XC - Upload.

And so as the year draws to an end, I have been told by head-boy to blog it and so i must. But I would like to say some things: to all who will be there next year, i'll tell you later; for those (prateek) who are leaving, bye, cause we will miss you. Never again will you come across a class like this again, with all it absurdities, nicknames, and bullshitisms (yes sekhawat, I can make up words too!)...

To conclude i would like to say something,

I would like to, if I might crave your momentary indulgence in order to discharge a by-no-means disagreeable obligation which has, over the years, become more or less established practice within government circles as we approach the terminal period of the calendar year, of course, not financial. In fact, not to put too fine a point on it, Week Fifty-One and submit to you, with all appropriate deference, for your consideration at a convenient juncture, a sincere and sanguine expectation -- indeed confidence, indeed one might go so far as to say hope -- that the aforementioned period may be, at the end of the day, when all relevant factors have been taken into consideration, susceptible to being deemed to be such as to merit a final verdict of having been by no means unsatisfactory in its overall outcome and, in the final analysis, to give grounds for being judged, on mature reflection, to have been conducive to generating a degree of gratification which will be seen in retrospect to have been significantly higher than the general average.


That's merry christmas by the way!

Love

Some say that love should be like the misty rains, coming softly but flooding the river. That it should be smooth, gentle, strong. Love is meant to be that thing which slowly fills you up till you're brimming with it.

I completely disagree. For me love is nothing like that, no misty rains, no slow filling or anything like it. For me love is like the thunderclap at cloudburst, it comes suddenly and seldom, but when it does, it envelops everything, there are puddles everywhere, lakes are refilled and rivers flooded. It cleanses the air of everything wrong. Everything looks better, feels better, tastes better, smells better. And just like the thunder-rain, it takes forever to dry up.

You always crave for it and you always know when its coming but it annoys you and entices you with its unpredictability. The time before it seems like an eternity, waiting for the onset of the monsoon, but once it starts, time gallops till the time you had in the presence of the clouds seems like a fleeting moment, a flash in the pan. You know there's nothing you can do but wait till it comes again, an entire eternity away.

Eventually the only man who got it right was Poe: "We loved with a love that was more than love"...

Me Mumbaikar

            “The Spirit of Mumbai”, is a very clichéd adage, one that has been used many times in many different contexts. People say the spirit of Mumbai is its stoic treatment of things in the face of which many other cities would tremble. Some say the “Spirit” is a general callousness derived from the uncaring human beings that populate the city. But what is it really?

         The day after the 1993 blasts, the people were up and about, back into their daily grind of commuting and trying to make ends meet. What might be interpreted as callous and uncaring is the actual “Spirit of Mumbai”: The splendid resilience shown by the citizens of this bustling metropolis, the ability to look fear in the face and say and those splendidly resonant words, “You go!”

         When Mumbaikars face a problem, they deal with it by going on with their normal lives and try to make the best of it. During 26/11, the shops outside Nariman House remained shut. Before the attack, one of those shops, “Dinesh Frames” was just another in a line of shops for framing paintings. After, however, Dinesh, the perfect example of the metaphorical Mumbaikar, instead of moaning over his losses and the bullet holes left in his ceiling, got a brand new nameplate and cashed in on all the potential customers who came to get a glimpse of the site of the attack, saying “ Ho! Mee ikdech hotha javha tey mansa alle!”

         This is what all those writers have been talking about for years, the inexplicable courage and resilience ingrained in all the people of this city, the ability to “take a sad song, and make it better”.  This is what I believe constitutes the “Spirit of Mumbai”. Other people would take some time to wallow in their misery and pain, but Mumbaikars: We deal with it.

         By going on with our normal lives, we are “sticking it to the man”, the man being all the people who are trying to segregate us and spark anarchy. When terrorists (Shiv Sena included) attack, their sole purpose is to segregate the people. They want us to turn our backs on one another. But till date, altruism has conquered all. On the 11^th of July 2006, after the train bombings, the much-reviled slum dwellers living near the railway tracks, fellow commuters, local residents' groups and passers-by, without a second thought rushed to the help of victims. Slum dwellers were the first to run towards the local trains ripped apart in the blasts. Tearing through burning debris, people pulled out survivors, fashioned makeshift stretchers out of bedsheets and carted off the injured to the nearest hospital in autorickshaws and taxis.

