Idle thoughts as I laze in a year end break


Been long gone .... have been way way busy with work and stuff the past quarter so much - and that too when there isnt much light at the end of this tunnel I seem to have fallen into.
There's something wrong with me - I always end up working for two bosses somehow wherever I start.
Also this year my evergreen time pass - my dear sister has finally moved to a far lil town so Im just all by myself and my work.
But nevertheless I took a break, a nice week off - no vacations nothing - just too many leaves going down the drain while Im horribly stressed with work did not feel good.
So here I am just sleeping way into noon and reading all over the place in my little room .
I picked up quite a few books, read up all my unread stuff in RSS on the net.
Watched some CD's.Essentially nothing to write much of but some thoughts jotted here.

I cant even write about the books I picked up (it was fun as I splurged on them) as I'm like multi tasking among some amazing variety

- The God Delusion by Dawkins
- Think About these things by Krishnamurthy
- A Thing Beyond Forever by Novoneel Chakroborthy
- Mr Sampath by RK Narayan
- Sacred Games by Vikram Chandra

And then I have stuff I have yet to start

YajnaSeni -
Never let me go- kazuo ishiguro

But sometimes I hate the way my own reading degenerates into.I was reminded it a book fair , there were a bunch of girls picking books
Girl A was trying to pick Olivers Story - the sequel to the famous book Love Story by Erich Segal
Girl B said oh leave it yaar. Its boring -I will tell you the story. The guy meets another girl and then he still does not like her at the end leaves her too . Thats it and it was described in native language by her.

I guess thats a way of looking at it and age does have stuff to do with it I guess. When I read Olivers Story sometime ago I found it a bit brooding may be , but it was more emotional.It did not have the popular appealing eternal love of Love Story. It was about coming to terms with things, that some people just cannot get over things like others can.

As much as I am a fiction person with age I guess you like looking at other stuff .
I still love fiction but a pure dosage of that does not work well for me now , but I guess it never did fiction / non fiction.
That is why I pick up such bestsellers like A Thing Beyond Forever by Novoneel Chakroborthy. It reminds you of all sugary stuff you liked at times and now it isnt bad but has a tendency of getting to you .
But thankfully I am not yet that old to dislike them and start loving the self improvement books.
Gimme a story any day - soppy sugary or spicy.
If anything this year I started reading some science fiction. Started with Asimov's magic and though havent read much of other I absolutely loved his essays in it. Absolutely - the way he distinguishes Magic and Science fiction and all that.

As for now Richard Dawkins is working hard through his " The God Delusion " trying to convert me from agnostic to atheist.
Whether he succeeds or not I absolutely love the arguments - and may be I should read the Origin of the species. Usually I dont really care.
I mean well wherever we came from we are here and thats the thing isnt't it.
Why is it always such a big deal always about - " where we came from " and " where we are going to " I find it hard to get, but I try hmm.
I guess its because " where we are now" seems perenially boring so we let our imagination come into play and without any drugs the best place to imagine is always the past or the future.

I then had to clean up all my finance stuff. I mean when I got my first job I wanted to save and yet there was no google no information like we have today , but I wanted to invest and the simplest was Mutual Funds, and just like a stupid newbie I bought all over the place - itsy bitsy penny money in some 10 funds. It was exasperating to consolidate them now and strained me on my holiday.
One article I loved when reading up old stuff online was this
http://www.crossingwallstreet.com/archives/2009/03/why_do_people_m.html

I may have lost good amount of savings in the market and may never be a pro in that field and make money but tell you what
I like the markets .If only I had enough money to lose in there .Sigh !! I know it sounds more like hoping for money to gamble - but it is fun.
A part of it is explained in that article. It should be read even if you know nothing about the markets.
It will explain why CNBC flourishes with its perenially wrong forecasters - It not not just cute Udayan and Shirin.

