Rang Kitne Rang ke Hote Hain?

Celebrating Colors in a Black World...
a trifle belated, but Happy Holi everyone!

Glass is Half Full. So Who Drank the Other Half??

Today I read a comment on a friend's blog that honestly baffled me. "It is just sad.that in this 21st century stuff like this is still happening. people are suffering and willing to give their lives for others."
HUH???
again, HUH????

I really couldn't understand what this person was trying to say really. As far as I know noone had ever predicted that in 21st century all things nasty will miraculously evaporate, to be replaced by all things sweetness and light. Or did she mean that it's surprising that even in this mean 21st century, people still suffer and give their lives for others? What, has the world become such a depressingly apathetic place, that you can't care, you are just supposed to be bothered with only yourself and your immediate world?

Perhaps I am over reacting to what might have just a carelessly nonchalant statement. Maybe she just said something for the heck of putting up a comment, but such attitude somehow irks me. I fan never been such a big fan of doomsday theories, and the life-is-so-futile-world-is-so-bad philosophies. I mean yeah okay, I ponder over the greater meaning of life, the purpose of existence, the certainity of death and all that- when I'm depressed and extremely jobless(or is it that I get extremely depressed because I think about all this??Man!!This could be the next big thing after the hen-or-chicken story).
Somehow the thing is, for all the mood swings I have and all the tantrums I throw, I reckon, I intrinsically am a die hard optimist. Deep down, that is. I like to dream. Even if the dreams are impossible ones. I think even that has a high- thinking impossible thoughts.

And resultantly(gosh, now I feel like a Economics text book), I feel there is always hope for this world. I mean, bad and all that is fine, but I still think that human beings, as a race, still stand a chance. Maybe its a very naive take to be taking (is that right language?can u take a take??). But it keeps me sane.

Denial. It was created for a reason. Might as well accept that.

Crap. I began with something and ended with something. In Tsu's famous words, (I'm quoting you a bit too much don't you think??) "I lost my thought"

Cheers!
*hic*

One Thing...Just For ONE THING

Restless tonight
Cause I wasted the light
Between both these times
I drew a really thin line
It’s nothing I planned
And not that I can
But you should be mine
Across that line

If I traded it all
If I gave it all away for one thing
Just for one thing
If I sorted it out
If I knew all about this one thing
Wouldn’t that be something

I promise I might
Not walk on by
Maybe next time
But not this time

Even though I know
I don’t want to know
Yeah I guess I know
I just hate how it sounds

This song has obsessively stayed in my head ever since I heard it the first time, which was i think just a few months ago in bus
Sometimes someone else's words can so completely express just what you are feeling.
So...If I gave it all....?
But the question is, what would be that one thing? The problem is, I know!

"Some people are so full of themselves that there is no place for anyone else in their hearts"

No great woman said this. I did. Something that occurred to me when I read a comment that a fellow kid put up on a friend's blog. Stuff such people man, they make me feel suffocated when I'm around them. What a way to begin your week!

I'm Done With the Sidewalk

"Hi there. Are you fully awake yet? I'm just opening my eyes, and my head is still slightly hazy. Ah well. Utterly confused would be more correct I suppose. I'm surprised that I'm not too sure where I am, or who this girl sleeping next to me is. And now, why am I completely at ease to pull her close to me and scribble on her body "I love you"...

I'm not sure I am fully awake as I write this. Or completely sane. I saw this in my dream. Words. These words. No people. Just a voice. A guy's voice. A voice that is vaguely familiar, but irritatingly not placeable- a voice that you'd expect from some movie's invisible narrator.
No visuals in this...only a pen writing this, and a voice.

Who was that voice? And why did it (he?) want to tell me all these? Dreams. They have always disturbed me more than they really should. Not nightmares, just dreams, weird ones. It's almost like someone is trying to tell me something, that I only half want to hear. Most of the time, I still remember them...all everything as I wake up, and then as the day moves on, finer details slipping away like sand through your fingers.

I'm no story writer, but there are certain things that make me wonder if I really am living in a movie. And if that is what these dreams are trying to tell me.
Usually I move on...but this one somehow compelled me to put it down in black and white. To actually jump off the bed, even after just 3 and a half hours of broken sleep, pull out my laptop and write it all down. Even now, I feel as though, someone else, and not me is really writing. I mean, I'm...but someone else is telling me to. Some voice. Vaguely familiar, irritatingly not placeable. The kind of voice that you'd expect to hear from a movie's invisible narrator.

Maybe its lack of sleep. Or maybe its the lack of sanity. It's happening. And surprisingly, I'm not freaking out. I'm surprised, amused. Not scared. Ah well.

After 21 (nearly 22? 21 years and 6 months anyway) of lazy existence, I'm learning a few things about myself. There are times, when I see with amazing clarity. Then it goes away to be replaced by the dirty fog again. But those few moments, those few glorious moments, when I see me, like I should be, like I want to be, are exhilarating. Maybe I'll get there...yet.

The Unholy Crusades

Scene one: A party. Huge, open air, bar, drinks, music and dance. Soft yellow glow of lights. People, loads of people. Drunk, dancing, high- on everything from the music to the liquor, to dope. People having a good time in a paradise, born out of utopia.

