My ad(hoc)ventures…

I definitely am aware of the unsuitability of the title to this post…and the fact that if I were to start justifying my reasons for using it, it would probably take more than one post to make my intentions clear… so I am clearly side-stepping all those stuff here, and just for the general understanding, here I used the term ad-hoc to refer to “temporary”…I guess that would make the crap that succeeds this a bit more understandable…

This three month holiday was quite unique and different in quite a few ways -- being the longest one I ever have had,  quite unproductive, too, and probably the most depressingly boring vacations that I could ever have had!! It is the usual norm that students usually await holidays eagerly after a long stint at school or college, but perhaps this will be the first case witnessed by me when the students have been literally fed-up by these holidays and are yearning to return back to college…

Well, I already mentioned that perhaps these holidays were the most unproductive… that would not be quite literally true, because just like every other instance of a holiday, I did have quite a few activities lined up in my “have-to-do” list…and just like every other time, this time too, most of these activities were too unrealistic to be completed successfully…it’s not that I was not aware of the extremely low chances of my aspirations being realized…nevertheless, I persisted…with varying degrees of unsatisfaction as a consequence, though…

So now, as the three month long endurance test of patience draws to an end, I give to you an extensive detailed list of my (in)activities during this period ----

1. The foundations to this were laid a long time ago…even before I was aware of the existence of Slash, Santriani or van Halen, let alone their exploits with this wonderful instrument… perhaps it was the classy appeal of the instrument, or the fact that it was something that could be used as a suitable accompaniment with the fast-paced hindi tracks, which made it a much more coveted instrument than the bulky tablas that I was literally forced to learn during that time(no offence meant, though)…With time, I have learnt to respect the table as a really fundamental percussion instrument, and did learn it for a long time, but all that did never ever cause any reduction in my yearning to learn the  guitar… 

So it was natural, with a three month long holiday on the cards and a real scarcity of any productive activities to involve myself in, I made sure that buying a guitar and learning to play it would make it to the top of my list… but it was the learning part with which I messed up…

It was my plan to avail some of the online tutorials which teach you how to learn guitars(yeah, I know now, that was preposterous…) and I sure did act accordingly, downloading tutorials and theory books and videos…I downloaded everything that I came across so that there was nothing lacking in my arsenal(of tutorials)… thus armed, I began my quest to become a guitarist…

The first few lessons were easy enough… I mean, what’s the big deal in memorizing the names of the six-strings and stuff??

But then came the part where the videos kicked in… and though the tutor was an affable person with a patient face and an understandable accent, I somehow, even after repeated screenings of the video, failed to understand his fingering techniques..  and even though I tapped in my extensive resources of tutorials…I somehow couldn't help feeling that there were quite a few things that i was missing out......

Trudging through that section, I reached the part where they taught you how to read stave sheets, and this was a bigger disaster….because no manner of explaining could really knock anything inside my head, and all those signs and symbols really felt like pieces of alien language to me…and because all the subsequent lessons involved playing pieces of music written on those darned stave sheets, I had to abandon my idea of self-learning guitar …and to add to my woes, there was a humongous amount of money charged by those unfeeling telephone authorities  ( my habit of downloading extensive tutorials and high quality videos for my “self-learning” purposes also contributed to it, though...)

Finally, in the end, I succumbed to the traditional option of getting myself an instructor to teach me how to play…..and irrespective of the fact that we are proceeding at a frustratingly slow pace….I do feel I’m making some sort of progress, and that does satisfy me quite a bit….

SLOW DANCE......

I found this in an e-mail forward....claiming to be composed by a terminally-ill girl, whose last wish was to see how many people would receive her poem before she dies, so that she can convey to them how she thinks people should spend their lives (supposedly they are tracking the forwards to calculate the number of recipients).....

I definitely don't know if its just another ploy to illegally obtain e-mails by those omniscient spammers,or  if it really is what it claims to be---an email sent to respect the last wishes of a dying person...

But I really found the poem to be somewhat endearing...

Usually I'm not the  sensetive or sentimental type...but I thought that posting it here would make it a better way of honoring the last wishes of the author.......

so, here goes.....

Have you ever watched kids on a merry-go-round?

Or listened to the rain

Slapping on the ground?

Ever followed a butterfly's erratic flight?

Or gazed at the sun into the fading night?

You better slow down...

Don't dance so fast.

Time is short.

The music won't last.

Do you run through each day

On the fly?

When you ask How are you?

Do you hear the reply?

When the day is done

Do you lie in yourbed

With the next hundred chores 

Running through your head?

You'd better slow down

Don't dance so fast.

Time is short.

The music won't last.


Ever told your child, 

We'll do it tomorrow?

And in your haste,

Not see his sorrow?

Ever lost touch,

Let a good friendship die 

Cause you never had time 

To call and say,'Hi'

You'd better slow down.

Don't dance so fast.

Time is short.

The music won't last.


When you run so fast to get somewhere

You miss half the fun of getting there.

When you worry and hurry through your day,

It is like an unopened gift....

Thrown away.

Life is not a race.

Do take it slower

Hear the music

Before the song is over.

Did you like that?

waiting for your comments.....

till then..

signing off...

Rishi......

Let there be light??!!

They always ask you about your religious preferences…don’t they??

