Go back to your caves!

All of a sudden, some thoughts just visited my mind and before they ditch me, its better i type them down.

See, it all started in the caves. Yes, you read it right, caves. That’s where we all come from and if you ask me, that’s where we’ll return. We were never in a garden called Eden, in the first place. It’s just a bogus story that's sadly more popular than water. We all are caves-folks who don’t look like one anymore but feel free to act in similar fashion as per circumstance.

As we started leaving our caves, we learnt more and more and eventually got ourselves into an eternal quest of progress. We were brave and that is evident in the fact that we traveled a long way from being nothing to being something, overcoming almost everything and apparently taking a reverse back to nothing. I say so because, if we look at our history, our success is not only astonishing but also unparalleled in animal kingdom. In simpler words, we defeated animal kingdom to rule over it. And lo! where we are today!

We succeeded long before science and math entered the picture. Of course, S&M has played a titanic role in making us what we are today. It has given us choices we can’t refuse. Well, the sad part is there are too many choices and we want them all. We won the war of survival but the fight against Nature is prevalent even today. Needless to say, it’s a wrong war. We can never beat Nature by replacing indigenous wild habitat with severe human encroachment. We see failure every single day, yet we choose to ignore it.

Here’s exact where cave-mentality jumps in. When you are in a cave, you see things myopically. Everything is constrained. Your thoughts are frame-worked your rationality is handicapped with nearsighted objectives, enormously trivial. Even today, people are mostly sensitive about irrelevant things like religion and nationalistic ego but don’t give a damn about ground realities like failing environment and plastic choking Earth. We are largely bellicose and irrational when panic decides to test us. Whenever the time arrives for us to act, we either act as we don’t know what to do or as someone who is deaf and blind, or both. Of course, there are exceptions but like we all know, they are in the sweet minority.

Enough of cave-folks analogy (read: nonsense) for now. Time for some music. Yeah!

A very dear friend of mine (whom i can't thank enough and haven't thanked enough) suggested Enjoy The Ride and its been on my eardrums since. Awesome lyrics and music by a not-so-well-known band called ‘Morcheeba’.

Once you're done with the song. Go back to your caves.

Bloggers' Block

The trouble with maintaining a not-that-active blog is the need to write not-that-inactive post. And trust me, its far more difficult than it seems. Needless to say, much of the blame must squarely rest on procrastination. Also, you realize you are not the same person you used to be when it comes to writing subsequent paragraphs.

Apparently, you are not at all excited about your blog the way you were once upon a time. You used to post stupid poems, memorable anecdotes from your miserable life and how it could had been worse; strength of your blog’s ability to let you share your sorry-ness with poor bystanders who are gullible enough to read your pathetic state of affair; and then of course your “expert” views on everything from movies, sports to politics, and yes, also the belief that your blog is destroying this world one post at a time.

Not anymore.

These ideas wear off over time and apathy takes over. All of a sudden, you find yourself in a 140-character fix. Yes, I’m talking about Twitter. In the pre-Twitter era, you used to make notes on topics you wanted to blog on. But now, you are busy scribbling one-liners that sound funny enough to you, notwithstanding the fact that your followers are either sympathizing with your nonsense of humor or silently cursing you.

Of course, these are blatant excuses for not keeping up with your laziness. If only you were a bit organized and a little less tardy with blog-tweet balance, you wouldn’t have suffered the toil of typing this piece. There are always hundreds of ideas in your mind about what to write on but unlike before, you now don’t care to work on it. You are just too busy being tabulous and you are failing to explore your writing skills.

Anyways, these are my personal views about myself but I am mighty glad that I was able to write a new post. So job well done for me. Unfortunately, can’t say the same about you reading this crap. Better luck next time, if at all, it happens.

Uncommon, Wealth & Games

By now, we all are well aware of the Great Indian Parody called Commonwealth Games that looks anything but positive. Be it completion of venues, athlete training, merchandising, advertisement, publicity, etc. You name it and we can be pretty much sure that it would be running behind schedule. In one sentence “we have messed up!”

