Rant & Reason

Friends, today we gather to peer into the curious case of "Amele Huduga Sigala", otherwise meaning "afterwards you won't get boys to marry". We're going to put on our detective caps and delve into this strange Universe where boys are so scarce that parents simply cannot find a good enough man for their daughter to marry honourably. The statistical improbability is mind-blowing yet it remains a penetrated truth of life. Why no one has authored research and won awards on this phenomenon? Is the male:female ratio that bad?! We'll send a urgent better to the Prime Minister asking him to address this ASAP. It is unprecedented. Anyway, on with the investigation! Here lies the case. The Parents: They want their children to "settle down". The deal, at least according to them, is they had their "freedom" to do what they wanted to through school, college and life so far. Party time's over and now it's time for reality to kick in. T

#metoo, as it unfolds, has put spectators in a fix of how to respond. Some, of course, have it easy. Their minds are made up. They either know that women have just had enough or that feminism (and all related issues) are a load of bullcrap. That leaves the ones who weren't always prepared for the #metoo movement to face the spotlight. The dilemma of where to stand is a strange one. Hopefully, at the end of the article, you can figure what your stand should be. Let's break it down for simplest understanding. Long story short: somebody is abused/molested/harassed/violated and for reasons of their safety/hurt/pain/damage/possible backlash thereof, they don't speak up. What they experience remains with them for the rest of their lives and affects them in horrible ways till they speak out because they can't hold the shame/guilt/pain/burden in. Thus, they out the one who did it. It could be a predatory issue (habitual, recurring instances with different people) or a

Response to http://thelocalteaparty.com/post/163416/69795 Now all this marriage fuss and all. Don't misunderstand off and all. I don't have any problem with those who marry. Let those who marry marry and those who don't let them stay unmarried. This matter clarified, I have been wondering about those who have taken the big giant leap. Many I know who simply took it off make me want to stay away only. Now again don't jump to any sudden conclusions. This doesn't mean all of them. Some of them married because of boredom. Some of them because they became off old. But after all the fuss, I still scratch my head what the fuss is about. Everything is same only after marriage. Only thing they have responsibility. And that also I have. They only have more. Sometimes I feel like they fully understand it is useless to admit the mistake or they are. Either that or they are like dodos. Simply marrying because everyone must marry eventually. They all married then

This post comes from reading about Frank Abagnale Jr., the real life story of whom has been portrayed in the movie  Catch Me If You Can . He actually did all that Leornardo Di Caprio did in the movie, and more! In a recent  interview  with him, he was quoted saying: I am a true believer that one of the biggest problems for crime in America today is lack of ethics and character.  True, we do not teach ethics at home. We don’t teach it in school because the teacher would be accused of teaching morality. ...and I agree with that. Ethics is taught, not got. Morals, on the other hand, are got. The fine line between something being taught and got is consistency. Every society in the world that survives peacefully and respectably, most importantly to its own members,  thrives on balance and balance leads to consistency . We need balance and consistency. Yes, both. Consistency implies linearity in values and functioning. Balance implies growing from that linearity into newer ter

Continued from  So now, John had gotten used to being sad and gloomy. He said, "You stick with certain things that you know you won't find round just any corner." Alas, there he was walking down the road. Looking down at the road, he started kicking the odd loose stone from the tar that hit his floater sole. He was stunned. After all, he had jumped in with a pin tightening his nostrils when he wouldn't even do that while diving into a real pool of water. All he could do was kick those loose stones off the road. If he didn't find any, the sorrow just got deeper. His mind could not fathom why Sarah was so. Now really, concern about anything is shown in action, and isn't some weird mystical telepathy that two people enjoyed. It played out in communication, conversation, response and, most importantly, the true joy of knowing that two people celebrated. Apparently, this instance was an exception, but with the perks of not being one. How that privilege w

