Ants.

I sat upright on my bed as I woke up, looking at the sun rays creeping in through the drapes. I went through my usual morning chores. Brushed my teeth, had my OJ. I thought about making it a screwdriver, but decided against it. The bread was fresh and soft. So soft that the butter knife actually tore it up a bit. As I had my breakfast, I noticed that the table had a bunch of ants crawling around on it. I bent down and noticed the underside of it, and there were even more. Suddenly, all I could see were ants. Everywhere. This had happened almost overnight. I opened the door, and all I could see is an ocean of ants. They were everywhere, ruining what was supposed to be a tranquil morning.

I switched the TV on, flipped quickly to the news channel, and a biologist was saying how the human race could end being knee deep in ants. I smirked at how stupid it sounded, but the more I talked about it, the more sense it made. While I was reading the newspaper, looking for details on this, the power suddenly snapped, and so did the telephone lines. Even my cell phone had no bars now. This was bad.

I got ready and left for work, somehow trying not to notice the ants, but that is hard to do even when the roads seem to be coated with them. I slowly killed thousands of ants and park near my office and get off the car, and immediately, ants started creeping towards the car, and they slowly moved into it. These ants were somehow different. As soon as I got off the car, ants started flooding into it, and, slowly, started to chew on the leather on the seats, slowly devouring them. I looked around and realized that this is happening to literally every vehicle around. I tried to walk to the building, but, the ants slowly get on my shoes and start chewing them. I tried to kick them away, but they stuck on. Eventually, the ants climb on to my trousers, and found their way up to my torso, and then my arms. They chewed hard, and it hurt like hell, but for some reason, I didn't care. It seemed inevitable, and so, I didn't bother getting rid of them.

The office was empty, dead silent. I tried to look around, but the building was just empty, except for the ants of course. I walked outside, and realized that the car was unusable, so I walked to the main street, but it was empty. I started pacing now, unable to comprehend what was happening. It all seemed so incoherent. There wasn't a soul anywhere. All I could see was ants chewing away at everything; I noticed a group of ants bigger than the ones which had infested my car and the ones at my house. They seemed to be chewing at the buildings.As I run past the tiring slope, I see the hell that has become of this place. Collapsed buildings, dead animals, all being feasted upon by the ants. I read a sign that said "Evacuation! Head to the nearest extraction point". Somehow, I had missed it all.

All I could do then was laugh at how pathetic everything had become. The bastard on the TV was right. The human race was going to dogs, oh wait, it was going to ants. It was truly dying now, and all anybody could do was accept it and perish, or die screaming. It seemed so calming in the darkest of ways that it didn't matter who was due on the electric chair, it didn't matter who you loved, it didn't matter who you hated, it didn't matter who hated you, or who loved you. Absolutely NOTHING mattered, because, eventually, everything will die. Even the human race, and that day had finally come.

Futility

This was something I had written a while ago, when I was feeling (a bit) melancholic, it certainly does NOT reflect my current state of mind, hope you enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it.

His mind was black and cold, for he had lost everything and felt utterly numb. There was nothing he could say or do, he had lost all that mattered, it was gone. Just like that, like some sort of cruel prank that fate played on him.

His home was full of things his wife used to own. Her jewelry, her perfume, the 1948 Bordeaux that she had got from their trip to France, the bags of scented materials, the mural of an unmarked grave, her mind numbing scent, but her soul had gone. The sweat on her forehead was still fresh, even though, strangely, she was cold to touch. She was still smiling, but all he could think while touching her was how empty it felt. How hollow and fucking empty it felt. He then touched her stomach, which held the child he so loved. He often thought how strange it was to be so in love with someone whom he hadn’t even met or seen. Such was the strength, he assumed, of love. Some people are meant to be loved, and some aren’t, but now his wife had die. She had ceased to exist and so did his beloved child. Did that mean that he didn’t love them anymore? Was it possible to love someone or something that didn’t exist? No sooner did that thought enter his mind, than he crumbled under it. He felt sickened of the whole world except the two people he so loved and himself, but now he felt sickened of himself too.

There were no feelings like the ones he felt at that very moment. It was dry as a funeral drum and yet,  violent as a tempest. He tried to cry, but just couldn’t. He tried to stand up and pour himself a drink, but he just didn’t feel like it. This was the most withdrawn he had ever been, simply because the only people whom he loved and cherished had suddenly ceased to exist and he couldn’t take the shock of it. He couldn’t hold a thought in his mind, and at the same time couldn’t stop the tempest of chaos either. All he wanted to do was lie there, and hope that it wasn’t all lost, but he knew in his heart that it was gone, dead, and that his world was empty now.

