The wasted times

So I decided to write a post -countless times I pen something in the head when triggered and
then by the the time I think let me write it organized just do not feel up for it.
Two things triggered this small post it both the past .
The current situation simply triggers anger or hopelessness .
So yeah the past though not the best allows once to reminiscence of different stuff.

First of course I opened the blog after nearly a year and I saw comments esp on the ICSE school days memories and they just put me back in a different frame of mind but I was like what to write about that isn't already debated discussed or detailed upon in today's hyper social media world.
Then I remembered a day back I was searching for a old required receipt and had to move all my stuff and
I found a box of letters from those days when letters were handwritten.
I shoved it aside saying no don't want to walk down that lane, let it be.
But in a separate file there was a envelope somehow missed segregating .

It was a printed email - of a letter I realized not something I recalled straightaway till I read it
and it really brought back a flood of a memories and realizations . They were less of myself but more of the eras our generation truly bridged.

It was from a friend who had moved to study in the US just pre2000 and she had emailed the letter to her sister who printed it and posted it to my address as I did not have a computer yet and even computer centers were like minimum 30 mins travel from home and expensive. So no I was not computer savvy as my Engg was non CS as my only access to computer was the 3 hours I spent for 1 month learning Oracle and SQL.

After writing about the life there , the US Universities and other details to my questions etc she wrote,
"please get a email address dear so I can communicate directly with you ."

And then it triggers you what it was , what it is now , for in this daily life that I live by where I tell myself the world has moved ahead and I've kind of stayed back and such nonsense I realized not really, not at all.
When the world moves even if we stay still we would have moved its in our mind that we really get stuck.
Who would've thought then that in just 5 years or so I would start a blog and then 5 years down the line stop writing there much as the world would move to non stop communication in every sphere of life.Friends Politics ,Medical, Arts, Literature ,Trolling, celebrities open to public and the whole mess of it .

The letter had a line about the wide roads/ infrastructure of US and now you look back how much in just a few decades
we take that for granted in India too I mean in the cities at least.How much the US was the land of dreams for that generation and now its just another stop for so many.
And the still preserved birthday gift then was a full printed cricinfo profile + stats of Sachin and Rahul Dravid .

Oh gosh I've had good times ,I tell myself , however small . I wasted a hell load of time and potential according to many and now even I feel convinced may be I did indeed but then it's these look backs that remind me of this quote

"Time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time." - Bertrand Russell

As Time Goes By…A look back

After a very long time in these timeless times ,where some people have rediscovered their views on time, I looked back on this blog and thought may be a few thoughts must be jotted down in such times.Life has sapped the energy out of me kind of to do much really .

Funny my last few posts when I looked at.
One was about the positivity brigade – am I being sadist in seeing them clueless and consoling themselves as their "All is well – if not it will be well" scenarios being crumpled by the blows of nature and life. Oh well may be , I got a early dose of this from life and seem vaccinated partly .
I could not clearly recollect the movie " Inside out " about which I posted 5 years ago … Ah a reason for my blog – to remember what I forget so easily – for me so much is just ethereal by nature esp post my schooling somehow. Some times I just psycho analyze myself that may be its for my own good.
So here is why I though I better post something .

This quote I came across – I remember the book the story , I Just wish I had the ability to memorize the lines , but when I see I recollect.
So years ago in my early twenties , while browsing saw this and I remembered the day I bought the novel. I had read somewhere about it and found the book on the Sunday pavement bookstores and was looking at it appraising if I should buy and a young lanky teenage guy just came up to me and proactively told me . Please do buy it . Its a great book , and when I did read it I just wonder how much of that teenage rage was reflected by the book. And that is how books are.
Of all the joys life took out of me , my ability to sit for hours on reading a book without worrying on other things is what I practically regret the most.
There are consolations, like watching movies you could not have easily watched , reading perspectives from various strata of people, but really all the social media blogs they make you look at things . Only when you read a story immersed that you almost live a different life. Which is why I always loved fiction . These days non fiction helps for the broken attention span though .
I wish I could write about all the goodness and kindness OR the vileness and greed of humanity but I Just read of them all around and Ive lived enough to know both existed before and will exist after the current covid scenario which we are calling a radical change for humanity .
Saw a movie called Princess Mononoke , It was visually beautiful and there would be many reviewing it critically so lets just say , it a beautiful movie that showcases how in most cases no one really wins and man vs nature is a ongoing saga. very few can see with "eyes unclouded by hate" as said in the movie.

