For Excess of a Nail

There are moments that last and those that don’t. Of the latter all one can ever recall is the fact of the existence while the former seem to define existence. Were it an empire I were charged with, perhaps I’d dwell on it longer than the vastness that confronts me now…

Standing on the porch gazing ahead,
For all that you try the eyes won’t see a bit,
The answers are close but would you dare to try,
Take a step forward or embrace the safety behind?
My life is a veil, my words a cloak,
Is there a crowning glory or a closet to behold?
A mind torn in half will you ever be,
Or a nestling staring down from the tree?

I walk you to the edge of the demon’s lair,
Is he a frightful spectre or are your fears to be feared?
Could you take a ride without the net,
And live in abandon with disaster’s silhouette?
Again and again the eyes cast restfully around,
When the mooring cut is there no shore to be found?
A hand outstretched, a life to forsake,
A peaceful sleep or a life of unrest?

Precipices stare up to greying skies,
The rope holds him back as he screams out in joy,
A father’s wish forever a curse,
When my list is all ticked, will my voice still be heard?
Your silence speaks to me a million words,
But the days still pass in a single blur,
The wait seems long; not as long as the time,
That I took to blink and put out of my mind

Standing tall atop the fallen ruins,
Seeing death of dreams and dreams of the real,
Painting the skies and darkening the stars,
The shroud fell again and hid away the unseen,
What eyes can’t see and minds never read,
Banished to the lands of the heretic’s realm,
The empire’s gone and all that remains,
Is the seal of time and the memories of pain

A Midnightmare Summer's Dream

At times days pass before sleepy eyes in a haze while at others you’re left to rue the procrastination that saw them do so. Some die trying to reach higher while others die just the same while searching beneath. What would life be if we were just to break free of the fetters? What thoughts and emotions would one feel when looking back at one who didn’t?

Standing afar in a sheltered place,
Staring at the beauty of visions revealed,
In places that I’d never seen before,
Though I’ve been closer one time and more,
Turn the eyes; vision’s what you make of it,
A songbird shrill in tuneless verse,
A symphony of melody,
Were the dead we, or the rest of humanity?

I smile at you when morning dawns,
Soaking in the hatred of your loving smile,
With those few words of cheer and hope,
I know you’d rather that I died,
Shrieking out in honeyed vein,
The voices speak of a discordant pain,
Was that sleepless dream a lifeless me,
Or reflections of what you had seen?

Chasing down the shadows of days,
That mesh and take the hurt away,
When darkness brought with it the rain,
It never cleansed though wounds didn’t remain,
Lost in the cesspool inside,
I seek though I know I’ll never find,
Would you know, were I to hide away and smile,
What I sought; coz you’re still outside

The signs remain ever deep and real,
We make of them what wills make believe,
A sliver of hope, a shred of remorse,
You’ll turn back when you wish for more,
Through the storm I emerge once more,
To the welcoming arms of the ocean’s floor,
Serene as the swaying bough may seem,
Twas a midnightmare thought turned to a dream

Morbidity attracting me,
Your misery in happiness so blinding and real,
Leave me to be and try to see,
When you became the one you hate,
What Gods there be shall cease to smile,
Witches will weep and angels die,
When the seas begin an upstream ride,
Perhaps some day you’ll catch my eye

Appendix for In Mars We Trust - X

As promised in the Mars - X, here are the conversations I mentioned as proof. Trust me when I say that each one is a genuine extract from a real conversation. In some, I have actually toned down the idiocy out of deference for the fact that the persons or their friends may read the same and take offence. None is intended of course. These are posted purely for entertainment value and to mock the intelligence or lack thereof of the assorted women that have earned an honourable mention in this post :D.

By the way, as evidenced in the comments to Mars - X, a number of people did not really think those conversations could possibly be real. trust me, they are. I swear...no kidding!!!

X: I’m really depressed *sniff*
Me: But why?
X: Well, I just spoke to my ex and he’s getting married…
Me: OK, but I thought you hate his guts, so why be depressed?
X: Look, we just broke up two years ago and if he’s getting married that means he moved on pretty fast…he’s known this girl now for almost a year and a half!
Me: OK, but then, you’re getting engaged too!
X: Yeah, but well, I was single for so long after we broke up!
Me: Hmm…well, what about those three guys you were seeing in between?
X: They weren’t serious…I mean, they didn’t get anywhere!!!
Me: *Sigh* OK…whatever…

Me: You know N, it’s weird but she seems jealous about K seeing other women!
N: Yeah, that’s so natural!
Me: Eh? But she’s got a boyfriend…what’s she got to be jealous of?
N: Look, he liked her and that made her feel good. Now, with us women, even if we don’t like a guy, it makes us feel good to know that he likes us. So, we’re pissed off if he moves on and starts liking another woman!
Me: That’s so damn b*tchy!!!
N: Hey! Mind you language ok? It’s perfectly normal behaviour!
Me: What crap! If I knew a woman I didn’t like, liked me, I’d be praying for her to move on!
N: That’s because men are stupid…
*Sigh*

D: Hey you bas*ard!
Me: Hi b*tch!
D: What the f***? Stop calling me that! How dare you!!!
Me: Err…you called me a bas*ard!
D: Yeah! That’s because you’ve not called me for so long!
Me: Err…by that same token, you’ve not called me either! And you’ve not even replied to my messages!
D: Arre, what message and all? You should have called. You’re such a bas*ard!
Me: Umm…do you realize that I am the one that has called even now?
D: So? You’re still a bas*ard and don’t give me logic and all that crap now…
*Ho-hum*

