31-07-26

Let me see, what do I have to write? I like old school internet. The internet where people were present to connect to each other, to make friends, to discuss ideas and their interests. That internet is long gone. All that is now is weaponised information and information warfare where you have to have edge in information than the person in front of you. I ended up seeing a whole new face of the internet and I was young and naive and did not know that the internet in the world we live in can be connected to one's destiny. Here was a guy discussing science, literature and pop culture and who thought this is what the internet is for. For discussions, for discussing hobbies and interests when in truth the internet was divided into two factions one, people escaping the real world because real was was either unbearable for them or too boring and the other, predators and unfortunately also the kind of predators who write destinies of people. There was no pop culture to be discussed only histories to be made a history that no one would know about. The third faction which was an intersection of the two factions was of the narcissists, the escapist narcissists and the predatory narcissists and there were some looking to find greatness, chasing greatness through a technology that gave them visibility by emulating greats but that's what schools teach isn't it? Emulating the greatest? As the built narrative collapses under the weight of available information and tyranny one is left wondering who in fact was great in history? As the greats are outed as predators, opportunists, pedophiles and industry plants there is no greatness left to emulate, just peace to be found. Old school internet as one realises only existed for the lucky, the same old school internet that made kids roleplay Harry Potter characters got they preyed upon by predators and the most unfortunate of them found a link between being a prey and their destiny. Internet too is a reflection of the world, and earlier the escapists escaped into this new democratic world where anything could be said without consequences and so followed the predators into this new world full of preys and now even saying things on the internet has consequences and a lot of times worse than saying things, like they say, IRL. Some learnt this lesson too early, and life came a full circle when they realised that internet too, now, is real life. It's all IRL. It's just an extension of the real life, it's not a simulation where you can have a hacker alias and be Neo and now your handle, your gamertag your social media profiles need to be connected to your government ID which sounds bad until you gain real actual political enlightenment that it's all a game of predator and prey, the life itself. There are no friends to connect to, to discuss pop culture, philosophy, science and literature and probably there never were.

Investment

It's about investing your money at the right place. Like this platform which gives me a permanent domain and tries to keep the old internet alive in its own little way. Shut up and take my money, I would say. Good places to invest money? Food, clothing, shelter and by this I mean experimenting with new food, getting comfortable clothing that express your personal style and a home of your own decorated with your personal preferences, with the basics secured then come investment in knowledge, entertainment and hobbies. But before all of this comes investment in health because if health is shoddy no amount of wealth is going to feel good. Investment in education? Well, unpopular opinion but not in the present political economy, no. Investment in education is useless. In knowledge and skill development? Extremely useful. Though investment in education for social validation and ornamental purposes is recommended but not as essential as gaining real knowledge and skills. I see how the landscape of existence has changed in the past decade. For me it had changed way before that. I experienced gatekeeping of places I didn't even want to go to. Isn't it funny. Someone gatekeeps places you don't even want to go to and then tells you that this place is restricted for you and when you say you never even wanted to go there they become all aggresive and start forcing their opinion that you really wanted to go their when they have all the tools to know whether you did or did not. And then in their obstinate frenzy they murder you. One realises, if they read newspapers, that people lose their lives in this nation for even less than ten rupees. I read a news where a man lost his life because the golgappawala gave him the golgappa first and a similar news where a person lost his life where the eggwala gave him the egg first. It's kind of different here than Europe where choppers are deployed to save the life of one man or America where choppers get involved in a police chase. Once you have a home make sure to invest in nature in your home, and in your own little kitchen garden or a terrace garden. Make sure when it rains that you make pakoras and chai and eat them in your verandah if it is a home or in the balcony if it is a flat. Also, it is extremely important to be at home within yourself, with yourself. The reality we live in is like that bird and monkey story where monkeys destroy the nest of the bird just because he had a place to live in during the rain and they didn't. Build your nest nevertheless.

