'Vanity is the greatest seducer of reason'

It is becoming very challenging. Sleep, what else? In one fell swoop, I managed to slay seven mosquitoes. I had so much blood in my hands, how could I sleep? I mean, not the moral argument of having blood in one's hands, but if there are so many mosquitoes, how can I sleep? Why are they breeding like the people of this country? What is the problem with this blanket? It has so many holes, it comes away on one side when I turn to the other side leaving the juicy flesh of my body(I read it and it was so gross, chances are that I am never reading this post again) prey to the cunning stingers of those blood sucking creatures(not vampires). I harbor a suspicion that they have night vision goggles developed by our country(well, if the leading defense research establishment of this country is pioneering brand old mosquito repellents). The heat is unbearable when I use the blanket, and if I don't, the mosquitoes, like our country's neighbors, are ready with their insurgencies.

'Even if you were destined to live three thousand years,remember that no one loses any other life other than the one he lives'

Parents withe little kids are so fascinating. By fascinating, I mean contemptibly obnoxious and idiotically oblivious to their target audience. They reel off stories from blogs on parenting, and they seem to know the names of the mutated virus and parasites that may have infected their children. 
This virus, in the olden days, was called the common bloody cold. 
It is because kids have weak immune systems that grows stronger with time. It is exactly the same thing that has been happening for the last three hundred tretha yugams(see what I did there?) and you think you are somehow being extra careful in getting second, third, fourth and a fifteen hundredth opinion?

'Say to yourself first thing in the morning: today I shall meet people who are meddling, ungrateful, aggressive, treacherous, malicious and unsocial.'

Are there any other topics available other than real estate and raising kids? Anything? No? If not, can you please shut the flop up? I have but one question to ask: what was the last book that you read? Seven thousand habits of highly nauseous people? The zen who killed his fourth wife in cold blood? Such lovely books, I am quite sure they are very fascinating for the average chimp population. I am quite sure every other person-child who is grown up without realizing that he/she is grown up would be enamored and never be frowned upon caught reading such life changing books.

'Good fortune consists in good inclinations of the soul, good impulses, good actions.'

If there ever was a tempestuous relationship in this world, it would have to be between me and my stomach. I was not subject to this much hostility even from my adviser's glare: my gut has bested this by miles. I am tired of having to live on a diet of electrolysis solutions like a battery (now thinking about electro-chemical corrosion which is why they have galvanic plates in a ship's hull.) I am unable to wallow in this cesspool of a heap of life. I suppose it is another one of those lifelong challenges that would continue to torment me.(At this point in time, I am unable to recall one other lifelong challenge, but then, there it is)

All quotes from translation of Meditations by Marcus Aurelius.

On Normalcy.

The banality of banality,so to say. When you completely miss the beauty of the place because of a dull blaring monotone that makes the most outlandishly beautiful things disappear in a mirage of a resignation to life. What can even jolt us out of this reverie that we can hardly wait to go back to normalcy and walk around without noticing the fact that we are driving inside a forest in the midst of a city! No, we need to get to the place soon and leave, so let's step on it and be done with it. The banality of normalcy, I must say.

****

There is probably no polished way of saying this: I went fruit shopping. The next piece of information is even more remarkable for its unabashed idiocy: I returned home with mint leaves and nothing else. As if the idea of visiting the shop for fruits on a friday night is not embarassing enough, I came back with something that I definitely did not want. Sometimes I wonder if I really have schizophrenia or some other mental disorder at some points of time in my life that makes me take disastrous and unnecessary decisions with cold and calculated perfection. I think this disorder goes the extra mile and creates an urge to share it on a public forum. So much for TGIF's.

****

I have come to two conclusions: The lady handling the billing counter gets into a tearing hurry as soon as I spontaneously materialize with my basket at that counter. She looks at me like the slug that had accidentally decided to live life and be mercilessly crushed by feet, and drags the basket with such ferocity that a terrier would have been proud of. I am not sure if they are programmed to behave this way when they spot certain meek creatures(me, yes).

Who doesn't like catharsis. 

People are extremely uncomfortable around me. I am not sure if its because of my quick searching glances towards the entrance, random smiles and facial contortions or my soliloquies which are, frankly, delightfully philosophical.  I must admit to developing a sense of extreme discomfort for the outdoors, and I have decided to not venture out during the time of the day when the entire population of scandinavia decides to go out for getting groceries in a shop the size of a match box.

****

Toilets. I mean, flush, yes? There is a knob? Or, a big bucket that can fill enough water to douse forest fires? How is it difficult? It is just two steps:

#Flush

#Flush again, just in case.

Why is the world so bad at such a simple task? 

What is the point in expecting reform from a world that is filled with people who have basic difficulty in instilling a sense of self-discipline? 

In addition, some very intelligent people in the operations department of government institutions have decided to use naphthalene balls for deodorizing the toilet. This happens to be the best standing joke in the documented history till date. There is some sadistic desire to make people suffocate and understand that this is life: the nauseous mix of audio-visual obscenity that will only end when we leave. We might as well study the suicide rate with the frequency of visiting the restroom and come up with some interesting studies.(ig nobel, anyone?)