A: OK, so you come to my place and pick me up.
Me: Excuse me? I’m the visitor to Delhi…so how about you picking me up? You’ve got the car after all!
A: No! You’re too far off! Tell you what…come to some place close to my place!
Me: Err…do you realize that it will be tougher for me to travel in an alien city without my own car? How about meeting somewhere in between…like Connaught Place?
A: No! Connaught Place…umm…I don’t know the way to that place!
Me: What? You’ve been living here for 6 damn years!
A: So? I still don’t know the way…
Me: OK, so do one thing…see…in Delhi all roads lead to CP, so just keep going on the widest road at every turn and you’ll get there!
A: Nooooo! There are too many roads in Delhi that go to CP. I’ll get lost!
Me: Excuse me? If they all go to CP and you’re going to CP, how in f***’s name can you get lost?
A: No! I’ll tell you what to do…you come over to my place and then drive me to CP…
*Yes, I get the point…*

Me (after an hour’s explanation): So you see, the Congress is really the worst party of them all to vote for!
V: Hmm…well…hmm…
Me: What? You can’t fault my logic, can you? If you can, tell me!
V: No, you’re right! But still, I still can’t think of not voting for them!
Me: Eh? Doesn’t that prove that your logic is flawed or else non-existent?
V: Yeah! But still, so what? Voting is not about logic!!! It’s about…it’s about…emotion!
*QED*

Me: Hey! How you doing?
C: Hey! You back in Bombay?
Me: Yeah! I’m here for a month or so…
C: Hey cool! Let’s meet up! How about tomorrow?
Me: Umm…not possible tomorrow…have some family function to attend.
C: Oh! OK, day after then? That should be fine huh?
Me: Cool, no problem…let me know where then.
C: Sure. I’m in Daman right now. I get back next week…we’ll fix up then, ok?
Me: Oh-ah…sure…yeah…for day after tomorrow…awesome…fine…buh-bye!
*D-uh*

S: Hey! I need some help from you.
Me: Sure, fire away. What’s it about?
S: Well, it’s about that form I have to fill.
Me: Cool! Need help about what to write or something?
S: No, I know what I should write and all that, but needed to ask you one thing.
Me: OK. What is it?
S: Well, I know what to write and all that…but what exactly is a statement of purpose? As in, what should I write for why I want to do this?
Me: Eh? How in Hell am I expected to know your reasoning process?
S: Well, you can help me understand what I should write…

Similar conversation on a different instance with a different woman:

X: Hey Mike, I need your help for this thingy I did...
Me: Cool. Temme...
X: Well, I need to write what I did in the project.
Me: Excuse me? What's that supposed to mean?
X: Well, see, I need to write what I did...so I thought I'd ask you what I shold write...
*Let's see now...'Whose Project is it Anyway?'*

*Sigh* Women…

In Mars We Trust - X

It is perhaps a testament to the brain-washing capabilities of the female species that we men have believed for centuries that women look beyond the superficial when choosing their mate. Women, we believe, look for intelligence, maturity, sensitivity and at times even personality when deciding who the man of their dreams is.

Men of course, are far more reasonable and logical in their own choice-making process. Quite simply, we realize the futility of looking for intelligence, logic and accountability in women and are content to acknowledge the fact that women are essentially ornamental creatures that occasionally hold conversational value on topics such as what gifts to buy for people or of course, what footwear suits which outfit… I mean, if we were to start looking for intelligence, accountability, sensitivity, maturity and a love for sports, we’d either be lifelong virgins or gay…neither of which is a particularly appealing alternative in my opinion.

The folly of this reasoning of ours that we attribute to the woman’s reasoning process became apparent to me a while ago, but it is only recently that I was convinced that we men were quite far from the truth in assuming that women went beyond the superficial when judging men…the name of the flaw is, to put it succinctly, ‘intuition’. Yes, that very bane of a man’s existence that renders it well nigh impossible to have a logical discussion with a woman on any topic under the Sun.

Now, I dislike people who merely make claims or level accusations without laying the foundations for the same and therefore, I shall prove to you just what I mean to say, by means of a few conversations that I have been privileged enough to have been a part of with a series of my lady friends. These are the contents of course, of the Appendix to Mars – X which will follow this post…there’s too many of them to include in this one! But, just to give you a feeler of what they were like, here’s one:

Me: I really like Steffi Graf.
S: Yeah, me too. She was a virgin when she married Andre Agassi.
Me: Huh? You nuts? She had at least two publicized affairs before that and she was seeing him for ages before they married! I think she even conceived before they married!
S: NO!!! I tell you she was a virgin when she married him!
Me: Umm…and what makes you say that? Did she tell you?
S: No, but I know it…
Me: Oh, so I presume she said it on Oprah huh? Or did she say that in Time magazine or something?
S: No! I just look at her and I know it!
Me: *Sigh* OK, so it’s your ‘intuition’ thingy eh?
S: No! It’s not intuition but I just know it! And stop giving me logic!!!

Now, thinking about those conversations revealed to me after a couple of days of mulling and musing that it was highly unlikely that members of a species of this kind were capable of logical reasoning when it came to just about any decision. It seemed obvious to me that expecting logic from a woman was akin to expecting India to win this year’s football World Cup…

Further thought and logical reasoning made this an even more obvious conclusion as seen applied to real-life scenarios. Let me enlighten those of you who have not yet quite grasped the drift of what I am getting at. How many losers do you see around you who seem to have women partners? In my experience, nearly all the complete jerk-offs and twats I know seem to have an unending stream of women just dying to be with them. Prime examples include Gayonardo TheCraprio, Enrique Thegooeyass and Abhi-shake Bachchan.

