THE DARKNESS WITHIN

You look at me and see a face familiar -
Yet beneath the familiar lies the unknown,
The unshown.

Unknown by you and all the world
Unshown to you and all the world,
Known by me and me alone
And alone seen by me.

For when I look into myself
A blindness I wish would descend -
A blindness for the evil and envy within me,
A blindness for the injustice meted out by me.
A blindness for the charade put on,
A blindness for the lies thy eyes see.

And this verse made by my conscience,
It is the blindness I seek.

These past two days have been .... interesting. I went to college yesterday morning and then I hit the gym in the evening but all through I wasn't feeling well and I new a major systems failure was in the offing. Systems failure refers to loose motions or what I like to call 'Gastro-Enteritis'. Well I was right and last night the major systems failure did take place. And man was I weak! It was like Goliath had been brought down not by David but by Gastro Enteritis. It was basically because of acidity cause I dont eat a lot...at this point you guys must be thinking 'Yeah Right then why's he fat' but is true ....so it was because of acidity which was because of an empty stomach. So that was what happened yesterday. Then today...though I did spend some time in the loo I got better at the same time. So today I relaxed and basically that means that I wasted my day in front of the television.

Well there's some F1 news now: only bout two weeks to go for the 06 season to begin!! Man I can't wait!! Well here's the thing...McLaren have found pace enough to cahllenge Renault and Honda's also right up there and very much in contention...however, at the Bahrain test session the new Ferrari 248F1 has had some issues with reliability..but they have reasonable pace and Schumi believes that he will be able to challenge for the title...however, we can only learn where everyone is once the season is underway. Man I can't wait. That first qualifying session is always exciting and you are filled with anticipation..its a special kinda feeling that I won't trade even for sex.

And bout the loo incidents...I have many such stories bout the times I've had in the loo and my friendship with 'The Throne'. Maybe I should start a blog called - 'Abhi's Loo Chronicles!' What say guys??

I haven't blogged for all of six days. I was preparing for my economics KT exam which i wrote today. Well I only really put my nose to the grindstone these past two days and the rest of the four days I wasted my time. Even then my exam went off well. So well in fact that I'm having delusions that I'm right up there with Marshall and Keynes and the other blokes. After the exam went off well it was like I had just been relieved of a humungous burden.

In the evening I attended a college function. The only reason I went there was because I was under the impression that the former Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee was going to be speaking. I thought I'd hear him speak and draw from his vast experience in politics. However, after being made to wait for one and a half hours, it isn't Vajpayee but two seers who come to speak and one of them has been accused of murder and is out on bail. Man it was wierd to be in the same room with a murderer cause in my opinion he is one.

Today was also the day when certain startling and shocking revelations were made to me and all I'll say bout them is that people whom I respected and admired, have lost my respect and faith in them because of their responses to certain stimuli. So I suppose it was quite a hectic and activity packed day for me. I'd rather days with more relaxation time anyday. Oh! I forgot to mention...I am now the holder of a Driving License!! Yeah Baby!! The RTO when they gave me the license did not realize while doing so as to what destruction they have unleashed on Mumbai roads! I gotta really burn me some road in my small Italian car!! Passenger seats are up for grabs...any takers??

I haven't blogged for all of six days. I was preparing for my economics KT exam which i wrote today. Well I only really put my nose to the grindstone these past two days and the rest of the four days I wasted my time. Even then my exam went off well. So well in fact that I'm having delusions that I'm right up there with Marshall and Keynes and the other blokes. After the exam went off well it was like I had just been relieved of a humungous burden.

In the evening I attended a college function. The only reason I went there was because I was under the impression that the former Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee was going to be speaking. I thought I'd hear him speak and draw from his vast experience in politics. However, after being made to wait for one and a half hours, it isn't Vajpayee but two seers who come to speak and one of them has been accused of murder and is out on bail. Man it was wierd to be in the same room with a murderer cause in my opinion he is one.

Today was also the day when certain startling and shocking revelations were made to me and all I'll say bout them is that people whom I respected and admired, have lost my respect and faith in them because of their responses to certain stimuli. So I suppose it was quite a hectic and activity packed day for me. I'd rather days with more relaxation time anyday. Oh! I forgot to mention...I am now the holder of a Driving License!! Yeah Baby!! The RTO when they gave me the license did not realize while doing so as to what destruction they have unleashed on Mumbai roads! I gotta really burn me some road in my small Italian car!! Passenger seats are up for grabs...any takers??

This post is kinda different from my other posts...its about a past that I had pushed to the back of my mind. Its kinda wierd when the past comes flooding back. It stimulates you far more than any alcohol or addictive substance can. Well, what has flooded my senses are my school days. I tend to associate songs to people and events. Well, I'm listening to the Savage Garden album Affirmation and listening to those songs brought a different kind of warmth...no...a familiar but forgotten kinda warmth to my heart. A warmth I hadn't felt for a good 4 or 5 years. Well the songs from Affirmation don't bring all of my school days to the fore of my mind, but instead a particular trip I had gone for in the winter of 2001.