Vroom

I like motorbikes. My first personal bike was in college which was an Yamaha RX 100, before that during school I had got an XCD 125 which I used to go for tuitions. I don't own the Yamaha anymore and my current bike is an Xpulse 200 which I use to commute to work and since I love the bike it makes my work commute seem like a leisure ride. I haven't got a car for myself and my goal was to get myself a Toyota hatchback. I love Toyota as my family used to own a Toyota Etios and I loved driving it and it was a tough ride. Only Toyota hatchback in the market is Glanza which, as most people know, is a rebranded Maruti Suzuki Baleno. I'll get myself a car as soon as Toyota launches an affordable genuinely Toyota hatchback. I'm not interested in cars, never was, they are just a means of transport for me and a hatchback fulfills that need for me. I'm not even interested in luxury cars and if one has to be practical given the condition of Indian roads and traffic luxury and sports car offer no value except of course doing the job of being a status symbol which is why, I would guess, most people buy them in this country. I love bikes and I like nimble bikes. Xpulse is a great bike and I truly enjoy riding it on broken roads of my hometown which refuse to get repaired. My end goal is to make a collection of bikes and they are not really expensive bikes, but first I want to acquire an RX 100, I genuinely love that bike with all my heart. The bikes I want to get are a TVS Ronin, a Royal Enfield Continental GT and a Triumph Speed 400, so just a very humble list. I wanted to get a KTM Duke too but that bike has its reputation ruined in this country. I love dirt bikes and cafe racers but dirt bikes aren't really practical in this country despite country being full of dirt and trails because of upkeep but that's what guided me towards Xpulse and I haven't been disappointed. Royal Enfield Continental GT seems to be a great cafe racer and I hope to own it as soon as I become a little comfortable. 

Ubuntu XP

While I couldn't be a coder due to choosing Biology over Computer Science in school despite doing a little bit of Java programming in highschool I still keep interest in computers and using and testing different operating systems is one of my favourite hobbies. I was recently building my device ecosystem and apart from Windows, which is essential for my academic and professional work, I tested and used a bunch of Linux distros on my devices. I keep testing Linux distros if I have free devices to experiment and at present I use Bazzite, Pop OS and Zorin OS and Ubuntu on my laptops while keeping seperate Windows machines for my academic and professional work as I need Microsoft Office and other little things for work and professional purposes which are kind of not really smoothly compatible with Linux. I used Fedora and Mint recently too and I enjoy it but ultimately I ended up selecting Bazzite, Pop and Zorin and Ubuntu for my four Linux machines. There are quite a few other OSs in the market a lot of them free but major ones at present are Windows and Linux only if we leave Mac OS which is a whole different ecosystem altogether. I was a Windows fanboy up until Windows XP, a lot of people drew their line with Windows after  Windows 7 and around Windows 8 but for me the best, the absolute zenith of Windows was Windows XP, and of course before that, if we ignore Windows Me, the absolute masterpiece that Windows 98 was. The best thing about Windows 98, XP and even Me was that they had soul and it was because the world had a soul back then, remember that and see Windows 10 and 11 and their lack of soul. Soul is one reason I like Bazzite and to a point even Zorin. You use Bazzite and Zorin and you feel that it is made by good people and this feeling is what I miss with Windows and this was present and I remember well until XP, I haven't used Windows 7, Vista and 8 much. I would never use an Apple product, and I know it is kind of rude and kind of an impossible task given the temptation of seeming classy and rich but my decision has its reasons which I would rather not expand on. Ubuntu is clear about its philosophy, and I love them for it. I think if one has children, it would be good to introduce them to a Raspberry Pi with Raspberry OS and a small monitor (raspberry packages those cute white and pink mouse and keyboard with the device). It would help them learn early about how is the world constructed, which a lot of people take a lifetime in learning. 

Distro Hopper - Bazzite

I have been distro hopping quite regularly, and while my gaming machine came with Windows 11 pre- installed I installed Pop OS on it to try Steam games through Proton. Pop OS does play quite a few games compared to other distros and yet I was not satisfied. At that time I was using Zorin OS on my older gaming machine and Fedora on my Thinkpad. I recently decided to switch it up and installed Pop OS on my Thinkpad and Bazzite on main gaming machine and I have never been happier. Bazzite, I ended up realising, is beautiful, most games on it play out of the box just like Windows and all the tools a gamer would need are in-built, even caffeine that you would require while downloading games on steam so that your computer doesn't sleep. I mostly use computer for my thesis, clinic work, writing and gaming. I had been away from gaming for a while when I went to college so the first thing I did in mid 2010s was getting all the games I missed out on. I like open source and I frequently donate to open source projects which includes Linux and its distros, Wikipedia and online public domain book libraries like  Project Gutenberg. As of now, Bazzite has blown me away, what a beautiful distro for gaming; writing, anyway I can do on other distros and if MS Office is required, on Windows.