So, what theory then could it possibly be that applies to women and explains their absolutely mystifyingly asinine choice in men that makes them feel that an abject loser like any of the three mentioned above would be a nice guy to be with? (I know at least fourteen women who think that AB Jr. would make a ‘nice husband’…don’t ask me what gives them that feeling…they just ‘feel’ it!)

Much musing and mulling and ho-ing and hum-ing later, I hit upon the idea that women, being the sub-25 IQ creatures that they are, could not possibly be anywhere close to as rational as men when it came to deciding which men to have in their lives (and when I say that I mean of course, as rational as men are when choosing which women to have in their lives) and trust me, my single status did not in any way influence my thinking in this regard ;-)…really, it didn’t…well, not much anyway ;-). It seemed apparent to me therefore, that women must have much more base and banal criteria for judging men and their suitability!

I decided therefore to test this hypothesis of mine and indulged in conversations with a few of the women I happen to know. Suffice to say that each of these conversations bore out the irrefutable truth and proved correct my hypothesis that women were as illogical, irrational and asinine in their choice of men as they are in all other fields of life! Let’s face it, any creature that believes a ‘first-date anniversary’ is more important than a live football game is utterly hopeless and completely incapable of logical thinking and rational reasoning in any field of life!

Anyway, to return to those conversations I had, all of them ran along essentially similar lines and can be summed up as under…

Me: So, then you must like A, right?
D: No! I don’t! Please!
Me: But you just said that he had every quality that you like in men!
D: Yeah, but no, I can’t like him…as in he’s a nice guy and decent and has everything I said…but I can’t go out with him…no!
Me: OK, so what exactly stops you? I mean, there must be something!
D: OK, look, with us women, we decide when we see a guy whether we want to sleep with him or not…and if we don’t, well, that’s that…

I have not, in my whole life felt as vindicated and as devastated simultaneously as I did when I heard those words. Vindicated, for at last I know that women are even more superficial than men and are more senseless than even I had given them credit for (lower that IQ thingy to 15, will you?) and devastated coz…well…frankly, how many women would look at a 4’1” tall cripple and want to sleep with him?

So, brothers, men of this world, change the approach, renew those gym memberships and try the new angles that I am sure will be revealed to your minds now…and hey, if you still can’t come up with anything besides the cheesy “I think I have seen you somewhere”, worry not! Darth Midnightmare will soon return to enlighten you still further. Research continues and the shrouds of mystery shall soon be removed to reveal the naked truth…

Till then though, bear in mind the immortal words of Lynn Lavner:

“There are a number of mechanical devices that increase sexual arousal in women. Chief among these is the Mercedes-Benz 500SL.”

PS: Darth Midnightmare wishes to inform his well-wishers, few though they may be, that he will now be forced to lie low for a few days to avoid the retribution of the militant arm of the Bachao! Mahila! Andolan’s Jedi Templar. The Sith however will return soon, having overcome this unavoidable disturbance in the Force. As they say, violence is the last refuge of those ill-equipped for intellectual warfare and Hell hath no fury like a woman mocked! So, be patient my faithful apprentices. Lord Midnightmare will return…I’ll be back ;-)

Oh, and here’s a not-so-reassuring thought to leave you with…

“Do you know that look women get when they want sex? Me neither” – Steve Martin

Humbug

I have always held that religion is a bad thing to have in the world today and the sooner that all religions are abolished the better it will be for the world at large. The truth of this argument seems so glaringly obvious to me, that it defies logic as to why most people can’t get it! Religion served a purpose at one point in time. That point in time has passed and so too has the utility of religion. Today, all that religion accomplishes is creating hatred, destroying peace and creating ready-to-exploit vote-banks.

The controversy over the Danish cartoons brought up a very interesting thought process in a discussion I had in my group of friends here. The school of thought that holds that the cartoons were “wrong” says that they violate the principle of Islam that says that the Prophet must never be depicted. Well, sure, that’s true, but there’s another way of looking at that, which a friend brought up.

“It’s prohibited in Islam, but then so is eating pork! Does that mean that no one must ever eat pork?” I must admit that this argument, its simplicity and its absolute irrefutability stunned all of us when we first heard it. It’s simple. Every religion prohibits a number of things. The followers of that religion may or may not choose to accept those decrees and may or may not therefore be accused of blasphemy or whatever, but the rest are completely free to break them with impunity and should not have to fear retribution from the followers of the religion!

That of course leaves just the point of whether the cartoons were offensive in themselves. Personally, I have seen all of them and did not think they were offensive. They mocked the people who use Islam as a shield and justification for terrorism and I don’t think that is at all offensive for the people who do not fall into that category. If I were a peace-loving Muslim who therefore would obviously not like those people, I would agree with the sentiments expressed by the cartoonist! It is astounding that these shold be considered offensive, particularly by those that defended MF Hussain!

The arguments raised by the defenders of the cartoons have generally centered on the issue of freedom of speech and this is where I find that religion is the obstacle! It seems fashionable in the West these days to deride Islam as the religion that seems to place barriers on freedom speech and expression, yet it is my contention, that all religions do so! However much the proponents of any religion may claim that their religion promotes peace and love, the irrefutable and indeed immutable truth of the matter is that no religion actually does so outide itself and the existence of any religion will ultimately lead to the total opposite.

There have been prolonged and painful-to-the-observer debates on the messages of peace in Islam and there have been points and counter-points about certain verses of the Koran and Hadith that certain scholars claim have violent/non-violent connotations. I find all these quite ludicrous and an unimaginable waste of time!

