यहाँ कैसे ?

I had promised myself to refrain from idling on the internet for the next three weeks, for some exam is due shortly, but as it turns out, I am back at it in what has been less than even one. For a change, I wouldn’t call it incorrigibility but a careful reconsideration. When I am not averse to wasting time per se, why would it be such a sin if it happens to be on the internet? Rationale says that the venue of the (in)activity should mostly be immaterial. Not that I am a stickler for rationale; there is none behind idling at such a crucial juncture in the first place.

To cut the crap, what brought me here was a welcome I thought I ought to give to a new blogger on the block, one of my closest friends with whom I have spent the lion’s share of my college life, especially the last two years.

To begin with, it gives me great pleasure to have him here, for I often wondered how it would be if he were to begin writing a blog or something. And this was because I was often amazed at the striking similitude of our outlook on all things under the sun. Also, I knew for sure that with his kind of linguistic command, going wrong couldn’t be the bleakest of possibilities. So ever since he told me about having started his blog this past Sunday, I had been waiting eagerly for Friday to come so that I have internet at my dispense to read it with delight.

What makes it all the more interesting for me is its title – Out of d Closet. After having lived with him day in and day out, I have to say there’s still a tinge of mystery that surrounds him. He isn’t usually given to being very vocal about how he feels about things of importance, except a few times in the quiet of his or my room; but then it gets kind of awkward having two guys in the prime(?) of their youth sitting in a cobweb-rich room and talking ‘sense’. So watch out Abhineet, I am counting on you to actually take the out-of-the-closet thing seriously, besides accounts of the black satirical comedy that our lives have more or less come to be.

And finally, I hope that the people who read his blog aren’t fooled by the lazy, laughable, languishing image his blog thus far entails about him. Because beneath the self-mocking layabout is the sharpest mind I have seen in these three and a half years of my stay here.

Whistles and Cheers!

Why Lara at a 52 point something batting average is greater than those averaging 54, 56, 58 :)

Stats sourced from Cricinfo.com

The Audition

This little-known actor had been diligently mastering concealment for years, guided by the notion that it was more exacting than, and therefore superior to, expression. For years, he pursued it with extreme honesty.

An upcoming dramatist hosted a lavish gala, inviting one and all. Our immersed actor was peremptorily chucked from the impervious protagonist's role in her cast-to-be; it was an audition in disguise.

Hurt at the discovery, the actor, indelibly proud of his expertise, felt cheated. 'My disguise was beaten, only because it was evaluated in disguise', he protested.

'Oh no, that's how it ought to be evaluated. Besides,' added the dramatist 'To conceal is façade and is pursued with façade, not honesty. It's a beguiling total-transparency, not a cultivated total-opaqueness'.

The dramatist has since risen to the highest echelons of Theatre, the profession of make-believe.

The actor came back crippled that night, and has since been rehearsing normalcy.

धुंआ

कल रात बैठे बैठे सुबह हो गई
मानो पिंजरे से चिड़िया धुंआ हो गई

ये समझाया, माना बहुत कुछ सितम है
चलो छोड़ दें, जो गई सो गई

जो सालों में उगती है पेडों की लकड़ी
कट के भी तो चूल्हे की जां हो गई

ये बतलाया ख़ुद को की दुनिया में जब भी
कोई बात बिगड़ी , कोई हो गई

कभी चाँद रोता है दागों को अपने ?
कब रोता है सूरज की छाँ खो गई

अब कल को न रोयें, अगर यह करें तो
जो कल तक थी दिक्क़त, दुआ हो गई

फिर रात याद आया जो वीरों का जज़्बा
जोश-ऐ-दिल की तभी इन्तेहाँ हो गई

ये करना है मुमकिन, वो कर देंगे अब तो
ऐसी कसमें हजारों जुबां हो गई

कई बात सोची यूँ तो कल रात हमनें
जो सुबह हो गई , सब धुंआ हो गई

No Title As Such

Ironically, during an aimless idle stroll in the evening, I was reminded of why I had deleted the Idleness post in the first place. And it provided a compulsive imperative for me to delete it again. And so that I don’t forget it a second time, I am oh-shit becoming so absent-minded, I’ll bring the misgiving right here. It was uneasiness regarding this line - The people who think they are the best bet for this job appointment really irritate people like me who actually are – that had made me delete this post the last time. I have a faint feeling that I may just have overheard it somewhere in my school or something, and so maybe it isn’t something I should attribute to myself. I am not very sure, again, if this is really the case, but then again, I am not very sure either that this is not the case. So if it gives conscientious trouble, why just have it; there are many troubles already stymieing me.

Now for the latest one among them. Back at this coaching institute, these guys have come up with a special customised programme for some students with about a month left for the final thingy. Since I was told I was in it, and these guys call it the ‘bright batch’, my first thoughts were that these coaching guys needed a major vocabulary overhaul. Then I thought since some of these guys also teach vocabulary they couldn’t possibly have made a blunder. What’s it then – a play on words? I had no clue. They say they’ve handpicked some potential students from all their centres across Delhi to give their preparations that final impetus. I was surprised, to say the least, to find myself in it; I need the initial nudge after all, not the final impetus. However, all doubts were put to rest when I finally made way into the classroom. A lot of the guys over there looked straight out of study-coffins and had such stern expressions on their faces they looked like they’ll eat up anyone thwarting their chances. On the corridor outside the class I asked a particularly scary guy with Ambition written all over his forehead if he had come for this particular batch’s classes. He paused, looked at me irritated, paused a bit more, and said ‘Obviously’. Wow.