To rip down & recreate every time. That's something I've discovered the joy of, and have begun to understand, lately. I think, if applied to the individual(s) (collectively as well) and the world, it does a great deal of refreshment in an otherwise well-oiled machine we call our lives and well-run society. Over time, we fall into the trap of routine and system. We just do what we do because that's what we do. Lots of times we do that based on natural reason - the kind of reason that governs anything that adds up to efficiency by itself.  Necessity, by virtue of itself, is self-definitive. We don't always control it. We just do it because it because it simply is necessary. We are governed by it. If we weren't, we'd be irrelevant first to ourselves and then the world around us.When not governed by it (fancy rich kids types), we are living in our own little bubbles driven by worlds of our own imagination (mostly holding our everyday lives to ransom by things

You can't defeat what's written in stone Discount the sweat and tears in its blood and bones These things are built over years and years They aren't your dice to throw around Progressive much? I'm afraid not so. Hand close to heart Swear to never move away What we've got is what will stay It can morph into itself at best Progressive hardly, but no real change as such Did you forget to read the sign on the wall? I'm afraid your time's coming to stall The ante has been raised to a bar above your head You should at least learn to stay afloat, or you'll be dead Progressive indeed is the way to go There's a corner coming round the bend It's coming up slowly, be prepared You have to choose between duck and hide and climb upon, but you've gotta take it on Kill it, ride on it or hang on to its tail Like it or not, it will prevail Progressive Any? You're the first in line

Ideas engulf the world we live in, more than we know. Everything is at its core an idea that is not a pragmatic one. It does not have a populist base. It is a cause that, by itself, floats in a space that is not what you get to eventually see. It's far deeper and intense. The only way you can crack it is by staring at a wall incessantly till it comes. The only explanation for it can only be pure divine intervention, which does happen quite often. What separates something driven by a pragmatic idea from something driven by a non-pragmatic populist one is what makes it stick - depth, that is. Depth that you can achieve by staring at that wall till you're transported to such a parallel world, one that you never imagined to exist. It gives it that magnetic feel about it that gets people to wonder where the heck the idea came from (the uncreative lot) but yet attracts them to something they don't understand at all. Moments and ideas that creative folk like me live for. Someth

Continued from... But then, things had gotten better. John had gone from indulging himself with stones to share his fate with to sharing some of it with Sarah. But even that was not to last. Poor ol' John was the the victim of a change in convenience or so it seemed. It was difficult to tell. Sarah had gone back to square 1. John was again undone by the gross result of the fallback. In the process to re-establish themselves, he realised a very true truth that he ignored all along. While this was one of the many times lines were crossed, this line has never been crossed before. Never ever. All the other lines were alright - but this, no. This was like an insult. If not to to Sarah, then surely to John. An insult to John that even if he wanted to make good, like times before, he just didn't have the resolve to because it was like soiling his soul. No man should soil his soul with the colour of inconvenience. No man ever. Sadly enough, the story cannot go further be

I'll start with  this . Read that first. What kicked me about it is this bit - "We’re tal­king away, when sud­denly I inte­rrup­ted her quite suddenly. “Hmmmm…” I say,  “You’re kinda cool… I’m kinda cool…” A slight pause. “We should kiss!”  I exc­laim, rather jokingly. Cindi looks at me for a moment, says nothing, then sud­denly leans over and plants a big one on the ol’ lips. Hurrah!" Now I think you have sufficient reason to read it. Secondly, I was watching Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and will soon continue onwards from where Harry and Ron are stuck with finding someone to go with to the Yule Ball. After being clueless about what to do, just when they sorta get their act together, the turn of events is unexpected. Harry runs in to Cho (who's been eyeing him a while) for the second time and she turns hims down because she was going with someone else, before extremely apologetic about it. This is after Harry and Ron take pains at figuring

