rambling again

Woke up early ... have been having problems sleeping of late and surprisingly, woke up at 5 this morning, and despite trying my best to sleep again, I could not resist the temptation to be up and about.

Brushed, made myself a cup of coffee, gave parents a wake up call so they wouldn't miss the flight home, and then decided to blog... after a stroll on the terrace, enjoying the early morning fog.

Since I prefer to write my posts in one go, generally I finish all my other browsing before opening the blogger page. Today, while I was checking my yahoo mail, my gmail, orkut and what not, (thanks to IE7 this is easier to do now without cluttering ur desktop ... though this feature has been around in other browsers that I have been too lazy to install).. I remembered an old poem that I really loved as a kid. Reproduced here, hopefully without any copyright violations (hopefully not as it is already available at a million sites all over the web):

An Irish Airman Foresees His Death - by W.B. Yeats

I know that I shall meet my fate
Somewhere among the clouds above;
Those that I fight I do not hate
Those that I guard I do not love;

My country is Kiltartan Cross,
My countrymen Kiltartan's poor,
No likely end could bring them loss
Or leave them happier than before.

Nor law, nor duty bade me fight,
Nor public men, nor cheering crowds,
A lonely impulse of delight
Drove to this tumult in the clouds;

I balanced all, brought all to mind,
The years to come seemed waste of breath,
A waste of breath the years behind
In balance with this life, this death.


The number of views on this poem were numerous, not surprisingly. I was a little disappointed to find that most people are so tied up with the trivia though ... that this poem was written on the death of Major Robert Gregory.

The reason it had touched me then, and moves me even today is because of the passion in the poem. Unlike some reviews I read, I don't think this is so much a poem about pessimism as it is about passion. It is about choosing to do what you want to do, choosing it over all else, no matter what the consequence, and reaching the very zenith in the field of your choosing.

I realize that my view of the poem is just another view, taken from my point of reference and is neither any better nor any worse than the other views that I read and failed to concur with. As a writer, (if I may take the liberty of calling myself one) I realize that my writings do often get triggered by incidents around me. However, the writing is never really as much about the incident as it is about my interpretation of it. This poem may have been triggered by the death of someone he knew, but I fail to believe that Yeats was just trying to represent the martyred major.

When I decided to blog this morning, it wasn't meant to be about poetry. It was to be about something different. It was to be about finding one's center ... and how, finding your center is not really a one time activity. We are often led to believe that one fine day enlightenment hits you like a bolt from the blue .. and there you have it ... provided you have slogged for it :)

Perhaps self realization does hit you that way, the thing that isn't so obvious generally is that just like a bolt of lightning, it doesn't really stay with you. It hits you and it goes. And, there is no knowing whether it will ever hit you again.

Attaining self realization is not so easy as maintaining that state of self realization. If one were to withdraw from society and live as a hermit, perhaps it would be easier. However, while trying to live a normal life with its idiosyncracies and everyday glitches, it is quite easy to lose your center ... and having lost it, finding it again is as tough as the first time ... perhaps more so, since having been there done that, you get frustrated more easily when you find that it is still as elusive as it ever was. Imagine going from tree to tree in the hope of another lightning strike!

I don't know whether all this makes much sense ... it does to me though ... and to steal some words again (for someone has expressed it better than I can) "You teach best what you most need to learn" -Richard Bach (Illusions)

No disrespect intended, but I just realized it probably sounds better the way I render it : "You teach best what you need to learn most".

:)

alone again

Haven't felt like writing for a while. Started writing a post on euthanasia a while ago but deleted it when I was halfway through it. I don't generally save posts as drafts to work on them later and post them - which is why, a lot of thoughts go unrecorded ... but then on the bright side, most of the posts that do end up getting written also end up being quite candid.

Parents left today. They are still around in fact. I came back home once they went past security, and they were to call once they boarded ... and they haven't yet ... (mom called just as I typed in that last ellipse ... they are boarding)... came back home, and decided to blog before I get back to my work ... which has been interrupted so often of late because of various personal problems ...

