...of all the people or rather to put it in a technically correct way , target groups i have worked with in this short span the most interesting are the injecting drug users and also the most humble,docile and kind heatred...what i hate the most is the stigma associated and also the way they have been sidelined from the society as if they were these uncouth,savages from some other planet..what i dont understnd is why cant we try and understnd them...talk to them..we should hate the drug habit and not the drug user..does taking drug makes one a bad person and not stealing money out of the PM s tsunami fund which would have saved scores of lives?? who are these drug users harming but selves..what support systems have we put for them?? we run away from them, have ostricised them from the society.. and i find it extremely disheartening..
and here we can also talk about other such socially rejected groups like the sex workers, street children and many more...
This entire debate about whts good and whats bad comes to my mind..who decides what is good and also for whom and in which context...there can be no universal definitions for good,bad,wicked,fair...these are extremely relative terms varyting across time and space...
what is needed is to open our minds and be receptive...a little change in perspectives and to think out of the stereotype..what has to be stopped is water tight compartmentalisation of issues..of people..of cultures..of norms...
i personally believe that all human beings are inherently good...but then we all have a bit of Mr.Hyde within us and the constant battle with Dr.Jekyll is ever raging..and the claim for the upper hand remains...
So..as i was saying..i have ample respect for injecting drug users...because we have to look beyond just their drug habits..they are human beings..with emotions....and one should learn to respect them for whoo they are
Saturday, May 23, 2009
Thursday, May 14, 2009
self....
are we really what we are or is it the image of what others and how others want us to be....is being as we really want to a cake walk..i really dont think so...this brings to my mind two protagonists..HOWARD ROARK and MERESAULT....creations of Ayn Rand and Albert Camus...they were social rejects..in the sense that they didnt adhere to the set social norms which decide how one should walk..talk ..dress etc and thus gain acceptance in the society....and its not merely the exterior but also ones thinking which is moulded in the process. So we do find most people who have given in to the norm and are very well accepted and liked...and then there is this other sort..who dont belong to either extreme but are struck midway..who have treid to chnage externally but internally the battle goes on...and its a battle which is complex because it involves the mind and ones thought processes and perspectives too....its easy to say that one lives life according to ones own terms but are these terms really ones own and not dictated by those around us..the social web...this constant appeasement that takes place between the individual and the rest around is but a ntural process which comes to all human beings...no there are exceptions and these exceptions always have a hard time...or may be after a point attain the zenith of indifference when these cease to matter but that also calls for termination of relationships....after all man is a social animal and cannot live in isolation and even if could the not eternally....
This social interference largely irritates me and at times i wonder whay cant things and people just "be"....well but the give and take has to continue and then one isnt really alone and can never really be...
but nevertheless Roark doesnt cease to amuse and amaze me..the determination of going gainst all odds and being what he really wants to be and not effected by the web of human relations is indeed awe inspiring...but then what agaon is the ultimate aim of life..who are we living for...?? the questions remain...n will linger....and will continue to linger....
This social interference largely irritates me and at times i wonder whay cant things and people just "be"....well but the give and take has to continue and then one isnt really alone and can never really be...
but nevertheless Roark doesnt cease to amuse and amaze me..the determination of going gainst all odds and being what he really wants to be and not effected by the web of human relations is indeed awe inspiring...but then what agaon is the ultimate aim of life..who are we living for...?? the questions remain...n will linger....and will continue to linger....
Monday, May 11, 2009
La Belle Dame Sans Merci, by JOHN KEATS...
"O WHAT can ail thee, knight-at-arms,
Alone and palely loitering?
The sedge has wither'd from the lake,
And no birds sing.
"O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms!
So haggard and so woe-begone?
The squirrel's granary is full,
And the harvest's done.
"I see a lily on thy brow
With anguish moist and fever-dew.
And on thy cheeks a fading rose
Fast withereth too."
"I met a lady in the meads,
Full beautiful—a faery's child,
Her hair was long, her foot was light,
And her eyes were wild.
