Dec-adeshi

Several roads, several paths. In our lives. Also, when I took that wrong left and went into the narrowest lane in a town which had the a collective civility of india's recent test score. Practically every nook looks like a turn when it turned out to be someone's cowshed. Or worse, a tea stall. The really challenging bits in life come real fast at us, yes, but they also go away real fast. So.

In the year that has gives us many twists and turns, we need to find solace in the strangest places-for me, it is going to places that are frozen in time. A picture from a century back, to think how they lived. The epiphany is funny and too ordinary-we do the same thing too.

The ones that get the batsmen are the wide off the wicket probing delivery, so delicious in appeal, yet lethal. It is exactly like that layer of ghee that we know is fattening, on top of ven Pongal, sitting so innocently along with chutney that is glimmering white like the nanda devi peaks and a gothsu that will remain immortalized in human history. 

Gently, very gently, the old woman picks up the plantain leaf, with rejections from the gluttonous wasting world -a layer of orange and red sambar soiling the soggy rice like the monsoon clouds running fast to catch the reddish sky. Gently, the gods watch this spectacle, as she creates a small mound of life's wretchedness in her hand, shakes her head and swallows it with so much grace, she might be Lord shiva with his thiruvodu, unmindful of the madness around.

December is the season for you know what-sleeping! Now, in a place where 10 months of a year is a oxy acetylene torch magnified by a parabolic reflector and that concentrated beam is placed up our, well everywhere, this month is a power cut for the torch. And somehow, this is the month, my brain for shorts the sleep circuits making me wake up at 3 am in the morning, asking the gods when the next cosmic deluge is coming,because I want to dress up nicely for it. 

Nothing more viscerally satisfying than seeing kids take on bullies and win. On their own. And win decent and fair. 

Be like the tea dust, I tell myself. Be the flavor in someone else's life/lives, learn to be used and thrown out, and even as manure, make things better. (OK even I can't stand this nonsense) 

That big orange ball of a reflection in that glowing green water pond trying to pour out of those gray stairs made of gray stones, tired of waiting all time, nowhere to go, no one to listen, like old people, frail and waiting for the end, irritated by this stupid concept called time-but look, the gates open, a human walks in with a pot, the big pot takes a dip, the pot and the water travel to a musty room-

Lord rama and his consort and the brother are waiting for the pot. And the water. They are impatient! They know the pond's pain. The water washes away their impatience as they silently thank the pond. For putting up with the veil of this maddening world. 

Mediocrity is alacrity if it has the temerity of humility and felicity of utility. Always wanted to do a proper tr based attagasam. 

If you look very very very closely at the picture of the narasimha swamy and hanuman doing penance you can almost see them smile gently at you, coaxing you to live. Or that was just a smirk, I don't know. 

"This explains man's necessarily painful evolution. Ignorance surrounds him at his cradle; therefore, he regulates his acts according to their first consequences, the only ones that, in his infancy, he can see. It is only after a long time that he learns to take account of the others.Two very different masters teach him this lesson: experience and foresight. Experience teaches efficaciously but brutally. It instructs us in all the effects of an act by making us feel them, and we cannot fail to learn eventually, from having been burned ourselves, that fire burns."

The world has strong reasons to be suspect of another era of depression: not because of too much liquidity, not the bankers' greed, not the depredation and widespread violence-it is because of pharmacists. Yes. They have always existed. That has been the most unsolvable problem that we have been puzzling over for ages,even after evolving into our current avatar where we can stare at screens and ignore people all our lives. Pharmacists have been known for their ability to understand cryptic clues from the doctors' prescriptions, which requires using all of their elementary understanding of hash functions, pseudorandom number generation and convex hull algorithms to figure out which medicine would be the most appropriate to not kill the prescription holder: the patient, in other words. In times of war, most of the code-breaking is done with the covert help of pharmacists, though they tend to not acknowledge such trivial pursuits that pale in comparison to any doctor's bestial scribbling.

"Society is the aggregate of all the services that men perform for one another by compulsion or voluntarily, that is to say, public services and private services.The first, imposed and regulated by the law, which is not always easy to change when necessary, can long outlive their usefulness and still retain the name of public services, even when they are no longer anything but public nuisances. The second are in the domain of the voluntary, i.e., of individual responsibility. Each gives and receives what he wishes, or what he can, after bargaining. These services are always presumed to have a real utility, exactly measured by their comparative value.That is why the former are so often static, while the latter obey the law of progress."

I had the good opportunity to knock on a pharmacy wherein there were three hundred million people standing right outside the counter with prescriptions of varying length and paper quality. I needed to cure my itch. No, not the worldly itch of desire, but the physical itch along certain unmentionable spaces and crevices that would make normal people make disgusting faces. I slowly gathered the courage and went up to one of the pharmacists deeply pondering over a prescription and making mental calculations when I told him I wanted a particular anti-fungal cream in a very hushed tone that even I couldn't hear what I said.

He slowly raised his head, peered over my eyes, looked into my soul. 

I felt completely ashamed that I had even had the guts to be born, forget being here all itchy and standing in front of this great community of clean and intelligent pharmacistic beacon of whatever.

He slowly walked back, went to the back of the shop. All was well till then. And then, in that moment, it became clear to me. 

He turned around, looked at me, and in a tone that would have rend the planet asunder, he screamed "Sir, andha *name here* cream illa, vera tharattuma?"

Deafening silence in the shop. All three hundred million of them suddenly stop and look at me with that look of disgust that my college advisor reserved for me when I missed a punctuation on my thesis.

They form a circle, and move away from me. What begins in hushed tones raises to a stentorian shrill cry of "hang him, he is sick." "Lets burn this itchy devil before he consumes us all."

There is no father of a family who does not take it as his duty to teach his children order, good management, economy, thrift, moderation in spending.There is no religion that does not inveigh against ostentation and luxury. Certainly there is a flagrant contradiction here between the moral idea and the economic idea. How many eminent men, after having pointed out this conflict, look upon it with equanimity! This is what I have never been able to understand; for it seems to me that one can experience nothing more painful than to see two opposing tendencies in the heart of man. Mankind will be degraded by the one extreme as well as by the other! If thrifty, it will fall into dire want; if prodigal, it will fall into moral bankruptcy!

My mother has turned against me. I have fallen out of favor with her. The story is most tragic, and I shall muster all the courage because even the gods have ignored me in this melee.

I had a blanket, my most favorite one. I had been using it for more than a decade. The condition of the blanket now, is, I would say, fairly frail. It is a little torn at the edges-by a little torn, I mean it is heavily torn and when I turn to one side while sleeping, the other side of the blanket has a gaping hole, exactly like the one in my heart. 

One fine day, I found that this was missing from the usual stack of pillows and blankets. I was puzzled. I slowly walked around and went to the kitchen, and right down the kitchen sink, my heart sunk:

The blanket, my sweet beloved blanket, the one that had comforted me and kept me warm, the one which I had cuddled against, the one that I made sweet...wait, that is not right. Anyway, I found that it had now been taken from its place of eternal glory only to be used as a dish cloth.  

I have been unable to recover from this, and I know I will find my strength. In times of great trouble, there is nothing you can do but endure.

All lines that are block quoted are from selected essays by Frederic Bastiat. 

http://www.econlib.org/library/Bastiat/basEss1.html

'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.