L O V E

Our very lives are a testament to the fact that reincarnation cannot be contested. As many Eastern philosophers have suggested for centuries, reincarnation refers to the traditional rebirth that occurs after death — but beyond a mere theory about the afterlife, it encompasses the transformations that occur indefinitely throughout the course of our individual lives. Every moment that we are alive, we are exposed to new and unfamiliar situations that force us to reckon with the fragility of our identities. We are compelled to change — to reconstruct ourselves — in the pursuit of personal growth. Reincarnation therefore does not only consider the rebirth following physical decay, but the changes we choose to undergo every second that we are alive. It is a timeless feature of the human condition: that we are not static, but dynamic bodies forced to reckon with our ever-changing psychology. This is a frustrating reality, of course, and it certainly poses a threat to some of the most pervasive beliefs we hold, such as that of unconditional love. 

From Cinderella and Prince Charming to the love songs we dreamily indulge in, we consume the idea that true love is eternal once it is found. We do everything we can to find “the one.” We endure bad dates and scavenge Tinder and Bumble for hours on end, leaving the more intriguing questions about our emotions and sexualities to the fringes of media. This is compounded by the glamorization of romance in social media, the urgency to escape social isolation and our desperation to lead a meaningful life. But is it not also complicated by the fact that our fluid identities condemn us to a reality in which no one can truly understand us infinitely? Even the deepest of human understanding carries an inevitable undertone of fleetingness. And it is this contradiction between our changing selves and the permanent nature of unconditional love that leads me to question if the words “I love you” carry a truth beyond the moments they are uttered. After all, people change. They are cruel just as much as they are kind, and they are certainly prone to vices. So maybe love as we understand it is nothing more than a collective social hallucination, one that exploits our desire for permanence in the face of this endlessly changing world and our even more changing identities.

And maybe it is time to consider that we fall in love not with people, but with moments: a moment in which our lover is bold, a moment in which they excite us and a moment in which they exude kindness, compassion or any other quality we may deem worthy of love. And maybe love is not meant to linger infinitely but to be rekindled over and over again by meaningful gestures. And maybe there is nothing wrong with this. After all, it is what makes commitment so exciting: the idea that a person is not a territory to be conquered, but an evolving entity that you must endlessly aspire to win over the affection of. That is the truest declaration of love, not the marriages that constitute a $78 billon wedding services industry in the United States and almost 50% of which end in divorce, but the gestures we take on every day in the pursuit of true love.

What exactly am I suggesting then, with my seemingly cynical musings? Am I claiming that we break down the institution of marriage and enter a polyamorous society where it is forbidden to commit to one individual? Of course not. All I am saying is that maybe we got it wrong the first time around. Maybe some of us are lucky enough to find our one true love, but some of us aren’t. Maybe we were made to be freer when it came to love. Like Tomas in Milan Kundera’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being, who claimed that his romantic affection for one woman did not diminish the love he felt for another, maybe we were never meant to rely on one person to satisfy the many existential needs we could not fulfill ourselves. Tomas is certainly not an example to lead by given his womanizing tendencies, but maybe he is right that our lovers are not tokens to be won over and selfishly exploited. They are to be liberated from our desperation for exclusivity. And if they fall out of love with us, they ought to not be condemned for it. 

The beauty of human connection is in its power to paint our lives with meaning. Maybe our current conception of love restricts us. And maybe commitment was never meant to be a form of certainty, but only a greater gamble that at its core is equivalent to saying: “I understand that we have no idea who we are going to become in the next week, let alone the next day, and I will fight for your love every moment that you are reborn, over and over again,” to discarding the idea that your partner should not change for the knowledge that they will, and hopefully for the better. To grow together: That is what it means to honor another in the face of our impermanence. That is the ardor with which we should all aspire to love.

Who We Want To Be?

Note: The following post is not going to be the easy one. These are the realizations after months of meditation. It could change the way you look at life, if only you could grasp the sheer magnitude of it. 

First of all, let’s understand that humans are nothing more than one of thousands of different species on this planet. We, like birds or fish or dogs, live here for a period of time and then pass away. But unlike all other species, we are distinct in one thing: We contemplate our reason for being and deduce that there must be reason behind it. Think about it: Does a monkey ever ask, “Why am I here?” Does a whale ask “What is my purpose?” Does a goat think “Have I succeeded, am I happy?”

NO! No other species dwell on such things. They live their lives moment to moment. They do not plan their meals, they do not set their clocks and create their schedules, overbooking their time, so that they are constantly rushed. Only humans do these things. But why?

It is because humans and humans alone are intelligent enough to believe that there must be more. There must be reason for this. There must be a purpose.

And that’s where we are wrong. Now here’s a strong statement that is true: Everything about you, your sense of humor, your intelligence, your creativity, your compassion, your motivation; all of what makes you YOU, will be forgotten within two generations of your death. Your children will remember your love, and maybe your grandchildren but after them, you will only be a picture on a wall or a name in the annals of history. But what makes you who you are, distinct and unique, will be forgotten forever. Just like all other species. Sad.

Think about the most famous people you can. Alexander the Great, Jesus, Hitler, Gandhi… What were they like? Were they rude? Were they fun to hang out with? Were they happy or depressed? Nobody today really knows. They only live on in name and only because they were hugely popular – either famous or infamous. Nearly every single human who has lived and died is forgotten forever and you will most likely be one of them. That’s a fact!

So what’s our purpose? So many people want to know “What is my purpose in life?” The truth is, your purpose is merely to procreate to ensure the survival of the human species into the future, in the same way all other species procreate to ensure the survival of their species: To ensure that their genetic codes go on. Because if you don’t procreate, then all that remains of you will be lost with your death. And your life, as important as you’ve convinced yourself it was, was pointless.

