An Evening Walk

Ever been out on a lovely monsoon evening? I'm quite sure you must have, everyone loves monsoon here. Especially yours faithfully.

By the way, hello! Hope all's well, and yes, c'est moi! Missed me?

Winds blow.
 

Aye, five pm, lovely evening with the sun has hidden behind the clouds- which have now darkened to shades beyond black and tinted in gold. It is the Gods of caprice that chose to keep it so, and it be Ye, Gods, bless us under Your darkness, which never fails to show us the needed light. 

~* 

Winds blow.

I already regret cutting my long black hair years ago. I miss tying them up in a braid to keep them off my face for a longer while. I don't know why, but though I'm quite disinterested in fashion, the hairdresser claims it to be 90's of the latest fashion, and his idea of a so-totally-you look. Somehow it convinces me; the present length, being to my shoulders. 

~* 

Winds blow. 

The sweet scent of laburnum flowers, and some out-of-season Gulmohar comes from the nearest trees. It's quite funny really, that these flowers bloom in the most beautiful scent and shape, yet they wilt while you carry them home. I have had better successes with carnations. And roses. And... 

~* 

Winds blow. 

Ripples are created in that puddle under that bench. Over the bench, the sleeping figure doesn't even shudder in response. Poverty has failed to sadden me, now. It's a part of them, and their society, which in turn, is a part of mine. We care to mutually, agree to not understand, and leave it to that. That's about it. 

~* 

Winds blow. 

And burns brighter the lamps in the Sai Sandhya nearby. A beautiful un-electronic (thankfully) evening of music, devotion, and elevation of a fakir to a king. God bless them, for they are simple folk. Bless them, for they are full of love. Bless them, for they hold affections for Him. 

~*

Winds blow.

Children run wild after a fallen guava, fighting to keep it. And as I sit and smile at distance, associating myself with that skinny girl who is more than willing to fight all these goofs off for the magic fruit (though that practically never happens). Some mockery, some giggles, a nose reddened in rage. They let her keep it none-the-less, mainly out of sisterly/ friendly affection. 

~* 

Winds blow. 

A light appears from the clouds. I count the seconds to an approximate figure. Five. The nearest thunderstorm is approximately 1.7 km away. I apply that one principle I learnt in fifth grade: speed of sound is 343 m/s in air. Multiplying the time difference between sighting of the storm and sound with the speed ought to give you a rough distance. 

~* 

Winds stop. 

A drizzle starts.
Light at first.
And it soon gains momentum. 

The children play in the rain, doing their silly dance, getting drenched, as their mothers call out to them. I hear them in a distance now. 

The devouts in the Mandir take it for a blessing. The Masjid nearby calls out for Aazan as well. A scent comes from Gurudwara, the smell of langar. 

I'm blessed. Right now, humanity has joined hands to thank Gods for the blessing called rain, as a summer shower cools down our ego; my unsuited haircut. 

~* 

Torrents blow.

~Neetzi

Nature of Events

Perhaps the greatest bafflement to human civilization is “what now” but it’s a rhetoric question. Isn’t it? Hey, people, hoping you all are as awesome as you’ve been. I am at the moment too lazy to make up an excuse for my lack of posts. But then again, I couldn’t be a little less nonchalant (I prefer the word honest, though). That and I doubt if serious issues are within my range of thought to cover. So, lately my life has been a decent dosage of some minor education, and a lot of learning going on. Perhaps, it’s a superpresence in the experience again which makes one more aware, and thus results in more learning.

So, today, I came across one of those Mad Men episodes (God bless YouTube!), the one where Roger Sterling (the white haired immature funny twack) took LSD. I always found the nature of drug use peculiar. I mean, okay, say what you like, but the basic reason as to WHY people take drugs remains just a very basic “want” to experience previously unexperienced dimension. Look around the 60’s (the best time period, and all who existed back then and lived to see Woodstock, know that you have my envy) and you will see the fact that the basic essence was of a revolution, creation of ideas, Athenian/ Bohemian lifestyle. Any idiot was free to move around reciting poetry or doing something as peculiar. The fact behind that was a deeper introspection and a demand for social freedom. Now, to experience the fact that it “could” be there, the Utopia that they wanted, the basic freedom to be independent of systems, and requirements… that wasn’t there, but they wanted to know what it was if it “could” be like that. The need was to experience the “what-if” moments.

