limitations

if at every moment, every time i learn more i realise how young, inexperienced and naive i was. if after every experience, i say i have grown and can now see things in a way i couldn't earlier, how can i ever be so sure of decisions/beliefs/intuitions. i should then always be completely unsure and treat every instinct with caution, because as i breathe and live i shall soon be wiser and see the fallacy of my beliefs. Sure, some may be reaffirmed, but so many will change. I can/should thus never be sure of what I feel/think/do.
On the flip-side, if I'm never sure, I can never do, or at least never do with good enough conviction. So pragmatism would have me do imperfectly than not at all. It might even be said it's better to do wrong than to not do at all - and it seems like anything done would be wrong since over time i'll see how incomplete and incoherent my views were.
So the best is what can be done at the moment to the best of our abilities. The best is what can be done right with the right intentions - since every decision will ultimately affect someone in a harmful way and as long as it is being done in oblivion it should be okay. But is it right to then stop seeing further in time, when you can start seeing faults. What do you do when every option has harm written all over it? Should you then choose the one with the least harm? How do you measure that? Should you choose the one with more harm in the present or more in the future?
Do/should we care about our progeny? About future generations. About the world we leave to generations after us. Do we really care? Why is that counter-intuitive to most of us? Probably because it's much harder to sympathise with those we haven't seen and thus we can relate much less to. Speaking for myself, I suppose I empathise much more with past generations that have existed than future generations that haven't yet started. I guess if i think ahead I might find a conveniently scary world out there for them, but my empathy is limited by the reach of my senses - and since empathy is almost like an involuntary reflex, only the sensation matters, not the rationalisation. Thus I'm more biologically suited to empathise with more structural closeness to my senses over time. Thus family more than others, and hence the structural difference of national/religious sympathies in people. We humans are limited. We can imagine and hypothesise global and cosmological events but our empathy is limited by us being a biological tool. A tool that senses the environment and builds connections.
In short we are screwed.

bed of blood

a bullet to the wound, and

a bullet to the mind

can rarely be as sublime

as the pangs of a charred heart

a knife to the navel, or

a blow that ruptures out the blood in your guts, and then

your guts all artistically spilled out

are rarely as comprehensive

as the tunes the mind can take

if the moment were to breathe

and if these moments were to grow

i wonder what we could make with

a spastic mind harvesting a dark undercurrent

and deep undergrowth

torrential rain can water much dust

and clean much dirt

but beyond the pain begone

it can only pick up the remains of a mutilated carcass

it can only wash away the morbidity of the infected soul

nothing can revive it

not even the torrential rain

but if society and i had a choice

i'd prefer a clean road

and we do have a choice

the blushes of the trees

and the faces of the plants

only appear as murderers now

the gaze of lights like a flesh-eater on the prowl

every object around me like a fiend

waiting to rape me and crumple me 

as i crack in every bone

i'd invite them all and let them have their way 

but that would be too simple

i deserve much more

the bed i sit on engulfs me

like a coffin would spit out a corpse

the wires around me dangle. as if

waiting to rip me until my skin is red

they are the foot soldiers of beloved enemy

i can either concede or suffer

the choice has always been mine

i can only concede or suffer

and i do have a choice

death, morbidity and more (the complete package)

