dark teeth knives ground in rage
For they sensed might beyond guage

With shock of thunder the two met
White fire and black mallet
Tempest of flame, wild death game
Who shall who in the end tame

Lo! what be this, time's wonder
Hammer of hate smashed asunder
Vanquished lay the morgul chief
At white's feet, scattered grief

***************

Scooped the monk, damsel by waist
Bore her away from air of foul taste
Limped back the king, to resume broken watch
As cerberus had over hades after heracles' dodge

He laid her on a bed of grass
And removed the helm of brass
Bathed her in dewdrops pure
And all ill in her did he cure

Cast the maid her golden mail
Disdain in her turned tail
Bound hair, she tossed free
And sat in love, on his knee

Damsel of love, banished her pride
Two together, man and bride
Her he covered, with flowers fair
And him she, with lips bare

Low he whistled, a tune of wild
Sprang a steed - pegasus child
Saddleless mounted, he with his prize
And swiftly rode to waiting paradise!

********************

2006-01-11T00:14:00.000+05:30

royal weddings

since there is a great deal of useless discussion and analysis about a particularly strange wedding in a particularly strange country, i am inclined to add my reflections to the din, where i am sure it will pass off (safely) unheard. there is a great use in the yells of the mob. it gives the average man an opportunity to yell out his private and bursting emotions and attain a great satisfation in the same. for instance, i have seen little boys safely shouting obscenities at the principal in a school function where they were supposed to wish him happy birthday. this idea of shouting out private opinions that become too heavy to be private any longer is not new. king midas's barber, on knowledge of his king sporting donkey ears whispered away this piece of social scandal to the reeds which in turn spread the news much more freely.

as it is very probable that this essay may stay much longer than royal families, let alone the royal family in question, i refrain from extensively naming the players in this entertaining drama, lest it rob this piece of its immortality. the reader must not treat this work as he does those titled " socket joints - a review" or "manufacture and repair of pvc tubings" as community specific subjects. besides, royalty always concerns the average man as he is ruled by it. historically, people have been more interested in the extension of royal lineage than anything else, except perhaps in its termination. but unfortunately, such news travelled much slower in olden days and hence, the household was forced to the routine of honest work and some small domestic gossip. but now, due to that great and productive organ called the press, we are able to enjoy to the fullest degree, vital information on such essential issue as the one in question.

before we discuss this particular royal wedding, we have to consider royalty and weddings. i have never had (thankfully) the experience of belonging to royalty. royalty is not a repulsive concept. indeed one may remember that dainty queen who, when confronted with scarcity of bread for the populance asked them to eat cakes instead or that indian maharaja who shot two tigers between meals or the sweet queen cleopatra who spiked her wine with pearls. fortunately, that line of aristocracy has been toned down gradually with democracy or suddenly with the guillotine. today, royalty, for most part lives on like a relic of the past. one can make a case out of the badshah of timbuktoo or the king of monaco, but in general the people have intelligently snatched the reigns of governance from that unelected lazy and spiteful aristocratic line and handed it over to an elected active and depraved line. as for weddings, they are the classic examples of a wise man learning from other's mistakes and a fool from his own. amusingly, a new category has entered the market, which seems not to profit from its own mistakes. when one marriage is more than enough to dispel any illusions of the theory of " connubial bliss " coined , i suspect by marriage brokers and philosophy books, it is strange to observe people trying to get married twice.

coming back to the subject, the news is that a prince is going to get married to someone of non - aristocratic line. this has created a great deal of publicity and to the joy of tabloids, the queen is not terribly interested in the idea. this is a great plot for a penny dreadful.

consider this line- the scheming queen tries to dispose off the girl (to get her son married off to someone of a similar line, her brother's daughter for instance) with death threats and snake poison, failing which she hires a gang of supari killers to remove the upstart. the prince enters the scene and after two terrible battles in which the machine gun wielding villan gang is stabbed with paper clips by the hero, he rejoins the innocent and lovely village girl. the penitant queen renounces the throne and departs from the scene (for a holiday in switzerland) and the couple live happily ever after.

unfortunately, this is seldom the case in reality. the innocent village girl does not bring the prince to the level of the populance . instead, she goes 'up' to the level of the aristocracy. she forgets the days when she gathered wood for the fire and milk for cheese. instead, she gathers wool infront of the fire, buys emeralds and sapphires for millions, signs a few documents, slips in the bathroom, lingers unnecessarily for a few weeks and dies.

so, the current publicity of the model wedding can be attributed only to the senility of the press, which it in turn promptly attributes to the senility of the people. the press, with its fine discretion, decides that the article on the mysterious marriage is more important than the burning pipelines of iraq or the famine in africa. these are typical extracts

-- now people can bet on the next mishap to hit the wedding of prince charles . previously, the happy couple was hit by the news that prince's mother queen elizabeth , will not attend the marriage ceremony, just a blessing service afterwards.
in the odds released by bookmakers william hill, britons can gamble at 33-1 that camilla parker bowles will stand the prince up on wedding day, 25-1 that the wedding rings will be lost by the prince's son (??). chances of snowstorms and floods were given 100-1, while the odds of aliens landing at the function were at 10000-1 --

ah! what a beautiful reaction this splendid report will have on the populance! one can visualize a patriotic citizen torn between sorrow at the queen's refusal to attend the 'happy' couple's marriage and joy at the introduction of intellectual betting games as these. but that is not all. in a big report attractively titled " prince, bride to confess "sins" ", decorated with formidable pictures of the couple, is written

-- prince charles and camilla parker bowles, who have faced calls to apologise for having been "unfaithful" to their former spouses, are to acknowledge their "manifold sins and wickedness" at a church service.
prince charles has pointedly selected a confession from the 1662 ad bookof common prayer which reads "we acknowledge and bewail our manifold sins and wickednesses which we, from time to time,most grievously have committed, by word, thought and deed....we do earnestly repent, and we are heartily (??) sorry for our wrongs"
religious affairs commentators said in choosing the "sternest possible" prayer of penitence, prince charles was responding to calls for apology and giving indication of his penitent state of mind --

on the actual day of the revels,

--the prince held the door as ms.bowles, dressed in a white chiffon dress and an elaborate hat, gingerly got down from the limousine. the two then shyly waved to the crowd before being escorted to -

what elaborate nonsense! as though some one was expecting the groom to be dressed in hawaiian shorts and the bride to be attired in a red charwoman costume! as though someone sits in the eager anticipation of the prince slamming the door on her face and the couple performing a tribal dance before being escorted to wherever they were.

