End-game Bliss and the power of Machine Head

What, I ask you, gentle readers, do the following concepts have in common?

• The winning runs being completed after Sachin slaps the ball through the covers off the last ball of a tight match and scampers up and down the pitch.
• The appearance of the black screen and credits sequence at the end of James Cameron's Titanic.
• A quick glance at one's academic exam results that reveal that one didn't do as badly as one initially thought.
• The sigh that one emits as one relieves oneself after sprinting out of the bus, into one's building, up the stairs, into one's home and then, the bathroom after holding it in for ever so long.

The answer (in my book, at least) is the notion of End-game Bliss. Relief. "Oh my sweet Lord, it's finally over". I experienced that earlier today and not because of any of the reasons above, it must be added. It has more to do with the conclusion of something pointless I found myself trapped in.
Essentially, I am a born-optimist. I've always been optimistic in my outlook to life, whether to do with interpersonal relationships, the weather or even about a film being good/better than the reviews suggest.

This week I found my optimism smashed to bits about a tiny and rather inconsequential matter that I thought reason held the answer to. Reason is and always has been touted as man's greatest gift and one that seemingly makes him smarter and better off than all other organisms. Bigotry, narcissism and narrow-mindedness brings man back down to the levels (or perhaps lower than that) of other organisms. But, back to it. Reason failed this time around. It's like Navroze Behramfram (aka Living Legend) always said: "No product appeals to all consumers".

So it isn't a big deal really, more so because I'm relieved that it's all finally over. But what was it that really really pushed that sigh of relief out of me? An acquaintance I had the misfortune of making recently established his intent to finally leave me alone in the following message:

"It would be better if you have a control over your language . It has run amock like your mind has.
Life is much about discipline....
Good Bye .... Have peace.....This is my last visit to this Blog....the blog whose author have Zero knowledge about a subject but would still care to be a master in that .
You did not deserve my time ...."

I certainly didn't deserve the time and energy you lavished upon me — all those beautiful comments, messages, tips, nuggets of advice and miscellaneous information. I really am flattered, touched and tickled that you saw fit to spend your precious time heaping all this upon me (would have rather that you didn't, but it's alright), when it's abundantly clear that you have so much earth-shaking work to be doing. *Sigh*

Right! Now that that's out of the way, let's move on to more important things...
Like Machine Head! I am not referring to the Deep Purple album here, although that's good as well, but the Robb Flynn-fronted, Adam Duce-bassed, Dave McClain-drummed and Phil Demmel-lead guitared band from Oakland, California. Six albums later — each replete with its own unique sound and vibe, it must be added — the band are finally getting their due as one of the most respected in their field.

And why not, blasting The Blackening, Through the Ashes of Empires and Burn My Eyes — or albums 6, 5 and 1 for simplicity sake — from my phones and into my ears all weekend, I rediscovered that propulsion effect their music has on me. In that, it literally propels me skyward, by enhancing whatever emotion I'm feeling at the time, be it agony, rage, ambivalence, unfettered joy, glee and indeed, every other entity on the spectrum of emotions.

There's just something about certain pieces of music, artistes or bands that do so much to a person, from sending a chill up one's spine to comforting one when one is down in the dumps. Heartbreak, stress and uncertainty become a thing of the past when that song (or artiste/band) is on and all is well with the world. For me, it's Machine Head who head the list of the few that can do that to me, with the vocals (that range from soothing to downright visceral), the drumming (tectonic plate-shift inducing), the guitars (silky smooth and piercingly quick coupled with slow meaty chugging) and the ever-present rumbling bass.

And it's listening to Machine Head after one of those mentally-exhausting experiences I mentioned above that sends the relief through my system, flooding it with wholesome goodness, contributing to my End-game Bliss.

An open letter to one Mr Pawan

In light of the fact that a certain person has decided to take on my response to his/her buddy's self-righteous claims with some more bull-honkey , I am compelled to respond with this polite letter.

Dear Mr Pawan

After baiting that notoriously self-obsessed little man or little woman (some Louisa May Alcott there for you) that is little indian, I finally got a response, from you, one of his cronies, no doubt (Or maybe little Indian is you and in fact, called Pawan, in which case, a warm View from Beneath hello to you, Pawan).

