naansense begins...

Triple convergence of work: (Title Copied from World is Flat by Thomas Friedman)

Today, in IT industry there are three kinds of people at work. Conversely this does not necessarily mean that there are three types of workers.

Type1 – Developers, testers and programmers kind who do the work;
Type2 – Leaders, specialists, coordinators kind who make the work done by Type1 workers; and,
Type3- Managers, consultants, associate-in-charge kind who advise Type2 workers how to make the work done by Type1 workers.

Work, like everything else, has evolved from being pristine and individualistic to being civilized, sophisticated and ritualistic, where it is difficult to identify what work really is, who really does it, and whether it is really done or not.

For such sophisticated competitive environment International Institute of Idle Techies has come up with a survival kit for IT professionals.

Survival Kit for an IT professional:

At Office:

1. Internet enabled work stations.
2. gtalk/yahoo-messenger/gmail/meebo.
3. Orkut enabled proxy.
4. Ear/head phones and a music collection on some shared location.
5. If 4 not found then iPOD/mp3 player.
6. If 4 and 5 not found then Camera, mp3 enabled mobile phone.

At Home:

7. Laptop/Desktop.
8. Internet connectivity.
9. Maggi packets.
10. Cigarettes (Optional).
11. Pizza hut/Dominos/Subway contact numbers.
12. Cooler/Air conditioner during summer.
13. TATA sky connection with NEO Sports (for males).
14. Porn Interesting movies collection (for males).

Naansense ends!

Wishing you happy new year!

signs, scare & seemabaddha...

Trust me! When one is living alone in a 3 BHK apartment, one should peacefully have dinner and go to sleep by 10 in the night. Especially one must not watch late night M Night Shyamalan’s movies at any cost. They can be creepy and can affect the secretion of melatonin from pineal gland which will leave the person making himself or herself coffee all night to get out of what he or she just saw. It’s not that those movies are outright scary. They don’t scare you right away, but they bring that anticipation of fear in you which is far horrid than the fear itself. “There is no terror in a bang, only in the anticipation of it…” I learned the meaning of these words by Alfred Hitchcock only last night when I was watching ‘Signs’. Wooohoo! Movie is not that scary if you watch in broad daylight. But in the night, when you are alone, you know… (Another thing that scared the crap out of me this weekend was History channel’s Double F about this person… this was scarier than 'Signs'... May be because this was REAL!)

But fortunately I didn’t spend my night making myself shots of black coffee. Because the next movie I saw was Satyajit Ray’s Seemabaddha (Company Limited). This was my first Satyajit Ray movie and I was spellbound by the imagination, narration and direction of Ray. Sharmila Tagore was as gracious as ever, and so was the story line. I must say, with all profound awe & respect, that Ray was far ahead of his times in his vision. The way movie started unfolded and ended; and the background music (again by Ray… awesome…)… you just cannot expect that from any Bharatiya director of those times (except of course a very few), who were more inclined towards conventional sing-song, hero-villain-fight-for-leading-lady kind of movies, leaving the message and society in constipated fiction. Satyajit Ray! I salute you.

And for those of you who would like to watch Satyajit Ray’s classics, tune into Zee Studio on Saturday nights after 10 PM movie or Sunday 1500 hours. Movies are in Bengali, but they come with English subtitles.

Yawwwwn...! Nothing much. Life’s going as usual… lazy, aimless and chaotic, as was designed to be… Happy new year… I wish the intended resolutions hold this year…

mosquito, my enemy…

Merry Christmas all… Hope Santa Clause finds you and gives you your expensive cherished gifts.

Last night, I got inspired by the mosquitoes of my room. And I am so overwhelmed that I am compelled to share this with all you people on the other frail ends of optical fiber. Before that let me tell you that I am anti-mosquito-repellent activist, i.e. I don’t (and because I cannot) use mosquito repellents (coils, chemicals…) because they set my head into dizzy motions. And at the same time, I discourage everyone to use them, because they are not only not-good and not-healthy for the hexapoda-insecta-culicidae, but also they are not-good and not-healthy for the bipoda-chordata-homosapiens.

So, to safeguard myself from bites of the six legged insect, one day I got myself one mosquito net for 105 rupees. And trust me; this small one-time-investment is far and far better than 45 nights (void) guarantee given by those mosquito repellents in the shelves of the super market. So…I take this net home and tie it above and across my bed. Voila! Not a single mosquito in the 6-by-3-by-3 cuboid fortress of mine. I sleep well for a week. But after a week, mosquitoes *somehow* found a way to enter the chamber! Now you see… one side of this cuboid chamber remains vulnerable because I also have to enter it through this side. So after releasing extra blood to my left brain, I see that all mosquitoes are perched on *this vulnerable side* now, that too at the very bottom where the edge of the net meets the bed. They bloody knew that once I lift it to enter, they get a chance to enter too! Damn! They are genius, they adapt, and they are not as dumb as I earlier used to think they were.

But anyways this was a challenge to my egotistic-(-accidental-)-engineer-self. I collect data… I observe… I analyze… I find solution… So now I block this side permanently and start entering from the other side. The entry side will be interchanged every week given the adaptation time horizon of mosquitoes is one week. And this strategy will be reviewed every night based on the number of enemies entering the cuboid fortress. If at all any unfortunate mosquito enters the chamber, he loses his life! Ahh! I am a genius… a stochastic savant!

Kuchh bhi ho… After seeing this, I became a fan of this seemingly insignificant blood-sucking manifestation of life. Now I give these mosquitoes a stature of my annoying neighbors and respect of my enemies. In their honor I leave with these words by Mr Bashir Badr:

matar-paneer & more...

