Saturday, December 17, 2011

apathy Vs antipathy

  "Today's friends are tomorrows enemies" I heard this line in one of Dr. Alban's song from the 1990s "one love". I wish to lash out with the choicest of invectives at an old friend (if 20 years is an old enough time for a 30 year old individual) for what he's been at to annihilate my relation with my girl. I thought his dad's money had not gone into his head BUT he turned out to be one unconscionable hedonistic dude. All these years I really thought that it didn't matter to him that my family wasn't as rich as his and maybe it didn't. All those years of love and understanding made their way to the sewers this year. 

  No sooner did my relation with his girlfriend's sister began a year ago, I saw a side of him I hadn't seen for twenty long years. His relation with his girlfriend didn't materialize and she got married elsewhere yet their relation continues to this day. I never infringed his personal space. I thought he banged the last nail in the coffin of our friendship by behaving inappropriately with my girl but I was wrong. When this and a few other tactics did not work, today I learnt that he's been misrepresenting the truth and maligning my family in front of his girlfriend. My parents and my sister love him most of all the friends I've ever had and he's reciprocated the same way all these years. He stooped to his lowest low by slandering about my family. I wish to face him off but I know he'd be unrepentant for his words. This behavior coming  out of a staunch believer of "karma", maybe his karma will set him right but I'm so sure that he'll never admit his fault. I cannot explain his depravity, maybe he's discontented with his life; his insatiable greed of materialism can explain this. I knew he was unconscionable but I thought he loved me way too much to let it ever affect me. Yet I fail to understand his aspersions against me.

  Of late I've begun to reflect on the importance of money like I hadn't in the past. Money is important, everyone talks about it, everyone wants it and if you don't have it, you better be prepared to be looked down upon in your circles and if you don't have a good deal of it (duh! it also depends on your circle). My closest friend slandered about me and concocted lies to malign me in an attempt to take away the one thing that I love and wish to be with forever. I thought he'd support me and be there for me; SURPRISE. He's been hurting me left, right and center; how much longer must I bear before I retaliate. 

"Never wrestle with a pig; you get dirty and besides the pig likes it." - GB Shaw


Tuesday, December 06, 2011

epitome of highheadedness

We're being governed by these gentlemen.
Today's daily says that it has been 24 hours since the incidence yet no action has been taken against the perpetrator.

Saturday, November 26, 2011

Where was I?

I hate digressing. It’s a habit I didn’t realize I had till the time I was almost 25 and I’ve been at it to remove this demon from my life. I was oblivious to the term “digress” till around that age. Yes it was the chance fortune of coming across the word in some text that the revelation occurred. Ah! Revelation; the chapter in the New Testament. There was this distant uncle, chased by the ghosts zombies of his head, who showed me some text in this chapter that described a demon coming out of the sea (I don’t remember clearly anymore). I think I was eight then and especially petrified of grotesque zombies after I happened to have watched the flick “Evil Dead –part 1”. Nightmare hath no fright like an insecure little Indian Christian boy after a horror movie. So after that, every time I held the Bible, I made sure I never even accidentally open that chapter because there sat the thing that’d make me lose my nocturnal equilibrium for days as I’d try to stop my mind from generating a graphic image of the description in vain. Ah! Equilibrium! You know it’s embarrassing how I miscalculated the Equilibrium-Unfolding data from a recent experiment and was about to send it to the bottomless pit of the “Shift-Delete” combo, till my guide looked at it changed my perspective in a second. VOILA! This was not at all trashy, I conveniently overlooked the fact that I missed the “K” in the “Kcal”. I was really embarrassed to see that 1394.95 ±135.38 looked very different from 1.4 ±0.14 but was essentially the same value divided by 1000 and rounded off! Hmmm!

Anyway, I had data that looked pretty but no clue about what it meant conceptually. “Duh! So what, it’s gonna get you a publication someday anyway” said a part of my brain but the other part resisted, and so I sat down to read about Equilibrium Unfolding (once again, sigh!). No sooner had I reached the second paragraph of the text that I came across the name of a scientist I hadn’t heard, "Anson", it said. “Surely they mean Anfinsen or something” I thought, “Who is Anson? Never heard of him”. Having said that, I’m not one who knows or puts in too much of an effort to learn about the pioneers of my fields (humph! so does that qualify me as a bad researcher?); Anson might as well be well known. It’s just that Wikipedia doesn’t say much about him unlike say Linus Pauling.

Ah! The bliss of “hyperlinks” that fuels digression to such a degree that one ends up scratching his ass when his nose itches and keeps the person perpetually itchy. I had to find out about Anson so I opened Wikipediaà Mortimer (Tim) Louis Anson (1901 – 16 October 1968); Wikipedia has neither the exact date of birth, nor a picture of this early protein scientist. This was the pioneer of protein unfolding studies that I am carrying out with my subject. Even the diminutive information that Wikipedia carries about him doesn’t stop me from being impressed. He was the founding editor of the Advances in Protein Chemistry,  which to this day is a respectable journal. He was married to a theatre artist Nina Anton who died in 1963. Funny how Wikipedia says “they had at least one daughter, Jill (Mrs. John Szarkowski)” of course there are no hyperlinks to either Jill or Nina. “At least one daughter!!” how unknown was this guy and his kids!! I now know that Tim was also a friend of Béla Viktor János Bartók (who I have no clue about either but he sure is hyperlinked). Tim also worked with Alfred Mirsky on protein unfolding studies who published a paper with Linus Pauling (who we all know) on the general theory of protein structure. Of course the famous Pauling was given the Nobel twice, one for Chemistry and the other for Peace. When I remember all my chemistry teachers, I am absolutely befuddled to think how someone who has studied chemistry could be nice enough to win a Nobel Peace Prize; he sure must’ve been different. Anyway, let's not digress and stick to Anson. Here’s an excerpt from his Wiki-page
Anson was haunted by the suffering caused in the underdeveloped world by poor nutrition, and in 1942, left a prestigious research position at the Rockefeller Institute to investigate biochemical and genetic methods for improving the nutrition of foods, e.g., amino acid fortification.”

He also worked with the Nobel laureate John Northrop, whose father died in a lab explosion two weeks before he was born. Awful! What misery afflicts great scientists…some even before they’re born. I guess that’s what makes them go out hunting for the “reasons”.
What can you say, Tim died in 1968. I think he actually realized how miserable the world was and that broke his heart…thrice. Yes, the third heart-attack took him out.

Anyway, I was talking about digression. It’s a bad habit and one I think I’m done with. Then I also read this word “misconception” somewhere but I knew that word way before I knew “digression”. Also I longed for someone to read bedtime stories to me but barring two (that my mom did), I was always left in the lurch, so I guess I learned a thing or two about weaving yarns myself. What’s that word…”autodidact”. Thank you for your attention.

Thursday, October 27, 2011

I wonder


  Dad got admitted to Fortis for his intestinal polyp removal procedure. It was maddening in the morning, I almost picked up a fight with him. I'm way too impatient with him at times but somehow truce prevailed. According to the plan I was just gonna go to the hospital to pick ma and drop her back to her workplace once my dad had finished all the work and had been admitted but seeing that he was a bit tensed about the whole act of driving down with my mother to withdraw money, go to the hospital and getting admitted was getting to him so I felt I should chip in and help a little more than the plan. I returned home and drove them to the bank, the hospital and was with them throughout till he was admitted and allocated a room.

  I thought of taking ma to Cafe Coffee Day inside the hospital premises. A group of people occupied a table across us; rather rich looking people. Ma said that she probably recognized the two ladies sitting there and I just passed it off with a rather silly comment "ma when they get that rich, they all start looking the same". Yet after a while one of the ladies, tall with short hair, walked up to our table and greeted my ma. Stunned, I got up and smiled at her, ma told me she was Ms. Shehnaz, Col. Judge's daughter. Soon the other lady joined in too, her name was Nagina. "Ah! Nagina...Nagina Waters, Col. Judge's famous daughter. She never forgot to send my dad and his family a greeting card on Christmas all these years." I recollected.

  So I finally meet the lady. They asked us what brought us there and I told them about dad's procedure. They were very concerned and asked if it was serious, I told them that it wasn't. They treated us like family, we chatted for a while and they told us that Col. Judge was on the ventilator. He is 95 and was doing well till the time his wife expired two years ago, after which his health started to wane but of late he stopped eating, his immunity went down and he had fungal infection in his respiratory tract!!

  Every time come across someone old and ailing, i wonder what they must feel like. I wonder if they surrender to the fact that their end is near. I think of the trauma my father underwent three and a half years ago and I wonder what he would've felt like when at the age of 63, a loaded bus ran over his toes. You spend 63 years of your life without facing a similar situation and you probably take it all for granted, then one day while getting off a bus your shirt gets caught up in some hook on the bus and the wheel runs over your toes, smashing them and tearing off your whole sole.

  We take it all for granted, something like could happen to any of us, yet many of us do not appreciate our good health and fortunes. Well maybe we do, I guess that's why they celebrate Thanksgiving, thanking the almighty for keeping them save or at least alive. I wonder what one sees in a lifetime, carefree childhood, atrocious adolescence, tantalizing twenties, tenacious thirties....I dunno what follows. At my age, I just know that I can't make sense of life, I'm really curious to know what a nonagenarian like Col. Judge makes of it. He's rich, yet in his nineties with a frail body, I wish to know what exactly he's thinking, I wish to know if he thinks if being born a human, with all the conscience and analytical brain that we have, was really worth it, despite all the powers that we possesses (or maybe we think we possess). Or maybe it's a peaceful feeling.

Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Renew!

I’ve remembered all this so many times but today, on your birthday, I’ll remember those moments again starting with when you walked into the room on that second last day of December last year twisted my world for those few hours, to the sweet emails we exchanged, to the awkward conversations we had, to the times we were disappointed in each other, to the time it ceased to matter, to the time alcohol resuscitated the last breaths of ‘you and me’, to the time there was neither you nor me but ‘us’. You’re always near coz "you’re deep inside me somewhere”.
Time or chance or god, whatever it may be, I thank it to have met you. Many many happy returns of the day Love.
I love you.
A zillion hugs and kisses to my baby.

Wednesday, August 17, 2011

stalemate or checkmate


There's something about asking and doing the 'obvious'. I say so in a negative connotation. I dislike politics but cannot and should not refrain from being aware of its status-quo. I believe that we, as Indian citizens, when wer'e standing in front of the EVM, have a choice of pressing the button that'll either elect a looter or murderer or rioter. From the left-in-the-lurch left-wingers to the kill-em-all right-wingers and everything in between, vote choices generally runs in families with parents insinuating their children early-on and tipping the balance just that bit in favour of the party they favour such that by the time their conscience develops, it's already crooked in some way. So we, the children of India, know who to vote for when it's time to exercise our suffrage, not because of our own congnisance but because of the prejudices injected in us early on; unfortunately not all children are equal. The last time I cast my vote, I went in like a pre-programmed robot, poked the button I was expected to. However I refuse to take the blame because if I start to talk about expectations, it's not so much about having a the right to various freedoms as it is about 'self-preservation'.

So what was the Government thinking while sending Anna Hazare to jail? Obviously it wasn't thinking about the 'obvious' repercussions. What made the Government think that the people were gonna support it despite all the exposés of the corruption inside, its inability to mitigate the ever rising prices of commodities stabbing the common man in the back. Ok the common man of the city today is not the common man of the yester-years but there's another category of the common man that doesn't meet the eye, the common-man all around us, one who is less privileged and invisible to the 'more fortunate' common man commuting in the cool micro-environment of his car. While the rising fuel prices may not affect all the vehicle owners equally, we all have a right to complain in an egalitarian society. So the common man from every walk of life is on the streets, raising voices in unison, in support of, possibly the only, 'clean' man alive in our country. At times I feel it's just fashionable for most upbeat, well-to-do middle class citizens to do this. After all the whole world is up to it, some of it has got to rub off on us. It's been a year of public display of outrage and overturned governments around the world.

However any amount of hog-wash or even the absence of it, cannot wipe the smirk off my face when I think of the UPA and say "what were you thinking?"

*********************************************



Thursday, August 11, 2011

tranquil tempest

My head's dizzy and I'm experiencing a deja vu. I can differentiate neither right from left nor right from wrong, I just feel like this has happened before, this very moment of mental disarray, this moment that I'm punching on the keyboard and watching myself from somewhere up above.

And yet, an uncanny sense of calm prevails over me even as I am right in the very middle of this storm that I can make no sense of. I feel like I'll be able to recognize all these whirling, ominous projectiles all around me if I only concentrate to discern them one by one but I do not wish to, I'll just let them whiz around.

In the past such a sensation used to perplex me, now I just choose to be peaceful.

Wednesday, August 10, 2011

GM revisted

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MD3rxYFTjSM&feature=related

George Michael's is one of my most favourite singers and composers despite the reservation that some of my friends have for him. I love his voice and classics like Careless Whispers, Last Christmas, Faith and so many more will last forever. Here's one from the 1990s. I loved all the songs of this compilation called Ladies and Gentlemen. I loved this song for it's soothing music and it's honest lyrics and of course for Michael's voice.
Originally neither written or sung by GM, his voice has still done justice to the song.


Turn down the lights, turn down the bed
Turn down these voices inside my head
Lay down with me, tell me no lies
Just hold me close, don't patronize
Don't patronize me

'Cause I can't make you love me If you don't
You can't make your heart feel something it won't
Here in the dark in these final hours
I will lay down my heart, and I'll feel the power
But you won't, no you won't
And I can't make you love me
If you don't

I'll close my eyes and then I won't see
The love you do not feel, when you're holding me
Morning will come, and I'll do what's right
Just give me till then, to give up this fight
And I will give up this fight

And I can't make you love me if you don't
You can't make your heart feel something it won't
And here in the dark in these final hours
I will lay down my heart and I'll feel the power
But you won't, no, you won't
And I can't make you love me
If you don't

Ain't no use in you trying
It's no good for me baby without love
All my tears, all these years, everything I believed in
Baby
Oh yeah
Someone's gonna love me

Tuesday, August 09, 2011

Read something really interesting after a very long time.

http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/A0dOuN/www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2011/08/15/110815crat_atlarge_wood

Tuesday, August 02, 2011

crap

One of my colleagues asked me the trite question “why’re we here in this world?”
She’s been depressed about her boyfriend suffering from a terminal pancreatic cancer. For some reason I don’t buy his story, I think that he’s just trying to lose her the easy way i.e. tell her that he doesn’t have a choice and he loves her but for her the sake of her life, he’s giving up on the relation. However given any chance of that concoction being true, I’m truly sad for the both of them. She’s now contemplating becoming a brahma-kumari (nun) and this question seemed to me like her initial footsteps in the same direction. I was in the middle of work and therefore it was the worst time for someone to initiate a conversation with me. A strange habit has developed in our lab that I observed only last year. If someone wishes to talk to you, they will talk to you irrespective of your unwillingness to respond to their…’advances’ if you will. Every once in a while someone in the lab is marching around like a bull drenched in testosterone, ready to shove the phallus of logorrhea into your ears. Life of a scientific staff can be as bad as that of someone in another profession, only that at our workplace the friendship between colleagues are a tad bit deeper and therefore people tend to step over your shoes at times.
I looked at her morose face, controlled my temper, took three deep breaths—which unfortunately made her feel that I was empathizing—looked at her and said “I think that question has remained unanswered for millennia and the day it is answered, it’ll be the headline of every daily so don’t worry about it. Now that you are here in this world without a personal choice, think of what you can do with this life while you’re alive because everyone of us will die one day.”
“I have nothing to do.” She said
“Then die” I quipped
“Get me some poison” she said
“Take it, the lab of full of all forms of them and you have a choice of a slow painful death and a quick one, don’t get my hands dirty, pick them yourself” I replied smiling. She realized that I wasn’t game to play daddy. I feel sorry for her but of late she’s been acting weird, she’s doing all that she can to gain sympathy and also the opposite, which makes me wonder if she’s gone mad.
Then another colleague of mine, who is experiencing attraction and love for the first time in her life and hovers around me for advices. Owing to work stress, I’ve not been in the best of moods lately and am a bit volatile. The million questions about what to do and whether what she’s doing is right or what other way can it be done to mitigate a possible damage only sap my already waning energy. At times I feel like I’m being raped.
  • Unlike messaging, he dislikes talking much on the phone which is quite unlike me. You know we don’t have much to talk on the phone, we keep saying the phrase ‘and what else…’ and don’t have anything to say. I think it’s ok to mail and message, you know I am so impressed with his tech-blog and he’s such an expert in his field. He’s been in this field for the past 10 years and has also worked with a scientist in IISc Bangalore on micro-electronics. So I asked him if he wished to pursue further education and he said he wished to do a PhD…my my..I was so impressed. You know he’s done MTech from BITS Pilani. Then I asked him what field he wanted to do his PhD in, he said Management! I was surprised that being such a tech freak he wished to get into business administration but what the heck, the monetary benefits might be interesting. You know he says he doesn’t believe in caste or religion he just wants someone down to earth the he can settle down with. He doesn’t live with his parents and when I asked him why he said that he doesn’t get along with them because they’re very orthodox. I think he’s sweet but he looks so skinny, I dunno if I’m being nasty here. But what the heck, I think he’s nice. I think I should get to know him and just be friends.” She said all that and much more while I had my back towards her face and was concentrating on pipetting out 33.3 microliters of APS solution and adding it to the PAGE solution, convinced that all the noise emanating from the back would definitely screw up something in my work.

