A Note of Thanks for my Dear Readers

 

Dear readers, your love and affection is the basic driver of my urge to keep posting on my blog. A few people tell me that my writings have brought a positive change in their life. That’s enough reason to keep writing. As I write this, we are facing lots of challenges due to the pandemic. These last two years have been very tough for most of us.

Things are rough indeed. But isn’t life only about successfully crossing a series of hurdles? And then reach home, finish that last line, with a smile.

What if the room full of miseries appears immovable at the moment? Accepted that the room with its thick walls is beyond your capacity to shift its location or change its shape. You cannot push its walls to change its shape and change the interiors. You might even be incapable of removing the darkness inside, having lost the light of enthusiasm, the sunrays of your will power, and the brightness of your passion.

It is not necessary to be a revolutionary fighter all the time. You can very well sit in a still darker corner of the room full of your own miseries, most of them invisible to the uncaring world outside. But then sitting in a dead dark corner is being dead and we have no business to be dead before we actually die. Temporary shelter in the lap of a musty, stale corner might be of some utility, but it’s not more than allowing the tears and anguish of self-pity and helplessness to flow out through the feeling of being a victim.

Once this little puss is out of your wounded system, it serves no purpose at all. A little bit of crying after being overpowered by the feeling of victimization at the hands of forces beyond one’s control helps. Crying helps in letting out the salt from your injuries. It also clears the eyes. After the watery outpour, you are supposed to see better and clearer.

You have been on the hospital bed, taking a bit of rest for the diseased, afflicted self. Now you are supposed to step down, wear your slippers and walk away to claim what you lost while you were forced to take a rest.

Looking beyond your dark corner in the murky room with immoveable walls, you can at least open the windows that either you or the situational winds have banged shut. Do not move the walls, do not even try to bang against the locked door, just open the openable window to allow a bit of light, to expose yourself to the fine traces of light that will surely burn the fire in you again, that will definitely ignite your passion, enthusiasm and the willpower lying dormant.

If you cannot lift your roomful of miseries on your head and throw it miles away, you can surely lift little-little signs of your worth and capabilities lying around your feet in the dark and look at these against the light from the just-opened little window. These are the imperishable seeds; these cannot die, and will surely grow into a luxuriant harvest, provided you give them even the moisture of your feeble self during the re-germination phase.

You might not be able to laugh to the full contentment of the self, but you can smile at the little world outside your tiny peeping window. Even the slightest semblance of smile will do. These are the tiny buds that will surely blossom into full laughing flowers.

Your hands might not be still ready to go agog and start breaking the mightiest boulders around. But you can raise your hands and wave gently at the world outside, it will wave back with grace and acknowledgement, giving back its share with kindest interest.

You might not be still ready for the marathon, but you can shuffle your feet and count your steps and listen to your slow pace between the walls. It will prepare you for the longest journey that you might take. It will be a prelude to your first step on the winnable journey that you will definitely take.

Close your eyes and with an open heart accept your share in making things dark in the room. Nobody is perfect and we just have the bigger or smaller share in our miseries. We cannot change the universe, but we can definitely bring about a little reformation in the self. You might not be able to overhaul your personal self, but you can definitely change tiny bits of life in general. It will blow up the wrong shades, leaving you a totally different person.

Close your eyes again and think of your positives, your advantages, your good qualities. There will be many I’m sure. Look around with a gentle look, these must be somewhere around. You will surely spot them. Smile at the little basketful of your qualities. These are your weapons to help you win through the battles and wars. A mere acknowledgement of their existence will do at this stage. Just caress your qualities and look at these with a proud smile.

These and many little things will help you. Forget about bigger things. These little seeds will grow into a bigger harvest. Just gather these seeds, hold them, they will take you back to the bigger world of shiny roles, responsibilities, praise and achievements.

These little anecdotes and my frank opinions posted on this blog are in celebration of life and living. I sincerely hope the time  invested by a dear reader in reading this blog brings about a positive change. Journey well and never forget your smile as you walk on the beautiful path that life is!

 

Musings on a Hazy Early-winter Day

 

If you can’t respect others’ thoughts, not a big problem with that. Just slog it out—even egoistically—to prove your point. But never do the same in case of feelings. Respect others’ feelings. There is a big difference between thoughts and feelings. You can trample your fellow human beings’ thoughts but please spare their feelings. Feelings are sanctimonious. Leave them unstigmatized and pure on the altar of heart.

***

In the book "Animal Farm" the pigs led a coup against humans, driving them away. Nothing to do with humans and anything related to them, they declared. The commandment included not to stay in the farmhouse once used by the human owner. Later when the group of pigs, the leaders, shifted to the rooms, their propaganda master said it was more suitable to the dignity of a leader to stay in the comfort of a house. Well, it reminds me of Kejriwal and his big official bungalow after becoming the Chief Minister of Delhi.

