You know you want to

New Year

2010-01-03T07:07:00.000-08:00

Ello All,
It's been a while since I've written here. What better time to start than a new decade?
Tejas asked me to make a list of things I've done last year and the years before. He's quite scared we'll end up forgetting certain things you should never forget.
I'll do the list at some point but the end of 09 is significant for me for a very different, far more painful reason.
A couple of years ago, I started to let go of certain personal dreams I had because I felt they'd hinder a far greater personal dream of mine- A perfect family.
Perhaps it was my unrequited desire to grow up faster, or maybe I'm just sad that way, but when I get into relationships I tend to get into them quite heavy.
Proma and Anish never understood it but it always made sense to me, that if you find someone compatible you hang onto them for dear life because you may not get the chance again.
As a result I tend to commit a bit too much and as I've experience time and time again- too soon.
In football, our coaches always taught us not to commit to a tackle unless you were 100% percent certain you could come out the winner. See, if you don't win the tackle, your mark's free to run into empty space and compromise your other defenders.
My logic was there's still a chance I WILL win the tackle so I might as well try my best to do it.
But the most frustrating times, were when I'd plan and do everything as well as I could, but still somehow couldn't pull the tackle off.
Maybe I was playing against someone out of my league, maybe it was as simple as luck, the fact of the matter, the only thing I can know for sure, is that I wasn't good enough to make the tackle.
As you can imagine, this is all an elaborate metaphor (And a half decent comic actually...) and I am quite out of position.
I'm in a flux. I have no idea what to do with anything and I have no real idea how to move forward.
I feel wierd.
Sorry this post was quite rambly in the end. I just thought maybe blogging would help. It sort of has. I don't know.
Fuck.

In Good Company

2009-08-01T21:45:00.000-07:00

Ello All
The last few days have been mad hectic for me as I travelled to Pune for the weekend and then Matheran for the remaining weekdays. Pune was awesome. Matheran not so much.
The most obvious reasons were that in Pune we had a warm dry home to come back to and in Matheran we had a smelly, damp and cold bunch of bed linen to sleep in. There were also bugs.
Thing is, I've stayed in far worse conditions with far less complaint and it is certainly not my age that made me want to leave Matheran so much.
I believe, very firmly, that there is a level of connection between any two people, which is so immensely impactful, all other relationships fade into non existence. I call this level, the click. It's kind of like a pen. When the cap is off, some covers just click right in and some take a bit of effort before they click. Some just don't click.
A few months ago, through no planned arrangement, my girlfriend, my best friend, my sister, her boyfriend and I ended up chilling together. There was singing, there was chattering and there was a lot of laughing (key ingredient for optimum clickage...).
Last weekend in Pune we met again and it was just as awesome. There was no will to leave, there was no false smile, there was no hidden feelings, there was nothing but the good time we were all having.
At the end of it all, we all hugged waved and shouted our ba-byes before heading our separate ways to do our own things and it struck me how awesome this particular click was. We meet, have a blast and then head back to the less 'clicky' worlds we normally occupy.
I had a ball in Matheran. It was one hell of a trip, but something in me was trying very hard for the previous click and obviously that wasn't going to happen.
I suppose what this is boiling down to, is wherever there is a click, whoever it may be, cling onto it and protect it like none other because clicks are a lot harder to find than we'd like to think.
One of my existing clicks is fading currently. (Well two, but that's a whole other blog and probably even a book) She won't say it but it's been getting pretty blatantly clear that the boredom of old click is bothering her. I'm trying to figure out how to rejuvenate this click without having to pull the cover off the pen. Even if it's momentarily. I'm sure we'll get there but like I said, one must always protect their clicks. It's the greatest thing you'll ever have to protect.
To the Lawbreakers.
I've just spoken to the inappropriately mistitled 'fading click' and as always she has a far better metaphor. The metaphor itself is long and if reprinted here could result in injuries for me. Point being- the click is not fading but is in fact as awesome as always. I could extend my metaphor and say perhaps the color of the pen is not as exciting as it once was, and I feel it is my duty to brighten up and make her enjoy the clickiness of it all.
Now. Figure it out yourself and get back to me because I swear to God I haven't the slightest...

These are the days

2009-07-05T09:19:00.000-07:00

Ello All
This was honestly supposed to be a spontaneous post 3 days ago, but some very stupid moves and a trip to Matheran means it's had to wait till now.
Well, the day I wanted to write this, I'd just had a small meal with two friends from the Journo class. Nothing significant happened, nothing that really changed anything anyway. We ate, talked about inanities, caught our trains and left.
For some reason though, that experience of eating and walking home and being tired and chuckling and yawning is somehow very deeply ingrained in my memory.
On the same day I'd just had a gruelling session which had me drained entirely.
When I'm 56 and I'm talking to my kid/s and they look up at me and Kyra and ask us about college, these are the experiences I'll tell them about. And no matter how many ipods and net connections you throw into the fray, they'll always seem old and outdated.

I realise now that this post isn't going ANYWHERE and probably was never supposed to. But there's a very pleasant, almost comforting feel to this particular memory and it just strikes me how awesome it is to do something and then relive it later on and still come out with a similar if not stronger feeling.
Yea I'm just trying to blog more often. This is what happens.

While writing this post I started watching the Wimbledon Final, and man!
Fuck me!

Again

2009-06-27T09:49:00.000-07:00

Ello all
It's that time of the year again. I'm leaving the place I'm staying in. I'm going to be staying with a friend for a bit and then, well I don't know.
The absurd frequency with which this happens is fairly freaking disheartening and every time it does I start to appreciate the security and sheer sanity of having one home you can sort of track back to whenever you like. Even if it's just in your head.
It struck me, as always, when I went to pee and realised I'll be peeing in a new bathroom all over again. And then I'll start to get used to that loo and I'll end up moving yet again. I certainly wish things would hit me in more poetic circumstances but there you go.
These past three days I've just had my head in such an unbelievable jumble over this and honestly, what bothers me most, is that I don't have that thing a very dear friend of mine has everytime she's moving around. She'll just up and go like it's this very ordinary step. God, I wish I fucking had that. It just always kicks in too late and I end up with these couple weeks of jumble.
Michael Jackson dying hasn't particularly helped. Not that I hold it against him. But shit. It's over. No phenomenal comeback. No righting what went so wrong. Just end para, 'King of Pop' is gone. It's time like these you have to thank God we have the internet. Noone will ever forget, or even let diminish the significance of his passing, and I suppose, it's the least he deserves.
I digress. I suppose.
Sorry for the ramble/whine. Just figured a post might help the jumble go. Not worked so far.
Ah fuck it. Let's hope the next post's a little cheerier.

Oh I wish I was a design student with flowers in my hair...

2009-06-18T05:33:00.000-07:00

Ello all
These last few weeks have been possibly my most tense weeks in a while now. Some readers may know that my family's financial scene isn't the prettiest, yet somehow they maintain the same level of expectations they did when we did have money. It's admirable in a way, but it's also very frustrating, and as I mentioned worrying.
At some point after school I decided I wanted to be an idealist. The kind of person who took a job regardless of pay, as long as it was a job that fit my ethical threshold. My Father did this. After a very successful tenure as a bank manager, he realised his heart wasn't in it, so he took to a job that didn't pay well, guarantee longevity, or in fact, reward diligence. Perhaps it was bad luck and bad timing, but the point is, while he did follow his heart, it's not led him to a particularly secure place.
This scared me shitless. On the one hand, I desperately want to follow my heart and live my life without a dependance on money. On the other hand, I want a family. I want to have a nice internet connection at home. I want to be able to buy cold cuts and nice cheeses so I can have sandwiches whenever I want to. I want to randomly splurge on my wife. I don't want to be rich-rich. Just, you know comfortable.
Thing is, that takes money, and while yes principally and even morally I may be a bit more comfortable as a journalist, maybe it's worth the compromise if I can earn a decent living out of advertising. The picture isn't nearly that black and white. Sure I could earn a lot as a Journalist, and sure I could earn nothing as an ad-maker.
The bitch is that I'm so unbelievably petrified about what I should do after the year's done. Go to Australia, try for elsewhere, stay in India?
It just amazes me how we can spend so much time and energy doing things we don't particularly like or love, to the extent that we don't have anything left for what we DO like or love. And the fact that somehow, that could potentially even be worth it.
I don't know what I want, what I need, or what I should be doing. All I know is I'm at that point where I've got to make a decision that'll define everything. Sure I could change at any point, I'm not that linear to believe that the path I choose now is the path I'm stuck with. But the truth is, if I do pick the right one, it'll make shit a whole lot easier.
The only thing that's really pulling me through right now is the comic, and the fact that I've got a year to amp up my portfolio.
Growing up fucking blows.

The Unmasking

2009-06-12T22:25:00.000-07:00

Ello all
Just a short one to let you all know that I've finally mustered up the courage to officially launch the web comic.
A few disclaimers are in order though. Firstly, the layout is rubbish but I'm working on a new banner which may take some time considering I have an exam in 2 days. Secondly, the image quality is equally rubbish and I think it's a glitch in my camera. I'll probably have to end up scanning though. I'm still in a testing phase. Thirdly, I've never done this before so if the actual strips themselves are rubbish, well let's hope and pray I learn soon.
This isn't something that'll grow into anything commercial, rather something I desperately want to do and figure it's worth the effort. At the moment it's all very rudimentary but I'm hoping I can make some progress and fast.
Anyway with much trepidation I present to you- http://rupees100.blogspot.com - a webcomic.
Credit to Anish for somehow locating the damn thing and commenting on it two whole days before I even told anyone I'd come up with a name. He is, in fact, the best.
Be gentle...

ADVERTISING IS EVIL! AAAAAHHH!!

2009-06-09T10:37:00.000-07:00

Ello all,

My laptop cable went kaput! about a week ago and as a result I've not just missed a couple of posts, I've also ended up delaying the webcomic reveal. Hopefully I'll do it tomorrow.

Anyway, I had a long talk with an ex- professor of mine today and it sent me on a bit of a spiral thoughtwise. Inner hyperlinking if you will. And all of a sudden I realised just what my problem with Advertising as a profession really is.

I remember in Kyra's second last semester she'd done a post about how it blew that she had to write copy, convincing copy at that, about a restaurant she'd never actually been to. At that point something about the whole idea of advertising made me cringe, but it was until today that I was able to really get just what it is that irks me about it.

Imagine all the brands in a certain segment are people. They have personalities, plans, failures, achievements and quirks. Some are excellent at what they do, some are quite rubbish. But at the end of the day, the only ones who really prosper, who really last long are the ones who seem to be the best. Advertising as a profession ensures that.

Now, it's unfair to assume that all brands with good marketing are poor brands. It's equally unfair to presume they're all good. In certain segments it's reasonably fair, and in certain segments in not. Vodafone, is an amazing brand, introspective and evolving and always concerned. Their media plan reflects that and they succeed.

On the other hand Mandvi Beach in Gujarat is possibly the most beautiful beach in India, yet due to a better media plan Goa will always seem like the premier beach destination.

Al Rees and Jack Trout believe that 'perception is reality' and unfortunately they're right. If Nokia looks and sounds like a better product, then no matter what Sony Ericsson offer as a product, they'll always be at a disadvantage.

And yes, it's all very well and good to just go along with this ludicrous concept but what we're essentially doing is sacrificing a definition of better which is deeper for one that is shallower. It's bullshit. And the sad thing is, there now exists a multi-million dollar industry dedicated solely to ensuring that this concept be pushed as far as it can go.

Yes there's seven billion of us. Yes there's far too many variables and dynamics to be successfully idealistic anymore, but what bothers me is the flagrant ease with which awesome pure ideals are dropped.

I'm not saying advertising is all nasty. The creative process involved in brand building and the insight derived from analysing consumers is amazing. The kind of work some firms put into humanizing products and brands is incredible. The way stuff like Saatchi and Saatchi's lovemarks extends to better management or the way Audi and Honda ads can leave people with their mouths gaping, is not something you can scoff at.

But not only are these values rare, they honestly appear to be the exception rather than the rule. And I don't know, it kind of seems like that ever-looming air of 'nasty' that lies over advertising is neither something that'll go away too soon, but something that doesn't really deserve to.

Luke Sullivan has this joke which goes something like this:

I've just started dating a devout Christian with a very strong moral fibre. My dad's in jail convicted of murder, my mother's a madam and my three siblings are extortionists. But I'm not sure I should tell her I'm in advertising!

Home is where the dogs are II (but not in any way a sequel...)

2009-05-20T23:57:00.000-07:00

Ello all
Avid readers of the blog would know I've done a post with this title before. Actually that's not true. But I have done a post with the same title before. Except that that post was more about the home part, whereas this part is about the dogs part.
My parents recently adopted a new family member. His name's Oz and he's a 'Great Dane' by which I mean breed. He's born in Rajasthan and I doubt he's ever even heard of Denmark since Chiquita, our lab is from Punjab and probably doesn't know herself.
Anyway, he's taller than her already (about 2 feet high) and he's fawn. Thing is, since he's only 4 months old and very much a puppy, he comes off this big clumsy oaf. Tejas figures he's a dinosaur, but the point is, he's just a bit too big for his age and while a little furball tripping over itself and sitting on the other dog is cute, when he does it, it just seems retarded...
The point of the post is not a write up on my parents' dogs but rather, the amazing impact they have had on me whenever I've gone back to the farm.
I'm sure anyone who's read or seen Marley and Me would feel I'm just saying the same stuff but I just have to.
Dogs do not wake up with agendas. They do what they want, when they want and most importantly of all, IF they want. When they hit 3 years old they aren't concerned about college and when they hit 8 they aren't concerned about retirement. Sure they haven't invented electricity or whatever, but I honestly believe, that the manner in which dogs live, is indeed the exact same lifestyle countless spiritual leaders and thinkers across the planet have tried to get us humans to live.
Dogs do what is necessary and when it's necessary. If they're thirsty they drink. If they're hungry they eat. If they're hot they pant, if they're hotter they stick their heads in a bucket.
If they're upset they cry and if they're excited they bound. It's amazing. It's ultimate 'live for the moment' ness.
And the result of it, to me atleast, is the sheer amount of love any dog is capable of. Obviously a dog who's had his ears clipped and his tail cut and has been taught to be a vicious prick will eventually give in and be an asshole but for the most part, when dogs are left to be dogs, they can love almost anything. They can care for and comfort anyone and most amazingly, they'll do it even if you've been a real asshole to them.
Chiquita, our lab, came to us as a fat little pup with an intention to chew on everything. We got her as company for our previous lab Maggie who unfortunately passed away a couple months after Chiquita came. Since we were in Dubai, it meant that Chiquita grew up alone, without us and only our caretaker and gardener as company. Did she go into depression and neglect her health? No.
She ate as much as she could and became the gardener's best friend. Every time we came home she'd love us and sit with us and cuddle us every opportunity she got. When we left she'd be sad but she'd get over it and go back to her old routine. She continued this for about 4 years until my parents moved back. Then she just went on being as warm and loving as ever.
To me this is incredible. The fact that everytime I visit her nothing has changed. There's no resentment. There's no hard feeling at being abandoned the way she was. Only love.
I used to say in my next life I want to be a dog. Truth is, all I seriously want to achieve in this life, is the ability to be as warm and as loving as my dogs are.
If ever anyone needed more inspiration it's the fact that these dogs are subsequently the most loved as well. That is no coincidence.

