Why I have to wash my face :P

Note:- I know, I know, you don’t need to tell me- it is long. To be more precise, about 950 words. Thank you 😀

So with a self imposed mission of trying to break the ‘curse’ or the internal diaspora and integrate those fleeing parts, I sat down to  introspect and concluded that the reason for all that is simple- simpler than this sentence- some how my assumptions have been disturbed.

The effects are the ones which are surprising and not the cause in itself. For I have always believed that everything is based on assumptions. This very post, is based on so many assumptions-  that visceral sounds are assumed to mean such; that when written down, clarity will reveal itself again(albeit the nonchalant pall hanging over my gait) ;  that people do care enough, to read this ; the fact that I have adopted this language(or has the language adopted me?) to write instead of my native tongue; And a billion or trillion more, depending on your preferred currency.

But the point is assumptions are the base of life. They give the mind hard things to compare and accept or reject. The equation of life, is full of variables, and assumptions just about cement them to be more reassuring and constant. But that in itself can act against us. See what this whole business of letting your mind chose its basis to decide and follow(highly influenced and intoxicated by the world, in more candid terms by the adults and adult influenced peers when we are growing up) is that it tries to ab initio remove fear and guilt.

The twins are notorious enough to be the reason(in my humble views) for most of the events in the world. From having a hallo around your head to being fried in the devil’s oils(which flavour do you choose?) all are caused because of these two. And when assumptions are moved by forces stronger than themselves and when cruel reality(again based on other assumptions, nevertheless, supposedly) sets in, along come the twins, with kisses and words that bewitch you and send your hormones in all the wrong directions and steal your brain or it’s acclaimed human rationality.

So my assumptions were struck by a lighting, but fortunately I had bothered to stick a lighting rod out. But sometimes light in itself can lose to a sloth- when it enters a fortress formed by materials which have been hardened with fervour and self belief and not to mention assumptions that I am bound to not see a victory till I turn a new leaf(is it now?), it slows and crawls, but still doesn’t lose the pinch which it brings along, so what really had happened was that I was stunned(thanks to my own need to fend myself against the world’s ever altering assumptions) and now with a fine poem, I have but got rid of it.

But the optimism that I wont possessed has been shaken the most. The lazy bug, without the wonder drug(optimism) has turned lazier and has decided to stay and not vacate its place in the system, to expand. Though it isn’t all that compelling(like this pseudo style, heavily influenced I am sure by God(another assumption?)  knows what!) the bug is quite comforting.

But by writing that very sentence I have managed to sort out a paradox or two and at the same time, kicked the bug a bit, after all I know no one is going to bother to read this, at least entirely. Probably, one of my hopes that was dashed(with a red ink, memories of Tamil papers dawn) was my belief that I would be read and my blog garlanded with words of praise and I would make News and promote optimism and help in rolling the wheels of progress across the oblique course(s).

But that seems pretty stunted and in more ways decaying from neglect, being ignored more so, by those who can give it some spirit. Yes, I have said it, I black and with, well punctuated with commas and fullstops, I seem to lack a belief in people.

Once upon a time, I prided myself in hating humanity. But a sense of hope, that hate can morph into love, existed. But pretence has turned into the present’s love and as I pour my love into my belief about humanity’s greatness (and bits of shallowness and vanity) , the world in return seems to offer more walls than doors(but more doors than before, but being as astute as I am, I can see many other doors being filled with bricks, all red – the capitalist in me, mourns ).

The doors I am willing to take, because I have for a long time now, refused to honour fear and guilt, more than deemed necessary. Visitors are welcome, as long as they follow my dogma and yield to the imposed moratoriums and curfews. But are those the doors I want to take? This is a stark question, the answer, shall go unwritten, at least as of now.

Now my assumptions having been swayed by the lights and developments, are back to their old staunch selves. They again, wish to re-establish their command, having fought the wars with words, wisdom and weapons and have returned with better men and women and not to mention new ways and knowledge.

