A really bleak morning. Cloudy and cold. The sounds are all muffled so, that even a city as noisy as bangalore seems to be quiet, as though in mourning.
Struggled to wake up and get out of bed. Eventually managed to do so by about 8:30 after mom had called a couple of times, dad had come in to check whether I was fine, and after I'd hit the snooze button of my alarm about 4 times.
Tumbled out of bed and down the stairs, took a mug (a mug is a bath taken with a mug and bucket, as opposed to a shower ... which is what you take when you stand under a shower to take that bath), chomped down the breakfast with as little effort as possible, and swallowed it with gulps of cold milk ... had to take almost twice the milk that I generally have for breakfast - an indication of how little energy I actually expended in the chomping .. and luckily, there are no horror stories to relate regarding the rickshaw trip to office.
So here I am, still sleepy enough for my speech to be slightly slurred ... coffee didn't help ... so I thought I'd blog ... start typing to just get the day started. It's helped some ... so I guess I'll contemplate starting my work now.
It is not like I haven't been thinking and don't have something weird to write about ... but really it is the everyday and the mundane that takes up most of our lives anyway .. so let it stay .. recorded here for posterity ... or till a hard disk stops whirring in some remote corner of the world.
Friday, November 17, 2006
Monday, November 13, 2006
Finding Forrester - a tribute?
As though to vindicate some of my previous posts, in "Finding Forrester", Wiliam Forrester says that you should write your first draft from your heart and edit it later with your head (something along those lines).
Tonight, after a long day at the office, and a million things still on my mind, while channel surfing, I realized that this movie was showing and decided to watch it again. Dad was watching too... and to my delight, he liked it as well. So there we sat, me explaining some of the quirks of western culture that our generation is more familiar with to dad - acting as his interpreter - as dad prefers to put it.
This movie touches me every time I see it. It is just right. The feel of New York, the sights and sounds of solitude, the aptitude, the attitude ... great photography, soothing background scores - you even get to hear the tabla in bits and pieces. Even the furniture in the rooms is just right.
I don't really know why it touches me so profoundly. Though the waters run deep, there are some things which I cosciously realize and appreciate.
What touches me, I think, is not so much Jamal's case - the contradiction inherent to being a 16 year old - the need to blend in, the thirst to break out ... yes those things are there ... I notice them. I believe what touches me most is the character of William Forrester.
The isolation that he creates for himself, the comfort he finds in his solitude, the discipline ... breath taking. The point when Jamal takes him to the baseball field on his birthday, the ability and the strength to taste your emotions ... letting it roll on your tongue while just stating the bare facts ...
Awe and envy at seeing a man attain more than one pinnacle in a life time. To be able to write a novel that is so good that it is the best. The satisfaction of having done something so well, that you don't even have the need to do anything ever again ... to have said it all.
As if that weren't enough, the satisfaction of nurturing something unique and seeing it grow and blossom - Jamal's talent... this probably fits in with the need to propagate ideas that I wrote about a while ago ... and even in dying, to have that last laugh ... and that last moment of satisfaction in knowing that you have done it again ... and that someone is there to see it through though you are no longer around.
And the desire to reach the same heights, live as richly and to die as peacefully.
Yes ... that is about it ... about as close to my emotions as I can get ... in words.
No. This is not a film review, and I am not asking anyone to watch it. The fact remains that if Finding Forrester the first time (pardon the pun) had given me great joy, rediscovering Forrester today game me equal pleasure.
So why do I write?
I write so that I may remember ... for we often forget.
And therein lies the sorrow ... of losing ...
And therein lies the joy ... of re-discovery ...
To find something, you may need to lose it first!
Tonight, after a long day at the office, and a million things still on my mind, while channel surfing, I realized that this movie was showing and decided to watch it again. Dad was watching too... and to my delight, he liked it as well. So there we sat, me explaining some of the quirks of western culture that our generation is more familiar with to dad - acting as his interpreter - as dad prefers to put it.
This movie touches me every time I see it. It is just right. The feel of New York, the sights and sounds of solitude, the aptitude, the attitude ... great photography, soothing background scores - you even get to hear the tabla in bits and pieces. Even the furniture in the rooms is just right.
I don't really know why it touches me so profoundly. Though the waters run deep, there are some things which I cosciously realize and appreciate.
What touches me, I think, is not so much Jamal's case - the contradiction inherent to being a 16 year old - the need to blend in, the thirst to break out ... yes those things are there ... I notice them. I believe what touches me most is the character of William Forrester.
