Forced to be free

Currently, going through Rousseau’s discourse on Political Economy, and his work called the Social Contract. He is confusing me a lot. I want to like him, but he is making it hard. He can be mean at times, then a lot of what he says makes sense. The irony was, he talked about the general will (i.e. the common will of the society) and believed that it should have precedence over the individual and the particular will (the wills of the subgroups or sub-communities), whereas he was himself, a loner.

I think he was waiting for someone to include him into some group as he believed that a man is in chains everywhere, and he has to be forced to free himself from all the chains he has created around himself. I believe he was hoping somebody to break his chains and introduce him to a fraternity of some sort.

Now, I feel like I am just rambling because I do not have a point to make. The problem is I really wanted to write something today, to make it appear like I was writing two days in a row, and as I had also promised myself that I will write something every day. I was actually reading Rousseau, and I thought to myself, why not write about Rousseau only. After all, his quote, Man is born free and everywhere he is in chains, is one of my favorites. However, now I don’t know what else I should add, it is different to know a person from far but reading his thoughts from close, can be disorienting, and can also make him less likable.

Also, I am not entirely happy today. I do not like my new frame; I should have stuck to the black color, why did I experiment. I am being forced to wear less huge spectacles, as my parents and brother, believe that my current frame is hiding away most of my face. I hope now my title makes sense and is more relatable. I am forced to being free. At least, my face is being freed from the burden of oversized glasses. I am looking forward to writing about this movie I watched some time back, it is called, the Holy Motors. I wish to do it soon.

SayNoToRacism

Dennis, a young teenager living in a crime ridden housing project wants to live his American Dream. But he knows he will not get it by going to college. He wants to get out of Brooklyn and for that he needs money. He knows only streets will help him get his family out of poverty. This black oriented movie gives a chance to see the life of a regular black American family. Dennis has a loving mother, a submissive sister and a drunk and abusive father.
The ending is full of darkness, remorse and loss; it ends with a message which says, “First things learned are hard to forget. Traditions pass from one generation to the next. We need to change.” The first thing all the characters being played learned was that they are black and life is not a piece of cake for them. The movie was made by Matty Rich, when he was quite young, a teenager, he was a kid from Brooklyn housing projects and without any money power and backing; he made this movie and got it released.
The movie covers a few days in the lives of a high school kid (Dennis), who lives with his sister and his parents in a crime-ridden Brooklyn Red Hook project. The story begins with a lot of noise being made in the background by the father (Ray) who is drunk and beating s his wife and throwing things around the apartment while the kids are woken up from their sleep by loud voices. This is everyday life for Dennis and he decides to change it as he could not take it anymore.
Usually Dennis hangs out with two of his friends Kevin and Larry. Dennis convinces them to get onto the streets and get rich easy. Larry (played by Matty Rich) suggests them that may be they could get a job at a gas station. But Dennis is not willing to do something like that. He wants a lot of money and as fast as possible. His dream is to buy a condo, cars for his family, a good school and a comfortable life.
Dennis’s girlfriend (Shirley) asks him about his college plan, to which Dennis replies that he cannot wait 4-5 years. Looking at the Manhattan skyline, Dennis tells his girlfriend, “Do you think those people reached there by going to college. They reached there by breaking the rules and stepping onto the black men.” This was the first thing which Dennis learned in his life because his father is abusive and venomous because of this very reason.
Ray is angry with everyone. Once sitting in the middle of night, waiting for the Dennis, he expresses his anguish with some heart-touching lines. He says, “ Hey white man, I am the man you destroyed. Just the way you destroyed my father and his father, just how you destroyed my life, you are going to destroy my son’s life too.”
For most of the movie, the characters stand poised between two possible choices - between crime and trying to do the right thing. But the movie finds time to develop some of their complexities as they make up their minds, in well-written scenes such as the one where the mother actually defends her husband, even though he beats her.
The father is taking out his humiliations on his family, the mother goes crazy when she hears a guns shot for the fear that her boy is on the sharp end of the gun, where children are ridiculed for having dreams as modest as that of actually finishing school. Everyone is fighting their own but related fears.
Dennis may hate his father, but he is able to take a longer view of Ray's predicament. There are a few moments, like when Ray mentions to his son that he wanted to become a doctor, where you can see how the boy is tempering his own rage toward his father. This sort of thing helps to explain why, when Ray gets the drug money, he wants to include his father in on the move to Manhattan. Dennis still clings to the fantasy that his family can be made whole. This dream of Denniss’ is his final patch of innocence. In a way, he is as far gone as his father; he doesn't realize that Ray is already past salvation.
Dennis and his friends concoct a plan to rob a drug dealer, reasoning that he's helping destroy the community anyway so it isn't morally wrong to take his money. It is, of course, terribly stupid. They get away with the cash, but everything goes terribly wrong almost immediately. The dealer and his ruthless associates mount a relentless search for the thieves, and Dennis realizes there's no way he's going to get away unscathed. Meanwhile, Ray beats Frankie nearly to death, and the drug dealers kill him while the children are at the hospital with their mother.
The movie ends on a very sad note where Frankie (the mother) dies in hospital of bruises and Ray is shot down by dealers who were looking for Dennis and their money. Dennis lost everything at the hands of his naïve dream.
Making such movies is part of an effort to lift yourself out of society's hatreds, of putting yourself out there and stirring up the audiences. This movie avoids the glamorous violence that so often passes for black life in the movies.
There are also many scenes of everyday life, goofing around, small talk and passing time. It all adds up to a convincing portrayl of a big-city black teenager who feels that if he does not take some sort of conclusive action, life will clamp him into poverty and discouragement. He wants to live the American dream every American imagines about and he knows he cannot do it by going to college, he thinks, it is only possible by getting out of Brooklyn and onto the streets. This plan of Denniss’ gets his family engulfed into trauma and ruins everything in the end.
This was an honest and effective film, which came from heart.

