readme...

This is a lot of pressure. Meaningless, but undeniable. I don't want to listen to anyone anymore, my anger is about to spill over my patience. Moments when I want to be heard but there is no one to listen to me. And I cannot make anything out of my own words. Mostly noise. I am cultivating a volcano with boiling words, blistering me from inside.


I paint graffiti of my thoughts - result of unheard, incomprehensible voices screaming inside. Desperate attempts to be free from this noise. I wonder - what's the purpose of words - to create noise, or to create silence...

am i me...

and i try
to put words together
to somehow make sentences
and give shape to the vagueness
of my feeble thoughts..

one contradicts the other
one loves, other hates
one agrees, other debates
and i always try to know
which one is the me..

questions
one after another
striking my tired mind
breaking all
which were once built
my defences shattered..

i look for answers
amidst this duality
of my only certainty, asking
am i the seeker
or am i the sought
am i the thinker
or am i the thought..

hail capricorns...

( desktop of a dark soul :P.. )

Poor Capricorns – we often suffer from an incorrigible tendency of falling victim to unnecessary frustration and negativity. Just a matter of fact negative trigger from a bad day and we are imagining the darkest of possibilities. At those moments we are so pessimistic that we can almost transform the B +ve blood into B –ve only by talking frustration. The previous ‘i am the flaw…’ was a result of that…

This capricious tendency of us Capricorns is almost similar to the weather at London. Today it is bright, warm and sunny and tomorrow by no distant rhyme or reason it will become dark, cloudy and cold. Sometimes the sunny mornings are colder than the overcast mornings! Not many desi guys like this weather. ‘Crappy weather’ is all they keep saying. I, on the other hand, find it more familiar given my initial years spent in Shimla and Pilani which have almost similar impulsive climate.

Meanwhile, the work is progressing and there are some green signals coming from top. Presentations, documents and statistics… That’s where I am spending most of the time right now. The experience of inventing correct data without doing lab experiments in the engineering labs is coming very handy. This will hopefully be over soon though. Also trying to figure out what I am capable of doing if not this. I could not imagine anything except ‘khetibaaDi’ or perhaps blogging (??) but how about bread, butter and coffee?? So, will now remove the dark gory Ghazals, and listen to Robbie Williams with a bottle of British ale until I find a contingency plan for post pro life:

now what...

This is one of those days when I am feeling tired and exhausted. Not by the work and work-politics, but by the emotions, reasons and indifferences of my own. I love myself with all these conflicting emotions, where one says go for it, other says stay away from it and still other says ‘who cares?’Period! I hate this tendency of mine.

I have been reading a lot about writer’s block, pen’s paralysis but experiencing it today. Not sure if it is that! Not a bad situation at all. There is nothing to rebel against, there is nothing to get inspired from – what can a person write in that situation? Very enlightening state of mind - if you look closely! Those moments when ‘what-nexts’ and ‘now-whats’ hit you like a devastating explosive, destroy all what you built and make you think all over again.

Alas! The restless heart or the brain perhaps! The marvelous machine which receives stimuli, prepares responses and leaves the body to display those responses, a complicated matrix of zeros and ones, a maze of complicated choices.

I was watching the ‘Unlocking the Mystery of Life’ videos (links for the 7 parts are there in the Video Roll) and found some interesting facts about evolution. Just try them in your spare time, might interest you. I used to watch them one every night before going to sleep.

Or try this video/song from movie ‘Wo hu Cang Long’ (Crouching Tiger the Hidden Dragon):



Cheers!

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 ;) )

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.’

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! =))...

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!

weekend weakness...

It pisses me off hard when there is nothing to do on weekends. These two days and three nights have become more of a concern than a joy of retreat from work. Earlier I used to have something to read, but now that urge has started diminishing gradually. Sitting mindlessly in front of the television and watching mindless creativity (if that can be called so) is what happens now. But oh! I cannot sleep. I cannot inspire my mind to keep lying down on bed. When I close my eyes and try to give myself off to the darkness, every time I find a pain in the head, as if something is trying to escape from there.

I have stopped reading paper books. Now I read (if at all) the e-Books. The 50 kg burden of the wealth of my books is now compressed into 1 GB of space in my laptop’s hard disk. And this does not increase the tangible weight I have to carry.

Most of the time, I journey through the internet trying to find something to read. Yesterday, during one such hang out, I found myself a very thought provoking idea of great Punjabi poet Bhai Vir Singh. It said: ‘For understanding different religions, the emphasis is not so much on points of similarity as on uniqueness. There are many things common between a cow and a buffalo; but the cow and the buffalo are not the same.…’

I end this aimless blog post with the following couplet by Mr. Basheer Badr:

Mujhe suku.n Ghane jangalo.n mein milta hai
Main raasto.n se nahin manzilo.n se darta hoon…

fearlessness...

