Glorious Namesake

Recently I met one of my old friends from school. We had the usual exchange of info as to who is doing what etc etc. When I asked him what he is doing nowadays, his reply was ,”Oh, I am into a very important job.”
“Oh, is it? What job?”
“I work as a senior graphical content representation editor for a reputed magazine.”
“What is this ‘graphical content representation editor’, I mean what work you have to do?”
“You see, I cut, paste, arrange and try my best to make the crap written by those paltry reporters viewable.”
“You mean, you edit the headline stories and news reports?”
“No, no, the lexical editing, I mean the content editing is done by the chief editor and his assistants. I make the articles sizeable, attach them with the photos and put them on a magazine size paper and make it print ready. Did you get that? Leave it. Log heads like you won’t get.”
Well, well, if he would have said it in a simple language that he is a cut and paste DTP artist with a news magazine, there won’t be any difficulty in actually getting what his profession is. But in a bid to make his profession look more important he stated it in the most audacious jargon.
Whatever work we do is important (atleast for the worker). But to make it further sophisticated, people like my friend adopt long nomenclatures for their profession. For instance, the grocery shopkeeper, just imagine, to follow the same track as my friend’s, starts calling himself as Consumable Disburse System Manager!!!! Ridiculous it might sound, but he is not lying about his profession. Similarly the sweeper as ‘garbage collector’(some java programmers might wake up from their slumber), the cook as ‘canteen officer’, the dhobi as ‘the launderer’, even the cobbler can be elevated to the status of ‘a surgeon unto mens’ shoes’!!
See, how the change in the nomenclature change the drudgery of the occupation and assuage the feeling of the deprived? As for me, since at present I am doing nothing, I can call myself as ‘the explorer of the oddities of life’.
What say?

Unlikely Believers

(Contributed by Vipin Buckshey in one of Khushwant Singh's columns.)
In a small town in India,a person decided to open a bar right opposite to a temple.The temple and its congregation started a campaign to block the bar from opening, and prayed daily against the business.Work progressed.However,when it was almost complete and was about to open in a few days' time,a strong lightening struck the bar and it was burnt to the ground.The temple folks were rather smug in their outlook after that,till the bar owner sued the temple authorities on the grounds that the temple,through its congregation and prayers,was ultimately responsible for the demise of his bar shop,either through direct or indirect means.
In its reply to court,the temple authorities vehemently denied all responsibility,or any connection that their prayers might have with the bar's demise.As the case made its way to court,the judge looked over the paperwork at the hearing and commented,"I don't know how I'm going to decide this case,but it appears from the papers,we have a bar owner who believes in the power of prayer and we have an entire temple and its devotees who don't."

What is your take on this issue-please do post your comments on the above situation,this is the face of spirituality in Shining India.

Rock On

“meri laundry ka ek bill , ek adhi padhi novel-tana na na na”

Awesome tempo and mind-blowing music, complimenting my mood to the hilt at the moment when I am riding a bike (with damaged shockers), on a highroad patch-worked with pot-holes. The speedometer shows a perfect 180kmph and to complete the picture there’s a slow drizzle.

Thud thud thud thud-“ tana na na na”

The damaged shockers of my bike along with the pot holes are playing a perfect role in keeping the tempo of this song.

Drops of rain touching my face with the slush greenery in the backdrop is just enough to set the mood for wild fantasies- but my mind decided to do a somersault and I ended of thinking all weirdest of the weird thoughts.

This song for instance, a rock song showed me a basic difference that is inherent in our minds, yet we fail to recognize it- the difference between our role models and our icon. Most of us have both-that I am sure-yet we can’t differentiate as to why we call one as our role model and the other as our icon. The picturisation of this song shows the difference. I am sure most of us, in the score years that we are on this earth, have witnessed the performance of a rock band on yanky channels like channel V or M tv, at the same time most of use have accidentally (or non-accidentally) have the pleasure of listening to classical compositions (hindi or English or whichever language- as for me I am not fortunate enough to lend my ears to classical music of any other languages). If you have observed the difference, you would have see that the artiste in classical concerts never invites the audience to join with him. Maximum participation on the audience s’ part in such concerts is to supply chits with their requests written in-that’s it. And the artiste sings the requests to his perfection- this is whom a musician would look upon as a role model, the person whose achievements we look upon to as the milestones in our lives, but can we really relate to this person-whom we have so duly labeled as our role model-can we match his subtlety, perfection etc, but that is what we try to achieve through out our life, and when we do achieve it we realize how much individuality we have lost in the process.

But in a rock band’s performance- the band members invite and entice the audience to sing, to dance, to groove along with them-that’s why it does’nt really matter as to what they are singing, or are they missing notes while singing- because it does’nt really matter as long as the audience is enjoying. This is what we call an ICON- the person who lives the dream with you, you encourages you to dream big, wild and unrealistic, who sets you free and that is what our bollywood heroes do to us- they completely sweep us off our feet to the fantasy land where everything ends in the same climax- living happily ever after……. But how many real life stories end in that climax, well the number can be perfectly counted on our finger tips, yet we watch them, love them, and somewhat believe in the stories they tell and they on the other hand, show exactly what the person on the other side of the screen wants to see- saccharine sweet families, heroes who are successful in all spheres of life, beautiful ladies with chisel-shaped bodies and glowing skin and lots of attitudes. It’s good to see these screenshots of dreamland reveries because if we don’t see them how can we remember what we have set on to achieve in our lifetime.

