jaded-queen

2008-12-08T06:12:00.000-08:00

The Last Liberal Hero

People who have known me have always wondered what made me think of my brother so highly. It is quiet tough to put it into words the reasons why i hold my brother in such great admiration. And at last I got an instance that I could share with all...

This is what happened to him on Saturday. When he went out he was stopped by the KRV. Yeah, they have found their way around. They are now setting up tents around the city and name it after a god or goddess and shove an idol there just as a sanction to be there. He told me how, they were going around harassing people, stopping everyone and asking them if they spoke hindi. I was not shocked I was ashamed when i heard this, and my brother agreed. He replied to them in Kannada "yaake re..Noodidhre gothagalva naanu eellinavanu.. Naannu Kannadiga untha?" (stating that he was from bangalore and he was a kannadiga). The man approached him smiling to put his hand on his shoulders, and he did what I am so Proud of him for doing. He stepped back and walked away. "I wanted them to know that even I am a Kannadiga but I am not one of them"

2008-12-06T06:43:00.000-08:00

Bimbos Rule!

No, this is not propaganda, its come to be a realization, a rather painful realization. I remember I famous Bill Gates quotes that says something like don’t be mean to the Geeks ‘cause they will rule the world. But recently I’ve been noticing one thing- its not the geeks who will rule the world it’s the Bimbos. For that matter even geeks love the bimbos, so the whole geek theory is invalid now.

Industrial Psychology states that people with higher intelligence suffer from lower Job Satisfaction. This applies universally, to the larger picture of the world and life. With intelligence comes awareness of reality, of the implications of this reality; from awareness comes depression. One such observation is made in the movie Into the Wild when Chris expresses his disgust towards “society”, stating his observation about how people are so F**&ing mean to each other so F*&*ing often.

When nothing is satisfying enough you want something to touch the depth of your soul. You look for it in other planes of life, in the realm of the unfamiliar because you are utterly jaded of the realities. The emptiness of the life, the lack of tolerance towards the way things are, the existential frustration and everyday is a matter of “Sunday Neurosis”

Ignorance is Bliss. When you have no idea what is happening around the world, when you have no clue as to what are the suffering of the mankind ( man being subjected to various troubles through various agents). I remember telling my friend that being depressed is the icing on the already awful life. While life is like the exhaustive task trying to cycle uphill, being depressed is like the flat tyre.

Bimbos face no such limitations; they are eternally motivated to conform to the clichés of what the world expects from them. They are not burdened with over powering thoughts of emptiness. They are foolproof. They are the Magnum Opus of Mother Nature. They breed and they don’t complain. They are the ones who have “plans”, they are ones who move up any ladder faster and they are they ones who survive. A very good example watch Roadies (forgetting the obvious fact that it has nothing to do with Real Roadies for course)-the Kolkata Auditions. I will take example of two girls both from media field one student of journalism who had the audacity to write in her form that gays are mentally retarded and one journalist who was a genuine person who seemed honest fun and intelligent. Who gets selected….yep the student of journalism who first of all should not be even doing journalism telling people that they cant make choices in life that is not “normal” cause that makes them “mentally retarded” So bye bye smart girl, you are not a roadie you are too smart to be there anyways. And I don’t even want to comment on the multi colored Bimbo freak who was selected too….

All this reminds me of one of the many theories that my brother has about depression. He thinks depression if the nature’s way of suppressing the unwanted by bestowing them with depression. This is the Natural Selection. This way depression keeps them down and the world can function the way it is supposed to, way it should. The world must go on the way is going on- there is no sense in trying to figure out the purpose or value of this world. We must surrender to the consumerist traps set out for us so that the world can go on. We must not ponder over the essence of our existence; we must not waste time questioning things and the way they are. We must just vanish into the eternity of the space without trying to change anything in the setting.

2008-06-14T07:22:00.000-07:00

One Smokey Morning.

It was way past my sleep time range at 2 am when i tried to get some rest last night. For some reason I could manage to sleep or rather over sleep no matter how long I slept during the day as long as I went to bed in the sleeping hours range of in and around 11pm. My irrational rashes woke me even though I knew I would do better wit some more sleep. Two hours of disturbed sleep was not rationally enough for anyone to be satisfied with. I had left all the windows open enjoyin the icy winds of bangalore weather so that I could drown under the snug comfort of two blankets and sleep in late. All my hopes and expectations from my sleep came crashing down when my skin irritation had triggered off. There was something more that forced me to stay awake.

Having the last room of the house adjacent to a house that suffers bunch of loud mouthed barbaric family as its inmates; I was used to their early chatter, but unusually today at 4 am my room was filled with a strong smoke from the small house behind my room towards the corner of my room where most of the ventilation was concentrated. It was overwhelmingly suffocating, I mention this the way I do because I dont usually get bothered by smoke living in Bangalore and the way I do. I tried to get back to sleep in the hall but the smoke seemed to spread to all parts of the house that i even heard my dad cough in his sleep even if he was on the other end of the room. It was a abhorrent smell, thick cloudy smoke.

I went towards the back of the house and walked furtively towards the edge of the house to get a look at the house that was the root to all this smoke. Thick whitish gray scores of smoke seemed to be engulfing the whole area around the house. The loud mouthed family watched silent. The smell, it was repulsive just repulsive. You would wish for once all your nerves just popped out of your nostrils through your brain so that you wouldn't ever smell anything at all ever again.

The chimney belonged to what looked like an the old fashion bathrooms seen still in a few villages to heat water using wood. Its almost like an oven with a container for water right above a margin of concrete giving way for the wood to be put in and lit so as to heat the water right from beneath. I remember when the smell of the wood heating water would fill up my nose when we drank our coffees as kids in summer when we visited my granny's. But that was and still is a sweet smell of childhood, anything that went back to my memories of the time with my granny would and had to be sweet.But this smell, today, early in the morning mingled with the cold cold air of the city was just too loathsome.

Only few things when put on fire could smell this way: tyres of vehicles,hair,flesh. But the smell of tyres was not something new for us who lived in this day and age of India, with high development rate but still a considerable amount of things that are under developed-disposal of any sort of garbage for instance or should I say disposal of legal garbage. Was it something disposal of something illegal that was making this smoke? Like a human body. A wife who got saturated with her husbands behavior and indifference? A son who would gain something from his parents' death? A stranger who met another but things did not unfold the way one wanted? A hiding killer who after years of waiting, found another victim? An old witch who realised she was loosing her powers and wanted to regain it with a human sacrifice? A pre meditated murder, an accident, an act of self defense? What was the smell? May be just a sleep deprieved paranoid person wanted to amuse herself with a story before starting her day?