A fleeting glimpse of the Old Testament will serve to prove that Christianity is not devoid of violence either. Indeed, till just before the Industrial Revolution, the history of Europe is extremely bloody, brutal and war-laden…all in the name of religion. I have mentioned before in these musings of mine that all wars and battles documented in the last two millennia have essentially been based on religion! The Crusades, the burning of the witches, the colonisations etc. All these acts were promoted and encouraged and indeed sanctioned by the Church! Yet, few people contend today that Christianity is violent and there is a reason for that. Development! With the advent of the Industrial Age and prosperity, the focus of society shifted from religious to scientific education and education by its very nature is secular.

The relevance of religion in Western society has diminished to the point that there are articles about how the Church is worried about attendances and a few churches have opened malls and entertainment plazas on their premises! True that of late there is a religious Right that has sprung up in some places, but that is a very, very small minority!

By contrast, the less-developed regions of the world continued to wallow in religious fervour and worship. The Gulf, for all its money has nothing barring the oil reserves that have been relentlessly and ruthlessly been exploited by all the oil giants of the world. There is no real knowledge economy there as shown by the amazing dearth of any good institutions for higher education.

In India of course, the religious leaders of the minorities hold the strings and try to curb all attempts at the spread of education in the community. They are abetted by the ever-willing politicians for whom a community that is dependent on its religious leader for advice, represents the easiest of vote-banks to capture. Simple example. Why are the politicians as well as religious leaders so against a Uniform Civil Code? Because it’d drastically reduce, if not nullify, the hold that the religious leaders have over their community!

Religion has outlived its purpose. The purpose of every religion when it began was to create a societal order and bonding between the people. But that was in an age where there was hardly any inter-mingling! Today, with the diversity in all places, all that religions achieve is to create distinctions between people. They’re divisive by nature! Who says religions promote equality? The equality pertains only to people of the same Faith!

Every religious doctrine proclaims that the people of the ‘true faith’ will go to Heaven. A nun at my door once promised to teach me about ‘the true God’. What is all this if not divisive in nature? I believe that no person is a true atheist in the sense that every person has to believe in something. I say I am an atheist in the sense that I do not buy the concept of ‘God’ as it is taught. Yet, I too believe in something. I believe in a Universal Self as taught in the Upanishads and then as taken forward by a number of philosophers, both ancnt and modern.

No religion has answers to any of the truly philosophical questions. The reason is simple. Religion was not meant to answer these questions or teach the Truth. It was meant only to bind together people of a particular region, lay down laws and provide employment and money to the Godmen. Today, the wealth of the religious organizations and the power they wield bears testimony to the success that these instruments of domination have enjoyed. But their time has passed. It’s time to break down these edifices and look beyond at the naked truth, unmasked by the lies and deception propagated by religion.

I think the asininity of religion is best illustrated by an exchange I had with a priest. It’s a long one, so I’ll refrain from posting it here. In short, he blew up at me and refused to answer my questions after a point. It proved to me all I needed to know: Religion is a pile of crap!

The Architect

It’s been a long time since I posted, and the reason should really be quite obvious. The course is over and much huffing and puffing later, I am now at home, in Bombay, to enjoy what is doubtless going to be the last few weeks of unbridled freedom that I get to enjoy for quite a while.

Yes sir, now this really is what freedom should be about…well, almost. Let’s see, I am not fettered by thoughts of classes, exams, placements, projects or of course, work! Yet, I am at home, which brings with it the burdens that accompany being in an environment that you co-inhabit with parents, namely tidying your room a tad, making your bed when you get up and in general ensuring the tiniest bit of order in your existence. Moreover, it also places great restrictions on the way you like to lead your life!

Anyway, I’m not too bothered about those things. What really irks though is the incessant stream of queries that are invariably directed at me the moment I happen to fail to avoid social contact with any of the denizens that happen to know my name and of course the fact that I have just completed my course. Just why they waste their time and mine in that fruitless process is beyond me, but there you have it. Human curiosity seems to know no bounds when it comes to knowing what other people are doing with and in their lives.

The past week though, has thrown up a very interesting question. Neo, as those of you who have seen the matrix Trilogy will undoubtedly remember, makes the interesting observation at one point that “choice is the problem”. Now, it is of course debatable if we live in a world that we define through our choices, or whether our choices are in actual fact unavoidable. Choice could readily be imagined to be a quantity that can be defined in a complex mathematical equation, leaving choice and our interpretation as just an illusion of the fact that we have alternatives before us to choose from, with the underlying fact being that all our choices are already made.

Disregarding this debate for the moment, for the debate if entered could continue ad nauseum given the fact that few if any mortals are capable of actually unraveling this mystery – which I believe is a vital pivot in the whole debate on the issue of creation and its purpose – I find myself confronted with another interesting question.

If we assume for the moment that whether in the illusion or in the real sense, we make a choice, just what parameters does one consider as being sufficient? For example, is knowing what one does not wish to do, enough to make a choice, or should one also consider just what one does wish to do and juxtapose the same? Is knowing just one ever enough? Which is where, I suppose we descend to the individual level and realize that this decision would vary from one individual to another, with the parameters as well as decision differing with the thresholds that each individual places on each parameter.

This brings up another thought of course. What influences thresholds? Too many variables are involved in that for me to ever comprehend, but I believe that one of the most important factors in that is the sum of the experiences that the individual has in life as also the interpretations he places on each incident that he has seen or been involved in. The interpretation is – in my modest opinion - even more important than the actual incident, as with a different interpretation, the same incident could have a very different impact on the individual. It also becomes a bit recursive here of course, as it can easily be argued that the interpretation that an individual imparts to an experience is perhaps based solely on prior experiences!

