there is no spoon.

Elementary, my dear Watson

2012-01-07T18:35:00.000+05:30

If you are familiar with the works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, you know that no detail is trivial and no connection is to be overlooked. The essential element of a good mystery is not so much the revelation which comes at the end, but also the build up to it. We are given bits and pieces of seemingly connected events, while our minds struggle (enjoyably) to comprehend the big picture. Presenting a mystery is indeed, a very delicate art. You have to give your audience enough to keep them interested but not reveal the real masterstroke till the end. Very rarely does it happen that the story is good, and so is the conclusion.

However, the rule of thumb is that, no new information can be added at the end. Otherwise you are just cheating the audience. So you have to show everything that matters beforehand, but show it in such a way that the audience is unable to come to the final conclusion without your help. Directors must be using numerous tricks and gimmicks for this. Show something in a scene but don't focus on it. Reveal something ever so slightly and distract the audience with a bigger/noisier event before they get a chance to dwell over it. Perhaps these tricks are quiet easy and not so impressive. But there was one trick that was used in the recently released Sherlock Homes: Game of Shadows, with which i was most impressed.

[I don't think this reveals the plot of the movie, but a spoiler alert is in order.]

Some time into the movie, Mr. Holmes visits a fortune teller. We are shown around the room before the fortune teller makes her appearance. The room is nicely decorated with carpets, wall-hangings and such-likes. The camera shows a flower bed with some peculiar flowers in it, just enough for us to take notice. After this, a elaborate fight scene entertains us for some time, and the story moves on. (Remember this is the time when many characters are introduced to us, but their relationships to each other are in the dark.)
Next, Mr. Holmes visits his brilliant antagonist, Moriarty. The Professor is talking with a student when Holmes enters. Holmes, as is his habit, starts surveying the chambers (along with us of course). As Holmes and Moriarty engage in their dialogue, we are shown several things, but two in particular. A used horticulture book near the blackboard and a flower bed with peculiar flowers on the windowsill.
Now, as it happens, we make the connection between the two flower beds and speculate on the relationship between Moriarty and the fortune teller. But due to this, we miss out the connection between the book and the plants, which is a key piece in the entire puzzle. Which of course, is only revealed at the end.

Nice, isn't it? What's more fun is that this is not an uncommon trick. In fact it's so common that they have a name for it in psychological studies. It's called Priming. I will leave you with a excerpt from this very interesting book that i am reading presently.

In the 1980s, psychologists discovered that exposure to a word causes immediate and measurable changes in the ease with which many related words can be evoked. If you have recently seen or heard the word EAT, you are temporarily more likely to complete the word fragment SO_P (try completing it before reading further ........... ...............................................................) with SOUP than as SOAP. The opposite would happen, of course, if you had just seen WASH. We call this a priming effect and say that the idea of EAT primes the idea of SOUP, and that WASH primes SOAP.

Mr. Guy Ritchie, you primed us with the first flower bed. Didn't you now? ;)

After-thought: I saw this movie once and enjoyed it. All this is a after thought. Hence, if i have got my facts wrong, please correct me. And even if i have got my facts wrong, this is a jolly good imagination, ain't it?

Thinking, fast and slow - Part I

2011-12-25T19:16:00.001+05:30

What can i say, i enjoy books written about me :P

This book is a slow and steady read. But if can catch hold of your System 2 for so long, then you are in for lots of interesting revelations. BTW, System 2 means your conscious and active self, as opposed to System 1 which is your subconscious or automatic part of the mind. It's all in the book.

Plus, it also reaffirms my long held belief that happy and thinking don't go together :)

Random thoughts and excerpts while going through the book..

Attention is expensive. It is tiring and needs effort. So we try to keep it to the minimum. But you have to be careful of what gets assigned to auto-pilot.

You can only do one activity which needs attention at a time.

"As you become skilled in a task, it's demand for energy diminishes. A general "law of least effort" applies to cognitive as well as physical exertion. The law asserts that if there are several ways of achieving a goal, people will gravitate to the least demanding course of action. Laziness is built deep in our nature."

The ability to control attention is a measure of intelligence. There is also a close connection between the ability to control our attention and the ability to control our emotions.

The only time when conscious mental activity is _not_ aversive is when you are in a state of flow.

Self-control also requires effort and attention. If you are focusing on something else, your self-control is bound to weaken.

"The ease with which people are satisfied enough to stop thinking is rather troubling."

"A reliable way to make people believe in falsehoods is frequent repetition, because familiarity is not easily distinguished from truth."

The ease of living with someone increases with time. And it is so so enticing to consider the happy and safe feeling, love. But is it?

"A capacity for surprise is an essential aspect of our mental life, and surprise itself is the the most sensitive indication of how we understand our world and what we expect from it."

"The dominance of conclusions over arguments is most pronounced where emotions are involved."

Now on to the next part of the book...

Adjusting to India

2011-11-06T20:25:00.000+05:30

When i moved back to India from the US 3 years back, i did it because i wanted to. It is one of those decisions you can't really fully explain. Why do people leave comfy jobs to join rockbands or go on world tours or climb mountains or have kids for that matter.

Changing a country is bound to be eventful. And with difference as drastic as between India and US, you are guaranteed some jolts. But a lot of people seem to be trying it out now-a-days. Consider this account.

Why I Left India (Again)

The idea that you can fix India’s problems by adding more people to it — even smart people — is highly suspect. No, I wasn’t going back to fix things; I was leaving the U.S. to go back to Shri Thomas Friedman’s India: an India that offered global companies, continental food, international schools and domestic help; an India that offered freedom from outsourcing and George W. Bush.

India is a poor country. There are millions of poor and hungry people around. As sad and ugly as it may be, that is the truth. And so is the fact that you are not one of them. I guess this guy didn't quiet expect that, hence he had to head back. His was a problem of being rich in a poor society. Being one of the very few fortunate ones among millions born in poverty and misfortune.

You don't think it's a problem? I can assure you it is. At least for people who can and will, think. There are ways of solving it though. You can ignore their plight, you can rationalize their situation saying life is not fair or that its not your concern anyways. Believe me, i have tried them all.

Sadly, none of them work. The only way to be among the haves, be empathetic towards the have-nots and still keep your conscience intact, is to act. It does not matter how small or insignificant your contribution, as long as its genuine. And there are plenty of opportunities to act. That is what excites me about India. Most efforts will fail, some will succeed. In the end all that will matter is that did you sit on the fence looking pretty, or did you act.

Hawkers Plaza

2011-11-06T18:41:00.000+05:30

There are some places in Pune that people from outside Pune love to hate. Like the पेठ areas. सोमवार, मंगळवार, बुधवार, ..., रविवार, गंज, नारायण, सदाशिव (Yes, the last name is in bold. This will suffice.). Why? The roads are too small, the people are too many, its all just too chaotic. The अस्सल पुणेकर on the other hand, not only loves these areas, but does not consider anything else as the real Pune (खरं पुणं लकडी पुलापाशी सुरु होऊन तळ्यातल्या गणपतीपाशी संपते ! कसे?).

The critique of these non-resident Punekars (:P) is not entirely incorrect. Yes the roads are too narrow (Not much we can do about them. Unless you want to tear down Vishrambaug Wada to widen Bajirao Road. Not a good idea.). Yes the traffic is utterly chaotic (this, we can certainly improve). Hence i was elated when i read that they are planning to implement a 'No Vehicle' zone and one-ways on few of the roads, in this central business district (seems more stylish now, don't it?) of Pune.

I was at the breakfast table reading this news and my Dad walks in. He has been working in this area all his life so i quickly splurt out the good news. His exact response being "Pedestrian Plaza कसला, Hawkers Plaza करून ठेवतील लेकाचे ! Scheme बंद पडेल थोड्या दिवसात आणि hawkers तसेच राहातील. मं आत्ता आहे ते काय वाईट आहे?" I was a bit stunned and very much dismayed by his cynicism. Why can't he be a little more optimistic? After all this is the corruption-fighting, formula 1-racing, 8% growth-maintaining young new India that we are talking about here.

But he is most probably right. Look at what happened to MG Road back then (when i was in school perhaps). Look at what is happening to FC Road right now, as we speak.

The road was turned into a one-way street. Good thing. The footpaths were widened. Excellent thing. One enterprising young fella thought of selling pani-puri on this nice big footpath. He did brisk business. When the police, anti-encroachment guys came along, he didn't mind sharing his profit. A hundred more book-sellers, chocolate toast vendors and juice sellers joined him. Now, good thing or bad thing?

If you ask me, i enjoy the tasty (and unhygienic) food and the cheap books they sell. As long as they sell, most people will buy. Plus i am young enough to dodge cars and jump over pot holes when the footpaths are occupied by these stalls. But what about my आजोबा and आजी? Well, who cares :(

It also seems a bit unfair to evict the street vendors once they are entrenched (not that its possible anyways). So the solution is not to allow any encroachment of footpaths in the first place. But are the authorities serious enough about this? Ofcourse not!

Update: Not sure if this is good news or bad news, but the thing is cancelled for now.

संगीताचा कान कुठे मिळतो?

2011-08-21T19:05:00.000+05:30

हि संगीता कुठे असते आणि ती तिचा एक कान मला देईल का?

3am on Balgandharva bridge. Cloudless cold December night in Pune. I had just lit my last smoke before heading home. It was as still a night as there can be. But the air moved, not by wind, but with the sound of something. We had to follow the sound, we just had to. That was Shiv Kumar Sharma playing at Sawai Gandharva. It is the first time I remember me actually listening to music. The concert went on till wee hours and I was perhaps the last person to leave that ground. I did not know what it was but I knew I was hooked. I was in college then, and madly in love. That helped, definitely.

I have loved it ever since, but the thing is, I really don't understand crap about it. I have been to hundreds of concerts and listened to thousands of recordings. I have pretended to appreciate the nuances of complicated renditions. भैरव चालू आहे असं confirm करून, कोमल रिषभ काय लागला होता आज किशोरी चा, अशी बळचकर मतं पण टाकली आहेत. दिवसाच्या वेळे प्रमाणे ते-ते राग ऐकून पहिले आहेत. अतिशय प्रामाणिकपणे कान देऊन स्वर ओळखायचे प्रयत्न केले आहेत. एव्हडच काय मी पेटी, violin, तबला, drums वगेरे class लावून शिकायचा ही प्रयत्न केलाय. कधीतरी कुठलातरी राग बरोबर ओळखतो आणि खूप भारी वाटतं. But most of the time I get it wrong.

When people are talking about chords and harmonics I feel like a illiterate who wishes his parents had educated him at the right age. Ofcourse, I don't blame them, most likely what is missing is commitment and persistence on my part. Atleast, I hope that is the case. Because the alternative is too bleak.

That is why I shudder when people say art is something you have to be born with. Because then, I don't stand a chance. :P

Alcohol and Minority Rights

2011-06-07T12:43:00.000+05:30

Everyone has habits they can't change. Everyone is addicted to something.

Is it fair to ban someone else's habits when you are free to practice your own? Yes, if somebody's habit is to beat his wife then by all means he should be stopped and punished. But what if he is a responsible drinker? What if he goes out with his friends, drinks, has a merry time, designates a driver, comes home and sleeps in peace? Why should he pay the price for the other guy?

Government used the big hammer approach in raising the age limit of buying/consuming alcohol to 25. Firstly, this won't change much.We used to buy alcohol when we were in school. Sometime when we were in actual school uniforms :P (btw, this is wrong and should be discouraged). But nobody bothers. Perhaps now they will make them shell out some more bucks for their booze, but it won't stop them for sure.
Secondly, either you say a person is legally an adult or he/she is not. The age-limits are anyways arbitrary, at least, make them consistent. I can vote but I can't marry? Can get hitched but can't watch 'A' movies? Can watch those but can't drink alcohol? It's already a very confusing age, don't confuse them further.

Having said that, I have seen villages where most men folk drink silly and beat/create nuisance for their wives/families. Perhaps a big hammer like a complete alcohol ban might be the only practical solution in such cases (Education and Women Empowerment are the long term solutions, but you need to stop the violence till that takes effect). But then what about the guy who drinks for his enjoyment and troubles no one? Agreed, he is a minority. But does that mean he doesn't have rights?
When you implement a ban, you have to be very careful. Because you are restricting the legitimate freedoms of some very responsible and good people. The ban should be time bound perhaps. Perhaps tied to some parameters like education, sex-ratio, women employment, etc.

For me, my college years wouldn't have been the same without the parties, and perhaps the parties wouldn't have been the same without the alcohol.

If this ban is ever implemented? My sympathies.

Gap between Thinking and Action

2011-04-30T16:15:00.000+05:30

When the Anna Hazare thing happened, i liked it.

I have to admit I am a regular middle class guy. I do not wield any political clout (neither any social, financial, media or online one for that matter). Well-to-do in personal life but utterly powerless and insignificant when it comes to macro issues like politics and governance. Typically the middle class is aloof and distant from these things. They read and watch everything but never participate. But this time it was different, the educated urban middle class, along with a hyper excited media (Arnab for Lokpal :P) made this campaign work.

But my regular internet guys (Amit Verma, Nitin Pai, Atanu Dey, Mohit Satyanand, Pratap Bhanu Mehta, Salil Tripathi) were ALL against it, venomously. And I was utterly confused.

I mean I love to read their blogs and am almost always in agreement with their world view. But this time something was missing. They brought up the usual suspects, Bill will add more bureaucracy when we want less of it, it does not address root cause, fasting is blackmail, etc. There can be an endless logical back-and-forth on these, but we don't need to do that (The deed is done for now, time will publish the result.).

What surprised me was no one talked about the process itself. The middle class (+ media) has fought for emotionally appealing personal cases like Jessica Lal, Arushi, etc. before. But for a significant change in governance? I think this was our generations first attempt at this. It was not perfect (and neither is the JanLokpal Bill) but atleast it got a million educated straight thinking young minds interested in the workings of our Government. Isn't that something worth having? How can this be ignored?

