Living Life: Do You Want To Die Happy Or Sad?

“On a long enough time line, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.” - Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club.

True, isn't it? If that is the case then why live that uninteresting half-dead pseudo monk-ish life? What's the use?

Why inhale just oxygen (which is polluted anyways)?

Why follow the vegetarian lifestyle?

For a healthier life?

For a longer life??

Now think about it this way - It isn't going to make you immortal. Instead, its going to make your stale pale life even longer. The older you grow the more morbid it becomes. And finally when you reach your death-bed you realize that you have not done anything at all in your entire life other than earning money and spending it on "buying things you don't need to impress people you don't like."

Right now is the time you need to wake up from your coma. Start tearing out grass from that dew covered field in the morning. Smoke some (other kind of) grass in the nights. Get stoned. Get drunk. Enjoy the different kinds of meat available to man, taste the different kinds of wine. Stop being angry all the time. Shed that attitude. Forget about the conference room. Start thinking about the smoke filled music room instead. The intoxication, the trance will make you realize that you are alive. In short, live life to the fullest.

Sounds hedonistic? Not quite. Read on...

'Practical' is the right expression here. I am just being practical here and showing you the reason why you should come out of that puny self-protective shell of yours which will break anyways, eventually. Start doing it now and embrace death as a happy old man OR -- just die as a sad, self-withered 'very' old man. The choice is yours...

Hok Kolorob

The Trinamool government, at the dead of the night on 17 September 2014, unleashed RAF and Commandos on innocent students of Jadavpur University in order to break their peaceful gherao of the Vice-Chancellor of the university. Lots of students were badly wounded. Plain clothed political goons accompanied the police and molested the girls. In a classic ambush fashion, all the gates were locked and the lights were switched off just before police pounced on the students, who were "armed" only with guitars and violins. These students just wanted one simple thing: that their friend, who got molested inside the University campus a few weeks ago should get a fair unbiased investigation.

This poem is against all those inhuman barbarians, politicians who think they can get away with anything simply because they have power in their hands. No they cannot. We will stop them. With our movement. Hok Kolorob has united us and now we will see this till the end. 'Hok Kolorob' in Bengali means 'Make Some Clamor'. Its indeed time to make some clamor.

লড়াই আমার রক্তে আছে
লড়াই আমার ঘামে,
আজ থেকে আর ভয় পাই না
রাজনৈতিক নামে।

সব কটা ওই বরাহ-শিশুর মুখ
আমি দেখতে পেয়ে গেছি,
(সুযোগ পেলে)
নিজের বোনের ছিঁড়বে জামা
আমি বুঝতে পেরে গেছি।

মদ, গাঁজার দোহাই দিস
কত ধরবি ভেক,
নিজের বাড়ির পিছনেই তোর
দেশী মদের ঠেক।

মার যত মার, মারতে পারিস
দেখি কত জোর,
রাজনৈতিক বিষ দাঁতটা
উপড়ে নেবো তোর।

আকাশ, বাতাস মাতিয়ে দেবো
কবিতায়ে আর গানে,
একজোট হয়ে বুঝিয়ে দেবো
আন্দোলনের মানে।

উপাচার্য তোকে নামতে হবে
চেঁচিয়ে বলো সব,
লাঞ্চিত বোনেদের ন্যায় চাই
আজ হোক কলরব... হোক কলরব...।

Bipolar Disorder - The Devil Within

I could never have mastered the courage to write this post but for a fellow sufferer Summer Moon. An extremely courageous person who have been fighting with bipolar disorder for a long time. This post of mine is actually inspired by this post of Summer. Summer's words there have given life to my feelings.

It’s quite some time now that I have been suffering from Bipolar disorder. The first time it occurred, I was in college, second year. The year was 2004. I started going into intense depressions but didn't know the real reason behind it then. I simply thought it has something to do with my doping or a tumultuous love affair. But the night I somehow stopped myself from slashing my wrist I made up my mind that I need to go see a doctor. I kept the whole thing a secret from my parents since in India most parents don't approve of the fact that their children are visiting a psychiatrist. The doctor spoke to me for like two hours, prescribed me Lithium Carbonate and said its most likely monopolar or bipolar disorder. Over the next 1 year, I visited him three more times to finally find out that it’s a Type - II bipolar disorder.

