Lost but not given up!!!

Yesterday I did one of the most abhorrent acts in my life. A human being will regret the existence of its own race after witnessing what I have done. It can put any rational human being to shame. I was vituperative. I abused my enemy with a lot of invectives and expletives. My language was opprobrious and derogatory. To top it all, it deranged my ego, ruffled me from inside and there was a soul annihilating chaos inside me which manifested in using my brawn and muscle power to conflict injury on my enemy. I was unduly persistent in causing harm to him. I also made racial slurs. I was barbaric, violent, boorish. I behaved like a complete lowbrow. In the end I was mercilessly beaten up with canes by his friends. In short. I behaved like a complete jerk. I behaved like a hooligan, a ruffian, a hoodlum. Like I was part of a gang. I conducted as if I was a part of a mob causing riotous and atrocious activities, creating disruption in the society. In short, I am feeling ashamed of what I did. But one thing is an irrevocable habit of mine that is to reflect upon an event or an incident to investigate what caused it, what fallacies of human nature and the ubiquitous ignorance is still prevalent in me. Also what the not so conspicuous positives I derived from it. I felt I behave like this because I felt completely unjust the way he was behaving with the coffee man. He was belittling , demeaning and humiliating him. I was not able to be a mere witness to the events particularly to the injustice meted out at that poor, hapless coffee man. It provoked me to confront him, to intimidate him. But one thing I experienced I was in state of "No Thought". My mind was not speculating the harm that would be caused to me for standing up for the coffee man who would be anyways oblivious to whatever I do for him. My mind was completely empty. I was not able to resist the temptation of antipathy to whatever was happening in front of my eyes. I provoked him by looking at him with angry, furious eyes. At that time I realised, love and concern for my own species is my very nature, I cannot doused the fire of love with reason or rationalism of the intellect. I have always felt incorrigibly guilty whenever I had become angry on someone or whenever I ogled some girl with lascivious eyes. I experienced sorrow and guilt because I was acting against my very nature which is incorrigible, impenetrable.

I wanted to brag about my power through the physical implementation as it really deranged my ego. I forgot that real power is when you empower people without either coercing or insinuating artfully in their minds your opinions, beliefs or prejudices. You are actually powerful when your power is equitably distributed. Muscular power is a physiological constituent that is short-lived. Power is something that exists perenially even after you die as your ideas, ideals, beliefs, your little anecdotes and your very life motivates, instigates people to achieve higher maybe even abstract things in life. A person who is powerful is one who doesn't feel the need to display his power as he doesn't require any external circumstances to conspicuously showcase his power, even if he may given the opportunity he will empower others instead of placing his power on a pedestal for others to see as such power is very transitory in nature.

He may not even feel the need to have power as he would be in touch with the perennial, metaphysical power that will never diminish. A power that is ubiquitous within him, that had the potential to change peoples lives, that has the potential to make miracles a daily occurence. It requires a man to be animalistic impulsive to be violent, it requires a man to be powerful to fight against injustice but be invincibly non-violent. Violence doesn't even provide you victory but its self-defeating, it disturbs the equilibrium of your mind. It lays the incipient seeds of anger, lust, greed, etc whose tall trees restricts the sunshine of knowledge to your very soul as negativity always wants a hook to grow on.

My intentions were benevolent, but my mode of operation was not only unconvincing but diabolical.

I was not prudent and smart but I acted dumb. I should have first spoken to him softly because we all are victims of ignorance. Then if it didn't work, I should have called the police. But that happens if I am not impulsive and I am able to channelise my anger in the right way. That will happen through lots of running, gymnasium and meditation. That will alleviate my impulsive imprudent anger. I always feel disillusioned, discouraged that I will never become that perfected soul that I only have an obscure idea about. But everything happens for a reason. This gave me a lot of insight in human nature. I will turn this event into a lesson. As soon as I get well, I will start running and I will hit the gym with vigour and enthusiasm. My vengeance against the act that compelled me to perform such a fiendish act would be against the anger not against the victim of my anger. I would have to hit the gym, start running and meditate. Yes I want to just lie on the water and be carried away to my destination but that will happen only after embarrassingly flapping my arms helplessly for a distance to save myself from the apparent inevitable drowning.

So yes I have lost today one battle where I would have given impetus to the matured being lying dormant within me. 

Even after writing all this, there is an underlying, concealed doubt that what if everything is entirely wrong and that is what requires immutable power to do what you believe its right yet having the awareness and open-mindedness that you may be wrong. This way you go beyond right and wrong and you start listening to the obscure, quaint language of your heart.

The need to be right is the sign of a vulgar mind - Albert Camus.

The Chef

The Chef was a hilarious, feel good movie and to some extent for a thinker like me even though-provoking. The movie is inordinately stylish and it has imbibed and displayed American culture, as food is an important ingredient in the metaphorical food of culture, quite in its totality. The movie starts with a chef who is reasonably happy with his job, but then comes an all awaited night when a food critic is visiting the concerned restaurant. The chef has a heated altercation with his complacent, philistine supremo who wants the same menu to be prepared that has been dormantly existing since the last 10 years, however the chef has created a special menu to stun the food critic. There is a clear ideological difference arising out of this little anecdote between the adventurous chef and the opportunistic boss who seems to consider cooking as a mere employment or one of the important functions in a restaurant that needs to be performed. The main protagonist considers cooking not as a mere job that needs to be performed to make his ends meet. But he considers cooking as a singular, dignified and unparalleled art. He doesn't wants to cook food to have happy customers but he wants customers to concoct good food by mixing his multifarious, myriad ingredients. Somewhat I recollected what Steve Jobs said "The customers don't know what they want until we have shown them". However, the chef's obstinacy subsides and he succumbs to the pragmatic demands of his supremo. However the food critic appears to have learnt and graduated from the same school of thought and he detests the seemingly delectable food devoid of any innovativeness or inventiveness and consequently he lambasts the chef and his shadowy complacency on his blog which becomes viral on social media thus leading to ire from a chef who is completely oblivious to the complex web of the social world. This is the starting point of a magnificent ride.

The movie shows you how social media plays a magnanimous, prodigious role to reach the incipient customers. The Chef here is completely alien to the world of social media and is catapulted like a rocket in an estranged planet which becomes a source of constant chagrin and mortification for the bereaved chef who finally loses his job for standing to his beliefs. The story is one of a person reaching the stage of self-realisation, finally realising what he wants to do and experiencing unconditional bliss arising from the work itself and not from some related or peripheral benefits arising out of it. It's a story of a person finally reconnecting to his innocent son whose father, the main protagonist,is somewhat reckless in performing his parental duties that is partly attributed to his divorced marriage ,the oppressing pressures of his work and his own insatiable desire to achieve a perennial creative ingenuity in his work. It's story of a person who finally tightens the bolts and the nuts that is needed in the effective functioning of the machine of his family. One of the most ironical part of the movie is that he finally become self employed with the help of the ex-husband of his ex-wife. That also depicts the complexity of relationships in the developed world and the adroitness with which they deal with their complicated worlds. There is a lot of flamboyance, style and the American culture that coerces you to stand up and applaud. That is one of the most sparkling, scintillating features of American movie that they have succeeded to insinuate a sense of American culture in their films. Something our Bollywood needs to learn who are apathetic to their own cultures and have become obsequious to the Western culture.

