Some Lights are Just Not Meant to Turn Green

Winding roads… traffic lights…they refuse to turn green… it seems forever…the sun slowly unwinds in the distance…every passing minute... gets me closer to that moment I don’t want to be a part of ... but I am still stuck here….for a few more of those passing moments… moments I hope never pass me by…a paradoxical `end to a perfect setting….

Soon these lights shall turn green and it will be time to move on…and I shall once again be left with nothing but a whole load of memories to play over and over again in my head… those shades of green and brown shall haunt me for ever…. I might not live long enough to see them again... I might never feel the same… the trees and hills would have nothing to say…. the mountains around me might even stop breathing...

These winding roads will be too lonely... every subsequent cup of lemon tea will taste too sour…. The snow in the wee crystal globe will be all that would be left of me…
If only time could stand still… just for once just for a few hours…just when it would matter… but alas, soon these lights shall turn green… and it will be time to say goodbye… time to move on….

An Angsty Getaway

26th December

There are times when I question my own actions, and this has to be one of the craziest things I have done in the longest time. I am sure most will agree that every man his limits and I guess I reached the epitome of mine a few hours back. Left with no other option but to pack my non existent bags, I found my self on a bus looking out a window and climbing upto this quaint little village bang in the middle of the mighty Himalayas. Snow covered peaks and sub zero temperatures I couldn’t find a perfect setting for this angsty getaway.
It wasn’t 24 hours back when I was dressed in my Sunday best and sipping some decent scotch at an up market get together and now here I am in my torn black jumper my boots ( which in the opinion of some of my friends and my mother resemble trucks, some have even gone to the extent of labeling them as down right ugly, gosh some people need to work on their taste in shoes.) and sitting across a fire which took me more than an hour to put together.
My wee tent, a pack of smokes, some really cheap rum (basically meant for horses, Shane trust me you and Pete would love it too) the thick fog and the mountains to give me company. Not a soul in sight and I couldn’t be happier. Its almost 2 am and the only light in sight is the light from my laptop and the orange embers from the fire which once was and which is still trying to keep me warm but failing miserably.
The setting is pretty surreal and maybe even a wee bit eerie, I cant help but think of all the spooky stories that I have heard over the years, they all come to life in my head. The cheap rum doesn’t really help, headless men with knives and women in white walking past me with a candle all seem like a possibility and I would be lying if I said I wasn’t scared, but it just adds to the thrill.
Might be Contd………

Jesus Stole My Thunder

The setting was just right, the month was December the year 1979 and I am sure it was a wee cold, to add to all that underlying excitement Christmas was just a few hours away. My mother was almost 8 months pregnant and I am sure sick of carrying me around. After spending days confined to her bed she my late father decided to bring in Christmas by watching the mother of all Indian Movies Sholay!!!!!.

Jai Veeru and Gabbar danced around trees and shot some bullets, the movies was just perfect Thakur without his hands ( I always wondered how he ever wiped his arse, I still do) Jai with his tight shirts and killer one liners, Veeru with his ‘I will jump off the water tank’ scene and last but not the least Gabbar with his famous ‘ yeh hath mujhe de de Thakur” ( give me those hands Thakur) dialogue , am sure was all and more than what my mother could handle and that’s when I decided to say Hello !!! to the world. Some 40 odd days premature I decided to jump onto the bandwagon called life. (though I still regret that decision of mine).

But lill did I know that Jesus would steal my thunder. I was, after all born on Christmas, Now, look at it from my perspective its not everyday that one is born, it just one of those once in a life time moments and I am sure ya want it to be perfect just like some other life defining, life changing moments that one seems to encounter every now and then . I mean think of this from a logical perspective, you are down on ya knee and asking the woman of ya dreams to marry you, (now that I am sure most will agree is a life defining moment), but to your utter bewilderment your best friend had, just a few minutes ago asked the same woman to marry him and she, as your luck would have it had said yes. Now that my friend epitomizes or rather illustrates the concept of stealing my thunder and to an extent after I found out who Jesus was ( sometime in my 1st grade) born on the same date as me, I felt cheated and used. May be that’s a crap analogy but then again everything that comes out of my wee head is either crap or way twisted.

So that’s what Lord Jesus did to me, some 2006 years ago, he decided to waltz into this world without ever realizing that many moons later he would be stealing my only thunder. Now now, don’t get me wrong here, its not like I never wanted Jesus around, but couldn’t he have like waited a day, I mean just one day but no, I mean what was the hurry, the Son of God chose just the day I chose to walk out . (I am sure a lot of you out there are going to label me as a heretic and my statements as blasphemous)

The strange thing is most people think its rather cool to share ya birthday with Jesus, but like really, come to think of it, half the people forget its your birthday and are too busy getting sozzled for Christmas and the other half are just too busy with their families celebrating the event of the year to give you a few minutes of their time and expecting them to do so would only be unfair.
So there, with every passing year as the hair on my head turns grey and the inches around my waist increases my angst against my birth date manifolds itself into levels unimaginable. Further still commercialization of the season hasn’t helped either, everywhere you go, you find Santa’s( on a crash diet) from Somalia walking around making an arse of themselves, sales and the festive furry just make all forget that hello!!! It’s my birthday……. Thus I can confidently rest my case and Say JESUS STOLE MY THUNDER!!!!!!

Rediscovering my Angst


It takes a lot to rub off the rust that erodes the sensibility of this once wasted now almost redefined existence of mine. It’s taken a long time actually 32 days of this self imposed hiatus to be able to pen down my thoughts once again.
Glasgow seems like a distant dream or maybe even a blatantly cold nightmare and frankly the last month in this self imposed exile I haven’t missed it even a wee bit. The hours spent trying to heal those wounds which I once thought would never heal have been the breath of fresh air I have longed and hoped for.
It’s just me now, a cup of coffee, a pack of untouched smokes, a light, the common cold, my long disheveled hair, 3 day old stubble and I am all set to let the words flow. But this is where the writers block creeps in. Too many thoughts and way too many ideas rush through this wee head of mine. Let me see, what or who should I write about? The cops who waited patiently for me at the airport on my arrival or should I write about the window I looked out of in that quaint eatery high in the Himalayas or maybe even that face that never was?

But I’d rather talk and wrte about my new found angst towards the news channels which have in the name of free speech and democracy blatantly raped the ethos of News programming. These so called quasi upholders of our democracy seem to have taken over the role of not only the executive but also the judiciary. Where news anchors are the new self proclaimed judges of a morally estranged society, which thrives on the blood of many hapless innocents, where these very rapists want to execute every innocent for crimes they have allegedly committed, where they end up raping a nation under the veil of democracy. Who ever gives them the right to pronounce someone guilty of a crime which he might or might not have committed? If that being the case why have judges, lawyers and courts in the first place. Let’s shut them all down and let these stupid news channels decide and dictate the fate of the few who have inspired the fancy of these fascist bastards. I wish it ended there, but no, if they are not busy convicting someone then they dig out news which I am sure is the only source of entertainment for the many who seem to have fallen into this erstwhile trap laid out by these very rapists and fascists, where they spend a whole day broadcasting a fat baby and what he eats, or how about the holy communion of two dogs, yes you read that right, two fuckin dogs that sure as hell is breaking news, especially when they call in an animal activist who even argues her case of defending the 50 lakh that was spent on the above mentioned communion on the grounds of compassion, all while people and farmers in Maharashtra are starving and busy killing them selves Like some one please shoot that bitch.. Is that news, someone pleases tell me is that freaking news?

Like really… I could have changed channels flipped to something more sensible, but they all sang a song which was worse than the other. It was choosing between the lesser evil. News is no longer something we all viewed to find out things worth finding out about.
I of all don’t want to flip to a news channel which is interviewing this man who can allegedly mimic crows. For Petes' sake now just coz all of us can mimic dogs and cats does that entail that we will be featured on news channels?

Breaking News. A man from Dehradun can bark.

But the story that took the cake was the interview of this deranged bitch who claimed she could transform her self into a snake every morning. Someone please tell those news channels that the woman was obviously either deranged or smoking some shit. But no, apparently it was important enough to be telecasted as breaking news. Arghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Though for now, I guess I have vented enough and should get back to some more constructive musing ….

Thaw Time

21st November 2006 (date of the original post)

* A month back (not like I remember much) I found my self typing out some random jazz under the influence of corpus amounts of alcohol, the result of which was a post riddled with grammatical errors and typos from hell. In an effort to solve the mystery of the missing post, I give you all a better version of the same. My only dilemma was post the above mentioned corrections the original drunken affect was lost in the saneness of my present existence

I haven’t slept in 32 hours (you can’t really call the power nap I took some 20 odd hours back as a misconstrued notion of a normal mans’ sleep) so once again I am sleep deprived, a wee drunk and terribly hangover.

