Casting Out The Demons!!

Looking back at all the things i have written from my shaiyari to my poems and now to my articles, i have come to realize one thing - I am a lousy writer. There are some efforts i do like but they constitute a very small part of the crap i have dished out over the years. Come to think of it, i have forced my friends to read all of it. So if you are reading this and thought the same way, i am truly sorry. I always believed that penning your thoughts is all that matters. The words should flow and the content would take shape no matter what. That's what happens always. I start writing something and then without thinking where it is heading, i simply keep adding random words to try and make sense but mainly to fill up space. That is probably why most of my writings are loquacious. 

I have many times recounted the pain i have been through in my articles and poems and have been scolded by one and all to cheer up. But sadly, it is when i am sad that the best works come out. If i'm writing in a jovial mood, it usually is pretty idiotic. Tragically, i can''t seem to find words to write anything meaningful every time i feel sad. So this has made me wonder, what it will take to write something good. Does it have to be physical pain or emotional. If the latter then of what kind? An analysis of the past shows that love has got something to do with it. It is the heart burn, the pain inside that tears one apart which causes something good to come out. I believe i'm right as that what great artists too like to say. I recently saw 'Rockstar' the hindi movie and was impressed with how the protagonist was able to take pain and translate into soulful music. 

It's a movie and we are made to believe that is what some would say but i disagree. I think the concept holds merit. I'm no rockstar but i know how inspiring pain can be. How it can  let you push your limits and bring out the best along with the worst. The anger and the hate manifest themselves in different forms that are borne by those near to us. The pain however, manifests itself into art. That's how the wheels of life keep moving. Not all  music, poems, art are filled with pain though and yes the artist can be in a good mood to produce a masterpiece but i am sure that no. won't be a large one. I have used it as one to write some well written though uninspiring articles while getting mad at my family for no reason at all.

All this analysis has brought one interesting fact forward i.e. how i am able to calm myself down by writing or listening to music. I believe it is because these media allow me to express the real me unafraid, unabashed and quite vocal. Away from the scorching eyes and the comments, they allow me to be me. They are not just an expression but a part of me. That is why i feel it important for others to accept my choice of music and my writings. That is why i want them to read my articles as in a weird way i'm looking for acceptance. Some may call it dramatic but i guess i'll settle for artistic. True the portion of art is hugely limited but the point is delivered I guess. So as i wrap up this article and send it across for my friends to read, I am sure i will hear a chuckle or two but largely it would be overlooked. But that is fine with me as it has been a learning experience nonetheless for me.