Matar-Paneer is my favorite. Not only for eating, but also it is favorite dish when my cooking instincts take over my eating emotions. Oh yeah! Yours truly cooks and is only a few steps and recipes away from being called a great chef… trust me… no??... Tch!… ok, may be a hundred steps… Well… whoever has eaten what I cooked, none of them complained food poisoning… So at least that’s first step towards being a great chef, isn’t it… :P

When a person gets infected by the pest of philosophy he starts thinking philosophy everywhere – be it lavatory, observatory, cemetery or even a kitchen. So, forgive me for what comes next. Asking ‘What is cooking?’ is the question similar to asking ‘What is life?’ Cooking is not just about putting matar and paneer in the pressure cooker with right mix of water, spices and salt, and getting appreciation from the matar-paneer-eaters. It’s lot more than that!

Cooking is an art. Cooking is a science. Art – when practiced, science – when perceived. It is not about just knowing the ingredients of the mouth-watering dishes; it is about knowing one’s own ingredients. It is about knowing one’s hunger and the emptiness. It is about understanding what one has and what one lacks, what one needs and what one wants. It is about trying to understand and appreciate the fact that after eating, the tomato becomes the blood, rice becomes the flesh, the carrot becomes the cornea, paneer becomes the pelvis and matar becomes the muscle.

From cutting of vegetables to washing of utensils, every aspect of cooking is important and tells something about the life. And cooking, just like life, is never complete!

Hope you are still hungry :P...! So... When can I experiment my matar-paneer on you?

Bon Appétit!

on the run...

Life has become lazy like the misty winter. Leaving behind this small piece of writing from old pale pages of my lost diary...

on the run...

There is no internet at home currently. Though the address says Hi Tech City on one of the lines, there is nothing Hi Tech around and about it. Optical fiber hasn’t reached there and communication towers seem to shy away from showering their radio waves around the area. That obviated even the option of having an expensive USB plug and surf device. And without internet at home, blogging is no more exciting.

Though office has 24 by 7, 100 mbps broadband connection, it does not have a conducive surrounding for blogging, especially when there are so many beautiful things to look around and after! I mean… oh! You understand that don’t you!

Meanwhile, I am keenly following the ‘My Brilliant Brain’ series on Nat Geo these days. Apparently the left side of my back head has started showing the signs of impact it suffered two years ago. May be that’s the reason my logical brain doesn’t work much! ;)… The documentary will be aired at 2200 hours on NAT GEO every day till Dec 21st. There will be four people from India, out of those two will be from Hyderabad. Konkona Sen Sharma will be hosting the show for India's series.

So for now, I take leave with the following words by Mr Nidah Fazli:

dolce far niente...

Note: Embedded in "italics" are the quotes by Robert Frost.

I wish I knew how to be idle with dignity.

“The best way out is always through.”

Even though I try to somehow keep my brains occupied, still some moments of void and vacuum remain untouched, which suck the sanity off my existence. Though it is inevitable one day or the other to face the breathlessness of that vacuum, yet there is this disease called ‘hope’ which keeps one away from accepting the inevitability. One day everyone’s got to learn how to keep their mouths and brains shut.

“The reason why worry kills more people than work is that more people worry than work.”

You are given everything. Your basic needs are satiated till the extreme of saturation. Still you are left with more resources to dispose off. That’s when ennui creeps in with its worst horrors. Indiscipline and ennui are the worst diseases of mind. They enter your life like ‘common cold’ and later turn into incurable lumps of existential cancers.

“The brain is a wonderful organ. It starts working the moment you get up in the morning and does not stop until you get into the office.”

Last few days have been total chaos - shifting the house, filling application(s) and sending packet(s) to university(s). Big fight was to adapt to the mosquitoes of new house and the ‘stray dog’ which woke up 4 o’clock in the morning and started barking just below the window of my room. So, this morning when the canine singer started bhau-bhauing with his natural alarm mechanism, I took one small lemon from the kitchen and let the gravity do the rest. ‘Saala ‘kutta’ ab kabhi subah subah bhaunka to me will throw watermelon this time…’ As per mosquitoes, I have a mosquito net now – an impregnable wall of perforated clothing to prevent the ‘Anopheles Arabiensis’ from sucking away drops of my hemoglobin.

“Love is an irresistible desire to be desired irresistibly.”

I realized how poor I am at talking and how good at writing. The proof - ladies not able to spend even two minutes with me talking vis-à-vis, while the same ladies spend hours chatting tête-à-tête on messengers!

“A poem...begins as a lump in the throat, a sense of wrong, a homesickness, a lovesickness. It is a reaching-out toward expression; an effort to find fulfillment. A complete poem is one where an emotion finds the thought and the thought finds the words.”

As I set my feet on the ground, the earth beneath me starts trembling... (This one's mine ;) )

common cold chaos...

As I write this… Sneeze… I have come two days away from the situation where my nose had become almost of the color of a… cough… cough… monkey’s ass. Sneeze… You never know when it catches you – the common… sneeze… cold. You sleep happily after watching your favorite movie, and… cough… cough… when you wake up you realize that all night you have been… sneeze… breathing with your mouth open. Worst if you reach your work without a kerchief or tissues. In last two days, I had thrown three… sneeze… kerchiefs after they reached the brim of their liquid soaking patience, while the fourth is on its… sneeze… test. AAAHH... Gaawwd!!!

According to wikipedia “Common cold leads to 75 to 100 million physician visits at a conservative cost estimate of $7.5 billion per year. Americans spend $2.9 billion on over-the-counter drugs and another $400 million on prescription medicines for symptomatic relief.” Can you believe it? There is a big money making opportunity here… if a textile/FMCG company can come up with something innovative for the running nose, on similar lines of sanitary napkins but without letting the nose turn red by the cloth-friction, how much revenue it can draw every year! I will definitely buy the IPO if the co lists on any of the exchanges!

The interesting/sad point is that there isn’t a medicine for the virus which causes the common cold. If you thoroughly read this article, you will find that in a healthy immunocompetent individual, the common cold last seven days on an average. Whatever medicines we take (CROCIN, PCM, Aspirin blah blah…) only focus on relieving the symptoms. They don’t and can’t do anything to the virus.

