Just one book

Books are a very integral part of my life; they are the portal to my imagination, that beast that lives within me and brings all the fantastical worlds inside books alive for me. When I first read the Harry Potter series, I imagined Harry to be very different from what I saw in the movies. This is not to say

that Daniel Radcliffe, the actor who played him, did not suit the role, because he did, but the portrait my imagination drew for me was different. Unfortunately I can't remember the exact details of his face anymore, as watching the movies made my imaginary Harry fade away, but my mind's images of him and even Hogwarts were my own, unique.

Moreover, books help me learn about our insanely beautiful world. They can be very informative, and be it my textbooks through out my education, or the non-fiction books I have read that gave me a glimpse into some great minds, my mind has been irreversibly influenced by the knowledge I gained. The decisions I take, the choices I make, and the positions I stand on, are all in some small way influenced by the wisdom I have gained from what I read. Of course, real life experiences are irreplaceable, but books give us the courage to go out and have those experiences ourselves, once we have read about them. The greatest writers have inspired men to give their lives, with just their words.

But this does not mean that I have stopped reading, having gained considerable knowledge. My voracious appetite for books is not in pursuit of a book that would be the end of my reading. Learning is a never ending process, for I know I have a whole lifetime of reading ahead of me, as no one book or even a collection of books can even begin to encompass all the facets of life. Knowing this I can never be bound by the words of just one book. In essence, what I am trying to say is, that one holy or religious book can never hope to be my sole guide to the universe. I would give a holy book just as much importance as I would to any other book of fiction, in that I might gain a little wisdom from it, but to give it the power to run my life is asking too much. Giving that much significance to one book is an insult to all the others that I have read before it, and all the ones I am yet to read. Long is the journey of life, many are the twists and turns, and the unknown destination is the greatest joy. Therefore I am glad, that I do not know it all, nor do I pretend to, for of what joy is such a journey, when the destination is known in advance?

That is why I know that I can never be a part of any of the religions, which seem to be intent on taking the joy out of my search for meaning in my life. They would tell me it is all planned out, or written down, what is to happen in my life. I can't for the life of me empathize with anyone pretending to have understood all of life with just one book. Life is not, and can never be so simply explained. Maybe some day we will have a better understanding of life, and I am sure it is the books we read explaining that understanding that will help us appreciate the magic of being alive.

Desires and other ills

Imagine if our world wasn't such a hard place to live in, if so many people didn't have to struggle for a living, if more children could live past five years of age, if the polar ice caps were not melting as rapidly as they are, if more people had access to two square meals a day and one glass of clean water to drink. Is that such an impossible dream? How much worse does the average human's life have to become before we sit up and say, let me put others before myself? Let me give a helping hand, and do what I can to change another human being's life for the better?

The concept of utopia is a far fetched and rather impossible one for most people, but to be honest we don't even need to get close to a utopia to improve the human condition by leaps and bounds. As the guys at theminimalists.com point out, many people have much more wealth, possessions and properties than they could possibly ever need in a lifetime. Saying that its your rainy day fund makes no sense in a stable economy like what many of the developed countries today enjoy, and in any case these rainy day funds are usually so bloated they could save an entire town if disaster struck. The mad chase of materialistic desires that many people today are involved in can only lead to further discontentment, for as the great Buddha once said, 'Health is the greatest gift, contentment the greatest wealth, faithfulness the best relationship'. So if we look to achieve these three things in our life, we can go closer to true happiness than ever before. Such an attitude would also enable us to help the poor and destitute, the orphaned and those whom fate has struck crippling blows. It is in helping others find happiness that our happiness lies, and this is the kind of joy that soothes the soul, and gives us contentment like no other. 

I dream of U

I dream of endless skies of blue
blotted with clouds
that lightly flew

I dream of rippling waves of seas
streaked with sunlight
stalking the breeze

but most of all
I've dreamed of you

Your curvy lips spread in a smile
your fingertips touching mine

A lock of your hair, black as sin
across your face, grazing your chin

I've dreamed of you, whispering softly
singing me a song, dancing not so properly

I run to you, to hold u close
before you vanish, utterly to my woes

Haunting my dreams, just to make me suffer
coz when I awake, in pain i utter
cries of despair, not finding u there

Dreams of joy, dreams of wonder
everyone dreams, they love going under
one would think, i am loathe to dream
on cold nights, waking to a scream

but most of all,
I've dreamed of you...

Ahead

Come with me, astride a silver breeze
among drifting clouds, across glistening seas
along whispering blues, amid fleeting blooms
above stark peaks, and over tall greens 
I dare thee, to set your mind free
Burn thy fears in the fire of your greed

Skip no stone, turn away no chance
Learn a brave's mortal dance
For death my friend, is a cunning foe
Lures you away, whispers of woe
Take no heed, take a deep breath and charge ahead
For one true life, is worth a thousand undead

10 Reasons I dont believe in God

I have always wanted to write a '10 Things blah blah' or '10 Reasons why blah blah' article, and when I had a rather philosophical conversation with my sister and her hubby yesterday, I decided to go for it. I dont believe in the existence of a God, or in any Religion and
I think that if you do believe in a deity, or multiple ones for that matter, you have been had in what is a very old hoax that just refuses to die its natural death. So here are 10 reasons why I dont and cant believe in God:

1. Science baby!
My first and foremost argument, if I may call it so, is Science! Good old science with her theories and proofs. The best thing about science, and also the most frustrating thing sometimes is proof. When someone discovers something, or invents something, he has to prove it. Nobody has to take your word for granted and there is no such thing as faith involved. You only have to look back at the annals of history to see how many misconceptions and half truths were buried by noble inventors and scientists, who also paved the way for all the modern technological wonders we enjoy today. There's no magic or miracle involved here, no 'leap of faith' required, all well proven and well understood scientific discoveries.

