Impracticality of Perfection

When Mahatma Gandhi historically professed to offer the other cheek, I am quite sure he was posturing. No man, by nature, can be so graceful.( honestly, I hardly find any grace in this submission , but my awareness about the stature of the man is restricting me from being any harsher). His words have become textbook lessons, one of the most impractical suggestions ever made(subject of numerous jokes, and rightly so). When Siddharth Gautam renounced the world for greater good, we largely miss the fact that he had been very unfair to , infact betrayed, his wife and child, who were his responsibility. Sure enough,  the world would have managed without another religion.
   When 'learned' men preach, mostly they talk impractical nonsense. 'Love your enemies'. "Don't be tempted, this world is 'maaya'". Really, why blame maaya , an otherwise seductive name for a woman, for all the miseries of the world.( Imagine that daku-type baba on India TV preaching all this). Still it attracts people. Some of these talks attract more people than, say, a Metallica show in India would. Maybe its comes with age. (Still, so uncool). I mean, where is the fun in listening to an old gentlemen, talking about life and what not, in a partial gay-ish tone (I just recalled how Asharamji Bapu  speaks).
The very basic flaw in their preaching is that they teach perfection. Like,  "Forgive your enemies". These are obviously the correct things to do. Ideally this is how it should be. But we dont live in an ideal world. You expect such behavior  from, I dont know, may be Lord Ram, not from lowly humans. But then, even Ram doubted his wife's fidelity. Perfection is elusive. Men are designed to be faulty. God didn't create something that could later challenge their supremacy. Ego, perhaps got to them. Practicing what they teach , at various levels, asks to basically cut your natural instincts. Anger, for instance, is a very raw,  very  honest  expression. It doesn't have any pretence. It cant be curbed. At best, you can hide it. But why hide? It's like making someone who has hurt you feel happy( or not bad) , at your own expense. Its obviously a  more social things to do. But at times, when it's more important how you feel about yourself, than any long term gain, just let it loose.
      What I have advocated is an easier option. If indeed anyone is capable of doing better, that's the way to go. But there is no shame in having flaws. It was always meant to be that way. Perfection is boring. If ever everything right said was practical, there would be no wars, no progress. All desire for attaining perfection, starts from our uneasieness about ourselves, which , as I see, is the first imperfection.

 

Nothingness

'' I deserve better.''Ravan told himself. On beach, a bottle of breezer in hand, a beer bottle in store. The setup was perfect. He had come prepared. This was going to be a long evening. Alone. All to himself. Like he has always  been. He was sad. He was staring at the beautiful sunset. The sun was setting into the blooded ocean. Sun stabbed the ocean, while she was embracing him. Betrayal.
"Wow!!". Ravan thought. He wanted to see the depressing side of everything. He did fine with the ocean-sun thing. All he wanted to see was murderous humanity at its ugliest. It suited his mood. He saw few bikini-clad firangs. Damn. He turned around.
''Dont look!!! no!!! dont!! You are sad''. He convinced himself.
"Ok, just once''. He compromised. He glanced. And then, he was back to look for the darker side of everything.

Ravan was sad. He had to settle score with God. He had come to talk to God. This was his "Aaj Khush to Bahut Hoge Tum'' moment. Earlier, he left his home, his friends, his parents. (Not much money, he would HAVE to return back,3 hours later). Alone. He walked. He had imagined this before.
 "One day, I will be sad, and walk all the way. Walk, walk and walk. Till I reach the end of world". Fuck! Reality struck him. Forget end-of-the-world.
"This world is spherical." He tried to be logical. First time ever that he had managed to convince anyone. So what, if it was he,  himself.  Settle for the beach instead. Ok. Now what? He let his imagination run wild. Lightning struck him. Damn, he was going to be John Abraham( Jism). YES!! (fist pumping, and all). Firstly, he had to be alcohol-ed. Not much of a transition from asshol-ed, that he already was. This was going to be his first time. He bought a breezer and a beer.

