I'm finally home and as a consequence am feeling more peaceful and comfortable than I have in a long, long time. With peace and comfort comes a strangely easy and wonderfully pleasant lucidity. Take away physical discomfort and let a chap feel removed from the turbulence, the trauma and the wild moods and extreme views brought on by the skewed perceptions, lonely unfamiliarity, unnecessary discomfort and exaggerated pressures that seem to go with hostel life and what you are left with is the only healthy kind of philosopher - the kind who finds philosophy stuffy and redundant. Take away the emotional biases and duress - mental as well as physical - that cause opinions to crystallize into sharp weapons causing injury to oneself as well as others, and it becomes remarkably difficult to decide one way or the other about most issues of note. The clarity bestowed by peace makes it possible to perceive just how astoundingly complex and subtle the world is. People turn out to be multi layered and faceted, geographies more intricate and histories more interesting, the past difficult to judge and the future a lot more varied and promising.

Thus, everything having become an object of infinite wonder, it becomes next to impossible to write about anything.

I'm still around - struggling, thinking, searching, happy, miserable, ill, worried, looking for peace, for reassurance form a world that's built to disappoint, getting things done, keeping it afloat, excited sometimes, bored mostly, appalled that the universe is unkind enough to exploit every weakness, every anomaly, every mistake one ever made and extract the market price. That is the only universal law I've experienced. No one gets away with anything. You been a bad boy ? Whether you knew it or not, whether you accept it or not, you will suffer. So will I.

We pay for the things we defile and degrade - including ourselves - and we pay for believing too much and we pay for believing too little. A price is extracted for every happy moment experienced, every good day, every piece of fortune, every favour taken, every minute spent wallowing in self pity, every dark thought, every task postponed and every promise broken.

To appreciate beauty in peace and languor without losing vigour and valour, to feel free without having to rebel, to be happy without self deceit, to face a just universe and see oneself reflected in it with a steady, unflinching, critical and honest gaze . . . . . . . .

And therein lies a tale.

To be blank inside
With the remnants of promises made
Dreams woven
Lingering uncomfortable shadows
Tugging persistently
Like ghosts that wont let go
Reminding, painfully painfully
Of a world that had meaning
A life that had faith
Smothered by thought
Textures so subtle and fascinating
Flattened by knowledge
The magnificence of the universe
The insignificance of man
The arbitrary nature of decisions
The vagaries of fate
Textures erased by the flamboyance of creation.
Leaving serene emptiness
A long life to be led
Sleepwalker in a marathon
Saddled with baggage
Cheered by friends
Called ever forward by spirits
One more step one more step
One more step
And therein lies a tale.

The beach.

Its a lovely 'ol place is our campus beach, about two kilometers of white sand, fringed with a large variety of palms and other trees, with some very charming approach roads and our very own lighthouse on a hillock with a temple.

The vast sea with its slow but intense moods, its constant overbearing rhythm, the sky sometimes tinged with the most delicate, tender and wispy pink and othertimes heavy and angry with dark clouds of a vulgar and overly demonstrative purple, the superb contrast between the two temperaments, one inertial, more circumspect and deliberate, mostly harmless but with the potential of immense destruction, always giving generously and sometimes taking with limitless fury but ever respected and even loved, While the other more fickle, breathtakingly beautiful on occasion and impossibly fragile, and then suddenly and apparently without reason, ominous and menacing, cajoling her more phlegmatic but more effective mate to do her bidding, for her airs are impotent without him. Like a base beauty manipulating a just and powerful prince to her own petty ends. The winds blow madly and scream their mindless hate in our ears, but the waves rise with a slow roar and the firm and heavy restraint of the vast wise ocean behind them and almost always, stay their hand. That is the way of the strong.

I have always wondered why this splendid drama played out constantly before me did not free my mind and raise my spirit beyond the twilit shadows that plague it. I always thought, after watching many a magnificent sunset, "I must come here in the morning". I've done that now, and its very depressing. The sea is calm. Not a breath of air. A strange dead light illuminates the world. There is none of the freshness and hope that one associates with mornings. This vast body of water does not have it in itself to illuminate, raise or edify. It cannot inspire bold strokes or infuse strength. It cannot awaken a man to freedom or peace. It has about it an aura of decadence, temptation and painful beauty. Its domain is the charm, allure and turbulence of starry skies and stolen kisses, of desperate thoughts and lonely walks, of clenched fists and limp heads, of crumbling lives and trembling lips, of last stands and bloody massacres, of glory tainted with darkness, of joy twisted by pain, of lonelyness trying to escape itself, of books snapping shut, friends leaving and curtains falling to the absolute silence of an empty house.

