Saket Suryesh's Blog, page 25

About Hope

Prologue: This post takes life from my interpretation of The Great Gatsby Book Review of The Great Gatsby which I read recently as an Optimist's manifesto, my own stupefaction of the incorrigible hope which lives with me and a response in the morning indicating hopelessness of hope. Hope is a magical word of myriad meanings. It stands right in the middle of a mad man's fantasy and the cruel realities within which he survives. It hangs in the narrow space between improbable possibility and probably impossibility.  We die every moment that we live, every breath pulling us into the chasm which stares at us with the hunger of centuries roaring in those feral eyes. The eyes are dead, without passion which doesn't shine even in the kill.  We laugh, we sing, we dance and we love in the midst of this morbid pathos, and hopeless ennui which stretch before us like a road riding into nowhere.  We sustain this sadness, outlive this numbness which this life hands out to us through Art, Literature and above all love which cannot be possible without hope. Hope is the moon which shines across the darkest night and stands guard as a singular soldier of light.  Hope is like God, which it would be necessary to invent even if it were not there. It is not a desperate plea of the imbecile, it is in fact, most sensible resort of the wise. It is as Aristotle said, Hope is waking dream. Another writer which I love a lot, Dostoevsky  wrote, To live without hope is to cease to live. If some believe it amounts to fooling the intellect, let it be. I will always hope, for hope is only currency which I never run out of, only friend which never abandons me. There are very few things on which I could summon courage to contradict Nietzsche who said 'Hope in reality is the worst of all evils because it prolongs the torments of man.', contradict I will, for hope is only thing which makes bearable all the torments of a man.

My Seven New Year Resolutions- As I set myself up.

The year began with unsure steps. An unsure day steps in with an unsure Sun. I have not blogged since quite some time, though I wanted to. What I wanted to blog on was very commonplace and usual for the moment- the New year Resolutions. The exercise of New Year resolution made no sense for various reasons. For one, New Year in itself is an absurd concept. New year occurs as the Earth completes one revolution around the Sun. The idea of New year is hypothetical, to put it kindly and absurd, to put it bluntly. We are trying to invent to the starting point of a circle, what can be more stupid than that? But we still, in spite of foretold stupidity and absurdity of the idea, celebrate new year. We not only want a New year, methinks, we need New Year. It is the foothold on the slippery slopes of time which looks into the abyss of infinity. A time to pause, to think of what we have been doing wrong, correct it and to ponder over what we have been doing right and to throw all your weight over doing those things better. It is a time to love and forgive, and for this and this only it would be necessary to invent New Year, even if there weren’t anything such. As GK Chesterton puts it in a sentence, more profoundly than the paragraph I wrote above as, "The object of New year is not that we should have a new year, but rather that we should have a new soul."
Coming to resolutions, they have never worked for me. I would make them as a silent solemn promise to myself, a secret in my heart and then abandon them with impunity. I pride myself in caring little about public opinion, but then I have been without any trouble avoiding my own spite every time I failed in keeping up with my resolution. I hid the resolutions in a dark place where nobody could seem them and then pretended never having made them. So this year, I wanted to put my resolution on the web for everyone to see. I wanted to shame myself for every slip I make there. So here I go with my resolutions for the year 2014:
1.       Disciplining the ordinary, the day to day life. I tried it earlier towards the end of the year and then failed flat on my face in utter failure. That was about getting up early in the morning before six in the morning. It seems such an ordinary, and vulgar and easy to do. I did try to do it for five days, then slipped, caught up again and then slipped with sense of utter failure. The crushing chill of Delhi winter in December didn’t help much. In the immense cold, the resolve froze and I slept. However, the world which the five successful days opened to me was quite an eye-opener. The days was suddenly less hurried and had so much room to accommodate my reading and writing. I slipped but I know I must do it again- waking up early, before six.
2.       Write Everyday: This is something every writer worth his salt has said. With time at hand (resolution #1) and some amount of determination, I am sure I will be able to write more. Writing more would not effectively mean churning out more work. It will also mean more quality since I will have enough of writing to throw away for poor quality. With less time and scarce writing, you have so little that it is hard to separate the junk from the really good. I need to write more, so that I can pick and choose the best to keep. Also, more writing will mean more possibility to cleanse, to polish, to cut and beautify.
3.       Finish the Novel by March, 2014- Time is passing and with most people would churn the best of their works by thirty, I am delayed by a decade. It is not about talent, it is about discipline and it is about labor. Writing is many things, novel, poetry, short-story, book-review and blog.
4.       Finances- This is one tricky thing. Booking an apartment found me looking at the bottom of my account. I shall try to recover to a bare basic respectability in terms of finances. This I don’t know how, but will try save some money, which again, I do not know how.
5.       Ration Social media- Creating the social platform is very important especially for an author not supported by multi-million Dollar contracts from a strong publishing house. For others, it is important to get the word flowing. Why do we write if not to be read? It might look bourgeois but then writing is communications and beneath the pretense, it needs two entities for successful writing. We want to and need to be read. But the issue with Social media is that it is so addictive. Platforms like twitter carries a bitter undercurrent with people rarely talking to each other, rather talking mostly at each other. With ease of posting the comments, it is easier to get trapped into the narcissistic journey of feigned wisdom of 140 characters. It spoils the mood in long run and kills creativity. I shall devote defined time to it, treating it as occasional indulgence.
6.       Carry a journal- It has been long since I wrote by hand. The secret beauty of writing by hand is that it allows the writing to slow down and stay in tune with the thinking. I wrote earlier in the notes of Electro-Magnetic Force and Power System Analysis. I am resolving to once again try writing by hand in a small journal. Something tells me from inside that it will be good for my writing.
7.       Exercise- It is a wrong notion that literary or creative people overlook their health. Creative art is a sign of mature mind and no mature mind can overlook the benefits of good body. Most writers as any reader of behavioral patterns of writers would tell us, take long walks, fence or swim even if they weren’t marathon runner like Haruki Murakami. It is irrational and absurd to think that by ignoring body we can cultivate mind. (Please read Writing- An Art of Discipline ) I remember, how light the world was when I was sixty five kilograms and I am going to be the same weight again this year, lighter in body and lighter on soul. It is sad to be down with migraine ten days a month and disappointing the daughter who wants to play. It all is rooted in the lack of exercise. Knowing has to be converted to action. Mind puts enormous responsibility on the person, which we cannot shrug away. We can fool ourselves into believing that nutrition or in the worst cases, talking about food and calories can reduce weight. It cannot, it takes action and anything lesser is foolish attempt at denial.
Beyond this seven point resolution, and facilitated by these seven resolution what I am to do is to live life- If I am able to cover the seven points above, Living life will be easier, more possible. One cannot stop living and be writing. Your writing comes from your life and if you stop living your writing is only a pretense, a cunning play of crafty vocabulary. We have to guard ourselves against this. We need to live and write as necessary forces, each feeding on the other. I have also fixed up some books to be finished this year- reading and re-reading Shakespeare plays, read Ray Bradbury, Leo  Tolstoy – Anna Karenina and War and Peace. I consider reading as a part of writing, for I firmly believe, writing well cannot happen without reading well. I will also attempt to write a happy story, possibly under some pseudonym but then that will come under the resolution to write. I am putting forth all resolution, knowing fully well what Sophoclesmeant when he said, “ Men should pledge themselves to nothing; for reflection makes a liar of their resolutions. ” I shall however pledge and see if the next year finds me a liar or not. PS. Please share if you are the kind who make resolutions. How do they work for you?

