when words skip you....

Sometimes words fail you. Something inside wants to come out, but cannot find a channel through which it can appear. Maybe things have become too complex or possibly one has become too jaded to find a new expression for every situation. And then, a miracle happens. You come across words thought by somebody else and you get the shock of your life. This is just what I was trying to say, you cry out.

This does not happen too often, but when it does it's an experience to remember. And this is what I felt when I read these lines...

A worried man with a worried mind
No one in front of me and nothing behind
There's a woman on my lap and she's drinking champagne
Got white skin, got assassin's eyes
I'm looking up into the sapphire tinted skies
I'm well dressed, waiting on the last train

Standing on the gallows with my head in a noose
Any minute now I'm expecting all hell to break loose

People are crazy and times are strange
I'm locked in tight, I'm out of range
I used to care, but things have changed

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h-a-n-g-o-v-e-r life........

The post party syndrome also commonly known as the hangover can be pretty awful experience especially if it occurs on a Monday morning. It signifies the rocking time we had while partying over the weekend. Coming to terms with it both physically and mentally can be a bit daunting especially when we realize that the party is over and now it’s back to work. When it comes to me, it’s quite unusual. In fact I simply love hangovers. Here by hangover, I don't mean the one we get from alcohol but the one we have after the end of a fabulous era. For me hangover is an extensive recollection of the good times we had. And in this whole recollecting thing I always end up screwing up my present. But the scary part is that getting over any kind of hangover can be pretty tough.

For me life was a party until very recently, I realized that the party got over a long time ago and everyone had left and I was the only moron who was left behind. The truth is that I was in denial for such a long time that I forgot that I am 27 already. I am no longer a kid or an indifferent teenager who can get whatever he wants by simply manipulating his parents, friends or simply the people around him.

Yes, hangovers can be pretty tough to get rid of but once over, we realize that its time to move on for the better. Life always moves on…..

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Hallelujah……… Web 2.0

I remember when as a child we used to send letters to my grandma – who stayed just 6 hours away from Calcutta (trunk-calls were difficult and expensive at those times). It used to be a ceremony. We used to put it in envelope, put the stamps on it, write the address and send it. And then, we used to wait for the answer, which would arrive in about 3-4 weeks time.

Cut to 2007. I have not written a letter in almost two years – the last letter I wrote was to my girlfriend some 3 years back. Come to think of it, I type instead of writing these days. Everyone I know has e-mail and I can contact them on chat/skype, scrap/message them on social networking sites, leave a message on their blog, text them or call them on their mobile. Any of this can be done within minutes. I don't post greeting cards any more. I just pick some 3D multimedia stuff to convey what (I think) I want to say.

I get upset if I don't receive a reply within minutes – checking the mail, social networking sites furiously. The response time has shrunk from days to seconds.

I have no contact with nature either – no trekking, no fun for over a year now. The only contact I have with nature is checking the weather forecast for tomorrow. But that’s all right. I worry more about getting the latest security and antivirus updates for my laptop these days.

I am bombarded with information in all forms every second, twenty four hours a day. My senses have saturated. Games (GTA, AOE, NFS), music (that I hardly understand or listen even for that matter), movies, sports (IPL – a total whitewash for my team), quotes, wildlife, history... you name it, I have got it. There's Wiki, Google, Youtube. A new blog is created every half second – and I keep on adding posts to mine. I use RSS feeds to keep me updated about recent developments and other friends musings. I have no time to reflect.

Hallelujah……… Web 2.0!!!!!

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the perils of technology....

Disaster struck last night. The energy source that nourishes life around it, was compromised and everything went cold and bleak.

Or so I thought, for a couple of hours. Electricity from MSEB went ka-putt and we the lesser mortals at Magarpatta, Pune were the victims. After some time being extremely frustrated about it (that too around 2 am at night), I realized that the situation was not so bad. Although it was peak summer mild climate of Pune (nights are actually better here) put me into ease as I strolled on the fantastic (if not useable – questionable) terrace that my flat provided. And as I walked and looked into the sky I saw a picture that I had not reveled in for quite some time. A beautiful night sky with stars glittering as far as the eye could see – a picture I had seen almost everyday as a group of friends chatting all night as Nescafe’s or the lawn outside the security office or the wind-T at the IIT. Nostalgia……..gripped me.

