Conscientia

It begins in the morning,
and never leaves you alone.

The lips, they try to hide,
before the eyes give it away.
But they try anyway.
(Just between you and me- I know.)

The smile, contrived, is a stretch.
Here and there, everywhere,
a rehearsal.
All the world's a stage.
You think- is this what he meant?
(Between you and me, I know.)

The faces, calculative.
Words- measured, misunderstood.
Pride, envy, lust-
four sins too less.
Needless.
(Between you and me, I know.)

The concern, feigned.
Unnecessary, no?
No.
For we be civilized.
See, we lied.
(Just between you and me, I know.)

The presumptuous shenanigans.
Stories, the lot of them.
Then pretending they believe.
He, hers.
She, his.
(Between you and me, I know.)

The little tricks they play,
learning from one another, growing up,
thinking it's magic.
What is amusing isn't the fact
that they think it is being clever.
It is that they think it works.

But we don't talk about this-
the elephant in the room-
with them.
For that is how we fit in, isn't it?
(Just between you and me- I know.)

Why curse the elephant though,
when it is really about us?

And so once I chose,
to not dance and closed my eyes instead,
to pay attention to the music.
But there wasn't any!

Asleep or awake,
between you and me,
I was alone.

Us and Them

In one of several of our free days in B-school life, a couple of stoned heads ended up talking about the overwhelming sentiment of nationalism that had immersed the entire country ever since the BJP government had risen to power in the most spectacular fashion amidst nationwide fanfare and skepticism alike. We probably got a little too carried away with the train of thought as we ended up making an amateur podcast that day. The not-so-subtle subject of this mostly embarrassing attempt was 'would you die for your country'?

Couple of months down the line I found myself discussing a similar subject with another friend. It started when I received the following WhattsApp forwards in response to an article I'd shared about Chinese aggression along border areas-

Underlying cynicism aside, the friend felt strongly about a border-less world, a universal family so to speak. As compelling as it may sound, I reckoned it was little more than utopia, which I tried to justify in the string of messages that followed. The underlying question- to put it a lot more subtly- was 'would it be possible for humankind to thrive in a border-less world'? Is it possible for us to shatter the smoke screens that the so called evil governments across the world have pulled over our eyes, dissolve borders that keep men from men, forget our irrational fears and hatred, and unite mankind once and for all?

As tall a task as it seems, at an individual level I suppose it would be fairly easy for most of us to raise our hands and sign up for such a virtuous ideological revolution. That is exactly why this question deserves a more sophisticated analysis. Taking some time out of a lazy Sunday morning and after incorporating requisite edits and explanations, I have tried to put together the same, merging the string of messages I'd shared with the friend while preserving the core idea and the overall chain of thought:

Man is an animal, think we can all agree and build upon this truth.

And a social animal at that. We can't live/survive on our own by being a loner; nature is simply too unforgiving. In fact the single greatest characteristic that puts our species at the apex of the pyramid of species (most being far more powerful than a human being) that inhabit the earth is our ability to cooperate and form long term social groups. Hence, the notion of living in communities, some sense of which is also prevalent in almost all animal species across land, water and air.

How does such a pack or tribe come to be in the first place?

The primary requirement is resemblance- commonality and shared features. This is the reason you would find (say) monkeys only hanging out with monkeys, never even with chimps, orangutans or other apes, even though the underlying genetic material giving rise to those features is so same (over 99%). It is for the simple reason that two monkeys look like one another, a chimp and a monkey do not. Birds of a feather flock together.

This is how small groups first formed. Then they expanded and very soon the first tribes came into existence based on more such shared features- tangible, observable traits and not any underlying latent ones.

