Brainwaves

Tea was disappearing quickly from the glass in my hands. It was not the usual sweet milky liquid but the sweet, dark and lemony one. A leaf of mint lay dead at the bottom of the glass. I sipped the tea as I listened to the conversation being tossed around in the group. As is usual among people who consider themselves intelligent, the group was theorizing and philosophizing on one topic after other. From time to time, I threw in an intelligent thought and then went back to watching the vehicles zipping past. 

Vehicles don't fascinate me. When I consider buying a car, I look at the dashboard and the music system rather than the other parts. At best I will check the colour of the car and its tyres. The engine with its HP And Dell don't interest me! So I was not studying the make of the vehicles per se. I was evaluating the compatibility of a vehicle with its owner. I hear you ask "how the hell do you do that?" and I respond "I do it the way I do it. What is it to you?" At times, I tried guessing the mood of the persons traveling in the vehicle. This guessing game is more interesting than it sounds; you should try it sometime.

The thought struck me when I saw a lady driving a Jeep Compass. It came in as a "What will you call a Jeep being driven by a lady?" Almost instantly, I heard the response from the other side of my brain "Sheep". I was astounded by the thought and shared it instantly with my group. They gave me a look that made me feel sheepish. The crow sitting on the tree was not that forgiving. It dropped a load of its dropping on my head. 

All in a day's work...

A horoscope entry throws up the line "You are not required to set yourself on fire to keep other people warm". I feel the warmth of these words.

For another write-up I searched the Internet for quotes on truth. Found some interesting ones and decided none of them reached the depths of my stagnant thoughts. But some of them are interesting enough to be placed in a safe for the future.

"If you want to be thought a liar, always tell the truth" - Logan Pearsall Smith

"The truth is rarely pure and never simple"- Oscar Wilde

"If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything" - Mark Twain

"I never did give anybody hell. I just told the truth and they thought it was hell." - Harry S Truman

"A lie told often enough becomes the truth." - Vladimir Lenin,  Russian communist revolutionary, politician and political theorist.

Once I saw the following one, I scrolled down no more.

"There are no facts, only interpretations" - Friedrich Nietzsche

A feeling of jealousy creeps into me as I watch the entertaining events unfolding in the state of Karnataka. Though Tamilnadu has its own share of entertainers, the current scenario in Karnataka promises much entertainment in the coming years. The fun part is that the three people in the fray all have shady pasts and to choose one shady out of these is a challenge. Ultimately, the real shady has come to the forefront. As Eminem prophesied 18 years ago,

May I have your attention please?

May I have your attention please?

Will the real Slim Shady please stand up?

I repeat will the real Slim Shady please stand up?

We're going to have a problem here

...

'Cause I'm Slim Shady, yes I'm the real Shady

All you other Slim Shadys are just imitating

So won't the real Slim Shady, please stand up,

Please stand up,

Please stand up

'Cause I'm Slim Shady, yes I'm the real Shady

All you other Slim Shadys are just imitating

So won't the real Slim Shady, please stand up,

Please stand up,

Please stand up

Imagine the CM designate of the state singing these lines. That's entertainment, buddy!

Sometimes life goes along well, in a straight line. Of course, if you look close enough, you will realize it is not straight at all. There are ups and downs and lefts and rights. But it is best not to inspect the line that close. Let us move up till we see it as a straight line. Out of the blue, the line goes haywire. It goes everywhere and regardless of the height you rise to, it does not look straight. Many of your thoughts and beliefs are shaken. You have no choice but to reevaluate the line. One part of you wants to forget and go back to the apparent straightness but you remind yourself of the line-shattering event and ensure you don't go back to the apparent straightness. The line will get back to its desired state of apparent straightness again but the randomness brought by the event can never be erased. Life goes one but it is not the same life as earlier.

It's a boon that we work. Work makes us forget, the people and event we should not remember. Though not true always, work has little emotion involved. If it has to be done, it has to be done. It does not matter whether you hate it or like it. You can crib your head about it later but when it has to be, it has to be done. At the end of a focused effort, the satisfaction you get looking back at the results is incomparable. It is the only aspect of our life, that gives back what we expect, that is assuming you expectations don't touch the moon. 

Fingers of life

It went on and on and on
I was tired as it went on and on and on
I looked around
And saw her raise a finger at me
Not Thumb
Not little
Not index
Not ring
Up for split of a second
My face drowned in shock
Searched surrounding faces
No shock; none at all
I looked back
Hands lay on her lap
Same finger moving back and forth
I looked at her face
A stifled smile
I turned my sight away

A noisy place
She said something
I said something
No idea what
But she thought she knew
All hell broke lose
How could you?
Unacceptable behaviour!
I tried assuaging
But of no avail
In my head, that finger went up
Not Thumb
Not little
Not index
Not ring

Lets end it here.