Book Review- The Great Gatsby- By F. Scott Fitzgerald

It is a given that life is going to end in death. There is no other conclusion, no other end, no other answer possible to the eternal question of life but death. It takes magnificent madness or immense intelligence to invent happiness into an otherwise bleak undertaking, which invariably ends in dying. We are therefore so charmed by the stories which restore our faith in this ever-so doomed journey of life. The Great Gatsby is a mix of both- the madness and the intelligence. This is a rare book which doesn’t need a review but which one cannot stop analyzing and raving about. It is such an amazing work that one doesn’t even want to credit the writer about it. Such brilliant art is nothing if not an accident of nature. The writer is a mere conduit of an idea whose time has come. But then, that is very unjust to F. Scott Fitzgerald. The writer stands in stark contrast to his compatriot and sometimes friend Ernest Hemingway. While Hemingway had a stark writing where every word made space for itself only after surviving serious scrutiny of the pen keen to strike it off unless it justified its existence, here the words rise, float and dance and the sheer beauty of it is the justification of those words. Fitzgerald is an author in love with words. The writing is exquisite, poetic and ethereal. It is a book every writer ought to read. Though there is an important point, especially for writers. One ought to read it with a serious mind and a strong wall built around your sensitivity. Like “ The Heart of Darkness ” or “ Lord Jim ” of Joseph Conrad,  this is a book which will leave you feeling weak and inadequate. At least that is the way I felt. I felt overwhelmed, gasping for my breath in an monstrously over-powering  poetic beauty of the brilliant prose. Probably that is why I invented solace in the assumption that such great work can only be an accidental creation. The book looks at the world around and the love which is impossibly real from the eyes of the narrator, Nick Carraway. Nick is a young aspiring author and currently, a bond salesman. He lives next-door to Jay Gatsby, the hero of the story. I dare not call him anything but the Hero. He is a hero for the hopelessness of his situation and his undying optimism. “Main protagonist” is too feeble, too timid a name for such a man. Nick is a Yale graduate and lives in a small rented cottage next to the large house of mysterious Jay Gatsby with unknown antecedents. Nick is amused by the lavish parties his next door, which served their own purpose. Mostly we believe parties are thrown so as to get like-minded or at least familiar people together for some time of fun and frolic. In Gatsby’s parties which quickly became the news of West Egg, were largely meant for unknown people, thrown for unknown reasons. Nick watches those parties from the sidelines, amused and pleased at such extravagant congregation of people coming in like “moth to the fire”. Nick is a great observer and a greater interpreter.  He is a good, moral boy, without hang-ups- a disenchanted, but amused audience, providing an outsider’s perspective. He visits his cousin Daisy Fay Buchanan at the beginning at their house in East Egg. They represent a rich and elite class, immersed in the absolute decadence of affluence. Daisy is married to Nick’s friend, Tom Buchanan. Tom is a brute of the man, lost in his foolish self-pride, pride of class, pride of race. He tries to live in an image of moral uprightness with an intensity that he almost appears to believe in his moral superiority. Scott through Nick creates such a beauty with never-hear before descriptions when he meets Jordan Baker at Tom’s place, a cynical Golf Player, an acquaintance of Gatsby’s parties in the land of new money, The West Egg who eventually becomes some kind of mild sweetheart to Nick. Where else would you read a phrase like “-Then the glow faded, each light deserting her with lingering regret, like children leaving a pleasant street at the dusk”? The author keeps Jay Gatsby to himself, a loosely kept secret through the first chapter, during which he keeps jumping in an out of conversation, appearing as a shadow, a mysterious figure, perhaps an apparition, in the end of first chapter. Author plays with your anxious desire to meet and know this man. The second chapter establishes that the high morality preached by Tom is nothing but a pretense as he takes Nick  to introduce him to his already married mistress, Mrs Myrtle Wilson as they steal romance behind the back of unsuspecting car mechanic, Mr. Wilson. The enigmatic figure of Jay Gatsby keeps lurking in the back as readers long to see Gatsby, to meet him, to know him. Nick gets invited to one of the Gatsby’s party . Nick, with the air of amused outsider attends the party, wondering how he got invited in the first place and then finds himself completely out of place in unashamedly epicurean environment of the grand lawns of Gatsby’s.  