7 Up

One thing that I have always valued is clarity. I like to have clarity, and in the past decade I have worked on gaining clarity about myself, this country and the world. There was a time when to me it felt like I have reached the end of the world, or at least the simulation this world is and it is at this time I felt like there is no need to write, a thing I wanted to do as soon as I stepped into adulthood. It is later I realised that there is in fact a need to write. People who see things clearly must write as it is the only way times are preserved correctly. There are multiple sides to a story, and if not write, everyone must know, there side of the story honestly. The political existence in this world follows an order, you, your family, your community, your village or hometown, your region, your state and your country, also throw in other variables like your race, your caste, your religion, your social and financial class and very importantly your beliefs, political and otherwise. You gain clarity on these things and your political existence in this world is sorted. I'm mostly a culture and civilization oriented person, and I have seen my culture and my civilization collapse for pizzas and croissants in front of my eyes. There is nothing more severe to witness than this. What's damaged is not going to come back, but the least you can do is have clarity and see clearly what's gone. Life and people are not codes and algorithms. Sentient beings who feel pain, and the classifier is pain, are not robots. But then I have seen worse than considering people than robots. I have seen the indiscriminate use of Pavlovian psychology including pain related Pavlovian psychology on people, and so I realised that those who are seen as robots are more lucky than those who are seen as beasts. The bafflement about the country we live in, was not this. It was that individuals who are totally inept see people who are way better than them as animals. It was mind boggling to see that the major way of survival in this country is seeing the other person as inferior, that too without evidence, and it is here those who see other people as equals are indiscriminately exploited. And in case of the powerless they are made to forcefully believe that powerful yet incompetent individuals are superior to them. How did the incompetent become powerful if they are incompetent is the major question that arises. The answer is simple, deception and brute force, and this turns out, ultimately, to be the ultimate truth. Deception and brute force to be source of all power. The illusion of benevolence and practicals of whimsical violence and absolute totalitarianism. It is here all political ideologies and philosophies collapse and what remains is the search for dignity, survival and if possible happiness. The only home for the person who realises this is not his region, state or country, which it is given he would be exploited for, but his family and if we are pushing it, his community. 

Write Concepts #20

It’s kind of odd that instead of writing what I really want to write, that is fiction, I write more about writing itself. It’s kind of meta but it also talks about my writing blocks. I generally end up writing about writing or about the deep politics of this country which, frankly, I want nothing to do with and only write about because I realized that this country at the deepest level is mostly about exploitation of goodness, innocence and weakness. I have been suffering consistent writing block since about mid 2010s but still I write daily, I write in my journals and I try to update my blogs regularly. Writing personal blogs is a mid to late 2000s thing and has disappeared from mainstream in the era of social media but I continue it and I kind of use it as a documentation of my mind and the times we live in. If you are a creative writer suffering with writing blocks is not a pretty thing. It is very recently I stumbled upon the idea that I can bypass my writing and creative blocks by storyboarding what I want to write. I do not write for fame or money or to be an established author. I write for the joy of creation and creating something that I would personally enjoy reading. I enjoy writing and I for the most part, except the technicalities, enjoy reading my writings and I think that’s how it should be. There are things in the pipeline which get stalled due to writing blocks and I haven’t still started using storyboarding as a consistent tool in my fiction writing. I grew up on comics and so storyboarding and panels come easy to me and to be frank I was baffled when I realized how good my stories look imagined into panels in my mind. When I felt that it was difficult for me to write longer stories, I decided to write flash fiction to keep my creative muscles working. I really hope that I can create something worth reading and above all worth enjoying in the coming year. As far as writing on deep politics goes, I want to avoid it until I am left with no choice. 

Elementary

Things in the universe tend towards stability. Things want to be stable, people want to be stable. It’s unfortunate that for some in this world, their stability goes through making the lives of others unstable. In simple terms we call it politics and the major factors in politics are socioeconomic and sociopolitical. People have goals, like I once had but for the majority if those goals entail instability, they choose the safe option of being stable by sacrificing their goals and choosing an easier option or an easy goal and especially if they have family. Being brave is overrated and it wouldn’t have been if the politics of the world did not pervade and control every aspect of our lives and did not work day and night to make it unstable, especially for the less privileged ones. My political philosophy and ideology is simple, dignity and happiness for all and both of these things don’t require any money. There are various political philosophies and ideologies and the top three among them are capitalism, communism and socialism. Those who propagate these philosophies know how they can work better but the truth of the matter is that politics has only two goals, supremacy and control and so the top three political philosophies and ideologies can’t work well in practical terms and end up just becoming tools for control and exploitation. Once one understands this, aligning oneself with political ideologies starts seeming foolish and politics for the common man only becomes about affiliating oneself to an ideology to ensure protection and survival, a very selfish way of existence, instead of greater good. So practically politics becomes about aligning oneself with a local leader with whom one has good terms with. 