Dirty old man

I am reminded of the song Mean Mr.Mustard today, especially the end that goes Such a dirty old man.

The song and the day reminds me of The Ode to dirty old men by Crawson Croody.

You should know, if you don't

World's filled with many dirty old men

I met one, in a bar one day

Shouting across the counter

Words obscene enough to shrivel flowers

Many fainted on hearing him swear

He should be crowned a dirty old man

Did you hear the story

About Vinny from Kentucky

Took his friends for coffee

To a shop posher than the Ritz

He slunk into his plush seat

Sipping black coffee

In a manner very cocky

His speech smelt awfully

Too bad for the young ones

Their sensitive inside shriveling

On hearing his sly innuendos

More dirty than clean

They vowed to keep away

From such a dirty old man

From Theekadal kadanja thirumaduram

I am reading the book named above, തീക്കടൽ കടഞ്ഞ തിരുമധുരം by C.Radhakrishnan. I found the following interesting line in it.

പുക പുറത്തു കാണാതിരിക്കാൻ നന്നായി മൂടിവെച്ചാൽ മതിയാവും പക്ഷെ, തീയിന്റെ ചൂട് നാലാപ്പാടും പറക്കുന്നത് തടയാൻ എങ്ങനെ പറ്റും?

The line reminds me of the phrase "there is no smoke without fire" though it is quite different from it. The meaning of this phrase is "You can control the smoke from a fire by enveloping it completely, but how can one attempt to stop the spread of the heat from the fire?"

The book is a biography of Thunjath Ezhuthachan.

A valiant loser's tale

It started out innocently. A chat over a cup of tea. Talking about this and that. A bit of teasing each other. As ever, the topic moved to bitching about work. The usual topics. Nothing unusual; "Can you believe what she said?" and "That fellow had the nerve to assume it". Nothing unusual. At that point, he mentioned something that seemed to him the core of the issue. The women had objection to the statement. They debated or argued or threw statement back and forth or whatever it is the right thing to be said for argument these days. He fought hard, throwing everything he had at them. But the opposition was too strong. The two pronged attack was not easy to handle. He continued the valiant fight as the scene of battle moved to the car. The fourth person in the group remained silent for long.

He continued arguing with the two ladies who smothered him with statements on passion and dedication. The oft-abused words got on his nerves and he doubled the strength of his attack. That's when the attack from the side came. The fourth fellow, who was silent so far, came up with some more words on passion. He turned and gave the fourth fellow an incredulous look. Julius Caeser would regretted not having that expression when Brutus stuck the knife into him. The ladies were overjoyed and vaah-vaahed the knife that was surreptitiously stuck in from the side. He did not give up but tried to fight on. It was a valiant fight but he like Duryodhana was not on the side of right. He painted a negative picture and the one who paints such pictures can never win or even be allowed to exist. He got out his mobile phone, called someone and talked for a minutes into the phone. By then, the car had reached its destination. He muttered a "Goodbye", opened the door and jumped out of the car in a single fluid motion.

Not worth giving up one's life 

Over words like passion and dedication

Free from words should be our life

Focusing on living should be the only condition

Damn the world where words create strife

Damn the living which considers propagation of words as its mission

Unnecessary words

He had the ability to argue with anyone on anything at anytime. If everyone agrees on something being white, he interjects with a "Its not white enough". If everyone agrees on something being black, he interjects with a "Oh! Its more gray than black". I am sure if someone says vehemently to him that the earth is spherical, he would argue till the other person agrees that the earth is cylindrical. Mind you, I am not telling you that he is argumentative ass (I refer to the good old A for ass type of ass and not the current American version). He is not a flame thrower charging at you from the top of a mountain but is more a person trying to playing with other's tolerance levels. The time I have spent with him made me realize that people do have low tolerance limit. Everything is fine as long as he does not touch upon their sensitive topics. But once that happens, there is no turning back and everything he says seems to annoy the receiver.

It is good to be in his company but one has to be watchful to never let his words enter your ego. Once that happens, you better stay a mile or two away from him.

