Asmita - Asmita ki khoj mein

Venue : Indian Habitat Centre

Date : 31 May 2008

Time : 5 PM

Event : Asmita Group presents street play

It was a long Friday, stretched longer till Saturday morning in office, assisting Ankit in his work; 2 hours of sleep and up I went to greater Noida for some work with Prabhakar. Here goes the whole day. Tired and sleepy I request Prabhakar to visit IHC as we have Asmita group presenting street plays today, ah, street play, and I see those pictures in mind, kurtas, loud throats, social message, aggression, amazing actors, stunned audience, an observant director, many questions, few answers. Nostalgia, the word ‘street play’ triggered nostalgia.

The stage was set, and then there was this explosion! The first street play talking about road safety had around 25 artists, and the sudden outburst of energy shook the awaiting audience. ‘Gaddi jaandi hai chhalanga maar dee, ho mainnu yaad aaye mere yaaar dee’, the play very subtly talked about how indifferent everyone is about road safety in a highly crowded city like ours and how we deny to take control of whole situation. Be it the drunk truck driver, politically shielded bus driver, a young biker or just one of us walking on the road, it makes no difference to us whatsoever, until we become part of the victim list. Lack of thought, that’s all, traffic is such a wonderful example of the great Hindustani instinct of ‘we can but we won’t’.

The second one was called ‘Rahul Boxer’, and displayed ego VS ethics, how all of us want to prove a lot of things all the time. That urge to win, to exceed, to leave the world behind, irrespective of the ‘how’, we keep aiming. It’s a different world these days, more competitive, more needs, more desires, higher aims, lower reasons! We are living it, kind of. This was done by a few novices, and considering this, it was wonderful.

The third one, again by a few other novices talked about a young rape victim, a ten year old school girl, who was raped by her tuition teacher. Time and time again, questions have been raised on the respect rape victims must receive from police, judiciary and the society, still many unanswered questions revoked. Let alone successful trials of rapists, I am not even sure if the number of rape cases registered are even a fraction of total rapes that happen in a society which feeds everyone with dignity and pride, teaches every man to walk with high head and broad chest. They say the world is nearing its end, I say it hasn’t yet evolved fully, and it’s still a man’s world.

The fourth and the last play again talked about violence again women, and primarily talked about eve teasing and domestic violence, about the grand male ego and their ‘needs’ from their woman. There are times when people compare American marriages to Indian marriages and feel proud that we have such a small divorce ratio, I believe that this isn’t something to feel proud about but to worry about. The main reason behind all this is lack of aggression from the females, their acceptance, and their diffidence! Things may be changing, and changing for the better, but even today, girls are fed with the thought that their husband will be their god, I never heard somebody telling a guy something even similar about his to-be. Had there been any more resistance and a little less acceptance from women, the divorce rate would get higher, but again the dependency matrix and the ethical grooming keeps them away from any revolts. Evolution is not even mid way.

Thanks to Asmita theatre group and Arvind Gaur jee for such a day. It leaves me sad at the end of all such events, thinking what am I doing? I know I am lazy but I know that if I keep looking I will find the way sooner or later, back to hunting!

Look, I was tagged, yipppeeee!!!

Thank you Desi, thanks a lot!!!!

The best TAG ever, better than royal sTAG and or Guru TAGore or Mars atTAG or two shots of TAGila or Dagny TAGgart or any other TAGnical possibility. This is absolutely meaningless, no questions, no tastes, no favourite magazines and good-things-about-your-neighbours-puppy, it’s a say-whatever-you-want-to-say or a no-one-gives-a-damn-to-logic-and-sanity kinds.

I have been wandering since my early blogging days that how long can I keep my natural instinct of speaking out bullshit and meaningless phrases away from this medium of expression and I think that this is the right platform for me to start HARDCORE BULLSHITTING here as well, and this is the genesis of the category BAKAR, the hardcore reality, the reason for mediocre existence and the ultimate route to the divine and the shortcut to the six thousand years of tapasya, standing one legged on a himalaya peak for moksha

Shut up shut up shut up!!!! Ohh it was meant to be a tag, so here goes the details :-

The love-link tag. The Love-link Tag is another of those Linky Love game where you only have to tag 10 person in one post but still there is no actual limit (you can tag more if you want!).
Once tagged, you have to copy paste the link in this post, and make them grow! Do not delete any of the links and be honest to yourself! Copy paste the link in this post, and make them grow!