And then I realized. These people are just writers. They collect news, add a filter of their beliefs, garnish it with their wit, and serve it up. If they too picture themselves as writers then all is well (I mistook them as leaders, perhaps because of the utter lack of sensible socio-political leadership these days. My bad). But if they imagine themselves to be leaders some day, then only sound theory (which they most certainly possess) is not enough. Their has to be action. And action almost always implies leaving the beautifully mathematical and almost perfect world of theory and getting down to the imperfect yet _real_ world of practice. Are you up for it?

Speaking of action, Anna Hazare plans to campaign for 'Right to Reject' all candidates during voting next. Wonder what the flaws in that one might be.. :P

Fasting today

2011-04-07T11:25:00.000+05:30

in support of 'Jan Lokpal' Bill but also because its kinda fun :)

I don't believe Lokpal bill will solve our corruption problem. Heck, it might even make it worst. The truth of the matter is that in such complex social problems there are no fool-proof actions. We in the computer world are so used to having close to accurate predictions that we are scared to do anything without them. Sorry mate, doesn't work like that in real world.

So i read the Jan Lokpal Bill (section 8 is nice). Then i read the Lokpal Bill (proposed by the government). I recommend you set aside 15 mins and go through both. And i though to myself, if one of them is going to be the law, i damn well want it to be the first one. Because it is written with intent and purpose and with enough clarity for a layman like me to understand. I liked the emphasis on what the Lokpal _can_ do (instead of what he/she _cannot_ do in the government's version), the requirement that appointments to Lokpal to be put up on website and public feedback considered, and that all sessions be video recorded and all documents made available to public. or maybe i am just biased. :)

So how do i decide?
Have i analyzed it enough to make sure that i am being reasonable? Check.
Is the thing non-violent? Check.
Is not infringing upon anyone's freedom of speech or any other legitimate right/freedom? Check.
Is it fun? Check.

Now that i have taken sides (damn, thats rare), what do i do about it? Nothing really. Yes i am fasting, but that is mostly to check if i can survive without food for 24 hours. And perhaps in taking sides i have done my part for now. I have realized its importance and given it my time. Action will follow. Hopefully :P

I hope a lot more people join this movement. Because as someone said, democracy won't work just by voting once in five years. We need to develop a culture of active participation by common people, responsible people like you and me in governance. For that i wish Anna Hazare and his followers well (personally, i like following ideas better than following people. but whatever..).

more stuff here: http://indiaagainstcorruption.org/

Prime Mover

2011-04-04T12:51:00.000+05:30

I have been having a lot of free time lately. Its a few minutes a week really, but in those few minutes i have nothing, and i mean absolutely nothing that i have to do. No financial matters to deal with, no relations to maintain, no health issues to worry about. It's a funny floating feeling.

I guess we all have such moments, and dismiss those few minutes of nothingness as aberrations. Details of everyday life are too overwhelming to dwell in such matters. But sometimes that feeling is so strong that it casts a shadow on all your life's doing. Why do we do what we do?

The prime mover has always been attention, recognition from someone else. Why did i write this blog? I could have taken my realization and kept it to myself. But no, i wanted you to read it, and if i am lucky, comment on it (and when you do, perhaps, you seek the same attention :P). I don't have an internal drive, very few do. If there is no one around to see, appreciate even ridicule my actions i wouldn't have done anything but survive. No music, no beauty, no pride, no emotions.

Right from when we are an adorable toddler till we are a cute grandparent, we seek attention. And sometimes i get so tired of it.

Isn't there anything else?

फिरकी

2010-09-15T02:46:00.000+05:30

मी आणि रव्या नेहमी प्रमाणे deccan च्या कट्ट्यावर (ह्या जागेचं आणि माझं काय वैर आहे कुणास ठाऊक) पान-बिडी करत उभे होतो. रव्या पचापच थुंकत होता आणि मी धूर काढत होतो. विषय पण नेहमीचाच काहीतरी, hot पोरी (आपल्याला का मिळत नाहीत), पुण्यातले वाढलेले जागांचे भाव (आपल्याला का परवडत नाहीत), वगेरे चालू होता. रात्री साधारण ११ ची वेळ होती, आणि दिवाळीत पडते तशी मस्त गुलाबी थंडी, ह्या वेळेला गणपतीतच पडली होती.

"घ्या, comedy आहे" आम्हाला 2 sec कळलच नाही, कारण आजोबा एकदम व्यवस्थित दिसत होते. म्हणजे त्यांच्या जुन्या पण स्वच्छ कपड्यान वरनं (गरीब असले तरी स्वाभिमानी होते, हे indicate करायचा गरीब प्रयत्न :P) ते असं विकत असतील असं वाटलं नाही. आम्ही ती magazines उगीच थोडी बघितल्यासारखी केली आणि नको म्हणून त्यांना परत दिली. शेजारीच एक पोरा-पोरींचा group मोरे च्या भुर्जी वर ताव मारत बसला होता. मग आजोबांनी तिथे जाऊन try मारला. त्यांनी पण आमच्या सारखच थोडं हसून बघितल्यासारखं केलं. इकडची गिराहीकं संपली हे लक्ष्यात आल्यावर त्यांची cycle ढकलत ते पुढे निघून गेले.

मग आम्ही अश्या situation मध्ये अपेक्षित असलेले काही विषय काढले.
मी: म्हातारपणात असं करावं लागणं कसलं वाईट आहे चायला. कोणावर अशी वेळ येऊ नये (स्वतावर आली तर काय, ह्या विचारानी फाटलेली).
रव्या: हो ना. आमच्या ओळखीत असं झालं एकांचं. तरुण मुलाला paralysis झाला, नोकरी गेली. मग काय...
मी: हो का? (अजून फाटली).
रव्या: तरी atleast ह्यांनी स्वाभिमान सोडला नाहीये. काहीतरी विकतायेत. भिक तरी मागत नाहीयेत.
मी: exactly! that is good. माझं principle आहे, भिक द्यायची नाही. ते encourage होतात आणि मग त्यांचच नुकसान होतं (वगेरे वगेरे full shinning ..)

बिडी संपली आणि आम्ही आपापल्या दिशेने कटलो. पण काहीतरी अस्वस्थ, चुकल्यासारखं वाटत होतं (नशीब!). थोडं पुढे अजून एका टपरी पाशी ते आजोबा परत दिसले. बास म्हंटलं आता खूप झालं. गाडी तिथेच park केली आणि त्या टपरी पाशी गेलो. मी त्यांच्या कडे जाणार एव्हड्यात समोरनं रव्या येताना दिसला.

मी: च्यायला हा कुठून आला! लाज निघणार आता आपली. (अश्या लोकन बद्दल वाईट वाटणे, sensitive असणे, etc. ह्या हास्यास्पद qualities असतात. especially दारू party मध्ये ह्या मुळे बरीच लाज निघू शकते)
रव्या: अरे तू काय करतोय इथे?
मी: (काहीतरी थाप मारावी असं वाटलं, पण anyways त्याला कळणार होतं) अरे त्या punter कडनं एखादं पुस्तक घेणार होतो.
रव्या: मी पण :)

मग दोघांनी एक-एक 'फिरकी - कौटुंबिक विनोदी मासिक' घेतलं आणि तिथून सुटलो. पण विषय सुटला नाही. आपण अजून काही करायला हवं होतं का? अजुन ४ अंक का नाही घेतले? त्यांच्याशी जरा बोलायला हवं होतं का? घरी आल्या-आल्या ashlya ला हे सगळं सांगितलं. ती पण मग बराच वेळ अस्वस्थ होती.

मी: (थोड्या वेळानी) आलीस का परत normal ला?
ती: आपण परत normal ला येतो, ह्याचाच राग येतो कधीकधी.

HBO वर कुठला तरी क्ष horror movie बघण्यात मी कधीच दंग झालो होतो ..

do we really want freedom?

2010-09-08T18:58:00.000+05:30

lately i have been reading (mostly at work) and talking (mostly when drunk) about such things as freedom and individual liberty. about how the government should not meddle with our lives and how the law should be based only on the non-aggression principle. and such shit. its fun read, and fun think. but the bottom line is, even if you understand all this and have a solution that will end all the world's problems, you need to be in a position of power to implement it. which you and me, by definition, are not (i write inconsequential blogs and you read them :P).

so what do we have power over? obviously we can have power over our own lives, our ambitions, our relations. the operative verb being _can_ here. yes of course we can take control of all those things, but do we really? and if not, why the hell not??

one answer lies, unfortunately, with our near and dear ones.

our lives, if not disturbed by deep thinking, are a study in dependence. we begin as an infant dependant on mom, then as a kid we stick to both our parents. adolescence comes with heavy reliance on friends and peer groups. as we mature we shift our emotional weights onto our spouse and then, when all is said and done, we look at our kids to ferry us off to the end.

what does this have to do with having power over your own life? power and dependence are in some sense, antonyms. the more things you are dependent on, the less power you have left. so the obvious thing would be to reduce your dependence on your relations, especially the close ones. well this is hard enough and even if you manage it somehow, its just the first step. (if you think all the fun in life comes from clinging to the ones you love, this will seem absurd/stupid to you. read no further :) also, there is tremendous difference between breaking a relationship and breaking your dependence on it. i am talking about the later, and hoping you know the difference.

the next step is a simple question of ethics. you want to do something but your loved ones don't want you to do it. what do you do?

there are some who, without a blink, say 'i do it', some answer 'i won't do it' just as fast and then there are the ones who, think. what follows is for the third kind.

imagine you are a regular joe (i don't need to imagine, i am :P). good job, wife, parents, school friends, college chums, office buddies, the works. throw in a nice little hobby while you are at it (hmm, photography seems to be in flavour). nice and boring.
you, like most around you, are happy with your life, but sometimes have that strange feeling of missing something which will make your life complete. after years of sliding that feeling under the carpet, you finally come out of the slumber and decide to do something passionate and interesting. say, you decide to travel the world, like this guy. you plan well, like you always do :) you decide to work hard and make sufficient financial arrangements for your family before you leave.

obviously, nobody is happy with all this, except you. parents, they tell you that they are just worried about your own safety and that's why they don't want you to go. they suggest a nice relaxing 7 day vacation to Kerala instead. wife says she will support you always but subtly hints at dropping this madness for everyone's sake. she blames it on your not so fulfilling job and suggests looking for a better one. friends tell you stories about how they too once dreamed of doing such things. their solution to the problem is to get some more responsibilities, that sure as hell kills such stupid thoughts.

now back to our question on ethics. is it right to do something you like, even if it makes everyone you like, unhappy? it seems like a trick question, but it is not. the heartless cold-blooded but right answer to this question is, yes. but people will call you insensitive and ungrateful if you do it, and praise you for your sacrifice if you don't. but no one will realize that the problem was not that you were trying to experiment with your life, it was that others couldn't let go of you and your secure relationship with them.

if you don't expect anything from others, you don't need to heed others expectations. it is as simple and as difficult as that. but if you achieve it, that is true freedom.

but i guess we don't really want to be free. we just want things to go our way, always.

and yes, there is a difference between the two.

on power and freedom

2010-07-03T02:19:00.002+05:30

"And after your glorious coup, what then? You take your five thousand and... leave? " - Gladiator

world has seen many who wouldn't. the allure of power is just too much for most mortals to resist. the problem has never been that the corrupt find a way to be powerful, but its that the powerful have always become corrupt.

i understand this urge to seek power, it can be logically traced back to that primal instinct of survival (greater your power, greater are your chances of thrashing the opposition). so the most powerful naturally got to be the leaders and rulers. even today, be it the khadi clad national politician, the gutka spewing local MLA or our good old household patriarch, they all will be extremely uncomfortable without access to total submission from those whom they supposedly serve.

power is fine if it comes alone. but invariably, when someone gains power, someone else (possibly of a different caste, class or sex) loses some of their legitimate freedom. history has seen numerous examples where unabashed power has not only restricted but crushed even the very basic freedoms of those it subdued. really, is there _anyone_ that you would trust with absolute power? the person next to you? the person you adore, love the most in this world? how about yourself? who is qualified to be the most powerful? (the answer is no one. we all are imperfect, we all are fallible)

so there is good news and bad news (actually its the same news, just 2 ways of looking at it :P). whenever these excesses of power have become unbearable, though it took hundreds of years and millions of lives, we have ultimately found ways of curbing them. kingdoms were too person specific (good king, fun. bad king, well not so fun), so we shifted to a more reliable religion backed nation states model. when religion became oppressive we decoupled it from the State. we split the State into legislature, executive and judiciary, all independent (in theory atleast) with the hope that no one person or institution can wield absolute power.

the good way to look at it is that we have firmly established, after centuries of blood and gore, that no human or human institution can be trusted with supreme power. bad news is that we haven't figured out the alternative. everytime a powerful institution is disbanded, some other takes its place. when will this end? is it even possible?

i guess the only time we will be truly free is when the basic needs of every man (food, health, education and property rights) are guaranteed, but his prosperity and progress is left to the free market, unhindered.

the closest i have seen anyone come to this idea are the Libertarians. been following this funny word for some time now, so more about it soon. (btw i have heard they don't consider you a true libertarian unless you can pronounce "Libertarianism" quickly. three times.)

while i loosen my tongue on that one, here is an excellent post by Amit Verma to get you started.

Where's the Freedom Party

road rage

2010-04-20T20:38:00.002+05:30

" पुणेकर होण्यासाठी cycle चालवणं हि क्रिया एक खास कला म्हणून शिकायला हवी. चालवणं हे क्रियापद इथे, हत्त्यार चालवणं किंव्हा एखादी चळवळ चालवणं ह्या अर्थानी वापरलं पाहिजे." - पु. ल.

