Them and Us

They say we saw the sun set. They say we might not see it rise. They say we can change. They say we have changed. They say we are blind. They say we cannot see. They say all that we are. They say we always were. They say it again. They say it again. They say so many things.

We only listen.


If misunderstood was a word well understood by most, probably we would have understood it the best. Myths and legends fill the room as we refuse to open our window. As the sound refuses to travel across. As the thoughts conspire to go astray. As the faces blur in the shadows.

We only listen.



There is something unsaid between them and us. There is somewhere a ground lost between them and us. There is somehow a missing time between them and us. There is someone standing there between them and us.

There is some of a lot of incidents there between them and us.



A generation of millennials lost in translation. Self absorbed. Confused. Impatient. Misrepresented. Us. Misinterpreted. Not bothered to respond. Us. Tomorrow's children. Us. Changing us. Us. Just like you. Us. Pleading to be accepted. Us.

Yet you are being like them before you and before us.

To be understood. To be understanding. Praying for them and us.


- my dedication to eternal strife between today and yesterday.

The second was the king.

Has it ever occured to you that the hours and the minutes would have had no existense had it not been for the second. The second defines them all. Relegated to being the smallest unit in the hall of time it is considered to be the insignificant. What can be done in a second? Were the axis powers defeated in a second? Was the indian independence won in a second ? Was rome built in a second? To the last question they say that even a day was not enough. Then what can the second do. It is a puny denomination of time incapable of even defining itself in its own frame. Then why do I talk of the second. Lets revisit the second. Let us travel to the second when one british officer decided to throw a black man from a train in Pietermaritzburg. Let us relive that second the Fuhrer in all his arrogance decided to attack Russia. The second when Romulus and Remus envisioned a grand city on the palatine hill. No rome was not built in a second but the dream was. It takes a second to dream. A second to convince oneself to go where others would not dare tread. It takes a second to be inspired and if it takes more then it is not inspiration but only a mental exercise in futility. Newtons apple to Eddison's bulb were all born of the second. I do not disregard the minutes and the hours which help realise the second of inspiration. Yet it is second which gives birth and hence is the mother of all innovation...the mother of all inspiration. As a race we need these seconds...to survive...to flourish. Through time the second has been the King. To the king I bow in reverence. To the king I pray...inspire us.

Flash Cards and Randomly Sorted Picture Albums

I am not an ordinary man. I have what I call a flash memory. Bits and pieces of images stick onto me for reasons I cannot comprehend. Images which would have gone unnoticed by most and considered too irrelevant by others. At times they move me. At times they provide me with the fodder for my demented sense of humour. At times they even refuse to speak to me and just stay there with me...mute. I have stopped trying to reason with them anymore. I have accepted them.
I am not an anti war campaigner. I believe war leads to change and at times change is the need of the hour. But then what of the little boy on crutches at the very beginning of Kabul Express. Most of us who have seen the movie were not so impressed with it but it was this one scene which made it special for me. It said something to me. The world operates on very thin lines and one never knows when one has crossed it. Victory is only relative. Justice is but volatile. If I have given a young boy crutches for a playmate. How can I justify myself. What can I say which will placate my guilt. Should I feel guilty at all. Does my guilt alone justify my intent. I do not know. I can only feel his pain. Nothing you say about terrorism can convince me to believe that he deserved what he got. Nothing they say about US discrimination can make me forgive those who gave guns at the hands of a twelve year old. Nothing I can say about the larger good can persuade me to believe that we have not crossed the line here.
Then there is that fat dog. Out on one of my evening visits to the local bakery I come across this really fat dog and this really skinny construction worker. This poor, hungry and much harassed man was having this measly bun and this very fat dog was right there pawing the frail man with much ferocity. Somewhere the humour of the entire situation caught onto me. The tables have turned here. The hunter is the hunted now. The beggar is the chooser now. With each paw the dog would shake the man's self esteem. So much so that he gave up at the end. The fat dog has won and he sat there stuffing his already overfed self. The poor man walked away. Another victory for another covetous fat dog. I am amused.
Is it is just me or does everyone remember their lives in flashes. I thought that was supposed to happen only when you are about to die. It is like a series of flash cards which only I can link together into a coherent story. Emotions, experiences, feelings and every other neural response all trapped in a randomly sorted picture album and yet in the end it all makes sense. Kudos to the creator.

