Much

Today, while driving, the thing that connects the steering wheel to the right front tyre broke. Luckily, I was at the traffic signal and not driving per se. It is inconceivable what might have happened had I been driving...
Then, thanks to my ovarian lottery, there was somebody from home, a driver, who came to my 'rescue'. We flagged down a towing van and got the car back home. 1.5 hours have been encapsulated into 2 sentences; but such is our memory. We forget things quite easily and rather effortlessly.
There is much to live for and I have seen myself drift away from this ideology. Many people go through this phase when they think, "OMG, there is just so much to live for. When I see how people around me are living, and when I see how good my quality of life is on a relative basis, it just makes so much sense to live it up!"
But as I said earlier, our memory deceives us. We forget often, that which needs to be remembered.
My driving ordeal and the movie I am watching right now, Guzaarish, make me think of the things I have going for me and how easily some of those things could be taken away from me. I know that this is only a fleeting feeling - I will forget it soon. Sadly, this feeling needs to be cherished! :)
Carpe Diem. I really want to live it up and want to let go of my inhibitions. Even though this is a message that ought to go in my personal diary, I felt like writing it here. I felt like keeping this thought open to the world. This post, like many others that I write, will melt away into obscurity.
I have gone through a life where I have been an outstanding student. I have secured brilliant marks and distinctions. Those, now, are quite useless. I have seen myself outperform in personal forums, I have seen my weaknesses and I have seen that which makes me superior to many others. I have gone through bouts of,  what I would really prefer calling, depression. I have felt helpless, useless and inferior. I have felt alone, aimless and unhealthy. I am 24 years old now and I have started seeing life in a different light. There is much to live for and I am excited.
I heard from a friend the other day (it was said to her by a doctor), "What's wrong with you?! This is your time to look good and feel good!" "You heard what I said to him right? No-one!!! is worth dying for".
The doctor was referring to how little people tend to care of themselves and how, at times, they put unnecessary people and events before them.

We humans are unbelievable. There is a lot to live for. I hope my memory serves me well.

130711 Mumbai Blasts

I was driving home with my colleagues when what-I-thought-was-a-rumour started floating around... Slowly, the confirmation dawned on us in the car. Surprisingly, I wasn't scared. One friend made the wise decision of going back to office. It's wise because my decision to drive home was rather irresponsible; more blasts/ events could have transpired.
So there I was driving. I felt cold, heartless and numb. My head said, "Ah! So another 2 years go by and we have another series of blasts/ attacks. Good I'm alright and the odds are that all my friends are going to be alright." We, in Mumbai, have accepted such occurrences. We understand how easy it is to create chaos and how easy it is to blow up a bomb in a crowded place, and please don't tell me that something like this can't happen in a European city because it is really very easy to make a rudimentary bomb that can cause havoc.

I feel sad that I was as cold as I was. The logical reason is quite simple; there are so many human beings and frankly, most human lives are worthless to most others. I have 500+ facebook friends, of whom I care about may be 30-50. In a city that accommodates more than 15 million people, the people I know form a small small portion. I care about my peeps but I don't think much could probably happen to them.
I know quite well how most other nationalities would react; shock, horror, concern, etc. But when life in India is so cruel and when life in India is best lived with optimism, there is no room to be concerned for those who you don't care about.
I understand the, "This could have happened to me/ her/ him", but no point wallowing over it.
This city is a shit-hole. A shit-hole that is loved by its inhabitants because it is so much better than most other Indian cities. And shit happens in shit-holes like Mumbai. Don't get me wrong, but I love Mumbai immensely - no other place I could call home. But yes, there are times when we hate home.

I will now move to human behaviour. (This might cause a subdued uproar among my millions of readers).
So there were blasts. And we start calling/ messaging friends and family with "Are you alright?". Understandable. If my Mom was stuck somewhere, I would find a way of getting to her.
But
When we reach the second tier of friends, which is where most of our friends belong, we start somewhat faking the concern. If I message a second tier friend "Are you alright?" - how differently would I react to a 'yes' or a 'no'?
And please, if he/ she is not alright, he is not going to reply to my message... he's gonna be working on finding his way out or doing whatever he is up to. This behaviour of ours makes me believe how big a part peer pressure and guilt play in our lives. It is a truth that most of us will not accept, but it's true. We like showing concern and we like being shown concern. Guess that's what makes us human?

