Why Do We Blog?!

The Wise One (TWO): So what have you been upto lately?

Me: Nothing much... just gotten into blogging a bit regularly these days.

TWO: So you write?

Me: Yep. Can say so.

TWO: So who do you write for?

Me: What?! What do you mean "who do you write for?!"

TWO: Who do you write for?

Me: No clue... (Duh! This guy always gets me.)

TWO: Just wanted to know if it is for the love of the audience or for the love of writing...

Me: Can't separate both... can we?!

TWO: Can separate the mask from the face... can we?

Me: Duh! Why does this guy always got to get me?

(By the by, this is my 100th post in this blog this time)

p.c: http://pedagogy.cwrl.utexas.edu/

The Wise One Said SO

Me: Tried an acronym for the things we should be careful investing in...

The Wise One (TWO): So what is it now?

Me: Its the "TEM"

TWO: And what does it stand for?

Me: T stands for Time. E stands for Energy and M stands for Money. Its investment on these that makes us.

(In deep thought stood TWO and began in a low voice...)

TWO: Can we call it TEEM instead of TEM?

Me: And what would the second "E" stand for?!

TWO: Emotions... think you missed it.

(Then the moment of silence.)

p.c: http://healthmatters2day.blogspot.com/2011/12/was-darwin-wrong-about-emotions.html

So What Is Sex?

Me: The main reasons for divorce and separation are sex and communication according to recent researches and family counselling practitioners I came across during a symposium.

The Wise One (TWO): Sex and communication enh?!

Me: Yeah, sex and communication.

(In a while...)

TWO: Isn't sex a non-verbal communication?

Me: Yeah.

TWO: A non-verbal communication of love?

Me: Yeah, perhaps.

TWO: Then why don't we just say "communication" is the culprit for broken homes?!

Me: ...

p.c: http://soulsburnuponthepyre.tumblr.com/

Just Another Blog

This is another blog I created dedicated to Art and Antiques. Paintings, Photography, Poetry and Classic Antiques (soon to be cataloged). May be you will like it. Do visit and do critic and/or comment.

http://thathuvumasi.blogspot.com/

One Man's Dream-Can It Change The World?!

One man’s dream has always shaken the earth. One man’s dream has always melted the world. One man’s dream has always saved and has at many times taken lives. That one man’s dream!

We all have dreams. Sometimes wishing never to dream is in a way a dream as well in this illumined, illusioned world of maya we all believe we live in. Those moments of thoughtlessness, totally estranged from any nerve signal to induce those thoughts for the conscious, subconscious and unconscious minds to reflect upon… that feast to the mind we at times have the luxury to deny… those moments of thoughtless thoughts, those thoughts that matter the most.

“Why ponder when we can lose ourselves in wonder?” I always think. That’s the essence of goodness I believe that makes us ponder many a times in life’s most twisted moments. The rot amidst beauty that we wish to cleanse so that beauty in itself can be undenied and experienced. The conflict of the soul begins thus in the process of attempting to cleanse… the mind, the body, the heart, the soul or simply just the physical and metaphysical surroundings within and around us. At the end of the day when we know that the heart doth ruleth the world, logic is used to set things. Right? Yet who decides the rights and the wrongs and can there be anything wrong when social conditioning and pressures that decide these characteristics are so vividly varied at every latitude and longitude that crisscrosses this Earth? Aren’t these the very cause of prejudices and bigotry? Isn’t what is right for one not the right one for another? Who decides? Are we adding into the pool our own immense, compulsive thrash while attempting to empty the dirty pool of stink… so as we all think! We do.

Are we agents of change, just wriggling parasites or just passers by? Are we called to duty or does duty call us? Where do we begin and where does it end? Can a sculptor chisel his sculpture endlessly? Now how does a man dream an endless dream? The point where the mind begins to work, emotions cease. So do emotions become a mind game afterall when on the contrary the whole momentum of thoughts begun with a need to feel, experience and liven up emotions? Where do we get lost in this game of life? What do we seek? What are those dreams we awaken with? What are those dreams that awaken us? And what are those dreams that we chase? Can one man’s dream make all the difference? Can one man’s dream be so powerful that it can move thousands to see it? Can just one man, one dream change lives? I believe it can and it does, it has happened and it will be so… so be it.

