The children are teaching...be quiet and learn.

NASA scientists can launch their satellites and Head of States can run their countries but it is the 10 year olds of the world who have the most pre-occupied brains on earth. They have thoughts about the universe to think and matters such as life and death to contemplate.

When they grow up, they somehow don't have too much time for such things. The immediete happenings around them take up too much brain power. Where do they have entire hot summer days to wonder how big the universe is or whether time travel is a possibility? Is there really a God? Is he really a man? If God cares about us then why does he let us suffer sometimes? What happens to us when we fall asleep? Where do our dreams come from? These are usually the territory of little minds.

Then of course, there are those people who grow up but never stop pondering upon such matters...they are the ones who eventually figure many things out for themselves. The others either ponder no more or only give the questions of life a passing thought between tired days, aching minds, sticky relations and threats of war. When people are focused on slaughtered millions, they can't possibly spare time to think about death and after-life. The answer is not to retreat from the world and become a 'yogi' but to keep spirituality alive even in the midst of the ugly quagmire that our reality can sometimes be.

Chilren sit for hours and hours thinking over many important questions about life. So many questions... and at that age the answers to then seem so very important, even urgent. Later during the desperate struggle to survive and reach the top, these questions appear silly, irrelavant..who cares? Hack your soul away and banish it...what use is it anyway, right? You can't see it, you can't use it...why think about it? What use is spirituality? Just follow your religion blindly and you're guaranteed a seat on the 9 o' clock super-express to heaven, right?

Religiousness does not equate to spirituality...some people find spirituality in their religion. Some people don't give spirituality a second thought.

The brain is the most sophisticated intrument ever created. Feed it, nourish it...answer the questions it asks you...give it a little peace once in a while.

And then snap out of it and dive headfirst right back into the wrestling match that is life; with a new sharpness, passion and speed.

The Ancient Caves...

I call this photograph - "Enlightment"

This is one of my favourite places in the world. A place where awe and peace are endless.
This is a picture of the inside of one of the caves at Ellora located in the state of Maharashta in India. My family and me took a weekend trip to the caves of Ajanta and Ellora in April this year. It had been one of the items on my mental list of places I simply must see in my life-time. I was not dissappointed. This is only an amateur picture taken by me, not a professional one from a book. While I was taking this picture, a kindly cave guard held up a large mirror at the entrace of the cave as a result of which, a sliver of reflected sunlight fell across the statue's face. This is a statue of Lord Buddha and the ones on both sides are his diciples.

Ajanta and Ellora are World Heritage Sites.

"Ajanta caves, excavated between the 2nd century BC and the 6th century AD are renowned for Buddhist paintings and Ellora caves, spanning the period between the 5th and the 11th AD comprise Buddhist monasteries and temples of the Hindu and Jain faiths. While Ajanta represents the most perfect example of Indian wall paintings, Ellora, on the other hand, is famous for its architectural design and outstanding sculptures." -an extract from a cheap guide book that I bought near the sites.

I can't possibly summarize my entire trip in one posting. The feeling of silent awe and the sensation of absolute calm can only be experienced, not described. It felt almost as if the spirit of ancient monks still haunted those serene caves, praying for the sad and the restless.

I shall write more about this place some other day...maybe I'll even post some more pictures...maybe not.

You were here all along???!!!!

Sometimes when the world is a dark place and the mind is a perilous quagmire, hope can be found in the most unexpected of places...

There are those people whom you thought would be the last souls on earth you'd ever confide in but along comes a day when you not only talk to them but also find in them fantastic listeners...and of course they just might have something unusual to say that pops you right out of your misery.
There's that old book that you read so long back you have no idea what its about...in your sullen state of mind, you flip a few pages and it seems as though its just full of that uncanny wisdom that you need to get you through that moment.
Then comes the time when you just shut your eyes because you don't know what else to do...you've tried everything but your demons simply wont leave you alone. So you close your eyes and hope for oblivion when you suddenly discover those secret woods in a forgotten corner of your mind where everything is washed afresh in a clean light...after a while when you open your eyes, you feel so much lighter. The problem isn't solved but now you're ready to take it on now and be done with it.
There's so many other things...you travel half the world looking for "inner peace" and "hope"...you take expensive courses guaranteed to help you find these things...and for all you know you just might find your hope in a cheap ass fortune cookie that you got at some third-rate roadside Chinese takeout.
Hope is like that...it has this annoying habit of eluding you for an eternity and then just cropping up right under your nose...keep looking.

Horrible horrible little me...

How annoying is it when some thoroughly stupid person forces his/her company on you? Do I sound shockingly arrogant? Well, somebody's got to say it. I know that everybody thinks about it. Some people even whisper it to me and then forbid me to tell anyone.

