Poem.. after a long long time... preachy as usual but still puts what i felt in words..

The past forgotten
the moment felt
the future uncertain

life takes another turn
heads or tails
go one way

is the decision mine..
or is already made
Cant see the way

wait.. i see a light
its very bright
it brings another way out

its no more this or that
This IS
should I go for it

but I cannot
I have a life
promises to fulfill

But this is tempting
What should I do
Should I go for it..

I've done it again

Yet again, in the measly little life i've lived, I've managed to put myself in a self destruct situation. Here I was, with the perfect life, a good job, making good money and one decision, which I'm still to make, can ruin/change it all. My whole life will reset itself. Now, I am rational enough to think about this decision but I'm also dumb enough to put myself in this situation. The decision can go either way. It only depends on the circumstance.

Such a dilemma. If only solutions were as simple as that.

Too bad I don't want to care either way.. I want to just live....

Falling in Love

It is now 9 P.M. and I'm still sitting in office, looking out of a window at one of the busiest roads in the city. A very repetitive uninteresting sight but if one goes out to find meaning, it can come out of anything. I've been trying to write a short film which is as of now in just a series of cluttered thoughts, ideas and situations in my head. To start with, I thought the film I make has to be about love. It is one of the best feelings ever and it would be amazing to ignite the same in someone watching my film.

So love it is.. and the search for a story starts..

Scene One

Background song plays: 'And I still haven't found what I'm looking for...'

And I still haven't found what I'm looking for...

Everyone seems to know what they want, things, jobs, relationships... some have a long list. I was confronted by the very same question yesterday and I... did not have an answer. Now, either this is a sad testimony to my flavorless life or it is proof of my enlightened existence. My mind and heart reject both logical reasonings.

So then what do I want, well I certainly do want some things in life, but they're not as significant as the seriousness with which the question is posed. Let me make a list of the things which I currently want and let it rest in internet history:

- more playstation games
- finish my script
- jazz up my car
- get a new phone

now i'm just forcing things out.. maybe creating more wants along the way... Lets play

- make a feature film
- get a life
- get a fully loaded entertainment center
- buy a house
- gain enlightenment
- have a house in the hills
- never have to worry about money again
- accomplish that secret task
- send a lot of money home
- learn to fly a plane, learn how to sketch, learn how to play the guitar and the piano

Ok.. now I'm bored... i'm going to revisit this list after maybe 5 years...

NOW I HAVE SOME WANTS...

And I still haven't found what I'm looking for..

Of how women are taking over my world

The day had just passed by like a blur as I rested my head on my pillow after months of slave labour. My mind was experiencing one of those few moments of thoughtlessness. I brought my hand towards my face. I realised I hadn't shaved for months now. Going a little further towards my hair, I figured the state I was in and made an instant decision. I had to go the salon... immediately. The thoughtlessness was broken... for a good cause of course, but the blissful feeling or whatever its chemical equivalent is called remained.

I walked down the sea lined road, admired the palm trees lining the road, happy faces, beautiful women enjoying the breeze, even the slum dwellers seemed to be having such a good time. It was truly a happy day for the world and I was aware. Pushing the front door of the salon open like I owned the place, just like I owned the world for the day, I walked in to face a smiling girl at the reception in a smart black body hugging uniform. This was a first, a girl receptionist in a men's salon. A good way to increase clientele, I told myself. After explaining to her what all I wanted to get done, I went towards the usual services section to my usual chair looking for my usual guy who knows the detailing which goes into cutting my small but delicate crop of hair.

Change was the theme for the day and I, as usual, was just going with the flow. The first look my eyes gathered was a woman getting her eyebrows done. I settled into my chair, taking another look at the woman getting tormented by another woman with a thread. Well, my favorite salon had become unisex. Another one of my manly escapes had been lost. A flurry of thoughts were flowing through my blissful thoughtless head when the smily, not so beautiful in close-up, receptionist showed up and introduced me to her new staff. A young beautiful girl was to give me a hair cut.

Whhaaaatttttt.... seriously. No woman is touching my beautiful hair..

