two's company

Sorry about the fact that I have been a wet rag the past few days people, I was feeling miserable due to some personal matters, but now, I have recovered, the only problem being that I am swamped with work. I am thinking of getting a dual degree, by adding an MS in Finance to my list :)

So I will have a lot more to do, also I want to complete it in 2 years, but trust me, the MBA is a cakewalk, I am taking 8 courses this semester which is 3 more than most people, yet I am doing well. This goes to show how hard this stuff is.

And like I said, although I have gotten out of my depression, it will be a while till I get to my manic state, that is when the fun stuff comes, today, I have a somewhat upbeat post disguised as a depressing one, hope you will like it.

Loneliness and I have had a relationship since so long, ironic as it may be, she’s been with me throughout my life. The word ironic reminds of a small tangent that I want to go off on. I have many American friends here at the school, and they are all very smart, very mature and intelligent people, but there is a large majority of Americans in my class that is exactly as the stereotype projects them to be, not very aware of the rest of the world, a little distant from people from other countries by living in their own cute little cliques, and so the other day, in the morning class a professor drew a map of the US to illustrate a point, then in the next class another professor did the same to which one guy says "Ah that is ironic" I mean I know it's his language and all- English, but good sir, that is not ironic, it is a coincidence, learn your own language people.

Anyway, back to my loneliness, I never feel like I am 'with' someone, because I need the person to be of a certain sort, and unfortunately, the people who do fit the bill, the very few, never seem to like me back. Oh well. But there is an upside to this, like Henry Rollins says, when you are lonely, you look at life in a different way, it is because you have so much free time. He says that loneliness adds a special little burn to sunsets and makes the night air smell better. And believe me, I was awestruck by how much I related to this. I often stare at the setting sun and wonder at the beauty of the sky, and this is not the typical beauty that lends itself to the eye from its symmetry, in fact, it is this very fact- that it is beautiful without symmetry that makes it so special. Would I have this free thinking time had I been un-lonely? I think not.

The second condition also holds true for me. I often everyday stay awake late, like right now, it is 3:00 AM EST and I just drank half a gallon of coffee. Guess sleep will have to wait, I am currently preoccupied with my favorite mistress- Loneliness, So when I go out to my balcony to smoke, I smell the fresh nightly air, free of pollution, and the crass noise that daytime tends to bring along like those pesky children that some parents find extremely fun to tag along to public places. The sweetness hits me because i will usually be preoccupied with how it would be to not be lonely. This is, in my opinion, the perfect definition of an epiphany, one that repeats itself every single time I go out to smoke. It never fails, a quality that I greatly admire, a difficult attribute at that, with very few humans capable of pulling it off.

And, when I smell the air, it makes me drift off, ever so slightly, into a beautiful world where existential thoughts have a physical presence, and they make me feel good, and I forget about how I don't know anybody, not my so called friends, not my parents, not anyone. Ah Philosophy, what woudl I do without you? Anyway, this existentialism makes me realize that I am alive, and although everyday is a struggle for me, trying to fit in with this strange human world; made up of smoke and water, I feel like my life actually has 'meaning.' I make it out of nothing, yet it is tangible, I need no empirical proof, and I need no evidence I know it a priori. Maybe this is what early humans mistook for a 'god' but we all know how I feel about that needless and pointless topic, now don't we?

So don't despair, especially if you are one of those people like me who feels more alone when surrounded by people, there is an upside to everything. My bipolar tendency is also a sort of blessing because in my manic state, I don't realize all this that I have just spoken about but I seem perfectly normal to others and feel perfectly normal myself and I lead a normal life for a few days. So you see, I have the best of both worlds.

It is good to be alive.

And as a parting gift, here is a saying I recently saw, and it is perfect metaphor for what I just went through ;)

She went her unremembering way,
She went and left in me
The pang of all the partings gone,
And partings yet to be.
- Francis Thompson

out in smoke.

Anbumani Ramadoss is a man of many talents. His ability to convert abstract concepts into tangible reality is nothing short of astonishing.

And If you are a fan of irony like I, you'll love him, oh bee-tee-dubya he is the union health minister of our country. [hate to say this, but I am gonna miss dubya, and those awesome bushisms]

Yes, I am talking about the new law which bans smoking in public places, wherein one is not allowed to smoke in the following places: shopping malls, cinema halls, public/private work places, hotels, banquet halls, discotheques, canteens, coffee houses, pubs, bars, airport lounges and railway stations. Only.

