"I am the way into the City of Woe
I am the way to a Forsaken People
I am the way into Eternal Sorrow
Sacred justice moved my Architect
I was raised here by
Divine Omnipotence
Primordial Love and
Ultimate Intellect
Only those elements
Time cannot wear
Were made before me
and Beyond time I stand
Abandon all hope
Ye who enter here"

A certain gentleman called Dante Alighieri called my attention to something that was niggling in the back of my head with the verse or 'Canto',we may call it, that follows this magnificient introduction soliloqui as if it were,of a personified Hell. This is what the sign on the Gates of Hell proclaims.
Well,after attributing the brilliance of Hell to myself in my oft surfacing grandiose illusions, contemplating on the imagery, admiring the simplicity,the niggling thought in my head found a statement...more like a word...
Mediocrity.

If one were to read the Third Canto or Division of 'The Inferno' from Dante's Epic poem, 'The Divine Comedy' , the ultimate definition and consequence of mediocrity can be found. Consequence, I say because the concept of hell is Payback afterall... and its through the eyes of an Eleventh century devout Roman Aristrocrat taking a guided tour of hell,quite progressive for his time really...( or have we regressed?). Whatever the case might be...we are still on the same page,him and I...

This particular part of the poem speaks about the Vestibule to Hell... the entrance...not really the real realm of Hell,where the Opportunists,those who were only for themselves in life...neither good nor evil or what I would equate to being mediocre,are the first souls in torment.

In Dante's scheme, the punishment matches the sin.These souls took no sides with good or evil,so they in turn are given no real place in the afterlife.. the Dilly-Dallying angels who took no sides when Lucifer attempted to take over are also found here... The fate awarded to them is that they "chase a wavering banner while swarms of Hornets sting them as they run over a maggot-covered ground"...
Ha..Ha.. that should be funny...! pardon me but the one thing that ticks me off is mediocrity... and the fact that it makes itself apparent in me sometimes...
Take a stand in life! You are either In or Out.. Are or Not... being on the threshold isn't much fun...with all the balancing you'll have to do...especially with things like giving El Diablo a hand or decisions about people in your life or what You want...and hanging others' lives in the balance isn't the most contributing to their lives...
Although my take on mediocrity is more earthly relevant, I'm all thumbs to Dante darling...
Your fate is funny Mediocrity...Can't help laughing my guts out...
You can hang around without an identity,belonging nowhere...
I'm off to the Seventh Level of Hell-The Circle of the Violent...

Fantastical...?! Truth...?! Stupidity...?! Viewpoint...

The three wheeler might as well have been a Pumpkin...
I step out with as much grace my borrowed-from-my-best friend-weighing-almost-a-tonne skirt would allow...
My heart sinks for that fraction of a second as I see the crowd...the queue... it covered most of the service road... I feel almost all of those in-queue eyes on me... I thank the kind three wheeler charioteer and turn to all those pale oblongs directed at me...
I now have to walk past and enter my destined architectural structure (quite filled with flaws,I should say...but beautiful to me nonetheless).
Did those gentlemen just now step aside and make way for me? Woah...! this feels nice... I am the centre of attention... in every sense... wait a second... am I having an out of body experience...this doesn't feel real... it isn't...my clumsy self comes back to me when I Almost trip and fall flat on my face just at the main entrance... okay this is Real... I manage to keep my balance on what felt like twelve story high heels...
I atlast find friendly familiar faces...some surprised,some amused,some indifferent, others curious,some ignoring owing to an unnecessary argument the previous night... Oh,I do a mean Ignoring act as well,you see...:)
Festivities are underway...
Well,it was all too good to be true...
Things are not always picture perfect unless a conscious,detailed effort is made or your little winged Fairy God Mother has the time to flutter around you making sure nothing goes wrong...
But as luck would have it...just on that darn day,mine had to leave town to attend the christening of Briar Rose-Sleeping Beauty to everyone else...
Yes...near disaster strikes... the elastic on the wonderful skirt snaps...! like it couldn't bear the burden of all that attention it was receiving...
FGM should have left some charm behind...No one notices the wardrobe malfunction,thankfully...
Then the prior,famously established example of Ms.Liz Hurley,I follow...Yes! Steel Safety pins to the Rescue...
And at long last to give the act a completion... I have to leave ...in a hurry... my Carriage is nowhere to be seen...(you see I have to hire one on the spot and to find one is quite a task) But wait! my dance...with the Prince...?!
There is no Prince... Decided not to show up,I guess...
Oh,this setting doesn't have a Prince... Its all about me... (yes,my humility sky scrapes...Deal with it)
I do get my dance...With what looked like a Court Jester or a victim of race confusion,with his face painted black and white,just now escaped from the sets of a Clint Eastwood western...but as long as I get my proverbial Dance,I Don't care...like I ever have...nevertheless,We(I) were the cynosure...swaying and twirling to Italian Opera Ariyas...
Bows taken...
Applause graciously accepted...
Exhilaration experienced...
It felt good.
Oh,MyWord! Its late!
I lift my skirt to allow me to run and I make a hurried Exit...stepping out in the dark spraying rain... amongst pillars and circles of fire,flaring...sometimes playful,sometimes angry and to rhythmic beats of the Djembe, imitating,giving a perfect compliment to my running,escaping feet...
No...I do not leave a slipper behind.

