MOST OF US LIVE OUT our lives in the world of time, in memories of the past and anticipation of the future. Only rarely do we touch the timeless dimension of the present - in moments of sudden beauty,or sudden danger,in meeting with a lover or with the surprise of the unexpected or utterly beautiful MUSIC. Music is something whose effect can't be ephemeral or the entire purpose is lost. If you listen to the modern day twangs, most of the sustainibility present in legends (like Pink Floyd, Madonna, Satriani, Dream Theater, Michael Jackson) is missing.

It happened one night. I was alone at home, sitting on the sofa unable to sleep. Restless. Trying to make sense of Basho. With Late Night Channel V on the idiot box when the song "Falling" began. The depth of her voice made my hair stand on end and I just closed my eyes to the sensation of the singer's voice floating around the hall surrounding me. I jabbed the sound volume to the max and surrendered to the voice. Totally unlike I had heard anyone else. Enjoyed the mist when I opened my eyes towards the end just so I could catch the song title and the singer's name before it faded away. Julee Cruise. Whose music I realised is unheard and unavailable in India. After a long, long search from the music stores to the bylanes of VT to meet the magician Razaq who had so far been able to procure any music for me at my whim. He turned his hands outwards in defeat finally and I had to then wait for a bitter two years for my first trip to US to be able to get the CD.

Julee Cruise is an artiste whose music is surreal. Her album "FLOATING INTO THE NIGHT" is an alchemy, a transformation that is not just verbal. Something different. Listening to her music is risky. Especially in the dead of the night in the sounds of silence. Just like listening to Pink Floyd is nothing less than death and rebirth.

Julee Cruise was capable of prodigious jumps not only beyond the accepted but also beyond the acceptable limits of today. I wonder why she is happy just living with her husband and two dogs in Manhattan. I wondered why didn't she create more music to the likes of "FLOATING INTO THE NIGHT". Maybe it was a complete circle for her. Maybe it's hard to improve upon perfection. Whatever it is - the lone CD lies securely nestled on my music shelf un-accessable to anyone but me. To be played undisturbed, alone and float into the night. Moi favourite song of the album:

Falling

Don`t let yourself be hurt this time
Don´t let yourself be hurt this time

Then I saw your face
Then I saw your smile

The sky is till blue
The clouds come and go
Yet something is different
Are we falling in love?

Don`t let yourself be hurt this time
Don`t let yourself be hurt this time

Then your kiss so soft
Then your touch so warm
The stars still shine bright
The mountains still high
Yet something is different
Are we falling in love?

Falling
Falling
Are we falling in love?

(It pissed me off to no end one day when I saw someone selling her CD for 50 cents on half.com)

School Essays

This arrived in the inbox. I don't know who wrote these but I erupted into whales of laughter on reading those. Do you remember your own school essays? Kiddie ones? So precious.

Art & Porn - The Thin Divide

Take Khajuraho for example. Ah visited Khajuraho sometime back. The vibes I received made even a art duffer like me wonder about the attraction of the place. The blatant display. It was beautiful. Made me wonder is there a dividing line between art and porn. Whether in Khajuraho or anywhere else in our daily lives. The innumerous paintings, movies, books etc being passed off as inspiration, epiphanies or acts of creativity. So I delved into Khajuraho deeper and deeper. Moi mind finally rested at this:

Superficially there is no difference. Khajuraho, Puri, Ajanta, Ellora -- they are full of erotic art, just like the contemporary erotic culture where the repressed sexuality of thousands of years has become such a burden that it has to be dropped. And suddenly a great erotic revolution has taken place. Pornography is nothing but erotic and obscene - in paintings, in films, in dances. They don’t create in you a longing for the beyond; they simply create in you more sensuality, more sexuality. But on the surface they look alike. And in India and in the outside world, they are being misunderstood.

After India became independent, Mahatma Gandhi proposed that all these sculptures, all these temples should be sunk into mud. They would not be destroyed, so if some foreign dignitary comes to see then you can clean it and show him -- just for special people. But for ordinary people they would be closed. Because Mahatma Gandhi thought in the same way as it is thought all over the world, that they are erotic, they are obscene. But there is a vast difference between the Eastern art in Ajanta, Ellora, Konark, Khajuraho and the modern erotic, pornographic photography, painting, music.