Ah but say anything that religion/God doesn't agree with, and you will be persecuted and probably murdered. History is littered with great thinkers and scholars who were thrown to the gallows for daring to utter a single word against religious truths and dogma. To think that the priests and clergy would say that the earth was the center of the universe! One only needs to take one look at the stars and you know it isn't true.

2. But there are so many daddy!
When it comes to religion, one size does not fit all. Today there are six or seven major religions, each with a staggering amount of followers each. That in itself is damning evidence, if I may say so. Considering that if you believe in a particular religion, and that makes you a infidel by almost all other religions, almost everyone on planet earth is going to hell one way or the other. Though there

does tend to be a common thread running through all the religions, some of them are simply too crazy to even consider joining up, and yet they have mass followings! Makes you wonder what kind of circus we are living in, but then, all these religions together do make for interesting viewing for a casual observer like me. To put the cherry on the cake, there are more religion related and ethnic cleansing deaths than all other causes put together.

3. Oh the humanity! 

Terrorism, the only word that can make a shiver run up the most hardened man's spine, and the only word that a wise man would not speak lightly of. Religion seems to bring out the most insane, sadistic, cruel side of a human being, and this has been the case for thousands of years. Tens of millions of people have died because they either didn't 'fit in' to the reigning supernatural belief, or that they were trying to make others fit to theirs. In fact there are many countries that have shed any pretenses of secularism and proudly tout the fact that they are havens for believers of a particular religion. It is tragic that man has no tolerance for a different way of life; all must be the same, believe in the same, and many are ready to kill or die trying to make this happen. It is our differences and the variety of life that makes it all multicolored and stunning to look at. Sameness is not and can never be much to talk about. Imagine how boring it would all be, if all the world was like a fast food franchise, the same darned thing everywhere.

4. The numbers don't add up sonny!
The Bible says that the earth is 6000 years old. But there is a staggering amount of evidence pointing to the contrary. There are many artifacts, fossils of ancient animals, rock formations and a multitude of such things that are many million years old. Ask the scholars of any religion to explain the contradiction of Earth being created by God and the colossal amount of evidence for evolution that exists, and they either don't have an answer, or their answers just raise more questions. So tell me, God created all the things on earth, and then buried fossils here and there to have a little fun did he?

5. Moral compass my foot.
My theist friends always throw this at me whenever I question their beliefs; imagine the horror of being without a moral compass, for if there were no God, man would become an immoral heathen, bent on raping and murdering all that he sees. Excuse me, but I don't need a God or a religious book to tell me that raping someone is a crime.

 I know what good and evil are, what right and wrong are and I know this because of the morals instilled in me in my childhood. Doesn't good parenthood take care of most moral  dilemmas anyway? Do you really need a holy book to tell you that loving thy neighbor is a good idea, or that killing someone is not?

6. Fate - a four lettered word.

I am sick and tired of  hearing people say, 'It was meant to be', or 'its all a part of God's plan. If God has a plan for all of us, then do we not have free will? Are we just puppets in a grand show that is being played for someone's entertainment at our expense? A certain religion even speaks of Karma, where the sins of one life will be paid for in another. I find this ridiculous and hard to comprehend. Why is it so hard for people to accept that there is no meaning to it all? That there is only one life and the purpose of your life is what you make of it. That death is truly the end, and there is no afterlife or another life for that matter. If there is such a thing as fate or destiny, are children born with AIDS in Africa fated to live short lives of extreme agony and humiliation? Is that really their destiny, to live such lives? Or are they being punished for crimes of other men? When an old friend of mine passed away in a brutal accident in the prime of his life, I often wondered what the purpose of his life was. Ask a priest the same question, and he would probably reply, 'Man cannot comprehend all that God does, for if God is a human being, then our understanding of our world is that of an ant.' Such answers just serve to make me feel like I am just a puppet and a part of a cruel joke that will never end.

7. Aliens: the truth is out there.

There are billions and billions of stars in millions in galaxies throughout the universe. Are we really so foolish to think that the earth is the only place in the entire universe where intelligent life can exist? Were we one day to establish the existence of alien life beyond doubt, where does that leave all the holy books that say that the earth is the only haven for men, and all else was created for a starry sky? Would these books be then re-written to take these new alien beings into account? Not that it hasnt been done already many times over. Just the existence of the Old and New testaments are proof enough that these books don't and can't encompass all that is out there.

8. The Chaos theory
 Chaos is just as capable of creating our world as is intelligent design. In fact it is the more likely, since the minute you accept the possibility of a Creator, isnt the question of his origin automatically the next one? Some believers push the complexity of nature's creations as solid proof that an intelligent creator exists, for how could chance and a soulless nature create such wonders? Taken at face value this is a very good question. But Science has an answer. The complexity and marvels we see around us did not arise overnight. These creations are the result of a slow and stunning process called evolution. Take the example of the human eye. It is a design that is unparalleled in Science in terms of ability and complexity. But this wonder evolved over hundreds of prototypes of millions of creatures, that began from a humble single celled organism, and then hundreds of differently abled sight devices in all our ancestors. Nature's splendor is no accident or a Spiritual being's brainchild. It is the culmination of a long and much convoluted process of minute additions and improvements.

9. The arrogance of it all
 To state that all the fantastic and stunning creatures of our world were all created to make a beautiful and varied home for the human beings is arrogance of extreme proportions. All the mammals, amphibians, reptiles, birds, fish, insects and every other form of life are as much a citizen of our blue planet as we are. Even women are much inferior to men according to most religions, and to refuse to treat them as equals stinks of an ill-conceived attempt to gain the upper hand. I cannot and will not place myself above any of nature's creations, for if global warming, weather fluctuations and natural catastrophes are anything to go by, nature does not appreciate the condescension.

