Arjun - the quintessence of companionship

I do wonder every now and then, if my life would be any different, had I known this young man personally.

I do not know Arjun, I have not spoken to him, yet; I have this insatiable wish that I did. Arjun was not just another kid in the block, who went to school, played the guitar and had a bunch of friends. He was all that and more. Arjun – a kid, a brother, a musician, a friend, a son and a great guy!!

Ever felt the after-taste of a tea that lingers hours after drinking a cup? To me, Arjun is that sweet after-taste that has been lingering in my mind years after his passing. He is this distant actuality that persuades me to love and live this life in a certain way – the Arjun way! We can all but hope to be loved and respected by people around us. But this guy, simply by being himself, has managed to win over thousands of friends / fans / followers who confide in him, swear by him and more than anything; BE THERE FOR HIM!

I, in this lifetime, could not reach half as far as he has even with twice as much effort.

A humble but confident young man who taught himself to play the guitar and transcended into becoming this amazing guitarist / musician has stolen many hearts and inspired many more. Be it the Blues of Clapton, or solos of Petrucci; Arjun was thoroughly MAGICAL. In my opinion, Arjun and his band (ESION then, TWKC now and forever) were successful in bringing about a paradigm shift in perspectives of rock music and bands. They were just a group of boys who were extremely talented and irrepressibly music loving.

His passion for art, dance, theatre and paintings conformed to the myriad of interests this talented young man had. On 27^th of March 2009, at 19 Arjun passed away in a road accident leaving behind an enormous vacuum that was profoundly numbing and utterly devastating. I can only imagine what people he knew, he loved would have felt like. A sense of irreplaceable void and perpetual turmoil surmounts my mind when I think about the many instances my path has crossed Arjun’s and how close I was to befriend a magnificent man. Sigh.

After this dreadful incident, what I have learnt from the plethora of news articles, blog posts and facebook feeds is that, there aren’t many people around in this world like Arjun and hence they become very dearer to our hearts. To keep his energy, his compassion and the man himself ALIVE, family and friends joined together to have an annual musical event as a tribute to Arjun and all that he believes in. On the 14^th of July, the stage is set for the fourth consecutive year where we hope to raise funds to sponsor an ambulance that is manned 24x7 and is available for all emergencies on road.

This apart, through the trust in the name of Arjun, we’ve been involved in some earnest charitable activities and scholarships for young students to pursue their dreams in the field of art.

The thought of Arjun, is as close to my heart as the hope of being by his side and seeing the world the way he sees it. Tranquil. I only hope I have done justice in my attempt to express my admiration for my little brother. Walk by his side and experience his companionship albeit intellectually and hope this lasts for eternity.

Arjun, you are to me, what music was for you.

And in Sharad’s own words - To yesterday's companionship and tomorrow's reunion, Salut!

Mahamudra - The Maha disappointing Sunday evening!

Sunday morning seemed a bit unwelcoming as I was feeling a bit under the weather, thanks to I-don't-know-what-I-ate-last-night's meal I was not looking forward to the day at all. We had already planned a dinner outing as an excuse to celebrating my birthday that went by 3 days ago! Owing to this ill health, I was hoping not to experiment with anything  pertaining to food. As luck would have it, this outing had to be done or I would disappoint a whole bunch of people so I resorted to the just-go-with-the-flow attitude!

My brother had been to a restaurant sometime in the past month and he could not help but mention about the kinda food they served and how delicious it was; too many times to miss! So quite comfortably we decided we would visit this restaurant in Mylapore called Mahamudra and see if it is really worth all the praise from my brother.

I have always had a problem with restaurants / antique shops etc. that claim to have "self proclaimed idiosyncrasies" of selling 'authentic-indian' or 'ethnic' or 'earthy' or 'traditional' COME ON!! You surely can do better than that! What is so 'Indian' about you when you sell a penny worth material at the cost of an unaffordable / unfounded currency with all these histrionic taglines attached to it, I deeply wonder. You won't see me buy from what's name such as "FAB INDIA", "DAKSHIN CHITRA" "KALPASTREE" and all those shenanagans, that's for sure!

So we find a place and start off with the infamous vadai and go with their top two choices as suggested by the waiter!

I have tasted better Vadais at home. In fact my mother had made the exact version of Vazhaipoo Vadai (Picture 2) which I thought was yumm and found the Mahamudra version of it to be dry and not so jaw-friendly! The first one was, again, dry and impeccably STIFF!!^&*!@#$.. I don't recommend it at all.

