Hate: the all pervasive emotion.

Love is powerful, so they say. What about hate? I can't escape it. In a sadistic, perverse way, i don't really wanna get away from it. But i hate it. It's like the surrounding flames, that burn the skin and threaten to melt the bones, but there is no way i can survive without its warmth. Hate is dripping out of the walls here, dark, sticky and vicious liquid. Its all over the floor. Constantly rising up.

What is this vile liquid? Where does this come from? Is my hate directed towards someone or something? NO. I don't feel that. It exists independently. It doesn't need a reason or a rhyme. On the contrary, love is nothing but lack of hate, just the way shadow is lack of sunlight. Love and shadow don't have an independent existence. One depends on the Sun or the lack of it and the other on the lack of love.

Straight As An Arrow

For a child of gay parents, would it be hard for the parents to accept if their kid turns out to be straight? I don't know. But considering the fight the parents must have fought all their lives to assert their identity which is, to put it mildly, somewhat disturbing to our social fabric, they would understand if their kid turns out to be different from them. My friend argues that all of us are gays and it's the society and its established conventions that forces people to be straight. I know he said that for effect and didn't really mean what he said. However, this raised a pertinent point. Imagine a social structure where parents ( both hetro and homosexuals) took it for granted that their kids could and would turn out to be of any of these sexual orientations namely : gay, straight or bi-sexual( is there any other kind?). In this environment of acceptance for all sorts of sexual orientations and behaviors, would we still have a staggering majority of straights in our midst?

My friend and I agree that the belief that sex is primarily for reproduction may be a fallacy. Sex is primarily for recreation and fun. Reproduction is just a byproduct.

However, that doesn't answer my question. Is she gay or not? My friend, who likes wuthering heights and calls himself MCG, says she looks like a gay. He has the tendency to swing from sublime to ridiculous. How can someone look gay? what do gays look like? They have been stereotyped, since time immemorial, through mannerisms. But it is surely not possible to identify a gay just by looking at him/her. And hence my problem remains unresolved. I must admit that i wouldn't mind if she turns out to be a bi-sexual.

P.S: My thoughts on the eve of Queer pride parade. But i need to find the answer to my all important question. Its eating me from inside.

St. Petersberg Vs Munirka

'Crime and Punishment' is a good read. After 100 or so pages, it resembles more like the psycho analysis of a man who is in a dark, suffocating tunnel walking aimlessly and knowing that he may never see the light at the end. He isn't even sure if there is an end. Claustrophobia is what i feel. It's brooding to the extent of being repulsive but i am surprised i do not feel repulsion. His discontinuous thoughts bordering on trivia isn't alien to me. He is obsessed with his torn and somewhat tilted hat. The urgency he feels in his thoughts to buy a new one only to forget it conveniently and drown in even more trivialities is also disturbingly familiar. i can not help but sport a weirdly suggestive wry smile at the way his thoughts leave and enter his evidently fucked up brain. He killed his landlady with an Axe.

I want to read more. I want to know me more.

P.S : The Saviour of the masses and oft-criticized internet wonder Wikipedia says " Dostoevsky could have written a book on Munirka. For so many lives are made and unmade here".

Purely on the basis of one third of the book, Munirka could well have been a part of mid nineteenth century St. Petersburg.

My Experiments With Ironies

Do you remember....

The sobriety of drunken nights

And bonhomie of that fight

The mute tides

Do you remember....

The dark sunbathed balcony

And the glittering shadow under the mahogany

The bustling melancholy

Do u remember....

The lonesomeness in that crowd

And transparency of the shroud

The warmth of the rusted bench

Do u remember....

The sweaty winters

And the equally shivering summers

The exhilarating silences at night

Do you remember....

The meaningful stares into the space

And awkwardness in the fast pace

The craving for that stress

Do you remember....

The ephemeral solutions

And the significance of your ambulation

The carelessness in that precision

Do you remember

The strangeness of your home

And mild familiarity with the dreams

The knife-edge of that petal

Do you remember....

