Schoolchildren hold candles during a vigil held in memory of the victims of Wednesday's shootings in Mumbai, in the western Indian city of Ahmedabad November 27, 2008.(REUTERS/Amit Dave).... Prayer....I have never been a great advocate of prayer...as I have always held a partial atheistic view...But today...I realize the importance of prayer...I pray that the dead souls are in peace...I also pray nothing of this sort happens again..
Friday, November 28, 2008
Mumbai under attack
Schoolchildren hold candles during a vigil held in memory of the victims of Wednesday's shootings in Mumbai, in the western Indian city of Ahmedabad November 27, 2008.(REUTERS/Amit Dave).... Prayer....I have never been a great advocate of prayer...as I have always held a partial atheistic view...But today...I realize the importance of prayer...I pray that the dead souls are in peace...I also pray nothing of this sort happens again..
Mumbai under attack
A stray dog stands on a deserted street outside the Taj Mahal hotel where suspected gunmen are holed up in Mumbai, India, Friday, Nov. 28, 2008. (AP Photo/Altaf Qadri)....A picture that I will remember forever...remember it because of what it represents....This is Terrorism...A lone dog that has not the slightest inkling as to why there are no people around and why people are terrorized.....
Mumbai under attack
Employees and guests of the Taj Mahal hotel, site of one of the shootouts with terrorists, are recued by firefighters as fire engulfs the top floor on late November 26, 2008. (LORENZO TUGNOLI/AFP/Getty Images)
Mumbai under attack
An unidentified guest of the Taj Hotel watches other guests being rescued from a window of the hotel in Mumbai, India, Thursday, Nov. 27, 2008. (AP Photo/Gautam Singh)
Mumbai under attack
Fire engulfs the top floor of the Taj Mahal hotel, site of one of the shootouts with terrorists in Mumbai on late November 26, 2008. (LORENZO TUGNOLI/AFP/Getty Images)
Mumbai under attack
The bodies of at least six victims of Wednesday's shootings lie on the floor of the Chattrapati Shivaji Terminus railway station in Mumbai November 26, 2008. (REUTERS/The Times of India)
Mumbai under attack
A gunman walks through the Chatrapathi Sivaji Terminal railway station in Mumbai, India, Wednesday, Nov. 26, 2008. (AP Photo/Mumbai Mirror, Sebastian D'souza)......This is the face we need to remember..the face we need to hate...the face that should motivate us to make this world a better place to live...
Mumbai under attack
A man carries a victim of a gun attack away from the scene of an earlier attack at the Chatrapati Shivaji Terminus in Mumbai, India, Wednesday, Nov. 26, 2008. (AP Photo/Rajanish Kakade)
Mumbai under attack
Gruesome.....grotesque......We need to remember this....These snaps must be etched in our memory....
India Burning.....scenes that boil my blood
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
The hateful world
Yesterday, I was rejoicing over the dominance of India in the recent one day series, plainly flattering myself by reading and re-reading the articles describing the victory of India over England in the one day series. As I was doing that, I came across a article saying that there was a gang war occurring in Mumbai. I dismissed it and did not read more and also treating it with a level of apathy. How many reports had I come across like that throughout my lifetime? I closed the system and went to the laboratory to start my work.
I was still rejoicing when I entered the laboratory, when a friend told me with slight ridicule in her voice, that Mumbai was under attack. I reopened the news sites and looked through. Even then, it did not occur to me the height of the disaster. I did not even think about the people I personally knew who were in Mumbai. It just was another terrorist bombing: how many have I seen those during my lifetime, more specifically, how many have I seen those during this year itself? What was so new about it?
Why was I so apathetic? It was pathetic to be filled with so much apathy. I had no clue then. I was more worried about the project I was doing and still rejoicing in India's victory. I just did not have the strength to face up to the facts that were becoming clearer to me in my subconscious.
All my life, I have always believed in humanity. For a human to actually indulge in grotesque acts requires a very powerful motive. I have also read and seen terrorist attacks and bombings all through my life of 0ne and twenty. I had always sympathised with not just the victims but with the terrorists themselves. While their acts were brutal and unforgiving, I had always felt that if they were caught they ought to be given a chance to redeem themselves. There was this Gandhian ideal inside me that prompted me not to hate. I had always felt love conquers all.
Always, until now.
The past two years I have seen a sudden surge in the number of attacks including two brutal bombings in my hometown, Hyderabad, aiming to scare people and divide them. There has been no motive or demand mentioned by the culprits, whoever they claim to be. The basic aim has been to kill. How simple is that! Just simply kill. What do you do to stop something that seeks to simply kill? For a year, I have had challenges to my faith, to my belief that violence should not beget violence. The events unfolding in Mumbai confirm the dent in that particular belief.