Next we moved to the main course, the one I was looking forward to as I had ordered 'Pesarattu' and I hadn't had it in a long time. In line with my health status the Pesarattu was also very bland; it seriously lacked life. For starters it had not a hint of salt and was served cold. So far my evening seemed to have shaped very well I thought. So shamelessly I ogled at the other dishes on the table hoping I'd accumulate a fair share and get away with not having mine at all.

My mum had ordered Mahamudra special which is "two dosas, one stuffed with a medley of vegetables and the other slathered with old-fashioned spicy ‘gun-powder' perked up with well-roasted cashew nuts.".. as you would have read from Shonali's article. This was by far the tastiest of all food items we had ordered. PS- It did not have cashew nuts.

By now my brother's face had started to sulk because I could no longer pretend to like my dish and had eaten up half of my mum's. In that very instant I checked on what he had ordered and that was the 'Red rice appam' which looked curiously appetising.

It was a decent dish, it didn't blow me away! Although I must admit it's cost did. For a dish that costs 225 simply because its made from red rice, I was gutted. The ishtew was scanty and could have been warmer.
And the other dishes we ordered were Topi Uttapam and Ulundu Paniyaram. They were, again, so so. The Paniyaram needed a wee bit of steam on the insides as they were visually doughy.

After having ransacked the menu for some more time we did a bit of trial-error choosing certain dishes; half of them were not available and the rest we didn't particularly like. So we made our final move to the infamous dessert. I had mentioned before that my brother could not stop saying how awesome the dishes were, well, he was particularly talking about just one of the dishes; the Carrot Halwa. And Carrot Halwa was what we ordered.

Apologies for the blur. I was split between clicking the photo and eating it. As I was hoping this would be THE DISH we were all waiting for. As i was just about finishing the Paniyaram, my brother had started eating it already and I looked at him with such excitement thinking 'after all the fiasco, its all justified at the end.' Apparently NOT! The Halwa didn't taste half as good as last time, said my brother. And it must be true as he barely has anything good to say about food items he orders in restaurants and needless to say that his unprecedented memory is not very helpful in this regard either. So on the whole, it was a bad call to go to Mahamudra.

A few observations at the restaurant:

1) The waiter who served us had a very 'jumpy' attitude about himself that he would recommend ALL the dishes from the menu and mean it!
2) He also was not so gentlemanly as he brushed past the ladies in my table including myself when there was sufficient space around us.
3) He would offer to place the plates in front of my brother not by standing beside him but by standing beside me stretching in a hope to get a bit of contact perhaps? #SHAME ON HIM.
4) We had ordered 3 seasonal juices costing 120 each and my mum was the chosen one to find a hair strand in her glass!! *APPLAUSE EVERYONE* The waiter offered to exchange it for us with with an additional request from us to add some ice cubes in it. (The drink was called "SUMMER COOL" they atleast got the summer part of it right!) Ha!!

5) After all this, we had asked for finger bowls to which the waiter said, "No hot water Sir, sorry!" and gave all of us but my brother a bowl of cold water with a piece of lemon in it. After a while when my brother asked for his bowl to ANOTHER waiter, he offered him a perfect finger bowl :-)
Maybe, our waiter was gutted that we didn't go with his choice of ordering the entire menu card. Or perhaps he thought we didn't deserve to wash our hands in warm water :-)
6) A dish in the menu card that I found funny

7) They seemed to take pride in their 'food from the backyard' cuisine and lived up to serving most of them. The price leaves one skeptical though.

THE BILL: I rest my case.

Will I visit / recommend this place to anyone? Ha! Whaddya think!???

25? 40? 60?

It is too giant a leap from -3 degree C to 38 degree C for me to fathom. In order to keep myself hydrated, I can’t help but make sure I have abundant liquid intake.

It being a very sunny afternoon, I stopped at the tender coconut roadside trolley to quench my desperate thirst. I requested a sizable one with plenty of coconut water and the vendor gladly cut me one. I asked him how much I owed him and he said “30 rupees madam!” OK, does culture shock work the other way round? For I believe I was in for a shock when he said I owed him 30 rupees. There were a couple of others sipping their tender coconut in a straw that’s been left out in the open and that’s how it’s always been. I wondered if the straw was the passage to the goodness of coconut water, or was it a passage to the multitude of prehistorically accumulated unidentified unhealthy things?!!