The beach was beautiful. Crowded. He left his idea of being John. Another day. Some common sense, finally. He sat at some distance from the ocean. He was sad. Why?. He wondered. He hadn't flunked any exam. His girlfriend hadn't dumped him. Just sad. He thought for a while. Why was he sad. He had no answers.  Maybe a PMS analog for men. No, didn't seem like it.Fashion. He thought deeper. He understood. A day earlier,  a childhood friend of his, Megha, had put a facebook status-
"Sad.:(:(:(:(:(:(. Life sucks :(:(:(:(:(:(. ". Since then, only thing that seemed to matter to his immediate universe was Megha's sadness. She was pretty. Very pretty. Prettier than his girlfriend. Guys commented. "Awwwww... no dear, life is so beautiful,  just look within to see the beauty of life ". This comment was the benchmark. This had to be beaten. Afterall, she had liked it back. So what, if it didn't make sense. It sounded good. Another comment came in.

"No megha, promise me ur not sad... NO, please, u cannot be sad. Please, for me...smile once."

 "WHYyyyyyyyyyyy???? What happened?? Oh God! I wish I was there take u from the grave of sadness to the bliss of happiness". Another gem of emotional outburst came in, after cross checking from thesaurus. Ridhima, a classmate of her commented."drama, nataunki".

Ravan saw the funnier side of it. He also updated "Sad. Life Sucks". (minus the smileys, to sound a man). No one commented. Finally Megha commented.
"Why dear, dont be sad :)". He wanted to be honest to her. Since then, he had actually tried to be sad. He realised. He wasn't sad. Just foolish. Breezer and beer had brought sanity back. He looked around. The bikini firangs were still there. He stared. The sun was just about to completely sink. It looked beautiful. He tried to see a meaning to it. There's wasn't any. There needn't be any. Somethings just have a nothingness about them. Accept it. Move on. He walked back, humming "Awarapan Banjaarapan".

PS: These are the first lines of the book that I intend to complete at some point of time in my life, hopefully over the next 2 years.

The Unconquered Lady Luck

In an interview I saw some time back, Abhinav Bindra on being asked about his gifted talent, said that talent is  highly over-rated. Shooting is 99% luck. He won an Olympic gold. It couldn't have been this simple.Good shooters must be able to control breath, the millisecond instability in breath intake can lead to a misfire. There must be many other issues, which he must have trained hard to perfect. Yet he says it's luck. May be he was playing to the media, just trying to be over-modest. The 99% figure is debatable but I have always been a believer that luck is the single biggest factor in success, more so in failure.

We often see B-school theories on success coming up. But there can never be a completely correct theory on success. For the simple reason that success is relative. Any theoretical formula for success would include hard work, self-confidence , patience, and few more qualities that is easy to describe on paper but hard to achieve in practice.  Luck is often ignored, at best included as an unknown factor. For success, it's best to back your best qualities. People can rely on their hard work, confidence, any other personal quality, but luck? I am not sure how do describe it. I myself do it so often. It takes tremendous amount of courage and preparedness for the worst. Ok, maybe I am over glorifying it. May be it's an escapist approach. It probably, takes an enormous brain folly, intellectual breakdown, vaporization of all senses, common uncommon,  to bank on luck, when the stakes are high. Anyone who comes up to me and tell me he would be able to do-this-do-that because , of all things , his luck would favour him, wouldn't earn my respect for sure. At best I'd consider him a fool only, yet to learn the realities of life.(the Hindi superlatives of fool would be so apt, otherwise). Luck is a mistress, might give the sweetest experience, but you can never own her, never rely on her.

Luck hardly finds testimonials by successful. When it comes to failure, luck is the prime culprit. Human tendency is to take the credit for success, but blame others for failure. Luck is an easy scapegoat. Its easy to blame luck. This hypocrisy has a reason. Even the best preparation may not warrant the best performance. Luck can always play the spoilsport. Even the best prepared is not sure of success. Perhaps the inherent 'fear of the unknown' within us is an acknowledegment of importance of luck. A good luck downsizes hard work requirement. No matter how much pride we take in working hard, an easy success is always sweeter. Luck does that. All of us are superstitious to some level, so that so that we can have that little extra from our luck. The sad part, about all this,  no matter however hard we may try, we cannot make our luck. Maybe, its God's style of making us realize beyond all reason and development of our limitations as humans.Something we keep forgetting.