This thing has been with me since then. I am either working 30 hours at a stretch, eating more than the double of my normal appetite, having 10 hour long video game sessions or sitting morosely in the darkness of my room, despising everything and everyone in the world, contemplating suicide.

Many a times I thought, what if I didn't have this. How my life could have been different if I was not attacked by this disorder. How my image could have been different. In what other ways (some of) my friends would have criticized me instead of just calling me a 'nutcase' behind my back. What would have my teacher said if he knew that it’s not an excuse for bad grades. In a situation where even the closest of your friends and family (including your dad) start stereotyping at the mention of the word 'bipolar', I found a turnaround for myself. I remembered how this disorder has accompanied me through every thick and thin. How it has helped me with extra-energy when I had to complete an urgent pitch presentation in 24 hours’ time. The problem itself has sort of become a close friend of mine when others abandoned me.

Based on this, I created different metaphors to live with. Whenever I go into a depression I would tell myself that my friend is angry with me and that's why I am sad too. Just give him some time, coax him a bit and everything will be fine. To certain extent this helped. But at the end of the day, it’s actually a devil you are fighting and not some offended friend. In order to do this successfully, what you really need is a bit of love and care.

In my worst days, I have seen an angel come into my dark room, light it up with her radiance and provide me with the much needed medicine of love along with the capsules of Lithium carbonate. She is the love of my life. She is my only hope. She hides away the blades and knives along with the whiskey/vodka bottles whenever I go into severe depressions. She takes unconditional (and unpaid) leaves from her otherwise hectic job to be with me, whenever she realizes things are not going fine. She knows how to cope with me when I am at my worst. I wish every sufferer like me had an angel like her in their lives to make things easier.

On that note, one small request to every reader here: Support the bipolar sufferers. Don't push them away. Love can be the best medicine. I guess, that's not asking for much...

Politics

Right is drawing our attention to the pressing need,
Every modern state seeks to achieve certain purpose.
It is freedom and positive hindrance taking heed,
But at least equally in various ways doing trespass.
People's effective control over those who yield power,
Are the one whose supreme sovereignty cannot arise.
Concentration of power in a single center shall shower,
The order implies a right to obedience in disguise.

Enlightened self-interest however told men,
The generation of such a deadly great Leviathan.
Force and fraud were its cardinal virtues then,
Authorized all that the ruler does and run.
Competition and war in which everyone would be,
Virtues and vices, only rule, always should be.

Rape. A Question...

Its been a while that India is going through the rape crisis. The growing numbers of rape seem unstoppable. Be it an urban metro city or a remote village, the story is just the same. Women are being brutalized everywhere. Being a citizen of this country, as much as I am ashamed, I am frightened more. One of my colleagues once asked me, what is that you fear the most? And my prompt reply was, "rapists". Since a man was saying this, he started laughing. I made my point saying, my sisters, my female friends, my fiancé roam around on the streets alone and I keep thinking almost all the time how safe are they. In a country where neither a 6 year old kid nor a 80 year old lady is safe anymore, what is the safety assurance of a common citizen?

There are a lot of analyses and counter-analyses doing the rounds. Some saying sexuality and objectification of women in cinema should be banned. Others are going a step ahead and saying that prostitution should be legalized. And again some are saying that proper education should be given to everyone. These are all valid points at their own places, no doubt, but these do not provide any solution to the real problem.

With the Modi government coming into power we can just hope that things will get better with stricter laws. We can just hope. But is it really their headache to set things right? They roam around with security guards all the time. Their family members are not at peril. What if they don't give a shit? What if they don't do anything? Of course we can throw them off the chair then but that would be after 5 long years.

Instead of waiting for the government to take steps, what can we do to make the streets a safer place for the women of this country? How can we make sure that the rapists get scared well enough to suppress their animal instincts and don't dare touch a single woman citizen of India?