Armageddon outta here!

2009-05-14T03:48:00.000-07:00

Ello all,
The other day I thought of an awesome idea for a script. Initially I was totally psyched and the thoughts were swirling. But then, when I thought about completing it practically I hit, what I hear is called, a snag.
And that snag is the same snag that snagged me whenever I started trying to write the graphic novel.
The snag is this,
I'm convinced we're all going to die, or something very close to it, in around 3, maybe 4 years time.
I don't know how or what or where or when, but I'm convinced it'll happen.
When that huge tsunami struck a few years ago, everyone was all boohoo and concerts and funds for about 6 months and then we all moved on.
Some, admittedly MORE than earlier kept at it, but for the most part where right back at square one.
And I'll admit, maybe I don't know nearly enough to be proper worried, but come on, we've been burning and cutting shit up for a good 4000 years now! I'm pretty sure the planet's going to give up soon.
I'm not usually one for believing conspiracy theories wholly, but something tells me that the 2012 hoohaa might actually have something to it. I don't know if it'll be a flood, a flash or a bang. I don't know if it'll be one of them, and I don't know if it'll be all of them, but I know some bad shit is GOING to happen. I just know it.
The problem is, that now all my plans, involve hurried success. In that I HAVE to do the graphic novel AND the movie by 2011 otherwise once 2012 happens, it'll be too late.
If I have a brilliant script about football and bloggers, will people still want to watch it after whatever hits us in 2012. Will people give a shit about India and democracy and a young comic artist when we're living in fallout shelters and eating worms?
I'm not saying we'll all die. I know we won't. It can't be that easy. But I don't know, I've just got the feeling that it'll suck for a lot of us and the REST will die.
Does anyone else share the feeling?

Bad day

2009-04-07T03:01:00.000-07:00

Disclaimer: Tejas and Kyra are awesome.
So today morning, when I woke up, I noticed the sun was shining just a little brighter than it usually does. Actually, it was shining a lot brighter. So much so, my first words were "Wuuurrhth" which is groggy talk for "what the hell?"
My curtains were missing. The bright orange, soul of the room, mood making, house-warming present-from-Kyra-and-Sairu curtains were gone. So I freaked out and eventually learnt that the cleaning lady had taken them to the wash.
But just as I was starting to calm down, I noticed she'd left the window open and two pigeons had flown into the room and were presently, having sex on top of my cupboard. After shooing the fuckers (heh.) off, things were back to relative normalcy, except for the man gawking at me through the hole in my window.
Anyway, I then chilled for a bit and eventually set off to do some bank work for the exam bound Kyra. Sure enough, when I had to show the ticket collector my pass, I'd left mine at home. Instead I had a pass that expired in February.
So 10 minutes and Rs. 250 later (he was sweet enough to forego 4 bucks since neither of us had change), I reached the bank and guess what-
It's a bank holiday.
So in a huff I caught a rickshaw and came here to Kyra's where I'm presently blogging. But before I came upstairs I had some milk and decided to smoke in the surprisingly pleasant breeze only nice neighbourhoods are allowed.
While I was smoking, it suddenly occured to me, that while a whole lot of bad things had happened to me today, it wasn't actually a bad day. In fact, I actually felt quite pleasant and genuinely didn't feel stressed, or fried or anything like that. I even realised my tooth's stopped aching.
And it got me thinking, during the semester, usually even fewer 'bad' things happen to me in a day, but for some reason, it always tends to bring me down. The two people closest to me, Kyra and Tejas, usually tend to get overwhelmed and depressed by things like this, and it always used to amaze me how they'd anticipate something bad just so they could further compound the wretched day they'd be having. And with both of them, I saw that if something did go their way, because they were so expecting it not to, they wouldn't actually be happy about the something good, in fact they'd be just a teeny bit sad that it didn't work out the way they thought it would.
And, like all great introspection, I noticed I was doing the same thing only after I saw them doing it. Don't get me wrong, I love the two of them to peices but this is one of their more frustrating traits (frustraits) and I've had it the whole bloody time.
Now, I'm not saying one must smell the flowers or any of that shit, but I don't know, the sudden change in perspective I got today's got me wondering if everytime it feels like a shitty day, it's really not, but because the bullshit's picked up so much momentum, we just end up thinking it's a bad day anyway.
I'm not particularly sure what this whole post's been about anyway, but I must say, after pigeons getting jiggy, me getting fined and the bank being closed, I still had a pleasant day and now I'm sitting next to the pretty Ms. Mathews. I think it might have been the cigarettes. Or the milk. Or the breeze. Or Kyra. Probably the cigarettes though. So yes, smoke. It'll make a shitty day a not so shitty day.

Agin' and Ragin'

2009-04-02T04:22:00.000-07:00

I'm not too sure if this post is better suited for the other blog, it's just that it's extremely personal so I figure it's only proper if it's here.
I just watched Gran Turino. I've only ever cried in two movies in my life. The first being Rugrats (I was young) and the second being When a Man loves a Woman (I was breaking down).
I did not cry during Gran Turino, but I certainly felt like I wanted to.
The film for those of you who don't know, is about an aging Vietnam war vet played by Clint Eastwood, who grows past his biases and prejudices in a shit hole ghetto, where he lives, along with his dog Daisy and his '72 Gran Turino, which for the layman is a beautiful muscle car.
To say the film is moving, is to say Kill Bill is violent. It doesn't cut it.
What prompted me to write this though, was the way it hit home on a topic, or idea really, that I've been haranguing myself with for the past few months.
I'm turning 21 this year, and I'm in that phase between comfort and the real world- college. And everyday I find myself upset with what I am and what I'm becoming, and everyday I feel a little more uncomfortable in myself.
So I try to remember and emulate easier times, when things were clearer and I could honestly say I was hitting my peak everyday. And obviously, this has led me to miss my life as a teenager. To wish I had the drive and clarity of that time, when I could dream easily without being cynical. When I felt like I was the protagonist in a super movie where the plot keeps getting better and better and I could count on what would happen next. When everytime I was working there was this awesome music in the background, and I was the center of this killer montage.
But ever since the script that comes with school and parental control went away and I reached this place where MY choices decide the plotline, I feel like I'm floundering. Now that my first year is gone and my second year too has ended, the 'exploration' part of the film is over and like the bridge of a Bon Jovi song, I'm in that part where the harmonies come together slowing everything down, leaving you completely uncertain about whether or not the song is ever going to be the same again.
But then there's the key change and the chorus BURSTS out louder and clearer than ever, making your chest swell like you're about to fucking scream (or Yawp! for those who've seen Dead Poets Society).
In the movie Dazed and Confused, there's this line that goes something to the effect of "I'm tired of treating the present like it's some sort of inconvenient step on the way to whatever my future should be..."
That got me thinking. We all know all the bullshit about 'live life' and 'live in the present' and all matter is just energy and all of that, but why do we treat it like it's some academic bullshit we can use in an argument at some point, or to nod 'I know' when someone else is trying to sound intellectual.
My dad and I have had all these talks, and in school, debating and in class we've been over all of this. I've read Tuesdays with Morrie and I've seen a whole bunch of movies that are all SUPPOSED to have inspired me. But somehow I've never actually done it. I've always admired people who do shit, even if it's not fully thought through. Who up and travel, or shut up and learn, or get down and practise. But for some bizarre reason, I'm just struggling to be any of that and over these past few weeks, it's been hitting me harder and harder, that the only thing all these guys have in common, is that they aren't bothered about the end result or the way things were. All they care about is what's at hand and what needs to be done. END OF STORY.
Clint Eastwood, is an old man struggling with past sins and mortality, and I'm a young guy struggling with past glory and future failures.
I've gone ahead and got myself caught up in all the fucking nitty gritty bullshit and complete forgotten what really matters- that I'm a 21 year old guy who can't draw his own characters and needs to practise.
Fuck.
I've always felt, if we all knew less we'd get more done. It's sort of like expectations. Either expect everything or expect nothing. Know nothing, or know everything. The mid part is just weird.
Anyway. I've said enough.

Sucks and the city?

2009-03-05T20:38:00.000-08:00

Ello all
I’m smoking a cigarette and waiting for my bath water to fill. While I’ve been doing this I unfortunately caught about ten minutes of Sex and the City.
Now before I move further with this rant, I must make it clear that I am contractually obligated to never bitch about Sex and the City. The contract is my relationship with Kyra and the consequences are painful guilt trips, yelling and generally a little bit of arm hair pulling.
But today’s show was particularly painful because Carrie Bradshaw has decided she’s a cynic who doesn’t believe in love and her friend ‘Cute girl with dark hair’ (Can’t recall her name now…) is the one who always believes in love.
Anyway they went on and on about how you’re supposed to believe in love and you’re supposed to put yourself out there and then it’ll come to you and blah blah blah. Now. This is all very run of the mill right? I mean it’s on every single show on American television. But it suddenly reminded me what I hate so much about this widely accepted notion that love is the indefinite mystery which exists and floats around and controls people’s hearts.
I’ve been a proper Indian lover for about 15 months now and I’d like to finally, categorically put forth my own notion of love, which believe me, is a far simpler fucking notion.
Love is boring. It is not a good movie script. It is barely even a good memory. It is nothing more than a really good feeling. Love is the unhindered belief in something’s core, something’s essence. The reason people spend so much money and do so many things for other people is because they trust deep down and count on the other person’s deepest self.
People love money right? If you love it and work for it you’ll get a hundred bucks which you can then spend on candy. And then you’ll think ‘hmm money’s dependable!’
With people, you don’t always get the candy. Sometimes you get the wrong type of candy. Then you get disappointed and you cry and your heart breaks and you lose faith and you think ‘hmm people- not so dependable!’
Most people wear masks to hide themselves because they don’t think they’re more valuable than what’s on the mask. Which is horrible right? It’s a fucking mask for god’s sake. There’s people with values and experiences and dreams and hopes and memories- who presume a plastic mask is more valuable.
It’s true masks are fun. And they’re wonderful at times too, but when all you have is your mask, you start to fantasize about what love really is. And you romanticize it and you build it up and completely miss the reality of it all. My love for Kyra is not the flowers I got her on our anniversary, it’s the idea that she’s worth the effort to make happy. Love is not something you wait around for- it’s something you DO!
Marxists love Marx and capitalists love profits. Hindus love Shiva. They just do. Everything I do and feel for Kyra is because her core, her self is so fucking awesome to me I can’t help but love it, NOT because of a baby with a cross bow sitting on a crowd in designer diapers!
My point, at the end is, if everyone just went ahead and loved and got, that when it doesn’t work out, it’s because it didn’t and the world is not against your middle class urbanite ass. Men are not assholes. Women are not sluts, and if we keep believing in the bullshit they’re feeding us on most TV we’re just going to get confused.
For me, the truest depictions of love in American Cinema are the relationships in the movies ‘When a Man loves a Woman’ and ‘Marley and Me.’
Love IS like Oxygen. Not in a romantic ‘Oh so can’t live without it’ kind of a way- more in a yes it’s there, and yes it’s fucking awesome and yes I’ll always appreciate it, but what the fuck am I supposed to do now?
That is all.

Run to you

2009-02-01T08:49:00.000-08:00

ello all
It would seem like I'm going to blog on the 31st of every month. But I'm not. I could say it and all but the truth is February has only 28 days. I would otherwise though. What?
Last month because I was a bit low on cash, I was walking a whole lot more and amazingly, the long walks down the sky walk or to stations or just randomly walking around at night, were the most therapeutic (for lack ANY other word) moments I've had in my recent slump. As a result I'm feeling a little taller and from being a screw up who did a few decent things, I've started to see myself as a decent guy who screws up a few things. Pretty killer I'd say, it's just that there are still those screw ups.
Anyway before this thing gets anymore alcoholics anonymous, I need to get this out. Walking when you're fucking tired, dry in the mouth and just fucking sick of everything is the best thing in the world. You're completely exhausted at the end of it but not in a groggy pass out way, in a puffy eyed feeling good tonight sort of way. I've realised my hunt for comfort was only fun as long as it was a hunt, because prolonged comfort is just fucking stagnation and I do not appreciate it.
I could never elucidate the way walking works better than Tejas did in one of his last blogs (back when the lazy fucker still wrote) but man, with Franz Ferdinand (THE most trancedental band I know), Bon Jovi and more recently the awesome hootings of Reel Big Fish, there is fucking no problem you cannot deal with when you're on the road. I don't know why and I couldn't be fucked to, but that's how it is. My mum always tells me when you work out and stuff the oxygen reaches your head quicker or something and you do better. Whatever it is, it works.
I've realised most of the greatest lessons I ever learnt, I took for granted and basically forgot. Funny thing is, most of the lessons are the really obvious ones you learn in school. I just sort of waved them off as being too simplistic for this oh so complex life I lead. What fucking shit. The longest lasting compliment I ever got was in the 6th grade playing squash with a friend of my dad's. The guy told me he could never beat me because I ran for every shot on the court no matter how far away it was. I don't know if I have that tenacity anymore, and it's a fucking shame if I don't. There is no logical justification for my 6th grade self being a better guy than my present self. Sure I know what a media plan is and why deconstructionism is a pain in the crotch but how the fuck is any of that going to make me a better writer?
Anyway now that I have cash I'm taking more cabs and blowing most of it. I'm not the wisest guy around now am I? Working on it anyway. I pretend I'm broke and sometimes manage to get shit done. I've started a journal for my more honest, less articulate and yes deeper thoughts. That's right I'm pretentious, wanna fighd aboud it?
Not much else on I suppose. There is ofcourse the very resolute group of over achievers wearing Arsenal badges pretending to be the team I'm supposed to link my existence to, but I don't know what to make of it anymore. I don't recognise or love that club the way I did only 3 months ago and it's a fucking shame. I'm sure our lives still have that bloody relative thing I'm always on about but right now, that is not a football club with the values I could spend hours arguing about. I love the club to peices but someone needs to change something somewhere in the cosmos before this club becomes anything like the paragons who murdered direct football all these years. Samir Nasri though, is in my opinion, signing of the season, and Denilson, Robin, Djourou, Sagna and even Song all deserve fucking medals of honour but it's not enough and I'm already working out the bright sides of UEFA cup football. I don't have to hope they show our game and not United's next year. That's something. Personally, I just hope I can see a full strength Arsenal doing some of the total football GM they're known for, before the end of the season. Even once, and even if we lose the game 5-4 to Stoke while we do it, I don't care. I just want to know that it still exists.
Anyway that's all for now. Rambly blog today. Needed to write. Need to write. Will Write. Haha.