BennyLiew, RamblingMoo, Mum & Kids In Wonderland, Judelittle, Our mini blogsphere, Rooms in My Heart, http://janiceng.blogspot.com/, ChinNee, Jo-N, LadyJava’s Lounge, Strange but True, Mariuca’s Perfume Gallery, Meet Uncle J-Uncle J, Farah, aNgRiAniWoRLd, How’s Life Bout, The Three Heroes, Ceedy, Veena, Vandita, Cuckoo, desh, dk, (here goes your name)

So pick up the tag if you want to, add your own twist to it and lets see how it goes on.

I tag,

Ankit, Luthra, compulsiveWriter, Naresh, Aditi, Neha, Naveen

btw, i was tagged earlier as well, randomness

Cheeeeeeeeers!!!

Pentropy, yet another name!

If you keep digging, there is a very high probability that you will find answers, and here i find another definition of what I used to think is my brain child

pentropy (pen-tro-pee) n. The tendency for the ballpoint pens at rest on your desk to suddenly and surreptitiously take flight, until none remain. (Once thought to be the result of filching co-workers, now believed attributable to the inexorable contraction of the universe.)

hahaha, thanks to The BradLands

Losing sleep over your dreams

I so much wanted to do this, now and ever! Sit at the centre of a crowded mall and brainshit. And its a dream come true. Here I am, at select citywalk and its 3 PM on a Sunday and I sit alone talking to myself. I have been a little insomniac lately and I can feel it in my head. Here I am surrounded by people, many many many people, many colours many countries, many styles, many tastes, they are all there. But I have a feeling that all these different looking souls have one thing inherently common in them; they are all desultory. Purposelessly walking on the marble which would shine like a mirror, drinking coffees costing more than a poor family’s unconsumed meal for a day, spending easily minted money on senseless movies and coming out laughing but unsatisfied, or they could be just trying to beat the heat in this comfortable, breathe easy temperature when its killing hot outside. Whatever could be the reason, it is pretty much clear that there is no reason at all and thus we have this extraordinary centre of commercial and social activity blossoming with targets, read people.

This place is pretty well designed to titillate all the senses. Its so full of colours and beauty that one’s eyes can’t deny a sparkle, for men and women there is a lot of organic and inorganic pleasure muse available here. There is music all over the place, and there will be places where it is of your taste, if you have any descriptive taste in music, then on an average if you stay here for 2 hours you will definitely find 9.5 songs of your choice being played at different corners of this mall. No need to mention the aroma, everybody who enters here tries to make it pretty sure that he or she doesn’t become the reason for any aberrance, everybody smells good here and the rest is taken care by the air conditioners and the sweet smell inducers installed all over the place. There would be probably a million cuisines that you can find here, perhaps ever more. For an illiterate vegetarian foody like me, it is even difficult to understand more than thirty percent of stuff that is being served here. Anyhow, I would surely mind spending my easy earned money on things I am unsure about. Did I cover all the senses yet, ahh touch! That’s something you have bring with yourself, like most of them did here. Come with your girlfriend or boyfriend, stay close, giggle, cuddle and this is world we wanted to live in. For unwanted singles like me, nothing much that can be done, the total romantic happiness on earth is constant and with the way sex ratio is decreasing in India, it is expected to go down only.

Hmm, good to see the changing face of this country, to see this phenomenal emergence of the great Indian middle class, the greatest army the world has ever seen. Thirty Five crore of them constantly looking to change the face of this world, and all this possible only by an individualistically driven motivation of each one of them. I am so much a part of this pool, perhaps somewhere at the centre of it. At times trying to run away from it, loving it, hating it. But this has created a lots of hysteria and a lot of imbalance. People have started running a lot, wanting more, as everybody’s dearest and electronically omnipresent king khan would say “thoda aur wish karo”. So, here we have these 35 crore people running faster wishing more and loosing sleep over their dreams!!!!