Again my mind got thinking – how we have evolved as humans. Technology has made life simpler – the television to kill time, computers, and mobile phones – everything leading to life being simpler – or it? There are so many things available at the touch of a button, that the line between luxury and necessity has been removed long back. How many things are really necessary for survival? Is technology achieving it's goal of making our lives simpler?

Probably, I should visit Japan again. Time to see how ancient tradition and ultra-modern technology co-exist side by side.

Now that’s something I have put up in my agenda as of now.

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baba ke bol......

"He who controls the present, controls the past. He who controls the past, controls the future.”

It is time to begin life on a new note, I guess. Wee………

Have a GREAT WEEKEND

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the power of CHOICE.....

I remember long time back I had gone to an “Art of Living” workshop during my MBA days, actively trying to hide the fact from my friends that I had been there. If the news got out – I could have faced ridicule amongst my friends group I had thought. Now the entire fact has shrunk to a point that now I am, or rather would be proud if I could proclaim the same act repeated by me again.

Going back then - it was a very powerful workshop, full of so much useful information, and insights into various aspects of life, intentions, manifesting and of course the art of living. I definitely learned a lot but I also felt like I’m was getting to a point that because of the amount of information that I constantly fed myself, the kind of interactions I had with people but at the end I always felt there was something lacking in my life and that I was not learning anything new, anymore.

Well what seemed like a load of trash coming out from an equally weird looking (read calm) person in front of me – these days I look back with a change in heart for the same. Well there have been numerous changes in the last one year of my life – family troubles, change in my job, my marriage and moving to a new city and starting afresh. I too have brought about a lot of changes in my life of late – and the fact has made me realize that it was time enough and I had in fact began the art of practicing. In many ways I felt flooded with information and emotions galore – living life in a new way and actually enjoying it. Actually, let me change that word flooded to overflowing instead, and now all that’s left is simply putting it into practice consistently on a day to day, moment to moment basis.

With every interaction with people and life there is an opportunity to practice the art of living that life – that promises a lot more. With every new event there is an opportunity to practice and put in use the principles one upholds in life. Often the trick is remembering to practice and not letting old habits take the wheel so to speak. That is the battle - it’s an art of war against my old habits with my new ways of thinking.

I guess I have tried to see every moment as an opportunity to practice the fine art of living and therefore slowly but surely growing happy and being better prepared to make the most of life. That I guess is the power of choice.

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Happiness: Who's line is it anyway?

The first thing that any careful discussion of happiness has to deal with is the fact that the term happiness has many distinctive uses. We speak of happy moments and happy lives. Thoughts about what would count as happiness may conjure visions of pleasure on the one hand, and success or achievement on the other. At times, we might think that happiness is just getting what we really want. Sometimes we say that happiness is what really matters in life; other times, we say that there’s more to life than mere happiness (as when we claim that someone is happy when she shouldn’t be). At the root of the term, of course, is the notion of hap or happenstance, and so happiness is also connected to the notion of good fortune, or luck (blame me for spending too much time on the internet perhaps trying to quench my thirst for knowledge albeit it's omnipresence).

And yet we often think of happiness as something that is not simply a matter of luck, but something that we can bring into our lives by effort, money, pleasure etc etc. Claims that any one of these ways of using the term happiness points toward the correct definition of happiness are mere assertions, which turn a blind eye to the other ways we use this term to successfully communicate something about a moment, a person, or the ideal of happiness itself. It is quite easy, when discussing the nature of happiness, to descend into a verbal quibble which simply has no principled resolution.

If we try to take some particular way of thinking about happiness and make it our standard, then we always run into problematic cases. That’s what my experience says………..

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dissecting friendship......

This entry is dedicated to the hundreds of wonderful friends out there (didn't realize I had so many!) who have given me the strength to go on the journey, with the guidance of God

Recently one of my well-wishers admittedly criticized me for the definition of friendship I had posted on my blog lately. Since I could not however reply back since the well-wisher had posted the feedback anonymously I could somehow not responded back directly to him/her.