this was followed by an informative family line detailing all the illegal affairs the two lines had (to the best of public knowledge) which covers half a page. words fail us in appreciating the significance of this "penitence". one can as well expect reports of serial killers selecting the "sternest possible" confessions and walking in the streets with heads held high. child molesters will fall into paroxysms of regret over their manifold sins and celebrate their repentance with ale and beer.

on the other hand, if the whole affair is commonplace enough to avoid comparison with "grosser" ills, why go into all the bloody detail over the sham repentance? nobody is in the slightest doubt as to whether the participants would hesitate to plunge into another affair if they had the energy to go on. is the single reason of belonging to royalty sufficient to find one's way into newspaper columns irrespective of the idioticity involved? the entire affair dies down to this - a man who had an affair with a woman for three decades has, by some caprice decided to marry her. that is what it has to be treated as.

the world is at a regrettable state where the atrocities of "superpowers" are sidelined by their muscle, where the rightful owners of their lands are driven out by invading barbarians and asked to slave for food of their own produce. let the press not abase itself in reports of the cakes consumed by a handful of the populance for breakfast, the soaps they use and the expletives they mouth. the "popular press" has stooped as much as to condone degradation of human dignity, let it not stoop to the level of patronising inhuman frivolity.

2006-01-11T00:13:00.000+05:30

the dustbin

one fine morning, i was engaged in the (consuming) experiment of
practically calculating the number of banannas i could demolish on an
empty stomach and in the process looked for a container to bear the
dozen relics of my adventure. suddenly, with an illuminating flash i realized
that one of the most tragically ignored edifices of human civilization
was the dustbin. with the ecstacy of this discovery, i promptly
abandoned the dozen rinds on the street and, as any responsible
philosopher should, continued the course of my meditations on a hammock. i have
since then found tremendous details on the phenominal importance of the
dustbin that i have decieded to write a thesis on this subject that
will stun the world. neverthless, as a trailer to that remarkable work, i am
releasing these pages to the eager reader.

most men need role models to get on with reality. contrary to public
opinion, this is not due to any weakness in them. it infact requires a
great deal of strength to curb our natural tendencies towards
idioticity and follow the hard paths of the elite few. however, there
is nowadays a scarcity of real role models. the old crop has various
allegations levelled against it. bacchus is charged with frivolity, brutus is
considered to be impractical and superman, american. it is understandable
to feel the public resentment at the lack of appearance of a hero in
recent times. having failed thoroughly in all my valient attempts to
convince the populance that i would be an excellent candidate, i propose
the dustbin as one. this is no laughing matter. one of the most serious
realizations in this modern age is that humans are in general,
incapable of absolute perfection. they are either fools, or scientists,
or prejudiced to the core, or ministers. that is why this proposal of an
inanimate candidate gains importance.

before we get carried away into the wild and wonderful world of the
dustbin, we must understand the fact that the dustbin is an integral
part of any society. practical civilization can never aim at completely
eliminating evil. it can at best isolate the dirt of the community. it
is to this noble and sacrificial purpose that the dustbin concentrates
its existance. in an era when people claiming to be martyrs are often
rascals and blackguards, the dustbin stands as a shining example to the
wandering millions. theologically, its place cannot be questioned. one
of the basic notions of religion is that man was made from dust and
will go to it in the end. what more joy can there be than to visualize a
tremendous aggregate of dust, waiting to be shaped as humans being
stored in a titanic dustbin. i suspect that the first transition of paganism
to religeon was when a wise tribe chanted terrible incantations to this
idol. the dark evening is lit by ten thousand flaming torches, the air resonates
with quiet excitement of the whole tribe. to the mystical chants of the priest,
a hundred vestal virgins slowly sway to and forth in oriental ecstacy. the
procession slowly makes way. scores of men hoist on their shoulders, a giant
dustbin marked with tribal motifs. the village chief himself sits in a smaller
dustbin, borne by his personal slaves. ahead is a monstorous altar, with happy
men waiting to be offered as human sacrifice. ah! what a world it would have been.

tragically, as the centuries have passed, the human outlook on the
dustbin has changed dramatically. it is nowadays regarded as a mere
hygenic necessity and is subjected to all sorts of slights. children
kick it about during their play and impatient housewives knock it with their
utensils. careless charwoman whack it with their brooms and swing it
irreverently on their way to empty the contents in the garbage lorry.
the fate of the specimens lined along the roads is worse. apart from being
battered by occasional raids by the metropolitan corporation, they are
subject to malicious slander by the ignorant population. unable to bear
this torture, i tried to adopt a couple of them and carry them home.
but i was stopped by a policeman who muttered some nonsense about
public property and faced by lack of compliance, added the absurd charge of
theft. but consolingly, sometime later, my landlord turned up at my
door with a gas mask and shouted something to the effect that my quarters
were,in reality one big garbage bin. after blessing him for the words, i
settled to contentment.

turning back to the virtues of our worthy subject, i would like to
see these mischevious miscreants stripped of the essential presence of
the omnipotent garbage bin. corporate executives would walk around,
their pockets bulging with orange peels and remenants of their last
meal. schoolboys would have to be condoned for carrying dead cockroaches and
scorpions in their bags. housewives would mournfully carry armfuls of
rotting garbage to bury in their backyards. corners of already cramped
apartments would be cramped further with mountains of stinking refuse
dominated by maggots, mosquitoes and flies. wild eyed clerks would
madly rummage the inner recesses of overwhelming paper waste to retrieve
important documents. street ends would be centres of free disease
distribution to the neighborhood.

however, the good natured dustbin has never yet gone on strike. on
the contrary it continues its patronage to all lower and helpless
creatures. crows and dogs will, i am sure regard the garbage bin as a
magnanimous patron throwing up unexpected delicacies. even in movies
the dustbin makes its significant appearance in three distinct roles

(1) as the holder of that terrible incriminating green envelope the
villan throws in the first scene to be fished out by the hero after the family
song and the bleessings of the family diety in the last scene.
(2) as the cunning site where the villans plant the bomb only to be
found out by the policeman hero and tossed into the nearby river
(3)finally and most importantly, as the refuge for mothers to dump
their anachronous children who usually grow up to be heroes.

