Keep it simple

Do I really need this?

2011-03-05T12:59:00.000-08:00

The tendency to measure oneself on standards set by others is a very human failing. At work it is about the size of the division one manages or the speed of promotion, at home it is the size of one’s car, the square footage of one’s apartment or even the social stature of one’s partner. Each of these does not have as much intrinsic value to a person as the value placed on it by others. Even a field like academics, where people are perceived to have abjured these materialistic desires, is not without its own set of such false standards. High profile conferences, papers published in top journals and number of citations govern the self-worth of more academics than one would like to believe.

As a rule, I do not limit the choices I have in life by imposing too many “principles” on myself. But there are some principles that are more liberating than constraining. Not caring about what others think of you and having your own standards to measure yourself is one such principle. I must admit that I must have violated this principle many more times than I would have followed it, but whenever I have followed it I have found that it has opened up new and more fulfilling paths in life. It is hard to follow this principle simply because it is so easy to find a rationale for why you actually need that big car or that big project or the first rank in class. It is just so easy to fool oneself into believing something that one wants to believe but is just not true. I have fallen into this trap unknowingly (or rather knowingly) countless times but thankfully, life has presented me with moments where I could pause and ask myself the hard questions.

This is one such moment. And now that I have asked myself the question, I can clearly see the delusion I was pushing myself into by telling myself that I needed to study abroad and that a degree from a UK/US university was the best way of pursuing what I wanted to do in life. This is completely false. I wanted to study economics as a way to find solutions to the problems plaguing my country and that can best be done by being in the country and not by sitting in a foreign country listening to the hundred and fifty sixth discussion on how the financial system of the world (which means the US and Western Europe) needs to be changed.

I can now clearly see how this happened. I always knew that a corporate job was not what I wanted to do all my life, but I was unsure of what it was that I wanted to do. I happened to read P.Sainath’s book “Everyone Loves a Good Drought” and it opened my mind to what was happening in the country, unseen to the urban middle class whose eyes were dazzled by the “shining” economic growth. At the same time I came into contact with researchers working in wildlife conservation and realised that intelligent and educated people could make a difference and working towards making that difference did not necessarily mean living a penurious life. I decided to quit my job. What should have followed was that I should have become part of some project or organisation working in development while also educating myself in economics. But what happened was quite different. I knew that I would be able to get admitted into a “top” university and hence convinced myself that I needed to do that in order to pursue my plans. I got lured by the prestige attached to these Universities, or to be more precise, prestige that others attach to these universities.

This is not to say that studying at Cambridge has been a bad experience, far from it. But the opportunity cost (well, I did study economics) of studying here, in terms of what I could have done in India, has been greater than the benefit.

Once I had my epiphany, I thought that I should always be wary of falling into this trap of chasing vanity and adulation instead of self-actualisation and fulfilment. Hence, I am writing this post to remind my future self to always ask, “Do I really need this?”

Mr. Prime Minister

2011-02-26T09:45:00.000-08:00

Dr. Manmohan Singh commands respect as an economist and an administrator. His detractors call him a weak prime minister, but given the kind of choice presented to the country, he was, by far, the best that we could have had. But, even with his wisdom, I see at least two major flaws in his economic and political approach.

His basic economic principle for running the country has been to promote growth, leading to increased revenue for the government and use this increased revenue to provide welfare and social security services for the poor. The thought behind the idea is benign but the idea itself can have a lot of adverse consequences. Unbridled capitalism of the American kind leads to increased inequality (even the most simplistic models of capitalism show that when people can use money to make more money, the rich get richer very fast). This inequality of control over the capital in the country will lead to the concentration of power into the hands of a small number of people who will then be able to manipulate public policy, either through bribes or lobbyists, to favour their concerns rather than the concerns of the society as a whole. This is all the more dangerous in India, where a large number of people have to struggle for the most basic needs like food and security and hence are not in a position to make their concerns heard. A much more effective approach is to concentrate the state's resources on providing services like health, education and governance much more effectively to the people with the existing resources at the government’s disposal. Once people don’t have to struggle for their basic needs, they will demand their rights and will be better placed to use the power that democracy bestows upon them.

The recent economic survey shows that government expenditure on health is a pathetic 2 percent of GDP. With India languishing below neighbouring countries like Sri Lanka and Bangladesh in most health indicators, I find the government’s expenditure strategy inexplicable. The fact, as shown by statistics, is that good health is a prerequisite for economic prosperity and not the other way around. So, I hope Dr Singh gets his priorities right, sooner rather than later.

I also have serious objections to his statements about compulsions of coalition politics preventing him from doing the right thing. He asked the reporters if they would rather have elections every six-months. The truth is that no one, not even the coalition partners want quick elections. Dr Singh could well have pressed for what he wanted, like he did with the nuclear deal against the left, but chose not to. He has to take responsibility. We are not responsible for the circumstances that surround us but we surely are responsible for the actions we take under those circumstances. At the very least, I would expect the Prime Minister to realise his folly and understand that doing the right thing is not necessarily bad politics.

United States of Economics

2011-02-05T15:13:00.000-08:00

Economics research, like many other fields of study, is dominated by one country. The US produces most of the published research and most of the top researchers in economics. But along with being the biggest source of economic research, it is also the biggest topic. A disproportionately large fraction of journal articles in top economics journals is about the US. The fact that only 4 Nobel Laureates in economics have been from the “developing” countries may not be as important as the almost complete dominance of America (with a small role for Europe) over the economic discourse. The economic activities of 5% of the world’s population garner the attention of the world’s top economists, while whatever happens in the rest of the world is of little consequence to them and the field.

The place where this bias can be most dangerous is in education. Most standard economics textbooks are written by Americans and thus, not surprisingly, talk about the US. The chapters on Central Banking are about the Federal Reserve and the ones on policy are about Anglo-American style liberalisation. Economic theories are, because of their strong assumptions, highly context dependant and economic policies that are copy-pasted from the US are unlikely to work in a different environment. Some enlightened members of the economic community have started to realize this but have had great difficulty in making others see the light. They cry out loud that Singapore, where land is owned by the state, has performed economic miracles; that the Welfare states of Scandinavian countries have led their countries of the top of every index measuring the standard of life; that publicly owned companies, like Statoil, could also be efficient. Unfortunately, these members are few and far-between and have so far failed to break the hypnosis of US-centred economics.

People in countries like India still accord great value to foreign education without realising that economics education in the US (or even the UK, as I have discovered) introduces a bias favouring the Western economic system. That is why we find so many foreign educated economists returning to India and, guided by what they think are universal economic “principles”, zealously launching economic crusades to achieve the holy grail of the American economic system. The damage that they have caused so far is reflected in increasing inequality and alarming environmental degradation, and if they are allowed to continue the Americanisation of India then the results might be irreversible.

What's the right thing to do?

2010-08-20T02:50:00.000-07:00

I am very thankful to one of my friends for introducing me to Michael Sandel and his course on morality at www.justiceharvard.org called Justice: What's the right thing to do?

I had stopped thinking about morality at some point without even realizing it. Although, we are regularly confronted by these choices that require us to pronounce moral judgements, we don't often think about where these moral inclinations come from and what, if anything, forms the basis of these pronouncements.

Sandel, in the first of the 12 episodes online, draws the distinction between consequentialist and categorical moral reasoning, essentially a distinction between ends and means. He throws up quite a few moral dilemmas and seeing that in most cases there was nowhere near an absolute majority for any of the moral positions, reaffirmed my belief that there is no absolute right or wrong and that each person has their own moral beliefs. But that being so, we still need to think about those beliefs, question and analyze them, as when those beliefs are tested in unfamiliar circumstances, we may ourselves be surprised by the results they lead to. As Sandel says "Philosophy teaches us and unsettles us by confronting us with what we already know."

I also liked the fact that he warns against the results of such self-scrutiny, in a sense affirming to some extent the adage "ignorance is bliss", but then there are some people, and I guess I am one of them, who would rather have the pain of knowledge than the bliss of ignorance. Sandel says, "Self knowledge is like lost innocence, however unsettling you find it, it can never be un-thought, un-known."

I think I also gave him some plus points because of the way he summarizes, with a hint of disdain, the attempts made by Calicles to dissuade his friend Socrates from philosophizing and make him adopt a more "meaningful" life. Sandel says that Calicles was essentially saying, "Quit philosophizing, get real, go to business school." I loved that one. :-)

I am completely hooked on now and am definitely going to take the full course, and I think you should too.

Freedom

2009-12-14T21:04:00.000-08:00

"I want to break free..." - Queen

Freedom – the word has evoked strong emotions in the hearts of millions of people for thousands of years and has lead to the creation of numerous poems, songs, movies and other forms of self expression. The correlation between freedom and happiness has been proven in many a sociological experiment. In fact, freedom of choice, be it choice of political ideology or choice of cereal brands, is inextricably linked to human progress.

Freedom means different things to different people at different points of time. In most cases it means political freedom; the right of a society to choose its leaders. Political freedom, in our country, has been obtained after a lot of struggle and sacrifice by numerous unknown men and women and it is not my intention to undermine the value of this hard-earned right. Nevertheless, I believe that political freedom is but a small subset of the freedom that we all aspire for, and deserve, in our lives. The basic tenet of freedom may run something like this – “Every person should be free to exercise his or her choice in any matter as long as such exercise of choice does not, directly or indirectly, impinge upon the freedom of another person to do the same”. Essentially, everybody should be able to do whatever they want, as long as they don’t come in the way of others doing the same. It may sound like I am making a case for anarchy, but that is not so. The constitutions of most democratic countries enshrine this principle, which is reflected in things like freedom of speech, freedom of religion and the code of laws.

If this kind of all pervasive freedom has already been granted to us, then why am I talking about it here? The question is not of what is available to us but of what we choose to exercise. Given that society has given us a license to do as we choose, each of use should be enjoying total freedom and hence happiness. But that is not so. Few of us choose to translate the freedom granted to us, to a personal level. Personal freedom is far more difficult to obtain and practise, than political freedom ever was, because political freedom had to be snatched from the clasping hands of a colonial power, whereas personal freedom needs to be rescued from within the closed labyrinths of our own minds.

Each one of us, if we look deep enough inside us, has dreams to accomplish and desires to fulfill. All of us want to climb to the top of Maslow’s pyramid and become the best persons that we think we can become. All of us may not realise all our dreams, but should we not at least aspire for the satisfaction of having tried? Why is the farmer tilling his land in a remote village happier than the corporate CXO? Why do we feel compelled to admire a software professional who leaves an established career to work for an NGO? What is it that we are missing?

These are not easy questions to answer. Most people will be able to rattle out a list of things they want to do or achieve without a moment of contemplation. But when asked about what is preventing them from doing so, they will take a long time to come up with an answer. That is because they don’t want to express the answer that their mind is telling them – nothing. Nothing prevents us from going after out dreams. All limitations that exist have been put by ourselves rather than by others

Recently, I saw a speech by a 50 year old blind man, who had, among other unbelievable feats, flown an aircraft across three continents. He was talking about how, when he went blind in his early twenties, he lost all hope. He had wanted to be a pilot but he realised that there was no way he was going to be able to that, and hence he gave up on life. Much later in his life, he was inspired by his brother, who was also blind, sailing a yatch from Africa to Australia. He realised that nothing but himself was stopping him from doing what he wanted. And then his life changed.

I don’t claim to have broken all the boundaries of my mind and obtained the kind of personal freedom I have talked about. But yes, I have taken the first small steps towards the same. I have stopped rationalising the gap between what I was doing and what I wanted to do, and have made an effort to bridge that gap. On the first day of the new year, I will not get up in the morning knowing that I have to go and do something that I don’t really want to do but am forcing myself to do for a myriad of reasons, the primary being that I don’t know what else to do. I will get up on that morning with a blank slate. And it will be up to me and only me to write whatever I want on that slate. That, for me, is freedom.

ANDE

2009-08-26T22:38:00.000-07:00

It was definitely not a Near Death Experience (NDE). Calling it ANDE (Almost NDE) is still going a little over the line, but approximation is much less of a crime than exaggeration.

So, what happened was this. I had been at home for the past week as my mother had come down. The day before yeaterday, I was driving her down the highway to the airport, when all of a sudden my car went out of control. The brakes weren't working and the car was not responding to the steering wheel. It went and hit a car in front and then swerved to hit the median where it finally came to rest. Fortunately, there was no injury to anyone. But the moments where the car was out of control were exhilerating. It felt like having a cold shower on a chilling December morning. All my senses were tingling, taking in each stimulus like they were drops of life-nectar itself. Those few moments shook me out of the slumber I had been in for the last few weeks.

Things are a lot clearer now. The priorities in place. The path ahead visible, albeit a little nebulous. The mind is energised with an excitement that can be likened to the first time you step out of home and into a college hostel. The possibilities seem endless. The things you were struggling with so far seem so petty, so unimportant.

This is not the first time that I have felt that my life is going to change. But everytime I have felt like this, life has changed. It makes me feel like a strange mix of peace and anxiety is swirling around inside me. The time for action is here.

The more things change...

2009-07-18T01:43:00.000-07:00

It’s been a while since I last posted here, and since then a lot of things have changed in my life. But, as someone has said, the more things change, the more they remain the same. Like America has a black president but the frequency of my blogging remains as abysmal as ever… :)

Well, as always, I have started writing the blog only to realise that I don’t have any ideas on what to write beyond the first few lines. So, I will use this time to put down my very own “bucket list”

Things to do before I die

1. Write a book
2. Play at a rock concert
3. Learn mountain climbing
4. Visit north-east India
5. Be jobless for one month

Now that I have put this down, these five things are circling around my head (much like canaries circling around Tom’s head after Jerry has made him crash into a cupboard full of utensils) and making me think along the lines of doing a reverse jigsaw puzzle, where I try to re-arrange the frame my life so that these little pieces can be fit into it. Having recently gone through a major life changing experience in the parallel universe where I quit my job, I see that in that universe, I was able to at least attempt all of the above. Hence, having gone around the proverbial circle, I will take this opportunity to jump to the centre and view things from a radial distant.

