The Itch -- Part 1

The itch was driving Mr. Kosmos mad. It started somewhere in the area of his right thigh's underside and it spread till the heel of his foot. He scratched and scratched, but it brought him no relief. The worse part was that he was sitting near the window of the bus on this long journey from his home to visit his sick mother in another town. And the woman sitting by his side was asleep since the journey began. He could not even distract himself from the itch by talking to her because waking her up would be rude and Mr. Kosmos was not a rude man. His mother had raised him to be a better man. 

He sighed deeply and continued to itch his leg through the fabric of his trouser. What he really wanted to do was to rip off his trousers and dig into the meat of his leg with his nails till he found the source of that itch and then rip the culprit agent of itch out with his teeth. He was sweating more than usual even though the air conditioning in the bus was working fine. He tried to distract himself by looking out of the window but the same old scenery of trees and roadside foliage passed him by. It was boring, but not boring enough to take his mind off the itch. 

As he scratched his leg, he felt the itch growing like an ink stain in a glass of water. It spread all over his leg and if Mr. Kosmos had as much as a shaving blade, he would have sawed his leg off with that thing no matter how much time it took or how much he bled all over the bus. He grabbed the armrest on the left side of the bus because the large lady's arm was completely over the middle arm rest. He slammed his back into the seat and opened his mouth to suck in a little more of the sweet air conditioned air, but there was no relief from the itch. 

He finally decided that he'd have to get off the bus and handle the itch before making his way to his mother by some other mode of transport. He raised his hand from his seat and waved it wildly, waiting for the conductor of the bus to notice him. The man had his headphones plugged deep in his ears and he was bobbing his head to some strange beat. Mr. Kosmos was almost at the verge of tearing his hair out when he did something unthinkable for which he would blame himself till the day he died.

He slid his hand under the fat arm of the woman sleeping in the next seat and pinched her with all his might. She screamed like a train engine and that got the conductor's attention. He knocked on the driver's cabin and the bus slowly started to slow down. 

But Mr. Kosmos had a new problem very quickly coming his way. The woman stood up to her full height like some kind of behemoth and slapped Mr. Kosmos right in the face. The last thing he saw as stars swam before his eyes and birds circled his head was the woman's other hand rushing to make another introduction with his face. 

Thankfully, by then he had blacked out. 

And so began his real problems.

- part 2, soon -

Coming back to old habits

There was a time when I loved blogging like nothing else. But then social media happened. Facebook and Twitter came along and blogs took a back seat. I am sure the case is same with many of you, because who the hell wants to write a blog post when you can do away with a 140 character tweet or post a picture and an update on facebook, right?

No. You're not right in this. Tweets and facebook posts are the McDonalds and KFC of the online world. Sure, they feel pretty good when you're digging your claws into them, when you're smearing those yummy sauces all over your virtual self, when you're bathing in the glow of likes, hearts, retweets, shares and comments. But all that shit, empty calories my friend. They leave your ego bloated and sluggish, and soon you're like pavlov's dogs, just dancing to the same old tune.

How do I know that? I was there, man. From night to day, and fuck, it was bad. It took some major life shaking events to put things in perspective and give me another view at how bad things actually were.

Hey, maybe you can control your social media consumption, but i could not. I failed at it spectacularly. I failed at it majestically and in full view of more than 6000 followers (bullshit number). But now that I am away from it, and i don't feel a compulsion to post a tweet every time i take a shit or blow a fuse, it's much more calm, peaceful. I am looking at my life and I can see things that I had ignored before.

There are so many beautiful things and beautiful people all around me and all I was doing was squeezing my thoughts into 140 character blasts that was more like a monkey dancing to a beat than any kind of creative expression.

See, you spend enough time on any social media or anywhere, once you figure out what makes people tick, what gets a response out of them, it's fucking addictive to push their buttons and see them squirm. It's a feeling of power and when your real life is slowly going to shit, you will grab at any minute chance of power you get. I was there, and damn, did it feel good? Ohh, fuck yeah, it felt so good.

To know that you can rile the feminist brigade on twitter by just posting a tweet about driving habits of women and have them tweeting shitty death threats to you all day...beyond wonderful. Say some shit about national anthem and the patriots will crawl out of the wood work like cockroaches and you can fuck with them even then. Wash your dirty linen in an online space and enjoy the attention pouring from all corners of the virtual space. All day, all night, all week.

Fuck, make up a story, man. I've seen people do that. Smart people. Intelligent people. Just for kicks!

And where does all that leave you? Fucking nowhere. You're so out of touch with reality at the end of it, you're so enclosed in your bubble of virtual reality that the shitty problems of others start to overshadow your own problems, cuz who the fuck wants to look at what's wrong with their own house when someone else's house is on fire and it looks so damn beautiful.

Again, I'll say this again, this is all from my personal experience. I was in a strange place, mentally, physically, and spiritually, and I fed on this form of power and attention. If you can use twitter and social media in a responsible manner, by all means, keep at it. More power to you.

But I had to get out, man. I just could not stay.

Yeah, I am there on instagram and tumblr now but who knows for how long.

But I want to write. I've always wanted to write. That's why I took up my first job, and my second job and then joblessness because it'd give me an opportunity to write. I want to get better at this.

And more things will come. I am not going to sit on my ass and just let this time pass me by.

I know I am stronger than my addictions and the only person that I have to prove something to, is me.

I've totally lost the plot to this post by now, so let me know if you've found something useful in this.