They had gone, disappeared, left him for dead in this apocryphal hell, but wait, maybe he could meet them once again, maybe he can hug his wife, kiss her and smell her hair, maybe he can see his daughter being born, maybe he can hold her in her arms while she squeezes his finger with her soft angelic hands, maybe, just maybe, he can feel love again.

This sparked hope in him, maybe there was an afterlife, maybe there was meaning to life, and maybe there was a God after all. Its strange that in his weakest moment, he was somehow spiritually stronger than he ever was. He suddenly got up from the sofa. His mind was dead silent and black. His heart pumped all the blood he bloody well wanted. He went to the kitchen and almost instinctively reached for the knife in the drawer, not even noticing the mural that his wife thought to be so surreal. He looked at his wife and baby, smiled, and stabbed himself in the heart, and that was it. It was over.

Now he could finally see his wife and see his daughter bloom in the afterlife. He waited with a beaming smile on his face, but there was nothing. There was just blackness and deafening silence. He tried to look around, but couldn’t. He tried to talk, but couldn’t. He couldn’t even cry at the decision he had

taken. He could feel, but somehow, there was nothing around him, there was no HIM. All doubts he had about the existence or non-existence of a loving God and an afterlife now disappeared, for there was no doubt – there is no God. There is nothing beyond this sad pathetic life and there is nothing for us in this desperate and lonely life either, because nothing is yours, because once you take your last breath, its all gone. Everything. Including yourself, but the plethora of feelings he felt in those few minutes was worth a lifetime. The love he felt for his wife and daughter was worth any price that can ever be named. These few minutes when he thought he was going to see his family again were worth EVERYTHING to him and he sighed and smiled at his situation and how futile and helpless his life was.

Bridging the Gap

Tonight, I will be milking the cow with the biggest bosoms ever, this article is about cultural differences that Indians may or may not feel, I say this, because I haven’t been anywhere outside India other than Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand, and even there, I didn’t do much to experience their culture, in other words, I didn’t speak to anybody who wasn’t brown and didn’t have big noses and regular eyes. So yes, this is going to be another one of the many blog entries that people make about things that they don’t really know much about, simply because it’s a lot of fun knowing that people will read whatever they have to say. It’s the same reason why debating initially appealed to me, people just have to shut up and listen to all the things you have to say, even if it is a narcissistic drone like this article. Secondly, what I know about American culture is simply what I’ve seen in movies or read in books. Since I haven’t lived there, you may say that I have no idea, and as I have said, and I will not hold anything against you if you do.

OK, so here I am in my room, typing this from a country that is supposed to be one of the most culturally rich countries, a country to which people from all over the world come to “discover” themselves, sadly though, it seems like they are the only ones who are doing any soul searching or whatever, because, if you wiki India and read the article, the other name that India has is Hindustan, yes boys and girls, it is one of those countries in which a large portion of the population is deeply, profoundly, and, in many cases, falsely religious. In fact, One popular priest who has his own sparkly TV show even suggested that Sri Lanka was NOT the place referred to in Ramayana as ‘Lanka’, but that it was actually Australia, yes, this happened, you can’t make this stuff up. Don’t get me wrong, there are many pious people who are earnest, honest, principled and genuine, but, it is undeniable that there is a large generation gap between these earnest folk and the people who are in their pre mid-life now. Again, there are many people of this age group who are genuinely very religious in an honest way, but really, as far as I know, none of the people I have had the pleasure of meeting are religious people, hell, I bet there are some people who are unaware about many things that is common knowledge, like where the war in Maha-Bharatha took place.

Now, I have established (very weakly) that the current bar-hopping, clubbing, girlfriend having,  ganja-smoking (well, this can’t really be called non-religious, legend says that, when Amrutha was being churned, a drop of it fell on the ground and it grew into marijuana, and it is also written in many scriptures that Shiva, the God of death, smoked a lot of marijuana), cigarette smoking, causeless generation have become the way that they are simply because of the advent of mass communication, because of the fusion of so many cultures, of which, the western culture stands tall.

