SATAN on Earth

We have read folklore on the Satan. I used to wonder how they actually look like. How they torture human...etc. We all know now who they are. They live among us hidden under a hood impervious to human eyes. They are no more humans and only look like one. They prey on their own kind to satiate their Satanism. The worst part is its not something in black and white so that one can weed out the blacks from the white. It exists in grey and to a certain degree in all. Sometimes it feels like a hell we are living in where either one is a victim himself/herself or is the one victimizing others or is the one who is a witness to the squalid act.

Devils thrive in vulnerability, poverty, fear, hunger and sometimes in abundance. This explains the direct correlation between spurts in crimes with increase in poverty. We all are some way responsible for the cancerous spread of the devil that has penetrated so deeply among us. We all have continued to ignore it for the fear of getting a taste of the vile our self which is dark and in unknown territories and the unknown is scary. The devil showed its face in the scariest form on Dec 16, 2012 in Delhi. The ghastly incident brings to fore the perversity of the Satan in our society. Sometimes it feels maybe we have to endure this horror and live in fear of the dark for some sin we have committed in our past lives. We are scared of being a victim of the devil. Maybe we simply have to endure this fear for in the face of adversities we awake to our own powers. I wonder how much of demonism a man has to endure to be free from everything. Running away is never a solution. We can run away from external malign but how do we run from ourselves? We have to experience these dark emotions and realize our own vulnerability to things and the fact that it’s all within us and then only we can be free.

In darkness I see

In darkness I see..

'Cause my eyes are closed

from seeing the virtual.

Lights blinden me,

clouding my thoughts with things figmental.

It shows me people, it shows me structures,

It show me trees, it shows me birds.

But yet I know not who they are.

The structures I use, knowing not why..

Where trees become mere structure,

the common thread of life going oblivion.

And birds are like passing clouds ,

meant to fly and just fly.

For our rooms are dark and streets are lighted.

We see what is shown and are blind to what we are.

When the outside is dark, I try seeing with the feeble light inside.

And its scary in there so I stick to the 'window',

to see the known and escape the uncharted.

I search for its source.

Its there everywhere yet perplexing to find.

Where is it from?

Am I the musk deer,

looking for the light when it comes from within..

Or am I the weary traveler

who has yet to travel,

a long long way before he reaches the source.

But I am restless as I have no place to rest.

For I feel safe in light outside even if I have to run..

Thus search is what I must do, to get my elusive rest...

Life is a bitch

And you thought it was over..

And you thought you knew what you wanted..

And you thought you got what you ever dreamt of..

We play the game whose rules we know not

Whose end we are unsure of..

And you thought you could call it quits!

The only weapon is the “thinking” mind of ours

Which won’t even let you quit

For there exists no path of exit

And you thought you had reins on your mind

Mere pawns is what we are

Soldiers of a bigger game

The worst torture is the ignorance of ignorance

In darkness we live

The quest of mind and the quench of heart we never satisfy

The thirst so old and deep

That we know not the taste of water

And you thought you are full

We run after the firefly

Mistaking it as the trail of light which leads to freedom

Where enemies dwell with us, within us

And friends are difficult to reach and hard to find

In illusion we stay and falsity we thrive

We think there are others when it has always been one vs. many

After all, the puny soldier has to face great challenges before it transforms

The powerless that he is..

For a step taken forward cannot be retraced back

And the forces to be faced head-on

And you thought you knew it all

When the only rule we know is

The weak shall be punished

So our tears flow dry and our smiles are shallow

We thus wait for answers

The wait been so long that it seems an eternity

And wait we shall do for even that aint a choice.

Reminiscing

For once, I wish to count from 1 to 100 facing a wall, with the chattering and the laughter slowly subsiding, with me looking for places where even a ghost would fear entering, but in the madness of the moment and oblivious to the surrounding, I would make my way through to surprise the hidden one and shout 'caught'-- the disappointment clear on face.