In early 2013 I wanted to be a novelist, not the serious kind of novelist like Jhumpa Lahiri but a writer of pulp and yet literary novels mostly in genres like adventure, speculative fiction, noir, fantasy and some other genres. I take my inspiration from early late 19th century and early 20th century European writers like Conan Doyle, Lovecraft, Edgar Wright Burroughs and quite a few others including Bram Stoker. I had a novel planned out, it was an adventure science fiction and fantasy novel called Ashtabhuj. It was during the same time that I wanted to write comics. It is at this time I realised how much freedom there is in this country and what kind of a democracy this country is. Coming from a so-called backward region called Purvanchal, I realised that individuals who are not privileged and connected have their fates sealed already and it doesn’t matter whether they have even lived in the region of their origin or not. My origin is from Purvanchal and I realised that absolute totalitarianism of a whimsical nature is being practiced in the region just at a level which is invisible to the naked eye and way deeper than the level we see the government functioning. Realising this truth led me to political enlightenment about this country as well as the world. I still write though and I have my goals as far as writing goes even though after becoming aware of the arrangement I realise that writing as a craft is redundant in this setting. I write only because I know that even though most of the things stop to matter in the political setting we live in, experiences still do and so writers who still want to write in an age where AI can write better than you they must focus on writing as an experience for the reader. 

Elseworlds

World-building is important and if one can’t do it for a greater narrative, one must do it individually for at least himself. I have seen quite a few worlds, and I have habit a of discovering new worlds through books and comic books. Since about fifteen years new worlds have stopped being made in in this country, people would argue it is not so but then they are missing out on something very crucial that I did not miss out on. In the past decade I have realized that there is systemic gatekeeping of aesthetics and comfortable narratives for the lower classes of this country and if you look at it the game is extremely simple, keeping the lower classes busy with hand to mouth and the middle classes busy with family problems and relatives. It was baffling to me that people in this country were being governed according to presets, like as if they were animals but as the truth became clearer all my bafflement was gone and acceptance took place, people in fact are animals for those who govern lives of people in this country. Comics in this country, especially indigenous comics, have disappeared. Here is a task, get yourself a comic of The Sadhu series, or Devi, both created by Shekhar Kapur and compare the depth of their worlds to anything that is present in the market today. You can also get yourself a copy of Odayan while you do that. Things got funnier when I realised that beauty is not only being gatekept from the lower classes but also being deleted from them, permanently. Folk cultures became the first casualty of this approach. The game is simple, torture the ones who carry the authentic culture of the land the most and let them carry the burden of culture while exploiting them the maximum. Here is the latest trick in the business, make entertainment too have real stakes and so entertainment too in the past decade is true crime like Burari Murders, movies on Aarushi murder case like Talwar, and series like Paataal Lok and Mirzapur. You might have noticed that escapist and fantastical cinema and TV have almost disappeared from indigenous media and now only remains in form of foreign media like Marvel and DC and other science fiction and fantasy properties. I miss the time when the kids used to read comics, especially indigenous comics. I, as a child, have read some great comics that too in Hindi and I have also experienced the world of American superheros and European literary writers. The last time I saw good world-building in Indian comics and literature was in early 2012. Indian indigenous comics is dead by now and Indian literary scene is now populated by rich housewives who have nothing better to do. Escapism, in this country, is not even an option anymore and anyway those who used to indulge in escapism, especially the 90s kids, are feeling the brunt of the reality today the most. Personally, my primary goal as a writer was to write and create fiction and I started suffering severe writing blocks in the mid 2010s which I later realised that was of political origin and it is very recently I realised that I can bypass the creative and writing block through storyboarding. Good for me as a writer, I guess. I think one must find their worlds, and if they don’t exist or are being charged tickets or taxes for visiting or inhabiting them, one must create their own. Art doesn’t exist in vacuum and the difference between art and propaganda is that you don’t have to pay tax on getting inspired form art. 