Bottomline: The problem in this world today is ignorance and apathy. Either we simply do not know or we simply do not care. At times the problem itself for some human beings is that they know and they do care.

p.c: http://healthruns.com/variation-thought-processes

Are Facts For Real?!

Aren't facts merely opinions that have received a higher percentage of believers? Didn't we all believe the "fact" that the planet Pluto existed until recently?! Facts! just a maze of opinions we are lost in. The louder one says it and the more often one says it, a fact for everyone to believe in has been declared... Seldom do we ask "According to who?"

p.c: http://www.europeword.com/blog/europe/european-facts/

The Cain And Abel Syndrome

There is a strange observation though not that unobvious we might get to see around these days... the ‘Cain and Abel Syndrome' as I would like to call it, that exists amongst brothers.

The Biblical story of Cain and Abel, where Cain and Abel were the first children of Adam and Eve, born after the Fall of Man; Cain gets so mad of the partiality shown on his brother by Mr. Adam which eventually leads to Cain killing Abel out of jealousy and the entire jing-bang getting exiled out of the Garden of Eden by God the Great…

Often this story is quoted by mothers in the Christian families to reinstall a brotherly acceptance amongst the siblings. Yet, the twist in the story is that children born out of the same womb can be so different not just in a story yet also in real… there will be this one delicate son, so domesticated and dutiful and the other so reckless, wild and irresponsible, the nurtured being the former and the natural being the later, the goody good guy and the bad ass so to say. No matter how many times the story is repeated by tireless mothers, nature somehow makes this syndrome persist to make this story applicable to the contemporary scenario.

Any family where I get to see two boys, I look for the obviously good one who will be helping the mom with her daily chores, living in a tidy room, with a smile that stretches to his ears, all so clean and reserved with no marks or scars of life whatsoever left to be seen or quite cleverly keeping his evil canary side hidden. And then I look for the rogue; the rogue who would be missing and of all chances gone on an expedition or some secret-pack meeting of some sort. The fellow who would have enough scars that could tell countless stories, the ruthlessly straight forward one-the uncouthed. The one you are often glad wasn’t there and you hadn’t met.

However, this yin-yang exists within every human being as well; making one a carrier of the good and the bad. This is something similar to the anima-animus; where there are subtle female characters that exist in the male and vice versa. How strange and interesting this dual personality that keeps the suspense alive in those who see the complicated display of the characters arising from within, all in one soul. At times it is so refreshing to see the streak of goodness in the so called bad guy and the subtle display of a sinister role from a so called good guy. This is not odd at all. Sometimes when nature and nurture collides, the defense mechanism that arises to survive this battle and to accept the survivor is what makes us who we are. This constant battle fought everyday between what we label “good” and “evil/bad”, the values we learn, create and as often manipulate to suit our situation to try and live a guilt-free life as far as possible is almost an everyday battle in this war of life. Cain or Abel at the end of the day, one must realize that the Garden of Eden, the paradise of Earth, is not for either and neither for long…

P.C: painting by William Bouguereau

The Great Indian Sexuality Contd.-The Stare

Some stares that are deemed the fundamental rights to men (in the unwritten rule book, ofcourse) in our constitution:

#1. Mandatory stare at (even slightly) fair women
#2. Guaranteed stare at hourglass figures (even if not fair... not unfair)
#3. Optimal stare at "Oops!" moments
#4. Shorter the skirt, longer the stare
#5 Newton's new law: Time of stare proportionally increases with the size of the object it stares at
#6 Suspicious stare at girlfriend
#7 Quick stare at wife
#8 Desperate stare at even the shadow of a woman
#9 A must stare at a woman in the rain
#10 A dare stare at a woman in uniform (Police, preferably)
#11 The only thing that bridges our generation gap-father and son staring at the same girl

This happens everywhere around the world; yet we are super champs in this game of staring where no woman is safe no matter what she wears (from a mini skirt to the burkha to a saree to a salwar, women have been raped in whatever she has been in) when our eyes do the undressing and scans her nude, tell me what is the best cloth she can possibly wear?!...

p.c: http://www.operationsports.com/deaduck/screenshots/907-yard-sale-kinda-junk/15045/

The Most Important Thing About Nirvana

What happens when one searches for "Nothing" and ends up finding it?!

