Existence

It’s not exactly the yearning to explain the futility of what now I have decided is caged existence. The feeling of selling your soul for 8 odd hours isn’t all that good especially considering the fact it is expected that you do it. Never mind the loads of opinions that are thrown at you. Ceaseless information about growth , happiness / Sadness, war, the relentless march of materialism, widening disparities, dogma , race, religion, ideologies, its like being sucked into a whirlpool which , in retrospect, you feel was awaiting you since your existence. Irony lies in the fact that the norms of society seem to lead me to this whirlpool making sure it engulfs me, overpowers me, and stifles me. The vertigo seems unperturbed as I glance out to see my life measured in terms of “long term career progress”, “material comfort”, “stability”, and “conformance”. Moreover, the faithless Darwinian in me asks me repeatedly “Is this what evolution had in plans for human beings – just being part of an endless rat race (Natural Selection Redefined)”.
The struggle seems to increase every time I make an attempt to get three worthy winks of sleep to feel the “Me” in Myself . For I keep asking myself repeatedly “do moments of my existence need to be measured by assured “security” and “peace” that society seems eager to bestow upon me? “ . The answer seems to be a NO and sometime soon I intend to lead a life that reflects the NO. Just let lose and jump off a cliff leaving behind the baggage of social expectations, being judged in a narrow deterministic way, “pseudo companionship”, “professional growth” etc etc.
It seems paradoxical to me that the search for “true” happiness is the actual cause of the misery. After a long thought there a few things that I think will definitely bestow upon my current existence some happiness. Here goes the list

1) The solitary moments at night when I feel real kicked and ecstatic reading Gibran and I simultaneously recall Pete Townsend pleading someone on the following lines
“ When my fist clenches, crack it open
Before I use it and lose my cool
When I smile, tell me some bad news
Before I laugh and act like a fool”
The mere contrast - knowing that there are two sides- one making me feel happy (the Gibran part) and another contrasting feeling (aptly described by the Townsend lyrics) which reminds me not to go overboard and be too happy cause reality is still lurking around somewhere, its this mere contrast that makes me feel that there is happiness at night which makes me go numb but at the same time mundane existence beckons me after every sun rise.

2) Visiting Iceland. For just one bloody reason
“Laugardaelir Church Cemetery
Selfoss
Hafnarfjordur, Iceland”

Not just another Grave, but the grave of Robert James “Bobby” Fischer. The “weird” American with balls of steel and one helluva mind to snatch away from the Soviets what they dominated until then - the World Chess Championship. RIP Bobby ….Long Live Chess

3) The Death Camps in Poland and Germany. What attracts me to this place is me wanting to “feel” the eerie silence which repeatedly reminds the world of what Dogma/Political beliefs/ Religion or any Institution without a semblance of rationality can do.

4) The remains of the Ancient Amphitheatre in Pompeii, Italy. Just one reason that I want to see this place. The greatest song in the history of rock – Echoes- had a “video shoot” out here. Pink Floyd Period. RIP Syd and Rick.

5) Machu Pichu – Standing there …. Recalling Gibran “On freedom” and Pink Floyds “Coming Back to Life”.

6) Last but not least BOOKS - Science, History, Gibran

Dwarak

Belief

If I were a believer
Shall hate subside?
For the hated reach forth to cleanse the wound
Shall the wars end?
For peace begs another chance
Will time look back?
At horizons surpassed
To explain the mystic rituals

If I were a believer
Shall the tyranny conjured
Recede in the serene calm of acceptance
For a noble birth is no excuse
For a suppressed new life elsewhere
Shall belief stick by me?
In a moment of uncertainty
Shall courage stick by me?
In a moment of fear

If I were a believer
Is it worth a moment of belief?
To let reason fall prey
To a flight of fancy ?
Shall the soft voices of reason
Uttering the words
“Did thou create the divine?
Or the divine create thou”
Be answered?

ME

I lie awake to
Look at a sight fresh
Set forth a glance at the unseen
Set foot on sand
Undisturbed by footprints
To treat My ears to an echo unheard
For a thought untouched by repetition
For can it be that the chiming bell rings for the freedom of an individual

Lest not what becomes of you
Be a mere reflection of a thousand others
Be a mere creation of the clay of repetition
Be a mere body to feed the beckoning crowd

For the numbening race seeks individuality
Unshaken I resist the run
For every step not taken
Moves the ME away from the crowds
Solitude my last resort
With feet planted still I seek glimpses of sanity
And to comfort my best friend - ME

Conformance

In Solitude , seek not company
Reach not for the dancing spirits of freshness
Yearn not for Whispering voices of past echoes
From the remote valleys of bygone youth
Lie a thousand memories
Of unchained bliss
Lost in the yesteryears
Are the dreams unfulfilled
To unshackle the yearning soul
For it seeks to bring forth a free paradise