I am still searching for the answer...

Metamorphosis

The end of fantasies,
The shattering of dreams.
Nothingness and darkness,
Engulf my senses.

The end of the world,
The beginning of another.
The dark era has begun,
The devil has shown himself.

The beast inside has come alive,
To prey on unsuspecting souls.
The furnace is boiling,
The agony inside is searing.

Pain stings like icicles on a winter night,
Blood flows like hot magma.
I am numbed and cold to feelings,
And I watch as all bonds are ripped apart.

Adrenalin surges through my veins,
As my animal instincts take over.
I feel the need for blood and gore,
And goodliness seems a distant cliche.

I loathe what I am turning into,
But betrayed I find only one way.
The darker path to salvation,
The way to peace with myself.

Of Music and Emotions

Have you ever listened to the music in horror movies? What about the music in inspirational or Disney movies? What kind of music do you listen to when you are sad? What kind of music do you listen to when you're happy? Since we are all human beings we all experience joy, anger, sadness and other feelings like those. We all have a ton of emotions that control how we act and what we say. Our emotions are triggered by many things. One of those things is Music.

Music has the ability to change the emotional and physical status of people, whether they are in bad moods, good moods, or sad moods.

There is a beautiful passage in a book called "Home of the Gentry", by Ivan Turgenev, where the protagonist of the novel listens to a piece of music being played on the piano that touches him to the core of his soul. I will quote part of this passage, since it describes very eloquently the almost mystical power that music wields over the human mind, a power which I find fascinating.

"The sweet, passionate melody captivated his heart from the first note; it was full of radiance, full of the tender throbbing of inspiration and happiness and beauty, continually growing and melting away; it rumoured of everything on earth that is dear and secret and sacred to mankind; it breathed of immortal sadness and it departed from the earth to die in the heavens."

The tremendous ability that music has to affect and manipulate emotions is undeniable, and yet largely inexplicable. As a musician, I will attempt to shed some light on music's ability to produce emotional responses in the brain.

One great problem that arises in trying to understand music's emotional power is that the emotional content of music is very subjective. A piece of music may be undeniably emotionally powerful, and at the same time be experienced in very different ways by each person who hears it. The emotion created by a piece of music may be affected by memories associated with the piece, by the environment it is being played in, by the mood of the person listening and their personality, by the culture they were brought up in: by any number of factors both impossible to control and impossible to quantify. Under such circumstances, it is extremely difficult to interpret what intrinsic quality of the music, if any, created a specific emotional response in the listener. Even when such seemingly intrinsic qualities are found, they are often found to be at least partially culturally dependent.

Several characteristics have been suggested that might influence the emotion of music. For example, major keys and rapid tempos generally cause happiness, whereas minor keys and slow tempos cause sadness, and rapid tempos together with dissonance cause fear. There is also a theory that dissonance sounds unpleasant to listeners across all cultures. Studies have shown that infants as young as 4 months old show negative reactions to dissonance.

One recent experiment measured the activity in the brain while subjects were played previously-chosen musical pieces which created feelings of intense pleasure for them. The musical pieces had an intrinsic emotional value for the subjects, and no memories or other associations attached to them. Activity was seen in the reward/motivation, emotion, and arousal areas of the brain. This result was interesting partly because these areas are associated with the pleasure induced by food, sex, and drug abuse, which would imply a connection between such pleasure and the pleasure induced by music.

These kinds of experiments show that music has the power to produce significant emotional responses, and they localize and quantify these responses within the brain.

Another quantifiable aspect of emotional responses to music is its effect on the physical aspects of human body. There is evidence that music can lower levels of stress, and is also good at inducing sleep (this of course depends on the kind of music). This is outwardly visible in terms of music's ability to relax, to calm, and to give peace. Music is often used in the background of hospitals to relax the patients, or in mental hospitals to calm potentially belligerent patients. It is also reported that music can cause the release of endorphins, and can therefore help relieve pain.