Then, yesterday while reading Kiran Nagarkar's "Seven 6s are 43", I stumbled upon the answer.

"The sun does not rise in this sea you know, it only sets here."

I wait

for Silence and Solitude to fill the emptiness that curled up and settled inside me so long ago



the emptiness that has no business being here

the emptiness that causes reasons and feelings to implode and explode alternately


the emptiness that makes words lose meaning and conversations hollow


the emptiness that leads to doubt fear and defeat




She speaks in a soft cajoling sympathetic voice

She spouts the velvety philosophy of decay in lilting perfumed double edged words


She carefully nurtures all that is vile and base within us




She's the devil's favourite whore my friends, and far more dangerous !
Crush her !



crush her i say



Emptiness and the devil





I'll tear her out if I've to cut myself open to do it

they shall not prevail that venomous pair emptiness and the devil



they shall not prevail



It has been a losing battle most of the way comrades and now I rest awhile


And while I rest, I wait for Silence and Solitude

Sachin's 35th.

I walked into the TV room of a nearly deserted hostel when he was on 77 and settled down on the floor there in the hope of watching him create history, regain his lost form and most important of all, become once again a beacon of hope to millions, a source of pride and a good enough reason to be a complete, absolute and unhesitating fan.

His appeal lies in the fact that he has become what he has, not due to any special circumstances or because he has been arbitrarily gifted by god with inhuman talent, though of course he is extremely talented, his success and his wizardy and his persona on and off the field - one gets the feeling - owes more to his doing the simple things right, listening to his parents and practicing everyday than to reasons exotic and mysterious. There is that about him which reminds us of the uncomplicated good things that we were told about as children and which we all too often forget or ignore as adults, especially young adults. He always chases the ball to the boundary, never contests the umpire's decision, never says anything untoward, never throws tantrums, always gives it everything and does not crib and make excuses about failure.

He is that incredibly rare thing - a man whose greatness owes itself to values and ideals purely middle class. The Great Indian Middle Class. The back bone of the nation, its work horse. Everyone who becomes successful and famous seems to have to change his/her way of life, and 'break the shackles' of the 'common man's' way of thinking. People talk so often about 'thinking outside the box' and what not. Here is a man who did not see the basic values of truth, hardwork and simplicity as 'limitations', who did not see the need to change anything about the 'naive' ideals and aspirations of the educated common man. A man who is the very embodiment of all that is straightforward, decent and solid and that is so often mocked at by others who have supposedly 'made it'.

Thats why I am a fan of his. He is proof that all I have been brought up to believe actually works. One does not have to modify, stoop, distort and defile to succeed, even in this world.

What a man !

Take yourself away

Disappear, fight, conquer, observe, smile, live and don't give a damn.

On Culture and Liberalism. Part 1

This is a world in which geographical distances are fast being reduced and a world which is becoming 'smaller' in a very real way. It is remarkable that this process has not - in general - made different cultures and races more acceptable to more people. On the contrary, it has resulted in more people being insecure about their own identities because of the unexpected proximity to a large number of others. Exposure has resulted in increased paranoia rather than increased open mindedness and acceptance. This is a strange, unfortunate and unexpected phenomenon the causes of which I will try to explore in this article.

The crux of the matter lies in the subtle but powerful distortion that has crept into the modern left liberal definition of the term 'open minded' . It has come to mean not just that one accepts and appreciates other cultures and civilizations but also that one must suppress one's own culture and civilization in order that one might not inadvertently 'offend' others or make them uncomfortable. Once one has accepted this, it is not a very long distance to "since its difficult for everyone to be comfortable with everyone else's cultural identities, everyone must suppress their own identities so that everyone is comfortable."

It sounds perfectly preposterous when stated that way, but it is what the current definitions of 'equality under law', 'open ness' and terms like 'the global village' etc imply . It is only to be expected, under such circumstances that there will be an opposite reaction from conservative religion with sees in these ideas a possible erosion of its power and field of influence. The insecurity naturally felt by human beings towards anything new is definitely heightened and accentuated by this quite senseless idea that being open minded implies being able and willing to hide one's identity. The idea, as one can immediately perceive, is quite absurd. If one enforces - through deciding what is 'politically correct' and what is not - a degree of uniformity among the public, that does not make them more open minded, it merely removes the need to be open minded.