Every place has its bimbos, every village has its fool... I don't have a problem with stupid people as such...they weren't given the option of selecting their own IQ level before they were born. They can't help it so I have no right to dislike them just because of the way they are.

What does seriously piss me off is when these lesser mentally-endowed individuals force their company on me...Do I go around rubbing shoulders with rocket scientists? No, I don't...I like to stay in a group of people who are at the same wavelength as me...I know what they're talking about and they know what I'm talking about...

But sometimes an air-head decides to attach himself/herself to me and begin a discourse about something so pathetically dumb that it make me want to scream...and of course the deficiency of brain power also makes them incapable of picking up on subtle hints that should tell them that I do not want to continue the conversation with them...

Hey, it takes all kinds to make this world...people of varied intelligence levels go about in the same environment everyday...but is it too much to ask that certain people not annoy others who aren't particularly fond of their dull company?

I don't have a problem with less intelligent people...I have a problem with them forcing themselves on me. If they could only go and stay with others of their kind, I would be content.

Do I sound like the meanest bitch alive? Well, somebody's got to say it, right?

Understood?

Here is a question going out into the universal void...
Is every human being sitting around, just waiting for a chance to misunderstand someone?
Is it impossible for a single day to go by without a million misunderstandings popping up like nasty forest fires?
You say something...they take another meaning out of it.
You try and expain but there is no redemption for you.
You must now forever boil in the hot soup of frustration.
Must people take offence to everything you say? Are they lurking around corners, gleefully rubbing their hands in expectation, waiting for you to utter a word so they can leap out and rip your throat?
Its possible...People are insecure. With insecurity comes the belief that everybody is out to get you, they're all plotting and bitching behind your back...trust no one...look for the hidden meaning behind everything people say... Oh boy! What a horrid way to exist...with these thoughts eternally plaguing the mind.
Snap out of it...get over yourself...stop giving others a hard time just because you are determined to misunderstand them...
Spend more time finding your peace and living your life...

Mr. Pinface...

The Blank Mr. Pinface...

Destined to bear the earth's disgrace...

In goes a pin when a girl has to cry...

Right through his skin when a boy has to die...

Yet he's silent, quiet and dumb...

Perhaps all those pins have made him numb...

There's one more stab and he doesn't scream...

A child was raped but his face is serene...

No twist of pain disfigures his face...

Although people are burning; cities layed to waste...

His mind only wonders though there are no tears...

What will they do when he has no skin left to pierce?

Welcome to the New Blog…

This blog has been revamped, rewritten and republished. It was earlier known as ‘The Boulevard’, but since the whole blog has undergone a change, I saw it only fitting that it be re-christened too.
The first posting of the new blog is dedicated to Mr. I...
This used to be a highly secretive, anonymous blog that none of my friends or acquaintances knew about. I had been contemplating on changing that. It was Mr. I’s endless bugging and teasing that finally hastened the process and forced me to emerge from all that contemplation and actually do something. Well, here it is…the new blog.
Of course, some articles have been deleted because they were too personal or because I do not consider this the right time to post them. The most prominent among the deleted articles would be the entire 6-part series called ‘The Fighter Archives’ written by me. Most of everything else remains the same.
All the comments and notes left by previous readers have unfortunately been deleted too. I didn’t want that to happen but that was an unavoidable consequence of the rewriting of the blog. I hope I will have at least a few new ones to read.They are quite amusing at the best of times.
So, welcome to my new blog!

Like a Rock Star!...

You know what feels really great?
Just feeling great! Does that make any sense?
There are times when you feel like you're sinking lower than rock bottom; lower than the lowest. There are times when you feel so happy, so light...Elated that you could levitate off the earth.
Then there is another feeling, a good one but different from pure vulnerable happiness.
Times when you feel so almighty powerful that you feel certain that you will be able to incinerate anybody with just a glance of your fiery eyes. Do you know what I’m talking about?
Feels like you've been crowned the Giant Eternal Emperor of everything or maybe the Supernova-like All-conquering Immortal Princess. You feel like a ROCK STAR!!! Maybe its just that magnificent beast -imagination playing its tricks on you but you can almost see the people walking beside you on the footpath inching away ever so little and a silvery shadow of intimidation creeping across their faces. Does that happen to you?
You know that nothing and no one can hurt you. You almost begin to feel like a Dictator who has an element of cruelty about him because he is a dictator and his absolute power cannot exist without that trace of tyranny.
It feels so good to be so invincible, indestructible even if for a very short while. Reality and the realization of our own mortality soon come swishing back but for the brief period that you are King, the world seems to be a enchanting place
...Doesn't it?

The mini-skirt club...