I scanned across the road as I realized I have got more than I bargained for, with all the additional goodness the straw had to offer. This shop was located right outside the infamous ‘Café coffee day’ where the elite spend hours sipping their iced eskimos and tropical icebergs with endless conversation and irrepressible love for one another, unmindful, as if in the state of an addictive ‘caffeine high’.

Reeling back to reality, I coughed up when an unidentified tiny thing got stuck in my throat. I told myself, if I (yes, I wish I could say No to my friends who call me to this cursed place) could pay 200 rupees for a coffee that has more ice than coffee, and tastes nothing like coffee, I sure as hell could pay 30 rupees to this poor coconut water vendor. After all, economy is all about demand and supply. Content with my gesture, I carried on in my bike, peace be upon it!

About 30 – 40 minutes later I reached my intended destination feeling thirsty again. Chennai’s RUSSIAN CENTRE OF SCIENCE AND CULTURE was where I reached to watch a Hungarian film. There was a small coffee shop that served Nescafe and Nestea and also had a refrigerator that was stocked with cold drinks like Slice Pet Bottle, Pepsi Can and the like. While scanning the shop I also glanced their menu card that read as follows:

Coffee – Rs20

Tea – Rs20

Cold Drinks – Rs40; and other items that were available in the card but not in the shop.

I, like a genius thought the Rs40 cold drink would be the 1.5l ones and they didn’t seem to have those. I asked for the Slice pet bottle and gave him a 100-rupee note. The cap read: MAXIMUN RETAIL PRICE Rs25 so I was expecting a balance of Rs75. The man who took my money was not sure how much I owed him, which baffled me because the cap clearly says 25 rupees. Anyway I waited for him to double check with his colleague who said something that I am still angry about. He said the price of that tiny slice pet bottle which has an MRP of Rs25 is actually Rs60. Either he is trying to exploit me or he is plain stupid. Its like buying a 25 rupee note for rupees 60; it does not add up.

a) It is not Rs25

b) It is not Rs40 according to the menu card

It was infact Rs60. So I asked him how could it be as it says Rs25 on the product? He says: “Madam, restaurant madam.”

Obviously I did not buy it.

While on my way home, I stopped to recharge my mobile and spotted a cool drink fridge in the shop as I was hoping to buy one since I landed at RCSC. It was a bottle of pepsi and I asked him how much it was.

He says, “with cooling 5 rupees extra madam”

What the fuck!!

To hell with ‘maximum’ retail price then?

Opinions are like butt holes

Opinions are like butt holes,

everybody's got one.

Keeping them discreet,

is easier said than done!

Man is a curious fella,

and thus he shall be.

Probing into lives of others

putting his in jeopardy.

Having an opinion is good,

and at times healthy too.

But when it’s unsolicited,

it quite simply turns askew.

Man must strive to be noble,

just, intelligent and kind..

Opinions are like butt holes

you have yours, I'll have mine!!

Acceptance

In this long frail existence

I am, not by choice.

But while I am here,

all I seek is acceptance.

I may be wrong, that maybe right

but my mind fails to see.

Since you refused to say,

I knew neither darkness nor light.

Tell me brother and be true.

Tell me where did I falter?

I didn’t need glory or fame

I strove to be accepted, by you.

With time came a change

Too many to fathom.

I wonder if it was time,

that made us estranged.

It is only fair I move on,

and give in to life's ways.

But having come this far,

I don't know where I belong.

So in vain I set off again

to catch-up on lost time.

Hoping someday tides change and

in this oblivious bliss will I remain.

ஏன்?

துப்பாக்கி தயாரிக்கும் இனமே

நீ எங்கள் கைகளை முறித்தது ஏன்?

பேனா முனையில் உலகை காண நினைத்தேன்

ஆனால் என் உலகம் துப்பாக்கி முனையில் முடிந்தது ஏன்?

'நாம் நமது' என்ற இணக்கம் மாறி

'நான் என்னுடைய' என்ற சுயநலம் முளைத்தது ஏன்?

இந்த இறப்பையும், இழப்பின் பொறுப்பையும் ஏற்காமல்

நீ சமரச பாதையில் செல்ல மறுத்தது ஏன்?

என்னை பெற்று உணவளித்த அமைதித்தாய்

உன்னை பெற்றபின் அவமானத்தில் கைவிட்டது ஏன்?

உன் பிறப்பே உன் பொறுப்பில் இல்லாத பொழுது

பிறர் இறப்பிற்கு இரக்கமில்லாமல் பொறுப்பேற்றுக்கொண்டது ஏன்?