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. 

Today's Musings

May 30, 2024

One's got to keep their interests alive. I am interested in any sort of art and science and philosophy and cosmology. In sports I like watching freestyle motocross and tricking competitions. In music I like Indian classical, rock and sometimes Dubstep and reggae and experimental genres. My major interests and hobbies however are reading and writing and I love reading books and comicbooks. A lot has changed in my life and my worldview isn't the same and my changed outlook towards the world, even if it has basis in truth, has taken a toll on my interests. What is life without interests but one gets so busy in relationships and survival that they dont get time to pursue their interests. I read almost daily and write daily. The past decade has been tough on me but I persevered and was rewarded with the truth of the world in return for my perseverance. The truth can take a toll on your interests and hobbies, but what I have learnt is no matter the situation, unless it is directly related to survival, you got to keep your interests and hobbies alive, because your interests and hobbies grow you as a person and give new dimensions to your personality. 

I'm not a fan of travelling, and I feel that it is a useless pursuit in the world of today, but I know that travelling is enlightening and refreshing. I used to love travelling when I was a kid, later I realised futility of it. Though I have seen the magic of travel when it comes to gaining new ideas or perspective but in case of people like me who are condemned to suffer any new perspectives or ideas do not really matter. Though whenever I travel I would use this blog as a travelogue or journal. 

I have learnt a few things by the age I'm now. All history is just opinions. The same can be said about art and literary criticism. In case of art and literature, criticism does the job of increasing or decreasing its monetary value. We know what is good and we know what is bad. We can make out a great architecture from a bad one. In art what matters is what the artist wants to convey and how skillfully he conveys it. The problem with all this is that I know that people's mental abilities can be artificially limited and thus any art or science we see in the world are done by people who are not passionate but chosen by the structure that runs the world. Many actually skilled, gifted, talented and passionate people have died in obscurity and their works and styles stolen by entities to make profit. That's how simple the world is. 

What's The Hindi of A Comic Book Nerd

May 13, 2024

I have been writing for more than a decade now. I still remember when I was studying medicine and I got an issue of Comic Jump I realised that I wanted to become a comic book writer. Comic books were a rage in 90s and every middle class kid used to read them. I had my collection of comic books which was my prized possession. I seperated from comic books in 2004 and moved on to other media like cartoons and of course music. In 2012, the issue of Comic Jump just for a bit rekindled my love for comic books and I realised what I would have been if the Indian society was not so hell bent on making doctors and engineers. Comic books took their last breath in this country around 2013. I saw resurgence of comic books during the corona period when people, bored, started whatsapping PDFs of old comic books to each other. Communities were formed. Communities however don't last in this nation for long and even though Facebook groups and pages were made, now they are just avenues for pulling legs and bitching about each other. Still, I hope that these communities last. Indian comics artists outsource their work to DC and Marvel which is great. The rich kids of India read Marvel and DC. The middle class, except, the kids of those who were fans of Indian comics probably are making reels on Instagram or preparing for NEET or IIT-JEE. The era of comics was great, it was something that could only be felt. That's gone. Indian comics has already breathed its last around 2013, when people like Shekhar Kapoor and Gotham Chopra tried to revive it, but comics don't really work in this country anymore. Old Indian comics fans are keeping Indian comic publications alive, but I have no idea for how long. I do, however, hope that they flourish. As far as becoming a comic book writer goes, that's not possible anymore but I do a lot of general writing and it's enough to get me through life, hopefully. 

