Bangalore Diaries: Praveen Vs Praveen

                         Praveen Vs Praveen



 

Very softly I blurted , almost in whisper “ Anna ..Check mate..!!!”

With no expression in my face, I saw time in my wrist watch. Its 12.30 am. That was the end of match I waited for three months which wound up in 45 minutes exact.

All the decorum and decency suddenly left me as I maniacally started laughing and rolling over. It was kind of volcano of vented up frustration gone amok.

45 minutes absolute silence broken by maniacal laughter

The beginning of this story began 3 months back when I was horribly defeated in chess just in 3 moves by satya Praveen anna (10 yrs ago I adopted him as my unofficial older brother,). None of other games I played lasted more than 5 minutes. Frankly I never play chess as it strains my tiny brains. Even baby can beat me with eyes shut and never in my life did I ever win any game.  But losing in 3 steps is record in itself.

Otherwise he would deliberately tease with me without checkmating me as he in great leisure swallows one after another pieces . Frustrated as SRK in Jab tak hai jaan, I made a tripartite agreement with God-I-don’t-belive-in and this Bhaiyaa that I would go back and be back to challenge him every month in Bangalore, till end of time. Even if it takes me to be re born million times over, I wont rest till I defeated him on his own turf. Ala Arnold Schwarzenegger in Terminator-2, I said  “ I will be back”

I object to being called a chess genius because I consider myself to be an all around genius who just happens to play chess, which is rather different.—Bobby Fischer

Cut back to present.  And I am back.

We both dug our heads into our hands concentrating deeply. It was his move. I could see that if he pushed his Castle straight, I am screwed. It’s scary. Give bhai even one chance, he would unleash worst genocide on chess board. I wondered how to skew his mind now. Shall I play some dirty mind games at this juncture? Shall I rake up some old painful memories so his mental balance goes for a toss?

During FIFA finals, opposition player Marco Materazzi deliberately abused Zidane of france which enraged him consequently losing world cup due to loss of judgment in crucial moments.

• Tactics flow from a positionally superior game. Best by test. -.—Bobby Fischer

But somehow my mind was too intense and words failed to come out. Moreover as I was debating about fair play, instead of taking Castle forward, He took it behind to protect his King.

Gods of Luck are certainly on my side today.

Thanks to my more than 300 games I practiced everyday in last 3 months on my laptop. I recognized the pattern of play. Even slight expression on face would alert him, so I buried my face further in my palms though deep inside me, I was having a wicked laughter.

It is difficult to play against Einstein’s theory.

• Mikhail Tal, after his first loss to Fischer,

When we sat for a match , my only goal was just to extend the game for more than 15 minutes, if possible try taking few of his soldiers. Not more. Don’t think this bhaiya as ordinary man. He is one of the youngest regional mangers, country managers and rose to high ranks in Siemens with brilliant maneuvering of his hyper shrewd mind. Even before can you react, his calculating mind would have gone miles into future before he makes his next move. His negotiating skills are real intellectual treat to be witnessed.

I'm not afraid of Spassky. The world knows I'm the best. You don't need a match to prove it. .—Bobby Fischer

But all biographies of eccentric chess genius Bobby  fischer I read in last 3 months prompted me to be little bolder. I made mental strategy. 

1)    Control the centre

2)    Protect king through strong castling

3)    Play defense drag the match for more than 15 minutes

Winning was never my goal. I know how dangerous this guy is . so I didn’t commit mistake of being hyper ambitious. So this was a small defensive tactic rather than an elaborate long range combative strategy

 

When I began the game , this is what I did. My pawns went to control the centre of board thus restricting his long range attacks. Next I fortified my King with Castling. 

Being follower of Gandhi and believer of non-violence, I didn’t start any killings though I had a chance. He drew first blood by breaking my pawns dominance of Centre.  Though blindly I allowed my second wave of pawn movement on Centre field, later I realized, by not killing I made smartest move. Without killing I totally restricted anykind of movement in centre field. (my goal is, no matter what, not to let Centre field to fall)

With centre field locked, he was not able to breach his ranks into my side of board. But conversely it also doesn’t allow me to go for long range attacks. But my goal is just to drag match for more than 15 minutes or longer. Stale mate or Draw can be icing on cake.

I the mind, body a mere auxiliary –Sherlock Holmes

Like bobby fischer who specialized in openings, bhai specialized in  queen-attacks with deadliest consequences on his opponents. The moment I feared came when he brought out his Queen to unleash its deadly dexterity on my soldiers.

As I said earlier, Lady luck is just in awesome love with me this day. I countered his Queen with oddest and least expected piece . My Horse.

Frankly I have to feel proud about following moves. My horse went on rampage of millennium. For first time, he went on defense by taking back his queen back to his side of board. But nevertheless my Horse went amok with absolute impunity. I triple forked him. Meaning my horse was in such position, that his three most important generals: Castle. Bishop and Queen were within my sniper cross hairs. Wow. I breached into his side of board.