But then humans somehow ended up being far higher up the evolutionary ladder. Sometime down the line we evolved the ability to string several complicated thoughts together and communicate them far more effectively and efficiently to one another than any other species on the planet. This is when an unprecedented cognitive revolution took place- groups of hunter gatherers could now come together to form bigger communities. These communities rested on shared physiological features but prospered upon shared ideas, stories, myths and belief systems. While trying to make sense out of the vast and complex world, we developed inter-subjective realities- 'truths' which couldn't (and needn't) be objectively verified, which wouldn't even mean anything at an individual level, but when practiced and repeated across vast groups, became the very fabric that helped stitch those groups into communities. That is essentially how the first civilized societies came to be.

Gradually, the features became more defined, more refined. With natural forces and migration, races soon came into existence. Entire civilizations formed and with that, these same features started getting even more refined.

Soon we came up with constructs like money (another more sophisticated inter-subjective reality), which further complicated things. This broke civilizations into socio-economic stratas- castes, religion and what not. We got 'divided' simply because those underlying features kept becoming ever more refined, shaped by nature and partly by our own endeavors to build complicated hierarchical but sustainable social structures.

However, the primal instinct of belonging-ness (which unsurprisingly also finds its place in Maslow's hierarchy of needs) based on commonalities and shared ideas prevailed. It is simply because we needed them in order to survive against those we now began to consider 'outsiders'.

Economics 101- time went by, population boomed and scarcity soon came into the picture as we came to realize that there isn't enough for everyone all the time, can never be anymore. Then started the scramble for power/resources which continues till date in different ways almost everywhere.

The core point is the fact that the underlying instinct of belonging-ness is primal and will always be there. We need to share and we only share with those who we think are 'like us'

What this implies is that the lines which my friends had so started to abhor, would invariably have been drawn. The only difference is HOW you choose to draw them - race, caste, religion, economic status or even a simple line on the map. It isn't ideal. It isn't perfect​. It is simply primal and hence necessary.

That is where the roots of modern nationalism (which began with the advent of nation states and French Revolution) lie. Basically meaning 'love your kind’, those who (you think) are 'like you'. That doesn't mean you hate everyone else. It just means when the chips are down, you'd instinctively know who's on your side and who's not.

That is why we are all doomed to talk about preserving peace while continuously preparing for war. That is why men who have nothing really to do with a piece of land are holding guns to save it from other men who have nothing really to do with that piece of land, while those who actually have homes built on those lands silently suffer. That is why some men will live their entire lives trying to engineer hate between people who will never even meet each other, ever. That is why, sadly, our defense budgets will continue to outstrip government expenditure on food, housing, healthcare and education combined. It is because we are all too human to ever escape that eventuality.

I cannot know about you but the friend still disagrees with (and hates) this line of reasoning.

Either way, we have an India-Pak cricket encounter at our hands today. And I ain't gonna waste any more time trying to convince you folks. Can't wait to see those Kashmir-hungry, militant-spawning, China-friendly, terrorist-aiding, jealous mullahs lose to the men in blue.

Oh wait a minute...

That's life.

One fine afternoon in my seventh semester of college, I was in one of my professor’s cabin. He was a knowledgeable man, admirably articulate, delightfully sarcastic and among the very few in that place who always knew exactly what he was talking about, perhaps even more- a thorough professional. I had always looked up to him as a straightforward man of reason who wasn’t to be messed with, in any form or measure. That was also the popular opinion. Back then, I was a rudderless ship, rejected by the very first (and in all likelihood then- the only) company that had come to recruit on campus, one of India’s leading auto makers- a "dream company" for everyone. Dejected and seeking an escape, I had pinned all my hopes on the CAT which was due in a fortnight. Incidentally, I was also coordinating a team of 43 people to organize the college literary fest, and simultaneously composing 2 songs with my college band, in the coming weekend. I was drowned in work and despair.

I had gone to meet him that fine day with one humble request- to postpone the internal exam for his subject by one day. In that place and time, it was (IMHO) a reasonable request, more the norm than an exception and many a student had often used various means to accomplish the same with other subjects and professors. But not this person. Nevertheless, I presented my case before this gentleman for what seemed like a minute or two, laying out my apprehensions as well as nearly all the insecurities of my ravaged mind as best as I could.

