​This is a fantastic short story by James Thurber:
Once upon a sunny morning, a man who sat at his breakfast looked up from his scrambled eggs to see a white unicorn with a golden horn quietly cropping the roses in the garden. The man went up to the bedroom where his wife was still asleep and woke her. ‘There’s a unicorn in the garden,’ he said. ‘Eating roses.’ She opened one unfriendly eye and looked at him. ‘The unicorn is a mythical beast,’ she said, and turned her back on him. The man walked slowly downstairs and out into the garden. The unicorn was still there; he was now browsing among the tulips. ‘Here, unicorn,’ said the man, and he pulled up a lily and gave it to him. The unicorn ate it gravely. With a high heart, because there was a unicorn in his garden, the man went upstairs and roused his wife again. ‘The unicorn,’ he said, ‘ate a lily.’ His wife sat up in bed and looked at him, coldly. ‘You are a booby,’ she said, ‘and I am going to have you put in the booby-hatch.’ The man, who had never liked the words ‘booby’ and ‘booby-hatch’, and who liked them even less on a shining morning when there was a unicorn in the garden, thought for a moment. ‘We’ll see about that,’ he said. He walked over to the door. ‘He has a golden horn in the middle of his forehead,’ he told her. Then he went back to the garden to watch the unicorn; but the unicorn had gone away. The man sat down among the roses and went to sleep.
As soon as the husband had gone out of the house, the wife got up and dressed as fast as she could. She was very excited and there was a gloat in her eye. She telephoned the police and she telephoned a psychiatrist; she told them to hurry to her house and bring a straight-jacket. When the police and the psychiatrist arrived, they sat down in chairs and looked at her, with great interest. ‘My husband,’ she said, ‘saw a unicorn this morning.’ The police looked at the psychiatrist and the psychiatrist looked at the police. ‘He told me it ate a lily,’ she said. The psychiatrist looked at the police and the police looked at the psychiatrist. ‘He told me it had a golden horn in the middle of its forehead,’ she said. At a solemn signal from the psychiatrist, the police leaped from their chairs and seized the wife. They had a hard time subduing her, for she put up a terrific struggle, but they finally subdued her. Just as they got her into the straight-jacket, the husband came back into the house.
‘Did you tell your wife you saw a unicorn?’ asked the police. ‘Of course not,’ said the husband. ‘The unicorn is a mythical beast.’ ‘That’s all I wanted to know,’ said the psychiatrist. ‘Take her away. I’m sorry, sir, but your wife is as crazy as a jay bird.’ So they took her away, cursing and screaming, and shut her up in an institution. The husband lived happily ever after.
Moral:  Don’t count your boobies until they are hatched.

"All the truth in the world adds up to one big lie", rasps Dylan in Things Have Changed. Which is what Advaita Vedanta alludes to in general. Once you know the rope to be a rope, then the fear of it as a snake disappears. It's not that everything you see in the world is an illusion. It's not that there is no cruelty around, or that people are not killing people, and that there is no violence. It's the wrong identification with the body that gives rise to the sense of reality curated by the five limited senses. As Ramana Maharishi would often remind people, "Did all these occur to you in deep sleep?"
Meaning, all of this came to life with the waking up of the wrong 'I'. We see the world after we open our eyes, the world doesn't come and tell us it exists. In deep sleep, we have no nationality, no religion, no beliefs, no gender, no family, no name, no worries, no anxiety, no plans and we don't even have our body. Yet, we wake up and declare that 'I' slept well. Bhagwan Ramana would ask questioners, "Who is the I that says I slept well and who is the I that has all the problems and questions and doubts?"
Or that's what I understand (that's the trouble with limited knowledge, isn't it?). So all that we think is true, all that we think is the 'snake' is, in fact, a strand of rope. 
Kannadasan, the greatest Tamil lyricist of the 20th century who distilled the most profound truths into easily digestible, simple cinema songs, has a similar yet more powerful take on it. In a song titled "Yaarada mandihan ange" (meaning "who is the real man there?") he says, "In laughter, Man isn't. In tears, Man isn't. In his heart, Man isn't. In sleep, man is. Living beast, sleeping god, in between is Man". Brilliant. 
It is the Man in sleep who is real. Not the beast that reacts and repents. Not the Man in between two stages who is confused and confounded. It is the Truth that lies behind one Big Lie.

