Thoughtspill

Learning to be gentle is a thing. One has to learn to be gentle. I have had some ghastly experiences, in fact a lot of them and still I have tried to remain gentle. Experiences change you, but they should change you only in a way you want to change. Being nasty to people is not a great change, even though a lot of people deserve to get nasty treatment, a lot of those who deserve it don't do it because of their own fault. Those who really deserve nastiness run the show and they are out of reach. There has to be a balance between gentleness and not nastiness but strength, and it comes in due time if one makes the right decisions. You live in the world enough and you realise that practicality is everything, and on the thought of practicality comes a thought of survival. What are you going to do about the guy on the petrol pump that fleeces you? You would stand up to it. That is if you can do it. Not enough people are privileged enough to be able to stand up to someone when they are being fleeced by them, this is the truth about this country and probably the world. It's not because they don't have courage, it's because the entity that governs the country itself is corrupt and exploitative. And yet some choose to not let go of their gentleness. There are a lot of beautiful things in the world. There are scents, sights and feels to be experienced, but those are only if you are lucky enough. Though luck is of different types, some don't experience pleasure but experience the truth, and truth however ugly, is better than a lie, that's just my opinion though, some prefer pleasurable lies instead of ugly truth. Individuals who are involved in discrimination can't see beauty, they are like beasts. They create ugliness wherever their sight falls. It is as if they summon it from the great beyond. You can summon beauty from the great beyond. You can be gentle, and strong, they are not mutually exclusive. 

Write Concepts #4

You have to find a balance in life. Finances are a constant worry, and I keep that worry at bay by indulging in creativity. I read books and comic books in free time. Video games are not what they were before, but still I collect them just for the guy who stopped playing them to focus on studies. And I also write. When I want to write, the first thing that strikes my mind is that everything has been written before, and yet I write. I like world building. Like I want to build a noir setting in an Indian setting. It will be suitable because this country is riddled with crime and corruption. One can play with gothic and victorian era sensibilities of Western and more specifically British literature as British had ruled over India and one can make the locations to be Indian hill towns and hill stations. I can also dabble with cosmic horror though only if I add an element of science fiction as an element of truth in it. I like to dabble in Indian mythological fiction too. These are the most of the genres I indulge in on a daily basis and to contain an element of truth they need to have an element of science fiction. It's not "science fiction" per se, as much as it is science but it is more of an occult science. And by occult I do not mean magic. Though I'm also interested in stories dealing with occult, and John Constantine is one of my favourite comic book characters. Fantasies are good too, and one can have Indian mythological fantasies, I have heard Indian fantasies from my babu when I was a kid and they are no different or less than Western fantasy, just not mainstream. Magical stories are also good and I know it's very generic for a 90s kid but I have been a Harry Potter fan. Still when I write even magical stuff, I need to have an element of science fiction in it just for my satisfaction and to portray the reality of the times we live in. I do not believe in magic, at least not until now, I do, however, believe in miracles of scientific nature. I hope occult and magic exists, but I know it doesn't. I really wish putting an eagle's feather and an owl's eyes cooks up a magical concoction, and that witchcraft actually exists, as that would be tremendous and mind expanding but there is no evidence of it and I'm open minded enough to accept them if I get an evidence and see it for myself. What actually exists, however, is science and it is no less than magic. My stories will feature men and women getting their nervous systems controlled wirelessly from afar and their brains always being connected to a network or a hivemind. The latest development in the field of science are chips which make people control their computers with their brains and chips which can make blind people (who have a functioning visual cortex) see, though as much as I know, and if it is not occult, things far greater than chips in the brain have already been achieved, and not only been achieved but weaponised too. It's a win-win situation for me, if it is occult it is universal and accessible to all without discrimination, and if it is science then it is a slavery situation. And anyway my definition of occult is doing things that are magical without help of an external machine, contraption or equipment. Like telekinesis, without help of an external equipment. One idea is that I dabble with cosmic horror with the perspective of science fiction in a dystopian world where people are neurological slaves and their brain and sensory data is farmed, exploited and sold to corporations. The present project I'm working on is science crime fiction and addresses scenarios where nervous systems of people are in the control of criminal organisations and enterprises. My belief is that unknown science is occult, and I also believe that science is reproducible and also that it can be analysed. When it comes to occult or magic and science, my bet is always on science, though I do not forget to keep an open mind and be open to the fact that there is a possibility, even if minute, that ghosts really exist and that some people might perform telekinesis and other things, as we see in comic books and superhero movies, without external equipments. It's a small possibility but this small possibility keeps the magic alive. I for the time being would work on crime science fiction project that I am working on, and then I have a world building project in which I have to experiment with world building in my favourite genres, keeping the Indian setting in my mind, individually and also by combining them.