Living alone is a habit. And, like all habits, once broken, it takes time to get back to it. Coming home to an empty house, cooking for yourself ... I am not really cribbing. I love the solitude... I love the time it gives me to think ... uninterrupted ... it is because of these long periods of solitude perhaps that I am so comfortable with myself. Many of my friends tend to call on me regularly whenever they are alone because their family is out of town .. and many of them ask how I manage ... I don't manage. I thrive.

Getting back to the other side of the tale, it is difficult to let parents leave. Life has almost come full circle. I still remember the days when dad would take me out to get my shopping done before leaving for the hostel, and how we would sit together and figure out a budget and dad would give me enough money to last a while ... he lived in Arunachal for most of his life ... and the postal services were notoriously inconsistent, so I never knew when I'd be receiving my next draft ...
Now, I generally take them to a mall, get them what they need, and somethings that they aren't quite that certain about but I feel they need, and then I figure out the budget with them, and give dad the cash he wants, the tickets, the hotel reservations, checking and double checking, ensuring his cell phone is topped up, that they have all the contact numbers, that my friends will be there in case they need some help ... all the while, giving them the respect and sense of independence that they always allowed me ...

So there... alone again ... this time though, it probably wont mean that the number of posts will increase for I have tonnes of work to catch up on .... for now, let me enjoy the chill in the air ... and the sound of the ceiling fan (which I refuse to switch off despite the current weather) ...

I'd have watched TV .... But watching TV isn't half as much fun when you don't have to convince someone why the program that you intend to watch is any better than the program that they want to watch :)

unsung song

Tried writing songs for a while, while I was in college. We were hardly a band ... just spent many lazy evenings on the terrace singing whatever songs we liked and strumming the guitar ... summer of 69 used to be a favourite with everyone I remember.

Today, in the middle of an otherwise busy day, suddenly a couple of lines came to me and I thought I'd jot them down ... see whether I still have the art ...
I love country music ... and this is meant for the Kris Kristofferson kinda singer!

Disclaimer: Please don't take the lyrics to be my personal status in life ;-)

I don't pretend to be a singer
I don't pretend to be a star
I am just a battered old stranger
In my run-down old car

And there are times when I slow down
And there are people who think they touch
But all they ever feel is ...
Maybe it is just I that don't feel so much

As I drag on a cigarette
I wonder 'bout the past
For my dreams now lie in ashes
All hopes stubbed out in the dust

Yeah ... that's about it ... funny how life goes on.

a death in the family

Reached home just a little while ago after a tiring but fun day at the mall with my parents.
The phone rang ... and now my uncle is dead.

English is inadequate as a language at times. It fails to capture our social and family structures. Though "uncle" sounds suspiciously like a friendly neighbor, I am talking about a blood relation today - the second oldest of my Father's brothers.

Have tried to continue for the last few minutes ....

May he rest in peace.

et tu brute ....

then fall Caesar.

betrayal ....

It does not matter how many times or how often you are betrayed ... it never gets any easier to take. As Shakespeare had Mark Antony quote ... it remains the unkindest cut of all.

And so Caesar fell ... but I don't suppose he had much options then.

What makes man so different from most other animals is the ability to put that space between a stimuli and the corresponding reaction. So what do you do when you are betrayed? Do you fall? or do you stand? You sit perhaps ... from the shock and the pain ... just because you do not want to do anything rash ... to try and fully comprehend the magnanimity of the situation... incongruous ...

What do you do?

lots to write

but finding it extremely difficult to fit it into my current schedule. Yesterday morning, I woke up at 5:30 despite having slept very late the night before, and for some reason, I could not sleep. The reason was that I was thinking too much. Can't quite remember what triggered it. This is what I can remember:

I woke up feeling a lot like Neo ... with that vague feeling that something isnt really right with the world ... something is missing or wrong ... The night before, the news had mostly been about violent incidents in various parts of the country .. and something I just cannot figure out is why.

At a time when we as a race are more technically advanced then we have ever been (at least with regard to documented history), when we have the power, perhaps for the first time to actually have some control over our lives ... At a time when man need not fear any animal or natural event that is short of a catastrophe, all of a sudden, the biggest enemy of man is man himself. I cannot walk out on the road without looking over my shoulder because I could get killed for my caste, my religion, my race, my nationality, my political beliefs ... it is so terrible and so sad.