परवा उत्साहाच्या भरात मी sptm च्या mission 10vi pass साठी volunteer केलं. काम असं होत कि १ तासासाठी बालगंधर्व च्या चौकात उभं राहून तिथल्या traffic पोलिसांची मदत करायची. ती लोकं "signal ला पांढऱ्या line च्या मागे वाहने थांबवण्याचा नियम" enforce करत होती. एखादा माणूस खूपच भांडायला लागला तर त्याला समजवायचा प्रयत्न करणे, इतकीच काय ती मदत.

honestly, i did not expect it to be such fun! people fought with me like their lives were at stake (when the actual stakes were just Rs. 100 and possibly some embarrassment). but there was so much hostility and anger, that it was almost funny. मी, असा-असा नियम आहे, तो मोडला तर असा-असा दंड आहे, वगेरे सांगायचा प्रयत्न करत होतो. पण फारसं कोणी त्याला भिक घालत नव्हतं. काही लोकं कोणाचं लक्ष नाहीये असं पाहून हळूच पळून गेली, काही "तुम्ही जबरदस्ती करताय म्हणून भरतो, पण खरा तर माझी काहीही चूक नाहीये" असं म्हणून गेली, तर काहींनी, "सगळेच मोडतायेत नियम, आम्हालाच का दंड?" किंव्हा "signal फार पटकन पडला, आम्हाला दिसलाच नाही." अशी करणं दिली. but the one common thing for all of them was the question they were asking themselves.

and it was not "why did i have to break the law?" but "why did i have to get caught?"

पुलंनी लिहून ठेवलेलं वाक्य आजही इतकं खरं का आहे? पुणे शहराला संस्कृतीचा प्रचंड मोठा वारसा मिळालाय असं म्हणतात. मग इथला traffic इतका असंस्कृत का? i left feeling all superior and proud for doing my bit for the city. but i knew i would be no different than them, as soon as i get behind the wheel of my own car. all of us think we are better drivers than most others on the road. that myth was broken, atleast for me. and it got me thinking.

why is there so much anger and impatience on our roads? why do i keep inching forward while waiting for the signal to turn green? why do i hit the gas and push my nose in just enough so that the other guy can't pass and i get to go first? why do i have to fight my way through a traffic jam? can't i extend some courtesy _even_ if others are not reciprocating? do these things really gain me any significant time advantage?

dude, don't get emotional, get scientific instead. how about doing an experiment?

if you start following all the rules at once you might never reach your destination (e.g. lane discipline, there is simply not enough space on most roads). so i made a list of some rules and niceties to follow while diving. i know the avg. time it takes my commute everyday. so i would measure how much time i lose if i abide by this list:

1. if its working, stop at a red light. yes, even if its very long and boring and there is no policeman around

2. look for the white stop line at every signal. if there is one, stop before that line. if not, enjoy the freedom and revert to your old self :P

3. do not honk at the guy in front of you a split second after the signal turns green. (basically stop showing off your dhoni like reflexes)

4. do not honk if you can see that the obstructing vehicles are trying to un-obstruct, but there is some genuine problem holding them up and do not honk if you can't see what the problem is.

5. honk only when you need to alert someone in order to avert a collision with you. or any other time, if you feel you are not contributing enough to the noise pollution :P

6. slow down when signal turns yellow (contrary to the popular belief that yellow is a signal to stand on your gas pedal and zoom through like a 100 meter sprinter)

7. in a traffic jam, let atleast 2 cars pass, before you surge forward and join the battle to prove your mettle

well it turns out all these things added 2 mins to my commute. that is a trade off i can live with :)

i would suggest you try this out. use this list or make up your own standards. and live up to them. i can assure you it will make your daily commute more interesting and you will be among the very few drivers who look happy at 7pm on nalstop.

if nothing else, the utterly confused look on an irritated driver's face when you smile and let him pass in front of you, will make it worth it :P

india verses forest people

2010-04-12T03:05:00.000+05:30

NOTE: No, these are not two new IPL franchises. No, this is not even about a cricket match (damn! i lost most of my readership right there).

Now generally I wouldn't have dared to read an 8 page essay in one of those flashy magazines you only see in a doctor's waiting room. and if the author's name sounded like arundhati roy? i would probably have spent my time staring aimlessly at the mosaic tiles on the floor, than flip through it. but when so many articles are written with the sole intention of bashing the living hell out of it, the urge to read the original piece became irresistible.

surprisingly the facts are not what is disputed in this debate. everyone agrees that the mining lobby started exploiting the locals (tribals), the government (politicians + forest/police department officials) being hand in glove with the mining companies (for obvious reasons) did not do much to stop this exploitation, in fact they aided it. at some point in time the tribals took to violence, and became the maoists/naxalits that we hear of in the news everyday. now whether the maoists/naxalists of today represent the majority of tribal people is obviously debatable. but it is pretty clear that the movement started off from among the people.

if these are really the facts (and correct me if I am wrong) then they are believable. what other reason can there be for a people to rise up in arms against an obviously and significantly powerful adversary? other than the possibility of them having gone stark raving mad, that is.

in a democracy everyone has a right to property. but the thing is, they are sitting on a shit load of minerals, which we want. the problem is, they think they don't need anything we can offer. so here is a strong guy who desperately needs something that a weak guy has and is not ready to part with. you only need to remember high school to know what happens next.

a country needs to do whatever it needs to do to maintain law and order throughout its territory. if that means indulging in violence against its own people then as unfortunate as it is, it needs to be done. but lets stop being hypocritical about it. we are _not_ doing any of this (the so called development, getting them into the mainstream, etc.) for the betterment of their lives. we are doing it for our own sakes. they are different and weak. and they are paying the price for that. it is times like these when you really appreciate being in the powerful majority, dont you? :D

so i do the needful. loathe the AK47 slinging maoist, feel sorry for the war ravaged tribal and immediately cuddle up in the snug feeling of power and invincibility that the Constitution of India with all its armies and police provide me. all the while oblivious to the fact that if tomorrow they find a huge oil reserve under my property, and if the country needs oil, i will have a choice to make. either accept the compensation they give and abandon ship or hold my ground and get run over by a tank :P

some choice that !

kabir rules big time

2010-03-21T11:55:00.000+05:30

God, is perhaps the least understood and at the same time, the most exploited concept in recorded history. came across this beautiful verse which cuts through the confusion, and calls it for what it really is. n'joy

Moko kahan dhundhere bande
Mein toh tere paas mein
Na teerath mein, na moorat mein
Na ekant niwas mein
Na mandir mein, na masjid mein
Na kabe kailas mein
Mein toh tere paas mein bande
Mein toh tere paas mein
Na mein jap mein, na mein tap mein
Na mein barat upaas mein
Na mein kiriya karam mein rehta
Nahin jog sanyas mein
Nahin pran mein nahin pind mein
Na brahmand akas mein
Na mein prakuti prawar gufa mein
Nahin swasan ki swans mein
Khoji hoye turat mil jaoon
Ik pal ki talas mein
Kahet Kabir Suno Bhai Sadho
Mein Toh Hoon Viswas Mein

Sampling Theorem

2010-03-16T16:01:00.001+05:30

so how often do you sample life?

apparently our whole waking lives can be split into two alternating states. one in which we are thinking about the world and doing stuff in it. habitual tasks (eating, commuting, etc.), vacations, sports, movie watching, working, the list is endless. second state is when we think about the self, am i happy? what am i doing here? why do i want, what i want? who am i?

first state is the waveform of life. every life on earth possesses it. a cell is dividing, a tree is growing new leaves, a sheep is eating them, a tiger is stalking its prey, a human is commuting. the level of sophistication may vary according to species but not the fact that they are living (or leaving :P) out their lives.

the second state is when you sample this waveform. instead of going about living your life, you stop and look at yourself as an outsider. at the risk of sounding spiritual, i must say it is the state when you become 'self conscious'. it lasts a few fleeting moments before giving way to first state again. but it strikes hard and deep.

first state is nice and simple, but do i really need this confusing second state? i mean what can i possibly gain by asking 'who am i' or 'am i happy' to myself over and over again?

simply put, "i" wont exist without the second state. 'cogito ergo sum' really means that 'i think (about my own self) therefore i am' or 'i think (about thinking itself) therefore i am'. it is this second order thinking that makes consciousness and in turn, self consciousness, possible. a lioness is also thinking when she plans an attack. but she does not _know_ that, does she? she does not even know that she _exists_. it is our ability to turn the subject of our lives (ourselves) in an object of contemplation, that makes us exist.

point being?

the more you sample the better fidelity you get (we all remember Nyquist dont we?). so, to truly understand life (and not just live it out) you have to be in the second state as much and as often as possible.

philosophy is cheap, show me the money.

No. philosophy is cheap when it comes from a loser like me. what about when a Nobel Laureate talks about something similar?

you dont think that is cheap, now do you? :P (actually its a good working approximation to first look at _who_ is talking rather than _what_ is being said. as long as we dont forget its just that, an approximation. but i digress.)

the only way to reduce distortion between the experiencing self and the remembering self is to sample life as often as possible. the remembering self aggregates all the points that entered our consciousness. more data points will only make it more accurate.

and yes, about the money. you can save on that vacation you don't really want ;)

(video link via Anand)

day dreaming

2010-02-26T17:49:00.000+05:30

can you imagine a perfect world? No seriously, can you?

not just a simple "i would always be happy in a perfect world", but the nitigrities of that world. what would you do in it? what would other people/institutions be like? those who have tried it know its not that easy. we are so used to chipping away at the rigid realities of day to day life, that even our dreams can't easily break free of them.

but its a fun exercise. at least you know what you are aiming for. and for those of you who are crazy enough to go after their dreams, its the only compass which can keep them on course. so go ahead, conjure up something for yourself. i must warn you though. its fun to get in (a dream world), not easy to come back. :)

one dream comin up..

for me, people have been most impressive so far. i wouldn't want them any different in the dream world. or maybe i am not creative enough :P what i would like different are a few social institutions that we have built up over the years.

Courts of Law (Justice)

ya, they are black and bleak, nothing dreamy or romantic. but they are mostly what differentiates us from our savage counterparts/ancestors in the animal kingdom. In my dream world courts will be impartial, accessible to everyone and reasonably quick. the law itself will be based on the non-aggression principle. the police will just be enforcers of the rule of law, and nothing else. thus everyone will be safe as long as they do not harm anyone else. That is all i want from the black robes. and yes i have been reading 'to kill a mocking bird' recently. here is a beautiful excerpt from it.

But there is one way in this country in which all men are created equal - there is one human institution that makes a pauper the equal of a Rockefeller, the stupid man the equal of an Einstein, and the ignorant man the equal of any college president. That institution, gentlemen, is a court. It can be the Supreme Court of the United States or the humblest J.P. court in the land, or this honourable court which you serve. Our courts have their faults, as does any human institution, but in this country our courts are the great levelers, and in our courts all men are created equal.

Government (the need for it)

survival of the fittest? Nah. more like prosperity of the fittest, survival of everyone.

There must have been in a time when your survival/prosperity depended on how fast and accurately you can throw a spear. we have come a long way since then. physical strength might have been replaced by the ability to produce but, the law of the jungle still holds. so the smart/hard-working guys make it big, as they should. but those who can't produce anything (due to ill-fate or choice) shouldn't be left to just die. Government will exist to give them basic things like food, shelter, education and medical care.

other than that the government will just take care of public property and its usage, it will not produce anything. it will do town planning, contract out civic works like water supply, roads, etc. contractors will collect their dues from the consumers directly, where ever possible.

the government will be necessary but unimportant. no one institution will have the power to steer the whole country according to its will. power corrupts, and that much power corrupts absolutely. Instead the fate of nation will literally be the sum total of what its citizens make of their own. good or bad.

Government (the people in it)

democracy is nice, but representative democracy is stupid. no one person can represent a million people. he can represent a mob (hence we have mobsters in parliament) but not individuals. in my world there will be no fulltime politicians, but there will be some compulsory 'political service' for everyone. :P

people won't be voted into office, there will just be a random draw from among responsible citizens (responsible: no history of harming anyone and who produces something for a living, anything from a painting to a cryogenic engine is fine). ofcourse there will be a panel (comprising of eminent people from different professions) to help out if need be.

people will vote to decide the broad policy regarding utilization of the natural and public resources.

democracy is not outsourcing the difficult stuff to some elected guy. democracy means everyone will have freedom and liberty to do whatever they wish, as long as they don't aggress.

Family

in my world parents won't try to 'give their kids what they did not get' and kids wont take their parents for granted. parents wont pass on their prejudices and kids will question everything that their folks taught them. i can keep going but i already wrote a whole freakin play on this one :P

Marriage

wrote about that too ;)

Work

oh ya there will be work in my dream world, and lots of it. i am always surprised by the amount of satisfaction a hard day's work can give you. ofcourse it won't be something as rigid as a 9 to 5, and it certainly wont be tangential to your life's pursuit.

and did i mention that katrina kaif will have the hots for me?

damn!

निषेध !

2010-02-13T18:45:00.001+05:30

a friend suggested that common maharashtrians should put up their opinions about what the sena is doing. his reasoning was decent. (most muslims are not terrorists, but the moderates keep quiet, so the image building rests in the extremist's hands.) not that i needed a reason :P

एक पक्का पुणेकर असल्याने ह्या विषयावर 'मत' मांडायचा chance मी सोडू शकत नाही. तर...सरकारचे डोके ठिकाणावर आहे काय?! मी ह्याचा आणि इतर सर्व गोष्टींचा एकदाच काय तो जाहीर निषेध करतो. परत परत प्रत्येक छोट्या मोठ्या बातमीचा निषेध करायला लावू नये. (आम्ही broadband चे bill भरतो)

honestly speaking, i really don't understand these so called social issues. you see, i come from (and roam about) in a class which is not bothered much (or so we think :P) by these issues. some times when we are bored of cricket, stock market and the weather, we tend to talk of them. social issues make for interesting conversation topics (especially if they are alcohol soluble) but never turn into action items (dude, i have got a life of my own to take care of !).

i hope this will change. not for the sake of the underprivileged or the society in general (whatever that means). but for my own sake. 'cause it has been my unfortunate observation that the people who can look beyond their material needs, tend to be happier.

that guy

2010-02-09T18:44:00.018+05:30

आज सकाळी मी (मस्त नहा-धो के) बँकेत गेलो होतो, home loan ची चौकशी करायला. १५ मिनिटे दयनीय नजरेनी त्या clerk बाईंनकड़े बघितल्या नंतर finally त्यांनी "हं तुमचा काय?" विचारलं.

