Eat, Drink and Sleep. Is this a life ?

One more autobiographical account expressed in quotes and personal experiences. Alas ! I wish to look into the nature of things but with no idea, with no prejudice, with no presupposition. Just putting here thoughts that is fabricating my existence at present ---

Can I start from scratch ? If I am thrown out of my job with no family support, could I achieve my goals even then ? This thought is roaming around my mind. I have no practical knowledge of realities except few times what I observed in my limited social life. That's why wanted to pursue the unknown path for an urban youth.

Am I really living ? I always feel like an old soul in a young man’s body. Now, an intensely moving exploration of identity has been halted by newly acquired wisdom. I see the futility of every intentions through duality of actions. Nature is half reveal and half conceal the soul within. So what is this idea of living in an eternal recurrence of hate and love.

If I love you, what business is it of yours? The way to love anything is to realize that it will end next moment. I look to her wondering what she might be thinking but never had courage to say a word. I also have a lot of cupid tales to tell and its always one sided and tragic. This lead to another quoatation: Every Jack has Jill. But I am not Jack :-P

Play it safe: Obedience and blind attachment to the social environment has made me to go for secure life than a risky adventurous trip. Playing safe is out of fear and it is call sacrifice for future and security in the life. I am not victim of my circumstances but a warrior against it...

Loss of an Identity: I want to be free from obligations, bonds and relations. They are appearing burden to me. I am reading Osho's book on Tao from 2 months. It has killed the traces of ambition, sense of morality, urge of an identity and even comparative spirit. I want to become empty and useless then nobody can use me.

It's not who I am underneath, but what I do that defines me : I write to express myself freely in diplomatic world and not to entertain the public. In solitude, my writing has become better. If I’d got diverted to thinking about publicity, my creative powers become weakened. Unhappiness is a natural consequence of a split personality inside me. I want to do what I love !

A past to be erased: I'm a person that always looks back on my life, and it isn't that all pleasant to me. I have a lot of great memories to share; Also, there are really dark memories too and I don't go there. So much overburdened by guilt feeling. Does saying sorry amend the wrong doings ?

Looking backward, walking forward: I had said and written many wrong things about girls in the past. I realized now how wrong and arrogant I was. New insights can't change past, but hoping for forgiveness from everyone.

Independent Life: I fear the habit of subservience is as deeply ingrained in our society as the desire to give orders or to become a follower. A very grave danger to a person’s life is the habit of giving orders. To be bounded by any set of moral rules will make one immoral. I don't say yes or no to morals. They just don't exist for me !

Success breeds confidence: I am avoiding the concept of success or failure as it .I wanna be a living lesson that while slow and steady may not hit the target always, it sure does make the ride worth taking. Unwavering belief in myself and passion to keep striving till very end will help in the life.

How to Lose Friends & Alienate People : Aliveness comes when you are alone. Solitude is the blessing that comes with the curse of loneliness. I love people but without hope. And all of us know expectations hurts. A deadness occurs in relationships when people are no longer willing to share with each other how they really feel. Result comes out as draging burden of responsibilities to avoid confrontation. I came to understand that labeling a relationships don’t allow any freedom. Relations are dynamic in nature...

Touching the Void: Where is the life I have lost in living? The closer I feel to death, the more I realize as alive. I want to sense everything now. The secret for fun in present is to enjoy life and beauty all around but never to want to possess them. As it is said that life is not what one lived but how one remembers it...

Thought of the Day: So often, we give in to our fears because we are afraid of the consequences of our righteous actions. Every time we give in, we lose our dignity little by little, and after a while we lose our self-esteem because we believe in the lie that there are powerful people who have control over our lives. We fail to realise that we can stand up for the truth. - By Mahesh Dattani

Two Poems

1- When mind speaks :-

Condemn me
You will know the weak points in my thinking.
Let the mind open to ideas
Let heart be open to love.
I will write and speak words
Let myth and logic guide me home
I am on the journey of life
A lone ranger deep inside

Surreal and dreams are intertwined
Comfort is the zone of mind
The heart transcends all boundaries
The border of origin and faith be fallen
Hoax of god should over now
This prank is making me schizophrenic
Identity crisis rises again and again
Let there be end of this elliptical loop of suffering
Let I be reborn or embrace the death !
Alas, nothing changes in passing moments.