It may all be good for the world, I would have no problems with dreams but the world must have some sort of balance to sustain all these dreams. As long as the kid who sleeps on a sever pipe gets food everyday and is happy about his life, as long as no farmer suicides because mother nature denied the most hardworking of her sons food, as long as the world of a girl is not forced to end in a womb, as long as no one in a far village dies of a mild fever only because he could not buy a crocin, as long as all this happens I will not find life gloomy inside these malls surrounded with great babes with deep cleavage and hot dudes with yo hair styles. Otherwise, this hysteria will keep haunting me, more because of my inability than their disinterest.

Thirty five crores of us, could we ask for a bigger number to make a difference. We could not, but we are free to make choices, isn’t this a great feeling to be born a democratic country which allows us to do what we want, at least it allows us not to do what we do not want, and we have decided not to do anything.

Cheers to our beautiful lives!

My Reincarnation

The kid dances around the flame, the history book pyre is not ominous, its Delicately beautiful

So what if we change

Mausam jo darakhton se patte chheen le

Mausam jo zameenon se paani chura le

Mausam jo baha de har gaaon har koocha

waqt, waqt badal de aise mausam ko bhi!

hum to fir insaan thehre.

darakhton = Trees

On the edge of horizon

I think I can do anything, absolutely anything that a man has ever done or has desired to, with supreme ease and perfection. I can write a great post and manage a wonderful blog, I can. I can do wonders at my workplace by solving all problems in almost no time with greatest efficiency. I can listen to all good songs ever sung and watch all cult movies before next to next Olympics. I can also read some great books, at a swifter speed and a good understanding of what I read. I can also visit places, lot of them, national parks and wild centuries, mountains and beaches, Mizoram and Tripura, Kashmir, Jharkhand and Kerala.

I can exercise, physically and mentally, I can, for sure, crack better jokes. I can become a charmer and can make a lot more friends, and I can keep them. I can decide what I want to do with my life, sooner or later and on different time lengths, and then I can start working on those plans. I can definitely play better cricket, football and few other games.

I can control my anxiety, my anger and my restlessness. I can control in inherent sloth that I was born with. I can increase my typing speed to 80 wpm and accuracy to 98. I can get my weight down to 65Kgs. I can identify an idol and I can follow him/her. I can pick up a guitar and start a rock band. I can shave my head and grow beard. I can marry a girl of my parent’s choice and I can perform all the rituals of a grand Indian marriage. I can dress well and go to all the parties, clean shaved and with polished shoes.

I can earn millions and I can help the needy, I can teach the poor who can’t afford a pencil and I can start schools for such needy. I can also spread awareness about female infanticide. I can join a theatre group, and I can wander around doing street plays, in rains and dust. I can survive without luxuries, laundries and Levi’s. I can join jnu for a part time course. I can learn 5 European languages and 3 South American languages. I can sell salvation to firangis stuck in their materialistic mid life crises and take them for a ride. I can fuck many of them and I can also practice celibacy for the rest of my life.

I can be a better person, overall, I can define my limits and I can walk on the roads I want to. I can be a better son, brother, friend. I can sew up relations, I can be all I want to be, all I have ever wanted to.

Demystified I stand on the edge of the horizon,

My eyes are tired and the sun is waiting,

I take a step and the skies accept me,

I get all I want,

And I wake up to fall asleep forever!

 

Thanks postsecret

Existential Confusion

‘Existential confusion’, this bomb struck me for the first time from an Amartya Sen’s book (ah, sounds so good to quote such names, although you know absolutely nothing about that book or that person and you just managed to complete it). He was explaining it in a very different sense, discussing about identity and violence and misunderstanding and the illusion of destiny (that was the title). The motive was to analyse how the world narrows its thinking while talking identities. You say the word farmer, and clap; you have that image in your head. You just tell someone about your profession or your geographical roots and in a couple of minutes a whole set up preconceived notions will be drawn around you ( arguably, which are correct seven on ten).

 

I’ve seen this term with a different understanding, perhaps as something which relates more to what I feel and what I see. We all live with this eternal dilemma that what is it that we are here for? This may sound futile and desolate to talk about the questions (time and time again) of the lazy, the questions of denial and disapproval, the whys and not the hows, and the sole how in the list would be ‘how does it matter at all?’. I have had the conflict within at times which entices me to disbelieve all that’s being said and all that’s being performed. If everyone is so unaware of the ultimate consequence, what is it that drives us towards everything that’s being done. The brain is a perpetual master, controlling the existence, making it all happen in such a subtle manner that all these bloody complexities dipped in the whys look so obvious and ordinary to us. Only if one can tame it, the questions would all be answered, i have a lot of self belief, and I truly know that I can’t tame it.