2008-05-08T08:10:00.000-07:00

Close Encounters with the Reptile Kind

Today, I was in a hurry to finish bath and get ready because I had a friend waiting for me. Like many times before, I ran outta the bathroom with the energy of Disgust running through my spine- shuddering my nerves. The Lizard!!! He was there again. And like all the times before I tried to pour water towards him and at the direction of his escape and my relief. But he did not budge this time, he just floated on the water no matter how much water I throw at him desperately for him to get out. He looked stubborn and adament today, he wouldn't go out of the bathroom. I remembered watching this show on TV about how if you spoke to animals they would respond and about this girl who actually spoke to a lizard to get outta her kitchen and it obeyed. But that did not work with me still.

So I had to get down with it, he wouldn't leave without teaching me a lesson and I was still flinching looking at him. He looked at me and i looked at him, he looked at me like he almost won "Now you are going to be late!". I said "You know, You little bastard, you are naked so I will be taking bath, I dont care any more, I need to take bath" I was forced to carry on and I managed to wash my hair at the door end of the bathroom so that it would be easy for me to run in case he made a move. Now was the tough part I need to pour loads of water or take a shower for which i needed to go onto the middle of the bathroom. I ran to the opposite extreme where I could reach the bucket and still maintaining a decent distant from the disgustingly pale black eyed boy. "There, there", he said, "there is no need to over react now, you are as disgusting to me as I am to you, I fear you as much as you fear me" Still I would not close my eyes even if the soapy water burnt my eyes, I wouldnt even wink, all eyes on him. He seemed to be laughing at me. I was almost done, when he graciously decided to turn his back and get outta the little hole towards the other side without disturbing me. I seemed to feel like he had achieved something, he seemed happy and brimming with a sense of pride. " Ah, see that wasn't bad, now I will leave you to your foolish humanly routines, take care now, bye bye" . In comparision to all the lizards I ve seen, he was a lot younger and looked adventourous and naughty to me. He may have changed the way I thought of lizards now, but sadly I am still disgusted of them just the same!

2008-04-25T20:20:00.000-07:00

I ve never been this ashamed of myself as I am now...for being a Kannadiga for being an Indian. Call me disloyal, call me treacherous- I rather be disloyal to a country that hold so much intolerance towards its own. Put the non kannadigas out of karnataka, throw out the biharis from Maharastra....what is this madness? In high schools we are all tought of this great nation that found its secular and united identity on a August midnight. You can not venture out of your own state hopeing to be welcomed or even tolerated by your brothers in the next state. Who are we? Are we just acting out to regionalism because it was deep down inside of us all the time or as a result of divisionalistic politics of this great democracy. I am ashamed.

Think about it, a 19 year old girl is already ashamed of her country, for many reasons besides this, what sort of an illusion are we living in. There is no "india", there is no "bharath", this is karanataka, gujrath, maharastra, tamil nadu, i see no india. It doesnt exist to me anymore. I wish i could baptise into other country like how one can to other religions. I wish i cold run away and never return to this place. I think earlier the youth went west ward to satisfy their need for riches now its time to leave for some respect for who you are rather than what state you were born into and what is your language. Atleast when out of the country people will see you as an indian rather than a kannadiga or a tamilian.

2008-03-04T06:15:00.000-08:00

My shot at comedy

There is this guy in my class called Sebbastein. He is so stupid that if he was a Jew in Polland during the Holocaust, Hilter would not kill him and probably would have stopped killing all jews thinking he over estimated them. Wow! talk about people born in the wrong eras!!! :)

2008-02-22T17:19:00.001-08:00

Generation gap is a neccessity for rebellion to be born

Anything fought for is better than, being born with

2008-02-14T20:50:00.000-08:00

Where are the Liberals?

It may be all pink and red for most of us on Valentine’s Day, but there is Political aggression even in that. My day started off with the news about how Shiv Sena had threatened to cause damage to a leading archies outlet in Delhi and how they were against the “culture of Valentine’s Day”. To a certain extent can understand the philosophy behind trying to hold on to our roots but not the political motivation of winning some votes by showing-I don’t know who- that they care about our culture. Everyone of us know about the exact personalities who contain these groups or unions.

In the evening I had to painfully witness a fight between a Auto Driver and one of my best friends which got aggravated because my friend was not a Kannadiga. What language got to do with how people drive or where they belong to stay. He kept screaming “ Say this is India first, then the respective state”. I only felt helpless as I saw the point in what he was saying and it was something really great but to an auto driver it just sounded like he was swearing at him! As it was getting physical I had to use my “Kannadiga Card” to stop the fight and to my surprise the auto driver calls me “Madam”,(Like how Raj Thackeray apologized for killing the Marathi Hal Employee but showed no regrets about the pain he caused Biharis) do I deserve respect cause I am a Kannadiga living here, I don’t need that sort of a respect and I am embarrassed of my people. Where are all the liberal, educated Kannadigas; why are you all silent? This is a shame on this community who were formerly the most tolerant people, and mind you is the reason for the growth of Bangalore too.

Watching the evening news again, Laalu Prasad Yadav had to go and call us “dirty people” and seriously it made my nostrils flare and my blood boil. But seeing a bunch of uneducated fools turned into a union go around destroying property and proclaiming that they are going to hurt all the “Biharis” if they don’t leave. I can see this turning into a riot into a blood bath, why don’t you? These guys with red and yellow shawls on their shoulders don’t know the difference between a Hindi speaking guy and a Bihari, any one who speaks Hindi would by default become a Bihari like how in North all the dark people are from south and they are “Madrasis”. What I am scared of is hurting the 80% of the Non-Kannadigas who are innocent as the 20% have hurt our sentiments. Yes I have meet both the kinds.

I am surprised that the media is not doing anything, not questioning Kumara Swamy saying that he will follow Raj Thackeray’s regionalistic approach when Laalu hurt his sentiments. In the media studies classes we only analyse how good this issue is as a story, more space to cover on the paper, more time to spend on the news channels. I am praying to god everyday to not let our Governements let us down. I am very prud of what S M Krishna, governor of Maharasthra did about the MNS, I wish he was here in Karnataka right now.

