Its been some 10 days now and may be writing this post now is a way of consolidating all those thoughts - I would not want to dwell much on the exact issue now - but lets just say - its an event that alters so much - So much of life - May be its just a fear of a new situation- Some say such is life face upto it - something like that agneepath poem may be ?
But fact is I can only recall the poem I posted long back on my blog so wont repost wholly but its there at the end of this post
the alteration of all of life's schemeshttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
and all its scope..
all with one tiny turn
of life's KALEIDOSCOPE...........
And while people talk of miracles and the mind swings from Dawkings to religion to spirituality ,
what remains are the cold hard economic facts of life and the the emotional pain of the heart. All else gets altered.
Let me start with my fragmented recollections.
And so last week as I slept crouched in the floor of the waiting room of a super speciality hospital I recalled Harry Potter - I could only recall the dementors and for the life of me I could not recall with all my tries what they called the spell that drove them away - I simply forgot the word Patronus.
All I was thinking was so many souls must 've left the world here in this place - and then dementors.
I hate hospitals. Does anyone like them ? May be Doctors do ? Not Sure
The last 10 days made me wonder if its the most cold blooded profession ever and be glad that I never ventured into anything close despite my parents hopes. There is something so chillingly inhumane about the medical fraternity - its seems more pronounced these days. In my childhood may be I was not so perceptive or may be the doctors knew to act caring at the very least.
I am not sure what to say - whom to blame and may be we being caught in our own emotions do not understand the importance of being detached in a profession on that sorts. But then its hard when I see professionalism being reflected in the ICU - by treating the patient as an object.
When the patient groans in pain or says I want to leave or anything the nurses do not even bother to acknowledge his existence - he is an object whose clinical parameters are to be noted - Its hard to decide professionalism OR cold bloodedness or is the overlap now become a merge actually.
At times the Ayahs seem more perceptive and caring - but then whom do we blame . Hiring 18 yrs old giggling students as intern nurses ?
One would want to make noise about one certain hospital or something but one knows its the same state across .
Pasting of right to Information boards - but administering medicines by cutting each and every pill so minutely - in such a manner that no one can read the labels.
Its the bleeding of the living in the name of the dying - our medical world. So I had my own thoughts of cold heartedness .
Was it better those days when we knew someone would live or die than now - with our great medical advances which try to make some one live clinically and slowly take multiple lives ?
Stories shared that make you chuckle in your worst grief and then realize how easy it seems from the other side - when you listen.
A patient admitted due to seizures caused due to bad liquor - Ok so we know the stereotype dont we ? -
But nah its a lady in a village who is a govt pensioner and loved her liquor too much to listen to anyone and would challenge the family - whats for you to lose the govt pays my bills.
An absolute arrogant patient who even in the ICU managed to put fear into the police officer there to take down the facts - Oh but then thats a lady shouting "I am a army colonels wife " who wakes up in the ICU asking - where is my purse ?
A family with its last few savings being spent on ventilator - not having the heart or the gumption to disobey the almost finished patient.
I am not sure why we remember the good things about someone when critical - when recalling something bad would actually ease the pain we feel about the situation. And so we live on and its all so hazy and no unlike many its not death thats scary I guess for me - its life .
You then understand why religion survives - more so in this part of the world.
The sheer helplessness of life forces you I guess to take refuge in some way.
Life that feels so entrapped and yet somehow its inappropriate even to oneself to mention it - to acknowledge that there are times you want to be so selfish and yet cannot - not sure if its a lack of courage or of heart.
Showing posts with label Moments_n_Thoughts. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Moments_n_Thoughts. Show all posts
Friday, February 17, 2012
Sunday, April 03, 2011
Of the value a winning joy brings
Last month in one of those moods when I just go ahead and buy books I bought the book Chinaman by shehaan karunaatilake .
Been a very busy month and I still am just halfway through so will post seperately on the book itself.
I started reading the book in train and as I read this quote in there I focused on those lines with a long pause
on the words
But once in a while, the very best of them will.... and thought of Sachin's centuries
and smiled to myself and though lucky us
we've had quite a many "once in a while's "
So When India won the World Cup and that too beating Sri Lanka
- may be Sachin did not fire - may be it isnt a left arm seamer but still I still recalled the quote in that Sri Lanka based novel
and thought of how the moment was all value for a billion.
It probably wont be much of use to most individual lives and will hardly change our daily lives or
cure any of the the ills we are living through yet....... what amazing value it brings to a collective memory of a nation
“been told .....that there is no use or value in sports,”
.....................
“In a thousand years, grass will have grown over all our cities.
Nothing of anything will matter. Left-arm spinners cannot teach your children
or cure you of disease. But once in a while,
the very best of them will bowl a ball that will
bring an entire nation to its feet.
And while there may be no practical use in that,
there is most certainly value.”
Last month in one of those moods when I just go ahead and buy books I bought the book Chinaman by shehaan karunaatilake .
Been a very busy month and I still am just halfway through so will post seperately on the book itself.
I started reading the book in train and as I read this quote in there I focused on those lines with a long pause
on the words
But once in a while, the very best of them will.... and thought of Sachin's centuries
and smiled to myself and though lucky us
we've had quite a many "once in a while's "
So When India won the World Cup and that too beating Sri Lanka
- may be Sachin did not fire - may be it isnt a left arm seamer but still I still recalled the quote in that Sri Lanka based novel
and thought of how the moment was all value for a billion.
It probably wont be much of use to most individual lives and will hardly change our daily lives or
cure any of the the ills we are living through yet....... what amazing value it brings to a collective memory of a nation
“been told .....that there is no use or value in sports,”
.....................
“In a thousand years, grass will have grown over all our cities.
Nothing of anything will matter. Left-arm spinners cannot teach your children
or cure you of disease. But once in a while,
the very best of them will bowl a ball that will
bring an entire nation to its feet.
And while there may be no practical use in that,
there is most certainly value.”
Friday, February 11, 2011
Pondering some endings...
Yesterday I was again reminded of this awesome poem by Agyey in hindi.
It was not a happy thing, though it doesnt not -yet- mean directly for me.
Someone I worked with remotely for over past 2 yrs suddenly is supposed to move out of a project he initiated.
In corporate life every decision has its merits & demerits but some how the way somethings are handled at times makes you feel bad.
There is not much you can say to someone whom you reported to for 2 years once a week but never knew anything else.
And all I could think of was that poem.
In Hindsight - I am a hopeless creature who gets nostalgic about things which are part & parcel of life
P.S: Someone please invent a better line to convey that some work is very
precious and dear to heart rather than - " Its my baby"
Yesterday I was again reminded of this awesome poem by Agyey in hindi.
It was not a happy thing, though it doesnt not -yet- mean directly for me.
Someone I worked with remotely for over past 2 yrs suddenly is supposed to move out of a project he initiated.
In corporate life every decision has its merits & demerits but some how the way somethings are handled at times makes you feel bad.
There is not much you can say to someone whom you reported to for 2 years once a week but never knew anything else.
And all I could think of was that poem.
In Hindsight - I am a hopeless creature who gets nostalgic about things which are part & parcel of life
P.S: Someone please invent a better line to convey that some work is very
precious and dear to heart rather than - " Its my baby"
Saturday, January 15, 2011
Of being reminded ...
A old friend from college days called up and started talking about the reunion of sorts they had in the US of a few of our hostelmates.The conversation made me glad of having this blog as I seem to have a terrific ability to forget many things which I dont care about personally .
May be I either outgrow things completely OR I always just hang onto them never letting go . There seems to be less of a middle path in my case.
She started off relating how S a senior has not changed one wee bit , she still behaves as though she is the center of the world and they stupidly still sort of catered to her. "Remember How she did not even ask about having food when we had travelled so far for her marriage. She even neglected and left our gift lying in the corner crap"
Now I had lost complete memory of such things as S was another of those acquaintances we called friends - no attachment neither any great respect/liking which for me can be mutually exclusive. But here I was being reminded of all that and I wonder about myself.
Why do people bother so much about these things and somewhere I know why I don't - because my expectation level with people has been very low and whenever I've raised it Ive been quite dissapointed.
But then I never raise it for everyone esp when you know that they are not worth it. Keeping it low has sprung many a pleasant surprises with people.I am amazed in fact when people remember me esp as I dont see hugely what they had to remember me for.
Nevertheless, people I dont know why nurse such bad memories which mean nothing really for years together.
It makes me wonder if having a good memory is all that good.
As Nietzsche said
"The advantage of a bad memory is that one enjoys several times the same good things for the first time."
So to complete the corollary "The advantage of a bad memory is that one never remembers the bad things "
But then may be it makes you prone to repeating your errors - or does the subconscious handle it? Whatever !!
P.S:
I am having some insane time at my office , making my friends say lady enjoy the drama while you can .
Its something like ek resource theen manager . Thats an upgrade from the two I had last who dont see eye to eye literally.
I have so many issues of my own nuisance at home that I just let the drama go on rather than add to my stress,
but if only there was a smart player what an awesome situation this is .
But then only a fool like me can end up in such stupid situation.Lets see how it ends cause things have to move now some way.
and so --- Still listening to Udaan's awesome Azaadiyan song
Kahani khatam hai ya shuruwaat hone ke hai (Is it the end of the story or the begining)
Subha nayi hai yeh ya phir raat hone ko hai ( Is it a new dawn or the start of night)
Aane wala waqt dega panha hai/Ya phir se milenge do raahein ( The time to come will take care of us Or will I again stand at a juncture)
Khabar kya, kya pataa ( Who knows)
P.P.S: I really dont want to write much on facebook but I always end up noticing such inane ridiculous things there that well I cant help it.Imagine you have a Sr manager on your friendlist and on a post - your sister , husband comments saying what a bunch of lazy buggers you are and how the org pays you for free as all you do is spend time on FB . The whole team is a kaamchor.
Seriously even if it was a joke - people are idiotic . Even if you dont care about the job its such downright senseless behavior but seems the world is anyway full of a billion of them . And after all Truth is Great and we should not be hypocrites.
A old friend from college days called up and started talking about the reunion of sorts they had in the US of a few of our hostelmates.The conversation made me glad of having this blog as I seem to have a terrific ability to forget many things which I dont care about personally .
May be I either outgrow things completely OR I always just hang onto them never letting go . There seems to be less of a middle path in my case.
She started off relating how S a senior has not changed one wee bit , she still behaves as though she is the center of the world and they stupidly still sort of catered to her. "Remember How she did not even ask about having food when we had travelled so far for her marriage. She even neglected and left our gift lying in the corner crap"
Now I had lost complete memory of such things as S was another of those acquaintances we called friends - no attachment neither any great respect/liking which for me can be mutually exclusive. But here I was being reminded of all that and I wonder about myself.