He expresses his disdain at the many activities that the world has turned into a fad, especially in the realm of physical activities. The words he uses to describe people who monitor their calorie loss, distance covered and many other parameters as they run with their mobile phones stuck in the arm band can make one run out of the room in mirth or shock. He also has an array of stinging words for the fad Yoga is turning into. The other day, he was mock coaxing someone to do Pranayama for betterment of his health. I tapped him on his shoulders and said "Hey, that's easy. All he has to do is to talk to you for 10 minutes and his breathe will quicken to such an extent that it will be even more effective than Pranayama". 

He laughed and was quiet for 15 seconds, which might not get into the Guiness book of records but can certainly be considered for the Limca book of records.

********************

The sound of the gong only came on once a day. But one day, the gong disappeared. People searched high and low, right and left, here and there but of no avail. They plopped on the ground with a frustrated "Where's the gong?" Prompt was the response "It's Gong with the Wind"

********************

The sun stared at us from the sky. It seemed to be singing Heart's song

If looks could kill

you'd be lying on the floor

you'd be begging me please please

baby don't hurt me no more

If looks could kill

It was so hot that people's habits were changing. Usually they looked downwards to find an appropriate location to sit down. But these days they upwards at the ceiling in search of a fan. They had to sit within a radius of 1.5 metres around the fan. These were considered fan-tastic positions that provided one with a little sat-isfaction.

The end of days

We are passing through an emotional phase. When I say 'we', I don't mean the whole world but a few hundred of us going through a period of tremendous change. For many years, we used the word 'will' liberally and now the 'will' has turned into 'are'. In a few days, it will turn into 'have'. We are shocked; we believed the 'will' will remain 'will' and will never change into something urgent and immediate. The 'will' has disappeared and we are forced to strengthen our will to deal with the 'are'. But there is time still; a day or two to 'wallow in sentiments' ("why the quotes?"you ask. Well, borrowed words have to be placed in quotes).

I am not quite sure what I am talking about. I thought I did when I started writing. I was supposed to write a couple of introductory lines and move on to the topic. Instead, I am spending time trampling the English language. I have lost track of my train of thoughts.

The meeting was in its seventh minute when an expected interruption presented itself. I came out of the room and stood indecisively. As has been the case for the past months, I had train-loads of work and some of these required my urgent attention. But I felt tired, not the sleep type of tired, more like the tired that Fates Warning sang about.

Tired of mind

and all I think

Tired of thirst

and all that I drink

Tired of will

and all that I need

Tired of body

and all that I bleed

Tired of breath

and all that I breathe

Tired of heart

and all that I grieve

Tired of sight

and all that I see

Tired of you

and tired of me

I talked, briefly, to a familiar long face with a dazed look whose body was standing aimlessly. I mean, I am not sure if the face was physically long as I am not good at remembering a long face from a round one; the face seemed long with sorrow. The words that came out of the face were sorrowful too. In fact, every aspect of the face and the attached body seemed sorrowful. The sorrow added to the burden I felt already and I became tireder than tired. I looked around and saw the empty Neem circle.

The Neem circle was a cemented circle surrounding a Neem tree.  The circumference of the circle had elevated seats made of concrete. On weekdays, it was a filled with people who had to go somewhere but did not want to go and so hung around the tree. Some talked, others studied, a few wore their shoes, while others took them off. In general, everyone appeared relaxed and happy. I had passed it many times but never took a break, even for a few minutes. I have seen it during the weekends, when it was empty, and yet never felt the urge to park myself there, not even for a few minutes. But today, I felt the desperate urge to stretch myself on the seats. For the first time in the past one year, I felt the Neem circle was available for use.

The previous day was an unusually emotional one. The day was a culmination of the crescendo building up over the past many weeks, months and years. On the day, the 'will' turned into 'are'... I am sorry, I have been through that and will not go back. For the past eight years, we have been saying "we will be moving" and yesterday we changed it to "we are moving". It was a moving experience for many.

For many, who spent most of the their lifetimes here.
For many, who had spent a large chunk of their lifetimes here.
For many, whose 'I' took shape here.
For many, who had fallen in love with the place.
For many, whose home it was for many years.
For many, who could not differentiate the 'us' from the place.

I am sure many of the above mentioned persons are aware of the philosophy "we cannot be attached to anything or anyone or anyplace." We understand that even our body is not our own. We have to give it up at some point of time. Our parents, our spouse, our children, our friends, our properties, our belongings, our social media accounts (oh! that was never ours) and this blog  - none of them belongs to any one of us. We live under the false belief of ownership for a few year. But there comes a time when we realize that we don't even own our own physical self. In fact, if we choose to think we will realize that we are not even clear who we are. As philosophical as these thoughts are, these still fall in realm of the mind and logic - (for better effect, the following should be read in a robotic voice) WE DON'T OWN ANYTHING AND SO WE SHOULD NOT BE ATTACHED TO ANYTHING (for better effect, at the end of the line you can say "BEEP, BEEP, SEVEN FOUR SIX EIGHT ALPHA BETA UGRAN THETA SIGNING OFF TIYAOOoooooo...). So as philosophical as we were; as unattached to everything as we were, we still felt terribly sad and walked around the place like zombies.

