The Black Hole

Remember that feeling of uneasiness when you purposely try to avoid something that is always around? Remember, the last time when you were walking home late, and you had that uneasy feeling that someone was following you, but you just wont look back to check? That sinking feeling you have when you can neither accept nor change? I avoid looking at my pictures

Its always been there. I remember getting scared of looking at it when I was young. Then, I don’t exactly remember when, the fear turned into a weird sensation of uneasiness and I began to avoid looking at it. I even remember sweating if my eyes fell on it…I felt my heart sink. It would scare me. So much so that would feel weird getting my pictures clicked, leave aside sharing pictures with family and friends. It was there, right there, in my face…but why couldn’t anyone else see that hole in my stomach?

And now when I think of it, it makes complete sense.

From a small black mark just about in the middle of my stomach, where some believe lies the energy of nature and some, the Zero, the unity, the completeness in the absence of everything; it grew as I grew old. As I grew in years and gained consciousness, I started feeling uncomfortable of it. On one hand I knew that no one else could see it, and on the other, I would make efforts to keep it covered all the time to hide it from the watching eyes. I carried it wherever I went. And then came a time, I began to hide it from myself. Every once in a while, I would deny its existence to myself. Then I would decide to check on it. It was right there…getting bigger by the day. Strangely, more I learned, bigger it became. It wouldn’t grow during happy vacations. Would gloat at an exponential rate at other times. Knowing about people killing people would make it bigger. Tears gave it more pace. By the time I got out of college, I could almost pass my arm through the hole and scratch my back!

And just a few days back, I began to realize that there was more to it than I thought. Lying in my bed, I began fiddling with it. My finger smelled weird…a tingly fragrance of…err…freshness? Yes. And then, for the first time in years, I looked at it…without fear, without disgust, without doubt. And it was beautiful. It smelt of wet mud…it felt like ocean froth. And I knew it was inside me. The perfect world. Where there was no fear or darkness, no suffering or embarrassment. All this while I had failed to realize that everything that I wanted to do, everything I wanted to be…all the change, which I was looking for everywhere, was right here. Bright, glowing, beautiful, fresh.

And today, as I walk out of the door, I don’t hide it under clothes of embarrassment. I walk naked to the eyes, shining with the infectious glow of the man who has realized that there is no joy or comfort outside of oneself. One can choose to be happy even if there is none around. One can choose not to suffer even when there is pain everywhere. And the change that one wants to see in the world begins from within…

The wicked, the ugly and the blasphemous

The canine species has always had some celestial connection with me. A sort of a love hate relationship. A romantic parallel to the painful situation would be “can love but cant marry”. And before my dear readers (to the ones who are smirking “get in touch personally to have a real peace of my mind”) hugely misinterpret the above statement and start kicking my ass in various public forums, let me make it very clear that there is no hidden reference to the female species of any sort.

Let me be more elaborate. Thing have never kind of worked out well between me and my pets. Till the time they are ‘almost pets’, its great…you know, dwellers of the B-Mid of XIMB 2007-2009 would be able to better appreciate this greatness…with all the shoes / slippers, but mine, vanishing and being found in a horrible bundle of dog hair the next morning. But….and I emphasize BUT, the moment they graduate from being ‘almost pets’ to PETS, something somewhere snaps. All my pets run away. It happened twice and that’s when I decided not to tie the knot anymore.

So coming back to the topic of discussion here, the wicked, the ugly and the blasphemous are as follows:

• The Wicked One: KP, better understood as Kaala Pilla. One of my ‘almost pets’ this season. And man he is wicked. He could also be called The Silent One and The ‘Son of a bitch’ One (well, technically, that would apply to all of them)
• The Ugly One: BP, the Brown Pilla. How ugly can life in any form be? Really? A few days back I found the answer to that question when I saw this one.
• The Blasphemous One: JP, Just Pilla. How can a dog always be peeing on that holy picture on that sidewalk? Really? How small a bladder does he really have?

For the records KP, BP and JP are three little stray pups who happen to live on the street I live on. They also happen to not accept the fact that they are stray pups, and cannot be, rather should not be, extremely choosy about the brand of biscuits they eat.

Usual evenings see the three little ones being fed in front of my house. The sound of my door around that time of the day means KP and BP emerging from some hidden unknown corner of the world, and JP taking a small ‘food break’ from his leak. The food is never enough (don’t smirk at me…the world wont be enough if you came down to really feeding them), and sharing food is not exactly their forte. I usually make exceptions for BP and feed him more, as being the ugly one, he gets fed less often by the other dwellers of the street. JP is rough. He knows how to grab his grub and gobble it down before anyone can snatch it away. And KP, by the way, is one of the wicked dogs I have known. He looks sweet and hungry and ‘poor’…only when its dinner time. Otherwise he could also qualify as ‘The Mean One’ or ‘The Nasty One’. At meal times, unlike the other two fighting for food, he has his spot picked where he would sit, tilt his head and make the most adorable puppy dog faces in the history of puppy dog faces…and would get his meal served on a platter!

