Why love is (not) the answer

We are surrounded by love around us, not as much as we are surrounded by hate and fear, but we are.
I had the good fortune of growing up in a beautiful family where my grandfather taught me best things a child could learn. He taught me Hindi, and my hindi was almost impeccable at least till i was in my class 10.

I used to go on morning walks with him, and used to eat jalebi while returning. I used to hear beautiful mantras while i used to return, and i can almost smell the mornings of my hometown as i write this. I love my grandfather the most in this world. He is responsible for everything that is good in me, visible or invisible.

When i was a kid, he taught me to touch feet of the elders because when we bow down to others, i think that makes us a little difficult to be hated and little easier to be loved.
He used to teach me math on a slate and used to beat me whenever i made a mistake, i remeber sitting in his lap and watching that old commercial of National Literacy Mission in which an old man used to teach a young boy, while he shaved, i was taught like that.

The way i grew up, i had never seen hate, not in my house and very little outside.
When i was a little kid i was sitting with a boy who was my own age in the ground in front of my house, and he suddenly yells abuse to my father. I did not know how to respond, and i didn’t, the only question that came into my mind was, why? That why, remains till now.
I had the greatest of childhoods, except a few mishaps, i had one of the greatest childhood one can possibly have. I never needed much, i had enough books, comic books, sketch pens, and a black and white TV later replaced by a coloured TV to watch cartoons on. I used to watch ducktales, talespin, and such disney shows. I used to watch Swabhimaan when i used to return from the school, though there was nothing much i could understand. I used to watch Ajnabee by Danny which had a whistle i remember to date.

Life was simple, and i had everything i wanted. It was a small world complete in itself.
Even as a grown up person i consider myself a one bag man. I have very fewer needs, air, water, food, clothes shelter, books to read and writing to vent out the stuff boiling in my head.
I have been dealing with intricacies of realations and deeper systems involved in them, i wanted to connect both the emotional part and the physiological part to satisfy some questions i had during growing up. I have dealt with it so much that it is now difficult for me to socialise without looking a little fake.

Love is a positive force, it is the glue that binds people, families and not often but the society too. It binds us to the nation. We love something for various reasons, either that thing fills a need or void in us or fulfills us in some manner, or may be it helps us survive or thrive, or may be we see an image of ourselves in that thing, may be that thing evokes pleasurable sensation, or past memories of things we used to love. I do not know what real love is, but one quality i associate with love is that of sacrifice. If you love someone you should be able to sacrifice, or compromise. It doesn’t mean that you have to do it all the time, but the capacity should be there to call the thing as love.

Hate is fear with love. We hate someone only when we love something in that person, but it invokes fear in a much greater quantity than love. Imagine the over-studious guy in the class which people hate, they love the quality, but they are also jealous of him, which actually is the fear of being defeated.
In these times love is obsolete, and emotions expressed are synthetic. I like to keep my emotions real and thus i have fewer friends, when i meet older acquaintances, i wish their good from all my heart, after all that’s all one can do, right? I do not get jealous often, because my work is defined in my head, i have/had specific areas in which i had/has to acquire a specific amount of proficiency. Clearly defined areas, and enough things to do leave a very low scope of jealousy.
Women are more jealous of each other because deep down they are afraid of not being selected as a mate. It has been about looks for them since long, and thus jealousy among them is clearly visible even if they try to hide it.

We get jealous for our partners, because we are afraid that they would choose someone better than us for them, and since these things are programmed we can’t do much about them.
These days we have enough things to keep ourselves busy and so we do not have time to be loved or to love. We just need a mate, as a reserve.

The people who do not get love, or are too proud are the ones who get violent/revengeful in a relationship. The ones who have been loved enough know how to sacrifice and let go people. Also, to let go of people we need to believe in ourselves.

