I feel feverish. Damn it SwB! ...you've been eating and drinking all kinds of shit these past few weeks. I think I'm gonna go on a diet of that Aloe Vera juice which my psycho uncle from Goa sold us. Bludy stuff costs a bomb and is bitter as goddamn hell ...comes all the way from the deserts of Arizona. The company that makes it is called Forever Living Products.

Who wants to live forever?
Forever is our today

This morning saw me making a mad dash to my stock broker's. Remember I had mentioned the possibility of getting swept away in a stock-market Tsunami? ...well, everybody knew it was imminent but a majority of us chose to wait until the waves started to look dangerous. Greed - definitely the deadliest of the seven deadly sins. Civilizations are built on greed; and it is that very same greed which can bring about their destruction. We are a bunch of avaricious little roaches and that will never change; if it did, the world just wouldn't make any sense. In fact, I'm pretty sure we'd all go bludy mad.

But you know, the world doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me as it is. Truth is: I don't even want to make sense of it any more. TS pretty much speaks my mind when she says "I'm not sure what it is--age or laziness--that increasingly makes me want to surrender my life to the universe and leave it all up to that Grand Plan"

I want to let go too. Let them - whoever or whatever - do what they like with me. And you never know - I just might have the last laugh. Wouldn't that be fun?

***

O.K. My buddy OrangeCloud has just brought to my attention a piece of news that I find quite embarrassing. I'm all for record breaking feats, but this can't be good for my reputation. I'm just glad our local news channels haven't reported this ...yet!

I'm listening to Jewel Kilcher, Sarah McLachlan and the Indigo Girls singing Silent Night ...they sound totally divine.

You know, I went to midnight mass on Christmas Eve and the only thing I can call it is a farce. Guys standing just outside church smoking cigarettes, women in outfits that left nothing to imagination - no reverence, and quite obviously, no faith.

I wonder what will happen to the Catholic Church in the next hundred years. Will it even be around? We hear so many stories of young priests falling in love and leaving the priesthood to get married; or leaving for other reasons - dissatisfaction with the system being the primary one. When there is no one to lead, who will follow?

And what about other religions? I've been following the news on the arrest of the Shankaracharya of Kanchi for his alleged role in a murder of a temple employee. My Hindu friends tell me he is an important figure; you have some sections (mostly politically motivated) who believe he is above the law. But I'd like to know how ordinary followers of the faith feel? Do they feel cheated, betrayed ...or just very angry?

With this being the state of affairs, you begin to wonder if organised religion, as we know it, will continue to serve the purpose it has for thousands of years. Or has it already gone and hit the self-destruct button? ...and when it is finally destroyed, will that be the end to all the world's problems?

Peace, love, and a guiding star.

Well, the stock markets have given me plenty to cheer about in recent weeks, and so I thought I'd spend some of my gains on the things I really love - books and music. I went first to the bookshop. No, I'm not talking about Crossword; I'm referring to my beloved law book depot. Yeah, there's nothing like the smell of a newly printed copy of 'Direct Taxes-Law and Pratice for 2005-06'.

Then I went to Planet-M. I saw the ad's in the papers for some festive offers they're having - they're calling it "ChrisMasti" But why Masti? Masti means mischief in English, right? ...so what's the connection between 'mischief' and a discount sale at a music store at Christmas time? Perhaps if I'd done my MBA, I'd know. If you ask me the first thing they need to do is sack all their marketing/advertising people.

Anyway, so I started looking around. In some places there were little placards saying: Buy 2, Get 1 free, but only applicable on those CD's that carried the sticker. So first you have to look for the titles you want, and then see if that CD had the sticker. Wouldn't it be easier for everybody concerned if they had just put all the CD's on which the offer was applicable in one place? And it was really no surpise to find that all the ones I liked were not on offer, and the few good one's that were, happened to be stuff I already have. It doesn't make sense: why would anybody buy 2 crappy CD's just to get the third crappy CD? Again, I guess that MBA would have helped.

Now they do have a lot of titles, but most of it is stuff that you'd only buy if you won a lottery - you know: those CD's with a couple of good tracks, where buying the CD only for those doesn't quite make sense - that is if you haven't won a lottery. The most annoying thing about Planet M though is that they don't have what you really want. When I asked for Dido's 'Life for Rent' the malnourished salesgirl just says, "Dido is out of stock" and goes about her business. But look in 'D' and you will find every album ever released by Del Amitri! ...For those who don't know, Del Amitri is a half-hit wonder from the 80's.

You know, I've come to the conclusion that people in this country simply do not like giving you your money's worth. Our Indian music companies/distributors are no exception. Take for example the Norah Jones CD 'Feels like Home' - I bought that for Dee on her birthday in March and it cost me 360 bucks. Now you're getting the same CD, along with a VCD of one of her live performances for 400 odd bucks! How fair is that? So I guess what I paid 360 bucks for was actually worth just about... 200?

Anyway, I came away with nothing. But for those of you who like the blues, Planet-M has Gary Moore's 'Still Got The Blues' album with 5 additional tracks for just 295 bucks. It's an excellent, excellent album - Moore's best, I think. I bought it a couple of years ago for 600 bucks (without the additional tracks). Another good buy is 'Best of Smokie' - 18 tracks, all their most popular hits - also 295 bucks. If you're a jazz lover, and can afford it, they've got some good stuff by Wynton Marsalis and George Benson.

