OF HEROES AND VILLAINS

Your left to right sense is my right to left sense. I am identical but reversed. I am a reflection and an image. I am the keeper of your dirty little secrets. Of all the skeletons in your closet, I am the villain to your hero.

Good morning to our very own mundane puppet existence. The strings of our doings which play into the hands of those who dictate our being. The hero on the outside that smiles through the ceremonial attire and the villain that curses and strives hard for that nod and a word of appreciation in singularity if nothing else. When efforts don’t equate the pecuniary and the demi god of black leather sips on hot coffee, it brews a devil in the secondary.

They call it make believe. To not make it look like either you are buttering them up or in total remote contrast; the villain in your head masters the art of compliance and difference at the same time in such a tasteful manner that it validates the context and content; only you know how much of it and what is true as your hero on the outside smiles and nods. Acceptance of people through the approval of their ego and thick heads comes across only when they feel that there is a level of concurrence. Welcome to the fairy tale of slogging; superficial compliance which will look you through.

Ambitious:  Greed for the superlative? Or its perks? Or the aura associated with that designation? Or the work? Or the 6 figure green? Or the sense of power? All of it or none of it?

Ambition rises out of desire and too great and strong a desire leads to greed.

It needs no mandate.

 It doesn’t need to be spelt out.

What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger: ambition or greed.

Either way, your hero might be just a hero to you, not to me.

Maybe. Maybe not.

Complementary.

Harmonizing.

Corresponding.

Balanced.

Cause of a simple reason that nothing exists in isolation.

Would  batman be BATMAN if there was no joker?

SHANTARAM...

I would actually agree to all the words of exaggerated praise you find in the beginning and at the end of books for this particular novel “shantaram”..you read a few pages and you can find some analogies to be so true and justified that you can’t read ahead till the time what you read sinks in…and some particular excerpts..

“when the wish and the fear are exactly the same, he said, we call the dream a nightmare”

“and the choice you make between hating and forgiving can become the story of your life”

“but in the flinch and the bite of the chain, when it’s all you got, that freedom is a universe of possibility”

“but some feelings sink so deep into the heart that only loneliness can help you find them again. Some truths about yourself are so painful that only shame can help you live with them. And some things are just so sad that only your soul can do the crying for you”

“the worst thing about corruption as a system of governance, Didier once said, is that it works so well”

VORACITY

 Downpour of thoughts, material and verdicts,

On the thirsty earth, the parched mind,

But brimming with beliefs, possessions and reasons,

Still this scorching existence asks for more.

Is this my greed to survive,

Or to move with the currents of life.

Is my endurance being selfish,

Or am I living for others?

Hypnotized and charmed,

By this enthralling subsistence.

FORGIVENESS

Every breath I take, every second I live,

Every choice I contemplate, every wish I make,

It reflects what I am, I was and will be.

Always going down that memory lane,

Brimming with those childish swears,

Crammed with overwhelming emotions,

Packed with broken promises,

Overcrowded with reminiscences.

The past eclipses my present,

Strangled in the times of yore,

Choked with regrets and errors,

I find it hard to move on.

My innovation and vision seem to have lost,

Lost the ways in thick mist of confusion.

I stand in front of the fork of this path,

Two choices to decide the next,

To fall back on regrets or to start afresh.

Hesitate to try the latter, live in the former,

But that’s where we go wrong,

It is our actions and thoughts,

Which formulate opportunities and circumstances,

It is we who feel disheartened when things don’t come our way.

If we can forgive others for their mistakes done onto us,

Then why do we make it hard for us to live with ourselves,

Why don’t we forgive ourselves?

ONE PAISA PER SECOND

I could have titled this article as the “GOD OF SMALL THINGS” too on a second note...but decided against it cause I felt one paisa per second would give more edge and yes some bit of requisite attention...it is just a small note on the eternal bliss and immense victory that we enjoy on our smallest of victories on the smallest of savings in our dire monetary circumstances...which are overrated and underrated at the same time; overrated cause of the tendency to repeatedly hype it out by being too verbose about the same to every person every now indirectly trying to portray one’s oh so smartness and then and underrated cause so much of it goes unnoticed...the first instance with respect to the title itself...the one paisa per second call rate isn’t apparently visible in the balance when it’s at a soaring 60...yes 60 is soaring for people like me...it’s when the binary turns to singularity and is literally dragged to the last breath of getting into decimal...this is the “point” when we feel we have had the biggest feat in days...and yes we do know that secretly in our head that all those calls in the last leg of our balance weren’t even for more than 10 seconds...and thus it’s one paisa per second that is a saving grace for our wireless social contact...another “phony” case can be that of the 20000 messages which are a herculean task in themselves and just takes 90 bucks of your pocket in a month and you are “literally” in touch with people...also illustrating peanuts and popcorn, it’s so marvellous to get so much in just 5 bucks and in 10 you have the world in your hands...if all was to come for so much I wouldn’t see the right side of the menu card.. (although eventually I do order seeing the left side cause I can’t be bad to myself)...the best and the tastiest meal I have had so far have to be the legendary chole kulche : 3 kulche and chole at just 10 bucks...happiness for your tongue and money..u order the same at a restaurant and you get chole with 2 pseudo kulchas: pizza bases with 3-6 crumpled leaves of coriander at some 50 plus rate...another illustration coming from the same side of the story cause I am so in love with food and the wonders it does for my taste buds and later for my body..the huge variety and the n number of dishes we order when we go out as a group as if it’s been ages since we ingested a thing called food...the bill followed which brings in more exclamations “did we eat so much for real?” and  then thanks to the person who devised a mathematical thing called division which brings back our smiles and a thought reversal “that’s it??...we can come here again na..”....not to forget the treats...extremely pretty...it’s all on the house...going dutch is the most amazing joy when it comes to shopping, eating and travelling... “each one to his own”....and all this came to my head as I sipped on the froth of my coffee which is topped with chocolate powder in a nice big thermocol glass and the view of moving lights in the night....at just 10 bucks..