These ideas have been taken to an extreme by the communist philosophy which denies and seeks to suppress (note the inherent paradox there, Communism is littered with them) any and every expression of individuality. Much of liberal philosophy has is roots in or has developed parallel to and has had close links with communist and socialist thought. A lot of the most disgusting tenets of communism are extreme extensions of ideas that are commonly considered 'progressive' and liberal.

A reasonable and possibly more acceptable definition of a healthy liberal or open minded society would be "A society whose members can accept and appreciate without prejudice people who are different culturally and racially from themselves, and do not feel the need to modify their own behaviour in order to appease anyone else."
The last clause helps allay any fears that conservatives within the society might have about interaction with aliens, and thus in effect, furthers the cause of diversity and liberalism not by suppression but by consolidation and strengthening of indigenous culture. Also note that 'assimilate' does not imply (as it seems to do in modern terminology. A melting pot of cultures is where everyone loses their cultural identity !) that the newcomers mix and 'fit in' culturally with the existing populace, rather it implies that they are integrated into the socioeconomic as well as political fabric of society without having to modify their behavior significantly. This is possibly what the definition was, and doubtless formally still is to many people, but it has been modified in a very fundamental and powerful yet subtle and hence more dangerous way by distortions and mutations caused by extreme left philosophy and ideas.

I have in essence implied that liberal thought, through the corruption that it underwent and the disfigured form in which it exists today has contributed heavily to the rise of religious and cultural extremism all over the world. Whenever a way of life is threatened or is perceived to be threatened, the people who follow it will naturally stick to it more than ever, view outsiders with suspicion and any suggestion of change with hostility.

Not all of what is said above applies as it is to India. In India there are further complications and nuances involved in the evolution of 'secular' thought (its a word that has completely lost its original and intended(?) meaning in our country). I will deal with the Indian scene in the next post, and maybe further develop ideas expressed in a slightly unorganized manner in this post.

Happened to notice this....

"People's Democracy" - the weekly organ of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) on the subject of Savarkar.

"...For the major portion of his life after making peace with the British his politics was oppositional to the Congress and the Left led movements rather than the British. As leader of the Hindu Mahasabha, he made sure that movements like the Quit India movement of 1942 passed without any participation from members of the Hindu Mahasabha or the Sanghathanists. He categorically called on the Hindus to give no support to the movement' (see Amba Prasad, The Indian Revolt of 1942). ...."


Innocuous comment on Wikipedia.

"The Hindu Mahasabha, under Savarkar's presidency, did not support the Quit India movement launched by Mahatma Gandhi in August 1942. The Communist Party of India and Muslim League were other parties which did not support the Quit India movement."


I have a lot to say about Commies. At last, I have something to go after :)

Sunder Kavita.

How much should I give, and how much should I take
The Sky has come to an end
The moon comes into the cup of my hands
With softly shut eyes.



I'm trying to traslate this, but as you can see I'm terrible at it.

Please help !

Its a poem by Mangesh Padgaokar from his collection "Oonjhaleet Swar Tuzhech"

"Servant of God, Well done ........."

Yes, times are bad and I'm in a really really tight spot.

The huge inertia of a dismal position, the months of indolence, the opressive sinking feeling in my stomach and the crushing weight of seemingly inevitable disaster which I feel upon my heart is fast taking me inexorably towards the end I'm so desperate to avert. The tension which makes action impossible, the fear which precludes clear thought and a mind too nervous and twitchy to calm down and concenterate are the three insidous foes I have to overcome if I'm bite the bullet and face this like a man.

I do not aim to undo the damage already done, nor do I wish to perform any heroics. My ambition is remarkably modest for one in my condition. I just want to do the best possible thing in the time remaining. Thats all. There is not much of the game left, but whatever there is, I want to play well.

If I can say to myself, that from this point on, there was nothing more that anyone could have done, I will have put my ghosts to rest. The shadow of doubt that darkens my life will lift a little, and my friends and allies of old - impossible hope, ridiculous optimism and lofty dreams - which presently lie weakened, mute and scared in the deepest caverns of my mind, will once again emerge strong and smiling, once more will they lift my spirit and bring a twinkle to my eye, "Thank you friend" they will say "We are back."

"..........for thou hast fought the better fight."

Diwali.

I'm not even sure what I would like to write about.