The acting of all the actors is such that they are not playing any part, they have not taken any effort to play their roles. This is the biggest compliment I can give to an actor. An actor is performing superlatively when you actually feel that he is not acting, but just playing himself.

Anyways the movie is a must watch. If I go on I will add a lot of spoilers, so please go and watch.

4 stars from me.

Eclectic and Multifarious choices for my career

Oh it's frustrating!! An eclectic mind is a desultory mess!! And this is what I am going through!!! I have come this far but my inchoate mind acting to its true nature of eccentricity again has pushed me to untraceable, unfathomable sea of confusion. Let's list out the options:

• MA in English Literature + a job from 1 pm

This seems to be the most difficult option. Now here the idea is that I should be able to accommodate my expenses with the help of my moderate salary. At the same time, if my MA in English Literature doesn't work out as planned, I have a back up to fall upon on. 

But the problem is I would be jack of all and master of none. I won't be able to achieve superlative performance in my MA in English literature. I would only get weekends to study which would not be adequate for the good grades that I would strive for. I won't do justice to my job as I would be constantly worrying about my studies and would unscrupulously consider as a 9 hour job, abondoning the prime responsibility of contributing towards my company through my job and thereby failing to achieve a higher purpose than to mechanically work from 1pm to 10 pm

This is elation in the short time but irreversible misery in the long time.

• MA in English Literature

The cost of the course is just a mediocre Rs 7000. The only impediment is that I have to invest a long duration in the course. And I am not sure what are the myriad job opportunities after finishing my masters. The only encouraging factor is that it will be a perfect booster for my penchant of reading and writing. Atleast I would be doing something that I have a incorrigible  passion in. If I take the idealistic view that is I should study something in which I have a long quenching thirst for knowledge, a disquieting  curiosity and a heartfelt need to investigate and comprehend the vast store of material available, then MA in English Literature is the perfect choice. It would catapult me into the complete unexplored world of creativity. 

But yes if I take a pragmatic view, still it stands a bit vindicated that I would surely have some unconventional job opportunities that we will not fill my coffers to the brim but still provide me job opportunities in which the work will completely swallow me up though it would provide only a modicum income.

It may also happen that after my MA I would realise that this is what I don't want to do but the point is very flagrant I would atleast learn something as I am learning about something that I love doing. This road will atleast lead to some other adjoining road which will lead to my destination. I would also be able to apply for other courses during my 2 years course and explore the unexplored and obscurely evaluate my interest in it.

• No MA in English Literature but MBA

MBA is something I think you should do when you have an accurate understanding and an obscure foreknowledge of what you want to do or what you want to excel in. I don't want to do MBA just for larger pay package. As I would be somewhat prematurely happy at the onset but than there would be utter mortification and chagrin at having squandered my life in the pursuit of something inconsequential as money is just a means to an end not an end in itself. Moreover MBA can be done at any age in your life when you have a plan, a well-thought idea and you utilise MBA as a means to achieve it. No matter how much I try I can't get rid of a certain dogma that I have unconsciously inherited from my forefathers that a man ought to settle down by the age of 25 which is compelling me to take the conventional path, the path that people have already  marred with their obstinate footprints. But if I can't get rid off atleast I can observe and choose the alternate path less travelled. And now if I do MBA, I would do it for a complacent motive i.e to have a larger pay package. Though I don't have an iota of an idea as to where do I want to utilise my MBA skills, what sort of job I would be happy and satisfied doing, which companies I would be targeting. No doing MBA would not be a sound decision.

• No MA in English Literature just a job

I even entertained the idea of just working in a marketing company but then that would be just a continuation of the haphazard and fatuous way of finding the work that I really want to do. Now after jumping from one job to another, I need to try something different and MA in English Literature is the answer.

• MA in English Literature and a freelancing job

This seems to be the most plausible and viable alternative. Through freelancing, I will earn enough to take care of my expenses. At the same time, I would have sufficient amount of time to do my studies. At the same time, it would compliment to whatever knowledge I am imbibing in my MA in English Literature. I would find means to implement my knowledge which would I think is of paramount importance. It will augment my studies as well as the job that I am doing. I think it is a ridiculously obvious alternative or choice.

Unindianising Too Indian

Micromax- one of the largest companies in India selling low priced cheap Chinese phones. This is the irrefutable answer you will receive maybe in a different language or dialect in the Indian sub-continent.

A name synonymous with "smart feature phone" rather than "smart phones."

And rightly so, they allege that they were never cheap, they were affordable and they were compellingly dragged under the thraldom of this inevitable positioning.

But the domestic brethren cannot be blamed for thrusting upon Micromax this thorny, prickly crown. Particularly when the company made inroads into a market dominated by multi-national sharks by offering a bewildering almost obnoxious offering of a Rs 2300 mobile with an advertised 30 day battery backup. At that time, it was regarded an old little pony, an aberration to be ignored. But then it emerged as a dark horse with their unparalleled follow up offerings like a dual sim phone, universal remote control phone, a women centric phone with a Swarovski crystal on it and many more. With such unprecedented product offerings they unseated the Moghuls of the mobile industry like LG, Apple, Nokia, etc and grabbed an indomitable 22% market share only second to Samsung.

But still it wasn't able to rub off the notoriety of being an Indian domestic company selling cheap Chinese phones. And the international revenues accounted for less than 10% revenues today.

Micromax thought an innovating unthinkable strategy to extricate itself from this conundrum. It signed Hugh Jackman for its high end product: the Canvas smartphones.

Now let us look into the rationale behind it:

Sorry Bollywood........

In Bollywood there are many occupying the zenith of superstardom and all of them,some raised to the pedestal of apotheosis, endorse innumerable brands which nobody have a proper count of. Also their beatific faces appears on a lot of spurious brands. They wanted a face that is exclusive to the brand particularly for the Indian consumer. For that, it is ludicrously obvious to look for that face in LA and not in Mumbai. 

Me first.....

Signing Hugh Jackman would turn out to be an unprecedented marketing campaign in Indian corporate world where an Indian company would sign a Hollywood stalwart (although there had been sporadic incidents where Indian companies have managed to sign English, Australian cricketers but for particular ads of negligible significance and hackneyed concept but not for a blitzkrieg marketing campaign), this would invariably comply to its tag line "Nothing like Anything". 

