Need to write vs. Desire to write

"It is the final round and the two opponents are squaring off in the middle of the ring."

"In the blue corner, we have the defending champion, Need to write, who has never been displaced from his position of the ruler of sanity.

"In the red corner, we have the challenger, Desire to write. He is an up and coming fighter, who is much more of an enigma. He seems sane, but is he? That is the question on everyone's minds today."

"The fight is about to start and the tension is so thick that you could cut it with a knife. The entire fate of the four cities of Soliloquy, A tall tale, My god and My religion, and The N Series hangs in the balance. The two pugilists have been very vocal with what they plan to do if they come up tops. We will now go with the file footage of what they said in the locker rooms."

"Mr Need, what do you think will be the outcome of the fight?"

"There is not doubt about it Blog, there is only one champion, there is only one reason HE (note: this is self, me, AR) blogs. That is because he has me, The Need. If it were not for me, he would never have begun this blog. Once I am re-crowned the champion, I will ensure that there is a post a week, a story a week and philosophy like never before. Now get out of my way, before I mow you down, just like I am going to mow down Mr. Desire."

Well, that was a confident Mr. Need. Now the same question asked to Mr. Desire.

"Well, it is a fight, and the person who is better will win. I sure do hope it is me. But, my best wishes with Need. He needs it. And there are no rules or regulations when it comes to writing. HE will always be a writer, even if he writes or not. And when he gets an idea and Desire to write, he will come back. Ciao"

"The fight starts and all Desire does is touch Need, and Need is out like a light. The count is on, Ten, Nine, Eight, Seven, there is no response from Need, six, some amount of stirring, Five, Four, this is close, Need is dazed, Three, Two, I think we have a new champion, One and he is out of here."

Ladies and Gentlemen, we have a new champion, Desire to write. As promised as and when I get a thought worth penning, time to spend and desire to write, I will be back.

Cheers and have a good night.

Still falling

Still falling,
With each passing second,
Increasing velocity
Decreasing distance
I am still falling

The earth
Rushing up from below
The skies
Running away from above
I am still falling

My eyes are wide open
Looking at the world
As it hurtles up to me
I greet it with arms open
Even though I am still falling

It is a jump I took
A flight in the sky
A parachute-less flight
From start to finish
I am still falling

I can hear the wind
As it rushes forward
Me it greets, cradling
My body, which is
Still falling

No weights,
Neither limits
nor boundaries
Can exist in this state, when
I am still falling

No fear nor regrets
for the fall is the joy in it all
I am still falling,
for the earth is a long way off,
And truth still rising.

Cocoon

She looked at the thing
Lying on the window sill.
A cocoon, unopened, virgin
Lying await for the grand opening.

And as she stood there,
A small head appears
Peeking, with eyes so big,
Looking outside for the first time.

Breaking the shell of safety
The confines of home,
The little one crawls out
Into open light for the first time.

Even though the wings are stuck,
The eyes almost covered and
The legs wont hold
The thing wont stop trying

At last it succeeds,
It stand up on its feet,
Opens those color filled wings
And takes to flight, to live

She stands there looking
From within her shell, wobbly legs,
Stuck wings, blank eyes, in her cocoon
Wishing she could fly, she could.

Quarter life crisis

I know that this is a forward and I know that it has been circulated like a zillion times, but it makes some level of sense. (And it is damn funny)

It is when you stop going along with the crowd and start realizing that there are many things about yourself that you didn't know and may not like. You start feeling insecure and wonder where you will be in a year or two, but then get scared because you barely know where you are now.

You start realizing that people are selfish and that, maybe, those friends that you thought you were so close to aren't exactly the greatest people you have ever met, and the people you have lost touch with are some of the most important ones. What you don't recognize is that they are realizing that too, and aren't really cold, catty, mean or insincere, but that they are as confused as you.

You look at your job... and it is not even close to what you thought you would be doing, or maybe you are looking for a job and realizing that you are going to have to start at the bottom and that scares you.

Your opinions have gotten stronger. You see what others are doing and find yourself judging more than usual because suddenly you realize that you have certain boundaries in your life and are constantly adding things to your list of what is acceptable and what isn't. One minute, you are insecure and then the next, secure.