The isolation that he creates for himself, the comfort he finds in his solitude, the discipline ... breath taking. The point when Jamal takes him to the baseball field on his birthday, the ability and the strength to taste your emotions ... letting it roll on your tongue while just stating the bare facts ...
Awe and envy at seeing a man attain more than one pinnacle in a life time. To be able to write a novel that is so good that it is the best. The satisfaction of having done something so well, that you don't even have the need to do anything ever again ... to have said it all.
As if that weren't enough, the satisfaction of nurturing something unique and seeing it grow and blossom - Jamal's talent... this probably fits in with the need to propagate ideas that I wrote about a while ago ... and even in dying, to have that last laugh ... and that last moment of satisfaction in knowing that you have done it again ... and that someone is there to see it through though you are no longer around.
And the desire to reach the same heights, live as richly and to die as peacefully.
Yes ... that is about it ... about as close to my emotions as I can get ... in words.
No. This is not a film review, and I am not asking anyone to watch it. The fact remains that if Finding Forrester the first time (pardon the pun) had given me great joy, rediscovering Forrester today game me equal pleasure.
So why do I write?
I write so that I may remember ... for we often forget.
And therein lies the sorrow ... of losing ...
And therein lies the joy ... of re-discovery ...
To find something, you may need to lose it first!
Wednesday, November 08, 2006
the boggart
For those that read Harry Potter books, the boggart is not a new concept. For those that prefer not to read Harry Potter, a boggart is not what the dictionary defines it to be (I don't know if any of them have been updated so far to include the new definition).
The definition:
Loosely defined, a boggart is a spirit whose real form can never be seen because it takes on the form of whatever you fear the most whenever you look at it.
The buildup:
While reading Harry Potter, I was absolutely amazed at the ingenuity of the author for having created such a lifeform .. or deadform as it were ...
The relevation:
Today, while I was thinking of something else, it suddenly struck me that a boggart is really a simplistic derivation of a phenomenon that is very common to the world around us.
If you think about it, of all the people that know you, how many people really see you for what you are? Aren't we all boggarts that take on the form defined not simply by fear, but by every other human emotion, whether defined by a word in our language or not.
You and I might think of us as simple human beings ... but every time someone looks at us, what they see is really a combination of numerous human emotions ... hate, love, hopes, aspirations, expectations ....
Welcome to the other world!!!
The definition:
Loosely defined, a boggart is a spirit whose real form can never be seen because it takes on the form of whatever you fear the most whenever you look at it.
The buildup:
While reading Harry Potter, I was absolutely amazed at the ingenuity of the author for having created such a lifeform .. or deadform as it were ...
The relevation:
Today, while I was thinking of something else, it suddenly struck me that a boggart is really a simplistic derivation of a phenomenon that is very common to the world around us.
If you think about it, of all the people that know you, how many people really see you for what you are? Aren't we all boggarts that take on the form defined not simply by fear, but by every other human emotion, whether defined by a word in our language or not.
You and I might think of us as simple human beings ... but every time someone looks at us, what they see is really a combination of numerous human emotions ... hate, love, hopes, aspirations, expectations ....
Welcome to the other world!!!
Friday, November 03, 2006
yet to decide
on a name for the post.
Haven't logged in for a while to blog. Partly because work has increased, partly because I am no longer living alone - so there is a lot more conversations on the outside than on the inside, partly because I have been caught up with things that seem to come so easily to others, and partly because I have been spending enormous amounts of time trying to chase down the eureka forbes guys that sold me a defective aquaguad, and haven't replaced it for two weeks now, despite reassurances to the contrary every day from the "group leader".
I am generally clueless about the topic when I start writing my posts, however, today, I am more clueless(if there be such a state) than usual ... apart from that, I have a feeling this is going to be one of those morose posts that cause many people to lambast bloggers as a set of disgruntled people who have withdrawn from life to live it on the net.