To amend the above line, “We have messed up big time!”

It is in fact incredible to read the catchphrase of 2010 CWG which says, ‘Come out and play’ and I’m compelled to ask ‘Where?’

After all this fiasco involving crores of money being siphoned and financial irregularities of titanic amounts, what bothers me most is the emergence of concern from all various strata of the society.

Firstly, our political class. Two years ago, in the run-up to the Games, the authorities were indulged in the now infamous ‘austerity’ measures. Apart from the recent parliamentary elections, austerity was one of the many reasons (read: excuses) for the delay in the implementation of the Games plans (if any). The politicians feared being associated with the ‘expensive Games’ as it would tarnish their ‘austere’ image. They sat on the agendas and books required for the Games paperwork thus delaying the process of actual launch. But it didn't stop the very same lot from filling their merry pockets.

Secondly, our media which is happily playing whistle-blower for majority of their screen-time don’t justify their concern per se. I say so with alacrity as they too are guilty of being a bit too late in reporting the real-time development or the lack of it. They pounced on the topic when the situation was pretty much out of hand.

Thirdly, we, the common citizens, denizens, netizens who show our outraged disappointment now were hardly following the preparations, neither raised our voice when it was much needed. We can harp for hours on the infrastructure failure but the fact remains that we espoused the very path of ignorance like is our wont.

We have failed India because we couldn’t judge the aspirations of Young India. We failed to maintain a balance between social welfare and empowerment of our poor while delivering on the multi-sporting events. I can only sincerely hope CWG proves me wrong.

The state of Urdu

For starters, Urdu is the official state language of J&K. However clichéd it may sound, State of Jammu & Kashmir is a land of varied cultures, languages, and ethnicities as rest of India is. Precisely, J&K can be classified into three different regions namely Valley region, Jammu and Ladakh, each having a distinct identity of its own. Agreed Valley and Jammu are intermingled thanks to ‘Kashmiriyat’ but serene Ladakh has been quiet, composed and aloof since ages.

Now, as far as my knowledge regarding linguistic composure of J&K goes, Kashmiri is the lingua franca of the Valley region and Dogri language being predominantly spoken in Jammu region whereas Ladakhi being spoken in Ladakh. This arrangement exists among the sea of other Dardic, Tibeto-Burman and Indo-Aryan languages in this complex state.

Now, my question is where does Urdu fits in this vexed arrangement. Urdu is not a native language of J&K. Urdu is an eloquent and refined Indian language that finds its roots in Persian and Sanskrit and largely spoken in the Indo-Gangetic plains down south of J&K. Urdu was once the court language of the Mughals. Even when the Mughals reined Kashmir, they didn’t impose Urdu on them. Persian was encouraged then. In fact the rich literature Kashmiri has, is the consequence of such assimilation, it went through time and again. In fact, it’s the only Dardic language with any sort of literature present today.

In the end result, by deciding Urdu as the official language of diverse J&K, the policy makers escaped the dilemma in choosing a more native language for such designation. Besides, this prevailing arrangement complicated the minds of the people of this state and has further estranged them from us. When Home minister P. Chidambaram says in the Parliament that he feels pain for the people of the valley and state as they are part of us, I doubt whether it echoes from the other side of the core. The policy makers in both Delhi and Srinagar have made a lot of follies in their deeds towards the subjects of this state.

I won't go into the political baloney (enough has been said about it with no end solution in sight) but this grave mistake with regards to the cultural policy of this state is awry and has been haunting and will continue to haunt Delhi and the whole state of Jammu & Kashmir for a very long time ahead.

Dependence on Independence

When a citizen says s/he is independent, what exactly are they trying to imply? That they are free to do anything of their wish? Or that they are no more under colonial cloud? Or just that they feel good about the way things are running around them?

Maybe, all of the above. Maybe, none.