உன்னை மன்னித்து அரவணைக்க காதிருக்கிருக்கிறேன் நண்பனே

என் சவத்தில் அமர்ந்து நீ வெற்றி கீதம் பாடுவது ஏன்?

அன்பு இணக்கம் அமைதிக்கோர் வாய்ப்பளிக்கமாடாயா ?

இப்படியும் வாழலாம் என்று ஒரு முறை வாழ்ந்து தான் பாரேன்!

Prospect of death makes me sober

"And yet, I wake up every day to a sensation of pervading disgust and annoyance. I probably ought to carry around some kind of thermometer or other instrument, to keep checking that I am not falling prey to premature curmudgeonhood."

Christopher HItchens - 13 April 1949 to 15 December 2011
A man who never shied away from controversies and a man with an enormous affinity towards reason. Words would fathom neither his life nor his loss. Here is my humble tribute to the man who lived a life I look up to.


I intend to capture the last few words spoken by Hitchens in an interview for Newsnight. I am astounded by the straight faced answers given by Hitchens even in his crucial last moments. 'Asking the questions' - Jeremy Paxman :-)


JP - Christopher, can we start by talking about the cancer? What is the prognosis?


CH - Well, the particular form of malignancy I have is in my oesophagus, but it is metastasised as they love to say to my lymph nodes. You can actually feel one in my clavicle on my bad days anyway. And I'm afraid to at least a tiny speck in my lungs. And the prognosis for that is that, if you lump it all together and you leave out every other consideration, 5% of us live another five years. So that's not ideal. But I have a strong constitution, for example, which has served me quite well, though if I hadn't had a strong one, I might have led a more healthy life, perhaps..?


JP - But in the meantime in the old cliché, you live day to day?


CH - Oh yeah. Yes, one does. But actually who doesn't? There is however something specifically terrifying which I'm trying to oppose in my writing and my appearances about cancer.


JP - Are you terrified by it?


CH - No, I think its a superstition. One among many. And I think I know where it comes from, actually, if you'd like me to say. I mean, well, when I was a child, we were frightened by polio. It takes an effort to remember it now, but in many countries people still are. Previous generation it would have been smallpox. The heart that never gets the right rhythm. Bronchitis. TB. All these things. But none of them have the same horror as cancer's been allowed to acquire. And I think its probably because of the idea of there being something live inside you. A sort of malignant alien. That can't outlive you but does in a sense have a purpose to its live which is to kill you and then die. Its like an obscene parody of the idea of being pregnant. In fact I always feel sorrier for women who have cancer than men. For men the idea of hosting another life of any kind is sort of hard to think about. But for women it must be a grotesque, nasty version of the idea of being a host to another life. I have a feeling this is why people propitiate it with bogus cures, terrible rumours, scare stories and so on. And I've set my face to trying to demonstrate that its a malady like any other and it will yield to reason and science and that's what I'm trying to spend my time vindicating.


JP - Reason and science, but yet the word most commonly used about cancer is battling cancer isn't it?


CH - Yes. And I, again think that's a version of pathetic fallacy. It's giving a real existence to something in a sense inanimate. Real sense inanimate. It has a sort of life but not a lot. I rather think it's battling me, I have to say. It's much more what it feels like. I have to sit passively every few weeks and have a huge dose of kill or cure venom put straight into my veins. And the follow that up with other poisons too. Doesn't feel like fighting at all. Possibly resisting, I suppose, but no, you feel as if you are drowning in passivity and being assaulted by something that has a horrible persistence that's working on you while you are asleep.


JP - Does it make you angry?


CH - No, I think it makes me sober, objective. This is the best-known of our disease enemies. I am one of its many many victims. I'm probably one of the luckier ones in point of being able to have treatment and care. I'd like to prove to other people that it is not the end of everything to be diagnosed with it. In other words, yes, it can be resisted. I think I prefer resistance to battling. I didn't pick this fight but now I'm in it and I'd like to give it my best shot, and as I say, what this means to me is putting myself on the side of those men of medicine and science and reason whoa re trying to reduce it to something that is understandable, similable to reason and that will be brought under control.


JP - But the likelihood is that it will kill you?


CH - Oh well the certainty is that's what I'll die from. Yeah, some people die with cancer. I might die with it. Unless I have a heart attack which I could easily have, by the way. I'm much more likely to have a blood clot than I was before, or a stroke perhaps. But no, I mean, its the proximate cause of my death, and I'm both lucky and unlucky to know it in advance and be able to take its measure.


