Hedgehog's dilemma..is clearly not only hedgehogs' !!

The thing is,as i've tried stating very very categorically and strongly before,that in my world,INFIDELITY or even the slightest -most remote likes,spells crime.Its as wrong as wrong can be at its own worst-most ugly-unethical-wrong days! Period.


BUT.


There is always a freaking but! It got me thinking,this but,of course,when one of my own "persons" found himself trapped in a viscous cycle of unfaithfulness.It was like i was seeing one "Unfaithful" after the other..with three different stories.The only common link between all those stories being this smarty pants' character..In the first story that i witnessed he played the male equivalent of the CHEATER (yes,i do have the liberty to call him whatver i want bluntly!)ie. Passion-seeking wife (Diane Lane).Subsequently in the second situation and the one,fyi,which i know at the back of my hand,he was the the CHEATED(not literally though) ie.loving husband (Richard Gere) in the sense that he was mistaken in love(if i may call it!) to a certain extent.And now,in the present scenario,he is the unconnected-neither the suffer-or nor the suffer-ee,the "other man" the one being the cause of the whole plot,the French bookseller (Olivier Martinez) who is the third end of the triangle.


Well so the story today,is about this third guy who,as circumstantial as it was,was still in fact the one whose only connection to this infidel business was the infidel girl he was dreaming off.As fate could have it.. it came a full circle..and Karma struck back..only to bite him in his posterior.And The cheater became the cheated became the boy-next-door-who-just-happens-to-like-the-girl! Ok. So its happened. A slip or two. But now what,who is to be blamed now? Off the two(we're not counting the third poor cheated guy.He'll have his own fidelity issues to sort out.) testosterone and estrogen high characters?The one who knowingly is breaking the trust of an innocent guy and betraying him?Or the one who knows the drill,who has literally been there-done that-repented later and knows fully well the wrong-ness and unethical-ness of the whole deal the girl has to offer?Will be right to break the bond which has been nurtured and held for years for something that still just qualifies as a mere fling?Are the intensities even comparable?


The crassness and crystal clearness of the situation is but,scary.It looks like a never-ending cycle of so many things.How much so ever we might justify a wrong and prove the best intentions behind it,the wrong still does not cease to be a wrong.If you could get up one day and decide to walk out of a long committed relationship,shattering someone's illusion of living in a wonderful world.Someone could get up and do that to you.And if that cycle continues,do you think there will still be something left of ..FAITH?of Belief? of Trust?Is it worth it at all??To break THAT bond of the long committed relationship to step into THIS which barely qualifies to be a fling?What is the guarantee that this all-mushy-all rosy-all romantic fling will last,if that long&strong commitment filled mature one couldn't? If one starts depending upon only detachment to substitute all the human emotions in the world or take it as a solution to overcome all the adversities we go through or deal with any pain that anyone causes us.. then i must tell you that there will certainly come a day when we will know not where to go,either there'll be no space for us detached celibate stone-cold super-humans on the Himalayas or no room for any of us cruel deranged zombies in the mental asylums!


May be it is best after all,to stick to your guns and hold your ground while you still can.Call a wrong a wrong and deal with it as it is.Giving into temptation and blaming it on the hormones is the act of the weak for the only trip you go to after that is that of the Guilt-land ! May be,just may be,it is best then to make a stitch in time and save the nine or as the B-52s sang, you should probably nip it the bud or or or..or may be just let the complication solve itself  before you embark on your journey of the never never land with that "Unfaithful"-protagonist !Ask yourself a question or two..before rushing into it at god-speed.


Are u being taken for a ride?Or are you taking someone else for a ride?
Is it all about the short lived-fun filled-ride? Or about something more than just that?
Is this an affair to remember or a tale gone with the wind?
Is this the act of the wise or the otherwise?
Will this be love or fatal attraction?


How much so ever we might deny it or claim otherwise,physical and emotional fidelity go hand in hand,one cannot and will ever not exist without the other.Once the line is crossed in one,the other's bound to go out of the window at that very moment.Does anybody,in their right minds,begin a relationship by thinking of its end?Until of course,its an arrangement which is of that nature,which is bound to end,which comes with a convenient time limit and of course a very convenient attitude!If someone were to ask me and if i would be any of the three characters of  our movie-of-the-day "UNFAITHFUL", i would have the way out ready for me for i wouldn't need to justify or bargain or rational with myself on any front to make that call for myself,as deep down i'd just know,that,infidelity by any other name,would be as wrong.And if at all,it is given any other name.. its only merchandising and packaging the same product in a different more appeal-able fashion!