Some cried.

Others sniffled.

Some took pictures.

Other sat under a tree.

Some talked to others.

Others avoided others.

Some laughed louder than required.

Others laughed lesser than required.

Some tried to make others understand the parting.

The same some could not help but hang their heads in sorrow at the time of their parting.

Right from the beginning of the day, the emotional charge present in the air was obvious . Someone who is barely emotional as I felt my heart thumping heavily inside me. An hour into the assembly, we were all singing the song "Allah tero naam". I was in one of those maestro moods and was belting out the lyrics with gusto. As the song wandered into emotional "WoOoOoO saAaAaAre jag ke rakkhhhh vaAaAaAaAle...", I looked out of the window and saw a person whose attachment to the campus is so legendary that the trees and leaves offer him salutations by swaying and rustling every time he passed them. The campus has been his workplace and home for the past twenty years. No incident in the campus escaped his notice. For the past few weeks, his anger and sadness at the oncoming parting was obvious to all. I have personally witnessed a few of the outbursts and had felt his pain. He busily walked around the campus but did not join the assembly. When I saw him walk by the hall, all those emotional words I have read in the various novels occurred to me - I choked, a lump got stuck in my throat, tears welled my eye and so on. I stopped singing and sat quietly.

... and this was the start of the day.

Towards the end of the day, everyone assembled for a music concert. The show was jolly affair. For a few hours, everyone forgot the upcoming parting.

Some tapped their feet,
some shook their head,
some swayed their body,
some looked around,
some smiled and watched,
some mouthed lyrics while others sang along.

Their songs originated from different places around the world and evoked all kinds of feelings other than sorrow. For example, it was fun to hear the sharp breaths when the words figarugal yarum illaamal vaguppugal irundhum enna payan were sung. For a few minutes, everyone or almost everyone forgot the sadness and indulged in silliness. But soon after the concert, the mood turned sombre and the many people hung around the place till late evening, cuddling and caressing it. All these emotions permeated into me and made me feel more tired than ever.

So that afternoon, when I got a break from the meeting, I did not go back to my table to start working on the many this and that tapping their impatient feet for my attention. I walked to the Neem circle, pushed the unwanted stuff left behind and lay down on the concrete bench. Soon I reached a place between sleep and wakefulness. I was dreaming of something but heard the constant keech-keeches of those birds that, till recently. I had believed were parrots but in reality were parakeets. Their constant keeches woke me up. I stared up. The tree reminded me of the 'Hunchback of Notre Dame' . As far as I know, the Hunchback in the mentioned story only had a hunchback and was not gnarled. But the tree did not have a humpback but was gnarled. Still, for some reason, my mind connected the two.

The gnarled branches of the tree crossed this way and that. It starts off as a solid trunk which at around seven feet forks left and right. Soon after the fork, the left one splits into three - one goes this way, the second one that but the third one, interestingly, shoots off perpendicularly from the other two. At first, it goes down before turning up and forking and sub-forking into many branches. Now, the right branch from the main trunk consisted of disciplined branches which only forked this way and that at regular intervals. The forking processes continues till the program crashes due to lack of memory... Eh! Sorry! Memories from my previous life crept in.  The forking processes continues till the branches and the leaves kissed the sky. The light reflecting and passing through the leaves varied depending on their position with respect to the sun (or is the sun's position with respect to them). The leaves right at the top reflected light directly into my eyeballs and reminded me of LEDs. The leaves lower down let the light pass through them. The shades of green got darker the closer they were to me. If I had a discerning mind, I could have identified the colours of the leaves as Forest Green, Sage Green, Olive Green, Lime Green, Hunter Green, Jade Green, Artichoke Green, Fern Green, Jungle Green, Laurel Green, Moss Green, Mint Green, Pine Green, Tea Green, Persian Green, Army Green, Emerald Green, Kelly Green, Neon Green, Uniform Green, Sacramento Green, Russian Green, Sea Green and even Paris Green. But I was more a primary colours type of a person who struggles to differentiate Violet from Indigo. So I stopped my pointless analysis and just stared at the colours and the network above me.

