Religion that is no more about SPIRITUALITY...

I am a tolerant person, well mostly! I believe that God and religion is a bunch of hoopla and hoax created to control the human free spirit. But, I am tolerant to those who find God or find peace in God. What I do find wholly bewildering are the people who hide behind religion when their individual purpose is solved. And I am not talking of politicians and self proclaimed tricksters, er, religious leaders! I am talking of every day idiots who hide behind religion to justify asinine behavior, incompetence and malicious intent. 

A Mark Twain quote comes to mind...

And I live in India. The Motherland of Religious Escapists. Everything impractical and sometimes everything that defies basic logic can be justified by religion. Whether it is fasting yourself to illness or making excuses for not working (the never ending inventory of religious festivals and functions) to shunning basic human dignity. All this can be justified by using religion as an argument.

And there is always a loophole to exploit. At the very least to ensure that all is forgiven! If you commit a sin, no matter, there is always some temple you can ring the bell at or a river you can bathe in to clean up! And then you can go right back to sinning, whatever your choice of sin may be. Every time I go to any relic of religious worship, the number of crooks praying can only be outdone by the number of people exploiting God and the crooks to make a quick buck. 

To say nothing of religious extremities! Some of them are just plain stupid and others are reflections of poor character that is preached in the garb of religion. An extreme example is that of the Aghori Sadhus. These are members of a Hindu sect who worship Shiva, whom they see as the supreme god. Because they believe that Shiva created everything – they consider nothing to be bad. For this reason they engage in a variety of sexual practices, they drink alcohol, take drugs, and eat meat. A perfect example of leveraging religion to eat, drink, fuck and make merry! 

In some parts of India it is believed that ghosts can inhabit certain people of the living world. Most notably, girls who are born with a baby tooth already erupted through the gum and girls who are very ugly or have some facial deformation are believed to be possessed by ghosts. The only way to exorcise the ghosts is for the girl to marry an animal, typically a goat or dog. Even though there is a lavish wedding ceremony complete with booze and dancing, the girl is not expected to copulate with the animal – which is good news!

And how can we talk of religion and it's bullshit (pardon my language but I cannot find a better word) and not talk of the Muslims and their matam and the Sati Pratha among Hindus. Thankfully the latter has not been outlawed. But I am sure if you search deep and wide enough, it is still practiced.  

By all means, pray and be spiritual. But you don't have to burn women, be violent and marry animals to achieve fulfillment. And if you truly find charity in your heart and good will to the world, practice it instead of using it as a facade to commit atrocities.

The Outcome Matters Not...

One rather solemn evening in the recent past, my grandfather said something that has stuck with me since. He is a career philosopher with years of research and teaching experience so most of what he says I absorb partially, me being someone grounded in the quagmire of practicality. He said, "you must do what you must do but misery and pain ensue when you fall in love and get attached to the outcome". Now it made sense to me somewhat at first sense as being a derivative of service without the hope and wishes of rewards from the Bhagvad Gita. But the more I thought the miseries and sorrows I encountered, self inflicted or of others, it made a lot more sense to me.

It takes the service without wish or hope of consequence or rewards to a whole new paradigm. Most often in life, we undertake the tasks or initiatives that we do with not just an anticipation of an outcome but with the expectation of a desirable outcome. And that kicks off multiple streams of events that guarantee an equal probability of either happiness or sorrow; both at the end of a path and, many times, along the road.

At the very bottom of the stacks of wisdom that makes up the meaning of life is the axiom that the future is not in our control. We can only control the present and align to the most rational course of action. The deepest flaw in our definition of the rational path is that it is built on the expectations of the rationality or gainful nature of the outcome. If we stop defining the present in terms of the future, it eliminates to a great deal the pressure and compulsions we feel to shape an outcome. And it also opens up a wide array of alternatives based on capacity, capability and level of dedication or passion that is felt.