The terrorists have succeeded. It is time to face that. They have taught me to hate as well.
The defining moment was when I saw blood splattered on the road, and saw the account of a journalist describing her horror when she was stranded on the road in the midst of heavy firing by a policeman who had been offering words of solace but cried and ran when he realized he was the only policeman alive on that road. For the first time, my blood was boiling. This is war and I have finally realized the nature of war.
I have to have a new belief ingrained now: Evil is evil anywhere and it has to be eradicated by any means possible. There is no two sides of the same coin here, as is with the case with these terrorists whose aim has been to simply kill, the counter-terrorist's aim has to be to simply eradicate.
This is a time when things like sporting events have to take a back-seat, it is time to be worried. We are living in a world of hate. To survive, we have to learn to hate the extremist forces. We have to make the world a better place, a more secure place.
Hate the people who have done this, hate the people who brought our country down to the knees, hate the people who have been the sole cause to have killed so many people none less important than any other the past two decades, hate the people who have tried to destroy the world we are striving to build and rebuild, hate the people who talk of their religion being greater than the other, hate the people who try to invade other religions and cultures, hate the fanatics, hate the people who destroy famous Buddhist relics from the past, hate the people who bring down famous mosques, hate the people who bring down famous temples, hate the people who strive to create tensions between different religions, countries, cultures, and finally hate the people who oppose humanity.
Hate now to promote love later.
I was still rejoicing when I entered the laboratory, when a friend told me with slight ridicule in her voice, that Mumbai was under attack. I reopened the news sites and looked through. Even then, it did not occur to me the height of the disaster. I did not even think about the people I personally knew who were in Mumbai. It just was another terrorist bombing: how many have I seen those during my lifetime, more specifically, how many have I seen those during this year itself? What was so new about it?
Why was I so apathetic? It was pathetic to be filled with so much apathy. I had no clue then. I was more worried about the project I was doing and still rejoicing in India's victory. I just did not have the strength to face up to the facts that were becoming clearer to me in my subconscious.
All my life, I have always believed in humanity. For a human to actually indulge in grotesque acts requires a very powerful motive. I have also read and seen terrorist attacks and bombings all through my life of 0ne and twenty. I had always sympathised with not just the victims but with the terrorists themselves. While their acts were brutal and unforgiving, I had always felt that if they were caught they ought to be given a chance to redeem themselves. There was this Gandhian ideal inside me that prompted me not to hate. I had always felt love conquers all.
Always, until now.
The past two years I have seen a sudden surge in the number of attacks including two brutal bombings in my hometown, Hyderabad, aiming to scare people and divide them. There has been no motive or demand mentioned by the culprits, whoever they claim to be. The basic aim has been to kill. How simple is that! Just simply kill. What do you do to stop something that seeks to simply kill? For a year, I have had challenges to my faith, to my belief that violence should not beget violence. The events unfolding in Mumbai confirm the dent in that particular belief.
The terrorists have succeeded. It is time to face that. They have taught me to hate as well.
The defining moment was when I saw blood splattered on the road, and saw the account of a journalist describing her horror when she was stranded on the road in the midst of heavy firing by a policeman who had been offering words of solace but cried and ran when he realized he was the only policeman alive on that road. For the first time, my blood was boiling. This is war and I have finally realized the nature of war.
I have to have a new belief ingrained now: Evil is evil anywhere and it has to be eradicated by any means possible. There is no two sides of the same coin here, as is with the case with these terrorists whose aim has been to simply kill, the counter-terrorist's aim has to be to simply eradicate.
This is a time when things like sporting events have to take a back-seat, it is time to be worried. We are living in a world of hate. To survive, we have to learn to hate the extremist forces. We have to make the world a better place, a more secure place.
Hate the people who have done this, hate the people who brought our country down to the knees, hate the people who have been the sole cause to have killed so many people none less important than any other the past two decades, hate the people who have tried to destroy the world we are striving to build and rebuild, hate the people who talk of their religion being greater than the other, hate the people who try to invade other religions and cultures, hate the fanatics, hate the people who destroy famous Buddhist relics from the past, hate the people who bring down famous mosques, hate the people who bring down famous temples, hate the people who strive to create tensions between different religions, countries, cultures, and finally hate the people who oppose humanity.
Hate now to promote love later.
Thursday, November 06, 2008
YouTube - Obama Acceptance Speech- Barack Obama Victory Speech November 4th 2008-yes we can full
The best speech I have heard in recent times. Noone deserves the Presidency more. Strongly reminded by Jawaharlal Nehru and Martin Luther King
Saturday, November 01, 2008
Sunday, October 26, 2008
Wednesday, October 08, 2008
Back to UN-Laziness
The mind block is hopefully over. The previous post was my first in many months. It is poorly written, but the state of mind is so much relieved. I hope it brings forth a change and order.