Soon, I was back in the semi-doze world. I don't remember my dream but at some point of time someone or something started caw-cawing. I opened my eyes once again and looked up. I saw a crow sitting on a branch above my head, calling out to god knows who. For a minute, I was worried of it blessing me with a dropping. But I was too lazy to move. The probability of the event was a low 0.0529 and in case this turned out be a day that fell in this number side of probability, I could scrub my face with sand paper and wash it away with an antiseptic and soap. I soon realized that the crow was not a native to our city. As a matter of fact, it seemed to have traveled from many miles north. Though at first it started off with the familiar crow call of "caw caw caw", it soon brought in variations that made me realize of its knowledge of Hindi. I wouldn't say it had perfect command of the language, but for a crow it put up quite a show. 

When it brought the variations in its calling, I realized it was not calling out "caw caw caw" like the other crows but was actually saying "Ka Kha Gha". I had to focus with all my mind to catch the minor variation between the three syllables. Understandably. the crow did not posses human-like discipline and so did not continue sequentially beyond "Gha". Instead it jumped to "Kyu" and then came up with a frustrated version of it, which sounded "Kiyuuu". At that point, I realized this was not a Kaka from the surrounding of the ek-gaav-mein-ek-kisan-raghu-thatha thatha but had actually flown in from the NCR region. The crow then proceeded to utter "Kho" and "Khou". I heard a crow give out a couple of annoyingly shrill "caw caw" from a distance. I expectantly waited for a "Abe chup!" from our north Indian black crow but heard nothing. I looked up and saw that the crow had flown away. I couldn't help but remember The Byrds singing 

A time to build up, a time to break down

A time to dance, a time to mourn

A time to cast away stones

A time to gather stones together

As The Byrds had sung, there is a time to breakdown, a time to mourn and then the time comes for us to cast away the stones. The crow had helped me realize this message. The past year had brought in a lot of change - a new place, a new profession, new friends and new struggles. Most remain but some would leave. The 'leavers' would end up as memories and new comers will take a part of their place. Life, in our times, is too quick for us to stay and miss someone or something for long. Like the crow, we have to move from Ka to Kha and to Gha. Then life would quite arbitrarily take us to Kyu and if we are not ready to take this leap to Kyu it will gives us an annoyed Kiyuuu. We can either stroll along or will be forced to stride along. 

Life is like a cat, it comes in when it wants to and leaves when it wants to. It lets us relax when it wants us to. But when the feeding time comes, we better feed it, else it will nag us to hell and back. You better pamper that cat for it is your master. I am reminded of something some religious book says at some point,

Kind is the soul of the one who takes care of the animals that reside his/her surrounding

Wise is the soul of the one who understands that the animals that reside his /her surrounding

Take care of him/her

Hmmmm... Eh... I don't think any religion known to mankind is mature enough to say this. This is probably a part of the revelation that I received under the Neem tree. The statement is saturated with bitter truth and hence is obviously a revelation I received that afternoon under the Neem tree.

Good God! The revelation should have come to my humble soul during the time I slept..., I mean meditated under the neem tree. Its time to propagate this revelation through a new religion.

Mmmm..., what can I name it? GVKism? We can localize it as Jeevikism. Live and let live. 

No, too much positivity in the name. That won't do. Remember the Neem tree. Remember the bitterness of truth. Something that reveals the bitterness. 

Hmmm... Ah! Yes! I got it. I shall call it...

ANIMOSITY

and I shall be the one and only Lord Animo.

Hail Animosity! Hail Lord Animo!

The trees (Sad)

I started noticing trees a few years ago. I have no idea how it started and why but it did. I love they way they snake up and go this way and that. The differences between the trees brought out their character in one manner or other. Thus it seemed to me that the trees could feel anger or sadness depending on the situation. Rush used this concept as a metaphor in their song "The trees".

In the song, the group talk about an unrest and misunderstanding between trees. It is one of their popular songs. The following is a rewrite of the lyrics from the point of view of trees missing the inhabitants who have moved out of the place.

The Tree (Sad)

There is unrest in the place

There is sadness with the trees

For the banyan wants activity

And the neem feels lonely

The trouble with the banyan

As it was always with children

They heard their shouts from dawn till dusk

As they run around gleefully

But the neem can't help its feelings

As they could not hear the talks

And they wonder why it stopped

Can't the children come back?

There is sadness in the place

And the children all have left

As the trees scream 'depressing!'

And they sadly, sway in the wind

So the trees formed a union

And demanded some company

'The place is just too quiet

We are used to company'

Now there's no more loneliness

For they passed a noble law

And replaced trees with buildings

By cutting,

Leveling,

And concrete