Shattered Dimensions

I woke up to an unexpected turbulence on my flight. I could hear some eargasmic feminine gibberish that seemed to come from above my head. Yup! Indian female flight attendants are really polite, so much so that their stereotyped short written flight regulations that seem to be coming from above our heads give us a hard on long before we get a chance to scan through their voluptuous bodies.

“Ladies and gentlemen, it gives me indescribable pleasure announcing that we have just lost cabin pressure. We are stuck at 30000 feet. And the air pockets, Man! There’z a shitload of them and they are all nasty sons of bitches. Underneath your seat is a black Wikipedia offspring that should just about describe air pockets for you in case you feel like knowing the reason for your death”

To my disdainful surprise, the 5’10’’ hour glass attendant with big shining eyes, hair darker than a black hole, lips redder than raspberries, continued with a smile.

“Poor passengers! You can suck on the rubber choked oxygen masks that hang loose at your disposal. Just wrap the mask around your face, let your bleeding noses slide into the gas muzzle and breathe. But remember, first help yourselves and then watch your loved ones asphyxiate. Trust me, if you want to enjoy this flight, well, probably your last flight, you shouldn't run around hogging for masks or seats. Be calm and let death engulf you to the core. If you have a mask hanging near you, make sure you grab it before your spouse or kid. You don’t want to leave lone survivors now do you?

She said it, and in a jiffy, panic that had almost started to sprout was now exploding through the aircraft.

You see, when you’re on a plane flying a thousand miles an hour, subconsciously, you begin to trust the flight attendant. You stop panicking if she says ‘don’t panic’, even if the flaming noises from the aircraft’s engine scare the bejesus out of you. You calm yourself if she says ‘calm yourself’, even if your nose bursts bleeding and you feel razor blades slicing their way through your sonic stricken ears.

I have never experienced this, but you’d probably jump off the plane without a parachute if she says so.

But what do you do when your plane is going to crash and the cabin crew goes totally nuts?

The flight attendants laugh at your misery. The captain plays ‘Sepultura’ and ‘Children of Bodom’  on the speakers. The stewards start flirting with women who seem to be struggling to hold on to their babies while the aircraft plunges down and loses some more pressure. There’z the same old dreaded lightening outside. The aircraft slices its way down to perdition.

And just when you think this has to be the farthest humans can take their craziness, the slider digital mini television sets lodged in overhead sockets roll down with eloquence. This is what the message reads, “dear passenger, it was lovely having you aboard. We know the plane is going to crash and you have no choice what so ever. But thanks again for choosing ‘pan Indian’ airways. Hope you had a blast and we look forward to serving you again, may be in your next life”

When you’re on a plane and you feel you won’t make it down, you’re probably right. Coz folks! at such altitude and pressure, if something knocks down, there’s pretty much nothing you can do to avert what lies ahead. The pressure, the suction and the shitload of white fuel all smile waiting for the slightest hint of friction to explode the living daylights out of every last passenger on board.

So the point is you can either let go and revel in the entertainment that the flight crew brings up for you, or you can panic till the timer goes and you’re charred to point zero.

Imagine. If there were skilled flight crews specifically trained to prepare passengers for a crash that would kill them all. What if there were an aviation academy imparting skills and degrees on flight management in the few moments between a deadly airline mishap and a crash?

We have these degrees in aviation:

Bachelor in Aviation technology

Master in Aviation technology

Bachelor in aircraft management

Master in air traffic control

Aviation engineer

But imagine if we had these aviation degrees

Bachelor in post crash mid air dancing

Diploma in post explosive mid air seduction

Bachelor in pre explosive one minute lap dances

Master in pre explosive one minute lap dances

Diploma in wing suit base jumping without parachutes

Diploma in post crash mid air live reporting

and the like

You lock a bunch of people in a room and toss in a huge chunk of raw diamond

or

You put the same bunch on a crashing plane

Wonder what kills them first?

Scratch that itch!

The average human body is covered by about 20 square feet of skin. That makes up to about 2 square meters.

Funny, we never stop to think for a second before we vigorously scratch the heck out of it. Why would we?
Unless I have a history of an obsessive compulsive disorder running along my family lines, I know I wouldn’t blink before I’d scratch an itch. Nobody ever does. The itch stimulus and the scratch action are processes as linked to each other as the DNA coils that define our very existence.