'Where's Rakesh I asked', I asked. 'Oh! We had to let go of him as we were restructuring', the now ugly receptionist replied, still smiling. With that, I heaved a huge sigh and surrendered myself into the hands of an untested woman with beautiful hands. The battle started.

The phone rang. I had thought of leaving the big black thing at home but had to carry it out of fear of my supposed not-so-legalised but very dangerous when angry better half. It was not her, it was my kind-of-legalised sweet-poison dangerous woman colleague from office wanting another task executed. The world became all grim, the happy faces started to disintegrate, everyone was rushing to get somewhere, the city was suddenly at its busiest best. I was no longer the ruler, the special one. I was just the random guy next door. Well, the girl got over her haircut, suggesting facials, massages etc.. Maybe she even offered to sleep with me but I was too bored and lost to listen to her ranting.

Getting out of that paradise now under the spell of a black witch, I gathered myself and started the process of taking an auto-rickshaw to office but guess who decided to steal the rickshaw I was about to take, another woman. There is this thing about 40 plus women in India, especially the ones married with children.

They think it is their natural birth right to get first right to everything like they're disabled or something, ready to fight over everything and anything. Guess who always wins and is always right in their head..

My mom called me. She wanted to know about when I was sending her favorite painting print, meeting her friend in Mumbai, calling up some other random relatives, getting my hair cut (I had just done it.. one point up!), when I was coming to Delhi myself.. and the usual everyday q & a’s. Sometimes I think our conversations are like a never ending loop.

Where were the men, I was asking myself. Looking around, I could not see any, just imagine, not one man alone walking with his head held high. The only ones to be seen were the ones looking down and walking behind their wives or driving their wives or convincing their wives. For that moment, that was the state of the world. The hardcore psychotic feminists had won. Not that I’m not for equal right, I’m quite a feminist in my own right. But this… this was simply taking over.

It was no longer about equality, it was war and the ones with the vagina’s had won.

The office work finished, I scooted out of there, waiting to get back home to a film or a book or to my beloved laptop. The phone call source I had dreaded earlier woke up my phone from its slumber and I answered the call with a manly baritone Hello. A couple of sentences down and I was reduced to a squeaky mice like voice. I was commanded by her majesty to come to a particular restaurant where her friend wanted to meet me. Had to go. Her friend, apart from having a fake name, convoluted stories of her earning sources, weirder stories of friends and many more pieces of info that made her truly unbelievable had just got herself a boob job and wanted me to check her out. This was a first, a woman actually wanted me to sit and ogle at her breasts. I happily did it and even commented on them, although there was no real difference actually but of course I couldn’t say that for it would only prove I knew her exact shape and size from before and my blonde is intelligent enough to catch that. Of course, I’m smarter.

Got home, had to sit through a film called ‘How to loose a guy in 10 days’. Wonder how I allowed that title in my house but was not a bad film after all. In comes our house mate with another girl friend of hers. Before I knew it, I was in the company three ‘very drunk' women. A situation close to one of my school time porn video’s almost etched into my memory was just coming alive when one of them decided to puke on my favorite satin sheet. To hell with the memory, they had just broken sacred law and were to be banished from the kingdom without trial. As fast as was physically and politely possible, I switched off my light and was fast asleep, the party off to the other room.

Then began the dreams…

Searching for the unknown in the known... Amusing ourselves.. are we??

I constantly meet or hear about people who're searching for the unknown, trying to unlock the mystery towards happiness and self realisation. First, why does one want to attain the unknown, enlightenment, moksha etc etc.. One reason I have noticed is to have an edge over your neighbor, to have something which very few have, to be part of that exclusive club.. Why do we constantly want to make ourselves better people.. better people for me... simply means more 'socially trained'. Even I am constantly looking for what I don't have. I wasn't born with what I have anyway like all of us, just picked up stuff instinctively along the way and when I became aware and confident enough to question, I started questioning my own 'self'. I use whatever I have picked up to question what other people have. All this leads me to a very suicidal tendency, one which tells me that whatever one comes with, covets, attains or does not attain.. mokha, enlightenment, samsara etc etc, are they all just terms we use to look forward to something in life, which in itself gives us the drive to live. Does it all actually exist or do we just amuse ourselves with something invented just for the same purpose, to make us all live, to survive, to carry on this race.. reproduce, fulfill your purpose in life and perish...