For e.g. there are thirty temples in Khajuraho. There were a hundred originally -- Muslims destroyed seventy temples, which are now ruins. One hundred temples must have been built in thousands of years by thousands of artists continuously working on stone - generation after generation may have died working on it. And they have created the most beautiful bodies in stone. In Khajuraho stone speaks, sings, dances; it is not dead. You can see that the artist has succeeded in transforming the stone into a living form. It looks so alive that any moment the statue may walk towards you and say," Hello". And hundreds of statues.. These statues were not to satisfy your repressed sexuality. On the contrary, they were used as a tantric method to release the suppressed sexuality just by meditating on these naked statues. The method was simply to sit there in silence - only a dim light reaches there, and hundreds of statues surround you. Just watching them, you will be surprised to find that many of these dreams have occurred to you, many are such that they have been condemned in every society -- sexual orgies, but they have happened in your dreams, they are part of your unconscious. And these places like Khajuraho were kinds of universities where people were coming to release, to cathart-repressed sexuality.

And all these statues are outside the temple. Inside the temple there is no erotic sculpture. In fact, inside most of the temples there is nothing- just silence, a cool peaceful milieu, with the vibes of thousands of years of people meditating there. The rule was that when you feel or your master feels that the erotic sculpture no longer affects you, that you are sitting there and nothing happens, it is as if the walls are empty- when you are absolutely sure that they don’t affect you - that is a signal: Now it is time, now you can go inside. Now the door for the inner is open. All that was rubbish has been dropped- cleanliness, weightlessness, and a silence, which is full of beauty and song... It is the greatest psychological method invented by the East.

What is happening today is simply pornographic, obscene. It does not help man to get rid of it, but simply gives a temporary relief. The pornographic literature, photography are all helping you stay normal, otherwise, you will go mad. So there is no harm done when one reads Playboy hidden inside a Bible or a Gita. What he is seeing in a porno magazine brings up his own unconscious. This was used as a meditation technique in Khajuraho. These days it is used to create more thirst for the same sexuality, which has been aroused by the porno magazine, by blue films, by naked dances and striptease. The same method was used to transform your energy into sexuality. These days, it is used to provoke more sexuality.

And then there is a kind of insatiation - almost all painting has gone pornographic, all the movies repeating almost the same stories, the same plot, the same triangle: two women, one man; or two men, one woman, a simple structure - the same story. What attracts people to it? It is not appreciation for literature. What attracts is that in the story - needed for the story or not needed - they go on putting your suppressed needs, desires. It is a kind of relief. But tomorrow you will be repressing again, and again you will need the same kind of photography, the same dance.This way you will never be able to enter into the temple.

Parting thought: I would definitely think of introducing kids with their untainted, unprejudiced and pure mind to the best forms of art and sculpture. Before adulteration and mindless manipulation hits their mind, they can learn to appreciate and approach beauty in its purest form. (I heard from the locals that a few tourists masturbate watching the statues. How grosse can the mind be?)

Khajuraho is well worth the trudge of the journey and the required organized effort. A place highly recommended to everyone. A must visit at least once in a lifetime.

And Now For Some Zen

One day Mulla Nasrudin got lost in the jungle. The whole day he spent trying to find a way out, but he could not... He was tired, hungry, exhausted, bleeding, and his clothes were torn apart because the jungle was so thick and thorny.
It was getting darker, the sun was setting and the night was near.
The Mulla had not been attending the mosque and prayer lately, and feared his predicament might be a result of his neglect.
So he knelt down on the ground and he said, "Dear Lord, please help me find my way out of this jungle, and I will always worship you. I will start attending the mosque regularly. I will faithfully follow all the rituals of Islam. I promise you! Just save me. Forgive me. I apologize for my negligence. I was a fool, an utter fool!
Just at that moment a bird passed overhead and dropped something in his outspread hands.
He said "Please Lord, don't give me any of that shit. I'm really lost!"

