My Two Steps to Understanding

I was pissed, then I begin thinking.
I understood the first step and I was still pissed.
I kept thinking
I understood the second step and I was no longer pissed.
I stopped thinking and went to bed.

That is how last three days have been. I have introspected, blamed myself for things that werent my fault. Gotten mad, lost control of self. But I finally figured it out.

There are very few things like morphine in this world. Nothing gives as much kick as a single shot of morphine in your spine. But there is something quite close, somebody coming up to you and saying in a very even tone they hate you, hate you double, loathe you.

The thing that really bothered me was it shouldnt be bothering me, if you know what I mean. Never has anybody gotten so much inside my head than that girl... ugh! But what happens, happens. Not much we can do about it. What we can do instead is figure out they why and take precautions that situation like that dont repeat. Not "the someone saying I hate you" part, but "the bothering" part!

I always quite knew I am not the most popular guy around, people hate me and I am fine with it.
Not much we can do about others. What ticked me off was when the blame games started. I got blamed for things I didnt do and for things I did opposite of. I am not saying I was all right, I too did some bad things, but well... I did what I had to do, to keep the Q4R going. And another thing that upset me was the fact, throughout the year I took so much shit for supporting these people, and at the end of it they dont appreciate it. Sometimes, I wonder why the hell I bothered.

But then, I am happy. I gave people a chance. I tried to make something happen, and maybe it didnt turn out the way some people thought, but it still was something amazing. That was the second step of understanding. She isnt mad at me, but herself. Everybody lost a lot during Q4R, but we all gained. There was not a single person who went to Japan as part of TIRC who didnt become a better/improved/well-rounded (take ur pick) person due to this project. Some of us even believe we took the transition from boys to men in this phase. But there was one person who didnt learn anything. One who lost on other fronts and gained nothing from the project. One person who let that opportunity slip right through her hands. She is mad because she knew she blowed a chance. By blaming it on me, she is seeking redemption of some sorts. It is the defense mechanism at work.

So what do I do? I stand by and watch... I dont interfere. Let her figure out these things on herself, if she does it will hurt but she will take step closer to development. If she doesnt.. well shortcuts also work! At this point I have decided to renew my theory of minimal human interaction. It was a bitter pill I got and I dont want another taste of it anytime soon.

Until laters!

Love
Void!

Ugh!!

I should really be allowed to shoot some people. On such a lovely and beautiful day, when there is the first warmth of the spring sun, people can mess with your head!

Thats why I am happy with minimum contact. And I am not kidding. I just happen to have excellent reasons to do it. Like for instance, this friend of mine (well we are not exactly friends, more like acquaintainces) out of nowhere instilled the idea of becoming a better person in my head. And that idea is a bytch to begin with!! The idea is so deeply horrible and self destructive that I am compulsed to follow it, which basically means curbing all my natural instincts.

The good news is, my insomnia is back and so is nicotine and caffiene. On a day like today, about a month ago, I figured out a couple of things. The first was there are always, invariably two steps to understanding. The first is you understand the situation and the second is you understand the cause of the situation. And we are no nearer a solution yet. Thats whats bugging me. I am as away from the second step as anyone could ever be.

The second thing I figured out was I only want things that I cant get! I dont know if it holds true for everyone, but yes all indications are in that direction!! So the problem basically is I want something I cant have. I only want it because I cant have it, and if I get it I wouldnt want it anymore! Not that I am anywhere even near to getting that thing.

I know what you are thinking... I am messed up in head. Well, what is to say I am not!

Goodbye, 2008: The Best Ever

20 years from now I will look back at the year 2008 and will say that was one of the best fucking years of my life. The same way I look back at 96-97 as the best period till now.

2008 brought back a lot of things I had lost in previous years. 2008 gave me back my confidence and my arrogant stride. 2008 returned to me the power of being good, it brought back old lost friends, and surprisingly a helluva lot stronger family bonds. It also brought back my self respect that was sometime ago flushed down a gutter. It gave me many new things like playing the role of an elder brother or mentor to some of my friends. I found the leader inside of me, reluctant at first but now in flow. And of course, the capability to love... that I had lost somewhere.

Life aint perfect, 2008 probably had more downs than I care to admit. But I dont count my life in terms of bad moments. Doing that is plain sad and waste of thought. I say this is the best, cuz I enjoyed it the most. I loved busting my ass to complete the project. I loved hanging out with the guys and getting drunk. I even enjoyed watching and handling Khurana-the drunk baby. I loved skipping lectures, getting on teacher's nerves. I loved plotting and strategising on the best course of actions. I loved studying, cuz the last semester was a hell lot interesting than study ever was. I loved how I was able to use, Satan's darkest tool-- manipulation for the good of Q4R.

