Sorrow of the Neelkanth

Sometimes, I feel the burden Lord Shiva has to carry. All negativity converges into Him, all vices ends in Him. He's the only antipole to every positive source out there, the suns, the rains, the enlightened ones, the naive hearts, the true, and everything that ensues.

There, while others were discussing how to part with the elixir, He was worried for the poison. Why would He be revered and feared at the same time? Why would he become the destroyer? Because an honest man knows pain, and truth.

The poison, of words, of ill feelings, of hatred, of misdeeds, of unbecoming acts, of farces and facades, He drank it all, and did not break still. How does one kill someone who conquers death and becomes the Mahamrityunjay? One doesn't. And how many times must He have died at your hands and deeds? Ever thought of that?

He's there, clean of all of it, and yet terminates it. He's like the ocean, where everything pure and impure ends, but does not alter the sanity of the ocean, the one we call His trance. It is in those moments of pride, that I've wished to bear him in me, and listen, and give hope to anyone who needs it. But oh, what a great burden it is, to bear it all and have no one to tell of it, share it, and see weight lifted. Who'd be there when He'd need it? I've often burned bridges when I bulged and seethed under burden, and have wished for companionship. And then, I feel how heavy His heart would have been had Ma Parvati not been there.

It is in those dark moments that I see how lucky my Master is, to have Her, and it is in those moments that I understand the sorrow of the Neelkanth when Sati was taken away from him. Sati, his love of life, what did her family do to him? Snatched her away. Destroy one's world and assume that our world is safe? That is foolishness.

He has known too much, he chose silence. He smile at us and lift us up like a father. He’d relieve us of our misery all the time, every single time when we falter. He won’t kill us, he’s a father. He’ll do the last rites for us, when we're dead already. He knows too much, he won’t speak of it. He’d lose himself to tranceful state of Bhaang and watch it all. He’ll take the blame, we would die clean. He's God, like every father.

Master, I admire you, I love you for the arduous task You've taken on Your mighty shoulders. I'd just want to mend one person to reduce this burden of yours.

Myself!

With half of my heart, that has never loved anything.

I’ve been borrowing sessions on laptops from friends lately. And all the while, while I am not on the laptop, I am meticulously chalking out the requirements that the Laptop that I buy is supposed to conform to. And all the while I am doing this, I am weighing my options of calling my old pal, my desktop, to come and stay with me. I’d pieced it together like a bouquet with flowers handpicked from diverse gardens with the best fragrance I could have afforded in my meager budget. It never let me down.

Somehow, I find customized things more appealing than any branded thing. An assembled computer, a custom built Lamborghini or well, we’ll talk about that in a few moments from now on.

I see faces everyday while I stand in a queue over the dining area, and I see them in plenty. Some repeat over day, some don’t. Then I have friends around who keep me updated on the directions where I should be facing. Meanwhile, there is a lot going on in my little head. I see a face, and I like its nose, a thin ridge line culminating on a pin point with just the right slopes on either sides. I remember reading somewhere that there are 14 types of noses in this world and I try to validate that claim. The other side of my brain sends SOS signals and forces me to abort the database scan. I see another one with kohled eyes so mesmerizingly beautiful that I am sure that they must have taken someone’s life in the past. Suddenly I am drawn to the upward curve of pink lips (neither too dry, nor too wet) too close not to notice. She’s smiling at some message in her inbox and merrily typing away the reply standing in the nearby queue. There’s another with the best cheek bone I’ve seen and there are a few more unnoticed faces I might not see today, the ones with figures many of their gender would envy and crave for.  Then there are a few who are the best company anyone would want to be in, for life. And all the while they happen to pass along, I am trying to calculate a composite picture, borrowing the best feature from each one of them and putting it in its place in my mental picture. What am I doing there? I have an empty plate, and an empty stomach to fill and a little brain in a much bigger compartment where it is bouncing around.