"I made a garland for her head,
And bracelets too, and fragrant zone;
She look'd at me as she did love,
And made sweet moan.
"I set her on my pacing steed,
And nothing else saw all day long;
For sidelong would she bend, and sing
A faery's song.
"She found me roots of relish sweet,
And honey wild and manna-dew;
And sure in language strange she said,
'I love thee true.'
"She took me to her elfin grot,
And there she wept and sigh'd full sore;
And there I shut her wild, wild eyes
With kisses four.
"And there she lullèd me asleep,
And there I dream'd—ah! woe betide!
The latest dream I ever dream'd
On the cold hill's side.
"I saw pale kings and princes too,
Pale warriors, death-pale were they all:
They cried, 'La belle Dame sans Merci
Hath thee in thrall!'
"I saw their starved lips in the gloam
With horrid warning gapèd wide,
And I awoke and found me here
On the cold hill's side.
"And this is why I sojourn here
Alone and palely loitering,
Though the sedge is wither'd from the lake,
And no birds sing."
..THIS is indeed one of my favourite poems..."the beautiful lady without pity.."...i read it while in school and since then could not get over it..there is a haunting rythm to it and would leave a man in awe of beauty....but i have often wonderd why is beauty percieved thus...somewhere synonimous with cruelty...like the damsel here who knew about her alluring powers and used it to the best of her abilities to satisfy her temporal passions and leaving the men with woes personified...but somewhere it also talks about men..who also get lured so easily..just by the attracitive looks and sweet words of a damsel..and not thinking about consequences...beauty is indeed skin deep if we go by this piece...here too love is lived in terms of deep passion where the physical intimacy transcends all...but feelings and emotions are but relative interwined with personal experiences..the poem does to an extent talks about Keats own experience with women or a particular women because things cannot be generalised thus...
and then the aftermath..the thing is a passe but the knight holds on to it..or rather feels trapped as if in a web..and not able to release himself..not in body but in mind....the body moves on but in mind it lingers...the incident passes but the traces remain..the images remain and haunt time and again...
"O WHAT can ail thee, knight-at-arms,
Alone and palely loitering?
The sedge has wither'd from the lake,
And no birds sing.
"O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms!
So haggard and so woe-begone?
The squirrel's granary is full,
And the harvest's done.
"I see a lily on thy brow
With anguish moist and fever-dew.
And on thy cheeks a fading rose
Fast withereth too."
"I met a lady in the meads,
Full beautiful—a faery's child,
Her hair was long, her foot was light,
And her eyes were wild.
"I made a garland for her head,
And bracelets too, and fragrant zone;
She look'd at me as she did love,
And made sweet moan.
"I set her on my pacing steed,
And nothing else saw all day long;
For sidelong would she bend, and sing
A faery's song.
"She found me roots of relish sweet,
And honey wild and manna-dew;
And sure in language strange she said,
'I love thee true.'
"She took me to her elfin grot,
And there she wept and sigh'd full sore;
And there I shut her wild, wild eyes
With kisses four.
"And there she lullèd me asleep,
And there I dream'd—ah! woe betide!
The latest dream I ever dream'd
On the cold hill's side.
"I saw pale kings and princes too,
Pale warriors, death-pale were they all:
They cried, 'La belle Dame sans Merci
Hath thee in thrall!'
"I saw their starved lips in the gloam
With horrid warning gapèd wide,
And I awoke and found me here
On the cold hill's side.
"And this is why I sojourn here
Alone and palely loitering,
Though the sedge is wither'd from the lake,
And no birds sing."