Opiate of The Masses

11/5/2024

Religion has been used since mediaeval times for persecution of people. Religion is a control mechanism while faith heals. Allah didn't come to help the Uyghur Muslims when they were persecuted and made to eat pork, and of course not even the Islamic countries, Turkey and Arab countries came to their rescue, they are in internment camps and eating pork. Back home things aren't very good too, but they are not as bad as they have been made to look by the West. Of course West sends its missionaries to India for conversion with not very good intentions. My personal belief is that all lower castes of Hinduism must convert either to Christianity or Buddhism. Buddhism would be a better choice because it's indigenous. It's unbelievable that people still carry other people's shit on their heads in this country, and the monstrosity of the whole scenario would become properly visible to you only if you realise how technologically advanced this nation is, the sure shot way of realising it is writing about social causes and social justice. Islam is an exclusive and violent philosophy, it excludes people and it doesn't except diversity, it's strange Arab countries can balance Islamic philosophy with modernity, but then it makes you realise how hypocritical religion is. Persia is one of the most cuckold nations of the world, which has discarded it's indigenous religion for the religion of the invaders, but then I don't know the Persian history. Indians fought off the invaders and preserved their religion and culture only to be ruled by the bootlickers of the British and local mafias. Islam is also responsible for the division of this country which is also one of reasons to be vary of it. Though being vary of a philosophy doesn't mean oppressing people who believe in that philosophy. But from my experience this country is an equal opportunity oppressor. For example, despite not following any religion I have lived my life on extreme religious (moral) principles and except for watching internet pornography and jacking off in the privacy of my bedroom I don't think I have ever sinned (I don't know if that is enough to send me to perpetual hell) and yet I have been suffering demonic torture and sabotage since more than a decade on a daily basis. This whole country is sold out and mostly on lease to western corporations and religion plays no role in it. It however plays a role in controlling the middle and lower classes so that they don't eat meat on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays and whichever days and in donating a golden cat to the Brahmin even if they kill a cat by mistake. 

Bharat Varsh

11/5/2024

You grow up and you realise how stratified Indian society is. Though it can generally be divided into three parts, upper, middle and lower for convenience but the reality is not that simple. The method of control over them is pavlovian and they are mostly controlled by baits. Indian structure controls its people by two major things lust and greed while keeping the society highly repressed. This pressure cooker effect of high sexuality and in many cases depravity and extreme repression satisfies the sadism of the individuals who are in the Indian structure. 

Of course there is no God, at least not of the kind we are led to believe but there is technology, earlier supplied by Russia and now the United States, dreams are a byproduct of this technology both sleeping and awake. My interest in esoteric piques when I read about people having dreams in the antiquity, as dreams of today and if I see my life, even going back to the early 90s are a product of political manipulation. I wanted to be a physiologist once, but later I realised that there is not much left to do for physiologists as well as neurophysiologists. 

Religion is thoughts and beliefs and in the end it is vibes. It's also a tool of control. Thankfully I'm a Hindu and can be a Nastik while being a Hindu, though even after being an atheist politically I have immense faith in my clan goddess, just that I don't believe that She would save me from any soup but only empower me to fight.

The middle class in the 90s had peace. The lower class of this country is anyway hand to mouth, so the good among them work, and the assholes among them become criminals. The good among them believe in God and get exploited by upper classes and the assholes in their own class and the rest fantasize about upper class women. The middle class was peaceful and gradually but surely that peace and tranquility was taken away from them. They were led to believe that if you study, you can achieve anything, which is a lie, you study and become a cog in the machine of mass production and exploitation and later you can't do anything because the things you have done to climb up the social ladder would be used to manipulate you.

The 90s middle class was peaceful, the men worked, the kids went to school and came home and watched cartoons at specific times and read comics, and women read women's magazines and were productive making pickles, knitting sweaters, doing embroidery and crocheting. Middle class was then heavily baited by greed for success which mostly means entry to the upper class. The entry to the upper class however is not possible. The Indian upper class is composed of demonic extortionists, not unlike Ramadhir Vidhayak from Gangs of Wasseypur, just in suits, the local upper classes of small towns don't even bother with suits, which is good. The thing to know about India is that it was not independence, but transfer of power, and all changes in the country that you read about are just cosmetic. The middle class is where the upper class turns to for fulfilling their depravity and sadism. You can't make good escorts from the lower class, although you can make prostitutes, escorts need to come from the middle class. Middle class boys make good slaves and embezzlers though now they are using them as scammers and criminals too, but crime mostly used to be reserved for lower classes. They have snatched peace and aesthetics from the Indian middle class. 

