Short.Confused.Arbit

Qi

2011-12-10T23:08:00.001+05:30

You and your negative Qi

Me and mine.

The Feng Shui lady was wrong.

Be nice to the next person who comes in.

Goodbye.

Tattoos & Regrets

2011-12-07T13:08:00.001+05:30

I got myself a tattoo 2 years ago. Thankfully, as of this moment, I'm not regretting it. And I hope to never ever regret it. In fact, I've had plans of embellishing it for a while now.

But the better part of this year has been spent in quite a bit of regret about some of the decisions I've made. Thankfully, my support system of family and friends is superbly robust and I've hopefully come out a more sensible person on this side of my adventure. Yeah, for all it's stress and nuisance, it was an adventure.

I've always tried not to be ashamed of my regrets. It's difficult, but I make an effort to acknowledge them and hopefully learn something from them. And when I came across this talk on Brain Pickings (falling in love with this blog!) yesterday, I felt it was fitting to share it with the world.

Funnily enough, I happened to chance upon this video at a time when I'm all set to ctrl + alt + del my life. Again. It's comical. Almost. Heh.

"The point isn't to live without any regrets, the point is to not hate ourselves for having them… We need to learn to love the flawed, imperfect things that we create, and to forgive ourselves for creating them. Regret doesn't remind us that we did badly — it reminds us that we know we can do better.”

Worth a watch.

If you ever meet an alien

2011-12-06T00:19:00.001+05:30

This poster is cult. It's also worthwhile for all to go through and remember. Just in case.

Wedding Season Musings

2011-12-03T00:42:00.001+05:30

With one of my dearest friends getting married last week, my responsibilities for this wedding season are officially over. Some musings on the season that was.

With Facebook as a point of reference, I can safely assume that EVERYBODY I know is at one stage or another of the "Find mate - Date - Marry - Have kids - Generally be happy in life" cycle. As for me, on a normal day, my thoughts usually swing back and forth between

and

As if there weren't enough awkward social moments around already, there is a new one on the block - Wedding Invites on Facebook. I find handling these invites a rather tricky task. Because most of them are from acquaintances who aren't close enough for me to make the effort of attending their wedding but then they aren't complete strangers either. So I can't just reject the invite because that would make me come across as a rude heartless woman who doesn't want to have anything to do with your moment of joy. So till someone comes up with a socially acceptable response to this new found nuisance, I have decided to just let the invite languish till it expires and on the day of it's expiry I leave a heartfelt message to the person getting married in an attempt to redeem myself of my socially ambiguous behaviour.

Two weddings and neither of them had the most irritating video camera guy shining his gazillion watt bulb on your face and record your actions as you impatiently waited for him to go away. No close circuit TV on which the cameraman would project your face and then embarrassingly freeze it for all to see and laugh at. Definitely a change for the better and I hope this trend catches up with others planning to get married as well. Who watches those videos later anyway?

But.

There were awesome and irritating photographers at both weddings.

Ones which made the bride and groom repeat their actions so they could be captured perfectly. Ones that made the groom change directions so they didn't have to be disturbed from their cosy positions. Getting married is an extremely personal and romantic moment and the bride and groom should be left alone while they are at it. And pesky, over enthusiastic photographers totally ruin the sanctity of the ceremony that is supposed to be so special and intimate.

But great pictures. So I guess, no one is complaining and my rants account for nothing.

Almost as if to balance the awesomeness of people getting married all around me, I heard of a marriage gone terribly terribly wrong. Totally convinced now that getting married because everyone around you is expecting you to get married and because it is the 'right thing to do at the right time blah blah' is the worst thing you can do to yourself. Also convinced that intuition plays a big role in getting people together. And when you know it, you just know it and you gotta wait till that 'know it' moments comes. And be prepared to accept the fact that it may, possibly, never come.

Vidai.

That one moment in a daughter's life that totally undoes every other screwed up moment she has had with her parents. And being a particularly difficult daughter myself, I know how screwed up things can get with parents.

When I saw my friend bid adieu to her mum and dad, it struck me that this has got to be the single most difficult moment of a girl's life. To leave your parents and go away to call some other place your home. And no matter how difficult and impossible things with your parents are, they are your parents - the only people on earth who can put up with your nonsense and still love you. And that one last hug is hard to let go off and totally wipes the slate clean of any misgivings you might have about your mum and dad.

I think Vidai was invented for this sole purpose only.

To Do: Make To Do List

2011-11-25T12:12:00.001+05:30

I have a truck load of packing to do for a wedding I have to attend. The kind of packing the requires one to make a To-Do list. How daunting. And while I was been busy procrastinating for the last hour just going through all my RSS feeds for the day, look what I found (click to expand):

That my friends is a recreation of the To-do list of one of the most awe-friggin'-some humans to have ever lived on this planet - Leonardo Da Vinci.

This blog led me to this beautiful illustration by Wendy Macnaughton done for a yet to be published book Da Vinci's Ghost: Genius, Obsession, and How Leonardo Created the World in His Own Image

Just look at the things on his list. He has "Draw Milan" on his list.

His To-Do for the day was to draw an entire friggin' city. Besides learning how to 'square a triangle' and 'measure the sun'. And after he's done with doing all these awesome things, he has to remind himself to 'Get some Sleep'

All my list has is

Pack clothes.

Lock cupboards.

Carry money.

Close all doors.

Bah, how daunting.

Nature. Beauty. Gratitude

2011-11-25T11:27:00.001+05:30

One of the most beautiful and inspiring videos I have seen in my life. Goosebumps!

We have so much to be grateful for, we can't even begin to imagine.

Thanks Rohini for sharing it!

Bad news never had good timing.

2011-11-23T11:00:00.001+05:30

I don't know what they did to the poor kid in school, but my maid, Rosy's, 5 year old apparently had concussions on Saturday and he had to be rushed to the hospital. Rosy tells me, she suspects he was beaten up by the teacher. Ever since, the boy has been having a fever that won't subside.

So the little boy was subjected to an EEG and the family took him to NIMHANS a multiple number of times before they could meet a doctor. The doctor has informed her that the concussions were the side effect of being extremely frightened and there is nothing to worry about.

But Rosy isn't convinced. And for some reason, she has sought some sort of a solace in me. So after telling me every detail of her ordeal, she asked me for one small help. To go through the EEG report and tell her if the doctor has been lying or if everything is indeed okay. Apparently, the boy has had 'fits' before and she thinks this recurrence could mean something more serious than just fright. I agreed, obviously with the caveat that I might just draw up a blank on reading the report.

I did go through the report today and I read phrases like "abnormal electric activity" "requires clinical correlation" and the sense I could make of these disjointed phrases was that, there is something going on there and it could be nothing or something and that can be confirmed only by a doctor.

Bummer.

I've been feeling queasy ever since I saw the report.

Firstly, where is the world headed when a woman would rather trust me than a qualified doctor with telling her the "truth".

Secondly, what is this "truth"? Is the boy okay, is something wrong with him? I hope the doctor who told her it was okay is right. The helplessness is very unsettling.

And finally, for a moment there, I was put in a position where I had to break 'bad news' to someone. Since I wasn't sure of what the report actually meant, I thought it best to tell her what was written, verbatim. The weight of her expectant eyes as I read the report was too much to bear. Imagine someone pinning their every hope on your next words. Can't even begin to imagine what a doctor goes through when he has to break the news of a loved one being beyond cure to her family. And her face just lost all colour when I told her what it said. I wish I could just tell her that the report was nothing. But I didn't want to tell a lie that could prove a hindrance to any further treatment that might be required.

She's taking him back to the doctor today. I hope the kid is okay.

Desiderata by Max Ehrmann

2011-11-17T22:14:00.001+05:30

(Awesomeness of the day, thanks to the sister, whose blog, by the way, you should totally read)

Go placidly amid the noise and the haste,

and remember what peace there may be in silence.

As far as possible, without surrender,

be on good terms with all persons.

Speak your truth quietly and clearly;

and listen to others,

even to the dull and the ignorant;

they too have their story.

Avoid loud and aggressive persons;

they are vexatious to the spirit.

If you compare yourself with others,

you may become vain or bitter,

for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.

Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.

Keep interested in your own career, however humble;

it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.

Exercise caution in your business affairs,

for the world is full of trickery.

But let this not blind you to what virtue there is;

many persons strive for high ideals,

and everywhere life is full of heroism.

Be yourself. Especially do not feign affection.

Neither be cynical about love,

for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment,

it is as perennial as the grass.

Take kindly the counsel of the years,

gracefully surrendering the things of youth.

Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.

But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.

Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.

Beyond a wholesome discipline,

be gentle with yourself.

You are a child of the universe

no less than the trees and the stars;

you have a right to be here.

And whether or not it is clear to you,

no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God,

whatever you conceive Him to be.

And whatever your labors and aspirations,

in the noisy confusion of life,

keep peace in your soul.

With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,

it is still a beautiful world.

Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.

These are a few of my favourite things

2011-11-15T00:57:00.001+05:30

Okay, I confess. I don't know the answer to that question. I might have said blue the last time you asked and it might be purple today but no, I really don't know what my favourite colour is. Also, I don't know what my favourite movie is. Ditto for actor, actress, brand, sitcom, food, restaurant, book, band, singer.

Nope, I don't have favourites. And really, what *is* this whole obsession with getting to know a person's favourite (fill blank). It's a really lame conversation starter and a really lazy and superficial way of getting to know someone. Also, what exactly are you going to do with that information? If I tell you that my favourite singer is Beiber, are you going to begin to hate me (or love me) from that moment on?

And for those who do have 'favourite' things. I have only one question for you guys, *how how how how??* How did you manage to pick one awesome thing from a bag full of awesomeness. Didn't you get tempted to put it back and pick another awesome thing? Is it *that* awesome?! I somehow get the feeling that 99% of the population is totally making up answers to that question anyway.

I for one have always had difficulty picking one favourite thing. I love a lot of different things for what they are and I am capable of hating those very things when the context changes (SRK in DDLJ vs. SRK in possibly every other movie). And when I do talk of favourites, it's usually in the past tense and ridden with nostalgia. Like how Superhit Muqabala used to be my favourite show on TV after Mowgli. Sigh.

I think, with so much choice and so many distractions today, the question is becoming increasingly dicey to answer. To have something become your favourite, you have to have had the chance to interact with that thing on a consistent basis. And I don't see that happening today, what with a new face on TV everyday, a new sitcom every month, a new movie every weekend, a new restaurant in town every now and then. Leave alone favourites, I can't even seem to remember their names these days.

It's time to indulge in variety to have a long list of things you love and to share that list with people and to talk about all the things on that list. And it's definitely time to stop asking that question or if you are the one being questioned, to stop making up answers.

512 kbps.

