Wild(e) Quote

"Each man kills the thing he loves"
Oscar Wilde

Kashish...

रेत की थी वो इबाऱत, हवा ने मिटा दिया
कब तक चलें हम उसके परस्‍त, न मंज़िल रही न रास्‍ता रहा

Reth ki thi woh ibarat, hawa ne mita dia
Kab tak chalein hum unke parast, na manzil rahi na rasta raha

Plastic

Not the stuff a bag of vegetables is made of. Off the topic, i'm carrying some home these days. And i hate them too, you know they can clog drains and choke animals trying to peek and bite!

I, however, choked on a lot of other plastic tonight. Here's some.

Plastic smiles, gave away the lovely faces and hot bodies. Oh, i've been watching a premier fashion pageant for the last 3 hours, excuse me. And the models had a trainer each for dance, diction, grooming, hair, nutrition, skin, walk, yoga; ughh, i missed some. And of course, smile - lips 7.68 mm apart with 4.36 mm and 3.32 mm of lower and upper teeth visible respectively. Heads tilted 8 degrees from the vertical as they walked. Should stop here, i love you all. Anyway, you did what you were told to, starry eyed for that moment of glory (Words Courtesy: Moana Sing, jessi koi nai). But may be the organisers could select 25 unmarried Indian girls between 18-25 years and taller than 5'7" who set the ramp on fire without being turned into (plastic) clones of each other, so much for individuality!

A Page 3 Bandar(kar) staring (plastically) at the contestants, did he see a potential Pretty Jain there?

Repeated (plastic) announcements of the 'host n dost' that i'm watching the show live, and when the pre(SET) channel took one of its 10 minutes commercial break, turned on some news that showed the winners in their moment of glory (Words Courtesy: Moana Sing, jessi koi nai). By the way 'host n dost' sir, your humor was stale. Did it go down the drain that was clogged by plastic?

Ladies, i had a wonderful night, i love you all!

Reservation Speak

Never exploited.. never seen them get exploited... why should i bear the brunt of their "upliftment"!! Says an ignorant brat with a profoundly constrained perspective.

I have friends from The Categories. Seemingly normal men and women who have been the same as their unreserved mates for long, actually excelled the latter on many occasions... sometimes without the benefit of Affirmative Action, denied by choice. Being discriminated against, ever, is the last charge they'd lay on anyone; even as most could not resist the freebies doled out to them. None would say they were not given The opportunity.

May be i'm talking about a limited set of people - shunned on caste, but annointed by birth to assured non-deprivation - the so called creamy layer. Not by definition, but then these are my peers, peers of a brahmin, must be the cream of their kind!!

Widen the scope, strip things down to what they are, and we're talking about a cascading effect. Primary to middle to high schools, graduation, postgrad, maybe jobs et al.
Last year I was at AIIMS, medical students of 5 colleges relentlessly protested against reservation. I saw people faint of not eating for days, i saw others fill in their places right away. Their sole cause was that students should not be given special status in postgrad since they already benefitted from reservation during graduation.
If someone gets good elementary education owing to her reserved status, isn't she equipped enough to set ahead on her own, given financial worthiness?
For people who still ask for it at every stage, is backwardness a shining mark on your foreheads? Would you rather get rid of it, or it makes you proud?

That reminds me of the basis of reservation as per Indian constitution. It's social, rather than economic; assumption - a backward is a backward, culturally, monetarily. This equation between social and economic levels is dynamic in the present context, has not been looked at as such.

If you increase the quota at IIMs, how many people can really avail it? The next step you would want to take is initiate the CAT in local languages!!!
I wouldn't oppose affirmative action where it's actually needed. A lot of children miss out on education as it truly is, owing to their economic, geographic, social strata. This needs proactive reform.

Stratifying a society, casteism, is as disturbing as racism. It will restrain India from emerging as a nation forever.

Lost Thoughts

I'm everything you lost. You won't forgive me.
My memory keeps getting in the way of your history.
There is nothing to forgive. You won't forgive me.
I hid my pain even from myself; I revealed my pain only to myself.
There is everything to forgive. You can't forgive me.
If only somehow you could have been mine,
what would not have been possible in the world?

-Agha Shahid Ali

some answers to The Quest

Life's simple, he said, we make it complicated.

Is it plain perception or we actually turn things worse than they are?
A ghost cannot be without a dead man.

Ah, so you let the man live?
Yes, live for what life is, live without tomorrows. Dispel fear, it kills the spirit of man and creates impossibilities.

But he's a mortal, how can he be without fear?
He can't, and That makes him mortal.

Different Drums and Different Drummers

Read this somewhere...

If I do not want what you want, please try not to tell me that my want is wrong.
Or if I believe other than you, at least pause before you correct my view.
Or if my emotion is less than yours, or more, given the same circumstances, try not to ask me to feel more strongly or weakly.
Or yet if I act, or fail to act, in the manner of your design for action, let me be.
I do not, for the moment at least, ask you to understand me. That will come only when you are willing to give up changing me into a copy of you.

If you allow me any of my own wants, or emotions, or beliefs, or actions, then you open yourself, so that someday these ways of mine may not seem so wrong, and might finally appear to you as right - for me. To put up with me is the first step to understanding me. Not that you embrace my ways as right for you, but that you are no longer irritated or disappointed with me for my seeming waywardness. And in understanding me you might come to prize my differences from you, and, far from seeking to change me, preserve and even nurture those differences.

Stranger on My Blog...

I like the soul in your blog posts.. said a stranger
And i wondered.. is it better to have a soul within, or take it out on a bare display... win accolades for that?