When you search for nothing and end up finding nothing, invariably you feel sad in finding nothing because you feel you have found nothing at all... A twisted paradox yet again!

P.c: http://www.tricycle.com/web-exclusive/emptiness-all-or-nothing

Define "Politics" In One Line

The best definition for "politics" as I have read somewhere goes like this... Poly, meaning "several/many" and Tics, meaning "blood-sucking insects"(No wonder they are...)

p.c:

http://tagonist.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/tics2.jpg

The Poisonous Mushroom

Watching from the shore for long, tides and waves roll with a rhythmic beat all foretold.
New blossoms of temple flowers bloom, as some did fall face first to the ground in sweet surrender.

“Oh dancing leaves on this rainy day!
Dance how you may lest you sway.”

At the sea’s edge, a rush of wind parts memories left far behind...
With remorse stood I conjuring the self-imposed torture; with pain that soared with the cross I bear.

Like the dancing dew drop that rolleth from the blade of the staggering leaf on a withering tree,
like a merry soldier whistling his final tune to the tip of the guillotine,
looking skyward stood I dripping in complete surrender.
The zenith had no bounds and the nadir inched too deep;
wanting to dissolve in the hastened fury, complacency the soul rendered;
knowing for sure that certain dreams are better gone when awake.

The wine rolleth well, piercing those buds screaming for more.
Till the blood-red wine knoweth not if its the blood or the wine that tasteth so well in the mouth it rolls.

"My poisonous mushrooms! Left behind with the serpent's kiss,
knowing too well and none better than he will know what he knows best…
that he desires to be plucked undeserving to be tasted;
unless death beckons the soul from deep for the one who plucketh."

Picture Courtesy (P.C):
http://www.featurepics.com/online/Amanita-Poisonous-Mushroom-1674154.aspx

Our National Shame (in a line)

"Nothing reflects a country's culture like the conflict expressed through its sports, so they say, and here in India we play the Kabbadi, a traditional game, of pulling each others legs"

(The News says, Calling malnourishment "a national shame", Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh on Tuesday said India cannot hope for a healthy future with 42% of children aged below five years being underweight.)
Source:
http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2012-01-11/india/30615458_1_fight-malnutrition-malnourished-children-national-shame

Pic. Courtesy:
http://www.dishtracking.com/blog/2010/01/kavita-kaushiks-kabbadi-act-in-fir/

What To Name It?...

“Hence when did thy breasts hate to feed me?

Hence then haven’t they heaved to need me?

Oh Mother! Why art thou so silent?

Those bombs and those ammos from the machine guns, they bother me no more.

They sound like a lullaby to me.

Wasn’t it you who reassured me that ‘this is life’ even before I was born?

Now why do you still lie?

I heard Papa’s plea to let you go

before they shot that merciless bullet into his head.

I saw it Ma, I saw it all...

ripped, stripped and writhing in pain,

I heard your final beg to let me go and take all that they wanted from you.

I cried then Ma, I cried aloud,
I cried my best with all I could;
thought that hearing me cry they would let you go.
They never stopped... and choked I lay.

My eyes still won’t open full and I only see darkness around.

Tears mixed with trickling blood have dried;
And my voice too fragile to rise above the noise outside me.
Oh Mom! Why don’t you shout for me now?

Was it wrong that I was born to thee?!

Why have they taken it all even before I can understand in a life time or more what war and hatred is all for?

Tell me Mom, tell me now from up above
Why won’t a bullet silence me too?”

(A Painting and Poem after witnessing what one shouldn't during the war in the island nation when we were busy complaining of potholes in our own.)

Sar Utha ke Jiyo, My Foot!

"To die with dignity I would rather invest in a revolver and opt for Sar Utha ke Marro"

(Told an insurance agent who tried to promote an insurance plan under the banner of "Sar Utha ke Jiyo")

Picture Courtesy: http://www.colourbox.com/media/1452187

The Indian Sexuality

"India is a country where we (still) get a chance to see 30-year old virgins... mostly men. The country I would say that has a sexually-retarded population; rising up to any occasion (pun intended) to coo at the opposite sex... refreshing innocence and sheer immaturity displayed simultaneously."