Made in India....Uuhh....Let me think about it.

Also Indian products are considered superior when it is catapulting from the factories of yoga and Ayurveda, but Made In India mobiles would be unquestionably considered inferior as compared to its Korean, U.S and Japanese counterparts but still superior to its Chinese counterparts. So Mr Micromax was aiming at a paradigm-shift from a lowly Indian company selling cheap phones to a global brand providing quality, state of the art products to reckon with. This requires a face who has a global outreach which they found in Hugh Jackman.

HUGE Jackman......

Now if you have seen the pervasive advertisement of Hugh Jackman, he is inspired by a juggler and he juggles many lives. And isn't a smartphone judged by its ability to multitask? If you take a Jackie Chan or Vin Diesel, these actors are familiar faces when it comes to pure, unadulterated action which gives 

the viewer an adrenaline rush. If you take Hugh Grant, the butterflies of romance flutters around you. Hugh Jackman is considered to be a versatile actor, a virtuoso who has donned every role with impeccable finesse. He can sing, dance, fight, in short can act, display or emote every conceivable emotion the soul and the mind of a human being can produce. Also the recent unfathomable successes of the X-Men series and his other films has made him a known face in India. Even the youths in Faridabad, Ghaziabad would be aware about Hugh Jackman though obscurely. And this goes without saying that Hugh Jackman has a monstrous fan following all over the world. So it is hitting two birds with one stone, a brand whose ambassador is an Hollywood veteran superstar is immediately prejudiced by the import-obsessive Indian consumer to be a valued brand and also at the same time it adds a global icing to the brand. 

In short, the primary aim is to mutate from a cheap-fuddy to a global phenomena with the ancillary aim of upping the ante in the Indian market

AAA's : Ajanta-Ellora caves, Aurangabad and my Alter-Ego

I can confidently say I am the ludicrous caricature of my Alter-ego Prasad Pisharodi. We have a disinclination to put a degree of comparison to our friendship,as anything which is put under the scanner of comparison, is invariably demeaning it. As a wise man said " Imposing a nomenclature to a relationship restricts the rhythmic flow of love". Anyways so after a lot of intellectual pondering we settled for "Alter-ego" instead of "best friend" and "closest friend". So he commanded me,as it should be as Love commands and doesn't demand, to pack my effects and other paraphernalia for a trip to Ajanta. Ellora and Aurangabad. I gave monosyllabic answers to his curious questions, deceptively portraying an attitude of oblivion and indifference to the relatively naive. But I knew him, I knew he knows that I have as usual surrendered myself to him, and henceforth his wish would be an incorrigible command, as I said I am a ludicrous caricature of himself so I didn't want to fight with my better self. So our trips are never acutely planned which makes it hackneyedly predictable. We booked a room in a hotel for an incredulously ridiculous amount of ₹200 per person, too cheap that it made us suspicious about any malevolent, ignoble intentions of the hotelier. Anyways we always loved to sail on the tremulous boat of faith floating on the impetuous waters of doubt. Faith requires an awareness of being wrong, that is why the use of the phrase "A leap of Faith". So our skeptical minds did consider this possibility of us being in imminent danger of money being wheedled out of us through a cunning stratagem. But we took the leap of faith.

Next I checked online on our anomalously well-maintained railway website about the trains travelling to Jalgaon which was a mere 59 kilometres from Ajantha and our grandiose hotel. The best deal that I got was unreserved tickets to Jalgaon and we were at an ominous 94 and 95 on the waiting list. So I booked the tickets reluctantly as I am perennially averse to travelling unreserved, but I had already submitted myself to the wisdom of my Master Prasad Pisharodi, so there was no question of turning my back to the ticket counter. I booked the tickets, informed my alter-ego. I failed to add one more facetious or pertinent detail, the way you see it, I booked the tickets on 30th Jan and we were travelling on 31st Jan. So it was inevitable that I was going to be subjected to the insinuations, insults and the ridicule of my brethren who have taken the excruciating pain of planning their trip meticulously and book the tickets well on time, not literally on time, which we did but on time here means when the railways authorities were generous and condescending enough to provide tickets with a reservation. I reached the station an hour early, seriously an aberration to my infallibly undisciplined life. I stood standing there bemused waiting for the chart. And when the chart arrived, I saw that I have been assigned neither a seat nor a coach. I was an orphan in the train with no fatherly comfort of a coach and no motherly tender love of a seat. And my prophecy turned out to be true, the moment I sat on an empty seat, I was uprooted from it by a mere gesture of a hand by an elderly insolent man. His behaviour suggested as if he has bought the train and has already willed to bequeath it to his immediate heir who would only have a life-interest in it. I sat compacently at the next available empty seat but now I was just derisively directed to ease out of the seat. This was far more embarrassing  and shameful than the earlier incident. Here the guy didn't even take the pain to insult me with invectives but merely shooed me away as if I had metamorphosed into a dumb ape. But during these barbaric acts inflicted upon me, I maintained my calm stoicism.

The only sanguine consequence was that my hubris was vehemently obliterated. I was wearing upper middle class clothes: denims and a cool shirt that should have evoked respect and awe and should have extenuated any petulance arising in a person whose seat has been occupied by me. But I was mercilessly disillusioned. 

Anyways I finally got an empty seat. Then my friend Prasad boarded the train from Kalyan which sometimes is so unreasonably far from Sion as to exist in another planet altogether. Anyways he arrived with his blithe disposition, with no creases on his forehead marked by anxiety, but accepting the circumstances with an undeniable alacrity. He has this risible idiosyncrasy which impels everyone to undulatingly laugh and smile around him. He is this incredulous synthesis of intellect and innocence. Anyways praising him means I am invariably praising myself. So being pretentiously humble which actually ostentatiously boasts about my humility, invariably sowing a thorny seed of arrogance, I press forward. We were prattling about so called stuff in our lives avoiding any refined, intellectual talk, till our comfort was sentenced to death, and our hopes were mercilessly dashed. Another elderly man claimed his progenial right to his seat so now we were two behemoths confined to one seat, our abysmal circumstance assuaged by our jocular banter.

Then he implored us to vacant our seats that we have laid our siege upon as he was separated from his family owing to unconnected, disjointed seats due to the exigencies of booking the tickets well ahead of time to enjoy the insatiable luxury of reservation, thus casting aside any justifiable preferences for seats. So we were genuinely touched by his constant solicitation so we traded a seat, for which we had no claim whatsoever, for a seat that was guarded by the impregnable force of reservation. We were quite delighted at our ingenuity. 