Angles and shit

2008-12-31T10:57:00.000-08:00

Christmas and New year posts. Hallmark must feel they've converted another. It isn't true. They're significant to the timing of these posts but not for their intended reasons. Other factors have prompted this.
2008 is the most introspective I've ever been. The most critical and the most cynical. The culmination of which led to my last post. I've achieved nothing and have deteriorated considerably. I've tried to change and regressed. However, regression isn't as straight forward as it seems. I can't have regressed into something I used to be. Because I was never anything with the knowledge and experience I now have. Nitpicking bullshit at the face of it, but it's a pretty significant realisation for me. I'm in Jaipur again. It's comfortable and I've been immobile and silently desperate.
It made me realise I haven't had perspective in one year. A year of self obsession. How motherfucking unbelievable? I have never been so fucking stunned at my own bullshit. Anyway I haven't even managed more than a mention in the New year blog of the only person I've obsessed over more than myself this past year. The single most important person in my life, who I have spent every waking moment worried about or happy for, and I'm a mention. I never thought I'd regret as much as I have, but that ofcourse is only because there is so precious little I have at present to enjoy.
I don't believe in pretentious resolutions and plans for the self, but I'm going to try and climb out of the muddled mess that has become my own ass. I have a book to write and I cannot draw to save my life. I have a lot of money to save and a very dear loved one to hang on to before some famous guy with a roller coaster on his chest can take her away (bad dream- as I said, I'm in Jaipur again).
I'm very very frustrated after last year and 46 minutes into this new one I know I've got to buck the fuck up for this one. Odd numbered years bode well for me. Then again I was born in 88. Fuck. I think I'll blog more. I'm not saying I should or I'll try to. I just think I will.
I do love talking and thinking and sitting and feeling and being and loving and all that, but whether I like it or not I have to, by way of my life's flow thus far, I have to keep moving and changing and I have had a year of that horrible term in economics that everyone always lost 2 marks attempting to define- S T A G F L A T I O N.
Stagnation and inflation. An undue raise of value which is maintained until everything stagnates and shrivels up to fucking die.
I don't want to fucking die, especially not if I am as fucking lonely within the wretched confines of this very nasty head. If I do die, I need it to be known, I am unhappy as myself and I am unhappy as the biggest fuck up of 2008. But I am going to go ahead and try to feel a bit better about myself in 2010. I'm going to be worth more blogs and I'm going to make people happy by just doing my own fucking thing. I'm going to make up terms and live by them for the fuck of it. I'm going to make people happy I was fucking alive and I'm going to make people happy I'm dead. I'm going to write till people see what a snivelling cunt Tejas Modak truly is and I'm going to make a fuck load of money so I can stay home at age 26 to eat well and make babies.
I am going to fucking live and I am fucking petrified. But I'm not dead.

Enough. Enough now.

2008-12-25T07:13:00.001-08:00

I'm sitting in a bus heading back to Mumbai. I've just left my best friend and it's Christmas. I owe three people over 3500 rupees. I'm a negative, cynical, holier than thou asshole and I've finally crashed lower than rock bottom. I am at full throttle self hatred. There is a handful of people on this planet who love me for what I am, was and will be. I love them very much. In some way or another, I have hurt them all. I've either not stayed in touch, missed a birthday by 12 days, missed a birthday completely, or been a defensive narrow minded asshole with. I can't say enough, how sorry I am.
I've just spent 3 days with the most perfect couple I've met. I don't know why or how, but after a very satisfying meal with Tejas, I've realised that I'm not in a rut. I'm not depressed. I'm not deranged. I am quite simply disgusted with the creature I've turned into.
When I came to Mumbai I promised myself I wouldn't turn into a cynical, all knowing, all hating asshole, but somewhere along the line, during my quest to live subjectively and not objectively, I've turned into just that. I no longer hope and I no longer dream. I barely have any earnestly positive thoughts in my head, they're either forced or rationalised and they're all bullshit. On the other hand I can complain about anything and generally do. Especially things I don't dislike. I tell myself it's to maintain both sides of a coin. It's that age old bull shit self preservation technique people usually spew, of if you aren't happy you can't get disappointed. It's a horrible sensation and it's driven me into an even worse downward spiral than I was in. I've tried change and new things but the fact is, I'm going to have to work my way out of this without much change until I'm finally different.
I've hurt, repeatedly and ruthlessly, a person who has grown from friend to lover to wife and now to an essential part of my nervous system. She is the most beautiful creature I have ever met and she's the only thing I've never stopped admiring through all the self pity and deprecation. She's the ingredient to a perfect future, the person that makes you go " Fuck. I'm going to live me a good life now..."
I've gotten so caught up in my own doubt, and hating that I've ended up butchering her stability and I'm luckier than the luckiest guy in the world that she's still with me. The luckiest guy in the world, incidentally, is me as well, only I'm that lucky for having her in the first place.
I'm sorry. I'm going to have to fight like a bitch to get out of this fuck all rut, only now I know it's not a rut, it's a fucking grave.
I have all the technology anyone could fucking need. I have a home. Yes a home. A room with facilities, which has been converted into a home with the wave of a magic wand from a certain fairy. So few people read my shit anymore I can afford to be wholly personal and direct! I have a beautiful, perfect wife and some beautiful, perfect friends and a loving family. I deserve none of this shit but I have it so I'm going to up and earn it now.
To everyone I've hurt, I know you'll forgive me, but not for qualities of my own, rather qualities of yours. You guys are fucking awesome. To the wife, I'm going to grow into that George Clooney smile till it fucking fits.
I love you all.
PS It has been real effort not tying this up with the crisis at Arsenal. It fits perfectly but this time I'll fix up before they need to. Let's hope they follow.
PPS Tejas- Wanna fighd aboud id? and Thank you for Love Actually. Undoubtedly the catalyst now that I come to think of it.

In a nokiatic sense...

2008-11-05T06:45:00.000-08:00

Ello all,
I'll warn you beforehand, this post is forced. Tonight the Arsenal faces Fenerbahce in a Champions league group match and ordinarily, this wouldn't be a tremendously significant game, however circumstances have made it a rather extra ordinary one.

Ever since the 9th grade when I started supporting the Gunners there's been a direct corelation to events in my own life. 9th grade when I really began my life, socially anyway, in Dubai, was the invincible season and it was a feeling I had right through the year. Subsequently it's a bit hazy, but let's just say Arsenal never did too well during my boards...
Last year, arguably the greatest year of my life for several reasons, coincided with what was considered a revival of invincible Arsenal. Most tellingly, the day we beat Chelsea was the day Kyra said yes. However just as that season started to run out of steam, it seems so did I and by the end I was as crestfallen as Wenger was after that cunt Kuyt tripped himself and won Liverpool that penalty.
I've written a bunch of posts over the last year about how I'm coming back, I've made a lot of promises about the return of invincible hobo and the truth is I'm so tired I don't have the energy to push myself the way I did at the start of first year. My mind is this horrible mess and I don't get brilliant ideas in the shower anymore. I've not burnt out because I've really not merited a burn out, I've just gotten so caught up in how to be and what to be and doubting and trying to be and all that psycho analytical bull crap that I've lost will power.
I saw this episode of House where this girl gets this condition called Abulia. It's the loss of will. So you can't decide and the tension makes you faint. I'm nowhere near that shit and thank god, but I'm so close to it I want to scream, but then again, I'm not really sure I want to scream.
It's taken alot to get me to write lately and other than spewing out acceptable articles for a site bizarre enough to pay me, I've really hit a brick wall on the expression front.
I'm teaching myself how to play the guitar and enjoying the fact that I have a vague control over the sounds of an object, but the truth is I feel winded. I can't get myself to draw and write, two things I love to do. I can't seem to get myself to do much beyond playing an inane video game. I can't even zone out in front of the television.
It's true, this is a pathless rant but after everything I've tried only written catharsis is left really.
My immune system gave away finally and I can't help but feel like it's a fucking metaphor for my grit. If my grit's as fucked as my liver after Malaria then I'm headed for trouble. On the other hand, all the greatest tasks and things ever done have originated in the individual constantly saying 'fuck it' and going straight forward, but that's not something I really have in me right now and it's a feeling I have never till this date had. It's not scary or saddening it's just repressively dull and it makes me want to jump out of my skin just so I can feel fresh again.

I've been trying to get past this and another something I won't get into and I haven't and the dissatisfaction, the feeling of an incomplete task despite herculean effort, has made me miss, more than anything else, that feeling you get when you've left 8th grade or 7th grade or whatever grade, and you have a new school bag, new books, new clothes and sometimes a new hairstyle, and you walk in with this almost clean slate and there's nothing you can't fucking do and there's no amount of Hindi lectures you can't stay awake through.
That's a fucking beautiful feeling. And I fucking miss it. I have everything I need for it to happen. A new laptop, new clothes, a new phone, a new camera, a guitar soon, it's just my fucking outlook is the same boring one of Arsenal with their heads hanging down and that beautiful man Mathieu Flamini slumping because we couldn't put one past Wigan.

So tonight, and honestly, on Saturday when we face the Tampons of Manchester ("Once they get in, they're always going to come out red...") I'm looking forward to and I'm going to make a genuine effort to pump my fists and cheer on the mighty Gunners with every ounce of spirit I have. If they can get through this, then I can't help but feel like I can too.

Come on you Reds!

Missing Monies Making Me Sad

2008-07-14T19:59:00.000-07:00

ello all
So college has well and truly begun. Insane levels of stress and stupidity with festival preparations, lectures attended, lectures missed, alien FYs and grumpy professors.
Yes, nothing has changed from last year.
Except for the small matter of a 33% fee increase!
Completely out of the blue, for no given explanation the college goes and ups our fees by no less than Rs. 6000. And the interesting part is, the bulk of those fees come from our very inflated tuition fees.
Now if the books we used and the subject material the teachers used were made out of crude oil barrels I might have understood, but they're not and a rough estimate of how much MORE my college will be raking in because of this is about Rs. 11 Lakh.
11 Lakh. Last year's salary expenses for our department alone was just shy of 10 lakhs. Once again I stress that the figure of 11 lakh is how much MORE money they're taking in.
So you'd figure theyll increase the teacher's salaries right? I mean our professors do work their asses off and it IS entirely selfless for the most part and it's hard to accuse any of them of being anything short of decent.
But the salary increase is marginal at best. So then, where IS the money going? I know for a fact that we're one of the only colleges who actually went and upped the fees. I shan't name names but there are several colleges who have chosen NOT to have such a sharp increase. There's even a college getting ready to construct a sound recording studio...!
And guess what, it's not us!
The Vice Chancellor is his all his transparent glory has uploaded his budget for the year on the Mumbai University Website. I'd link but the site is down at the time of typing this.
It includes provisions of Lakhs of Rupees as 'incentive' to 'attend international teacher conferences.' Fair enough. A few more lakhs are going into researching the possibility of being listed on the BSE. Once again a smart investment I'd say. But then it gets a little, how do I put it- Vague. Several lakhs have been put away as 'incentive' (they do love the word!) to enter the 'top 400 universities in the world' and as further 'incentive' to the new autonomous departments.

Now I've not seen any official documents. I haven't run any RTIs. I've used Google and asked a few very simple questions. I cannot do any more than speculate as to what is going on at the university and I cannot honestly say it's all shady.
All I can say is (and this is where the theme comes in) why is nobody asking?
Why is nobody bothered enough to give a fuck and question the things being done?
If there was one thing I'd change about my college, it'd be the mass apathy of it's students. My college has recently grown anal retentive and decided we can't enter after three because we 'walk around and go to the canteen!' We can't even sit on the beautiful steps we've sat on for a year because it makes things look 'ugly.'
The changes are drastic and horribly annoying. If I didn't know any better I'd say I was in fucking Xaviers! But the student reaction has baffled me even more.
A petition has been signed because the students are unhappy. Several hundred students have signed and the unity is astounding and the fervour of revolution is in the air.
Only problem is- it's against the guards!
A college education, high school, primary school, tuitions, story books, internet, note books, movies, television and every other form of awareness at all our disposals-
And we shoot the messenger!
For fuck's sake.
I feel particularly Indian lately.

