Did I Say Adulthood Sucks?

Last evening I came across this statement ‘To be an adult is to be alone’! Wasn’t that wonderful? Some sharp edge to this reality of adulthood and loneliness! This quote set my thought process in an overdrive mode. My whole life flashed in front of my eyes and I was not at all amused at discovering the sad truth. When we are kids, the whole world seems a playground to us. There is never hesitancy in making new friends, saying what we want and expressing our innermost desires. As we step onto doors of adulthood the rules of the game change drastically.

To put across my point I will give you an example. I spent my childhood shuffling across different towns. In hindsight, that helped me a lot in my future years because I never felt any issues in moving to a new city, leaving the old one and just carrying the wonderful memories. There were few cases when my neighbor or some other guy in school approached me for playing cricket or badminton or just saying ‘mujhse dosti karoge’! this happened with me so many times. Now circa, 2009! How many times I will find new people doing this thing to me or even me approaching a stranger and just saying ‘can we be friends?’ that is sure to cause some weird glance and not-so-friendly reactions. The innocence and naturality factor takes a backseat and instead, a mask starts occupying your entire persona.

I will list few reasons of why adulthood sucks big time.

• Kids are cute, no? Well, almost always! My experience tells me senior persons coming to me and saying he is so cute, no matter whether I really looked so or not! While you are an adult you got to have something real big to compensate for your lack of cute element. You must have money or successful (professionally or materialistically). God forbid, if you are neither cute not successful! I will reserve my comment in such cases.
• When you are a kid you can always hate girls whereas in adulthood…Period!  
• Remember saying some silly and stupid comments in your childhood? And how people around you used to react? Aah, he is so cute or ‘dil ka kitna saaf bacha hai’! but don’t even think of making same mistakes once you are past the stage of puberty. Afterwards, whatever you will say will be scrutinized properly. To your utter dismay you will find you no longer enjoy any margin for such stupidity. Your off-the-cuff remarks will be emphatically noticed and you will be reminded of that in your future endeavors!
• When you are a kid, you have this free license of approaching new people and make friends for life. But you are not supposed to have same approach during the later stages of your life. Then it’s more about, power equation or who blinks first. You will also have to make sure that you don’t appear too desperate. People will also try to smell if there is there some sort of ulterior motives behind your initiative?
• When you are a kid, your truth-speaking ability will be really appreciated. You will be lauded as a future of our country and such similar sobriquets. But do the same after 18 and well, what a fool!
• When you are a kid, its normal to cheat once a while in games. But never really in real life. But in adulthood, you better play by the rules of the world and be prepared for games of ‘different’ kind.
• As a child, you are entitled to ask many stupid questions as you can. No one will ever shout at you with exclamation marks such as, what? You don’t know? Are you nuts? Try doing same now and well, did I find you ripped? Hell, yeah! You may also become the primary menu for our dinner party.
• Remember finding you disliking people and even admitting it? You must have done several times. It’s my sincere suggestion to make this distinction line between like and dislike totally blurred. If you don’t I might be prompted to say, ‘he is so childish!’
• When you are a child you can always go back to your pop and mom crying but don’t even think of doing this now. Why? Well, come on, you must be man/woman enough!
• Finally, ‘stress’ might be a alien concept for you in the childhood. Things have changed now. Now, ‘relaxation’ is more alien. 

Image Courtesy toonlet.com

Complexion Issue

I hardly watch television programs so whenever I get the chance I try to make it as productive as possible. Few finance channels followed by channels related to movies, music and discovery, NGC etc. However, sometimes more than the programs I like watching advertisements for the heck of it. That gives us a better idea of what actually is working with people and where all the corporate are trying to hit the mark.  Few themes have kept bombarding us over the years. And yes, they are disturbing.