It is in this party that Jay appears with his friendly smile and iconic “old sport”.  Nick finds a friend in Gatsby’s smile which he describes so sweetly as “He smiled understandingly. It was one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it, that you may come across four or five times in life. It faced- or seemed to face- the whole external world for an instant, and then concentrated on you with an irresistible prejudice in your favor. It understood you just as far as you wanted to be understood, believed in you as you would like to believe in yourself, and assured you that it had precisely the impression of you that, at your best, you hoped to convey.”I have never before read anything so well, so painstakingly well written about something as ephemeral, as fragile, as ordinary as a smile.  We all have been smiled at like that by a friend at one time or the other, but coming to explain it, to tie it up in words- well, it takes a genius to write it down like that.   Coming out of the party, Nick struggles through various rumors about the man from nowhere. Some claim him to be bootlegger, while some rumors suggested him to be of old money. Jay also follows the old money claim with dead parents. Slowly the story unwinds to narrate a haunting tale of unrequited love, the love which drove Gatsby as single force of hope and life itself- the love for Daisy. We slowly realize the grand drama stitched by Jay, buying a house next to Nick’s, knowing him to be Daisy’s cousin, getting Jordan to attend his parties so as to eventually reach out to his love, Daisy, now a married woman.  He enchanted like a helpless moth being drawn to light, keeps looking at the house on the East Egg, the old-timer’s den, the elitist heaven on the other side of the bay and eventually is found to be helpless and eager victim of the web he built. He takes help of Nick, befriending him to meet Daisy. He tries to write off his past, poverty stricken love story and tries the resurrects the lost love, with his new found riches. Annoyed with the adultery of Tom, Nick plays a willing associate till the time things get too hot and the news travels to Tom. Tom, unmindful of his own dalliance, is upset and gets into verbal dual with Jay. Confronted with choices which Daisy never wanted to make, she heads out with Jay, in fury and their car meets an accident which kills, Mrs Myrtle. The woman eventually goes back to her husband, her riches, who not only protects her as a chance to regain the lost love, conspires with Mr. Wilson and puts the blame on Gatsby. Wilson, angered by the death of his wife, unknown to her being unfaithful, takes the bait and shoots Gatsby. The past hangs forlorn and the future dies there as Gatsby’s body lay floating in the pool. All his mechanization, his longing, his love, thereby comes to a naught. Reading this came to my mind that quote from CP Surendran’s poem-“ There is no grief that death can not address.” The bitterness of Nick  against the affluent decadence of Jazz generation, people like Tom and Daisy, who “smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into money” which seems as true today as it was then gives way to eternal and incorrigible hope of Gatsby.  Young Nick sits and broods over the green light on the other end of the bay, in the affluent, happy East Egg house of Tom and Daisy Buchanan as he remembers “ Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter- to-morrow we will run faster, stretch our arms further..and one fine morning---“.  It speaks volumes about the finesse of the writer that such as sad story, feels so damn uplifting and hopeful as I close the book. I close my eyes, whispering to myself- “One fine morning---“ and a green light appears in front of the closed eyes and someone whispers in my ears with a familiarity and love which I haven’t encountered for many years, “Old sport.” This is not a book review, this is a tribute, a reverence. This is to share with all lovers of literature not to miss this great book. This is a book if not read isn’t a loss to the writer, it is rather a loss to the reader. Fact File:Published: 1925Cover: Francis CugatPublisher: Charles Scribner's SonsRating: Grand, Great, Must-read 
 