Part of the series: The perils (and lessons) from living in a competitive home environment My coming out One for mid-life crisised The confessions of an introvert I've faced a strange dilemma of late - one that has sort of self-blown up in my face. The Dilemma Side 1: I've quit work to continue studying and, in the process, decided to come back home (I was staying in another city when I decided to do so). The Dilemma Side 2: My home for the past 4 years or so of my life has been quite intriguing. Here's why. One of the biggest things that made life for me during those years (especially since I was much of a home body) was this incessant drive of people at home to "manage the house". Over the years, when I could afford the energy, I did spend time on trying to decipher what that meant. More than four years hence, I'm even more clueless than when I started. So there. I didn't ever remember emphasis on the word or the idea the word represents when h

Part of the series (in no particular order): My coming out One for mid-life crisised The dilemma of managing a house The confessions of an introvert I'd like to make a few observations that I've had the privilege (or misfortune) of experiencing the past few years living in what I can positively, and objectively, say is a competitive home environment. What I mean by such a thing is this: Within the home, there is only a certain amount of potential from which the environment in it provides for happiness, peace of mind, space (mental and physical) and all other factors that contribute to a happy living environment. It's limited and can only provide so much, and no more. The more you crowd it, the less it will offer for your happiness, peace of mind and mental and physical space and such. Just to note the Environment Factor: We cannot live separate from our environment. Our environment is almost us, save our response to it. It half-defines our existence and ensures that w

Honest confession: I'm a green-lover and a poacher/hunter hater. What does that have to do with anything? Everything, given how these things have come to a common point these days. If many critics have their way, the clearer answer to that is slacktivism, or arm chair activism. A bunch of people who don't share these views and some who don't care for energy being spent on them who think we should spend our time "actually doing 'something' about them". There's so much irony and ignorance in that statement that if it was packed in a grenade and placed at the centre of the earth, the planet would explode with pieces going to the far expanses of a galaxy beyond, and we'd learn so much more than just poking from light years away at them with telescopes, satellites and what not. Hopefully this post will explain why. News recently has been inundated with outrage over Cecil the lion. Prior to this, for a considerable amount of time, I was subjected to

We are gathered here to pay tribute to this sad tale of John & Sarah. Seasons come and go, but this stubborn tale refuses to evolve. Winds can blow, to and fro, but this tale just shall not prevail (or so Sarah says). Life is people, and people are stubborn. When we don’t have a choice, we blame life and get on with it. Eventually, people or at least somebody, bears the brunt of it. Who gets that privilege is your best guess. So here is a final goodbye note to Sarah from John. Dear Sarah,  It was fun. Thanks, but you have decided that I’ll never do right by you. The only way I will, ever, is to be left hanging... waiting... till you go back into oblivion again. So, I’ll sing you some from a Dylan song and “leave” (as you often suggest I should do even if I don’t do or say something annoying): Still I wish there was somethin’ you would do or say To try and make me change my mind and stay We never did too much talkin’ anyway So don’t think twice, it’s all right It ain’t

Part of the series (in no particular order): The perils (and lessons) from living in a competitive home environment One for mid-life crisised The dilemma of managing a house The confessions of an introvert Note: This blogpost speaks to two particular categories of people: 1) Me and people like me with respect to my confession (to any degree) 2) Everybody else who seeks to destroy the peace in my head, when they do*  Confession: I'm an introvert - one who has learnt to enjoy the wonders of my particular inclination (and my particular neurocognitive traits), blessing or curse. It's amazing that I have the privilege and you* should envy and try and seek a peek in too, I think. I promise an extremely fun ride. You'll be intrigued to the depths of your soul. The warning's that it might just disturb your balance of existence, so much so that you can be as scared as you act cool about shoving it aside as acceptable differences, or just plain rubbish. The rest of the co

Two children were walking down the road. One had a lollipop in hand. The other wanted it. It was made clear that it was his lollipop and, therefore, could only be his (because it was his). But the other insisted that he too has the right to it and he sat there and protested because it couldn't be his as well. He wanted his right to be #equal and exercise it.  That how simplistic I'd make this whole #equality thing. There are a myriad of issues it represents and hardly solves but it had been made the face of all of them. For the record, I am not for it for many reasons. #1 Sanctity This particular kind of #Equality hippyises society. Sanctity is not relative. Sanctity is not a term you use to validate anything you want. If it is, then everything is sacred, and, at the same time, nothing is. It is a term that protects things unending. So then, what's sacred about marriage? Any marriage for that matter. We need to get that straight first. The promise is - 'till deat