Let’s talk about these ‘Fairness creams’. I can’t really recall since how long these fairness ads are into existence. Starting from fair & lovely to ponds and several others, these ads always emphasize upon the ‘urgent need’ of getting fair and regaining our self-esteem. Really? Why, we Indians are so obsessed with the fair complexion? Personally I never had such experience but I remember finding parents of my mates telling them ‘Gora/gori ho jaa warna koi tujhe poochega bhi nahi’, ‘kaale logo ki shaadi nahi hoti’, ‘usko dekh kitna fair hai aur ek tu hai’ etc etc. For people with not so fair complexion, this is almost like getting assaulted for what they are. They did not choose their colors. But on one hand, the parents, peers, family members keep reminding you of this so called ‘curse’ and on the other hand these dastardly TV ads try their best to subjugate one’s self-esteem! Have you ever noticed the basic plank of fairness ads?

Girl uses the cream and all of a sudden she finds love of her life, gets promoted and becomes the most affectionate object of every person surrounding her existence! Well, does it really happen in life? The most ironical aspect is few of my female friends with dusky complexion do have this fascination with white skin.

“Oh, God, How fair she is! Look at her complexion! White skin, pink cheeks and red luscious lips! I wish I had those features!”

Those are some normal expressions I have heard from few girls! It makes me feel sick. I try to discuss it but I get a perennial response, you won’t know it buddy because you are fair! Ok, I agree but then I can’t really blame them for this ‘inferiority complex’! It was instigated and propagated by their family, friends and society in general. Whatever little was left; TV ads came to the party and are leaving indelible scars on innocent girls’ minds. Somewhere behind this phenomenon, our attitude towards western things also shows up. Whatever the west has, that must be good.

Why can’t we simply accept our true colors? Why this fixation with fairness? We Indians are supposed to have wheatish complexion. Fact is as simple as that. If most of the north Indians have fair complexion then blame it on amalgamation of different civilizations, rule of foreign nationals, climate and initiation of hybrid breed. We Indians have unique complexion that is not only attractive but different as well. We can very well resemble to people of Latin American countries and tell you what, Latin Americans look damn appealing.

The worst part is even guys have started to appear desperate for white skin. The concept of metro-sexual and uber-sexual men has further added to this disturbing trend. The fairness cream ad by Shahrukh Khan with chants of ‘Hi Handsome, Hi Handsome’ looks so sick. One of my roomies was applying Fair & Lovely for last several years under the illusion that it will make him more desirable among girls. He used to put on this cream and stand in front of the mirror and look at his face with such pathetic expressions that it became very hard for me to suppress my derogatory smile! Unfortunately, girls never even noticed his so called brighter face!

What is more disappointing is finding guys and girls with notion of inferiority complex just because of this complexion issues. Ok, I agree, you never got the desired support from your family or your parents kept comparing you with sh***y looking but fair girl next door but now when you are educated enough with tons of experience and knowledge at your disposal then why the hell do you even care about this crappy issue. Trust me; a dusky complexion will always score a point or two over fair skin in terms of raw appeal. A Salma Hayek will always be more desirable than a Kate Winslet. In Indian context, who can beat the simple and earthy appeal of Nandita Das, Deepti Naval, Smita Patil or Zeenat Amaan? Think yourself and please feel proud of your complexion!    

:-  Image courtesy idiva.com

Me N Politics

So I was talking about my heightened state of interest in the murky world of politics. I used to follow poll opinions and discussion among the election pundits with religious regularity. I also remember my active interest in opinions expressed by senior family members and then using those adopted opinions in my group and gosh, it used to give me such a high! Of course, my friends were impressed with my knowledge in a thing that was alien to them and that’s how I was bestowed upon with sobriquets of ‘General Knowledge Master’. I am not really ashamed to admit that my image was based upon some stolen opinions of elections but other parts of the ‘precious tag’ that included sports and movies were earned by me. It was some sight seeing the entire group of ‘dads and papas’ sitting around the TV set and each having a different set of opinions. I used to watch, listen and grasp the basics from them as sincerely as possible.

 

Actually that whole scenario can be termed as true symbol of election fever. I always wanted to be first in leaking out news about who won from which constituency and the reactions I received always varied in nature. From despair, ecstasy, excitement to contemplation and criticism, it used to be myriad expressions of contorted faces. It was no less than a festival occasion for me. Just now as I am writing, I am realizing that there was one more reason of my excitement. And that was a ‘feel-good’ factor associated with seeing all the otherwise busy persons of the society sitting in a harmonious environment and indulging in some chit-chat. Yes, it gave me a feeling of harmony, brotherhood and togetherness. I am still trying to figure out what actually happened in my life that made me this aloof and a sucker of individualism.