So when I thought well what do I post on this blog where I constantly keep saying that there is not much in this life which feels cursed at times. I loved these lines from the movie. "Life is suffering. It is hard. The world is cursed. But still, you find reasons to keep living."
So I should well at least find reasons to keep writing .Though honestly I am over that phase of feeling cursed, its too much of a emotional feeling. Now its more a swing between the varying degrees of hopelessness – that nothing ever matters and well –
let me grateful that I get to write this sitting in my green balcony with the most awesome weather in May making you wonder is the sun in lockdown too !! (though On a personal note I love the sun way too much .)

Dilwale – Exactly what people do in reality when they know you couldn’t fail

There is a positivity brigade upbeat in todays world asking one to live one's dreams and that fear of failure is root cause of all people living miserably and stifling innovation.

There is that famous question   "  What would you do if you couldn't fail? "
And you would think people would change the world and it will all be creative ,wonderful innovative work and what not.

Well if there is a perfect counter to this its Bollywood esp the directors
making the films of the Khans.Look they know they wont fail.
Despite whatever crap they churn out they will get a great opening and money is pretty much recovered. And yet it is this guaranteed success that serves up the lowest variety of even the formulaic stuff.

Dilwale is actually a perfect film made with everything except 'Dil'.

Its not like I went in with great expectation.
After over a year I went to a theater since I luckily managed to get tickets
and well growing up with Shahrukh and Kajol movies, that nostalgic feeling made me hope ok may be its  about seeing some nonsense movie just to see them together onscreen.

But just because you couldn't fail is this the crap you get served up.
Yeah some people like that too really I found as I observed in the Theater.
Even Johnny lever I  felt like was disinterestedly overacting .
As for Shahrukh snip off the scenes with kajol , all other shots he seemed
to be like – ok yeah what's the line – haan been there done that.

There is no limit to exploiting formula and chemistry of the lead actors.
Such lazy movie making…
Its been done by all Aaditya chopra, Sooraj barjatya and all but its like with every movie and 100 more crores they become more disinterested in the Dil part of moviemaking.

May be me and some of the old 90's generation are out of touch but honestly – after Sholay and DDLJ which dialogues have been reused like this in movies.

Our Creative young generation cannot even write some original dialogues
that can be recalled for few days. oh I forgot there are joke tracks ..

I know this is a pointless rant but even when you set the bar low…it seems things just seem to slip low.

The positive here-

• well with such nonsense also its clear none of new brigade have onscreen chemistry to match this 90's lead pair.
• And well I wrote a post – the movie made me feel so irritated for such a nice cast wasted !!

Few Movies after a long Hiatus

Last few months I myself seemed to be so hospital prone that I am hating it all but then I managed to watch a few movies ...

After a long time watched a movie I felt was brilliant.I mean scientific concepts put together in such beautiful emotional way in "Inside Out".

Of course as usual I guess it was more of a confirmation bias. Ive always had a thing against people who preached that stupid concept of "All is Well"
denying or trying to obscure the part  sadness , darkness and fears in shaping our personalities.

"The dark does not destroy the light; it defines it. It's our fear of the dark that casts our joy into the shadows." ― Brené Brown

Though the major part in the movie is for joy and sadness , the part anger , fear plays in building a persons life can never be ignored.

I was wondering how at a point in time my fear and disgust of handling calls , people and frustration turned to sheer anger and
 that anger worked more to drive away the fear than anything else to allow me to be more communicative verbally to people
 than I probably ever could by being calm and nice and proper I guess.

And then before that I had watched Piku. 

I've never related to a movie more closely.
Nearing a year since I lost my father it seemed like a recap of our life - the incidents matching so closely that  It literally had me and my sis eyeing each other more than the movie -
again wondering about the old adage. Life Imitates Art or Art Imitates life ?

He once accused our maid of drinking oil.

The almost exact description of doctors he gave as soon as he came out of ICU." lets go away dear .. they wont let you die here and they cant make you live."

And we had something in our home that too closely resembled that Chair.

