Canine to canine

Sunday. You wake up after a relaxing afternoon nap. You look at the time. Its 5:30. You remember you still need go shopping for your everyday supplies. You've been putting it off since Saturday morning, so its either now or the next weekend. You realise you can't do without razor blades for a week, so you shove yourself out of bed and make yourself decent enough to walk to the neighborhood market.

So, you're walking down the road, all relaxed, wearing your pair of shorts and an old T-shirt, glad that you made yourself get out of bed and go for this walk on this beautiful Sunday evening. As you're walking, you see another person approaching from the opposite direction. You're in a good mood, you feel like whistling to yourself, but you don't, thinking that passing-by women might take exception. You see a man walking in the opposite direction, towards you. When you're about to cross each other, your eyes meet. You give him a smile, a genuine 'Isn't it a nice evening?' smile, owing to your good mood. You expect him to return your good-natured gesture. Its not too much to expect of a fellow human being. A smile to acknowledge a smile. It doesn't have to be an ideal world for that to be possible.

But he doesn't. Instead, he gives you a scowl. A look, that, for a moment, makes you wonder if you've ever wronged this person in any way. You haven't. This is the first time you've ever seen this person. Then why, why does he seem to hate you? Why does he look like he wants to murder you? Why, oh why, does he look like he wants you to burn in the fires of Hell for all eternity?

Determined not to let it ruin your spirits, you brush it off as a one-off incident. You move along, but now you think twice before flashing a stranger a smile. In your joviality, you become daring, even to the point of recklessness. You decide to give the smiling thing another try. Surely, the scowl won't happen another time. The first guy was probably in a bad mood. In your naïveté, you place your trust in the humanity of humanity, and venture to push your luck. You walk along, ready to flash a smile to the next gentle-man who comes your way. You see one at a distance, walking towards you. From his silhouette, you can see that he's walking with the gait of a boxer who was wounded in his last fight and can't wait to exact his revenge. You walk along slowly, dreading the moment when his face comes into view. For some reason, you heart begins to beat faster, it has nothing to do with your lack of exercise or the length of the walk. You've barely walked 50 meters and you just know you're only another 25 away from an ideology-altering experience.

With your metaphorical finger on your metaphorical smile-trigger, you're having second thoughts about shooting. You wonder if you should have brushed your teeth this morning, you wonder how wide a smile you should offer so that he doesn't think of you as some sort of a pervert or just plain crazy. You finally decide upon a canine to canine smile, barely showing the beginnings of your first premolar.

A car, at high beam as always, comes at a high speed from behind you. His features are suddenly thrown into sharp relief. Shadows of his nose and brow on his face traverse a small arc on his forehead. The sudden exposure to bright light makes him narrow his eyes further which only heightens your terror upon seeing his face. In your stupefaction, you keep on walking, but your metaphorical finger slips, and your face lights up with a molar to molar smile, well beyond the premolar limit you had thought of. The man, now mere feet away, looks at you. He sees you smiling brightly at him through the blind spot in his eye left from the bright headlights of the car. He assumes you're laughing at his predicament and gives you another venomous look, your second of the day.

You don't understand what you did wrong. You had only good intentions in mind. All you wanted was to spread your cheer, share your happiness with the world, but the people of the world have only contempt for you. Your high spirits, flirting with the clouds mere moments ago, fall a long way and crash to the ground around you. You hear every piece break with the sound of your belief in the kindness of all humankind shattering. You walk on their shards, hoping that they won't cut through your rubber sandals and leave a scar at the bottom of your feet, which nobody would ever see, but would make it impossible for you to walk without feeling the pain in every step.

While My Guitar Gently Weeps

As I sit here fondling the Les Paul guitar doodle on the Google homepage with my mouse pointer, I am instantly reminded of the real guitar I have lying around in my room. It’s a two year old Givson acoustic that was once a gift from three of my friends. After four years of college was wasted without learning anything of value that I didn't already know, my friends, who were earning their own money by then, decided to make an extravagant contribution towards their pursuit of my happiness. It was a birthday gift, something I had wanted for a long time but couldn't gather enough courage to make such a large investment in one of my whims. I was well aware of my dubious fancies and how I would be obsessed with something one day and want nothing to do with the next. I knew then that letting them buy it for me was a big risk. Not only would I have my own expectations, of learning how to play the damned thing to fulfill, those dear friends of mine would be looking at me with their scornful eyes if I failed to learn a single chord in two years.

I failed to learn a single chord in two years.