if only i could speak, i would say

not just things that wander around in my mind

not just things that matter

but the things that pain

if only i had words,

my lone option would not be

to kill every bit slowly, one by one

so none is left, and none is better than some

if there was any light left

i would paint it with shadows

my words are knives

and they're full of blood

i would continue to mock

i would continue to drone

shell out junk, pilfer, plunder and scream

in mirth and joy as i destroy everything

there is nothing left

nothing more can be

i shall continue to be tormented

that was my curse

and i was born with it

i never believed in naysayers

or the mystery of birth

never accorded to heredity

or the star soothsayers

but torment and hatred was bred within me

and yes, i was born with it

until everyone kills me

i shall continue to fight my battle

to continue to kill everyone within me

one shall win in the end

sadistic as i am, i hope it's me

the dry leaves shall wither

the oceans shall dry

blood dust and torment will breathe the land

smoke and charr will be all you will be allowed to breathe

and as you try and live,

i will suck every breath of life from within me

sometimes i wonder if the tormentor

is around me or within me

i cannot defend myself from the one around me

i can at least harvest the one within me

every night every morning

even as this tinge of melodramtaic greed gnaws away

i shall resist it

there is no hope left for any of us

why should i then leave anything within me

beauty was a mistress then

and beauty is a mistress now

beauty will continue to prey on us all

i have already sacrificed myself

but it shall not forgive me

by the end i will lose my eyes

and be spread out like a corpse

and it will eagerly chew up my carcass

it shall enjoy scavenging slowly and painfully

but not give up

my obsession is only matched by my murderer

i shall continue to struggle and

it will never let things end

in my dying moments

in what i can only hope for myself

the only optimism is that

when i close my eyes

let there be nothing left of me at all

ejipura evictions

So let's put things in a bit of perspective here.

On the one hand it is wrong to take over someone else's property and land. It is illegal and part of the law system which protects other people/corporations and governments from taking what is rightfully ours. If one of these people came and took over part of our homes we would feel bad, right?

But that's not the half the picture.

1. How did the people who currently own this land come to become its owners? We are fully well aware of how the sale of land of this size happens. Are we not aware of how much money exchanged hands or are we not aware of how many bureaucrats themselves have vested interests in it. I would be interested to look at the uncensored deed of the papers, the partnership of the venture that is making that mall. Who is willing to bet there's a politician who's part owner in the enterprise? How the revenue generated from sale of commercial shops will go on to fund the next candidacy of an elected official. Police force that harasses women in the city doesn't become effective overnight. This happens when a minister orders them to evacuate people.

2. On what basis was this land distributed. The premise of the government is that it owns public land (since it is made up of 'public') and ideally distributes land to serve the community better. There are huge ranges of green in bangalore that have been destroyed and are currently being destroyed for construction. Finding a park in the city is now almost akin to finding an oasis in a desert. Greens used by military are taken over for corporate construction in the city. There is no consideration towards these people with respect to their lives when these decisions are made. The only beneficiaries of these constructions are us, the upper middle class and consumers and the rich corporations who are the producers. 

3. These people are being dislocated because they are affecting someone's plans and there is/might be talk about them being compensated. Why can't the people who own the land be relocated and then compensated by more quantity of land in a different less posh location. Surely the eviction of 2000 families should seem like enough reason. But the decision is to favour the few who have come to own this through corporate and government machinery designed for and by them. ( Let us not even go into the interest benefits received by the corporations using fabricated balance sheets, who essentially build the entire project funded largely by public money )

4. Also, according to the Indian constitution, there is no fundamental right to property as of the 42th amendment (or something similar). If there is a man who owns a house on a site where a highway or a trainline needs to be laid, he is removed from that place with compensation. Surely, the lives of 2000 families should be enough cause for that to come into effect. This is in fact an abuse of that very recommendation.

5. One more question we need to ask ourselves is what constitutes owning the land. Living there with your family, constituting a livelihood etc. seem like they should amount to something. If it really comes down to legal residence, most of the poor (tribals etc) don't have legal certificates for land. Two generations ago we wouldn't have any physical ownership to our lands. For crying out loud, we as a country are only 3 generations old.

Moreover, I don't think that law can be used as an absolute defence. They are more often than not the garb much of the powerful hide behind. It is often a mirage designed for protection of the rich and powerful.

For a moment, let us say everything is by the book - Law is useless if all we know is the letter of the law and not the essence of the law.

Rules are made for a reason, to protect not to destroy. Just because a rule is present doesn't mean that it should be blindly followed. If this is a case that makes it look invalid, it should not be followed. And let's face it the reason why we are sitting here typing this mail is because we have won a genetic lottery in india. The people owning/constructing the land are not born geniuses who have hard earned something unique through labour. They are more often than not at the right place at the right time.