The sheer absurdity in definitions

And the ever changing constants

The futile circles made by the clock hands.

Dilemma, Freedom and Other Assorted Emotions

Standing at the crotch of forked paths

The brain whirs and the vision blurs

The shoulders are heavy with load

Trapped inside the snake's jaw, like a toad

Calm down, think straight

Fuck destiny, choose your own fate

Left path, fenced with barbed wire all along

Trimmed grass and pruned trees

Safe and stable at every furlong

Right one looks wild and thrilling

No fences to keep you on the course

Freedom is your thing, it fits the billing

Freedom, hard to define but easy to confine

Easy to deride but hard to justify

For the millions of crotches that may lie ahead

To cut through the maze of delusion and haze

Freedom must always be the shining blade.

PREMCHAND EFFECT

You got an MBA degree

You thought you had earned your pedigree

Landed a juicy job

It was time for you to act like a snob

Time went by and you wondered

Why life still sucked

Like a bitch you were fucked

‘What did I do wrong?

Who do I blame for my misery?’

The culprit is obscure

You worry, you wilt and you are unsure.

One evening with lemon tea in your hand

You gaze into the landscape feature

And that’s when it hits, you realize

You should have studied English Literature.

Olympics: An Anomaly

Beijing Olympics saw many a great sporting feats, but none greater than the jaw-dropping, human-ability-defying act from the Jamaican, who goes by the name of Usain Bolt. He completed his 100m sprint in 9.59 seconds, something unthinkable for people and sports commentators alike. Beyond all the reams of praises written for Bolt, something quite jarring remains hidden. When was the last time an athlete who wasn't a black won a 100m sprint? Not in the recent times, would probably be the answer.

Michael Phelps is to the swimming pool, What Usain Bolt is to the track and field events. Never mind his bong-blowing picture, this guy is a phenomena. He won about 8 medals in the Beijing Olympics and 7 of them were gold. He along with Bolt were the stories of the Olympics. They represent the pinnacle of human evolution and abilities. But something equally jarring is lodged in this story too. When was the last time you saw a black athlete compete in a pool, let alone be successful. The pool is all white. And the answer to this question remains the same as above.

The answers lie in the science of genes and chromosomes to a certain extent. The bio-mechanic specialists, after a lot of research i presume, have found out that a white Caucasian male has a stringer upper body and a black male has a stronger lower torso. Now, in Olympic sports, where fraction of seconds separates the winner from the also-rans, genetics give these athletes the edge. This probably explains why a track and field event is predominantly black while a swimming pool hitherto witnesses black skin.

But if African origin athletes and white Caucasian males are so physiologically adept at conventional sport how come China topped the medal tally in Beijing Olympics with its native athletes? Well the answer to that is: Chinese are smart. Chinese know that the events, where its all about muscular strength they would not be able to overcome the more suited races of athletes. They can always pitch in with a surprise performance in the track and field and even swimming, but they realize that to dominate the world they will have to pick and choose events that suit their physicality better. They chose sports like Badminton, Ping-Pong, Gymnastics, synchronized diving, Shooting and Archery etc. These sports replace the brute muscular force and testosterone driven nature of conventional sports by a generous sprinkling of skill. You still need to work hard and have a world class infrastructure for producing Olympic champions, but its much easier to achieve when the playing field suits you a little more. In sports like gymnastics and synchronized diving, you need to have lower center of gravity and chines have a genetic advantage in that regard. So, by Chinese have managed to go around the system and have come on the top of the world even without so much as registering their presence in more conventional sporting events. They have indeed played it smart.

Does the China story present an inspiration for depressingly sagging Indian Olympic efforts? Maybe it does. One option for us to go the China way by by identifying sports where our physical attributes can be leveraged and champions can be made. But, in India, pumping money into sports infrastructure wouldn't guarantee any real work on ground and most of the money would just evaporate in thin air. The preparation for Commonwealth is a case in point. And even if we did have a mechanism to account for money pumped in sports infrastructure, it would be grossly insensitive for us to do so with millions of our people going hungry every day. So, do we keep celebrating athletes whose claim to fame is that they lost out on a bronze medal in some ancient Olympic games?