Why do people bother so much about these things and somewhere I know why I don't - because my expectation level with people has been very low and whenever I've raised it Ive been quite dissapointed.
But then I never raise it for everyone esp when you know that they are not worth it. Keeping it low has sprung many a pleasant surprises with people.I am amazed in fact when people remember me esp as I dont see hugely what they had to remember me for.
Nevertheless, people I dont know why nurse such bad memories which mean nothing really for years together.
It makes me wonder if having a good memory is all that good.
As Nietzsche said
"The advantage of a bad memory is that one enjoys several times the same good things for the first time."
So to complete the corollary "The advantage of a bad memory is that one never remembers the bad things "
But then may be it makes you prone to repeating your errors - or does the subconscious handle it? Whatever !!
P.S:
I am having some insane time at my office , making my friends say lady enjoy the drama while you can .
Its something like ek resource theen manager . Thats an upgrade from the two I had last who dont see eye to eye literally.
I have so many issues of my own nuisance at home that I just let the drama go on rather than add to my stress,
but if only there was a smart player what an awesome situation this is .
But then only a fool like me can end up in such stupid situation.Lets see how it ends cause things have to move now some way.
and so --- Still listening to Udaan's awesome Azaadiyan song
Kahani khatam hai ya shuruwaat hone ke hai (Is it the end of the story or the begining)
Subha nayi hai yeh ya phir raat hone ko hai ( Is it a new dawn or the start of night)
Aane wala waqt dega panha hai/Ya phir se milenge do raahein ( The time to come will take care of us Or will I again stand at a juncture)
Khabar kya, kya pataa ( Who knows)
P.P.S: I really dont want to write much on facebook but I always end up noticing such inane ridiculous things there that well I cant help it.Imagine you have a Sr manager on your friendlist and on a post - your sister , husband comments saying what a bunch of lazy buggers you are and how the org pays you for free as all you do is spend time on FB . The whole team is a kaamchor.
Seriously even if it was a joke - people are idiotic . Even if you dont care about the job its such downright senseless behavior but seems the world is anyway full of a billion of them . And after all Truth is Great and we should not be hypocrites.
Sunday, January 09, 2011
Jumbled thoughts of times we live in...
I have lost the art or may be the patience of writing a nice one topic based post which is why I write in such directionless manner , but the real issue is finding a title for such posts honestly.
Well I started writing on this thinking of facebook. There's something sinister about the way facebook is developing - I mean the way its being planned to be used by organizations.
Nothing's clear(though we all know the conspiracy theories) but what do you feel when you get an invite from
- the senior managers who rarely nods when they pass you by,
- people sitting two blocks away and all managers who rarely say hi (not that i mind , even I dont do that but then I dont go adding them)
Its isnt quite the orkut style stranger friend requests - its a deliberate thing by people whose request you cannot
refuse without being rude.
I have seen someone who added people in a whole department in a week . He probably has spoken directly to 40% of them even once.
If keeping in touch - professional contacts was the thing there's always linkedin which should be used.
But somehow no senior manager bothers on that Platform.
Organizations are begining to have social media policies I hear , but that is for employees being restricted,
I wonder if organizations themselves will have any scruples at all using stuff they pick up on employees.
But then thats an individual problem.
I am amazed at the idiots galore who put up their birthday on facebook fully correctly when thats actually the minimal authentication for many banks. No wonder Citibank type frauds happen. I was feeling hilarious
when I heard he cheated the Hero Group and at the same time it seemed scary.
If thats the level of sophistication really what chance do we have.
But yeah the sums that get talked about on TV and internet makes you feel really so small .
I mean nothing less than a crore gets discussed , be it IPL, frauds scams, or shopping and then you get
hikes of a thousand rupees or some single digit multiple . You seriously question yourself about you being any good really
until you see the IPL auction.
Ravindra Jadeja gets bid for 4 crore plus while some of the best across go unbid or for what 1 crore + /-.
This is a twisted world really. Nothing professional about it .
There you go Ayn Rand !! - If you ever want to see why your pure capitalism is not perfect and fails just see this auction.
The best will not rise to the top by default in Capitalism.
Capitalism is simply the lesser and preferable evil which allows everyone a chance to be evil , but evil it is.
Then again I think Ayn Rand was wrong but may be she had to exaggerate capitalism and its perfect world ,to put across her point among the fanatic socialists.
Thats the only way it seems to make a point. The assasination in Pakistan of Tasser and other religious hardline stuff we hear -
simply keeps increasing day by day even on the internet makes you realise the importance of someone like Richard Dawkins.
He seems as fanatic about Atheism as the religious fanatics he opposes(which is why I found God Delusion a wonderful read but odd ) but its at these times you realise why thats necessary -
without that fanatic passion you cannot make a liberal open minded counter argument to the relegious extremists.
I havent seen the movie The Devil's Advocate yet but I heard this quote from it which I liked because esp of the line
" absentee landord " as it reminded me of my favorite perfect song describing God for me
"aasman pe hai khuda aur zameen pe hum "
aaj kal vo is taraf dekhta hai kam"
John Milton: Let me give you a little inside information about God. God likes to watch. He's a prankster. Think about it. He gives man instincts. He gives you this extraordinary gift, and then what does He do, I swear for His own amusement, his own private, cosmic gag reel, He sets the rules in opposition. It's the goof of all time. Look but don't touch. Touch, but don't taste. Taste, don't swallow. Ahaha. And while you're jumpin' from one foot to the next, what is he doing? He's laughin' His sick, fuckin' ass off. He's a tight-ass. He's a sadist. He's an absentee landlord. Worship that? Never.
I have lost the art or may be the patience of writing a nice one topic based post which is why I write in such directionless manner , but the real issue is finding a title for such posts honestly.
Well I started writing on this thinking of facebook. There's something sinister about the way facebook is developing - I mean the way its being planned to be used by organizations.
Nothing's clear(though we all know the conspiracy theories) but what do you feel when you get an invite from
- the senior managers who rarely nods when they pass you by,
- people sitting two blocks away and all managers who rarely say hi (not that i mind , even I dont do that but then I dont go adding them)
Its isnt quite the orkut style stranger friend requests - its a deliberate thing by people whose request you cannot
refuse without being rude.
I have seen someone who added people in a whole department in a week . He probably has spoken directly to 40% of them even once.
If keeping in touch - professional contacts was the thing there's always linkedin which should be used.
But somehow no senior manager bothers on that Platform.
Organizations are begining to have social media policies I hear , but that is for employees being restricted,
I wonder if organizations themselves will have any scruples at all using stuff they pick up on employees.
But then thats an individual problem.
I am amazed at the idiots galore who put up their birthday on facebook fully correctly when thats actually the minimal authentication for many banks. No wonder Citibank type frauds happen. I was feeling hilarious
when I heard he cheated the Hero Group and at the same time it seemed scary.
If thats the level of sophistication really what chance do we have.
But yeah the sums that get talked about on TV and internet makes you feel really so small .
I mean nothing less than a crore gets discussed , be it IPL, frauds scams, or shopping and then you get
hikes of a thousand rupees or some single digit multiple . You seriously question yourself about you being any good really
until you see the IPL auction.
Ravindra Jadeja gets bid for 4 crore plus while some of the best across go unbid or for what 1 crore + /-.
This is a twisted world really. Nothing professional about it .
There you go Ayn Rand !! - If you ever want to see why your pure capitalism is not perfect and fails just see this auction.
The best will not rise to the top by default in Capitalism.
Capitalism is simply the lesser and preferable evil which allows everyone a chance to be evil , but evil it is.
Then again I think Ayn Rand was wrong but may be she had to exaggerate capitalism and its perfect world ,to put across her point among the fanatic socialists.
Thats the only way it seems to make a point. The assasination in Pakistan of Tasser and other religious hardline stuff we hear -
simply keeps increasing day by day even on the internet makes you realise the importance of someone like Richard Dawkins.
He seems as fanatic about Atheism as the religious fanatics he opposes(which is why I found God Delusion a wonderful read but odd ) but its at these times you realise why thats necessary -
without that fanatic passion you cannot make a liberal open minded counter argument to the relegious extremists.
I havent seen the movie The Devil's Advocate yet but I heard this quote from it which I liked because esp of the line
" absentee landord " as it reminded me of my favorite perfect song describing God for me
"aasman pe hai khuda aur zameen pe hum "
aaj kal vo is taraf dekhta hai kam"
John Milton: Let me give you a little inside information about God. God likes to watch. He's a prankster. Think about it. He gives man instincts. He gives you this extraordinary gift, and then what does He do, I swear for His own amusement, his own private, cosmic gag reel, He sets the rules in opposition. It's the goof of all time. Look but don't touch. Touch, but don't taste. Taste, don't swallow. Ahaha. And while you're jumpin' from one foot to the next, what is he doing? He's laughin' His sick, fuckin' ass off. He's a tight-ass. He's a sadist. He's an absentee landlord. Worship that? Never.
Friday, December 24, 2010
General Musings
So much's been happening it seems in the world and well may be I to should start tweeting rather than posting long essays.
I had so much I was hoping to write and then just frittered it all in thought. I have been in one of my laziest phases.
This post is mostly unconnected parts of stuff I managed to remember
I actually was hoping to write about the book I was reading The Black Swan & Fooled by randomness , but its very contents reminded me of what I saw here there and what not. I will review it in a different post.
Essentially the book talks about the role of luck or rather what we call luck, uncertainity etc.
Now I have oscillating views on that.
So here was one forward of a speech by Harsha Bhogle someone I am quite a fan of since was a kid.
http://brijux.com/2009/09/12/harsha-bhogle-achievers-of-excellence-iim-ahmedabad/
Its quite long but real nice esp I would say one should listen to part 2 first and then if one wants go to part1.
Well anyways he nicely opens a discussion about luck (at 17:50 in part 2)- he recalls how Ganguly told him it was great luck VVS Laxmans innings at Kolkatta.
Harsha disagrees and says its all the coming together of preparedness opportunity etc and gives his own personal example of his admission in IIM. Enjoyed hearing it and all , but the skepticism was open esp as I never can decide if I believe in fate or not.
Now I went to the passport office next day - after all the confusion of many things I am told I need not only the latest bill as adresss proof but also a bill 1 year older and I was like Oh Gosh - I will have to go through all this again.
Nowhere I saw mentioned saying you need bills across a year. But then I remembered I had some old bill in my purse and voila !
I found a old 2009 bill and I managed to get my work done the same day.
So I recalled the interview - Now what do I call it - luck or preparedness - I never prepared for needing a 1.5 yr old bill.
But if I want to put it like this - I can always say -
I am a very organized person and see I keep stuff prepared.
So I wondered why is it that most people always talk of luck and fate on failure .
