Trying to outsmart one another is the favourite past time of human beings. It is an extremely interesting activity depending which side you are on. It is like a reality game that is constantly on air. Everybody is perpetually ready for action. And the score is continuous. What makes it interesting is that in this the whole being is involved.


Words are perhaps the single most important tool used in this endeavor. It is truly awe inspiring what a collection of some seemingly meaningless letters positioned in a correct order to form words can do to a human being. Or sometimes to a collection of human beings. Four words ‘I have a dream’ moved a gigantic black sea in a Tsunami like turbulence that brought a nation of oppressors to attention. And the world is still ringing.
Next was a nationwide turbulence with two simple words ‘Quit India’. And what followed is history.


Another two words that never fail to get instant attention is ‘xxxx you’ but in a lesser periphery. Mostly one to one. Both statements are containing two words but the effect is different.


Sometimes same words used in different circumstances can portray different states of the mind. ‘You are looking gorgeous’ can mean something else when someone says that when you are just up from Malaria/Typhoid or Pox or some dreadful disease or when your loved one says the same thing when you are going out for the evening.


Millions and millions of words are used everyday to shatter millions and millions of people round the globe. People taking their own lives, breaking away from marriages, friendship, resigning from jobs; hurt by poison arrows of words. Murderers trying to convince people that it was self-defense. People justifying their extramarital affair. I am using words right now that are queuing up inside my head. Making their exit not through the mouth but through fingers on the keyboard.


Besides these two exit points the only other body part that words can make an exit through is facial expression.


When you are young and coming home late, fathers have a particular facial expression that can be worse than a million words (mothers are generally more vocal thus giving less importance to facial expressions). I remember.


Or when you catch your spouse cheating on you….. so many expressions.


Or when I bought the first bike for my son, the expression in his eyes.


As humanity has evolved words too have evolved. New words are seeping in to express new situations. ‘Wardrobe Malfunction’. New word. To express an embarrassing situation that have been taking place frequently. Particularly memorable is the global warming associated with a partial globe show in some pre football match musical extravaganza. Even Google search has introduced pages in this topic.


Another relatively new word is ‘Body Language’. It is a wordless language but the effect can be lethal.


A cricket team would possibly be a prime example. One can win or loose a match just by sheer arrogance. Well almost. Just imagine the moment a batsman gets out the umpire raises a finger. The index one. And the batsman has no option but to walk out of the giant field with a particular body language. But at the same time the bowler who has turned the batsman out raises his middle finger at the batsman and the effect is totally different.

Strange creatures, human beings.

There is a strong possibility that no other living creatures have such wild variations in their appearance, bodyweight, colour of skin, hair, eyes, tone of voice, thought process…virtually everything. And absolutely unpredictable. Animals love each other or kill each other for reasons that are easily understandable. I think animals are far less confused when they are following the pattern of thought of their counterparts. Or themselves…The main reason why there are no serial killing animals looking for psychiatric assistance.

I think that is the reason why even a massive animal, called elephant is careful about handling human beings (And vice versa). The specter of a tiny (In comparison) human being sitting atop a massive, magnanimous thing called elephant is really a clear depiction of man animal relationship. Man to man relationship is slightly more confusing. Most confusing is perhaps man woman relationship.

Human beings are generally of three types: man woman and eunuchs. The first type has some things that the second types don’t have. The second type has some things that the first types don’t have and the last type has nothing. But each is alternately happy and unhappy of being the type that they are. Never reaching a conclusion. Going round and round like a dog trying to catch it’s tail. Regardless of all these confusions however there is a common trait among all three types of human beings: trying to look good and trying to outsmart one another.

Trying to look good is a huge subject.

The perspective changes as human beings get older. Till a certain age the kids looking good is the sole responsibility of the mother of the species. The person (Kids) itself is not bothered. In fact there is a huge pressure in repeated attempts made to clean them up and dressing them up.

Only a few years later the urge to look good becomes compelling. Soon a conflict arises in curtailing costs of the process. Hair changes color, direction of flow, density, flexibility. Curly hair becomes straight and straight hair becomes curly. In some extreme cases the head is shorn of all hair except some in a straight line down the middle. Or none at all.

The urge to look different is overwhelmingly evident and generally expensive. Depending on the environment in which these changes take place. Rings are in the nose, all round the periphery of the ears, above the eyes, in the navel, on the eyebrows and who knows in which other places. The color of the lips changes from Impish deep brown to Draculared. The amount of money spent in coloring the lips round the globe must be astounding. Don’t think I’m cribbing. I don’t mind. Just that people have become globally, uniformly, beautiful. Almost like an army. The Beautiful Regiment. Dresses are different every minute. And lesser in content. But who bothers. Skirts have gone from mini to almost non existent. Plunging neck lines plunging to eternity. Backless cholis. There is a TV channel devoted to frontless straps also. I don’t mind. Don’t see any body else minding either. The need to be noticed pushed human beings to stand out in a crowd. To look spectacular. Stunning would be a better word.

But the beauty of the self has taken a drubbing. The self has gone through a giant geared tooth of a machine called progress. From human beings we have become consumers. You might call it a return to the ice age. Lonely beautiful people lay dead in multistoried flats, unnoticed for days. Till their once beautiful and taken care of faces, manicured hands and feet rot and get disfigured and the stench is so objectionable that neighbors are jolted from their everyday life to do something about it.

But what can you do about the stench of the living dead ?

i remember part of another poem i had written in my college days

I can do anything for you
but die......

because if i die
i can never
do anything for you
anymore......

i remember part of a poem i had written while in college .....mostly to impress girls.....it was difficult those days..


....i remember the way
i had way laid the meteors once
with a drawn sabre.....

i am scared
to come back home
scared that
one day
i will come back home
to find it ransacked
and all my dreams destroyed...

At least a few things have come to light.

1. My wife is not my personal belonging.

2. Just because she is my wife she will not love me.

3. Love is a really illusive word yet. Right from my youth I have not been able to undertstand
what it really is.

Pople who have read my blog in previous topic please excuse.

But i would still like to keep my post as a remembrance.