Breaking stereotypes??

After a disturbing silence even from my side on my blogs, I feel like writing again. Big YAY. Finally some inspiration!

Recently I started a new little "stereotype" for coffee lovers in my current city, Stuttgart called "Coffee in Stuttgart". The stint took almost a year to start but I would say it's picked up now and it's given me a chance to meet some very fascinating people over a cup of coffee.

We have some very interesting conversations. One of them today was about the typical stereo-types in every country and sometimes even within countries. A coffee meeting with people from 7 different nationalities ranging from Indians, Polish, Russian, German, Portuguese, Greeks and Chilean gives you a chance to look at stereo-typing from a whole new perspective. Being an Indian, I am almost always asked about the great Bollywood industry in our country. It's almost always so that people from other nationalities expect you to break in to a dance and song sequence followed by some drama. Unfortunately for them and fortunately for me, this is met with great disappointment. Through my coffee group, I also found out that we weren't the only ones being mercilessly type-casted. Apparently there is a famous Russian story that follows, whenever a Russian is asked about how much Vodka he can drink, he is almost always going to tell you the story about his pet bear. Yes, the story of the pet bear is to tell you in more than one ways to shut-the-f**k-up. I wonder why we Indians haven't made up one of these stories yet! The Germans are always the worst hit I guess because of their great dictator and their love for beer. But as it turns out not every German will love their beer, some just prefer wine or vodka. They don't consider "The October fest" to be the "Rio de Janeiro" carnival as perceived by the rest of the world( Oh I think I did another stereo-type!). For our Chilean friends, the story is quite different, almost everyone mistakes them as Mexicans and assumes that they have some connections from that side of the world! So I guess to cut a long story short, I am not the only one in the world being stereo-types after all!! (What a BIG surprise there!)

As the conversations drifted to experiences with different communities, one thing that came out clearly was that everyone on the table was out there to break out of their communities to find only a new community : Coffee!

And although the whole point here was going to be about breaking a stereo-type, I think I've just created one here "Coffee lovers on a different high"!

Cheers to coffee then :)

And then she looked at the moon....

The power supplies in the city went dead, dead as the lights out of the dying soul and she looked out of her window to see the moon.

Today the city didn't need a street light, the earth didn't require it's usual set of power back ups. As she looked up to the sky, she could almost see a hand reaching out of the white light, it almost seemed like someone was calling out to her, to save her city..to save her soul, that she had been fighting for all her life. It all made sense in the moment. There was a life beyond the bounds of the planet, she once called home. The moon had now transformed itself in to a window, a window bringing in the light in to the darkness of a dying city devoid of all life form.

Nature looked so pristine and pure under the moon-light. Was that the solution she had been looking for..to change her planet? To fly away in to the glory of something better, a better life, a better future....

As she looked away for a moment, closing her eyes and welcoming the hands calling out to her through the moon-light..the moment was lost. There was no such thing..it was just imagination. Reality struck by scientific knowledge that the moon was no window to a better planet but just an ordinary rock being glorified by the stars around it. The darkness fell back over the city as the clouds swallowed the moon. The light that once seemed so magical lost in to a translation of grey clouds. The little rhythms of the crickets being taken over by the howls of the owls and bats in the background.

The glimmer of hope that the moonlight struck with her were lost in a mere blink of reality. The foolish kid looked on hoping to see the magic again..when again..she didn't know.....

Why does everything so magical have to be so temporary..she thought..

Singing the tree's silent symphony

After watching the final episode of Satyamev Jayate, something inside me is so disturbed and perturbed. As I look outside my window as usual, a thought crosses my mind. The trees never seem to encroach the space of the shrubs. The grass never unroots the plants that grow on it. There seems to be enough water and enough nutrients for all of them to survive in plain harmony..why then can't we learn from them all.

Why does one have to live in a spectrum, when one human has to have more than the other. Aren't we all born the same way, we continue to breath the same way, eat the same way, walk the same way, yet we want to have more than the other. And this feeling of greed tends to dismount the prefect balance of nature. In the last episode of Satyamev Jayate, they talked about how hungry people on the streets of India were fighting like the dogs next to them. When it comes to water supply lines, the story is no different. While we drink free water in pubs and restaurants, the rivers, which flow from the villages, actually leaves the villages devoid of water. We continue to take what doesn't belong to us without feeling the guilt. Why? When did we become so in-human? Was it the society that made us this way or is it just our ignorance? What can we do and for how long till we can correct the balance of nature? Or will we just get a nasty slap from nature to make it all better?

