Walk Alone

Its something I have envied about other people - specially those super achievers who keep a long list of hobbies on their resumes. Singing, dancing, making music, collecting stamps, martial arts, sports… oh, wow! I always thought of a hobby as being something that you did in common with a limited number of people; preferably, something that set you apart. Football is not Varun’s hobby; its a passion he shares with a million others. On the other hand, ask Amey what brand of soap Brian Lara uses… stalking Lara is Amey’s hobby. You should be a pro in your hobby - there is no scope for amatuers in it.

By that definition, a hobby becomes almost a second nature to us. And I guess, thats fine with those artistes and sportsmen. Martial artists… I don’t know - I haven’t seen any who have achieved the sheer mastery over their chosen art as is shown in the manga and anime I see. So, that can’t be called a hobby per se. And people who sing out loud during a bus trip and claim that singing is their hobby… or the number one on quite a few CVs - reading. Yeah, right.

The point of this confused rant is I have no hobby to speak of. Reading… I ‘m a voracious reader. And I do comprehend much of what I read - but its not a hobby, not according to what we decided earlier. Sports - sure, when India is involved. F1, obviously. But again, it doesn’t even approach the level of interest that Varun has for football. I don’t remember teams, drivers or statistics. Its technology - pure and simple - that has hooked me to motorsports. Technology - yes, that does interest me. And I do play around; when I can afford to, that is.

The closest thing I have to a hobby is what I described to a Director in DIREM as “peddling open source”. I wonder if that is correct? Among my “wares” would be Wordpress, OpenOffice.org, various flavors of Linux, Dia and the “best-seller” - Firefox.

It is like looking into a mirror. When the fog clears, you see what you should have in the first place.

Sometimes, I thank my parents for being an excellent judge of their child’s character; like all parents, I suppose. It was a good thing that I don’t have an iota of training in any martial art. For when I get into a murderous rage, I’m sure that the “murderous” part would’ve been more than justified. Fortunately, my build being what it is and having no training in fighting, people have nothing to fear from me. Today, my rage earned Amey a few bops on his head. Why do I get pissed off at him so easily? Another story, another time. However, the discussion surrounding the bops cleared the fog on the glass for me.

The debate in the previous post spilled over into life, predictably. Lets take the least sticky points first, shall we?

Amey and I obviously differ on how to go about in this debate, even when we are on the same side. Maybe its because he has specifics while I’m content to address the issue at a general level. I guess the situation would have been reversed if the topic had been something related to Linux or programming. The only problem I have with his approach right now, is its potential to skew the debate - when you have specifics, it is easy to latch onto them and miss the main theme. The other thing about specifics is exceptions. Its very rare for a trend or a rule to exist without any exceptions. And these exceptions can be and are projected as counterpoints, by those who know they exist. Frustrating, to say the least.

The second contentious issue is “abuse”. I’m yet to understand what it means when referred to my blog, but in life, today’s head-bopping would be considered as “abuse”. Most of the debate pundits believe I “abuse” when I don’t have any points to debate. A pity really. And here I thought my beliefs were the results of rational thought processes and indisputable facts. I wonder how it was that I managed so long without “abusing” anyone. Funny. I remember taking part in engaging debates throughout my school years. I remember debating throughout my junior college. I can’t recall “abusing” anyone. Have my new debate partners - the pundits of debate - brought out something hidden in me or what? Any takers for the ‘Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde’ theory? Or wait; have I picked the wrong people to debate with? You know, ‘the shades of brown’ theory?

And now we come to the opening shot of the argument. Obviously, when it comes to the reservations, I’m not neutral. I can’t be. I’m colored. I’m one of ‘them’ - those who have stepped over others’ heads. Watch me carefully - I’ll always try to do it again, no matter if I say I won’t from now on. No matter if I say I’m sick of being burdened with that knowledge of having jumped over the meritorious heads. How can you trust me? I’ve used the rules when they are on my side - rules as unfair as any that I deride. I know the ease now. What is to stop me when it comes to putting a check on the all-important category on so many forms in this nation? And here I was - expecting to be accepted and trusted as an equal when my entry itself was unequal. I simply am not.