And this brings us to the day of ‘The Great Leak’. Instead of biscuits, I had bread for the three of them, and yes, there ware a few biscuits too. I gave them a crumb of bread each, which they sniffed, rejected, and demanded their usual biscuit feast. I flung another bread crumb, but they super sensitive noses told them that there were biscuits hidden somewhere. I pulled out the much sought after pack and threw a piece and the ruckus that followed was worth a watch. Even the wise ass KP couldn’t resist and entered a growl war with BP. And just when the situation could go out of hands, JP did something that I will never forget. He took a leak. On the biscuit. And the three of them quietly got back to their bread crumbs and stared chewing. Finished their grub and they were back to their usual business- KP and BP playing in mud, and JP to his favorite corner to pee some more.

And I stood there dumbfound. In the world where a bunch of retards broke down a mosque a decade or two back, and half of the population of a country has been fighting for the piece of land since then; in the world where after years of legal / theological discussions and tussles, a Supreme court decides to give a share to everyone just to make them happy, and the media still trying to tickle the two parties into another tussle… ‘the great leak’ of JP came as a whack in the faces of so many of us.

And while the immaturity of the masses takes ages to decide if a temple of a mosque should be built in Ayodhya, or to which side of the border does the piece of land named Kashmir belongs to, my three little pups did the right thing and moved on!

For old times sake... ;)

Something I wrote about an year back during the B-school days...hence some references which not everyone would understand.

_____________________________________________

My head is spinning

Did they actually low down the music? Or is it just me?

“dude, party over or what?”. “…………..”. “dude???”. “………………..”. no point

As I walk back to my room, my thoughts wander to those early days here – the first day (that’s another story…), the first class, the first set of friends, the first JLT... “Crap no, stop dreaming. There is an assignment due for tomorrow, and classes from 9 to 9, and the term project due for the day after, and this quiz thing”…but that’s ok. I ll take them one by one.

So, where was I…yes, the first class! (no, am not going to talk about the first day…come on, I am not suicidal, am I?). I was pretty excited…will sound a little weird to all those tortured ones who know me more, but yes, I was excited. God like profs, strange sounding subjects, and weird looking books…how is a lesser English Grad expected to react to this? Questions like - “How will I manage?”, “What will I do in the class where most would ponder…and I would wonder?” would haunt me. Come on, don’t blame me…they all said b-schools are hell. And what did this lesser mortal do in the first class? Lol…he slept…shamelessly…partly because of the sleepless nights which the seniors passed on to us as traditions, and partly because I had no clue about half of the things the Prof chose to assume that people know! Ahh, what a beginning! But no, Let me be more specific.

Ok, Quantitative methods 1, better known as QM1 here in XIM. Probabilities and graphs and curves (not “those” curves) and equations and what not. The guy lived math: ate, drank, and breathed…everything with math! I sometime wonder if he does a beta test every time before visiting the washroom…to decide to do or not to do! I mean, come on prof, how on earth would I know everything you think I do? You are a member of ISI (the statistics one…and not the other one!), not me. But that’s ok…when more than half of the batch gets a zero in an announced open book quiz, I realize its time to move on!

MC…

…ahem

There are things that you can help…and there are things you cant. Managerial computing falls in the second classification. The guy is god…seriously. In an MC class, things don’t matter…rather they shouldn’t matter. In an argument, he is always right (you know what I mean yeah?). Just a couple of sessions in the course, he’ll make you realize a couple of things:

· He knows technology better than anyone you have ever come across

· He knows accounting and finance better than anyone you have ever come across

· He is more intelligent than anyone you have ever come across

· You are the biggest idiot to have ever walked on the surface of this planet!

That’s it…no more about MC. Request to the person being discussed here (if accidentally he comes to read this): J every thing said upstairs has been said (oops…written) in good humour. So…you know what I mean!

EA 1 and 2: How I wonder if one could average out the energy levels of the two profs in focus here, life would be so much easier for the poor ones who have to sit through those classes. One, all too soft and quiet and ‘lullaby’cally melodious that, not that you don’t want, but you just cant stay awake! The second one…boom. The guy is like the whole economics department of Jadavpur university all pumped up and hell bent on shoving the entire macro-economics down your throat. Even if you are half dead with sleeplessness, he will keep you awake…but he is good. Perhaps one of the most sincere and committed people I have ever known. And btw, his was one subject I really studied.

