Humans

I am too shocked and appalled by the events this world has seen for the past week or two to talk about myself.

If the Egyptian uprising and eventual overturning of the dictator-esque government was a victory for the so-called human spirit, the neighbouring Libyan leader Gaddafi/Quaddaffi (someone do something about this spelling madness! argh) going voodoo on his own people is stuff straight out of hollywood movies.

 * I don't claim to know much about politics, mainly because I don't. It's a realistic warning rather than modesty. Please do correct me if I'm being wrong anywhere, factually or logically, I'd be glad to learn*

When does it become ok for someone who's been tolerated by a society for a good part of a century to go ballistic and issue statements like "you'll be shown no mercy"? Paint me psychotic, but when I read a bit of Gaddafi's speech to the UN last year, I was pleased. I felt that Gaddafi was playing out the typical David vs Goliath sequence when he decided to speak up against western hypocrisy. This hitherto unheard of leader from a comparatively small country was voicing out the concerns of a repressed society in possibly the world's biggest political stage. Little did I know that this madcap was the reason his society was repressed and that his three hour long speech was more of an idealist's bashing of the west rather than a rational, let alone a logical, repartee.

Quoting an episode of Boston Legal seems appropriate here. Alan Shore argues that America had created something called the Bystander effect in the world. The USA had, for vested interests in more cases than not, interfered in the happenings of other countries for reasons that are mostly blatant, be it Vietnam, Korea, Kuwait or more recently, Iraq and Afghanistan. This constant interference has led the people and the governments of the world to believe that if any incident or event spiraled out of one's borders or caused massive harm to its own civilians, the US would be there to attempt to set things right in ways only it knows right. The US has created an image of being this superhero who comes to rescue people in danger. Over the course of history, this has happened so many times that if any such event occurs, most countries just stay put telling everybody that the US would come and take care of it. As much pressure as this has put on America to show up in time, every single time, it also gives a certain callousness to other countries. Hence the name, bystander effect. Also, not to mention that America never shows up in countries it has no use or interest in, like Somalia or Sudan. Since America hasn't showed up, no other country would enter the scene purely for humanitarian reasons, or else Sudan's crisis would've been solved ages ago.

The Libyan situation however, has put that bystander effect theory under a microscope. The Arab league of nations called for the enforcement of the no-fly zone and it was the French (quelle surprise!) who first flew their jets over Libyan airspace to bomb Gaddafi's army.

But I digress. The scenario, or climate if you wish, in the entire Mediterranean belt has raised a lot of questions. How is anything that is/was happening in countries like Tunisia and Yemen different from what is happening in India? The Tunisians rose against the government because they were dissatisfied with governance, inflating prices and most of all, the rising corruption. The Yemenis have begun protesting for the very same reasons. Egypt, Libya and Syria are different cases. Egypt and Libya have each been suppressed by one individual for decades and the uprising was merely a voice against that, though in Libya, it has taken weird proportions. In Syria, the protesters are raising voices against a set of laws that have been in place for 50 years now, without any change along with the times. India on the other hand, has been seeing a spate of corruption charges pouring out, mainly thanks to a resurgent media and a government that seems to have resigned into not picking up another term at the next elections.

I'd be found wanting in humaneness if I didn't mention the earthquake and resultant tsunami which has pretty much razed vast portions of Japan to the ground. The eventual Nuclear disaster has again brought up the power debate. Though the effects of radiation have been contained to a certain extent, the death toll from the aforementioned double whammy has been rising constantly. I don't know about you, but for me, Japan's always been a country that has defied years and years of work by psychologists and lateral thinkers. Words like resurgence, phoenix, spirit, endurance, fighting and human spirit bear little meaning when put on the same scale as the sheer whatthefuckery displayed by the people of Japan over the ages. I know you not, dear punctual Japanese chap, but hear this, I salute you. 

Life and the shit it throws

Standing directly behind my sister's left shoulder, with my mom to my right and brother to my left, looking at my brother-in-law approach Anu with the thaali, a sole thought rammed against my defenses, snucked in, stayed there and refused to get out of my head. I miss you Dad. 