..THIS is indeed one of my favourite poems..."the beautiful lady without pity.."...i read it while in school and since then could not get over it..there is a haunting rythm to it and would leave a man in awe of beauty....but i have often wonderd why is beauty percieved thus...somewhere synonimous with cruelty...like the damsel here who knew about her alluring powers and used it to the best of her abilities to satisfy her temporal passions and leaving the men with woes personified...but somewhere it also talks about men..who also get lured so easily..just by the attracitive looks and sweet words of a damsel..and not thinking about consequences...beauty is indeed skin deep if we go by this piece...here too love is lived in terms of deep passion where the physical intimacy transcends all...but feelings and emotions are but relative interwined with personal experiences..the poem does to an extent talks about Keats own experience with women or a particular women because things cannot be generalised thus...
and then the aftermath..the thing is a passe but the knight holds on to it..or rather feels trapped as if in a web..and not able to release himself..not in body but in mind....the body moves on but in mind it lingers...the incident passes but the traces remain..the images remain and haunt time and again...
Thursday, May 7, 2009
on crushes..infatuations...and...luuvvveeee
when did i get my first crush....well let me recall..hmmm...yes i know..i was in fifth standard...i didnt know then that it was a crush..or may be i did..i dont really remember..but i felt attracted to this guy..who cannot me named now...and i met him once..became friends and never met him till date..but now that i think of it i feel that he really wasnt my first crush but it was this guy in playschool..who lived near my house and i always insisted on going to school with him....and sat with him in class..
bygones apart..this was possibly crush..and now what is infatuation then..is it something that lasts more than a crush but is not love but liking for someone...is it just measured by the length of time...is that the only criteria..or is it loike u have it on someone either famous or out of reach who u know u cant have and so eventually give up...and there it ends..or it could be like..mutual and develops into love..
But why have i increasingly felt and observed that love is all about convinience and is eternally selfish though half the world would disagree with me...here i am talking purely in terms on "man-woman" love (no offence meant to the 3rd genders)....i mean what is love..now i am no poet or philosopher and nor do i intend to to romanticize here...what i really feel is that love becomes a necessity and then an obligation..it is security and also a passion..we love and we want to be loved in return...we love and then let it develop into a relationship..there has to be ties and some form of a bondage...lust ofcors remains an essential element..and then intervenes the social institution in form of marriage...and then more relationships and widening of the social web..how can i forget man is a social animal and this social web is but inevitable otherwise he/she becomes a recluse or a hermit...but there again has to develop this eternal relationship with GOD...
And for those who do neither ...and of that there is a very small fraction...either live unknown or probably find a passion...or just live each day...no..now i am not an expert and nor have i done an extensive study....
Ok so i was talking about love....the poets say its cruel..it causes heart bleed yet is beautiful...there is happiness in suffering and the world seems all rosy...and nothing elose matters but the one loved and the one who loves...however love experiences eternity in a moment and not eternal eternity..because eventually doesnt it become a habit...love calls for commitment...compromise...and yields utmost happiness..and they say you got to be lucky to find love and to love...but how important is this love...??? is that the very essence of life..finding "love"..the unending quest and then settling for somethning we believe is love...isnt love an illusion? may be and may be not...
i feel love is the term most widely used with meanings multifold....yet somewhere losing its true essesnce in the being....and how can i end this post without quoting...
The mind has a thousand eyes, And the heart but one: Yet the light of a whole life dies When love is done. ...
Francis William Bourdillon....
to love or not to love..that is and remains the question....or is it to love and whom to love..that is and remains the question...
bygones apart..this was possibly crush..and now what is infatuation then..is it something that lasts more than a crush but is not love but liking for someone...is it just measured by the length of time...is that the only criteria..or is it loike u have it on someone either famous or out of reach who u know u cant have and so eventually give up...and there it ends..or it could be like..mutual and develops into love..
But why have i increasingly felt and observed that love is all about convinience and is eternally selfish though half the world would disagree with me...here i am talking purely in terms on "man-woman" love (no offence meant to the 3rd genders)....i mean what is love..now i am no poet or philosopher and nor do i intend to to romanticize here...what i really feel is that love becomes a necessity and then an obligation..it is security and also a passion..we love and we want to be loved in return...we love and then let it develop into a relationship..there has to be ties and some form of a bondage...lust ofcors remains an essential element..and then intervenes the social institution in form of marriage...and then more relationships and widening of the social web..how can i forget man is a social animal and this social web is but inevitable otherwise he/she becomes a recluse or a hermit...but there again has to develop this eternal relationship with GOD...