No matter how hard you try, you can never convince a mother that a skirt is long enough. Arguments on the length of the skirt have been raging ever since the delightful little things were invented.Beautiful and carefree were the days of childhood when glimpses of pink underwear from beneath ultra-short skirts were considered cute. Now the skirt barely climbes above the knee and the mother goes off like a siren.
When shopping for that perfect black mini-skirt for that amazing party coming up, you would do best to leave all motherly characters at home."What!!! you want to buy that??!!! Its barely there!""This one??!!! I absolutely forbid you to go around displaying your panties to the whole world!"

Confusingly enough, mothers have no problems with bathing suits. Exposing of legs hardly raises an eye-brow there. Then why the discrimination against the skirt? Why is the skirt the target of such abhorrence? Did these very mothers not argue with their mothers about wearing mini-skirts?Haven't they been through the short skirt debate? Then why not spare their daughters what they have gone through? Or do they just get malicious pleasure out of irritating their daughters in the same way that they were once irritated?
I mean honestly, what would the world be without the mini-skirt?
Lighten up mothers....

Light Problems...

It is being said by many that Einstein was wrong. It is now being proven that 'e' is in fact not equal to 'mc squared'. What is the world coming to? When I heard of this monstrous claim, I just had to find out more about it. It is very difficult to find the exact explanation of why he is wrong. You have to put together the bits and pieces yourself and make your own sense out of it.

It would be enormously helpful if Stephen Hawking would just write another book clarifying this. His "A brief history of time" is an excellent piece of work.
From what I, as an ordinary person and not a scientist, can gather the problem is as follows:
Einstein's theory of relativity is or lets say, was based on the assumption that the speed of light in vacuum is always the same. This assumption led to the formula e=mc2, where c stands for the speed of light in vacuum.
But recent experiments have shown that the speed of light in vacuum is not constant everywhere. This disproves Einstein’s theory. For more technical or detailed explanations, you can do your own research on the net like I did. What you find here is only the barest, simplest and shortest explanation possible. Use any search engine.
I guess it will become clearer to the general public after some time. It always takes a while for scientific information to trickle its way out of elite intellectual circles and into the streets. But I am still amazed by the implications of this -Einstein was wrong!!! What is the world coming to?

Plastic Love...

Humans are increasingly becoming like the objects they create -artificial. Fake smiles, superficial friendships, counterfeit love. Fake! Fake! Fake! everywhere I look I see fake people. They couldn't be more artificial if they were made of plastic and called Barbie.
Do i sound like a misanthrope? On the contrary... these breathing, blinking mannequins just make me appreciate a living person so much more when I meet one. I look into a pair of honest eyes and I see no pretense, no facades -just brutal probity. I know that I've found a gem, a diamond. Oh, how i love diamonds -the rock and the flesh kind. I realise just how fortunate I am. They are so very rare...

There are very few people that I love. I don’t love all members all of my family. I disagree that I have to love them just because they are family. If they are worthy of my love they will have it and the same goes for anyone. Love is meant to be absurd, complete, unconditional. You’ll be hard-pressed to find someone worthy of that –a diamond. You will be looking for the remanent of a dying species.Look for the honest eyes, the real eyes. Look for the eyes that are deep and endless, definetly not plastic.

A prophesy of life...

Anticipating a disaster is uasually a lot more soul-wrenching than being caught by one unawares.
A person who is told that s/he has only a few days to live is a very common subject of movies, books et al. In those remaining days s/he can either live life like never before or choose to die a slow death of waiting...die everyday in fragments.The person only realises how truly very valuable life is when there isn't much left of it. I think everbody has a motto in life... a few senseless words strung together to form a statement that brings sense into our lives. Sure, I have one too. The words that I try to live by are:
"Live life like you're going to die..."
Somebody once told me that that is a very morbid motto to sport. I was all astonishment. "Do you not understand what that means?" I wanted to yell out. Are these simple words so very unfathomable? I think not. Its a very clear sentence and it is anything but morbid; quite the contrary in fact. just because a sentence has the damn word "die" in it, it does not spontaneously degrade into a morbid sentence. Grasp the meaning, not the bloody words!!!


So, coming back to my opening statement, is it really true that anticipating a disaster is much more terrble than being struck by one? i guess it all comes down to one thing. Actually, if the truth be told, all that concerns us humans comes down to one thing...a choice.
You can choose to painfully and gradually turn into dust while you're waiting to die or you can live so that it is life that gains prominance, not death.
You control the spotlight so its up to you what you want to direct it at. I guess the answer to my question then differs from person to person. Its not really all that complicated is it?If you hack away all the fancy words its basically just this -Do you choose to live or do you choose to die in the time that has been given to you? So, whats the answer?

Crossing the limits...