These days I’ve been bold, so I would pen another manuscript, ahh, it was 1200 A.D or something, don’t actually remember, but certainly nothing new or fresh, nothing as new as, ummm, what, don’t know!!!

In this world where objects move at the speed of sound,
Its surprising to see the entities swapping roles,
the human life ticks and the clock yawns,
I get confused just to verify my brain’s functioning,
and its ironical that it never disappoints me, I think,
may be I am confused, but I am not sure,
confused about myself,
my presence and my requirement,
5 cups of coffee, semi pressed formals with non-matching socks
and a pushover life,
did you ever come across such an existential confusion?
Did you?

The Insignificant return

I should reboot my writings with reasons. Reasons for disappearing, reasons for the dead muse and the reasons for indifference; But I have none, at least none of them consolidated or interesting. A lot should have happened in this period of time, but alas, this has been one of the most sluggish and dry phase of my life. Again, reasons, even drier and meaningless.

Insignificance, I found the word around which I can now sugar coat this piece of writing. Yes, the word is insignificance. I haven’t been doing anything significant; I was always busy taking part in insignificant hurdle races all this while. At one point in time, one begins to realize that all these races are circular, and you always find the starting point. Mandatory and monotonous, these races differ in contrasts and speed, relay after relay their attributes vary giving us a sweet illusion of an upheaving hierarchy, a motivation for all of us to run, to take part in the race.

Anyways, let me still try to think about a few things that I did (or didn’t do) all this while:

1. Finally I saw Dr. Strangelove and that’s the first thing that comes to mind so you can interpret the rest. (IT’S A MUST SEE)
2. No new music no new books. Disgraceful.
3. I feel fatter, lazier and even more useless.
4. I haven’t yet received a positive result on my CAT hunt debut; with only one more result to come I am quite certain that I will have to spend 11K rupees in filling forms next year as well.
5. I can’t think of anything else right now.

I believe I can continue from here to start a second innings, pretty soon I should be coming with my post on ‘What’s eating Gilbert Grape’, till then bye from an insignificant entity.

Ghalib

I have to now find out the real drivers that force me to write. Last time I blogged, it was kabir and now I can’t stop myself from typing a few lines about Mirza Ghalib. Thanks to the few songs sung by Jagjit Singh, I can say that I have some idea of the all time classic shayar Mirza Asadullah Baig Khan, or as we all know Mirza Ghalib.

Har ek baat pe kehte ho tum ki tu kya hai

tumhee kaho ke ye andaaz-e-guftagoo kya hai

Ragon mein daudte firne ke hum naheen qayal

jab aankh hi se na tapka to fir lahu kya hai

jala hai jism jahan dil bhi jal gaya hoga

kuredate ho jo raakh, justajoo kya hai!

I must mention that this guy is simply amazing. Almost all of his work was his depiction of love and his poetry was driven by the explanation of the beauty of his beloved, the pain of infidelity and the similar feelings. Of all his stuff that I know, this is the one I rate very high:-

Unke dekhe se jo aa jaati muh par raunak

woh samajhte hain ki beemaar ka haal achha hai

sabko maloom hai jannat ki haqeeqat lekin

dil ko khush rakhne ko ghaalib ye khayaal achha hai

In one phrase, he unfolds such bewildering truth of life, this mere achievement of packaging the reality with such subtleness and reality does amuse me. And it has been over-used after he wrote it down.

Hazaaaron Khwahishein aisi ki har khwahish pe dum nikle

bahut nikle mere armaan lekin fir bhi kam nikle

mohabbat mein nahi hai farq jeene aur marne ka

usee ko dekh kar jeete hain jis qaafir pe dum nikle

There isn’t much I can say about him. He is a legend.