I'd like to think that I gave it a try in the beginning. I had already decided that I wouldn't take classes. I'd learn it myself from practice, diligence and good ol' hard work. I wouldn't even use a pick; fingerstyle is how a guitar is supposed to be played. Just your fingers and the instrument, that's the way it should be. I used to come home from office and bring out my brand new guitar and sit in front of the computer, looking at YouTube videos and trying to play the easy chords. I ended up being able to play a near passable version of the first 15 seconds of Pretty Woman. I didn't try much after that. I let other things take higher priorities in life. I had no time for the old guitar any more. So it lay there in its cover, its strings slowly losing their tension, its wood that once smelled heavenly slowly losing its fragrance, expanding in the next summer, retaining water from the air when the rains came, contracting in the winter.

One fine day, when I had nothing else to do, I brought it out once again and fiddled with it for a bit. It was no surprise that I had forgotten everything, even how to hold the thing itself. In my chagrined state of mind, I strummed the strings a little too heavily and the G-string broke in my hand, almost hitting my right eye. Glad that I had barely avoided losing depth perception, I decided to placate my vengeful guitar by getting it some new strings. Some research, shopping, clamoring, fiddling with the old metronome and frustration filled hours later, I managed to get it all together, tuned to the low E, ready to belt out covers upon covers.

And then I slept.

While my guitar gently wept.

'Coz making a new blog is way too much effort.

My experiment with this blog has failed. I had originally thought to keep this place a place of meditation, self reflection and an epiphany-storage of sorts. Not only have I not updated it in more than 4 years, I still see myself thinking about the same things I did when I wrote them down here.

So, its time to move on, out with the old and in with the new.

Its time to sell out.

This will now be a place for regular things, regular thoughts, musings, a review or two.

Going once, going twice,

We are now, officially, SOLD!

Random Thoughts

It has been a long time. Almost a year since I last wrote. When I started this blog, I thought to myself that I'd only write on one of those days, when you think about something and can't afford to let that feeling slip away. Apparently, I haven't had such a day for a whole year. Not true, not true, there have been lots of times when I've felt inflamed, even overwhelmed with my thoughts. But some of those times I could let them flow away, knowing that they would definitely come back to either haunt me or when I call for them. Other times, I knew the feelings I felt were going to be so thoroughly ingrained in my mind that I wouldn't be able to get rid of them even if I tried.

That brings me to now. I don't know what it is that makes me this way, maybe its the thought of the coming winter, maybe its my complete aloofness from the world, maybe its sadness, maybe my cynicalness(is that a word?), maybe just Radiohead, maybe thoughts of the future, maybe my complete inability to be able to do anything about the way I am, no matter how much I may try(which isn't much), or maybe its just me. Whatever the reason, I'm here to rant again.

I just took a walk, a long one, longer than any I've taken in a long time(which is another reason attributing to my alarmingly increasing girth). A walk with the new, state-of-the-art mp3 player with Radiohead playing in my ears at full volume. Its amazing how while looking at the world with your kind of music playing in your head, everything can seem like a music video. I can see the whole world with new perspectives that change with every note in the song. Lives of every person I see, people going home on bicycles with their lunch boxes hanging on their arms, talking as they ride back for dinner after a hard days work, teenage boys hanging around, walking and talking without a care in the world, rich people rushing to wherever they need to go in speeding cars, dogs looking for just about anything to eat in discarded paper and polythene bags, street lights watching every single one of them as they go about as they do every single night. Women in the market, queueing up to choose mehndi designs for their hands, excited little children begging their moms to go back home, guys standing in corners, some waiting for a hot girl to pass their way so they can ogle at her, and yet others worrying about the shit in their lives, discussing their loves, disappointments, plans for the future, and then me, trying to think about how pointless everything is, which actually is the truth, no matter how much I try to live by the opposite.

Whenever I do go on such walks unlike the presumption in most people's minds, I don't really think much. Its much more of feeling than thinking. We live our lives everyday, some days we do it more mechanically than others, some days we are more aware of what we really want than others, some days we don't really feel like smiling at acquaintances which is something we'd do without thinking on our more mechanical days. But it happens very seldom that we actually are present, in the moment, feeling it, living every second of it. But that's not what I'm here to talk about right now.

Lately I've found myself thinking about the future, with a little bit more certainty than before, which is really not saying much. Earlier when I thought about the future, all I had to think of was a vision, a picture of a road at night. I still have that picture, but now its just more defined than it used to be. Now I'm really not sure what I'm doing here, but I'm sure there was a point to this. The future really is as uncertain to me as it always was. A reason for that being that I don't really care that much about it. Its not about the whole "living in the present" thing but more about me knowing that no matter what i do, its very hard for me to be satisfied with what I have. I may try to goad myself into thinking that I am, but I'm actually not.