I could write about how the festival has been celebrated in my little city, and how things have changed over the years, how the euphoric and blissful diwalis of childhood under the watchful eyes of grandma seamlessly gave way to the daring deeds of boyhood when parents and elders were viewed as needless nuisances to be kept away from the festivities as far as possible and the comfort of grandparents and legions of cousins was ignored and forgotten in the heady daredevilry and the innocent competition that accompanied it and how this strange but happy state of mind quite suddenly turned into the surly disinterestedness of the teenager when the whole thing seemed silly, the rituals a huge pain, the smoke a disgrace, all relatives were bores and everything was pointless and why, after all that, this young man now feels that the diyas were brighter and more colourful, the houses more brilliantly lit by hands more loving, the sounds of crackers exploding were more civilized, the smoke was less pungent, the faces were friendlier, the smiles were wider, eyes sparkled and twinkled like stars, the air was suffused with happiness, minds were more willing to care and the world was a better place . . . . . when he was a child.

But whats the point ?

What sort of a person am I ?

I genuinely do not know.

I have deliberately forgotten.

Because then I would not have anything to be melodramatic about.

Tear away the cobwebs !

The years of inaction and directionless meandering come back to me and attach their long sticky filaments to my person. The minutes, hours, days, weeks wasted in pointless dallying and sordid wallowing all shoot fine and persistent threads that effectively imprison my mind and consign it to an existence of shallowness and fear. They weave a stifling cocoon around my heart, deadening it, unable to feel, to be inspired, to fly. The cobwebs I've neglected too long, they hang in thick bundles and clinging curtains all around me, making movement impossible, turning every effort into further entanglement, completely shutting off the world, smothering me, burying me alive.

Inside out and Blank.

Smooth, gooey, tasteless and silent.

The warm grey twilight of the Deccan, a sky painted with bold strokes of vibrant purples and reds, the mad games and the glorious mud, the ajjis and ajobas walking with a slow and easy gait, kindly smiles and twinkling eyes all bestowed by long years fruitfully spent, walking and watching us as we played the exuberant and carefree games of our vigorous and happy childhood, watching us but seeing themselves, in a time long gone, in a world no longer theirs, as they played games with names now strange, with companions long forgotten, but seeing the same flushed faces, the same excited voices, I wonder if they did not feel just a bit sorry for man, and us kids, destined to move on and forget, the exausting and cozy evenings of boyhood, the casual familiarity and implicit trust of treading on land well known, the food we knew awaited us when we went home and washed off ourselves the day's grime, the delight of fathers returning, the comfort of mothers scolding, of siblings fighting.

What life, what man be so forsaken that there are none who are awaited, none who have the time to scold, none who will dispute and argue secure in the knowledge that destinies so intertwined cannot be burst asunder by trifles !

Blood is thicker than water they say and the love of the land more dear than money. I will miss them ! The roads I have always detested,the neighbours whose existence I rarely had the energy to acknowledge, friends whose names I no longer recall, the strange, rich, multi textured smell that suddenly springs out of books long unopened awakening memories long buried, they wave me onward on my journey, they let me go secure in the knowledge that they shall never be lost to me, that I should continue working the spectacularly beautiful, impossibly intricate, consummately eternal tapestry of which my life is a small part. It is hoped that my little contribution shall be of good workmanship, that it should - at the least - be suitably profound and appropriately bright.

I shall do my best then, but from time to time I'll miss them all, and one day, if only to be able to see what I have really done, I will come back.

And Suddenly, I do not want to write anymore. When its all one can do to keep from imploding into the vaccum within, its difficult to throw anything out. Its difficult to speak when a brooding silence fills the void, engulfs the heart and subdues the mind. Faint and vague ripples over the texture of conciousness - silent but disturbing - give subtle but sanguine indications of a struggle - slow and quiet - taking place in dark, profound and misty reccesses, where immense forces are mustered from nowhere, exert themselves mightily against nothing, and thus having expended themselves for no reason, mutely disappear whence they came - the obscurity of faliure.

Outside, one sees only a manner that is sometimes energetic and suddenly blank, eyes that can flash with spirit before looking timidly at the ground, and sometimes, a faraway smile or a doubtful laugh.

Thats all there is to it.

I do not mind.

(Why should I ?)

About itself.

Its quite sad really, and makes me feel not a little guilty, that I dumped into this post and subsequently deleted, two random thoughts that occurred to me before I started blogging. The purpose of my blog you see, is to write. My purpose in writing is not to blog. Its strange that the deepest guilt and hurt are felt when we defeat our own purposes. If our purposes are defeated by circumstances, then we are sad, but sadness is a burden man has been given the ability to carry, for it has been, is, and will ever be, his companion - sometimes forgotten, but always there. Guilt, however, is a load that quickly becomes unbearable, and results in men either cracking or trying desperately to undo their mistake. A very nice example of the latter, is this little paragraph of mine.