Well that’s me…. All the impending stress of excess baggage and psychotic, hypochondriac, kleptomaniac demented flat mates finally seems to have taken a back seat. For the record I was 19 kilos over the permitted baggage allowance but then again I managed to convince them to let me take 15 of those precious kilos without paying a single penny (not like I had any). As far as the remaining 4 kilos were concerned... oh well I gave it to the ground staff who were reluctant to graciously accept some of my unlaundered underwear, socks and loads of shit I wouldn’t even wanna mention here.

And those flat mates... Oh Lord !!!!!… I hope some one chops them to lill bits and feeds them to dogs at the gates of hell. Any more statements made by me here, and if that bitch reads this she might just break her head and call the cops and get me arrested for abetment of causing grievous hurt. Come to think of it… I don’t care a flying fuck any more, bitches and dogs like them should just be shot in their greedy non existent balls

So there goes… I have vented enough… I am finally going home… 14 months in this deep freeze already feels like a distant dream and I am all too glad at least for now, it just might be a different story when I land in India tomorrow and melt., in that case my will shall be available online for those who might think they are lucky enough to claim anything that’s worth claiming for.
Flying over Istanbul and I have another six hours before I land in Dubai and then it’s a long wait before I get onto that all important flight to Delhi
Mixed feelings fog my mind right now… I am not really sure what to expect, to start with I am not used to having people around no more, it might just be a wee strange for me to be surrounded by overwhelming number of people. It sure as hell will be strange sleeping at night or at least pretending to sleep with all the chaos around me. Further still my biggest fear is the heat and sun, for the record I even googled for the sun over a month back, things have been bleak enough for me to restore to such extreme measures…. I guess I should get back to my Irish coffee.
More from the next leg my journey


Over Tehran

(Very very drunk)- giving Good ol’ Pete a run for his money
I hope Shane is reading this... dude I am over ya favorite country in the whole wide world… and I so wish I could just drop down to meet that hero of a man they call their President.
2 hours away from Glasgow ( Dubai… was just too hammered to remember where I was headed) and I am hammered like no body’s business, 7whiskeys 4 Jack Daniels and 5 baileys what else could ya expect and I am still not done/ I got a long way to go before I can call it quits… the lack of sleep coupled with all this alcohol in the system is doing wonders and I love the feeling. For the record the cabin temperature as been increased and I can already feel the heat scorching my back. Delhi is going to be fun.

The Phoenix Shall Rise…

..Away... lost...... and rediscovering my self.... digging deep within to pull out the Mehak that once was.... a month back home and I feel more alive than I have been in years…There is so much to write... so much more to feel… so much more to share…. All of which shall ensue slowly.I apologize for being away… for almost disappearing of the face of this planet… but now I am back... And my words once again shall flow like a river thirsty to find its home...

The conceptual dichotomy of the Seen and the Unseen

The urge to kill ‘it’ still burns bright… the warm glow from the embers of my hate for ‘it’ light up my life… maybe the only light in my life… the wound is still fresh.. the blood is still warm.. slowly it trickles down my face… reminding me I am still here.. still alive, the pain will always be there, just that I have gotten used to it, its more like second skin … a skin I would rather not have....

Tears and blood, a heady concoction…… and I lay there while they stood over me, blow after blow, more blood and more tears… they were on a high… a high like never before… high on my blood and tears…. Slowly I could taste it too…those faces.. those eyes those images can never be unseen...

Animal Rights My Arse...

Came across this photograph on the internet this evening[1], protestors from PETA[2] standing outside the visiting West Indian Cricket team’s visit to the KFC food outlet in Bombay, with slogans of ‘QUIT KFC’ scribbled across the many cards donned by these hypocritical quasi- activists.
This gets ironical, I am an activist and an NGO person (sometimes even the very atypical- kurta, jeans and jhola clad and a voice the world can hear), but today’s actions can be construed only as a hypocritical attention seeking ploy.
Why do I say this? I do have my reasons and they are quite a few, a couple of years back, I had just moved to Bombay and after a long days work had stepped into a Suburban Coffee Shop. As I sat there sipping on some much needed almost delicious coffee, I saw this man throw a black bag in the garbage bin that donned the corner of the road. To my surprise, I heard (it initially sounded like a little baby crying) a soft wailing emanating from the bin. Fearing the worse I ran to the bin to dig out the bag which was the source of the noise.
Packed inside were the 12 puppies, maybe just a few hours old, shivering, wet and covered in Lord only knows what all, dumbfounded as I generally am, had no clue what to do with them, tried calling a few friends to take them in for the night (I was as usual homeless those days and was shacking at my aunts place.. who hated me… and the thought of me taking those pups home to my aunt …oh well lets not even go there!!)
Luckily a few colleagues from work joined me with those 12 almost dead puppies… we cleaned them, got them some milk and someone even agreed to take them home for that night.
It was only the next morning that the search for someone to help us with those puppies started, and it was during that bit that we got in touch with people from PETA, and their reply... was brilliant, “Sir we are sorry but we can only offer you a banana and some milk for the puppies”… for Christ’s’ sake... Unfortunately the puppies died over the next 24 hours…..
I so wish that the above mentioned incident was my last brush with the people from PETA... but if wishes were horses... a few moons later, I was visiting a friends place for a night of debauchery, when I saw the most beautiful German Sheppard, (single boned, double coated) locked in a little cage without water outside a building in Juhu during the humid Bombay summer, the bitch on closer examination looked unhealthy and maggot infested.
The only solution at hand was to call the Honorificabilitudinitatibus people at PETA, which we reluctantly did, (as the owner of the pet refused to comply with our requests of having the bitch medically treated and releasing her from her little prison). And what did the people at PETA do… NOTHING… “ Sir sorry there is nothing we can do” Why … then why have an organization, which claims to achieve the goals of treating animals in an ethical manner? Why was I not surprised…. When all they can do is hold banners and protest against a cricket team that turns up to support its sponsors.

Alas, we call NGO’s as the bridge between law and policy, but some NGO’s especially in the wake of the current events, just seem to widen the existing gap, they seem only interested in attaining the much needed media attention and glare which serves the dual purpose of publicity and fund raising but somewhere along this, aren’t they forgetting the aims for which they were created?
Yes, it is important to raise ones’ voice, to raise every issue and fight it to the core, no matter how trivial it might be, but why take this hypocritical stand? Weren’t the lives of those 12 puppies and the German Sheppard (was informed a few months later that she didn’t last the summer) as important as stopping people from eating the chicken at KFC? You decide.

[1] Further See http://content-uk.cricinfo.com/ci/content/image/263724.html
[2] People for the Ethical treatment of animals, http://

The End... It Beckons...

The alcohol in my system has been replaced by coffee (blood... what’s that?)... Dark and black… like a fresh oil slick it floats ... leaving me sleepless and dazed… it’s a sign... a sign of the impending end that stares me in my face.. a week from now.. Ill still be sitting here on this fake leather couch …the fire shall still be burning... but… I will be a free man… no longer would I be spending my long winter nights in the arms of Ved Kumari, Asha Bajpai, Rema Nagarajan,and Nyquist…nor will I be waking up to N.L Mitra and K.C. Sarkar by my side.. And how I am going to miss them all.

No longer will I come up with an earth shattering, life changing brain storm while spending quality ( quantitative value was reduced to a distant dream a month back) time on my pristine marble pot…nor will I run out of my bath still cold and wet, to write that one point, which could change the course of dissertation.

Sigh… yea I am jumping the gun…but I am tired... a tired and near dead man... trust me it aint easy spending your nights and morning with so many people…I'm tired of making love to my dissertation… and now I just want it over… its hard to explain…but…what do you expect.. When a man is forced to make non stop love for a month (45 days actually... some one call the people at Guinness... i meant those guys that publish that book on records and not the ones that makes that irish beer)... (I am sure I put superman man to shame with this feat)….

At the end of this... the sun shall still shine (I have to be kidding myself... it never does in Glasgow) and the rain shall still fall (that’s more like it)…but... my life’s never gonna be the same… 7 years of all this (ill)legal education (fuck I had to be mad)… and it shall be over... a few more footnotes… references and the freaking conclusion and I am done….

What next….?