(Listening to the whistle of the Indian male on women passing by or rather who tried to)

Picture Courtesy:
http://www.whiteindianhousewife.com/2010/02/do-indian-men-generally-like-white-women/

A Vice An Advice

"Its a vice to advice the wise; advice otherwise"

(While trying to find an alternative for my usual "Don't try to teach your Grandpa how to fcuk")

Picture courtesy:
http://sporeflections.wordpress.com/2010/05/26/the-wise-old-man-and-the-youth/

How Open Is An Open Book?!

"To be an Open Book" as often as someone claims, ask yourself "How open can an open book be? After all, even an open book opens up to only two pages!"

(A thought during a psychoanalytical session)

Picture courtesy:
http://gothicbohemianstock.deviantart.com/art/Stock-Open-Book-85672857

The Short Blog Post

"Any place where Man finds a void, vacant, vacuum, he absolutely must have an erection."

(Staring at skyscrapers filling the urban jungle, a.k.a "cities", I wondered...)

Picture courtesy:
http://usandeep.com/travel/chicago.html

The Lover's Temptation

Testing the man's impulse, temptation reigns.
With the maiden's simplest twist,
melody galored, beauty adored.
The ravaging beast within, all set to devour;
Knowing not, the prey lies in sweet surrender.

Lying thus between the mythical lines of insanity,
vain, pain and seductive pleasure all entwined.
Tempest of lust rising like wildfire.
Amidst hope and shattering despair,
raining clouds could have drenched the reigning moan.

Yet, with a harmonious glow with nothing left to conquer
began the exploration of the soul.
Bodies tied like a hangman's rope,
the noose neither killing nor letting go.
Kisses, soft and hungry too, muscles twitch with every move,

Coiling like serpents in tight embrace,
the heart doth race to the lover's pace.
Lifting high on the air above, to let her fly as she will...
yet she leaned to reach her lovers lip,
to grab another moment of sheer bliss.

A walk into the wilderness with the kiss of love,
shackles of restraint broken in haste.
No more turmoil of the world below.
with heaven too far to reach above
rose the stars with twinkling glee,
Life was worth living free.

Pic. Courtesy: http://wordexplain.com/sintempt.html

To Pain With Love

Long withstanding and quite understanding;
Remorse replaced with resilience, stood I with someone not too new.

“Pain! What doth thou bring!
Is it in vain that we suffer thee?
Pleasure found none who cast their minds to sway from thee.

Contrary doth my mind think today.
And quite complacent my soul doth feel.
Coming in terms with the sequence of events that offer thee.
The ridiculed mandatory impression of thy vast foray.
That calls for compassion to scrub the scar thy reminiscence leaves behind.

Pain, how art thou?
Miniscule or in magnitude great?!
Prayeth I now, casteth thou not thy shadow on the ones I love.

Pain, thy image might scare the breath out of some.
Having been thy favourite and chosen one oft, I know thee.
Today, I laugh at thee. Sans fear, I mock thee.
If thy mandatory services are to be rendered, shower it on me; set my people free.
Spare them all you kill and give me all if thy will…
On bended knees I ask thee…”

The Wanderer

This is a dream of long ago...

Of a wanderer, an occasional sage and an often hermit;
who oft as life relies upon, took steps too bold into the cowardice path of loneliness for sanity's sake alone.

Oh! pathless paths they were.
The truth better left unsaid of the dark alleys and those mystery miles some roads carried him through.

Why the journey?
Why the pain?
How the endurance to carry on?
No one knows yet! Not even he...

Seeker of the Trinity-'Love, Truth and Simplicity',
the journey still continues,
across barbed wires and fences
and through doubts and hurdles come what may.

Like the others who took this path and disappeared
into the mists on the rivers they tread,
leaving no trails whatsoever,
so will he and knows that too... yet,
he makes his own path step by step.
Knowing well that a man who has chosen to walk into the dark
must not be surprised to see the light within.