So the bottom line is that I like assembled things customized as per the taste. Only that I don’t have any tangible approach to God. But there is another catch even if I had some. It’s probably too late to be ordering something from way up there. Why? It’s simple. I send in a request, and even if I am a high priority and my order would supersede every other pending order, designing takes time. The whole framework has to be built just perfect. The process development cycle is a long and risky process. He needs to do it first time right, and He just cannot compromise. Even after the architecture has been released to manufacturing for the single piece to be made, the gestation time between the first stage and the delivery phase is still nine months, which by today's standard would mean obsoleteness even before it is released. Plus, the company of two to whom the rights to ownership are being granted until the product is mature enough to be sent off to the one who ordered it, has to be trustworthy, because mishandling of such delicate things can lead to defects and finally refusal. Plus security is also a concern, because virus is a common term inflicting many things today and who knows, something that I had ordered is stolen from their place?

Even though all of that was possible, no Horlicks or Bournvita or any fountain of youth would miraculously turn her into a compatible age group. Which means, by the time the product is ready for delivery, the one who ordered the make would be obsolete. What options am I left with except to make myself happy in branded things, built as per the market strategy and not the true needs? Is this why there is an idiom that

we'll always regret buying a computer, mobile and having a girl after a few days of having them just because something better would come along due to evolution? Now I think that the one who started this whole concept of marketing and economics long ago must have been working in close collaboration with the Almighty. He must have been God’s recruit, his Angel, sent on deputation to this purgatory to make necessary arrangements for avoiding future complications. In addition, God ensured that we get a little idea (only a little and not exact) of what we want only after crossing a certain age threshold so that no custom orders are delivered just after we entered this world.

And what do I expect after exposing such an intelligent trick that has been played upon us all by no one other than God? You never know, He’s after all a mischievous kid who always has tricks up his sleeves. He just might offer me something I can’t deny? He’s full of surprises, hides peace at the core of every storm.

P.S. : Don't be offended if the girl is being compared to a product and man to it's eventual owner or customer. And if you are still miffed, let 'I' be you (ladies) and 'She' be 'He'.

It'd be lonely to be the only one who's holy.

It’s funny. The mind wanders in erratic directions drawing mind numbing projections as I lay my head down after the day is done. Dangling in between states of conscious and dreary sleep, I am jolted upright by a thought stream I start to ride on.

Immortality! I dream of a man unto whom God appears and gives a boon that God would come and defend him if any kind of enemy tried to harm him. There isn’t much background that was given at the start of this reel about the kind of person he was. And at first, everything was normal, until the news spread.  

It’s funny. Often we burn, not by what we lack but with what others have. He had a piece of Eden, now everyone wanted it, all of it. Hence started the volley of attacks, one after the other, and another, everything and everyone seemed to be the enemy now. And amidst all of this, while he was cowering behind God’s grace, he felt broken.

Alas, what a loss he had incurred. An irrevocable loss! Every time he was defended, he found himself on a ship that drifted a little further from where he had lived all his life, from all who he had believed to be his people. He wanted to leave all of this now, so he turned to his Master again and requested Him, ‘Take me away, I don’t wish to see any of this anymore’.

Brought back to my present state, I stared at the clock, and ‘it’s funny’, I thought. I barely manage to jot down ciphers that would reconstruct it later before the swing of drowsiness takes me away again, and I don’t remember when I woke up again and it was all white again. I let out a hysterical laugh. It’s funny, isn’t it?

Facades and Pretences.

There once was a playboy, who, his only love did forsake. Cold and pleasantly arrogant, yet, looking at the broken worlds, his heart did ache. Condolences of a foul mouth are seldom accepted, so he chose a different way. He went up to every bird whose love wings were clipped, and in the darkest hour of gloom, he poured in some more: 

It is funny how you cry like a child, opposing the existence of love, so that someday, someone would come and croon you and lull you to sleep with a love song. So much that you believe in it, you deny it more vehemently, so that someday, someone comes to you and convinces you that it exists. You are so desperate to hold on to the faintest light that might shine through. I saw you clutch your throbbing heart and move out of that room, fuming and desperate, looking for a place to breathe. That hag was raving about the non-existence of love, what wrong is it? You yourself said so. Everyone listened; some aired their opinions too, in support, or in disagreement. But you chose to leave, because you couldn’t take it. I can understand you were not feeling well, and I know what was making you unwell. Nostalgia? That child inside who wanted to rip out her cursed tongue and vindicate love from the accusations that she hurled at it? Just because you couldn’t take it, because all of it was a farce, a hoax, a lie? Look at you, acting all so strong even now. Look at your face, I feel like pitying you right now, but I won’t.

