Words are all i have -- Anant Bhushan

Our Illusion of the world around us

2010-12-08T10:46:00.003+05:30

This post follows from a lot of different thoughts recently. Different thoughts which made me realise that the nature of my thoughts are getting constrained by my own actions. When today's products were envisaged and the world moved towards mass personalisation, it seems we have missed a veiled threat. The threat of over personalisation, the threat of excess customisation to an individual.

I had some time ago, read an article about the prevalence of personal culture, about people increasingly being regulated by their own beliefs and actions rather than of the society and the groups that they live in.

Today instead of the web we have "my Web", the web comes customised for every person, when I open Google reader, i read the articles from sources that i have selected, even the sources that are suggested are the ones similar to my likings. Even stumble customises the pages it serves in a similar manner. Eventually ones view of the world around them becomes a reinforcement of their beliefs and thoughts rather than an exercise in exploring new frontiers and ideas.

I do have a feeling that I am being overly skeptical, which means i am growing old as i am starting to compare today with yesterday. But the fact remains that I do not just want things that make me feel good, in order to live and adapt I also need to reflect and correct my beliefs, and if one is unable to do that, I believe that is when one ceases to learn and grow.

After all what is more real, your beliefs of yourself, or your perception in someone else's eyes, and what happens when when the disconnect between the two is as wide as the world you have woven around yourself.

A series of unfortunate Events:

2010-11-07T03:16:00.003+05:30

Got a Kingfisher flight ticket From Kolkata to Bangalore on 7th Evening. On cleartrip A month ago.
Received a message from Cleartrip that flight is rescheduled 2 weeks ago. Checked with Cleartrip customer care people. They did not know about it. Said the airline must have rescheduled it. Asked me to carry the printout of the same old ticket. flight rescheduled to 3:30 PM.
A week before the flight simply checked on the Kingfisher site. Said it could not retrieve the ticket for the given PNR. Checked with Cleartrip. They had no idea. Called Kingfisher they said the flight has been cancelled. Called Cleartrip again and asked they what were they going to do about it. They still said they had no idea about it. (CONCLUSION: NEVER USE CLEARTRIP AGAIN).
Kingfisher gave the option of An evening flight were they would put me on Waitlist. And a morning flight. I took the morning flight and now my flight is 7th of Nov 7 AM in the morning.
A day before the flight(6th Nov) i receive a message that my old flight number(The evening flight) is cancelled. Normally this is when i would have known about it. Had i not checked earlier. :(...
On the station to get a train for getting to Kolkata at 5 PM on 6th Nov. Got an automated call that my Morning flight at 7AM the next day is cancelled due to operational reasons.
Called Kingfisher customer care, their first offer was that they would refund the money... :(... Then they said they could get me a ticket in the evening in Indian Airlines if i got to their Airport counter.
By the time i got to the airport at 10:45 PM, 6th Nov, the counter was closed. And there were a lot of people in the same position as me. (Which surely would not be accommodated in one Indian flight).
Finally I got a ticket in Indigo for Chennai. For twice the price of the original ticket on 7th Morning. (The Bangalore ticket was worth thrice).

CONCLUSIONS:

1. Don't use cleartrip.

2. Don't trust Kingfisher for long term travel tickets.

3. Dont Buy travel insurance. (Apparently they only pay if u are dead. They don't believe that insurance should cover flight cancellations.)

[WordsEveryDay] Some words everyday...

2010-07-30T22:43:00.003+05:30

We hear so many things as we pass through life, across the lunch table, in the lift, over the cubicle. Overheard on the phone... countless things that make us smile, nod in approval, or shake our heads with dismay. From today i will try to write things down i hear, anything that stuck for whatever reason. There will be no names, Just words... U can take them as ramblings, I am going to mark them with [WordsEveryDay] so that u can avoid such posts if u don't like ramblings or random words. I hope i can keep the discipline.

Here is for today:

We have a problem, we start out by making the kids watch TV when they don't eat easily when they are young, and then they get addicted to it and we can't take them away.
You know, there kids can watch anything. They don't have to worry about being culturally correct. I cant watch friends at home, but kids don't have to care about that. Whatever they grow up with is their culture.

The first one really brings forward out general attitude towards making short term decisions, the second one portrays in plain terms how the one generation views the next and how the differences shape up.

The need for a parallel universe

2010-05-26T11:08:00.005+05:30

My last drought of words was in November 2008 so i cant say that its an yearly phenomenon. Anyways i am back here...

Getting started with the point. I have been deluged with information recently, and the the number of things happening together is accelerating the flow too... There is the two sides of the Maoist story, the number of views on the India-Pakistan relations, the cacophony that surrounds and discussion on sports in India, there is the never ending debate on religion and atheism,.... there is even the small stories about the people struggling with the system in my college...

And in the middle of all this is me trying to get a picture in my mind of how things really are, what would be the "right" thing to do in each of the cases, and that's when i hit a block and a realisation stuck. No matter how open minded we are, and ready to accept all sides of the story, our conclusions are always going to be biased. For the simple reason that we can't live through both sides of our decisions. We cant live two lives and experience them all. Even if we can, and have the time there is the problem of your second life being tainted by virtue of you living your first life.

For those of you who have seen "Deja Vu", its like the fact that even after living on both sides of the story, there will be a self of your that will be unaware of what happened.

Among all this i have often remembered the parallel universe or the many worlds theory in quantum, i hope its right. And we find a way to see into them. At least we will know what happens when we make a different decision(i don't want any comments relating to the Lost series :) ). Until then I will ask forgiveness for my biased opinions and would like to assure those affected by them, that they were taken with the best of intentions.

The India i see...

2010-01-26T23:06:00.010+05:30

I had this topic in my mind for quite some time now, and have been thinking of getting down to write about it. Am talking about the heading. Now i was lying there in my bed now - am at home u see and eating my mom's delicacies and getting fatter - and some words came into my head and i thought yes i have to write it some day. Then the next thought was- Why not now?... I cannot get any more free than this. So here i am.

Anyways lets get down to the point. What do i see then??... I see an India where my hometown gets converted to an island after as early as 6 O' clock because the police cant protect the roads connecting the town to the nearby cities from the naxalites, I see a college which is said to be one of the best in the country, but which survives not because of it being so, but because of the perseverance of a few of the faculty and a lot of students with loads of bureaucracy, I hear of relatives rejecting marriage proposals because the bride side cant spend enough on the marriage, I see an India where a farmer works thro' the year so that he can add to the meager income that he gets from his toil in the fields even though the food prices are going thro the roof, I see an education system that is failing to cope up with the aspirations of the country, and a political scene that we all wish could be better.

But along with this i also see friends and youngsters running organisations like Pratigya and Center for Civil Society that gives us hope for a better future and a place for new leaders and ideas to emerge. I also see my next door uncle buying a computer for his 8 year old on Dhanteras, I see happily married couples whose love did not matter whether they were from Delhi or Maharashtra or Jharkhand or Haryana.... I see DINK families enjoying their life and planning for their future, and i see a working mom running thro' her life with a smile on her face, I see my mom struggling to type a reply mail to her daughter-in-law in Hinglish but smiling with every word that she gets right. I see a friend looking to go abroad but who doesn't want to miss a wedding, I see 7 telecom companies in a place where there are no roads after 6... :-) ...