Society is an animal and breeds as it does, and ruthless it is as well. It's difficult when you are society to act unsociety like and here starts the tragedy. As a bunch of human beings capable of much intelligence, when we live together, we self-establish an order - one that can be representative of any single or sum of our characteristics. Hate greed, love, care, respect, value, control, freedom... the list goes on. Strangely, we have less control than we think over them. We start reacting to our world faster than we gain control over our reactions. It's a sort of a self-protecting mechanism that doesn't really add up to anything worthwhile almost all of the time. More than just a bunch of people, we're individuals first - sort of the basic unit of that bunch. Being the pieces of that bunch, we'd have to start considering the pieces first, and after that, what the bunch ends up being made of. As individuals, we are all, in our early stages (and in most further

From the few years that I've worked with officially run, and non-officially run, organisations and groups (society, family and friends included), I'm pretty sure this fuss we make about efficient organisation is all rubbish. We all have a really messed up way of organising ourselves, I've noticed. Most of the organizational systems we go by are only default from the last ones followed. More than being organised, or overly organized, we refuse to admit that we actually have no clue how the heck we're supposed to, or how we should, organise ourselves if we are to do it as efficiently as we'd like to. We'd rather be frantically output-obsessed (succumbing to that fear) instead of being wholistic, far reaching and sustainable in how we organise ourselves.  We make the truth of the matter that there actually is no plan that we have self-elusive, and therefore something that doesn't interfere with our comfort in denying it. The only reason there's a/any/a p

Here, this story dies. It's natural end has come and is here to stay, unless it is sprung back to life mysteriously. John, alas, is but dismayed. He is amazed at the swish of reply that, only in this particular case, washed away all the positively reasonable social skills he had amassed over the years from the time he was born. More than just talking to a wall, it was like talking to a confused, disjointed thing. There was no other explanation. At least none was being offered. The prayer is that the obvious sane answer was right, and that so was the fervent hope, which John liked to believe, was being held onto. Only God knows what transpires between that belief and the reality of that situation indeed. What the world would be if we were left with no hope is a possibility which, not only John, but every other human being as well, would rather not engage with. The one thing that John took back from the situation was that every relationship, however fragile, robust or both, has a

Part of the series (in no particular order): The perils (and lessons) from living in a competitive home environment My coming out One for mid-life crisised The dilemma of managing a house I was scrolling through TED's Youtube channel and I found this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3yqXeLJ0Kg and I was slowly inspired a bit write the rest of this post. That guy is right, we way undervalue mental health- even the kinds that are rarely dangerous but which make our minds oppressed and a pain to deal with every day. The larger proportion of people who engage with their own minds less, because that how's their mental make up is (not something that's supposed to be in anyway condescending), don't and won't ever understand the plight of the rest. It's hardly expected that they will be inclined to at all. Such is the stuff of life for this minority of people. What effort we make from both ends is the next topic of discussion.      For about a year, upto sometime ago

*In the neighbourhood people watching me Got to move to protect my sanity Anonymity is all I want you see You may think it's mediocrity, but But this weight is just bringing me down It's never satisfied every time I go to town - Van Morrison, This Weight Which weight you say? The weight that you choose. There are two possible weights.  Everything must weigh something, if it has to be something, if it has to be anything actually. One possible weight is the weight down. The weight that only pulls down. The other is the weight that attributes free, soulful existence of anything. One can we compared to a permanent anchor. The other can be compared to a feather, which really has no real weight, but since everything must have some weight to be something, it has one. The thing with the two possible weights is that they are mutually exclusive. One can weigh like this, or one can weight like that.  You can't have anything weighing like both. This is the choice we have,