So when The Force above made us,he made sure that he puts in us all,those basic characteristics,irrespective of the fact whether we're a man or a woman or an animal. Owing to this we all face same problems and same dilemmas. 

The hedgehog's dilemma, or sometimes the porcupine dilemma, is an analogy about the challenges of human intimacy. It describes a situation in which a group of hedgehogs all seek to become close to one another in order to share their heat during cold weather. However, once accomplished, they cannot avoid hurting one another with their sharp quills. They must step away from one another. Though they all share the intention of a close reciprocal relationship, this may not occur for reasons which they cannot avoid!

When this is amply clear even to the hedgehogs,then why be it so difficult for us..humans to understand??Why can't we realize that if being with someone can be so harmful that it hurts our own self,then its best to take a step back!?! If   even the porcupines can step back..why can't we????

P(r)eaches and (S)cream.Year : 2030!!

Its like a rhythmic discharge of one's duties consciously,unconsciously and sub-consciously for ages together,in many different ways,at all given times.... Moms : Preach & Kids : Scream!

SO evidently enough,the preach show had begun and our smooth and sweet dessert like-phase of peaches and cream was sort of punctuated with occasional not-so-smooth-p(r)each(es) and (s)cream(s)!It was necessary at times to unleash the preachy-self i decided,to justify my mommy-ness and it was necessary the kids thought to unleash their  screamy-selves to justify  their kid-ness !
Nonetheless,the stories with morals,anecdotes from the past and the wisdom of ages(haha) kept flowing time and again to keep them on track.. but what i was about to tell them was a one self sufficient tale which had the bottomline,moral,teaching and preaching of all the other stories.. No,it wasn't the story of How I Met Their Father but it was a story leading up-to the story of how,i did in fact,meet him too later in life..

Kids,so it started in the monsoon of  the historic-all important-most memorable year 2010,on one fine morning,when your favorite Aunt Wormy asked me a question regarding the internship application she was filling out for THE FIRM of the country in our times.And i answered rather strongly by saying that i'm glad that i never went there to sell my soul to those losers!And she instantly replied "dont say that!" in your typical Aunt Wormy style.Her point being that everyone who went there,did so for a different reason.Which, i totally agreed with and that is when it hit me. The fact. How could i not see it before?? It was so clear looking at me in the face.How could i miss it?!

Kids as you already know,2010 was my year of transition,the year i crossed the finish-line of law school and was sent off to become a lawyer. A Very Real Lawyer. In the big bad Very Real World. Full of things to do and opportunities to be grabbed. And your Aunt Wormy still had two more years to go before she hit the finish line.When i was there,where she was,i did the exact same thing which she did,filled out the internship application(like everyone who goes to law school with you does!)to THE FIRM.There was one thing about THE FIRM, and the likes,which everyone knew.That is--it was a place meant for ultimate corporate-cut throat-workaholic-competitive-top notch-most high strung variety of people.It was bitter but true then and true even now.Still all we wanted,well most of us,was atleast one stint at THE FIRM.One internship to see how it was to be THERE.To feel what THEY  felt.And see if you fit in THERE.Knowing the truth it was not hard to imagine how you would be in a place like that.People with real mettle and of course,those up for all those qualities,got in there.When i filled out the application it felt like an ideal situation,I knew i wasn't cut for a place like THAT and i wasn't going to go there and work in the future but what the hell,IT was THE FIRM,THE opportunity,THE ideal-internship-way to be there and still not BE there..all in all,the math said it would be like..THE Experience.

So if 2008-me thought like that,what had happened to the 2010-me??What could 've possibly happened in only two years?? I was just the same person.And then.. It struck me like a bolt of lightning..  Two words Kids,the answer had only two words.. Time & Experience.