In conclusion I would like to tell you a bit about a friend of mine, he is a tamilian born in Madhya Pradesh , Raipur now Chattisgarh- When he goes to North India he becomes a Madrasi and here he is a North Indian a Hindiwala, he cant paly his Tamilian self here to pass as a south Indian because of the Caveri Issue. Where will we go, ultimately its still India where will we go. In an era of Gobalisation and liberalisation that we should be trying to be Citizens of the World we are wallowing in this pitiful lake of narraow mindedness to hit rock bottom!!

I am ashamed of all the Identities that I can ever associate myself with due to all this political intervention for votes or for controversial stirring I don’t understand, I don’t want to be a Indian, I don’t want to be a Kannadiga, not even a South Indian, I AM ASHAMED!!!

2008-02-12T08:29:00.001-08:00

I know what that silly girl is thinkin now "A Prabath Bhatt Hole in the universe" (from the book "god of small things")

2008-02-11T06:17:00.000-08:00

A tribute to a human being

He slipped to his death into the water of his native town. No body found his body yet so im hoping they dont, hoping that they find him alive on the other side of the water. Always running around with his shoulders laid down with your and my sins. Wanted to make even for our follies and ignorance and greed. He went with the intention to help his people, open up a ground for studies for future, with her he planned a instuition, with her. She saw him slip, she must have seen him sleep in her uncertain mind-Was he gone, i think i will wait for him longer. Her soul was satisfied with his presence, its not love because love accounts for its flaws, it was a companionship in a fight, they fought together.

Hope your alive Prabhat so that i Can tell Ashwini that you gave me a call so that she can call you back after recharging.

2008-01-18T06:56:00.000-08:00

This is the 'n'th time I am hearing about a girl viciously dump her “boyfriend”; it’s getting to me!These girls give reasons about this great realization about the responsibility towards their families. I say it’s not a realization it’s the fear, fear of being labeled by the society, of rejected by the society. But is the old romantic notion goes love is really not for the weak hearted. And I guess when they say “Love is blind” I guess they meant that a lover is blind to his/her partner’s weakness as well as blind to the society that will cast them out.

For all the Indians this is probably a tiring argument; about which they have argued, heard others argue and ultimately ignore it completely. It’s probably a cultural as well as a sociological implication, earlier I believe that Love or Love marriage meant that it was Inter-caste and therefore brought down this huge rejection from the higher castes as they did not want to "pollute" their blood or ancestry. This has been carried over so strongly that our parents have forgotten the irrationality of such a rejection and internalized it to the extent of the children fearing of being in relationships or dating. Marriage has almost become like a License not only for sex but also for companionship and intimacy. I know that this is one of the best ways to reduce on many of the “evils” that are plaguing the more open societies. But I say lets get over it, everyone needs intimacy, everyone needs love and finding it is a beautiful and painful process. Let’s go through that pain so that when we do find love, we cherish it. Experience is the ultimate teacher.

2007-12-29T21:38:00.000-08:00

FEAR AND LOATHING IN FORUM

I heard my manager proclaim, "Ya, you are suffering from a condition called loss of perception"
To which i instinctively retorted " And it feels sooooo good"

2007-12-11T08:21:00.000-08:00

Why I hate psychology......
It is a subject/ "academic" field created to advocate the stupidity of the society.

2007-11-16T06:51:00.000-08:00

No ULTIMATE TRUTH

Today has been very interesting and insightful, the realization of the fact that a human being can not may be never can find out the ultimate truth of any form or field. The history the media the reports the statistics the whole deal with creation and life. The ultimate truth is that we are not lucky enough to know the truth; it’s like the famous line from the movie ‘A Few Good Men’ by Jack Nickolson “You want the truth? You can’t handle the truth”

The history, according to me right now, is just collective convenient lies that the human race thought would look good on the paper and sound good when the coming generations read it. This thought reminds me of Girish Karnad’s play Tuglaq in which the king takes the opinion of his intelligent historian Barani as to what his next move should be. This query was to figure out what would look good on the pages when the history was written about him.

The fact that British literature is still a parameter for us to evaluate literature, the fact that most of the countries were either colonized or had colonies around the world has only strengthened this belief in me. All the history written in the Kings courts or any colonized country for the matter of fact could have been destroyed by the colonizer for various reasons and therefore the history rewritten from the colonizer’s point of view. So the real history is lost for eternity for us to study and the present studies are only probably a part of it, a superficial or an outsider’s point of view.

The news, the history in making, is not the complete truth its not news to many of us, but when considered in a long term basis the purpose is lost. The reports include the biases of the reporter to the editor and the stances of the media house to the political interferences. And also the male dominance in every field still prevalent in our society has not spared the field of journalism too. In the end it all becomes like Chinese Whispers, the facts and truth goes through a serious of mutations and modifications made for reasons that don’t even seem reasonable.

I also heard from one of my friends that the Theory of Evolution by Darwin is not accepted or thought in few Christian South American Schools as it contradicts the Bible. Forget the beliefs and the religious conflicts with science the basic conflict is whether or not those children deserve to know the theory because I remember at least a few good consequences of it, one thing being that Charles Darwin’s theory is one of the pillars of our civilization and scientific temperaments. It’s a different thing that these children will some way or the other find out about it but still the way won’t be as effective. My question is why does education has to be selective?

In the end I guess T S Elliot takes me over with two of words that he skillfully put together “tedious arguments”, these are tedious arguments that would never resolve either in us or outside the self. I guess all that matters right now is the knowledge that there is a place called “beyond” we are smaller, minute, nothing we do or say or prove would ever change this huge entity called “truth”.

2007-09-19T10:40:00.000-07:00

I saw a dog running behind
A speeding vehicle
Which I heard had just hit it
And missed its life by a inch

Foolish of the dog
What would it achieve anyways?
So I turned the road
I was looking for you

I had followed the vehicle
You were riding in
Its ok, I knew you would wait for me
The next road, the next cross

Only the water trickled down to my bones
Through my clothes, through my Skin
I have indulged in rain before
Never this cold, this cold shivers

The next lane at least?
No, only the rain,
It was too late by then
You had crossed the line by then

The patience turned to disgust
Within myself and spread out into the world
The depression turned to Anger
Like fire that doesn’t extinguish even in cold rains

The burns inside of me lead me now
I heard the metal crash on the tar
I saw the dog running towards me now
I closed my eyes to eternal darkness.