When we have gone to the moon and found that there is no lady on it ... neither a rabbit, and when we finally realize that god isn't out there ... but in here, how can we still fight over religion? It is like going back to the dark ages ... crusades and stuff ... before you know there'll be dragon slayers.

I guess every generation has its share of pessimists and believers in doomsday scenarios ... and though I try not to be one, I see very little hope for us as a race. What makes our times the saddest is perhaps because for the first time, man has the power to look beyond the known horizons ... even at the stars ... but all we are doing is de-generating into a medieval society.

Not sure how to make this post more coherent because there are a million facets to it .. and none of them very nice. From the spread of terrorism to the spread of anti-terrorism ... the creation of the virtual leviathan - the corporation - and how money is all that matters suddenly at all levels ... and how technology can be used to know everything about you ... the big brother syndrome ... being caged in the name of freedom ... being monitored 24/7 .... no higher purpose to life ... fast cars ... faster cars ... big houses ... bigger houses ... politics ... value education ... morals ...

Each bloody thing in that list is a topic on its own ... and though I got carried away and wrote a lot more than I thought I would, I realize that it is just incomprehensible babble .. much like my thoughts were in that half awake state ...

But we need to do something. We have to do something.
How can we make this a better place for the future generations?
How can we make sure that the future generations are better than us?

How? How? How?

Despite humans being .... well ... humans!

half a century

Haven't blogged for a while, and as I sat down today to blog, I thought I'd name it "9 times" ... based on Cliff Richard's song:
9 times out of ten I tried to kiss you
And I even tried just 9 times again
But for every 9 times that I miss you
Baby I'll get you on number 10

... something like that ... corny... not sure that I remember the lyrics correctly and am too lazy to check them out. The reason that this song happened to be on my mind was because I'd just tried to log on to the office network about 9 times ... and i decided I'd leave the 10th attempt for later.

Then, as I logged on to blogger, I realized that this was to be my 50th post. A mile stone of sorts if you care for that sort of stuff ... I don't particularly ... but then, I had screamed on my 32nd ... so why not on the 50th. Actually, it brought to the forefront a thought that I have been having on and off ... whether I'd like to pass my blog on to someone down the line ... whether it makes sense to do so ... the thought was, half a century later (though I doubt I have that many years left in me), if I was still writing here, it would perhaps be time to look for an heir .. heiress perhaps :)

Otherwise, a typical saturday here. Trying hard to catch up on sleep that I have missed during the week, staying a few extra hours with parents since they will soon be heading home again.

December ... winter ... I try not to think about it. Clear blue skies, sunny days, but with a chill in the air.
As a kid, winter was a time of mixed emotions. Generally, our school would get over on the 1st of December or thereabouts, at 11:30 in the morning, after the last exam of the final term, for a full 3 months. The school didn't reopen till after holi in March generally. So, there was the happiness associated with not having to go to school for all of 3 months ... and not having to study ... but it also meant not seeing or hearing from your friends for that much time. Somehow, that was a little bothersome ... in a poignant sort of way. I never was certain, and am not, even today, if the nip in the air was the only thing that made the last day of school feel the way it did.

On the other hand, for me, almost every year, it also meant that I would be travelling to wherever dad happened to be living at the time ... so I would come back home to a house that was being prepared for a 3 month lock down ... throw all the stuff that can rot ... cover anything that can get dusty ... close the windows ... pack your bags ... sometimes dad would be there to take us, and sometimes we would travel alone .. as in my mom, brother and myself.

I miss that yearly pilgrimage. I miss those 3 months of carefree fun, when I could play as much as I wanted, and read as much as I could lay my hands on (yes I was a bookworm ... anything and everything in the library would get devoured) ... I miss that opportunity to rediscover one self, to rejuvenate ... and to simply live.

Life was a lot less complicated then. We did not know that anything could hurt more than a scraped knee. We did not know any pain more than a game lost. Not for ourselves, nor for those around us.