Coming back to it - friendship is a feeling that can be in described in 100 possible ways with anyone being as accurate as the other is describing the sentiments involved in it.

There can be many a number of definitions about friendship but to me it’s just sticking together through the thick and thin of life and not running away at the least opportune moment. I had some many definitions of everything as I grew up – friendship at 10 was different to friendship when I was 20 and it’s evolved to something that will, I guess will stay permanently.

I have discovered lately that some people whom I have perceived all these years to be true to me - are not. Disappointment, sadness, hurt and…...ironically blessed as someone told me that I should feel fortunate to discover this earlier and not later. Overnight, my old friends 'downgraded' to just an acquaintance or as better described by that same someone, fair-weather friends. At the same time there have been a couple of friends who have “upgraded” to the status of best friends for life – and I am damn lucky for that I guess.

Well I guess like every other self-respecting Indian I prefer to die fighting rather than running away. That’s the approach, I guess to true friendship – being there all the time, every time.

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driving: up the wall.......

Disclaimer: “First off, I don’t hate women–I’m no misogynist. How can I hate women, my Mum’s one”

okay I would be dragged my moral police and feminists alike when I make this particular statement but my general observation is that a majority of women as a % of population behind the wheels of a car make really pathetic drivers. Well the belief was always there somewhere in the back of my mind seeing my mom drive or even my friends behid the wheel s of her Santro in Delhi or recently my better half who has recently got her license in Pune. Well it happened a week back as I was there with her on her final day’s lesson (we were about to go to a place after that – hence I had chugged along with her) – what unfolded in the next 1 hour left me at my wits end. The play behind the wheels, the utmost effort that was put in to change the gears (hey in India 95% and more cars have manual transmission) and the propensity to swerve and hit equally game bikes on both sides on the road (in equally traffic-crazed Pune) left me praying. Well the act was repeated later by another woman in her 30s.

What is it about women that makes them such bad drivers? I came up with three answers:

• Women make up the “fair” sex. They are taught, or are naturally predisposed, to be more passive and deferential than men. While these personality traits help in some aspects of life, they don’t help at 80 km/hr. A good driver is an assertive driver. He (or she) sees that the other drivers are going much faster and that he’ll have to eventually be going the same speed, so he speeds up accordingly. Women are naturally inclined to slow down and let the others pass - males do tend to be more aggressive drivers than women, but I don’t think there are nearly as many or that they pose quite the same risk as do passive women drivers.
• Women are communicators. Their personal relationships with other women rely a great deal on verbal communication. As such they’re more likely to be on the phone while driving their cars. I’m sure I don’t need to mention the numerous conclusive studies showing that phone conversations and driving don’t mix. I could also point to the numerous other things I’ve seen women doing while driving (applying makeup, brushing hair) but these are easily offset by the stupid things guys attempt at the wheel (smoking rings, picking noses - etc).
• Women are less likely to grow up playing sports in India. As a general rule, athletics aren’t stressed as much for women as for they are for men. And this, I think, is the biggest difference. It is very easy to make a distinction between someone who spent long hours as a child learning a sport and someone who did not. Two key differences also apply when driving a car: spatial awareness and decision making. Sports heighten one’s sense of his surroundings. In team sports like crickey and football you have to constantly update your assessment of where other players are in relation to the ball and yourself. In individual sports like tennis you have to pay attention to your bodily momentum, the spin of the ball, and the angle of the shot. Spatial awareness is also important when driving a car. At any given moment you have to be thinking about where the other cars are situated on the road and where they’re likely to be when you decide to switch lanes or hang a U-turn. Being able to anticipate where other cars will move makes for safe driving. Split-second decisions are a second hallmark of most competitive sports (again excepting track and field). Being able to make a decision quickly comes in handy when you come across a freakish call-center cab driver waltzing through traffic behind you. I think that playing sports as a child helps to fine tune the senses, and it’s just common sense that practice makes perfect.

While it would be easy to dismiss the above statements as sexist hogwash, I think that there is an element of truth to each. And although women and men are on more equal footing than ever before, societal norms still create enough differences to support my arguments. That being said, I don’t really want anyone to accept them at face value…I really enjoy a good argument. So keep it coming.

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