The start of the end of my childhood
Down the track, and he smashes the ball right over the bowler's head for six, yet another blow by the Prince of Calcutta.....
These lines will probably be said for the last time during the 2008 Australian tour of India. It marks, most probably, the start of the end of an era.
The present post is not one of the many odes to Ganguly's careers which will be written in the next few weeks. I do not intend to write that though I am tempted to. Instead, this is my attempt to describe a paradigm shift in my life.
The earliest memory I have with cricket was in 1996, during the world cup of that year. Initially i was highly irritated with the perpetual viewing of the matches at home as that resulted in me missing my daily dose of cartoons. That also led to some fights with my brother at home over the television.....and then it happened.
The first match of India was on, and it was against Kenya. As usual that day, I was going through the motions. I was still pouting when the Indians started batting. Tendulkar started carting the bowlers around, and somehow I stopped my ranting. I never realized I was silent for two hours when my mother called me to run an errand. When I came back to watch, the presentation ceremony was being shown and I had to suppress a feeling of disappointment that I missed the latter part of the innings. Looking back, it certainly seems the moment when my love affair with cricket started. Ever since, I cried when India lost, jumped up with joy when Inda won. More than anything else, it was my respect for those cricketers who have been in the Indian team ever since I started following that made me watch the matches. These cricketers captured my imagination, and their feats never failed to inspire me. Maybe it was the dearth of achievements in other sports, or maybe it was simply due to peer influence, but cricket has ruled the feeling of inspiration and motivation.
The most interesting thing when I look back is that the developments in cricket paralleled the events in real life. When Indian cricket was marred with match fixing scandals, I was neck deep with teenage problems. When Ganguly led a correction of wrongs in the sport and restructuring of cricket soon after, during the early years of the 21st century, I was part of a beautiful period of my life. The ups of the cricketing world matched my ups and the failures matched my failures. Whether it was by design or by my own fanatic nature, I have no idea but the fact was this was how it was.
Now, we are at a turning point. Sourav Ganguly has announced his retirement. When I read this, I was prompted to re-evaluate my circumstances. What is the analogous thing that is happening in my life? It is the end of my childhood. The icons I have grown up watching are slowly going out. My childhood is coming to an end. I have never had to worry about money, food, a roof over my head ever before. Now I have to. I have entered adulthood and have to face the struggles that come along with it. Just as the icons are disappearing, the innocence is fast disappearing. There have been heartbreaks, problems with the opposite sex, disappointments, successes, struggles to be financially independent, in short everything that a life of a bachelor is made up of. That, what they call the end of an era in the cricketing world is the end of a phase in my life. It is time to move on.
I will forever miss the towering sixes of Sourav Ganguly, as I will miss the pleasant charm of being a kid and a teenager. But as Indian cricket does not stop with the retirement of a great icon, so does not my life, it is time to stand up on my feet and face the music. As should be said in Ganguly's case, it is time to face the "chin" music.
These lines will probably be said for the last time during the 2008 Australian tour of India. It marks, most probably, the start of the end of an era.
The present post is not one of the many odes to Ganguly's careers which will be written in the next few weeks. I do not intend to write that though I am tempted to. Instead, this is my attempt to describe a paradigm shift in my life.
The earliest memory I have with cricket was in 1996, during the world cup of that year. Initially i was highly irritated with the perpetual viewing of the matches at home as that resulted in me missing my daily dose of cartoons. That also led to some fights with my brother at home over the television.....and then it happened.
The first match of India was on, and it was against Kenya. As usual that day, I was going through the motions. I was still pouting when the Indians started batting. Tendulkar started carting the bowlers around, and somehow I stopped my ranting. I never realized I was silent for two hours when my mother called me to run an errand. When I came back to watch, the presentation ceremony was being shown and I had to suppress a feeling of disappointment that I missed the latter part of the innings. Looking back, it certainly seems the moment when my love affair with cricket started. Ever since, I cried when India lost, jumped up with joy when Inda won. More than anything else, it was my respect for those cricketers who have been in the Indian team ever since I started following that made me watch the matches. These cricketers captured my imagination, and their feats never failed to inspire me. Maybe it was the dearth of achievements in other sports, or maybe it was simply due to peer influence, but cricket has ruled the feeling of inspiration and motivation.
The most interesting thing when I look back is that the developments in cricket paralleled the events in real life. When Indian cricket was marred with match fixing scandals, I was neck deep with teenage problems. When Ganguly led a correction of wrongs in the sport and restructuring of cricket soon after, during the early years of the 21st century, I was part of a beautiful period of my life. The ups of the cricketing world matched my ups and the failures matched my failures. Whether it was by design or by my own fanatic nature, I have no idea but the fact was this was how it was.