After the walk I went to the terrace, mainly because I was way too restless to confine myself again. Sat there for a while, looked up wanting to see stars, and saw only smoke. Not a single star, not a single knot at the end of the rope to hold on to, to escape from the enormous dome of the atmosphere i suddenly felt myself trapped in. Don't know why but celestial bodies always give me a kind of comfort. Knowing that I really am standing(or only attracted towards the center of another rock in space by a weak force) temporarily does give me perspective, a good one at that. One thing that calms me down and also invigorates me at the same time is this realization and also of death and meaninglessness of everything there is. Every profession, every religion, every country, every government, every old person, every child , the life of every single creature of every single species that ever existed succumbing to the same unforgiving, unrelenting force. Everyone can interpret this in the way they see fit. Some think it better to worship and pray for their days to be numerous and their lives happy and fruitful, some think it better to kill and pillage and own as much as they can. I judge both as people trying to find meaning in their lives, people wanting to find something that they haven't living in the world they know.

I, for one, do not need or want meaning. It is enough for me to have this one chance to do what I want to do in this one world I know. Knowing full well that i may and will never be satisfied, but still living in the pursuit of life.

Don't waste your life

Don't waste your fucking life

I can't believe I’m doing this but suddenly, just moments ago, I was overcome with a feeling of wanting to do something, something that sounded crazy, just anything. But since its 2 am in the morning, I can't. So I’m here. To "organize" my thoughts. Doesn't it happen that at times you get a feeling, about anything(you might get what I’m trying to say at the end of the sentence), you get a feeling and you wanna hold on to it. You wanna feel it completely and in trying to hang on, it just keeps slipping away every passing second. I'm getting that right now, so I wanna put it into words before it passes. And it’s absolutely imperative that it doesn't. My life depends on it. I don't mean life as in life and death, but life, about the way I live it, which is, if you think about it, almost the same thing.

You've had ambitions right? I'm sure you have. Everyone has. I used the past tense. The word to note is HAD. I'm not saying you don't have them anymore, but are they the same as the ones you had before? The things you thought about in your head, not saying anything about it to anyone. In case you're not getting my drift, I’m not talking about ambitions of being a doctor, or a "successful person" and shit. I mean ambitions about how you would live your life. Like when you were in class 8, in the evenings you saw older college guys hanging out, at the market or wherever. There you saw one of those guys, who looked really cool and appealing, and decided somewhere in your head, "That’s what I’m gonna be like when I grow up". I'm sure you can relate to that right, in one way or another. So I ask you (presuming you're an older college guy), are you that guy now? I'm not judging you by the answer, but it will probably be no. And that’s not a bad thing at all, actually a good one in many ways, you must've figured that out (those ways) for yourself in your head by now, in a sudden attack of self validation.
But why is it so? Why are you not that guy? Why is it that something you wanted to be so much just become another addition in the long list if things you always wanted to be but couldn't. Why?
Maybe you didn't really want it that much...
Maybe this, what you are now, is much better in its own way....
Maybe you were never destined to be like that....
Maybe this is your destiny....
BULLSHIT!!!

Don't give yourself that crap. For God's sake man, first of all be honest with your own fucking self. Know what you are now, accept what you are, whatever it may be, no matter how big a loser you may be, no matter if you may not like what you've become, you have to accept it. There's no use being ignorant about it. This is your life, you can't live it until you know yourself.

I have become someone I never dreamed possible I’ll be. But actually, had an idea it was coming. And it has been, I’ve seen it coming. And embraced it with open arms without knowing it. I have become my own worst nightmare.

Humans always loathe what and who they are, it’s built inside of us. I've never liked myself that much either. But when I see myself now, and compare it to the me I was maybe even a couple of years ago, it makes me sick. I can't believe I am caught in this labyrinth of crap that I myself have surrounded me with. I need to find a way out. I'm not trying much though.

Every time we think about what we are now and don't like it, the next reaction is to find a suitable explanation about how we got there. And so starts the blame game. You blame your family, for not bringing you up in a way that would help you in getting where you want to be, You blame your company, the people you have spent years with, for not supporting you enough and only giving you jibes and ridicule, you blame the world, for being so cruel and cold and no one being there to understand how you really feel. But do you ever, even for a single second, blame your own sad self? Which is the only sole real reason to how you got here. Its you, it has always been you. No one can manipulate who you are. You are what you choose to be. If this is you, you made you.