What did I know, that I would meet many more of his kinfolk inside. When I entered the class was empty; a sort of joblessness makes me reach everywhere ahead of time – that’s the good part of it. Anyway, monsters kept pouring in every two minutes. They came, they took a seat, they opened their problem-books with prompt bookmarks at just the required page-number in a flash of a second, and in flash of one more started solving stuff in their notebooks. In a few minutes, I grew tired of rotating my head like a CCTV tower staring at all these creatures. Just as I was beginning to regain affected composure, a couple of tough-nut problems were thrown at us which almost bowled me; that they bowled nobody else even slightly bowled me completely. That I was intimidated would be the understatement of the year.

So just when it seemed to be taking effect, the great Indian blog revival, it seems, will have to wait a wee bit more. I must start studying seriously, if only to save face while sitting along with a bunch of nightmarishly nerdy folks.

On Idleness

Some time back, I wrote a post which I then deleted. There must have been reasons, but I am not able to recall any of them now; the only reasons that occur to me are for putting it back here. The blog is in dire need of some posts which actually say something rather than just think what to say, or mull over having nothing to say. So here it goes, that post:

I particularly like idleness. Rather, I 'admire' idleness would be more apt to say. If I come to know another person who admires idleness, and unless he doesn't really remind me of Uday Chopra, I'd probably be very tempted to strike a good friendship with him. It comes as no surprise then that two of my favourite books are 'In praise of Idleness' and 'The Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow'. The first one actually made a fool out of me, as 'In praise..' just turned out to be one of the many essays in that book to which they gave the same name. However, it was still a good, worth-it read, only that some later essays of that book started to undermine this particular essay, when I stopped reading it any further. The second book is one I personally consider a masterpiece, but as it turns out, the 'intelligentsia' have probably just passed it off as a work of 'light writing'.

When I say idle, I do not include occasions when you are apparently doing nothing but are completely immersed in brooding, remorse, elation, expectation and the likes. Because all of them are things that are in fact keeping you from being idle, rather than making you idle as one might think.

My idea of idleness is when you're free from any resentment or ecstasy, from any guilt or vanity. My idea of idleness is probably a Dhokla of imagination garnished with leaves of laziness. It is when nothingness dumps you into a parallel world of what I like to call creativity, probably only to boost up myself.

I am surprised to find that other people are not idle. After all, how much work is there anyway? There may be, I understand, and I haven't seen real life and all that; but trust me I have seen quite a bit - both the good and the very bad. My idleness has hardly come in my way of work, for as long as I can remember. Sure, I could have done a little more had it not been for my propensity for being a layabout idle, but even with it I am managing just fine, about as much as my peers. And after all, what plethora of work are even those not idle engaged in anyway. From my frog of a well experience, I can say with certainty that when, being idle, I am just wasting my time; my friends are there wasting their time as well as talktime. Idleness might not, at the end of the day, see me as an achiever, but then I am satisfied with the mere amusement it gives me, and don't have any greater expectations from it. Oops, will right about expectations in a future post.

I agree that lack of activity is the biggest curse a man can bear - the state of having nothing to do. I not only agree, I rather endorse this view. But then, 'lack of activity' is not idleness. Here I'd quote a fantastic paragraph from 'The Idle thoughts..' : "It is impossible to enjoy idling thoroughly unless one has plenty of work to do. There is no fun in doing nothing when you have nothing to do. Wasting time is merely an occupation then, and a most exhausting one. Idleness, like kisses, to be sweet must be stolen." In hindsight I think a good example of this brand of idleness is one, albeit very boring, of my previous posts - "'Urgent Updates' - Nov 24".

Readers [added now: there were a few back then] of this blog perhaps already know that I consider myself a fairly idle person (not in any way to be confused with ideal person). And it is the aforementioned definition of idleness I am using here.

It is in these periods of idleness that I cook up a lot of things in my head (and probably you too do, but I have a tendency to fall into hallucinations that tell me I am the only anointed one in this world doing things that only I am doing - but then again, probably you too might have had these weird thoughts) that aren't remotely of any practical use for mankind but which certainly serve to amuse me and make me feel good about myself; and some of which I put down here, after weighing diligently the pros and cons of putting them publicly. Another set of such cooked up things I found pretty interesting (as I always do, because I cook them up) and thought others will find interesting too (for a change), I am putting down here. Today I was thinking of such paradoxical sentences which mean totally the opposite of what they actually say, with a tinge of humour in them. I would like to read your similar ones from you, in case you have the idle time too.
Read on for the ones that occurred to me:

1. I don't give a heck to what people say about me as long as I know I am not arrogant.

2. I am very receptive in learning from others but I wish there were good enough people existing today.


3. There's an acute lack of a sense of reason among these young men of today, see - all of them are so tall.

4. They are all ill-mannered, bloody assholes.

5. That insensitive crook lifted my most prized possession, the watch I took out of my dear late uncle's hand on his deathbed. Damn it! It was a Patek Philippe for God's sake.

I'd probably use all of them as dialogues of a weirdo in a play, if I ever produce one.