In my experience of a corporate life I have often stumbled in decision making and execution inhibited by the fear and doubt of the outcome. Inherently therefore is the stress that is caused by the defense of the outcome against naysayers around. We feel so much love and attachment over what we have achieved that we are pained when criticism and, less often, feedback crosses our path and we drown ourselves in the joys and sorrows that accompany the rise and fall of the creation of our labors. Imagine a world in which you could just "do the right thing" that is optimum in terms of effort to execute and honest in terms of the intent. Continued stress and doubt of the future, when eliminated, opens up the space in our overcrowded mind and soul that is burdened by worry and anxiety. And inevitably helps us think and act with creativity and in the end be the best human beings we can.

Caught in archaic perceptions....

One of the things that makes India so different from the world and possible the single most powerful adhesive between us and our past is the grip of legacy and often archaic perception driven behavior. a lot of people will call it "our culture" and some will call it "our tradition" but what it mostly is, is a set of practices and an outlook that probably made some sense in terms of practicality a long time ago. But they have stayed on with us over generations and gotten enforced as a tremendous force of inertia that drives the way we think, what drives our beliefs and value systems and how we act.

As a country and civilization, we have come a long way from our past that, while studded with gold nuggets and diamonds, is in no way all great. And while we have uniquely adopted the new realities of the environment around us, a lot of the burden of the past still lingers on creating a very complex and sometimes counter-productive approach to seeing and reacting to incidents and surrounding.

These sometimes manifest themselves in taboos that have outlived their utility. Sometimes these are presented in their associations of religious symbolism - most notably heaven and hell. Most times however this manifests in what it really is - "it is what it has been", a generational treatise that has been passed down from the past to the present.

Every passing day these carvings on the stone are being challenged and in some corners being broken down but the progress is slow. Some would probably challenge me in that any way forward breaking shackles of the past, is not progress at all! But how is breaking away from the disappointment of giving birth to a daughter, or the often frowned upon single motherhood or the taboo associated with relationships outside the wedlock not progress.

If you step outside the neon flashes of the mega cities, as you make inroads into the small town and rural cultures, such practices abound in every aspect of life. And I think that holding on to such prejudices, perceptions and practices thus have very little to do with culture or tradition or any other justifying attribute such. We hold on to these beliefs and customs driven by antique value systems because they provide a corner of comfort and a place from where the practicing individual can wield some level of unjustified influence while being shielded from the harsh discomfiture of having to change.

And more often than not we would rather be exploited for this way of thought and action than change. It is how the colonial oppression succeeded and it is how every eon of ruling class has succeeded. We are so divided in our small universes and in our minds that our effectiveness as a united force is sub-optimal at best.  

The very fact that progress has proven inversely proportional to social rigidity, shows that it is. And as long as we choose to hold on to what our ancestors believed in and continue to explore the world and our lives through those narrow lenses, real progress shall elude us. The time has come for new sets of values and beliefs to be adopted that are more in line with the realities and forces of economics and globalization.

The JIHAD of Cosmetic Perceptions.....

India’s leading news channel for 3 years in a row was doing a segment on what our silver screen’s leading ladies look like behind the layers of treatment and make-up. Besides the obvious ludicrousness of Anushka’s new lips and the pitiable raggedness of Kareena and Rani without their make-up, the obvious thought that stays behind is the question on what drives the thriving investment in appearance excesses.

   

The Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (ASSOCHAM) has projected that the market size of Indian cosmetics industry which is currently (2012-13) estimated at Rs. 100 Bn, will double to be worth Rs. 200 Bn by 2014 due to emergence of a young urban elite population with rising disposable incomes and increase in working women looking for lifestyle-oriented and luxury products. And, According to a global survey conducted by the International Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, India was ranked fourth in the list of top five countries in the world for the number of people going for surgical and non-surgical procedures to enhance their features. The survey included the top 25 countries representing 75 per cent of all procedures performed by board certified plastic surgeons in 2009. Overall the estimated number of procedures done in India in 2012 was 1.14 million, which amounted to 6.2 per cent of the world’s cosmetic surgeries. It is a big jump for India who was not even in top 20, 10 years ago.