Underestimation confession

2008-06-19T08:34:00.001-07:00

ello all
So, I was researching some stuff for my next peice (and post) and I stumbled across some awesome sites- based in India!
For Polaris 2008, the Wilson Festival we've taken up New Media as our theme and the one reason I pushed for it, and the new media workshop we're having is because I'm so worried Indian citizens and private entrepeneurs are not paying enough attention to the power of web 2.0. I love the net. The number of random blogs and articles I read in a day are comparable to the number of books I don't read and as my co-ordinator would tell you, it's plenty.

Now I wouldn't dare undermine the use of the net by the people I know. For anyone who's read my blog roll you'd know that with Quaint murmur, view from beneath, mappings, etc. it's fairly evident we've got some great writers out there.
However it is thoroughly refreshing to find blogs and opinions from outside my friend's circle and the people I know. Having looked for jobs and in discussion with this neat lady I thought I knew pretty much all there was to know about India's web participation.
As it stands, I was horribly narrow minded and happily surprised to find these sites:
1) PlayCircuit: Kick ass site and a must see for anyone into advertising or marketting. A few months ago I'd found a brilliant blog for management insight by some American student, but this one as well as the Indian PR Forum site are equally awesome for their feilds.
2) Dhi Only One and Churumuri : Two opinionated, seemingly well read Indians giving their schpeal on several things. I don't agree with alot of what is said, but as I mentioned on the latter's blog, discussion and debate is where it's at if we want to get anywhere, and it's always great to see people not leaving it to the men in white over in the parliament.

I am certain theres tons more out there, and please do mention anything worth mentioning in the comments, but it's thoroughly refreshing to find sites like these and I hope to find more.

Trumpets if you must...

2008-06-15T00:19:00.000-07:00

ello all
A few posts back I declared my decision to change things up. Since then, I've changed the look of my blog twice, I've written two posts unlike anything I've ever written before and I've shaved my head. I expected all of them to feel fantastic. I expected the change to be instant and epiphanal. I expected a bald head to feel so good after the knotty long curls. I expected too much from a 'one' and I expected too much from myself.
I think I may have delved back into my Chelsea roots in some way. I was looking at results and expecting satisfaction.
It was a hollow, scary, painful and helpless experience and it didn't seem like it was ever going to end. I was living in the eyes of other people. I was living in the eyes of unimpressed professors and dead friendships. And as much as I knew, and as much as I told myself and was told by the only one who bothered to tell, the sheer futility of seeing myself from someone else's eyes never really dawned upon me.
Now I'm not saying one should never look through someone else's eyes, I'm not saying other people don't matter, all I'm saying is living by it and doubting yourself because of it, is if nothing else, dreadfully tiring.
It's not been instant, it's lasted weeks and tears, but the clouds seem to have moved on over now that the monsoon is here.
I'm writing for myself. For what I want. I'm writing for the impact I want to create. If I don't, I'll try again until I do it. The excitement of spontaneity and now-ness is incredible but it's not sustainable. Now the time has come for a far longer lasting satisfaction. Comfort and living.
The leaf is cleaned and it's not turned but the angle's changed a bit. In my right back pocket is a notebook. In my bag there are plans and in my head there's a buzz. Not an insane fuzzy confused buzz but a focused buzz with a smirk.
With a comfort I can count on and a will to not feel like shit, I doubt I can do much wrong.
There are things to be done.

Sepp Blatter- He ain't got no alibi

2008-05-30T11:27:00.000-07:00

UPDATE: Since this post, I've been reading up a bit more, mostly from Andrew Jennings, the only journalist to be banned by FIFA. The conclusion I've reached is this:
A week before Euro 2008, with a little more than a month before the ruling in Zug, Switzerland which may well lead to an indictment for Blatter and several other executives for fraud and bribery charges worth 100s of millions of dollars, it seems very probable that FIFA would look to draw attention AWAY, from the fact they're a bunch of big fat cunts.
And so, I will speculate, this whole episode with the 6+5 thing, is nothing more than a media parade aimed to ensure bored fans don't start wondering why FIFA's had more than 20 executives confess to bribery, their Vice president sells TV rights for world cups privately and assaults journalists, and ofcourse, why they're such a bunch of big fat cunts.
If Blatter does go down, I will further speculate, that either Michel Platini, or Franz Beckenbauer will take his place and continue the basic workings of big fat cunts.
No coincidence though that they were sponsored and brought in PERSONALLY by Adidas' cheif Horst Dassler, who incidentally formed and ran the ISL company who bribed FIFA- something they're being investigated for with a ruling due in...motherfucker! A little over a month!
Big.Fat.Cunts.
That is all.
_________________________________________________________________
Ello all.
The 6+5 debate rages on but before anyone goes any further I would like to help you all come to terms with WHO or WHAT, exactly is suggesting and pushing for this most.
Mr. Sepp Blatter.
Like all good character slating, I will start where he did. Blatter was involved in the setting up of the '72 and '76 Olympics. He was also General secretary of the Swiss Ice Hockey federation. But most importantly, he was elected the President of the World Society of friends of suspenders. A group aimed at protesting women's replacement of suspenders with pantyhose. Whether or not this had anything to do with the following quote about women's football players is for you to decide:
"They could, for example, have tighter shorts. Female players are pretty, if you excuse me for saying so, and they already have some different rules to men - such as playing with a lighter ball. That decision was taken to create a more female aesthetic, so why not do it in fashion?"
Anyway, Sepp then went on to join FIFA in 1975 as technical director. It is widely accepted and there is ample evidence to suggest that this appointment had less to do with his actual competence and more to do with his ass licking of Horst Dassler, the head of ISL and Adidas, which for those who are unaware, is the company which created the idea of sports marketting. Dassler along with Patrick Nally, both geniuses in their own rights, devised a way of earning billions in TV rights and sponsorship of events such as the Olympics and the World cup, etc.
In order to do that they would need considerable leverage within these federations. It was first, Blatter's predecessor Joao Havelange who lived it up with their bribery, and then when he decided he was done, they had to move along to someone new- Blatter. He was effectively instated BY them.
The fact that he has been repeatedly drowned in allegations of corruption and bribery related to his elections should be enough to convince anyone. The President of the Somalian FA is quoted as saying, "The night before the election people were lining up in Le Meridien Hotel (in Paris) to receive money. Some told me they got $50,000 before the vote and the same the next day, after Blatter won."
But there's tons more. Blatter's re-election was unopposed even though only 66 of the 207 members actually nominated him!
But the worst part, the frustrating part of it, is that he always gets away with it. It was the exceptional, gutsy work from the 2002 World cup's cheif organiser Michael Zen Ruffinen that led to the charges levied against Blatter and 11 other top FIFA officials. And it was this very work which saw him get fired just hours before the World cup HE organised, because Blatter had had enough of his "negative comments".
"On Friday, the executive committee is going to take care of `Mr Clean'. Now it is finished. The last negative comments by Zen-Ruffinen after my re-election were the last straw."

I can assure you this post has taken me no more than 2 hours and all I've had to do is read the links in it and a few more. The sheer ugliness of FIFA's dealings, and the sheer ugliness of Horst Dassler's dealings during his time with Adidas, are, if nothing else, terrifying.
This man has no concept of what his position signifies. He has repeatedly over stepped his authority, accusing the English FA of shoddy work with the Martin Taylor ban, 'apologising' to Aussie fans for official's actions, saying women footballers need to dress skimpier, the list goes on.
The fact that so many people, top investigative journalists of our time have dug up so much shit on him, and despite momentary discomfort, he gets away scot free, is even scarier.
FIFA has "apparently" voted unanimously FOR the 6+5 rule and are trying to move the EU to change it's employment laws for it to be passed by 2012. The rule will debilitate and ruin world football and not only make the rich richer, but leave football's poor poorer. And this absolute turd of a man may just make it happen saying it's 'for the fans' though not a single one has probably been consulted. No Platini does NOT count.
Ahmed Bilal, Andrew Jennings with BBC Panorama, and Barbara Smit have all done some incredible work on the subject but unless this kind of information makes it to blogs and forums everywhere it won't be known. This post is a mere compilation of facts. I would hope it gets around. Even if you don't read every link I've placed, do read the first two in this paragraph for a short 'introduction.'

Ladies and Gentlemen, I present to you, Mr. Sepp Blatter- the most powerful man in world football today.

Raw fucking Spite

2008-05-26T03:50:00.000-07:00

Jai Hind fucked me over. That's Jai Hind college in South Mumbai for anyone typing these keywords in google, who may or may not look this way.
I am a student of Wilson College, and let me make this clear- I despise Jai Hind and everything they do. In fact, ever since I actually got to know colleges in Bombay I've hated them. And when I say got to know, I don't mean heard from family, I mean got to know the people who study within the colleges, and believe me, that is far more telling than any brochure could ever be.
However, that is a personal, biased, somewhat irrational hatred which you probably shouldn't listen to.
And so, I present to whoever reads this page, a far more tangible reason for hating the college.
On December 16th, Jai Hind BMS's annual festival Talaash officially began. To find out more about the festival you can google it. What you'll find is this.
The article is written by Mumbai Mirror. It states several facts. They say there were 15000 participants. They say there were 50 events, and they also say Talaash would go on to be one of the biggest college festivals of the year.
What they don't say is how Talaash has also proved to be one of the biggest scams of the year.
I've attended and participated in enough festivals in my first year to be branded a 'festival whore' and let me tell you this. I have never encountered such blatant disregard for effort and such self involved bullshit.
As a prize for a lateral thinking quiz, Malhar, gave away a Jockey vest. Broo-ha-ha threatened to disqualify an entire team because an audience member from their college was smoking. Blitzkreig had an emerging actress as a judge for a DANCE event! The list goes on. The utter stupidity I have witnessed happen at festivals is something I have come to understand and enjoy, but Talaash '07 took things a bit too far.
The article says 15000 participants? There weren't even 1500! The article says, 'Four way football' was an exclusively designed event? Bull shit, it was created at Polaris two years ago!

First, I will tackle the bizarre registration process. Each individual was charged Rs. 200 for participation in Talaash 07, regardless of how many events he/she was in. Furthermore, for a reason they failed to explain, they demanded the names, numbers and email addresses of EVERYONE in our course, regardless of whether or not they were even participating in the festival. Perhaps it had something to do with their sponsors. Notice any companies that may find the phone numbers and email ids of thousands of college students useful?
Anyway, we'll get back to that in a bit.
In our category, the BMM cup, we registered a team of 8 participants. Miniscule compared to the 60 strong squads of Sydenham, etc. and quite aptly we were assigned the team name: Spartans.
For 7 days we worked our asses off on some of the hardest events we've done. We paid for printing our daily newspaper and we paid for moving between south and east Mumbai. We did it all with barely any sleep and a smile on our faces. We had a good fucking time.
Eventually we won the BMM cup. Of 7 events, we placed 1st in 3 of them and 2nd in another 3 of them.
Till today I have not seen a single prize come through. All we have gotten is a lot of cut-calls, a lot of half excuses, a lot of 'talk to you laters' and lot of bullshit.
We recieved a voucher for Rs 1000 at Spykar jeans, which conveniently expired on the day they gave us the card and seeing as we were given the damn thing at 5 in the evening it was a bit useless don't you think?
But perhaps the most telling and most frustrating snub was of the Ogilvy and Mathers internships we were promised. After a lot of stalling we were eventually handed a letter stating we were allowed to register at O and M, but there was a small glitch.
See, O and M were full for the summer by the time we'd gotten the letter. And it made no sense right? If the slots for the internship were given and our names were already registered as the PR team of Talaash repeatedly told us, then there shouldn't have been a problem right?
Unless. Unless, as the festival's head honcho would later confess, Jai Hind had some of it's own students taking internships there.
Now, we won prizes in 6 different places as I explained before. And we were asked to pay Rs 200 just for participation. So, logically shouldn't we be getting SOMETHING? Was a Rs 1000 voucher for jeans ALL they could muster up? I mean, if you go by their sponsor's article, 15000 participants took part, meaning each paid a minimum Rs. 200, which would only be added to the obvious funds and prizes their sponsors had given them. That makes up a lot of money don't you agree? Even if 15000 is a gross exaggeration, and a more modest number of say 400-500 participants is considered, there is still A L O T of money that went INTO Talaash. But not one prize that came out?
Odd don't you think?

You know what, I AM biased, and I AM pissed off and I AM doing this out of sheer spite. But there is nothing but truth in this post. Jai Hind, has proved time and again that it is the scummiest institution there is in South Mumbai.
I'm not claiming Wilson's the purest institution there is either, I'm just sincerely hoping some student considering Jai Hind finds this blog and realises that with admission into the college comes a very large amount of scorn and a label that reads 'absolute dick'.

That is all.

Awakening

2008-05-25T12:19:00.000-07:00

ello all
This is for anyone and everyone who still bothers to read this site. I've had consistently low hits and even lower comments and it resulted in a severe blow to my ego. I had a couple of my biggest confidence hits and lowest points in several years over the past few weeks and if not for a certain safety net, I would have deleted this here blog and stopped writing. Then I started a new blog on www.oleole.com, writing about Arsenal only. It's a massive community and I've been making a few friends commenting on other's blogs and being a general '3-4 comments in a row' nuisance because for some reason they have a 900 character limit.
However, the hits on THAT blog are still low and the comments are a grand total of two.
As if, the thread I was walking on wasn't thin enough, I then spoke to a man I admire immensely and as per his job, we discussed my academic performance.
Categorically, with evidence and clarity he tore down everything I have done for a year and made me realise I have a 'serious problem writing' and 'weak foundations'. Furthermore he pointed out to me how the only assignments I really enjoyed doing got me my lowest marks.

Now, I do not have any memories of writing as a child. It never saved me. I have no diaries and no scrawls hidden away. Writing has never been a 'passion' for me and I only started amid a mixture of badgering and utter boredom. It was cathartic at most. I never had any real 'gift' and my family has never 'always known I'd write something great someday.' I started writing in the 12th grade and I did it because it was easy and my friends would comment and it felt a little nicer expressing than it did thinking.