2007-09-17T07:37:00.000-07:00

ROLES? WHAT NEXT ?

Sitting in that room again
People come and go trying to prove something
To others or to themselves is the question.

Tick…tick…tick
The wristwatch of the person next to me
Waiting waiting waiting

Two voices in my head
Waiting for what?
Don’t ask me!

Freedom from sitting around without a purpose
Then what
Don’t ask me-I am listening to the class

How well do I fit into the role set?
What? Why should I?
Should I?

Discussion: If unsatisfactory
What if Unsatisfactory?
The subject must take measures to make satisfactory!

What first for all I have a role?
Yeah, and you are supposed to improve yourself for it
Silence…tick…tick….

Tick….triiiiinnggg…my role
Get out of the class
Play the role or be locked….

2007-09-05T10:11:00.000-07:00

Untitled
I guess everything just evaporates into the nothingness
The superficiality of life-being alive is just a false hope.
The memories fade
The excitement dies
The happiness takes to evanescence
It all in the core of sadness
If it wasn’t for this
We would never wake up in the morning
Hoping to find something that would
Probably would
Help us go closer to this ideal state of happiness
If it wasn’t for the earth we would never aim the skies
Its all in the process
Its all about the stagnation of life
It is all about standing there in the rain and feeling small
So small that you wish you would melt and disappear
But still you would stand there disgusting yourself
That you can not escape this stillness
That silence that mocks you
The past that you can not let go of
The coffee you have everyday
And knowing how exactly it would tingle
Every corner of your mouth and how
But still you will indulge drown yourself in it
The first step is always curiosity
After that its pure indulgence
Like the waves of the sea
Like the first cut on your body
Like the first blow of the trust
Then we learn to laugh at it
In the mirror, in your eyes,
Disapperence, Stagnation, Monotony….

2007-08-31T07:24:00.000-07:00

The recent incident of a girl victimized by seven teachers at her school to the extent of tormenting the girl physically and mentally has taken up my attention in so many levels. One is the fact that I was one of the victims to such attacks in my childhood. So, I personally know how the world would reason it as just a matter of “disciplining” and it is natural for the child to complain and child’s embarrassment is going to lead to “better conduct”. Another is, as a person who indirectly knows one of the teachers from the same school through an acquaintance I got to see a totally different perspective on the whole issue. Third as a journalism student I have a totally different outlook towards the issue as the media is being blamed for the chaos and blowing it out of proportion.

Blame Game: It has all ended up as a cheap blame game in a cyclic way. The teachers and the school management is blaming the media for being the puppets of the influential strings of the schools around this school, in order to cut the competition from this school…quiet the marketing technique! To this blame the media houses like Suvarna (Kannada), were probably forced to find “another angle” to the story by emphasizing on the strained relationships between the child’s mother and Step father. Then both the teachers and the media come to another probable conclusion where they label the child a “liar” since she always told her teachers not to give her any negative remarks in the books or her father would yell at her and then she “lied” to her parents that the teachers always yelled at her unreasonably. One has to also understand that this issue is also a bigger issue than it would be because of the other similar stories that has been surfacing in the news, one being: a boy studying in a Residential school in Hyderabad was chained to a pole for three days with the intention of making him less naughty, or rather less childlike. I can even recall many 24 hour news channels like NDTV and CNN IBN doing special reports on this same issue taking statements from not only the teachers, the school, the parents, the children and also child psychologists- discussing the way disciplining is done in schools.

Shame Shame: All the blaming and the allegations against each other and also everyone who is even remotely related to it, is just a matter of shame. The way the police took it light, the way the media over did it (probably), the way teachers are not even ready to put their heads out (if they are innocent as they claim), the way that girl is conveniently labeled a liar so that we as a society can sit back and forget the issue and let this barbarism continue feeding on our irresponsibility and ignorance.

Escapism: This is a classic case of escapism from the social evils that torment the young souls of this country. A filler to snuggly fit into our newspapers, the teachers still not out in the open, all the grey areas in the management and criminal aspects of the case is all ESCAPISM.

It’s a pity! : Now let me make this disclaimer, its not that I am coming to a conclusion that these teachers are wrong, or that the child is an actual liar, my point is why is it that teachers have to retort to such barbaric measures of disciplining. It is a disgrace how teachers especially those dealing with school children are not trained even in the basic in Child Psychology. The teachers’ behavior was child like and immature and proved this by ganging up against this girl, also using the excuse of disciplining for venting out their anger. If the girl is a liar, then why can’t we try to explain why does she lie so much instead of using it as an way out of the problem? If the girl did tell her teachers that she was treated badly at home, then why didn’t the teacher help her, or take her to a counselor? Why can’t we take things like this more seriously instead of seeing it as a media hype? Why can’t we just see to it that the childhood is nourished and kept healthy? I know its not as big as child molesting, child labor, but it is a evil to hurt a child this way, for being a child, for being innocent, or for just asking for attention or for help, or at least for letting a child be!!

2007-07-02T07:21:00.000-07:00

SUICIDAL-WAVES
Once a boy told me his story and went like this,
“I heard them call me a Psycho. I did not understand why… As I think now I guess it was because I was silent, aggressive, possessive, passionate and about who I am and what I believed in. Initially I resisted to accept it and to move on as I was. Eventually, I recollect, learnt to take pride in what they thought of me- I was a Psycho! I developed my tender traits of psycho over the limits just to fit into the label they gave me. I lost my subtle aggressiveness that meant no harm to anyone to violence inside of me. This violence I reflected to my outside world unknowing. Now they feared me, but how can they I was the baby of the union of their words, their harsh words. I only tried to be the best Psycho ever. Later they started preaching to me about how am I and how I must change. This brought in confusion I was never this monster but I made myself proud of it now it is hard to let go. I detested their words of so called wisdom. I despised their looks, their frowns and worst of all their silence when I was around.

All I was a child wanting friends and I thought they would be my friends if I lived upto to their expectations. But I did make friends, worst conceivable friends who told me that the pain they gave me would make me a stronger rebel and the truth they showed me would pull me to paranoia. Paranoid just one step above psycho in turn it took me forward but now it was all for myself. The psycho that I did not let go was a part of me craving to be stronger and stronger. Darkness engulfed my innocence and hallucinations made me real! My life and I were a walking talking personification of Irony.”

to be continued.....