मी: home loan ची चौकशी करायची होती.
बाई: काय करता आपण?

मी: electronics engineer आहे. (software सांगायला लाज वाटते म्हणून :P)

बाई: वडील काय करतात?

मी: doctor आहेत.

बाई: कितीचं loan पाहिजे?

मी: ५-६ लाख, म्हणजे २-३ वर्षात repay करता येईल असं.

she smirked, put the pen down and looked at me with a look that said "what a loser. इथे सगळे ३०-४० लाखांची loans घेतायेत, आणि हा घाबरट इतकी चांगली नोकरी असताना पण ५ लाख मागतोय."

बाई: इथे २० लाखाच्या खालची होत नाहीत. दुसऱ्या branch ला जा.

getting expensive homes and huge home loans seems to be the in thing right now. and it certainly makes economic sense in a developing city like Pune. but i couldn't get myself to do it. i wonder what it takes to sign on a paper which makes you commit to doing a particular task for the next 20 years of your life.

i guess it might have something to do with our self worth. commitment makes us do stuff. once we commit to being parents, no matter how difficult it gets or how bored/lazy we feel, most of us _will_ try to be good parents for their kids. once we fix ourselves a nice juicy e.m.i., we will keep showing up at our job, no matter how much we hate it, just 'cus it pays good.

and then, many years from now, when we are old and done with all our commitments, we will look back and find that we raised our kids well, created property worth crores for them. and feel that our lives were worth their while. peachy.

but what about that guy who won't commit to this default stuff (family and property)?. the one who waits stubbornly to find _his_ own path. there is that huge risk of not finding it at all. when this guy turns old and looks back all he will find is a life spent unshackled and in the search of meaning. poor soul.

my only fear is that instead of pity, i might end up with envy for him.

same difference

2009-12-27T01:16:00.003+05:30

if you don't do anything different, you will, by definition, do the routine. - meech

so what does the above zero information sentence mean? a lot actually.
i have seen and known people who had the potential and were genuinely interested in living life on their own terms, but ended up in a 9 to 5. now, some of them vehemently deny ever having such ambitions, some are busy transferring them to their newly acquired next of kin, and some have locked them in safe deposit boxes to be opened at an appropriate age.

well..whats so wrong about that?
hmm there are many questions hidden in that question mark. lets take them on.

whats wrong with 9 to 5?
not much, apart from the fact that it makes you schizophrenic. you cannot spend more than half your waking life doing something you are not passionate about, and still call it a quality life. i know its hard to believe this. when you see almost everyone around you doing the exact same thing, the question of it being right or wrong kinda fades away. but all you need to dig out the dirty truth is a rational mind and some guts. if you need clues, here are some. do you look forward to the weekends? yes? get scared. do you plan nice long vacations every year? yes??? damn, too late for you.

but i love my job.
really? are you sure? if you are sure then let me ask you. are you sure? :P
nobody can beat us at fooling ourselves. we will lie, cheat, distort reality and fabricate evidence to gratify ourselves. anything that will maintain the status quo and prevent a big change. this is especially true for the lucky (or unlucky) amongst us who are very well compensated (toppers in college, successful businessmen, highly paid (laiki peksha jasti :P) software folks, etc). i am not saying that you hate your job, but there is a difference between changing outside world to fit your inner reality and changing your inner reality to fit the world you are stuck with. basically there is a very faint thin line between fighting for the life you want and accepting what you've got. again all you need to dig out the dirty truth is a rational mind and some guts.

i like this idea of doing something different, but haven't found my calling yet. so i will do the routine till the passion of my life dawns upon me.
and that brings me to the meaning of the stupid quote at the top. dude, it seems like a good plan. but sorry, ain't gonna happen. the Routine (by that i mean graduation > job > car > marriage > house > kids > bigger house > bigger kids > their graduation > ....) is self perpetuating. thats the whole point. once you get into it, you are not allowed to get out. so be _extremely_ careful when you take on new responsibility. when gautya said "possession is the root cause of all suffering", he was not kidding. do you have any idea how much commitment a washing machine demands?? let alone a wife or kid.
so question yourselves a thousand times before getting them :P

NOTE: obviously this post is for myself more than anyone else. i have realized that it helps to bare the facts once in a while. it makes it harder to deny them when the time comes :D

एक कप च्या - a cup of tea

2009-12-09T12:57:00.004+05:30

so why did i decide to watch this obscure marathi movie with no star cast when Paa is the flavor of the season? couple of reasons.

firstly, marathi movies have raised the bar in all aspects of the game and i must admit i have enjoyed the likes of vaLu, ek daav dhobipachad and gabharicha paus more than their star studded hindi and, special effects studded english counterparts. secondly i was not in a mood for the intricacies of human emotions and 'relationships' :P (you have got to know bollywood to understand the quotes).

instead i was in a mood for something more practical and when this movie advertised that it is about RTI (Right to Information) Act, i went for it.

we never cross paths with the government and its infinite offices. we pay our taxes, mind our businesses and hope that we never have to deal with the courts, the police, the this department and the that department of the administration. only when we are dragged into these places (e.g. by an insanely high electricity bill that the dude in this movie is served with), do we begin to realize what a mess they really are.

by we, i dont actually mean you and me, 'cause we are the privileged class (people with liberal access to broadband connections can safely be termed as privileged in a country where most don't have access to good food and water). we won't have a problem even in these offices 'cause we can simply bribe our way through them.

but what if you don't have the money or don't want to indulge in bribery on principle? this is a story of such stupid people. and surprisingly, it has a happy ending :)

Phantoms in the brain

2009-11-07T16:44:00.001+05:30

NOTE: i used to rely on interactions with interesting people, daily nonsensical discussions with friends (dd with bidi) and personal experiences gathered from doing something out of the way, for most of my intellectual fodder. but alas, those days have left me. i seem to have taken to reading and filling myself with second hand information. hoping to quit this dreadful habit at the slightest hint of something more worthwhile. (i mean no disrespect to the bibliophile, but there is some alluring liveliness in two-way communication which is difficult to attain in a medium like print)

here are a few excerpts that a liked from this one. If you are generally intrigued by the so called human condition, as i am, this might be a fun read.

Chapter 5: The Secret Life of James Thurber
Each time any one of us encounters an object, the visual systems begins a constant questioning process. Sensory input flows from bottom-up, memories and associations from top-down. In this manner the impoverished image is progressively worked on and refined till we actually "see" the object in front of us. I think that these massive feed forward and feedback projections are in the business of conducting successive iterations that enable us to home in on the closet approximation to the truth. To overstate the argument deliberately, perhaps we are hallucinating all the time and what we call perception is arrived at by simply determining which hallucination best conforms to the current sensory input.

Chapter 7: The Sound of One Hand Clapping
Thus the coping strategies of the two hemispheres are fundamentally different. The left hemisphere's job is to create a belief system or model and to fold new experiences into that belief system. If confronted with some new information that doesn't fit the model, it relies on Freudian defence mechanisms to deny, repress or confabulate - anything to preserve the status quo. The right hemisphere's strategy, on the other hand, is to play "Devils Advocate", to question the status quo and look for global inconsistencies. When the anomalous information reaches a certain threshold, the right hemisphere decides that it is time to force a complete revision of the entire model and start from scratch. The right hemisphere thus forces a "Kuhnian paradigm shift" in response to anomalies, whereas the left hemisphere always tires to cling tenaciously to the way things were.

Chapter 10: The Women Who Died Laughing
I find great irony in the fact that every time someone smiles at you she is in fact producing a half threat by flashing her canines. When Darwin published 'On the Origin of Species' he delicately hinted in his last chapter that we too may have evolved from apelike ancestors. The English statesman Benjamin Disraeli was outraged by this and at a meeting held in Oxford he asked a famous rhetorical question: "Is man a beast or an angel?" To answer this, he need only have looked at his wife's canines as she smiled at him, and he'd have realized that in this simple universal human gesture of friendliness lies concealed a grim reminder of our savage past.

शादी के side-effects

2009-10-16T12:12:00.005+05:30

why are most married guys so dull? even compared to their own self in college or just outta it. (as if my rants were not enough)

पोरगी पटवणे is a passion like no other. some might say "ah, its important but not _that_ important" but thats just crap (and your ego). trust me, you don't realize it until its over. almost every action and every thought has an underpinning of scoring with a hot chick then. and its an almost* perfect passion. its effortlessly natural in its drive, it offers tremendous scope for creativity and courage (u know wht i'm talkin abt ;)) , there is almost universal peer approval (_everyone_ is doing it), excellent reward on success and abundant fun in failures (गम मै रम).

all this slowly withers away after marriage. if you don't have other passions (music/theatre/sports/etc) you are more dull than ever. then these unlucky married dudes try to engage in popular activities (making money/rasing a family/weekend outings/etc), and do them so religiously as to resemble a passion. but they so dearly lack the advantages of a natural one.

Access. to quote mait from her comment on my post

"...Some other good friends are in various respects distanced from us. So a lot of times there is this burning desire to do something and talk about "real" issues, do something totally passionately..but there is no company. Doing something passionately is doubly rewarding if you are doing it with like-minded people, and like-or-more-enthusiastic people..."

in college you have individual access to lots of people ( say ~100) on a day to day basis. its comparatively easier to find a group that matches your interests the most. (you might say the same is true for a office, but its not. in an office you are not supposed to form groups according to _your_ interests, are you?)
married people move about in couples. society mandates it. you are not supposed to invite someone somewhere without polity asking if the spouse would like to join (exceptions exists but are typical and typecasted - bar visits for guys, shopping escapades for girls?). i dont see anything wrong in this. most people get married bcus they share a lot of common interests. but no matter how much fun it is in a group, passion is an extremely individual affair. you need _personal_ and good relations with people in the group for it to work. and i think this practice of coupling individuals is detrimental to it.

* almost, only because its slightly more instinctual and non-objective than i would prefer.

new election, new logic

2009-10-07T12:20:00.001+05:30

i dont have a candidate to promote like last time but i have a stupid logic never the less.

so basically we dont want to vote for a corrupt candidate, and all the main guys (likely to win) are rotten. what can we do?

i have devised a cunning plan. what we do is find a decent independent candidate and vote for him/her. if you cant find such a dude, the hell with decent, just vote for any independent. this will raise the percentage voting figure without making you feel guilty of sending a crook in the state assembly. come next elections, parties will realize that 60-70% people are voting and that they cannot rely on the zopadpatti vote alone to sneak through. then they would realize that it is a bit harder to woe the educated class and further down the line they wont be so blatant in ignoring the people. finally they will start doing things slightly more efficiently and something resembling good governance might happen.

yup. i know its lame. wont get a soul out on election day. even if all the optimism in this logic is to be believed, it will take 20-25 yrs for this to happen. too boring and insignificant. better dash off to sinhagad on 13th Oct, i hear they've declared it a public holiday :)

some unnecessary links

http://ceo.maharashtra.gov.in/ - Find your name/polling booth here. (this site has a reputation of going down close to election day. I suggest you save your/your families vitals stats somewhere to avoid dday confusion.)

http://pune.nic.in/election/election.html - List of candidates and their affidavits

UPDATE: few more..
http://myneta.info/
http://nationalelectionwatch.org/

I A(m) S(uperior) :P

2009-10-02T14:54:00.002+05:30

NOTE: this is a gross generalization based on my very limited interaction with the administrative services in India (specifically the police commissionerate in Pune). take it with a pinch of whatever you like.

The Scene: lok sabha election time. a doctor and a software engineer have gone to the police commissionerate to get permission for an election rally. everyone is looking at them as if they missed an exit and walked into the wrong neighborhood.

मी: अरुण भाटियांच्या rally ची permission काढायला दिली होती. ती तयार झाली का?
कुंजीर साहेब: अरुण भाटिया?
मी: हो
कुंजीर साहेब: चांगला माणूस
मी: (smile)
कुंजीर साहेब: आम्ही register पाटील madam कड़े पाठवलय
मी: त्या कुठे असतात?
कुंजीर साहेब: आतल्या office मधे
मी: मी भेटू का जाउन त्यांना?
कुंजीर साहेब: तुम्हीच बघा काय ते. त्यांच्या मनात असेल तर होईल तुमचं काम आज
मी: (same q. to patil female)
पाटील madam: तुमचं नाव काय?
मी: सिद्धार्थ गोरे
(पाटील madam starts humming गोरे गोरे ओ बाके छोरे..)
मी: (मनातल्या मनात) खतरनाक
पाटील madam: तुमच्या सारखी educated लोकं अशी कामं करतात?
मी: (smile)
पाटील madam: ते permission चं सरपोतदार सरांच्या हातात आहे अता
मी: ते कुठे बसतात?
पाटील madam: cabin मधे. पण बोलावल्या शिवाय जाऊ नका. त्यांना राग येइल.
मी: ते मला का बोलवतील?
पाटील madam: फार प्रश्न विचारता तुम्ही गोरे.
मी: (barging into sarpotdar dude's cabin) rally ची permission तुम्ही देता का तुमचा पण कोणी साहेब आहे, जो सगळं ठरवतो?

our government offices/bureaucracy are not exactly known for their efficiency or customer service (??), so this was to be expected. i always thought that this inefficiency is because govern is welfare based, unlike the corporate world which is merit based (in theory at least :P). i was so wrong.

the problem is not with the people or their merit. people are alright, just like you and me. what is horribly wrong is the environment that they are made to work in. by environment i mean protocols, procedures and systems. the hierarchy is in the air, and its an extremely rigid one. each rung in this ladder hates but fears the one above it and has no mercy/respect when it comes to treating the one below.

i hear such hierarchy exists even in some industries (mechanical i guess) and on assembly lines where humans are used as just hands and legs to perform a repetitive task (which eventually a sophisticated machine can takeover). but a place like police commissionerate or a municipal corporation is as far from an assembly line as it gets. each person walking through that front door has a unique set of problems. mere processes and registers _cannot_ solve these problems efficiently. what it needs is a person with experience, knowledge and authority. kunjir saheb, patil madam et al. had no derth of experience or knowledge. but authority? they just pointed to the guy, one up.

i can understand strict hierarchy on a nuclear submarine. the captain never mixes with his crew, dines separate, sleeps separate, lives separate. this separation is valid, even necessary here because the captain can ask someone in his crew to carry out a task which can potentially endanger his life. to do that task without a seconds hesitation the crew needs to _always_ look up to that post of the captain. would you risk your life because one of your colleague's asks you to, i think not.
but why the hell is, say a municipal commissioner supposed to call a clerk by his first name (even if he is his old man's age) but the clerk has to respond with 'yes Sir'? are millions of lives going to be lost if he treats the clerk with a little more respect?

when the british left this country in 1947, they left behind a system of governance which they had perfected over the last 200 odd yrs to govern a _foreign_ land. the working principle of that system had to be a very strict separation, both physical and psychological, between the ruling (decision making) class and the subordinate staff. how much did we change that system after independence? didn't it occur to our leaders that we need not minor amendments but a total and fundamental overhaul of the entire system?

i guess when the british left, people who took over the administrative services must have said to themselves - dude, we can either dismantle this and create a new, more democratic system or, or we can keep everything exactly the way it is and just slide into all the places where the british used to be. that way _we_ get to rule this country from now on. we just need to keep acting like the british officers and nobody will even notice.

i think they chose option 2 :D

10 years ago...

