Every once in a while

Every once in a while, you let go.

You remove every restrain off of that inner voice waiting to pounce and grab the world that lies there, up for grabs. This is one of those few times when the true self manifests itself. This is the time when the mouth blurts out the most stupid, and simultaneously the most truest, most profound words that your lips have uttered in some time. And for a change, your lines sound better than those in your favorite movie.

Every once in a while, You are a dog.

You are THE dog. It also happens to be that it's your day. What a day to be a dog! And it doesn't matter if your tail remains bent on this day. Not a soul can do a thing about it. Not that any soul can do anything about your perpetually bent tail even otherwise. Maybe, just maybe, you're not even a dog. It's just your day! Either way, wag the hell out of that bent tail!

Every once in a while, it all seems futile.

All of it. Every bit of it. All the control, all the safety, all the security. It all seems like a larger scheme to keep people from wanting what they really want. Also that people, you, I, the guy next door, have no clue of what to want. And yet we perversely cling to things that we know for a fact won't hold us in good stead in the long run. We cling to them because we want to think that these things will hold us in good stead. It's like the bird that stayed under bullshit for a tad longer than he was supposed to. Here's a story.

A bird flew for too long in winter, crashed into the ground, and lay there in the cold. It was about to die. From somewhere came a bull, and shat on the bird. The shit felt warm. So the bird lay there with the heap of bullshit covering it. The bird slowly felt better. With nothing to eat, it tasted a bit of the dung. No clue about the taste, but the bird got the impression that it was getting better, and better. It grew so happy with the feeling of feeling better with all the bullshit in and around it, that it started to sing. A cat heard the bird sing, found it, and ate it. Moral? Bullshit only gets you so far!

And that story was SO out of context. Or maybe not. No idea.

Every once in a while, a voice rings in your ears.

It rings in your ears. And then, it takes your breath away. It won't stop with your breath. It will chase your sleep away, and make you regret for having wanted to hear it all this while, till the point you heard it, of course. But you have this crazy option of un-hearing the voice, removing it from your mental repository. But NO! You'd not do that. No. Not EVER! Maybe the inconvenience caused later is worth hearing the giggle in that voice again.

Every once in a while, you see something closely.

You see it so closely, that you know the "something" better than the "something" knows itself. Its every curve, its every lock, its every crevice, every hue that adorns it, and every hue that doesn't. To the point that you can see the entire existence of the thing in front of your eyes, when the "something" remains just another object, hidden in plain sight, to the public and to the "something" itself.

Every once in a while, you realize it is all an experiment.

One of the "ten commandments" of Bertrand Russel goes as follows.

Consider everything an experiment.

There's no formula. It's all trial and error. Out here in reality, there ain't no ideal conditions. No assumptions. The consumer/customer/buyer  ain't a rational being. We'd all like to be rational beings. But sadly, we're not. And that's why chocolate tastes better when you're depressed, or stoned, I suppose. 

Each time we do something, there are only two ways out. Either one gets it right, or one gets another way to not do the thing in the first place. 

And of course, every once in a while, you come across a book.

Actually, every once in a while, you come across a ton of books, all of which you read simultaneously, few pages at a time. Some of them are bookey-books. And some.... And SOME change the paradigms of your reality

Try reading this book called Zero to One. The book is about start-ups, but gives a lot of insight into life in general.

"Every once in a while" happens every once in a while. Maybe, "Every once in a while" happens too many once in a whiles. And maybe, that's fine. Only so many whiles in a single lifetime.

Tantalizing

Smooth objects... Things without edges.. No kinks anywhere. I don't know if all humans are attracted to smooth objects, or is it just me? Whatever be the case, smooth things have a very ethereal quality to them. Their fluidity feels like jagged rocks having turned into smooth stones after millennia of running water wearing their surfaces off. And these stones are smooth as baby-bottoms. Okay, maybe not baby-bottoms that have been soaking in the baby's pee and poop, as the mother's forgotten to change the diapers, but hope you get the point without any further need on my behalf to elaborate in this regard. 