 

It’s hard for me to pinpoint the period when I found myself with dwindling interest in politics. I just stopped caring who is winning and who is losing. That was also a symbol of emerging indifference towards all the things not directly related to me. As I kept entering into different phases of life, my area of interest found itself manifested in process of crossing new frontiers. Sports, career, girls, sex, movies, travel and many other such aspects of life held my interest at different point of time. In recent times, stock market, communication, blogging and socializing have added themselves to the ever widening chambers of my life. But yes, politics was left behind. Now I feel all I am interested in knowing is the final result and not the process.

 

People around me have also impacted. Not even a single person that I know shows any interest in such things. Probably they are justified. However, there is one difference. Most of the people in my knowledge are critical about politics and politicians whereas I am still indifferent. Sadly, those who are critical are not much knowledgeable as far as nuances of politics are concerned. They feel compelled to criticize because criticizing politics is the ‘IN’ thing and they like to do it because everybody else is also doing the same. Did I whisper herd mentality? Oh, yes! Sometimes more you try to differentiate yourself, more you remain the same s**t-load of human garbage!

 

Secular Party’s Manifesto

I don’t remember when did I last watch a political debate on TV? Probably 7-8 years! Before that I can vividly remember myself actively listening to all the participants in a live show. These participants used to belong to different ideologies and it never used to a pleasant and healthy exchange of ideology and philosophies. A fish market basically, all the candidates had this inherent desire of maligning others and proudly flaunting their own superiority. That time I was still an active citizen and I had my own favorite party and leaders. I had yet to feel indifferent to all the crap preached by them and I had yet to say the oft-repeated statement of youths ‘politics gandi cheez hai’! Well, I still don’t say ‘politics is no business of mine’ but yes, I have definitely turned indifferent and perhaps disinterested.

 

I have started to find all the leaders same and alarmingly all the parties more similar than ever before. Just look at the manifesto released by all the parties and you will understand what I mean. There are hardly few differences in the manifesto. Just manipulation of few words here and there and well, world’s most populous democracy finds itself at the mercy of ‘not-so-progressive ideologies. The best manifesto definitely belong to SP. It says there won’t be any computers or English medium schools and culture of malls, multiplexes will be abolished! Whoa!!

 

And then I read about SP’s party chief sending his two sons in a high-end convent school. I also tried to get the view of SP’s most visible face, a socialite and power broker. This person released the party manifesto and can always be seen hobnobbing with India’s biggest movie star and one of the corporate giants. He loves to attend ‘Filmfare’ awards function and cutting ribbons of new ‘Boutique’. His actions are definitely in ‘sync’ with party’s policies. But then he hates malls and multiplexes where he watches premiers of new movies with first family of bollywood. No doubt, he is very flexible in his approach. His PA can also be seen with quite a few ‘laptops’ but did not he believe in getting rid of computers? I told you, he is much diversified when it comes to situations and actions. I guess, I will continue with this part…     

Eternal Dilemma of Mood-Swing

These days I find myself prone to unpleasant outbursts and excessive mood swings. So what’s new in that? Right? Well, yeah! ;P I think I have used the word ‘mood swing’ more than any other word ever used by me. Perhaps, without me even realizing it I have this word and feeling such stratospheric importance that now it’s out of my control. From what was used to be a simple problem has turned into a bundle of several other things. ‘Excuse’, ‘escape route’, ‘hurting methodology’ and so many other things have found themselves manifested in a single phrase of ‘I have mood swing problem’. Well how long Mr. M? Every once in a while I feel like working on it and improving my otherwise normal ‘cheerful disposition’ towards life. But soon complacency creeps in and my efforts fall flat on its face. Long live my mood swing!

The worst part about this particular situation is it affects others as well. How hard I try not to involve my loved ones in this self-created mess, yet I end up making them a part of it. I totally despise it. How would others know that the gut we were talking to few hours ago has suddenly ventured into this non-communicative zone? It would amount to having too much of expectations from mortals. Sometimes, I try to keep myself at others’ place and think about how I would react. Well, I don’t think the answer I discovered pleased me.

