another opportunity to exercise your franchise :)

Gone are the days when you had to brave the prevalent weather to reach a polling station ...
stand in a queue, figure out whether your name is on the voters list, hope that no one will come and mount an armed attack on the polling booth and pray that no one will decide to blow up a cycle bomb next to the queue in an effort to "undermine the democratic process" or to express their disillusionment with the current system.

All you have to do is sit in the comfort of your home ... or the hotspot at starbucks ... or whatever establishment you happen to patronize, come to my blog, look to the right side bar ... and vote :)

Yes ladies and gentlemen! Announcing the first poll on this site! Please feel free to vote.
One vote per person... and 6 days to go!!!

I really don't want to talk about a certain jail sentence of 2.5 years that was nullified by a certain president in a certain country here ... though given all the talk about voting and hence politics, one cannot help but think about it!

its been a while ...

initially, i didn't have time
then i decided to stay off the net for a while as i had a lot to complete
and then there was ...


well anyway.


i never thought that it would be difficult for me to write.
over the past few days, i have started quite a few times only to scrap the post halfway.
not sure whether this will make it to "publish" - but that is the intention.

it isn't that i don't have things to write about ... i haven't written for so long that i feel like a champagne bottle ... all the little bubbles of thought trying to burst forth ... just that i happen to be a sentient bottle with a desire to have some control over which bubble goes out when ...

while i was off the net, one of the blogs from my list of "blogs that I read" got deleted - no clue why. another, thankfully came back - her last post was under rather trying circumstances and then she just disappeared for a long while.

that is one problem i have had. blame me for being too attached to people i haven't even met and am not likely to meet in this life time.

say you meet someone on chat ... or you read someones blog ... and suddenly, one fine day, they disappear. what do you make of it? there is no way of finding out ... the only thing you have is a yahoo id or some blog URL which may not be working anymore.

while you always hope that something good has happened that has caused the person to leave the virtual world to do something more fulfilling in the real world perhaps ... there is always that uncertainty ...

like i said, probably i am the one to blame - for being to attached. i don't feel the same way for everyone that i pass on the streets (thankfully) ... but then what is different about the Internet?

some soul searching required.


a lot has happened since i last really wrote here ... from the massacre at Georgia tech to the ndtv report on the legal system in our country to the safe landing of space shuttle atlantis at St. Edwards (much to the disappointment of the local media i suspect)

things that i'd probably have written about ...
but i realize something. timing is very important. though how u feel about something may not change over the year, when you decide to do something about it really matters.

better late than never might be fine when it comes to driving.
better never than late is perhaps more appropriate when it comes to some other things in life.

.... and now i have screwed up the layout upgrade thing and have lost all the old links :(
just the sort of thing that I was talking about ... i have no way of recovering those links now!

waiting

I have never had to struggle so much to put down words.

My grandmother passed away yesterday morning.
Try as I might, I find myself unable to write anything about her.
And, try as I might, I find myself unable to think or write about anything else.

Time heals. Patience pays. I wait.

Feeling lonely

Came home today to what is the beginning of a long weekend and for the first time in my life perhaps, felt lonely.

Wanted to go out for the evening, watch a movie, have dinner, perhaps catch up over coffee … but there was no company.

Rather ironic given that I have always loved solitude.

Back in school, I looked forward to the Durga Puja holidays. It would generally be for about a week or so. Not enough time for me to go home and come back. So, I’d be the only one in the hostel. Sometimes there would be a few others. However, my block would generally be empty.

It was a nice feeling - getting up to a crisp October morning, knowing that there was nothing to do the whole day. The mess would also be understaffed over the holidays which meant that you couldn’t be late at meal times. So, I’d get up, brush and reach the mess in time for breakfast.

Once that was done, I had pretty much the rest of the day and the school building to myself. I loved walking down the empty corridors. My favorite block – I don’t remember the name any more – was past the school clinic, behind the parking lot for the eighty or so school buses and in front of the one of the school fields.

The class rooms in this block were nicer than the others. They were built like terraces – as in an amphitheatre – with the board at the well of the room and benches leading all the way up to the top.
The classes would always be locked during the holidays. I found one whose door could be opened despite the lock by pushing against it, and once inside, you could push it closed again and it appeared to be locked from outside.

I remember spending a lot of time there, reading various books and once in a while, studying. This is where I acquainted myself with Richard Bach, Robert Pirsig, Gibran, Carlos Castenada and Feynman to name a few … some of the others, forgotten because I did not concur with them.

I also remember a family of kites nesting in a tree near that class room. It was quite fascinating to watch them bring rats, squirrels and god knows what else to feed their young.

Eventually, I would drag myself back to my room for a shower and in time for lunch – which at times would be better than usual since there were so few of us that the cook could actually afford to experiment with Quality for a change.

