Grey skies

Mordia, Arvin Province

Ragged, starving and looking to quench his thirst, the young boy stumbled across the alley way.. three days had passed since the invasion of the Luryta.. columns of smoke dotted the city.. the crows above the city could see a pattern amongst the sea of red below.. dead bodies laid strewn across the once proud Mordia.. a picturesque summer retreat for the royal family.. now reduced to burning ruins and the stench of rotting corpses.. the crows were certainly the victors in the spoils.. the invaders had left last night.. yet the lad was not taking any chance.. chaffed and blood soaked.. the gash in his forehead was the least of his problems.. slowly dragging himself.. his chaffed and raw soles scraped the cobblestones as he made his way towards Gryndors.. rivulets of Mordian blood still streamed down.. now assailed by the stench of his dead elders, he saw his friend's body lying motionless at the West Gate.. Now was not the time to grieve, he told himself... Friends come and go.. Mavin had said.. You however... must survive young one.. he had said..
He now shook himself free of his thoughts.. as he stared at the barracks to the west of the city.. the pride of the Province and in turn Mordia rested on the red building that met the boy.. a place abuzz with new recruits lining up outside for training, veteran soldiers returning from a harsh campaign.. or the Grey Hair council members visiting from time to time.. Mordia's barracks was known to the empire as breeding some of the finest spearman for the Emperors of the Lynea Dynasty.. Now an eerie silence filled the air.. the boy slowly lifted his gaze to view a strange sight.. perched high above the barracks laid a spear.. impaled on it was a soldier.. a new recruit who'd joined a week back.. another son lost.. another brother joining the army of the dead.. his brother.. Prilo Atrius was just sixteen a week ago as he'd joined Mordian Regiment Hurta.. the most celebrated and revered.. some said to join them was to be the closest to becoming an immortal.. time immemorial had remembered the Hurtas of the days gone by.. long after their ashes had been cast to the Atrax ghosts.
As the young boy looked at his brother's motionless body, the Hurta maxim "The spear guides our path", the sight seemed a cruel joke played by the gods.. He felt no pain.. no loss.. no grief.. no sorrow.. for in that moment, the silhouette of the dead Prilo across the dark, grey sky served as evidence of the universal truth.. Flesh and bones had said Mavin.. that's all we are.. pawns for a higher cause young one.. that bastard was sure right.. but where had he run off to?

As he walked towards the ruins, he saw an arrow riddled corpse at the entrance.. Captain Ascarius of the Hurta.. a war hero to many in the city.. a life of celibacy had probably spared a woman her anguish and sorrow.. but there might probably a bastard born somewhere to carry out the Ascarius line..
All of a sudden, the boy slapped himself.. again.. and again..  and again.. strangely feeling as if someone was coercing him into this ritual.. to test whether it was real or just a phantasma.. "Alas" whispered a voice, in it all "Grey clouds again dear Atrius.. wake up now.. wake up.. lest you lose yourself in this again"..
The man awoke with a loud cry.. as he stared wildly.. the silken sheets, the quilt on his table.. the swan feathers at the helm of his bed and the sweet incense of morning sticks.. all felt out of place.. As he gazed at his heavily bandaged chest and turned towards the archway to search for the words that seemed so familiar in the days of old.. He sat in the silence.. oddly comforting yet an ideal companion.. Breathing heavily, Blydwen slowly lifted himself from his bed and gazed outside.. still dusk outside.. yet it was a grey sky that still evoked the grim feeling.. of an existence void of soul.. but for him, it was just another dream to add to his other visions of innumerable souls whose lives he had ended.. Blydwen of Atrius was not a mortal.. not when grey skies cast an eerie shadow on the land below.

This might get me killed! - the Dhakkan RaGa collection

What the fuck is wrong with Rahul Gandhi, I mean, is he really that mental? The dude was laughing at his press conference that day (not smiling in modest defeat) but laughing out loud (LOL style) literally. And in between when his mother was talking he was winking at someone in the crowd. Yes, winking, don't believe me, Youtube it. Who does that, no , why would any one do that man, seriously, what is wrong with him.

 The arrogance was quite visible (the "I don't give a fuck attitude" I mean) and we now officially know that he doesn't really care if he wins or loses the election, becomes the PM or not. Italy beckons for the silver spooned heir (not so) apparent.

