Prejudice

It's going to be a shit movie. I told my brother who had just finished downloading this Chinese movie and now, was eager to watch it no matter what day of the Ramadan it was. He has been like this since forever, wanting to do things as soon as he plans to and, I like the way he is.

I have always felt a connection with the country, and China has always fascinated me; God knows better why exactly. The movie started with some Chinese text floating on the screen, that was obviously out of my understanding. The screen turned dark with a hint of beige lining decorating the screen. It is going to be another tense action filled movie he loves, I thought to myself and declared it a flop already.

The title of the movie was Ip Man. There was a hostility to the name and I could not understand what was more weird, the name or my thoughts! 

The story began with men fighting men, Kung Fu and stuff. Ah! I hate this movie, I concluded. It has been over 20 minutes and I was still watching it with a keen interest. Strange! I doubted my earlier thoughts.

The movie indeed was engaging and as I later learnt, it was not about the Kung Fu and all the fighting that was going on, it was a subject far more captivating, it was for the love of the country and the fellow countrymen. Patriotism. I smiled at the thought.

The story revolved around Master Ip and his skills of Kung Fu. And you talk of modesty, here was a man too humble and modest. He shied away from accepting any laurels for his talent, and yet he remained the best. The later half of the movie told the story of the slaved China when Japan invaded the country and robbed it off in 1937. Master Ip was living a life so secret with him being a name too respected and yet denying any favor from any friends. He had given up Kung Fu, after all what was there to fight for, once the freedom was gone.

But, what happens when your friend is sacrificed via enemies in the name of patriotism. A new patriot is born. Master Ip didn't want a revenge for his friend Lin, he wanted a revenge for his country and all he had was the little Kung Fu that was left in him.

So, Master Ip goes and challenge the enemy, fights him down and wins the heart of all his countrymen. But, rarely a non - Hindi movie has a happy ending. Hence, the traitor Japanese shoots him down once he's done fighting their General Miura. Hell is broken loose and people takes the traitors down. Master Ip survives, thanks to the love of his fellow beings. What a perfect end!

That happens in the movies only. 

But, when the credits started towards the end of the movie, I was shocked to realize that it was based on a real life story. And Master Ip was actually the master of the well famous Bruce Lee. 

Judging the book by its cover isn't right, I was told. 

The movie was a good watch and what makes it nicer is the prejudice that marked its beginning for me.

Hole In My Soul

Sometimes a moment changes everything and sometimes something changes a moment.

It has always interested me to question the very being of life. 

Why can't life be simple and straight?

Why can't things always remain the same? 

Does life really need a change? 

Or, is God up there just playing a game?

And, then someone comes and tell you 'whatever happens, happens for the best' and all the questions are answered; put to rest. 

Yet, it has never stopped us to remain questioning the unanswerable. 

And somewhere deep you know, life would've been too dull without these changes. Life is after all, made up of dynamism. So, no matter how much you question or what answers you get, life will not move on the way you wish it to. And, would it start agreeing to what you want, there will never be a thing called past.

Few years back, I told someone I had dumped the past, and today when I met this someone, he questioned me back "Have you?"

And we laughed. Because, we both knew the answer.

I might not have been successful in dumping my past, but surely I disconnected myself from what was the best time of my life. And, the present will soon become a past and I might as well have a second best. I smile on this very thought.

You must have tried to disconnect yourself from the past at some point of life, and if you haven't, you lived an abnormal life. 

School life is something all of us have hated at some point of time; how we wished to grow adults as early as possible to get rid of that weight in those school bags or the piles of homework we got or even the uniform sometimes. And years later, do we not miss what was? Or, think of it with a slight crunch, to do the least? Thinking of how we had tried to get rid of everything that related to that small place called school.

My life at school was amazing, as now I realize. I was the star at the school, the center of attention, and I loved every bit of being one. Wouldn't you love when all the girls testify in your favor that you weren't late because you weren't playing in the field? That saved me from bending down and being a chicken. =D

From being maa's spoiled pampered brat to being the center of the universe at school, I have enjoyed all the royal treatment that came my way.

But, nothing is permanent, everything undergoes a change. 

It was time for my time to end, life had stopped going my way. I had grown up, as people kept telling me. Just because I have joined 'Senior Secondary' school? I thought to myself. But, life sure had changed. I was no more the center of attention, and I hated it. Hence, I considered my school life to be over there and then, and what happened beyond that was just a part of the 13 years of formal education.

Everyone has changed. I concluded. 

But, maybe it was the selfish me who was feeling avoided because suddenly I had lost all the importance. 

Then, today after so many years I realize you can not remain the star and keep the limelight forever, life needs a replacement. So, I feel silly when I think of all that was, and how I had tried to wipe off the part of the past that didn't suit me. But, without ugly, there would be no beautiful.