Question: If a person goes to a television shop and points towards a television set and agrees to buy one of that model, makes the payment there and asks for the set to be delivered to his residential address, and while a third party logistics guy is delivering it to the above mentioned place, he drops the set bang on the door of the house of the buyer, in front of the buyer…who pays for the set?

Answer: @$%&&^&#@

Question: if a person “MS” ( J ) opens a “chana shop” ( J ) in front of the XIMB campus and his assistant sells his “chana” to X without his knowledge at a price lower than the actual price, is the transaction still valid?

Answer: Sir, please……….

Question: X contracts to sell one share of MEL to Y on 01.01.08 for Rs.400. On that date, the market price of the share settled at Rs.375. Y refuses to take delivery…

And life goes on…the second person to make me realize that I actually am the biggest idiot to have ever walked on the surface of this planet! That was Business Law (for the record)

There is a lot more…but I think I should stop. But one course that deserves a mention here is FMGD (Firms, Markets and Global Dynamics). The guy is a saint. Yes, given all the theatrics and the monkey business that he does in the class…he is a saint. Haven’t met a person like him ever before, and don’t think will ever meet. I will not be surprised if a few years down the line he gets a Nobel or something! Ever thought one could predict the future of the world (economically, politically et al)? Ever wondered if even Adam Smith missed out on something very basic while propounding his theories? J Yes!

And I also realize that while writing this last paragraph, I have been extra careful about not making any grammatical mistakes. Come on, the man deserves it!

Yawn…sitting near my window, I see the sun slowly rising. The music is still on (so the party is still on I guess). My head is still spinning. I ll talk about the first set of friends and the first JLT (hehe, I know there are some people who would love to hear my account of the first JLT!) sometime later…have a few things to take care of. Have an assignment due at 9 (that’s like 4 hours from now), term project due tomorrow (hmm…I ll look into that later) and the quiz! I think I’ll go have a cup of tea and then start from somewhere.

And yes…completely forgot…I need to sleep too…for a while. Its been three days!

Little did I know

Chimes and chants, and robes and pyres

Prayers and sermons, and incenses and fires

All my stay at the halfway house

I spent being a ‘pious’ man

Sat alone

In my corner

With the ‘book’

And looked down upon those who sat with a different book

But little did I know…

Running and running, and running and running

Giving and taking, and I thought I understood it all

The trick

The game

And they all called me successful

The stuff of the house, I sold to the visitors

They never asked and I never had to answer

If the stuff was even mine

But little did I know…

Grumbling and grumbling, and passing whines

I divided the house and drew all lines

Sitting in my corner all the while

I fought and fought

And wont let anyone in

Stamped their feet with the hammer

Punched their noses

Drew blood

Both theirs and mine

I did my duty

But little did I know…

Little did I know…

That all this while when I have been busy gathering some imaginary currency (note: currency is not necessarily money…but any stock or bunch which one thinks will be of value when one leaves the halfway house), I missed on everything that the place really had to offer. There were trees in some rooms and some rooms had mountains. Some had rivers and some had fountains. There were colours and flavours and tastes and sensations…all of which I forgot! I had roses in my corner of the room, which i just ended up protecting from everyone…neither did I enjoy the fragrance myself, nor did I let anyone else do it! While singing my prayers (given to me by an earlier visitor), I often forgot to help my neighbor (sometimes chose to ignore his cries just because he sang a different prayer).

Little did I know…

That there was enough for everyone in the halfway house

that there are no rewards in the morning when one leaves from here

this place was made for me (and everyone) to enjoy

...and that the place itself is the beginning and the end!!!

The Patliputra Chronicles (Part-1)