I had been thinking of quitting my 9 to 5 (officially of course, actual is more around 7) and taking some time out to think about what I should be doing. Then I thought that maybe I should first think and make up my mind about what I want to do and then think about quitting. Now, thanks to this post, I am again thinking along the earlier lines. You must think I am pretty crazy, but I believe this mental condition is not so rare and is commonly described as too much thinking.

Although the thoughts have been changing, the confusion and the indecision have remained unchanged. And they have remained like that irrespective of whether the thoughts are about choices related to professional, personal or moral issues. It feels like the clarity of decision is inversely proportional to how much the decision affects you. Hence, even as the road of life leads us through myriad landscapes, the dreaded fork can always be expected to crop up at the crucial moments. It is like a cheap video game which loops the same game sequence with changing backgrounds. So, as one goes farther down the road, one realises that the more things seem to change, the more they actually remain same.

PS: I derive a lot of satisfaction in doing this kind of… circular referencing, for the want of a better term, in linking the end of a piece to the beginning. Also, substituting what should be a literary term with a term from an MS Excel error message, shows where I have been spending most of my time and also validates my current line of thought.

Story

2008-08-16T02:42:00.000-07:00

Here's a short story I wrote today... no title... any suggestions??
It was two o’clock in the morning. I was walking down a strangely empty stretch of the usually busy street. The street lights were glowing but the light seemed to fade out before it reached the street. At some point in the past these same lights would have been strong enough to shine brilliantly down from those great heights at which they were, and light the way for troubled passers-by. But now, they had grown weak, with time and ill-treatment. They hadn’t asked for nor received any gratitude for what they did, but now they seemed to be ashamed to even exist.
The late hour and the absence of company didn’t bother me. Smoking cigarettes after having quit them years ago had given me a headache and my ears were still ringing from the loud thumps of the un-acoustic sound system, which, when pumped up to the maximum volume as it had been, was distorting and mixing all the frequencies like the so-called-DJ switching tracks at that so-called-disco. But all that the crowd at that smoke filled dungeon needed was the tribal thumping of the bass drum (or it could have been the floor tom, I couldn’t tell with that shit-pot of a system) to do their trance-like movements as if praying to Dionysus himself. Someone once said that dance is a vertical expression of horizontal aspirations. Well, the expression wasn’t as subtle as the originator of that thought would have imagined. The people were shaking their bodies vigorously, mostly the areas carrying their reproductive organs. Actually, you couldn’t find a difference between the sexes. I think the vulgarity had reached such a limit that it had gone beyond sexuality. It was just plain vulgar.
I had been sitting on a bar stool, contemplating my peg of scotch. It was my third one and I knew that one more would be enough subvert my sense of decency and make me join the tribal urbanites in their madness. In the process of my contemplations, I had finished my packet of cigarettes and was wondering whether I should get more. I took out my wallet and saw a lone shiny new one rupee coin peeping out from the gaping darkness. I smiled. Intellectually, this was humorous, but the smile triggered a bout of self pity that I had kept hidden away for some time. My face started contorting and I gulped down the scotch. The burning sensation in my throat served the purpose of distracting my mind and the welling tears retreated into the corners of my eyes. I looked at my wallet again and kept it back inside. Having finished my drink I left the pub; it had served its purpose.
The mild intoxication gave me the strength to think about what I was going to do. I was sure. I had always been sure. Probably that was the cause behind everything. When my family didn’t agree with me marrying a girl of another caste, I was sure that I should go ahead and marry her anyways. When they broke all relations with me, I was sure that it didn’t matter. When my wife didn’t agree with me leaving my job and starting a band, I was sure that she just didn’t understand. When she walked out on me, I was sure that she would come back one day and ask for forgiveness. When the band started falling apart, I was sure my friends would help me. And today, when I have lost everything, I am sure there is only one way out.
I walked towards a telephone booth on the street. I entered the booth and lifted the receiver off the hook. I took out the one rupee coin from my wallet, placed it on my palm and looked at it. I thought about the people I would have wanted to talk to at that moment. My parents, my wife, my band-mates. Thinking of each of them repulsed me in a different way. They had all, in their own ways, driven me to this fate. Or may be it was me who had used them to come to this fate. Whichever way it was, I didn’t feel like talking to any of them. I put back the receiver and walked out of the booth.
I continued walking down the street, fiddling with my coin. It was strange that the finality of the moment was delivering me from my loneliness. My entire life I had felt that I had something to say but always ended up with people who didn’t understand what I was saying. Today, I did not feel the need to tell anybody what I was doing or why I was doing it. I did not want to write a note or leave a message. I was content to just do what I thought I should do.
I saw a couple of beggars sleeping on the pavement, curled up in pre-natal postures around their begging bowls. I placed the coin in one of the bowls. I walked ahead and quickened my pace. Every moment of delay would start putting doubts into my mind and I didn’t want that. I had always likened indecisiveness to weakness and although I had learnt that it was not so, my natural inclination was still to run away from doubts and questions. I started running. As my heart started beating faster, and my breathing quickened, I had to put all my effort to keep running. I couldn’t think of anything else. It was liberating.
I stopped as I came to the barricade at the end of the road. I bent down with my hands on my knees and through my clouded eyes I looked at the sea below. The waves were splashing hard against the rocks and the roar was quite loud even from the height at which I was standing. As I regained my breath, I stood up straight and climbed on to the barricade. I closed my eyes. Thoughts were circling in my head like a hurricane but I was not letting my mind rest on any of them. I clenched my teeth and bent my knees to make the jump. Before I could do it, I heard the loud roar of a car engine. I looked back to find a car speeding down the street. As it approached closer, it swerved out of control off the road and on to the pavement. I realised what was going to happen and got off my perch wondering what to do. I stood helpless as the car ran over the sleeping beggars and screeched to a halt. I rushed towards the car. The driver stumbled out of the car and looked at the bodies. They were not moving. He turned around and saw me approaching. Without a sound, he got into his car and sped away. I caught a quick glance of the number plate.
As I came near the spot I saw the trail of blood left by the tyres. I went and stood near the beggar’s bodies. I saw that their heads had been smashed. The gory sight along with the smell of blood almost disoriented me. As I looked away to avoid vomiting, I noticed something shining on the ground ahead. It was the one rupee coin. The dim street-light above was shining back at me from its reflective surface. I went and picked up the coin and headed towards the telephone booth.

Simple things...

2008-02-21T09:51:00.000-08:00

Life is complicated. People, relations, aims, desires… and fate. But in the midst of all these complications we, or rather I, tend to forget the simple things that make life worth living. Once in a while some person comes along with whom you share these things and then you realize their importance in life.

I always used to think of myself as a person who had his priorities clear – “do what makes you happy”. As a result, little things like listening to music, playing music, watching movies, reading books were always high on my list, and still are. But talking about them with a person who understands is one of the things that I had been missing without realizing it. I don’t want to delve into some deep psycho-evolutionary theory about why just chatting with certain people makes one feel good, but the fact is that it does. Is it because of the situation you are in, the topic of conversation, the setting or the person? There is no clear answer to these things. Maybe it’s a mix of all the above or maybe it’s none of them. But then, who cares? Keep it simple, remember?

Of starry nights etc

2008-01-28T22:54:00.000-08:00

On the evening of republic day, I got a call from one of the security guards my factory saying that there was no power. There was no one else in the factory as it was a holiday and they didn’t know what to do. I decided to go there and have a look for myself, as I was getting bored at home anyways, and a good drive would do me no harm. I picked up my car and drove the 15 min drive down the empty Mysore roads. The weather was good and I opened my windows and felt the breeze on my face. When I got down at the factory, I saw that it was completely dark. They had already sent the car for the electrician and were waiting for it to return. So, I decided to wait for the electrician to see what had happened. As I was waiting I just started walking aimlessly on the factory roads, thinking about life and all the games it plays. The only light there was coming from the moon and from the flashlights on a distant tower. I looked up and saw the sky. It was deep blue in colour and was filled with uncountable stars. It reminded me of when I was a child living in a small relaxed town where I often used to look skywards and marvel at the beauty of a star-filled firmament. Standing in my factory I was feeling like I was back in that small town. I asked the security guard for a chair and sat down facing the slight night breeze. And then I looked up and just stared. I was feeling a kind of warmth and I wanted to share it with someone. Someone whose company would multiply the effect nature was having on me. Someone who would understand and partake in the joy I was feeling. Someone with whom I could just sit in silence and savour these moments pregnant with poetry. But alas, that luxury had not been mine for a long time. I felt a sudden pang of emptiness inside me and my heart felt like it was sinking. All the warmth disappeared and the breeze felt frigid now. Suddenly, I felt very angry at the stars, the sky, the moon and at myself. But, I kept staring. Slowly, the stars began to dissolve in the wetness of a teardrop that was forming in my eyes. But, I still kept staring. It was as if I was challenging the heavens to throw whatever else they could at me, and I would still not look away. As the teardrop was becoming just about large enough to descend down my cheeks, the headlights of the factory ambassador car shone across the road and the security guards got up to open the gates. I too got up and took a deep breath; the teardrop disappeared into some corner of my eyes, perhaps to reappear some other time. I went up to the car and started talking to the technician about what needed to be done.

About office parties...

2008-01-26T06:11:00.000-08:00

Initially, I was always apprehensive of these office parties, or ‘get-togethers’ as they are called to make them sound more official, but lately I have started enjoying them. Earlier I used to be afraid of the wives of my colleagues. In my mind, the default setting for addressing any married woman, is ‘aunty’ (yeah, you get the picture, right). So, although I would make a lot of effort to call them Mrs X and Mrs Y, but the fear of the things that might happen if the A-word came out was always lurking in my head. Finally, I figured out a way of talking without addressing them at all. And for my boss’s wife I had a special treat. I started calling her by her first name! After whatever I’ve done (or rather not done) in my job last year, I thought that a push from his wife may make my boss rape me a little less in my appraisal. It may not happen, but it was certainly worth a try! (I have also thought about it backfiring; any husband with a slightly suspicious mind wouldn’t appreciate a dashing, handsome man addressing his wife by her first name… but fortunately that’s not the case… I mean my boss is not suspicious, not the other way)

The second group, I was most scared of was the kids. Although I still find it difficult to respond to calls of ‘uncle’ but that was not nearly the most problematic aspect. What scared me more was there propensity to ask embarrassing questions. For example “Why do you put so much gel on your hair?” or “Is that smell coming from you?” I had thought about many options for dealing with these kids, ranging from bribing to scaring to just pretending not to listen. None of them worked, especially not the third one; pretending not to listen just makes them shout out the question even more loudly so that everyone at the party knows that you are the one with a hole in his t-shirt. Finally, I found the best strategy was counter-attack. Whenever you find a kid moving around you sizing you up, you should jump at him/her with a barrage of questions “Which class do you study in?” “How did you do in your exams?” “How much did you get in maths?” “Why? Didn’t you study?” That generally shows the kid not to mess with you and you’re safe, at least for some time.

The third group of people who used to frighten the wits out of me, were over-zealous colleagues. These are the people who drag you to the dance floor and dance with such vigour right in front of you, you would wonder about their sexual preferences. They would go ahead and announce your name as the next performer, or just thrust the mike in your hand and ask you to sing. If you decline to do what you are being asked to do, you face the risk of being embarrassed with even more pushy request and announcements on the mike telling everyone that you’re not being a sport. So the best way to tackle this is to just do what you are being asked to do and to do it so horribly that they never make the mistake of calling you again. For example, once I was asked to sing. I readily agreed, grabbed the mike and started and sang the complete 5 minute song! After I finished, there was a stunned silence. I had succeeded in burning onto their minds the image of the horror that I could unleash if asked to sing. From that day, I have never been asked to sing again.

How good is my app?

2008-01-24T18:44:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, a friend of mine asked me how strong my app for MBA was. In my habitual modesty I said that only time will tell. Well, I would like to elaborate a little bit more on that here.

First, my GMAT score is a measly 780, with 99 percentile in verbal, quant and overall. Not nearly good enough, isn’t it? My academic background includes getting 99.98 percentile in CAT. My CGPA in college (IIT M) was 8.99 (I like to think of myself as being like Don Bradman, whose career batting average was 99%,,, just missed!!). Not much academically, I must say. Even in extracurricular activities it was not much, only winning insti prizes in creative writing and music competitions. Mt career so far is nothing great too - doing projects in places ranging from rural Orissa to Ho Chi Min City in Vietnam, in areas ranging from sales to core technical factory design. In the last one year, I have been heading a team of some eleven engineers and a hundred and sixty workmen in the factory, recently completed a project worth Rs 12.5 crores; not nearly impressive, wouldn’t you say? My boss has showered praises in my reco and the strengths and weaknesses mentioned by him nicely match with my essays. The essays themselves are very personal, reviewed by some of my closest friends. So, overall, not much chance of getting through, right?

Well, to tell the truth, it feels good to brag! If I actually don’t get through, then of course, I’ll have to eat my words, but that’s the risk. But, the fun is worth it.

I'm so excited!!!!

2007-12-30T07:55:00.000-08:00

I am so happy and excited (if you want to know why, please read my previous post). I am soooooo excited!!! I don’t know how many exclamation marks to put!! I was so excited and I didn’t know what to do… so I took a bath!! I have spent the whole day struggling with essays and recos and that sort of stuff… but now I just can’t seem to think about anything else. The deadlines are getting closer and I have to finish the stuff that I had kept for today… but I just don’t seem to care!!! It’s too much… I guess I’ll just go and chill out a bit and try to settle down…

Thank you...

2007-12-30T07:13:00.000-08:00

Today morning I was listening to the song ‘Thank you’ by Dido. The song has a line ‘I want to thank you… for the best day of my life’ Little did I know that today would become the best day of my life in the recent past… that too because of the actual best days of my whole life!!

I just remembered that when we were in IIMB, we had a class on Communications. All of us had to give presentations on some topics and all those presentations had been recorded! And I had files of all those recordings!!! I always knew that I had them, but somehow, amidst the tumults of my life, I had forgotten. But today, when I was day-dreaming about the past, like always, I remembered!!

I saw the recordings. I saw all my friends, looking straight at me, talking to me, smiling at me. It was some feeling! And I saw myself. I must confess I did look good! Not at all like what I have become today. But it was just too great. Remembering those times… that classroom… those people.