When success comes people go on about hard work and self belief and all stuff.
Its a open thing - we can wonder and debate about all the time to no end.
I dont like to believe in fate but then it kind of has always been my bane in more ways than I can describe which is why I am often kind of lost in thoughts when I hear such debates.
There is so much of Wikileaks around that one cant escape it. It strangely reminded me hugely of what I wrote reviewing Social Network.We want all our heroes to be angelic - Why cant we be open to the fact that things in world are almost always grey
and there is no such thing as an absolute truth.
Just because he's brave and takes on governments mean Assange has no prejudice against women. Just as just because accusers are women we need to take their word as the truth.
It seems real nice the leaking of truth about governments etc - but lets just say there was no confidential reports in governments -
all is in open - would that make it a better world. Wont conspiracies and prejudices flourish by word of mouth .
While US policies may have been fully flawed - it does not mean terrorism is purely a by product of that and the world was a beautiful place before we brought in governance.
Then we have the Indian version of it all - which is even more depressing. But while it seems so much of a rage on twitter and
blogosphere I wonder how many of us really would stand up and fight and how many has the system already defeated.
We really are the species Darwin talks of - the first instinct is self preservation.
P.S: It may seem strange but this by far has been one of the most exciting reads for me in recent times.
The whole thing is thrilling than most thrillers we read.
http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/11/26/secret-agent-crippled-irans-nuclear-ambitions/
It seemed so appreciable and awesome really - the whole attention to detail - and then the scare sets in in the mind.
I seriously wondered about times - not a penny in reality but all of life's earnings in electronic form and my mom's old advice
- why oh why you dont buy gold - hmm!! she's already been vindicated partly with the gold prices
Then I wondered hmm but wont that make movies boring - like 007 replaced by Stuxnet
- and then I think - no Social network wasnt all that boring. Sure they'll figure a way out to talk out the code design in some dashing ways - he he !!
So much's been happening it seems in the world and well may be I to should start tweeting rather than posting long essays.
I had so much I was hoping to write and then just frittered it all in thought. I have been in one of my laziest phases.
This post is mostly unconnected parts of stuff I managed to remember
I actually was hoping to write about the book I was reading The Black Swan & Fooled by randomness , but its very contents reminded me of what I saw here there and what not. I will review it in a different post.
Essentially the book talks about the role of luck or rather what we call luck, uncertainity etc.
Now I have oscillating views on that.
So here was one forward of a speech by Harsha Bhogle someone I am quite a fan of since was a kid.
http://brijux.com/2009/09/12/harsha-bhogle-achievers-of-excellence-iim-ahmedabad/
Its quite long but real nice esp I would say one should listen to part 2 first and then if one wants go to part1.
Well anyways he nicely opens a discussion about luck (at 17:50 in part 2)- he recalls how Ganguly told him it was great luck VVS Laxmans innings at Kolkatta.
Harsha disagrees and says its all the coming together of preparedness opportunity etc and gives his own personal example of his admission in IIM. Enjoyed hearing it and all , but the skepticism was open esp as I never can decide if I believe in fate or not.
Now I went to the passport office next day - after all the confusion of many things I am told I need not only the latest bill as adresss proof but also a bill 1 year older and I was like Oh Gosh - I will have to go through all this again.
Nowhere I saw mentioned saying you need bills across a year. But then I remembered I had some old bill in my purse and voila !
I found a old 2009 bill and I managed to get my work done the same day.
So I recalled the interview - Now what do I call it - luck or preparedness - I never prepared for needing a 1.5 yr old bill.
But if I want to put it like this - I can always say -
I am a very organized person and see I keep stuff prepared.
So I wondered why is it that most people always talk of luck and fate on failure .
When success comes people go on about hard work and self belief and all stuff.
Its a open thing - we can wonder and debate about all the time to no end.
I dont like to believe in fate but then it kind of has always been my bane in more ways than I can describe which is why I am often kind of lost in thoughts when I hear such debates.
There is so much of Wikileaks around that one cant escape it. It strangely reminded me hugely of what I wrote reviewing Social Network.We want all our heroes to be angelic - Why cant we be open to the fact that things in world are almost always grey
and there is no such thing as an absolute truth.
Just because he's brave and takes on governments mean Assange has no prejudice against women. Just as just because accusers are women we need to take their word as the truth.
It seems real nice the leaking of truth about governments etc - but lets just say there was no confidential reports in governments -
all is in open - would that make it a better world. Wont conspiracies and prejudices flourish by word of mouth .
While US policies may have been fully flawed - it does not mean terrorism is purely a by product of that and the world was a beautiful place before we brought in governance.
Then we have the Indian version of it all - which is even more depressing. But while it seems so much of a rage on twitter and
blogosphere I wonder how many of us really would stand up and fight and how many has the system already defeated.
We really are the species Darwin talks of - the first instinct is self preservation.
P.S: It may seem strange but this by far has been one of the most exciting reads for me in recent times.
The whole thing is thrilling than most thrillers we read.
http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/11/26/secret-agent-crippled-irans-nuclear-ambitions/
It seemed so appreciable and awesome really - the whole attention to detail - and then the scare sets in in the mind.
I seriously wondered about times - not a penny in reality but all of life's earnings in electronic form and my mom's old advice
- why oh why you dont buy gold - hmm!! she's already been vindicated partly with the gold prices
Then I wondered hmm but wont that make movies boring - like 007 replaced by Stuxnet
- and then I think - no Social network wasnt all that boring. Sure they'll figure a way out to talk out the code design in some dashing ways - he he !!
Sunday, November 21, 2010
Watching and Musing about the Social Network
Watched Social network and quite liked it essentially because of the elements Scott Adams put up in his review here .
http://www.dilbert.com/blog/entry/the_social_network__review/
"I appreciate the movie for what it did not do. It did not rely on special effects in a way that was obvious to the viewer. It wasn't in 3D. There was no violence. There was no car chase scene. If you make a list of all the elements that can make a movie predictable and lame, this movie had none. That's at least partly because the story is inspired by reality."
For me that was real point . Something lacking all the common stuff for which people flock to a movie . I was kind of bugged up the Avatars and Inceptions dealing with what we don't understand or see - and refusing to face up to what faces us - our own human social awkwardness and insecurities in the existing realm.
Though more than the movie I essentially thought a lot about the real facebook in general.
The ending scene seriously is the real poignant picture. Humanity invariably is like that after all the Darwin , Freud and Einstein and
relegion stuff when people are obsessed well they are obsessed. Money is a great substitute - a great painkiller it just wont heal the wounds .
The movie does reflect greatly on how someone hugely socially awkward built the worlds biggest social networking.
It actually makes you feel like he thinks even more worse of the general populace who fall for it and is kind of smirking.
and if you read about these old IM's of Zuckerberg well he surely was !!.
Secondly as much as we want to believe the world's most successful people are wonderful humans - fact is they necessarily dont have to be the nicest and good people.
Its not just Zuckerberg - as much as we love Apple products and find steve jobs inspiring - fact is the guy's damn arrogant.
But yeah he's got enough reasons to be :) and its hard to envision many in that position who wouldnt be.
Getting back to social networking - I was just musing how there could be two kinds of populace
- one who are truer on facebook than in reality i.e they express themseleves and their thoughts easier there
and other who build up exactly the facade they want to be but never will be.
The most miniscule percentage would be the people who are exactly the same on and out of Facebook
(as a matter of fact anything online - I certainly consider myself in the first set in a general way as I blog anonymously).
But yeah facebook differs or hoped to differ from other online stuff in the sense that its about people you know even if not friends.
Though seriously its not even that.I read about this facebook scam and was like hmm .
The movie reminded me of so many things in general.
I have a friend who just wont join facebook and deleted her orkut account too.
She's had a rough time in life and she says she gets upset by the constant advertising by people of their family and kids and that
happiness facade or truth or whatever.Thats one side - and I think its just a personal reaction but happens with a reason.
Then I see some comments .
I have two friends - both have very cute kids.and I left comments on their cute kids.
What amused me though was this - these two remotely know each other - and yet -
one friend then left a comment about how wonderful and cute and smart the kid was looking
the other then reciprocates - ur princess too is very sweet.
This is exactly the loving diplomacy , backslapping and false affection reminds of that song
"tum hume good kaho - hum tumhe very good kahenge"
It is not that the kids are not cute its just the fakeness - (though to be honest even if they werent they - children are supposed to be said to be cute.Any other word and you are heartless.)
Neverthless we are now in the facebook generation and I wont be cruel and say all of it is fake as Ive seen a lot of people being
really in touch with a whole bunch - the people you would lose touch with but for facebook.
Its the same old 80-20 pareto rule I guess.
80% of the time we care about a maximum of 20% of the facebook contacts/features .
P.S:My last thought on this was if I do live through for a decade or so more - I will be reading the autobiographies of all these people about whom right no so called inspired biographies are made - and what new twists they will throw up.
Watched Social network and quite liked it essentially because of the elements Scott Adams put up in his review here .
http://www.dilbert.com/blog/entry/the_social_network__review/
"I appreciate the movie for what it did not do. It did not rely on special effects in a way that was obvious to the viewer. It wasn't in 3D. There was no violence. There was no car chase scene. If you make a list of all the elements that can make a movie predictable and lame, this movie had none. That's at least partly because the story is inspired by reality."
For me that was real point . Something lacking all the common stuff for which people flock to a movie . I was kind of bugged up the Avatars and Inceptions dealing with what we don't understand or see - and refusing to face up to what faces us - our own human social awkwardness and insecurities in the existing realm.
Though more than the movie I essentially thought a lot about the real facebook in general.
The ending scene seriously is the real poignant picture. Humanity invariably is like that after all the Darwin , Freud and Einstein and
relegion stuff when people are obsessed well they are obsessed. Money is a great substitute - a great painkiller it just wont heal the wounds .
The movie does reflect greatly on how someone hugely socially awkward built the worlds biggest social networking.
It actually makes you feel like he thinks even more worse of the general populace who fall for it and is kind of smirking.
and if you read about these old IM's of Zuckerberg well he surely was !!.
Secondly as much as we want to believe the world's most successful people are wonderful humans - fact is they necessarily dont have to be the nicest and good people.
Its not just Zuckerberg - as much as we love Apple products and find steve jobs inspiring - fact is the guy's damn arrogant.
But yeah he's got enough reasons to be :) and its hard to envision many in that position who wouldnt be.
Getting back to social networking - I was just musing how there could be two kinds of populace
- one who are truer on facebook than in reality i.e they express themseleves and their thoughts easier there
and other who build up exactly the facade they want to be but never will be.
The most miniscule percentage would be the people who are exactly the same on and out of Facebook
(as a matter of fact anything online - I certainly consider myself in the first set in a general way as I blog anonymously).