Love for and appreciation of music is a universal feature of human culture. It has been theorized that music even predates language. There is no question that music has grown to be an important part of human life, but we can only guess why. How does music succeed in prompting emotions within us? And why are these emotions often so powerful? The simple answer is that no one knows. We are able to quantify the emotional responses caused by music, but we cannot explain them.

May be, that is why music sometimes becomes synonymous to magic.

My Internship at 20:20 Media, Chennai

Off late, I had been staying in Chennai for my internship at 20:20 Media, Chennai office. This is one of the top PR agencies of India and I must say I was really lucky to have got a chance of doing my internship at such a place. No doubt, when I am saying this, it means that I must have seen something unique in this agency which makes it different from other agencies. Of course, I have; the work culture and the approach towards life.

When I was in the first year of my MBA, I used to hear from my seniors and my faculties that the corporate world is a very tough place and one has to be “at his toes” all the time to meet the deadlines. Of course, that’s a big truth. But what makes all the difference is the approach towards your work – the way you look at it and the way you want to perform it.

The moment you enter the office of 20:20 Media, Chennai, you will feel that you have entered a club with all your friends around. The work load will of course be there, but the stress will go off at once. Gradually you will realize that this office is more like home. People helping each other, elders guiding the youngers, making fun, having lunch together, sharing the dishes and of course, offering true and sincere love for each other. Man, I miss that place…

I think I should sincerely compel myself to dedicate a full paragraph here, towards the work culture and working conditions of the office; otherwise, I will keep on writing about my pleasant memories and will jumble things up. Here it goes… -

To be short – the working condition is state-of-the-art. Digitally locked front door, executive standard furniture, split air-conditioners, computers with latest configurations, video conferencing facility, mini library – all add up to the comfort of working. The environment of the office itself gives you the confidence that you can finish off anything and everything which is assigned to you. The guidance of the seniors is such that it will drive you automatically to perform better. What I mean to say is that, in this office, the work load no more remains a load – it becomes enjoyment. More so, because you will learn here, how to love your clients as your own company. Rejoice at your clients successes, weep at their failures. I guess this is what makes 20:20 Media the top PR agency of India.

The practice of having training sessions on Friday mornings provide the employees with new insights and latest information on the industry. These sessions may take place within a branch or across all branches through video conferencing and webinars. The first day I witnessed this, I remembered a famous saying of the great dramatist, George Bernard Shaw – “You see things; and you say, 'Why?' But I dream things that never were; and I say, "Why not?" In that context, 20:20 Media has, no doubt, brought a silent revolution in the corporate working culture.

Apart from these, what I remember the most is the daily lunch together. Everybody would sit in the conference room with the director Mr. R. Narayanan (respected Naru Sir) at the head of the table – much like the way my father, as the head of the family, sits at the head of the table, when we have lunch at home. Then they will start sharing their dishes with one another. I must admit here that I rarely took part in this dish sharing since I was not very fond of South Indian dishes, apart from masala dosa. This was a big subject of humour in the office that how can a guy go on having masala dosa each and every day!!? He must be crazy (that’s me, of course…). Jokes apart, these lunch sessions together indeed imbibed extra warmth for one another.

All the people whom I met in this office; I hate to call them my colleagues. No – all of them are my real good friends. As such, I will try to describe them in my own way, with one liners (which Nikhila may judge as my “Last Impression” as well) –

Shankar – The Versatile Genius

Twinkle – The Magic Smile

Nikhila – The Erudite

Jaani – A real friend indeed

Nachu – A true gentleman

Vinita – Very very cute

Ambika – The symbol of Ceasefire

Shraddha – The real hard worker

Bala – The Zoozoo (as Naru sir aptly calls her)

Nishant – The KoooooooL guy

Balaji – Call him in the middle of the night and he is ready to help you

Ramya – Peace

Hema – Dainty

Naru sir – I am dazzled with his knowledge.

One last note – I really wish that someday I will be working in an office, where, after half a day of hard work, I will suddenly feel relieved hearing a voice calling out to everyone, “Guys, lunch…?”