And for those who do neither ...and of that there is a very small fraction...either live unknown or probably find a passion...or just live each day...no..now i am not an expert and nor have i done an extensive study....
Ok so i was talking about love....the poets say its cruel..it causes heart bleed yet is beautiful...there is happiness in suffering and the world seems all rosy...and nothing elose matters but the one loved and the one who loves...however love experiences eternity in a moment and not eternal eternity..because eventually doesnt it become a habit...love calls for commitment...compromise...and yields utmost happiness..and they say you got to be lucky to find love and to love...but how important is this love...??? is that the very essence of life..finding "love"..the unending quest and then settling for somethning we believe is love...isnt love an illusion? may be and may be not...
i feel love is the term most widely used with meanings multifold....yet somewhere losing its true essesnce in the being....and how can i end this post without quoting...
The mind has a thousand eyes, And the heart but one: Yet the light of a whole life dies When love is done. ...
Francis William Bourdillon....
to love or not to love..that is and remains the question....or is it to love and whom to love..that is and remains the question...
Monday, May 4, 2009
in search of....
"what is life if full of care..we have no time to stand and stare.."
isnt it so true..atlest it holds true for me and has been becoming a reality with each passing year..gone are those days of imagionation...where i had ample time to stare at a brook..a gulmohur tree growing by the side of my grandmum's kitchen..or the big river that passed through my little town..and now as i am growing up..though i am intelectually slimulated or rather trying to hyper activate my grey cells..it seems that staring..and thinking about a brook..or a tree..or a dog is mere wastage of time which could have been invested in an academic discourse or redaing a journal...
How i wish to be Heidi..and live in the meadows..sleep under the clear starry sky and wake up to the first rays of the sun..and the chatter of innumerable birds...but alas it is not to be..i shared this wish with a friend of mine and guess what he said.."well...dear..u are looking for escapism.."..if this is escapism then what and what really comprises true existence...
..."happy is the man whose wish and care ..a few paternal acres bound..content to breathe his native air..in his own ground.."..i cant agree more with A.Pope..but i cant be agreed with..in this constant quest for good things in life mostly material we lose out on the message of the soull..what one really craves for and what one is made to crave for...because i have expectations put on me..i have responsibilities and i have a call to answer which i cant sitting all day under a bough...
Nevertheless..one has to emerge victorious even in this rat race...i feel we are all waliking and walking..with eyes and ears closed..towards that one end..one goal..suppressing our innate desires somewhere..always in pursuit of happiness..but this hapiness is again not absolute..a compromise has to be reached..it is negotiable...can wealth really make me happy?or is it fame and glory that will make me happier..oh no it has to be success and goal attainment..and why cant i have all of the above and more..and thus i will keep on walking and then running..and then sprinting after all the above..till i have nothing in me left..to stand and stare..but may be a sense of accomplishment somewhere..a sense of putting in hard work and labour..but can that ever substitute my innate hopes?....may be and may be not..as they say the mind can be moulded and so can one mould the heart..to see and feel what one wants to...
...and then there were none......
isnt it so true..atlest it holds true for me and has been becoming a reality with each passing year..gone are those days of imagionation...where i had ample time to stare at a brook..a gulmohur tree growing by the side of my grandmum's kitchen..or the big river that passed through my little town..and now as i am growing up..though i am intelectually slimulated or rather trying to hyper activate my grey cells..it seems that staring..and thinking about a brook..or a tree..or a dog is mere wastage of time which could have been invested in an academic discourse or redaing a journal...
How i wish to be Heidi..and live in the meadows..sleep under the clear starry sky and wake up to the first rays of the sun..and the chatter of innumerable birds...but alas it is not to be..i shared this wish with a friend of mine and guess what he said.."well...dear..u are looking for escapism.."..if this is escapism then what and what really comprises true existence...