The harsh reality is this, in the grand scheme of things, most of our contributions are totally meaningless. Do you think that in 1000 years someone will talk about that App you wrote? Or that excel spreadsheet you filled out? Or that business you ran? Will your name even be remembered? In most cases it will not be and we will disappear from all of history and be completely forgotten like so many before us.

So what’s the point then? Why even go on?

The point is this. You are here for a very short period of time and the fact that you are here is an invaluable gift.

So if there is stuff that’s hurting you; a bad job, a bad relationship, debt, stress… walk away from it. Don’t let things destroy this precious gift. And don’t buy into the lie that sitting behind a computer for 8 hours a day for a paycheck is going to fulfill you. It won’t. That’s a system built on lies. If there is something you want to do then do it before it is too late. Do it now!

Life will fly by and before you know it, you will be at the end of it. Don’t get to the end saying “I wish I had done this or that. I wish I had seen this. I wish…..

Do it when you can! Before it’s too late. Take risks. Because life is a gift that can be taken from you at any moment. Treasure it and enjoy it!

Keep spreading love <3

We've been here before

Far less than we are inclined to think, we are no strangers to suffering. As species, we know well how to be agonized- but, as media organisations deftly like to keep hidden, we know even better how to endure.

We’ve been here before when, in the 27th century BC, the Nile failed to flood for seven successive years and caused one of the first and largest famines in Egyptian history. Hieroglyphs record that the national calamity was resolved only when Pharaoh Djoser ordered the construction of a giant temple to appease the temperamental and vain Nile river god, Khnum: the waters rose again the following year.



We’ve been here before when, on 13 December 115 AD, a devastating earthquake hit the ancient city of Antioch, destroying three-quarters of its buildings and killing half of its 500,000 inhabitants in minutes. Reconstruction work continued for a decade.

We’ve been here before when a devastating tsunami shored at Alexandria on 21 July 365. 50,000 people were killed in the busy port city and its surroundings. The city’s Royal Quarter disappeared permanently underwater only to be rediscovered by a chance dig for a cable in 1995.

We’ve been here before when the first global bubonic plague pandemic began raging in Constantinople in 542, having entered via the busy trade routes from Asia. Known as the plague of Justinian, it continued to infect the Mediterranean world for another 225 years, disappearing only in 750 after killing some 50 million people.

We’ve been here before when, in 1346, the ‘Black Death’ arrived in Europe from the Russian steppes and killed a quarter of the continent’s population – an estimated 25 million people.



We’ve been here before when in 1519 Hernán Cortés landed on the shores of what is now Mexico and what was then the Aztec Empire bringing in his saliva the smallpox virus, which in the next hundred years killed ninety-five percent of the population of central and South America.

We’ve been here before when, on 23 January 1556, one of the deadliest earthquakes ever recorded in history occurred in the densely populated province of Shaanxi, China. Building collapses and mudslides killed an estimated 830,000 people.

We’ve been here before when the largest volcanic eruption in human history occurred at Mount Tambora, Indonesia in April 1815, killing 71,000 people and creating an ash cloud that reduced global temperatures by 0.4ºC, leading to major food shortages, epidemics and civil unrest around the world for the following three years.

We’ve been here before when monsoon failures in 1837 and 1838 led to famine in the north-western Indian provinces of Punjab and Rajasthan, killing 800,000 people. The economic and social disruption, and the cholera that came with it, live on in Indian memory to this day.

We’ve been here before when a third global bubonic plague pandemic broke out in 1894. The crisis lasted on and off for twenty years, its global spread accelerated by steam travel and the scale of imperial trade networks. Worldwide, 15 million died; India was by far the worst hit, with 12 million deaths.

We’ve been here before when, in 1896–8, over 95 per cent of Southern Africa’s cattle herds were wiped out by a devastating panzootic of rinderpest. Coinciding with a severe drought and crop failures, this resulted in unprecedented famine in the Northern Transvaal. Desperate, people ate roots, caterpillars and old animal hides; many resorted to drowning their children.


We’ve been here before when, in 1918–19, the influenza pandemic known as the ‘Spanish Flu’ killed over 50 million people, far eclipsing the deaths of the First World War, a mere 13 million.

We’re here now, we will be here again. None of this is to diminish for even a moment the individual immense sufferings of our own times. It is just to add – as the media always fail to mention – that there will  be a tomorrow.

An egg

You were on your way home when you died.

It was a car accident. Nothing particularly remarkable, but fatal nonetheless. You left behind a wife and two children. It was a painless death. The EMTs tried their best to save you, but to no avail. Your body was so utterly shattered you were better off, trust me.

And that’s when you met me.

“What… what happened?” You asked. “Where am I?”

“You died,” I said, matter-of-factly. No point in mincing words.

“There was a… a truck and it was skidding…”

“Yup,” I said.

“I… I died?”

“Yup. But don’t feel bad about it. Everyone dies,” I said.

You looked around. There was nothingness. Just you and me. “What is this place?” You asked. “Is this the afterlife?”

“More or less,” I said.

“Are you god?” You asked.

“Yup,” I replied. “I’m God.”

“My kids… my wife,” you said.

“What about them?”

“Will they be all right?”

“That’s what I like to see,” I said. “You just died and your main concern is for your family. That’s good stuff right there.”

You looked at me with fascination. To you, I didn’t look like God. I just looked like some man. Or possibly a woman. Some vague authority figure, maybe. More of a grammar school teacher than the almighty.