Divided India

I wasn't planning on writing on this page today. In fact it wasn't even on my mind. Browsing through FB i caught hold of some blog by a girl and started reading it (I don't know anything about the girl). After reading her article which i found to be quite inflammatory, i thought i'd comment but then I looked at the 227 comments already there. I again thought that this must be an old article that's why the high no of comments but then i see that the first comment was posted only 2 days ago. So i started reading a few comments and they were people expressing their views either towards the author or a community or others. To be very frank i wanted to comment on how i feel that what has been written is all wrong and how could anybody post something like that and that the author should go check out her own backyard before commenting on others etc. etc. But then being me i couldn't bring myself to write something that's just gonna get washed away in the barrage of comments the page is getting.
However, i couldn't stop myself from posting my 2 cents on the discussion (though i didn't take names or any sides). This prompted me to take a look at my own blog and what's going on and i see that my last entry got only 1 comment :(. Now i know that there are other biases at play and yeah probably my writing or for that matter my choice of topics is not as impressive. So i read my last 2-3 articles and came across one that i wrote on hate. I had mentioned how people in general usually don't hate stuff (though they might say so) but they tend to highly dislike it. I had built my prose on the promise that hate is a very strong feeling and you need to be hurt really bad to hate somebody or something. But going through the webpage and the comments mentioned on that webpage i realized that what i wrote was from my perspective and it would be folly to generalize it.
The content was highly degrading, immature and self centered to say the least and it made me sad to know that a literate (not educated mind you) girl could have expressed such ostentatious comments which clearly reek of high levels of irresponsibility. At this point i would like to mention that we say we are one nation and that everyone is a proud Indian, but I don't think that's true. We are a nation as recognized by the world and tried to accomplish by the Britishers during their reign but sadly we are still a lot of small pockets of people following a particular theme or way of life secluded from everything else. The only point perhaps we can say we are one nation and that we stand together in unity is an India-Pakistan cricket match. Makes you feel sad doesn't it. Many would call this as unity in diversity but my friends we do not have unity. Cracking jokes and taking potshots in a good humorous manner are all  acceptable but that is not the case when you go talk to people about such stuff.
What you get if you have the courage to dig deeper is complete sense of ignorance, condescension, disregard and at many times, pure hate. Be it how people from north term anything below Maharashtra as south or people from the southern states calling everybody above Maharashtra as Punjabis, we have to acknowledge the fact that there is hardly any respect these days among people for each other. This divide based on region, caste, religion, social status etc is really appalling and it then  makes me sad to hear the words one nation, one country from the same people who practice all this. Yes i'm talking about stereotypes and eliminating them from our lives might be impractical if not impossible, agreed. But do we really need to hate somebody just because they come from a particular region or speak in a particular way? These issues have existed with us even before the Mughal rule. India then too was conglomeration of small kingdoms fighting among themselves to gain few pieces of land and it still is.
Now, is there someone to blame for the mess we are currently? Yes lots and lots of people, but how do you individually attribute the cause to them? I mean, how can you tell Aurangzeb that he ruined the good work done by Akbar (in some respects though) in soothing out Hindu-Muslim relations? Or for that matter, today's political bigwigs for failing to address this rot. Fact is, you know things could be better and you want them to be but nobody is willing to take the next step. Status-quo is what people want and don't want to be bothered with anything although it seems a fairly decent discussion topic over tea and chips. People seem to have lost hope in the system and just want to live as per their own wishes. Coming back to the article in question, i feel that the author acted irresponsibly in allowing her post which might be considered inflammatory to be spread around like a media campaign. Motives can be questioned and failure to take any notice of the deterioration in the discussion on the topic is unpardonable.
So this reinforces my point that we live in a divided India with people not ready to accept other people's existence and always following regionalism, casteism, communalism etc. Words can't begin to describe the dismay i feel right now. We talk about inclusive growth and growing economy and growing literacy rates but what good is all that if we don't get educated? By educated i mean learning to know what is right and what is wrong. This concept if  applied to all aspects of our life can transform an entire generation if not the nation and that would be a huge achievement. I know i'm being idealistic here and being a professor of practicality it goes against my nature but seeing the woeful condition of affairs i am begging for it all to at least slow down and take a break. After all where will this hatred take us? Will we in 20 years time end up as 30 odd independent nations? A frightful thought but a possibility nonetheless. Is there anything we can/must do?
I request all the readers of this article to think over this thought and ponder on where we are heading. If in anyway you agree with me, please spread the word and try to be a countryman first before being a region/religion/caste strong man. Please lets change the way we think.....................