As the first time visitor you no doubt are, allow me to familiarise you with how this place works. First of all, we don't work under any pretenses here — everything is done with a view to present ideas (new and old) in a different form. Getting under one's skin in a playful and jest-laden way is part and parcel of this particular blog and its author. But, at some point, the author would also like the readers of his blog to give a bit (teeny weeny bit) of thought to his ideas and views, ergo, to consider where he's coming from, no matter how right wing, elitist or plain authoritarian he may seem. Legitimising his quest is the fact that he offers mere opinions, not gospel truth and nor does he claim to.

Sidenote to non-Pawan persons: Please check the post titled Of self-righteousness and glass stomachs for a clearer understanding of why "Pawan" is so riled with the creator and preserver of this blog. Now, without further ado, here is his response:

Pawan said...

You confronting to "little Indian" in a way shows that you like to argue without anything to support your arguments. Since his post maybe against your ideology , you have gone ahead and ridculed him and also not proved anything .I hope you lear from Little Indian of how to present the facts,instead of Yellow Journalism

Pawan

www.thekashmir.wordpress.com

Now, I did say earlier that the aim was to get under everyone's skin in jest. There is, however an exception and that would be the self-righteous jackass (really hurts you when I call you that, doesn't it?) that is little indian. There is no jesting with someone as screwy as you — a creature who believes his research is the final word on all research and that all opinions that differ from his are baseless. Speaking of baseless, I'm yet to see any official evidence of his "facts". Yeah Pawan, where does he have anything to support his arguments? At least I have reason behind me. What does that moron have, minus pig-headed self-righteousness and atrocious grammar? Not that yours is anything spectacular either, Pawan. After all no one "confronts to" anyone else. You confront someone.

As for proving anything, that wasn't my point. Not all of us are here to convince ourselves that we've proved something and pat ourselves on the back about the fabulous job we've done. "Yeah! That'll show them! They'll never mess with me and my immaculate understanding again." Maybe that helps you sleep better at night, but some of us like to question and dig for answers, as opposed to buying second hand views from a second hand guy wearing second hand shoes (I can only assume).

Furthermore, Pawan, are you aware of what "yellow journalism" is? I didn't think you would be, so here goes... More than just a buzz-word that you and your "revolution-making" buddies love to employ (along with the word "propaganda", of course), it refers to sensationalist, jingoistic and scandal-mongering journalism. Where, in what I can only assume to be your infinite wisdom do you find any hint of jingoism, sensationalism or scandal-mongering in my post, Pawan? Or are you going to respond to that with another stream of gibberish along the lines of "The Indian media has you brainwashed, you are a victim of propaganda!!"? However, your gibberish will be very poorly worded, I'm sure. Here's something you should look up, though: Scientology. Their PR officers are just as idiotic as you when it comes to responding to people who express disagreement with their ways, just as I'm doing with your "holier than thou" claims.

Finally, onto my ideology, which "his post" allegedly went against. You're damn right it did! I believe in free speech. I believe in awakening. I believe a person can see something that can change his/her perspective. Unlike you and your little indian friend who believe that they came out of the womb with an encyclopedia on Kashmir. Obviously, you did. There's no point denying it. Some of us were born as normal babies, who grew to be normal human beings, with human tendencies to seek out information and adapt our responses accordingly. I believe I have wasted enough time ruminating on your anal-retentive blog and your moronic response.

My advice to you: Buy an English grammar text book and get a life!

Hugs and kisses,

Karan Pradhan

P.S. - Just thought that I'd let you know that I had a wee tête-à-tête with your hero, little indian and his take went as follows below. Oh yeah, so that you don't get confused, the red annotations are mine, Pawan:

To

Mr Karan Pradhan

As I have stated earlier,
I have the right to refuse to publish any comments on this issue.

I am NOT publishing yours. (oh, boo-hoo!)

You have a platform (that you call your “blog”) (and a damn good one at that; check out my cool tunes) where you make your feelings offensivly clear about any person who opposes your propaganda on Kashmir (last time I checked, I wasn't guilty of your deeds, so don't tag your failings onto me)

Instead of fouling (I believe it's "befouling" and it would be tough to do that after you've done such a great job of it yourself) my blogspage, please use your ownsite with whatever you wish to say; or anything against my writing There it will be better appreciated by your likeminded friends, the Pakistani sympathisers. Not on my site.

