Never too soon.

Yeah, they are finally releasing movies on the events of that day. 9/11. The day that changed the way a lot of people perceived things for sure. The day that launched a thousand ships and a billion excuses. The day that has been hyped and used and misused in so many ways that it is hard to get back to the tragedy that it represented initially. And yet people don’t want to hear the story, I’m told. I read somewhere that a theatre in New York had to pull the trailers to one of the upcoming movies following calls of “too soon”? Too soon? Is it ever too soon to remember days like that? For all I know right now the world needs to remember days like that because the real message from that day has been lost amongst piles of lies and filth that have surrounded the recent events.

I am surprised usually by people trying to ‘act’ sentimental, especially a tendency in the affluent societies of the world. If you are from an African or middle-eastern country you are supposed to disregard the fact that your loved ones are dying and that you life is hell and your country screwed up. But if a person in America feels alone and can’t talk to people out of his/her own shyness we have on hand a hundred shrinks and prescription drugs and all the big mound of stinking crap that goes along with the pretentiousness. People die in Iraq and Kashmir and Somalia and Sudan everyday and who gives a rat’s ass right? Your friend’s mother just died of old age and you need psychiatric sessions to overcome the trauma.

Being a Matrix fan, I tend to draw parallels to the story from The Animatrix called “The Second Renaissance” where we see a society bloated and distended off of its own greed and ego. A lot of the affluent societies of today seem to remind me of things like that. Also interesting is the fact that it is never, as a rule, the individual that indulges in such affectation or pretense. It is usually a society. An individual is a very intelligent and unique entity; several individuals together however, paradoxically, seem to make a society that is just as dumb and stupid. It seems that the more resources we have for improving our intelligence, the more we sink into the depths of idiocy.

But we come back to the screening of the movies. I’m not saying the movies are going to be good. I mean considering that Oliver Stone is making one, and his last movie was Alexander, going by his form I don’t have high hopes about the quality of the movie. The movie in itself may be pretentious and pompous and full of itself really (a bunch of these deep “artistic” movies seem to be that). But that’s not the point. The point is at what point should someone try to tell the story of a tragedy? At what point would pretentious and pseudo sensitive people shut up? At what point is it ethically proper to tell a story that affected a country, a society, a collective…the world really, in a way that 9/11 did? My take is, as soon as possible. Get the message out there. Get the truth out there (ahhh…X Files!!!) and at least let people know what and why and how it happened.

I also realize that these movies are naturally going to have an American perspective on things. But at least it’s a perspective. At least people would be able to see it and say, “Hmmm…that makes sense” or “that was absolute bullshit”. Ever wonder how interesting an orthodox Muslim perspective on the issue would be? But it would be almost utopian, the day when two perspectives on the same issue can be put forth without facing bias or prejudice. Today we have to fight to put forth just one of these. Makes the difference between humans and ostrich seem that much lesser doesn’t it? So much for evolution, maybe the logical ape theory should be traded for the new ostrich one…who knows those creationists might just agree to that one. It’s definitely absurd enough…

... and then there were none ...

Wrote this one a while back...but thought I was being too sentimental about the sport. I guess I will let it be read though...maybe I am being too senti. Who gives a crap...:)

also posted at cricket-center.blogspot.com (a friends blog, that's actually what I wrote it for)

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So what happened to Tendulkar again? Oh that’s right; he failed to win India a match once again. Really, he’s over the hill now isn’t he? He is the mediocre shadow of his colossal self. He is the worst player in the Indian team today. He does not even warrant a place in the eleven. Let’s boo him come on…boo Tendulkar boo. Boo for being the hero of a sick team for so long. Boo for almost being the god amongst men for as long as most people remember watching cricket. Boo for being there when the team went through hell and boo for being there when you took on other teams single handedly to make up for the mediocrity and insincerity of your other players. Come on lets boo him..

