Fait accompli

I close my eyes and wait.

The fait accompli of shame, neglect and fear washes over me.

Like a practiced ritual of acceptance.

The pain numbs. The numbing is welcome. Like plumbing for a leaky spirit.

Devoid of conscience and character.

Now, devoid of hope.

This hope, perhaps overdone in the context of gluttinous despair.

Feed the beast, eat the loved ones to bare bones.

Shriveled lives, shrinking from the light.

Dig deep. Not deep enough yet for a grave.

Dig deep for a man. Find belief. Find nothing?

It’s Christmas time there’s no need to be afraid…

Death of a hero

The death of a hero gives the blog life again.
Socrates would have liked that.
The 1982 World Cup, me aged 9, live games on Doordarshan like water in the desert… the concoction was right for a boy to choose his hero.
From my father I inherited Ali and Elvis. But this one was mine.
I’m not sure if it was his hair, his beard, his languid style, his one-step penalties, or no-look back-heels.
I am sure that it was his ability to smoke 40 cigarettes a day and still be one of the best footballers of all time.

Bzzzzzzzp...

As black holes go, the most crippling is the one where you realise you are now not worthy of any emotive indulgence.
Not worthy of happiness or joy, satisfaction or accomplishment, peace or anger.
Your emotional rights as an individual are sucked into oblivion by the black hole of self-recrimination.
Self-recrimination. That’s the toughest jury; Borne out of true self-inquest, devoid of distraction and sleight of heart, or mind.
Like black holes in space, we know they exist and what they do, but there is little fuss about the exact moment of contact with one.
Just a bzzzzzp.
Gone.

Yin, Yang, Yawn...

The yin-yang of human experience bemuses me.
A soldier is sent to war, then accused of excessive violence.
A jockey is allowed to race a horse, then restricted from using a whip.
This constant see-sawing of human nature to try and soothe consciences and justify pursuits that fall clearly in that ‘grey’ moral zone provide stop and think moments for (wo)mankind.
I have bemoaned on this blog that not enough people are stopping, thinking and then talking about it.
Maybe they are talking, but the amount of bullshit in cyberspace just drowns out any intelligent thought, reason or discussion.

Never ever...

I, have, for the most part forgotten how to write.
So, in a moment of self-acrimonious ball-busting I revisited some rules I made for myself, back in the day.
Some of them are gems:
1) Never ever start a copy with a quote, song or poem. Nobody needs to know how well-honed your cultural sensibilities are.
2) Never ever do a story on the phone; or worse, by email. The odd quote, the HQ statement, ok… but the story, get out and meet the people.
3) Never ever use clichés to dress up facts.
4) Never ever stop writing.

The Great Indian Sob Story

The Indian version of ‘Who Wants To Be A Millionaire’ – Kaun Banega Crorepati (KBC) – has turned into a sob-story, against-all-odds, zero-to-hero cluster fuck.

Amitabh Bachchan, India’s answer to ‘God in Hollywood (Morgan Freeman)’ creates the perfect setting for farmers, rural teachers and lower middle-class workers to get their 30 minutes of fame – and Rs50 lakhs.

India is perfecting the art of doing a format to death.

I would love to see just one participant this season come from a rich family, well educated, with only one desire – to win to get richer, or just to blow the money up.

Bankruptcy lessons

The hardest thing about being bankrupt, well, one of the hardest, is being able to share in the joy of the progress and prosperity of those around you.
While being able to afford a doughnut will be your major challenge for the immediate future (read, next few years), your best buddy’s shiny new Lamborghini does not exactly set your heart aflame.
What it does do, is make you want to set yourself aflame. And the Lamborghini. And all the Lamborghinis in the world. And the world itself.
So bankruptcy teaches you detachment.
A forced lesson, but a survival one.