Amit Goes Blogging

Recently, I had been to Noida. It was a long journey by train and also a journey through ideas that are triggered at the sight of sparse vegetation, shrinking water bodies, vast tracts of lands, burgeoning slums, teeming millions passing under the bridge. I ran through a chugging train of thoughts: the evolution of man, the future of mankind, the problems in society, the solutions thereto, and, then brought it all under a grand philosophical generalization (consolation) before giving up the whole effort and dozed off. In these intellectual moorings, I put on the airs of a social scientist. Of late, the scrutiny of  morality and dynamics of society, their utility and goal have kept me occupied. Swaggering in the pride of my intellectual acumen, I came face to face with a 14 year old kid of standard 9, and, it was a very humbling experience. My visit to my girlfriend was due for over 2 years and a half. The moment I found that the hot waters I had been in all these years had coo...

Yesterday, at a get-together of old friends, some of the stalwarts from our college days were remembered. Each of these stalwarts is an epicenter of widespread unrest and can unhinge, if not ruin, the most organised system if only he sets his foot in. To take up the task of sketching the character of these social desperadoes, would be an introduction to some of the impossible sorts that make up our world. People will find it hard to believe such turbulent individuals exist in our world. Their very presence can suck the environment of its natural peace.  I am going to describe one here. I refer to this one as sexually deviant. Not that he had queer sexual preferences, but such hunger for sex is unheard of. Note that these idiosyncrasies fitted into his student life that obviously got extended in making place for such peculiarity at this station of life. In his words, man's life, at its basic, is a struggle for daily bread and weekly sex. Now, when such a well-founded idea of life is...

Heroism is not a trait but an opportunity. The opportunity seized me when we were at the foothills of Sahyadri range and were to begin our trek to Rajgad. The other hikers were in no hurry; they were more interested in photo shoot. But, my spirits were raring to seize the fort. The bottle in my hand felt like a sword and the jacket was my armour. I was a commander leading a troop and mounting on my horse-like feet, I galloped towards the fort. Soon, I lost sight of my troop. The voices were heard for a while; I quickened my pace and the voices died out. I was now alone. As I was scaling the hill, I saw an old lady standing under the shade of a tree hiding behind the trunk. “What is she doing here in the desolation?” I thought. I recently started reading Dracula and an encounter with ghosts had caught my fancy. But, it was an inappropriate place for my fascination to materialise. The oldie had drawn her saree over her head and only a part of her face was visible. The wrinkles on her fac...

You will be gone,  Gone in the mortifying indifference,  Gone without requiting my love,  Gone, leaving violent memories.  I shall return too,  Return in the shame of disdain,  Return with dry sobs,  Return, carrying a dying twilight.  There you go with inglorious pride, I sneer my affection true,  And vow it'll never ever,  Pass from me hence.  Now the anger smoulders inside,  And anguish bursts in refrain:  Do it unto another,  Do it unto another.  Donning an armour of make-believe,  With the hidden sword of insult,  And, a quiver of sweet allurements, I am ready to avenge: Stage the old sentiment,  Trap the love victim,  And, with all might and main,  Thrust the indifference, the affront,  Deep, very deep! 

In the summer of 1999, my parents had some unusual plans: we were to spend our vacations 1000 km away from home at Chitrakut where Shree Ram spent 11 years of his 14-year exile. There was an ashram in Chitrakut and the Swamiji heading the ashram was also a Yoga exponent. My mother had been suffering from arthritis. This made father very anxious and he did everything possible to alleviate her suffering. But, her resistance proved a hurdle in my father’s attempts to restore her health. He could neither pull her into the habit of morning-walk nor make her take to the treadmill by her bed. When Father bought her costly, light-weight sneakers, she poked fun at him saying that he was stepping into dotage. While mother was a mother to her kids, Father knew that his dear wife craves no less attention. He decided to take her to the ashram at Chitrakut. Again, she wouldn't relent without a fuss. She said she would neither stay at the ashram nor at a hotel. She wanted freedom for her chi...

Indian weddings are very cordial and flamboyant affair. Careful planning and money go into making them successful, which means avoiding a fiasco. The close relatives of both the parties undergo countless difficulties to ensure that the wedding is highly spoken of for years to come. Also, the larger the turn out, the greater is one’s social standing. In the olden days, when parties entering an alliance lived in the same town or village, the marriage procession proceeded from the boy’s house to the girl’s place amid a lot of fanfare. The wedding expenses are on the girl’s side and the boy’s relatives make it a point to manage a large turn out at the wedding and make things cumbersome for the girl’s side. These traditional pranks put the patience and sociability of the bride’s family to test.  I shall share an incident of one wedding party that had some great plans of putting the bride’s side to test. The girl's family lived in a city and the boy's family was from a small t...