To add to all that Indian cricket team has finished the year on a real high, winning T-20, getting to second pedastal in Test championship and all that. Liverpool is doing well too, my second favorite sporting team in the world, right now top of the table in BPL, top of the table in champions league group stage. Ferrari, my third favorite is also doing quite alright, winning the constructor's championship and all that. And of course, team India got like 3 medals at the Olympics!! That was the first!! So its been a good year overall, sportswise.

Now you will say 2008 might have been good for sports, but what about business.. recession and all that. But then you cant have all the things in life can you? If you do what will be left to fight for? And if there is nothing to achieve wont life be boring and everything? I say fight for things that are in our control rather than those that are not...

But a good year isnt just the one which gives enjoyable moments, I say this is the best because not onlyI enjoyed it but it also presented challenges and opportunities for the coming year. A lot has been achieved in 2008, the year that was the high waters of a truly entertaining voyage. 2009 is the year we reap the awards, reach the destination.. I hope it is as fun as this year has been...

luv n luck for '09
Void

The Year That Was

Yes, of course you got that right. That is the title of my unpublished abandoned first pathetic attempt at what even I couldnt categorize as a book... but yes it was a start and definitely one of the better titles I have invented over the years. Does that mean today I talk about my failed attempts at writing? definitely not.. thats a story for some other day. Today is the day for nostalgia.. and nostalgia is such an ugly word, the sound is all wrong, the spelling.. it reminds me of nausea and that sure is an ugly word.

So I get nostalgic a lot, big deal. Nostalgia leads to great stories or memoirs or just plain simple blabbering. Which one is on for tonight is but obvious. Today we explore the year in which I found and lost friends, remade them and ended up in serious brotherhood than I expected. The year I went on my first overseas trip, and the year I did something to be proud of, and of course the year I fell in love! lol, kidding about the last part..

So the year (and I dont mean 2008, I mean the academic year meaning somewhere August 2007 to till now) started with an acquaintance falling on his head one fine evening and seriously injuring his head. Out of this trumultous experience bred out the single most dangerous plan I have heard in my entire life. And as the fate would have it, I had a similar accident the next day and the severe trauma of the accident led me to accept what the plan had to offer. Somewhere down the road, we named it Q4R and of course Torque India Racing Club. See the trouble with my group is we are all emotional fools. We deliberately avoid any path that rationality suggests and hence we end up in more than our share of troubles. And as I recall one fine day in the middle of all of this chaos, I was sane enough to consider walking out of this plan but then of course my besty, the evil sorceress, deluded me with talks of pain and blood and right and wrong. Of course, she is sitting somewhere right now laughing uncontrollably at my misery. And then we got our first success, a bright young lad joined our group and he brought smiles for all and also our first cash sponsor. And we all have our fingers crossed that someday he will take leadership burden. He is a good kid, and although he did cry twice in Japan without any reason I believe he is strong enough.

And the year moved on, new year arrived, bringing university exams along. I did well in most of that, passed everything, and then of course febuary came. And everybody knows that I hate febuary, also January but not so much. And as luck would have it, I saw death again and I lost again. But Febuary brought some happy news along, like a car on four wheels, that was Febuary, 14th. But moving on, it wasnt much later that we had our first grand success, we had a running car as on April, 4th and it was a success. It didnt abandon us during the launch on April,5th and ran smooth as a cucumber and we were all relieved. We did fuck up the launch seminar pretty badly as were grossly mismanaged and underprepared, but TI-07 ran smooth and that was all that mattered.

Barely after the euphoria of success settled down, we were faced with the impossible choice, either get the rest of the money or shut the project down. Somebody called 15 days to get the money or quit, we got money in 7. That was somewhere towards the end of April. And that was the start of it all. We planned and schemed and blueprinted what TI-08 would be like, we discussed argued and selected an engine and went on a shopping spree. Nothing did last, barely had we started with our chassis work, the Uni Exams came to haunt us. And this time I might have flunked a couple, I am not sure. The results aint out yet, but maybe I didnt cuz my first impression was I didnt, so well. Once the exams were over, it was sweat and blood and thats all it took really. Countless sleepless nights, countless 16 hour shifts and countless days spent in sun on a roadside pavement completing a dream. And we did, and we did go to Japan.. but

The engine blew up, and I am not the kind of guy who cry at movies or watching tv. I dont cry when people die. But for some reason tears came out. Maybe it was at my stupid fucked up life, or my enormously screwed up luck, or maybe it was just plain disbelief. Cuz I believed we were the good guys, and according to karma we should have got back what we gave. But damn it wasnt meant to be. And perhaps even with the engine, we wouldnt have one that comp but damn it I wanted TI-08 to show what it was truly capable of. And in Fukuroi city, that night I drank my brains out. I was so hammered, I couldnt have differentiated between people and I might have killed someone if the right moment presented. And at that moment I felt like it was the end of my motorsporting dreams.