Love tends to come on a physical and behavioural level when fear strikes. A liking for our own self image takes form of narcissism. Jealousy which is actually appreciation/love with fear may take form of blocking/plotting which is normally seen in academia and offices.
We fear things because of several reason, either they are threat to ourselves or something we love, or they are harmful for something we would like to preserve. Anxiety is the fear of something which has not yet presented itself.

Society is composed of many kinds of people, and especially in a country as overpopulated as ours we can never know, what kind of people our loved ones are going to meet, and thus love here is not an answer.

Different cities have different approaches, the city i spent my teens at is one of the most criminal areas in the country, and crime just like art and spirituality/religiosity stems from fear. Why so much fear in an area which is rich enough, its soil fertile enough, and then i get the answer, the answer is arrogance, that is too much confidence in one’s ability, or an inflated self-image, they snatch what they need and destroy what they want. This is by far the mentality of most criminal minded and also others who have power and reason to do so. Also, when such an image is threatened the result is not painting, art, writing or praying but retaliation.

People these days do not have values. The children in cities lack them, and with so much of population and fight in the queues, the ones with manners and values will always be standing at the last.
We should always remember that fear is the most basic emotion. Love is a choice, a choice which is not difficult to make, but the lack of trust prevents it. A fear of emotional pain, stops us from loving. These days it is true, we can’t find such love, and the kind of love we find is taken forgranted and judged.
We have a lot of things to entertain us, phones, tablets, laptops, but these things only feed our hunger for real emotions for sometime and incite even more of it just like a drug does.
Love is for the ones with courage, it is not for the cowards, it is the answer, and the cure, but in modern times we get either a quick fix or something synthetic.

Dec 24, 2016

How is it to (not to) grow into an adult

When i was a kid i used to go to school in a rickshaw, a cycle rickshaw which had other kids. A new rickshaw/bus/van is a new territory and we as humans/animals are bound to protect ours. There was this guy called Jassu, who tried to bully me once. It went on for a few days and one day i had a fight with him in the school. He was teasing me and thus i shoved him and tore his shirt. He complained to Sister Principle and since it was a visible evidence i got a thrashing. Later, his mother came to my house and told my father that i tore Jassu’s shirt. I got a savage piece of my father’s swagger that day. I stopped fighting from that day onward, and Jassu later became my friend.

I considered that beating from my father bad until I grew up. When i grew up and became intelligent enough for myself i realised that it was that beating that made me tactical in my social transactions. I’m emotionally honest in my relations, but that has no visible evidence. I tend to identify people’s needs and thus try to reach a middle ground. Whenever i have showed complete trust in somebody all i have got is deceit, so i decided to be emotionally honest and avoid trust altogether. I trust my family blindly no matter what, and i decide to trust my friends because if they deceive me, it is my fault.

I fear my anger, and thus suffer it myself as much as I can. Sarcasm is a protection, but i like it as a skill for pleasure. A good sarcastic joke or dark humour touches the painful area of your heart and tells it that these things do not matter, we do not need to trouble ourselves on every little thing or the things that 

have already happened because there are bigger issues at hand. Nothing is better than that.

Some things are like scars. A good pathologist knows that healing takes time, but the society doesn’t give us time to heal unless we are really privileged. I do not hurt people, and have my best behaviour on at all times while trying to heal from inside. A healed sick person has better capacity of healing other people because he knows their pain.

Children these days are suffering. The 90s kids when they suffered knew about it and this is what made us special. The millennials are extremely intelligent, they know everything, and still most of them are ignorant of the things that really matter. I do not blame them. Look at what we are providing them. Worst thing than being sick is being sick and not knowing it.

We are creating our own monsters by frightening little children. Children need challanges to make them strong, they need to face fear to be courageous, but helpless fear will turn them into something else all together.

It is better to not to grow and to have your inner child thriving under the mask of adulthood. We need to remember all the happiness and fears we had so that we do not give fear to another child.
Michael Jackson loved children. If you see specific Music Videos of him, you will know that, but fear, that turned him into a paedophile. Love of children is a love of innocence, and when fear is mixed with it, it turns evil, because evil knows only pleasure.