Fearlessness is that state of mind, when a person has come to know that nothing can disturb him anymore. No matter what happens, he is going to be at peace with himself and the universe. Not even death can bring him to his knees.

But then there are people who proclaim that they are fearless by frightening others. If left alone, they can kill themselves, which is why solitary confinement tramples the pride of hardest of criminals. Even an insane person living in a mental asylum can say that he is fearless. This kind of fearlessness is not true, its just pretense. A mad man may say that he is not afraid of anyone, but he is afraid of himself and the society is afraid of him. A true fearless man is he who has won his own fears and his very presence removes the fears of people surrounding him.

The origin of fear is weakness, fatigue and lack of knowledge. Sometimes we are just afraid that we will divulge the secret that we are weak and tired. Then there are fears of losing and being lost. Sometimes we are afraid of ourselves so much that it causes depression, it makes us hate ourselves. Some get so scared that they commit suicide or come near to killing themselves.

There is this very interesting concept – Pareto’s 80-20 Statistics. According to this 80% of the problems are caused by 20% of the problems. That is, if we can wash away the small traces of fear from our thoughts, we can remove big existential problems from our life.

Relaxed mind is not afraid. Only knowledge can ward off fear.

One day, I want to look in the face of the fear and say – ‘I am not afraid anymore’.

basic instincts - II...

We all are descendants of the farmers, hunters and nomads. That’s what we were in the beginning of the struggle. Farmers! Hunters! Nomads!

It’s when we had enough to keep ourselves alive physically that the struggle for survival changed from physical to mental. In the beginning the struggle was only for the food, security and to keep the species flourishing. And no doubt when this shift happened the strength also demanded a shift from physical to mental. Today mental strength plays more important role than physical strength when it comes to survival. Creativity is the necessity and everyone wants to make a mark of his/her own. Though not everyone comes to make a name in this world yet everyone needs a healthy identity to survive and grow.

No matter what the survival needs have become today – from food to fashion, from security to having own house, from things to learn from, to things to earn from – the fact remains buried deep in every human heart that we are the sons of farmers, hunters and nomads. And we cannot deny that, that instinct stays right there with us wherever we go, whatever we do, however we live.

Nomads made the ways between farmers and hunters. Some of those nomads became businessmen, some entertainers. Hunters’ curiosity for new lands was aroused and wars were waged. Farmers came in each others’ contact and ideas were shared. Mergers of tribes happened to make villages. Mergers of villages happened into states and states into nations. That’s how we see the world today – an extrapolated imagery of man’s primary instincts of being a farmer, nomad and hunter.

basic instincts...

One thing I am pretty sure of is that – imagination or reason cannot give us the power to take decisions. The choices we make are the result of our instinctive power. That is, our instincts give us the power to make choice, whereas imagination and reason just give it a direction.

For instance, I can stand looking at a mountain thinking that I must climb the mountain. I can bring out the good points and the bad points about the adventure by my reason. But until my instincts guide me, I won’t be able to take even a single step towards the mountain leave alone reaching the summit.

Most of the choices suffer from this instinctive breakdown. Imagination helps us in seeing ourselves in new situation. Reason helps us listing out all pros and cons, quid pro quos. But the first step is taken always by the instincts.

That’s where the power actually lies – in the instincts. You can imagine doing a thing, reason for the good and bad but to take the first step – you need instincts.

Instincts are like the powerhouse of progress. Reason is the tool to be prepared. And imagination is a tool to see the new.

So, now the concern should be to strengthen the instincts, clarify the reason and polish the imagination.

an incomplete retreat...

(I)

Everyone has a limit… Physical, Mental… For last few years I had been running wild, without any direction, living a fancy of unrealistic dreams; but still working my way through my profession which earns me my bread and butter, cereals and cigarettes. In an ethical sense I think I have done injustice to my profession in beginning years when I spent my time more on my philosophical growth than profession growth, reading my way through almost every book I came across (though not necessarily finishing it) when I should have been looking out for the growth opportunities and enhancing my technical knowledge to boost my “career”. But that’s past now.

Last year around same time I had retreated back to the mountains but for an entirely different reason. Mentally and physically ill, not sure of what I need to do or “why am I doing what I am doing”, at that time my struggle was – ‘to be or not to be’. I came out well in that struggle and next one year I spent contemplating on my life from a broader perspective and becoming more realistic, complaining less and letting life happen. My friend (or perhaps alter ego) joined me and that gave a different dimension to my life. I can’t imagine I could have come this far without his company. But again, life wasn’t meant to be stagnant and I needed to become an identity of my own, and this was a struggle in itself. So after one year of hard work and mental struggle I returned again to my village to recharge myself once again. This time I allowed it to happen. I didn’t push it like last time. I just let it happen. I could have pushed it but then I knew that the prison I want to break free from lies not in the place I live, the prison is right inside me and I need to break free from it here and now. The struggle of this retreat is – ‘how to be what I want to be’.