Hate

Hate is a very strong word. Somebody must have wronged you or someone you love very bad for you to develop such a feeling. There is a big difference between you not liking something and you really hating it. There are many things that one may not like but hate is something different, something what the jihadis have for India or Palestine for Israel. So if you get a measure of what i am trying to say then you would appreciate the fact that it is something very personal and emotional. I know many of you feel that i 'hate' almost everything but actually its more like not liking those things and there are very few things i actually hate. I don't like any good thing that happens for the people/things i hate and i cringe at the very thought of such things and you can say i hate those people who promote such things. So where am i going with all this? Today i want to talk about the thing i hate on God's green earth.
Throughout its more than 130 years of existence Congress party of India has been the single major political force in the country and still remains a fierce opponent. But if we take a look at the years of rule the country has spent under them then it paints a sad story. Had it not been for the heroics of the revolutionaries under Azad, Bhagat Singh and others (sadly whose name i can't remember) we would have been under the british rule for another 25 years. After independence, Nehru let the democratic system to rot to such an extent that corruption became another word for bureaucracy. No wonder the biggest scams and controversies always involve a congress leader or a strong ally. Bofors (64 crores), JMM bribery case, Madhu Koda (4000 crores), Sharad Pawar's food scam, Commonwealth 2010 (30000 crores unofficially), 2G scam (>1 lakh crores) and countless others that probably have not come to light. Sadly though all are yet to be proven in the court of law Each one where the country lost its millions to Swiss bank accounts.
If corruption was not enough decisions of the leaders in power have scarred the nation for the worst. Be it Nehru for rejecting UNSC permanent seat, supposed creation of LTTE by Rajiv Gandhi, still to be judged massacre of sikhs by Tytler, emergency declaration by Indira Gandhi, reported atrocities by Sanjay Gandhi etc. One great leader once said that all congress wants is to stay in power, they don't care what's the status of the country or where it is heading. So true if you consider what potential we had and what we are currently at. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying they are fools or anything. In fact I think they have some of the best minds in this country. It would take a lot to carry out plans for such big frauds and devising strategies to make the right kind of noises before elections to win the seats. That's what makes congress a deadly opponent because they know how to influence voter opinions. Sure, congress supporters will come up and say that they have done so much for the progress of the country which i'm not ready to acknowledge here. The GDP growth, standard of living etc etc. and of course the fallacies of other political parties (BJP, Shiv Sena, Left etc etc.)
First lets talk about the other political parties. I'm not saying they are good or better than congress but there are levels which i am willing to accept. I don't condone Godhra and it saddens me to think of it even but apart from that there are fewer scams and controversies connected to them and hence i would say choose the lesser of the two evils. Second, the growth the country has seen in the last decade. To be honest, i feel that it began with the Vajpayee government. That paved way for world to acknowledge that India is the next destination and that GOI will act favorably to investments. Congress, just carried forward those policies and built on that groundwork to take India to where it stands today and this again refers to my initial point of making the right noises at the right time. there have been instances of the public not happy with the way govt. functions but come election time those issues are brushed aside and a rosy picture is painted to fool the public. Brilliant minds at work i would say.
So i guess by now you knowthat i hate the very existence of the congress. I can never forgive it or its leaders for the loss they have brought to this country. I know many would not agree with me but I'm not writing this to please/convince anyone. This is what i feel and nothing can change that. I wrote it because i wanted to as this is something personal and important to me. 

A Second Coming

Ok i'm back after another 2 months in isolation. Remembering those times when i used to write something every week. Though in the past i have written on politics and sports and entertainment but somehow i don't want to do that today as there's already been written too much about all the recent events. But there is something i think that deserves attention and it is the ability of film makers to go beyond the ordinary and produce a gem of an item. Going back 7-8 months, there was Christopher Nolan's INCEPTION which left everyone wanting for more and simply unsure of whether they are real or living some dream. As impressive that movie was, i came across another great movie in Source Code. I am a fan of human intellect and when people can produce great works of art like these movies it surely makes for great viewing. 

Such movies force you to use your mind and make you think and question your existence. The very essence of why you are here and what purpose you serve on this earth. It makes me wonder and going back to the days of Matrix, whether what i'm feeling is real or just some program being run to make me believe in something that actually is fake. Nonetheless it has its own excitement and thrill attached to it. But believe me, that euphoria is usually short lived. I mean you can sit and think about the meaning of your existence only for so long. There will come a time when you will move on and venture back into the daily routine of your life. The routine that we all love and something we set ourselves into and any deviations from it just don't seem that interesting to follow. 

A change of scenario though at times is quite welcome and this brings me to the second part of what i want to talk about here today. The first year of MBA is over and as i sit in my seat at the office i am doing my internship in, i just can't fail to remember the 4 years i spent in Pentair. The car pool to and from office. The endless early morning discussions. The call to breakfast table (thanks to Lord Gulati). Eating lunch together an d of course the wonderful feeling of TGIF!!, a phrase made popular by the movie Bheja Fry!! So i sit at my desk and wondering at times what i'm doing here and surely missing all the wonderful times i spent in my last organization. This makes me wonder how my life one year down the line would be? Will i have a group of friends to call my own and spend my time with?