But yeah facebook differs or hoped to differ from other online stuff in the sense that its about people you know even if not friends.
Though seriously its not even that.I read about this facebook scam and was like hmm .
The movie reminded me of so many things in general.
I have a friend who just wont join facebook and deleted her orkut account too.
She's had a rough time in life and she says she gets upset by the constant advertising by people of their family and kids and that
happiness facade or truth or whatever.Thats one side - and I think its just a personal reaction but happens with a reason.
Then I see some comments .
I have two friends - both have very cute kids.and I left comments on their cute kids.
What amused me though was this - these two remotely know each other - and yet -
one friend then left a comment about how wonderful and cute and smart the kid was looking
the other then reciprocates - ur princess too is very sweet.
This is exactly the loving diplomacy , backslapping and false affection reminds of that song
"tum hume good kaho - hum tumhe very good kahenge"
It is not that the kids are not cute its just the fakeness - (though to be honest even if they werent they - children are supposed to be said to be cute.Any other word and you are heartless.)
Neverthless we are now in the facebook generation and I wont be cruel and say all of it is fake as Ive seen a lot of people being
really in touch with a whole bunch - the people you would lose touch with but for facebook.
Its the same old 80-20 pareto rule I guess.
80% of the time we care about a maximum of 20% of the facebook contacts/features .
P.S:My last thought on this was if I do live through for a decade or so more - I will be reading the autobiographies of all these people about whom right no so called inspired biographies are made - and what new twists they will throw up.
Sunday, March 21, 2010
Oh to grow up - once again !!
I've been as good as missing from here and well good I guess rather than some repeat cribbing.
But the last two weeks have been a blast from the past time having suddenly spoken/met so many of the people from the past.
And I suddenly wanted to write , just for the heck of it
But well lets start from some other point. The moment I heard the song I knew it would touch a set of people,
so it did and found so many loving that song.
The children who became adults of the 21st century majorly the +/- 1975-80 born people.
A sense of missing out , of how much could have been persists I feel in that generation which spent its best years
when there was such huge competition and no escapes even like 3 idiots.
Yes these are the people who want in their hearts desperately
- to grow up once again - with some sunshine.
Its a lovely song and I know some very hardworking , simple bright well settled people who at the exterior seem like the
calm / unemotional great acheivers or hard hearted but deep within in a very unsaid fashion longing for that sunshine , that happiness as there is that feeling of having missed out on what can never be again.
The movie 3 idiots well thats OK - good fun but I hate it being called great and I dislike quite much
in there (the know it all of Aamir's character - the definitions of success and a lot of the oversmartness -
the book was actually tad more realistic in some sense as there was no HERO who had to be perfect)
but well fun it is - no two ways on that.
I always feel if you have a happy childhood , other half of your life may be good or bad but you kind of thrive on those memories.
But if that part of your life has pain some of the best acheivements and happiness in life will never take away that pain.
Even books from a children's point of view are way too haunting at times.
I had started reading Kite Runner. I was depressed deeply half way through reading it. I had to stop it for a few weeks. It was a beautifully written book but I just found it depressing me.
The other book "A Thousand Splendid suns" did not affect much . It was just another story of what we sort of know and are used to - I mean of opression of women , human spirit and all that - somehow it does not match up to the first book Kite Runner By Khaled Hosseini.
Well back to my memories well I met a friend from school - after 18 yrs and I just talk and talk .
I come home and think why is it that you who take a minimum of a year to get used to talking to a person in your cubicle in today's times and yet have it so easy talking to someone close to two decades ago.
It was so hard to remind myself this wasnt yesterday when we talked. Some of our teachers were dead and life hasnt been kind .
We havent lived up to what we had thought of becoming in school and yet it never felt that far.
Time plays havoc on the mind and letting go of past is such a hard process.
I of all seem to live in a time warp on the surface. Beyond the fact that then I was in school and now I am employed nothing seemed to have changed.
But its beneath the surface that the change lies
- I was then a sad scared and a tense child but had hopes in life , believed in surmounting the obstacles somehow, righting the wrongs
- I am now a confident adult who us is hugely cynical in life now
And yet when you see someone from that past and despite what you see only confirms your cynicism of life and the world
you want to turn the clock back
and grow up - once again
So I re-post this beautiful poem
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
To deepest dusk,
from morning sun
to twilight dreams
fantastic schemes
and lives that go awry
such shining hopes
such sudden twists from
bright to dark
from grim to grand
from joy to sorrow
always waiting for tommorow
and a twist of fate
a ray of hope
with the faintest sleight of hand
the alteration of all of life’s schemes
and all its scope..
all with one tiny turn
of life’s KALEIDOSCOPE.
Danielle Steel
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I've been as good as missing from here and well good I guess rather than some repeat cribbing.
But the last two weeks have been a blast from the past time having suddenly spoken/met so many of the people from the past.
And I suddenly wanted to write , just for the heck of it
But well lets start from some other point. The moment I heard the song I knew it would touch a set of people,
so it did and found so many loving that song.
The children who became adults of the 21st century majorly the +/- 1975-80 born people.
A sense of missing out , of how much could have been persists I feel in that generation which spent its best years
when there was such huge competition and no escapes even like 3 idiots.
Yes these are the people who want in their hearts desperately
- to grow up once again - with some sunshine.
Its a lovely song and I know some very hardworking , simple bright well settled people who at the exterior seem like the
calm / unemotional great acheivers or hard hearted but deep within in a very unsaid fashion longing for that sunshine , that happiness as there is that feeling of having missed out on what can never be again.
The movie 3 idiots well thats OK - good fun but I hate it being called great and I dislike quite much
in there (the know it all of Aamir's character - the definitions of success and a lot of the oversmartness -
the book was actually tad more realistic in some sense as there was no HERO who had to be perfect)
but well fun it is - no two ways on that.
I always feel if you have a happy childhood , other half of your life may be good or bad but you kind of thrive on those memories.
But if that part of your life has pain some of the best acheivements and happiness in life will never take away that pain.
Even books from a children's point of view are way too haunting at times.
I had started reading Kite Runner. I was depressed deeply half way through reading it. I had to stop it for a few weeks. It was a beautifully written book but I just found it depressing me.
The other book "A Thousand Splendid suns" did not affect much . It was just another story of what we sort of know and are used to - I mean of opression of women , human spirit and all that - somehow it does not match up to the first book Kite Runner By Khaled Hosseini.
Well back to my memories well I met a friend from school - after 18 yrs and I just talk and talk .
I come home and think why is it that you who take a minimum of a year to get used to talking to a person in your cubicle in today's times and yet have it so easy talking to someone close to two decades ago.
It was so hard to remind myself this wasnt yesterday when we talked. Some of our teachers were dead and life hasnt been kind .
We havent lived up to what we had thought of becoming in school and yet it never felt that far.
Time plays havoc on the mind and letting go of past is such a hard process.
I of all seem to live in a time warp on the surface. Beyond the fact that then I was in school and now I am employed nothing seemed to have changed.
But its beneath the surface that the change lies
- I was then a sad scared and a tense child but had hopes in life , believed in surmounting the obstacles somehow, righting the wrongs
- I am now a confident adult who us is hugely cynical in life now
And yet when you see someone from that past and despite what you see only confirms your cynicism of life and the world
you want to turn the clock back
and grow up - once again
So I re-post this beautiful poem
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
To deepest dusk,
from morning sun
to twilight dreams
fantastic schemes
and lives that go awry
such shining hopes
such sudden twists from
bright to dark
from grim to grand
from joy to sorrow
always waiting for tommorow
and a twist of fate
a ray of hope
with the faintest sleight of hand
the alteration of all of life’s schemes
and all its scope..
all with one tiny turn
of life’s KALEIDOSCOPE.
Danielle Steel
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Sunday, September 06, 2009
Escaping Life
This is going to be a long post of mish mash , of my readings , of thoughts , some unwritten snatches remembered and some pieces fitted in.
I was looking up some of my older posts and realized Ive lost even that focus. Even though what I write is hugely diarylike I asked myself why do I write then on a blog, may be because making it a post allowed me to focus on a structure or a thought.
But I seem to have even lost that grip and so I write even less. But whats worse is its become quite hard to read books as I used to read.But I try for my own world is collapsing just as I assumed it would , but hoped it wont.
As quoted by R.A.Heinlein one must never be a pessimist
“a pessimist is correct oftener than an optimist, but an optimist has more fun--and neither can stop the march of events.”
But unfortunately events have proved me too correct for my own good esp at my home.
Tolstoy knew what we was talking about when he started that morose novel with the lines
"All happy families are alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way."
So is ours .paranoia , hurt ,power and economics rule our lives more than we care to admit.
If I were younger I would have still been complaining but for now I just know each of us are unhappier due to each of us
and its a vortex of hurt we are being sucked into and I fall in line.
Giving up doesn't solve it.you have to keep fighting it and that is life.
To escape this and a listlessness of a different kind at work I tried my only escape left.Books
=======================================================
I thought a simple fantasy story would keep me hooked to another world and started reading the Lord of the Rings, a movie which I resolved not to see till I read the book.It was a hard start esp the initial pages I just was losing my patience but it was the Gollum story and Gandalf thing that finally pulled me in and I was lost for a few hours every day.
But wherever you get lost one line here a thought there pulls you back too your own world
Lonely men are we, Rangers of the wild, hunters – but hunters ever of the servants of the Enemy; for they are found in many places, not in Mordor only....................And yet less thanks have we than you. Travellers scowl at us, and countrymen give us scornful names
“"Strider" I am to one fat man who lives within a day's march of foes that would freeze his heart, or lay his little town in ruin, if he were not guarded ceaselessly. Yet we would not have it otherwise. If simple folk are free from care and fear, simple they will be, and we must be secret to keep them so.”
As I read this my thoughts of having peace came back to me and then I thought one cant have peace without war , whatever some people preach.You need some brave strong and fearless who fight so you have peace. I don't like this thought but somehow what I see around me convinces me more and more of this.
The news then got filled up with death of CM of Andhra Pradesh in unforeseen circumstances and you can see everyone for a moment was in shock, not out of of grief for the departed or such but more because of it brought back to people the fragility of life, the helplessness of man against nature .
It convinced the fatalistic even more of fate,
to the religious the certainty of the power of God ,
to the happy go lucky it convinced them that there may never be a tommorow so live for the day
and to some it reiterated their own beliefs.
We all interpret events ,books, movies by our past experiences and deepest emotions ,fears .
How ever can there be an absolute truth?
===========================================================
Have started reading Stay Hungry Stay Foolish by Rashmi Bansal.Its quite a good collection till now though I must say nothing beats Steve Jobs speech.