But well the best part of the movie is now whenever my well wishers and dear friends start on their favorite advice
 " Why dont you drive your car. Its nothing that hard". I can tell them. Please watch the movie and understand
"why my subconscious has been so well trained by fear by my father that I consciously can never get over it"

His love for samosas and pakodas and the same exact words he used when we all who loved to travel wanted to go for a trip.
"Why go out ... All beaches are same.lets stay nicely at home relax , make pakodas and eat nah ?"

So many other small nuances . It was one of the most nostalgic movies for me.

It was hard to live with someone so dominating and yet with him gone forever , 

he still dominates so much of our memories.

We laugh at our own selves at the huge appetite for life our parents have , compared to so little they had and here we are not even 40 years and tired of life !!. 

And then I look at some 20 year olds and well it kind of feels better.

Coming Out ...?

No one can tell what goes on in between the person you were and the person you become. 
No one can chart that blue and lonely section of hell. 
There are no maps of the change. You just come out the other side. Or you don't. 
Stephen King
And so I write again ,

for I looked at my blog , my older posts here and not here

and I was in a sense of wonder yesterday night.
Was it me that wrote these so passionate about the life's trivialities ?
And then I realize how life's been playing the part and well what I have become.
I did wish to write it out believing that old adage of flushing out the pain
in words but never did it work, could not just work myself up to put it words.
But today morning in Pinterest when I come across this quote I told myself may be I am coming out on the other side.

I cannot write on it - what was that blue section from 2012 to well ongoing exactly -its hazy and its all in the mind
- the fears, the pain , the regrets , the way life overwhelmed me.
They reside still in mind refuse to be tamed and I do fear I may never come out

and even if I do its on the other side.

From someone agnostic I have tend towards the beleivers , never was against it but its become more pronounced .
From someone who accorded ones own initiative a fair share for success I tend to lean more on fate's wily ways
Its not a side I was ever against but its not a side I believed I would be on

I have walked onto that path by choice only that there was no map and I ended here.

Its not that I feel wrong just that it defeated my worldview bringing me to a point where I

Amazed at my own past self , sad at what I seem to have lost
but then I guess in the end everyone is the same

Of a visit to some wonderful places

I was contemplating on writing this post since I came back from vacation but was not sure what I should write about places already dubbed as heaven on earth or world wonders. And so I write about what I thought as I looked at two wonderful destinations in a way totally apart .

I visited Kashmir when it was not yet blooming in green as expected due to more snow this year. It was all trees with mostly bare branches or buds yet to bloom in their full glory and yet and yet.. it still can leaving you charmed . The mountains as you gaze make you recall why they say Himalayas protect India and their might descends upon you whether you want to or not.
The gondola ride in Gulmarg to Mount Arafat was one the best rides of my life .. so good that when I come back and look at pics I seriously wonder was that true or just a Bollywood movie.

​

The chilled temperatures made me assess my own ability to withstand such extreme weather (never mind that I packed very badly due to a busy schedule for a vacation which I was almost to cancel due to various troubles) . I finalized that for all I talk about nice cool places ,I need the sun every other day if nothing else.
The weather …ah the fresh air , never even realized till I came back that how good and healthy life feels with simple good food
and fresh cool air far away from computers.
That the tulip garden had still not bloomed fully broke my heart enough and as ever it was hard to drag myself off gardens and magnolia trees.
So terrible have we become in these cities that few of my friends  when they saw the vase of a roadside dhaba hotel
with a big bunch of daffodils they were not sure that they were real.

For someone who loves nature more than anything else I guess it will be a understatement but after visiting Kashmir and then going to see the Taj was well seeing the difference between what man can create at his best and what nature can create with such ease.

Taj was certainly a beautiful thing to behold but still , as I was sitting beside a blue river
with trees on the side raising a toast to heaven and surrounded by snow capped imposing peaks a day before
I found it hard to be amazed and fall in love with cold white stunningly carved marble .
That I guess is just me .

I recall the beautiful Shalimar Bagh which even in its state of neglect is more loving than  , if you bother to look at the back of the Taj.  Its gross and extremely sad the way the government there milks the heritage in the city to the max due to it being a top destination for foreigners but does little to beautify the city in any way. Its as sad as it can be.

