A looming visage

The spectre of a working life is returning soon to haunt me again. And I am awaiting it with arms wide open and legs akimbo. I know I won't like it but I will like it more than doing nothing, which is mostly what I have been doing for an irresponsibly significant amount of time now. But Monday morning blues promise to wash away the juvenile days with daft ripples of endless monotony. I can't really complain since its nothing like the end of my age of innocence or some such, but merely the need of the hour, whose actualisation has taken long, much too long.

Ah, its easy to imagine the frustration I will feel, right down to my bones, in much the same way as the homeless feel the chill in the winter months. But I need to feel that frustration if I plan to actually pursue my own designs seriously. There is no way I can do a PhD right now because I don't have the drive for it. But given the frustration of a 2-3 years of work, I think I will be quite ready to jump in to it. After all, that's how I came around to do my MA!

But of course, I do not take away from the fact that it will bring in some much needed moolah. And that is one thing I really need right now. Feels like I have been broke for ever! Neither do I mind having something to do with my time which usually tends to keep the more dangerous variety of madness at bay. Though I am not too sure if working will also provide anything much to do with my mind, but I can find other avenues for that.

So here is one to the return of 9-5! (Its more like 6:30-3 in my case. Yes, 6 fucking 30am!)

Some may call them nightmares...

... but I will just refer to them as plain good ol' dreams. Not that good, is all. They are about death; my own. And as is often the case with my dreams, they are vivid, colourful, and the kind that stay in the conscious memory after the sleep is over. Well, I do not necessarily recall them in their entirety upon waking, but retain significant fragments.

Four different scenarios for your morbid reading pleasure.

1. I am on my way home, quite close to it in fact, when I notice the laser marker of a sniper on me. I duck and run etc but I am shot in the back of my head the moment I step foot through the gate of the house. And I fall dead.

2. Sort of a bizarre continuation of the same scene. Only, I am through the gate now, alive again. A girl jumps out from behind a pillar, opens her coat most provocatively, to reveal, instead of her naked glory, explosives strapped to herself, which she promptly blows up, sending tiny bits of me (and I suppose her too) to rain all over my front lawn.

3. I am standing on the edge of a cliff, taking in the view. The ground beneath me just gives way and with that cursed piece of earth, I fall to my death below.

4. I don't even know where I am, but there is one fucking crazy sand-storm suddenly, and before I have time to complain about the sand stinging my eyes and blinding me and bruising every exposed part of my body, I am buried. Entirely.

When I die in the dream, the dream just turns to black, to nothing, to no dream I guess. And its not a slow fade in, but a rather abrupt cut.

I am aware that there are many different ways of reading and interpreting different elements in dreams, but I am not sure of their actual applicability in any given case. All the same, if someone could pinpoint exactly what the fuck in my brain is giving rise to these dreams, I would be quite amused, to say the least. But I am quite content with just enjoying my dreams as they come and to have a good night's sleep!

शुभ रात्री (good night)

Spreading the mother-tongue

I have to admit I never really thought I would do something like teach Hindi, for money at that, and I am talking real good money here. And to be precise, I am not doing it yet. But I am supposed to start soon. With all due respect to the moolah, what really gets my goat about this proposition is that there are actually people wanting to pay all this money to learn Hindi. And I have been told by my future employer that these people are basically big companies. We are talking real big companies here, the likes of Bloomberg, Shell, the Blackstone Group, and such. I don't know what they are doing learning Hindi, but it does make me feel good to see that they are doing it. And not just because I am going to gain financially from it.

Anyway, when I went for the job interview yesterday, I felt compelled to shave my almost 4 week old beard. Its a shame that I couldn't keep it till tomorrow, when I have my visa application. I had been told by all and sundry that I should shave it before the visa application, lest I be taken for a Muslim in general, or a terrorist, to be more specific. And I really wanted to try that out, to see exactly how fucking stereotyping and stupid the authorities here can be. Maybe I would have been pleasantly surprised, or maybe I would have been forced to buy a really expensive ticket back home. But too late to find out one way or the other now. Damnit.

Anyway, since I am going to be teaching Hindi soon, it is tempting to write a few posts in Hindi. Perhaps the next one, since I have to retire for my flatmate's birthday celebrations at the moment.