But Tokyo happened. And I saw life again (there was this great Mexican Sports Bar, called Los Cabos and it was amazing. I had virtually every drink in there and every food! I even ate an Octopus, met with some hookers and other random chicks), and my brothers rallied around me once more, demanding whats their right, another shot at the competition. And yes I was initially very negative, very cynical of chances of survival of Torque India. I am even on a video stating Torque India should disband right now, but I was wrong. TIRC is not one man, its more than that, its heart and blood and sweat of at least seven good men if not more. And well I couldnt just give up, can I? I am in this too deep to quit. And I am glad I made that choice cuz TIRC really deserve another chance.

And as I say again and again, Life is but a matter of choice, this or that, yin or yang.
Hope still drives me...

Crazy Ideas: Vol 3: The Return of The Void

I have been busy.

Does that encompass lack of a post for eight months, is something I can not answer. Q4R occupied most of those eight months, that I can assure you. Q4R is on the verge of a successful end (or is it the beginning?), by the way.

Chalo, I will begin the post.

Terror(?) Attacks!!

And here we go again, a bomb here and a bomb there. Three cities, and all three of them I share a special connection with, Jaipur, Bangalore, Ahmedabad.

I spent my childhood in Jaipur, formative years in Ahmedabad and Bangalore just for the amazing place it is, and because two of my bestest friends live there.

And I was thinking, as always, watching stuff from a distance you know like I am used to. And two theories strike me, one admittedly because of my mother and the other one for the sheer genius of it.

India has been a terrorist hub for ages, our neighboring countries cant seem to respect our National Integrity, or maybe they cant control their citizens. Maybe they don't appreciate the fact that a country can be secular and progressive at the same time or maybe all religions are equal. (The all religion part is real easy for me, being an atheist and all!) Its a well known fact that our neighbors all around the borders have tried infiltration with one form or the other. This fact has been well documented, put in public view and everything. But this is not the point I am trying to put across. There is something missing, there have been bombs before but not so many, and not in the smaller cities (aside of J&K of course) and definitely not so frequently. And I haven't done any research work but I just flat feel a difference. And what about Research and Analysis Wing (RAW), where are they? Haven't they been the top intelligence agency after maybe CIA? How come they couldn't foil these attacks this time, I am sure they don't publicise it but they do spoil a lot of such attempts every year. How do you spoil a plan? Informants, eavesdropping and a million other techniques that are P2C2E (Process too complicated to explain). And so the failure means RAW or IB didn't have any informants, couldn't eavesdrop-definitely means new agency!!

New don't mean new like old timer organization Lashkar n stuff, the ISLAMIC group. Neither it is Maoists, naxalites or any other and here are the two theories, and what "new" might be.

The Insider Theory

First one is not my theory like I said before, heard from my mommy first and heard it repeated by Ms. Sushma Swaraj (I have always liked her, by the way). The government is doing it? If you haven't heard the UPA has taken a huge hit in the guts by the inflation. Three cities got hit, all BJP ruled states! You can blame it on BJP government, and their incompetence like the "central" government did. You can also ask the question, why the hell? And when did the politics got so dirty as putting the blame on each other for terrorist acts!!

Congress, if I remember correctly have been blamed for massacre, killings, etc. before this. And well after the note wads being waved at the parliament nothing would surprise me.

The Outsider Theory

If somebody else has expressed this theory somewhere before I am not aware of it, it is just something that came to my mind.