They face a struggle though, the throne, occupied by the prince, his highness the lazy bug, has to be won. How can you lull someone who is laced by reality and lives in a shell? Probably being a moon child and a crabby person, the waters hold the answer. So simply put- I guess I have to wash my face and get going again 😛

P.S:- why does wp, want me to rewrite this entire post in active voice? hmpf.

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What can we do? (or) what we can do?

I feel quirky and verbose enough to write something. Of course I am never the one to face a dearth of words, but posting does take some effort- like making your head think about one thing. If only it was like those good old days, where I wrote a post or two a day. Maybe there is a relationship between posting and the number of comments, but one fact which I should mention is that bloggers now days have become Scrooges- we care too much for our authority and don’t seem to be giving pingbacks any more!

The good old ping seems to be rare, soon we will have a ping market, where we all can trade and we will have terrorists making poor kids give links to their websites to recruit more people(just the thought of it!). I say this with the full interest of bloggers and blogging in my mind- what with the advent of celebrity bloggers and comment box chats, traditional bloggers like me soon will need subsidy to survive. Hope I will be able to keep my 0.0001%(stat from Alexa) share of visitors to the web.

So before I start running, you are expected to stretch your hands- first  raise it up, then side ways, again up and then down(and scroll down). Keep repeating this(yes you can walk when you talk, now you can exercise while you read). So do I see you all doing it-good.

Do this and you can stop your self from being a victim of excessive social networking(gone are the days when bloggers were bloggers, now most of us are caught up in Facebook, twitter(albeit being Christened as “micro blogging” ). Reading blogs might be the only break you take.

Bare not offence either- See, I am only advising you. So don’t tweet “He thinks he is too great, @visheshunni bloggers are not fools!! ” or  something like that. It is quite pitiable that we fail to take offence to things which we should. Or blame it on the ever-changing world-One second it is a fire, the next second a politician and the third an actor, fourth inevitably will an ad.

We read things in the Newspaper and forget it. We vociferously argue and a few seconds later wonder what we were talking about – the days of a modern man are filled, inevitably with hours and hours of being busy. We are convinced that unless we can hang a board from your collars with Busy etched on it, we are incomplete.

Blunt things happen, you forget what you did- can you recall what you wore yesterday? We expect ourselves to do certain things and others add to it. End of the day when your head hits you pillow, your head starts bubbling and you realize how fraught all this is. Personally I hate it when the world looks like a grave yard and haunted with busy quietness. It just does not work. Insanity is needed.

We crack stupid jokes, we have fights over petty things, yet all that energy in you needs to go somewhere. Blogging is a good thing, it helps get away from your usual self. You realize your life has a lot of potential- I like reading good person blogs, it is tough be conceited and funny.

Letting go is really important I guess. After all Atlas might be holding the world, but then he can’t do anything about what the creatures in it do. We can nod our heads at whatever happens but the larger picture is going to take it’s time to change. So should we then be good human beings, as in mind out business and be busy?

To appreciate things, we need to look at them. And you know what maybe it is our business to look at those small things. They might help us understand global warming better, they might help us understand the mentality of neighbours better and yes maybe even understand ourselves better too.

It is fine, to call others mad, crazy and what not, but it takes a lot of guts and a bit of candour to see that they might be right and we might be wrong. No I don’t mean concede your point, just try to see how the other person reasons, who knows you might see the flaw in your argument as well.

I do wonder if we as a world can ever have consensus ad idem. This is not just a question of the good and the bad, but a question of what defines us. The heterogeny is of course too great, but somewhere, in there, we are all humans and most certainly Earthlings. We can wage wars and have raging peace talks, but if we do look at the larger picture more closely( should not be mistaken for looking at smaller things, surely) we will find that beyond all that we can still live in peace.

If  life was a football game, then we surely have a referee to blame. And a referee is needed only when we don’t trust ourselves any more. Of course blood is thicker than water, but surely humanity is bigger than the people alive at one point of time?