Nonetheless, the basic point of choice therefore becomes an entity that is predicated on prior experiences, the effect that these have on the interpretations one makes, the combined effect that these have on the thresholds one sets, the preferences that one perceives due to the summation of all of these factors…and most importantly, on the alternatives that one perceives as being confronted with.

It’s all too complex for me at the moment. What I am pondering here is whether the alternatives one sees are all. Whether our extremely limited vision, fettered as it is with thoughts of what is real, attainable and possible, we are able to see past even the most miniscule shroud that limits our existence and thereby our thoughts and vision.

On a totally different matter, I spoke to a friend the other day and in the course of the banter that usually accompanies my conversations with the afore-mentioned friend, it struck me that I was left without a response to a statement and simultaneously so was the person at the other end, although we were ostensibly speaking in support of diametrically opposite viewpoints. And that’s where interpretations and our lack of true vision get exposed I guess…

That’s why what I deem as perhaps the course of action that would be the most mutually beneficial, may be construed by the other party as being something so outlandish that it would be the greatest folly to even deem it as an alternative worth considering… So much for free choice…

Got a Detonator?

This was hardly the topic that I had planned to post on, the chosen one having been quite different in nature, but then I happened to glance at the headlines of this morning’s paper and suddenly, it was like a valve popping. At first, all I noticed was the name ‘Jessica’. It was an immediate conclusion for me, that this must be yet another article screaming that the murderers of the lady be brought to justice…but it wasn’t.

For those that are still unfamiliar with the J case, she was shot in open view of over a hundred people, at a party where the former model was acting as bartender. She refused to serve a man a drink and he shot her dead. The courts have acquitted the guilty parties around seven years after the incident, citing a ‘lack of evidence’ as witnesses turned hostile…the police were criticized and the investigating officer, after he was transferred has revealed that his superior asked him to substitute bullets and do all in his power to help the well-connected accused.

This morning’s paper carries the story of another woman, Meher Bhargava, who lies in a hospital in critical condition after being shot in the neck thrice. She’s also largely paralyzed by the injuries and remains in a critical condition and on a respirator. This happened 12 days ago. The reason she was shot? She objected to eve-teasing. The suspects are still at large and the police are not just dragging their heels, but seem to have dug them right in…

The suspects in this case already have cases of loot, arson and attempted murder lodged against them. Once again though, being well-connected to a person in Mullayam Singh Yadav’s government (this has happened in Lucknow), they’re likely to escape scot-free! One of the prime reasons I stopped reading the newspapers here was just this…that here, anyone connected with MSY can very literally, get away with murder. Why just here though, history shows that this is the case right across India.

Circa 1984, the riots that followed the assassination of Indira Gandhi. Rajiv Gaand comes out openly and proclaims that “when a great tree falls, the ground will shake”, thus very clearly authorizing this party-men to cut loose without fear of punishment. It turned out exactly like that. Faces seen clearly on television leading killer mobs, went on to occupy ministerial berths, rather than prison cells.

Cut to a bit later and the Bofors controversy. Rajiv and Sonia Gaand were clearly guilty as was the ever-so-nice Mr. Q. Everyone knows what followed. Cut a bit later and you have the fodder scam involving our ever-so-honourable Railway Minister. Yes, that’s what you get for embezzling over INR 5 billion. It’s India, after all. A land where getting seen with Dawood Ibrahim is considered a status symbol and where, rather than offer a defence, people can question the means used by people to ‘sting’ them.

The first time I heard of the means used in a ‘sting’, I did wonder about the legal aspects, sure. But, one does ask the question of just how easy it is to buy these people. Apparently the ‘sting’ teams succeeded in proving that if someone was to try, it would prove ridiculously easy. So, now the question is not so much of whether the person is guilty or not, but of how corruptible the person is. It may be nowhere close to a legal case, as this operation proves no culpability or any illegal act in the past, but it sure does make me question the integrity of people who are supposedly ruling our Fate as well as that of the nation. All this of course, is followed by the revelation that the ‘sting’ team was sponsored by the rival political party, at which point the entire debate goes off at a tangent and ends up becoming just another pile of muck.

I often question articles and posts that merely rave and rant and present no solution to the problem. That, quite honestly is the reason that I have never posted on this topic – that of justice or the lack of it in India. Somehow, the closest I came to a solution was a course of action that started with simultaneously blowing up every single Legislative building in the country (at a time when they’re fully occupied). This of course, is beyond the realms of even a Mithun feature and even then, this would just be the start. The disease now is linked so inextricably with the system that it appears to have become a part of it.

I am also sick of hearing people say how ‘the people’ are the ones that will end all this. Bullshit! Sad to say, 90% of the people of this country – if not more – don’t deserve the right to vote! If they did, how could you justify any of the political leaders of this country? Mind you, I don’t even need to take a name!!! Name me even one!!! Sorry, democracy may flourish here…but that’s such a damned farce.

It’s a disturbing thought to know that the Fate of the country is largely decided by people who sell their vote for a bottle of country liquor, have little idea of what a vote is and an even smaller idea of whom they are voting for or what the issues are. Politicians know that their fate can be determined by the level of rainfall in election-year. And here, I am not even touching upon the communal, pseudo-communal, hidden communal, caste-based, poll-rigging etc etc.

