We did make a good peeecture

I woke up this morning with a pair of turquoise blue eyes piercing into my own. I couldn't tell
how long he had been up and been looking at me but I know it was a matter of seconds before my eyes would start welling up.

"Morning love, did you sleep well?" I asked him

"I deeeed but I weesh I hadn't. I meessed you". He answered with a kiss.

And with that, we got lost in another moment, manic laughs interspersed with controlled tears, knowing that this was going to be short-lived. Too painfully shortlived. And as all beautiful things are ephemeral, this one was right on top.

As I went down to make some tea, he got busy with packing his things, doing last minute checks etc.

I wanted him to stay, for another lifetime, but I knew all I could bargain for, was a few minutes.

"Your flight doesn't leave until 3 hours later. You'll get your packing done in 15 minutes. It'll take you 45 to the airport." was the best I could manage. He smiled that impish smile of his, hugged me again and just remained, for a few minutes. I know he was right even though he didn't say anything. When have we been able to control the cruel games time and distance plays on our lives and makes us mere slaves of them? It wasn't the first time I was saying a goodbye to one of the best things that has happened in my life.

The perfect weather outside today added the ultimate irony to the situation and we stepped outside to the terrace to relive a moment from just a week ago, on the same spot, where from the safe haven of this balcony, high above the world beyond, fire crackers going off in the sky in the distance over all the city lights- probably an auspicious day for weddings- the muezzin calling out the prayers from the nearby mosques, under the full moon,  he had perfectly read my thoughts & said "It's a magical night, for us".

After a few more bittersweet goodbye hugs, he...left, taking a part of me with him, leaving a part of him behind. All I could do was stand back, absorb the totality of the event and already start missing him.

The mind flashed back to just weeks ago when I saw him for the first time in office, singing an Opera song in baritone, in a team meeting (!) and knowing intuitively that, here was a person who would come to mean a lot more beyond the realm of work and office cubicles. After a long time I had looked forward to going to work again, steal those glances across our desks, inundate him with gyaan on Eendia, hear endlessly about Italy from him, do good on my roles of his self-appointed tour guide, a colleague and perhaps, something more.

I reflected on our moments together, on cracking up on his adorable Italian accent, ("We made a good peeecture!", "Whaaat does it happen?"), having endless conversations about the most random things in the world, watching thousands of glittering lights down below in front of us from the majestic balcony of the Falaknuma Palace and helplessly blushing everytime he said "You are beau-tt-iful" .

I dream of all that could have been if he didn't have to leave, I wonder if I'll ever seen him again, and if I did, if it'll be the same and also, if I'll feel the same way for a long time.

Why do good things come to an end? Why is transience a function of beauty?
Why do we meet people that we'll come to want only to have to let them go?
I'll probably never have the answers.

All I know is, that right now I hate that the world is so big that people who want to be in it together still have to live in separate worlds of their own.

Veg VS Non-Veg

My take on the universal (un)favourite topic of conversation. 

After running out of "the weather is so nice/bad/romantic/it's raining and how’s your new job coming alongs", the all inevitable, if a little ironic, favourite topic of conversation (read:Debate) over dinner tables and elsewhere is 'veg vs non veg'. It always opens up a can of worms! ( Which in the context wouldn't be such a bad thing depending on which side you're on) 

A typical veg vs non veg conversation with me goes like this:

“Are you veg or non veg”?

“Veg”

“Veg from birth”?

“Yes" ( Though, technically, noone is vegetarian from birth since the mother's milk or any milk is not exactly vegetarian) but yes born into a vegetarian family. Still a vegetarian because of personal choice”

“Never wanted to try non veg?” 

"if chicken started growing on trees, maybe"

And before you know it, you've branched into Buddhism and law of the jungle and the argument about "plants have feelings too". But hold that thought.

There, easy does it, 15 minutes done & you didn't even have to talk about your sex life! ( that was a non vegetarian joke. Sorry if it hurt vegetarian sensibilities)

Jokes aside, the veg vs non veg topic is progressively more layered and controversial than just a healthy debate. (You do know which side is the healthy one though ;) A veg vs non-veg debate is hardly ever free of personal bias and your answer never free of YOUR own personal taste. I’ve never come across a person who enjoys the taste of non-veg food, debate in favour of veg food purely from an academic/open-minded/health/humanitarian point of view. (The proven fact that a vegetarian diet is indeed healthier is conveniently ignored by the same people who’d reluctantly gobble up a glass of disgusting bitter gourd juice in the name of health) or a vegetarian, for once, agree that the chicken steak is the most delectable thing they've ever put in their mouth (Oh No, I did try some by mistake. It isn’t! See what I did there.)

