In 20 years, all of us will be old. And I wonder if I'll remember the news item where Saif Ali Khan hits a guy or so it's alleged by a gentleman.
In 20 years, Saif will be old too. Kareena will be old as well. I'll be old. I won't have grandchildren to bore to death with tales. Perhaps, I'll just relieve the memories by myself. Recall the days of my youth when Tiger Pataudi was old and I used to watch him on TV.
The inexorable passing of time and the flow of time and generations is a mysterious thing. I don't know anyone who has escaped these things.
The Eventual decay and ending of all things would have been quite unbearably sad. Luckily, we live life day-to-day. The human body is an ancient and ungainly, clumsy machine that has its inescapable idiosyncrasies. We need food once every few hours ... munch, munch, munch. We need to drink water at intervals. We BREATHE. Blink too. Then there's the business of ... what goes in must come out. If only, somewhat transformed.
So, what's the fun in all this? Well, there's some, I suppose. Good, tasty food is one of the fun parts of life.
Though we're still eating grass (as in rice and wheat), we have learned to cook everything by using fire. That makes food definitely tastier.
Whereas our animal brethren such as tigers and lions still eat meat raw and apparently our unfortunate ancestors ate it raw as well, we have grown smart now and cook the meat with heat and add many spices to it too to eventually make it super, duper tasty tasty.
Apart from food, there are drinks. The alcoholic variety and non-alcoholic ones too. If you enjoy wine and champagne, rum and whiskey, that's good. Alcoholic beverages are a unique product of human ingenuity. A wonderful invention. Or discovery.
But let's not forget non-alcoholic beverages. After all, they carry us through many a dreary day full of drudgery at the office. I use endless cups of coffee to keep me awake or at least to prevent from resigning out of boredom.
Sex is fun. Of course, it applies only to adults. Babies and adolescents get their quota of fun from other stuff.
I wonder what explains the immense popularity of various games and sports.
Whether it's lawn tennis, cricket, baseball, basketball, etc. May be, there's some evolutionary mumbo-jumo there ... like most games are similar to hunting and males are hardwired to be interested in hunting. I don't know what might explain why Indian women might be interested in weird TV serials where are busy plotting against other women
To return to the fun subject of sex, here's the irony.
Sex is fun but the fun lasts a short time, a very short time INDEED. A few minutes at the most.
Well, I suppose the pleasure of orgasm surpasses probably all other human pleasures.
Then there are the social constraints that humans seem to have voluntarily created. While men clearly love to have sex with as many females as possible, they have to go for the boundaries of marriage.
Women seem to be differently and perplexingly wired. Way beyond my pay grade to understand.
Monogamous relations are clearly unwelcome situations from the point of view of males. Marriages are therefore compromise arrangements whereby males get to have sex with at least one female and are sure when the female gives birth that the baby is his.
In traditional societies such as contemporary India, marriage is a plain and simple euphemism for sex. Marriage = sex.
You want to fuck a female? You marry her and carry her for the rest of her life or your life. THEN you get to fuck her. It's all too pathetic and ancient and it's quite an astonishing fact that the young generation quietly accepts all the illogicalities ... rituals, traditions, religion. Everything.
In advanced Western nations, the reasons for marriage are more nuanced.
I can only provide the male perspective. I don't know exactly how easy or otherwise it might be to persuade females (in these Western countries) to have sex without the bugbear of commitment that all (most?) males dread.
Some movies would appear to suggest that women are more willing to experiment and others would seem to suggest that women look for commitment from the men.
So men might opt for marriage so that they get to have sex with a gorgeous female.
There are other men who claim to have sex with many women and then decide to settle down (into a monogamous relationship) when they are 30 or 35 or 40 or older. I would be skeptical about such a radical change of heart.
Such is the confusing fun of sex.
Other fun aspects of life include babies. Fast cars are fun for some people. Shopping for some people provides fun. Some people make stuff for fun. Discovering and inventing is fun for other people. Some are explorers. Some love to explore out in space while others love to explore the oceans. Some people love to amass power while others amass wealth.
These are some of the diverse occupations that keep humans busy. Billions of humans. How similar and how different one human is from another? Most humans manage to have little impact on the broader fate of humanity. Only very few humans seem to come up with some fundamental insights that have some long-term and far-reaching impact.