****
What is so beautiful about greenery anyway, that you are stuck by an absurd dense mass of unkempt trees and shrubs in the middle of an otherwise vibrant city? Hardly anything looks out of place here with the foliage and rough cut trees and the monkeys and stray deers dotting the roads occasionally. The roads are brilliantly laid, and not a car is in sight, thank heavens for a single place in this damned city to speed up and be done with it.

Lessons learnt the hard way.

I learnt a lot from my experience of trimming my hair today. Yes. I trimmed my hair, on my own. I think the things that I do are a little overwhelming for fellow humans or other species of the planet, but there it is. 

I am now a successful hair trimmer. No, I am not a trimmer myself, like the person who walks around in boxes in malls. I am a trimmer, by way of vocation. Vocation, is probably a strong word. Maybe not since I really can't think of anything else.

There are eight different ways of trimming hair: standing, walking, sleeping, sitting, bending, swimming, slouching, and something else. I must include a cautionary note here: only the first one is advised when you are doing it yourself. The rest can produce unexpected results, depending on how mainstream you want to be. Me, I am extremely unconventional, that I think going to saloon for a hair cut is conventional. This society has fed us doctrinaires that are so oppressive and regimented that I am going to break free from the shackles of this machine and rage against it. Rage against the machine? Get it? 

The general rule before starting to trim your hair is to stand in front of the mirror, stare hard at the imbecile looking back at you. Yes. The gloomy face coupled with the depths of despair that oozes from every single pore of the face, with eyes that have lost the will to sparkle and a jaw that has drooped from the constant fear of panic, insecurity and the complete and abject surrender to the depravity and...

Once you have done that, it is recommended that you charge the trimmer completely. In case this step is not complete, and in case your trimmer stops mid-way, and in-case your trimmer doesn't run on power but has to be completely charged to run- I mean what kind of an idiot makes a charger that stops mid-way and doesn't turn back on when you plug the charger in? What kind of delusional engineering makes these stupid lithium ion batteries run out in the time it takes for a human being to take a leak? Seriously, do you even have engineers in your workforce, or are you running the place with a bunch of eight year olds?

The way you trim your hair is to go over the first pass from the back of your head to the front, or the front to back. or side to side. or maybe the diagonals. Maybe the ends. Maybe the front, just a little bit at the front. No, now you have removed too much from the front, remove from the sides. Yes, the sides, no you idiot, not that side. That is not the side, that is the back, oh my god, are you educated at all? Are you allowed to handle knives, you could be a national disaster for all I know, what is wrong with you? What kind of a person doesn't understand the front and back?

The trimming process is now complete. It is imperative that you do not walk out of the bathroom now, assuming you are conventional and are doing it in the bathroom. Yes, we are all laughing at the extremely clever double entendre that you created with the 'doing it' there, can we please move on? So, yes, take a shower now. Forget all your sorrows, think of a glacier and the starting point of a very small rivulet that picks up steam as the ice melts more and more and suddenly becomes a deluge that is going to kill you. I mean, like, kill you completely. Where were we then?

Process improvement studies are always recommended for the completely hopeless cases who cannot do the normal jobs and have to look for outrageously stupid things to do. Other people can just go about with their jobs and stuff. I would recommend a note on the lessons that were learned during the process, because it looks like you could use a lesson or two, what with your completely tactless handling of events in your life so far, it would be very surprising since you have learnt nothing at all from your previous lessons. 

Some thoughts.
I have included some extracts from Pico Iyer's Falling off the Map(Italicized prose). The most amazing book I have read in a while. Strongly recommended, most beautiful and witty prose.

There is the loneliness of the sociopath and the loneliness of the only child, the loneliness of the hermit and the loneliness of the widow. And as with people, so with nations. Some are born to isolation, some have isolation thrust upon them.

What dante forgot to include was an additional circle for the met department officials here, who tell us that it is going to be a lovely rainy day and it turns out to be a scorcher of a day. I am quite sure he is revising his circles to include even more vile acts, condemnable in every which way like the idiot who starts honking as soon as the traffic lights are green. Actually, green is probably a tad too far from the truth in a place where signals hardly work. Its the most cruel joke of the century that we are being referred to as emerging superpowers given the nightmare we live in.

"We are now in the province of Jujuy!The capital of Jujuy is Jujuy!". This pronouncement, unremarkable at the best of times, was not made easier by the fact that "Hoo-Hooeee" sounds as if it consists of nothing but vowels"

Tortuous and sinuous are the paths that are before us. I corrected the first and the third word six times before I could find out the proper spelling with the two 'u's. Now I am not sure if the usage of the apostrophe in the last sentence is right. Now I am wondering whether the 'the' used before the apostrophe is necessary at all or is just redundant. Now I am trying to figure out if redundant is actually redundant in the previous statement. I just figured out that if I lived life this way, I would never get anywhere with doing what I originally wanted to get done. So much for introspection and retrospection.