2009-09-07T18:51:00.000+05:30

someone once said to me, to really live life and understand it you need bursts of intense activity followed by time for pure leisure. i was in college then. we had bursts of intense activity (a week or 2 around exam time and ofcourse purushottam) followed by pure and unadulterated leisure (pretty much the entire semester), looks like i was on track. a few years later i had landed a decent job and was saying to myself, hey things are not too off even now. 2 days of extreme activity (the weekends :P) followed by 5 days of somewhat restricted leisure (the workdays). it might be the other way round for some of you who take their work seriously :P (if you are reading this blog in office, u ain't that type).

its been a while since then. even now we work and we have fun, but its not the same. the difference i guess is passion. those days i was around guys who were passionate (some bordering on crazy actually :P) about everything in general. not only about the usual stuff - babes, booze, money and cricket, but about abstract things like life, mind, truth and reason. now, i dont see many people around me (including me, ofcourse) who spend majority of their time on something they really really like to do. and not on weekends, thats an hobby. everyones got that. i am talkin getting involved in something you love and doing it like your life depends on it. (if you dont know what you love, then getting involved in finding it, like your life depends on it :D)

i've had this explained by wise men of the world by "there is college, and then there is life". ya ofcourse, you don't act like you are in college for your whole life. but you dont have to be half-dead for the rest of it either. some say its physical, you simply have more energy when you are young, so its best to slither into some routine as you grow old. i dont think the human body deprecates so much when you go from 25 to 30. about the human mind? i am not so sure.

i mean forget about doing non-routine/weird stuff. what happened to just good 'ol talking about it? how can i explain so many smart guys and girls around me talking about nothing but the weather and the stock market, every day, every week? i remember the _same_ people talking about writing plays and trying to understand the meaning of life and shit. i guess somewhere along the line it got branded as "that stupid stuff we used to do when we were in college". we were almost bullied into believing that something, like pondering about the nature of the universe or philosophizing for more than 5 mins in public will instantly make to an irresponsible adolescent who has no clue about how the world works.

and it kinda makes sense. the only way to look smart even when you dont know the answer, is to pretend that the question does not exist. if enough people do that, everyone looks smarter and more mature :) and so the heavy questions vanish and the simple ones, well we talk about them every day, dont we?

whatever the case maybe i see things getting that much more routine and dull everyday, and no one seems to mind it. i guess this is what happens when people around you/close to you change, and you dont change with them.

about 10 years ago, i had scribbled (probably under the influence of alcohol) some pages in illegible handwriting of what was supposed to be a one-act play. i expected to find some stupid shit written in those pages (as those are supposed to be the fun but stupid days of your life), surprising didn't find a single word i wished to change in it (talk about learning as you grow, eh? :P).

here is an extract from it. you can get the whole thing here. (dont even think about following it, i am sitting on that link with a club in my hand :P) and thanks ashlya for converting the manuscript into something readable.

<...snip...>
D: तुला काय वाटतं? काय चांगलं आणि काय वाईट हे आपल्याला १००% खात्रीपूर्वक कधी कळतं? म्हणजे साधारण कुठल्या वयात?
प्रे: (मोठ्यांदा हसतो) खरं सांगू का? डोक्यावरचे सगळे केस पिकून गुल झाल्याशिवाय ते काही कळत नाही. म्हणजे ईन मोष्ट केशेश. हा...काही जणांना ते आधी समजायला लागतं, पण तसे लोक कमीच. आणि काही लोकांना तर ते कधीच उमगत नाही.
D: perfect! तुमच्याकडून हेच उत्तर अपेक्षित होतं. पण माझी theory ह्याच्या बरोबर उलटी आहे. प्रत्येक माणसाला चांगलं आणि वाईट ह्याची समज असते. पण...फक्त वयाच्या पाचव्या वर्षापर्यंत
प्रे: तुम्ही पाचव्या वर्षापर्यंत म्हणाला का?
D: (हसतो) हो. let me explain. तुम्ही कधी चड्डीत शू केलिये का?
<...snip...>

yup. it was the alcohol.

i dont think he will win

2009-03-15T13:36:00.000+05:30

i have never thought about anything but myself, so thinking about a whole city is really outta my league. but until someone pays me to shutup, i will keep talking :P

so the question really is, can a educated, highly qualified honest man with a will to improve the city and its administration, win an election? the obvious answer is no. the reasons are obvious too...i and you wont vote.

but i feel sorry for people of Pune this time around. there nearest and dearest excuses have been mercilessly taken away from them.

Punekar: my vote wont make a difference. actual elections are won/lost in the slums.
Stupid Reality: more than 60% of pune's registered voters are from the educated middle class. they are actually (and i still dont believe it) in the majority.

P: fine! but who do we vote for? all are corrupt.
SR: theres this dude, arun bhatia (u might find the name familiar, same dude who broke down all illegal constructions, when commissioner of PMC, was later transferred...obviously :P). read the excerpt from his website below. proves he was not liked by the system. there is no way you can put him in the "all are corrupt" basket

"And so in 26 years of service (excluding the training period and service in the United Nations), Bhatia was removed from his post (transferred) 26 times. "

P: :( even if he wins, what can 1 MP do?
SR: he has plans. but forget everything else, if he wins it will just prove that a good guy with extremely limited funds and no gundaas, can still win a lok sabha seat in india. which will be a revolution in itself.

P: (dodge this u punk!) is desh ka kuch nahi hone wala. kyon time waste kare?
SR: ok. u win.

SR: here is his video, watch it if you have the whole 10 mins to spare.
P: isnt he expecting too much frm us? cant watch katrina for tht long, and she is the hottest!!

i dont know which side i am on. to vote or not to. but one things for sure, if i am not going to vote in this LS polls, i will need to be very creative and find a good excuse. cant hide behind those good ol ones anymore :( hmmm...something on these lines perhaps :P

SR: why dont u vote?
P: i am a believer of individual action (SR: mostly cus no one else listens to me). you tell me, for my vote to be worth anything, 4 lakh more have to vote for the same guy? that doesn't work for me, too far fetched. doesn't make me feel special. i would rather give 10 bucks to a beggar, get the instant gratification and be done with my social responsibilities. (SR: if you have no sense of social responsibility..u r the luckiest)

but if u r gonna take the brave step of being non-lazy non-pessimistic, and risk being found looking stupid standing in a line at a polling booth, then remember these dates.

27th March: last date for voter registration
23th April: showtime

dont blame pakistan..try blaming the washing machine

2008-12-01T23:01:00.000+05:30

NOTE: i dont have a solution to the problem of terrorism. if you are looking for something concrete to do, read no further :)

dont blame pakistan...

mostly 'cause it is not a country. just like india is not a country.

pak is looking like it is taken over by extremists (read ISI/Army/JeM/LeT) and india is most definitely taken over by corruption. a nation is some place where the will of the common people is expressed, atleast to a certain measure in the will of the administration. is this true about our two countries? i.e. does the pak govt look serious in its efforts to curb terrorism, and does the indian govt look serious in its efforts to curb corruption? and these are not some fringe issues. they are central to the safety and well being of commoners in both countries.

i would say the US is a country. most of its citizens were against the war in iraq and that has cost its president and his party dearly. there is atleast a hope that the new guy will deliver closer to the peoples expectations.

so if we are not a country then what are we? just a billion people without an identity? what happens to our patriotism. what happens to all those songs and speeches that we were made to recite as kids and are imprinted on our minds? this whole idea of belonging to a "country" 'cause you were born in it, feels much like the caste system. you get your nationality by birth, you are taught that your country is the greatest and that all others are fine but not as great as yours. so when there is a conflict of interests, anything (even killing!) is fair if it is done in the name of your country (replace country with god and you have..viola jihad!).

believing in god and country is great, do it by all means. maybe a long long time ago these institutions were really unadulterated, so people got used to believing them easily. but in todays day and age are priests and politicians the most charitable people around?
problem here is that we outsource our thinking. i dont want to get into the nitty-gritties of issues. i just want a notion which everyone accepts to be sacred so that i can make my peace with the stupid questions (how can we help end terrorism) and merrily focus on the important ones (how will i get a pay hike :P).

we need to move from geographical location based loyalties to value based loyalties. it would mean a paradigm shift in todays political order. and i dont see it coming any time soon, 'cause for that to happen most humans will have to think for themselves :P

gandhiji once said "the only tyrant i accept in this world is the still small voice within me" :)

try blaming the washing machine....

"we accept the reality of the world that we are presented with" - The Truman Show

brainwashing is not very hard. all it takes is a clever and systematic control of information. you take away that control and the machine stops. if we want to stop this hate between india and pakistan and the grass root level, all that needs to be done is let the media in. allow all indian channels private and public to be seen in pakistan and vica-versa. i am sure there will be a lot of propaganda channels too, but who cares? most extremists are that way because they have never seen the other side. you show them that and you give them atleast something to think about.

it is hard to believe that whole of pakistan hates india and visa-versa. sure we are not the best of allies but the khunnas sud be limited to cricket matches and hockey games. i dont think the common man is really very different in the two countries. so when there are blasts in mumbai why do we feel that we should retaliate against pakistan? its because its engraved in our brains that the basic unit for war is a country. and that is the exact wrong assumption on which terrorism thrives. we need to change the unit of war to organizations, not countries.

once pakistanis realize that most hindus are peaceful and do not hate muslims, and indians see that most pakistanis are peaceful too, then we will we able to focus on the real enemy

until then...ignorance will take its toll

enemy like

2008-11-27T22:53:00.000+05:30

NOTE: i have not been oppressed nor have i been an oppressor. i have no insight whatsoever into why terrorists do what they do or how it feels to be a victim of their acts. wht follows is a purely theoretical/intellectual quest to understand/comprehend this phenomenon.

human race has always found creative ways of settling disputes, from verbal abuse (this has established itself both as an exact art and as a separate branch of linguistics) to homicides and from gandhigiri to genocides. gandhigiri being a topic for another day...

so can you kill a human being? well, if you eat chicken you are already close to killing animals for your need/pleasure. human beings are just animals who look a lot like you :P ok on a serious note...humans have been killing each other for centuries now. from organized killings like wars and terrorist attacks to individually motivated actions like assassinations and murders.

individual killers are some what simple and easy to understand. the good old "i dont like you i will kill you" school of thought. they are stupid idiots agreed, but not pertinacious (at least not after getting caught :P) lets leave them to their fate...

conventional wars have always been a necessary evil. but it has evolved from jungle style herd clashes (all weak must die) to more civilized stuff like the geneva convention (declaration of war, acceptance of surrender, humane treatment (relatively :P) for prisoners of war, etc). its well accepted as a fact of life now (like we have police for individual criminals we have the army for criminal countries :P). lets move on to the new kid on the block...

why would anyone become a terrorist? some say they are a bunch of crazy people who come out of some god forsaken place on this planet and trouble us just because they are jealous of us. well if thats the case life ould be very simple.
but going by the saying that your terrorist is someone's freedom fighter, let us assume that terrorists are a product of long periods of oppression by a disproportionately stronger adversary. he (he=he/she henceforth) cannot fight a conventional war and he cant be expected to tolerate atrocities either, so he goes out and kills someone "enemy like".
that is a very dangerous abstraction and the fundamental flaw in the doctrine of terrorism, if there is such a thing. it represents the urge to take revenge without the restraint of understanding the problem. but unfortunately its a very practical one.
if my family is killed in a terrorist attack carried out by "a" person of some nationality/religion do you really expect me to find "that" particular person and kill him back? no its very difficult to do that, its much easier to just kill a bunch of hapless guys with the same nationality/religion. yes, the nationality/religion is very important, just killing random people might let out the pent up anger, but it wont give that sweet sense of revenge!

but if you really think about it, isnt it like punishing my neighbor for my mistakes? just because to the outsider we look similar (both are say, indian looking) and maybe share the same taste in food?
yes we are both indians but is that enough to treat us the same? for all you know we might be completely different as individuals. clubbing large groups of people together on the lines of nationality/religion/etc and giving them common attributes just simplifies things for us. but these are obvious oversimplifications which are fine in casual conversation (indians are lazy :P) but stupid when someone starts believing that they are actually true (all indians want to destroy kashmir so kill them 'll).
when you say you are indian, should you be responsible for every action of every soldier of the indian army posted in say, burma? or of some politician from jharkhand? shouldnt everyone just be responsible for his/her own actions are their direct consequences? all for one and one for all is good _only_ when you personally know who the "all" are. doesnt make sense to stand behind every citizen/member of a country/religion just because you also belong to that country/religion.

there is a thin line between patriotism and fanaticism. most people will equate non-fanaticism with non-patriotism, especially in such emotional times. and i dont blame them. i just have to look at _any_ page in history to realize that logic and reason are the first things to be tossed out whenever there has been an appeal to our fear and pride (personally i am not a big fan of pride, national or otherwise. its too close to ego for my taste)

i guess these terrorist attacks is a proof that some/most people would rather kill than think. i compared terrorists with freedom fighters before. their motivations might be similar but there is a vast and conceptual difference in their methods. chaphekar bros did not kill any random brit that they saw on the street or their families. they were dissatisfied by rand's policies and wanted to make _him_ pay for it. cant find a logical flaw in that :P

no kidding

2008-06-27T15:54:00.000+05:30

time runs out fast. the other day we were discussing marriage stuff on the same table where we had discussed office politics, hot chicks, campus placements, engineering submissions... . so i figure talkin abt kids wont be far behind. this is one of my "write now, read later" kinda posts. i know this is a sensitive issue so its best to write abt it when you are not too close to the fire

we generally act our age. software professionals dont behave like kids in office (though they may behave worst :P) and kids do not behave like chartered accountants on playfield. i guess we grow up just because we have to. The body is growing no matter what, so if the mind decides not to, it just looks stupid. the body knows what its doing, it grows up, grows down and perishes. but the mind is clueless. it knows it has to change but doesnt know why and what to. so it looks around and quietly does what others its age are doing. This is all fine till you are shifting from playing hide n'seek to playing cricket, from learning arithmetic to understanding calculus, from partying with friends to romancing your girlfriend. but when your mind wants to shift from enjoying your marriage to having kids, its a paradigm shift. and it is _not_ ok to do it just because everyone else is doing it.
I say its not ok because you have the right to do anything with your own life, but do you have the right to get a new human in this world just because you have run out of answers to "wht nxt?" and want some fun in your and your family's boring life?

why have kids? this question obviously doesn't have a practical answer except that they are a high risk insurance policy and a high cost pension plan. there are other answers, some emotional some egoist and some plain stupid. here is a random sampling..