“Don’t worry,” I said. “They’ll be fine. Your kids will remember you as perfect in every way. They didn’t have time to grow contempt for you. Your wife will cry on the outside, but will be secretly relieved. To be fair, your marriage was falling apart. If it’s any consolation, she’ll feel very guilty for feeling relieved.”

“Oh,” you said. “So what happens now? Do I go to heaven or hell or something?”

“Neither,” I said. “You’ll be reincarnated.”

“Ah,” you said. “So the Hindus were right,”

“All religions are right in their own way,” I said. “Walk with me.”

You followed along as we strode through the void. “Where are we going?”

“Nowhere in particular,” I said. “It’s just nice to walk while we talk.”

“So what’s the point, then?” You asked. “When I get reborn, I’ll just be a blank slate, right? A baby. So all my experiences and everything I did in this life won’t matter.”

“Not so!” I said. “You have within you all the knowledge and experiences of all your past lives. You just don’t remember them right now.”

I stopped walking and took you by the shoulders. “Your soul is more magnificent, beautiful, and gigantic than you can possibly imagine. A human mind can only contain a tiny fraction of what you are. It’s like sticking your finger in a glass of water to see if it’s hot or cold. You put a tiny part of yourself into the vessel, and when you bring it back out, you’ve gained all the experiences it had.

“You’ve been in a human for the last 48 years, so you haven’t stretched out yet and felt the rest of your immense consciousness. If we hung out here for long enough, you’d start remembering everything. But there’s no point to doing that between each life.”

“How many times have I been reincarnated, then?”

“Oh lots. Lots and lots. An in to lots of different lives.” I said. “This time around, you’ll be a Chinese peasant girl in 540 AD.”

“Wait, what?” You stammered. “You’re sending me back in time?”

“Well, I guess technically. Time, as you know it, only exists in your universe. Things are different where I come from.”

“Where you come from?” You said.

“Oh sure,” I explained “I come from somewhere. Somewhere else. And there are others like me. I know you’ll want to know what it’s like there, but honestly you wouldn’t understand.”

“Oh,” you said, a little let down. “But wait. If I get reincarnated to other places in time, I could have interacted with myself at some point.”

“Sure. Happens all the time. And with both lives only aware of their own lifespan you don’t even know it’s happening.”

“So what’s the point of it all?”

“Seriously?” I asked. “Seriously? You’re asking me for the meaning of life? Isn’t that a little stereotypical?”

“Well it’s a reasonable question,” you persisted.

I looked you in the eye. “The meaning of life, the reason I made this whole universe, is for you to mature.”

“You mean mankind? You want us to mature?”

“No, just you. I made this whole universe for you. With each new life you grow and mature and become a larger and greater intellect.”

“Just me? What about everyone else?”

“There is no one else,” I said. “In this universe, there’s just you and me.”

You stared blankly at me. “But all the people on earth…”

“All you. Different incarnations of you.”

“Wait. I’m everyone!?”

“Now you’re getting it,” I said, with a congratulatory slap on the back.

“I’m every human being who ever lived?”

“Or who will ever live, yes.”

“I’m Abraham Lincoln?”

“And you’re John Wilkes Booth, too,” I added.

“I’m Hitler?” You said, appalled.

“And you’re the millions he killed.”

“I’m Jesus?”

“And you’re everyone who followed him.”

You fell silent.

“Every time you victimized someone,” I said, “you were victimizing yourself. Every act of kindness you’ve done, you’ve done to yourself. Every happy and sad moment ever experienced by any human was, or will be, experienced by you.”

You thought for a long time.

“Why?” You asked me. “Why do all this?”

“Because someday, you will become like me. Because that’s what you are. You’re one of my kind. You’re my child.”

“Whoa,” you said, incredulous. “You mean I’m a god?”

“No. Not yet. You’re a fetus. You’re still growing. Once you’ve lived every human life throughout all time, you will have grown enough to be born.”

“So the whole universe,” you said, “it’s just…”

“An egg.” I answered. “Now it’s time for you to move on to your next life.”

And I sent you on your way.

No time for Caution..?

'If the bee disappeared from the surface of the globe, then man would have only four years of life left' – Einstein

I woke up quiet confused, to this dream at midnight, and saw a bee struggling to find a way out of my room . Motioning her out of the window, I was still trying to decipher about the dream I saw

1.The Dream

I am in a trance state, and I am dying. And I rise out of my body, and I stare down at our whole suburb. The time is speeding up and I see whole generations coming and going and building bigger houses, and then eventually, people start spending more and more time staring at their smartphones. And soon enough they forget to clean their houses, water their garden or even eat food. And eventually all the houses rot and collapse, and the people disappear, vanishing completely into the internet. 

We are consumed by our smartphones, our internet, our entertainment. Empathy isn't our strongest suit anymore. Technology is penetrating and killing our consciousness through time. There are more devastating impacts than we can imagine, because of pedal-to-metal digital capitalism, which directly falls on the environment and the global poor. This "out of sight, out of mind" externalization of poverty and poison, doesn't go away, just because we have covered our eyes with VR goggles, immersed ourselves in augmented reality. The more committed we are to this view of the world, the more we see human beings as the problem and technology as its solution. The cycle is feeding itself. As time has evolved, the very essence of what it means to be a human is now treated less as a feature and more as a bug.

The thought process in my mind rippled, and I was unable to sleep neither was the bee willing to move out of my fiefdom, so I picked up a book named Holy Science by Swami Sri Yuketeswar Giri, for reading with a buzzing background score.