2011-11-13T10:46:00.001+05:30

Fits and starts.
The long wait for a spurt of activity. And then some more waiting.
Annoying. Unfair. Bah.
And there is little choice, but to wait.
And give it time.
No circle here, emptying and filling itself.
To remind you that something is happening in the background
No percentage counting up to soothe your impatient nerves
Right now, even a lying countdown would do.
But there's nothing, everything just frozen.

Time for an upgrade.

Tintin

2011-11-11T23:13:00.001+05:30

I managed to catch Tintin in 3D on the first day of it's release today. Haven't enjoyed a movie this much in ages. It was almost as awesome as the books. I guess it's the strong sense of nostalgia that I have associated with the books that made the movie so enjoyable.

I'm so grateful to my dad for having introduced me to the awesomeness that is Tintin. As a child, Tintin was just about colourful pictures and the antics of Thomson and Thompson with a plot thrown in for the extra effect. But it was as an adult that I fell in love with the books.

It's difficult enough to bring a story to life through panels of pictures. But here was a book that brought to life not just a story, but an entire adventure. And a fast paced, action packed one at that. It's easy to get an entire crowd's adrenaline pumping through some bad ass visual effects. But to get a reader, probably reading the comic alone, to sit almost on the edge, wide eyed and pumped up and to do it one panel at a time. That's just sheer genius.

In one of the articles on the movie doing the rounds on the Internet, the writer noted that as the audience walked out after the movie was done, a young boy complained that Captain Haddock didn't sound the way he did in the book. And that was so true for me today. My Tintin had sounded completely different and so had my Captain Haddock. When I read the comic, I could hear every sound, every crash, every thud. I'd hold my breath as the place crashed one panel at a time. How awesome must you be to take millions of people through that experience just by drawing it so perfectly.

I feel sad for the people who'll live their entire lives never having read those books. Never having lived the adventures.

And that brings me to the scary thought that I'm going to live my entire life never knowing about some of the other awesome things in life. So many many things to know and experience and I'll probably manage just the tip of the tip of the tip of the iceberg.

But for now, I think I'm going to try and get my hands on the books again. Thank you Herge. Thank you Spielberg. And most importantly, thank you dad.

Choice

2011-11-10T17:11:00.000+05:30

"You suffer your choices" somebody's status message on my Facebook wall tells me gravely.

"Dear one, look at all the choices you've made. What a mess. Now you'll have to suffer for them. If not you, then who?"

And then there is 'suffer' - to experience, to allow, to tolerate

To tolerate and experience all the choices you've made, wherever they may lead you. And to never regret them.

So beautiful.

Saving the scraps

2011-11-09T18:08:00.000+05:30

I have this notebook that I carry around with me all the time and every once in a while, I indulge the writer in me by scribbling stuff into it. With the notebook nearing its end, I was going through all the stuff I've scribbled in it seeing if anything needed to be salvaged.

And hence, these rants. All stuck in the past. Some totally out of context right now. But I like the way they sound when I read them out. So I'm going to save these scraps. For posterity. For a time that was.

---

I remember being particularly bored one rainy day in Mumbai. And I ended up switching on a Korean channel subtitled in English. It was a panel discussion with some young couples and this really really funny professor. He was a sociologist. And he said some brilliant stuff about life in general. One particular thing he said rang so true, that I had to run for my notebook and note it down before it disappeared from my thought forever. And it was this one sentence:

'How many times in a day do you go "WOW!"'

He said some other stuff that I've noted down which may seem out of context right now, but when he was saying it in that show, they sounded brilliantly true.

'A man lives to be impressed'

'A constant sense of wonder and curiosity.'

'Praise and encouragement are necessary for faster growth'

(All through the show I couldn't help but wonder, where is all this awesome content on Indian TV??)

----

'Bandwidth: What does that even mean? Does it mean you don't have the time or does it mean you don't want to take the effort to make time?'

----

I spend days feeling like I haven't contributed anything. And it worries me that, that everyone around me, no matter how small or big is feeling the same way. Because when the PPTs are done and the emails have been sent, there is really no real answer to the question, "Did I make a difference today?"

(this was on a particularly bad day at work and hence the cynicism)

----

It's unfair to let a plant die when all it needs is some water. Almost let mine die. Thankfully, sense got the better of me and I watered it yesterday. And today, there were new leaves. Already! Seeing new leaves on my plant always fills me with a sense of hope and a child like glee. Makes me want to go "Hurrah!"

----

Got so angry with someone at work today. Had to remind myself that 5 years, heck, 5 days down the road, this moment would neither be remembered, nor matter.

Anger management. Heh.

----

Today I was reminded that work is just a means to enjoy life. What is the point of slogging your butt off if you can't make it to a one off Comedy Night on a Wednesday? Work is a means to life. Not life.

----

Writing with a brand new sharpened pencil is just so comforting. The pencil is a symbol of everything that is simple and beautiful. It stands for a time when worries were scarce and life could be lived with a sort of careless abandon. When things were more forgiving because the eraser was always on your desk.

----

Mumbai, a strange city where the strangers are more helpful than the people you know.

----

Nandu.

Nandu has come from Nepal. He is the caretaker of this guest house I'm staying in. In the short span of time I've stayed here, I've gotten rather attached to him. Probably because he is the person I "go home to" everyday after work. Listening to him talk about his family and wife back in Nepal tells me how lucky I am. His is a struggle, not mine.

----

People open up a lot in this city. I had this woman I shared the guest house with tell me about her family and today, a senior of mine at work opened up to me about how she managed her career and her motherhood. She reminds me of my mom - brave and ambitious and doing a great job of balancing the act.

But why are people discussing random personal details with a total stranger like me? What solace does one find in pouring your heart out to a person who has absolutely no vested interested in your life? I think this city does it to people. You are so alone even when you are in a crowd. There is so much to say but no one with the time to listen and every instance you get, you spill you gut out. I'm just glad I was their moment of solace, if at all.

----

The first time I click on the START button to log into my Outlook express. A moment loaded with anticipation and hope that may be today, there is something exciting in store for me. It's almost like the START button is the key to how my day is going to unravel.

----

I'm really jealous of people who have an opinion on things. Okay, I know opinions are like A-holes and everybody has one. But there are these people I know who have these super solid, super informed views of life and everything around them and they always make me go, "Damn, why can't I ever think like that?"

----

Chemistry...

2011-09-15T21:26:00.000+05:30

I cannot begin to describe how much I hated chemistry in school. I don't think I ever managed to balance an equation correctly. I mugged my way through all those metallurgical processes and organic chemistry was a nightmare I slept through 2 years straight. And when I wrote my last chemistry paper in the first year of engineering, I thought I was done with that cursed subject for good.

And then I fell in love with baking.

It's like chemistry lab all over again, just short of pipetting the ingredients into each other. But so much more fun. And for a change, I actually understand this sort of chemistry. Just caught hold of a book "How Baking Works" (http://www.amazon.com/How-Baking-Works-Exploring-Fundamentals/dp/0471268569). I used to wonder what was the point of learning ALL THOSE formulae and processes if I was never ever going to need them.

Turns out, I do need to know what happens to baking soda when it comes in contact with water and why I need to add the egg to hot cream and not the other way around. And obviously, all that weighing and measuring I considered to be a torture device invented by my chemistry teacher to flunk me in salt analysis lab, well, I should have paid more attention. In my defense, if I had been weighing sugar and not some ugly smelling salt, I'd probably would have paid more attention.

So basically, chemistry did come back in my life, but thankfully in a good way and not just to bite me in the you-know-where, like most other things tend to come back in life to do. And I highly recommend baking classes instead of chemistry classes in school. At least the poor children will remember stuff. And they can have their chemistry and eat it too. Waah!

Success...

2011-09-09T18:40:00.000+05:30

You may be an anonymous software engineer doomed for all of eternity to sit in that little cubicle and they'll still put you in the "doing well in life" category.

But the fashion designer who runs a little boutique down the road, making clothes for her small group of loyal customers will be promptly put into the "getting along/ nothing happened of him/her" category simply because he/she isn't as famous as Rohit Bal.

The hypocrisy.

Kitchen...

2011-08-26T23:42:00.000+05:30

There is something about a squeaky clean kitchen that clean doesn't quite cut it. A squeaky clean counter softly reflecting the bright tiles in it's black granite. The sparkling steel stove, still warm from the food that was cooked on it not too long ago. An empty sink, the whole kitchen smelling of lemon soap. The sight is just so... de-stressing.

A perfectly set kitchen is a thing of beauty. Spices in matching glass jars glinting away from their shelves, sharpened knives that just melt through perfectly ripe tomatoes, squeaky clean pots and pan, A cutlery for every need, a pan for every purpose. Can anything be more delightful?

Unless, it's the food that is being cooked in it. The wafting smell of spices as the Sambar gently simmers waiting for that last piece of carrot to cook. The smell of freshly cooked rice that hits your nostrils as you open the pressure cooker, unfailingly reminding you of mom every single time. The tantalizing smell of fried potatoes with a hint of curry leaves, somewhere about there. The crackling sound as the appalam hits the boiling oil, taking but a second to turn into a crunchy delight! And just like that, an entire meal. Happiness!

Spoiled.

2011-08-24T01:14:00.000+05:30

I am the spoiled child of middle class India.

My parents struggled so that I could have it all. And I have it all - the expensive degree, the latest mobile and the coolest laptop. I have everything, except a purpose.

I choose to be miserable. Because being miserable gives me a strange sense of purpose. It creates an illusion, that in a world full of striving people, I too am struggling.

My miseries are strange and mostly concocted – bad jobs and bad bosses, dreams of sea facing apartments and Ferraris, peers who are supposedly better-off than I am. But they keep me going. After all, I’ve never really known any real reason to keep going.

My “coolness” is just a front for how hollow I am on the inside. I don’t show it, but I’m ridden with guilt. I crave to feel really useful. To feel really needed. By someone. By anyone. And so I contribute to charity, and claim my tax exemption.

A part of me wants to step out of this comfort zone and make a difference, make a real contribution. But the bigger part of me is just too lazy to make that effort. A part of me wants to have something I can call my own, something that will be my legacy. My creation. Mine. But the bigger part of me is just plain clueless.

A part of me is ashamed. A bigger part of me is shameless. A part of me is grateful. A bigger part of me is thankless.

I am the spoiled child of middle class India.

Beautiful Words...

2011-05-17T21:53:00.005+05:30

These words are a testimony to how beautiful and powerful the vernacular can be and how inadequate English is.

Dépaysement

A French word that means "The feeling that comes from not being in one’s home country."

Wabi-Sabi

A Japanese word that can be roughly understood as “A way of living that focuses on finding beauty within the imperfections of life and accepting peacefully the natural cycle of growth and decay.”

L’appel du vide

A French word that literally translates to “The call of the void”, but more significantly, describes the instinctive urge to jump from high places.

My super favourites...

Ya’aburnee

An Arabic word. Both morbid and beautiful at once, this incantatory word means “You bury me,” a declaration of one’s hope that they’ll die before another person because of how difficult it would be to live without them.