The dirty secret is that stock market forecasts are fun.
It's odd that people ignore this basic insight. Markets are a lot of fun. Sure, every serious person is seriously concerned over market forecasts because they're not serious. Still, people do it anyway. Why? It's damn fun.
..................
Finance is and has always been a game. I've noticed that over the past few years the look of ESPN and CNBC has become steadily similar. That's not an accident. .......... Heck, the indexes are nothing but a scoreboard...................................

Of course it's addictive because it's fun. Trading or forecasts aren't harming people. Investing and risk-taking is good for a society. Obviously people should know what they're getting into

The worst part of taking a home holiday is you still get tempted to open you office email and see all the pending work and list coming your way come Monday and it spoils the whole damn peaceful aimless lounging around.

Watching Before Sunrise/Sunset

Watched two really splendid movies over the weekend.
Before Sunrise and Before Sunset are two wonderful movies each having a different context though about the same people. One's about the youthful optimism and one's about realism.
I have a hard time understanding the fine technicalities of movie making but anyday few things capture me. Good Screenplay and dialogues, expressive but subtle emotions and overall beautiful cinematography like Santosh Sivan does.

These two movies the conversation is all you get and want. The setting may be Vienna/ Paris but what you do is strain to hear every line and considering they talk literally throughout the movie its awesome.

Before Sunrise when I saw in the afternoon I liked it as a sweet movie , the kind on which our DDLJ stuff could have been based and kind of like a memory of youthful times when you wanted to believe in love and all that .

It makes quite a logical question on the soulmates issue which I loved - It goes something like this
"OK, well this was my thought: 50,000 years ago, there are not even a million people on the planet. 10,000 years ago, there's, like, two million people on the planet. Now there's between five and six billion people on the planet, right? Now, if we all have our own, like, individual, unique soul, right, where do they all come from? You know, are modern souls only a fraction of the original souls? 'Cause if they are, that represents a 5,000 to 1 split of each soul in the last 50,000 years, which is, like, a blip in the Earth's time. You know, so at best we're like these tiny fractions of people, you know, walking... I mean, is that why we're so scattered? You know, is that why we're all so specialized?"
But overall it was relatively much feel good.



Before Sunset is different - its much heavier though a bit shorter(Actually together both movies are less than 3 hrs).
As the director said somewhere it is romance for the realists and I absolutely adored it.

The discussions are more about the world and how its affecting them rather than memories and dreams.

It is when you watch Before Sunset that you love the original movie a little more like you love memories a little more.

The discussion goes on and on in Before Sunset with no obvious conclusion but as is said in the movie - its about evolving through

"Maybe what I'm saying is, is the world might be evolving the way a person evolves. Right? Like, I mean, me for example. Am I getting worse? Am I improving? I don't know. When I was younger, I was healthier, but I was, uh, whacked with insecurity, you know? Now I'm older and my problems are deeper, but I'm more equipped to handle them"
Overall its been quite some time since I like something as much. They are a great watch.

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?

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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.
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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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Movies in Busy times: Love Aaj Kal etc ....

Last month I catched up on Movies finally.Two of them were terrible disasters I would say , the third though nothing great saved my day .



Love Aaj Kal is not a movie you would not call awesome in any way. Its good but its more pathbreaking than many will let out.
I mean see Shahrukh promoted this convincing parents theme and last minute - shaadi mandap interrupts and while it looked sweet then it really became unbearably irritating after a point.

So finally we have a movie wherein after watching umpteen Hindi Movies so that nothing in a movie is ever suspense Love Aaj Kal
has just that one moment of suspense and I am revealing it .
Saif asks Deepika ok so what is you status - so coolly- as if its like a facebook or Orkut Status.
So does she at the last minute chicken out of marriage to the other guy rahul Khanna ?
Oh no she does it better.Now I know why Imtiaz Ali chose Deepika the dumping queen .(YuvRaaj must be thanking his stars)

She gets married and next day when her husband is scanning through the honeymoon vouchers she gets her realization and the best thing is the cool way she says. "I have to talk to Jai now and if I feel he is the right person, I will say sorry to you later for all this" to her husband.
Now that it pathbreaking truly in Bollywood.