If you have been reading some of my earlier posts, you might be thinking that I dwell upon the past a little too much. But then that is how I am. Well, friends from IIMB… if you are reading this… ‘I want to thank you… for the best days of my life’ I am feeling so happy… I could actually sing it out!!

KF rocks!!!

2007-12-04T00:54:00.000-08:00

I have been writing way too much serious stuff on this blog. To set things right, I am going to write about my favourite airline. Not to say that air travel is not serious business. It is expensive, especially when you are traveling on your company’s money and don’t care to book 2 months early to get the cheapest flight. To get the maximum personal benefit out of my paid business travel, I had enrolled in Jet Airways’ frequent flyer program. I had just about got into the habit of managing my travel times so as to always get booked on Jet, and was eagerly waiting for the expected change in the color of my frequent flyer card (blue to dark blue or something like that) when along came this new airline and blew me off my feet. I resisted for sometime, but the lure of those red-skirted beauties was too much. Finally, I took the plunge and booked a flight on Kingfisher airlines.

I entered the airport with anticipation. I went up to the check-in counter. The girl at the check-in counter was cheerful as expected. She had a dusky skin tone, sharp features and with all the layers of make-up, she looked quite attractive. I looked at her name-tag. It said Rosita. I wondered if that was her real name. Somehow, these hospitality service providers have a belief that girls with European names appear more sophisticated or attractive… I don’t know the reason, it could be part of our collective colonial hangover.

This train of thought was broken with the realization that continuously staring at a girl’s bosom was generally not considered appropriate behaviour. I took the boarding pass and headed towards the security check.

My remaining time at the airport was quite uneventful, except for a fat or rather gruesomely obese person trying to sit on my lap in the bus and almost crushing any hopes I had of utilizing my thus under-utilised reproductive organs (‘almost’ is the key word… everything was recovered in safe and sound condition). As I boarded the plane, I was greeted with the standard put-up air hostess smiles. I deliberately tried not to look at their name tags.

I had got an aisle seat. I sat down and tried to switch on the TV. Nothing was on. They were probably waiting for the flight to take off. To divert my troubled mind, I started contemplating those air hostesses, or stewardesses as they are now called. They were mostly young girls, in their early twenties, with shapely bodies. They were wearing red minis, with a red jacket on a white top. Imitation pearl necklaces tried to convey a sense of grace but the tightness of their skirts coupled with their inexperienced chuckles conveyed something quite the opposite.

As I was still appreciating the good Mr Mallya had done to the air-travelling public, one of his stewardesses came to convey something to the passenger sitting across the aisle from me. She came there and bent over ( I wonder why they don’t speak just standing up) and her cute red butt, that I had been admiring from a distance, almost landed straight in my face (‘almost’ again the keyword). It was so close to my face, had she been having any gastro-intestinal problems of the flatulent kind, I would have been knocked straight out (disgusting, I know, but this was the exact thought that had come to me at that point).

Later as an icing on the cake, the red beauties removed their jackets and let deprived souls like us have a view of the curves in the upper half of their bodies as well.

During one of the ragging sessions at IITM, one of my seniors had asked me if bird-watching was one of my hobbies. I had very innocently said no. Little did I know that that would go on to become one of my favourite pastimes (as it is with most guys).

Kingfisher rocks. And with the anticipated removal of restrictions on alcohol in domestic flights, it will become the true ‘King of good times’. Imagine sitting in an airline, drinking KF beer being served by hot, underdressed chicks!! I mean, that is every deprived, alcoholic IITian’s dream. Long live Vijay Mallya!

Mistakes...

2007-12-03T22:00:00.000-08:00

Nowadays, I’m in the process of writing essays for my MBA applications. For me this involves deep introspection into all the things that I have done so far, followed by the shock of facing the horrific truth that is my life and ending with using my almost defunct creative powers to conjure up some nice ‘politically correct’ things to write in these essays.

For instance one such essay was supposed to be written on “What have you learnt from a mistake?” That led me to think about all the mistakes that I have made in my life. Well, I have made many, to be honest, but there is only one that impacted my life in a way that can never be changed. I have learnt the lesson the hard way and incorporated that into my life completely so that it has become one of my strengths now.

The mistake was prejudice - making opinions about people without even getting to know them - believing what other people say and taking that as a true picture of what a person is. I lost my biggest opportunity for happiness in this life because of this prejudice. And it was not like the opportunity came and went, it was right there in front of me for four entire years. But when I decided to look beyond the prejudice and made an attempt to know the person myself, it was too late.

There are lots of other things that have given me misery but I am not yet sure whether those were mistakes and whether I would not do the same thing again if given a chance. But the one above, I am really sure about. Ever since I realized that, I have made it a practice not to judge people too soon. I take time to understand a person in totality, with all the facets, strengths and weaknesses, before forming an opinion about the person.

But putting the above as an essay for a MBA admission seems unthinkable. Or does it? Maybe I should just put this instead of some made up crap. Well, I don’t know… let’s see.

Nothing in particular...

2007-11-29T21:42:00.000-08:00

I feel like I don’t have much to write. No serious stuff at least. The forced humour that I attempt to bring in and that ends up disgusting me is always there. I think I have figured out everything in life and hence have nothing to offer in the form of discussion, and preaching my ideas has always made me uncomfortable.

I think the sane thing to do would be to just give an account of what I am doing these days. Although sanity and common sense have not always been my forte, I will follow them this time, for a change.

Factory work is becoming more and more routine in nature. There are very few new and challenging things to do. The fact that I have now spent a year in the factory means that all the things that I had done with a lot of excitement and curiosity the last time are coming back as annual chores that I would rather not do if given a choice.

As more of such days go by, where I slog for 12 hours without getting any joy or even satisfaction, my inclination towards leaving this becomes stronger. It is not that I have not thought of leaving before, but they were more like sporadic outbursts that would later settle down with me being happy to go back to the same life. But now, the feeling is consistent and that makes me think that the time has come to change.

Otherwise life is pretty mundane. TV, movies, music… the same old stuff. The only thing that I would like to do much more of is reading. Somehow, over the past few years I have lost my love for books and my obsession with reading. I end up buying books, maybe more out of habit, but these books then just sit on my shelf waiting for me to open them and see if all the things printed about them on their back pages are really true. But that never happens. I have tried many times, but it’s like pushing a car to make it start. When it doesn’t start even after pushing for a long time, you give up and choose to walk.

That’s about it. Hopefully next time I will have something better to write about.

… smells of the past

2007-09-23T02:13:00.000-07:00

When I first read this expression, written by a person much more spontaneous and instinctive than me, it struck me as being a very powerful way of indicating a vague but strong association. I was so fascinated by the phrase and its impact that I asked the person’s permission to use it myself. Today, once again the phrase is resonating in my mind, but this time it’s because of actually experiencing it myself.

I am in Bombay today (I still prefer to call it that), in a place called Gulita, which is a training centre for HUL managers. The last time I was here was more than a year back. As soon as I entered the second floor of the building where all the rooms are, the smell entered my consciousness. It was like entering a time machine. For a moment I felt like it was last year and the memories came rushing into my brain. I couldn’t help just standing at the place for a minute to let all those thoughts fill my head. I felt like the person I was one year ago.

The smell itself was not particularly nice or captivating. But it was distinctly the smell of Gulita. And the memories too were not all pleasant ones, but they were all very strong and had in some way pushed me towards what I am today.

Why does the sense of smell bring such strong associations, compared to sight or sound? Maybe because scent is a vaguer but more primal kind of sense. Or maybe because we have cheated our senses of seeing and hearing so much using technology, that the mind might have given up trying to make any associations using them. You see a person’s photograph, hear the voice or even watch a video, but the person is not there. The sense of peace and happiness you derive out of the person’s company is missing. But if you are smelling the distinctive scent of a person, the person is not only there with you but is also probably close enough to give you all that can be got out of proximity. The same goes for places too. Hence, maybe the mind gets trained to ignore visual and audio cues as compared to smell.

Because of the power of a scent, I used to wish for some way to capture or make a copy of the scent, which I knew I would be never able to smell again, and use it to generate all the tumultuous feelings which the original did. But now I know that the day this will be achieved, smell would loose the power of association, in the same way the other senses have and we would never be able to feel the exhilaration of these moments, although few and far between, when we are intoxicated by the smell of the past.

My experiments in the kitchen...

2007-07-23T09:34:00.000-07:00

Another one of my ever changing fancies ... cooking. I was entranced by it till a while ago. As with most other things, it didn't take me long to realise that culinary skills are just as simple as any other and it wasn't worth my while to put any effort to master them... and as quickly as I had started cooking, I gave it up. Today I gave away my potatoes, onions and tomatoes to the house maid and planned to restrict myself to noodles and the occasional hot beverage. So as I bid good bye to all the peeling, slicing, boiling, dough-making, marinating, frying and burning the edges of my hand-towels I would like to share with you somes of the more favourable results of my misadventures in the rasoi.

Egg fried rice and dal

My favourite - Channa Dal, Chawal and Aloo Lahsun Mircha Bhujia

Fried dal, Chawal and Aloo Tamatar

Veg Pulao with Dal and Bhindi

Parathas with baked beans (A fusion of Indian and Continental, if you will)

Gulab Jamuns(they were awesome!!)

Pancakes... I think.

Jhal Murrhi ... a Cal speciality.

Halwa!!

Dessert anyone?

Rock and roll...

2007-07-08T09:49:00.000-07:00

Rock music has several characterisitcs which set it apart from other kinds of music. It is generally made by a band of 4-5 people who do the lyrics, the music, the recording and the performance, it is made more for live performance than recording and it's lyrics are significantly different from other genres of music. The lyrics of some of the greatest rock anthems like led zeppelin's stairway to heavendo not make much sense as a whole... they don't tell a story or convey a particular message, neither are they a poem or something. It is a little bewildering to non-rockers that people actually listen to lyrics that don't make any sense. But that statement is incomplete, the lyrics don't make sense as a whole. The lyrics are essentially unconstrained expressions by the artist and may make sense only to him in the whole. It is like a surrealist painting where several unconnected objects are put together and juxtaposed against one another. The reason for putting a particular object may only be clear only to the painter (or not even to him!!) The same funda applies to rock songs. The meaning of each and every line may not be very apparent but the sense or feeling that the whole song conveys, the words of the lyric, the baseline, the drum beats, the guitar solo, the rhythm, the melody... everything together gives you an undefinable sense and you can connect with what the artist was feeling when he composed the song.

And sometimes, some of the lines in a song will hit you so hard... as if they were written just for you... even by you... and then, that song becomes yours...

I'll put one such song here... it's called "yellow" and it's by coldplay...

Look at the stars... look how they shine for you... everything you do
And they're all yellow
I came along... I wrote a song for you... all the things you do
It was called yellow
So then I took my time... oh what a thing to have done
And it was all yellow

Your skin... oh yeah your skin and bones
Turn into something beautiful
You know... you know I love you so
You know I love you so

I swam across... I jumped across for you... oh what a thing to do
'Cause you were all yellow
I drew a line... I drew a line for you... oh what a thing to do
And it was all yellow

Your skin... oh yeah your skin and bones
Turn into something beautiful
You know... for you I'll bleed myself dry
For you I'll bleed myself dry

It's true... look how they shine for you... look how they shine for you...
Look how they shine...
Look at the stars... look how they shine for you... and all the things you do.

About achievements, amigos and alcohol

2007-06-04T21:22:00.000-07:00

In the paragraphs that follow, I will narrate an incident which comprises of what I consider the biggest achievement of my life. It should also serve as an example for people who live the dual life of being the innocent, sincere, obedient son / daughter at home and a wild raging party animal outside. I, of course, consider myself one of the afore mentioned species and would plead guilty to committing the dire mistake of bringing the dualities of my personality to the same point in space-time, which happened to be in my hometown of Calcutta during an otherwise normal Sunday evening.

Here is what happened. One of my friends had got married the day before and was hosting a party to celebrate this premature curtailment of the infinite degrees of freedom he had enjoyed as a bachelor. Yours truly along with a couple of other friends dropped in well before time and occupied our seats. The lure of alcohol is overpowering by itself but when it comes free, it becomes almost impossible to resist. As I have been known to do on several occasions in the past, I gave in to the temptation and ordered my favourite scotch. I drank, and my dear friend whom for anonymity’s sake I will call Mr Abhay Kothari, DFA production manager, HLL Pondicherry or Kots in short, was also giving me company. It is to be noted at this point of time that Kots was staying with me at my home and that both of us had not let that fact influence our normal behaviour in any way. So, we drank and drank and drank and then drank some more. I stopped short of making alcohol the main component of my bloodstream but Kots went on as if he was going to be marooned in Gujarat for the rest of his life. He drank whisky, vodka, champagne and anything which could be filled in a glass and had a stench. Finally when the party was over, both of us needed some cajoling to leave the place.

Once we were out of the place, we realized that we had to go home. We decided to have some coffee to get into some decent shape and then head home. So, we went the only CCD in Cal which is open 24 hrs and ordered some coffee. As we were drinking and planning on how to get the taxi driver to not strip us of half our salaries, Kots looked up at me as if something very, very bad had happened and he had not told me. “I have to puke”, he said. And puke he did. The sink at the CCD toilet had evidently been designed to handle a good wash and a gargle from at least five people, but none of those people was Abhay Kothari. I will not deign to describe the swirling and overflowing and splashing as it may result in similar outcomes for some of the weak stomached readers, but it suffices to say that we were not the cleanest people in Calcutta that night by a long way.

