The view through the binoculars

I was wise, but only half of a quarter wise, wise. That too for just a half of a second in a lifetime of three decades. Almost. The accumulation of dirt and grease has started again. I'm slowly but steadily bouncing back to my 'original' self after a mild temporary reclamation of the truth. What is my original self I ask and the truth. My head does not feel light and like its moving in a simple straight line like it had just started to learn to be. I can see and feel again my head branching complexities and growing anti-gravitationally to deepen the roots of impurities in the hard rock bed of the mind. The way it has been habituated to, forever now. I had understood that. So what?
The all too familiar cravings, clingings, aversions, apprehensions and its entire gamut of cousins have started to raise their head yet again to gnaw at me. I frown first, then resist and then sigh while making a mental note to rebuild my shield. The shield of wisdom or awareness or realisation or all of them?
I can feel the austere unarmed angels of the momentary wisdom within me waging a futile silent war to retain their territory, while the smartly armoured demons are flashing victory signs at having staged a usurpation, yet again.
The straight line of equipoise i saw in the inner eyes, in the last few days, is blurring. The newly acquired silent smile of the face is vanishing.
I begin to externalise, yet again to seek affirmation of my identity and to seek a sense of balance. The external balance. Vulnerable to be upset by anything that goes my way and by anything that doest.
I'm not wise. I never was. Even if i was for a moment, it has all disintegrated. Maybe that's the truth - the transience of everything. Everything comes and goes. Even wisdom. But I'm not mourning, because i never rejoiced. But i can feel the transience. How can i not? My transient body is the medium of life and my transient mind is the life and I'm in between them, so did i ever exist?

Lessons

At every situation that we are confronted with, we have the option
To be right or wrong
To be just or unfair
To be selfless or selfish
To be pleasent or vile
To care or be reckless
To stand up or evade
To say or not to say
To help or to shrug
To pause and reflect or give into momentary instincts
To do or not to do
To nurse our ego or nurse common good
To undo or look through
To be modest or presumptious
To say the truth or lie
To look beyond or look within
To quarrel or prefer dialogue
To fight or give in
To be violent or peace loving
To stay or to go
To solve or to complain
To have faith or give up

Our choices are what defines us.

There are noises all around me. Im ambushed by noises of all kinds. Poeple are talking, jabbering, singing, screaming obscenities, accusing, mocking, lamenting, fighting, preaching, showing off, bantering, jeering, advicing, leching. I walk in the thick of these noises, feeling like a one year old, oblivious to the art of communication, but with the gait of an ageing adult comprehending every single bit that is being said out there. Am i listening? What good are these noises? When can i talk back?

....

It’s hard to be angry at him when he is angry with her. But he doesn’t know that. His appeal trebles when he is venting vexations. He doesn’t understand that.
Even though he might be spitting poisonous venom guised under harsh words, the intensity of his anger and the complete surrender and passion to the anger is intoxicating. It makes her weak as against the need to strengthen her resolve to come clean. Words flow out with elan, faster than his normal pace of speech, like the summer train with extra bogie's, from his perfectly bow shaped full pink lips. His eyes sparkle in momentary hatred so full, that it reeks of a certain unspoken power that makes her want to surrender, beg on her knees for forgiveness, even if his anger was as invalidated as a dry spit. The blurring line between love and life.
But she refuses to lose her poise. She watches him with pursed lips that quivers occasionally when perturbed by his unending questions.
His logic is unceasing. His quest for learning why she did what she did to anger him is unflinching. He is becoming this raw object of love and allure burning at the core of the flame of desire that’s setting her heart on fire. She records all this, unfailingly in the eye of her mind, controlling the desire to hold his face to her, stroke his left earlobe with her fingers and smile consumingly at this man, who is nothing but an embittered child to her, agitated over things not going his way. He is her child. He is just seeking her rightful attention. But its inappropriate to convey playful emotional ideals, when in the eye of a storm. Let the wind shed some of its intensity and acquire direction.
She continues to look at him with unabated gaze. Her silence intimidates him in the wrong sense. Her absence to furnish convincing details to counter his accusations exaggerates his disgust and only makes her seem more guilty than she ever was. Her silence and his passionate anger and resultant disgust are mutually exclusive and heading parellel to a possible pact.
He eggs her one last time to speak.
She, surrendered and besotted by his exhibit of raw instincts, blinks her eyes in despair and desire. What can she say that her silence is not saying? What clearance can her words express, that her face and eyes are not communicating. Can’t he see? Doesn’t he know? Isn’t the tension of love and its many subsets, replete in the space surrounding them speaking with more ardor than their vocal chords? They are soulful allies, conjugated not by matrimony, but by the pure truth and conviction to seek each others company.
She refuses to state the obvious. She will stand her ground and not fill the air with her sound waves. The intense gaze remains unflinched.
His anger soars and hits the glass ceiling. He is frustrated at not getting tangible evidence of her dedication to the emotion that binds them, that has bound them all these years. He slaps her. And walks away.
She was at fault. She was not at fault.
Does self respect exist when you have a tender yet formidable identity combined with that other person who makes you realize if you need to have one?