JP - And there will be people, and they won't say it to your face perhaps, but "Well, he smoked a lot, drank a lot!!"


CH - Yeah! That's exactly what is demystifying about it. There are also people who'd say its god's curse that I should have it near my throat because that was the organ of blasphemy which I used for so many years. Well, I used many other organs to blaspheme as well if it comes to that. Umm.. No, it is banal in that precise way. If you have led a rather bohemian and rackety life as I have, it's precisely the cancer you'd expect to get. That's a bit of a yawn!


JP - You are not an old man and you're living with the prospect of an abbreviated life. What does that do the way you think about life?


CH - Well, to borrow slightly from Dr. Johnson, it does concentrate the mind, of course, to realise that your time is even more rationed than you thought it was. And though I can be stoic in point of myself about that because everyone has to go sometime, and whatever day came that the newspapers came out and I wasn't there to read them, I've always thought, that'd be a bad day at least for me. I now have a more pressing idea of what that might be like. Anyway, that's being stoic for my own sake. But for my family its not very nice. I could wish perhaps to have led a more healthy and upright life for their sake. And that's a very melancholy reflection, of course. And then there are things I would like to live to see. I've mentioned some of them in the article I wrote on the subject. I would like to see the World Trade Centre reopened. I'd like to see Osama Bin-Laden on trial or dead. There are places I'd like to go, people I'd like to meet, books I'd like to re-read if not read it for the first time. But in a sense, that would all be true. I'd still, I hope, have these ambitions.


JP - Has it given you a mellower view of humanity?


CH - Mellower? Something about that word I don't relish. I don't know quite why.


JP - Well that's because you're a polemicist, a contrary.....


CH - No, if you like... my view is already quite stark, we are born into a losing struggle. I knew that when I was well, or thought myself to be well. We are born into a losing struggle. We are enjoined by the faithful to consider ourselves to be born sick and yet commanded to be well. The whole thing is, at best, ironic. Something meaningless or random, I don't know if I want to go that far. But its a stark existence, and for many people born in less fortunate circumstances than mine its always stark. It was stark the day till they died. This makes it starker.


JP - Does that make you regret saying or doing things?


CH - This doesn't, No. But I have had causes to regret saying things or wish that I'd said them in a different way, but that's part of the ongoing revision of being a writer. I hope. This hasn't prompted me to that, no.. Perhaps it should.


JP - You're famously a person with very strong convictions, and a very persuasive form of argument...Do you...


CH - Thank you


JP - Well, NO! That's what you do. You're celebrated worldwide for it. Do you have any sense of why you were like that?


CH - No, I don't. My parents were both people of principle. It is true. But they didn't expect to inflict this on others. I mean, it was just something they were and something they did. Something they inculcated in me, but they didn't want an audience for it, I did!


JP - Do you regret any of the targets you chose? Like...I mean, who needs to attack Mother Teresa?


CH - Oh its very important to attack Mother Teresa..


JP - WHY?


CH - Well, for the same reason that people admire her. You have to care about the millions of people who are stricken by millennial poverty. I mean poverty of the sort that its almost impossible to escape form. That was her pretended concern. Now as it happens...


JP - Well it wasnt her fault?


CH - Well by no means. You would say that,....


JP - It wasnt her fault that people were in poverty.


CH - Not in the first place, now as it happens. I could go on at length about this but summarised in one statement which I think is pretty hard to refute. The best known cure for poverty we have come up with is something called empowerment of women. If you give women control over their cycle of reproduction, you dont keep them chained to an animal cycle of annual pregnancy and so forth. And you give them, if you can add to that by throwing in a handful of seeds or some credit you'll have done very well. Nowhere where its tried does not work. You'll see in an instant Mother Teresa spent her entire life campaigning against that. She thought that contraception and abortion were morally equivalent and that abortion was murder. Now, thats not what Calcutta needs, and I thin her teachings and preachings were actually counter to the cause she is supposed to represent. It was very important to point that out.


JP - Are there any of the targets of your polemic or essay in the past that you regret choosing?


CH - No. NO, I dont. I regret only not doing more about it.


JP - You fell out with a lot of people over your support for the decision to go to war against Saddam Hussein. Do you regret that at all? Hundred Thousand people killed, maybe more?