It is what it is. Why it is, nobody knows.

After numerous start-stops, I finally filled my head with enough things to write about. My memory needs a huge overhaul, it's almost non-existent now. So bad, I don't remember the names of half the movies I've watched, it worries me. 

My sanity has been a rare commodity. It comes and goes in meek installments, teasing and harassing me with its speed of disappearance. Yet, I wouldn't quite complain about the insanity either. Middle ground has been found, anchors have been laid. 

As for work, shit happened, but I'm clawing my way out of it, or so I tell myself. I don't want to move to Pune now, can't and won't. Sorry. It's simply too much to leave behind and for what? My own good? They say selfishness is acceptable, but this isn't a question of selfishness or selflessness, it's a question of the sanity of a person I care about very deeply. 

Love and other drugs. Mini spates of the former and none of the latter. As for the curious noses, stay off. Those who question the claim, beware of retribution, for it will be swift.

In other news, my love for the wonderful subject of anthropology grew by Andre the Giant's size leaps mainly due to two reasons. The first is obvious, an issue had closed at office and I had a day to laze around before beginning work on the next bunch of stories. A few hours of random browsing and multiple tabs later, I came around to googling universities in UK that offer anthropology. Before windows could threaten me with another crash, I had browsed through all option credits, mandatory credits and even chosen the credits I would pick. 

As for reason no two. It's becoming more and more obvious to me that humans interest me beyond anything. Given my reclusive status, interaction isn't something I'm particularly keen on. How else to study humans you ask (may be you don't, but bear with me)? Sit in a corner and observe. Simple as that. Two individuals have struck me beyond anything I have ever witnessed before. The sheer simplicity of the first and the daunting complexity of the other has kept my mind active. Interactions with them have been fruitful and the conclusion from hours of rambling is that humans are ruddy interesting. 

Two other people I've chanced upon knowing of late have been quite amusing too. I've learnt so many things from the two of them in such a short span of time that it both worries me and infuses great enthusiasm and hope. I know a LP with scratches would've probably stopped by now, but I keep harping on about the same thing. It's a freaking small world and I hate that it is so. Probability is such a bitch. 

As far as general existence is concerned, I guess I must be jumping like a bunny that has ear fire. My work is brilliant. Office is just 15 mins away, even if a bus overturns and blocks two lanes of the road, I can reach office in under 45 minutes. I watch movies or TV shows at will. Listen to the most brilliant of music. And yet, as only I can explain it, I whine. I whine and I brood. Only because that's the only way I know. I abuse happiness if it finds me. I like myself less when I abuse happiness. Ergo, I try and keep my distance from it. 

Grass on neither side is greener, it's the neutral zone that's the greenest. 

..thought I'd something more to say..

I've been off writing for a while, mainly because I haven't had a reason to write. Granted, events of the new year's eve, the trip to Kerala to see a good friend getting married, going to Pondy amidst a bunch of old people reliving their wonder years were all reasons enough, but hey, I choose what I write on, thank you very much.

This is a freakishly small world and I hate that it is so. A Mallu guy I met two weeks ago, a friend now, is working as a production manager, in Chennai, for a Hollywood film made by a Taiwanese man based on a book authored by a Spanish-born Canadian writer. Yesterday, my brother comes into my room and tells me that his friend works as an assistant director for the exact same film.

Where are the rest of the famous one billion people of India? Where are the rest of the 70 lakh people of Chennai? What the hell is wrong with this world and something as random as a Hollywood film is connected to me through two wholly different means? I am sick and tired of meeting someone through someone I already know. This is precisely why I loved my time in Delhi, except for the obvious connect to Chennai. I went there thinking that it'd be a clean new city where I knew none of its how-many-ever inhabitants and nobody knew me. It gave me such a wonderful opportunity to be myself, to an extent at least. I was put into a cage where social contact was mandatory to get work done, alienation didn't work as much as it did whilst I was in Chennai. So sometimes, I had to go out of my way and ask people for favours. Of course, some characteristics are the same irrespective of whether people knew you before or not.