We not only buck undesirable influences but also override the most coveted influences of personalities.  I have always been careful to avoid making promises, even to myself, lest the natural course of events be interfered with or resisted. The state of holding to a promise is very much like grappling with the vow of celibacy alongside mounting frustration. Promises made in storm are, indeed, forgotten in calm. The purpose that drove us when life seemed meaningless changes altogether when we find meaning in our lives and vice-versa. A little feeling that stirs the heart to bind itself to promises for life soon gives way to some other feeling and we feel betrayed by our previous circumstance. We mark out our lives based on what goes flitting past us. One fine day, all the spirit of the good old days sublimates into thin air. With the spirit gone; the energy gone, we wake up, as it were, from a dream, and find ourselves completely wavered from our conviction.  We move from...

A dimly-lit lounge, bartenders pouring shot after shot into my dangling glass, plush sofas, and gristly bottoms heaving over the leather and hairy hands rubbing against me is what I call loneliness. After years of anticipation and effort what I ran into was always a bunch of males, a sorrow I have cried out my heart at umpteen times but to no avail.  It was loneliness when I had the love and care of my parents who did everything possible to make me see their love, no matter, how contrary my experience was to the truth. And, now when it's my turn to express my love and care, they are unable to come to terms with it. Crashed expectations raise the dust of loneliness before my eyes once I retire home from work!  I have been lavished with great love by the near and dear ones; some of them epitomized selfless love as is only heard of these days. But they are very far now and also old. My love made many unsaid promises to them. Those promises are still with me in their unfulfilled s...

It happened too soon! I never thought my enthusiasm, like a moth, was jesting with fire. My aspirations of being a writer were throttled by macabre stories that have left my heart aching. Only a callous heart could make merry at such painful experiences and treat them as material for some sensational writing. On hearing them, I felt I was punished for venturing into life with a writer's ambition. But, life was much more cruel to her who related her agony to me, a split fraction of which has taken away the chimerical peace of my heart. I would have happily suffered hundred whips on my back and would have been still be hopeful of the good times. But, not anymore. Why God did not appear on the scene and save her from that butcher! She was pricked, tortured and dragged through the mud. All this because she loved that inhuman wretch. The wretch used her, abused her, cajoled her and again abused her. And, love made light of it all and would have happily offered itself again for the worst...

That god forbidden instinct took hold of him in his drunkenness - the instinct to gamble! After a successful term at the college, his well-imposed academic constraints yielded to the influence of ignoble company of gamblers and hooligans. As it is he was drunk in the glory that education conferred upon him in that small town. That fateful evening paved his downfall. Goaded by a friend, he made his way to the gambling den. The previous evening had adumbrated the doom when he lost Rs. 4000 at one sitting. Gambling is like a bee sting: leaves you with a pain and also leaves the sting buried under the skin. And, another gambling session seems to be the only cure to both. The only wisdom about gambling is avoiding it. But, 'fools rush in where angels fear to tread'. My foolish friend staked again that evening to recover what he lost the previous day. After hitting a few chances, he started losing out on four bets at 10k, 20k, 20k, 20k and at the closing was under a debt of Rs. ...

She left! Our reunion was at the mercy of a few hours, but it was not to be. My eyes are still running hither thither anxiously hoping against the reality that has struck me brutally. The anguish howls in my ears and my eyes stare into the nothingness that has filled the place. The barrenness of this place will prick me as long as I am here and I have to bear with it every moment of my stay here. She kept asking me why I didn't stop her. She wanted the prayers of my heart to issue from my lips. I forbade from doing so, for lips spell commitment and it is something I cannot stick to now. I am torn between desiring and disowning; crushed between her overpowering love and the devotion of my first love; hung between the liberating love and the binding commitment. Why does my heart reach out in love to her? Why does she beat with my heart? Why every spring of love invites me to bathe in its waters? Am I not cheating on my previous commitments? Let the questions remain and let love rema...

