Neuman's Envy

Neuman was always envious of Black. Neuman was envious of everyone actually, everyone, who remotely possessed skills, materials, looks, attitude, style, sorrow which was better than his. He tuned jealous when Black met with an accident, and landed up on his arse in the mosquito laden hospital with fat nurses and balded , grumpy doctors and was finding it difficult to differentiate between a mosquito bite and the prick of the syringe. Half of Black's body had turned porous out of the incessant poking of mosquito stylet and disposable syringes. The other half was wrapped in bandages.

Neuman, visited him in the hospital and fell in love with the sight he saw. He had never met with such an accident in his life and missed the experience of resting in the hospital with mosquitoes. As he walked towards Black, who was conscious and savoring fruits with glee, it stuck Neuman that meeting with accidents did have its privileges. He fell in love with the accident once he heard from Black how exactly it had happened.

As per Black , it happened on a dark rainy night. Black was cruising in his car at a break neck speed with Robert plant and Jimmy Paige entertaining him. As 'Kashmir' reached its crescendo, a dark black object appeared out of nowhere and landed right in the middle of the road . It was too late for Black to avoid ramming into the object, but summoning all his driving skills Black did swivel the steering in the last minute when lo behold another mysterious object appeared and Black could not control his car which was cruising at top speed and already had turned 360 degrees. In a last ditch attempt when he tried avoiding the second black object, he saw a mysterious pedestrian standing at the end of the street with a torch pointed directly at Black's eye blinding him for a millisecond. As Black was blinded he rammed against the second mysterious object and lost consciousness!!

What a romantic accident , reflected Neuman ruing his life of never as romantic as Black's life. The way Black described the accident made Newman fall in love with the accident itself and turn green out of envy!Actually the Police report was more precise about what happened that night. It simply said ' Drunken driving on highway , Driver lost control and crashed against a lamp post after avoiding to hit the road side tree' .

Neuman was always amazed at Black's capability to romanticise such trivial incidents, a quality which Neuman was envy off. Had Neuman had met with this accident, he would have just mumbled apologetically that he got drunk. But No, that was not how Black saw it . For Black, such accidents were opportunity of Heroism and for Neuman to burn in envy.

Neuman started perfecting the art of envy . Neuman, was as envious of happily married couple as he was of the divorced ones. The beauty of being envious is that you could be almost envious of anything and everything. You could be envious of humans, animals and of course plants. He soon realised he cannot become a master of envy by looking at things he is envious of. He started looking for things which he cant be envy of.

And it dawned on him that the only thing you cant be envious about is your own life and there lies the answer. No matter how hard you try you cant be envious of your own life. Yes you could end up a narcissist, but u cant end up envying yourself.

Envy consists in seeing things never in themselves, but only in their relations. If you desire glory, you may envy Napoleon, but Napoleon envied Caesar, Caesar envied Alexander, and Alexander, I daresay, envied Hercules, who never existed ( Not my quote)

Neuman realised soon that only way to rid envy was to focus on how to envy on thyself. In that quest, would Neuman succeed ?

Alfy's Crisis

Alfy was always in the midst of huge crisis perennially . Stars, according to him did this. He believed in astrology and in the fact that some remotely circulating rocks around a remotely placed burning matter controlled his life to the minutest extent. It was of no concern to him that these rocks were infinitely far from him and did not posses any intelligence. 'If they were intelligent then they wouldn't be circulating a fireball for a billion years' posed his guide, friend, philosopher, enemy, ridicule- r etc etc , Green.

Green influenced Alfy's thoughts and life more than anyone because he was the only one who thought it is worth influencing. Green could occupy such an importance in Alfy's life since there was no one else willing to take that place. Green, a person who was loathed by anyone who set their eyes on him, was pleasantly surprised that Alfy wasn't as much bothered by him as he was bothered by those distant, circulating rocks.