These present a very potent and rich market and the sharks, now having tasted blood, want more. How did we get here and how can this be exponentially grown? India has a female population of 615 million with 50% between 0 – 25 years of age. If we can somehow get all of them to spend at least Rs. 100 a month, that’s Rs. 738 Bn a year in potential revenue. And of course, the more the more the merrier! And, why not! When, all that it takes is the ability to create two sets of perceptions that play with basic human instincts and insecurities thereof.

Most cosmetic marketing is centered on drawing and fueling a male fantasy and thereafter chop away at the female sense of self-esteem. And this is not much of a secret and millions of pages have been written on this. Take a look around at some of the cosmetic advertising – they are all centered on a benchmarking of appearance perfection (dry hair, dry skin, skin marks and the likes) and how you (or your ladies) can get to that image manipulated and make belief perfection enabled by the product or service on sale. If you can make a woman appear, appear being the operative word, as the perceived outcome of your product or service, and make it convincing enough, there are two seeds of doubt you have sown. In the mind of the woman you have successfully sown the question of ‘can I get there’? And, in the mind of the male you have successfully sown the seed of desire ‘that’s what I deserve or should aim for’. In essence you have defined the acceptable standard of beauty, based almost entirely on leveraging perception to manipulate an evolutionary imperative.

Evolution, in many words, dictates that opposites attract based on the desire of the fittest offspring! The fittest that can survive in the big bad world! The process of advertising and marketing focusses on redefining the idea of what is fittest. Once the definition of fittest is penned down as fair and flawless skin and, for some reason, silky long hair, the entire basis for social outlook has been transformed. To survive, you no longer need physical and intellectual acumen and adaptability. You just need to look like ‘this’!

That is the first part of the transformation that will ensure that an origin of ever flowing money is created. The next part of the problem is to sustain and reinforce that belief on an ongoing basis so that, like most broadcasted messages, the desire and insecurity is never diluted – keep that stream alive and growing. The website Heart of Leadership posts a survey report that finds more than 90 percent of girls – 15 to 17 years – wanting to change at least one aspect of their physical appearance. Now that is what represents (with counterparts across age groups) a solid stream of women trying to look better and therefore spending. How do you keep that need and desire alive and growing? Make sure that every target is sufficiently exposed to an endless stream of images that portray the benchmark of beauty and associated success. This is really where our plastic beauties come to play. Surgically appropriately implanted and painted in the right proportions to cover the natural flaws, any woman can be made a goddess of the perception of beauty.

What one fails to notice is the fact that the end product does not exist naturally in reality. It never ever has as against the cosmetic industry that has flourished since the days of the alchemists’ concoctions. After so many pages and sermons of this fundamental wisdom that nature survives through flaws and perfections balancing each other, common sense and truth still loses the battle to the apparent lure of the perception. Small wonder it is that under the paint of cosmetic portrayal hides a monster that is self-destructing with every layer that is added and washed away.

No one is born knowing that fair and flawless skin and long and silky hair do not make a beautiful you. It is gradually fed into your blank slate neurons until you are indoctrinated to the core or eliminated from the race. The pursuit of beauty has, over the years, assumed the proportions of a subconscious religion – something that everyone believes in and it does not take too much depth and intellectual smarts to achieve – it only takes money. And the more money you can spare, the greater the conviction of your religious alignment; most often to the point where the individual loses of the distinction of reality and doctrine. In many ways you can compare this with religious fanaticism. It is a jihad of the cosmetic capitalists against the common sense and natural order of things.

