End of KGP life.

Yes.

Another one of those sentimental farewell blog writings.

Sigh.



I am not very sentimental. I like this place. Loved it. Still. Moving on promises better avenues no matter what: dynamic is much better than static.
Life in KGP after a prolonged period comes into  a state of stasis.
Even if you a rat racer you will keep on running constantly. Or a person who has limited ambition.



You get comfortable in places you live for long. My life here has become; since a long time, very comfortable.
It's not comfortable as in couches and springy beds. It's mentally comforting, and psychologically reliable place I can stay howsoever long I wish.


But, comfort makes you lazy.


Enough.


I wanna sleep now.

Lingering.

People often say,
When people die and go away.
Their words remain.

I have often doubted the claim,
For capturing a persona, words: seem lame-
and unimpressive.

People often say,
When people die and go away,
Their acts remain.

I have doubted acts remain unsullied
Acts in themselves have no mark,
Society ranks results more.

People often say,
When people die and go away,
Their soul lingers on.

I have doubted soul as a whole,
not because I doubt thee Holy,
but souls have better things to do.

I am more impressed by when
Some child wakes up from the sleep; rubs eyes
Says ” …saw grandpa in the dream again…
And he seemed happy.”

Criticizing all Criticizers

I have developed something lately; I will admit. I was a mediocre sort of patriotic person. I used to love my country. I used to celebrate Independence Day and Republic Day like any other person does. Watch the parade and the flag hoisting, celebrate the break from work and studies, sleep the entire day. But recently I have found myself remark on the sheer challenge that hour country IS. Its vast size, heterogeneous nature of problems, all types: economic, social, and philosophical. Any statement I make on the vast size of the problems we say is not enough.

Beautiful, ain't it?

Suffice to say, I have grown to appreciate our country more. I have grown to like it, fall in love, romance the idea of a perfect country. Yes. Any day now.

I was wondering what drew me into this so much. The answer was pretty simple. It was the Criticizers. I invent this proper noun because these people deserve a proper mention. All of us have met more than one. No?

“Our country is headed for doom” “The government policies are screwed up” “ The transportation services are ill maintained” “Noone cleans this place” “There is  absolutely no control over the trade” “The policies kill the small time businessman” “This policy kills the big business” “The education paradigm of India is archaic” “We can never be a developed country”

Yes. I am talking to all of you Criticizers. Whosoever of them  who are reading this.

First of all, Thanks a lot. You have made me more patriotic, more hopeful, and more respectful of my democracy. I have come to realize it is very easy to point fingers at our policy makers, their policies and their efficiency.

Secondly, I agree there is a LOT wrong with my country. But this does not give you the license to crib twenty four- seven-twelve. Try this. Try to see how much have the lives of people around you have changed. And I am not talking about those who were superior to you. See the lives of people who were inferior to you. The maid in our house who used to clean our floors is today a typist working in a small firm. Our dhobi has moved on to bigger business. Our gardener or maali now has two mobiles. Both of them better versions of my phone.  Our greengrocer or sabziwaala has an auto now.

Granted, each of the people listed above worked very hard to reach where they are now. But do you expect progress to reach those who do not make an effort? Do you want people to just give in to poverty: “No  we were, are and will remain poor”; and do you expect your government to feed people like these? And they don’t.

But the people I am talking about are people who worked day and night in honest jobs. You can call these jobs menial, but they are essential nonetheless. So our country has given opportunities to advance to all hardworking people, it has given better lives to all people who wanted it, now, tell me where is the ground to criticize the government.

The examples were just about people around my family house. There are countless, and I say it most emphatically, countless, stories of people making it into the 21^st century, alive and kicking poverty’s ass. Call it increasing purchasing power of the masses, increase in Per capita GDP, Net National Output, Food security or any fancy-shmancy economic term but this is DEVELOPMENT 101.

People criticize that the road is narrow yet buses still run on it. It may be of inconvenience to you and your sedan but think about the person who travelled the whole city for Rs. 5 , to do his job. What more do you want? Roads will come one day. Wait and watch you impatient little prick.