Flying Cars of The Middle Ages

Political persecution is mostly about beliefs but the times we live in the only belief that matters is supremacy and this belief is clad in various appearances of religion, caste and if we think outside the country, even race and numerous other appearances. The seed however remains supremacy. It is in the past decade I came to realise the depth and extent of power and the irreversible dynamic between the powerful and the powerless in this country. The dynamic is so irreversible that the ones in power act based on their whims despite having complete access to the truth and they have gotten irreversibly habituated to doing anything with lives of people, and here I’m talking about middle level power brokers, for the ones at top common people, their cultures and lives don’t even exist and since I’ve seen that people are numbers or worse, animals for power brokers at the lower level, only God knows what the ones at top think about common people. The most baffling thing that I encountered was that these individuals do not even bother to make an effort of knowing the truth despite having absolute access to it and it stops to be surprising as one realises that the goal itself is exploitation, financial, sexual, emotional and psychological. Life for the majority in this country, and nobody bothers about it as they are habituated to their lives and think of it as normal, is about suffering and getting that suffering downplayed and going through constant systemic gaslighting in which they are made to think that their suffering is their fault when in fact it is whimsical exploitation. There is only one method in this madness and that method is the method of extractive exploitation, extracting from people as much as possible while keeping them senseless with suffering and pain, physical, emotional, psychological, and in a state of emotional and financial deprivation. What I speak might sound like a conspiracy theory but this is the bottomline which due to individualised delusions and sporadic and individualised delivery of suffering may look false. The absolute political truth is exploitation at the deepest level and in this country it is feudal-corporate and sits at the place of God. While the arrangement is not  a problem when we see the simple truth of existence that whoever has the power tries to hold on to it, what I found problematic was when I realised that totally incompetent and criminal motherfuckers occupy the place of God and do anything with the lives of people based on their whims.  I have, in the past decade, realised that social strata have been sealed and only the chosen, whatever may be the reasons, even the whimsical ones, are allowed upward social mobility. The deepest structure of this country is capricious and stubborn which, if you are well read, you know that is the nature of absolute power but unfortunately it is incompetent and criminal too which is kind of odd for an entity which has all the information, knowledge and resources at its disposal. It kind of makes sense though, as the act of exploitation never takes responsibility and shifts all the responsibility to the sufferer or the victim itself but then the problem is that competence seldom comes without responsibility. It’s a circus that is going on where you have to try to save your own ass and also the ones you love as long as you can and try is the word here. It’s not ultimately not going to end well for the majority though I have realised that life in fact is not suffering. It’s the good and responsible who suffer because the setup is simple, of exploitation of any and every weakness and in this setup goodness is a liability. What remains now is the question. Family, survival, security or the illusion of it, one’s profession and calling, their interests and hobbies and the one of the most primitive pleasures of them all, the wonders of nature and the universe.  

Maslow's Nightmare

It's about priorities for the most part. When I started writing at first I started with writing about life. I still do the same but, as maturity arrived, at a deeper level. My goal since the start has been to make sense of things, and by the late 2010s I was able to make sense of life as well as the world. I wouldn't be boasting when I say that I made sense of life by early 2010s but I took one more decade in making sure that what I knew about life, the world as we know it and as we don't and this country, was true. And by late 2010s I realised that whatever inferences I made about modern life, the world and this country was absolutely accurate. I wanted the absolute distillation of modern existence, which is not that modern in hinterlands, and I was able to do it. So, it's basically all about sensations and so called vibes for those who have their food, clothing and shelter sorted, and for those who have not of course it is first about food clothing and shelter. Of course it is a lot about relationships too because we live in a social setting, and relationships at the top of the food chain decide how the relationships among the people at the bottom of the food chain would be. I sorted my relationships when the truth that relationships can be readily politically sabotaged came in the fore for me. It is then I classified my relationships into family, community, personal and formal and professional classifications. The deeper politics in this country depends a lot on preventing people from making relationships and preventing them from having experiences and gaining experience in things. It is based on a simple premise that when people know less and are less skilled or find themselves lacking, they are easier to control. Life is no fun until you have some people and some things for whom you can readily die for, and I am glad that I have that in my life. Given the politics of this country one must realise that biggest fools are those who honestly chase and believe in ideology. The deepest machine of this country which is essentially equivalent to God gets fuelled by money, in form of money, land and resources, and sex, which due to the absolute and irreversible nature of the power dynamic presents itself as exploitation and rape and ones you have this knowledge and the knowledge of actual depth of control over people, it inverts every philosophy known to mankind. The present game is to dismantle all hierarchies except the one hierarchy that can't really be negotiated with in any way. My goals in life were simple, I primarily wanted to be a physician and medical physiologist and write comics and novels in free time making me a physician writer, and while due to my life's circumstances and heavy political interference in my life I couldn't be a physiologist, I ended up realising that physiology is redundant with the level of technological progress that has taken place though I still don't consider being a physician redundant as a physician still alleviates suffering. I got into hospital administration after leaving medical physiology, and I still do write though not as much fiction as I want to write and I find myself writing more philosophy than I would like but I think it is the demand of the times we live in that at least someone must speak the truth even if the power and control over people is absolute. 

Shazam!