10. The beginning question
Where did we all come from? Why were we created? What is the purpose of it all? We are back to the same old question that has made man look up the heavens, pardon the reference, and come up with all kinds of crazy answers. A close perusal of the long dead religions of our ancestors and you will see that they were not as different from the modern ones as you might think. Yes the names and number of deities might differ, and yes the rituals and practices are changed too, but isnt it all in the same vein? That man is but a humble creation of a great power that is beyond our comprehension. I end this rant with a simple answer to all of man's origin dilemmas: the universe has just been there all the time. There is no beginning and no end, just as there may never be an end to the mass worldwide delusion that is Religion.

Ready for battle...

Why do people need love? Why do we need to be adored, and have constant affection, to be wholesome rounded people? Does being human mean that we are incomplete without being in healthy relationships? If we never knew what a healthy relationship is, and thus never knew what we were missing, would we still have problems in our daily lives? Would we all turn into damaged people, the people responsible for so many of the problems in our world?
Consider a crow chick sitting in its nest, cheeping away to all glory, for its mother to come back and feed it. The mother crow must feed its chicks and keep them safe and when the chick has grown up, it flies out of its nest, ready to take on the world with the few skills it possesses that are instinctively hammered into its brain. It needs no elocution classes, no science classes, no defense classes, not even a language class. It has all the weapons it needs to survive this world, right in its armory from the day it leaves its nest.

Now think of a human baby. Not only must a human child be fed and looked after, he must be treated with love, respect, and sensitivity and so on. He must be taught to be his own man, so to say, so that one day he can have a family of his own, people he will then pass on his learning and affection to. If his childhood is lacking in these fundamental necessities, he develops certain undesirable qualities, some of which he may not even know about until a much later stage. For example, some people who have abusive fathers, end up looking for father figures all their life, to make up for the void their incompetent fathers left. If they dont, they could end up as abusive parents themselves, thus passing the buck on when the next generation arrives. So are humans as a species really the most evolved one on this planet? Or in exchange for such evolved brains, have we lost our ability to be competent whole individuals without love and affection playing a vital role in our childhood and adolescence? In a utopian world, where every child is loved and well fed, would there not be a single issue to deal with, considering all the people are loving and well balanced? If this is true, then truly we are a most un-evolved species, for our success in our world today is largely dependent not on who we are, but who we are allowed to be. In essence, we are no different from animals in a zoo. We can only survive in the world we know, the bars of our cages clearly visible, though we choose to ignore them.

There she goes..

Once upon a time, long long ago
God sat on his throne completely bored
Mouth opened wide, he gave a big yawn
and thought to himself, This world is a chore!

Calmly he pondered how he could bring

some sparkle into man's livelihood
He looked around his heavenly lair
and his eye fell on a piece of wood

He held it close and started chipping away
what he wanted he knew not yet
The magic of night, the splendor of day
He added them all, from every which where

Some spice, some sugar, some ocean's waves
a hint of mischief, and all the world's cares
He rolled it all in, and then bound it tight
He had before him, a girl shining bright

She smiled, she laughed, she was free
the apple of his eye, a woman to be
her beauty put even the moon to shame
but she often wondered, from whence she came...

A future I care for..

Like most people, I have been asked many times that age old question of how long i want to live, and every time my answer is the same: as long as I possibly can! If asked to give specifics, I would say a 100 years! Immediately the shake of the head follows, and the usual reply goes like, 'You dont wanna live longer than 70-75 at the most, because then the quality of life goes down so much that life becomes too much of an embarrassment to go on.' One cant really argue with this assertion, because to be frank it is quite true, and a visit to any old age home will testify to that. But then one day, while surfing the web, I come across this image, and my mind is drawn away to all the fantastic visuals drawn in my mind by scores of Sci-fi authors, and I can clearly see those flying cars, the robots, the awe-inspiring, blow your mind away technological developments that are sure to be a part and parcel of our lives in the future. My skin starts tingling and I can feel the awakening of that deep thirst in me to see and experience what science holds in store for us, what great advances in technology the world will witness, how man will endeavor to make our planet Earth a safer and more beautiful place to live in.

But then inevitably my mind is also drawn to how much we are affecting our world in a negative way; all those species of plants and animals lost to us everyday, as we ravage our planet to satisfy every one of our needs and desires. I wonder if future generations would ever be witness to the fantastic variety of flora and fauna that our planet is home to today, or whether the zoo would be their only peek into the Earth that once was. I am conflicted now, at once drawn to see the wonders that science surely has in store for us,

and also repelled by how ugly and artificial that future world might be. For truly, is there anything more beautiful than a humpback whale breaching the surface of the sea? Is there any sound our musical instruments can make that can match the beauty of a songbird breaking into song at the onset of a new spring day? It would truly be a tragedy if in the pursuit of better lives for ourselves, we make the diversity and beauty of our planet a mere sacrifice at the altar of scientific development.

So when people say that a long life has only senility and lack of self respect at the end of it, that doesn't really scare me at all. What truly scares me is that one day, I might be witness to a world without beauty, a beauty that only mother nature can produce, and we can never hope to even mimic. If this is what the world has to offer me, then I'd rather die while mother nature still breathes.

Endless

Oh! This life, such a tug of war,

light one way, and dark another

a world without, and one within

a love for life, thrown into the din

Fuelled by rage, passed down by seed

each' folly a son of his own greed

circling our lives, is the smiling crow

the same end for all, yet a long way to go

The silent river, stands as ever trial

whispers in our ears, cant watch us burn

dreams of beauty, marred by actions vile

regret is no friend, yet it misses not its turn

He who laughs last, laughs not again

Venged by time, that healer of pain

Scars heal not, wail though in vain

A love lost for life, is a hate in gain

Dance you can but all for naught

for life had and has not been caught

it slips and slides, and plays the con

when all is said and done, life goes on..

