Just a chequered thought

"All the world's a stage,And all the men and women merely players" was famously said by Shakespeare .

A set of events triggered thoughts of a related but different perspective. I only know the basics of chess but the game itself is oldest for a reason and why it correlates to many things in world.
So just jotting the thoughts as a memory .

All the worlds people are just pieces of the chessboard wherein almost 99% of the people are just pawns almost all times but we all think otherwise 99% of the time .

Everyone at some some point esp when one is a kid thinks they are the kings for whom everyone else on the board can be sacrificed.
Then in youth one gets to a point of thinking they are powerful like the minister/queen and can do much and the rules do not really apply much to them and most pieces are secondary to them except just one king.
Slowly it dawns - we just have some degree of freedom by fortune which we can move forward like a horse or a elephant but that too for some cause/king,
and then almost always comes a point of misfortune when you realize you are just a pawn always meant to be sacrificed and it really is someone else's game .

The wasted times

So I decided to write a post -countless times I pen something in the head when triggered and
then by the the time I think let me write it organized just do not feel up for it.
Two things triggered this small post it both the past .
The current situation simply triggers anger or hopelessness .
So yeah the past though not the best allows once to reminiscence of different stuff.

First of course I opened the blog after nearly a year and I saw comments esp on the ICSE school days memories and they just put me back in a different frame of mind but I was like what to write about that isn't already debated discussed or detailed upon in today's hyper social media world.
Then I remembered a day back I was searching for a old required receipt and had to move all my stuff and
I found a box of letters from those days when letters were handwritten.
I shoved it aside saying no don't want to walk down that lane, let it be.
But in a separate file there was a envelope somehow missed segregating .

It was a printed email - of a letter I realized not something I recalled straightaway till I read it
and it really brought back a flood of a memories and realizations . They were less of myself but more of the eras our generation truly bridged.

It was from a friend who had moved to study in the US just pre2000 and she had emailed the letter to her sister who printed it and posted it to my address as I did not have a computer yet and even computer centers were like minimum 30 mins travel from home and expensive. So no I was not computer savvy as my Engg was non CS as my only access to computer was the 3 hours I spent for 1 month learning Oracle and SQL.

After writing about the life there , the US Universities and other details to my questions etc she wrote,
"please get a email address dear so I can communicate directly with you ."

And then it triggers you what it was , what it is now , for in this daily life that I live by where I tell myself the world has moved ahead and I've kind of stayed back and such nonsense I realized not really, not at all.
When the world moves even if we stay still we would have moved its in our mind that we really get stuck.
Who would've thought then that in just 5 years or so I would start a blog and then 5 years down the line stop writing there much as the world would move to non stop communication in every sphere of life.Friends Politics ,Medical, Arts, Literature ,Trolling, celebrities open to public and the whole mess of it .

The letter had a line about the wide roads/ infrastructure of US and now you look back how much in just a few decades
we take that for granted in India too I mean in the cities at least.How much the US was the land of dreams for that generation and now its just another stop for so many.
And the still preserved birthday gift then was a full printed cricinfo profile + stats of Sachin and Rahul Dravid .

Oh gosh I've had good times ,I tell myself , however small . I wasted a hell load of time and potential according to many and now even I feel convinced may be I did indeed but then it's these look backs that remind me of this quote

"Time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time." - Bertrand Russell

As Time Goes By…A look back

After a very long time in these timeless times ,where some people have rediscovered their views on time, I looked back on this blog and thought may be a few thoughts must be jotted down in such times.Life has sapped the energy out of me kind of to do much really .

Funny my last few posts when I looked at.
One was about the positivity brigade – am I being sadist in seeing them clueless and consoling themselves as their "All is well – if not it will be well" scenarios being crumpled by the blows of nature and life. Oh well may be , I got a early dose of this from life and seem vaccinated partly .
I could not clearly recollect the movie " Inside out " about which I posted 5 years ago … Ah a reason for my blog – to remember what I forget so easily – for me so much is just ethereal by nature esp post my schooling somehow. Some times I just psycho analyze myself that may be its for my own good.
So here is why I though I better post something .