Yes,times had changed. And now that they had,the experiences that I would've wanted to have or could've had then,aren't the same that i would want to have now.I was on the other side and there was now no time to experiment with things which i was so sure i wasn't cut for,no loss situation i was in then was gone now,if i chose to work there now,i'd BE there.LIVE that life i dreaded.Have no life or time to even enjoy the oodles of moolah i was earning.But then again this choice was MINE. And only mine.Aunt Wormy still had two years to go before she would have to make a choice like me,between her experiences.And so does everyone ,at every stage and time of life.

Life is a sojourn of experiences but the tricky thing there is that,it is impossible for one human being to have in his/her one life,all the experiences of the world.And the non tricky,most simple and quite obvious and the BEST thing is that..Nobody even expects you to have a life which looks like a ridiculous menu card of ALL the experiences in the world! Thats when this silly choice making and stupid weighing options come into play.With times,priorities change,preferences change,circumstances change and with them change the experiences one can afford to have or are wise to have!Something which is the best sometime back might not even be the worst thing to do sometime later.It all happens with time.

There are a plethora of experiments and experiences in the world but they should be taken and done at just about the right time to make all the difference in one's life.Then again there are experiences which might be allowed to one by their religion or ethics or family tradition and not allowed to the others by  virtue of the same..like eating pork is prohibited by those that follow Islam or eating beef by those that practice Hinduism or eating anything non vegetarian by the Jains.These might be experiences for a person who is not a Muslim or a Hindu or a Jain but they are experiences nonetheless which aren't considered good by some,they might do it irrespective of knowing its prohibition for them but that is the choice that they make.There are experiences of a more personal than religious nature,that are more basic than staunch,more simple than any others,like those of getting the adrenalin rush by extreme sports,or doing those crazy fear factor stunts,eating worms and reptiles of all sorts,doing the man v.wild if given a chance.. they are experiences no doubt.But would you like to have them? yes,may be when you are 20 and looking for something absolutely crazy and adventurous and absurd to do..YES. but will that yes still be a yes when you hit 30 ? 40? 50? nada!

 The change from drinkers to teetotalers,from chain smokers to non smokers,from non vegetarians to vegans,from leading a copy book playboy style life to being celibate..Speaks of Change and choices one makes.Thats the change in choice,when you might want to do something that you absolutely couldn't think of doing when you were 20 and wanted to have those crazy experiences..One should not aim at doing or having everything for that would be the act of not the wise but of the otherwise! Choose your experiences and choose them right and most importantly at the right time so it gives you the maximum pleasure that it ought to.

Aunt Wormy was on that lucky stage of life when she could afford to have that experience and see if she fitted in but mom on the other hand was not looking at her one month stint anywhere anymore,she was looking at something more "her" and more interesting than a boring stereotypical corporate experience at that stage of her life!Time had passed when THAT could've been THE experience but now the time was for something less experimental..something more stable and something more suited to who I was.

So Kids,as you already know,in the winter that year,Aunt Wormy went on to experience her one month stint at THE FIRM,to see how things worked at THE BEST place ever in THE BEST way ever and if she could fall back upon them for more than a month in the next internship season.. and mom? mom went on to do .. what she thought was THE BEST for her,that time !! And shall we say now..All's well that ends well !! :)

The Silver Grey Dilemmas.

'Welcome to the world of un-innocence.No one has Breakfast at Tiffany's and Affairs to Remember.'

Welcome,indeed ladies and gentlemen,to the Generation of the Millenials or the
Generation Y (why??) , as some put it!

WELCOME BITCHES .. WelcomE to the CoolEst ShiAt eva..This is shiz dude,shiz as shiz can be!!Hop on the Globe.. *spank* * tequila shot* *spank* Cheers!! ;)

The era of the clear-cut.The era of the Black&White.The era of the Baby Boomers.The era of a visible line of distinction between the rights and wrongs of the world.The era of the Generation X..has officially ended.
As my Dad puts it, "The cult of Convenience" is here and is here to stay.The generation of the perpetually confused is multiplying at Godspeed.The mantra applicable universally is "Each to his own".
"Taking a stand" has become an obsolete-thing-of-the-yesteryears.And if someone talks like,ahem ahem,like THIS.. he/she is classified as the perfect conservative "prude" of the highest order..Oh-so-13th century!Oh-so-redundant!Oh-so-period! Oh-so-blah!oh-so-sad-oh-so-slow!Oh-so-Audrey Hepburn-Harlequin-Jane Austen.. Oh-SO-Ancient! Indeed, gone really are the days of the Knight in shining Armour,Everyone wants a Cold Vampire or a Hot Werewolf  in a Shiny Volvo and Trigonometry can kiss its own A(ngle)-S(ide)-S(ide)! Blah!!