I often wonder if I were to start, where do I even start? Where does an average person, who admits to his ignorance began to correct it all? It's such a huge dilemma.

When I see the way the west makes an effort to preserve nature, I'm enlightened and sympathetic for the people back home. We make efforts to preserve our jobs and just make a living back home. The mindset is so drilled and the system so tough to crack, it almost makes even planting a sapling look like a mountainous task. Where then do we begin? And how?

A part of me doesn't want an opportunity to knock on my door, I want to be pro-active. But just how? And that is the question. Help me here, whoever reads in today....

The degenerative Mind

It doesn't take you many books, many people or a lifetime to get to know the difference between progression and degeneration. My partner recently read "The immortals of Meluha" and he quoted a small example of what has been tormenting my mind for days now, "The good vs the evil". He said that the book spoke about how the good and the evil reside in one body. When you come across different people, you derive their good or their evil, build upon them and make the bigger evil or the good. Now, take that to the multitudes of people you come across in a lifetime and you may be able to build upon the biggest evil or good.

Why I talk about this today is that it really disturbs me to see, how some people can never ever see the positive of anything. Show them a painting, they will tell you only how it doesn't have even lines or colors. Show them a book and all they would do is criticize, talk to them about ideas and philosophies, all they can do is let you down.Make them listen to music and all they have to do is compare and potty talk. Take them to a game and see them snort and snigger at not being able to get the best view. It's a constant war of progression vs degeneration. Isn't it?

In a day like today, I had the misfortune to come across many of these dirty dwelling irritants. The ones that irked me the most were the one's who did mud slinging at Satyamev Jayate, pin pointed unnecessary flaws in a system, they don't like but don't want to change or can't change because of their willingness to exist in to nothingness. (Yes, they will make no difference to your lives because they decide to fade in to life itself).I came across some inhibitors too, the kind who refuse to listen and will kill every idea of yours because they want you to believe what they think is the golden truth of life(These kind can even delude your thoughts and extinguish them).I also came across "positive" criticism (why does that word even exist?!?) on the way people think that others have limited knowledge and should read more and live more! If everyone out there is so smart and positive, then my question is : Why even complain?

I don't propagate or trash any philosophies( I definitely can't, I'm not that smart or gifted), which I agree may not be the only way to progress but I do believe that one does have the options to either cut themselves off or to take a step back and listen. From what I know, listening can't really harm you. And what if you just listen up close, take in what you have to and move on rather than literally "Shit" over someone else? (Find yourself and your sorry lives a pot people!)

I just wish we could all propagate "The thinking man"..rather than condemning him. Why do we let this degeneration prevail and will it ever stop? Shouldn't it get eliminated by Darwin's theory of "Survival of the fittest?" And Oh! Is that also a degenerative thought?

Hmm...I guess this is the point where Atlas must have shrugged too...

We all love prisons don't we?

We all love prisons don't we? To put the unjust behind bars is all that we are about, aren't we? Don't follow a rule and you are behind it, those great steal rods. It makes an interesting movie doesn't it? Till the time, someone you love, goes just behind those iron rods. The floor sweeps off your feet and the world doesn't exist anymore. Such are the loyalties I have towards family and friends and probably so do all of you, who read this today.

Today I will talk about Truman Capote. He wasn't able to come out of the darker side of life because he fell in love with his main protagonist, based on the killings of Nov, 1959. And frankly, how could he? I'm with him. A person who gave us a sun-lit breakfast at Tiffany's couldn't write after he wrote "In Cold blood". It's not difficult to see why though. He got so close to the murderers, their story and their confession of the crime, he couldn't come out of the shock of seeing them hang in front of him.In the righteous world, some part of him wanted that too, to see those murderers hung but a human part of him could't bear the site of this human malice. And he was never to finish a novel again or to fill our lives with another breakfast in Tiffany's and understandably so.