The nights would be awesome too. By October, it was cool enough for the grass to have dew or frost … not sure what … but the grass would be wet by the time dinner was done … so you could walk bare-feet in the field by yourself and come back to the room.

The room would be cool, and it would be quiet too … and all the lights would be off for a change. The only sounds would those of the ceiling fans and the tinny music from the water purifiers attached to the water coolers.

The memories, sweet as they are, are not the point why I started writing this post. This “feeling lonely” thing is a whole new experience. It is a good thing and a bad thing. It is good because I am experiencing something new. It is bad because I always felt that if you are centered in your self, at peace and happy, then there is no such thing as being lonely. This therefore probably indicates that at least one or more of these is missing in my current constitution.

I have decided against trying to go hunting for a problem and fixing it though – the typical engineering approach to all of life – fix it. Now that finally, I am feeling this elusive feeling, I might as well learn about it and about how to deal with it before moving on.

Luckily for me, the entire carpet did not get swept out from under my feet in one go … and some things still work … As I cooked dinner tonight, I felt the magic of the experience (I have already ranted about my love for cooking in a few previous posts I think). As the familiar sounds, sights and smells started to embrace me, the stillness that it restored was almost palpable.

Have waxed eloquent for long enough – time to check what the food tastes like… stillness of the mind is incidental to the act … what really matters is the taste of the food :)

just so much cotton

was channel surfing over the weekend when I came across some mushy movie starring the same guy from serendipity ... and probably along the same lines too ... the name eludes me at this moment.

anyway, I was watching it ... cant quite call it that ... just that I had nothing better to do ... when I suddenly realized that the movie was filmed in Chicago ... and that made me sit up straight ...

later, as I walked out to buy myself some death-sticks, the thing was still on my mind - my reaction to the sight of Chicago. I spoke about new york once, in one of my previous posts and now, I realized that Chicago is probably as important to me.

The interesting thing is that I haven't really stayed in any one place for any length of time. As a result, though there are a lot of cities and towns that I like, there is no one place that is really really special.

"Home" is wherever my parents happen to be at any point in time ... and for a long time, my "place" would be wherever my rucksack happened to be lying.

At the end of it though, some places have touched me and others haven't.

Was trying to make some sense of this. Was wondering, how the relation works. How a place can leave a mark on a person ... and conversely, how a person can leave his or her mark on a place.

As I was walking, the wind picked up a little and some dust and paper scraps were blown around my feet. An analogy came to mind.

We are a lot like little wisps of cotton ... some wound tightly into balls, some just wisps that may come apart at any moment ... a few, somewhere in between a ball and a wisp.

And we go about life, wind blown. The balls not going as far as the wisps ... and as we touch things, we invariably pick up some stuff and we leave some stuff behind. The cotton analogy can go on and on ...

The conclusion though (keeping it short) is that when a place or a person really beckons, it is perhaps not so much about how attached you are to this place or person - it is about how much of yourself you left behind when you collided last.

governance II

The much debated and much maligned sequel to the block buster – governance :D
Like so many movies, the story takes an abrupt turn though!

Democracy as is practiced currently in almost all countries is indirect. The people vote to elect their representatives. These representatives represent their electorate in a quorum where their votes are considered to represent the vote of their entire electorate. This quorum again decides on all policies based on the votes of these chosen representatives.

This was perhaps the best way to go about creating a democracy because the logistics involved in allowing every person in a state to have a say in each and every decision made were too great to be managed.

However, if we see the two largest democracies in the world today, we see how this system can go hopelessly wrong.

There may be numerous political parties within a democracy. If the voter chooses to vote for a particular person, it is relatively easy. However, if a voter decides to choose for a particular candidate based on the candidate’s political affiliation to a particular party based on the principles of that party, things get murky.

If no party gets a majority, we have this concept of the single largest party getting an opportunity to form the government first … but things often break down, and weird coalitions come into existence after the election that have agendas very different from those that the voter voted for.

Sure, we can reduce the number of parties in the system to ensure that there aren’t too many different ideologies (though one could argue that this is undemocratic in itself). Now, if they don’t like what your government is doing, you can change it … but not for another five years at least … unless the chosen representatives take some drastic actions …

Dictionaries differentiate between democracy as described above and a “pure democracy” where policy decisions are always taken by a direct vote of each and every citizen of the nation.

Perhaps, it is time for us to move towards this concept of pure democracy.

If a country has a telecommunication network that covers it in its entirety, supplemented by an internet that reaches a fair percentage of the population, it can easily overcome the logistics issue that we have always had previously.

People have enough access to information thanks to the media and the internet to make informed decisions about most everyday issues.
Are there any short comings to this approach?

Well, if people are expected to vote on issues and the media is where they get their information, it gives a fearful power to the media – which can obviously be misused.

One may argue why everyone would even be interested in voting … the answer to which would be that they need not be - as long as there is a requirement that a minimum percentage of the population needs to vote in order for the results to be valid.