I wish I knew… no longer can I hide in the arms of education fooling the world that I am preparing my self to step into the Colosseum of life to face the battles that await me…but then again… nothing lasts forever and the only thing constant is change.. Blah blah blah…( all that jazz.. someone shove a cork)

I have to stop kidding my self…..the time has finally come ( unless I lose my already Looney mind and jump into a PhD program)… my days as a poor, broke, hungry, drunk and constantly hung-over student are almost over… and my days as a struggling, hungry, broke, homeless out of work human rights lawyer are about to begin.. So may the Man above (You know what may all the Indian Gods above…Man... woman... half man... half elephant... and all the combinations you can come up with.) bless me… I need it all and more…

SPECIAL SERIES…
AN EIGHT PART WEEKEND SPECIAL

PROLOGUE

Being me is a crazy state of affairs.. a mind full of thoughts.. dark yet alive…and being left alone with practically nothing to do (over a weekend)…I couldn’t help but write, rant, shout, scream, cry, jump, laugh, muse and sometimes even smile all through words and letters on pieces of paper…. This eight part series started off as a note on the back of a used tissue while I sat in the patio watching the rain, and ended with me sitting in the darkness of my room while the flame of the lone candle giving me company danced to my thoughts…


Part I
Friday the 15th

A Weekend From Hell…

(Explicit Content... Reader discretion required)

Woke up cold… and shivering... I was still in bed, yet freezing… Glen[1] had gone to sleep, very unlike Glen... my head hurt and I could hear the devil cry…. Arghhh I had woken up to a hell stuck inside a deep freezeeeeeeeeeeeee….
The constant wailing and the chaos outside needed attention, weary, I slowly dragged my useless arse out of my once warm bed…my eyes red and puffed and my hair ….LORD…. my hair…!!!!!
Time came to a stand still as I stood in the hallway…my life coming to a screeching halt… images (freeze frame)… a wailing child ….a screaming mother… and a pitiful husband all of whom stood in front of me[2]… I wish I had dropped dead or never woken up…. But…if only….

BANG it hit me like a freight train and left me gasping for air as I read the eviction notice… my world or whatever was left of it fell apart (YET FUCKIN AGAIN)[3], I was sinking slow, the wooden panels below gave way to quick sand which was slowly though surely sucking me in…I was drowning in my own filth of misfortunes WHY ME!!!!????!!!!
After having escaped the clutches of a gay nudist and the murder camps from hell I had just moved into this little heaven and was beginning to call it ‘my home’… and now I was faced with this GOD FUCKIN FORSAKEN eviction notice… that BITCH (landfuckinlady) hadn’t paid her mortgage… which entailed that we the poor tenants had to evict bag baggage ( luckily I neither own any bags nor any baggage.. phew!!!) …..

I wish it had ended there ( in which case I would have quietly gone back to my room lit a cig, switched on Glen, checked my mail and heard some music)… but nooo….. the landfuckinlady had not even paid the bills which meant all the essential services were disconnected ( only to be restored sometime on Monday ( or so I thought in the original draft))… which meant one and only one thing… a weekend from hell... with no lights… heating.. And most importantly NO internet… my life line... my only link to the outside world…..
But… I could survive this... couldn’t I ? considering back in 2002 my then flat mates and me had lived 11 days without any of the above mentioned services, after my then land lord had decided to fuck us up ( don’t blame him really... we had ‘happily’ smoked up all his rent for 3 whole months ) but this was different… fuck this was different….

Now really!!! there are a lot of people out there who need to be killed shot and murdered.. but if there ever was one that needed to be killed instantly and painfully it had to be my conniving lying landfuckinlady.. I really do.. in fact after this weekend I wanna kill every fuckin Scott ( William FUCKIN WALLACE included but ain’t that arse of a hole already dead) that walked the face of this God forsaken wretched planet….

[1] IBM R 52 Think pad
[2] My Current Flat mates
[3] Refer to earlier posts

Part II-
Sometime Late on Friday night

The Weekend Ranting Continues….
Train Spotting……

Stuck in this Scottish hell ( FOR NO FAULT OF MY OWN) I feel it is pertinent for all of ya’ll to know what Tommy Renton ( Ewan Mcgregor) opines about Scotts... AND I in more ways than one concur in toto


“ …..WE( Scotts) ARE THE LAST OF THE LOT, THE SCUM OF THE FUCKIN EARTH, MOST WRETCHED MISERABLE SERVILE PATHETIC TRASH THAT’S EVER SHAGGED CIVILIZATION, SOME PEOPLE HATE THE ENGLISH, I DON’T… THEY ARE JUST WANKERS, WE ON OTHER HAND ARE COLONIZED BY WANKERS, CANT EVEN FIND A DECENT CULTURE TO BE COLONIZED BY, WE ARE JUST RULED BY A FEW ARSE HOLES, IT’S A SHIATE STATE OF AFFAIRS TO BE IN, AND ALL THE FRESH AIR IN THE WORLD WONT MAKE ANY FUCKIN DIFFERENCE…..”

Tommy My Man I Couldn’t Have Put It Better…

( P.S, Angie No offence. The doctrine of exception applies to you in toto)

Part III-
Musing on Saturday Evening…

A Life Less Worth Living

A winter that never ends, a night that never sees the light of the day, caught in a flux life seems to have come to stand still... a year and you forget what it feels to have the summer sun breathing down your neck or the sight of the light at the end of the tunnel.
A year to date in this prison… and you search for those simple reasons to live everyday… you dream for that sun to rise... but it’s just a dream... you walked away from a life you once called your own... only with the hope to be back soon, but even before you knew it, you found yourself marooned on this island... in this prison… the life you left behind moved on, while you stood there only to find yourself picking up those pieces.
You spend many long nights here in this cell, alone in the dark with nothing but your thoughts time can draw out like a blade
You find yourself caught in the path of a tornado, but you live with the hope that no storm lasts forever, but slowly you find yourself losing that hope, some one once said… get busy living or get busy dying and now you cant make that simple yet stifling choice…

Part IV-
Losing my head by late Saturday night

Freedom from the Fear Within…

Am I scared? Maybe I am, scared of my self... scared of this life I call my own... I just want to run away from this all. Maybe run away from my self, maybe then ill be free, free from the shackles from the past.
Most say, running away is an act of cowardice but I beg to differ, its infact tougher than just living in the rut they call life, people walk away leaving you behind to pick up what’s left and what they didn’t want, which in most cases is nothing more than those dark images I talk about... and none of it makes sense to me no more…
Waking up to nothing is not what I had dreamt off…holding on to all those images in my head before I head to bed is not what I had hoped for, and now all I hope for is that freedom coz I know, hope is a good thing… maybe the best of things and no good thing ever dies…
I find I am so excited with the thought of that freedom in my head, a thought only a free man can feel before the start of a long journey, the conclusion of which is uncertain… I hope I can make it across and find that freedom... I hope I can run from my fear... I hope…

Part V –
Drowning In the Depths of Depression by early Sunday Morning

Turn back time

Been a year since I met him last... hugging him goodbye, I promised to be back, now all I am left with is the image I see every time I look at my self in the mirror.

It was a wet muggy evening a year ago… and he stood there, waving me goodbye, if only I knew that it was the last time I would see or meet him, maybe just maybe I would have had more to say to him than just that simple goodbye with the promise to be back…

As I walked away from him that evening, a chapter I took for granted all my life came to an end, a few months later I found my self standing over the hot ashes that once was the man I miss so much now….

The man, who taught me to hold a cricket bat, or unsuccessfully fly a kite, was reduced to uncomplexed images and the sight of his ashes being washed down the river…. It’s a harsh truth to face… all I do anymore is to hope I can turn back time so maybe I could meet him for one last time… terrible thing to live in, fear…all I want is to be back where things make sense.. where I wont have to be afraid all the time….

Part VI-
Sunday Night Torture

My greasy friend Insomnia

With insomnia nothing is real, reality is far away, everything is a copy of a copy of a copy... when you have insomnia you are never really asleep and never really awake… a surreal dance of unwanted existence... you float within a bubble of never ending dejavu…no matter what you do… its never new… its beautiful..
Empty football fields of stark nothingness…reflections from your present demean the presence of your past.
Lost in an oblivion, dark, silent and complete... somewhere you find freedom... yet losing all hope in that freedom wrapped around you…. You become addicted... every night you die and every night you are born again…resurrected…….

Past VII-
Law Pod to the rescue By Early Monday Morning…


Musical Reprise….


Reprise… wasted… lost... an outlet...soul crunching solos in the back ground... lyrics that make ya wanna kill yourself or shoot your neighbor…. Head spins, your body sways to the rhythm… eyes shut your mind wanders to the ebbs of that desolate place your mind begs you not to leave ... its a drug... a high ….an orgasm, simple yet complexed, an orchestrated harmony of ecstasy.. You let go of it all… the pain… the impending bills… the lack of a home… lighting… heating… internet and all the shit that makes ya wanna curl up and die….
Spread eagle on the floor even the Scottish winter feels like a Mediterranean delight… you grow wings ya never thought ya had… no amount of alcohol or weed can get ya there..
Entwined in darkness its just you and the music that plays in ya wee head…ya cant hear it no more... ya only feel it like knives cutting you slow, the warmth of ya own blood washing it all… … its there…simple yet resolute… destined to take over your body mind and even your soul you once sold at the pawn shop... suddenly there are no unlock able locks or unwinnable wars….its just you and the music in ya head… loud and yet your own…

Part VIII

Late Monday Night – Nostalgia Beckons

A Moment in Thimpu[1] A Memory for a Life Time

Its magical... invoking a surreal feeling of spiritual existence
Pristine blue skies strewn with shapeless clusters of cumulus, like cotton they float down the slopes with the zephyr searching for a soul to touch …. The crisp breeze… fresh like a mountain spring...
The rocky paths paving its way through the surrounding mystical Monasteries all along the prayer flags dancing in the wind...
The temple bells chime in the distance… The smell of freshly burned musk mixed with delicious odor of freshly baked momos lingers.
Bright Rhodendrons bloom on the distant slopes… flames of the forest play their little games on the snow clad slopes…
An orchestra of this mountainous paradise playing nature’s own symphony ….