In fact I see an India that's so full of potential, and an India that's slowly but surely realising it. Yes i am disillusioned with my India, but i am still hopeful. Hopeful because even though the daily papers splash loads of heart shattering news across their front pages everyday, the special good news editions that run on national holidays are getting fatter year on year. I have hope because i am surviving in today's India in spite of being pessimistic. I have hope because someone has very rightly said that pessimism is a luxury for the good times. I have hope because i am a pessimist but still find reasons to smile.

Looking at my past.. Just the past...

2009-12-29T12:40:00.006+05:30

I hear a lot of noise about the new year coming up, people are busy making resolutions, which i generally don't make. I am not a planning guy, take life as it comes, and do what u like, but then that leaves me out of writing what's going to happen in the the year to come. But i can always write about the year gone by, surely not the events happening in the world, that would be too much and too talked about. So today i am going to talk about "I".. :-) ...

Now lets see... u know human memory is contextual, u remember something when u see something similar to it, and also it gives more importance to what happened most recently, so i remember chocolates getting costlier and lighter more vividly rather than going to Chennai for a workshop, more than 6 months ago. okay, let me list what i can recall

I got placed(Got a job)(important one, not to be forgotten),
Chocolates got costlier.. :-)...
My sis got married
My father retired
I gave a seminar that everyone liked at the time(but i dont think i am getting good grades),
I attended a workshop in IIT Chennai(a lot of wherever i am going now comes because of that)
A couple of my friends had babies, (making me feel old.. :(.. And wondering if i can ever be responsible enough to have one of my own.)
I didn't go anywhere on a trek.. :(... Making it a pretty boring semester.
Started off on Twitter. Liked the medium. But the problem is again separating the spam from information.
-- Thats all i can remember right now... Will add more as and when i remember them.

Preaching thy self...

2009-11-10T21:06:00.005+05:30

Ever had the feeling that u have yourself not being doing justice to what u say. You see i am a great believer in doing what one says, as in - practice what you preach, treat others as you wish to be treated yourself, and everything along similar lines. But a few days ago i realised that i have been saying something which if not altogether false, can only be considered otherwise because i did not know that what i was saying was wrong.

The incident was simple, i had not being playing regularly for the last week or so and hence had become a bit rusty when i got back to playing again, now trying to get back to the way i played earlier i fell back upon what i told others who asked me how to play- tilt the bat in the right way, check the speed of the ball(i play table tennis, if u are wondering). And to my utter dismay, they didn't work, now it was time for me to realise how bad the advise that i gave others was. So this time round when i did get back to playing decently, i tried to figure out what was it that i was interpreting in the wrong manner, and then came together the number of things that have always stared me in the face but i had never put them together to realise that they are all interdependent. I had written a post some while ago, it was in context of the way we learn what every emotion is, but now its time for me to realise that its not true for the abstract things only, everything that we learn is through imitation and repetition. Its the sub-conscience that does the thinking, ... I dont even know if i am making sense here... Anyways what i did realise was that there is no way to do something better than to get used to it to such an extent that one can move beyond it altogether. Practice makes a man perfect has never sounded truer to me, albeit it came from a slightly different line of thought. And what it also means is that my sub-conscience is more adept at doing a lot of tasks than me, and that implies a lot of other things, but that is a topic for another post. .. :) ..

The danger of a single story

2009-11-04T12:09:00.003+05:30

To start off, this post is a culmination of a large number of things that i have seen or heard, but before that a few things one should know to understand why the idea behind this post is what it is. I am a Google addict and in no way can i imagine a life B.G.(Before Google). Now what that means is that there is hardly a service provided by google that i do not use. And if google goes down. So would most of my contacts, most of what i love, my blog, my conversations with people i admired, the chats that i still read in solitude and in short a part of me would be lost.

Now again the events that led to this post, one was a talk that i heard here(on TED by Chimamanda Adichie), second was a presentation i attended by a Yahoo guy(who was telling us what all they are doing), third was my wish to write a post on living a week without google(I am still working on that), and finally the realisation during and after the Yahoo presentation that there was so much good that's happening, and i was cut off from it, even though i was under the illusion that i am connected to the whole world.

Like most people around me, yahoo was my first email service, but then came google, and with it gradually the plethora of services that it offered to keep us engaged within the google domain. I am not saying that it was a conspiracy to cut us off, and i am not even sure that it applies to anyone else or is it just me that's tied in the bind. But i am unaware of life as it could be outside of google, maybe my future efforts to write a post will make me more enlightened, but as of now i am a frog in the well, albeit a big one(that almost feels like an ocean).

But then why should i limit the thought to things google and !google. As the talk at TED that i mentioned above very rightly shows that the same applies to the real world. The talk of real world reminds me now, there is another talk by Arundhati Roy that follows similar thoughts.

Of course i am not saying anything new here, but its just a reminder to myself that there are always better things in the world. No matter how good and comfortable u are at present. One must constantly strive to get out of the cocoon, challenge the comfort zones and make way for things that could bring about changes for the better.

A mockery of methods

2009-10-06T21:42:00.009+05:30

In today's world when we talk about making girls stand shoulder to shoulder with any man in any career she wishes, i am aghast at the prospect of the future of engineers that our country is producing. And that too at a place none other than what is considered the epitome of technical education in India, an Indian Institute of Technology, IIT Roorkee. Where the girls are forced to get locked up in their hostels by 10:00 PM. Today when we strive to make our cities safer for women working 24X7. We get a college that can't make its own campus safer for its own students. It is anybody's guess how would the mentality of the young minds be moulded and the budding engineers be shaped, how will they go out in the real world and accept assignments that would require them to be responsible for systems and mechanisms that indeed run 24X7. Unlike routine classes in a college, the world doesn't stop when the sun goes down, the world doesn't stop spinning.

I know the arguments that are going to be put up against any such opinion, but i also know that the answer is better education and a better awareness. I hope that if someone who is responsible for making rules such as these, is reading this, WAKE UP. No one can stop thinking at the ring of a bell, the education that u wish to provide does not stop at the end of your lectures, it only starts there. The thinking goes on. If u are asking someone to close their books in library and give up their thoughts in labs, u are killing that thought, u are stopping an innovation. Wake up and welcome to the real world where men strive to be better than women, in the world that appreciates talent, in the world where women win Nobels, and if you can get the Nobel laureates to say that they won it without burning the midnight oil. I am willing to give up my argument.

Memories of yesterday, lines of today

2009-08-07T22:24:00.005+05:30

Anyone who has read my blogs earlier would know that i do some writing now and then, if not as in poetry then just as in rhyming sentences and keeping them legible. Touch of Love was surely not my first effort but it was the first that i carried so far. Apart from that i keep writing a few lines every now and then and they generally go up consuming the space on my chat status in Gtalk, Yahoo and others. Bored as i am today, I thought i will put a few of the ones i liked up here, maybe it would brighten or err... Most probably sadden someone's day ...