Issues involving sensitive intelligence data and so forth would be a little hard to deal with. We would need some mechanism to handle such issues.


I obviously cannot design the ideal mechanism for governance while sitting and writing out a blog. However, this is something that we all need to start thinking of.

The Greeks and Romans and other civilizations evolved a system of thought and governance that was way ahead of their times - so much so that they work pretty well even today.

But if you look at it the other way, what have we done? What have we created?
We are using a system of governance that was dreamt up ages ago without even bothering to tailor it to our current circumstances … forget about creating something that will work for future generations.

Now, just how shortsighted is that?

personality test :)

Your Personality is Somewhat Rare (ENFP)

Your personality type is enthusiastic, giving, cautious, and loyal. Only about 8% of all people have your personality, including 9% of all women and 6% of all men You are Extroverted, Intuitive, Feeling, and Perceiving.

How Rare Is Your Personality?

governance

Is democracy really the best system of governance?

One of our news channels has been covering a story about one of our para-military divisions. The members of that force want their salary etc. to be at par with the armed forces since their duties are as risky and the nature of their work, they feel is similar.

As part of the campaign, one guy has been detained on charges since mid January if I remember correctly. Now, many of the members of that force have gone on a signature campaign and have sent a letter to the President of India asking him for his intervention.

Apparently, this is illegal - members of the armed forces are not allowed to form unions or take collective action of this sort, and every signatory to the petition could potentially lose their jobs at the least.

While the logic of the law is understandable, probably something meant to stem out mutinies at the very basic level, I found it somewhat ironic that the people charged with the duty of protecting our freedom need to give up their own rights.

This led me to consider the fact that no matter what the nature of the political system of a state - be it communist, democratic or dictatorial (and whatever other vague combinations are possible) - the ones that are charged with ensuring that the way of life of the state is not disturbed by external influences is always the army. And, all armies have a more or less similar, authoritarian, strictly hierarchical social order.

Julius Caesar - may his soul rest in peace - was probably among the first that died for what was perceived to be an opposition to the cause of the republic. And most mature governments have always tried to ensure that the army is kept where it ought to be ... on the borders … and away from the cities and the seat of the republic – the parliament or whatever you decide to call it.

However, perhaps we should consider whether the manner in which armies are governed is a more efficient and natural order for society as well.

(Perhaps, on the other hand the army can also consider whether it is better to follow the prevalent social order within their ranks - for example, an officer in a democratic army could be voted out of office for taking decisions that his subordinates don't like!)

World Women's Day

Thankfully no one calls it WWD as yet :)

In the spirit of the day, I would like to wish all the women in the world a wonderful day and all that ... while knowing that today despite being the day it is, there are millions around the world who probably will have to go through the same crap that they do every day and face the same injustices and brutalities that they have suffered so long.

On a more optimistic note, I would like to shrink it down to the women in My world. Those that cared for me from child hood and even before, those that were friends, those that are friends, those I have been good to, and those that I have not been so good to, those that I care for, and those that care for me .... Thank you for making my world so much better.

To be a little ruminative, not sure whether that is the right word as the thought itself is more forward looking than backwards, I think that this is probably a time when this has much more meaning than ever before.

Thanks to technology, we are on the brink of an era when one of the most important of the relationships between men and women - that of procreation - will cease to require two. There will be cloning, and thanks to genetics, I am sure that down the line, even those in a same sex marriage will be able to have children who are a genetic cocktail of both.

We will probably be the ones to see this one relation that was considered imperative, become optional. When that happens, I am sure that there will be social changes. Mutual respect is the only thing that will hold things together then (apart from love). And it helps to begin early.

Frankly, I would prefer to be in a world where there was no women's day or men's day - for that would imply that all were socially equal to begin with. Perhaps, I would prefer the day when these days would be a celebration of who we are and what we are ...

But till that day dawns, let us at least stop careening towards a time when the war of the worlds is fought on earth ... between the "Venetians" and the Martians ... and one has to win at the loss of the other ... for if one loses, both lose.

So, today, let us celebrate all the Women in the world and tell them just how wonderful they are ...

restless.

We are caught...
No. I cannot pretend to represent any one other than myself.

Every generation must have this problem - that of being caught between the old and the new. Things change ... and not always for the better.

I come from a time (or perhaps this has more to do with the sort of education we were given) when the biggest things in life weren't the size of your car, the carpet area of your house ... or how many frills it has which you shall ever use.

The reason I chose to be an engineer was to be able to create. The reason I chose to be a computer engineer (and perhaps the reason for my love of the subject in the first place) was that - at least on first impression - it seems to give a more immediate sense of fulfillment. Things get done faster ... and there are no bricks. So, to build your bridge, you need to begin by designing the brick itself. So, at the end of each day, you have the satisfaction of having done something new. of having overcome a problem, of having provided a solution, of being a step closer to your goal ... immediate gratification perhaps if you would like to call it so.

