Independence

A very Happy Independence Day. I started thinking as soon as I heard myself. I didn't sound convincingly patriotic even to myself. I sound so artificial. I've been put through a heavy dose of 'bharat humko jaan se', 'rehman's jana gana mana version', 'ae mere watan ke logo', 'des rangeela' and what not. Very diligently these were all played over and over and over again all morning. Fine. So we've marked the day in true bollywood-ian style. What now? .. Until even a few years ago, Independence day meant I'd go look up something about the nation. Something about our freedom struggle. If I wouldn't, atleast I'd have heard someone speak of the glories of that long past bloody struggle. There was something to know about it always. But now, no one seems equipped to speak about it. Is this what India has come to after completing 60 years of its independence? Sounds sad. What is it like, to be an Indian, to have a past of over 200 years of struggle for independence? Of what value, is the freedom and independence now? When we were younger, I used to hear the others, elders mostly, speak of how we take our freedom and independence for granted and how we do not acknowledge our ancestors' struggle. If that was what they said then, to us, I wonder what their reactions would be like now. I'm not saying people don't acknowledge it anymore. They do. But like every other emotion, its commercialised and packaged and handed down to us. You want to express love, ok here, these are the standard heart melting numbers. Play them and return of love guaranteed. You want to express sorrow. Sure thing. These are the tunes for sorrow. Play them, and most assuredly, you'' feel the tears flowing down your cheeks. Similarly, you want patriotism? Arre no problem yaar. Play a few of those numbers rehaman made for roja and rang de basanti. You're job's done.

I'm not undermining the talents of rehaman when I say that. He's one of the best things that has happened to present day cinema. What I'm saying is, emotions dont seem genuine anymore. They dont seem or rahter, 'sound' like they've come out from the same person expressing them. They seem all so made up, like the teenaged girls you come across at college, with one inch thick make up and put on accents strutting around on their stilettos. They dont seem natural anymore. What right have I, to speak of the missing naturality,you say? Well, I'm sad for the lack of genuineness and originality of emotion, thought and expression in people. I'm also saying I'm unaffected by the wave that's taking us all in. I'm only the sadder for it. Are we living our lives by the dictat of bollywood songs, smart marketers who sell us their products in the name of our allegience to our nation, our emotions, our feelings, etc. ? Some food for thought, that.

I'm just through with reading my first Paulo Coelho, The Zahir. I'm not going to try and give a synopsis of the book or try and say what I feel about it. But I will say, that what I write out now may seem influenced by it. Natural enough. You sometimes have this need to talk to someone, in life. It's not like an urge or like you're trying to empty yourself of something. Then what is it? Just the need to talk and to be heard. It's an interesting feeling when you know you have so many peopl out there, you call your friends and of which quite a decent number are more than ready to hear you out when you want someone to talk to and yet when you really feel like having it all out, you choose the machine, the computer lying in one corner of your room to breathe our all you want to say. Man, typing is a strenous job, atleast typing grammatically correctly, is. Why does music form such an important part of life. There are a multitude of things we feel and experience even on a daily basis. But not all come out in words. Rather, we are not capable of bringing out in words and getting them to sound exactly as we felt them. Then these notes and tunes, we call music, come to our aid. You suddenly realise you're saying a lot more than you ever thought or imagined was possible. You suddenly find yourself capable, not only of voicing your feelings, experiences, emotions, et al, you're actually expounding on them with the intonations of your mood! How splendid! But here's a problem. Who understands these 'notes' that come out. Atleast, are the people they're intended for, understand what we're talking about, though in a different language? You never know, do you. But still we express. Then what do these so called words and sentences in notes and more specifically, music, mean. Na, it can't be explained. If it could, why would we be using music instead of the normal mortal words, that we're so accustomed to understanding. But why explain them for that matter. For the convenience of those that they're intended for, or for the sake of our own better and fuller understanding of what we wanted to say? That's strange. If we ourselves did not understand what they meant, these notes, why did we use them then? Because, we did not use them, they came out, on their own choice. We were just the media they came through. We did not originate those sounds from within. They just came. They just came because they chose to.

Thinking..?