..."happy is the man whose wish and care ..a few paternal acres bound..content to breathe his native air..in his own ground.."..i cant agree more with A.Pope..but i cant be agreed with..in this constant quest for good things in life mostly material we lose out on the message of the soull..what one really craves for and what one is made to crave for...because i have expectations put on me..i have responsibilities and i have a call to answer which i cant sitting all day under a bough...
Nevertheless..one has to emerge victorious even in this rat race...i feel we are all waliking and walking..with eyes and ears closed..towards that one end..one goal..suppressing our innate desires somewhere..always in pursuit of happiness..but this hapiness is again not absolute..a compromise has to be reached..it is negotiable...can wealth really make me happy?or is it fame and glory that will make me happier..oh no it has to be success and goal attainment..and why cant i have all of the above and more..and thus i will keep on walking and then running..and then sprinting after all the above..till i have nothing in me left..to stand and stare..but may be a sense of accomplishment somewhere..a sense of putting in hard work and labour..but can that ever substitute my innate hopes?....may be and may be not..as they say the mind can be moulded and so can one mould the heart..to see and feel what one wants to...
...and then there were none......
Saturday, May 2, 2009
and here it begins...
i have always wanted to have a blog..write a blog...but i still dont know what took me so long..but then its never too late anyways..for anything..thats how the adage goes..so today of all days i thought i should begin..nothing auspicious about today..oh ofcors it's or (was) i created the blog past midnight..mom's birthday..but what do i really write..nah not about myself..or whats going on in my life either..
may be about where i stand..no its nothing as dramatic as standing at the cross roads of life....am sailing along..wid some concrete plans (though flexible)...but thats not what i want to write about either..i think its PAul...WHOZ PAUL..Paul is this character from D.H Lawrence's Sons and Lovers...he is a lad of 22 and torn between his love for his mother and a friend..miriam..but thats not the point..Paul has this peculiar nature..what he loves he begins to hate...and he denied his emotions which are but so obvious..and somwhere its also his mother and the family conditionaing...but here is this Paul..who is so creative..who paints and bakes ..and is so keen on meeting Miriam and when he meets her he hates her..but what he hates baout her ,,he knows not..or is it because his mother hates her so he hates her...
such mixed emotions..of love..hate..anger..pain..confusion..perplexity..all witin a soul and mehanisms developed to fight each one of them...i wonder at time...human beings are much more comples then these bacterias or viruses..we are higher beings after all..but of what use is this pedestal if there is this constant wear and tear of the mind..of the heart and of the soul..but then who else is capable of such self introspection...whereevr it might lead eventually..and how does that matter..now thats something interesting agian.."how does it ..dat ..or anything matters"..but i will deal with that in a seperate blog..
hmm..so here goes my maioden blog...and am happy..
quote for the day: "find happiness in small things..like a steaming cup of coffee.."
may be about where i stand..no its nothing as dramatic as standing at the cross roads of life....am sailing along..wid some concrete plans (though flexible)...but thats not what i want to write about either..i think its PAul...WHOZ PAUL..Paul is this character from D.H Lawrence's Sons and Lovers...he is a lad of 22 and torn between his love for his mother and a friend..miriam..but thats not the point..Paul has this peculiar nature..what he loves he begins to hate...and he denied his emotions which are but so obvious..and somwhere its also his mother and the family conditionaing...but here is this Paul..who is so creative..who paints and bakes ..and is so keen on meeting Miriam and when he meets her he hates her..but what he hates baout her ,,he knows not..or is it because his mother hates her so he hates her...
such mixed emotions..of love..hate..anger..pain..confusion..perplexity..all witin a soul and mehanisms developed to fight each one of them...i wonder at time...human beings are much more comples then these bacterias or viruses..we are higher beings after all..but of what use is this pedestal if there is this constant wear and tear of the mind..of the heart and of the soul..but then who else is capable of such self introspection...whereevr it might lead eventually..and how does that matter..now thats something interesting agian.."how does it ..dat ..or anything matters"..but i will deal with that in a seperate blog..
hmm..so here goes my maioden blog...and am happy..
quote for the day: "find happiness in small things..like a steaming cup of coffee.."
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