The obsession with the future…

John Maynard Keynes said, "In the long run, we're all dead." And it is perhaps all that we can predict with any level of certainty, about the future. And yet we strive every day to change the outcomes and influence the future. Makes sense, since it is in the future that we will end up spending most of our time, anyways. However, the fact is that our influence on the future is limited only to a small extent because we cannot forecast what factors will drive the shaping of the future.

A story I heard some time back was of a guy who was scared to die, what is clinically called Thanatophobic. His phobia was very specific though – somewhere in the intersection of Thanatophobia and Dystychiphobia. He was absurdly scared of dying in an accident. I don’t think there is a clinical term yet but, this man was killed in the most absurd way (God rest his soul)…! He lived almost in a child safe cocoon with the inclusion of having his groceries delivered home. He was pale from lack of sunlight and fresh air exposure. He lived the safest possible existence until he died from a brain bleeding caused by his shower head falling on his head in the midst of his bathroom.

So, here is my point. The future is the equivalent of a roll of the dice on a swanky Vegas casino (or any other gambling destination of your choice). And in the long run the house (the alternative or uncertainty) will win. Yes, tomorrow I will wake up, water my plants and get to office after navigating some really irritating traffic. To that end I can predict the future but is that proof of a certain future or that my life is really boring! And yet, fortune telling is such a booming industry that some places have legal definitions of fortune telling and license regulations.

Eastpointe, MI is one such example that details quite extensively what qualifies as fortune telling, and lists acceptable tools, including crystals, coffee grinds and the occult, as well as proper usage of one’s powers, which can be summoned for “effecting spells, charms, or incantations, or placing, or removing curses,” among other things. It’s quite an interesting read.

“Fortunetelling” shall mean the telling of fortunes, forecasting of futures, or reading the past, by means of any occult, psychic power, faculty, force, clairvoyance, cartomancy, psychometry, phrenology, spirits, tea leaves, tarot cards, scrying, coins, sticks, dice, sand, coffee grounds, crystal gazing or other such reading, or through mediumship, seership, prophecy, augury, astrology, palmistry, necromancy, mindreading, telepathy or other craft, art, science, talisman, charm, potion, magnetism, magnetized article or substance, or by any such similar thing or act. It shall also include effecting spells, charms, or incantations, or placing, or removing curses or advising the taking or administering of what are commonly called love powders or potions in order for example, to get or recover property, stop bad luck, give good luck, put bad luck on a person or animal, stop or injure the business or health of a person or shorten a person’s life, obtain success in business, enterprise, speculation and games of chance, win the affection of a person, make one person marry or divorce another, induce a person to make or alter a will, tell where money or other property is hidden, make a person dispose of property in favor of another, or other such similar activity.

Quantum mechanics, more commonly accepted these days as the predominant rules that explain the physical universe (not much help with the metaphysical world), says that outcomes cannot be predicted. Much like the Schrödinger’s Cat experiment (for those of your who do not think very highly of Physics or not a fan of Big bang Theory here is a link that explains the experiment), the future is indeterminate until you are contextually present in it.

Why then the absurd obsession with the future? I have asked myself this question as to why, knowing that we have limited power, if any at all, to influence the outcomes of the future (assuming anything we do is a triggering mechanism towards some outcome), we obsess so hard about what is to be of us tomorrow. There are different theories surrounding the subject – the one that makes the most sense to me, from a pragmatic perspective, is that the future is random within a broadly defined range, at best. Will the end of the world happen tomorrow or not (well the last one failed pretty uneventfully, thank God, fate, destiny or just the carefully engineered balance of power by the global policy makers or whoever)? There are plenty of prophecies left yet. The two that are closest are by Nancy Regan who before her death in 1997 claimed Armageddon would come in 2020 or alternatively Dr. F. Kenton Beshore’s prediction that the world could end in 2018.

I think that humans are inherently built of hope. Hope is the center of our existences and most of our purpose in life is defined in terms of our hope for better outcomes. And it always feels nice to have hope substantiated by some form of authoritarian pretention. And that is really the answer. All our prayers and dependence on the agents of future are basically manifestations of human hope – our greatest strength and weakness at the same time.

