Music.

Silence.

One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four..

The beat, in your head, drumming away forever. The anticipation, the muted exuberance – for what you know is coming.

One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four..

 

Then.. the soft intro from the acoustic guitar, followed by the strings. You almost mumble, those first few words. Soft, mellow, subdued.

Then..

One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four.

The fervor, builds up, slowly, slowly – and you let go..

 

You relax your throat, take a deep breath, and let it all out. Every pain you ever felt, every frustration, every disappointment, every euphoria! Every dream you ever had, every ambition, every defeat, every victory..

 

In that one moment, you let it all out and you sing. You wail and you cry and you laugh and it all comes out as one, powerful, moving scream.

 

Then again, the soft, subdued tones, that bring reality back. You keep trying to feel, you keep trying to hold on. Every sorrow, every happiness, you hold on desperately.

 

The crowd goes wild. You bask in that glory. Sweat on your brow, tears in your eyes. The release, the relief. Everything makes sense again. Everything is alright again.

 

In those few minutes, you lost yourself and that is how, you found yourself again.

One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four.

It always fades away. The haunting melody slows. You feel it slipping out of your grasp, you feel yourself losing yourself again. Slowly, you have to let it all go. Now, all you can do is wait, wait till the next time. Till the next time, you will know what it is to be alive again.

 

One, two, three, four. One, two, three..

To 1.

6

 

I can’t sleep.

What do you want me to do?

You have to sing to me.

Ok.

(…)

This doesn’t mean anything! I still don’t like you.

Ok.

(…)

I still don’t like you.

5

 

We have to do it again.

What? Again, that was the fourth photo!

No, this time, try not to make it look like you’re being forced to do this.

But I am!

I don’t care, just, just, I don’t know, try not to look so miserable!

4

You know what I need? Some of the Oreo Cookie Shake goodness.

Its 3 in the morning!

No, I wasn’t saying you should go get it for me, now… but..

Okay, will you come with me?

I left my family for you!

3

Funny story. This one time, Soniya was.. Oww!

So anyway, funny story, Soniya was.. OWWW!

Anyway, so this one time.. OWWWWW!

Why do you keep hitting me?!

Well I’ve tried every other way!

To do what!

To tell you to shut, the, fuck up!

2

JANU! It’s snow! It’s SNOW!

I know baby. It’ll be there tomorrow. Go back to sleep.

But, but, it’s SNOW!

Hmmm.

Janu, look, it is snowing.

Fine, okay. Let’s go.

1

What can you give me? You are in New York, I am in California. There is literally nothing you can “give” me.

Janu, just call me at 12. I have something to give you.

But there is literarily nothing you can give me. You could tell me something, but that’s about it. Not “give” me anything.

Janu please, just call me at 12.

(2 hours later)

I’ve been trying, this isn’t working, but hold on.

(impatiently) Fine, okay. I’ll wait.

Here. It’s done. Watch.

 

Oh my god. This was going to be one of the worst birthdays I have had in years, maybe even a decade. Yet you still found a way to make it fantastic…

 

I love you so much. I love you, so much.

++ ^ inf

se bhi zyaada

Intellect.

It is so confusing.

Ironic, innit? You are the smartest person alive. It was a gift, that was given to you! Then, why is it that it seems like a curse? You can understand and perceive so much more than most can. Clarity is the gift that you were given and you cannot imagine life without it.

Then why are you confused. Why is it that you do not understand.

Basic human understanding. When someone cries, they are hurt, they feel pain. All you see is stupidity entrenching a feeble mind. You are above all of that. The cold steel of logic guides your way. You do not feel, you just compute. Emotion is a factor, you cannot ignore it. You account for it. You try to understand it. You pity the people who have to deal with it like it was a real thing.

Then you make that stupid decision. You fall for that lie that you just, just, just want to believe. You want to feel it. You want to feel… you just want to feel.

That is when they have you. It seems like they care, it seems that they will always be there. Then in one instant, that love turns to anger. That affection seems to disappear. You don’t understand. You are the smartest person alive, and yet, you don’t understand!!!

Maybe that is what normal people do. They pick up the pieces, and they move on. They try to reconstruct their lives and their minds. They should have learnt, but they haven’t. They, yet again, throw themselves into that whirling cesspool that cannot be controlled, cannot be defined.

You are smarter. You will understand. You will let that cold steel of logic define your life. You may not feel, but that is fine. You are, the smartest person alive.

 

..then you think, are you really, alive?

Seven Eleven

11

Bitch!
No, try again.

BITCH!
Better, with more passion

BITCH!!!
There we go. Now try to ignore all the people staring at us… and try again.

10

Soft, yet determined. Innocent, yet thoughtful. I had to capture this look, this moment.
A few years later, the same picture, engulfed in flames.

Probably wasn’t intended, but instead of diminishing, the flames only added to it.

9

No, no, DON’T SING THAT SONG!
But you love that song.

NO, don’t sing it.

I have to, the plane is in a few hours..

8

Wow, we have never seen her like this!
What do you mean?

Usually she talking and making jokes and generally bossing everyone around..
Oh?

Yeah! But right now it is like she is just so shy and quiet.
Really? This is a revelation..

7

Are you comfortable?
Yes, yes, totally.

Okay. I just want to make sure.

(15 minutes later)
I don’t think you are comfortable, let me make you comfortable.
No, I was actually quite comfortable.

Oh okay. I just want to make sure you are comfortable.
Yes, yes, I am.

(15 minutes later)
Wait, let me make you comfortable.

Why Do I Hate Religion?