You laugh and cry with the greatest force of your life. You feel alone and scared and confused. Suddenly, change is the enemy and you try and cling on to the past with dear life, but soon realize that the past is drifting further and further away, and there is nothing to do but stay where you are or move forward.

You get your heart broken and wonder how someone you loved could do such damage to you. Or you lie in bed and wonder why you can't meet anyone decent enough that you want to get to know better. Or maybe you love someone but love someone else too and cannot figure out why you're doing this because you know that you aren't a bad person. One night stands and random hook ups start to look cheap. Getting wasted and acting like an idiot starts to look pathetic. You go through the same emotions and questions over and over, and talk with your friends about the same topics because you cannot seem to make a decision. You worry about loans, money, the future and making a life for yourself... and while winning the race would be great, right now you'd just like to be a contender!

What you may not realize is that every one reading this relates to it. We are in our best of times and our worst of times, trying as hard as we can to figure this whole thing out.


We call it the 'Quarter-life Crisis'.

Beauty

Beauty - The qualities that give pleasure to the senses. Man has forever been on a search for beauty. Even Keats could not get to what it meant and gave up when he said, 'Beauty is truth, and truth beauty. That is all ye need to know'.

I would agree with the definition, for beauty is something to please the senses. It does not have to be just sight. For example, even a nice pot of mellagu rasam is beautiful as it gives pleasure to my nose. A rough surface to me is beautiful, for I gain pleasure from touching the surface. To each sense, its own.

My question at this point of view is there should be something that sets beauty apart from the other things that are not beautiful. Please do realize that when I mean beautiful, it is from my frame of reference, it is from my perspective. It is not universal. The one thing that is necessary for something to be realized as beautiful is for that thing to be in sharp contrast to the surroundings, for that thing not to belong. Only then does that thing stand of being considered for beautiful. I will see if I can give a few examples to drive home the point.

Let us take the most general of all things that is considered beautiful, a rose. A rose alone, is beautiful. If that rose were to be placed on a pile of garbage, the beauty of the rose is enhanced, for it is in sharp contrast to the garbage. Now if we place the rose along with other roses, what will happen. The rose stops looking beautiful? Well not really. What happens is that the roses as a set become beautiful, for they are in sharp contrast with the surroundings and the individual roses lose their identity. It goes from being a beautiful rose to being a bunch of beautiful roses. Now if we have a rose garden, then it is a beautiful garden of roses, no more bunch.

Beauty is uniqueness,
For one is more beautiful than two.
Two are beautiful too,
When they are not one.
I stand out,
In contrast, I am seen.
For me to be beautiful,
I need to be alone, I need to be free.

Kuselan - a front row perspective - (No Spoilers)

Over all verdict: (Personal) Of all the movies I have seen Rajinikant in, this one is one of the best.

Question: How does one manage to sit though a movie in which every scene does not focus on Superstar?
Answer: By looking beyond the Superstar and actually watching the movie.

The story is well known - the one of Sudama and Lord Krishna. In fact the entire movie runs on that theme (I will not divulge more). The mythological story goes as to how Sudama, a poor Brahman and a erstwhile close friend of Lord Krishna is convinced by his wife that he should go and ask for assistance from Krishna. When Sudama goes (if I am not mistaken to Dwaraka) and manages to meet the lord, he does not ask for a penny. However, when he comes home, he finds that he has all the luxuries that a man could dream of, for the lord knew what he wanted, and how much he respected the friendship not to ask for anything. The story is one of friendship at the base level.

The above mentioned folklore is adopted to suit the tastes of the modern Tamil cinema going population by P. Vasu. In a typical Rajini movie, one does not have to think, all one has to do is to suspend thought and watch the man on the screen. However, this is one movie which makes one think. For that reason alone, I would recommend a watch.

Personally the highlight of the movie was Pasupathy. As in Veyil, he is perfect to play the role of the meek underachiever with a massive inferiority complex. He is able to portray the emotions that go into such a person to the 'T' and for most of the movie takes the cake away from Rajini. In fact, there are places when you forget that it is a Rajini movie. Kudos to the actor.

