Rape of Man

Man has been raped
again and again
for centuries and millenia

There he lies slain
limbs torn apart
in the aftermath of a war
fought on the whims of some
and benefiting none.

While he went to the war
with glitter in his eyes
as well as many dreams
he left behind living souls
who longed to see
but a moment more of him

But now their wishes will never be met
they shall only see him unwhole
wrapped tightly in the cursed cloth

But these things serve no lesson
since patriotism has struck him blind
since man is a fool
and man has been raped
and will continue to be raped
for centuries and millenia to come

Personal Growth

Life is a flowing stream and we need to joyously flow with the current. The more we try to oppose it, the more we lose our vitality, our life force. Personal growth is realizing just that.It means knowing one’s soul, to know about those deep motivations and recesses that lie withinself.  But it is not an easy task. It requires a lot of hard work and dedicated perseverance. It is not for the weak hearted since it requires a lot of courage, for it happens too often that a man is brave enough to face the entire world save the truth of his own self.The things that lie locked deep inside the self may not all be to our liking, may not give us any kind of happiness either. People sometimes confuse the never ending process of personal growth with the pursuit of happiness, but we should understand that running after happiness is as futile as trying to catch our own shadow. It shall elude us, lest we stop trying. But let us be not foolish enough to think that happiness shall last forever, for whatever gives happiness will be the cause of much pain as well.

As we step into adulthood, life has waiting for us a lot many problems which need to be handled responsibly. A character disordered person may cause himself a lot of unhappiness by not being responsible enough to realise that life is difficult. Yes, that is the hard truth: LIFE IS DIFFICULT. Yet it has to be lived, keeping in mind the beautiful gift life is. But these problems and responsibilities become a lot easier in life if we accept them.

Acceptance and equianimity lead to personal growth. Life is to be lived with complete acceptance of our limitations and difficult emotions. Only when we accept life just as it is, are we able to enjoy it. Acceptance and equianimity help us break away from the constant ruminations of past and future thoughts which occupy our minds most of the time. They help us live in the present, enjoy the present. But some confuse this humble acceptance of life with inaction, something which will make their lives insipid and dull. But it is not so. Just for example, acceptance should not be the reason for one to be not happy about buying a new phone, but acceptance is about being wise enough to be not obsessive about it, not to attach oneself so much so as to lose one's identity when the phone is lost.

In this modern age of endless anxieties and difficulties, a supple and equianimous mind is needed to take on the travails of life. A flexible mind reacts to problems just like water reacts to a cut or a blow; it yields yet regains its composure. We need to learn from nature and its methods. It will lead us to a meaningful life.

Why I live alone

People ask me why I live alone by choice. To this I usually have no answers. For how can you put to words that which you can only feel strongly?

We spend our entire lives without trying to grasp anything about it. In fact no one can ever claim to understand life. It is just to quest for that meaning that is so beautiful. It is a journey with no destination, which horrifies people. But this is exactly that beautiful trail into nothingness that I wish to follow. And living alone is helping me do that. It is helping me listen to my heart and really know how I feel. It is letting me love my life. It is letting me live.

For oh! What would I not give to be able to keep the pleasure which I am fortunate to have every night standing in front of my library, choosing my favorite book to bed?  How peaceful and comfortable it is to be tucked away in your bed, lazily going through the pages, unable to make out the meaning of the last few lines due to drowsiness but trying with difficulty to do just the opposite, yet finally giving in. That defeat is almost charming.

For oh! What would I not give to be able to keep the pleasure of being able to write anything, anytime without any disturbance? I write when I am excited, when I am sad or happy, or when I am lazy or when I am sleepy. This all goes so smoothly without any kind of human intervention.

For oh! How lovely it is to be able to paint alone. Without the painter in you expecting any masterpiece, you are free to just slosh the colors in any random pattern and that too with no one around to criticize it.

For oh! How beautiful it is to be able to listen to your favorite music while still in bed in the morning (you can play it loud or mellow, who cares?), to be able to meditate with peace, to be able to see the dawn and the dusk through your window, to be able to take long and lonely walks in the chilly nights through the dark streets, to skip breakfasts and not to give a damn in the world for things which are damned anyways.

I live in a home (it is neither a house, nor a tenement, nor a shack, nor an apartment, nor an accommodation and not at all a paying guest room). It is painted with cool and vibrant colors. A spot in it is reserved for meditation, a corner for academic work and serious thinking, another place for watching television and another just to sleep. Then, there are so many books lying around with my art supplies lying on them somewhere. I take pride in dirtying my home sometimes but at another times it keep it squeaky clean. I find all this simply awesome and I cannot trade this freedom with anything else.

On a more serious note, living alone opens a lot of doors instead of closing them. The only thing is that the paths through these days lead to you. A man ought to live alone at some point or the other in his life just to be able to know himself. When you live alone and you know that no one is going to pick you up when you fall, you start picking yourself up, which is very important in life. It is much better than receiving undue support every time from family and friends. It is only in the depths of human darkness that the real joys of self discovery lie.

Some people say that I am a loner, but to be truthful, I am quite the opposite. Living alone has helped me make stronger relationships. Since, I practice solitude and not loneliness. They are pretty different occupations in life.

But do I need to make these things understood to others? I do not understand it myself.

                                                                                                                                   

My city Calcutta

George Moorhouse’s ‘Calcutta’ takes me to a different world, one where Calcutta still is taking baby steps into the form of today. It flashes in front of my eyes a time bygone, buried in the dusty books of history, being revealed only to those interested in the city’s origins. And that’s why I decided to read it on my way to Calcutta on the 15^th of March. I remember being completely engrossed in the tales of the foundations of the city, the treacherous and the duplicitous ways of the British, the oppression of the masses of our country and the battles to take control of Calcutta, which raged from time to time, since Calcutta in those days (mid 1700 s) was the first major city in Asia and the fourth city of the world after New York, Paris and Tokyo.