And yet, perhaps because of some special variant of the 'idiot' gene, I can't see any career for myself but writing. Football blogging, a niche so small and exploitative, its been deemed a digital sweatshop, is something I would love to do. The only real love, or appreciation or buzz I have for writing is rooted in a certain safety net I had mentioned earlier, and a few others I've encountered.
With the safety net, I've seen how the effect of a few written words is sometimes more effective than entire speeches. I've seen a living representation of one of my favorite movie quotes from Rent the musical- 'the need to express to communicate.'
With the others, with Arseblog, and certain apes and certain over analytical self destructive footballers, I have seen a raw, emotive, venting which is in many cases I've found the equivalent of a good cry.
The point is, there is a very raw, very primal expression in writing which has essentially shaped these people I've mentioned's lives. And it is that effect and that passion which I will confess I have introjected first and THEN started to love myself. However, it happened, whenever it happened, and because of whoever it happened, I am hooked.
And so today, with this disjointed rant, I announce, not the turning of a new leaf, but the cleaning and shaping of the same leaf so it looks a little better and hopefully gets a few more hits!
I wanted to start a new blog altogether and who knows, I just might, but for now, I am starting a new approach.
You will read some of the worst blogs you've ever encountered and you will probably never return to this site unless I trick you into it, but I am going to start writing more, and I am going to make myself as good as the people who've inspired me. I will remain raw and true to myself, but I am taking my self pity and cramming it some place dark until I no longer need to worry about it.
Thank you for reading this space, and I appreciate every hit I've gotten, but I've realised, the time has come for a change and so I hope to invoke it.

Even if you're foreign...

2008-05-06T01:57:00.000-07:00

ello all.
In psychology, it is inferred that in our heads there are tiny little frameworks and plans for everything we do or experience. These frameworks are called 'schemata.' So you have a schema for just about everything and when you find something new, you make a schema of it based on that experience. So, your schema of a black guy, may be a loud and obnoxious ruffian, and your schema of a funeral may be a quiet and sombre occasion of mourning. Needless to say, these schemas usually get drastically changed, because if you ever meet Sidney Poitier, or you ever go for an Irish wake, all expectations in the relevant schemas are pretty much null and void.

However, the one schema that is the most resistant to change, is the schema you have of yourself. There's a little joke about a patient who was convinced he was a ghost. His shrink figured since the notion was so illogical, you could logically disprove it and hence cure the patient. So he asked the patient if ghosts bleed. The patient said no, ofcourse they don't. So the shrink takes a pin and pricks the patient's finger, thus making it bleed.
The patient is dumbfounded. He stands and screams and thanks the doctor profusely. "Thanks doc, I now know ghosts DO bleed!"
The point is, like the joke, we will change our schema of other things before we change our own opinions of ourselves. We will yell and scream and ignore and fight with people who say things against us. But very rarely, do we say, 'hmm, interesting, maybe I am an asshole for cheating on my wife.' And even when we do it's usually ages later, after we've used all our energy on justifying our own actions.
And in a disjointed sort of way, this made me understand the concept of love. The idea that people have written about for centuries and tried to understand for millenia. This grand and noble idea which Ewan Mcgregor described as 'a many splendourous thing.'
But I have now come to see, that love is something incredible only because of it's simplicity. It's power and effect is tremendous, but the action of loving, is so simple you'd probably miss it because it was too dull to be written about in a children's storybook.
I know a couple who are, atleast legally very close to me. The guy is an absolute fucker and I've hated him for years. He is self obsessed, isolates himself, orders the girl around and more often than not yells at her for no tangible reason. He talks down to her and generally mistreats the other people who are supposedly close to him. And like all true fuckers, he is completely oblivious to the fact.
He's been with this woman for 22 years now. More importantly, SHE's been with HIM for 22 years. He doesn't even make a lot of money.
Yet, she will always, with complete sincerity defend him. She will always, in a completely rational way find some way of justifying what he does and why it's ok. Most of the time she blames herself. In fact, I have seen her suppress her own genius in submitting to him, so often, that now, one of the most powerful minds I have ever encountered, cooks dal and does some 40 kakuro puzzles a day. She'll study and understand HIS work just to help him out, so she can channel her intellectual energy in some productive way. And until now it has always baffled me.
But then yesterday it struck me.
Love, is when your schema of the person you love is so close to your own, that you will defend it with the same ferocity that you would defend your own. Love, is when you create a collective schema. It's sort of like the schema a patriot has of his nation. Because it is so invariably linked to his own schema, he would fight and die for it. Because, I believe so strongly in the cause of Arsenal, I will pay more than I have to watch them play, even when there's a rational thought in my head saying, 'Bloody hell, he's got that cunt Eboue on the right wing again!'
I get a lot of shit from a lot of people about how the world is grey and not black or white, and it never fails to piss me off. People will say, 'Ah how can you expect loyalty in a world like this?' and it just strikes me as bizarre. Because, the way I see it, the more everyone gives up and submits to shit like that, the worse 'this world' is going to get. Fact is, I don't think these people love the values they claim to wish upheld, because they don't seem to defend them at all.

Now I won't claim this is some groundbreaking idea, in fact I'm pretty certain it's an old one, but the fact is I've found myself defending a new collective schema one hell of a lot lately, and it's made me pretty fucking happy. And more than that, the couple I mentioned earlier don't baffle me anymore. Instead, I am left with a begrudged sense of understanding.

P.S. I do still hate that fucker and I REALLY hate Eboue. You see, some people just don't deserve love.

Prop an asshole!

2008-04-13T22:13:00.000-07:00

ello all,
So last night it ended. The dream is over and the whole season amounted, once again to nothing. Arsenal are out and if you read the press association's report it's because of 'Ronaldo's confidence' and Manchester United's battling spirit, and Owen Hargreaves' sublime free kick. Perception is essentially reality, and despite video evidence to the contrary, the PA usually get their way with the immense volume of their propoganda.
What gets left out is the mention of just how soft the penalty was- yet again, and ofcourse, how Anderson literally wrestled Adebayor to the ground at the other end in a brilliant place for a free kick, yet the whistle wasn't blown. Ofcourse when Gilberto's toe touches Evra and the entire home support at Old Trafford yell, the objective and entirely fair refereeing had no choice but to award the free kick.
Now before I go further, some would say, we probably wouldn't have taken advantage of the free kick on the right of the box, despite the fact that Robin Van Persie was fucking playing. They would even say the referee was fair, which is why Van Persie was booked for going in a second late on Wes Brown.
But pardon me, I would hate to oppose any England loyalists. And that really is what it comes down to isn't it?
An Englishmen scores against Arsenal. The irony is painful.
All through the Euro Qualifiers Arsene Wenger was the punching bag for a frustrated nation that watched, some of the world's most talented (and highly paid/ exorbitantly paid/ Over paid) individuals flounder and fail. Arsenal don't play enough English players. They are a corrupting influence and have driven all teams to use only foreigners and that is why players like Frank Lampard and Steven Gerrard and the remaining squad of 22 in the England team team suffer. Because teams 'like Arsenal' have reduced chances for them.
For anyone who has played a football video game, it is blatantly obvious that on paper, and technically England have one of the strongest teams in the world. They're the team you play with when you're not so good and want a strong team to beat weaker teams! But no! Arsene Wenger is a blasphemous oaf who has ruined the system.
I mean, it must be his fault right?! Who else to blame!? Brian Barwick and his inept administration? No...!! Steve Mclaren's incompetence or Sven Goran Errikson's fearful tactics? No...! Lazy players who don't put in the same effort they do for their clubs? No...!
Really, this Wenger chap is quite the Scarlett Pimpernel. Coming in here producing players like David Bentley, Ashley Cole and Sol Campbell! That Bastard! How dare he nurture Tony Adams? How dare he use Thierry Henry and Francesc Fabregas instead of Wayne Rooney and Steven Gerrard?! I mean, come on for 112,000 pounds a weak who wouldn't want a 15-18 goals a season striker!?
The propoganda is endless. We've had four blatant refereeing decisions go against us in recent memory, and those are just the four we're 'allowed' to talk about without 'nitpicking.' We've had countless throughout the season. Wenger is a bad loser and he moans and groans when penalties that shouldn't be are given and those that should be aren't.
To quote Chris Rock, please cut the fucking shit! The team may have it's drawbacks, certainly Alex Song in central defence is nothing else, as is Emmanuel Eboue on the right wing, but for fuck's sake, what team can survive referees who allow players like Anderson to get away scot free, and decide that any touching in the penalty area is a foul?!
What team can survive a Middlesborough game where the offside rule is re-written?!
But most importantly what team can survive an entire fleet street agenda against it!? When we beat Derby, Soccernet says it's because they're crap. Acceptable. But when we trounce AC milan, the only 'expert opinion' peices ESPN have to offer are about the aging decline of AC milan.
I end with another quote. This time from the Absinthe fairy in Euro trip:
"Now that's some fucked up shit."
That is all.

Gloves not included.

2008-04-10T23:49:00.000-07:00

ello all!
A minor celebration. This is post no. 20!
That's that.
I have recently moved to Calcutta. My Father has in typical fashion landed a job where he's being paid pittens but he's been given an exorbitant flat to live in. It really is quite stunning.
Anyway, I came here some 10 days ago and have been living here at 'home' with a friend of mine who might also fall under the tag of 'Hobo' which I picked up in my year at Wilson. We've both done our bit of moving and we've both done our bit of walking. As it stands, he has no legal identification and no forseeable, tangible future. What he does have is his plans, his guitar, and his bag filled with wrappers and a notebook. His 'situation' is as some might see it, essentially hopeless. Yet in seeing him get his shit together and grabbing his life by the balls, and growing and learning as much as he can, it struck me just what it is to be a hobo.
It's something I'd imagine we all have when we need it, but that doesn't make it any less amazing. It's the reason he can move from a comic book to a musical seamlessly. It's, as he put it in a post of his own, the ability to get up after falling in crud in some random street in Dubai and to keep walking. I've met some extraordinary people thus far and the list would be far too long for one blog so I shall stick to my purpose.
This is by no means a tribute post, but I would like to express something about the two people closest to me. We'll call them K1 and K2.
K1 has suffered a blow larger than any blow, we agree, he has ever suffered. It has already and will continue to change his life. We all create futures for ourselves in our head. Sort of an imaginary railroad for our trains to choo choo over. But sometimes that railway line gets yanked out of place and it becomes something entirely different. As it stands K1 has lost his initial track. He's pretty much running on mud and tar right now. His hoboness, though, is the fact that he is still moving, though slowly and a little carefully, and he's putting together some more tracks made from fucking twigs and hair and shit, and riding on it. His hoboness is that he like my room mate is getting his shit together and taking life by the balls again.
K2, who is I must confess the real purpose behind this blog, has suffered many blows. They seem soft on their own but accumulated they've smashed the shit out of the railway line. They've pushed and shoved the train onto different tracks and back. They've even just hit the train out of pure spite and dented the front. K2 would to most look like an absolute wreck. But for some reason, beyond hoboness and anything I can understand, K2 is still going on. Still chugging away, still riding those very battered wheels to the ground until the track starts to show up again. K2's hoboness is beyond me. It is amazing.
This post is a mix of awe, respect and hope for K1 and K2, and indeed my roommate too. But more than anything it's a hope that they will chug on, because from here in this useles, helpless, position where all I can do is cheer, I feel like I do every time I'm at a bar cheering Arsenal on. the season's derailed entirely but the red and white is just so beautiful you have to keep on yelling.
This is to hoboness.

Feels like a bloody Jack Russell

2008-03-23T05:25:00.001-07:00

ello all!
I don't know when, how and why but at some point this blog turned into a vent space and as I've now learnt is a necessary catharsis for me. Fuck.
I have spent the better part of this past week indoors on account of exams and perhaps it's the claustophobia, but I've had it till here with this.
The other day in the shower it occured to me what's been plaguing me for the past couple of months. I've lost most of my drive. I want to laze. I do not want to do things, I know I honestly do and more than anything else is an overwhelming feeling of just being tired. The problem is I'm satisfied.
A couple blogs ago, much like a victory speech I declared my pride at certain things I'd done and won and that, it seems was my peak. I'm going downhill now. It is the worst feeling to have. The thought that I deserve to rest or that I have earned the right to let certain 'problems' weigh me down because I'm just tired of dealing with it. It's a pain in my fucking ass and I hate it.
But why have I blogged today? In about an hour, Manchester United will face Liverpool FC in a premier league fixture. About two and half hours after that Arsenal will face Chelsea. These two games may not decide, but will definitely be a huge part in deciding where the title of English champions goes. It could be us. Bloody hell it has to be us. We've fought like fucking dogs and mucked ourselves up a fair bit in the process (get well Eduardo) but the 'children' are here to win it. This is as big as it's gotten since the invincible season three years ago when we last one the league, without losing a single game mind you.
This is a time when Arsenal are still achieving. In all possibility, if and when they do achieve, this horrible feeling of satisfaction and being content may strike them too, and from experience I can tell you it can really mess things up (Case in point Ashley Cole). Tonight we could end with our fists pumping and our lungs bursting with the rest of the cunts with their heads drooping. It could possibly not. They said this race would go down to the wire and I think it's safe to say we're ON the wire. It's barbed and it's cutting at the legs but it feels great.
The borrowed thrill of Arsenal still in achievement mode while I sit here like an idiot in chill out mode is in itself exhilirating. Once the exams are done, I begin the next phase of my achieving, hopefully anyway. I look forward to it. And I will always look back at this shit hole of a period of time and only remember that the fucking Gunners rode high and mighty.
Come on you Reds!

Patches and Pans

2008-02-03T04:53:00.000-08:00

ello all!
I bring to you some more mindfucking from my Psychology class!
Today's tasty dish is a concept known as Perceptual Constancy. Essentially it is this little thing in your head which ensures that even if there is a significant change to the surrounding context, the object being perceived is always percieved as itself.
I'll explain. But I must warn you that it involves a bit of an activity on your part, dear reader. Alright? Ok good.
Lift your left hand up and keep it about a foot away from your face. Look at it. Pretty eh?
Alright, now move it lower, to a slightly darker place if possible. Still pretty eh?
Alright now bring it about 4 centimetres away from your face.
Notice anything? Ofcourse not. That's perceptual constancy. Your hand, whether it's orange in color in light, or grey in color in darkness, or a blurry fuzz jammed in your face, will always be percieved as your hand. The question is, is it?
Imagine if every time you looked at something you saw it independently and objectively, like it's brand new. You saw it MINUS the constancy. Everything would actually seem unique in it's own right.
When your best friend does something shitty, it wouldn't matter because you know it belongs to one context and one context alone! You'd never be jaded! EVERYTHING would be spontaneous...! For me, it's the absolute in 'Living in the now.'
I'm not saying it would be ideal or it's something we should strive for but the idea is something that's got me in all kinds of spins. Something to apply.
Just a thought...