(Quick note- Listen the audio while reading for enhanced experience) 

2.The Science

We have learned from oriental astronomy that moons revolve around their planets and planets turning on their axes revolve with their moons around the sun. In about 24,000 years of our earth which causes backward movement of the equinox points around the zodiac. To put it in simpler terms, our entire solar system- our Sun with its family of planets, moon, asteroid, and comets- orbits elliptically, around the center of the Milky Way galaxy, at about 800,000 km/hr. And the time it takes to orbit around the center of the galaxy is around 24,000 years. During the revolution, the sun comes to the place nearest to this grand center - where Swamiji inscribes that the mental virtue, becomes so much developed that man can easily comprehend all, even the spirit beyond the visible world. And after 12000 years when the sun goes farthest from its grand center, brings complete change externally in the material world and internally in the intellectual world-  where this mental virtue comes to such a reduced state that man cannot grasp anything beyond gross material creation.  

The following courses of events in History make the case even stronger. In about 1600 AD, when Akbar the emperor of Delhi, established peace in India placing both the Hindus and the Mohammedan on an equal footing, Queen Elizabeth brought peace in Europe. In the scientific world, Gilbert discovered magnet and observed and asserted the existence of electricity in all material substances. In 1609, Kepler discovered the laws in astronomy and Galileo discovered telescope. In 1670 AD Hook and Newton discovered the law of gravitation about the same time. In this way science advanced but the theories were gradually reduced to practice as they began to contribute much to the happiness of mankind, until at a point of time around 19th century, when the Sun started moving away from the grand center, the man automatically began to depend heavily on this aforesaid knowledge and couldn’t develop or discover or invent anything beyond gross materialistic things. In the coming centuries, human intellect will become so shallow, that technology will evolve and take over from humans, making them mentally dysfunctional or even pushing them over the brink of extinction. Such is the great influence of time that governs the universe.

The book was published in 1894 and the theories of Swamiji were so astounding that even the modern-day scientists are gaping in awe.  Doing some groundwork on the World Wide Web, I tried to connect the dots further...

3.The Future

When Stephen Hawking was in his early 20s, he was told he only had two years to live but survived another 55. His unlike longevity is something the earth itself needs if it’s to survive the various calamities the genius cosmologist has predicted. 

In his later years, Prof Haw Hawking warned about the dangers of artificial intelligence, alien life, environmental degradation and shortsighted leaders. Here are some of the threats professor Hawking expects the human race to face

• If aliens visit us, the outcome would be much as when Columbus landed in America, which didn't turn out well for the Native Americans.It's estimated more than 80 percent of indigenous Americans were wiped out after Europeans made contact, thanks to disease, warfare and displacement. Prof Hawking said any aliens that reach Earth would be by definition more advanced than we are, making humanity the Native Americans in this scenario.  
• One of the major threats to intelligent life in our universe is the high probability of an asteroid colliding with inhabited planets. If these bodies impact Earth, they can cause regional damage across a whole country or even a continent. Last year Oumuamua, a bizarre asteroid from interstellar space, flew close by the Earth, and no one even realized it, until it had passed.
• A popular concept amongst futurists is the idea of the 'technological singularity' - the point at which computers are so powerful, it's quicker for them to design their own upgrades than rely on humans. The result is an exponential growth in computing power that far exceeds the breakneck pace set over the last 70 years, resulting in an artificial intelligence that supersedes that of humans. Humans, who are limited by slow biological evolution, won’t be able to compete and would be superseded.
•  Tesla and Space-X boss Elon Musk has made similar warnings. Also, Recently Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook boss shut down the development of A.I units for “unknown” reasons.
• Mr.Trump pulling the US out of the global Paris agreement, pushed the humanity over the brink. We are so close to the tipping point, where global warming becomes irreversible. 

"We must... continue to go into space for the future of humanity," he told Oxford University students in 2016. "I don't think we will survive another 1,000 years without escaping beyond our fragile planet."

He later downgraded that timeframe to 100 years - perhaps within our own lifetimes. 

4.The Conclusion

We shouldn’t really try to “Save the Earth”, instead we should try to save ourselves from the ecological Armageddon. 

We’ve pulled a bunch of fuck ups, and we are really quite confused, and alone and, frankly, scared. 

We are in the endgame now, and we can only hope to enjoy the privilege of being a semicolon in history, rather than a full stop.

The loud alarm clock drifted my attention, it was morning already. I examined, the buzz was gone, the bee didn’t move. I picked her up, taking her towards me and I listened ...listened more closely, “Times up” she whispered.

The Falling Man

**Quick Note- This is to be read while listening to the audio file attached below. Tuned to a simpler sound and language to match frequency of wider audience. For example: While listening to a new song track, the lyrics are read to get more depth. Use headphones for best effects**

Year 2008: I took a deep breathe and looked below, there was clean, soft water gently hugging the 10 meter tall landmass. Standing at the edge, in the bright sunlight, my courage was evaporating as my judgmental eyes locked for a long interval upon the curvy radiant skinned water body. I changed my frame quickly before my intentions to visit that spot alter. I engaged reverse and started moon-walking, to build up enough resistance to slingshot myself in the air. Upon reaching a position, I tilted my head left, right, up, down – a raw beautiful balanced world I witnessed. I kissed the earth, rubbed the feet back and forth on the soil, flexed the muscles, shrugged the shoulders, twisted the neck, clenched the fist and sprinted like a unicorn,  pressed my left foot on the edge and spread my hands wide open and let the momentum, gravitational force, mass and all the physics take care of it.

The joy, the thrill, the adrenaline rush, while flying in the air was unparalleled.I see, there’s the ball of fire ahead me, blue carpet of water below me, piles of soil behind me and this spirit of air engulfing me. As I resumed my parabolic journey, I noticed some small changes were happening in the nature. My heartbeat lowered. My descending velocity slowed down. For every meter it took me an year. And for every year the elements factoring my journey started changing.