Nayanthara has no role other than to be a bombshell and she plays the part well. In fact, other than Pasupathi and in some parts Rajini, most of the other characters do not have a great role to play. Comedy is the usual slapstick, with Vadivelu getting the living daylights beaten out of him, Livingston with a flat performance and Santhanam providing a few minutes of laughter.

Meena as Pasupathy's wife has come up with a decent performance, although one is not supposed to use logic to compare the state of her dressing and the state of her living.

The music played its part, with one song - Chaaral well rendered by Shreya Ghoshal being catchy. Most of the songs are just peans to Rajini. The BGS was good, in most places complementing the brillaint picturization.

One of the main points in it for me was the cinematography. Aravind Krishnan has come up with some breathtaking shots and I think that his sense of color usage during most parts of the movie was extraordinary. I would have appreciated it if the use of animation was restricted to places where it would make sense (dolphins in a lake near the Andhra Tamil Nadu border sure does not).

Over all, the movie is one which one can go to if they are not looking for a typical Rajini movie. It has its moments, but on the whole it is decent value for money. I would recommend the movie for a Saturday morning show for those who work and for a Wednesday evening show for those who can make it at that time.

P.S. (Go for Pasupathy if not for anything else)

Atlas (Re)shrugged

This is a short piece.. I guarantee that.
This is something that I noticed in 'Atlas Shrugged' by Ayn Rand.
The error is self evident. I have copied the concerned text from the book verbatim.

"While you were dragging to your sacrificial altars the men of justice, of independence, of reason, of wealth, of self-esteem-I beat you to it, I reached them first. I told them the nature of the game you were playing and the nature of that moral code of yours, which they had been too innocently generous to grasp. I showed them the way to live by another morality-mine. It is mine that they chose to follow."

I think that the non readers of Atlas Shrugged need a small summary of the situation.
"The main conflicts of the book surround the decision of the "individuals of the mind" to go on strike, refusing to contribute their inventions, art, business leadership, scientific research, or new ideas of any kind to the rest of the world. Society, they believe, hampers them by interfering with their work and underpays them by confiscating the profits and dignity they have rightfully earned. The peaceful cohesiveness of the world disintegrates, lacking those individuals whose productive work comes from mental effort. The strikers believe that they are crucial to a society that exploits them, denying them freedom or failing to acknowledge their right to self-interest, and the gradual collapse of civilization is triggered by their strike." Source: Wikipedia (Go here for the entire article - Wikipedia Atlas Shrugged)

The lines in italics undermines the book and the entire John Galt speech. After all, it does not matter if they choose to live by the laws of the people who wish to use the product of individual brilliance for societal means or the laws of Galt, in the end they are not living their own lives. They are leading lives that is required of them by others. In this regard, the book does not talk completely of objectivism, but of disguised dictatorship for she (Rand) has ended up with a sermon generally associated with priests. It appears that she has crowned herself the high priestess of how to live a life.

In the end, I appreciate what Rand has taught me, 'My life is mine and no one has any right of it other than myself.'

I do not need to be told this no matter by whom- neither Rand, neither Galt and neither any of her other creations, this is something I know. In the event that I do not realize that my life is mine, I guess that I do not have the right to be informed of something that is so fundamentally true.

Neither Galt's nor Roark's

Neither Toohey's nor James'

My life is mine, Mine alone.

Life and Death

Everytime I look in your eyes,
I live a thousand lifetimes,
Everytime you close your eyes
I die a thousand deaths.
Life and death,
Separated by the blink of your eyes.
In you I see me,
In me you see you.
Everytime you see in my eyes,
I die a thousand deaths.
Everytime I close my eyes,
I live a thousand lifetimes.
Death and Life
Separated by the blinking of mine

Never love what you do for a living!!!!