There are other moments, other people in my life today that make it worthwhile but i sure miss those good old days and i don't know whether something like that will ever happen again. Looking forward to the coming times i know i'll be missing my friends a lot when they leave for Europe and there won't be much time left for us to spend together after that. So i guess what i'm trying to say through all this is that there are moments you would give anything to have back. Cherish those moments and make them count so that in future when you take a look back at what all you have done, these come and bring a smile to your face. I don't want to get preachy about it but i guess my second coming as a working professional has indeed awakened some memories and remembering those times has just made me a bit emotional. A temporary deviation from the routine and i know this phase would soon be gone too. So those of you who have had the patience to read all this i say thank you for listening to my thoughts and goodbye and have fun...!!!

Past, Present and the Future

B'day gone, New year gone, Valentine's day gone, so what is it that is making me write on my blog after almost 8 months? The fact that I wanted to write on it for so long but somehow didn't get the motivation to do it. I have wasted a lot of time during the last year doing nothing and gaining up on my weight with astronomical broadening of my belly. I mean I have grown really fat really quickly. Gone are the days when i could call myself slim. But fat is not the only thing i have added to my name recently. The continuance of poor academic performance and even poorer network (even in a batch of 450) have only helped in making the matters more unpleasant. Sure, there are some people i have really enjoyed being with and would never want to part company with them but it hurts to lose some of the good friends i had developed over the years. 

Life has been a roller coaster ever since i came here. With tussles for everything and me obviously too reluctant to do anything it took a lot to get what i wanted initially. Time has been a constraint to do a lot of things is what i tell others. But deep down i know that things could have been much different had i really decided on my priorities. Not a day passes when i don't dwell on how different i wanted things to be. People say that i complain a lot and that I'm never happy with anything but there must be some method to it is what i believe. For a person who doesn't like to point fingers and doesn't express his views too often, i still find the situations too damn sad to not comment and sit by the wayside. 

I mean where do i begin. Not a week passes with me not wishing of having got into another b-school and ruing the missed opportunities. Its the system here that makes my cringe. People not fit to manage themselves, heading an institute that shapes the careers of the country's future managers. The most mis-managed management school is what I'll put the name down as. From stupid rules and regulations to gross misuse of power. Students are not the first priority here with the administration living in a dream world of 80's. There is just so much pent up frustration that i don't know what i would do with all of it. Guess only thing that keeps me going is the company. Could write a book on why i hate being here but there are probably only 2-3 reasons why I'm still here that outweigh everything else. 

Now i don't mean that there is all sad and woeful moments in my life here. There have been really exciting times too when i have really let my hair down and enjoyed a lot and feel happy and thankful to god for allowing me to be a part of those activities. I have managed to do couple of things that i always dreamed about and it feels good knowing that. There are things to look forward to and the anticipation makes it worth the wait. But a question mark also hangs over my head as to if I'm like this right now, what will happen to me 6 months down the line when most of the people I'm close to will go on exchange leaving me feeling a bit lonely and sad. But sure that day will come too when we all will leave this campus and head towards our careers with new vigor and zeal.

Still, i feel like i am somehow not touching my full potential and as such there is a lot more than i can do with myself. There are goals i set for myself everyday but somehow fail to work towards even one single item. Have i just lost the plot and am just running for the sake of it to pass time? It's a costly way to pass time though i might add. but as i fail to achieve every target that i set, my resolve to meet my goals gets stronger and i know there will be a day when i will meet them and that day the shackles will break and i would probably be able to say that i have turned a new leaf. when that day will arrive is hard to say and will it be too late for me and what i have in mind is also not clear to me but all i really can do is try to work towards it and hope that i am able to achieve what i want.....