I understood the relativity of time when we sealed our friendships with an invisible totem. Time somehow takes an incorrigible flight, it always seems to be scarce when I am spending my time with him. The best part about conversing with him is that I am unconsciously talking to myself, answering to potent questions that I was hardly aware about. It sometimes appears to be a monologue. He appears to vicariously live my life through the instrument of my maudlin or stoical talk. That is what is required from a friend, a friend who lends a ear unconditionally without interrupting without being obtrusive and without being judgemental or prejudiced. Anyways so I was invariably emptying my mind off all the flotsam, rubble and debris that had been collected and subsequently rotting during my time of hibernation from him and unconsciously surrendering all my innocuous worries to the omnipotent divine.

So we were deliberately and compulsively awake till we reached our destination as we were quite confident about the fact that the sounds of the alarm on our phone would be just trifling, infinitesimal ants that would be trampled upon by our elephantine, gargantuan sounds of our yawns.

We got down at the station or we can say, as one of my acquaintances sealed his embarrassment for a perennial time, by calling his friend and boisterously claiming ,with an icing of floridity ,to suggest his intractable hold on the English language, that he has "landed on the station."

We took a rick and got to the ST bus station. We took a rickety, ramshackled bus to Fardapur. We informed the conductor to wake us up when we reach the destination. We dived into such a deep, inveterate ocean of dormant sleep that when we were awaken we woke up with a caustic jolt as the protagonist in horror movies jumps up with a start when he is haunted by an apparition or ghost in his or her sleep.

We were stranded in this oblivious place of Jalgaon. The passers by, the chai-wallah were trying to scare us by deliberately, consciously exaggerating the distance to be covered to reach our venerable hotel. It may also be just an instinctive reaction due to the inveterate habit of Indians to exaggerate. Sorry I don't want to be judgemental. But one of the many predilections common to me and Prasad is the enjoy of walking. So we started walking unperturbed with bags on our shoulders and imperishable smiles on our mouths. On the way, a well wisher in a well-polished car asked us whether we are going to the hotel and after getting an obscure, vague nod of our heads, voluntarily granted us a lift. Our bitter experiences of strangers in a strange town again gave rise to creases on our forehead and obnoxious distortions of our faces characterised by suspicion. But we were relieved when we finally arrived at Hotel New KP Park and the well-wisher didn't ask for a penny, instead beseeched us with a bigger proposition of booking his well-furbished car for the time of our stay. But we denied to return his gratitude with such an expensive gesture. Anyways this is the hotel where the owner being incredulously scrupulous, suggested us not to make a payment of ₹1000 online instead to make a payment of ₹200 per person per night which arouse gnawing suspicions in our mind which were still rather inchoate. We were escorted to our room by a gregarious, vivacious Sandeep on whom the depravity and hypocrisy of human behaviour realised with the ambivalent growing of age and the staleness of time has still leaved the child-like innocence untouched. He escorted us to our rooms, handed us the keys and gave us the assurance that he will be there whenever we needed him. Our room mollified our suspicions as the rooms were dilapidated and it was not worthy of a ₹1000 as we were suspecting that he will ask for an exorbitant amount of money after suggesting that ₹200 was just a deposit. But still the room was comfy. Our bodies were exhaling a pungent, acrid smell. So we quickly bathed and got into our new robes, packed whatever paraphernalia was not needed for the nonce. 

The generosity of the hotel staff was overwhelming which was just exacerbating our suspicions even further. They dropped us at the foot of the hill where Ajantha caves were located. We bought the tickets. After an exhausting 20 minutes climb, we arrived at our desired destination. From the pinnacle of the hill, the layout of the caves resembled a prodigious, gigantic horseshoe. Anyways after our superficial, perfunctory frisking, we were freed to explore the unseen caves. We entered the first caves, it was enveloped in a benighted darkness with obscure innocuous little lights conspicuously failing to serve its purpose obtrusively imposed upon it. The minuscule lights were required to display the paintings, to guide the exploring traveller to showcase the intricacies, nitty-gritties of the painting, which actually intended to explain the Buddhist mythology in meticulous detail. But we were bewildered,nonplussed. We were in a conundrum, we wanted to have a very acute understanding of the depiction of the paintings but what we were able to observe was just a hotchpotch of myriad colours.We also wanted to comprehend the artistic, intrinsic value of the paintings. Anyways we implored, beseeched some fellow travellers to lend us a torch but they didn't heed to our constant solicitations. We hired a guide in utter frustration after exhausting whatever choices were available to us. What he did was an abhorrable, detestable thing to do. It was an outrageous, unforgivable mistake on our part. Years and eons of painstaking efforts and irrevocable commitment was demeaned by a superficial and hackneyed explanation that can be flagrantly observed by even an obtuse traveller. A guide should be ideally an aficionado, a virtuoso of art and should have considerable gnosis of the mythology depicted intricately by such kaleidoscopic paintings or by such flawless carvings. Anyways we learned a stinging, caustic lesson from this. We immediately went back and bought a guide approbated by the Archaeological Survey of India. And all this while I was hoping to find the pertinent torch to obliterate the darkness enveloping around us in the cave being oblivious to the obscure lights within it. But no one heeded to my constant solicitations. Anyways once we had the infallible weapon in the form of a guide book, we started our battle to understand how much our sensibility and our limited imagination allowed us. 

It was unfathomable at the first how our ancestors who conceived this overcame the irrevocable architectural conundrums. But we were were fully aware about our barren architectural understanding, so we didn't try to comprehenend but capitulated to our inexpressible wonder with our mouths gaped open. The carvings provided us a numinous, ethereal experience with Buddha serene and stoical from every niche in the monastery. The carvings were intricately set in stone with indefatigable perseverance to carve the ornamentation with a preternatural obstinate detail. The most conspicuous and alluring feature of the caves were the cells inside the monastery, those cells were used by ascetics who wanted to extricate themselves from their intertwining threads of daily lives, who want to silence the rambunctious voices reverberating within their minds exacerbated by the boisterous noises outside, who wanted to relieve themselves of all the innumerable identities and absolve themselves of all countless responsibilities and repose within their selves. It was a cell for those hermits who wants to listen to the obscure yearnings of the soul. This was just a testimony to the fact that meditation forms the core of every religious and spiritual endeavour. We are all aware about the pertinence of meditation in Buddhism and Hinduism and other religions. I am just reading a book "The First Muslim" and there was a citation of a very notable fact that the word for spirit or soul and the breath is the same "ruh" in Arabic. This also provide further evidence to the fact that meditation should be made a very incorrigible part of our lives. The carvings at the entrance boasts of lascivious, licentious couples snuggling to each other, caressing and fondling with certain unspeakable private parts that can embarrass even a Casanova or a coquette. There were also carvings portraying the internecine violence of man. The objective of these carvings seem to showcase the ignoble, vile human depravity as a whole and the purpose of it was to arouse every conceivable poignant negative emotion in the chaotic minds of the hermits in order to purge them in their solitary confinements. 