I was not happy with Netflix buying WB and DC, as out of all media companies Netflix has the worst intent as far making stories goes, it's basically majority propaganda and a lot of it poorly made, also the pricing is too aggresive compared to the content available, and rights to all WB and DC properties. Only silver lining in this takeover is that Snyderverse can be reinstated. I have no idea what will be the future for James Gunn's DCU but I would hope that both of them exist. I read on Instagram that a The Rock's Black Adam and Henry Cavill's Superman, then there is a rumour of Batfleck's return. I really hope both the snyderverse and James Gunn's DCU coexist. Netflix is globally what Sony Pictures India, now Culver Max is to India. I used to think that Sony Pictures is a Japanese company but I recently, through the internet, learnt that it is an American company. Indian upper class, if your eyes are open, you would realise that it is a colony of the United States, just as South Korea is. The lower classes are under localised feudal control. Since early 2010s the "content" has become too realistic, and Sony Pictures India along with Netflix although seperately, was one of the first to repackage stolen past of this country and its people and sell it back to them. It sounds paranoid, but you got to see some shit to finally realise the truth. It's just like The Matrix, the machines melting babies and feeding the melted babies to growing babies in their human farms. It was supposed to be entertainment and now it is programming. I anyway do not watch anything from Bollywood, and if it is Hollywood only once in a while unless it is a superhero movie so I'm away from this propaganda. Individual writers remain the last bastion of the art of storytelling and it where stories and the art of storytelling hasn't yet corrupted even though it is co-opted as soon as it comes to market. 

Interest

 I love speculative fiction. Though the experiences I have had in the past decade, there isn’t much left to speculate anymore. I have always had a scientific bent of mind and I loved stories of Jules Verne as they had science as well as exploration. Jules Verne is the reason I appreciate steampunk as a genre. If I have to recommend you some of my favourite TV series, I would recommend two. One would be a more popular Love Death and Robots on Netflix and another an underwatched and underappreciated gem called Electric Dreams on Amazon Prime. As a person I always thought about terraforming of another planets, my scientific bent of mind along with heavy reading of comic books in childhood guided my speculative thought until the political reality of this country and world dawned on me. Once you know the political reality, terraforming of other planets stops to matter. You know the absolute truth of the world? No, not the earth, the world. It’s interest, no not intrigue kind of interest but the kind of interest you pay to the bank. Existence in the world is about paying interest on everything you do, even your suffering. In extractive societies like Purvanchal that’s how it works. You pay interest on your suffering too. An example of that would be a rape victim getting victim blamed. She has been already raped but then it is she who must feel ashamed and not the rapist because the deepest mindset is that the rapist feels entitled to rape. At the deepest level, seldom visible to common eyes, politics in places like Purvanchal which don’t have to protect it from intruders as the Indian Union takes care of it, politics is mostly about retaining the right to rape. Realising this fact as a believer in constitution and the Indian Union was a hard awakening for me. I realised that the world in which people who hold power think of having the right to rape others instead of thinking about terraforming planets in the vast universe, so vast that each person on this planet can have a planet of his or her own, a change for better is impossible. You can see the general experience in this country in the past twenty years. We have mobile phones, computers, internet, e-commerce, quick commerce and yet the quality of life and subjective experience of the majority, if we leave out the privileged, has decreased. It is in the past decade I have realised that real politics of this nation is extractive exploitation while maintaining the illusion of normality. When I understood victim blaming it is then I realised that all religions are about victim blaming, so that the ones in power can exploit them. In India it is visible in the form of things like having to donate a golden cat to a Brahmin if you kill a cat, even if by mistake. I believe in capitalism and I think it is a great political system if practiced ethically and correctly but what we are dealing with in today’s world and especially in this country is extractive capitalism. The most baffling thing that I realised during the course of my enlightenment was that not only these motherfuckers are gatekeeping beauty and aesthetics from the lower classes but also permanently deleting it for them, hoarding all the beauty for themselves. It is here I realised that a common man, even if man as a species, is able to reach Mars or other planets and terraform them, will remain permanently a slave. 

 