In the last three days, I have been called a lecher by two girls. They were parallel flings and coincidentally both fell apart almost the same time. Let the readers be informed that there was no physicality involved. It was a misreading of my intentions that caused estrangement. Well, I am not depressed at all. I was kind of expecting such a glorious end.  Flings move onto being love affairs if the counterparts aren't treated as human resources. But, people interest me only so long as a sense of mystery surrounds them. I start in the right direction but goaded by a sense of experimentation, I end up falling out of the relationship. But, I don't regret the disaster because now I am a writer who welcomes even the untoward with open arms. I Now, when people narrate the sorry incidents of their lives, they pledge me to secrecy and to strictly desist from making their tale food for my writing. I am seen as a threat to their private lives. I have people telling me that a writer can n...

If passion is what counts to make it into Google, then I am a monument of passion in the field of my interest. Going by the testimonials and the penchant for talent that Google speaks of, I decided not to exaggerate my professional flair over my personal talent. Google would be the best judge of my suitability for the role of technical writer when I am given an opportunity to prove it. My academic career speaks little of my passion for language. I did not fare well as an engineering student. But, all that I learnt was utilized in breaking the intellectual moulds that mind so often gets into when ideas stop flowing by or a homogeneity of ideas narrows its vision. I have a strong philosophical interest and my education just served to broaden my philosophical outlook. I resist overdose of facts, and, at the first cognizance of facts attesting truth, I stop pursuing them. I distinguish between curiosity, which is vain, and inquiry, which is fruitful. Language holds a special charm for me...

Love passes through many phases from filial love to parental love. Of all the phases, romance is the youth of love. Lifestyle changes may have trimmed romance to its bare minimum but the charm it holds is undimmed by either career pursuits or the dictates of professionalism. Wherever goes man, romance trails along. And, in my case, the rigours of workplace only added to its tenacity. Being bound to corporate decorum, workplace romance never gets into the excesses of courtship. It is like a dew drop that perishes in the warmth of work and settles again in the moments of leisure. This is what makes it is so agreeable. The decorum and discipline tone it up. My hesitating steps ultimately took a leap of courage. Luckily, I landed safe. This time there were no wordy traps laid, no action plan. I was full of energy that takes one over when failure is most certain. The lover in me was playing the last game of the evening in the hope that he will have a sweet tale for many nights to come....

I cannot abolish questions that seek answers to my place in existence. The 'why and how' takes away from my enthusiasm for life. The value one places on life is an assumption. How can we be sure of its purpose? Knowledge can fill our minds but not the blankness where life wiggles. Adding more and more meaning on one side can keep us busy but cannot weigh down the question 'why are we here?' rising at the other side. This hopeless 'why' never leaves us alone nor leads to an answer.  Slipping into life is like wearing wet pyjamas to sleep; such irritable feeling life is. I believe not all suicides result from unhappiness, they could also result from an indifference to life. Coming into existence and being snuffed out of existence describes our lives. In the meanwhile is the ambition, the dream and the hope of outliving our time. There are specks of emotion, of action, of inaction, of understanding, of ignorance and then extinction. Helplessly we arrive and helple...

People who have described my writing as straddling the fence will see a reason for it. I am afraid you would be bogged down after reading this. Discontent has been my lifelong companion, going down all the way my earliest memories as child. Nothing could prevent the feeling of being short-changed at the end of every activity. I always had to encourage happiness to justify the desirability of action. But, on the inside, I was an unhappy traveller following an unsolicited itinerary. People were just tolerable. Obliging them mind-numbing. I had made an unstable peace with the fact that we are condemned to live and also tasked with making living enjoyable. Kids of my age derived great satisfaction in eating raw guavas stolen from the neighbourhood. But, when I set my teeth into the hard crust, I doubted whether the risk and the effort involved in the ordeal were worth it; was the resulting joy any close to expectations. When were we overjoyed when seeking joy? Playing cricket in th...

It came as a blow to my healthy efforts at wooing my female colleagues. Can you believe that for girls in my company a common nativity is a reason enough to make friends with guys and feel safe in their company? Why is beauty prejudiced? Let beauty know that it has no value in absence of a beholder. I think it is the fate of all girls to falter before they move in the right direction; to choose waywardness and mistake the call of my heart for somebody else's. Nobody in the office has waited so earnestly for their arrival as I did. I broke the jinx hanging on our workplace as only a few months had elapsed after my arrival when some darling faces joined the company which was suffering the brunt of male population in the form of workplace dissatisfaction. With my coming, came the girls and the enthusiasm. And the first encounter with all of them was love at first sight. If only they gazed a little longer into my eyes they would see the overflowing love for them. But, they seem to tak...