The Age of Instant Gratification

It is a very strange experience to come in close contact of the “I want it now!” generation that is characterized by an extreme form of disregard for consequences. Throughout my childhood and teenage readings I have heard wise people speak of “now or never” quotes but what I see in the young (and in no way do I intend to implicate myself as old and/or wise) is a lifestyle that is based on this fundamental philosophy of now or never – the age of instant gratification.

Sociologist and other social scientists call it the most obvious fallout of what is very often termed as the Risk Society where uncertainty of existence is questioned by the violence and turmoil that is inherent around us and has sort of defined the better part of the 13 years of the 21st century that we have seen. And, from the way things are going, we are headed towards cloudier days ahead.

But, one way or the other, I think that this tendency towards momentary urges, spanning the distance from shopping pangs to an extremely high consumption driven lifestyle has made a social construct, as is prevalant today, that is keenly driven by the need to satisfy the momentary urges without the necessary calculation of what could go wrong in the process. And, with so much going down the path of wrong these days, I am amazed at the spirit characterized by a certain potion that is a mix of bravado and wrecklessness. To that end, I think, that the crumbling down of the social, economic and political structure across the world is somehow an outcome of what has become a vicious cycle of ease of availability, tendency to consume without any equation of consequence and an ‘ignorance is bliss’ outlook.

I have had the occassion over the past year to interact with some of the weeds of this new cultural forest, and it is surprising how much of the phrases “so what”, “who cares” and “big deal” are being uses. Everyone has a different arguement and logic justifying their unique wrecklessness but almost invariably these are spotted extensively by aforementioned exclamations. This tells me two things. (i) We are faced with a generation serious about ensuring the maximization of value from life while it exists instead of procrastinating about consequences, future and especially what the world thinks of their actions. Amd, (ii) that it is probably a different world we are headed into over the next 10 – 15 years where individualism will reach a peak that will, most probably, put man back in a strange way to pre-stone age social structure – every man/woman for their own self.

Survival of the fittest in a very urban and chic social environment…!

The change that happened, somewhat…!

My mother is a very bullish proponent of liberation of women from the shackles of domestic traditionalism. And on occasion I am fairly positive that the change that drives her hopes and dreams may have actually made the mainstream family re-think and redo the archaic way of life that plagued our society for the longest time; a way that basically treats the women as, very crudely put, ornamentations worthy of shrouding in the dark or be the center of a trophy display.

In her personal and professional life, my mother continues to fight this rather crude and dusty way of life on a day to day basis. Very often looking from the outside in, you would feel her optimism with the number of women who are stepping out of the shadows of domestic walls and making a mark with their contributions across the board. Very recently however, I had the opportunity to get an inside view into what is currently branded as the traditional family structure. And I was very saddened to know that, in spite of the great progresses we have made economically and socially, the expectations from a woman within the household has changed very little.

More often than not, this rigid, coarse and ritualistic structure is aligned with “Indian culture” and justified as the way things have been! If things were to be the way they have been then the barter system is holy and everything that is instrumental in making us civilized is a sinful addition to the quiver. And yet, we enjoy the fruits of modernization looking only from the outside in as long as the waves do not disturb the shores that lead into the inside of the home. Because sitting on the outside, for these grumpy (a better phrasing is against family reading values) men who drive the rules in the rural and semi-urban traditionalistic social structure, it is easy to criticize and get away with it since no one who matters in the real world is not around to challenge the perspectives that gave us the caste system, such mean practices as the Sati and countless other atrocities that have been meted out in the name of religion, tradition or just “the way it has been”. When it needs to be driven inside the boundaries of the house the journey to the modern perspective is one that needs the embracing of a certain set of inconveniences and essentially a spine that can stand straight and rebuke naysayers.