“You talking to me?” I inquired as I turned my head around
“Well of course I am” she said, visibly offended “Who else do you think I’d be talking to you standing this close to you and looking at you?”
“Ah! This is not the best time…” I said sounding very tired…I was.
“Well then you really need to take time and hear me out today. A cup of tea when you’re free?” She asked.
“Yeah yeah sure.” I continued doing my work and avoided her for the rest of the day.
I went out of the lab and bumped into my worst nightmare, a guy from another lab who’s totally depressed these days owing to his girl ditching him after going to the US. I’ve counseled him months and have lately realized that it’s taking a toll on my mind.
“Howdy bro? You know she still didn’t reply to my email but she’s been checking them all regularly” he said almost blocking my way.
“What can you do bro!! Just wait” I replied, praying the earth would swallow him from in front of my eyes.
“Na what do you say, shall I send her one more email?” he asked
“If you feel like.” I replied smiling
“Or shall I wait?” he asked
“I think that’d be better.” I said
“What do you suggest?”
“I just did; wait”
“How long do I wait?”
I wanted to say this “till she finds a suitable NRI to live her life with and then you can move on.” But that would’ve made him cry so I said “I dunno, maybe a week, month…till however long you can wait comfortably.”
“Shall I wait till my B’day?” He asked
“Yeah sure. See if she wishes you. If she doesn’t, you have your answer” I said having no clue about when his b’day falls.
“ok man, you know I’m just writhing in this pain of separation and look at that woman, she’s unaffected.”
“Man had you gone to the US, you might have done the same to her…and then you would’ve known. But if what you both have is true, she will come around, give her time.” I said
“How long?” he asked
Now I really wanted to cry and howl our “Go fuck yourself you loser, get a blue movie and shag…get a whore if you’re desperate for god’s sake but let me go my way.”…But I took three deep breaths and said “Wait till your b’day man.” And I walked on.
“You’re right bro” he said smiling, giving me a thumbs up.
By evening, I was dead tired after an intense argument with my boss, my mind was confused and I was irritable. So I sat on a chair in a corner of a corridor where they’ve kept a table and a few chairs next to a glass door for people to ease out if they wish to. The constant hum of the incubators motor sounded like a sweet lullaby and I dozed off.
“KOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO”
I sprang up, scared out of my wits, only to find my junior laughing after she saw my reaction to her screaming into my ear while I was sleeping. I seriously wanted to give her a piece of my mind but saw the happiness that she’d derived out of this antic and just let her be.
“So even you’re scared of something Jesse sir” She said
“I’m scared of a lot of things” I said directing the pun at ‘unwanted conversations’
“Oh! So you just look big but really have a mouse’s heart.” She retorted and pissed me off further.
“yeah, you’re right. You should’ve been an x-ray machine, what are you doing in a human form?” I said with a dry laugh as I got up to walk back to my lab.
“good luck” I said
“What for?” She asked
“For your survival when I take my revenge” I said walking away with heavy sleepy footsteps
I’m back in my four walls, I’m still dizzy and frizzy but I’m safe now.

Monday, July 25, 2011

TT

I'd heard "Lies lies lies" by the Thompson Twins when I was a kid. It was in one of the two cassettes titled "Disco 83" and "Disco Festival 83". The beats were catchy except the queer way in which a girl laughs some where in the beginning of the song, something that my elder sister found hideous, I didn't mind it too much. I can't recall how many times I must have heard this song after I grew up, maybe once or twice on MTV rewind or a similar program on Channel [V] and that too must have been in the early 1990s. So it was definitely a surprise when I found myself sitting down on the internet a few days ago searching of the song on youtube. I didn't remember the name of the group that sang it and found that it was the Thompson Twins. This got me interested in knowing a little more about them. Enter Wikipedia; there were no twins in the Thompson Twins, in fact to my surprise this British group was named after the Thompson and Thompson of Tintin Comics. Wiki listed a number of member of the group but the primary three were Tom Bailey, Alannah Currie, Joe Leeway. The first was the lead singer, a Briton, the second a lady from New Zealand and the third was a guy with an Irish mother and a Nigerian father. The last explained the light-skinned Afro guy in the video. I read that they shot into fame with their two songs "lies, lies, lies". The group's history made for a great read on Wikipedia, especially the way in which Tom and Allanah got to know each other.

This got me curious about their other songs but the very first I heard hence got me seriously hooked to it, I loved it from the first beat. Another catchy techno number albeit a slow one unlike 'Lies, lies lies'

The lyrics are nice as well. Following are the lyrics with the link to the song in the end.


I have a picture,
pinned to my wall.
An image of you and of me and we're laughing and loving it all.
Look at our life now, tattered and torn.
We fuss and we fight and delight in the tears that we cry until dawn

Hold me now, warm my heart
stay with me, let loving start (let loving start)

You say I'm a dreamer, we're two of a kind
Both of us searching for some perfect world we know we'll never find
So perhaps I should leave here, yeah yeah go far away
But you know that theres no where that I'd rather be than with you here today

You ask if I love you, well what can I say?
You know that I do and if this is just one of those games that we play
So I'll sing you a new song, please don't cry anymore
and then I'll ask your forgiveness, though I don't know just what I'm asking it for

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SpZ9gEKBoYI

Sunday, July 24, 2011

The shot and the hot

I paused at the beautiful sound of Church choir singing while surfing the TV channels, taking a break from the usual blood and gore of Animal Planet. Funny how the church choir always sound so familiar and ‘similar’ irrespective of the language of the hymns. Then the conductor went into hyper activity but the choir’s voice raised slowly, melody that made the hair on my body stand up. It was beautiful as it was mildly haunting, I wish I could record it and listen to it. While the camera captured the view of the hall from the ceiling, the painted glass windows, the white walls, the high ceiling, the long arched windows lighting up the whole place. It was a soothing sight only if you managed to overlook some of the people in the congregation weeping and turn a blind eye to the title displayed underneath; this was the Reuters relayed “Mass for Sadness and Hope” on the CNN and the BBC 11:00am Oslo time.

The Norwegians insist that this not be referred to as a memorial service but a “mass” as there were people who were still missing at the Utoya island and maybe even alive. A solemn Bishop Kvarme spoke for a while, followed by a speech by a lady, possibly someone at a high position in the church. The twin tragedy of an otherwise peaceful Norway has shocked the world. There was an explosion in government headquarters and then the killings at the Utoya island where a government youth group had gathered. At first one wonders why someone would kill nearly a 100 odd teenagers. The answer is not difficult to understand; ideological differences. The guy was against the multi-culture favourism of the present Norway government. We’re never far away from such right-wing bigots. From what I read of it in the papers, the killer, ___ is a right-wing activist and otherwise seemed like a decent, ‘well-dressed’, ‘well-educated’ person and doesn’t have any history of violence. My faith in the adage “don’t judge a book by its cover” stands reaffirmed and in the same vein, “a man by his clothes or his appearance or his charm” as they said ages ago “appearances are often deceptive”; the mind stands above all.

They say that the macabre he’s responsible for was carried out in cold-blood over a period of an hour and a half. He was dressed as a policeman and called out to the fleeing people to come to him, telling them that he was there to help them. The teenagers, confused in the panic about where the bullets were coming from, rushed to him and he calmly raised his gun and shot them down. He used this strategy again and again. There was nowhere to hide. People who tried escaping by jumping into river to swim away were also shot dead. A few that escaped after they went into hiding narrated how the killer kept roaming around calmly calling out to people who were hiding, confidently and calmly killing those he saw.

What causes people to get so possessed, we know of similar thing that happened in the holocaust in Germany, in form of atrocities on blacks in South Africa (and now on the whites there), in the form of communal violence and acts of terrorism that have and still rock our nation every now and then. We have right-wingers sitting in the parliament, some of them educated from the top universities in the world, where they arm themselves with the guns of wisdom-of-the-world and start their subliminal insinuations of hate in the mind of the common man, gradually making them pawns of their agenda. The ferocity with which the Communal Violence Act is being opposed speaks volumes of our leaders. Having taken lessons from the past, the Act is centered on “punishing officials” who do not carry out their duties of taking measures to protect the innocent amongst the minorities who are targeted in pogroms and to bring unbiased, speedy justice for the victims. No religion whatsoever has promoted the spirit of brotherhood despite false claims from all sides. We all still brew hatred for each other in the name of religion, caste and region in this modern era of a hog-wash that we call “progress”.

Meantime thought it better to switch back to watching the blood and gore of Nat-Geo Wild Channel, which is less grotesque that the filth of man.

By the way, Amy Winehouse died at 27 years of age the day before. This is about the only space I can allocate for her on this post, which is a little more in proportion than what The Tribune allocated for this news in some godforsaken middle page. I liked her and after winning 5 Grammys in one night, everyone always thought she’d go down amongst the legends of music as the decades pass. Sadly, drugs and alcohol got the better of her. No one knows yet how she died, as I type this, her body is probably being cut open and her internal organs, being removed and sampled for the cause of death. We’ll soon know why she died but then again, how does it matter anymore! But right now, the question tickling my mind is this “What the hell do these docs who carry out autopsies think when they see celebrities in all their glory on the screen?”

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

Friar

Happy B'day Mendel

Click on the title to read about Mendel.

Friday, July 08, 2011

Rid(dl)er

These streetlights pass over me one by one, the light of one illuminating me for a second before shoving me into the arms of the next one while the darkness caresses me in between. The ride’s a lot like life, darkness with its ecstasies of utopia, followed by the blinding lights of reality. You pass through these intermittent phases as the wheels keep rolling and you look at your watch for the one thing that never stops, even if you do, time. It’s your will to trudge on or swiftly glide, the watch won’t stop or even if it does, you’ll just replace the batteries and twist the arms back to calibrate it with the seconds, minutes, hours or days that passed while it wasn’t ticking but that didn’t cease your locomotion towards the end, the ultimate end, from where everyone wishes to have a new beginning in the form of eternal life or rebirth, hoping they’d get to see some more of what they experience now and the way they experience it now. But now that they have it, they spend it complaining about what they don’t have while they still have the biggest thing they can have, life.
You can always turn and ride back to where you came from, you’ll find that place wasn’t the way you left it, you’ll search for the ones you left behind but you’ll find out that they turned some direction and rode-on their way and while you hang your head for a while, you slowly realize that the clock is still ticking and you need to make your journey, find your reasons and paint your rainbow in the black of the night while there’s still some rubber left on the wheels and roll back on your own road. The wind dries your eyes but the tears bring relief, sometime you take-off the helmet to feel wind on your face, to feel that speed of life but at other times the drag on your chest threatens to squeeze your breath-out so you slow down and gaze at that confounded time-machine that only tell about the present and is mute about the past or future. Then you wonder if that’s what it’s all about. You also wonder what you can do with the contraption on your wrist, maybe you can set goals by it. You never know when it’ll be buried with you, it could be in 30 years, it could be in 30 seconds but you can live by it. So while today you ride on this ground, one day you’ll be six feet under. Who'll remember? maybe it’s about the miles you traverse, the landmarks you cross and most importantly the landmarks that you create.