So we go on and laugh that Jahangir certainly had  more life and loved Nur jahan more to create Shalimar bagh for her than Shah Jahan who created a tomb which while certainly stunning and imposing still feels a tomb only.
It was wonderful though when you walk through a city and fort where just a few hundred years ago kings and queens lived a daily life. It kind of stirs you to contemplate how fast we have moved ahead in just the last few centuries from electricity , air travel to mobile phones .

It was not my best vacation in terms of being able to relax with a mind constantly worried for things back home, and so I stll go by the Milton quote

"The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven" and that is the struggle of my life for the past few years .

To Write Again ?

Its been so very long and Ive been wanting every now and then to sit and write again – may be not the wry humor of office or of the world that were books to me but of listlessness and the dreariness of life and yet I could not bring myself to actually do it. When I went on a vacation , when it was the new year and I just looked back at my blog there were multiple moments and yet a inertia, a hopelessness has taken over me and nothing around helps me get off it. I did not even want to pen a farewell post to Sachin recalling may be some of the most joyous times of my life.

I would have almost forgotten this blog but for the random comments on my most famous post I guess seen by all nostalgic ICSE students remembering-the-roses-and-its-yet-unanswered-question and Caesarean Conspiracies

So many times my thoughts became lines in a post and yet never could get around to actually put the words in.But yet Ive been trapped to have conversations with people and well the more I talk to nice sweet people the more I recalled this quote in my saved notes .

"I don't hate people. I just feel better when they're not around."  Charles Bukowski

And so I thought of getting back to people and yet not having them around I guess in the blog.

Its like the whole humanity seems so lost so miserable or so confused that its this deep wish I feel to see it all over.

May be its just me – despairing over being cornered by life and denied of even hope and yet the more I converse with my dear sympathetic people the more I become averse to humanity ,

their insecurities , their fears, their dogged beliefs in ethics goodness or whatever , the struggle to be good , to be right its all like a mish mash that makes you want to be really blunt . But well ah I am human too !!

So I tag along with all the dear ones and hope  my acerbic thoughts will get the refuge in this blog.

Just looking back so much has changed in the world just since I started blogging  and well truly what wonderful worries I had in my youth huh I think – a great reminder of those as I look at entries in Life_n_all@Work

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.

of iCons

Though I never owned a Apple product have often tried them second hand , loved them and felt sad on hearing news of Steve Jobs demise. But then Facebook posts on and on forwarding his famous speeches esp his Standford one my favorite since I blogged about forwarding it got me thinking me of something quite else.

Humanity loves an icon – something to worship , to inspire , to make you believe in something wonderful and worthy about life.
Powerful inspirational preachings and words can be so wonderful at certain moments in life
but most can only be inspired for that fleeting moment ,
some can seize that inspiration and make something of themselves
and rarely if ever can anyone replicate the inspiration
cause the very inspiring words have a hidden fallacy…
Not that I do not like those quotes/speeches – I absolutely dig many of them and Steve Jobs Stanford speech is still on my list of all time favorite speeches since I first read it in 2005 but yet
I browsed through countless tributes and yet what was in mind was captured here

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2011/10/why-we-mourn-steve-jobs/246238/

"Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life," he urged the students. 
And yet to produce Apple products requires that thousands of workers flawlessly execute Jobs' business plans, which is to say his life.

However brilliant everything he envisioned was fact is to get him that glory and satisfaction of living his life he needed quite a bunch of people to willing be assembly line workers i.e live someone else's life.
Its not just him , everyone who talks of be yourself , get a life – innovate think outside the box makes me want to ask them – if there is no box at all whats the whole point of it ?
Fact is not all men are equal whatever they say
Some tower over all others and thats the way of life.
But that does not mean those who are not a match to that towering figure are expendable or have a pointless existence.
They are the very lifeblood on which such towering figures subsist

Working in a industry where creativity and innovation is the buzzword I seriously wonder how any thing of worth will ever get done if no one does the implementation of ideas – the execution and some of the necessary boring work . I mean in a team of 10 having 2 or 3 misfits creatives – different thinkers is great but imagine a team of 10 bright innovative huge egotist team members with no respect for rules .
So while we should look up in awe at the gifted geniuses – be inspired to go beyond what is the norm – we should live our very own dream and not someone else's dream . .
The important thing I guess it to have the right dream . Jobs surely developed the clarity for it