Prevention is the only best possibility of staying away from this chaotic inevitability. Noble Prize winner Linus Pauling was supporter of the Vitamin C Megadosage theory of preventing the viral infection. In 1970 he published a bestseller book – ‘Vitamin C and the Common Cold’. But overdose of Vitamin C does something bad of the Iron content of body, so be careful before trying anything!

Meanwhile… aaa… aaa… AAACHHHEEE… I will go and buy another set of... AAACCHHHHHEEEE... kerchiefs… Sob… Sob... Mom... :(...

dindu's dilemma II...

For past few days I had been busy writing drafts of recommendation letters for my professors and managers. I am trying hard to get out of the country you see. For MS. All this time I had been living with these words - good communication skills, good team player, diligent, focused, calm, keen, eager, talented... He he he... And I found that it’s very difficult to write all good things about oneself. Especially, when you have to make sure that all recos ‘must not’ smell similar or you will be in trouble. Because no two people will write the similar things about you, isn’t it? But they ask you to draft the thing! So, all this while I was juggling with words and their synonyms…

Met Dindu the other day. I hope by now you are at least a little familiar with this victim of multilateral nomenclature. Same old coffee shop, same hot coffee and same old Dindu and same youthful I – we were peacefully 'sight-aDichhifying' when suddenly Dindu got eerie.

D- ‘Dae Machan! Tell me one thing seriously man… if you are a 10 pointer then…’

R- ‘Wo.. oh.. ho.. wo..!! What happened suddenly?? You are scaring me man. ‘Seriously’ and ‘10Pointer’ are the words which have scared me throughout my life… And I am not the real 10 Pointer man… You know that it was only in one fateful semester… What shit is flying across your mind?’

FYI: 10 Pointer is the term similar to ‘Five Point’ Someone. 10 Pointer is a person who has ‘A’s in all courses of his Engineering academic history. I happened to have all ‘A’ in 6th semester of my history which earned me the sobriquet of ‘one sem’ 10 P, but people tend to miss the ‘one sem’ thing most of the times and create confusions…

D- ‘Whatever man! You made ‘A’ in Design of Machine Vibrations man!! You made ‘A’ in Heat Transfer!! Fucker!! Now tell me the answer of these questions if you are a real fundu mechanical engineer:

1) What is the role of girls/female/ladies in this world... Why are they born… and how is that a guy need to have a relationship with her?? Just pure love (with no lust) or love with lust. Give justifications for all your answers .

2) Why do they say girls are equivalent to goddess/Lakshmi..what quality in them we should recognize and respect to consider them equivalent to goddess. What do you think they possess that needs to be respected.'

R- ‘Ha ha ha ha… Fuck you man! If I made ‘A’ in those courses, it was because or the formulae that could be mugged and the firm support of people behind me who were ready to make happy ‘D’s. It was relative grading man! And also if I can solve Navier Stokes equation or Gyroscopes doesn’t mean that I can give you the answers of these questions. This is philosophy and psychology dude, not springs and Machines. There is no formula I know which can solve the above problems! Such questions are answered either by spiritual saints or psychiatrists!’

D- ‘I don’t know machan! You give me the answer… Write something about it in your blog… You just get me the fucking answers man, before I get married!’

Silence... Sip... Sip... Sip...

R- ‘Ok da! If you are so worried then I will try to formulate something by asking some people and reading some psychological literature, before your wife screws you! Now, let me look around and appreciate the beauty and you will pay the bill…’

the pondy diary....

Nov 8:

Reached Periyamudalayarchavadi (some 8 km from Pondicherry) at around 1500 hours, overshot the actual destination by some 3 kilometers… Flight, being 'Simply Dhakkan', was as usual late but when it comes to a ride on ECR (East Coast Road) you forget everything! Learnt a good lesson on value of money – Rs 55/- you can reach from Chennai to Pondicherry (distance 150 km) in a bus, Rs 50/- you can reach from 3km away from Periyamudalayarchavadi to Periyamudalayarchavadi in an auto… WTF!

Called up the evergreen guest house at auroville and took directions to reach there. Apparently the lady named 'Tamar' had sent me a mail regarding guesthouse availability which never landed on my gmail account. So she was a little pissed off when I called her out of the blue. Anyhow, pigs is pigs. I hired one screwed up Atlas Gold line for Rs 25/- a day (Rs 500/- deposit) and started paddling my way towards what would be my accommodation for next 3 nights. Damn! 5 kilometers into the forest, I was sweating like a sick pig. Have to cut down smoke and start working out.

The bearded fellow named Ameer (an Israeli national) showed me the place. Rs 200/- per day, no fan/AC, no doors, no attached toilets… but it was worth more than 200 if you ask me. That's called marginal utility of money. I froze the deal, dumped my bag in the hut. Being Diwali (in Tamilnadu), the whole place had gone into a holiday. That meant nowhere to eat before main-road! The hosts offered me a colorful honey-oat sandwich and a banana and that was all for the lunch. Household had 3 pet dogs – 1 black Labrador, 1 black & yellow greyhound and 1 black & white Doberman. Dogs liked me… especially the Labrador called 'layala'. I am also going to have one Labrador for myself one day - black or yellow!

Dinner time… had to cycle another 10 kilometers (up + down) for two 'paranthas' and some unidentifiable 'sabjii' with curd. Add one 300 ml apple juice and it becomes Rs 70/-. WTF!!! 2100 hours and I am on my way back into the forest. Fuck! No lights… pitch black… somehow managed to get back to the hut with my Motorola C168's LCD light! Sweated profusely… desperately needed sleep after mosquitoes spared me… will need a motor bike tomorrow if I want to return to Hyderabad alive… you see, when survival is at stake you don't go around writing essays, poetry and appreciating beauty... you try to survive... eyes closed…

Nov 9:

Eyes open… 8 in the morning… Where am I? Who am I?