Seated on the other side of an immaculately arranged table, the professor listened intently, laid back calmly on his executive chair, elbows rested on its arms, fingertips of the left hand gently meeting those of the right exactly in front of his chest- motionless- a mildly intimidating reptilian gaze analyzing all my verbal and non-verbal cues. Then, straightening his back, slowly drawing his elbows to the table while maintaining the overall posture, retaining the eye contact and with an expression on his face that would have made even the best poker player in the world fold; he said those two magical words you see on the title today. I do not remember what he said thereafter; as he went on to shoot the request on its head, respectfully apathetic to nearly everything I had talked about until then.  

Miserably short of preparation in what was arguably the most nagging subject for everyone in the entire graduation curriculum, I went on to give the exam precisely on the pre-decided date and time, later clearing the subject with 55 marks- barely 5 more than the minimum required and my lowest ever anywhere.

That’s life.

Most of what we millenials consider quarter-life-crises (or just 20s things) arise out of messed-up priorities stemming from a warped sense of life and reality, especially our personal notions of right and wrong. We are genetically programmed to seek patterns in random events and behaviors. From our (embarrassingly limited) individual learnings and life experiences, we continuously seek to encode the enormously complicated and multi-faceted human nature into a set of laws and rules- what we then so self-righteously like to label as our ‘life principles’. Then, carrying our respective sense and interpretations of ideals and morality, we blissfully go about this world believing that every person we come across will also be willing to play by the same set of rules and principles all the time (Wow!). Then, when things go south (and they invariably always do), we sulk and go about resenting anything that will make us feel good about ourselves once again (lies), conveniently editing our own rules all the time (much Wow!). The vicious cycle repeats itself.

In reality, however, good and bad are unnecessary over-simplifications that life does not have any regard for. They are human constructs, laughable attempts of a clueless race of apes with a huge sense of self entitlement, who think they are smart enough to make sense of the sheer randomness that surrounds us all the time. Conservative upbringing and social conditioning do more than enough in this regard to give an illusion of the existence of some sense of cosmic justice- Karma so to say- that pervades God’s beautiful world that we live in. We are deluded into believing that good begets good, that IT is all about us, and that this incomprehensibly vast universe owes us this much.

Thriving warmly in our own cosy bubbles, it takes us forever to make truce with the simple reality that principles don’t matter, only actions do. That the notion of Karma is at best a personal consolation, a cold uncomfortable hug available to everyone in times of great grief and suffering. That right, wrong, truth, morality, friendship, duty, success, justice, love, happiness, responsibility etc are all personal constructs that carry no inherent meaning- constructs that mankind developed and fostered in order to establish and nurture civilized societies (look where that got us!). They only mean what we want them to mean, what we wish them to mean. That may obviously be something for one individual and something else entirely to another, possibly even totally contradictory. As a matter of fact, most of what transpires around us all the time has no inherent meaning or purpose in itself. It is just a result of the actions and momentary endeavors of a vast bunch of intelligent apes doing what they think is necessary, what needs to be done at that point in time. It is we who choose to ascribe any meaning to such primal acts of unconditional needs, wants or desires.

"The world only makes sense if we force it to". Looking around these days, it seems whatever little sense of conscience that some of us possess is an evolutionary weakness which natural selection will soon get rid off. In today's times, when internet memes on social networks have become the latest source of our life principles (let alone billboards and paperback) and the guiding light of our lives, there remains only one way we can live- without any rules. Believing nothing. Expecting nothing. Doing whatever is necessary and whatever needs to be done- primal and pure, as it has always really been, as it was always supposed to be.

In the times that followed, the more I reflected back on that eventful day, the more I found the gentlemanly professor’s actions and decision justified. In fact, he was far more courteous and reasonable than life itself is. It is incomprehensible, unpredictable and unforgiving. To everyone. And we would be miserably naive to believe otherwise. Those who disagree simply need to give it more time to discover this themselves. It isn’t necessarily a ‘good’ or a ‘bad’ thing, just what it is.