Though when you read something like this (its by Shantanu Prakash of educomp)at a time when your pay sucks and career seems hopeless you really feel...Hmmmm lets somehow get out of this
Two years you may struggle. If the average salary is Rs.15-18 lakhs p.a. (gross) how much do you make in five
years? 18 x 5, right? After tax, you make some 50 lakhs.In 5 years, I can guarantee you, any business you do, will
earn you that. Assuming that you are at least a little bit intelligent, within a year, the valuation of your business
itself will exceed fifty lakhs. No matter what you do.
Now its not the logic of it which can be argued , its the sheer confidence and obstinate persistence I think that makes some people successful.But then failures don't have books written on them.
=====================================================
A friend brought up Atlas Shrugged a book I read a decade back and cant recollect every scene, but she was a author I liked
though not quite completely in the usual sense.
Ive written about it here.
I tried re reading parts of it and though I still like the conception of her theory its a ideal we can struggle towards may be , but it ignores so much. The Francisco money speech is one of the best in defence of the goodness of money , something you want to throw back at all those smug people who say money is evil.
"When money ceases to be the tool by which men deal with one another, then men become the tools of men. Blood, whips and guns--or dollars. Take your choice--there is no other--and your time is running out"
But what this assumes is men always deal honestly with money, truth remains that men make/buy men as tools using money too and just as "blood whips and guns" money too is a tool used by mankind to gain power(over what depends on the individual ).
Ayn Rand is quite popular among some of great acheivers Ive noticed and you have to say that in her times it seemed right considering what she must have seen living at the height of communism and complete subjugation of the individual, the high ideal that she created even she never lived up to it , because life even for a individual sans society is much complex.
Every individual somewhere deep with is a sum of the parts of his experiences and personas he battles within.
================LIFE SIMPLE ?===================
Someone remarked at office - Life is simple people are complex in a different context?
Is it ? - I wondered at heart. what is life if not people and how is life simple.
People defintely are not but so isnt life. Its just that since we cant simplify ourselves we wish life was simple,
like a set of rules and so we have religion or society or whatever that makes people frame the rules to live by.
And people who refuse to look beyond it and live by it may be do have it simple.
But its a choice in the end and it has to be made.
===================THE GOD OF SMALL THINGS ==========
The last book I read completely immersed into was like 2 months ago and though I was moved enough to write on it I never managed to.
I have had a certain dislike to Arundhati Roys views since well like very long and my tendency to stay away from hyped books at times prevented me from reading "The God of Small Things" . But I guess everything has a time and so I finally read it.
I have a complete distaste for many of her arguments esp political but I say she writes marvelously.
I felt that first when I read her piece against the nuclear tests in outlook over a decade back and was very impressed and her novel is moving enough.The book may have the usual nuisance like the incest parts and the India for the west potrayal (inserted for sales) at times, but I rather ignore them and enjoy the better parts.
She really brings a visual and auditory feel by her words esp her repetitions and the childrens parts there were truly refreshingly childlike.
"Ammu held out the crisp matching knickers for her. Rahel, with her hands on Ammu’s shoulders, climbed into her new knickers (left leg, right leg) and gave Ammu a kiss on each dimple (left cheek, right cheek). "
You could almost see a small little kid girl being readied by her mother.
It was probably a long time since a book had captivated me by its style and writing .
I liked the kids part of the description in the novel hugely for its sheer innocent beauty.
The way life was as I stared at another of the birthdays then I just could think of the lines
"Not old, not young, but a viable, dieable age."
The line keeps coming back in the novel and in thoughts so very often.
And then the below
Little events, ordinary things, smashed and reconstituted. Imbued with new meaning. Suddenly they become the bleached bones of a story.
Still, to say that it all began when Sophie Mol came to Ayemenem is only one way of looking at it.
Equally, it could be argued that it actually began thousands of years ago. Long before the Marxists came. Before the British took Malabar, before the Dutch Ascendency before Vasco da Gama arrived, before the Zamorin’s conquest of Calicut. Before three purple robed Syrian bishops murdered by the Portuguese were found floating in the sea, with coiled sea serpents riding on their chests and oysters knotted in their tangled beards. It could be argued that it began long before Christianity arrived in a boat and seeped into Kerala like tea from a teabag.
That it really began in the days when the Love Laws were made.
The laws that lay down who should be loved, and how.
And how much.
However, for practical purposes, in a hopelessly practical world…
So she proceeds to the story and while its flaws are immense the little goodness outshines them when you read it from the heart.
=========================================================
Watched Kaminey. Did I like it YES I did , considering that I am not much of a gangster movie fan I still liked it.
Shahid Kapur was quite good and though I did not think it great of anything as so many reviews say I liked it . Seemed like a 70 mm movie after a host of multiplex movies.
I am not very sure but may be it was just my mood which made me like it. My mood of letting this world go to hell I guess.
The music too added to the mood.I love the line in the title track
Jiska bhi chehra cheela, andar se aur nikla(whenver i peeled the mask off a face the face was completely different inside)
masoom sa kabootar , nacha tho mor nikla(the innocent pigeon when it danced , it got revealed that it was a peacock)
=========================================================
This is going to be a long post of mish mash , of my readings , of thoughts , some unwritten snatches remembered and some pieces fitted in.
I was looking up some of my older posts and realized Ive lost even that focus. Even though what I write is hugely diarylike I asked myself why do I write then on a blog, may be because making it a post allowed me to focus on a structure or a thought.
But I seem to have even lost that grip and so I write even less. But whats worse is its become quite hard to read books as I used to read.But I try for my own world is collapsing just as I assumed it would , but hoped it wont.
As quoted by R.A.Heinlein one must never be a pessimist
“a pessimist is correct oftener than an optimist, but an optimist has more fun--and neither can stop the march of events.”
But unfortunately events have proved me too correct for my own good esp at my home.
Tolstoy knew what we was talking about when he started that morose novel with the lines
"All happy families are alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way."
So is ours .paranoia , hurt ,power and economics rule our lives more than we care to admit.
If I were younger I would have still been complaining but for now I just know each of us are unhappier due to each of us
and its a vortex of hurt we are being sucked into and I fall in line.
Giving up doesn't solve it.you have to keep fighting it and that is life.
To escape this and a listlessness of a different kind at work I tried my only escape left.Books
=======================================================
I thought a simple fantasy story would keep me hooked to another world and started reading the Lord of the Rings, a movie which I resolved not to see till I read the book.It was a hard start esp the initial pages I just was losing my patience but it was the Gollum story and Gandalf thing that finally pulled me in and I was lost for a few hours every day.
But wherever you get lost one line here a thought there pulls you back too your own world
Lonely men are we, Rangers of the wild, hunters – but hunters ever of the servants of the Enemy; for they are found in many places, not in Mordor only....................And yet less thanks have we than you. Travellers scowl at us, and countrymen give us scornful names
“"Strider" I am to one fat man who lives within a day's march of foes that would freeze his heart, or lay his little town in ruin, if he were not guarded ceaselessly. Yet we would not have it otherwise. If simple folk are free from care and fear, simple they will be, and we must be secret to keep them so.”
As I read this my thoughts of having peace came back to me and then I thought one cant have peace without war , whatever some people preach.You need some brave strong and fearless who fight so you have peace. I don't like this thought but somehow what I see around me convinces me more and more of this.
The news then got filled up with death of CM of Andhra Pradesh in unforeseen circumstances and you can see everyone for a moment was in shock, not out of of grief for the departed or such but more because of it brought back to people the fragility of life, the helplessness of man against nature .
It convinced the fatalistic even more of fate,
to the religious the certainty of the power of God ,
to the happy go lucky it convinced them that there may never be a tommorow so live for the day
and to some it reiterated their own beliefs.
We all interpret events ,books, movies by our past experiences and deepest emotions ,fears .
How ever can there be an absolute truth?
===========================================================
Have started reading Stay Hungry Stay Foolish by Rashmi Bansal.Its quite a good collection till now though I must say nothing beats Steve Jobs speech.
Though when you read something like this (its by Shantanu Prakash of educomp)at a time when your pay sucks and career seems hopeless you really feel...Hmmmm lets somehow get out of this
Two years you may struggle. If the average salary is Rs.15-18 lakhs p.a. (gross) how much do you make in five
years? 18 x 5, right? After tax, you make some 50 lakhs.In 5 years, I can guarantee you, any business you do, will
earn you that. Assuming that you are at least a little bit intelligent, within a year, the valuation of your business
itself will exceed fifty lakhs. No matter what you do.
Now its not the logic of it which can be argued , its the sheer confidence and obstinate persistence I think that makes some people successful.But then failures don't have books written on them.
=====================================================
A friend brought up Atlas Shrugged a book I read a decade back and cant recollect every scene, but she was a author I liked
though not quite completely in the usual sense.
Ive written about it here.
I tried re reading parts of it and though I still like the conception of her theory its a ideal we can struggle towards may be , but it ignores so much. The Francisco money speech is one of the best in defence of the goodness of money , something you want to throw back at all those smug people who say money is evil.
"When money ceases to be the tool by which men deal with one another, then men become the tools of men. Blood, whips and guns--or dollars. Take your choice--there is no other--and your time is running out"
But what this assumes is men always deal honestly with money, truth remains that men make/buy men as tools using money too and just as "blood whips and guns" money too is a tool used by mankind to gain power(over what depends on the individual ).
Ayn Rand is quite popular among some of great acheivers Ive noticed and you have to say that in her times it seemed right considering what she must have seen living at the height of communism and complete subjugation of the individual, the high ideal that she created even she never lived up to it , because life even for a individual sans society is much complex.
Every individual somewhere deep with is a sum of the parts of his experiences and personas he battles within.
================LIFE SIMPLE ?===================
Someone remarked at office - Life is simple people are complex in a different context?
Is it ? - I wondered at heart. what is life if not people and how is life simple.
People defintely are not but so isnt life. Its just that since we cant simplify ourselves we wish life was simple,
like a set of rules and so we have religion or society or whatever that makes people frame the rules to live by.
And people who refuse to look beyond it and live by it may be do have it simple.
But its a choice in the end and it has to be made.
===================THE GOD OF SMALL THINGS ==========
The last book I read completely immersed into was like 2 months ago and though I was moved enough to write on it I never managed to.
I have had a certain dislike to Arundhati Roys views since well like very long and my tendency to stay away from hyped books at times prevented me from reading "The God of Small Things" . But I guess everything has a time and so I finally read it.
I have a complete distaste for many of her arguments esp political but I say she writes marvelously.
I felt that first when I read her piece against the nuclear tests in outlook over a decade back and was very impressed and her novel is moving enough.The book may have the usual nuisance like the incest parts and the India for the west potrayal (inserted for sales) at times, but I rather ignore them and enjoy the better parts.