After regaining consciousness, headed towards visitor's center for breakfast… ate like pig… met another yellow Labrador there… poor fellow seemed abandoned by its owner… he looked like an enlightened old dog you see, with all serenity and love it showed despite being sick and hungry… shared some food with him… came back… Mosquitoes have also become familiar now and seem bored with my blood… looks like I am adapting fast… sleep…

1400 hours… Where am I? Who am I?

Bullshit! I need a bike… screw the 'shaan ki sawari'… surrendered the cycle… got one splendor for Rs 90/- a day (Rs 500/- deposit)… Phew!! 'Ab jaan mein jaan aayee'… Lunch at Beach Café… Rice and Fish… slurp… slurp! Back to hut… sleep…

1900 hours… the neighbor comes to the common kitchen… (me living just above the kitchen)… name Emon… Age 40-50… six packs… tattooed biceps… cyclist… teacher at auroville kindergarten… makes himself a fruit salad and herbal tea… back to his hut some 50 meters away from mine… Damn! Really need to cut down smoke and start working out!

Went out splendor-fully… got myself three apples and one bottle of water… one apple and one glass of hot water for dinner… 2030… I am asleep…

Nov 10:

What a wonderful morning... Had a healthy defecation… metabolism is working good… one apple and one glass of hot water works…

Had a nice talk with Natasha (Yoshi's, the host on my first visit to auroville, daughter)... She, also, was a teacher in the kindergarten. She told me about how they have re-forested the whole auroville land. She has been living there for more than 15 years with her husband (alas!) who takes care of the foresting the waste land…

Booked my slot to visit 'Matri-Mandir' in the evening… Local guys are thinking that I am a foreigner… Enjoying the unearned glamour! They should not eavesdrop someday me reciting Super Star Rajini's punch dialogs…

1600 hours… the most amazing place I have ever seen… the central chamber of the 'Matri-Mandir'… one beam of natural solar light descending from a heliostat on the top upon a 400kg crystal globe… That is the only source of light in the huge (HUGE) hall… the hall is perfectly sound-proof… this is the place where you will find real silence… But only 15 minutes are allowed… shit!!!

This was the most amazing experience of life… will keep me alive for long… one apple and one glass of hot water… sleep…

Nov 11:

Nothing more to do now… flight at 2000 hours…

Paid off all the bills… boarded a non ECR bus (which goes via airport)… all 3 nights of serenity and silence was gone in 3 hours of bus journey… all that shouting and screaming, that too in an alien language… suddenly I remember the incident of some bus being burnt somewhere in Tamilnadu…

Bus got punctured on the way… had to wait for some 45 minutes in a god forsaken place… while other passengers boarded other buses to continue their journey, I didn't dare to get packed in those already 'festive-packed' buses…

Coincidence happened… met an old colleague while she was returning in some other bus from somewhere to Chennai… even she said I was looking like a foreigner! Come on yaar… 25 years and I haven't even touched foreign soil… forget foreign soil, I haven't even touched a girl except at the palm of her right hand with the palm of my right hand… how can you do this to me… how can u…

Another lesson on value of money – Rs 45 to come in a non ECR bus from Pondy to Chennai… Rs 150/- for a 'too hot' veg puff and a 'too cold' cold coffee with ice-cream at airport… saw India winning against Pakistan sitting on a luggage trolley…

Flight was delayed again… reached Hyderabad… Same old shit begins from tomorrow again…

Journey was awesome… lived almost like an animal… away from the mayhem of Diwali crackers… This was the best Diwali I remember after last year's… listened to my voices for all the time and found out that 'unless you know what you want, it doesn't matter what you get…'

one about diwali & desperation...

are you safe with yourself?

Famous Chinese painter and philosopher Ching Hao said: There are six essentials in painting. The first is called spirit; the second, rhythm; the third, thought; the fourth, scenery; the fifth, the brush; and the last is the ink.

More often than not a person is left alone with himself and his thoughts. Everyone cannot handle these thoughts. Everyone does not (or cannot) enjoy his or her own company. And this solitude is inevitable, one day it comes. One day, everyone gets to encounter his or her inside talking face to face… Solitary confinement given to hardest and coldest of criminals, leaves them crumbling with fear and paranoia. Solitude is something hard to handle.

Sometimes, it is the most silent moments of life which are the noisiest. These are the moments which really matter.

When a person feels in harmony with himself, if a person feels safety from his own thoughts – he feels secure elsewhere too. When a person isn’t safe from his own thoughts, he can neither be anywhere else.

But you see… these thoughts are no real. Yeah! Thoughts aren’t real. Thoughts are something which are formed somewhere inside our brain. You look at this brain map, structure & functions of individual parts of brain and you will come to know what actually is behind the thoughts. Limbic system, cerebrum, medulla oblongata… every part has a role to play. And that is the fundamental pattern our brain follows. Can’t change that... From the most mundane thoughts of liking something, to the most influential life changing thoughts take shape in the same brain.

Then what is it that gives rise to these incomprehensible thoughts? It is the rhythm. You see. Our whole body is in one rhythm or the other every moment. It’s how we are breathing, how our heart is beating, how the blood is flowing in our veins, how our internal organs are working… all these factors form a specific rhythm inside us and that in turn form thoughts.

All thoughts are mere responses to the external stimuli which have been fed inside us since the time we were born. Have you ever looked at a newspaper without first knowing that it is a newspaper, or have you ever looked at moon without saying to yourself that you are looking at moon? Can you look at Indo-Pak cricket match without getting excited; can you forget for a while that you belong to a country?

Enough!

I went to an SBI bank today since I had to get some Demand Draft work done. Government Bank as it is, opens at 10:30 and so there were some 20-30 people already packed outside the gate of the bank. As soon as the gate opened there was disorder and chaos because everyone tried to get in together. Similar thing once caused death of 96 people in Hillsborough in 1989. The point is this – thoughts, though virtual their existence is, keep waiting at the door of our consciousness to get served, all through the day, every moment. Now if you delay attending to them they are going to create chaos! I mean SBI could have learnt something from ICICI Bank but ‘old habits, die hard’. No matter how stupid or how great a thought is, it demands attention from our awareness, otherwise if left unsatisfied creates turbulence later!