People criticize about the rubbish on the roads. Tell me honestly that you haven’t ONCE thrown anything on the road; a wrapper, paper, spittle. Hypocrites.

People say that the trains do not run on time. Honestly, in my humble opinion, Railways are the pure embodiment of the spirit of our country. Huffing, puffing, running late, overcrowded, smelly, hot yet running in profit, yet carrying everyone it can, and yet moving forward.

People say the government is corrupt. In spite of this they are managing to do some good. I say it’s a bargain. We have to keep looking for politicians who are cheaper to maintain. And well that’s what democracy is; bargaining and taking a leap of faith. Try to imagine being the captain of Indian team of eleven people. There’s so much pressure. Now multiply the pressure by a 100 million. That is the pressure the politicians, these supposed sleazebags, should mathematically face.

Life in India is good. There are a LOT of things we need to work upon. But sometimes looking only in one direction, forward, is not good for morale. And trust me, India needs morale. We need individuals to care for our country. Just do your part, please. And Stop worrying about every Tom, Dick and Harry. Oops I mean every Tarun, Dinesh and Hari.

So all Criticizers Listen to Mr. Cee-Lo-Green’s awesome song here.

To all hopeful like me.
 India Rocks! India Rules! India will succeed! And we will be the one invited to the party… not them.

Mom's Food: Why does it taste better?

We all know this fact.

Mom's food is the closest thing we have to near-heaven experience that we mere mortals have. One can always relate to mother for some things thing; nourishment, satisfaction with food and nurturing nature that she so embodies. I have often wondered, I have eaten in many places in India and outside India, why does there is a certain appeal that is only there in food prepared by my mother? Why is it that mother's food is the one which appeals to us so strongly? What does mother do to the food? WHY IS IT SO DAMN FINGER-LICKINGLY LIP-SMACKINGLY DELICIOUS?

The answer to this perhaps lies in the way humans have evolved. Food has always been a VERY integral part to our evolution. I do not need to quote sources, when I say this. But still. Food.

C'mon, FOOD.Yes. F- O - O - D. Nourishment. Something that well-off people take for granted. Food is the eternal hope for survival, the fuel of activity and a source of joy.

Man(along with Woman) realised it LONG ago, that Food holds ever important position for survival. That is why we (humans) were the first one to develop cultivation techniques.

Back to my original topic. Mom and food made by Mom.

What we taste when mom serves us hot food is not merely the mixture of delicate spices and such, it isn't her 100 year old secret recipe passed on by her great grandmother, it isn't even the new imported masaala that she brought last week because you were coming home. It is the taste of SECURITY.

Security, yes. Mother's food can always be trusted.

Try this. Whenever next time you go to a restaurant observe people around you when the waiter brings you food. There always is a cursory glance by the said person over the food. There is an evolutionary mistrust associated with a stranger serving you with food. This however NEVER happens with one's mother. Or even someone else's mother sometimes.

So taste that extra helping of food sprinkled with evolutionary security for the food. And Enjoy!

Travelling.

Travelling is something I have recently developed a great liking for. I mean not travelling to exclusive and exotic locations and spending time and money and taking pictures and ... no, no, no, not that. I mean just, travelling. Getting on a train and reaching your destination, taking a flight and landing on time (or not), bus, taxi, rickshaw; you name it.

Travelling is enjoyable most of the time. Sometimes it can get a little boring but always it gives us the chance to observe people from all around and note their particular way of being uniquely them. Everyone has a different perception and preference for a particular mode of transport. Mine is Railways. There are a lot of reasons for that.

1. Comfortable

We all know. Railways are WAY more comfortable than those seats in the airplane. In railways you can stretch your legs a little and move your arms and legs.

In the plane the best you can do is twist your neck a little and pray that the guy on the other side of you doesn't sneeze on you.

2. Food

Okay. The food on the train isn't great. But at least you have more choice eating on the place around. And I somehow prefer the railway grub to the pretentious little plate, that they serve you on the plane which sits snugly into the plastic grooves, smiles shamelessly at you and says " ...calories, Watson, calories... ".