I am what i was, and so I will be..

What is it that makes man want to label everything? Like that oft repeated cliche says, would a rose not smell as sweet were it called by a different name? Why then must we first stick a label on everything we find around us, and then go on to defend that label as if it preceded the thing it represents? Did the name come before the object it stands for? Did the belief come before the person believing it? The best argument against this wholly man made concept of beliefs and culture is that there are so many different cultures. What works for one man may not for another, and so came about all these varied ways of looking at the same world around us. As soon as we are out of the womb, the people around us we so fondly call our family starts labelling us, with the label changing according to the prevailing beliefs. So an infant sucking on his thumb, and living on his mother's breast milk has already his name, his religion, his eating habits, his sensitivities and right down to the style of underwear he wears chosen for him before he has uttered his first comprehensible sentence in that prechosen mother tongue of his. In some cultures, if this infant turns out to be a 'she' rather than a 'he', then she faces discrimination for no fault of hers. She is labelled a 'burden', and her burdened caretakers are already hatching plots to get rid of her.

Even man's defense of his culture, his pride in its veracity and supremacy over that of his neighbours fails to stand upto scrutiny. Some people tout their culture as being supreme or marvellous because it is so old or is so steepled in history. Considering the fact that every culture, language, tradition, belief, custom etc etc were all brand spanking new at one time or the other, that every iota of history that we have proof of today was at one time non-existent, when people decry modern influences for corrupting their cultures, one feels compelled to ask these protesters: Were these cultures also not evolved from the ones preceding them? Then why does nooone bemoan the loss of those ancient belief systems that preceded the ones we have today? This makes for a very interesting observation, that culture is not and cannot be defined by those who came before us, but one may see where our culture is headed by looking at those who lead us into tomorrow.

All this stems from that eternal search for one's soul, one's identity. I personally find this to be quite the wild goose chase, because i truly believe that there is no such thing as a blueprint for humanity. Each of us sets out from a different lane of the race track, each endowed with different abilities, dreams, fears and so on. The fact lies unstated that though we all seem to be running towards the same destination, the journeys we all take to reach there are so different that trying to find parallels is an exercise in vain. Hence the point of a common identity, and thereby a reason to bond with our neighbour is quite fruitless. In this journey though each of us goes through so many of the same experiences, each is influenced so uniquely that we all end up as different as snowflakes; they look the same from a distance, but when you look closer, each one a marvel in itself. We must stop looking at ourselves as fixed entities, like mud pots, that have been cast in a certain way and are to remain so for eternity, and see ourselves more like wet clay, that can and is continously moulded according to the prevailing forces in the world around us. Those people who lament the loss of byzantine, magnificient cultures must wake up to this reality, that the only thing constant in life is change, and that embracing this simple but revealing truth could help us achieve mental peace.

Why am I here? What am I here to do?

If there is one question that has plagued man ever since he developed a consciousness, it is this
one: Why am I here? Entire lives have been spent in either the search for the answer to this
dilemma or even worse, trying to push one's answer onto others as the right one. Some people even say that we are all here for a divine purpose, that every person's life is an arrow with a head that points in some direction, and only by accepting fate, destiny and a higher power, we can truly discover the purpose of our existence. To every one of these people I say, "Shut Up!!"

George Carlin, a great comedian and an even better thinker in my opinion, once said that we are all here because the earth needed plastic! Earth didn't have the time to make it herself, wanted to delegate it to someone, and so she created us humans. Thus the purpose of our existence is to make plastic for earth! Laughable though it may sound, it is a revealing insight into the stupidity and enormous lack of humility on our part that we think that all the billions of galaxies filled with gazillions of stars in our universe and all the fantastic and unbelievably diverse variety of creatures on planet earth were created just to give us a beautiful starry sky and a nice place to live in! That's exactly what most religions make out our world to be, a place created by Mr God so that we could appreciate his supreme benevolence for such a wonderful gift and remain ever thankful to him, spending our lives in eternal gratitude.

I have a very simple answer for the quest for the purpose of our existence: There is no such purpose! Our lives are what we make them to be, our destiny lies in our own hands. Why is this such a difficult thing for people to accept? Then are we like boats with sails but no compass you ask me? Yes, its true that our lives by themselves have no purpose, but it is in our hands to give our lives a purpose. YOU, yes you, are the rudder of your ship! You decide what you want to do with your life. Since every action we take affects people around us in a myriad of ways, some of which we know about and comprehend and some of which we don't, it is truly upto YOU what you want to do with your life.

If you decide that you want to help people through your life, and take part in social service, then that could be the purpose of your life. If just being a good human being and a good son or daughter, a good wife/husband or a good employee is what you are willing to do, then that could also be the purpose of your life. One doesn't have to make a huge difference to the world around them. If you could touch even one person's life, give him/her one better day of their lives through your actions (or lack of them, in some cases), then yours was definitely a life worth living. Life isnt worse for the lack of a purpose, its actually better because then we all are truly our own masters, the captains of ships that only we know the destinations of. Like Mother Teresa once said, "I alone cannot change the world, but I can cast a stone across the waters to create many ripples.".

Rules to live by!