And somehow humanity seems to be making technological progress. Thanks to the explorers and inventors. We are tinkerers and fiddlers. But that's another story.
In 20 years, Saif will be old too. Kareena will be old as well. I'll be old. I won't have grandchildren to bore to death with tales. Perhaps, I'll just relieve the memories by myself. Recall the days of my youth when Tiger Pataudi was old and I used to watch him on TV.
The inexorable passing of time and the flow of time and generations is a mysterious thing. I don't know anyone who has escaped these things.
The Eventual decay and ending of all things would have been quite unbearably sad. Luckily, we live life day-to-day. The human body is an ancient and ungainly, clumsy machine that has its inescapable idiosyncrasies. We need food once every few hours ... munch, munch, munch. We need to drink water at intervals. We BREATHE. Blink too. Then there's the business of ... what goes in must come out. If only, somewhat transformed.
So, what's the fun in all this? Well, there's some, I suppose. Good, tasty food is one of the fun parts of life.
Though we're still eating grass (as in rice and wheat), we have learned to cook everything by using fire. That makes food definitely tastier.
Whereas our animal brethren such as tigers and lions still eat meat raw and apparently our unfortunate ancestors ate it raw as well, we have grown smart now and cook the meat with heat and add many spices to it too to eventually make it super, duper tasty tasty.
Apart from food, there are drinks. The alcoholic variety and non-alcoholic ones too. If you enjoy wine and champagne, rum and whiskey, that's good. Alcoholic beverages are a unique product of human ingenuity. A wonderful invention. Or discovery.
But let's not forget non-alcoholic beverages. After all, they carry us through many a dreary day full of drudgery at the office. I use endless cups of coffee to keep me awake or at least to prevent from resigning out of boredom.
Sex is fun. Of course, it applies only to adults. Babies and adolescents get their quota of fun from other stuff.
I wonder what explains the immense popularity of various games and sports.
Whether it's lawn tennis, cricket, baseball, basketball, etc. May be, there's some evolutionary mumbo-jumo there ... like most games are similar to hunting and males are hardwired to be interested in hunting. I don't know what might explain why Indian women might be interested in weird TV serials where are busy plotting against other women
To return to the fun subject of sex, here's the irony.
Sex is fun but the fun lasts a short time, a very short time INDEED. A few minutes at the most.
Well, I suppose the pleasure of orgasm surpasses probably all other human pleasures.
Then there are the social constraints that humans seem to have voluntarily created. While men clearly love to have sex with as many females as possible, they have to go for the boundaries of marriage.
Women seem to be differently and perplexingly wired. Way beyond my pay grade to understand.
Monogamous relations are clearly unwelcome situations from the point of view of males. Marriages are therefore compromise arrangements whereby males get to have sex with at least one female and are sure when the female gives birth that the baby is his.
In traditional societies such as contemporary India, marriage is a plain and simple euphemism for sex. Marriage = sex.
You want to fuck a female? You marry her and carry her for the rest of her life or your life. THEN you get to fuck her. It's all too pathetic and ancient and it's quite an astonishing fact that the young generation quietly accepts all the illogicalities ... rituals, traditions, religion. Everything.
In advanced Western nations, the reasons for marriage are more nuanced.
I can only provide the male perspective. I don't know exactly how easy or otherwise it might be to persuade females (in these Western countries) to have sex without the bugbear of commitment that all (most?) males dread.
Some movies would appear to suggest that women are more willing to experiment and others would seem to suggest that women look for commitment from the men.
So men might opt for marriage so that they get to have sex with a gorgeous female.
There are other men who claim to have sex with many women and then decide to settle down (into a monogamous relationship) when they are 30 or 35 or 40 or older. I would be skeptical about such a radical change of heart.
Such is the confusing fun of sex.
Other fun aspects of life include babies. Fast cars are fun for some people. Shopping for some people provides fun. Some people make stuff for fun. Discovering and inventing is fun for other people. Some are explorers. Some love to explore out in space while others love to explore the oceans. Some people love to amass power while others amass wealth.
These are some of the diverse occupations that keep humans busy. Billions of humans. How similar and how different one human is from another? Most humans manage to have little impact on the broader fate of humanity. Only very few humans seem to come up with some fundamental insights that have some long-term and far-reaching impact.
And somehow humanity seems to be making technological progress. Thanks to the explorers and inventors. We are tinkerers and fiddlers. But that's another story.