Niraj is in england, for the second time. He's back to this sleepy town, as niraj likes to put it and the sleepiness is not something he ever tested though, called Ipswich. Similar to almost anyone's else reaction to it, he was also awed by the apparent orderliness in everything around him at the beginning. All the cars following lanes religiously, no honking at traffic, throwing a thank you (followed by cheers) or please on almost every possible moments.

Somehow, it has to be here, isn't it?

Hazaaron khwaahishen aisi ke har khwaahish pe dum nikle
Bahut nikle mere armaan, lekin phir bhi kam nikle

Nikalna khuld se aadam ka, sunte aaye the lekin
Bahut beabroo hokar tere koonche se hum nikle

Mohobbat mai nahi hai phark jeene aur marne ka
Usi ko dekh kar jeete hai jiska kaafir pe dum nikle

Hazaaron khwaahishen aisi ke har khwaahish pe dum nikle
Bahut nikle mere armaan, lekin phir bhi kam nikle

EVEN MEDIOCRITY HAS ITS MOMENT!

:-(

Review of “The Book of Laughter and Forgetting” - Book by Milan Kundera

Kundera is a brilliant surgeon. His scalpel cuts just through the upper layer and give you a sight, which you have never expected from anyone who writes with a good mix of political satire. You keep wondering that is it really so simple to understand human emotions. Do read this book, and I can not recommend it any higher. And that might be for all political satire in it or despite all political satire in it, I’m not sure. If you don’t find the book interesting, at least you will be more knowledgeable about the ways a novel can be written. For, this time, Kundera has shown that how characters keep changing their names and places, but the story doesn’t change at all.
This is the first time I am reviewing any book, and I can’t agree more with Kundera, when he says that somebody writes something like this (The book, I’m reviewing), only when one doesn’t find somebody, who will listen to him. And, that every author is nothing. When one tries to say something and finds that no body is really listening, he tries to entrap whatever he wanted to say in words, with high hopes of finding some reader, who will ‘listen’. And, that the author is nothing simply because, he wanted to be everything. He wanted to create the whole universe of his own and no one ever granted him this wish. In every book, every author preaches. It’s entirely a different matter, that some preach better than others.
Do Kundera preach? Yes, he does. But with this book, he got something important to preach – ‘Forgetting’ and ‘Laughter’. He verifies that the Greek philosopher’s perception of time was more convenient one (not correct one, mind you, after all who knows, what’s correct and what’s not). They saw themselves facing the past, while the future came from behind. Whatever we have at any moment, is our past. Even a loser exists, because he lost something in past not because he can win something in future. And at the same time, how important is it to realize that you have lived in the past. Isn’t it obvious? No, it’s not and that’s why this book.
And, how could I forget ‘Laughter’. Especially, how the angels and the demons fought over it as if it was the most important territory. And, how famous feminist, Annie Leclerc, used the same ‘Laughter’ as the most important weapon a women ever had.
Finally, don’t forget Kundera. Who’s he and where does he come from? The author is always a part of his narrative and when a reader loses this perspective, he’s no longer reading the same thing author has written. But, someone like Kundera doesn’t let this happen so easily. He’s too big a hedonist for that. It’s simply impossible to lose him in his narrative. The amount of political satire has not overpowered the more important human emotions, he has dealt with.

This piece is an anti-thesis to something I came across recently. So, I guess before reading the anti-thesis, why don’t you read the original one first. Here it is:
“And I have realized it is always easy to sit on the high fence, look serious and lay down rules about how things should be.
Each of us hides behind a façade of general cynicism and deep rooted scepticism, moaning and groaning about things that are not there, pointedly emphasizing we would have been on the greener other side had not the world had participated in a general conspiracy against us. What we do not realize in the bargain is what pathetic losers we are making of ourselves. It is great we find so many things wrong with the world – we could have done worse, we could have lived in a world of make believe thinking everything is hunky dory.
But then how much better we really are living the life of an armchair critic, poking holes in perfect surfaces, walking around with long faces and staunchly upholding our conspiracy theories.
I guess it would do us good to shift positions, climb down from our safe positions on the face and start facing the heat that we have so gallantly attributed to a number of inscrutable causes. Well I better stop here for I can feel the creepy preach taking over me.”

