God is a U.F.O

‘Nuff said. God is nothing but an unidentified flying object, floating somewhere in the almost irrevocable piece of the unknown above. (Or below, however you’d like to see it.)

Just a thought that occurred to me with some Coldplay skipping.

x EdgyShark x

Quaking Patience In Bits And Pieces

“If we weren’t unanimous about keeping our lives so much in motion, if we could do nothing for once, perhaps a greater silence would interrupt this sadness, this never understanding ourselves and threatening ourselves with death, perhaps the earth is teaching us when everything seems to be dead and then everything is alive.” – Pablo Neruda

The earth shattering, people-stirring, ground shaking earthquake in Japan’s moved the entire world, if not other planets in the galaxy, to a great extent. Suddenly, people are thinking about the 2012 movie and pledging to the grateful dead. And it got me wondering, why does every earthquake take place in Japan? Why does every tsunami or hurricane hit the worst in the Americas?

The reason simply put is this: Because there is no introspection taking place in these countries.

According to almost all kinds of sources available in the world today, Japan and the US are the two countries that have been striving to outdo each other in almost every aspect. The competition began on a personal level and went on defy boundaries on the continents. In terms of economics, social and cultural patterns, and modern technology, the fight has been going on like undefeated warriors in the arenas of the ancient Romans.

No  one wants to stop, no one is willing to put a hold on anything and give a little credit to the other. No matter how many years go by, the two countries will continue to compete and kill.

The Egyptians hold a great amount of glory for their undisputed past; Every other person in India is so well educated in terms of his roots and values if not for knowledge and learning; The reason for vanity in the Europeans is their rich culture and holding on to it all despite all the changes taking place in the world.

At least in these places, even if there is some amount of advancement taking place, people owe it to their forefathers and not jump onto the bandwagon to perfect the creation asap?

What I’m trying to say is that just like Neruda wrote (and I quoted on top)  that people are so obsessed with “being modern” and creating more and more technology that they forget the fact that they control computers and not the other way around. This has been happening the most in countries like Japan and the US.

All kinds of scope for positivity has been lost in a manner that the only kind of emotion people spread onto others is their negative retrospect about things. Plus, it’s easier to share negativity in hopes of shoving it on someone else in the process and trying to forget the bad things existed.

People in these countries do not take time out to worship nature or thank it for what it has done and are facing the green war now. There is no silence; only the buzz of engines and machinery at all times of the day.

People have forgotten what they were in the beginning of time and where they come from. They forget that their only job is to spread love and peace among mankind. When the world ends, all technology will too. But if people survive, they will be living on to the threads of love that they were given by others.

Our planet is probably trying to teach us a lesson by letting us know, that if we do not keep silent on our part, it will not as well. There’s no time being taken out to introspect within and find out the source of happiness from people. Unless people try and look inside their now turned bleak hearts, they will be able to witness the kind of sadness they have been causing themselves due to so much neglect.

Why are people NOW saying Pray For Japan? Why weren’t people praying before? Because they didn’t know the consequences of their acts then, and now they do. Every single time a calamity hits naturally, people begin to understand how important the planet is to us and then with time, soon forget that it can jolly well come back and pinch us right on the nose without us being aware.

The damage is done. The only thing they can hope for now is that the praying brings about some sort of harmony within humanity in a way that people stop trying to achieve more and more all the time. Life is not a big fucking competition, and people need to get that in their heads.

So STOP and listen to your hearts and do something nice for a change. All this vying and negativity is easy to vent out and good once in a while, but in the long run it makes you turn against yourself.

And then there’s really no coming back.

x EdgyShark x

Appetite For Hope – The Akshaya Patra Foundation

The sun is the supreme power of the universe; it keeps every object, whether living or not, alive. It has the strength to exuberate zeal in the greyest of skies, most withered blossoms, and can even put a smile on a child’s innocent countenance.

The intense vibrant rays of the sun have been known to act as fodder for man since times immemorial. Man walked the Earth because the sun invited him to come out of the shadows and play; it fed him, and helped him exist.

When the five Pandava brothers wandered the forests in exile, in search of substance to hush their pangs of lust for food, as well as for the holy sages around them, constant prayer brought them to the notice of Lord Surya, who then presented them with the Akshaya Patra or inexhaustible vessel of food.