What baffles me even more is as such no actual event transpires between M of one hour before (when I was all hunky-dory) and M of right now (when I find myself pissed at bloody everything)! It’s just my thought process that needs to be blamed. In one hour everything starts looking bleak and irritating. And if my thought process tends to go haywire then it’s my mind’s job to control it and I am afraid to admit I feel far too lazy to instruct my mind. It also implies that I am not in charge of my mind and that’s not exactly a ‘feel-good’ realization. Adding salt to the wound, I even plan the way out of it and yet there is an eternal gap between planning and execution steps. I be damned for seeking others’ inputs in this aspect because as far as emotional and mental sides of my personality is concerned I was always far too upright to stand in a recipient zone. Well, to sum up nothing as such drastic is required. All I need to do is just to ‘tighten few screws’ and that will lead me to steal few more moments to cheer every small thing in life.

Paulo Coelho- Brida

Book-reading is a very fascinating experience. The experience of reading book is like opening up of few closed and unseen doors in your mind. You think, that’s it! There are no further roads. The moment you think whatever was there to learn, I have factored all that in my existence and all of a sudden you come across a perspective that was not thought before by you. I just finished ‘Brida’ by Paulo Coelho and found it to be an ordinary book. Nothing earth-shattering was there. However, few lines here and there, as has become my habit, found themselves under my marking. I can’t help this habit and I don’t think I will prefer to change it any way.

 

Probably that’s my way to leave my mark on the history of a book and make me believe that yes, I have finished this particular book and these underlined lines were worth stimulating my intellect. Paulo Coelho was always a writer of masses. He does not come up with psyche-analysis. His themes are always common within the range of love, spiritualism, destiny, God, black magic etc. he simply ‘tries’ to motivate you in his own predictable way. Considering his history at mental asylum and years of failure coupled with wandering lust, he did make it big. Big enough to produce few best-selling books.

 

More than anything his transformation fascinates me. Another strong point of his is he not a pseudo-intellectual. He does not even try to be an intellectual. His language is as simple as can be applied to a novel. I doubt his books can ever satiate the undefined and inexplicable taste of ‘so called’ intellectuals but then I don’t think that segment was ever his target area. I get the feeling that he knows his area of strength and proficiency at subject matters and he simply does his job in a smooth way. As far as I think, Paulo’s greatest contribution is towards initiation of thousands of non-readers into the habit of reading. I know at least 5-6 such guys who read a bit (however little they do) just because they started with his ‘Alchemist’. That itself is a great achievement for any author.    

 

Birthday Celebration

It was A’s birthday on 7^Th. So, me, S, P and A celebrated the day in our own mostly predictable way. Well, as usual the trend of gifting on someone’s birthday has long disappeared. And best part was it was a dry day so you know the kind of problems we were supposed to face. But thanks to birthday boy himself, we did manage to poison ourselves. Add to the problem, the religious notion attached with ‘Tuesday’ by so many of so called progressive youths of India. I wonder what’s wrong with people vowing not to have any non-veg items on Tuesday or Thursday or Saturday. As if God keeps his eyes shut on rest of the days when you munch on innocent but delicious meat of animals but on these particular days he suddenly opens up his eyes and asks you to refrain from such inhumane activities. Well, so much for religion and beliefs!

 

Presence of S just changes the entire atmosphere of the party. No doubt he is motor mouth but that, Infact adds to the overall ambience. And his culinary skills, well, what more can I say? He is a wonderful cook. He adds style, grace and enthusiasm to the whole cooking process. His prepared chicken item was a new thing to me and I totally relished it. Overall, with light music running in the background, dim lights and bursts of laughter, I could not have asked for more!

 

Happy Birthday darling! May you have every good thing in your lap. Yu have waited for far too long and yet you have continued to maintain the dignity without ever showcasing any signs of desperation and anxiety! I salute this quality of yours. Trust me; you are going to get your due in a big way! Amen! J

After-effects of Anger!