Just need to ask how safe are you with your own company... And next time you get a spate of thoughts just issue them a service token and serve them one by one. Not to forget, open up early, don’t delay!

Godspeed!

peeing off the pressure...

GPD growth is about to touch double digits, FII flows are no more flows, they are in spate, Sensex is almost kissing 20k, even the CEO's are saying get the life first then try to balance it:

When asked about the importance of work-life balance, ICICI Bank CEO KV Kamath said: "In the history of our evolution, we are in a phase where work comes first, then life, and then you think of balance.'' Agreed Bharti Airtel chairman Sunil Mittal: "This is our time. If we spend the time in building the nation, we can afford to relax later. We have no time to think about work-life balance." Is anyone surprised, then, that Mr Kamath is ET's Business Leader of the Year, while Mr Mittal's Bharti Airtel is ET's Company of the Year!

Overall, it's getting insane, and growth is becoming very difficult to handle. A guy gaining 20 kg a year is called obesity or growth, I am perplexed! But anyhow, big shots can digest big things without constipation or fat. They convert everything to muscle!

So in this time of extreme pressures, one needs to keep his pores open and strong. The more one can digest this growth today, the more will he/she relax tomorrow. Pee off the pressure, get hold of the life and ride on! This is the mantra. But hey! Who is saying the words...

PS: BTW - Had a departmental celebration today. VVS Laxman (Seems today it was his B'day also) was the chief guest there who was apparently paid handsomely by the company to talk a lot of corporate bullshit... short term goals, long term goals - assholes! FYI... Laxman accepted publically that 'Saurav was the best captain he has played under' in front of some 1000 associates (but no media). It's a kind of insider information for the readers!

this one without a title...

I lived first two years of my post education (formal) life without a television. That’s not something to be proud of but just for the records. In college hostel we had a common room where 260 inmates of the hostel struggled with time, remote and each other to watch their favorite shows. I remember having an argument with one of the guys who wanted to watch ‘Bourn vita Quiz’ on ESPN and I wanted to see a show on Nat Geo. None of us was ready to budge when a large group of Sun TV fans rushed in and the majority won. The other guy joined them triumphantly, for he understood Thamizh, and I had to go back in my room and play Minesweeper on my PC! I remember only one occasion (apart from cricket matches) when every student irrespective of his language & origin was sitting, in the common room with all lights switched off & only TV screen shimmering with cathode radiations, silent, focused and watching TV in the common room. It was when Zee TV was airing ‘Kamasutra’.

Post education era was a mix of mixing up with some things and drawing lines with some others. Finding our own interests, exploring new experiences and of course the search for a meaning in the work we do was major occupation during that time. After two years of search and simulations (useless) a 21 inch box of wonders moved in my life. And when the wire of wisdom was plugged in it from behind miracles started appearing on its screen. I started living the days of past. Most of the time this TV kept channeled into HISTORY, HBO, Star Movies, PIX, TV 18, Star World and not to forget Discovery and Nat Geo. Discovery’s Biggest Shows were in the breakfast & lunch menu and babes of Baywatch and Sex & the City for dinner. FRIENDS, Seinfeld and the frequently repeated movies on Star had become part of everyday life. By now, I had watched every TOW… of FRIENDS at least thrice which comes in Star World and Zee Café. And I was still watching them until day before yesterday the Box was gone!

Thakur had brought the TV when he shifted from Mumbai to Hyderabad. He took it away (even after severe protests-cum-requests from his flat-mates) when he shifted from Hyderabad to Gurgaon. After it went I realized that I was so addicted to it that it’s just 48 hours I have not been with it and I am compelled to write about it.

Sitting on a chair with remote in your hands and a cable wire behind your TV, you can virtually switch between the worlds you want to live in. You have more then 200 options, more than 200 worlds and more than 200 perspectives to be with at any time – 24 by 7. From the most mundane to the most significant – there is a huge band of variety among channels. It reminds me, just 10 years back the struggle in our village was to get your TV tuned in from DD1 to DD2 because of the ‘The Arabian Nights’ cartoon series and a Saturday Matinee movies. Today we don’t wait or struggle; we just press the thumb and keep pressing it until we get what we want, what we hate or what we love – ultimately to get connected to the world.

Sadly, or perhaps not-so-sadly the TV is now gone and I am left with only a humble laptop whose half of the features were victimized by my curiosity of having XP instead of VISTA. And gone with the TV are FRIENDS, SATC and Baywatch… Everything… Stupid soaps of Star, Extreme shows of Discovery (especially Man Vs Wild which had started only recently), Holmes of History have all been taken away from me  :( ...

After TV left me, I realized I used to think other people’s thoughts. I had images of Man Vs Wild in my brain when I was alone. I had voices of Jack Nicholson and Udayan Mukharjee (of CNBC TV 18) in my head. I could hear the tune of Airtel’s ad in my head. I could see the hundreds of bikini clad babes of Axe Vice! I could replay the Amul Macho add in my head!

It is amazing that my brain remembers so much but every Hard Drive has limited GB capacity. Especially there shouldn't be more burden on the working memory (the RAM). The time now post-TV demands I clean my brain nerves. No thoughts in brain but still being aware of the being. I mean – what happens when there are no thoughts but still you know you are there? You hear every noise, every voice, you see every object, you touch every tangible thing – but thought is not there. Time is now to explore and find what happens when the thought becomes naught… Creepy!

PS: I heard Mr BKS Iyengar say here that ‘Mind is the king of the senses. And breath is the king of the mind. And it is our nervous system that drives our breath.’

dindu's dilemma...