I was little perplexed with turn of events which started moving at blind pace. I wondered if I should slow up a bit to relax my stretched brains.

Didn’t Krishna advised to Arjuna so did Morpheus to Neo in matrix. “Damn the compassion and Go for kill” or put bluntly like Branson of virgin Atlantic.                  ” Screw it, lets do it”

In swift executions, In subsequent moves, i finished off his Castle, Bishop, and finally his Nuclear missile: The Queen.

With his long range missiles like Castle, Queen dead, I relaxed my hold on centre. I let all my pieces to run amok. What followed was blind killings and suicide bombings. We both killed as many as we could. Randomly and blindly.

“One” he screeched, as all his pieces died leaving his King standing alone on battle field.

“WON”? I got confused? Is it Draw or Stale mate.

Vishwanath anand committed same mistake in past. Taking his superior position granted, he unwittingly Stale-mated his game thus screwing the game which he was about to win.

Only later I understood. That in next 16 moves I have to end the match or else its Draw.

Now iam in sticky position. All he need to do is fend me off for next 16 moves and my goal is to stop his dance of dilly dallying PLUS KILL him.

His goal is Status quo and I cannot imagine at this juncture that Status quo is status of future.

Now pendulum of victory can move either side. Now what began was battle of wits. I know this guy better than anyone, I  saw him in negotiating avatars. He can bring out ace even in most sticky positions. Topolov (Bulgarian grand master)once played against 4 chess players blindfolded. I tried same, trying to see all next moves in mind.

TWO. THREE.FOUR : I merely allowed some aimless movements as quietly I cut of all escape routes with my Castle and Queen

Five: I cornered King 

What followed was similar to

Bobby fischer vs VladmirSpassky

V Anand vs Topolov

Tendukar vs shoib akthar

Harry potter vs voldmort

Micheal corleaone vs barzini n 5 other mafia families

a Clean kill…!!!!

Six:  Very softly I blurted , almost in whisper “ bhaiya Check mate..!!!”

Phew . I muttered myself. No rebirths. No re matches. (luck can be fickle and my skill is totally unpredictable)

At 12.30 am.14.june.2013. 45^th minute is my golden moment. I know , this is no big match or atleast competitive. But for me. This personal battle means a lot. It my word.. Buttress to my will. Fulfillment of my word, oath I took 3 months ago.

Thank god , the feat that I felt would take  million re births, ended in 3 months.

Didn’t SRK in Don say something like this\

“ Praveen ,breaking his promise is not remote probability but an absolute impossibility”

THE HUNDREDTH BLOG

Preamble:

The best excuse for people to get rid of something is to say that it is very diffcult. When you consider something difficult, you can never reach there. Nothing is diffcult; you just need a desire  to do it – Sri sri

Well I never counted how many blogs I authored till recently when I saw the statistics.

99 not out..!!!

I never thought I would write 100 junk stuff when I actually started out this blog “ Chronicles of idle grey cells”. Statistics show that blog on Sudarshan kriya garnered the highest hits followed by Devipuram tantric temple.  Who cares if iam at 100 in blogosphere or zero. Numbers and labels never fascinated me.

I had few days before I have to join my new posting so I wanna do whatever is possible..climbing mountains…drenching in seas..finally finish Advance Meditation course at AOL, Bangalore.

I always wanna quote some of quotable quotes, hence though not relevant to topic on hand I liberally splattered them across this blog.

Three idiots: 

Our consciousness is very old, very ancient. When I travel around the world,, I don’t feel like iam meeting strangers, I feel like they are part of me and I know them, we may not know each others names, but we know each others souls; we feel connection. I have always felt that we all belong to one family. We all know each other. Sri Sri

This is short story of 3 idiots who met in AOL ashram and had wild whale of time. The

electrifying fun we had was just out of this world. Ek dum extraordinary. It was as if we knew each other for millions of years. Never in my life I had such a laughter. Even when we were under oath of silence we had wars with wild gestures leaving us in splits of peals of laughter. Its as if we are emanating laughing chemicals mixed with happy hormone dopamine’s. Seriously we all felt withdrawal symptoms when we went on our ways after course. Well…that’s amazing fun . Someone in course asked me after seeing our crazy antics. Why are u laughing so much.?? ..well dude.. Spirituality is all about happiness. If enlightenment gives me serious dead pan face…iam better without it ..Better be an ignorant happy man rather than enlightened serious man. 
well the names of one idiot is QUICK GUN FAL-GUN and JESUS the JAT YOGI  and myself . since this is 3 idiot then there should also be lovely kareena...yes...there is ... 

