A Discussion About Faith

I divide my faith into three domains, political, scientific and personal. It would seem funny that I ended up doing so much work on a simple thing as faith, but trust me it was absolutely required. I will talk about my personal faith and faith in general. Politically I'm an atheist, scientifically, an agnostic and personally I'm a deeply spiritual person who has belief in mother goddesses. There are clan goddesses on both sides of my family so I have always felt inclined towards Mother Goddesses. I believe God is like Sun, every culture has a different name and concepts related to it, but it is what it is, Sun. And here comes the concept of Parmeshwara or Paramatma. I respect all Gods, but personally my prime faith is in mother goddesses. Anyone who has listened to music can't deny that God exists. But then you open YouTube, and see people baiting a Komodo Dragon with a poor lamb for views, and you realise God might not be something we are conditioned to believe in. I'm not talking from the perspective of the lamb who has its legs broken as a bait to the Komodo Dragon, I'm talking about the mindset of the individual who decided to break the legs of the lamb and bait the Komodo Dragon to swallow the poor lamb live on video, just so he gets a bunch of views. Don't get me wrong, I'm not an animal activist, my personal stand is first people should learn to be good to other humans, especially the weaker of them and then comes the number of animals, though it's great, as I do, to be kind to animals in the meanwhile too. The issue here is, that in this country, the same mindset that the person who baited the Komodo Dragon with a lamb, is used for the very people of this country. I follow my religion, for the lack of a better word, religiously. I participate in family pujas, havans and all the religious events in my family, I subscribe to the Vedas and Puranas as a part of my culture, but I have lived long enough to know and realise that religion in this country is a scam and a front for exploitation and places of worship are holy not because of the ones who are administrating it, but because of the faith of the ones who visit them. I know my faith, and I know that it's real and authentic. I'll share a personal experience, I don't feel peace at North Indian temples, only North Indian religious place I felt peace at was Golden Temple, while I feel immense peace at South Indian temples, especially the temples of Tamil Nadu. I guess it has something to do with destruction of real relics of faith by the invaders, but North India except Golden Temple doesn't really cut it for me as far as faith goes. As I grew mature, I was baffled to realise the way religion is used to exploit people in this country, it's basically guilt-tripping and blackmail and exploitation on the basis of it, but it's not the fault of the religion if the ones currently in charge of it are corrupt. As far as my personal faith goes I had the option to choose a deity, a manifestation of the Supreme Mother, from both sides of my family, and I discarded the idea. I chose the manifestations of The Mother that agree with me. So, I finally chose, Chamunda, the goddess of Wrath, and Saraswati, the goddess of knowledge and learning and rejected all the weak representations of them we have in literature. Faith is a thing that heals. Anxiety starts with an idea, and depression starts with anxiety and mental disorders start with depression. Faith, in a diety that you are comfortable with nips the anxiety in the bud. It gives you peace and safety and that's why I recommend personal faith to everyone, no matter what is their political and scientific stance to God is. Faith keeps the mind healthy, I mean as much as it can be in the current exploitative political setup, and a healthy mind leads to a healthy body. Politically speaking, let me be clear to you, we are the lamb that is being used to bait Komodo Dragons of the society and religion is the stick that is used to break our legs, while someone is making money broadcasting it live. But it doesn't matter in the long run, as long as your God, in my case The Mother, keeps you peaceful and fearless. 

Tragedy

It's tragic when your sense of beauty gets affected and you fail to see beauty that is all around. I had thought that it happened to me, not really. It's still there and it's impeccable as ever, it's just in a superficially manipulated state. The truth is aesthetics are being rationed in the world of today, when actually there is no dearth of beauty in the world. People are being deprived of beauty, due to gatekeeping which is a direct result of jealousy and hatred and for weakening people, because beauty, like love, makes people strong. It was good news when I realised that my sense of beauty is as immaculate as ever, whether I can exercise it or not. I can travel worlds and write about them, descriptions, travelogues or I can create new worlds and then write about them. It seemed for once that creating new worlds is a crime, and then I stopped creating them but the clamp kept tightening still, and I realised that for people like me, even breathing is a crime, not because of some inherent fault with me, but because I want to acquaint people with beauty, and in a world where people are deprived of beauty out of nothing but sheer hatred, that is rebellion. The truth is, rebellion is nothing, rebels are created, it's just like planting drugs in the bag of an unsuspecting traveller at the airport and then doing a search. Mediaeval times never ended and slavery never got abolished. It all just got a level deeper, in fact at the deepest level for the most people. There is no off-grid anymore. You can't escape in the jungle. And worst of all, no tin foil hat is going to help. The cultures are a sham, but not really. You come to know the truth and history starts singing. There have been worse people in history than the ones we think twice before taking their names and referencing, and we know that history is written by victors. Heaven promises intact hymens. What do I want? Intact hymens are not heaven for me. I want to be alone in the void. The void that is the Mother's womb. 