Equal voting right is a stupid thing in India and I don’t care if you brand me arrogant or a supremacist for saying so. I truly believe that the vast and overwhelming majority of people do not deserve the right to vote. If you’re an Indian, ask yourself if you know the name of your local Municipal representative. If you don’t, well, then it shows you just how responsible a citizen you are.

Solutions for this one? Frankly, I’m fogged. I can’t think of one other than the fact that the right-minded people should get into the system and cure it from within (something that would take a century if not more), but who would enter all that filth, knowing that it could cost you your life? I thought of it too at a time, but it takes more than just the urge to do something. It would take a complete lack of fear regarding a certain bullet to the head. Is it sensible? Can it actually be done in the realm outside the ideal? I was too weak to find out. Who knows? Maybe someday someone will try. Maybe some already have. We’d never hear of them…not in the days when even the bloody media is just the extension of the political system and inches are bought rather than made.

Oh and yes, I too do not know the name of the local Municipal representative of my locality…

In a Group, I'm Individual...

Slot 1 of placements ended today (1AM) and to be frank, ended very nicely for me personally. Of my four applications in the entire process (yes, just 4), I had 2 shortlists and converted both and accepted the offer that paid the lower salary…the profile doing the trick for me. A way better profile.

The results were amazing in the sheer volume of the offers that were made in Slot 1 this time. But, even as I stood there, listening to the last of the names being read out, while enveloped in the euphoria of knowing that I had achieved what I myself had considered very doubtful at the beginning of the placement season, I happened to glance at the face of a person I know very well.

Smiling and congratulating another person, X looked just like one of the other people in that room; celebrating what I call the raison d’etre of the IIMs and all B-schools, Engineering colleges etc. in India. It was a sight that immediately took away the emotions I had been going through and replaced them with the thought that life is indeed so damned unfair.

Come to think of it, the entire placement process is very unfair and frankly, very silly. Let’s see how a typical multinational bank that wants to recruit people for its Treasury function recruits. They shortlist the top 40 students or something in the batch and then subject them to that arbitrary horror called the Group Discussion – the habitat of the terrifying GD-killers, the loudmouths who seemingly know not that a Group Discussion by definition should have more than just the one person speaking!

I would really like to question the very basis for the existence of this phenomenon. Just why does this GD exist? As per the panellists of course, it exists to illustrate just which people ‘can work well in teams or groups’. What a load of crap! Having been through a fair number of these, I think I can say with a fair degree of confidence that all that a GD does is weed out the people who are not too fluent in English, not too aggressive, not too damned loud and essentially the ones who are content to discuss rather than fight! Seems rather to defeat the purpose it set out to achieve, when you consider that last point in particular!

I, personally have failed just once to clear an elimination GD (in five attempts) and this is something I put down to the fact that I generally bide my time and speak but little, preferring to think up a point that nobody else has brought up and bringing it in nicely at the point that even the panellist will notice that I contributed quality rather than quantity. I do this twice and then remain silent unless the panellist decides to ask everyone to conclude in turns or asks me to summarize.

Yet, I have to admit that this is in no small part also attributable to luck! I have never applied to the FMCG companies; and those that have assure me that those firms never fail to select solely those people who never stop talking, preferring a fish-market scenario over allowing the others a chance to speak. This though, is not just restricted to FMCG companies it would seem.

Banks somehow seem to have acquired this fetish (so to say) as well! In today’s day and age, most if not all, banks recruit for multiple functions spanning both consumer banking as well as corporate banking, the former being more of a Marketing job with little or no Finance knowledge required and the latter being the opposite. Now, I really fail to understand why a candidate applying to the latter really has to demonstrate how good he is in a GD!

Why should communication skills and teamwork be qualities you look for in a person, who is after all, just going to pore over numbers and figures all day, compute solutions to very complex equations and all in all, work individually to reach certain objectives? Just why should this person be great in a GD or exceptionally good in his fluency in the English language? Why should he be the sort who is necessarily grammatically correct all the time and who speaks accent-less English?

A number of people say about me that once I get a shortlist for an interview I will almost certainly clear it. I do take this as a compliment, yet I do not consider this to be a reflection of my true abilities. I take it purely as acknowledgement of the fact that I am perhaps more fluent and more ‘glib’ a talker than several of those around me. I do not for a moment though, believe that these qualities will in any way enable me to be superior in my work to those around me who are not so good on those parameters. Far from it, I believe that a number of them are in actual fact, far better equipped than me to excel in most fields! Through hard work, dedication and knowledge of the field, all of which I sorely lack.

It sickens me to think that the person that taught a number of people Finance could fail to reach the interview stage for any of the major banks on campus in Slot 1. Yet, the way things are structured in the placement process, this is a very real possibility. It sickens me to contemplate that one of the most intelligent people on campus could be rejected in interviews for Treasury and Corporate Banking roles because his communication skills are not ‘up to the mark’. Just what is the mark? Work skill? Or glib talk?

These people are too good to not get jobs. They are too good to not be the top performers among their peers within the next two years. There is no doubt that they will indeed be the stars that shine brightest in a very short while. Yet in the meantime, I must say that their loss is also the industry’s loss and in particular the loss of the organizations that choose façade over matter, style over substance and glib talk over real knowledge.

Yet, this thread is about more than those few. This is about those that somehow fall through the holes in that web called luck. Through no fault of theirs but merely through that fact that is fortune. There are those that somehow are missed because they state plainly who they are, rather than type the same in words designed to mislead. To those that have qualifications that set them apart from the rest in terms of true knowledge who are still considered as being not good enough to merit an interview as the course is not one that requires the top percentages.