As of now, I feel that Death is the only enlightenment, the only moksha, the only salvation...

Which, of course, does not in any way mean that I'm going to die and get over with it. I still believe in that nameless energy which runs it all. It would not be possible for this planet to survive without it. But I feel that me and people like me, people who keep searching, are all blind. Because we keep searching for the unknown in the known. We don't, or at least, I don't want to let go of the reality I hold onto. I don't even think of venturing into unknown territory. Its like sitting in a cinema hall and getting involved in the reality of the film and after two hours, coming out safe and sound. I know that for any real transformation, I need to venture out into that unknown territory, open the blindfolds of my consciousness and stop kidding my own self or whatever I am.

Maybe I'll go out of the hall and see if I have courage enough to try some popcorn for a start...

'Unlearning' the learnt

As I learn and grow, I have begun to realize that I'm having to unlearn whatever education, literal and social, has been given to me in the form of school and general social skills. Of course, 'unlearning the learnt' for me applies to my life in general as well but that debate is one my heart chooses not to get into. All I credit my general education for is making me historically aware and giving my basic principles of various subjects, which I could've learnt anyway (And I think would have loved to learn via the nature way of learning things (like someone discovering fire, yet again). Having not been to college, dropping out after some six months or something, I think and feel that I have learnt much more in three years than I ever did in my 12 odd years of school life. The turn my thought process takes now is towards letting go of whatever conditioning and notions I have developed about ideal lives, relationships, knowledge. Memorable experiences which I can still remember at 23 include the joy of cycling halfway through the city, the fear of not being able to get back and then the 'freeing' journey back. For me, this experience taught me more than I did sitting in my class. As far as I can remember, I loved to learn and create and loved the very idea of creation, then why did I not love sitting in my class listening about history, or solving exciting problems in math. I love doing that now, then why did I not then. Maybe because I was told that I 'had' to do this and I told the world to fuck and not tell me what to do. I don't remember any of my life in class in school and I've selectively forgotten most of the knowledge gained from there (Whatever has seeped in my sub-conscious is obviously there).

I thank my father, who was actually quite stupid and intelligent at the same time, to challenge a 15 year old with a history of rebellion to go out and try earning a single rupee. He actually wanted to prove to me of how difficult it is to survive and earn and feed a family (a lesson which I learnt the very hard way later) but of course I started earning and at one point was earning enough to lend him and be fully self-reliant. It was obviously super cool at that time and I applied for a call center job, got a good pay packet, fell in love with someone 11 years older than me, moved out of the house and got a bachelors pad with friends and respective girlfriends, got broke hungry and homeless at one point, moved to Mumbai then and blah blah blah... So much has happened and all this struggle, both external and internal has taught me a lot or at least I would like to believe so but what I now think is that I constantly want to keep something inside of me, something which assures me of my identity, it replaces itself as I press the reset button of my life every some years but there is always something there. I keep unlearning the learnt and its turned into a cyclic exercise. There is never any emptiness...

Emptiness which I so much desire but never get... or my self rejects it because its something which is always in reach. I refuse to let go of the chains of reality because that is what gives me my identity. Even if the idea of emptiness seems so calm and something to covet, I reject it and fight it. Such a dumb paradox.

So as I continue to replace my inner self with more replacements thoughts which keep one going and satisfied with the idea that there is some change (fake growth) happening, I still yearn for that emptiness which is for a time I have courage enough to say 'fuck you' to the world I call my own.

My thoughts find themselves wavering towards questioning the very existence of spirituality and that higher energy which I so believe in.. Do we just invent things to keep ourselves happy and satisfied about the continuity of life by constructing these myths around us. But that is for another day..

