Being Alive

Hinduism says, depending on how you live your life (the theory of karma), you are repeatedly reborn until finally you go to heaven, the real abode of soul.

Buddhism preaches that you move a level up or down in every rebirth, the supreme being human, yet again depending on your attitude to life.

Egyptians, on the other hand, whose preachings are the most a materialistic atheist like myself can relate to, say that there is no rebirth. Each soul is given one life to live, one life to love and at the end of its tunnel, old man god (I take it to be a voice activated computer) asks you two questions.

*Boomy voice* Have you found joy in life?

*Same level of boomy, but a bit smug now* And have you brought joy to others?

As I said before, I am an atheist. I promise to write about that someday, but the point to my handing out of pamphlets on three distinct religious preachings is the common point emphasized in every single one of them, particularly Egyptian. Living (and trust me, I mean living) your life.

David Blaine will possibly hit Egyptian heaven. His coffee money trick is my
favorite to date.

I recently saw The Bucket List (yes this late. So?) and I can tell you this; I probably had an enlightenment equivalent, if not more, to Buddha’s. There is this element to the movie that really makes you sit up and go, “Do I want to end up like them and have just 6 months of my *respectable random number* years to fulfill the real desires in my life?” And the answer (at the risk of sounding like a politician) is no my friends. It most certainly is no.

In a recent interview, Shah Rukh Khan said that at then end of life, everyone is interviewed by god himself (Secret Egyptian! :O) and when he is asked what he really did in his lifetime, he wants to reply with a cheeky “everything”. And mean it.

Okay. For once, just this once, try letting go of all that you’ve been told. It doesn’t matter if you’re a religious person, an atheist, an agnost. Just think. Do you really know that there is another life waiting for you? That you will be reborn once again, given another chance to live life? No. What I know is, that I have this life. You have your life. We all have our lives. And you can’t fight afterwards if you get to know there is no rebirth, ‘cause hey, there’s no bringing back the dead.

We need to start making a change. Slowly, if you want. But, really start living your life. Don’t think about the next moment. Blink, and do it. Don’t think about what “they” would say. Because “they” have only one job. To sit back, and bark. Microsoft word is telling me that the previous sentence isn’t a proper one. Am I going to change it? No. Because I like the way it sounds. I’m in 12^th. Should I be wasting my time on a blog? No. But I will. Because I LOVE doing this.

Do what you love. Go against the flow. Break out of your own cage, and do what you really want to do. Heck, photography isn’t a big career in India. Not all break through. But you like photography, right? Do it. Because all said and done, all advice given and all councilors consulted, at the end of the day it is you who has to live your life. Read the sentence again. YOU. YOUR LIFE.

So, for the first time peeps, Homework. Make a list of 3-5 things you really want/wanted to do in life and post them here on the comments. See how many you can check off. And note down right next to those things, how great you really felt when you checked them off. The emotion that will run through you, will be called feeling alive. One life to live, one life to love. Till then, if you have the woes, write down in that list “I will never be sad, and follow Dead Poet’s advice to wear a toothy smile.” Trust me, it will work.

Love,

Dead Poet.

P.S. :

1. Sky dive

2. Drive a Lamborghini Gallardo

3. Feel really goddamn happy for having done a good deed. X

4. Become a chef and have my own restaurant.

I have one checked off. Let’s see about you. Post the list. :)

And obviously, no note on living a life is complete without Jon Bon Jovi. Enjoy. And Learn.

Stoned Swami Feature : The Tuition Tribulation

First an introduction. Yo peeps. I am the one known as the Stoned Swami. I wanted to make an attempt at making a blog entry, so I thought, " let's put it on the Dead Poet's blog, so that if the piece bombs, it will be obscured by his comparatively more experienced and fairly frequent entries." Hope you guess like it enough for me to be encouraged enough to maybe start my own blog. So here's my piece on a pretty common topic.


The Tuition Tribulation

Ah yes. Tuition. The scourge of my social life. The barrier between the Dead Poet and his downloaded Glee episodes. The reason why most people's (usually redundant) beauty sleep time is trespassed upon.

Tuition to me is like a vast expense of quicksand through which I must trudge through, just so that I can come home, get yelled at (by an assortment of maids, concerned elders and the occasional neglected dog), and then crash onto my extremely lumpy (but by then blissful) heavily abused mattress.