She really brings a visual and auditory feel by her words esp her repetitions and the childrens parts there were truly refreshingly childlike.
"Ammu held out the crisp matching knickers for her. Rahel, with her hands on Ammu’s shoulders, climbed into her new knickers (left leg, right leg) and gave Ammu a kiss on each dimple (left cheek, right cheek). "
You could almost see a small little kid girl being readied by her mother.
It was probably a long time since a book had captivated me by its style and writing .
I liked the kids part of the description in the novel hugely for its sheer innocent beauty.
The way life was as I stared at another of the birthdays then I just could think of the lines
"Not old, not young, but a viable, dieable age."
The line keeps coming back in the novel and in thoughts so very often.
And then the below
Little events, ordinary things, smashed and reconstituted. Imbued with new meaning. Suddenly they become the bleached bones of a story.
Still, to say that it all began when Sophie Mol came to Ayemenem is only one way of looking at it.
Equally, it could be argued that it actually began thousands of years ago. Long before the Marxists came. Before the British took Malabar, before the Dutch Ascendency before Vasco da Gama arrived, before the Zamorin’s conquest of Calicut. Before three purple robed Syrian bishops murdered by the Portuguese were found floating in the sea, with coiled sea serpents riding on their chests and oysters knotted in their tangled beards. It could be argued that it began long before Christianity arrived in a boat and seeped into Kerala like tea from a teabag.
That it really began in the days when the Love Laws were made.
The laws that lay down who should be loved, and how.
And how much.
However, for practical purposes, in a hopelessly practical world…
So she proceeds to the story and while its flaws are immense the little goodness outshines them when you read it from the heart.
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Watched Kaminey. Did I like it YES I did , considering that I am not much of a gangster movie fan I still liked it.
Shahid Kapur was quite good and though I did not think it great of anything as so many reviews say I liked it . Seemed like a 70 mm movie after a host of multiplex movies.
I am not very sure but may be it was just my mood which made me like it. My mood of letting this world go to hell I guess.
The music too added to the mood.I love the line in the title track
Jiska bhi chehra cheela, andar se aur nikla(whenver i peeled the mask off a face the face was completely different inside)
masoom sa kabootar , nacha tho mor nikla(the innocent pigeon when it danced , it got revealed that it was a peacock)
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Sunday, April 19, 2009
Just a bit of Sarcasm
Sarcasm - I will agree is " intellect on the offensive"
and yeah you dont just get it just like that
- you need to suffer and then get over it with the spirit .
You could see it yesterday with rahul dravid saying what he did
"Conditions like these give boys like me a chance to play"
Oh how the modest man has changed with all that he has been through and the way times
have changed with the young aggresive men.
But then I will go back to my beautiful school days to reiterate how time takes off the rose colored glasses.
Here's the lovely poetry by Surdas - something that I loved then and now too
the difference being just the way I think
Translated loosely it says
Where would I find peace and happiness O lord
but am just like a bird on a ship would fly all around and be back to the ship.
Leaving the lotus eyed god who would pray to the other gods
Just as Leaving the great and pure Ganges only a fool would go and dig a well.
Just as any bee who once having tasted the sweet nectar of lotus would never have the bittergourd
Leaving Surdas's great god who is like kamdhenu(provider of all wishes) who would milk a goat.
I loved the beauty of poem - it was taught with great passion by the old teacher and
I love reciting it just like just that life's ways make me think of it with sarcasm
Why will some one who has tasted sweet nectar eat Bitter gourd - Ok dear they will if they have diabetes
Why will some one with sense dig a well leaving the Ganges - Hmm if u see the Ganges and the sins and the filth in it any one with an iota of sense will dig a well
And goats milk does have its uses in the health conscious and other areas where the great cow cannot survive.
It means nothing much - beyond that I 've gotten over so many illusions that I now feel it was nice to have them .
As mark Twain famously says
"Dont part with illusions. When they are gone, you may still exist,
but you have ceased to live."
Sarcasm - I will agree is " intellect on the offensive"
and yeah you dont just get it just like that
- you need to suffer and then get over it with the spirit .
You could see it yesterday with rahul dravid saying what he did
"Conditions like these give boys like me a chance to play"
Oh how the modest man has changed with all that he has been through and the way times
have changed with the young aggresive men.
But then I will go back to my beautiful school days to reiterate how time takes off the rose colored glasses.
Here's the lovely poetry by Surdas - something that I loved then and now too
the difference being just the way I think
Translated loosely it says
Where would I find peace and happiness O lord
but am just like a bird on a ship would fly all around and be back to the ship.
Leaving the lotus eyed god who would pray to the other gods
Just as Leaving the great and pure Ganges only a fool would go and dig a well.
Just as any bee who once having tasted the sweet nectar of lotus would never have the bittergourd
Leaving Surdas's great god who is like kamdhenu(provider of all wishes) who would milk a goat.
I loved the beauty of poem - it was taught with great passion by the old teacher and
I love reciting it just like just that life's ways make me think of it with sarcasm
Why will some one who has tasted sweet nectar eat Bitter gourd - Ok dear they will if they have diabetes
Why will some one with sense dig a well leaving the Ganges - Hmm if u see the Ganges and the sins and the filth in it any one with an iota of sense will dig a well
And goats milk does have its uses in the health conscious and other areas where the great cow cannot survive.
It means nothing much - beyond that I 've gotten over so many illusions that I now feel it was nice to have them .
As mark Twain famously says
"Dont part with illusions. When they are gone, you may still exist,
but you have ceased to live."
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Just a few thoughts
Long last year vertigohead recommended me to watch The Jane Austen Book Club on a post comment and well finally I did.And did I like it sure.
Its quite a lovely watch, and while it does make you want to re read Austen.(Except Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility I cannot really remember characters of all other novels completely.) what the movie did was may be inspire me to think about finally trying out a bit of science fiction because that's probably the one genre I tend to deliberately avoid giving the same reason , that its not about real people
and other stuff like - as it is am struggling with bits and bytes at work why bring them into the book readings too.
Then this week again there was some astrology drama at home and I have such a thing against them since probably I read Macbeth first time.(detailed rant here).
Then that day as I watched Matrix on TV ,I just love that Oracle part.
There is a difference between knowing the path and walking the path as Morpheus says.
Well true,agreed but in that case why bother with knowing it .
Why not just walk it believing you will find the path yourself, why is the oracle needed??
So that they can do what psychiatrists do mentally train you to believe the right thing ??,
in that case how can you call it destiny.
I esp like that question the oracle asks Neo, - would the vase have broken still if I had not said that.
Thats how I think astrologers are so much of the time .
Its so much wordplay , psychology and powerplay .
Macbeth's Witches!!!
Long last year vertigohead recommended me to watch The Jane Austen Book Club on a post comment and well finally I did.And did I like it sure.
Its quite a lovely watch, and while it does make you want to re read Austen.(Except Pride and Prejudice and Sense and Sensibility I cannot really remember characters of all other novels completely.) what the movie did was may be inspire me to think about finally trying out a bit of science fiction because that's probably the one genre I tend to deliberately avoid giving the same reason , that its not about real people
and other stuff like - as it is am struggling with bits and bytes at work why bring them into the book readings too.
Then this week again there was some astrology drama at home and I have such a thing against them since probably I read Macbeth first time.(detailed rant here).
Then that day as I watched Matrix on TV ,I just love that Oracle part.
There is a difference between knowing the path and walking the path as Morpheus says.
Well true,agreed but in that case why bother with knowing it .
Why not just walk it believing you will find the path yourself, why is the oracle needed??
So that they can do what psychiatrists do mentally train you to believe the right thing ??,
in that case how can you call it destiny.
I esp like that question the oracle asks Neo, - would the vase have broken still if I had not said that.
Thats how I think astrologers are so much of the time .
Its so much wordplay , psychology and powerplay .
Macbeth's Witches!!!
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
Of bridges to build and ones we crossed over
Saw poem in IKWP's comment and as I've always said when I read or hear anygood stuff in any native language even the best of English words seem not expressive enough.
Sometime last fornight was sorting my stuff and while I've written a lot about my English books from school I never wrote much on my HIndi stuff which was as fascinating .In fact I found reciting them immense fun.May be I should write about those memories since life right now is way too dull and listless.
So here's one such which when I read I could not stop laughing in memories and when I took it to my sister she said you read stuff so much passionately and funnily then that if we had the same books and syllabus did not change I'd have passed without studying.
We both agreed that this deserved to become a poster for motivation in my ofice cubicle.
Its sarcastic, true and yet sweet and funny.It by Hindi poet Agyey and is based on the part from the epicRamayana where it is the monkey army who built the bridge which eventually helped Rama and his Army to cross over.
The english translation of this is
Those who build the bridges
will definitely be left behind
The armies will cross over
Ravan would be killed
Ram would be victorious
Those who were thearchitects/builders,
would be in history
known as monkeys.
================================
The poems in that little thin book still fascinate mesometimes making me believe in goodness sometime making me even more sarcastic.(My favorite Surdas poem I've made heartless fun of it in my mind by now - will post on it later)
My notes in that book are even funnier. I cant belive my Hindi Maa'm quite a old lady dictated them so beautifully.
shringar ka arth hai premi premika ka pyaarshringaar do prakaar ke hothe haisanyog shringaar - jab ve saath hothe hai, viyog shringaar - jab ve door hothe hai
Ah those stupid daysWhere to find such IX th Std kids now.shringaar tho bas bindi hai I guess.
And then I found a ad and a song which I loved those days.It used to come before World This Week . The Monte Carlo one.
Hmm seems too plain now ,but it has nostalgiawhich nothing now can ever have.
In fact I looked up all my favorite ads from DoorDarshan those days on You tube.The Cadbury's one's for me are tooo good and oh so many more.I've become terribly old.You know it when you douse yourself with so much nostalgia.
Saw poem in IKWP's comment and as I've always said when I read or hear anygood stuff in any native language even the best of English words seem not expressive enough.
Sometime last fornight was sorting my stuff and while I've written a lot about my English books from school I never wrote much on my HIndi stuff which was as fascinating .In fact I found reciting them immense fun.May be I should write about those memories since life right now is way too dull and listless.
So here's one such which when I read I could not stop laughing in memories and when I took it to my sister she said you read stuff so much passionately and funnily then that if we had the same books and syllabus did not change I'd have passed without studying.
We both agreed that this deserved to become a poster for motivation in my ofice cubicle.
Its sarcastic, true and yet sweet and funny.It by Hindi poet Agyey and is based on the part from the epicRamayana where it is the monkey army who built the bridge which eventually helped Rama and his Army to cross over.The english translation of this is
Those who build the bridges
will definitely be left behind
The armies will cross over
Ravan would be killed
Ram would be victorious
Those who were thearchitects/builders,
would be in history
known as monkeys.