3. Aggravated Snobbishness

Well I have always found people on the train to be more humane and helpful than the people on the flight. People on the flight are all so... we are elite... we travel on a 10k ticket... we are sitting on 19B... oh yes baby... oh yaaa... the pretty air hostess smiled at me when I came in... Ima gonna buy a 150 bucks sandwich... ooh this is the life.

It's okay, dude. Chill. I am at 19A myself.

Enough of lists. The basic fact is the people on the railways adjust better and are more humane. Just because you pay a few bucks more for a ticket which takes you less time, does not give you a slick snob license. Journey by railway is safer from a purely gravitational point of view. It's closer to the ground. People are nicer. what more does one want?

The thing is I am in love with Travelling. Which is a sort of a demoralized excuse for those so-called "adventure seekers" of whom I say I belong to. So be it.

           

Fear of...?

What is your deepest fear?

Most of the people fear death. Death; because it is the Ultimate Unknown. No - one has ever come back and told us " Hey folks. It ain't so bad. " . That is because no one has come back.

Why people fear death has always been beyond me. If in a mathematical equation one doesn't know a variable you just give it a value x  and move on. Assuming of course, in course of time we will get to know what  x  is. Why cannot we treat our lives to be more like an unsolved equation with many  variables. We will have to ignore a few to get to know others. We will have to ignore some, guess some, assume some and
outrightly reject some. In this equation put Death as x  and move on.

What is then the biggest cause of fear?

Fear of failure: Some say it is the most profound fear present in most people. Failure is a very subjective term. Optimists see Failure as a learning opportunity and Pessimists see it as the end of life. So somewhere in between the two for most people. In any case what is does failure have to do with fear? Both begin with the same letter. And that is the only thing I find common in them. Well; maybe if your failure can cause your death and you have a fear of death then probably you can find it fearful. No?

What is your biggest cause of fear?

Fear of being forgotten? Often people have told me. They fear being forgotten disappearing into nameless domain. Forgotten.Wiped off the annals of this earth. What is there to fear? There have been 106 Billion people that are or have lived on this planet. How do you expect to be remembered? Gradually your creations will get old, your theories will become axioms, your words will sound archaic, your sound will sound ancient, your movies will become too low definition and your children's children will remember only your children. It is inevitable.

What is then the biggest fear?

Well, my biggest fear is to be remembered.

It may sound odd. But I do not say this just to say " ...Two roads diverged in a wood and I-- , I took the one less traveled by...". Nor do I wish to shock and awe. But it is because I understand the very nature of how the human mind likes to think.

We often tend to remember the bad things done by people.
We remember more bad things than good things. We remember the wrongs, the unjust and the unpleasant.
We can't help it. It's human to remember bad things. That's how we have evolved.
We cannot control this urge to focus on the negative.

I know that I am not a perfect person. As it is; I do bad and good to people.
If people do remember me they will remember me more for the bad moments and not for the good ones.

They can't help  it. They can't change the  source code.

My biggest fear hence, is to be remembered.

I do not want to die in a world where I am remembered.

Because mostly I will be remembered for the worse.

It is a pessimistic point of view, yes ,  but pretty close to the reality.

The Good, The Glamorous and The Ugly.

I hate that kind of parties, where I don't know more than two people and not more than two people know me. And noone knows anyone really. Sort of those social functions. Feels, um... Boring.

It's a menagerie of personalities, some of them idealists, moralists and some rebels and dissenters; Comics and tragics and some generally uninteresting. All in all it's a collection of varied people, who realize that the room has a certain potpourri of a number of personas, and get a somewhat faux sense of glamour and happiness to be the part of this fascinating array of multifarious characters.

But there I was; doing a favor for a friend in one of those  parties. I was hovering around the room trying to locate the only two people I knew: I failed, though.

In situations like these you have two options: what one can do is observe people or try to chat up with someone new. I am not really a hi-stranger-how-do-you-do types so I decided to clam up and take in the surroundings.