If you look closely at the top of Indian Government, we have two brilliant economists in Manmohan Singh and Chidambaram. So why is our finances (inflation) so screwed up? Indian finances were always strong (inflation, gdp) even with the non economist ministers. Why is it going up. It almost makes you wonder. Add to it the instability in the government brought about by the NUCLEAR DEAL, your mind begins to churn. Throw in the bomb blasts, subtract the political corruption of the country (that saved the government), and you get a country with an uncontrollable inflation, no government and bombs exploding every corner. That means maybe you can connect all of them. If you have been reading the newspaper, USA has blamed India for food shortage, inflation in their country and have always been an awful ally. In fact for US, India, which was like an unsquattable bugging fly until a couple of decades ago, is now turning up as a competitor. Competitor who maintains both the GDP and Inflation at 8% steady continuously! And what was with the fall in the dollar, did it really touch 37? What would you do if you had all the resources and CIA! Maybe fuck up the finances, screw with the government and destabilize the country. Easy to do if a neighbor of the country you wanna mess up is your lapdog. After all CIA has a reputation to live up to!!

Not that we can do anything about it but well, nice to have these thoughts out!!

With Love
Void

The Troublemakers in Chief

So my Quarterback says, "Whats the trouble chief"
"I have no idea my boy, but sure as hell I will find out."

And thats what we have been doing since then, me and my quarterback. Finding The Answer!! Sorry for the delay peeps... It is as we say in German A man's gotta do what he gotta do.
(But thats English protests my quarterback. Damn him, he cant read worth shit!)

Were we finding the trouble or creating is another matter and we will deal with that too. I have been a self proclaimed sexist for ages now. Why sexist? I will tell you a joke, I got it once or twice (or maybe 2000 times) in forwarded mail, that we all despise. You must have heard it...

Girls require money and time, this gives

Girls=MoneyxTime

And according to old dictum Time is Money.

Girls= MoneyxMoney = (Money) ^2

But Also money is the root of all Evil

This Gives

Girl= {sqr root(Evil)}^2= Evil

So Girls are basically evil. Telling you this joke doesnt make me a sexist, even my quarterback agrees (This must be simple if even he can understand it!!) Even liking this joke dont make me a sexist. What makes me a sexist is the fact that I believe it to be something worthy of Einstein! Even better than his work on General Relativity! It is one sparkler! (Which reminds me of the closest thing to this brilliant proof! Its definition of relativity by none other than Mr. Albert Einstein... "Talk to a pretty girl for an hour and it willl fee like a second, put a finger in flame for a second it will seem like eternity. That my friend is relativity!")

Now that we have established Girls are evil theory as the base of this post, I dont mind sharing with you the trouble me and my quarterback were facing was girl trouble. ( What are you doing man? Thus spoke my worthy quarterback at this point. Ignore him, he is a little upset. Its not his fault, things havent been going so well for him lately) We were fighting girls. (Not girls you dumbass, evil! says my quarterback. ~grin~ thats why he is my quarteback you know!!)

So I and my quarteback embark upon a quest, a quest of irradicating the good in our life and to embrace evil. A journey that so many before us have foolhardingly undertaken. Do we expect to tame evil? In retrospect this sounds really silly but we did hope so! We actually believed that we can conquer evil and make it our bytch! But damn it the evil consumed us, left us soul less.
(But you were the one who swallowed my soul, protests my quarteback. He is just babbling now, dont pay attention.) I believed I am the son of light and will vanquish the demons if and when we face them (But how can Satan be son of light, murmurs the Quarterback). I devised strategy, schemed, manuvered even manipulated. But to no extent, a greater evil than any of us can ever be rule on this earth. And she stands there in all her majesty and all we can do is but bow and accept our fate.


"So bow you fool" I shouted at my quarterback while thinking of kneeling. No reply came, and I look around and he is nowhere to be seen! I look up and see the soul less bastard at the helm of a flying chariot, lashing with a whip at dark horses. I had to strain to notice him, for sitting in the back in all her majesty was the Queen herself- The Supreme Evil!

Fucked Up?

Controversial title? Well I don’t give a damn.

Hostel life is much talked about, much idolized. People always tell you that they had some of their best times in hostel, or they learnt so much in the hostel. But for me, its been a wonderful epiphany to the slime we call the world.

This post is meant to be on love, so why in the hell am I talking about hostel life? Is it because the long tired hours that gave me an answer? Partly yes, but mainly because I have sampled so much, there is simply too much here for Void the cynic. I have refrained from using hostel life for posts simply because of the fact the identity of people involved matter a lot to me, and I have no wish to divulge them. I have inspected, permuted and combined but still I couldn’t find a way to keep their identities secret, because to any person of my hostel, each and every example will be painfully obvious. I just hope they stay on the strategy of ignoring this webpage or if they do venture across, for once don’t spread the word around. So lets get this post started.