A: giving birth and raising a kid is the greatest joy one can get.
Q: i think this is true. but is it right to use somebody for your own joy and entertainment? you want to give birth because its fun?? i would suggest adoption and a school teacher job if you are so in love with bringing up kids.

A: No its great only if they are your own flesh and blood.
Q: This is plain and simple ego. What is so great about your DNA? get over it, kid is gonna be as good/bad as you raise it to be, if you are damn lucky that is. In most cases how a kid turns out is as unpredictable as the weather.

A: What if everyone stops having kids? the human race will end.
Q: yes i have actually heard this argument :P however stupid a question may seem, it deserves an answer :) when you ignore violence, turn a blind eye to corruption, roll up the window when a beggar asks for a buck, does it occur to you what if the whole humanity starts doing that? if everyone did what we do, humanity would have ran out of luck a long time ago. So dude, stop thinking about human race and think about your own, like you always do.
on second thoughts, if it actually happens that one generation decides it wont reproduce and humanity dies a natural death, it wont be such a bad end afterall. the earth wont mind for sure ;)

A: I want my kids to get to do things i didnt get to do, i want them to become what i could not.
Q: you are a loser, accept it and get on with life. dont drag an innocent being into your world of unfulfilled desires.

A: my family name should go on.
Q: yes fantastic. go spawn a cricket team.

A: I am a female, I have an instinct to be a mother.
Q: again the same thing. you have an instinct, it is fun for you to be a mother. wht about the kid? r u not using it for your own enjoyment?

A: its been 5 years after marriage. there is nothing new in life. I get bored.
Q: atleast this is honest. I can identify with you man. im gonna have the same problem. but i hope i wont get a kid to solve it for me.

Please dont get me wrong, the intent is not to ridicule. but it is sad that I haven't heard a single answer which appeals to any sort of rationale. If you have one please share it.

NOTE TO SELF: i dont think you will ever ask your parents why they got you here, but if you ever decide to have kids of your own, u've got to visit this post and pen a reason you believe in.

just another guy

2007-08-01T05:44:00.000+05:30

i always believed tht i was better than the rest. something tht sets me apart from the crowd. maybe my mom loved me too much and made me think this, maybe no one after that was concerned enough to bring me back to my senses. nwayz i was holding on to this notion for too long and it came as a bit of a rude shock when it was broken.

Perspective. thts the art of shifting focus frm "what we see" (which is wht we do 99% of the time) to "seeing ourselves" (in the grand scheme of things). you are extremely unlucky if you possess this skill. it shows a lot of unpleasant things which you could be happily oblivious to, if only u had not stopped to ponder (or read this blog :P)

for example, a typical HR intv question - "where do u see urself 5 years down the line?" i dish out a new future for myself in every interview, and im sure u must be doin the same. but whn this comes up in ponder mode? ans dont seem so easy. The problem is not tht i dont know, rather its tht i pretty much _know_ where im goin to be. and somehow i dont like it.

i am going to be just another guy...

greatness...

2007-07-09T00:06:00.000+05:30

"when it comes down to the 5th set in a championship match, its no longer tennis. "

sports at first glance seems rather stupid, or childish. Two grown-up men trying to get a rubber ball past each other and thousands of grownup men and women watching and screaming?? Whts the freakin point to all this?
Well, the fact is there is none :D and thts exactly wht makes it so fascinating. It is essentially a simulation of wht men are capable of doing if pushed to the limit. We have made our day to day lives so easy and comfortable tht somewhere tht animal urge to "fight it out" remains unquenched. Hence sports.

If your opponent is equal to you in terms of skill, tht is where the fun begins. doesn't matter wht sport, its a fight btwn two minds from then on. and in high pressure games (like facing federer/nadal on center court, wimbledon for the title with bjorn borg and a million people starring at u) its all abt character.
As they say, u can tell more abt a person in an hour of play than a year of acquaintance. it nt only shows ur character but forges it too. if u take it seriously of course. tht is why theres no fun in lifting weights and putting them down again. gimme a goal and put some smart men in btwn me and my goal...now thts what i call a sport!

as the BBC lady said to nadal, it was a priviledge to watch both of you play on center court today. give it up for the tennis icon of our generation...

Poverty: Not my problem

2007-04-16T04:33:00.000+05:30

Chapter 1 : Growing up....

"stupid! I was so stupid then!!" From time to time if you can say this about yourself, its a sure sign that you are growing up! 'cause realizing u were stupid then, kinda makes u a bit smarter now. but is this growing up thing a continuous process? i think आपण प्रत्येक सेकंदाला जरी वयानी वाढत असलो तरी actually मोठे somewhat खटक्या-खटक्या नी होतो. These are the very rare moments which change us...even if that change is small or unnoticable, it is _always_ irreversible. म्हणून मी त्यांना 'खटक़े' म्हणतो. छोट्या-छोट्या गोष्टी असतात many times they are very personal and often unshared. Its fun to keep track of these rare events. They kindof show your journey in this world...rather the 'turns' you took in this journey. अश्याच काही खटक़्यांची गोष्टं....

I would never forget the warm summer nights of my childhood in pune. चौथी नंतरच्या मे महिन्याचे दिवस. अंबे असण्याचे आणि अभ्यास नसण्याचे दिवस. रात्री सगळी पालक़ मंडळी either balconey or सोसायटीच्या खालच्या कट्यावर निवांत गप्पा मारत बसायची. ती सुट्टी मला विषेश आठवते कारण त्या सुट्टीत मला भावाची "atlas goldline super" cycle मिळाली. ती इतकी उंच होती कि मला मधून पाय घालुन चालवायला लागायची. रोज रात्री गल्लितली १०-१५ पोरं cycle वर चोर-पोलिस खेळायची. For a long time I was dying to be a part of that action. एक दोन दिवस practice करुन मी पण रात्री माझी cycle काढली. सदाशिव, शुक्रवार, नारायण आणि नवी पेठ - ही boundry थरली. Ohh yess..I was no longer one of the little guys who played near the building where there moms can see them. This was the big league. I would race on the roads, just like big people. Felt great already! teams पडल्या..मी चोर होतो. रस्ते काहिच माहित नसल्यामुळे मी एका मोठ्या चोरा बरोबर रहायच अस थरवल.
and so the game began...पेरुगेट वरन‌‍ left घेतला, टिळकला right, मधेच कुठल्या तरी गल्लित left, परत right....we kept going. Damn these big guys were pretty fast. I was fighting to keep up. अस बराच वेळ चाललं. As I was navigating through these hitherto unknown parts of the city I glanced back to see if any of the "police" have caught up with us, and lost my fellow fugitives in the process. I found myself alone in the middle of nowhere. With no clue how to get back.
For the first few minutes I was confused. Then I was scared... started peddling aimlessly, hoping desparetly to see something familier. "अता घर परत सापडलच नाही तर काय?...कश्याला बोंब मारत ह्यांच्या बरोबर आलो..मस्त building मधे खेळत बसलो अस्तो! एक काम करु, पोलिस चौकी शोधू. अमित हारवला होता तेव्हा पोलिसांनिच त्याला परत आणला होता..."
I dont remember how I got back, or how much time I was 'lost'. But there I was back in the group all smiling and laughing. you know the best part? no one even knew that I was lost in the first place. I got into a big problem and solved it myself without anyone even knowing about it!!
that is like so...responsible, so "grown up". Ofcourse I ran upstairs and hugged my mom like a baby after that, But the moment was not lost....

I had tht "alone in the middle of nowhere" feeling again, when I deposited a check for almost 8 lakh rupees in BU. I mean what the fuck did I just do??? I had squandered my parents entire retirement savings, banking only on my hardwork and intelligence to get it back. And I had serious doubts about both. But as they say, its not an adventure if it doesn't scare u. I still remember the day I got funding and was in a position to repay every single penny. Man I felt so responsible, so "grown up". Of course I drank myself silly that night. But the moment was not lost….

असच एकदा आम्ही डेक्कन वर बिड्या मारत बसलो होतो. त्या आधी 'कु कुच कु' मधे एक मस्त कोंबडी पोटात सर्कवलेली. दुसऱ्या दिवशी MS साठी अमेरिकेला उडणार होतो. आम्ही 'जी जे घैसास' च्या steps वर बसलो होतो. compound च्या पलिकडे एक भिकारी उभा होता. beggers are as much a part of the cityscape as roads and sidewalk, so I saw him but didn't take notice as such. बिड्यांन वर बिड्या पेटत होत्या आणि अमच्या गप्पा रंगत होत्या. पण बळच माझ लक्ष त्या भिकाऱ्या कडे जात होत. तसा standard भिकारी होता,complete with फाटके कपडे, वाकलेल शरीर, सुऱ्कुतलेला चेहरा, the works! actually तो भिक पण मागत न्हवता, नुस्ताच सुन्नपणे बघत होता. आमच्या general गप्पा सुरु होत्या. topclass education, dollar मधे पगार, गोऱ्या पोरी, etc. basically bright future आणि राडा ऐश. Again my gaze drifted towards this begger dude. त्याच्या हातावर कुणीतरी एक रुपया थेवला होता आणि तो त्याच्या कडे फक्त बघत होता. I have never seen an image more devoid of hope. तशी आपली कातडी टणक असते but this paradox hit me. आम्ही इथे २५० रुपयांची कोंबडी रिचवुन ४-४ रुपायच्या बिड्या मारत होतो अणि तो ४ रुपये जमले तर रात्री उपाशी झोपाव लागणार नाही असा विचार करत असेल.

मी काही दुधखुळा नाही. I understand everybody cannot be equal. some are rich and some will be poor. But damn! I mean I can survive without a few useless luxuries like cigarettes but somebody give that man some food for christ's sake. fulltu senti होउन मी पाकिट काढल आणि हाताला लागल्या तितक्या नोटा त्याच्या हातात कोंबल्या. मला वाटल तो full खुश होइल, हसेल वगेरे. पण त्यानी त्या नोटांकडे पाहिलही नाही. सलाम केल्या सारख काहितरी केलं आणि compound ला धरत पुधे निघुन गेला. मला काही समजल नाही. I mean have seen more wretched looking beggers smile at a rupee and this guy was staring blank at 500 bucks. थोडे परत घ्यावे का, असाही विचार मनात डोकावून गेला.
मी अजुन एक गाधवपणा केला. तो जाताना त्याच्या डोळ्यात पाहील. Maybe I was smoked up but those were the eyes of a man who once had it all, and lost everything in an..instant. I could feel the mute reverberations of tht instant in his moist sunken eyes.
The paradox hit me like a bullet. I had everything to look fwd to, and tht poor old guy had nothing. At tht moment I was so god damn lucky to be me, and not him. But for a sec this thought occured to me...wht if I _was_ him. And tht scared the shit out of me. What would it be like to lose it all?
तेव्हाच एक खटका उडाला. I guess wht you need the most to survive this stay on earth is not money, not power, not people, not even food. Its plain and simple 'hope'. Everything can be built from it, everything. So buddy, you keep your hope thingy where no one can reach it, not even your closest and dearest. 'cause u lose him and u lose it all. Perhaps I could hve done without this incident, but it happened never the less.
And yes it did make me feel very "grown up".....

Take the highway they say, turns slow you down. but I think some turns are worth slowing down. कोण जाणे पुधच वळण तुम्हाला काय शिकवून जाईल !!

One Love?

2007-03-08T00:38:00.000+05:30

[one of my previous posts had this sentence somewhere in it "We need somebody to be there for us at the end of the day, and more importantly _only_ for us." It refused to stay buried in obscurity and came back to haunt me for a blog of its own. So here is....]

Long ago, with enough alcohol in my body to inspire this, I had asked my dad pensively "whats the most important thing in life? money, power, knowledge, truth??" "Emotions you stupid fool, emotions!" I laughed at him then, now i know better.
So heres the big daddy of them all. Love. Though my tryst with this one has been rather unfortunate it is no doubt the most intriguing of all human emotions. Literarily, everything from a sonnet to an epic has been written abt it. Financially, everyone from Shahrukh Khan to the "khare daNe" vendor outside a park makes his living out of it. Historically, everything from bar brawls to monumental wars have been fought over it. Socially, everything from a condom to a commitment has been associated with it.. which.....brings me to my point.