Now I in my semi-conscious state was bent upon going home while Kots, as if speaking from another dimension, wanted nothing to do with it. Finally we decided that we would get a room in a hotel for the night and return next morning. I called up my parents and told them that we were staying back at my friend’s place. So, we sat in a cab and went in search of a hotel. It was 2 ‘o clock in the night and it was Calcutta!! There was not a lighted house in sight wherever we went and Kots’ condition was getting worse by the minute. We stopped twice in the middle for him to get out and puke (where was he getting so much stuff to puke??). Kots was begging me to take him to even Park hotel if there was nothing else. I knew that if I did that, the next day he would either kill me or force me to spend the rest of my life in slavery to pay off the debt from the hotel bill. The couple of hotels the taxi driver, who by the way was completely psyched, could find for us were not interested in renting rooms. (If you wake a Calcuttan in the middle of the night and offer him free sex with Angelina Jolie for the rest of his life, I have serious doubts whether he would do anything other than shake his head, yawn in your face and go back to sleep.) Finally we found a place where the owner was willing to let us stay the night (he must have been new in Calcutta). But he too was very suspicious of us. And when he saw Kothari’s serene face, smiling as if he was having orgasms in every part of his body, he lost his mind. He was sure that we were drug addicts running away from something. He even wanted to call the police and all. After a lot of explaining and bombarding him with a potent mixture of truths, half-truths and blatant lies, he agreed to let us stay.

By this time it was four in the morning and Mr Kothari had a flight to catch at 8 am. So, I slept for a couple of hours and woke up cursing the man who invented alarms. With all the might in my badly hung over body, I woke Kots up and we proceeded back home.

I consider getting through that night in the state that I was, doing the things I did, the single greatest achievement of my life thus far. I don’t know if my parents suspected anything and I don’t care. But Kots definitely owes me one and the latest entry in my to-do list is to go to his hometown, get myself dead drunk, puke on his shoes and then command him to take me to the nearest five-star hotel.

What the f**k is wrong with me?

2007-06-04T21:15:00.000-07:00

I have a good job that I like, a good boss who likes me, a nice cozy house with all the amenities, a cool car to drive around a cool city with a cool climate and above all an uninterrupted supply of beer and no one to stop me from drinking or even to make me feel bad about it! And what is my first instinct after I get all this… change!! Right after everything has settled down, I’ve got the hang of my job and started to do some good things, got to know about the city and started hitting some good joints… i.e. overall life is good, I get bored with it. For the last few weeks, the vagabond in me has been troubling my thoughts increasingly and as the days go by it is becoming clearer that eventually I will have no option but to move.

When I dropped some hints to my parents about this, they were unexpectedly calm. I have a feeling that they have given up trying to understand me and are content to just let me do whatever I want. I don’t blame them, even I have given up on understanding myself and have adopted a similar stance of letting myself do whatever I wish. Some of my other relatives, though, found it hard to digest that just a couple of weeks ago I was raving about my job and my boss and my house and now I wanted to change it all. One of my aunts said that she was sure that I would do something useless like make a movie or something. The remark made me happy, even a little proud. I have noticed that whenever someone calls me something like this… vagabond, irresponsible, unsure, ‘hippie’ … I feel happy. My parents’ apprehensions that I may in fact turn out to be something like that may not be completely unfounded after all.

Work

2006-11-18T04:05:00.000-08:00

"Work". Although I can't expect myself to remember when or how I had first come across this word but a fairly probable guess would blame it on one of those primary school English language textbooks. 'My father works in the hospital.' 'Ram works in the field' (I vaguely remember wondering why the boys' names were always either Ram or Mohan and the girls' were always Gita or Anu). Knowing myself, I don't think I would have put the unnecessary effort to actually understand the meaning of the word when just mugging up the examples would have sufficed for the tests.

The point when the word would have started to carry some meaning would have been when it got attached to 'home' and became 'homework'. And that meaning stuck and strengthened itself over time to a point where I thought of work as an activity which you have to do even when you don't want to do it because it would lead to some reward or return which was more significant than the discomfort caused by the activity itself. All of studies came under this category with the sole reward being the exam mark sheet on which rested such important things as my ego and my parents' peace of mind. Attending class was work but not if the teacher was fun as then there was no discomfort. Reading textbooks was work but not when I was reading off all the stories from the new English and Hindi literature books as I was not doing it for any reward. The reward concept was largely based on perception. Now that I think of it, I never thought of reading novels as anything related to work but that did my English a hell of a lot more good than all the notebooks I filled up doing Wren and Martin exercises. So any books that I read, be it comics, novels, science books, encyclopedias... anything, were never classified as work as long as they were not school books being read with the express intentions of doing well in the exams.

Over the years, I have by and large maintained the same definition of work except for a couple of years in the middle when I was preparing for IIT. In those God forsaken times, the moment anyone mentioned “work”, my mind would immediately flash "force x distance" in front of my eyes complete with the Resnick & Halliday illustration of a tiny cartoon man pushing a block up an inclined plane.

In college too, anything associated with grades was work, but the motivation was a little different. After meeting some real studs in my first few weeks in IIT my ego went out for a stroll on the Marina beach and hasn't returned since. My parents had completely stopped caring about my grades as long as I didn't flunk. Hence my first year grades were nothing exceptional but once I realised that good grades are required for apping, the 'work' started again and it was the same old ballgame.

It continued like that until I was hit on the head with a huge stone and simultaneously bitten by a mad dog causing permanent loss of reason, and that along with over consumption of alcohol and rock music led me to decide that I didn't want to ap or do an MBA but I wanted to do a job i.e. I wanted to 'work'. That experimental exercise in intuitive decision making landed me in this company which gave me a year and a half to get trained while earning a fairly well-fed pay packet.

This would be a pretty good situation for most people but for me it was a disaster and a miracle rolled into one. I again have only the aforementioned unfortunate accident to blame because as a side effect of that, I was entirely unable to attach any importance to the positive cash flow happening in my bank account and as a result I had no motivation to 'work'. That was the disaster part, more so for the company than for me. The miracle part was that finally I was released from the clutches of the deadly 'work'. Now I only did what I wanted to do. As a result over my entire training period, some of my projects have surpassed even my own self-flattering expectations while others have just refused to take off at all. Hence, I also left widely varying impressions on my bosses; some of them were all praise for me while some others were completely frustrated with my non-performance (in one particular case I noticed that the quantity of hair on my boss's head had actually reduced from the time I had come to when I left).

Paradoxically, the only times during this period when I felt that I was 'working' were when I was entirely jobless. Just sitting in my chair for a few hours with nothing to do was a major discomfort that I had to bear in order to continue having no work in my life. After some time I found a way around it. If I had an internet connection I would browse anything from meaning of biblical terms to the lyrics of rock songs. In one of the stints I became a member of a gaming site. The site gives membership points depending upon the number of reviews and articles you read and for every hundred points, you advance a level. Well, I jumped from level 1 to 8 within a few weeks and was in a position to post my own reviews, and start and manage my own discussion groups, a privilege generally reserved for paying members. In places where there was no internet, it was a little more difficult. I would either start practicing the widely used but seldom mastered art of day-dreaming or would write something like this post.

Now the training is over and the company actually expects me to work. Well, as luck would have it my predecessor in the factory has not left yet and so after the first few weeks of 'learning' and that sort of time pass, I have ended up being jobless i.e. actually working, the result of which is this post, which I am trying to stretch a little bit more to get me past 5.30 pm so that I can leave and go and relax in my room or perhaps go to a bar and have a nice weekend celebration before I get up tomorrow, which is a Sunday, and which, during such periods of joblessness, is the most dreaded day of the week because while being jobless in the office you can at least look forward to going back to your room but when you are jobless in your room you have nothing to look forward to, unless you are a person who just likes to go out and roam around on his own, the prospects of which I don't happen to find very attractive and with that last stretch of the sentence I have only a few minutes to go before the magical time of half past five arrives, and I can spend that time on a nice, leisurely, managerial walk around the plant letting everyone know who there ‘boss to be’ is. (That full stop did take a long time to come, didn't it?)

Peace

2006-06-28T00:47:00.000-07:00

Peace is what almost every person in the world, whose basic physical needs are taken care of, is running after. From what I understand of it, peace cannot be 'achieved' or 'obtained' as an object. Nor is peace dependant on the surroundings, lifestyle or other people. A lot of people think that they would be in peace if only their boss or spouse or someone else would let them be. Peace is not for you or me to give or receive, it is rather the fruit of virtue-tree of equanimity which has to be cultivated consciously, or so I thought.

Think of a soldier returning from battle, his body bruised and cut and his psyche damaged irreparably. He knows that he has survived the worst. He has survived the deafening explosions of grenades; he has survived the bullets whizzing past his ears; he has survived the sight of his comrades' dismembered limbs flying above him; he has survived the cries of the people he killed; he has survived the fear of dying and the lure of cowardice; he has survived becoming weary of the fighting and just wanting to give up. He has survived a battle, with the enemy and with himself. And although his ears still hum from the blasts and his eyes still see heaps of mangled bodies, he knows it is over. Questions like whether he should have fought better, killed more enemies or maybe not killed anyone at all still plague him and maybe will do so for the rest of his life but he can't do anything about it now, because he knows it is over. The most he can do is to gather whatever is left of him and try to rebuild the person he was before.

The scars of battle can at most be faded but never completely removed. And even when the hum in his ear has become almost inaudible and the heaps of mangled bodies visit him only in the occassional dream, everytime he looks at the mirror, the sight of his scars will make him shudder as waves of memories flood him bringing everything back. He will then shake it off and run to seek shelter in one of the many mazes he has built for himself to get lost into and escape from those memories. So, for him, where is the peace? Is he peaceful when he is hiding from his past in the nooks and crannies of the mazes of 'normal' life? Is he peaceful when he goes around pretending all his wounds have healed, while still feeling the throbbing pain beneath them? And more importantly, can he ever be peaceful?

Well, maybe he will never be truly peaceful, but he will have his moments of peace when he sees children playing without fear and hears the unditurbed sound of birds chirping in the land he had fought for. The realisation that all that he lost was for someone else to gain something will be the straw of peace he will hold on to trying to keep afloat after the storm has passed.

Peace I leave with you

my peace I give unto you

not as the world gives do I give to you. -The Bible, John 14.27

Quiz

2006-05-19T07:31:00.000-07:00

I used to be an avid quizzer in school but somehow my interest in quizzing, and consequently my quizzing prowess, went on declining all through college and for most of last one year I haven't even thought about it. But some resent events brought it back on my radar and as a result I have compiled this random quiz. Some of these questions are ones I remember from the quizzes I had participated in, some I have copied from sites on the net (thanks are due to The Boat Club Quiz Club and Bhrigu's Question) and some I have made myself.

According to me a fun quiz is where you don’t have to know to answer. You should be able to make an intelligent guess using some logic or intuition or whatever. So here goes...

1. This game consists of a soccer ball and wickets. The rules of this game are made up as they go along, but the one consistent rule is that the rules can never be the same twice. Either player may change any rule at any time, so the only way to break the rules is by using one rule twice. Which game?

2. The raw material for this comes in three varieties - Criollo, Forastero and Trinitario. The manufacturing process consists of four steps - harvesting, blending, conching and tempering. This was introduced in Europe by Hernando de Soto. Its use in horse racing is considered illegal. What?

3. Question on Narad muni. Once the eternal sage Narad got so proud of his looks and thought that he was the best looking person in the three lokas. So Lord Vishnu decided to teach him a lesson. With the help of Maya, he created an illusionary city and kingdom belonging to an illusionary king Sheelanidhi. Narad stopped here and met the king Sheelanidhi where he spotted his beautiful daughter and decides to take part in her forthcoming swayamvara. Vishnu however, to teach Narad a lesson about pride replaced his face with a monkey's. Obviously, Narad looses the swayamvara... when he realises the prank played on him, Narad curses Lord Vishnu. What is the curse?

4. What is common to Alec Baldwin, Richard Branson, George Clooney, Billy Crystal, Danny De Vito, Sean Penn, Brad Pitt, Julia Roberts, Susan Sarandon, Robin Williams and Bruce Willis?

5. Percival C ___ was once a Foreign Legionnaire. He also was Chief Inspector of Schools in the Bombay Presidency. He wrote several books, of which was the "Beau Geste" trilogy. He, along with another person, wrote something that many Indian school kids would be familiar with. What?

6. Connect.

1)In 1932, the IAF was officially established with the strength of 19 Havai Sepoys, 6 Royal Air Force-trained officers and aicraft consisting of 4 Westland Wapiti II planes on the eighth day of October.
2) Lieutenant General K. M. Cariappa became the first Indian Commander- in-Chief (C-IN-C) on 15th January 1948.
3) On 4 Dec 1971, the Killer missile boats of the Indian Navy stormed Karachi and sank three ships.

7. What is the funda of the nursery rhyme “Ring-a-ring-a roses”?

8. This expression is used for a book or other work of art produced for the express purpose of making money, rather than for any artistic merit. Its origin includes an imagery of providing food for the table. What is it?

9. In the late 1940s, at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, students who partied, and rarely studied were called "Drunks", while the opposite - students who never partied and always studied were given a name which gave rise to a commonly used colloquial term for a person singularly focussed towards academics. Give the term and the funda.

10. If you were one of these:
1) (according to The American College Dictionary) "a person with artistic or intellectual tendencies, who lives and acts with no regard for conventional rules of behavior."
2) A resident of Greenwich Village in New York or Soho in London (among others) in the late 19th or early 20th centuries
3) A Czech but not from Moravia or Silesia
4) Who would you be?

11. This word was originally invented by Milton Sirotta, nephew of mathematician Edward Kasner in 1938 during a discussion of large numbers and exponential notation. When Stanford grad students Sergey Brin and Larry Page, presented their project, named after this word, to an investor, they received a cheque made out to a changed form of the word which became the final name of the project. What was the word and what was the project?

12. Unlike Greeks (and Indians) who thought of philosophy based on numbers, Romans used them for military purposes. They divided their army by numbers; for example, a section was a group of ten soldiers, a century comprised of ten sections. Discipline was very strong. If a section humiliated itself in battle, they were in for a terrible punishment. Each member of the section chose from lots. The one person on whom the lot fell was clubbed and stoned to death by the other 9 members of his section. What word in the English language comes from this cruel practice?

13. ___________ as we know it today had its beginnings with Hartman Beverages in Knoxville, Tennessee, Tri-City Beverages in Johnson City. Part of the allure of early ________ was for each bottle to bear the 'signature' of its maker. When this was sold to Pepsi in 1965, they had to change the flavour so that it would not be in direct competition with Pepsi's Teem. What?