You can't take my soul

I have had trouble accepting myself for many years now. My thoughts have been questionable and my questions have been thought-provoking. There was a time that I felt I was smart, that time has now passed me by. I now see that I want to see a lot of what humanity and nature has to offer to me; not just visually but also emotionally and socially.
For a long time now, I have questioned people's behaviour in various circumstances and I truly believe that we as a kind are becoming overly superficial in our approach to our lives. I was reading about Charlie Munger and came across a statement he made about how his endeavour is a lot about learning and growing than about much else.
I like the word 'iconoclast' and I like the word 'contrarian'. Why can't there be a global war around the corner? Why can't Indian G-Secs touch 10%? Why can't more of us leave the clutches of capitalism and the spiral that ensues? There are possibilities everywhere and even then I see us following, largely, a single file.
I am about to embark on my next phase knowing fully well how hopeless my prospects might be and how woefully inadequate I am (that's what she said, sorry... bad joke), but I also want to embrace the knowledge that time is on my side unless something untoward happens. Alas.

I am immensely hopefully and a part of me is joyous. There is little that I remember, but I kinda remember the child I used to be and I am happy to say that the same child is within me now. Now, after a very long time.

The Nanking Massacre

The Nanking massacre was conducted by Japanese troops in 1937, over a period of 6 weeks after The Japanese captured the city of Nanking. I am reading about it right now and it's sad that I had never heard about it. 20,000 to 80,000 women were raped during that period and 100,000s people were killed. Forced incest, child rape, mutilation were some of the things accounted by journalists and other people in that city.
It appalls me to think that humans could be that cruel; it almost seems unbelievable. Almost.
I cannot imagine the world in the midst of war again, and yet, because I can't imagine it I think it will happen within a decade or so. Axioms are dangerous. The world has been largely peaceful for a very long time, it should continue being so for many years to come.

I cannot imagine troops of the 21st century being as vengeful as those of yester-years. But humans can surprise.

The stupid reign

When I was a child (physically at least) life was short-term competitive. Extremely competitive. I remember believing that I was 'smarter' than many others, one, because of my marks, and two, because of my thought processes which I believe I was aware of.
I remember segregating people into interesting and 'everyone else'; needless to say that the two pools were unevenly sized. Upon entering the 'work' world I see that those differences tend to melt away. Kids whom one would think not able enough to cope well with the competitive world are doing well (some of them). There are people with lesser intellect and lesser curiosity and lesser practicability succeeding. By success, I refer to designation, appreciation and monetary well-being; I do not refer to an interesting personality, an interesting life, an affable nature or a self-actualized being.

I see around me, in various organizations, people in positions (figurative :| ) that are enviable and unbelievable knowing how utterly insignificant I think of their existence relative to competition. It is true that luck and happenstance (may be a tautology here) are key determinants of people's progress or journeys through life.

I see now a sticky behaviour perpetrated by organisations and by people at the helm. Minds are narrow at times and oft distrustful. It is under these circumstances that people opt to switch fields due to disenchantment or become (supposed) masters of their own progress through what can be loosely termed as entrepreneurship. It does sadden me often when I see capable hands indulging in menial tasks with the promise of climbing the corporate ladder or the promise of the 'learning experience'.
Ladders break and so do promises. People fall and find their way through as long as they have their respective heads resting on able shoulders. This capitalistic world seems to have made us machines living in fear of an uncertain tomorrow and I hope to remember the child that I was...

Climate

Captain Planet was introduced in 1990. I remember seeing it avidly everyday (flashback).
We are in 2011 and news about China's recent drought crop up. There was a similar drought last year that destroyed the wheat crop.
I am worried because we as humans have been focusing on economic development without sustenance. The tipping point seems to be approaching and I am concerned.