Or is it that which divides us? Why should we continue the battles our fore fathers fought? Maybe in this age and time, we should try to appreciate humanism more – instead it is disheartening to find in the name of religion and politics, people hating each other.

There will be enough love in this world, if we can one person, who can show embrace humanity and not a group of people or country. But unfortunately all of us come from varied backgrounds. Whether nature has made us differently or not ( like having our eyes where our spleen is) nurture surely does. But then we all are the special one, do we realize that?

To you and me, poverty maybe a movie or a music video. To someone else the things which we face are non-issues. Every issue is important for after all good health does include happy spirits. There are many initiatives in this world, but more than movements and initiatives, it is our ability to rise above remorse and have the voice to say, “he can be such, but I am better”.

No this is not about showing your other cheek, but rather catching the other person’s hand and showing his reality. We all live in our own little heavens, but do we realize that what we are doing can make the world a hell for others?

We need to let go, of our ego. We need to be willing to stand our ground-look at the world and realize where we are and then see if we are in the right place.  This is a need and not a want.

We need to take offence, when someone tries to disintegrate us. And yes there is something called putting things the right way, today we might have shrunk it down to four letters(more or less) but not everyone can understand what happened to warrant that one word comment. And the right way is not merely fire for fire, but trying to see what caused the fire.

We cannot recall what we did yesterday, but we can of course recall how we were hurt. If you think you should do something to someone who has offended you, do this- stop talking to that person.

Don’t shout, don’t act, just stop talking. That too is an action. Be quiet. Watch the other person. True silence is a weapon. For it removes the enemy or opposition.

The toughest person to face is yourself. When you come across a blank wall, you try to retrace your route, let them try it. I know what I say, is not possible, for I concede , I too might be wrong. I don’t see any harm, for after all I am not hurting anyone(or at least trying not to). Yes I too get furious and angry, every does, but it is just a reaction, we need to respond.

So hope this has given you enough exercise. Pardon me if you have exerted yourself too much. But if you aren’t too tired, do burn some more energy and let me know, what you think.

I might sound rather romantic and Utopian, but every sunrise does mesmerize and makes your day. If I have managed to make even one person happy/appreciate/given belief to then I have got what I want.

Individualism is mistaken- it is not doing those things which will benefit us in the short run alone, it doing those things that will help us become better in the long run. And what is going to do us good, is a good world.

Beyond illusions

We will open our eyes,
See beyond the horizon
And sit in our castle’s porch,
Knowing from where we rose,
That finally we reached where we chose,
Albeit the illusions and the remorse.


For the strength of an illusion lies with the perceiver,
And somewhere in there we always want something better;

Click here to read the full poem 🙂

What are your Identities?

Something lesser than a dot in the universe.

Something as big as a dot in the galaxy.

A thicker dot in the system.

Earthling.

human being.

Asian.

A person from the subcontinent.

Indian.

South Indian.

Tamilian.

Hindu

Brahmin

Iyengar.

…….(other identities)

This is the Identity the world(i.e. those who might not know anything about me and also society collectively) would attribute to me…but is it the one I want? Of course I am all that , but I would prefer to be seen as

Something lesser than a dot in the universe.

Something as big as a dot in the galaxy.

A thicker dot in the system.

Earthling.

human being.

Humanitarian.

Thinker.

Philosopher.

Optimist

A person who believes in equality(equality – when everyone has the same opportunity.)

Writer, more specifically a poet(however good or bad I am at it).

A person who loves music.

An artist(however good or bad I am at the various arts).

Football lover.

Nature lover.

Captialist(more in lines of a Randian).

A teenager.

Indian.

Nationalist.

Secularist.

Tamilian

………..(other identities).

Of course there are a lot more which I might have left out at this point. I might call myself a philosopher and no one else might. But it does show how I perceive myself. Anyway more about this in my next post.Right now I want to know,

What are your identities?

Religion, freedom and What to kill?