That unequal entry can well be my downfall. It has been like a wish granted in a grotesquely twisted manner by some evil genie. Is the genie evil becuase I can’t live with the wish? Conscience is a bad thing. Specially when it is right and you seem to be… not wrong but not right either. Oh sure, I got a toehold, in a patently unfair, unequal manner. Oh, I never shortchanged the State whose rules gave me that toehold. I paid my dues full and square. But that entry? Like a phantom tied by an unfulfilled wish, that first entry won’t leave my side. I topped in Electronics, did I now? Well, someone else more deserving would surely have done that too, if I had not gobbled up the seat. I got into a premier institute, did I? Look at your dismal academics. Someone more deserving would have surely done better. You got a job thats independent of your academics, you say? Well, what gave you entry into the college where this company came head-hunting? And it will go on… always the first among unequals.

Having gained an unequal entry, I’ve lost my claim to be recognized as someone competent. Never mind I’m good at something. “Ethically”, I shouldn’t be here to do it in the first place, so competence simply doesn’t figure. I can’t demand competence from others either. For unlike me, they are here on their own guts. Its ok for them to be less than perfect. I’ve no right to demand anything from them.

This sounds familiar. India’s new pariah caste - those who have worked the system for reservations. Did I hear some protests about being “disowned by their nation”?

Where would I’ve been if I had not taken the genie’s wish? A normal HSC with PCM. A BSc Physics. Thats purely academic. Surely, my father would have had given me my machine sooner. That wouldn’t change. I would still be interested in computers and programming. I would have still preferred open source and my current skill-sets - PHP, MySQL, Linux, C++ - would have been my skills even then. If anything, I would have had more time to sharpen them. Maybe I wouldn’t be placed in a company that pays me top-dollar every month. But I’m damn sure I wouldn’t be job-hunting for long with my skills - I would have broken into the IT sector somehow.

Sometimes, you don’t like what you see. Do you hate the mirror now? Or do you hate what you see?

Either ways I would have ended up where I wanted to be. So what is different? That I have taken a path that is (for the thousandth time) unequal?

I had gone to Vashi for a ‘workshop’ - no, it was nothing like a workshop - along with my PM group. The institute (?) where this workshop was being conducted closed from 1 pm to 3:30 pm - in time with scheduled load shedding. Amey, being the usual “ha ha, this is fun, let’s enjoy to the max, guys!” type of guy, took a few of us to a book fair. Oh well, I don’t mind a book fair, its just that the thought of seeing a book I like but can’t buy, breaks my shell like nothing. And thats what happened; because I simply had not brought money to buy books, atleast the one I would have liked to read…

The aforementioned dude was hunting for books. There was an entire section giving away books at 10 bucks each. Cool! Got an unabrigded (I think) version of Beowulf. I had read the mid-school version and I thought the real stuff might be impressive. Gave it to Amey - don’t know whether he bought it. Then I saw “Everything We Had” by an Al Santoli. Interviews of thirty-three Vietnam vets. Arranged more or less chronologically. An oral history - thats a quote from the book. I don’t know why I picked it up. And I don’t know why Amey bought it.

The Vietnam War has has always interested me. Morbid at times - who wants to know that among the documented ways (of the Viet Cong or VC) of subjugating entire hamlets is raping the chieftain’s kids before the village and then executing the family? Or that the VC competed with Command Saigon when it came to brutalizing POWs. Damn interesting stuff too - guerilla tactics, special ops, air combat (if WW-II was about perfecting amphibious assaults on Pacific islands, the Vietnam War was about perfecting airborne assaults with close air support) and so on. And of course, the idea of a western military power engaging in full throttle mode in an oriental theatre - real interesting. It is also fascinating - how a beautiful country has been history’s playground - part of French Indo-China, then a Japanese territory till 1945, again under the French and then, the War. What was it fought for? And who actually fought it?

No other war has troubled the US like the Vietnam War. A nation, confident after saving the democratic world and becoming the champion of “liberty, democracy and equality” post WW-II, was defeated for the first time (possibly since the war of 1812 against England) after a bitter, ten years long struggle. The US had never faced an opponent like the VC till then. And it lost. The politician in DC, unlike the soldier on the jungle floor, didn’t know the true enemy. He didn’t know the country. He didn’t understand the people and their culture. He didn’t know how to win a war. Unfortunately for the soldier, the politician was pulling the trigger. The US-South Vietnamese forces found themselves playing a game whose rules were to be followed only by them and freely broken by the other side. Is it any surprise they lost?