2- When heart speaks: -

O Baran (Rain in persian) ! tu kahan hai ?
My eyes are thirsty for you
Waiting for the shower of love
Yah ek tadptaa hua aashiyaan hai.

O hawa! tere rah mein dekhoon
Want to smell the earth after the rain
To become mad in that fragrance
Kitne paloon se tera intezaar hai.

O Minnale (Thunderblot in tamil) ! tu ek jhalak de de
Want to lose identity in our union
I saw beloved in the mirror of clouds
Zindagi mein sohbat yaar ki kara de.

I don't walk Left

Question- How do society cope with its problems ?

Answer- In the first step, Intellects of the community discover the malpractices going in the society. They are noticed by all but not viewed as problem in the general conscious of the group in the authority (monetary and political in charge). Intellects present the problem so that its long term ill effects can be understand by the individuals. Then in final step, they modify or replace the practice with the new one. Hence, society moves from one processing system to other till the existing one corrupts. But this minority of intellect of the society breeds in the environment where rational voice is not suppressed by the fear of violence of authority or extremists. Thus how society evolve and their idea of justice expands. All human rights & social equality movements have given value to this freedom and democracy of the human life.

The basic condition of the peaceful co existence in diverse society (each group is diverse in the nature) is the free flow of the knowledge. The society barred from the information flow is doomed to rise in confusion and paranoia. Conspiracy theories arise in the closed community and dissent is taken as disloyalty. The state will try to push only single voice with false propaganda through news network, intelligence agencies and rewriting history books. The environment of fear soon spreads epidemically and vociferous supporter of new propaganda theories become associated with the party.

The reality will collide with the narrow closed assumptions of state and religion. A state governed by too much closeness wants to avoid terror of 'globalized world under capitalism' in name of protecting the weakened. The deep belief that everything—especially anything pro western (capitalistic)—is already and by definition an intervention is part of the very identity and ideology of the Communist and Islamic theocracy. So even moderates are regards as corrupts and betrayer in their own society.

An abolished censorship, tolerated artistic freedom, eased travel restrictions and allowed new civic movements to come into existence, they merely created a virus that threatened the communist system. The absurdity of the ruling system could be counted on; what was necessary in the meanwhile was the refusal of the lie and the willingness to display civic courage. Theocratic or communistic regions are absolute in the nature. Communist regimes become oppressive with the time. The gradual transfer of Bolshevik revolution into Stalin's dictatorship regime destroyed the spirit of revolution in the name of itself. And in theocracy, Iran is the prime example of progressive society and stone age thinking political authority.

There is a deep link, not only of shared experience that people share a view of the world, the commitment to social equality and freedom. Leftwing intellectual mafia still hangs on the theoretical aspect of communism instead of falling to see why communism fall in the trap of dictatorial type governance. Unfortunately, loyalty to an idea rather than its purpose is a recipe for disaster. And that's why the Communism fail to solve the problems. Communism is an institution works best in opposition. It checks the absolute concentration of capital in the hands of few individuals. It is an instrument of distribution of wealth but not the generation. That's why It fail to generate money or to encourage entrepreneurship skills in the people.

I think that it's the responsibility of those writers and intellectuals who are still alive to talk about the past openly so to avoid the dangers in the future. The tendency of outside analyst like me should not be to focus excessive around state sponsored person or religious clerics, rather than consulting the writers and poets of the country. Analyst has to learn and avoid sensationalism in reading the issues. And the issues should be seen as an happening phenomenon to observe and re mediate the problem in the society.

My Childhood and Bambi

I started this post to write about ideas. And abruptly, the mood changes. I was lost in the illusory display of childhood days. Imagination weaved reality of our lives daily and archive it as memories. I have also my share of the memories. I had a pencil box with the cover of Bambi movie imprinted on it. It always come in front of my eyes whenever thinking about my life. The sense of surrealism has taken over on my imagination.

When I was 3, then my father lived in Oak Park area at Mallital. I have fainted memory of the school where I did my LKG education. Its name was St John and was established in 1844 and is located near Mallital. I visualize big images of Jesus on the church glasses, LKG class on the first floor and UKG on the ground floor. And I remembered myself baffling with alphabets.