Akshaya Patra

 

Rich with such cultural history, our past has taught us about the importance of providing life to other beings around us; helping the underprivileged before we help ourselves. Sometime ago, Madhu Pandit Dasa, (under the influence of Swami Prabhupada) a humble and simple hearted man, rose to the epiphany that if it were within his power, he would not let anyone, especially young children, go hungry.

It was this determination that has today helped to establish a successful mid-day meal program for underprivileged children across this vast nation of ours.

These young minds deserve the right to live as much as anyone else, and it all boils down to the satiation that they receive by consuming a few food grains at the end of the day. The Akshaya Patra Foundation was thus formed because of the brain child of someone so kind and loving; someone who was willing to spend his waking hours for the betterment of the greater good.

Today, the Foundation reaches out to around 1.2 million children on a daily basis- truly ‘inexhaustible’ only because of help and aid it achieves from far and wide, across the country in terms of its finances, employees, and love, care and assistance that it receives.

I urge you to take time out to think about how you could help to improve the health of small children, just by donating a meager amount, right here —> http://www.akshayapatra.org/online-donations that would go towards filling their stomach. After all, even they have the right to live a happy life, and hope for a better tomorrow.

It is time to reach out to those who really need our help, and how better to do it than to do it through the reaches of Akshaya Patra, an organization dedicated towards the lives of the country’s future.

Because at the end of the day, you will notice, that if your heart is full, then you won’t really feel that hungry.

x EdgyShark x

The Forgotten Homeland

I had a fairly tough time explaining to my chauffeur earlier this evening, as to why, we as humble citizens of this nation should not succumb to fear and ridiculing, that politicians around us make us feel. The roads were empty as he drove irritated in order to make me reach yet another of my casual frolic filled appointment with a friend.

I put my earphones back in as I heard him use the hindi equivalents for ‘snob’, ‘always do what you feel like’, and ‘never understand my point of view’.

The Ayodhya verdict was finally out and it’s been decided, quite obviously, to divide the land equally so that everyone gets a fair share and our country witnesses its first civilized exchange of greetings, on a national scale, on the basis of religion at least.

Terrorism and violence or nothing at all, most people stayed ‘safely’ locked in their own homes, trying to breach out comforts from their television sets, because that’s what apparently “everyone else is doing too, so I should follow suit.”

Let’s first look at the objective of spreading terror or simply getting into a not-called-for public brawl: The idea is to instill a sense of unnecessary fear in the minds of the irrelevant, because they are the target group that consists of the unaware and the ones who simply wouldn’t bother much. People like you and me; Of course we feel for our country, but tomorrow if some monument got demolished, it wouldn’t make much of a difference. Because we have been taught to embrace things with grace, and that comes with time and patience – where time may not heal things, but simply make us forget about certain facts, which otherwise remain recorded in the books of the legislature at large.

Do you think it’s wrong if I called you a hypocrite when one hand you blame these political parties, and on the other quite obediently listen to them when they impose strikes and riots without taking your consent?

It’s time to handle things more maturely. It’s high time to practice exactly what we preach, or have been preaching. Gandhi, the father of our proud nation, once taught us the meaning of a simple word: non-violence. That was one thing that the foreigner colonies were not able to take away from us; that was one specialized resource that no East India Company was able to siphon off from us.

So where is that simple emotion lost today? Is Gandhi’s birthday only to be celebrated as another day off on school calendars, another day off to sleep in on a working day or another bottle of alcohol to cherish on the first night of October because the next day can be spent working off the hangover since it’s a public holiday?

And you call yourself a citizen of this nation? On what grounds?

Take the day off, sure. But let some positivity and enthusiasm to do something better thrive within your conscience. Learn to say no to what you feel is wrong, with an open heart, because differences only creep in due to negative emotions.

These great men have become a part of history for a greater cause. They tried to feign evil and wrong doing in the most sophisticated manner possible, known. Yet, that’s not all. They’ve left behind a legacy for the rest of us to follow, something that’s rotting away with time and getting lost in this world that we’re living in.

Something that is getting mauled by the over-adoption of western cultures; something that is already ours, which we might possibly only learn to value after it will be lost within this ever expanding universe of conformity.

