I don't want to speak the words my father, grandfather and other wiser men have been forced to speak. This is what they said: “Son, quality has come and gone. Now it is the time of the tainted. The diabolic esteem has reigned.” Ok, that's too much. They just tell me how times have changed.     The air was cleaner, the fields were greener and water crystal clear. When I was a kid, I stood and stared at the stars, went to the country side with my dad on his Bajaj scooter, I could smell the rain before it came down. Now looking at the stars is merely foreplay to a sneeze, the Bajaj is history, and my noose is too preoccupied for the better part of the day trying to sniff my way to the next meal. The dreamy romanticism is lost somewhere in time.     Now the schedule for a day goes past 24 hours. The small town surrounded by fields and the blue sky has been replaced by the multiplex laden city with the skies bearing the colours of budget airlines. If coke and other aerated drinks were bad enough, now they have come up with a diet coke. Great isn't it? First you indulge like hungry canine and then within indulgence you have this well- dressed restriction.     My point is that if you are so worried about the rising levels of sugar in your body then why don't you drink water and cut out the hypocrisy of having a crate of diet coke in your refrigerator?     Vegetarianism, refusal of alcohol or smoking and not being a party person are traits of backwardness or “uncoolness” (if at all such a word exists). Standing up for ones principles has become a rare feature as looking at the stars. Tantra ceased to be a customary practice, it's a fashion.     As a student of journalism, now and then when I sit down to jot a few lines, it's no longer me and my thoughts. It's an effort to sound literary and poetic. There is nothing real or soulful in what I write. The aim is not the flow of my thoughts on this piece of paper. This is all that is wrong in today's world, show and hypocrisy. “What is this life if full of care, we have no time to stand and stare…..” does this ring a bell?     But this is not the end. I know in the last few paragraphs I did what I claimed I don't want to do in my first line. You don't need to be a philosopher to understand that it is easier to break than to make. But optimism might just turn this round. I shouldn't be sitting here and complaining about how things are changing because this way I am going against some Darwin. Let's just embrace changes instead. My reverie lies in looking at the stars and the stars are not going anywhere. So go ahead and live your dreams. I did!