Thursday, June 30, 2011

Here

I feel like I'll turn & see you sitting behind me but I won't turn coz I know you won't be there. I, so cleary remember watchin you by the candlelight, playing with the flames and then settling down beside it, quietly looking at me and for a change your eyes not probing my face for signs of deception but just looking at me, calmly with a serene confidence, telling me that you trusted me and that you weren't judging me. The flame flickered but your eyes, they were unblinking, you hypnotized me. I could've kept looking into your eyes through the night. I'm glad I got out of the spell and sat beside you.
Reality takes over as time passes and memories fade. The candle lies yonder but there's no flame. I won't turn around for I know you're not there but then again you needn't be, you're deep inside me somewhere.

Tuesday, June 28, 2011

You and I

I feared going to Mcleodganj again lest it brought back memories and broke me down like what happened a couple of times I cross those familiar paths again. I didn't say much because the others were interested in going there and I was familiar with the place and liked it. What I feared was a relapse into the fever of the past. I was apprehensive on the way towards it...and then 'You' happened to me.
I couldn't have asked for anything better, you gently erased all those memories without me ever realizing. I felt all the things I thought I'd never feel again and much more that I'd never felt before. How will I ever thank you for this.

I hear it, now you hear me.

There are sounds that are totally inaudible. The one above the human audible range is termed the ultrasound. Ultrasound, a technology used in Sonography, a word that literally translates to imaging using sound. It's a safe technique to look into our bodies to detech anomalies and even see a foetus developing in a womb. It's also used to detect the gender of the child. Of course there's good reason for the ban of sonographs in India for detecting foetus gender. We're a nation of brazen, shameless people who consider a female child a burden. That brings us to the social evil of Dowry. Cash and kind paid to the bridegroom by the girl's parents. I've seen an air of pride in the "groom's side" in many a marriage I've attended and therefore ended up feeling so sick I never bothered to know the other details of the things involved in the process. Knowlege-base goes up to close relatives of the groom waiting to see blood on bedsheets the morning after the first night for it signifies that the woman was virgin. Personally, the word sounds derogatory and fit only to be used with olive oil. Such stories of butchery I've heard with my own ears from the people of the families involved in such acts. It numbed me like it did on every occasion that I hear such stuff.
Therefore for many of us Indians, birth of a girl signifies foreseeable trouble. Firstly to control her enough so that she doesn't find out much about her own body only to let her find out everything at the hands of a butcher on the first night. Strangely in our society if a girl and boy are "caught" by the members of our Moral Police in a compromising situation, it's the girls family that faces shame way more than the boy's. On such occasions I've seen that the first thing that parents and relatives start to fret about it "Ab iski shaadi kaise hogi". Secondly it's a lot about dowry in every place in India barring a few places in the East. I've heard people talk about dowry the moment a girl is born, I do not know why they never did away with it all these centuries, maybe because there was always a balance of a girl and a boy in the family so if you were giving to your daughter, you were also receiving from your daughter-in-law. This only underscores the extremes of materialism in our mindset where single everything, be it career or spouse, is chosen according to financial gain at hand, interests, passion and love take a backseat (if present at all or even subliminally and systematically erased by parents, like what happened in my case). Being a girl in our system is tough. Many of the people who opress their daughters and rob them of their freedom can be seen letching at girls, their daughters age or even younger, in public places, a few bastards even indulge in eve-teasing. Old men, middle-aged men, boys, they all do it and they do it with brazen shamelessness for this is a patriarchal society and males mostly do as they please. I've been eye-witness to many such incidences.
So I repeat, being a girl is tough here, you don't have much freedom, you've got amorous eyes gawking at you all the time, you move around in places where men will violate you given the first chance, then you have to steer clear of prying eyes if you happen to be in a relation with a guy, then you're required to marry according to your parent's wishes (which translates to the society's wishes)and bear the burden of the thought that the very people responsible for your birth are now paying through their noses to send you to greedy bastards with whom you'll spend the rest of your life, maybe loving them after accepting it all as societal norm and in turn, gradually turning into one of them.
Sure so people started to find ways of obliterating this burden of having a female child by getting sex-determination done on the foetus and killing it in case it happened to be a girl. There are absolutely no compunctions about this. Apparently they just remove the female foetus and throw it and the reports are grotesqueness and appalling. There are reports of dogs fighting over discarded female foetuses, of them being thrown in bins and drains (http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2010-11-10/lucknow/28243288_1_foetus-hospital-authorities-hospital-administration, http://ibnlive.in.com/news/5th-female-foetus-found-in-udaipur/20653-3.html, http://zeenews.india.com/news/maharashtra/maharashtra-one-more-female-foetus-found_713636.html, http://news.oneindia.in/2011/06/11/female-foetuses-found-maharashtra-beed-sex-ratio-girl-aid0101.html, http://www.gendercide.org/case_infanticide.html)
So the government cracked down on sonographs and confiscated them from private clinics to prevent sex determination by the male-crazy Indian families.
But the latest news has truly shocked me out of my wits (http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/article2137959.ece). Now parents are getting sex-change surgeries performed on their daughters and turning them into boys despite knowing the fact that they'll be infertile as men. This has to one of the most heinous crimes ever. The procedure goes on to create a phallus using female genital tissue! What's the craze in this phallus-crazy nation, we literally worship it. Now they're out to wipe the entire womankind. Don't they love their mothers? Don't they have sisters? Don't they have wives...did they ever fall in love? Don't they every think how their lives would be without these women...Possibly not. We're living amongst monsters who can do this to their own children. And these are doctors who took a fuckin hippocratic oath and then shoved it up their asses and shitted it all out the next day. These people should have their medical license stripped and should be jailed for life. I cannot understand a mindset like that, all I know is that I don't wish to share my surroundings and live in the vicinity of people like those....I'm outta here man!

Monday, June 27, 2011

Will-miracle

For us there's no tomorrow, well, is there? Branded renegades, we live by instincts we sure are distinct. We love like there's nothing else to this life, there's other stuff to do as well and we don't shy away from strife. We walk through life, wayfarers, misnamed philanderers. Still learning to live, still relearning everything. Followers of logic, believers of love, we walk with a deep faith in miracles of will.

Rushed

It's a quarter past nine
seems like nothing's mine
mad rush to my workplace
making way through a maze
someday I'll be on time
but I really wonder when
By the time I start work
It's already quarter to ten
I'm tired already it's just eleven
Wishin there was someway
to peep into Heaven
I sigh for a while
cause I've got nothing to say
And so by quarter to twelve
reality calls me back
and hands me the golden rule
If you Love like a madman
you must work like a mule
Cause it's all about balance
Even if there's a raging passion
let me veil it by nonchalance
By one I'm geared up and ready
gotta speed through life
and yet be steady
Two, three, four, five
All pass by in a happy jive
Must work, must plan
must get things done
n' while I'm alive,
Can't lose hope, life is fun
someone somewhere's waiting
torn between the love n' hating
n' we'll flock together
like birds of a feather
Six seven eight nine ten
Waiting for you love
how why when
I can't say but surely
I'll be happy again

Sunday, June 26, 2011

convenient abbreviations

Guys remember the ol' Orkut days when people used to write testimonials for each other and it was cute till one day I read something that totally baffled me.
One lady unwittingly punched these words on a friend's scrapbook (who also happened to be a girl), "I love your testis" and got me wondering "heck!! she sure looks feminine."
It took a coulpla minutes to realize she was referring to her style of writing testimonials but wtf...one should think twice before forming convenient abbreviations.

Saturday, May 28, 2011

Dear friend, you cost me dear
How much more, that's what I fear.

Tuesday, May 03, 2011

"Id"iocy

Well it's been a long time since I wrote a post. Some say that the urge to write is generally spawned by an event that stands out and stares you in the face. It could even be a mundane thing but if for some reason it suddenly pops up and you observe it with new eyes and say "hey I never thought about this that way", it generally is the trigger for many to write. Pros though should be able to write at any time. I'm neither an amateur nor a pro, and definitely going insane and today as a respite to this feeling, I'm hammering at the keyboard.

It's been a week (or probably much longer) since I've been in the "sick of everything" mood, losing my temper at everything, drinking frequently, putting on fat and living in a sty of a room that I just can't get myself motivated enough to clean. Like my room, my bed-sheet is dirty and almost disintegrating but I'm just looking at it and thinking of it as my own self.