besides, the garbage bin is a model for scientists and serious
philosophers. it marks a great transition in the state of evolution. the phenominal
changeof inorganic to organic. dump some food into a garbage bin and it is a
matterof days before you detect the thriving families of microbes in happy
tenement. social scientists will be delighted to know that the dustbin is one of
the major indicators of the progress of fashion and public outlook.it is
the dustbin that stands testimony to the fall of great leaders when they
are bundled in their posters and flung into compost pits by the awakened
mobs. one of the greatest acts of romance in world history, that had tremendous
implications to the future was when a group of gentlemen treated the
sea as a giant dustbin and dumped crates of foreign tea into it during the
boston tea party. lastly, the relevance of the local dustbin to the life of the
average man is evident by the sheer variety of contributions it contains.
individual egos are sure to get lostat sight of the overwhelming diversity of this
silent master. i have incorporated the cardinal virtue of rummaging the
contents of my neighborhood garbage bin each day after a purifying bath to rid me
of any vanity that i may possess and freely recommend the same as an excellent
remedy to modern ills.

but one must not be in an undue hurry for the arrival of a happy
humanity. all i would like to tell the world is that try as one may, it is
impossible to rob the garbage bin of its omnipresence. if someday, mankind, in its
foolishness decides against the existance of my subject, it will be at
a loss to implement its resolution. for, from a universal perspective, the
globe we live on is by itself the repository of the very worst type of vermin
called the humankind. at such a realization, our pride will be crushed and the
august dustbin will have revenged itself.

2006-01-11T00:12:00.000+05:30

the personal diary

one of the most singular curiosities of our present day civilization is the personal diary. the diary is like any scientific invention with the exception of being intrinsically funny. nobody would call a railway engine funny or break into paroxysms of mirth when an atom bomb is dropped over their heads. it is the diary alone that is a comedy not just in its content (as the case mostly is) but also in the idea. it is publicaly stated to perform a bluff honest and innocent role of chronicling the experiences of dull and laborious people. however, it actually is a hilarious repository of the casualities of emotional incompetance. if one tries reading the personal diaries of others, he is sure to stumble on an amusing bundle of stupidity.

the diary is also a well recognized element of theatrical application. most of our clever movies include the diary as a cardinal rule.

case1: the handiwork of the villan who is idiotic enough to leave a detailed account of the murders that he has made, to be captured by the hero after half an hour of machine gun fire and martial art display and produced in the court as the evidence to crush the writer. it is inconcievable to believe that the villan was maintaining a record of his sins as a mode of repentance simply because of the fact that he is the villan. also, it is improbable that he has created the volume simply to gloat over his deeds as there is something infinitely pathetic about the strong and merciless character in question reflecting on the dead glory of the past which is out of his reach. i shall never let him suffer from such an emotional weakness. indeed, the villan is supposed to be the strongest character in the story with the sole exception of the hero, and that too only at the climax.

case2: the diary (belonging to the mother) tells the hero that the villan's principal aide is his own brother! this is immediately followed by a family song starring the twins, their aged mother and their family dog, with the auspicious blessings of the temple snake. then the twosome join forces to bash up the poor villan who is utterly bewildered at the mad turn of events.

dramatization apart, the personal diary is a strange expression of one's complex. mentally healthy people, i believe seldom maintain diaries (that i donot maintain a diary must not be stated against this assertion ). even given that there is some philosophy behind chronicling the spiritually instructive elements of ones life, i am sure that most of the diary writers of today can take just token refuge in this statement. i have had the opportunity to read some personal diaries that their owners treasured beyond their pathetic lives. here i must confirm that whatever be my faults, a vulgar interest in other people's affairs is not. there are scores of people i know who would jump with excitement at the prospect of exploring the murky depths of other's lives. but i took the liberty of perusing the books out of a respectable larger thirst for knowledge. what i found was grossly out of proportion to my expectations. the diary, i have come to understand from my forgettable experience is the substitute for emotional depth in people. empty individuals maintain full diaries in the illusion that a diary in hand imparts an air of romance and mystery to them. diary in hand, they stride about with their backs bent with the labours of atlas due to the terrible secrets of their latest romances to guard. these diary writers. like all modern writers meticulously discharge their duties for the sake of doing it. typical entries were in this vein
" pierced was my heart by her gaze..." or " to shame fell the flowers of eden before her eyes" .
( these types of reflections inevitably either ended with
"fraility, thy name is woman" or worse, " live shall i in your evergreen memory".)

other usual entries were " oh diary! what shall i do? i had a fight with a_. i have hurt him, boo hoo!! ". the very fun of a fight comes in a liesurely mastication of the event. i fail to see the purpose behind lamenting for it. these entries reflect the absymally low levels of creativity in our diary writers. amusingly, these ladies and gentlemen claim that all their originality is encapsulated in their diary entries. there is no shame in being a swine, the shame comes in being a swine and pretending to be a lion. besides, it is confusing to observe that not a single account of the higher pleasures such as food finds a place in the records. the philosophy of food is deeper than any other that has fallen into the share of humans. it is the origin of other branches of thought. recollections of good food will only create a pleasent and affable mood instead of the foolish maudlin state that reminiscences of any other subject do. on the other hand, remembering a bad meal is even better. it creates a feeling of optimism and thankfulness for the present, a state that we seldom enjoy. try substituting bad feed by say, a bad deed, the outcome will be only bitterness. if i ever commit the indiscretion of maintaining a diary, one can be sure that it will be full of the menus that i have decimated through my life.

2006-01-11T00:11:00.001+05:30

opinions and intutions

the other day, i was busy having an argument with a friend. there is nothing strange in the act of argument, especially among friends. the art of argument dates back to the gardens of eden - the results of which prohpecied the fate of all arguments and arguers. numberless friends have numberless arguments and drunken bawls daily around the world. the novelty in our argument was its subject. it happens that there is a circular road by which our apartments are located. diametrically opposite, on the same road is a place that the charitable would call a restaurant where we suffer to take our meals. i shall not undertake the gory labour of describing the hotel to you but it is sufficient to understand that the quality of food there was vulgar enough to instigate a foul mood in anyone who comitted the cardinal sin of consuming it. so, in such a mood, we found ourselves arguing on the shortest way to our quarters from the hotel. i guessed that the right way was the right way while my friend swore that the left was the way to salvation. now, it is equally evident to both of us that both ways are equivalent but the pride of each person's belief in his intution threw us into a challenge. we agreed to take our favoured ways, travel at a constant pace and see who reached home first. needless to say, intent on proving our intutions right, both of us ran for our lives. but here, i had the disadvantage of a corpulent constitution. besides, i had exhibited a greater tolerance for the nauseating stuff which we had consumed and i was full of it. consequently, i was greeted by my friend at the entrance of my room. refusing to accept the defeat of my judgement, i called him a cheat and swore at him. returning similar compliments, he left me alone to meditate over the novel experience.

