Diaphanous Silence
Saturday, March 22, 2008
What IDIOTS do....
3 things I gotta say: a) No, you aren't Jack Dawson on Titanic b) No, you aren't wolverine c) And you certainly aren't a good brand ambassador for mouth fresheners!
2) On the road: Cross the road oblivious of the traffic and then stare down if someone honks at them!
Wait for the signal to turn from red to green and the moment it turns red, HONK! And then honk, honk and honk. Wish I had a rupee for every time they honked!
3) Generally: Idiot1: What did you do yesterday night man. You should have come drinking with us." Idiot2: "Nothing man, I slept." Idiot1: "With whom??" Both Idiots laugh.
4) Stop at a fruit store and ask the vendor, "Is it good?" Geez, what a question?! "No mam, these aren't good. Its about a couple of days old but if you want absolutely fresh ones why dont you try the shop at the end of the road"
5) In a lift: Combing the hair with fingers by looking at the reflection on the mirror behind you.
6) In a pub: Air guitar. Nowadays they even run contests for air guitaring!
7) During birthday celebrations: Plaster the face with perfectly delicious cake and then snap away to glory!
8) On Orkut: "Do you want friandship?" followed by an all so innocent smile!
9) Watching a cricket match: "I wont change the seat position because if I do India will lose a wicket". Star postitons itself seems like bullshit, now they believe in ass positioning!
10) In a wedding: Wear lot of superfluous jewelery, walk up and down the stage and the marriage hall and complain "I am so tired. This saree and jewelery is so uncomfortable."
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
A child in a man's body...
At this point, he has a few choices:
1) He could become completely bitter, and be cynical about the fact that the world is a cruel, monstrous place. For him, the world would become a desolate desert when it feels hot, a frigid tundra cap when he feels cold. All logic and reasoning would cease to exist, and he would thrive at the rare cold comfort of randomness or run about like a rabid dog and destroy everything in his sight.
2) He could just refuse to believe that such a point was reached by logically stating that it was an illusion or even if he accepts the so called reality, dismiss it as a rare exception to the world he had modeled. So he would continue to live in his inertial state of delusion, assuming it to be the reality, as he ignores "exceptions" or "illusions" that happen otherwise.
3) He would start thinking about his definition of the world and why such an exceptional case cannot be defined on the basis of his beliefs, definitions or constants. And like any diligent scientist, he would factor in the variables which he had priorly assumed as constant, challenge the basic assumptions he had made and arrive at a new hypothesis. With this, he would pick up few of the pieces of the world he had modeled earlier, those pieces he thought were right, discard the wrong pieces, and sit and painfully build up a new definition of the world. But this is a hard process because he has to challenge the entire belief system, which he had assumed to be true for a long time. Thus he would be moving form one state of delusion to another state of delusion which he believes would be closer to the reality.
4) But I think the best way to go about it is the poet's way or the child's way. He would go about life as if he were a child trapped in a man's body. He would continue to be amazed, incredibly happy, shockingly surprised, ragingly unhappy, whole heartedly sad, inquisitively curious and attentively focussed to even the smallest of experiences, which are dismissed by much of the "grown up" world as mundane and pedestrian. He would stand on the shore wondering at the beauty of the sea, awed by its power and energized by its sound. He would enjoy, picking up sea shells and building his own little brittle sand castle beside the marauding waves. He would continue to reach and pick up every tiny entity that the sea has deposited on his shore, not withstanding the fact that he was stung by that bright jellyfish, and then try to experience it with the same curiosity, interest and carefree joy while the whole world around him is learning to fly.
Monday, October 22, 2007
Longing to belong!
Why this madness? I mean, I have sat in corporate meeting rooms, in pubs, at home and even on the streets! People are fighting it out just to prove that their choice of faith is better than others. After all, they cant be wrong can they? Abt a few decades back, people were divided by caste and religion. Now, they are divided by the choice of faith and idealogies. And in both the cases, they are willing to die for it. If you are gonna say "What crap! Why will people die for their stupid football clubs?" you are mistaken. Many a gory mob incidents have taken lives of frenzy and maniacal football fans on the streets of Italy, Romania and the likes.