Ok, now that you are aware of what I am writing against, consider this quote (irrespective of who is being quoted). “The cynics were the wise ones.”
And, I also remember Sartre saying something like this: “Hell is other people”.
The point is clear. The world had really participated in a conspiracy against you. And, it certainly had been greener, otherwise. Nobody makes himself a loser, it’s only when he comes near a so-called winner, people christen him as a loser and he believes them. I refuse to believe this life is for doing stuffs that this world calls success. We should have the liberty of choosing our own definition of success. If I chose to complain about the world, then be it. Things can be interpreted in a hundred ways and every one as good as the other. People have a general tendency to stick to something that sounds nice and feels nice (We only chose to be different when we consider what others will think etc etc). Some might consider it to be too trivial to be of any importance. But, that’s how we’ve got where we’re now. We chose what we liked. But these self help books makes you believe that there is a road out there and if you are not walking on that, you are missing some thing. In fact, some of them will go as far as saying that you are not living at all.
Well, whatever I’ve written applied to me as well. And, I accept that this is preaching and nothing else. The drive to preach some one is so strong in every one of us, that we end up laying rules for the rest of the world. But, we must allow others to make the rule for rest of their world as well.
Amen!

So..finally Niraj wrote a poem. No, no, it wasn't the first time he did so..but then this is the first time for all record purposes. At the same time, at back of his mind comes few words..."they say I meddle and I meddle into everything...". Could it be the starting line of his first real poem ? Only God (oops!) knows....
Anyway, here he goes...(Dedicated to her)

I am waiting...
waiting for a dot of vermillion,
to appear on her forehead..
and no, it won't be my hand..
which make that blessed dot.

The red of vermillion
will redden her face...or will she blush..
no..no..will I blush?
will I blush from my Shame.
Shame 'cause I will be the one,
who failed her
and one, who wouldn't bare his soul to her..

The red of vermillion
will remind me of my red dreams..
red with passion..red with romance...
and red with red "the stop sign".
stop, so as to save my soul from the shame
'cause it's naked
it's naked in the harem of world
where eveyone is bathing.....naked
and none of them are aware of this...
And I am such an ingorant..
who knows that he doesn't know
that he's naked....

The red of vermillion,
will remind me of the blood...
Blood that stains the bedsheet on that night.
...on that night of bliss.
Wish I could own the bedsheet, which you stained.
Wish I could....

[what a rot this guy is turning out to be!!!]

Niraj feels that the proposed 'Reservation' is a blessing in disguise for everyone from the 'General' category. The objection to Reservation, as raised by many, is that it would not give the equal oppotunity of Education to everyone. If we consider the words 'equal' and 'opportunity', then obviously they are right. But, the moment we consider the third and as Niraj thinks most important part 'Education', eveything turns upside down. Here, why is very natural question.
And This is why...
Niraj has seen that IITs and IIMs has kidnapped the real 'education' from the lives of majority of talented Indians. Being a talented kid in India means you will grow up and encash your talent via these two routes. Niraj takes his own example. Every person in his neigbourhood suggested him to study maths and english better, not because this would make you any good. Rather, without doing good in these two, your rest of education can't be encashed and hence useless.
For an average guy, the real education is stopped way back in secondary classes. Thereafter he starts concentrating on his science subjects and what kind of education one gets in an engineering college should not be discussed much. So, by the end of it all, he remains an uneducated in real sense and becomes an expert technician. Niraj has seen instances of IITians demanding huge dowries. Such instances by IAS guys is fairly common one and again should not be discussed further in order to save oneself from sounding cliched.
In case of IIMs, it's even worse. Of all people, about whom Niraj knows that they are interested in getting into IIMs, no one has given him any other reason for getting into IIMs excepting the kind of money it offers. There are a few exceptions, obviously. But those are exceptions and which make this 'rule' even more credible.
Now, if the talented mass of India discovers the real education, only after being deprived of seast from IITs and IIMs, Niraj says this is the best it can get.