But can you boo a person like that and not feel a slight bit immoral about it. A man who has borne the brunt of the expectations of a hungry nation. A person whose achievements bear no count. A person who stood alone in the ruins once and saw an empire built around himself. The fact remains that the emperor of that empire was once Ganguly and now it’s Dravid, who’s been the logical successor. But the fact also remains that the empire was always built around one person. There was one constant in a team plagued by controversies ranging from betting and fixing to corruption and politics. There was one person you would always look up to and say – please perform a miracle today…please make us happy. There was this one person people trusted would save any game. Any game…absolutely any situation. He could make your day, he could move the nation…he could even move the stock market they said. Let’s boo him today?

Now the incident where the hero was booed has been exaggerated to a hype by the press and commentators. It is always fun to see the mighty fall; it is always spectacular to see a hero become human, breathtaking to see the wings of an angel clipped. The fall of the one Sourav Ganguly was magnificent wasn’t it? It sold more newspapers than any political downfall. We saw one mighty hero fall and that was a thrill. Lets do it to the mightiest one of them all next.

Now let’s face the facts. Sachin Tendulkar has been playing a game for sixteen years. A virtual eternity when talking of sports and sportsmen. Heroes have their time and heroes have a mortal soul. Michael Jordan fell, so did Mohammed Ali. Babe Ruth’s gone and so is Donald Bradman. Sachin Tendulkar is not yet spent but one day he will be. I think that the boos some people heard in Mumbai recently were a sounds of things to come. Indian public have never been very good at retiring heroes. In any field (not just cricket or sports) they have always taken their heroes off pedestals and thrown them away like toys they don’t want anymore. They did it to Sourav Ganguly recently. Much as he deserved to be out of the team, he did not deserve to be the joke that he became in media and amongst “pundits”. They will do it to Sachin Tendulkar one day and Rahul Dravid after that. Oh but they will remember these guys…once the fog of time clears things, they will remember these three. How can you ever forget the three massive figures in Indian cricket who stood in filth once and who proudly shone in their blue armors a decade later?

for the lack of a better word ....

It’s been a while since things have gone my way so overwhelmingly that I haven’t had a chance to bitch. I could always go and watch the President of USA for a while and for a while I’m the luckiest, most intelligent being in the world. But I reserve that kind of self-appreciation to once a day, usually 11 in the night during a certain show called the Jon Stewart show. Other times I compare myself with people of at least some intelligence and hence the bitching. Where’d that term come from I wonder though.

What term you ask?

Bitching, that’s what!!

Of course, in another sense of the word, your day could be bitchin' and you could still be bitching. But I digress. Why relate a word to a female dog you wonder? Let me tell you then….so do I!!! And I have no answer so let’s move on without further bitching about it.

I do find things to grumble (see I moved off, your turn) all the time though. My car, ah, now there’s an entity that could drive (pun intended) my whole life into a maze of nitpicking. Have you noticed that nothing’s right when your car’s wrong? Have you noticed also that your car is never right? See I love my car for that fact that it’s been with me two years and it takes me everywhere. But I have this weird feeling sometimes that if I’d had a real girl instead of her and spent the fortune I have on her, she’d probably be giving me shoulder rides to wherever I wanted anyways.

Which begs another question?

Why don’t I?

Why don’t I what?...

Why don’t I have a girl, ahhh that silly question…

Hmm, you like my complaining don’t you. Brave of you to tackle that topic. Well lemme get into the most detailed explanation possible for that question you put up. I don’t know yet again?...

There you have it. I have no clue why girls are so, well, different. Of course it doesn’t help that my social flamboyance is what you would call…ummm..non-existant. You should see me stammer when talking to a, what some would call, hot chic. It’s magnificent really. You wouldn’t ever see a more brilliant display of it. I have a sync problem with my mind then, which is desperately trying to think of topics to talk about, while my mouth being momentarily free of its master goes into weird convulsions making absurd noises. But you see, me with my incredible intelligence, I’ve figured a way out. The next time I meet and talk to a new girl I intend to remain silent. The whole freakin' conversation!!! Eh?? Beat that!!!