Time and again Nasrudin passed from Persia to Greece on the back of a donkey. Each time he had two panniers of straw and passed back without them. Every time the guards searched him for contraband. But try as they might, they never found any. "What are you carrying, Nasrudin?" The guards would ask."I am a smuggler" Nasrudin would answer.Years later, more and more prosperous in his appearance. Nasrudin moved to Egypt. One of the customs men met him there. "Tell me, Mulla, now that you are out of the jurisdiction of Greece and Persia, living here in such luxury--what was it that you were smuggling when we could never catch you?" "Donkeys."

What is Philosophy?

Art Critic 1: "I think the neo-plasticism of the abstract design proves the mystical, metaphysical and non-humanistic approach to the objective concept of abstraction."
Art Critic 2: "Yes, you have a point there! In fact, it's obvious even from a casual glance that this painting was created by paranoiac-critical activity, brought about by spontaneous dynamic sensations, sometimes made by somnambulistically inclined campanologists, who create a picture of transcendental non-curvilinear objects expressing subjective feelings in a cubistic manner."
Art Critic 3: "I fully agree with you both - It is a rubbish painting!"

One man came to a philosopher. He was worried; he is the father of a beautiful daughter. He was very much worried. He said, "Every morning she feels a little sick, and I have been to all the doctors and they say nothng is wrong. So what to do?"
The philosopher closed his eyes, contemplated on the problem, then he opened his eys and said, "Do you give her milk before she goes to bed at night?"
The man said, "Yes".
The philosopher said, " Now, I have found the problem: if you give milk to a child, then the child changes sides the whole night from right to left, from left to right, and through the churning the milk becomes curd. Then the curd becomes cheese, and then the cheese becomes butter, then the butter becomes fat, then the fat becomes sugar, then the sugar becomes alcohol — and, of course, in the morning she has a hangover."

That is what all philosophies are: some explanation of things; some explanation of things which cannot be explained; pretending to know about something which is not known. But they make life convenient. You can sleep well; they are like tranquilizers. They give you dreams, utopias. Ha! Ha! Ha!

Now something personal.

A phalanx of incidents have changed the status quo of muh life in the past two months. It’s hard to put down in words but the effort can be cathartic for a person like me, methinx. For someone who speaks one word instead of the required five. Communication problemo actually. One incident stirred me deeply, one shook the unshakeable me up and this one..Well.. This goes back a long long way.

The Package

The package arrived last week. A Creative Nano Zen mp3 player. And an Issey Miyake miniature bottle. A belated birthday present. The package came neatly wrapped in a small cushion with a small card saying "Forgive me. Happy Birthday" Signed in Italic with her name, address and telephone number. And accompanied by a slightly emotionally penned letter. The gift created a silence within me for a while. Bcuz of the magnitude of the effort to trace me. Bcuz it was sent by:

- Someone whom I havent spoken to for the last 14 years and is living right now in USA.
- Someone who was my bum chum for the best part of my growing up
- Someone whom I drifted apart from becuz of parental intervention (not mine)

The 1 GB disk was full with recorded songs segregated folder wise. Started with Joe Cocker’s "Different Roads". Many of the songs are personal favorites of mine. And a few are hers I guess. Each song is handpicked and is conveying some message. Some of the songs spooked me and made me wonder if there is anyone who is a conduit. Relaying such personal information about me.

The picture is still vivid in my mind of me and her wading in knee deep water. Of me in shorts reaching only till her ear. Both of us sharing the same umbrella in the torrid rain trying to navigate the potholes on our way home from tuition. The moment when she put her hand on moi shoulder to steady me. I was petrified to move in case she removed it. Delirium infinitum He he!!

But before that - a little history.

I was introduced to this “new” girl who had joined us in the same batch for tuition. A shy hello, a sneaky peek at her long legs stretching out of the PT uniform and ah decided she was okay. It turned out she was residing in the big building towering over my row-house from where everything happening in my house was pretty visible. We hit it off pretty squarely for no real reason to fathom. The enormous societal status didn’t make a difference. Best of buddies. Waiting to meet each other after school at tuition. Share daily experiences. Have fun. Enjoy picnics. Celebrate birthdays. The odd movies. Endless chatter and day dreams. The occasional fight which would cast a gloom over the entire tuition batch. Numerous small incidents that laid the foundation for a beautiful friendship.