[1] Capital of Bhutan

Epilogue...

4 days of hell are almost over and I am about to shift base to the University Library, after a sojourn through the dark ages here are a few essential tips on how to survive if ya ever get fucked over by a Scottish Land Lady.

1. Never come to Scotland... all that beauty… whiskey and bagpipes are just a cover up for the scams that lay hidden below …
2. Stock yourself with cigarettes, if you don’t smoke you have no idea what you are missing out on... this is a good time to start... it keeps you warm
3. Valiums... yea... those beautiful pills… get hold of 'em… stock ‘em store 'em… shall help you turn long lonely nights spent in the cold to peaceful dreams
4. Orange juice... drink lots of it ( don’t ask me why.. but I am off alcohol.. any other weekend I would have advised on getting drunk.. but for someone who is trying to quit, orange juice seemed the only plausible alternative)
5. Stop using hot water for showers… there is no greater pleasure than taking a bath in freezing water…
6. Keep your I- pod at hand... if ya don’t have one... get loads of batteries for your Discman… Walkman. Etc…
7. And most importantly... be filthy fuckin rich… rich enough to buy your self a place anywhere you go… which would entail that you would never have to depend on those conniving bitches

A Dichotomy of a Fall...

Slow… I fall…. Just the thin air between me and the rocks below… it will soon be over… just a matter of a few seconds… everything slows down… the images around blur into a whirlpool of thoughts…this shall be the last fall…my only fall… I feel free ... free from the shackles off the past…

Slow, the rocks below look bigger…they take shape…the soft bed awaits my final fall… soon I might feel no pain… I shall drown in the warmth of my own blood… it shall wash it all away … though I can’t wait to feel the pain that awaits me…. it shall hopefully erase the past… the pain…the surreal life of wasted existence... this pain, that shall end it all... I can’t await my final fall…

When Darkness engulfed Time ....

Images in the dark…my minds full of them.. inane and painful they plague my existence…the wee lamps in the distance burn bright…my mundane existence seems to have plunged me into a black hole of self inflicted solitude… am a shadow of my former…burdened by the those images from the past… when did it all end…when did all those moments turn into images in my head… where did it all go.. . when and how did time fly me by….

Moon Dancing….

It descends slow... slow behind those Cider trees.. playing its lill games with me.. I lie sleepless watching the moon dance in the sky…darkness torn to bits by its soft glow… the ciders lit up by its touch.. I can see the mystic dance unfold right in front of my eyes…

A Paradise Lost....

It’s a cold September night and I cant stop sneezing, maybe I should just step back into my room snuggle up to my pillow and dream, but I cant, I d rather sit out in the patio and watch the clouds streak the sky.

Some white Chilean wine, dark chocolate and Floyd, a perfect recipe for some wasted thoughts taking shape into words on a white sheet of paper.
My mind seems to wander far into the abyss of dreams that line my thoughts, it’s just me and the stars that dot the sky and maybe even the moon that pretends to shine bright. I can’t help but think of the mountains I left behind, green and always covered with mist, the sound of the gushing monsoon springs, the fresh intoxicating breeze, and the music of a thousand crickets playing their final parody.

The wine does no good, I can shut my eyes and feel it all, feel the rain on my face and the mist in my hair... hands spread out and I am sure I can fly… the wee huts that line the sky... the smoke from their chimneys… the sweet smell of tea savored with goats milk… that’s home… that’s a paradise lost…..

A new beginning...

Back from the land of no return…from the oblivious into the abyss... leaving behind a trail of strewn memories and friends… I move on…move into a new space... a new room... a set of new walls …I am here … and it’s a wee strange…. A new shell… a new roof ... a… new window …a new view to stare into... a new bed to call home…

Its overwhelming... leaving behind all that and more… the rain... the last hugs... the final goodbyes...a paradox of overwhelming emotions… I find myself drowning in the ebbs of its constant flow… there is pain... but it’s all numbed… I feel lost… lost in the vastness of this wee space... empty yet crowded…beautiful yet strange …I shiver... but its warm… the night sky... it looks different… the view it ain't the same… it can never be… the Cathedral its gone… replaced by those meadows…

Change is inevitable… but I hate it… it leaves ya naked…cold and scared…. But this is a new beginning and I am off to make a fresh start leaving behind a whole hoard of issues only to find my self a set of new ones…

..........

Its there... that smile... ya can see it but you soo cant feel it... you see those eyes… deep and enchanting... ya heart skips a beat... you wanna touch her face and feel the skin on your bare hands... its all there... an image in your head.. An image ya cant let go... or rather an image that wont let go of ya... you are possessed... charmed... and imprisoned... ya wanna run away from it but ya cant... its not the past.. Its neither the future and it sure as hell ain’t the present... Its a walk on the beach while ya watch the sun go down and let the waves wash ya feet... its that breeze.. calm yet refreshing...
Bewildering questions just like her face haunt my sleep... it lacks color...but then so do dreams... its like a book without a cover.. a story without an ending... beautiful...enchanted yet cursed... you wanna sit across that face... you wanna make that image real... ... ya wanna add colors to it .... But you can’t..... That image... That face… it haunts me...

A homeless man’s cry for help. 找9月初可入住的房
Part One

28th August 2006

Woke up this morning bathed in cold sweat.. hands shaking and my mind wandering… images of me sitting outside a Tesco with a wee card board round my neck that read POOR ASIAN HOMELESS MAN.... SPARE SOME CHANGE FOR FOOD AND RENT.. flashed through my hung over yet deranged mind ( am closing in on the worlds longest lasting hangover.. am on 63 hours, got another 28 to go though).

Having being stood up AGAIN ( I never learn do I .. the whole fuckin world does that to me .. but no, I refuse to learn… I hope that SOB ex flat mate of mine burns in the deepest darkest ebbs of hell) by a close friend I suddenly found my self running out of options, the whole of last month was spent nerding and oding on law, which entailed that I had no time to go house hunting, so here I was this morning, almost homeless (83 hours to deadline) and paranoid.

Options… I had a few… my tent... my ol’ trusted tent and me could move to the Highlands where I could freeze to death… or I could… hmmm just sit outside a Tesco with that board and wait for a beautiful Scottish woman( really there aren’t any.. Angie... don’t worry ya a quasi Scott) to take me home.( knowing my luck I was sure it was going to be a hairy gay man… ) thus weighing the pros and cons ( frozen to death or a hairy gay man fantasizing about me).. I decided they just weren’t worth it and I had to come up with a plan B.

Frantic… I got online… logged onto to one of those sites built to help guys like me (homeless and lazy)... and lo behold!!!… found two flats that seemed decent enough and more importantly affordable.
The first one was to be shared with a film maker and the other with a gay dude ,

The next ten minutes were spent on a borrowed phone, (I still aint got no credit in that shit they call my phone…now ya know people, why I never text back or bother calling) and I had my self two appointments. 1 pm with the film maker and 8 pm (hmm what was he thinking... a date?) with the gay dude.

After having studied the details of the said houses it only seemed pertinent that the gay dudes home seemed like a more favorable option , not like I am gay... or want to be one ( though some of ya might think I am almost there, especially with the hair band... and Dave and Viviane I aint pitching or catching so lets not even go there).. it’s just that the house seemed to rock.. had everything I needed and more, plus all gay men have hot women friends, so this suddenly seemed like an option I didn’t wanna miss out on.

The rest of the morning was spent talking to people about my dire condition of homelessness and discussing the options at hand.

I left home at noon.. all set to reach the Gorbals and meet the film maker and see the first house. Now, the Gorbals… well was once considered to be the most dangerous area in UK,( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gorbals ) unemployment and poverty had drowned it in a sea of crime, but I didn’t care a flying fuck…. I was old enough to handle myself and having lived a year in Wadarwadi( the crime capital of Pune) where fights, a couple of stabbings here and there and domestic squabbles ( my personal favorites) were the call of the day, I was sure the Gorbals was nothing compared to the hell back in Pune, and for crying out loud after living all my life surrounded by crime this had to be a joke right? ( damn I was just convincing my self wasn’t i???)