Trying is one thing, and success is the other. No one succeeds in dumping the past, for, how would you delete something that doesn't exist.

So, when a part of my past that was long forgotten (not dumped) came revisiting this morning, it was a beautiful experience. I might as well wonder why does it really cheer me up, for, the same people made me even consider of dumping the past, but, how do you deny the happiness!

I guess it's time to step back and make up for what I messed up long time back. I might as well succeed in blotting out the twitches that were keeping the hole in my soul open.

You think too much of what was, and what will be. 

Silent Prayers

Dreams are weird. Sometimes, you don't want to close your eyes and sleep, because you know it's going to be the same dream again. But then, how do you stop yourself from dreaming? 
You don't.
It's good to dream, whatever it may be. 

What do you call the bitter dream that you have seen with your eyes open? 

I call it the past. 

Its time to finally turn off the lights

Putting a smile; keeping my anger aside

Cursing the day; hoping for a better tomorrow

Its time for the tiresome present let go

But, how do I let things go? when everything around wouldn't let me. It's those 3 dots that tells me am still a part of the past, forcing me to consider stop using them for my own but I can not, because I do not own the rights of taking away a part of the bygone...

Why did this happen; why that took place?

Why do I have to wish for a better phase?

Why do I say these silent prayers for a better tomorrow?

A lot of this, and more questions to follow!

  

There are no answers to some questions, but then why do these questions rise? Doesn't every beginning has a destination? Or, are there journeys that end in midway? Looking for some answers and it gives me more questions. Funny it is. And so is life.

This shouldn’t have happened; that should end tomorrow

All of this buzz and more misfortune to follow

I seal down my lips and enter these silent prayers

Wishing for a few things to end in snares

What else is there that can be done, after all. And, so I guess...

It's time to shut off my eyes and sleep away to future

Wishing luck for tomorrow and dreams to nurture

Let this silence speak what I yearn for my upcomings

And let’s follow these dreams for the better it brings

Because more than sometimes, it's best to let go!

   

Let It Go!

 

I Was Her Number One... She Told Me So

So, no one told you life was gonna be this way.
Your Job's a joke, you're broke, your love life's D.O.A.
It's like you're always stuck in second gear.
And it hasn't been your day, your week, your month, or even your year. 

Don't you just want to quit then? Or, maybe shut off everything around. But, would it help the feeling of being let down? 

I have spent half my life blaming people and things for all that didn't work out for me. But, what happens when I am put to blame? And worse, when I know I am to blame. The feeling is much more painful when instead of being let down, you let down someone, and even worse than that, someone who loved you more than you deserved. It's not in my hands to control when I am let down but how do I help myself when I had the control of letting or not letting down someone, but yet I couldn't use the control. The feeling is awful, and it goes stronger every next minute that passes by, because - 

I was her number one... She told me so

And losing the privilege of being someone's number one hurts, but the only thing that comforts you is the fact that there won't be any replacement to you, there won't ever be a number one for her again. But, is it something that should cheer you up? Knowing that you destructed someone's 'number one' and seized all the faith in life she had, because now she knows that there won't or rather shouldn't be a next.

So, when people ask you the same question several times 'Would you let her go just like that?' How do you tell them that you've failed to collect the right words that would construct the answer to this! And that's because, there's going to be no answer that would justify the question. Or maybe, there's no answer to this. Why answer the obvious? But, shouldn't they be thinking Why ask the obvious?

It is not going to be easy to let her go just like that but there's nothing to be done when there's no way out, and everyone would still convince you that there's still a way to fix those cracks, but you're just pretending to be convinced not because as what goes for me..

It's not going to be easy to convince me, for, I do not want to be convinced.

But, because none of them wouldn't still know an answer to an 'it's all over'. You know it's not just just three words but how do you translate it to words? You can not.

And, then you move on keeping them all under an illusion that you let her go just like that, because it's not possible to explain the simplest thing that...

Something’s gotta change... Things cannot stay the same

Something’s gotta change
Things cannot stay the same

To yourself, you still believe the same -

I loved her first and I held her first
And a place in my heart will always be hers

 And I cannot help because

I loved her first... and then I shut her off my life!

The Dead Patriot

Now I know!

Facebook has become such an integral part of the current lifestyles that when I think about being patriotic, the only thing that comes to my mind is something that my friend Salman Amin wrote in his facebook status...

You get out of the country to save the patriot in yourself...