Free to cry

I prefer to be free,
Rather than flee,
Under the shadows,
Of guns so eerie,

I want a world,
That's not so twisted,
Not so curled,

I want a dream that makes me cry,
Not with pain but sheer delight...

===================================================

Hoping...

Happy to be happy, for the hope of the heart,
Happy to be happy, until the heavens do part,
Hoping for an hour, an hour of just laugh,
Waiting for the hour, when my happiness never departs.

===================================================

Look for a reason...

When the eyes are heavy, but still cant sleep,
When the truth untold, makes u weep.
Then live for a reason, so simple and deep,
Live for a reason, live for a reason to keep...

===================================================

Passage to Hell

I found a stick that wanted to walk,
After a while it started to talk,
It wanted to be cherished,
It wanted to be free,
It wanted to be cared,
Without a burden to carry,....

Of the loads it had carried,
Of the people gone awry,
I was made to realise,
That i should be sorry,....

And sorry yes i felt,
For my want of a walk,
For i could have as well,
Read my passage to hell.

===================================================

Wish

I wish for a place, where the wind is true,
The air that blows, is not for the few,
It blows for a reason, and the reason is you.

Lessons from the trip to Malaysia

2009-07-20T02:20:00.005+05:30

There is going to be no random stuff today. I was recently on a short trip to Malaysia, and i thought i should write down some things that i had figured out so that anyone making a similar trip in future would be more comfortable.

Well here was my list of questions before i went there:

How do i keep in touch while i am there? Should i take my cell on roaming?
How much cash should i carry? How costly would things be there?
What places to visit there?

Ans. (1) . The first question was the more troublesome one, international roaming is absurdly costly compared to the ISD calling rates of course. Matrix cards were another option. But they turned out to be a bit cumbersome too. I had tried activating my international roaming, but when i landed in Malaysia and my cell didn't work, there was really nothing that i could have done other than curse the call center people who had assured me that it would. Anyways, the best option is to get a a local number when you land in Malaysia. They don't make much of a fuss about it. All that they ask for is your passport for proof. And the call rates are good too. I got a connection from an operator DiGi, and they had pretty good service and call rates too.

Ans. (2) . The answer to the second question came from my brother. He remembered the McBurger Index published by The Economist. And it turned out to be pretty accurate. Food is not very expensive there. In fact its the same price that you would pay in any decent restaurant in metros of India. So for day to day expenses one need not carry a lot of cash with them. As for shopping. I personally think the place isn't cheaper as compared to India. However there are some Malaysian crafts that one can lay their hands on while there. So for shopping there is no limit on the amount of cash that you can carry.

Edit: Its called the Big Mac index. http://www.economist.com/markets/bigmac/ . Thanks to anonymous... :-) ...

Ans. (3) . As for the places to visit. It is very important to have a well laid out Itinerary. Almost all first time travellers will have Kuala Lumpur in their itinerary. And its a beautiful city and must be visited when in Malaysia. However there are a number of things that one can see in KL. Its best to ask your travel agent for a detailed itinerary and make sure there isn't a lot of time devoted to malls and going around to various shops(I would suggest not having any time for malls, there is really nothing that you cant get in India, at the same price). One can visit the Bird park, the museum, The aquarium at KLCC. Watching petronas at night is a must, its a beauty and being there and not seeing that would be like going to Mecca and not touching the sacred stone. If one is open to a bit of adventure and trekking, there are places within short distances from KL which provide beautiful getaways. Though i haven't been there i heard a great deal about Langkawi and Penang. And one can explore options of touching those places too.

And lastly, always keep the Embassy numbers handy, and don't take chances with strangers that you don't know, unless they show proper credentials and speak a language that you can understand. Enjoy the Malaysian food, don't go Indian restaurants only, though there are a number of them there.

I am open to any questions, you can post them as comments below.

I had a dream...

2009-06-14T07:23:00.002+05:30

Woke up a while ago, and wondered why i had overslept, there was this strange sensation of quiet because of which i was not angry with myself. Anyways i carried on, and suddenly it all came rushing back to me when i laid my eyes on the camera. I was having a dream wherein i was out somewhere, i don't remember either alone or with someone, but i saw a new bird, i do remember thinking that its a Brahmin eagle and that i was supposed to capture it, however though the colors matched i think they were shaped a bit like vultures(if i don't make any sense, blame my dream). Now comes the interesting part, i came back to my room and got my camera, and wanted to get back and see if i can get the birds, but somehow for one reason or the other i was held up one or the way. Because i wanted to click the birds i did not want to end the dream made me to keep on sleeping, but the fact that i somehow knew that i was in a dream and should continue sleeping made my wish to click the birds a futile quest. Whats interesting about this is that, i had the knowledge about two facts that i acted upon, such that the knowledge of one nullified the other or rather the fact that the mere presence of one made the other an impossibility. But still in the dream they did not contradict each other. They coexisted, the existence of one made the other a reality instead of contradicting it, I think after the idea had taken root, and i had made up my mind that i should not get up, i had latched on to my result, and forgotten about the process that led to it, and followed the other course blindly. I think the same thing happens a lot in reality. We often discard the obvious and base our decisions on past line of thoughts, and just remember the decisions that we had taken. The need of every hour is to take the changed circumstances into account and make fresh perspectives and better decisions, that better reflect our present circumstances.

As i think over this, i am realizing that there are things in my life too that i had decided upon a long ago, but never ever subjected them to a review. I will need to reconsider them. But just as in the dream, we never really realize the mistake until its over. Now the dilemma is, even though i realize that i was wrong, or rather, am wrong, the fact still remains that i am living in a dream, one that may have to wake up from to actually realize how wrong i was.

When politics got personal -- Mandate 2009

2009-05-16T20:47:00.003+05:30

This has been one of the elections that i have been following closely, trying to keep an unbiased opinion which is most of the time impossible because everybody says the same thing, though with a different tone, timing and tact. However one of the notable features of these elections has been the rise of the educated and the well-to-do, into the political space. What has come out has been a clear involvement of the people who actually seek change and talk about change in their living rooms going out to get it for themselves. The idea that one man can make a difference, which has been rather difficult getting into our collective Indian psyche post independence, is rather unfortunate because we already had examples like Gandhi in our midst. However the huge persona of the Father of the nation was such that i believe that people were unable to identify themselves as belonging to the same creed, and his sudden departure did not help matters either. The same lack of self importance reflected in our social behaviour, self governance, and our lackadaisical approach to our own quality of life and society in general.

I believe with this elections the politics in India has surely come a step further, and has come closer to becoming what Nehru would have called the awakening of the Indian politics. I have always held the belief that no matter which party gets the mandate, as long as it is clear, and coalition politics does not tie it down terribly, the governance and the policies would continue to be along the same lines as before, because the needs of India remain the same, and for benefiting the people of India as a whole, its the same path that would lead to prosperity. This is the same as the observation that the opposition in India has often been for the sake of opposition, for the opposition must have done the same thing had they been in power. Having said that i believe that could change in the near future as all parties would need to connect with the educated voters and must make their policies and actions based on their promises. I sincerely hope that the next elections are after 5 years and many of the positives that came out during these elections are carries forward and get translated into actions.