Ever thought what anger does to you? I don’t expect any revelation of profound wisdom but yet would love to mention one thing! It ‘alienates’ people. And people as in not those 6-7 billion strangers but just few chosen ones that are supposed to be your closest ones. How dare we express our anger at those strangers because first, we know we are scared of unfavorable reaction and second, this let-out may lead to something far more destructive than colossal after-effects of anger! The fact that, if we shout and scream at our closes ones, they won’t shut us out from their lives. They will soon forgive us, forget the incident and will continue loving as it was before! No enlightening testaments!

But do we, especially I realize my anger does much more than what I have told above? It gives me a feeling of déjà vu every time because its an indication of me taking all those lovely people for granted and that too, with alarming regularity. I keep hurting them and then I keep expecting them to come back to me because they should realize that I am precious! What a fallacy! I was terribly upset today. Frustrated? Oh, yes! That too!

And that led me to blast few people who have loved me the most. In the same context, i feel having a clear conscience is a far greater sin than not having one at all. Either you can be happy or sad. Either you can rejoice your mistakes and don’t feel any remorse about whatever dastardly things committed by you! But conscience is a tricky concept. It does not let you celebrate your mistakes. It should have been a fair game. You hurt someone and for that your anger must feel happy because it fulfilled its purpose. Yet, you are devoided of any guilty pleasure and all you are left with is ‘I should not have said that/done that’ etc etc kind of feelings! How unfair! I go through same routine every once in a while. I used to think I have acquired the needed control over it but I was mistaken. I again did the crime that I have been doing for several years. I am not getting any younger. My inner self is getting hard as wood. Changing my particular traits are going to be extremely difficult as I grow older. Today was a good reminder! Hope I learn these much needed skills!

Act of Making Love

I often wonder at varied facets of life and how different people react differently to it! Very few reactions made in context of fundamental things, are common in nature. Right from career, love, relationship, family, friends or even sex, we all have amazingly diverse notions. Let’s talk about the act of sex. That would be a slightly distasteful term so we will be focusing more on act of making love. Beautiful, isn’t it? How do we perceive the art of making love? For few, it’s just a let out medium! Let out for accumulated energy, let-out for pent up emotions, let-out for getting rid of unbearable fantasies or even a ritual that has to be performed in order to maintain tradition!

But as far as my understanding of this beautiful act goes, it is something that needs to be relished. It’s not a mechanical function that requires to be performed with precision or sophistication. Rather, this asks for combining together of all the five senses towards one single goal! In one particular religion, it has been said that when you reach the orgasm, in those few seconds you come in direct touch with supreme almighty. In those few seconds you don’t have any control over any of your senses. Perhaps, that is what termed as Ecstasy! Delirium!

But I have a doubt. How many of us are actually able to feel that supreme feeling? Or we are just too engrossed with perception of having to complete this beautiful act just the way one has to perform a task! I wouldn’t be surprised to know that few even go for this ritual just to finish a pending job and not as an act that needs to be relished and cherished! Yes, this is an entirely personal opinion but I felt like scribbling this!

First Whisper!

It has been a worthwhile journey. Life, in general has proved to be a sweet-sour mixture of numerous experinces. I often wonder, had i been given a chance to live my 27 years all over again, would i live it differently? How hard i try to say yes (because that would probably fit in the personality measurement tests), I would be dishonest to say so! Yes, few here and there phenomenon but rest of it has been truly blissfull! Given a choice, though i am certain i will never trade few things like relationships or mumble-jumble of emotions. From a fragile infant to a robust and tough individual it has remained a journey worth living again. They say, life is too short to write negative stuff about people i have come across but I would much rather differ! Lets not suger-coat even the bitter experiences! That would tantamount to being dishonest and to some extent, cowardice! The surge of our emotions manifests itself in varied statements made by us over a period of time!

Paulo Coelho in Brida says, blessed are those who manage to find one goal and pursue it relentlessly. Whereas what i have experienced is that i have almost always managed to find a goal only to see it changed next morning! So what happened? Did i wake up from the wrong side of the bed for days after days? May be but may be not! Perhaps, the only plausible explanation is that my dreams are not subject to suffocating discipline or shrinking regularity! The desires have got wings and to keep those beautiful wings confined to one’s idealism and world’s instruction would be nothing less than a crime! Thankfully, I did not commit the crime! I chose to retain my innocence!