Eternal memories
Lie buried, dreary
For the screaming orders
Ask not whats to be done
But lead you unquestioned
On the path traced and beaten dry
Where blow the winds of Illusion and materialistic want
Dream no more
For every dream cherished
Reminds you of the heavy tread
Of a long lost lifetime

Freedom

A mere thought that wraps
The very existence
Denying repeated inquiries to unfold layers
Layers that hold forth a truth lusting to leave
Leaving behind mortal traces

For mere existence shall not
Stop the breezing winds
Eclipse the rays that abound
Stop the falling leaf
Dwarf the growing oak
For its natural
That these
Like waves surge ahead


For mere existence
Shall not turn back back time
where wait your yesteryear existence
Pleading for the soul
To look beyond the daily dreary life
To tread the path into the horizon
Where the chains of conformation
Shackles none

In momentary flashes like this I seek
The Freedom TO BE

My Brave New World

Sometimes the eternally confused soul in me firmly believes intent never matches the end result. The intent this time to read a cult hit. The resultant action - a casual purchase of a ragged, inconspicuous torn little book from a bookstore. The result - a imaginative jouney that transformed itself into a mind-boggling obsessive craze. Well the book happened to be "Brave New World"(BNW) .I knew nothing apart from the fact iron maiden had used it to name one their album and the book by itself was a classic. Gosh!!! It was as piercing as Bruce Dickinson’s hallowed vocals. BNW just doesn’t seem to fit into a "cult science fiction" genre. More than the sci-jargon (which by the way is used in a controlled manner given the fictional status of BNW) what really appealed to me was the deep "huxely"ian social introspection. The Utopian (rather dystopian) view of Huxley in a very "happy for all" societal set up is mind blowing.
The social relevance of this theme is probably its greatest strength. The Marxian view of class struggles to the Aryan philosophy of Hitler, the casteism in Hinduism (this in BNW lingo is the alpha-beta-gamma-delta-epsilon setup) are some examples of societal cravings for a "utopian" society. Science has been accorded an interesting role of the chief protagonist in this "leveling game". All though the utopian BNW was a by-product of ruthless and unsentimental scientific progress the further progress of scientific temper was a perceived as a possible cause of concern for the leaders of BNW. What they do then is restrict access to the very foundations of thought that created the utopian fantasyland. What really appeals is the same thoughts persisting to this very day were individuals or organizations take it upon themselves to create a society, which they perceive is ideal. Let it be the Hindu rashtra sought by RSS, the sharia based Islamic world or a world of pristine democracy for the capitalist neo-cons were a materialistic world view under the veils of free trade and to an extent globalization can be imposed. Science directly (e.g. the internet) or indirectly (e.g. military weaponry in the case of terrorists) is contributing to the cause. And as far as restriction of science or any “privileged” esoteric medium of expression goes we know common man has a minimal access to the upper echelons of power in a democratic setup. Leaders use suppression, as a tool to force upon on the masses what they perceive as right. Rightly Huxley has made human emotions an easy prey in the materialistic world. Everything is deemed artificial with a peculiar mood altering drug soma (this term has Vedic origins) playing the ultimate savior when any vague resemblance of humanness creeps up in the psyche of a BNW denizen. In today’s world the role of soma is played by the shrinking "global village" were information is enacting an agony aunt. If I can quote examples here, the various computer games we are so addicted to is a crude substitute for the joy we get in breathing the fresh air or the sheer challenges of facing a real world opponent in any game. The same applies to the numerous conversations with the ubiquitous mysterious chat partner. With technology all the more ready to bring us closer I only think it succeeds in increasing the distance. The scientific invention, which probably is closest in resemblance to the tools of science used in BNW, is undoubtedly cloning. As for the moral debate surrounding this, I personally feel it’s not the question of the right of creation (as seen from the eyes of the Judeo-Christian ideologies) that is important but the societal implications that has to be sincerely thought off. Not surprisingly Huxley has a profound influence on my judgments with regards to cloning. He definitely feels there will be a definite loss of individuality that plays a vital role in man-to-man interaction and in the way we judge a person and society as a whole. Individuality is the fulcrum on which human emotions rest. Killing individuality is nothing but imprisoning emotions. In spite of the tremendous odds stacked against human emotions in the all-prevalent monotonous world a desperate attempt of “humanizing” the world is also explored in the novel and just as expected a society were art and culture is long dead treats this attempt as a mere humorous delusion.
If I were to sum it up this masterpiece written in 1932 is way ahead of its time but can be extrapolated to describe accurately the present day world.