"What would you like", a smiling waitress asks.

"What do you have?"

"Nothing."

"No eggs, no tea, no avocado?"

"Nothing. Only beer."

Apparently one of the planets that has been not so very nice to me for a while is beginning to change its attitude and is going to go easy on me for a bit. But, interestingly, another planet that has been the nicest of the nicest things(like grandmothers) is going to turn against me in the most severe way(like the grandmother-in-law). So, yes, status quo. Or, worse, ratings downgrade. Every time someone tells me that they are going through the seven-point-five planet phase, I immediately do a rating downgrade of their credit-worthiness. Actually, you might as well do a downgrade of every-worthiness. Self-esteem, already teetering on the brink of negative territory is smirking at me. Ah well, such is file. I mean, life.

Perhaps it because it is so otherworldly that Iceland leaves such an impression on the mind, because it feels so little like the planet we know;days spent there are interludes from life, sojourns in some other, nether twilight of  the mind.

We are abnormal, in that we want to feel that we would start off on a new trajectory of life that would turn our lives upside down for good, cause much happiness and abandon all our piled up miseries. Everything in this life is over-rated: happiness, attachment, love and sense of entitlement. We just cannot embrace the cold depths of the meaninglessness surrounding us, and we try to attach tags to organize our emotions, which is quite counter-productive. I don't want to talk about the cliched and done-to-death topic of dualities or other such spiritual topics which are, at best, only superfluous for the non-initiated. 

At dawn, in Thimphu, the mist swaddling the western mountains. In the mornings, the quiet tennis-ball sound of wood being chopped...At lunch, in the hotel, a team of Japanese salarymen lined up in dark suits around a large table muttering gloomily, "Muzukashi desu, ne?"(It's difficult, isn't it), as they bravely did battle with their curries.

A picture: not thinking a thought, not saying a word, not breathing a breath, looking at the never ending snow capped peaks broken only by a stream of water, harboring not a single ill-will towards anything, and this vision frozen in space-time. This is what I want. 

So, Senor Pico.

My surname actually, is Iyer.

So your father's name is Pico.

No, my father's name is Iyer.

But here it says Iyer, Pico.

No, My father's name is Iyer. 

So, your mother's name is...

Frailties. The beautifully meaningless human frailties.

I am going to plow on with my nihilistic rant. In case you do not wish to put yourself in a state of distress, it is recommended that you not go any further.

ஆணாத செல்வத்து அரம்பையர்கள் தற்சூழ,

வானாளும் செல்வமும் மண்ணரசும் யான்வேண்டேன் ,

தேனார்பூஞ் சோலைத் திருவேங்கடச் சுணையில்,

மீனாய்ப் பிறக்கும் விதியுடையேன் ஆவேனே

In what is clearly an assault on human intelligence and evolution, some of the songs these days-irrespective of language, have lyrics that would seem to perfectly justify a nuclear catastrophe on the entire planet just so that we do not have to listen to these drivelling and obnoxious little twits. It is at this point of inspection and philosophizing that I made an even more profound observation: I had grown old.

Generally, I am not one to shush the little kids with their black tees and low slung jeans at the restaurants, nor am I the one to start conversations with the nuances of the misra chapu and the thani that I had heard recently; nor do I mock the friends when they make corny observations about certain aspects of certain aspects of the opposite sex, say for instance, dressing style, etc. I do not outrage over the glossy third rate content of times of india, nor am I concerned about the many other disgusting things like sexual pervasiveness that go on in the name of sexual freedom, and so forth.

Recently, I have been doing only this. I whine. Much worse than I used to in the past, which would make my current persona quite persona non grata in any circle, even the old people. I am becoming more interested in radha kalyanam as opposed to a real radha getting married to a friend of mine. All I can talk about is theology and the absurdities around us inspite of the many beautiful things that I should actually be talking about. 

I was previously disillusioned and apathetical. Now, I am contemptuous. Of life, of love, of victories, of defeats, of money(not really), of women, of marriages, of cricket, of beauty, and of the many things that people of my age should apparently enjoy and suffer. I have begun to hate the dual nature of this life that apathy seems to be a great anodyne, when you simply do not have to react to the changes and move on and live life as if you were a great big lump of resource sucking greedy human born to live and die for some strange random reason; death seems to be the mortal cure for all human atrocities.

I am sick and tired of everything, of the stupid optimists, of the irritating pessimists, of the realists, of the pretentious pompous clowns of the intelligentsia, of the helpless bourgeoisie, of my friends, my family, of the people around me, and of my own self. Forget pot, we should make voluntary euthanizing legal.

செடியாய வல்வினைகள் தீர்க்கும் திருமாலே
நெடியானே வேங்கடவா நின்கோயிலின் வாசல்
அடியாரும் வானவரும் அரம்பையரும் கிடந்தியங்கும்
படியாய்க் கிடந்து உன் பவளவாய் காண்பேனே

ps: feels good to note that I can still write a blog like I used to, being old and all that.