Somehow, today I don't feel moving.
My body has become sodden, and my mind is now in a quagmire. I have heavy cough, and slight fever, and my body aches to move. I have brushed today at one o'clock in the afternoon, and missed most, nay, all of my classes.
What is it that ties us to these states of unyielding languor? Is it complacency? Is it lack of motivation? Is it just plain laziness?
But I don't feel good at all. I feel like, well, shit.
I think it is lack of drive, lack of motivation of course. But I have so much to do, so much to think. Then why?
Ah!
That is then. It is just me trying to question this lethargy. The only way to defeat it, is to do.
Let's do it.
Saturday, December 10, 2011
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
Anna Hazare and Corruption: Afew different aspects
Is Anna Hazare’s tirade against corruption justified? I think yes. He has helped ignite all the repressed ire of the middle class workers in India, and as is given his movement’s backbone lies in the strength of unity amongst these middle-class people, who are frustrated, disgusted, and plain fed-up of the prevailing system of bribery. It might, and then again might not, sound strange: in India, the system of bribery is an accepted part of any government office; it is as if you are expected to pay up to them for any job, which may just be his regular duty.
Anna Hazare says stop this! This is enough! You cannot go on giving out bribes to everyone, for this system will just go on and on, and it would act like a whirlpool of illegality and stupidity, and at last would not justify having any system at all.
I respect his views, but my brother pointed out a complex problem: why do people ask for bribes?
I do not think that all big, fat people sitting behind a desk in India are greedy, or that an epidemic of avarice has gone on spreading faster that malaria. I agree, most of the people taking bribes are slobs, who just want more comforts out of their life, and some are plain weirdoes. But a slight majority of them are small level officials, or perhaps rank lower down in hierarchy. Why? They don’t get paid enough.
A traffic constable stands on the street for about 5-hours, continuously, on roads on two separate shifts, including night, for India suffers sufficiently from a shortage of people (yeah, seriously) in the traffic police in some places. And for all this hard work, they hardly get Rs. 5000 a month. That is like $100. What if he tries to earn a few more thousand for himself, and in the process try to extract some bribes? According to my brother, he would gladly give some money to the constables, and perhaps even some to the peons, who are, if you don’t know, unskilled workers doing odd jobs in an office. And, mind you, they work harder than sloths like me. My brother says, giving some rewards, perhaps even voluntarily, is good.
But the sad reality is, even though their numbers are more, and they only take Rs. 100 or Rs, 20 from you, the amount of money they take shirks away shamefully in front of the sums that the infamous baboos take from you. Sadly, there are high ranking officials in India, including the ministers who actually take bribes whose amount stretches well into the millions of dollars.
My father is a minor government official, and though we aren’t affluent, what I am proud of is that I can walk with my head held high and proud, abreast with my father. He doesn’t take bribes, and I know that: he has been in troubles with his seniors in his office when he has reportedly and reputedly denied taking bribes from contractors, thus not favouring any of them. He tells me the actual reason behind all of this.
People want more: and this reason inadvertently asks them to indulge in anything and everything in order to earn more money. As long as this want exists, corruption will be there. We will corrupt our ways to earn more. That is but human tendency, and only people who have not surrendered to this desire, can truly be called elevated people.
In the end, everyone is now frustrated, mostly with the stinking government, and everyone, including the ones who take bribe out survival value, want this tradition to be gone. People in general have come to understand, that one way or the other, this system only benefits the powerful; the less powerful constable cannot now bear the shame or extracting that measly little more to gift his three kids some early presents. No, bribes are now frustrating.
If only, oh! If only, the people could understand that more is not the answer on the materialistic side, it is only on the spiritual side that they should ask more! If the government assures some standard living conditions for these poor constables, of whom, in Mumbai, over half live in the slums littered around this gigantic city. But, now, it is the time of the people.
People it seems have now taken the summary of Lincoln by word, and their uniting force is Anna Hazare. How true it is to the spirit of democracy, is a question that would be answered later. For now, only action is important.
Anna Hazare says stop this! This is enough! You cannot go on giving out bribes to everyone, for this system will just go on and on, and it would act like a whirlpool of illegality and stupidity, and at last would not justify having any system at all.
I respect his views, but my brother pointed out a complex problem: why do people ask for bribes?