However, having migrated to a city, I too am caught up in the same things that I mention so disdainfully to begin with. Though I earn way more than my parents ever did, at the end of the day, everything seems to cost that much more ... so you are no better off...

These may be contentious things. What prompted me to start blogging tonight, despite having a terrible headache and a stomach ache to go with it is that I came across the biography of Bob Dylan on the History channel.

What I say may not be true for millions of people around the world. However, in my protected life (I have a family, a good job, a house over my head, 3 square meals a day if I choose to have them or have the time, my biggest problem in life is trying to ensure that I get enough sleep and some time to exercise), I don't see it being very easy to really go do something remarkable.

In a world where not a stone has been left unturned, most of the challenges left are the ones that we ourselves have created. War, terrorism, war on terrorism, crime, corruption, religious hatred (an oxymoron?) ... mostly created by us - to keep us preoccupied it would appear. But what has happened is that there are almost no significant and meaningful challenges to come by (easily). There are no new lands to find. There are no new hills to climb. Someone has pooped on the moon even.

When the big challenges disappear, what you are left with is a sheltered life. And the challenges are the small challenges - the terrible traffic, the quarrelsome auto-wallahs, the corrupt bureaucracy, the price of onions, the dust on the road, the power cuts - and half of these again may not really exist in our lives. Just watching TV, reading the paper and raising our blood pressure. Not enough challenges.

That leaves us with just one avenue ... work. What do you do? How much do you do? What do you accomplish? How much do you accomplish? But is that enough?

I am not a teacher. At the end of the day, unlike my parents, I won't have a list of kids I transformed in to men. Unlike doctors I won't have a list of people I saved. Unlike a nurse, I won't have a list of people I would have helped ... and I wouldn't have conquered any new lands either.

So, at the end of the day, what would I have done that wouldn't be for me or my immediate family? Something that would make a difference to the way people live? Not to be remembered perhaps - like the inventor of the wheel - but something that touches lives everywhere and makes them better?

Isn't it a terrible waste of all the faculties that we have been gifted with ... if all we can use it for is our own personal benefit?

I don't even know the right question to ask.

??????

here-ness and now-ness revisited

Over time I know I get boring and repetitive. I talk about hereness and nowness in quite a few of my previous posts. I have also mentioned that you teach best what you need to learn most ... misquoted and so on in a dozen posts.

Yesterday I realized that for all my preaching, hereness and nowness is exactly what is missing in my life (proving the teaching-learning thingy right). Ever since i started working, I have always assumed that the hectic schedules are temporary. That there will come a time when, miraculously, work will be less, and I will have a load of time on my hands in which to learn swimming, join the taichi class near my house, check out the art of living course, resume meditation, re-start yoga, take up photography in a bigger way, write a book, paint, write poems, go para-sailing, go sky-diving, go meet my granny, call up my friends more often, join the british council library (and the american council library if it was here), watch all the classic movies, read all the classic novels, go to goa - this has been pending since October 2000, take parents on a holiday ... recent additions to the list include spending more time with my girl, work on some of my ideas (techie stuff), work on getting an MS ....etc.

It has finally dawned on me that this is how hectic work will always be. If anything it can only get more hectic ... and take up more and more of my personal time. Given this scenario, if I keep waiting for a time when I will have time to do these things, I will have gone through life having done nothing at all. It is time that I understand that this is how life will be and work out a schedule that will allow me to do the things that I really want to do in addition to my work.

Hereness and nowness begins with being here now.

a tribute

Way to go before Teacher's Day so it might be a little surprising to some that I should want to talk about them this early in the year.

Today, came home a little early (relatively), and as I concocted up my dinner - which was tougher than usual considering that the maid hasn't come in for four days in a row and the plates in the sink have stacked up till they now reach the tap - I started watching a movie called "Dangerous Minds".

It is about a teacher trying to teach in a rough neighborhood. It is a lot more. It reminded me of the teachers that I have had ... all the way from the first standard till I graduated.

Having grown up in a small town, I had the good fortune of having been taught by people who, for the most, were teachers because they chose to be so. People who cared so much about what they taught and about the students that, honestly, back then, it was sometimes painful. It is amazing how they touch our lives and contribute to making us what we are in such a big way.

I cannot really remember my big city school teachers with equal fondness ... my loss ... because they all seemed to have become teachers after they had failed to do all else and they seemed to be perpetual fountains of frustration than learning. Though, to be fair, even there, there were some that cared ... and yes they too are remembered with as much fondness and respect.

Well, anyway, the intent of this post, before I tried to remember my high school and later years, was to be about teachers and a tribute to them. So, I'll leave it that way though things have fizzled down a bit all of a sudden.