14. Rishi kashyap had two wives: Diti and Aditi. What were the sons of Diti and those of Aditi called ?

15. Fibonacci encountered the Indian numerical system while he was a child in Algeria. He brought it back to Italy after he grew up. Quite obviously, he brought the mysterious zero with him. He referred to the number by its Arabic name. The Italians were (a) resistant to changing their numeral system (b) very confused about the usage of zero and were rather suspicious. Hence, a modification of the Arabic name for zero made it into the language of Catholic opponents as a synonym for "dark secret". This word has the same meaning in the English language today. What word?

16. What is special about the phrase 'rag a man'?

17. When Sabeer Bhatia was setting up Hotmail he tried various names ending with “mail” before deciding on the one he chose. Why did he go for 'Hotmail'?

18. Born as __________ Rosemary Shand, she is the great-granddaughter of Alice Keppel, the famed royal mistress of Edward VII and a descendant of Arnold Joost von Keppel, a favourite of William III. She married the godson of the Queen Mother. Who?

19. Skinwing, Handwing, Single-Hole, Toothless, Pouch, Gnawer, Sea-Dweller, Flesh-Eater, Feather-Foot, Trunked, Odd-toes, Even-Toes and The First are most, if not all, of the Breasted. What are we talking about?

20. Vikarna was one of the Kauravas. He did something unusual in court. He actually sided with the 'other side'. This was much before the war, in which he fought on the side of the Kauravas. What did he do in court?

21. In 1913, this person, inspired by the meat-packing factories of Chicago and conveyor belts in grain mills, invented something which revolutionized the industry. Who and what?

22. Stefano Maino, a building contractor, and his wife Paola lived in a small town called Orbassano. They had three daughters. Stefano has since passed away and Paola lives with two of her daughters Nadia and Anushka. The third daughter migrated to another country and has since acquired huge popularity. Who is the third daughter?

How to quit smoking... No. 101

2006-04-09T12:03:00.000-07:00

‘With a cigarette in my hand, I felt like a man…’ Well, that was not even remotely the reason why I started smoking. I mean, I can think of at least one better thing that you can hold in your hand, whenever you get doubts about your manliness. But let us leave that thing in its place, for now. So, coming back to why I started smoking. Most people start smoking in college, but I had managed to come out of college with healthy, unaffected lungs; my liver being the main victim of my student activities. But once I took up this job, I found that things weren’t quite the same. A party, I discovered, was not when you got bottles of booze into your wing, mixed-and-matched whisky and vodka with different soft drinks and gulped down paper-cup after paper-cup while listening to loud rock music. In the corporate world, people don’t drink to get drunk. Alcohol is more of an ice-breaker and a conversation-starter than anything else. Of course, no one tells you all this. You find out by experience. Just like I found out that getting drunk and puking in a corporate party is not that common and is generally considered inappropriate behaviour.

So, learning from experience, I decided to stick to a drink where I would have to consume at least a bucketful and have to go to the loo enough times to raise doubts over my sexual orientation (manliness – again), before my behaviour became ‘inappropriate’. Yes, I’m talking about beer. Now, the problem arose when I did sometimes want to get high. I didn’t want to go back to the whiskies and vodkas, (more than puking I was afraid of what I’d tell my boss, although I would someday like to see the look on his face when I tell him, ‘Oh my God! Your bald head is shining like a mirror’) and beer would just not do it. So, I came up with the ultimate controllable way to get high - beer with cigs. I could get just as high as I wanted and stay there for as long as I wanted, and nothing would ever go out of control. So, then I would generally have two or three cigs with beer.

How I progressed from this stage to that of a regular smoker is a story for another day but the situation came to a point when I was smoking about ten cigarettes a day. And then finally my lungs decided they had had enough and I started getting chest pains and this reinforced with a couple of more reasons made me decide to quit.

Like most other smokers, I had decided to quit a couple of times before and had ended up smoking more each time (I don’t know how that works, maybe you think that you’ve got to make up for lost time or something). But this time, I knew I would quit. It had become too much of a habit and I hate habits. So, I quit.

But then, there always are those moments of weakness. When you are feeling very pained and think that just a few puffs would help clear your head up. These are the moments when quitters relapse, and there are nicotine gums and patches and all, which help people get through these times. For me, I developed a customized solution.

I analysed why I smoked. I smoked because I was feeling pained and getting that kick would ease my mind and wandering around with a cigarette in my hand would help divert my attention to other things. So, I thought what I could replace the cigarette with; something that made me feel good, something that I could hold in my hand and walk around.

And my saviour was, that ancient invention of Roman cooks, the humble ice cream. Yes, that seemed to be the ideal replacement for cigs. Eating an ice cream does generate feelings of joy, almost bordering on elation and I could easily take it and walk around. Since then I’ve eaten a lot of ice-cream, I have one almost everyday and it seems to be working well. The only thing is that I prefer the cones and sticks to the more ‘grown-up’ cups and bowls. So, as I walk around sucking on my chocobar or chomping on my cornetto, all the kids feel jealous of the ‘uncle’ who is old enough to have his own money to buy ice-cream and is young enough to enjoy it, all the boys on bikes trying to pretend they are men stare perplexedly at a man pretending to be a boy, and all the pretty girls look at a guy with a week’s stubble on his face, wearing a crumpled t-shirt who is too busy licking his ice-cream to even glance at them. And me, I just enjoy my ice-cream and feel happy. With an ice-cream in my hand, I feel like… a kid!

I'm back...part II

2006-03-30T10:43:00.000-08:00

Yet again I have been guilty of not posting here for quite some time. Unlike the last time no one has asked me to resume blogging (I assume they have given up on me). I am just doing it because I want to, after a long time.

I wrote the above two lines about five minutes ago (although you just see it as a paragraph change) and since then I have been wondering what to write. Well, lots of things come to mind like people I have met, places I have seen and experiences I have been through but most of them don't seem exciting enough and the others are just too vague to put in words.

Now, before judging me, you should also keep in mind that I am actually sitting in my office and doing this in the time when I should be doing something for which my company pays me all that cash. But then again, I am not exactly sure what those things are which I am supposed to do and also somehow I don't seem to make that connect between working and earning. Work seems to me something I do because I want to do it; the money which comes seems completely independent of this, it is just some cash someone puts into my bank account on a fixed day every month. That it is in any way connected to what I am doing, or not doing, everyday, is something completely perpendicular to the plane in which my mind works.

Anyway, I still haven't made progress with the topic, but while I am typing I can imagine the others in the office looking at me and thinking about how diligently I am working. For them it is hard to imagine that I am doing anything other than working on some report that my boss must have asked for. And every time someone comes around my cabin, I can’t help putting up a serious contemplative expression, with my eyebrows almost crushed against each other, staring at the screen as if the devil himself was staring back at me, pretending that I am so focused, I wouldn’t move a hair even if, say, Angelina Jolie was giving a lap dance to my overweight co-worker in the next cubicle. Generally, I am a very conscientious and truthful person, but sometimes I just can’t help it.

So, what should I write about? Still fifteen minutes to go to for the tea break, after which I play my daily round of table tennis, before I finally leave for home. Now don’t be misled into thinking that I don’t work. I spend a large part of my day labouring with the ‘send/receive’ button on my outlook screen. Although the success rate is generally less than one percent, every time I actually do get a mail I always make it a point to thank the Almighty, the nine planets and of course, the Lord of all things e-mailed, Sabeer Bhatia. Other than this I also spend some time standing beside machines pretending to observe what is happening (you observe only for the first time, after that you pretend). I have developed a standard procedure for tackling any senior manager who happens to disturb me during my peaceful contemplations to check if I am really ‘observing’. I have made a list of about ten questions, half of which other people have asked me, and every time a manager comes along, I’ll point towards a certain part of the machine and ask my brilliant question with unquestionable concern in my voice. “Why is the pneumatically actuated pushing mechanism mounted on a recirculating-ball screw driven by a servo motor? Why can’t it be on a taper-roller bearing coupled with an induction motor using a gearbox and a lovejoy coupling?” (Believe me, that is the best one I could come up with). And even though I know the answer (anyone would, when they have asked the same question to five different people), I listen patiently while periodically nodding my head and interjecting with a few ‘hmm’s and ‘I see’s and the manager goes away satisfied that the new kid is learning.

And then of course I do the one thing that is the most important part of a manager’s job, attend meetings. Initially I always found it difficult to contribute in these meetings and mostly drifted off after some time. But after some ‘observation’ I learnt the art of speaking in such meetings. You first let the person who knows something about the subject on hand speak a few lines (there’ll generally be only one or two people of this category in any meeting). Then you have to take the most important call, do you want to go with or against what the guy is saying. Initially, I used to go with the guy if I liked the person, but then I abandoned that system in the interest of impartiality and switched to a new system where on Mondays and Fridays I go with whatever is being said and on the other days I go against. So now, if you’re going with the guy, just take whatever the guy said, rephrase it and say it again. Like if the guy says “I think we should control the amount of effluent we are letting into our water treatment plant”, then you say, “I agree. I think we have come to a situation where we have to take a serious look at keeping a close watch on our water treatment plant and the quantity of effluent that we are releasing to the plant has to be closely monitored.” That’s it. Now going against is much simpler than that. You just have to question what the guy is saying. But then again, being a manager you can’t ask a simple ‘why’ or ‘how’, you have to lace it up a little more. For example, when you want to ask ‘why’, you say “I understand where you’re coming from on this (yeah…right…) but the logic behind your statement is not very clear to me. Could you elaborate a little more on the reasoning behind this? And please state any assumptions that you may have made.” As the guy tries to explain you frown as if you are trying to understand his point of view and in the end you give him an unsatisfied look but also say ‘ok’ as if you had accepted his explanation, even though you were not completely satisfied with it, in the larger interest of the organization.

I’m still not able come up with a f*****g topic for my f*****g post. But this practice of putting stars instead of letters in profanities is very intriguing. What is it supposed to achieve? Everyone anyway knows that f*****g is actually fucking, so what’s the point? Now if there are people who don’t know that f*****g is the same as fucking, then they probably don’t know what fucking is (these are the people who every night dutifully kiss their wives on their cheeks and go peacefully to sleep and then go to doctors asking why they are not having kids…they don’t know what fucking is), so what’s the point? But anyways, let me not get fucking frustrated for not finding a fucking topic for my fucking post and go and have that motherfucking cup of tea.

Another interesting thought – it has often occurred to me that Hindi profanities are much more colourful and forceful compared to their English counterparts, and they also offer a more varied choice. Can one ever say ‘motherfucker’ with the same degree of disdain and contempt with which one can say ‘maaaadarchod’? You can’t even get the same expression on your face, the same country-ness. And of course, the Queen’s language has no match for our ‘bhosadiwala’ and ‘behenchod’…wait…Eureka!! This is what I should write my post on…profanities…the desi gali. But alas! I have to go for my tea-break or else those maa ka lauda’s will finish off all the snacks. Ok then, till next time…gaand marao!!

I'm back...

2005-10-04T04:24:00.000-07:00

I’m back, or rather the blogger in me is back, on popular demand, more or less. The last time I posted I was just out of college, a little confused and with vague ideas about life. Now I’m a professional, even more confused and with absolutely no idea about life. Well, if I really open my heart out, this post will be one of those crib-posts, which pain both the writer and the reader. So, I will resist the temptation and try to make it a little more interesting.
I have been in Pondicherry for more than two months now. It is basically a small town with a beach, an ashram and lots of French tourists. I wonder what attracts so many tourists to this place. People say it is the ashram but my hunch is with the beach, because even the foreigners would never have seen anything like the Pondy beach. I can imagine them whispering in each other’s ears about the openness and broadmindedness of the place, which has a gay beach!! Everywhere you see there are guys sitting beside guys, holding hands, laying their heads on each other’s shoulders and sometimes even their laps (looks very shady from certain angles) and no one even raises an eyebrow. And it appears like the government, with a view to preserve the gay spirit, has issued orders banning any females attractive enough to tempt the gays astray from their chosen path of gayness, not just from the beach area but from the entire town. Sometimes you can spot one or two violating the order, but that’s very rare in this law abiding town. Well yes, it is very frustrating for the few straight guys who are forced to spend fifteen weeks in this gay-haven… but I have managed to survive, thanks to the four years spent in IIT where you had more chances of seeing an endangered species of deer than a decent chick.
When I tell people about the huge French population in Pondy (I know the word has different connotations but I’ll be using it as an abbreviation for Pondicherry for the time being) they think I would be feasting my eyes on French beauties sun-bathing on the beaches wearing clothes skimpy enough to be mathematically neglected (to be honest, more than the people, this is what I had thought it would be like… me and my imagination…). But the problem with these foreigners is that when they come to India they like to wear Indian clothes!! I don’t understand them. They prefer wearing micro-minis and noodle-straps in sub-zero temperatures in Paris, but they want to wear a full- sleeved salwar-kameez in hot and sweaty Pondy. They are not just paining themselves, but are cheating deprived people like me whose expectations had been raised on being told that Pondy is full of foreigners… they are spoiling the image associated with foreigners, for God’s sake.
Another aspect of Pondy is that if you are not a foreigner, people assume that you are a Tamilian and hence proficient in the language. Even the mobile service I had taken worked on the same assumption. When I called in to check my balance, the recorded voice very nicely told me, in English, to press one for Tamil and two for English. On pressing one of course, you get Tamil but when you press two you get, guess what, Tamil! Left with no choice, I proceeded to decode what was being said. For this I dialed in repeatedly and tried to make sense of the thing. After a few attempts, I realized that the good lady was letting out a string of numbers, which I counted to be ten. I couldn’t make head or tail of it. My balance, even in tenths of a paisa, would never go into ten-digits, it couldn’t be the validity date… what was this ten-digit code that I was being asked to crack? After banging the cell on my head a couple of times I realized that it was my own cell number, which I was being asked to verify!
Another interesting incident happened when I was returning from a walk on the beach (yes, straight people are allowed to walk on the beach as long as you don’t disturb the gay couples). I was walking down a poorly lit street when a man came out of the shadow and stopped me with a gesture. ‘Money’, he said. As a reflex action I immediately started counting how much money I was going to lose, but during my mental calculations I looked at his hands… they were empty!! No gun, no knife! I looked at the man, he was frail with thin arms. I thought I could take him. ‘Money’, he asked again, sounding a little irritated. Hoping that he wasn’t a follower of Bruce Lee or something, I bravely told him "No money, sir". At this he got very irritated, and started shaking his head. I was trying to use my knowledge of engineering to calculate if I could outrun him in a chase, when he pointed to his wrist and shouted "Money, money". Then I saw the light… he was asking for ‘Mani’, which I later found out means ‘time’ in Tamil. I was not wearing a watch and after all the emotional stress he had put me through, I was in no mood to take out my cell for him. So, I reiterated "No money, sir" and left him pulling his hair in frustration. Lesson of the day – in Tamil ‘Time is Mani’ !!