Anyway, the point I am trying to make is - If you belong, u lose the neutral and the most logical point of view. Thats the reason why most of us are not able to think clearly when it comes to our own lives but can very easily and effeciently dispense solutions to others problems. Once the neutral point of view is lost, you will fit the facts to suit your inference or point of view. Thats when the point of contention moves from logiv to passion. Here is a not so small poem about a man who belonged to nowhere or the man who belonged to everywhere I feel:
Hark at the story, that I lay before thee
It isn’t the tale of a fairy, but you’ll be filled with joy n’ glee
I speak of times dark n’ dreary, when men would from each other flee
A tale that would make a few go teary, and tell you that no man is born really free
They say that the world was breaking apart, gone was a single land mass called ‘pangaea’
Small cracks appeared at the start, it was just the beginning of hysteria
The people and the lands drifted apart, these people who were actually ‘familia’
Poisoned were peoples’ mind and heart, by the many so called messiah
They invented flags to fight for, and then they invented religion
Born was the cult of hate n’ war, the spirit of love was all but gone
As hate n’ greed spread into lands afar, began the fight of brain n’ brawn
Kings n’ Priests came into power, this was history’s biggest con
When everything seemed to go from bad to worse, walked in a man so bright n’ fair
So mystical was he that mortals all wanted to chase, but all one could do was stop n' stare
In his speech was he so laconic n’ terse, yet could he conveyed lessons galore
They tried to find his ‘who n’ where’, but couldn’t: so they called him the ‘man from nowhere’
He walked alike on land n’ water, and walked right through the walls
Unstoppable was he by any barrier, the man who transcended boundaries all
The man who was to be the world’s saviour, for him no man was too big nor too small
He wanted to make the world more merrier, so he called one n’ all for the ‘hatchets’ burial’
It was an epic moment for mankind, ‘peoples ’ all gathered under the flag of truce
‘HE’ called forward one from each cast n’ kind, slit everyone’s hand with a knife
RED Blood flowed down each man’s hand, "Between these bloods show me the difference"
With this simple act he reached everyone’s mind, and showed the fight they fought was just a big farce
"Mankind is a mirror broken into smithereens, and when you look at it what do I see?
In every little piece I find an image of your own selves, only that each of you look smaller n’ meaner
Why when all of you laughs n’ cries in the same human way-that in ‘countries n’ religion’ you’re fettered?
Why is it that when one of you cries that the other laughs; Let the hate that lives be interred"
That night they all joined their hands, and partied into the night long n’ hard
As the whole world danced to the beats of a single band, there wasn’t anyone to stand guard
Thus having lent this helpful hand, he disappeared like a ship floating into horizon
The saviour of our lands, away into the 'land of the saviours' he receded
Because "THE MAN FROM NOWHERE" is "THE MAN WHO BELONGS EVERYWHERE"...
Tuesday, October 16, 2007
Stray Musings
As you try to see things clearly, they get weirder. Hence I have more faith in the weird than the mundane.
Monday, April 23, 2007
The complex ways of the "simple" Indian life!!
We Indians are supposed to the one of the simplest people on earth. Every day I run onto articles or discussions or declarations that the Indian way of life is the simplest. Compared to our materialistic western counterparts, we are supposed to believe in simplicity. people listening/reading it will be made to think that Indians are products of "Philips" whose ad-line goes "Sense and Simplicity". But the truth cannot be farther away from this.
We Indians are one of the most complex beings. We are born with complexities and biases bundled into our installation software. We have a very complicated way of looking into the world. We look into the world with a kaleidoscope, making jigsaws out of a simple picture.
On the usual weekend, I having coffee with my friends at this coffee place (the coffees are overpriced, the politeness of the waiter unnatural and the smell of perfume in the air a bit stifling). I was talking about a friend who wanted a career shift to an alternate profession that was not exactly "main tracked", "away from the beaten path" or whatever you want to call it. The usual jazz about the generation gap and the "playing it safe" attitude , the inability to think 'outside the box" way of parents came up. My friend was 25 years and into a career already which was not fun enough. I also happened to mention how creative she was with her photography. It took exactly 3 seconds after I said "she" that somebody chimed in "What about her marriage?". 3 seconds, Bullets leave guns slower!! And this from someone who is supposedly modern, thinks out of the box and supposed to be avoiding the beaten path. The bias couldn't be much more clearer.
A similar thing happened at work. there is this chap at office. He is a really cool guy, very friendly, helpful and simple. Yet, many of the people here are little jittery of socializing with him. the reason, he has long hair and a slant teeth. That was the exact reason someone told me. Its really weird, when people say such things. Imagine what this guys classification of people would be. Homo Sapiens would be of 2 types - Long haired mammals : "Dangerouso keepth-away-iens " Short haired mammals: "harmless be-friends-iens"! Even my mom is scared of long-haired people. She threatened to kick me out of the house and disown me when I told her that I am going to tie up my hair in a pony-tail.
Another common bias that I have seen is the "cigarette-villain" effect. I have found that people are less friendly and less helpful when a stranger approaches them with a cigarette in hand. The bias is also shown in Indian movies where the villain (who is the embodiment of all evil in the world) has a perpetual cigarette in his mouth. Another similar effect would be "lowjeans-top-vamp" effect. People above certain age, generally, are less friendly to women in tight jeans and skimpy tops than to women draped in sarees. Although this defect is corrected with men of lower age groups.
An opposite phenomenon is also true. I have seen "dudes" who are wary of people who wear kumkum or vibhuti. They are by default assumed to be uncool, not broad minded enough . Just by wearing symbols of allegience to their beliefs, they are alienated. If I go on, the list would be pretty much endless.