Saudade

Portuguese – One of the most beautiful of all words, translatable or not, this word refers to "The feeling of longing for something or someone that you love and which is lost.”

The Leaking Bucket List...

2011-03-17T00:06:00.004+05:30

Quit a job on impulse and start a book store
Go bald and restart the whole hair saga
Scratch right across somebody's shiny Merc
Drive around town on a pink Lambretta
Walk up to the boss, give him/her the dirtiest look possible and stomp out filmy style. Never to return again
Audition for a reality show
Participate in a protest march
Sing an Aerosmith number. Aerosmith style.
Elope
Unwittingly become some sort of a YouTube hero, like the Casey kid
Do the Cadbury dance in a stadium
Go to work wearing Paragon hawai chappals

3 philosophies...

2011-03-05T23:03:00.004+05:30

Three ideas/philosophies that I get all evangelical about.

Live and let live or To each his own.

You let me do my thing and I'll leave you to do yours. As long as I'm not coming in your way, there is not reason why you should be coming in mine. You stay on your side of the fence and I'll stay on mine. Come over anytime you like for a little chat and I'd be more than happy to listen to what you have to say and serve you my choicest tea. But that's that.

An eternal childhood.

Are you so busy pretending to be all grown up that you've forgotten how awesome it used to be to be a kid. Keep that mature hair cut and attitude of your adulthood, but can we please have the curiosity and the "non-prejudice-ness" of your childhood back?

Faith & Patience.

So you really believe in yourself right? You have complete faith in what you just did? Are you convinced and completely committed to your decision? And you gave it everything you had? Then could you please stop fidgeting and getting all self-doubty and wait for the damn thing to show some results? You've done your bit. Could you please let the universe do it's job now? Thank you.

Tongue tied...

2011-03-03T20:17:00.004+05:30

If I meet you/know you then one of two things is bound to happen -

I will either jabber away, or,

I will be absolutely, in-friggin'-sanely tongue tied and I will be at loss for words even when none are expected.

If I jabber away, then,

You are one of my closest kith and kin

I consider you a very dear friend

You are someone I'm being forced to talk to because the stars aligned really badly

If I go all tongue-tied, then,

I am going to ask you for a real huge favour eventually

You are a senior at work I truly regard

or, most importantly,

I have a serious thing for you.

My closest folks and dearest friends know who they are. If you are neither, and I'm jabbering away with you - you know what conclusions to draw.

But if I am behaving all "I-no-speak-no-Americano" with you, then please be assured that you are someone very important to me. Important enough to think that I owe you an explanation.

Explanation -

I make baseless assumptions about disturbing your really busy life

I fear being "stood up" on the conversation

I mortally fear making a complete fool of myself.

If someday I manage to overcome this paranoia, I would love to have a conversation with you.

Till then, know that I hold you in high regard and that I would be eternally grateful to you if you broke the ice first instead. But that's expecting too much isn't it.

And finally (like the extra footage in a collector's DVD),

There are moments when I jabber away after having untied my tongue.

These moments are reserved for those who have made such a big dent in my life that I have had no choice but to resort to these drastic measures.

A humble request though,

It may never happen again, so I urge you to be nice to me and not leave me out in the conversational cold.

Oh, and Kudos to you!

Some great truth...

2011-03-02T13:58:00.001+05:30

"Feel I'm on the verge of some great truth
Where I'm finally in my place
But I'm stumbling still for proof
And it's cluttering my space" ~Alexi Murdoch, Wait.
It's like I'm standing at the tipping point. I can feel the change coming. It could be awesomely super or it could all go horribly wrong. But its inevitable.
Faith. And patience.

21 years...

2011-02-28T16:25:00.004+05:30

I felt a baby kick inside a mother's womb yesterday. It was awesome! To be made aware of life by life itself. In there lies a whole new human being. Wow!

It reminded me of 1989. The womb had been my mom's. My little baby sister happily kicking around. Was she hungry? Was she happy? Was it too congested in there?

Obviously my 4 year old brain was too much of a child to feel anything but a sense of utter glee every time she kicked. Heck, we didn't even know at that moment it was going to be a SHE.

That was 21 whole years ago. The same glee I felt yesterday.

21 years is a long long time.

Woah!

The Conspiring Universe...

2011-02-14T14:30:00.003+05:30

So I'm sure everyone is aware of the whole "if you want something badly enough the entire universe conspires to give it to you" theory.

But I bet you didn't know there was a caveat.

The next time you ask the universe to conspire to get you something, be very very sure about what you are asking for. Word the request perfectly. Be clear and obvious. Be blatant and plain.

Because, and I have learnt this the hard way, the Universe sucks at understanding subtext.

Blame it on the paycheck...

2011-01-20T22:47:00.004+05:30

A friend and I were discussing about how little we actually work in a day.

My friend was of the opinion that on a really bad day there is only about two hours of actual work that happens in the 9 hours one clocks in. The rest of the day is spent in idle banter, Internet and sauntering in and out of the cubicle.

To which I suggested that I should then actually be quite happy with what they pay me. That much money for just two hours of work?!

To which she reasoned - they don't pay you for the work you do, silly. You're salary is more a function of how much you're likely to be blamed if something goes wrong. The more you're in the line of fire, the bigger your pay check.

Damn, no wonder I get paid so little.

Never to late...

2011-01-13T21:15:00.001+05:30

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover." -Mark Twain

The last word...

2010-12-30T23:32:00.007+05:30

"See, now that's your problem. You're wishin' too much, baby. You gotta stop wearing your wishbone where your backbone oughtta be." ~Eat. Pray. Love.

I've realized in the last year that after talent, knowledge, skill, luck, belief and logic have done their job, it's usually the 'G word' that makes the ordinary, spectacular; the mundane, exciting; the impossible, possible.

Guts.

Here's hoping 2011 will give us all more of that backbone we need to make our wishbones count.

'Expectation'

2010-12-15T15:46:00.004+05:30

is most decidedly my least favourite word in the English dictionary.

'Faith' & 'Patience'

Are rapidly climbing to the No. 1 spot on my most favourite list.

'Fate' and 'Karma'

following close behind.

Even though Karma is not even English.

Just like that...

2010-12-07T12:17:00.003+05:30

After months of passivity and slow death, the bamboo shoot on my desk did a whole re-birth jig last week. As I write this, there are 3 new leave waiting to burst into life.

And I can't help but stare at those lovely green leaves rolled up so neatly, opening only a little everyday.

Silly bamboo shoot, I curse, et tu? You silly inanimate little thing, you were on your death bed till last week. And now you're up and about and you flaunt your brand new life; sitting in the sunshine, on MY desk. Why do I get the feeling you're mocking me?

You came back to life. Just like that.

JUST LIKE THAT?

Marquez...

2010-11-23T20:06:00.004+05:30

"It was inevitable, the scent of bitter almonds always reminded him of the fate of unrequited love."

Thank you Gabriel García Márquez for showing a generation that does not believe in it, a love that could be so easy to fall in and yet so difficult, so eternal, so beautiful, so selfless.

Karma...

2010-11-22T22:15:00.008+05:30

I'm super jealous of people who firmly believe in the existence of God. Anything and everything that happens, they know there's at least one person who'll listen to them, who they can go running to. At least one person they can off load all their problems and guilt to and the night's sleep is guaranteed.

Me on the other hand. I am the hypocrite. I conjure up God every time it suits me and I feel bad for doing so because it makes me feel like an opportunist. And there is no one to bear the burden of my problems and guilt. I keep them all bundled inside my brain and I keep waiting for an answer. The problem with waiting is that as a non-believer, I don't know where that answer is going to come from and when and what I have to do for that answer. So I wait and wait endlessly.

The one thing I do believe in though is Karma. Your Karma will always catches up with you. You just have to bear the brunt of your Karma and if God is going to make that easier for you, then good for you.

For the rest, who like me don't know which door to knock at, the lord save us!

23rd Nov. 2010

I've been reading 'Jaya' - An illustrated retelling of the Mahabharata by Devdutt Pattanaik. What makes this book beautiful is apart from his lucid story telling skills, Devdutt gives his very own post-scripts to every event that happens in the Mahabharata in which he explains the little & difficult nuances of what that event implies.

Towards the end of the Mahabharata, Krishna and Balarama witness helplessly, as the members of their clan (the Yadu clan) go down the path of self-destruction thus fulfilling the curse Gandhari gives Krishna, whom she blames for the war and the death of all her sons.

This was the post-script to the incident. And I quote

"Krishna's family does not escape Gandhari's curse. Thus even God surrenders to the law of Karma. By making man the master of his own destiny and the creator of his own desires, God makes man ultimately responsible for the life he leads and the choices he makes. God does not interfere with fate; he simply helps man cope with it."

Amen.

Weeding out...

2010-11-20T10:18:00.004+05:30

I remember as a kid, I loved to pick weeds out of the ground and clear a patch of land. It gave me a lot of satisfaction to see something "clean". When it comes to life, easier said than done.

Though last week, I went on a weeding out spree. On Facebook.

I went to my friends list and unfriended (what?! it's still not a recognized word?!! The blasphemy!) like 40 odd people off my friend list. It was a simple 2 tiered test I used - if I couldn't remember ever having talked to them failing which if I couldn't remember their face, they were out. I am told Facebook sends out emails notifying people that they've been unfriended. Sorry guys, no hard feelings.

And then, I deleted 9 albums from my profile. All those I could never figure out why I put up in the first place.

It gave me a deep sense of satisfaction to weed out all that junk from my profile. Of course, piling up of other junk continues in parallel. Someday I shall weed those out too.

God, how much crap we let into our lives. It's unbelievable. And then one day, there's an avalanche of crap like the one in Idiocracy (it's an awesome movie, btw!) and then realization dawns that, okay may be now I should start wading myself out of this pile of unnecessary stuff I have and throw it away.

And we find our own ways of weeding out. Unfriending is one. Speaking your mind is another. But that'll take a whole different blog.

So long and thanks for all the fish.

Wishful thinking...

2010-11-18T13:50:00.003+05:30

This piece of wonderful wishful thinking was the brief for the European re-launch of an iconic brand

If I had my life to live over, I’d try and make more mistakes next time.

I would relax

I would limber up

I would be sillier than I have been this trip

I know of very few things I would take seriously

I would be crazier

I would be less hygienic

I would take more chances

I would take more trips

I would climb more mountains, swim more rivers and watch more sunsets

I would eat more ice cream and less beans

I would have more actual troubles and fewer imaginary ones

You see, I am one of those people who live prophylactically and sanely and sensibly, hour after hour, day after day.

Oh, I have had my moments and, if I had to do it over again, I’d have more of them.

In fact, I’d try to have nothing else. Just moments, one after another, instead of living so many years ahead each day.

I have been one of those people who never go anywhere without a thermometer, a hot water bottle, a gargle, a raincoat and a parachute.