***

World is just set for fundamental changes. Even birds are taking short-cuts on natural instincts. A dove simply picked few sinews to tag them in the flimsy protection of the money plant clinging to our neem tree, just 2 ft above the ground, visible to wild cats and humans. Laying two eggs it just flew away not to be seen. I found one egg missing and the other somehow fruitlessly stuck up. We have done irreversible damage to nature and its constituents!

***

Among monkeys we grew out of our skin to rule the planet. Among us, now the politicians are evolving faster as a totally different super-species. Time is not far when they will stand out as winners at all levels. So fellows join politics. It’s merely a matter of making good choice in the scheme of evolution.

  

***

"When they measured my stature, they failed to measure my heart," NFL veteran Vernon Turner on the sports officials' doubts about his suitability for the game given his less than adequate physical attributes. He proved them wrong by not being a product of his DNA. He became a product of his actions. Go within and dab into the innermost reservoirs of your will power. It undoes any evident limitation imposed on the outer surface of our existence. Be tethered to your axis. That is what supports your spin. Forget about the periphery. Those are merely some revolving offshoots of temporary winds let loose by your axial forces.

***

I may not have the genes to be a world champion, but I have the option to act and be a smart, successful, happy, competent, confident and caring human being. And once I do that no reward stays unachievable.

***

Kafka’s unfinished novels are the fullest stories I have ever read.

***

The rich and powerful countries, not willing to engage each other directly in warfare, hit each other through helpless third world countries. They use them like hunters to strike each other. Problem here is that the back is of stone and hardly gets a bruise. The hunter but gets broken. See through the tragic plays unfolding among poor and developing countries. Funny and tragic. That's what modern warfare is all about.

***

Majority of our repentances are born of the failure to act in the past, rather than the actions that failed. So think, rethink, discuss with the best person you have around, and then just nail it man, simply act. The burden of regrets becomes lighter in future.

***

The mighty lord whispers in the softest voice,

My son grow thou stronger and sire chances for those without any choice! 

***

Though your enemy, I am sweet!

My neck thus deserves a softer treat!

***

You know why people kick a football? Simple, because it reacts and invites more kicky acts! And why don’t they kick a stone? Because it doesn’t react, only your toes get an ache! So fella become stones, controversies will find you untouchable then!

***

A well-timed realization:

Sometimes you have to nearly die to discover the meaning of life.

***

Expansion and contraction—

A raindrop in the ocean,

and a balloon in the air,

One mixing with the whole

to become complete and happily spread out,

The other capturing a part of the hole

to egotistically confine for a specific, limited self.

 

***

My religion is not so weak that in order to show love for it I have to take the support of hate for the religion of someone else.

***

Help your own self by adding little pieces to what you actually are instead of breaking mountains to be what you aren't.

***

The desert storm hunts around with painful fury. The burning beast! Ashes and ambers in its furnaced heart. Unquenchable thirst in its guts. Restless howls echoing in its sandy soul. Its existence defined by a futile belief in death and destruction—the absence and denial of supple, pliant, giving and forgiving waters. Its inflated vastness puffing out lifeless sandy blizzards. Poor thing doesn't know that a tiny oasis silently doing its lifeful duty is dearer to both humans and Gods!

***

In the calm core of my wind-lashed, stormed self,

some unmovable shadow defines the substance of my being.

I but have been running miles after miles,

chasing mirages to find my identity.

***

A dove couple is lost in the surrendering flutter of passionate love notes on a swaying neem branch decked with fresh, monsoon-fed leaves.

Dove in love.

Impatient he.

Teasing she.

Airy swirls.

Hugging frills.

Breeze free.

Passionate spree.

Almost a fight.

Soul's delight.

Love.

Dove.

Love.

 

Some Random Non-offensive Brain-farts

 

A sneeze shakes me and the mucus of opinionated truth dribbles out. Haa Haa…I run to wipe my nose and be presentable.

***

Ah peace, the redundant wish! Worldwide peace and harmony doesn't need authority, power centers and hegemony to sustain. But the latter—authority, power centers and hegemony—surely need strife, wars, violence and bloodbath to sustain them. Peace has never been the focal point of geo-strategists. If it was, most of the issues we are fighting about become redundant by default.

***

Don't write with hate in your heart, even against the most hateful. If good writers write with a bit more sense of equanimity, they do more justice to the art. Falling off the fine line of balance turns them cynical, and it affects their art. The only problem with "The Ministry of Utmost Happiness" is that it's written with too much "hate" for "religious hatred". It somehow taints the soul of the artist. Hate, even for a good cause, easily creeps up to turn to cynicism. The latter sours the spirit, which in turn smiles a degree lesser than in its unadulterated version. But it's human to have our prejudices, even if they come at the cost of losing our balance a bit. Otherwise the book is poignant and moving beyond words.