Now, we are at a turning point. Sourav Ganguly has announced his retirement. When I read this, I was prompted to re-evaluate my circumstances. What is the analogous thing that is happening in my life? It is the end of my childhood. The icons I have grown up watching are slowly going out. My childhood is coming to an end. I have never had to worry about money, food, a roof over my head ever before. Now I have to. I have entered adulthood and have to face the struggles that come along with it. Just as the icons are disappearing, the innocence is fast disappearing. There have been heartbreaks, problems with the opposite sex, disappointments, successes, struggles to be financially independent, in short everything that a life of a bachelor is made up of. That, what they call the end of an era in the cricketing world is the end of a phase in my life. It is time to move on.
I will forever miss the towering sixes of Sourav Ganguly, as I will miss the pleasant charm of being a kid and a teenager. But as Indian cricket does not stop with the retirement of a great icon, so does not my life, it is time to stand up on my feet and face the music. As should be said in Ganguly's case, it is time to face the "chin" music.
Saturday, May 31, 2008
Cynosure of Cynicism
When does one have the feeling of loneliness? When does one feel that he has lost something even when he is in a position to gain everything? When does one have that incomprehensible feeling of loss which is tied with the red haze of blazing fury and frustration? When does one have the feeling of abandonment even when he very much wants to be part of the world? When does one feel so lonely that even when he is surrounded by hundreds of people he hears nothing, sees nothing and feels nothing but yet feels everything, sees everything and hears everything?
Who feels the above? Is it normal to be that way? What is normal? Is it normal to be lonely in the world? Is it normal to be obsessively felt wanted? Is it normal to have a feeling of being wanted more specific in nature? Is it normal to have such a strong feeling of being wanted converged to a specific entity that one would want to do everything in the world to ascertain that the feeling does not meander its way to dreams but rather stay put in the prosaic world of reality? Is it normal to feel ashamed of it? Is it normal to feel afraid of consequences of vocalizing such feelings? Is it normal to feel so ashamed that it is at death’s door one would juggle his vocal chords in the rhythm that would accentuate such feelings?
What kind of feelings are these? Is it the body or the mind that keeps playing these tricks? Is it important to think about the existence of such feelings? Are there more important things to write about? Are these feelings described through the ages? Have they been celebrated or described cynically? Why are they cynical? Do these thoughts make one cynical? How do they make one cynical? What is cynicism? Why does one feel cynical? Is it just due to these feelings that cynicism creeps into the mind and body? Is cynicism just an illusory gamut of blazing irrational thoughts perpetuating the very essence of your sanity? Is it necessary to be cynical? Is it such a feeling so natural that the realization of such a feeling can shock you out of your mind? Does being cynical mean loss of faith?
Can one destroy cynicism? Can one put it beyond reach? Can one make a substitute for the loss of faith? Can one replenish their faith so that the cynicism is destroyed? Is this what the Enlightened ones talk about? Are the Enlightened ones enlightened because they have destroyed their cynicism? Do they see the world as it really is? Do they see the world without any expectations, without any inhibitions, without happiness, without sadness or without any cynicism and yet feel each one of these conflicting emotions when they view the world through a different light, which is entirely of their own making? Who are these Enlightened ones? How have they destroyed the cynosure of cynicism? What is the cynosure of cynicism? Is it the focal point from which the feeling of being wanted arises and which when not requited spirals throughout the soul as cynicism? How is the cynosure of cynicism destroyed? How does one become enlightened? How does one look into himself and point to the cynosure of cynicism to even start destroying it? How does one look into himself at all? How does one become individualistic? Is being individualistic the same as destroying the cynosure of cynicism? Is it also the same as living free and dying hard? Is it the cue to start living? Is it the same as submitting to the world, to the ways of the world, to the energies of the world? Is submission an act of weakness, something to be ashamed about? What is submission? Is it giving in to something superior? Who is superior? Is the world superior or is an individual superior? Is there a way to judge superiority? Should there be something superior? If there is nothing superior, is there something which is inferior? If there is nothing superior or inferior, who is submitting to whom? Is there no submission happening at all? If there is no submission happening, what is happening? Does one just become resonant with the energies of the world? Does one find these energies inside him? Is finding the same as producing a sublime, subtle piece of creative work such as a painting, a sculpture, a mathematical expression, a poem, a form of prose, an intricate design of handiwork, a Tennis shot, a devastating cricket ball, a musical composition of such purity and beauty that it is resonant with any natural process in the world and commands enlightenment making that person an Enlightened one? Is destroying the cynosure of cynicism the same as attaining the balance between the world and the individual, between everything and one thing, between everyone and the one?
What has been written until this point? Why has it been written? Is writing this a form of cynicism? Or is the process of writing a way to destroy the cynosure of cynicism? Has the cynosure of cynicism been destroyed?
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