Stupidity and I

Duffer,Imbecile,Thick,Airhead,Asinine,Ass,Berk,Birdbrain,Blockhead,Bloomer,Bonehead are just a few of the alternatives the Oxford Dictionary has for the word Stupid, and I sometimes think another one would be soon added to the list and that'd be My Name...

A friend very amusingly put it once, that if I hadn't done anything Stupid,then I hadn't woken up that day...

Then again different people have different standards and ideas of what is Stupid... For some even a teeny weeny bit of attention drawing activity would qualify as stupid... well, by those standards I am stupid alright...!

Others are thick skinned and the sense of stupidity doesn't penetrate as easily. Then there's me...I'd call myself "Enlightenedly liberated"...not foolish or stupid... Of course who'd want to call themselves stupid,right?

I just have this inherent talent of doing things my way which might, most of the time look like I've left the working parts of my brain in a jar in the bathroom,which is by the way where I spend most of my time...talk about being left alone... anyway,getting back to my displaced energies, hugging random actors and telling them you're almost in Love with them, Getting locked out of your house thirty minutes after a new day has begun and being stranded on the streets,booking tables at a fancy restaurant with your stuffed toy's name,breaking into an overdramatic piece of a Manmohan Desai's Maa Routine, just to piss your companion off in the middle of a crowded Mall flailing hands et al or better still a Song and dance in the middle of a street...Getting your hair singed every morning because you like watching the milk on the stove boil over or tea brew...or,getting your already unmanageable tresses so impossibly entangled in a hair brush that you have to Chop a chunk of your hair off! Dancing with a clown in the middle of a respectable gathering,and of course being so considerate as to never forgetting to feed your clothes even if you went hungry... The list could go on forever and there might be several words for its contents but I stick with Enlightenedly Liberated...because no one could pull off all that and be proud of it...and with Style...

Good Lord! I give myself too much credit...but what the hell, Its from Me to Me and Virtually.. so it doesn' t count...almost...

Errrrrrr.....

And thus I begin...atlast
After a lot of hesitation...doubt...and deletions...
"Why would anyone care what I had to say in this ever growing elastic virtual Universe?" I thought... What difference would a few delusional remarks by a dangerously uncertain certain individual make,apart from taking up oh-so-precious space... {pun intended..(oh that's a good one...proud of me ):p}
But then,does anyone care what I have to say in this unfathomably vast, ruthlessly expanding,taffyous Multiverse...?
Maybe not, maybe they do...
But mostly, I know they do...
Well,I've survived the Real thing, So a little harmless blabbering on an almost magical medium wouldn't hurt,would it... And well, even if it did...something good will definitely come out of it...that's what always happens (and I'm sincerely hoping it will, in this case too...) and then again I don't care...
And I wouldn't pass up on an opportunity at making myself heard and grabbing attention,now would I?
No...I Wouldn't.
And thus I began...

What it is,that is...

I am a dreamer,a thinker, a speculative philosopher...or as some people would have it, an idiot... I'm always lost in a world of my own, which is quite fascinating...what with my wierd and colourful imagination,it can be nothing less than fascinating... I am as confused as Fred Flintstone would be in the middle of a Beyblade battle...perpetually so... I'm a diehard optimist and a hopeless romantic... would rather spend most of my day looking at the sky than do anything else at all... (apart from eating)... I am a very happy person...happy being lazy...and making everyone around me as happy,which backfires more often than not with people getting extremely annoyed with my Dharmendra imitations,Jai-Veeru dialogues and me suddenly breaking into situational songs...I unwaveringly believe in Fairy Tales and that goodness will eventually be rewarded... So if I am selfless, sacrificing and extremely nice to people (:p yeah, right!) its only for the 'Happily Ever After' that I'm aiming for...