Climate

It feels odd to think the way I do bu I grow concerned about how this planet is shaping up. I believe that greater access to information might be influencing my thoughts and I hope that is the case.
Large chunks of the Arctic and Antarctic ice shelfs breaking off, the lowest rainfall in 50 years in a paddy growing region, a drought last year in the wheat growing region of Russia, large swaths of the Brazilian Amazon rainforest being replaced by farmland, the presence of harmful substances in Chinese (and plausibly other countries') produce, semi-random bouts of food produce shortages; events like earthquakes, volcanoes and tsunamis have been part of Earthen history and should hence be overlooked.

We have managed to change the landscape of Earth, especially over the last 100 years, and we still believe that there is nothing that is really going wrong. The tipping point is approaching. I expect shocks to our sedentary system.

Writing music

I was listening to Chopin last night and was spellbound, yes, spellbound, by some of the music. To describe fantastic musical creations in words would be an insult to the creator (not God, please). I then proceeded to reading a bit about the guy who lived in the 1800s; I thought to myself, it's great that the music has survived. I then thought of Indian music and how it hasn't survived; Indian music is, may be, played from the heart and the mind almost extemporaneously but we don't have records of what a musician in a Mughal court in the 1700s would play.
We don't have a language for music whereas the Western European societies did develop a language for music. It's something we take for granted but just imagine how much the world is missing because of lost ancient music.

Deviations

Normal people lead normal lives and go through very small deviations. Contrary to fairy tale beliefs, normal lives are quite alright and can be quite fruitful, however a normal American life, is different from a Japanese life is different from an Indian life. The problem is not with the normal life or the outlier life, the problem is with the inconsequential, uninterested life that is more passed through than lived. It's a thought that recurs often and disturbs me seldom. Enjoyment is a subjective experience and one that can't be explained well.
I crave to have my niche and my share of the un-normal. It's a pursuit I say!

The travails of society

My blogging has reduced primarily because of work and secondarily because my eyes have been giving me grief. To clear the air; my eyes are tired, dry and in pain especially by the time I come back from work; this makes me avoid the computer once I come home.
My third eye-specialist is trustworthy and has given me tear-inducing drops which will  start being effective 2.5 months from now. However, all of this is of little relevance to any reader.

The other day I was reading a post by 'Neo Indian'. It's quite a hilarious site with very meaningful statements talking about the India that is, was and should be. He asked people to stop posting 'supportive' comments on social networks and start doing something meaningful like supporting soldiers or actually being a part of the rally.. For me, that was one of many such littered posts on the net.
A dilemma facing some of us new Indians is our affection for our country.
I have clarified before that more than India I belong with the Indian culture - not the villages and the bureaucracy but the language spoken by a Mumbai-ite, the food, the issues, the joys and the sentiments. I get annoyed when people say that we should work for our country or for our parents, not because that could possibly be ridiculous but because nobody ought to suggest why and how one should live with the 'suggestion' being the face to a guilt producing demand.
As a contrast, I read a letter by Theodore Deden which seems to be speaking about investing but is in fact speaking about a way of life; a way of life that we ought to be living but contrasts with how most people live today. What I drew from the letter was individualism and a greater consciousness of that which surrounds us, that which has come to pass and that which we ought to work towards.

I crave independence - could be because of the way my life has panned out or what I have heard or read or seen - and I ache to create a difference to my own life. This is in stark contrast to what I used to be.

I remember the time when I said, very sincerely, that I want to change the world.
I remember the time when, for love, I changed what I used to be in favour of supporting the relationship.
I also remember the time when I used to excel at academics and was rather proud of my achievements.
There was a time when I ached to get back to work and to give something back to society.
I now believe that only if I live for my personal success will I be in a position to be with someone or live for something or give something back to society. It's alright if I fail at following through after attaining my success, because I know that that will be an endeavour and not an end.
Personal success has little to do with wealth. It has a lot to do with the freedom to travel, read, listen to music and grow individually. "We are all here to learn" said my ex-professor and that I hold close to me.

Working for somebody when one has access to more potential is ridiculous. But in the short-term it could be justified. Only if I am to find my balls (figurative) will I start my progress. I am appalled at how little time I have to read, travel and experience the fruits of life. Studying and following a way of work will only create knowledge which is shared by many others. I would love to know more about people, cultures, histories and progresses - may be I will be a couple of steps ahead in seeing the progress of civilization. And this could be a great support system to the way I am.