But apart from such stuff the movie is absolute new gen stuff and is likable though I'd say it could have been oh so better.

Jab We Met was such a simple common story which is like aired every week these days on TV and yet it has a timeless sweetness.I have seen Socha na Tha partly and that too is much sweeter.

Love Aaj Kal is not sweet, its kind of as practical as the lead characters , though the 60's track love story looks sweet enough , you know its just rose tinted . The not so sweet story unfortunately is more true.There were a few couples who really danced at the theater at the end at Aahun Aahun. They kinda seemed cuter then many parts in the movie.

So while its a no no for puritans its quite fine for a watch.More so for the songs which Ive kinda taken to .
I just love the Chorbazaari number - its like ages since Ive listened to a song for over 3 days in a loop.

Things are bad enough at home and work ,
I got another of those classic emails about latecoming from my manager(the reason as usual though unlike from previous managers was cho chweet, "I dont want my people being tagged as habitual latecomers") but Ive since long given up and can laugh
and hum
"Dekh ke mujhko hasta gaata sad gayi ye duniya sad gayi"

=================================================================================

Now a few lines on those disasters

- Kambhakt Ishq, Why oh why i went to the theater. The loudness the crassness and I dont know it felt terrible and since
thats a hit , you know why you hate most people around yourself and at time oneself too.

-Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince.

It ruins a perfect story perfectly. I mean I still recall how much I was thrilled and in suspense when i read this book
and posted this post on it.
This movie kind of is like a art movie, into which they put unnecsarry puppy love which in itself if done would have
been enjoyable. But its a joke and a waste of time.
I had hoped for some better stuff in the last part where they go to the cave to get the ring . That too was not thrilling enough.
Dumbledore death is like so hopelessly done that you do not even get it.Only nice thing was Malfoy's character seemed better empathised and presented on screen, like its internal confusion etc.
The horcruxes are not explained and they leave the whole thing about Voldemort's past which I thought was quite important and presentable on screen.I pity the people who never read the books and only watch the movies.

Yet each man kills the thing he loves
Came across this moving poem by Oscar Wilde from The Ballad Of Reading Gaol. (Seems there's a song by Gavin Friday on it)

Yet each man kills the thing he loves
By each let this be heard,
Some do it with a bitter look,
Some with a flattering word,
The coward does it with a kiss,
The brave man with a sword!

Some kill their love when they are young,
And some when they are old;
Some strangle with the hands of Lust,
Some with the hands of Gold:
The kindest use a knife, because
The dead so soon grow cold.

Some love too little, some too long,
Some sell, and others buy;
Some do the deed with many tears,
And some without a sigh:
For each man kills the thing he loves,
Yet each man does not die.

Extremely boring stuff ahead .....

OK Fate has conspired to ensure that I finally write a post after what seems ages since I last did.
Happenings are perfect -
A mid year\review discussion at office - the kind that makes me desperate to vent out.
And I forgot my laptop charger at the office so no busy busy work .
Its a forced break from work this weekend and Im detemined to make most of it.

As a first proof of my maturity or mellowing down with age I will not unlike my previous posts ham and ham about horrible management.

Lets start it with some unsaid thoughts. I had thought and thought in in myriad hues - about saying this and that months ago but then this got planned suddenly this month and I was not really up with my exact punchlines . Sad hmm.

Life is cruel , My manager received a terrible feedback himself from his team (I was cruelly neutral as has he been) as his scores were out just a week back and the fella while sportingly trying to recover from it goes in for another review and I say Im unhappy and so on....

I have no scope here...this that ....
I am told about how scope in product companies are different (slow moving wonderful elephants).
Then I am asked what have you done for your product and you talk of scope and so on and forth about the innovation and differentiation.

Anyways Ive lost the plot honestly these days.There is lot of back flashes to all this wherein
I am the angry frustrated person among the oh so cool acting people lecturing like "Baba Whatsoever" saying
Take it easy , Calm Calm Cool it while muttering and simmering inside and being sarcastic whenever opportunity arises.