Show and Tell

I keep this blog alive as a homage to late 2000s, early 2010s blogging platforms after which the blogging platforms became website designers and social networking became social media. I come here and write my mind, something that the bloggers of late 2000s and early 2010s used to do. In the age of tweets, reels and facebook posts I still believe in longform writing. The output on this blog in particular increases when my creative output decreases. I create stories solely for creative pleasure and put it on my social platforms for people who like to read and who like reading stories. This blog in particular for me is what a blog actually is, a weblog. As I grow old my interest in entertainment like movies has dwindled, only thing I actually enjoy is reading books and comic books, and hence writing is a tool for recreation for me. There was a time, mainly in the early 2010s when I wanted to be a published writer but then the truth of the publishing industry of this country came out to me and I realized that publishing is a scam, and anyway people who actually read in this country, especially longform writing, are decreasing day by day. I keep the tradition of writing alive and while doing so I realise that writing is directly connected to political persecution. If you are a writer, you are on the radar and there are no exceptions. The beauty of India is that it advertises America level liberty but the truth is that its deep state practices Saudi Arabia, Iran and Afghanistan level liberty with the infrastructure and amenities of sub-saharan Africa. Freedom is intentionally unevenly distributed which gives the illusion of merit. I used to think that there is something deeper to life and being human, which if we see subjectively is not wrong but then I realised the deep politics of this country only thinks in financial terms, which it has an option to not to, and yet it does that. The deepest layer of existence that most people never manage to go beyond is politico-economic and financial and the ones running the show are playing biopolitical 6D chess with people without any regard to lives of people. I’m aware how deeply paranoid it all sounds, but unfortunately after the layers of delusion are peeled it is the only truth that remains. My only source of recreation now, except my few interests and hobbies, remain creative writing and nature as I realise that other thing when contrasted with the actual setup of this country, and possibly the world though not as terrible as it is in this country, become worthless. I write about life, existence and I write about writing and my interests and hobbies. I have never had any material goals except financial security but the times we live in it is hard to come by even to competent individuals. Earning money honestly in this country is harder than doing so dishonestly and it tells you all about who is running this nation. I keep writing blogs while people are busy making reels and getting their mood decided by social media algorithms. We live in times where people instead of telling believe in showing and while it is not bad I have found that telling works better for me. 

 

Thoughtspill

Writing blocks are terrible and I was desperately searching for methods, and one of the methods I stumbled upon after prolonged deliberation is storyboarding. It's easy to write a story or novella when you have a story board. Since I am a fan of comics and graphic novels it's easy for me to imagine my story or scenes of novels as a storyboard and this part enters into the domain of crafting stories when a writer doesn't have the flow. I think storyboarding is a great method. A lot of writing in my earlier years depended on the flow, I wrote the first word and experienced the trance of flow, which as one gets older and other distractions start to occupy the mind becomes difficult to achieve. There is one more advantage of storyboarding, it prevents the ugliness from the world seeping into the story. You think about scenes, settings and characters and you storyboard them and the Delhi in the storyboard is different from the actual Delhi with garbage and shit-infested subways, even if you reproduce it its character changes in the storyboard and you can carry it over to the story retaining all the facts and fortifying it with vibes of your choice. 

Write Concepts #19

Writing requires inspiration and motivation. I’m facing writing block at present and so I write blog posts instead of what I really want to write, fiction. Fiction is a beautiful as it allows you to build worlds. Each novel, each comic book, each story you have read, each movie or series you have watched has a world, a particular, specific world with its own rules. I like fantasy, and sometimes science fiction and speculative fiction. The world we are living in present doesn’t allow for much imagination for all but we can try to imagine. Each story has a different world and you can explore that world when you read that story. I have read a lot so the cognitive dissonance I had when the real world contrasted with the perception of the world that I had due to reading, especially fiction, was tremendous. With time the your perception of the world, the real world and the fictional world start to coexist together in your mind after compromise though they do take input from each other. The reality we are living in present, it’s hard to not be cynical but fiction allows you to get into world where you can leave your cynicism behind. I try to write different kind of stories. Yes some of them are dark, cynical and noirish or straight up laced with dark humor but I do write romantic stuff too though romance from the world is fast disappearing. I have a bunch of writing projects in pipeline and I plan to finish at least half of them in the next one year. There are a bunch of novellas, some short story series and a bunch of short stories and flash fiction. It’s about world building too, building worlds that the readers could explore. Writing block is terrible thing so you resort, instead of writing through the intrinsic flow with which some writers are blessed, to crafting with intent. I like to mix genres into a sort of masala, like mixing noir and mythofantasy. It’s been quite a while I have written flash fiction but it is my go to as it allows short bursts of creative output. I’m excited for the short story series and short story ideas that I have but their proper execution depends on me overcoming the block. I hope the coming year is kind for me creatively and I am able to achieve the goals that I want to achieve. For my novellas, I’m aiming to publish on Wattpad and if it turns out good I might self-publish.