Day 73 - Love Yourself

I moved from this world to another, looking for new things, challenging things but i found everywhere it is the same. Your world runs with you. You do not leave it behind with people or things that you leave behind. You take everything away with you. You think you will miss old memories. But No! Your world is you. You make new connections, new attachments and new beliefs. In fact love and compassion, you look for is not in the things but  inside you. Often in pleasing the world you forget that this world does not exist beyond you. Like that line from Plath’s poem: I lift my lids and all is born again. It is weird we make ourselves too comfortable in these temporary relations and connections, forgetting all about our self. There is nothing more permanent in you than loving yourself because your life is all about you and not about how others want it to be. 

Day -72 When can we start talking noramlly about periods?

I was attending my Language class which I had recently joined. In between the class I started getting cramps and I went to the washroom. I had gotten my periods and I was not carrying any sanitary napkin with me. I could have waited for the class to get over but my blood pressure dropped down and I started feeling dizzy. I went to the reception to rest for a while. I thought  it would be better to ask around for a napkin. I went to the lady sitting at the reception and asked her for a sanitary napkin.

First thing she asked me was can you wait till the end of the class? I said no, I cannot wait. Then she said will cotton work? I said if there is no option I can go out and buy some. Then after a pause of 15 to 20 seconds, she almost whispered to me and asked me that how will you carry it? I said in my hand. She said no I cannot give it like this. Then I asked her to put it in my notebook which was with me. She said okay. She took the notebook and covered her handbag with it . Then from one side she opened the zip of her purse and cleverly pushed the napkin into the half opened notebook. Then she returned the notebook to me like nothing happened. 

I was shocked. This coming from an educated lady was a blunder. I remember even in school and at home we were taught to not to talk openly about periods. Over the years I had gotten over this thing. I was not embarassed talking about my periods anymore. And I thought even the world had changed and people like me would not think of it as something exceptional. But  I was wrong. 