this sordid incident though of little entertainment is to be treated as a philosophical experience. it throws open to us the power of random thought and human ego. these two combined have crafted some of the most powerful organisations of our times, namely the government and religion. in the former, the hand of the forementioned two forces is easily seen. some bored voters amble to the polling booths and cast their votes to a random candidate. it is purely an act based on pot luck and random thought. there is little sense nowadays in keeping track of political policies. a skunk in any other name would smell just as sweet. similarly, any politician, irrespective of his superficial specifics is a politician, there is ideologically little difference between being swindled by swindler A or swindler B. however, the wise method i use for casting my vote is this. if the candidate is a particularly pleasing person from the neighborhood who is unfortunate enough to possess any of the cardinal virtues, i never vote for him. this is partly out of sympathy (for i am saving him from the mutilation that political success bestows) and partly out of concern for his lack of qualifications for the applied position. on the other hand, if one is loud, crass, violent and stupid, it is best to vote him to power. put all the rats in one hole, goes the saying. thus, he can give company to the multitude of like minded gentlemen in the infernal rat hole that we call the parliament.

a much more subtle application of cockney rationalisation is in religion. the religions of today having successfully ousted paganism from the scene have hence exterminated the only practical form of worship. people may raise eyebrows over devil worship, but it has a great underlying logic. no one worships his father or mother nowadays. in the rare case of not being thrown into institutions for the senile and aged, at best they are loved. on the other hand, a man's employer and a schoolboy's principal (who are inevitably draconian) are worshipped with total fear and unquestionable devotion. so according to modern practice, god is to be loved and the devil is to be worshipped. instead of adopting such straightforward logic, it is amusing to see a majority of people unnecessarily pretending to comprehend a religion that is necessarily centred around an incomprehensible figure. whenever intellectuals get overly curious about the logic behind the actions of gods, devotees either declare that it is beyond the enquirer's intelligence (as the established truth that two and two make four is beyond a street dog's understanding) or more commonly and with less trouble, stab the questioners. what religion is based on, is intutively clear but unfortunately what intution is based on, is woefully unclear. the fact is that intution is one of the few structures that evades searches for a root for it is a cycle. it is based on nothing but itself. experience has nothing to do with intution in the purest sense of the world. i find the idea of educated intution hilarious. the very fun of intution is based on its uneducated nature. nobody is raving to vote for the intellectual who through his educated intution guesses that the outcome of the toss is going to be a head or a tail. it is in this sense that one must compliment the inventor of religion for his intutive genius in coming out with a totally different product. full credit must be given to him as he has , for thousands of years unified the elements of ignorance, superstition, ego and stupidity into a relatively harmless channel. on a maturer reflection, it will be clear that but for religion, we will have hordes of housewives and priests on the streets, who having been deprived of their pastime of devotion to the many gods on offer presently, will clamour for even bigger roles in the social structure with disastrous consequences. all those critics who accuse religions of provoking quarrels would do well to understand that it is human nature to quarrel. if not religion , people will be anyway regularly slaughtering each other over other issues which they are ingenious enough to invent(like politics and entertainment).

it is hence, a sad fact that today, the art of successful intution is dying out. from the american president who has an uncanny hunch about the presence of atom bombs in abattoirs to the pathetic denizen who intutively believes that the scenario is rosy for indian cricket, there are innumerable examples of intution embracing fiasco. as for my own, i have to blame my forefathers for their poor use of the resource as i can clearly see that my intutive capabilities have atrophied by disuse. for instance i have a strong intution that this article is going to be a big hit......

2006-01-11T00:11:00.000+05:30

Modern Philosophy

There is a great deal of nonsense being talked about the lack of humour in the modern age. Nothing can be farther from the truth. The problem with these critics is that they understand only half of the equation. They might (perhaps) know what good humour is but they certainly donot know where to look for it. This is like a researcher trying to look for a honest man in the parliament and then decreeing the startling and sensational fact that honest men are extinct. There can be humour in such statements about the extinction of honesty but there is no honesty in statements about extinction of humour. Somebody said that a rose in any other name would smell as sweet. Humour in any other name is humorous, even if that new name is as grotesque as Modern Philosophy. By Modern Philosophy, I donot mean the unquestionably practical and excellent philosophy that the modern Get-To-The-Top-At-Any-Cost school has given. The type I am talking about is that which claims to address the question of "How to live" as well as "Why to live".

First, I would like to inform the world that I am not opposed to philosophy. On the contrary, I have always believed that every man must have a philosophy to escape being misguided by the appearance of radical and dangerous new ideas. "Nationalism" and "The War On Terror" are two such ideas that have succeeded solely due to the lack of philosophy in the common man. It is due to this deficiency that we have been swindled by godmen and governments. But, the restrictive condition is that a man is to treat his philosophy as a miser treats his gold. He must not flaunt it in the society and must certainly not seek to distribute it like a maudlin philanthropist. Even if he were to do so, the people ought to take the whole issue as a joke. If one were to find thirteen gold coins lying unattended on the road, he would adopt it. Nobody would go into paroxysms of fear at the sight of the devil's number. It is understandable to see a man watching the "Live proceedings of the parliament" show on TV as he could not get tickets for the circus. No intelligent person would see the show for illumination. Similarly, it is stupid to look at modern philosophy for enlightenment when it is a collection of jokes.

One of the good things about philosophy, or rather the philosophers is that they readily lend themselves to classification. The first type were those from the ancient ages who were well fed and well off. They directed their intelligence towards the subject when their poorer neighbors were thinking of the next meal. These were the fathers of the religions of today and as they worked without any personal motives, their work was tolerably sane. Unfortunately, this class has vanished completely as the honest poor are fully occupied in filling their stomachs with grass and water as the dishonest rich are in filling it with cakes and wine. The new class of superficial intellects is entirely responsible for the existing mess. The pagans worshipped the sun as it gave them light and energy. The religions gave men not only strong gods to worship but terrible devils to fear. Man was warned that if he did not follow the dictates of the religious philosophy, he would be cursed to reincarnate as a donkey or would be roasted by devils over a slow flame. If his house went up in flames or if he lost a leg, he was promptly informed that this was due to his sins in another birth. He was kept in fear of a force that was beyond his comprehension and consequently beyond his questioning.