Lighten up!

2005-06-03T13:18:00.000-07:00

From the past few posts it seems that this blog has become quite serious and heavy, which, if it is true, would be grossly misrepresenting the kind of person I am (I am not quite sure if I am being modest or immodest by saying that, so let me take this oppurtunity to state unequivocally that I am a very modest person by nature who never admits to any of his many qualities like honesty, intelligence, kindness and not to forget the most obvious one, modesty).

So, let's get back to the point which was to lighten up the scene a little on this blog. So, let me try and share something which has been in my head for a while now.

Yesterday I was chatting on the internet when my aunt walked by and asked whom I was chatting with. I gathered all my acting talent and told her in all seriousness that it was my girlfriend (this must not be taken to mean that I don't have a girlfriend, it was just that I was not chatting with her then. In fact I have seven girlfriends, one on each continent .... okay, six. I broke up with the one on antarctica, she was too cold.) So, there I was expecting shock and anger and what not and all my aunt did was give me a smile, which was as good as saying 'nice try', and walked away. Now, either she had got a temporary hearing impairment and didn't hear my earth-shattering revelation, or she didn't believe I could have a girlfriend, as if I was somehow the non-girlfriend type.

Assuming that there is such a species as the non-girlfriend type guy, it is interesting to think whether this is a good or bad thing for me. On one side, if I meet a girl and she thinks I don't have a girlfriend, peace. But, let us imagine, just for the sake of argument, that I didn't have a girlfriend, not even one. What then? Then I would be wondering if I actually was the non-girlfriend type. All this is just conjecture, but still.

Of course, if the type doesn't exist then the argument fails, but when I think of all the straight, serious, boring guys I've seen who have arranged marriage written all over them, I am inclined to think otherwise.

Conversation

2005-05-18T22:39:00.000-07:00

Some time ago I was trying to write a story called 'Hunger'. The story never got finished but this one paragraph made the effort worth my while.

As they walked down the straight narrow path, their conversation meandered through myriads of criss-crossing avenues. As the sun set, the birds' soft chatter, which had mingled with their's, died down and was replaced by the loud chirping of crickets which, paradoxically, enhanced the quietness of the forest. The only sounds breaking the dark silence were their voices and the crunching of dry leaves under their rhythmic footsteps. An occasional breeze caused the leaves on the branches to flutter, as if trying to hush them. But unmindful of the etiquette of the wilderness, the two friends chatted away.

State of mind

2005-04-21T02:21:00.000-07:00

Sometimes the state of your mind is so utterly and completely messed up that it is impossible to even try to describe it in your own words. But then you listen to someone talking about something completely different and you are taken aback by how clearly it describes what you are feeling. This happened to me as I was listening to Paranoid by Black Sabbath and found that the following lines are a surprisingly good description of the current state of my mind.

All day long I think of things but nothing seems to satisfy
Think I'll lose my mind if I don't find something to pacify
Can you help me occupy my brain?
Oh yeah
I need someone to show me the things in life that I can't find
I can't see the things that make true happiness, I must be blind

If you don't see how this could be the description of a sane person's state of mind then I guess you have to be the person to know it.

It can be argued that this cannot be the state of a sane peron's mind and hence the person in question must be losing his grip on reality; but my opinion on that may be biased because, you see, I am the person in question and if I am headed to screwball avenue then so be it. I have always believed that the happiest people in the world are the inmates of sanitariums and mental institutions. If I am to join them, then paradise ... here I come.

Leaving IIT

2005-04-16T11:33:00.000-07:00

Our hostel nite got over yesterday and even though I was in quite 'high spirits', the reality was staring me in the face. The time has come - my life is going to change - completely and irreversibly. I'll never again get the same friends, the same life, the same fuck-the-world-show-the-finger attitude. The irreversibility of it all is the thing which pains me the most. After two months, I can never again become Lallu of Narmad. 'Never again'... that's the phrase... yup... that's it... never again.

But the thing I am excited about is that I'll be something else ... perhaps Mr. Shrivastava... which may not be as much fun as being Lallu, but will be much more challenging and will make me more of a person than I am now. It is that hope, or rather belief, which I have used to paint over all my apprehensions and feelings of loss. After all if I were not to be leaving IIT, I wouldn't be missing it and probably wouldn't even be happy here. That is the magic of life ... you carry only the good memories with you so that the past always seems like a beautiful time.

Yup, I have given up all pretences of being un-senti and hereby confess to having a small basket of feelings buried somewhere in my heart. If anyone tells you (as I do) that he or she (most probably it'll be a he) won't miss IIT, don't believe it, it's a lie.

Humans: Irrational Part-2

2005-04-01T12:12:00.001-08:00

If you have not read part 1, please do so, because otherwise this won't make any sense to you. Now, I am not implying in any way that part 1 will make sense, but still.

The other two things, beside sports, are music and religion. They are found in humans anywhere and everywhere on the planet, and would leave our poor alien PhD scholar scratching his alien head, reinforcing his conclusions about our irrational race.

I don't have enough enthu to elaborate on this boring topic anmore and I don't think I will have it in the future. To think that only about two weeks ago I was excited enough about this topic to write a blog about it. Should have completed it then. But still, what was I thinking??

My entry for Adieu '05

2005-04-01T02:32:00.000-08:00

Endless fart in a jobless gumbal
Wing to Gurunath to Quark and back
Have quizzes or end-sems? Put night out, simple
IITM has taught me to just lay back

Humans: Irrational Part-1

2005-03-18T20:33:00.000-08:00

Most of us wouldn't raise our eyebrows if someone contended that humans as a species are rational beings. Most of us like, no doubt, to think of ourselves as rational, more or less. Some would dissent saying that it is the irrationalities which add spice to life. While agreeing wholeheartedly with this view, I would like to point out that the spice is not for us to add, but is already there in the frying pan, whether we like it or not. What I am saying is, leaving out the metaphor, that irrational emotions like love, hate, anger etc. are hard wired into our brain and the reason for this, as most anthropologists would agree, is that they are necessary for the survival and functioning of human society. But this post is not about these mundane, easily explainable irrationalities. It is about things which we do everyday, defying every tenet of rationality, without realising how inexplicable, and maybe hence, how beautiful they are.

Consider a person who lives miles away from you, whom you have never met and know only by name and face. For some reason, irrational by its very nature, you want this person to succeed in his work. Whatever happens to this person is not going to affect you in even the smallest of ways but every little success this person achieves fills your heart with joy and pride. If you haven't got it till now, the person is the star, you are the fan, and this, my friend, is sports. The spurt of joy which one feels in ones heart when Sachin hits a six or when Bhajji clean bowls a batsmen is, in my view, the most unselfish happiness one is ever going to experience. And it is utterly and completely irrational. In no way the result of the match going to better or worsen anyone’s lives other than those of the cricketers and maybe the sponsors. But even then millions of people watch sports and go through all the emotions of joy, sorrow, love, hate and anger along the course of a match. I always like to imagine an alien from a super-intelligent species, who have never seen sports, doing a doctoral thesis on "Social Behaviour of Homo Sapiens", complaining to his professor that "... they just sit and shout every time one of them hits a leather sphere with a wooden stick. I think they are really dumb."

... to be contd.

Mr.Lallu's IIM interview

2005-03-04T05:46:00.000-08:00

It's been a long time since my last post and who better to write about than our Mr. Lallu. Now, by some means, unfair or otherwise, lallu has managed quite a percentile in the CAT exams. We may never actually know how he managed it, because everytime you ask him he puts on an irritatingly modest smile, and you know that in his mind he is probably smirking at you, but anyway that's beside the point.

As a consequence of his (mis)deeds Lallu has to appear for GDs and interviews for the IIMs. This has happened at a very inopportune time in his life. You see, Lallu has been sporting his new long-hair-clean-shaven look (I like to think of it as the gay-bengali-out-of-Calcutta look) and has, after much trepidation, been able to get his parents approval. Now all the advice, solicited and otherwise, that poured in had one common post script - cut you hair. Lallu's heart ached even at the thought of ending his semester long affaire des hair. As if by celestial design, his first interview was for IIM K to which, by his own admission, Lallu won't go even if the profs got down on their knees and pleaded, but I think the probability of that happening, if it ever existed, has been made to tend towards zero after the interview. Lallu disagrees with that quite vehemently but we will come to that later. First let us ponder upon why, despite being expressedly advised to wear a plain off white shirt, dark formal trousers, a nice neck tie and, if possible, a blazer to the interview; he chose to wear a bright blue shirt checkered with dark blue squares, a beige coloured pant and most importantly, no tie.

His inhibitions about his hair are easily understood considering his heartfelt love and also the number of compliments he got for it but to understand why he wore what he did for the interview, we need a deeper insight into the basic principle which guides Lallu's life. It is the principle of minimum action - any action is not to be performed unless it is absolutely vital for the well-being of the subject. Note that passive activities like sleeping, watching movies and farting with friends do not come under the purview of the term 'action'. So when Lallu saw that his off-white shirt was more like yellow and his dark trousers had bright streaks on them, it is obvious from the above principle that washing them was out of the question and wearing something else was the only viable option. The issue of the tie is slightly more complex. Lallu has two ties and both are in perfectly good condition. But the catch is that Lallu doesn't know how to tie the knot (sounds funny in the other sense, doesn't it?). Under such conditions one would expect that the normal course of action would be to get a friend to tie the knot for you (still funny?), but that, as you know didn't happen. It must have been both acting together because I doubt if vanity or sloth alone can render a person so incapable of doing the obviously right thing.

On D-day, as soon as Lallu entered the interview centre he realised he was in for an experience. The room looked like a cloning experiment gone wrong. They were sitting there, in all sizes and shapes but the same colour. Light plain shirt, dark formal trousers and even darker ties and yes, closely cropped hair. He felt like a Ludo token who has crashed a party for Chessmen.

Well, the GD went on quite well. The topic was philosophical and hence, vague. As with all things philosophical, there was no right or wrong. Most of the time people were vaguely describing whatever vague things came to their mind and were trying to make them sound vaguely relevant to the topic, which it self was vague to start with. Anyway, everyone was relieved when the moderator banged his hand on the table and yelled "Stop".

After a few more minutes of waiting among the chess pieces, Lallu was called for the interview. The earlier interviewees had reveled that the questions were mostly on academics and Lallu was not too uncomfortable with that branch of human endeavour. So ,as expected, the academics part of the interview went well, except for one instance when Lallu tried, unsuccessfully, to convince the interviewer that he, being a top of the line student of Mechanical Engineering knew more about it than him, a management professor. Well, to be fair, it is hard to convince people about something when you don't believe in it yourself. Anyway, after that one of the two interviewers, the same one who had previously doubted Lallu's command over his official 'field of interest', did what Lallu was hoping he won't.

Leaning back in his chair, he folded his hands and knitting his eyebrows together asked, "You look different from the others."

Lallu could see his smile through his bushy moustache. He too tried to smile, but found it quite difficult to do so while gulping down what felt like a gallon of saliva. He settled for a straight face and chose not to comment. After all he didn't have to answer if he hadn't been asked a question. But like all good things, the pause didn't last for ever and the question came.

"Do you want to look different?"

Until this point I believe Lallu is telling the truth. But the veracity of what he says after this is doubtful, to say the least. I believe he is trying to portray an interview he messed up as one he salvaged from certain doom. Can you believe IIM professors actually liking his appearance? Anyway, I'll give you his version of things and you can decide for yourself.

According to him, he told the interviewer that he didn't think that the colour of one's clothes and the length of one's hair should matter while deciding one's eligibility for an academic program. The interviewers were impressed with this and actually told him that wearing a tie in this weather wasn't a very good idea.

Well, first of all, Lallu having the courage to reply to an interviewer like that - improbable; and second of all, IIM professors agreeing with him - impossible! If you see Lallu somewhere, do tell him to invent a little more believable stories and also to please....please get his hair cut, it looks more irritating by the day.

Unusual paragraph

2004-12-19T11:58:00.000-08:00

This paragraph which I am blogging is actually a bit unusual, not ordinary anyway. By writing this paragraph I am avoiding a statistical fact. Guys in cryptography actually think it’s a law, including that famous buddy of Dr. Watson’s. If your bulb is still not glowing, try going through it again. Think. Strain your brain. Looks an ordinary paragraph but ordinary it ain’t. Want a hint? Okay. What this paragraph is missing is not a difficulty. If you still don’t know it, just wait till I blog again.

The Better Man

2004-11-17T21:56:00.000-08:00

My latest attempt at fiction ... criticism will be appreciated.

They were different. Very different. The thought hadn’t recurred to me in a long time, but that was no fault of the thought. It was I who had not seen my friends since we had left college. There was no way anyone seeing Ram Kumar and Anjan Prasad together could avoid being struck by their completely opposite natures. Even now as we sat together, sipping tea in the yard in front of Ram’s house, I could see that time hadn’t blurred the lines. I hadn’t expected it to. Ram was babbling away about our college days, interspersing the babble with his idiosyncratic slurping of the tea, while Anjan sat their, smiling and sipping the tea, enriching our conversation with nods and approvals and even the occasional, ‘Yes, I remember.’

You could see the difference. Ram was what you would probably get if you put together a tornado and a nuclear chain reaction and tried to mix them in an old rickety blender. And Anjan; well, if I were a Buddhist, I would have worshipped him as the new Buddha. He would just sit their smiling, as if he had nirvana, all cooked up and ready to eat, locked up in his refrigerator at home; and, from time to time, would drop pearls of wisdom for you to pick up, admire and, if possible, understand.