Neverthless when I complain about no feedback - I am told I've been told earlier too to schedule a meeting to discuss such important issues.
But I finally get one, I think you should be quite successful but you see you seem to come across as a very harsh person ,whom people are not keen on approaching but people like we who work with you
find you quite fine. So you should be some one people should ant to work for.
Now I quite sportingly said "I take that"
What I left unsaid is You are not the first person and you wont be the LAST to say this.

Faking it is the greatest corporate mantra (or may be the way life is supposed to be).Show a little emotion and you are frustrated. WoW
Serves me right for ignoring all my assumptions about the big MNC's. But the thing is I'm quite tired in Life and et I have to look forward and plan a move to get any raise.
Half Glass Empty Thinking - First Time in my career - Over 18 months - and no raise and no diamonds
Half Glass Full Thinking - First Recession seen in life (ok lets not think the IT crash of 2000)

Wealth / Knowledge – Perpetual??

My sister for all the uselessness and failure she has built her life into is way too sharp and witty.
She is someone in front of whom you feel that you are absolutely uncreative and what one'd say – can't think differently at all kind of person.

Was reading Pamuk's snow and had a bookmark with a Socrates quote saying
"Prefer knowledge to wealth, for the one is transitory, the other perpetual"

Now its a good one and I never thought much about it and if I had thought too I would choose both or say its a tough choice and many many arguments .
But here's how I was cross questioned.

Tell me where does he say which one is perpetual. The line is open – he says one is perpetaul but which one.
I say its obvious – knowledge is perpetual.
She says how can you say that.
What was recognized as knowledge 100 years ago is not always relevant and you also forget things you learn.But look at wealth say a 100 rupee note/gold it is still the same.
So whats perpetual hmm.

Now only Socrates can answer that. I just cant.
P.S:
I related this to few friends and laughed at it and while some just laughed – one very well meaning and concerned friend lectured – you should have told her and educated her that you too must update urself and move on and make something out of your life and get a job. Some people for all their well meaning just dont get it neither the humor nor the facts – that you just cant change people.Somethings must come from within.
She followed it up with more concerned feedback about how I was not making an effort to settle down.
For all the pain they cause me I love enemies than the well meaning people I've been blessed with most of the time.
The last month has been as it is nasty at the office.
I've become/developed myself a outcast for most of my Office people.
If it wasn't recession and I being in a secure but terrible place where of all the sad things can possibly happen professionally – the chance of firings is the least – I would have updated my resume .
Saddest part was someone I hoped was a trifle better too seemed to be untrustworthy at times.That kinda upset me more than anything else.
It feels like being back to where I started from. Of course I am no longer the same but the place seems familiar.

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."

Finding a safe cocoon in Work Work and more….Work

I’ve been like at my most work alcoholic phase of my life.Its not because I have more work, well its because I am taking it up.
Its not cause I hope for a hike or a promotion (cause recession / or at least the hype about it has ensured that there’s not a remote chance of it) but just because I feel better doing it.
There’s hardly anyone questioning me out here, I pretty much have my way, the team
work is relatively reduced by my own way and Im happy doing individually whatever nuisance I seem to be in.

Things are not very good all around in every sphere of life - so I seem to have taken a kind of solace in being lost in getting the stuff up and running at work.
The work is nothing very innovative(my self reflection tells me I just ain’t into innovation though every company seems to have innovation as its buzzword these days - I like success in implementation i.e seeing things work.) .So this work is more of getting things to work and well seems to give me some peace as I work all day long late at home while no one @ office bothers what I am working on.But then thats the best part of this place - flexibility.

Anyways I kept thinking so much of reading something, watching movies,and writing a post but somehow, felt better to just get lost in work.

It took some troublesome scenarios at home all over again to make me feel like writing again.
But in the end it was because I simply forced myself away from the work and tried to accept the fact that in here - in this life ,I will never have my way without hurting myself and everyone.