Heaven Is More Than Other People

9/5/2024

Life has become easier with time. One thing you must always remember is that "hell is other people". Every suffering except physical suffering due to accidents and diseases is connected to other people. Heck, even majority of accidents and illnesses are connected to other people. Plants don't discriminate, they do not exploit you. They give you incentives for propagating them. Like you eat the mango first and then plant its stone or throw it in the soil. They give incentives to bees to pollinate them. Even animals eat when they are hungry and don't hunt prey otherwise, they attack when they are threatened. They don't break legs of a goat and place it in front of Komodo Dragon to be consumed whole while they record the process for views and ultimately money on the internet. We get used in daily life. Like you remember that one specific person in your life who has exploited you by intentionally making you think that he would feel bad if you don't think that way. This is common, and what differentiates benign from malignant in these kinds of scenarios is the intent. If the intent is malignant, that person already thinks of you lower than him in power dynamic and he exploits his position of power to exploit you, or make you do his bidding. Humans are capable of this kind of behaviour. More the power, more the manipulation. Now, imagine this scenario. You are alone, and you are reading books written by good people while eating chocolate biscuits. I used to do that. I, comfortable in my bed, used to read Sherlock Holmes while it used to rain outside. In childhood I used to read comics in the summer, while the desert cooler used to throw it's khaskhas smelling cool air on me in a semi dark room. Now, at Sometime o'clock we get a notification on our phone to not cook out food but order it online. We get advertisements of gambling when we are watching something on the internet. This happens while we are supposed to be an ideal citizen. It's a bit like how plants function, like attracting us by their colours and scents, but the plants give and here things, mostly money, are taken from us. It's not barter, though it is made to look like a fair deal. We need people, but having the right people in our lives is important and everyone is not that lucky. Sometimes people are so unlucky that even their parents and close ones are troublesome to them. There are many things that are exploited in this world, guilt is one of them. And so people just stop having guilt and become shameless, which is a right thing to do. Hell is other people, but heaven is other people too, though heaven is a lot more than other people. It's the starry night sky, pink winters, smell of deodars in the mountains, plucking fruits from a tree, the morning sun in the winters, it's the selfless love of your dog, it's the meditative state when you do something with the attention, it's the flow when you write or do something artistic. Hell is other people, but heaven is so many other things other than people who can later be hell.

Writer and The Retardation Bureau

7/5/24

What makes you, you, in this kind of a world. We are the people we love and that's the only thing that seperates us from animals. I have had one hell of an experience in my life. I have never had materialistic goals in my life, so I'm a bit low on the materialistic side but materialism has made demons out of people. I have seen the demonic truth of what runs this country and probably the world. They lay their eyes on you, pick fight with you and falsely frame you and then they torture you, at a level you had thought that only God resides. And this is the reason that you don't believe in God. Even though I do not believe in God I would suggest that you do. Because when things go wrong for a person, if he doesn't believe in God, it doesn't help that he gets an added allegation of being a heretic. Plus faith has health benefits and if your faith is strong enough it keeps you away from psychosomatic disorders. 

I wanted to be a writer, and I wanted to be a good one and thus I never call myself a writer because I would never be able to fulfill the unrealistic goals I have set for myself as a writer, plus grammar and style are consistently a problem for me. Guess should have completed the grammar workbook during school. You grow up, you beat yourself down for not being good enough but if you are lucky you realise that the world is demonic and it was never your fault (terms and conditions apply). So you choose your interests and get in a corner. The worst part of being a writer in today's world is that no one reads anything except comments section of social media sites. The readers read a bunch of English classics and of course How To Kill a Mockingbird. I was into writing in Hindi, but Hindi literature has been murdered in this country. There was a time when people used to read, and there were magazines and comic books everywhere you go. There used to be a mandatory A. H. Wheeler at the railway station. Now you have your mobile phone and you consume obscenity and shameless propaganda and bunch of cooking and diy videos. Not everything is bad though, you get a lot of mind blowing creativity and very intelligent content on the Internet too, but not everyone consumes that. I chose to write, and it made me realise that my end is not going to be good. It's disappointing that tragedies in this country are not authentic but are designed, but probably it has been like that since forever, you were just late to the party. You still write though, because it is the only art and craft you know. And doing it and trying to make your craft a bit better gives you a sense of purpose. Surprisingly having a sense of purpose is another thing that seperates us from animals.