Something about angles renders them a very man-made look. Look at buildings. Look at squares, and cubes. All edgy, all pointy, all so "How-it-must-be", each one of them. We like them because they are convenient. We put our things in boxes. We sit in "cubicles", we "compartmentalize" things. All of the above give us control over our lives. Or that's he impression we give ourselves the liberty to subscribe to. And yet, when it comes to beauty, we go running, back to our curves! The subject of beauty has obsessed my mind for a while. I know not whether this obsession of mine is because of my inability to appreciate things, or it is that I have just learned how to appreciate things. Either way, here's something that caught my attention....

The Jaguar E-Type- Often called SEX on wheels..

It is probably the one thing the Britishers achieved, apart from their incessant rant about the weather. Oh no! They also made Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, and many other places all over India and all over the world look the way they do. And THAT is a compliment. Anyway, coming back to the E -type...

Goodness! The E-type's designer, Malcolm Sayer, is said to have hand plotted each point on the car's bonnet to make it as streamlined as possible. This was at a time before all the computers came into the designing process. Jawdropping!

Spheres.. Balls.. Not testicles-balls. Balls-balls! Testicles aren't even spherical. Goodness knows why they are called balls. Oh! But balls needn't be spherical. Do they? Maybe I'm thinking out too loud. But ball-bearings, metal spheres, Globes made of glass, actually globes made of anything solid enough to not yield under the "crushing force" of my grip, have all fascinated me. And I write this out of a fear that if, iff I write about my current object of fascination, I might just end up sounding a tad too erotic.

So back to spheres... My math teacher asked the definition of  a sphere in class. This was way back in class 10. In a stroke of fluke intelligence and stupidity, both put together,  coupled with my incessant urge to blurt things in my head out loud, I said something that sounded like

"A sphere is when each point on an object is equidistant to a single point inside the object."

And I am shameless to quote myself. So much for being a megalomaniac. 

Something brings my attention to the word "Sexy". For some very strange reason, the word has gotten a rap on the wrist. But allow me to clear the air about this word. I do so despite knowing that doing so won't make a dent in the universe in terms of people's understanding/perception of the word SEXY. 

Sexy is virility. 

Sexy is wholeness.

Sexy is beauty.

Sexy is curvy. 

Sexy is Irresistible.

Sexy is Aphrodite, and everything that makes one realize that blood is coursing through one's veins. Don't shun the word. It's sacrilege. And NOW is the time to announce that you are sexy. But then again, that's again only if you think so.

DONE!

Brain Brain

I'm a brain, You're a brain. And we all are within a big huge brain. I blatantly admit to have taken the line from a trippy conversation. Confessions aside, this "big huge brain" that I mentioned, is what I suppose many of us have come to recognize as the collective conscious. Or actually, not many of us have come to realize the possibility of a higher mind. Wow! That sounds like the whole "god" concept. Either that, or some part of my head is feeling really numb.

The agnostic in me is probably turning religious. Brilliant! Before I lose this train of thought, let me get back to the brain issue I want to address today.

A close friend of mine told me something that validated the whole "कायनाती साज़िश " (Universal conspiracy) theory. Basically the rant about how the world secretly helps you out with things you want the most. All of this about belief, I suppose. And as John Mayer sings...

Belief is a beautiful armor,

Makes for the heaviest sword

It's like punching underwater,

You never can hit what you're trying for.

Here's the deal. When you wish for something very badly, you are creating some sort of waves of your own around yourself. If the waves are strong enough, they surely are going to distort the usual order of things from the way they would be in case you hadn't wished for something badly. And this distortion realigns everything that comes in its way with the direction of your desire's accomplishment/ manifestation. And wallah! Magic! The main trouble is getting to the point where your desire for something becomes so strong that it ain't a part of you anymore. It is you on the whole!

Goodness! Is it just a stream of epiphanies or that I have completely lost it. Here's something that I just got struck by. We humans, actually all living beings are vehicles for desires. Or, in other words, it is through us that desires take shape in the real world. A desire is like a seed. Where did the seed come from? From a fruit, of course! But the fruit? Where did that come from? Where did the tree come from? A seed again. So what came first? Chicken? Or egg? And now, I'm am going to contradict myself. Man comes from desire, and desire comes from man.

