A mindless time..

Lazy Saturday. That's what we decided to name it;
Accentuated intermittently with a slight drizzle, a nice light sloth hanging around , the sun -making, but a guest appearance,and, looking at the peaceful slumber of Bangalore's millions, deciding to call it a day early- a warm kitty to cuddle on my (I must admit, now quite ginormous) belly , nipping away at my fingers, while I lazily watched-no that's the wrong word-was in the presence of - some high scoring football(soccer for the uneducated lot among you) from a quarter away across the globe- making me feel quite like a scheming villain in pursuit of the next dastardly plan to take over the world; the name fit.

As Arya- we decided to name le kitteh (is that French or just bad English) after the GoT character, but she doesn't respond to anything anyway so you might as well call her Michael Jackson- continued her scheme of alternating dozes with nipping sessions peppered with Whiskas treats, it felt good to be in the company of one,who always viewed you objectively. No hearsay information, no reputation among other cats to worry about, just plain objective judgement based on immediate events pertaining to a given set of situations- the purest kind in my opinion. No obtuse line drawing or inferencing  based off of unrelated past events.

Too much of what goes on in this world is based of of image and repute and how many people agree with what they think you said. Second (and higher order) hand information governs way too much of who decides what.What happened to the simpler times when people actually thought for themselves about someone/something and made an informed choice? Or tried something out for the first time with a pristine state of mind unencumbered by the flotsam of everyone's opinion?

You want to see a movie, your journey starts at IMDB and probably ends up at the movie buff in your aisle at work. You take the information of every Tom, Dick,Harry,Mia, Susan and Mary (my new work environment really drives in the diversity aspect of things I guess) before you even decide to ask your friends/family(those who havent seen i t yet and each of whom have made a similar jourey) if they want to see. And based off of whether or not they want to see the movie or not you make a decision. It's the same with restaurants, bookstores.

And this is the way everyhting seems to work. Most importantly that driver of capitalism , that bastion of economic freedom - the stock market.
Abe Mastbaum , who took my course on capital markets in NY said the same thing . I had asked him a question to which he replied -"And here we have an individualist. One who makes the decision on his own. The market doesn't go by the whims of people like you. "
And that is what is so sad about this world.

In a time when we value the freedom to express, the loudest voices are often those of a single person with an army of mindless zombies following the leader.

When enough people say it, the notion of truth itself changes.

Does democracy indeed kill free thought?

The Princess

Minor starlets with star studded bodies stared satirically at the "simpleton"
clad simply in a cotton skirt swirling under a silk shirt. This quickly turned
to jealousy and contempt -the "I am so oomph" factor in their characters
reared its ugliest head at this juncture, betrayed them and had the exact
opposite effect of they intended it to- the men also seemed to be glued to
the new entrant their decisions fortified by the garrulous display of their
partners.
The things that immediately arrested your attention were those bewitching
eyes. They caught you, until suddenly you were too scared to face them
anymore and your vision naturally fell along her perfect cheek bones down
to her luscious lips crafted by the master with all the love due to them.
Her movement caused her hair to be pushed back ever so slightly teasing
everyone with a view of her ears- an almost taboo feeling attached to them
– men who caught a glimpse of them breathed slightly more heavily , and
swallowed hard.
Her slight figure accentuated her soft steps, their delicacy. Dark socks
protected her fine legs from avaricious glances.
She walked swiftly to the centre of the party and the virtual limelight
seemed to follow her. The host grasped the few quick words hurried into
his ear and immediately pasted his trademark grin and put on his warm and
affable coat for the esteemed guest.
"Ladies and gentlemen!!! Lady Diana!!!".
The words had the desired effect. A thunderous applause broke out.
Two hundred faces now craned to glimpse the corpulent figure who
marched in through the ornate doors dressed in lavish extravagance,
smiling as if she had botoxed for the occasion.
Joanne quickly picked up the empty glasses and cleaned the stain she
noticed on the table with the apron embellishing her skirt. No one noticed
her as she left.

The chase

I knew something was off. My gut knew.

The day was too dark and gloomy and the sounds and smells that accompanied it seemed to be coordinating a harmonious cover up, the strings being pulled by a greater, darker force.