But is this it? Is this the end of depth,sensibility,moral binding,smartness sans shrewdness,individuality,holding one's ground.. of Innocence? The end of White? The end of Black? Is THIS it?


Well,there is no big agenda behind writing this bit.Its just that i find myself face to face with these dilemmas more than often.And i realise that its not just me or people like me.Its everybody on some level or the other,for some subject or the other,over some issue or the other.Actually,the dilemmas i face are,trust me,   N-O-T-H-I-N-G in comparison to what i find my peers facing! They might be really big biz level corporate issues or really menial level>>whether the left or right profile-looks-good-in-the-display picture-sort of an issue..At the risqué of sounding excruciatingly grotesque in today's matrix-X-men-times,i'd say that i think the world's spinning so fast that its affecting the brain directly by muddling up all that it constitutes.

I'll speak,with strict disclaimer,only for myself and confess that i usually find myself questioning those things that i probably condemn or know that they aren't acceptable and that,which are (in my head!) unambiguous in my values or clear cut in my morality.But leaving all that aside,i still question,i still wonder.

It might be a simple question OR a very complex huge life changing decision...those dilemmas..of taking one drag from a friend's ciggie,of one drunken fling,one act of harmless flirting when in a relationship,of one cheat code,of one superiority ascertaining conversation with the person whose hung upon you to ensure his/her hung-up-ness,of one whiff of marijuana,of one night stand,of telling your family everything about yourself,of one seductive move,of one bribe,of one tiny lie or one big lie or lies nonetheless,monogamy,exclusivity in a non committal (but for all practical purposes!)relationship,of honesty,of hiding small lil things from your "friends" that are may be important to them but technically you aren't bound to disclose them,of one tiny secret experimental sojourn of the homosexual world,of passing on one piece of gossip with tactfully placing the words to add that extra spice to it,of getting into one insignificant compromising promise to get an advantage,of interpreting one confusingly funny and marginally mean comment made by a close guy friend as that being that of a sexist or that indicating menace,of having one live-in relationship,of misjudging or aptly judging feminism,of trusting,of loving,of feeling loved,of betrayal,of peace.. and the list never ends.White meets Black.Black meets White..to give birth to what the world calls .. Grey!

Everyone faces them.As i'd like to call them....The Dilemmas of the Grey.

Grey. is the new pink!! and..black,white,red,blue,green,beige,crimson,auburn,violet,turquoise..and what not!Its the colour of the generation.The colour of our state of minds.The colour of the fuzzy stuff,invisible lines and opaque judgments that our mind harbors.The colour that attches a question mark on everything as an automated response to anything by the brain.The colour that ensures that when we see the mirror we dont see our real selves but we see the doppleganger,the evil self with red horns instead of the halo,the etheral double only with a heart and mind which looks,well,grey! Grey,as sadly and bluntly as i may put it,has become the colour of our personality.We have lost track of our whites and our blacks,of our rights and our wrongs,of the line that distinguishes us from the others,of the things that matter to us from those that matter to the rest of the world,of what according to "me" is "me" from what according the "majority" is "me".

Is it all about being technically sound and (not)morally bound..??I mean all of us,do these things,that in our head are not "us" .. I mean in our heads we go.."aal izz well ", in my world everyone eats rainbows and poops butterflies,in my world i have my own take on everything and do whatever i feel is right,in my world i eat cool-sauce on epic-noodles with some Fawesome-bread on the side,in my world i am normal,in my world i'm comfortable in my skin,in my world i'm the leading lady/man of my own life. But in reality i might be a textaholic,a sarcasticoholic,a prudestitue(a prude by nature dressed as a prostitute as a result of a confused state of mind and no faith in herself!)or a hetroemo(a gay guy who is too shy or too scared to admit his sexual orientation because of the world's opinion off him!) a woo hoo girl or a Die-hard fan,with a million minute things crowding my mind because they were so minute that they weren't worth mentioning(or were too right or too wrong for the world)to be mentioned in the first place but as they added up..they became a huge pile of ..well,a million minute confusing difficult things.