Jerk my knee!

2008-01-20T01:52:00.000-08:00

ello all!
Something struck me today and when I thought about putting it down I'd actually forgotten I had my blog! Perhaps it's the fact that my last few posts have been purely personal. Perhaps not.
We, people, humans, intelligent beasts, shepherds, are a bunch of petrified idiots. I've realised that it's not that we cannot use the remaining 94% of our brains, it's just that we do not. We choose not to think too deep. We choose not to accept ourselves as individuals in independent contexts. We choose to conform because, and this is usually considered intelligent, it's easier that way.
I've been studying some psychology as part of my course lately and my belief in the most basic principle of The Matrix has never been stronger. The principle is, that reality, your reality is yours and yours alone. Everything you touch and see and hear and smell is rooted in signals being sent to YOUR brain. Your mind. Pain is subjective and so is love. Memories can be reconstructed so easily by the vaguest of associations that you can actually rehearse an entirely fictitious story in your mind and 'learn' a new feeling or fear. In the right state of subconsciousness you can convince yourself of anything. Of a purple sky and a green ocean and a gun in the hand of the suspect in the murder case your testifying to. So then tell me. What is real?
The blue sky outside this room and this keyboard I keep hitting at are created by me. The world is flat until a brainwave signals to me that it's not. This is the world I've decided to live in, and sure I could change it to whatever I want to. Change it to peaceful and wonderous at any time. But I know that I am too damn happy with this place I'm in, and whatever I'm struggling with I'm enjoying too. Real is what I say it is.
In this world of mine, I've seen so many people, and I'm one of them too mind you, cling to a generalised system of rules and codes, that I can't help but reach the conclusion I started this post with. We're a bunch of petrified idiots. Honestly, I am.
It's easy to mock someone who clings to the values and manners that their 'religion' calls for, but how about us, the other idiots who cling to our own form of religion. In television. In 'Friends' and 'The OC.' Rules on how to behave. On how to react. How to be with your girlfriend. Ignore the actual feeling you have and follow the format.
What is reality? I am reality. There are no rules until I create them.

Hitting the fan...

2007-12-26T11:05:00.000-08:00

ello all!
This post which you are about to read is the first one I have really forced myself to write. Usually if I think of one and I end up expressing it somewhere other than my blog, I don't put it down but then this one is really quite a milestone in terms of my life. And so, since this blog is also a chronicle of sorts, I shall express once more, for the sake of memories.
Last month, when I returned to college for semester deux, I went in with a mission. I realised at several points during my break in Jaipur, that all my life I have always thought. The time had come for me to shut the fuck up and do!
Regular readers and friends will know that I am an Arsenal fan and by extension they will know why. It dawned upon me that until last month, while I have always been an arsenal fan, I was inadvertently a Chelsea man. As much as i hated to acknowledge or accept it, I had always been logical and fucntional. Fucking cunt is what I was.
This past month, I have disowned all aims and goals I ever set for myself. I worked on instinct and there were many times when I paid for it. Whether it was unfortunate 'blips' in the process of getting things I desperately craved, or getting my aim way way wrong, things didn't hurt me the way they did before. Shit really stung now. Essentially I was feeling and living harder than ever before because now I actually lived Arsenal!
In finally becoming an Arsenal man, I have made some awesome 'plays' and have been able to not only find people I genuinely care for, but find people who genuinely care for me. As such I have scored two 'goals.'
The first, is a wooden sheild with cheap plastic gold plating. It is the BMM cup of Talaash '07. It is glorious. It is the result of a truly Spartan effort. 8 of us, got together, with our team name assigned as Spartans, and we took on Jai Hind on it's own turf. We trounced past everything we took part in and defeated teams with contingents 5 and 6 times the size of ours. We fought as a unit and took what we wanted, which incidentally was everything. We did at as Spartans, as Wilson. We did it for a good time, winging it and bringing it. All in all, pretty badass.
The second, is the result of a confession I made. I confessed to a friend I had no right to love the way I did, how I felt about her, trusting that we'd come out stronger. I didn't count though on us coming out together. My second goal is one I will always cherish. Her name's Kyra and she's beautiful. It's not been a fairy tale, but it's been amazing.
I don't know how things will be and as it stands I don't quite care. All I know is that for the first time I'm actually living and it feels better than ever.
To my Olive, the now is way to bitching for me to care about the future.
To Jai Hind and Chelsea, game on.

Time for revolution...

2007-11-09T05:25:00.000-08:00

UPDATED: November 10
ello all,
Alright you know how sometimes you want to blog about a lot of things and then suddenly one thing comes along that just binds all of them and presents you with the base to your point? Well me neither, until now that is.
On the 7th of November, Finland was stunned. In a public school in Jokela, an 18 year old boy opened fire on several students and staff members, killing 9 and injuring several others. He then pointed the gun to his own head and shot himself. A few hours later he died too.
This incident is not unlike the few others in the recent past and has several essential similarities. Obviously people will compare and contrast and in doing so they will choose points of blame. If you want to know a bit about this kid, or the little of himself he'd like for you to know anyway, then follow this link to his channel on Youtube.
I don't know this guy and the only exposure I've had to him is from that site and from the subsequent news releases. What I do know, and this is something Marylin Manson pointed out in his interview with Michael Moore from "Bowling for Columbine," is this: this guy, like the guy in the VaTech shooting, and the kids at Columbine, basically needed someone to listen to him. What are the similarities between the killers? They all feel they're outcasts. Granted the stance they take is one of superiority, deeming the rest of humanity weak and senseless, but the basic fact is they were alienated and had to develop independently. Hence the videos on YouTube before they do it. They know they will be judged and they have to give someone that idea that's fuelling them.
The point of this post is something we've discussed in length in class. It's essentially web 2.0. I'm not willing to talk about what fuelled these killers and whether they were right or wrong because that's a judgement I cannot make. My morals are mine and theirs are theirs. I've reached where I am for my reasons and I have to trust that they have reached theirs for their own reasons. The point is, that web 2.0, represents the last, and I mean final bastion of free expression. I can blog here and post videos on YouTube. I can say what I want and how I want to. I can care about whoever's responses I want. YouTube have suspended this guy's account and his last one, and I'm not sure what the terms of violation are. If I find out I'll update below, but if anyone does know, I'd appreciate a comment.
The point is, people will look to blame YouTube for allowing the spread of such 'sick' thoughts, as the Australian paper the Herald Sun deemed them. None of us can decide what's good or bad and none of us will EVER reach a unified conclusion on it. Many of us feel that objectivity is therefore, the only answer.
Some will feel therefore that certain things shouldn't be said. Motives should be questioned. They believe objectivity is therefore, everything that is not subjective. What web 2.0 offers thought, is the OTHER way to objectivity, whereby everything should be said and all motives should be allowed. Let everyone be as subjective as they want and then pick sides or hell, even make sides! This is to me is a silent renaissance. A splurge of thoughts and ideas, terribly subjective and close minded at times, but genuine none the less. If my blog gives it's views today it's because I feel it, and the beauty of web 2.0 is you can make your own blog and slag off mine! The Finnish kid who deemed the rest of the planet weak and mindless, believed that for his reasons and it was only on his YouTube and MySpace pages that he could express that. You can choose to blame the net for spreading his ideas and possibly influencing several others to do as he has, but the net has no reasonable liability, because another net user, the Aussie Herald Sun, deemed his thoughts 'sick.'
Che Guevara believed in a balance, in using past ideals where they are apt and incorporating all of them into your own ideal which is apt to your context. This balance will not be achieved by restricting thoughts and ideas. It'll only be achieved by making these thoughts accessible to everyone and that is what wikis like Wikipedia do.
A few weeks ago a friend of mine asked me how I could expect to reach a point of 'no expectations,' pointing out the blatant contradiction. What I have to say to him now, as I told him I would, is that what I can expect is to expect everything.

UPDATE:
OK, bad news.
From YouTube's Terms of Use :
"YouTube reserves the right to decide whether Content or a User Submission is appropriate and complies with these Terms of Service for violations other than copyright infringement, such as, but not limited to, pornography, obscene or defamatory material, or excessive length. YouTube may remove such User Submissions and/or terminate a User's access for uploading such material in violation of these Terms of Service at any time, without prior notice and at its sole discretion. "
The implications are quite clear, and it explains in part why Sturmgeist89's stuff was erased completely. I'm not certain if this was a term of use since the start, or whether it was added later when Google took over, but either way, this is how it is.
There's even more stuff here, to dispell any undue expectations and assumptions we may have had, or atleast I may have had. What's interesting though, is the restrictions I've pointed out are in place even in spite of the vast number of disclaimers and 'liability limitation' clauses they have in place already.
At the same time, it is a great site and as much as these damn restrictions are in place, it still serves a very large part of the purpose of web 2.0.

Plain as sand...

2007-11-01T08:03:00.000-07:00

I'm blogging for the sake of blogging here just so I'm clear. I hate getting expectations messed. Just about everything for me can be brought down to some form of expectation. But well, that's another blog altogether. One I may write sometime soon. Who knows.
Anyway, I'm here again in Jaipur.
It's strange because I've never spent more than 2-3 months in this city but somehow it fulfills the qualification of home for me somehow. Like some sort of pit stop I can come back to and re- fuel so I can head back out and get on with the race. It's a good feeling too, because for a while you can just sit back and ride the flow with no particular purpose. Do I wish I pit stopped in Dubai? In some ways yes. I mean Dubai's great for that. It's clean as hell for the most part. Everything's automatic and available. It's as close to being completely objective as a commercial city can be. Too objective? Yes, but I'm talking pit stops here not retirement.
Anyway, it's always great to get away from stuff and look at things from a different angle. That way Jaipur's good for me because I don't have to dwell on too many things here. I mean it's great to encounter in so many ways a representation of where I come from in terms of an amazingly varied family scene, but there's nothing to worry about. It's the quintessential chill pill.
However, on coming here I got a taste of a different root to objectivity, one I fervently support. An uncle of mine who along with my aunt makes up my single favorite couple and favorite two people on the planet, said something that had me re- arranging alot of the thoughts I had become a bit set on in my head. We'd started talking about my course and how my goals have changed and ofcourse reached the role of the media. We got into social responsibility and it was there that he really shook me because he reminded me that any social change is always based on any one person or group's ideology and you can never have a unanimous 'right' or 'wrong'.
The actual discussion is not something I want to get into in this post, not yet anyway but the point is that just as I had pit stopped and let all the excitement, thoughts, emotions and intoxicants settle and take their course, I had them fluffed up a bit again.
Jaipur is awesome for getting yourself together, much like a dear friend of mine feels about her Abu Dhabi. I thought I wasn't dependent on places like this anymore, but in a way I've allowed myself this because, for the same reason I sleep at 10 30 sometimes, I simply can.
So here's to chilling with the dogs, cat, geese, birds and family, with no sea to stare at, but a whole lot of beautiful country side, a clear night sky and Jaipur's first cold November.
Till whenever.

Fault of the fourth and what not

2007-10-06T21:52:00.000-07:00

<Updated: 13/10/2007>
This fucking planet...!
Alright so ever since I wrote that Times of India rant, I've started to see just how deep seeded the whole problem really is. See back then I thought the media was too afraid to do anything but feed the masses. Not that that is any less true but I've realised just how screwed up the masses really are to begin with.
In India there is a strange notion of patriotism. It's something we saw at the time of paritition and indeed relied on to reach even that stage. It's the concept of a mob. It's the reason a group of 50 will lynch people in Bihar(not even just once...) and it's the reason Ram Gopal Verma had to stay indoors after 'Aag.' But this mob mentality is most blatant in the one place it really has no right to exist in...sport. More honestly, just cricket.
This isn't about the fact that the football and hockey ('National' sport) teams have acheived proportionately equal significance in the past few months and have still been completely ignored minus a few headlines. This is about the fact that cricket is this population's vague excuse for patriotism. There is this bizarre notion that by supporting the cricket team you are in turn supporting your nation and that therefore makes you a good citizen, no matter how much you bitch about the government in your arm chair and litter the streets.
Sport is about the human spirit and physically and mentally hitting places you've never hit before. It's about strategically outdoing an opponent for the sake of testing yourself. Sport is beautiful and that's why people follow it. That's why the Gunners never lose fans and Chelsea only sell shirts. But for some reason in this country sport is an excuse for either extreme - savage lynchmob, or obsessive cult.
A few weeks ago after the Indian team brought home the title of world T20 champions, they drove past my college and I saw something I've neve seen before. Lakhs of people surrounded the bus and hundreds of educated students shrieked as the buses drove by. 'I SAW SREESANTH!' 'DUDE, I SAW ALL OF THEM!' That entire day we barely worked because everyone was awaiting the bus. Politicians shook hands with them and crores were spent in felicitation. I understand the concept of escapism but how can you burn a man's house one day and then sing songs about him the next? Why is a team that is essentially a sporting outfit the hope and pride of a nation while millions of us are dying of tubercolosis and diarrhoea? Why will we refuse to organise ourselves and force the government to get going but mobilise ourselves the second the cricket team wins or loses? Does everyone truly understand the sport they claim to love?
Is it all the media's fault? I don't know. Can the media fix it? Damn straight it can.
Elsewhere Sepp Blatter made some grunting noises to the basic effect that he wants all football clubs to have quotas for players from the respective nations they're participating in. This by the way, is a man who has always expressed his desire to banish racism from the game. Beautiful.
You know, whatever despairing need the nation may feel towards cricket, it is certainly not about sport. It's rooted in this bizarre feeling we all have about belonging to one country. It doesn't matter whose economy gets richer whenever you drink Pepsi or Thums up. Borders were made for administrative purposes. To make it easier to control a group of people. Not to segregate and glorify. The point of any government isn't to make itself better than anyone else, but indeed to just make it's people as comfortable in their personal growth as possible.You want something to belong to? Try the fucking planet!
I'll tell you what, in a few years time when we've effectively melted the planet, and we're all either drowning or burning, will it really matter whether you're Indian or English?
<The other day I came across the closest to honest patriotism I have ever come across. I had asked a friend of mine if I could crash at his place for a few days. Instead of saying "Mi casa es su casa" this guy just said "Arey, Mera ghar tera ghar!" To me, this was beautiful because of how natural his response and that's what real patriotism should be. Comfort.>

When the bed bug bites...