 "Luck never gives; it only lends." ~Anonymous

Of 'Sluts' and their Walk

Some time back I came to know about Slutwalk. It was trending on twitter. I remember that was the day of Slutwalk London. Slutwalk is a rally that originated in Canada after a police officer commented that , "women should avoid dressing like sluts" to avoid being victimized. (click-wiki article) Hence the term 'slut'walk. It is scheduled to happen in Delhi sometime soon(25th july, tentatively). In west, it generally consists of young women scantily dressed to convey their rebellion. (God! this is their idea of making a hard-impact statement). If  that happens in Delhi, all you can imagine is a rally of 200 DU girls followed by 5000 lechers. Sensing that, the organisers have indianized the rally. Also it's being called Besharmi morcha to have a local feel. (click-Slutwalk Delhi). So far so good.

Nobody denies that women have been suppressed in our society and that is largely beyond their control. Another way to say that is men are basically 3rd class animals having no respect for rights of others(that includes women, naagin (jehrili ones), etc), fit only to be slaves, but due to historical blunders in the process of evolution, occupy a superior position. That is such a disgrace for human race. Maybe not that bad, but yeah, to a large extent it is because of the men that women have to go through their worst experiences. Crimes against women are committed everyday, it is such a shame, nobody denies that.


Whenever there's a debate on gender equality, emotions take over logic. So, to set things straight, the instances made henceforth refers only to 'empowered' women, who get equal treatment as their brothers from their parents, well educated, in totality have equal or better qualities as their men colleagues. As for the other  not-so-lucky women, mostly in villages, we would like to say we understand your sufferings, keep fighting back, we support you.


Now that I am done with the disclaimer part I'll come to the point. Gender equality must be demanded consistently, not selectively when it benefits you.When the issue is to reserve seats in Parliament, then it's all good. But If a review of anti-dowry laws is asked, it is seen as a step to curb women rights.  Most law experts would tell you that it's the most misused law in India. Reason: it largely works on the principle of  'guilty until proven innocent' as opposed to the other laws in India. Even Kasab was 'innocent until proven guilty'. I will restrict to these two instances. The larger point is made.

There was an incidence in Mangalore some time back, where some women were beaten in a pub. It became a national issue, and rightly so. But I was rather amused by the reaction to that. There was a proposed 'pub-bharo' movement, and suggestion that it was an attack against women empowerment( going to pub empowers women!). Some discussions implied that modern women dressed in a certain way( that way, Rakhi Sawant also qualifies as modern). Of course modern or not, a women has a right to wear what they want. But how does wearing a certain way make one modern? This way, basically women, like men,themself describe themselves more by what they wear , and not how they reason, think . And also, you get a feeling( in their argument) that they are competing with men at all times. In any case, if the parliamentary reservation bill ever gets passed, it would because of the 80% male MPs. Politically incorrect to say, but thats a fact.One area where you cannot deny them credit is there innovation in protesting. PETA photoshoots to protest 'cruelty against animals' are legendary. Slutwalk, a rally of scantily clad women, what better way to attract attention and make the world 'aware'.


Expecting a dominant species to give up their position for the larger good of society is a bit far-fledged. Humans won their right to be rulers through their skills. Men must have done the same way, when the competition narrowed down to 2. Mistakes were committed. Blaming the winner can be a consolation, never a solution. And if walks could reverse historical blunders, be rest assured, it's going to be a long walk. Very long.

MSD:The New Icon

A few of my myths busted over past few days. Here are my realizations.

1. If you vacate a seat for a lady on a bus, don't expect her to return back the favour.

2. So what petrol is very expensive now, there are still people who would travel back and forth a kilometer to lift 3 people because he couldn't carry all 5( all unknown to the rider) on his 2-wheeler in the first place.#Goans rock.

3. Even if it is only his luck, so be it. Mahendra Singh Dhoni is (almost) invincible.

We, as fans of Indian Cricket, are so used to worshiping Sachin as our icon. I often wonder what will happen after he retires. The fanatic following cricket has in India, it has to have an icon. MSD is all ready to fill the gap when the time comes. He is all set to be the new icon.

