We are all puppets...But I am the puppet who can see the strings...
Confined in the dark, narrow cage of our own making which we take for the whole universe, very few of us can even begin to imagine another dimension of reality.
you have to keep pretending that life makes sense, that there’s some point to all this struggling. It’s all a joke. Everything anybody ever valued or struggled for . . . it’s all a monstrous, demented gag! So why can’t you see the funny side? Why can't you laugh...
How does it matter whether you made the million or not? Go ahead if you r the next bill gates..but ask urself..do you really think so!!! he he he...and if not, how does it matter that in a thousand kilometer race whether you die after covering a centimeter or a kilometer? Did you raise the limits of the race? did you make it a hundred thousand kilometer race? Will you make it?
Or will you do as millions of losers on this planet do? May be you never wanted this race...May be you could have been first in some other race...did you try? Did you take the path you wanted or the one that was easy...or may be that every one was walking on..he he he...are you a software engineer? or an MBA or something every third person is?
Who are you?What are you?Do you want to be cool or may be hot?How many times did u change ur act to be accepted?Do you know our national anthem?Is attack the best defence? Is there strength in numbers? Is a pack of dogs powerful than a Lion?
How do you manage ur Conscience? Are you ashamed of yourself?What did you do? Are you weak?Are you strong?Or are you plain simple Manipulative?Is Life easy, or is it tough?
Do you whip out ur mobile the moment you feel concious? Do you hide in shadows and watch others may be from the corner of ur eyes? Do you hide your jealousy in a smile?Can you live without talking? What do you say when you talk to yourself?
Does ur conscience make you miserable?Do you feel miserable?Do you think you can never stop never b better?Do u think the die has been cast?Have you stopped caring?
Are difficult questions stupid? Can you lie to yourself?
Is this whole thing sick? then why do you read?Why don't you quit?Can you quit... the path you have chosen?Given a chance would you change your past?your path is the easy one..isn't it?What are you afraid of?Who are you afraid of? What are your worst fears?
Do you understand what am i saying? Where am i coming from? Do you know what am i talking about?
Do YOU?
I KNOW YOU DO...EVERY ONE DOES..
ha ha ha...do you see the funny side? NOW?
YOU KNOW ME NOW...You Have Always Known ME....Always, I have been there with you...inside you..Listen to me..I AM THE LIGHT..THE LIGHT OF TRUTH...Satyarth
Monday, August 28, 2006
Thursday, August 24, 2006
Complete Posts
I am the light View
by RAINMAKER 8/27/2006
by RAINMAKER 8/22/2006 by RAINMAKER 8/19/2006 by RAINMAKER 8/17/2006 by RAINMAKER 8/14/2006
The Joker
by RAINMAKER 7/19/2006 1 comment by RAINMAKER 7/16/2006 1 comment by RAINMAKER 7/15/2006
Tum mujey na dogey jeeney View 2 comments by RAINMAKER 6/28/2006 1 comment by RAINMAKER 6/27/2006 6 comments by RAINMAKER 6/23/2006 1 comment by RAINMAKER 6/22/2006 2 comments by RAINMAKER 6/21/2006 by RAINMAKER 6/20/2006 6 comments by RAINMAKER 6/10/2006 4 comments by RAINMAKER 5/27/2006 2 comments by RAINMAKER 3/20/2006 9 comments by RAINMAKER 2/10/2006 by RAINMAKER 1/30/2006 by RAINMAKER 1/22/2006 1 comment by RAINMAKER 1/20/2006 1 comment by RAINMAKER 1/16/2006 2 comments by RAINMAKER 1/05/2006 1 comment by RAINMAKER 1/05/2006 by RAINMAKER 1/05/2006 4 comments by RAINMAKER 1/04/2006 by RAINMAKER 1/04/2006 by RAINMAKER 1/04/2006 by RAINMAKER 1/03/2006 1 comment by RAINMAKER 1/03/2006 by RAINMAKER 1/03/2006 by RAINMAKER 12/31/2005 by RAINMAKER 12/30/2005 by RAINMAKER 12/28/2005 by RAINMAKER 12/24/2005 1 comment by RAINMAKER 12/23/2005 by RAINMAKER 12/13/2005 1 comment by RAINMAKER 12/09/2005 by RAINMAKER 12/09/2005 by RAINMAKER 12/04/2005 by RAINMAKER 12/01/2005 5 comments by RAINMAKER 7/25/2005 by RAINMAKER 7/22/2005 by RAINMAKER 7/21/2005 by RAINMAKER 7/15/2005 2 comments by RAINMAKER 4/15/2005 by RAINMAKER 4/14/2005 by RAINMAKER 1/03/1990
by RAINMAKER 8/27/2006
god is an insurance policy View
Farhan Akhtar, Big B, Subhash Ghai View
There is no sanity clause View
A Tryst with destiny View
The Joker
In Support of Spam View
me...... View
Tum mujey na dogey jeeney View
Bangle รจ Bello View
The Punching Bag View
Deewangi Rahey baaki View
Do aarzuu Pey aur Do Intezaar pey View
Gettin Bored View
Yeh jafa e gham ka chaara View
tap dancing on my keyboard on a bored night View
pic with rajpal yadav and javed akhtar View
rang de basanti View
First off-line Post View
few links View
on these pages... money is View
Entertaining Emotions View
Roark: The Fountainhead View
Withdrawing my Admission from MICA View
Feminism...thank you melly... View
The falure of feminism View
An Egoist Male Chauvinist's solemn Oath View
Two Videos View
Two videos to watch View
Immortals View
Forgive me Father, for I have sinned View
Fear led consumption View
Hot Seat View
Who the hell was Nietzsche??? View
Nietzsche View
Blessed are the meek, for they shall Inherit the Earth... View
mobius strip View
open your eyes View
Winners never quit....Quitters never win View
ilaaz e gardish e lailo nihaar rakhtey hain View
Lutf woh Ishq mey View
Black and White View
Judge Not, that Ye be not judged. View
MICA View
night out View
Are You Unforgiven too??????? View
immortality View
Tuesday, August 22, 2006
god is an insurance policy
God is the oldest insurance policy that has ever existed...and religion is the premium one has to pay. Small allegience year by year until it accumulates. Some people decide to pay a larger premium, and these are the people who are scared. They are the people who pay larger premiums on their real insurance policies too.
Saturday, August 19, 2006
Farhan Akhtar, Big B, Subhash Ghai
Was talking to suvhash ghai...when shabana swoops in with a request
With Big B(he is sooo Tall)
Me With Farhan Akhtar(yeah...the Director of Dil Chahta Hai)
Thursday, August 17, 2006
There is no sanity clause
The road of Normalcy is actually as thin as a razor's edge compared to vast plains. The chances of any one getting off the road is pretty easy.
The road to drive has been defined, but the definition keeps on changing. Today some one like marilyn manson can exist and be followed(http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001504/)...while only few years ago he would have been shunned in an asylum. Who wants to be sane?...I am here to live a life and live on my own terms. Even if i am crazy and am happy, does it matter what people say of me? What does a normal man have? I think that in today's world, something that is being considered as ambition must have been insanity in some century. Shrinks have just studied what exists and classified it for academic purposes. People like john nash...Howard Hughes(The Aviator) ahve made it big with all the disabilities. On the other hand Society made their lives miserable by branding them as mentally unstable. I think a person shouldnot be judged on his sanity but what he took from the society and what he contributed to it. On this scale, many normal people are wanting. But yeah, the supreme thing still should be Live and Let live. If that isn't being followed, then definitely the man should be shunned. Because he is taking away much much more than he is giving back. BTW, donot worry, as one of my favourate movie still is "As good as it gets". and as The Joker in the batman series says, for some people "Madness Is the emergency exit"(the above was written as a comment on devil's blog
Monday, August 14, 2006
A Tryst with destiny
Long years ago we made a tryst with destiny, and now the time comes when we shall redeem our pledge, not wholly or in full measure, but very substantially. At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom. A moment comes, which comes but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new, when an age ends, and when the soul of a nation, long supressed, finds utterance. It is fitting that at this solemn moment we take the pledge of dedication to the service of Inida and her people and to the still larger cause of humanity.
At the dawn of history India started on her unending quest, and trackless centuries are filled with her striving and the grandeur of her success and her failures. Through good and ill fortune alike she has never lost sight of that quest or forgotten the ideals which gave her strength. We end today a period of ill fortune and India discovers herself again. The achievement we celebrate today is but a step, an opening of opportunity, to the greater triumphs and achievements that await us. Are we brave enough and wise enough to grasp this opportunity and accept the challenge of the future?
Freedom and power bring responsibility. The responsibility rests upon this Assembly, a sovereign body representing the sovereign people of India. Before the birth of freedom we have endured all the pains of labour and our hearts are heavy with the memory of this sorrow. Some of those pains continue even now. Nevertheless, the past is over and it is the future that beckons to us now.
That future is not one of ease or resting but of incessant striving so that we may fulfil the pledges we have so often taken and the one we shall take today. The service of India means the service of the millions who suffer. It means the ending of poverty and ignorance and disease and inequality of opportunity. The ambition of the greatest man of our generation has been to wipe every tear from every eye. That may be beyond us, but as long as there are tears and suffering, so long our work will not be over.
And so we have to labour and to work, and work hard, to give reality to our dreams. Those dreams are for India, but they are also for the world, for all the nations and peoples are too closely knit together today for any one of them to imagine that it can live apart Peace has been said to be indivisible; so is freedom, so is prosperity now, and so also is disaster in this One World that can no longer be split into isolated fragments.
To the people of India, whose representatives we are, we make an appeal to join us with faith and confidence in this great adventure. This is no time for petty and destructive criticism, no time for ill-will or blaming others. We have to build the noble mansion of free India where all her children may dwell.
II
The appointed day has come-the day appointed by destiny-and India stands forth again, after long slumber and struggle, awake, vital, free and independent. The past clings on to us still in some measure and we have to do much before we redeem the pledges we have so often taken. Yet the turning-point is past, and history begins anew for us, the history which we shall live and act and others will write about.
It is a fateful moment for us in India, for all Asia and for the world. A new star rises, the star of freedom in the East, a new hope comes into being, a vision long cherished materializes. May the star never set and that hope never be betrayed!
We rejoice in that freedom, even though clouds surround us, and many of our people are sorrowstricken and difficult problems encompass us. But freedom brings responsibilities and burdens and we have to face them in the spirit of a free and disciplined people.
On this day our first thoughts go to the architect of this freedom, the Father of our Nation [Gandhi], who, embodying the old spirit of India, held aloft the torch of freedom and lighted up the darkness that surrounded us. We have often been unworthy followers of his and have strayed from his message, but not only we but succeeding generations will remember this message and bear the imprint in their hearts of this great son of India, magnificent in his faith and strength and courage and humility. We shall never allow that torch of freedom to be blown out, however high the wind or stormy the tempest.
Our next thoughts must be of the unknown volunteers and soldiers of freedom who, without praise or reward, have served India even unto death.
We think also of our brothers and sisters who have been cut off from us by political boundaries and who unhappily cannot share at present in the freedom
that has come. They are of us and will remain of us whatever may happen, and we shall be sharers in their good [or] ill fortune alike.
The future beckons to us. Whither do we go and what shall be our endeavour? To bring freedom and opportunity to the common man, to the peasants and workers of India; to fight and end poverty and ignorance and disease; to build up a prosperous, democratic and progressive nation, and to create social, economic and political institutions which will ensure justice and fullness of life to every man and woman.
We have hard work ahead. There is no resting for any one of us till we redeem our pledge in full, till we make all the people of India what destiny intended them to be. We are citizens of a great country on the verge of bold advance, and we have to live up to that high standard. All of us, to whatever religion we may belong, are equally the children of India with equal rights, privileges and obligations. We cannot encourage communalism or narrow-mindedness, for no nation can be great whose people are narrow in thought or in action.
To the nations and peoples of the world we send greetings and pledge ourselves to cooperate with them in furthering peace, freedom and democracy.
And to India, our much-loved motherland, the ancient, the eternal and the ever-new, we pay our reverent homage and we bind ourselves afresh to her service.
JAI HIND.