Saw this on a website and just had to post it! Dogs are not just man's best friends but also great guides on how to live one's life! Enjoy :)

Dog Philosophy:

1. Never pass up the opportunity to go for a joy ride.
2. Allow the experience of fresh air and the wind in your face to be pure ecstasy.
3. When loved ones come home, always run and greet them.
4. When it's in your best interest, always practice obedience.
5. Let others know when they've invaded your territory.
6.Take naps and always stretch before rising.
7. Run, romp and play daily.
8. Eat with gusto and enthusiasm.
9. Be loyal.
10. Never pretend to be something you're not.
11. If what you want lies buried, dig until you find it.
12. When someone is having a bad day, be silent, sit close by and nuzzle them gently.
13. Delight in the simple joys of a long walk.
14. Thrive on attention and let people touch you.
15. Avoid biting when a simple growl will do.
16. On hot days, drink lots of water and lie under a shady tree.
17. When you're happy, dance around and wag your entire body.
18. No matter how often you are criticized, don't buy into the guilt thing and pout. Run right back and make friends.

A good read indeed!

Whats your favourite kind of book? Does it have to be one of those gripping, edge of the seat, un-put-downable-unless-your-in-a-life-and-death-situation kind of book for you to get interested, or are you one of those read-when-i'm-free-run-along-at-a-casual-pace type of book reader? I mean that if you had to choose between the Da Vinci Code and the Great Expectations (supposing you haven't read either), which would it be? Personally I'd go for the former because slow paced books bore me very quickly.

Of course there are those books that are on everyone's must read list and whose reputation precedes them by a mile, Lord of the Rings being a very good example of such a book. Though when I read it myself, I found it too lengthy, tiring and making me wish that the whole bunch of good doers would get a move on for god's sake! At this point all the LOTR fans would rise up in protest saying that I had no real appreciation of the beauty and majesty of this extremely famous series of books. I would like to counter by saying that I have read other mythologies like Fire and Ice and Sword of Truth, that are big reads by themselves and though they may not stand shoulder to shoulder to LOTR for intricate detail, they hold their own when compared by standards of not boring the reader to death before anything significant happens.

So what does make for a good read then? There are other genres of course like sci-fi, thrillers, mystery, biographies, autobiographies, drama, comedy etc etc. But to keep the reader in me interested, the plot has to thicken quickly or else I'm liable to start looking elsewhere. Now there are some exceptions to this rule (aren't there always?), Gone with the Wind being the best example I could think of and such books, though not exactly a thrill-a-minute, still never fail to keep the reader hooked. A book I read recently, Anything for you, ma'am by Tushar Raheja, was a perfect example of the kind of story that doesn't give u a minute's time to think, forcing you to quickly grasp the events happening with and around the protagonist, at a pace some readers could find exhausting. But frankly I thought it was a great read and a great first effort by the author, for the same exact reason.

So why do I feel such a need to be kept on tenterhooks whenever I read a book? I completely blame our new age media, that has crippled me with a monster-sized Attention Deficit Disorder by feeding me more than I could handle since the minute I was delivered into this world of ours. Our food has to be fast, our news must be latest, our sports live and our lives itself a rat race. Honestly, does anyone realize how fast paced everything now is, how that poem Leisure by William Henry Davies is more relevant now than ever? Sometimes I wish I could take a moment to stand and stare, but everyone says I must run like a hare (not trying to be poetic). Now what was that old fable about the tortoise and the hare all about once again??

Laughin' all the way

The most uncommon sense in the world, contrary to public opinion, is not common sense, but rather a sense of humor. Common sense is what is actually keeping a semblance of order in our world, but we would all be a lot happier, and a lot less peeved, were more people to have a simple sense of humor. I always prided myself on being able to see the lighter side of life, and though this does not necessarily mean I can crack a good joke, I know a rib-tickler when I see one. Being able to distinguish a good joke and then to laugh whole heartedly not only at jokes on others but also at oneself, constitutes what I consider to be a fully developed sense of humor.

Now some people might disagree with that opinion. I remember reading the following quote or a similar one at the bottom of a page in one of those diaries that has quotes at the bottom of every page (my favourite kind when I was a kid) : " A man who can laugh at himself is the best man in the room.". So throughout my life I always took jokes directed at me rather sportingly, and so made for a rather poor butt of jokes, since I would often join in in the laughter! Many people thought this to be a lack of self-esteem on my part, and that might have been true to a certain extent, but of all the delightful people I have met in my life, the ones who impressed me the most were those who could take a rib at themselves in the right spirit. Although I do think cracking jokes at one's own expense is a step too far and is better avoided.

How would the world be a happier place if people learnt to laugh more? Well, its an undisputed fact that misunderstandings cause such distress and break up so many relations that a pinch of humor always helps lighten the situation. People take themselves way too seriously, and the inability to see the lighter side of life and just take it easy ends up making us all frustrated and discontent. Also, the whole of business of jokes is made such that every joke is always at some stereotype or other. Americans are all fat and eat just burgers, Indians are all brainiacs stealing everyone else's jobs, Muslims in the middle east are all bomb strapped AK-47 wielding terrorists, Sardars, blondes etc are all really dumb, the list goes on ad nauseam. The minute one makes a joke, someone has taken offense and launched a tirade against the purported abusers who should all be hanged for their insulting comments. Take it easy mate!! Or as one would say in Indian lingo, Light le baap! Its true to a certain extent that such stereotypical humor encourages the wrong kind of ignorance and false rumor about people, but since when has man ever failed to take note of one person's behaviour and stick it to all his so called neighbours? The point is to take such humor lightly and disregard it, or if possible pay back in kind! But taking offense at it seems a tad out of line, and the root cause of unnecessary tensions.

To put a point to it, life is too short to spend it hating or insulting anyone. There are always going to be a few weird people in the world, and there are going to be even more who make it a point to make fun of these so called weirdos. But were one to take this ribbing for what it is, just man trying to amuse himself, we would have a lot less frowns in our ever-suffering world. Spread love and laughter, and Utopia though it may not be, there would at the least be a lot more smiles in the world than there are currently.