This can be viewed as being a positive or a negative thing. The main negative reasons being that, slowly, the original culture of people seems to be vanishing, and everybody is slowly, but surely progressing to a common state, which is far from how the world was when people whose teachings the previous generation and those before them are/were so religiously following. And the main positive reason is latter half of the negative one. While it is very important to hold on to our own culture and our principles in a world where originality is becoming extremely scarce, one thing we must realize is that when the principles that people follow were propounded, people were absolutely unaware of any region that is beyond the ocean, and even if they did, there is no possible way anybody can logically conclude that one day, a bunch of people with funny accents and fair skin would colonize their land. We must realize that eventually, there is only one way we can truly classify people, which is, being morally good or bad. It is as simple as that. For example, a guy who drinks socially cannot be viewed as a blasphemer if he is the head of a charity organization. We must also realize that crossing the ocean is not really that big a deal now, well, maybe George Bush will refute this, because he thought that oceans could protect the US from terrorists. Since it isn't difficult to cross them anymore, it becomes pretty hard to say that the whole planet is becoming a single entity. It is obvious that there are many differences of opinion when it comes to people of different cultures, and that there will always be a small amount people who will be against globalization, but there is also so much friendship, admiration and also, many common objectives and thoughts.

So, in essence, what I am saying is that we, as people who live on planet earth, have to work past the cultural differences simply because it is inevitable, and it’s hard to imagine life without heavy metal or football and that it is also of paramount importance to cling to the culture that we were brought up in.  So, if you live abroad, go and eat some local cuisine, drink some of the local hooch and mingle.

PS.  Some people maintain that I have a stunted sense of sarcasm, but I don’t think that’s the case, so if any parts of this post seems obscene, you can just go ahead and assume that it’s because of my poor understanding of sarcasm and subtlety.

Strange Thoughts

It’s been too long since I last blogged, and I am too lazy to look it up and tell you how long, just scroll down, or, if you are reading this as a standalone article, go to the blog home page and see for yourself. This is a random rant about how shitty things can be in the style of Mark Haddon, you can read it and laugh about it. Here it is:

Sometimes,  I find it extremely hard to just sit on the couch and let a sigh out, to exhale and oust all the worries away. Actually, this is the case all the time, it’s a similar predicament I experience when I’m running and somehow, it feels unnatural to suddenly stop, I guess it has something to do with inertia or whatever, but really, all I want to do is come to my room, sit and just, well, exhale, I want to be able to take all the thoughts, all the worries, troubles, sadness, guilt, happiness, everything away, just unplug and exhale and be able to keep my shoulders low and close my eyes and think of absolutely nothing, which is just impossible for me to do.

There’s always some annoying shitty thing on my stupid mind, all I want to do Is , as I’ve said twice now, Is to relax, is to not think about how MS word changes the small I to the capital I but doesn’t do the opposite when I go back and change the I to an is, but I can’t do that unless I erase the I and type is, but apparently, I’d much rather type a sentence about it, and think about it for no bloody reason for many minutes. Maybe this makes me crazy, but I guess that’s just who I am. Syd Barrett, the lead singer of Pink Floyd was said to be crazy, what many people today would call bi-polar, but he created some of the most amazing music and inspired many people to be original, and laid the groundwork for much of Pink Floyd’s later work.

My name is Srikanth, I may have OCD, but I do not live in the US of frikkin A, so nobody goes around telling me that I have OCD, and that I need to go on pills to alter my mind and get me to what the society deems as a normal state of mind, fuck society, I want to be me, not what people think I should be. Maybe that makes me weird, yes, I asked many questions in time classes, but its only because it was a different atmosphere, and it felt comfortable, for some reason, I feel extremely un comfortable about asking questions or being in the spotlight for even a millisecond, again, that’s just me I guess, this has been a problem since the 3^rd grade I think, when I asked what was apparently a stupid question, “why do potatoes grow underground?”, and everybody laughed at me because they didn’t know why and it didn’t bother them.

That’s another thing, I hate not knowing things, which is why when somebody suddenly changes lanes on traffic I almost feel betrayed, because I wasn’t told, it’s the same case when I make plans and people cancel on me, yes, you know who you are, don’t do that again, I want to be kept in the loop, if you want to play football, tell me and play, and I won’t freak out and write a paragraph about it in my stupid lame blog that nobody reads.


Thank you for reading this irrelevant, incoherent article, this will just be a spec in the spectrum that is your mind, your memory. So, I’m sorry for peeing all over one atto-meter-squared area of your mind.

Alienation

Sorry about the absence. I have many excuses, none of which are witty and/or interesting, so, I leave you to it. Here is the next post.

When I see a movie or a video or read about something that is supposed to be nostalgic, all I read or see is summer showers, huge meadows and so much activity. Sadly, this is no longer the case in today’s world, kids (and most young adults) nowadays just want to sit in their bedroom, close the drapes, play on their play station or Xbox, download anything they want for free and watch porn online.