I could have written a lot. I could have shared the thick, fragrant, soothing taste of a divine scoop of sitaphal icecream, the quiet but disconcerting hum of a cold computer lab in the wee hours of the morn, the cool silence projected by the silvery glitter of a grassy maidan on a moonlit night as seen through clumps of dark swaying trees or the loose relaxation and quiet satisfaction brought on by a good head massage. But I did not, because unlike feelings of anger, bitterness, frustration and their kin, feelings of gentle peace, detached loneliness (mostly), enthusiastic interest and likeable pressure are easier to experience than to write about.

One for Buzz Aldrin.

Along with le Tour de France, two very different but inextricably entwined stories will come to their conclusions on the 24th of July 2005.

One the story of an average man overcoming great adversity, and rising to dominate his profession to an extent unprecedented in history. The story of a man who is as revered as he is disliked all over the world. His successful fight against debilitating and mortal illness inspires devotion, and his impersonal, machine like and extended domination of his sport fuels discontent. There are two kinds of people in this world - those who love Lance Armstrong, and those who despise him. The other story is strikingly different. It consists mostly of frustration, criticism and bad luck. Don’t get me wrong, Jan Ullrich is a great cyclist and a very successful man by any standards, but with 5 second places (3 of them to Armstrong) after being one of the youngest winners of the tour in 1997, a tendency to come into the season slightly overweight, and consistent failure to do justice to his talent, History will judge him harshly.

But then, History is a bitch.
It is she who has decreed that the difference between being 'there' and being 'almost there' is the same as the difference between immortality and oblivion. She bestows her favours upon those who court her. The 'big' people. People who say the things that she considers right, people who fight and win enough battles that she considers to be important, people who manage to put upon themselves a veneer of goodness and invincibility. She cares nothing for the rest.

If Armstrong wins his 7th tour on the trot, he might deserve every accolade and every superlative bestowed upon him, but that will cause everything else, the daily heroism of so many men on the tour, the brave, the resilient, the stoic, to not only be forgotten, but under the ubiquitous shadow of that celebrated achievement, also belittled. In the frantic celebrations that will follow, with everyone scrambling to outdo everyone else in congratulating the champion, inventing new words, spending millions of dollars on congratulatory advertisements, who will have the time or the inclination to remember the brave Erik Dekker at the fag end of his career on a long breakaway, refusing to give in, refusing even to look back at the chasing peloton led by the sprinter's teams, the young Nicholas Portal, from a different team, weak and exhausted but helping Dekker all he can, doing his time at the front to give Dekker some rest, sticking to the task for no reason other than character and pride, the spectacular ride of Mike Rassmusen who rode 167 km all alone on a average mountain stage and won it, the resilience of Christophe Moreau and Jens Voigt as they tried to chase him down, the spirit that caused Moreau to stop when Voigt had a puncture, and the countless, countless other examples of all that is good in man that the Tour throws up with such breathtaking regularity ?

People will talk about how dominant Armstrong was even on his last tour, passing his main rival Jan Ullrich in the time trial on the first day after starting with a one minute deficit, and not a thought will be spared for the pain, anguish and despair of a proud man with his last chance to make amends and pull something back, as he saw himself being overtaken and left behind.

A win for Jan Ullrich, on the other hand, will force history to look at the other men who rode with Armstrong, it will add a huge amount to what will otherwise degenerate into a long paean to the praise and glory of one man at the cost of all others. It will be a demonstration that not always will the favourite win and the mighty triumph. It will be reassuring to see the beleaguered and fallible triumph against the perfect. It is the same fight that you and me face everyday, the fight to overcome our faults, to justify our talent, to fulfil what we consider to be our destiny. It will add balance to scales that are tipped overwhelmingly towards those with success and power, and that strange blinkered vision that causes a man to achieve impossible things. It will bring a ray of hope to so many of us, who battle against overwhelming odds and stifling systems, against our own record of indolence and failure, against the unfair and cruel manner in which the world determines who deserves to be respected and who does not.

When Jan Ullrich rides out on to the Alps tomorrow, he rides not just against Armstrong, but against History. He rides not just for himself, but for all those of us who have had too much to do with the words 'imperfect', 'incomplete' and 'unfulfilled'.