2007-05-01T08:09:00.000-07:00

S L E E P L E S S N I G H T S

For as long as I can walk back the memory lane I can recall these few absolutely-no-sleep-nights. These are the nights I personally believe that are created by our psyche for reflection. Its is pretty weird how this happens because irrespective of how much physically tired I am I m active till I jolt down something or think of something about my life. It is like something keep me awake and makes me think…or am I just plain superstitious. This “traditional wakefulness” I have observed to occur two nights per year. Time for me to sit and reflect again but I just forcefully put myself to bed, I just don’t want to do it anymore the act that re evaluated and made my past, present and future less blur was the thing I run from now, tonight through the dark wet lonely lanes.
And this is what I have been doing since two nights I just can’t seem to make up my mind to think and this is haunting me-some what like how we have relapse of our REM sleep if we have lost some and it is thus made up-instead of REM sleep it is just insomnia crafted for reflection.

Is it just that I have become numb? Here plays the song comfortably numb and roger waters mouthing the words “Can you show me where it hurts?” and I think the real question is “Can anyone show anyone where it hurts?” Tightening the eye lids I put my self in the dark and run from this purge of emotions and try to wash off this habit of mine-trying to reflect-who do I think I am a Zen master?

All I can hear are echoes of voices that take me back to my childhood when I used to count my years to cut for my adulthood and people all around me said “It is only going to get more and more complicated-it always does” Seeing my frown they would let out a guffaw that meant a lot of things to them and to me. Now I am here tonight just hoping I believed them back them-it is true- and another painful truth is I still can’t get used to the way life has become more and more complex.

Pooff!! In the air the dust of the purity fell on my eyes unlike the sandman’s sand these just brought tears. Why is it troubling me so much why cant I just do it now, why don’t I want to look back. I remember asking my sister with an air of innocence “Will the tide take away everything with it?” “Yes” was the word that gave me the jolt to go and trail my fingers through the sands to write PAIN and waited for the tide to wash it off, off the face of my earth. I let out a sigh of relief and moved on and it worked so well this night I can not remember what the pain was and what the tide washed away. Right now forgiving and forgetting have become a matter of impossibility forming the disturbing aura of ghosts around me.

Another matter that falls into the realms of such impossibility is enjoying the beauty in tiniest things like getting the yellow cotton candy over pink because yellow is rare and seeing your brother eat the common pink while you melt the yellow candy in your glad mouth. The culprit is the whole process of desensitization that everyone of us go through of as a defense mechanism grown in bearing the burdens and hardships of life. Will we ever know if this process is a positive thing in our lives or a negative?

There it is again, my voice in my head telling me to stop writing it makes no sense, well I am atleast trying, but where is it going? No where for once I just want to be non sensical and put down what I think what ever popping up in my chaotic mind. Since when do we start thinking of making sense. From the time we attend our first exam? Or the day we get our certificates for this and that? What use is trying to make sense when you have failed over and over again-relevance has lost its relevance.

No answers- no questions- no queries of the obvious-no pure motives- no mask less faces- no honest selfishness-everything is a camouflage in the name of growing up, being “cultured” and being “educated”.

2007-04-23T23:03:00.000-07:00

Starry-eyed strangers

Have you ever felt this strange feeling that you are being watched all the time? Or wondered if you have become famous over night without your knowledge? Yes you have earned the empathy of fellow being-stared-at individual.

It is a known and a (sadly) accepted behavior of us Indians. This is what “Asians” are known for by the Caucasian or the westerners- they stare!!! Not like we should care right we are far more “cultured” and have a lot more “traditions” and “values” that we boast about and what are those beef eating French kissing westerners all about right???

Well but we have to face the fact that we stare not only at outsiders but everyone around us to make others either uncomfortable or embarrassed or something I seriously don’t get the reason behind this horrendous behavior. I mean c’mon people: Is there a hideous Martian on my shoulder or do I look like an alien to you??? And what painful is even the educated class do this, I mean from old respectable looking people to the simple home makers and the cool dudes and dudettes.

The worst affected are the female lot (yes all my articles comes down to that don’t ask me why) be it in casuals to sarees and salwars and burkahs. We females suffer the inexhaustible energy of the gaping strangers as if there was new flashing on our foreheads. Buzz buzz …This just in jaded-queen has become the President and has called for a law against staring without any obvious reasons…how that would be for a change…Keeping the jokes aside. We would be glad if the twinkling eyes of these strangers would stay in the face and the forehead region but they go down and that is just sick to the core of any human soul.

I was so glad that the Helmet rule was implemented in Bangalore and now atleast in the traffic signal the “Starers” could rest their eyes in this reference and the “Starees” could rest brains which other wise would be wondering :Oh my god I think I have mayonnaise on my face damn you Anushka wish you had seen it and told me to clean up!!! But my expectation was wrong, apparently I expected too much from my fellow being, nope we can expect them to not look. Now the pillions stare and when the driver with the helmet wants to stare, from the corner of your eyes you can see plastic sphere turning towards you with a human head inside.

Its not like only the female lots are the victims like the usual presumption but there are a few nasty unscrupulous girls and women out there who would not spare any man or even women his/her privacy and at the least respect for personal space. Oh don’t even get me started on the respect for personal space because we just feel so insecure without another life form with 0.009cm of the circumference of our bodies that a whole different thing. I know it may seem like a teeny tiny issue which, I a jobless person am blowing it out of proportion and all I could do was just ignore the stares and move on. Well I speak for the few people who cant ignore these gapes and gorging eyes this is very very very bad mannered of us so lets make a conscious effort to stop this. I mean it has reached up to the level of global popularity based on our nationality lets not do this and move on and learn respect an individual as an individual and not as a monument from the museum called the universe. And as for the people who enjoy this unduly attention don’t worry my estimation is this is going to stick on a long time…Sad but true….

2007-04-17T09:11:00.000-07:00

Block or no Block....Thought or no thought

It’s been so long since I wrote that I can think of gazillion things to write about but no use it just doesn’t get to me. I don’t to write about suddenly I feel like it’s not worth it. Or may I feel it’s not worth it because I am unable to write.