As a human being your place on Earth  is dependent on your “sense of belonging”. And we try to belong to a myriad number of groups , in various permutations and combinations , but ultimately the one that seems to scar the singular human comradeship is our religious affiliation.

To secularists it causes endless heart aches, to see humans tear apart each other. But then we have come to a point , where a few frown upon these secularists and the heads of such groups declare them as infidels or a threat to their religion and that they need to be dealt with.

Is belonging or not belonging  to a religious group all that important?

What has made religion the single autonomous power , with their various Gods?

One argument would be that man in general prefers not to take up responsibility.

The irony here is, we have taken it as our responsibility to take care of these religions , with our life and even more.

As we move into a new Era , where in we have started to accept that we need to change our attitude and our demeanour and approach to solving the pragmatic problems in living, the way we define our “sense of belonging” is quintessential .

The reason for problems is that we interact and in the process  two universes of ideas clash , the barring is too much to sustain a bi-ambitious world.

One way to ensure a mono-synthetic society is to conclude that suppression is the only way to maintain a balance. If we look at this syllogism closer , we will find that the major premise is that we need a balance and the minor one that suppression is the only way.

And this exactly is what religion has helped evolve over the ages of humanity.

I do not claim religion is the root of evil , rather that religion has been chained and is being made to do as the masters who control it want it to do. Religion in essence aims at freeing man and hopes to breach the boundaries of human perception.

But in reality the essence of religion lies in the minds of people . The majority of whom are  gullible, influenced  by the rhetoric of orators and politicians. The reason for this gullibility is because we cannot define what is “good and what is “bad” in absolute sense. The alteration done is so simple that many fail to see it – a change in the yard scale. And to change this , we first need to change the latter premise – that suppression is the key to the balance.

To redefine maintaining a balance in any other way , than the existing one, is going to be a task which is hard to even imagine – we would need to move away centuries of domination and slavery. Unfortunately , the method adopted in India(i.e. giving reservations) is a negative step. In a way it is acknowledging that we have become subservient to the pseudo dogmas. It would only strengthen the hold of the suppressive methods.

What is suppression? This is a important question to answer. I would call it curtailing ‘freedom’.

Freedom is again a word which needs to be defined. You can say freedom is that which gives an individual a proportionate sense of belonging and acceptance. And here lies the answer , to what we can try do.

We need to understand and appreciate freedom. The line between indulgence and freedom may be very thin , almost nonexistent but the crux of freedom lies in the way we perceive and interact with others. Of course we cannot interfere with the way people think or make choices for them , but what we can do is try to remove the vintage prejudices and sneers , by stopping them from reaching our future.

We should try to find our way to a better race , not by thinking what ‘God‘ would find comforting but by understanding that our decisions are binding on the future of our kind. It might seem Utopian to dream of such a day, for after all we are no more than a galaxy of cells working together to survive . But then doesn’t this galaxy coexist without any Upheavals? Of course you can say that their thinking capacity is taken away by the ‘brain’. But what is the brain , but again another collection of cells?

But of course there is always a reflex or death. We can say reflexes give us a short term relief , i.e. revolutions are a temporary respite and well that death is the ultimate end of a bad mind. But then what dies and what lives on?

This is the question , which religions have capitalized on. And through out our history this is the question used as a fear of tool. I do wonder if hell really did exist, didn’t those exploiters realize that they would be the first to be dipped into a cauldron of boiling oil? But of course they do claim that , they are messengers of “God” .

At the same time without fear and guilt , we humans probably will be out of control. But then , I think it is better we remove these fears created by our imagination and present to our kind the real threats – without proper cooperation and coordination our race might bring about its own end; Earthquakes, tsunamis , floods, drought etc .

If we care enough for the living – this is not just about  ‘healing the world’ , it is about saving ourselves. The world can take care of itself. Earth as a planet will go on for millions and billions of years. And anyway whatever you do , will affect the entire universe . And no it is not caring for the smaller things – it caring for the most important thing – the ‘I’ .

Kill religion? I don’t think so. We need to kill our inhibitions, which stops us from understanding.