Chandamama

The commotion of technology is dying down, except in those who and whose families still operate basic mobile phones, not out of love of that technology but due to lack of money. This class is probably going to be the next IITians and IAS, at least a small fraction of them surely would become. One grows up and realises that merit is a scam, sadly the parents of 90s kids would never understand, but parents of gen Z understand it a little bit and parents of gen alpha kind of understand it completely, the ones who don't, including the deprived classes have their kids on the way of becoming IITians and IAS, though not in a good way. Education is the most important thing but unfortunately in this country education doesn't change a thing, and one realises that a lot of the uneducated people in this land are better than the educated lot. Still, education is essential because people are exploited on the basis of lack of education, and knowledge. First it's about literacy, then it's about financial education and then it becomes about education of technology and access to it. Kids who don't have computers and do not know coding are missing out on a lot. The 90s middle class kids parents prevented them from watching TV for studies and they are now mostly technologically illiterate and the majority of their technological know how is spent on reading WhatsApp propaganda and in fake pleasantries on Facebook. Anyone who has been in the 90s middle class knows that 90s middle class had an aesthetic of it's own. The men used to read India Today, the women, Grihashobha, Manorama and Grihlaxmi and the kids Hindi and sometimes, if they are lucky, English comics. You go to railway stations and find all A.H. Wheeler stalls are closed now. The middle class's aesthetic is dead now and with it its dignity. The middle class is permanent now. And now again when a son or daughter of a rickshawala becomes and IAS, the middle class dad of today will show it to his son or daughter to shame him, the son or daughter still not recognising that they have some talent that they can use to earn money. The times have changed and these times do not reward perseverance and hardwork, and the middle class who is still stuck in the 90s minus the aesthetic and the beauty of 90s middle class has become a torture chamber for young boys and girls who hang themsleves in their rooms in Kota. 

Gothic Fiction and Victorian Detective Fiction

I'm not a big fan of British Raj in India, but one thing I'm a fan of that is British is gothic and Victorian literature. In Victorian literature I particularly like Victorian detective fiction. Sherlock Holmes is one of my favourite detectives ever. British literature of 19th and 20th century was some actual great stuff capable of transporting you in a whole another realm. Literature is dead now, and only good and readable stuff is now from 19th and 20th century with stuff before that becoming too archaic for the common reader to enjoy. There has been some great gothic stuff too, like Frankenstein, Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Dracula. Gothic and Victorian setting and atmosphere is something that I enjoy reading and all the props go to skillful writers who wrote these works. I am a big fan of Arthur Conan Doyle and he is the reason I like Victorian literature so much. The settings and atmosphere developed at that time are still utilised by the comic books and media till date. Gothic fiction is a legitimate genre now with numerous comic books and media referencing and portraying it. Victorian detective fiction and gothic fiction provides an escapism and takes us into a world that is simple and away from political reality and yet complex enough to subtly make us understand the social reality during that time. The literature be it gothic fiction or victorian detective fiction despite having macabre and gory details still manage to keep the feel of reading warm and feel good, a thing that is missing in the media of today. 

Maximum Profit (and Pleasure)