Nano Democracy

Following much speculation, nay-saying, high hopes, and the usual media frenzy, Tata Motors launched its promised Rs 1,00,000 car yesterday. Of course, its a BIG deal, its positively HUGE, even as the car itself is quite small. To read more about its technical aspects, go elsewhere. Here, I am talking of its democratic value. Yes, you read d-e-m-o-c-r-a-t-i-c v-a-l-u-e.

As happens with these things, there are two camps, one the "capitalists" with their tirade of entrepreneurship and free trade and such, and the other which encompasses everyone else from the city planners to environmentalists to the villagers from Singur who are protesting against the acquisition of their land for conversion to factory premises. I have yet to fathom the reason why this second camp usually gets the polite label of "those commie bastards" by those in the first camp.

Personally speaking, I am above such petty squabbling. What occurs to me is the fact that till now, driving four-wheelers was a prerogative of the rich, and that promises to change. Till now, it was only the Sanjeev Nandas in the BMWs and the Salman Khans in the Land Cruisers who had the option of being drunk (or maybe inebriation is not so important, I don't know) and driving over not just the roads but also some people who happened to be in the way. But with the coming of the Nano, running over the homeless is no longer a luxury that is meant only for the rich in expensive cars. In fact, maybe the rich folk should start watching out when crossing the street or some such, you never know which Nano is round the corner, waiting to showcase the true power of democracy that technology, especially cheap technology, brings.

Not to forget the mention of the proverbial backseat. Young middle class couples going out on the sly can now have the luxury of their own backseat (even if it is a little cramped for space) and do not have to find a lonely spot in a public park after dusk. Youtube (well, not Youtube, but the relevant websites for such videos) should watch out for the oncoming deluge of mobile-phone videos shot by couples in India while they indulge in carnality in the comfort of their very own Nano. Democratic technology contributing to further democratic technology. Pretty little chain.

So go on and buy a Nano if you can. The EMI's are pretty handy at about Rs 2000 (or about GBP 25) over 5 years, find some rich fuckers to mow down while you hump away in the backseat, all the while humming the sweet tune of true democracy!!

Stupid Spice

The idea was to watch a film. So I was at the venue, which once again happened to be O2, the site of my Led Zeppelin letdown. On the way, in the tube, I happened to notice an unusually high number of females heading in the same direction, and even getting off at the same stop. The scenario was the same outside. I ascribed it to the usual Friday night inanity that consumes this city. But it struck me as very odd, the number of girls singing the very same fucking shitty songs that I recalled as belonging to those 2-penny whores otherwise known as Spice Girls. And then to my horror, I realised that the venue was also playing host to their concert, and was hence deluged by numerous wanna-be 2-penny whores. No doubt, some of them made for a pretty sight, (un)dressed as some of them were, but I dare not go too close to any of them for the fear of being infected by stupidity. I was also struck by the heartrending realisation that I had been as close to a Led Zep concert as I had been to one of Spice Girls. Made me want to take a shower immediately, and scrub myself till the sin was washed away.

Oh, for the record, the film (Taare Zameen Par) itself was excellent. One of the best Bollywood productions I have seen. A very well done take on the pressures to excel that Indian parents put on their children, done through the angle of dyslexia. Of course, I have my own reservations about hiding behind the veneer of dyslexia to hide laziness etc, in much the same way as can be said about something like ADD. For reference, you may want to see the South Park episode where Cartman fools around a fuck-load in the name of ADD.

Stupidity is a dangerous thing to be in contact with. If you want to communicate with a moron, it becomes incumbent upon you to lower your IQ to the point where communication becomes possible. You need to "stoop" to her/his level to make them understand. Which is why I feel that the foolish person always wins. That is what makes stupidity contagious, and hence dangerous.

But then again, I often wonder about intelligence and its merits. I mean, most of the happy people I know are, well, kinda stupid. To some extent, its perhaps the idea of ignorance being bliss. But I have also noticed the streak of 'intelligent' people to overly complicate things, and life in general, and thereby always finding ways to be unhappy about something or the other. And seeing that I always proclaim happiness to be the aim of life... I wonder if I should try and turn stupid. It can't be that difficult now, can it? Damn, I missed the Spice Girls!