If making money was so easy, wouldn't each one of us be millionaires? But then the law of diminishing marginal utility would prevail, as expostulated in behavioural theories, only, we're talking about money here. And millions would cease to hold any considerable value and we'd have to go looking for a new mode of currency or value, that still seems valuable enough and that which doesn't come dirt cheap. Why are we talking about getting rich now? Or, is that what I want to or rather feel like writing on now? I don't know. They say money's the solution to all the problems. They also say it's the root cause of all evil. 'They' say it. 'They' tell us. Who 'they'? Who knows and who cares. It's been around long enough being told and retold and reinterpreted and misinterpreted and what not. Basically, things have been around for so long, you may as well just listen and follow them, or not follow them. What does it matter, afterall. It is upto you whether to do or not to do something. Contemplation. Why are we at it so much? Why do we keep thinking something or the other all the time? It's not like mere thinking is going to reveal all the world's secrets to us(not even the extra terrestrial un-worldly ones). Then why are we constantly contemplating? Is this soul searching? Who coined that term, by the way. It sounds interesting. Though of course, it could mean something else altogether. I wouldn't know. Like I don't know why we exist or what the purpose of each one's life is, or also like what my lecturer is expecting when she drafts out a topic for assignment. Are we all on the lookout then, or aren't we? How many of us actually sit down to wonder where this is all leading to or why this has all begun in the first place? Where and when and how did all this affair of life earth soul breath emotions worship existence sustenance life as such wholly and completely and in bits, come from? Obviously people have better things to do in life than to sit and wonder about such stuff. Inconsequentiality of it, though, I'm not going to claim or warrant. Far from it, I won't even propose it. But just as a point of view of the other sides of the container, if it is that, all of this. One peculiar question always lingers though, even after all this bungle of emotions or thoughts or feelings passes. What prompts us through it all. And what is the point behind putting all of this here.

To Hell With Them All, I Say!

Someone once told me that stitching was the best possible way to let off pent up anger and all such other violent emotions. I disagree. More than just disagree, **** *** ( those stars are left to your imagination.you obviously didnt think I was going to fill it up, did you) . Stitching never saves nine. Not for me. Rather, I find it infuriates me even more. To hell with all those around who make you feel like a piece of **** even when you set about trying to make the day as lovely as you can. You start out on a really beautiful note. It's one of those extremely rare days when you actually wake up smiling, only to find your internal environment (people you're in immediate contact with) have other more dastardly sinister plans to ruin your day, your mood and your life, for that one day. What the hell do these people come into your life for? People tell me pessimism isn't good. But honestly, its better than optimism! It atleast prepares you for all the shit you're about to face throughout the day. You kno you'l be forced to take shit from all bloody corners of the world. So you'l be better armed. So all you people who'r about to tell me to cool down or calm down or take it easy, YOU guys take it easy and dont ever ever tell me to cool it or take it positively. Oh **** optimism! It doesnt prepare you to handle an irrationally and unnecessarily irate lecturer, especially when you know you havent even done anything and there are others going way over bound all around you! It doesnt prepare you to handle some of the most important people in your life goin out of their way to support this prior mentioned category of people. Every single time you try and explain what went wrong and how you were misinterpreted or misunderstood or worse, mis-accused, you're faced with people telling you ' honey you really ARE in the wrong'. It doesnt matter if you really werent the trouble maker in the class. It really really doesnt matter you're not at fault. The poor poor lecturer maybe has an ant running down her back and doesnt know what to do about it. Ya, sure. I put the ant down there, right?

The point I'm trying to make is, we, given our meagre nineteen years of existence with an even lesser some what 'meaningful' existence are expected to understand the 'poor' lecturer's point of view. Then why can't those bloated blobs of worthlessness, with all their grey hair and experience of umpteen batches,EVER understand the right from the wrong? Why cant they ever ever understand who the ones who'r always sleeping in class are, Who's always out cursing them? Who's the motor mouth? And finally, sadly for people of my category, people who actually listen and pay attention in class. Despite getting all sorts of nonsense from them, we're expected to bear those plasticine - barbie - doll smiles for them. So as not to put them off. Hello!!! Anybody ever wonder at the under-qualified, highly rated, not so worth it, folks passing themselves off as educators? People!! It really IS a sacred post! Pleassss dont mar it with your inefficiencies and inadequacies!