Fantabulous Free Tibet Poster..!!

Picture Galore

Stark contrast of life..

“I was sprinkling bottled, cold mineral water on my face, to cope with the soaring mercury on a train, and in the rural settlement we were crossing, there were kids drinking muddy, hot puddled water along with the animals they tame. I went back into the air-conditioned compartment with cushioned beds and looked out to see an old, unwell woman lying on a jute cot, her bony arm swaying back and forth to air herself. ‘I am so blessed’, instant thought.”

“The first weekend of my present stint in the capital, m taken to one of the ‘at-present-happening’ clubs as an extension to the birthday bash of a beloved friend. We reach at an hour which would conventionally have diurnals snoring away to glory. We individually had to pay an amount with which more than one-fifth of our nation’s population would merrily survive for a good month, for a mere couple of hours of good treat to the ears and a mild doze of legal intoxication.”

The massive economic divide in our country pushes the extremities of living at parallel. A corporate goon earns enough in a day to match with the daily income of hundreds in the rural sector. There are a zillion and counting, things on the ‘necessities- list’ of the affluent which are considered to be supreme luxury by the financially weak.

Equitable Distribution; An achievable target or an idealistic dream?

...????

Innovation at its peak, intellegent way to commute.

Photographer : Jana alias Hairy Snail

Another of those Priced 'POSSESSIONS'

Gifted by someone, as PART OF my birthday gift way ahead of time though.
"The international magazine sale would'nt ve lasted in Chennai till then." His say.

Who You ARE..??

If I am what I am because I am what I am,
And you are what you are because you are what you are,
then I am what I am,
And you are what you are.
BUT
If I am what I am because you are what you are,
And you are what you are because I am what I am,
then I am not who I am,
And you are not who you are.

Crux of a 90 min play(inclusive of a ten min interval), ART by Evam Productions put forth in a very subtle though upfront manner. Never thought a play with such a high level of humour quotient could be so thought provoking.

If we think about it, most of us belong to the latter divide of the human clan.

Celebrating Death

It’s surprising how culture, traditions, festivities, languages and another innumerable aspects of life, change within a stretch of hundred kms in our country. Very recently I saw a group of people high and happy on alcohol, dancing to the tunes of portable drums (more like the dhols), bursting crackers all along the roads. Unaware of what was happening; impulsively I asked my friend and then came his reply, “They are celebrating death”.

The way the dead are carried to their burial grounds in the southern hemisphere of our country is fairly intriguing and has a set of interesting connotations linked to it. Though it is practiced only by the lower strata of the financial divide, it is a common site. Logical interpretation of as to why is it done so, are quite thought provoking.

• The close ones celebrate while carrying the dead, to let the soul liberate on a happy note. The ambience of happiness, joy and euphoria would enable the soul seeking for the same, achieve it sooner.

• As only the financially weak partake in it, they do so to celebrate the end of another man’s struggle in life. They celebrate, to pay homage to the way the dead had fought with the absurdities and birth-based biasness of life, they celebrate because no more will the dead have to loose to the inequalities of destiny.

• Another school of thought revolves around the axiom of the Satanic influences being shooed away by the crackers and the Holy angels being pleased and drawn closer by the music. Celebrating for the soul to attain Moksha, celebrating for the soul to reach the safe and worshipped hands.

However and whatever be the reason for the act, it makes perfect sense to celebrate, in DEATH.

GOasapKARN

'35-55-45'

No, the title does not pertain to the figure dimensions of an obese human. Kleptophilic acts again, there was this theatre act I went to watch quite a while back and it was titled so, from where I indulge in thieving it. The act was enthralling and impressive enough to put me to thought for a week or two. This post would not be comments, critic reviews or narration of the play but more of a crux, some food for thought.

The story revolves around three unmarried women of 35, 45 and 55 respectively, with different philosophies, ideologies and ways of living, to some extent due to the difference in age and more because of what they went through and how they adapted to their past.

The pursuit of inheritance of the ancestral house, force the sisters (the elder ones) to stay together for an year as per the will of their mother, who in turn get a tenant (the youngest) to decrease the financial burden on themselves. Their social, religious, political, professional life's all at different ends of the polygon which could ve taken shape because of their varied interest. Their frame of mind, personal life, more so because of their bragging and living in their past. The eldest and the youngest lived their life cursing and blaming someone for their state of unsatisfactory survival where as the one in between lived, not trying to justify her acts for which she was cursed and blamed, indeed trying to get on terms and pleasing the ones who were cursing and blaming her.

Life could be lived and experienced from a varied array of perspectives, it wholly depends on an individuals outlook. There are various incidents one sieves and preserves from his/her grey cells membrane, some good, some not so, and finally it falls on the individual to live, with what in mind. Life, so takes shape with how one wants it to be, LIFE..

Interests for Life or Living..