***

Learn to smile big from your small corner. It's the smallest plant in my garden but it beats most of others in bigness of flowers, in numbers and beauty also. It appears so happy to be just itself. No wonder, in a world obsessed with larger and bigger things, it attracts you from its little corner with big bouquet of beauty. It's so tiny and fragile but has a huge blooming spirit. No matter where you are, in whatever circumstances, at whatever ladder in the scheme of things, you can bloom at your own level to the fullest. And when you are true to your own being, your own self, you attract bigger eyes by default.

***

Shut your mind's eyes and hypothetical projections cease to be. Well, nothing exists as long as I choose to ignore it. And who are you? My colors are my own unlike yours. 

***

A moment drops from the endless sea of existence. Childish bud, youth in full bloom and dead decaying petals of an old flower. I see them on a jasmine leaf arranged as a big lesson. I decide to read. Nature accepts fluidity and transition. Spot impermanence and grab your moment now, this very moment. Mystical handover of the baton: little bud to full bloom to crumpled petals. Accept the change because that's what keeps nature alive.

***

A small leaf holds its drops of rain and proclaims, “My water! There may be seven seas around abounding with endless waters. But I reserve my right to hold the raindrops because those clouds rained for me only.”

Farts of a Village Frog

 

There is an independent will pervading the universe, expanding with the cosmic extension it elopes with the infinity. Its particles sneak into our subconscious mind, leading us in directions where we won't go consciously. No wonder our minds are such restless, unchecked horses. Thoughts just float around. It’s a chaos, disorderly mess. The mind is the sea in constant upheaval. There are storms of thoughts, ideas and emotions. The challenge lies in taming the self, in building strong ramparts against the meteoritic onslaught of the rampaging soldiers of the universal free-will. The citadel of the self has to be strong to withstand the barrage. Once the meteoritic showers stop their random crash-landings in our brain, it will turn a cool, tranquil, peaceful and calm pond where one can see the real self reflected in crystal clear waters.

***

One minute of hate and anger comes at the cost of one hour deducted from life. Hate is the choice of the worst; love is the smilingly picked up gift of the best. The journey from the worst to the best doesn’t cross seven seas. It’s just an arms-length endeavor. You just let go hate from one hand and hold love delicately in the other. It simply requires this much for the biggest transformation, from the worst to the best. Choose to be the best.

***

In the farthest fathoms of my being, a steady lamp is aglow with its soft mystical rays. I but kept on looking heavenwards for light and guidance, ignorant of the tiny torch carrying the cosmic flame within. Blinded by the worldly blaze outside, I fell headlong. Even the tiny lamp inside toppled and put heart on fire. Don’t worry guys, it gives just acidity. A bit of heartburn. Maya mili na ram—the end result!  

***

Two honeybees drowning in the water bucket. I take them out and they fly. Apart from saving two lives, I create the possibility of an extra honey drop for this bitter world. Goodness is complete in itself. It doesn't need the outcome to qualify it quantitatively. Do your good deed. It might be almost invisible, but it carries a positive outcome in some corner of the universe.  

***

Strong lies are better than weak truths. Sounds quizzical? Well, it’s no more than the support and confidence in your truth that draws the lot in its favor. Your truth is truth as long as it survives on the life-force of your trust in it. Strong lies are nothing but the tombstones and graves built on the dead truths buried safely for convenience.

***

After socialism you have to build capitalism. Ever saw anything more contradictory? Look at all the socialist societies. After the class wars and purging, and decades of torture and robbing people of their free-will and independent choices, they plant the seeds of capitalism again. Why? Because there is simply no other way. Efforts at socialism are all like burning down the previous harvest, weeding out endlessly, tilling, breaking clods, preparing the seed-bed, only to plant the previous seeds again. Damn funny and tragic. If all this ends at the same point then why all this blood-bathing?

***

At least be a living-room dissident. It saves the soul against the evil. This is a bit of practical advice to those struggling against undemocratic governments, for example, democracy supporters in Hong Kong. It keeps the flame alive for more appropriate times.

***

Imagine a philosophy student working in a boiler-plant, or a pianist working on radio circuits. Such wonders are possible only in a communist society. It’s only about killing the freedom of mind and choking the spirit to mass produce zombies who don’t understand much about what human life is all about. Left-leaning Indian intelligentsia ought to be put to some manual labor to get the rust off their ideology-clogged brains.

***

"A communist is someone who's read Marx, an anti-communist is someone who's understood him."
Svetlana Alexievich

***

When it rains in Haryana, the most chilled out people are the electricity board staff for they cool their heels and bless us with 24 hour power cuts, always everywhere in the villages at least. Possibly the belief is that once blessed with rains, the farmers don't need anything else in life. Anyway, it doesn't pinch too much because even on the finest day we have at least 14-16 hours of power cut. Our CMs have changed but they are all comfortable with the power cuts in the countryside at least. A very suitable agreement on certain policies, I see. It was the same under Chautala, Hooda and remains the same under Khattar. Possibly some things are better left unchanged.

