Little Optimistic Glory

*Note- written for a school mag - it's unlike the others - though that may not be a good thing *

Every time he paused to reflect upon what he had achieved in this life he was disappointed. It is not his achievements that churned his stomach or any lack of them thereof. Truth be told it is infact the bitter thought of how much more he could have done..


Each time he was offered the chance to do something and he stepped back, away from opportunity, is a living memory of fear. That one step back is now a whole flight down on the stairway of life.

How many of us realize how short life really is. Not short in a sense of longevity but in fulfillment of purpose. Why are we on this earth? What is our end goal? Every single philosopher and thinker in the last umpteen centuries has taken that issue to be the one closest to his or her heart and yet it is the most enigmatic.

We cannot resolve all the world’s problems or conflicts. Besides even if this impossibility could be achieved it would be short-lived. What would it be like to live in that utopian world? Everyone would be equal- in ability and wealth; everyone the other’s friend; everyone free from troubles, pain and suffering.

Can we actually achieve such idealism?

Every single inch of my pragmatic being directs me to the negative. Some are just more equal than others; we cannot be everybody’s friend and lastly Pandora did open that box. It is all dissonance.

Yet something was left behind in that box. She was beautiful. Each and every bit of her radiated with a magnificent glow. Her name was Hope and there has never been anything false about hope.

We want change. We want progress. We want harmony. How?

A turtle if it wants to move has to stick its neck out of its shell.

We are all too afraid of what is out there. True, we might fail. Then again we might not.

Yet again who cares?

Show me a person who has never failed and I’ll show you somebody who has never achieved much. Failures are just part of the dues one pays for a full life.

Glory lies not in never failing, but in rising every time we fall.

In our life we will face detractors- people who try to pull you down. Some of these people simply don’t like you; the others just want you to do whatever you are doing better.

In the end of it all it is what you want to do that makes the difference. Try, try, try and then do it all over again. Each time you fail, remember you will not stop until you succeed. Each time you fail, laugh, because by not laughing at yourself, you lose out on a whole lot of laughs. Each time you fail try doing it again but differently. For in the end glory encompasses the path you take to it. And somewhere, somehow you will be happy.

‘Life is not a spectator sport. If watching is all you are going to do then you are going to watch your life go by without you.’

Weather girl

She knew no season
She sparked no lust
Her ways were merged with those in trust
And they led their lives on the edge of reason

She seems so innocent
The darling cherubin
Yet we could never truly tell
If we understood what she felt

Is there something beneath the veneer
Of the loving symbol some fear
A callous rage, a hidden trait
Something we missed out on, dear?

You could fit in my hands child.
Sometimes your blind jeer
We could crush into the earth
If we liked you less

But we don't hurt people
So near. Neither should you let it happen
When you get things wrong
And your alibis are less than strong

Listen to us honey
For you we are here
Don't be a rolling stone
Though Bob would be proud of you

We believe you are the head
Of the trinity of lead
We can't ask for much
I must disgress

The debacle you speak of
Haunts us in bed
Don't be all patronizing
Sometimes you got to be the man

People can have opinions
Of their own. Let them.
The rest should be hit
Hard till they get concussions

This is no chick flick
We are living for real
These are people you know
And will continue to revere

You knew what was right
And still you let her go
Boxing Day's soon arrived
I am afraid the show will leave the shore

And it won't be because of the stupid weather.

Purple

In the grand scheme of things the richness and vibrancy of purple defies all logic. The colour of kings, the colour of Jc's tunics- its sensuous ability to morph into light-hearted happy-go-lucky personnas is eternally appealing.

Monroe once said that she just wanted to be wonderful.

We are not immortal beings who have all the time in the world to savour its every flavour. We all have definite purposes whether we like it or not. If we don't we tend to make them. For everybody wants to live for something. Most people don't know what. But be it a rock band, a football club, a cult genre or the ultimate narcississm, for in diversity lies beauty, it's the way to anchor youself.

Avatar was a lovely movie...

'I like purple.'

Say what?! Listen blondie, we are talking about the blue men in the movie. What are you saying.

'I like purple.'

What do you think of Lionel getting player of the year? He's so hot

'I like purple.'

Let's talk about the immaculate conception..I don't want ours to be like that.

'I like purple.'

Show me the money

'I like purple.'


I hate that triangle..

'I like purple.'


Freud didn't know what she wanted. But Freud knew what Freud wanted. Then again that's probably why Sigmund is remembered today. He got some things right. And envisioned the rest just as sweetly for himself. Even penis envy. Talk about lowering her self-esteem.

In a comotose environment we may be guided wrongly. We may do things solely from our heart. Our faith and love for something may be beautiful in our eyes. That's just great. As long as you think it doesn't destroy somebody else's faith.

When a person really desires something, all the universe conspires to help that person to realize his dream. -Paulo Coelho
He wonder what happens when two people desire the same dream.