Well to think of one thing the other day I was on the road on my bike minding my own business trying to get to work. And there they are the Scumbags trying to kill my whole day with their filthy mouths. As patient as we girls are we don’t like to give ‘em back not out of fear but just that its too much work and its not going to change a thing but this time I just couldn’t hold the little devil in or in this case the god I waited for him to look at me again showing full set of rotting teeth I blurted out "*#$%&(&(@#&^*!!!” and there you go his tiny teeny ego was crushed. All in between the road while driving, I looked at his bike’s number plate, in Kannada; ah there you go hiding behind that curtain, who will read a plate purely written in Kannada right. Well I can so can hundreds of other girls and as for girl from outstation I don’t think that should stop them either. Then hiked up the accelerator and caught up with them and told them in Kannada that I could read kannada and that I would meet them in the Police station soon. That’s it their road had a sudden twist, going out of their way to run away. Hoping that atleast these two guys would think thrice before they attempt to come up with the stats of another female I moved on. Sadly I knew it by default that our law is not going to protect us from such “silly encounters”. It’s not a big deal and don’t even get me started on parental support in such crusades. In worst Circumstances your parent might blame your dressing or some sort of bad behavior from your part yes that’s the best part. It’s funny but painfully true. Ask the 98% of the rape victims who did not muster up the courage to file a case. Ask the women who have wasted their youth and sacrificed their appetite for fun as escapism from these horrors. Yes the scientists say it’s in the male libido to be the way they are. Yes its in their Libido to disregard the feelings of their complimentary gender to abuse and exploit them in the name of their Libido. Its in their Libido to watch porn and hire prostitutes and to fall in “love” with someone and when rejected call her a whore. IN THEIR LIBIDO.

Brings me to one more thing, just another “silly” thing. While watching “Perfect Strangers” and as everyone knows its an A- rated movie, reasonably. But there they are again a bunch of guys come and all they can enjoy is the sleaze in it and nothing else waiting for a “rape scene”, I mean come on open your eyes its an A rated movie not an adult movie (blue film). First of all its so sad that we have to count the number of years we have been alive to make us adults rather than how much of brains do we actually have to enjoy a movie for the art it is for the beautiful medium it is. No we rather sit there and make noises with the bottles and wait for a man to force himself on a beautiful what is more entertaining than that right. Yes this is in their LIBIDOS too. Oh, and Perfect strangers they were!!!

There are very few men out their who have evolved out of their cocoons though and as I ve heard from them they are frequently asked wit questions like “Why are you so weird/uptight/abnormal, man you don’t check out girls at all?” or “So what if you have a girlfriend?” What is more appalling is in the name of equal rights and feminism girls are just going out of their way to get back into being the abused or exploited by being stupidly submissive and act like their worlds would be shattered if they did not have a man by their side. Is it just the Patriarchal acceptance that they sought or is it in our Instincts or libidos to be this way. All in all the sad part is we are just becoming numb and desensitized to the evanescence of civilization and respect for each other and ones spaces.

Well, is the writers block only brought about by ourselves when we know that we are convinced that it is not going to make a difference any ways. Or is it that our expressions are becoming too desensitized? Whatever it is all it comes down to is the ghastly sight of our behavior. Don’t ask me what the block has got to do with Libidos and feminism and behaviors all I know is I am pretty paranoid with everything around me…. anyone got any explanations? Im sure you’ll its after all the age when everyone has an opinion on everything and anything.

DISCLAIMER: Not written under any influence. (hehehe)

2007-01-21T06:45:00.000-08:00

Just another usual Sunday evening, on the road lot in the crowds of MG road and what struck me was a line of women in front of the Motorola Arcade it made on sense to the on lookers but it did look like what they were doing made a lot of sense to them.All I wanted to do was be just another on looker and walk past and get my work done and return home just a few steps further-a woman in the crowd walked up front handed me a folded piece of paper-unfolding it all i expected was "Loose weight in 2 days" or "Sale! Sale!"-but my expectations were let down for good. I saw a letter written as follows-

Dear Stranger

Is there any girl who lives who has not been harassed on the roads? I think not. Probably the first time I was harassed was when I was 11 years old. I can still recollect that day when an old man in a motorbike stopped me in the middle of the road when I was walking back from school,in the pretext of asking me for directions.No sooner had I given him directions (not a word of which he heard), he told me, "Don't You think you are too young to have breasts?" gesticulating towards mine. I was horrified. Before I could even scream out "Bastard" he had sped away. I remember going home that day, falling on my bed and crying all evening. I didn't have courage to talk to anyone about it.For an entire week all I could think about was that horrid old man. You know what was the worst part of being harassed when you are too young is?

You are not indignant
You are not outraged
Instead, you feel ashamed.
Humiliated and ashamed of YOURSELF.

You will see me. I'm the girl standing by the railings. If you know what i mean, come and stand with me by the railings on the road anytime between 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. You can stand with me as long as you like.

Sincerely,
A girl

A few step further another folded piece of paper, i thought it will be the same story even before i could refuse it it was in my hands-on opening it I was wrong again. It was different but the same.It read-

Dear Stranger

Age 8: An old male hand between my baby legs.Dirty.Shhh

Age 11:Walking on the road. Man grabs cousin and kisses her on the lips. She cries. I get a fever out of fear.

Age12:Crowded Street.Walking with my mother. Fast accidental brushes between my legs.
Staring, Groping, Touching, singing lewd songs, pinching, stalking, eve teasing, humiliating

Age 18:Vacation in Dharamshala-On a long dreamy trek in the hills, far from the town. A man in the middle of the forest calls out, is masturbating, asks us to participate.
Humiliated frustrated, Hurt, silent.
AND YOU?

You will see me. I'm the girl standing by the railings. If you know what I mean, come and stand with me by the railings on the road anytime between 5:30 to 6:30 Pm. You can stand with me for as long as you like.

Let's reclaim our space.

Sincerely,
A girl.

Goosebumps raised on my skin, everyone has been through the same, everyone who opened up to me dreaded their childhood, the memories. Yes, the humiliation and oh yes the SILENCE!!! Standing by the railing a first step? Distribution of emotional out pours on paper- a first step. I applaud for the women behind this action, the first step at last!!!

With all due respect, what change will standing by the railing do? What change will we make by telling each other stories of horrors that was born out of exploitation of weakness caused by innocence? While we stood by the railing somewhere there would be another girl going through this grotesque feelings that can never be expressed through her limited vocabulary because she is too young.

How long will we hide behind the veils of so called "culture" at the stake of our children's innocence, at the risk of permanent mental damage to the children's lives. In the land where on the outside the word "SEX" is a taboo and behind it all is the ghastly sights of evils like prostitution, trafficking, child abuse, organ trade, molesting, incest....Why is it that the lie called "culture" is used only when it come to the matter of disciplining the child, why not to discipline the crooks or to wash off the evils off the "cultured society"?