================================
The poems in that little thin book still fascinate mesometimes making me believe in goodness sometime making me even more sarcastic.(My favorite Surdas poem I've made heartless fun of it in my mind by now - will post on it later)
My notes in that book are even funnier. I cant belive my Hindi Maa'm quite a old lady dictated them so beautifully.
shringar ka arth hai premi premika ka pyaarshringaar do prakaar ke hothe haisanyog shringaar - jab ve saath hothe hai, viyog shringaar - jab ve door hothe hai
Ah those stupid daysWhere to find such IX th Std kids now.shringaar tho bas bindi hai I guess.
And then I found a ad and a song which I loved those days.It used to come before World This Week . The Monte Carlo one.
Hmm seems too plain now ,but it has nostalgiawhich nothing now can ever have.
In fact I looked up all my favorite ads from DoorDarshan those days on You tube.The Cadbury's one's for me are tooo good and oh so many more.I've become terribly old.You know it when you douse yourself with so much nostalgia.
Thursday, December 25, 2008
Some thoughts on the chatter and confusions post 26/11
After a very hectic fortnight in November work again is languishing in the festive month of December(yeah for MNC’s it is) - , but I’ve had too many things on mind and too little coherence in thought to pen anything.
So much has happened all around.On 26/11 I was working late night from home with TV on and me glued to my laptop and frustrated with slow network when I first saw the news scrolling and since then watched on till over 24 hrs till I got exasperated at the way things were stretched out.
But the hardest part is the conversations the lunch time ones.Everyone has opinions - so do I so no offence taken but the way it goes on unnerves you.
I have seen relatively liberal people suddenly becoming extremely touchy about religion and to some extent I seem to run out of any arguments on this and at times feel I am succumbing to it despite being agnostic.
Things are such and while one should not desist from calling a spade a spade and that the most destructive harbingers of terror right now are fanatics of what they call jihad.
Fanatics of Hinduism and Christianity and Communism and all are the same - a horror for humane peace loving society but the one difference one sees is while most other fanatics are somehow outnumbered or at least well matched by the liberals of that sect or community,this seems sort of difficult in a religion where any voice of dissent has a fatwa issued somehow(not always literally - but imagine the plight of being a outcast among aggressive followers of such a God esp when projected as a voice against their God).
The deep rooted passion and aggression displayed by fanatics of terror is lacking in the just and peace loving denizens of the religion.
My stupid doubt is if you can be brainwashed about injustices , is there no shrink available who can brainwash a few about the just things and right things - even in these dark times some good does happen I am sure.
Whatever all this is I hardly believe solution is as simple as most people project it.
Why are people so unrealistic - whether we like it or not partition happened and we have a Muslim population higher than anywhere else .There is no community or sect of any kind which is full of saints and the world is not black or white.
So why do even well educated and well traveled people talk of simplistic and jingoistic solutions. (But when a Booker Prize winner like Ms Roy can talk Trash of the kind she does(Ive some instinctive dislike to her and her recent talk and writings are pathetic) - We just hope way too much from literacy - rediff message boards are a 24X7 proof that literacy does not take humanity forward and education is a different thing altogether. )
People just point to history as a cause for a happening.
History repeats itself because we always hark back to it , get agitated about it ,relive it rather than avoiding its mistakes.
Is is really possible in current scenario of so much globalization to wipe out any chunk of a major community sect or religion and its followers that easily - without getting into the dark ages and making the bulk of humanity irrespective of religion/community/sect etc suffer for decades.
In today’s age of nuclear weapons and biological and chemical warfare how can anyone with an iota of sense believe WAR is a solution.But so many people talk as if these terrorists are a set of boxed out things which can be wiped out in one shot or two. What people forget is the days of winning and losing wars in a realistic sense is over - its all about how much and how long one can bleed the opposition.
In fact i remember the quote from the “The Art of War”-
To fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence;
supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy’s resistance without
fighting.
Then almost every one talks as though Army Rule was is a solution to our corrupt politicians. This from people who make comments about being checked at entry and exit points. Are they really that thoughtless or do people just make conversations for the heck of it.
I oscillate between being irritated enough to argue a point or two and remembering the golden rule of silence.
Everyone says this time things will change - yes one does hope but what I concluded when I heard people was somehow this - There is a serious leadership vacuum in our country.
Everyone is charged up against corruption - against our politicians , against traitors, willing to do things and what not but what they want is a new leader i.e a new GOD.
The followers are ready but where is that leader who can satiate them.
Americans found Obama and they found hope and so “Hope, deceiving as it is, serves at least to lead us to the end of our lives by an agreeable route. ” - Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Where do we find our deceiver - Nah dont tell me its Maya … - the great deception.
=================================================
P.S: I came across a few articles on the Net and so on a relook I too at times on looking back felt that The batman with its Joker scenario was too much of a coincidence for 26/11 - of course batman is missing.
Though now I do wonder all those fanatic admirers of Joker do they admire Kasab too ?
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
I did try to write a few things since last month - since typing on the PC was not working i tried writing it down.In fact when Saurav announced his retirement I almost scribbled 4 pages but as was not in a mood to type it.
And now I just dont feel in a mood to type what was scribbled.
My last post was about seasons changing in a very general perspective.
But now since then so much has changed irrevocably in this world.
There will be more dawns,
more flowers will bloom but what moved on will never be back.
There's my favorite words from that beautiful song - Zindagi ke Safar me guzar jaate hai jo mukaam vo fir nahi aate(The destinations that you pass by in the journey of life will never pass you by again)
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Phool Khilte hai(Flowers do bloom)
Log Milte Hai (One does meet people)
Magar Jo phool patjhad me murjha jaate hai
Vo baharaon ke aane se khilte nahi(But the flowers that wither in fall do not bloom when spring arrives)
kuch log ek roz jo bichad jaate hai
vo hazaaron ke aane se milte nahin(Some people from whom we seperated are not found even by meeting hundreds of people )
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
So much has changed with nothing changing on the surface.
Somewhere far there's euphoria over a new President elect who people believe will bring in change.
The problem with such euphoric changes always is what change is not exactly anyone wants to think about.
You want to numb the pain and any thing like tranquilizer is good.
But nearer home and nearer to heart is a much smaller change the loss of our very own tranquilizers I guess.
It was a strange feeling this whole australia series.
All the time thinking more of the past series I was.Its taking some time to sink in.
No Sourav to watch any more...Kumble wont be around...
And people are after Dravid now and he being in the form that he is if one thinks by the head he better go with respect.
He has done a lot good and it would be sad to see him have to be thrown out without grace.
But when you think from the heart you just want it to last just a wee bit longer.May be till another abroad series.
Of course the last cut whenever that comes would be the hardest and its kind of a dread.
Cricket for my generation at least for me will never be the same without the Fab Four and esp the most special of them Sachin Tendulkar.
I dont like to write much on it because of huge nostalgia and stupid sentiment involved here.
Watching his cricket was the brightest light in my darkest days.
The Team photographs watching them together for may be the last time reminded me of my collectibles from college.
One being the Outlook magazine with the cover of the three of them as the Trinity.(I must have wallowed on this previously too in my blog)
I still look at it and think over the huge turbulences that happened esp since Chappell stepped in to scatter them , but it was so heart warming to see them all together at their felitications.
There seems to be a philosoper's calm descended upon me or may be i just am acting it to myself
to prevent looking back.Change does that to you at times.
Will still watch cricket after Sachin too signs off but it will just be a nice game.
There wont have tears anymore for a loss or for a wicket or a crazy joy within. Just pure fun.
There wont be any need to hate Mom for switching off the TV late in the night that is if i stay up till late.
Ironically she never does that now but then can I tell her its too late for the compromise or nicety or whatever.
May be there will be better players somewhere down the line lets see but I doubt if anyone can arouse the emotional attachment.
As Oscar Wilde put it
"The soul is born old but grows young. That is the comedy of life.
And the body is born young and grows old. That is life's tragedy."
Our era is pretty much over.....the generation signified by the Fab Four in cricket - Shahrukh /Aamir and a few in Cinema - a time of optimism - open economy - where being a world citizen was the buzzword.
Now there's change - Dhoni - Abhishek/Ranbir kapoor etc and way too many - aggresiveness is a mantra - protectionist economies - and localite populism to the core is the keyword.
Not that I dislike so many of the current . I enjoy them but just that they fail to have much of any original identity beyond being young and upcoming or leave any lasting impresssion except may be Dhoni for his unflappable calm if nothing else.
You look at Sreesanth and almost feel like supporting the opposition at times and thats the terrible thing.
In mainstream Cinema almost every heroine looks the same and heroes are trying to also fit into the same mould.
Of course the offbeat movies now are quite a joy compared to what was available before.
"In a crazy world, it's only your insanity that will keep you sane" -=-Leo Buscaglia.
So Right now I am getting nostalgic being immersed in reading all articles on net and news and stuff on TV about them just like I used to before I had a real job and all and a future to work for.
The future anyhow wont be coming soon anyways so I let it hang in suspension and spend time looking up the tributes all around from equally stupid people(who make me feel so sane) who even in such a state pen emotions so beautifully . I empathize and even sympathize.One awesome piece is here on cricinfo.
There is only 1 time that i ever failed in my board exams and
I did nor care much about it that day as India had won then - so states my diary - Ah my life.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I also got a scanner at home so I finally somehow decided to destroy my juvenile chronological personal diary.
Its presence caused useless trouble of misinterpretations at home once which makes me empathize with
Ekta Kapoor's storylines of misunderstandings so I did not want it.
You open it , read the hurt the pain and you see how ultra sensitive you were in a practical world.
So yes when I look at it I know I have grown up - becoming the cynical realist if nothing else.
Though one must say juvenile poetry is horrible to look back on.
So much of the writing is self focused. Someone said that - I said this - and then the quarrels the environment - the fears.
My blog now kind of like radiates my thoughts about others from me.
My diary was more like how the world around me and everyone's actions radiated themself in to hurt me.
I can only laugh at how long its been since I believe that I as a story should have been done with by now - by the creator.
But the best part of it is - It shows my descent into agnostic behavior from a beleiver.
My dark future imagination actually has remained mostly intact from my diary days to my blog days except when I write of books.
I always seem to start with some tragedy of mine except when there was a India win or Sachin century.
None of my fears were baseless or unfounded just that I have always underestimated my resilience once I have lived and cried over them and overestimated their ability to finish me up.
So yeah I am quite a survivor till now though where this journey ends will decide if its any worth - this survival.
Thursday, October 02, 2008
Noticing the seasons over a weekend
Every year its the same seasons for us and they come and go whether you notice them or let them pass by busying yourself in the necessary activities of our mundane life .