As I have said before,
I have full trust in my readers to decide for themselves
what is unbiased and true and what is propaganda.
(And as I have said before, you are a jackass)

Taking a monopoly apart — piece by piece

It was announced a couple of days ago that the Indian Cricket League (ICL to most news papers/channels) has so far garnered the support and participation of 44 domestic cricketers and about 7 (at last count) international "stars" for its first season. Lance Klusener and Nicky Boje (the very same Boje, who was sufficiently frightened of the Delhi Police to avoid the India tour a year or so ago) from South Africa, Inzamam-ul-Haq, Mohammad Yousuf, Imran Farhat and Abdul Razzaq from Pakistan and Trinidadian Brian Lara are the international players signed up so far. Kapil Dev, Madan Lal, Erapalli Prasanna, Tony Greig and Dean Jones are but a few of the star cast, who've been signed on as administrators for the ICL.

The season, originally expected to commence in October, will require at least another 40-odd players to get started, but it all still seems very uncertain. Kapil Dev, as is his wont, fired on all cylinders in the press conference, describing the domestic cricketers rounded up so far as the "cream of the country". If that wasn't enough, he went on to say that they were being courageous, by putting their future on the line (more on that later) and that he would back them to the end of his life — or at the very least, till the end of the ICL, one presumes. Naturally, as the spearhead of this new renegade faction, one would expect nothing less from the Haryana Hurricane.

Juxtaposing his words with the BCCI's threats (of banning all players from ANY competition organised by them or their constituents) really does bring about the realisation that for a number of these 44 domestic players, it really is a courageous call on their part. For the likes of Dinesh Mongia, Laxmi Ratan Shukla, Reetinder Sodhi and T. Kumaran, this is probably not all that huge a loss, considering the fact that it seems highly unlikely that they'll be re-entering the Indian team any time soon. However for Ambati Rayudu and Abhishek Jhunjhunwala (who almost single-handedly spearheaded Bengal's charge for the Ranji trophy last season), signing up with the ICL is akin to throwing away their chance at an India cap.

I could go on and on forever describing the posturing employed by the BCCI and the ICL, over the course of this entire saga, but that would defeat the purpose of this piece and that is to laud the ICL. Sure, it's a Zee-owned corporation looking to make some big bucks. But in a world where there are so many unscrupulous and I daresay easier ways of making money, it's truly admirable that they choose to take on the biggest fish of them all in its own pond. Let's face it, the BCCI is also out to make money and the last thing (I'm sure) they'd like to see is someone else getting a piece of the pie, no matter how thin the sliver may be. Additionally, what's wrong with an attempt to shake things up a bit and keep the infamously dinosaur-esque board on its toes? The ICL may be a complete failure, but look back at Kerry Packer's World Series Cricket — that could have gone either way but one can't deny the way it revolutionised sport.

While it appears as though the BCCI holds all the cards (stadia, sponsors, political leverage, ability to decide who plays for the country), the most important resource of all lies with the ICL — the players themselves. Four of the major Indian Ranji trophy teams have been severely depleted after losing over half a dozen of their best players each to the ICL. With the BCCI's hard stand on cutting ties with anyone associated with the ICL, it remains to be seen what the domestic rosters are going to look like, once more players sign up with Zee's ventures. All said and done, if there was ever a way to crack a monopoly, this appears to be it. Unfortunately, it increasingly seems as though the main casualty in this war is going to be Indian cricket.

Of self-righteousness and glass stomachs

Before I begin to scratch viciously at the latest irritant to cause me to itch, I would like to direct your attention to the following blog:
The Self Proclaimed Little Indian

Without the shadow of a doubt, the specimen involved in creating and putting up that collection of writing, seems to be doing a thorough job in keeping tabs on the latest news from Kashmir. Additionally, said specimen also seems intent on disseminating information and recommending other reading that visitors to his/her blog can explore. All good so far. There are a number of people — members of non-government organisations, journalists, veterinarians, lawyers etc etc. — who are similarly passionate about causes and do what they can to enlighten people.

And then there are those others — I will widen the net now so as to avoid making that pathetic little indian (no pun intended for that is the aforementioned specimen's moniker) the sole focus of my rant, because quite frankly, he/she doesn't deserve it. The world is packed to the rafters with self-righteous idiots whose heads are rammed so far up their own backside that they would require (and probably already possess) glass stomachs so as to be able to see the world.