Just another Manic Monday?

Im silenced by the unrest in my mind. Im incapacitated to talk. Do I want to talk? I want to seek answers to the chain of thoughts occupying the cerebral space in me. Whats on my mind? Simply, all things within and without my frame.
The moment seems surreal. I waddle out of my body and see me outside of myself. I am seated among a few hundred people in a wedding hall. Everybody is moving except me. Im static. Frozen in my gaze and my breath. Im looking without seeing. Im being without myself. I realise I am but an element of this whole web of Maya we are born into.
I can 'feel' that I am a molecule in this cosmic existence. I know a grain of that cosmic energy is enabling this realisation. Realisations transcend me. I am everybody, yet a nobody. I need everything, yet want nothing. I know everything, yet know nothing.

Im restored to my body. The momentary estrangement of my mind and body was in the least to say, 'magical'.

Tears begin to trickle down my eyes. Why am i crying? I dont know. And it soon becomes uncontainable. Im attending a social occasion, a wedding reception to be more precise, and am swamped by people wearing colorful clothes and glittering gold jewelry. I am aware of myself through the activity they are creating. Through the noise they are making. Through the presence they are rendering. The tears are unaware of their ineptness. The tears like every vein in ones body has a mind of their own I suppose. I make no attempts to hide them.

I look around, searchingly instead, in my desperate state, for a friend, for a fellow seeker to ask questions to unlock my mind. To share what I feel. To unload the heaviest empty baggage I seem to be dragging with every step I take. What am I feeling? Why am I feeling what I’m feeling?
I find nobody. Im instead circumvented by people around me who heedless of my apparent state of silent chaos, look through me and ask me mundane questions?
"When am I getting married?
Where am I working?
How much do I earn?
Do I save enough?
Who made the dress Im wearing?
Why have I grown thinner? Am I 'dieting' too much? "
I pay no attention to their words. They are merely making noise, not talking. I look through them. Too.

I catch sight of some innocent children dawdling and walking around me. The sight of them is pleasant and unnerving at the same time.
I see them smile. I see them indulge in curious conversations among themselves.
I see them walk and sprint and run around purposefully without an apparent purpose.
I wonder what they are thinking, what’s behind that enviably unpretentious smile?
I was like that too once, wasn’t I?
They will go through what Im going through too, wont they? They will tread the complexity of having to decode, decide and decipher. Do they understand what I’m feeling right now? What am I feeling?
The tears dry up. I smile absently at them and find a seating place. I glimpse at the bride and groom who are busy performing holy rites that will mark the beginning of their lifelong togetherness (?) They were kids too once upon a time. They will soon have kids of their own.
Do they know Im here? Does it matter to them Im here? What am I to them in isolation of the social relationship we share?
I cast a collective glance around me to catch the animation of human activity. Strangely, what I see around me has a slight bit of soothing effect. I smile wry in vague anticipation. Mundanity restores normalcy. It embalms my mind. This time too.
Im faced again with the momentary smokescreen that will keep me veiled for some more years from understanding what Im feeling right now. For a decade. For maybe a lifetime.

What am I feeling?
Im not so sure anymore. Am I a victim or the perpetrator?

I want to close my eyes
Hold up my chin
Smile to the sky
Feel safe in the knowledge that everything around me is static
execpt the fragrant wind passing the amaltas

Stay in that elongated cerebral orgasm
Expand the spritual state of this numb bliss into eternity
And beleive that life is forever

I dont even want to know what time it is or where i am

Will the real India please stand up?

Im no political scientist or a socio-political economist. But if you ask me, in all my ignorance, the core issues that I think are at the apex of all problems beckoning this country are ‘population’ and ‘corruption’. Why isn’t any party talking about population control any more? Why doesn’t it figure in their agenda? Have they given up or forgotten or think we are not as populous anymore? Too many hands chasing too few resources is not an issue any more? Why?
Why doesn’t any political party which is always in the race to prove themselves superior of the others have corruption as an issue that needs attention? I read in the paper today that India is the fourth most corrupt country in Asia. That’s shameful and the politicians who govern and control our famed ‘system’ should take full responsibility of this disgrace.