10 things you cant miss when you are in Bihar

1. People spit. A lot. Sometimes you feel the place wont require monsoons to get flooded.
2. Public transport is perhaps the best in the world. A good part of the population lives on bicycles. Auto-rickshaws work in lieu of the busses…and are usually always as crowded too. Indian Railways provides personalized services here. Every coach in the train has a lever (emergency brakes) which the people are supposed to pull to stop the train wherever they want to get down...at least they think its meant for that!!
3. The universal “road rights” (the ones that say that the pedestrians have more right on the road than a guy on a bike, who in turn has a more right than the one driving a truck) do not apply. Auto-rickshaws are the kings of this jungle and sit right at the apex of this food chain!
4. Shops don’t sell eggs and bread after 10 in the morning. On a more personal note, do not go out asking for eggs or bread at any store after 10 AM…there is a good possibility that everyone around you would seem shocked at the sacrilege that you have committed. You might also get giggled at!
5. Remember that FEVICOL advertisement which shows a bus fully loaded with people?...yeah, exactly.
6. Apart from a few big towns in the state (few), people everywhere like to do things sitting by the roads- eating, drinking, pissing, shitting, smoking, bathing, even something that seems like random sun bathing! This road can be any kind of road- a local lane by the house, a proper road, a state or a national highway. Thankfully, the runaways on the airport are protected (apart from the airport in this place called “Bhagalpur”). Interestingly, folks also seem to be quite fond of using the national highways for another very very important economic activity…drying corn! (They almost end up using half of the driving area of the highway…traffic can obviously wait)
7. People are hardworking. Very hardworking. Sometime back there was a problem with the water supply in one of the residential buildings here in Patna. One would imagine a havoc to occur…but it didn’t. for weeks people started walking down to the ground floor (some from the 7^th floor) every morning to get drinking water (I don’t know what they did for water for other “necessities”). Very hardworking…just that nobody suggested (or even thought) of getting the water supplied corrected.
8. You are not supposed to crib if you get power supply for more than 12 hours in a day. An AC room in a hotel usually means about 3-4 hours of guaranteed air conditioning at night.
9. You have a right to remain silent. Anything said to anyone in public can be used as evidence against you in a “well audienced” fist-fight!
10. Only rice is understood as proper food. Everything else is breakfast/snacks.

The Sharp-shooters...?

Long time, indeed. No muse knocked on the doors of my consciousness to drag me out of my slumber to pen another one of those notes I used to till about a year or two ago. But finally it did come knocking, and when it did, it did so with a thunder. Ever wondered how many co-incidences happen all the time in the world around us? On second thoughts, its funny how everything that happens happens not because it is intentionally made to happen, but certain other happening that happen to happen unconsciously make it happen…lets put it simply. Had that man (perhaps in his 50s) not stopped to check his pockets while walking to his car, realizing that he had forgotten his vehicle keys in the house, gone back and returned talking on the phone, lazily strolling towards the thing all engrossed in the talk, perhaps he would have escaped, by a few seconds, the bird shitting on him right in the middle of his head. Coincidence isn’t it? Its not over yet. The bird wasn’t really stationed where he had to be to aim on the man’s head…the poor thing was chewing on something in his little corner when, just before the man was to reach the auspicious point, another one of its clan flew it off hoping to grab the grub. It fluttered its wings and moved to where he was meant to be. Everything fell in its right place for the bird to shoot right at the moment when the man strolled by. Boom!!! Thunder followed when the man chose to ignore that the bird, even if it tried, wouldn’t understand the abuses it was being honored with.

The simple incident took me a few months back. Ah, indeed there is fate. And indeed there is destiny. Was it the man’s fate to be bird-shitted upon this morning? Was it bound to happen? Was it already written somewhere out there? Or was it just an interaction of variables, unrelated but interactive? How free is a man from what he is destined to be? Does he choose? Can he choose? Is this choice real? Does this choice make any difference in what happens later? How much, if at all it does? Did that second bird jump on our shooter bird because he had to, for the man’s destiny to happen? Or did the sky pour shit on the man’s head because the bird was attacked? Did he forget the keys, and then got that phone call because only then what was destined to happen could happen? Or did he just forget it, independent of the birds fighting in the air, independent of destiny…he just did!

Yes, if there is one thing that is not as deceptive as the rest, it is the coincidences! Its amazing how easily I have been priding myself of all sorts of things, without realizing that it wouldn’t have been on the man’s head if the birds weren’t fighting!

If the shit fell spot in the middle of the man’s head, does it make the bird a sharp shooter? I feel humbled…

...some random crap

I feel numb. Numb…now when I speak this word, I realize that it refers to something completely different from what I always thought it did. Things always made me believe that it means blankness, a state of void where nothing exists. Perhaps what one experiences with a few kilos of weed running in his blood. Or something when one succeeds (or fails?) in detaching himself from any pain…the state primarily caused by a state of extreme happiness or the lack of it. Today when I say this word…I realize how wrong I was…no, correction, I don’t realize…I just think I realize. If what I thought sums up the meaning of numbness actually sums it up…then it can mean anything but numbness. If I can define it, if I can feel it…then perhaps I am anything but numb. Numbness is when I stop feeling…even stop feeling numb. When you walk out of the funeral of a loved one and don’t even feel or realize that during the entire cremation ceremony, not for a moment you realized what the death of that loved one means. Its when all that you can think of is that you wont get to talk to that person ever again. That’s it. No pain. Just a weird silence of senselessness that one not very often finds oneself in.

In the midst of the wormhole of emotions, one suddenly realizes that he doesn’t know what these emotions are.