Hai aur bhi duniya mein sukhanwar bahut achhe

kehte hain ghaalib ka hai andaaz-e-bayaan aur

Bhatak Maro Mat koi

“saat janam ke saat pher hain…saanp seedhi hai bhai….yam ka dand mund mein laaage, dharee rahe chaturai”

These are lines from a song called Kabira(Agnee) .From last 10 odd days I have been listening to Kabira and Sadho re from the same band and it just doesn’t leave me. After I have heard the song kabira for some 20 times I realize that I am not getting all the words, let me find out what is the media player singing. And I noticed this line, specially the second half of it – ‘yam ka dand mund mein laaage, dharee rahe chaturai’, and it gave me Goosebumps, I listened to it again and again and again, as it was constantly pulling me towards itself.

What is there in this one single line makes me feel so twitchy? Is it the words, is it the subject, is it the music that runs behind the words, is it the voice, is it the death scare, what the hell is this? While writing this I am still pondering over the possible answers to these questions. And the closest I can get is this:-

I feel that in spite of the ‘self-defined’ heights we reach, irrespective of the mammoth size we attain and the amount of achievements we grab, steal or earn, the inherent reality of our existence hides itself in the fact that we are still miniscule components in the over all scenario. Miniscule, when compared to space and to the time line on which we exist. Do we even need to give a thought to this, I can’t say.

The other song ‘Sadho re, ye murdo ka gaaon’ speaks about all this. It laments over the whole concept of death and it does it with eyes settled on the roads, in a market, in an office, in an apartment. It sees them all, walking, dancing and drinking fresh orange juice and vintage scotch. The song says it all, and the whole ambiance speaks it as well, only if one decides to convince his mind to open up for it.

‘kahe kabeer suno bhi sadho, bhatak maro mat koi’

Bhatak maro mat koi! The whole wail is not actually a wail. The meaning is clear, absolutely plain. The whole game of life, death and existence isn’t mechanical and meaningless. The noetic quest is the fuel, understand it! As long as one can fuel it with the urge to know about it, life is on, else, innumerable species of mammals, birds, reptiles and other creatures also respire, everybody got their mechanism, you have yours. And the famous 1960’s dialog ‘It’s all about the choices you make!!’.

Bhatak maro mat koi!

I found one more missing part of the jigsaw, Thanks Kabeer, you rock!!

People are strange!

Lately I been sitting idle, workless most of the times, quietly knitting my own stories all the time, finding more music and perhaps less people. Feeling ecstatic as I look back on my grand discovery, finding a pc on LAN which has a great music collection. Wow! It has all of ‘The Doors’, and a few more. I feel so content with these little music collection of mine, and yea internet of course! But how long would I survive this latency, Ah! Forever, can’t say. 

There must be around sixty people sitting around me on the fourteenth floor of this flashy glass building and I don’t know a single person, no colleagues so far, no acquaintances, and no friends. Me and my machine. My 10 GB song collection, Pagalguy, TotalGadha, Tenaday, Satanic Verses, Google-Wikipedia brothers, Pentropy, Penthegame, WordPress, Blogger, Cricinfo, Goal and my dearest friends in my Gtalk list, and thus sun completed one more visit to earth. 

I think I have attained this state of tranquility, which people say is the most difficult position to reach ;); we always read stories about sadhus doing tapasya to get this. I would say that I have been a lot luckier to attain this without much of beard-growing and Himalaya-climbing. It just came like a post, a normal courier. ‘Diwakar Kaushik, haan! yahan sign karo, aur phone number likho’. It was as simple as that. But unlike all those other things which came easy to me and I didn’t value, I truly respect this one. I believe that I have been lucky, hmm, no, very very lucky :) 

While you are already thinking that why am I actually bothering you by writing all this, you must realize it by now, get the essence of what’s written so far and quit reading. It means that it’s a workless guy, with a blog post pending with no one online :) 

I still find absolutely no fault in this semi-lament, semi-mirth tomography of my today, as anything else written would also leave you with a pretty similar feeling, ‘What hell! Does this guy ever make some humane sense, EVER?’, and believe me, I take it as a compliment. 

Back to the eternal calm, now, I am out of this habit of punching the keys for more than 10 minutes. Till then remember James Morrison and read this. 

People are strange when you’re a stranger

Faces look ugly when you’re alone

Women seem wicked when you’re unwanted

Streets are uneven when you’re down

 

When you’re strange

Faces come out of the rain

When you’re strange

No one remembers your name

When you’re strange

Climax Unknown

no space to breathe, and still ironically
no eyes to envision,
the invisible realities of
your one man desultory game,
but we never stop playing.

a thousand voices,
those creaks and that noises,
of haphazardly haunting silence in your head,
and your requiem for your conscious,
but we never stop singing.