The Mess: Predictably, half the “eligible” guys in the colony started forming a line outside the tuitions trying their best to woo the new girl on the block. And I turned out to be the most wanted guy for the most obvious reason. Things turned messy when she started going around with one of the “dudes” in the colony and the matters reached her folks’ ears. My head was on the block for no fault of mine.

Enter the Nemesis: Her snooty ma threatened to send goons after me if I spoke to her again. Imagine threatening me at that age (all of 14 and 4 feet and half). That did it. That she didn’t defend me in front of her parents broke my heart and the trust. I completed the year at tuitions and opted out. The half hearted attempt at sending an olive out to me didn’t work. Two years of friendship down the drain. Just like that.

Why now? After all these years of being incognito and not in touch. Many questions popped in my mind all of last week as I listened to the songs. The answer lies back in USA and the ball is in my court. I’m not wet behind the ears. It’s a little late in life to mend this bridge methinx. Still, the enormity of the gesture merits a response and I wonder about the right way to do it.

Time to put this up before I change my mind.

" A good day or a bad day, the sun always sets"

Hush now, don't you cry
Wipe away the teardrop from your eye
You're lying safe in bed
It was all a bad dream
Spinning in your head
Your mind tricked you to feel the pain
Of someone close to you leaving the game of life
So here it is, another chance
Wide awake you face the day
Your dream is over... or has it just begun?

Silent Lucidity - One of my eternally favourite songs sung by Queensryche. As I was cruising down memory lane this weekend, the RJ belted this one out of the blue. Call it synchronicity but it transported me immediately to the ole days of college which were only filled with music, computers and joy. When time was color. I was living in a total feckless time where we wore a watch only during exams, came home in the mornings with the milkman and the bylanes of the collage comprised of our whole world. A bygotten era - where time, money, fashion, people, opinions were like an arsehole - everyone had one. When we did what we wanted to. Where thought and action were synchronous. Whenever, wherever. As the song neared an end, I jogged the volume dial down and headed to the beach. Where SOMETHING HAPPENED.

SOMETHING HAPPENED

Something happened on this weekend at midnight as I was meditating on Silver Beach under the stars.

Something I am unable to describe here.

Something that defied moi imagination.

Something unreal.

Something happened.

Prohibition - Here today, Gone tomorrow? Naw....

For sometime I've been following the Government's initiatives towards curbing addictions. It started with banning gutkha, moved on to stopping ladies bars and now its putting the screws on discotheques and pubs in one guise or the other. Not that it has stopped people from chewing gutkha, visiting prostitutes or having a good time. Prohibition is not a route to curing addiction. It never has and never will be. Remember the time when your parents told you not to do a particular act. What happened next? You went and did it the very next moment. (At least I did *gryn*). Or so was moi foray into the world of smoke, booze and rock n roll early on.

Addiction...It's nothing new, is as ancient as man…Is an escape route - a temporary, momentary one. There has never been a time when man didn't need an escape route. Everyone seems to have a need at the end of the day: a few beers, cigarettes, drugs, womanizing - any short cut to relief. None of these things bring any satisfaction, yet the desire for some sort of gratification continues…

The main cause of addiction is that man does not know how to live; how to live in totality - a complete awareness. And that is how he gets exploited by society which has a vested interest in making him suffer and offering temporary relief. A person who lived totally will not consume any alcohol, smoke cigarettes ot take any form of drug. Naturally, people who are earning millions of bucks out of alcohol and drugs cannot let you live totally. What would happen to business if no one has an addiction? Half the economy would collapse. Addictive substances are needed by people who are miserable; troubled people, people who want to forget their troubles for a few hours.

If a man lives totally, his every moment is such a fulfillment that you will not see groups of people watching porn - who wants to see someone else making love? When you yourself can make super love, why should you see senseless acts of copulation? Our life itself is such a tremendous challenge, a big mystery. If everyone delves into even half its depth, we could make this world a better place.