There is no truth but what we claim. No fate but what we make. Everybody lies. Everybody dies.

And that is the lie I choose to tell myself.

What’s yours?

Vagabonds of Punterland - IV

Vagabonds of Punterland - II

The Help 

‘Please, let me get this for you…’ Ayan requested. Sam and TJ joined.

He was headed to a woman across the street who, with a baby on her shoulders and what seemed like a week’s grocery on the other, seemed like someone wrestling with an octopus on a conveyor belt.

‘Thank you beta’, the lady smiled handing over all the stuff, careful not to wake up the infant. She watchfully made her way across the road to a Honda City and managed to open up the trunk.

‘I hope it’s not much trouble’, she seemed very modest.

‘I’d told you not to carry it all at once’, a coarse husky voice startled the three of them. They could not notice a man fast approaching the vehicle while they were busy adjusting the items in the dickey.

In the absence of street lights, all they could make out was a bulky six-foot frame wielding loads that could easily substitute weights in a gym. They realized he was the man whose ego they’d just bruised by helping his woman.

‘No uncle it’s fine’, TJ replied smiling, casually grabbing and pulling Sam and Ayan by their shoulders, ‘Good night aunty!’

‘It’s late beta. Come we’ll drop you’, she said getting into the car, glancing at her husband. The way he occupied the driving seat made it clear that it was not a request. They exchanged looks of 3 fellowmen attempting a base jump from Petronas Towers. They were already past 9 and too loaded to walk anyway. A little help wouldn’t harm. Ayan and Sam took the rear seats. TJ complied reluctantly.

‘Household shopping is an exploration here. You got to travel all the way across the place to get to this mart. And until last month, it wasn’t even an option’, the woman complained. They realized this store had just been opened, right by the university exit.

'Which hostel beta?’ the woman asked cuddling the infant who’d perhaps woken up.

The question made the three skip a beat. She knows! Although undergraduate student population was a clear majority in the place, one could not neglect the local residents which formed an influential subset of the place’s demography. This time the looks were of three inmates attempting a Prison Break. TJ held back Ayan who was about to answer.

‘Silver Jubilee aunty’ he said nodding at his friends.

‘SJ?’ Sam complained in a whisper.

‘You really want to be dropped at a senior hostel at this time of the night? Stop fooling around.’ Ayan wasn’t as quiet with his revolts.

TJ winked. ‘Just play along'.

‘3^rd year? All three?’ the man seemed older in the dim lighting of the car and oddly intrigued. There was no practical concept of entry time for seniors, although in theory it was 10. TJ, knowing the fact, had played the odds.

'Which branch?’ he inquired, eyeing the three in the rear-view mirror, lowering the gear to slow the vehicle considerably.

‘Eh… my name is Alok, Production Engineering. This is Karan…’ he said patting Sam on the back ‘…Information Technology. And he is Rahul…’ he said pointing at Ayan ‘…Civil Engineering’.

The lies were bang on. No one really knew students of the first 2 branches cause they barely had classes and no one worried about students of the third- the most feared department of the college- cause they could rarely ever skip any. To an absolute stranger in a car at night they should have been nothing but random variables and absolute gibberish.

'Oh! Civil? That’s nice. Then he would know Sir, right? Which course do you take, you say?’ the woman seemed pleased.

‘SIR?!’ the statement soaked the air off their lungs.

‘Yes, he should. Don’t you Rahul?’ the man replied, childish mischief reeking of his voice, or so it seemed. The question sent shivers down the spine of Ayan. Sam could feel the vehicle closing in around him. TJ could barely think, let alone lay an anti-thesis as a deathly silence descended upon the car.

The old man had called their bluff and won.