The Last Relics of Faith

The earth is beautiful, the world is beautiful for some and for a lot more it's not. I have had my experiences in this world. I have had my fun, my secrets, my trauma. I wanted to go in the Army once. I still remember I would have been around 14 and I wanted to join the NCC, and so bad. But due to a kind of very valid reason I couldn't, I mean the reason was kind of funny but the truth is that shit is real only to the one it is actually real to. That's the way with the world. I had my insecurities back in the day, in fact just one insecurity though I'm glad that I did not let anyone else suffer because of that insecurity ever. The same year I wanted to join the NCC there was a medical camp in the school and I went to the doctor afraid that he would know about my insecurity, he couldn't. Doctors know a lot but not everything, I know because I'm one now. Though probably if I was the doctor back then I would have known about the insecurity in the kid, mostly because I kind of specialise in matters of mind. Though the truth is that in this country even if you specialise in the matters of mind you can't do much to help people. I didn't think that I would say it ever, but I'm glad that I didn't go into the Army, it's cool only until it actually is and if in Army I would have been the one to be involved in the action, as I seek thrill. My flat feet and the deep seated insecurity prevented me from going in the Army, and I think it was for the best. I still respect the men in services though, they are doing what others aren't. And I hope they do not know the real nature of this nation, as it would demotivate them. The days of faith are passé and so I suppose are the days of love, though I hope they aren't. I was in Benaras at my clinic and an elderly traditional Maharashtrian couple who had come for teerthyatra came to me for medicine. It was a welcome change from my cynical outlook, I adore and respect innocent people who follow their faiths and traditions with conviction, it's dying down and it would be extinct in sometime. It had a value when it had one. The old women in my village take their gathris and go to teerthyatras, pious good people who are kind and have a sense of right and wrong. Their faith is stronger than the scam in the name of religion that is going on in this country, and their faith and its strength is one thing that makes me want to believe in a God. Marriage for them is a bond for life, no matter what, they adjust, sacrifice, love and share responsibilities. You see this country today and all of it is gone, only old people who would not be there in a few years remain as the relics of strength of faith. I went to the hospital in hometown and saw a male assistant who was old, almost retirement age treating an injured girl, I saw him and I can't really explain what I saw, almost motherly concern and care while treating the wound combined with skill, it was pure love and skill. Now we have professionalism, but no love, and in this country even professionalism is not really present. I'm old enough to know that all of it is intentional. The culture has been swallowed by lust and greed. I'm glad to be where I am today and despite the inertia and obstacles. I know how the deepest structure of this country works, by depriving people of money and education, and when they want to spice things up, even food. Idealism and piousness would only get you exploited today, just two decades ago those who exploited people were known as villains, it's normal now. And so people are adapting and turning into hypocritical zombies. All of it is intentional and very centralised I realised as the world gradually unfolded in front of me. Silence is the only option now. One has to be silent and mind their own business and hope to get out unharmed. The earth, however, is still beautiful. 

Nyaya and Pratishodh

In old Japan a samurai had to avenge his master's death. Revenge was considered an honourable thing in feudal Japan and there is a tale of 47 ronins (or masterless samurais) avenging their master's death. Personally speaking I find revenge useless. I believe in forgive and not forget. But what can be said about a boy or a girl who was molested in childhood. Or just revenge by someone whose family has been murdered for no reason. Revenge is a complex topic to talk about, and there are two types of it that exist in this country. One is ego based revenge, where you hurt someone's ego and they hurt you, or try to destroy you. It is common in office politics of this country and also there where the differential of power dynamic is too much where a powerful person destroys the life of someone not that powerful for real or imagined offences. Then there is just revenge, where a person who is logically and morally right and has been harmed by an individual or entity. Just revenge where revenge is justice doesn't really happen in this country, and I now know why. In fact people do not even get justice from the courts. The system is rigged and corrupt from the top to the bottom. A good man should stay away from the police as far as possible, unless of course he has personal relations with someone in it. I'll ask you a question. Is there someone whom you want to take revenge from. No, I'm not talking about ego based revenge, but a very just and judicious revenge where you were innocent and completely in the right and that person intentionally for no reason caused harm to you? I believe in forgiveness, and I forgive people, because we live in a slavery situation, we are in this together and we have to survive and for survival we have to do things. In fact it is easier to to forgive someone if they have done what they have done for survival. The same however can't be said about individuals who have an upper hand in power dynamic and despite your innocence and minding your own business they harm you. Here revenge is thoroughly justified. But now let me break the bad news to you, you can't and will not ever be able to take revenge from them, well looking at the present situation and how it has been in this country for decades. Behind all the drama of judiciary, police, rule of law and constitution, lies a system which is throughly corrupt and exploitative in nature, and you can't do anything about it because it is in your mind and nerves. If you are getting exploited that means you are supposed to get exploited, if someone is getting justice in the courts that means that they are supposed to get justice in fact the system is designed to exploit and rape innocents. This system which is in our minds, knows and exploits us for our every insecurity and blackmails us for our every secret. The majority of the population in this country are not citizens, but property and slaves of those who own this system. Tagore had said "Thou art the ruler of heart and minds of people". You know who is the ruler of hearts and minds of people in this country? Conspiring rapists and extortionists, whose sole job is to prevent upward mobility of people financially and class-wise and keep people suffering. Suffering because they like to make people suffer and also because when life is full of suffering, there are no happy memories and when there are no happy memories a person is not motivated to move forward in life, and moving forward means financial and class mobility, it would seem far-fetched but people are kept alive just to satisfy the depraved and sadistic tendencies of the individuals in control. It's a criminal syndicate, and revenge is in plenty, just not a just and judicious revenge, but revenge of imagined offences to the egoes of egomaniacal narcissistic psychopaths who control our lives.