Kashi Vishwanath

One’s hell is individual and one has to deal with it. The truth as I have subjectively confirmed in the past decade is that in this country it is only good people that go to hell. I had seen my culture growing up and I still think it was one of the most beautiful cultures in the world, “was” is the keyword here. And I used to think that sabotage of cultures happens in the tribal areas of Jharkand. My beautiful and refined culture has been thoroughly defiled and destroyed and the silence and peace that I see in my region is solely due to individualized intimidation and blackmail and that too only because my people are good. I used to think, since Bihar has shared culture with my region of Purvanchal, that Bihar is a misunderstood region. I have lived there. It is a literal hell hole and I still thought that it is government corruption and bureaucratic incompetence, it is in the past decade when the truth of this country, a mainly through a serendipity, got exposed to me I realized that it is an actual hell and since Purvanchal shares the same culture with it, Purvanchal is too. Only difference is the external government which I realised is just for cosmetic purposes. There is a consistent pattern of assholes who are ruling the region, getting the people of the region humiliated and raped by individuals from other regions and at first I thought that this is because the region is backward but then I realised that this shit is systemic and the cucks ruling this region enjoy people from “their” own region getting humiliated by people from other regions. I mean it was tried with but didn’t really work but I got to understand the setup. God is nowhere here except a tool for exploitation which unfortunately in Purvanchal and Bihar is of a very intimate nature. A decade in the region and I realised that illiterate and incompetent motherfuckers hold absolute power in these regions and since I belong to health sector I realised that these bastards are making people sick just for selling more medicines. Of course it is capitalism and my personal stance too is capitalist though it is ethical capitalism which these exploiter would know nothing about. What is going on in the region of Purvanchal and Bihar is totalitarian slavery being perpetuated by what is basically a criminal syndicate and is tied directly to big daddies of this country whom they provide human resource. At the greater level this country is about discrimination of people with roots by rootless bastards. Though as the arrangement revealed itself to me I realised that there is essentially no hometown or no region and people of this country are essentially homeless until it is the time to get discriminated and exploited for their origins. I had no business in this shit and yet I found myself in the deep waters as the character sketch of what truly owns this country is of an illiterate spoilt brat who goes around murdering people without any instigation. God is a smokescreen and thievery is the norm. The shitshow I have seen in the past decade is hilarious and only decided to write about it when I realised that literal criminals are in charge of the culture in my region something they are too dumb to even understand which has been thoroughly destroyed by now. One more funny thing, there is no intelligence establishment in this country or if there is it is complicit though they can hardly be called intelligent.

Seedhi Baat

It’s basically about ideas. The best thing I did in my life is that I thought less about people and more about ideas. Here is a fact, those who love you, or those who like you will do so no matter what and those who don’t, you can’t do anything to make them like you. So, in my opinion, one must focus on being kind to those who love and like you. Here is why thinking about people is a waste of time: people change, some due to their principles, and they are the good kind, and some according to convenience. I spent time with ideas and there were two reasons for it, one, a part of my job entails dealing with ideas and two, I like reading books which again introduce people to new ideas. It’s later in life I realized that life of people in this country, and I don’t know about the world, is composed of artificially created constructs which sit at the place of God but are actually created by criminals. It’s about navigating thought and sensation complexes being fed into you to make you reach your fate which has either already been decided or is decided in real-time and, as far as my experience goes, according to whims of thoroughly incompetent individuals. Life is suffering, as Buddha realized, but actually it is not. Life is not suffering for all, just for the good people. The world or at least this country, when you are enlightened enough you realize, works on the principle of exploitation of anything that can be exploited and that could be illness, handicap, poverty, self-consciousness, lack of confidence, personal secrets or anything for that matter. When you realize this nature of this country, and possibly the world, things become simplified and you fall back of little pleasures of life, like the breeze, plant and animal kingdom, the nature while the ones who are privileged lead an artificially curated life built on blood, sweat and corpses of innocents. When this truth presented itself to me I was not surprised because probably I knew it subconsciously throughout my life. The most unfortunate things is the people are not only deprived of things as basic as food, emotional support and intimacy, but even things like the ability to feel the breeze on their skin. The reason for all this? Random whimsical and baseless hatred. It is here choosing and working on right ideas to lead one’s life becomes important. The rule is that only good people get exploited because assholes know the tricks of the trade as they exploit others. And it is here a good man or woman must choose the ideals and principles he or she must live (or die) for and set clear boundaries so that they can’t be exploited by anyone except God (as God itself, in this country at least, is an exploiter). The system thrives on making people trip on different things so that they can’t empathize or feel compassion for each other and the control is so absolute that there is nothing that can be done about that. This country is officially a democracy but in actuality it is a centrally controlled kleptocracy. And of course and undoubtedly it is biopolitics. What one can do is to try and choose the ideas and ideals to trip on. The choice is solely yours, to choose your ideals and ideas and one learns, especially in this country, too late but it’s better late then never. You live in this country for long and you realize that at the ground level this country betrays its very motto, “truth always triumphs” and as you look up for respite, truth is is as rare as a dinosaur. Truth and justice, as I got exposed thoroughly to this country in the past decade, I realized that are not present not even in hinterlands but are also absent all over the country. Only true pleasures, other than your personal material interests and hobbies, remain your family and nature and nothing else. I have seen things in the past decade and I realized that those who run this nation have sold it and with it the people, majorly the innocent ones of the lot as the assholes have been co-opted for exploiting the good and innocent. Identity is something that is majorly exploited and so you have to be sure of your own. Faith is less of a personal entity and more of a political entity though it still does its job of providing respite and community to good men and women. When I saw the things I saw, I turned atheist, because there is no way in hell there is a God that lets things that I saw happen, but faith does give strength and despite my political stance being that of an atheist, I have faith in Mother Goddesses mainly Chamunda and Saraswati. Life for me has simplified since knowing the true nature of the actual political reality of this country, and it is my work and my interests. People, in this country, unless you have personal relationships with them, aren’t worth your time and if you are the kind of person who likes to fulfill responsibilities that come with your relationships, try to keep your personal relationships minimum an for social survival you must have professional and formal relationships. I hate to be this direct but the only God in this country are politicians, mafia and above all, the rich and the rabbit hole goes way deeper than you can ever imagine. No amount of bullet trains can undo the damage to the culture in the past twenty years. This country and the world is never going to be a better place because it is already better for whom it is, and for others there is Buddha’s Dukkha, life is suffering. 