Day -71 Facebook Affair

One monumental discovery that changed our lives forever. Facebook. I still remember the day, i first joined facebook. It was in 2009 or 2010. I was in school then. I had so many school friends to add and i did receive few welcomes on my facebook wall. I had never used orkut ( the one before facebook), so all this was new and fascinating to me. Though that first account was hacked within few months and i made a new one which i use till the date.

First 2 or 3years of facebook were like any new relationship. It was honeymoon period. I posted a new status almost everyday. I loved the likes and comments. I replied to every single comment and like. I had this fear of posting pictures on fb, which i got over soon. And then even a picture was uploaded every few weeks.
The random posts you get tagged into, i was happy about them as well. The friend requests, chats, everything was so new and charming. I did make two or three random facebook friends (complete strangers), who are my friends till date. The likes or comments from the guy (changed very frequently) i crushed on would make my day.
Then came the games. I loved poker and that puzzle game and also that farm game. I was addicted to them. Whoever wanted to talk to me, i would tell them to come and play poker because i was badly addicted to it. I still love poker. I have the zynga poker app even now. Play it from time to time.

Slowly like every relationship, my love for facebook faded away. I deactivated my account for almost  an year. Even now i keep activating and deactivating it. Mostly it is deactivated. I hardly chat with anyone. Updating a status is history now. Likes and comments mean nothing now. How this change came? I don’t know. But my love affair with facebook is over now. But like every other relationship, a soft corner will always be there for it (like there will always be one for ex-crushes, bfs and friends).

The tale of love

I always tend to ignore my blog these days. I feel like i don't have much to talk about. I hardly go out and meet new people. To tell stories you need to have some things to tell which you see around and experience. Well, I hardly come across anything new these days. This year on my birthday i got one of the best gifts ever. It was a collection of 80 small books. They are from 80 different authors and different tales. Some of them i have read earlier, very few though and there are some which i came across for the first time.

Post my birthday i had entrance exams and stuff like that so i never got the chance to open them. Today while i was reading 'Macbeth' also a gift from a friend, i opened one of those books. Macbeth is actually boring, the only problem is that i can not comprehend the meanings of most of the lines in them. This one is in the play form and there are notes along with it which gives meanings for the words. it is a good translation atleast better than the ones i have read earlier.

As i have to constantly look for meanings, i got bored of Macbeth and so i thought of going through one of those 80 books. I chose number 3, 'The Saga of Gunnalaug Serpent-tongue'. It is a love revenge story and little superstitious as it is set in very old times. 'Helga the fair' is loved by two men and both die at the end, fighting each other in a duel and Helga marries off someone else. It is like an old folk tale.

Every time i read any love story, all the love stories i have read and seen so far come to my mind. It also puts me in the confusion about which one i like the most. I believe i am an 'old is gold' believer. I have seen and read so many but ,y favortie so far has always been Catherine and Mr. Heathcliffe from 'Wuthering Heights'. I liked Pride and Prejudice too but it comes later in the list. Catherine and Heathcliffe had too much passion for each other and the lines from the book are just beautiful, beyond imagination.
 
       ' I have not broken your heart- you have broken it and in breaking it, you have broken mine.'

And, there is this another one from '1984'.

       ' Under the Chestnut tree, i sold you and you sold me.'

Sometimes such simple lines express so much. I can never write something so soft and expressive which melts hearts.

I always tell people i hate love stories but the truth is i enjoy love stories the best. But there are certain conditions for it. They should be set in old England, women with lond dresses and frocks. I think corsets were in fashion then. I personally think corsets are too painful for women but trust me they look lovely wearing those dresses. Men little prude, gentle and shy. And the conversations they make matter the most to me. I mean if they are not expressive enough to each other through words then gestures mean nothing to me.
I like love stories with great dialogues about how much they love each other. These are my requirements for a perfect love story. I love when they wait for each others letters and they just wait. They have stopped writing such stories and even movies are very limited in number. But i would just do anything to watch or read something like this on a good day as well as on a gloomy day.