Next we visited the Ellora caves, we first entered a prodigious Hindu temple. We were again enveloped by a blinding fog of amazement and wonder. The entire Ramayana and Mahabharatha in exquisite detail was carved so meticulously in stone that for a moment you feel a part of those momentous epochs. The carvings talked about the myriad stories which provides an unprejudiced and broad-minded view of Hinduism characteristic of the age when India was an indomitable super-power, a common nemesis of empires around the world contrary to the dogmatic, patriarchal Hindutva which suppresses individualistic opinions, perceptions and beliefs that violate their own deep rooted beliefs watered by an impregnable obstinacy bordering on arrogance. This has caused an intellectual rape of various art forms by the riffraff obdurately influenced by the rabble-rousers and demagogues, who are an intractable force against the free-thinkers who are right now under the ominous danger of extinction. The proletariat, the rabble should visit these ancient temples where art has been displayed unyieldingly, where the amorous couples are shown in various sexual positions, where pantheon of deities are also not spared to portray the human life as a whole with its obvious lasciviousness, licentiousness, moral depravity. In some temples, there are flagrant carvings of homosexuals, gays, lesbians in various sexual positions sardonically mocking at the narrow-mindedness and chauvinism of the Hindutva brigade that fail to understand the old phrase that Hinduism is Sanathan Dharma that it is a way of life and not a religion to wage war for to prove its supremacy. 

The developed countries are just emulating the erstwhile India where art was given an unalterable freedom and where every opinion or belief was taken into consideration with an unprejudiced mind. The temples provide us a glimpse of ecstasy, a bliss only comparable to the samadhi achieved after long perennial meditation. There were carvings all around depicting the various deities quite obnoxious and grotesque in nature like there was an horrifying carving of a Goddess which was naked all the way down, stripped off all the skin harbouring the skeleton of the body, it looked like an apparition of a skeletal ghost which will surely send shivers down your spine if accidentally visited in the ubiquitous stillness and silence of the dark, starless night. We visited a lot of Buddhist caves, Hindu caves and now we are yet to visit the Jain caves for which we have to inevitably plan a second trip.

I can go on but now I have to stop because now I am on the verge of giving way to my emotions violating the factual, objective tone of this write-up. I hope after reading this you will surely visit these caves and visit the Real India.

Mandela : Long Walk to Freedom

To idealise someone is to dehumanise them. And one of the most pertinent functions of a biographer is to humanise the legend that maybe raised to the pedestal of apotheosis, holding up the veil of preternatural perfection to show the conspicuous imperfections :fallacies, delusions, depravity lying within.

Hence that is what William Nicholson should have strived for, to audaciously portray Nelson Mandela as he is, rather than through the prism of subjective veneration almost to the point of worship. However  in some parts William Nicholson has succeeded to do so, but in most parts he has miserably failed. The movie looks like a perennial monologue. An obstinate chronology of events. It looks like a melodramatic documentary.

A biographer's function is to display a person's life in confluence with the time and place. William Nicholson's movie appears to be an apocryphal tale with ineffable stoicism of the the main protagonist. He has concentrated more on the innocuous, superficial details that obviously needs to be co-opted in the movie but need not be the epicenter of the movie. The bedrock of the movie flagrantly had to be the abysmal poverty and benighted ignorance of the Blacks due to the profane , abominable apartheid that ruffled the egalitarian Mandela, it had to be the unfathomable journey of Mandela to Madiba. But that appears in the movie to be just an impetuous quirk of destiny. Throughout the movie, Nelson Mandela appears to be obtrusive, with impregnable confidence, precluding any battle that rages within oneself precipitated by ambivalent perceptions, puzzling conundrums and nonplussed dilemmas that characterises such an iconoclast's life. It appears that he is fighting for the rights of blacks, but it's grossly missing what rights he is actually fighting for. The only feature of the movie is the impassioned, demagoguery speeches of Nelson Mandela arousing his brethren's passions and emotions to fight for their rights. Sometimes he appears to be a mere rabble-rouser. Also after his initial reluctance to join ANC, it's is ambiguous as to what actually stirred Mandela to join ANC. And in the next scene, he is the inevitable, infallible head of the ANC, the bellwether of the rights of Blacks in South Africa. He is the cynosure of all eyes. Also when Nelson Mandela is jailed, the jailor appears to be barbaric, vile, there are rambunctious voices that are heard surrounding the precincts of the jail. But the jailor seemed to conduct no atrocities on the Black prisoners. They seemed to live in peace for a seemingly perpetual time. 

However, the movie had tried to incorporate every intricate detail, however inconsequential it may be. The actors have given scintillating performance with their mellifluous African accent. But the movie has just trespassed a lot of pertinent details and anecdotes that has made the man what he was. It breaks a lot of reasonable paradigms of Nelson Mandela and sows the seeds of doubt whether Mandela truly deserves the reverence and veneration he is endowed with. Instead of dehumanising the man, it has actually demonise the man in some parts.

It leaves the viewer nonplussed as to why he is considered an immortal legend, why he is assumed to be residing in the empyrean that is already providing shelter to Gandhi, Einstein?. 

At the end of the movie, you are not inspired by the man or his life but you are just left with some details stripped off its intent, pertinence and more important a soul.

The movie has been adapted from the book by the same name and it has just committed the same, trite mistake just like Great Gatsby or any such movie. It has too fervently and explicitly followed the book and has been oblivious to the difference of a content of a book and a movie, leaving the objective of the movie in obscurity.

In the end, I will give 3 stars for the impeccable acting of the actors and the soulful music of the movie.

"A Casual Vacancy" by J.K Rowling

To be honest to you, I have not read any of J.K Rowling's books. Because when the avalanche of Harry Potter books engulfed young readers world over in a blanket of sorcery and magic, I never turned a page of a book unless it needed to be crammed up for a deceptively pertinent exam.

So when I picked up A Casual Vacancy, I didn't burden the writer with any unreasonable or unjustifiable expectations.

For Harry Potter readers and J.K Rowling fans, if you are expecting a crime thriller and while reading the book, strive to join the disjointed events, unconnected dots you would be utterly nonplussed and disappointed. If you are expecting a book soaked in magic and sorcery where things, people undergo an alchemical metamorphosis, you would be uncompromisingly disillusioned. If you are expecting a book, which will catapult you in a distant idyllic future where you obtusely perceive yourself to be romancing with a voluptuous woman of your chimeric fantasises, in that case your romantic fancies would be unmercifully pummelled. This book is a novel which would nonchalantly promise you in the beginning political melodrama, a political thriller that will give you goose-bumps as you proceed, but then again you would be disenchanted. 