And special mention was equally interesting very mischievous naughty chirpy mirchi girl and a geek who puts every one at ease with her conversational skills. Since they are tiny humans of female species, lets us leave their privacy untouched.

This 100^th blog is dedicated to these interesting souls

What is important is that you remain CONTENTED. You must keep evaluating urself  from time to time. Ask yourself what you are doing all the time. Even if something brings pain in the short run, but iin long run it is beneficial to everyone then that is the right thing to do.

n  Sri Sri 

Experience:

The course goes for 4 days . 1^st day introduction and next 2.5 days silence. So 1^st day we three gossiped, talked enough to last for another week. It was funny how man reacts when he senses lack of anything in future. During war times, when death was imminent..people go on rape rampage ( chck world war 2 , except Indian soldiers. Everyone raped woman. Even 1971 same story by pakis) or see how prisoners on death sentence eat favourite food)

In this course I understood difference between Empty silence and Complete silence. In between the course .on 1^st day of silence. My mind went into deepest of its recess and suddenly it froze. All never ending incessant thoughts froze for 1^st time. I became empty. Its like life just passing through me without touching me. Wow .is this what silence does to a man. I was completely objective devoid of any judgment. No interpretations. No emotions. No feelings. No past. No future.No judgments. Just living. That’s all and that’s it.

Don’t look for respect from others; that makes you weak. Have respect for urself and no one can take ur self respect

n Sri sri 

I understood what actually happened inside me. For once my sense organs have fallen silent. They were receiving all data from outer world but they just received it without adding any interpretation to it. Usually how my mind acts is : if I sense anything., I take raw data add my own interpretation from past experiences or future dreams. U see a rose…u connect red color to blood or valentine or ex gf and all stories connected with her etc etc. u listen to a song. Ur mind brings back all forgotten memories even after decades. 

But now ., nothing of such thing happened. Almost I was centered and was almost totally in present . Why almost?. Iam still conscious of this experience isn’t It?...

Believe me its really beautiful to lead such life. It lasted till noon. As my mind stopped my body reacted in wild way. Nausea and vomiting  followed . Not really serious as it was just fer few minutes but the magical spell was broken. I am back to my older self. Again my mind was assaulted my never ending hurricane of thoughts. Back to life of subjective-interpreting-reactive mind.

Asking for explanation from others is a foolish thing and exlaining to others thinking they would understand is another foolishthing. it doesnt work both the ways. the best is just to move forward--Sri.Sri

Even though I was silent for next 2 days , it was mere Empty silence. On surface level, not complete silence where even your sense organs become silent. Though i was verbally silent., me and my room mates often indulged wild war like gestures of tom n jerry as if we were playing dumb charades for million dollars( that was wild fun)

Remember one thing. You are responsible for your happness. Come what may, whoever says whatsoever., you protect your mind. And keep your self ha[[y. you be determined. Iam not going to let my happiness be taken away by anybody. Even if God comes and yells at me. I will tell God, thanks you , this is your goft to me. Make this determination today—Sri Sri

After 4 days eating ashram satvik bland food, I sent a message of my food travails to my mentor-brotherly-friends in banglore city. The result : meal fit for kings was organized by time I hit city. Till late night , we crusied complete banglore…enjoying life to its peak

Finally as I got into my bus back to my home I wondered as I reflected. Was these 4 days a dream? It had almost symptoms of withdrawal. Well if we cant give up good memories how can we give up bad memories .isnt it ? or am I wrong ? Events are events. It’s the colour you dye it with that makes them happy or sad. Infact because of my boisterous fun we had in class, course instructor at one point chided me in public. Did I feel bad?...na..not at all. I was sooooo happy and full of glee..nothing touched me. Yeah my friends did protest later. ((Hmmm..friends are those who meet u in hell and say…common dude..lets have fun n rock and shock and awe hell matees…what a dudes we were .. I think great things  come in limited editions. We were sooo complementary though our characteristics were completely contradictory))

I think I need to add the “Power to be present in current moment” to my spiritual goals list. Just imagine, rather than one day, if I can live everyday like this, how wonderful would it be. You are ever new. You are hyper objective. Nothing can touch you, non judgmental non interpretive mind. Even in midst of chaos, you can be perfectly calm . In hectic activity we can be  serene and silent. Wow. Endless opportunities lie ahead of us both in materialistic and spiritual life. This moment is all you own. If you don’t live in this moment then you are not living your life. This moment has potential for infinity and its in our best interests not to throw it away so cheaply

Hmmm….whatever …two great friends..deep silence…serene climate in ashram..everyone are soo polite and courteous to one another even when everyone are strangers to other.

Those could be some golden unforgettable moments to feel gratitude for.

