Absence is the void left which presence cannot fulfill

No. I am still blogging. But have moved back to my original blog. Why you ask? Too many memories. Much better words out there, I say.

Livejournal was my friend when I was down and out. It will still be my friend. Like the community connect that it provides.

Will chitter in here time and again.

A trout shone into view. The evening sun inexplicably cast an iridescent glow on its scales. Pride came over it and the moment it started to bask itself into recognition, it was plucked out of its ecosystem. Into a small basket, where it lay with a few of its brethren.

Ivan watched this with awe. It was time he realized how man was able to control the most beautiful of things, how nature was almost completely within its grasp, how only the fittest survive.

Boris washed away the beads of sweat over his face. The eyes reflected a sea hardened with salt. The tough demeanor was enough to scare the strongest of goons. There was a story that all the town ladies wanted a man like him.

The Bering sea sun decided its time to bid goodbye. As it waved, it could see two men having a drink in a tiny fishing boat. Strange, it felt as only crazy humans tread these remote waters.

An hour passed. Silence. The cold cold winds were seemingly having a good time as they started from the west until they were clogged by a 50 meter unpolished piece of wood.

"How far from here?", mumbled Ivan warily.

"Scared, kid?", Boris thundered. With that came a huge burp and he cackled loudly into the eerie night.

"No", said Ivan defiantly. "Just tell me"

Boris ignored him. He spat, got up and turned on a small light on the deck. A rusty barbeque pan was carried out from inside the motor room. A sharp unwieldy knife, two trouts and a huge thud later - he returned back to his old chair. The fresh smell enveloped the air.

A small map and a compass confirmed Boris what he had always been thinking.

"Half an hour", he growled into nothingness.

For Ivan, the next few minutes were perhaps the most excruciating painful. First patience had overcome him and now it was fear. He nervously reached for his bag and felt the contents. The neatly packed food. The loaded revolver. And the photograph. The fear receded.

For Boris, the next 30 minutes passed in minutes. He wrapped the grilled trouts and tucked them into a backpack. A huge rifle was upholstered over the huge winter jacket.

The boat hit the soft shore. Boris found an old tree - the perfect anchor.

Five minutes later. Both waiting on the deck. For dawn. In two hours.

To be continued...

I feel proud that I have such wonderful parents! They will stand by me and I will stand by them - forever.

It hurts to go against the good wishes of your parents. Really hurts!

This post is in response to an article I read on Kashmir:

I am glad a few commentators (Arundhati Roy, Vir Sanghvi, Swami Iyer etc) had the guts these past few weeks to discuss Kashmir's giveaway. Might generally be thought seditious. I salute them.

Your very much nationalist view doesn't work. Tried and tested (look at Xinjiang). Will never work. Kashmir has been a liability and will always be a liability. A stronger leadership and revoking article 370 will only spur further anti-national activities.

Read your history. The Maharaja signed the accession under duress after the Pakistani tribals attacked. Were the Kashmiris asked what they wanted? And we hypocritic Indians annex Junagadh and Hyderabad despite their rulers not wanting to be with us. India has never agreed to put a UN plebiscite. Why? If we are democratic, why is there a problem in having one. Are we afraid in losing it? You want to try them for anti-national activities... good luck. For every trial, we will create an Osama!

With respect to Kashmir, we are similar to:
1. The US' imperialism in Iraq.
2. Georgia holding South Ossetia despite its civilians wanting to be with Russia.
3. China in the Xinjiang province committing mass religious atrocities.

I hope we learn something from Indonesia in giving up East Timor (through the UN).

These remaining strains of Partition can be erased by giving away the Kashmir valley. Will lead to stronger India without any anti-nationals. Borders will stay secure. All the grant money can be diverted to Jammu and Ladakh which have suffered terribly in this great game.

No, I am a Hindu who just believes in the true spirit of democracy and human rights. I also hate our politicians for this mess-up and their pseudo-secularism. Jai Hind!

I have realized that am happy not socializing. Not meeting anyone. Not talking to anyone. Just being alone. Doing what I wish - Technology. Writing. Learning. Entrepreneurship. Reading. Cycling. Travelling. Theatre. Photography. Violin. Jazz. Foreign cinema. Philosophy. Political science. NGO. The list is endless.

This after dabbling in the extrovert (or ambivert - if I may call it) zone for a while.

I feel I have cleared the test of staying single and happy - forever.

Of course, I am used to people who ogle at me, when I watch a movie alone.

Any path is only a path, and there is no affront, to oneself or to others, in dropping it if that is what your heart tells you . . . Look at every path closely and deliberately. Try it as many times as you think necessary. Then ask yourself, and yourself alone, one question . . . Does this path have a heart? If it does, the path is good; if it doesn’t it is of no use.
 
                                                                 -Carlos Castaneda, The Teachings of Don juan

I live therefore I am.

I have seen it all. Conception in lonely times. Nature's fury. Almost freezing to death. Grotesque creatures. Water. Smelly places. Mutations. Flight. Intelligence. Brown. Journal.

In the next 450 words, my autobiography is succinctly explained. The future is uncertain. But optimistic.

I owe my birth to an amoeba. It needed me - a cell to survive. I was too glad to help. Sometime soon though, it got bored of me and broke me off into two. Reason he gave me: dude...need to go this. Gotta spread the genes.

One fine day, I got gobbled by a slimy tentacled hydra. It was funny the way it happened. And know what, all my subsequent hosts believed they were handsome.Ask me for Christ's sake? Ohh wait, Christ comes later in the story!

Evolved into a crude spiky puny fish who thought it was huge. Entered the guts of a salmon. Polar bear. Dinosaur. Mammoth. Hyena. You name it. Every living creature's deepest "gut" secret I know.