***

Second-Hand Time by Svetlana Alexievich is elegantly fat, white, hardbound and seductive. Lose yourself to its charms. It will open up the communist-time horrors of stifled emotions, imprisonment of the individual soul and loss of the natural ability to even make sense of what freedom is. Hope the caricatured Indian version of communism does some soul-searching after such revelations.

***

 

That which is best, the universe conspires to preserve it. Same is the case with Taoism. Uprooted from China, it will survive in India. Buddhism was India's best export. Taoism can be our best import.

***

Watch your words, your sentences and speech. If you take a stock of the overall pitfalls of your life, your words, not the real bloody punches you gave out, might be the spoiler. It’s not usual to have a war. Real fights and bloody noses are exceptions. These come rarely. In between, most of the time, we are blabbering. So buddy it’s the words that carry the risk to land us in testing, awkward and painful situations. And of course words take us to the best moments of our lives also. 

Dumplings on a Rainy Day and Croaking of an Old Toad

 

Soul is the real substance! This physical being is just the shadow of that true self. Ironically we grow up believing the shadow to be the substance and substance to be the shadow. It requires reverse conditioning to be truly on the path of evolution.

***

For good people it’s very difficult to enter a relationship and still more difficult to come out of it! For bad people it’s very easy to get into a relationship and still easier to come out of it!

***

There is no absolute truth. All we have is just a pliant, relatively swaying sea of fractional truths. We draw out our suitable share of tit-bits of truths from this sea to complement our sense of identity with the self, i.e., ego, self-consciousness, our perception of the things, our vision of the world and the people around. 

***

  

Women are humanist! Almost perfect except one thing! Their humaneness crosses the zone of perfection and slightly touches an arena where bitchiness for their own sex starts in free flow. It is here the man's chance to appease his women opens up its welcoming arms. A man has to realize that it is more practical to say a few negatively critical remarks about other women than millions of appreciating words about his woman!

***

In the burning whirlpools of the desert storm, some tears shed by a suffering heart vaporize and go high in the sky for rainy prospects. Don’t get senty guys, it’s just an airy oasis.

***

Don't take victory for granted. She is a very choosy bride. She has her own, sometimes illogical, criteria to pick up the groom.

***

A nuclear bomb undoes all other types of technical superiority in conventional warfare. Similarly, leaps in space technology will see a country undoing various technical superiorities in the hands of rival countries on land.

***

To escape boredom, a man has to just extend his normal schedule; the same extension, which overlaps a woman's effort to tide over her boredom, turns her into a sinner.

***

The best compliment for my book Faceless Gods was by my friend's six-year-old daughter. Struggling to hold the fat book in her small hands, and lost in the dense text, she gave the expert review, "Uncle has got a very nice handwriting."

***

Truth need not be salted. Even in its bland form, it's more vocal than any well-peppered, politically correct, hypothetically safe and socially convenient cuisine.

***

We deserve our airy moments—little-little somersaults and froggy jumps over life's grounded roadblocks; tiny ballooned flights above the rough, rugged realities on the surface. But we must not forget, we are terrestrial beings not the airy angels. So guys ensure that you land rightly on your feet after airy jaunts and not crash-land on your bum.

***

Staring at the misty past

and forcing myself not to see the future eager to unfold itself too fast,

I wave at the nostalgic strains still beckoning and faintly alive,

How I wish I could dive

back into the pools of the past,

To have my moments last

at a place that held me in its cradle soft,

That pious embrace which still holds me aloft!

A Brush with Truth beyond the Pale of Opinions

 

Salutes existential intelligence! At the low tide, I left a trail of footsteps on the soft seaside sand. Then the high tide came and cleaned the slate for somebody's fresh journey. We just write the same lines over and over on the same slate. Life is one. It's not a noun. It is basically living, a throbbing and ever-persistent verb. Throbbing in totality, driven by an ever-expanding code of cosmic intelligence, which allows a bird weighing 10 grams, and insects weighing in milligrams, to accomplish what we can’t do with our 2 kg brain. And existence lives through different things, phenomena, processes and characters. It's just a quizzical interplay of earth, water, fire, air and ether. 

***

"...large animals, particularly cows, are aware of their impending slaughter well before it happens. Consequently, they experience high stress levels, which generate a tremendous amount of acidic content in their systems. This, in turn, has its own adverse effects on those who later consume the meat." —Sadhguru in Inner Engineering.

Now I understand why cow-eaters face so many problems, especially the ones who do halal, torture, before slaughter because it is just implanting them with poison. Well, the debate should be kept beyond religion. It's basically what is good for the human system and what is not. The benefits of a live cow, as an integral part of the rural economy, are far more than a slaughtered one. In Rwanda, the gift of a cow, girinika, meaning god bless you with the gift of a cow, is helping in rebuilding a society ravaged by civil, ethnic and tribal wars. The moment two parties at loggerheads gift each other a cow, it is accepted as a truce and confidence building measure. The President there has started a girinika program, which has revolutionized the meaning of rural development, using cow as a partner in the rural economy.