Well, there is another way to treat the situation. But, before that we have to unearth and come to terms with the truth about Olympics and its nature. Olympics originated in Europe, Greece to be precise, and has taken off from then as a global event for showcasing sporting spirit and all that jazz. The kind of sports that comprise conventional sports in Olympics are distinctly of the nature that favors the physicality and different other physiological attributes of the Europeans. The Black have also come to dominate certain segments of event due to their apparent superior physical make that comes from different genealogy. Even with hockey, till the time it was more a skill game we were the world beaters, then suddenly the synthetic turf came comes into picture and turned the table on us. Now hockey requires speed and power in abundance. Anyone who saw the India-Australia hockey match in the recently concluded World Cup would vouch that the match was so hopelessly one-sided because the Australians just outran the Indians. So , why do we compete in the events where they naturally hold the edge?? And why do we berate ourselves and deem our population as physically inferior for something thats not in our control??? We live in a tropical country and have a different dietary pattern from those of the Europeans and other races. We are just made differently. Those sports aren't a part of our lifestyle and haven't been so since the beginning of the civilization. Hence i call the Olympics an anomaly. Pitting people against other people who have a natural advantage over others and then decide the winner. Well, thats not done. And going the Chinese way is not an option either.

We can have our own games. Our own Olympics. Where the games that are part of lifestyle and suit us physically would be showcased. These sports would not only ensure a mass participation but a more professional approach to the sports when so much of prestige and money is involved.

Let us have Kite-Flying as a particular event. We would also have top spinning tournaments. Marble and different formats related to it can also be full fledged tournaments. How about another event, where participants would climb up a coconut tree and puck coconuts from there. One who does this in least time wins. There can be a thousand such events in our own Olympics.

The point is that we don't really have to adhere to the conventional thinking and be a slave of our history. We need to take charge and change the script. And no better way than getting rid of this anomaly called Olympics.

Counter Terrorism

The whole Sania-Shoaib marriage controversy resembles a lot like Sania Mirza's career itself. Lots of hype on a stupid and ridiculous premise. When she first broke through onto the tennis scene, she was called the great Indian hope for a grand slam. But, it was pretty clear early on that she was, at best, an average player who didn't really have the discipline or focus to make the most of her inadequate talent. The media however always found words like tennis sensation or tennis ace to describe her much to the consternation of true sports fan. To her credit, she did win Hyderabad open some millions of years ago, where, it must be mentioned, she was the top seeded player. Let's not even talk about wins in mixed doubles in slams cause every self respecting sports buff knows that these events are more of showpiece events, where people get to see some yesteryear players like Navratilova, Steffi Graff and the likes in action. Well its another debate that Leander Pace has made a career out of playing and quite often, winning these events.

However this piece is not about Sania and her mediocrity and how we tend to celebrate mediocrity in various walks of our life. This is about taking revenge from Pakistan. This is about a strategy that would payback Pakistan for its sponsored terrorism directed towards us. How?? you ask??? Well, read on...

Now that we have established that Sania Mirza is a good-for-nothing sportswoman, whose only aim was to grab as many eyeballs as she could in her playing days. She astutely knew that her playing days were numbered and she needed to make as many bucks as possible through advertisements. She succeeded. Now she is marrying a Pakistani and might even settle in Pakistan. I would love it if she did. There are whole bunch of other people in our country that we would love to see do their stuff in Pakistan cause we have experienced how mind numbing that experience could be.

So here is my plan. We identify people who have F*&#@d with our minds day in and day out. Those people who have destroyed a whole generation through television sets and other modes of communication, must be put in Pakistan for this mission. Get them married to Pakistanis or send them in the garb of promoting culture and peace to Pakistan and they will wreak such havoc in Pakistan that even the Taliban Jehadis will be ashamed of their destructive abilities.