Do you know corruption begins where the sense of belonging ends? No body is corrupt whom they feel connected to. They ask for bribe only from those who feel are not their own, isn’t it so? We need to change this. We need to create a higher sense of belongingness-Sri Sri

I wondered what happened in the world in last 4 days. In last 10 years I never missed single day newspaper. Did Chinese chinkis leave Indian Territory? Did RAW spy sarabjit survive prison attack? Honk ..honk..life is calling…time to catch on. Thus daily grinding rigmarole runs a start.

If you have imbibed wisdom , there is no way you can be miserable. Wisdom is scuh that you know where there will be unpleasant days and there will be pleasant days. There will be good people and bad people. Some times your friends behave as enemies and your enemies become your good friends. All this is a way of life, these things happen. They help you become centred and solid.then no storm can shake you ---- Sri Sri

KILLING FIELDS ........

KILLING FIELDS:

AC hummed as my cell phone crooned its 5 am alarm song into my ears. Another uneventful day of my uneventful  life. By 5.30, I was all fresh and dug into my daily ritual of reading The Hindu newspaper. Top to bottom. Front page to last word. The front page carried a photo of young cute wide eyed child. Underneath the photo was written the name of the boy. Balachandran Prabhakaran. The son of worlds deadliest terrorist of Sri lanka: V.Prabhakaran who introduced the concept of suicide bombing to the world.

Inside editions carried more photos of child before he was shot from point blank range in most cold blooded manner by sri lankan military forces. I wondered what might have gone through young mind of unfortunate child. He had such an innocent eyes which could haunt the killers forever.          I wondered what could be his fault?. Just being born to Prabhakaran.!! Should child suffer for sins of his parents? Just accident of his birth to Prabhakaran was his only fault and consequence was a cold blooded murder.

“Truth is the first casualty of the war”

As my emotions got calmed after sometime I introspected how in all Wars , Man forgets his basic human nature before becoming worst beast human the mind can imagine. You take any war in since the birth of mankind, pattern would be the same where soldiers of the war would commit unimaginable horrible atrocities against their enemies with no sense of humanity. 

Afghans during medieval age used to chop of heads of enemies and catapult them into opponents territories to strike fear. WW-II has stories of horror that would make your hair rise. Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland was where German Nazis killed 6 million jews in gas chambers but not before stripping them of their belongings which include even shoes,clothes,glasses anything of value during war scarcity. Hitlers nazi conducted all kinds of bizarre human experiments on helpless prisoners. I remember reading a book “Munich(iam not sure of title)” which gives graphical details of horrors commited on common german folks during last days of WW-II . 

Rape was all common weapon soldiers used against women. The reasons were obvious. There would be complete break down of law and order. There wont be anyone to punish our crimes and worst behavior. No wonder in that environment, Man becomes whatever he wants, more often than not it’s the Beast which hidden all the time emerges out and commits crimes with impunity.

 

When germany was losing the war , there was crude fear in hearts of all germans. They feared they would be raped by advancing Russian troops. Women started to sleep with any stranger as long as he was a german man. Later Russian soldiers raped german women at will irrespective of age. In Africa , insurgents of Somalia use sharp end sticks to mutilate private parts of females, chop of hands to prevent them voting.

Closer home., in 1971 war, Pakistani soldiers raped more than million women of East Pakistan (now Bangladesh)  before they got defeated by Indian war. In afghanistan  Abu gharib prisons leaked photos show how afghan prisoners were subjected to worst abuses by American soldiers . in one instance, father and son were made nude in front of each other, or a female American soldier tying a dogs leash to a prisoner. 

Where ever there is a scope of a gun, I believe there is a potential for Human Rights abuse. Gun in hand probably makes man feel like God how can snuff anyones lives with little pressure on trigger. All theatres of insurgency, anywhere in the world ,carries the same pattern. We Indians are no better. Remember how Manipur women stripped their clothes carrying banner “INDIAN ARMY-RAPE US” when it was alleged that army raped a local girl and later killing her . It’s the same in North east or Jammu and Kashmir. Infact a book “Lost opportunities by SK sinha” which speaks about insurgency in north east states that 

One of the former Chief of the Army Staff, late General BC Joshi, issued the Ten Commandments for troops employed in counter-insurgency operations in Kashmir and the North-east:

·    No rape.

·        

    No molestation.

·       

         No torture resulting in death or maiming.etc

Two wrongs cannot right the things. LTTE killed lankan civilians, two Prime minster (including Rajiv Gandhi) doesn’t authorize sri lankan troops massacre/ rape/ maim/ in cold blood manner.

People all ways close their eyes saying that’s these things happen to other people. Just like germans closed their eyes when jews were massacred by Nazis or shia muslims were targeted in sunni paksitan. Its time we remember the touchy poem by martin neimoller

REMEMBER?

"First They Came for the Jews"
By Pastor Niemoller

 
First they came for the Jews and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for the Communists and I did not speak out because I was not a Communist.

Then they came for the trade unionists and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak out for me.