Writing - An Art of Discipline

We grow up romanticizing a near-crazy image of creativity. I call it an image because it is nothing but that- an image, unreal, untrue, fantastical. No creativity can survive indiscipline. We grow up imagining writers to be people oblivious to any idea of discipline- eternal rebel, lost in their own world, not to be bothered about the world in which normal beings live. Unkempt in appearance, untidy in living and uncouth in behavior. That belief is absurd and is propagated largely by people who are either not writers themselves or have not had met the real writers.  Most art requires some basic training and that basic training brings in some amount of discipline, some pattern to their practice. Writing doesn't usually requires such training. Writing is all based on self-discipline. It doesn't require a specific training to be a writer, though I would tend to believe that trained writer can produce quality work with much ease than untrained ones. If you can speak, have something to tell- you can write. But one doesn't become a writer merely by the fact that one can write. Discipline is something which separates a non-serious writer from a serious one, or the one which we ought to take seriously.  Each writer comes with his or her own idiosyncrasies which notwithstanding fall in a pattern. There is always a method to madness. It is fairly common (a casual visit to author interviews on Paris Review would substantiate it) for authors to have rigid schedule to their writing lives. They don't drown their nights in drinks and sleep through dawns. They take care of their health, write in scheduled time and balance out the rest of their time for family and other engagements. You might begin writing on the back of empty cigarette packets at the roadside tea-stalls.  But you can not live with that. Quality writing will take more than enlightened minds, it will take a disciplined, hardened soul and an firm determination. It is a lonely, sedentary profession and as a necessary corollary, as a writer you will not have the advantage of community, to urge you to be healthy, to pique you into improving your writing. You are essentially a lonely traveler in the middle of the desert and the compass to liberation lies hidden in your own heart. It is youthful arrogance which makes one claim that one doesn't edit his or her writing and that one doesn't read anything. Reading isn't plagiarism, it isn't even inspirational, that being a pretty clichéd term. It is private schooling of the writer. You read Dostoevsky or Conrad or Scott Fitzgerald and your read them as if they have captured the black board and are talking from the podium to the class in which you are a solitary student. But then reading would be subject of another post. Why it appears here is to emphasize that writing is many things apart from the doodles you scribble on your notebook.

Writing will involve doodling in the journals, reading, communicating with the readers or promoting, marketing and in today's world, creating a social media platform. It would also mean revising, deleting, pondering and immersing your own self in the writing that you do and at times, unhappy with yourself, throwing away half-written manuscripts. It also mean writing essays, poems, op-eds as exercises to hone your skills and sharpen your shootings.

These all things will make up for your writing life and therefore, you can not argue with your wife as the soup on the dining table grows cold and you write half-hearted passages in between half-hearted conversation. Writing is the only profession in which you could be looking out of window for an hour doing nothing and still be working. It is not without purpose, the quality of your writing will shine through what you write after waking up from such a reverie. Writing is work, it is entrepreneurial venture and like any such venture it rises and falls on how much of yourself you can put to stake. You need to be healthy, else your work suffers. Even Nietzsche, suffering with severe headache, failing vision, tried his best to stay healthy- given his circumstances. He did not write extra-ordinary because of his precarious health, he wrote exceptionally in spite of it. Most other professions interface with the external world, but not writing. Not until the finished good is out in the market. You make a poor shoe and put it out in the market, people will tell you how bad it is. You write bad and it stays hidden in the covers, if you are lucky to be published or in the top drawer of your cupboard if the world, at large is luckier than you. It is your own solemn responsibility to your own talent to nourish it to health and to polish it to splendor. Discovery of your potential isn't a happy thing, it puts the onus of realization on you. Your life will never be same and discipline will be the only thing which will carry you through. There is no point in hiding behind lack of time, Anthony Trollope produced a formidable body of literature while setting up British postal network. Surrendering to discipline isn't a proof of lack of talent, Kurt Vonnegut's day began at 5:30 AM, every day, had fixed hours for writing. He would swim during the day at destined hours and an immense fountain of talent lived in him which does not need my word for evidence. Haruki Murakami would get up at Four when writing the novel and work till afternoon before going out for a run.

This is the truth I have discovered through my failings and am still struggling to make good of. Would love to hear how you are faring with ever-slippery thing called discipline, which wears a serpent's skin. I would love to hear how the day for my fellow tribesmen (and women) pans out. I am eager to know how you manage your days, and draw inspiration from you. Writing is a demanding passion and it draws blood from your being for nourishing it's own body. It is imperative for us to stay healthy and follow our calling in a disciplined manner. Keep striving and keep writing!!