I do not think that all big, fat people sitting behind a desk in India are greedy, or that an epidemic of avarice has gone on spreading faster that malaria. I agree, most of the people taking bribes are slobs, who just want more comforts out of their life, and some are plain weirdoes. But a slight majority of them are small level officials, or perhaps rank lower down in hierarchy. Why? They don’t get paid enough.
A traffic constable stands on the street for about 5-hours, continuously, on roads on two separate shifts, including night, for India suffers sufficiently from a shortage of people (yeah, seriously) in the traffic police in some places. And for all this hard work, they hardly get Rs. 5000 a month. That is like $100. What if he tries to earn a few more thousand for himself, and in the process try to extract some bribes? According to my brother, he would gladly give some money to the constables, and perhaps even some to the peons, who are, if you don’t know, unskilled workers doing odd jobs in an office. And, mind you, they work harder than sloths like me. My brother says, giving some rewards, perhaps even voluntarily, is good.
But the sad reality is, even though their numbers are more, and they only take Rs. 100 or Rs, 20 from you, the amount of money they take shirks away shamefully in front of the sums that the infamous baboos take from you. Sadly, there are high ranking officials in India, including the ministers who actually take bribes whose amount stretches well into the millions of dollars.
My father is a minor government official, and though we aren’t affluent, what I am proud of is that I can walk with my head held high and proud, abreast with my father. He doesn’t take bribes, and I know that: he has been in troubles with his seniors in his office when he has reportedly and reputedly denied taking bribes from contractors, thus not favouring any of them. He tells me the actual reason behind all of this.
People want more: and this reason inadvertently asks them to indulge in anything and everything in order to earn more money. As long as this want exists, corruption will be there. We will corrupt our ways to earn more. That is but human tendency, and only people who have not surrendered to this desire, can truly be called elevated people.
In the end, everyone is now frustrated, mostly with the stinking government, and everyone, including the ones who take bribe out survival value, want this tradition to be gone. People in general have come to understand, that one way or the other, this system only benefits the powerful; the less powerful constable cannot now bear the shame or extracting that measly little more to gift his three kids some early presents. No, bribes are now frustrating.
If only, oh! If only, the people could understand that more is not the answer on the materialistic side, it is only on the spiritual side that they should ask more! If the government assures some standard living conditions for these poor constables, of whom, in Mumbai, over half live in the slums littered around this gigantic city. But, now, it is the time of the people.
People it seems have now taken the summary of Lincoln by word, and their uniting force is Anna Hazare. How true it is to the spirit of democracy, is a question that would be answered later. For now, only action is important.
Saturday, August 20, 2011
The Song of Music
There is no magic yet, which is as beautiful, as mystical and as enchanted as music. For whatever reason, and I don’t know what it exactly is, humans find themselves inexorably entangled with the powers of music; it is a nature, as latent and ingrained within us as a snail is in its shell. We are drawn to strains from afar, and to us all it appears a little different, yet unexplainably wonderful. To weary travelers, the song of a bird brings joys in gloomy roads, while the gyrating tunes revels in the nightclubs of the cities, but wherever music is being played it invariably is important as a carrier of the essence and atmosphere of the place.
Whatever the case, music is as omnipotent as the variety of human beings who inhabit this earth. For wherever humanity has gone, it has carried music with it; wherever culture has proceeded, there is a particular way in music which it propagates and plays. Music is extensively varied in its tastes and flavors, but whatever it is, it is just magical when everybody joins in and flows in its endless streams. And this magic takes us to lands and countries heretofore unseen, unheard, but gradually understood in its chords, pitches and tunes.
In our hostel, we had a session of this breathtaking drug, and what shall I say of it? It was wonderful.
We huddled on a staircase, and Mr. Zeeshan Khan, with his guitar on his thigh, and with Mr. Subhro Ganguly, with his enchanting vocals, started the proceedings in which we all chimed in together. We followed the course set up by the strings and the rhythms, and tousled over with them along the length of the scales. Surprisingly, most of cannot sing well, and yet we all joined in. It was wonderful, it was magical.
It has the most tremendous powers of all on this planet earth. May we make some more, and continue the magic that we have got from our forefathers. May it always continue.
