Hard is the new blood

So hard is the new blood that walks the streets that it always flows in its own veins.

And I always thought myself a man of his age, one who keeps up with a spring in his stride with each new wave of human specimens that sprout out of women.

But here's time for reality check and drawing the line.

These things shall not pass muster with me:

1. ENTERTAINMENT/AMUSEMENT: These are loaded terms closely aligned with the sensibility of boredom. Thus, the new blood seeks entertainment and amusement as a means to stave off boredom, which is a perpetual threat looming over their heads. At this point it becomes increasingly important to make clear what this boredom is, how it works and what it looks like. Long periods of exposure to this ingenous beast through the new blood minds has acquainted me to its peculiarities. Boredom. It's nature, unlike in specimen of old blood, is one of indistinctness and amorphity. While earlier, one was bored with specific elements in specific circumstances, for instance one could have been bored by 'Jane Austin like novelists' when one was at college or 'small town life when one wanted to make it big' or 'afternoons at puja when one was a teenager', now things have changed. Boredom has taken a more blotted, leaky self - now one is simply bored. Of what, one urges, and learns that one is bored because one is not consuming anything. Consuming what? Excitement. But what kind of excitement? The kind you can predictably buy off the shelf. Branded manner of conversation (the brand is established by fastmag and fastcine norms), branded urges, branded hungers, a branded way to pass the evening, branded sex (i saw them say...i heard them say...i checked out on the cyberspace...). The engagement needs to be well established as 'exciting', canonised by the media and valourised by gossip before it can suffice as a knight to fight off 'boredom' and entertain or amuse. It is supposed to be gratifying so long as tows the 'novelty line' where novelty itself, of course, is well worn and stamped by every authority from the latest Holly flick to the latest Bolly squib.

2. IN-YOUR-FACE: This, obviously, refers to an attitude. But it encompasses a whole weltenshaung. It means when I stand in front of you, puny construct o fhumanity, you shall see nothing but me, hear nothing but me, and if you should, by any chance of fate, be able to well up enough courage to step aside, you shall carry with you an image of me that shall frighten the daylights out of you. You shall fear me. You shall be in awe of me. You shall think of me as second to no thing else. You shall not even whimper in any form of protest. Also, as a footnote to that, if you should be audacious enough to adapt a similar attitude, you will need to answer for it in terms of crudity (for that becomes you not!) or face a higher form of the same called the "WINNING ATTITUDE". (more of this in the next point)

3. THE WINNING ATTITUDE: This is the Zeus of all new blood gods, the Shiva of the new blood trinity, terrific in aspect, swift in dispensing punishment and/or granting boons. It is a craft you are required to learn early on in life; its principal tenets include - flaunting what you have (and you need to insist you have), seizing the moment (which is always ha so momentary), harbouring no doubt at any time at all (except when someone asks you which quality of yours is more worthy of worship), and always travelling on the fast lane (this constitutes some extremely dimwitted exchanges with extremely dimwitted people in places one is confident one can find them - glass in hand). The parameters of measuring victory are inevitably linked with the parameters of measuring loss, and this we shall look into in the next point which is THE LOSER.

4. THE LOSER: The Loser and the losing attitude is the natural antithesis to the winner and the winning attitude. THE LOSER is the modern pariah of the society, marked by the stigmata of AGE, WEAKNESS and UGLINESS. If Mohammed Bin Tughlaq were alive today, he'd be a very happy man indeed- for all world is slowly but surely turning into HIS DELHI, where the YOUNG, the STRONG and the BEAUTIFUL are insulated from the degenerates of teh world. But I digress! Coming back to the LOSER, who needs to be shunned and kept at a distance! The new blood is one that does not live, does not intend to live and completely refutes the very existence of life as a parabola starting from birth moving on to youth and then slipping down to the autumn of life. The new blood freezes time. Life is a movie played innumerable times where the characters are all hip and replay the same scenes again and again, ad infinitum, mouth the same wisecracks, cry the same glycerine tears, commit the same crimes and seek the same pardons.

5. MONEY: Did I say something that made you smile? Bring in the glow in your face? This is no laughing matter, this is grave as a tombstone. This is the keeper of all things precious. And why? For the simple reason that somewhere deep within the new blood knows that you cannot control age (though you like to forget it), you cannot keep up the strength (notwithstanding hi-tech gyms) and you cannot keep the wrinkles away (though you yoga and do herbal somethings). The new blood is afraid. New blood knows that when the time comes for its banishment from the kingdom of new blood joy to the land of forgetting, only one god can stand by it -MONEY! This god can make your lips appear full and kissable, make your cheeks rosy, stir the sinews and the muscles with the energy of the young and make your vaccuous expressions look thoughtful and deep (even Rodin would prefer you to his thinker).

And so the new blood flows, thick and fast, but always in its own veins for it is hard and will never know the insides of another.