I am sure that this is something that everyone aspires to achieve. Every person entering the work scene has this as his/her dream and old people regret not having had this during their professional life. The dream of doing what one loves, not loving what one does (they read almost the same; however, carry a subtle difference).
This too was my dream, to get into something that I love. In fact, every profession I wanted to pursue. Being one of fickle mind, I have had my share of dream professions ranging from the mundane army general to all-important doctor. If some had asked me when I was in school what I was to become, in most cases I would have said a doctor. Then I did a turn around and joined engineering. During my engineering, I wanted to get into some Masters and become a researcher. Never once did I think that I would take the management side of business. I have always been a techie. However, here I am, a management graduate in finance, working for one of the top-notch financial institutions. This is my learning.
Never do something that you love as a profession. Always pick a profession that you like and not love. Pursue it so that you are doing something that you like. Keep the thing that you love to pursue along with the profession. I do agree that this sounds ridiculous. If one is given an opportunity to pursue some profession that they love, they should not do so. The answer is that profession over a period becomes a mean to an end. One cannot and should not restrict one’s life to work. Work is something that gives you the means to enjoy life. If you take the thing that you love the most and make a job out of it, the sheer monotony of having to do it over and over again will kill the love for it. I will give a rather vulgar example, but one that will drive the point home.
Human beings are built to enjoy sex. However, think of a prostitute. She does it for a living; so much so that there will come a point where she does not even what to think about it outside of her ‘work’. Take a sportsperson. As a child imagine that he loved running and feeling the wind in his face. As he grew older, he pursued running as a career. However, he did not take into account the amount of training he will have to do, the amount of effort he has to put in. finally, when he is running the actual race, he is not enjoying the wind in his face anymore. He is looking to see what his position is or what would his sponsor think of his current place. He is not driven by the love for what he is doing, but by the desire to excel in what he is doing. He does not love running anymore.
That is why I started by saying that one should not do what one loves for a living. There are many of so-called writers around, who dabble in blogs. Imagine if some publisher came to us and told us to write books, one after another. There would be a period, we would have to cater to a larger audience, and the entire joy of writing will be devoid in our works.

Therefore, today I vow,
If given a choice,
Never to pursue
What I love as a profession.
I will pursue, what I like,
Leaving the love to remain.

Dignity of Labor

This is something that I have thought of for quite some time now. Let me begin with something that t according to many people shows me as a snob. I mostly watch English movies, vow away from Hindi ones and watch the Tamil ones that are prescribed by Balu, who shares my taste in movies, at least the good ones. It is usually a norm that he will watch a Tamil movie first and then if he finds it good and wants to go another time, he will go along with me.
In all the English movies that I have seen, people follow all kinds of professions, they are waiters, janitors, truck drivers, firemen, cops, business magnets, run of the mill farmers; you name a profession and they are in it. However, they are not given preferential treatment as I see happening in our country. What I fail to understand is why is that to us a person who cleans a drain is socially below the one that calls him to do so? Should it not be the other way around; he is able to do something you are not, therefore he is better than you are?
I do agree that there is a certain comparison going on, something that I vowed never to do however, when it is staring you in the face, there is not much that you can do about it. It pisses me off to see someone call a waiter the way that you call a dog, pouting your lips and making noises that sound like you are sucking hard on something. I use this example because it is the most obvious. Quite some people do not even know the names of the servant maid who come to clean their houses and cook for them. After all, they say, "She does a job, which I pay her to do and why should I know her past, her present and her future?" What do they have to benefit?
Let me tell you something that I have tried and has paid off. The next time you take a rickshaw, try indulging the driver in harmless banter. You do not notice the traffic you are stuck in and at the end of the ride; you have made your self an acquaintance. The other day, I got into a rickshaw and the driver did not even ask me where I was headed. He drove as if he knew where I was to go. Having been in a bad mood and lost in thought, I did not even notice until he pulled up in front of my office, apparently, I had talked to him a few days before and he remembered me.
Try talking to your maid the next time, ask her about her kids, about her life and I am sure that you will notice the improvement in the quality of work and the involvement that she has.
Why do a few words said in what can be described as kindness make such a difference? The reason is simple; you are treating them like a human being. You are giving them the most important thing that a person needs- dignity - dignity of labor. You are telling them that no matter what work you do, you are doing it to feed yourself and your children, the same way that I work. Just because you earn lesser than I do, that does not give me the right to look down on you (I beg you, please refrain from asking if there is anything that gives me the right to look down on you, the only thing that does if I am taller than you are and I am literally looking down on you).
In the end, I wish that no one would have to undergo what millions undergo in this country, of being denied the dignity of labor. The government talks about equality, unless there is dignity of labor, there cannot be any equality, for equality comes from within and not without.
You no better than I am,
For I am no better than you are.