***

In the power game, humanely inferior, very unfortunately though, almost always defeats humanely superior.

"A bigger civilization is always defeated by a lower civilization. India was continuously defeated because of her higher civilization. People were more at ease, not in the mood to fight. They were enjoying life. Those who aren't enjoying life, they are ready to fight. If life is beautiful, you can bless everyone. If your life is in difficulty, in turmoil, you can kill, you can become destructive."__Osho

Why India only, now we understand why Tibet was gobbled up by an ever-hungry China. Now we understand why the people from some belief systems are more prone to hate killings. The only exception to the above seems to be America. But then possibly we shouldn't interpret technological advances as a mark of civilization.

***

Be the king in your small world. There are just dozens around us who have achieved more than us at the cost of far less struggle and effort than us. But there are millions who have nothing like us, even though they have struggled thousand times more than us. The numbers involved in this simple mathematics should make us proud and satisfied with whatever we have achieved and given by life. So smile, feel lucky and look at the small world, your own world, around you. It is bigger and better than you ever thought. Just that you have always been looking sideways to the taller structures. Don't worry, the inhabitants over there are even more anxious than you. They have their own still bigger world to ogle at and feel sorry for themselves. You are a 'being', a phenomenon, who can exist in the present. So simply be with the moment in your small world. That's what we call by being with your own self.  

A Little Lantern of Truth

 

Ordinary beings possess extraordinary potential to win against odds, to jump over hurdles, to smile over tears, and, most importantly, to be happy when there aren’t enough reasons to be. They are the faceless constituents of a massive commonality. They are surrounded by a swiping generality. They are colored in the monochromes of mundane reality. Still they are special. We have to acknowledge and celebrate the extraordinary in the ordinary people. I see heroes and heroines in the small protagonists on the stage of life. They fight, and oftentimes fail, but write a little passage in the infinite book of life: an ordinary life that was lived substantially. On the small stage of life, they live very intensely. Somehow, the world would not be the world that is still beautiful without their contribution. They heave humanity onwards in its march to some better destination.

***

Of all types of death, including by disease, accidents and ageing, the death born of someone's hate is the worst. Hate-born death slaughters the core principle of being human. It strangulates the basic constituent of our collective consciousness to survive individually as a part of bigger collectivity at the social level, a literally must-have for our identity as much as oxygen is must for our biological survival. Hate has potent carriers. It breeds death with the weapons of religion, caste, creed, race and ethnicity. From Nazi Holocausts and communist purging to modern day ISIS slayings, hate wreaks the worst form of death. Death born of hate is the very negation of the meaning of life.

***

The death of a moth! Don’t feel guilty if you find it inconsequential like the shifting of a speck of dust. Does nature evaluate things on the scale of huge and small, like the death of a moth and the collapsing of a mammoth star? Maybe, maybe not! I definitely find it a momentous occasion when the moth takes its last sigh! Kindly don’t laugh at me and condemn me as someone prone to making mountains out of molehills. Even physics is now going into super-small entities in the tiniest wombs of sub-atomic particles to unravel the ultimate mystery. Coming back to the moth, its corpse shakes involuntarily today like it fluttered consciously yesterday. The only difference is that yesterday its littlest ounce of consciousness was still inside this tiny milligram of a body. Today but that ounce of consciousness has spread to become part of everything. The matter now moves to the force of everything around: Transition from life to matter. What about the consciousness that moved it? Here I stand and there flutters the moth corpse to free winds. Yesterday, exactly at this time, I saw it crawling on the floor. Little did I realize that it was on its death bed! Now it becomes part of everything to take its consciousness at this frequency on the further march of evolution of consciousness, just like species have evolved at the level of biology, at the level of matter. Matter and consciousness both evolve. There are parallels. We just need to be aware of it and it becomes a very much realizable process.

The Real 'Wrong'

 

Well, most of us commit our wrongs with a sense of duty, a sort of commitment, with a kind of frenzied sense of occupation. If not for this, so many of us will not be found ready, almost instinctively, to go the wrong way rather than volunteering to do something good. So, the ‘wrong’ seems to have its justification born of those perceived duties by the doer.

A hierarchy of sieving then decides not so common from the common-most crop. At the first level of filtration, the finest wire-mesh allows majority of the mob of wrongdoers trickle down into the dustbin of petty wrongs on the smallest stage closest to earth in crowded slums, stinking nullahs, mucking markets and laboring beehives, where the fight for survival saps most of the energy, leaving very little escapades, now and then, in the frustrated minds. The bigger, fat, rascally particles stay above on the screened, perforated platform and engage in higher wrongs on a more substantive stage.