It’s quite simple, if I’m veg, veg is good and all non-vegetarians are murderers. If I’m non-veg, fuck the vegetarians and their PETA-thumping.

Personally, I was born into a vegetarian family so I grew up eating my vegetables, fruit, and the occasional hard boiled egg for the protein. Co-incidentally (or maybe resultantly) I was also born an animal lover. My mother would see no end of me bringing abandoned/sick pups/kittens/even piglets into the house to feed and nurse them back to life while staying up all night to constantly check for improvement. I think it was a part of having been born into a house with dogs which, over time, kind of sensitises you to animals.

At some point realisation stuck that I cared about animals, almost too emotionally and less practically and this care transcended into research and a PETA membership followed & subsequently documentation on the likes of  ‘know where your meat came from’. But nothing prepared me for the gory, morbid pictures of decapitated cows lying in a pool of blood, videos of chickens being chopped off in factories in an assembly-line, sharks being whacked in the tummy alive to extract a plateful of roe or how the elite would call it, caviar. My insides would squirm even watching a full-bodied but headless turkey on a dinner table in a sitcom in a thankgiving episode! I was sure that I couldn’t, even if I could, eat a piece of flesh in my life.  Give me one good reason to be a non-vegetarian while I could give you a 100 to not be.

As the years grew by, I was exposed to different cultures, and thanks to a lot of travelling, a whole universe of exotic meat delicacies of the world. However if there was one thing I was least adventurous about for a rather 'try-everything-once' person, it was trying out non-veg. So yeah I’d frantically and painstakingly hunt (Pun unintended) for a ‘veg burger’ in a country known for its killer steaks and fantastic pork-chops. It was inconvenient,  I can't share meals with most of my friends most of the times, but no, I don't feel like I'm missing out on anything honestly. It was simply the case of not missing anything you've never had.
And fortunately India is a vegetarian-country. I see your Hyderabadi Mutton Biryani, I raise my North Indian Rajma Chawal!

I used to find those "Looking for a homely, brahmin, vegetarian' classifieds extremely ridiculous and in bad taste, till I realised that for all that, they actually made sense. The fact that you could bond over food is no revelation. So it's natural that people who can enjoy a meal together ( and share it) would tend to enjoy their company a taaad more?

That said, part of growing up is appreciating that people have a right to their food choices, just like you do yours, taste buds may trump over conscientiousness and animals/birds/other less-advanced species of life etc would continue to be subjugated by us, the human race because we have a superior brain and the ability to use it to our advantage. I have stepped back from preaching people to ‘go vegetarian’ to simply resigning myself to take solace in a classic non-vegetarian argument “that humans are at the top of the food chain and who are we to disturb it?” That 200 or 2000 people being or turning vegetarian is not going to reduce the suffering of the million other animals that still will live a painful life and die a painful death to please platters across the world. And that being a vegetarian is not the complete solution to end animal cruelty but rather stop doing anything that harms an animal in the process. (Including wearing a silk tie, or enjoying mosquitoes for company by not annihilating them with a mortein)

What I don’t buy is when non vegetarians retort with a “If you think killing animals is cruel, why is it okay to kill plants for food”. If the scale to measure ‘animals and plants’ suffering is the same, why’s it different for humans? Why is it an ‘animals vs plants’ argument, and not an ‘animals vs humans’. My point is if it’s the justification to killing animals for food is killing plants for food, then why can’t human beings kill other human beings and be exempted from the sin on the rationale that even animals are killed every single day?

How say, hypothetically speaking, that a contract killer who makes a living off killing (heh), any worse off than a person who kills a cow for a living? That cow has a family to feed too!  Aint we supposed to measure all life forms on the same scale going by the ‘plants=animals’ analogy? 

The fact is we are people of convenience. We can kill for food, hunt for sport, skin for leather, and torture for transport, but the moment a cruelty of a much lesser degree is inflicted on a human being, we are sinners. Our hypocritical stand is our basis of our humanitarian movements.