There is no purity in purpose with 98% of the people. I have seen people gulp down alcohol before a stage show to ease their nervousness. Have seen people dance in the club only after two pegs down. Be able to play music only after a quick sniff of cocaine. The art is not at all crystallized in the people because there hasn’t been a complete focus in what they do. Lack of awareness. Hence the placebos or props. Hence the addiction.

For e.g. smoking - Smoking helps on a momentary basis to forget about anxieties and tensions. In the deep unconscious, it is related to sucking milk from the mother's breast. As civilization has grown, breast feeding for at least 1.5 - 2 years as in ancient times has stopped. One - due to work commitments and spending time away from home. And two - women are prone to stop breast feeding because of the paranoia of loosing the shape of the breast; the worry of the breast losing its beauty. A child does not need a round breast - a round breast will suffocate him; his nose will be stopped by the breast. So as civilization has grown, children are taken away from the mother's breast before time. The longing to suck from the breast stays in the mind and whenever people are in a nervous state of mind, smoking helps. It helps them to relax again. It's just like the mother's nipple and the flow of smoke is warm just like the milk.

Similarly with snuff, paan and alcohol. The sneeze clears the mind and gives a good shake leading to a nice feeling. But again the anxieties come back. And then people graduate to alcohol and other substitutes. The trick is to create total awareness for every action. De-automatize every activity. Try to do it one step at a time. Make it a very sensual act. The act will drop by itself and you will soon realize the futility of it. Prohibition has never worked in a thousand years and it never will.

R.R. Patil - are you listening? Create awareness. Introduce workshops. Transformation is they way. Not the use of power in the name of love.

Places of worship - It's not just an idol(ic) thing

The temple is not a flight of fancy of man. Its roots lie deep in man's inner unconscious. Right from ancient times, wherever man has lived in whichever stage, he has constructed something resembling a temple somewhere close by. There is no race on earth which has not built a temple, a church, a masjid and so on. There is no resemblance between the arrangement and design of a temple and a church but the inner aspiration and urge of man whether Hindu or Christian remains the same. Another point to note is that the universal urge to build places of worship lies only in man. Animals build only dwellings, shelter but no temples. Without man having a deep awareness of the God, a temple could not be built. It is necessary to make an inquiry into the significance of building a temple. Just like we build guesthouses for guests, the idea of building temples must have been conceived in a moment, when the divine was not a figment of imagination but a living experience.

The temples function as receptive instruments. Though godliness and human beings are present everywhere, only during special circumstances within us do we become attuned to that godliness. So temples serve as centers of receptivity, to enable us to feel the divine in existence and to become spiritually elevated. Patterns and arrangements i.e. temple, masjid or church do not matter...the ultimate purpose is same. The temples in India are constructed of 3-4 patterns. The temple domes are based on the model of the sky. The domes (small, semi circular prototypes of the sky) are constructed so that the resonance of the prayers can bounce back on us. The dome throws back the prayers and chanting done under its canopy. The sound is not lost in the vast sky. The purpose is that when anyone chants intensely, the dome makes the sound reverberate forming a circle of the echo. Such a sound circle is a blissful experience. With the circle formation, we become the recipient as well and the divine enters into us. All thoughts come to a stop. The bells and gongs outside temples serve the purpose of bring back our attention (if it drifts) to the circle of sound created by the vibration of chanting. It is akin to the ripples created by throwing a stone in the pond. The ringing of the bell creates a discontinuity in our normal chain of thought and alertness.

Certain flowers and incense are used to maintain harmony of the temple. For e.g. in a mosque only "lobhan", a kind of fragrant resin is used as incense and in a temple, only dhoop and agarbatti. All these have a connection with sound. The sound of Allah has an inner harmony with the fragrance of lobhan. These links were discovered through the inner search for enlightenment. Similarly, the amount of light to be used, whether to use kerosene or ghee and other external aids. It may not be easy to explain the difference between a kerosene light and ghee light if you have not experimented with the same. With light created by burning kerosene, our eyes begin to burn and become tired and painful. With ghee the same become cool and soothed. All these external aids are just parallels. And when a place of worship has been provided with them, it becomes charged with the vibrations. Hence the stipulation that no one should go to a temple without bathing. Taking a cold bath breaks the mental associations. In fact in old days, silk clothes had to be worn because silk helps to generate body electricity.