And then.. she's still a stranger, largely... not that i'd want her to be!

Pal...

पल… बस ठ़हरने को कहा था तुझे, अपना बनाने की गुज़ारिश नहीं की थी
तू किसी और का हुआ तो क्‍या, मेरे लिए रुक तो सकता था!

Pal.. bas theherne ko kaha tha tujhe, apna banane ki guzarish nahin ki thi
Tu kisi aur ka hua toh kya, mere liye ruk toh sakta tha!

Different Shoes

used to think... why's someone doing a thing i'd never do!!
i don't put him in my shoes anymore.. step into his'

The MANkind

Sometime back (been long, actually) a friend plagiarised (er.. sorry if you are reading this... let's say you were INSPIRED) a popular note on women , and wrote her version for my kind -

OLD ELEMENT IN THE PERIODIC TABLE

Element : MEN

Symbol : WO-

Atomic mass : Accepted as 65 kg; isotopes may vary from 40-200 kg

Occurrence : Copious quantities in all urban, rural and forest areas

PHYSICAL PROPERTIES

1. White, brown or black

2. Adsorption, tremendous affinity to dirt and dust

3. Condensation, covered with a layer of sweat

4. Bad odour

CHEMICAL PROPERTIES

1. Highly reactive with WO+

2. Hybridized state : Electrons always in excited state

3. Capacity to form Unlimited bonds with WO+

4. Does not allow bonding between own WO+ with other WO-

5. Breaks bond with WO+ with high frequency and looks for new WO+

6. High affinity for C2H5OH, alcohol. Shows Brownian movement under it's effect

7. Repelling effect with water

COMMON USES

None found till date

TESTS

1. Turns green when WO+ reacts with another WO-

2. Litmus test : Turns red to blue due to perspiration

POTENTIAL HAZARD

WO+ must always take precautions before WO- bonds, potential threat to mental and physical health. Highly Unstable, keep WO+s out of reach

This was my reply to her...

Just additions to what she wrote.. to give a different perspective

OLDEST ELEMENT IN THE PERIODIC TABLE

PREDATES ALL OTHER ELEMENTS, ACCEPTED NEGATIVITY TO HIGHLIGHT THE IMPERCEPTIBLE POSITIVITY IN WO+

Element : MEN

Symbol : WO-

Atomic mass : Accepted as 65 Kg; isotopes may vary from 40-500 kg (ref. WWE)

Occurrence : Copious quantities in all urban, rural and forest areas, basically wherever there are traces of WO+

PHYSICAL PROPERTIES

1. White, brown or black (please make a note of the variety)

2. Adsorption, tremendous affinity to dirt and dust; characteristic of activity, as opposed to the gross inactivity typical of WO+

3. Condensation, covered with a layer of sweat as a result of the tremendous (sometimes inhumane) toils it undertakes for the sake of WO+

4. Bad odour, camouflaged with deodorants in the advanced members of the species

CHEMICAL PROPERTIES

1. Highly reactive with WO+, react to stabilise WO+

2. Hybridized state : Electrons always in excited state, catalysed by WO+

3. Capacity to form Unlimited bonds with WO+; only if the scope of his WO+s interacting with each other is minimal

4. Does not allow bonding between own WO+ with other WO-, because more bonding between positive and negative ions can result in annihilation

5. Breaks bond with WO+ with high frequency and looks for new WO+, a process often precursored and initiated by WO+. Strangely WO+ regrets once the process is over, n blames it on WO-

6. High affinity for C2H5OH, alcohol. Shows Brownian movement under its effect; which is highly amusing for WO+, so accept it for the entertainment value

7. Repelling effect with water, excepting the water bodies inhabited by WO+

COMMON USES

None found till date, except that their unavailability would render (most specimens of) WO+ incapacitated of bonding

TESTS

1. Turns green when WO+ reacts with another WO- (ref. chemical properties of WO-, given above, for the underlying logic)

2. Litmus test : Turns red to blue due to perspiration (ref. physical properties of WO-, given above)

POTENTIAL HAZARD

WO+ must always take precautions before WO- bonds. Potential threat to mental and physical health, because being transported to higher levels can be dangerous for elementary samples of WO+. Once accustomed, the experience is similar to the attainment of nirvana.

Highly Unstable, keep WO+s out of reach. The instability is very superficial, though WO+s with a penchant for existentialism should better be kept out of reach.

The Moot Point

2.50 am.. felt kinda low..

had been chattin with a good old friend on Yahoo... told him... excerpt -

dd: why low ?
dd: best B school
dd: good internship
dd: so many bandis
dd: aur kya chahiye
dd: #-o
me: koi bandi nahi abhi
me: nyway thats not the moot point..
me: the moot point is futility
me: absolute futility
me: dont u feel sometimes that life's driving u rather than u driving life!!
me: n that too life drives u by its own whims
me: i've been resisting it.. successfully to quite an extent
me: par kabhi kabhi lagta hai.. thak gaya hoon...
me: everything around seems empty.. an illusion..
me: its like living in the matrix

life's not an ordeal.. at all...
but its inherent simplicity is often lost in a din created by a certain myopia.. which makes an entity seem more intricate than it is.. n then the noise is all pervasive.. you never realise how simple things are... turns into a vicious circle.. and you never realise how simple life was... ever
that is THE MATRIX

and people lookin at things from a different, somewhat complicated, perspective often affect me as well.. cause some heartburn.. but i chose them to be a part of my life. and the cheer they bring to it more than makes up for everything