Meteor came. Things were screwed. I lay decomposed. Probably would have died a natural death. Guess I had some will-power though. Gotta spread the genes, you know.

Ice age came. Water rose. Brrrrr. Would have been engulfed forever under ice. My saviour turned out to be a silly old sea weed. He was nice unlike anyone I ever saw. I still celebrate the anniversary of our integration.

Life changed. Warmth around. Was shuttled around between planktons, fishes, whales, octopuses, squid (the one-eyed funny ones), shrimps. Until I entered birds. And I loved them for their flight. It was cool to be a part of an eagle's wing. Saw the world with an eagle eye's view. Pun intended!

Discovered man after he thought eating a dodo's eggs was in vogue. Men are serious capricious guys. You never know what they are up to. And yeah that Christ guy I talked about - he apparently was some sort of messiah. Realized it while residing in someone's brain. Him and others like Allah, Krishna, Buddha were these alpha dudes whom my hosts always thought of and were willing to fight for. Wish I were part of those. Maybe some distant cousin of mine got to feel them.

Here's also an axiom from my experience. Men are eternal flirts. Women are eternal attention-seeking! Not eating my words.

From man, I moved to flora through a hermit who died in the Himalayas. Grew big into a tree. Could see beautiful snow capped peaks around. Ahh, life was so beautiful. Until I was cut one day and put into a shredder. An interesting avatar evolved. I became paper.

So it ends here that I am a paper in a journal. I will be written on soon by a historian who wants to etch on me an encyclopedia of evolution on Earth. Right from the first cell. From me.

I smirk. Maybe its joy. Life has turned full circle. What a long quirky journey! Isn't it?

---
Just for fun. Submitting it for a flash fiction contest on Livejournal.

The Niketa and Haresh Mehta judgement says a lot about the legislature and the judiciary. That they are so out of sync with the new realities facing India. The growth story that everyone basks in, has evolved and propelled India into a new stage where it is ready to challenge old societal taboos. However, our old guys are still in the neanderthal era and cannot fathom new rational concepts, ideas or philosophies. The order of the day infact should be to make these ideas go mainstream.

I sympathize with the family. To murder someone is criminal. But to stanch the suffering of someone who hasn't seen the light of the day is a valid rational thought. There is far less anguish suffered by the parents. And the baby doesn't have to go through the trials and tribulations of a harsh handicapped life which our society is so unkind to.

I believe this is a genuine interference on a person's right to do what he wants. An impingement on one's human right. The Mehtas were brave enough to do it the legal way. But they surely are cursing themselves now. A 10 minute job and their purpose would have been achieved. The illegal clinics will have a hay day in doing what they have always been doing because hence no one will approach the courts. With illegal abortions come illegal/bad practices since no one is accountable. It is a whirlpool of all the wrong things . Blame who? You know who!

On similar lines, euthanasia is a concept that we should embrace. A person should have the right to decide what he wants to do with his life. No old guy in a white kurta gets to decide what he should be doing (Watch "The Sea Inside" - landmark film on this struggle). I also believe a person has the right to commit suicide if he/she wishes so. Instead he gets charged by the police.

I am aware that the hospital might have botched up the reports. I therefore hope that the baby is normal. The crux of the matter doesn't change though. The government or the judiciary has no right to enter one's bedroom!

They write. They write while in college. They write during Christmas. They write when they marry. They write in times of sorrow. They write in times of loneliness. They write while they travel. They write when they get old. They write when they are breathing their last moments. They write. Never understanding the purpose/essence of the letters.

Rajit Kapoor and Shernaz Patel's performance just did it for me. Sunday evening at Rangashankara and getting to watch these maestros in action  - I couldn't ask for more. The play "Love Letters" is Rahul Da Cunha's version of the A.R. Gurney play. In Hindi, it was adapted by Feroz Khan to "Tumhari Amrita" - famous in the Mumbai circle - involving Farooque Sheikh and Shabana Azmi.

I won't discuss the play. All I would say is the tear in Andy's eyes at the end shook me hard. The abstract relationship the protagonists share, the intense and at times trivially funny moments, the unrequited love which was never understood, the deeper meaning behind what was written and what was needed, the soulful Sinatra/Elvis/Beatles/Crosby songs between set pieces - all added up to a surreal sense of sympathy . It is this kind of subtle art that I really admire and appreciate. And I cannot even begin going gaga over the actors. There is nothing to say - they were brilliant, clinging to and arranging their set boxes, composing and reacting to letters. They are almost in touching distance with Paresh Rawal - my favorite theatre artist

I could relate this to a phase in my life. Writing to someone I had never met. Every thought exchanged, every moment mulled and laughed over. Didn't last long. But I still treasure the exchanged words.

There is something so special about classical music - purity, serene, sonatas, adagios, time immemorial till the 20s

There is something so special about jazz and blues - the trumpets, the saxophone, the razzmatazz, the 20s till the 50s

There is something so special about classic rock - the surge of drums, the electrifying guitars, the cult artists, the 60s till the 90s

There is something so special about alternative rock - punk, high bass, relevant vocals, electronic influences, the 90s till the present

There is something so special about Bollywood and world music - cultural traits, dance, flashy, ballads, on and forever

No it is actually turning into an ellipsoid.

And at each of the bulges, there is a deepening sense of mystical hope. A hope to preserve its defined sense of identity. It is a fight between a culture-attuned David and a wildly marauding Goliath. The latter has the means to envelope everyone in its purpose by using the lure of lucre. The former just has the weapon of tradition to stop the leviathan monster.

Civilizations come and go. The ones that survive are the Davids with a sense of purpose and ambitions of becoming a Goliath.

The iridescent glow of life shatters every dark memory that exists.

After all, the sparkle is ruthless about being happy.