A visit home...

India has been difficult for me this time around. I have tried to fall in love again, but it just didn't happen. I don't suppose it ever happens, with countries or with people, when we "try". I felt obliged to try, because I was in love with it before, and because it is the place of my emotional roots. That place of my childhood lives

I have seen human beings here don't have any respect for one another. If we cannot respect each other, there is little chance that we can respect our country, and help it prosper. The other day I was crossing the street, a speeding car nearly killed me. NOT AN ACCIDENT, i'd say it was a casual approach towards driving, and fearlessness for any consequences (wat consequences???). A construction worker spit paan on my friend from the 6th floor window where he was working. No one bothers about anything...the impression is that not bothering about anything is "cool". There's utter disrespect for punctuality. The later they arrive, the more they feel they are "important". And privacy? Hahahaha....We have a problem here too. Everyone is nosy about whatever is going on in the neighbour's house. "Kaun mar gaya?", "Raju ko kitne marks mile?", "Job mili? Salary kitni hai?" are just some of the privacy violating questions you get to hear. Never will those neighbours invite you to dinner, afterall they're only interested in the gossip - pieces of information no at all useful to them. Again..."Treat dega to hi hum ayenge"...i bet u've heard this before; Or if your one of the "typical" Indians...you'd have 'said' this more than you'd have 'heard' this. Yeah...disgusting isn't it? Hail India - The land of misers.

While there is a huge amount of love and attachment to children in families, I have seen them by in large be treated with disrespect: hit gratuitously, yelled at, pushed aside, laughed at, scorned, in the community, not only by strangers, but also within families by parents and grandparents. The archaic education systems condemns them to days of rote learning and horrendous fear-mongering by teachers ready to physically punish with a ruler and ridicule the child in front of everyone. The student suicide statistics are proof to this. This is no less than terrorism.

The humiliation and trauma are not consciously inflicted, but that is the result. It is just the way things are. No one seems to think that there is a discrepancy between loving your child and ignoring their psychic pain. And so it is with animals, spouses, and the earth, all treated with equal amounts of insensitivity. As many of my Indian friends have said, it is a disconnect that happens when you are thrust unceremoniously from village to city, in search of wage work, robbed of your land by a feudal mafioso that rapes and tortures you if you object. This is all compounded by living under colonialism for hundreds of years: the Moslems, Moghuls, the British, and now globalization; self esteem is so low it's hard to measure.

Who's got time to do anything but survive? I get that it is a priority to make it through each day for the vast majority of people here.

This is not about comparing India with USA. I can list what ails USA easily. This is about my experience here. There is no race for first place, or last place.
My India is a big wounded, bleeding family with open sores. It hurts. It really hurts. Yes, there is "resilience" amongst my people. Yes, there is tenacity, Yes, there are thousands of dedicated intelligent people working to change things in India. Yes, there is hope. Some hope. I just hope that the big change comes before too many people, animals and the environment have suffered unnecessarily and die horrible deaths...and before India gets invaded by foreigners again, like it has happened from the Aryans to the British.

Into the world of rock...

My journey into music began probably when I was in the third grade when I heard this song - Beat It by Michael Jackson...yes he wasn't a child molester in those days. But since then there has been no turning back in my progressive journey towards better and better music. There came a time when I moved from MJ to BackStreetBoys to ABBA to Enrique Iglesias to Shakira and lot many more to come. The only 'rock' song I liked during this phase of our lives was "Its my life" performed by BonJovi.

Then I spent the rest of my years in middle school (six years to be prescise) listening to Boyzone, Blue, Darius and what not! They seemed great then, but now are nothing but n00bs to me! :-D

The turning point came in eleventh grade, when, unaware of what I was thinking, we drew an Aerosmith logo on my bench, then to realize that we knew nothing about rock and that there were rockers in class who may be curious of our intrest in it. Throughout the day we wandered in hope that nobody may ask of our interest in Rock n roll. Somehow we got thru the day, headed for home, and then it was one detailed google search for anything that had to do with Aerosmith, their songs et cetera. Thats when it all began. Listening to Aerosmith, Iron Maiden, BonJovi, and Guns n Roses. I felt an all time high, that can only be achieved thru Rock'n'roll. Obssesed with the guitar my self, I started considering Slash (lead guitarist of Guns n Roses) divine.

I come to realize that this may not persist, and, as before, we may move on to better music, the likes of Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, Ac/Dc and the very few at par with them and probably end my musical life listening to them, coz Rock'n'roll is over! Over since the 90s era. All u may get to hear now is Hip-Hop, Dhin-Chak, and loads of n00b music by wannabe artists. Black bitches shaking their booties seems to be the thing in focus.

Though today I may end up critisizing most, or probably all of those boybands around the block, the more I think of it, the more I feel they are necessary for some novice to get into REAL music. It's more like you start of with something horrid and initially like it, then move on to realize that it was utter crap, and that whatever we are listening to now are better, then further up our life, realize that even that is atleast to some extent "crap", and this way move on to better music. The only music I despise throughout my life is Hip-Hop, coz its not music in the first place.


As somebody once said "True music chooses you"

My Reco on some must hears:
Sweet child O' mine - Guns n Roses
Freebird - Lynyrd Skynyrd
Eruption - Eddie Van Halen
Hammer Smashed Face - Cannible Corpse
Paranoid Android - Radiohead
Fade to Black - Metallica
Beyond the Realms of Death - Judas Priest
Halfway to Heaven - Europe
Comfortably Numb - Pink Floyd
In your Face - Children of Bodom
Iron Man - Black Sabbath

To cope with changing people....

"False friends stab you in the back. True friends stab you in the front"


You probably have got an idea of how this post is gonna continue. For me, "friends for life" seemed to have replaced the idea of a lifelong marital relationship. He he...Of course, there are positive, wonderful friendships that are mutually beneficial to all friends that should last a lifetime. Too hypothetical? ?? May be. But there sure are other friendships that are negative, destructive, or unhealthy that can and should end. There may also be friendships that you thought were going well but, WOAH, all of a sudden, your friend stops returning your phone calls and won't answer your smses, no pre-paid balance, or whatever the reason; and the friendship ends. Weeks later you still don't know what went, and it still haunts you.

Here's some advice...too cliche, but better safe than sorry...

...some of your potentially destructive or harmful friendships may be difficult to spot. That's because when a friendship is forming, your friend may be charming, polite, and completely appropriate. Yeah...i can see you relate well to this. But once your friendship is well underway, a friend changes. The very act of becoming friends may send someone with intimacy problems into an emotional tailspin, changing those involved as well as their behavior toward each other. As friends become closer and more intimate, expectations also may arise so that disappointments become more likely, and painful, than during the early stage of the evolving friendship. Just specifying here that I'm talking about friends of either gender.

As a friendship that formed within a certain context, such as at school/college or at work, expands to include a multiplicity of situations and even other relationships, conflicts may arise that may derail the friendship. The longer you remain friends, the greater your investment in maintaining the friendship; you are more likely to ignore or try to defend negative behaviors. But you (or your friend) will be able to put up with only so much, and the friendship may last only until such an act of betrayal occurs that the situation has to be addressed and resolved, or the friendship will end...well, at least for me it did!

A myth of lifelong friendship has sadly ended giving me a large dose of reality. The romanticized ideal that friendships should not end or fail may creates unnecessary distress in those who should end a friendship but hold on, no matter what. They cling to the myth rather than understanding the relationship. And if friendships don't last, why to believe that they do?