One has to adapt their life to the political truth of the country they live in, and the world. It's not an optional thing, if one is intelligent enough, one has to invariably do that post their 30s. When the political arrangement of a country wants to do a hitjob on you you would be blamed of having and ideology opposite to the one that is generally accepted in that country. Like if it is a communist arrangement, you'd be blamed to be a capitalist, and if it is a capitalist arrangement you would be blamed to be a communist. It's advisable to steer clear of tags though, because they don't matter. The only truth is that the ones who are in power would like to stay in power no matter what, and whether the political system is capitalistic, communist or socialist, it makes no difference. Power structures are same throughout the world, and they operate in a similar fashion or probably in the same fashion. I don't believe in tags, and I really find myself leaning towards capitalism when it comes to purchasing and consuming, but imagine a world where a bunch of corporations influence your thoughts directly to make you needlessly buy the products they produce. And I don't mean the influence to be advertising with sex, and naked women, I still consider that a fair form of advertising. To put things into perspective, companies are developing chips that can be implanted into heads of people that can help them communicate with others with chips in their heads and with computers. Imagine a world where people with chips in their heads, whose minds, thoughts, neurology and neuromuscular system can be controlled externally are made to buy things by companies needlessly just for increasing their profits. It sounds improbable, right? People who know the truth of the world would disagree. It's all about intent, and the intent is not right. Imagine I have a company of shoes, and I have neurological control over your body and mind, and my products are not selling. So, I control your mind through the chip you got implanted in your head for interfacing with your computer and directly make you feel like, or even obsess about, buying my unsold product. The truth is technology is only as good as people controlling it. People all over are complaining that their phones are listening to their conversations and are showing advertisement related to their conversations. These people are in for a surprise. What runs this country and the world has a very dehumanised view of the general population and when you dehumanise someone, you can do anything with them. So here is the gist, you are made to work, earn money and then forced to buy shit you don't need with your hard earned money, and when you become aware of the arrangement of forced consumption and try to bounce from the planet, you are blackmailed about the well being of your loved ones to stay and suffer, because you are not only a consumer but also a resource to be harvested. What is my political ideology? It's preservation of culture and happiness and happiness doesn't need much money, the problem is that happy and trauma-less childhoods make the process of harvesting difficult. You'd ask, what is it that is being harvested, and I'll leave that on you to find out, I know it, but I just do not want to be so politically incorrect to write about it. 

Noir Revisit and Staying Back

I love noir as a genre. I love hardboiled. I thought noir and hardboiled are passé but it is in past few years I realised that noir and hardboiled would probably live as long as humanity and politics live. I used to love reading and watching noir and it's just in the past few years my interest in it dwindled only to make me realise that noir and hardboiled is here to stay just because morally speaking humanity is irredeemable and it has always been so, there are just pockets or islands of happiness in which people reside as long as they can do it. I have seen that when people have absolute power, things more or less follow Murphy's law. It's not like the situation is like this only in this country, it's a worldwide phenomenon, situation is worse in this country only because of poverty, mismanagement, incompetence and needless gatekeeping and when you realise that it is all intentional then you realise that this country is actually at par with other countries. I find it funny because when I was sixteen I wanted to leave the country and go to the US and it is past my thirties I realised that it is better to be discriminated against in your own land than be discriminated against somewhere else. This realisation doesn't work for people who went out of their land or country in search of greener pastures unless they learn about the invisible arrangement of the world which only shows itself in two cases, if one is too fortunate or too unfortunate. In my case it had been both, I have been too fortunate as well as too unfortunate and finally I realised that my desire to go to the US when I was sixteen wouldn't have done me any good personally, except keeping me in a feel good delusion which could have lasted as long as it could last. Now, I know the truth of the arrangement of the world and I'm in my land and on my soil. I prefer suffering with the majority than being with a minority that enjoys abundance by actively depriving people of the basics just for the sake of it. This country is ripe for noir and hardboiled, and many media, film and television have adapted the approach. In fact a lot of media, film and television take inspiration from noir. I personally like stylized noir and hardboiled which basically means American noir and hardboiled from around mid 20th century. A good example of the kind of noir I like would be the graphic novel and the movie Sin City, and the game Max Payne. There is a Spiderman Noir television series under production and it is exactly the kind of thing I like. I have written quite a bit of noir stuff and have read a bit too. The short story collection A Baum Plan for Financial Independence by John Kessel, if I remember clearly, has a bunch of noir stories, the kind of which I like. I have books of American noir pulp but I haven't got time to read them, guess I should visit them in free time.

Thoughtspill

I'm traveling on a train and just like that I got an idea for a new novel. I already have two novels in my head and one more was brewing and now there is a fourth one. I had decided that I won't be commercialising my writing or my novels. I write my novels in a serialised form at two places, one on my literature and writing Substack and another on Wattpad. I had started serialised writing for my first novel but I get less time so it's been quite a while since I have written a new chapter. The ideas for the second novel are less developed and even less developed are the ideas for the third novel, so this fourth idea would take place the second one. I guess I have to resort to writing serialised episodes of all my novels simultaneously, otherwise it would be impossible to do due to lack of time and laziness, and anyway if I'm not writing for commercial purposes then it allows me a lot of freedom which writing commercially would never allow me.