This quote I came across – I remember the book the story , I Just wish I had the ability to memorize the lines , but when I see I recollect.
So years ago in my early twenties , while browsing saw this and I remembered the day I bought the novel. I had read somewhere about it and found the book on the Sunday pavement bookstores and was looking at it appraising if I should buy and a young lanky teenage guy just came up to me and proactively told me . Please do buy it . Its a great book , and when I did read it I just wonder how much of that teenage rage was reflected by the book. And that is how books are.
Of all the joys life took out of me , my ability to sit for hours on reading a book without worrying on other things is what I practically regret the most.
There are consolations, like watching movies you could not have easily watched , reading perspectives from various strata of people, but really all the social media blogs they make you look at things . Only when you read a story immersed that you almost live a different life. Which is why I always loved fiction . These days non fiction helps for the broken attention span though .
I wish I could write about all the goodness and kindness OR the vileness and greed of humanity but I Just read of them all around and Ive lived enough to know both existed before and will exist after the current covid scenario which we are calling a radical change for humanity .
Saw a movie called Princess Mononoke , It was visually beautiful and there would be many reviewing it critically so lets just say , it a beautiful movie that showcases how in most cases no one really wins and man vs nature is a ongoing saga. very few can see with "eyes unclouded by hate" as said in the movie.

So when I thought well what do I post on this blog where I constantly keep saying that there is not much in this life which feels cursed at times. I loved these lines from the movie. "Life is suffering. It is hard. The world is cursed. But still, you find reasons to keep living."
So I should well at least find reasons to keep writing .Though honestly I am over that phase of feeling cursed, its too much of a emotional feeling. Now its more a swing between the varying degrees of hopelessness – that nothing ever matters and well –
let me grateful that I get to write this sitting in my green balcony with the most awesome weather in May making you wonder is the sun in lockdown too !! (though On a personal note I love the sun way too much .)

Dilwale – Exactly what people do in reality when they know you couldn’t fail

There is a positivity brigade upbeat in todays world asking one to live one's dreams and that fear of failure is root cause of all people living miserably and stifling innovation.

There is that famous question   "  What would you do if you couldn't fail? "
And you would think people would change the world and it will all be creative ,wonderful innovative work and what not.

Well if there is a perfect counter to this its Bollywood esp the directors
making the films of the Khans.Look they know they wont fail.
Despite whatever crap they churn out they will get a great opening and money is pretty much recovered. And yet it is this guaranteed success that serves up the lowest variety of even the formulaic stuff.

Dilwale is actually a perfect film made with everything except 'Dil'.

Its not like I went in with great expectation.
After over a year I went to a theater since I luckily managed to get tickets
and well growing up with Shahrukh and Kajol movies, that nostalgic feeling made me hope ok may be its  about seeing some nonsense movie just to see them together onscreen.

But just because you couldn't fail is this the crap you get served up.
Yeah some people like that too really I found as I observed in the Theater.
Even Johnny lever I  felt like was disinterestedly overacting .
As for Shahrukh snip off the scenes with kajol , all other shots he seemed
to be like – ok yeah what's the line – haan been there done that.

There is no limit to exploiting formula and chemistry of the lead actors.
Such lazy movie making…
Its been done by all Aaditya chopra, Sooraj barjatya and all but its like with every movie and 100 more crores they become more disinterested in the Dil part of moviemaking.

May be me and some of the old 90's generation are out of touch but honestly – after Sholay and DDLJ which dialogues have been reused like this in movies.

Our Creative young generation cannot even write some original dialogues
that can be recalled for few days. oh I forgot there are joke tracks ..

I know this is a pointless rant but even when you set the bar low…it seems things just seem to slip low.

The positive here-

• well with such nonsense also its clear none of new brigade have onscreen chemistry to match this 90's lead pair.
• And well I wrote a post – the movie made me feel so irritated for such a nice cast wasted !!