Maybe it is even wrong to the corporation that has bought this land. Maybe the business venture they invested in gets hampered and there are some losses. Compensate that by delaying payment liabilities. It's a call between supporting blind economic growth and an inclusive empathetic decision.

At the gut of it, we just need to ask ourselves one moral question whether it is ok to destroy the lives of 2000 families who are already living at the fringes of society.

rant.

There have been a lot of articles condemning the Delhi rape case. I decided not to share any of them cause I feel cheap in doing nothing but sitting in front of a fucking computer and sharing, but some were really good and valid and I shared them anyway. Of course I'm furious but so is everyone else. Yes I feel like shouting madarchod, bhenchod and visualise myself heroically murdering those bastards. It's not helping. Murdering fucking everyone of these people in the most gruesome fashion. It's still not helping. This is the first time I'm willing to condone brutal capital punishment and it's shocking me and scaring me. I have always been against it. What is happening? But in my heart I know that's going to start another set of problems - but maybe it should happen, society has historically adjusted itself through anarchy whenever this happens. To the master of puppets it's just another shiver in the strings. Yes, I'm really angry and I'm no one. It's scary beyond wits to even imagine what it must be like to be that family - to be that person, that brother, that parent, that boyfriend. I fail, I can't.

So what do I do. Ok to begin with, I'll rant about or rather espouse some basic philosophy points I have constantly mentioned. Why does someone do this and what is the source? Are we basically savage animals and it shows up in heinous crimes like these. Sure, we are horrible savage animals that will succumb to cannibalism but that's an over-simplistic view. How can someone even like forced sex? There is no way on earth it can be pleasant. What is wrong with these people. But then I will continue to blame ourselves as a society not because that is the easiest thing to do, but because that is where the problem starts with.

You make a society that practises female infanticide. What were you thinking and what were you expecting? You start murdering these girls before they were even born. You not only screw up the sex ratio but you send out the wrong message. Do you realise how you are affecting the world with female infanticide? What if there was only one woman with for every three men in the world/country? What do you think would happen. Would it affect or worsen these crimes? Of course even if there was one lone woman in the world, not one person should dare touch her without consent, but we know the dark side is going to show itself. What is the message you are sending out? You have sent her packing even before she was born. You have already made her inferior. You have already destroyed the beginning. If that was the attitude before birth, same is going to be the attitude after birth. You will bring up the guy telling him he has to take care of the business and you will bring up the girl telling her that she has to get married off somewhere. You bring up the kid that way for 20 years. What do you think is going to happen to them? Do you really think the girl will have confidence and ambition left. You make your women cook and serve your men the food. They then have their meals after the husbands are done. Are they your motherfucking servants, you pieces of shit. You have your get-togethers, you drink and merry yourselves. Then you leave some cola for the women. They have to serve you and wait on you and get refill your peanuts every half hour. You will not allow her to face the world and then make fun of her for not knowing it. You seclude that person from the outside world - then you ill treat her and show her a morsel of pity at your passing fancy. You are disgusting enough to make her crave for that too. You are breeding social and psychological pain and monsters beyond your imagination and one day it is my sincere hope that it wakes up and destroys you.