As I write this down there are four kinds of people out there – happy 'but' married, unhappy & married, unmarried 'but' happy and unmarried & unhappy. This blog is dedicated to those who fall in the first and third kind!

Dindu is the alias of my good old (by age and agility) friend. His name (full as well as alias) has a long story behind it, about which I will write in detail later, but for record his full name is Dindigul Krishnamachary Senthil Santhosh Srinivasan. I know what you are thinking, but neither does he have five different heads or faces, nor does he suffer from MPD. But he has been suffering from being born in a conservative south Indian family since long. During fresher period in college, when his peers were dining out in the mess after healthy ragging sessions, Dindu was still found explaining & spelling out his name to his north Indian seniors! He was baptized Dindu after his wing mates found that he could not sleep without at least five pillows (FYI… Dindu stands for 'pillow' in Thamizh) around his flabby body - one below his feet, two stuck between his groin, one pressed under his ass and one embraced in his arms, but none below his head!!!

Dindu was serious when I last met him during a quick weekend coffee at a café shop. He was looking around at the happily-coffee-sipping-couples and suddenly his melancholy became conspicuous.

He said "I think... I *NEED NOT*... get married man… Period… What about you... Do you want to get married in life or not???"

I was left wondering by the length of silence he left between each sentence.

I said "Dae! You're making me uncomfortable! You think you NEED NOT get married, ok understood! But don't ask me about my getting married. I haven't made up my mind and I don't have any intentions in near future... of making up my mind. Moreover it's more than a question of NEED/NEED NOT. Phew!!! Tambi! Drink your coffee and enjoy the weather around. You want a cookie?"

But the @$hole made me think! The question that bothers almost every youngster, especially those (I included) who have relatively achieved quite a success in their respective social subset, have a steady cash flow, and according to their society there is nothing left for them to do except get married and get 'you-know-who' some grandchildren to play with!

Well yes! There are certainly some advantages of getting married. If you are married, people don't think you are a homo/lesbian. In your professional life you are considered more credible and committed. People would know that you are the guy who is going to stick around till the end because you have got lots of bills to pay coming month. Moreover you get a life partner who will go with you everywhere, so you will not have to ask some stranger to look after your baggage when you want to go to the loo at an airport or bus station. Most important thing is that if you are going out of station for a long time, you will not have to worry about dumping your stuff at some friend's place. Precisely, your life is settled and you are a happily-ever-after kind of man/woman.

But there are visibly some of the disadvantages also which are too important to be missed. For example, you will not be allowed to smoke and drink beer watching India Australia T20 match. Eating pizza is an offense. Every weekend you will have to go out shopping, not to shop, but to lift the carnage your missus made in the shopping mall! Hanging out with your unmarried friends in bars and pubs becomes an emotional crime you make against your beloved spouse. You will not be able to do things which you could do only when you were alone! Often you will be reminded of the six packs SRK has and that you don't work out and that you should! Kids… After five years you will have to clean the shit of your kids who regard your lap nothing more than a public toilet. In a nut shell, your frequency of saying 'give-me-a-break' will increase exponentially, from once in a month to once in every day. (Note: These experiences are as told by other happily-married and not-so-happily-married men).

Then… why people marry? The reasons people marry vary, but usually include one or more of these: procreation, social and economical stability, family formation, emotional security, legitimizing sexual relationship or public declaration of love etcetera.

Procreation…? Well, there are already more than one billion asses around in this country. Thousands new come out every day to burden the limited resources, as if getting manufactured in an assembly line. Perhaps, we Indians were busy learning non-violence and celibacy when we should have been learning how to use condoms! So, if you think that nature has given you this obligation to keep the human species alive… rethink, let me assure you that given the current rate of supply & demand of homosapiens, there won't be a shortage of this inventory for many years from now. Let those who are already there absorb first. So people who marry just to have their family tree expanded – they are not doing very good thing for the society!

Social & Economical stability…? Hmmm! That could be a valid digestible reason, given you search right kind of in-laws for yourself. Get hold of the son/daughter of some big shot in government services, or some reality champ or a businessman, or even a movie star (but make sure you have some back-up plans). Well, getting a working spouse isn't bad idea at all, unless you are not ready to tolerate some attitude. Or if you want some 'no attitude' spouse you narrow down your options further.

Large numbers of people marry to chaste their sexual frustration which, in middle & lower class India, is possible only after getting married. Well, I can bet that if sex was not so taboo a subject and not so hard to get in our Indian culture, there would have been less than half (if not less) of the marriages than they are happening today.

Blessed are those couples who found their 'soul-mate' in each other and so have taken the next step of saying 'I DO…' That kind of marriage makes the most sense. But behold! We have already had so many 'love marriage/arranged married' group discussions earlier, hajar times, haven't we? No offense to the happily-married couples, whichever mode they have chosen! Peace be with them!

And so I said "Dae Dindu! I think it is a little complicated to understand something without experiencing it. Why don't you get married and see what happens. Give it a shot machchi! Be a man! I am with you!"

Dindu said "He he he… Poda!! If it comes to experimenting why me? Why not you?"

I - "Puramboke! *You* were the one who brought up the topic, *you* were the one who made me think, *you* were the one who wanted the answer and now *you* are the one not ready to take the advice! b@$***! Then *you* will be the one who pays the bill!"

Dindu (imitating Rajini) - "Tambi! Katam! Katam!"

PS: By the way have you ever thought that hole of the a$$ is actually whole of the a$$, rest of it is either bum or buttock?

a staple a day...

(I)

Almost every corporate office has a cafeteria which significantly affects the daily routine of corporate workers. And especially of those health sensitive bachelors(M/F), whose weight has been increasing like GDP of emerging markets since they joined the industry, but the actual flab growth is seen only around the Special Digestive Zones. Quality of the cafeteria and subsequently the health of company's work force can be sized to a great extent by looking at the numbers and ratios in associate delight surveys, workplace satisfaction surveys and attrition rate surveys.