Few Movies after a long Hiatus

Last few months I myself seemed to be so hospital prone that I am hating it all but then I managed to watch a few movies ...

After a long time watched a movie I felt was brilliant.I mean scientific concepts put together in such beautiful emotional way in "Inside Out".

Of course as usual I guess it was more of a confirmation bias. Ive always had a thing against people who preached that stupid concept of "All is Well"
denying or trying to obscure the part  sadness , darkness and fears in shaping our personalities.

"The dark does not destroy the light; it defines it. It's our fear of the dark that casts our joy into the shadows." ― Brené Brown

Though the major part in the movie is for joy and sadness , the part anger , fear plays in building a persons life can never be ignored.

I was wondering how at a point in time my fear and disgust of handling calls , people and frustration turned to sheer anger and
 that anger worked more to drive away the fear than anything else to allow me to be more communicative verbally to people
 than I probably ever could by being calm and nice and proper I guess.

And then before that I had watched Piku. 

I've never related to a movie more closely.
Nearing a year since I lost my father it seemed like a recap of our life - the incidents matching so closely that  It literally had me and my sis eyeing each other more than the movie -
again wondering about the old adage. Life Imitates Art or Art Imitates life ?

He once accused our maid of drinking oil.

The almost exact description of doctors he gave as soon as he came out of ICU." lets go away dear .. they wont let you die here and they cant make you live."

And we had something in our home that too closely resembled that Chair.

But well the best part of the movie is now whenever my well wishers and dear friends start on their favorite advice
 " Why dont you drive your car. Its nothing that hard". I can tell them. Please watch the movie and understand
"why my subconscious has been so well trained by fear by my father that I consciously can never get over it"

His love for samosas and pakodas and the same exact words he used when we all who loved to travel wanted to go for a trip.
"Why go out ... All beaches are same.lets stay nicely at home relax , make pakodas and eat nah ?"

So many other small nuances . It was one of the most nostalgic movies for me.

It was hard to live with someone so dominating and yet with him gone forever , 

he still dominates so much of our memories.

We laugh at our own selves at the huge appetite for life our parents have , compared to so little they had and here we are not even 40 years and tired of life !!. 

And then I look at some 20 year olds and well it kind of feels better.

Coming Out ...?

No one can tell what goes on in between the person you were and the person you become. 
No one can chart that blue and lonely section of hell. 
There are no maps of the change. You just come out the other side. Or you don't. 
Stephen King
And so I write again ,

for I looked at my blog , my older posts here and not here

and I was in a sense of wonder yesterday night.
Was it me that wrote these so passionate about the life's trivialities ?
And then I realize how life's been playing the part and well what I have become.
I did wish to write it out believing that old adage of flushing out the pain
in words but never did it work, could not just work myself up to put it words.
But today morning in Pinterest when I come across this quote I told myself may be I am coming out on the other side.

I cannot write on it - what was that blue section from 2012 to well ongoing exactly -its hazy and its all in the mind
- the fears, the pain , the regrets , the way life overwhelmed me.
They reside still in mind refuse to be tamed and I do fear I may never come out

and even if I do its on the other side.

From someone agnostic I have tend towards the beleivers , never was against it but its become more pronounced .
From someone who accorded ones own initiative a fair share for success I tend to lean more on fate's wily ways
Its not a side I was ever against but its not a side I believed I would be on

I have walked onto that path by choice only that there was no map and I ended here.

Its not that I feel wrong just that it defeated my worldview bringing me to a point where I

Amazed at my own past self , sad at what I seem to have lost
but then I guess in the end everyone is the same

Of a visit to some wonderful places

I was contemplating on writing this post since I came back from vacation but was not sure what I should write about places already dubbed as heaven on earth or world wonders. And so I write about what I thought as I looked at two wonderful destinations in a way totally apart .