But do we all remember what we wanted to achieve or we intentionally try to forget as we eventually realize that those achievements are not circumstantially not feasible, as I slowed down my bike across a small poodle where I happened to notice a big snail crawling at its supersonic speed leaving a perfect blue trail on a huge leaf, I remembered the days when I wished to become a sketching artist. How I wished to put down nature and sky-scrappers in pencil and paper. Today when I think of those dreams I cant help smiling to myself. But that is how life is-it ends up making you the obvious monotonous being that you had labeled as bore and out-dated in your school days-but all of us can’t end up being the “in” thing-can we?

All these show the greatest paradoxes of life that we live with-we end up becoming someone whom we have hated at the horizon of our adolescent consciousness.

“Hey you, watch your speed and the pot holes otherwise you will end up below a truck’s tyres”- damn it-who asked this fat old bum, what sorrows is my accident going to stir up in her life that she has to shout after me like that. But people have this general tendency to boss others around-tell them what is good and what’s not-that’s what the whole lot of art connoisseurs are doing for ages. They are selecting the best artistes, artists etc etc etc , but how they do it, is really difficult to follow. I wonder why actually they do it, I mean, aren’t we grown up enough to know which art forms are good or what we should like and what we should consider shit-do we need another asshole other than our own self to point that to us-what I like might be an object of utter dislike for another person-then how can a bunch of hippies decide it for us –as to who is best and who is worst-but that is how it is-nowadays-in reality shows they have invented an ingenious way to do it-by public voting, but by doing this you are actually leaving out the choice of those who have voted in favour of the person who actually loses the competition-but this is what we call “democracy”, and this is what Miss Mamta Banerjee is liberally using in calling a state wide bandh every other day, obviously she doesn’t respect the decisions of lakhs of citizens who are willing to work on that day-but it doesn’t really matter much.

So its best to just forget the muck that is happening all around and enjoy the scenery, this song makes it all the more intoxicating, the lyrics is also somewhat relative- laundry bill, unfinished novel both of these bug you till you finish or clear them off and ladki ka phone number is something that is treasured , as for important papers are concerned, I don’t think I possess any in my careless lifestyle, but good things never last long…….

Grrrr…………thrushhhhhhhhhh……

There goes the tyre of the bike- magnanimously changing its state to puncture. The drizzle has graduated to a downpour and is giving me the actual hint of the real world I inhabit in.

Anyways friends, sometimes its necessary to be in the fantasyland for a while, otherwise this world will be devoid of all the creative insights.

P.S. : Don’t ask me why I wrote this and please don’t point out grammatical errors, I know there are many.

If................

In ethics class so many years ago

Our teacher asked this question every fall:

If there were a fire in a museum

Which would you save, a Rembrandt painting

Or an old woman who had’nt many

Years left anyhow? Restless on hard chairs

Caring little for picture or old age

We’d opt one year for life, the next for art

And always half-heartedly. Sometimes

The woman borrowed my grand-mother’s face

Leaving her usual kitchen to wander

Some drafty, half-imagined museum.

One year, feeling clever, I replied

Why not let the woman decide herself?

Linda, the teacher would report, eschews

The burdens of responsibility.

This fall in a real museum I stand

Before a real Rembrandt, old woman,

Or nearly so, myself. The colors

Within this frame are darker than autumn,

Darker ever than winter – the browns of earth,

Though earth’s most radiant elements burn

Through the canvas. I know now that woman

And painting and season are almost one

And all beyond saving by children.

Poet-Anonymous

What does spirituality means in this era of consumerism?

In today’s era of big retail stores, fashion brands and plush shopping malls, what role does spirituality play in an individual’s life, rather the question should be rephrased as whether spirituality at all exist for the generation next or its stature has reduced to being a mere word in old texts of sexagenarians whom the generation next has felicitated as hypocrites.

Before we further go down the line arguing the existence of spirituality, there’s an exigency of knowing exactly what spirituality means? Spirituality in simple terms imply the existence of a superior being; “Spirituality” – its root word being spirit, hence spiritualism in wider sense is the belief that spirits of the departed communicate with the living, especially through medium.

But why should there be a need of the existence of the superior being or why should there be need to communicate with the spirits of those who have already left this sordid and materialistic world? The answer to this question lies in the weakness of man – his fear of defeat, his sorrows, grievances and the guilt feelings that he unconsciously buries in his heart for the transgression he consciously or unconsciously commits. Every human being is conscientious enough to have feared his wrong-doing, difference being, some show it through confessions while others simply bury the hatchet, but that too only in façade. However infamous a criminal or gangster, everyone wants to be in His providence. This is spirituality, to believe in the existence of God.

We say – God exists and to believe in him is called spirituality, but has anyone actually seen God – there are prophets, saints and like people who claim to have felt His presence in some way or the other, but then we only have their word for it – no evidence whatsoever. However, even though most of us have no such divine experience yet we have an image of a divine being with his resplendent glow, and the belief to communicate with this divine being is what we call spiritualism.

Coming back to our argument of existence of spiritualism in this era of consumerism where the modern generation of agnostics and atheists whose actions lead to sacrilege. So-called religious leaders and god-men through their narcissistic actions, which involve terrorism in the name of religion, terminations, ex-terminations and communal riots in the name of resurrecting the “supposed to be” birthplace of God have given rise to a state of pandemonium and has made religion and spiritualism all the more abominable for the present generation. Yet in all this depravity, there are certain spiritual leaders who have euphemized the spiritualism through consumerism. Whether it is through “Art of living” or through Yogic discourses or through Lord Krishna’s hymnbooks and rosary – the young customer is being attracted to the chapel or temple in some way or the other, hence making spiritualism congruous with the consumerism. The spiritual leaders instead of teaching just religious and spiritual discourse, have made religion and spiritualism the “in” thing, the fashion statement which has made the fashion-savvy young generation lackey to spiritualism.