The most cited argument in favor of traditionalism as an enforced value, as against a free choice, is that of cultural roots. Culture can, and has been defined as, the quality in a person or society that arises from a concern for what is regarded as excellent in arts, letters, manners, scholarly pursuits, etc. One of the definitions I really like is one presented by Merriam-Webster and goes as “the integrated pattern of human knowledge, belief, and behavior that depends upon the capacity for learning and transmitting knowledge to succeeding generations.” The dependency upon the “capacity for learning and transmitting knowledge…” is the key of this definition. What we seem to have missed is the capacity for learning which entails the ability to learn from the ambient world and adopt for prosperous survival. We have only stuck to the coat tails of transmitting knowledge, once created and disseminated as per the necessities of the time.

I have always believed that the traditional role of the woman, as it once was, was an outcome of the need to survive and propagate. Driven by the need of evolution in harsh conditions, without the support of modern facilities, medicines and a law & order scenario that ensures the safety and heightened chances of survival of the offspring, it was necessary to have defined gender roles based on physical capability. That was then. We learned and adopted and it seems to me that we have forgotten our capacity to adopt ever since.

There has been change on the outside and yet, here we are standing in the 21^st century, life for women in a traditional family structure continues to be a struggle, battling against the expectations from the traditional definitions that tend to want to push her into the confines of what, we men, so blatantly term as laaj and sharam. In truth, I have never been so ashamed to be a man standing in this theatrical folly that has adopted selectively and stuck on to the threads, based solely on affected conveniences. No wonder our society, and all alike ours, see such high statistics when it comes to violence against women! In this struggle between the ancient past and the beckoning future our sense of morality has warped to shapelessness. We still hang on to the narrow perspectives of ghungats and pardahs and also, to satisfy the need for prosperity, expect our women to earn and supplement incomes. Is this the price we pay, as a society, for a culture that we have only inherited and failed to add and demolish based on ambient times?

What we really need to protest against.....

When I look back at 2012, I see a calendar of protests. From protesting against burning Qurans that marked the beginning of a disturbing year to the year being dragged through Russian, Walls Street, Catalan, Palestinian, Arab, Syrian, Egyptian and Greek protests against everything from governance to sustenance.

 

In India, we saw our share including a year-long anti-graft drama playing out on multiple fronts, to the Delhi centric anti-rape protests extending into the new year. I believe that protests are the healthiest form of expression of dissent, peaceful or otherwise. However, what I do not see is protests leading to tangible outcomes of betterment, especially close to home. The quality and value of life are no better or higher as an outcome of protests. What does that tell us about the state of affairs in our country as they manifest themselves?

 

I believe that we need to relook at how modernization and economic enrichment has affected the way life is valued in India. It is sad to see that with so much that has changed, nothing much has really changed. The gap of perception and reality between the ruling and ruled continues to widen and at a much faster pace every passing day. Regard and respect for law and order continues to diminish as the value to honesty continues to be defined in money terms. We continue to improve the outside while deteriorating as human beings from within. And I have come to conclude that we have indeed not learned from the lessons of the West where capitalism came at a dear cost of humanity.

 

That brings me to the crux of protests in India. Are we really protesting against what needs to be uprooted and discarded? Independent issues and occurrences fuel most of our angst at the external manifestations of a system that is gradually rusting towards an unsustainable future. This road that we are on has little to do with the politics of the nation or of the legal inefficiencies and enforcement corruption. These, in my mind, are symptoms of a much deeper degenerative gene. As human beings, if we take the time to look at the mirror, we have increasingly come to define ourselves with independent and material end objectives, almost always with a common trait of greed. Measuring ourselves in terms of money and material well-being has led us to forget that we live in a great nation forged from the blood and sweat of many thousands who dreamed of a common brighter future. As we go about our lives with our own selfish agenda painted and tainted by dreams of material acquisition, we forget the potential of collective growth. To suit our superficial moral angel (sitting and weeping on our shoulders), we react to outrage committed through protests and demonstrations of solidarity and yet, in the tone and nature of who we are, the hollow echo keeps getting louder every day.