Is killing justifiable?  Can you face yourself ?

P.S;- Thanks Indi for helping me in edit this 🙂

Change(55 word fiction)

How are we ever going to change all this?

You can’t change it.

What do you mean? That we are helpless , useless? We don’t have a right , that our love has no value , that we are…

You don’t get it..we can’t be the change , we can only be the catalysts to a change.

oh!

What lies beyond my sight?

From new camera1

The grass seems brighter on this side,
But who knows what lies beyond my sight.

To accept and stay,
Or move and find a way to a distant place?

Am I as good as I believe,
What can I really achieve?

Where does my heart want to lead?
Why is their a need to “succeed”?

Are dreams meant to be left,
And never in reality dwelt?

If only I was sagacious,
I would be more gracious,
Till then I try to be adventurous,
But do not know if I am tenacious or audacious.

The grass seems brighter on this side,
But who knows what lies beyond my sight?

destiny

Mind,

Remind,

Revive,

Realize,

Reinstate-

Colours,

Illusions,

Deceptions,

Disappointment,

Acceptance-

Poise,

Balance,

Push,

Disturbance,

Indignation,

Trapped,

Freedom,

Contained,

Renamed,

Framed,

Named,

Faces-

Identity,

Humanity,

Sanity,

Serenity,

Knowledge,

Ignorance,

Search,

Darkness,

Lights,

Startled,

Glare,

Blinding,

Within,

Spark,

Feeling,

Engaging.

Thoughts.

Understanding.

Calm,

Quiet,

Fiat,

Faith,

Hope.

Penning,

Sketching,

Representing,

Destiny.

The light shines the brightest

In the end, I walk this road alone

In the end , I walk this road alone ,
People have come and gone ,
Some have seen and some have shown,
But in the end , it is me walking alone.

Roads meet and diverge,
People leave or converge;
Horror, grief, misery
Or joy,happiness and serendipity.

Yards and yards of verses written,
A few steps here and there beaten.
Fresh dried leaves swept away-
By men and dry winds of May.

In the end , I walk this road alone,
Despite all that went underneath ,
Firmly I still stand on my Feet.
In the end , it is I who walks alone.

Feelings,emotions and fears,
Guilt,traumas and tears.
Cloud racing and jocund company
The vibrations of a human symphony.

Paths which lead and paths which feed,
Paths filled with actions and many a deed.
The heart goes a way and the mind another,
The road,indifferent , which in concrete is better?

Decisions, desperation and conclusions
People,words and aspirations.
Dreams and ambitions,
Floods and indulgence.

In the end , I walk this road alone,
If not today , someday,
Let me choose a way,pray,
Which I feel in my way.

In the end , I walk this road alone,
People have come and gone,
Some have seen some have shone
But in the end, it is me walking alone.

The light shines the brightest

optimism and pessimism

The world seems to rush ,
calm and passionate ,
The world tries to repulse
The being into belonging.

Thought less actions ,
Valiant and confident decisions
Through the never ending days –
Somewhere a calender must end.

Materialist needs and wants,
Bubble happiness and disappointment,
Leading hue filled raiment,
The bold look- deference.

Laughter a relief ,
Smile a belief ,
Grip- to show we aren’t meek,
A loud voice, we aren’t weak.

Infinite patience ,
Trying to make sense-
Where a blind reverence
Thrives on a sour penance;

The serenity challenged,
The need to be indifferent,
Yet to feel is human,
To think even more so.

As if wont ignorance
Can cajole a man into callous
Penchant for the stained
Land(as it is) and

Kill the need
For purity and inheritance
The right of every member of the clan
Of human-a hand in the making of a nation.

Religious pride,
A sacrilege, a blasphemous divide.
A universal good,
Killed in the would and could,

Buried with a blood dirge;
Someday it will all be purged
By a tenacious will,
Of those whose sagacity wills.

Optimism-
The day is not far away.

Pessimism-
Who does have a say?

The light shines the brightest