Quite often that not, it is adviced to earn one's livings in line with his/her interests. Interests varying from academic, cultural to literary are told to be made the tools to earn your daily bread . 'Do what you love', 'Merge your interests and work', 'You'll prosper if and only if you do something you are naturally inclined to' these lines are heard often while one's just about to begin his carrier. Like I read somewhere 'The marketing mix of life'...
Then the big question mark, would commercializing one's interest grant him/her the satisfaction he/she was enjoying when the interests were treated as mere interests. The feeling of someone coaxing you to force yourself to pursue something you would love to but don't want to, at present. Interests would rather turn into liabilities compelled on you, to survive. The pure, innocent love would transform to a commercial piece of act, for liquid assets. Natural and keen indulgence, now mandatory participation with an exhausted, over worked and unwilling mind.
Recognition remains as a 'must' compliment when pursuing such interests because of their not so specialised and not very unique nature. The run for acknowledgement being tougher than the sperm race, stands as a big dilemma.
Hmmm.. where does one head, try to satisfy one's mind and get entangled in the web of commercialising his/her interests or live the mechanical, pseudo life in the quest of materialistic joy and try to squeeze time (idealistic) to pursue what one would rather do, when free (again idealistic).

menWHOpause..!!

Gloria Steinem, a feminist writer framed an article 'If Men Could Menstruate', amazing peice of work.
An Excerpt

So what would happen if suddenly, magically, men could menstruate and women could not?
Clearly, menstruation would become an enviable, worthy, masculine event:
Men would brag about how long and how much.
Young boys would talk about it as the envied beginning of manhood. Gifts, religious ceremonies, family dinners, and stag parties would mark the day.
To prevent monthly work loss among the powerful, Congress would fund a National Institute of Dysmenorrhea. Doctors would research little about heart attacks, from which men would be hormonally protected, but everything about cramps.
Sanitary supplies would be federally funded and free. Of course, some men would still pay for the prestige of such commercial brands as Paul Newman Tampons, Muhammad Ali's Rope-a-Dope Pads, John Wayne Maxi Pads, and Joe Namath Jock Shields- "For Those Light Bachelor Days."
Statistical surveys would show that men did better in sports and won more Olympic medals during their periods.
Generals, right-wing politicians, and religious fundamentalists would cite menstruation ("men-struation") as proof that only men could serve God and country in combat ("You have to give blood to take blood"), occupy high political office ("Can women be properly fierce without a monthly cycle governed by the planet Mars?"), be priests, ministers, God Himself ("He gave this blood for our sins"), or rabbis ("Without a monthly purge of impurities, women are unclean").
Male liberals and radicals, however, would insist that women are equal, just different; and that any woman could join their ranks if only she were willing to recognize the primacy of menstrual rights ("Everything else is a single issue") or self-inflict a major wound every month ("You must give blood for the revolution").

Men would convince women that sex was more pleasurable at "that time of the month." Lesbians would be said to fear blood and therefore life itself, though all they needed was a good menstruating man.
Medical schools would limit women's entry ("they might faint at the sight of blood").
Of course, intellectuals would offer the most moral and logical arguements. Without the biological gift for measuring the cycles of the moon and planets, how could a woman master any discipline that demanded a sense of time, space, mathematics-- or the ability to measure anything at all? In philosophy and religion, how could women compensate for being disconnected from the rhythm of the universe? Or for their lack of symbolic death and resurrection every month?
Menopause would be celebrated as a positive event, the symbol that men had accumulated enough years of cyclical wisdom to need no more.

brain drain OR easy gain

Not long before, it was feared that brain drain would result in a multi-folded loss of quality human capital to our country. The pace at which young Indian minds were being auctioned to the world was worrying the intelligentsia of the country. The ignited brain after years of value addition in our country was working for the benefit of another, it was foreseen that we would live in an era of no-return from the educational skills imparted all through the student life of our countrymen. The cream of the crowd was picked, by international entrepreneurs to back them with the human resource for a bright future, in lieu of massive financial remunerations.

A lot has changed with time, travelling across the globe to get equipped with the best know-how techniques has become the easiest way to do so. The brilliant brains which were transported across the sea have been replaced with the incapable and non competent ones. With fierce competition levels in our country and the ratio, of the lads seeking education to the seats available at moderately rated institutions being inanely high, a big chunk of the youth is seeking easy alternatives, studying abroad being the most sensible of them all, if one has the financial maturity to do so. From leaving the shore with the intention of gaining financial happiness to only the financially happy going, things have taken a definite turn.

Today, majority of the students venturing outside the country for higher education have no clue even as to the curriculum of the course. If one has the money to invest and not think about the kind of returns it would fetch, the preposition of getting a degree on ones resume sounds quite enterprising.

P.S. My friend, who is to go to the States to study soon, differs to agree with the generalisation and argues that there are people who do complete research before going. I totally agree, there always lies a space for the minuscule percentage who do differently, EXCEPTIONS..!!

Hard Rock; Mumbai

Hard Rock Cafe has its own style and assets. Mumbai sports the only one in the country, paradise for music lovers.

amchi Mumbai..!!