I’m so grown up that i’m retired, and thus need no growing up further, but i need to be in touch of my inner child, because children are aggressively honest.

When we are children we can punch the other person in the face just because we don’t like him, or we are jealous of him, but when we are adults we have to conceal it under false reasons.
I fell in love with guitar by watching Indie bands like Strings and artists like Lucky Ali. As an adult i grew more into classical but on my favourite instrument, that is the guitar. This combination is not very common, but this is a great example of how our childhood shapes us.

We are making our monsters, and if we are doing that, we are the monsters. We need to protect our children, and the initiation should be by those who are in the business, like teachers, parents, and all other people who are in direct contact with children. We don’t need the inner child in us to be stupid, evil or greedy when we grow up. We need to have an understanding of evil, good and greater good. We need naughty children, as much as the calm, good ones. We need happy children all around us. And we don’t need to grow up ever, as someone has rightly said, ‘adulthood is a trap.’
Dec 12, 2016

The society we live in

We live in a society. There are different sections of it, and most of them are necessary for its growth, development and proper functioning.

In India there are many facets of it, all merged together to form a complex and vibrant structure of our society. Indian society is one of the most vibrant and diverse societies in the world. Like all other societies, it is composed of families, religions, communities, social groups. Caste is one of the things that separates Indian society from the other societies of the world.
Caste is something what i would call the product of natural evolution and greed both. A priest’s child would get nature and nurture of a priest. The catch here is that a warrior or priest would never like his offspring to go down the caste system and do menial tasks. And there is also this truth that in long lines of priests,warriors businessmen, there would be some genetic changes making them suitable to that particular job.

An observational example of it would be shyness experienced by otherwise happy and calm people with warrior backgrounds which suddenly turns into vehemency when challanged.
Another example would be higher manipulative abilities of the people belonging to high classes, say for example Brahmin caste of the Indian society.
These are observational things and need minute observations and I believe it to be the product of both nature and nurture.

Society is changing everywhere. In India intermixing of caste is happening, which is good, both for the society and the genetic material of Indian people.

There are many issues in India, and as every educated person would know, the most important thing to solve all these problems is education. I’m not talking about engineering and astronomy or even arts. I’m talking about basic things like hygiene, nutrition, sanitation, and the ability to live without disturbing or destroying other person’s life as much as possible.

Older people were intelligent. They had a lot of distractions for people to keep them calm, happy and submissive like religious festivals, fasts, pilgrimage etc. In modern society these things have been replaced by movies, Netflix and concerts.

In India, much has changed since independence but while countries which were completely destroyed in world war II have recovered. India still lags behind even after 60 years of independence.
There is a doubt humans will ever stop exhibiting tribe culture, and Nations are the tribes of today.
Our Indian education system is strange, and teaching is not a sacred profession anymore; it is a profession of losers and that too not even the real ones, because i believe real losers make the best of teachers. They are fake losers, teaching just for the sake of their petty survival. And when you teach for money, nobody is going to learn. Primary education in India has become so damaged that all we are doing is destroying children, who are later growing into either stupid, greedy or damaged adults. Competition is encouraged instead of individuality. The teacher should be sane and intelligent enough to judge the intelligence and aptitude of the child and adjust self accordingly. Why? Because teaching is his job, no the child’s. But for this we need teachers who are good at their job; and not fake losers. We need either good-at-their-job teachers, or real-wise-losers. For this we need to start respecting teaching as a profession, especially primary teaching again.

When a society starts rotting, the ones who are affected the most are the good people; because obviously a rotten society is a party for evil people.

Can’t the corporate advertisements have a ‘keep your city clean’, just like the ‘mutual fund investments… “ thing. Can’t they choose at least one social issue that doesn’t affect their business and help in solving it? A ‘keep your city clean’ written behind a chewing gum wrapper makes much more difference than a ‘smoking is injurious’ written on a cigarette pack.
Our population is exploding, and it is a total failure on the part of people who’s job was planning. We need to do our jobs well. If a watchman sits for a while at his job, we look at him in disdain, but when a official at high position ignores his duties, no one comes to know.