For the past few days I was waking up with weird thoughts in my head; thoughts that I too will die, like my parents will, for that matter like everybody will. Thoughts that were absolutely disorientating me and making me frustrated about the very truth of being born. I have been socializing but inside, I've drawn myself into a cocoon. I do not wish to talk to anyone, I do not wish to explain myself to anyone, I do not wish to

As if things weren't already bad enough, I've been suffering from a bit of a compulsive disorder to search for digicams. It has totally possessed me and tonight, after many, I shall refrain from reading more about the best high-end P&S and entry-level DSLRs. It's manic, it's adversely affecting my work, my sleep, my food, my exercise; all I think about, dream about and want to talk about is DCs. I'd love to fill up paragraphs and paragraphs on the massive buildup of the already existing knowledge for I believe that it'll fuel my passion further, something that I'm already smoldering in. When I'd had enough of reading on websites (and watching on youtube), the comparisons and reviews, today I felt it was time to go to the shops and tally the price difference from what's mentioned on the websites. I resisted, thinking that I was being crazy and totally losing it so I headed instead to the gym where I jogged and exercised for half an hour. When I came out, I started the bike and headed for Sec-22, it was 9:00pm. I break the mania. Before I knew it I found myself standing in front of an almost empty and dark market and just a few shops were open, nearing shut-down. I ran into all of them and inquired about the prices of a few models that I wanted. Now I know that at Rs 24K, I can buy Nikon P7000 but will need to wait for P300 and don’t know if I can afford Canon G12 at 30K and Canon 550D DSLR at 35K, only time will tell; time will tell in the form of money that will come in the form of arrears.

It was mom’s birthday yesterday. We went over to the Rekhis and celebrated it along with Riti’s and Ritika’s b’day that happens to fall on 2nd May as well. Mom for the first time went to visit Amritsar on a two day trip with her colleagues. Dad thinks it’s still not time for both of them to travel and visit all the places they never did. Drunk, I almost shouted at him “If it’s still not time, it never will be.”; I was ill-tempered and cocky as usual. The date will forever be etched in history books for Osama Bin Laden was taken down by the US forces in a covert operation, 50 kms from Pakistan unbeknown (or so they say) to the Pakistani government or it’s forces. My boss, who is usually all praises for America, or at times a loud critic, today was walking around the institute insinuating the minds of lower grade employees and the students that America was bossing the world and what she was doing was terrorism itself. At times I feel he’s not just a harmless gossipmonger but a strategist, an Indian right-wing extremist subtly and intentionally sowing the seeds of hatred in the minds of people around him. Since he’s educated and cannot cut out a non-secular figure in a research institute, he has other ways of carrying out his job. The other day after returning from Bombay he covertly praised the Shiv Sena. He took the cover of Muslim dominated favelas in Bombay hoisting the Pakistani flag. While the act is rightfully condemnable, it doesn’t justify the acts of the SS who’ve done nothing for national integrity themselves, rather in just the opposite, dividing fellow Indians on the basis of religion, and regions and carrying out pogroms. I was too stunned back then to say anything, Today I launched a spontaneous counter attack, not because I have any special love for America which is but a great foreign nation to me but because I wanted to stop him in his track from insinuating our minds with his sleazy brainchild. I quipped that if America’s action are terroristic then even ours were at the time of the freedom struggle. This was a weak point that he quickly nailed by saying that we were doing it to free our own nation from the foreigners. My next point was a headshot and ended the argument. I told him that it’s great for American’s to be born in that country where, when they were attacked, they left no stone unturned to get one person from the whole world and end his existence. It wasn’t like us that we were attacked, managed to capture the terrorist and were feeding him kebabs in jail while he smirked at the cameras and pissed on our faces. Of course I was talking about Ajmal Kasab.

Saturday, April 16, 2011

bon voyage

My protein prep’s getting screwed for the past more than a week. It did so again today and the frustration was immense. I didn’t feel like doing anything yet pined to do something that would take my mind off the failure and give me a sense of relief that there was more to life that would recharge me to take the bull by the horns the next day. At 8:15pm I wanted to go back home and thought it would be better to go back and tidy up the mess of a room I had created; a constant reminder that something wasn’t right in my life and I had no control. I wake up in a mess and go to bed in a mess just to remind myself constantly that I am not taking charge of my life yet. I know the day I clean up the room is the day I take on the problems at work as well. It’s funny how I’ve gotten into this habit of subliminal reminders about taking control of life. Anyway, just when I was planning to go back home, I thought I’d say hi to Anuj as it’s one of his last days at IMTECH. No sooner had I reached the hostel, I saw Mirage and Balot accompanying Anuj and the rest is history. It was Anuj, Balot, Mirage, Surendra and I, lots of peanuts, some boiled eggs, some other stuff, Kellog’s chocos (I love munching on them) and a bottle of Aniquity. We ended up having one the most fun times ever. It was when I bid goodbye, when the effect of alcohol was dwindled off my nerves when I hugged Anuj goodbye to leave for home that I realized that this was probably the last time in a long time that we’d get to sit over a drink like this. Emotions came over me and suddenly all the times since January 2006 flashed by. We’ve known each other for a while now and all the great times we’ve shared will be one of the finest memories I’ve had with my guy friends. The alcohol concentration in my blood was milder but not finished. As I rode out, I decided I wasn’t gonna wear the helmet and feel the wind on my balding head and on my face throughout the way. It was awesome as I cruised at low speed on the straight roads, only slowing a bit on the roundabouts. There were some stretched where the air was cold, the wind raced into my shirt and enveloped my in cold, chest, back, hands, all. I was thankful when this cold stretch ended and the tepid wind no longer made me feel lonely. The street lights passed over like bright stars. I was riding with just one hand, the other resting on my thigh. The strong wind made my eyes water but it felt nice. I enjoyed the ride that got over pretty quickly. Loved being alone and hated the thought of being attached to another degree after this.
Here I am back in the messy room, my laptop adjusted between the clothes sprayed on the table, telling me that I need to take control; a disconcerting thought that tells me this second just passed me by without me having taken any control of my life in it.

Thursday, April 07, 2011

Nightmare

********************************************
* I watch this moment pass me by *
* I'm lost somewhere, wishing I could fly *
* Living through days that move so fast *
* So fast that nothing they promise *
* ever really lasts *
* I surrender to the ephemerality *
* that first takes me to eternity, *
* But lasts for seconds in reality *
* What’s perpetual, are these *
* inopportune opportunities *
* And these lovers of vanities *
* Planted here by the devil himself *
* Must I stay with these annoyances *
* Mysteriously glued here, I detest *
* the sights, sounds and sensations *
* Hang my head and bear the vexation *
* That’s repulsive but still a temptation *
********************************************

Sunday, March 27, 2011

Rendition

Part of me
I never knew
friends I had
I had but few
A year hence
I have less hair
but life's moving
on top gear
playing life's act
that sounds like fiction
way more than fact
This is My rendition
of this script
of these nondescript
stories from the crypt
Hanged to death n
sliced in the gulliton
Disparged by you
dispised by everyone
I cried nearly drowned
no one tugged at
this outstretched hand
This is my stage
I'm the prodigal son
and yet I am the sage
This is my rendition
of the misadventure
that I did but then didn't
share with anyone
I had love but
i held too tight
what I love
is a shadow
in a dark night
What I aim
is a world away
What I adore is
an ingrate I'd say
I see my reality
finally the way
I wish to
This is my life
my rendition
I'm the hero
I am the audience
to my own rules
I bow in obedience

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

unrest inside

tonight
avoid proclivity
tonight
I yearn serenity
Do cease this dirge
what mental scourge
I wish not
to hear any words

A silence, heavenly
neither ticks of clocks
nor barking dogs
keep them all away
Let me hear, what
these beats have to say

Tuesday, March 22, 2011

Upheaval

I clean your wounds
and my own heal
I empathise
and to my suprise
It's easier to
forgive my foes
to stand up and
stop ranting about
these tales of woes
It frightens no more,
the sight of this
blood n' gore
I'm neither buried
in terror
nor soaring high
For I accept that
one day, I'll die
so will he
the one who can't
express his heart
so will she
the one who woudn't
use her mind
but is still
most kind
she loves me despite
knowing me well
with all the fears
I can't dispell

But as I
tend to your wound
my pain subsides
but why?
unaware of all
from me, that
my own mind hides
the doors open
in my dreams
I see not only
the surreal sights
of soaring along the
lovely meandering streams
I see as well that
I'm stuck in mesh
with claws
tearing at my flesh
and gradually it's
all too real
but when I..
I bandage your wounds
my own heal

I stare into you
And see my heart
It begins to
make sense, part by part
I am the claw, that rips
I am the hand. that whips
I gift wounds to one and all
I feel humbled, I feel small

I cover your wounds
and stroke your hair
I kiss your forehead
and put you to bed
and quietly walk away
relieved of my own pain
these lessons in life
will not go in vain

Sunday, March 20, 2011

guise

Too long to forget
Losing you
Why do I fret
Too stubborn to bend
Too honest to say
you’re just a friend
Too casual
to question why
might shed a tear
When I say goodbye
Too etched to erase
Intertwined in a maze
Blessed to know you
Too well to adore you
I’m you and you’re me
Lost in riddles
Where exactly are we?
I’m your reflection
You’re mine
We ride again
In the dead the of night
With the wind
We put up a brave fight
We race in vain
The truth chasin, yanking
its horse’s reigns
and we run and we split
so that one throat
is spared from being slit
when I look in the mirror
We both meet again
I raise my eyes
I feel overpowered
for I see you clearly
I see a coward

Saturday, March 19, 2011

outstanding

Whoever stored fish
in a can without a lid
n knew not that it'd
never be served a dish
had to be a rich man's kid
Oh the rich man's kid
in a blaring car
downing his pain
in an lavish bar

The pain of having less
Less being relative,
nothing short of a mess
ten pairs of swank shoes
for the eleventh
got nothing to lose

His wallet's a legend
blessed by dad's sweat
that appears on his brows
when he evades tax
or takes some bribe
In his circles
he can take pride

sweat shop cater
to his loud taste
he binges on colours
in a brazen haste
The only thing
he doesn't doubt
He must stand out
walking in the crowd

Friday, March 18, 2011

unme

You, isn't it you
I'm thinking of now
conscience creeping
into my dream's somehow

Slipping into a crevasse
you caught hold of my hand
Thought it was the end
but I'm alive and
grateful, here I stand

Isn't it you,
who just brushed past
to tell me you were near
when I stood in the fear
that I was alone

you're a stranger than strange
you're almost deranged
but wish to know you more
for I feel for us,
there's something in store

Thursday, March 17, 2011

Lovesickoflove

I’m lovesick, I wanna hold you so
I yearn for you, never wanna let go
I’m sick of love, don’t waste my time
So sick of it, won’t spend a dime

Come close, I wanna smell your skin
Too sick of love to call this ‘sin’
I’m tired of love, I don’t wanna fight
Just hold me close even if I ain’t Mr. Right

You are strange, you’re such a witch
Your selfish plans, immune to glitch
You’ll wreck my world, it’s such a trend
You’re beautiful but so are your friends

I’m lovesick when I break my bread
Even more so when I go to bed
I’m so lovesick I pine for a caress
So sick of it, I couldn’t care less

I’m so lovesick, I want you NOW
So sick of it, I know it’d be such a row
So lovesick, for you I’d sing
Too sick of it to explain…
…what you’re missing!

