What does freedom mean to me???

1 comments Posted by vagabond dreamer at 4:56 PM


We recently celebrated our independence day, august 15th came and went just like every year and a lot of official functions were held a lot of buildings hoisted the tricolor and a lot of little toddlers were very happy as they got lots of sweets to eat and got a holiday from school. The significance of independence for most adult Indians has decreased. The generations that fought the colonial powers to over throw their yoke have long gone into the mists of time and those who saw people dying to secure their freedom are in their twilight of their lives. The current generations were born into a free India and breathed free air. They grew up getting used to having every thing their way. But they also grew up in a socialist environment, in an environment were the government decided what they will wear, what they will eat and what they will see on the television. Don’t get me wrong, Nehru’s conservative policy gave nascent India a lot. Majority of our infrastructure set up was due to that policy but it also limited human choice, but the most harm that policy caused was in the fact general Indian citizens looked at the two national holidays of most significance as a sort of official holiday not something that was to be celebrated by the common man. For people these became just two more days were a person could take a break from work and stay at home.

Freedom for me means a freedom to err, freedom to make mistakes and learn from my errors. In today’s environment of terror and stringent security the values of freedom and most important the right to make mistakes has been the most compromised. Today we cannot sneeze in the vicinity of a sensitive installation without being jumped upon by nervous security who thinks you are a terrorist with a new weapon. Today mothers cannot carry liquids on board aircrafts for their babies without tasting it in front of the security in the airport. The President came to visit our campus and we couldn’t carry our room keys in our pockets. We couldn’t have pens in our pockets and could not shake hands with him. Is this the kind of freedom that our fore fathers thought of us to have, one that we aren’t considered of any significance and one that does not give us the freedom of committing error?, where every human being, every citizen is guilty and looked at as a potential threat till proven innocent through means off a very demeaning body search. The world we live in today is fraught with dangers, it has become intolerant, it is starting to loose its patience. A country that was a welcome haven to any one wanting to make it their home today looks at fear at any gathering of minority communities. Our tolerances to the fallacies of our friends, neighbors and our fellow citizens have gone down. A minor spat on a railway station leads to a burnt railway carriage, and wide scale riots in one of the most progressive states of the country. One statement in favor of an anti-dam movement leads to the banning of a movie starring that actor. In today’s time women cannot roam free in our countries capital, in another metro, girls and boys standing together or just talking to each other are frowned upon. We live in a world where Hitler’s fundamentalism seems like child’s play. Young men and women are ready to go to war for some imagined utopia and kill innocent bystanders for a higher cause. They are ready to blow them selves up just to prove a point and hijack planes and crash them into buildings to make a statement.

Leaders fear to reach out to their followers for fear of being shot at or being blown away. People getting on trains and planes give up prayers for a safe journey. People from certain geographical areas or following a particular faith are strip searched in the name of security. One of the most monitored as well as liberal countries had to face the wrath of fundamentalists when its heavily crowded public transport system was bombed last year.

This might sound as a rhetorical question, but what has our world come too? Why have we become no intolerant to each other? when the world is facing other dangers has highly temperamental weather patterns, the uncontrolled growth of diseases like cancer and HIV AIDS we are creating problems that we all could do without. Intolerance leading to fear which in turn leads to paranoia which leads to mistrust, and violence against fellow human beings, all engineered to further some petty human interests.

We have reached a place and time in our history where the threat of big brother is very real and very omnipresent. We have involuntarily given up civil liberties, the freedom of speech and movement and other such assorted rights that our freedom fighters from Washington, to Jefferson, to Nehru, to Gandhi, to Nelson Mandela all fought very hard and long to secure just so that we can protect the same rights. Is this the world we want to live? What kind off legacy are we going to leave our children? Are we going to teach them that hope and dreams and free enterprise were utopian subjects that they were to high objectives and us humans to lowly to keep them so we took them away from our selves?

I agree the choice is very difficult, keep living life as we are used to and let others keep hurting our children, keep blowing buildings, cars and let anarchy have a shot of taking a place in our lives, or we give up all the freedoms and rights that we hold dear and allow some one of debatable authority to tell us how to live our lives, and dictate history and time. In the first case how long can morality and decency hold out before anarchy and chaos descend on us and ruin all these years of hard work. But the alternative isn’t that pretty too, let the governments take total control of our lives, let security agencies go over our private lives with fine tooth comb with softwares like the fabled “carnivore” from FBI. Evolve into a world where human beings lack free will and free speech. Develop into a species that has two distinct classes one which tells us what to do and the others what to do and when to do, what to eat where to go.

How did we get to such a point in history? And are these the only choices that are available to us. I really hope not, with them life just doesn’t seem worth all that pain and heartaches. There has to be an alternative to these and we have to find them soon or we will end up being something that we dare not contemplate. I leave u with a song from Green day

"Boulevard Of Broken Dreams"

I walk a lonely road
The only one that I have ever known
Don't know where it goes
But it's home to me and I walk alone

I walk this empty street
On the Boulevard of Broken Dreams
Where the city sleeps
and I'm the only one and I walk alone

I walk alone
I walk alone

I walk alone
I walk a...