The Ethical Resposibilities of Fatherhood

Yesterday, I was at the mall, to watch a movie which turned out to be mediocre. However, that is not the case in point. The case in point is different. It pertains to the incident which happened right before the movie. As we reached the mall, and tried to look for a parking slot, we could with our senses fully alert could notice a family getting into a car and about to leave, thus vacating the slot. I halted my car there and waited patiently as the car in the slot backed out. But lo and behold, before I could move into the slot thus vacated, another car which saw the leaving car and my car intending to move in, from a distance, suddenly rushed in and claimed the space. I was aghast at the behavior and shameless attitude. It was deliberate and it was outrageous. I expected it to be some rash young man of neighboring village of sudden wealth to be driving the car. But no, out came a family of three, with one kid, and the man, with clear reflection of education  and affluence writ on his face.  Wife urged me to fight for the space which was rightfully mine and I adamant as ever refused. It wasn't worth it, it was too petty a reason. I looked at the child, of around five who emerged out of the errant car with his father and bemoaned the loss of ideals which loomed large over his impending life. This is the kind of morality which his father would be leaving him with. He will grow up believing it to be alright to be shamelessly competitive and callous. He wasn't a big, intimidating man- the father. He was a rather slightly built man, of small height. It wouldn't have been very difficult for me to physically intimidate him to the acceptance of the guilt. But then, for every child, his or her father is the last word of strength. It would break his kid's heart and a parking slot wasn't worth that. We all grow up believing our fathers to be infallible person and the times when we discover the fallacy of our belief, is always a life-changing moment for a child. When that is to happen, the child can find solace only on account of two facts is that his or her father fought a fight for worthy reasons and that, he fought as well as he could. Anything lesser, and it breaks the heart of the child and also his moral scale. Nobility isn't about claiming the space which is rightfully yours. It takes a kinder heart and more courage to give up your right for a larger good. It is a pity that we don't understand that and then, even when faced with the question of sharing five villages, we aren't ready to give up the space "equal to the point of the needle" as in Mahabharata. It's a pity and it is the moral dilemma of everyday life. We need to be very careful about the fight we pick, which is what moral strength, nobility is all about. This is not about being a doormat, this is about having confidence in your own being  and believing that every inch of land that you forgo doesn't make you a lesser man by a yard. It is about having the sagacity of soul to understand the implications of your action.  Becoming a father does many things to a man. It also
imposes on him several things. These are not societal imperatives- these are the imperatives of nature- the evolution of mankind. Each generation has the danger of falling into a bottom-less abyss of degeneration and at the same time, of rising to the enormous possibility of becoming a better man. Each man and woman, stand between the feral man and the evolved man, or superman as Nietzsche would call him. This is what a father teaches his offspring.
 This is the morality for the progeny which is as important for a father to grow within himself as is for a mother to provide milk to the infant. Fatherhood is not an accident of nature, it is a responsibility of lifetime- And it is a lifetime which spans generations. Pope John XXIII summed it well when he said, " It is easy for a father to have children than for children to have a real father ." It is for a father to teach the progeny that winning the fight is the least important of the things in the larger scheme of plan to be a better human being. Winning is in fact, the last in the order, falling way below that higher order responsibilities like choosing well the fights to enter into and fighting well the fights thus chosen. Our children learn many things we teach them, but we must remember, that they do learn many things which we do not teach them. We are living lessons to them. They may not follow what we tell them, but they invariably learn how we act. It is for us to decide what legacy we are going to leave them with.  It is for us to teach our kids nobility. Nobility is something which stands on balance between servile selflessness and arrogant selfishness. It doesn't give up on its own rights but refuses to stoop to the level of pettiness. It is not driven to action by a shaky sense of self, and is not driven to inaction by a sad sense of defeat. It is happy countenance, which answers to its own questions and smiles, without words, at questions which the world throws at you, demanding answers to define your self-worth. It won't be an easy task, but then it is erroneous to believe that fatherhood is supposed to be easy. It goes beyond taking kids to the movies. It is about teaching your kids to be better human beings- noble souls and better fathers when their times come. It is for us as father to become their moral compass and the northern star to the future voyages our progeny is going to undertake. It is not only houses and money that we leave to our sons and daughters; it is our thoughts, our measure of ethics and our sense of morality that we pass on to them. It is this legacy which is more important than any other material legacy, since it then carries beyond our kids and flows into the generations to follow. It teaches the real essence of nobility and civilization which as Goethe says," is an ongoing exercise in respect: for the divine, for the earth, for nature, for our own fellow man and for our dignity. "
 

Is Detachment and Selfless Love a Defeatist Idea

If someone makes a cursory glance through the posts on Social media, detachment is one of the most common theme which runs across. It highlights two things, one is that the sense of loss and the grief arising out of unrequited love troubles a huge number of people, and a huge number of people among them find solace in getting rid of all expectations.