I visited Kashmir when it was not yet blooming in green as expected due to more snow this year. It was all trees with mostly bare branches or buds yet to bloom in their full glory and yet and yet.. it still can leaving you charmed . The mountains as you gaze make you recall why they say Himalayas protect India and their might descends upon you whether you want to or not.
The gondola ride in Gulmarg to Mount Arafat was one the best rides of my life .. so good that when I come back and look at pics I seriously wonder was that true or just a Bollywood movie.

​

The chilled temperatures made me assess my own ability to withstand such extreme weather (never mind that I packed very badly due to a busy schedule for a vacation which I was almost to cancel due to various troubles) . I finalized that for all I talk about nice cool places ,I need the sun every other day if nothing else.
The weather …ah the fresh air , never even realized till I came back that how good and healthy life feels with simple good food
and fresh cool air far away from computers.
That the tulip garden had still not bloomed fully broke my heart enough and as ever it was hard to drag myself off gardens and magnolia trees.
So terrible have we become in these cities that few of my friends  when they saw the vase of a roadside dhaba hotel
with a big bunch of daffodils they were not sure that they were real.

For someone who loves nature more than anything else I guess it will be a understatement but after visiting Kashmir and then going to see the Taj was well seeing the difference between what man can create at his best and what nature can create with such ease.

Taj was certainly a beautiful thing to behold but still , as I was sitting beside a blue river
with trees on the side raising a toast to heaven and surrounded by snow capped imposing peaks a day before
I found it hard to be amazed and fall in love with cold white stunningly carved marble .
That I guess is just me .

I recall the beautiful Shalimar Bagh which even in its state of neglect is more loving than  , if you bother to look at the back of the Taj.  Its gross and extremely sad the way the government there milks the heritage in the city to the max due to it being a top destination for foreigners but does little to beautify the city in any way. Its as sad as it can be.

So we go on and laugh that Jahangir certainly had  more life and loved Nur jahan more to create Shalimar bagh for her than Shah Jahan who created a tomb which while certainly stunning and imposing still feels a tomb only.
It was wonderful though when you walk through a city and fort where just a few hundred years ago kings and queens lived a daily life. It kind of stirs you to contemplate how fast we have moved ahead in just the last few centuries from electricity , air travel to mobile phones .

It was not my best vacation in terms of being able to relax with a mind constantly worried for things back home, and so I stll go by the Milton quote

"The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven" and that is the struggle of my life for the past few years .

To Write Again ?

Its been so very long and Ive been wanting every now and then to sit and write again – may be not the wry humor of office or of the world that were books to me but of listlessness and the dreariness of life and yet I could not bring myself to actually do it. When I went on a vacation , when it was the new year and I just looked back at my blog there were multiple moments and yet a inertia, a hopelessness has taken over me and nothing around helps me get off it. I did not even want to pen a farewell post to Sachin recalling may be some of the most joyous times of my life.

I would have almost forgotten this blog but for the random comments on my most famous post I guess seen by all nostalgic ICSE students remembering-the-roses-and-its-yet-unanswered-question and Caesarean Conspiracies

So many times my thoughts became lines in a post and yet never could get around to actually put the words in.But yet Ive been trapped to have conversations with people and well the more I talk to nice sweet people the more I recalled this quote in my saved notes .

"I don't hate people. I just feel better when they're not around."  Charles Bukowski

And so I thought of getting back to people and yet not having them around I guess in the blog.

Its like the whole humanity seems so lost so miserable or so confused that its this deep wish I feel to see it all over.

May be its just me – despairing over being cornered by life and denied of even hope and yet the more I converse with my dear sympathetic people the more I become averse to humanity ,

their insecurities , their fears, their dogged beliefs in ethics goodness or whatever , the struggle to be good , to be right its all like a mish mash that makes you want to be really blunt . But well ah I am human too !!

So I tag along with all the dear ones and hope  my acerbic thoughts will get the refuge in this blog.

Just looking back so much has changed in the world just since I started blogging  and well truly what wonderful worries I had in my youth huh I think – a great reminder of those as I look at entries in Life_n_all@Work