Before coming to the cliff,  that day in school, I had learned this term in my 9^th grade Science textbook- “Climate change”. No, the definition, explanation, causes or preventive measures won’t be followed after this. Because I know ,you know and Everyone knows! While stuck in the limbo, I could see-

-Heat—Calcification--Incalescence- -Swelter--Suffocation--Artic circle above 32 F-- Leaking lakes of methane gas in Siberia-- Changing 2 degrees has caused mass extinction – Melting Glaciers – Oceans above 7 centimeter higher-- Drought in Amazon – Changes in migration-- Disruption in pollination-Decreased plant growth-- Zika in Florida-- Ignorance from government--Australian heat wave-- Somalian drought-- Greenland forest fires-- “Lucifer” heat wave-- Atlantic hurricane season-Bali Volcano eruption--Lakshwadeep Okhi--

Year 2018: As my journey was coming to end, coughing, panting choking in the smog; I looked around for the last time, the Earth behind was mined and was dumping ground of e-waste, ozone had depleted ,sun was intolerably hot, dead bodies of aquatic organisms were floating in dark brown- black colored liquid. As I inched closer terrified, devastated, facing my face, the reflection grinned back at me. I closed my eyes and took a deep breathe,  for one last time!

The destruction or the changes caused to the nature are  irreversible. Remember, nature will always have the last laugh. You cannot save the nature, but you can now only hope or pray for it to save you!Respect its existence or expect resistance. This was not just a fall, it was a fall of homo-sapiens. While all these little minds are stuck quarreling , chattering, fighting  over USA-North Korea, Pakistan-Kashmir, China- Doklam, Iran-Syria,  we should realize that our real common enemy is Global Warming.   Don’t just watch Game of Thrones, understand Winter is really here, Climate change is very fucking real. Climate change is the single biggest thing humans have ever done on this Planet, the only thing that needs to be bigger is our movement to stop it!

“If all insects were to disappear from the Earth, within 50 years all life on the Earth would end. If all human beings disappeared from the Earth, within 50 years all forms of life would flourish.”

An Electric shock to the Environ-Mentals!

I was washing my hands full of mud after settling a life in a pot in my small little garden, which brings me to the biggest conundrum when it comes to saving the environment.  Once you are done with your deed and you wash your hands, how do you wipe them dry? With a disposable paper towel? It is most effective and convenient , especially if it is made of recycled paper. But perhaps an entire forest was razed to make all that paper. A fancy hotel places a tray full of cloth towels. Which seems eco friendly. Use, wash and Re-use. But can you imagine the amount of cloth towels that get to put away for a wash after a single wipe within 24 hours in such place? And you think the energy consumed in getting them laundered involves butterflies and dew drops?

The only method that involves no deforestation and no landfills is a blow dryer. Most give out a gentle whiff of air that’s only good at drying out your last molecule of patience. But there effective ones that dry your hands real quick. The power for these powerful dryers doesn’t come from that tiny solar panel placed on the roof many years ago on World Environment Day. It comes from smoke spewing power stations. Speaking of smoke spewing, India is aiming for all electric car fleet by 2030, which means petrol and diesel would be tanked. Not because fossil fuels will end. But because of “conscious decision” by Ministry of Power and Renewable energy to eliminate everything that will make our air, water and planets dirtier.

In the good old days, when naturally aspirated engines used to work on streets, which were until about April 2014, there was only one thing that annoyed me. The look on people’s faces when I used to fish out my five year old dumbphone. I loved my dumbphone. It had GPS navigation with simple browser, I could browse, access multiple email accounts, send and receive emails with attachments. More importantly, it had two-three day battery life. Besides it used to fit in pockets, nooks and crannies. But then, Google stopped support for Gmail on Java based phones- dumbphones for you and me.

Thanks to planned obsolescence, I finally gave into a smartphone. It had 1 Gigs of RAM and 8 Gigs of memory. But before I get to know its full features the device was already outdated. If I had to replace any part it either cost me the price of new phone or it wasn’t available because my phone is too ancient.

Which is when it struck me. Motown isn’t the best of health. But Silicon valley is thriving. A car, if maintained well, lasts ten years. A flagship smartphone lasts three years before you start complaining about lack of storage, lack of battery and how apps don’t open as fast as they used to.

Sure a car is several times more expensive than a phone. But when you buy a communication device, whether for 10k or 80k, it’s ridiculous that it can’t provide three years of hassle free service. This, when cars in the developed world, with infrastructure that’s easier on wear and tear, can clock in seven figures on their odo and keep running. It may seem cars will continue being that- work horses that keep running if you provide fuel and service.

But I am not so sure. You see Silicon Valley is already at the forefront of the automobile revolution that’s taking place as you are reading this. Fully electric cars, driverless cars, cars which communicate with other cars. We have gone much beyond electric cars now. But electric cars have the same problems as phones. Battery packs. They take time to charge and over months their ability to hold a charge diminishes. Cars are going to be about software. If your manufacturer or a Google abandons operating system and security updates for the connected cars older than a couple of years, you wouldn’t be as eager to look up new cars on Amazon.

The automobile is polluting, crude slow and relies on century old tech. Agreed. But the automobile is the only consumer durable product, that’s hardy; tough can take beating and last a decade and never become obsolete unless you drive it off a cliff. You see the problem with our lot is we always take the pitchforks and sickles to the evil that’s in front of our eyes. But are blissfully ignorant of the evils we don’t see.