Intu – mu – resting!
One would think.

Wait! Am I scribbling a bunch of bull-crap packed testimony on ways to scratch bodily itches?
HECK No!

Regular readers! You guessed it right! Mr Pain in the ass “Philosophical dimension” is back again. Well it’s my itch and forcing you to read through this is how I scratch it.

What is an itch?
Not technically. We all know how that ends.
An itch, on an emotional, paraphysical or a multi parallel level simply is an intelligence that impersonates an urge to express what’s underneath.

It’s a stimulus that something isn’t supposed to be around. It’s a signal that something needs to be scratched away. That there is a need for some action that would remove the cause or at least mitigate the itching. Well, had it been just the itch over the skin, literally the skin, in concern today, I’d be attending a homo erectus conference instead of scribbling this blog. Coz folks, come on! I don’t intend to put this on the world map.

Every one has emotions, but not everyone has emotional intelligence.

Consider this.
You feel like crying. A belch rumbles underneath your stomach. You almost taste acid in your mouth. Not an angel of God has balls to keep you from crying and letting the pain out. You’re just seconds away from scratching your emotional itch by weeping loud as heck.

But you don’t do it!

“Big boyz don’t cry”, that’s what we hear from within our guilty conscience and we helplessly move on. Little do we know that we never actually moved on but allowed that emotional itch to win over us.
The itch loiters around for a while, feeds on nutrients we provide to it in the form of baggage, past memories, guilt and self infliction. The suppressed itch, emotion, lingers over our skin undefeated long enough to grow into an infection that can no longer be scratched away. It spreads inside like a virus destined to cripple us to the core. Over the course of time, it floods our system with melancholy and we sit back in absolute despair wondering what the hell went wrong.

Looking back!
Had we reacted differently
“I feel like crying. I need to weep. Yeah I am going to do it”, and it comes running, smiling to us in a lightening bolt. Like a reflex, tears come rolling down and we weep like babies. A few hours pass by and to our amazement, the agony, the pain, the distress has been magically palliated. It feels like an analgesic slowly working our deranged mental sections. Ridding them off their pain. And we sleep the longest we ever have.
The morning after, things are back to normalcy. The sun shines with the same intensity. The glimmer in the sky reminds us that good’s still out there for us.

Isn’t this a better way to move on?
Arrest my case!

This was just one of the many many situations we let ourselves down by self repression.
Imagine. You get a thorn stuck in your shin. The doctor tells you it’s superficial and a slight prick would let it out. You refuse and let it stay to save yourself from that ‘slight prick’ the image of which has been multiplied to a thousand times dreadful than actual in your brain.
We make things complicated when sometimes all that’s needed from us is to let go and let out. We complain. We try. We push things. We only make it worse.

The next time you feel like crying, just let it out.
You have my word. You won’t run out of Sodium Chloride. Might as well end up throwing crap out of your body.

Some itches are meant to be scratched right away. They might embarrass you at that moment but you save yourself a lifetime of unrelenting guilt.
So scratch that itch.
It’s worth a shot! Ain’t it?

God! I got a problem wid ya

Belief, is a funny thing. Some people fold to it, some squeeze, some rage blood wars and some learn to appreciate it.

Me, well, I am still questioning it!

One of the most perpetuated of them all is the belief in the almighty. The GEE OOO DEEE. The Wonder man! He is supposed to posses superhuman qualities and perceives the world as if it were an ant on top of a tennis ball.

He is considered to be the alpha and the omega.

Why not the delta?
The Pai? Anyone?

Gimme a bunch of these symbols and I shit you not, I’d make a formula and snap the heck outta schizophrenic mathematicians.

Fellas! Brace yourselves coz, I do believe in God! I doubt the sexuality though. Why refer to God as a ‘he’ if Physics tells us ther’z an equal probability of him being a ‘she’

Hey! All you atheists reading this scribbling. Don’t walk away. I promise my belief in God is not going to convince you to start believing. It might as well force the believers to quit! J

My perception of GOD is of a sadist. Who likes to watch us suffer, while he rejoices us conjuring up the useless set of instincts he gives us to battle life’s troubles.
My perception of God is also of a lover who fixes the desires in opposition.
He sets the rules in contrast.
A quote from an Alpacino movie often pops into my head
“Look, but don’t touch”
“Touch, but don’t taste”
“Taste, but don’t swallow”

He gives us a fruit. Eloquently describes how quick it’ll melt in our mouths. Instigates a burning urge to eat. Salivates our mouths dry. And the moment we reach out to pluck it, he declares it forbidden.