Pain isolates people. When you are in pain, all the empathy and sympathy just help you realize just how alone you are in your pain. And so much so, that even if a pain revisits ... as in even if you are pained by a similar set of circumstances, having known the pain does not help you come any closer to alleviating it.

So then, here is to pain, and our understanding of it .. and a little cliched perhaps, but to our childhood, and to innocence lost :)

thE mundanE

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.

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!

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!!!

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!

David Swan

Been thinking of writing this for a while but time hasn't permitted me to write a new post.

I am not sure how many of you have come across the works of Nathaniel Hawthorne ...
He was an American novelist and short story writer.

We had his short story - David Swan - in one of our literature books in the 10th standard. It is a remarkable story ... umm ... it may be easier to take the gist out of the story itself .. and i quote:

"We can be but partially acquainted even with the events which actually influence our course through life, and our final destiny. There are innumerable other events--if such they may be called--which come close upon us, yet pass away without actual results, or even betraying their near approach, by the reflection of any light or shadow across our minds. Could we know all the vicissitudes of our fortunes, life would be too full of hope and fear, exultation or disappointment, to afford us a single hour of true serenity. This idea may be illustrated by a page from the secret history of David Swan."

The other day, on orkut, I realized that every item that we enter in our profile under interests etc. becomes a hyperlink that allows us to find other members with similar interests. This intrigued me, and as I had some time available, I decided to check on the results for the people who liked the same books that I do.

The lists were huge, and after clicking on a couple of profiles, I realized (with some sadness), that there was no point in pinging any of these people .. for given my history of maintaining (or not maintaining) my existing friendships, it was hardly logical to try and acquire new ones.

I couldn't help thinking however of all the people in the world I haven't met who would have been as good friends as the ones I already have ... of all the people that I shall never know ... whom I might have liked knowing, and of all those people who shall go through life without the privilege of having had my exalted company =/;D

That is what reminded me of David Swan ... not with respect to events .. but with respect to people ... there are so many people that we almost meet and we don't .. so many people that we do meet but never really get to know ... perhaps because we are too caught up with our daily lives ... or maybe because of certain social prejudices ... out of distrust of strangers perhaps ...

And that made me think of the friends that I do have ... the ones whose presence we take for granted ... the ones that have always been there. Isn't it mind boggling ... the probability that this person would ever be in your life given a slightly different set of circumstances?

Here is an idea ... as usual, the bulb lit up as I was typing ... and I'll probably be too lazy to do anything about it myself:
Can you think of the first time that you ever met some of your friends? Recall the circumstances that led to the meeting and calculate, what are the chances that you'd actually ever have met!!!

(oops!!! the language is a little convoluted up yonder... especially at the end ... but try and get the soul of it without getting into the language)

a why to live ....

If I remember right, and if it is not a figment of my imagination, there is a saying that goes something like .... if you have a "why" to live for, you can answer almost any "how".

So, this morning, I was trying to figure out what my "why" is ... and whether I can see a "why" in the lives of the people around me ... and it struck me, though I realize that this may be just a perception based on my own state, that most people probably don't have a "why" that they really feel is worth it.

Given my tendency to generalize, I think that this may be a root cause of all the turmoil we see around ... people searching for a "why" a reason ... a cause .. if you may ... to help them answer the "how"s that they need to answer on a daily basis.

I am not very comfortable discussing my "why" or the lack thereof at present ... but this sort of leads me to another question ... something based on the end of the Lord Of The Rings triology ...

I do not have the LOTR with me, and despite googling for it high and low, I was unable to find an e-text version of the same. However, if I remember correctly, just before Frodo takes off for good, he leaves the book that he was completing with Samwise ... so that he may add his bit to it. Which presumably Sam does, and then sends to a publisher and he lives happily ever after on the proceeds from the sales. Evidently, whatever Sam himself does after Frodo leaves is not worthwhile or interesting enough to be in the LOTR ...

The disturbing part is that Frodo having completed his quest leaves ... Sam, is stuck here. In a book, it is very convenient for Frodo to disappear into the blue ... but, in real life, every "why" that we have may not last a life time ... every reason, every cause, every quest may and eventually do come to an end. What then?