‘Sushil Kumar, Associate Professor’, he replied with an air of condescension, pushing the gas and revving up the engine now, as the Honda City creased into the dark night.

Vagabonds of Punterland - III

Basic Instinct

The cold drink bottle on his lips was tipped beyond vertical as TJ soaked the last few drops of Dew from the edges. How people like him could sustain the unbearable fizz while gulping the full volume in one go, had always been a source of utter amazement for Ayan. Sam sat scanning the menu card as if it was written in code. He had taken it on to himself for arranging the most cost-effective-cum-surfeiting one course dinner for the 3 tonight. 

Earlier, with an extremely vocal TJ, the 2 mile walk to the place had turned out to be shorter than expected and checking out of the main gate had hardly been a challenge- Walk like you own the place. 

The guard at the hostel entrance was paid to care while those at the university exit didn’t care to pay attention.

Meanwhile, the luscious aroma of spices and the sight of people gorging all around them, served only to aggravate the hunger. Located just by the highway that would get ironed with loaded trucks ferrying goods across major industrial centers established nearby, there was a titillating feeling about the place that night. The rhythmic hustle of the night train speeding across the railway tracks, at a stone’s throw from the place, would superimpose with the surrounding noises at times, damping the irritating shrieks of an over-used speaker blaring nearby. It was amazing how yester years’ chartbusters sounded like lamentations today.

‘I think one half Mix Veg should suffice. All paneers cost the same. But we don’t know which is better- kadhai, matar or shahi. Daal makhni is another alternative. So is aloo jeera. The problem gentlemen- as always- is choice…’ Sam declared.

For TJ, it never was. To him, within or without an examination room, ‘both A and B’ had always seemed the most appropriate option, especially when it came to matters of the tongue- no compromises. Ayan and Sam discovered nothing could shut TJ up as well as good food, not even good girls. The 3 of them fed on until the dishes were wiped clean.

The gentle breeze after a hearty meal made music for the ears before Ayan decided to make a point.

‘I still don’t see why we should risk a CP for just a little better food’. The reasons for getting a Conduct Prohibition were crystal clear to him. And for a first year, being out of the campus after 8 in his first month at college was somewhere around the top.

‘A little better? The second Batman movie was a little better than the first. Dude, this is massive improvement…’ TJ’s love for the movie and obsession with food had almost nipped the argument in the bud but for the lack of wheels, it was getting late.

‘Cycles will save time. We should have tried a little more’, Sam complained, nodding to Ayan.

‘Well and you should have listened to me when I insisted on not writing our names on the stupid register while checking out, at least not real names.’

It was 8:44 when they reached the university gate and with the quantity of food in their alimentary canal, the 2 km walk back was becoming exceedingly impossible.

The next frame of image that was processed by TJ’s mind was Ayan rushing forward. It was a little instinctive decision that was going to substantially alter the course of the night for the 3 of them.

They should’ve known the founding tenet of ‘Chaos Theory’- how small changes in initial conditions can lead to vast differences in final outcomes. They should have known that the difference between adventure and accident is measured only by luck.

Vagabonds of Punterland - IV

Vagabonds of Punterland - II

These are 3 parts of what was supposed to be a five-part series, and one of our initial efforts. We'd written this some time in late 2012, a time when we used to be both 'unkempt' and 'sophomores' (now we're just unkempt). For precisely those reasons (and more), they always remained just drafts, often yearning for attention and closure. I now reckon they belong more here than in a folder on my laptop, for whatever they may be worth. We have abstained from making any changes to the original draft.

3 is greater than 2 

There are people who choose to take things the conventional way and play by the rules of life. Then there are those who like living dangerously and make their own. For the short time they’d known each other, Sam believed Ayan was a ‘Type 1’ guy, like him. They both knew TJ was the rare ‘Type II’, the ones who never learn from mistakes, until they make their own and blow them up into disasters...

‘Playing loud music and use of stereo is strictly prohibited in the premises...’