 

So says one of the graffiti messages in a book compiled by Nigel Rees I found many years ago. It sums up the way the language is heading these days. People don't craft anymore. Nobody seems to spend any time weighing the words before hitting the keyboard. And nobody bothers to check before subjecting innocent members of the public to horrendous misuse of the language. 
We grew up writing and rewriting copy, in David Ogilvy style, with his seventeen drafts regime. We were told never to use words like 'That's not all', or 'What's more' to link sentences. Not even in brochure copy. Because that was a lazy way out. We were told that body copy should flow from the headline, linked syntactically and conceptually so it flowed better, with the last line looping back to the headline. We were told to use tactile words, like 'bristle'. 
And we studied the work of masters of writing, legends such as David Abbot, Tony Brignull and Tom Thomas among others. In one ad, Abbot had used 'on the contrary' as a paragraph. I spent many days trying to mimic that, and when I was able to, I was so thrilled I drowned that immediately in a few beers.
But not many care for the language or the crafting part of it these days it would seem from what you can see in the newspapers. One could live with laziness, blaming it on the era of smartphones (people still read on their smart devices, don't they?) and short attention span, but what is irking is the total lack of respect for the language (it goes for any language incidentally, not just English) evidenced by headlines such as 'Path your way to success'. Since when is path a verb? You can beat a path, carve a path, create a path but you can't just 'path'. Here are some more examples that I'm sure will irk you too:
Irregardless. It's not a word. It's like saying 'unirrelevant'. It's regardless. 
Should of. If you are writing that instead of 'should have', you need to go back to school. Like now.
It's vs its. Its is possessive as in 'the metal has lost its sheen'. It's is a contracted form of 'It is'. If in doubt, use the expanded version, it'll be clearer. Whenever it is sounds wrong, it's quite likely its, if you know what I mean. There are a few good sites that can clear your doubts such as grammar girl. I keep 'Elements of Style' recommended by Stephen King and Fowler's Modern English Usage recommended by my former boss many years ago. You could try these methods if you're between it's and its or discrete and discreet.


 

Freedom comes with responsibility. I firmly believe that, not just because it was observed by J.K the Indian philosopher, who it seems, if I may point out rather irrelevantly here, influenced the legendary Bruce Lee. 
There was a book sometime back slandering the Hindu beliefs and some of its eminent leaders. Some people I spoke to said it was the prerogative of the author to write whatever he or she wanted and it was up to us to not take it seriously. 'Don't let anything hurt your sentiments', I was told.
I disagree. I feel that as an author, especially someone who can influence an audience, however small its size may be, must exercise caution when it comes to sensitive topics. It becomes even more critical when you write about a subject others have little knowledge of, and draw firm conclusions based on what you have to offer (poor souls). You must be responsible and understand that, whether you like it or not, certain things are sacred to certain people, and mindless offence in the name of freedom is just that, mindless. 
There is a reason why we don't pee in a restaurant. Nothing is stopping you, is there? You can jolly well go to an expensive restaurant, order a fancy meal, open your zipper, and start peeing all over the table, because, you know, you have paid for the meal and you have freedom, don't you? Or you can routinely abuse everyone and their families you see at work and defend it on the grounds of freedom. But we don't do that, do we?
It's because we are adults. We behave responsibly and try to be sensible beings if not superheros to our kids. Because not everything has to be laid out in the constitution and cast in stone. And who better to explain this than Dave Barry and Dennis Farina?  

It occurred to me the other day when I was reminiscing about the beautiful, orange-sun-drenched, all-smiles-no-worries happy days of youth with a childhood friend of mine. About how pure everything was, how nice people were and how peaceful it all seemed then compared to the problems and worries of today.

Then it occurred to me, as I mentioned already, that we tend to look back on the good old days with misty-eyed romanticism and longing mainly because we were not exposed to any of the atrocities happening elsewhere in the world. All the violence and wars, street crimes and starving children, senseless bigotry and unnecessary killings were happening back then just as they are now. The only difference is we, as kids, we not exposed to them. There were no 24-hour channels bringing the guns and gore right into our livingrooms. We didn't even have TVs then in fact. Whether it was the mindless deaths during the Vietnam War or the murder of innocents by blood thirsty monsters posing as dictators in some African country, we read about them in the newspapers. Depending on how serious the national news was, the global atrocities either made it to the front page or they didn't. Even then, we, as school-going kids, didn't bother to read about them, especially when there were cricket matches involving the Indian team. 
Priorities and exposure. These decide how you look back on your growing-up years. It's not that people were not getting killed or that children were not going hungry, it's just that we had our minds focused on passing the next exam. We didn't have to worry about where the next meal was going to come from. We didn't have to work to feed and clothe us. We were kids, so we were shielded from the unnecessary harshness of reality by our parents. Everything was just as it is now. Granted things have become more violent and senseless on a more frequent basis with every bullet fired landing on your dining table but essentially not much has changed. 
Perhaps that's what fogs up our perspective and tints out glasses a lovely shade of rose when we look back on the good old days. Ah, those were the days, weren't it?