Tuesday, March 15, 2011

Again it's the blues
my world's losin it's hues
It's been days and
I yearn for good news

or even a harbinger
No sweet sensations linger
Just when the mind's blank
and there's nothing to muse
there's nothing, I tell myself
so there's nothing to lose

Walls talk to me
ghosts are my friends
I embrace shadows
I cast myself from within

It's my own face
I gently stroke
between the mirror and I
there's a blinding smoke

I dream of greatness
lying unconscious
In the realms of reality
my hands extended for alms
I'll do big things I do foresee
I'm at peace with my tenacity

strength to strength
I heal and renew
As I turn
the blue to grey
I pick my colours
and paint my way

Friday, March 11, 2011

I was reading something about child-rights and chanced upon an article on the Times of India website. Having finished reading it, I noticed a link to another article titled "5 best positions to get pregnant". Though of no particular interest to me as of now, I still thought I should increase my knowledge.

The article turned out to be quite a farce. It mentioned five "things" as being best to aid conception (pardon me for this but it really was there on the website so here goes):

Missionary
Raised hips
Doggy-style
Side-by-side
Orgasms

Now the first three are man-on-top, the next on the side. Ok! According to my diminutive knowledge on the subject, apart from kinky fetish and kamasutra stuff, the only broad category left is the woman-on-top, which apparently another article by TOI suggests is one of the most successful sexual positions at giving woman an orgasm. So they're contradicting the story as a whole. And last but not least, orgasm. This pretty much suggests that any form of penetration will cause pregnancy.

They also forgot the most important point: Erection. Ah! We Indian men just circumvent all our responsibilities LOL! Articles like these really amuse me. They really don't disburse any real knowledge.

Since TOI seems to be covering sex well, here's a link to another one of their articles on sex

http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2009-09-30/health/28082731_1_orgasm-g-spot-female-sexual-dysfunction

I will refrain from adding my own experiences about the topic but I wonder if it's as bad as they're saying it is. What I can't refrain from is quoting a part of the article, here goes

"Technology can help: Perhaps the most extreme solution for sexual dysfunction among women is the so-called "orgasmatron"-an implant inserted into the spinal cord, which stimulates the user when switched on via a remote control. Despite an initial struggle to find subjects for clinical testing, the device is now in development."

Wow! A remote controlled babe to make out with, what could be more utopic than that. Talk about technology.

Here's more TOI on technology for you:
Female marrow could turn to sperm (eeks! Brothers our balls will be redundant soon)
New reproductive technology could render men redundant (wonderful! not just the balls they mean)

They're talking ways to address pregnancy. Really, tell me, do we need this, there's a kid being born every other second in our country? Why not concentrate more on enjoying the experience. You should be a traveller, an adventurer, enjoy the journey while you reach the destination.

& Have less babies please.

Tuesday, March 08, 2011

Into the Wild

Christopher Johnson McCandless
Feb 12 1968- Aug 18 1992

I just finished watching the movie Into The Wild. I think I'm becoming more perceptive to movies. It probably has something to do with the fact that I've loved all the movies I've watched recently. Into the Wild was a great movie. I'll probably write my thoughts on it later but the spooky part is that H.D.Thoreau seems to be chasing me. I've been (slowly) reading Walden, then the last movie I watched had Walden in it (The Great Debaters) and today, into the wild also mentioned Walden by Thoreau. I guess I gotta speed up my reading.

Only that I really don't think McCandless and Thoreau were talking about exactly the same thing and McCandless was probably a little delusioned, if I dare say that, Thoreau probably was constantly there somewhere in his head. I'd like to add that though I used the word delusioned, I would love to admit that men like McCandless inspire me and I do, in many ways, relate to his childhood. I've had thoughts like the ones he did. Only that probably as an Indian, my parents had too great a role in shaping my life, though not thoughts, and my life would've never gone the way McCandless' did. Maybe it would have because I started to read Thoreau when I was 22 but my vocab hindered the progress and I gave up reading it; thank god. Besides at that age, silly me was too madly in love with a silly girl. All the stupidity saved me to grow older.

How I wish that McCandless was alive. If he were alive, maybe his story wouldn't appear to be that brilliant but what the heck, even a degree less, it would still be awesome. But I doubt if he would've had the realizations that he did if never went that close to death...before he actually died. Sad as I am right now after watching the movie, I know I can't change the past, I can learn from it though, "Happiness is best when shared"

Hat's off to him and to his amazing sister and to their words that changed the people around them and their story that will continue to affect all that hear it and watch it as a film.

Sunday, March 06, 2011

Right to Disobey

Some things just inspire you and spook you at the same time. It all started with me, a non-reader, watching a program called Great Books on the channel I love, Discovery Channel. The topic of discussion was the book Walden by H.D. Thoreau. The discussion was enchanting and I was captivated by Thoreau’s idea of living all alone next to a pond/lake, in a self-built house and eating self-cultivated food. My tryst with the book ended as soon as it began when I downloaded the e-version of the book and began reading it. Back in 2002, my grossly limited vocabulary impeded the progress of reading that book to an extent that I gave up in frustration after perusing a dozen odd pages but the wish to read the book still lingered in my head. Then last year, when I went to meet my prospective bride in Bangalore, who happened to be a voracious reader, I was shown around the city and soon landed up at one of her favourite haunts, the book store. There, as I walked around hypnotized at the sight of so many books, reading as many title names as I could, I found Walden sitting pretty. Without a second thought, I purchased it, despite the reconciliation with the fact that I would take eons to finish reading it even if I started right away. Methinks that the reading part of my brain is either underdeveloped or skewed.

Anyway it’s been a couple of months since I bought the book and after finishing the other book that I bought along with Walden, The Wind in The Willows, which I totally adore, I picked up Walden. Thoreau’s writing left me awed. I was reading about things that I personally pondered upon so many times since the time I was very young and of course, much more than that. For as much of a thinker I thought I was, Walden made me think even more than I ever thought I could think. I was delighted to find that one of my favorite quotes, “men have become the tools of their tools” is actually an excerpt from Walden. More awed I was when I read the preface that threw light on the fact that the idea of Civil Disobedience was Thoreau’s and that the people who drew inspiration from it were none other than Martin Luther Kings Jr. and our very own Mahatma Gandhi. Here I would like to mention that Walden is a very old book and was written in the 1800s.

Anyway a few hours ago I was scanning through the sea of movies that my buddy Rick had loaded on my computer more than a year ago. I am not one who’s interested in movies and therefore they’ve been just vegetating on my computer. I’ve watched one or two in this span and liked Training Day. A few hours ago, I reckoned that tomorrow being a Sunday, I could take the liberty of watching movie and since I was feeling very lonely and morose anyway, I thought that a movie couldn’t worsen it any more. So I got down to deciding which movie to watch and after much deliberation I clicked on The Great Debaters. It turned out to be an amazing movie, just like Rick had told me. It is a true story from the 1930s in which a group of black students from a non-descript Wiley College went on to win a debate at the Harvard University; a truly captivating and an inspiring story. I’m still reading Walden these days and owing to my poor attention-span with books, am just on the second chapter despite loving what I’m reading. Why I’m mentioning Walden here is because a strange chill ran down my spine by the end of the movie as the last debate is on Civil Disobedience and guess which book these have in their hands in the movie, you’re right, Walden; a great debate, a great movie and truly a great book. It felt nice to know that I’m trying to neuro-wrestle with the pages that have truly inspired and spawned greatness in history. I hope a bit of it rubs off on me as well. I couldn’t help but write about it at this hour, right after the movie concluded.

Saturday, March 05, 2011

Cleaning season

Over a period of the past few weeks, my room has been growing messier. Of course I dislike being in an untidy room but sometimes I just let it be. Then today morning Ramrati, our cleaner-maid, who’s worked at our place for more than a decade, started to complain about how cluttered my room was while she was mopping the floor. She’s in her 50s and I’ve watched her grow old over all this time. What I dislike about her is that at times she talks about unnecessary topics with my mother. My mother gives her tea and food in the morning because she comes to our place very early. This was fairly commonplace activity till the time my dad objected to it, saying that my mother was spoiling her too much.