Therin lies the great absurdity of modern philosophy. It abuses a system built on an incomprehensible and sacrosanct basis and provides a system with no basis. While philosophy ought to give man a reason to smile and live, modern philosophy gives him reasons to cry and die. This is usually the work of otherwise jobless prigs who, owing to lack of any useful intellectual capacity or willingness to work seek to fill their stomachs with bread and meat by filling the minds of the populance with dirt and slime. For instance let us take the case of food. Ancient philosophy asserted that it was the gift of god to a honest man's labour. This is at once both a simple and effective explanation. It is natural for men to like food and it is natural for gifts to be things we like. Nobody privately gifts a huge python to a child on his birthday in the hope that the recepient will appreciate his sense of selection, for in this particular case it will be the python who may appreciate the sense of selection of his dinner. On the other hand, the modern philosopher stops the hungry man from eating and (pocketing his bread) says " Fall not into this imbecility my friend! this is not real food. It is the tool of evil pleasure in keeping you in bondage. But despair not, rejoice- for I shall sacrifice my pleasures in consuming this wretched stuff instead" and quotes unanswerable statistics to prove that what we usually consider to be pleasure is actually torture. The Nihilist says " Human!, life itself is a dream. How does it matter whether you starve or gorge in your dream? Throw away this piece of illusion (preferably into my plate) and wait for the waking moment". Even if the Nihilist is right and we can set fire to ourselves in the belief that halfway through the act, we will be woken up to reality, it is quite incomprehensible why he does not do the same. Perhaps he has no time for such childish pastimes. But the real reason, I fancy is that he is a fake Nihilist and a real blackguard.

Or take the case of a man having cut himself. Religion says that the suffering is the punishment given by god for some unacceptable act. This is a sensible explanation. Pain is inflicted in punishment to a misdeed. Courts donot sentence cutthroats and terrorists to all expenses paid life sentences in holiday resorts. Neither are freedom fighters combating invading barbarians dragged off to gallows and stakes by their own governments as a reward. But ask one of the more scientific modern philosophers and he will say "Why is there a hue and cry over an injury? A healthy man is nothing but a particular arrangement of protons, neutrons and electrons. A man with a bullet through his ear is a different arrangement. Why do you moan and cry when you actually have to exult in the beauty of this modification? realize the magnificence of this event. REJOICE!!!". All this is very well but one often does wonder why so few "scientific" philosophers offer their ears as targets to bullets. Perhaps it is because there will be no difference to their atomic structures, the bullet exiting through the other ear for want of obstructing material inbetween.

Many pleasures of life are small but very real. The smile of a child ,the gentle shade of a tree, the setting sun or the sight of a green meadow flanked by verdant groves and a clear lake may be subjects for romance but are certainly pleasing. But this detestable and repulsive brood of creatures will protest. "Enjoy not the child's smile - it is evanescent" the neo-ascetics will advise . The scientists will warn, tossing about sheets of paper like confetti and waving their arms like windmills "Sit not under the tree - according to our computations (taking into account the rotation of the earth around the centre of the galaxy and the effect of the sixty four collapsed dimensions) there is a probability that the tree will fall down on your head". "The radiations from the setting sun will burn the optic cells and cause irreparable loss of vision after ninety nine years" the Biologists will inform. Wild men rampaging the streets will come to me and condemn me for enjoying sitting on the earth which murderously consumes all men in the end. I would rather be a troglodyte enjoying the sights I like rather than a gentleman consuming this nonsense.

Amusingly again, many "rationalists" try to attack the baseless ritualistic elements in religion ferociously asserting that religion has no business to persuade a man to do something without a practical reason. Rituals were to keep the common man in awe of the religion. It is the mysticism that maintains the greatest human organisations in order, the present governments for instance. The man on the streets is to be in awe of the Minister. If the students were allowed to treat their schoolmasters as equals, there would be no schools as all schoolmasters would go to their graves pelted by stones. Religion is certainly not the perfect philosophy but it is certainly the best we have right now. There is no sense in snatching away a piece of bread from a man and asking him to starve as bread is not good enough for him. Those who accuse religion of dividing mankind would do well to remember that religion has never sought to do so. One can strike a plough into the soil to grow food or strike it into another man's breast to kill him. Religeon is the plough and intellect, the hand.

Finally, it is instructive to compare the modern philosophers with monkeys. Both sit in unreachable places and chatter among themselves in an incomprehensible language. But should anyone consider this statement to be an unforgivable slight to the latter community, I withdraw it with apologies.

2006-01-11T00:00:00.000+05:30

The Monk Who Sold His Neighbor's Ferrari

with the current level of bastardization and plagiarism going around in the market, it would be only too easy to mistake this wholly remarkable piece of art to be inspired by one mr. robin sharma's hugely successful book in the sense of being a servile plaudit, a serene product description or a damning critique of the same. however, belonging to the fast swelling cult of persons who want to exhibit their individuality (for instance, by idolizing plato and demonizing nietzche, being perfect strangers to both), i am happy to announce that it is none of the above. in fact, i have not read the book at all, nor talked to anyone who has (which incidentally says a lot about the literary tastes of my circles). hence, i am proud also to declare that i am totally unbiased about mr. robin sharma as i have not been prejudiced by anything he might have said in that tome!

nevertheless, however hard i try to conceal this fact, it is tortured out of me by a great love for truth. the title is not wholly mine. it is a happy combination of the popularity of the book that is much less suggestively titled " the monk who sold his ferrari " and the increasing crime rate in the locality. before plunging into the throes of philosophical observation, it is vital to inform the innocent audience that a prior knowledge of the original unfortunately precludes the access to this piece. those who have imbibed those high ideals emphasised in that book might find the air of this essay frivolous and even a bit ridiculous!

since it makes arbitrarily more sense to present the virtuous monk who sold his neighbor's ferrari in contrast with his more commonplace cousin who sold his own, we shall do the same. now, though we are adventurous enough to produce a generous quantity of crap about something we hardly know of, it is useful to have some background material on the same. since we know nothing of monks or ferraris in any great detail, going by the public pulse, one can conclude that the book has something to do with motivation and lotteries for tickets to success. the monk in question, seemingly was prepared to sacrifice his ferrari for something quite etherial in return, like happiness, a sense of success or peace of mind. we must willingly compliment him on his strength of character in getting rid of his material treasure in return for something quite immaterial (sic) (instead of taking the metal baby for a fling with a gorgeous filly and a bottle of Rothschild's to complete the picture).