Time to watch the pigs enjoy the filth

Sometimes getting people to read my blog makes me write the way others would probably like to read it, defeating the purpose of blogging in the very first place. Sometimes I look at blogs with a great hit counter and find the writing in there quite captivating... could be that 'Halo effect' created around it even before me setting in with the counter at the bottom highlighting hard-to-believe digits. If there is so much of traffic it has to be good... right?! Then I am reminded of the story of the 'Sour Grapes' that the fox could not reach and shut up.

Moments before I leave my temporary abode that has imprisoned me for the last couple of years, I look back at life and can't believe that I endured a one-straight road for this long. The initial days as usual was great. Exotic!... to a certain extent. Then monotonous melodrama sets in and you need to move before the boredom looms. Before leaving I just had a few questions connected no where with my movement that I wish to pen...

1. Why is Sonia Gandhi and Co. behaving like teenagers on heat (esp. after her visit to the U.S. of A for her so confidentially kept "health reasons") insisting on the FDIs and other foreign retailers to come into India despite the protests of the people in the so called "Demo(n)cratic" government I am asked to believe that I live in?

2. Why is there such a fuss to shut down a nuclear plant in Koodankulam even after the public don't want it there in the first place? If there is such a protest by the people, then can there be space for a doubt that they neglected public opinion and approval, considered mandatory before beginning the project? Such an ill planned installation-whose mistake is it that the PM insists on implementing? Why does this dictatorship form of ruling come in?

3. Chidambaram's nepotism has been brought to light; his earlier client, a hotelier has gotten an undue advantage, a letter of recommndation from this home minister to drop the charges against him and the BJP has the credit of taking up this fight from the media-light. Great! Great that this is happening as it always happens during the election time. This home minister however, is yet to be accused of GENOCIDE for labelling the people who tried to protect the natural resource of the country as "Maoists" and to promoting it sound like such an evil word and for organizing special forces and funding them with the tax-payer's money to eradicate the sons. daughters and children of nature all to give way for "Vedanta", a mining company to come into ofrce and plunder our resource, another earlier client of the minister... was the BJP and other parties dead when this was happening? Can there be anything more openly evil than this?

4. Why is there a toll charge levied on the road I travel in when I pay my taxes, both direct and indirect and to top it road tax and so on and so forth?

5. If my tax money was not used to build the road, then why do I see the picture of the UPA's mute PM and brute president on billboards on the same road claiming that it was an infrastructure development project by them?

6. Why is my country exporting food grains to feed the cattle of another country at a subsidized rate (European cattle to be exact) when the same is sold to the poor in my country at a higher rate and the farmer still kills himself unable to feed himself nevertheless his family?

7. Why does my country's highest court of justice sanction the exporting of 'endosulfan' when its impact on human lives has been witnessed in our own?

There is so much of cleaning up to do... cobwebs, dirt, filth and long decay, while cleaning it, I wonder how these that I dispose now, loads of them, got in and stayed in the first place. What was I doing when this filth was accumulating? "Busy" I suppose, the usual convinient excuse while living my mundane life. And now I am forced to take some strike-force action to throw all this out as I clean up. All this while contemplating about cleaning my house before I vacate... maybe these lines suit well for the country as well. If the cap fits let them wear it. Now, very few like my writing... still, very few care. let me pack.

Picture courtesy: http://cartoonmela.blogspot.com

The Invisible Lover

From amidst the raging storm of thoughts a cry shattering the sky…

“When wilt thou return from the dew-topped mountains?
From those high peaks that rub my imagination through.

Where oft doth thou disappear into a fragile trail of foot prints that mystically
reappear?
from where I hear a heart’s lonely cry; from where the frantic cries of the reaper
submerge dies.
Is it true or is it just I?

What hath thou so wonderfully witnessed from a town so tinsel lies?
From where such ruthless condemnation forked displayed…

From where ever, tell me now, tell me how and tell me why?
When thou art gone for what must I still low lie?”

The Lustful Wish

Whirlwinds of magnitude great swirled like wildfire rising.
Far above the celestial skies,
a whisper among the Gods-About her beauty.

That widening smile, her twinkling eyes!
The words just broke and the worlds just stopped to watch
as she jumped to sway her flowing frock.