It gave me the opportunity to do something that we rarely get to do. Enter a room, the inhabitants of which are as clueless as you are, and build, maintain, spoil, enjoy and even cherish newly formed relationships. It wasn't like school when I was either too young or too naive to make my own decisions free of inhibitions and obligations. It wasn't like college when a troubled past followed me and emphasis lay on academics which I was least interested in. My year in Delhi made me realise things about myself that I couldn't have ever done had I remained in Chennai.

As Murphy was busy with other people for a change, I met some wonderful people. People who challenged me in ways I wasn't ever before. Finally, all those weird and fancy sounding movies that I spent watching, analysing and deconstructing became conversation starters. It was, to be meek, magical to see the directions a discussion beginning with a scene/dialogue from a movie took. I felt like a child in a candy store, being exposed to intellectual debates and being challenged to raise my game to even understand it, let alone be a part of it.

As luck would have it though, I had to come back home. I guess we know how that worked out.

*

My idiotic mind has finally wrapped its head around an idea for a film. I've always felt I would be able to make at least a semi-decent film if I was able to hit the mark on what sounds like a good idea. A film needs an idea, a ruddy good one. The knowledge of thought has made me throw some good ones out of the window in the past, but this one, the thought that I have zeroed in on, is what I believe is enough to create a film out of.

Control, is something that comes naturally to us. But what if there was no need to exercise that control? What if there arose a situation wherein some of the usual reasons why we exercise control become redundant? If you could, would you? Tons of things come into the picture. Morality, societal taboos, consequences (imaginary, thought and unprecedented), time etc play a huge role. How would the removal of one of those variables affect the equation? This is something I want to explore.

Meanwhile, it is extremely easy to get lost in these questions and there can never be a definitive answer. Ergo, I must exercise control to stop at one point and put that into visuals. It's a ruddy small world, and I hate that.

As cathartic as I get..

I find it absolutely strange that when you worry about someone, it's called caring and feeling concerned and being a human and things, but when you worry about yourself, it's self-loathing, self-hatred and you need serious help.

Why shouldn't I have the right to treat myself as I'd treat someone else when it comes to handling emotions? Why should I depend on someone else for something that I am perfectly capable of doing to myself? (That isn't for what you think it is, focus now!) Hypocrisy? I think not.

That said, I'd go out of my way to lend an ear to anyone who wants to just vent out stuff. I don't care that people don't bother to reply to, frankly, what I consider to be a favour, albeit a small one. I don't expect them to, not of late anyway.

More often than not, I spend my time wondering why I feel the way I feel. Why I feel this certain trite and disconcerting feeling that makes me wonder if I am in the bottom of a huge and inescapable pit. Days or even weeks later, that feeling disappears, some fleeting moments of joy happen, which I happily exaggerate and tell myself that it is great that such things are making me happy. Like that day, when I felt uncontrollably happy just because I had, by any normal human's standards, a decent day. I told myself that that particular day was the best I had in a while and the best I would have in a long time to come. That made me feel good.

Am I ok with lying to myself? Not quite. But then again, I know it's a lie. A lie ceases to be a lie when it fails to evoke the false emotions it's supposed to. I try and treat this not as a lie, but as an excuse. After all, I do have the right to feel happy. A right that I seem to take for granted. Is happiness supposed to be earned? If so, how should one go about it? Are ten days of feeling absolutely dejected enough to grant you a day of happiness? Is that how the balance is supposed to work? Give a bit of this and get a bit of that?

Questions. So many fucking questions. Questions that make me want to break my head into a billion pieces just to render the questions themselves extinct. Why do rhetorical questions exist?

Either there needs to be an earth shattering situation/event/occurrence that'd permanently pivot my life or the status quo continues. Faith isn't an argument. It can't be. The thing is, I am happy with my current state of existence. I wouldn't call it survival; I'd have to be fighting something for it.

Probably the only thing I'm fighting against is that happy taboo, then again, everybody is.