This is a tribute to every teacher -every teacher that teaches out of a love of teaching, and out of love for the students. And especially for those teachers that I remember so well ... for everything.

Thank you!

On being an engineer

Today, a colleague and I were discussing whether we know enough. I complete seven years of work this year, and he has completed a little more than me. We were wondering where we want to be a few years down the line and whether we know enough today. thinking back to the time we had just joined the industry, we tried to recall how we felt around someone who had seven years of experience, and evaluated whether we really measured up to the awe that we felt then for such technical pundits.

I’ll leave that conversation there … for a while later, as I was fetching a cup of coffee, and still going over the conversation in my mind, I was trying to evaluate what changes with time.

Things are never really uniform and nothing that we can arrive at will really hold good for everyone. One of the biggest factors that I think changes over time is our confidence in converting abstract specifications into real entities. It may be argued that some people come in with this ability from day one and some never acquire it despite all the experience. The realist or the cynical might say that for two people that are equally brilliant and committed and all that balderdash, the newer person may be more willing to take risks while the senior may be risk averse given that he has a “rep to protect”.

The thing that struck me at this point is the truth of the fact about confidence. Engineers as a rule are optimists I think. Given a problem, I can’t remember a time when anyone around me ever asked whether it can actually be solved. Questions that are relevant and pertinent such are discussed. We do discuss whether it can be done within the allocated budget, with the number of people we have and within the time specified. But can it be done? Hell – NO.

Think of it and you will realize that this is how most engineers tackle problems. If you start with a belief that something cannot be done, it obviously will not be done.

Question: “So … can you send a man to the moon?”

Geeks Answer: “Well, let us see … what we need? We need a man, a vessel that can have air, water and food in it, and we need to be able to make it reach a speed that will cause it to break free of Earths gravitation. We need to aim it right, and if it is too fast then it will overcome Moons gravitation – we don’t want that! We’ll need to make some calculations … yup sure. We’ll do it!”

Question: “And warp drives? You think we can make space ships that will travel faster than light?”

Geeks Answer: “Hmmm. Tricky answer. Well … we have the theory of relativity and the special theory of relativity… we have proved that black holes exist which are like … ummm … singularities in the space time continuum … can we do it? Well, the current state of the art won’t allow it. Will my grandson fly to Saint Bernard’s Star over a weekend? Maybe not. Will his grandson make it? Provided we don’t blow ourselves up before that I am sure he will!”

More than half the things that we see around us would probably not exist had some one stopped to ask – “can this be done?” It may sound like I am exaggerating but everything from the mundane – like bulbs and cell phones – to the exotic – like stem cell research and space travel – it has happened because people have not really ever believed that something cannot be done.

If we can think it, we can do it as well. It may take a while … but it will get done.

It is a little disturbing that our thoughts could easily get constrained by our language. However, that has so far not been a problem. And though, we hit that barrier everyday, so far we have always extended language to encompass all that we have ever imagined (check out all the jargon in each field of you need proof). We have also formalized a way to create new thought structures – though it tends to be slow and tedious – so that a particular thought path does not get lost and need not be re-invented every time.

Nice thought isn’t it J sure makes me happy … hats off to the engineer in each of us … and maybe there is hope yet.

P.S. This is for my girl who will assume that I am being my conceited self (which isn’t always a wrong assumption to make) and just praising engineers because I am one. The word “engineer” as it is used here, is meant as one who creates or builds – which is not the how this word is defined in the dictionary (surprisingly). But then, to repeat myself, we humans have always extended the language to encompass our ideas … and this I guess is my contribution to the process.

Qualified to be a fighter pilot

The other day, someone was talking about a new concept of using gravitation as a medium for carrying signals. This would revolutionize communication apparently … though I almost immediately had the concern that if a circuitry misbehaved, perhaps we would see people floating around because of a weakened gravitation field or glued to the ground because of a strengthened field. I also expressed concern about the integrity of earth itself – which we all know is just a glob of mostly molten lava contained by a thin crust of solid earth with a thin layer of water over it and an even thinner and delicate gaseous atmosphere … all glued together by gravity.

However, since today morning, I am harboring the suspicion that just like cloning humans and various organs in tanks, someone somewhere has started working on this as well. And just my luck – the blithering godless idiot has a lab that is near my house.

Let me tell you why!

This morning when I woke up, it was like being on Jupiter. The G-force had increased at least 10 fold overnight. My eyelids were so heavy that I could hardly get them up … the quilt was impossible to put aside … my limbs refused to move … there I was on the bed … helpless … and I have no clue for how long.

The alarm went off … it lasts 20 seconds … but I could not move my arm to switch it off. Gravity was slowing my thought process too … and somewhere a train of thought … quite overloaded … like the trains during partition (only less bloody), arrived with the news that it was better to let the damn thing ring for 20 seconds than to try and move an arm to switch it off.

