CYNIC: Lies behind those five letters a tragedy of untold magnitude. The shattering of beliefs, trust, dreams, hopes, aspirations …and there stands the all encompassing word with its yellow fangs out, only to be frowned upon.
Kudos to the one who urges: “Grow old along with me! The best is yet to be,” But how many of us could resist replacing ‘best’ with ‘worst’ as we ‘grow old along’.
“The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.”
In school, when the poem was taught, the pitch was always upwards, to a higher point. Sometimes, when the whole class was made to recite the poem, it even acquired the form of sloganeering. It oozed with confidence, optimism and a positive outlook towards the world. How a bunch of unsuspected school children knew what was in store for them?
But things took a U-turn over the years. In college the poem was recited with a slow, sinking tone making the last couplet barely audible. Yet another instance when life made us understood literature rather than the other way around, properly.
PS: Though it’s a bone of contention there are scholars who attribute the origin of the word ‘cynic’ to the Greek philosopher, Antisthenes, a student of Socrates. He started the school of Cynics and believed that virtue was the only good and the only way to remain virtuous was through self-discipline and independence. Just like cynics, the word as well began on a positive note but turned out to be negative gradually.
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
Friday, June 12, 2009
She had told him. He had known it. But then he withdrew, for the other man. Now it’s too late and it has become too intense. Then there was only one man for whom he stepped back. Now there are too many. His wife, parents, relatives, her husband, mother, relatives…
To A Friend
“We learn things the hard way”;
I philosophise.
I listen, day in day out.
But I don’t know how to help you out.
It’s a quagmire you’re in.
I hope you won’t bog down.
What you’re through I know,
But knowing is not experiencing.
I hope you’ll get through
And resurface as the one you had been.
To A Friend
“We learn things the hard way”;
I philosophise.
I listen, day in day out.
But I don’t know how to help you out.
It’s a quagmire you’re in.
I hope you won’t bog down.
What you’re through I know,
But knowing is not experiencing.
I hope you’ll get through
And resurface as the one you had been.
Saturday, May 30, 2009
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Saturday, May 16, 2009
Ranting as purification!
Yesterday, as I sat at the restaurant waiting for dinner with my mind caught in a web of terrible emotions, I had this feeling that there’s a lid on top of my head and it had popped open. I almost experienced madness, that’s lurking just around, may be within a hairbreadth of distance. I don’t know who to thank for, being here, keying this, sane.
Talking doesn’t really solve anything. It just complicates matters. “Talking much about oneself can also be a means to conceal oneself…” says Nietzsche. How true. But people don’t understand. How degenerating it is to spend a lifetime justifying one’s words and deeds without even bothers to spend a second to understand the other. “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view... Until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it.” With that, Atticus Finch pronounced one of the most compassionate lines I’ve ever read. I’m tired of phoney people. I’m also tired of people who says that; “you are a better human being than I am.” I heard it in the past too, and I know what they mean by saying that I’m “good”. I don’t want to be in anybody’s fucking good list. I just don’t want to.
In case if you think; ‘what the heck’? It’s just an act of purification my dear reader. I’ll be fine soon by tonight or tomorrow morning. But I’ve to go through this, and as I key in I feel a lot better.
Talking doesn’t really solve anything. It just complicates matters. “Talking much about oneself can also be a means to conceal oneself…” says Nietzsche. How true. But people don’t understand. How degenerating it is to spend a lifetime justifying one’s words and deeds without even bothers to spend a second to understand the other. “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view... Until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it.” With that, Atticus Finch pronounced one of the most compassionate lines I’ve ever read. I’m tired of phoney people. I’m also tired of people who says that; “you are a better human being than I am.” I heard it in the past too, and I know what they mean by saying that I’m “good”. I don’t want to be in anybody’s fucking good list. I just don’t want to.
In case if you think; ‘what the heck’? It’s just an act of purification my dear reader. I’ll be fine soon by tonight or tomorrow morning. But I’ve to go through this, and as I key in I feel a lot better.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Chappals chappals everywhere…
I had wished if someone had hurled a shoe at me, or at least a hawai chappal. I was terrified of perishing without getting a chance to display my magnanimity. It seemed like eternity to wait to pardon someone and soak myself in a pool of narcissistic pleasure, letting out orgasmic moans thinking of the noble deed.
But here in our state we don’t pardon any such fellas. Hurling chappals is not our culture you know. We believe in upholding the mantle of culture and morality higher and higher. If you have any doubt, just ask the girls we bashed up for trying to import the firangi culture and spoil ours.
But here in our state we don’t pardon any such fellas. Hurling chappals is not our culture you know. We believe in upholding the mantle of culture and morality higher and higher. If you have any doubt, just ask the girls we bashed up for trying to import the firangi culture and spoil ours.
Monday, March 23, 2009
A tag of 25
Okay, after much procrastination-the kind that might’ve made the prince of Denmark turning in his grave- I’ve decided to do the tag. Thanks Mixed Blessings 89 a.k.a Aditi for tagging me.
Here goes the list of 25 things few people know about me
1 My name, Arun, I was told, was suggested by a then friend of my father who later attained iconic status by leading a one man crusade against a wily politician.
2 I still regret about the first cigarette I offered to a friend who smokes 40 to 50 cigarettes a day now.
3 I had a romantic notion that self destruction was cool.
4 I don’t have anything against nurses, in fact I believe that it’s a noble profession, but still, when they try to get rid of the bubbles out of the syringe by pushing forth the plunger right in front of my eyes I can’t help thinking them as sadists.
5 More than once I shamelessly asked nurses weather I can take some pills rather than an injection.
6 My mother once told me that as an infant I didn’t trouble her as she could make me sit wherever, even upon a table and I didn’t move a bit, I guess I was too afraid thinking of the fall, and not much has changed till date.