(II)

When I come to my village, which is situated in inner Himalayan regions of Himachal Pradesh, altitude ranging from 2000 to 3000 meters with sub-tropical vegetation, I not only return to an entirely different place from the development explosive plateau city of Hyderabad but also in an entirely different time. It is as if I have come back some 20 years from where I was. You cannot make living here with similar curriculum vitae as you can in Hyderabad. IT isn’t I.T. here; it is just ‘it’.

A place where air is still fresh and you can actually breathe in without any dangers of losing your lungs, a place where people know their neighbors and relations are still important, and a place where agriculture is still a part of everyone’s daily life. I retreat to a place where gaddi nomads live, a tribe which wanders with its sheep flocks, untouched by the 21st century or globalization, unaffected from the interest rates, government policies and taxes. (I think they qualify to be the mankind available in purest form today, as it was in the beginning. Living in own terms.)

To recharge my broken spirit, I retreat to my village. It gives me courage to move on further keeping itself at the back of my mind. I ask the existential questions to the mountains and they give me the answers. I sit looking at the clouds and the sunset which gives me strength. I sit silent just breathing the fresh air and that boosts my soul. I dig my land to grow vegetables and that brings back my instincts. This is the place where my roots are. This is where life actually lives, unlike the city where life simply exists.

longing...

I am living in an incomprehensible state of mind these days. Like a convict who awaits his verdict wistfully with each passing day, waiting for himself to announce the final decision. I don't know what my mistake was – perhaps it is because Adam ate apple from the tree of knowledge. I may be a convict of that, because I am a descendant of Adam’s. Whatever it may be, but the uncertainty gets darker with every sunset, and my heart burns stronger with each sunrise. Amidst this mix of emotions and rationale, I ask of only one thing from myself – honesty in words and honesty in actions; a difficult thing indeed.

I feel homesick quite often, nostalgia for a place I have never seen or been. It is not for the home from where I started my journey from. A bird came out of its nest to spread its wings and learn flying over unseen lands, but that nest never could become its home. This longing is for an invisible home where this journey can stop and I can be reborn. Perhaps this is an impractical dream of an imaginative Utopian; perhaps this is the desire of a nomadic heart. Suddenly I am feeling that I have a big responsibility towards myself, my ideals and my beliefs. May be it is about the time I start my journey back home.

In that sense, I consider myself a little unconventional. My peers give me that idea with their surprised eyes and agape mouths when they listen to what I have to say. I feel a little nervous when I find that I don’t have similar aims as they have, I don’t have similar desires as they reflect. I get frightened sometimes at the idea that whether I will be able to fit myself here or remain an outcast in a society where I can never belong.

All through this I keep telling myself that I am not going to live in fear. I am not going to imprison my soul inside traditions from the fear of getting lost and destroyed outside. I would rather prefer dying like a man who had open roads in front of him, than living like a man who had walls all around.

vector introspection...

Blogs are little difficult places to write out every possible thought arriving in the cerebral terrain. Blogging is not same as writing in a personal diary, where the content belongs exclusively to the writer and his/her carte-blanche friends and family. Blogs are wide open to the curious (internet) explorer world on the other end of optical fiber, which makes it impossible to write down everything that once struck writer’s mind. Also usually a person tries to put a little extra intellect (collected from here and there) when he/she is writing in the blog, because they know that one day or the other it is going to be read by someone and that’s the only opportunity they’ve got to be understood.

At the frequent psychological tides and ebbs of human life every person needs to believe in himself. He needs to find things around his existence which inspire him and bring back his energies. Course of human life is analogous to the volatile sensex which goes bullish when becoming strong and bearish when weakening. If a person is progressing in his life, he will encounter more difficulties and once down for a while, will rise back to higher peaks. On the other hand bearish life goes down, comes back to lesser peak and subsequently goes down to lower depth. A person needs to continuously monitor the course of life and rapidly change its definitions.

Almost every person who has a little brain and who takes bath every morning gets ideas at one point of time or the other. But there are very few people who walk with those ideas, cultivate their roots with those ideas. The reason is simple – one has to walk absolutely alone with his ideas. One has to win his fears and tell the traditions and society to go to hell. Behind every such rarity of human existence, there are rules, traditions, conventions, societies whereas in front of this man there is open road still unexplored.

Most of the times, a person spends significant part of his life struggling with himself. He keeps fighting his own divided identities and becomes his own enemy. Only thing that can bring him to senses is a little hope.

Well, most of the times, problem is not where the symptoms are. Because today we have loads of entangled strings attached with our existence. And we cannot cure the problem by attenuating its effects. Introspection is the remedy for the malady. But introspection alone cannot help, because many a time introspection turns into self-criticism or narcissism. Need is of ‘vector introspection’ which (like mathematical vector) has magnitude as well as direction!

Duh! There is another saying by the way: those who can – do and those who can’t - write! ;)…