(Once the resource to claimant ratio comes under control we can work towards building a social economic model that emphasizes on delivery and execution and tackle basic issues like roti, kapda, makaan and job/commerce)

The truth is nobody is willing to take the simple and honest way of being in power, which is to perform and get voted back. Instead they want to squat, swindle money, indulge in manipulative political games, grab oppurtunities to harp on blame games, divide the society on basis on religion or caste and confuse and mislead the electorate and then beg for votes. Consective fractured mandates is testimony for this collective misleading and voters’ lack of option to bank on one(or two) bankable party/ies.

Picture this - The candidates are asked to declare their wealth. Very well, they do. A news channel reported that a lot of them while filing the declaration affidavit don’t even have PAN numbers!!! Isn't the CEC bothered about this? Papers are full of reports on how most of the netas’ wealth have doubled or trebled from the previous terms. Why are the IT authorities not working their teams? And what do I get, as an honest tax payer – Lots of road rage through bad roads, traffic jams, ill treating government officials when I have to deal with them, increased prices on every front and then get beaten up by moral brigade?! All for what??? For doing the right things expected of an average citizen! And what do politicians get for doing NOTHING? – chauffeur driven plush AC cars (that sometimes escape the rush hour traffic through the blue/red siren!), free accomodation, free or subsidized airfare, healthcare, justice that can be bought through money or muscle power, numerous other legal and illegal perks and most importantly swindle precious money and amass unthinkable wealth in the name of their kith and kin. Wow! Where is god?

Ok everybody is very bullish about the upcoming elections and going ga ga goo goo over how there are most number of new voters that have enrolled themselves this year than ever and how there is much more awareness this time than ever about having to go out and vote blah blah blah. My question is how much of a difference will all this make once the results are declared and new party/a collation of parties forms the government at the centre? What role do we citizens play after the government is formed? What role can we play?

Also, do any these of contestants have a detailed plan for their constituency? Does the CEC demand for issue based canvassing? So many of them have been caught red handed on camera distributing notes to the electorate, what has been done about it?

Isn't it time we revived our constitution to accommodate an execution-based model for each region thus holding each politician accountable for what he has to do and how funds allocated for the constituency will have to be spent? Each MP should be asked to present a quarterly plan that outlines the goals in phases (maybe the MP reports to the governor and the MLA to the MP. And the CM and Governor together can overlook management of the entire state). The MP can work in conjunction with the MLA’s of the regions within the constituency. The results can be reviewed every quarter, with an annual appraisal. If the annual performance is not impressive and way behind target then the MP can be served an ultimatum to perform within a set period, failing which the next highest scoring MP from the region should be installed and demanded to produce similar time bound performance plans. The Lok Sabha sessions can be used as a platform to share best practices and best working models can be replicated/adopted by other netas in their regions. They just have to meet maybe once at a stretch in a year to discuss and present their achievements and amendments.
We need to have participative democracy that has inputs flowing both ways. With technology and internet this has become ever so easy. The MP/MLA can start by having a website dedicated to each region. This way it also becomes easier to share the burden of execution and make citizens aware of their social responsibility and at the same time there is two way trust building in motion. We trust our politicians to perform and the politicians trust their electorate to vote him/her back and there will be no need to spend obscene amount of money on canvassing or indulge in petty mud slinging and waste precious energy and resources on non-issue based speeches that breed hate and contempt and division.

Maybe this is not at all practical (maybe it isnt), but the moot point im trying to make is that the constitution of this country needs to be reworked to accommodate accountability and transparency of a politician and his job. And Ofcourse, common sense approaches towards a problem needs a certain amount of acumen that comes ONLY through formal education (with basic ability to reason and understand). WE CANNOT HAVE ILLITERATES, CONVICTS & GOONDAS rule this damn country. Somebody please make that an absolute sacrilegious rule for fighting an election.
We cannot afford to elect a politician and let the country go on auto-pilot and swing our hands in apathy and blame the system when the region/state/country remains status quo even after decades of the so called ‘democratic governance’. We need citizens in our regions/constituency to be aware of how much fund is being allocated and how it is being planned to be spent by the month, through the next 5 years. We need a window into their day to day functioning. Its time somebody stood up and declared that the politician has a serious job in hand and that he better do it. Will the judiciary please stand up?