In that vein, let's talk, rather let me rant about beauty, as it is beauty that makes life that one extra bit more worth living. Sometimes, one may get fixated with beauty in a particular form, the humanly form in my case, but then again, who doesn't? Coming back to the point, beauty is a creation of man, which in turn stems from the fact that man stems out of someone beautiful. There goes the chicken and hen paradox again. Sometimes, I get blown away by the acrobatics that a few chains made up of Carbon, Hydrogen, Nitrogen and Sulfur can do. It's all the same stuff inside each one of us. But the face in the mirror looks different to each one of us.

Just now, my train of thought just got derailed, which is highly unusual. I being a passenger on that train, happen to be the only one to have survived the accident. But then again, I was the only passenger in the entire train. Talking about vehicles, the journey, rather sojourn, that each one of us started inside someone's testicles, was a solo one-way trip. A solo trip to return every atom of your being back to the universe that each of the atoms came from. I know for a fact that I went off on a tangent while I changed the paragraph, but then come to think of it. Each one if us is as old as the universe, considering all the laws of conservation. Now THAT's awe-striking!

Carelessness, A General Compartment, And Chennai

I am surely not the first one on this planet to misread the details on a train ticket. But for just a few moments, before someone had made the same blunder that had, I was the last person to make that mistake. And I would have remained the last man to make the mistake of misreading a train ticket, had the earth been struck by another mass extinction. But some asteroid/ nuclear missile failed to strike/launch in time and I was allowed to remain "The boy who lived".

My train to Chennai was to leave on Thursday at 8 in the evening, 15 minutes before I actually checked my ticket. I still wonder why was it that I booked the ticket on Thursday, and not on Friday. Given that I had college on Friday. Basically I missed my train. Great!

Now that I look back in retrospect, had I left on Thursday, I'd have been missed by my college for a day longer. So now I think it was good on my part to spare my college the ordeal of missing me for another day. Ticket or no ticket, I was going to Chennai at all cost!

It was exactly a year ago that I went to Chennai for the same reason that I was going to Chennai this time around. The reason is called "THE HINDU Lit For Life".

So Friday evening, I set out for Chennai. With a general ticket in hand, I got into the train that would take me to the city of Chennai. And what a ride! I have traveled in general compartments of trains before, but thee journeys have never been more than 4-5 hours long. Besides, they have all been in the day time. And here stood a 12 hour overnight journey. Just as I write this, I feel like a complete imbecile. It is now that I truly understand that I was born with a silver spoon right up my arse! What I mean is, what's more ridiculous than thinking of a train journey by a general compartment as an adventure?

Anyway, I got into the train, obviously to not find a lot, if any space to sit. So I did what most Indians traveling in general compartments do. I perched myself on a luggage rack that convinced me it could bear my weight for the night.

Now here is where you find real India. Not in the reserved and air conditioned compartments. That's where you find the pseudo intellectual bourgeois population, busy in their own fight to displace the fellows who are above them, although I do agree that I belong to the same category, more so, happen to be fortunate to belong to that category.

I put myself and my belongings, namely a backpack, on the luggage rack, and took some time to settle in. I looked around, just to absorb the atmosphere inside the compartment. Not like the joke on Indian teachers that goes like...

"Open the window and let the atmosphere(or air force) in."

 It was this bustling place, full of energy, banter, burps, farts and crying toddlers. It might sound crass, but there wasn't anything unnatural about the place. And now being winter time, and I, being stupid as I am to not carry a blanket with me, I was in for a shivery night! I slept in spans of 45 minutes, checking my watch each time that I woke up. This went on for some time, at least till I was about an hour way from my destination. It was then that I decided to chuck my no longer possible sleep and settled for a book I was carrying. My destination seemed to have reached me in no time. And now, onto Chennai!

The city is one of the most well laid out metropolitans in the country. I say this despite not having been to all the metros of the country merely because of how struck I am by Chennai. The public transport system is robust, so moving about is never inconvenient. My rosy views of Chennai could also be attributed to the fact that I have only had to take on the city on weekends. With that clarification aside, the city is beautiful. The remnants of British architecture interspersed all over the city just add to its charm. I still wonder if I only roamed the heritage part of the city.