"It's funny", said  a voice, from somewhere behind me, " to see that someone is also facing a similar problem regarding socializing".

I turned. There was a girl standing over there, medium height and dark-ish complexion. She looked, to use a Indian newspaper matrimonial term, quite homely.

"Hi", I said, "I didn't see you there".
"Of course you didn't", she replied, "it's hard to see from behind the head, generally".
I smiled. Option Two it is.

We introduced ourselves. I forgot her name. We talked for a while.

"So", said I, "What do you think of this party ?"
She replied "It's a menagerie of personalities, some of them idealists, moralists and some rebels and dissenters; Comics and tragics and some generally uninteresting. All in all it's a collection of varied people, who realize that the room has a certain potpourri of a number of personas,  and get a somewhat faux sense of glamour and happiness to be the part of this fascinating array of multifarious characters."

Yeah well. I plagiarized it.

"You sound like a dissenter." I said, taking a sip of something hot.
Soup, probably.

"No," she said, "I'm Ugly".

I paused. To be brutally honest, she wasn't a looker. Some would even call her ugly. I, used homely as the adjective. Clever Me.

"I beg your pardon."

"I said, I am Ugly." she replied.

"Is that a class of people?"

"Sure."

"I don't think so"

She took a deep breath. "Look around", she said in a low tone, " and observe. what do you see?"
I glanced around, confused.
"The humans have created many distinctions," she continued, " on the basis of faith, on the basis of class, creed, race, language, nationality and sex. But there is one little distinction that mother nature has made, that class far supersedes anyone created by man. The class of beauty."
"Look around, Good looking people chat with good looking people. The average looking people talk to the average looking, The Uglies hover with more of their kind in the interstitials. Sometimes as satellites of these groups. It's an inbuilt class system.Something which comes naturally to us"

"C'mon" I said, incredulously, "beauty is only skin deep".

"I expected you to say that", she replied, "someone had to say that. Or else it would have looked as if humans created this segregation. It's pretty natural. Now if you had two people to talk to. One looks much better than the other one, where will you go? Obviously, the one who doesn't look bad to you. It's basic human Law : Beauty gets magnified, ugliness gets blurred out of focus."

"I don't agree. Beauty isn't everything..."

"You see, beauty appeals to us more than anything in this world. They say ' beauty is in the eye of the beholder'. I say, 'All eyes are the same'. We don't like ugly. We shun ugly. We attain beauty. Or atleast try to. That's the whole principle of the face cream companies."

"Ugly is real. Ugly exists. It stares in your face. Everyone avoids it. Just to not hurt the sentiments of the unprivileged  the society says 'Its the beauty within that matters'. That's probably the worst thing anyone can say. It gives you a false sense of hope. The fact of the matter is ugly is bad. Ugly reminds you of ... well, ugliness and negativity. A thing of beauty is a joy forever. A thing of ugliness is a pain in the butt."


"You don't love a woman because she is beautiful," I stammered "but she is beautiful because you love her, said someone long ago".


"He was probably drunk" she replied.


"Physics teaches us," I rose, now desperately trying to find a loophole in her argument, "that things don't exist if we don't look for them. You change things by observations."


"Yada yada yada," she jeered gleefully, "getting desperate, are we? Trying to pull the ol' science-is-flashy stuff on an arts student. huh? Well, nice try. But the hard fact is everyone observes. We are human. We see. We naturally move away from hideous people and move towards the pleasing ones.
"Take yourself for example," she said as I blanched in defense of a verbal repertoire I was due, " You didn't start talking to me. I started talking to you"
"I wasn't planning to talk to anyone" I mumbled, "honestly."

"Yes, but did you ever notice that I was standing in front of you for the last 5 minutes before we started to talk."

"I ... I ... noticed everyone." I choked, "I don't think I remember everyone I see."

"That's never true" she said, "anyway; Nice talking to you"

With this she disappeared in that crowd. A conglomerate of various individuals, both the picturesque and the inelegant.

Pic courtesy @morpheusredux (http://morpheusredux.deviantart.com/art/Beauty-22796961)