The Mating Game

To procreate is one of the most primal instincts of all sentient beings – from insects to humans.

To satisfy this urge, males (of most species if not all) must prove their worthiness to the female of the species by displays of beauty, strength, skill and derring-do. In the case of humans the expanded list includes wealth, influence, and a range of unquantifiable “desirables”. The tools of the trade range from pheromones, to head butting, to goring competitors to death, right up to making spectacular edifices of marble and gold beaten into pretty shapes put in boxes with “Tiffany’s” written over them. But the rules are simple – find the ability to find a mate or perish in the attempt. Unless, of course, you happen to be an Indian human male.

The underlying reasons behind my lack of facility in this area have always eluded me, so I decided to do an audit. It does seem like I (and some good friends of mine) would appear more capable of at the outset, yet have had sparing or no success as opposed to complete retards that have. The causes behind this can be two-fold – lack of ability or misfortune. Misfortune is too easy, and hard to explain. So let’s take a look at lack of ability.

I think a big reason towards stated failures is that our upbringing puts us at a distinct disadvantage, simply because we know that our parents and family can compensate for our fecklessness. Thus, we are never at a stage where we tell ourselves that we need to do something or spend our lives alone! This, I believe, takes out a major motivating factor and increases pusillanimity.

Faced with the prospect of eternal singledom (sic) and loneliness, a person will tend to take matters in their own hands. This can be done either by being more proactive with choosing a mate or by settling for whatever is available and within one’s grasp rather than feeding the “I can do better” delusion. For instance, I could never see myself racking up the courage to do what the Americans do by striking up conversations with complete strangers in a bar, in a party, in a bus or at work. It is conceivable that things would be different if the situation was more desperate.

I know it seems easy to assign blame, but I know that I (and most aforementioned friends) am not really that bad. Even being modest, I know that I’m intelligent, knowledgeable, funny, witty, a good speaker capable of conversation and debate on a variety of topics and a capable problem solver. On the flip side, I’m also clueless, athletically poorer than a cow, untalented and gullible. But hey, nobody’s perfect, right? ;-)

While there is no lesson to be learnt here, I’d like to believe that I wrote this dispassionate (albeit needless) analysis in interest of starting writing again. I promise that a thesaurus was not used in the construction of this piece!

Untitled

The first vision of perfection,
The first bout of madness,
The first dreams of euphoria,

Rose eyed glasses, unseeing,
Clouded senses, unknowing,
Black magic, unnerving,

The passage of time,
The mirage fades,
The perfection cracks,

The mind clears, sanity returns,
The eyes open, vision is restored,
The spell is lifted, reality hits,

The dream lingers on,
Holding on to threads,
The sane mind tries but in vain,

I will not ask of you,
To see me as I see you,
But one thing I will ask,

Don't feed my madness,
By making me feel,
That someday you might

The way money works

If you are hoping that this piece will help you tide over the "recession" by a deep understanding of the way money works, I apologize in advance for the seemingly deceptive title. What it is, is a set of a my own views on money.

My first view of money growing up, courtesy of dad, was that it was meant to make the most of. We were never rich, probably just in the "upper" middle-class. Yet, we had always seen much more than most of the people around who earned as much, or at times more money than us. Be it books, movies, branded clothes, family vacations, or eating out - we did things in style. I remember being 12 when paying 0ver a 1000 bucks for dinner was a done thing. I used to be surprised when friends of mine used to express angst at how expensive a place is if they (i.e. their dads) had to fork ouy over 500. Little did I know that for most people in our income group, it actually was!

Consequently we saw a lot of the good things in life, at the expense of us not having a lot in the name of savings. But as dad says, we've always been fortunate in that some way or the other, we've always managed to find enough money to do what we need to - be it my sister's wedding or my exorbitantly priced education.

That brings us to the second view, starkly contrasting with the first, that money needs to be conserved. We've seen tough times where money was concerned, and while we never struggled for the necessities, we had to rethink what was necessary and how much of it was necessary. Thousand buck dinners still happened, but now they usually demanded occasions, that was about it.

The third is a stronger view of the second, post my educational loan. While no one can argue that borrowing money for education is one of the worthiest reasons for doing so, I (and all my friends who have) still can't help feeling fear and at times doubt about whether it was the right decision. Financial concerns take up so much of your mental energy, its something that you cannot imagine till you are put in them. Don't get me wrong, at some point in life, you have to face up to them, but they really hit you the first time.

So, I find it a little funny and disappointing at the same time when people think it fit to continually poke fun at me for not wanting to spend money. How they don't see it fit to question if there is an underlying reason rather than just a character flaw. I may not be better for it, but I am not comfortable spending my folks' hard earned money on non-essential things, I don't feel a natural right to it. I don't even like that fact that I never did well enough to save my folks some money - be it on classes or due to scholarships or whatever. That itself precludes me acting like all their money is my own and spending it as and when I please, that is just not done.