I used to be content. Am not anymore. I know the field of work I am bound to enjoy, the workplace I would love to tap-dance to (credit goes to Mr. Buffett), the kind of books I would love to own and read, the kind of people I would love to eat or drink with, the kind of time I would love to have on my hands and the kind of health I would love to develop. Am I a few steps ahead or am I creating my own little cocoon?

Drake makes me ...

Nick Drake makes me sway; there is something haunting about his voice that makes me write freely - only at times though. I smile often when I listen to his sorrowful songs. I smile at the creature he allowed himself to become and at the figure the world will never recognize.

Profound

A wise man once said, "If you are alive, you ought to live."

Please come again!!!

Once in a while we are fated to meet extraordinary people. By extraordinary, I mean 'away from ordinary', because let's face it... most people are quite similar and rather boring.
French chick working at Airbus, vacationing with her brother in Laos and Cambodia by taking a 4-month sabbatical, and finally moving to a town called 'Surkhet' in Nepal for 2 months to work for an NGO. This is the girl I spent time with over 4 memorable evenings/ days, albeit around other people.

What struck me about this creature was the brilliance that she brought into a room... a child at heart and quite crazy. She said it very simply, "Remember, it's not we who are crazy, it's the other people who take their lives too seriously." The time we spent together was usually around other people but our conversations were very simple. We spoke of people, relations, our own insecurities, culture, identity or the lack thereof and what we found amiss in the people around us at times...
I spent about 4 evenings with her and dropped her to the airport - and quite possibly, we might never meet again, which would be very sad.
I loved her attitude towards fights (in relationships)... too much of that going around anyway, and well, we are together to be happy, really no point fighting. Am too busy smiling. Hope she stays a child forever and hope that society doesn't spoil her.
Please come again!! ;)

And for the record: Buffalo milk pancakes cooked in ghee rock!!!

Fabulous One-Liners

"It is important for people to realise that optimism, skepticism and pessimism can co-exist."

"One day was heart-fucking, the next was hard-fucking and the next was mind-fucking."

"Are those hickeys?"
"Jackass!!"

Code 1800

Some things seem so insignificant but in that moment they can be fabulous.
The car I drive, Skoda Fabia - its battery died after 4 years. A new one had to be installed and after installation, for some reason (of course it's always 'some reason'), the music system and device wouldn't work.
On start-up it would say "SAFE" and then it would flash some Code. Random button pushing - like Deedee - would get the screen back to "SAFE". Completely harrowing.
I went for one and a half days without the music and in the evening I picked up the car manual and literature; I had to figure this out. I had assumed something wrong with the circuitry which is why it said "SAFE".

So I flip through the manual rather cautiously, I go through the index and can't find anything meaningful. Annoyed.
I then go through another manual where there is a note on anti-theft. Luckily I see the word "SAFE". Aha!!
Apparently, Skoda has a mechanism wherein whenever a battery is replaced the music system locks itself to hinder a thief's motive :|
The manual tells me to put in a code like "0000" - I figure out the way to change numbers on the screen and press the 'play' button. No use. Nothing happens.
Too add to the agony, the device locks itself for one hour after 2 unsuccessful attempts.

The manual also says something about how the code is stored in the instrument cluster so one usually need not manually enter the code. Right!
When I'm about to lose all hope I see a sticker on the manual with a barcode and a long number with a 4 digit number underneath. Hmmm.. It read : "1800"
I punch it in.

Voila!!!

By now you might be wondering why you're still reading this...
Well, it's more of a reminder to me for how jubilant I was when it started working :)
Music keeps me alive and keeps me ticking :)
I was going to give it to a mechanic or someone, and I didn't have to. You know what that means? No toiling in traffic. No waiting. No questions. No more hassles. I did this! It is small.. but I did this!!
Ha!!!

Into the Wild

Chris / Alex McCandless wrote well.

"The very basic core of a man's living spirit is hit passion for adventure.
The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun."

"You are wrong if you think Joy emanates only or principally from human relationships. God has placed it all around us. It is in everything and anything we might experience."