I was in the Gorbals by half 12 and was a wee lost( nothing new about that.. i sometimes get lost in my own room), my almost out of control hair looked like an over grown bush of weed, I was surrounded by newly constructed buildings which looked a wee odd and totally out of place , it seemed more like the city Council’s hasty attempt to bury all the filth and the crime that surrounded or connected it self with the place. There were scary NEDs( Non educated delinquents) all around me.. staring at me like I was fly on their food, ( I so wanted to fade to white and have a Celtics Tee on), right about then a car pulled up to me… Was Mehak going to be stabbed? Was he going to be kidnapped and raped my the NEDs….. read on……….

As I stood there…the car came to shrieking halt… barely missing me by a couple of inches, I was pretty sure this was the end, all my dreams of getting killed in Africa while on a secret UN mission seemed to be going up in smoke

Out jumped three NEDs…towering over my wee frame, “ Mate…want a beer mate?” (what!!!!) "Ya want a fuckin beer mate?"... like really, that’s just what I wanted… bloody drunk imbeciles ( look who is talking) I just smiled and walked away( thank god I can still get killed in Africa).. I was still alive but suddenly i wasn’t so sure about this neighborhood, no one back in Wadarwadi ever offered me beer.

It seemed centuries before I found the house and met the film maker, it wasn’t all that bad, the room was small and looked more like a match box, but I was desperate and could have settled for it …. I walked out of that house with the gay dudes house on my mind ( people trust me it was just the house)… the king size bed… the DVD player , the flat screen TV… the works… and all at an affordable price.. but there had to be a catch to it… Naaa… I was just being paranoid.

Came back home to be greeted by Captain Pink( who is still writing his dissertation at my place and now a victim to the common yet deadly cold.) and a whole hoard of emails warning me about moving to the Gorbals, apparently it was the murder capital of Glasgow and some of my worried friends wanted to know my new address so that they could send flowers at my funeral ( how sweet of ya guys)

I took a train to Govan at 8 in the evening, the sun was slowly but surely going down and the evening breeze had a fresh nip to it, locating the flat wasn’t an issue and soon I found my self staring at a lounge right out of one of those catalogues ya look at and go.. hmmm.. wow…I want that place, it was stunning, immaculately clean and just to my taste, nothing too loud with the right lights in all the right places ( right maybe I was turning gay.. maybe for a house like this turning gay would not be such a bad idea)

We shook hands( trust me just the hands), and sat on his expensive leather couch, he sat facing me in his silk night robe ( damn !! I hadn’t noticed it till then.. and now this was spooking me out).

The music was just right ( did I just write that??)… we talked about the house.. the offer seemed awesome and I was all set to say yes ( to the house but of course) and pay the wee deposit, till he dropped the bombshell… and hell yeah it was a bombshell aright… “ Mayhaak( they can never get my name right) I hope ya don’t mind the fact that I am a nudist”… WHAT THE FAAAA??? “ I really hope you will be comfortable with me walking around the house in the nude…( silence… long painful silence). I think my jaw fell at some point and my face turned white… images… through my head…. NOOO STOP… ERASE… PLEASEEE.

I ran… and I ran.. and I ran.. and I ran straight home( actually I took the train )… no ways was I moving in with that weirdo… no ways was I gonna wake up to naked man reading his news paper while sipping his coffee… and no way in hell was I going to bed after having a meal with a naked man…. ( I know I am desperate.. but hells yeah it aint that bad…Highlands here I come......

To be Contd......

New First Class Travel for Asians

NUDITY IS GOOD…aright don’t get me wrong here I am not really a kinky pervert as it might seem to suggest from the opening few words, but well, for all Asians out there get used to it, coz the way things are turning out to be, that day aint too far when all you guys flying across the world would be forced to fly in the buff.

Racial profiling has taken a new meaning especially after the farce of a scare on the 10th of August. Every brown skinned bearded traveler is a victim of unnecessary harassment, subjected to suspicious looks, quasi torture of being pulled up and aside, subjected to humiliation and sometimes even being strip searched. It’s actually a crime now.. ‘Traveling as an Asian’ but its fun, I mean how often are ya allowed or forced to travel naked,( dream come true for all those nudists out there.. no need to fly to the land down under i.e. Bondi beach in search of that perfect nudist beach… just get on to an American or European airlines ) generally under the existing laws that would be a crime but, maybe soon enough it would be the call of the day.

That’s one way of looking at things, the other obvious outcome would be special cages at the back of airplanes for Asians, and wouldn’t it be swell to be locked up in the buff.
But before these new rules are implemented on all European and American airlines here are a few suggestions for a safe flight

1. Shave… even women….shave…no beards.. actually no hair… get an appointment with ya friendly neighborhood barber.. get rid of it all

2. Don’t carry mobile phones and in case ya are stupid enough to carry one don’t use it or better still don’t pretend ya don’t know how to use one.

3. Thirst is good… DO NOT drink water, carry water or any liquid on ya..its better dying of dehydration than at the hands of an anti terrorist squad

4. Treat air crew with respect, infact get on ya knees before ya board the plane and beg for forgiveness and convince them ya are a bald innocent harmless brownie.

5. Do not talk to anyone once on board especially if the person sitting right next to ya is a mad fuckin paranoid white. You never know how they construe your words and get convinced that ya are a terrorist out to blow the plane

6. NEVER shout or even utter the word JEHAD at the airport or on board

7. Wear a T shirt that says WHITE IS RIGHT

8. Don’t travel in big groups, in case there is a big group please divide yourselves and take separate flights

9. If ya are getting a heart attack on board pretend you are not getting one ( take acting lessons if ya have to)..just sit back and wait for the plane to land, I am sure ya wouldn’t want a few air marshals jumping onto ya and strangling ya to death not while ya are getting a heart attack

10. For those who have never seen an F-16 in action get to Schipol airport and once on board and after the plane has taken off Shout I LOVE OSAMA. You my friend would get ya own special F-16 Escort to hell.

11. Wear only western clothes, nothing too flashy but a tee and a pair of levis would suffice, stay away from ya traditional dresses, women in burqas get used to traveling without them( I am sure its better than traveling in the buff)

12. Treat the air crew with utter respect, on being served ya shitty meal touch their feet and don’t forget to thank them 43 times and never ever ask for a second portion of anything.( it might be construed as the last heavy meal of a suicide bomber)

13. If possible fade a bit, get rid of your color, use talcum powder, bleach anything to make you less brown

14. Wear a cross across your neck, Maybe Jesus will save you, the Prophet and all the Indian Gods don’t seem to be doing a great job, and once you have that cross round ya neck, don’t stop shouting HALLELUJAH

15. And if possible overlook point 11 and just travel in your underwear, will save you all the embarrassment of being searched and subjected to a white man’s paranoia

Right so here we go… your 15 point doctrine to a safe flight, be sure to print a copy of the same and carry it with ya at all times and yes enjoy your new first class travel as an Asian

The Second Coming ..... Awesaliciousfuckingsome.!!!!

So here I am… hung the fuck over after a night of debauchery( 34 hours of non stop drinking) and trust me for the first time in my life the hang over doesn’t feel all that bad… it’s a freedom ( a relative concept) construed in a twisted perspective. But hey I am not complaining… I am just glad the hell is almost over…I mean really ….I have said this before and it feels pertinent to state it again, exams are like crimes against humanity and as stated by William Schabas the definition of the said crime just implies to what a human being has to suffer and endure during an exam.
To start with, the mental stress and add to that the health hazards that seems to entwine itself around your existence during those hellish days. A friend of mine in Brisbane even suggested a special health insurance just for the exams, and I really wish I had that insurance in a retrospective perspective and I can prove the same.

It all started around a month back (right after summer school) when I actually got down to studying ( and I hated it, every bit of it) now apart from being confined to my room and being stuck with books which had an adverse affect to my general well being and especially my already screwed eyes, coupled with my constant migraines, I managed to burn my self 6 times… ya don’t be shocked, 6 fuckin times… and the pain was unimaginable. Now ya must be wondering, what the hell.. how does someone burn him self six times… well really it’s the exams… a constant( yet evil) distraction, where once while reading the aspects of retributive justice( the functioning of the ad hoc tribunals) and cooking my self some baked beans (well cant really call opening a can of the same and heating them in a pan as cooking but what the hell I am construing it liberally) I somewhere during this audacious task I happened to drop hot boiling beans on my foot.. Ouch…trust me I spent the next hour with my foot stuck under the cold shower( now now don’t construe the cold shower bit liberally… just a literal construction of the same would suffice).

If you think that was bad well read on… 4 days before my first exam I was at my study and going over the affects of Globalization( fuck it really) when I passed out with a cig in my hand, now you don’t need to be a member of MENSA to figure out what happened next.. But it was painful as hell (the scar looks cool though) and last but not the least…. When under the affects of excessive education I happened to spill hot boiling oil on my forearm, trust me that was the worse… and this time the scars were ugly….now only if I had medical insurance I would at least be a lill richer ( more money for alcohol and cig’s)

Despite all this I am still alive and it only seems pertinent to acknowledge the support of a few spread across the globe, coz without them I would never have been able to write those exams or be alive.