I had gone to Manali for a Winter Carnival in which our group - Gregorios - was competing. It was an awesome trip....we also spent New Year's while on that trip. And it was made all the more special because of one person, I suppose one of my closest friends. Although the memory does make a warm feeling well up inside me, it also brings with it its share of regret and sadness. Regret that I didn't realise the value of friendship and sadness that now I've drifted apart from that friend. I didn't consciously do anything to wreck the friendship...its just that feelings for that friend got in the way. And the feelings too didn't distance that friendship, it was my immaturity in dealing with them that ruined it. By the time I realized what an ass I had been, it was too late. And now I realize that its never gonna be the same. Never. There was a time when I felt totally at ease around her but now, the distance is so much, that whenever I meet her, I feel like a foreigner around her. Every time we meet, I feel like between that meeting and the past, is an awesome emptiness, a void, one that will always remain.

There is another regret - immaturity in dealing with someone else's feelings for me on that very same trip. Won't go much into that.

You see - I believe life is like the trade cycle...it has its ups and downs, periods of prosperity and depression(not talking monetary here) and that trip ended the upswing, that is where the graph of my life peaked and then on it was some bad days. Well there was the friendship falling apart, there was the pressure of the boards, there was bullying because of obesity.....but then college happened and the upswing began again.

When I look at it in hindsight, I'm glad that downswing happend after that trip, it made me far more mature than I was, it made me stronger and it made me realize that all that bullying and teasing was very trivial, though I didn't think so at that time, and that those very same bullies and 'bad people' will stand by me today. As for the regrets - always there.

We had the English Literature plays today. We had chosen to do Act 3 Scene 1 from Julius Caesar. The entire event was an unprofessional affair as people were allowed to take their scripts on the stage and read from them. Well my group also took their scripts on stage. I was playing Mark Antony and since I had mugged up my lines the night before, I didn't feel the need to take a copy of the script with me onto the stage. Well as it turns out, even though I had learnt my lines really well, under the collective glare of 60 odd students I forgot most of them. And the one's I didn't forget, I fumbled. People told me that I did a good job but they were wrong. I new I had done a horrible job. Well, I was not satisfied with the way I played Mark Antony. But people seemed to think it was good...thats because they hadn't read the script. Screwing up on stage is bad enough, but what is worse is when you know you've screwed up but people don't know it and they seem to think you've done a good job. Yup, that's even worse because people are all complementing you and stuff and you stand down their complements and they think you are being modest. When you are praised for doing a job well, but you alone know that you've fucked it up, all those praises and complements make you feel really empty inside. Because eventually, whatever people may say - they may like our job or not - you and you alone are truly in a position to judge yourself.

I finished reading Jonathan Livingstone Seagull today and I gave the book to MJ. I really liked Richard Bach's idea of setting aside all that limits us. Of course setting aside that which limits us does have its pros and cons. I won't go into the pros but, loosely one con would be...something like this...I want to drive, I'm frustrated cause people won't trust my abilities, I'm frustrated that the law of this country makes it legal for me to drive when I'm 18 and not before.....in such a case if I set aside the law which limits me, then it isn't good is it? I mean it is because of the law that there is at least some order to human beings and its because of the law, well at least somewhat, that we can call ourselves a society, rather than a mindless rabble of homosapiens who are too full of themselves.

So, anyways, I finished reading the book today and I've just begun another one. Its called 'Inside the Third Reich' and its been written by Albert Speer, a close associate of Hitler. Its actually his account of the his entire life, from his childhood to the Nuremburg trails. I've still not begun the main story but that is what its basically about. It ought to be an interesting read, especially since I enjoy history.

Moving onto my third obsession now - Formula One and Michael Jackson have already been mentioned by me - Star Wars. Essentially, the Star Wars saga is all about the struggle between good and evil. And it depicts what trauma and turbulence the protagonist - Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader - goes through and what bearing his inner turmoil has on the galaxy far, far away as also on his son Luke. I won't get into the story cause everyone knows it but I'll try to link what happened in the saga on a galactic level to what happens to people on an individual level. The saga shows the turmoil in Anakin as he struggles and has a tough time choosing between good and evil. But what it also shows is the balance of power in the galaxy swing from good to evil to good again. Well we all face the dilemma of whether to choose the tougher good or the easier evil. In the saga that happens on an individual level with Anakin. But as for the swinging balance of power in the galaxy, we, or at least I, experience it on an individual level too. In my case, when I do something bad, I seek redemption and in seeking redemption, the balance of power within me swings to good. This happens since I have my guard up against doing anymore bad things. But once the pendulum tilts to the good and stays there, I gradually tend to lower my guard, without realising it, or even succumbing to minor temptations. And this once again makes me suceptible to doing something bad and the pendulum swings the other way and so on...

I don't know how much sense the above made to you guys but then thats just what I think. Maybe it happens in my case and might not happen with you guys. But thats the beauty of it. Being individuals, there is that one thing that only we feel. That one feeling unique to us makes us individuals, that is what makes us different from one another.

I know, I know, too philosophical. But that's my thinking. I leave it up to you guys to make of it what you will in your own individual ways.