Now, the second level of sieving takes place among the thicker rascal-heads, the bigger baddies, or the plumpier daddies of the trade. The holes in the wire-mesh are bigger than the previous one. A lot many foolish gallants topple down, so many die, get beaten, imprisoned and clobbered down to survive at the second tier of wrongdoing. They slide down the screening holes at the second tier and settle for bigger wrongs than the lowest mass. As expected, the still thicker ones get a chance to play the wrongdoing game at the next level. Here, the stakes are higher. The risks involved are bloody, but so are the returns, which hit the proportions of Himalayan jackpots.

To qualify to stay above the screening mesh at the third level, the thickheaded pebbles, veritable stones, quibble, use brain as well as brawn, and mostly utilize the muscle of the toppled down smaller particles at the level immediately below, and the ignorance of the ant-swarms at the bottom.

In this final sieving, the biggest mafias, cartels and powerful politicians stay afloat to rule at the apex. Now they decide what is ‘right’ and what is ‘wrong’. All other versions of right and wrong at the lower rungs lose their meaning. On the lower platforms, murders, rapes, felonies and thefts come to be mere stats in the law and order book. These are mere social problems and hardly matter as long as these don’t shake the foundations of the state, i.e., interests of the ones qualifying to be filtered at the highest sieve.

One can commit a murder on the lower rungs and still be considered a foolish nonmalignant element. However, if a sound brain, even in the frailest and most non-violent of a body, raises a verbal assault against the wrongdoers at the apex, he then becomes the most lethal anti-state, malignant criminal. The state is basically not bothered about the marketplace cacophony of petty criminalities like someone cutting somebody’s throat, or someone raping, plundering, beating or shouting abuses. These are local police station worthy petty, minor pardonable wrongdoings. These in fact are the cause of creating the bread and butter for a whole damn law-keeping department. The real ‘wrong’ is the ‘wrong’ that shakes the confidence, or throws light, or exposes, the machinations and stratagems of the biggest rascals at the top.

The Sterile Land where Humans acquire a Super-special Shape

 

Well, you might wonder, what is this piece about internecine geostrategic gamble doing here. Beyond the parameters of right and wrong, for geostrategic religion has its own white-blooded pantheon of Gods, it’s the vacuum where lesser mortals like you and me can only fiddle around like scared infants taken into a theatre playing a horror movie. It’s beyond the pale of emotions, love, compassion or most of the things we find related to life and living: a sterile land where a super-species of humans, very close to being super-powered robots, plays its entertainment game. I also visualize a little game with Ajit Dobhal in Afghanistan.

In order to consolidate the non-military Indian rebuilding efforts in Afghanistan, the suffering soil of the lost paradise needs Indian boots now. Modi Sahab listening! Modi Sir, it will help Trump also. He is very cranky and pissed off right now, especially after the Greenland fiasco.

Well, the Indian PM is now well known, in fact famous world over, for doing lot many things, which we see happening for the first time. So, why not Indian boots in Afghanistan to restore the rule of law there? It's not that it will help Afghanistan only. It will directly help India in Kashmir also. Violence in Afghanistan and Kashmir share a subtle anatomy. I don’t think there is any doubt about this poignant chemistry. Just peel off the upper layer, use some common sense, and there you see the bitter juicy reality.

So, why not go into the den itself to contain the scourge. A little icing on the cake, it will cheer up Trump also. He is very moody and unpredictable. You may find him having Iftar with Imran Khan, if you leave him alone to suffer with this irritation. Modi Sahab listening? One more thing: by having Indian boots in Afghanistan, you get a strategic location to twist both the right and the left ears of the naughty all-rounder boy.

History gives a little opportunity now and then. There is a little opening for India to consolidate its position now—after all that rebuilding efforts within our limits, which Trump, unfortunately, finds almost inconsequential to the puny extent of just building a library somewhere in the war torn country—by redefining its association in Afghanistan. Trump is willing presently. He seems to have bitten more than he can chew, so needs munching jaws to support the mouthful. If irritated further, who knows, you may have, God forbid, naughty all-rounder boy's boots there, which will be worse.

I know the skeptics will sound a warning about the irresolvable puzzle that Afghanistan is, suitably giving Russian and American examples. But aren't things managed finally by someone? The Indian PM, being an astute human resources actualizer, can definitely count upon Dobhal Sahab. The modern version of Acharya Chanakya has definitely more to offer than assignments like managing Post-370 Kashmir. Modi Sahab count upon him to manage Afghanistan with Indian boots in the once paradisiacal country.

If the whole idea still seems too preposterous and unworkable, go there at least as goddamned UN peacekeeping boots. Graft the American-led NATO forces with a UN peacekeeping mission. The boots will remain the same, with the addition of Indian boots of course, and it will not create a paper revolution in India by the pissed off opposition. Moreover, beyond all the stratagems, the poor country needs a peacekeeping force only. Even in the worst of a situation, a bit of empathy can keep the hopes alive for millions.