Love, isn’t a sacrifice. No, it is not a gesture of selflessness. It’s an act of biggest selfishness. Can you love and expect not to be loved back? You can convince your mind and probably your heart that you don’t expect anything. But for how long? Even for a moment if this thought passed your mind that why doesn’t he even look back to me, when I love him so fully, watch your intentions. See the real face.

It is true of the normal heart;

For the error bred in the bone,

Of each woman and each man,

Craves what it cannot have,

Not universal love,

But to be loved alone*

I don’t blame you for doing it, but accuse you for denying its validity and running from it.  I will mock you, ridicule your meagre existence. The more you resist, the more I'll insist, until you surrender to the temptation. I am not your emancipator, I have come to drug you, and drag you to the keel of your misery. I'll leave you there, alone. What would you make out of it? Go overboard? Can you? I dare you to move. Rebuild or conform, from ground zero, prove me wrong.

I don't want you to possess a heart of gold, that's too malleable. I'd rather turn you into stone, sharp at the edges, immaculately carved into a form so divine that it is atrocious. ^¥

Who am I? For you, I am a Nobody, who would not care the least, nothing more than a trespasser, a gambler who has put in money for his own mirth, business as usual. What have I achieved to be so boisterous about and be so high on hubris? Nothing, nothing at least to fancy your whims.

But then, I don't understand emotion, in particular, in singularity.

*Copied from the feed of another blog, the lines were short lived there, I don’t claim them.

¥ September 1, 1939 by W.H. Auden

P.S. Maybe the italicized text that had been with me for quite some time now inspired me to write this, I am not very sure. But one thing I am sure of is that while writing this, I remembered reading something related to this a very long time ago. It was this article, some things leave imprints for a long time. Read it!

On a different note, homage to The Saint:

Let those love now, who never loved before: Let those who always loved, now love the more.

‘Pervigilium Veneris’

Mathematical Immortality Constraints!

“I don't want to achieve immortality through my work. . . I want to achieve it through not dying.”
Woody Allen

A small Warning before you begin:  This document is not well formed, just like the idea.

I have figured out one way to immortality. Yes, the little conspiracy theorist clinging on my brain ceiling has come up with a contingency plan to rival my beloved Gods.

The idea is simple...   Disappear!

Without a trace, yes!!

I will be immortal because you will never find me, neither dead, nor alive. This is the brief of all that will happen:

On my works, the famous ones and the not so famous ones alike, they shall mention the year when this world first saw me. The timeline won’t have an end. It would be something like:

(I live in the digital age and I’d better be documented on Solid State devices and the silver plates. Your wish, if you want Leather hard cover books. I won’t be reading any of them, neither digital nor printed.)

Then a day will come, like every time when my works would be lost to time. Another day will follow, when all the mentions and references of my works would be wiped out of this face of earth too. Just like old times. But I’ll continue to live, still. I would be spoken of; I will be narrated in stories. They shall compare me to Dionysus, and the likes. And soon I shall travel, from bedtime stories as an eternal character, to the religious books. Or maybe, I’d have a religion of my own. In a country like India, where Cricket can be religion, it would be easy. Someday, ages later, I’d be prayed to, and that shall mark my ascension to the throne, my ascension from immortal to divine. And I am not dead, I will not be.

An idea can change lives. A fact, that if I be lost forever and never be found, the probability of my being dead is ½. But so is my probability of being alive, ½.

Maybe, I’d be dead, but maybe I’d be alive, just like my Gods. Maybe they exist, maybe they don’t. This uncertainty is funny, and can even make the dead laugh. Werner Heisenberg was a scientist, a revolutionary of sorts. To me, he was a funny man who just gave the world a reason to laugh more.