2007-09-22T23:45:00.000-07:00

ello all!
So where have I been? Well, a few months ago I was fortunate enough to be inducted into the greatest sociological muck up the planet will ever see- the BMM course at Wilson College.
Now the irony of my complete lack of writing due to a mass media course aside, these past few months have been without a doubt the most incredible I've ever experienced. 4 months ago, I was still that cunt who wanted to get into Xavier's and play west end some day, world at my feet and all that. Now? Coming into this world, the most significant feeling it gave me was one of being small. Tiny, insignificant, and most of all, truly clueless.
Right from my first lecture, I knew I was never going to leave, because before me stood a man who instilled insecurity and panic into a group of people who'd never even met him or in some cases had even heard of him, and all he had to do, was be himself. It was beautiful. It was like meeting our respective consciences, and looking back sheepishly as we realised how nothing we did had ever really mattered because we hadn't hit 100% productivity yet. What he represented at that point was everything we could be, in terms of effort and knowledge, that we so obviously weren't. He was basically a reminder of every time someone made us feel like shit about our 'potential,' or about how we didn't realise how lucky we were. How human his expectations were showed me my limit and it was harsh.
Ever since then, the weeks just moulded together into one huge moment, one which hasn't yet ended I feel, even as I type this out. What defines a moment is a consistent pace and bloody hell, it's been a considerable pace. It took me a while to truly soak myself in this life entirely, and indeed I needed a slight shove before i did, but now that I'm in it I've never felt better. For the first time I feel like I can actually make a fucking difference to this planet. In four little months I have grown more than I have in 18 years.
How incredibly messed up this planet really is, is something I've always known but for the first time it's overwhelmed me. It's too soon and I wouldn't dare commit just yet, but yes, reporting has quite firmly kicked my dreams of theatre in their metaphorical nuts. Maybe it'll be shortlived, I don't know, the amount I've been shaken up these past few months I can't really say anything, but for the moment that's where I feel I need to be. Studying and learning about all the things we have, everything in me is pointing me in this direction and mentally at least I'm already making preparations.
But the kind of awareness and logic the subjects have given me are all great but they wouldn't have meant fuck but for the people I've met here and the experiences we've shared. And for the first time in my life I think I may be willing to admit I want to concede to logic. Whether I have in the past or not is irrelevant, but for the first time I want to accept it as a part of what I believe in. A few weeks ago, I was struggling to choose between the person I used to be, the guy who writes plays, and the person I should be, the guy who writes fact. Art and logic, I felt. Fuck it, why not both? If there's one thing Bombay stands for, it's be whatever the hell you want to and however the hell you want to. Sounds good to me.
I've met some incredible people here who've really changed me and each one of them has been beautiful in their own way. Ive had some good experiences, and some a bit sour, but they've all been awesome because for the first time, reality's bitten me and I cannot wait to bite back!

I fucking hate bed bugs.

Hot in the city...tonight...!

2007-05-30T13:16:00.001-07:00

ello all!
Well I'm in Bombay! You know how sometimes you'll see something and suddenly realise why they have a certain phrase or word for it? Well for Bombay the word's vibrant.
On my way in, even as the plane went dangerously close to the slums right before the airport, in my head, almost like some sort of premonition of things to come, I could hear this totally awesome background music building. Anyway, from the minute I saw it, I began to subconsciously compare it and only the other day when I was thinking about how Ill go about this post, it struck me just how much like Dubai this place is.
They've got malls, people dressed up, shopping, food, clean roads, beaches, sunsets, sky scrapers, buildings, cabs, Indians, different names for different areas which is accepted as common knowledge to all who've set foot here...they have it all and yet- there's something more.
There's something about the way thousands of people will walk around this city, doing their own thing, leading their own lives, secluded in a less physical way, yet they all seem to have this one common factor-that theyre in Bombay! For some reason, still quite inexplicable to me, everytime I look out of a cab, I can literally drown in the vibe this place gives off.
See the stores and the restaurants aren't dead consumeristic outlets, they're a place to be. The buildings aren't just boring function aimed structures, they've got culture, memories, reason, energy, and in some cases- gargoyles! YES! GARGOYLES!
It's not a row of shops in a symmetrical pattern, it's a bunch of guys running stores their own way with people they know and people who know them! Cabs aren't uniform vehicles, theyre each so incredibly unique, and outdated which just adds to it. Every cab will have a differnt interior or a different sticker on the back or front or sides-anywhere! Every building will have it's official name and the name people actually call it. Every store has a guy with a different way of looking at things. The beach isn't clean and healthy, its messy and beautiful! I ate dog meat thinking it was mutton! It's not a place you HAVE to be in for money or for work, it's a place you LOVE to be in. It's a culture, a vibe, a way of life, a stamp, light or dark but always permanent on who you are, it's validation almost, that you've been a part of the buzz and can be proud. It's beautiful!
To me, Bombay is sort of like Mother India's bachelor son, still in his twenties having a blast, loving and being loved, as opposed to say- Jaipur, which is the more regal diplomatic kid with degrees and responsibilities!
I've been here 10 days now, and that's nothing, but no city has ever hit me the way this one has. Maybe I want to love it, maybe I'm conditioning myself out of fear of hating it, maybe I'm expecting too much- or too little for that matter. Perhaps it's that there's history behind it, and there's a culture that people have adhered to for decades, as opposed to Dubai's still goo-goo-gah-gah-ing age. Perhaps it's that Bombay's chosen to be Bombay, and not part US, English, Dutch, African, Indian and Muslim! All I know is I'm in Bombay and I feel good!

Tossing scrambled eggs

2007-05-08T09:42:00.000-07:00

So, in Dubai, at my Aunt's place, they had the radio on pretty much all day. So basically everything you did had this soundtrack to it. But then one day just as Lou Reed had helped me through some work(Du du du du tu du), the soundtrack stopped. It wasn't an ad, or a DJ talking, no, it was...a psychiatrist! And an American one at that. I was ecstatic! An american shrink on the radio? This obviously meant he was an intellectual with a wacky family and a staring dog! And ofcourse, it did not. Turns out he was as dull as dull gets and his speech pattern resembled that of a microwave.
However it wasn't that most vacuum cleaners have better intonations than him that annoyed me, no it was how he approached what was nothing short of a brilliant idea. What's his job? Over the obvious song selection, sponsor worship and news reading(Angelina's got another one! Like oh my god!), he basically hears people with issues clearly more important than a sense of privacy, broadcast their problems with thousands listening, hoping he'll give them the solution, that one answer that'll cause a collective 'hmmm' from all his listeners as they realise how insignificant their problems really are.
Instead, in a thousand admittedly unique and special ways, he tells them to 'seek professional help', which is interesting you see, because he claimed to be providing just that. You have these people calling him, bearing their souls to him and allowing themselves to be completely vulnerable, with the slight expectation that maybe he may have some insight into their problems and how to deal with it. Instead, he turns out to be an advetisement, a BAD advertisement for all other pyschiatrists!
This radio ass aside, the approach of modern science to people and their problems really makes me sick. The one thing I fear most, is that eventually, logically enough, we'll spread out so much that the only way we can stay together is through a generalised web of politically correct rules and systems until even love can be 'procured', and a hug will be quantifiable. Ever since they decided to term depression as 'bi polar disorder', the way people deal with problems (treatment) has changed. If you're kid's depressed you give him a pill! If he lacks enthusiasm you give him a pill! It's so simple to be logical. So easy to blame a biological or chemical malfunction in someone's head for them having problems. Anorexia, manic depression, suicidal tendencies, don't start because of endorphins or some chemical in your head. They start because of very real, very difficult issues. Losing someone, being un-loved, being afraid, being human!
The doctor on the radio mentioned how alcoholism was dealt with by the immediate family providing love in an 'organised' fashion. Fuck him. There's no organised fashion of loving. You've got a problem you bear it. You don't need pills. If you have a problem, figure out why, be honest to yourself about something getting to you, and then find the best solution you can. Deal with your problems don't get diagnosed for them! I don't know. This is where I stand. It's hard when you've got shit to bear, so fix it. It's alot nicer not feeling like crap! Isn't THAT logical!?

Make me pure...not Ashley...

2007-05-04T04:29:00.000-07:00

Alright. In a bid to start blogging EVERYday, I have decided I will blog TOday and hope the presumption of your collective anticipation will see me through another post tomorrow! Today's meaty steak to sink my teeth in would be something I've never tried before....FOOTBALL!

Ok, now that all hopes of the 'dream' Champions league final are out the windie and indeed the European (international hm?) football scene seems a little dandier for UEFA to propogate, I think it's time I did this post, which frankly I've been burning to do since the pulsating start to Gameweek 36 of the English premier league.
What basically happened was, at the end of 45 minutes of regulation football, it seemed certain that Chelsea would go on to beat Bolton(pronounced cunts on this blog) and Manchester United would go on to lose at Everton. What actually happened was Manchester United won in the ugliest of fashions and Chelsea drew in a slightly more exciting fashion- which wasn't very exciting at all actually- but then Bolton was playing and Chelsea was playing and somewhere in the middle of it all they expected a football match to take place.
Anywho, the point of this post, is to bring to light just how significant this season in the EPL has been, not just to this year, not just to this league, not even just to football, in fact to mankind in general!
Yes such is the depth and extent of the pure evil that Chelsea football club has turned into over the past 3 years, that even an Arsenal fan is willing to stand and say he proudly rooted for Manchester United! This year, English football encountered the ultimate battle - of beauty and flair VS. logic and money.
The first instance, where money won, was when a GBP200 million pounds worth Chelsea team were able to overcome an Arsenal side of an average age of 19.5, and go on and win the prestige and glory of the Carling cup. They played long balls, shot at all instances and decided passing would only be used as a time wasting technique. Arsenal played through balls and made moves that involved all players to use not just their instinct but yes, their skill too(Fuck you Julio). Arsenal dominated Chelsea won. Arsenal entertained Chelsea won.
The rest of the season has basically seen Manchester United's efforts serve as the saviour football has called for these past two years. When Manchester United were hated they were hated for being arrogant cocky bastards,( and also for David Beckham :)), but they had style. Chelsea however, are arrogant, cocky bastards who whine through the blatant luck which they ride on and play dull unattractive football in a club which has effectively exterminated any lingering passion or tradition. Man U were respected, Chelsea are not.
Football has since the start been a sport. A sport has since the start been a test. A test of man's ingenuity, innovation, skill, control over the rawest of all gifts-his body, and most importantly, his creative ability to make something beautiful of it all. Football, and I suppose most team sports stand out in this respect because it's the combiend beauty of a team. Arsenal and admittedly United too, have for several years now, graced the sport with such beauty. Flair, attacking football that makes you gasp and gape and cheer and smile and cry and get frustrated...football that makes you FEEL their passion!
Chelsea on the other hand, represent an assemblage of the two things that will eventually destroy mankind- Logic and money.
Roman Abrahamovich, a brilliant businessman, has put together with his hard earned money a team of professionals who provide a systematic tactical method that ensures a) Strategic efforts to frustrate and obstruct any creativity on the pitch b) a method for acheiving results which is based on the result rather than the method, c) financial success from said strategic efforts that ensures malliable school kids with a lack of individuality and passion will "support" their "team"!
For the objective layman, it may not strike you too obviously, but teams like Arsenal and Manchester United represent what any artist does-creating a thing of beauty and enjoying executing it. Chelsea represents a system, with parameters and boundaries fuelled by logic, with method and not passion, Chelsea represents seeking results-money, as opposed to seeking satisfaction.
This year if Manchester United avoid a Devon Loch, they can go on to win the EPL and maybe the FA cup. That would mean beauty CAN win, and it would remove from Chelsea's ranks the one argument they'll always be able to use-that they win. It would mean we can still HOPE!
Hopefully ofcourse true beauty will win some more next year, when Arsenal seek the title after far too long. Till then, Go Man utd, may your plagued souls rotting in evil save the day, so Chelsea can suffer and hopefully vent on Assley Hole's body.

The Cashley slating and football hoo hah in general has been brought on in large part due to ARSEBLOG-the finest damn arse in the land!
Good day!

White men can't coach?!

2007-04-17T23:20:00.000-07:00

Ok, NOW I'm pissed!
Ever since I got back to India a couple weeks ago, I've been noticing the actual integrity of the Times of India as a newspaper is somewhat well non existant.
It started after the terrible tragedy of sheer horror and shock that some will refer to as the ICC world cup 2007 in the years to come. The team lost. People who literlly prayed for them were pissed. The nation's hearts were broken. MOVE THE HELL ON! It's a sport, you're suffering from poverty, unemployment, crime and quite clearly a real need to prioritize! But no, instead, for the days that followed upto HALF of the front page(I measured...) was taken up by stories like "THE WHITE SHIT WE DON'T WANT TO DEPEND ON BUT STILL DO HAS RESIGNED", and on the left hand side, spread over 3 lines in the measliest font there is they 'mention'-Iran release 15 British soldiers. Now I understand that the sport means alot to people, and they need a release from the crap they're going through and it signifies passion and all that, but at the risk of over reacting, Iran IS a potential(if not present) nuclear power and they had held captive 15 soldiers from a nation that's taken part in a couple of wars here and there-BRITAIN!
Now ofcourse the newspaper will run stories that are most popular, but I really find it quite hard to believe the nation will stop reading one of it's premier news journals because they didn't give Greg Chappell the front bloody page!
Anyway all that's kind of grey, but then today morning, in the aftermath of one of the worst shootings in an american college, the Vatech tragedy, the story they run is this(I quote ofcourse) :

"Indian Professor, student killed in Virginia shootings"

I'm a huge fan of national sentiment, I truly am, but 33 students are murdered arbritrarily and the entire cover story in the main Times of India is about how 2 of them were Indian?