 

I find this defeatist. It defies logic and runs contrary to the sense of justice. Don't get me wrong, It isn't that I am immune to the pain and sorrow attached with unrequited love. I am in fact, prince of pessimism. It is painful and saddening to not receive what you are entitled to on the grounds of justice and love. I writhe in pain when I am let down. But I am also a pampered child of love who believes the right return for the investment made in a relation. I refuse to accept anything lesser. I refuse to betray myself.



I know man is a logical animal, who knows that two plus two equals four. I can not have it otherwise merely because I am not getting it. In Life and in love, don't set the bar low, whether or not you are able to overcome. And whether or not overcoming it seems impossible. This is one life we have and we must not waste it with half-measures. We must give all that we have to it and seek all in return. It might break our hearts now and then to not receive what we know is rightfully ours, but that notwithstanding, a human heart has a right to expect. It is escapist to erase this basic human feeling and utter denial. There is no glory to do good for others without expecting anything in return. Return, we must get, ask any child attending a birthday party.



We live in an unjust world, that doesn't mean we give up on justice. We live in an unfair world, that doesn't mean we give up on the sense of fairness. Don't give up seeking, don't give up asking, don't give up expecting. That is all a part of being human, the pain which is associated with not getting your rightful part is also a part of being human. Bruised, battered, defeated, still seek your space in the Sun. There is nothing divine in self-less love. It is a defeatist idea for people choosing to live in denial, for the fear of hurt. Further, it extends forgiveness to those who neither sought it, nor deserve it. We must also learn, this isn't personal. In love and in life, person is inconsequential, me and you both. It is the idea which we call life, we call love, we call friendship. It floats, it changes and it passes us by. Was it not said,"Seek and it shall be given to ye" - It might be incorrect but seek nevertheless. Do not set yourself up to be short-changed. Divine wrath will not bring shame to those who short-change you, there is no justice in after-life. This is one life we have, to love, to cherish. There is no shame in losing in love, there is a shame in pretending you didn't lose, because you never sought love. Losses in love are sign of an unyielding hope and unyielding soul. Be open about losses you take in the process and wear them proudly on your proud chest as medals.



Love is one war for which we exist, and we might not always win, but to have well-fought is a good enough justification of life. I can keep on loving you even when you don't love me back with the same intensity, but I will not pretend that I do not want it. I will take my losses and bathe in my own blood, but I will not pretend, I will not be ashamed of loving you so much and wanting the same love from you. Let it be a difficult love, but then is there any other kind?

A Stifled Song- Banning Art

"Without music, life would be a mistake"said Nietzsche, the nihilist philosopher. Plato spoke about the all encompassing nature of music when he said,"Music gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything."

A wise man in Kashmir, sought to contradict them and said music was the way to hell, and the harbinger of moral decline of social morality. He, in one ambitious step, nullified the wisdom of centuries; re-defined religion and killed music in the land of amazing beauty. 
He, one night came on the national television, gleefully claiming his space in the drawing rooms of a nation to claim that when girls are put in the close vicinity of young boys, without the great, protective shield of the veil over their heads. This murder of music, this lunacy is one such evil which can not survive a day without pretentious sanction of religion. In the illegitimately gained legitimacy of interpreted religion, voices are muffled.
We are, pushed by these 'protectors of society' into Stone Age. The censor board already has been rendered redundant by the street protests, some days back against a mediocre movie, which gained audience on account of controversy, days after missing the misfortune of missing the audiences, by virtue of a dogmatic and eventually, conceding producer.    First abused on social media,
Music flees Kashmir
Since that is a wish not to come true, I let my five year old play with the blocks, cherish her play of 'Snow flakes, Snow flakes, Li Lo snow flakes'. I am waiting for the slanging matches on the television, with angry participants, and an angrier host, foam out of mouths, shouts. This is the way of the things, this will be getting worse in the days to come, as we move towards the elections next year.
 All the intolerants, angry, violent voices has come forward. Those who were lesser cowards, abused the singing kids from behind the social networks, bigger ones threatened the state, which dithered, then tweeted, then dithered again. The Pragaash girls, all girls rock band had a voice too feeble to survive the cacophony of threats. A nightingale is killed, with its tiny neck broken by harsh rope of intolerance. Angry people, with their respective sets of mobs are setting their stalls, showcasing there wares of violence, threats and abuse. With elections around, buyers would be soon coming along. 
I brace myself for a shrill silence, devoid of music. The nation decays, Mufti smiles and kids lower the gaze, take off their wings and put them in the dark, iron box under the bed. There is no sky to soar across to, there are political flags flying frantically, leaving no patch of free sky to fly in. We all the citizens of this nation which pretends to be the largest democracy, are resigned to a life, without the giggles of the kids and the music of the soul. We are doomed to a life which is a mistake, a mistake which will pass across generations, as the government stands mute spectator. The valley looses its heavenly voice and a deep silence pierces the skies with such a sorrow that heavens would cry. When  the music is killed, only anger floats across the world and tired souls go about their submissive existence. A state which can not throw its weight behind a lonely voice of dissent is a failed state and a state which can not defend art is devoid of morality.