Green understood Alfy well, which was bad for Alfy. They spent a lot of time with each other. The togetherness was enabled not due to companionship, but due to the fact that it was either this or no companionship. Alfy, a loner, was always scared to be alone. Green on the other hand was not a loner and was always glad when he was with anyone , only, if that 'anyone' was not glad of his presence. The moment someone enjoyed his company, Green moved on. He derived pleasure out of others discomfort. The more a person was uncomfortable with him the more he loved to spend time with that person. The ones whom Green disliked were the ones who grinned constantly.

Alfy never grinned and Green liked him immensely and he loved Alfy when he was in a crisis. When Alfy was not in a crisis, which is rare, he was waiting for a crisis to happen. He was so habituated to the crisis that no crisis , had become a crisis to deal with. He had trouble when everything was going smooth. He would become a nervous wreck out of anxiety and would be extremely suspicious of the state he had maneuvered himself into. It was unfathomable that his life could be smooth and it just indicated to him that there is a bigger crisis around the corner lurking somewhere. He fretted when the going was good and distrusted everything and everyone. He would become gloomy when his life looked alright. The moment a crisis descended on him he would heave a sigh of relief.

It is in these intermittent good days that he needed astrological predictions to soothe his nerves. It told him whether the good time would continue or would he land into a crisis right away. He referred to a wide range of websites, which kept reassuring him that his life was alright. This would make him a nervous wreck. He read those 'astro' columns with such an intensity that Green's comments had no effect on him.

Green waited too for Alfy to get into a crisis. And he started referring to those same columns just to find out if Alfy would turn lucky and land himself into a crisis. He read Alfy's predictions and never his own. He believed that those boulders rotating in infinite space , would have no effect on him . He never relied on those fortune tellers to tell him which way his life went. He sure needed them to tell which way Alfy's life went.

Alfy and Green would be ecstatic when the crisis finally befell and each would look at each other with an expression akin to gladiators getting ready for a good time in the ring. While Alfy padded up for the battle, Green schemed to see how he can make it more difficult for Alfy. Like the last desperate soldier plunges bravely into the enemy's battalion Alfy would leap into the crisis while Green stood outside and made his life more complicated.

Alfy, smiled, he was glad as he knew "A true friend stabs you in the front." (- Oscar Wilde ).

Can you guys spot the 'Greens' in your life ? Alfy can and boy, is he happy !!

Neuman's Life 1

Neuman often wondered how his life has become what it has become. It had not become anything worthwhile and in spite of his best efforts it is far from what he wanted. To start with there were no efforts from him and he was not sure what he wanted. He was of convinced that this state of morbidity would turn his life into a symphony of happiness . He was a rebel and he rebelled against nothing of significance but for trivial ones which were triggered by people connected to him. He was a conformist when it came to larger issues of life.

No one conspired against him in his efforts to shape his life . Right from the moment go he had it fully under his control . It always amazed him that his life is totally out of control in spite of him controlling it. He blamed it on chaos theory. Newman never knew what chaos theory was till he looked at his own life.Even then it was so chaotic to filter out the chaotic components and analyse it to conclude that it was chaotic. It turned more chaotic when he discovered that no known human or source has had any kind of contribution in his life. Since no one contributed, he could blame none. Even if he could blame any, he was not sure whether the blame entirely lay with them without taking into account his own readiness to allow them to influence his life.

To start with he wanted to be English. He was not born in England neither were his parents English. At least he had hoped later that he would migrate to England. He never ventured out of his home town. He wanted to but he thought it was probably worthless and he is better off where he was. He knew no Englishmen and he desired to be one. His knowledge on English way of life were gathered from romantic Shakespearean movies and novels.

He wanted to live in a huge mansion with imposing doors and high ceilings . A butler to serve him and his guests , who drop in to spend a perfect afternoon in the balcony leading to the garden. The garden would have trees which flowered . He would wear crisp khakis with hat on his on his head and a pipe in his mouth so he could bite it while talking. They would discuss on geology and would wind up with a chilled lemon tea before proceeding to the club to play cards and discuss geology of women. He wanted to be that lordship whose ancestral investments in coal mines of England and petroleum wells of Arabia ensured that he need not worry about his means to live.