If I had to do it over again, I would go places and do things and travel lighter than I have.

If I had my life to live over, I would start bare-footed earlier in the spring and stay that way later in the fall.

I would play hooky more

I wouldn’t make such good grades except by accident

I would ride on more merry-go-rounds

I’d pick more daises.

Nadine Stair, aged 87,

Lewisville KY USA

Every day of your life without a Harley-Davidson is another day wasted

Thank you Tanvi for sharing it. :)

Hey Soul Sister...

2010-11-15T22:43:00.003+05:30

You and me

And the same questions

Making up excuses for answers

And somehow,

The excuses you make for me

Sound way more convincing

Than the ones I have in store for you

Though I don't think I ever said anything different

How messed up we are

And yet, finding strength in you

Is so much easier

Than looking for it within me

From one messed up soul to another,

Hang in there.

The rope swing...

2010-11-13T10:19:00.002+05:30

The rope swing

Dangerously suspended from the branch

I knew it would break

But I sat on it nonetheless

The fall was bad

But it was awesome while it lasted :)

102...

2010-11-11T21:42:00.006+05:30

Part of a lovely speech I read. The thing that struck me the most, the part where he says Modern society is anti-love.

The other side of the coin is this: fall in love.

I didn’t say “be loved”. That requires too much compromise. If one changes one’s looks, personality and values, one can be loved by anyone.

Rather, I exhort you to love another human being. It may seem odd for me to tell you this. You may expect it to happen naturally, without deliberation. That is false. Modern society is anti-love. We’ve taken a microscope to everyone to bring out their flaws and shortcomings. It far easier to find a reason not to love someone, than otherwise. Rejection requires only one reason. Love requires complete acceptance. It is hard work – the only kind of work that I find palatable.

Loving someone has great benefits. There is admiration, learning, attraction and something which, for the want of a better word, we call happiness. In loving someone, we become inspired to better ourselves in every way. We learn the truth worthlessness of material things. We celebrate being human. Loving is good for the soul.

Loving someone is therefore very important, and it is also important to choose the right person. Despite popular culture, love doesn’t happen by chance, at first sight, across a crowded dance floor. It grows slowly, sinking roots first before branching and blossoming. It is not a silly weed, but a mighty tree that weathers every storm.

You will find, that when you have someone to love, that the face is less important than the brain, and the body is less important than the heart.

You will also find that it is no great tragedy if your love is not reciprocated. You are not doing it to be loved back. Its value is to inspire you.

Finally, you will find that there is no half-measure when it comes to loving someone. You either don’t, or you do with every cell in your body, completely and utterly, without reservation or apology. It consumes you, and you are reborn, all the better for it.

13 till I die....

2010-11-08T23:06:00.002+05:30

Okay, so the thing tattooed on my back reads "Eternal Child". And that's what I want to be all my life - a child at heart. Children are beautiful, curious, free of prejudice, adventurous, fearless. And I want to be all that forever as long as I'm alive. At least that's what I wanted till today.

The problem started when someone at work remarked at my picture today, "You look 13 and you are going to look the same even 20 years down the line."

That "compliment" has only one problem - When you are 13, nobody EVER takes you seriously.

So here I am, stuck with a face of a 13 years old. It's like the creator heard me wrong and instead of making me a child at heart, he's made me a child at face.

And it's all good to be lucky-you'll-never-age and all that, but sometimes it's just not happening.

For starters, people tend to take you a lot less seriously than a person who looks her age. You say something awesomely serious, and they give you that "Aw, look at the little thing talking like an adult" look. The same look a 3-year-old boy is likely to get when he talks about kissing. Sucks totally. And when they call you "cute", they actually mean "cute". And when you are an age much >13, you want to be called "cute" especially by the men but definitely not that kind of "cute". Oh and the men. The men forever want to take care of you and adore you and all that but they never want to ask you out lest they be accused of being pedophiles.

So suddenly I'm not too sure I want to look 13 any more. Or is there some way in which I can continue to keep my child-like innocent "cute" face and still be taken seriously. As seriously as an adult with her grumpy worn face would be taken?

All eyes on you...

2010-10-05T09:10:00.003+05:30

Stop looking at me

With those expectant eyes

Hanging on to my every word

Waiting for me to say

The words that will put your life in order

I'm here to put mine in place

Stop looking at me

Like I know the answer

I don't

The Papaya Job...

2010-09-04T11:58:00.003+05:30

So there I was, enjoying the perfect papaya. It had the perfect tinge of orange and the sweetness that could be tasted only in paradise. In short, with every bite, I saw a little bit more of paradise. It was simply the most delightful papaya I had ever eaten and it reminded me of... paradise.

But of course, like all ecstasies in life, this one too was amazingly short lived. Because my mind then veered to all the other things in this world that were perfect. And the sudden realization, that nature doesn't make perfect things. That when something is so perfect, it's because a human being has interfered with the natural scheme of things. Like Aishwarya Rai's perfect face - everybody says she got a face job and J-Lo's perfect butt - of course she's got the butt job. And those Facebook pictures of the perfect wedding with the perfect husband. Oh, never mind!

And so it was with my papaya - I imagined some farmer giving my papaya the papaya job. Lovingly injecting those genes and hormones and what not into the poor seed to give it that perfect orange and those perfect levels of fructose.

It's a different thing I ate that papaya up anyway. May be that's why I'm feeling a few steps closer to perfection these days. Because I think the only time one can be truly perfect is after he's dead.

Cut-Throat...

2010-09-01T21:57:00.005+05:30

"You know I have my interview tomorrow right? My friend just came and asked me if, after I was done with mine, I could tell her how my interview was and what questions they asked. What should I do? Should I share the details or not?"

Well I thought the answer to that lame question was obvious. Till I heard this argument:

"The friend's interview is an whole hour later. Which means it gives her time to prepare. So if I spill the beans, she ends up being better prepared. Which means she stands a better chance of impressing the interviewer. Which means, I might not get this job."

The only throat competition is cutting is that of basic human goodness.

Corporate Communication..

2010-08-27T08:35:00.006+05:30

Hope we had more of this stuck/dangling/emailed/distributed/PPT-ed in our office. It would do some of us a lot of good.

Meta-Memory...

2010-08-11T21:19:00.007+05:30

A completely weird theory has occurred to me. And it is this -

The brain is becoming a device that no longer stores memories but actually stores memories about memories.

You go on a trip, come back and promptly upload all your pictures onto Facebook. You blog about your experience, you tweet, etc. etc. In essence, you just upload all your memories onto some server and forget about it.

So what your brain then needs to remember actually is not the exact memory but the location where you've uploaded it.

"What was that restaurant we went to in Paris?"

"Wait, I have a picture of that on Picasa."

So essentially, the memory you have now in your brain is more like a meta-memory.

It's probably why we remember our school trip from a thousand years ago more vividly than we do the trip to Istanbul we took last month.

100...

2010-07-30T21:22:00.005+05:30

My 100th post and a 100 things on my mind. So excuse me if the next few lines don't seem to be heading anywhere.

Tada.

Firstly, a commemoration of my 100th post. I wrote the first post on this blog four years ago. Last year I didn't write a thing (okay, three posts don't count). Almost abandoned this blog. It was the worst year of my life. My will to write seems to be directly related to my will to live (as against merely surviving). Don't really know if that's a good thing!

Writing about writing.

I've completely abandoned writing poetry and fiction. Not like I was brilliant at either, but at least I was conjuring up something new in my head every time I tried. These days I'm just too hung up on making wry observations on the things around me. Sometimes I feel it's because I just don't want to take that effort to do something that's creative enough. Sometimes I feel the child in me dying. Some times I feel it's just not worth it. Either way you look at it, it's Tragic. Yeah?

Jealous. That's what I feel when I read some blogs. How do some people write like a dream? Where do they get all those words from. Those sentences formed so beautifully, the exact words that convey the exact meaning. The thoughts and ideas, so so beautiful. Lucid and flowing. It's unbearable to be made aware of ones short comings like that. Not fair at all.

Words.

There used to be a time I am told, when "love" was the only thing that was felt. You met a man, you fell in Love. The End. Look at us. We meet a man and what do we feel? We have a THING for him. We, ladies and gentlemen, have reached a point in evolution where we don't seem to have an appropriate word to express the feeling that was once called Love. And so we've chosen the most romantic word in the English dictionary to fill the void. "Thing".

Apparently women are classified as "pretty", "sexy" and "hot". Had a guy friend explain this to me as I was being corrected about Lara Dutta being "hot" but Bipasha being "sexy". Or some such thing. We women should really stop fighting against objectification or whatever it is that women are subjected to. There is no point. We are in a losing battle. Man will never change. I have seen even the most chivalrous of them, the most decent of the lot, the most well behaved man first look at or comment about a woman's butt. It's evolutionary they say. There is no point trying to change it.

Evolution.

Isn't the concept of fidelity more of a social construct and less of an evolutionary one. Like doesn't it make more sense to keep reproducing with different partners to maximize the chances of your genes making it to the next generation? Wonder when the notions of fidelity were planted in the brains of the homo sapiens. Got planted pretty deep in my brain at least!

Tanvi was telling me about how a lot of the work for the shoots they do actually happens during post production. And we got talking about how we leave pretty much everything in life to post production these days. About how instead of inching closer to perfection, we are actually moving further and further away from it. There was a time when people had ONE SHOT and they had to give it their everything. Now we are okay with a shoddy "first cut" and everything else will be "PPed". Problem is, we're taking this PP assumption into territories that don't really allow for PP in the first place. Like jobs and relationships. You might get a second chance, but it won't be with the same person or job. What are we looking to PP there?

Until next time, so long and thanks for all the fish. Keep them coming.

Adult Talk...

2010-07-22T21:06:00.007+05:30

Why is it so difficult for parents to come to terms with the fact that their children are adults now? Why does an adult child seeking independence translate into him being thankless and selfish? Shouldn't the parents instead be proud to see that they have brought up their child to stand on his own two feet. That they have raised their child to have the confidence to make it alone?

I do not understand how a desire (or even a wishful thinking) for independence can be anything bad any way you look at it? How can it be hurtful to the parents. How can it translate to "I want to escape" or "I am being stifled". Wouldn't we have run away a long long time ago if we wanted to "escape"?

Doesn't it go without saying that there is nothing in the world that can replace parents. That we will love them and need them forever and ever? Why the doubts in the first place then?

Step two...

2010-07-06T21:41:00.002+05:30

Should I call back? Or is it her turn?

Should I add him on Facebook? Or should I wait for him?

Should I ping her on Gtalk? Or is the ball in her court?

Will he think I'm being too clingy? Does he even give a damn?

Will I look despo? Or should I not care?

Is it too early to call back? Or too late perhaps?

Do I message him? Or does he message me?

Why didn't he reply to my SMS? I am over reacting!

Why didn't she answer her phone? I'm definitely over reacting!!

Huh huh huh?