Wednesday, July 19, 2006
The Joker
Well i don't know why, but i have fallen in love with the painting. Yeah, its a painitng, in a very modern sense. Michaelangelo had his colors and brush, and modern painters have their computers. After all something must change.The image here has been modified from a wall paper by Alex Ross, may be the most expensive artist in the american comic world. He has brought realism to fantasy, and this image of Joker with Harley quinn is the longest lasting wallpaper on my computer.
Just notice the realism. the expression on his face, the way he holds Harleyquinn as if it were a guitar. Yeah seriously, his fingers are made as if he were holding a guitar. And the Smile...its a killer.
Any one to give me the author of the text on the wall paper and the source?? NO...its not from Bible(as most mistakenly think)
Godspeed
More of Ross's wallpapers here
More on Alex Ross here
Sunday, July 16, 2006
In Support of Spam
My gmail shows 399 spam mails. And i don't hate spam...i go through the text and they tell me so much. People try to block spam by algorithms that looks for certain words and a lot other things, but still the spams do reach me. Speaks a lot about human mind doesn't it?
If i am not wrong then spam filtering was started by a chap called Paul Graham and in his landmark essay(http://www.paulgraham.com/spam.html) he outlined the first way to encounter spam. Incidently the first spam was by some law firm if i am not mistaken.
Well as i was saying...if you are a marketing student, then you should read spam mails. because a spammer is basically a person who is trying to sell you something when some body is trying to stop him from doing so. The mails in my spam box are all losers. they couldn't beat the system or the filter. But still there are a few who slip though the system when so many couldn't. this will tell you a lot about marketing. How is the mail targetted at you? the spammer isn't just relying on statistics that if suppose my mail reaches to 500 people then i get a sales of 3 bottles. he is also trying to put in some lucrative offer, and working with the words. Just look at how hard they try to imitate ur normal mail. all their objective is that you will be baffled and end up opening the mail. Then they also have to take care that once you have opened the mail, you don't just discard it coz its spam....so look at the magnitude.
The only respite being that the advertising(yeah i consider Spam as a form of unwanted advertising mailer) is dirt cheap and virtually free.
Being in love with advertising, i am a student of the written word and its effect. And believe it or not, i read even the worse ads that why was it wrong and why was it right. why did i open he mail even if it was spam. And thats a great lesson for aspiring copy writers and admen.
I don't see any indian companies trying to spam me. may be they are letting go of a medium. I guess every indian must have seen some or the other form of advertising in public toilets.Some cheap posters of some"dr shah" is seen... and read as the audience is captive. so even if every one hates it, they do read it once. The job is done. So all you Indian companies out there, start spamming
If i am not wrong then spam filtering was started by a chap called Paul Graham and in his landmark essay(http://www.paulgraham.com/spam.html) he outlined the first way to encounter spam. Incidently the first spam was by some law firm if i am not mistaken.
Well as i was saying...if you are a marketing student, then you should read spam mails. because a spammer is basically a person who is trying to sell you something when some body is trying to stop him from doing so. The mails in my spam box are all losers. they couldn't beat the system or the filter. But still there are a few who slip though the system when so many couldn't. this will tell you a lot about marketing. How is the mail targetted at you? the spammer isn't just relying on statistics that if suppose my mail reaches to 500 people then i get a sales of 3 bottles. he is also trying to put in some lucrative offer, and working with the words. Just look at how hard they try to imitate ur normal mail. all their objective is that you will be baffled and end up opening the mail. Then they also have to take care that once you have opened the mail, you don't just discard it coz its spam....so look at the magnitude.
The only respite being that the advertising(yeah i consider Spam as a form of unwanted advertising mailer) is dirt cheap and virtually free.
Being in love with advertising, i am a student of the written word and its effect. And believe it or not, i read even the worse ads that why was it wrong and why was it right. why did i open he mail even if it was spam. And thats a great lesson for aspiring copy writers and admen.
I don't see any indian companies trying to spam me. may be they are letting go of a medium. I guess every indian must have seen some or the other form of advertising in public toilets.Some cheap posters of some"dr shah" is seen... and read as the audience is captive. so even if every one hates it, they do read it once. The job is done. So all you Indian companies out there, start spamming
Saturday, July 15, 2006
Wednesday, June 28, 2006
Tum mujey na dogey jeeney
One of may fav songs from the movie 'teen deviyaan'. Deva nand is singing in a mushayara thats being broadcast live on radio.
Kahin be-khayal ho kar yuun hii chuu liyaa kisii ney
Kayi khwaab dekh daaley, yahan meri bekhudi ney
Hai bhala saa naam uuskaa, main abhi sey kyaa bataoon,
Kiyaa bekaraar aksar, mujhey ek aadmi ney
Arey mujh pey naaz waalon, yeh niyaazmandiyaan kyuun
Hai yehi karam tumhaaraa, tum mujhey naa dogey jeeney
-------------
bekhayal:- unintentional
niyaaz- offerings
Kahin be-khayal ho kar yuun hii chuu liyaa kisii ney
Kayi khwaab dekh daaley, yahan meri bekhudi ney
Hai bhala saa naam uuskaa, main abhi sey kyaa bataoon,
Kiyaa bekaraar aksar, mujhey ek aadmi ney
Arey mujh pey naaz waalon, yeh niyaazmandiyaan kyuun
Hai yehi karam tumhaaraa, tum mujhey naa dogey jeeney
-------------
bekhayal:- unintentional
niyaaz- offerings
Tuesday, June 27, 2006
Bangle รจ Bello
I have never liked mumbai girls in Particular. I always use to feel that the girls here are different, but I never knew why. Same was the case in MICA.
I was in a class with 9 girls, but never liked them either. There is something different about them, and I had never been able to put my finger on it. Even in my office
Where I have to work next to them, something has been different.
I just went out for a cup of tea, and when I was coming back I saw a couple disembark in the Parking lot of a nearby call centre. And I don’t know after how long I heard a sound that’s sooooooo Indian, and so feminine. A sound that I couldn’t hear in the quite of MICA neither the cacophony of bombay. It was a sweet peal. Just a faint sound made by glass bangles on the girl’s right hand. Something like that that is so normal and everyday, that when its not there, you don't notice it.
And as if one small voice, a faint peal, explained it all. It was music. I smiled. Life is really beautiful. La vita รจ bella.Bangle is beautiful. Il Bangelo รจ bello.
I was in a class with 9 girls, but never liked them either. There is something different about them, and I had never been able to put my finger on it. Even in my office
Where I have to work next to them, something has been different.
I just went out for a cup of tea, and when I was coming back I saw a couple disembark in the Parking lot of a nearby call centre. And I don’t know after how long I heard a sound that’s sooooooo Indian, and so feminine. A sound that I couldn’t hear in the quite of MICA neither the cacophony of bombay. It was a sweet peal. Just a faint sound made by glass bangles on the girl’s right hand. Something like that that is so normal and everyday, that when its not there, you don't notice it.
And as if one small voice, a faint peal, explained it all. It was music. I smiled. Life is really beautiful. La vita รจ bella.Bangle is beautiful. Il Bangelo รจ bello.
Friday, June 23, 2006
The Punching Bag
The month Starts. And like all Newly employed people, Its time to be king for next 5 days atleast. This is the time when all those dreams that you had seen as a kid have a chance to materialize.
Every middle class kid i think has gone through the phase. When he has tried to put his finger on something really unwanted and has been dutifully told by his parents that "grow up, get a job and you can have that". The problem is most of the kids forget. As they get the sense to earn, they also get some sense on how to spend.But there were two kids who remembered an item on their huge shopping list that was stashed some where in the corner of their minds. Its really hard to remember such a thing, or to have guts to spend your hard earned money on such avenues when there are more noteworthy and grown up things to buy. The item in consideration was a Punching Bag. The wish had been so long buried that there were tonnes of memories on it, and nothing could have dug them out except one night at a place called "The Sports Bar".
The day had been rough on one of the kids. His boss had been pretty particular that day and the day had been spent on the receiving end.So in the evening when an opportunity presented itself in the form of a punching bag, he couldn't resist and vented all his fury and anger on the Bag. The feeling was nothing short of being ecstasic, and the usefullness of the Bag was noted in the Adult mind. The memories were dug out in a night of nursing the sore arms.
Sprinkle this with a night spent watching RockyI to IV, and the Punching Bag became something that was impossible to live without. Now the question remained that how to convince the other kid? This was pretty hard to do. But when the utility of the Bag as an aesthetic tool hanging from the drawing room ceiling in a all guys flat was introduced, the going became easy. Besides the usefullness of the bag in health building context really made the day. After exchanging points and counterpoints the kids sealed the deal on spit, and the Bag was as good as in.
What was left to be seen was When, How and How much. So after pondering, juggling calendars a sunday was fixed, when both of them would go to some shop which was found after calling some knowledgable friends.
The sunday came and the kids took an auto. After much sightseeing in the traditional mumbai auto the reached the shop on the main road in Andheri. Since along with the Bag some weights were also to be bought first the focus was on the wieghts. But it looked like the weights which had to be bought were not much of an addition to the shop's visual merchandising, and therefore the bloke had hidden it away in a "warehouse" on the other side of the main road. Any one who has been to mumbai will definitely agree that crossing a main road is something that is not to be taken lightely.
And this was really a main road, with proper concrete dividers. As if this was not enough, the muncipallty people had strung barbed wires on wooden poles. Any one capable of effortlessly crossing the road here could as well have been shipped off to fight the pakis.
But the requriement was grave and what has to be done has to be done. So some how the road was crossed, with few drivers muttering obscenities and a hint or two of raised middle fingers.But hey, who cares, and in doing important things one must not care what people say.
The warehouse turned out to be a small garage kind of shed with heavy locks and bolts that would even keep the air out, let alone a thief. The kids waited outside the door with curiosity, because if something is that well protected, it must indeed be worth seeing. The heavy small doors opened after the sales boy put in his weight on the handles, and a small room filled with dusty wrecked tables with all sorts of junk was revealed. Weights were checked out and then piled up. But some of the enthusiasm had returned in the kids as they picked the weights and turned to cross the road.
The crossing this time was uneventful, as rarely do people with glass windshields throw obscene gestures with three guys walking with dumb bels and all. So the cars on the roads slowed down with grace allowing the guys to cross.
Now was the turn to see the punching bag. The sales person disappeared into the side door and came out with the bag. The bag which was worth all the wait since the childhood days and which was worht every effort put in the moment that led to here. All the effort that went in to crossing the road which seemed like indo-pak border in the west was going to be rewarded. The bad came out of the plastic sheet and the kids' faces fell. It was a canvas bag of just 2 feet height. That looked pretty small. Now who buys such a bag?? Their wishes might have been kiddish, but they were not. And it was THE PUNCHING BAG. The BAG which was to add some dignity to their apartment. Which was supposed to complement their soon to be tough bodies and the weights that were going to be displayed alongside.
The kid let out a tired breath. All the effort had been wasted. Now they will have to start the process again. They will have to look for more sports shops. This one itself had been hard to find. BUt the other kid didn't let it go that easily."Do you have any other bag?" he asked. The owner came out with a real cool 3 feet long leather bag. But the price Tag blew out the wind. 4000 bucks. Now this leather bag was really cool and all was agreed. But at 4000 bucks the dream was turning out to be on the expensive side. And after all the bag was not some trendy samsonite college bag or something of that sorts. It was just a punching bag, Isn't it. Besides the kid who had been neglecting his hunger in all this exitement was feeling the pangs at double the intensity.
The mood was sour. They had spent some one and a half hour. The kid was hungry and they didn't have 4k to spend on some damn leather bag. The owner suggested the solution. A canvas bag in larger size and lower price filled with sawdust could be arranged, but on the next day. What could be done. The other kid handed over his card for the weights they had bought. The shop owner's bald father took over from there.
The kid was feeling really pissed. They had spent too much time, and he was really hungry. The patience meter was going down. Besides the hawk eyed father was working even slower. Even a fly entering the shop seemed to distract his attention, and then, the card swipe machine just did it. The card refused to be acknowledged. The machine showed transaction error.