Reclaiming Your Life - It's a Man Thing

Reclaiming your life isn't an easy task, nor is a gender-specific thing though we are largely thought to believe it. For men, a large part of our spirititually married lives, as Scott Fitzgerald would call it, is a life lost. That is the sad existence of a much hyped metro-sexual man, a life of quiet desperation as James Joyce called it. He is more of a woman than a woman, and then again, he isn't a woman of today. 
A metro-sexual man is a woman of yesteryear, the woman who was in those days crushed out of shape and character. I was discussing with a colleague of mine about how he stopped riding bike since his marriage. When he spoke of it, his face was a picture of immense longing, and he looked far into horizon, contemplating an eternal ennui which stretched in front of him. I could see him cherishing the nostalgic air brushing his face with cold arrogance, him meeting that arrogance with a sense of manliness. His wife would look at his longing with contempt, pointing out the bike as a useless conveyance now that he has upgraded to a four-wheeler. She would point to the pointlessness of his wanting to ride a bike to nowhere. But then, what scientific purpose or humanatarian goal is accomplished by coloring your nails. Women need to understand that these things for men are as mundane and as theraupatic. It isn't only biking. I write, and I need to do it with the cunningness of committing adultery. I need to explain why I have to stop being a good husband every day for couple of hours, shrinking into myself, tapping on the computer. Some friends of mine stopped playing music for long or need to steal time away from their better-halves to indulge these things on sly which were like second nature before marriage. When caught, we stand humiliated looking at our toes being charged with not giving time to the family. 
The point here is that while a man might not be able to demonstrate life as pathetic as to invite the attention of the army of benevolent men and women, it is still a life of simmering sorrow or quiet desperation. It flows out unbeknownst to us in strange places. That is the basic nature of sacrifice, real or perceived. It draws blood somewhere, in its own time. It is, therefore, important to stand steadfast to claim your inherent calling and not let it go waste. We have to be cruel to be kind. Having reclaimed your passion, nourished it with your blood, you will be a freer soul to love another. This should apply to women as well, but taking a note from Purba Ray, noted blogger, I write for men (as she did for women), who lost their self in this societal conspiracy to invent a metro-sexual man, for whatever it means. Have one corner of your everyday life for yourself, not for the spouse, not for the family. Having reclaimed that small slice, you will be able to offer more love to the world around you, a purer, unapologetic, unpretentious love. Guard your sanctuary with all your strength, for no love is possible for the one who has lost his self. Losing and compromising your self, makes you angry with yourself and angrier at those who haven't compromised it. And on that note, my friend pushed his abandoned bike to the mechanic, and rode it on Sunday. This Monday , he looked happier and new and the wind which flew through his hairs, stayed in them, giving them an unusual buoyancy. He seemed a contented man, much more in love with, I am sure, an amused and happy wife, as he walked at work with the smile of a winner.

AAP & Its Implications for One Eyed Mugwumps

I will here not evaluate the
veracity of claims and counter-claims by AAP and its opponents, which are as on
day listed as Congress and BJP, both colossal forces, one driven by history, another by a promise of future. The election surveys are a different game
altogether and true or not, do not honestly analyses the impact of a political force.




AAP rose out of the desperation
of the middle class, driven to the edge by blatant corruption and a response to
it by the government of the day which grew even more blatant with each new
expose. Nothing was left sacred and nothing was left untouched. The shame grew
to engulf the highest citadels of power, which sat in the assumed security. That
power corrupts, we knew as a nation and to an extent, we had given a realistic
acceptance to corruption in governance. In that sense, I believe, we Indians
bore a great resemblance to Irishman, as written about by GK Chesterton, has
two eyes. By which he implied that with one eye “an Irishman saw that a dream
was inspiring, bewitching, or sublime, and with the other eye that after all it
was a dream.” This sense of fatal idealism which prepares itself to be murdered
while it grows and pleases and entices also applied equally well to us Indians.