The idea of Ideas...

2009-04-10T19:28:00.003+05:30

U know there are many different things in life that shape the way with think about ourselves and the way we perceive the world. We form certain perceptions earlier in our lives that we adhere to for the rest of our lives, knowingly or unknowingly. All our pains and happiness depend upon what and how we develop them in the first quarter of our lives. If the rest of our lives conform to the way we thought , life is a bed of roses, else its a bed of thorns. Not exactly that extreme, but i believe for one to be truly happy these ideas are very important. Trying to change them is heresy, anything against them is unacceptable, and anything that contradicts our thoughts are difficult to digest or accept.

It has many implications in our life, it strives to make us stable and our responses predictable, after all what is intelligence but to predict, to be able to foresee. And our eternal quest to make things predictable and stable makes us the same. This is the reason why old people have problems with adapting to changes, its the reason why the first love is always the best because it shapes ones opinion, its the reason why the first language we learn is the one we speak in at the time when we are the weakest, its the reason why everyone in their hearts wants the "good old days" when they could tell what was good and what was not. In this day and age, the new generations are not fixed on places, are not troubled by changes in the way of working,... But even we have our nuances, the bits we don't want to change, the people we want to be, (the websites we don't want to be redesigned.. :-) ... ). Among many others... yes a lot has changed, but we are all still human, I guess staying human is the tough part after all.

Quantity we have, now we need Quality...

2009-03-22T04:10:00.002+05:30

I was recently witness to an incident that made me wonder what does it mean to be alive but not be able to live the way one wanted to. I was sitting in a hospital with a friend of mine waiting for the doctor when a boy was brought in, probably in his teens, for what appeared to be clearly a suicide attempt. The conversation around the boy indicated that he had taken some pesticide or rat poison lying around the house. What was of particular interest is the fact that it took the doctor hardly fifteen minutes to diagnose the patient and send him off. Whatever was needed was available at hand and at no point in the whole event was anyone morbidly tensed as to the fate of the boy. Everyone there knew and believed that the boy will be saved. It is this very feeling that made me wonder what was it that could be missing in the whole sequence of events. At this point of time through whatever means there are amenities available all over the country which may not have been possible in the not very distant past. But what was missed in the whole episode are the reasons which could have triggered the boy, I am almost sure that there will be nothing done to address the reasons for the same.

On a very similar vein, recently a batchmate of mine passing out this year from college was worried about kids said to be just barely above the permissible age of child labour(15 yrs.) working in our hostel canteens. We did not want them to be just thrown out of the work because we did not know where they were going to end up next. A short interview with the child revealed that he worked there along with his father for a meagre sum of money, asked if he wanted to study he said no he did not want to(I cant blame him for it, i don't remember kids actually thinking that education is necessary, the realization comes only later).

As i remember Alvin Toffler the renowned futurist in his books had predicted an age when services and goods will be produced in such quantities that they will be available to the common man. Its in the same age that we are living right now. We did not actually cross the eras of telegraphs and telephones and jumped directly into this age with mobile phones. In the process i feel we lost the ability to innovate and improve upon and bring the changes as an improvement in our lives, rather than as a service. Yes its an era of global cooperation and sharing, but as i recently heard, its the local solution to global problems that is going to save the world. No matter how much we become like one another, its managing our differences and understanding them that's going to make us succeed.

Now merely increasing the quantity would not have the required effect on our lives that we desire, or at least i desire. The need for maintaining high standards of quality in every field of our endeavour, is what is going to bring forward the next revolution in our life.

What am I?

2009-03-15T12:39:00.004+05:30

No its not a philosophical question that i have set out to answer, i am just trying to figure out what am i going to do for the rest of my life. I was on a vacation for the last one week, and that gave me some time to think over things away from the daily grind, and the worst thing is i still haven't come up with something concrete. I thought i want to be a guy who built something new, something that would change the way people live, something that would make the world a better place, I was always happier when i found out something new that i didn't know before, and u figured that's what i am going to be doing. But as of late, i think i am becoming more of a system admin, the kind of guy everyone looks up to as doing a great job but no one aspires to be.

I am not getting any new ideas, am not writing anything great, no code, no thoughts, nothing... I am just turning out blank day in and day out. Do people have dry spells too, i hope they do, because unless there is something like that, i would have a really difficult time coming out of something that doesn't exist.

My encounter of the first kind

2009-02-24T03:53:00.018+05:30

I started this post with the weird heading because i have recently done something that i had not done earlier. I saw snow capped mountains and that was a wonderful experience. I had been to Auli for a three day holiday and came back yesterday evening, I would try to recount the experiences of my journey in a roughly the same order in which i could show through the few pics.

Uttarakhand is a beautiful state, and the journey turns out to be pleasure along with the destination. Here are a few pics of the beautiful journey that we could capture on the way.

The view en route

The view en route: the path that leads to heaven...

On the first day we traveled from Roorkee to Joshimath, reached there at around 7 in the evening. The hotel that we stayed at had a name that was meant to be confused with Kamat, but rhymed with Comet, was named "Kamet"... :-) ... Could not find out why it was named that way. Anyways, after the day long journey, owing to the fact that one is not allowed to travel at night in these ghats, we had to give up one whole day for the journey. By the time we reached it was pleasantly cold, and had an early dinner because the shops close very early, around 9 there. We did not call it a day immediately of course, there was some rounds of dumb charades and some fighting, friendly ones, before we called it a day and dozed with the hopes of a wonderful tomorrow.

Day 2:

The day 2 started with most of the people with me going to the temple in the morning(i was sleeping). Finally after some breakfast we checked out of the hotel and left for Auli, though the distance isn't a lot, after going for sometime we come over no claim land over with the roads are terrible and it was a real pain to be driven in the mud roads, because there are no charted roads in that area. Here are a few pics of the time from Joshimath till we reached Auli.

First impressions

In the pic above bottom right is the base camp for mountaineers.

So far all the sights had been from the confines of the bus, Now having finally landed in Auli, the snow capped mountains were invitation enough to get started right away.

We started on our way, it hadn't been a very long trek until now, but enough to make us realize that it wasn't going to be a walk in the park. We had not taken the time for acclimatisation into account. And the lack of oxygen was making us fight for our breath every now and then.

The place is famous for skiing and so the first question that one gets on getting there is whether u would like to give it a try, the price quoted for the same was Rs. 350 but the bargainers in the group brought in down to Rs. 250. Now if that is low enough can only when someone reading this goes there and is able to settle at a better price... :-) ...

I myself did not go for skiing, i preferred the trek to learning another balancing act... :-) ...

Every step on the way was worth the journey that we made to the place, cant explain it in as many words, It would be better if u have a look at the pictures below.

The beginning...

The white that covers it all...

White and white all the way...

We were trying to get used to the weather, but needed frequent stops to have our heart beats return back to normal.

As for the feeling of doing something new,.. we did find some snow near the top that has not been walked upon, at least we were the first ones to have come there since the last snowfall... :-) ...

