Tuesday, October 31, 2006 

A Rant and Subsequent Question

As predicted earlier Ms. Sanity twisted her left leg and kicked on my right bum. And Chilla wakes up with a Main-Kahan-Hoon kind of expression. As soon as the foggy mist of frenzies are torn apart by the 100 watt bulb I remember that I need to delete this post. But the comments left by well-wishers were really moving so I am updating the contents only and leave the comments intact.

It's wise to know your vulnerabilities but exposing them is unwise. That's what Ms. Sanity whispered into my ears before twisting them painfully to remind me what a naughty boy I had been lately.

10:17 PM | |

Monday, October 23, 2006 

Choices...

She was intently listening to the dripping sound as she held up one hand high to let the droplets pour into the steaming water inside the bathtub. It was like the sound of consciousness diving into sub-consciousness, a journey she desperately wanted to undergo in her present sleepy and tired mood. She was asking herself what she was really tired of. Her job-life, that gave her little satisfaction? Her relations, which constantly redefined themselves? Her aspirations and her dreams, that were fulfilled and yet to be achieved? Or her life as a whole....she wondered.

Why she needed to work, she thought. She wasn't the bread-earner of the house and maybe if she asked for it her husband would provide her with enough pocket money. May be that would have been his way for channeling out his guilt of not being able to spend time with her. Was he really as busy as he portrayed his job life to be? Or was it the romance with an old flame who now happened to be his colleague as well. She had tried to get used to the negligence but then with his futile attempts to cover it up reminded her more about their failing marriage. The husband when confronted had denied it vehemently, tried to make up for the time being. As time progressed, both of them started spinning the protective cocoons around them. They both knew that the cocoon was there and cannot be un-spun.

Looking back over the years, her relations had changed their natures and borderlines as well. A mother, who once was the most dreaded to share the secrets, became a friend whom you can open your heart to. As age engulfed her mother, the older of the two ladies became the demanding child, most of the time also the illogical one. Once again the warmth in the relationship was replaced with the responsibility, only this time the roles reversed.

Her father had been her first friend - memories of early childhood had been doted with daddy and his princess. Sadly when she needed him the most during the adolescent years, he withdrew from her. The growing up years saw a wall scaling up. The wall never crumbled till her father became the child again a few years before he died. The loneliness was filled up by a friend who went on to become the lover then the husband and then the stranger again. The loneliness persisted once again.

She had always known that she didn't posses the extra-ordinary talents that take you to richness and fame. She was a mediocre surrounded by other mediocre people, who had to excel each-other to fulfill the desires of none other than their parents. Her parents planned it well. They got her the right tutors who made her study hard to secure admission to the right institutes. Once the momentum is gained, it thrusts you only in the forward direction.

By the time you are burnt out, it's time for you pose for your convocation photo with the degree in hand. Before you blink the hungry corporations looking for fresh human raw materials to run their well-oiled corporate mechanics pull you in. The moment you feel proud of yourself is the same moment you realize this was not what you hoped for. This contradictory feelings takes you across the crests and troughs of your job-life all the way. She had felt even more tired when she tried to draw pride from her achievements.

Overall her life was no different from the girl next door she thought. She was as lonely as was anyone else. Yet the society had always in its own ways pulled her inside the crowd to make her feel that she was not alone. The illusion of achievements was beginning to fade away. She knew she needed to her job not to achieve but for her own satisfaction only. Her mother still hanged to her as she had clinged to her momma when she was not equipped to handle things on her own. The very act her husband tried to cover his aloofness was the proof that he had been able to come to terms with his negligence. Did that mean somewhere deep down her husband was still in love with her? Her meaningless existance, her simplest life was beginning to make a little sense, much like the drops that fell from her body onto the water.

As the sleepy coldness was pulling its covers, she felt she never was in love with life more than what she was now. Her hand was no longer held up, but was sinking below the depth of the calm waters. The blood gently flowing from the split veins of her hand was mingling with the water, painting the white porcelian bathtub pink. She never had longed so much to be alive than what she felt at that very moment, just a few seconds before she submerged into the empty darkness.

7:37 PM | |

Friday, October 13, 2006 

And God Created Woman

Fine print : Much of this story is inspired by M's recent efforts of weighing the two sexes on the opposite pans of the scale. The other inspiration came from a nearly jobless Friday when I finally found out that idle brain is indeed a devil's workshop. So don't blame me if you find the fiction is no good, but do blame it on the devil instead.

The creators were having the debate on behavioral patterns again. It first started when they took up the biggest project of creating intelligence in their own image and the first prototype was built.