With all these precautions and arrangements, the places of worship become charged and also affect anyone even passing by with its magnetic field. For e.g. it is said about Mahavir that within a certain radius of him - wherever he might be - it was impossible to commit violence. It was his charged field - a walking temple. We need places of worship like temples where we can make our offerings and receive something in return. Man always forgets. What is sublime and valuable, we forget; what is trivial and commonplace we remember continuously. We have to make an effort to remember God but our desires and passions are present all the time. Going downhill is easy; going uphill is always difficult. The temples help keep the inner search alive. Very few of us are naturally inspired to seek; most only feel inspired when we actually see things. So when we see godliness personified within the shape of a temple, something of it lingers in our minds. This is especially so for people who cannot visualize the unmanifest divine. A temple is a place for rest and relaxation where you can find relief and peace. It is a source of inspiration.

Something Light

This one cracked me up...

Have You Ever Been Guilty Of Looking At Others Your Own Age And Thinking, Surely I Can't Look That Old?" Well... You'll Love This One!

I Was Sitting In The Waiting Room For My First Appointment With A New Dentist. I Noticed His, Dds, Which Bore His Full Name.

Suddenly, I Remembered A Tall, Handsome, Dark-Haired Boy With The Same Name Had Been In My High School Class Some 40-Odd Years Ago. Could He Be The Same Guy That I Had A Secret Crush On, Way Back Then??

Upon Seeing Him, However, I Quickly Discarded Any Such Thought. This Balding Gray-Haired Man With The Deeply Lined Face Was Way Too Old To Have Been My Classmate.

Hmmm,...Or Could He??? After He Examined My Teeth, I Asked Him If He Had Attended So And So High School. "Yes. Yes, I Did" He Gleamed With Pride.

"When Did You Graduate?" I Asked. He Answered, "In 1959. Why Do You Ask?"

"You Were In My Class!" I Exclaimed. He Looked At Me Closely. Then, That Ugly, Old, Wrinkled Son-Of-A-Bitch Asked,

"What Did You Teach?"

Mysteries of life

No mystery is a mystery forever. Every mystery is solved at the right moment, in the right place and by the right person to discover it. Be it in the world of science or the world of religion. Life is a circle itself. The reverse is also possible i.e. knowledge fading into mystery instead of the other way around. It is the circular nature of life itself. We often keep hovering around the periphery all the time, instead of jumping into the center. Hence, discoveries are limited to the chosen few whose inner world has touched the peak of their consciousness. There is a purpose to all that can't be quantified, all which is intangible. E.g. the alchemy of idol worship, the maligned discipline of astrology, places of worship, occult of the third eye and so on.

To keep it simple - take the Ctrl+Alt+Del screen lock key for example. Unless you know the password to unlock the screen lock, it is impossible to know what is the wealth of information stored in the computer. You can try a lot of permutations, combinations to unlock the same, but unless you hit upon the right combination it is impossible to learn the treasure of information withheld in the computer. And whenever such a key - without any clues to the treasure- is preserved for a long time, it becomes a burden on life. There are many such keys in life, which can unravel the gateway of treasures even today, but unfortunately we neither know about the treasures nor about the locks, which may be opened. A key is a key only if it opens a lock. I am referring to the significance of temples, astrology, certain practices followed by people from all sects blindly without knowing the true purpose and the benefits, etc. which may be derived from them.