Keep your eyes on the road and your head above the wheel

There have been several times in the past many months when I have felt numb.. a feeling I like to describe as one of no feeling, no sensation, no thought. Such a sensation is one which is often coveted by seekers of truth, the spiritual brigade, of which I am also an unworthy member, still confused as hell about whether there is truth or not, so actually finding it if it exists is a long way off. This feeling that I have has caused me to put my almost settled life into a so called 'spin dry' mode in washing machine terminology. I have let go, again, of everything I felt was of value and more importantly, my life. As of now, I'm drifting into universal consciousness. Not thinking, not reacting, not feeling... just experiencing. Anyway, my idea of living has always been that of reaction rather than that of action.

People close to me feel that I'm this closed-up emotionally challenged guy who never expresses himself. Well, I am that but I am otherwise, as in sensitive and understanding. Why does one have to tell people what you feel about them? Why can't they just get it? There is always an expectant look on peoples' faces, of being complimented, of being loved, of being cared for.. I mean, why do I need to care for the whole world? I'm not the saviour. Maybe I need to care for them in return for my own personal selfish want for love and acceptance. But I'm going to get out of that want pretty soon, then what.. Am I selfish now as well.. I'd say I'm super selfish.. and super wierd as I browse through what I've written in the past few sentences.

Well, as I try to wade through the mysteries of life and beyond, I have figured out one thing for sure. I should stop thinking. I am still trying to figure what I should as a replacement to thinking but I'm definitely not going to think. Its the worst thing you can do to a mind, make it think. So STOP...

I'm going to end with Mr. M telling you all and myself to keep your eyes on the road and your head above the wheel. Get the drift...

The road which goes from pretentious to pretentiously real

Apart from the many roads one takes in life, some small, small long, however interconnected they might be, the road which one takes for ones personal journey to finding ones real self or at least pretending to have found it is a very very tricky one. Its like a continuos loop.. just when you think you're going to reach your goal, you find yourself at the starting point, again thinking about the same stuff you thought about when you started... Ok, I just got confused in my own thoughts.. I'll write more later...

Am I a loner

I think I am a loner

and so does my mother and girlfriend

and so do my friends

But I don't...

I hate people barging inside my house and sitting there until there midnight with no agenda whatsoever and believe me... I have lots of them. I hate people coming and asking me where I bought my curtains, my cupboard, my table, whether I should have taken an lcd tv or a plasma instead of crt. I am so bored with the same discussion over and over again. It's almost like people just look around you and want to talk about things around you and those things are generally very general in nature. The niche lot of friends know you, they talk about interests, share information, generally laugh out things and at the very least are not repetitive. Some of these mind nuggets I've had recently have forced me to re-think who I am again...well... yet again.. Its quite irritating to become comfortable with yourself and then read something or come across some statement which makes you shake up and take notice, go way out in the universe and look at measly insignificant existence from afar. All this makes one feel like shit. I dont want to feel this, I want to have a selfish megalomanic existence driven only by feeling ultra confident and ultra good about myself. I really admire people who are so sure of who they are.

The above lines have been written over a period of 6 months... quite something for just 10 lines. I think I have to stop reading nonsense, people who preach 'becoming zero', 'being evolved', 'enlightenment'.. Like last week, just when I was returning to normalcy, I came across this,

'...Realization is explosive. It takes place spontaneously, or at the slightest hint. The quick is not better than the slow. Slow ripening and rapid flowering alternate. Both are natural and right. Yet, all this is so in the mind only. As I see it, there is really nothing of the kind. In the great mirror of consciousness images arise and disappear and only memory gives them continuity. And memory is material -- destructible, perishable, transient. On such flimsy foundations we build a sense of personal existence -- vague, intermittent, dreamlike. This vague persuasion: 'I-am-so-and-so' obscures the changeless state of pure awareness and makes us believe that we are born to suffer and to die... '

And it fucked my head..no matter how complicated these guys can make things, and it still is fucking it up... and I don't want to go back in the universe to look at my ugly self.. Someone please keep me grounded. Will being a loner help??? I think I am.. like, really..