 

Musing on Entertainment

I’m watching Jurassic World Rebirth at present and I was pleasantly surprised by it. It happened to me in succession now as the last movie that I watched was Final Destination Bloodlines and was pleasantly surprised by that movie too. I love movies that have exploration as a theme. Anacondas Hunt for the Blood Orchid is considered by many to be a B movie, though I would like to disagree, it is one of my favourite movies. I don’t see movies and TV very often, and only movies I see now are superhero movies of Marvel and DC and as a comic book and superhero genre fan I make it a point to try to watch these movies in theatres. The Jurassic Park movies are great, but I didn’t like the Jurassic World movies starring Chris Pratt, I found them soulless. The last movie I watched, Final Destination Bloodlines, and this movie I’m watching (I now watch movies in sessions as unless I am seeing then in theatres, I find it hard to watch them in one go), Jurassic World Rebirth, have something in common, that they are not soulless. Just like movies of the 90s and early 2000s, they have a soul no matter the genre. I find most of the Netflix content to be soulless. I think Netflix doesn’t really have a good intent as far as creating art and entertainment goes. Cinema, TV and content can make money and have a soul, these two things are not mutually exclusive. And with the news of Netflix taking over WB and all its IPs it is kind of concerning to me as they would have rights over the animation and comic book content including the comic book movies as well. As far as Indian entertainment goes, I have had my experiences in the past decade and after that I have totally stopped watching Indian movies and content. I realised that Indian entertainment industry, media industry and especially Bollywood is populated by shameless voyeurs who do not respect their own art and they are also shameless propaganda peddlers. I have no hope for Indian entertainment industry anymore and I miss Karan Johar era of Bollywood; it was sentimental slop but at least it was well intentioned. I miss good intentioned directors like Hrishikesh Mukherjee, Manmohan Desai, David Dhawan and Priyadarshan who could make comedies without disrespecting the people and culture. The motherfuckers running the media and film in this country have lost the plot and are majorly producing propaganda either to delude people or make them enjoy voyeurism and schadenfreude. I don’t think Indian films, television and web series are worth the time of a man or a woman who wants to unwind after a hard days work.

Provider and Still A Rider

My first bike was Bajaj XCD 125 when I was in 12th standard. I rode it a bit and then it was time to go to college. When I was in college there was Bajaj Pulsar 150 at home and in the third year of college, I got a second-hand Yamaha RX 100. I consider the RX hundred to be my first bike. I absolutely loved that white and blue 100 cc beast and whenever I took that bike for servicing during my stay in Patna the bike mechanic welcomed me with open arms. He loved to service the bike just like I loved to ride it. I explored Patna on that bike for three years and then it was time to come home. Unfortunately, the RX 100 was taken by one my family staffs and I didn’t have the courage to ask it back and I thought I’ll get another one for myself when I have enough space at my home as it is a consideration. Then I get married and get myself a Hero Duet scooter, it was a shitty scooter but then I can’t say for sure as I didn’t take good care of it but then I don’t take good care of the Activas at home too and they run quite well. There is a Royal Enfield of my brother but to be frank I’m just an admirer of Royal Enfield and not a fan and only Royal Enfield bikes I might get for myself are the Himalayan or the Continental GT. I’m a fan of dirt bikes and cafe racers and hence my preference for the Continental GT. I might get myself one, I think. When my scooter croaked and I had to get myself a two-wheeler for daily commute which is mostly a bit of Highway and quite a bit of village roads, I chose Hero Xpulse 200, it was inspired in part by my love for dirtbikes and although it is not a dirtbike it is the closest a middle class man can come to a dirt bike in India. My opinion of Xpulse 200? Great bike. I thoroughly enjoy my daily commute of about 35 to 40 kms up and down. Runs great on the highway and runs great on village roads.  