More often than not, I have my mailbox cluttered with invitations from various social sites(and frequent reminders, just to remind you that you forgot…..), imploring me to join their site just because they had managed to hoodwink one of my friends into obtaining my email address….and as if it’s not enough, they sometimes even happen to place subtle hints of how devastated that friend would feel if I happened to reject that particular invitation (“ please accept this invitation, or else X may think this and that….. ”)

And, the emotional fool that I am…. I can’t bear to see my friends disappointed, so I grudgingly accept all those requests and find myself engaged in filling up endless forms regarding every insignificant details about myself, like what I would like to eat, what people are likely to notice about me at once and all the usual bullshit…. I mean, does anyone even care to read them?? But then, keeping aside this “all-social sites-are-crap” tirade…let me come to something which I really wanted to talk about… a query demanding your religion with a cascading menu beside it, waiting for you to take your pick from among a dozen of options…the one where I always, unknowingly, unthinkingly select the “agnostic” option and proceed on into less intriguing questions of the form…

But, when it really comes to the part where I really try to ascertain my religious preferences( yes, I occasionally, indulge in introspection…so what?), I always draw up a blank… and I have failed to fill up this blank with something positive, something concrete, however hard I try…
I mean, its easy to proclaim before the world that you are an “atheist”…all you need to do is scoff at all forms of religion and religious gatherings, call every ritual unnecessary, declare every god-fearing man to be a superstitious imbecile, denounce every miracle in history as products of imagination, and swear by the omniscience and omnipotence of science….
But agnostic?? Nah, it’s a different ball game altogether… but only when you are a real agnostic, and not an atheist disguised as one just to evade the chances of being labeled as unsocial…. You really need to “not know”…
Yeah, I know it sounds like an idiot…but then, not knowing is the basic principal by which agnostics swear….
I have tried my luck at both being a devoted follower of god, and an indifferent cynic of religion, but unfortunately , both of them failed to hold my attention long enough….and soon I discovered, that this suspended-midway stage is the one which suits me best….I really revel in the thought that I "don’t yet know"….

That speaks tons about my preferences, doesn’t it??

Finally, let’s come to the finer points of agnosticism…as understood by me(uh oh....)

I really, genuinely feel sad and sympathetic for those people, who have been sucked into the world of meaningless rituals and superstitions without any conscious want of doing so… there are hundreds of people worldwide who have succumbed to the fanaticism of religious leaders into following a way of life, which is highly illogical, follow some stupid rules only because some bigoted people think it to be necessary, and shun science only because these bigots think that science and technology are just some heathens’ efforts to “divert the faith of people from the devotion of the almighty”…. And this restricted outlook is one of the several reasons which makes me wary of being a devout follower…like for example, what’s the point in fasting just because some distant relative( whom I had never heard of before, let alone seeing…) had suddenly deceased?? I mean, it’s really understandable if someone follows these rules and regulations with pure belief in the objectives, but I don’t get the point in forcing them on unwilling individuals… I doubt if such actions reinforce the faith in the minds of the followers, as they are believed to do…

But then again, is all these really some pointless superstition?? All this believing, worshipping, and rituals….have they really got no point?? Any atheist would readily answer-“any doubts?”… But as you are currently reading something written by a tried and tested agnostic, the answer will be different…..

And that is not because deep inside, I have some kind of potent faith in the existence of a superpower, not because agnostics are supposed to be midway( meaning they don’t out rightly deny or confirm anything. don't misinterpret the "midway" part.....);but because I really feel envious …envious of those people who can simply bank upon their faith in the Gods when the going gets tough, people for whom peace and solace is so readily available just because they believe that there is someone who is watching over them, people who lead a life of discipline and virtue, just because their religions direct them to do so in order to justify their lives, people whose beliefs make them tide over the bad and the worse without really losing hope…

Isn’t this what everyone wants?? Atheists might scoff and smirk…but then, that’s exactly what I don’t want to … ridicule everything and turn into a pessimist… I want to be happy…( I know, that’s definitely asking for too much…)

Sometimes, I really do feel that accepting the asylum of a religion is really worth all the trouble, because combined with it, you get the emotional support of hope, belief ; coupled with that, you get the directions of leading a good, peaceful life... sceptics may be sceptic about this(:P), but we all know that human nature is most conducive to choosing the wrong path when confronted with a particularly decisive choice between good and bad, so I really feel we do need a beacon to guide us sometimes.......

So, I guess, with such a constitution of equally balanced repulsion and attraction towards belief and religion… I guess the only path left before me is the one which I have been walking on till now…till I decide on my preferences( which, going by past statistics, is going to be a really long time)...

signing off...

Rishi....

Does it have to start with something??

I definitely have got no inkling as to what prompted me to commit such blasphemy- yeah, I am talking about me publishing a blog in English…. 
I still don’t have the slightest idea regarding what all rubbish I would be able to cook up, so that I can assuage my misplaced and misguided ego….Yup, I am referring to the one which keeps telling me, “Go on, write something….”

And last but in no way the least, I am writing this because I hate to see this place lying barren and empty for so long…. Believe it or not, this blog was created around a year back…and somehow, the lazy-bum of an “author” decides to inaugurate it after such a long time, and that too, with a complete pile of crap (you really should have believed it when you saw the url)….

So, all those who mistakenly or forcibly ( I guess that will be the only category :P) happen to be reading this post, please spare a moment to pray for the success of this endeavor of mine….(and then spend every day praying that the earlier prayer gets answered) …. Oh, and by success, I mean to say that at least half of my posts should be readable and understandable by people who have been forced to read them (I know nobody’s going to read it otherwise)….

So sit back,

relax…

And keep hoping that I do not pester you to become a follower…  :p

Signing off,

Rishi.....