Agreed, that I'm taking a holier than thou approach, considering how many people I have made fun of myself on things that I should not have (and probably continue to, albeit without realizing), but I never did say perfection was my quality or even my goal! :P

People skills 101: Importance Issues

No, the title is not a grammatical error, it is exactly appropriate as I shall later explain. Anyhow, here's the maxim that lays the foundation for this piece:

"Don't make important the people for whom you are not important"

- Unknown

Now while that makes perfect sense at the outset, it isn't quite that simple. In many instances it just doesn't work that way! Take the instance of you wanting to be more to some individual even when you know that person doesn't think highly of you. This could happen with personal or professional relationships - a boss, a person you idolize, a person you admire in any sense, your in-laws, anyone! The only way to get what you want, is to give them more importance than is due, or for that matter even more than is justified.

But that given, at what point do you stop? When do you say, that this is it, I'm not going to go any further. If this individual's perception of me or his/her respect for me is not going to increase, then I'm not going to try anymore. I'm not going to go out of my way belittling myself in the expectation of it being redeemed. This is where I seem to keep tripping up. The aforesaid point unfortunately tends to infinity in my case. So I keep subjecting myself to incessant disappointment when there is no reciprocation. Fair enough, considering that none was promised!

I guess it's often a hard call, particularly when your admiration gets in the way of rationality. The learning process continues. Chapter 1 ends here.

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Should I let go,
Being in the know,
That this is all it's going to be,
Or should I hold tighter, in hope,
And anticipation that there is more?

Extorted Expression

How much I have lost touch with writing becomes obvious when one is told that the crappy alliteration that makes up the title, took me 15 minutes and the assistance of thesaurus.com! Nevertheless, the title attempts to convey that I am forcing myself to sit in front of the keyboard and write something, possibly everyday. Having completed my masters (drumroll please!), I now have some time at hand to be reviving what was once a "promising talent" :P. In all due fairness, I reread a lot of my writing a month back and was pretty shocked at how much better it was than I ever thought it to be! I may not exactly be next in line for the Pulitzer, but I'm no slouch either.

Anyway, that much self praise was sufficient to jog my cells into writing a few more words, so I'll desist from indulging further. As has become the norm, whenever I write something after ages, its about wanting to write regularly, but it has never happened. If I had regular readers, I would have asked them what to write, but that was eons ago. Now there are none, and so that is not an option. I did see "Slumdog Millionaire" today, but I am going to take the high road here and not stoop to writing a review.

The other option was to write an India travelogue, but I tend to ramble more than usual in those, and plus there really isn't much to write there. The other option is to start writing long overdue testimonials for some fine folks, taking a cue from another gentleman from my grad school who is doing the same :D.

The third option, which I have taken, was to write out the options I had of what to write. Circular dependencies, anyone, anyone? :P. Anyhow, as stated, an honest attempt will be made to write something everyday at least over the next maybe 2 days. Post that, is too far ahead into the future!

On a completely unrelated topic, hear this out: http://ww.smashits.com/music/pop/play/songs/809/BREATHLESS-SHANKAR-MAHADEVAN/11790/Ghul-Raha-Hai.html

One should be able to at least:
1. Write half as well as this
2. Compose half as well as this
3. Sing half as well as this

Damn, I can't even do a tenth of either :(

The Advent of Catharsis

No joy, no sorrow. Wake up in the morning, go to bed at night. Go through the dreary motions of existing between. Breathe, eat to stay alive. Talk to stay sane. Work to avoid guilt. Continuous paranoia, mind stifled by fear. Inattention to everything. Indifference to everything. Looking forward to nothing. Powerless to fight, pervading air of resignation.

I love my life. I don't want to be like this.

The Niketa Mehta Case : Much needed food for thought

Not many moral, ethical or legal dilemmas have caught the attention of the nation more than the Mehta case. For those who came in late (or are not readers of ToI from where I found out about it), a little background would help.

So, I come across this article on a couple requesting permission from the high court to abort a 23 week foetus when current laws state that no abortions are legally allowed beyond the 20th week of pregnancy. My first thought was, what the hell is wrong with these people, why do they want these complications? Then I read that the trouble was that the child was seen to have severe congenital defects that held the potential to make it impossible for the child to lead a healthy, "normal" life. On the contrary the child may not survive long and would probably live painfully for as long as it would live. The court did what you expect of it - it said the laws don't allow it, you can't do it. Then the Supreme Court, higher court, same result. The next thought that came to my mind was that this decision means nothing. After all, the couple can always have it aborted illegally and claim that there was a miscarriage. But there would definitely be inquiries afterwards. Now, the whole thing had played out as predictably as any of those ancient Hindi soaps. Not that I am staking any claim to be a soothsayer, I'd say most people saw this coming!