[You'd almost think he has a personal vendetta against the humble cigarette.]


Pictured: Mug Shot of culprits who ran away with said minister's wife.

So what's left ? its like selling bullets in a land where guns are outlawed. anyway, your home, and the road are apparently alright to smoke in. But I can't smoke at home, so the only place left for me to smoke is the road.

Anyway, for the more conforming of you, this is a good thing right ?
Before you come to a judgment, consider this:

It is now illegal to smoke in a pub full of people who got there exclusively to smoke, drink and have a conversation with their friends and acquaintances. But, it is perfectly legal to walk around on the road, a convenience utilized by everyone except those with superpowers that enable them to fly, and blow smoke onto the faces of pregnant women, paraplegics, asthma sufferers, old people, infants and other sensitive individuals who just might happen to be unlucky enough to be walking about in your vicinity, while minding their own business, and staying the fuck away from pubs because that is where they think the smoker scum likes to settle.

I, however, am biased; being a smoker, I naturally revolt at this curtailment in my freedom, it may actually be what the non-smokers want though. Judging from the looks that I evoke from people when a whiff of smoke from my cigarette accidentally drifts their way, I would imagine that they feel like they just inhaled a hot steamy draft of flatulence straight from the devil's rear after a scrumptious meal of eggs, beans, and super spicy Mexican food. But as Bill Hicks says: Too bad they get the second hand smoke that smells so bad, because the stuff that we are taking in tastes so good.

Another one of his talents that I shall talk about today is his ability to magically create statistics. Out of thin air, like an expert conjurer, he effortlessly plucks them from the imaginary ether that permeates the air around accomplished douchebags. Granted, I haven't really verified whether these numbers are correct or not, but they seem too absurd to be accurate, and Karbage is NOT a news blog. The emphasis is on subjective analysis with an as-I-like-to-call-it hippy bent. So if I have made a mistake; too bad for you.

Ramadoss said 40 per cent of deaths occur in India due to tobacco related diseases while two-third of deaths occur due to smoking, junk foods and usage of drugs.

I challenge you to make sense of this statement.

Trip 2, The Mids...

This post of mine is put up here purely for academic purposes and for the sake of completeness, it is a break from my normal informal style and content, I shall get back to my old deviant ways after this post. Until then, here is a report of the place that I visited, and as expected, it is boring, sort of like a text book article, you can skip it if you like.

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So I was in Dumka, there was a TV in the hotel! Excited, I watched TV till 4 am which I don't otherwise do, and slept a dreamless sleep.

Awoke the next day when they came to pick me up for my first field visit. We had the same Omni and the same freaking driver again.

what the hell !?

Luckily, the brightness of day presented a different 'driver' Per Se in the sense that he wasn't drunk, and he now knew which side was left and which was right.

And so it began, I in the front seat with about 4 giggling women in the back, yapping away to glory in their strange and exotic sounding Santhali language. The roads soon disintegrated from being barely pliable pot hole-fields to dust trails that just happened to be there. We finally reached the village where the local SHG (self help group) would invariably welcome us with a Santhali song and garlands made from locally available flowers. I visited 6 such villages, and I have a video of one such welcoming song, but my connection doesn't allow me to upload it.

I was not expecting such an elaborate reception and felt out of place when they tried to seek my blessings by touching my feet, I asked one of my translators to tell them not to do so. From an academic standpoint, this(touching of the feet) is mostly a Hindu form of seeking an elders blessings which is strange because the santhali people are predominantly Christian. I suspected that they might practise a form of Christianity that was hybridized with Hinduism, a fact confirmed by their many Hindu customs such as the fact that the women wear the bindi on their forehead and put vermilion on the partition of their hair, and the presence of the Tulsi plant(Sage) in a sacred pot in the center of their mud dwellings. The interior of their huts is shown below, note the floor; which is made by mixing mud and cow dung. Also, they all, and I mean ALL, paint their doors the same color of blue, I forgot to ask why.



The poverty is quite dire, I feel like a criminal for wasting money on cigarettes and other trivial, non-essential activities, and there is nothing I can say that will truly explain their situation to you, hence I rely on this snap to do it for me.


