Bipolar World.

Oh! To live with the conflicting rages of Bipolarity!

One moment you're happy as a bird, and the next minute reality changes. Nothing has changed, of course. Just your perception.

It's the difference between night and day. The same earth - the same room - seems brighter, friendlier and more cheerful in the day. An inexplicable joy in everything. A song in the air. But then the night arrives, and fear and suspicion creep in. Monsters appear in the closet.

The forgotten roaches and insects that have been there all along creep out of the woodwork. Everyone's out to get you. There's just no joy. The night is blackest, and the silence is just a muffled cry and pounding heart. Far far away scream.

It's not a pleasant feeling to be numb and emotionally detached from your surroundings.

All around you people are living happy lives. Lovers love. Builders build. Traders and Doctors and Lawyers and Engineers doing their routines.. acting their parts as bricks in a society you don't care about. One you want to tear down.

If this is your world, why don't you feel a part of it? Why does everyone move on but you? Where are the others finding the satisfaction and joy that you don't feel?

Why does everyone else get to define society? Why do you have to change - and adjust - and kill your identity to suit their wishes? Why is everyone strangling you?

And then, the day breaks again.. the roaches hide, the questions disappear once more. Bliss and Happiness all over!

Bless the bipolarity!

Dammit.

I went to the Museum..

If you can't beat 'em, join 'em.

Here's my debut on flickr.


Created with flickr slideshow.

Cheers!

~Peace!

From Inside the Mosque

A Friday in the Maldives is a funny thing.

The entire male population of a country wakes up on this day to the sounds of Qur'anic recitations on TV and Radio, and is somehow morally obliged to visit the local mosque to shake off the guilt of not having prayed the whole week.

As for me, it had been quite some time since I'd been to a mosque. And I had absolutely nothing better to do.

So I went.

Lo! It was a sight to behold! The sparkling, clean mosque was crowded with newly rejuvenated Friday Muslims!

A handful were dutifully attired in flowing white clothes, sure to attract the maximum sawaab in the Best-Dressed Worshippers category.

Others apparently couldn't care less and decided to show up in infidel attire (Surely, wearing an Iron Maiden bandana instead of a skull cap must irk someone up there?)

I sat eagerly waiting for the sermon to begin, just to see who else has been lately forbidden from entering the Kingdom of Heaven.

Just then I saw a most ghastly sight. A gentlemen in denim pants arrived with his little boy and sat right in front of me.

The man started his ritual prayer, but his 4 year old - oh the devil incarnate! - was apparently mocking the whole sacred process!

He stood up, knelt down, bowed and then - horrors! - LAY DOWN on the carpet! Then he rolled around.. stood up, knelt and bowed again.. finally he looked at his dad standing next to him and decided he was not doing it right after all.

The he probably thought 'what the heck?' and went on doing right darn whatever he felt like. His ritual included pointing and gaping awestruck at the interior of the huge dome, swinging sideways and stretching both his hands over his head.

It was by far the most spectacular display of Bid'ah (innovation) I've ever seen.

A couple of bearded men in my row were giving the little brat undisguised contemptuous looks, while the rest of us humans were quite amused.

Then the sermon began. It was delivered in an unintelligible language that seemed to be neither Dhivehi nor Arabic.

(I could only gather that every sentence was approved by 'Mohamed-the-prophet-of-Allah-may-peace-upon-him' and that this fact was mentioned before, during and after every sentence.)

As a kid, I heard that during the sermon one must clear his/her mind of all impure thoughts. But looking around, I just saw people either yawning or nodding off. Some were twiddling their thumbs, others carefully observing their toes.

As for me, I admit I had many wonderful impure thoughts in my head right then about this lovely girl I left behind in India a few days back.

It was the least I could do to stay awake - Short of having to decode the sermon.

As the sermon ended, the whole gathering stood in neat rows and went through the motions.

It was quite apparent that quite a few youth didn't know what the hell they were doing.

Some of them were moving rhythmically to some imagined tune. Others weren't sitting in the right posture, or were slouching and shifting their weight from one leg to another.. or cracking knuckles and adjusting their low waists.

It occurred to me then that if these dudes could have just stayed home without the burden of guilt and awkwardness, then there'd have been plenty of room in the mosques for the believing folk who are often forced to pray outside on the streets.

As soon as the prayers were over, I went out quickly - still reciting a small dua in my mind that my brand new shoes were still where I left them outside.

The shoes were safe. As I walked out, someone handed me a Dhivehi newsletter purporting to be a weekly 'religious advice' and vetted carefully by the Adhaalath "scholars", the current copyright holders of Islam in the Maldives.

I can't read Dhivehi very well - but the main title on the 'Religious Advice' letter had something to do with the Maldivian Constitution.

I crumpled the paper, threw it away and went home for my sumptuous Friday feast.

~Peace!

Barely Maldivian: The First Day!

Yours blasphemously finally arrived in the Maldives yesterday - about 20 minutes late.

Blame it on the rain and the overcast, windy skies.

My Air India plane hovered and circled above the Male' International Airport, apparently afraid of missing the narrow runway strip and "landing" on the water.

(The airline safety manual, which I found myself learning by rote, used the phrase 'landing on water' as if they routinely used this simple alternative when the tarmac proved too inconvenient.

One look at the reassuringly calm, smiling faces of the illustrated passengers slugging on life-jackets, emergency oxygen masks, and bracing for impact from a height of 30,000 ft - and you instantly realize the airline is not being completely honest with you.

The safety manual doubled up as in-flight entertainment.)

Anyhow, the plane apparently ran out of fuel at some point just before it landed - and dropped almost vertically onto the runway, making for a not so comfortable landing.

Later that night, my smarting ass was sitting in a smoke-filled coffee shop with a bunch of Dhivehi speaking chums.

Here's the darnedest part about Dhivehi - I don't speak it. So there I was looking like a total retard/snob, frantically struggling to just keep up with the thread of conversation while maintaining an enviably serene, composed pose. (I would like to thank the academy.. )

In the end, I think I contributed about 4 sentences, that may or may not have anything to do with what my friends were talking. *Sigh*

Some Maldivian I am.

Oh, and I can't swim.

Anyhow, first day in the Maldives was spent walking around the rather abandoned streets of the Capital.

Second day, I'm out of things to do.

What am I DOING HERE?!

Goodbye! And thanks for all the coffee!

I'm on a train thats taking me away from the city I`ve fallen in love with over and over again over the last three years.

Am leaving behind an empty room, my closest friends, a very beautiful girl, and some old laundry.

I'm in real danger of getting philosophical.

Beware.

And Ouch. A major ouch.

--
Sent from my mobile device