God! Why Oh why?

First you give us the glance
Then you set our eyes ablaze when we stare.
You give us hunger.
Then you poison us when we eat.
You strike us with thirst.
Then you create the paradoxical mirage
You give us erection.
Then you make someone walk in on us while we secretly try to make deposits.

I have had enough of this polarity God!
Life is not a battery with terminals charged in opposition. I don’t think the hypocritical balance that you claim to render through your “yin and yang” does any good to us poor creatures. Crushing down a desire feels more painful than getting beaten down to the pulp by henchmen looking for a few bucks and a quick sodomy.

I want it and I want it all.
No conditions apply!
The day my wishes come true is the day I quit believing you exist!

Time changes!

April 23
2011

I am exhausted, somewhat exasperated from working round the clock. I have recently step foot inside a new business, a new dimension of my life, a new approach to sanity. Or not! Who am I to judge?

Anyway, it's 2:30 in the noon. I am at my store and there is no one to serve. I steal a glance at the disgruntled faces of my employees enduring their crumbling feet, fighting an urge to lay down naked and sleep forever. Their body language defies the fact that their assiduous nature is of any healthy value to me. Yet, I must press on, for there is no other alternative. I have squandered over my resources long enough to see them dwindling.

It’s been 4 hours since I last saw my salesman frown at me. I must leave for a short while or else he'd barge on me any minute now. I take a break and storm out of my store. Sensing a respite, I arrive at a sequestered spot, a gumti, if you will, for my, well, physical needs.
As I light up a cancer stick, I feel alone. The tobacco gushes slowly into my blood and drowns my stress like the sun gradually feeding upon the darkness. I begin to sense a bonhomie slowly flaring within my lungs.

Midway through my cigarette, I realise a familiar face standing next to me still oblivious to my existence. I look into my past for a flick and it strikes me. It’s the guy I once pounded upon when we were kids. He had stolen my eraser and I was pretty sure he was the one. Recalcitrant though he was, he never accepted it and ended up with a big fat lower lip. I was stronger then. Pulpy yet massive enough to beat the shit out of irascible punks like him.

Now was a scenario I had never thought I'd have to dread. He was twice the size I once used to be. I was pretty sure he must not have forgotten me. And also sure he'd take less than a minute to beat the heck out of me. Yet an overwhelming stupidity compelled me to do something that made me confront one of the most significant needs of living inside a human skin.

I snuck up to him and mouthed, literally mouthed the words, “Hey!”
He turned, stared at me for about 3 seconds and his nostrils almost flared. I felt a belch rumbling up my stomach as I saw him raising his arm towards me. Anything he did next was totally acceptable given I deserved my share of fair deal. Killing all my intuitive instincts, he took me by surprise, threw me the most honest smile and embraced me like he had never embraced anyone before. He immediately greeted me with words you don’t generally speak out to someone you have been grudging against for a long while. Before I could dive inside his mind, he started mentioning anecdotes from our past that were surprisingly funny for two enemy cowboys from hell.

20 minutes of talking and I realized he had changed. So much so that I wanted to thank him for not crushing me to the ground He was no longer the annoying bully he once was. He had put on a little weight that could have instigated me to create some irony but I was ok with the situation. Besides, his body fat now was much decentralized in density than my memory of his terrifying fat lip. We talked for three hours that day. Forgetful of the fact that this friendly chit chat would be at the cost of my business, I kept talking.

As I talked, countless opposing thoughts forced their way through my mind. Why couldn’t I hate him? Why was I experiencing a sense of affinity for the same man I once wanted to gun down and bury several feet into the ground?

I realized the erratic nature of time that day. I sensed how the hardest times have a transient nature. How even the strangest situations solve themselves out over time. How people change, some deliberately, some unknowingly. No matter how stable, unending, stagnant and unyielding it seems, time changes. That’s a fact. It might change for the better for some. It might become a nightmare for some. These contrasting cases are absolutely natural. But the fact that they are going to happen simultaneously is equally natural too. And this phenomenon is exactly what humans need to exist.