Independence is just an idea. Like everything else, it too begins and ends with you. That’s a very simplistic way of looking at things and even foolhardy, in most cases. We discuss independence with only human society in general. We don’t consider the animals and the birds and reptiles and others who “live”. And that’s exactly where we lose the right to be pointy on matter of related to independence. You see, excluding humankind, every other living is predominantly independent because they can afford so. But human society had long lost the virtue of independence. Maybe we left it in the caves, in search of better living conditions.

My point is, we are NEVER independent; physically, emotionally or in any other sphere of relation. We can never be independent. The very fact that we are not on the list of endangered species yet (but are gladly putting others on it!) proves the reach of our interdependence.

I find it rather trivial that we celebrate “Independence Day”, not “Freedom Day” because if we look at it, the colonizers were dependent on the colonies, not the other way around. The colonies just wanted them to empty the room which didn’t belong to the colonizers in the first place.

Whatever.

Either you care about independence or you don't. Either way, it doesn't matter.

P.S. If you are reading this tripe, please forgive me for being naive. I sympathize with your loss of time. Honestly.

Blame it on Twitter!

I haven’t updated my blog for a long time now. More than one month to be precise. Anyways, I wasn’t too regular on my blog but this is the longest gap.

The truth is, I’ve been occupied by lot of extra-curricular activities viz. Twitter, Office and Home. I’ve placed Twitter ahead of the other two because I realize that I’ve been madly active on it, be it at work or at peace. I won’t say I regret it for I understand its one of the finest thing that ever happened to me. Its like asking a boy what you want to be and he says, “Heard” and lo! the boy gets a Twitter handle and shouts his mind out. That boy is me.

I’ve never been this expressive with words as long as my shy memory goes. I’ve always been a painful introvert. The people I grew up with aren’t around anymore. I’m not saying they all got exterminated in a secret nuclear action. I’m just saying that we hardly keep in touch and they’ve seen my Twitter page and they notice a change. They acknowledge that I do have a voice that doesn’t care a bit about mundane mores. This voice can get a bit too stupid too as it mocks the boss at office and family at home. But who cares.

My brother is a huge critic of my tweeting habits and I don’t blame him. He says I’m wasting my invisible-to-me talent on something that’s worthless. Well, all I can say is, “It doesn’t take talent to tweet, just a keyboard or keypad on cellphone will do. People either follow you or don’t but you walk alone. Always.” Though, I never say this to anyone. There is no need, you see.

People live by passion and then leave by memory. At the end of the day, nothing remains but words. Think about it. Its either words or in my case, tweets.

World Cup and Africa

What's so BIG about football World Cup? Why is it such a craze in spite of being a once-in-a-4-year affair? Why are these football fans so crazy? How come they can have heartache and ecstasy at the same time?

These are some legitimate questions........ for someone who doesn't get it!!

As for the rest of us, well, World Cup is the biggest thing that ever happened to this god-forsaken world, as a whole. It’s larger than UN or Olympics, simply by the sheer participation of nations across the globe.

In simpler words, it brings us closer. Just take a look at the stats and you'll get an idea how huge it is not only in viewership numbers but also the kind of impact it enjoys that no other sporting event can ever dream of. Like I said, it brings the world closer. I mean, when was the last you even bothered with names like "Slovakia" or "Ghana"?

I'm glad that South Africa got to host this year's World Cup. It’s the first time World Cup has entered African soil. That's good for both football and Africa, at large. Egypt was the first African nation to participate in a World Cup way back in 1934 which was followed by Morocco in 1970 but Roger Milla changed the face of African football with his impressive goals and even more impressive goal celebrations.

Every World Cup tourney keeps us guessing on who will be the winner and it’s always the favorites like Germany and Brazil who come up on top of guess. This World Cup saw 6 teams (including South Africa) in the first round but only Ghana qualified to the second round. For the record, only two continents have won the trophy and Africa doesn't stand a longshot at it. As of now, that is.

Whatever be the outcome of this World Cup, one thing is for sure. Its going to be memorable for all the goals, adrenaline, drama, political tidbits and the list goes on and on till the next World Cup takes place.