Whatever the case, music is as omnipotent as the variety of human beings who inhabit this earth. For wherever humanity has gone, it has carried music with it; wherever culture has proceeded, there is a particular way in music which it propagates and plays. Music is extensively varied in its tastes and flavors, but whatever it is, it is just magical when everybody joins in and flows in its endless streams. And this magic takes us to lands and countries heretofore unseen, unheard, but gradually understood in its chords, pitches and tunes.
In our hostel, we had a session of this breathtaking drug, and what shall I say of it? It was wonderful.
We huddled on a staircase, and Mr. Zeeshan Khan, with his guitar on his thigh, and with Mr. Subhro Ganguly, with his enchanting vocals, started the proceedings in which we all chimed in together. We followed the course set up by the strings and the rhythms, and tousled over with them along the length of the scales. Surprisingly, most of cannot sing well, and yet we all joined in. It was wonderful, it was magical.
It has the most tremendous powers of all on this planet earth. May we make some more, and continue the magic that we have got from our forefathers. May it always continue.
It is 2.30 in the morning, and my eyelids continue to droop precariously over my eyes, and i do not know how much longer i can stay awake. I have been away for too long a time to realise, but I have come back, and come back to thinking for good.
I am sure I didn't see the glacial ice heading towards me, but consciously or not, it froze within a bubble of air, and I got trapped in the jumble of the clog wheels of the world. I could hardly recollect anything that I saw: they were mostly fuzzy pictures; I could not make sense of any of them. After this, there was momentary silence, and a dark hollow began creeping upon my back. I felt cold for the first time, and it was numbing. Now there was no pain, there was no feeling. I was dead; at least that was what it felt like.
Suddenly, this blur of images subsided, and I had in front of me a little song, which had broken through the barriers of this frozen ice. My body, unaccustomedly, started twitching to its graceful strain. It filled my body with vigour and warmth. and to this tune I danced, how so ever i could. Suddenly, the ice shattered open, and I was to see the most beautiful spring ever unfolded before my eyes.
Yes, I have come back. I have come back with a determination!
I am sure I didn't see the glacial ice heading towards me, but consciously or not, it froze within a bubble of air, and I got trapped in the jumble of the clog wheels of the world. I could hardly recollect anything that I saw: they were mostly fuzzy pictures; I could not make sense of any of them. After this, there was momentary silence, and a dark hollow began creeping upon my back. I felt cold for the first time, and it was numbing. Now there was no pain, there was no feeling. I was dead; at least that was what it felt like.
Suddenly, this blur of images subsided, and I had in front of me a little song, which had broken through the barriers of this frozen ice. My body, unaccustomedly, started twitching to its graceful strain. It filled my body with vigour and warmth. and to this tune I danced, how so ever i could. Suddenly, the ice shattered open, and I was to see the most beautiful spring ever unfolded before my eyes.
Yes, I have come back. I have come back with a determination!
Friday, May 20, 2011
Caribbean Splash
I went to see Pirates of the Caribbean: On stranger tides, yesterday with my friends, and must say that it wasn’t the most pleasant of the experiences, even disregarding the extreme heat I had to go through to watch the movie at noon. The chief, and the most ironic, was the reason why went for the show at noon: 3D.
If there was one bad 3D movie, then it was this one. If seeing Avatar 2D was a waste (without 3D you miss the awesome window like effect), then seeing POTC: OST was a horrid torture of 128 minutes. I might have seen half the movie without specs, so, I got a bail out of the pain. The theme was mostly dark and hence was incomprehensible with the specs on. I wear necessary spectacles without which I cannot see, and this causes more pain.
The epitome of nuisance arises from the poor photography. If Avatar showed how beautiful things could look in 3D, POTC:OST showed what pain it could be if they are not properly projected. The front projection techniques, in which the blurring of projection is more apparent nearer to the “window”, actually spoilt some very good screen space. And, to top it all, my head ached seeing the 3D.
Minus the 3D glitches, the story wasn’t so bad, though I must say it wasn’t as interesting as the other POTC movies. There wasn’t much adventure, and the story didn’t have enduring showdowns. Well, I don’t really criticize movie plots, but this one didn’t have a pivotal plot point; but thinking it from my brain would only allow my perspective in view, and not the artist’s, so I don’t see much plot problems, minus the mermaid love story, and the lack of swashbuckling sword fights.