It’s tough managing a nation with all this politics and bureaucracy, and that is an understood fact. But real failure shows, and so do real successes.

Can’t the media be a little responsible, and instead of showing a naked butt split in half by train in the news paper can’t they show something which is pleasurable and inspiring. As a consumer of media i do not need to be shown if cows drink milk of aliens on TV, i will find it out if i’d need it. Media has mostly become about making people stupid, greedy, ignorant than making them wise, kind and happy.
The thing here to know is that we are not doing our jobs well. I appreciate every person who is atleast trying well. I watch conspiracy theories for fun, and i do not really care about them, i do not care about anything which i do not have power to change, but it is always better to be informed.
The thing here to understand is that a repressed society is not a good society, a good society is a good society. We need good education, a good basic education which teaches us to do our job well, mind our own business, have some respect for self and the others, and to love nature and our nation.
If government wants to control the masses, real care and work will be far better than fear, stupidity and propaganda. Love is the best weapon of subjugation.

Dec 10, 2016

Why religion (does not) suck(s)

I had personally rejected societal god when i was in my 12th standard. It was around time of final exams, and with math and biology as my subject, and my preps for medical exams going on it was already tough, and then i fell sick out of nowhere. Math was a subject i both loved and dreaded. I loved trigonometry, algebra, calculus, and hated geometry and arithmetic. Though arithmetic was easy enough. It was always as i got myself immersed in one problem so much that i just lost the track of time. I wanted to study math at my own speed, because the time was never enough, despite knowing the questions i would spend so much time doing one question that i would have no time left. The question was why do we have to resort to rote memorization of formulae, without knowing what is it for. The subjects i hated at that time were organic chemistry and inorganic chemistry because i found them extremely boring.

There was this fat book of Botany MCQs which is used to memorize chapter-wise on a daily basis. And while this heavy work was going on, i fall sick. I think that was the start of my badluck which has never left me since then.

I fell sick, and the stress gets even more terrible for the fear of wasting all my hard work throughout the year. I had worked immensely hard in math, which i had taken just because of the shaming done by a math teacher in my 9th standard. I never wanted to take science, but since i had to take it to become a “doctor”, i’d rather study it well. Life in senior school is like a rat race in India, you do not have time. My school was crappy, but i stuck to it cause it gave me enough freedom to prepare for the entrances.
Now i fall sick, and stress overwhelms me. I was a guy who always minded his own business, i was funny with people who were close to me and was not interested in useless pursuits, except for roaming around the block and smoking cigarettes after the tuitions. I helped guys who asked for help, and was always ready for the same. And i mostly avoided stupid people.

It was here, when my rejection of god began. I was angry on god for many things previously, but it was anger. Just like you get angry on your parents. In 12th, it was rejection. Because in my eyes, god was just, helped good people and punished bad people.

I have never been the kind of person who rejects something without evidence so i started reading heavily. I first started with my own religion, that is, Hinduism. Bhagwad Gita was the first religious book i read. To tell you the truth that is one of the best book i’ve read, and it has the capacity of making you into a feeling psychopath. I read the Bible, and then the Koran. I did not read those books to be able to quote things from them like religious scholars do. I read them to understand them.

In college my thoughts kept developing and i kept thing to myself. During exams while i was in Mangalore i used to go to the temple nearby where i felt extremely peaceful. I studied in a christian school where i played in Christmas skits, where once i was the innkeeper who ousted pregnant Mother Mary, and other times one of the three kings who got gifts for baby Jesus. It was an yearly business where everyone had to participate in some form or the other. Santa Clause used to come filled with cotton and toffees and children used to beat the shit out of him just because he was fluffy.
Most of my friends were Muslims, and i used to go to their houses on Eid and hog on the tasty food their mothers had cooked.