Genius you say? And I accept you compliment. That’s very polite of you.

Speaking of polite, have you ever noticed people go to such extreme lengths to be polite nowadays?

What lengths? Aww come on, it’s even hard to decide where to draw the line, sometimes literally.

Literally?? Yes!!!

Let me be more approximately specific (:-)). Allow me an instance, an example, a quad erat demonstrandum if you will. Have you ever gone through a door, that automagically swings shut behind you …

…hold your horses there...I know you have!! Let me get to the end of it…

Have you ever gone through such a door and out of the corner of your eye seen this other person coming up behind you? Have you held the door open for that person out of the, lets call it, politeness-factor now? Of course you have, and I’m still not done with my point. So how far does the person coming behind you have to be, before you decide you are going to let the door swing shut and let the person open it again. The person’s looking right at you, that approaching specimen of mankind (by the way if it’s just one specimen is it a speci-MAN I wonder, but I digress yet again). So anyways, this person is coming right at you!!! An expectant gaze upon its mug, imploring you to hold the door open. Besides how long do you actually have to make a decision anyways? You have to admit, it would look tremendously asinine, if you actually held the door open for a few seconds and then let it go.

See what I meant about the literal line now?? There should be one at each “swing-close” door. If the approaching human (and we have to be specific here) is beyond that line, you let the door go free. How about that for a solution eh?

See I think, therefore I am. Although if I go by intelligent design, someone else thought and therefore I am…right?

What’s that, I think a lot? You say that like it’s a bad thing?

Overanalyze? How can you say that really?

Oh ok…I admit. I do it!! Overanalyze I mean. Have you ever talked to a person, and then two seconds after the conversation ends you think if it could have gone better? Then you are rehearsing a conversation you have already had , when you know that the exact same conversation would never ever happen again. Not on this universe, not in this dimension, not in your existence.

What you …ummm…haven’t done that?? Yeah...well neither have I!!! I was just testing you. Now don’t be bitching about it!!!

Illuminated thoughts ...

alright here we go. I've written a bit offline. Haven't posted anything here. This is one I wrote in Starbucks again, a while back. I'm posting it because I sometimes can't make head or tail of it myself. Yet it's from the heart...go figure.. I'm not sure if you'll get it either.

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Illuminated thoughts of a feeble mind,
The temerity of thought,
Faith and trust blind.
The jagged path,
A hopeless life,
The curtain call,
An end to strife.
The last resort,
A danger unseen,
The final ascent,
A thought between.
The final countdown,
A shining end.
The mindless slumber,
An eternal friend.
The needless war,
An inevitable fact.
The lasting peace,
A broken pact.
The holy spirit,
An unmistakable sign.
The father and son,
A desecrated shrine.
The living hell,
A deadly silence.
The empty shell,
A tribute to violence.

...proud to be an a**hole??

I read this in one of the mailing lists I'm subscribed to. A perfect example of the misdirected, misinterpreted, shoddy and shameful display of patriotism that I mentioned a couple of posts back. I'm not even sure if the figures and facts are right here, it's just the intent and emotion behind the post below that scares me.

I couldnt' stop making this comparison..

inches of rain in new orleans due to hurricane katrina... 18
inches of rain in mumbai (July 27th).... 37.1

population of new orleans... 484,674
population of mumbai.... 12,622,500

deaths in new orleans within 48 hours of katrina...100
deaths in mumbai within 48hours of rain.. 37

number of people to be evacuated in new orleans... entire city..wohh
number of people evacuated in mumbai...10,000

Cases of shooting and violence in new orleans...Countless
Cases of shooting and violence in mumbai.. NONE

Time taken for US army to reach new orleans... 48hours
Time taken for Indian army and navy to reach mumbai...12hours

status 48hours later...new orleans is still waiting for relief, army and electricty
status 48hours later..mumbai is back on its feet and is business is as usual

USA...world's most developed nation

India...third world country..

oopss...did i get the last fact wrong???