9-5 can be a pain, and any place with more than two people (and that's one too many) will have politics. There are no companies where you are going to part of 'one big family'. The boss may eat with his office lady during lunch time and the MD might get drunk at office parties and pat you appreciatively, but all that means zilch come assessment time. Anyway, if you're looking for a family type place, you shouldn't step out of home in the first place.
Every office will have one or all of the following: An unreasonably demanding boss, a backstabbing butt-kissing junior, a politically motivated ambitious colleague, a smug relative of the boss who can ruin your life, a stupid moron who somehow is your immediate superior (who, for some reason, is considered spectacular by the big boss), not to mention people who think you are a walkover because you just want to do your work and get back home. It doesn't mean you should stew silently in the fumes of a toxic situation. Buddha tells you how to handle tricky situations with dignity.
Once, when the Buddha was walking across a village, he encountered a very scared bunch of residents. Everyone was walking around in serious distress. Moved by his characteristic sympathetic nature, he asked what was wrong with them and whey were they all so scared? They said that there was a snake, very poisonous and deadly snake, that had been going around biting and killing anyone who had the misfortune of crossing its path, children included. The men couldn't go to work, the women couldn't go and fetch water and the kids couldn't play. They were worried that soon there will be no one left in the village. The Buddha looked upon them with kindness and said he would look into the matter as he knew how to talk to snakes.
He went to where the marauding snake was living and called out. Hearing him, the snake came out. The Enlightened One spoke gently to the vicious snake, saying there was no need to go around terrorizing the whole village and biting everyone. Having imparted the message of kindness, he left on his journey.
A while later the Buddha was crossing the same village on his way back. He saw
the villagers happy and walking about fearlessly. He was glad to see that the snake had listened to his advice and went to see how it was doing.
Hearing his footsteps, the snake came crawling out. But it was in severe pain, its body was bruised and battered, there were scratches and wounds all over. The Buddha was aghast. "What happened to you?" asked the Compassionate One. 
'Well,' said the snake weakly, mustering all its strength, 'you said not to bite so once people knew there was nothing to fear from me, they started pelting me with stones and beating with sticks. I was just waiting for you to come so I could tell you. I don't know how long I can take this.' 
'It is true that I told you not to bite,' said the Buddha as he took the battered snake in his healing hands,'but I didn't tell you not to hiss'. 
So there are times you need to hiss. Just to let people know where you stand, and where they stand as well.

Writer's Block
It happens sometimes. The challenge of the blank page. The dread the white paper or the blank screen fills you with as you stare just as blankly, trying to fill it with your next bestseller. The blank monster apparently had someone in its grip on Quora, and she wanted to know what to write. 'Don't just say write', she requested. Fair enough I thought as that piece of advice is as  helpful as telling someone who wants to swim to just jump in the water. While it is not entirely useless, it is rather limited in scope. So I decided to help her out of her misery by quoting a passage (which I luckily remembered) from Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance where the author's past life character, Phaedrus, helps one of his students stuck on an essay about the US. 'Start with a city', he advises. When she comes up with nothing, he tells her to narrow it to a street in a city. When she still draws a blank, he tells her to write about a building. 'The brick on the top right', to be specific. Turns out that's just what she wanted to open the floodgates. The student comes back with a 5000 word essay the next day. She says she sat at a cafe opposite the building and started to write. 
Sometimes that's where you need to start. With something minuscule and specific and work your way out of the monster's grip. You can always edit, trash it, start over but at least you are out of the block, so to speak. So start with a brick. Or a strand of hair. Or a drop of rain. Good luck. 

I wonder what our worldview would have been if there had been a ban on Hollywood movies? What would have been our perceptions about, say USSR without James Bond movies even though he is technically not Hollywood? What about free sex and free speech? Or the Vietnam war? Mobsters? What would be a poor Asian kid's vision of a cool job if he hadn't seen Tom whatshis name in Cocktail? 
We all grew up on the staple diet of L.A's movie factories. From B-movie garbage where plastic piranhas attacked a whole coastal town and rabid rottweilers that turned on their neighbourhood to absolutely brilliant masterpieces that had superb editing work, background scores and, most of all, cinematography. 
Growing up in a small town in South India with a leaning towards music, we used to go hunting for movies in which Jerry Goldsmith was the music director. We started looking for Alan Hume's cinematographed movies after watching Eye of the Needle. In fact, movies like Witness and Cassandra Crossing left a deep impression on us and stirred a longing for well-made movies, or well-framed movies, to coin a phrase. "How many of these gifted cinematographers are there, that every movie has a different name with A.S.C after them?" we used to wonder. Because our movies had a handful and their idea was showing lush green scenery and silhouettes against the evening sun. Granted, there were a few good ones but nothing compared to the scores of A.S.Cs that painted soulful pictures on the impressionable minds of first year chemistry students who should have spent the warm weekday mornings in crummy labs instead of in air-conditioned cinema halls.
The movies shaped and changed and coloured our views of a distant land we only saw on the nearest silver screen. The beautiful women who were all too easy, the picture postcard settings, the snazzy cars and bikes, the accent ... man, no wonder many of us wanted to go to the States.
When I went to the US many years later, I was surprised to hear the people speak just the way they did in the movies. 'My god, they sound exactly like they do in the movies', I remember thinking as we took in the sights and sounds of San Francisco, which fortunately didn't include the sound of gunfire. 
Wonder what life would have been without the influence of the light and shadow people?