The Real Prison

 

You know what, institutions are the mammoth whirlpools, which suck individuals into their all powerful innards. By institutions, I mean the systematized, soulless machinery to achieve dark, power-hungry, ambitious motives—even though a lot many of them pass off as the needs to run the world. Such institutions come in the form of despots, dictators, mafia, corporate cartels, business magnates, hidden heavyweights pulling the strings, the intelligence and spy agencies, politicians, NGOs, and many more. These are the black holes that absorb their own light, hence keeping them hidden.

Those who operate there lose their souls, their sense of right and wrong, as a strange sense of ennui grips them, making them sleepwalking jombies. The institutional juggernaut reaps its crop, while the individual clogs, levers, pullies, nuts and bolts just perform their duties mechanically. Institutions have strange hypnotic powers to put vibrant hearts and independent minds on the chopping block to turn these into suitable mincemeat. The constituents operate like lifeless bottles on the conveyer belt in an assembly line in a factory.

Even the stones change, slowly though, to the cooing calls of varying seasons over decades. The institutions do not. They adapt though to the changing circumstances. However, the core philosophy stays the same. And long after the cog is retired, and regains a fraction of his soul, and sees the grease on his hands, only then he realizes what he has been through. Now he can listen to his heart. His mind now can help him see beyond the factory wall. It does not, but, change anything in the world. Nor it can even if the retired cog tries. All it gives is a guilty bruise to an ageing heart and a sad feeling that life could have been spent better beyond the walls of the institution.

Joseph K. and Me

 

"…if you have the right eye for these things, you can see that the accused men are often attractive. It's a remarkable phenomenon, almost a natural law... accused men are always the most attractive." __Trial by Franz Kafka.

Well, at long last, I find a reason for my weird attractiveness. Haa haa. I also stand accused by the state vigilance commission under Hooda government in Haryana. The report puts me in the ‘tainted’ category to deny me appointment for a covetous post.

Want to know my crime? Actually, I had cracked Haryana PCS exams to get selected as a subdivision magistrate. The honorable Chief Minister and his colleagues, newly drunk with power and prestige, got gastric ulcer over we batch-mates’ tiny feat. So there they order an inquiry in an all authoritative tone. They scanned our answer sheets. Lo, there they found the proof of my crime. It was an expert catch. In one of the answers, the evaluator had changed marking from 2 to 4 with his initials authenticating the change of mind. Now 15 years down the line, having lost the fruit of my 10 years of hardwork, I still wonder how come I stand accused for the evaluator's change of mind, and especially when this addition of 2 marks doesn't affect my selection in any way because even with 2 marks less I still get into the selection list.

So guys, there starts the Trial protagonist Joseph K. type futile struggle. Judges won't understand the rocket science. But do they ever in the cases where mighty state is pitted against some inconsequential subject? After all, they are also part of government, directly or indirectly. There are so many common interests, bordering on gives and takes, among politicians, bureaucrats, judges and businessmen that expecting honesty and fair play seems too optimistic by any yard scale. Anyway, it’s a long story of gross misuse of power by all wings including legislature, executive, bureaucracy and judiciary. Its boring repetition can be spared here. The plot is along too familiar lines like we have grown up watching in typical Bollywood movies. 

Nonetheless, my take away is the strange attractiveness carried by Kafka's accused protagonist in his work Trial. And I like it. Equipped with my accused attractiveness, I sometimes ponder over to find out reasons how come I got only 37% marks in IAS interview even after scoring 54% in mains written, because with this type of score one can easily be among the toppers. Moreover, I also try to find out to this day, how come one PCS board gave me only 36% in interview after I had scored 55% in written mains, which again is a top-worthy score. Well, possibly I scored really low on the scale of political correctness! Anyway, no issues!

So guys, here I stand like Joseph K. when he was executed with final words on his lips, "like a dog!" Heee heee, am I that bad, I sometimes think. Or to rephrase, am I too good for the system? This second option gives more solace, because it provides a sort of self-driven poetic justice. Well, to survive in this world, one has to have grey shades. Not that I don't have mine. Possibly they couldn't spot it. In any case, system's loss, not mine. Heee heee. Again I derive sadistic pleasure with this thought. In any case, it’s high time to realize that it’s almost impossible to win against politicians, if by some quirk of fate you happen to stand in opposition to them. God save you then!

Top of Form

Awe, missed something really important in this lamenting tale! The experience didn’t turn me bitter. I am a sweeter person than what I presume myself to be had I got this so called ‘fruit’ of my efforts. Such experiences launch you too powerfully into the unknown where, if you keep your journey going, some day you reach the self-sustaining orbit of self-realization. Here all previous losses lose their meaning and appear mere milestones helping you to reach the cusp of your destiny. Then you cannot help a smile. With lots of love for all, of course!

Kakistocracy

 

Kakistocracy is defined as ‘a form of government in which the least qualified or most unprincipled individuals are in power.’ It is summarized as the ‘government by the worst elements in the society.’ Isn’t it true generally? I mean leave apart a few exceptions, some luminaries who retained their souls while still on the seat of power, and all you see around are loads of rulers and governments Kakistocratic in nature. Exceptions prove the rules only, by the way. So, to my humble self, the urge to rule comes with a high dose of blind ambition, which definitely eats into one’s loving self. A ruler has to shut off a big portion of his heart to channelize those energies in scheming and plotting. 