Clicked from a moving taxi in mumbai the day before the legend (Roger Waters) was to perform.

An Escape to idealism...

Life in these crucial years could very often result in a debate, with pragmatic ideology and idealistic thinking being the two fronts. Living in idealism could grant atmost instantaneous gratification and joy though it may be short lived, on the other hand a realistic approach might be complimented with monotony, hardships, forcefull acclimatization but with far sighted success. The line between constructive dreaming and unconventional idealism being very bleak, it quite often possess a threat.

After months of living in a fiercely competitive society, an environment where one man would kill his counterpart for luxurious survival, a huge world made to seem like a small society with the technological findings, no time to think of nothing it felt amazingly great to get back to my shell, with no happenings in the outside world bothering a bit, with the state of mind being respected more than the state of survival, with socializing only with the handful and refraining from being puppets in the hands of the society. My few days of idealism, few days of permitted and uncontrolled thoughts, few days of living my life for myself, few days of escape from reality...

Reason behind Action

With times changing it has become a compulsion to amend certain phrases and anecdotes of yester years, "Do good and do not expect anything in return" was taught, as the policy with which life had to be governed, today, even "Do good to expect it in return" looks bleak to abide with.
'Do unto others what you want others to do unto you', may it be good or bad. There lays a drive to every action made by man, a reason for everything man does. A layman lives, reacts or acts, the way he does, expecting the same in return. A human has different facets of relations, various behavioural instincts towards different individuals, he acts in the same or similar way he wants the counter part to deal with him. The driving force of life's actions is the expectancy of the same in return.

Why Intoxicate..??

From the very day God proclaimed "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness", the man of his image and likeness has been living in the quest to satisfy his mind. From the early days of natural intoxicants till this era of chemically structured ones, man has been quite successful in the search for his mind's gift.

The reason for intoxication vary from an individual to another. From what I think, the basis of intoxicaion is a battle of a human mind and a natural or artificial suppliment. The human mind in a subtle way wants to prove its superiority over the external suppliment. Its the ego of the human mind that does not submit to failure. The crave to find substances which could take him to a higher alter is in the expectation of the day on which the mind could tame the above. If there are things which do not end, I would account this battle to be one of them.

P.S. One particular trip when I was battling and I made my mind proud of myself.

Time to RATE Indians..!!

Following the west, for the good or the bad, there is a considerable change in the lifestyle of Indians. Like the developed countries, we are also living our life on financial credit, attribute it to the growing banking system in our country or the regular flow of liquid assets. The plastic cards, the signatures of ink can grant enough money for a lifetime with the present scenario of credit grants. The creditabilty of the individual to pay back the credit lays on the discretion of the institutions granting the same, not a very transparent, rigid and fair criteria exists for the above though.

In the west for the same there exists credit rating agencies who rate incorporations and individuals on their ability to take credit based on their history from inception/birth. 'Standard & Poors' and Moody's are the global players when it comes to credit ratings, not denying the existence of ICRA (Indian Credit Rating Agency) and Crysal on the Indian grounds, ICRA and Crysal only rate corporations though it's high time the individuals also start getting rated. We have to sooner or later start the credit ratings to make things easier and smoother to attain credit instruments in terms of loans, Credit cards, certificate of credit and so on.

It could either start as a PSU (it would be difficult to trust their transparency then) or a private company which could tie up with the income tax department and other financial service providers to get the historical background of an individual on the financial grounds. Their could exists a chart of credit ratings with the amount of credit attainable for the same.

Quite often there are times when a a worthy individual is denied credit and there are times when individuals flee away after recieving such credits, its time to bring efficiency in this system and start a centralised agency to give the first green or red flag to indiviuals looking for financial credit. These ratings could be the next status symbol and directly or indirectly it would coax individuals to be more transparent with their financial dealings and tax returns.

Omlette Intoxication..!!

It was after a long time, ages (relatively; after the sweet yrs in college) that I indulged myself into the 'irresistable pastime' last afternoon. The esoteric feeling felt great. Out of the blue, I wanted to cook myself something, wanted to try something new, make a dish of my own and so I did...

I call it

'Omlette Intoxication'

Monotony of Life..

Monotous, Everything seems to get monotonous. Human mind craves to do something, not for a very long time. The monotony, the same routine, the usual lifestyle gets to you at times.

Monotony defines the way one's going to live his next day. There is no sense of eagerness, every question seems to have an answer, there ceases to exist any reason for expectance. With everything one does, at every phase of life there's this stretch of time when your routine of life gets static. The everyday life seems to be defined by a set of paramters, the mornings, the days, the evenings, the nights all have a schedule which is hard to get out of.

The conventions of life force's one to stick to a systematized way of living. 'Same is boring', I had read somewhere but is there a way out? The stark reality is everyone is bound to live a monotonous stretch. There is no escaping out of it. Even the satisfied man who does what he really likes to gets tired of doing it when he's forced to, to live.

Somethings are impossible and getting away from the monotony of life is one of them.