The kid asked the hawk to hurry. And the hawk instead of hurrying, just snapped its beak at the kid. The kid was getting furious by the minute, and the hawk was just working as slowly as he could. And the moment the hawk in his defiant tome said "behave like a kid if you want to be loved or else" the damage was done. The kid noted it down in his small mental diary.
With furiously pissed mood he came out of the shop carrying the weights they had bought. The other kid meanwhile had paid and was carrying the other set of weights. The shopkeeper had promissed to keep the Punching bag ready the next evening, but the hawk had done the damage. The kid just wanted to get back at him. He was really sore.
Two days went by, and it was tuesday evening before they could again think of going that way. Again after a circutious route which was different from the one previous auto had taken, they reached the shop. But this time there seemed to be a few people inside the small shop and it looked crowded.
After some waiting the shopkeeper brought out the punching bag. The scene resembled very much like the movie scenes where the boy and his parents visit the bride's house to approve her. Both the kids were busy in the shop, looking at things, trying to get interested in something, while anxious at the same time. The shop keeper brings the bag out. They both turn, and there is the bag in front of them, just lying there. The decision to buy it was instantly taken. But the bag seemed to be a bit less filled. So it was agreed upon that the kids will take the bag while the extra sawdust will be delivered to their home. The bag was put near the door.
But you can't just rain blows on a canvas bags. You need gloves too. As the bag's price was within a grand, some money could definitely be utilized in that. The boxing gloves incidently were from a company called Hawk and were priced at 700 rupees. Just think of that, you need to spend as much on the gloves as you need to spend on the Bag. Now spending on the bag was Okay. The Bag had significance, but here gloves were just extra expenses which hadn't been previously accounted for. But still, here a wish was at stake.Had the reason been something else, the gloves could have been left behind. But who tries to save money when a wish is being fulfilled and you can pay for it, you have the money and you can pay for it.The greater cause has to be achieved. Dreams were t stake here and So they were taken.
Suddenly the crowd seemed to have increased a bit. The shopkeeper went on to bill the kids, while the hawk father was busy looking at something, while the rest of the sales people were trying to make sale to customers.
The shopkeeper came out with the bill of 1400rs, which was paid for.
The other kid realized the mistake."Hey dude, he hasn't billed us for the Punching Bag." he said. The kid just thought that may be he isn't delivering the bag today and will be delivering the bag with the sawdust at their house the next day. After all they had spent three grand at the shop, and so a door delivery was something that the shop could definetly do.
But it didn't make sense. The hawk would definitely have billed the bag before sending it. As shrewd as he seemed, he would definitely be the one who would secure his investment.
So the other possibility kicked in. That simply meant that he had forgotten to bill them the only thing for which they were there. He had done the collateral damage to their pockets by the gloves and accessories, but the real damage had been spared. He had simply forgotten. But the kid realized that he might be wrong and so it had to be checked out. The Bag was waiting for them near the door, neatly propped. Everything had been packed and no one was paying attention. But still if the owner remembered at the exact time, there would be problem.
The other kid opened the glass door, not sure whether to take the bag or not. The kid followed him. And as happens in all the stories with happy ending, the good beat the evil. Just as happens and has been said in the movie "harold and kumar go to whitecastle", If something has to happen,The whole universe conspires to make it happen.
As the kids were about to move out, one lady started demanding things in her high pitch voice commanding the hawk's attention.A young and enthusiastic shop helper, bred on the idea that customer is the king, and not the thief stepped in to help them.Without saying a word, he promptly lifted the Punching bag on his able shoulders and followed the kids out of the door.
On the same main road the kid took the bag on his own shoulders, somehow suppresing his smile in front of the shop help who turned back after some distance. The other kid by that time had an ear to ear smile. The long awaited punching bag was on their shoulders, their feet were moving as fast as they could. No one could tell if they were running, or leaping or plain simply floating. But all that could be told is that they crossed the road without even feeling it in to the waiting auto.
The Punching bag is still hanging from the ceiling in our drawing room. Rahul still has an ear to ear smile, and no we don't intend to pay.
Every middle class kid i think has gone through the phase. When he has tried to put his finger on something really unwanted and has been dutifully told by his parents that "grow up, get a job and you can have that". The problem is most of the kids forget. As they get the sense to earn, they also get some sense on how to spend.But there were two kids who remembered an item on their huge shopping list that was stashed some where in the corner of their minds. Its really hard to remember such a thing, or to have guts to spend your hard earned money on such avenues when there are more noteworthy and grown up things to buy. The item in consideration was a Punching Bag. The wish had been so long buried that there were tonnes of memories on it, and nothing could have dug them out except one night at a place called "The Sports Bar".
The day had been rough on one of the kids. His boss had been pretty particular that day and the day had been spent on the receiving end.So in the evening when an opportunity presented itself in the form of a punching bag, he couldn't resist and vented all his fury and anger on the Bag. The feeling was nothing short of being ecstasic, and the usefullness of the Bag was noted in the Adult mind. The memories were dug out in a night of nursing the sore arms.
Sprinkle this with a night spent watching RockyI to IV, and the Punching Bag became something that was impossible to live without. Now the question remained that how to convince the other kid? This was pretty hard to do. But when the utility of the Bag as an aesthetic tool hanging from the drawing room ceiling in a all guys flat was introduced, the going became easy. Besides the usefullness of the bag in health building context really made the day. After exchanging points and counterpoints the kids sealed the deal on spit, and the Bag was as good as in.
What was left to be seen was When, How and How much. So after pondering, juggling calendars a sunday was fixed, when both of them would go to some shop which was found after calling some knowledgable friends.
The sunday came and the kids took an auto. After much sightseeing in the traditional mumbai auto the reached the shop on the main road in Andheri. Since along with the Bag some weights were also to be bought first the focus was on the wieghts. But it looked like the weights which had to be bought were not much of an addition to the shop's visual merchandising, and therefore the bloke had hidden it away in a "warehouse" on the other side of the main road. Any one who has been to mumbai will definitely agree that crossing a main road is something that is not to be taken lightely.
And this was really a main road, with proper concrete dividers. As if this was not enough, the muncipallty people had strung barbed wires on wooden poles. Any one capable of effortlessly crossing the road here could as well have been shipped off to fight the pakis.
But the requriement was grave and what has to be done has to be done. So some how the road was crossed, with few drivers muttering obscenities and a hint or two of raised middle fingers.But hey, who cares, and in doing important things one must not care what people say.
The warehouse turned out to be a small garage kind of shed with heavy locks and bolts that would even keep the air out, let alone a thief. The kids waited outside the door with curiosity, because if something is that well protected, it must indeed be worth seeing. The heavy small doors opened after the sales boy put in his weight on the handles, and a small room filled with dusty wrecked tables with all sorts of junk was revealed. Weights were checked out and then piled up. But some of the enthusiasm had returned in the kids as they picked the weights and turned to cross the road.
The crossing this time was uneventful, as rarely do people with glass windshields throw obscene gestures with three guys walking with dumb bels and all. So the cars on the roads slowed down with grace allowing the guys to cross.
Now was the turn to see the punching bag. The sales person disappeared into the side door and came out with the bag. The bag which was worth all the wait since the childhood days and which was worht every effort put in the moment that led to here. All the effort that went in to crossing the road which seemed like indo-pak border in the west was going to be rewarded. The bad came out of the plastic sheet and the kids' faces fell. It was a canvas bag of just 2 feet height. That looked pretty small. Now who buys such a bag?? Their wishes might have been kiddish, but they were not. And it was THE PUNCHING BAG. The BAG which was to add some dignity to their apartment. Which was supposed to complement their soon to be tough bodies and the weights that were going to be displayed alongside.
The kid let out a tired breath. All the effort had been wasted. Now they will have to start the process again. They will have to look for more sports shops. This one itself had been hard to find. BUt the other kid didn't let it go that easily."Do you have any other bag?" he asked. The owner came out with a real cool 3 feet long leather bag. But the price Tag blew out the wind. 4000 bucks. Now this leather bag was really cool and all was agreed. But at 4000 bucks the dream was turning out to be on the expensive side. And after all the bag was not some trendy samsonite college bag or something of that sorts. It was just a punching bag, Isn't it. Besides the kid who had been neglecting his hunger in all this exitement was feeling the pangs at double the intensity.
The mood was sour. They had spent some one and a half hour. The kid was hungry and they didn't have 4k to spend on some damn leather bag. The owner suggested the solution. A canvas bag in larger size and lower price filled with sawdust could be arranged, but on the next day. What could be done. The other kid handed over his card for the weights they had bought. The shop owner's bald father took over from there.
The kid was feeling really pissed. They had spent too much time, and he was really hungry. The patience meter was going down. Besides the hawk eyed father was working even slower. Even a fly entering the shop seemed to distract his attention, and then, the card swipe machine just did it. The card refused to be acknowledged. The machine showed transaction error.
The kid asked the hawk to hurry. And the hawk instead of hurrying, just snapped its beak at the kid. The kid was getting furious by the minute, and the hawk was just working as slowly as he could. And the moment the hawk in his defiant tome said "behave like a kid if you want to be loved or else" the damage was done. The kid noted it down in his small mental diary.
With furiously pissed mood he came out of the shop carrying the weights they had bought. The other kid meanwhile had paid and was carrying the other set of weights. The shopkeeper had promissed to keep the Punching bag ready the next evening, but the hawk had done the damage. The kid just wanted to get back at him. He was really sore.
Two days went by, and it was tuesday evening before they could again think of going that way. Again after a circutious route which was different from the one previous auto had taken, they reached the shop. But this time there seemed to be a few people inside the small shop and it looked crowded.
After some waiting the shopkeeper brought out the punching bag. The scene resembled very much like the movie scenes where the boy and his parents visit the bride's house to approve her. Both the kids were busy in the shop, looking at things, trying to get interested in something, while anxious at the same time. The shop keeper brings the bag out. They both turn, and there is the bag in front of them, just lying there. The decision to buy it was instantly taken. But the bag seemed to be a bit less filled. So it was agreed upon that the kids will take the bag while the extra sawdust will be delivered to their home. The bag was put near the door.
But you can't just rain blows on a canvas bags. You need gloves too. As the bag's price was within a grand, some money could definitely be utilized in that. The boxing gloves incidently were from a company called Hawk and were priced at 700 rupees. Just think of that, you need to spend as much on the gloves as you need to spend on the Bag. Now spending on the bag was Okay. The Bag had significance, but here gloves were just extra expenses which hadn't been previously accounted for. But still, here a wish was at stake.Had the reason been something else, the gloves could have been left behind. But who tries to save money when a wish is being fulfilled and you can pay for it, you have the money and you can pay for it.The greater cause has to be achieved. Dreams were t stake here and So they were taken.
Suddenly the crowd seemed to have increased a bit. The shopkeeper went on to bill the kids, while the hawk father was busy looking at something, while the rest of the sales people were trying to make sale to customers.
The shopkeeper came out with the bill of 1400rs, which was paid for.
The other kid realized the mistake."Hey dude, he hasn't billed us for the Punching Bag." he said. The kid just thought that may be he isn't delivering the bag today and will be delivering the bag with the sawdust at their house the next day. After all they had spent three grand at the shop, and so a door delivery was something that the shop could definetly do.
But it didn't make sense. The hawk would definitely have billed the bag before sending it. As shrewd as he seemed, he would definitely be the one who would secure his investment.
So the other possibility kicked in. That simply meant that he had forgotten to bill them the only thing for which they were there. He had done the collateral damage to their pockets by the gloves and accessories, but the real damage had been spared. He had simply forgotten. But the kid realized that he might be wrong and so it had to be checked out. The Bag was waiting for them near the door, neatly propped. Everything had been packed and no one was paying attention. But still if the owner remembered at the exact time, there would be problem.
The other kid opened the glass door, not sure whether to take the bag or not. The kid followed him. And as happens in all the stories with happy ending, the good beat the evil. Just as happens and has been said in the movie "harold and kumar go to whitecastle", If something has to happen,The whole universe conspires to make it happen.
As the kids were about to move out, one lady started demanding things in her high pitch voice commanding the hawk's attention.A young and enthusiastic shop helper, bred on the idea that customer is the king, and not the thief stepped in to help them.Without saying a word, he promptly lifted the Punching bag on his able shoulders and followed the kids out of the door.