August 2006- For the past month I have been spending around 3 hours at the gym everyday. I started out with 2 hours and in a week, I incresed it to 3 hours. I dont get too much exercise the rest of the day, so I feel lazy and over-stuffed if i dont get in my 3 hours in the evening. I do 10 kms on the treadmill without a break although I keep altering the speed at reglar intervals. After that I move onto the other equipments...

Yesterday at the gym, a man who had been observing me on the treadmill, approached me and warned me about the dangers of over-exercising I didn't pay much attention to him at first because I didn’t really believe in the concept of over-exercising, especially since I'm not 50 years old for crying out loud!!! Till yesterday, I used to think that a 17 yr old can handle any kind of physical strain.
However, after retuning home I decided to do my own spot of research on the net. Turns out that over-exercising is as common a disorder as anorexia! So if you look with piteous eyes at anorexics and then go spend an obscene amount of time in the gym, you're no bloody better!!
If you are an average person(not an athelete) and you are not training for an event of any kind then you should ideally be spending around 60 minutes at the gym three days a week. And its not just about the time stretch. Its very important that you divide your time sensibly between the cardio exercises, the treadmill and the other activities in the gym.

Its different if you're trying to loose weight but even so... you cannot spend outrageous amounts of time working out. You must supplement your exercising with a properly restricted diet and the exercising must be within a limit. If you're addicted to working out and keep at it for hours, THAT IS ACTUALLY A DISORDER. It occurs when you have a twisted image of your own physical self. You are never satisfied with your body and no matter how much you tone it, it isn't enough.
When you look into a mirror, you might as well be looking into one of those distorted mirrors they have in amusement parks. You're mind distorts what you see so that you just cant stop trying to exercise yourself into looking like a supermodel.

Over-exercising can lead to disruption of the menstraul cycle in females, backaches, permanent problems with the knee joint, loss of apetite, incresed thirst, lathargy and lack of energy and lots of other things. If you notice any of these symptoms or if you feel that you are over-exercising, you must go to a personal trainer or a fitness expert for a proper exercise schedule. Its important people!!

Feel...

Moderation is not my cup of tea. Some people can live unfeeling and passive lives but I am not one of them. Is any life worth living if it has no passion? I feel real only when I am in the grips of some insane intense emotion. When I feel ecstasy or elation I know that I am alive.
As a general rule, nobody likes to experience pain. I have felt excruciating agony and I don't mean just physically. I am not a sadist so obviously, I didn't like it. But even when I cried till I felt I would go blind, I felt alive.
Reality is a dubious topic. I feel real when I FEEL something -whether it is pain or happiness or curiosity or the soaring freedom of my own imagination.

I dislike cliches. So, even though at this point I want to say that its not about how many breaths you took during your life but about how many moments in your life took your breath away, I wont say it. Its those little islands of time that truly matter. All the other endless minutes just feel like a dream...an evanescent, fading dream; like an old song you can't really remember the words to. In those moments you are just plain, perfect, you!
Those moments shouldn't be avoided you know. Sometime I fight the new, the unknown. But that's not the way to live. Let life happen to you. Let it engulf you and bloat up your soul till you cant breathe because of your own exihilaration. And just when you think that you're going to die in one explosive moment, you can breathe... breathe so freely it feels like you are the air; you are the atmosphere. Live!

New born blood...

Everytime I set out to do something I've never done before, I experience the strangest mix of feelings. Excitement, anticipation –all of that. Life going on monotonously, on and on and on...somebody please kill me…and then suddenly WHAM!!!!
It hits you...this new challenge like a speeding train. Some people get scared because they don't know what to do. They've never been in a situation like this before. They curse their fates and the situation and look for ways around it.Then there are the smarter ones -the ones who use the oppurtunity to do something different. Use the chance to feel all those crazy nauseating feelings in their stomachs. Feelings that they would never get a chance to feel otherwise. Feelings that remind you that you haven't seen it all and you haven't done it all. They make you feel alive and you realise how brilliant that feels.

Do one thing and one thing only for too long and deep inside yourself you will start hating it. You will start hating life because it is making you do that thing you hate. You hate yourself because you don't have the courage to do something different. What's the way out?
I know a very wise song. Its called 'the sunscreen song'. It says -"Everyday do atleast one thing that scares you". It'll scare you because its new. It'll make your heart go THUMP THUMP THUMP.
When was the last time that happened?New things make you like the old things better. Its so much easier to enjoy doing the same thing every day if you do something different once a week.
If you're scared, don't worry -everybody is, even when they say they're not. There is a little thumping inside them all. But if you're scared, get over it. Just go ahead and do it. You'll be lost. You might be lonely. You might not even like it at all at first but do it anyway. You won't regret it. The only thing that I can never hate doing constantly is doing something different everyday.