They were the complete opposite of each other. Anjan was always calm and composed, Ram was eternally agitated and restless; Anjan was intelligent, Ram a little slow; Anjan was suave, Ram more of a rustic. In short, if ever a teacher had trouble explaining the concept of antithesis to his students, he could take them on a class trip to meet Mr. Ram Kumar and Mr. Anjan Prasad.

And yet, they were friends. Friends not of the type who jump into stormy seas or rush into burning buildings to save each other, but of the type who would call the appropriate authorities in the above mentioned cases and also drop by each others’ houses for evening chats. They had been friends since childhood and the asymmetry in their friendship had, as it often does, tinged their relationship with a hint of rivalry.

On second thought, rivalry is too simple a word to describe the relation. Both of them knew who had the upper hand but it was as if Ram was forever trying to get up to Anjan and Anjan never failed to make it obvious that it was impossible. Sometimes one felt sorry for Ram. No matter how hard he tried, he was always the lesser half, the number two. He was perpetually lagging behind, his abilities simply not good enough for his ambitions. Anjan, to me, seemed to enjoy his superiority. He liked having someone always trying to be as good as him and knowing that he would never be able to. Maybe even Ram liked, subconsciously, having someone to measure up to. I’m not a psychologist, but maybe that is why this ‘rivalry’ never affected their friendship; except once.

In our college, as in most colleges, the commonly accepted parameter of your success, the index of your position in the hierarchy, the symbol of your social superiority was your girlfriend. By the end of the first year Anjan had already switched four girlfriends while Ram was still waiting for the perfect girl, or so he said.

Enter Aarti Bakshi. She was a phenomenon. To say that she was beautiful would be an understatement. But sadly, for reasons you will come to know, I cannot describe her beauty in greater detail. Let me just say that she was the topic of roughly ninety percent of all graffiti etched on benches that year. And boy was she hot, her … no; I shall stop here and continue the story.

So, as destiny would have it, both our antipodal friends were felled by the magic of this enchantress. And we had the triangular-love-situation often seen in the movies. But unlike the movies, our friends here were not inclined to follow the sacrifice routine. So both of them met and discussed the situation like the level-headed men they were.

Ram: Listen you goddamned backstabber of a friend. She’s my girl. Leave her alone.

Anjan: I love her

Ram: Yeah … well, I love her too. And much more than you do. What do you know about love? You love every other girl you see.

Anjan: No, they love me.

Ram: You think so, don’t you? Well, here’s some news, she doesn’t love you.

Anjan: But she may, if given a chance.

Ram: Well, if given a chance, she may love me too and I think she will.

Anjan: Optimism, in high doses, is like opium. It can take you as far away from reality as you want to go.

Ram: Don’t give me all that nerdy crap. I know that I love her and that we are made for each other.

Anjan: Okay, have it your way. Let us both try and see whom she falls in love with.

Ram: Game’s on.

Anjan: May the best man win.

So, both of them set about the task of wooing the lady in their own ways. There were movies, dinners, rides in borrowed cars, the whole works. Hers was a face that punched a thousand holes …in their pockets. Money flowed like water. Their borrowing skills were tested to the limits. But no one had any doubts about the result; everyone knew who the better man was.

But then the unexpected happened. I can tell you the exact details as told by an eyewitness to an acquaintance of a friend of mine. Anjan had called Ram to the canteen.

Ram: What happened? Giving up already?

Anjan: Yes.

Ram: What?

Anjan: Yes. She loves you.

Ram: Oh, thank you so much Anjan. I …

Anjan: No, she really loves you. Go get her.

I wouldn’t have believed it if anyone else had told me. Anjan had conceded defeat.

I was pulled out from my wanderings in the past by Ram’s voice, “Finish your tea, I’ll call for some snacks.”

He called out and Mrs. Aarti Kumar came out into the yard. Again I will desist from describing her beauty in any great visual detail. The reason, as you now see, is that she is Ram’s wife and I do have the habit of getting a little carried away with my description of beauty.

As she came towards us she smiled at Anjan, and then at me. Then she turned towards Ram.

“Dear …” he said.

And the bombing started.

“Who do you think I am, your servant or something? And who do you think you are, sitting on your butt all day, ordering me around like I have nothing else to do. No, don’t say a word, I’m not finished yet …”

And she didn’t finish for what seemed like eternity.

Finally, after she had left and Ram had valiantly gone after her, Anjan and I were left with ears ringing like they do after a loud explosion.

Anjan said to me, “What the eye enjoys is superficial and transient, while what the ear has to endure is real and permanent. And yes, ugliness doesn’t turn you blind, but this …"

He flicked his ears and smiled. The better man had won.

Chapattis, T.V. and Girlfriend

2004-11-17T21:52:00.000-08:00

Another short story ...

"Yes I have done it!", he leapt up. So much was the excitement, had he been at the bathtub, he would have done an Archimedes. But since chapattis are generally not made in a bathtub, I was spared the torture of seeing Prakash in his Archimedean attire. The chapatti inflated even further which made its creator yell another "Yesss!". He caught his masterpiece with the tongs, trying hard not to deflate it and lifted it up to display it to the audience which consisted of me and Baburao. To me the chapatti looked a bit out of shape. Had he tried just a little harder it would have become a perfect square. With some effort I suppressed my inherent sarcastic tendencies and shouted out words of encouragement. After all Prakash had taken it upon himself to feed the three of us. Of course I had offered to do the task, but not without uttering a few paragraphs on my mastery over the art of cooking. His self esteem could not bear the humiliation and as expected he set out to prove his might with the belan. Let me confess that I tricked my hapless roommate not because I am lazy, which I am, but because of my earlier attempts at cooking had not been very successful. I had had nightmares with deformed chapattis trying to squish my head into a dough, and the chapattis which I had cooked had failed miserably in the Baburao test.

Baburao is a cat. He is actually a she but since her name is Baburao (I don’t know who named her that) I always think of him as a fellow male. The Baburao test is the ultimate test for an amateur cook. If Baburao eats all of your preparation you get an A, if something is left uneaten it’s a B. You get a C for a lick and D for a sniff. But for my chapattis a new grade E was introduced. I remember, when I had offered Baburao one of my chapattis, he had just turned his head looking first at the chapatti and then at my face, and then had run away in disgust as if I was holding cat poop in my hands. Fortunately there were no other witnesses and later I bribed Baburao with some biscuits to keep his mouth shut.

But now it looked as if Prakash was headed for an A+. Baburao was eyeing the chapatti with hungry eyes. But Prakash brought it to me and asked me to taste it. I did so and found it to be a little uncooked. My chapatti-cooking-phobia prevented me from finding it delicious or even satisfactory. Prakash looked at me suspiciously but went back to try again. It was kind of pathetic to look at poor Prakash sweating it out in the kitchen but he was the one who had appointed Shanti Bai as our maid servant, housekeeper and yes, cook. Why I had not filed an F.I.R. against her for attempted homicide by poisoning, I don't know. Maybe it was because of my forgiving nature. But even that couldn't prevent me from shouting at her after each meal. I think it was after a week that she realised that I didn't appreciate the taste of the delicacies prepared by her and she hasn't come back since then.

I tried to turn my mind away from such worldly problems towards higher things in life and decided to meditate by turning on Sandy, our T.V. We named it Sandy as all you can see on it are grains. Sandy is an ideal instrument for practicing meditation. As you turn it on it plays bhajans at maximum volume. When you try to reduce the volume it either switches off or shouts out the day’s weather. As you go and tap it on the top you realize that the newsreader you were leching at is a man. You have to be careful not to hit it too hard because if it gets angry it’ll play z-grade Hindi movie songs and will respond to any attempts to switch it off by increasing the volume. After spending a few minutes struggling with it, you get so frustrated that you want to smash it to pieces. It is here that you start meditating and try to be at peace with yourself and your T.V.

I was still in the initial struggling phase when a huge rat ran over my legs. “Baburao!”, I shouted. Baburao lifted his head in response and gave me a blank look pretending that he hadn’t seen anything. It was Baburao’s staunch belief that running after rats was not the kind of thing a cat of his stature should do. The purpose of his life, according to him, was to eat, sleep and give Baburao tests.

Disgusted with Baburao I called out to Prakash who was third in the line of command after me and Baburao. He came and stood beside me, hands on his hips with his flour adorned face bearing a mutinous expression. I was about to head for the bathroom when the doorbell rang. The situation demanded that I get the door and in spite of my dislike for such menial work, I did. It was Sheila, Prakash’s girlfriend.

Don’t ask me how a person like Prakash can get a girlfriend because I don’t know. I would describe Prakash as a singularly uninteresting, inconspicuous and downright boring person. But here he was, his clothes hanging from his fleshless bones, chatting away with Sheila. Sheila on the other hand was a very nice girl. As I was very worried about her future with a person like Prakash, I made every attempt to attract her attention towards this fine product of the human race having personality, style and a good physique. But sadly for her she showed no interest in me.

Prakash called out to me and asked me very politely to go and do the cooking as he was “busy”. I wanted to break every freaking bone in his body but controlled myself as I had still not given up on Sheila. As I struggled with the dough sticking to my fingers and the flour going into my nostrils, Prakash and Sheila sank low on the sofa. Sandy bleated the news “… coup has overturned the government. The former president is now in hiding and the General has taken the reins of the government in his hands.” Baburao watched my face.

Paean to laziness

2004-11-14T04:18:00.000-08:00

Laziness, indolence, sloth; call it whatever you will, it's the one thing that keeps me going ... uh ... or not going ... whatever. Rather than exert my brain to search for words and expressions to describe laziness, I would prefer to quote some other great people.

"I don't think necessity is the mother of invention - invention, in my opinion, arises directly from idleness, possibly also from laziness. To save oneself trouble. "
Agatha Christie

"There is no pleasure in having nothing to do; the fun is in having lots to do and not doing it."
Mary Wilson Little

"My only hobby is laziness, which naturally rules out all others"
Anonymous

"Ambition is a poor excuse for not having sense enough to be lazy. "
Edgar Bergen

"Idleness is not doing nothing. Idleness is being free to do anything. "
Floyd Dell

"I like the word 'indolence'. It makes my laziness seem classy."
Bern Williams

"My passions are all asleep from my having slumbered till nearly eleven and weakened the animal fiber all over me to a delightful sensation about three degrees on this sight of faintness -- if I had teeth of pearl and the breath of lilies I should call it languor -- but as I am I must call it laziness. In this state of effeminacy the fibers of the brain are relaxed in common with the rest of the body, and to such a happy degree that pleasure has no show of enticement and pain no unbearable frown. Neither poetry, nor ambition, nor love have any alertness of countenance as they pass by me."
John Keats

"You can't imagine what a pleasure this complete laziness is to me: not a thought in my brain- you might send a ball rolling through it!"
Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy

"Nothing irritates me more than chronic laziness in others. Mind you, it's only mental sloth I object to. Physical sloth can be heavenly."
Elizabeth Hurley

And my favourite -
"Efficiency is intelligent laziness."
David Dunham

Calculus

2004-11-01T03:50:00.000-08:00

I hate calculus. Not that I am much inclined towards the rest of mathematics; but the slope of my inclination and that of calculus, in particular, are exactly at right angles. The rate of change of my understanding of the subject has never wandered far from zero. Every time I see an integral, a strange, almost mystical fear creeps into me reminding me of how I was tortured by the tortuous solutions of those little, harmless looking 'S' shaped things. And the differential equations, they just squeeze the protoplasm out of my grey cells. I refuse to endorse this evil scheme to render simple mathematics incomprehensible to poor students like me. I hate calculus.

Rupa

2004-10-22T04:03:00.000-07:00

This is my first short story... had written it about a year ago.

It was six in the evening. I was standing in front of the Victoria Memorial. I looked around and saw couples walking around, sitting on the lush grass, talking and laughing. I wondered when my time would come. I was waiting for Rupa. Rupa was a nice girl. Very nice. She had long flowing black hair which complemented her fair skin. She was soft spoken and had a sweet voice. And her eyes, they were just out of this world. But most importantly, she liked me. We had met just a week ago at a fest at her college. She had given me her phone number. I had called her everyday and our friendship and my curiosity had grown over the week. Finally we had decided to meet that evening at the Victoria Memorial.

I saw her coming from a distance. She was wearing a light brown salwar suit and was looking around in short glances trying not to give the impression that she was looking for somebody. As her eyes caught me waving frantically, a smile instantly flashed on her face. She lifted her hand up to wave back but stopped short of it. I ran across to her.

‘How are you?’, I asked formally.

She smiled her brilliant smile again but didn’t say anything.

‘So, how is it going at your college?’, I tried again.

‘Okay’, she said.

Silence.

Desperate to start a conversation, I fired the Brahmastra, ‘You look beautiful!’

She blushed and replied, ‘Thank you! You don’t look too bad either.’

It worked, we were underway. We started walking as we talked. I was starting to like her.

It was about nine. We were sitting on a bench.

Rupa was talking about her career plans, when she stopped suddenly, looked at her watch and asked, ‘Would you mind dropping me home? It is getting late.’.

I replied apologetically, ‘I don’t have a bike. But we can catch a taxi.’.

‘I am sorry to bother you’, she said, ‘but there have been these rumours about a serial killer roaming in the city. So ...’.

‘I understand. No problem.’, I said and added, ‘but what makes you think I would save you if the serial killer attacked you?’.

I tried hard to find traces of a smile on her lips but no, she hadn’t found that one funny. I stopped a taxi and she asked the driver if he would go to Salt Lake. The driver nodded and we got in.

The taxi was, well, a typical taxi. The driver was a small, thin man whose dyed hair and clean shaven face made him look younger than he was. Rupa kept looking out of the window and answered all my questions in monosyllables. Her knit brows and the pensive look she tried to put on made her look a little funny. But the street lights flashing across her face made the sharp contours of her face seem even sharper and brought out a strange beauty in her which I hadn’t noticed before.

To coax her out of her contemplation I said to the driver, ‘What is all the fuss about this serial killer business?’