On the same main road the kid took the bag on his own shoulders, somehow suppresing his smile in front of the shop help who turned back after some distance. The other kid by that time had an ear to ear smile. The long awaited punching bag was on their shoulders, their feet were moving as fast as they could. No one could tell if they were running, or leaping or plain simply floating. But all that could be told is that they crossed the road without even feeling it in to the waiting auto.
The Punching bag is still hanging from the ceiling in our drawing room. Rahul still has an ear to ear smile, and no we don't intend to pay.
Thursday, June 22, 2006
Deewangi Rahey baaki
Terey Jamal sey roshan hai kaaynaat meri
Meri talaash, teri dilkashii rahey baaki
Khudaa karey ki, yeh deewangi rahey baaki
----------------------------------
My universe is lighted by your beauty. I hope that my search
and your lovliness remains as it is. May god keep my craze as it is.
----------------------------------
Jamaal>beauty, elegance
Kaaynaat>universe
Dilkashii>attractiveness
Baaki>remains
Godspeed
Cogito ergo sum
Wednesday, June 21, 2006
Do aarzuu Pey aur Do Intezaar pey
Hmmm,
Today It will be four years since I met Nidhi. Four loooooong years(or were they short??) coz we have been more away than close.
“Chaar Saal”.
Reminds me of a sher by Zafar. When he was in a prison in
Looks like prison does something to shayars
Umr-e-daraaz(longlife) maang kar laaya tha chaar din
Do aarzu mey kat gaye, Do intezaar mey.
Nahii nigaah mey manzil to zustzu(effort) hi sahi,
Nahi visaal(meeting) mayassar(destined) toh aarzu hi sahi
Gar intezaar kathin hai toh jab talak ae dil
Kiisi key vaada-e-fardaa(promise breaking) ki guftguu(talks) hi sahi
So I guess a lot of life is going to be spent on “zustzu” and “aarzu” and some “intezaar” sprinkled in midst.
Just Hope that this doesn’t happen.
Iis bahaney sey magar dekh li duniya humney
different from “Khwahish”, and Ghalib writes,
Hazaaron khwaahishen aisi ki har khwaahish pey dum nikaley
Bahot nikaley merey armaan, lekin fir bhi kam naikaley.
Uuski hasrat hai jiisey dil sey mita bhi na sakun
Dhhundhney uusko chala huun jisey paa bhi na sakun
And hasrat is also linked to “ummeeed”, as no aarzuu can be without ummeed, and this Sher beats them all
Sau sau ummeed bandhti hai, ek,ek, nigaah pey
Aisey naa mujhey pyaar sey dekha karey koi
Godspeed
Cogito Ergo Sum.
Tuesday, June 20, 2006
Gettin Bored
Getting Bored……..I don’t know why. I wanted to be here. I am here. Took me a year, but I am here. And now the whole day Whenever I get time to raise my head for a second, or take a deep breath. The lines keep humming in my head.
Lo suni gayii humari, yuun firey hain din ki fir sey,
Wohi Goshaa-e-kafas hai, wohi fasl e gul ka maatam.
I dunno why, but this keeps sounding like goshaa-e-kafas. The feeling doesn’t happen always, but comes on sometimes.
But since I have already given the whole thing in my last post, I will write something else. Mind you, It’s a bit sad. Its by Rahiid Kamal And is also available here
here
kabhii aah lab pe machal gaii, kabhii ashk aankh se Dhal gaye
vo tumhaare Gam ke chiraag hain, kabhii bujh gaye kabhii jal gaye
main Khayaal-o-Khvaab kii mahafilen, na baqadr-e-shauq sajaa sakaa
tumhaarii ik nazar ke saath hii mere sab iraade badal gaye
kabhii rang mey kabhii ruup mey kabhii chaanv mey kabhii dhuup mey
kahiin aafataab-e-nazar hain vo, kabhii maahataab mey Dhal gaye
jo fanaa huye Gam-e-ishq mey unhen zindagii kaa na Gam huaa
jo na apanii aag men jal sake vo paraaii aag men jal gaye
Thaa unhen bhii merii tarah junuun, toh phir unmey mujh mey ye farq kyun
main giraft-e-Gam se na bach sakaa vo huduud-e-Gam se nikal gaye
---------------------------------
khayaal-o-khvaab->whenever ‘o’ comes it means ‘aur’ so here khyaal and khvaab
Bakadra-e-shauq-in accordance of my liking
Aaftaab(sun)-e-nazar> whenever ‘–e-‘ is used it means ‘of’ so here ‘sun(shine) of eyes’
maaahtaab- moon
Fanaa-death, destruction
Giraft- grip
Huduud> boundaries
-----
Lo suni gayii humari, yuun firey hain din ki fir sey,
Wohi Goshaa-e-kafas hai, wohi fasl e gul ka maatam.
I dunno why, but this keeps sounding like goshaa-e-kafas. The feeling doesn’t happen always, but comes on sometimes.
But since I have already given the whole thing in my last post, I will write something else. Mind you, It’s a bit sad. Its by Rahiid Kamal And is also available here
here
kabhii aah lab pe machal gaii, kabhii ashk aankh se Dhal gaye
vo tumhaare Gam ke chiraag hain, kabhii bujh gaye kabhii jal gaye
main Khayaal-o-Khvaab kii mahafilen, na baqadr-e-shauq sajaa sakaa
tumhaarii ik nazar ke saath hii mere sab iraade badal gaye
kabhii rang mey kabhii ruup mey kabhii chaanv mey kabhii dhuup mey
kahiin aafataab-e-nazar hain vo, kabhii maahataab mey Dhal gaye
jo fanaa huye Gam-e-ishq mey unhen zindagii kaa na Gam huaa
jo na apanii aag men jal sake vo paraaii aag men jal gaye
Thaa unhen bhii merii tarah junuun, toh phir unmey mujh mey ye farq kyun
main giraft-e-Gam se na bach sakaa vo huduud-e-Gam se nikal gaye
---------------------------------
khayaal-o-khvaab->whenever ‘o’ comes it means ‘aur’ so here khyaal and khvaab
Bakadra-e-shauq-in accordance of my liking
Aaftaab(sun)-e-nazar> whenever ‘–e-‘ is used it means ‘of’ so here ‘sun(shine) of eyes’
maaahtaab- moon
Fanaa-death, destruction
Giraft- grip
Huduud> boundaries
-----
Saturday, June 10, 2006
Yeh jafa e gham ka chaara
This is one of my favourate poems by faiz….Sadly you don’t get these lyrics online. So I am posting it here
Yeh jafa-e-gham ka chara, woh najaat-e-dil ka aalam
Tera husn dast-e-iisa, teri yaad ruuh-e-mariyam
Dil-o-jaan fidaayen raahen, kabhi aa key dekh humdum
Sar kuu-e-dil figaaran, shab-e-aarzuu ka aalam
Teri deed se sivaa hain, terey shauq mey baharaan
Who chaman jahan giri hai, terey gesuuon ki shabnam
Lo suuni gayi hamari, yun firey hain din ki fir sey
Wohi goshaa-e-kafas hai, wahi fasl-e-gul kaa maatam
Yeh ajab kayamaten hain, teri rehguzar mey guzraan
Na hua ki mar mitey hum, na hua ki jii utthey hum
Jafa-e-gham
English: Oppression of my grief
Chara-Solution
Nijaat-e-dil –liberation of heart
Dast-e-isah- Like hand of Christ
Ruuh-e-mariyam-Like soul of mother mary(pure)
Dil-o-jaan Fidaaen raahen (heart and life sacrificed on the way)
Sar kuu-e-dil Figaaran….all the paths in my heart are injured(afflicted)
Shab-e-aarzu -The night of longing
Teri Deed sey siva hai tere shauq may baharaan-The spring that yearns for you is devoid from your sight.
Gesuuon-hair
Goshaaa-e-kafas- The corner of a prison
Fasl-e-gul ka maatam- The sadness for the spring
Godspeed
Saturday, May 27, 2006
tap dancing on my keyboard on a bored night
Its 1:30 in the night and i am sitting with my back to the window on
my 14th floor apartment in the heart of mumbai city. Next to my
building runs a road which even at this time of hour is not bereft
of passing vehicles. There is just one difference, all of them are
in great hurry. Running at a speed which is only achieved at this
hour of the night as in the day time they can't even think of going
over half of the permissible speed limit due to the snail pace
traffic. The dead silence of the night is broken by the occasional
heavy drone of a truck or the whiz that can only be of a bike. Some
times an auto passes by with the high pitch of an engine at full
throttel but the speed hampered by the age and poor maintainence.
Good for the occasional wandering pedestrian whom i can't hear but i
know must be out there. Gosh!! the city really never sleeps. Some
advertising guy must have been thinking of a line working on a brief
by citibank and must have realized this long ago. The city never
sleeps, and neither can't I.
The day has been long and i have put in my share of working hours in
the company's kitty. Had they been paying by working hours, i would
definitely have been richer than the CEO, unless the house keeping
guy beat me to it. I doubt if Rahul(my flatmate) has ever even seen
me sleeping. Usually I wake up before him, and by the time i am
dressed, he is just turning and tossing in bed with his weary eyes
just wishing that the day just would stop or go away. I leave for the
office by the time he is in the bathroom. When i come back he is not
home, so i just help my self to whatever novel/paperback is around
that i am in the process of reading. By the time he arrives, i am i
little ahead from where i was. I just keep on to my book, and may be
go on an occasional chat. Soon the food arrives, we watch an episode
or two of friends while at the food and then he goes off chatting on
the phone and i again help my self to the book.
Recently some how he has tried to pick up the habit, but the phone
and the slumber coupled with the job have made it a bit harder on the
poor chap. Now wonder he doesn't find time to go through it. I really
pity him. I brought him ludlum't bourne identity from the store and
he hasn't been able to finish it in the last 5 days. Now what kind
of a soul won't be able to finish off the book in one sitting except
for a real miserable one. There's nothing as painful as sitting by
the side of a fast paced novel which you have started but are unable
to finish, even when you want to. So all i can do is just watch.
Right now even as i am writing this, the poor chap is putting in half
hearted effort fighting off the tiredness from a day's work and hours on phone.
Hmm...at last he has given up, sleepy and tired has gone to hit the
bed. Today he stuck to the novel far longer than I had expected. And
gave a good fight. Means the story is getting interesting and fast
paced. I wonder how his tomorrow going to be when he knows that the
story is sitting on his sofa waiting to be read.......
Enough writing today, now i will also go off to sleep or i won't be
able to get up tomorrow in time. Bbye...Godspeed
Monday, March 20, 2006
Friday, February 10, 2006
rang de basanti
Right now i am writing the post afetr watching rang de basanti. The movie was really movieng, but as sick as i am, i couldn't help but analyze it in my own crazy cynical way. But even then the movie has touched me, and to say otherwise wouldn't be completely honest. But then again, such kind of a movie always touches me, a movie where people die for their beliefs. where people act silly and go against any possible logic and reason and give up their lives in hope, where billions continue to live through a meaningless existence. Living just to live, not to contribute to the world but jst to live off others. people who hate their lives but still hate to give it away.
ziist sey tang ho daagh to jeetey kyun ho
jaan pyaari bhi nahi, jaan sey jaatey bhi nahi
(it you hate life so much then why do you live? neither do you love this life and neither do you leave it)
Any one who loved this movie should definitely read Faiz's 'nisaar main teri galiiyon pey ae watan'. You will definitely love it. If you cant find it then its there is one of my previous posts.
Coming back to what i was saying. I couldn't help but see how the POP culture had been shown in the movie. Then who were the target audience? what do the target audience do? which is the single largest category of movie goers in our country. Who was the POP culture in the movie emulating. Well all the answers to all of them are "The Urban Youth". It was as if the movie was subconciously saying, "I will recognize your culture, and will show you as heroes, and i promise it that you will love it. So just watch."