The problem is not with some set of rascals who can't control themselves. They aren't patients, they are pests that need to be dealt with and dealt with harsh. But the problem is how we treat women. The problem is how we see them, and the biggest problem is how we are forced to see them. How many schools do you have that are coeducational and foster healthy coupling of both the sexes. Most of your bloody schools are single gender. You cut them off and separate them from childhood. You frown upon all the communication they do. Yes you make it so fucking taboo that even the most simple (i won't fucking call it innocent, cos that's the wrong word to use and perpetrated by this delusion that you have created) communication is treated with unnecessary and inadequate jokes and attention. Forget communication, the most human essence of touch is considered wrong. How wrong is it to fucking touch a person. How do you sense a person? over the fucking internet on Facebook. It's biologically done (apart from communication) by visual communication, our reaction to auditory perception, our sense of touch. All these things contribute to how we perceive any human being. You burkha bondage bastards have destroyed the very essence of human kind, the very essence of a living being. To communicate between two people, just two people. You have killed at the very core the simple spontaneity that we shared when we were unaware kids. You have made taboo and disgusting the most natural and holy (if that fucking cuss word was ever going to be used) aspects of human bonding. You have fettered it with fear and suspicion. I know of colleges in India where boys and girls - kids! - aren't allowed to talk to each other and are fined. Obviously you'll have eve teasing, stupid vulgar gestures these men commit to grab the attention of women, and then worse the anger and frustration at their failure to do so. It's a reverse effect - men act like donkeys, women get protective of themselves and treat every one with fear and suspicion - they become snobbish. You start a bloody spiral and spoil human bonding for everyone. You ever know why they are snobbish probably cos on the way to the cafeteria through the day, she was glared at 5-10 times, maybe whistled at, maybe pushed or inappropriately touched in buses and trams, and that's why she's pissed. And you know why she feels so helpless, cos she can't fucking tell anyone about it. It's embarrassing, she can't complaint to her senior managers, when employees mistreat her. Often it's the fucking boss himself. But then how does she rattle cages. If she complaints, she's going to be declared a slut - and since she is more easily expendable, she's going to have to "change departments" while the boss is important to the business. And of course you know "she was a little like that only, dressing like that". Who the fuck are you to tell what she should dress like haan? Do you bleeding imbeciles every notice why dressing is important to them? Why it's an important part of their persona? How it's linked to how they perceive and relate to the world. Have you ever seen them move properly when they are happy and realised that the dressing, the movement, the head shakes are all part of them. They are all part of their beauty and their existence and they are not only for men's pleasure. They would like dressing even if we men weren't there to ogle at them. All part of what makes them unique. And you have killed that too. You have made a disgusting world. You have made a world for them where they are valued and judged only by their looks. Of course how else do fucking arrange marriages happen anyway, the girl should be pretty na. The girl should be pretty and the guy should be rich. That's your fucking barometer. Every where the only way they are judged is by their looks. Granted we all as human beings are attracted to people in certain ways and this affects our behaviour, it even happens between men and men and women and women. But no you have objectified her to the point of insanity. There has to be her perfect figure, she has been treated across literature, art and all forms as an object. Of course that crass crap doesn't merit being called art or literature, but hey aren't these the times that we live in.

And then how can we forget sati. The most noblest of indian traditions - the example we use to tell the world we are a great country with such pride and aplomb never used to congratulate your women's hockey or cricket team of course. Fortunately we had the british rule us (I say this to make a point, it was obviously most unfortunate) and they taught people like Raja Ram Mohan Roy to teach us to not burn our women alive. Someone, someone smart told me it originated as a practise because Mughal emperors after war would rape the women after winning a war. Well probably it did, but it took a long time after the Mughals to change that, didn't it. And what does that tell you - they preferred to be burnt alive than to get violated and raped! And we still hold these fortresses as our monuments of honour. We in India have palaces and forts (the ones I saw were in rajasthan) where the high gates of the fortress are marked with a series of hand impressions. These are the impressions of the women who put it there before being burnt on their husbands funeral pyre. Of course these are our signs of greatness, the kings the dynasties that we hold on to. These are the buildings that we are proud. Raze them to the ground, they have nothing to teach you and if they did you wouldn't learn them anyway.