This is from the book "Into the Wild" and the above quotes are Alex's own.
The last quote he negates before death when he notes:

"And so it turned out that only a life similar to life of those around us, merging with it without a ripple, is genuine life, and that an unshared happiness is not happiness... And this was most vexing of all. HAPPINESS ONLY REAL WHEN SHARED."

Did he have to go through his ordeal to realise this? Could he have been one of the very few who actually realised this? I ask because most of us don't know the other possibility, of living without society and love.


The book is quite excellent. It's not as glorious as the movie but is sobering. Jon Krakauer is the author and he expressed his compassion for the kid in the introduction/ foreword. There are two chapters which I really liked. One in which Jon talks of other weirdos/ loners/ pursuers and the other when he describes his youth and his journey to Alaska to conquer Devil's Thumb. Fantastic stuff.
I enjoyed the part where when he came back to the town and recited his tale to the town folk, they didn't seem to care :)
I relished the part where he compared his ... well... this is the statement (He was 23 years old then):
"At that stage of my youth, death remained as abstract a concept as non-Euclidean geometry or marriage."

This book and books like this make one realise how shallow a city-dweller's journey can be. Yes.

127 Hours

The movie rocks. There was two scenes that reminded me of me.
1. Aron Ralston (James Franco) as a kid with big specs and his father takes him to a part of the canyon to see the sunrise.
I have thought of this a few times; if I ever choose to or am fortunate enough to have a kid I would love to go trekking with him, away from the city to a secluded part of earth. It's something that I'm sure I would not enjoy with my girlfriend or wife.

2. When Aron just realises that he is trapped and says something for the first time.
While walking on the Sheltowee trail in the Red River Gorge; I had been walking for two hours or so and then I said, "I haven't heard my voice for quite a while." That is the first human sound I had heard in two hours or so.
The feeling was precious and I hold it very dear.

Antarctica - and we waste time chasing money and society :)

Yes - that was a long title. For a reason.
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Source: http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/5x7Hs3/www.mentalfloss.com/blogs/archives/45981

There is a glacier in Antarctica that seems to be weeping a river of blood. It’s one of the continent’s strangest features, and it’s located in one of the continent’s strangest places — the McMurdo Dry Valleys, a huge, ice-free zone and one of the world’s harshest deserts. So imagine you’re hiking through this –





– which has been kept ice-less since God was a child because of something called the katabatic winds, which sweep over the valleys at up to 200 mph and suck all the moisture out of them. Anyway, you’re hiking along, passing dessicated penguin carcasses and such, and you come to this.



A bleeding glacier. Discovered in 1911 by a member of Robert Scott’s ill-fated expedition team, its rusty color was at first theorized to be caused by some sort of algae growth. Later, however, it was proven to be due to iron oxidation. Every so often, the glacier spews forth a clear, iron-rich liquid that quickly oxidizes and turns a deep shade of red. According to Discover Magazine –

The source of that water is an intensely salty lake trapped beneath 1,300 feet of ice, and a new study has now found that microbes have carved out a niche for themselves in that inhospitable environment, living on sulfur and iron compounds. The bacteria colony has been isolated there for about 1.5 million years, researchers say, ever since the glacier rolled over the lake and created a cold, dark, oxygen-poor ecosystem.

Even weirder: scientists think that the bacteria responsible for Blood Falls might be an Earth-bound approximation of the kind of alien life that might exist elsewhere in the solar system, like beneath the polar ice caps of Mars and Europa.

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Disclaimer: I did not write a single word from the above excerpt.

This article and the photos are brilliant. Not because they exist but because we choose to remain so withdrawn from the glorious natural creations. A barren, cold, ice-free desert in Antarctica makes sense once you read about it but I am sure when I make this assumption - one thinks of Antarctica as an ice, ice, ice land.

My point: There is so much world out there. It's a corny statement - but so true :(

A Stolen Essay

" Today, I thought of how much I detest what this city has become. And then I thought that the standard of living has improved and is still better than those in many other cities.

Sadly, humanity, civility and simplicity have been lost.
I want to fight for these things but find it simpler to overlook them and potentially leave this city and may be this country. "

1000 Awesome Things

http://1000awesomethings.com/

http://www.ted.com/talks/neil_pasricha_the_3_a_s_of_awesome.html

Take a step back - life can be simple. Believe it.