Ghantaghar

It's about contrast. What you think life to be and what it actually turns out to be. I can divide my life in three phases, pre 2013, pre 2016 and post 2016. You enter adulthood and realise that talent is a dozen a dime. So all you have left to do is to master your subject, your profession, your specialisation, and understand it deeply. Once you understand your subject, your specialisation deeply you tend to understand all other subjects deeply for the most part as deep understanding of all subject lead to one subject, that is philosophy and that's why the terminal degree is a PhD. Post 2013 I have had experiences with this nation that actually baffled my mind and at a level where I used to think that God resides. After having the experiences I retrospected and realised that I was carrying the seed almost throughout my life. I have never had structural disadvantage due to my family's standing and my father's academic background, but I ended up realising that structural disadvantage in India operates at level way deeper than we think. Post 2013, I realised something I always knew, that there are always bigger fishes, though the bafflement wasn't that, the bafflement was when I realised that these bigger fishes consume smaller fishes not out of need or hunger but just because they can do it. I had turned atheist by first year of my college because I before that I used to live in Meerut and anyone who has lived in Meerut and has a little bit of intellect knows that existence of God is impossible. Meerut doesn't operate with the logic of God it operates on whimsy. At one moment one is eating panipuri and the very next second someone shoots the panipuri vendor for ten rupees. The school I studied in Meerut, I used to boast about it that if you can survive that school you can survive anywhere and it seems about right. Though I love Meerut and it's not really all that bad, it has publication houses and comics publications and very other very interesting things. You love something that is your own and Meerut is. The real shock for me arrived when I came to know the true reality of Purvanchal, my supposed home region and about my hometown. While growing up my community was intellectuals of my place and my village community and 2016 when I faced real Purvanchal which in retrospection had always been working in the background I realised it is way more demonic than Meerut ever could be, though these motherfuckers inflict suffering on people it in a clandestine way and make it look like fate and make it seem like it is coming from God when in truth the suffering comes from assholes employed by politicians, mafia and capitalists of the region who then wrap it in religion. Purvanchal can be defined in one word "deprivation" and it is systemic and they use silly tricks like conspiracies and arranging weddings of incompatible people to make sure that people keep suffering terribly throughout their lives and despite the incompetence they do this shit with entitlement. I was there in the 90s and along with extortion and murder back in the day there was beauty in the culture too which I experienced first hand, that beauty has been destroyed by now due to extractive exploitation and region specific fate-deciding totalitarianism. There is no cure for a country when hate crimes are generational and whimsical and operate with legitimacy of God and I realise that's how many innocent individuals and families perish in this country. The bottom line is that rich are God. And only real God I personally was able to find was within, that too with tremendous efforts. The government well it is not even in the picture.