"Having a problem making your parents understand you? Just bring them to the movie"
"wanna do what you do and still feel good about it? come to the screening"
"Are you looking for an identity? we have it made here. After this no one will question why you do what you do. they will accept you"
"Self Image for Sale. just buy the ticket watch the movie and emulate"
Yeah, it may sound crazy, but what's new in that. All i am saying are the things that do happen. I am not saying anything about the overtly said things. But when a person is watching the movie, even in a theatre, he is actually alone. The movie is selling something and in place called your hearts of the hearts its like a vendor is standing and asking you to buy. Now this buying process won't be covered in any management book. this is something that is so damned internal that it cannot be told. This is the place where people get sold on the idea that "killing some one is okay", "Rape is fun" or "i have to be great" or "i have to be rich and famous". This is the place where we buy in to our thought structure and the core of our operating system files are hidden. Its only tha some times some screwed up perspective comes along and infects it with a virus kind of perspective. So then starts the series of irrationsl activites, crimes, insane behaviour. Which i am sure is sane for the person who is doing it.
And this movie hits you right there, in the operating system files. Like ususally viruses attack through a system vulnurability, the human thought system also has a big big vulnerability. Its called emotion. So when you are emotional, the antivirus system in your brain is down, and you are done for.
So actually kudos for the film makers, to have studied the culture so well and then studied their TA(target audience) so well. then you throw in the national feelings and some people outside your TA have to see the movie. Throw in a controvercy(like the pilots mother, and the horse used in the movie) and ride on the free publicity. The punjabi touch in the tongue and delhi shown ......so total punjab has to see it. Demographics done. Once you have captured half the India, the other half has to see it. No one wants to be left out of anything in this country. Done . Movie Hit and Sucess. Social Message? Drink beer, roam out, but still be loved by your mother and parents, then go off and shoot the defense minister(why not the prime minister I don't understand) , get killed and get equated to bhagat singh.who cares..we got the money and made a profit and you suckers watched it and loved it.
You will have to love it. Because as every one loves chocolate(not the movie), there are a few emotions that every one responds to. One of them is sacrifice which is so ingrained in our culture that we cannot do anything about it.
If you think tht what i say is not true and you are not being used to make a fool of, then go on and read "One night at a call centre" by Chetan Bhagat and you will understand. The same story. Six friends working in a call centre, then some gyaan about how our country is lagging behind the rest of the world and then soem heroic stuff AND the POP culture blast in the extremes with all the dating, clubbing, ight out, daaru and stuff like that.
All i say is that day by day the authors and the movie people are getting smarter and smarter. The theme of the story almost seems to be researched, everything doen to the charachters seems to be so well researched that when i am reading or watching such a movie/novel i can't focus on the story but see how perfect marketing tactics they employ. They have become smart. Now they are no more telling what they wanted to say, but they are telling what people want to hear. And to tell you, its really bad. Because people doesn't mean all the people. Because then it would have been democracy. They are telling what a certain section of people who buy from them want to hear.
But even then somehow i donot worry too much about this country. this is a country where even after 50 years of independence, some one can live all his life abroad, then come back when his mother dies, be made a Prime Minister on the spot because his party has won due to a sympathy vote as his mother had died. Then he can work as a PM for 5 years and then be assasinated during an election campaign, and so be awarded bharat ratna, India's highest civilian decoration.and that also just after his death without any delay, while the genuine candidates who have slogged their whole life for this nation donot say a thing, as they never did what they did for any awards....and hence are losers...but a chap who has right surname, and a PM mother can get it in no time. So mr PM if you want a bharat ratna, just get assasinated after you lose your next election and get a bharat ratna..but first tell me, do you have the right surname? and was your mother the PM??? what??? NO??...ooooooops then sorry.........Do you know what's the difference between the death of Gandhi and that of Bhagat Sing? With Bhagat Singh there were other options other than dying. But Bhagat Sing GAVE UP his life, and Gandhi's life was TAKEN AWAY from him. He he he...how many of you honestly think that gandhi wanted to die for the country? But you can always say that his aim was getting freedom for this country and not giving up his life. Smart EH?
looks so Dark. Isn't it? but i used to think like that. The current reality is. In 1984 sikh's are killed in masses because a sikh kills the PM.Twenty years later the same party makes a sikh the PM. India is world's largest democracy. But people here are so dumb that the PM won't be chosen by the masses in a lok sabha election and therefore has to come through rajya sabha election(which is pretty much fixed..as in match fixing).
So our cuntry is different because here some how two negatives make a positive.A person as qualified as Dr. Manmohan Singh will lose an election here for a lok sabha seat, but can still be made the PM. Which i must say must be the world's most qualified PM. And for that matter if some one adds up the educational qualifications of india's previous PM's i am sure that it will be impressive. i think more than half of them have been educated abroad, starting right from nehru to gandhi and so on.....
And as far as stupidity is concerned, i think that will happen just on the lower levels of Indian Politics. The quality of people on the higher levels is pretty good or at least evenly matched, me thinks.I mean the indian PM will never be Dumber than the conteporary American President and that is good enough for me.
GodSpeed
ziist sey tang ho daagh to jeetey kyun ho
jaan pyaari bhi nahi, jaan sey jaatey bhi nahi
(it you hate life so much then why do you live? neither do you love this life and neither do you leave it)
Any one who loved this movie should definitely read Faiz's 'nisaar main teri galiiyon pey ae watan'. You will definitely love it. If you cant find it then its there is one of my previous posts.
Coming back to what i was saying. I couldn't help but see how the POP culture had been shown in the movie. Then who were the target audience? what do the target audience do? which is the single largest category of movie goers in our country. Who was the POP culture in the movie emulating. Well all the answers to all of them are "The Urban Youth". It was as if the movie was subconciously saying, "I will recognize your culture, and will show you as heroes, and i promise it that you will love it. So just watch."
"Having a problem making your parents understand you? Just bring them to the movie"
"wanna do what you do and still feel good about it? come to the screening"
"Are you looking for an identity? we have it made here. After this no one will question why you do what you do. they will accept you"
"Self Image for Sale. just buy the ticket watch the movie and emulate"
Yeah, it may sound crazy, but what's new in that. All i am saying are the things that do happen. I am not saying anything about the overtly said things. But when a person is watching the movie, even in a theatre, he is actually alone. The movie is selling something and in place called your hearts of the hearts its like a vendor is standing and asking you to buy. Now this buying process won't be covered in any management book. this is something that is so damned internal that it cannot be told. This is the place where people get sold on the idea that "killing some one is okay", "Rape is fun" or "i have to be great" or "i have to be rich and famous". This is the place where we buy in to our thought structure and the core of our operating system files are hidden. Its only tha some times some screwed up perspective comes along and infects it with a virus kind of perspective. So then starts the series of irrationsl activites, crimes, insane behaviour. Which i am sure is sane for the person who is doing it.
And this movie hits you right there, in the operating system files. Like ususally viruses attack through a system vulnurability, the human thought system also has a big big vulnerability. Its called emotion. So when you are emotional, the antivirus system in your brain is down, and you are done for.
So actually kudos for the film makers, to have studied the culture so well and then studied their TA(target audience) so well. then you throw in the national feelings and some people outside your TA have to see the movie. Throw in a controvercy(like the pilots mother, and the horse used in the movie) and ride on the free publicity. The punjabi touch in the tongue and delhi shown ......so total punjab has to see it. Demographics done. Once you have captured half the India, the other half has to see it. No one wants to be left out of anything in this country. Done . Movie Hit and Sucess. Social Message? Drink beer, roam out, but still be loved by your mother and parents, then go off and shoot the defense minister(why not the prime minister I don't understand) , get killed and get equated to bhagat singh.who cares..we got the money and made a profit and you suckers watched it and loved it.
You will have to love it. Because as every one loves chocolate(not the movie), there are a few emotions that every one responds to. One of them is sacrifice which is so ingrained in our culture that we cannot do anything about it.
If you think tht what i say is not true and you are not being used to make a fool of, then go on and read "One night at a call centre" by Chetan Bhagat and you will understand. The same story. Six friends working in a call centre, then some gyaan about how our country is lagging behind the rest of the world and then soem heroic stuff AND the POP culture blast in the extremes with all the dating, clubbing, ight out, daaru and stuff like that.
All i say is that day by day the authors and the movie people are getting smarter and smarter. The theme of the story almost seems to be researched, everything doen to the charachters seems to be so well researched that when i am reading or watching such a movie/novel i can't focus on the story but see how perfect marketing tactics they employ. They have become smart. Now they are no more telling what they wanted to say, but they are telling what people want to hear. And to tell you, its really bad. Because people doesn't mean all the people. Because then it would have been democracy. They are telling what a certain section of people who buy from them want to hear.
But even then somehow i donot worry too much about this country. this is a country where even after 50 years of independence, some one can live all his life abroad, then come back when his mother dies, be made a Prime Minister on the spot because his party has won due to a sympathy vote as his mother had died. Then he can work as a PM for 5 years and then be assasinated during an election campaign, and so be awarded bharat ratna, India's highest civilian decoration.and that also just after his death without any delay, while the genuine candidates who have slogged their whole life for this nation donot say a thing, as they never did what they did for any awards....and hence are losers...but a chap who has right surname, and a PM mother can get it in no time. So mr PM if you want a bharat ratna, just get assasinated after you lose your next election and get a bharat ratna..but first tell me, do you have the right surname? and was your mother the PM??? what??? NO??...ooooooops then sorry.........Do you know what's the difference between the death of Gandhi and that of Bhagat Sing? With Bhagat Singh there were other options other than dying. But Bhagat Sing GAVE UP his life, and Gandhi's life was TAKEN AWAY from him. He he he...how many of you honestly think that gandhi wanted to die for the country? But you can always say that his aim was getting freedom for this country and not giving up his life. Smart EH?
looks so Dark. Isn't it? but i used to think like that. The current reality is. In 1984 sikh's are killed in masses because a sikh kills the PM.Twenty years later the same party makes a sikh the PM. India is world's largest democracy. But people here are so dumb that the PM won't be chosen by the masses in a lok sabha election and therefore has to come through rajya sabha election(which is pretty much fixed..as in match fixing).
So our cuntry is different because here some how two negatives make a positive.A person as qualified as Dr. Manmohan Singh will lose an election here for a lok sabha seat, but can still be made the PM. Which i must say must be the world's most qualified PM. And for that matter if some one adds up the educational qualifications of india's previous PM's i am sure that it will be impressive. i think more than half of them have been educated abroad, starting right from nehru to gandhi and so on.....
And as far as stupidity is concerned, i think that will happen just on the lower levels of Indian Politics. The quality of people on the higher levels is pretty good or at least evenly matched, me thinks.I mean the indian PM will never be Dumber than the conteporary American President and that is good enough for me.
GodSpeed
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Anti-Virus.
Version: 7.1.375 / Virus Database: 267.15.2/252 - Release Date: 2/6/2006
Monday, January 30, 2006
First off-line Post
right now i am sitting in the confines of my home. I have quit MICA
and thus the phenomenal Internet speed that made downloads of 1 mb in
2 seconds to 3 seconds. I am going to miss that. With home there is
lot of love and carelessness which i can afford and along with that
comes a modem and dial up connection. Makes me feel like i have
travelled back in time to the days when Internet was still a big
thing even in a big city and when i used to live with my parents and
went to school.
So I am experimenting on this email program and blogspot's claims
that i can publish through an email. Lets see how far is it true?
right now i am content and not at all pissed off or anything. home
does that to me. whenever i am in the big bad world i am really
pissed off over one thing or another. Here i just donot care. i have
been waiting for the offer letter from crosswords which should arrive
anytime now and then i will be employed. something tells me that i
will be employed better than i would have been had i completed the course.
home gives me time to read and not think at all. Yesterday night i
spent my time with an old forgotten friend called Sherlock Holmes and
was watching him as he solved the study in the scarlet.
ha ha ha...no great thoughts for today...not even crappy ones.....i
love it.......... my post off you go
bbye
--
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Anti-Virus.