“All parents damage their children. It cannot be helped. Youth, like pristine glass, absorbs the prints of its handlers. Some parents smudge, others crack, a few shatter childhoods completely into jagged little pieces, beyond repair.”
— Mitch Albom (The Five People You Meet in Heaven)

You fight your way in the world , hope wish and finally get a small room to yourself and now people wish to move back to a little cozy all in one happy togetherness of sharing and adjustment as this causes trouble and finally something for them to worry about .
Logic has nothing to do with this its just a whim to be taken care of - save pennies spend pounds is what works in my home.You can go on non co-operation movement but then thats the whole point. You hurt yourself as much by hurting some.I’ve tried to break off in my own way as I do not fit in but fate’s never let me.
I do wish to act highbrow and say I do not believe in destiny but I can’t.
But yes all my life I’ve done one thing as is said
“I believe in destiny
I also believe that I have the right to restrict its options” - Ive surely exercised that right - at what price is debatable.

Looked simply its nothing, its just that some people like me were just wired hyper - sensitively in a very wrong manner . To handle this requires immense insensitive behavior and doing that makes you feel bad in general and so you end up being unhappy anyways.(On second thoughts there seem to enough people around me who think I look way too happy despite too many not so good things.)

At work I’ve just one teammate and as much as I am annoyed by the fake niceties of this chap I’ve tolerated him cause its WORK and because unfortunately we are in the same team and started off having lunch together with another chap and my manager since we all joined and now not want to act childish and make unnecessary enemies for no good reason.
But one fine day I just snapped back at a joke made when I was seriously checking some financial stuff and since then the chap’s started being deliberately uncommunicative .
While this would be a reason to celebrate in all normal circumstances it ends up causing immense communication issues during work, so I did what I never do, i.e keep talking as if all was just fine , as if I never noticed that you were being uncooperative.
That I need to be like this causes immense strain to me.
Then there’s my manager - poor chap acts very decent but has indirectly implied that he’s had to suffer in many quarters because he had to go and ask for clarity in work and this he did - because I really made huge noises about it.
I do feel bad about some stuff which has happened but then I believe that was due to wrong handling, but then that’s the problem with quiet people. Its tough to guess whats going on in their head.

Nevertheless I was really stuck up and all, tried reading a book and unfortunately I was a with a book which though different and good was not quite the right one for my mood - “The Autobiography of an Unknown Indian” By Nirad C Chaudhari.

So today I just re-read the speech by Steve Jobs which is something I really love apart from the Orhan Pamuk stuff I keep loving and writing about , then read some blogs and I really feel so better and I finally wrote some nonsense in here.

I will write something better may be tomorrow itself.

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!!!

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.

Scattered Thoughts

Been wanting to write since long but somehow things just dont work out. I was just looking up 2008 and I wrote like 3 posts a month. 2009
seems to be starting off worse. It not the numbers , its just that so much is there and yet so much seems the same and so much seems
worthless to key in.

There’s a virtual disconnect with people most of the time. There is work and yet no work which leaves you satisfied about something useful
created however trivial(Thing is my temperament seems to need that ). Seems like just catering to the whims of one and all out there.Have been
trying very hard to be harmonius in a work environment where things seem to be extremely sour beneath the surface.Though we do the usual
smiling routines the vibes are worse than when there used to be open fights in my previous office.
I am like a neutral point because I’ve become immune to much stuff and am unambitious enough to care to take offense.

I am not keen on moving much from this company now (ok flexi timings and easy work culture is a great turn on) but seems like I
will have to later if not sooner - if nothing else finances may force it.
Things are the usual pain at home, but the change that will occur this year with Dad retiring and coming back home is quite a challenge in itself.

My own hurts within seems to have numbed in life - having given up on most stupid ideologies. I hardly seem to be bothered about much except health and wealth which still constitute worries.
What still bothers me is the pain I see around me-( oh no not I’m not that great now to talk about our worlds’s poverty and the heartless
villians). It just everyday people like me. I still see how we hurt each other , sometimes knowingly , sometimes wantingly and many a time
with no reason whatsoever on the surface and I still get disturbed by it.