Drop a comment below!~

Excuses are easy, work is hard.

I don't live a life governed by too many rules, but there are certain points that I try to follow in my life. So, just to give you a taste of some of these rules that make me, me -- this is a post covering some of those points.

a) No is easy to say, yes is hard to do --- Oh, man. The trouble this has saved me for years. Really, if you don't want to do something, say so. Many people in life keep saying yes to others so as to not offend them or to maintain some kind of favor with them, but if you keep saying yes, it's going to land you in a spot of bother sooner or later. None of us are supermen or superwomen, we have limits when it comes to physical or mental tasks. Believe it or not, if you don't learn to say no to people, then god save you.

b) Lie as close to truth as you can -- Come on, we all lie. Little harmless lies or big lies that can change destinies. Other than having an alibi for your lie (woah, rhyme), you need to keep your lie as believable as possible. Wrap your lie in a cloth spun with truth and you're golden.

c) Quit while you're ahead -- Sometimes, when you know you're at the top of your game and it's only going to go downhill from there on, get the fuck out. It might be painful, it might itch for a while, but the wounds scab over sooner or later and only scars remain. And that's fine. Why burn out at one thing when you can be better at something else instead?

d) Is the juice worth the squeeze? -- Stuck on a difficult decision? Don't know whether to go for it or not, just ask yourself this question. It really helps. Is the result you might get really worth the effort you're going to put into it? Often in life, we keep banging our heads against problems that are not really worth our time, the juice is just not worth the squeeze you're applying to it, so, uh, squeeze something else.

e) Dare to be stupid -- There are times when we think that we're being stupid as fuck and if we go ahead we're going to be the laughing stock of the village and all that shit. Fuck it. Do it. Be stupid if you've to be. But you're still one step ahead of someone who is not even making the effort to be stupid. A shit effort is any day better than zero effort. Right? And if nothing else, it'll be good for some laughs and you'll learn not to do that stupid shit again.

That's just some, there are many more. Be mindful, that this shit works for me, and it might not work for you. Your milage will absolutely fucking vary, cuz you're not me.

So, I suggest, find your own life code and follow it. We all need a code. Dig? Good. That was the whole point of this post. 

What's good in life?

Everything.

If you're alive and kicking it's a reason to give thanks to the higher powers. You've got 24 hours in a day, everyone has the same time too. Who's using it better? You are.

See, if you consider all other things being equal, we're all going to die. Some of us will be remembered once we are gone, others will become a part of the celestial dust, just some ink on paper or digital garbage in some file somewhere. That's all that some of us might amount to. And you know the funny thing, it's okay. It doesn't matter. Nothing really matters in the long run. The things we sweat and struggle and toll about only affect us till the moment we're alive. Once we shuffle off the mortal coil, become a part of the stars or some shit, our problems become someone else's problems.

So, maybe the hard work you're doing is for others. For the next generations. Maybe they'll value it, maybe they won't. You will not have a way to know.

Because, after all, luck is also a factor. Honest, hardworking, able, confident, real people get fucked because they happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. At the same time, thieves, scoundrels, and monsters keep living amongst us, and they thrive! Thrive!

It's like watching a shitty twitter account gain followers, while you've been toiling away at twitter every day with expertly crafted tweets that you painstakingly go over to look for typos and grammar issues. Who the fuck cares and what the fuck does it matter?

But Pallav, you say, *I* care! I care about my follower count, what I leave for the future generations when I leave the world, I want to leave a name, I want to leave my-mark-on-the-face-of-the-planet.

To which, I'd reply, really? Do you often kid yourself like this? You're just playing yourself, my friend. In a 100 years or so, nothing is going to matter because the planet is going to either die a heat death or get involved in water wars so fierce that it will wipe out maximum population of the world and most of the people who've read this blog post.

So who's right at the end? You or me? I am.

Oh, and comments are open right now. Write a few words if you disagree with me or want to tell me to fuck off and shove a print out of this post where the sun don't shine. 

Why resolutions suck and you should do away with them.

New year, new me! yay! Here's your medal and a complementary fuck you.

It's the same bullshit year after year after year with people shouting their resolutions from rooftops, their blogs, and posting their resolutions on social media, cramming it down the throats of unwilling followers, who are tired of rolling their eyes at not-this-shit-again.

I mean, come on, anyone over 23 should come to the realization that life doesn't change or get better just because it's a new day and a new year. It's just a change of date, if you were a lazy, unmotivated bucket of lard on 31st of december, then you're going to be the same on 1st of jan, stop kidding yourself.

Buhh..buh..but, Pallav! how you can you say things like this, you say. How can you shit on the dreams and desires of people who are trying to be better, who are trying to lose weight, or get in shape, or wake up early, or make more money, or be better at their relationships, or keep their dog/fish/cat/dinosaur alive and well fed?

How can you tell them to stop making resolutions and get on with their lives like it's (gasp!) not even a newyearnewme?

I do this because I love you and I care for you, and I don't want you to be buttfuck hurt and disappointed in future when your dreams get their throats cut by your indifference and lack of enthusiasm.

The reasoning behind is simple, if you've waited till new year to bring in a "new me" well, then the new me isn't going to happen. Real desire to change or be better doesn't wait for a fucking muhurat. If you want to do something, you fucking do it. That's it.

If you've made a resolution or something of that sort, seriously, quit it while you're ahead. No point in pouring in effort and time into something that will eventually lead to same you as last year.

Just chill and bask in the glory of laziness and comfort zone.