There are days when sleep quits you at its usual hour, but sloth pins your head to the pillow and dreams brightened in the daylight float by. These dreams do not need a Freudian interpretation as they scale out from the real world. What differentiates these dreams from thoughts is that they deny subservience to practicality. Some of them turn out to be wish-fulfilling. They avenge the past injustices meted out to you, or they offer a pleasure ride, a jaunt to the inaccessible object of pleasure. Today, as I slept in, a dream drifted in and left me with a sense of empowerment. Let me give you the backdrop before narrating the dream. I was as an English language trainer with a spoken English institute, Elixir. Being an undergraduate then, I was not a trainer on papers. So, I was entrusted with the task of counselling candidates who came for inquiry. Interestingly, my first counselling session with a candidate resulted in on-the-spot admission. The villain of the dream, the centre manag...

I am an avid learner and my interest lies in grappling with underlying concepts. Over the years, I have cultivated a state of mind that is receptive to any form of knowledge and that quickly recognizes the universal behind the particular. I reach for the comfort of generalization rather than labouring under details. I enjoy abstract flights that take innumerable facts in their stride and offer a last word on their existence. I developed a natural taste for philosophy as it perfectly answered my aptitude. I couldn't relish fiction that hangs around characters to unfold the theme.  During my school days, the chapters in the text-book ended with a summary that read 'know to learn', and it never appealed to me. I was happy knowing rather than learning things. This attitude continued throughout my engineering. I did extremely well in my practicals and viva voce as the questions asked were mostly conceptual. I remember my digital electronics viva in which I was asked questions on...

He was a devotee and a troubled heart, factors that invariably co-exist. The worldly dross started falling away from his person and the divine made way into his life. He could feel something unearthly taking control of his life. For such is the nature of devotion that His grace and power start manifesting in those who seek refuge at His holy feet . The impersonal polarizes into a personal being to help his devotees even though the hankering for the worldly gains consumes their breath. It happened during an interview. He was worried but not nervous, for he had learned to accept whatever circumstances he was put through. When things would go awry and his last plank of safety was about to deceive him, some unseen hand would intervene and save him from the untoward. So, he couldn't disregard the timely help and arrogate his demands. He was facing the interviewer and suddenly another channel opened to him. He could read the mind of the person before him! The interviewer in her character...

Can a boy and a girl just be friends? The friendship between a boy and a girl is a potential love affair. While it has all the ingredients of love, it lacks the opulence of emotion and the touch of closeness. It is yet another possibility to discover love and yet another mutuality waiting at the doorstep. It is self-restraint that prevents it from trespassing the love zone. The relationship that begins with love limps on infatuation. It opposes the realism of personalities and seeks solace in the optimism of syrupy sentiments. It's a shrub nourishing the dream of a tree while cattle are grazing around it. A little mindfulness, and the hollowness of their relationship echoes in the distraught heart of the lovers. But, the love that graduates from the checks and balances of friendship is a new edition of love, spurned of mushiness and surplus on understanding. It has no traces of fussiness or the snares of pretense. Friendship doesn't come tip-toeing; it walks with steady steps t...

Very few, if given a choice, would opt for a bodiless existence. I would happily run with this choice. Let me cite one immediate benefit of this during these winters. Bathing wouldn't be a physical act anymore, but a state of mind. Vibes do not stink. A body, though a masterpiece of creation, is a body after all, bringing my creatureliness to the fore . No matter how much I care for it, its vagaries subject me to untold sufferings. Ask me what it is to have an upset tummy marching south and no asylum around. Somebody has said: "How long a minute is depends on which side of the bathroom door you happen to be." Even on the other side the things are not always pleasant. Sensing the urgency, at the summons of nature, when I take up the call I realise that I don't command my bowel movement. My body lets me down. After the little that I manage to extricate from the clutches of my bowels, imagine, the tap runs dry and the tissue roll hasn't been replaced:-( After all the...

Unlike all other weekends, this wasn't given away at the altars of philosophy. It had a ring about it, a ring that I had stopped craving long ago. Earlier, the anguish would tear my heart out: When would a weekend be something that I would look forward to; not doing my laundry or arranging books, but one that would be spent shopping, hanging out at posh restaurants - a dream which every earning bachelor has a right to dream. But, all I could think of with my limited means is to gorge on food at a nearby hotel, entertain my flat mates with frivolous talk and then bury my head into a book and the weekend would just pass by. But, yesterday, I was available neither to my roomies nor to my books. I was busy shopping! I was at a Reebok store purchasing a pair of jeans. To prolong this shopping experience I went around the store. After two trials with waistline 32 and waistline 34, I settled for W-32. It was ages since I had bought a piece of clothing for myself. Next, I was at Adidas; ...