Day- 70 Am I a pet person?

Am i a pet person? I don't love any of the animals as such. I feel bad for them at times but when it comes to keeping them around me I can not really do it. I always feel kind of threatened around them. 4-5 days back my room-mate here at jnu brought a cat to our room. This cat had cut herself in the neck and was very weak so i thought it was better to let her stay. 

I see her all day. Though my room-mate takes her to vet everyday to get her wound treated, this cat still acts very snooty and never acknowledges her efforts. First two days this cat would keep staring at me continuously through her crate. I was scared while sleeping; hoping that she would not come on to my bed in the night and bite me. But she didn't, she was too weak to do that. I have not touched her even once since she has arrived in our room. 

She hates her crate and loves the only mat i own and will prefer sleeping over it then in her crate. She also loves to hide under my bed. I don't get it, my room-mate takes care of her but she would never go under her bed but she would go all the places where my things are. I just feel she is doing all this to irritate me. 

I have always hated any kind of pets. We had one dog at her house back in the days. It was a small puppy. My brother always wanted one so my mamu got one for him and one for their own house. He was a German-Shepherd dog. We named him Sheru. For first few days i never had the courage to touch him and would not even place my feet on the floor when he was around. Sheru loved shoes or any footwear and he would go right after my chappals the moment i would get down. I found it very creepy and unhygienic. Slowly i got used to him and even tried to feed him with my hands sometimes. But i never got my fear over dogs beacause one day my brother had this awsome idea to throw himdown the stairs and see what happens to Sheru. He went with it and Sheru got injured and lost one leg. Post the injury he got scary he would bark at eveyrone and would not let anyone come near him. I got scared of him again. Eventually Papa took him to a friend's farm and left him in open. 

My Nana always had four or five dogs at his farm. They loved him like anything. Some of them were as tall as my Nana and trust me, my Nana was above 6 feet. I met these dogs once in an year for a month in which we hardly struck up any aquaintance because they were too big and i was too small and would get scared of them easily. Their flashy white teeth and one bark was enough to make me run away. 

But there was this one dog of Nanu, Moti who i started liking. He was very close to my Nani and when my Nana left us, he would not let my Nani leave the house alone and would follow her all around the village and bark at us whenever any one use to come too close to Nani. I liked him a lot and felt little bad when he died.

It is hard to like someone but i guess when you stay with them for some time; you do get attached to them. I have started to like this cat. Though i still do not touch her or caress her or anything which would make her feel welcomed. But i like seeing her aorund in my room and i have even grown used too her smell in the whole room. Though i tell people she is a big headache for me right now; i feel personally that she is here for a good thing. 

One more thing i wrote the whole post and just realized that the cat is a male and not a female. But then how does it even matter? I cannot now go aorund changing 'her' to 'him' in the whole post just beacuse a thing like gender exists in our my minds. Hard to tell still whether i will ever own a pet?

Day - i don’t remember

I have lost this note but i had the images of it. The sadness engulfs you at times and spurs you to do sad things.

I

Day 69 - Endless circles of life

It started off with a cloudy night

The day went on like how rainy days should be

Full of water, aroma of earth going up to my nose

Leaves talking to me with a shy smile

Like they are too happy to meet the rain

Serene and green and wet is everything around

It ends with some lightning and some thunder 

Telling stories of stormy decades that have passed 

Making way for the sly winter, smiling at me

Comes with a pleasant wind and less of sun

I feel cold but in a good way

Looking forward to those wintry nights with blankets wrapped around and heaters or fire running on and on 

The food gets tasty, eating feels like a bliss

More I eat more warm I feel

It ends up making me 3-4 kgs heavier 

And suddenly one day around holi the winter just leaves my door 

With mild summer knocking at my door

I feel relaxed as it is a harmonious change after that gross cold which by then I get sick off

Summer turns me out 

I feel more lively in the green grounds, under trees

It completes me in more ways then i know

Suddenly i lose all that appetite i had gained over the last months

As summer gets sharper, the kilos seem to shed off easier

The heated sun is difficult to breathe in

Hot tea looks poisonous, only relief comes in with drops of chilled water 

Heat gets too much

Leaves wilt, dogs look at me with puppy eyes so that i would take them in and save them from unforgiving sun

It passes soon too though it feels like ages 

The rain blesses us with beautiful greenry and love all around again

Such is life. Nothing is lost, nothing is earned. 