honestly, my proclivities for self elevation nonwithstanding, the idea of a monk selling his ferrari is quite inspiring and admirable. we are not talking about any troglodyte living in rat infested caves in an unrecorded age who might have regarded the metal monster with considerable doubts about its edibility. the true monk of today is to be revered above the heroes of yesterday who had passed through the fire since he fully knows the pleasure quotient of his sacrifices. unfortunately, i donot possess a ferrari since noone i know of has such a fine sense of taste in his gifts (we usually gift each other cheap deodourants or dubious cd's, the gifts heartily complementing each other) and consequently have no idea of the tortures that a mind has to undergo before selling his ferrari. but on the whole i persume that unless the ferrari in question is entirely metaphorical, our enlightened friend deserves a pat on the back.

the actual existance of this monk character is a highly nontrivial question. he might be giving company to the seven rishis of lore in the himalayas or on the other hand might be my next door neighbor (who bought a ferrari and sold it when i was asleep). he might even be called something like " Julian Mantle ", though that is speculating far too much. no matter what, this concept, as an idealization would, i believe benefit tremendously if extended to that of a monk who sells his neighbor's ferrari as readily as he would his own. this, while seeming monstrously uncivil on first sight, can be realized on contemplation to be nothing more than a natural extrapolation of a combination of the ideas of detachment and cordial neighborhood maintanance. die hard capitalists may feel the concept reeking of evil socialism and christians may point out the testament that forbids you from stealing your neighbor's ass. but selling a ferrari is pure capitalism for the government has nothing to do with the whole affair at all! one can very clearly see the market forces at work here. and let us remember that we are well beyond coveting our neighbor's ass (except in extraordinarily alluring circumstances) and that this is for his own benefit.

the quest for knowledge and wisdom has known to overshadow all other pursuits in many extraordinary cases as history points out. the tales of mephistopheles and faustus, and much nearer home, milinda hold testimony to this. when we hear about the monk who was pure and detached enough to sell his ferrari (which he might have acquired after years of hardwork in narcotic and liquor trade), we assume that he is, in a burst of philanthropy, donating the proceeds towards charitable foundations such as " the association of people with embarassing health problems " or " the monkeyman beneficial trust for unevolved primates " or something equally honourable. the weakness in the advertising potential of this action is that it is too boringly dull. on the other hand, a monk who sells his neighbor's ferrari is a wholly new and exciting guy. it brings into our eyes, not the sight of mr. Robin Sharma chewing his pen in the labours of thought for putting down the next line of the book, but of robin hood prowling in the forests of sherwood with his merry company, robbing the obscenely rich and giving the proceeds to the obscenely poor.

doomsday pundits who point out that the evidence for decadence of civilization is its recent lack of heroes and role models can be aptly refuted by the new monk. selling something that is your own implies subscription to the parochial views of physical property. there is a certain feudal rigidity about such property division that reminds one of tyrranical earls crushing down peasents under their heel in pools of grime and blood. the greatest philosophy that has ever been postulated is that of global ownership and preservation of resources. the neighbor whose ferrari was sold is of course free to take a ride in it anytime he wants. the truly enlightened one is who not only knows that nature does not facilitate easy transit of ferraris from this life to the next, but also proceeds to bestow his noble vision on the spiritually blind. it will be a great honour for me to be the first follower of the hypothetical monk. i shall, with tremendous pleasure, sell my neighbor's car, though it is not a ferrari and contribute the proceeds towards the welfare of the most penurious members of the society, of whom i happen to be the lucky leader. though initially, i am not sure if the response to this admirable transition will be as enthusiastic as it deserves (especially among car owners), soon wisdom shall prevail - neighbor's cars will be sold in the black of the nights, trade shall blossom, charity swell and humanity will be emancipated.

2006-01-10T23:58:00.000+05:30

The Mystery Of The Missing Story

for a long time, i have wondered about the reason behind the phenominal success of mystery and detective stories. while in real life, we more often than not loath the very idea of something obscured from us. the inevitable proclivity of even the most ignorant of us is towards omniscience. the patient, for instance wants to know how many souls his quack doctor has despatched. the quack on the other hand wants to know how much his patient is financially worth so that he can appropriately modify his output of medical jargon and fake shots. the little boy struggling with his homework wants to explode the identity of the monster on the right(?) side of the equation. perhaps this daily exasparation is the reason for the great success of the detective stories. these not only create mysteries as life does, but also break them down utterly in the very end. the murderer of poor mr. smith, after two hundred pages of lies, clouded clues and scandalous affairs turns out to be none other than poor mrs. smith. the author tells us (in a hushed tone) of the spiked cudgel that smashed open the rich businessman's vacant skull (to the great diversion of the masses) only to declare that it was wielded by none other than his pet baboon. but however crass or improbable the solutions may be, they must be there. without the last ten pages, the detective novel would very effectively serve as burning fuel, preferably to burn the author with. similarly, deprived of their desired illuminations, the patient, the quack and the schoolboy move towards their coffins, jail cells and parliaments respectively. so, while the populance is generous enough to condone being fooled in the presentation of the solution, it is enraged at the unavailability of one.

but today thanks to the advance of that great machine called civilization, the compromise has become somewhat more strained. the new mystery is quite keeping up with the radical times. good old detectives gave mercurial solutions for sharp puzzles. poor authors gave pathetic solutions for modicum questions. but the new class of story tellers seem to be giving no story at all. it begins with with the promise of one, progresses with the pretense of one and at the end the author congratulates you on your discretion in reading this. it is rather like the old fable of the emperor who wore invisible clothes, only they have gagged all the kids.

the real danger of this situation is not per se in the progress of the trend of story telling itself. cyanide may be introduced in baits without any serious opposition from anyone (excluding the rodent community), but curiously, slipping cyanide into a fresh cup of coffee you have just brewed for your wife may cause nasty complications (not just for the lady). it inevitably draws axe blows (especially from the female community). so, the comparison reveals the existence of a wide gulf between the two applications, as wide as the one between the two communities (though many gentlemen say that the difference is not very considerable). similarly, all sorts of trash may be put in penny dreadfuls and old housewife gossip coloumns. it is when it appears in the daily diet pretending to be serious "news" that the situation becomes alarming.