‘Inmates are not allowed to bring laptops, heaters, blowers or any other electrical appliances inside the hostel...’

He read the last of the ‘general instructions’ in the typical, hysterically croaky voice of the warden, known more for his unpredictable mood swings than his unconditional fury. The 2 guys on either side suspended their hearty laughter as TJ ripped down the sheet of paper from the notice board. Having been with him for almost a week now, Ayan and Sam had become quite used to the unconventional ways of their new-found friend and roommate.

While these sudden bursts of hyper-activity stemming from his archetypal Bohemian attitude- instantly made this prodigal son the principle focus of attention, it also made TJ the odd one out of the 3. With a perennially serious Ayan, a particularly sincere Sam and a perpetually sinister TJ, it had been a rare but pleasant amalgamation of the Conservative, the Liberal and the Radical under one roof in Room 7 of Tagore Bhawan.

‘Eat, pray and rest. Your ass belongs to me...’ TJ completed the mimicry. “Welcome to the Fox River State Penitentiary” he buzzed.

“What you just razed down was meant for 300 people” Sam pitched in, gesturing to the guard at the gate who was overlooking.

“Common courtesies man...” Ayan bitched as often, shrugging his shoulders. His ‘absolutely sober’ upbringing could not reconcile with the apparently rash ways of this instinctive guy. Sam on the other hand had grown quite fascinated by his spontaneity and outspokenness.

“It’s been 7 days”, he started, strolling along the veranda of the first of the 7 wings that housed their room. “And I already feel like running away”. Ayan and Sam tagged along. They stopped when TJ reached the day’s copy of TOI at the newspaper stand.

It was that time of the year when local and national dailies get swamped with statistics of students topping merit lists and coaching institutes flaunting their best kept nerds- the AIRs.

Looking at the passport size photographs of the supposedly smartest youngsters, Ayan felt a part of him perish. Not a day went by when Sam didn’t repent his ill-decisions made on that fateful second Sunday of April. TJ, meanwhile, had tuned himself to a different wavelength altogether.

“The lectures are farce, food barely edible, campus life non-existent after 7 pm. Curses be on our movies that promise colleges full of ravishing beauties and cafes packed with dancing youngsters”, he complained.

“The curriculum is a mess, labs complete hokum and hostel a pathetic junk-yard”, Ayan rhymed.

“Never thought I’ll smile at people who screw our lives”, lamented Sam.

“These are supposed to be the best years of our lives. I can’t spend them scribbling notes and finishing assignments.” Sam could sense TJ was up to something.

“Enough of this sitting-in like spinsters. We need to shake the shell pals. It’s time we hit the streets!”

Ayan and Sam stood transfixed but clueless.

“Lohni. Tonight.” TJ talked more like himself. Everybody in their freshman year had heard of this place but no one had explored it yet.

“I’m in. They’re throwing grease anyway for dinner”, Sam’s aversion to spinach was well known.

“Well they’ve also reduced the hostel entry time to 8:30. And you know how serious that beast is about miscreants. Count me out.” Ayan was reluctant.

“Come on mate! What happened to the ‘3 more than 2’ rule?”

TJ knew Ayan would always be the one to back down. So, he’d formulated what he called ‘the 3 is greater than 2’ rule for Room 7. It was about how outings were always about 3 guys on a riot and never about 2 getting bored. Persuasive as he was, he had forced the 3 into this strange covenant.

“We swim and sink together, remember?” TJ winked.

As it happened, convincing Ayan turned out to be easier than arranging 3 cycles for the 4 km back and forth journey. So, pretty soon, the 3 of them were out in the dark, headed to the dhaba, 2 kms outside campus- slapping the rules in the face was always fun!

Ayan didn’t have a healthy gut feeling about this. Perhaps he should’ve insisted a little more. After all, circumstantial decision making is like a house of cards, there’s only so much margin for error…

Vagabonds of Punterland - III

Vagabonds of Punterland - I