We give great value to morality
in thoughts and actions, but do acknowledge that there could be something like
too much of a good thing. We know that the practical necessity contradicts the
ideal fantasy. But we still want things to not go so deep in the rut that there
is no escape possible and also even the fantastical idealism dies breathless in
the deep, dark caves of immorality. We want the pretense to stay alive, a
pretense of shame, a pretense of respect towards the last man in the line. This
government downed the pretense and blatant response to the corruption and
mis-governance of the country, brought to a sense of infinite impotence which
fell over the nation at large. The standard response was so well-scripted that
people knew the turns which the story would take by heart. The charge will come
about, government will deny it. Step two, it will charge those who brought up
the story with malfide intent and question their patriotism. If the anger and
annoyance survives this, it will order some hogwash inquiry and when courts
step in, will tell them to stay within limits, before finally surrendering to
the courts and then trying to undermine court monitored enquiries with doctored
affidavits and staged witnesses and failing all else, finding scapegoats. The
process was so blatant as the in case after case, beneficiary was penalized,
procedural cogs of the wheel were put in the dock, the final authority flew
high in hallowed image of purity. This killed the sight in the other eye and we
as nation ended up with one-eyed people. AAP, in its earlier avatar as IAC, offered
a new vision to the dreaming eye. The dead darkness of the inert eye flickered
under the new light and possibility. AAP offered an answer in the helplessness
which was highlighted by Ruling party spokesman on the alleged land related
corruption of the first family member, when he claimed that there was unwritten
rule that between BJP and congress they would not attack the family members involved
in the acts of corruption. This, if true, is based on the false premise that
national wealth is a private property of the ruling dispensation. This extended
the government logic of coalition compulsion to the opposition of the day.




AAP threatens to upset the
alleged apple cart. One party is said to have looted the nation for sixty
years, another sat silent witness to the loot. AAP is an unknown devil, but
things have hit such a nadir that it can only go up, or so the dreaming eye
with its slightly recovering faint vision believes. AAP sure will have a shot
at Delhi, if not for anything, but one-eyed people will vote them for the fun
of watching how the unruffled rulers of Delhi treated by the new
contender,  if they were to win the
election. 




What Works for AK also works for Namo at National Politics

The same novelty factor works for Narendra Modi at the


national stage. I
remember there was a debate how Modi, sticking to state politics will
negatively impact his chances. I believe, that is working to his advantage.
People feel he, being new to Delhi has yet not been corrupted by the city. I
believe, and presume, most will believe that Arvind Kejriwal and his team is not a part of unsaid Omerta
which Digvijay Singh indicated signed off between Delhi functionaries of BJP
and Congress preventing bringing out cases of misuse of power by immediate families of ruling elite in open for public scrutiny. Modi also offers similar hope of breaking down the existing unholy cartels. That is the reason his appeals transcends that of BJP.





Also such an arrangement, that is AAP forming government in Delhi, does not impact the national issues in any way, since AAP views on Kashmir, International relations, Foreign policy
and even Secular polity and Common code is baffling and even worrisome, reflecting the Left in many ways. I am still trying to grapple with the fact as to why it was so necessary for AK to disown any support of RSS to its anti-corruption stance. That brings to mind some worries of Mulayam Singh Yadav kind of politics, where disowning your faith, particularly by majority is a primary condition to join in any protest of national interest. But in Delhi, they can bring much good, if by nothing else,
at least by dismantling the existing equations and understandings. I would like to look forward to the fun of watching the great one-liners of current Delhi CM being explained, like suggesting people to pray to god in case of water logging, and advising women not to be too adventurous in the backdrop of killing of a Journalist. One can only
believe this will help, no pre-existing alliances will help AAP go deeper into
the rot and clear some of it. For instance, to pick a case as Nirbhaya, accountability
of governance does not end with sentencing the culprits, someone ought to
answer, why was illegal bus plying in the city and picking citizens? Why the
government sat idle doing nothing, while Home Minster compared the common
citizens protesting against the ghastly act with Maoists? Under whose
instructions were FIR filed against four young men under the false murder case
of a policeman, merely to break the protest? Everything that comes out in
public is a symptom, and case is spread under the earth, like a multi-headed
hydra. 




I believe, these changes will help address the causes to the symptoms. I
am of course, looking through my dreaming eye which has very faint vision these days.

An Eloquent Silence

A silence descends over us as we age. As we grow, we start classifying words as meaningless and purposeful. Those defined as meaningless, struggle hard to keep their dignity with feigned grace and feigned deafness as people call them names. Life breathes through those puerile words and they struggle hard to keep breathing. 



This struggle between adult meaningfulness and childish happy play continues till the time those meaningless words of vigor, hope and sensitivity start dying, alphabet by alphabet. We then, devoid of the brightness of those lovely words, stand in the gray, darkness with angry winds of silence bellowing with feral fury. We are left with wise words which descend far and between and even they loose relevance in a while and stop visiting. 



What you speak, what you write may not change the world, may not bring earth-shattering changes to your life. They do not exist to serve you. They are the butterflies on the sunny days to fill them with beauty and fireflies in the dark night to bring a sense of life into the dead of the night. Don't insist on the meaning of every word, do not search the purpose for them. Their beauty is their purpose. They are complete unto themselves. Speak to me softly my friend, for conversation must not die. It has been long since someone has asked me how I was and really meant it. My heart seeks that conversation as it unashamedly watches a phone which is as cold and as uncaring as the world. Give me some words. Give me a friend with whom even silence could be eloquent.



Literature and Reading