         But, back to the question at hand, “What is the spirit of Mumbai”? Truthfully, no one knows. All we know is that it is an unstoppable force that comes to the fore every time the city is struck by disaster. It is not just a pretty phrase, it is a reality, and it is our best weapon against any and all evil. It is what makes me proud to say, “Me Mumbaikar!”

Girl

There's this girl sitting next to me on the plane, well diagonally opposite me. There's nothing really special about her. I mean, she's not ugly or anything, far from it in fact, but she wouldn't turn heads walking down the street. But there's something about her thats just... engaging. I don't know what. From her short cropped hair to her wide brown eyes. There's definitely something in the eyes. It's inexplicably beautiful yet so normal at the same time. She doesn't hold herself differently or wear crazy make-up or any makeup for that matter, but she's hard to look away from. Dressed in a polo T-shirt and jeans, she's the epitome of simple, pure, beauty.

A Confession: So Now I Hope You See

What must I do to win your heart?

Should it be slain by bow?

Should I let fly a poison dart,

Or try to bend as low

As can be done, Nay I shall not

Ever give up the dream,

That someday shall I, ere I rot,

Love-light in your eyes gleam.

You love me not, of that I'm sure,

But what i cannot see:

Why you don't see as much of love,

As I witness in thee.

Oh beautiful maid, I

Do love thee till I die.

Time

It'll eat away at everything. Everything! It doesn't care, what's love got to do with it right?! Love, relationships, friendships, life - gone! Off with their head! The axe comes slowly and savours every second. The shudder of the guillotine is temporary but the cut is permanent.

They say time will heal all. Bullshit. Time is the one thing that makes sure that nothing can heal, makes sure that all who are, eventually will not be.

It's the reason we keep running. We try to beat it even though we know we can't. We try and race the sun but even as we see it coming up behind us again we go on for some reason. Why?! Why would the supposedly most intelligent race in the universe even attempt to beat something that transcends even the universe itself?

Time makes the very act of living hard. It suits itself and no one else. An oak tree takes a hundred years to grow. It takes about a hundred seconds to be felled. Time is probably the second most  sadistic, universal presence ever. Don't even get me started on the first. Ironic that Time should come second huh? Like i said it suits itself. It's the immortal little girl playing hopscotch, merrily hopping around the path cobblestoned by the lives it has reduced to nothing but a stone tablet sticking out of the ground. And over time, even the stone will crumble and fall to pieces.

India - No.1. But at what?

A few days ago, I saw the new movie “Wake Up Sid”. Apart from it being a good movie, it struck a chord for me, and I think it would for a lot of people of our age.

A few weeks ago, my servant brought his son to our house so that he could check his I.S.C. marks on the Internet. I obliged and after a few minutes spent trying to connect to the faulty website, I told him that he had passed but just barely. As I began to read his individual marks out to him, he said, “Nahin nahin. Mein pass hua na? phir aur kuch nahin chahiye.”

This is characteristic of the Indian mentality. All any one cares about is whether they were up to scratch. No one is bothered about how well they did or how close they came to failing, they passed and they’re happy with it. This is why we are one of the most corrupt countries in the world and we’re fine with it, as long as we’re not the most corrupt!

Politicians keep talking about how they would like to make Mumbai like Shanghai or Singapore. They make the most elaborate plans and talk about it all over the place. But those plans have been in place for many years now. But that is where the problem lies. They are still PLANS. Nothing has been done about them. When asked about it, the standard reply of politicians would be that they’re still getting approved, or it has to be signed off on or some other gobbledygook. The fact of the matter is that the bush has been placed in such a way that you spend years beating around it!

By that logic, I could plan a trip to Japan. It doesn’t matter whether I go or not, but I PLAN to. What is the point of that? What our government is doing is procrastinating and perendinating.

If I had to name one song that would sum up our governments attitude, it would probably be ‘Tomorrow’. “The sun’ll come up! Tomorrow! Tomorrow!” However, I bet my bottom dollar it won’t, because as the saying goes, tomorrow never comes.

What I think “Wake Up Sid” is about is realizing one’s own potential. And I think that is what India, as a country needs. We need people who are not content with just ‘having potential’; we need people who will not rest until that potential has been realized. That Indian mentality of “hum pass ho gaye” is the reason why India is still a backward country. It is up to us, as the future of India, not to pass, but to excel! As Tagore famously said, “Where tireless striving stretches its arms toward perfection; Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.”

In my opinion, it is time to wake up. Not tomorrow. Today.