Its the last lap of the journey that's said to be the toughest, but when something can be as beautiful and breathtaking as this, all the hardship seems worth it.

And finally the view from the top,...

The view from the top was nothing like I had ever seen for real, and then to realize that you have climbed one of the peaks similar to the ones in the pic. One would certainly feel good. And there I was, taking in my share of conquest... :-) …

But like all good things, even this had to come to an end, we found our way back to our waiting bus as the sun started to go down, there was some tension in the end because a few of our companions got delayed in getting back, and we were getting apprehensive that they may have got lost in the slopes, which beautiful as they are, would have been inhospitable after nightfall. But eventually and fortunately things got sorted out and we started on our way back.

We came back from Auli and didn't stop at Joshimath again, there is one thing which one must keep in mind if one visits these parts. The roads leading from there to the plains are still being constructed and are extremely prone to landslides. We came to know that just just after we had come there a day earlier, there had been a landslide on the route and the road had been blocked for almost half a day, we saw the remains of the landslide on our way back.

In a way we were fortunate to have crossed over in time, had we been a lil more delayed we would have been stuck there and would have had to cancel our plans. So all in all it was a good trip, we were lucky, had a great view of the place, no injuries so far and everyone was happy.

So we moved on and made the night stop at Mayapur, Chamoli District. The name of the lodge was Him anand(I think he meant it to be Heem anand, meaning icy pleasure). We had a lil bonfire there. The night fell, and we were tired, a few fell asleep, and the rest stayed awake till late at night, cherishing the day when we had set foot on the paradise on earth, we lit a fire that soon died away in the chilly air. And the dying embers reminded us that we had to move on, with the memories of the day.

There was a bridge nearby the hotel, and after dinner and the fire, people walked around, we sat on the ledges trying to figure out the meanings of dark outlines, of faraway lights, and of anything that cast a shadow. But in general there was not much talk, it was so quiet that i think the fear that we could do something wrong by breaking the silence, was more than a thought. Its a strange thing that we don't really know what silence is, in cities and in homes, there are so many things that don't ever let us know what is it like to hear nothing, what is it like to have a loud thought and be afraid that someone might hear it. It was the occasional passing of a vehicle that broke the reverie. Eventually everyone crept back to their rooms and gave heed to their tired bodies which readily acknowledged the need for a few hours of rest, for we had a days journey to go.

Day 3:

We started back as early as was possible, and got back into the bus. The journey back was as picturesque while going back as we had found it on the way fro if not more, a lot of it was spent in silence, possibly because there was a regret of going back to the daily grind, and also of leaving back something so beautiful.

The day was more or less uneventful, people were not as troubled by altitude sickness as while coming, Apart from a few breaks every few hours we kept going forward. We did stop near Devaprayag for lunch, and the restaurant was opposite the river Ganges. So while the food was prepared we waded through the cold water. The bottom of the river was slippery with algae and it was quite an effort not to fall down, i finally managed not to fall, against all my premonitions.

After the lunch, we headed forward again for home, stopping only for some evening tea.

It was a great trip, the company was wonderful, the view was fabulous, the journey comfortable, the stay cozy, the timing perfect, the organizing flawless, and finally the memories. unforgettable.
The End: Its life that awaits on the other side of the bend,
but memories stay to make us come back, to make a new pact,
to cherish the feeling so good and few,
and wait for every moment that begins anew.

Hoping for a change...

2009-02-08T07:07:00.003+05:30

There have been days when i am down, disappointed, not interested in doing what i was doing. But these last couple of weeks have been worse than that. For some absurd reason i don't feel like studying, and reading just the headlines make me wish to throw the paper away. The way i see it i live with a simple principle, tit-for-tat. I do what i expect, and i let everyone do as they wish as long as they are not getting into my face. And i believe that's the principle that India is built upon, everyone to their own believes, though the real principle is that being so diverse there is no single idea that cant be voted out by the rest of the ideas together. But it had worked out pretty fine so far. But following this approach has made us overly tolerant, we tolerate things we may not like ourselves and that has done a terrible thing to us. We don't know when to say stop. When some hooligans try to take over our daily lives for a day, we take it as a holiday and accept it. That gives the illusion that they can get away with whatever they want, this cant go on. We in the new India need to start being more tolerant as a person as less tolerant as a society. The real challenge is to make every one of the 100 crore plus citizens realise that. Its not easy and i wont call it possible, but i am sure i am young enough to be there when such a day comes in the life of India.

Prediction, order, God and randomness

2009-01-25T06:10:00.002+05:30

Yes i do know that i use the word Random a lot. Its even up there near the title, but my liking is not the topic of this post. I have been reading and hearing a few things about beliefs and religion, and have ended up i don't know where, its always safer to know one side of the story, then u can truly say what u believe to be the truth, u know both sides and there u are, ending up having an argument for every question that the any of the sides puts up(and let alone the possibility that there may not be only a two sides of a coin).

We all love to know whats going to happen, and we live our lives in trying to make our life predictable, to order things in ways that wont fail, in ways that make us comfortable with the outcome, and for that bit which we cant predict we call god, the one who knows all, after all "if i don't know it at least someone does" is a pretty reassuring thought. The idea of randomness does not do a great lot for the times when we need to stop from breaking down in distress. For the times when things happen that we did not desire. Try telling someone who has lost someone in an accident that their loved ones are dead because of all the millions of possible ways of things happening this was what happened, and it was for no reason, no justification, no purpose greater than a probability of occurrence, and i am sure the person will know first hand one of the possible way that he may die(unless of course he is lucky enough to be talking to a mathematician). And maybe that's why we need god, to account for what we cant control, what we cant understand, and what we cant revert.

I have never had any problems with religion as such, its only that there are so many of them. I personally don't have enough faith to be an atheist, but i really liked a quote i came across recently --
" All of us are atheists, only, some of us, take it one god further "

But is there ever going to be a day when we wont need god, i don't think so, Unified theory or no unified theory, there will always be days when one would need to stop reasoning, calculating, thinking and just lie down knowing that everythings gonna be all right... And for that well, god is a really small word to say.

The need for art... The need for pride...

2009-01-05T02:13:00.003+05:30

I was on a trip to Mussorie recently, and realized something, art or rather just the act of making things beautiful means a lot more in life than immediately apparent. The town is a tourist spot, and that must be the reason why the city is so well decorated. There are murals along the roads, the bus stops en route are artistically designed. It just felt good to walk through the streets, the feeling i later recognized was one of pride and content. Its almost like being at home. Of being nurtured, the road was more than just a path to another place but an end unto itself, it symbolised that it was not the destination that one must look forward to but the journey.

I feel that it is this very feeling that lacks in India today. The feeling of being more that just "this will do the job", because in such a case there is very little to inspire, it does not suggest that we are doing more than just surviving, we are thriving. And as far as i know that feeling is very important for a society to coexist peacefully. Because a person will feel happy only when he is well to do and has more to spare. The need of the hour is therefore not just to build a nation but to do it with elegance, we need to make it such that we are proud of everything that we see, and they don't remind us to things that have gone wrong but things that went right. We do the same thing at our homes. We buy a house, and don't just stay satisfied with the walls and the furniture but more than that we make it a place worth coming back to, we decorate it, we make it a place where we keep our memories. All that we need to do is to extend the same to our surroundings. Lets stop the "chalta hai(will do)" and start giving ourselves more than we need. So that we can strive for more than we thought we could achieve.

