antaragini

Sometimes u feel u know the right from the wrong and yet words are splashed on ur face as if u r the single most deserving moron on the face of this earth! What do u do? U r simply pissed off. What makes me more angry is the thing that there will be some guy who will become the ``voice of reason" and try to tell u what you should be doing. ``Do the right thing Awi, this is not how u r supposed to behave".
I am of the belief that everybody , and I really really mean everybody is very much aware of the ``right things to do in life". We know one should not steal , but we do; we know that rape, but we do; we know we should not do this or that but we do. However not everybody does the same things. There is a reason and the reason is a simple one if u listen to me. Although everybody knows what the right thing to do is; they donot do it because they don't want to. To put it differently they choose not to do it. Evidently something else becomes more important to them than what is right. I donot know of a more simple reason than this to explain why ppl do what they do. And simplicity for me is the defining goal. We all want to make our lives simple. I have always maintained that we do something because it gives us pleasure. No, no. I have a better way to say the same thing. We do those things which gives us the illusion of avoiding getting hurt. I use the word ``illusion" since we cannot simply avoid getting hurt. Can we? No sir , we cannot avoid that. So what should be do? I am afraid that is quite a meaningless question. Though there are seemingly many answers to this question. None of them is right I am afraid.
I really donot know what is right from wrong. But I believe that one needs to believe that he knows so, otherwise it becomes difficult to live. Does it not? As DM says no can really teach u something, u gotta learn it for urself. And even though I know this and a lot of other things, I still cannot avoid getting hurt. And as I have told u earlier we do things which gives us the illusion of getting hurt. For me emotions are more important than intelligence. However intelligently used emotions, have a moving power that has me in its grasp. The written words in the literature and the spoken words in the movies just make so much sense to me, that to find sense in my own theories or beliefs I always get down to writing. Just as I debate with enlightened minds to better understand the basis of my beliefs, I also write to find clarity of thought and vision. I also look for appreciation and respect just like the kind I have for those who have shaped my world of beliefs thru their words and Ideas.
In the end a simple prescription to stay away from pain is to stop thinking at all. Keep urself so busy and occupied that no moment is wasted in thinking business. I feel all human minds should be labeled with the statutory warning: thinking is bad for health. But just like the smokers , I know I will keep doing it.

research is hard !

When I look back and evaluate the system that educated me, I find a lot of flaws. All we were supposed to do was to look for answers in the textbook and not think about the questions at all. If the question started as ``Why did Pallav leave his home?", the first reaction we had was to thumb thru the pages of the chapter and scan for a line which started with or contained the clause( or is it phrase?) "..Pallav left his home because...",
and as most of us will testify , ``Bingo" ! The same went for the science exams, there were set questions and set answers to those questions, all we had to do was to mug them up. It was more of a guessing game. "Ok , lets see, she ( the Teacher of course) has already asked question no. 1, 5 , and 7 in the mid term test and last week she enquired about how well we had studied the photosynthesis portion, so this fixes ( we used the word ``pukka") a 5mark question on photosynthesis; now lets see about the remaining 15 marks.....". As you can pretty well imagine, there was no scope for the awakening of the spirit of enquiry, which to this date, i suspect, lies still dormant. Given that now I am a research scholar, this does tell me as to how natural a part I have played in conveying to the Board/University of my most ``sincere" plans of being a researcher.
Cribbing has never given the right solution to any problem, so the real question to ask now is this:what have I got myself into?

the test

The chill of the winter nights and the strangely relaxing mystery of the darkness have always managed to bring out the author in me. A continuously ticking brain which has a ``mind" of its own(!!!) and the arcane sentiments from the Hindi ``nibandh" days (APEEJAY High School) egg me on. Sometimes I feel that this is the only battlefield I can fight on, the words are my weapons and the heart the platform that I launch them from while at other times I sheepishly admit that the fame aspect of it is too potent for me to resist. Whatever it may be, there is no denying the fact that I love to write; sometimes for the heck of it sometimes for the fame and ofttimes to really discover what's going on inside of me.