Short term Mammories!

When God sends us down to earth, naked and completely helpless, he gives us all some RAM and a lot of ROM. (the computer terms.... if u don't know what they mean... Google them!) To put it simply, this means that we can remember things that happened to us in the near past and also things from our far gone past that left an impression on us. Well thats where my problem begins... mine are faulty!! Its no shame for me to declare that I have poor memory of stuff I should remember (or at the least the stuff most people do). It surprises me when people tell me some things from my past, like their first impressions of me, or stuff i said, things that I have poor or no recollection of. There's this saying that one should remember the good things someone does for us and forget the hurts and insults. But darn it I cant remember either! I cant even hold a decent grudge against someone who's wronged me. I know, not that anyone would be scared of me holding one against them, but still I'd like to once in a while, to know what it feels like.


Well to be honest, not remembering how exactly one embarrassed oneself long long ago seems like a good thing, doesn't it? Its a lot easier to move on from painful experiences when one doesn't retain them in memory. Sadly not so. The problem is, these experiences actually live on in our subconscious long after we think we have wiped them from our memory. These experiences shape our behavior through our subconscious, influencing the choices we make and the decisions we take. They even alter our dreams, thus accounting for people having recurring nightmares long after the source of those nightmares occurred (also accounts for all my teenage crushes showing up in my dreams). So basically, my poor memory probably means all that information is getting stored in my subconscious which scares the shit out of me. God only knows how that affects me. Gulp.

A further twist to the tale is added when out of the blue, I begin to feel a sense of Deja vu in certain situations. There is this eerie feeling at the back of my mind that I have been here before and that something doesn't quite add up, even though my brain denies ever having had such an experience. Some people in such a situation would have some recollection of where and when they had a similar experience, thus quickly explaining the 'Deja vu'. Me, I just go on feeling weirder and weirder, unable to figure out why the hairs at the back of my neck are standing.

The icing on the cake is that other trait I have probably inherited, absent-mindedness. This has gotten me into so much trouble that if I ever came across a genie and he granted me a wish, I wouldn't hesitate one second in asking for the ability to freaking remember where I kept that pen I was just writing with. Presence of mind is a quality I value highly, and when people sometimes have to call my name at least two or three times, before i respond, it frankly makes me feel really shorthanded. God, in all his wisdom, for some reason thought that this would be a quality I would appreciate. Thats a laugh.

This absent mindedness also means I am not very observant of my surroundings, and miss out details that otherwise would have benefited me a lot. So the only positive I can possibly see in this irritating facet of my personality that some people seem to find it endearing. To these people I say, the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. Absent-mindedness as a quality is like elephants in the zoo. Everyone likes them, but no one wants to bring one home.

All in all, anyone reading probably thinks I am cribbing about silly things when I should frankly be worried about other things, like getting a life for example. Good point, and I guess I should thank God for the other awesome facets of my personality that I like (my rugged good looks, my charm... well you know me). To wrap it up, I guess we are all like unfinished works of art. Some of us go on to become masterpieces the artist can be proud of and others, well lets just say that not every grain of sand goes on to become a pearl does it?

UFOs!! (Unidentified Female Objects)

Why is it so freaking difficult to understand women? To put it very strongly, Women are the Bermuda Triangles of the human world. Nobody has a clue as to whats going on over there, but go anywhere near them to find out more and you get sucked in like a little bug caught in a basin whirlpool never to surface again. Even if you do make it out in a single piece, a shipwreck on the rocky cliffs on the coast of Womenland, could you honestly say that the experience did not change you in so many ways that you barely recognize yourself later? Great authors, philosophers, and poets have expressed their frustration in a million different ways about how utterly incomprehensible women are, about how women are the epitome of delicacy yet when angered hell runs a distant second to their fury! What was God really thinking when he made women such enigmas to men? Wait no, change that, sometimes even women dont understand why they are the way they are!

Some wise man once said that one should just love women, not try to understand them. But since curiosity is sort of man's defining characteristic, separating him from the million other creatures on this planet, asking him not to find out more about anything he does not understand is utterly futile. So many lives spent in this fruitless pursuit (this blog included) and what do we have to show for it? Our mothers, our wives, our girlfriends, our friends, our lovers, our daughters... they are everywhere in our life yet the closest we have come to understanding women is to say they definitely deserve to be treated as equals. Bull-freaking-shit! Women are not our equals. Hell, that is giving us men a lot more credit than we deserve. Now I am making this blog completely personal by saying something that I have been pondering for a long time but havent ever had the guts to say... Women are definitely and without argument, our superiors!

At this point, if you are a man reading this, you are probably thinking that I am trying to curry up some favor with women with such a statement. But the fact is, strangely there are probably going to be a lot of women who will actually take offense at my opinion, for the same exact reason. Then there are going to be others trying to figure out why I am suddenly writing such a blog in the first place by looking in my personal life. To round it off, there are going to be others secretly reveling in the truth behind my statement. But frankly, it doesnt take much to reach this conclusion.

Whatever women do they must do twice as well as men to be thought half as good. Luckily, this is not difficult. ~Charlotte Whitton
The above quote pretty much confirms what I have been trying to say all along... We think women have it tough in this world, and that they have achieved a lot already, but honey, you aint seen nothing yet! Its only now that women are finally breaking free of all the ridiculous boundaries we drew around them, and to their own pleasant surprise, beginning to realise that they are just as good if not better at everything men do. Must women truly begin to shout from the rooftops and from mountain tops before us sexist men begin to see the truth in the matter that women do make our world a better place to live in? Just yesterday I found out that it is widely believed that in the countries where the number of women is greater than the men, the crime rates are lower. I am ready to bet my life on the fact that if all the presidents of all the countries in the world were women, the world would be a lot more peaceful place. Ok there may be an occasional bickering or two, but hey, i'd rather have a bit of that than the Third World War anyday!