In the meanwhile, I logged on to blogstreet.com one fine day, and in a moment of weakness, decided to claim my blog for myself, announced my name to the whole wide world (or whoever wants to sue me), that the blog is an Indian blog, and have since had the satisfaction of seeing my rating change from 5104 when I started to five thousand two hundred something. Being a programmer, I can't help wondering, if the rating of my post happens to be an accurate indication of the number of people registered at this blogstreet thing :)
On a more somber note, tong, dong, tadang .... it is nice to know that there aren't a lot of people reading my blogs ... so I don't have to read the paper with the sole intention of regurgitating the contents later for easier consumption of the masses or write movie reviews ... on the whole, I can stay just the way I am, write just what I want to write about, and not worry whether the erudite find it particularly enlightening or not :)
(This post is getting nicer than I thought it would be)
Now, to follow the train of thought from the last paragraph, (my thought trains derail so frequently that I could Indian Railways a run for their money) one may argue that just because there are people reading your posts, you need not change ... they might take it to be a test of true character and whatever else it is morally fashionable to be these days. However, the fact is that though I just write for the sake of writing, I do appreciate readers, and I do appreciate comments ... and being human, is all about interaction ... it is quite natural for a person to react to stimuli ...
Not reacting to a particular stimuli is a reaction in itself ... and how can we say that one reaction is superior to the other in an absolute sense?
And if we are to judge decisions on an absolute scale, perhaps the only criterion is to judge the decision based on whether it allows you to live longer ... and propagate further...
In which case the writer who changes based on feedback, thus gaining popularity and wider readership is making a superior choice to the one that does not change ... stays true to himself or herself and gets wiped off most reading lists (This is just an argument ... I am not saying that this is what I think ... but I am thinking it and writing it ... but let us not worry about that for now!!!).
Humans being more complicated than other organisms, there is another thing with respect to survival ... for us, the concept of survival and propagation is not limited to our genetic material anymore. People often make decisions to ensure that their ideas survive ... so that their ideas propagate ... be it a philosohy ... a way of life ... a belief.
Well, that should be all for today ... because there is really no logical end to something that never logically began ... to begin with!
Haven't logged in for a while to blog. Partly because work has increased, partly because I am no longer living alone - so there is a lot more conversations on the outside than on the inside, partly because I have been caught up with things that seem to come so easily to others, and partly because I have been spending enormous amounts of time trying to chase down the eureka forbes guys that sold me a defective aquaguad, and haven't replaced it for two weeks now, despite reassurances to the contrary every day from the "group leader".
I am generally clueless about the topic when I start writing my posts, however, today, I am more clueless(if there be such a state) than usual ... apart from that, I have a feeling this is going to be one of those morose posts that cause many people to lambast bloggers as a set of disgruntled people who have withdrawn from life to live it on the net.
In the meanwhile, I logged on to blogstreet.com one fine day, and in a moment of weakness, decided to claim my blog for myself, announced my name to the whole wide world (or whoever wants to sue me), that the blog is an Indian blog, and have since had the satisfaction of seeing my rating change from 5104 when I started to five thousand two hundred something. Being a programmer, I can't help wondering, if the rating of my post happens to be an accurate indication of the number of people registered at this blogstreet thing :)
On a more somber note, tong, dong, tadang .... it is nice to know that there aren't a lot of people reading my blogs ... so I don't have to read the paper with the sole intention of regurgitating the contents later for easier consumption of the masses or write movie reviews ... on the whole, I can stay just the way I am, write just what I want to write about, and not worry whether the erudite find it particularly enlightening or not :)
(This post is getting nicer than I thought it would be)
Now, to follow the train of thought from the last paragraph, (my thought trains derail so frequently that I could Indian Railways a run for their money) one may argue that just because there are people reading your posts, you need not change ... they might take it to be a test of true character and whatever else it is morally fashionable to be these days. However, the fact is that though I just write for the sake of writing, I do appreciate readers, and I do appreciate comments ... and being human, is all about interaction ... it is quite natural for a person to react to stimuli ...
Not reacting to a particular stimuli is a reaction in itself ... and how can we say that one reaction is superior to the other in an absolute sense?
And if we are to judge decisions on an absolute scale, perhaps the only criterion is to judge the decision based on whether it allows you to live longer ... and propagate further...
In which case the writer who changes based on feedback, thus gaining popularity and wider readership is making a superior choice to the one that does not change ... stays true to himself or herself and gets wiped off most reading lists (This is just an argument ... I am not saying that this is what I think ... but I am thinking it and writing it ... but let us not worry about that for now!!!).
Humans being more complicated than other organisms, there is another thing with respect to survival ... for us, the concept of survival and propagation is not limited to our genetic material anymore. People often make decisions to ensure that their ideas survive ... so that their ideas propagate ... be it a philosohy ... a way of life ... a belief.
Well, that should be all for today ... because there is really no logical end to something that never logically began ... to begin with!
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