CH - Well, to say one had no regrets would be, I mean would be abnormally unreflective, I think. No one can be other than horrified at the current state of Iraq. But I dont take the view, the glib view that is taken by many people that the casualties were all as a result of the intervention. I mean, for one thing its an outrage to the idea of moral responsibility. Last month in Iraq the Al-Qaeda forces broke into a catholic church as it happens, in Baghdad, and massacred about 50 people. People say thats Tony Blair's fault, George Bush's fault. DOnt be silly. How do you absolve the actual murderers of what they have done? Say "They wouldnt be here if we werent there!" Are you so sure? Al-Qaeda was operating in innumerable countries and was certainly present in the form of Mr.Zakawi in Iraq before we got there. I'm not gonna have it out like that, No. I also think there was a terrible misery and implosion coming to Iraq as long as it was left in the control of Saddam Hussein, plus UN sanctions that affected mostly the Iraqi people. I thought that was an impossible state of affairs. And I finally found I couldnt support any policy that involved the continuation of Saddam in power. The private ownership of Iraq, in other words by him and his crime family. I thought that you couldnt give your support to any policy that accepted that. So to that extend I'm not apologetic.


JP - But it did a lot of damage to the UK. I mean waterboarding for example, which Bush only a couple of weeks ago defended as not being torture and a legitimate means....


CH - Well. I am one of the people you are likely to meet who's been waterboarded..


JP - Everyone applauds you for your guts in that.


CH - I read with alarm and disgust the former President's... er what did he say ? "Damn Right!" or some awful .... I mean, trying to live up, it seemed to me, to the worst interpretation of himself as a Texan bigmouth. I dont sacrifice any of my internationalist or humanitarian or democratic principles in saying these principles are incompatible with the existence of regimes like that of saddam hussein, slobodan milosevik, charles taylor in Liberia and others who tony blair deserves credit for helping to get rid of. Whatever else maybe said, that must be part of the account. You didnt ask me this, you only said did I regret targets that I did pick? There are some I regret not picking. I was much too soft on Mugabe. I say it in my memoir. I claim to have had good reasons for it. I was very keen to see the end of white supremacist dictatorship in southern Africa, and I was probably soft-peddling what I knew about some of Zanu-PF, but having a good motive is not good enough a reason for doing something that was a betrayal of principle. Anyway hoping to see the end of these and others is a good reason for KBO as um.. (Keep Buggering On) if the BBC will allow it to be said.


JP - We're sitting here talking in Washington, and you have said that you felt you were born in the wrong country. Why did you feel that?


CH - Its like a question, why did I want to be a writer? Essentially unanswerable. It was more like I felt I had to rather than I wanted to. When I was in my mid teens I began to have a very strong feeling of sort of pull from the American planet, is the best way I can think of phrasing it.
Which I eventually succumbed to and now because life has to be lived forward and reviewed backwards, I do know, in order for me to become an independent self starting writer, I had to move to the US and leave England. Why, you may ask. Maybe the relative openness of it. You didnt have to pass so many approval tests as you did seem to in London.


JP - You are a polemicist. You look at our country now, with its coalition govt., Muddling along, as it has for many years, how do you feel? Could you exist there?


CH - In Britain, I have half my life to look back on, I was 30 when I left and a lot of it were formative. It is where I learnt to love literature, Anglo American is what I am. I think it a quiet nice synthesis. What do I think about the Cameron/Clegg coalition? It doesnt make me think all that much, I have to say. And for historic reasons, I joined the Labour party as soon as I was eligible to do so. I watch more the character and future of the Labour party, I still feel involved in that.


JP - Do you still consider yourself to be a Leftist? As accusations from people would be, as your waistband increased to tend to move to the right


CH - Well, they should see my waistband now, I have lost 30lbs. Well no, its such a well known script that is deserving of the name cliché, and I pin that accusations on my accusers. Thats what they are resorting to.


JP - Conflict is intrinsic to human history, and there will be further conflicts or some say it has already begun, and its the conflict between west and sort of Islamo-fascism. Do you think that is a conflict that can be lost by the west?


CH - Well, first on conflict, you're completely right. Its unavoidable and I think its desirable especially in the US. There is a huge privilege given to the word 'unity' or 'unification'. If you say you are a unifier and not a divider, you expect and you usually get applauded. I am a DIVIDER. Only division can cause progress. People say the politics of division. Politics IS division by definition. If there was no disagreement, there'd be no politics. So the illusion of unity isnt worth having. And anyway its unattainable. The conflict I see happening is between totalitarianism and free-thought i.e., between theocracy and enlightenment, and the form in which it is currently being played out, you could define this as west VS Islam but its not quite so. Within many Islamic countries there are people who have greater respect for pluralism than there are people in Britain who could censor me for criticising Islam. But roughly you describe the outlines correctly. Yes, I refuse to be told what to think of or how, let alone what to what to say or write by anybody. The first rebellion against slavery is by saying "this is man-made and its not divine"


JP - To be clear here, you are talking about the bible and the koran?