This gravitational anomaly would probably have kept me squashed under the quilt for the rest of the day had it not been for the suicidal tendencies of my house maid. At some point, I started hearing a distant, persistent buzz. It took a while to register that someone was at the door down stairs and was pressing the buzzer with the tenacity of a leech stuck to your foot.

There were a couple of options I figured. If the buzzer kept going for long enough, the coil of the electromagnet would probably burn out and it would be quiet again … but then there was also the possibility (and somehow I was convinced that this is what would happen) that the darn switch would melt and the finger pressing the button of the buzzer would come in contact with the circuit there in and start conducting electricity …

I conjured the picture (assuming that the gravitational experiment that was being carried out on me eventually ceased), I’d be able to get up and go down eventually, to see a singed cadaver still smoking on the porch of the house … perhaps even a crowd would have gathered wondering what the smell was all about … !@#@#$%…

Out of the goodness of my heart, I decided to save her soul and undertook the superhuman effort that was required to get out of that 10G zone. Just to go downstairs to open the door and have her remove her confounded finger from the buzzer.

Things got better after that. Apparently, the gravitation aberration was only in a small zone centered around my bed – which makes sense since the signal would need to be focused into a thin beam to interact with a specific cell phone – and the rest of the house was still at 1 G.

Thus, eventually I made it to office. However, it is my firm belief that anyone who has ever had to get out of bed on a Friday morning under the circumstances that I did has really experienced whatever an average fighter pilot or F1 driver does. All such people should be considered to be equally accomplished and qualified to participate in these activities as well!!!

So, I proudly announce that I am now a qualifed fighter pilot - though only by accident!

a poem

Today I was cleaning out my mails and stuff ... official spring cleaning ... when I came across some stuff in my drafts folder. I use the outlook drafts like a scratch pad ... scribbling things and often forgetting that I'd scribbled them.

I can't seem to remember whether this is something that I wrote out myself or it is copied from somewhere ... what I do remember is that it was about 3 years ago soon after we had maintained two minutes of silence for the accidental death of an employee.


Two minutes of Silence
Five days of Tears
That is all you'll get
For all your wasted years.


This cannot be copied I realize as I transcribe - bad prose of this sort is my signature style.

Can't help wondering whether I will make a mark in this world or whether I will be forgotten before the ashes from the pyre grow cold - as so many are. Not sure whether it makes any difference either ways ... and in the middle of too hectic a day to really ponder any further on this.

just like that

Of late, I have had very little time to blog. My posts, as a result have grown longer and longer ... there is so much to fit into one post when I do get the time to write. (Though I realize that I have an inherent tendency to write long posts anyway :))

I don't know how many of you have noticed the new soups ads ... If you have noticed, the ads say "no added MSG" or something along those lines.

A positive way of looking at that disclaimer is that they are being scrupulously honest. Most soups contain tomatoes, mushrooms and other things that are known to naturally contain MSG or the G part of it anyway ... and they are accounting for this in the ads. Remarkably honest.

The other way to look at it is that they know that there is MSG in their soup - and enough of it to put a disclaimer ... but why? Do they outsource production and don't they know the ingredients used by the 3rd party? Are they being lazy and not really measuring how much MSG on an average a particular soup will have given their methods of preparation? Do they know what they are selling?

I could even sell a packet of pure MSG and claim that it has "no added MSG".

As far as I am personally concerned, I couldn't care less whether they added MSG in my soup or not. I suspect that I would probably prefer it if they actually did. However, this pointless disclaimer has made me fretful enough to avoid buying these soups, preferring to go in for food items that do not make claims that I do not understand.

Communication skills matter. Between what I say and what the other person hears, is a huge gulf. There is the perception of the speaker, the perception of the listener. Further, not to be ignored are the perception of the speaker about the listener and vice-versa. If my granny told me that she hadn't added MSG to my meal, I wouldn't think about it twice for example :)

In a world where for various reasons, people have less and less time to understand, or come back and check whether they have got it right, it becomes imperative that we take responsibility for making sure that any communication we have is as unambiguous as possible especially when we want it to be that way - in ads for example.

a paradox ... maybe more

I am, as it were, "going to the mattresses" (an expression made famous by The Godfather). Tomorrow, there is a strike to protest a judgment in a water dispute between two states, and though it is all for a "good and just cause", it is always the commoner that gets hit the worst. So, while we are praying and hoping that things will be fine and there wont be any violence, I have enough food to last me a couple of weeks (maybe more if I ration it out), and unless a mob comes and drags me out and burns me or something, I should live past this day.

As I sat after dinner today, surfing the channels, I was wondering about my next post. I wasn't sure whether to talk about the strike tomorrow or just generally ramble as usual. In general, there is always this dilemma that I have. Should I make this blog a happy place ... or should I make it a sad place. Till date, I have just let it be whatever it becomes without making any conscious efforts to portray a specific facet of my thoughts.

