The Great Darkness..

It's been a long time since i last wrote! The exams and the lazy satisfaction that followed since the holidays began precluded my even thinking about posting something here. Or my having material to write about, for that that matter. These last two weeks I've been busy interning in a microfinance company, too: too exhausted on returning from a day spent shadowing field agents under the hot Delhi sun to even think of writing. Which brings me to the reason for this post. Two things.

• Living in a comfortable upper middle class family is a mere throw of the dice where nine times out of ten, a child born in India is sentenced to a life in 'the Great darkness' as Arvind Adiga so aptly describes it in 'The White Tiger'(one of the only things which struck me and stuck in my head after reading it; I wasn't exactly thrilled by the book otherwise). In the end it's all down to where you're born. That determines your world view, your attitudes, principles, skills, opportunities: in short pretty much sets a course for your life. Changing the course is always possible, of course, but one may have to work so much harder and try just a little more without being fazed when staring at defeat. It's just easier for some. Anyway, this was the first time I've actually come in touch with the other India, the India I always knew existed but never thought about; wrapped up in my own comfortable, narrow life. And it makes you feel so small. Just the magnitude of what the people are facing: it's just life on a high wire, you do your best to stay on top but even a small movement precipitates you down, down, down. And so much the worse for you if you don't have a safety net below you, some backup in case you, say, lose the wage earner of your family in a tragedy. I don't know what I would be in a situation where you fight every day just to bring home food for your (many many) children. How can this problem be solved?!!! Educating 5 billion people is simply not possible for individuals and our Government, whether it tries its best or not, is not really an 'it', it's thousands of 'hes' and 'shes', all human and only too fallible. It's depressing and the only way I can get rid of that is by getting this into my head(difficult!). There is seriously nothing I can do about it, and working in a small way, if it helps a few thousand people, will ultimately be of some use, even if it doesn't solve all national problems. Also, I shouldn't be selfish in my attitudes or in my actions. Ever. And look forward to heaven, which is in reality the only place which can be ultimately perfect!!
• It's no wonder people escape through(in India) Bollywood and cricket. Not a single house i went to to collect repayments was missing a TV, not even the houses with just a single room and no toilet. It's so easy to escape into a different world! Like football..!! Spain lost in their first Group H game of the World Cup today, to a team they've beaten in the last 18 times they've met, in spite of the fact that they've had a 12 game unbeaten run ,and have been beaten just once in 48 games. I just went on thinking "WHY!Why!why!!' and ruing the fact that the team which plays the most beautiful game, and which everyone loves for the loveliness of its wonderful passing game almost never wins a big tournament no matter how much(in fact less with an increase in the amount that) they're hyped. For two hours I've been going around with a long face, almost determined to go into mourning in earnest.

What different situations, really, but it's just funny how depression comes in all forms, isn't it? The first thing is so real you drown in its magnitude, the second, apart from the joy of pure entertainment, is pretty shallow and insignificant, really, but the intensity of emotion is there for both cases. Funny.

superpowerssss

wondering what to say....
words rise so quickly to the mouth sometimes and sometimes the only things that rise (to it) are utter rubbish!!
why am i posting this rubbish??
hehe...
i love the rain!!! when it's not wetting me!! Percy Jackson(if in any universe he was a real person) is so lucky: to be able to keep from getting wet and to be able to breathe underwater!! i wish i had a water related superpower.....any superpower would be fine actually. okay let's make a list...

• flying would be top!!!oh yeah:D
• superspeed: any kind!!!
• hmm...being able to breathe underwater and swim really deep
• hmmm...magic! this is generic, so maybe it should go top because then i can do all the rest too
• to be able to talk to animals
• telepathy
• invisibility: but actually it would be kind of pointless unless i was a criminal or a person who needs it for exciting adventures to fight evil scary monsters(sadly I'm neither).

i think the most useful power though would be to be able to control the weather..!!it would definitely make you the most popular superhero anyway!!;P

Time stealing...

Sessional time again...
I wonder why time passes so terribly fast when you're enjoying yourself and slows right down at the not-so-good times(cough, exams, cough).
I'm sure it's not as simple as our simply not noticing it. How could we just not notice time passing, having had it ingrained in us to count time since our earliest childhood? There's probably a secret group of people who steal other people's good times out of jealousy. Just as people can encroach on other people's land and steal their parking spaces, the Time-Stealers(?) steal the time part from the fabric of space-time. Terry Pratchettish stuff....
That's why bad times last longer.
I'm sure of it.

some paintings by van gogh

Starry night over the Rhone

Starry night

The Night Cafe

Not that I know anything worth knowing about art, but I had always thought the modern artishness of Van Gogh's paintings was not for me....but surprisingly when I came across these(Google Images...lol) , I loved them!

Especially the first one. It reminds me of something. Sometimes, these things can trigger your memory, making you feel as if you've been in that place or something like it, whether in a dream, or in a flight of imagination. You want to be there at all events!

His colours are so very vivid. Whether you like the paintings or not, I think the sheer jumpiness of it would definitely get under your skin! They leap right at you! 'Starry Night' especially, though from the outside I thought it looked like a kid splashing paints around for fun. Though the painting is anything but fun. What sort of thoughts must have been running through his mind to produce stuff like that!!

And he seems to have loved stars too...:)

Who's The Best?

It's as unstoppable as life itself. Man wasn't put on the Earth to exist singly. And no one could. Man is a social animal, after all. And with society comes strife, to constantly show yourself to be the best. To prove to others, in fact, that there is something different about you: something you have or do which your 6 billion planet-mates cannot match. Most people would feel something like this, in differing degrees of intensity. Why are prizes given at all to the best people in a certain field? Why else do advertising hoardings constantly read: "the No 1 brand " or "best in the world"?

And this comes out more in sports than anything else. In sports winning and being the best is the primary concern, for all the talk about 'sportsmanship'. Most successful sports stars show by their actions that they prefer to win dirty than not win at all.

Thinking of the Barcelona-Arsenal CL quarterfinal this week. As soon as a talented player like Messi scores 3 or more goals, the next day's news headlines read "Is Messi the best player in the world?" "Is Messi the best player EVER?". Whenever Rooney or Torres are in form, their managers, teammates, the press all join the chorus of "best striker in the world". While I am an ardent football fan, I wish they would button up sometimes. No magazine article can ever be definitive on such a topic. They just always end in more questions about whether you can compare between different eras, between different styles.

So why compare at all? Let's just enjoy the football, shall we?

The need to know...

i wonder what it feels like to know everything...to know everything about every single living thing in the whole wide world: all their habits, likes and dislikes, what has happened to them, what will happen to them. even though i usually like to know everything, it's scary to even think about! non-living things are somehow less scary for some reason. cos they're not at all unexpected. usually, anyway. living things always tend to surprise you! omniescience(did i spell it right?) is scary!

Look Up!!

Clouds!!!

*heart heart heart*!!