Sadly, this leads to kids being incredibly skewed socially and they appear melancholic, annoying, over-bearing and boring to most people who are considered normal. In other words, the current situation with technology and access of information is just a pathetic substitute to living a real life. Kids would rather lead a better life on SecondLife than be bothered to interact with somebody in real life, simply because, it’s easier. A kid has more control over their online persona than they have on their real life, because they’re stuck in a mess that they got themselves into.

So what do these stereotypical kids who do nothing but make bad poems about pain have left other than goth music, goth movies and goth clothes? All they have left once they are uprooted from their lives and examined is just a whole lot of anger, hate, disgust, mistrust and melancholy. A sad life indeed.

So how did he get into this situation? How did a baby, an existence which brings so much joy to everybody around it (most of the time) become an almost overwhelmingly sad person? What got him to a state where the only way he can express any real emotion is through a smiley, online? Well, in most cases, it was just being an eternal misfit. Feeling out of place in literally every situation, and there are so many things around us to enforce all this like sad music and dark movies among other things. After a while in that state, it feels like an effort to interact with people, ‘Why deal with everybody and their bullshit when you can live any life you want online?’ is a question that is inevitably asked, and sadly, the audience which receives this question just can’t argue, or don’t feel like talking to the person in question.

After a while, it becomes blaringly obvious to the person in question that something has got to give, that something is amiss. And all he can think about is his adolescent years in school when everything seemed so perfect and he was living in such harmony with everything around him, when he was so much more open to things, and all he wants to do now is just go back to that state, he becomes so nostalgic that he arrives at a dilemma, either he can go back and shape up and live his life or he can piss it away living in a fantasy that only makes him feel more empty, and the choice is entirely up to him.

PS: This was influenced (as you can see) by Porcupine Tree's Fear of A Blank Planet, which touched a lot of issues and situations that probably needed to be addressed

Inspiration

3rd post now. This will go off in all kinds of tangents, please bear with my novice blogging capabilities.

Humans are the most resilient, brilliant, and (obviously) the species with the most developed mind. Now, we cannot ever imagine what a dog may think, for example, we cannot know what a dog considers good, or what makes the common dog continue living, but the idea that a dog, or any other species *feeling* something seems a bit far fetched. That is where humans have the edge, we have emotions, we can feel. This can make us deeply depressed and melancholic, but it can also make us the happiest, strongest, and leave us feeling so damn complete.

We sometimes feel so damn horrible, so bad, so many times, that getting up and dusting ourselves off seems like an exercise in futility. That things will probably never work out, but somehow, they do. Things always work out, albeit many times, it is through a compromise, but they continue to work out. How is this? What keeps us going through the difficult times and helps us come clean? What gets us from feeling so gutted, inferior, incomplete and out of place to thinking anything is possible? That, I believe, is inspiration. If it wasn't for inspiration, if it wasn't for that piece of magic, that one moment of purity, that one moment when any mind just takes it in and remains in a state of awe, then the human species may not even have developed. Inspiration is what keeps us going, what makes us feel that feeling, that mixture of happiness and excitement, that rush that is worth just about anything. It can either wreck you or make us the most motivated and happy person. That is the goal of any life, true and lasting happiness, and inspiration is one of the most important factors to achieve that, it maybe from love, friendship, a piece of music, a picturesque scene, a talk by somebody, a conversation with somebody, a book, or even a joke. So, really, there is no point in being melancholic, because everything around us is something we can find inspiration in, something that can make us happy, even if it is for the tiniest of moments.


PS: This is not meant to be a puff piece, I have genuinely been in a very good state of mind for the past month, much better than many days before it, so again, I should know.

PPS: I don't care if my blog posts seem like newspaper articles, it is simply my thoughts put on the internet

The Fountainhead (spoiler free)

Of all the novels I have read, This masterpiece by Ayn Rand is probably the one that has affected me and people the world over the most. This book was written in the year 1943, with the Nazi regime falling in the backdrop. In the year 1917, during the Russian Revolution, it seems like Ayn's mind had fixed on a set of principles as Lenin had assumed power and communism was increasingly becoming the way of Russia. This set would come to define her life and give meaning and inspire so many other lives. The Fountainhead would set the base for Ayn's philosophy, Objectivism, which stresses on how valuing yourself as an individual is much more important than what we think, it is this thought, this audacity, this courage that made Ayn Rand a symbol for personal growth and for maturity.

The Fountainhead tells the tale of Howard Roark, Peter Keating, Ellsworth Toohey and Gail Wynand and how ego, ie, being aware of oneself is the most defining factor of an individual. The four people who embody the different mindsets of almost the entire population of this planet. Howard is the main protagonist. Modeled slightly around possibly the greatest architect of the modern era, Frank Lloyd Wright. Howard is incredibly principled and brutally honest. The only person who seems to understand and appreciate his buildings and his way of life is Dominique Francon, the daughter of Guy Francon, the owner of the Architecture firm that Peater Keating, whose house Howard lived in during his days at Stanton Institute of Technology.

