Devil's Advocate

War is old men talking and young man dying.....

The last few days have been particularly bloody for the American soldiers in the Middle East recording the highest number of casualties. Feels bad for the poor souls who are carrying out the wishes of their political masters in the name of patriotism. Here's to the spirit of freedom penned by the great Dylan himself.....

Come you masters of war
You that build the big guns
You that build the death planes
You that build all the bombs
You that hide behind walls
You that hide behind desks
I just don't want you to know
I can see through your masks

You that never done nothin'
But build to destroy
You play with my world
Like it's your little toy
You put a gun in my hand
And you hide from my eyes
And you turn and run farther
When the fast bullets fly

Like Judas of old
You lie and deceive
A world war can be won
You want me to believe
But I see through your eyes
And I see through your brain
Like I see through the water
That runs down my drain

You fasten all the triggers
For the others to fire
Then you set back and watch
While the death count gets higher
Then you hide in your mansion
While the young people's blood
Flows out of their bodies
And is buried in the mud

You've thrown the worst fear
That can ever be hurled
Fear to bring children
Into the world
For threatening my baby
Unborn and unnamed
You ain't worth the blood
That runs in your veins

How much do I know
To talk out of turn
You might say that I'm young
You might say I'm unlearned
But there's one thing I know
Though I'm younger than you
Even Jesus would never
Forgive what you do

Let me ask you one question
Is your money that good
Will it buy you forgiveness
Do you think that it could
I think you will find
When your death takes its toll
All the money you made
Will never buy back your soul

And I hope that you die
And your death'll come soon
I will follow your casket
In the pale afternoon
And I'll watch while you're lowered
Down to your deathbed
And I'll stand o'er your grave
'Til I'm sure that you're dead

At the same time feel for all those unlucky one's who had been born in such tumultuous times on minefields, literally..... Dylan again.....

Oh, where have you been, my blue-eyed son?
Oh, where have you been, my darling young one?
I've stumbled on the side of twelve misty mountains,
I've walked and I've crawled on six crooked highways,
I've stepped in the middle of seven sad forests,
I've been out in front of a dozen dead oceans,
I've been ten thousand miles in the mouth of a graveyard,
And it's a hard, and it's a hard, it's a hard, and it's a hard,
And it's a hard rain's a-gonna fall.

Oh, what did you see, my blue-eyed son?
Oh, what did you see, my darling young one?
I saw a newborn baby with wild wolves all around it
I saw a highway of diamonds with nobody on it,
I saw a black branch with blood that kept drippin',
I saw a room full of men with their hammers a-bleedin',
I saw a white ladder all covered with water,
I saw ten thousand talkers whose tongues were all broken,
I saw guns and sharp swords in the hands of young children,
And it's a hard, and it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard,
And it's a hard rain's a-gonna fall.

And what did you hear, my blue-eyed son?
And what did you hear, my darling young one?
I heard the sound of a thunder, it roared out a warnin',
Heard the roar of a wave that could drown the whole world,
Heard one hundred drummers whose hands were a-blazin',
Heard ten thousand whisperin' and nobody listenin',
Heard one person starve, I heard many people laughin',
Heard the song of a poet who died in the gutter,
Heard the sound of a clown who cried in the alley,
And it's a hard, and it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard,
And it's a hard rain's a-gonna fall.

Oh, who did you meet, my blue-eyed son?
Who did you meet, my darling young one?
I met a young child beside a dead pony,
I met a white man who walked a black dog,
I met a young woman whose body was burning,
I met a young girl, she gave me a rainbow,
I met one man who was wounded in love,
I met another man who was wounded with hatred,
And it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard,
It's a hard rain's a-gonna fall.

Oh, what'll you do now, my blue-eyed son?
Oh, what'll you do now, my darling young one?
I'm a-goin' back out 'fore the rain starts a-fallin',
I'll walk to the depths of the deepest black forest,
Where the people are many and their hands are all empty,
Where the pellets of poison are flooding their waters,
Where the home in the valley meets the damp dirty prison,
Where the executioner's face is always well hidden,
Where hunger is ugly, where souls are forgotten,
Where black is the color, where none is the number,
And I'll tell it and think it and speak it and breathe it,
And reflect it from the mountain so all souls can see it,
Then I'll stand on the ocean until I start sinkin',
But I'll know my song well before I start singin',
And it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard, it's a hard,
It's a hard rain's a-gonna fall.

Boredom and nostalgia had attacked me at the same time, and believe me, its a cocky mix!!! It so happened that I wanted to get a ticket to Pune, and having nothing else better to do and missing the good old days of getting a ticket from the reservation office, decided to head straight for the same. My lazy ass retorted to the idea, but I had the rush of nostalgia already filling me up with the excitement. And so I went.....

Standing five minutes in a queue and a bit of observing (mainly the ladies-only line!!!), this peculiar thing about our country struck me. A male foreigner was standing in the ladies only line. Given that the ladies only counter is shared by senior citizens and foreign tourists alike, but such an arrangement is done because of a few considerations for the womenfolk. Now it raises a few questions, viz.

• Are foreign males considered at par with Indian women? (Due pun intended!!!)
• If they are considered harmless, then the same should apply to Indian senior citizen males.