It is an inspiring sight watching people spoon off the oil floating over 'daal fry', dusting off raw 'aata' from half baked 'rotis', soaking dry the oily 'pooris' with paper napkins, taking out small pieces of 'paneer' from the 'paneer butter masala' and at the same time discussing how the rupee appreciation will affect net quarterly revenue of the company and what will be the impact on the variable component of their salary. Maximum of the crowd fill their plates with every dish in the menu, most of which goes uneaten. Well, when there is unlimited grub available for mere fifty rupees who will not compete to maximize his or her consumption? Food sucks anyhow, but wasting it is not a good thing to do. If only hunger could be understood – the bhookh – 'pet ki', 'atma ki', 'jism ki'… he he he…

(II)

Once upon a pleasant time in ancient India, scholars (today's nutritionists) had defined the diets for every work group to maximize their productivity. Brahmins abstained from all the food which tickled their senses to dangerous levels. Kshatriyas, accordingly, had a predefined dietary routine for their strenuous physical requirements. But many years later, when Brahmins were sitting beside Kshatriyas doing code review and quality audits, there was confusion on the proposed diets which could not revised in due time. When Kshatriyas ate their chicken biryani in front of their Brahmin counterparts, Brahmins were in confusion – we do the same work as Kshatriyas then why can't we eat the juicy butter chicken?

(III)

PS: One 'tandoori chicken' PJ I came across recently:

Q:: What is the height of unemployment?
A:: Spider's web in a prostitute's pussy! =))...

survival guilt...

O Omnipresent! O omniscient! O purveyor of all! O almighty! I seek your mercy for what I have done. I know I was not ignorant. I know it was wrong, it was evil; but I could not avoid the temptation of seeing that which was forbidden. I know I deserved what I am going through. I chose to walk the road of temptation and here is what I have got to.

Now I dream of it every night. I get nightmares, where I burn in the fire of hell, my skin scorches in the simmering heat of pain and guilt. I hear voices screaming in my head, I get hallucinations of being drawn into vacuum. I get seizures, I cannot breath. My head feels like someone’s hammering it from inside.

I can’t believe I did that. I couldn’t have done that. I can’t face myself in mirror now!

Oh Compassionate Father! I seek your forgiveness. Trust me I will never do that again! Please show mercy on me. Please soothe this smothering pain of mine, I earned from my evil deed of watching the ‘RGV ki Aag’… Vomit!!

diamond/water paradox…

Father of modern Economics Adam Smith wrote about an old Platonian paradox in 1776:

The things which have the greatest value in use have frequently little or no value in exchange; and on the contrary, those which have the greatest value in exchange have frequently little or no value in use. Nothing is more useful than water: but it will purchase scarce anything; scarce anything can be handed in exchange for it. A diamond, on the contrary, has scarce any value in use; but a very great quantity of other goods may frequently be had in exchange of it.

This enlightening abstraction needs a little more addition. Value of water depends on the thirst of the person and the availability of the water, same with the diamond. Suppose the man is dying with thirst and there is little water available but beyond his reach, he will give everything for that little water.

Same might not be true for the diamond. Now since the water is unlimited in almost every country except a few, and diamond is very scarce, the equations have shifted a little. This unfolds another human trait that mind craves for something which is beyond its reach, and ignores what it has with it. As needs keep getting satisfied more and more new needs come out. This chain reaction leads mind to misery. Look at Africa. It has the most number of diamond mines in world but still it is under developed because…? In a land where basic needs of its population are not satisfied with plenty, having things which other countries value more, lead to corruption at the basic level.

There is another trait – more we consume/use some thing, less useful it becomes to us. It is called law of diminishing marginal utility. Chocolate is the best example. If you are eating it after a month, first chocolate is like heavenly ambrosia. Second tastes good, third is ok and fourth could have been avoided… if you eat fifth, sixth, seventh – it makes you sick!! The numbers may differ depending on the individual tastes, but the ultimate effect is the same.

Well – excess of everything is bad. That’s the reason we don’t allocate all our income to only one good! Our aim consciously or subconsciously is to maximize the utility of our income! And that depends largely on what we value and what we prefer when we go out in the market hunting to satisfy our needs!

sometimes...

Sometimes:

- You just have to stop listening to yourself.
- You need to just give up.
- You need to just walk away.
- You need to accept the defeat.
- You need to accept that you were not good enough.
- You need to accept that you are being controlled from outside.

Sometimes:

- You need to hear the voice of your heart.
- You need to hold on for one more minute, one more day, just once more.
- You need to stay and keep fighting.
- You need to put everything at stake.
- You feel you will never sell your present peace for your future prosperity.
- You wish you knew how to be silent.

ceasing words...

A post dedicated to the silence of the heart and head. A post dedicated to the satisfied souls...

an intellectual orgasm...

Knowledge cannot be distributed like alms, knowledge cannot be transferred like e-checks.

Knowledge happens. It happens when the 'master' is ready to give and 'student' is ready to receive. It is like an intellectual intercourse, at the end of which both individuals get enlightened. Without this moral pre-requisite, it only turns into an intellectual orgy, where one person plays a victim and the other a criminal, or both play victims or both play criminals.

god that failed...

This is something which now makes me ashamed of being born and brought up around such religious philosophy.

A religion of irrational, ignorant, hypocrite, educated-fool majority which lost the meaning of religion somewhere on the road of civilization! Why can't we take religion beyond simply showing off with mindlessness? And it is not only with Hinduism!

Sethu Samudram is another stigma! Why can't we take religion out of politics?

But then... Where should the religion go?

It should go back to where it belongs - into the individual... as sidin said some years back!

some !dea...

A few months back, when the nation was going through the debates of reservation/quota in the institutes of higher education, I came across an article by Mr Valson Thampu (the principal of St Stephen’s college Delhi). I don’t quite remember much of that but at that time I had jotted down some of the lines from the article. Sometimes you know that there is something inside you but you cannot see it clearly. Then suddenly you read, listen or see something which liberates that vague image of your mind and that dark area of your conscience becomes enlightened forever. Those lines:

“Merit is often a little more than just the accident of being conceived in a right womb.”