 "It was one of the first times that I started to realize that maybe Thomas Edison did a lot more to improve the world than Karl Marx and Neem Kairolie Baba put together." – Steve Jobs

This I say because as many people do forward and  read these famous words of his literally
"Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do"
They then act and convince their craziness as genius and it may or may not be – but it might not always bode much well for the world I guess
This I thought as was randomly reminded of someone who was crazy enough – has changed the world – died this year and
well has been the worst thing for the US – Osama

Fact is Genius may be good or bad but they will always be rare and will always shine .
Their words are just odes which makes people like moths come to burn in them
not realizing that they were never meant to be the flame.
And then the cliche – flames can light up the world or burn it
Ok as usual I drift in my thoughts and posts but then that is why this blog .
Words are such playthings .

A quick jotting

Somehow was feeling this has been an immensely depressing year. There hasnt been anything good for ages in life but this year it has been like the end of hope.

I was thinking about forcing a change , taking risks and all that and this  crossed my mind - Sounds stupid but well !!

To take a risk and jump off too you need a cliff

What can you do in a vast desert - beyond giving up and hoping to die 

OR keep dragging yourself on hoping fate lands you at an oasis out of the blue.

But yeah its again onto fate .....What can you do in when all you have is shapeless pointless and endless sand ? 

Well as I post this I thought again - May be stare at the blue sky and be delusional that there's water - all you need is to stare up

On being moved to appreciate trivialities


Usually quotes come to mind as I write some thoughts but when I started to write this post after much laziness preventing any writing I could not much recall any that fitted the exact thoughts in my minds which triggered me to post this until I found this.

“To praise the sun is to praise your own eyes.” - Jalal ad-Din Rumi


And so you could say for anyone who can really praise anything while not directly involved with it.
While human craving for appreciation is so well known what we do not realize is how few can truly appreciate.
I do not mean the appreciation mailers really I blogged on but more like enjoying something irrelevant really enough to appreciate - not because it is a success or because everyone loves it -But really be able to be touched by something small thats well ignored in general.
May be I am confusing it with many things I think in this respect so lets go to the background that framed the thought.

Someone from our team was leaving - well to build the character first
- the chap can be exasperating in his questioning which is where we started off when he came new
- argumentative when he knows something and absolutely I care a damn about authorities.
He kind of had a reputation for being a confuser - in which I played a good part due to the way he confused me too - but more
esp as somehow his communication style made life worse for him.
But then with time I really could see the passion with which he worked on what he liked even when no one cared and I seriously appreciate that.
One of the downsides of having a policy at work where its like do what you want , how you want as long as what we want is working is no one out there differentiates between how well optimally or precisely someone got it to work.
No one appreciates the finer backend stuff .
So well time went on - we had new manager , new leads and now this guy was leaving and so he arranged a knowledge transfer of his work. There were just two of us me and a new senior lead who was now picking up most of the work writing code and he walked us through - at the end the senior chap just said to me - "he has written it so well"
Something I always knew and saw but there was nothing I could say as in the end its all about what is accepted as working
- in which we had less success
This new senior guy is also a very hard working chap and has made a success out of things so well that stands out. What no one sees is - he writes things to work for that moment - his success is due to his heroic efforts - which in future would be hard to handle by others - unlike someone who wrote it more well neat with a thought for ease and longevity.

But I thought at least this guy had the eye to see the good work - something the so called managers pre-occupied with making ppts dont. And so that incident and another below brought me this whole thought of how
- can we appreciate and - what we appreciate tells so much about us.

My father is one of those persons about whom one of the advertisements jokes - "tab tho un dinon street light ke paas kaafi bheed rahi hogi" (it must've been really busy with so many people under the street light)- Yeah he too says I studied there .

Nevertheless he was viewing the new 5 star add where two guys sat on a wooden horse thing and well he said "what crap is this . They pay lakhs for this nonsense" . Well I thought - Ok he's off on his usual rant - but then he remembered a ad and appreciated it - a rarity and that would tell so much about him - its not a enjoyable or fun ad but he appreciated it.
"He said that add where a kid takes a wire and makes something like tongs for his mother - how nice that concept was" - It was for Havell's fire proof cables
The fact is my father is one of those people who loves making things out of such crap which exasperates us no end as this pretty much means nothing in the house can be thrown out - everything could be useful in some way !! . Yup oyr house is full of old wires being used for clothesline - broken shoe heels can be fashioned into door stoppers and what not :(
And so I realised that was why that ad touched him and he liked it .
Just as someone who loves to code appreciates a good code.