P.S. A lot more women would also be a lot more pleasant on the eye now wouldnt it! ;)

To do.. or to not to do...

Life... its all about the choices aint it... To be precise, every little silly decision we take can and will go on to have impossible to foresee consequences that bite us in the buttock area. This makes for some very sticky situations and very few have the courage and the will power to stand strong behind their decisions. Every minute of our lives we are taking decisions, but sadly only some of us have the foresight and/or the experiences to be able to take the right ones. But then again, is there really anything such as a right decision? Sometimes we come across the proverbial 'Sophie's choice', when both sides of the coin appear so similar that deciding on one of the choices becomes harder than life itself.

Morals are an easy way out of some decisions. They are a terrific guide when one is choosing, one's friends for example. But suppose one has to choose between friends. Now here lies the great dilemma. How is one supposed to choose between friends, even if our morals clearly point to one over the other? Even if it were so easy, once the heart has made a bond with someone, unless some great injustice has happened to one, such choices are not easy to make. Also the foreboding of having to rue one's decision later makes it all the tougher to choose.

Most of us have been on both ends of this balance. Sometimes we made the right choices, and sometimes we didnt. The good ones left a few happy memories, but the bad ones almost always leave a bitter taste in the mouth that lingers on for years afterwards. Although in both cases, the experience is invaluable, in that it leaves us wiser and also more appreciative and sympathetic to someone else in the same curry that we once were. Some people become overly cautious and unable to ever take such decisions again, for the bad memories from the previous such experience haunts them. Very few people actually use this information to take the right decision the next time the choice comes along.

In the end, the matter of right or wrong in any choice is highly debatable. Most people do what seems right to them at that moment in their lives, because frankly, life is too short to spend too much worrying about all our decisions. This does not mean that I am calling for spontaneous ill-thought out decisions. It just means we have to let go of our apprehensions and just let our hearts lead the way sometimes.

Yeh Love Kya Cheez hain yaar!

Love.... the word itself is probably, without argument, the most abused, manipulated, and loaded with meaning word in the entire English language. Love for family, love for one's friends, love for God, love of one's profession, love for one's neighbor and so on ad nauseam are some of the myriad flavors of this feeling. Poets, authors, painters, sculptors, singers, musicians have created the greatest masterpieces of art ever inspired and driven by this indescribable feeling of complete and utter infatuation for their object of admiration. Some of the greatest achievements in the fields of science were fueled purely by the love of discovery. The love for the fine arts has manifested itself in some brilliant performances etched on the minds of the viewers fortunate enough to witness these acts of complete submission to this feeling. Can anyone ever truly describe how the lover feels when he holds his love in his arms? Can one put into words the emotion a mother feels when she sees her newly born child?

Sadly, the power of this feeling that has driven man to great heights, also makes him suspect to do things no logic can explain. Each and every human being craves this one emotion like nothing else, and the presence or lack otherwise of this element in a human's life is the single most important factor shaping his psyche. Power and riches may satisfy every other desire man feels, but nothing can replace love. The greatest single feature of love, defying all laws of physics, science and cold logic is that there is no such thing as an end to love. One can love a million people to the fullest, and still have enough left to give to a million more. Love knows no bounds, no color, no distinction at all. But the minute love is missing, everything turns awry. Without love, man is essentially a psychopath, incapable of feeling happy, despite any and every of his desires being fulfilled.

It is very easy for other human emotions to disguise themselves as love misguiding the mind and making it choose paths certain to cause misery. Greed, lust, attraction, jealousy are some of the impostors that make full use of the power they get when they cover for love. Each and every faith witnessed by mankind advocates the need to regulate these nasty creatures of the human mind and discover true love. Easier said than done, for it is rare that love can be inspired where such evil lurks. On the other hand, the only way to drive away such evil, is simply put, loving even such misguided denizens of our world.

The one last defining feature of love is, that it is such a strong feeling that a lack of response from the receiver can eat away at even the most loving person. Unrequited love, by itself, is one of the biggest causes of depression in the human world. When man has learnt to give without expecting, to love without needing to be loved back, then he will probably discover the actual purpose of life and real fulfillment. Sadly, only a select few have been able to embrace this higher echelon of the human psyche, but one cannot be blamed for being unable to do so. Caring for someone, by itself can only come naturally to someone who has been cared for at some stage in their life. Learning to be able to do so, without expecting anything in return, can be called easy only for the gods.

Well then, what is one to do? Can we ever learn to accept this truth and actively progress towards achieving such a goal? Is such a pursuit pointless? Imagine being able to love without any reciprocation, the kind of freedom one would feel. The soul, if it truly exists, would only be truly set free if we have no strings attached to the other souls around us. True happiness lies in giving, in being able to see past the desire to be loved, to give without thought for reciprocation and to hope that the receiver passes that love onto another. This chain of gratitude is the only way us humans can ever save our sad, ailing world. For only misery lies at the end of any other road, and difficult though the path may be, we must not give up this noble pursuit of human excellence.

The World Around me as I see it....

Ever had that feeling that something is not quite right? That life, as you know it, is not what it seems? Well, I do. I always have the feeling that everything around me is not real. Now this could be the product of a hyperactive imagination and reading too many science fiction novels, but still, sometimes I have to snap back to reality and remember that everything IS exactly as it seems. That there's no such thing as magic, that leprechauns and fairies do not exist, that attempting to jump from buildings Matrix movie style will only get you a lot of broken bones or worse, dead. Very disappointing to say the least, and I blame the movie and writing industries for making me dissatisfied with my world. Damn you, ya creative fools, ya spoiled me rotten!