Finally there seems to be some piece of news that is stirring the country into intelligent debate (if the comments section in ToI is anything to go by, admittedly not an authoritative benchmark) rather than fits of rioting and violence. There is so much to discuss and so many opinions - bordering on all possible extremes. And the thing is that all of them are right in their own sense! First off, no one knows whether it was really a miscarriage, but its reasonable to assume that it wasn't. For the purposes of this piece, I will work on the assumption that it was an abortion portrayed as a miscarriage.

Unfortunately I have nothing beyond this point planned out, so it will be haphazard at times. This is me being delusional that someone is actually reading this :) . The moral issue is the most pressing of all. Were they justified in "murdering" an "individual" irrespective of their intentions? View 1, they are cold blooded killers, who murdered their baby whom they had chosen to give birth to, just to save themselves from the extra effort and expense of raising a "deformed" child. View 2, they are saints who have saved their child from enormous pain and suffering, despite how difficult the decision must have been for them. Personally I haven't made my choice between the two, put my pro-liberal stance should put me somewhere in the saint area. Strangely, it doesn't! I still find both sides to have compelling arguments that apply even to the far wider areas of euthanasia and assisted suicide.

The case for view 1 is based on a fundamental set of doctrines that have remained unchallenged for much of human existence. The first is probability. How do the Mehtas know for sure that the child will not be normal or almost normal? After all, medical science is at the point where we can only predict with limited certainty. Maybe they just aborted a perfectly healthy child. The second is the right to choose. They argue that if man does not have the right to create life, what gives him the right to end it, an argument used ad nauseum by anti capital punishment activists. I must beg to differ here, copulation which gives rise to life is very much in our hands, children are not born randomly out of God's will. The point here is, that the choice did not rest with the foetus. The parent's chose to create it, and now it is the foetus' prerogative to choose to live. Thus, the parent's are unjustified in terminating it, ostensibly in all cases. The "right to live" argument holds a little water, but cannot turn this debate. All other arguments are variations on the two above points. I saw a lot of strong comments from people with this view, including folks quoting about their own handicapped siblings and how they would have never thought of "killing" them even if bringing them up is difficult.

But don't get swayed by that. There was also a comment from the parents of a handicapped child who said that as much as they hate it, they hope that their child will die before they do. Cruel as it may sound, they make perfect sense when they say that they do not want someone else and the child to suffer in their absence. Can you imagine what goes on through the mind of a parent who is crushed between a love for their child that wants to keep them from harm, but at the same time cannot bear to see their pain? This brings us to the arguments from people with view 2, who commend the couple for their courageous choice. Their first point is that the emotional and economic drain of taking care of someone like that would ruin the entire family. Which is probably true. Their second point is that it is better for a child who could have those many problems to not be born at all, for its own sake. If it can be spared of the pain, why not? That, to some extent, also makes sense. But where does one stop then? Taking it to the extreme, one person commented that why don't we kill all the old and handicapped then? While that may be really pushing it, lines do need to be drawn. The boundaries are hard to discern and in all likelihood do not exist. Much of the region where the said "line" is are shrouded in gray that will never clear. It will always be subject to each individual's interpretation of what is "right" and that can never be agreed upon.

The second issue that comes in is the ethical issue. What were the Mehtas thinking when they turned this into a media circus? Something so personal should never be turned into a farce. And the media has pounced on it (assumption, I bet a good one) as it always does sensationalizing it beyond all justification. Then when the "miscarriage" happens, Mr. Mehta gives a statement saying that the media exposure resulted in stress which may have caused it. Then he goes on to add that if not the law, at least God was with us. That, frankly, is a very presumptuous statement. Now that its happened (or done, whatever the case may be) why not shut up? The media went far out of bounds with the Aarushi case, they have lost all sensitivity so long ago, its even before the late Triassic. Knowing this, why does a man still keep speaking and licking the media like a dog?

The third is the legal. The less said the better, there is neither use not content for a debate here. No one can disagree that our laws are antiquated, but the levels of judicial activism in our country have been quite poor and the lawmakers are busy with more pressing matters like creating a ruckus in parliament and walking out. Also occasionally walking in with wads of cash. I don't wish to continue on this thread, it's fast becoming a rant.

As always, this debate will also end with no action being taken. We derive so much comfort from the status quo, it will take much more than this to stir our collective conscience into motion. However, it is heartening that the issue is being discussed on its merits - without coercion, violence, and not resorting to "culture" half as many times as we usually do. A few more cases such as this, and things will move. All is never lost.