Nayagan :-))

Well the "obsessive psycho" in me had to do this, if there is one thing i love to do it is to indulge repeatedly in things that im crazy bout. Right on top is watching, watching, watchin and re watching select scenes in "nayagan"(probably the finest ever manirathnam movie). What gets me going is the inner urge in me to watch a scene for "one last time". Among those "one last time" scenes is the scene where kamal potrays a distraught father at his sons funeral. A despodent hopeless look up
towards the sky shot through the flames of the pyre says it all. If there is acting to be learnt sans histrionics its that scene. If the expressions on kamals face were not enough the picturisation and the haunting notes of ilayaraja immortalises
the scene. Apart from these scenes there are a lot of heart wrenching scenes , well as i repeatedly quote "if its got emotional intensity then hand the stage over to kamal" (yep i hav no issues quoting even though im a "hyper amateurish" film
critic ;-)) )
There is this criticism of kamals so called "over dramatisation" in the scene were he sees his sons dead body. well if i am not wrong this happens in reality .if we could probably recap the over whelming scenes of tragedy during the tsunami including the award winning photograpph were a mother is lying distraught on the sea shore , the gamut of expressions including the famous "kamal cry" pales in comparison. I can probably thump my chest and proclaim that if other actors believe in acting their roles kamal beleives in LIVING them. A true classic cannot survive on expressing a single facet of human emotion. This rule holds good even for Nayagan. There are a couple real intimate sentimental scenes which explore the entire gamut of emtions right from humour to true blue fear which is all pervasive in the typical dark gallows of the bombay underworld. The scene where he confronts his daughter who questions his ways is sheer brilliance with kamal having to play a
literal split personality between a doting father and gangster who is recalcitrant about his bad ways.
Movies like these i firmly believe happen and are not really planned . It brought the super trio of ilayaraja,manirathnam and kamal together. The result was 3 hours of sheer creative excellence well how better to reflect upon its excellence when kamal himself repeatedly quotes in interviews "nayagan is the best ever role ive played , but id like to move on". Surely when certain moments of the past(let they be in art, sport,literature or any manifestation of human expression) haunt you in terms of sheer excellence i firmly believe those moments represent insurpassable genius.

Shalom My inaugural Flights of view

Shalom All,
Think I will start of with two things I’m very passionate about. The first being my motherland India the second being a nation I would call my second motherland “yeretz yishrael” aka Israel. So If you are wondering as to why this sudden obsession for Israel, its not the overkill of news reports that we see on 24/7 news channels but the strange similarity that exists between these two nations, probably nothing more than a strange coincidence. They got independence within a gap of one year Israel got its independence on may14th 1948.They belong to the two most ancient civilizations in the world. They have belligerent neighbors who are waiting to wage war on the most false of pretexts. In the process the two nations have had wars in every decade of their existence. They probably depended on superpowers up to the late 1980’s and are disembarking from this dependent mindset mode. Their territorial integrity is under immense pressure due to separatist movements with due support from so called democratic set-ups in the neighborhoods. But sadly the coincidences end there& the differences from here on between the two nations is what gets me pondering. I would like to clearly state that I do not mean to demean India and if its patriotism you are looking for I am as patriotic as it gets. But I shall not allow this patriotic fervor in me to act as a veil of bias blinding my clarity with respect to the soft measures adopted by decision makers in India in exigencies in contrast to the iron fist approaches adopted by Israel. To illustrate this I would like to tread the often-treaded path of historical examples.
Nothing better in the contrasting approaches in the hijack at Entebbe and the hijack at Kandahar.
Entebbe happened in July 4th 1976. The hijack was carried out by a group of Germans and Palestinians. The routine air France flight flying from tel Aviv to Paris via Athens was hijacked and after a temporary stop at Benghazi (Libya) it landed in Entebbe Uganda. Why Uganda? At that time Uganda as headed by idi amin. Idi amin at sanest levels can be called narcissistic Despot who at regular intervals had resorted to anti-Israel diatribe and this was ideal for the terrorists. The hijackers demanded the release of 50 odd terrorists imprisoned in countries like Switzerland, Germany and France and the dead line was set as July 1st. The anxiety increased with refusal of France, Germany and Switzerland to release these terrorists. The israleis resorted to diplomatic negotiations to buy time and the deadline was extended to July 4th. The terrorists also released all the Non Jew passengers and only Israeli passengers were held back making it clear as to which nation was facing the wrath of the hideous designs of the terrorists. While all this happened in the diplomatic front the Israelis were putting together a plan for an outrageously daring rescue operation. 5 planes carrying together commandos, a mobile hospital, fuel for the return trip and also a black Mercedes Benz to impersonate the Idi Amin entourage took off from Israel to Uganda via a circuitous route. The 90-minute operation went down in the annals of history as a brilliantly executed, hyper precise and lightening paced operation. Against all odds including the terrorists being aided by the Ugandan armed forces, the 6 terrorists were gunned down and the 80 odd terrorists were flown back to Israel. The causalities list, which was only one commando and 3 hostages, was a fitting tribute to the precision of the operation, which represented the grit adamancy, and determination of the Israeli policy makers to refuse to negotiate with inhuman terrorists.
Now coming to the contrasting Kandahar hijack the IC 814 from Katmandu to Delhi was hijacked on December 24th 1999 when flying over varnasi and after a brief stop at Amritsar, Lahore and Dubai it finally landed in Kandahar (Afghanistan) Why Afghanistan? Well the choice was between Afghanistan and Pakistan. The former was chosen for two reasons. The extreme right wing fanatical Taliban regime was recognized diplomatically only by three nations. So thereby landing in Afghanistan was a win-win situation for both the regime and hijackers. The fanatical intent of the hijackers suited well the ideologies of Taliban and if Taliban provided a deceptive pseudo solution to the hijack, as it did, it would win accolades and further diplomatic recognition with other countries. Landing in Pakistan was ruled out because Pakistan was a key ally in the war against terror and also the ISI, which played a key role in the Hijack, would not like undue worldwide publicity brandishing it as a terror state. The price for the hostages was the release of three hard-core terrorists. The involvement of the ISI was beyond doubt. A mysterious Urdu speaking voice (which later was tracked down to an ISI agent) was guiding the hijackers in the negotiations with the Indian officials at Kandahar. A certain Mr. Cheema an ISI agent in Nepal under the guise of a diplomat armed the hijackers. Right through out the hijack episode, if half the effort and time spent on implicating Pakistan was spent on mounting a rescue operation as in Entebbe we need not have stooped to the low levels of negotiating with terrorists. The most nauseating aspect of this was the Prime Ministers office proudly declaring the negotiations were successful as the demands of the hijackers included more terrorists than the released three. Finally three terrorists were released for the hostages the consequences
-) The parliament attack
-) The increase of terrorist activities in Kashmir and loss of more lives.
-) The brutal slaying of the American journalist Daniel pearl