There HAS to be a better alternative to this nonsense. Bloody.

Funny...

2010-06-16T23:22:00.002+05:30

"America's Funniest Home Videos"

What a sadist lot we are.

We have wi-fi...

2010-06-10T22:47:00.010+05:30

I don't understand it when Indians who were in India once upon a time act all surprised when they learn that India also has all the tech saavy cool stuff they have in wherever they are. Like really guys, how backward DO you think we are? Or should I say, YOU are?

I had a friend ask me about my 4 Mbps connection. And I could sense the person feeling utter surprise/shock knowing that 4 Mbps was a very real thing in India today.

And I had this far fetched relative of mine inquire about how easily one could get a mobile phone connection. And when I replied with an "immediately", I think eyes popped out in disbelief. Yeah, the last time it took forever to get a phone connection was I think in 1989.

It really irks me that a lot of (or should I say, all) Indians get all hoity-toity once they have been out of the country (especially if it's to those white ones) for a few years. I don't understand why they give those patronizing looks when they talk about how well we are progressing with the internet speeds and how awesome it is that we now have a Taco Bell in our city.

Stop it guys, it makes you look rather silly to us residents and makes us want to come and give you a little rap for your ignorance.

On being "Smart"...

2010-06-09T22:32:00.006+05:30

There used to be a time when I was extremely extremely insecure about how smart I was. Back then, it was never much. I was always surrounded by people who were way smarter than me - especially in the family. I have some super smart siblings. "Smarter" back then was more like "he knows the Beyer's process by heart".

It's not something I regret, but I was brought up in an atmosphere that gave a disproportionately large amount of importance to "being smart". People had extremely twisted definitions for this word "smart" and most of them involved standing first in class and making it to the IIT.

Frankly, I was never that type of smart but I was too chicken to admit it then. It made me nervous when my classmate knew the integration formula better than I did. My head hung in shame when my brother asked me what the K stood for in AK-47, and I obviously didn't know. I never made it to the awesome colleges all my older siblings made it to and it was embarrassing as hell.

But it all stopped somewhere down the line, and thank god for that. I think it was probably doing an MBA in media that did the trick. I was doing something not too many people knew anything about. And suddenly there were no benchmarks to pitch me against. I was now free to pursue my own version of being smart. but more importantly, I was no longer expected to be accountable for my stupidity, largely because not too many people could really make out when I was being stupid.

It feels good to be comfortable with a certain degree of "smartness" or "stupidity" as one may see it. It's a relief to be aware that it's okay to not know something and no one will judge you for it. The thrill of learning something because you want to and not because you are expected to is awesome. The joy of getting that knowledge from different places, the bigger joy of wanting to learn everything about everything. The satisfaction of understanding a conversation and being able to either contribute to it or learn from it.

It's all frikkin' awesome and there are no strings attached. There are no comparisons with "smarter" people any longer and if there are, I don't care. There are occasional moments when I get to do the whole clenched fist "YES!" act. And there are moments when I am humbled just listening to someone explain something so passionately.

Yes, I think I've successfully finally managed to find my own definition of "smart" and by that standard I think I'm quite the genius! ;)

Inbox...

2010-05-29T22:26:00.006+05:30

Everyday I open my inbox hoping to find some meaning in there. I don’t know what it is that I seek to get the meaning of. But for some reason, the inbox is where I look for some clue to my life. I open it everyday hoping to find a surprise. A familiar name. A long lost friend. A reason to love. A reason to rejoice for a few days. Something that will one day land in my inbox and make my life more meaningful, more worth living that it is right now.

But day after day, I get only junk. Junk from the thousands of newsletters I’ve subscribed to. Over twenty emails that I delete without reading. Without a second glance.

What an existence. Waiting for surprises in the inbox. Bah.

Dot PPT...

2010-05-20T23:20:00.004+05:30

Was just making this really "glamorous" presentation on my old, faithful - Powerpoint and this weird proposition just occurred to me - that our lives are more or less like PPTs. Presenting the arguments in favour...

They are very random and often extremely boring.
Only the owner of the presentation really quite understands it.
The really note-worthy presentations are understated and speak for themselves.
The others are almost always embellished with unnecessary err, embellishments in an effort to make them look more attractive than they really are.
Now-a-days, they are almost never completely compatible with anything.
They are always last minute.
They appear to be a product of team work. But in reality, they never are.
When you present the presentations, they almost never appear on the screen the way you made it - either the font changes, or the picture moves, or the slide just doesn't appear.
You always notice the mistakes in your slides a little too late.

I am sure there are a zillion other parallels one can draw but I think I've sufficiently established the argument.

To borrow heavily from Oscar Wilde - "Life imitates ppt far more than ppt imitates Life."

Salaries...

2010-05-14T22:51:00.008+05:30

There will come a day when we will start loving our salaries more than our work. That day, we will stop working to live and start living to work. Day after day we will walk into office hating the very sight of it, we will fling cuss words at our bosses and succumb to the scourge of mediocrity, but we won't quit. Our minds will command us not to quit. The money will shackle us to our workstations. We will come home haggard, tip-toeing as not to wake the rest of the house up. We will eat our cold meal and slowly creep into a loveless bed. We will let the strings of the guitar rust and the canvas will turn yellow - both yearning for some human touch. We will let our bosses trample on our self respect and nod respectfully as he trashes the genius ideas for the hundredth time. We will say to ourselves, "This is it. I won't stand for it anymore" and forget about the oath on the first of every month. We will take expensive holidays only to return to our horrid desks in a week's time. Our homes will become a bed and breakfast joint. There will be no dignity. No breathers. No time for anything else but Excel sheets. No friends. No family. But there will be the salary. The only thing that will keep us going. That day will be a sad one.

God Forbid.

The strange thing called friendship...

2010-05-11T22:59:00.003+05:30

Was just reminiscing about all the friends I've ever made in my life and realised how strange this thing called friendship is.

There were people whom you were extremely extremely close to at a certain point in time. Your wavelengths matched, you had great conversations. But now when you come across them, mostly on the Internet, there is this strange distance. This weird awkwardness. Makes you wonder if it's the same person you're talking to. They act strangely when you do take the effort to catch up with them every once in a while. They largely ignore you. You wonder if you indeed were that close once upon a time.

And then there are those people whom you've never really known all that well. In fact, there are people whom you've hardly met. And yet, there is this warm camaraderie you share with them. You catch up on life every once in a while, you respond to each other's posts on Facebook, you participate in discussions. And every time you wonder why this person missed your sight while there was still a chance. You talk to each other only very rarely. But every time you do, it's just feels like taking off from last nights conversation.

And of course, there are people who really just are. Forever and ever. Over years and years. Best friend they are called, I think.

Friendships are strange things. You never know when you've got one that'll last you a lifetime. And it doesn't seem to be a function of time or effort. It just is.

Friendship.Love.

2010-05-07T23:18:00.003+05:30

Some romances that were
only abused as friendships.
Some friendships that were
only ruined by romance.

Thanks Archita.

Compromising Situation...

2010-04-22T23:34:00.008+05:30

I have no clue about what I really want from life.

So, I don't really know what it means when I say "I don't want to settle."

But I say it all the time. And it has a say in every decision I make.

Which implies I probably DO know what I want from life. Just haven't had the realization yet.

Pretty unsettling, that one.

The harmless truth...

2010-04-12T23:49:00.005+05:30

"I've done more harm by the falseness of trying to please than by the honesty of trying to hurt." ~Jessamyn West

Who is this Jessamyn West anyway? How did he/she come up with something so blunt and so true that I feel slightly embarrassed just reading it.

Anyway, I'm so used to the conceit and hypocrisy now, I'm much too comfortable too feel wronged by it. Aren't we all.

P.S.: At the rate at which this blog is going, might as well hand it over to my mom. Half the content here is stolen from her anyway. :D

Reality Check?

2010-04-09T21:08:00.004+05:30

"He's ugly. But he's smart."

"She's ugly. And she's smart."

Anatomy...

2010-04-06T16:01:00.004+05:30

Lazy afternoons @ Office + Interactive graffiti wall @www.diesel.com = Wannabe Poet

Relapse...

2010-04-05T22:36:00.003+05:30

Remind me again, of how cruel you were. I'm having a relapse.

The Devotee...

2010-04-04T12:40:00.002+05:30

There he stood at the door of the sanctum sanctorum, a few feet away from the idol of his Lord.

"Could you please ask that devotee to move along now?" he scowled at the priest. "Can't you see he's taken way too much time? With him blocking the way, when will I get the chance to see the Lord?"

Honesty...

2010-04-02T21:53:00.004+05:30

How honest we are when we know no one is watching.

Everything else is one big façade.

Outdone...

2010-04-02T21:50:00.001+05:30

Another batch of MICAns graduated recently. And seeing those pictures on Facebook was a strange sort of déjà vu. The same blue folders and gowns with those jubilant faces - Suddenly felt like I’d fallen off an assembly line belt into a neat little box waiting to be shipped to China or something.

Also, someone in the junior batch happened to mention that they had achieved so much more than their seniors had, the seniors being our batch of course. I was mildly amused at the observation because we had felt the same way exactly a year ago.

It’s a funny thing, how every generation feels it has surpassed the achievements of the previous one. And this pride must be a good thing. How else will any social construct ever move forward if not first in the head?

A constant competition between the generations is what moves the society forward. And it’s a good thing as long as it’s healthy, as long as pride doesn’t morph into vanity. It’s a folly to think that our previous generations were good-for-nothing. It’s suicidal. For the knowledge to move forward lies in the past and the present can’t do without it. For every society is remembered for what it did and not what’s left to be done.

Ajji and Cricket...

2010-03-30T22:48:00.008+05:30

This is how the two people living in my apartment reacted to the recent Royal Challengers Bangalore loss against Delhi Daredevils in the ongoing IPL series.

"AJ", a young woman who takes pride in "knowing" and "understanding" cricket

Damn, that was miserable man! What were they playing. They messed it up completely. They are getting over confident. Good they lost, waste parties. Serves them right... followed by a few other of these "expert" opinions on the game and its outcome.

"Ajji", a 73 year old grandmother who APPARENTLY spends her afternoons knitting and making pickles

Ya, you are right. But they had a good chance of winning if Dravid had played. Rahul Dravid should have stayed on the ground for longer. He has not played well at all so far. He has the talent. But he is not using it. He takes so long to get used to the pitch. This 20-20 is not suited for him. He is good only for test match. There he shines. Poor thing. He should have won the match for us.

"AJ", who is suddenly not sure if she understands the game anymore

@#$%!!! :O :O

Getting over...

2010-03-30T22:10:00.006+05:30

I hadn't planned it. Not at all. But it happened. Just happened one day.

I had tried before. And failed.

I had given up. Just like that. Had left it to the mercy of my whims.

And it happened.

I must have crossed the line a while back. But the realization struck only now.

And unexpectedly.