I love riding though the bike should be enjoyable to me to enjoy the ride. I dislike heavy bikes and that would include superbikes though I don’t hate them. I like bikes that are easy to handle, nimble and quick. RX 100 I had was all of it and the Xpulse I have is the same, though it’s a bit tall but an enjoyable ride, nonetheless. I might eye a Continental GT for purchase because I love the bike though the final decision would be made after I have ridden it as I haven’t got a chance to ride that bike till now. The Royal Enfield at home is a great ride but it is not as great hype though I can understand it’s a fanboy thing. Like I’m a fan of dirtbikes and cafe racers. Real dirt bikes are expensive, though not as much but I’m waiting for a company to launch an authentic dirtbike in India. The only cafe racer, I think, in the market is Continental GT and I search there are a couple of more, but Continental GT remains the most available and accessible. If the space issue gets solved, I would aim for a RX 100, or I might turn shameless and ask back my RX 100 from my family staff.  

A Glance At The World of Linux

I’m a big fan of Linux and its ecosystem and a bigger fan of Linus Torwalds. I have been using Linux on and off since the mid to late 2000s and regularly since late 2010s to early 2020s. I try different distros and at present I have three of my machines running Linux. Initially I was using Ubuntu LTS but later for two of my machines I switched to Pop OS and Zorin OS pro. One of my machines has Fedora. Pop OS and Zorin OS are based on Ubuntu while Fedora is just Fedora. I have Windows machines too but that's only because my academic and clinic work requires Microsoft office and repertorization and clinic management softwares and both of them do not work natively on Linux. Even my heavy duty machines are Linux. My main gaming machine is Pop OS on which I run Steam. Of course it does not run all the games on Steam like it would on a Windows PC but it does run a lot of them thanks to proton and its increasing compatibility. The main issue on Linux machines is Microsoft Office which is the most used office suite, and kind of necessary for thesis work, but Libre Office is a good alternative and if you download proper fonts it kind of works well but still I keep two windows machines, one for my clinic and one for my thesis and writing works as some of the writing software like Scrivener and yWriter don't work natively on Linux. I donate to Linux based distros and apps and I think if not for official purposes and some apps not having native support on Linux, it works well enough for me given the amount of customisation and control I have on Linux. My main gaming rig has Pop OS installed on it and I play, whenever I have time, Steam games on it. My ThinkPad has Fedora on it and I use it majorly for research and writing purposes. If you are new to Linux, I would highly recommend Zorin OS. It is based on Ubuntu and is very sleek and polished. I have also used Linux Mint and it is great too and there are numerous distros out there you can test and find out which of them you feel most at home with. 

Gothamabad

My two primary loves are literature and comics and I try my best to devote time to these interests of mine. Early 2010s, I wanted to write a novel. Late 2010s, I realise that the novels are redundant. I see Anand Gandhi of Ship of Theseus fame creating a new universe and its lore which seems promising as it has different species inspired by Indian mythology. But as far as I see it it is a universe developed for the rich, by the rich. I can afford the Maya lore books, but I'd rather stay away from it because I don't really find any soul in it. Even imagination has been commodified and is being rationed. Compare this to the 90s when middle and lower-middle class had access to comic books and unbridled imagination. Lower class still didn't but at least middle and lower class could imagine. It's not really possible in this country now that a food delivery guy comes home from his shift and reads comics and immerses himself in imagination. Reasons are, the times are such where imagination has been commodified and rationed and two, comics, even Hindi comics have become incredibly expensive. Of course this is totalitarianism. The government, if your eyes have been open in the past decade, is just working as an arm of the rich, which you can see in the recently declared labour laws. We are living in the times of officially sanctioned exploitation, which for that matter has always been in this country unofficially. Quality of life, is basically being gatekept and the poor only have sex as entertainment which for the assholes in the poor become rape, the brunt of which is suffered by some helpless poor woman. The ones who are awake are seeing in real-time, complete feudal-corporate-mafia takeover while others are asleep and are busy with liking, mostly vulgar reels and watching black market mms scandals and pornography (and remember porn is banned) being peddled through Telegram and Terabox. The good ones are trying, comic book communities on Facebook and pages on Instagram are trying, but the actual comic nerds of this country are helpless because the right to be called "nerds" is only for the kids of rich. Isn't it funny, what's street level in the West, like rock music, rap rock and rap, is high-class in this country? People can't escape anymore, all that remains, especially for good ones, is sexual repression, religious and moral guilt, financial exploitation and locked stratas, and we are living in times about which the Discovery Channel in 2002 said there would be flying cars.