New Beginnings Again and Again

30/3/24

Starting a blog is easy, but to continue writing in it is not. You have to get new ideas to be able to write. What can one write about? I can write about my experiences, my interests, my hobbies, and so many other things and hope people would like it. And anyway who read in today's times, in the time of short form media content. But I write. I write for people who are old fashioned. Who still like reading and who still are interested in what the other person has to say. One can write their truth but what if that truth is getting manipulated by the powers that be? Should that person write the manipulated truth or his own truth? I have two standard blogs at present, and one Medium, one Tumblr, one Substack, one Blogger, and one blog for promoting homeopathic medicine. On Tumblr I mostly write literary projects I'm working at the moment, Medium is a place for science fiction and self-improvement posts, Substack for medicine, philosophy, science and psychology and blogger is mostly for trash that I recycle to make meaningful writing as well as a place for an admixture of transgressive and science fiction. There is too much media in the world and I do not feel good adding to it but then I like to write and it's the only artform I know, so I write. I know enough about the world to not to have opinion on things but to write you have to have an opinion. Writing is in fact opinion, unless it is fact, and anyway anything other than a scientific fact is an opinion. It's sad that writing has lost its sheen and most of the writing done today is not to enrich the culture but for money and peddling propaganda, but then that's how the world has transformed and nothing can be done about it. I would write about myself, but then the question arises whether I'm good enough to write about myself. And anyway I do not want to pimp my life, but then it's a personal blog and you got to pimp it a bit. I can talk about my interests and hobbies. Out of the two standard blogs that I have, one is this one, and another is for ideas and books that I come across. I somehow thought that it would be good to write about the books I read, even though I don't get enough time to read books anymore. You got to do financially well to have expensive hobbies, and I even though do not have very expensive hobbies except for collecting games and comics which I seldom play and read, I have to have a few inexpensive hobbies and one of them is gardening. I have had kitchen gardens since childhood and I love plants and trees, so why not. I'm sure no one in the world is interested in how I like cafe racers and dirt bikes, when there is no cafe racer in this country except Continental GT and there are no dirt bikes except for the imported ones. This country runs on Hero Splendors, and the sooner one understands it, sooner his or her life would be peaceful. 

Pattal to Buffet

4/3/24

I love my culture. It's a beautiful culture with beautiful traditions. Though the oppression in my region is intense and it is being corrupted by westernization. Taking good values from the West is not bad, but taking things that would destroy the indigenous tradition, especially if the tradition is better, is stupid. I still remember when I used to go to weddings and eat on pattals. Pattals are plates made of leaves. You used to sit on designated places and people used to serve you food. Now pattals are gone and there is a trend of buffet system. This happened because the individuals that control my culture use discriminatory oppression against people, and eating on pattals has been made to relate to class. If you are high class then you'd have buffet system and people want to by classy. Another reason is that earlier there was community and people in the village gathered and helped the house which had a function. In buffet system you just pay and caterers take care of it. If the buffet system was not made to be denoting class, probably the caterers would have adapted to it. Buffet system is efficient but then what about the tradition? People are made to have inferiority complex about their own culture and then people react by adapting to western culture. Afterall who would want to feel inferior? The incompetence in managing the culture is gargantuan, but I have an idea why this is happening. It is happening because those who have the control of culture are busy in exploitation than anything else. 