Commitment. (rather, the lack of it)

What is so serene, so holy so noble about this word? Why does the almighty all powerful love, loose all its seriousness without its backing? Ayn Rand says “Love is the emotional price we pay for enjoying the virtues in others." Ok....i didn’t get that either, but do you guys sincerely believe that one human being can love just _one_ other human being in his entire life? I mean do you really buy that “mere liye koi ek bana hai, aur wo (god, I presume) mere dil ko ishara karke batayega..” yash chopra style crap? And am talkin romantic, dead serious, bottom of heart, no chance in hell kinda love. Not the hot body, crazy for sex love. If love is such a great thing, why is it so immoral to have it twice? Which law or what reason says it _has_ to be unique. If love just happens, then how can we be so sure that it wont happen again?? Somehow this commitment thing does not seem aligned with the spirit of love. There is no restriction on whom you love, who decided this 1 per lifetime upper limit then? How can a reasonable man/women ignore this simple reasoning and say, whtever they say while getting married! This, deciding your partner when ur around 25 (btw..this is the age when you r at ur stupidest best) and then sticking to it without thought or option till the end, is more of a convenience than true volition.

Society must have experimented with this looong ago and came up with the most simple and robust solution that we see today. One Love, One Family, simple, no complications. You follow this chain - birth, education, income, marriage, kids, retirement, goodbye.- and u r acceptable. u don't and u r looked down upon. love anyone other than ur partner, ur guilty. Simple rules. Keeps the society intact. But are u really guilty? This multi-love theory may not be this simple. i mean there are some 'practical' problems. For one..who do you stay with? :D But that doesn't mean its wrong morally. We are so imbibed with this "not making or breaking a commitment is a sin" idea that we simply can't comprehend the other side. I agree its time tested to work almost flawlessly. But that is basically for people who, out of ignorance or fear play by the societies rules....
My point is why can’t we (people who can and will…think!) decouple love and commitment? We should have a choice. Judging the seriousness of love by the willingness to commit, is wrong. The society will never approve of it, hmmm....but doesnt that make it all the more worth it? (just kidding..ignore me and have a happy life)

Of course there is a personal and perhaps more important aspect to this. You meet someone and that person brightens up your life like never before. Life is so beautiful that u r shit scared of losing it. Commitment seems so soothing. You demand it, get it at all costs and promise to love nobody else again, ever. I saw nishabdh the other day (stupid movie..zia khan is hottt though). Wife gets angry ‘cause husband likes another girl. Sad, I understand, very sad in fact. But angry?? I don’t get it. The world might say its infidelity but I can never accept that loving can be a crime no matter what the promise or the consequence.

Most of us will get married and stay together till “death do us part”, always _assuming_ that it was love that kept us together and not the commitment, of course not!.We will n'joy our _unique_ status in our partner's life and make a big scene if that status is lost. Just like normal people. But there might be very very few among us who will not commit but still stay together for ever _knowing_ it was love and nothing but love that kept them so. Those brave-hearts will most assuredly deserve but even more assuredly _not_ get, our society’s utter respect. And I wonder why….. :)

Cheers!

'न' जमलेली कविता

2006-11-02T22:58:00.000+05:30

खुप डोक लढवल मी
पण कविता कधी जमलिच नाही !
बुद्धी नाही तो मनाचा प्रांत
हे अम्हाला समजलच नाही !

प्रेमात मोठ्ठा पोपट झाला
म्हंटल अता तरी कविता जमेल
प्रेम तर सोडा आमच साध
यमक सुद्धा कधी जुळल नाही !

थोडे पुढे निघुन गेले
काहींना मागे सोडल मी
अता खंत फक्त एव्हडिच्
'बरोबर' अस कोणी राहिलच नाही !

तसा सगळा वेळ वायाच गेला
पण काही क्षण विसरणार नाही
सापडले जरी शब्द युगानी
सूर अता तो मिळणे नाही !

खर म्हणजे मला कोणाची गरजच नस्ती
थांबल नाही कोणी, वाट मी कधी पाहिली नाही
खरच असत अस तर बंधन सगळिच सुटली अस्ती
पण मोहं हा बेडीचा, आमच्यानी काही तुटतच नाही !

जाउदेत emotions, आपण logic टाकू
जगण्याचा, अर्थ तरी शोधू... पण शेवटी,
का अलो इथे काय करायचय?
हे कोड कधी सुटतच नाही

खुप डोकं लढवलं मी
पण साली कविता कधी जमलिच नाही !

सोमा ने 'न' लावलेल पान

2006-08-12T04:19:00.000+05:30

NOTE 1: please forgive my marathi. i know its horrible
NOTE 2: i am saying this with great relectance, but please use IE for this.

पुण्याच्य 'सारस बाग' ह्या भागात कधी गेला असाल तर तो भाग किती जिवंत अहे ते तुम्हाला जाणवल असेलच. पण किती लोकांना माहित अहे कि जिवंत माणसांना होतो तसा पुण्याच्य ह्या भागाल 'schizophrenia' or 'split personality' नावाचा रोग फार पुर्वी पासुन आहे. तुम्ही जरका इथे दिवसा अला असाल तर तुम्हाला असंख्य 'family' category मधली लोक, तळ्यतल्या गणपतीला किंव्हा मग पोरांच्या giant wheel, horse ride (थोडक्यत 'जिवाची जत्रा') साठी आलेले दिसतील.
पण रात्री इथे वेगळ्च चित्र दिसत. त्या चित्राच्या तप्शिलात मी शिरत नाही पण माझ्या सारख्या 'निशाचर' category मधल्या लोकांना ते आपापल्या मनात रंगवता येईल. रात्री १-२ ला party संपली की जेवणाची सोय कुठे करायची? ह्या प्रशणाला काही ठराविक उत्तरं आहेत. (ज्यंना "मग party मधे काय केलत?" असा प्रश्ण पडला असेल, त्यांना देव माफ करेल.) lucky चा mutton khima, station किंव्हा shivajinagar ची अंडा भुरजी, गिरिजा किंव्हा सारस बाग ची पावभाजी आणि milk shake (काही लोकांसाठी party नंतर 'दुग्धजन्य' पदार्थांना एक वेगळच महत्व आहे)
असो..तर अश्या ह्या सारस बागेच्या एका कोपर्यात 'सोमा शेठ' ह्यांची पानाची टपरी आहे. 'रामप्रसाद पावभाजी' शेजारी. तिथे अजुन पण एक-दोन टपर्या आहेत. पण सोमाच पान सर्वात popular. आम्ही पण कायम त्याच्या कडेच जायचो. तोंडात कायम तोबरा भरलेला आणि समोर १५-२० पानं मांडलेली. पुलंच्या भाषेत तो 'अस्स्ल पानवाला' मुळीच नाहिये. rather तो पान बनवन्याची assembly line असावा. पण मी पण 'अस्स्ल' पान खाणारा नसल्यामुळे, आपल्याला काय फरक पडतो??
तर असच एकदा मी आणि माझा एक मित्र सोमाच्या टपरी वर गेलो. मी माझ नेहेमीच 'बनारस मसाला' सांगितल आणि रव्यानी त्याच ते 'फुलचंद १२०/३००, रिमझिम कम, चुना ज्यादा' वगेरे-वगेरे सांगितल. नुकताच पाउस पडुन गेला होता, रस्ते अजुन ओले होते. basically एक नंबर वातावरण होत. मी म्हंटल आज काहितरी वेगळ try करुय (हे वाक्य जरी innocent वाटत आसल तरी त्यच्या सहजपणा वर जाउ नका. जाणकारांना हे माहित असेलच कि life मधल्या अनेक imp गोष्टी अश्याच सुरु होतात - चांगल्या आणि वाईट).
मी: सोमा शेठ. आपल्याला पण तंबाकु पान घ्या आज. रव्या ते details सांग कायते.
ह्यावर सोमाने नुस्त थोड मान हालवल्या सारख केल. त्याचा अर्थ 'busy आहे, वेळ लागेल' असा लावला, आणि गप्पा मारत उभा राहिलो.पण मित्राच पान येउन ५ मिनिट झाल्यावर मला लक्षात अल कि हा बहुतेक विसर्ला.
मी: शेठ. आपल्याला एक first class तंबाकु पान लावा.
सोमा: नाही लावणार.
मला obviously काही झेपलच नाही. माझी उधारी फार झाली का, असा मी विचार करत होतो.
सोमा: शिकल्या-सवर्लेल्या लोकांना रस्त्यावर आणलेल पाहिल आहे मी. भिका मागितल्या आहेत ह्या तंबाकु पाई.
मी आणि रव्या एकमेकांन कडे बघुन हासायला लागलो. काय येडा झाला का सोमा!!
मी: अहो शेठ. पण मला खायचय्. लावा तुम्ही.
सोमा: नाही साहेब. बाकी काहिही मागा. तंबाकु लय वाईट.
बराच वेळ हुज्जत घालुन पण तो ऐकेच ना. शेवटी मलाच कंटाळा आला. मसाला पान तोंडात भरुन तसाच घरी गेलो.

ह्याला अता बरिच वर्ष झाली आहेत. पण अजुनही हे आठवल कि मजा वाटते. रोज शेकडो तंबाकु पान विकणार्याला अचानक त्या रात्री काय झाल? एकदम त्याचा गांधी बाबा का झाला?
i guess आपल्या मधल्या प्रत्येकाला कुथेतरी चांगल बनायची उपजत ईच्छा असवी. पण शिक्षण/पैसा ह्याला जसं formal recognition आहे तसं चांगुलपणाला नाही. म्हणुन somehow ते 'optional' बनत जातं. जितक कौतुक आपण performance/prize च करतो तितक ह्याच करतो का?how many of us would dare to do good and come second? or be called unprofessional for that. Unprofessional seems to be the worst remark u can get these days.
his act was obviously unprofessional...even stupid. आयुष्यभराच एक गिराहिक त्यानी स्वताहून घालवल. but do u think he was a fool for doing this?

विषयांतर झालच आहे तर अजुन थोड करतो. 'चांगल माणुस' म्हंटल कि मला माझे अजोबा आठवतात. त्यांनी काही अचाट पैसा कमावला नाही. थरवल अस्त तर कमवू शकले अस्ते. (he was real real smart) पण असंख्य लोकांकडुन त्यांच्या बद्द्ल एकच वाक्य ऐकलय "विसुभाउ म्हणजे देवमाणुस". त्यांच हसण मला अज़ुन आठवत. मला लहान मुलांच्या निरागस हासण्याच कौतुक वाटत नाही. त्यांना मुळात काही समजतच नस्तं.पण ज्या माणसानी आयुष्यातिल सगळी सुख-दुख्खा पाहिली, त्याच्या हसण्यात कण भर सुद्धा कटुता नसावी?आजच्या standards नी त्यांना कदाचित successful म्हणता येणार नाही, पण मला त्या हसण्याचा हेवा वाटतो, आणि आजुबाजुचा compitition/acheivement oriented जग पाहुन एकच वाक्य डोक्यात येत....

ते पुर्वीच पुण अता नाही राहिल!

Anchor...lost

2006-07-27T10:22:00.000+05:30

"Don't you have a home to go to?"
I dont recollect me leaving the bar. It was dark and the streets were deserted. This was the "not so respectable" part of the town. The town was new for me but it felt strangely familier. I vagely remember admiring my complete lack of fear as I walked down the road. Blank.

I woke up suddenly, terrified and sweating. It was 6:00am Sunday. It was a dream. I was terribly late for something, everybody was scolding me for being late. And I..I was running hopelessly to catch something. I knew I wont get there, but I couldn't see it leave either.
hmm...funny

I like it when I wake up before dawn and still stay in bed. Its like everybody thinks you are asleep but you are awake and quietly thinking about stuff. basically you can daydream without feeling guilty about it.
Something abt last night was making me uneasy. I was having my beer chating with the bartender. It was late and they were closing.....
"we r always the last to leave buddy!! cheers!!! " somebody behind me said this and i raised my glass on reflex. The bartender saw me keep the glass down without the customary sip.
bartender: new to town?
me: visiting
bartender: where u from?
I dont know if it was the beer or the question...but it suddenly threw me back...a long time back

"To friendship...and all the hot chicks in the world". It was a familier place. all of us were huddled together on a small table. cozy. There was noise, and laughter, actually a lot of it. I dont remember the occasion but back then, we didn't need one to get together. Everywhere I went there were people I knew, friends. It was a small town and I had lived there for 25 years. ...

The alarm went off and jolted me out of my memory ride. hmm i hate it when that happens..
I woke reluctantly and got dressed.
Ah, where was coffee, and milk and some bagels too. This is why i love a hotel more than a house. Hotels take care of you no matter what, but a house demands that you take care of it first....how unfair is that!!

I brewed a nice hot cup for myself and pulled a chair to face the patio. light breeze and some tall palms swaying lazyly.....a beautiful day indeed. I have always hated my ability to find something wrong even in perfect situations. Right now the slow swaying of those trees was making me uneasy. What was it reminding me of?? Why cant we just look at a object and admire its present?
Damn!! those trees did look familier. I am very sure I have never been here before.
hmm.....deja vu.....
someone knocked on the door. I opened the door wide without even bothering to ask.

S: I'm Sorry. Am I interupting you?
M: Oh no not at all.
S: I believe this is yours... (my wallet...in her hand)
M: is there money in it?
S: well there was...
M: (smile) i will take it anyway...please come in
S: I'm glad you found your way back from the lounge yesterday
M: i usually do....coffee?
S: sure. you were pretty messed up last night.
M: well excessive intake of alcohol tends to have that effect on people.
S: some how I dont think it was the alcohol.

I stopped and looked at her...
M: what do u mean?
S: I am sorry but i overheard ur conversation with jimmy.
M: jimmy?
S: the bartender, he is a friend of mine.
M: oh ok. dont know what happened last night. guess i was tired.
S: you know, something you said last night, i cant get it out of my head
M: really? what did i say?
S: u said u cant remember your hometown anymore...