But then when i was in college i became a complete atheist. I thought myself as an religious atheist and started believing in Samkhya philosophy of Hinduism. I never had a problem with Hinduism because whatever you do you can not stop being a Hindu. You can be in ISIS behaeading people and following Shariyah and still be a Hindu. You can reject Hinduism completely and you still will be a Hindu. If you’re born in this world, you’re a Hindu, no matter what religion you follow.

Personally, i like Buddhism as a religion. If i have to be a religious man, i’d be a Buddhist.
Religion is a basically a form of control over the masses and i don’t care if people worship idols to keep themselves happy. I like all Gods equally, and reject them equally too. I don’t care if stupid people are controlled with the fear of a hell. I do not give two hoots about it. As long as my life is peaceful, i am working peacefully, and there is least possible amount of stupidity around me, i can’t care less. It mostly is, but then we have media, and news-papers and journalism. You read the news-paper in the morning and you feel like hanging yourself from the ceiling.

And here, the knowledge of evil becomes necessary. Satanism is the religion of the contemporary world, and higher you go in the social ladder, the more satanic you tend to become. I do not care about sins as long as people are happy. A paralyzed man who has never had sex, and never will because of obvious reasons, if visits a prostitute, i don’t give a shit about it. A low self-esteem girl if she becomes a nymphomaniac to gain some pleasure to herself, i would know that, and still i won’t mind, because fuck that.

If some hippies smoke ganja and listen to reggae without disturbing peace, i won’t go out and judge them just because they’ve rejected the shitty system that we live in.

Our (Indian) education system sucks. All we teach are fat Moral Science books and no tolerence. People say things are not that bad, i know that actually, i am not blind to not to see that. Things are not that bad, mostly because, you are comfortable.

Imagine living in a society where you’re judged for not being a doctor or an engineer. I wanted to be a writer, before that i wanted to be an army-officer and after that i wanted to be a drifting hippie doctor and a scientist. I have the traits of all of them, but i am none of them.

Keep building temples, demolishing mosques, erecting churches and beheading people, and do it all in the name of religion. Because prophets and holy men don’t eat, shit and sleep. I do not trust anyone who eat, shits, sleeps and fucks to give me lessons in morality. Stop doing that for at least an year and then you’ll have me as a disciple for life.

I personally like a few people very much and Dr. Freud, Dr. Guyton, Swami Vivekananda are one of them. I like underdogs who rose beyond all opposition. It is ironical that we teach the percepts of goodness in books and hang a person like Jesus on a cross, or throw a good wife like Sita in live fire.
Religion is good mostly, if we have brains, it gives us peace, support, method and community, but in its current state it sucks, and more than that, we do.

Dec 6, 2016

Why pro-women is (not) anti-feminist

This is a controversial topic, not because it actually is but because it is seldom dealt without prejudice and hate and almost never with logic.

With the amount of stupidity prevailing in the world it is impossible to talk about anything significant without facing militant opposition and that actually makes participation in such thing not-so-worthwhile for an aware yet peace loving individual.

Feminism as an idea is great. Personally i have nothing against it except its extremist form, and the individuals practicing it, commonly known as feminazis.

It is not helping anyone. Anything that functions on fear, doesn’t help. Fear is not a long term solution and it causes retaliation in the longer run. Only proper use for a fear based retaliation is when it is used to attract attention. It was done by Indian revolutionaries when they threw bomb in assembly; it harmed no one but created enough fear to attract attention to their ideas.

Fear based suppression makes your enemies stronger, and thus gets more fear to you in return and ultimately what we get is distraction.

Feminism now a days has become a revenge based philosophy, rather than a development based philosophy.