So what next. You treat them pathetically at every age, in every relationship at every place. What about sexuality? How often does the husband reciprocate and partake in what the woman wants? How often is she allowed to be expressive. You just want your blow jobs don't you. Did you ever bother with what she wants, what pleasures her. Did you even fucking clean that cum off the bedspread after ejaculating. No, why will you, she's your fucking maid servant. She is supposed to be submissive and she will do that. I'm sorry if that was a little too disturbing for your ears. Why do you think this happens then? Have you heard stories of women being tortured? How men stick iron rods and throw chilli powder into their vaginas. How India is a fantastic country, the golden bird of the east, in fact the fucking great country that has spent twenty years fighting for a seat in the UN but not the fact that it has the highest child molestation in the world. But of course, this is both young boys and girls - I'm guessing girls here have it far worse. My friend is a psychologist who has treated children whose dad used to rape them and they used to cover themselves in their own shit to prevent that from happening. What drives this sort of behaviour? Are you as a fucking society a culprit of this for having fostered an environment where men are called alphas, praised for that and women are hidden behind shut doors. Or is it that these people are bastards despite their upbringing and we in India and Delhi especially seem to be way to full of that. If you still feel proud of being an Indian, I feel sad for you. I feel disgusted and repulsed. Don't give me your shambolic reasons of how we used to be a great and open society in Harappan and Gupta times. I have grown in these times and seen this foul shit and I don't think that I can have any shred of respect for a country and that doesn't agree on language, religion, cast - nothing at all and fights over them - but unanimously molests and rapes women. That and commercial bollywood which is a rape of aesthetics and story telling are probably the only two things we as a country agree on. And of course we like our bollywood - we've got all the conventional saas bahus, the epic drama of indian life and the item numbers working for us. If that mass cultural delusion isn't example enough, what is.

And all you fucking feminists and well-bred women, if you raise your voice at how appalling and stereotypical what I have said is, you can go fuck yourself to. You don't understand the plight of these women any better than men and just need social recognition. Even if your intentions are noble, your attempts will be pale. And you women aren't bereft of these crimes as well. How the fuck can you let us treat you like this? You should have slaughtered us and murdered us long back. You not only commit a crime against yourself and humanity by letting us treat you this way, but you also treat your daughter-in-laws the same way. You pamper and spoil your sons the same way. You fucking don't give your girls enough freedom the same way. So fuck you too. You might be the product of a social disaster but you are fostering it as well. The next time your drunk husband manhandles you, please file a report with some NGO (not the cops, god knows they might rape you and call you loose for talking to another man) or better cut his testicles when he is sleeping.

Quite frankly if these are the times we have to live in, we don't deserve you. You are the only people that make this shit world even the tiny bit beautiful or worth living in. For every fucking bomb that we have dropped, you have been enchanted by the essence of flowers and decorated our small houses with them. Quite frankly you have civilised us and taught us dirty beasts how to live. But we don't deserve you and neither does this world. Actually maybe nature does but we don't. Also, if someone blames me for stereotyping women here I'm gonna burn you piece of shit as well. I know very well they are more than that and can perform at any rate men can.

the good news and the bad news

the bad news is people leave you, the good news is you don't need to hold on to that many

the bad news is time flies, the good news is you're the pilot

the bad news is love is lost, the good news is it exists

the bad news is pain is everlasting, the good news is happiness is at least fleeting

the bad news is ugliness hurts, the good news is it decays

the bad news is beauty isn't appreciated, the good news is it's a joy forever

the bad news is life goes on, the good news is life ends

the bad news is poetry will fail eventually, the good news is it'll win in the moment

the bad news is you won't know which is which, the good news is neither are that bad, really

the bad news is finding beauty is so difficult, the good news is it finds you

the bad news is friends change, the good news is they still stay

the bad news is everything changes, the good news is everything changes

the bad news is nothing lasts forever, the good news is nothing lasts forever

the bad news is you just won't know, the good news is you just won't know

the bad news is trust and hope, the good news is trust and hope

the bad news is her, the good news is her

the bad news is you're in love, the good news is you're in love

the bad news is you're mad, the good news is you're mad

the bad news will fade away, the good news will stay

and that's both a bad and a good thing

Musings

We try so hard to feel unique and special yet we so often tend to fall in line