Mind Tricks

A cold winter night, a couple of friends and a casual conversation. Somewhere between such cliches was the birth of a unique thought. Not a momentary thought which is engulfed by the darkness after one burst of brilliance. This was an endothermic thought drawing fuel from within your innermost doubts and trepidation.
Let me start in mathematics. The undisputed lingua franca of the universe. Some say it is the ultimate truth. And here was a man well conversed with its ways. A natural born code breaker and the father of the Nash Equilibrium. Jhon F Nash was a Nobel laureate. A mind deep rooted in reality but a man lost in his own illusions. Professor Nash was Schizophrenic. He could see and hear those who only existed in his own imagination. On one hand Professor Nash was changing the paradigms of Game theory while on the other he was fighting a much bigger battle trying hold onto his own reality. A battle which he was almost always losing.
Which brings us to Hugh Everett and his many worlds interpretation of quantum physics. In the language of science fiction it is very similar to parallel universes or multiverses. Multiverses are a hypothetical set of all possible universes each being a probable reality. At each moment the universe splits into infinite universes, each being distinct in its future. Let me elucidate. The man on the seat next to you on the early morning bus to office might be your best friend if only you decide to engage him in conversation. But he is not. However there is a parallel universe where both of you share a drink at the local watering hole every evening. The universe is splitting at every instance, splitting into more and more parallel universes in the current set of multiverses.
With that I think the time is right to introduce you to Schrödinger's cat. Now what does a cat have to do with all of this. I assure you it does. Schrödinger's cat was experiment in quantum physics where a cat was kept confined in a box with a contraption that could kill it at any instance without the knowledge of the observer. The cat has two classical states namely alive and dead. However the cat inside the box seems to be in a state somewhere between these two states. Something like a volatile keg of explosive existing in delicate balance between two definite possibilities. Such experiments illustrate the apparent paradox that an observer can be in an apparent mixture of states.
So now I am done stating incoherent factoids. Though my cold winter evening still stays unexplained. Schizophrenia, multiverses and a cat in the middle of it all. There is a single line of thought joining them all. The mind plays tricks they say but they also say that they do not understand the mind well enough. A magician plays tricks too but to him it only a well rehearsed act. A schizophrenic sees things which do not exist, at least not in our universe. That's where I propose my catch-at least not in our universe. What if what a schizophrenic sees or hears does exist, only in a parallel universe, and his mind is capable of traversing through the time space continuum. What if Jhon Nash had a mind which has traversing across realities. What if like Schrödinger's cat a mind can be in a state of unstable equilibrium, darting across the mutiverses, merging one with the other. So there I string together my improbable theory. A cold winter evening can play tricks on your mind but what if it is not.

Seven is the new Six

Abracadabra crash boom bang and with all the other such shenanigans seven becomes the new six. A new me, a new you, a brand new all of us, a bunch of new promises, a truck full of new dreams, a totally new life, a refreshingly new beginning...you get what I am trying to say. Basically a whole new year. One full year ahead. Kind of like a sparkling new carpet.

However so many things remain from the old six. For starters my habit of delaying. It’s almost half a month into the New Year and finally I get down to writing this. Secondly I just can’t get the analogy of the clean new carpet waiting to be bedraggled out of my oh-so-demented mind. Just imagine a brand new carpet...the promise of such mindless boundless fun. I am thinking oil spills, chewing gum and yes yes chocolate syrup. But no more I say let me drag my incoherent mind back to the topic on hand. Where was I now? Yes the old six. What about the old six. What not about the old six I say. It had all the drama of a b-grade sleaze flick. From legislations to protests to hunger strikes to steamy smooches to public interest litigation to child eating psychopaths. It did me proud at every turn.