So, when we all live in an era of quick justice and quick life, I now start to question " The death penalty". I do believe in Karma and all that jazz as they say and it still boils my blood silly when I hear about a "Jessica Lal murder " case and the likes. But, there is another part of me that started to question the penalty! Am I getting soft? Is it the likeness and the insolvency of a Capote that makes me question that system? Honestly, I don't know.

All I know is that I could never rise after what a Capote saw. Would you be able to live through that? Do you believe that death penalty is the ultimate justice to all mankind? What else is there if not death for these murderers? Why does it still make us shed a tear to see someone hang even if it is a wretched murderer? 

The thing about war..

After watching Schindler's list for the first time today, I've gone in to a deep thinking mode. I have lot of questions regarding wars and I have a lot of observations from the movie.

First the questions. Why does one go on a war or let's come down to ground level, even fights? In my understanding it usually starts from a deep hunger of power. The deep hunger comes from a certain depravation, it could be food, shelter, human dignity and of course money. Wars should ideally have stopped after the need is fulfilled right? But then there comes the ego, they say "Make a lion taste blood and then he wouldn't stop hunting". In reality even they stop after their hunger is met with. So what then is the cause for a war to go on? Is it then the ego? Once you started, you can't step down or stop, can you? Ego then becomes more precious than the initial hunger that one started out for, doesn't it? Who really wins in this war? As I understood from history: no one. Why then do people repeat the same mistakes what has been shown to us, taught to us or told to us? Is the human race meant to perish by it's own hands? After all "The dictator" who killed the millions, finally took his own life too. So, what was this war about then? All the people, and may be that's why I hate groups, followed the whims and fancies of one man? The one man who finally took his own life. (I can't help but smile at the foolishness that lives in us. We have the power to create but in that time we miserably choose to destroy). What would have happened if someone as smart as "The dictator" had decided to invent a time machine rather than spend time and resources on building concentration camps?

My observation in the movie was  that Schindler says " The war makes people bad, really bad, in-fact the worst!". And then you see, Schindler's heart change and him leading the way for 1100 people like Moses.It reminded me of the scene from 10 commandments. I would say, it took out the best in him. Not only did he save lives, he re-started manufacturing and made money in the war. He had a business during the time of war? Have you ever heard that before?

My friend put it correctly today, she said it's not one man, it's any of us. Most of us, if given a gun in our hands would misuse it or feel powerful, wouldn't we?It's the choice we make, when we hold that gun in our hand. Are we holding it to protect someone or to harm someone?The fantastic thing about power is that it comes from control. Yes, again Schindler's quotation. Which brings me to another question: Why do we need guns? Is it because we are scared someone will harm us? And if so who? Or is it because we are so scared of ourselves?

Lastly the most important observation and question that comes from the movie is: "Why do we so easily destroy when we can powerfully create?"

Hmm..Think about it..

What if I was a tree?

OK..so every afternoon, every evening and before I go off to sleep, I see this pine tree from my window and I wonder..could it hear me? Could it already know about my day, before me actually saying it? Could it possibly be telling me stuff that I can't hear because of my disability of having a sixth sense?

Now, I start to think about it's life. It was probably planted before I was born because of it's height and spread across my lawn. It has also seen more life than I have. May be the people who were living here before I was, have also spoken to it or thought about it's "withstanding nature".

It stand in front of me, so strong, so untouched and like an audience..what each day has in hold for it. We face such extreme weather conditions here and while I sit here in my heated house, it faces the heat, the wind and the mean cold weather. Yet it never once thinks about bending down or succumbing to the harsh realities which I translate in to my blogs or poems. It stands there as a symbol of: What true strength is all about?

It's about an unconditional love, it's about unconditional strength. A tree would never look for a job, would it? It knows what it was meant, born and grown for. It wouldn't expect me to leave it a thank you not every night for listening to it or for being there for me..would it? It would naturally be a listener to my deep or shallow thoughts? It would even be correcting me, without me knowing it. Oh boy! Such grace, beauty and strength in just one of nature's great wonders!

Now..what if..I could just be a tree..do what I have to do without bothering what anyone expects me to do, watch people as an audience, rather than contributing anything to their testing, what if I could give, without getting anything in return?

What if I could be a tree? I wonder....

Cheers!!