Well he supposes this is where one says

'I like purple.'

Season's greetings

Hello Great One.

How’re you doing?

Can he call you Krishna or would Christ have a better ring? Then again, how about just ‘God’? Short and sweet. You are the superlative. He finds that fascinating. They say you created us in your perfect image and we destroyed ourselves with the original sin but you, being all merciful, might just let us into your heavenly paradise. We love you for your kindness.

He was more interested in discoursing religious divides. He felt them superfluous. Alright, they generated employment and sustained countries full of people. In the vast diasporas, the multitudes of masses that patronized the spiritual faiths merely accrue different stimulants to the same stories.

The trinity of creation, preservation and destruction. Father, son and spirit. The cycles of life. Some man picked up a couple of fables written by another man who heard it off yet another man and the chain goes on. They edited and substituted. They inspired and hallucinated. They wrote truth. But they were human. How much of it could be real.

Not that he was an agnostic or an atheist

He went to his place of worship on the obligatory days. He was a believer and that was fine. Even though that wasn't the reason he went.  The sermons would only serve to momentarily interest him. It wasn't an addiction. He didn't like praying. Asking God for things. He felt the one-above was already busy enough catering to the needs of the billions of his little men. When the good Lord can spare a moment he would give. It was acknowledgement of your acts of grace on earth.

He went for the hymns and carols of the churches, the bhajans of the temples, the sweet sufi music in those select mosques... He was eternally tantalized.

We know of ashes to ashes and dust to dust. It was the same beginning and the same end. Faith and its upliftments. It also resembles riots, wars, carnage and death. It describes fanaticism and upheaval.

Is it really your garb that defines you? How does the thread around torso or the beard on your chin embody you as a person?

He supposed it was done at first to enliven a sense of communal bonding. To spark co-operation for survival. It just happened to be in the name of someone who is our symbol of peaceful divine unity. It is a world is full of divisible ironies.

And the world wants to be full of global citizens.

As is believed to be from the origin –‘I am that I am’.

Creation, preservation and destruction.

In God We Trust

High-level Bambi

They all seem the same. Maybe it was the Venus quotient.

What he needed was a strong personality entranced with this particular vulnerability. He found that so very hard to resist.

It wasn't that he was afraid of being alone. He was by nature a loner- its enigma appealed to him. He thrived in his space. Besides couplings were so distressing with respect to their viral nature of exaggerated soap-operaism.

It was just the fact that he felt he had something to offer to the world outside of him. Of course it was probably a selfish reason. He obviously expected benefits in return. Benefits of the quaint understanding sort. A pillar to hold him up in times of need. But he was wrong. He wasn't the sort that should share griefs too easily. They drew others in and blew them off.
Like a repellant. He wouldn't gain anything that way.

Acts of kindness are the true examples of selfishness. Our world is far from altruistic. People are nice to bring themselves happiness. That is the primary stimulant. Evolutionary psychology, one calls it, is what it is a part of.

He loved the warm fuzzy feeling that accompanied his emotivity in those times. It was bluntly soothing and seemingly erotic. He felt he was the most blessed person in the world.

Elation was an under-statement. Please don't misconstrue this- he had always felt like a patriarch his entire life. It was the rare occassions like this that he deemed himself fit to come down to irrational levels.

Perfection did not exist. It never will.

But he needed to try to come as close as possible. There was no particular person in mind that he wanted to share this moment with. He wasn't concerned with such trivialities. As much it hurt him when he didn't get what he wanted, his resolve was of a peculiar variation. It was an extremity equation. The variables involved could let him display either stark indifference or a suicidal attention to detail.

There are those who start off by loving everybody and slowly eliminating those that didn't seem to matter and there are those that live and let live. He was a little bit of both. He loved at times and he couldn't care less at others. More often than not the latter happened when he felt cheated of his effort. He expected equality at all times.

He embraced imposition with liberal choices. He was intrigued by parodies of lust. He sought to console those that needed it. He believed in bliss.

Sometimes it seems embracing, intrigue, seeking and believing aren't enough. Maybe he was too distracted to see the real picture. Or maybe they were.

Jump

He was primarily an idealist.

Except his notions of idealism were different. He was pragmatic even about his real world idealisms. The rest he enjoyed as fantasy. He wasn't asking for uninterrupted bliss. That was just too monotonous. He had always maintained that people should feel free to do things that were different atleast once in a while.

Things they had dreamt of and would probably enjoy doing. Like jumping out a window. No, that's probably just being naive.

Sometimes he just wanted to move on. Become someone else. Be somewhere else. Do something else. Not that he was running away. He didn't want to be a coward. All people have at some point of time dreamt of possessing some super-power. Or atlleast a magic lamp. If you havn't you need to get an adrenaline check-up. You are probably too over-dosed with internal fear to let yourself imagine.