And then the surging relief. The weightlessness. The optimism.

It feels good to be back. How much I've missed since I was last here.

What a pity, to have missed this fun.

The world is handsome. Handsome as ever. And so are the men in it.

Doesn't matter...

2010-03-22T22:57:00.002+05:30

"I recognized that it doesn't matter if a guy is sexy, funny, smart, charismatic and rich if he doesn't make you feel safe to communicate openly, safe to trust his commitment and loyalty, or safe to be your fullest self. A relationship of shared virtue where each partner challenges and supports the other to bloom into their best possible selves." - Karen Salmansohn.

Thanks mom.

Blue daba dee...

2010-03-02T22:38:00.005+05:30

I'm blue daba dee daba dai

da daba dee daba

dai daba dee daba dai..

I have a blue house with a blue window.

Blue is the colour of all that I wear.

Blue are the streets and all the trees are too.

I have a girlfriend and she is so blue.

If you would care to doubt, I've reproduced the above nonsense from the deepest abysses of my memory, as against from Google. And if you would care to believe, I know the rest of that nonsense as well.

The reason I felt like penning it down direct from memory to word pad, is because it suddenly struck me that I don't quite know India's GDP with 100% accuracy. Or how much they spent on that blasphemy of a film called MNIK. Or where Sachin scored his 200 (okay, it was Gwalior).

And then it gets progressively worse. I don't exactly recall the listenership of my radio station in Bangalore (given that I'm paid to remember stuff like that). I don't remember if I've paid my phone bill, let alone the bill amount. I've forgotten how much I owe a friend. I have no clue about my grandmother's mobile number, considering I live with her. Nor do I remember my parent's. Nor my sister's. Not my account number. Not the birthday of at least 3 of my closest friends. I think I'm a little grey about the license plate of my vehicle. And my blood group as well.

But some how (okay, I know how but it's still ridiculous!) my brain remember's this incoherent piece of I-call-myself-music by some random thing called Eiffel 65. Selective memory needs to get more choosy now!

And no, this is not about me needing Memory Plus. So spare the joke.

Red earth and pouring rain...

2010-02-28T00:27:00.003+05:30

This one is my absolute favourite. I obsessively compulsively chronicle it every time I come across it. And here it is again.

“What could my mother be

to yours? What kin is my father

to yours anyway? And how

Did you and I meet ever?

But in love

our hearts have mingled

as red earth and pouring rain: mingled beyond parting”

- Chembulappeyaniraar, from a Sangam literature anthology.

A moving declaration of love. So simple and yet saying everything.

The one who got away...

2010-02-26T12:30:00.002+05:30

To all who have their "the one who got away".

The One Who Got Away @ Pictory

Withering...

2010-02-24T12:32:00.003+05:30

The leaves, they have yellowed early this year.

Gently reminding us as they are swept away,

We are getting too old too fast.

Profanity...

2010-02-22T20:46:00.004+05:30

I earned a lot of flak for using profanity in an earlier post. Got me wondering as to why profanity is frowned upon so much.

Why is it that a B!@#$ more acceptable to the eye than a Bitch? Does beeping it out lend it a dignity that saying it out aloud denies it of? Looking down upon profanity seems to me an act of complete hypocrisy as anyone who's every learnt to speak has been profane at least once in their lives.

Me thinks that sometimes profanity says more than a million of those really depressing words. Sometimes it's just necessary to convey that emotion. For most of us, the blue language is reserved for our most personal moments of angst and helplessness. Some other choose to be more vocal about it when they feel the need for it. Obviously, I talk about the profanity that is not intended to be a personal assault on someone.

This isn't a lashing out at all those people who asked me why I was using "bad words". With all due respect, I just feel that it's only fair that we look at profanity like we should ideally look at all other things in life - in the light of subjectivity and not get too judgmental about it and more so about the person using it.

"Under certain circumstances, profanity provides a relief denied even to prayer." - Mark Twain.

Little Wild One...

2010-02-21T21:53:00.001+05:30

"Maybe some women aren't meant to be tamed. Maybe they just need to run free till they find someone just as wild to run with them." - Sex in the City

The Smartest...

2010-02-20T10:41:00.000+05:30

… man on earth today is no longer someone who knows everything . Rather it's someone who knows exactly where to look for it.

All the single ladies...

2010-02-16T22:00:00.003+05:30

Well, the secret is out. If you are female, single and looking for the nice men, this is your guide to where you are most likely to find them. Extensively researched and proven.

Temptress...

2010-02-15T21:18:00.006+05:30

Lured and tempted

Stupid and deprived

You follow her scent,

Over and over.

Hope the temptress. Hope. Bloody bitch.

Leap of Faith...

2010-02-09T23:06:00.004+05:30

Our generation has one big problem. We seek proof for everything. We want to see it work, written in stone, solid, for real before we believe it. We refuse to take anyone’s word for it especially if that anyone seems to be from a previous generation. And that’s f****d up.

We got to realize that there are somethings in life that we will never be able to prove. Waiting for the answers and the confirmations will only be a waste of time and will only make us more miserable than we already are. If we accepted this for a fact, life would be that much easier for the all of us.

Sometimes, you just got to take that leap of faith. You just got to say your prayers and jump in. Not keep asking questions and wait for concrete answers. Because these answers are only imaginary figments in our heads. They aren’t really existing anywhere. We just have to take that step and do that thing.

Or someday we are going to wake up old and helpless and realize that we have still only the questions and no real answers and by then it’ll probably be too late. And life’s really not worth that kind of sh**.

... and we're back!

2010-02-07T00:50:00.003+05:30

Since I last blogged. LTTE got ousted. Venkataraman Ramakrishnan won the nobel for chemistry. Obama won Nobel peace prize. sachin completed 20 years in cricket. Tiger Wood became the most searched athlete. Susan Boyle made it big. Amir Khan made the highest grossing movie of all time. The 15th Lok Sabha elections were held. IPC Section 377 was scrapped. Jaswant got into trouble because of Jinnah. MJ died. The seeds of Telagana were sown. David Headly became David Headline. Amithabh Bachchan played a boy's role. SRK got questioned at the Newark Airport. Rakhi Sawant tried getting married. Rani mukherjee tried getting a makeover. Failed miserably. Bandra Worli Sea link. The first Nanos on road. Rehman won the Grammy. Shiny Ahuja went to jail. Facebook overtook Orkut. Twitter overtook Facebook. Google Wave was launched. iPad was revealed. Avatar broke all records. Shilpa Shetty got married. Pigs infected humans. The climate continues to get hotter. India became the No. 1 Test Team. India went to the moon.

Passed out of B School. Finished second in the batch. Got a job. Moved to a new city. Learnt to read Kannada. And speak it. Joined the gym. Doesn't show. Paid my first tax. Learnt to ride the bike. Visited a new country.

200 days...

2010-02-07T00:45:00.001+05:30

... to a quarter century...

Dance...

2009-02-07T20:39:00.004+05:30

…is as much about the face as it is about the body. I love watching people whose faces echo the emotion of the song when they dance. I can’t even begin to imagine the level of understanding of the song the dancer has to have to pull it off. It no longer remains just about keeping up with the tempo and the beats but transcends into understanding the words, truly feeling each of them as you move to the tune. Sometimes there’s more joy in watching just the face of the dancer rather than concentrating on the thumka.

Chick Flicks and reflections on Reality…

2009-01-23T19:32:00.003+05:30

Contrary to the opinion I held but a few days ago, chick flicks are total losers. Far from being “feel good”, they leave you feeling sick! Frame after sappy frame they prove to you that the life you lead is not all how you wished it could be. There are no serendipities and book store rivalries in your life. Nor are you the lost princess of Genovia (wherever the *@#$ that is!) or the blonde law student with straight A’s in fashion.

But where these chick flicks turn out to be the biggest liars of all times is when it comes to men. I mean, how, HOW ON EARTH do they manage to get the man right every time?? How are they always the hot, Adonis lookalikes with the intelligence of Einstein and the sensitivity of I-dunno-whoever-the-most-sensitive-man-in-Greek-mythology-is? Where are all these men in Reality? Please pretty please would you leave me your number as a comment if you are out there?!

And that brings us to the issue of whether cinema is a reflection of reality or an escape from it. But I’m running out of patience to write so I’ll leave that discussion to the media theorists and the likes. But in my humble opinion, I think its Reality that is a bitch. Sigh…

P.S. As an after thought, I think, chick flicks rock if taken with a jar full of salt.

Escaping the Nerd Trap

2009-01-17T12:54:00.004+05:30

I must admit, my recent employment with a radio broadcasting company has put my parents in a bit of a quandary. Coming from a family that binges on engineering and more engineering, they are really perplexed as to how they can explain their daughter’s career move to discerning relatives.

Well, the fact of the matter is, I am (was) also an engineer. Till I decided to break free from the nerd trap and come to MICA. For those who don’t know, MICA is a quaint little “C-School” (C for Communications) based out of Ahmedabad that has quite the reputation for being a place for “non conformists” of sorts.

Two years ago, my parents had to deal with the trauma of explaining MICA to people. Now, I have done it again! How do you explain to your bewildered aunt what your daughter is doing working with a radio station after completing FOUR years of engineering (in the much coveted Computer Science, mind you) and two years of MBA (Post Graduate Diploma in Management (Communications), to be precise)? How do you explain what a “Content Planner” does to an uncle who has no idea what a software engineer does either but is perfectly at home with the term nonetheless?

Looks like I have finally escaped the nerd trap. For good.

PS: I still don’t know why I did engineering. Thank god my potential employers did not ask me the much dreaded question “Why engineering?”

I don’t know, really!!

Quote Unquote...

2008-11-19T18:41:00.006+05:30

Of late I have noticed that whenever I talk about love, I always tend to put the word within quotes.

“Love”

I find it rather amusing especially since I used to be a firm believer of the whole true love, the perfect one, someone somewhere out there sequence.

May be I still am.

It’s not that I have lost faith in “love”. God knows I need and believe in all the love that the world has to give me. But it’s just that, I think that “love” has very high ideals for itself. There is some sort of vague perfection that the word seems to demand.

I “love” you.

There’s so much expectation in that sentence. I don’t think I can ever “love” anyone in a way that the sentence seems to command me to love. Sometimes, I fear using the sentence. What if I can’t love one like that?

There is this weird pessimism I feel for “love”. I think I have seen too many break ups in my life that I have ceased to believe in the whole concept of true love and all that. Sometimes I wonder if “love” is just something we fool ourselves into believing so that the world can procreate in peace. Scary.

Photographs and Memories...2

2008-11-10T22:13:00.005+05:30

You know what I hate? To see a photograph and have absolutely no recollection of that moment in time when the picture was clicked. You have not the slightest memory that you lived that moment and yet there in front of you is the proof that you did. Most irritating.