First among these lethal human bombs would be poeple who have had their Swayamvars on TV including the participants. Lets ship them all to Lahore and telecast 3 episodes back to back everyday of these swayamvars on their national TV. After each episode, make sure that we telecast Rakhi Sawant's interview where she pretends to be shy. Then we telecast an interview of Rahul Mahajan where he claims to be pious and drug-free.

If that doesnt destroy Lahore and other cities of Pakistan, we send all the people involved in making saas-bahu serials. Right from Tulsi and Parvati to the cameraman and background score, we just pound Pakistan with episodes after episodes of sari clad women crying hoarse over something that would remain a mystery even after years.

Another bunch of people who could be devastating in their effect when they do their stuff are all the flop sons and daughters of bollywood heroes. Starting from Abhishek Bacchan to Uday Chopra and from Tusssshaaar Kapoor to Esha Deol. Unleash them on Pakistan. They would subject Pakistanis to movies like Drona and Pyaar Impossible and by the time Pakistani Public comes out of theaters on Fridays, they would have been robbed of their ability to think and comprehend. They would be walking the streets of Pakistan like dumbf@#k Zombies.

There is no dearth of potential human bomb talents here. All we need is to identify them and let them explode across the border. We have suffered long and hard, now its their turn.

Please do suggest other names who could be added to the list of our weapons against our enemy in your comments if you agree with the plan.

Till then

Adios.

IPL - one distasteful eyesore of a circus

Apart from an increasing lack of close and exciting matches, IPL clearly stood out for me in terms of the assortment of varied colors that it exhibits. And to be frank, they are hardly soothing. On the contrary, they are an eyesore, if you have managed to watch too many matches like me.

Well, to begin with, you just pity the owners at their lack of creativity and choice of names. All the teams are either kings or royals. OK, so we get it, India was once a princely state and ruled by all sorts of rajahs. But, wasn't it why we were so vulnerable to the invading forces like the East India Company? Thats one heritage i don't find worth celebrating. But it gets worse, with names like Mumbai Indians and Delhi Daredevils. Let me not even get started on the KKR.

Once you get past the apparent stupidity of names, comes the dresses. The jerseys with bright colored, shouting logos. One huge one at the back, another even bigger at the front. Couple on one arm and another one on the other. Ditto with the pants. The logos are anything but color co ordinated and look like the work of a colorblind maniac.

Thats not all, far from it. The beautifully mowed ground is scarred by big imposing logos of at least a hundred companies. As the camera pans out to show you the outfield, in the background (or the foreground), all you see are these 3D logos and you can't help but sigh in agony.

I know its a commercial venture and money has to be squeezed out of it but you can't put off the viewers. Or maybe you can. I long for the virgin whites in the cricket match with no embellishments on the grounds. I yearn for simpler days. I miss test cricket.

Maverick Musings Part 2 (Parvati)

Sacred mountains stand tall

The infant river plays along

Pines line up proud and high

Thats where i wanna be

Thats where i belong

Chilly breeze touches the bones of your face

The magic of pure caress

The pipe and the smoke

Fill the lungs at every stroke

Climbing up the tallest pass

Walking past the fields of wheat and grass

To the place thats gods own kingdom

In search of absolute freedom

Walk and climb and keep walking

Backpacks and silly talking

The bustle is left so far behind

The bad hangover of the fake world,

all but washed away

Like dripping mountain water,

so clear is my mind.

Maverick Musings Part I (The Den)

White smoke, Red Eyes

No furniture, stained tiles on walls

Forever, the den shall stand tall

Naked beer bottles lined up

Old monk peeking from behind

Beds on the ground

Cigarette butts all around

Mounds of ash, surround

M-seal for a pipe

Pepsi for a bong

Take a hit, dude

For, the stuff wont last long

A feast every night

Chicken groovy, and the rice alright

One nigga always ate the most

Pretending to be lost

Brylcreem dude puked next door

Never did he show his face anymore

Den's heart was bigger than its space

Welcome, if you can keep pace

So many heads and one shit hole

Living like gypsies

Fucking hippy was every single soul

The happiness was real

Coz it was truly shared.