Childhood memories are very important. Scientists say by the age of 5-7, a child learns all the fundamentals on which the superstructure of his knowledge will be built. Very little will be added to that after crossing that age. If we are not able to form an association with the treasures within the framework of the 7 years, it becomes difficult, almost impossible to do so later. Likewise with all the hidden treasures. The keys have left a lingering fragrance in the unconscious mind of man. Today man performs many of his "important" activities in a limbo, without any awareness of the significance or purpose of the act. For e.g. most of the people without any reason visit temples early morning, make it a practice to take a bath before entering the same, apply tilak (sandalwood paste) in the center of the forehead, offer flowers and so on. If you ask them why, 99% would be at a loss to explain. Yet they do it. Why? In the unknown corner of the heart the hope lingers that some day, some lock might be opened by it. The memory of the past, the past life remains. Hence, despite all the attacks on the act - reason tries to shatter it from all sides and the modern intellectual does not accept it - the human heart still treasures this memory and continues to be fascinated by it. None of us are new in this world and there was never a time when we did not exist. What we knew consciously earlier has become unconscious today buried beneath thousands of layers. If someday we knew the significance and deeper secrets of a key, and had experienced the opening of some door, then somewhere in the recessed of the mind, the memory lingers. The intellect may deny its existence, but it cannot reach the depth of the memory.

I find it very important to know the importance of all the fundamentals to be able to understand life and pass on these treasures to the next generation. Our world depends on the strength and wisdom of the next generation every time and it is of paramount importance to strike a balance between technology and religion. Every time we ask someone to do something, explain why or do not do it.

Kewl?

Marriage – Institutional Investors only?

Ah attended a Panju wedding a couple of days back. As a rule of (moi) thumb, ah don’t attend weddings unless it’s a Panju one and that too just to watch people doing PP (peri pona) ‘n’ bhangra in an inebriated state..The place was jampacked and we were squirming like grease in a detergent waiting to be washed away down the washing machine hose. A few Patialas and a lil shakey shakey of the (_ _) set the mood right. Heaps of eye candy n lots of tasty food. But moving on…

Have never understood the concept of marriage. A couple of months back, we were blowin smoke up our butts when a colleague invited me and others to his marriage. Before I could check moiself, I asked “Why”? He was flummoxed “Why what?” I asked “Why are ye getting married?” The dude didn’t have an answer. Gave a sheepish hehe and vamoosed. I was serious. Have asked this question to almost everyone who is married or has invited me to their wedding and 99.99999999% didn’t have an answer – a valid answer. Just becuz ye have come of age? Just becuz yer parents want ye to jump on the wedding wagon? Just becuz ye want to have free sex and kids eventually? Just becuz ye want to keep the family tree growing? Just becuz….

And then after the honeymoon is over, the marriage starts and the eventual losing of personality cuz both are not prepared for the adjustments and compromise. Both have burning ambitions and desires. Both haven’t burnt their bridges. Both realise they aren’t in love. Now what? Put a smiling face for society for the rest of the life. Another mask to face yer partner. Hope secretly that something happens..That something..But its too late cuz the kids arrive and then…1% get seperated and the remaining continue without any direction. A regular grist for the mill.

But there is still hope. By 99 point something % I referred to earlier was on the millions as a base that live in India. I have met really cool dudes and gurls with their brains in the right place making their marriages a memorable event and living a fairy tale life. Their answer to moi question was “Becuz we want to”..So in love. If love leads to marriage, is the best thingie. It aint necessary that ye have to get married if ye are in love but if love takes ye down that path, then go for it. Don’t screw up love by getting married. Give it time. Give it space. Nurture it. And do it only when it feels right. Tiffs and fights are normal in any relationship. But getting married without knowing the other person in entirety is like driving downhill without a brake. If ye haven’t understood yer mate’s love, how will ye understand the hate? Love ah – that tender feeling. That passion. Hits ye only once in yer life. Uggh!! Am going off tangent. Love can fill up an entire blog but later on it..

But just becuz…Na na.

A simple start to the New Year - a humble beginning. What more do I need? "I am a simple man; I simply love the best"

Ask for what you want
Be who you say you are
Care about others
Dare to live your dreams
Ease through the day
Find the best fit
Give to another
Hug a friend
Inspire someone to greatness
Jump over a boundary
Kick a bad habit
Leap across a fear
Mention something uplifting
Never say never
Open your mind and heart
Pursue your inner most passions
Quit complaining
Restore your smile
Set your sights high
Trust yourself
Use all the day
Value everything
Wait until it feels right
Xpress yourself
Yank weeds from your mental garden
Zoom into the now