A special thanks to my conservative right winger classmate Shane…(captain pink) who kept me company during those longs hours of revision and even tolerated my few but frequent tantrums.(and those pink shirts….my only source of color)

To Divya( my pillar of support) who kept me company on line when everyone else would give up and walk out on me (a big hug)

To Melissa who sent me music all the way from Brisbane (bloody pirate) and kept me alive and awake. (zank you) and also for suggesting the right conditioner for my out of control hair…

To Karin the Dutch queen ( btw I hated what ya paranoid Dutch did to the Indian passengers aboard NWA 42.. ya guys are losing it) … loved the Cd… and even the discussion on the comparative paradigm of international and internal conflicts in regards to international criminal laws
.
To Zareen…who would crib to me about her existence and make me feel less bad about mine… very thought full and helpful to say the least…. Owe ya one girl.

To Atif my deranged flat mate, who would forget to wake me up at all odd hours, without ya my friend I would have had more time to study which would entail more hours of living through stress. And even for those cigs ya rolled for me while ya sat there and rolled ya self some 'happy' joints...

To Angela… thanks for the notes( they rock by the way), the support, your paper on restorative justice I hope ya know I almost quoted you in the exams…. And last but not the least for introducing me to the ‘hit the penguin game’…perfect way of letting out all the vent up frustration

To Manasi who introduced me to the art of Bhuddism…almost attaining nirvana now girl… world peace and all that jazz…

To my neighbors for lending me cigs at all odd hours ( I know I promised to buy them back.. but ya know what? Dream on I ain’t buying you guys shit)

To my ex girlfriend for providing me with the motivation to do really well and for making me realize that nothing or no one is worth it… love the new fuck the world attitude….ya made me see the light…( remember the tunnel ya used to talk about, quote 'shove it where the sun dont shine' unquote)

To my friends on orkut…. Kevin, Kashu, Kirti Ruhi… thanks for all those encouraging scraps

To the creators of stick cricket on http://www.stickcricket.com/ , you guys need to be made presidents

To Mr. Singh, my bank manager back in India for reminding about the educational loan that needs to be paid back.

To my mum for all those threats of disowning me in case I didn’t do well, (kept me on my toes)

To Ayushi, for calling me an hour before the exams thus keeping the tradition started in 99 alive..

To all those bagpipe players outside my window for finally shutting the fuck up… BASTARDS!!!( maybe that’s why the English wanted to wipe out the bloody Scots)

To Pearl Jam and Eddie Vedder for singing Elderly Woman Behind the Counter in a Small Village ( heard it 296 times on repeat over two days)

To Dave and Viviane for the life saving mail just before I was ready to give up all and jump off the window.

To Tanuja for those arbid texts 20 mins before my papers ( we still need to discuss that though)

And finally a big hug to all my friends who woke me up on gtalk at all odd hours.. Prachi, Divya, Melissa, Zareen, Sid, Aheli ( Atif learn something ya bloody imbecile )…. All you guys rock….thanks a zillion.

All said and done I wish this was the end.. but now I have my dissertation to write and with Captain Pink off to the US… I would be needing extra support from the rest soo be prepared for more calls, scraps and more cribbing… and yeah do keep checking this site for more posts…..

8/10…..Almost…. BUT…

Another averted disaster?…’mass murder’ prevented?… or maybe not…. The unfolding of today’s events in more ways than one makes me sit back and ponder. To start with I don’t want to be categorized as conspiracy theorist and I seriously do hope that as reported today the threats posed were real and the aversion of the same has genuinely saved thousands of lives and that being the case I am as glad as anyone else that innocent blood wasn’t spilled.

But I can’t help but think of this in a broader perspective and maybe the same is the wrong way of going about it, but I am forced not to look at this in isolation. My issue finds its seeds in the statements made by G.W. Bush this evening… categorically stating ‘ARRESTS SHOW WE ARE AT WAR’. http://www.cnn.com/

But is America really at war even if these threats were real and imminent... and really where is the proof or the credibility of the arrests and the high handed claims made by MI 5, if what the security services claim is true, then this is one of the most innovative plots I’ve heard about in years, nitrogen based liquid explosive in individual bottles of "water"

Yes I agree it is quite possible, it’s a technique the Palestinians used to get passed Israeli checkpoints without setting off bomb sensors but just because something is possible doesn't mean it occurred.

… I am sure a lot will argue that well it is possible to foil a plan like this and I am sure this argument does hold ground, but just construing this situation liberally and going by the past events especially 9/11 , 7/7, the Madrid bombings and the follow up statements of Bush I do have my doubts about the credibility of the claims made of foiling a terrorist attack..

As mentioned earlier under the UN Charter the Security Council (SC) is the only body that can authorize the use of force which entails that the unilateral use of force under international law( America's toilet paper) is banned, the only exception to the same is envisaged under Article 51 which authorizes Member States to use force unilaterally without SC authorization under the pretext of self defense.

Taking the existing conflict in Lebanon into pretext where it has been alleged that the sole supplier of arms to Hezbollah is Iran, who are branded as a terrorist organization, all the US is looking for is a reason to enter the Persian Gulf and eventually threaten, pressurize or attack Iran under the pretext of pre emptive self defense ( just to foil there nuclear program which as all know has been a major thorn in the American’s back side) which though is still not an established norm but a developing one and lacks opinio juris but still has the characteristics of a developing opinio iuris.

For those not aware of the collective security system here is a brief analysis of the same.

The sole authorization for the use of force as mentioned earlier lies with the SC, and for any resolution in regards( authorization of force) to the same an affirmative vote from the all the permanent members of the SC ( the P5) is a per requisite . A negative vote from any of the P5 members is categorized as a veto and thus results in no resolution being passed or simply the lack of a decision on the part of the SC.( The cold war era was plagued by these vetos).

Keeping these facts in mind it must be made clear that the SC with China as a P5 member will never be able to authorize the use of force against Iran, coz countries like China and even Russia are sure to veto the same and hence there will be a serious lack of legality in case the US does decide to use force against a country like Iran, especially if force is used without the required SC authorization. It must at this juncture be pointed out that the US had used two grounds to attack Iraq recently and one of those were, pre emptive self defense, the presence of alleged WMD’s was considered as an imminent and potential threat and thus the use of force in that pretext against Iraq could be justified.

Keeping the same analogy ( pre emptive self defense) in mind, today’s actions and statements made by Bush can justify ( at least to a certain extent) the use of force against Iran or any country harboring alleged terrorists without SC resolution.

Furthestill all arrests made today have been of Pakistani nationals and trust me this is not coming from the fact that I am an Indian, but from the basic fact that if over and over again, it has been shown and proven that Pakistan has and will not only continue to harbor terrorists but will also be a safe haven for them, under those circumstances why does not the US then declare them a terrorist state and take action against them. The answer to the same is that it does not serve the American purpose as Pakistan is a stronghold point strategically especially keeping in mind the geographical proximity to Afghanistan and China. Thus it can to a certain extent be logically concluded that this is not really a war against terrorism but a war against those who go against the American interests.

Now I am sure this bog is being monitored and most are mocking the absurdity of my claims( which aren’t really claims), and I really do hope these quasi claims are/ were absurd and the terrorist threats were real and imminent and thousands of lives were saved... coz if there is any credibility to what I have to muse over then maybe just maybe today's decpetion was a tip of the iceberg that’s gonna freeze the world over …………..

Jehad Against Education...

Well everyone has battles to fight.. wars to wage.. I have mine right now… my exams ….the danger and threat of which looms large .. I refer to it as my jehad against education… if all goes well, they shall be my last exams ever… and I cant wait to get them over with..

I hope I will survive this battle and be back by the end of August to muse over what ever is left of my fragmented mind. Till then keep visiting my blog and pray that I can win this jehad…

The Vicious Circle of Perversity…

Well... it’s a strange state of mind I find my self in... maybe it’s a negative perspective... or maybe I am just being a complete cynic... but these are thoughts which have plagued me for the longest time and the current developments on the world scenario make me sit back and ponder over the same for hours at end.