So open your minds quicker, time’s ticking away.

x EdgyShark x

Chessboard of Divine Fantasies

Have you ever wondered how a chess board might be something that depicts life in its true form? The various pieces form a part of the world, and it doesn’t matter what day or age we survive in. The fair get the first chance and apartheid prevails. Each piece moves well, protecting itself from the war waging in front of it, and at the same time, trying to please everything else around it.

Two colors, two sides; a contradiction. Like matter and antimatter.

Because everything has an opposition, another side to it.

The King standing high and mighty, guarded by everyone else, will do anything to not let himself lose. Much like the princes and kings in the olden days, much like the dominating and powerful that rule the commercial and corporate world today. His Queen looks on as he plays his Pawns and Rookies away, gambling them without a care, in order to keep himself from losing the battle.

He tries to then absolve himself of his sins by making his subordinates pay for his wrongs. Criminal acts committed by virtue of being a source of mere repentance. An actor on the stage, living in a world of pretense and false joy. He believes in something, yet stands ground on the color of the cause of the revolution.

The Queen doesn’t utter a word. She knows that she is but another jewel in her King’s crown. Afraid to let loose her voice and ask for a change, she goes on as he wants her to, knowing fully well that his mind isn’t even with her. He is in the cave, amusing himself with material aspects, yet she holds on because she knows that at the end of the day, he will come back to her; either dead or alive.

The Rooks form a different form of humanity altogether. Many of them involved with the all mighty, waiting to be given special orders to carry out. Wandering the alleys at night with one hand on their pistols, they will do anything to survive because they know that they are the King’s right hand men, and they will be treated with care come what may.

The King so humble during the day with his subjects;

The same King “holier” by night.

One wrong move could put them in his bad books and be the end of them. What happens then to their families who live by with false notions of them providing justice to the world with professions that have a service motive?

The Bishop believes in the power of religion and has made many attempts to convert all those around him into believing the same. He has been through this ordeal throughout his life. Yet, standing on that alternate square, he makes his own moves, and with every move he thinks to himself whether he is doing right, or not quite right at all.

That same Bishop, a moral example for society on the outside. On the inside, he is simply a man trying to get God to forgive him for all the sins that he has knowingly and secretively committed. For being a Bishop has given him his sense of power. His fellow beings view him as a component of God, worship him, listen to him.

And he, by night, blends into them. He creeps into the depth of the night and gives in to all that he is against. A hypocrite, like all the others.

The Knight has sworn his allegiance to the powers around him. He has taken it in his stride that it is his duty to protect everyone. Yet, he jumps across the barricades and finishes of whoever he can. No, it doesn’t matter to him who he is killing, as long as he is doing that, he has been promised a standard routine.

The Pawns are  played along in the game like no other. There is no hope for them because they have no choice but to do what they are told to. They have nothing to fall back on, and getting wiped off the board would seem better than to live on a strenuous life without even possessing the basic amenities.

And, an enemy line captured can bring back every other piece but a Pawn. Because who would want the incrementing size of humanity to increase ever more?

Ruthless and fascinating, the stark world we live in, changing with every move of error and brilliancy.

x EdgyShark x

Whacked Out Foresight

Till sometime back, I was feeling inclined towards the entire political line as a career. I don’t know why, but I felt as if I was the one who had been bestowed with the ability to handle this country. I had every intention to leave things behind, join the Indian National Congress, and try and do something. I might as well have made the best and shortest politician that the country would have had. And then, an epiphany.

I realized, that getting into the field would have required me to give up on all material wants of life – Starting with high end fashion. But then politicians abroad wear Gucci and Prada, don’t they? I would have to fit into my own country, and I’m only about having a hard time speaking the language properly. That shouldn’t be a problem though, should it? Because politicians today are anyway human forms of blood sucking leeches who harp on the state coffers and drink up wealth like fish drink water.

Instead of having a mansion and twenty cars, I could still have my designer clothing and hot shoes, perhaps?

I would have to give up on my future family and fight for the damn country. I can do that at a model UN conference, but I have a feeling that in my lifetime, I’ve instigated a number of people belonging to all walks of life, and would not really be able to win as many votes either. If I want to handle the drama and the press, I might as well be a celebrity by taking my musical career forward. There’ll be enough fans then, and I can preach whatever the hell I want, without having to worry about anyone listening (or not listening) to me, but at least I’d know they’ll be humming my lyrics, however pop stricken they might be.