If you read the last blog-entry and if you happen to read the book called "Zen and Art of Motorcycle Maintenance", then you must have noted that Niraj somehow is very much impressed by the book and in fact some ideas in the last entry are those mentioned in the book and rest are his take on those ideas. This book has changed many of the firm beliefs Niraj has had for quite some time. And, Niraj like anybody else is impressed by anyone, who is able to show him his fallacy. The problem is there are many guys like that, but Niraj always finds some way out in front of them, but Pirsig's idea is so ......, you know what, Niraj hasn't been able to refute even one of them.
This is the strange thing about the books. When you are reading and when you are reading something like this, you feel that you are reading most important literary work of all time. But books don't change much, especially if you are a guy like Niraj. Niraj is someone, who will read.. say "My Experiments with Truth" and agree with the most of things mentioned in the book, but in his day-to-day life he will continue to do the things as he has been doing. When you ask him about it, he will, on most of the occasions, modify whatever he has read into something that justifies his actions, knowing well, that he is wrong. Actually not knowing very well, because this is what he has observed in himself. When he wants to lie, he kind of prepares himself for it. That is very simple. Just forget that whatever you are lying is actually a lie. This also gives your lie a truth-like appearance. But, he faces problem, when he starts analysing the problem in hindsight. On most of the occasion, he's not able to make it clear to himself that whether he started pretending the fact to be a truth or the fact is really truth. Though he has a good memory ( yeah, he can almost say that), he is not able to recall the exact circumstances. And, this is because, to Niraj nothing in this world is important enough or everything is equally important. For him, his life basically consists of only one thing at any given moment. One, what's happening to him at exactly that moment and if not much is happening, then whatever he can remember at that moment.
Perhaps I have lost my trck. Yeah, the problem with books. So if you really think any book has changed your life, don't think about how it has changed your dream. Instead, think of how it has changed whatever that you do after waking up to realise your dreams.

Dreams.....love them...but some other time.

Rober M Pirsig argues that the law of gravitation is a ghost and his logic behind this claim is almost irrefutable. He says if you think about the idea of ghost, science says it exists only in mind of those people, who believe in it. And the same goes with almost all of the scientific theory. They exist only in our mind.
But, that's where Niraj feels, Pirsig is missing something. One's thought doesn't matter to anybody or you can say doesn't matter at all, until and unless, that is reflected in any of his actions. Now you can test the following hypotheses by believing them to be true and base any of your action, which will need one's existence or other.
1. The ghost of dead people does exist.
2. The ghost of law of gravitation does exist.
Niraj knows its very hard to test first hypothesis, so for all practical purpose, only go for testing the other one. And, obviously you realise that this ghost does exist or still, this isn't a ghost at all.
Still, Pirsig is right on other occasions. Like when he says that the people who claim that they know for sure that ghosts exist and the advance physicist, who claim to understand the true nature of universe (ie. space-time curves etc) are basically same kind of people. Both of them are giving hypotheses for something that will explain what they have observed. But, their hypothesis is beyond comprehension to a normal person like Niraj, who is unable to determine the truth in either of hypotheses.
But, then some can say that space-time curve is just an extension of the basic principles we understand perfectly, then Niraj would point out that many such seemingly incomprehendable theories has originated from the same basic principles and been proved false in the due course.
To use criteria like its-obvious-and-makes-sense for deciding what is truth and what is not in a fact is blasphemy. This is because of the simple reason that if we assume that there is an absolute truth, then it will not be affected by our understanding of it. So ultimately, to Niraj an advance physicist and an uneducated villager - on some ground - stand on the same platform.