He wasn't a very good critic. He thought it was being too harsh. Besides he could never trust his taste. They used to call him benevolent. He thought it very sappy. Fuck them. He wanted to be a Corleone.

But the truth was he liked it. He liked being the nice guy. It gave him comfort. It was leverage for doing the outrageous. For he didn't want to be a rebel. He was no renegade. One doesn't defeat a system. One changes it to benefit those he wants it to. The beauty of it was to rise to such heights that your word counted. Was it hypocrisy he wondered. He was playing around. Was he ready for its consequences. For what goes around does come around.

And then he would come to his senses. What did he get out of so much worrying. There wasn't the time. Maybe he should just go back to filling a glass, putting on a record and dreaming good thoughts. Let what come may.

Don't walk in front of me, I may not follow. Don't walk behind me, I may not lead. Walk beside me... - Albert Camus

Memorial service

Big boys don't cry. Strong men don't cry. Never. Not even if they are being slapped around by people far bigger than them. Not even if they get picked on for the sake of picking on. Not even if they want to. They are resolute beings with controlled emotional banks. Stoic lords of the earth.
They have resolved to face everything with the virulent pangs of anger or if Gandhians, a smile.

Somehow some of the human race is not too famed for its resolution. One wouldn't use the word fickle. Some of them are just willing to express themselves with a little less thought for the perceptions of stability.

Or maybe it's just death has a way of getting you to do things you don't want to. Well, death is, politely putting it, unfair in all its ingloriousness.

The very thought of it was disfiguring.

He hated people crying.

Not because he thought them to be weak. It was just people had no right to be made so vulnerable. It pained him. The anguish of it was numbing. Sometimes the one above seemed like this great comedian who was juggling so many jokes at the same time, some undeservedly fell out. Not that anybody deserved to die. Even for wrongs there are punishments much worse than death.

He had seen those who were catapulted into this abyss of emotion. People torn with grief. They didn't even have to know the dead that well. It was just the misfortunes seemed too dark to be fate. He had been there himself. Just to see what it was like. Now he thought it was an inevitable reality he had been trying to avoid for ages.

Maybe it was alright to cry once in a while. Somehow he remembered his father telling him it was alright to when one really cared for something or for someone lost. It was strange. His outer face was falling apart. He was discovering aspects of himself that he hardly would have imagined existed.

It seemed sad. He seems lost.

Yet the truth would arise that though our souls we could captain and plague, we were more often than not, not the true masters of our fate.

Man is that essential psycho-somatic pact, they say. He will break at times. The largess of the juggling would lie in whether it would prefer it to be down or free.

The Incomplete Man

He just wanted to see what it was about.

The problem with him is that he tries too hard to be this unique unbending personality. It never really worked because man somehow fails to quantify the sum total of aspirations of the kind that actually matter. Maybe if he thought less about the fact that he wanted to be one in a million and focussed on the fact that the stats didn't really matter - that, in our populous world, there would still be another couple of thousands just like him- his life might have seemed just a little less over-bearing.

He wasn't always like this.

He had started of care-free, warm and most essentially satisfied. The world didn't extend beyond too many exotic notions. The flow, if you can call innocence a flow, was smooth. It was close to mindless. You lived for the moment. There was no greater goal. No heart-wrenching responsibility.

Then the coming of age broke out. You know what he detests- failure. Then again that's probably a primal human instinct. Everybody does at some point of time. The choices he made were wrong. The actions often inconsiderate in the eyes of many. Often the thought of self-blame was blunted by what he perceived as fairness. He possessed a crude sense of justice. Every fault needed correction; every hurt a tit.

Isn't that how life should be? Why are some people always more equal than the others. He wasn't asking for utopia- no gaga land of unity. He likes the pot-pourri of thought, of free expression and belief. It was the dismal lack of righteousness in even the routine functions of modality that repulsed him. There wasn't even any greater good invovled. Doesn't such behaviour deserve punishement? He thought it did.
It got out of hand when his aims went beyond even his control. There was always wrong. He couldn't stop it all. 'It's being done to toughen you up boy- it's a cruel world out there' Why don't you understand that every coin has two damn sides. He will be ready to face the 'cruel' world, you cynical pragmatists . Except you have taught him that offence is the best defence. He will make his shield of cruelty his sword. Tonight we dine on self-annhilation.

What of virtues and values. How would he teach somebody the true essence of respect when he himself had lost faith in it. He hated giving up on people. Even when they let him fall. Awashed in misery and without company he would laugh to himself thinking that's what they all do- the people who live long. Then again he didn't want to live for too long.

It is scary.

He needs fiction to keep him going. Or he would just fall asleep. Forever. With dreams of the ideal man flying into a horizon. And such incomplete hazes of production used.

Here's a little something that kept Mr. Mandela going for 27 years of his life in prison-
Invictus by William Ernest Henley.

Somehow he will need to find a way to transform into reality.