The Literary festival that I went to attend spanned over two days, each being an all day long affair. And this part of my life is called INTELLECTUAL MASTURBATION, as said my Hemi Bhaiyya, my companion of my last two adventures to Chennai.

The festival happens within the premises of  the  Lady Andal school complex in Chennai, not that the venue of the event is of any material to the purpose of this post. But the hall where a majority of the talks, interviews and panel discussions take place, is one majestic place to be inside. If I may, I'd like you to have a look at what the hall looks like.

What happens inside this hall is exactly what happens when you bring together a lot many minds that have immersed themselves in words, pen, paper and self-consuming eliteness. They rant about the world as it should be, and we the audience sits jaw dropped, in awe of their presence and the words they utter, occasionally clapping at what they say, specially when we comprehend a tiny fraction of their lexicon, or recognize their words coming from the books that some of us accidentally happened to have read.

In most cases, nothing new is to be heard in what is being said on stage. But yes, there are some paradigm altering moments that pass by, and one keeps wondering "What just happened?".

All in all, the event is where you get to hear what one likes to hear from the people one wants to hear. Just that sometimes, you do get to hear and understand vagaries that happen to transcend mundane everyday talk. 

But sometimes, you do feel a tad to sore after rubbing yourself off too many times. Specially when what is said goes fathoms over your head. Then you think of whether you lack the intellect to grasp what is being said, or is it that the speakers have been allowed to wallow in their own intellect for a while too long for themselves to understand what they are saying. I guess it is the latter case that is true. Or is it the former? How it matters, I wonder. 

Sometimes, after a session is over, I wondered whether my travels were worth the words I heard, and the people I saw. But there were times when I walked out of a session thinking I'd travel twice the distance to hear what I just had. And so I learned that worshiping the intellect, like all things, is a double edged sword. It contorts your mind to fit into spaces which may allow it to understand something. But at the same time, it broadens your horizons of understanding on the whole. 

Enough about being Lit For Life!

Now, time for some extra luck. I say that as I find myself as one of the luckiest souls on the planet already. Remember that I completed the first leg of my journey in a general compartment, and unnecessarily made a big deal out of it? While on my way back, my ticket got upgraded from a sleeper coach to an air conditioned one. I didn't even have a clue that such a thing was possible. 

Any way. I got to my seat, all beaming like a sunflower. This was at 8 in the evening. What I saw next was the face of a beautiful lady sitting across. Now, I consider every woman beautiful by default. But then there are faces that I get attracted to, sometimes dangerously attracted to, and then there are faces that don't fancy my attraction. But the lady sitting across me happened to belong to the former category, if you know what I mean. I could dedicate an entire post to the contours of her face, but I shall refrain to do so. Here's the deal breaker. She was married. And here's the worst part. Her parents-in-law were siting right next to her. He worst part is not over yet. We were headed for the same destination. Basically, I'd have to bear the ordeal of her beauty till the last moment of my train journey. Thankfully, it was an overnight journey. So a big chunk of it would pass by in dreams, when the world is my playground. 

I say that as if the world ain't my playground when I'm awake. 

Parts left behind

I read something a while ago that left me flabbergasted. It went on the lines of....

"You don't visit the same place twice."

That is obviously because the Earth is spinning and revolving around the sun within one planetary system, which by itself is hurling around in a galaxy, which in turn is moving in through space. That takes into account the cosmic vastness, or at least a tiny fraction of the cosmic vastness that we find ourselves in the middle of. What I want to ramble about today is slightly different, and pretty much unrelated to what I just said a few lines earlier.

Firstly, I shall touch upon familiarity. Familiarity of something/someone comes with repeated/prior exposure to the something/someone/a stimulus. I just happened to notice something as a kid. If there is something ubiquitously encountered, and you stare at this hence familiar object, the object starts looking unfamiliar. The first time this happened to me was when I unknowingly stared at the rear lamps of a Maruti 800 for a lot longer than I care to remember. At the time, the 800 was one of the most common of cars to be seen on the Indian roads. And here I was, finding the car's unmistakable backside unrecognizable after staring at it for a while. I don't have an ounce of clue as to why this happened, or rather happens. But just to verify the happening, I tried staring at the back-lights of other cars, all to the same avail. 