The problem is that Ramrati and my dad don’t get along at all and strangely, it’s because of her punctuality and in some strange way her love for our family that she still works. My father is not the kindest of and Ramrati is quite good at answering back when treated unfairly. My father and Ramrati have had terrible fights; in a normal scenario the maid would either leave or be fired. Both scenarios have taken place; more than once my dad has told her to hit the road and Ramrati herself has quit three times, the longest for a month but always returned home. My mom sides with her and quite frankly when my father becomes unreasonable, I too have sided with her in the past. Such scenarios have led to a weird tension between my mom, dad and me with my father interpreting it as we both going against him for a lowly housemaid. Not once has he ever acknowledged that he can be outrageously and unacceptably rude. Anyway dad’s not always rude and unreasonable, he a nice guy most of the times.

What I’m trying to say is that I cleaned my room so that Ramrati doesn’t mumble/curse and in the process wake me up early in the morning when she’s cleaning my room. That’s one thing I hate and lose my temper at spontaneously, when I’m woken up from deep slumber by something unpleasant, be it my parents talking too shouting instruction to each other early in the morning or Ramrati incessantly mumbling curses at me. My folks have faced my wrath once due to this habit and I don’t want Ramrati to find out the hard way that I, afterall, carry my dad’s anger genes; oh the big fat male ego!

inferno

Mr. Seth's ground floor apartment was set ablaze by an electrical short circuit exactly a week ago. Our apartment is right above his. They say it was a frightening site as two fire engines and many firemen braved the smoke to put the fire out. The aluminium wires gave way after 20 years of constant usage and the result was frightening. Quite luckily no one was in the room when the TV exploded projecting out shrapnel and setting the wooden closets on fire. I now understand the big deal about fire-proof building material.
"A spark neglected burns a house", it never was so real and literal before. Whenever there has been minor sparking in the meter and/or the electrical points in the house, we've never really appreciated the gravity of the repercussions. A visit by the electrician to tighten loose ends generally solves the irritating hum. I never could imagine that an electrical fire could break out in a matter of seconds and go out of control just as quickly.
In order to not meet with the same fate, today we bought a various sets of copper wires to replace the whole wiring of the house. Havells wires are good and you get a good deal if you buy from the Industrial Area. We could purchased the same material in about 60-70% of the price 6-7 years ago as copper wasn't as exorbitantly priced back then. Sometimes the only cogency is provided by a demonstration of disaster; well we stand convinced.

Friday, March 04, 2011

headliners of hardliners

Apart from the disturbing event that occurred in Pakistan, where a Christian leader was shot dead for raising his voice against the Blasphemy Law, another headline caught my attention, in which a lecture at the Northwestern University ended in a graphic manner in which a couple demonstrated the use of a sex toy. About the former all I have to say is that although it is bad to slander about any religion, unless the some practice in it brazenly questions the very essence of humanity, such laws can also be used as weapon to wrongly indict people of other faith. Well what can I say, the victim, a minister of minority community in Pakistan, Shahbaz Bhatti is dead so it doesn't matter anymore. Maybe there'll be more who'll raise their voice and more who'll die. I wouldn't call them martyrs. I wonder if Bhatti has met Jesus already, something he firmly believed he believed he will after dying. If not, what a waste.

Let's talk about the latter, the event faces investigations by the University authorities as they say there have to be guidelines for pedagogy and not everything is demonstrable in public.
In someway it brings memories of the time when one of my close friends Nipun Kalia was to present the subject of his PhD research in front of a Dissertation-Commission at the Punjab University a few years ago. I cannot recall accurately but Nipun was studying some aspect of Catherine Breillat's movies. The big deal about the whole thing was that Breillat's movies were about sexuality and were misinterpreted by a some members of the commission as pornography. In vain Nipun tried to explain to the clamouring members that there indeed was a difference between the two. There were people on his side but there were also many many against him. He stood their being judged as a pervert because he wished to investigate something that was related to sex. Media dogs sniffed the controversy and soon there were articles about the incidence and Nipun was portrayed as a nymphomaniac. Happily married, he's anything but that. Moral fingers poked him from everywhere but that did led him to have a celebrity status within our circles and even more so at his wife's workplace.

I don't know what to say of such a contentious issue at the Northwestern University, I really don't think having a live demo of a sex toy in a university is acceptable but then again that's not what the lecture was about, it was about "Bondage, swinging and other fetishes". Well if they're investigating that at the University, then it's probably no big deal to have a demo of a sex toy. After all it's something that people do engage in and it doesn't hurt or kill anyone and is for pleasure. Anyone that says that he/she doesn't have any interest in pleasure of those kinds would have to be totally asexual and most people aren't like that. The couple that performed were exhibitionists and were more than happy to oblige. This act was performed after the lecture was dismissed and the audience was cautioned a dozen times that what followed would be extremely graphic. For me what stood out was the way in which Channel24 titled their article as opposed to the others. Following are the titles of the articles by different news agencies.

Channel24: Live sex show spices up college class

The BBC: Northwestern University sex toy show 'disturbing'

The Times of India: US university to investigate sex toy demonstration by professor

NEWS24: US university to probe sex toy demo

The New York Times: Extracurricular Sex Toy Lesson Draws Rebuke at Northwestern

Wednesday, March 02, 2011

Lost and found

I don’t know why I started punching the keys now. Maybe because it’s been some time since I’ve spent time with this word file (.doc) that I’ve titled Hard-Wired. It has sequels and I have most probably lost HW1, 2 and 3 or maybe they’re there on some CD. I still remember how blogging started for me. I had been writing diaries for a few years then, if my memory serves me well, I started to write on the computer and pass on my articles, anecdotes to friends on email. I am not too sure if this habit prompted Ashish to create a blog for me. I remember it was the year 2006 and I’d gone to meet him at the Bible College in sector 47. He created my account and he was the one who named my blog jesslikethat (an interesting parallel to just-like-that containing my name). I was excited and in Ashish’s words, “You took to blogging like a fish takes to the water.”

Every night I’d sit alone in a dark room and punch in anecdotes or sometime just random thoughts that led me punch keys like a mad man. I remember it turning into an obsession. I couldn’t sleep without writing something or the other. I always had something to write about and here I am now, writing about the days that were. I initially named my blog the Sargasso Sea, owing to the meta-genomics project that I was working on. This project was bolstered in India after an American scientist named Craig Venter exploited the meta-genome of the Sargasso Sea, found novel genes and started his own big venture. We Indians followed the footsteps and explored the whole of India for a metagenomic lead to wealth but after spending crores and crores of rupees, ended up with nothing. Nothing except that being a member of the project, my interested in scientific research was kindled and I went on to pursue PhD (of course not in metagenomics) and other crazy plans that I’ve yet to execute. Anyway I changed the name of my blog to “purgatory” after realizing that I was indeed writing any and everything that crossed my head. I then changed it to something that I was at peace with “the long and short of it” for obvious reasons.

In 2006 my blog, in connivance with cupid, caught someone's attention who I started seeing for a while, during a time when my relation with my then girlfriend had slipped into a coma. The end of 2006 brought one of the greatest mental depressions I’d faced till then. I kept posting on my blog. I deleted many of my initial posts in that depression, an act that I still regret.

2007 was the Launchpad of my career. I don’t remember how much I wrote then. 2008 my PhD started and I don’t think I blogged too much in those days. Life was suddenly full of other things and I no longer had the time to write but I doubt if I ever stopped writing completely. 2009 is the year that I don’t recall much of rather a period I have willingly erased from memory (ah! rather it just faded quickly of late). This also was the time when I started to miss those moments that I spent alone in a dark room, in front of a computer, writing my thoughts.

Strangely though, I wrote articles for an online newspaper and I think I wrote three of the total four in 2009. So in many ways I was undergoing a transformation as I’d started to write about more relevant stuff about the world. 2010 turned out to be the most happening year of my life till date. My breakup, arranged marriage plans, the explosions of confusions in my life and then finally…FREEDOM from everything...and then a chance meet with a stranger that...but then maybe not. My PhD work that doesn't really invite much of my guide's intellectual input barring a few spurts once in a few months (y'know just to keep me busy). Where are we headed, what's the relevance of this work? I dunno and no one's answering anything...workwise, I feel like I'm walking blindfolded and being lead by the blind.

But writing liberates me from so many mental shackles. I can breathe again; I lost a lot but in the end I'm reunited with myself. Again, I don’t know how much I blogged in 2010. Too much happened in these 365 days, most of it too emotional, both in a good way and bad, for me to pen those thoughts exactly but I did keep my blog posted. I must admit that facebook annihilated my blogging to a massive degree. All I know is that writing is important for me and though there may be a hiatus here and there, there will always be comebacks and for now, I hope I’ll start to write the way I used to; possessed and obsessed.

Sunday, February 27, 2011

Let them be the judge

http://www.hindustantimes.com/Man-holds-up-flight-as-pilot-was-a-woman/Article1-666941.aspx

So here we are educating our women, expecting them to be equals but hey wait, are we expecting them to do all the things that we do in addition to the set "social protocol" of taking care of the household? I think the expectation from women has skyrocketed.

For gods sakes, let em choose. Let em choose what they'll wear and eat and how they'll live and last but not least let them be free to decide who they wanna make-out with. It's their body, don't insinuate exaggerated thoughts of piety n purity into their heads as kids. Educate them about repercussions and dangers (for that matter even the boys) but let them bloody explore their own minds and their own bodies.

Who's to say what's best for women. It should be a woman's choice to pick a profession and a partner. Just because a woman is flying a plane doesn't automatically imply she isn't taking care of her household, doesn't even imply that she has one. This passenger was quite a bigot. He couldn't even begin to appreciate what effort one has to put to become a commercial pilot.