This is my second consecutive post about Michael Jackson. The only the only two obsessions that I ahven't blogged about so far are Star Wars and The Lord of the Rings. LOTR, thanks to MJ's continued support has become an obsession with me, well at least enough to rival F1.
So anyways, Dancing Like Michael Jackson. Many of you, I suppose all of you, have seen at least a few videos of Michael Jackson. You guys must have noticed that he has developed a very unique dancing style. I'm sure when you guys think of Dancing and Michael Jackson, the first sliver of thought that seeps into your minds is Moonwalk. Yes that is one of his most popular steps but it forms only maybe 10% of every performance. The other ninety percent of the time, he does unbelievable things with his legs (I'm sure ignorant perverts will think of something other than dancing). Its like magic. Move over Harry, Gandalf, Radagast and all the rest of them fictional magicians. The way his feet move to the rythm of his songs is spectacular. But having attempted them, I can tell you that they are not difficult to perform, not difficult to perform, but yes, difficult to perfect.
I've tried dancing like Michael Jackson, picking up cues from his videos. The thing is that more than his steps being difficult, they are complicated and he performs them in such quick succession and so effortlessly that they might well be the cogs of a semi-automatic transmission. So anyways, what I usually do is I watch the video, then I watch it again, and again, and again at the normal speed, then I watch it again in slow-mo. And then after this entire rigmarole, I attempt the step in front of a mirror. Yup, I attempt just the one step in front of the mirror. Just the one. Then it takes me some time to perfect it, like the angle of my foot has to be right and my body has to be bent just the right amount and stuff. But even then, what I attain after 'perfecting' the step is just me doing a decent enough job.
I have been attempting the Moonwalk for many months now, and just yesterday I found that what I thought to be the technique, after watching videos, wasn't right at all. The Moonwalk is an optical illusion, or so I think at the moment, but I might be proved wrong again. So I tried using the new technique and well ... Eureka!! No I didn't run around naked having just got out of the bathtub! I will once I perfect it! Yeah so, upon applying the new technique, it was much easier and in the mirror my feet actually looked to be Moonwalking!
Learning to dance like Michael Jackson is a hard journey that requires perseverence, and I'm hardly at the end of that journey. In fact, I'm just packing my bags, getting ready to set off on the journey. Its a hard jorney, but not a difficult journey. What I have shared with you guys is just a little bit, a snippet(if the word is appropriate) of my experience. The point of this article, Dancing like Michael Jackson, the point of making you read about my experiences, which may seem trivial to you, is that one must persevere if one wants something badly. Sure there have been times where I have given up because some steps were too difficult to master, cause I was frustrated. But then, I have again picked up where I had left off and given it another shot. My dad once told me that in my case, I persevere for things that I really like (F1, MJ,etc.) but I can't to the same in the case of things I don't like (studies). Its true. There are some people who work hard with context to things they don't like doing, knowing that they just have to. But in my case I work hard only with context to things I like doing. So I'm not saying take my example, I'm not setting a very good example. All I'm saying is Persevere.

I was just thinking about what to blog. After my rather philosophical post on the 28th I haven't really had a topic in mind to blog about. But, right now, listening to Michael Jackson, it just struck me. Why not blog about the changing face of Michael Jackson. Well here's the thing. Many of you guys out there believe that he's had numerous plastic surgeries and changed the structure of his face. But its not true. The only thing he has changed about his face is his nose, over and over again, to the extent that excessive tampering caused the tip of his nose to rot and fall off. But the rest of his face...still the same. I've been studying pictures of MJ and studying them in detail, as in, the shape and alignment of his cheek bones, jaw line etc and well its still the same from the Thriller days. The only other change to his features is that he's had his eyebrows done...something very common and also he's had mascara permanantly tattooed along his eyes...the rest seems different cause of his changing hairstyles through the decades and he started looking feminine after the colour of skin changed. Again people...not plastic surgey. He has a disease called Vitiligo which kills off the pigment in one's skin. If you study his pics you'll find that his skin has been getting progressively lighter and lighter and now, at this point, its so pale that even inspite of applying rouge and other make up to bring some colour to his face MJ now looks whiter than a white man. Have you ever seen a dead body? how pale it goes? Have you ever seen a human body in frozen state? Well he's as pale as that. And as for the repeated nose jobs, the reason lies in his past. His dad kept telling him he was ugly and that he had a very ugly nose..so if u tell a kid who's growing up that he's ugly, naturally the poor kid is gonna want to change. And as for his 'Wacko Jacko' nickname...he's not 'Wacko.' Its just that he doesn't behave his age and is a man-child. Yes he still loves Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and he still enjoys things that children like. If you want to know the Psychological reasons or roots as to why he's a man-child...then listen to his son 'Childhood.' The guy missed out on things that kids usually enjoy cause he was singing...yes he began as a child artist with The Jacksons. So its just his way of compensating for the childood he has missed out on. So thats it. Thats what I want to say. The point of the matter or the 'crux' of the matter, as Balan would say, is that we shouldn't pass judgement on someone before taking into account everything. How would it feel if someone you didn't know formed a totally wrong judgement bout you. So lets not be judgemental, Michael Jackson is just an example, lets not be judgemental about anyone.