CH - yes and the Torah...All these are depraved works of man-made fiction.


JP - And in what way does saying that you find the koran laughable help the spread of reason?


CH - I think the mockery of religion is one of the most essential things. To demystify supposedly holy texts that are dictated by god and show they are man-made, internal inconsistencies and absurdities and one of the beginnings of human emancipation is the ability to laugh at authority. Its an indispensable thing. People call it blasphemy, but if they call it that, they have to assume there's something to be blasphemed, some divine word, I dont accept the premise.


JP - A lot of people in your position would take Pascal's Wager. They might say "I dont know whether I am right or wrong, but if I accept the possibility of there being a purpose and a god, I cant lose either way. Why havent you done that?


CH - I thought about it and wrote about it in my book long before I became possibly mortally sick. Pascal was a great mathematician, I think its his lowest point, called his Wager or gambit where he says rather like a huckster, "what have you got to lose? You win everything if you bet on god and you have got everythign to lose if you are wrong!" Well what does this involve if this is correct? It involves a very cynical god, and a rather stupid one, who says "I noticed you make a profession of faith and also, because I am god, I know why you did, cos it was in the hope of winning favour with me. Well thats fine, you will therefore get it. " That seems to me a rather contemptible thing and necessarily therefore to entail a rather contemptible human being who says "I dont really believe this, I have no faith, but what can I lose by pretending to god that I do, I might get a break." I mean this is pretty low isnt it? If I am surprised to find when I pass on from the veil of tears, that I am facing a tribunal, which you'd notice by the way, you are not allowed to bring a lawyer, theres no jury to appeal, this is altogether unattractive. Why people want it to be believed their god is this way, I dont know. But if I am there, I would say; "I hope you'd notice that I didnt try and curry favour, that I was honestly unable to believe in the claims by your human spokespersons. And now do I get any understanding?" And if that doesnt work, I dont know what will. But I am not gonna try anything servile. I am resolved on that point.


JP - It would be more comforting isnt it? And comfortable? To make an accommodation of some belief in a possibility of this not being the end?


CH - Well, as long as I dont have to take the words of other humans, on what are the necessary propitiations and gestures and subjections I have to admit myself to in order to qualify. In other words there are many religions all of whom say, only if I support them or endorse them, I will qualify. Well now I dont know that there is no such thing as consciousness without a brain for example. There is no such survival, I very much doubt it.


JP - Do you fear death?


CH - No, I am not afraid of being dead, thats to say. Theres nothing to be afraid of, I wont know I am dead. In my strong conviction, I wont. And if I find that I am alive in any way at all, well, that will be a pleasant surprise, I quite like surprises!! But I strongly take leave to doubt it. I cant live without fear, its the question of whats your attitude towards fear. I am afraid of a sordid death. I am afraid I will die in an ugly or squalid way and cancer can be quite pitiful that way.


JP - Thats the fear of dying and not fear of death.


CH - Quite! I feel a sense of waste about it because I am not ready. I feel a sense of betrayal towards my family and even to some of the friends who would miss me. Undone things, unattained objectives. My main fear is of being incapacitated or imbecilic at the end. Thats something to be terrified of.


JP - Bertrand Russel said "When I die my body will rot. Full stop."


CH - WHo doesnt. Well he goes on to say a bit more than that but thats uncontroversial. Nobody wants to get their old body back. I certainly the body back that I will die with. If only for us to be reunified with those who died, so that we could live and got blown to pieces for doing so.


JP - DO you think its been a life well lived?


CH - I really have to leave that to the others Jeremy, I have to. I have been encouraged in the last few months by some extraordinary generous letters, including, these are the ones that I take most to heart, from people I have never met or dont know. If they say that what I have written or said or done means anything to them, then I am happy to take them at face value, for once. I'll say "I'll take that" and yes, it cheers me up. And I hope it wasnt written with an intention of doing so. In case you are watching this, anybody, and you wonder whether to write to anyone, ALWAYS DO, because you'd be surprised by how much difference it can make. I regret not doing it more often myself.


JP - Than you very much.


CH - My pleasure!


END


....and involuntarily I wrote a note-to-self !!

one life

Its a grand show out there,

a rat race for ones that care.