Mancave Caveman

A lot has changed in the past years. In the past decade I have learnt a lot about life and the world. I used to have interests, like books, music, literature, comicbooks, movies. I used to have interest diffrent genres of literature and music. Some of which I still have. I like rock and Indian classical when it comes to music and I also appreciate genres like funk, Dubstep and quite a few others. In literature I like noir, weird fiction, gothic fiction, science fiction and cosmic horror. I used to love quite a few videogames when I was young, and I still collect videogames. I used to play Motocross Madness, Half-Life, Max Payne, Tribes and countless other games, not to forget the 8-bit Nintendo games. The world has changed and I suppose, for the worse. The optimist in me has been overpowered by the realist in me who believes in scientific evidence and looking at the world at present it seems like the crabs in a bucket game has advanced to the next level. Other than work I'm happy to be in my imaginary mancave with my books, games and hobbies. I keep myself busy with writing and hobbies so that I do not have time to get depressed. I have a few blogs that I write regularly in, including a blog for homeopathy and another for books and philosophical content. It was a tough past decade but then I braved it making it way easier for myself then it was supposed to be and now I'm at a quite peaceful place. The country is ill-managed and people are mannerless but it all stops to matter once you are at home and in your mancave with your books and games. 

Vice Town

I got attracted to transgressive fiction after I had dabbled in noir. I took it as reality of the society as I judge life and the world by its bottom-line. And I was not wrong. Transgressive fiction lives with us, just behind the curtains. It's the things in our life that we shove beneath the carpets. It's the truth that is visible in the shady parts of the town. It's the truth that is not explicitly detailed in the newspapers. The writer that introduced me to transgressive fiction was Chuck Palahniuk. He was already famous by writing Fight Club back then. Then I got acquainted with Bret Easton Ellis of American Psycho fame. I grew and realise that transgressive fiction is actually the actual truth of the society. Sex is a taboo in our society and yet we collectively think of nothing but sex as it is clearly visible on social media now. Crime is documented by the newspapers on a daily basis. We meet psychopathic and narcissistic egoists on a daily basis, without identifying them most of the times. The truth of this nation is transgressive and it probably applies on every nation in the world. This kind of fiction is not built for every stomach though. But it is the actual truth of the society. You go in shady parts of the town and you see women selling their bodies and men selling drugs, and you find no law there. The same law that reaches you instantly if you don't turn off your loud  music post ten pm. Transgressive fiction lies in the lies women have told about how many men they have slept with and how many of them have manipulated them to sleep with them, it lies in drug habits of men that they have hidden from their families. A writer just speaks the totality of truth and it becomes transgressive fiction, capable of shaking up the society. 

The Tea Stall Ride

I have always liked riding bikes. I prefer light off-roaders and cafe racers instead of heavy superbikes and cruisers. I like dirt bikes but they are not actually available in India for mass use. There was a time in this country when you could ride into the countryside and drink tea at a chai stall. The chai stalls still exist, just the innocence in those chai stalls is a bit less. I'm not a biker. I just like riding bikes sometimes to get away from my problems. Recently when I was thinking of buying a bike, an off-roader, my family pursued me to buy a scooter as it will be more useful for doing daily chores, and I reluctantly agreed, for who has the time to ride bikes into the countryside anymore. Riding bikes needs a mindset. Otherwise it's just a means of commute. A vast majority of people in this country use bikes as a means of commute, as they can't afford cars. They ride ugly bikes designed to be useful and save fuel. So, here, riding for leisure starts to feel like entitlement. I have owned three bikes, one was an XCD 125 when I was in school, another was a Pulsar 150, and then during college, I had an RX 100. All of them were courtesy of my family, and the first two were for commute. The RX 100 I had during college was for commute as well as for what they call "shauq". It was a great bike and I thoroughly enjoyed riding it. My family owns a Royal Enfield too but I have never been a fan of heavy bikes. I like light and nimble bikes, and now, mostly off-roaders. I don't have the time to ride anymore, otherwise I would have got myself a bike instead of a scooter. I would have had four bikes in my collection, an Xpulse 200, a Royal Enfield Himalayan, a cafe racer and one other for city commute, either a light cruiser or a street bike. I gave away my RX 100, but I think if I ever start collecting bikes RX 100 would definitely be in my collection. 

Biking is fun when you have a group of friends. You ride to your destination, stop at dhabas and chai stalls, have a bit of fun and then again get back on the journey. Though when life starts to get real, these fun things get left behind and then you book a taxi for where ever you want to go. You can ride solo or you can go with friends. Depends on the kind of person you are and the mood you are in. There are bike clubs, and people go to Ladakh on their Royal Enfields. I'm way past the stage of going to Ladakh on a bike because it's a cool thing to do. Though riding besides the tea gardens of Kerala, with friends or alone, still seems like a cool thing to do. 