The smell that offended , nay attacked my olfactory apparatus was one i could not immediately place as one of freshly rotten juniper berries thriving with the closest equivalent of the undead our planet affords.

Like a thief scurrying for cover, it immediately hid it itself behind a facade of aromas of Indian delicacies.

But it had been noticed.

And it knew. And I knew It knew.

It held its characteristic breath, fearing if and praying that never would its life breath become a tolling knell for its own death rattle.

I smiled. I would enjoy the chase.

Re-take on Tagore

Where your dreams are held high,

Where you can open your heart unashamedly.

Where you can sit in silence in the company of people.... and not feel awkward.

Where you can be crazy and be accepted.

Where you can be accepted even if you are not crazy.

Where you can speak about your worst without fear of being ostracized.

Where you can bring all of "you" to the conversation.

Where you can do the above without having to be drunk or smoked up.

Into that freedom of friendship, my father, let us all be delivered.

treatise on the subject matter of crushes

As social as we human beings consider nay, most of us pride ourselves to be , it has been my observation, that we are, nevertheless quite solitary-almost to the point of being lonesome- and in many cases fiercely possessive and individualistic to the point of being accused as being defensive when it comes to what many consider as the founding stone of many of our inter-gender relationships(Gays and lesbians will have to forgive me here as my limited mind has not performed the following analysis from your perspective for plainly the reason that i cannot imagine myself in your shoes)-the crush.

When it comes to crushes of course the heart seems torn , the mind hapless and our general physical, emotional and mental condition (the distinction here being made between the intellectual facilities we posses and our emotional faculties) seems to take a between, ricocheting between the heights of ecstasy and the abyss of decrepit solitude when our mental faculties entertain the presence of said crusher. If we hold the position of the said crusher, of course there arise two possibilities. One in which we are blissfully unaware of our crushing effect in which case there is really not too much of an analysis required, and the other in which the crush is reciprocated which immediately lends itself as a trivial case to the discussion at hand presently.

In this monograph-I call it that simply out a fancy that i have inherited from the word from reading too much of Sherlock Holmes and puritans must bring themselves to forgive me for my presumptuousness- I shall attempt to dissect the nature of the crush to further help objective minds like mine to grapple with it especially in the face of-god forbid- the danger of their existing relations failing due to the whimsical nature attributed since old to the human mind. If nothing else this will be an amusing exercise for you to investigate yourself so closely and scarily.

The first task that a person has at hand is to identify that he/she is under the influence. this is easily done by most if not all of us. however it has often been the bane of our psyche to confuse this sensation with the wider perception of "love" in the sexual sense of the word.(Not to be confused with lust which only forms a small albeit integral part of the relationship). The distinction must be made by every individual for themselves for it is only we ourselves who know our true nature and deep down identify our emotional, physical and mental "weak spots". These are the very points at which we can be suckered and which usually are the sources of the said crush. If one were to analyse oneself from past experience one would observe that all our crushes-and even some of our "almost" crushes- have a common thread- a singular characteristic feature which functions as our weak spot. It is suggested that the objective mind take some time off during a "non-crushed " state to correctly identify these fault lines in its system. (Point to note: I do not subscribe to the Freudian views and do not believe that all human inter -gender relations must have its roots in an innate Oedipus complex. Psychology majors are advised to exit now.)

Once these are identified, it is quite trivial for us to identify if a given sensation is one that has been brought about by an already acknowledged "crush factor". It is of course possible that our ingenious mind comes up with a set of new seemingly unconnected parameter by which we may be suckered, but any previous soul searching exercise would have rendered us intellectually better off to deal with a repeat of the experiment in field of life with new foundations on which the crush is based. Once thus acknowledged, the first and in many ways vital portion of the work is done. This phase is the sharpening of the axe and the selection of the tree if you will.

Then one must simply ask oneself what it is that one wants-ultimately out of this relationship. is it that the crushed likes the company of the crusher at face value even when theoretically the crush factor has been removed? if so, the transience of the crush must be realised quickly if a longer , highly fruitful friendship is to be realised. Any delays in this regard endangers the loss of what could otherwise have been a high yielding and satisfying relationship for both parties. If thus were not the case, then the trivial solution applies wherein interest will lose itself in the face of the natural flow and order of beings.

