Revival

There are many, though why and how they exist I cannot fathom, who have followed the fortunes of this blog closely over the past few months. They have often graced it with their much-appreciated presence, and at times, have even been kind enough to leave behind their keen insights on varied subject matter before departing. Some of them have even pursued me beyond the accepted-at-large and well-defined boundaries of Blogspot, and have mailed me thoughts on subjects that they have, in the course of their daily browsing, stumbled across on this blog. Many of these people that I talk about have seen this blog in better days, and they would surely concur with me when I say that the general health of this blog has been, over a considerable amount of time in the past, undoubtedly deteriorating.

It all started with the annoying song lyrics. They just kept coming. But that was not where it ended. The next to arrive were the galling one-liners. They left many mildly irritated, and many more, more irritated. But the worst was yet to come.

It was probably a bit more than a month back when this blog, exploring new depths, rather abruptly reached its nadir. It was undoubtedly at its lowest ebb when in addition to all that mentioned above, this blog encountered, for the first time in its rather short existence, poor grammar.
And in poor grammar, it seemed to have finally found its nemesis. After that, the updates got infrequent, the comments got boring, and the posts got close to downright disgusting.

It was apparent to all, save a few dim-witted morons who kept trying to persuade me to the contrary, that this blog had finally fallen upon ill days. It was, in all probability, close to breathing its last. It needed relief. It desired quick intervention. Now was the time, as the commonly known expression goes, for all the good men to come to the aid of the party.

Unfortunately for it, most of the good men in question didn't quite have the mandatory password required to come to the aid of the party. The responsibility, therefore, for better or for worse, finally came to me. In me, it found a somewhat reluctant and slightly diffident taker. For I had had little experience in such matters, and till that time, my heroics were mainly restricted to fields where damsels in distress were involved. Fallen blogs, so to speak, comprised completely new and uncharted territory.

So I vacillated, and procrastinated, and all this while, this blog continued to tread perilously on the thin line between glorious life and ignominious absence thereof. Fortunately for it, and this was probably the only little bit of fortune it had come across in a rather long time, there were other, higher, forces at work.

There come moments in every man's life, when he witnesses the absolute, unadulterated truth. When he becomes one with the complex flow of the universe, and can experience first-hand how rotten a place our universe is. It was during one such brief moment of clarity that I realized how closely the existence of this blog was tied up with my own, besides also realizing how rotten a place our universe is.

Then I hesitated no more, and arduously set out on the task of saving this blog. And today, close to the dawn of the 23rd day of January in the year 2006, I promise to never abandon it again. At least not till I feel like it.

I do realize that a lot needs to still be done to ensure that this blog attains accepted standards of normalcy, or at least generally-known standards of its former abnormalcy. As I have always said, for purposes such as blogs, continuity is of the essence. Continuity, however, in the case of this blog, seems to have been force-fed about a ton of dynamite and consequently set off. My first task, therefore, will be to restore continuity.

Tomorrow, or whenever I post next, I will be posting with an aim to restore this continuity. I shall therefore be resuming from where I left off. I will start there, and continue till where I presently am. Then, continuity restored, I will proceed further.
At least that's what the plan is.

On life, among other things

There was, once, in a land quite reasonably far away, a man. Although he lived, as mentioned before, in a land reasonably far away, he was, in fact, much like men that live everywhere else. He was, therefore, mildly good at times and slightly evil at others. He had, over a considerable period of time amounting to nearly a couple of decades, surrounded himself with many friends, some good, some not so good, and some unambiguously vile, but, very significantly, and this reflects much on the kind of person he was, none indispensable. He belonged to a pleasant family, and had, like most others, his share of cool, irritating, and cool and irritating relatives. And he thought that digital watches were a pretty neat idea. He led, in short, a normal and happy existence, and passed his days in relative contentment. He was genuinely satisfied with his lot, and thanked the Lord every day (and sometimes, even twice a day) for his fulfilled existence.

Although far from exceptionally talented, he had done well for himself. He was not extraordinarily intelligent, nor strikingly good-looking. He was not very good at expressing himself, and rather slow on the uptake. His dress sense was, at best, shoddy, and his sense of humor was only one step away from appalling. He could not play the guitar, and, worst of all, he didn’t even own a digital watch.

Yet, as I have pointed out earlier, he had done decently well for himself. He studied, for he was a student, in a fairly prestigious institution, and did not do too badly there. He was, inherently, highly interested in a variety of subjects, and had, therefore, over a period of time, accumulated an air of worldliness about him. Most importantly, and this was probably one of the few things he had working for him, he was aware of himself. What really set him apart from others was this sense of knowledge about himself that he possessed. He was, at all times, in complete control of his life. He had an almost impeccable hold on the various components of his being. He was, in short, the Master of his Domain.

But life, especially at times when one is not really paying much attention, has this uncanny, and rather suicidal, knack of taking a turn for the worse. It’s one of life’s biggest problems, ranking right up there with finding the largest prime number. For, like the latter, it has no known solution, and worse still, you can’t quite see it coming. You stand back and look at your life, and find yourself much in control. Then, as soon as you throw a quick glance the other way, it swings into action, and when you look back after a brief moment, all you can see are the ruins of your (erstwhile) life staring back at you.

Now, when life takes a turn for the worse, it really does become a bit of a bother, especially for those who like being in control, and are used to being in control, like the person who has been written about in the preceding few paragraphs. He didn’t like it a bit. It all seemed a bit chaotic to him, like he couldn’t see where he was going. All about him, things that were intimately linked to him were occurring, and he was being left out of all of them. He, as I said before, didn’t like it one bit, but he couldn’t quite see what was to be done. He did know, of course, that he had two choices ahead of him. He could fight the change. He could put up some resistance. He could get back in the driver’s seat. But, for the life of him, he couldn’t figure out how.

Or, of course, he could choose to continue looking the other way. He could let things unfold. He could let himself drift along a seemingly predetermined path. He could let things happen instead of making them happen. As often happens in such matters, this latter path seemed a lot easier than the first one. Whether it was because of the fact that he couldn’t quite figure out how to combat this sudden change, or merely because he was already not really in control of his life any more, he chose the latter path.

And he enjoyed it. He loved his new self. For once in his life, he was blissfully unaware of the minutiae of his pathetic little existence. He viewed himself as an audience would have viewed a play, when he should have actually been backstage. Apparently, life moved on just as well, or so he thought, because everything seemed just as before from the outside. Outwardly, he remained unchanged. He was having far more fun than he had ever imagined. Everyone seemed to like him better, and he had found a perfect excuse to avoid much thought.

He stayed in this half-dazed state for a long time. Far too long, I believe. After about three months of aimless drifting, he finally realized that something was amiss. Yet, he couldn’t figure out what it was that had gone awry. What’s more, even if he had known what it was that had gone all wrong, I very much doubt that he could have actually set forth and done anything about it. It didn’t quite seem like he was fully bent on it just yet.

But one thing you can count on. Push a man too far, and chances are, sooner or later, he’ll start pushing back.

Manu Saxena recently realized that things had indeed, as he had expected, gone wrong. Very, very wrong. It was probably then that he understood that his options had descended to a singular course.

He’s still not quite out of it, but he’s finally trying his best.

How long...

Before I get in?
Before it starts? Before I begin?

Any guesses?