In LOTR, Bilbo Baggins faces that problem ... but we are so caught up with Frodo, we don't realize this till ... well, I realized it now as I am typing this out. So, even for those that have a quest, a "why", there may come a time when there is nothing left to do.

It is therefore not enough to have a "why". One has to continually re-invent this "why" ... probably through introspection ... which unfortunately, we don't seem to ever have enough time for... and so, slowly over time, we slip into a world where there are no quests ... and unless you have been on a quest that has given u enough satisfaction to last a life time (I doubt this is possible), you are haunted by a vauge formless unease which (today I feel) may be your realization that there is a big un-answered question ... what is my next "why"!

So ... do you know your "why"?

found a shamrock ...

This morning, on my lawn, to my surprise, I found shamrock growing in small clumps scattered all around ... I even photographed one! Add to that a single forlorn daisy ... the first I have seen since coming here ...

The shamrock reminded me of ireland. I would like so much to believe that somehow a few seeds came with me and that is how these flowers have suddenly appeared ... though that is so far fetched!!!

In a while, my posts will probably again take on the usual hues ... at the moment, my vacation is still very much in my mind.

Here is my favourite kitten ... this one kept me company almost all the time that I was at home, following me around like a puppy during the day, and even following me to the bed at night to snuggle by my feet ...



The bigger one ... She'd come over too but generally preferred to keep to herself apart from meal times ... here she is raising a friendly paw ...

The dog took a long time to get used to me ... allowing me to actually touch her only on the last few days. It is kinda weird to see two cats and a dog living in harmony ... there is so much we can learn from animals ...

Here she can be seen sniffing the air suspiciously and pretending that I am not even there taking the photograph.

Cute things aside, why do you think so many of the rich and the famous are so concerned that you and I have our daily dose of Cola? From early in the morning to late in the evening, they keep appearing in the middle of myriad programs to remind us that they are still taking their daily dose and it is recommended that we take ours. I can't help wondering whether it has to anything to do with the fact that we have to pay for drinking the concoction ... sometimes shelling out an additional buck to have it chilled ... whereas these big shots get paid for taking their little gulp infront of the camera (and spitting it out as soon as the camera stops rolling (perhaps))!

Assuming that these Colas do get manufactured under stringent conditions and are not the bane that some would have us believe they are, could the point of contamination be the bottling plants... and the bottle re-cycling process ... what sort of water do they use to wash and clean the bottles? What do they do to ensure that there are no solids in the bottle ...

Why does any one drink colas at all? (apart from adding it to old monk or whatever)

Getting there :) getting into form ... juss gimme a lil time!

been a while

itz been a while ... a pleasant while.
not much to write really (as usual) ... just getting used to the feel of the keyboard again.

the break was great ... as was darjeeling ... as were the 2 cats and 1 dog that kept my company for most of the last coupe of weeks.

add to that meals cooked by mom, fruits from trees that grow in your own back yard, afternoon naps, blue skies, snow capped mountains in the distance, and an irritating wasp trying to build a ... what do u call em ... nest? ... in the room. if this isnt a picture of heaven as it ought to be .... picture the room itself ... absolutely crammed with books from my childhood ... from the entire set of britannica to other assorted new age encyclopedias to enid blytons to george g gillmans (edge and adam steele) ... cowboy comics and commandos ... you name it ... i even found a richie rich lying in the stack :)

yeah ...

i'm back!

turpentine

here we go ... as purple as phantom's body suit! I guess he hadn't heard of camouflage dressing ... or perhaps, it was easier for the cartoonist to show him clearly against a jungle background and make sure no one missed who the hero of the comic was ...

thanks folk's ... some of you thought i was gonna stop blogging .. that aint happening yet ... though the back problem did stop me for a while ... and i am taking time off (from work and the internet) for the next 3 weeks .. so wont be posting till mid october again.

this morning, as I was bouncing along in the rick towards office, I noticed an auto on the other side with the banner "Infant Jesus". Which reminded me that I have seen that on quite a few vehicles of late, and made me wonder whether it has anything to do with our country's fascination with having a male child. After all, the name of Jesus generally conjures up the image of a young man with a flourishing beard and rather lovely eyes as depicted in most pictures that I have seen so far ... why the obsession with his infant avataar?