Atithi-devo-bhavah has long been the Indian motto but I'm seriously fed up of the second class citizen treatment meted out to us Indians in our homeland which is appalling to say the least. The dollars seem to shut the brain signals of Indians coupled with our fetish for the gori-chamdi (fairer skin). Go to Rajasthan, visit any of the monuments of historical significance. You, as an Indian would be subjected to cordoning off of certain sections of the same monument of which the foreigners will have complete access. Worse still, many of them would have a policy of entertaining only foreign guests. Worst still, we will be subjected to all the routine security checks whereas the foreigners will not be subjected to any checks. And this comes off of an eye witness. This at a time when a former president of our country is subjected to security checks from an American airline. Looks like the terrorism bit has become the forte of Asians!!!

As an Indian citizen and a tax payer (to top it), I should have the access to all the national monuments. As much as or more than the foreign tourists. And stop giving the tired excuse of they bringing dollars. If the guys at tourist spots are welcoming to Indians too, I do not see why a billion plus people would not visit places.

And it happens all too regularly. Come down to Pune. Go and try getting a picture clicked in front of the Osho Ashram (yes the same ashram which caters only to firangs and Indians with deep pockets!!!), and the guards take an exception to it. As if the road in front of the place belongs to these guys!!! So much so for roaming freely in your own country!!!

I'm not against foreigners visiting India. Heck no. But I'm opposed to this idea of bending backwards and welcoming foreigners. Of treating my own countrymen as second rate citizens. What a farce.....

One of the best movies which mirrors the society more than adequately...... as is always the case with Tarentino, the characters of the movie are greatly etched and keep coming back..... great background score and awesome screenplay..... one of my favorite-est lines of the movie, worded by the Jules himself

"The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the
selfish and the tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he who, in the name of charity
and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of darkness. For he is
truly his brother's keeper and the finder of lost children."

And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know I am the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon you."

• It starts with one of my friends shouting and making all the noises in this world to wake me up. Or this pious act is sometimes done by my cell.


• At least two large cups of tea (just writing 'bout it makes me crave for it!!!) for breakfast. I don't care if I don't have anything to eat, but no compromises on my daily dose of caffeine.


• Now all this exercise will be futile without me smoking. I need my share of nicotine, man!!! And stop judging me, I'm not a rapist!!!


• Some nondescript events here and there (like attending classes and all) and its lunch.


• Lunch should be heavy. Heavier the better. Being the Bong that I am, I live to eat.....


• An afternoon nap is inevitable (provided fate has not scheduled a class or two).


• Its evening and my caffeine+nicotine craving is back. But this time, its not the mess. A tapri (roadside tea stall) is the single-point-of-meeting for all the lazy asses. Just for the records, all you high nosed people who have tea in the typical Victorian fashion, its NO good (#fail I say).


• And before we even realize, its dinner time. Time for the pigs to feast on the grub, once again.


• Night is for everything (yeah yeah that too, you dirty mind) but studies. Invariably it would be a movie(s) or seasons of some sitcom (its the fifth rerun of Friends for me!!!). If movies fail to do the trick, we sneak out of our hostel for the graveyard shift of tea and maggi :)


• Now what? Sleep.

That's pretty much what a typical day of mine pans out like. Yes we would have submissions, evaluations, exams et all, but the happen. They just happen. If it was not for the 11th hour, we would have never finished the job on our hands.....

Unity can only be manifested by the Binary. Unity itself and the idea of Unity are already two- Buddha

Zeroes and ones, on and off, right or wrong, black or white, yes and no..... what is the lowest common denominator amongst these seemingly disperse phrases? It's binary. Dealing with only two options at a time. Various constraints, factors, forces et all zeroed down to two options. How easy it is for our cognizence to play with two variables at a time. Heck, the same is true even for machines. Look at all those processors churning out data at teraflop speeds whose efficiency we've come to appreciate. Why are they so efficient? Because they have to deal only with a '0' and a '1'. Eliminating and filtering all those 'choices' we are so fond of choosing from leaves only the dust of confusion clouding everything around us. Boolean would have been a better choice.

Life is not only about black and white, it's also about shades of grey. Or so we are made to believe. How good was the time when we had heroes saving the world and those villians out on the street to destroy everything. But no, we want complications to fill our lives. Now we have a thin line between the two. Grey. Two is not good. Throw out the binary out of the window. 'Bring multiple in and enjoy the chaos' seems to our mantra. Or how else would you explain our gratitude towards the notion of 'spoilt for choices'?!! Anyways, instead of treading through our choices carefully, we make decisions in haste. Wouldn't it be better had we to choose from only a couple of options?!!

Choosing that new bike, deciding which restraunt to freak out during the weekend, what to wear and the list goes on, we want our options!!! Narrowing down to binary choices simply wouldn't do. So why this utter complications and chaos in our lives when we can simplify it? Are we wired genetically in such a manner that we simply cannot keep complexities out of our lives or do we derive some sort of a kick out of it? Answers to these profound questions is something which I don't posesses as of now (because I'm more than happy with my little binary world!).

There are 10 kinds of people in the world, those that understand binary and those that don't.

FYI: 10 is 2 in binary.

You may write me down in history With your bitter, twisted lies, You may trod me in the very dirt But still, like dust, I'll rise.