Saturday, February 26, 2011

The Embrace

I am nobody's
nobody's mine
I know it well
still I pine

capricious affection
misgiving's my rose
n' nothin I offer
to lessen your woes

come near
bury yourself
I'm here

Sunday, February 20, 2011

Anuj's PhD viva tomorrow

Yeah what a title to a post. This will be his last touch with our lab. A classic example of a bad student-guide relation that went sour in the very beginning and could never be disabused. Anuj has completed five and a half years of PhD time. When I joined the lab as a project assistant in Jan 2006, Anuj was in his first year of PhD and a baby faced, happy-go-lucky kind of a person. At that time Boss-D was short tempered and felt that Anuj's behaviour was abberant for a PhD student. True, ours was a high pressure lab and Anuj may have probably done better with a softer guide. Anuj took up smoking and continued till last year when he gave it up for good. He started to drink as well. 2006 and early 2007 was the time when I myself lost control over my drinking habit. Much of this time was shared with Anuj/Sankalp, Rick and Harman separately. Man!! How much was I drinking!

My relation with Anuj has been brotherly and has grown ever closer, especially so after Sanky left for New York and I joined PhD in the same lab that I'd left as a project assistant. I was closer to Sanky and his departure brought me even closer to Anuj. Anyway the vendetta between Anuj and Boss took a whole new turn after the big JBC got published from the lab with Anuj and Arijit as joint first authors. Something went amiss in the Anuj's emotional response to the situation. He suddenly started to feel distanced from the lab owing to his thoughts on the total authorship of the paper. The wrong vibes were sensed by everyone and they started to retaliate in kind. Anuj had grown disgruntled. To me, as an "outsider" within the lab, everybody seemed to be losing it.

Apparently Boss-D didn't write a good recommendation letter for Anuj when some big scientific names in the world showed interest in Anuj's CV, Being an honest person, he's clear and upfront about his opinion and said that he would write his honest opinion in everybody's recommendation.  Anuj then left the lab to join as a Level-III PA at another lab within the institute. Since then every time he comes to the lab to meet Boss-D to remind him to send recommendations to the new interests. Tomorrow, is his final PhD seminar. I am no one to judge Anuj or Boss-D, one's my Great friend and the other a Great Guide to me; seriously, I have no issues with Boss-D, in fact, at times, I feel that he's extra nice to me. Anyway, Boss-D has mellowed down to a humongous degree over the past few years.

I've seen Anuj change from a soft chubby carefree guy to a fitness freak, hard-hearted and melancholic man. Still I can never forget the alacrity with which he lent me money and literally forced me to buy a digi-cam, which he himself hunted around for me to buy. He did it because I used to ride to far off places but didn't have a digi-cam to click as many pictures as I could. I really will remember him for his serious protocolish advices on how to patiently deal with my impatient dad and not mess my relation with him. I'll always remember that trip to Haridwar on Jan 15, 2007 when Sanky ditched us both and left with his friend and we both spent an amazing time at the Shanti-kunj Aashram roaming around and exploring the adjoining areas on foot and how we sat to warm our hands near a fire set-up by an old yogi baba. I'll never forget my bike-ride to Rishikesh for river-rafting with him when we also stopped by at my sister's place in Herbertpur. I'll never forget my bike-ride with him and Harman to Thanedar, when we simple had the most amazing time that guys can have together. I'll never forget the way he made fun of me whenever I was in an over-extended mourning period of my break-ups. I'll never forget how he (and Sanky) shaped my attitude towards life in many ways. I'll always accredit him to changing my inherent sordid and morose outlook towards life to a slightly lighter.

Last but not least, I'll never forget the awesome drinking sessions we've had and the time when we consumed bhaang (Cannabis) on Holi (like many others at the institute) and got hysterical. Of course we've had minor issues a few times (though I can't remember which ones exactly).I've known him for a little more than five years now. I remember we both got a little sentimental when I was leaving as a project-assistant and how happy we were when I joined PhD in the same lab after a gap of one year. I still kept in touch with Anuj n Sanky through that gap of one year. I'll never forget Boss-D's warning to me to not reform the gang with Anuj and Sanky when I was about to join PhD :) It's a bit saddening to see stuck in this phase of life but I'm happy that tomorrow he'll get his PhD degree and I hope he's off to a great place to do his Post-Doc. I hope his love for science is rekindled and he does well in life and I hope Boss-D and Anuj reconcile someday. Will always remember you Anuj. God bless you. Good luck for tomorrow. N yeah I will watch a movie with him before he leaves, though I hate watching movies; that's the very reason he wants to take me to one.

Thursday, February 17, 2011

Veil-untyin (Valentine)

On this Valentine's, I learned that St. Valentine doesn't refer to any one particular saint like I thought. There were a couple of them. Valentine's feast too has been chucked out of Catholocism for good. Well I guess that's reason enough for the rest to pick it up and f* the sh* out of it.
Whoaaa! n just 10 minutes ago I got a call from a friend telling me about one of the most scandalous things ever. Man! First-love chasing her after losin her many years ago.

Anyway, I'm here to talk about how my Valentine's went. IT SUCKED so far as conventions go but it was better than last year. Last year I was brooding over a morbid relation that died a month and a half down the line. This year, there was nothing, there were a couple of possibilities but I thought better to leave them unexplored, the bitterness still lingering. Within the year, I have changed a lot, I'm not so sensitive about relations anymore. I value my freedom, my time, my money and my space way more than I used to. Not that I don't miss the warmth of being with somebody but what the heck, that can be had without strings attached. Strings strangulate.

This Valentine's I woke up late, I brushed my teeth and made it a point to not shave as a mark of my disrespect for the day. I worked hard and till lunch, had quite forgotten that it was Valentine's. At lunch, people at their dressed up red-best reminded me that it was the day when most singles wish to mingle and most couples spend a tormented evening trying to find a decent place to spend a few romantic moments together over dinner or otherwise. The businessmen will, if they can, devote all the 356-366 days in the year to mundane causes that will ultimately fill their pockets and accelerate the society to being that little bit more preposterous, somewhere it is headed already.

In the evening I had an uninteresting telephonic conversation with an otherwise interesting person. I feel a pull and then a push, what the heck! I guess life's about being conscious, conscious of your posture, of the passing minute, of the clutter, of the traffic, of the time to say goodbye. The only time you should let it go is when you sleep. And yet, there are so many things that aren't expressed but still felt and then you sit back and wonder if what you're wondering about is actually so wonderful or just a figment of your imagination. In such a situation, it is best to put your mind unfettered mind to better usage, like He said "let the dead, bury their own dead". Later is was back to square-one, at-the-gate date with Ritbit. That's the time when it was all loaded onto a gun of wit&humour and fires exchanged.

So much for a silly day that's just one of many. I like kisses, not headaches. That was the strange, debaucherous revelation when I saw myself in the mirror, that was my veil-untying on the Valentine's.

Sunday, February 13, 2011

Ed on honor killings

Read Birinder Pal Singh's (Dean & prof. Dept. Sociology, Pbi Univ. Patiala) article titled "Honour killings: make the state accountable". The writer explains how the meaning of the term honour-killing differ from place to place. In Haryana it is sacrilegious to marry in the same caste in Punjab it's the opposite.

The writer goes on to say that modern education is not all-emancipating or liberating when it comes to issues like honour killings and that the whole concept that it is, is a "recent assumption". The writer goes on to justify his case by quoting the examples of Indians residing in cities like London and Vancouver, exposed to "plurality and multiculturalism" would not be involved in the act. What was new to me was the "common knowledge" that gangs of boys and girls living in these big international metros charge hefty sums of money to divulge the whereabouts of the runaway couples to "'honour retrieving' parents". Apparently the members of these gangs are well connected and needless to say that "winning the confidence of potential victim(s)" is a part of their strategy. On this point I fully agree with the writer, I have been exposed to the minds of the educated people who are/have-been at high positions.

The writer talks about the origin of khaps to the medieval era of regional feudatories when the khaps provided protection to its clan. "Hence it's role was to to ensure the safety of the community from external threats and internal collapse". He says that it's not that honour killings are a recent occurrence but has merely come under the media-light.

The write goes on to unload the blame on the modern day "populist and perverted political culture" failing to maintain law and order and thus resuscitating institutions like the khap. He says it's also the common knowledge that Haryanvi politicians in Haryana demanded Mitsubishi-Monteros just two years after they were given Toyotas and their counterparts in Punjab ask for Toyotas while the schools and hospitals are starving of funds. The writer ends the article saying that the state functionaries have to become modern themselves- a concern for the other- before modernising the society.

My take on this:
I partially agree with the writer in that modern education doesn't seem to break the shackles of bigotry that's apparently infused into our blood and is being brazenly handed down from generation to generation.
I say that it's a vicious cycle. Ever heard of any political leader's offsprings were to carry out the act so sacrilegious to their society. They can't for if they do, their daddies will not win the next election and they won't get to be as profligate with the public money. In saying that I'm saying that we the citizens are fueling this bigotry because this is the bigotry that's so ingrained in our own minds and no education modern or otherwise has been able to remove it. I don't see a cure for it, it's a the emancipated individual that sees the honour killings as culpable, most others say that it's bad with an undertone that says "serves them right". Toyotas, Mitsubishis or any other Japanese brand's presence or absense will fail to free our minds. We want leaders that move in big cars, are brazenly shameless, ruthless and rich for we aspire to be the same.