When you die, what will you think about yourself? Will you feel you had a wholesome life? Would you feel satisfied? Would you think you could have done better? Would you want to have lived it any other way that you did? Would you have any regrets? How would you remember this phase of your life? With fondness? Grief? Whatever your answer, for me it'll be regret. Regret for things not done, words not said, feelings not expressed, life not lived, but spent. What is all that shit about not wanting to be someone else??? And being yourself??? Isn't your ambition, what you wanna be, also a part of your own self? So why don't you wanna change, I’ve long thought "being" was much more important than "doing". Now I know it’s the other way round. I may be proved wrong yet again, by myself probably, but for now, I know that what you do is what makes you who you are. Your actions, things you do, the way you do them is what defines you. So why do you hold yourself back? Why don't you let yourself go? What do you tell yourself to console your sorry little soul who's so aching to do something, to come out in all its glory, and show the world, your "friends", and most importantly, your own self, just what you really are?

Live man!! Live your life, do anything that your soul asks you, don't think, your brain is the biggest obstacle in the path if your soul's nirvana. "What’s the difference?" you ask “How do I know if it’s really my soul calling or my brain?".
You will know.
You will always know.
I don't wanna have any regrets when I’m on my death bed. Though they may be inevitable, the things I already regret are with me forever, but I don't want anymore. I want no regrets. No regrets about my life spent unlived. The world is too good a dish to pass off.

My First Blog

So, here we go then. My first blog. As a prelude to what i presume(though most of my presumptions end up biting the dust) is to be a long tryst with blogging, i wanna say that i begin this, not to join another herd of humanity from all over the planet, though i would indeed accomplish the same in doing so, but for a reason unknown to me.
Ever since i was introduced to the concept of blogging, (by accident), it has held a certain charm for me. The way people can divulge their innermost thoughts for the world to see, its got to be liberating feeling. Just like in school after you've talked to a friend and told her/him about a crush you have. Also i'm here to organise my own thoughts, just like the introduction to this websites claims for blogging to do.

I've been living for a long time with a truly, and comically tragic and messed up mind. Its not that i'm one of those people(commonly referred to as "losers") who sit by themselves in a corner. What they do then is think, thought which is unabashed by comments of their "friends", jeering of people who think they are superior in some way or the other. Thats right, i speak so much in their favour coz i've been there myself, and i speak for myself and by experience when i say they are much better off than you, you being all those who are mistakenly, coincidentally, sometimes by choice and sometimes, and i say this with extreme sarcasm, by plain chance, in the company of people who you have suddenly come to realise, you don't even like, let alone care about. Its a strange feeling isn't it, not knowing what the the hell you've been doing all this time.

Not just in such a case, just like, for example, you've been playing a game, in the beginning trying to learn the mechanisms and hooplas of it all. Without having the slightest inkling of an idea whats happening, you go to the next phase of the game. You've learnt how to play it, and are now becoming increasingly proficient at it. Little accomplishments, little goals you achieve, which you never knew had been set for you by yourself, give you such unparalleled happiness that you're in high spirits the entire day and more. Then one day you realise you've become so dexterous with the game and take it for granted. Thats when the shit really hits the fan. The next day(or the next month, or year, depending on your own whatever) you suddenly realise you don't like the game anymore. But you still must play it coz thats the only thing you're good at anymore. You can't live without it even though it drives you so mind bogglingly crazy that you have to shut your mind completely from it, but you can't. You're too attached. And thats when you stop caring. You dont care you're getting increasingly incompetent at the game but still play it coz thats the only thing you know how to do. You liberate yourself from the very thing you used to enjoy so much, thinking about the meaningless pleasure and satisfaction it gave you. You do miss it, but not so much. Coz you're free now. Free of a petty thing you used to want to dedicate your entire life to. You keep playing it then. Without even knowing you're doing it, but still doing it. You're not addicted to it, but still just can't do without it. Thats when you've lost the game. Coz you're not really playing anymore.

You're just a spectator, a spectator of your own life. And you're watching it pass you by. There are so many things you can do about it. But you don't. Why? Coz you dont feel like it. You don't care about that shit anymore, you don't care about your life anymore. You don't care anymore. That's the worst place to be. Knowing there's so much you can do to help yourself, but still not doing squat, not because something is holding you back, but because you just don't want to.


The game will always go on. You may want to play it, or not.


Well. I hope i didn't get too depressing there. Sorry i couldn't be more subtle and fancy in my choice of words back there. Excuse my spellings and stuff. i'll be careful about crossing my i's and dotting my t's in the future, if that makes sense.
i'm not wholly unfunny though, as you might realise in later posts(if they do come). Thats it for the first one. C ya.