Tail-lamps of automobiles is one thing. What about other things? What if the thing you happened to accidentally look at for a while longer than you should, happened to be the most beautiful thing you've seen?

Something strange happened recently. The phenomenon that had occurred with the tail-lamps of automobiles up till now, happened with a face. And yes! It is one of the most beautiful ones I've happened to see so far.

I was day-dreaming as usual, and my gaze came and rested upon this beautiful face that I have come to know for a very long time. I looked  at this face at both, an unconscious and conscious level. I know that because I kept looking at the face rather unapologetically after realizing that the lady knew that she was being looked at. Either I have too much balls, or that I was too dumb to not look away. 

I kept looking at the face for reasons and the duration of time, both unknown to me. But suddenly, the automobile -unfamiliarity hit me like a punch from Rocky Balboa. I could no longer recognize the face I'd known for so long. It was beautiful nevertheless, but it was not the one I knew. And for some most stupid reason in existence, I still kept looking at the face mindlessly, soaking as much as I could of it into the crevices of my mind, but to no avail. I can recall it no more.

This brings to me the second part of what I want to discuss. Do we go to the same place everyday? Be it the place of work, worship or recreation? This is a bit separate from the whole cosmic-movement theory that I mentioned earlier. What I want to say is more on the lines of the Ship Of Theseus paradox, which goes something like this.....

Imagine a ship. It is used for all the things a ship is usually used for, i.e. transport, wars, etcetera. And eventually, its parts wear off, requiring replacement. Here's the deal. The original part, assuming there is no serious damage to the part's shape, is preserved separately. And this is done for each part of the ship that requires replacement, until every last part of the ship has been replaced. Now, the original parts that had been preserved so far, is used to make another ship. And now, we have two ships with us. One ship is the ship that went through a series of repairs to receive new parts. The other ship is that which has been reconstructed using the preserved parts. Which one is the real ship?

Continuing on the same line, the place we go to everyday, if there is such a place in everyone's life, is it the same day after day? Specially given that there are a thousand things that might never become know to anybody, of things that might never even transpire in one's lifetime.

Of all the murmurs, all the wear, all the tear and toil that a place takes onto itself everyday, it becomes a bit more, or maybe a bit less of what the place was on the day before. It witnesses a bit of history, and stores it within itself till the time it gets reduced to the ground like all other things. Only thing being that since time is an irreplaceable commodity, one cannot put together a place all over again with the history that the place contains. The only thing that can be possible for rebuilding a place in time is to have another parallel universe where the event happen in the same sequence as that in our universe. But then which is the real universe?

Each day I leave the place that I think I've known for so long, I wonder if I'm leaving the same place that I left the day before. The other thing that strikes me is how much, rather how little do I know of this place that I think I know? I might stare at the place long enough, and it might just turn into something unfamiliar, so that I can start afresh.

Down the rooftop

Ever been on the terrace of a high-rise building? If yes, then have you ever looked down from the top to see the world below? In most likelihood, the answer to the second question would too be a resounding "Yes".

Now, for the third question.... Ever wanted to jump off the terrace? Or rather, let me put it a little differently. Ever felt a part of you badly wanting to jump off the terrace, while the other part of you cringed, held on tightly onto the railing that kept you from making the leap? I am pretty sure that I ain't the first one on this planet to have thoughts of making that leap, and then wondering if such thoughts are even normal. What I do know for a fact is that there will be a few people celebrating the very thought of me jumping off a tall building. They have my condolences.
This feeling of wanting to jump off a tall building has been troublesomely floating in my mind for a while. I did a bit of googling about whether this feeling is something usual. But I shall chuck all that I read, specially as none of it sounded very fantastic. Although there was one line that I read, which stuck to my mind, as I couldn't completely comprehend its meaning. It went like this...