I wish the BJP had half the enthusiasm it had while unleashing the uncalled for, despicable ayodhya campaign.
I can quote more examples in the brilliant 1967 six day war where Israel tripled its pre war territorial size and the contrasting meek release of 93000 prisoners of war in the 1971 indo-pak war when our troops were in Lahore. We did not even bargain for a diplomatic compromise from Pakistan on the now problematic Kashmir issue. What resulted was the meek Shimla agreement. I don’t think Israel would have reacted in the same way if its parliament the Knesset was attacked the way the Indian parliament were attacked. The Israelis strictly abide by the brutal retaliation policy which in simple terms can be summarized as “ you kill one Israeli we kill ten Arabs” even if this means one of the ten killed Arabs be an Arab child. Though I don’t prescribe such retaliation always I do for terrorists and terror supporting states. There is no point in trying to seduce a terrorist by the gentle caressing of negotiations. He only understands the brute force when struck by an iron fist.
Sayings like “An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind” held good in the dynamic turbulence, which engulfed the world during the freedom movements of the third world countries in 1940s and 1950s. Ahimsa then was a mantra but not any more. I would rather follow “You blind me in one eye I will blind you in both your eyes” because once completely blind you cant blind me in the other eye. The problem does not lie with Indian forces who are renowned for their exemplary valor but with decision makers at the highest level. It puzzles me as to why not even one of our defense ministers is not from the army. A ninety year old fully fit Sam maneckshaw would be any day better than any defense minister we have had. In Israel every defense minister has been actively involved in the army and has even fought a war or two. The corrupt nature of our defense ministers can be demonstrated by the plethora of arms deal scandals. The nehruvian foreign policies have cost us dearly in a dependable ally Israel. While India has been fanatically pro Arab and was all eager to pass any Anti-Israel resolution in the UN Israel always has a soft corner for India. India luckily has re thought its dynamics of foreign relationships wrt Israel. The visit of Israel’s PM Ariel Sharon really sent the shiver down Musharaff’s Spine. If India is looking for unstinting support it has a candidate in Israel. An interesting tit-bit here is that the Israel’s immediate supply of ammunition in the 1971 and Kargil wars played a critical role in India’s victory. Forget not, every other nation in the world, which makes a diplomatic visit to New Delhi, follows it up with a visit to Islamabad there by re enforcing neutrality except probably the recent “India-centric” nuclear deals.
Nandri