What these glass tummies — yes, let's call them 'glass tummies' from this point on — fail to realise is that not everyone sprang out of the womb with full encyclopedic knowledge about everything that the glass tummies expect them to know. So for instance, glass tummy A who enjoys Jean Luc Goddard films expects the entire world to know everything about Goddard — right from the number of appearances he put into his own films to the name of the boy who brought water for Jean-Paul Belmondo on the sets of Breathless. Or take for instance, glass tummy B who runs a pretty little blog and expects everyone to know everything about Kashmir, to have spoken to everyone in Kashmir, to know all the stories of the dead and downtrodden of Kashmir and so on. Where did the process of learning and acquisition of knowledge go? What happened to the concept of an awakening?

This whole air of superiority, of "I know everything and you know squat — you should know everything or you're not worth my time" is not only sickening, but also greatly diminishes the value of their knowledge. Knowledge becomes more valuable when it is shared. It also undergoes a hell of a lot of sharpening, in terms of accuracy when it is subjected to scrutiny AFTER sharing it. So, to the glass tummies of the world, I say, keep your take on the 'knowledge' you claim to possess. No one wants it, especially if it's doled out by the likes of you.

Pleasantly enough, that's killed most of the ire that was percolating inside me and aimed at the glass tummies. All but one, that is. Mr/Miss little indian states on his/her blog that:
" To all bloggers
who disagree with my opinion on this issue,
please voice your opinion, your contradictions on your own blogspage.
Arguing on a comments section simply becomes lost from most readers view."

So basically, your blogspace is some sacred place, where your logic — as twisted, elitist and dicktatorial (typo?) it may seem, is gospel truth and may not be argued against or scrutinised. Symptom of a glass tummy, if I ever saw one. But, your privacy is your own personal choice and I respect that, which is why I dearly hope you can take the time to drag your self-consumed posterior to a new browser, thereby tearing yourself away from your beloved blog and read this.

Next up, said little indian goes on at one point to claim:

"No, I cannot have respect for anyone who can make such an important statement without a fair and balanced assessment or judgement of facts and the truth."
This statement is later followed up by some bull-honkey (God bless the Simpsons) about evidence and how he/she had all this evidence lined up.

What evidence are you talking about? There isn't a shred of evidence on your post, whether statistics or official reports or anything. And let's get one thing nice and clear, there is no fair and balanced assessment in the poppycock you are peddling — that's for damn sure!

My patience wears out and so I'll draw to a close now with this person's ridiculously paranoid and deluded ramblings about propaganda:
"What you write here proves the power of good propaganda. You will never see the truth, for you will never seek the truth you will only believe what you have been told to believe and will not independantly (sic) explore the facts and events of history to form an INFORMED OPINION."

Yes, Zach de la Rocha, preach on! Sadly, apart from sounding like lyrics from a Rage Against the Machine song, you sound like a Michael Moore-esque twit who thinks the whole world is out to wipe you out in your sleep. Why don't you take a cue from your own advice and create an informed opinion of your own, rather than continuing on your "Everything's so messed up! No one but me knows anything and only I understand their pain and it's all your fault" trip. Grow up.

And finally:
"I am sorry, on issues of importance of such severe magnitude, where thousands have been killed, or raped or ethnically cleansed, I do not let emotions cloud my judgement, and I will not even consider “…where the person is coming from, and where his or her emotions stem from"

You are right. I concede. The issue of Kashmir and the unimaginable atrocities being committed there are certainly worrisome. Human right's violations, human exploitation and violent brutality are rife there and in our present political climate (spanning 1947 to date) and for the foreseeable future, there IS no solution to the Kashmir issue. That is where I cease to agree with you. I'm not even going to bother going into your ludicrous "I do not let emotions cloud my judgement" remark or your immature inconsideration for where people are coming from. That's cool — your life, your prejudices.

I will however say this and it is upto you whether you wish to take the message or not:

There is no clear and objective information about the Kashmir region.

All info emanating from that area is encoded and sent out by some stakeholder in that region, whether an army official, a victimised resident, a "terrorist", a separatist, a person crying out for independence etc. The point is EVERYONE has their own biases and their own agendas, so there is no way one can claim to possess facts, unless one has actually been on all sides of the equation and looked at Kashmir from all the angles. So you see, little indian, perspective is of paramount importance. Knowing where everyone is coming from is vital to finding an answer to this situation. Crying about propaganda isn't the solution... jackass!