Instead he was born in a perfect middle class family who believed in spending afternoons in government offices or schools with high ceilings and dusty fans. Irrespective of whether you are working or attending school one had to sleep in the afternoon.Only a nap could refresh you for the dull evening which is to be spent in front of the television. If you discussed anything with friends it would be about sky rocketing prices and politics and would not last more than few exchanges. You had to earn for your month by sleep walking in offices and your ancestors left debt for you to clear.

He was unhappy with his surroundings and his unhappiness had driven him to an extent where he decided to alter the course of this life drastically. He was committed and motivated to do something about it. He did nothing and wished someone else could something about it. He immediately resented this thought as he never liked any one to meddle with his life.

In a quiet moment of contemplation, sitting atop neighbours compound and reflecting upon his wasted life it suddenly it dawned on him . He knew what exactly he had to do.He jumped down ecstatically enlightened.

He knew how he was putting his life in danger sitting there. He realised that he was better off sitting at his home and listening to the radio than sitting at his neighbours compound and enticing his neighbours dog with his butt. That wretched pet had come close to tasting his butt once before and he was determined not to give it any more occasion to deface him. He ran into his house and switched on the radio and listened to the farmer's show. Farmer's show because it is supine and doesn't kindle any desires. One has to be in that state to Live !! .

He was content with what his life has become and how it has taken shape over the years. His only regret in life was not wanting anything so strongly that he could regret not getting it later !

He was happy that he never pursued any of his interests ,lest it would have led him to disappointment. He was sad that he had no interests but the advantages of no interest outweighed the option of interests with disappointments. He had reached close to seeking out the meaning of life. According to him, life, had to be spent not acquiring nothing except thoughts and knowledge and has to be spent contemplating on the reason for god sending us in here. God didn't want us to achieve anything, he didn't want us to be that over aggressive performer with a sole objective to display superiority neither did he want us to covet neighbors ass or her skills. He wanted us to visit this place , spend time, decay and disappear.

He didn't want us to invent or discover anything. If he did he would have done it himself and put all of that in the world when he handed it over to Adam. He wanted Adam's life to be comfortable and didn't give him anything we use now. God could have given him a car, a mobile phone, a hut , anything. He did give him a slap in his ass when he screwed it up with eve. He didn't even give him eve to start with. Adam had to emotionally black mail god into giving him eve. God, feared that Adam would have made him look bad in front of others by walking around bored thereby making his experiment a joke among his peers.

So he did give him a company and that company triggered a sequence of events which made a joke of God's experiment in front of those powers whom he wanted to prove a point by creating this world. In retrospect , God wouldn't have given eve to Adam had he known of the repercussions. Since that act of giving , the world has been in a downward spiral and the mere purpose of living has been lost. Vain are those who argue that world today is a better place than what it was when Adam decided to blackmail God. All these inventions, creations haven't done a single bit to reverse or halt this downward hurl but has been a catalyst hastening it.

That's not what god wanted. He definitely didn't want that mobile phone, lest he could have spoken to Adam and his successors through that instead of taking trouble to shout so loudly to be heard in the caves down in earth. If he didn't want it , why do we want it . We want it because we desire those. We covet anything we see and we end up disappointed in our attempt to covet it. We hurry ourselves in life as though there is bliss at the end of the task we are hurrying to complete. There is no bliss, what is there ,is another task lined up so readily and neatly that we cant stop to contemplate.

Life is precious than all of that. Life has to be spent in slow motion and in peace. Peace with desires devoid of disappointment. If you are not disappointed and are living it at a pace where u are doubt u aren't living anymore, you have attained nirvana. At this precise moment when you think your life is not moving and has stagnated into a worthless state of existence, i assure you that you have become successful in your life are leading a meaningful life. Listen to that Farmer's show from which you cannot learn anything. Listen to it keenly as this would not propel you into doing anything but to switch the radio off. Morbidity is bliss! Morbidity is Life!! Morbidity is Nirvana!!!

Neuman had a meaningful life !! Viva Neuman!! Viva Supine-ty!! Viva Farmer's show !!!