For me, the most defining moment of MSD on field was the presentation ceremony of T20 World Cup final. When asked about why he gave the last over to Joginder Sharma, he replied. Harbhajan didnt want to bowl the last over. So he gave the over to someone who didnt have a reputation to save and wanted to make a mark at the international level. That is as honest as you can get. Just imagine. Losing to Pakistan in a world cup final by giving the last over to a newbie. The greatest cricketing sin one could commit. Chetan Sharma never got to bowl again for India after conceding a last ball six to Javed Miandad. Indian fans have matured over the years. Yet Dhoni might have never captained India again.

 His cricketing exploits are at par with any Indian cricketer. Avg of 50 at an strike rate of over 90 is class stuff. Yet his acceptance as a batsman is low. He is definitely effective, hardly elegant. That's very much expected. He learnt his cricket in gullies of Ranchi, amidst his mediocre colleagues in Jharkhand Ranji team.

I have always been in a dilemma. Whether to like him or not. A lot of people actually dislike him. News report about him surpassing Sachin in advertisement earnings fuel the disgust. I believe it's only the insecurity of Sachin' s fans. Dhoni rise as a challenge to Sachin is a bit far fledged. It's high time we stop considering any competition to Sachin and celebrate Dhoni as our new icon.

As a captain, he is almost perfect. Yet to lose a test series. 2 World Cup victories. 2 IPL victories. His predecessors  were the 3 greatest Indian batsman. 2 turned out be less than average captains. Sachin sucks as a captain. He makes commonsensical blunders while captaining. Dhoni has been an underdog. A small town guy who made it big. His is a sensational success story. His humility and straight forwardness is charming. His luck magical. He doesn't carry the arrogance and politics(alleged) like Ganguly, nor does he have the plastic perfection and boring political correctness like Dravid. His imperfection makes him someone people identify with. He seems one amongst us. One we can successfully emulate.

Handing the captaincy to Ganguly in his final moments as an Indian cricketer and asking Kumble to  jointly lift the trophy were memorable gestures. Him parading the entire team in front of the media( T20 World Cup, 2009) was silly yet dramatic. (He takes the media way too seriously). His naughty chirps from behind the wicket ( "Bell ki ghanti baja") are youthfully undiplomatic. He may not be perfect like Sachin. Attaining Sachin like perfection( not just his game, his overall persona) is beyond the scope of human effort. Dhoni appears more realistic. Our brand new icon.

The Real Superhumans

I was a huge fan of Shaktimaan. I hardly missed any episode.. He was superhuman. His mode of transport was a tornado. He was our saviour against 'Tamraj Kilwish'. He could bring Geeta Biswas back from death. He could do anything. ( For those, who now find it embarrassing to admit that they once likedsomething as crappy as Shaktimaan, replace Shaktimaan with Batman, Geeta Biswas with Katie Holmes,or better Monica Belluchi ( don' t try to find a connection, c'mon, the idea is just to feel better)).



Alas! He wasn't for real.


A friend of mine shared an amazing video with me today. It's about Indrajit, son of a farmer who fought all odds to become an IAS officer. He is from Jharkhand.( I sense raised eyebrows, relax, this post is not about Jharkhand). We live in a nation where the majority population is underprivileged. Our newspapers are occupied with news of cobbler's son getting into IIT, farmer's daughter making it to IAS ( hypothetical cases, just for gender equality), TTE breaking into Indian cricket team, going on to become a world cup winning captain. The present superhero of our nation is a small-time Marathi poet's son.( damn, Sachin again, we can somehow relate everything to him. We love flaunting him to establish our superiority, we love showing him off. So Indianish). They, too are superhuman.

And yes,, they are for real.


It's thrilling to see people like Indrajit. (Watch the video, its so inspiring). It's not just a rags to riches story. It's about a fighting spirit, that is so inherent in our country. It's so easy to give up. It's about a superhuman effort. About a will to change destiny, realising a dream. Our nation is so surplus of these people. Our much criticized examination system must be credited for it. It might be having several faults. Often, criminalized for increasing pressure on student( I find this an imported argument, underprivileged kids in Indian villages aren't as Chicken hearted, like in some more developed countries, they face something worse than exams everyday in life), but at-least it provides an even ground in terms of evaluation.


While these superhumans may not be as celebrated as Shaktimaan or Batman (Monica Belluchi still lingering), they aren't any less inspiring. While Shaktimaan and Batman only entertain us, they teach us how to live with our heads held high. Will end now, feeling good about myself on writing this post, with an old cliché, "Where there is a will there is a way".