Version: 7.1.375 / Virus Database: 267.14.23/243 - Release Date: 1/27/2006
Sunday, January 22, 2006
few links
Few documents and their links
Internship Offer letter From SYNAPSE(click here for company details)
My Resume
Withdrawl letter from MICA
CAT 2004 Score Card
Internship Offer letter From SYNAPSE(click here for company details)
My Resume
Withdrawl letter from MICA
CAT 2004 Score Card
Friday, January 20, 2006
on these pages... money is
On these pages.......
money is paper with some dead man's image on it that is a tangible representation of my hardwork or my skill at something. Baiscally those pieces of paer decide if i can live or survive or not. Because if someone doesn't have those particular pieces of paper then he cannot buy anything.......now don't tell me that he can eat out of the trees and farms....
people's criteria to evaluate me may contain points for the amount of paper i have.
Day by day these paper bits are changing in to orientation of magnetic particles on a surface. Nowdays most of my money is in the form of a few magnetic particles on the surface of hard disk on some bank. the money can be used by me only if i have another small plastic cards with the desired orientation of particles on the magnetic strips.
A day will soon come when i will forget what paper money looks like. I will work my ass off, and my money will be deposited in bank by an email to the bank. Then wherever i need money i will just swipe cards. So eventually it is right that the world is turning into paperless money world.
In future Money will just remain a concept and will cease to exist in form. After 500 years, it will be hard to explain it to children that what money stands for. Those days will be long gone when you could just hand them a pience of paper and say that this is called money.
Not too distant in te future, we won't even need plastic cards with desirable orientations, but just a thumbprint will do. So end to all the hoarding and looting. The thumb and the retina will take care of all the monetary situatuin and wallet will disappear. Why would you need that anyways? when all of ur documents can be seen online by concerned people just by the scan of ur thumb.
Hard to Imagine..........................But yet very interesting..............
Godspeed
money is paper with some dead man's image on it that is a tangible representation of my hardwork or my skill at something. Baiscally those pieces of paer decide if i can live or survive or not. Because if someone doesn't have those particular pieces of paper then he cannot buy anything.......now don't tell me that he can eat out of the trees and farms....
people's criteria to evaluate me may contain points for the amount of paper i have.
Day by day these paper bits are changing in to orientation of magnetic particles on a surface. Nowdays most of my money is in the form of a few magnetic particles on the surface of hard disk on some bank. the money can be used by me only if i have another small plastic cards with the desired orientation of particles on the magnetic strips.
A day will soon come when i will forget what paper money looks like. I will work my ass off, and my money will be deposited in bank by an email to the bank. Then wherever i need money i will just swipe cards. So eventually it is right that the world is turning into paperless money world.
In future Money will just remain a concept and will cease to exist in form. After 500 years, it will be hard to explain it to children that what money stands for. Those days will be long gone when you could just hand them a pience of paper and say that this is called money.
Not too distant in te future, we won't even need plastic cards with desirable orientations, but just a thumbprint will do. So end to all the hoarding and looting. The thumb and the retina will take care of all the monetary situatuin and wallet will disappear. Why would you need that anyways? when all of ur documents can be seen online by concerned people just by the scan of ur thumb.
Hard to Imagine..........................But yet very interesting..............
Godspeed
Monday, January 16, 2006
Entertaining Emotions
Right now i am on a friends watching marathon, and am currently on season 6. And as i paused the series to go and grab a bite, as usual I went on the socrates dialectics and realized something. The process went as...
Q: why do i watch Friends?
A:because its entertaining
Q:Why is it entertaining?
A: Because it is fun and humor.
Q:So is fun and humor entertainment?
A: Yes.
Q: But what do fun and humor produce as end result?
A: Emotions. namely happiness
Q:Is the series real?
A: No. Its fiction.
Q: Is the reason for the smiles and happy feeling real?
A: No. Fiction is not all reality
Q: Is the happiness real?
A: yes
Q: So actually am I watching the series for an emotional gain?
A: Yes
Q: So are all the people who watch the series do that for the same gain?
A: Maybe
Q: Why may be?
A: they might also be watching in to learn pop culture and to learn things as well as entertainment.
Q: So do people watch series like "kyunki saas bhi kabhi bahu thi" for the same reason..?
A: Yes, namely emotion and to learn pop culture/fashion etc.
Q: How do you say pop culture?
A: Because i have seen people selling clothes and asking for clothes and accesories based on the series. I have seen parents looking fo a role model child, and children looking for answers for lifes question.
Q: but the saas bahu series is tragic at times isn't it?
A: yes
Q: But people still love it isn't it?
A: yes they do.
Q: so do people want to be sad?
A: Must be, but the series is not sad all the times.
Q: Do people find being sad as entertainment?
A: must be.
Q: Do people find emotions entertaining?
A: Certainly.
Q: But being sad isn't healthy is it?
A: I guess not, because science says that laugh reduces BP and sadness increases BP. Emotions manifest themselves as physical changes in Blood and heart and psychological changes.
Q: What about the theory that people work to find happiness?
A: I donot know........Must be wrong.....People must be as interested in sadness then isn't it?
Q: why do i watch Friends?
A:because its entertaining
Q:Why is it entertaining?
A: Because it is fun and humor.
Q:So is fun and humor entertainment?
A: Yes.
Q: But what do fun and humor produce as end result?
A: Emotions. namely happiness
Q:Is the series real?
A: No. Its fiction.
Q: Is the reason for the smiles and happy feeling real?
A: No. Fiction is not all reality
Q: Is the happiness real?
A: yes
Q: So actually am I watching the series for an emotional gain?
A: Yes
Q: So are all the people who watch the series do that for the same gain?
A: Maybe
Q: Why may be?
A: they might also be watching in to learn pop culture and to learn things as well as entertainment.
Q: So do people watch series like "kyunki saas bhi kabhi bahu thi" for the same reason..?
A: Yes, namely emotion and to learn pop culture/fashion etc.
Q: How do you say pop culture?
A: Because i have seen people selling clothes and asking for clothes and accesories based on the series. I have seen parents looking fo a role model child, and children looking for answers for lifes question.
Q: but the saas bahu series is tragic at times isn't it?
A: yes
Q: But people still love it isn't it?
A: yes they do.
Q: so do people want to be sad?
A: Must be, but the series is not sad all the times.
Q: Do people find being sad as entertainment?
A: must be.
Q: Do people find emotions entertaining?
A: Certainly.
Q: But being sad isn't healthy is it?
A: I guess not, because science says that laugh reduces BP and sadness increases BP. Emotions manifest themselves as physical changes in Blood and heart and psychological changes.
Q: What about the theory that people work to find happiness?
A: I donot know........Must be wrong.....People must be as interested in sadness then isn't it?
Thursday, January 05, 2006
Roark: The Fountainhead
This is from the courtroom scene in the book "The fountainhead" by Ayn Rand. But here actually is the philosophy of Ayn Rand clearly defined.
-----
-----
It was only a moment; the moment of silence when Roark was about to speak.
"Thousands of years ago, the first man discovered how to make fire. He was probably burned at the stake he had taught his brothers to light. He was considered an evildoer who had dealt with a demon mankind dreaded. But thereafter men had fire to keep them warm, to cook their food, to light their caves. He had left them a gift they had not conceived and he had lifted darkness off the earth. Centuries later, the first man invented the wheel. He was probably torn on the rack he had taught his brothers to build. He was considered a transgressor who ventured into forbidden territory. But thereafter, men could travel past any horizon. He had left them a gift they had not conceived and he had opened the roads of the world.
"That man, the unsubmissive and first, stands in the opening chapter of every legend mankind has recorded about its beginning. Prometheus was chained to a rock and torn by vultures--because he had stolen the fire of the gods. Adam was condemned to suffer--because he had eaten the fruit of the tree of knowledge. Whatever the legend, somewhere in the shadows of its memory mankind knew that its glory began with one and that that one paid for his courage.
"Throughout the centuries there were men who took first steps down new roads armed with nothing but their own vision. Their goals differed, but they all had this in common: that the step was first, the road new, the vision unborrowed, and the response they received--hatred. The great creators--the thinkers, the artists, the scientists, the inventors--stood alone against the men of their time. Every great new thought was opposed. Every great new invention was denounced. The first motor was considered foolish. The first airplane was considered impossible. The power loom was considered vicious. Anesthesia was considered sinful. But the men of unborrowed vision went ahead. They fought, they suffered and they paid. But they won.
"No creator was prompted by a desire to serve his brothers, for his brothers rejected the gift he offered and that gift destroyed the slothful routine of their lives. His truth was his only motive. His own truth, and his own work to achieve it in his own motive. His own truth, and his own work to achieve it in his own way. A symphony, a book, an engine, a philosophy, an airplane, or a building--that was his goal and his life. Not those who heard, read, operated, believed, flew or inhabited the thing he had created. The creation, not its users. The creation, not the benefits others derived from it. The creation which gave form to his truth. He held his truth above all things and against all men.
"His vision, his strength, his courage cam from his own spirit. A man's spirit, however, is his self. That entity which is his consciousness. To think, to feel, to judge, to act are functions of the ego.
"The creators were not selfless. It is the whole secret of their power-- that it was self-sufficient, self-motivated, self-generated. A first cause, a fount of energy, a life force, a Prime Mover. The creator served nothing and no one. He had lived for himself.
"And only by living for himself was he able to achieve the things which are the glory of mankind. Such is the nature of achievement.
"Man cannot survive except through his mind. He comes on earth unarmed. His brain is his only weapon. Animals obtain food by force. Man has no claws, no fangs, no horns, no great strength of muscle. He must plant his food or hunt it. To plant, he needs a process of thought. To hunt, he needs weapons, and to make weapons--a process of thought. From this simplest necessity to the highest religious abstraction, from the wheel to the skyscraper, everything we are and everything we have comes from a single attribute of man--the function of his reasoning mind.
"But the mind is an attribute of the individual. There is no such thing as a collective brain. There is no such thing as a collective thought. An agreement reached by a group of men is only a compromise or an average drawn upon many individual thoughts. it is a secondary consequence. The primary act--the process of reason--must be performed by each man alone. We can divide a meal among many men. We cannot digest it in a collective stomach. No man con use his brain to think for another. All the functions of body and spirit are private. They cannot be shared or transferred.
"We inherit the products of the thought of other men. We inherit the wheel. We make a cart. The cart becomes an automobile. The automobile becomes an airplane. But all through the process what we receive from others is only the end product of their thinking. The moving force is the creative faculty which takes this product as material, uses it and originates the nest step. This creative faculty cannot be given or received, shared or borrowed. It belongs to single individual men. That which it creates is the property of the creator. Men learn from one another. But all learning is only the exchange of material. No man can give another the capacity to think. Yet that capacity is our only means of survival.
"Nothing is given to man on earth . Everything he needs has to be produced. And here man faces his basic alternative: he can survive in only one of two ways-- by the independent work of his own mind or as a parasite fed by minds of others. The creator originates. The parasite borrows. The creator faces nature alone. The parasite faces nature through an intermediary.
"The creator's concern is the conquest of nature. The parasite's concern is the conquest of men.
"The creator lives for his work. He needs no other men. His primary goal is within himself. The parasite lives second-hand. He needs others. Others become his prime motive.
"The basic need of the creator is independence. The reasoning mind cannot work under any form of compulsion. It cannot be curbed, sacrificed or subordinated to any consideration whatsoever. It demands total independence in function and in motive. To a creator, all relations with men are secondary.
"The basic need of the second-hander is to secure his ties with men in order to be fed. He places relations first. He declares that man exists in order to serve others. He preaches altruism.
"Altruism is the doctrine which demands that man live for others and place others above self.
"No man can live for another. He cannot share his spirit just as he cannot share his body. But the second-hander has used altruism as a weapon of exploitation and reversed the base of mankind's moral principles. Men have been taught every precept that destroys the creator. Men have been taught dependence as a virtue.
"The man who attempts to live for others is a dependent. He is a parasite in motive and makes parasites of those he serves. The relationship produces nothing but mutual corruption. It is impossible in concept. The nearest approach to it in reality--the man who lives to serve others--is the slave. If physical slavery is repulsive, how much more repulsive is the concept of servility of the spirit? The conquered slave has a vestige of honor. He has the merit of having resisted and of considering his condition evil. But the man who enslaves himself voluntarily in the name of love is the basest of creatures. He degrades the dignity of man and he degrades the conception of love. But this is the essence of altruism.