A couple of months ago (perhaps more), I once went searching for some of the most popular blogs in India. Almost invariably, they were extremely disturbing. Many of the authors appeared to have scrounged the news papers only to regurgitate everything back on their blogs, after having added a little additional information and copious amounts of venom.

The reason I have spewed some venom in the last paragraph is probably because they were so disturbing. This isn't just about blogging. It is something about life itself. The other day, after a pretty taxing day at the office, I came home to turn on the TV and switch to a news channel as I prepared dinner. There was the usual death and gore. However, there was something that really sickened me. The gist of it is provided below (It is really disgusting. I didn't eat much that night ... so feel free to skip the paragraph):

A man had stolen a hammer from where he worked (worth about 100 rupees). He had stolen it apparently because his daughter was very sick and he did not have the money to get her treated. The owner of the place where he worked (I don't remember the nature of work) traced the man to his home with a gang of about 6 people and almost beat him to death. When his wife begged and pleaded for his life, they said that they would let him live if she allowed them to rape her (agree to rape??? - this was how the narration went though). She agreed to this, and after they were all done, they killed the husband and left.
The media reported that the latest on the case was that the cops were now calling the lady everyday to the station to ask her horrible questions as a part of the "investigation".

The problem I face is how to deal with things like this. Everyday, the world seems to be getting worse. It isn't really. It was pretty much the same during all ages. It is just that this sort of behavior seems more unpardonable at this juncture in our history when we for all logical purposes are capable of rising above such dastardly acts.

Perhaps for the first time since our fore-fathers walked this earth, we have been able to find cures for most of the diseases. We understand the human body better; we understand the human mind better. We have enough food to eradicate hunger ... there probably was enough food at all times but not the technology to distribute it where it is needed the most. We now have the technology ... but do we have the will?

All of humanity seems to be disintegrating at the seams. All of a sudden, we have new untreatable diseases that are cropping up from only god knows where. We have AIDS, bird flu, mad cow disease ... we have our own version of the crusade going on. Read about the dark ages in history books and such ... I'll be darned if the future generations don't label our times as the darkest of dark ages - a time when humanity doggedly maintained its "animality" despite having the option to rise above it - provided there are any future generations of course.

At a personal level, there are two ways of living life. Be a part of the rat race and worry only about the size of your paycheck, yearly bonus, stock options, size of your car, and the frills in your apartment. Or, try and change things. Believe in a humanity that is less and less visible ... and strive to bring that out in people. Give your life for it if required. Works for the poor, work for the under-privileged ... make a movement out of it.

Life is never about either-or in the country that was the birth-place of the middle-path. So, we can be in the rat race, and send off a monthly check in charity to some organization that might be misusing the money for all we know and be done with it.

Thought works differently from speech. I didn't think this entire trash sitting in front of the TV. The thought that hit me then was a paradox (which perhaps is known to others but I am often stricken by the obvious).

We always take hermits to be the very epitome of self-sacrifice. Those that have given up all worldly stuff and are out seeking higher things. The opposite would be royalty - in the midst of every worldly pleasure possible, inextricably tied to power...
But, really, the sage and the hermit are the selfish ones. All that they care about is themselves. As long as I get moksha, who cares if the rest of humanity is at war or peace or whatever?
An ideal ruler on the other hand, leads a life that is for the people. Making their woes his own, guiding them, helping them ... every action that he takes is for the good of others. His life really never is his own.

What I can't seem to find for myself is a balance between caring about what is going on around me and not caring. Looking at the bright picture and looking at the not so bright side. To misquote Richard Bach in illusions, all that you need to do to remove a dark cloud from your life is to remove it from your thoughts. That can be done easily enough. But is that the right thing to do?

What is right and what is wrong anyway? If we look at the Bhagvad Gita, it seems to teach us that it is never an act that is right or wrong ... it is the intention. This is perfect and logical in a world where morals change on a regular basis. It is a perfect definition because it is not set in any absolutes. It changes with the times, without changing at all.

It is one thing to read, another thing to understand. What you do though for yourself is very far removed from either. I can only hope that there will come a time, when having experienced enough of life, and having thought enough, I will know where I wish to stand with respect to life. And I hope that whatever I find for myself is as fluid and static as the words of the Gita so that I don't have to keep re-inventing the wheel.

In the meanwhile, it is the mattresses for me ... and as us heathen say ... this torment is perhaps all a part of my karma :)

Just discovered the Slow Movement!

Here is a link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slow_movement

enjoy ....

the ubiquitous safety pin

Decided to write on this a few days ago - towards the end of last week.

Tried composing it offline for the past 30 minutes or so before realizing once again that it does not work for me. A horrible waste of time considering that I have so little these days, and had I started here, the post would have been completed by now.

