If you didn't guess, the title gives you a pretty good idea of where I stand, and subsequently, why I'm writing. This is the most I've updated a single blog, EVER! Since I'm so excited by this new development, you can also take a wild guess as to how thrilling my life must be.
I've got a good job, good friends, a nice place, and absolutely nothing to do. Which drives me up the friggin' wall. I'm seriously considering getting myself a hobby or 10 to keep my time occupied. Which brings me to another problem. Bangalore is a nice city in India. Actually, you know what, let me retract that. It's got nice weather and the people are more open-minded than I'd get out in the villages and that's what makes it nice. Otherwise, the streets are over-crowded, traffic is a nightmare and life in general is just dull. There's absolutely NOTHING to do in this place. Wait, I lie. If you're a raging alcoholic, this place is gold. At last count, it had 2347982374928347 bars or some such and pretty much nothing else. Since, I, being the great guy that I am, have given up my sinful alcoholic ways, I stand before you, a very bored and uninteresting individual.
There are actually a few things that I can do, if I have the patience to drive an hour and a half to cover 6 kilometers. I think I'll take up archery, wall climbing and German. I think Archery is damn cool. I always think of Rambo (yes, I know, not William Tell or Robin Hood) blowing up some poor sop with a pound of C4 at the tip of his very cool arrows. And while such a situation might not present itself in your everyday life, I still think it'd be pretty damn cool. Wall climbing... well, let's just say it gives me a rush, and also, I like to pretend I'm Spiderman. German just sounds so damn sexy. Okay, not when you have Hitler foaming at the mouth, but when you listen to an educated German person talk, it sounds like poetry. Actually, that applies more to Gaelic, but I seriously doubt my chances are very good of finding a Gaelic language center in this city. Maybe when I'm in Scotland or Ireland.
I should take these things up. I should take them and go back to updating my blog once a year like I used to when I did have a life.
Not that writing here is not therapeutic. It is. But once I'm done, I have no idea what I'll do next.
To piss me off even more, I just found out some moron stole my very cool beach shorts and superman t-shirt. So help me God, if I see anyone walking around in this neighborhood wearing anything similar to that, they'll have a very angry Indian man on their ass. I don't know why I say "Indian" man, considering I'm in India, and that's not exactly a rarity. I don't care.
I think I shall have a beer while I do this. Just to calm my nerves. Hold up.
Aah sweet nectar. 
There. Feeling better already. A nice Kingfisher Draught will always hit the spot.... No? Nothing? How the hell do all these people make a bomb advertising on the net? I need to get myself some sponsors. I think I'll use Yahoo! Search Marketing for that....
No, still nothing. Fuck it.
So, anyway, I'm sitting here, sipping my beer and I'm wondering if I should put something down actually worth reading. Now, I seriously doubt anybody who's stuck around for long enough to read this far is actually going to care but I'm feeling generous.
I was watching Schindler's List the other night and I went online after to look him up and he was a real hero. He saved 1100 odd Jews during the Holocaust. He was awarded the title Righteous Among the Nations, an award given to non-Jews who helped save Jewish lives during World War 2. The man spent every penny of his fortune to keep these people safe from the SS and bribed the Germans to turn a blind eye to his Jews while they massacred hundreds of thousands right next door in the Krakow Ghetto. He was actually penniless after the war because he'd spent all his money saving them. And he died pretty much penniless.
The thing is, he wasn't a great man, a noble man (though you think he must be). He was just a good person who started out thinking that saving people meant business wouldn't suffer (most of the Jews he saved were workers in his factory). But he held on to the decency of the act while all around him, normal Germans signed up with the Nazis and continued butchering people as if they were cutting bread.
And I think to myself, is that a satisfying life? Did he die a happy man, despite his almost penniless existence for the next two decades, in the knowledge that he'd helped save so many people? I don't know.
An excerpt:
The writer Herbert Steinhouse, who interviewed Schindler in 1948 at the behest of some of the surviving Schindlerjuden (Schindler's Jews), said
| “ | Oskar Schindler's exceptional deeds stemmed from just that elementary sense of decency and humanity that our sophisticated age seldom sincerely believes in. A repentant opportunist saw the light and rebelled against the sadism and vile criminality all around him. The inference may be disappointingly simple, especially for all amateur psychoanalysts who would prefer the deeper and more mysterious motive that may, it is true, still lie unprobed and unappreciated. But an hour with Oskar Schindler encourages belief in the simple answer. | ” |
Just that simple. But did he feel fulfilled. I don't know. Would I have done the same thing in his position? The simple, un-thought of answer would be, "Yes, of course I would. What kind of person would I be?" But think about it, really. Would you have the courage, the will to do things completely contrary to every behavior shown by every person around you. I'd like to think I would. I'd like to think I would, not for nobility, not for greatness, not for a place in history but for the simple reason that I'd want someone to save my life if I was helpless. I'd like to afforded that respect. To be given a chance to live out my life had the world not gone completely insane.
I hope that such a day would never come, but you never know.
I am a complete believer in the fact that, goodness or human decency comes in the form of simple acts. Feeding a hungry dog, not ignoring the old, homeless people who sit on the side of the road, in picking up a piece of garbage instead of complaining about it. It might not make a big difference, but they all add up. They add up and if you have one person in a thousand (and I'm being realistic) do something like that, that's 6 million good deeds. And that makes a ripple. I know that when there's a catastrophe or a disaster, people come together to help each other, but if there's that innate human goodness, that decency in all people, we shouldn't just exercise it at the worst possible moment.
Don't give up your life, give away all your money, move to the mountains to live the life of an ascetic. Just do your one good deed once in a while and you'll make a difference. You're causing a ripple.
I like movies that move me. Not very many do, but the ones that do, I like them. I'll probably not watch Schindler's List again for a while, but this is one thing that I'll take away from it. Hopefully, that means something to someone.
Sigh... I got a little more carried away than I'd expected. But it makes sense. And that's the most I can hope for at the end of the day.
Will keep drinking my beer.
Cheers.