Yet there will be a day - some day when you some how suddenly see it or rather feel it - That the season's changing and then feel as if its something to be noticed.
It was a late Saturday afternoon and after being tired working on a issue which seemed worth exploring walked into the balcony .
The light sun seemed to shine specially on my nearly wilting rose of pink and white hue and then slowly the sun started setting and as I spent time lazing around - you could feel it all in the air like YES!!! Winter is starting and enjoy it for a while.
And then the wintry chill of memories takes you over . Things start flashing in your head - its been such a boring long life most times and yet you remember.
Of childhood gardens -
Of childhood taunts -
Of the stormy dust wind rounded up right in front of the rickshaw as you came home from school -
Of things you've given up on
Of people who made you smile
Of times when you hoped
Of times when you believed
There isn't much to be sad or happy about - its just a day - its just a season I've seen for three decades and yet may be its those decades that weigh you down .
Every year its the same seasons for us and they come and go whether you notice them or let them pass by busying yourself in the necessary activities of our mundane life .
Yet there will be a day - some day when you some how suddenly see it or rather feel it - That the season's changing and then feel as if its something to be noticed.
It was a late Saturday afternoon and after being tired working on a issue which seemed worth exploring walked into the balcony .
The light sun seemed to shine specially on my nearly wilting rose of pink and white hue and then slowly the sun started setting and as I spent time lazing around - you could feel it all in the air like YES!!! Winter is starting and enjoy it for a while.
And then the wintry chill of memories takes you over . Things start flashing in your head - its been such a boring long life most times and yet you remember.
Of childhood gardens -
Of childhood taunts -
Of the stormy dust wind rounded up right in front of the rickshaw as you came home from school -
Of things you've given up on
Of people who made you smile
Of times when you hoped
Of times when you believed
There isn't much to be sad or happy about - its just a day - its just a season I've seen for three decades and yet may be its those decades that weigh you down .
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
Old and Nostalgic
Time just surreptitiously takes away your life - a day at a time and before you know you have nothing left.
Did want to write something from quite some time but its just that have been unable to zero upon anything.
Books I tried to speed read - a few non fiction,
movies - well a few but need some discipline in my head to write anything
the world around you crashing in different ways and means - floods ,stock markets, terror attacks and yet I seem to have become sort of lost in my very cocoon , once again.
Work when its open ended makes you feel busier than when say its target oriented. Work centered around evaluation / exploration of stuff seems a cool thing but in the end it strains you a hell lot more than when you work towards getting done with stuff to acheive a target thats set.
Handling such things then becomes more of an attitude thing i.e how you as a person want to take it based of course on your position in life and workplace and universe too i guess.
You don't have the pressure of targets - so if you have a take it easy and anyway we can cook up a story and such get away kind of attitude life is pretty cool in such work scenario.
Problem starts if you take it as though you want to put across something substantial for the exploration/stuff you have been working on and you hit roadblocks at everything, and you never know where to stop , what is enough or is it good enough.
Being at a new workplace in such a job sort of makes you more intent on the second option and thus I've been feeling a bit like a workalholic.Not that many will believe at my office since I walk in pretty cool at 11 .
Sometime last month again I went through living my usual yearly stress - of avoiding people forced to wish me happy birthday and asking for treats and cake and all that drama. Not that I dont do it for others , but they seem happy about it. I pretty much may be mistaken about them.Who knows.
For me I never since childhood enjoyed it and with time I tried my best making people miss it which kind of had a strange effect.
They missed it that one time and after that never really. So the best way out was join the exuberance and say oh people would like me to be at home and avoid all and then give some treat just any other day to make them feel I was normal enough.
People who somehow crowded my life with their affection, though I never looked or hoped to get it all have dissappeared with time and its cruel ways and it is now you feel the vaccum.
I've never minded being alone and loved solitude since childhood somehow but as they say
How sweet, how passing sweet is solitude.
But grant me still a friend in my retreat,
Whom I may whisper--Solitude is sweet.
When I was a child I never had the friends - so may be it never meant that much
but now after these years of cribbing complaining and sometimes escaping a set of people I miss their presence.
But oh I'm older - did not some Ted Koppel say
It becomes increasingly easy, as you get older, to drown in nostalgia.
Or May be I've been born old - an old soul - hmm cause I seem to have been drowning in nostalgia since forever. Over 3 years of nostalgia on this blog seems a testimony to that fact.
Time just surreptitiously takes away your life - a day at a time and before you know you have nothing left.
Did want to write something from quite some time but its just that have been unable to zero upon anything.
Books I tried to speed read - a few non fiction,
movies - well a few but need some discipline in my head to write anything
the world around you crashing in different ways and means - floods ,stock markets, terror attacks and yet I seem to have become sort of lost in my very cocoon , once again.
Work when its open ended makes you feel busier than when say its target oriented. Work centered around evaluation / exploration of stuff seems a cool thing but in the end it strains you a hell lot more than when you work towards getting done with stuff to acheive a target thats set.
Handling such things then becomes more of an attitude thing i.e how you as a person want to take it based of course on your position in life and workplace and universe too i guess.
You don't have the pressure of targets - so if you have a take it easy and anyway we can cook up a story and such get away kind of attitude life is pretty cool in such work scenario.
Problem starts if you take it as though you want to put across something substantial for the exploration/stuff you have been working on and you hit roadblocks at everything, and you never know where to stop , what is enough or is it good enough.
Being at a new workplace in such a job sort of makes you more intent on the second option and thus I've been feeling a bit like a workalholic.Not that many will believe at my office since I walk in pretty cool at 11 .
Sometime last month again I went through living my usual yearly stress - of avoiding people forced to wish me happy birthday and asking for treats and cake and all that drama. Not that I dont do it for others , but they seem happy about it. I pretty much may be mistaken about them.Who knows.
For me I never since childhood enjoyed it and with time I tried my best making people miss it which kind of had a strange effect.
They missed it that one time and after that never really. So the best way out was join the exuberance and say oh people would like me to be at home and avoid all and then give some treat just any other day to make them feel I was normal enough.
People who somehow crowded my life with their affection, though I never looked or hoped to get it all have dissappeared with time and its cruel ways and it is now you feel the vaccum.
I've never minded being alone and loved solitude since childhood somehow but as they say
How sweet, how passing sweet is solitude.
But grant me still a friend in my retreat,
Whom I may whisper--Solitude is sweet.
When I was a child I never had the friends - so may be it never meant that much
but now after these years of cribbing complaining and sometimes escaping a set of people I miss their presence.
But oh I'm older - did not some Ted Koppel say
It becomes increasingly easy, as you get older, to drown in nostalgia.
Or May be I've been born old - an old soul - hmm cause I seem to have been drowning in nostalgia since forever. Over 3 years of nostalgia on this blog seems a testimony to that fact.
Tuesday, August 05, 2008
The Dark Knight - few thoughts
Last fortnight watching “The Dark Knight” seemed a nightmare as far as travel is considered.
Almost everything that can go wrong goes wrong especially when i have a movie to watch.
The first time I missed the movie by a good half an hour and the next time by 10 minutes. This despite a well planned itineraryand getting a friends vehicle too.
The whole charade certainly spoilt my viewing mood but yet it was a movie i liked.
I am hardly someone who loves action and comic book movies much but I guess the
the movie is hardly comic book. And thats exactly why the people I watched it with - people who love comic book and super heroes did not like it much . But I did and thats simply because of the screenplay and dialogues that go with deeper subtexts. And be it action be it comedy or even romance my favorite is inevitably wordplay.
The point where Alfred says “Some men just want to see the world burn” and the solution later on implemented was “burn the forest down” seems to linger in your
mind especially when halfway through the movie you get a call about the Ahmadabad blasts.
You cannot help but wonder the motivation for such gruesome and horrific acts. Forget their nonsensical emails and religious leanings.
Such stuff never would serve any cause , and one needs to be either really blinded to think it will or one some where deep down they are the people who want to see this world burn i guess.
And is that the only solution we have for such - burn the forest and is that what US thinks when it acts as it does?
Getting back to the movie It isnt’ thrilling action and hence disappoints people who expect such fun but i kinda liked to think it over and over.
Near the end where the joker gives detonators to people calling it a social experiment, I just wonder would people really be that nice in real time, if it wasn’t a movie at least one boat would have been blown up?
Would I be that good? The instant thought is NO. Later may be i am not even sure - I have too many options in my head .
A real good one though was “madness, as you know, is like gravity. All it takes is a little push“.
I especially think something on those lines when people who act like saints or people who have it too good or are in real safe situations speak great lines about goodness ,patience in adversity , humanity and morality.
You push them a bit into the corner or hurt what they love and they emerge the more villainous and intolerant.
Reminds me of a quote i can’t exactly recall but it goes something like - “The most sensitive people are the ones capable of being most insensitive to others”.
Thursday, July 10, 2008
What If
What if its beyond you to get what you want
What if there is nothing else much that you have been able to want
What if you could exist without wanting
What if such existence was a choice
Would one want to exist such?
What if there is nothing else much that you have been able to want
What if you could exist without wanting
What if such existence was a choice
Would one want to exist such?
Friday, June 13, 2008
A Pause of Thought
The monsoons somehow have a way of assaulting the senses.
Life is getting drearier and darker and in such times the weather kind of makes you feel all the more at sea at some point of nothingness when all around is pouring , moving blowing and what not.
Even the thoughts seemed totally at a pause and then i came across this from those old collections.
A Pause of Thought
I looked for that which is not, nor can be,
And hope deferred made my heart sick in truth:
But years must pass before a hope of youth
Is resigned utterly.
I watched and waited with a steadfast will:
And though the object seemed to flee away
That I so longed for, ever day by day
I watched and waited still.
Sometimes I said: This thing shall be no more;
My expectation wearies and shall cease;
I will resign it now and be at peace:
Yet never gave it o'er.
Sometimes I said: It is an empty name
I long for; to a name why should I give
The peace of all the days I have to live?—
Yet gave it all the same.
Alas, thou foolish one! alike unfit
For healthy joy and salutary pain:
Thou knowest the chase useless, and again
Turnest to follow it.
by Christina Rossetti
Goblin Market, and Other Poems, 1862
Saturday, May 17, 2008
Hope, deceiving …..
Unspoken Kindness in faces scares you
when you know you are not destined for such.
Some moments are destined to break your heart
Life has a way of scraping the wounds
"It could have been" is such a deceiving phrase in the realm of existence
When you reach the end of some horizon
you know it in the heart - the end that is
and yet…you wish
you had that betrayer of a friend , called hope by your side
for as they say
"Hope, deceiving as it is, serves at least to lead us to the end of our lives by an agreeable route. " Francois de La Rochefoucauld
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