Indeed to praise the sun is praising your own eyes - your own love for the light & warmth it bestows

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.”

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"

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.

Udaan – Realism without the addons

While a lot of people watch movies to experience may be what is absent or what cannot be and enjoy the thrill of it,
there are few movies which end up as chilling reminders of what was.I wouldn’t write much on Udaan really , but that when I saw the movie end , I just thought if I was a guy I’d probably have ended up being that guy in some way.
Its not a entertainment type of movie , but it does not bore at all for most part.

I know we as a society love to relegate people on high altars based on just some social roles.People have kids because its the norm and kids are supposed to be indebted for being brought into this callous world.
Its a chilling story of the middle class we grew up in where its a insult to stare back into face – you have to lower your eyes.Throughout the movie the “aankhen neechi karo ” almost brought back ghosts.
Hell even the location Jamshedpur was almost recognizable having lived in steel cities of those days.

I loved the part where the guy says back to his father ” Its an awesome method – First you scar a child for life (and that always need not mean physical beating scars) and then say sorry”
People underestimate these scars of childhood so much ,I have seen and not all have the same spirit.
I just wondered , had the guy not been in boarding at all would he ever have gotten that spirit – knowing only being a crushed spirit.

Also the movie does try to give us some insight into the opposite side – its about a character who is wrong but – its the same thing – scars of their own memories( somethin which preachy movies like Taare Zameen pe and 3 idiots simply dont. As I wrote in TZP a movie where it simply does not give one scene of empathy for the father)

Many people have past scars – some try to repeat them by scarring others to feel it was right ,
some try to ensure that it never repeats and therein lies the difference forward.

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.

Jottings on some Movies over the Holiday Season


2011 is here but well I'm not quite inclined to write on heavy stuff
still which in a way is good as it might mean heavy cribbing of sad things.

So well let me make some quick jottings on some movies I saw last few months.
As I maintain my posts are not reviews as I watch most of them so very late
and i write only about what I felt based on my state of mind.


First the good one -

The first movie in saw in 2011 Band Baaja Baraat was sweet. I mean really sweet .
Its been like long after Jab We Met that I liked a romantic Hindi movie as much.There were few good movies like Love Aaj Kal but most lacked the emotionality somehow . always the same thought - concepts nice but something more could be done.
I sort of liked this movie though - almost made eyes blurry at few moments which once upon a time was nothing but these days is real feat.

And then if you dont like it go watch Break Ke Baad . Irrespective of taste preference I am sure 90% will
then like Band Baaja Baraat.Seriously Break Ke Baad is a lesson in how movies can be made boring. There's nothing you seriously dislike out there but it drags on .

Its become this typecasting of Deepika Padukone - the one who keeps breaking off. There's that Sonam Kapoors's Aisha, I hate Love Stories and all of them confuse me as one movie differentiating from other . The same hip hop looks careers and story packaged as romance.
It is here that Band Baaja Baraat is refreshing. All romances are the same - its that mush which needs to be varied
and humor without cheap jokes is always a plus with me.

Next disappointment was The Deathly Hallows - Part 1 - in harry Potter series ,though it was lessesned by the fact that after the Half Blood Prince I have toned down the expectations with the director anyway . He makes them like art movies . They are fine may be technically and so on but something stays amiss .
The thrill is gone and also I am quite sure people who have not read the book cannot figure out half the stuff. The detailing is bad.
Now may be this is good to encourage book being read but still the book seemed more thrilling more heart rending and touching.
But thats just me . I'd probably say that of most books but the revelations about Dumbledore in the book were a big thing
and affected you much , here its not quite the same.

The amazing part I want to note is again perceptions. I read a post by someone that what they liked about the movie was the
lovely scene betweek Harry and Hermione which was not in the book but added in the movie and its so caring and
touchingly beautiful of a lovely friendship which is quite what I felt.