... ... ... ... (U fill it up)

2008-11-29T02:17:00.002+05:30

I am starting up this post without filling up the title up there(will fill it up later), partly because i don't know what i want to say the most, and partly because i don't know what i am supposed to feel. The time since the last post has been mixed, there has been the unfortunate incident of the Mumbai blasts ( ...:-( ... :-( ...), i am supposed to be writing exams, and one of them the one that i absolutely detest, more so because of my ineptness at it and less so because its difficult(at least for me).

We all fight our own demons, we feel that there is nothing more unfortunate happening to people around us than is happening to us, its because we know our problems the best and seldom talk about them to others. And the very idea of revealing them to others makes one vulnerable, of being laid open without any defence. That's why i feel that trust is more important in life than anything else. Its hard to achieve, but the best thing to strive for.

I take my good moments for granted and make the sad ones huge(i think so does everyone else), its when we start living in the happy moments is when we are going to finally make it possible to get used to it and make them come closer together and not be overwhelmed by pain and the prospect of loss.

Apart from this i am feeling really helpless ever since the blasts in Mumbai, is there nothing we can do to stop this, here there is a nation that's at least trying to do something, go to the moon, feed more people, create jobs, fight among ourselves, trying to have a nice cricket series, . . . . . . . . . and here come these #$*@ #%@ morons who don't have the fainest idea what they are dying for apart from some distant rhetorical blabbering. Give Me A Break, we are trying to create a life here. Go ahead and do the same for yourself and leave us alone. And someone please tell me what can I DO.

The soul is virtual...

2008-11-24T21:16:00.003+05:30

Sometime back i came across a study that discussed the emergence of social networking sites in almost every part of the world. All human beings have one thing in common. The need for recognition, we yearn for others to think like we do, to understand what we feel, to sympathize with our sorrows and be happy with our joys. Now the social site phenomenon is not something new but now many more people are beginning to discover this world with more and more people joining the bandwagon. Where u don't have to worry about your neighbor, a block button exists for people whom u don't like, I have seen people who are completely different people if u go by their profiles, a world where the scrap count matters more than the job profile that one holds, where u don't have to worry about acting because someone else doesn't approve of u.

In the quest for shaping our worlds more to suit us we have made this more and more real than reality. And the social networking sites are doing their best to make it even more lifelike. The friend list is displayed on the maps so that u know where the person that u are talking to is, facebook has an application that allows you to keep pets, dress it up, feed it, dress it, u can pat other peoples pets and get credit for it, discuss your pet with other pet owners. I think its the same phenomenon that's responsible for games like spore that let the player design the whole world that they want to play in. From the creatures to the heavens. People spend more time creating and updating their profiles than they would care to spend in front of the mirror. Because after they don't care who their neighbor is, unless of course they are their on their friend list.

I was just wondering what will happen to all this content and data lets say 30 years from now, when the people who own them die or become too old and realise that there is life in the physical world too. I think its not too hard to think of profiles being inherited from generation to generation. After all we do have diaries being passed on. And lets make a movie out of this: the guy on deathbed dies in mid stride while telling his son the password to his account. And the son embarks on a quest to unearth his fathers legacy... :) ... Bad storyline is it... :-) ... Yes even i thought so... :-) ...

Lost in translation....

2008-11-14T18:31:00.002+05:30

Its not been long that I started blogging and it has its own pair of ... cant call it difficulties, rather i think nuances. Life goes on as usual but now every event feels like it should be put into words. And that's an intricate task, at least for me. I don't know what should I attribute this to, my sparse vocabulary or something else. Am almost getting the feeling that there are more meanings lost in translation from thought to words than it is from one language to another... Shakespeare cant be blamed after all for making up words where he needed. But the large amount of work required to create the circumstances and plots required to convey the meaning. I think its a bit too much work for a lazy blogger like me. I think in the meantime i should rather work on my English. But that surely leaves the writers at peace, lest I be considered a threat to them. ... :-) ...

Hope..........................

2008-11-11T21:03:00.003+05:30

Its amazing how one can make ones life so simple but yet so fragile. So comfortable yet so prone to pain. We make up hope where there is none and the slightest, the insignificant, the otherwise mundane would just break that barrier. Or at least bring it to the hilt. I am reminded of a phrase that i heard, read, glanced somewhere that makes so much more sense now(i dont remember it exactly but i think i remember the feeling it hoped to convey)- "Until now everything is so serene, and composed, but the slightest change, the fall of a leaf, the crying of a child, a moments pause just breaks open the flood gates and the the composure is lost". Its amazing what one can do to convince oneself of the otherwise inconceivable just so as to live in hope and that in turn provides a purpose to life. I think its the same feeling/emotion seen in fanatics either religious or otherwise. Anyway i think i will get round to that topic sometime later. At a later day, another odd hour.

Drought of words...

2008-11-06T23:26:00.002+05:30

I went home... And i guess i got too rested and relaxed. I am not getting those wordy nights. Will be back soon. I will be back soon i hope... :-) ...

Detachment... Why do we cherish memories

2008-10-15T20:42:00.002+05:30

Recently i had the occasion to go through my past. In a way i mean. I was shifting through the remains of my trunk and came across old books and stuff that i was positive that i had no use of. But still it felt bad to discard them. There were some vague very distant memories associated with them that refused to let go. It was only with a heavy heart that i finally bade them goodbye. What was perplexing in this entire episode was that the items did not really mean anything to me at the time when i had them. In fact i could go as far as to say that i literally misused/abused them, as was obvious from the torn pages and broken limbs.

But the experience made me wonder, why did they gain in value over time. Is it just human nature, or was there something special about them, that special factor which i am subconsciously aware of but i cant put a finger at. Maybe its the former, is it not always 'old is gold' and 'future is always going to the dogs'(I personally think very highly of dogs, according to me any such phrase could only mean for the good, but that's how the phrase goes). And if i want to argue in favor of the latter, lets see, when we like someone, and want to remember then we go to places where we have been together, not because we like the place but because we have memories associated with the place. Human memory is basically abstract and sort of photographic, so we can associate similar feelings on seeing similar patterns or places. But will that mean that sub-consciously i was happier at the earlier stage than at present, does an attachment with something in the past mean that we are growing unhappier everyday. Are we not ready to look forward to tomorrow and wish to cling on to the past? I cant make up my mind at present. Maybe sometime in the future... That does give me something to look forward to... (Is that contradictory??.. :-) ...).

The purpose of life...