We need change, whether it is for the good or bad, we desperately need it. It is this change that provides us with a bit of enthusiasm to handle the unchangeable within us and around us.

Time I guess is not just a counting system with numbers changing periodically like clockwork. It’s a system of evolution arranged in a simple network of digits with meaning attached to them.

What's your mantra?

Why do people do what they do? Alright! Alright! I have heard enough against this word "people" in blogs. Too sermonizing. Isn't it? So i would say why do I do what I do? What makes me scribble now? What motivates me to do what I do? Why do I pen down figments of my imagination every now and then? Why do I get up early when I am pretty privileged not to? What instigates me to try and shape up my career? To study hard on my heels? To resist the urge to fight back when I can slap the taste out of someone's mouth? To do something that would get me and hopefully my parents, the often dreaded, almost incensed upon, envied and sometimes even spoken sardonically against, "Respect, honour, dignity and pride"?

Yeah Yeah Yeah! I understand I shouldn't be negative. I never am negative. I just choose not to be inclined towards the sanguine positive side of what we choose. Means the same? Of course it does. It's a polite way of saying 'Come what may, I'll open up my taps when it floods". But, what the heck! That's the way it is.

No it's not an implacable urge to pen down my thoughts this time that makes me write up this blog. It's not something I just learnt and wanted to share with you. It's definitely not a salutary attempt at my own philosophical dimensions. Please! Not philosophical!

This is what it's all about. We all secretly house an adrenalin nitrate pumping through our veins. Not the one the chemical formula for which we crammed up and made through our semesters. NO sir! It'z the intangible one that defines the motive. The motive to work. The motive to love. The motive to share, care, decide, rebel, fightback and the motive to exist. What I intend to convey is that each one of us carries a mantra that becomes the motive to breathe the oxygen around us peacefully. Anything that forces you to do what is right for you is your mantra.

What can it be like?

Different individuals can have different mantras. It may be the togetherness of a loved one for some. Some on the other hand can have the patronage of their parents, siblings, guardians. Some can have their sagacious mentors that define their motives. Highly qualified seals, imperial degrees, top brass references can drive some for instance. God! Ah yes! God! How can I forget, is the biggest and the most everlasting mantra ever adopted by mankind. Being an atheist, I barely have to say anything on this matter but I believe it's good as long as the faith in God and the motivation it offers keeps the believer's sanity levels in check! :) Just kidding!

Does it help?
Oh hell yeah! It does. Mind, I believe, is just a jigsaw puzzle we need to program and reprogram, not the way our guardians taught us but the way we need it to work effectively for us. Once we are through sorting out our mantra, an invisible impelling force backs every move, every act, every work that we undertake.

Take me for instance. I am irrevocably addicted to psychedelic trance and psychedelic metal. I wake up with it, I work with it and retire with it. Not a single hour goes by that I let go of my ipod. Over the years, this has led me to develop signs of musical ear syndrome, uncontrollable craving in my ears, an obsessive compulsive ipod disorder and yet I never stop listening, Why? Just coz I am addicted to it? Not really. Well, it's my mantra. It gives me courage to work. It shapes up my fortitude to endure. It inspires me to create melodies on my guitar. It reminds me to love and to be loved. It urges me to care. Helps me fight the moments of weakness. Not only does my mantra cuddle me up against scurrilous, scurvy and seamy people but it also strengthens me to smash the dirt away.

I live with my mantra! I love it within me! It's not always an outside inspiration that gets the job done. Sometimes you need to shave a little off the puzzle piece to understand that salvation lies within!!!!

Cheers!

One day!

No matter how bad you prey
you will, one day, be preyed upon.

No matter how creatively you visualise
you will, one day, be condoned.

No matter how deeply you believe
you will, one day, be shattered

No matter how immaculately you proceed
you will, one day, be blemished

No matter how relentlessly you create
you will, one day, be vandalised

No matter how much you bathe
you will, one day, be tainted

No matter how persistently you try
you will, one day, give up

No matter how intensely you whip
you will, one day, be whipped

No matter how long you live
you will, one day, expire

I guess it's the time's take on us that drives the polarity of our fortunes. Had it not been for the cycle of life, a world with never ceasing paradoxes would seem like a cage with one way in and no way out.

So relax if you're exhausted along the journey, coz, one day, no matter how hard you try and stop it, it's all gonna come to an end.

And when it ends, just let it!