for instance consider the articles in newspapers. in the actual news reports, inspite of a considerable level of distortion and disfiguration, there exists a story. on a cbi raid on a prominent minister's house, while the officers have found many unaccounted ornaments of his wife's, the media might choose to report that many unaccounted ornamental wives were found. but the fact is that something was found. while the police inspector in charge of the lathicharge may insist that the rowdy protestors come and banged their heads and bodies against the inert lathis in the hands of the shell shocked and innocent constables, the press might take a different view. but the fact remains that some people - angelic or demoniac were beaten up. a certain minimum level of artificial flavour is to be expected even from the most objective journalism. the real problem is in the articles bearing the opinions of certain persons who think it is their business to air their vacant opinions on all problems from the suitability of rexin belts for wife beating to the efficiency of the third century governments in controlling nuclear proliferation. there are two reasonable lines that one may take while giving an article. we can either take sides on the argument and try to show why our side is that of wisdom and the opposing opinion is dirt. or being neutral, we can catalogue the facts and let the reader reason out for himself.

instead of following one of these simple guidelines, these intellectuals go to great lengths to totally confuse the unfortunate reader. if their first four paragraphs tell you why the recent trade agreement is a blessing for the world that will make trees spring with flower and fruit in the middle of sahara and make the poorest mendicant in mecca the moghul of vast oil fields, their last four tell people to wake themselves up from their dreams and don warpaint and tomahawks to disembowel the evil perpetrators of the diabolical trade agreement which, if passed will blight vegetation and cause half the global population to die of diarrhoea and the remaining half to die choking on the discharge. they hail the selectors for dropping player M__ from the squad claiming that this decision proves that democracy and good intentions still rule, and then spit on the decision saying that it reeks of plutocracy and malice. these articles are inevitably followed by a box containing the credentials of the writer saying that he is from the "indispensible bureau of strategic studies" or "an acclaimed critic of the game for the past three decades".

this madness seems to be entrenched even more firmly and naturally in politics. if i were to write a story titled "young jim" where jim walks to the neighboring town, eats a biriyani that is the town's speciality and walks back humming a nice song (the lyrics of which i laboriously undertake to supply) to his house and falls asleep with a contented smile, i would expect to be flogged to death. it is not that jim is a disgusting boy who drinks soup made from rat tails or that he has an ugly girlfriend. jim's life, for all we know might be one tremendously exciting orgy of adrenalin and pleasure (after winning the lottery the next day), but the opposition to the story is that it satiates not in the least the expectations of the masses who read it (if any do read it). similarly, when the layman's reason behind casting his vote in favour of A__ or N__ is the hope of some bread, all he gets is information about why his choice was right - that the state would have gone to dogs under the godless despot with thirty three cases of fraud and debauchery on his head instead of prospering as it is now under the benign saviour of the people with just thirty one in his account. he is tearfully informed by the grand party D__ that the late lamented leader died with words for welfare of the masses on his lips (apart from scotch and soda). he is asked to dance in the streets in ecstacy due to the fall in fertilizer prices that he will apply (with great profit) to the farms he doesnt have. at the end of it all, he is hailed hero and martyr after he has been burnt by henchmen (while he was on his way to the ration shop) and remembered for his "self - immolation" that was the fruit of seasoned ideology.

a call to paint the sky green and eat monkey brains for breakfast is not alarming as long as it is from one person and is ridiculed or ignored by the society. but when the day comes when the common man thinks that green will be a practical substitute to blue and that monkey brains enhance creativity and agility, the society is in serious decadence. aristocracy that tried to enslave the common man and force its necessities into his duty-list was smashed by revolutions. democracy that pretends to embrace the common man and lovingly feed him hemlock has a terrible immunity, for the very parasites that drink away the life blood of the animal which is the society, are the children it raised on its bosom.

2006-01-10T23:57:00.000+05:30

Ads

"Make our toilet clean?? Impossible !!" declares a middle aged woman shamelessly. The sales guy struggles over the s(t)ink for a couple of minutes and hey presto, the camera zooms in on a unused, brand new Parryware sink, to be greeted by spontaneous gasps of wonder.

Welcome to the matrix. For a change, our actions are governed by ads instead of programs. You are simply an entity among the teeming millions, merely a predictable factor in the larger scheme of things. There is no escape unless you live in Monte Cristo on coconuts and wild berries (even then there is a chance of some sales rep knocking the door of your cave at 2 am).

Indeed, the face of advertisements has changed from the days when as a schoolboy, I was with my friends enticed to buying Kamarkuts (for all those blessed young souls who have heard of nothing but Mars and Snickers, it is a candy ball made from jaggery) by the shopkeeper who periodically circulated rumours about one rupee coins being embedded in them. Though the idea of product promotion has remained the same, it has been amalgamated with a bewildering quantity of improvisation. What was originally intended to be a concept of informing consumers about the latest products has morphed into an instrument of coercion and more often than not, irritation.

Though nowadays there are sales for all possible (and impossible) excuses (there is even talk of having an AIDS day discount sale), this season throws up a variety of products thrust upon the confused customer. "What?" booms the next door lady with fully justified indignation, "have you not yet seen the saree half a kilometre long??" I personally wonder what this feat practically accomplishes (unless the govt. of USA realizes that it is time to clothe the statue of liberty in a fitting apparel). But I keep my thoughts to myself. There is noone more abhorrable than a bohemian.

Interspersed with the endless mega serials( full of cunning scheming women and adulterous men) are ads for a famous textile company. Unblinking housewives sit openmouthed to be enlightened on the various discounts and offers with a handful of models dancing to a horrible cacophony.

The jewel shops are not far behind. " What the heck are you doing in your four walled dungeons when the KBM ISO-9000-2xyz(p+q) (these standards confuse me) gold is thirty five rupees twenty three paise lesser than anywhere else !!!" screams an actress struggling under the weight of chains. The immediate scenes are not hard to predict. Fiercely determined housewives drag their despondent husbands to these 'once in a blue moon' offers. Bankrupt? very likely. The solution is immediate. Get a loan in two minutes at one of the dozen generous banks. (that you have to spend the rest of your life paying intrest through your nose is a totally unnecessary retrospection).

The cosmetics industry is one that thrives even in the worst depression. How does it matter if one's father is out of work? Beg, borrow or steal! The daughter must have her assortment of beauty products that guarantee to make Aishwaria Roy envy her. One young woman aspiring to be a sports commentator, when introduced to a magic cream, pulls off a coup'de'grace. The disappointing part of the ad is that a critic of stature sits simpering in her presence. But most of these ads can do with originality. The routine of an ignored female turning to some fancy soap and a throng of guys mobbing her in the next scene are getting cloying though the advertisors take care to frequently hire new models.