2008-10-13T03:00:00.005+05:30

It was while i was writing the previous post that i was reminded of a conversation i had with my brother a few months ago. The question was simple, whats the purpose of life. At the moment i the first thing that i said was- "To be happy". And to find out what brings us happiness. I still stand by that statement. Though reflecting back at the it i think its not very easy to determine what is it that makes us happy. I have seen people getting confused between what they want to do and what they should do. Almost all the people i have seen, with tension, confusion, unhappiness, sorrow, loneliness, or simply just unhappy with lives. In all the cases the solution boils down to just one simple thing(All right i agree its not that simple...); to get our priorities right. To set for ourselves and everyone involved in our life an order of importance. And to let everyone be aware of it. An arrangement of the sort ensures a lot of confusion is removed from relationships. And though it may be painful for a few in the short term. Eventually its going to simplify your life to a great extent. What's important is not the order but the fact that everyone can know and comprehend your actions and not be confused or frustrated by it.

I think i deviated a great deal from what i started with. Anyways to get back to the point, i believe that everyone must have a lil word or sentence that should lead him through his life. It may not be constant, nor does it need to be elaborate. But it should be very clear for the person himself. He must be able to clearly see its meaning though its not at all necessary that he must be able to explain it to another soul. So go ahead and find out what is it u live for, when was the last time u truly smiled, were without a fear or worry in the world. And in those rare moments u will find what is it that u truly need in your life. And thus make those moments come more often until u start looking forward to every moment in your life.

Meaning and the purpose of money?

2008-10-12T14:17:00.000+05:30

I have and i am sure almost everyone must have at some point of time met someone who said that they want to make money. And that's a perfectly good, sane thing to say. But what does money mean, i just wanted to figure that out. As usual i ran a Google and landed up on wiki, there were a few interesting words used there to describe the term that caught my attention. The most prominent of this was "medium of exchange". Reminded me of the barter system i read about ages ago in history classes. After all money in itself is of no value unless it can be bartered for another item which we may need, desire, want or be interested in. That brings us to the question of what makes us want something. After the basic necessities of food, shelter, etc. are fulfilled, which i am sure anyone reading this would not be worried about, the next thing on the line is comfort, for ourselves and the people we hold near and dear.

Coming back to the initial statement about making money, the statement is a result of a number of questions that preceded that. And it is not an end unto itself. The act of making money carries with if a desire to obtain something of value which can be accomplished only through an intermediate medium of exchange. The problem arises when we begin to work towards achieving the objective but fail to remember the questions and the deliberations that has led to it. A lot of pain in this world would be reduced if only people realise what is the purpose that they are working towards. The final aim. The purpose of life?(contd...).

The problem of why???

2008-10-11T19:11:00.000+05:30

I think we spend an awful lot of time on the "Why?". When confronted with a situation we should instead focus on the "How" of the solution rather than the why? Because the more u ask why the more will be the number of questions. Every man has a story to tell. When u ask a why, every person on the planet will give u a fairy tale, every culture has a story, every religion will give u a story, but that will not solve your problem. So start the How. Don't ask me why?

Desire of the Impossible

2008-10-11T19:06:00.000+05:30

I was reminded very rudely recently of the very nature of desires n dreams. The circumstances that brought about the realization apart, the first thing that it reminded me of was the lecture scene in the beginning of the movie "The Life of David Gale". It said something similar in spirit to the following--

Desires are bound and supposed to be outlandish. Something that's impossible. That's beyond our reach. The very notion of a dream being achievable takes it away from the realm of dream and puts it into the arena of reality.

As human beings i believe we are meant to live on dreams. The day we stop dreaming. We stop growing in our life. One may still say that one is happy(in their own interpretation of the word). But there will always be that void that gets created due to the lack of the NEW. So just go ahead and dream the Impossible. And keep on dreaming. And the day u think that u have achieved the impossible. Well its never too late to dream again.... :-) ...

P.S. A lil footnote. I prefer keeping my dreams to myself. I think so should u.

Have been travelling....

2008-10-11T19:04:00.001+05:30

There was a recent drought of words from my side. Not because i did not have any but because i have been unable to put anything on paper(in the spirit of the phrase). I have been traveling for almost a week and have a number of things to write about. Some from the journey, the people and some from the random readings.

Images like these are the most common sight when traveling through the vast expanse of the country. These are just a few pics from my cell phone camera which i took while i was awake on the journey. I will have to admit there were more beautiful things to capture. But either i was too lazy or the journey was too fast... :-) ....

Recap...

2008-10-02T19:58:00.000+05:30

My post before last. I was thinking that the bailout package isn't going to be needed. But it was passed today. I guess one of the two things happened. Either i was wrong, or fear of not doing anything made people to act as they did. If i recall correctly then the vote was defeated because there was no public support for it. How much of that could have been changed in the last few days is questionable. But if it means that the public support goes down for Republicans than Obama winning would be a sure thing. McCain already has a negative going for him(in Palin). However the the package is going to get the Republicans a lot of friends in high places. And that makes a lot of difference in elections... Lets see how the results shape up. I think this is my last post on this topic. until i see something there that i can relate to in a general sense.

My comment on MyToday...

2008-10-02T08:21:00.000+05:30

Yesterday was interesting, at least different in a way. I wrote some comments at Rajesh Jain's blog and he actually replied to it. That was interesting, I was of the general opinion that my numerous comments just go unnoticed. It was nice to know that they are actually being read once in a while. Well i think thats going to give me another reason to continue spamming all those sites... :-) ...

Recession... Depression... Anything else u want to call it... :) ..

2008-10-01T02:37:00.000+05:30

Well, Its been sometime since i wrote here. And my last post is still pending vis a vis its execution... Anyway nowadays whenever i read news i find words like those in the heading. And that makes me wonder.. :-) ... What is it that's actually happening. The most interesting phrase that i keep remembering with respect to the crisis in US is - " Privatisation of profit and socialization of losses". it sounds good... :-) ... When the sub-prime crisis had just come into light, I read an article somewhere. It equated the situation to socialism. The writer argued, that when all is said and done, there are going to be homes left over, which are going to be a lot cheaper that they originally were. There are going to be people with homes and the loans written off or reduced. I felt that it was actually true. And in the present situation it seems even more apt(I think the article was Swaminomics TOI). The government is going to take over loans that cant be repayed. Thus taking money from the public and redistributing it to those who dont have it. It is better than socialism i think. Where else will we be able to determine so well the needy(if we can disregard the small but unavoidable number of purposeful defaulters).

Further, when the US senate refused to pass the bailout bill, my news alert told me that 1.2 trillion were wiped out in about 6 hours. That sounds like a good number. And its bigger than the figure that was supposed to come for the rescue. What it tells me is that markets run on emotions, because the market has lost that much money and is still alive.. :-) ... Should the reinvestment of the same not bring up the market(but of course people are not going to be buying the useless mortgages now, only a goverment would do that). But if we just go with principle. Lets privatise the losses. Some companies go down. And stay that way so that people wont make the same mistakes twice. Of course i am noone to talk economics. But there is a simple fact that hard cash cant grow. So it is going to be invested back. And thats going to be more than the amount thats slated for the bailout. Let me see how its going to turn out. If u know why this wont work. U can comment below... :-)

I want a white pet mouse...