The word has Greek origins. ‘Kakos’ means ‘bad’, and its superlative form ‘kakistos’ means ‘as bad as it can possibly get’. Well, I think only its superlative form qualifies one to be a serious contender in the game of ruling. The lesser forms can hardly get you the post of just a village head even in the most democratic form of governance. No wonder, those who deem themselves to be ‘good’ start shivering at the name of the word ‘politics’. Or is it that they put up a varnish of ethics, morality, principles and humanism to hide their inherent weakness, whose shackles they cannot break to compete in the race for the highest stakes, where one’s ambition and concurrent ego gets the best solace. 

Well, before we get into any argument about ‘this system is better than that’ or ‘this ruler is superior to that one’, let’s just be clear on the basic concept of ‘ruling’, the operational part of hunger for power. To be in charge of something bestows ‘power’. The latter provides nutrition to an ambition to grow out of one’s skin and become the destiny-maker of many lesser mortals, the mere meekly subjects. It’s very rarely about being ‘good’ and jumping into the fray with a soul-driven guiding light of altruism to bring good to the masses. If you are fighting such a bloody battle, how will you even think of poor millions, while your own gums are bleeding due to the ever-punching rascally opponents? In a fight how can one remain a saint? And if someone does, then my salutes! There have been a few by the way. But their negligible number proves the point. Moreover, these saintly people, who later on emerged to be rulers, never fought for the craze of the seat of power, instead they struggled for love for the causes beyond their own self.

It’s primarily about beating the ambitious, power-hungry horde running after the coveted seat. Are there decent chances of someone ‘good’—trying to encash a miraculous surprise to somehow get to the top of ladder of ambition—beating the rampaging bulls? Even if destiny plays a joke to put some nice fellow on the hot seat, the poor chap stands stripped naked as an unqualified and weak participant in the game later on. We can thus safely say, if not altogether impossible, there is literally non-existent chance of someone really ‘good’ toppling the stage to perch his bum on the throne. Even after reaching there, how will a decent ass keep glued to the seat, if ‘outright hounds’ are pulling from all directions to dethrone the upright ass? 

Leave apart a few dozen of Abraham Lincolns and Nelson Mandelas, out of thousands and thousands of rulers across all genres of ruling class, starting from unquestioned aristocrats, despots, communist dictators to the modern-day decent democratic representatives, you have trainloads of extra-smart guys who prevailed over—fuelled by a relentless ambition to yield power—the lesser competitors to occupy the throne.

No wonder, in Indian democracy, or for that matter anywhere else in the world, the majority of elected representatives have criminal backgrounds. It needs a lot of ‘hard’ will to get into the corridor of power, man. Of course, the pack-leader has to be the strongest. When did nature decide on good or bad? Isn’t it all about the strongest takes away the trophy in all species? Can it be different in case of humans, who are mere one of the species in nature? It’s basically about those who can make and those who cannot. It doesn’t change the law of neutral existence, if those who cannot make it, pacify their defeat under the principles of ‘good’ and ‘bad’. Ethics are very nice pills to cure the stomach pain of being left out.

In the power game to emerge a ruler, the strength is defined by an ability to make mincemeat of the opponent. So when such bloody fights are perpetually going on day in and day out, the little wasps of so called ‘goodness’ hardly stand any chance. Or do they?

Doesn’t it mean that every system of governance, ranging from absolute dictatorship to democracy, is Kakistocratic in nature? We just have the variance of degree of Kakistocracy in one over the other. For example, in communist dictatorship, it’s direct-in-the-face type abuse of power; while it’s indirect, subtle, scheming and tricky in democracy. It doesn’t make one completely into it and the other free of it. You have a Hitler, Lenin or Changez Khan in one set of bloody, gory Kakistocracy. Please wait before you spend all your scorn over these monstrous personas! You may have—actually we have all around—monsters safely hidden under starched white clothing bearing beneficent smiles. It’s a better-looking, affably presented variant of the power-hungry super-species. This one holds its talons under the garb in the softer variant of yielding power like in democracy. 

Best of luck to all who don’t qualify to be a part of the ruling aspirant group! Only superior forces, beyond terrestrial domain, can help you!  

Feeling crestfallen? Please don’t! If your ambition hasn’t breached the critical limit to instigate you to get running after the ruling seat, give yourself a nice little treat at a smalltime, peaceful café. Why? The simple reason is hidden deep in the corridors of your soul. Listen to it. You will get your biggest reward from your real self. There is a thin line between staying human and becoming inhuman. Most of us appear human, but how many of us are in reality? Those who find themselves poor in ambition to ‘rule’ are definitely rich in the treasure of ‘love’. It’s true like some law in science book.