Earlier, I never could have looked a person in their eyes and just simply lie. Hostel life taught me that. It also gave me time, the best thing that came out of getting stuck in this hell-hole and not having friends. You know up until a year ago, my friends were everything to me, then I let go. And things have changed, and suddenly the burden of feelings have lifted off my shoulders, I can be selfish, even rude if need be. And it doesn’t bother me, staying alone, sitting in front of the computer for so damn long that my eyes hurt, the head spin, and doing nothing but inspecting, everything. Just waiting and watching. And I learnt a lot, I needed the break that my third and (especially) the fourth semester provided me. It just slowed down things enough so I can relax and realize that I am going downwards and I must climb back. I also realized that the cynicism is drowning the hope inside of me. That good feeling that I am gonna be something great someday. And it happened. I found Q4R… I have started the climb back…

Hostel Life also gave me the treasure of e-books and movies. I happened to watch A Walk to Remember the other night, and darn, the movie is beautiful. And somehow somewhere I connected with it. For whatever reason as there maybe I understood much that was alien to me in a week since then, part of the reason why I have been idle. Anyway, coming back to the point…

“Love is like the wind, I cant see it but I can feel it.”

And the thing that I have been pondering about was love and soul mates, and existence of destiny. Is there really one perfect person for all of us? Are we all supposed to fall in love? Some vague memories come back to me of a piece that I have written about love, exactly where, I don’t remember but the essence was that to be able to fall in love you have to be a perfect 100, or perhaps, 90 and you make a hundred when you fall in love. 100 is not an age, but representative factor of state of perfection. Not everybody is there but everyone can get there. But you argue that people fall in love right and left, of course they do! You see that’s the point, the Romance, the passion dies… always. And hopefully what you are left with is trust and understanding. If you make it, you are perhaps 5% of the whole population, even lesser. I am willing to bet that more than 50% of couples either end up divorced, legally or otherwise. If you get the drift of what I mean….

A fourteen year old girl once said to me that I want to be married, and be in love till the end of my days, and not like my parents who sleep on the same bed but the love is lost. Or roughly that… I may have taken out a few suggestive phrases.

I believe the number to be at least 80%, but I have nothing to back me, no data. You live in a hostel and you look at the relationships around you. And there are weird facts. Like this couple, they are ethnically, culturally identical. I heard that sometime back when they were not a couple, both of them had categorically stated the other to be brother or sister as implied. On different occasions, yes, but stated as a fact. And yet around four months later they are consummating, in the literal sense!

Then there is this another couple, from what I know, they got together, then broke up, then I saw the guy assuring the girl that her back paper will be cleared, and darn it was cleared in revaluation! Amazing luck or money power? Either way they are back together.

(Note: Back papers can be cleared in our university, upon payment of certain amount of money through right channels)

Then there is the act of persuasion. From what I heard, some guys chased the girls. They were always there, trying to impress until the girls gave in.

Then there is this couple and for some reason it is the most talked about couple of the college, recently I had the opportunity to observe them closely. I can tell you this, they might have something deeper than most others, but the guy is definitely a fiend. But there is a lot of passion there… there is lot I must leave unsaid here, so you should really discard this one.

Then there is this guy, who speaks frankly. I spend money on her so that I can have sex with her. Awesome, if you ask me.

Then there is this couple, and they are really weird, both of them. The guy basically thinks that he is actually better than his girlfriend, looks-wise, and he could have gotten better deal. The girl says that there is no way that I will end up with this guy because my parents wont let me, I wont even ask them. They both claim to love the other one.

These are just a few lines; trust me to know more than that including some unmentionables. About them and others, and I have really inspected the dark side of the moon, rather closely. And I know that it really comes down to whether or not you want to go through with it or not. Out of the twenty odd relationships that I have seen, I don’t expect many to survive. And the ones that did, or will do wont be based on the love but others mitigating factors like for instance job. Girl gets in with Infosys, guy doesn’t get a job, they are over. Not exactly those facts, but you know what I mean. They will have to be equals, and its not just about the jobs. Equals as in how you see it, like imagine your better half and imagine it being part of your family, then imagine being part of his/her family, even if one of the two pictures is distorted, it wont fit. It also depends on the person, like me for instance, there is this need to bail out, get out of a relationship. To breathe free… The romance dies, but hopefully what you are left with is trust and understanding… and the romantic love that you dream of don’t really exist except perhaps in your imagination or for those 100 mark people. There is no happily ever after but a life, a real life, and a bytch of a life at that. And the best you can hope for is not the perfect 100, but for a someone who will be there, and someone for whom you will be there. As far as I am concerned, my heart is blocked, with an iceberg, I wont fall in love till I am sure that I can really prioritize the one girl…