Feminism is not about making supremacy of females. It is first and foremost about giving women the power to choose whatever they want. It is about making sure that when a girl child or woman want to do something for herself she doesn’t get stopped or loses opportunities just because of her gender.
I respect feminists who want to achieve equality, specially for the women who are really oppressed. Feminism is not about sexuality, it is about freedom and equal rights in everything keeping in mind the natural differences between both genders including their psychology.

Feminism should be scientific. It should be logical, and not based on revenge or the percept that women were oppressed for so long and thus it is the time for supremacy. It will only beget opposition and hate. It should be such that a female has individual choice and power to choose whatever she wants as an individual without being oppressed, judged and receiving jealousy from the members of opposite gender.

In India, or elsewhere for that matter, in good households there was never such an issue. Father ruled outside and mothers ruled inside. Society may be patriarchial but in a good household, women rule their area. They ruled the kitchen and the house, they had the keys of the house, they managed the finances and the fathers respected it. It was a natural order that developed with time just because of the biological differences. Men were hunter-gatherers, they fought other tribes, whereas the women had the responsibility of children, ensuring survival and development and since we are surviving today we know for sure that they performed their duties well.

Times have changed, women have assumed outside-of-the-house roles, and with that inside-of-the-house roles for men have increased and have also become important for proper functioning.
But when an old system changes problems tend to arise. Men have their way of thinking and women have their own. For men it is difficult to give up the things they had been enjoying, and women have this attractive ‘best-of-both-worlds’ hanging in front of them. When we think very clearly, we realize that this is not a problem that feminism can solve. It is an individual issue as much as it is an inter-personal issue between partners.

If i’m a female and i have to sacrifice my job because of my children and my partner can’t, that’s not a feminism issue. It is my fault that i chose such a man. There should be no question of ‘why should i sacrifice’ mostly for the reason because job is a societal construct and motherhood is natural. Children need their mother more than their father, at least in the initial stages of their development. No intelligent mother is stupid to sacrifice her children for the sake of social validation. Here, feminism comes to play a part when she has to undergo damages in her professional life due to motherhood, she should be able to work from home, she should be given laxity for such issues.
Still, men shouldn’t be blamed if they can work more hours, or can’t get pregnant. Lower class women have for centuries worked with their children tied on their backs without complaining that they are not getting equal rights.

When we see the complainers we see a pattern that these whiners are mostly the ones who are more privileged than the ones who actually need help. When you have to work hard for your daily bread you do not have the time to whine.

Some women want to be treated as ladies, which they actually are. There are men who treat women as ladies. Old fashioned people who know each others role in the society. In India one of the most powerful Prime Minister was a woman.
The thing here to understand is that if you are a feminist for revenge, you are not doing any good neither to feminism, nor to women. Feminism needs a neutral and calm mindset. It needs awareness about what is actually right and wrong so that the efforts of upliftment of women do not destroy the society.

If you are a feminist because you are obese, you had daddy issues, you are not beautiful in the conventional sense, or no guy paid attention on you during highschool or college, then, you are not a feminist. You are functioning on hate. First get a clear head. Flush that hate down the toilet and then get ready for upliftment of women.

Power corrupts, and when a woman who has felt oppressed in a patriarchial setting gets power, if she is not sensible enough she will become as oppressive as she had felt it. That is the making of a feminazi.
You do not control hormones of young boys and men, you understand that it is normal till the point it is. You must know the biological differences and empathize that they are naturally programmed to hit on you. You have to kindly let them know that you are not into them. You have to let them know that you are more important than the “pussy” you are carrying and they are just being dicks. You have given birth to them, they are your responsibility, especially when you are ready enough to take the responsibility of all the women in the society.