Another trap for women, though encountered more in newspapers is no less notorious. A slimming company triumphantly compares two photos which it (rather unbelievably) insists are of the same person. The first- uncouth and corpulent before treatment claims that she lost half a quintal in course of her metamorphosis to the 36-24-36 figure on the right though even being severely mauled by a starved tiger is unlikely to dissect so much of a person.

Any undergarments ad is sure to have a hunk hounded by hysterical females. But glamour rules the roost in even the most irrelevant situations. What, for instance is the lady sitting near Yuvraj Singh doing in the IOC ad? Look at the soft drink ads and one will find a long queue of celebrities smilingly endorsing products with generous doses of pesticedes.

Is the product so distant from glamour that its usage will be totally incongruous? No problem! Our society is full of sentimental mothers who will rush to the pawnbrokers to gather cash to procure the latest health drink that was allegedly approved by Einstien. Or swear that you save thirteen ml of water every time you use this particular detergent. Another option is to cash in on the philanthrophy of people by proclaiming that two percent of the proceeds goes to charity (which is run by the marketer's son in law). Introducing competitions is a good idea. "Which is the Indian union territory on three letters, the first being "g" and the last "a" ? (Hint - the middle is "o"). Five hundred grand prizes to be won. Fill in your entries on the wrappers of X... and send it to the following address. As a last option if you are totally desparate, there is always the "buy one, get three" offer.

Leaf through the newspapers and be greeted by a full page blowup of the latest bike. " Worried about the soaring petrol prices?? Try our bike that offers you two hundred kilometers per litre of orange juice. Buy our bike. That one? Only losers buy it. Besides you get a keychain free with the vehicle. Also scratch this card and you could end up with anything from a date with Bipasha Basu to a packet of peppermints". In another page, a supermodel gapes in wonder when she hears that the price of the new model of a car is just twenty five lakhs! But of late, these car ads like the cosmetics are getting depressingly alike, each maker busy writing the obituaries of the others. The singular consolation in the abovementioned is that the pages make nice covers for books.

Besides these are a plethora of products - TV's, walkmans, toilet acids and rat poisons which come with gala ads. "Don't you have a mobile!!! Get lost you barbarian!!!" shouts a girl at a prospective date in the disco." Let us face it. We are in a (m)ad world. Even as you turn the pages of the paper ruminating thus, you are sure to encounter a full page reading
" Tired of this mundane, ad filled, commercial existance?? The solution- "Last Flight" pleasure and relaxation tours for the family to romantic and serene destinations from Paris to Pallavaram".

2006-01-10T23:56:00.000+05:30

Catastrophe

The dark shadows are surrounding me. Faint beams of light rapidly vanishing into the monotonous dark dance temptingly before my half blind eyes, which struggle to focus on the non existent realms of optimism. My brain reels heavily under the opiates of darkness benumbed by the blinding blows from the counters of repayment. Time has fused into one eternal immobile mass, unchangingly tormenting, burning my insides in the cold fires of retribution for some unknown sin of the past. Even the sounds have died down - to whispers from the tombs of long forgotten kings. The distant spires of civilization crash in a blinding flame spewing to the skies the dust of reek and ruin. Memories rise and fall, each feebler than the last but in some undying and maddening procession.

Carrying my maimed soul on the biers, the bearers walk in solemn silence, unseen save as a dark vapour that grips my soul. The party halts somewhere in the incomprehensible space. An immeasurable chasm yawns infront of me. Presently the bier is raised and flung by formless hands into the heart of the abyss. A foul exhaust rushes around me - encompassing the remains in an aura of perennial decay. Eddying around on great arcs are cold winds, coming and passing in timeless transit. With a rush of incredible shock, I hit the slime of the ages, a dark pool of the undead simmering in the eyeries of time - the house of the immortal worm. I see it as it crawls to devour the remanants of mine.

I sigh and turn the next page of my textbook...

2006-01-10T23:54:00.000+05:30

Article Zero

in medieval times, it was natural for someone to expect being called chivalrous or virtuous. however, today virtue is heavily out of fashion and it has become natural for people to expect others to call them creative and in the absence of such generous words, to claim that they are so. i am no exception to this general trend but unfortunately, i belong to the second class (ie people who have not found anyone to recognize the creative fires that they claim to be blazing in them).

to declare ones creativity, there are a number of ways. some of the more original would be dying of consuming a new poison or disposing off your neighbor's irritating dog by biting it to death. but on closer examination of the abovementioned alternatives, i found that a cheap and vulgar tendency for self preservation against the execution of the admirable schemes. so in a particularly uninspired moment , i chose the alternative of literature. why literature? one may ask. perhaps because of a longstanding grudge against authors from my schooldays, for there is no better way of debasing a profession than taking it up and showing the world how bad it can be. but romance apart, i think it is because writing is the easiest thing in the world (and reading such writings , the toughest). indeed, if you look closely at the present horde of writers and poets you will notice a horde of lazy, unimaginative and stupid saddists whose only reason for wielding the pen is an illusion of originality.

coming up will be a collection of forgettable pages of my rambling thoughts, sometimes on local sensations and topics that routinely excite our imaginative mobs, in a more or less incoherent fashion. but if by a cruel twist of fate, i become famous for my works, i shall claim genuine inspiration from the long dead titans of the discipline.

2006-01-10T21:42:00.001+05:30

GENESIS!

welcome to the wild and wonderful world of the redoubtable military monkey! apart from setting up a chronicle of my tremendously creative works and being a free channel for virulent verbal abuse by disgruntled souls, this blog - as the name suggests is a panegyric on our noble ancestors. actually, the monkey is very valuable today, not to the average juggler alone but to the average man as well. when we are viewing a huge retrogression in brain activity among humans in recent times. if you have not noticed the mental decay in yourself yet, trust me your friends would have!

secondly, this prepostrous title is in a hope that any kindered minds looking for the maddeningly serious pabulum of military matters might be diverted to this page, after all viewership is what all the losers running blogs are looking for at the end of the day. finally, it is interesting to be in the news. for all you know, one mr bush might declare a war on the primates on hearing of this page. though that might be akin to fratricide, a reelection for the third term is
possible given enough marketing sheen!

anyway, this site stands as it is and its defects are too many to be corrected with the red pen, or possibly anything for that matter except perhaps dynamite. however, there might be some stuff off and on of consequence. for isnt it in the share of humans (and primates) to hope.....

looking for massive support for the military monkey from civilian monkeys!