                                                    Indrajit On IBNLive

My Last Teen Talk

The toughest part of blogging is to write the first few lines. Often you end up writing something very abstract, which could otherwise be said simply. You think you have written something highly intellectual, to be understood only by the classes. The world around, never as smart, fails to see your point. In teens, this happens so often, in all issues, and with almost everyone. It surely happened with me.
In my last week of teenage, I look back at my days( no romanticizing, not my style ). During early teens, one learns new words, maa behn stuff. Some learn earlier. Knowledge that lasts forever. Horniness creeps in , increases ever after. And yeah, you think you are smarter than everyone else.
    I personally liked my uninhibited rawness. I remember, once we had a substitute teacher. Something happened and she angrily told me

'' Why dont you come here and teach".

"That's your job........... you are being paid to do so".

( Greg Chappel said something similar about Indian MPs few months later, he lost his job). I had heard this so often, I guess I had developed some immunity to it. The teacher threatened that she will take me to the Principal. I had been before, so I was like Ok. Eventually that didnt happen. Looking back at that( there were many such incidents, some can't even be shared), I don't know how to feel about it. It was not that I did something very brave, but I don't really regret it. It's alright, I guess at that age it's allowed to make mistakes.
       There was always a sense of self-ascribed importance. When we discussed matters of national importance, politics, cricket, I felt important. When in argument, with me, mostly it is a case of one-against-many. Often I find my self single handedly defending Bihari-Jharkhandi cause ( at one time, I had said that the very existence of India would be threatened if Jharkhand, with it's huge resources is to be taken out; howsoever rhetorical it may sound, I still believe it isn't very far from truth.)
  School was fun. We had a very carefree but informed group ( those important discussions happened quite often, still happens). The last two years were superclass. I hardly bunked any classes. Interrupting teachers in between class was a lot more fun. I was in the same school for 12 years, so there was an aura of invincibility. But I dont miss being at school. I had my days in schools. I enjoyed it, but I never had this feeling.."wish I was still at school"( my mushier classmates ...leave it, I don't want to be rude ).

     I'll skip about my college life, for some other post later. At this stage, it's mostly about answering exams. It is said that age is just a number. Lets see, how much being in 20's is different. I fear the best days of my life are behind me, I hope not though.

God and Me

Each time I answer a test, I recite a prayer to God-" Save me one last time, next time onwards I will do it myself". Right from the time when I was very young( I am still very young, I meant when getting good marks was the most important thing in my life, when I topped in class; seems like ages ago).  The regularity with which I answer exams now (and pray), I almost qualify to be a priest. I tried to recall, could think of only few occasions when I actually pray to God. My birthday, Deewali, Holi, and other very important days( which, in teens, are invariably exam days).

My parents pray everyday, for long hours( the same time if devoted to fitness, they would be young forever), and I take it for granted that they must be praying for me only, so it compensates for me not praying. 

I always thought of spiritualism and religion as an asylum that people take when they don't have anything significant to do in life. First time I realized it was more important than that was when I met a Pakistani boy, my age ( 14-15 that time), in Lucknow. In Pakistan, Islamic studies is a compulsory subject( he was from an International School, there also they were compulsory). So this guy knew a lot about religions, Islam in particular. My knowledge was zero. He kept talking about  how Islam was superior to Christianity, how Christianity and Islam were same once and how they got separated.( I don't exactly remember, but he spoke on such lines for sure) He asked me about Hinduism. I told him I know nothing. 

"Don't you feel hollow without religion. "( These were the exact words).

 " No "

"I feel like religion completes me". 

" I feel complete even without religion" ( I had to argue, after all I was representing my country in  an Ind-Pak encounter).

I told him I am a secular person!!( I must have picked it up from some political speech, always evergreen, I had to win the duel). 

 He asked me to read Quran. I said I don't know Urdu. He told me he would gift me an English or Hindi version of Quran. It wasn't available immediately at the bookstore. Any longer, and this guy would have had me converted.( btw, his email id was quite horny, for a religious fellow). 