Peter is the perfect student, who listens to everything that was taught to him, respects it and applies it without ever questioning what he is taught, and Howard is the exact opposite, who believes that originality and innovation are far more important. It is this steadfast attitude that alienates Howard from everybody around him.

Ellsworth Toohey is an architecture reviewer and a philosopher, whose intentions cannot be deciphered until it is mentioned later on, the details of which I do not want to reveal. Ellsworth is the man that people seek out for advice and words of courage. He is seemingly very humble and down to earth, Ellsworth believes that Peter is the best architect that the world has to offer and choses to propel him up in society.

Gail Wynand is the power hungry owner of The Banner, the local newspaper company which he owns. He is the only other person who admires Howard openly. Gail had a very difficult life as a child, which led to him being the way he is described in the book.

The sheer bravery and audacity that this book reflects will astound anybody who reads it, and will surely leave the reader refreshed and renewed vigor for life.

Why school life is the most important phase

Firstly, I don't care if this topic is widely covered.
Secondly, I had the strangest school life and/or childhood, so I should know
Thirdly, any fuckups must be forgiven as this is the very beginning of my blog writing phase. (I hope its not just a phase though)

Alright, now where do I start, I have no clue if my school life was strange, boring, interesting, good or bad, simply because i don't know what a good school life is. So I will just split up the pros and cons

CONS:
I was in a school with barely enough space for the kids to run, with teachers who would literally beat the living hell out of kids (until it was firmly established as a 'bad' thing, it wasn't obvious to these people that beating kids isn't good). My school was on a small site, had four floors and had classrooms which were absolutely crammed. For some strange reason, parents believed that a school which taught sanskrit from 5th grade was good, because, they believed that it is important for a kid to have a strong moral and cultural background, what they didn't realize however, was that there were very few teachers at this particular school who cared. Sitting through some classes just felt like going through the motions. Barely anybody talking, kids in the 2nd bench taking copious notes, (I say 2nd bench because the kids on the first were invariably those who were being punished for something they did), and having to ask for permission to drink water. School seemed very strange, and had huge repercussions on how the kid went on and grew up.

For example,
1. Alienation:
The girls and boys were split up and made to sit in separate rows and sitting amongst the other sex was viewed almost as a punishment. This would ultimately lead to absolute alienation between the sexes (I believe this is the reason why some Indian people just seem shady or, excuse my nonchalance, horny) , save a few who had common sense (me excluded, not that i'm overly horny).

2. Mediocrity:
It seemed to me that only a set of people were rewarded. Now many people reading this may find that i'm just being retarded, but as i saw it, up until 7th grade, (in MY school), whenever there was a contest of any kind, it was always the kid with a good rank, or one whom the teacher liked who was picked for them, this ultimately led to the kid not really realizing what he really liked, thus making him think that he's just moderate at everything, and doesn't really stand out at anything. Not that it mattered anyway, because everybody wants to do engineering or medicine (or law, yeah right!). Doing anything willingly other than those three is truly commendable, but i digress, now coming back, for the most part, that almost seems like what a government school in India seems to want to do, ie, to produce a bunch of adults who are completely indistinguishable. Which, as anybody would agree is a HUGE con


PROS:
1. Closeness:
I for one, am truly proud of being as close as I am to the people i met and became friends with in school. This is the case with many many people. Now, as i turn my twisted analysis at it, this is what i see. The reason why people remain close years after graduating and not getting sick of one another is this: They stuck together through one of the worst experiences, ie, school life. What I mean by worst experience is this, I mean that it would have been the worst experience if there was no company. Now, with a group of friends, a child pretty much identifies himself with that group, which ultimately leads to him thinking that he is a part of something big, thus increasing his self confidence. Coming back to the closeness thing, I think it is safe to assume that anybody who has gone through an experience as taxing and annoying as school will stick together until they find somebody who they have more in common with, or move away and are forced to.


Yes, sadly, I could only think of one good thing that came out of my school life, and that, indeed, is quite sad. Now, coming back to the heading, School life is the most important simply because they are the formative years of a child's life, because those are the days that any person, no matter how cynical, how jovial, how twisted, will remember and cherish them. Everything that we come to be defined by is basically rooted in our childhood, and that is the ultimate truth.



Thank you for reading.
Your humble first-time blogger,
Srikanth