Santhali woman at her home, with her Produce.

But all was not bad, this was her backyard.


They live with nature

These people have such little exposure to the rest of the world that they have to be taught the merits of cooperation, team work and group activities. So basically we explain to them the benefits of forming Self Help Groups (SHGs) and then we teach them how to manage the groups. After they learn this, they are taught modern methods of Farming, Animal Husbandry, vermi composting, and they are also taught how to improve their own traditional handcrafts such as this traditional criss cross mat that they make:


Traditional Mat

After they are taught these basics, we teach them to read and write Hindi, so that they can sign their names instead of using their thumbprints as they did earlier. We then introduce the SHG to the local State Bank, which evaluates the SHG as a while and gives them a grading, they usually get the second grading which allows them a loan of upto RS.25000 or about $540. An advantage of this is that they have gotten over their dependence on local money lenders called Mahajans, who make the (Libor + X) interest, that some institutions charge, seem like a steal.

Also, there is a scheme called the National Rural Employment Guarantee scheme or NAREGA, which is a scheme developed by the government that utilizes locally available manpower to work in the labor intensive development projects such as the building of canals for irrigation, dams, lift irrigation schemes, roads, etc. they get paid Rs.86 per day of work or approximately $2. They need our assistance in getting the job cards that enable the bearer to work in NAREGA because being extremely poor, they are either overlooked or denied the card due to their inability to pay the bribe amount to the officials.

There are a lot of other areas such as; para-legal training, training on the working of the political system something Indians like myself will remember as the subject 'Civics' from high school, Self-confidence building measures, etc. which we coach them in.

In short, their lives are hard, and comparatively, I have it easy.

With all these interruptions in their lives and the hardship they face, they still seem to be content, I could feel and see carefree serenity in their behavior and the way they seemed to approach life. Here is a woman with her grandchild, maybe you can see what I mean.

Woman with grandchild

This my folks; is Rural India, in 2008.

I!

==Warning==

Disclaimer ahead.

==Disclaimer==

It is a sad situation that all of my posts need a disclaimer. So go ahead read the disclaimer;

Okay, here is a post, otherwise known as a 'vanity post', where one describes oneself in flattering words, which is being posted here, by me, under the laughable assumption that readers would be interested in finding out more about me.

So, if you are put off by pompous pontification, blatant fabrication, quixotic fantasies, or outrageous blasphemies, (well... Ok, maybe there won't be any blasphemy here, I just made the last one up for the rhyme.) I'd suggest you not waste your time by reading any further.

I usually, never reveal these, but I am a little high right now, and will regret putting this up a little later, but I am trying to be a normal human and this is my first step

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The actual Post.

Things you probably didn't know about me:

1) I feel detached from everything, and often I forget who I am for a short while, I feel like I am watching myself from a distance, after having floated out of my body, I guess this is what makes existentialism so interesting for me.

2) I can read and write Arabic! yeah I can :( I don't know why.
ﻮﻳﺨﺖ ﺴﺎﻏﺮ (my name)

3) I have the will power of a kid in a candy store, yet I went from smoking 2 packs of smokes per day to just once a week, cold turkey. Nope, no withdrawal symptoms yet

4) I have never gone for a single guitar class in my life, I guess it shows, Haha, no, seriously, I am pretty good! (I am not usually this confident, and I had to force myself to write the last line, but I am trying to be funny, so it doesn't matter.)

5) We opened for Motherjane in CREC, Calicut =)

6) When it comes to women, I still think that one day, someone will recognize my shyness for what it is, and not mistake it for arrogance. Well, there is another fanciful idea that will never come true.

7) I like helping people even if I know they won't be thankful, maybe being a martyr of sorts gets me off, a little.

8) I always try to be the last to reply, in a conversation, check the comments on this blog, they are usually even in number, unless I have replied to 2 at the same time, because I find it rude to not reply.

9) After watching 'My Sassy Girl', Pachelbel's Canon in D major makes me sad, every time I hear it. Its true.

10) If you have read till here, congrats, you have more patience then I will ever have, I will stop here, for I don't want to bore you.(Talk about wishful thinking!)
bye
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Listening to '3 Libras (Acoustic) ' - A Perfect Circle and hoping I don't make a fool of myself.