This book initiates with the accidental death of Barry Fairbrother, a Parish Councillor of an idyllic town Pagford and the events precipitated by this ghastly, unfortunate incident, who is the bellwether of a cause very integral to the politics of Pagford. In the process, it strips off the unblemished masquerade of love, friendship, unity , loyalty which maybe conjectured and prejudiced due to the untainted, idyllic, unruffled exterior of Pagford; to reveal the scars and pockmarks of betrayal, politics, hatred , licentiousness within. It shows a town where children denigrate their parents, where the growing of children is a constant bereavement for their parents, where the thorns of adultery pricked the bouquet of marriage understood to be held together by love and honesty, where children are sailing in the turbulent waters of confusion, lasciviousness and depravity.

The book overwhelms the stereotype of J.K Rowling as a mere story-teller, she has proven with her mellifluous and intricate writing that she is a virtuoso in the art of writing. The main feature of this book is that it does't have any quintessential protagonist. It is a book where a lot of stories are intertwined together to form a thick braid of a manifested reality that we encounter in our daily lives but seem oblivious to it. The subtleties, intricacies and nitty-gritties of every character is impeccably explained. The unfathomable, complex relationship between characters are flawlessly explained which has the bittersweet spices of love, adultery, betrayal, honesty, belongingness, envy to form a khichdi, a labyrinthe of a world that we found ourselves in. None of the characters in this book is black and white but it has its kaleidoscopic shades of grey. The book clearly portrays the stupefying simplicity as well as the incurable clot of complexities and it's inevitable repurcussions on the circumstances surrounding them. It shows that J.K Rowling truly understands human behaviour.

However the book towards its end looks like an outstretched elastic band released abrubtly to contract at a preternatural speed to an asymmetrical ,anomalous shape. It looks as if J.K Rowling was overwhelmed and fatigued due to the monotony of writing and one day decided to bring an impetuous halt to the disjointed as well as interspersed events. It looks like a threadbare cloth was immediately parched with obnoxious, unmatchable threads. The end also looks too predictable, it looks like a philistine, obtuse Bollywood Masala film in the end.

In short, 4 stars for the immaculate writing 1star stripped off due to the impulsive close to the story.

Why you should write......

A human being is always assailed with an avalanche of thoughts, ideas, opinions and perceptions. Often psychologists says we should accept all negative and positive thoughts as they are, we have to fully accept and embrace but we should not act upon it, or get peeved or petulant about it. But sometimes it is very implausible particularly if you are a person whose mind is like a factory manufacturing thoughts relentlessly without any assessment of quality, thereby creating more inventory which obstinately occupies every available space, forfending the installation of any new machinery due to restraint of space for further development. Its like not rubbing an irrepressible itch on your stomach. It's an irony that we need to empty our bucket-minds of the mud of thoughts, prejudices and preconceived notions in order to pour the clean water of wisdom. But these undulating frenemies needs an outlet, and writing is the ideal outlet.

Sometimes we want to share our inner torment, frustration, confusion caused by the infighting, altercations of our own ideas, opinions but there is always the perennial danger of being judged by the person with whom we share. As it is an home truth, that people judge irrespective of their intellectual refinement or acumen. Sometimes certain anecdotes in our lives wraps themselves as an albatross around our necks compelling us to share the beautiful lessons that have inevitably risen from our self-conceived mistakes like a lotus that can only grow out of mud, thereby precluding others to commit the same mistakes. Sometimes a person receives nirvana, attains the stage of self-actualisation and wants his family, brethren to know about his life, about his exemplary successes and embarrassing failures, his periods of utter despondency and exultation, and more particularly about his indefatigable endeavor to seek the purpose of his life that appeared to be perpetually elusive until it was glaringly flagrant to him. Writing is must for anyone who has something to be shared. And we all have something to share, the reason is we can't share verbally as the black flies of of being judged, prejudiced or also being ostracized, abhorred keep on buzzing around us. Sometimes we are not given the time or the space or the audience to share. Sometimes, it merely happens that it becomes quite implausible for us to communicate our uncommunicable experiences with the acute shortage of words available to us at the moment we want to share. Sometimes we are afraid we will hurt someone's sensitivities, egos ,we will give rise to an unnecessary argument or altercation that may decimate our relationships. Human beings have this idiosyncrasy of being obtrusive, superimposing their views, opinions without lending their ears to the person who has actually initiated the talking. But a piece of paper will provide you ample time, space for you to cleanse your mind off the debris it is carrying of the perpetual war of ideas, opinions that has been going on subconsciously in your mind. It will not judge you irrespective of the degree of vileness of what you share. It will provide you the time to rummage through words that can aid you to acutely describe your colourful, complicated emotions and experiences, etc. The piece of paper wouldn't ask you anything in return for the insurmountable favour  it is offering you. Your secrets won't be fished out for a bargain because it doesn't have an iota of greed.

A reader will know that most of the legendary and classical writers have often published their autobiographical novels. Now why an autobiographical "Novel" , an autobiographical novel helps you to share the little intricacies and details of your life, at the same time guarding against any distortion or stalement of memory due to the perishable attribute of time. It leaves it to the imagination of the reader to draw its own conclusions.

Sometimes we are nonplussed about are problems, we find ourselves in dilemmas, conundrums, most of the time putting the problems on paper gives you a concrete understanding of the problem. It gives you a clearer, top of the view picture of the labyrinth you find yourself in which inevitably helps you to devise solutions and find a way out of the maize. Actually even writing down the solution forfeits the mind from overthinking, thereby precluding a wrecking ball of chaos and confusion to destroy the impregnable monument of solution.

Sometimes, we have certain feelings, tendencies, idiosyncrasies residing within us as a result of an unfortunate past incident or an encounter that like a leech slowly and inconspicuously sucks the joy from our lives. Writing may enable to dig up and excavate the layers of the past heaped and covered under our obscure memories. This help us to be a mere observer or a spectator of those feelings and tendencies which with time recedes until it is encaptured into nothingness. 

Hence, write because you want to be empty, joyous and because there is a world out there who is waiting to listen to your ideas, your little bitter-sweet stories.

American Hustle!!!!!

American Hustle, sometimes certain movies requires an impeccable performance from its actors to portray the characters to which the plot of the story is irrevocably weaved into. If the actors fail to convey such characters which are not black and white, but has its shades of grey, then the film is rendered to be an inexplicable chaos with completely no concrete foundation. But paradoxically, though it requires actors of exceptional calibre and aptitude who are unrelenting in their efforts to communicate the characters they are portraying, they are merely a mound of mud anticipating to be alchemically metamorphosed into an utility pot by the blessed hands of the potter i.e the director. Hence such films requires completely integrated, incorrigibly focused team effort, as here neither the actor nor the director can completely carry the prodigious film on their emaciated shoulders.