2008-09-24T04:00:00.000+05:30

I want a white pet mouse. Thats my latest aim. Anyone reading this. If u know how to get one. Contact me... ;-) ... I am looking at my end to. Lets see when i can get my hands on one... ;-) ... I will tell u how i got is as soon as i get my hands on one....

From Concrete To Abstract...

2008-09-20T14:31:00.000+05:30

The other day i was attending a lecture. The professor said an interesting thing. There is one method of learning which is first giving a concrete idea and then making it abstract. So that people identify with the solution or the problem before they can actually relate to the generalized solution. Though its pretty straight forward and basically a solid concept as to how it applies to the different subjects that we study. If we take Discrete mathematics, the subject itself is based on abstract ideas. It deals with abstract ideas before actually putting them into practice. Though it could be done the other way round, it would not be as interesting and in some cases may not even serve the purpose that the subject seeks to achieve. i.e. make us think about situations in a generic manner instead of looking at numbers explicitly.

On the other hand there are programming courses which themselves abstract. From the beginning to the end. A program is itself an endeavor to conceal the underlying structure and simplify the workings for the user of the system. In that sense it increases the concrete nature for the user, but creates a layer of abstraction for the programmer which he must handle. But then to start and end with abstract things may not always be easy. Thus it is best for the student to start from concrete things. But in most of the cases the concepts required for the understanding is not imbibed beforehand. Anyway,.. Lets not get into how courses are designed. But then again, I liked the concept. From concrete to Abstract,... From Abstract to concrete... :-) ...

What do i have....

2008-09-14T02:57:00.000+05:30

Thinking... just thinking... I have been doing exactly what i do all the time.. Speculating and extrapolating. Was just watching a movie. And there was a sort of diary being read by one of the characters. And what i could think of was what would i do in such a situation. Not that i ever expect myself to be devoid of such essentials as access to the www... But then i do not know what is the sum total of my life. k let me just sum up the way i live. Use an online organizer to remember, write blogs about what i do in life which is stored on servers thousands of mile away, ... if tomorrow is die. Everything goes with me, No legacy. Nothing to tell anyone what i thought. At one point of time i did think of writing.. i mean using a pen and paper. But then my own handwriting prompted me against it. I read somewhere recently, "its not about being applauded when u arrive, its about being missed when u are gone" ... I was just thinking how much of that is true for me.

The harmony of things...

2008-09-10T17:21:00.001+05:30

Well i dont know about everyone. But at least i am getting my share of realizations nowadays. We seem to be taking so many things for granted and dont even worry about all that works. And what made me say that.. Well its something as insignificant as a rash on the face. I got some allergic reaction. And when its healing its making me realise how much of my face i use. Every action moves some part go ouch... :-) .. .. Well it at least i got the better part of one saying-- It takes __ muscles to smile __ to frown and none to just sit there with a dumb look on ur face -- Actually thats what i am doing nowadays. .. :-) ... (U can fill in the blanks above, i dont remember the number.. And dont want to get it wrong). Anyways if we extrapolate the idea. or rather generalise it. I think thats how it is in every part of our life. We seem to take for granted all that works. And i have seen an enormous number of people grumbling about all that doesnt work. It may be in their eternal quest for the perfect world. But then it does make the world a sadder place doesnt it.. So i think i will keep my signing off line.. Keep smiling.. :-) ... Take the world as it comes. Just lets be happy. And yes if u are reading this. Dont bother telling me i get incoherent. I know that.. :-) .. :-) ..

The meaning of the word....

2008-09-09T02:22:00.000+05:30

Looking into the past i see a lot of places where i wanted to say something but could not. The reasons where many, many a times i did not know what to say for i did not know what the feeling felt like. After all how do we associate words with meanings. Its mostly through experience. For concrete things we can make a line and label things. But for something that cannot be seen but only felt, how can that be conveyed from one person to the next. In everyone's life there will always be a day when the they feel a feeling for the first time. On that day how is a person supposed to express it... How can we compare what two people feel,.. How can we ensure that when two people say some word, that they mean the same things. I think the most common feelings that we encounter, and the one most easily labeled are 'happy' and 'sad'. But after all is said and done. Everything is open to interpretation. People exposed to the same circumstances are going to have different views to the event. That may lead to them labeling events differently.

Now comes the reason as to why i am ranting about such irrelevant things. Today i just wanted to talk but i cannot because i dont know what to say. Or whom to say it to.... Anyways life goes on. Lets see what i get from tomorrow.. -Or rather looking at the time- Today... :-) ...

Touch of love

2008-09-03T13:24:00.003+05:30

i wrote this poem a while ago... And a few people even liked it.. So i think i can put it here.. After all its my blog... I can write anything here that i damn please...

How could I know that I am in love,

When all that mattered was just to look tough,

I waded away the thoughts,

I strangled the suggestions,

That I could be one, so prone to emotions.

Then came a day, when I lost sight,

Of that one girl who had been my light,

In the Darkness that followed,

I wept and cried,

But couldn’t get her back into my life.

When I saw her next,

There was no pretext,

She saw into my eyes and said just this,

I have loved u forever,

And that was bliss.

I know I cannot but stand as tall,

And she made me realize, I am so small,

I cannot say that my heart was broken,

For I never had one to hear the unspoken,

I still live for the sake of that one smile,

That made my life seem worthwhile.

Dont ever reinvent the wheel

2008-08-31T22:37:00.000+05:30

For the last two days i have been slogging it out. And realized a very basic thing that i knew for a very long time. "Dont ever try reinventing the wheel". First,. there is no glory in it. Second the person who had originally invented the wheel must have already improved upon the same. And hence u are by all probability going to end up with an inferior product, at the cost of more hours than were needed to be spent on that.

I recently read somewhere that in today's age of search engines it is almost a crime not to know anything about any topic in the world. Provided that they are all a few clicks away. I think i can correlate that to my present state of mind. Its always advisable to check up on present advances on any subject before actually jumping in and trying to solve the problem. It will save us a lot of sleepless nights....

How bored must i get to call it Boring

2008-08-27T18:56:00.000+05:30

U know what,. I am getting tired of the repetitions. Everywhere its the same. The classes feel like they are the same since forever. whatever happened to higher studies. Anyways i am sure its going to pick up in a while. Though it surely is not meaning lesser work. I the meantime i can maybe brush up things. Lets see how long can i hold up. Though a few subjects do give me the creeps. Thats all for now. See u later. I have to get back to do what i am supposed to do.

I read a poem...

2008-08-26T18:48:00.000+05:30

Well i just read a poem now and not knowing what else to write here,... (Ever since i thought that i am going to write whatever comes to my mind nothing seems to be coming there... So..).

here it is...

Tell me, if I caught you one day
and kissed the sole of your foot,
wouldn't you limp a little then,
afraid to crush my kiss?...

I got it from here while stumbling.. [http://www.romanianvoice.com/poezii/poezii_tr/apoem.php]

Its lovely. The perfect thing for sweeping her off her feet... :-)

Words are all i have -- Anant Bhushan

2008-08-24T20:12:00.000+05:30

There are going to be a few words here now and then. On subjects that i may be picking up at random. Let us say whatever comes into this randomized head of mine.. :-) ...