Your mother hosts a farewell dinner for the outgoing PM of ten years and you go on a holiday out of the country. Seriously man, how can you do that, its like he was just waiting for the elections to get over, all tickets booked and travel plans ready, and the farewell dinner was a sudden plan for which he couldn't cancel his tickets(may be he had some special discount tickets for still in power party secretary). The worst was, poor congress low level spokesperson had to defend his quick getaway by saying, "after such a long election campaign, he deserves a break to relax" and the journalist he was talking to was almost laughing at him.
Jokes aside (not really :P) the PM was a nice guy man, everyone wants to be nice to him in his last few days, your party has already laid out plans to blame his governance of last five years for the loss (for your pathetic performance basically). The least you could do was stand next to him and his family for a photo-op. Shove a Gulab Jamun in the poor guy's mouth, whatever, just show some respect man, the guy is double your age.

And what about that interview (Yes the one with Arnab). What was he thinking man. Arnab is a guy who can blow up entire countries using just his words, and you go to him with 10th standard board exam type mugged up answers. RTI in government and Women empowerment(AIB made a nice tune out of it as well ( they are cool people man, crazy shit  they do))

And what about the election campaign(yes the har haath shakti har haath tarakki( also the one inspired by Diggi, kattar soch nahi yuva josh)) Seriously dude, not even a dumb parrot was repeating that. Get lessons from Himesh Reshamiya if you will, but come up with something catchy man.
Ok enough, my wife tells me I have ranted long enough and going further can actually get me killed(I solicit protection from the RSS).
So enough for now, someone tell him, its better to retire in some Italian village and have pizza and wine for the rest of his life. Leave the government for much able hands(Oops, I meant lotuses :P)

Screen Time

We jut can’t get enough of the screens in our lives can we. From the work computer to the home computer, the tablet to the smart-phone. We are surrounded by LCDs, LEDs, OLEDs and what not.

We have, as a people, have become information junkies and these screens are our suppliers, they keep us hooked, whenever we need our fix , we just need to look at them. We keep checking the screens, for new information, some notification from some source, and the information gets old as soon as we look at it, sometimes, without even processing it we just swipe away notifications. Our brains decide within the first few moments whether the notification is important or not, and crave for more soon after.

This obsession with keeping our eyes and minds busy looking at screens has meant, that we almost never have any idle time. The time, that our ancestors used to do the most important thing we have been born to do, think! Where is the time to think in between all this, how can our thoughts develop, how can we form opinions about issues. No, reading an editorial from a big newspaper is not forming an opinion, that’s just agreeing to someone else’s opinion because we ourselves don’t have the time to form our own. What about enjoying nature, to bask in the glorious sun, walk barefoot in the lush green fields, feel the wind in our hair, get soaking wet in the rains pouring down, in fact these days, when it rains, we are more concerned about one of our screens getting wet, rather than enjoying the rain. As the poet W.H. Davies wrote back in 1911 in his poem :

What is this life if, full of care, We have no time to stand and stare.

No time to stand beneath the boughs And stare as long as sheep or cows.

These lines seem more relevant in today’s times than ever before. We are moving away from nature and getting trapped in these screens of ours. We drool over beautiful pictures of water falls and mountains on Instagram, but don’t take the effort to travel and see these places for ourselves. How can looking at digital pictures of a place ever match up to actually being there, its unfathomable. And worse is, when we actually do travel to a place, rather than enjoying the place itself we are more interested in taking meaningless selfies and sharing them instantaneously with everyone we know. Its almost like the purpose of our visit was to click pictures and share.

Is this what we are? information junkies, addicted to consuming information on our screens. And what will we become in the future, will we ever walk out of our homes, how many days can we go without any connection with nature? And what about human connection? Will we be able to form genuine, warm, relationships with people in such a world dominated by technology. Would we have real conversations with real people or just chats and instant messages with weird user-names.

When Television, the very first screen, was born. It was called an “Idiot box”. People ridiculed it, and terms like “couch potato” came into existence for people who obsessed with it. But it also pioneered a great information revolution that has shaped our current society. Since then, people have not dared to question the advancement of technology and its encroachment into our personal lives. And it has brought us here, in a place where we are obsessed with technology, we keep checking our phones for more notifications, we keep refreshing our mailboxes, we keep logging into facebook in the middle of a work day, staring at the same pictures again and again, the same stupid status updates that mean nothing, the ridiculous check-ins which have no relevance, it never stops, and we never want it to!

We are afraid of getting bored. We have lost the ability to keep our minds busy on our own, and we are substituting that with more useless information. And with things like smart-watches, and the Google Glass of-course, we will have these screens slapped onto our bodies as well. Imagine, a screen always on your eye, feeding you with information all the time, right from when you wake up in the morning till you sleep at night for some shut-eye. It will be like an endless supply for a helpless addict. All the time will be Screen time. And when people will stare at stars in the night sky, the screen will tell them what they are called and what constellations they belong to, how far they are from earth, and how long will it take to reach there on a spaceship. The beauty of the twinkling star will be lost, forever!!!

This post first appeared on medium

Screen Time