“The more precise the measurement of position, the more imprecise the measurement of momentum, and vice versa.”

“He lies somewhere here” an epitaph on his grave. Had he not died, no one would be able to exactly tell if he was there where he was seen or was it just another illusion of uncertainty. Well, I won’t repeat his mistakes, I’d never be found.

Note: This has a prerequisite. I need to be famous. I am working on that too. Soon you shall hear of me from foreign tongues and probably alien languages. So if a UFO lands in your backyard or on your rooftop, he’s probably looking for me. If he says anything close to Blah, blah, blah... that's right he's trying to say Blasphemous!

Master and Me - Judgment.

Master:                  Come in, my lad!

I:                             How did you know it is me, I had not knocked yet?

Master:                As if you don’t know! Well, you have some questions, don’t you?

I:                             Ah, you know everything. Then do I need to air my thoughts, you already know what I seek.

Master:                Well… yeah… I created you, so of course I know it, but then, why did I create you in the first place? If you keep asking questions in your mind and only I do the talking, then what fun would be it? I did not create ye all to hone my commentary skills.

I:                             Okay, okay… I got the point.

Master:                So what troubles you this time?

I:                             You know me, random things concern me most of the times, and I need to run to you most of the time for the answers. This time I was thinking…about judgment….

Master:                Soo…What about it?

I:                             Well, when do we get to decide? And when do we decide it fairly? Being human, it is very complex to decide between the heart and mind. Reason, is often derived from experiences, but then, all experiences are novel in themselves, looking alike, but all different. How do we get to see things, while staying unrelated to them? Like seeing from the outside?

Master:                Young one, what makes you think so? What troubles you?

I:                             Master, you have stayed alone for a very long while, you know how things revolve when we start looking at things from our past, when we are alone. Family, friends, people we’ve met, incidences, decisions, regrets, faults, happiness, successes, everything, every deed no matter how trivial it might have seemed back then, rises from somewhere, like a chest of memories has just been unlocked. Let’s say, I also got some free time to kill.

Master:                Well thank Me for my being lonely, or else you could have never made it into the world. Rather, this world wouldn’t have been there. But yes, I get the point. So, why do you want the answer to it anyway? I forgive often for follies, don’t I?

I:                             Hah, you kidding me? You sit behind these curtains and don’t allow me in. Always saying that I have a long way to go, and when I am trying to arrange for some transportation for the journey, you are puncturing my tires by this hypnotic talk? This isn’t fair Master! You forgive because You, are You, Our Master!

Master:                You are such a baby; I was just trying to wiggle your cheeks, they are sooo… human!

I:                             That’s not funny, I am a baby anyways. Do you want me to throw in a tantrum or you answering me straight?

Master:                (Sigh) Judging is not a very enjoyable experience. It forbids you to let any emotion from indulging in what you intend to judge. Like a glass sheet. You need to be aware of everything around it, and still remain aloof of everything. You should feel no pain, no pleasure, no feeling at all when you sit to judge something. It’s like being an aggressor, ruthless, always looking for weakness, fallacies, and at the same time, searching for the good points. It’s benchmarking against your own self. You cannot judge what you have no idea about. To be rational, you have to do away with pain, pleasure, emotions and regressions, and to judge, you have to be at least one step above of it.

I:                             So what about us? No one can be like you, imparting justice that is really, just. Our prejudices hold us, our hearts sway us sometimes. How can we rise above that? They say that when in conflict flip a coin, as it gives time to know what we wish to see.

Master:                Oh I see, I gave free will to men so that no one follows the rulebook. This saves me the pain of drafting one. This thing called heart, though another faculty of mind messes up with this free will through emotion. And for that coin flipping, I would suggest using a blank coin, the one with no options.

I:                             How? I mean how are…

Master:                Now I ain’t here to spoon feed you with every answer, am I? I have given you a head start, now you wade alone. I’ll just recline and watch you learn. Use your brain, child, the brain feels no pain, neither pleasure!

I:                             Whaaat? But Father, that…

Master:                Blasphemous, Leave now, there’s work unto you, be blessed and wake up now, its day break.