"Men have been taught that the highest virtue is not to achieve, but to give. Yet one cannot give that which has not been created. Creation comes before distribution--or there will be nothing to distribute. The need of the creator comes before the need of any possible beneficiary. Yet we are taught to admire the second-hander who dispenses gifts he has not produced above the man who made the gifts possible. We praise an act of charity. We shrug at an act of achievement.
"Men have been taught that their first concern is to relieve the suffering of others. But suffering is a disease. Should one come upon it, one tries to give relief and assistance. To make that the highest test of virtue is to make suffering the most important part of life. Then man must wish to see others suffer--in order that he may be virtuous. Such is the nature of altruism. The creator is not concerned with disease, but with life. Yet the work of the creators has eliminated one form of disease after another, in man's body and spirit, and brought more relief from suffering than any altruist could ever conceive.
"Men have been taught that it is a virtue to agree with others. But the creator is the man who disagrees. Men have been taught that it is a virtue to swim with the current. But the creator is the man who goes against the current. Men have been taught that it is a virtue to stand together. But the creator is the man who stands alone.
"Men have been taught that the ego is the synonym of evil, and selflessness the ideal of virtue. But the creator is the egotist in the absolute sense, and the selfless man is the one who does not think, feel, judge, or act. These are functions of the self.
"Here the basic reversal is most deadly. The issue has been perverted and man has been left no alternative-and no freedom. As poles of good and evil, he was offered two conceptions: egotism and altruism. Egotism was held to mean the sacrifice of others to self. Altruism--the sacrifice of self to others. This tied man irrevocably to other men and left him nothing but a choice of pain: his own pain borne for the sake of others or pain inflicted upon others for the sake of self. When it was added that man must find joy in self-immolation, the trap was closed. Man was forced to accept masochism as his ideal--under the threat that sadism was his only alternative. This was the greatest fraud ever perpetrated on mankind.
"This was the device by which dependence and suffering were perpetuated as fundamentals of life.
"The choice is not self-sacrifice or domination. The choice is independence or dependence. The code of the creator or the code of the second-hander. This is the basic issue. It rest upon the alternative of life or death. The code of the creator is built on the needs of the reasoning mind which allows man to survive. The code of the second-hander is built on the needs of a mind incapable of survival. All that which proceeds from man's dependence upon men is evil.
"The egoist in the absolute sense is not the man who sacrifices others. He is the man who stands above the need of using others in any manner. He does not function through them. He is not concerned with them in any primary matter. Not in his aim, not in his motive, not in his thinking, not in his desires, not in the source of his energy. He does not exist for any other man--and he asks no man to exist for him. This is the only form of brotherhood and mutual respect possible between men.
"Degrees of ability vary, but the basic principle remains the same: the degree of a man's independence, initiative and personal love for his work determines his talent as a worker and his worth as a man. Independence is the only gauge of human virtue and value. What a man is and makes of himself; not what he has or hasn't done for others. There is no substitute for personal dignity. There is no standard of personal dignity except independence.
"In all proper relationships there is no sacrifice of anyone to anyone. An architect needs clients, but he does not subordinate his work to their wishes. They need him, but they do not order a house just to give him a commission. Men exchange their work by free, mutual consent to mutual advantage when their personal interests agree and they both desire the exchange. If they do not desire it, they are not forced to deal with each other. They seek further. Anything else is a relation of slave to master, or victim to executioner.
"No work is ever done collectively, by a majority decision. Every creative job is achieved under the guidance of a single individual thought. An architect requires a great many men to erect his building. But he does not ask them to vote on his design. They work together by free agreement and each is free in his proper function. An architect uses steel, glass, concrete, produced by others. But the materials remain just so much steel, glass and concrete until he touches them. What he does with them is his individual product and his individual property. This is the only pattern for proper co-operation among men.
"The first right on earth is the right of the ego. Man's first duty is to himself. His moral law is never to place his prime goal within the persons of others. His moral obligation is to do what he wishes, provided his wish does not depend primarily upon other men. This includes the whole sphere of his creative faculty, his thinking, his work. But it does not include the sphere of the gangster, the altruist and the dictator.
"A man thinks and works alone. A man cannot rob, exploit or rule--alone. Robbery, exploitation and ruling presuppose victims. They imply dependence. They are the province of the second-hander.
"Rulers of men are not egoists. They create nothing. The exist entirely through the persons of others. Their goal is in their subjects, in the activity of enslaving. They are as dependent as the beggar, the social worker and the bandit. The form of dependence does not matter.
"But men were taught to regard second-handers--tyrants, emperors, dictators--as exponents of egotism. By this fraud they were made to destroy the ego, themselves and others. The purpose of the fraud was to destroy the creators. Or to harness them. Which is a synonym.
"From the beginning of history, the two antagonists have stood face to face: the creator and the second-hander. When the first creator invented the wheel, the first second-hander responded. He invented altruism.
""The creator--denied, opposed, persecuted, exploited--went on, moved forward and carried all humanity along on his energy. The second-hander contributed nothing to the process except the impediments. The contest has another name: the individual against the collective.
"The 'common good' of a collective--a race, a class, a state-- was the claim and justification of every tyranny ever established over men. Every major horror of history was committed in the name of an altruistic motive. Has any act of selfishness ever equaled the carnage perpetrated by disciples of altruism? Does the fault lie in men's hypocrisy or in the nature of the principle? The most dreadful butchers were the most sincere. They believed in the perfect society reached through the guillotine and the firing squad. Nobody questioned their right to murder since they were murdering for an altruistic purpose. It was accepted that man must be sacrificed for other men. Actors change, but the course of the tragedy remains the same. A humanitarian who starts with declarations of love for mankind and ends with a sea of blood. It goes on and will go on so long as men believe that an action is good if it unselfish. That permits the altruist to act and forces his victims to bear it. The leaders of collectivist movements ask nothing for themselves. But observe the results.
"The only good which men can do to one another and the only statement of their proper relationship is--Hands off!
"Now observe the results of a society built on the principle of individualism. This, our country. The noblest country in the history of men. The country of greatest achievement, greatest prosperity, greatest freedom. This country was not based on selfless service, sacrifice, renunciation or any precept of altruism. It was based on a man's right to the pursuit of happiness. His own happiness. Not anyone else's. A private, personal, selfish motive. Look at the results. Look into your own conscience.
"It is an ancient conflict. Men have come close to the truth, but it was destroyed each time and one civilization fell after another. Civilization is the progress toward a society of privacy. The savage's whole existence is public, ruled by the laws of his tribe. Civilization is the process of setting man free from men.
"Now, in our age, collectivism, the rule of the second-hander and second-rater, the ancient monster, has broken loose and is running amuck. It has brought men to a level of intellectual indecency never equaled on earth. It has reached a scale of horror without precedent. It has poisoned every mind. It has swallowed most of Europe. It is engulfing our country.
"I am an architect. I know what is to come by the principle on which it is built. We are approaching a world in which I cannot permit myself to live.
"Now you know why I dynamited Cortlandt.
"I designed Cortlandt. I gave it to you. I destroyed it.
"I destroyed it because I did not choose to let it exist. It was a double monster. In form and in implication. I had to blast both. The form was mutilated by two second-handers who assumed the right to improve upon that which they had not made and could not equal. They were permitted to do it by the general implication that the altruistic purpose of the building supersede all rights and that I had no claim to stand against it.
"I agreed to design Cortlandt for the purpose of seeing it erected as I designed it and for no other reason. That was the price I set for my work. I was not paid.
"I do not blame Peter Keating. He was helpless. He had a contract with his employers. It was ignored. He had a promise that the structure he offered would be built as designed. The promise was broken. The love of a man for the integrity of his work and his right to preserve it are now considered a vague intangible and an unessential. You have heard the prosecutor say that. Why was the building disfigured? For no reason. Such acts never have any reason, unless it's the vanity of some second-handers who feel they have a right to anyone's property, spiritual or material. Who permitted them to do it? No particular man among the dozens in authority. No one cared to permit it or to stop it. No one was responsible. NO one can be held to account. Such is the nature of all collective action.
"I did not receive the payment I asked. But the owners of Cortlandt got what they need from me. they wanted a scheme devised to build a structure as cheaply as possible. They found no one else who could do it to their satisfaction. I could and did. they took the benefit of my work and made me contribute it as a gift. But I am not an altruist. i do not contribute gifts of this nature.
"It is said that I have destroyed the home of the destitute. It is forgotten that but for me the destitute could not have had this particular home. Those who were concerned with the poor had to come to me, who have never been concerned, in order to help the poor. It is believed that the poverty of the future tenants gave them a right to my work. that their need constituted a claim on my life. That it was my duty to contribute anything demanded of me. This is the second-hander's credo now swallowing the world.
"I came here to say that I do not recognize anyone's right to one minute of my life. Nor to any part of my energy. Nor to any achievement of mine. No matter who makes the claim, how large their number or how great their need.
"I wished to come here and say that I am a man who does not exist for others.
"It had to be said. The world is perishing from an orgy of self-sacrificing.
"I wished to come here and say that the integrity of a man's creative work is of greater importance than any charitable endeavor. Those of you who do not understand this are the men who're destroying the world.
"I wished to come here and state my terms. I do not care to exist on any others.
"I recognize no obligations toward men except one: to respect their freedom and to take no part in a slave society. To my country, i wish to give the ten years which I will spend in jail if my country exists no longer. I will spend them in memory and in gratitude for what my country has been. It will be my act of loyalty, my refusal to live or work in what has taken its place.
"Thousands of years ago, the first man discovered how to make fire. He was probably burned at the stake he had taught his brothers to light. He was considered an evildoer who had dealt with a demon mankind dreaded. But thereafter men had fire to keep them warm, to cook their food, to light their caves. He had left them a gift they had not conceived and he had lifted darkness off the earth. Centuries later, the first man invented the wheel. He was probably torn on the rack he had taught his brothers to build. He was considered a transgressor who ventured into forbidden territory. But thereafter, men could travel past any horizon. He had left them a gift they had not conceived and he had opened the roads of the world.
"That man, the unsubmissive and first, stands in the opening chapter of every legend mankind has recorded about its beginning. Prometheus was chained to a rock and torn by vultures--because he had stolen the fire of the gods. Adam was condemned to suffer--because he had eaten the fruit of the tree of knowledge. Whatever the legend, somewhere in the shadows of its memory mankind knew that its glory began with one and that that one paid for his courage.
"Throughout the centuries there were men who took first steps down new roads armed with nothing but their own vision. Their goals differed, but they all had this in common: that the step was first, the road new, the vision unborrowed, and the response they received--hatred. The great creators--the thinkers, the artists, the scientists, the inventors--stood alone against the men of their time. Every great new thought was opposed. Every great new invention was denounced. The first motor was considered foolish. The first airplane was considered impossible. The power loom was considered vicious. Anesthesia was considered sinful. But the men of unborrowed vision went ahead. They fought, they suffered and they paid. But they won.
"No creator was prompted by a desire to serve his brothers, for his brothers rejected the gift he offered and that gift destroyed the slothful routine of their lives. His truth was his only motive. His own truth, and his own work to achieve it in his own motive. His own truth, and his own work to achieve it in his own way. A symphony, a book, an engine, a philosophy, an airplane, or a building--that was his goal and his life. Not those who heard, read, operated, believed, flew or inhabited the thing he had created. The creation, not its users. The creation, not the benefits others derived from it. The creation which gave form to his truth. He held his truth above all things and against all men.
"His vision, his strength, his courage cam from his own spirit. A man's spirit, however, is his self. That entity which is his consciousness. To think, to feel, to judge, to act are functions of the ego.
"The creators were not selfless. It is the whole secret of their power-- that it was self-sufficient, self-motivated, self-generated. A first cause, a fount of energy, a life force, a Prime Mover. The creator served nothing and no one. He had lived for himself.
"And only by living for himself was he able to achieve the things which are the glory of mankind. Such is the nature of achievement.
"Man cannot survive except through his mind. He comes on earth unarmed. His brain is his only weapon. Animals obtain food by force. Man has no claws, no fangs, no horns, no great strength of muscle. He must plant his food or hunt it. To plant, he needs a process of thought. To hunt, he needs weapons, and to make weapons--a process of thought. From this simplest necessity to the highest religious abstraction, from the wheel to the skyscraper, everything we are and everything we have comes from a single attribute of man--the function of his reasoning mind.