I felt a sudden pang in my heart. why did this have to come up.
M: i said that? it seems i said a lot of things i shouldn't have.
S: how long have you been traveling like this?
M: hmm i dont know. for ever it seems...
S: u always travel alone?
M: always
S: im sorry, did i put you in a bad mood? i really didn't mean to.
M: not ur fault
S: anyways i should get going now. njoy ur day and see u around.
she smiled and rose to leave.

M: please dont go.
It was such a reflex reaction that it caught myself off guard. I quickly recovered
M: I mean i am a better cook than u would guess. Let me fix u some breakfast.
S: is this provided that I dont ask any more questions?
M: haha...No. on the contrary i want you to ask questions. (I gluped down my coffee and headed for the kitchen) Its been a long time I have talked with somebody abt myself.

she walked up to the patio
S: I grew up right across the road. Been here all my life.
M: looks like a beautiful place to grow up.
S: indeed it is. and to stay on too.
S: so u like travelling?
M: i used to. i loved travelling. The mere thought of being in a completely new place made me pack my bags and get going. Unknown roads, unknown people, unknown shops and unknown surprises. That is what i lived for.
S: sounds like a very interesting life to me..
M: yup. it sure was.
S: hey! why do u keep using the past tense. u are still alive. arnt u?

i looked up and stared at her with the scarist and the coldest look i could manage
M: actually. i died a few years ago.

she clenched the sofa covers like a falling man will hold on to a rope. I could see her shudder and go pale with sheer fright.
i looked at her reaction and couldn't control myself. I burst out laughing.
M: i was so kidding.
S: god damn u stranger!! god damn u. scared the shit out of me u spook!!
M: i am very very sorry. really am. guess i have a ghastly sense of humor.
S: u bet
M: breakfast is ready.

She sat down at the table and I served.
M: hope u r not a vegetarian
S: im not and u r avoiding my question.
M: excuse me?
S: why do u keep refering to these things in the past tense. dont u like it anymore.
M: yes. i dont.

I sat down besides her.
M: I dont know what happened but somewhere along i lost that zeal, the urge or maybe the energy to do new things explore new places. And that is when I realised something which is far more scary than my jokes.
S: that u have nowhere to go back?
M: yes. that I cant stop moving now. I have nothing, nothing that will hold me down to one place. It feels like the earth has lost its gravity.
S: Well Newton might say that we stay at one place 'cause of the earth's gravity, but my grand mother had a rival theory. She used to say its the bond between people that keeps us down on this earth, newton didn't know shit. And somehow I believe her. Break that bond and u float around like u are doing right now.

I cant say that i cried. But the simple truth of her words starteled me. It was not that I didn't know this. But there are some things which you dont accept, till some else tells you the same thing but with genuine conviction and honesty.

S: yesterday you were talking about a bunch of close friends and how you had good times with them. what happened?
M: yes i have some memories of those times. but they are so distant it almost seems like a dream now. All i remember is that one by one we all seperated. There was no fight, not even a quarrel. i guess everybody got so engrossed in their own lives that we simply forgot abt each other. I wouldn't have believed that such a thing could happen if it hadnt happened to myself. "out of sight, out of mind" is a more deadly truth than we give it credit for.

S: how was the town? do u remember anything atall?
M: it was a small town. trees, lazy roads. people roaming about on the streets. everybody knows everybody. i think it was much like this town. i lived there for 25 years but never since..
S: was there nothing that made u not leave that town?? nothing atall?
M: hmm...what can possibly stop a young man of 25? fame and money, or........a girl he falls for.
S: and?
M: well...he was not interested in the first two and the third, was not interested in him. (smile)
S: so u just left? and never turned back?
M: yes. that is exactly what i did.
S: my goodness!! men are such babies. this is so unbelievable. she says no and u just run way crying?
M: hey!! i didn't run...I "walked away", there is a difference. and i have never cried in my entire life.
S: you know what? the only thing that i admire in all this is ur ability to stick to ur decisions.
M: thank you
S: ur welcome. so you never found anybody after that? not even a friend? it seems u have been to litrally every city in the world.
M: never did. not a single friend. Later on i developed a fear of getting involved. Not just people, I couldn't stay in one place for more than a month 'cause i feared i would like it there. And finally when I overcame this fear it was already too late. I was so used to living with myself that I just kept doing it. Time slowly got rid of the fear and worries but it got rid of my memories, my past too.
S: hmm.....so much for ur life's story.
M: ya. so much. so what do u think abt it?
S: well i wud say little red riding hood was smarter than u
M: i know. i kinda missed the 'droping the bread crums' part. Now there is no going back.
S: oh the bread crums remind me, breakfast was delicious.
M: thank u. its been my pleasure
S: i am sorry i have to go now but you seem to have got into a better mood already.
M: thanks to you
S: that would be my pleasure (smile)
I walked her to the door.

S: well then, lets hope we will find each other the next time you r in this town.
I couldn't see her leave. Was she the one I was trying to stop in my dream this morning? I had known her for the last 30 mins, but she seemed eerily familier. I didn't want to be late this time.

M: I am not coming back.
S: oh
M: that is because i am not leaving
S: what?
M: i am done travelling. I know I cant go back but nobody says I cant start afresh. I have one chance to undo my mistakes. I want to settle down. stay here for the rest of my life. with u..
she took a step back. didn't look me in the eye. concerned and careful, she said

S: i really wish i could say yes stranger, but i cant do that. i am married. im really sorry, hope u understand

i could not move. i dont think i could breathe either. everything just stopped.
dont know how much time went by but the next thing i remember was that she was laughing like crazy and saying
S: now who has a ghastlier sense of humor?

that was the scariest joke i have ever heard....

we just might get lucky...

2006-02-12T02:31:00.000+05:30

i like patterns. it is fun to construct the full picture looking at the pieces. some times the pieces are so outspoken that they can lead to only one logical conclusion. But most of the times they are shy. showing themselves and disappearing in a flash. But for the experienced eye that flash is enough to know all that it wants to say. I am no expert at this, but hey you can't blame da man for trying!!
Enough of cryptic introductions...the point is this

There have been some events in the near past which sketched a pattern in my novice mind. Events like "raang de basanti" and "hazaroon khawhishee aisi", engineers playing a hand at politics, some friends leaving corporate worlds to join IAS, a general feeling of emptiness in many, inspite of acheiving excellent success socio-economicaly, almost all indians that I meet here in the US looking(though silently) to plot a way back home...
the list can extend but I will leave the rest as you might think they r too insignificant or unrelated, but I see a connection in them nevertheless.

What is this leading to? a revolution of some kind? young educated indians slowly but surely taking matters in their own hands. boldly leaving what they are supposed to do and doing what they really want to. Making an attempt (at great personal agony I might add) to change what we all know is wrong, but nobody considered the possiblility that individuals like you and me are supposed to, or more importantly are capable of changing. Changing what?? the face of india??...maybe. As an individual it is difficult, almost impossible to think so big. me..changing a country!!! insane. Well apprenently some have other plans.
I dont want to comment on what will happen, just the possibilities. As I said I am no fortune teller just a pattern matcher.

If there is no "revolution" as such then we don't have to think about much.
But..but if something really brews up, each one of us in our generation will have to make a choice. I say our generation 'cause at that time we will be old enough to understand the choice and young enough to act. The choice will be either to keep ones life unaffected as much as possible or to dive in. There will be no telling how far it might go. But where will sacrifices involved. personal, social, economic, maybe physical too. the million dollor question. Will it be worth it?

I dont know what I will choose. But I think we will be lucky enough just to be presented with the question. 2 generations back they had their task cut out, Independence. I was beginning to believe that our generation would be left alone.

If I remember my 8th std history correctly it was the assassination of the Archduke Francis Ferdinand which started the first World War. But that was just a trigger. One event cannot start such a massive spill, unless there is a build up before that. What we are seeing in urban india right now looks like a build up. slow, sporadic and seemingly uncorrelated. What will ultimetly bind these actions together will be history herself.
There will always be determined guys who can't care less about a movement and will do it alone, and when our history lady writes her judgement, these will be the guys who started it all.

It is like we r sitting in a green room below the stage. what roles each one of us will be playing on the earthen stage above us wont be known till the curtain raises, if it raises that is....

Letter to myself

2006-01-14T21:41:00.000+05:30

This is the StarShip Enterprise. Star Date 01142006.1314. Captains log.

Hi. This is you. On a lazy Sunday afternoon in Boston you decided to write down what you thought abt things. Your honest views when you were 25. You had nobody in perticular near you to talk to so what you did was tell it to everybody in general. hehe...u were smart or what!
Long ago when you were a kid you were the best at hiding your emotions and opinions from people. But now you have grown up and not afraid of saying them out loud. Good for you man! or maybe you have realised that people are always engrosed in their own lives and they dont give a damn abt what you think anyway.
whatever the case maybe I know at least one person who is going to be interested in reading this. You yourself, many many years after you wrote it. So now that many years have passed, sit back and relax as you get to travel back in time to rediscover....you. I dont know wheather you have changed or not, but I have a feeling you have...you always do :)
For those of you who are not me you can enjoy a sneak-peak at somebody's personal diary of sorts.

Lets change the grammer to present tense now.
I have already mentioned the stardate but this is just to refresh your memory. You have come here on 6th Aug 2005 to try and get a Masters degree in Boston University. 1st sem is over and 2nd is about to begin tomorrow. You are still getting over your life of leisure and enjoyment that you were so used to in puNe. damn!! those were fun days. Anyways..here goes

Intelligence, Beauty and your dad's money
These are the 3 most important things till you are in college, and in that order.
The irony is you are born with all the three. I always wondered why some poeple did better than me in college and why I did better than some. Sometimes I used to hate myself for not being able to do what I wanted. Now I realise it was not that big a deal. Because the most important thing you need to do in college is build what they call a character. From then on slowly these three things start taking a back seat and the character thing becomes the driver. You develop it with every decision you take, every dream that you fulfil and every desire that you let go. being proud of intelliegence or beauty is childish. What you should be really concerned abt is this guy. After all what is the fun in winning when you have good cards, its the bad cards that make the game worth playing. Or maybe I am just jealous.

India
I am no patriot. "Patriotrism is a virtue of the vicious" they say. But I like India. And sometimes I feel like doing something for it. Not immidiately but sometime. Maybe not a lot but something. Why? dont know. I have found nothing that is actually fulfilling. I dont know wheather I ever will. But this might come close. Lets see.

Marriage
Now thats scary. Scary things interest me. I have thought abt it a lot. I mean why poeple marry. Obviously where is a trivial solution. If you find someone you love and she returns the favor then ur all set. Now for the more "complex" part.
We need a witness for your lives. Somebody to be there for us at the end of the day, and more importantly _only_ for us. I guess the actual person doesn't matter that much. You can get used to almost any decent individual once you accept that she is the one. What does being commited to a person give you? It gives you a purpose. To enrich her life, raise a family, etc. etc. And boy! are we hungry for a purpose! Plus it comes with added atraction like sex, somebody who will make you feel important and wanted, plus there is the pension plan with old-age companionship too. All in all its a good solution to a lot of problems. My only concern is that it might be lot more than it promises. So much more that you might lose track of any other purpose that you had or could have had. Will find out..

will add more later...

Picard

Adaptability - boon or bain?

2005-10-29T02:29:00.000+05:30

STATUTORY WARNING: DONT TAKE ME SERIOUSLY, _EVER_

First of all, sorry about the title. Looks more like 7th std English essay. Come to think of it, writing such (boon or bain) essays is one of the things that actually gets tougher with age. Everything can be classified into either good or bad at that age. Hmmm...now its not that easy. For some reason we develop a fear of taking sides. Find a middle path, thats safest. Anyways, i'll take this topic and see wheather I still retain that childish(child-like if you may..) quality.

When do you need to adapt? When there is a change, ofcourse.
Scenario: In my case India to US, earning money to losing money, party every night to alone in a foriegn city, etc. etc. Not a big change but still considerable. Thought it would be difficult to adjust. Surprisingly was not. When things dont turn out the way you thought they would, u think. (even if they turn out better...) So after getting a grasp on things I realised what had happened. All that I had done was this - stop doing what you cant, start doing what you can. Hey!! what kinda statement is this anyway. If you look at it from an information therotic perspective, this statement contains zero information. What else can you do? I dont know, can you?

If this is the definition of adapting to things then life is so simple. No need to fight with and change the situation. Just change yourself to fit in a given situation. As morphius would have put it - We accept the reality of what we are presented with. I guess thats the way most of us "live". Seems quiet rational in fact. If you have nothing perticular to achieve in life, do whats easiest to do in any situation. Though this makes me feel like a electron trying to get to ground by the path of least resistance. Lets forget about tiny electrons for a moment, they are just normal, nothing interesting.

And then there is Morphius and his kind. Rigid, foolish, stubburn? maybe.. but different nodoubt. If they believe in something they wont let go, no matter how much the resistance. I have always been fascinated by such people. What makes them work so hard, fight all odds and not let go. What keeps there confidence going if they fail. Dont they fear that one fine morning they might wake up to realize that there beliefs were all wrong. Somehow they dont. I mean look at morphius. He doesn't have speical powers like neo. All you need is a belief. Are these guys born this way?

What if you dont have an aim. You want to, but you dont. Just pick one at random? trust me it doesn't work that way. Thats one of the problems with being logical. You simply cannot have believes. (Proof: Belief implies illogical, 'cause if it is logical you dont have to believe in it, its true anyways.) I guess 'wait for it' an hope that things change would be reasonable. But then again, who is trying to be reasonable here ;-)
There is a third kind. Those who dont know why they are here and dont give a damn either. hmmm...might be classified under electrons. Uninteresting.

So have I been able to take a stand? Guess I am not young enough to know everything. Anyways, this is just a thought line, doesn't have to reach a conclusion. Actually most of the time such problems are NP-complete. Leaving you with these thought...

I like villains because there's something so attractive about a committed person -- they have a plan, an ideology, no matter how twisted. They're motivated.
-- Russell Crowe

The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man."
-- George Bernard Shaw

whatever

2005-04-23T02:17:00.000+05:30

"All are lunatics, but he who can analyze his delusion is called a
philosopher."

- Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914)