7 The poem I remember from my school days is ‘The School Boy’ by William Blake
“I love to rise in a summer morn
When the birds sing on every tree
The distant huntsman winds his horn
The skylark sings with me
Oh! What sweet company
But to go to school in a summer morn
Oh it drives all joy away…”
8 I hardly fit in and I never try to fit myself in anywhere.
9 I have a copy of ‘Crime and Punishment’ and I read it thrice so far, but only upto a particular point. Even though I’d found myself deeply engrossed in it, all the three times I had to discontinue. I also love Marmeladov, immensely.
10 Sometimes I feel that I read to escape from the bloody mundane ways of the world which I can never figure out. Often, I get a chill down the spine as the wonderful world I was just a part of in the book disappears, in a jiffy.
11 I believe the following as an immensely powerful combination, an inspiring trinity which can rally charge me up; in fact it did charge me up more than once. They are ‘Thus Spake Zarathustra’, ‘Metallica’ and ‘Old Monk Rum.’
12 I prefer getting hurt rather than hurt the people I love.
13 My cousin who had been with me for a whole evening ended his life that very night. We were pretty close but I couldn’t figure out what he was upto. We share our birthdays and he’s younger to me by one year.
14 I smoked my first cigarette on the last day of the last annual exam. I was in eighth standard then.
15 I tasted liquor for the first time during SSLC vacation. It still lingers in me, memories of the aftermath.
16 Sometimes a fear seeps in me that I will end up as an alcoholic.
17 The only drug I ever did was cannabis. I smoked it thrice and the last time after a few swigs of beer. That was so terrible an experience that I thought I wouldn’t survive the night.
18 I had never thought that I would ever fall in love. But once I did, at the age of 27.
19 I want to die when my dear and near ones are still around. I know it’s selfish but still…
20 I was such a staunch follower of the game of cricket that I used to watch it ball by ball, it was unimaginable to miss a single ball. Somewhere along I lost my interest and I no longer watch it.
21 I hate twenty twenty for I believe it’s everything but cricket.
22 I’m such a traditionalist when it comes to cricket that it pains me to see horizontal bat swats of ‘dashing batsmen’ with poor technique.
23 I never used a mobile phone in my life and I don’t know how to operate it. I don’t think that I’ll ever use one.
24 Though I claim that I’m a non-violent person, the violent thoughts erupt in my mind often makes me quite disturbed.
25 I’m a man of extremes.
Here goes the list of 25 things few people know about me
1 My name, Arun, I was told, was suggested by a then friend of my father who later attained iconic status by leading a one man crusade against a wily politician.
2 I still regret about the first cigarette I offered to a friend who smokes 40 to 50 cigarettes a day now.
3 I had a romantic notion that self destruction was cool.
4 I don’t have anything against nurses, in fact I believe that it’s a noble profession, but still, when they try to get rid of the bubbles out of the syringe by pushing forth the plunger right in front of my eyes I can’t help thinking them as sadists.
5 More than once I shamelessly asked nurses weather I can take some pills rather than an injection.
6 My mother once told me that as an infant I didn’t trouble her as she could make me sit wherever, even upon a table and I didn’t move a bit, I guess I was too afraid thinking of the fall, and not much has changed till date.
7 The poem I remember from my school days is ‘The School Boy’ by William Blake
“I love to rise in a summer morn
When the birds sing on every tree
The distant huntsman winds his horn
The skylark sings with me
Oh! What sweet company
But to go to school in a summer morn
Oh it drives all joy away…”
8 I hardly fit in and I never try to fit myself in anywhere.
9 I have a copy of ‘Crime and Punishment’ and I read it thrice so far, but only upto a particular point. Even though I’d found myself deeply engrossed in it, all the three times I had to discontinue. I also love Marmeladov, immensely.
10 Sometimes I feel that I read to escape from the bloody mundane ways of the world which I can never figure out. Often, I get a chill down the spine as the wonderful world I was just a part of in the book disappears, in a jiffy.
11 I believe the following as an immensely powerful combination, an inspiring trinity which can rally charge me up; in fact it did charge me up more than once. They are ‘Thus Spake Zarathustra’, ‘Metallica’ and ‘Old Monk Rum.’
12 I prefer getting hurt rather than hurt the people I love.
13 My cousin who had been with me for a whole evening ended his life that very night. We were pretty close but I couldn’t figure out what he was upto. We share our birthdays and he’s younger to me by one year.
14 I smoked my first cigarette on the last day of the last annual exam. I was in eighth standard then.
15 I tasted liquor for the first time during SSLC vacation. It still lingers in me, memories of the aftermath.
16 Sometimes a fear seeps in me that I will end up as an alcoholic.
17 The only drug I ever did was cannabis. I smoked it thrice and the last time after a few swigs of beer. That was so terrible an experience that I thought I wouldn’t survive the night.
18 I had never thought that I would ever fall in love. But once I did, at the age of 27.
19 I want to die when my dear and near ones are still around. I know it’s selfish but still…
20 I was such a staunch follower of the game of cricket that I used to watch it ball by ball, it was unimaginable to miss a single ball. Somewhere along I lost my interest and I no longer watch it.
21 I hate twenty twenty for I believe it’s everything but cricket.
22 I’m such a traditionalist when it comes to cricket that it pains me to see horizontal bat swats of ‘dashing batsmen’ with poor technique.
23 I never used a mobile phone in my life and I don’t know how to operate it. I don’t think that I’ll ever use one.
24 Though I claim that I’m a non-violent person, the violent thoughts erupt in my mind often makes me quite disturbed.
25 I’m a man of extremes.
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