You know, today, whilst desperately fighting (in vain) against several extremely "healthy" people (who look like Florida residents to me) for both air and space to write, I noticed how, many members of our exasperated generation sat there, like worn out war veterans, suffering under fans that were nothing more than miserable excuses as cooling equipments, cramped in little plastic chairs (that were highly un-ergonomic, if there is such a word), huddled over books (quite like homeless tramps in the winter around a fire), under the stern eye of a very well paid teacher-cum-Hitler impersonator with bewildered expressions that seemed almost comical had it not been for the apsphyxiating circumstances.(Damn,long sentence) And I wondered how of them actually learned something? Sure, there are always the exceptions, the brainy ones who often resemble grumpy librarians with granny glasses (Okay, so I am being stereotypical. Depp down, aren't we all?) and who secretly take pride in the fact that their copies are vigourously copied from. But by and large, most of us don't really manage much, right? I mean, you may differ, but still, think about it. As we traverse through class after class, like stationery-oriented Indiana Jones'es, how much do those gray cells manage to absorb? We never get time for homework, or
time to study for exams, or time to fulfill our social cravings. Most tuition places disapprove of any interaction between students during class in a manner similar to a Nazi disapproving of films produced by Jewish chaps. School's the only time we get to have any sort of contact with our peeps, apart from any phone conversations. Of course the phone itself is a tantalizing object whose gloriously unused keypad, these days, is seen less frequently than the passing unicorn.

So, food for thought, and I want comments, what can be done to actually make sure that we learn something at these wretched places? Let's face it, tuition is a fact of life, so might as well as get some use out of it. After all, the more we learn from tuition, the more extra sheets at an exam we will require, the more we will be able to bet on our report cards not having a red mark, and the more we will be able to avail the greater necessities in life- phones, movies, dates, and malls.

So see you when I see you,

Dah Stoned Swami

PS- I hope you chaps get the Awesama Ocean's 13 reference I just put in.

Mr. Butter Chicken Singh?

If you are a Delhiite, or have lived here for even a figment of your not-so-vast-life, you’re sure to have had the butter chicken and you’re in love with it. If you’re not, don’t tell anyone you’ve lived in Delhi and just say you’re here for the common wealth games. People would still laugh at you, but at least they won’t beat you to death.

So yes, The Butter Chicken. (Okay, I’m drooling a bit here. *Wipes the keyboard.* *Squeaky*) It is by far one of the greatest contribution to the ever growing Indian food scene, and don’t just people love it. Statistics show (and yeah, I did ask three of my local home delivery outlets) that butter chicken is the most asked for. And what’s amazing is that it’s everyone’s food. Ranging from Rs 150 (Tandoor-e-shahi) to about Rs. 5000 (The Bokhara chef special) a plate, it fits everyone’s pocket and certainly tummys! It’s amazing how the Mughals don’t pride over themselves for giving the Sardars their most loved main course.

Hang on. Mughals? Yeah, you heard (read) it right. The Mughals. They are the real daddy of Mr. Butter Chicken Singh.

We all associate butter chicken to big beefy Punjabis, having a good time sitting in their cars and having swigs of whisky in the hush-hush plastic cups, but really, Mr. Butter Chicken Singh is Mr. Butter Chicken Mohammed.

So how really did this Mughal invention become a Punjabi delicacy? The story goes that a group of Mughal servants were captured by a Punjab community, and one of them decided to pass himself off as a Punjabi as he loved his life. And so he was appointed as a cook in the king’s kitchen and one fine day when the king desired something new and special, he came up with The Butter Chicken.

The biggest clue to Butter Chicken being of Mughlai origin is in it’s marination. No Punjabi meat is marinated. It is instead enriched in flavor by repeated indirect roasting ( bhun-na ). Butter Chicken on the other hand is marinated for 12 hours, before it can be cooked (and I’m not talking about the insta-Butter Chicken that we find in the markets today).

The King was happy and the people rejoiced and the Butter Chicken became an instant hit among the Punjabi community, while the humble servant kept his silence.

So, then next time somebody tells you that Butter Chicken is Punjabi, mail them a link to my blog. Or give them my number. Also, if you see Butter Chicken listed as Punjabi in any menu, be a true Delhiite (unless of course, there’s more of a Punjabi pride) and have the manager informed of the mistake.

Till then folks, Chak De Phatte.. Er, scratch that.. *Something in Farsi*

Love and Khuda Hafiz,

Dead Poet.

P.S. – See how food knows no boundaries? Bet you didn’t even know this one existed. Food for thought, eh?