The super sleek, super light smartphone on which you might be reading, emits 2,25,000g of carbon in its manufacturing process. That’s as much as a Porche 911 emits over 1000km. And this is obviously not your first laptop or smartphone. Do consider what happens to the gadgets we discard. And what can possibly happen when these cars turn into mere electric gadgets! The electric cars we would see may not pollute, but the contribution to environment in the manufacturing, maintenance and disposal won’t be much clearer  than the point which I am trying to make.

A study by the Central Pollution control Board and the National Environmental Engineering Research Institute reveals that the percentage contribution of particulate matter in the air by petrol cars is 0.06 percent and diesel cars is 1.17 percent. And would you want to know the star contributors in this list? Bakeries- 5.8% , Paved road dust – 11.8% , Unpaved road dust- 17.76%, Construction- 8% , Garbage dump burning – 10.84%, and right at the top , Powerplants-20.99%

Pollution and its pitfalls are true. But if we are going to comprehensively target only objects with tailpipes – much less diesel engines above 2000cc as the sole reason for bad air and diseases, then let that be some sort of personal satisfaction. Because that’s doing nothing to eradicate pollution.

I do feel like taking a naturally aspirated inline six cylinder petrol Porche  and howling and burning some rubber and doing a orchestra in front of the premises of the  Ministry of State for Power and Renewable energy to make them understand the seriousness. But this blog is all I have…

Maybe I will start with a “conscious decision” to save environment by walking out of the washroom with dripping hands.

The Round Up... Of Applause?

Unaware of the fact that he was around me, while I was searching for him for one whole revolution, I stretched my back.

Meet the person of the year 2016: The quintessential Indian hypocrite.

You would have met him everywhere. In queues outside ATMs, banks and multiplexes, chanting slogans, waging WhatsApp jihad, supporting boycott calls on Twitter, railing against his own countrymen and bleeding from his desktop for soldiers on the border.

His principle: Preach in public exactly the opposite of what you practise in private.

His dharma: Hate in others what you want to hide about yourself.

The year belonged to him. He screamed, shouted, outraged, pointed one finger at others, forgetting the direction of the other four. But as Ralph Waldo Emerson said: "What you do speaks so loud that I cannot hear what you say."

India has always been an amusing bundle of contradictions, a lexicon of oxymorons. We worship at the altar of female goddesses, but have a skewed sex ratio. We boast of sanskars and lofty ideals but practice casteism, demand dowry and have a maniacal obsession with male children.

We are the land of Kamasutra, Khajuraho and have the highest growth rate of population, but we also have Pahlaj Nihalani who fears moral regression of the vulnerable masses if James Bond kisses for half-a-minute on the screen. We are a country that sings bhajans of Meera and Kabir but ends up revering Radhey and Asaram as 'Maa' and 'Bapu'.

We are a country, which, in true Oscar Wilde fashion, is so clever that it doesn't mean a single word it says.

But, sometimes a country's polity and society combine to create circumstances and debates that expose our deeper contradictions, expose bigger hypocrisies. And gave us many shades of the quintessential Indian hypocrite.

This year we had the kaala dhan warrior. He rejoiced when Prime Minister Narendra Modi outlawed notes of higher denomination. In a delirium of patriotism, moral propriety and schadenfreude, he announced the end of black money and the corrupt — everyone apart from, of course, himself.

But, by next morning the kaala dhan warrior rushed to launder unaccounted cash, adjust accounts, put every bit of outlawed currency into bank accounts, announcing at the end of the day, "Yaar, apna to adjust ho gaya."

He called it a surgical strike on the corrupt, rich and powerful and then bathed in the flowing Ganga of connivance and corruption with co-hypocrites — the broker, the banker, holder of Jan Dhan accounts, presumably the people hit most by kaala dhan.

Nothing captured the prevailing hypocrisy more than the constant changes in deposit and withdrawal rules to counter his propensity to circumvent laws that were hailed in public — Bharat Mata ki Jai — and violated in private.

We had the holier-than-thou fanatic. By day he slammed fanatics of ''that religion" for not allowing a cricketer's wife to wear a gown. He mocked the utter lack of freedom in that religion, the tyranny of those opposing their religious and moral codes on others. By night he railed at a celebrity couple's choice of name for their newborn, opposed a woman's freedom to choose her husband, a person's choice of food, a producer's choice of the actor he wanted to cast in his film.

His ideological rival, behaved in an identical fashion. He defended a mother's right to call her son Taimur, but not a woman's right to protest Triple Talaq or wear a gown, proving hypocrites of the world have just one religion — hate.

We had the pious gau bhakt. He declared cow as his mother, advocated lynching of men for eating beef, skinning carcasses, but blithely went past bovines looking for food in heaps of garbage lying on roads of 'Swachh Bharat', ignored hundreds dying in cow shelters.

He was the bleeding heart patriot who blasted others for complaining of hardships when soldiers were dying on the border but encouraged his children to look for the best overseas job, leaving the vacancies in the Army for the neighbour's son to fill. He shed Twitter tears when soldiers died in natural disasters in Siachen but laughed when people died in queues outside banks due to a man-made disaster or at Jantar Mantar while demanding one-rank-one pension.

He was the angry desh bhakt who danced to Rahat Fateh Ali Khan's songs, sang out aloud Honey Singh's "g@#*d mein dam hai to band karwa lo'' at parties but protested Ghulam Ali's ghazal concerts. He gloated when Indian beat Pakistan in hockey but felt outraged at the thought of cricketers and kabaddi players taking on their cross-border rivals. He lamented when one state government spent a few hundred crores on ad campaigns but puffed his chest in pride when another government announced it would put Rs 3,600 crore in the Arabian Sea to showcase a warrior in a state with high rates of farmer suicides and history of droughts.