With your best foot forward,

gotta show you are bothered.

For you've got a lot goin' on!

Dare you to shrug n move on!!

Try cry and plead your case,

sure as hell, you have to race.

How you wish to let go n be free,

from this fast life's agony...

dream of doin' things you love,

simple things that life's made of!!

Relish the bittersweet n evolve,

carefree of the outcome involved.

For if you don't live it your way,

you surely don't get to live it again!!!

Untitled

Often a thought comes to my mind, particularly when I interact with my wee school going cousin. How does she go about choosing her friends? What is the criteria? Is there a criteria at all? I believe every kid has a wall built around him / her and he / she is very picky as to who gets in and who clearly stays out. It fascinates me when I think about this selection and elimination procedure more so when I know my cousin is not easy to convince or win over. She surely has her mum very much within the wall and their interface is quite open and comprehensive.

Some kids have no say as to who he or she can be friends with because their parents choose friends for them and I'm not getting into the details of these poor kids lives.

I am keen about this family that recently moved into the neighbourhood possibly imaginary. The father gets transferred to a posh locality and days before the family of 3 settle down an invitation from the neighbour takes them by surprise. 'The BIRTHDAY BASH of my daughter' reads the card with flowers angels pink things and such! The father passes the card over to the mum and lets her take a call so when he gets back from work they either attend it or go out for dinner!

The mum and daughter have a look at the card and the kid is visibly nervous but the mum is trying to cheer her up with the fact that there's a dress code and they could do some shopping before father gets home! The card reads "angel from barbies's paradise" under the dress code heading. Making ideas along the journey the mum and daughter set off to the nearby store albeit the kid is still quite apprehensive about what lies ahead of her this evening. Convinced with the ideas and the shopping they head back home to prepare for the party!

When the father returns home and sees the other two are already dressed up for the party, he gently smiles, pats the kid's head and rushes in to get ready! The only person the father knows from the invitee's family is obviously the father of the birthday baby, his colleague. Hoping his daughter and he'd make some friends he puts on his best clothes and they arrive at the party place!

The daughter is now absolutely nervous but manages a smile and has her hand safely within her mum's, swinging it nervously while walking in. The father spots his colleague where the family's introduction takes place. The birthday girl "makes an entrance" and our kid's clasp tightens!! Mum gently bends over, kisses her cheek and says "why don't you introduce yourself and wish the girl a happy birthday?" as she passes a gift box to her. She takes a heavy breath and walks forward "Hi, err .... I am Khushi err.... Happy Birthday!!" and passes the gift box to the girl. She does a double take, says "Hi, thanks" and turns around to her other friends. "Soo... what's you name?" says Khushi. "Its Miss Aparna Gupta! Sorry but my friends are calling me, see you!" and the girl scoots to her mum leaving Khushi all alone in a very awkward position. But Khushi decides to scan the room and tries to break the awkwardness. As she walks around, she notices girls with angel frocks, crowns, magic wands running around, playing with each other oblivious of Khushi's presence. She goes around the whole room to see if there's ANYONE to acknowledge her existence and turns out she isn't the face one would like to make friends with. As she almost completes a full trip around the hall dejected, looks for her mum at the same place where her mum asked her to speak to the birthday girl. Khushi suddenly realises the familiar clasp and it hits her that mum went around with her all along. As her hand almost got numb, she lets go of her hand and says, "err .. Aparna was busy so i went looking for some water around the hall maa! sooo shall we go home and get some water?"

Overwhelmed, Khushi and her mum hug each other for a few moments. And the mum smiles with moist eyes and says, "Aparna seems free now, why don't you go try again?"..

She hesitates for sometime, looks around her and says "OK maa, i will try again!"

"Hi Aparna, hope you are free now. How about opening the gift box now!?"

Aparna pauses for a second - looks around - thinks - then says "What happened to your face?"

The familiar clasp again, as Khushi hears her mom say, "She has just been operated as she had upper cleft palate, and what you see are the marks which will vanish in a few months. So Aparna did you know Khushi loves barbies too?"

Aparna shouts "Really!!!?" as Khushi insists she opens the gift and break the surprise. Aparna smiles, takes Khushi's hand and playfully giggling run towards the gift box...

This is not a social message or an awareness campaign. Its the outcome of a sudden fascination to probe into a child's mind. I believe children bond unconditionally and totally depend on their intuitions alone. If parents are more open and outspoken about a lot of so called social taboos and not cook up stories to corrupt the innocent minds of children, growing up surely is fun !!