I think it's about bludy time Richard Branson opened some of his Virgin Superstores in our cities - because the Indian music lover deserves better.

Peace, love, and free music downloads.

"At this very moment, he went on, "the most frightful horrors are taking place in every corner of the world. People are being crushed, slashed, disembowelled, mangled; their dead bodies rot and their eyes decay with the rest. Screams of pain and fear go pulsing through the air at the rate of eleven hundred feet per second. After travelling for three seconds they are perfectly inaudible. These are distressing facts; but do we enjoy life any the less because of them? Most certainly we do not. We feel sympathy, no doubt; we represent to ourselves imaginatively the sufferings of nations and individuals and we deplore them. But, after all, what are sympathy and imagination? Precious little, unless the person for whom we feel sympathy happens to be closely involved in our affections; and even then they don't go very far. And a good thing too; for if one had an imagination vivid enough and a sympathy sufficiently sensitive really to comprehend and to feel the sufferings of other people, one would never have a moment's peace of mind. A really sympathetic race would not so much as know the meaning of happiness. But luckily, as I've already said, we aren't a sympathetic race.

At the beginning of the war I used to think I really suffered, through imagination and sympathy, with those who physically suffered. But after a month or two I had to admit that, honestly, I didn't. And yet I think I have a more vivid imagination than most. One is always alone in suffering; the fact is depressing when one happens to be the sufferer, but it makes pleasure possible for the rest of the world."

From: 'Crome Yellow' by Aldous Huxley (1921)

A good friend of mine was recently prescribed drugs commonly known as anti-depressants. When he told me I didn’t quite know what to say. But I thought to myself – "anti-depressants?? …Aren’t those for people who’ve gone around the bend?" I was puzzled because he looked absolutely fine to me.

So when I asked him why he needed anti-depressants, his answer was "The doc told me I’m over-stressed". "Maybe you just need a break, a holiday, some time out," I said to him." He laughed and said, "no time to take time out, man"

***

"What a wonderful world" sang Louis Armstrong - trees of green, red roses too …watch em’ bloom for me and for you …bla bla bullshit. Who was he kidding?

Okay, so maybe the world isn’t all that bad - depends on how you look at it; but you know what I want - I want to jump out of bed at the start of a new day with that child-like sense of excitement and anticipation, stretch my hands over my head, feel the energy abound within me, and say "What a wonderful LIFE!!"

To put it another way: I want to feel alive. But I guess that’s asking for more than a lot.

Peace, love, and the joy in living.

She said to him: "If you have to think about whether you love someone or not, then the answer is no. When you love someone you just know."

He said to her: "I know I love you - I'm just not sure how much."

I am a worker; one of countless many employed by a great king to build a monument - a monument so grand it will stand for a thousand years as testimony to the greatness of one man. A monument that will take so long to complete, I will not live to see it finished, to marvel at its beauty – beauty that I helped create.

Why then do I keep on working? Am I mad ...or is there something I don’t know?

"This is the strangest life I've ever known" - Jim Morrison (born December 8, 1943)

"Living is easy with your eyes closed" - John Lennon (died December 8, 1980)

The new place is good; but frankly, I never imagined shifting home would be such a pain in the ass. There are still lots of little things that need to be done – and I have to do it all by myself, because I can’t depend on my flat mate for a damn thing. But anyway, it’s a good learning experience.

We don’t have a TV or music system at the new flat. After sundown, I feel like I’m at my grandmothers village in Goa - it is that quiet. I could get us a new TV/music system, but I’m not going to; and that’s because I want NBZ to do it. He’s been getting things on a platter – never had to work for anything; now he’ll learn. And it’ll be fun to see what happens when his laundry piles up for weeks and he has no undies left to wear to work :) …nope, no washing machine either. Yeah, it’s the hard life from now on.

***

All of us, at some time, reach that stage where the questions surge into our heads like a great flood and all the answers we’ve built over time up simply get swept away, and you're left looking on helplessly. And when the flood subsides, there is no other option but to construct those answers all over again, from scratch – only this time they will need to be on a better foundation than before.

And when the next flood comes, those answers will be tested again. And so it will go on.

Peace, love, and something to hold on to.

After living with NBZ for the last 2 months, I’ve noticed one very fundamental difference between him and me – he doesn’t think/worry about things the way I do. He takes things as they come, living one day at a time. And you know, I actually think he lives a happier, more content life.

And the reason why he doesn’t think about things the way I do is simply because he doesn’t really know how; he’s not as smart as I am.

People who are intelligent often wonder how less intelligent people make it through life and all its challenges. But the funny thing is, in most cases the dumb-asses make it just fine. Throw in a bit of luck and they’ll even make it big.

And I think the reason why these people we call morons or dumb-asses manage to succeed is because they learn to work with what they have. We, the more intelligent one’s, do not.

It’s like asking a person to chop down a tree with a kitchen knife. If he’s a moron, he’ll take that knife and get to work; it’ll take him forever, but ultimately that tree will come down. The intelligent guy, however, knowing that the knife will not do the job, will go out in search of a chainsaw. If he’s lucky, he’ll find a chainsaw quickly and finish the job in no time. But if he’s not, he’ll probably take more time to find that chainsaw than the moron needs to get the job done with the kitchen knife.

So if you take away the luck factor, you might just find that on the whole, the morons do better than the rest of us wiseguys.

Peace, love, and fewer grey cells.