It must have started with one weak,lame ,moron with absolutely no confidence in himself/herself.. who must've started imitating the world and aping what the others thought was "cool"..1 became 2..which became 4..and 4 went onto become a 4 million..and now we see confused people.. roaming about not knowing what they are doing and why they are doing it in the first place.
Hence,the plastic-filled-botox-injected-timeless-beauties.Hence,the steroid-stuffed-protein-fed-six packs.Hence,the brainless sameness.Hence,the blind superficiality!

But what next? I wonder what will be the new Grey? Is there anything beyond grey?do they even have a color on any palette after this?
Are we still better off than what lies ahead in store for us?

Don't know.
AND
Probably,don't want to know either!

Though what we do know is that may be its high time and we should just try,as much as we can,to at least get our whites and blacks straight, the hell out of  our own pile of grey stuff ! Just may be we should. :)

Mind over Matter OR Sensitivity over Sensibility: Its always a bittersweet symphony.

Paradoxically though it may seem, it is none the less true that life imitates art far more than art imitates life.

- Oscar Wilde

It was The Secret which was out in the open.Everything boiled down to science and was wrapped into three basic words "Law Of Attraction".Its no rocket science to understand what this is,its the same good ol' law which was applicable in the case of Adam and Eve,Eve and the apple,the magnets,freinds,like minded people,good food,good smell,lovers,pets..You name it.Life is what we make it..what we see it to be in our head..what we expect out of it,consciously or unconsciously..life's an exact replica of what we have attracted from the Universe into our lives,ourselves.Perception.is what makes or breaks it! Perception,my dear friend,is that one thing that makes all the difference.


Suddenly i see and i realise that all the big claims that i made to myself that i've matured,become practical and more in control of myself .. are all false. I haven't after all become all that wise or all that super human! I still suffer a lot from all my emotional outbursts and still cry over tiniest of things because i have linked it to a million other small things,made a mountain out of a molehill,muddled them all up.. and made myself miserable in the process! So its just that I find myself worrying and getting upset over one tiny thing growing to an excruciating level.But probably its not just me..May be its an underlying thins.May be its a thread running through us all.. Its a universal thing or atleast a national one as i see it. If one thing goes wrong,if the mood is not set right from the word go,if negative thoughts kick in when good thoughts are still putting their shoes on,if one tiny lil thing doesn't start at the correct note.. life automatically changes from Eastman Color to Black& White.. Rainbow looks all shades of black,blue and grey and hope takes a back seat in the dark dingy corner of a now, hopeless life!


On the personal front...


Today things flared up,when i saw the morning light along with the shattered pieces of my favorite-(now i think!)lucky-precious-most pretty pink mug.I had for years and needless to say,i was very very attached to it.Upset as i was,one thing led to the other,one molehill joined the other in my head and formed the utterly undesirable mountain only to give my upset-ness a whole new level!
The mind immediately jumped into the over thinking gear and I(unnecessarily)took the emotional high road!
I watched TV with absolute disinterest,switched over to reading and tried to understand what Jane Austen was saying only to find myself at stuck on that sad-upset-ness increasing chapter where Jane tries to tell herself that the love of her life did not ever love her and had left her.Brilliant! Now thats all that one needs when in such a quirky mood. NO,Really !Getting even more upset,i chucked the book and turned to the beloved world of internet for some solace.Only to have a friend(if i may say so?) pop up and try to normalize the strained and the awkward friendship we shared,making me all gooey,emotional and falling for the same familiar comfort all over again which i was trying to get out of.Bad timing,i decided was this person's "thing".VERY VERY bad timing.It was so typical to have popped out at that very moment!When everything looked gloomy,doomed,dark and twisty..all you need to do is..turn to your Fidus achates-Girl Friday,Confidant,Punching Bag,Right hand Person..oh what not!(who btw fyi,in this case is a veryy veryy successful-top notch-high profile-page three-sort-of-a-future Designer,who studies at the ace and one of the best,most cool,most posh design institute of the world!)So what is a girl in distress supposed to do? Call HER! And before its too late i must mention the most important thing about my Girl Friday,if i'm in a crisis like this,she,in all probability would have made sure to have landed herself in a huger,better,more complicated,more hyped,more imaginary,more important..and of course, a more URGENT crisis than mine.
So i call the lady of the hour and even before i begin with all my whining,cribbing,crying and complaining..she hits the overdrive and begins all the above before i could! There it was..End of story. The focus shifts,we engage ourselves in a discussion which we had almost daily regarding all our troubles(big in our heads!trivial and insignificant in the others'!) and finally just somehow, arguing, preaching , talking . we realise how we made the mountain out of a molehill.. how we thought thought and thought till the time the mind could take no more.And got ourselves into major ruckus before we even knew what was happening!The futility of the situation becomes crystal clear and I give up being the Queen of Pathetic-ville & Crib-Station..and come back to normal.