As the plane started descending towards its destination, I could look out of my window and the view I beheld filled me up with joy. The dazzling city in the night lights seemed so very beautiful, so very beyond words at that time. It had a life of its own. The miniature toy cars, the neat rows of houses(which were at the same time so much dense with so little space between them), the flickering lights and the non-existent skyline were all magical, it seems. It is a modern cosmopolitan city on the one hand, yet it has not renounced its historical look. Fort William, Victoria memorial, various old theaters and several ‘rajbadis’ (buildings made in the British style) are still present and it seems that they are not going any time soon.

After stepping down, a different world, completely opposite to the one at Gandhinagar, was awaiting me. I stood there mesmerized, in fact pretty happy from inside to see such a mass of confused coteries of people moving around in every direction possible. There seemed to be an immense confusion about me. There was some contrast in everything around me and myself, since I seemed to be the only creature which stood there motionless, because I did not wish to move. I was there completely silent looking about myself to the vitality and energy flowing around me. Yet in this chaotic confusion, the city had a unity of purpose, the same purpose which ran through the minds and hearts of all, the same liveliness that not only bestows upon the city its defining characteristic that it is famous for, but also imparting to it a certain addictive nature, so much so that a person indoctrinated to such a style of living shall find living elsewhere drab and not lively.

I realized that this was Calcutta and I smiled. Then I went on.

Was that love?

Once I thought

“….whether she loved me or not?”

And I kept thinking…..

Then from inside someone spoke

“…dude are you a foolish bloke?”

“…how would she love you?”

“…if you did not love yourself”

And I rested in peace.

For love is a complex thing.

If your self-love amounts to not a thing.

Expect from others nothing.

What can they give to you?

Which you hath not yourself

For the poor who chooses to remain poor

Has nothing to run to, except his own self.

emotional atyachar

As usual as it is, I was busy reading a book, "The nature of psyche" by Carl Gustav Jung, only this time in a park( not the park where couples sit and snuggle :P but a children's park) which afforded me the luxury of being outdoors and doing my favorite activity at the same time.

Two guys were sitting behind the bench opposite to me on the ground, almost hidden. When I approached to sit and read, the furtive look of one them to inquire as to who might disturb them at 3pm in the afternoon, gave me the feeling that they were trying to hide something, that something fishy was going on behind the bench. I almost thought that these people were getting stoned.

But I ignored them and sat down to read. And what a book it was. Amazing. The concept of assigning energies to the psyche as we do to physical objects was a novel one for me and simply blew my mind. I got completely engrossed, when suddenly I heard "…..aaja mujhe baahon mein bharle, inn faaslon ko ab mitale…."(I do not wish to translate this).

I really do not remember what my reaction was( all  I remember is that I did not scowl, for I know all too well that there  has been a proliferation of such sentimental songs these days). But it brings me to the question as to why such songs are  on the rise these days and what is it in them that people literally get sappy on hearing such songs?

Has anybody realized that such songs actually make you associate things and persons with them and start a whirlwind of thoughts which usually touch the past and future? I say so since I too have been a victim of such songs. I say a victim since they make you think things which you normally would not do. Just take for example the hero singing about sacrificing his life for just a look of the beloved. I mean who in the right mind would actually do such a foolish thing? They deeply affect the psyche of people. They distort realities by creating hopes, frustrations, unwarranted expectations, happiness, fears and emotions of the like.

Everyone wishes to be loved and more so in a romantic way. And that is where these songs attack the individual. But with the immaturity and foolish concepts of love that we possess, we are more at a risk of falling deep into the hole  than being just in our relationships. Because again, they make you think things which you normally would not think, they make you expect things which you normally would not expect. And attached with those songs usually is a very strong image of the beloved.

All I wish to say that we need to be aware of such songs, with no intention of mine to condemn the listeners. In fact I enjoy hearing such songs occasionally myself. But we need to be aware of the effect they have on us and our relationships.

I wonder how Carl Gustav Jung would have rattled in his grave on hearing such songs.

Fiction of Relationships

Relationship : a human imagination

Relationships are means through which human beings socialize, but on a deeper level they are divine gateways through which we realize more of ourselves. There has been a belief, and not without reason, in Sufi mysticism that love helps us bring out certain characteristics which have been lying dormant deep within ourselves, without which we are not a complete whole. This desire to be whole is prevalent in every living being right from the seemingly dead plant to the most irrational animal, whether they admit it or not. Some seek this union with nature, others realize it through their own kind. But there always has been rather a hidden desire in us to be united with others and with nature.

But relationships are complex entities as well. The very fact that the initiation of our relationships actually requires us to orient our thoughts about the particular person involved in a certain way, testifies to the fact that relationships are but personal and imaginative creations. They are our own ways of attributing people in our lives with special thoughts and features, that may be completely antithetical to what others think about that same person. Post Structuralism as a school of philosophy says that any written work is not unique as regards to the experience the reader might get out of it. " Death of the Author" is a work in this field towards this subject. And in the very same way, the attributes we attach to a particular relationship will never be understood by others, since our understanding is deeply colored by our own subconscious which in turn is a reflection of our own history and our past and present relationships.

When two people meet, therefore, it is not just a superficial mixing. In fact their relationship serves as a magical palette, wherein a beautiful motley of colors, characteristics, histories, thoughts, behaviors etc. breed with each other and give rise to fresh vistas to completely reorient the involved parties' lives. Some of them may not mix well, which is the reason why conflicts arise. But everybody in a relationship has something or the other to receive, because, we have willingly let that person in our lives to mix their personal colors with ours, which is going to leave an indelible mark on our souls.