Of course, I knew about the impact of religion, political and  social. But not how it 'completed' men, its divine nature. I still don't know. Why eating non-veg on Tuesday(pick your day as you like, it varies) is irreligious, and on other days, its Ok. Being an atheist is in fashion. It sounds so odd, so hatke. But give it a thought, why should one believe in some God, that you are never likely to see or hear( Not all of us are lucky as Lalu Yadav; he has seen Lord Shiva!). It's completely logical. 

I am not an atheist, just passive about religion. I know I will never see or hear God, so what,  I am cool about it. God is to be to felt, the mullahs, pandits and pope would have us beleive. I feel the God within me, in my spirits. Naah!! (I don't lie on my blog). I have never ever felt God,( c'mon, how do you feel God, sounds so fraudulent, I guess the only way is to fake it).Still for me, God exists. I don't have any logic, just this belief. 

Religion still doesn't interest me. I never felt like wanting to know more about it. If at all, Islam interests me a bit, for it's various interpretations. Afganistan Government has legalized raping one's own wife(google it if you dont beleive, here's one -click) , as it was permitted under Shariah Law, which can't be possibly true. It has to be false, but there must be enough ambiguity in the text to allow such obvious misinterpretations.  

If,  it can be justified, it's science, if not, then it's religion-Anonymous

  

Theories of Lunacy

Ok, I am writing this on a day when I got 5.5(out of 10) -2(for 5 minute late submission)-3.5(for something)-5(for something else)=-5/10 marks for lab notebook, when generally a minimum of 8 is expected even if you fill 4 pages with some random numbers(btw, I had written a total of 6 pages). But it's not my anger that's guiding my thoughts. This blog is not a part of my vendetta scheme( it's too sacred for me, I wouldn't tarnish it for such childish acts). This is my genuine attempt to understand and explain ''lunatic behavior of newly 'empowered' gentlemen or women", but the inspiration for this quest is one man( and he is not the instructor who marked me, he is too insignificant in my life to inspire a blog), to a less extent another. I will keep out  the names as I don't want to make it personal.

So here are my hypothesis.

 1- These gentlemen are born assholes.period.

This hypothesis is very tempting. It will have wide acceptability, and too a large extent explains almost everything they do.  In Hindi, there are many idioms that perfectly describes them-'Bandar ke haath mein nariyal', 'Kutta ko ghee nahi pachta'(even Bandar respects the nariyal in his hand). These are just perfect description, one line and that's enough. 

But for fairness, lets reject this hypothesis( everything that a man is born with is attributed to God, why blame God for man's assholic acts.)

2. Servant-type treatment in their houses by their better halves(any half they are not part of would be better, I suppose)

Women are best judge of a man's character. The women who marries them know them the best. So right from the very inception, they give these men the correct treatment at home, treating them like servants. Even their kids are kind of smarter than them(oh! poor kids, what disgusting comparison). Therefore the frustration has to come out somewhere. When in power(out of their house), they look for their redemption. Power is not an easy thing to handle, particularly after servant-like treatment at home. Leads to abuse.

I am not totally satisfied by this hypothesis, it's appealing though.

PS: I meant no offence to servants( I understand it's derogatory to get compared to these gentlemen). Servants are the most important people in a married women's life. My sincere tributes to them.

3. Man's quest for importance in life.

Every person craves importance, to be counted in society, to mean something to others. It's very natural, but not an easy achievement. When you get power,  you achieve that or you don't. There is no gray zone. After leading a life of total insignificance, when life offers them a chance to make a difference in others life, they act, and they make a difference. To what effect, judge by this blog. Reason: virtually no understanding of power they command, and how to handle them(Hypothesis 1 just keeps coming back). If you have a whip in hand, it's not necessary meant for striking. Respect is earned, not asked for.

Lets be fair to them, they have added responsibility, they have a duty to perform, and a lot of us are bad at performing our duties.It's very common. But the problem is a misplaced sense of duty and responsibility, interfering in areas in which they have no jurisdiction( when a lot of our parents have let us on our own, it's even harder to accept).

So here are my hypothesis, I strongly support 3 with 1 having a good supporting role, and 2 describing the residual effects.

I reiterate what I said at the beginning. My hypothesis are not a result of some childish rant, but as a result of some thoughtful discussion(within self, and with others). To my lab instructor, thank you for registering 0 instead of -5 marks(see, I am so graceful even in adversity). And a request-Dude, get a life!