At the end of the day, what will show is just true ability. So X, this one’s for you dude…

I chased what could do without,
You follow with the blade landing on the thorn,
You saw it not; you’ll see it once more,
The blind can’t be warned; wisdom’s never inborn

Of Calamities and Misinformation

If I were asked to name the two biggest natural disasters ever to hit Indian shores, I would have no hesitation in naming the horrendously overhyped and much lied about duo of J Nehru and MK Gandhi. Whether evaluated from an economic, foreign-relations or human perspective, these two did all in their power to cripple the country and leave it in a total shambles by the time they were through.

Let’s just look a bit objectively at the oh-so-great Mr. N then for starters. Power hungry as he was, his first act was to ensure, with able assistance and ultimate guidance from Mr. G that the Congress’ decision of appointing Patel as PM was shot down and he was to lead the nation. This decision of course, led to Jinnah asking for Pakistan, since his only condition was that Nehru not be made PM. A secular Jinnah, when rebuffed by Gandhi on this demand immediately turned to hardline religiosity and ultimately this led to the infamous rioting that left thousands dead and the populations of two nations scarred.

This however was just the precursor to what Nehru truly aimed to accomplish. Jinnah was perhaps the wisest man of that time and I base this opinion purely on the fact that hindsight shows how right he was to demand that Nehru not be made PM. Just after Independence, with Pakistan mounting an attack on Kashmir, the then-ruler of the independent State rushed to Delhi and signed an accession treaty with India. As part of the country, perhaps I am not being too demanding when I state that India’s duty was now to retaliate to uphold sovereignty – a suggestion that Patel (Home Minster) made.

Yet Nehru in his infinite wisdom chose to rush to the UN with this issue rather than use force. The result? A total fiasco with India rejecting the UN’s decision, an International Border that is non-existent and much-debated, a ‘Line-of-Control’ that is farcical and ill-defined at best and of course, the wonderful gift of terrorism that shows no signs of ceasing.

But Nehru was an all-rounder, to be sure. India was a newly freed nation and this of course afforded him with ample elbow-room to wreak all the havoc that his mind dreamed up. Economically, he imposed on the country a model more incompetent and ridiculous than any could have imagined. A similar model was tried and immediately rejected by China, but Nehru of course knew better.

So, we had regulations that ensured that there was no private sector at all, we had a monolithic public sector that apart from boosting the employment figures provided little productivity and ensured that incompetence, corruption and red tape became inextricable parts of our industry and culture. The growth rates under Nehru was not just laughable, but contemptible and the economy hurtled quickly towards the crisis that would envelop it in the 1970s.

Foreign affairs though, was the field for which Nehru reserved his best. He started this little baby called the Non-Alignment Movement. Fantastic as it may sound, this joke not just survived its ill-conceived inception, but lasts to date!!! This despite the Cold War itself having been over for well over a decade. Oh well, since we can’t blame the last bit on Nehru, I will just leave that as a pointer to how ridiculous the concept was in itself.

NAM of course meant that the member nations of this organisation aligned with neither the United States nor the USSR. It’s perhaps the easiest fact to point out that none of the NAM countries achieved anything significant in terms of growth during the Cold War era. India of course, was to play an even bigger clown under the expert guidance of the highly esteemed Mr. Nehru.

While a leading light of NAM and one of the founder nations, India was quite obviously cosying up to the USSR. This of course was hardly invisible to the USA who quite nicely formed an alliance with Pakistan. (It took massive efforts to shrug off the effects of this phase and Indian relations with the USA did not improve till ABV's reign... Even now of course, the astoundingly stupid Left and their cronies are creating a ruckus, but then again, they'd do that anyway.) Yet India was never really assured of overt Russian support anyway, since we were, ostensibly at least, a part of NAM and therefore could hardly afford to support one of the Big Two on any public forum!

Yet Nehru’s biggest showpiece, his grandest moment and the culmination of all his efforts on these different fronts was the confrontation with China. Much is made in history texts in Indian schools of the fact that the Chinese were the aggressors in this conflict. This of course, is a vicious campaign of misinformation used by the Congress to sweep under the carpet all the horrendous mistakes that Nehru made in the lead-up to the conflict.

The great statesman that he was, he deliberately redrew the maps and asked the Indian forces to proceed further and further, assuming that the Chinese troops that would inevitably be returning to their outposts would not care to fight and take back what was theirs, as the land in that region was hardly fertile (Wonder why he wanted it then, but then I’m not as smart or as much a visionary as he was).

Nehru then repeatedly ignored Chinese pleas to withdraw and the result of course was the war itself. This is where Nehru’s other achievements came into play. Where the maps and the records showed bridges and roads that the exchequer had paid millions for, there were in reality none present! And Nehru being the tactical genius and the geography master that he was, asked the Indian soldiers to march into combat in the Himalayas, wearing no more than a sleeveless sweater. Perhaps his assumption was that the firing would keep them warm. Who knows? Perhaps he was right. We’ll never know the soldiers’ perspective of course as they were all massacred on the battlefield…

As an illustration of the truth of all this, consider that China, having marched well into the disputed territory and being in a fantastic position, unchallenged and facing pressure from nobody, unilaterally declared a ceasefire as well as a withdrawal of troops and returned vast portions of the disputed territory to India. This is after the fact that their initial offer for a ceasefire in September (all they asked in return was that India agree to negotiate on the issues that Nehru had so far ignored), was rejected by Nehru even before he read it!!! This of course sparked off the combat in October and November that claimed over a thousand soldiers.