Now American Hustle has Christian Bale, Amy Adams, Jennifer Lawrence and Bradley Cooper in the lead. The name "Christian Bale" injects into your mind a lot of unreasonable expectations. But this time around even though being the main actor he doesn't take an indomitable centre-stage in the movie leaving everybody into oblivion, rather he gives a performance that can be regarded as unobtrusive, evanescent, subtly playing the nuances of his character without demanding undue attention. His performance is not something that is conspicuous in its appeal for a heart-rending applause. That is the hallmark of his performance that he doesn't implore to be noticed, at the same time, he has again displayed he is a virtuoso, a connoisseur at what he does. Christian Bale plays a con-artist compelled by a fame-feverish FBI agent, who ostentatiously and deceptively showcases an albatross around his neck compelling him to bring the delinquent, corrupt, ignoble under book. Amy Adams plays the accomplice and love of the con-artist and later plays the bellwether along with Christian Bale to conceive and implement a treacherous plan to shop out the vileness mentioned above. But in his incorrigible desire for fame, the F.B.I agent is after a Mayor, a politician who is doing the wrong thing for the right reasons after vainly experimenting all the options in the past. Jennifer Lawrence is the apple of the eye. She plays an erratic and impetuous wife who forcibly spawns kaleidoscopic emotions in the viewer like pity, abhorrence, innocence, she can stir up a raucous laughter in you or can release the rain deposited, concocted in the clouds of your eyes. She is mysterious according to her con-artist husband and she plays truly so from the word go. In the end, she will leave you with your mouth hanging in awe. If she doesn't win an Oscar, a lot of people would be chagrined and disappointed. There are many incidents like her reaction to the blast of the microwave, her reason to not give the relief of divorce to her con-artist husband, the very anecdotes of her eccentricities at parties that can just give you an ache in the stomach domineered by laughter. Bradley Cooper performs his role to the finesse, he plays this impassionate, mutinous FBI agent who is over ambitious and over zealous and had been envisaging plans that may catapult him to the echelons of the agency skipping many levels on the way and bring him infallible fame. The movie is must see for the movie aficionados. The direction tackles with the intricacies, nitty-gritties of every character. For not an instance, the movie seems to be dragged. Though one may feel, that there are unwanted digressions, frivolous events, incidents, but those just explains the characters in detail and their subsequent relevance and inevitability to the Hustle of the story.

Hence the movie is not dragged I think, but intricately explained.

State of Women, a cause of divorces??

Let us look at the state of woman in India. India is predominantly a patriarchal society where Indian woman plays merely a second fiddle to her  husband, burying her dreams and ambitions irrevocably and surrendering herself to the tyranny of hackneyed and monotonous household work. She is endowed with the multitudinous responsibilities of household work including child rearing, by the obstinate and incorrigible prejudices and the dogmas of her family which is just an accomplice of the actual miscreant, the society. She cannot offload some of her duties to her egoistic husband who would feel the work below his well-preserved dignity. She is obsequious and servile to the whims and demands of her husband, who in most cases, is raised to the level of apotheosis. She is pusillanimous and timid to the impotent rage, fury and at times sexual abuse committed by him.  Let us look at the statistics, according to Renuka Chaudhary, Minister of women and children, 70% of women in India are victims of domestic violence. She is confined to the unyielding four walls of her house-prison. As she is the carrier of prestige and honour of her philistine family, she is not allowed to work outdoors as she may fall prey to the lecherous and ogling eyes of testosterone-high stranger men. In many cases, she is considered to be a factory manufacturing babies without any relief of bottlenecks. She is the perennial unpaid servant of the family subjected to chagrin, torment and abuse of her masters who may also have bought her by making the payment in dowry. And when slaves clamour for justice, they are considered a mutiny and they are oppressed and suppressed by these undulating societal forces. So to think, that women in India may shop out their men for their concealed felonies by filing cases in our courts which are under constant hibernation, when they are still under the thraldom of men is to think too far-fetched.

Let us look at the West. Men and women enjoy equal rights. There is 99% literacy. It means there is awareness and they have the educational weapons to earn their own living and are not compelled to implore for money from their husbands to fulfill their needs . With education and monetary cushion comes a level of self-respect and when that self-respect is constantly damaged and thwarted, women may act in defiance against their husbands by filing a suit or vice-versa. With education, money; freedom inevitably follows. And many men and women may misuse this well-attained freedom by committing adultery, infidelity, betrayal, philandering, etc. in India too, men ( in some cases women too) are familiar with all those vices, but then the voices of women are muted and crushed under the dilapidated building of prestige and honour. Also they are surrounded with the perennial fear of being penniless, impoverished and being ostracized by the society exacerbated by the fact that they are congenitally destined to be stripped off any educational weapons which may aid them to earn their living independently. 

So she endures and submits to the autocracy of these unjust facts till her hair turns grey and when finally she earns the relief of death. What if the women commits adultery, she is insolently kicked like a ball out of the stadium by his husband footballer.

Also, with development, comes the satanic greed which leads to insatiable desires. This ultimately leads to elevating work, career to the pinnacle of priorities, leaving family and a life of giving into oblivion. This is the reason why the imbalance of personal and professional life leads to divorces in the West. At times this imbalance leads to stress and an elusiveness of one's purpose and meaning cloaked by frustration that is released like a lava from a volcano onto the entire family.

Hence, all is not good in West, but still there is independence, an air of individuality. All though the condition of women is changing particularly in the metro cities of India. This revolution has still not creep into the crevices of those tiny villages where India truly resides. And whether the mind of the man has changed is still debatable.

Of Human Bondage by William. Somerset. Maugham

500 pages...not yet completed the book,2.05 am and I'ii just add one more facetious detail, I have not slept yesterday at all, please no exaggeration, and the day before yesterday my sleep was just like the sleep of a mother who has to attend  an impetuous new born child every now and then .So you can safely presume that there is an avalanche of thoughts, ideas in my mind  with the fiendish desire, now being fulfilled beyond measure, to create ruptures in my  heavenly sleep. Now there is also an irony, though I am distressed that it has considerably affected my efficiency at work which I flagrantly abhor, notwithstanding the sordid state of my mind due to inadequate sleep, I have been seized by a bolt of exultation and incomprehensible happiness. This book dirties it's pages with every aspect of life. Inextricable confusion, lamentable naïveté, inexplicable complexities, truths arrived by gut, untruths by a legitimate experience, befuddling philosophies all condensed into 500 pages which we call life. Up till now the books I have read, I am sure the editor would have replaced a word like talkative with loquacious, middle class with bourgeois to provide an apparently pedestrian English an air of grandiose. And it deceptively provides the writer a tunkard of individuality. But here I found a writer whose writing has come seamlessly, effortlessly. He is a writer who knows the subtle difference between contentment and satisfaction. He has written the book in lucid, plain English and he has only used seemingly difficult words to my embarrassingly limited knowledge of this funny language when the need arisen. I always felt a good book is which helps the reader to articulate the obscure meanings of the spirit. A good book is a book which turns an anecdote or a seemingly frivolous situation into an event crowded with battles of idiosyncrasies, which uncovers the prejudices concealed within the obscenity of small talk, which provides indisputable evidence whether a man has been obsequious to past circumstances or conditioning or has he been the one who has carried his fate in his clenched fists or has been ironically both which is often the case, I want to conclude with etc. By my definition of good book, this is surely a classic whose writing is a piece of art or an irresistible delicacy that needs to be tasted, chewed and devoured. I have not read the book once or twice but thrice because the writing was detailed, impressive, splendid, wondrous and a word that I have never used for other books mystical. A famous artist said" god is in the details" and this book justifies that even without any attempt to justify it. 

