The Big, Fat Indian Wedding. Needs. A. Gym. Seriously.

    Weddings are made in heaven, they say. I wonder, then, why does all the pomp have to be done on earth? For instance, “Hi, I’m Karuna from Hyderabad, and, here -Varun’s my husband. We got married in heaven.” How I wish it were all as simple as it sounds.
     As long as I am in India, I know this question will plague me each time a baraat passes by my house, or when there’s a wedding at a friend’s or a fiend’s, or worse still, when there is a wedding in the family. Why is it that marriage is not one’s choice in India? I know I am not to get answers (read: satisfactory answers) to these questions as long as I search for them. But that does not mean I shall stop asking questions. Ask, we must.
     Another issue about marriages that cheeses me off is the fact that India’s is a chauvinist society. A sexist one. So, when it comes to weddings, just because I am a boy (‘man’ feels so chauvinist-piggy), I have to carry all the luggage to the vans that transport people to the wedding hall and back. Well, just because the Indian psyche is that women or girls are not strong enough to carry weight. If a girl has the right to take rest, so does a boy. I know it all seems so lazy-boyish, but as stupid as it may sound, I am lazy.
     Why does the groom’s family never have to do anything? Why, on earth, do the wedding costs go to the bride’s family? Why do people ‘not take dowry’ in money terms but in the form of wedding costs? Why is a woman considered to be a liability? Why does arranged marriage appeal more to people? Why does the woman have to tell her in-laws what she knows (cooking, singing, whatever, whatever)? Why does the Indian eye still see inter-caste marriages as lowly? Why is it okay if a boy has been through a number of whirlwind romances, but not if it’s about a woman? And why, of marriage, in the first place, do people think of highly? Why does everybody have to get married? Why is a widower remarrying not noticed (if not accepted), but a widow remarrying frowned upon? Why are divorcees considered bugs? Why does a woman usually get blamed in a divorce-if domestic violence is not proved?
     And why do people have to ask a boy to ‘bring a good girl’ (so typically TamBrahm) to his house? Because they care? Yeah, they do, they care for others’ issues too much. We Indians suffer from the Peeping-Tom Syndrome. We cannot help interfering in others’ lives. What I shall eagerly wait for, is the day when Indians start caring-yeah, caring a damn. And also for the day when The Huge, Obese Indian Wedding succeeds in its diet plan to become less of a vulgar show-off  of wealth and power than what it is now.

Work Hard, Sleep Calmer.

     So, after having thought ill of time, the world, my college, the system, my life, the internet-addiction for so long, I am free for quite a small nap. Or a wonderful gaze out of my favourite window. Well, I have always been a person who cannot concentrate on things for more that 60 seconds at a span. And then, this happened.
     I have this EVE (Environmental Education) project to submit tomorrow and I had been wondering, how, without my two partners (who turned out to be irresponsible nut-cases) I was going to manage completing our my project-at least to the extent that the teacher believed I wasn't sleeping all 21 days. If I have to frown still, colleges belong to hell, then. And my sad soul rests in peace.
     Just watched a video on Facebook yesterday. Does God exist? Does cold exist? Does darkness exist? Does evil exist? Is God evil? Does sadness exist? Not necessarily to the other questions, but the answer to the last one is surely a no. It is just the absence of happiness. And once it returns, it's sunshine again!

May I Cry?

Little Birdie,
In your nest,
Burying my face,
May I cry?

White Moon,
Under your light,
Wiping my tears,
May I lie?

Oh World,
Against laws, of your lands and seas,
Will, to me, you tell,
When I have the power to do so,
Should I not rebel?

Of Victors And Victims

     The society is not very good a place to be in. You get judged. You get advised. You get critiqued. And what not. The society surely runs with the help of a certain number of rules, that, one could say, are necessary. But along with it, just like you say, "You'll get an apple, and I'll get one" (though apples these days don't taste that great,) people must have got to frame rules. And in the name of each one getting to frame a law, the society probably got laws which act like barriers, which, when repealed, would not lead to any anomaly in the system.
     One such law, a social law, I specify, is the one regarding marriages. If marriages are so very Made-In-Heaven, why on earth do we have divorces? (These imported products, I say!) Well, people, over the centuries and millennia in history, have taken certain things to be granted. Why, I ask, can two men or two women not marry? Pat, comes the answer-they cannot procreate. Whoa! And I thought marriage was sacred! So, could we take for granted that the sole reason why marriages take place is because you need to keep the population on the increase? No, no. That is so insulting to a serene, sacred institution like a marriage. Whatever!

     

     So, I don't know the when and how of what will induce a change in the perspective of marriage. You are whatever if you take up Arts after scoring well. You are a brainiac if you are a Sciencie. If you are rich, you must be arrogant. If you are poor, you must have no 'attitude'. Wherever it is, that this society is heading! And they define society as an institution of civilised people with a sense of right and wrong.

Feeling the Salt on Your Wound

Every time I smile, 

I see my past dug up.

My love sold.

My feelings compromised.

Every moment I think

I am happy,

Every time I hope

It will all be good,

I see the dragon of ill-fate

Eat up my hope.

Each time I look,

At the healing wound

Caused by 

The Sickle that dug up my past,

I can see people holding

In their hands,

Salt.

To rub on my wound.

To see my eyes red;

My cheeks wet.

The Sun that Changes Each Day

     I love to keep looking at how Nature changes its face every single day. I have a huge window at my house. And each day, the sun makes it a point to peep in. And all the year round, the sun looks at my house from a slightly different path, and smiles beatifically, and dons various avatars each day.
     Like now, it is painting the back of my tee yellow. Some days, like yesterday, it turned into a huge melon, but that you could see without hurting your eyes. Sometimes, I can see it compete with the moon, as it slowly turns mellow, hides behind the clouds, and dares you to find it.
     Once, I just arranged my cam-corder and my pair of binoculars in such a way as to shoot the sun going down the distant buildings. And then, it happened. I kept watching at the recording for two days, but I now have no idea where it is. But I got something else.

Thanks to my pair of binoculars!

Hiding behind the clouds... 

Fair and Lovely!

The sun peeps into my house through
the window that I so love

     And many a time, you get so tired of the heat of the sun that you run to shady places (no pun intended). And in winter, you wish that the shadow of the building were not on you. And thus, even the sun shows me that love and hate are born of the same source.

And the candle that kills the dark when the sun is not up yet, I believe, is the child of the sun.

Zephyrs That Rock You

     I love the wind. And love it big time. I am Jai, and I am 16, introverted (they call me so), nerdy, emotional, human, humane. I love music, and I love to believe that whatever happens, tends to follow a certain rhythm. I believe in my feelings more than my thoughts; I tend to judge things; I like being organised. 

     I believe in hating bad things and loving good things, so that you finally do not realise whether the emotion that you want to show is actually good or bad. I am not at all a people person. I love being with my friends, and I might know in the heart of my hearts that there are problems around me-grave ones, too. But I like to believe that in actuality, everything is all right. Everything can be brought to be good. Everything can be fine.

     I do not like people who discriminate on the basis of religion (it is a non-entity), sex or sexuality. I strongly believe that love and hate are the fruits of the same subconscious emotion; that you could pile up all your hate, and you could build something useful out of it, just like the raddiwala does.

     I don't know what to call the force that makes me think all this. For some, it is the atmosphere around me. Some call it God. And I call it Conscience. 

As in The Alchemist,

"When a person really desires something, all the universe conspires to help that person to realize his dream."