The lessons were bitter for the American people. They had lost a war that was of no consequence to them. They had lost relatives to a cause that was not related to them. They had fought a war for people who didn’t want them to participate in it. This feeling - call it bitterness, anger, guilt, angst - is perhaps going to remain for a long time. Its not for nothing that Iraq is called the US’ second Vietnam.

I first stumbled across this undercurrent of bitterness when I saw Good Morning, Vietnam!, a movie about a radio jockey with the US forces (yes, the US forces ran radio stations in ‘Nam). He thinks he’s along for the ride in the country when he comes face to face with war. And war is synonymous with death. Then in a typical Hollywood style, he runs afoul of the censorship in place and is sent back home. That must have been ten years back.

Roughly around that time, my father gave me a book (the name escapes me) detailing the organisational details, operaring procedures, doctrines, etc. of the VC. It had interviews with ex-VC guys and victims of VC attacks, soldiers and people who had faced off with the VC and so on. Then came a series of books - novels actually - based on the War. Robert Ludlum’s Jason Bourne has his traumatic roots in that war. Tom Clancy’s novels have used the war as a keystone in debates and discussions, specially of the moral kind; and a few times, the story. Couple of special-ops “crawl through the jungle-shoot-moralize-rescue someone-moralize” sort of novels thrown in. I grepped through the World Book for Vietnam War and related entries.

My best source for this has been “It Takes to be a Hero” - the autobiography of H. Norman Schwarzkopf; the Commander of Allied forces in the 1991 Persian Gulf War. He served two tours in the Vietnam War and he has detailed his experiences as well as any writer could. Dom Moraes has also detailed his experiences as a war correspondent in Vietnam in his second autobiography, “Never at Home”.

And of course, the stuff thats shown on NatGeo, Discovery and The History Channel.

Through it all, I thought I had a pretty good grip on the Vietnam War and its effects. The book Amey bought (and which I borrowed) proved me wrong. It seems as if there is simply no end to how much guilt, anger, bitterness… can be found. It goes on and on. The more you find, the more you know are yet to be found. There is only one idea, with endless variations.

I realized the stories - interviews - were different in material but not in theme. I didn’t need to read the book after all. I already knew what was coming. But I’ll regret it won’t sit on my bookshelf if I ever decide to read it to the end.

No, not that sort of settling down. I’m talking about blogging. As more of my friends come online (Akshat’s the one to get a blog), I look at their blogs. I take them apart and try to find out what the thing is that makes a blog a good blog.

Somewhere along the way, I realized that my thoughts were not at all random. The categories, themselves, weakened the notion of me recording any thoughts randomly. Blame Blogger - it simplifies blogging to the extent that you don’t have to think coherently before you blog. WP makes me think; if only to decide where to slot the post. And I’ve found I prefer thinking before blogging.

Coming back to the issue, Random Thoughts has been discarded as not being a relevant title to my blog. The random part has been moved to a category name, which seems more befitting.

Previously, a week long hiatus (I’ll talk about it later) would have driven me off blogging for a month. Curiously, its not happened this time around. Maybe I’m doing things differently this time; don’t know which or how.

Thats my life this year. I had predicted the first half to be tough - it turned out to be disastrous. I appeared for the semester exams contemplating jumping ship. Hardly the best frame of mind. And so, worsened my situation. Now I’m the last among the equals, if I ever was among the equals. And I don’t have to predict it - the rest of the year is going to be (tough? no way!) a one way ticket to hell.

I’ve led an amazingly dichotomous existence through it all. Even as college grew more frustrating, I slipped effortless into the world of computers and anime (thats what I’ll be calling manga here). I spent more time than could be justified watching Japanese animation on TV and designing websites which nobody ever viewed. Collected a bunch of experiences along the way. Even as the situation worsened, I turned more towards my other activities. It reached a nadir just as my college restarted.

Things snapped into place when I took stock of my situation in the face of my peer group’s achievements. And it was bad. I guess its never too late to fight back. Maybe I can salvage something.

After all, we get as much time to do our job as everybody else. We get one lifetime.