Ashtabhuj

I was working on a novel since 2011. It's a fine concept, though the idea for it is basic so I would reveal it now that I'm not planning to write it anymore. It was about two factions who were fighting for dominance, one was a secret university and the other was a corporation. The novel went into history, archeological relics and Indian folklore and beings such as Asuras, Daityas, Pishachas and others. There was a lot of tradecraft, style and adventure in the novel. Unfortunately in the present world it all becomes redundant, so I decided not to write it, even though I might write it for personal pleasure.  The deal about writing a novel is that all stories have been told before, it's how you write it, present it and the treatment you give it. At present I'm not able to exercise my imagination as I was able to do before due to the daily hand to mouth survival, but I do get ideas. I had gotten an idea for a space opera, a neo-mythological noir and some other ideas. 

I have come across comic books that effortlessly blend Indian mythology in to modernity and those which present Indian mythology with a style that doesn't look cringe and yet is stylish. The growth in me as a writer is that now I have depth. Even though language still remains a concern for me as I have not been able to be as good in English Grammar as I would like to be. Even in my daily writing, I never check or edit my drafts, and just post it. I find editing and checking my drafts as a waste of time until it is a body of work I really want to be presented well. 

Indian pop culture has collapsed. Though there are still a few comicbook companies that are producing average to good content and incorporating Indian mythology and folklore in their stories. I, however l, don't pay much attention on the collapse of Indian pop culture. I read a good comicbook when I get it, and I write, though not much of fantasy and fiction now, but I write a lot. The novel I was working on had a working title of Ashtabhuj (eight handed), which would probably also have been its final title. It was generic concept but the work I had done was good enough to make it a good, interesting novel with a lot of adventure, tradecraft, mythological and folklore elements. 

Standup Comics

People have different interests, some are movie buffs, some collect fishes, some build terrariums, some collect stamps, some read books etcetera. I like reading. I had a collection of comics when I was a kid. Recently, post coronavirus, I saw comics readers connecting with each other on Facebook. Memories of my childhood came flooding back to me when I saw them discussing comics that I had read in my childhood. It was odd at first to see grown men discussing comics books, but then I realised that they have no shame discussing comic books and actually there should be no shame. I thought, then, to rinkindle my childhood love for comicbooks. I'm not a collector anymore, and I'm unable to go deep inside comic book worlds as I used to in childhood, but my love for comicbooks is a relic from childhood that I can preserve. It is a expensive hobby, collecting comic books, so I just read them, now mostly on my kindle. The problem now is suspension of belief. In the grown up world you gotta be on your toes all the time to survive and suspension of belief becomes a very difficult then, even if you are enlightened enough to know that there is no reality. The problem with knowing that there is no reality is that other person who is neck deep in survivalistic approach and a master in crabs in the bucket game doesn't know that there is no reality. There are other more practical reasons for why I'm not able to suspend my belief for reading comics but those are political and not worth discussing. There should be no shame in reading comics at the age of 34. Why? It is better than getting involved in useless politics and harming or sabotaging others, which is a national sport in the offices and workplaces of this country. Following your hobbies is like practicing non-violence. You are putting your energy in something productive instead of getting involved in useless survival games. Though one should not believe that those who have hobbies do not play the survival game. People can have hobbies and they can be assholes. People can read comics and they can be assholes. But there is also a population with hobbies that is enlightened enough to put their energy in their hobbies instead of playing useless survival games. These people choose their corner and be in it with their hobbies. Though in this country there is no guarantee that even if you are quietly in a corner minding your own business, you won't be harmed. The soul of this country is rotten, despite having one of the best philosophy, literature, scriptures, mythology and civilization in the world. How can soul of country be rotten despite having such a diverse and rich culture? Because those who run this country believe in only three things, resources, power and pussy. A person quietly reading books and comics in a corner, minding his or her own business is not safe. But that's okay, because it is here this person gets the chance to use the superpowers he gained from the comics.