The only thing that I went to see the movie for was, after all, Jack Sparrow! And he was brilliant! I counted five double crosses, two broken promises and one cold backstab. And finally, when I thought there would be a kiss between Angelica and Jack: the scene was awesome.
Johnny Depp and Penelope Cruz were awesome, and so was Geoffrey Rush. It was all in all entertaining, if not a little irritating movie.
I would now meditate, and concentrate on my work, for a lot needs to be written down.
If there was one bad 3D movie, then it was this one. If seeing Avatar 2D was a waste (without 3D you miss the awesome window like effect), then seeing POTC: OST was a horrid torture of 128 minutes. I might have seen half the movie without specs, so, I got a bail out of the pain. The theme was mostly dark and hence was incomprehensible with the specs on. I wear necessary spectacles without which I cannot see, and this causes more pain.
The epitome of nuisance arises from the poor photography. If Avatar showed how beautiful things could look in 3D, POTC:OST showed what pain it could be if they are not properly projected. The front projection techniques, in which the blurring of projection is more apparent nearer to the “window”, actually spoilt some very good screen space. And, to top it all, my head ached seeing the 3D.
Minus the 3D glitches, the story wasn’t so bad, though I must say it wasn’t as interesting as the other POTC movies. There wasn’t much adventure, and the story didn’t have enduring showdowns. Well, I don’t really criticize movie plots, but this one didn’t have a pivotal plot point; but thinking it from my brain would only allow my perspective in view, and not the artist’s, so I don’t see much plot problems, minus the mermaid love story, and the lack of swashbuckling sword fights.
The only thing that I went to see the movie for was, after all, Jack Sparrow! And he was brilliant! I counted five double crosses, two broken promises and one cold backstab. And finally, when I thought there would be a kiss between Angelica and Jack: the scene was awesome.
Johnny Depp and Penelope Cruz were awesome, and so was Geoffrey Rush. It was all in all entertaining, if not a little irritating movie.
I would now meditate, and concentrate on my work, for a lot needs to be written down.
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
deviantART
Oh yeah! Good news! I joined deviantART! Follow me there, or whoever reads me from over there, follow me here!
You can follow me at:http://picaroinfinity.deviantart.com/
You can follow me at:http://picaroinfinity.deviantart.com/
Chugging Train
That is what I would consider my life to be at this moment. It is going on, and I haven't lost anything of my spirit to anyone or anything. But this is hard, this is so much of what I didn't want my life to turn into. I haven't done much except write a good deal of the last two years, and now it seems I have lost much craft of what I had a long time ago, and now I am like a wandering philosopher: no home, no place to rest, and endless toils.
I thought my life would go on smoothly, and will not be stopped by anything. That I would achieve success at whatever I did, and would conquer almost everything that I came across. Some people have it so easy, that I thought I also had it within me to do whatever I would please. But it is not so. One after another I have failed, and now though their were plenty of promises from me, I am nothing more than another failure.
Are failures important? Someone said, that important or not, they happen, and sometimes they are necessary to remind you of what you exactly are.
But the taunts you face with people! My own parents, for example, count on nothing more than my marks, and almost all their love and other stuff, has stopped, and just because i failed to get into a particular university. It seems all their love is only for my marks and nothing else. They even canceled a trip with my relatives just because the results are going to be out then, and they don't think i could do much in that.
But, if the resolve is steady, and the will is strong, their is no wall that can stop you. You must let go of everything, and hold steady on your path, no matter how many times you fail, or get trampled over, or get cut.
I will continue.
I thought my life would go on smoothly, and will not be stopped by anything. That I would achieve success at whatever I did, and would conquer almost everything that I came across. Some people have it so easy, that I thought I also had it within me to do whatever I would please. But it is not so. One after another I have failed, and now though their were plenty of promises from me, I am nothing more than another failure.
Are failures important? Someone said, that important or not, they happen, and sometimes they are necessary to remind you of what you exactly are.
But the taunts you face with people! My own parents, for example, count on nothing more than my marks, and almost all their love and other stuff, has stopped, and just because i failed to get into a particular university. It seems all their love is only for my marks and nothing else. They even canceled a trip with my relatives just because the results are going to be out then, and they don't think i could do much in that.
But, if the resolve is steady, and the will is strong, their is no wall that can stop you. You must let go of everything, and hold steady on your path, no matter how many times you fail, or get trampled over, or get cut.
I will continue.
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