 

It took me almost an hour to find this quote, all thanks to the random shit that's populating and polluting Salman Amin's facebook wall ;-)

 

 

 

 

 Independence day is around the corner and everyone's busy digging out the patriot in them, even if there is none. It is funny and equally dismal to notice that people take out all their love for the country a day or two before the 15th of August or rarely around 26th of January... but, I remember a survey where 73% people said that 26th January and 15th August were just another holidays for them, then why do they spend few seconds out of their schedule to message a "Happy Independence Day" with such dedication. 

 

I can not lament on this irony as I realized it last night that I make a part of it. 

 

Everybody is painting the town tricolor, so how could the schools lag behind? Yesterday evening when my niece asked me to make an Indian flag on a chart because her teacher had asked so, Independence day aaya toh yaad aaya Indian flag? What jerks? I thought, and I hated even the slight thought of giving the flag a few minutes from my otherwise useless and spare time, but I couldn't let my niece down and I am thankful I did not. 

I think it was my 3rd or 4th standard in school when our teachers told us the meaning behind the tricolors of the Indian flag and my teacher always corrected me when I said 'orange' instead of 'saffron', What's the difference? I always questioned back. Then, the school life got over and as was obvious I never got an opportunity to study beyond what my teacher told me about the flag, but how much could she have told me? She couldn't infuse everything in my mind, and it never interested me to research beyond what had been told to me. So, when years later I appeared for the entrance exam for my architecture course, I sat in the hall laughing at the question paper when I read the very ridiculously easy question as it seemed to me...

Which color is not present in the Indian flag?

a. Saffron

b. Green
c. Black

d. Navy Blue

I came out, excited and elated about the sheer easiness of the exam. In this date, a child studying in 4th or 5th standard might know the answer to this, but, to many people's and my own dismay, I had gone for the option d. Shame! I had always colored my flag with a black chakra, and considering how stubborn I was, my teacher overlooked the mistake or today I wonder if even she was sure of the colors in the Indian flag. I might have done 99 correct out of 100 but what let me down was this 1 answer that was not only a deduction from my score, but also a mere point of shame for me - the careless patriot as people called me back in school.

This was 3 years back, and last night when I sat down to make the Indian flag for this little girl, I was happy that I knew the chakra was to be navy blue, but it took me a google search to find out if the chakra touched the saffron and green bands, or if the chakra actually had 24 spokes as I had read back in school.

Maybe  not her teacher, I am the jerk here!

So, do I have the right to even lament on what people are doing in the name of patriotism? Even after what I have done to my patriotism, I think I still have these rights.

Why?

I do not spend even those few seconds in messaging "Happy Independence Day" to my friends. I do not talk about the loss that this country faced way back during the freedom war. I do not fake about what I feel, about what I know and what I know not. I may not know the right colors of my country's flag, but would it have helped if I had mugged up all that information just to make myself able to put it all in a message on the eve of the Independence Day or the Republic Day? Giving an entrance exam, or making the flag for my niece; at least it took me an introspection before I could blindly put those colors on the sheet. I am more proud than those who are continuously pressing the 'forward' in their phones or the mailbox.

I may not be the careless patriot that I used to be once. But, I am happily breaking this worthless slumber and no more being The Dead Patriot.

So, it's better to leave the country and save the patriot in yourself than staying in the country and keeping the patriot locked inside your shallow mindscape.

And I hope even Salman would agree to it, who at first even considered of leaving the country and  saving the patriot in himself ;-)

Adiós

Ctrl + Z

As I got back to writing a blog, I tried designing my page as per something that would suit me and I came across this background of a blurred image of some people moving, but my search hadn't stopped there. I was still looking for something better and I tried as many as 10 themes but after every 2nd or 3rd theme I tried this one, I had stuck to it somehow and I knew I would end up using this only.

It's amusing to see how you decipher something so differently when the same thing evokes an entirely different thought procedure from someone else. This theme was given under the 'Business' category but what I saw in it were the moving people who only reminded me of the life process, where you meet so many people but only a few stay. It's a continuous routine of one's daily life when someone enters your life and to some other one, all you can say is Adiós.

Let all things be undone
Live my life one more time
Take me back to square one
Back to when everything was fine

                                                    -  'Back to square one' by Nasa (Swedish Band)

Even before a thought comes to your mind, you know that it is impractical and impossible but yet no one can bar you from thinking of undoing things.

Ctrl + Z

When you simply wish there was a way to use this shortcut and undo the mistake that you just did. Wouldn't it be so nice if there was a way? Wouldn't it be nice to go back and repair things that might help you stop bidding farewell to someone you would not ever want to leave!

 

As I get back...

It's been almost a year ever since I created this blog, but the flexibility that my diary offered made me stay away from writing anything here. But, today after such a long gap, I am trying to get back to what I made this blog for... posting random stuff that goes on in my mind. Today might not be the best day to begin with, but it is good for a start... so I will be back soon with something worthwhile!

Till then... adjust with this only!