Nehru showed his tremendous respect for the fallen men with his stunning statement regarding how ‘not a blade of grass grows there’, to illustrate that the loss was not anything he considered major. And this man is considered our greatest leader? The maestro of foreign relations? The only foreign relationship he was good at was the philandering with Lady M.

In true Nehruvian style of course, there was a report written on the War and the reasons for the loss. There was also a Committee instituted later that was asked to see if the report could be released to the Indian public. That of course, has not happened and possibly never will… To do so, would destroy in one blow all the myths that the Congress has worked so hard at spreading, about the most vile person ever to occupy any nation’s top office.

To those that may contest the facts I present regarding the China War, please visit this link. It may enlighten you…and trust me, it makes for a depressing read, particularly if you are a Congress-loving person who believes in that web of lies and deception about Nehru…

Someday I’ll write on Gandhi’s other failings, but perhaps the biggest of them all, was that he shoved this man down our throats… It’s enough to make a grown man cry to hear people praise those two bastards.

Dustin' Up Reality

I don’t normally watch movies, considering the activity to be rather a waste of time, particularly considering that this time could be so much more gainfully employed in writing or at least listening to some songs. It was therefore something that caused me no little chagrin when I was literally forced to watch a movie tonight.

In a way that I find quite typical though, I managed - with some effort mind you - to shrug off my tormentors so to speak and was sitting in my room sipping the vodka when it suddenly struck me that it could surely not be that bad an idea to watch, or should I say re-watch a movie called The Graduate. I settled down therefore, comfortable in the absence of the newly-removed plaster and watched a movie that quite frankly, I expected to bore the wits out of me.

When I first watched the movie, it left me quite untouched. It struck me more as a movie that may have been relevant in parts to the audience of the 60s, feeding on their anti-establishment feelings and their rebelliousness, but one that with the passage of time had not just been eroded in the connection that it could establish, but also one that was retrograde and quite comical in its attempt to be a mature movie-watchers feed.

Watching it tonight though was a quite different experience to the time almost a decade ago when I viewed it for the first time. For starters of course, I no longer had that adolescent thrill at the prospect of watching a movie that was ostensibly all about sex and attaining sexual maturity. What started a couple of hours ago as a mere exercise to prove the veracity of my aversion to movie-watching turned quite quickly into an absorbing exercise that made me think even after it was, for all practical purposes, at an end.

How many people in my batch or the next truly know what they aspire to become – apart of course from the time-honoured ‘successful career’ myths? How many truly understand the life that faces them? How many are equipped mentally and emotionally to handle all that life will inevitably throw their way? Why them, a vast majority of even the supposedly mature adults I meet, despite their decades of working life, seem to be quite at a loss when confronted with these questions.

Most people would prefer to flow with the tide, so to speak. Few, if any, of us have ever contemplated the ramifications that our actions at this age, or any before this, will have or have had on the lives that we shall lead in the future. The emptiness and desolation that oft seem to accompany middle-age are perhaps a direct consequence of this. Then again, when have we ever been granted the time to think of such things?

As things stand, a few days prior to this post, I found myself staring at a list of company names. A number of them – and I am not ashamed to say this – were names that I had never heard prior to setting my eyes upon the list. My task was to rank these in order of my preference – were I to be offered a job in each of them. This task that seemed so infinitely easy did not really take me a short while to complete mind you, despite the fact that I only ended up ranking around 10 of the companies in that entire list of well over a hundred. And trust me when I say that the number of applications I have made falls well short of even that number, which when compared with my colleagues seems so paltry.

When have any of us really had the time to ponder over those myriad questions that confront us in the forms? ‘What are you short-term and long-term aims?’, ‘Where do you see yourself five years from now?’ Quite frankly, while a few may have found the time to contemplate these, the vast majority are, at least in my opinion quite clueless about the true answers that they hold to these questions.

When thought about at even the slightest depth, we have never really made the choices that we seem to have made. As a high-schooler, it was ingrained in me that the intelligent and the performers chose to do Engineering or Medicine by default rather than design. Little wonder then that I, like the vast majority, ‘chose’ one of those disciplines. Post-Engineering, it was quite clear to me that my heart did not lie there and once again like the majority of the populace confronted with such a situation, I chose to pursue an education in Management.

I truly believed that the two years thus spent would give me the opportunity to not just look at who I was but also give me the time to evaluate where I stood and where I really wanted to head in life. Most people in my position do the same and quite frankly they are hardly to blame – if at all. Asked myself, I too would advise a person facing that crisis in life to do exactly as I did.

And yet, as I stand today, I feel that most around me are truly lost – too caught up in what we are doing to ever thing properly about exactly what we are doing and what ramifications our actions hold for ourselves. Aversion to taking risks has become so deep a part of us that we rarely seem to be able to tune into ourselves. The truth about us becomes a part of the great unknown and like the leaf in autumn winds, we too get swept with the tide…moving towards our destiny with scarcely a thought about what that destiny is.

I can hardly boast of being a thinker or even one who knows the answer to any of the questions that haunt my existence. However that is hardly an excuse for being who I am. Will I ever have the courage to pursue the dream that I saw emerge today? I know not. I have no idea quite frankly about what direction I will ‘choose’ to take at the end of this phase of my life…and yet, that one phone call today wherein I stated what I believe in and met with an empathetic response seems to console me that the path I choose will not really be as tough as things have seemed thus far.

My aim is neither of chastising, nor of demeaning those that surround me. I merely say what I do because I am perhaps more clueless than most…because I know just how clueless man can become. Dustin Hoffman, take a bow… Truly, the sounds of silence are deafening.