The old six had a stellar star cast. Started off with the ultra most fascinating movie I had seen, at least in the old six. RDB took us all into an India lead by us. Itching all of us to stand up for ourselves and boy did we get the villain we were looking for. Cries of die Arjun Singh die rent the air. But unfortunately that was not to be. He lived and I humbly hope he lives to a ripe old age (may the rabid dog bite my tongue for this statement and my arse get punctured by multiple injections). The doctors went hungry and the academicians went crazy. Well no harm done they still went ahead and got the law passed. Long live the elected members of our country. But that was not the end of the comic strip being published out of our legislature. We had mamta banerjee claiming rape or am I exaggerating here. My message to the man who tried to clean his hands on ms. banerjee's 'ejjot', you sick perv get someone worth the trouble. Also later in the year we saw her on a diet spree. Oh so jane fondaish...I have to say I am inspired. Coming this year a video of her doing an aerobic routine in her skin tights garunteed to make you lose all those extra fuilds in your body (author's note : no pun intended). Reminds me of my own resolution to lose weight this year. But more on that later.

Alright enough about those cartoons bringing us now to some other cartoons. Cartoons make our world go round me thinks. The old six also saw the return of sleaze to entertainment. Of all the sleaze, I enjoyed the ms.sawant bit for its sheer comic value especially the 'I am a bharatiya nari with extra deep neck lines and pallu sliding at every drop of a hat' bit or was it only 'I am a bharatiya nari'. Who cares we all got to see what she wanted to show...sorry I meant say. Good for you girl. Also I was a keen follower of ash-abhi love triad. I really wanted to know if Amit uncle would kick the bucket in case they get married being manglik and all. Finally my quest for knowledge was satisfied by the all knowledgeable voodoo doctors featured on the various news channels who claimed that keeping a pet boar in the bachan household shall safely bypass all such problems. No wonder they so close to amar singh. No silly I meant being a politician it is easier for him to get hold of a swine. Also the 'tankibhook baba' on tv told me that they shall have a sizzling sex life giving birth to a gazillion little babies. I wonder how they knew but I was happy with the answer anyway. Yes the old six saw the return of SRK making out with that deaf and blind girl from black, I think she was called Michelle. No wonder she gave into his charms because I can’t see any other explanation. However his don inspired me to ask every single unfortunate visitor on my door 'yes who is it?' and refuse entry until you say 'don'. I need help I know.

Well that covers politics and entertainment. Now what did I miss. Oh yes cricket. The only sport where we are among the top eight in the world. Don’t get excited, there is but only eight test playing nations in the world. Discussions and comparisons ranged from who would be the better in bed chapell, dravid or ganguly to mandira bedi's increasing bosoms thanks to the numerous news channels doing their duties most religiously. And as usual the game gained a lot from all such discussions. And for a change we saw another overrated star in a sport other than cricket. Ms. mirza did us all proud with her mini skirts and straight set losses to most of the top seeds and not so top seeds too. We love you ma'am keep your skirts up...I am making too many typos today. I meant spirits up. That covers everything I think. Sport is always easy to cover in our country. It’s always short and not so sweet.

There however were a large number of things which actually touched my cynical self in the old six. Like the return of the bhai and circuit with their new age retro cool mahatma. Like the sane people of this country refusing to believe that Jessica Lal was not actually shot and hence is not actually dead but is only pretending to be and hence should be hanged to death. Like the people of Mumbai who rose from the ashes of the serial blasts once again. Like the refusal of the people to be swept under the carpet by archaic despots. Like the brave act of Amir Khan to stand up for his rights to free speech as a citizen of this proud country. Looking back at all of these and many other such events I say the old six was truthfully an amazing year and as a friend told me the other day the Time person of the year 2006 is none other than 'You'. You who made it all happen in the old six. So I raise a toast to you as we create seven, the new six.