When the physical endurance tests were on, the bio-mechanical design team patted each-other on the back. When the neuron-related response tests were on, the programmers of the intelligence unit celebrated. The creators were happy to see such a near perfect creation . Then someone suddenly asked don't we need to test or lay down the rules how these advanced intelligence units will socially interact with each-other. That's where the two schools of thoughts diverged.

One of them came up with a model where the intelligence units interacted with each-other in manners that that required all of them to react on basis of logic. They never required to feel sensitivities to the same degree the way their creators do. Sensitivity became secondary in this model though the proponent said in order to be self learning we will impart little bit of sensitivities amongst the creation units.

The other group said knowledge levels that leads to reasoning capabilities forms the basis of logic. Since knowledge levels tend to change with time, what seems logical might prove to be illogical later on. So we need to impart them the sensibilities that will work in unison with basic logic. But the other group was dead against and drew case studies to prove that sensibilities do cloud the faculty of logic. Counter case studies were drawn to show that in time of logic crisis, sensitivity is the virtue on which the correct choices are made.

Finally when the two trends decided to walk the parallel paths, they said each one will come up their own prototypes and then have time related studies of which of these methods are better. One group of creators created their prototype where logic had the priority over sensitivity, the other group of creators chose otherwise. Since they did not want each group to bring the other to an end, to make a truce the reproductive action was chosen by design to be an union between the two varieties of the same species.

They finally located another planet where these life forms would be bred and observed. As the data for each generations of the creations were gathered, the creators failed to come to conclusion which model had been better. “May be the distinguishing features would be sharply pronounced in the next generation, and then it will prove my model is better than yours“, one group would tell the other. The other one would simply smile and say “Even that is what I'm waiting for !”

Around the time fifty-sixth generation data was gathered, the creators realized the sad truth. Their own evolutionary physique combined with their total dependence on advanced tools for survival can no longer cope with longer life cycles. Slowly as they were perishing they decided to infuse all their thought capabilities into a single unit and that lifeless thought will look over their creation. Even the debating school of thought agreed for the first time since they took over the creation project ages ago. Thus was born the One God, infused thoughts of several creators combined into a single lifeless, formless abstract entity.

Still today, the lifeless formless thought or The God as the created species called it, keeps interacting with the creation by sending neuron signals.The God keeps on watching which is the better of the two varieties of their created species - The Man or The Woman ?

And every time The God concludes "I need to wait for the next generation data".

5:11 PM | |

Thursday, October 05, 2006 

Deceptive Mirrors

They had parted ways years ago. She thought that she was getting older and wanted to settle down as soon as possible. He, still feeling young at heart, was not ready to take up the responsibilities. Knowing that when it came to giving up their priorities no compromise would ever work out, they parted as friends. However he had felt a bit of pain or was it more of jealousy when she announced her marriage just about three months after they broke up. Being the social animal that he was, he had picked up a congratulatory card, posted it.

Was he happier or not was never the question he asked himself. Instead he'd try to be contended with the short-term affairs that he engaged himself. He always thought himself as a boat without a sailor drifting from this island to another but nowhere would he lay down his anchor. Sometimes when he'd bored at meetings and tried to entertain himself by scribbling portraits. The women he drew always ended up having her shadows in some part of their facial anatomy or the others. And he gave up drawing women.

He would again go on drifting from another woman to yet another. But every time he’d be defeated when he thought about how she’d pulled his legs when he cracked his lame joke and this girl he was going out had simply laughed. Then he’d again remember how she’d be shouting at him whenever he missed the obvious exits on the highways. All that his ever-patient present girl-friend said in a similar situation was “It’s alright darling…I don’t mind getting late at the theatre. We’ll miss only the trailers”. And he fritted onto another girl.

He was getting tired of drifting and even thought of calling her back. Maybe this time he’d not let her go. But will she come back…did she miss him the same way he did? Maybe that all that aspects of her that he had kept on looking among other girls are lost in these years of her married life. If that be the case then he would certainly let himself free from the memories that had imprisoned him for so long. He desparately needed to find out whether she's still the same.

He pulled out all the old correspondences to dig for her contact details. As he was scanning through the mementos, faded letters, photographs that were loosing colors, he remembered the exact moments, the exact feelings of the past. With these vivid memories he had created his own prison where he had taken exile to all these years. Then only he realized that what he had missed was not her, but the reflection of him in her eyes.

Only she had been the truest connoisseur of that reflection. Being in love with that reflection he had missed her, but truly he didn’t miss her. He never felt happier when he started a bon-fire and shoved in the memorabilia. As the photos were crumpling in the wrapping flames, he felt a desire to pull out the remaining un-burnt stuffs but then decided against it. He had to bid adieu to his beloved reflection and learn to love the truer himself.

"Or would even that love be another reflection in another pair of beloved eyes?", he pondered as he gazed across the flames.

7:58 PM | |