My shadow's the only one that walks beside me
My shallow heart's the only thing that's beating
Sometimes I wish someone out there will find me
'Til then I walk alone

Ah-ah, Ah-ah, Ah-ah, Aaah-ah,
Ah-ah, Ah-ah, Ah-ah

I'm walking down the line
That divides me somewhere in my mind
On the border line
Of the edge and where I walk alone

Read between the lines
What's fucked up and everything's alright
Check my vital signs
To know I'm still alive and I walk alone

I walk alone
I walk alone

I walk alone
I walk a...

My shadow's the only one that walks beside me
My shallow heart's the only thing that's beating
Sometimes I wish someone out there will find me
'Til then I walk alone

Ah-ah, Ah-ah, Ah-ah, Aaah-ah
Ah-ah, Ah-ah

I walk alone
I walk a...

I walk this empty street
On the Boulevard of Broken Dreams
Where the city sleeps
And I'm the only one and I walk a...

My shadow's the only one that walks beside me
My shallow heart's the only thing that's beating
Sometimes I wish someone out there will find me
'Til then I walk alone...

The world is slowly spiraling out of control and it is up to us to decide what freedoom means to us do we really think that the world is worth living as a free citizen or as Greenday sang we become Jesus of suburbia with no one worth trusting and no one able to trust another human being.

So can you answer me now as what does freedom means to you????

cycle of life

0 comments Posted by vagabond dreamer at 4:32 PM

this not some thing i wrote ........................... but love it so here goes and hats off to the author

Wouldn’t it be great if the whole circle of life was reversed? I mean, look at the way we live our lives – we have the best of times in our childhood and great times at the threshold of entering the world of adults. The remaining part of our dutiful lives is spent toiling at some place earning loads of money to buy expensive clothes and splurge in exotic foods and other such nefarious worldly pleasures but never as happy as when we were during the innocence of our younger days.

I read a comment of a comedian some time back and this inspired me to muse that all is not right with the way we age. In fact, it would be much more fraught with meaning and significance, not to mention enjoyable and gratifying, if only the whole circle of life was turned on its heels.

Here’s the right way to do it. You enter this lovely world as an octogenarian or a nonagenarian or if you have enough good karma from your previous births, you could even be a centurian. Straight into an old-age home. You can hardly walk, talk or involve in other such human interactions. At best you can successfully remove your dentures just before you go to sleep.

As the years move on, you begin to feel rejuvenated as your health improves dramatically. And when you’re all hale and healthy, you’re unceremoniously kicked out of the old-age home. It’s not yet time to celebrate, for with the newly found vigor and fitness is associated the despicable concept of earning one’s living. Now is the time for work and office and all that jazz. You’re around 60 by now.

At work slowly the responsibilities dwindle, which is an amazing concept in stark contrast to the existing norms. You begin to climb the ladder, downwards and there is no pressure on you to perform. Whatever you do, you’re going down.
Somewhere along the way, you meet a nice homely woman of your age and marry her. You may even have children… I mean adults.(Unfortunately, not all aspects of this brilliant plan have been worked out but I am sure that given the mysterious way the miracles of Nature work, stranger things have happened. For example, President Bush was reelected) Fifty is somewhere around the corner or perhaps you just passed it. The usual razzmatazz of midlife crisis hits you and you are seen philandering with older women.

See, now, when you leave for work daily, with that perfectly knotted tie and that charming blue shirt, you know that somewhere down the line you will be fired from the office for being too young to continue working. Which is awesome because that is like the worst thing that can happen. By then it’s time for college. You get to choose whichever college you want to go to because ultimately it really doesn’t matter what you learn at college anyway. So basically this means partying and sleeping. “Karmanyevaadi kaaryasthu maa phaleshu kadachane”. Your actions must not be done so as to expect the fruits in return. Yeah right. There are things which are said and there are things which are done. Proverbially we know which is easier.

College is a blast and before you know it, you hit 18! High school! Young love. Maths! Hmm, yeah. Young love! Its brilliant. You grow through the awkward phase of adolescence as you unmature from giggling hirsute masses of body odour into cute cuddly unsuspecting bundles of naivette and innocence. Absolutely no responsibilities. Which is the most you can ask for as you live the rest of your joyous life pampered by everyone around you.

The last 2 years would be quite a hoot albeit it is debatable whether you actually know what is going on by this time, having lost the ability to make meaningful conversation or even comprehend language. Sign language is the best forms of communication. 9 months remaining, you are given the comfort of a heated room with room service and a lot of attention. Many people have killed for much less.
Finally after all this fuss, you fade away. Not into nothingness. Nay, it would be far too demoralizing for someone to lead his whole life just to disintegrate into oblivion. And it would just be plain wrong. So finally, finally, you become the quintessential orgasm that should have started it all.