 

stuck stationary in this hastening surrounding,
feeling the wilderness of,
your sudden unwelcome but unavoidable
anachronistic bemusement,
and you tremble along the way,
but we never stop stop moving.

 

love,desire,satisfaction,power,intellect,
virtues of a man, the feeling of disassociation.
And a kid throwing pebbles,
on the dead bright face of a lake,
beautifully vacuous of everything,
nothing to gain nothing to lose,
complete in himself,
unlike you or this work.

 

Poem Source : Unknown

Picture Source : PostSecret

 

r.A.n.D.o.m.N.e.S.S

Naresh believes I am random. Affirmation! And thus he wants me to pen down 8 random things about me. I am just feeling Okay right now, not in one of my ecstatic, top of the world moods. So I believe it’s just the right time for me to write a post like this. Hence, here I state eight random things about me:

 

1. My state of mind is so unclear that it amuses me that how am I still surviving in this sane society, even now. Earlier I used to find this a distinctive feature until I realized that this is nothing but one of the mob quality. It somehow makes me feel better, as I feel that I am not actually ‘mentally sick’.

2. I have this tendency to become suddenly so depressed and ‘over-self-criticizing’ and ‘mean-to-myself’ and ‘lets-be-a-real-life-A k hangal’, and I believe it happens for no reasons at all. But surely, that happens because of some idiotic emotional turbulence in my subconscious, perhaps though!

3. My sleeping habits are getting worse, I feel like crashing at eleven, its so early that it scares me!

4. I have never been so undecided about what to do with my life as much as I am right now. This statement remains true on every next date on the face of calendar because as long as I live, the confusion deepens and worsens.

5. I don’t want to get married, ever! And I pray that I may remain firm on at least one of the things I say I seriously believe in. On the contrary, my mind refreshes its total philosophy every three years. This scares me as well!

6. More than anything else in my life, I want to adopt a girl child. That’s my only desire today! Amen!

7. I feel like killing myself when I think about the ‘What if’ chain. It seriously takes me to nowhere and makes me feel that no use living. Thank god, it’s generally a short term spike.

8. I jump from one boat to another thinking I will row this one harder, but I never do. I have realized that I am too lazy to do anything. I think I will just be able to survive, and now I have started believing that I am far too over-rated in all the places I get appraised, paid, represented and distinguished. I am beginning to find life tough and this losing interest in life, ahh, could be dangerous. Let’s see!

Tagging:- Smriti, Biraja, Vaani, Luthra, Abhishek Harish, Eesha, Abhishek Khurana, Pooja, Sonja, Divya (This is also a platform for all those with are yet to start one, All the best!!!!)

Fête de la Musique

Given a choice I would like to celebrate my birthday on 21st June rather than on the normal unimportant 23rd September. Day before yesterday on my way back home (that tour de bangalooru from Whitefield to BTM) Radio One told me that this Thursday we celebrate the World Music Day, and I felt deep disgust! How come I didn’t know about it?

Wishing all those feed-me-on-music companions, a very happy world’s music day. Get stoned by all your favorite music the whole day today, don’t miss a minute on this day. This morning also the same source, Radio one, played some great tracks in bus (Smriti’s ipod is broken and it’s all agony for me, does someone know how to fix it, the green and orange lights are twinkling and no sound output! Help!). Javeda Zindagi, Jhin min jhini, Nusrat-tere bin nahi lagda, Albela sajan and a few more vellicating treat for the listening sense.

I have decided to keep this post short and simple J and would just pen down some random songs that my player is playing. Here it goes

1. (I can’t get no) Satisfaction – Rolling stones.
2. Is mod se jaate hain – Gulzar/R D Burman/Lata/Kishore
3. Karma Police Unplugged – Radiohead
4. Haath Chhute to Rishtey nahi chhoda karte – Gulzar/Jagjit Singh
5. Jesus don’t want me for a sunbeam – Nirvana MTV Unplugged
6. Pale Blue eyes – The Velvet Underground

Soon I will be back with a post on my favorites Indian Ocean, till then roll on!

Music is life.