The winds of mischief with growing lust gasped for a moment and grew stronger,
Watching her honey-drenched lips shine with the sun’s blinding rays.
The rays so sharp, cleverly did try to hide her skin, brazing those watchful eyes.

She jumped to reach…
to reach for something above the skies.
The splendid horizon, the mooring moon,
the soaring eagle, the thumping beagle…
something much above what the eyes could see.

The mind full of vanishing struggle oft tried in vain,
to contain her within limits of boundaries and pensive solace.
The fragile leaves swayed in the field
with tender understanding as they soothed her glowing skin.

“Even the free-sailing tempest dareth not stop her now.
This time is for her to fly and touch the skies.”
Said he standing invisible somewhere nearby.


Picture Courtesy: http://www.wagnerartgallery.com.au/gfx2/aylward_william-girlinthewind.jpg

The Marionettes

A drop of tear like dew drop did fall,
with pain in the heart like a sinking star.
Like eyeless moths on the dark horizon,
the looming image of sorrow drifts.

The bridges move as I in stillness stand;
time flies by and so doth the distance.
Scramming like a ruthless vagabond,
bonds of restraint seem to have no bounds.

The world rests well and so must I
knowing that tides roll past as destiny moves by.

Birth, life or death, we are just puppets on loose strings;
held by a power above.
Till fate moves on, let us dance our dance,
like the last standing dew drops on the blade of grass.

Thoughtless Thoughts

The voice is cut,
the noises prevail.
The noises cut,
I listen voices again!

Behind walls of silence,
switching gear to gear,
my journey begins into the wilderness,
across pathless paths I take
as I transcend deeper and deeper into the self...
humbly I surrender to the unseen, the unknown.

No pleasure nor pain,
still in motion, so lies all emotions, thus I stay...
Waiting for the breath to subside.

What am I?
Nothing!
From nothing I came
and to nothing I go
and to realize that nothing I am
feels like there is nothing to worry no more.

"Thathuvumasi"-they say,
To experience a feeling as this.
Hard to explain and hardly explained.

Can't say this is bliss
and can't say that there is anything I missed.
A thought becomes everything
and everything becomes a thought.

Nothing wasted reigns,
nothing wasted remains.

Life is thus and thus remain...
a potpourri of thoughtless thoughts during meditation.

The Idiot Who Bought A BMW... (Unlike the Monk who sold his)

An interesting New Year for me this time and as usual, neither missed the tradition of the 12'O Clock chapel nor the vehicle-top view of fireworks while wishing everyone walking by a "Happy New Year." However, this time had my son (barely 3-months old) who seemed to enjoy the fireworks more than anyone around and it was sheer joy seeing him enjoy. Then came the moment of truth...

This usual event takes place right in front of an old church's graveyard where the traffic is rather slow (both inside and outside the gates. Pun intended.) although the year-end often has this understandable rush. And this year, was no different from any previous years I have known. People tried to negotiate for space in their little cabs, cars and bikes with some parked comfortably on the sides. Somehow, things managed to go smooth with people adjusting, giving way as often as they could. All till the Bloody Monstrous Whore (a BMW) came in or rather tried to and out of it 2, the owners I suppose (or rather slaves), worried that their by now headlight-blinking, horn-screaming, polished treasure which no one else cared a rat's-arse about not get a scratch nevertheless a much feared dent on new-year's eve I suppose. Trying to command others to move, these slightly over-sized buffoons tried to shoo people expecting the respect to be strewn upon them for the very and the only reason that they got out of a BMW. In this little town, no one seemed to care nor seemed bothered to obey the demanded respect for the BMW nor its slaves. Further honking, further blinking of head lamps and still no budging... in fact it only grossed the crowd and they verbally pulled a middle finger straight at the 2 fatsos' faces. The BMW backed up giving way for the cars already in line to move... did they have another choice?! hahaha! I'm luvin it. Sometimes, the crowd's whisper is louder than an idiot's scream I learnt.

Bottomline: "Property is intended to serve life, and no matter how much we surround it with rights and respect, it has no personal being. It is part of the earth man walks on. It is not man." Martin Luther King, Jr.