Everything has a time to come and another to leave.

There is no permanence but even that is a kind of permanence 

I will always look for other things, something interesting

But that too is a circle.

I start because you know you will end

When will it be? That is on me and the fate

But trust me this will go on and on like a cd being played without pauses, problems and rewind.

Day 68 another day

Sometimes you have a bad day 

Sometimes you just wish everyone you love would just say yes to what ever you say

Sometimes you do not want anyone to agree or disagree with you but to just say yes to you.

Sometimes all you want is support

Sometimes all you want is somebody to understand 

Sometimes all you want them is to stand with you

Sometimes all you want is somebody or someone to hold your hand and say i am with you

It does not have to be a partner or your boyfriend or your husband 

It has to be someone, just someone you love 

Sometimes all you want is a simple expression of trust 

Sometimes all you care about is one hand holding you 

Sometimes all you need is one hug

Sometimes all you need is this small thing 

And you end up getting none

Because everyone will stand opposed 

Everyone will ask questions

Everyone will judge your attentions, your worth

Everyone will care about your future 

Everyone will care about what others will say

Everyone will say whatever they want to say

Everyone will find their own meanings in your words

Everyone will leave you wondering ‘why the hell do you expect something from someone?’ 

Why? Why? Do you want something from someone!? Why do you need it so much? 

Election days are on the way

This might not be relevant exactly but then politics is always relevant. But this one i wrote long back and it is not entirely new. 

Here comes another election. Tv mews channels and newspapers are going gaga over them as if something world shattering has happened. It is the same old bjp and congress nuisance, fighting the same blame game. The real thing you guys are missing out on is that the younger generation is getting big lessons on ethics from these reinvented parties, the secular BJP and the Hindu Congress.

Leave ethics aside, one thing I read every day is about the so called election reforms, which make no sense to me. Because i guess i thought of them as something else and what is being done is completely different. 

Present government said  bonds based funding would bring transparency into the parties. And I can see now how political parties have been sincerely supporting the cause. As it was very much visible in the recent elections that the parties did not have crores to spend on ads, luring voters, giving on freebies like the old times. And I was equally shocked by how rallies these times were epitome of simplicity, none of the ministers travelled in private vehicles. They were saving up on our exhausting oil resources by pooling up cars and helicopters and some even went with the public transport. 

I hope this would help us meet the international climate change targets. 

The greatness of our party leaders, the humility with which they deal with media and public grievances makes me more than happy. 

I am happy about these results because now we will see how bjp, congress and jd(s) would cook up  on alliance so that our dear karnatka gets a stable government as soon as possible. It doesn’t matter which party comes to power with whose help, the fact that matters is that they teach us to not to be enemies for long, there is always a good time to patch up and especially if it involves some monetary benefits. 

Very soon one or the other alliance would come to power and push for minestrial cabins and plush government bunglows will start. It does not matter which portfolio one gets, it is working for the welfare of people which matters the most. And if they don’t get a bunglow, they won’t be crying for the perks that come with it but for the lost chance to serve the humanity. Because they can work sincerely only within these bunglows, outside of these people who do not want the nation to grow would bother them. Plus these bunglows are just old and big government houses which they would have never preffered to live in if not for the good of the people. 

I feel so much of gratitude for our dear leaders and I am teary eyed after my realization that how they only want to help this country.  I am now able to relate to their understanding of the election reforms and the way they spend millions on elections so that the naive people like us could make a wise decision on the big day. Thank you bjp,congress and every other party for lessons in humanity service. Hope our generation learns more from you.