Throw the conventional ideas of keeping your child safe. Lets face it, no one is ever safe in this world. Always have your guards on and put them on young for your children.Lets educate the children, inform them about the world out there in that way we are building up the foundation for a society that is open and well-informed.They deserve to be told their rights. No one has a right to force them to do anything or hear anything. Children are the easiest prey to such evils only because of their blissful innocence which is brutally murdered with such encounters. We rather inform them and give their innocence a chance and their age some credit.

As for women, we must stand strong and let not the factor of women alone being the prime enemies of each other let the cunning men exploit us. Shoulder to shoulder we must fight, we must live, we must protect each other for each other.

Let the men know,let your husbands know, let your boyfriends know, let your father know, let your uncles know and most importantly let the hooligans on the streets know that even if we might have taken it long back our nieces and our daughters will not take it. We will stand to support them even for the smallest insult.

2006-12-05T06:50:00.000-08:00

More beautiful than the fair lady that our inner eye sees when she reads aloud Shakespeare's sonnets. She is the one who ignites the inner eye in everyone through her passion and her imagination that encourages everyone to imagine and get a view of a world behind these eye lids and its enchanting. I am talking about my poetry teacher who, I am sure, has made a huge difference in every life form she touched. You think I am exaggerating well still I’d not change my opinion or this tone of my voice because I want everyone who reads this to know that there is still something called “inner beauty” in this world.

If you are the kind who would just scoff at someone who craves for inner beauty because you think it’s a myth here is someone who can change it. I’m talking about a literature teacher Mrs Shobana Mathew from Christ College. There is something about her words that will make even the nosiest vessel shut up and listen. She speaks with utmost passion for what she speaks she means every little syllable in her words. She is a deep person with valuable thoughts in her as matter of fact too valuable for it to unnoticed.

I personally believe that to make this world a better place all we have to do is get hypnotized by her and let her fill her thoughts, her views, her passions and her love for life into our chaotic brains. I mean I just want to say if we all were as open and broad minded as she was and just loved ourselves and respected ourselves just as she persuades us unconsciously. It’s a place for empathy, a place in which everyone learns to take both good and bad experiences as a blessing for us to become stronger by the spirit. And she certainly does hypnotize her listeners with all the passion and honesty in her talks.

Every thought in our mind is precious. Every word we speak makes a change in the world. Every day is a new page waiting to be written with new experiences with new thoughts and new lessons. She is definitely an example of a “BEAUTIFUL PERSON” who spreads her charm to make a small change in the way we think and react to everyday lives. Someday im sure that her words are gonna get me through some tough times and her words will keep revibrating in mind....

To end it im going to put in a tiny sample of what she said today in class, "Somethings are inexplainable but doesnt make them irrational they are beyond rationality".

2006-11-21T05:56:00.000-08:00

EULOGY OF THE WORLD’S FIRST INDIAN ROCKSTAR

Come November 22, fifteen years has gone by since the world’s first Indian rockstar or rather world’s first Indian-Parsi rockstar to be precise, passed away. Want to take a guess? Oh come on I am sure there is not even a single soul out there who has not sung or atleast heard “We will rock you!”. Yes it is the front man of the band Queen, Freddie Mercury.

Born to Parsi-Zoroastrian parents who were originally Indians, Fredrick Bulsaro did his schooling in St Peters near Mumbai even if his parent moved to Zanzibar and later England. Little did this boy Fredrick seated in front of his piano learning so that he could play for his first band The Hectic, know that he was to become a legend an exceptional, excellent and eccentric rockstar. As Brian May the guitarist of queen puts it, “Freddie was eccentric but its alright geniuses are allowed to be eccentric.”

With his trademark tights and protruding teeth he took over the rock n’ roll world of the eighties. The energy and the adoration that he had for his fans was so immense that it fueled him through his good and bad times. He openly confessed his sexual preference, “I am as gay as a daffodil, darling.” It did not seem to change the way his fans worshipped him. He was unfortunately diagnosed with AIDS and he died of bronchial pneumonia. A sea of people cried an ocean of tears and bid adieu to him convinced that it was death of so much talent and the death of the quality and love of music that he took along.

It has been over a decade since Queen fell apart still the music lives and reverberates through any rock n’ rollers blood. Freddie Mercury is the face on the Millenium stamp of the Royal Mail and his statue in Montreux celebrates the performer he was. The vocalist of Guns n’ Roses, Axl Rose claims that it was Freddie mercury’s lyrics that opened his mind and thought him the realities of life. Kurt Cobain in his alleged suicide note has written that he felt “guilty beyond words” for lacking Freddie Mercury’s enthusiasm for music and performing for the screaming crowd.

This outlandish vocalist was truly one of a kind when it came to writing music or emoting it into a piano verse and the tone of his voice. The operatic songs like “Bohemian Rhapsody” and “We are the Champions” are still popular. Catchy songs like “crazy little thing called love” and “under pressure” are evergreen. Like any responsible musician he sang songs about the changes, about war, about peace but above all about humanity and the compassion. The apprehension of the radio lovers with the advent of televisions in “Radio ga ga”, the song that set higher standards of freedom of expression “I want to break free” and songs like “one” that showed the compassion he had. In the end after being diagnosed positive to the deadly virus he sang, “Who wants to live for ever” and “show must go on” listening to these would leave anyone weeping. May be it was because he sang only for what he felt or what he really believed in that made him immortal. For human emotions are such that they never change with the time, deep down inside we are all the same and still can relate to each other and similarly to his music.

“Show must go on…Show must go on..Oh inside my heart is breaking, my make up may be flaking but my smile still stays on. I will face it with a grin I am never giving in on with the show.”

2006-11-18T05:50:00.000-08:00

Creative exhaustion??

Just the other day Me a friend of mine were discussing about "writers block" and she was telling me how her creative mind seemed to have stopped working. When i told her to stop getting so over worked and pressurising herself to write like before just as how i went through the same phase when i could no longer write poetry. Presuming that giving her the example of Kurt Cobain who wrote that his decision of giving up on his life was brought about by depression caused due to alleged creative exhaustion would stop her from being negative, I told her but in vain. I was instead startled when she immediately stated that it was a good reason to kill oneself. She refused to see life otherwise, life without creativity, without which life was a void was her strong opinion.