Finally, he was the social media jihadist who advocated bans on apps of online retailers endorsed by Aamir Khan but rushed to its stores every time a sale was announced. He was the Twitter activist who sought a ban on Chinese items but queued up for flash sales of mobiles made in China, paid for them through Paytm. He was the intolerant troll who wanted films to be boycotted, actors to be punished but bought tickets first-day-first-show, tamely surrendering crores in the dangal of box office, putting his money where the mouth wasn't.

No, 2016, didn't belong to Narendra Modi, Arvind Kejriwal, Rahul Gandhi, Urjit Patel, Aamir Khan or Salman Khan. It belonged to the quintessential hypocrite who amused and entertained us throughout the year, proving right Somerset Maugham who famously said, "It cannot, like adultery or gluttony, be practiced at spare moments; it is a whole-time job."

Congratulations, all of us gave it one full year.

*pats on the back*

Are you kidding me?

The first job I did when got off from the station, I went to this person whom I didn’t really feel like visiting to -  The Barber. The last thing I remember, I was sneaking inside my own house at late night, my grandfather was beating the hell out of me, thinking me as a sort goon or thug or something, until I handed him over his glasses.

Anyways, so I went to this phony saloon, as this No Shave November was also over, for over the fifth time. After taking half measures, I walked out of this fancy shop as a ninth grader, oil on my head, powder on my body, with almost no hair above my neck. Holy cow! I was feeling like a goddamn kid!

I thought now I could not go back in public or hang out with buddyroos or travel in local trains or anything, as these transgender guys would flock around me and say “aye chikne” and pull my cheeks and all. I jumped inside a nearest OLA (no I won’t be getting brand integration money and shit) , so this car was really crumby, I didn’t care much. I was too depressed to care anymore. The person who was going to be my chauffer was an old guy. He was even more depressing than the cab was. Before getting in he asked me if I had any change or debit card or something. Ya know this goddamn demonetization circus and all. This stupid sonuvabitch seemed to be  silent but intelligent as he had magazines and stuff in his damn car. That made me sick.

I initiated some talk with this conceited old man so at least I wont feel nauseated. “What a pain in the ass this Modi government has become. Like suppose Rahul Gandhi was our leader, the life would be peaceful as hell”

He looked at me through the mirror in a peculiar way, “What do you mean?”

“Like he cares about the country and people and stuff so he wont do something like demonetizing for the heck of corruption or something. Also he is sort of wise guy, so he would enjoy his term and keep things like they are and people will also be having merry time doing corruption and inflating the market.

If not him this old woman Jayalalitha was also quiet good. I mean she was pretty intelligent. Served for about six terms as a chief minister doing nothing but slamming her own public for derogatory statements which criticized her government for water scarcity or not fulfilling poll promises and all. She even gave a leading search engine a notice of defamation for posting that her health condition was not good while serving her last days in hospital. Dang! Must say she was one hell of a cool old woman.”

“How old are you kid?”, he interrupted me.

“Sixteen, dawg!”, I gave him a believable answer like my face-lift my language-shift and all, I was sort of smooth to be one those cool kids.

“You know, we are in very good hands now. This is a short term trouble for a long term benefit.”  Boy, he sounded as serious as a batman and was looking at me like I was a madman.

But I had to keep talking so I won’t puke on his head, ”You gotta be kidding, like there’s this hero Arvind Kejriwal who is more capable national leader. An IITian, an IRS officer and what not. He is quite brilliant like when Delhi’s current air quality index is marked at 265 he is implementing this genius idea of odd-even rule. Simply clever. Whilst other stupid cities of Europe when detected their air quality index of 54, they panicked and made all public transport free and doubled their funds to tackle air pollution and what not. What a waste.

He is the best, hands down. From taking potshots at Prime Minister to posting videos on YouTube to tell the world  Narendra Modi and BJP chief Amit Shah were conspiring to murder him, so they could stay in power. Most Indians would loathe to hear and ponder over what the Delhi chief minister broadcasted on the internet against his country's PM but Kejriwal as usual is playing both victim and hero. Victim because, he claims to be constantly on the receiving end of a conspiracy unleashed through the Income Tax, Delhi Police and CBI and hero, because he and only he has the guts to fight a tyrannical Modi regime at the Centre. He presents himself to be the only hope of the people and thus Modi wants to eliminate him and his party leaders. Masterstroke! He is the Donald Trump with a graduate degree from each college of Ivy League.

I guess we need more leaders like them to end the first world problems as soon as possible.”

I heard the tires screeching, I guess the driver drove as fast as he could to my destination. Ah! It seemed at least somebody was getting rid of their problem.

While getting down to ease his troubled mind I asked him to read my last post in which I was talking about waking up and getting serious and stuff. Upon reading, he jumped on his toes and exclaimed boisterously, ”Are you trying to kid me, bud?” He showed me this recent article by Stephen Hawking.

The article was so dope, it baked me. I smirked saying  thank you and bidding goodbye to him. He shouted from a distance, “Sir , How do you think we can clean this mess of unscrupulous leaders?”

I laughed, “I don’t know, may be ‘BARBAR’ them.”

Are you awake enough?

A pleasant evening. It was a holiday so had decided to chill out, which I do pretty much my entire semester. Being an audiophile I was testing my brand new headphones streaming brand old songs and singing aloud the crapella version of it, “Like my father’s come to pass, seven years has gone so fast, wake me up when September” just right then a flying saucer like object hit my head. I turned at my mom and said, “let me at least put ‘end’ to the song and why are you throwing dishes on me, dad is sitting right there.” Upon that reply another dish came flying towards me.