 

Who do we blame? The Media? The Politicians? The System? What we need to take cognizance of, when pointing the proverbial finger, is the fact that the media, the politicians and not least of all, the system is comprised of you and me. The corruption and misdemeanor we see around us is just a manifestation of what has become of the human spirit. When pointing a finger we fail to see that the finger being pointed is really at a mirror of our collective. And, as long as we measure our successes by the steps we climb in an economically defined social staircase, no matter how hard we scream and shout offensives at the establishments around us, we shall make no progress.

 

I see people around me every day, pray to God, revolt against injustice and then return to conform to a system of convenience where everything is acceptable as long as their preferred way of life is not altered for the worse. How shall we dream and execute a luminous future if at the end of the journey we are standing alone; surrounded by wealth and well-being, with no one to share with? It is our greed and self-centered perspective, which we so readily conform to today, should be the object of our protests. Can we be slightly better as human beings tomorrow that we are today because we protested against how we do things? When we, as a people, begin to change individually for the better will we begin to see the society improve.

 

The alternative may be soothing to our conscience but that is all it shall be limited to till the day we die.

I am in awe...

Today I experienced first hand the dire inefficiency of Government and the experience gave me increased appreciation of a few aspects.

First the glaring examples of poor service. I was issued a bogus petition by our beloved IT department, the response to which apparently can only be submitted 'by hand' (it is amazing that we live in the world of 4G mobile broadband and the best we can do is this amazing concept of 'by hand'). So I went 20 odd kilometers to the income tax office, situated in such a lane where parking your car means no one else can pass through! And they will not accept my response because everyone is sitting outside accepting IT returns, from everyone who forgot that 31st was the lat date for submissions, 'by hand' - to all those 'by hand'ers, "Please submit online, the facility is available and makes for lesser waste of time of sheer stupidity." My query to the Income Tax office, "if you had time to goof up and send me bogus queries, you should have the time and resources to accept a response; it is the least service you can offer for the tax money that you collect and live off of."

Then I needed to notarize some official documents (I assure you that the whole process of notarization is the government's conspiracy to generate pointless employment for the idiots who study law and cannot actually apply intellect to make an honest living!). After an unreasonable fee, 40 rupees for parking and a 1.5 hour lunch, I was able to get my notarization. The advocate convinced me that lunch was quintessential and my needs are secondary since he needs a typist who is out at lunch (The guy needs a typist to print out a Word Document from a USB Pen Drive)! The idiot is sitting and stamping and signing but he will not type his own stuff!

The shameless dude was even attesting documents as True Copies without originals (of course without originals it would cost twice as much). He made about Rs. 500 in the 20 minutes I waited for him to turn his attention to my documents. Conveniently located just outside the Passport office and close to Symbiosis at the Patrakar Nagar crossing, Advocate Kale is making a killing; and doing a service. I say, doing a service since he is probably the only one who, for a little extra money will attest whatever you want him to! It makes one wonder what the point of it all is, doesn't it?

Now to what I've come to appreciate. I am in awe of the fact that India is progressing at all from one day to the next! How we make any progress with the burden of such massive inefficiency, corruption and crookedness is something that has been haunting my mind for the last 2 hours. I am forced to conclude that there must be some very efficient people somewhere (the honest and efficient ones you never see out in the open, never) pushing us ahead! My sincerest gratitude to these true patriots...

I started with attorneys (advertised on multiple sites, no less) who had their shops shut (at 11 AM) and "9 AM to 6 PM" printed on their shutters, went to one attorney who told me that she there was something lacking in my documents and then to another who did what needed to be done for Rs. 500. This brings me to the second wonder as to how a simple process like notarization can have altering meaning, depending on the level of greed you are willing to satisfy. What is the bloody point of the process if the sanctity of it is as fungible?