Oh wait, I haven't told you the worst of it. Some days, when my mind is at its craziest, I feel as if the whole world is just one big stage play or TV show with me being the centre showpiece (yeah like that Jim Carrey movie). All the people around are just acting their parts, and gauging my reactions to each and everything that happens in my life. Obviously this kind of wild dreaming helps make my world more interesting, making my mind look like a bored kid trying to amuse himself. If only there were actually some point to wishful thinking eh? ;)

At this stage you are probably thinking, this guy belongs in a mental institution. But wait. Being an atheist, I have embraced the fact that this world was created by 'chaos', and there is no such thing as intelligent design. Absence of a GOD means no magic, no miracles, no voodoo whatsoever. But if you consider the fact that there are perhaps hundreds of religions in this world, followed by millions of people, it makes you wonder whether even one of them could have a minuscule of truth to them. In that case, does that mean that there is such a thing as magic? If so, sign me up buster!

Science makes a living out of shattering all our myths. Long ago people thought that fire was some kind of magic and starting worshipping it, giving birth to the Fire god. Well we kissed that guy goodbye when we discovered that all you need is oxygen, and you can pretty much burn anything! One by one everything that man could not understand or could not comprehend, all he had to do was put science to work and voila! The answer would magically appear. Not to of course downplay the years and years of painstaking research that goes into such discoveries, but science has never yet failed to answer the inspired and determined researcher.

So does that mean there is no magic?? Hold your horses! Isn't the gurgling laughter of an infant magic to his mother's ears? Doesn't the sun rising over the horizon take your breath away, and put all man made works of art to shame? Why does the sight of a kitten licking its paws, or a dog jumping in pure delight on seeing its master make you smile? The idea of there actually being some impossibly talented artist having sat down one day and created this masterpiece called earth, all these fantastically varied species of living creatures and natural wonders is far easier to embrace than some impossibly incredible succession of chaotic events bringing about such beauty. Also the comfort of having someone to thank when something good happens to us, and having the solace of never being truly alone even when you have lost everything since you have GOD, makes for a compelling argument for the existence of some magical power that created our world and drives it even today.

So what is a proof required to believe something, yet totally amazed by the world around me, belonging in a loony bin atheist like me supposed to do?? My practical friend said to me, 'Dude, u have more important matters to attend to!'. So once again I am forced to come back to the real world (read boring), get a life and get busy. Sucks, but hey, at the least, I am alive, I love the world around me and I am ready to wait for the day when my questions are answered. Or so I want you to think. Umm....

Dawgs... a gift from god...

After reading a post on a website, I have been inspired enough to write a blog post about one of my favourite things, DOGS! I am not gonna tell you what awesome pets dogs are; there's enough on the net about that already and frankly speaking some of the stuff is plain weird. All those sites dedicated to cats and dogs are just a bit too much, though i do love the LOLcats.... they are hilarious! Proof lies here: http://icanhascheezburger.com/

Anyways, back from when I was barely three or four years old, I can remember there being dogs at my grandfather's house. The one i can recollect was a pomeranian named Laika. That was when I discovered what a cool friend a dog is. You can get bored of your dog, but it never gets bored of you. Yeah a dog can have people it likes more than you, but when your alone with it, it aint gonna say a word about anybody but you! Oh wait I am doing what I said I wouldn't, telling you how awesome dogs are. Sorry about that. Moving on, we got our first dog back in like '92 I think (by we I mean my parents, my sister and me). Her name was.... wait for it.... (drumroll.... )... Nicy! Yeah we didn't exactly get very creative with the naming part but the thing is, that name fit her like a glove.

She was a pure breed pomeranian and had some very illustrious pure breed parents too, if my memory serves me right. The reason the name was apt for her was because, no prizes for guessing, she was quite the sweet little soul. Some people find poms a bit unnerving because they are known to have short tempers. But this dog wouldn't harm a fly if its life depended on it. Me and my sister were as naughty and evil as any other siblings of our age, and though i am not proud of it, we went to extreme lengths to pester our dog. But that sweet thing, she took it all with barely a growl.

Even when she would meet strangers, she would maybe give a bark or two and then cozy up to them like she had known them all her life. Though this didn't make her of much use to us as a guard dog, this soon made her very popular among visitors to our place. She didn't know any fancy tricks, wasn't very disciplined and had barely any training at all. But yet she stole everyone's heart the first time she met them. Needless to say, we grew very very fond of her and loved her fiercely. She did some things she probably wasn't very proud of (like getting knocked up by street dogs, running away from home only to come back looking like she had been cleaning the gutters) and so did we (hitting her when we were in a bad mood, being lazy to take her for walks) but overall, she endeared herself to us so much that when she finally passed away in 2001, it came as a huge blow to all of us. So much so, that my mother, who had loved Nicy like a member of our family (I always wondered how she had so much love left over after giving us so much), decided never to keep a dog at home again. We were kids, we moved on, but mom had developed quite a bond, and I think she probably still misses Nicy in her own motherly way.

One of the fondest memories I have of Nicy is the way she would chase her own tail. All we had to do was touch her tail and she would spend the next five minutes chasing it around. She left an indelible mark on my character, in that she started my love affair with dogs, made me love animals and I am a true believer of the saying that if you haven't loved an animal (preferably a dog), then you haven't loved at all. For its my belief that dogs truly understand that impossible facet of love us humans find so difficult to embrace, of giving without expecting. I could go on for pages about my dog, but I would like to end this blog by saying that I hope that one day you experience that wonderful man-dog relationship too, for it can only make you a better person. Woof woof! :)

P.S. The article that inspired this love letter to dogs:

http://1000awesomethings.com/2010/04/13/528-when-your-pet-notices-youre-in-a-bad-mood-and-comes-to-see-you/