Circumstances make us be friendly with people we despise and cold shoulder people you care for, so many times.
And I see how warm people turn heartless with circumstances and it makes you feel all the more cynical.

A girl asked me about the scope of a job position in R&D in a electronics company and I said I dont know much , it all depends on so many things.

But what I wanted to say was that , we’ve entered the era of Insecurities.
No job , No life , No relation is secure, If one can depend on anything (to an extent that too) - its just oneself.
Everything in the world seems so fragile and evanescent.

I had so many things on my mind all through the last month and yet I’ve lost the ability to put them coherently somehow.
Reminded me again of Evening Solace.
Poetry is sometimes such a solace compared to a story which means a world at times.

Some Nonsense I'm living with and a Gross Misjudgement on my part

This has been one hell of a stupid kind of fortnight since the new year. As ever appraisal time are as evidenced on my blog are usually very drama oriented.
This year at this new place I am may be doing a complete U turn and writing a defence for the other side. But what is bloody uncomfortable is I am a fringe player in this drama and yet it has affected my mood worse than when I was at the center.

When I was at the center it was a one or two day thing of fretting and fuming and a post or two here - thats it - then get on with it - the work the life. Now its like there’s filth all around and every other day something sticks on as you stand at the fringes thats the feeling.

This is going to be another of those boring long post to shake off some of that feeling .

Joining a new project /organization especially one where most people have stuck on within themselves together hating it - too much with the mood similar to the “better or worse” norm - for a minimum of three years - (I dont know the maximum ) it is tough enough for someone who’s slightly socially challenged and has dripping sarcasm and being single open for speculation.

But what’s worse here is unlike most places where work somehow due to its sheer quantity and the competition took precedence and blunted the direct effect of such gossip and its different side effects. Here the frustrations and ill will is played out like an art - the sort it probably was done during the Cold War.

When I joined I was the first member of a new team in a set of very old teams working together to safeguard what they could retain by merging into a huge corporation.They like the brand name now but are not willing to give up their secrets or rather what they believe is the result of their hard word and experience to anyone new - their only source of security.

In a way I am fortunate I feel . It could have been worse but then if it were may be I’d have run off again .
I mean I was put in a brand new team - with brand new people and a manager who too belonged to the newer brand .So I kept myself relatively isolated but then our work inherently depends on the old guard. Why they hired us - under what great/ inner agendas this whole thing is going on is yet unclear. Suffice it to say that our team has a slightly differential status as its more specialized in a generic area and not deeply competent on a product only which most here are .
Thus as of now we have lesser work(Not that we mind it - but we were at times desperate to do something more).This sure hurts people who believe they are a slogging workhouse.But well thats ok, I’ll take it any day.

When I came in first the most problematic timing was the lunch. You never knew where to go. In fact I believe it mostly is in any new place and even in older places. One excellent piece on this scenario which is very close to my experience is described in an excellent manner at this blog.

Started out in the inhouse cafeteria room where women who get lunch boxes converge but as I heard the saas bahu sagas and people started getting too personal it made me flee. Luckily new team member A joined and our manager too joined them- being new in this location himself somehow to lunch with the team.He’s pretty easy going and casual and so we did not mind and hence 4 of us lunch together i.e 2 of whom report to him.Now I had very deliberately avoided my managers at lunch(despite their nice efforts - i was quite abrupt) in my previous jobs. That I preferred the opposite scenario now is in itself is obvious of what I think of the rest of the crowd.This was setting myself up for some crap from mean people but I was prepared for this .

It is relieving to walk to a different building where the canteen is as unlike my previous place where I was hardly at my desk I am glued to my desk here - work or no work.
It feels better to hear a bit of nonsense about politics cricket or some work related crap rather than being questioned about how your mom allows you this and my mother in law is against this or doesnt your sister get bored now that she has no job.The faked concerns just get to me .Dont know some are may be genuine but I neverthless dislike it.