“Purpose of education is to liberate, not to imprison your soul... St Stephens understands that education is a way of liberation not a market driven commodity...”

“Unfortunately today we can easily find a means to live but we cannot find a reason to live for.”

back from kalinga...

I visited Orissa last weekend. Landed in Bhubneshwar on Friday night and a lush green land overcast by dark clouds welcomed me to its seemingly never ending monsoon showers. Landing was bumpy (in words of the captain of DN677 flight) and clouds were so heavy that I could not see where to the plane was declining until just a few meters above ground I saw the runway of Biju Patnaik airport. Approaching dusk complimented the darkness of clouds and it was love at first sight with the weather and greenery. I slept away the night, letting rain drops beat the asbestos off the narrow and poorly built roads of the city.

Though the rain was intimidating my travel plans, still early next morning, I started off for the Sun Temple at Konark. It was an hour journey from Bhubneshwar to the famous world heritage sight that could have given the Taj Mahal a tough competition for being seventh wonder of the world had the weather and time not wore it off its beauty and grandeur. Temple was built under the regime of Ganga Dynasty king Narsimha somewhere around 1200 AD devoted to the Sun god. One thing I inferred from the temple’s architecture was that, sex-wise our ancestors were very wise. The 800 years old erotic architecture on temple walls gives a healthy impression of the lavish life the king lived.

I was also awed to imagine that how emperors worked (or made others work) so hard towards preserving their lives in form of temples etc for the future could remember them. How there has been little change in the fundamentals of life since the beginning. How today, even though the life is running on wheels still the direction is missing and every path leads to infinity from everywhere.

I tried to gather some new experiences too. For instance, I smoked the local Oriya Beedi, tobacco wrapped around some leaf! People eat lot of ‘paan’ in Orissa. So to have a local feel I ate lot of ‘paan’ including one with beetle leaves! God bless my lungs and throat. The calcium carbonate (choona) has blistered my tongue!

After appreciating the grandeur of Konark, I headed towards one of the most important religious places of Hindus – Jagannath Puri. Considered to be the only living god on earth who savors ‘somarasa’ (the heavenly drink) everyday - the lord Jagannath (lord of the world) is very famous for granting liberation to His sincere devotees. But visiting the temple didn’t quite work out for me. Before meeting the lord, his official peons (informally called ‘pandas’) met me outside the gate and liberation was postponed there and then. After getting stained with ‘choona’ of 80 rupees, somehow I escaped from that place littered with money-thirsty crows. I don’t know, once I had been to this Baina beach in Goa (red light area), but there wasn’t much difference in the way I felt after coming out of Baina beach and Lord Jagannath temple - I was happy that I escaped, I was guilty that why the hell did I go there…! I had gone to the temple to clean my sins, but it felt as if I have sinned by going there! This temple visit became another tale of frustration for the attitude of Indian Hindus towards religion and God. Anyhow! Towards the end of the day it was time for India-Australia semi finals at ‘pantha nivas’ hotel near Puri beach and happily – India came out in flying colors.

It rained heavily in the night and next morning the wind was cyclonic! The plan was to visit the biggest brackish water lagoon of India – the Chilka Lake! I reached Satapada – the place from where one can see the awesome lake in its full grandeur. But unfortunately due to last night’s rains and heavy wind the Bay of Begal had flooded into the lake and nobody was ready to go in with their boats. Disappointed, I started back to Bhubneshawar. But on the way back I discovered a place called ‘barakudi’ (a small village some 5 kms away from the main road) where I met a nice Hindi speaking villager who instantly agreed to take me into the lake on his wooden boat. Price was fixed and I was on my way into the wild lake. The waves were hitting the boat furiously and after speeding in for around 45 minutes when I could no longer stand the anger of the waves, I asked the fellow (named Duryodhan) to take me back! From Duryodhan I came to know that ‘Barakudi’ is worth a visit in winter months when around 200 species of migratory birds from all around the world fill the lake which is at that time calm and has flushed all the flooded water into the sea.

After that adventurous boat ride, I headed back to Bhubneshwar. On the way back there was this place called ‘Dhauligiri’ – where around 2300 years ago the Great Ashoka lay down the weapons of violence and embraced Buddhism after the bloodshed of Kalinga war. This was the most amazing and inspiring place on this visit. Indian government built a ‘pagoda’ on this hill in 1972 with Orissa’s trademark tigers-statue guarding its gates. The pagoda has four idols of Buddha in four different postures. (Beware! You may find some ‘pandas’ here also. Don’t encourage them. Just ask them to f**k off…) The weather was complementing the moment of greatness. Dark clouds, lush green fields and muddy ‘daya’ river… One can understand what made Ashoka leave violence and embrace Buddhism. I saw the rock on which Ashoka wrote his edicts in ‘brahmi’ script and the elephant mouth he carved symbolizing the Buddha in one of his forms (Gajattame) where he was conceived by his mother in her womb in elephant form.

I didn’t feel like leaving the place, but it was getting dark and it was about to rain so I headed back to the city. On the way I thought of visiting the ‘Linga Raj’ temple but before I could step out of the car, the God’s crows surrounded the vehicle and I had to postpone the liberation once again indefinitely. Feelings remained unchanged as described before.

I had a couple of hours to spare before ending the day, so I thought of exploring the city malls. One thing is pretty clear, once you are into the cities and into the shopping malls, there is hardly any difference in any state or country except the language at a few places. Maximum of the times it is the remote outskirts of the thriving cities that give any place its unique identity!

On my way back to Hyderabad next morning, when I was reading the free magazine of Air Deccan flights, I realized I missed the Nandan Kanan wild life sanctuary which is just 18 kms away from Bhubneshwar. On that sad note, I am preparing with more research for my next trip…