I so wish this would be true...

Bought & Never Used…

Some time back, as I think most people coming to US are stung, I suffered the sting of becoming health conscious, driven by factors wise and foolish. Everyone around me looked healthy, although most were over ten years older than me and bringing up kids (I am told this particular activity is a major drain on health). That being the latter end of the spectrum tending from wisdom to folly. But, like all things in life, I took it a step ahead and in addition to joining a gym (which I honestly tried to build a regime around till a month or so ago) and bought myself a Kawasaki DX226FS 26-Inch Dual Suspension Mountain Bike. Now cycles and I have a bit of a longish history of conflict.

When I was four years of age, or a little more or less, my dad had a cycle that I would love to ride. Now I was a heavy kid so riding on the front was difficult for the rider. So riding back from somewhere (too young to know or care!) I was flailing my extremities as I normally did to express my childish frustrations. My left leg hit the wheels and got caught in it bringing me and dad down to quite a bit of injury. And my leg, from the dirt on the road and the blood from my veins looked like it could never be fixed again. Fixed it was but started a rather long age of bad luck with cycles.

When I was about 10 or 12 years old, suffering from an early bout of rebellious adolescence, I wanted a cycle and the normal stuff you get in India for a cycle I did not like. At the time it was all we could afford, really but in hindsight wisdom comes cheap. At that age I hated what I had since I wanted the fancy stuff with gears and flashy colors. After some painstaking efforts, by my father, to break the stubbornness out of me, the idea of me ever riding a cycle was shelved along with the equipment. It was a combination of anger at not being able to ride an MTB and the hatred to waste weekend morning trying to learn balancing my awkwardly shaped physique on two wheels.

And I grew older but the greed for the MTB never left me. Closer to 16 I demanded my ride again and was told that such purchase was to be allowed only of I learnt how to use my old equipment. So, the rusted and squeaky equipment was retrieved and oiled for me as I proceeded to learn to ride by driving a short height cycle around in circles on the roof of the ancestral house. I fell, bruised and bled through many evenings before I finally was confident to move to a full sized cycle.

As promised, there came the basic MTB but this became a prized possession  for some time – I was pursuing this dream for 8 years and now finally I had what I wanted. So huffing and panting I drove around my cycle everywhere I went. By this time I had started my only retained vice and romance with the cigarette and the huffing and panting never stopped but it was all good as long as I got where I wanted to and stand with the bike resting on my hips, in full style. My influence had been the stylish Aamir Khan from Joh Jeeta Wohi Sikander. Who was I fooling! As life would have it, two days after I learnt how to ride without my hands on the handle, I lost the battle with gravity in one of the famous traffic congestions of Kolkata. Scratches and bumps aside, my cycle lost all semblance of alignment. I walked 8 kilometers with the heavy (remember it was a basic MTB and these were still days of non-alloy builds) cycle and after costing me a significant dent to my reserve pocket money, rode it home. Sadly, it was never the same again – squeaky and often prone to losing balance, brakes and sometimes lost the road altogether. So my first MTB was shelved and very soon I graduated to riding the bike with the IC engine and I thought I would never ride the cycle again.

Till recently when I bought my Kawasaki DX226FS. After ages of romancing with the cigarette and complete lack of any exercise, my lungs were ready to give way after about half a Km of riding on day one. And now I could afford it so I bought pretty much everything I could. Helmet, gloves and even the water bottle to be hooked to some random part. After huffing and puffing for some time, I started going to the gym. I had convinced myself that I would get rid of 10 or 12 years of unhealthy  with a few months of gym and then I would ride. And the cycle came up from my garage to my balcony and I never rode again. I was too lazy to carry it down and my wife said “I said so” a hundred times hoping that the contrarian inspiration would work the obstinacy out of me. But today I have posted my cycle onto Craigslist for someone, anyone, who I hope will have better luck that I did.