Besides the forbidden nature of what I would comprehend, drugs also resulted in some of the finest music/ artistic/ literary/ poetic/ philosophic bits of that particular era. One favourite that I would take the trouble to talk of, is Jim Morison. We know his heroin addiction and his glorified death at a very young age. But then again, he experienced what wasn’t there, also, there was this lesser known Doors song “Heroin” with the kind of background music which would glorify the affect of the drug. Jimmy Page, is another example. I do not mean lyrics, but he spoke a very different language altogether. If one goes by the nature of the movement of the strings, they can meditate upon a very personal dimension that influenced him. Page had a history behind his bits.

A funny thing was, that these people took drugs to understand the nature of what could be or what would be. They took it, they made artistic and intellectual contributions (that have been attributed to them under their Wikipedia pages, and the pages of their respective biographies), but then again, there wasn’t much of a contribution to the general society. I mean, that time period did bring a huge idea into existence, which has already been practically applied before, but also it brought about a separate idea into being that one can make much of a thought. Also, a thought which was pretty useless in the long run (debates upon the topic are welcome).

Somehow, the nature of drug usage doesn’t hold much appeal to me. I would like to put forth my views to the readers about something that isn’t permanent. Now, what I feel normally about these things is, that drugs can take you on a wishful thinking of the perfect paradise, but it doesn’t keep the paradise, and when you’ll snap out of it, you’ll see that your perfect palace in the air is standing on a cloud, and now that it’s time to rain, your palace HAS to fall. That’s just not it what the basic existence of your paradise is about. No! Your paradise is yours. And it has the right to exist. Especially in your own dimension. If you need an external crutch to place it there, it’s just not being fair to your own self. Think about it, if the nature of thought isn’t strong, how can it be an opinion?

Mind is a very complex device. It thinks, it understands, it interprets, it forms and yet it is also being present. But, the thought and an anxiety of wanting to feel that again, it kinds of cut you out of the present world, and that’s when you question yourself. “Is this what I wanted?” “Is this alright the way it is?” “I don’t like, I don’t have to live with it.” “I do NOT have to live with it.” “Is it even real?” “Is that really me?” Your philanthropic castle suddenly encloses you in its gates refusing to open, and you literally pray for the storm to come and blow away the cloud, so that you can jump to the abyss, except for, this abyss won’t take you higher.

I do not believe in fiddling with the mind. That’s being unfair to your own thought. Think about it, just how self focused you can become in a way that is self destructive!

I never tried drugs, nor do I want to. But I have known people in my school to indulge in drug usage (though they were very much too-young-for-it) and the other things that I didn’t understand the reason behind. Part of the reason why people go to drugs is the lack of education. We say that, this is heroine, you shouldn’t take it/ this stuff is forbidden/ it’s off limits/ it’s addictive/ it’ll kill you. Well, even Aspirin is as lethal. But instead of giving them reasons on why they shouldn’t do it, it’s better to say what it is, what effects it has, and why it has a certain effect, a positive effect that it can have, an alternate way to have a similar positive effect without the side effect (which I will mention). That way, you give an individual a choice, that way, and let them know what it will be rather than having them to dwell upon the “what-if”.

An alternate to drug use is meditation. Well, the reason why they are consumed in the first place is to experience bliss, or a previously unexperienced dimension. If proper meditation is conducted with all the means and measures that it is meant to be done with, you can understand a wider reason to what a short lived fantasy is about. That, and your castle in the air will get a chance to stand on a firmer ground. I mean, as I talk of it, I myself have underwent a meditation program which is a seven day program followed by a forty days progress cycle by the IshaYoga. (Yes they are commercialised, but at least they have something to offer that can help. Damn capitalists!) They call it Shambhavi meditation. I tried one of those modern meditations, but then again, their effect is very short lived. These people give you a very Vedic meditation which is (in my opinion) a longer lasting effect, and also, a core changing point. Also, to each their own. You can go for self hypnosis, or one of those recorded journals. Either way, their effect is to register your thought and have it noted. Not controlling it. We control it in our day to day life very subconsciously. The only way is to let itself free, but still know what you’re doing. That’s what you’re trying to do through drugs, Jodie. Let yourself free!