Well to start this analogy it only seems fair to mention about doctors, we all refer to medicine as being a noble profession and I am not attempting to challenge this viewpoint at any point of this discussion but, is it really all that noble? I mean what do doctors survive on? People falling sick, dying and if that ever stops happening (which I am sure it never will)... how will doctors earn their bread? Really think about, don’t then doctors somewhere along the line hope or sometimes even pray for people falling sick?( I am sure most will disagree with me on this) Isn’t that a wee bit perverse especially in the context of the same being referred to as a noble profession?
Strange don’t you think… the same person treating you was actually hoping for you to fall sick… but it doesn’t end there…that’s just the beginning of a vicious circle this world finds itself being a victim to. Criminal Lawyers…along the some comparative perspective sure hope for more people to commit crimes, which would entail them earning their bread and I am sure to vouch for that, the time ( a few years back )when my practice had gone down I used to wonder why aren’t people committing crimes and why aren’t they being caught. Maybe it was just me... maybe I am evil… but at the same time I can vouch for a lot of colleagues who thought along the same lines.

Frankly all of us in some way perverse way hope for the worse for others and survive on the same. The world survives on the miseries of others. We can look at the current humanitarian laws and mechanisms aimed at the protection of human rights, and these would include NGO’s, Governments and even the UN, they all survive on the miseries people have to go through. I mean it would be hard to imagine NGO’s working and making money in the Andaman’s if the Tsunami hadn’t struck the islands and killed millions. If that being the case the number of people employed to work for them would have been looking for alternative employment opportunities. Don’t get me wrong here, I am sure most if not all agencies working in affected areas did provide humanitarian aid (that being a debatable issue especially keeping in mind that most NGO’s bought every affected family a boat instead of providing them with food or working on the development of infrastructure as the budgetary year ending was close and expenditures had to be shown to the funders…but this is not a critical view on the working of NGO’s so we shall leave this as an open ended piece of information), but at the same time, they would have never been able to work in those areas and people would have never been able to make money had the Tsunami not destroyed most of the islands mentioned above.

This just being the tip of the iceberg of how this world thrives on the miseries of the others, now just for a few minutes lets shift our focus to the other disasters that could have been avoided or those which didn’t entail the fury of nature thus making them avoidable. Ever thought why civil wars across many African and South east Asian countries still burn bright? The simple answer to the same is the never ending supply and market for weapons. Logically if there didn’t exist a cheap supply for the above mentioned arms so used in these conflicts the numbers of lives thus lost would be far less and the inaccessibility of the same would have made the fighting of these wars impossible and economically unviable , doesn’t that then entail that these wars are nothing but an outcome of the greed of a few who run the arms trade, and this is just the beginning of this bloody viscous cycle. Once a war runs its course, the UN and other agencies rush in to provide humanitarian aid and assistance and helps in the setting up of expensive international criminal tribunals so as to try the perpetrators of the bloody war so fought. Doesn’t all this thus entail that millions of dollars are spent for the appointment of judges, specialists, social workers, lawyers and peace keepers who eventually earn their living all through the miseries of the people who have been nothing but victims of the greed of those who care nothing about innocent human lives but just on the aspects of filling their deep pockets.

Why is it then that the UN and other developed nations (which happen to be the largest suppliers of arms in the world) ever work towards the pre emptive prevention of mass human rights atrocities? Why do then countries like the US and UK encourage Israel to continue its illegal war against Lebanon, you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure that one out…guns and F -16s all cost money.. and Israel’s illegal war is nothing but a cash machine running amuck for rogue nations like the ones mentioned above. At the same time and as we all know UN (US’s lill puppy dog) thrives on illegal wars and mass atrocities, ever wondered what would happen to the thousands of handsomely paid UN officials if there was a constant state of peace and prosperity, they would probably sit in their offices in New York and plan the next big atrocity.

Bottom-line... we are all perverse in our thoughts …every NGO, every developed nation... you and me…no one wants world peace... not even the news channels…BBC and CNN would all have to shut shop if there wasn’t a crisis…if there wasn’t a genocide or a sensational crime against humanity or even a war to cover. We as humans survive on this perverse existence and wouldn’t know what to do if we didn’t wake up to blood.

The Criminal Within.....

Human beings are not nice...children, teenagers pot bellied men, old women, villagers...every single one of them....... none of us are nice. We all share a common bond of meanness, frankly we are all savages at heart and there is nothing noble about us.
Civilization is seen as a complex achievement: it is nothing but a fragile working arrangement stitched together. Facades are crucial and ever so often this facade slips and human nature is revealed for what it is... nasty brutish and short sighted.

How long is it going to take people to realize about what they actually are. Mindless brutal killers all of us... Every one of us...
Human beings are engaged in a battle of wills, each human being driven by a Nietzchen will to power. According to Freud this battle begins in childhood; the nurse wants the toddler to take his dump... the kid squats on the pot but resolutely refuses to let the turd drop... its called anal retention..... that's where this all starts... this struggle within....

Have you ever been to a kid’s playground..??? I am sure all of us at some point or the other have heard of or come across instances of what men and boys do to each other in school.... Did you read about the teacher who bit his student’s ear off...? I mean if Mike Tyson could do it then why not him.... or the guy who loved scratching the faces of his girl students, leaving them scarred for life.....sadistic to the core.... now what led him to do what he did and in fact reach a point in his life where he started enjoying it....

I knew this guy back in law school who loved chopping ants and other insects...weird as this may sound but every evening he would take his bath , comb his hair and place himself on his table, while others played soccer or went out to do some constructive bird watching our friend here would reach for his blade....simple gratuitous cruelty... cruelty in its purest form.....

Then there was this other dude... soft spoken...vicious always smiling. Preferred lizards to ants. He would stuff their mouths with chewing tobacco and then watch them do their back flips in the air; the ring master usually had a mesmerized audience......

And how can I not talk about another acquaintance... simple boy ... went to a boarding school was tortured beaten... forced to take cold showers in the month of December and then beaten with belts... but by who.... his own seniors... who are as human as most of us..... why did he go through what he did... and what will be the outcome of all the anger that's built up inside of him... only time will tell.

Look at a larger picture.... what happened in Gujarat... what happened in Nazi ruled Germany... people were killed ,raped mutilated... by whom.. their own neighbors... friends and other human beings.....what led them to do what they did... nothing but a basic fact that somewhere along the line we all are evil and criminal in more ways than we can imagine.

In a famous series of experiments HF Harlow of the Primate Research Centre Madison reared monkeys in conditions of complete isolation and maternal deprivation. The observation that followed was scary... when these monkeys were released in among the ordinary monkeys, instead of breaking into a tango; they sat huddled in a corner, riddled with fear and depression. Some of the monkey mothers became so neurotic that they smashed the infants face into the floor and rubbed it back and forth.

And in one of the most gruesome experiments conducted by the US army, monkeys were trained to run inside a large wheel. Slowing down was punished with an electric shock, once the monkeys were able to run for long periods they were subjected to lethal doses of radiation. The sick and puking monkeys were forced to run till they dropped dead. The army insisted that the above mentioned experiments provided them vital information on the capacities of soldiers to fight after a nuclear attack...... BULL SHIT

Cruelty both physical and mental comes naturally to us. There is a murderer rapist arsonist and interrogating officer in each of us. The human spirit is by nature castrated...why are we so shocked by the images of prisoners in Abu Gharib? We all would have done the same thing had we been there....... think about it…??

The Lebanon Crisis... A Broader Perspective


Another refugee camp… a child stands alone and cries .. the sounds of bursting shells breaks the monotony of this hapless existence... ash.. plumes of smoke... the smell of fresh human blood… hunger...pain… misery… the tears… they are all real... yea this is reality as we face it today… more people would be dead by the time I finish writing this and God only knows how many more will be widowed and orphaned by the time you’ll finish reading this.
The cries of ‘never again’ said aloud at the end of the 2nd World War seem as empty as my pockets… millions have been killed since… Why?... all in the name of greed… land… money… oil.. What is wrong with us… why are we as humans on this self destructive trip…?

Lebanon is burning…Beirut is being bombed… ambulances are being targeted, homes are being burned... and no one is going to do anything to stop this till the greed of the Americans and Israelis are fulfilled. Unfortunately most of my friends believe that the current Israeli action is bonafide and I don’t blame them, but at the same time I cannot subscribe to their point of view. They are just victims of their own ignorance and a biased media, which portrays the Israelis and the Americans as the victims of international violence, but will someone please open their eyes and see the truth behind these barbaric killings.

The recent developments in Lebanon are all an outcome of the ongoing Iran nuclear project which obviously threatens the American interests. Now Hezbollah is an Iran Sponsored organization( and most would refer to it as a terrorist organization… but I would abstain to term it as one just for now) Don’t get me wrong here, I am not an avid supporter of terrorists or their activities, but have you ever wondered what the word terrorism denotes and who brands these people in the middle east as terrorists. For years people in the middle east have been oppressed by the actions of the west and someday some one is going to stand up to this tyranny and this never ending oppression.