Well it is quite obvious to get hit when you are not at all serious about your life and shamelessly singing loudly like a frog infront of an elder who has appointed you to do some work.It is also agreeable ,that being a ‘young-can-do-it-all-grownup’ you are not supposed to laze around especially infront of your parents and especially -especially when you are an engineer! Pretty much everything changes after that “e”-word transits your life to “f”-word. From plumber to mechanic, from fixing that neighbor’s computer to buying and negotiating the tomatoes with vegetable vendor, ” 20Rs ka kidhar bhaiyya, 15 ka rate shuru h” all because you are running low on your pocket money. In a similar fashion, I had got the work-some-save-some-earn-some opportunity.

Old newspapers were to be scrapped. I thudded inside the balcony where they were piling up. Residing on the top floor of the high-rise building, I enjoyed an open view of trees, mountains, lakes and nice abstract art of pigeon shit. I started alienating the by-mistakenly-thrown-notes of the paper where I thought I would pass but I dint. Assorting the papers, thinking how much money I would make out of them, I smirked, when I came across the news of UPA government slamming NDA government for the Union Budget, probably the first person to be profitable because of the Union Budget*literally*

I jolted as I read the word Union Budget; indeed to the economists, business analysts this word meant a huge deal but to me it was a quick time-shift. I mean January lasted for about 3 minutes for me and I am pretty sure I just entirely skipped February. Impetuously I flipped the stack of newspaper and decided to time travel. Swimming my way up in the ocean of stories I surfaced up with some disturbing things which can drown the whole world.

“One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors” -Plato

Surprisingly two-thousand four hundred and sixteen years later his quote is still trending when I see Donald Trump leading in the presidential elections of the most powerful country in the world. Series of memes and ‘funny Trump’ moments may have surfaced the internet but we have ignored the fact that he has already won three states and is leading the most Super Tuesday states, which is a big deal. Since 1988 every candidate who has won the most states on Super Tuesday went on to become their party’s nominee. So at this point Donald Trump is America’s back mole, it may have seemed harmless a year ago but now that he has gotten frighteningly big, so big that even the secret services are being employed to stop Donald Trump. The reason why he is getting plethora of votes, what his supporters had to say,” I think he is a credible businessman, if he runs the country like he runs the organization I think we will be in good shape.” This sounds felicitous for a moment because of the rich and successful status he has. But because he is rich therefore he knows politics has the same internal logic as I am a vegetarian therefore I know karate. He is currently observed loaning $18million to fund his own campaign. Why would he do that if he is significantly rich and has earned more money than most of us will make in a lifetime? Because the fact is not only did he get multi-million dollars inheritance from his father but he has also lost a huge amount. His own daughter described the state of his finances in one interview,” My father and I were walking down the fifth avenue and there is a homeless person sitting right outside of Trump Towers and I remember my father pointing to him and say that the guy has eight billion dollars more than me.” Explaining how indebted he was.  Whatever we think about Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz at least they know where they stand but Trump’s opinion has been wildly inconsistent. When asked about what he had to defeat ISIS, he simply replied without any hesitation,” We need to take out their families and basically kill all Muslims.” This was the front runner of Republican nomination advocating a war crime, and he might say he was joking or changed his mind but when this racist, unstable, hysterical, himbo will sworn in as President on that day his opinions are going to matter, to US, to us.

And just when we pray that sufferings of America should end; enters North Korea- “Attention, United States of America. This is your final warning before we destroy you completely.”  Kaboom. The not-so Democratic People’s Republic of Korea hash North Korea is one of the most fascinating countries in the world. They live by this weird sort of ideology called “juche” which is the bizarre sort of Marxist-Leninist-Socialist hybrid. North Korea is like that lonely, slightly sociopathic guy at a party who sits in a corner and doesn’t talk to anyone- “hey bro, you enjoying the party? We are doing shots” “Yeah, so am I. Just fired missiles at your house.”  Where South Korea is famous for Gangnam style, North Korea is getting famous for its Bombnam style. Things started getting really serious, when their Supreme leader Kim Jong Un declared that they have been testing hydrogen bomb. The guy is as wacky as his name, known for holding the title of ‘World’s most cruel dictator’; this no DC no Marvel very real supervillain destroys whatever comes his way. It is genuinely worrying that a guy like Kim Jong Un who has no military training is in charge of one of the largest military and nuclear forces in the world. And with that he has a fanatic reputation for shooting people. He had his defence minister executed and shot. Not with a pistol or an AK-47 like normal psychopaths but with an anti-aircraft gun- a weapon designed to attack aircrafts. So he must have shot him because of some serious crime, right? Like treason? corruption?  Spying? Nah.nah.nah. He had him shot because he allegedly fell asleep in Kim Jong Un’s  presence!

It is really scary how much power this guy has an access to. Here is some perspective. North Korea is just over 120,000sq.km in size. That is just slightly smaller than Tamil Nadu. Despite that it is among the top 5 biggest Nuclear powers in the world. They have military strength of close to a 1.5 million soldiers where each knows 1.5 million combat moves. For lot of us Kim Jong Un is just some fat dude we see in newspaper. But he and North Korea are capable of doing some serious damage, which could possibly trigger the next world war.

And we may have diffused one bomb named Rahul Gandhi, there are still many explosives like Tejashwi Yadav- deputy chief minister of Bihar, Kanhaiya Kumar-JNU President, waiting to do a damage. And this should come as a warning to all of us. One half of the human race is at war with the other, which is worse than an attack of flying saucer like objects(U.F.Os) on human beings. This is the time to get serious about your, mine and everyone's life. This is the time to WAKE UP, because the world can end before the September ends. GOOD MORNING!