Which got me wondering that though almost all the names from the bible are in common use even today, the most important one is never used .. or atleast I have not come across anyone named Jesus ... there are Johns and Jacobs, Mathews and Marys ... but no Jesus ... and I wonder why?

Would it be blasphemous to name a kid after the prophet? That goes against our traditional concepts of naming ... the names of almost every other prophet that I know of are in common use even today. In fact, hindus even name their kids after their gods ... one reason being that every time you call out the name, you are also calling out to god ... and that is good for your health in the afterlife.

One other possible reason, I deliberated, might be the way it all ended ... while most of the other prophets had a rather peaceful ascension, this was rather painful ... and perhaps parents are reluctant to name their kids after him out of fear that their progeny may meet a similar end?

That reminded me that the name of Judas is also not used ... which reminded me of Bivhishan closer home ... and then I thought given an option, of being in another Ramayan, would I rather be an Indrajeet or a Bivhishan .. and I settled on indrajeet (this might have something to do with the fact that the Indrajeet on our national telivision's version of ramayan looked quite a bit more rocking than poor Bivhishan with his paunch and bad skin etc.)

Around this time, the auto finally rattled to the front gate of my office ... with the meter reading at about 4 bucks more than what it should for 3 kilometers ... which after some quick calculation I realized meant that the meter was running at 30 paise more per kilometer than what the govenment recommends ... and there began my day ... with my version of the battle of kurukshetra :)

Thoughts fleeting by... slipping and sliding into one another ... as though they were all slithering on ....





yes ...


turpentine ...

off blogging for a while

My back is still kinda killin me...
Dunno how many ppl actually read this space (apart from my conceited self) ... however, thought i'd let ppl know ...

should be back by next week hopefully ... else it'll be mid october (after durga pooja)!

lots to write about though ... darn@!%#

whatz with monday mornings?

woke up with a neck so stiff that breakfast had to be milk with painkillers ...

struggled downstairs and sat on the couch in front of the TV, after having unlocked the gate and brought in the newspaper. A rather beautiful morning but for the fact that I was struggling to hold the newspaper while the maid came in late and tinkered around the house in the pretense of cleaning it. Finally draped a towel around my neck and shoulders and tried some vague stretches ... that probably just worsened the condition.

Eventually managed to get up, take a shower, and crawl to the auto stand. Autos don't have good shock absorbers, and auto rides are bumpy. Two axioms as it were, but I realized just how true they are for the first time today ... with every jolt, my neck would go into a spasm of some kind.

Reached office, tumbled down to the cafe, grabbed breakfast and was just beginning to feel better when I happened to feel a small bump on the left side of my temple ... now there is a whole bloody line of them, stretching all the way from my receding hairline to my relatively dense eyebrows. What is interesting is that the ones higher up are bigger than the ones lower down .. like air bubbles in a swimming pool. Now I don't know whether this is an allergy to the pain killers or some creepy crawly got me good!

Just another bloody monday morning! Good morning folks!

Finally it didn't take a Darth Vader ...

to destroy a planet.

very conveniently, innocuously, discreetly seated in some squat white washed building with glass doors and the AC humming as it spews out CFCs, someone quietly destroyed a planet.

Lo! And Behold! Pluto is no more ....

My Very Educated Mother Just Sent Us Nine Planets!
That is how we remembered the planets and the order of their occurrence back in school.
Now, our kids will have to conjure up the image of a mother with some debilitating illness perhaps, that has claimed one of her fingers, very enthusiastically bringing up both her hands to give a high nine! sigh ..

So for all those who think star wars is hog wash, as a race, we have destroyed one planet and are well on the way to quite literally destroying the one we happen to be sitting on as well.

3rd grade astronomy classes aside, this also shows how short sighted we can be with respect to what we perceive reality to really be. I often hear people say that there is something wrong with Hindu astrology because 2 of the planets there in, do not correspond to any of the nine planets in our solar system. I am not taking a stance on astrology here but isn't it obvious now how we can have 2 planets in an ancient system that disappear in the next only to be replaced by some other planet with a name like XC12345%$^&*!