I have always found religion moronic. I have always had fairly extreme views against it, mostly based on two perspectives.
The first being, religion is has caused more pain, suffering and death than any single evil force on this planet. The second, that it makes good people do bad things, and let’s bad people get away with horrific things.

Yet, I think the final culmination of my war against religion was personal. It was the death of my mother.

My mother, died of cervical cancer. When she was diagnosed, she was already at stage IV, which is pretty much a death sentence. She went to astrologers, she went to her “Guru”, everyone of who assured her that she would recover. All of that, despite being stupid and silly, I excuse.

My mother, had a tumor two years before the discovery of her cancer. She went to a doctor, who told her that she needed further tests and may need her uterous removed. This drove her into a fearful frenzy. She found solace, in her God. She was a devout Hindu who had prayed for 4-8 hours a day for the last twenty years of her life. She believed that her God would make everything okay. On that faith, she didn’t tell us about the extent of her tumor and simply claimed that everything was just fine – and that she had seen a doctor who confirmed it.

Of course, her God, didn’t. Instead, her God, let her die a horrible and painful death.

People argue, carefully of course, trying not to offend my sensibilities, that maybe? just maybe, she was going to make the same decisions anyway if she wasn’t religious. She may have just chosen to hide the harsh reality she had to deal with and religion was just a way to do so.

Possibly.

Of course, religion gave her a conduit to do so. It gave her a way to hide away from the truth, facing which, would almost definitely have saved her life. Religion gave her hope, when she should have been given care. Religion gave her delusion, when she should have faced reality.

Even if religion just played a small part, even if it were just a factor that increased her chances of dying, religion is what killed her. It was the one thing that she depended on. She believed. She had FAITH in her God. Her God, never came to save her, because he never could. He didn’t exist.

Had she maybe just, just realized how fake this God of hers was that she had spent so much of her life investing in, she could be alive today.
Whoever says that “religion”, doesn’t do evil, is sticking their heads into the sand. They are preaching a dangerous message that is killing people every day. I am not just talking about the Jihad or the massacres in various parts of the world by one religion on another. I am talking about the fooling of innocent, good, people, into believing that there is someone out there watching out for them.

There isn’t. Get out of your fucking stupid shell and START taking responsibility for your own lives.

There is no God. At least no God that gives a shit about you.
Get used to it. It is called “growing up”.

 

If we didn’t have religion, then this problem wouldn’t exist. Maybe we wouldn’t be killing each other in the name of a deity, maybe we wouldn’t be discriminating based on which invisible man we believe in. Maybe we’d have one less thing to use to do evil with.

Fuck that. If that religion didn’t exist? My mother would still be alive.

The Tolerance of Intolerance.

Recently, we had a person come to our usual social gathering. She seemed generally nice, mellow, to an extent interesting. She seemed like someone we would want to invite to our little clique of friends. Till at one point, she asked this question, “So, what do you guys think of gay marriage?” The troll in me responded, “Oh, completely against it! Marriage really should be between a man and a woman, that’s it!”

To this she replied, “Really! See, someone who agrees with me..”

My head almost exploded with a massive “what the fuck just happened?” moment. Still, to see the extent of this person’s views, I trolled further by saying, “I know right! I mean, being gay, it is just, abnormal.”

I kid you not, she responded saying, “Exactly. That is so true!”

At this point, I decided, this is not someone I shall ever spend my time socially with. I made it clear to everyone after she had left and some of the folks did not agree. Their point of view was, how was it different that I was discriminating against her based on an opinion, than her discriminating against gay people? The principle was the same, wasn’t it?

No. It isn’t.

Let me tell you a story. There was a boy who was born Joshua Ryan Alcorn. Since the age of four, Joshua felt that there was something very wrong with him. At fourteen, he discovered what transgender meant and, in his words, cried tears of happiness. After years of confusion, this child had finally realized that there was nothing wrong with him and that he was just trying to be a gender that he wasn’t. He picked the name Leelah and Leelah begged her parents to let her undergo gender transition treatment. Two years later, Leelah Alcorn, killed herself.

Why?

Her parents put her through Christian “conversion” treatment, told her that God does not make mistakes and that she was just wrong. It was drilled into her head that she was being selfish and that she was going to go to hell. Her access to social media was cut off and she was verbally abused by her parents on a regular basis. Her parents loved Joshua Alcorn. Her parents also believed that what Leelah was, was an abomination and abnormal.

What fascinates me though is that her parents, were probably quite vocal about their beliefs. People who knew them, would often share the same beliefs and even if they didn’t, would care too much. I mean, they were entitled to their own opinion right? Why would their friends ever judge them on it?
I fucking wish they did. I wish that every single person who ever heard them express this opinion shunned them or insulted them to their face for it. I wish that they lived in a society where it was NOT okay to hold a belief that a person being who they are, were somehow abnormal or going to hell or sinners. I wish that all of those people who were tolerant of the Alcorn’s beliefs were NOT so tolerant.

Maybe, if that was the world they lived in. Maybe, then just maybe, there might have been a chance that they wouldn’t have mentally tortured their only child. Maybe, then just maybe, Leelah Alcorn would still be alive.

Bill Maher put this rather simply. “Don’t become so tolerant that you tolerate intolerance.”

So no, I will not tolerate intolerance. I will not dismiss it as “just an opinion.” I will not accept them as they are. It is these people that propagate beliefs that ’cause misery and sometimes even deaths of people whose only fault was to be born a certain way.

Leelah Alcorn did not commit suicide, she was murdered. She was murdered by her parents. She was murdered by the society she lived in. Every single person who knew of her parent’s homophobic beliefs and just looked the other way?

Each of them, in a tiny little way, was her murderer too.