I am a dull person usually so I surely feel fine when there are abit of effusive and talkative people around , and in such a new place there was this vibrant and fun girl R a northie slightly loud but easy to get along.
I was not down south at the age when people acquire tastes and feel I lack that understanding and appreciation for the South Indian movies and jokes which seem essential to a lot of conversation without getting into personal matters of home caste and family.
The one thing about her was she spoke out which seemed better to me most of the others who spoke at the back.
R simply is very well known and chats non stop about her family ,lovely daughter and has a tendency to get very concerned about personal life of others (something she denied vehemently and has now taken as a personal affront - as her new manager now which happens to be my manager(Ah Irony) pointed out that she paid more attention to personal matters- now I pointed out that at least thats how she come across as - even though she does work very hard ).I sure should have more sense to keep my mouth shut but I just tried being some good friend and tried to explain why she is perceived by the management and she should act slightly professional - rather than just going on about my work is professional stuff. By my stupid advice I invited some more cold professional vibes.

I would have cared two hoots but for the fact that I have been assigned something like a consultant on a tool to her and thats being my nemesis.

Thing is for once I simply MISJUGED hugely the amount of trouble being friendly with her will cause.(this post must be a lesson learnt for me).
Not only that I spoke a bit more about others with her than I now feel I should have.
My manager said once you should drive R to finish this job soon now that you too are part of helping her - I felt very upset the way I was being used here by both people.
She walks up with errors and expects me to instantly answer them without any trial and error i.e if you try to compile and check - oh I have done that - next what and next what and acts as though thats what a consultant is for.When you tell her that may be her OS is corrupted and not the tool as ntdll is a windows file she gives a decent shrug - oh thanks a lot dear .
If she was the same from the start I dont mind - this drama started since the day she talked about her management feedback discussion and I gave my stupid friendly advice.(Silence is golden I remind myself so much now again after

damage is done)

She’s built a deep seated negativity about my manager due to one of her past friends who while quitting had enough fracas with this manager.She vents it out in ways our team is rather uncomfortable with and me and A both find it unpalatable. He’s hardly a great manager - too indecisive ,too much of a loyalist and has a too much of the traditionalist approach at times - and for me the worst part is sometimes he gives too much of a free hand at work which people take liberty with - including me at times- but he’s as fair enough as they come I felt .

The Appraisal discussion week is the week of long faces all over.Whatever it is the repercussions were so bad that finally the poor exhausted manager confessed to us- (that such a assumption would be made was news to him was new to me, I thought that its an expected scenario).
“People here are so unprofessional that almost everyone here it seems expected that you two would be rated higher by me due to our being very friendly at lunch.But what to tell them that even you two are extremely displeased with my rating“.

This was because we both expressed serious concerns and had record of nearly 2 hrs each of furious discussion over it

with him .

Though on my part I simply used it to vent all my concerns over work and all and I dare say his experience in managerial diplomacy was appreciable.
For most of the part I really was fine with the rating simply because the work I did as per me just good and I do not consider it anyway excellent by my own standards.The tragedy is there’s no one in the project with better standards.
Our moot concern was if you dont give us work how do we display our competence and he countered it in standard managerial way.
Go beyond you duty - come and ask and take up tasks. I was blunt enough to answer he should know why I or rather many did not do that, I do not want to be saddled with what I dont like.
What upset me was simply that people who did below average to bad too get rated the same but then in those damn rating system you just have excellent / good / average and anyway in a year and and in a company where the difference in hikes as per ratings(if there are any this horrid year) is usually just 1 or 2 thousand why bother.

So honestly after that 2 hr argument I just was like chilled out and cool as I never was after a appraisal discussion as I never was in all these years. Then I slowly noticed the insecure talk all around and experienced the whole R drama and it simply leaves you with a disgusting feeling.

Update: Ok next day R came up and she said , don't feel bad I was in a terribly bad mood and Never meant to hurt or ignore you in any way.Well at least that relaxed me a bit, howmuch ever she meant it .

If nothing it vindicates my decision to avoid the management track at quite some cost to myself.
I just am not comfortable with such people games even if I can at times out of sheer necessity play them I am extremely uncomfortable in this arena and it takes a huge toll on me.