Jai Maharashtra !

I said in that post and I'll say it today, patriotism has always been an emotion based on delusions and malice.

As an Indian, this post does not make me proud. It shames me to think that people with thoughts like these exist in the country that some people tell me is the beacon of compassion, hospitality and good will in this world. Delusions galore my fellow patriots...we are all but an inch away from being the people we hate...

Sarah

Alright, another Starbucks inspiration. This time 'cause I was bored of studying and was just looking around. A rather simple and silly one...but hey it's my blog...i can post crap here of all places...

Besides it's dedicated to the cutest girl in Starbucks...well in the the Starbucks near my place anyways.

=======================

She walks about,
She floats in time,
She radiates charm,
Like a beautiful rhyme.

I watch her furtively,
Sitting in the coffee shop chair.
I stare at her openly now,
Without a worldly care.

She skips about,
Working around,
Our eyes meet for a second,
And I pass away without a sound.

She's beautiful, did I say,
They call her Sarah,
She's looks an angel to me,
As she starts to come over.

In a raspy smooth voice,
She asks me if I'm done,
I look up at her,
And think, I'll have some fun.

'No', I say
'I'm just getting started.'
She wrinkles up her nose,
As if I just farted.

'Started with what',
She says tossing her hair,
'This is a coffee shop dude,
By Eleven you have to clear.'

Well then I ignore her,
Being so funny you see.
And she stood there,
Shaking her head at me.

She frowned at me,
Then frowned some more.
And then walked away,
Leaving me slightly unsure.

I stared at her back,
Open mouth and all,
Kicking myself for the bad joke,
But now I had to make the call.

I call out her name,
It's time I know
To make my coolest move,
So I go with my flow.

'Hey, I'm just teasing',
I say with some glee,
She turns around unsure,
With a small smile for me.

And then my dear friends,
I make my final move and say,
'Can I take you out someplace,
Maybe coffee, this Sunday?'

Needless to say,
Those were my final words to her,
Not just for the day,
That goodbye was probably forever.

...to kill a human being...

When is it right to kill a person?

I'm sorry, my mind wanders. Did I say something?

Oh yes, that one!! The conundrum faced by "humanity" (if you will) everyday, somewhere in the world. But now that we have started down the treacherous road let’s continue then, shall we?

When can you justify taking a life? I was watching a show by George Carlin recently and this guy has a wandering mind too. He thinks of questions that make “humanity” squirm like a child, caught stealing candies. One of his comments struck me in this particular show though. We say life is sacred but do we believe it? Do you think before swatting that fly, killing that roach or hunting down that deer? If you believe what you say, you are hell bound my friend for destroying so many things so sacred. So really, that brings me back…when is it right to kill another person?? If the Americans caught Bin Laden today, killing him would be like swatting a fly. Right?? Surely, his life can’t be sacred? Well, not to Jesus anyways. Allah might have different thoughts, but hey let them fight their own battle up there.

Now, I’m not saying that Bin Laden should not be caught. Far from it, catch the bastard. So many lives are being lost (debatably at the wrong places) for one man. But I’m just wondering, what happens when (if?) he is captured? I am just trying to decipher the sacred aspect of life here that makes killing one person more of a sin than killing another person.

Who defines this mysterious sacredness of life? Is there a counter where we can measure it? You fall below 100 and ding…ding…ding…you are the weakest link…you can be executed by anyone without the slightest amount of sin being added to the killer’s counter. How did America compute the “sacredness” of 80,000 lives in Hiroshima? How did Hitler quantify it on his end? Was there a difference in their calculations? Maybe the Americans applied the double integration of human lives over the limits sin to sacredness and Hitler merely did a partial differentiation. It would be so much easier to elucidate things using mathematics, wouldn’t it?

The fact remains though, life was never inherently sacred. Nope, no counter exists, no sacredness exists. It’s merely the people you love and care about that makes things “sacred”, for the lack of a better term. If somebody harms your beliefs, and the people you care about, that bastard has had it. His “sacredness” just went down to zero for all you care. Swat him!!!