And I’d still get to wear all my shoes. Because you kind of have to compromise on your pair of Charles & Keith’s with simple flats under a plain saree if you’re a politician; something I’d have to adorn because otherwise my country would brand me as an alien from sdlkfhwektwgbs.

x EdgyShark x

Mar Efficiency.. What, Corruption?

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not talking about what the effects of the above statement might be; positive yet endowed with hints and elements of negativity. Today Manmohan Singh can be rightfully deemed to be as efficient as Afzal Guru, the man who was indeed corrupt, wicked and willing to act dishonestly, and whatever the outcome may have been, the both of them have been as efficient in creating havoc in the Parliament in their own ways.

Of course corruption doesn’t mar efficiency, it only helps it get better. Isn’t corruption and bribery along the equivalent of an incentive to complete a piece of work, however dirty it might be, “efficiently”?

Dostoevksy’s Crime and Punishment describes a young, poverty stricken man who’s morals turned ugly with the growing hunger to own life’s materialistic pursuits. And so he goes, equipped with an axe, to finish off an old lady and in the process, acquire all her wealth within a matter of minutes.

A clean act, very efficiently done; and that is all that matters. Whether or not he later lost his conscience because of the insanity that swept over by looking at the blood stricken gold is a different story. But nothing came in the way of his corrupt doings and how efficiently the murder was committed.

Whether it’s the Indian government, the Russian mafia or just a low paid man working his hands at the school printer; there will be strikes, there will be murders, there will be attacks and there will be leaks of examination papers, and that too, with great efficiency if the above mentioned are well corrupt with abominable green threats.

And no amount of stream of consciousness is going to mar it.

x EdgyShark x

The Mango People

We’re known as the Mango People, or the ‘aam janta’. It might be a sad joke, but the reality is worse.

They say that they let us make decisions and decide the future of what is to be. I might just be one of the above, hanging from a cold and lonely tree, waiting to bloom on my own and try and make a difference. But whatever it is, it’s not happening now.

It’s the older ones, the rotten mangoes on the top that get to do everything. They’re also the ones that receive the most sunlight and are exposed to treachery and wrath. And they love it, they love everyone moment of it.

What they don’t realize is that when the tree-economy shakes from the bottom, we’re the ones that will fall first. They’re on top so that they can get caught by the leaves and branches even if they do happen to take a plunge to the bottom. They think they’ll remain there forever.

But one day, too much sunlight and happiness will bring them down. It’ll show them truly where there guns lie, squashed on the ground. And we’ll be hanging somewhere in the middle, but we’ll be happy. And even when we do fall, our succulent insides, laden with wisdom, will only help us achieve what we want – nirvana.

x EdgyShark x

The You-Can’t-Avoid-It Conversation

Have you heard the saying, “Baat karne se hi baat banti hai?”

I’ve seen so many people around me, stuck in friendships, relationships, problems, sorrows, even happiness, you name it. I’ve realised that having even the best of moods can get ruined if you don’t learn to open your mouth and talk to people. I think that’s the worst thing one could ever do; not talk. How can you stay silent and take things in even when they go against your principles especially if the one you’re staying silent in front of is someone you love?

I find the thought ridiculous at times, but it’s true. People are so afraid of what the consequences of a conversation might be. But if you never have it, you never will know, isn’t it?

There are so many times when you have so much to say, but it doesn’t come out because of many reasons. What about all the times when you don’t say what you wanted to, keep it all in, and then watch the situation get worse in front of your eyes?

Wouldn’t you rather say it and watch what happens next rather than stand in a corner like a non enthralled spectator?

I’ll tell you what. Let’s help you solve this problem instead of going on about it. If there’s anything you need to say but are not being able to, get back to me. Tell me anonymously. I’ll help you overcome the fear. But don’t hesitate.

Because we appreciate only taking risks.

x EdgyShark x

The Cross

It’s a good thought, Syd.

If Jesus was crucified on the cross then he probably hated that symbol so much. And I’m sure it was the last thing he’d have wanted to ever see. Then why do Christians wear the cross around their neck or pray to it? Aren’t they proving their own beliefs wrong by doing so?

x EdgyShark x