For once, I wish to climb the hanging branch on my rooftop with pickle in my hand and bruises on my knees, swinging with the blowing wind and swinging my legs along with.

For once, I wish to get all dirty in the sand in the backyard of my house, trying to make the perfect sand castle no matter how much I have to dig and how much dirt enters my nails.

For once, I wish to watch Scrooge, Morticia, Ray, Egons, Johnny, Alladin, Ariel, Dexter, Popaye, Baloo, Kid cloudwala, Moglee and loose track of the moving time till I get a good earful from Mamma.

For once, I wish to get lost in Contra, Mario and Duck Hunt till my eyes start watering and I am practically exhausted after the duel of which I became a virtual part.

For once, I wish to take the prized tasty sandwich in tiffin and showoff to friends in tiffin break who have not been as lucky as me that day.

For once, I wish to get scared as if I have been just sentenced to death when the teacher says "Show me your homeworks".

For once, I wish to jump on the sand mountain till the owner of the treasure would come and howl the world at me.

For once, I wish to pull someones hair for messing with me or not listening to 'what I said'.

For once, I wish to win the much coveted title of 'The Cycle Race Winner' among the local gang members.

For once, I wish to have the jitters of understanding the unknown feelings after catching 'the cute shy one' in my imagination.

For once,I wish to stealthily tip-toe into the kitchen and grab as much as I can in that one life-or-death shot at having the delicacy which mom has been hiding since long.

For once, I wish to be dragged by papa to face 'Miss' in the parent-teacher meeting, praying for what was coming next.

For once, I wish to be that stupid-silly-unassuming-irascible-shy kid for whom the world was what she saw.

It happened to me!

Disclaimer: This is a true life incident that happened to me and I believe that it simple can’t be incidental with anything or anyone...

Though it’s not something I could write about but the incident suddenly flashed before me in my memory and I couldn’t help but write about it. It’s one of the funniest moments I have had till now.

This happened during my FMS exam last year. I usually get very tensed before any exam and this exam was no different. I had not received my admit card and FMS had a separate procedure for people who had not got their cards for entry into the hall. Well I had reached the center a bit late (considering the fact that I had to go through the checking procedure). And to add to the misery, the invigilators told me to go back and return the next year :| ! Anyways after a bit of persistence they let me in… It was quite late by then and I was completely freaked out… around 5 mins were left for the exam. As my habit I usually take a break to the washroom before exams. I became all panicky and was frantically looking for the washroom. Finally I saw it and had a quick look to check the ‘ladies’ sign. I opened the door, closed it from inside and barged in. Guess what happened next. To my horror and chagrin I saw two guys relieving themselves!! I didn’t know how to react and was all numb and guess what I did next… Instead of running away before they noticed me, I started shouting at them. Equally surprised and still continuing with their ‘work’ they tilted their head to see who this lady was who thought of hitting the gents’ toilet before the exams! I was shouting “Get out all of u! This is a ladies toilet.” One of the guys finished with his ‘work’ and turned towards me to face me. The look in his face is something I cannot forget. He was amused beyond imagination and directed me outside and showed me the signboard where ‘gents’ was written. Adding to my red face some jackass had written ladies below it with chalk and this is what I had seen before entering. Seeing the chaos three more guys had already gathered there who were in a bit of a hurry to enter and I was still stupidly arguing with them not to enter :\ Thankfully a peon from somewhere came to my rescue and redirected me to the actual ladies bathroom. It was then that I realized what had happened and I rushed out of the place to save my face. :\

Streamlining everything

I was just reading an article about the developments that have taken place in China and the way it’s been reforming itself. Slowly, steadily and with a single minded determination the country has been pursuing development, snubbing aside and ignoring all contrary beliefs of the world meant at disparaging its efforts. This is one thing that I respect in the country irrespective all the histories India-China have had.