Open and Shut

2008-11-05T20:28:00.003+05:30

Life - a series of Open and shut. Everything just standing still. Exactly where it was centuries ago. The world outside blurs past. Time so volatile and yet so stagnant. Every day so predictable and yet so daunting. Every step as though it was forced. Every thought sent to the recycle bin by default. The mind aches to escape. Made more painful because it knows it can’t. This, this place is a fish bowl. I can see the world outside but I can only dream of being a part of it. Open and Shut. That’s all there is to it out here.

Dear Aamir...

2008-08-30T00:17:00.008+05:30

Just a question I have always wanted to ask - would you happen to have any idea about how many people who took the CAT (common admission tests for the IIMs) also wrote the UPSC and the civil services exam in the year that RDB was released?

The film stirred emotions like none had stirred before but would you happen to know how many people acted on those emotions and actually wrote the exam? Did the apparent “best” brains in the country write the IAS or still run the rat’s race in the CAT? I for one, sit smugly in air conditioned classes everyday studying marketing and media.

This is in no way a judgement on the film. But one can’t help but question the depth of emotions it stirred? For how many people did that emotion of patriotism (and all that) actually linger long enough so it could be acted upon? Did it end with the movie? Was it only on the skin? Most of my friends who rant and rave about the movie are leading plush lives in the US or working in the private sector.

Would you happen to have any answers?

The Pregnancy Scan...

2008-08-20T01:15:00.013+05:30

Three people at the gynaecologist asked me if I had come for a pregnancy scan till I actually began to wonder why I was being asked the same question. THRICE. Can’t women with other medical conditions come for an ultrasound scan? Do scans have to be only pregnancy related?

So, on being questioned the third time, and this time by the clinic receptionist, I finally opened my mouth. "I am NOT pregnant!!" I told the lady, "I have come here for something else."

"Oh! Apdiya", she replied back, "I thought pregnancy scan, because it is written in this sheet MRS. Arati."

I am still unable to fathom how the receptionist managed to make the magical and apparently logical connect between being a “Missus” and being pregnant. Is this a result of all the values and norms that society has created for itself and continues to believe in and seek comfort in? Why do certain assumptions come so naturally to us? What is it that convinces us, without even a second thought, that that if a woman is married (or assumed married, in this case, thanks to a typo) and is sitting at a gynaecologist's clinic, she must be pregnant. Conversely, and I find this more disturbing, since when did we start believing, and blindly at that, that if a woman is pregnant, she must married.

What if the name on the sheet read MISS Arati. And what if I had indeed come for a pregnancy scan?

I wonder if these assumptions plague only the more "conservative" of the societies such as mine. Would a lady sitting at a gynaecologist in a more "open" society like Mumbai be faced with the same predicament?

Art...

2008-07-12T01:43:00.009+05:30

I have always had a fascination for Warli paintings. I love the way humans and nature and society is represented in this folk art. But what I like most is the simplicity of the art form. There are no facial expressions and anatomical accuracies. No use of complex colours or brush strokes. Just simple, clean lines, basic geometry, brilliant symmetry. Such vivid imagery with such a limited set of constructs and paradigms.

Just goes to show that Art in any form need not be complicated and esoteric to be beautiful.

I dabbled in some Warli myself today! What joy! :)

Nature's call...

2008-07-06T23:34:00.009+05:30

I was just having this really intense discussion with a friend of mine. He needed my help with life and stuff. And I, being the wizened little thing whose hair hasn’t turned gray “just like that” was having a serious shot at solving his problems and making his life a little less miserable and happier.

So here we are, having a serious, mature discussion on life and love and etcetera etcetera when suddenly, I am interrupted with this ping on my IM screen

“arati.. gimme one min... i'll jus run to the loo and be back

cant hold it any longer :D

one min... will be back”

And I can’t help but wonder how powerless we are in front of dear nature and her impulses. We may have the most worrisome worries, the most miserable miseries but nature will always have her way. None of these humungous tortures that plague our lives can ever, EVER stand in her way.

What can I say, a man’s gotta crap when he’s gotta crap! :)

Superstar...

2008-07-02T19:56:00.004+05:30

These days the media can’t seem to get enough of the Aarushi murder case. With all its twists and turns, it is making for some good coffee table conversations and sky rocketing TRPs.

I wonder if one would have even heard of the poor girl if she hadn’t had her head battered to crumbs.

It’s funny how some chase fame and popularity all their life and at the end of the road, die in silent anonymity. And for some, it is in their death that fame embraces them. Today, amidst the tragedy, oblivious to all the insensitive mindless uproar, Aarushi is almost a superstar.

The Gift...

2008-07-02T03:39:00.011+05:30

It had to be handwritten. There could be no other way. Nothing would make it more special. And she honestly believed it would keep him safe from harm while he was away. She looked down at the final fruit of her effort – 6 pages of the Devanagri script that looked like it had been written by a six year old. Oh how he would love it!

She slept with a smug satisfaction of having done something so utterly beautiful for someone who mattered so much to her. Tomorrow, she would give it to him. A final parting gift. Oh what a befitting gift it would be!
And she waited patiently the next day, clutching her gift tightly. Her eyes darting from person to person, her heart leaping every time she saw someone who she thought it looked like him. But he wasn’t to be seen. And with every passing second, her heart sank and her smile struggled to remain on her face.
“I know he’ll come. He’s probably just playing a prank. I’m certain he’ll show up at the last minute. How typical of him!”
But he never did. As she walked into the hallway, her eyes kept glancing back; hoping to find him waving from beyond the glass walls. But the glass doors disappeared from her darting sight and the crowd swallowed her. He never came.
As she sat waiting, dejected and lost, she became aware of the crushed piece of paper she had clutched for so long in her sweaty palm. Those very sheets had been the most significant work of her life till moments ago. Now they lay crushed with words that suddenly seemed to mean nothing. And surprisingly she felt nothing. Just a detachment, as though the hours she has spent writing those sheets didn’t matter to her anymore, as though she couldn’t have cared less. If he didn’t get it, he probably didn’t deserve it, she thought as she dispassionately threw the sheets into the litter bin nearby.
Oh but how he would have loved it! It would have been the most befitting gift ever.

Happy Hallmark Holiday...

2008-02-16T02:09:00.004+05:30

“Oh, it’s just one of those Hallmark holidays. I don’t believe in Valentine’s Day. It’s just another excuse to waste time and money. And besides, if you did love someone that much, you wouldn’t need Valentine’s Day to proclaim it would you?”

“What a hypocrite!” he said out aloud, staring at the sheets of paper that had caught his attention in an unusually full waste paper basket by the writing table.

He looked at her. Asleep, with her legs awkwardly sprawled across the bed. Blissfully unaware that she had been caught red handed. How much more imperfect can one get, he mused. How he hated her dressing sense. She didn’t even have proper PJs.

He looked at the crumpled sheets of paper he had resurrected from the dustbin again. “You are my sunshine on cloudy days...” said one. Beyond that, there were scratches and doodles. “Words will never be good enough...” said another with the word CORNY scratched right across it and some angry frustrated ink marks that had torn the sheet before it landed in the dustbin.

“For all the times you’ve accused me of being unromantic, you haven’t done a very good job of it either!” He laughed to himself feeling a twang of a much deserved victory. “HA!” he added, for that extra punch. There weren’t too many times he won an argument. And so he read. Through each and every crumpled sheet in the waste paper bin. The feeling of victory went up a few notches with every broken rhyme and unfinished thought. When finally the bin was empty, he refilled it with the sheets and left it lying in the corner like nothing had happened.

He walked to the kitchen to grab a bite before he left for work. “I’ll make sure you never have to make breakfast” was the most romantic promise he had made to her. “What was I thinking back then?” he cursed. The promise had been accepted in all earnestness and not one day had passed when he had woken up to the smell of delicious breakfast. And today was going to be no different.

As he walked to the refrigerator to get some bread, something on the kitchen counter caught his eye. It was a plate. With a simple sandwich. “Wow! Breakfast! Since when did this happen?!” And below the plate was a note.

It read simply, “You should make your promises more carefully the next time. I’m just being nice to you today. I know it’s a little stale; I made it last night while you were snoring away like a pig. But still, it’s an improvement over nothing. Oh, and by the way, I love you. Happy Valentine’s Day.”

If only I was heard...

2008-02-16T01:46:00.006+05:30

I can do this too, I know I can!
If only you would listen to me

I know he speaks better than I
I know his words are eloquent

But me! My ideas are more eloquent
Than his words will ever be
I know it!
If only you would give me some time
And listen to me

Just listen to me

Wasn’t I loud enough back there?
Wasn’t I heard above the din in your head?
How could you have not heard?

You didn’t understand me?

May be I wasn’t vocal enough
May be I thought you already knew
Everything I stood for

Now I know I was mistaken
I should have spoken
Of all the ideas I hold dear
The ideas you would have been delighted to hear

If only you would listen to me
Just this once
If only I was heard

“Tum jaante ho mein kaun hoon?!”

2008-02-10T18:03:00.004+05:30

Yeah, it’s just another lame Hindi film dialogue at first glance. But recently one of my professors used this dialogue to explain something that we probably take for granted; something that we probably shouldn’t. Power distance.

It’s amazing how comfortable we Indians are with power. How those vested with power use it unabashedly and abuse it with such brazen impertinence. Power makes us feel safe. It is this ticket that lets us inside everything and gets us out of everything. But what is more astounding is how comfortable we are with the power equations.

It is almost unbelievable how we seek absolutely no justification for the unequal power distribution that exists between two people. Nobody dare question the tenets of hierarchy. Nobody dare raise their voice against the boss.

The man who is at a position of lower power will willingly do almost anything for a person who he is convinced, is more powerful. But that is not what bothers me really. What bothers me is how easy it is to convince us about power. How willing we are to believe in some one’s power status. When it comes to believing and bowing down to power, we seem so naive, so innocent, it’s frightening.

So then, it’s not merely a film dialogue is it? It is the very basis of our power distance. It is our ticket out of everything and into everything. And what’s worse, we are all guilty of using it somewhere sometime in our lives.

Voyeurism..?

2007-12-10T21:04:00.005+05:30

This post is in response to a lot of people telling me that I was a very naughty child at the age of eight. Thanks to my wonderfully revealing post, Parallel Realities.

Anyway, all these accusations got me thinking, was I really naughty or was I just at the wrong place at the wrong time? Would anybody else in my place have done the same thing? And that brings me to, ahem, voyeurism.

Well, I feel, voyeurism is at the very core of all mankind. Scandalous you might say. But I think voyeurism requires a little redefinition here. It would be extremely narrow-minded of us progressive people to define voyeurism as the practice of obtaining sexual gratification by looking at sexual objects or acts, esp. secretively (courtesy, dictionary.com). I think it goes beyond the “sexual”-ness of gratification and its more about the gratification itself.