Mood and Moody, Sitting on a wall, W-H-I-N-I-N-G

Mood and moody, sitting on a wall. W-H-I-N-I-N-G. No matter what anyone says or thinks 'Mood' runs the world especially India since many foreigners claim to very irate at the association of mood with everything here. I've never been to their country or lived in their culture, so I wouldn't be the best person to judge but I have a sneaky feeling that they are also essentially the same people. Whiny complaining cynical pessimists who are suckers for love and always do anything only when they feel like it. So mood runs the world. Hence proved. I wish it were as easy as this for proving anything. This formula never really worked in my mathematic exams in school. Just take the teachers round and round the same equation and write a bold and confident 'Hence Proved' at the bottom. Sometimes even the teacher would get confused at my audacity.

Anyway (and I apologize for getting to the point after one paragraph), what I meant to get at, as the title of this post suggests was the story of Mood and Moody. I thought of it in the context of films and the people. Films always reflect the popular mood of the country and sometimes the world and vice versa. Filmmakers want to make films picking up references around them, at least, the ones I like. They are the so called 'with the times, realistic' film makers. Of course, living in an industry which has thrived on magical reality through decades, one cannot call anything realistic. The Indian audience is always on the lookout for the unexpected twist, the superhero, the weak guy transforming to kill the villain. So realistic cinema also has certain unrealistic things about it, but it is nevertheless realistic. And there is the brand of filmmakers who don't care what the mood, where the country is going, what the world is doing, they just go to the friendly neighborhood DVD library and pick up a film with their eyes closed from the top most shelf and wish no one would have seen it. A year later, one can get to see the same film again in the theatre, this time with some 'Indian' elements added, sex scenes deleted, songs added and emotions simplified. You see, Indian filmmakers look at the lowest common denominator of people with the lowest IQ and see them as their audience. It doesn't matter whether they have never seen a film before in their life, but 'if you leave them out, then you leave the real India out' as they put it and then get on to dumbing everything down. Of course, India can never let go and should not let go of the magic of their kind of cinema. It is entertaining, its dramatic, its lovable, its exciting, exhilarating at times and full of life. And when I say that, I talk about the good films, films which are unanimously entertaining and thought/feeling provoking. Churning out 1000 films a year, the industry cannot really be expected to have  a quality standard. 

So the moody audience, always in some trip or the other, not to forget their lazy nature, makes up for the confused mood of the audience. So, in reality one can never judge what to make. Some keep recycling old formula's, some have new ones but don't get the budgets, some invent new and newer marketing strategies but no one has ever mastered the formula for getting it right. This automatically negates all arguments for those who function like cake shops who only bake what the customer wants. If only making films was like running a cake shop. One can say after this confused discussion that a film maker should only make what he feels, but do film makers feel anything. Half of them, including myself many times, live on second hand emotions. You see a film, some emotion gets aroused, you read a book, another emotion crops up. And before I get into an argument with myself over the eternal question of what is original and what is not, I must say that true emotion for me comes in those milliseconds of feeling within and you know you have felt it and the intensity of that can drive you for a long time and longing for more.

I would personally like to throw mood and moody out of the window, try to feel the breeze and see where life takes me.

Motivating my Motivation

I've been trying to get myself to write for a very long time. After having developed this habit to write in fits and starts, I found having really written nothing worthwhile in the past year. The main problem, as I realised only recently, was that once I had written something with a lot of conviction and excitement, I thought the same thing to be very boring after a couple of days, then re-wrote it and the process continued, so I never got past the story stage on any of my own projects. Its been quite a frustrating experience and has amplified since I installed an application which gives me time in its minutest detail. Its so overwhelming to see time fly past that I've started working really really fast and get tired with equal speed. But the motivation level has sure gone up, a lot. I wonder if I can create an external motivation for me to remain motivated. For one, its very difficult for me to remain motivated for long periods of time, two, I have so many projects hanging on my head at any given point that half of this period of motivation is spent trying to prioritize projects. Once that is done, I only get up when I've finished all that I started off too do. But this principal for me, applies in manual labour jobs, graphic and web design and many other things I do, but not in story writing. 

So I continue to think of ways of motivating my motivation.