It all started the other day when I was getting ready for office. The strap of my office ID broke, and I was looking for ways to fix it. It was then that I realized that a safety pin could have helped ... needless to say that I did not have one available. The ID therefore went into the rear pocket of my jeans, and there it stayed for pretty much the rest of the day ... except for those blessed moments when it was pulled out in order to open a door or two.

It came back home at the end of the day - remotely representing something that we'd done in computer graphics way back - a Beizier surface. That, however, is not the point of this post and I should not digress so easily.

The point of this post is the safety pin - or the lack thereof in our daily lives today.

Going to office takes me a while. I still haven't worked up the courage to drive or ride on the rabid streets of Bangalore. So, while my almost new, three year old bike gathers dust in the parking lot, I walk out from my home, run across one of the aforementioned rabid roads and stand under a tree waiting for an Auto to take me to office.

The tree in question finally decided for itself that winter has arrived (some time about two weeks ago), and shed all it leaves overnight. Much to my dismay, added to all the other inconveniences that this city has to offer, I now stand waiting for an auto under a tree that provides no shade. Enough reason for me to light up in the interim and smoke while I wait for some auto-wallah to bestow me with a glance and perhaps even condescend to talk to me ... and rasp "tirty rupeees saar" for a distance that is worth just about half as much. (Breathe : the author suggests that the reader stop for breath at appropriate intervals. Given the length of some of these sentences and the post on the whole, it is possible that a careless reader may swoon for want of air. Be forewarned!)

The only point of the above paragraph being to establish the fact that I get time to think over things on my way to office. That established we shall now return to the topic at hand.

The safety pin.

The safety pin brought with it memories of mom, and most of the women of her generation. They always seemed to have a bunch handy. That reminded me of some of the older girls I knew then. Most of them seemed to carry enough on them to execute a break in or car-theft at any time. Apart from the safety pins, there would be the hair pins - the wavy sorts - perfect for picking the best locks that any locksmith has ever devised.

Up to this point, I was very happy and full of that happy warm feeling that you get every once in a while. However, as I finally sat in the rick to get to office, my thoughts took a slightly more somber turn.

I realized that safety pins had all but disappeared from the arsenal of the women I now saw about me (hairpins too; probably something to do with the advanced anti-theft systems installed in most of the new cars). And, I couldn't help worrying about the kids today - can you imagine a kid's world without safety pins? A hundred buttons always missing, the hanky always lost unless pinned to the lapel ... button fly’s missing buttons (darn embarrassing) ... and to add to the chaos ... no safety pins!

I really felt for the tots of today.

The apprehension was not just about the safety pin. I realized that it had slipped away from my life without my even being aware of it. I shuddered to think what else might be missing already and when I will wake up to the fact.

More than anything else, I wanted to thank all those women who were always there for me as a kid ... mom, aunts, older cousin sisters ... with their hankies, their hair pins ... and yes ... their safety pins. I grew up safe cocooned in all that safety.

I hope and pray that all the women today - the mothers, the aunts, the older sisters - who are all so caught up in their work and hectic schedules never lose their magic for the kids. I hope they never lose their safety pins....


"Tirty rupeees onlee saar ... no change".

a need to blog

2:30 am in the morning.

It has been a while. New Year's eve came and found me at the office and the rest of the month has been pretty much the same.

Finally, at the end of the first weekend at home, after a couple of days of sleep, and self cooked meals, relaxed.

Went to bed early ... around midnight but sleep wouldn't come. Decided to meditate for a while and did so with some success for the first time in about 3 years. Haven't felt this good in a long while. Every muscle un-taut, every sound crystal clear, every sight, every smell...

Left the lights off and walked around a while... then walked downstairs, looked out to the deserted street in the light of the one street lamp throwing long shadows. The long grass in my unkempt lawn swayed slightly in the breeze as did the tree on the other side of the road.

Lit up, and sat down to listen to the ticks from the two wall clocks ... one in the living room and the other on the landing on the way to the bedrooms. The two are slightly out of sync and it is easy to mistake the sound of one to be the echo of the other. The curtains rustled a little in the wind. Watched the light shine off the mosaic floor, the glass table, the TVscreen ...

Peace. Even the dogs had stopped howling for a while.

As I stubbed out and proceeded upstairs, the dogs started again in the distance ... an orchestra of sorts - longish howls, short yelps, guttural growls and myriad other variations. Thought I'd share the moment. It has been such a while. The need to express is so strong and gets so much stronger with each passing day that you are unable to fulfill it.

Have been reading some shorter posts every now and then ... when I could squeeze in a couple of minutes in my schedule ... can't help wondering if I'll ever shut up myself :)
Whether I'll ever feel like I have said all I can or want to ... or when someone will shut me up saying something as corny as ... "you say it best when you say nothing at all" ...

Good night .. and good repose!