On the other hand, we Indians are like some hard skinned animals. We think of a way out when the problem arises. Forget any long term visions even the short term ones are on ad hoc basis. To put things exactly, for example, the development of road happens only when they develop deep fissures, cracks and craters; dams are built after years of flood which is simply meant to check them with no concern whatsoever of its long term impacts, urban population is on an exponential rise and there seems to be no method to check this. I am not saying that some people should be selectively granted access to uptown place but what I am saying is that some initiatives needs to be taken to create opportunities everywhere even if it means a loss to the government. Its impacts mayn’t be immediate but it would show results only in the long term. But of course, this is how most of the people think- “What’s the point of doing all this… bear a big loss, and not even be able to take its credit.” Compare this with China, their infra is one of the most robust in the whole world, and so much of detailed engineering goes into them that we cannot even think of being anywhere close to their expertise. Sadly, we simple remain mere bystanders and spectators to this continuous development taking place in our neighborhood.

So instead of taking on the whole problem in one go we can simple break the task into smaller parts and take on them individually, somewhat like guerilla warfare. Take this for example (I take this example because this is one of the immediate problems I see in front of my eyes now that I am in Kolkata).

All Kolkata looks to me is a land of blue/red/white buses and yellow taxies. The roads are always a stream of vehicles one following the other. The thing that bugs me the most is the enormous use of private transportation here. It might sound ridiculous to some people who might say what’s wrong in this! But I want to ask what’s so right about this? Imagine if one person consumes 5-6 lts of fuel per day, occupies ~ 30 sq feet area on road; calculate how much 1000 or more people commuting here would contribute to the figure everyday! Of course it would be immediately countered by the argument of comfort they get and ‘If-I-earn-I-will-spend’ theory. Now here’s a plan to accommodate these concerns also. Just streamline everything.

But before suggesting changes I will give a brief on the traffic concerns in the city as the traffic woes of this place is a different story altogether. Thanks to the huge Kolkata population, irrespective of 100s of buses, taxis and the underground metro, the supply still falls short of demand here. Buses are always overcrowded; taxis are always reserved and even breathing gets difficult in the metro during peak traffic hours. When I first came to the city, I was shocked to see how even older women had to chase buses/ shuttles to board them. Girls avoid public transports for safety reasons. So people are mostly forced with no choice here.

But the important question is what can be actually done. We cannot ignore the fact that people like co-habiting with people who they think are like them or better than them, in terms of financial status, standard of living, mindset etc. So I will accommodate this fact in this streamlining model of commutation in Kolkata that I want to suggest. Just like we have economy class, business class planes, the same can be created for buses also. Create an id-card system for all people which would give them selective access to different buses. Simple restrict or downsize the number of taxies plying on road say for example by some lottery system. I am not saying it’s easy but it can be implemented. Lots of other planning like finding some other employment method for the people who thus lose their business has also to be done simultaneously. These buses should be very well maintained and a limit should be put on the number of people who would be allowed to travel standing to avoid overcrowding. Any deviation by anyone should be dealt with very strictly. There should be well maintained bus stops and all buses should strictly ply on time. It looks very animal like the way these buses move with a conductor hanging and howling “hada hada hada” and 10-15 people shoving each other to get in.

However just changing one aspect won’t be effective or long lasting unless a holistic approach is taken. There are some of the areas where I think serious intervention is needed. These are things very obvious but just because our eyes have become used to it and hence we are okay to it doesn’t mean that they can be ignored. Places like Esplanade, Chandini chowk are like some archaic places with the buildings being monuments in themselves. And south-Kolkata, whenever I pass through the place I always have this feeling that it’s a hub of infiltrated Bangladeshis. They are so much a part of Kolkata and the pathetic ambience there is so obvious that no local person here would even notice anything wrong.

Nobody likes changes which is even a law of nature (remember Newton’s 1st law- the law of inertia) and more when it is abrupt. However, if some drastic measures are not taken things will never go towards improvement but towards deterioration.