By all means, enjoy that Tandoori chicken or the vegan sushi. I don’t judge people for their eating habits. ( Well except, when you make us vegetarians split the dinner bill equally. That’s just plain mean) But as PETA would say it, know what you’re eating, make informed choices, and argue against a vegetarian, knowing that they are the ones who’ve made a sacrifice, of their palate, of their eating options, just to allow for some compassion into their lives, however indirectly. If you are a vegetarian on ethical grounds, make sure that the ethicalness pervades all forms of life and not just animals. Hitting your wife/children/husband( Go girl!) or wronging a person in any other way whilst maintaining a 'strict vegetarian diet' is barely any karma in my book.

Eat well. Judge even better.

We have been internetised

"We don't make friends anymore. We add them"

This tweet by @shakti_shetty of Twitter, made me think.

The fact that the internet has pervaded all aspects of life is a given. That today you can order and pay for pizza, track its progress from 'preparation to dispatch' all while comforting sitting on your laptop or mobile is awesome. The reach and potential of platforms like twitter is infinite. But has the internet, rather, social media, started to own us? Have our actions simply become a product to sell in this online market?

Strangers across computer and mobile screens have become closer than ever, while we have distanced the people close to us. Somebody tweeted this the other day
" It's strange how far we'd go to amuse total strangers on the internet but fail to put a smile on the face of a loved one". That hit a sore nerve and it's not a good thing.

In this age of 24/7 internet, with its own universe, and set of rules, we have started doing a lot of things. We have stopped doing a lot of the others.
Coming back to Shakti Shetty's tweet-

"We don't make friends anymore. We add them"

We don't send thank you notes or say personalized words of appreciation. We like

We don't provide constructive feedback or a witty retort. We troll.

We don't donate blood anymore. We RT tweets/share messages asking for blood.

We don't go out and vote. We make jokes about politicians.

We don't try to understand an issue or get our facts right. We tweet about it first.

We don't celebrate festivals or understand their significance. We trend them.

We don't savour our food and do a small prayer. We instagram it.

We don't play badminton and chess anymore. We beat friends in 'criminal cases'.

We don't photograph for memories anymore. We create albums and pages.

We don't travel anymore. We check-in.

We don't whisper sweet nothings anymore. We tag the lover in a status message.

We don't ask anymore. We google it.

We don't try to make things work or understand what happened. We unfollow/unfriend.


Let's save us. Save our souls from this internetization before we realise we are not living and dying anymore. We are just logging in and logging out.

A blurry high

I am probably high at this moment.
It's this blissful blur interspersed with a sense of peace in my head and yet a state in which I'm clearer than I otherwise I am, that I needed.

I'm listening to Phish....On loop...the laptop screen's light glowing white in a pitchdark room like it's the full moon that has shifted a few inches in from the terrace into the room. The terrace. I was there just a few minutes, maybe an hour back. I don't know. Time seems immaterial on weekends. A few friends were over and we smoked some sheesha and had dinner here.
This terrace outside my room is a trap. It's high, high, above a whole world and right below another. It affords a view of the vast city ahead, like really glittery blur over as far as the eyes can see over a dark black sky. I've spent hundreds of nights here, with people, with special people, but mostly alone, standing at the boundary, resting my chin on the high wall, gazing out at the amazing panaroma beyond but mainly peeking into my own head.

I feel lucky to have a space so surreal, yet so real right in the heart of an urban landscape.

But I digress. I can probably sing eulogies of this terrace, but that's not the point.
What then is?

Point is clarity in my head. Of decisions to make. Decisions that I need to make within a few days, that would probably have ramifications on the rest of my life.

Not knowing if I'll have this terrace in a month. Or two.

Sometimes I feel adventurous and I want to take my chances. Roll up my sleeves at life and go "bring it on, bitch". At times, I just need to hold on to everything close to me, even closer and never let go.
I'd call it stuck in a permanent state of transience.

Is the alternative worth losing the current over....I ask myself...Or will I never know what I've been missing if I didn't quit being a stickler? ( Now that's a paradox)

I don't know man, but tell me there is a technology that can transport entire houses, without any of the other things from the place that they made you stay in it?

I'm rambling. I should probably get some sleep. I'll probably take my mattress out and sleep on the terrace tonight like I've done many nights before. Sleeping under the stars, with that breeze kissing my body, along with a few hundred mosquitoes for company.