So when I go to you tube to check it out I get led somehow to some other reveiw wherein the complain was exactly the opposite .
They felt that that dance should not have been added as it gave wrong impressions about their friendship which was absent in the book. Hmmmm its all in the mind.


Similar stuff I felt when I read this about women offended by Social Network. The directors response is good.
Issue with getting offended with some things is applying one potrayal of someone from a group as a benchmark for all .
Its hard to resist stereotyping .

I had on my laptop a movie which I had been postponing since long. Perfume - The Story of a Murderer.
The movie is based on a man having very strong olfactory sense and hence can know the smell of everything to very small detail.
Then he smells a woman and gets obsessed over capturing it and hence kills 7 of them to make a perfume that subjugates the world to him.But then he realises his nothingness despite them and sort of gives it all up by getting himself killed in the same fish market where he was born.The ending seemed stupid but overall the story was very well developed.
Its a different movie sure but may leave people quite uneasy . The opening market scene of the fish market and all
- the worms, the gore of it was way too much for my sensibilities which is why while watching action is all fine -
I sort of stay off movies like Saw etc. Blood and gore are just not my cup of Tea.

Finally about Guzaarish . Now thing with this movie for me was not the movie but the way many people asked me
Did you like it ?
Unlike other movies which is either trashed or said as good for once or great - there was this apprehensive questioning esp
because it seems quite a few liked it. I too found it Ok but there are two things to consider here.
I watched it comfortably at home and I had very low expectation - hoping for something like Black or Kites and all such tragic saga.
But the movied moved on quite better. No awesomeness, slow movie - sort of arty kind but did not bore me somehow.
Half the people though are surprised and wondering how come the other half (of the usual normal set )managed to like it.

Another Year

Whats a year but a number when life seems to be almost in slumber.
2010 drifted really in a nothingness sort of way for me

Have been in a strange mood since December. Dont feel like reading much.
Dont feel like writing too.
Thoughts come to mind but there is a tendency to just lie still and not jot them.
Hope 2011 lets me get over all that and we come to a grand end as predicted the following year.

Sounding too morose this post for a new year?
Well here's a lovely song that makes me feel hugely better
always with lovely lyrics as usual by gulzar

ek subah ek mod par

P.S: This post was made just hoping that I try to post more or rather something better than what I did in 2010
And just as I am planning to click publish I remember its a new decade too. Ok so next post may be a decade recap ? Let see

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 !!

Another rant - unfair unfair and what not


Ok after a long time one of those pure rant posts. I had lots of nonsensical reading I was hoping to post about all that
but you see nothing inspires you out of laziness than such as below

Had one of those world is unfair moments - I mean you know thats how things are in the world but still when it stares at your face you have those moments when only may be Calvin saves you

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Accessed someone's resume when was left accessible.

Of course one expects resumes are pumped up and overblown version of work,but what I saw blew me away
This person happens to be the lowest contributor of our very small team of five which was well overblown to 9
but well designation is module lead, but thats acceptable in these cases

The contribution section was filled with past 3 years of my job description - tools on which she never worked or knows a line of
- added with the sheer confidence of a person who knows the opposite person also wont know that tool since its rare enough ,so one can always talk
- and of course extra fluff called motivating team members and what not

Yeah in a true blue interview not much of all this stands but it does two things
1. It spoils resume of people who truly worked on that stuff in general I feel - stupid may be but I feel it at times
2. how many true blue interviews happen really - esp if the lady's a smashing bong with a seniormost executive hubby
- how she got in here itself is sheer fate - my stupid lead engg at that time said " its ok we are not getting that skillset, we can always teach them" - thats a different matter he regretted it deeply withing few months - but well so what that chaps gone , but here she is .
Yeah guts to fake it - is also guts - and well appreciate it

She's a pretty fine person , with a very cute child and great circle of friends and well that simply adds to that thing nah
world is unfair - I know - I know so what - I can still rant - say its unfair

It takes time though to sink in - accepting the unfairness of it all and my stupidity in various other things.
I need to get some serious sleep to get over all such thoughts.
But essentially thats what I am doing since last 1 week after taking literally over a fortnight off
- a house arrested vacation.
Now that sure will make some one say
- hey its unfair - yeah it is - it surely is :)