This timeline, the 2012 period of the century we exist in, has given a lot of bizarre events. Probably, most of them is what public hate, the disagreement between generations, everything going public, nothing being personal anymore, that there is not a corner on this planet which is remote anymore (at least the landmass, we still don’t know much of the oceans), and the only thing that we don’t know is the nature’s camaflouge (she has “problems”), and all sorts of unimaginable things. Thanks to the modern technological media, we know that everything is connected to everything else. In fact, we are moving too fast in time, right now, and we don’t know where this cycle will end so that the next cycle of events can take place. This particular time period is pretty much like the spreading of continents looking for lands to occupy different lands. As if, now that we have the knowledge, we might just as well as take whatever we want and define boundaries between us and them, and we are facing nature’s resistance, and some out of us telling us that our forced control is wrong. Soon, we’ll fight among ourselves for power and resources, after which there will be a huge disaster and a meltdown, thereof. Coming to think of it, the economic crisis is directly in resonance with the event of establishment of empires in foreign countries, also the melt down which initiated the First World War. So, in this one year of awareness, we are torn apart between a conservative outlook of privacy and a modern pull out of openness, and we are existing in the middle path of this even. While some are struggling to maintain the conservatism, the openness has more theoretic takers than the practical ones. The psyche is weaving a thread of thought around convenience and that’s where we are, what we want. It’s a castle in air that we are very consciously placing on clouds but not on our clouds, on someone else’s. It’s always easier to fall on someone else, isn’t it?

I am not elaborating upon the mechanism of working as of now because the nature of the thought is very much of a long and boring diatribe, also, it is very much still unconstructed. But as far as I can think of it for now, time is moving in a symmetry to itself. The universe is moving in a symmetry. They say Woodstock is a once in a lifetime event. Look at Greek Bacchantes, or the Indian Shamans! There have always been replications at different time periods, so what we consider as a once in existence phenomena is a recurring thing. It has happened and it will always happen, because that is the nature of working. Just the nature of observation is alter, because, one hadn’t experience the event in those ages, so they took it for something new, just as we might. But that’s the nature of human thought! That is the way mind works! It has always been there, and it will always be there. Period. The existence is a very recurring phenomenon which is always beginning and always ending. Some might consider it never ending. The modern physics still struggles on the nature of time, though.

Peace!

-Neetz

Madness and The day...

Madness is a disease. A deadly one. A madwoman knows it better than anyone else. Yes, I know a lot of people call me crazy. Maybe, because I am crazy. I really am not concerned over it. I don't care of my craze. Practically because I am unconventional, unacceptable, and uncalled for. Generally people don't like to have me around. Treating me like a two minute company. And the same litany follows, "Neetz, you have beautiful thoughts... express them" or "you are so mature and childish at the same time" or "you seem so perfect"... Perfection is a lie if I can convey.

No one is perfect, because no one NEEDS to be perfect. Those who love us, love us. Those who hate us, hate us. Nothing we can do to change their opinion because if we do something, we are only fooling ourselves and the one who love us through and true.

It's really hard to let go off the anguish and the anger one has devoured for so long. Especially if it's been burning inside of you for far too long.

I am a person who can't pass a single day without reading the newspaper. It's something as important to me as breathing. I don't like watching news on TV. The news there is just dramatised. Plus, reading keeps the senses intact, especially reading on paper.

A few of the witnessed headlines that are going at the international level perked up my senses and sparked a bit of terror in my spine. Very un-linked, yet alike.

Washington supreme court issued the rights to arms to every US citizen. This is happening in a country, where there are average of 80 deaths a day and 34 homicides.

China's ant tribe and over crowded slums. University grads lead a life in a 180 square foot house with 3 at a time. These are some of the most comfortable accommodations they have access too.

Israelis, ignoring the admiration of their advancement in applied technologies; are invading the Turkish airspace. As if the Gaza stripe issue wasn't enough to be dealt with.

India's on the usual war with Naxals. However, theMaoists have left behind a deadbody (unlikely of them).

What I mean is, we see restlessness. Everywhere in this planet. The US militia's behavior in Iraq, especially to women and children. Main war is between the mouslem world's outcry to be spared.

A few bad seeds give the community a bad name. And no matter what our great leaders of "today" promise, we can never stop the bad seeds. Because, okay this one lot can be destroyed. What's the guarantee that there won't be another lot of bad seeds? If I need arms to make sure that I'd see the sunrise tomorrow, I am also aware to see what of the promised "social security" I have access to.

Yes, I have queer many ideas for a mad woman. Maybe that's the madness. I can see the world coming to an end.

"Aaj baazaar mein pa baajolaan chalo" or "Today, walk in the town square fettered in chains"

as Faiz had said some few ages back, we are walking indeed.

The age of technology, we're living in. We almost have access to artificial life, flight, travel over the forbidden areas. But we don't have access to walk without fear, or send the children of our house out to play in the distant corner of the streets without the fear of losing them.

The world is comming to an end. It's highly visible. But let this end be the last one, and we shall join our hands together to endavour a new beginning. As Socrates quoted,

"One day, every question shall be answered."