Now I do agree that two Israeli soldiers were kidnapped by the Hezbollah and this action cannot be justified or supported, but does that give Israel a right to use disproportionate force against Lebanon? I am sure most would say hell yeah.. bomb those bastards, but even from a legal stand point the force which has been used can be termed as disproportionate. Now under international law the UN Security Council has the sole authority for authorizing the use of force, except in the case of self defense, which in the present case can be used by Israel as a ground for using force without Security Council authorization against Lebanon, but the established opinio juris is that such use of force has to be proportionate, now think logically does the kidnapping of 2 soldiers entail that force of the magnitude which includes the use of missiles against civilian targets, bombing of refugee camps and ambulances and destruction of airports as proportionate ? Doesn’t this then entail that war crimes and crimes against humanity are being committed by Israel and the US? International Humanitarian law is clear on the supreme obligations to protect civilians, but who cares about International law especially when it comes to the Americans.

Ever wondered why countries like the US and Israel have not ratified the Rome charter which would have forced the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court on to them. Well the answer is right in front of you, killing of civilians and bombing ambulances amounts to war crimes and crimes against humanity which the US and the Israelis seem to commit at their own free will( Iraq and Afghanistan are 2 blatant examples) and they definitely don’t want to be tried for it.

Coming back to the larger picture which we seem to be avoiding is the Iran issue, now if through the current events US can prove to the world that the Hezbollah which as everyone knows is supported by Iran is a threat to International peace and security, then the use of force to the extent of the use of nuclear weapons (as considered by the US and its allies in May please refer to the article Nuclear war against Iran availabe at http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=%20CH20060103&articleId=1714 ) against Iran can be justified just like their actions in Iraq and Afghanistan

Did the US find any WMD’s in Iraq? Did they catch Osama in Afghanistan? Hell yeah they did not… but who suffered... the common Iraqi man and the children in Afghanistan. The civil war post US invasion in Iraq is still killing people everyday, it’s not a country any more, it’s a battlefield where children are the targets, and the common men the soldiers. All the sanctions of establishing no fly zones in Afghanistan, I am sure is protecting the US interests but at the same time killing the children of that nation. Medical and food aid cannot be delivered to the far fetched areas inaccessible by road, no one ever thinks about that. It seems like human rights and a right to life can only be bestowed upon the Americans and its allies.

And I am sure the Americans have learnt from their previous mistakes, that it cannot win an out right war in such countries and its far too expensive and the losses are great, thus the only plausible solution to the same is the use of nuclear weapons which might annihilate a nation and kill millions (remember Hiroshima and Nagasaki?) but at the same time serve the US interests in terms of costs and human losses.

I am sure after reading this most including my friends and the right wing conservatives would think I am a pot smoking hippie and I am talking utter rubbish, but what the fuck.. I don’t care, this is my point of view, and I am not going to be a part of this genocide which those who subscribe to the actions of the US and Israel encourage.

PS. Wake up smell the coffee… STOP THIS WAR…. DON’T ENCOURAGE IT… SOMEDAY ITS GONNA STAND UP AND BITE YA IN YA ARSE…

Blood in Beirut...
Pictures courtesy http://www.spiegel.de/fotostrecke/0,5538,15121,00.html

The only children rescued were americans. No one gave thought to the Lebanese children
Bottom line- you gotta be an American to survive.






The only thing living found under that rubble were birds...

Bottomline- you got to be either an American or birds.

Now some Lebanese seriously need to invest in new cars...

Now if someone did that to my home, I would be mighty pissded. Still blame the Lebanese?!?

The lucky few...

The Israeli angel of death...






The new Lebanese countryside... ( an Israeli touch)!

Israeli guns of death...

The sweet smell of death...

Appeal for help from a Palestinian refugee camp in Southern Beirut

How can we as humans overlook the recent developments in Lebanon? To most i am sure the actions of Israel seem justified and the only plausible solution to the on going crisis, but has anyone thought of the suffering these actions entail?

This appeal ( unedited version attached herewith) was sent to me by a fellow human rights activist, read on and picture the trauma the helpless and the poor who seem to be caught in the middle of this catastrophe have to face and go through and then decide for your self is all of this really worth it…

Borj El Barajneh Refugee camp. Beirut Lebanon
Thousands Isolated in a sea of destruction

TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN ,

Dear Sirs/Madames,
First I would like to start with the situation here in Beirut. Warhas prevailed everywhere and the destruction has become our dailybread.First and foremost starting with Borj Al Barajneh camp that is stuck in the middle of the fire and bombardment isolated from the surrounding areas leaving the residence suffering the tension ofwar and scarcity of life, since most of the Lebanese people were able to leave their place and houses to other parts of Beirut. Whereas the camp residence have no where to resort to except to stay in the camp.

Al Bourj camp is located in the southern suburb of Beirut surrounded by Hezbolla area where the bombs strike is very intensive day and night .It has three main entrances from the airport road other from Haret Horek and another one from the Borj area. So all the bombingis around it Therefore, the best way to reach the camp is from the airport road which has become very dangerous and targeted at anytime of the day and night with no prior warning which endangers our lives as wellI am the director of the Women's Humanitarian Organization in the camp.

As the war started people rushed to the supermarkets to supply with food but the supermarkets and shops were empty during the first hours. Immediately, the first idea that came up to my mind was how to aid my people in the camp and provide them with prompt assistance as a result of the severe conditions the Palestinians were living before and during the war were lamentable 80% of the mare unemployed or have part time jobs and sometimes seasonal jobs.They earn their livings on day by day basis. So the critica lquestion is how they could manage through this hard situation .

On 15-07-06 ,I visited the camp searching for answers to my question.I found out that people have decided to stay in the camp due to lack of any other place they can resort to due to shortage of moneyand housing .For to leave the camp it will cost them a lot in orderto find a place and hire a car especially that they dont wish to relive the experience of being refugees for the second time .They told me we are already refugees do we need to be refugees again?

Today, 18-07-06 I went again to the camp and god grief I cant really describe that horrific trip .My car was the only moving vehicle Everywhere was in deep silence and destruction. Only 4 km from my house to the camp the first half of the way was manageable but as we approached the camp it seemed to me from the first impression as if haunted by ghosts. No one can enter the area as it is extremely dangerous with the bombed airport on one side and the now totally destroyed Shi suburbs on the other. It was a scene of total devastation with all the buildings and roads totally smashed.I was shocked and overwhelmed. There was the smell of death and destruction everywhere.

The moment I entered the camp I felt I was on an island so isolated from the surrounding .I joined the other NGOs and arranged for an emergency meeting with them for a long term plan to aid the camp.We didnt know where to start from, the needs were so massive and beyond our expectations. Its true that we have had a long experience during the past war but the situation now is different.For now we have no hierarchal structure in the camp or maybe has almost disappeared .

In the past the PLO was in charge and provided people with all the assistance, but now the question is who could carry this burden along with us (NGOs)? Even the NGOs are verytight with funds. All the shelters in the camp are not viable for protection at all .They have not been used since 1987 not even enough medical resources .The women, children and elderly are terrified and trapped after days of sustained brutal bombing of the entire area around our camp. There is no electricity, no fuel for the generators, no medial supplies and we are in urgent need of food and drugs for the children and the elderly.As a result of our meeting all NGOs and activists have agreed upon the following needs:_

Raising health & medical awareness regarding the situationespecially that they are using chemical weapons and bombs andpeople need to be aware how to deal with such a situation.

_Babies and children's food, mainly milk and diapers.

_Emergency medications: ventoline, for asthma, diabetic tablets, medicine for high blood pressure .Dressing materials, cardiacmedicine, antipyretic, antibiotics, and medicine for diaorrhea.
_Candles and matches.
_Drinking water, the camp lacks sources of water (people usually
buy the drinking water)
_Detergent and insecticide.
_First aid workers (run courses)
_Gasoline for electricity generators for the hospitals .
_Fire extinguishers_First aid kits and stretchers.
_Electricity generators to facilitate life and for the work of theNGOs.Our recent statistics show the following:

200 families fled into the camp from the surrounding area(those wholived for a long time ago outside the camp in Hezbollah area )andhave no other place to resort to in Beirut.
1500 children under 6 years .450 elderly with chronic diseases.20,000 living in the camp.
By the end of the meeting we divided ourselves and took upon ourresponsibilities different tasks upon which to clean the sheltersand mobilize ourselves for emergencies hoping to receive the support and funds on time to be able to provide our people with theurgent supplies and provisions needed. I left the camp praying to god to keep this road safe in order to come back again to our
people with the aid and help.
We are facing a humanitarian crisis on an unprecedented scale and we call on the international community to stop Israel's total destruction of Lebanon and the killing of innocent civilians. We are in urgent need of humanitarian assistance and we ask all good
people in the world to help us.
For donations:Women's Humanitarian Organization
Bank of BeirutTarik JdidehSwift code# BABELBBEAccount number:11 401 091280 01For contact:
Women's Humanitarian Organization
DirectorOlfat MahmoudPhone no: 00961 3 019 775(mobile)Tel& fax: 00961 1 840 239e-mail: palwho@gmail.com