This brings us to the vital question. Having known the nature of the crush and realising the potential of a friendship forged how does one forge this beautiful friendship? If it were only our wish to expose the ephemeral nature of the crush the solution is simple and mean- keep identifying the negative qualities in the crusher till they outweigh the positives. however, apart from being unfair to the crusher as a person this method has the greater price that as time goes on, we will find ourselves to have become cynical and unappreciating-to the layman:an all round grumpy person. Hence this method must be avoided at all costs. The most peaceable solution o course would be to accept the existence of the crush to oneself with all the above implications. This will solve the problem of our intellectual and mental clog from which the remaining course of action shall naturally lend itself to us. This way ensures that we remove at once and nip at the bud the feeling of the taboo on which indeed the crush feeds and fends for itself. Once this is done the impermanence and the hilarity of our childish feelings will become apparent to us. This will enable us to smile and laugh in the future- not the smile or laugh which we have seen others give:ones betraying the underlying sense of loss and nostalgia-almost a poignant not ringing to it-but rather one of liberation from our own self imposed mental cages opening new vistas of beauty in other people as well as ourselves.

(The much simpler solution would be to send this link to the object of your crush. It makes you look creepy............-sometimes.)

P.S: The concept of homosexual crushes must be further delved into- at least for scientific purposes. For it seems that in the centuries to come it will gain prominence in in a few millenia may indeed be the only ones to consider. The steady decrease of genes on the human Y chromosome to me points in the direction of a unisexual species- but then the entire concept of sexuality may have undergone a change . It may be defined on the mental faculty rather than plain physical ones.

The Phoenix

It has been quite sometime now that I have put pen to paper- courtesy of a certain monsieur mandaya who had succeeded spectacularly and temporarily in completely demoralizing my efforts to get published, with a stone hearted, systematic, malicious, spiteful and of course needless to say, purely arbitrary decision making as to who should or should not get their names embossed on the two penny burlesque of a magazine that we issue at the taxpayer's cost come festember- and my regular readers- that would encompass me and sni who proof reads every one of my articles (the price he pays for friendship) and proclaims at the end of these reading sessions that the sentences are quite frightfully long but he no likey long sentence so he'll pass- had quite begun to wonder if I had lost the will to wield the pen anymore(I know, I've got the Caesar complex sometimes- at the end of this sentence I suspect Sni is going to kill me for my verbosity and I will probably go down in a saying "Et tu Sni!!").
And so as I was saying…. I’m Back.(And I did say it with a heavy Austrian accent)

An Able leader

Reminiscing about the entire SriLanka-LTTE episode, my entire attention was demanded by the actions of one man. In a time of international pressure and Natinal difficulties, Mahinda Rajapaksha deserves accolades.

Standing tall among the ruins of the wasted efforts over the past twenty years, he did what no one else dared to do before him. He took the initiative and pressed forward wihtout regard to the international damnation to which he and his entire nation would be condemned to in the face of failure.

Today as he stands victorious, many of his country men pat him on the back, but just as easily these could have been the very people who could have publicly condemned him for taking a decision on their behlaf.

His recent interviews to the Hindu and the Times leaves you in awe of the man. You know he speaks the truth- a bitter truth. A political situation is the best option-if both sides are reasonable. When any side of a discussion is dominated by hardliners who will resort to violence, someone must take the responsibility to put things right.That if terrorist organisations are surviving today, it is due to the weakness of the home governments to some extent. It takes nerves of steel and guts of adamantium to pull of what he has in the island nation.

And what leaves the west staring is his outrageous openness and pointed questions at their own campaigns. If the war against the Taliban as a terrorist organisation is justified why not the LTTE which has been identified in many countries, including the largest in the world, as a terrorist organisation? His reply to the threat of sanctions was remarkable in its bravery-some would call it foolishness. "Why do oyu punish the people for the decision of one individual? If they want to punish me they will find ways of doing it. And now that I have said it they will."

where does all of this leave us?

Every so often in our own lives we are faced woth making decisions for others. Against their own wills because you KNOW in your heart that this is the right course of action. You KNOW that this is how things are meant to be. At those points we must take the initiative without fear of failure because we know then that the outcome is assured. Victory becomes an inevitability in such times.