The View From My Window

I sit here staring out of my bedroom window, watching the lights on the boats far below me blinking in an organized chaos. Blue, green, red, white, green, red, blue, yellow... I hear the dogs howling at the moon, which I cannot see. Their howls reverberating in my ears like the sound of a comforting if slightly frightening friend.

I see the streetlights glowing constantly, never flickering. The headlights of the multitudes of cars passing beneath them, some noiselessly, some not so. Their lights reflecting off the gently receding water. The reservoir next to the slums will be empty until the next high tide. There's a boat stuck in the middle of it. It wasn't able to get to the sea in time. Blue, green, blue, red, yellow, blue...

There's a drunkard staggering across the road, hooting and yelling catcalls at a woman hurriedly rushing home from work to see if her eight year old son has the flu or not.

Even now at half past twelve at night, there are scruffy kids in threadbare and filthy football jerseys, playing in the dirt, jumping in the puddle that formed near the gate. The gate that separates the high rise building from the slum. the gate over which children keep looking, wishing their mothers and maids would allow them to get into that puddle

I see the Queen's necklace in the background, made up of shimmering streetlights with large obnoxious, buzzing red neon signs as rubies. Then as it gets later, the streetlights go off, the boat-lights too. Now the only light is coming from the half moon hanging lazily in the sky, taking so much time to move its way towards the horizon. For a few moments there is sheer blackness as a few clouds cover its pockmarked face. Everything is peaceful. Even the dogs have stopped baying. Darkness. Silence. Peace. Comfort. Warmth. Everything is asleep. And now, so am I…

Caws And Effect

Some people believe that the sight of a solitary raven is considered good luck. However more than one raven together predicts trouble ahead.

Don’t you hate it when stuff like that comes true? Especially when it happens to you. It’s like there’s some force in this world that you can’t control. Like there’s something or someone out there that has a very morbid and sadistic sense of humour. Like that person is just sitting back and marveling at the genius of their plan to cause you as much misery and suffering as humanly possible while you just have to try and cope with it. And sometimes that ‘Someone’ sitting back there gets just a little trigger-happy. Like a little boy stepping on ants in the sandbox. He keeps on missing. The ant ducks through another hole. Dodges another blow. But eventually, that shoe will come crashing down. The ant will be driven to the edge. It will lose all control. It will want to kill that thing up there that causes it so much pain and suffering. But alas, where does that anger go? That rage. That loathing. It has to come out somewhere. And so it does. But it comes out on the person you don’t want to it to come out on. It comes out on someone you love. And then because of it, you get sent in. Into that termite mound with all its tunnels and tributaries. And at the heart of it all, there is that black hole where you will be sent. That festering mound, made of people like you. People who, when life got too much for them, let all those pent up emotions out on the wrong person. Or should I say, people like me?

Name: William Sean.

Age: Thirty-two.

Sentence: Death.

If you are standing in the crowd today, that is the only way you will ever know me. You will know me as the man who murdered my sister. You will know me as the sinner. You will think you know everything about me that counts. However, you will not know me. You will not know me as the loving husband, the protective elder brother, the loyal policeman. I despise you. It is all of you who should be sent to the gallows. You are the sadists the world should get rid off. The people that take joy in the pain of others. The people who laugh and clap when a man’s life is taken. Well that’s one thing I definitely will not miss.

I can see the ravens circling. Their black beaks glinting in the afternoon sun. The guttural screeches emanating from within those black feathers. How I wish that there was only one raven in the sky. How I wish…

My Struggle With God

Damn there's a lot of chaos in here. People coming going eating dying drinking lying. There are bits of torn paper lying on the ground. This weird looking guy walks in with this weird spiral metal thing in his hand. The second he enters there's silence. All eyes turn to him and the only sound that can be heard is that of a silent breeze gently rustling the torn paper that litters the floor. He utters a monosyllabic word - utter nonsense. Everyone stares at him enraptured like they understand exactly what he's saying and couldn't agree more. As he turns to leave, everyone else also gets up to leave, to follow him. Through a momentary crack in the mass of bodies, I get a glimpse of without: A hundred million people standing there looking at the weird guy.

Once they've all walked out I'm left alone at last. The chaos has ended. At least physically it has. In my head its still a torrent of thoughts about why? what? how the hell? how was it so easy for the rest of them? I mean on some level I want to accept it. Accept Him. But then I think, what's the point? So I can thank Him each time something good happens and damn Him if something bad happens? What happens to what I did? But then I think it would be so much easier if I just left the room and joined the masses in believing in Him. In believing in His power. In believing in the comfort that His existence would provide me.

But where's the fun in that?