You know what probably drove Bin Laden to do the things he does? No, he did not wake up one fine day saying, “Hmm, I’m bored. What should I do that should keep me occupied for the rest of my life?” No, he was never struck by divine prophecy, enlightening him to murder any idiot who does not agree with Allah. Well, actually that’s something that he decided. Allah probably does not represent God to him. It represents a belief that he is right and the world should be destroyed for not agreeing with him. At some point in his life the beliefs he cared about and the people he cared about were deliberately or inadvertently harmed. And so he turned to Allah and was enlightened forever. And now he kills to protect his beliefs and the people who care for him and about him. Now here’s the interesting part…hold your breath…come on…so does any and every other country that can.

Two philosophies and sentiments in this world have caused more killing and bloodshed than any other. Religion and patriotism!!! Both have so many misguided connotations that they no longer remain the virtuous beliefs as claimed by their proponents.

Let me start with the lesser (only slightly) of two evils. Patriotism is essentially the reason every war has been fought over since the dawn of a coherent civilization. In its purest form, it is supposed to instill in you the pride for who you are, what your virtues are and knowledge of what your shortcomings are. People from India are kind and generous and intelligent, people from America are brave and fearless and innovative, people from Britain are noble, the French are refined and….well you get the point. Patriotism however has been this misguided missile of hatred for a long time now. It is cited as a reason for wars and more importantly accepted without any debate as a reason for war. Today, it is not so much a matter of pride in one’s virtues as a hatred for other people’s shortcomings. You mention you are doing something for patriotic reasons and you can justify anything. Anyone who opposes is “unpatriotic” and faces the wrath and the scorn of society. Patriotism is probably the philosophy filled with most hypocrisy…well…probably second only to this next one.

Religion!! The granddaddy of all philosophies. A philosophy that preaches peace and spreads violence. A philosophy meant to explain the origins of humans and probably one that would spell its doom. A philosophy, ladies and gentlemen that can make people do crazy things for crazy reasons. Now, the existence of God being a non-issue here, the fact remains that religions, just like patriotism, were scripted to bring about self-respect and peaceful living within societies. A noble cause, if any. Fact also remains, that history has scripted religion as an instrument of loathing and destruction. Closely knit with patriotism, and probably the origin of the former in many cases, it has probably been that all elusive weapon of mass destruction, some posing Texas cowboy went looking for (or at least that’s what he said).

We have songs and speeches filled with the delusions of patriotism…our country is the most beautiful in the world, we live in harmony, nothing can separate us, united we stand, these colors don’t run, we built this country with our blood and all sorts of crap really. Most of which we know are not true, and we don’t even have to look into our hearts to realize that. We just to have to look out of our shells of hypocrisy. The same goes for religion, only the delusion is magnified there. It doesn’t make things easier that religion is a philosophy seemingly, mostly based on delusions.

What’s funny to me though is that people are not just willing to kill but even die for these two philosophies. And even if you believe in the hallucinations presented by them, isn’t that a tad bit wrong. I read this or heard this someplace long time back, it said, to die for love is the easy way out, it’s living for love that’s tough and that justifies it. If you believe on something, don’t you think that life justifies it more than death? If you believe in religion or patriotism, doesn’t life justify those things more that the kill or be killed for it line of thought?

So, taking the long ranting road back, when is it right to kill a human, to take life, to go to war, to launch an atomic strike, to become a suicide bomber, to kill a murderer, to execute a rapist….never!! That would just be the easy way out. It is easy to kill a man, it is harder to kill an ideology. Nazism faded away to its minimal existence not because the allies killed Hitler, but because Hitler committed suicide. It was him who took the easy way out, he died for himself. If the allies had caught and executed Hitler, we might have seen his supporters multiply. Hitler would then have died for them. It is a thought to keep in mind when dealing out punishment.