On the national level...


With the "dayan mehngai" engulfing everyone,with rajya sabha tickets up for sale,with commonwealth games' sites submerged in filthy waters,with grains going waste for the lack of storage,with a large chunk of people still dying of hunger,with another major chunk of people dying of the dangerous dengue,with abu salem coming out of jail never having looked better and healthier in his life,with Rakhi Sawant delivering insaaf,with thackerays blaming the north indians for bringing diseases to the maharashtrians,with the nuclear liability bill(wait,we did hear about THAT a lot lately,but does a commoner know what we have signed up for?? errmm.. nada!) being signed with the display of the highest level political drama,with all this and much more going topsy turvey..the torch bearers of our country seem to get just one thing right again and again and again like that is the most urgent and important issue of national importance to be dealt with..the hike in the salaries of the MPs! that as we see it today is one thing which needsno debates,gets only "aye-s" with 100% votes,makes the smoothest amendments and not to mention the obvious-quickest implementation!
One scandal after the other,one craziness to the other,corruption,deception,cheating,fraud,shams,scams..we look at a grim future and do the one thing which we should absolutely not,concentrate only on the gloomy story.Look at only the negatives and dont count our blessings.We dont get ourselves together and as a country stand up united and put pour foot down to do something about it.Rather we sit here,let one negative thought give birth to a thousand others,multiply exponentially and hope for anything BUT THE BEST.


May be its in our nature to do that,may be we are tuned in that fashion,may be we have become the ever crying,the ever cribbing,the ever whining nation. May be we dont realise this,but in reality,the country is after all a reflection on us,may be our approach in our personal life is our approach about everything and anything around us.We sit and curse the people running the show but none of us join hands and do basic things that can help run the show better,none of us do something,anything to set an example for everyone to see,learn and get inspired to do the same.We choose to take the easy way out,to go down the whining street,to curse and run down ourselves,to see only that,thats going wrong, to crib to the world about our unhappiness and discontentment with our lives,to bask in our sad situation,to show the world how we can not handle our issues and find solutions to our problems! We as a nation are allergic to the word "responsibility".Our national game isn't hockey,its the "blame game" And we just have one national character,as it sadly seems,"Corruption".
We're on our way to claim the fame as the Pathetic-ville & Crib-station of the world.We the people of India,have seemed to have solemnly pledged before God and this country,to take the country down the dumps and not do anything to get it back on track.WAIT.WHAT AM I DOING NOW?AM I NOT DOING EXACTLY THE SAME THING RIGHT ABOUT NOW.. ? No sir,I am not. I'm trying to drive home a point here.The point which has been stretched too far here is that,if at all we all want to do something and make a difference in a big way,if at all we do want to wake up from our deep slumber,we need to stop indulging in self pity on a daily basis,get it into routine and make it a habit to not sit and crib BUT to wake up and smell the coffee,take charge of our own lives and tackle the problem head on!


*******
All I'm saying is,we need to make our lives hassle-free,we need to nub the problem in its root,we need to stop it exactly where it starts, because its like a mad contagious disease.. its just like wild fire.. its just like the hottest-raunchiest-freshest piece of gossip.. you never know when it spreads so fast that it engulfs the world in it! I had my bestie to take care of that day(and many others like them!) but on a bigger note,for the bigger picture,on a larger thought..WHY HAVE SUCH DAYS IN THE FIRST PLACE?WHY NOT JUST BE HAPPY POSITIVE PEOPLE..MAKING A HAPPY POSITIVE COUNTRY?
Why see only Black blue and grey when the world is such a beautiful lovely magnificent palette ready for our consumption.. Perception.As i said,my dear friend makes,ALL. THE. DIFFERENCE . :)