Somethings bloody off! Ofcourse the editor did maintain a balance, by including a supplementary called Times of India International(6 pages long) where they did cover the story objectively or with some sort of journalistic integrity anyway.

Whether the people demand it or not, newspapers DO control the minds of it's readers, they know it and in fact THRIVE on it. Run the story on what may turn out be a factor resulting in the third world war and cover Greg-o and the rest of his national hero goons in the sprts section-that's why you have it. It's bad enough the English Premier league is confined to one article at the back, and even worse that the Indian league is generally confined to even less, while the supreme achievements of out nation in cricket are spread all across 2, sometimes 3 sides of the sports section! Allow the people to realise that kids CAN be frustrated and clued up to the point of mass homicide and it'll affect a whole lot more than 2 people whose Indian origin is of no real consequence in the larger scheme of things.

Sitting from where I am, things need to change- please justify this if you can, I'd hate to think the leading newspaper's full of shit!

UPDATE: Today's paper, as Govind warned, starts with abhi-ash bullshit. Loreal apparently wishes her the best of luck on the perfect match..."because she's worth it!" Lovely to see the inadequate classification of news now ensures you have the Business, Sports, National, International AND tabloid sections all in 32 sides of advertisement overflowing, poorly written bullshit. I'd say something like I lost faith in everything now, but that happened alot before this, about the same time I found out Aishwarya Rai is married to not one, but TWO trees. Yes the word is trees. Great start to the day isn't it?

When even orgasms rhyme!

2007-02-16T02:44:00.000-08:00

Ello All!
I know I know, It's been about two months since my last post and honestly I'm sorry! Anyway to the LATEST POST then, shall we?

I love the current music scene! It's so exciting with all these new bands popping up! The whole ipod thing really worked outt for a crap load of bands out there, because honestly if not for downloading, on my own or from someone else, I probably wouldnt have heard HALF the music I've heard! Anyway, this really doesn't have much to do with the post so I'll just move onto it then!

There's a growing conern that entertainment in general is basically ALL ABOUT SEX! What everyone's all in a huff about is that future generations and whatever sorry excuse for culture they can spit out, will also be all about sex. It's a fair enough concern I guess but then again, isn't the entertainment industry just an expression of people's thoughts and current mindsets anyway? And who's to argue with the general majority concerned? Ah! There's a thought for you! But once again not the main point behind my post! (You're in for some serious disspaointment!)
This post is a confession(like everything else in a bookstore!). I LIKE the Pussycat Dolls! I even admire them a tiny bit for what they're bringing to the music scene!(give me a chance, read on!)
First of all, these guys are HOT beyond reason! They can move in ways you can only wish you could imagine and they have pretty decent vocals too! But what's so great about them is that they roll up into one performance what every guy wants, and every girl wishes she had!
Looks aside though,(come on you can do it...!) their lead singer Nicole Sher-'sound of drool'-inger is one hell of a showgirl! It was this one performance of 'loosen up my buttons' that got me hooked. It starts with a dark stage, few beams of light and just the silhouette of all the other girls. Then SHE comes in with this:"What's the matter? You aren't afraid of a little pussycat?" that gets the crowd going absolutely WILD! It's the kind of show I'd imagine Robbie would do if he had breasts!
But what's so brilliant about them, was how they saw EXACTLY what everyone wanted but would only hint at and then not only did they bring it, they brought it in STYLE! While it's deplorable that that's what our society's reduced itself to, these guys deserve some credit for putting their spin on everything that was being asked and giving it! Why do i admire them though? Because they've been honest about it with their music! They've said everything we've thought and they've put on a very attractive platter, just what we asked for!
"Dont cha wish your girlfriend was hot like me...?"

Commercially, I'd say it was even more intelligent than bringing a dim witted-billboard hugging-publicity whore-of-a failing has-been athlete to endorse a wrongly named sport in a city like los Angeles where noone gives a damn anyway!(moving right along...) It's a matter of demand and supply.

In all honesty though, I do hope music is able to come out of what is without doubt a depression in taste if not quality, and no, I do not hold these guys in higher regard than people like John Mayer. But in the meanwhile, I respect them for controlling the scene and franchising themselves into something 1100 times bigger than just another dance troop in a lounge.

Beep away PCD! Beep away!

It's also a fruit...!

2006-12-16T03:27:00.001-08:00

Ello All!
So recently this play I've been working on won the competition it was meant for. It's been pretty amazing as far as experiences go. There's been the obvious jubilation at winning, the fame(not bad at all) but most of all the sense of fulfillment you only feel at the end of a journey.
We started about 1 and a half maybe 2 months ago with a script I had written. For those who have seen that script, you already know, but for the others, you wouldn't believe it's the same play. What makes this 'creative' process so incredible is that no 1 person can be accredited with writing the play! Every cast member, or non member person who sold them carrots while they were working on the play has to get a share of the credit. It's impossible to have one final script because the beauty of a good script is that it can always change.
During practices I indulge myself in alot of improv dialogue which I just think of while backstage or even in the shower, and the reason is to make sure we don't get bored! If there's one thing the 2 and a half plays I've worked on have taught me, it's that the more open and relaxed a person is on stage, the better the performance. The improv I do is so that the hours of repeating lines and dialogue don't get boring, so that everytime you're up on stage you're not expecting anything and you just go out there bearing yourself wholly to the audience, no bother of who they are or what they think of you, while at the same time, bearing a complete sense of what they're thinking of you.
I've always held that any form of creativity or performance, music, painting, acting even blogging for that matter is the most fulfilling thing anyone could do. See the thing is, you're out there giving your all so that the audience can let you into their tiny little minds, so that maybe you can pry them open and let them feel a bit of the creativity you're trying to embrace!
Someone I know once said to me that they didn't 'get' what it was about sports that got to people. Naturally Anish was the first person I though of and all the discussions we've had over on his blog regarding passions made me want to do this post.
Why the post? I want to know about your passions- sports or acting or hell even gardening, just tell me why you feel so strongly for it! If we're lucky we may just 'get' each other in the end!
The stage is where my passion lies, that's one thing I'm more than certain of. Where does yours?
Let's go!

Home is where the dogs are!

2006-11-29T06:26:00.000-08:00

ello once again all!
It's been a bit, I know but I'm back.
Home! Is it a location? Is it an object? I'm still trying to figure it out. I hate shifting. I don't mean just the days and days of packing and moving huge boxes, I don't even mean the cuts and duct tape burns you find on yourself once the day is done. What I mean is dealing with pulling out everything you've collected over the years or months or even days, and having to deal with letting the place theyve occupied till now go!
I always related home to something permanent. One thing that didn't change in the background of whatever was going on with you. You know, something you can take for granted. A few months ago I had to deal with losing this stability. The truth is it took me longer than I'm proud to admit to adjust to it and well get on with what I was doing. Having finally managed that, I'm taking things in retrospect.
I have met some incredible people by now, some you'd know some you wouldn't, few famous, most not. And from all of them, the ones I still keep close and the ones I can't, I've derived something. And some of them have really been the reason I yank myself through! (Read on you'll realise who you are.)
I've known people whose 'home' the stability in which they live has been a living hell of fear and hatred, of fights and cursing, of money problems and stress issues-fragility. And they have to live through it all, and you know what? they do! They deal with it.
I've known people who've switched homes, houses, schools, cities, even countries more than once and have had to accomodate entirely new lifestyles. Even just comparing how much theyve shifted to how much I have makes me want to stop complaining. And from all of them I've come to learn something every needs to know- home IS a location sometimes, home IS an object- a bag a cycle a phone a computer at times but the truth about thsi concept of home is:

It's in your head.

It's your perception of things, it's how you see things around you, how you deal with things, home is your mind! It's the one thing that'll never change unless you choose to let it change! It's the one thing that DOESN'T leave you! Neighbours change, wallpapers change, parents fight, money comes and money goes but the one place you can and well do always get to stay in is your mind!
Home is something I still struggle to define physically atleast and perhaps always will, but it's something I've learnt alot of people have either wanted not to deal with and had to, or never been able to deal with.
So once again, the anonymous rule still holds. Don't give a name if it helps you open up, It doesn't matter. All I want is for anyone who reads this post to see what I've seen or then tell me about what they've seen.
Let's start.

Gay? so?

2006-11-23T01:51:00.000-08:00

ello all!
I have kissed a man! Yes I have and no it doesn't bother me. I hate though, the presumption that it should bother me. I am willing to believe that we live in a time when we accept gay people. Yes we'll accept that they exist and that they go about their way. We will not frown upon them, or spit on them for that matter, but I don't think we're quite at dealing with 'IT' yet!
About 3, maybe 4 years ago I found out that my uncle is gay. Id just thought he dressed a bit odd and maybe just didn't want to get married. In fact he was as married as it legally gets in America. I thought about it but never really absorbed it.
Anyway few years later I kissed a good friend of mine. It wasn't as if we'd had a passionate session together, more of a light peck on the lips in front of a lot of people. I said it was to freak people out, but the truth was I wanted to see if I had the guts. We've done it a few times after, these times though purely for freak out purposes, not because we enjoyed it but because everyone gets freaked out so easily!

HOYAY! is a term used for "homoerotic yay!" that I came across. It's TV lingo for avid fans of shows like One tree hill, and the OC and stuff. Basically they go through episodes and freeze frame them to see if theres anything HOYAY about it. The yay comes from Buffy, where Willow(who was gay) would say YAY! alot. Hence hoyay! and people will actually search for moments where two guys are hugging and stuff. There are seperate threads and forums dedicated to such 'evidence' of such 'activities.'
Here's something more, this 12 yr old I was talking to, bear in mind that's 8th grade, mid conversation asked me if I was gay. My reply was 'there are times' which had her and alot of her other friends exasperated. She then went on to ask for a 'vomit bag' and in fact did look a bit sickened.
WHAT IN THE HELL IS WRONG WITH US?
Why is it so strange to deal with it?! Why is it an 'it'? I fail to understand why when a gay person, or hoyay, or a poem with the word 'gay', comes we suddenly prick our ears up. Why is it so strange!?
The point of my post is this:
Comment on this anonymously if you want to, don't worry about it. But I am asking, in fact challenging ANYONE who reads this to come up with ONE good reason why it should be so weird for us. Why they should be called 'queer'! If you're against 'it' please come forward and say it even if it's anonymously. Most of all though don't say you're accepting if you're not.
I've heard the churches say it's because it was Adam and Eve. not Adam and everett. It's only natural. I've heard people say even Darwin's theory of evolution supports it. I've heard it all, and nothing can explain it. It's a genetic coding in a person that makes them hetro/homo. It's as natural as it gets. Evolution?! this is it! There ARE gay animals, so what if baby's don't come out.
My dream is this:
Have a gay dream and don't care!
Don't care about whether a man or woman is gay or not.
People like Will Young not being afraid to say they're gay.
My dream is for me to not have to blog on this. My dream is for me to not feel like I'm gloating about being accepting when I blog about this.
Have an opinion, fine, have something to back it!

In your own world...

2006-11-21T04:01:00.000-08:00

ello all!
Alright so today we had our English literature exam. I love English literature. I think it's the one subject that can make you think big, beyond - IMAGINE! My reservations with regard to how we're taught notwithstanding, this poem we just studied is about how we should value our creativity more and I'm going to apply that to this post!
Alright a little over a year ago, while I was out with someone, can't remember who but I'm sure Tejas was there, I came up with a concept. A nonsensical concept. One that in no way added to my intellect or ability! The best kind!
The concept was this: A world where all the words people spoke, came out not as sounds, but instead as actual tangible alphabets! yes large white letters would be flying around and ofcourse they would enter the ears of whoever intended for. People could stop sentences from reaching someone else by intercepting it with another word! Urgent tones would be in italics! Angry could be red!
Now I beg of you all not to question this world of mine. Don't try and see if it's logical or not, just imagine it!
The point of this post is this- most of you are studying, busy or in some way stressed. I don't know if this is apt blog lingo but SCREW IT! Leave your pointless world in the comments, use your imagination, open up the doors of 'riduculous'! Do try!
Temple trample!

"I never done it, but if I did..."

2006-11-21T01:29:00.000-08:00

ello All!
Newspapers like City Times are pretty much crap unless random snippets of news that'll only hinder your intellect is your thing. However they are able to hit the B for bizzare chord every once in a way!
I have for a while now tried to avoid being surprised by anything in a very 'accept all' kind of way. As a wise man once said- Ain't happenin' man!
O.J. Simpson was a major league footballer(american not the real stuff) back in the early 90s. However the real reason he shot to fame (and even got a couple of roles in movies), was the highly controversial murder case he was involved in in 1994. His wife Nicola and her 'friend'(i love diplomacy) Ronald were found brutally murdered and naturally the cheif suspect was OJ. Johnny Cochrane his attorney also shot to fame during the trial because despite all the evidence pointing towards OJ, he got him off the hook. The public was quite appalled and naturally, OJ went on to live a life being covered in all newspapers. Last few years though he's been out of the news and NOW he's wiggled his way back into the spotlight in one H E L L of a way!
FOX news(honesty anyone?) are about to air and release interviews with OJ simpson to coincide with the release of his book. The campaign is called 'IF I DID IT'. Yes! This guy has written a book and given interviews - in depth, describing how he WOULD have murdered his wife and 'friend'!The book, "hypothetically describes how the murders would have been committed." He has actually come out and said "if i did it, this is how Id have done it!!" Funny how little by little the musical Chicago comes to reality!
I haven't seen much coverage of the book and interviews and frankly I'm a little glad but I was quite frankly awestruck.
Perhaps not the most apt post with regard to the blog name, but it's just something interesting I came across. Hopefully I'll post regularly and make Anish proud. Do comment on this and tell me what you think and maybe if you know a bit more on the subject, do share. Till then,
Tripping trampolines to Tigerland!