If a person is wrong, to think in terms of killing that someone would justify their existence, to think in terms of life would justify ours.

Imagine this !!!

People always ask me why I love science fiction. To them science fiction and fantasy (did I forget to mention that in the first sentence?) means kid's stuff. Child's play. Immature indulgences of a feeble mind which is entertained by incredulous concoctions of someone else's imaginations.

Science fiction and fantasy to me bring about the limits of human imagination. They of course are NOT the limits of human imagination. Nothing in the world today can be the limit of human imagination. The world today is not that...Utopian...for the lack of a better - and non debatable - word.

Why DO I love sci-fi and fantasy then? For one thing, I find reading about things that are real and have happenned already, only mildly amusing and that too for a certain amount of time. I mean, news is fine. It's what keeps you aware as to what's happenning to your world. But history and biographies and how things happenned a hundred years ago???...Well..ummmm..only sometimes. Most of the times, I hate reading biographies and the histories of things. People love reading about things that have happenned, and things that are and have been....and so on. I love reading about things that COULD be or could NEVER be...at least not now...at least not what those other people can imagine.

It has been a passion since I was very young and inspite of that the realization struck me late. Pretty late.

Why do I love fantastical stuff?? Why do I love things, things that people scoff at when I read them...or watch them...or hear about them or discuss them? Well, simply put, I love to see where the mind can take one person when he's imaginative enough. And, sadly (not to mention modestly) I'm nowhere near as imaginative as the worst of those.

People say it's kid's stuff...I say that is the best compliment people can give you. A child's mind is undoubtedly the most imaginative thing in the living world. And an imaginative mind is the most precious entity as human existence has shown us. A child can imagine things, for better or for worse, that adults can only laugh and snicker and scoff at.

As I said, and as people don't realize often, imagination is the gift existence gave us when humans evolved. I hate bringing God into this, because I am at a place in my life where I am stuck between wanting to believe in god and doubting his existence. But I know this much...whatever or whoever brought us to this place, we currently inhabit..wanted us to have imagination. Imagination was never phased out by evolution or by the (debatable) God.

Imagination is what gave birth to the greatest theories and inventions of human civilization, remember (by the way, talk about imagination...beat that!!! Civilization!!!) ??

Imagination is what brought us from four legged monkeys to two legged humans for all we know!!!

But I've digressed enough. Why do you think kid's shiyat like those fantasy and sci-fi books and stories have been around and flourishing?? Imagination is the key, isn't it? It's the imagination of a child. Only a child's imagination can bring you to these realms of wonder. And when an adult does it and writes it down, or narrates it or puts it forth to the rest of us..it stays on for ages.

I've seen adults engrossed in Harry Potter books in recent times (sometimes when looking in a mirror actually!!!). Does it make them snicker and snigger on every page? Does it make them feel proud that they can't stoop to that level of thinking?? Or is it something a bit more...umm simpler?? Maybe they see a world they have all but lost when their childhood waved a reluctant sad goodbye to them.

I'm not saying magic exists...but I'm saying why can't it!!!

I'm not saying people would be able to reach out to the galaxies in a spoon shaped starship to meet and fight other people (aliens?)..but I'm saying why not!!

Why do humans as a rule have to discount things that they can't fathom? It has happenned scores of times since the times of a supposedly flat earth, to date. And humans don't seem to embrace the concept of incredulous imagination and giving the unbelievable a chance.

There are limits as always. I am not suggesting that people abandon sanity and start living incredibly eccentric lives. I am merely suggesting people keep their minds open. I am suggesting people believe that the unbelievable can and sometimes WILL happen.

I am not suggesting people live Star Trek or Harry Potter, or any other "kiddy fodder"...I am saying people love the spirit behind them..(not the marketing but the spirit...big difference by the way...whole another blog for that one).

I am saying people learn to listen to the ever present, if often subdued, children in themselves...

Anyone can live the life someone else has already lived...very few people can even imagine a life no one has ever lived.