The truth of the matter is that every single one of us is intrigued by anything that remotely qualifies as scandal. That is not to imply that we go in search of scandal on perfectly jobless days. But when we come across it, not many look straight and keep walking. And that explains why most of us linger our sight just a second longer on a couple kissing (I should find another example) on a park bench. Or why our ears develop extra terrestrial antennas when we hear people shouting on the other side of the wall.

I think it is this constant urge of man to make his life exciting that pushes him to display voyeuristic tendencies. An excitement that comes from sitting on the sidelines and watching as the world spins out of control. An excitement that stems from seeing something that you would rather not be seen doing. An excitement that comes from getting a chance to say, “HA! Gotcha!”

Anything that is remotely more exciting than his daily boring existence will make a man take notice. And it need not be one bit sexual in nature. All it needs to be is scandalous. Because scandal gratifies us. We suddenly love our life so much better. We thank the stars it is not us being talked about. We indirectly find a justification to our dull boring existence. It probably satisfies us to know that our life is probably a little better than the life of that person we read about on Page 3. Is voyeurism then more about indirect gratification; gratification sought from not having something bad rather than from having something good?

Another thought that comes to mind is the gratification that we seek from seeing others in pain. I think secretly, every single time we see violence, killing, bloodshed, we feel this dark pleasure that we would rather not talk about because we are always expected to behave a certain way, to sympathise with the dead, to condemn violence. I wonder if that is why the uncensored video of Saddam’s killing was such a craze on the Internet. It seemed to satiate our need for that dark pleasure. Is that why we crave for more and more of the most gruesome, graphic, violent movies? Again, gratification sought from the absence of bad than the presence of good?

So that brings me to my first question. Was I really a naughty kid? Or would you have done the same thing had you been in my place? Is voyeurism merely about sexual gratification or am I justified in using it as a canopy for all kinds of negative gratification?

Disclaimer: I don’t know what this post is doing here. I think it is to do with this sudden urge to write something utterly blasphemous and illogical, something that is, err, scandalous in comparison to my past entries. A feeble attempt to may be, prove to others and myself that anything even remotely scandalous will make a man sit up and take notice.

Parallel Realities...

2007-12-08T11:38:00.003+05:30

Last night as I lay awake trying to rub the chill of my feet, I remembered something. When I was 8, I had once seen this young couple kissing on the last seat of the local bus in Singapore. It had been quite a scandalising sight back then. Intriguing as well.

But last night, I couldn’t help but wonder, were the two people I saw kiss 14 years ago still together? What had life lain out in front of them? Had they managed to stay together after all these years? 14 years is a long time.

And my thoughts drifted from one stranger to another, from one face to another. I could remember faces, voices and even the colour of the clothes some of them were wearing. The details of my memories took me by a total surprise. Nameless faces on buses and trains, in shopping malls and schools, all the people I had seen day in and day out once upon a time in school and college. I wondered what each of them was doing? At that very moment as I lay rubbing my feet against each other, what was each one of those people doing? Had life treated them fairly? Had they reached where they had set out for?

I have come to believe that we all live in transparent silos. Each with its own little dreams and expectations. Parallel realities. And our lives seldom go beyond those silos. And sometimes, through the bright shiny transparent walls, we see other person in their own little silos. Sometime we let them into our world, but most times, they just end up becoming figments of isolated memories we never knew existed till, on one chilly night, they all come lilting back.

Belief...

2007-11-06T22:33:00.003+05:30

A beautiful dialogue from the movie Dogma. Chanced upon this on the Internet. Though I'd share it with the world.

Bethany: You're saying that having beliefs is a bad thing?

Rufus: I think it's better to have ideas. You can change an idea. Changing a belief is trickier.

Also try listening to Belief by John Mayer. I think he is one genius of a singer - song writer washed away by a wave of "commercial" music. Music is music. Whatever. Peace.

Just a shoulder to rest on...

2007-09-04T06:30:00.003+05:30

I lay on the cold bench in the garden, the chill seeping in through my sweaty yet swanky top. Quite a party it had been. I had almost set the dance floor on fire with my grooves, or so I felt. Now my ankles hurt from all that dancing and twitched unwillingly in my high heels. It was five in the morning but the sky was still clear and dark with half the moon still shining amidst a few thinning clouds. The Orion was majestically spread across the sky. The music was still blaring in the background still drawing crowds to the dance floor. Some people I had hit the dance floor with, were nowhere to be seen. They must be sloshed, I thought to myself, crazy people. Some people lined the corridors surrounding the dance floor, soothing their sore feet. But most of the crowd was on a high, me included. I hadn’t a drop of alcohol in me. I was high on dance. I never danced.

Now, staring at the moon from my comfortable bench, I couldn’t stop my thought from drifting home wards. The house must be empty and dusty I imagined, waiting for my mother’s return. It would take barely a few hours after her return for it to return to its usual grandeur once my mom stepped in a few days from now, I laughed to myself. Oh, how I missed that place; the constant chattering with my sister and the endless reprimanding from mother. The morning hustles for college and the lazy Sunday afternoons. I wanted to apparate back home that very moment.

Suddenly, amidst all the noise and crowd, I felt so alone. I was in a place I had always yearned to be, and yet, I didn’t want to be there anymore, at least at that very moment. A million thoughts were crossing my mind and without me realising it, tears were streaming down the sides of my eyes. And I didn’t know why they were flowing. The cool breeze dried them gently but more flowed to take their place. Time seem suspended in a moment I didn’t want to be in. A queer hollowness crept through me. I felt incomplete like there was this emptiness waiting to be filled by something. I didn’t know what it would be. At that moment with only the Orion and half a moon for company I was unknowingly praying for a shoulder to rest my head on.

Oh how wonderful it would be if I had a shoulder to rest my head against right now; a hand to hold on to. Someone who would just side beside me and patiently watch me fall asleep. That would fill the empty space, I knew intuitively. But it was a hollow wish, just like me. Life is unfair I thought. It gives you everything you seek, and yet at the end of the day, all you yearn for are those simple things in life that matter most.

Just a shoulder to rest my head on.

Those were the days...

2007-08-06T03:18:00.003+05:30

No song could describe it better.

Once upon a time, there was a tavern
Where we used to raise a glass or two
Remember how we laughed away the hours,
Dream of all the great things we would do

Those were the days, my friend
We thought they'd never end
We'd sing and dance forever and a day
We'd live the life we'd choose
We'd fight and never lose
For we were young and sure to have our way

Then, the busy years went rushing by us
We lost our starry notions on the way
If, by chance, I'd see you in the tavern,
We'd smile at one another and we'd say

Those were the days, my friend
We thought they'd never end
We'd sing and dance forever and a day
We'd live the life we'd choose
We'd fight and never lose
For we were young and sure to have our way

Just tonight, I stood before the tavern
Nothing seemed the way it used to be
In the glass, I saw a strange reflection
Was that lonely woman really me?

Through the door, there came familiar laughter
I saw your face and heard you call my name
Oh, my friend, we're older but no wiser
For in our hearts, the dreams are still the same

Those were the days, my friend
We thought they'd never end
We'd sing and dance forever and a day
We'd live the life we'd choose
We'd fight and never lose

Those were the days, oh yes, those were the days

Mary Hopkin(1968)

Goodbye to you my trusted friend...

2007-08-05T19:53:00.003+05:30

One of my dearest friends is leaving to the United States in four hours. And it is only just beginning to sink in that things will never be the same again. Funny, considering I was the first to leave home. My mind races to all the fun times we had when it seemed like it would last forever. What fools we were. I wish I could relive those moments just one more time. Go back and indulge in all that mischief like we used to.

This is for you dear friend, for all our moments of senseless laughter; for our songs; for all the times we discussed crap at twelve in the morning; for giving me my first break as a singer; for all schizo tendencies; and all the snooping on Orkut accounts.

I wish you find all that you are in search of. And I will pray as always that your dreams come true. Go find your wings Shrikanth, go sing the song of your heart. We will miss you and love you and the memories will always lighten our cloudy days. And hope it’s not too long before we can laugh again.

Other side of the gate...

2007-07-31T12:42:00.003+05:30

MICA is bang in the middle of nowhere. Well, not exactly. But for all of us city bred conceited people, it is. Step outside the gates of MICA and it is a whole new world; alien territory. Barefooted children ride broken cycles, women carry firewood home, buffaloes and men share the same water of the Shela Lake. Bad roads and camel carts. Simple people. Happy people (?)

Inside the world is more familiar. People flaunt the latest from Shopper’s Stop, the entire student population cribs about the sub standard food and the sad mobile network, booze and cigarette for a few, rock music for others. People carry Kotler to class and do research on rural markets in air conditioned class rooms. Complicated people. Happy people (?)

Same people such different lives. And I couldn’t imagine living outside the gates of MICA. Conceited and city bred.

You cannot die...

2007-07-23T14:54:00.003+05:30

They tell me you are no more. And I am expected to believe them? I am not crazy. I know better than that. You cannot die.

I’ve been looking for you. I know you are hiding somewhere there. But why do you hide? Why do you refuse to appear in front of me? what scares you away?

They tell me I’m trying to hold on to a shadow; going after nothing. And you know what, sometimes, when the mind gets muddy on a bad day, I believe them. Why shouldn’t? You are never there for me. When the day gets to me and I need someone to keep me going, you are never around. What else can I do then but succumb to the constant chiding of people around me?

They have asked me to stop looking for you. They tell me, there is no place for you in my world. And you know what, that scares me. To think of a day when you will be no more frightens me. And I search harder.

I know you are somewhere around. I don’t care what people say. My conscience refuses to believe them. I will keep looking for you. Let the world think I’m mad. Let them think I’ve gone crazy. I know you’re hiding somewhere here. They are wrong. You cannot die. You cannot.

Pfaff...

2007-07-23T14:49:00.002+05:30

Till date one question eludes me – why on earth do people love pfaffing. What is their agenda when they go on and on talking to eternity about irrelevant things? Is pfaff the only shield to cover your apparent dumbness?

Simplicity is the order of the day. Nobody has time for lengthy, complicated discourses anymore. The world is racing against time – a fact those called to the podium refuse to accept. Being asked to give a speech entails certain rights I guess, pfaffing being the primary bonus.

The mind is filled with hope and an eagerness to learn something new when it enters the scared environs of the lecture hall. But imagine the torment it has to go through when one realises that the speaker is doing only one thing – dressing and redressing a single point in a million different ways; throwing foreign words at you like there’s no tomorrow. What happened to the sanctity of the lecture hall? What about the intelligence of the audience? Why does every speaker make the gross assumption that the audience is a fool and will eat whatever is on the plate?

Imagine the day the audience decides to walk out on a discourse. But the audience is civil. Basic courtesy demands that it sit through the entire discourse. And that is where the speakers hitch their free ride. They take their “nice” audience for a spin, giving them nothing but a truck load of pfaff.

My humble request to all podium lovers - Please speak. Our ears hunger for your ideas. But keep them simple. Keep them tight and keep them different. For as you must have realised by now, there is no time for pfaff.