A few minutes later. The bartender is lying inert, with blood oozing out of a hole in his head. A building, blazing like a gigantic bon fire. Lights, but this time the blaze of fire. Music, dancing, liquor. People, high- on music, to liquor, to dope, to blood. People having a good time- this time swinging half head people by their toes like a pendulum. Dragging them on the ground, like rag dolls. All in the name of fighting to free a country from slavery. A paradise, born out of utopia.

The human race has this one amazing ability. To get used to almost anything. Pain, misery, death, bullets, torture. We can distance ourselves from anything. There are people who can drink, dance, and have a good time in a country that is raging with civil war. You go out to buy vegetables and you cannot be sure if you will come back safe, or a stray bullet is gonna head your way. There are no citizens there- only soldiers, rebels, the refugees. If you are not any of these, you are dead.

I thought I wouldn’t write about Blood Diamond. When I first read about it in Id’s blog, I was vaguely interested- maybe I should catch this movie. Then Prick decided he needs to take a stance on, again, I was hardly surprised, but didn’t feel the need to take a stance still. Then I saw the movie. By I knew what to expect, but yeah it still makes you sit up and take notice. But there is a whole lot of difference between sitting up and taking notice as opposed to standing up and taking action. There is only so much that a movie can do after all. Maybe it will make a few half virtuous people to stop fancying that stupid piece of rock(ah well, old rant really, I always felt that diamonds, after male superiority, are singularly the most over rated thing in this world).

But as I sat in the theatre watching that movie…none of Id’s or Prick’s words came to my head. The only thing that kept playing is, why are they killing all these people? Most, almost all, were killed just for the fun of watching them die- women, children, old people, young me. Entire villages wiped out, torched in a mad frenzy. A bunch of blindfolded kids, who are made to shoot down a gagged man. Then to ease the pain of the horrific realisation of what they did, they shoot some more. Till they reach a point where they don’t need that blindfold anymore. Till they can look into the eyes of their own fathers and point a gun at him without flinching. These people, rebels, soldiers, they were not fighting a war, they were not making a point, unless the point was “We stop at nothing, we are dead inside”

But in the middle of this madness, there still are people, who run around fighting to get their story out. There are people who dream of making their son a doctor. There are people, who have known it all, seen it all, and who dream of getting out of it all one day. And who’d give anything for that. And try and desperately rationalise that with, “It’s not war, it’s just business”. Then some, who don’t feel the need to rationalise. They sell the guns to the rebels, along with cds of Baywatch. Diamonds for guns. The “service providers”. “The world wants what we have to offer, we just get it to them”. The big guys in big cities, who walk around in crisp suites and fancy cars. The ones who buy these diamonds and store them away in deep coffers, knowing it stinks of blood. Then the puppet masters, who convince little kids that this is a crusade, and that in this world that does not give them the respect they deserve, but you need to take that. And how do you do that? With guns.

As long as guns and money are a part of somebody’s business, as long as terrorism is an industry, it will survive. As long as there are takers, there will be service providers. This is no holy war. There never has been such a thing. Its just simple rules of the market. Demand and supply. The “A” of TIA can be easily replaced with Is and Ps and Vs. Its all the same.

God of Small Things

Happiness! Such a weird feeling naah? All the time we keep running after it thinking it is this elusive thing, and then one fine day it just jumps at you out of nowhere, and you are left thinking, “Wow! That was simple!”

One hell of a bad day I was having. Nothing disastrous, just one of those days in college when everything goes wrong and nothing goes right, your friends don’t understand you, your lecturers are mean, and the human race in general is not just mind bogglingly stupid, but is also on an out and out war with you. You know the kinds when the world and everything beyond just pulls you down.

At the end of a naggingly irritating day at college, I went in the evening to meet another friend. Ranted my heart out to him. Didn’t really help though. When I left, my mood was really really unhappy. I was walking back home, and I had to cross through Forum. Now malls are one place that I always was a fascinating place for people watching (NOT the same as bird watching). You meet all kinds- the rich, the not-so-rich, and the most interesting, wanna-look-rich. But that day I really couldn’t care less. I was too bothered my own set of borrowed problems to be worried about all that just then.

Then I saw this dude. Cute li’l chap, must be all of three years old perhaps. Dude had this tetrapack of Frooti in his hand, and was struggling with all this two feet nothing might, to push a stubborn straw into the packet, and finding that it ain’t the as easy as he thought it should be. His mom offered to help, but our man, staunchly refused. After all what’s a puny li’l straw to question his super baby might?

Then he looked up to see me looking at him with extremely amused eyes. I couldn’t help smiling at that tiny bundle of cute resolve. In return, the dude gave me the most spontaneous, and genuinely happy smile that I ever saw. That moment, that smile, made me feel so innocently happy, something that no amount of talking, counselling, philosophising, and ranting could manage. Looking at that kid, his happy smile, made my heart feel so light, all those things that were nagging me seemed so not worth it. Sure if he were some another two decades older, he’d have probably thought I was linemaorfying him. But right now, for him life was really simple. He saw someone smile at him, and he smiled back. He had his worries to handle (he was in the middle of the battle with the straw, remember?), but he had his fundas clear. Smile for a smile. As simple as that.

Sometimes I think, as we are born with the knowledge of pretty much everything that we need- to live to be happy. Then our whole life we spend in unlearning that, and then feeling all lost in the search of answers. Tsu recently said, if you can’t find the answers, its probably because you are not asking the right questions. Makes sense huh?

Happiness. It’s such a weird thing. All our life, we keep running after it, while it is all the while waiting in a mall, fighting a stubborn straw. :)