Dec 5, 2016

मेरा पठन व लेखन जीवन

साहित्य में मेरी रुचि बचपन से रही है। मैंने कई हिंदी एवं अंग्रेजी लेखकों को पढ़ा है, परंतु पढ़ने की आदत कई दिनों से छूटी हुई है। हिंदी बहुत दिनों से नहीं पढ़ी, और अंग्रेज़ी में भी मेरी पसंद आजकल कुछेक लेखकों पर ही आ कर खत्म हो जाती है। मेरी हिंदी लेखनी अभ्यास के अभाव में काफी प्रभावित हुई है। बचपन में बाबा मुझे हिंदी की किताबें और पत्रिकाएं लाकर देते थे। मुझे अभी भी याद है जब बाबा ने मुझे मेरे जन्मदिन के अवसर पर नन्हे सम्राट ला कर दी थी। मैं बचपन में काफी कॉमिक्स पढ़ा करता था। ग़ाज़ीपुर में एक दुकान हुआ करती थी जिसपर एक रुपये की कॉमिक्स किराये पर मिला करती थी, चाचा मुझे वहां से कॉमिक्स ला कर देते थे। मुझे अभी याद है कि वहां से मैं भोकाल और एंथोनी इत्यादि की कॉमिक्स ले कर पढ़ा करता था।

नगीना में भी मम्मी मुझे अखबार वाले से खरीद कर पत्रिकाएं और कॉमिक्स देती थीं। कई बार मैं खुद पापा के साथ दुकान पर जा कर पत्रिकाएं और कॉमिक्स ले आता था। मेरे पास कॉमिक्स का भंडार था जो मुझे बहुत ही प्यारा था।

थोड़ा बड़ा हुआ तो मैंने हैरी पॉटर पढ़ी, जो कि मुझे बहुत पसंद आई। कॉलेज में आया तो मैने चेतन भगत की 5 पॉइंट समवन पढ़ी जो मुझे अच्छी लगी। मैंने पत्रिकाओं में कई हिंदी लेखकों को पढ़ा। मैंने कई हिंदी एवं अंग्रेज़ी लेखकों की कहानियां पढ़ीं।

फिर बारहवीं कक्षा में मैंने स्वयं लिखना आरभ किया और हिंदी और अंग्रेज़ी में कई कहानियां और कविताएं लिखीं। मेरा पढ़ने का शौक बढ़ा और मैंने चक पलाहनियक जैसे लेखकों को भी पढ़ा।

इस साइट पर मेरा यह ब्लॉगपोस्ट है बहुत दिन बाद आया है। और अब से ये मेरा प्रयत्न रहेगा कि मैं जितना हो सके हिंदी और अंग्रेजी में लिख सकूँ।

Expression and impression

25/6/2016

Expression is an important thing, and how we express is even more important. As I was growing up I used to believe in a thousand things about the world, and sadly most of them were proved wrong by the world with time. Sometimes life gets frustrating, but one’s got to persevere with that. Work, passions and hobbies are the beautiful things that help us in coping with a boring adult life.

Everybody’s life is not boring and I realize that, but mine is, because I am not a people’s person. I like a very few people and if they are not there I prefer my own company. When I was little I had a passion for comics. My grandfather used to take me to a shop called Chatterjee and sons where I used to get great Hindi comics.

Comics were one of the tools my grandfather used to inculcate a habit of reading in me. A mode of expression, both in language and art, comics is one best mediums you can use to incite that hunger for knowledge in your children.

Good comics are rare these days, and in Hindi even more so. But I was lucky to have been born before the advent of the internet. I read a lot, a lot of comics and then I graduated to children’s books. Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn were my constant companions during my childhood days, and so was Harry Potter. Harry Potter almost grew along with me, and was my favorite character at that time. Now my favorite character in Harry Potter is Snape. I guess this is how life changes you.

My late teens saw the introduction of darker versions of Harry Potter and at around the same time I started reading darker stuff.

During my college days I read Chuck Palahniuk and despite him being a controversial writer, I couldn’t falsify his life views.

The classics such as Shakespeare, Tolstoy, Kafka give a great insight into humanity, and sadly for me I couldn’t appreciate those insights as much as I appreciate these great men.

Books are great friends, and for some, their best friends. They are a marvellous form of human expression. And expression is important, but before that, a right impression is almost a necessity.