Hall Tempo-ed

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When a certain Mr. Anderson after a sensational tango with Mr. Smith was shot dead by his opponent, it took a kiss from the gorgeous Trinity to get him back on his feet. Therein lied the key to the resurrection of The One who would later go on to achieve spine-tingling feats before orchestrating a peace treaty with the Empire while all the same sacrificing himself on the altar of immortality and greater good. In the entire Matrix saga, I found that one kiss to be the pivotal point, the corner stone which translated into such enormity, yet itself was based in hideous nothingness. For it was that one incongruous display of affection and I use such an incomprehensible adjective because I am deprived of the former, that rejuvenated our dear Neo, set his adrenaline, his heart and also perhaps his testosterones pumping and then eventually enabled him to incinerate the Agent.

Taking a cue from my favourite movie, I would like to extrapolate the idea that for a ‘man’ to achieve his destiny, it is necessary that he should be aptly confronted with sufficient motivation and inspiration which a female kiss can adequately infuse. But taking into consideration the skewed up and the horrendously horrendous sex ratio in our institute, are all KGPians lost? No, for Providence foresaw such a problem which future engineers might face because of the heartlessness of the MHRD to introduce all kinds of reservations except those for females and it created the lofty concept of ‘hall tempo’. By definition, these two concepts-hall temo and a female kiss, are mutually exclusive and exhaustive and if an individual who also happens to be a hapless male is deprived of both, then word has it that he is to be incarcerated within the Gates of Hell for all eternity with daily torture sessions by the gayest man alive, Mr. Satan himself.

It was in the days of Hitler’s youth that the concept of hall tempo gained momentum when the dictator who lived in a shabby, dilapidated apartment garnered his fellow hall mates and so transcribed their delicate emotions with feelings of steely grit and determination that they began to call themselves Nazis, wore orange caps with feathers and started bashing up the Jews. What historians overlook is that the Nazi movement originally sprouted from an innocuous concept of hall tempo, the fact that Hitler used to personally strip down his subjects to the buff and make them perform ‘Jugnu dance’ to instill in them the fiery fervour and fraternal love nothwithstanding. If the means justify the ends, Hitler subdued the Jews because his subjects displayed more tempo than their counterparts who until then were perhaps not aware of such a concept. After beating up the Jews, the Nazis used to go their rooftops and Germany used to reverberate with sounds of “Hitler ka tempo high hai”.

Whenever there has been a war, it was won or lost, not on the basis of its merit or chariots or firepower, but on the basis of courage and resolve, resolve to fight, resolve not to surrender. Germany met its match when Russian soldiers braved the snowy winter and refused to budge from their positions. They believed in a cause, a cause for which they fought, a cause for which they died. In our lingo, tempo. Did the Germans lack this essential attribute. No, but maybe the Russians were motivated by all the right reasons for protecting their own against the onslaught of the enemy whereas the Germans were, but by a mere sense of conquering another nation for their tyrant ruler. In the end, it remains that instilling of firepower is a beginning, but the leaders also have to ensure that the gunshot is aimed in the right direction.

Heart of my own heart

For there are places deep within my heart, my soul which only you can touch, only you can heal. For years now, you have been the most wonderful person in my life, loving me, caring for me. The gentle, compassionate and enduring person that you are overwhelms me. You see my ways and not for once do you lose your patience, not once do you leave me on life’s shore, helpless, abandoned and in solitude. I look to my left and there you are, to my right and there your presence is. Your charming aroma, your delectable, pure joy fills me, quenches me, relieves me and gives me rest. You are my Morning Star, sprinkling my life with your radiance every dawn and how dearly I covet you. You are my Fortress, shielding my life from the vagaries of life, the tempests therein. You are my Love…

You picked me up from this cruel existence’s shady bylanes when I was distraught, shaky and gave me a purpose. You made me a new person, a flower blooming afresh, blossoming with the breath you breathed into me, the word you spoke, the touch with which you touched. The life that you yourself are. For who am I that you should care for me, who am I that you being who you are should even look at me, even a passing glance, a stray glimpse.

Thank you, My Friend, My Comforter, My Solace. Thank you for who are. Thank you, My Father. Thank you, My God.

Was the reaction justified?

Reason is an attribute bestowed upon us by Providence that enables us to choose, to differentiate and opt, opt not only between the good and the bad, the right and the wrong, but between the right and that which appears to be right. My emotional needs may demand that I kill a doctor who is responsible for the death of a person I love, but my intellectual faculties immediately juxtapose themselves in between my desires and prompt action, reminding me of the consequences. It is when these faculties take a downside in the event of the former gaining mileage over the latter, it is when we tie our reasoning to the anchor of our self-acclaimed righteousness and drown it in the ocean of our eagerly manifested hormones that our actions are termed as unreasonable. Prudence categorically denotes most unreasonable actions as unjustified while the remnant few are classified as those committed by mentally retards. Considering the fact that most of those who are mentally challenged land up in asylums and definitely not in IITs, we can safely conclude that Sunday’s incident at the Diro’s house was unjustified. Purely because of what the agitators themselves had to say, “We were motivated by emotion”.

True, one might add that what passed would focus the attention of the authorities on the needs of the students as never before. What passed would ensure that our dear friend did not lay down his life in vain. What passed was a rightful answer to the aeons of inaction by the authorities. After all, didnt we lose a life, a life that is irreplacable. From a periheral perspective, it might appear legitimate, a ‘justified’ line of reasoning. But, let us ask ourselves a less obvious question. If such an unfortunate incident had occurred at the beginning of the Puja holidays, would the reaction have been so vigorous? When a similar incident occurred with a student from MMM in the middle of the summer holidays, where was the average population’s patriotic sentiments? If one assumes that being in a 1st year hall was not a large impediment to the generation of such sentiments amongst seniors, then one can be safely assured that months of vacation discreetly sapped away the public’s initial, intolerable wrath. In other words, passion gave way to reason and restraint and that being vividly discerned by the lack of even a peace protest march by the students after returning back. Drawing inferences from the above episode, it becomes apparent that the agitators behind the pandemonium were being directed by flared up emotions and not reason, by a thirst for vengeance rather than a quest for a change as claimed by some. After all, a reasonable individual does not heap obscenities on a 70 year old person on the basis of a self-imposed judgement. Like I pointed out earlier, that which is not guided by reason is termed as unreasonable and therefore in most cases unjustified.

Unlike some who toe my line of thought, but simply point fingers at those who were taking a sadistic pleasure out of the situation, I would rather point my finger at those who were actually hurt and felt the brunt of such a loss first hand. For the former can be construed as bastards who were there and will always be there simply to mock the institute which lends them its credentials, the cause, their own upbringing and thereby mock their own selves. But the latter, as much I sympathise with them and might appear hypocritical in denouncing their role, should have considered that there were alternate ways of achieving the same desired result through peaceful means. Did they ever consider going on an indefinite strike against the management and not attending classes? Did they ever consider filing a RTI asking the administration for explanations, facts and figures? That would have immediately brought the media to our doorsteps and highlighted our cause with the desired effect. But now, the focus has partly shifted to the Diro’s plight with a section condemning the students for their lack of constraint. I assure you, we, by our actions nearly ensured that our friend lost his life in vain.

Have we then become that which we so abhorred? What difference is there, then between us the average rioter from Gujurat who would have gone home at the end of the day feeling justified by what he did because even his own brethren were slaughtered by members of the opposite community? What difference is there between us and all the rioters and mutineers in the past because even their actions were legitimate in their own eyes as much as ours are in ours…

My writings do not hold affiliation to any particular organisation’s views and is solely my own opinion.