Another important thing to remember at this point, is that all classifications are made just so we can comprehend reality. Our classification of reality is NOT the reality itself. (refer to Quality and I - my second post). Irrespective of whether you call Pluto a planet or a dwarf planet or forget its very existence, nothing short of a genuine Darth Vader can stop the little runt - held together by gravity and goo - from hurtling at thousands of miles per seconds, cutting across the orderly orbits of the other planets like an Indian motorist, from doing just that ... as it always has! So, someone has gone and changed its classification, and someone wants to organize the folks to give it back its planetary status ... hah!!! (arms wide palms extended outwards, eyes staring at the ceiling)

A good time to think of what Don Shimoda had to say about negative attachments too ... when Richard is practicing cloud vaporization, and trying to hit out at the cloud with all his lasers and stuff, Don wonders how the cloud actually vanishes despite all the negative attachment (attachment being the keyword here). Don explains how to make a cloud vanish, you just need to remove it from your thoughts! Well, for the unbelievers, how did it feel one morning to wake up in a solar system that was one planet short ... darn it disappeared while you were ... ahem .. anyways.

Somehow we never ever thought that USSR would ever become just R, and well, the solar system, it was here to stay. It began way before our times, and it would stay long after we were gone ... till Sun became a red giant and gobbled up Mercury and Venus and singed our mother planet before shrinking back and finally going out ... not even massive enough to be a black hole ... and there in some dark corner of a spiral arm of the milkyway galaxy, to revolve forever around a dark center ... constant ... and damn that changes too.

On the bright side, perhaps this will open up the possibility of more things getting included in the solar system ... what was it? The Krupier belt I think ... a few more objects on the periphery of our perception ... and perhaps we will be better equipped or prepared mentally to cope with the even bigger changes that are yet to come ... in things as fundamental as how we govern ourselves ...

So, on an otherwise pleasant September morning, I raise a toast for the dear departed ... Pluto ... that it may be happy wherever it is. And should it be re-incarnated or resurrected, we shall be here to raise another toast to it ... (wonderful isn't it ... this whole raising the toast thing ... I think I'll raise one more to the ingenuity of the folks who created this whole toasting tradition ... hic!)

understanding and agreement!

i realize that this is related to my last post ...

the other day, it occurred to me that often people don't really believe that you understand them unless you agree to the point of view that they are expressing.

if it is difficult to visualize this in an abstract way, think of a time when you have explained something to someone. at the end of it, if the person said something that was not in agreement, you would try to explain again ... if the person claimed to understand, you smile at yourself and say, he thinks he understands ... i know he doesn't.

i am not getting the words right... perhaps because something as simple as this should not require so many words ... in short, comprehension need not lead to concurrence. and we need to give people the space to disagree.

this sort of fits in with the teaching/not teaching thingy i spoke about last .
when i say that i need not agree with you just because i understand you, it probably appears to be obvious. however, in our daily lives, we sometimes forget. and in having put it in words, and having reminded myself of it, i have now created the space wherein I can allow you to disagree!

agreements disagreements understanding and misunderstandings aside, the other day a friend of mine gave an extremely beautiful example of how we need to understand another person before we can help them ....

it is similar to that proverb that says that in order to learn, one needs to be like a bucket ... and relate to the teacher as if he were a tap ... as in, to learn, you always need to place yourself below your teacher ...

what my friend had to say, was that if you want to bring somebody up to a common platform (assuming that your evaluation of their current status vis-a-vis yours is right and they have any desire of accepting this benevolence on your part) think of it as helping a child to watch the parade ... to raise him to your shoulders, you need to kneel down to his level first ... please don't argue that you can pick him up and toss him on to your shoulders :)

so finally, what does all this mean? that any relation, binary or otherwise, needs to be based on respect and understanding. while the student needs to have humility and patience in order to be able to learn best, the teacher needs the same attributes in order to teach best.

humility is not about debasing oneself infront of another but about recognizing the strengths of the other and giving them the proper respect for that.

darn mosquito!!!!
this post shall be served half baked so i can take care of other contingencies!