Now it has been long that I have completed the book and I have been completely mesmerised by the book, its elegant, wondrous writing. It is an autobiographical novel. Every time I read this book I discover something new and peeved at myself that how did I miss it. It is about Philip Carey adopted as a child by a fanatical Christian family. His pedantic mind overemphasises the minor details and adheres fanatically to biblical knowledge accompanying an outrageous violation to common sense which finally throws him into a typhoon of disillusionment. This compels him to pose some ominous intimidating questions to long held beliefs, dogmas and he finally extricates himself from religious chauvinism, which, made him conceive a dream to be a vicar. This disillusionment, escape makes him reconsiders his decisions and goals and then actually the story starts with his frustration, chagrin, his indefatigable endeavour to find the purpose of his life, that makes him travel through Germany, France and back to London, his little encounters with man of letters, connoisseurs, aficionados, people tangled in a web of contradicting ideas, opinions and as a result becoming habituated to intellectual masturbation, his irrevocable, irresistible, inextricable platonic love for a philistine woman, and finally the ocean of unconditional love he falls into with another woman ,all these heaped on each other forming a pyramid reaching to a vertex when he finally uncovers the meaning of life.

If there is a list of books you have to read before you die, this will surely figure in the top ten.

The perennial war between Gen X and Gen Y: Generation Gap or something more than that

My nephew Vineet is impassioned about music. He wants to pursue a career in music. Obviously he is conspicuously aware about the different branches and twigs in music. And he is very clear which branch of music he wants to pluck and savour the taste of its fruits.

But with this particular decision, he became an iconoclast and tittering at the edge of being ostracised from our business oriented, money feverish society. I didn't want to be pusillanimous and bow down to this prodigious, portentous majority. So I advised him to decipher the obscure, vague yearnings of his heart and then not to betray it and then take an infallible stand so that he is not disgorged by forces embroiled in prejudices, dogmas, preconceived notions and anachronous beliefs.

After a long, impassioned discussion I deduced from the discussions and acute observations that he is under the thraldom of music. He has also dabbled precociously in some aspects of music and created his own music. 

But it is very flagrant that he will suffer flak not only from his own logical, pragmatic and rational mind but also his immediate, extended and interminable family which would want him to strive for a secured life by taking the conventional, tried and tested, traceable route of earning a degree, landing a job in some heavy-weight, multinational company and to pursue music has a hobby not a career in defiance of the quote "Make your hobby a career". 

This is not an isolated event or a mere anecdote that one can ignore. It is the unveiling of a perennial war between the so called Gen X and Gen Y. We have talked a lot about generation gap. But let us look at the other reasons.

Expectations

When we are born, we don't arrive with our mere microcosmic body and our macrocosmic soul but we arrive with a weight of unreasonable, unfair expectations that assails us relentlessly when we enter the hellish cavern of adolescence, the age when we are blamed for instability, indecisiveness, the age where we are impelled to explore through the crevices of the fortress of prejudices, dogmas, atavistic prides, superimposed nepotisms to find the unalterable truth precipitated by our insatiable urge to find the meaning of life, the age when confusion is an unwavering companion and clarity is always elusive. Obviously this is not applicable to the majority, this is applicable to the misfits, non-conformists. Applicable to people who are courageous enough not to conform to the society's obstinate standards but who are wise enough to listen to the subtle yearnings of the conscience, soul. When these misfits enter the age of adolescence, they unconsciously undertake an abortion of their parents expectations. This leads to a Cold War between the parents and their children whose growing becomes a constant bereavement exacerbated by the apparitions and ghosts of their tiny versions when everything was merrier and sanguine. Everyone stays in the same house (particularly in Eastern civilisation) but there emerges a relationship equivalent to a relationship between a landlord and a paying guest where the communications are superficial, formal and sporadic. Where roles are performed, duties are carried out perfunctorily and not with an iota of emotion which distinguishes us from inanimate objects.

Prejudices

Conveying to philistine particularly middle class parents that you want to pursue a career in music, acting, writing is considered unarguably blasphemous, akin, to a demolition of a temple. As such jobs are not considered to be adequately remunerative particularly if luck acts truant and most importantly such jobs, careers are considered to be ignoble, vile particularly characterised with smack, philandering, alcoholism. In short a satanic life. Whereas engineers, chartered accountants are revered ,placed on a varnished high pedestal almost to the ludicrous point of apotheosis. I recommend them to watch "The Wolf Of Wall Street".Now instead of using such flowering language, I will use just one word "PREJUDICE".

Holding on

I am sorry such a naive heading but this an uncommunicable irony. Like the way parents in Western countries leave their sons around the age of 18 to fight on their own for their very survival. Indian parents mostly hold on to their sons advising, imploring them till the very ends of their lives. Their interference seems interminable constantly adding on their obnoxious spices in the frothy soups of their sons lives. Every Indian parent wants to see their sons " SETTLED DOWN". And this concept of settling down is so vague, obscure and so utterly subjective that the children are hemmed in the box of the brougham carriages driven by the old wobbly hands of their parents till their very end, or till they are  wearied down incapable of holding the reins anymore. Settling down means having a beautiful wife, adequate cash bells ringing in the bank accounts and a decent, dignified business or job and a sound mind devoid of any illicit fetishes or lascivious demands and etcetera. Etcetera this is what keeps the parents holding on to their children till their very wind pipes are crushed and their larynx is choked off. Surrendering or letting go seems an alien concept to Indian Middle class parents. 

I hope against hope that my nephew Vineet pursue a career in music but the storm of whatever we mentioned above is so violent, tenacious that it can dislodge a tree from its long winding, deepened roots. But I would always tell him like I always tell myself in the face of these unfathomable forces "The one thing that doesn't abide by a majority rule is a person's conscience".