I have good memories of Buck Preparatory School, Nanital. I have completed my UKG from this school. The school was converted into hotel in 1994. Googled about the founder and got the name of Cynthia Buck. She at the age of 91, passed away peacefully on December 26, 2008, in Houston, Texas. Cynthia was a lifelong teacher. She favorably influenced countless lives through the private, preparatory school that she owned in Nainital, India for more than 40 years. Don't know about her few moments ago, now feel almost connected by an invisible thread. Retrieval of the images gives enjoyment. Hand filled with blood cut by rusty iron or getting prize in the dictation test from the principal.

My father is in the forest department. Hence, I grow up at remote places in Nainital for the first 5 years of life. Places were far from the city. I remember wooden houses, fear of going into surrounding jungle, playing with ice and algae or jumping on the terrace landscape; Mother used to remove leeches from my legs whenever I return home in the rainy season. I always watch hawks flying in the sky and myself pissing on the valley side edge of the mountain road. I don't remember faces or name of the people anymore and lot of experiences are lost with the time.

Life appears distant in reality and close in memories. We mature daily and one day few memories just return back and making us to feel like old. 20 years has passed since leaving Nainital and suddenly this nostalgic childhood experiences comes on the surface. People say that memories are deceptive truth. They drag us back in the past that doesn't exist. I disagree.

Memories reflect on the life of the person. Sometimes an inconsequential event, face or news sticks to our mind. It keeps on appearing and disappearing despite however irrelevant or mundane, it is or was. Few things captures moments about past and future. All they appear as dreamy, nostalgic or as if they never occurred to me. The person in the memory seems completely different and full of innocence...

What was there in the past has been lost somewhere along time. The myth is laid on the flimsy framework of reality. Everything is possible and probable now. I gaze everywhere in the room to capture a second forever. And suddenly moments pass. It just cease to exist. And I am new person in the present. The past was/is experience or hallucination... just don't know. Is there any need to know also ?

Ten Issues - 1

The first step in solving any issue is accepting the presence of the problem. A man convinced against will is of the same opinion still. So let us broadened our opinions about issues here -

1- Before the home ministry raises new paramilitary battalions, it needs to ask why the old ones are quitting in droves. raman kirpal reports on a brewing crisis : Soldiers of Misfortune .

2- Taking offense an be a competitive sport. Islam is forefront runner in this game : Not Even in South Park?

3- Opposition to reservations for women in Parliament have centred on at least four points. Step by step Vaijayanti Gupta rebuts the arguments and re-iterates the case for reservations. Women’s reservation Bill – the 2010 story .

4- Need tribal voices for their rights to counter corporate propagandist nationalism. The Fall Out Of Dantewada By Vidya Bhushan Rawat.

5- David Mumford reviews Kim Plofker's Mathematics in India ;

6- In this interesting paper [PDF], Lant Pritchett argues that India, despite its economic strides and democracy, is a "flailing" state:

7- Micro-foundations of Inclusive Growth [PDF]: The aim of this chapter is to go beyond these short-term and sector-specific concerns to broader questions of policy making in India and, at the same time, to focus on the relatively neglected subject of the micro-foundations of macroeconomic policy.

8- Remedial Education : Research by J-PAL affiliates has shown that providing remedial tutoring for children who have fallen behind academically can improve learning outcomes. Evidence from their study has contributed to the scale-up of NGO Pratham's Read India program in 19 states in India. In 2008-09, 33 million children benefited from remedial education through the Read India program.

9- Dropout engineering a hundred orphan dreams. Society needs person like Rajesh Singh as their role model. Thanks Vivek Padmanabham for the weblink.

10- Selections from Dalit Writing ; Let me close 10th section with an old Indian tale which maybe has some insights. A father used to read his child bedtime stories. One day the child asked the father, ‘Dad, how come in all the stories you read, the hunter always bags the tiger.’ The father thought for a moment and replied, ‘When the tiger learns to write you will hear that story.’

Thought of the Day: Conversations have three levels : people, incidents and ideas. The lowest form of conversation is about people. When we go up one rung we reach incidents which have a slightly larger spectrum than talking about people. But the conversation which really matters is when we talk about ideas, because they are universal and live beyond time and space. - Javed Akhtar