Maybe the decision will come by more clearly. Maybe i'll fall into a bottomless pit of sleep.
It'd be nice if I could get into the head of someone with the power to make me not have to make this decision and make them see this.
Maybe even bribe them with the idea of spending a night or two, right here.

Why I don't/won't hate Justin Bieber

I simply don't hate Justin Bieber just like as an open-minded music listener, I don't hate any musician or anyone with any sort of talent. ( Yes yes, I see you snigger. Talent, what talent you ask?)

Ok so Justin Bieber is not Floyd. Not a John Mayer. Not even a "that dude who sang a decent song and disappeared forever after". But the best part is he is not even pretending to be one.

Here's a teenager churning out music for his kind, for the kids that lap up his stuff and he makes them happy. While also managing to be one of the most commerically succesful and popular kids of his age around despite all the negativity he faces. Probably he's not a fluke after all. Probably he offers millions of people music/entertainment that may be too lowbrow for you and me. But then who decides liking or making which kind of music makes one a fundamentally superior person, if it does? 

Why then is Bieber, of all the mediocre musicians that are around, the butt of all jokes on the internet or off it? Bieber jokes were funny around 3 years back ( actually not even back then) but most, in bad taste. Why is our humour level at such a low that we need him to provide us with matter for ALL of it?

Why grudge him his success? If you don't like his music, don't listen to it, simple. Actually if you did listen to it, you'd realise some of his stuff is actually good for his age. I like his acoustic album, sue me. Hating Justin Bieber is like opening the classifieds, not looking to buy anything but calling a seller and saying 'hey fuck you. That fridge you're selling is bloody expensive!"

I don't understand why should the world's hatred be channeled towards an 18yr old just trying to make music, however untalented or 'gay' ( So much for not being homophobic, bro) you think he might be. I cannot stand hiphop. I simply think it doesn't appeal to my taste. But no I'm not going to wish death on its promoters, people who've worked hard, seen through struggles and got to where they are because *I* dont like their music. Did you know Bieber started playing drums at the age of two? Or that he came to limelight after he was noticed by 'prominent' people from the music industry after listening to his YouTube videos? ( And no not because he has a rich dad to buy his deals as you'd believe)

So much is the hatred, that now it extends beyond a sensible artistical evaluation of his music and into his looks. The lanky boy who's barely coming out of his teens is ridiculed for being "girly". Would a death metal star be any better off looking girly?

Irony is people well into their 30s stoop down to making jokes about someone half their age and probably double their success. I personally think he's a charming 18yr old boy.

Having a healthy sense of humour and making jokes is fine. We all have fun at someone's expense or the other, yes but when collective negative energies of  millions of people are directed towards a harmless kid, it reflects more poorly on their sense of humour and general sensibilities of a human being than his talent. Luckily for him, instead of just sitting around on the internet looking at all the mean things people mete out about him, he's actually out there making something out of his life comprising of only some 18-19 yrs. But it's when stuff like a "Worst birthday" tweet from him results in hundreds of people replying with crap like "hope you died" or "why, your parents finally realise what a big mistake you were" to get retweets on twitter, it's not cool. Not cool at all. Don't forget that at the end of the day, he's just a person with feelings and emotions. What kind of human being hurts someone on a personal level based on something about his music/looks/popularity you don't like when he hasn't asked you to like it just like noone asks anyone to like anything that they outrage about not liking.

Who knows 10yrs down the line, how much Beiber will grow, what kind of influences will shape his musical realm that he's already got a hang of. Did you listen to the same things as you did 10yrs back? ( and if you didn't dance to a cheesy "The venga bus is coming" when you were around 10, I pity your childhood) Was your level of intellect the same then?

Let the kid be and do his thing. Don't hate on his music. Focus on exploring your own. There are worse things to hate in the world. Hate for example.


And as to why am *I* so concerned that I dedicated a whole blogpost to it? Because this is not just about Justin Bieber. He's only a symbol, if you will, of this herd mentality or a part of a mainstream internet thing to joke/comment about everything with zero or half-baked knowledge about it, in a bid for attention, in the process snowballing it into a bigger phenomenon than it needs to be- For its worse or for its better. ( Gangnam style ringeth a bell?)

P.s : And I actually like this song.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGX6HxE0E-Q