Since then I have been doing serious thinking about it because till now I've really never thought of having creative mind was a criteria for survival.What makes it so vital for our existence? Agreed that in this "competitive world" (I'm personally tired of that world...sorry word) its important to always have fresh ideas and concepts to put forth and grow in our materialistic pursuits.

From the time I've started attending my Journalism and Literature Lectures I feel my creativity pressurised.I do appreciate that I've stopped being forced to see human beings as masses of flesh and bones which are made of small particles cells which in turn are made of smaller particles and it goes on and on and on.Although psychology isn't as bad as other scientific subjects, it makes me feel like a piece of brain that stores and manages our lives and our choices, along with some chemicals called hormones which control our emotions just by their chemical reactions. So science is orderly placement of logical facts and arts is the disorder of natural human mind that no one can escape from. So if all of us start thinking or rather shall i use the word calculating like scientists then its all "order" then why do we need these "artists" who bring in disorder with creativity. And on top pf it dump them when they are creatively exhausted.

Yes the simple truth is we all need creativity.We all crave for change and wait for variety in life and in the world we wake up to and interact with till we sleep. We are all creative but only our world suppresses it from the childhood calling it "silly" or "irrelevant". Of course life is worth more twisting facts and coining new perspectives!! Or are we just scared that we are incapable.

Creativity is something larger than life and it is definitely not exhaustible.We don't "have to" be creative we are all different on our own and that my friends is individualism which in turn i believe is nothing but creativity. It is a rare coincidence to find two individuals with same perception and interpretation of anything that itself proves how we are all unique. A person can be rightly defined as nothing but mere collection of thoughts, experiences, emotions, ideas, views and opinions. And the interaction of all of the above is what makes us individualistic and takes it to the next level-creativity. Creativity is as simple as being ourselves. And the grandeur of creativity shines when we vent out our true expressions piercing the suppression of individualism by the world around us. It only becomes gaudy when faked, when we are forced to think creatively.

So the whole point is why are people getting so worked up about being creative, about thinking out-of-the-box when all we need to do us just be ourselves and express our true minds.In this immense, immeasurable bowl called mind the more you take out the more it produces and suppression just kills its quality of reiteriation. There is no such thing as creative exhaustion and so lets stop giving it as an excuse and lets start working on chaos that comes through human mind!

2006-11-16T07:48:00.000-08:00

Music review-Iron maiden:A matter of life and death

First things first Maiden is made of something much greater than what we hear on this album. Adrian Smith taking a break from a band for awhile and Bruce Dickinson dedicating himself to his two solo albums are a few aspects that could have taken a toll on the music of this album.

Nevertheless they still have the nack of writing music with the right proportions of what is needed. For die hard maiden fans this album may seem worth buying. It has got the Anthems like "Different world" and "These colors don't run" , the lyrics are serious and of course speaks volumes more than just those words and some of the riffs will definitely leave you head banging. Whatever you do just don't listen to the album with too much of expectations because they will spoil the first hearing and make you belive that it wasn't good enough for "Iron maiden". But the consequent hearing will definitely leave you nodding and smiling thinking how wrong you were earlier about them loosing the previous charm. The music is pretty dense and so it takes time for the melodies and the lyrics to sink in.

In the First hearing the album sounds strinkingly similar to the album "Dance of Death". There is the same aura of mystery and seriousness with the same tones of plucking and strumming of the lead in the beginning of the tracks. And the epic like song "Reincarnation of Benjamin Breeg" starts of just as "Dance of Death" with the lyric "Let me tell you ..". On and on the songs sound like anthology of all other Maiden tracks only put together with different lyrics. Bruce's heavenly tones sometimes seems to sink down to earthy blandness which makes the music sound gaudy.

Compared to albums like "Number of the beast", "Brave new world", "Seventh son", "Dance of Death" and so on which were excellent this one is an "above average". I'd still say its definitely lacks "Iron Maiden' s raw musical magic".

2006-11-15T05:36:00.000-08:00

Everyday we open our sleepy eyes with a steaming cup of bed coffee on one hand and a colorful newspaper that speaks of "India shining" and "Refresh Bangalore". We go through it with a contempt for crime, cynical left of eyebrows for the politics and a nod for the sports section. Then we move on to the even more colorful supplements where the world is portrayed in the way that we have all the time in the universe to plan what we would we wearing for the party on the Saturday night.

Then we are out on the roads with the traffic heating our brains up at the start of the day. Thousands of vehicles the rash driving cabs, the youngsters with the bassy music, the two wheelers cutting into all the lanes like it was a skill to show off, the always-in-a-hurry auto rickshaws who have least respect for any form of life and then the buses over crowded still with so many people on their personal transports!!!

Oh all the rat race and all the frustrations, right? But have we ever got the time or patience to shift the gaze off the traffic signal and look for a few seconds at the footpath(if there is any). There so many families still tossing and turning in their uneasy beds of poverty. Well everyone will just say "What can we do about it?" or just casually state "Yah its the government to blame". Ok agreed that its the government is inefficient, corrupt and......So many more adjectives right. But wait aren't we also responsible atleast a tad bit to the way the government is, to the way poverty still haunts our nation and most of all to the ignorance we proudly wear on our faces. What is this that has made us so irresponsible and cold to the realities. Have we become so used to these scenes that we dont want to react any more? Isnt that a pity?

When will we learn that patriotism isnt about the fight for the land it is about the people. Love for this great democratic country India does mean to strive for the welfare of the people by the people and for the people. We debate about reservations about human rights all the time but where is it being implimented? All the debates end within the wall of the big big concrete walls when we are out noone cares. We need to do something about this..writing articles doesnt help...publishing pictures doesnt help...then im asking What helps???Is there a way out???

Well lets not forget and lets appreciate the few organisations like World Vision and so on which are genuinely providing some support. They also provide a perfect establishment for us civilians to make our due contributions to the needy. But wait still we aren't ready to. Why are we so reluctant in doing some charity when we know its gonna reach the destination and it is going to make a huge difference in a few people's life. This is for real people, this is the reality lets get out of our imaginery world where the world is becoming more and more "developed" everything is "progressing". Lets open our eyes to the neighbourhood and for once wake up in the morning and tell to ourselves "I have the power to make a difference" and lets do something...anything...a small deed of goodness...tell the world that India isnt poor any more when we are rich with compassion.

"Without each others help there aint no hope for us"-Ozzy