"The feeling to jump off a high place stems from a desire to live, and not a wish to commit suicide."

My personal interpretation to the whole feeling of wanting to jump off a high place is slightly different, and also a little wide in context, or so I think.
Keep in mind the cringing feeling you have at the very thought of jumping off.  The one that eventually draws you away from the edge of the terrace.
It is that feeling that you impose on yourself, that which makes you question your sanity, which keeps you from giving into your impulse of leaping off.
It is like this. If you know for a fact that there is a high likelihood of you giving into something that looks tantalizing, there happens to be some sort of inhibitory mechanism that prevents you from giving into preliminary temptation.
So much so that you will end up staying away from anything that shall even closely remind you of the pleasure that you intrinsically seek by engaging in an apparently dangerous act.
For example, take the case of alcohol consumption. Ever since when we were young, we have been told to abstain from alcohol. So many a times, it may happen that one may develop a fear for alcohol, more so a fear of giving into temptation of consuming alcohol, specially if it is forbidden in one's religion, because we are all "God fearing" men and women.
And hence, we keep away from the company of friends who drink, as we are fundamentally convinced that our drinking friends will wean us of our resolve that we have so dearly sworn to.
I can extend the "jumping off the roof" idea into another facet of life. That of falling for someone. The dichotomy here is that both cases, those of leaping off a high place, and allowing yourself to fall for someone involves the act of falling.
If you know for a fact that you will eventually fall for someone, it sounds rather surprising when you do everything in your will to keep yourself from falling for the person you know you are going to fall for. It feels like a part of you wanting to make the fall happen, while the other half of you grabbing the safety railing tighter with every moment.
It feels like a fight with Moriarty at the Reichenbach Falls. You might fall any moment. Or is it that you're already falling? It becomes increasingly difficult for the mind to decide as to what it is doing. Is it fighting a slippery grip, trying to hold on to the edge of a cliff? Or is it relieved to feel the free fall into the abyss?

THE END?

Innocence of sleep

There's something about someone sleeping, an intangible sense of purity and serenity. I'm quite sure even the devil will look innocent as a child, when asleep.

I was lost while solving a puzzle of my own creation. That's when I saw her, sleeping like a child, or maybe pretending to be asleep. 

It was my wish to see her sleep, I told her long ago. For all I know, she mistook my connotations, alas.

I sat in front of her, so that if she got tired of her pretense, she'd open her eyes to see exactly what she expected to see. But she hid behind the veils of pretense, until her act remained a pretense no more, and beautiful sleep lifted her in its bosoms. 

I saw her nod her head, while asleep, as though answering questions I shall know not what they were, ever. An itch here, a scratch there, and frayed strands of her hair, I saw everywhere. 

I kept looking at what looked like an angel, dressed in black, with strands of white, telling be nothing in life is completely black, neither white. It's all shades of gray, and all of them look beautiful apparently.

I had never seen her eyes more closely. Never at least seen them so closely when they were closed. So I needed not to worry about her stealing her gaze from me. 

A part of me told myself that she knew how closely I was looking at her. Shamelessly so. But then, a part of me rises fruitlessly in justification saying, "How is a beautiful woman any different from a beautiful painting?"

You stand with dropped jaws in front of an intricate work of art. And then you justify yourself when you do the same in the presence of nature's own wonderful creation. Why this hypocrisy? While my mind was in two minds of its own, I did not deny my eyes the pleasure of what was right in front of me. 

Everything about the sight was smooth. The contours of the face, the shape of the lips, the way her silhouette started from her soft, delicate looking neck, entering her back, that swept over her short spine into the small of her lower back. The line that sketched her back into her derrière felt like a silent poetry. 

No one utters a word, and yet, everyone knows the meaning of what remains untold. 

How can something be so irresistible, so tantalizing, and yet so innocent looking? And this is exactly where I lose track and sight of sanity. 

I can only thank my fortune that she was asleep. For when awake, she can trace my gaze on herself. And then she turns restless. She breathes harder, and the pretense of ignorance makes itself more obvious than the North star on a clear night. 

I just hope he doesn't sleep too long. Else I'll have to kiss her back into wakefulness.