"But the mind is an attribute of the individual. There is no such thing as a collective brain. There is no such thing as a collective thought. An agreement reached by a group of men is only a compromise or an average drawn upon many individual thoughts. it is a secondary consequence. The primary act--the process of reason--must be performed by each man alone. We can divide a meal among many men. We cannot digest it in a collective stomach. No man con use his brain to think for another. All the functions of body and spirit are private. They cannot be shared or transferred.
"We inherit the products of the thought of other men. We inherit the wheel. We make a cart. The cart becomes an automobile. The automobile becomes an airplane. But all through the process what we receive from others is only the end product of their thinking. The moving force is the creative faculty which takes this product as material, uses it and originates the nest step. This creative faculty cannot be given or received, shared or borrowed. It belongs to single individual men. That which it creates is the property of the creator. Men learn from one another. But all learning is only the exchange of material. No man can give another the capacity to think. Yet that capacity is our only means of survival.
"Nothing is given to man on earth . Everything he needs has to be produced. And here man faces his basic alternative: he can survive in only one of two ways-- by the independent work of his own mind or as a parasite fed by minds of others. The creator originates. The parasite borrows. The creator faces nature alone. The parasite faces nature through an intermediary.
"The creator's concern is the conquest of nature. The parasite's concern is the conquest of men.
"The creator lives for his work. He needs no other men. His primary goal is within himself. The parasite lives second-hand. He needs others. Others become his prime motive.
"The basic need of the creator is independence. The reasoning mind cannot work under any form of compulsion. It cannot be curbed, sacrificed or subordinated to any consideration whatsoever. It demands total independence in function and in motive. To a creator, all relations with men are secondary.
"The basic need of the second-hander is to secure his ties with men in order to be fed. He places relations first. He declares that man exists in order to serve others. He preaches altruism.
"Altruism is the doctrine which demands that man live for others and place others above self.
"No man can live for another. He cannot share his spirit just as he cannot share his body. But the second-hander has used altruism as a weapon of exploitation and reversed the base of mankind's moral principles. Men have been taught every precept that destroys the creator. Men have been taught dependence as a virtue.
"The man who attempts to live for others is a dependent. He is a parasite in motive and makes parasites of those he serves. The relationship produces nothing but mutual corruption. It is impossible in concept. The nearest approach to it in reality--the man who lives to serve others--is the slave. If physical slavery is repulsive, how much more repulsive is the concept of servility of the spirit? The conquered slave has a vestige of honor. He has the merit of having resisted and of considering his condition evil. But the man who enslaves himself voluntarily in the name of love is the basest of creatures. He degrades the dignity of man and he degrades the conception of love. But this is the essence of altruism.
"Men have been taught that the highest virtue is not to achieve, but to give. Yet one cannot give that which has not been created. Creation comes before distribution--or there will be nothing to distribute. The need of the creator comes before the need of any possible beneficiary. Yet we are taught to admire the second-hander who dispenses gifts he has not produced above the man who made the gifts possible. We praise an act of charity. We shrug at an act of achievement.
"Men have been taught that their first concern is to relieve the suffering of others. But suffering is a disease. Should one come upon it, one tries to give relief and assistance. To make that the highest test of virtue is to make suffering the most important part of life. Then man must wish to see others suffer--in order that he may be virtuous. Such is the nature of altruism. The creator is not concerned with disease, but with life. Yet the work of the creators has eliminated one form of disease after another, in man's body and spirit, and brought more relief from suffering than any altruist could ever conceive.
"Men have been taught that it is a virtue to agree with others. But the creator is the man who disagrees. Men have been taught that it is a virtue to swim with the current. But the creator is the man who goes against the current. Men have been taught that it is a virtue to stand together. But the creator is the man who stands alone.
"Men have been taught that the ego is the synonym of evil, and selflessness the ideal of virtue. But the creator is the egotist in the absolute sense, and the selfless man is the one who does not think, feel, judge, or act. These are functions of the self.
"Here the basic reversal is most deadly. The issue has been perverted and man has been left no alternative-and no freedom. As poles of good and evil, he was offered two conceptions: egotism and altruism. Egotism was held to mean the sacrifice of others to self. Altruism--the sacrifice of self to others. This tied man irrevocably to other men and left him nothing but a choice of pain: his own pain borne for the sake of others or pain inflicted upon others for the sake of self. When it was added that man must find joy in self-immolation, the trap was closed. Man was forced to accept masochism as his ideal--under the threat that sadism was his only alternative. This was the greatest fraud ever perpetrated on mankind.
"This was the device by which dependence and suffering were perpetuated as fundamentals of life.
"The choice is not self-sacrifice or domination. The choice is independence or dependence. The code of the creator or the code of the second-hander. This is the basic issue. It rest upon the alternative of life or death. The code of the creator is built on the needs of the reasoning mind which allows man to survive. The code of the second-hander is built on the needs of a mind incapable of survival. All that which proceeds from man's dependence upon men is evil.
"The egoist in the absolute sense is not the man who sacrifices others. He is the man who stands above the need of using others in any manner. He does not function through them. He is not concerned with them in any primary matter. Not in his aim, not in his motive, not in his thinking, not in his desires, not in the source of his energy. He does not exist for any other man--and he asks no man to exist for him. This is the only form of brotherhood and mutual respect possible between men.
"Degrees of ability vary, but the basic principle remains the same: the degree of a man's independence, initiative and personal love for his work determines his talent as a worker and his worth as a man. Independence is the only gauge of human virtue and value. What a man is and makes of himself; not what he has or hasn't done for others. There is no substitute for personal dignity. There is no standard of personal dignity except independence.
"In all proper relationships there is no sacrifice of anyone to anyone. An architect needs clients, but he does not subordinate his work to their wishes. They need him, but they do not order a house just to give him a commission. Men exchange their work by free, mutual consent to mutual advantage when their personal interests agree and they both desire the exchange. If they do not desire it, they are not forced to deal with each other. They seek further. Anything else is a relation of slave to master, or victim to executioner.
"No work is ever done collectively, by a majority decision. Every creative job is achieved under the guidance of a single individual thought. An architect requires a great many men to erect his building. But he does not ask them to vote on his design. They work together by free agreement and each is free in his proper function. An architect uses steel, glass, concrete, produced by others. But the materials remain just so much steel, glass and concrete until he touches them. What he does with them is his individual product and his individual property. This is the only pattern for proper co-operation among men.
"The first right on earth is the right of the ego. Man's first duty is to himself. His moral law is never to place his prime goal within the persons of others. His moral obligation is to do what he wishes, provided his wish does not depend primarily upon other men. This includes the whole sphere of his creative faculty, his thinking, his work. But it does not include the sphere of the gangster, the altruist and the dictator.
"A man thinks and works alone. A man cannot rob, exploit or rule--alone. Robbery, exploitation and ruling presuppose victims. They imply dependence. They are the province of the second-hander.
"Rulers of men are not egoists. They create nothing. The exist entirely through the persons of others. Their goal is in their subjects, in the activity of enslaving. They are as dependent as the beggar, the social worker and the bandit. The form of dependence does not matter.
"But men were taught to regard second-handers--tyrants, emperors, dictators--as exponents of egotism. By this fraud they were made to destroy the ego, themselves and others. The purpose of the fraud was to destroy the creators. Or to harness them. Which is a synonym.
"From the beginning of history, the two antagonists have stood face to face: the creator and the second-hander. When the first creator invented the wheel, the first second-hander responded. He invented altruism.
""The creator--denied, opposed, persecuted, exploited--went on, moved forward and carried all humanity along on his energy. The second-hander contributed nothing to the process except the impediments. The contest has another name: the individual against the collective.
"The 'common good' of a collective--a race, a class, a state-- was the claim and justification of every tyranny ever established over men. Every major horror of history was committed in the name of an altruistic motive. Has any act of selfishness ever equaled the carnage perpetrated by disciples of altruism? Does the fault lie in men's hypocrisy or in the nature of the principle? The most dreadful butchers were the most sincere. They believed in the perfect society reached through the guillotine and the firing squad. Nobody questioned their right to murder since they were murdering for an altruistic purpose. It was accepted that man must be sacrificed for other men. Actors change, but the course of the tragedy remains the same. A humanitarian who starts with declarations of love for mankind and ends with a sea of blood. It goes on and will go on so long as men believe that an action is good if it unselfish. That permits the altruist to act and forces his victims to bear it. The leaders of collectivist movements ask nothing for themselves. But observe the results.
"The only good which men can do to one another and the only statement of their proper relationship is--Hands off!
"Now observe the results of a society built on the principle of individualism. This, our country. The noblest country in the history of men. The country of greatest achievement, greatest prosperity, greatest freedom. This country was not based on selfless service, sacrifice, renunciation or any precept of altruism. It was based on a man's right to the pursuit of happiness. His own happiness. Not anyone else's. A private, personal, selfish motive. Look at the results. Look into your own conscience.
"It is an ancient conflict. Men have come close to the truth, but it was destroyed each time and one civilization fell after another. Civilization is the progress toward a society of privacy. The savage's whole existence is public, ruled by the laws of his tribe. Civilization is the process of setting man free from men.
"Now, in our age, collectivism, the rule of the second-hander and second-rater, the ancient monster, has broken loose and is running amuck. It has brought men to a level of intellectual indecency never equaled on earth. It has reached a scale of horror without precedent. It has poisoned every mind. It has swallowed most of Europe. It is engulfing our country.
"I am an architect. I know what is to come by the principle on which it is built. We are approaching a world in which I cannot permit myself to live.
"Now you know why I dynamited Cortlandt.
"I designed Cortlandt. I gave it to you. I destroyed it.
"I destroyed it because I did not choose to let it exist. It was a double monster. In form and in implication. I had to blast both. The form was mutilated by two second-handers who assumed the right to improve upon that which they had not made and could not equal. They were permitted to do it by the general implication that the altruistic purpose of the building supersede all rights and that I had no claim to stand against it.
"I agreed to design Cortlandt for the purpose of seeing it erected as I designed it and for no other reason. That was the price I set for my work. I was not paid.
"I do not blame Peter Keating. He was helpless. He had a contract with his employers. It was ignored. He had a promise that the structure he offered would be built as designed. The promise was broken. The love of a man for the integrity of his work and his right to preserve it are now considered a vague intangible and an unessential. You have heard the prosecutor say that. Why was the building disfigured? For no reason. Such acts never have any reason, unless it's the vanity of some second-handers who feel they have a right to anyone's property, spiritual or material. Who permitted them to do it? No particular man among the dozens in authority. No one cared to permit it or to stop it. No one was responsible. NO one can be held to account. Such is the nature of all collective action.
"I did not receive the payment I asked. But the owners of Cortlandt got what they need from me. they wanted a scheme devised to build a structure as cheaply as possible. They found no one else who could do it to their satisfaction. I could and did. they took the benefit of my work and made me contribute it as a gift. But I am not an altruist. i do not contribute gifts of this nature.
"It is said that I have destroyed the home of the destitute. It is forgotten that but for me the destitute could not have had this particular home. Those who were concerned with the poor had to come to me, who have never been concerned, in order to help the poor. It is believed that the poverty of the future tenants gave them a right to my work. that their need constituted a claim on my life. That it was my duty to contribute anything demanded of me. This is the second-hander's credo now swallowing the world.
"I came here to say that I do not recognize anyone's right to one minute of my life. Nor to any part of my energy. Nor to any achievement of mine. No matter who makes the claim, how large their number or how great their need.
"I wished to come here and say that I am a man who does not exist for others.
"It had to be said. The world is perishing from an orgy of self-sacrificing.
"I wished to come here and say that the integrity of a man's creative work is of greater importance than any charitable endeavor. Those of you who do not understand this are the men who're destroying the world.
"I wished to come here and state my terms. I do not care to exist on any others.
"I recognize no obligations toward men except one: to respect their freedom and to take no part in a slave society. To my country, i wish to give the ten years which I will spend in jail if my country exists no longer. I will spend them in memory and in gratitude for what my country has been. It will be my act of loyalty, my refusal to live or work in what has taken its place.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)