Everyone's problem.

I have been following the US elections since quite a while. I like to read about the various issues that they are faced with and come to an opinion of my own.

But, I must confess trivial problems like Chicago's public transportation nightmare or the pro-life\pro-choice debate hold no interest for me(Although I am pro-choice all the way), I am, however highly interested in what comes out of this debate on banning the burning of their national flag, now we are all aware that this is a freedom that is not allowed in our country, another symptom of what I like to think of as the effect of having not real but pseudo-freedom of speech.

Very succinctly embodied in the following cliche:

You are free to do as we tell you.

It is at times like these that I pause to wonder how the late Bill Hicks could have been so right about every Democracy that man has known till now. The problem plaguing my mind is the fact that there is no foreseeable alternative to this flawed system in sight.

So, I hear that Billary Hillary is for banning 'flag burning', I hope she doesn't end up winning, for that will be yet another defeat for rational thought, another body-blow to Pacifism, and liberalism, etc.-all things that should have been but aren't a staple of modern life.

I could be accused of making a mountain a mountain out of a molehill, after all, not my country, not my problem right ? wrong! this concerns us all.

I believe:

Loss in Freedom = Return to Fascism.

and we don't want that do we ?

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Listening to 'Carry on my wayward son' - Kansas

Nihilism

It is 3:30 am, I have to get to the school at 9:00 tomorrow.
And I can't sleep for some reason. been in a dazed sort of state since an hour in the darkness, waiting for sleep to claim me, once again. I love her even though she is fickle, for she always comes to me.
I was thinking maybe, everyone creates his own little reality, maybe the Nihilists were right, maybe there is absolutely nothing, and existence is pointless in the traditional sense. Yet paradoxically, there is a point. The point is, to create your own reality, with your own fears, your own gods, your own reasons.

A man who believes in god, believes in the fact that his 'god' watches him, and will reward his deeds, however when he dies, he stops existing, he sleeps that long sleep and never wakes up. His reality dies with him. Yet, his reality would mean the very substance on which the man would live on.

In Chuck Palahniuk's 'reality', his god kills off people, when they got too boring or too predictable. And when he dies, his reality will die with him.

In an artist's reality, his art might mean his 'god', he might strive to acheive perfection, get as close to god as he can by taking his art to the very limits of his talent. And then he dies. His reality dies with him.

So, in this sense I am really a Nihilist.

I would have normally waited till tomorrow to write this article, but I didn't want to adulterate the feeling with excess thought.

I didn't want to sell out.

This is my reality.
My very own reality.
A waking Lucid Dream.
It is mine to do, as I wish.

Dark Gloomy Sunshine.

Disclaimer: The following post is quite depressing, please do not read it, if you,like me, get easily depressed\blue\etc... and would not like your 'holiday mood' to be destroyed. Cheers :)

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It is Sankranti again. When we were little, this was an intensely happy time. There were no worries that ate into your peace leaving behind gangrenous unhappiness, 'Pay Package' was an innocent verb back then, now it is a freaking noun. A dark sinister noun. Having fun meant forgetting your problems if any, now it means spending money and faking laughter with untrue friends.

On other days, you see poor little boys with their oversize and torn t-shirts and their soiled pants, who have miserable expressions on their faces, you feel pity for them, yet during sankranti, you see the same kids flying kites, happy as anyone can be, happy as anyone ever was, perhaps now, they pity us and our staying at home, and our bland food at expensive new restaurants. Life is not a burden for them it seems. It is not too much trouble buying and flying a kite.

Ask a man who earns a gazillion lakhs per annum on the other hand, in his hot new Mercedes Benz with its Top-Of-The-Line features, talking into his blackberry mobile, 'would you come fly a kite with me ?', and he will say that he is tired, has been flying throughout the week and can't afford to waste valuable sleep time, flying a piece of paper, besides he pays big bucks for his stress reduction program and he can't miss that.

Yes, let us do that. Let us waste our one chance running after pieces of paper, while turning a blind eye to the serenity of our existence, and the value of the time we've been given.

In short, what I want to say is that there was a time when I loved holidays because it was a joyous time, now(Actually, when I was a 'generic software engineer') I love them because it keeps me away from work and gives me time on my own.
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Listening to Wild World - Mr. Big

From the sublime to the ridiculous is but a step