The Indian middle class is indeed a very chameleonistic and a complicated social animal. I have seen and known some women, who have wear minis and sip beer with their husbands, smoke secretly with their friends but not in front of their husbands and who are draped in sarees at all times thy are with their in-laws.
We are born indeed with a large set of biases and complicated assumptions that work sometimes in a way that we assume them to be the obvious truth. Most of this utterly nonsensical and farcial. We should stop looking at the world through our biased glasses. We should break free from these stereotyping and compartmentalization of characters and try to see the real person behind the image. I would like to end this blog with this quote by Charles Mingus.
" Making the simple complicated is commonplace; making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that's greatness! "
Respect.
Thursday, March 15, 2007
Whats in a name???
But apparently, this seems to be falling on deaf ears!! Just yesterday, one of my colleague(he is a northie btw)who sits in my bay/ bullpen ran into me and said "Vimal was looking for you... He seemed very angry!!!" (At this point let me tell you that I shifted to my cubicle just yesterday). Vimal is the Project Manager, a big-shot and he seemed like a very calm, friendly guy. So I got really scared (shitting in my pants!!)
I started wondering as i was walking to his cubicle thinking "What I have I done to wake this sleeping dragon up??" (A million things ran through my head... I orkut and chat utterly shamelessly... I spend so much time in the cafeteria, that the staff over there start missing me if I am on leave... As soon as i moved in to my cubicle I put up a on my board sayin "Beware of Sri!!"... I sometimes doze off on my desk amidst a pile of magazines and novels scattered on it...) So ,you can see, how the guilty mind kicked into action straight away!!
I walk into Vimal's cubical putting on the straightest face and most 'sub-ordinat'ely tone I could muster... He is staring hard into his monitor which is full of myriad graphs and figures... I stand there patiently... Finally, he lifts his head, glances at me and then ... SMILES!! I am now on unguarded territory... He sees the dazed look on my face and says "Tell me... How can I help you?". I told him that I was told that he was looking for me... He says "Yea??" I am like "Woo Hoo!! Hes forgotten about it!! Mangers memory are indeed short term.. " Then he realizes "Ohh.. I was looking for SRIKANTH... They must have got confused!!"
Relieved yet frustrated I walk out with a wry smile on my face... I mean, cant people realise the difference between SRINATH and SRIKANTH?? And this is not a one-off ocassion... It has happenned over and over again... And unfortunately, the wrong name stays in people mind for longer... I think it is some kind of a dyslexic phenomenon... Why don't people get confused between Aamir Khan and Salman Khan?? they have 4 letters in common!!
For the people I will list the common names that start with SRI-
Srinath
Srikar
Srivats
Srikumar
Srihari
Srivar
Sripad
SRIKANTH!!!
Srikanta
Srikesh
Sriman
Sriprabhu
SRILANKA
SRI SRI SRI SRI SRI SRI.... RAVISHANKAR!!
I'd like to emphasise that SRI is a suffix to a core word!! Please try and remember the core word along with the suffix!! So a small message to the northies... "Let not all SRI's be SRIKANTHS!!" and not all southies are Tams!! :P :P
Respect
Sunday, March 11, 2007
A ghost wandering in the hallways of past...
Splashing pigmallion all over the head
He is signing away in style
The warmth in my body fades away with him...
I am cold, even as sweat trickles down my brows
I look above and see veins of red and orange stretching across a purple skin
The wind is howling as it runs its cold fingers through my hair
Darkness has covertly taken over, planting its kiss on my forehead
The buzz in my head has faded, and in its place
A melancholic chant, It is calm, It is miasmic...
I walk on, walk on the stones and glass shards
I walk on, on the grass and the dew drops
I perambulate, I hip and skip to all my retreats
The hallways are crowded, crowded with humankind
Wherever I see, I see my friends, my acquaintances, even my enemies,
And right in the middle I see my consort
I cry out, yell, wave my hands
But all I garner is a wry smile, a tilt of the head
And warm droplets of tears down their cheeks
I try to catch it, but it passes right through my hand...
I can’t feel my steps, I am anesthetized
I run, run back to my past
I want my past to haunt me
I don’t want much...
All I want is a bright smile,
A friendly tousle, A morsel of my favourite chow
I want a warm hug from my love
And the blood to flow through me...
I walk along the corridors,
Like the blurry fog, hangs everywhere a deadly calm,
The doors slam shut as I walk across
And the light recedes to its basis
I dream of the fire and the sun,
I dream of the heat of the first shot of vodka,
I dream of love as life runs through my hand,
I dream of memories that had kept me warm in winter...
Blog Archive
About Me
- Srinath Ramachandra
- When Harry met Sally love happened, When Adam met Eve mankind happened, When Adam met Steve blasphemy happened, When Larry met Sergey Google happened, When mom met dad disaster happened!