Amen.

amen brother

59 years and counting...............................

0 comments Posted by vagabond dreamer at 2:54 PM


59 years and counting...............................

Let me tell u about my self, I'm an Indian. Ok I know what u are thinking hyperbole, and its attendant extremities are going to land now. But it’s true, I think of my self of as an Indian first and last, and I feel proud about it too. We did a lot of things wrong since the first steps taken on that fateful night in 1947, but we must have got at least one thing right that we got so far. You’ll agree I hope(if not, who cares). We stumbled, we tripped, we fell, but every time we got back on our feet with a promise to make it right, when the whole world waited with baited breath for us to stumble and fall and stay there. I mean this mish mash of geographical, religious, ethnic, caste aggregate should have ended as a collection of homogenous and independent entities, not the existing melting pot which maintains a love hate relationship amongst itself.

We went off in to space, (at least two of us did, though a lot of us are high at most times), we conquered the mighty atom (oops........ I didn’t know it could do that) built the worlds most efficient rail network (it goes where?), created a postal system that even though it mails letters to wrong addresses with a scary consistency or misplaces them altogether, will deliver a letter addressed to Darkness, Bombay, India to Andheri in Mumbai (not kidding), and the amazing thing is we show flashes of brilliances and a mind boggling range of idiocies at the same time. And we still manage to overcome all expectations and hurdles laid in our way. We borrow technology to make commercial grade automobile steel from other nations but we have managed to build a mach three capable cruise missile, Bhramos(the tomahawk's history) get the gawky and laughably light 4th generation fighter Tejas off the ground. Built a satellite launch system that even the Chinese can’t beat for price, and oh least I forget the world’s largest shanty town that even the Brazilians can only look at and envy. We try to scam on the coffins we buy for our soldiers, but we still have cab drivers who return bags full of money to their rightful owners.

we quibble about quotas in higher education, but still have the highest rate of school dropouts, but still manage to educate so many people that the world comes to us for managers, doctors and engineers. the best brains in the world in research, the best surgeons, the best scamsters too, amongst the countries with the largest growth with the most untapped potential too, we quibble, and quarrel amongst our selves about who sits in a stupid chair, but still the world sits up to take notice when we tend to even whisper some thing. with cities that have a history and a past older than the combined history of the Americas, we have developed welcoming guests and hospitality to such a fine art that even though we turn from grateful hosts to hooligans or plain criminal (cricket in Eden gardens any one or how about touts in Agra, or coolies of Delhi), people come here and fall in love and remain here for ever. we look upon sex and any and every discussion concerned with it with wide eyed disbelief, but procreate with amazing consistency and what’s more a country that holds some thing in such a taboo we breed like rabbits(you heard me right). But we take care of each of our brood with the same affection. The great Indian joint family has become an institution the world over and a savior for parents who both work at the same time. The support system it provides pulls people thru the direst of disasters. Yet some thing is always never right (did some one say female feticide?)

We specialize in beating the world in obscure games (cricket, chess), but can’t manage a gold at the showcase Olympic events. 1 sixth of the worlds population and we still can’t kick a round leather bladder efficiently enough to go to the world cup. at times we generate so much hatred in our selves that we are ready to kill former friends and neighbors (Godhra, Ayodhya riots etc) and brothers (Praveen Mahajan) and at others we give every thing we have and more just to rescue another soul in distress (Mumbai floods, blasts, Gujarat earthquake, tsunami) the entire gamut of human emotions course thru us within the blink of an eye.

We are good, we are bad and most important we are every thing in between because we are human beings, and in spite of our fallacies we built a nation, of greats. Sure we have a large number of impoverished people in our country, sure some of us look at the females of our country as secondary, sure villages are rampant with the evils of casteism and communalism, sure we haven’t been able to feed all our citizens even after record grain production, sure even after 15 years of reforms our system has more red tape than used in all the gifts they pack for Christmas and sure the levels of corruption we see in our system is mind boggling.

But you know what it really doesn’t matter and the reason is no matter what the status of woman in our country we were I fact the second country to choose a female Prime Minister, we were also ones to have instituted a program to fast track food grain production, as well as milk production. and what ever the evils of caste and religion we are still the worlds largest functioning democracy, our army has always stayed staunchly apolitical and our soldiers so good that they some times border on superhuman. We have defied aggressor after aggressor internal and external. We have given the world so much, CV Raman, Amartya Sen, Gandhi, kautilya, chess (there's that game again) Buddhism, Geetanjali and Zero (0, zilch, nada, naught)

The most important reason of all no matter what is wrong with her India has always stood firm, Gia, mother, Mata call her what u want she has always been close to perfect for me and given me my hearts desire, sure there are lots of things to be done, but then if things were perfect, wont you and I get bored living perfection.