Although I succeeded in my primary objective, as Rupa gave me a wide-eyed what-are-you-doing look, I realised that my attempt had let to other consequences when a newspaper heading straight for my face caught me unaware. After I had got a hold over things, I realised that the driver had got all worked up at the mention of the serial killer and had ‘tossed’ the newspaper at me to show me all the reports about him. He was still babbling about the killer as I unfolded the newspaper. It was a few days old and was folded to the third page where a headline read ‘Sixth murder in a row. Serial killer still at large.’Rupa came close to me to have a look at the newspaper and I looked at her face as she read the whole report. All the serious thoughtfullness had vanished from her face and there was a sense of nervous excitement about her now. After she finished reading the report I skillfully manipulated the resulting conversation from the dry subject of the murders to a more pleasant topic of how she had gone on a picnic with her friends to the Botanical Gardens. Once her mind was steered safely clear of the killings, I just leaned back and listened to her sweet voice ring in my ears.

The residents of Salt Lake like to stay at home after dark. Taking advantage of the deserted streets, the driver was racing through them, when suddenly the car came to a jerky stop.

The driver said, ‘Some problem, saab’ and relucantly got out to look under the hood.

I got down from the taxi and looked around. Rupa came out and stood beside me. We decided to leave the taxi and walk as her house was not too far from there. As we were talking I noticed that the driver was casting suspicious glances at me from time to time. I looked at Rupa and pressed a finger against my lips. I left her wondering and went quietly aound the car to stand just behind the driver so that my shadow fell directly in front of him. As he saw my shadow he stopped working and stiffened. I slowly reached into my pocket and then brought my hand out with a jerk holding a pen in my fist like a knife. The driver never looked back. He left his car and just ran with all the speed he could muster. Rupa burst into a fit of near hysteric laughter. I couldn’t help smiling.

The complete desertedness of the streets implied that either the street dogs of Salt Lake also followed the norm of going to sleep before ten or the municipal authorities were doing their job exceedingly well. We were walking slowly talking in low voices when I felt as if I had heard something. I stopped and listened. There was nothing. I shrugged it off and started walking again. The sound came again. This time both of us felt that someone was following us. We stopped talking and started walking quickly. Now the footsteps came loud and clear. Beads of sweat began to appear on Rupa’s forehead and fear was clearly visible on her face.I took hold of Rupa’s hand and almost dragged her with me. I walked as fast as I could and Rupa had to occasionally jog to keep pace with me. After about five minutes of run-walking we stopped. I tried to hear for footsteps but there were none. I walked a few more steps and listened again. Nothing pierced the silence of the night except Rupa’s heavy breathing. I went up to Rupa.

She smiled and said, ‘Thank you!’.

I returned the smile and said ‘Thank God!’.

We started walking again hand in hand.

Just as we turned the next corner, he stood there. He held a butcher’s knife in one hand which he quickly lifted up to a striking position. We stopped where we were with Rupa clutching on to my arm.

He shouted at us, ‘Its no use screaming. No one can hear you here.’

I looked around. We were surrounded by half constructed buildings and except the three of us there was no one in sight.

He had chosen his spot smartly. He was well built with strong arms. His unshaven face and unwashed clothes showed that he was not well off .

I tried to remain calm and said half mockingly, ‘So, you are the famed serial killer.’

He laughed and replied, ‘No, but if I kill you the police will think the serial killer did it. So, I have no reason to spare you if you don’t give me all you have.’

Looking at Rupa one would have thought that someone was presenting her a box of chocolates rather than threatening to kill her. She happily parted with her purse and I handed over my wallet and watch.

Pleasantly surprised by such lack of resistance from his quarry, the thug, while shoving our belongings into his shirt, said, ‘I don’t know for what this guy kills women. He doesn’t take their money or jewellery. I mean, he could have done so many things with the women before killing them. If I were him I would have just ...’.

I raised my hand in a gesture asking him to stop. I knew what he was going to say and I didn’t want to embarass Rupa. His demands met, the thug had no reason to complain. He turned and walked away into the shadows. Rupa took my arm and we started walking again.

I said to her, ‘I am sorry you had such a horrible time.’

She stopped looked at me and smiled, ‘None of it was your fault. You are a very nice person.’.

‘... very nice person ...’- her words echoed in my head. She turned around and started walking. I silently followed a step behind. As I looked at her, stormy waves of emotions rocked my heart. ‘She has everything one can want in a woman’ ; ‘Is she really what she seems to be or is she too good to be true?’; thoughts like these raced through my mind. After five heart wringing minutes. I decided that Rupa was, without doubt, the love of my life.

I stopped walking. She also stopped and turned around. Her face, which looked quite saintly under the street lights, bore a questioning look. ‘Rupa, I love you’, I said.

‘What?’, she replied and stepped back.

‘Do you love me?’, I asked.

The expression on her face changed dramatically. In fact, it appeared to me as if her face itself changed completely. She was not Rupa anymore. Not my Rupa.

‘We have known each other for just a week’, she said, ‘ I don’t even know you properly’.

‘But you just said I was a nice person’, I said as a sharp pain started rising in my heart.

‘Yes’, she said , ‘but that was as a friend. Why couldn’t we just remain friends? Why can’t you men ever think about a platonic relationship. Or is it that you need a girlfriend to show off to your friends? Is that it? Huh. Is that it?’

She went on and on but I couldn’t make anything out as the pain was now piercing my heart. My temples throbbed as tears welled up in my eyes. A vortex of haphazard thoughts was spinning violently in my head.

‘She is not the one’, I thought, ‘She is just like the others. She used me. She lied to me. She broke my heart. She never liked me. She is just like the others.’

I went up to her and said,’Do you love me?’.

‘No’, she shouted back.

I clenched my fists. ‘Do you atleast like me?’, I gave her a last chance.

‘Not any more’, she said.

Her emphatic reply made my job easier.
I put one hand on her mouth and pushed her on to the ground. With the other hand I took out my knife and slashed her throat with it. Then I got up and watched. She was writhing on the ground in pain, her body twisting and turning like a fish out of water. She tried to shout but couldn’t as blood oozed out through her fingers clutching her throat. Her eyes were wide open and looked as if they would pop out any moment. To me her pain was like a shower of cold water on my burning heart. It eased my pain. Slowly her struggle with death came to an end. She lay there, her body twisted and her tongue hanging out. A pool of blood had formed under her head in which her hair and her dupatta were soaking. ‘I have killed her’, I thought, ‘her sweet voice will never be heard in this world again’. Clouds of regret tried to block the sunshine of satisfaction I was basking in but were blown away by winds of hope. ‘There are other girls, more beautiful than her, who will love me and whom I will love’, I thought.

As I was thinking about how I would find the girl of my dreams, I heard a bang and a searing pain suddenly rose in my right hand. I don’t clearly remember what happened after that as the pain had blurred my vision and thoughts. I remember some uniformed policemen running around me. I also remember the face of the taxi driver looking down at me with a sense of accomplishment.

Now when I sit in my cell in this mental asylum and look back, I don’t regret what I did. Don’t be mislead into believing that I didn’t love them. I had loved them from the bottom of my heart. All seven of them. But they broke my heart. After igniting all the emotions and passions of love in me, they refused to reciprocate my love. They cheated me and had to pay the price for what they did. Now, I just sit here and wait to be released so that I can go out and start afresh my search for the love of my life.

As Long As

2004-10-22T03:49:00.000-07:00

For a long time now I haven't been able to think of anything to write on this blog. So, I thought I should post one of my poems instead. This one is called 'As Long As'. Its not the best thing I've ever written; I wrote this when I was in school; but it is the one which is closest to my heart, and I don't even know why.

As long as the swans continue to fly,
As long as the sky continues to cry,
As long as the path of souls seeking heaven,
Is bounded by colours, not one but seven.

As long as, enchanted by her smile,
The lover of a maiden stops awhile,
And thinks, amidst his endless quest,
To be the one, to be the best.

As long as we can't eradicate pain,
As long as nature we can't explain,
As long as there is poverty and misery,
As long as people are sick and hungry.

There will be a need
For Him.

The good, the bad and the confused.

2004-10-11T11:43:00.000-07:00

' A guy went to a doctor.

He moved his hand in a weird way and said, "Hey doc, it hurts when I do this."

The doctor said, "Don't do it."

Think about that.' - Woody Allen.

I've thought about that. And its true. We ... no, let me speak just for myself, ok ... I do stuff which I know I shouldn't be doing, which is bad for me and is going to hurt me. But I do it nonetheless.

I guess one reason could be that hurt or pain isn't all bad. I think I need a little bit of that stuff in my life . I guess everybody does. It sort of helps to strike a balance. If everything were to be nice and good then maybe they wouldn't feel that good. Its like if everything tasted sweet then nobody would like candies.

But the reality is that most of the world is bad and painful. That's why goodness is so appreciated. Its something like the universe. Most of it is empty with small chunks of matter strewn around. That's why we think of it as matter in emptiness rather than emptiness in matter. Not a very good analogy but you get the point right.

We can go further and say who or what decides what is emptiness and what is matter. That is to say how does one define good or bad? Are the definitions universal or do they depend on your frame of reference (I've been dying to use that phrase) ? Is everything categorized as black or white or are they in varying shades of grey?

That's too much of crap for one post so I guess I'd better continue this in another one.

Comfortably Numb

2004-10-06T10:32:00.000-07:00

'I have become comfortably numb' - Pink Floyd

I've always believed that to write or say something good/interesting, which people would like to read/listen to, you've got to feel strongly about the subject. You've got to have strong views, and that strength has to get reflected in your work. But what if you have no views? What if you just don't care? What if you are (just can't resist the cliche) 'comfortably numb' ?

I seem to be drifting into such a state of existence nowadays. I just don't care. I don't care about my grades, I don't care what people think when I stand up and bulb in a class (i.e. whenever I happen to go to a class), I don't care if I am growing fatter by the day just sitting in front of my comp and above all, I don't care if India wins or loses at cricket.

But the thing is that I don't like it that way. Being numb is not that comfortable after all. When you don't feel pain and sadness, you don't feel warmth and happiness either. The only happiness (if you can call it that) I have felt in the last few weeks is watching 'Friends' on my comp. And now even that is over as I've finished all the episodes.

Its a strange feeling. You don't have any problems, any pain. Your life is as peaceful as it can get. But you are just not happy. Then you start looking for happiness in different places. Movies, music, booze and of course 'Friends'. But its all kind of empty. Its good while it lasts but you are not left with anything.

Its like I, the real me, or my soul if you like, has just frozen all over. If only I had some kind of axe or something with which I could just strike one hard blow and have it all back again. All the joy, happiness and warmth along with the sadness, the pain and anguish. Believe me, its not a bad deal.

Please don't read this if you are a close relative of a certain Mr. Lallu

2004-09-28T07:26:00.000-07:00

This is what happened to Lallu today. He had a test at 5 in the evening and was dutifully flipping through pages of xeroxed notes. It was about 3 in the afternoon.He and his co-mugger were gleefully patting themselves on the back for having survived the first half of the notes. Then suddenly (yup, just as in the movies) he heard a knock on the door. He opened it. Two of his friends were standing there smiling like models in a toothpaste ad. On being prompted by Lallu they revealed through their smiles that they had been kicked out by the company which had come for recruitment. Lallu further enquired how this was related to the shining display of their magnificient yellow teeth. They replied that they were going to celebrate and asked if Lallu and his unsuspecting friend would like to join.

Now, some people do celebrate before tests and exams, maybe because they think they are getting an oppurtunity to display and prove their their mugging skills. Lallu here, is definitely not one of those, not to say he has those skills, but still. But this time, the temptation of knowing how it was to give an exam on a high, got the better of poor Lallu and he acquiesced. So the two gay ( as in happy ;-) ) friends rushed to fetch the booze and Lallu rushed to complete the other half of his exam portion. But he had barely started ( or so he felt) when the two guys were back with three quarts of vodka and one of whiskey. Lallu asked them to wait until he had finished mugging but the sound of the bottles jingling in his friend's bag was resonating in his mind. After a few tongue-slurping minutes he gave up pretending and the celebrations got underway.

At five minutes to five Lallu was sitting in the exam hall waiting for the test to begin. He felt light and a strange kind of happiness filled him. He didn't know anything but he was not worried about that. His real worry was if he still smelled of vodka. He had brushed his teeth and all but he didn't know if that helped. His doubts got cleared when a friend sitting beside him tapped him and asked, "Have you boozed?" Lallu nodded his head and smiled sheepishly. The papers were distributed. As the professor passed Lallu, he muttered something. Lallu just sat still and watched him pass by. He thanked God the professor didn't smell anything. After all, he was his project guide.

Of the two questions he did the first one which he knew. For the second question he was just scribbling on his paper waiting for his project guide, who was standing right by the gate, to go. Finally he gave up. The professor was chatting with some students and he thought that with some luck he could slip through. But luck has a habit of deserting you when you need it the most. Just as he was passing, the professor called him.

"What is happening in the project? I haven't seen you for many weeks now."

"I have been trying to get some results. But no luck, sir", he lied and went on to restate the problem statement of the project because that was all he knew.

"What do you think we should do sir?"

The professor started to reply but stopped, looked up at Lallu's face and asked him to meet him later.

Now, Lallu doesn't know if the professor had caught the smell, but he is going to celebrate the experience tonight. You know what I mean by 'celebrate', right?

Probability

2004-09-27T11:06:00.001-07:00

Eg. 1 - I know that the probability of a person reading a post on probability is probably very less, but as you are one of those improbable people who have read it so far, the conditional probability of you reading it further is probably much higher now.

Eg.2 - Me writing on probabiity was probably not that probable but given the fact that I have an exam on probability tomorrow, the conditional probability of this topic being chosen was probably much higher.

From the two examples you can probably see that in probability everything is always 'probable' and never definite (that's why its called probability, sucker ... ). So, the probability of even the most improbable event happening is never zero. So, if probability can never predict anything completely, its definitely (and not probably) not worth my while to spend time studying it. My time, in my opinion, is much better utilised in writing nonsense about probability. Hence, the probability that more such nonsense will be coming up on this blog is probably not zero.

Darwinian Laziness

2004-09-25T13:34:00.000-07:00

Hypothesis : Laziness is the reason we are down here while the monkeys are still on the trees.

Proof : Lets see. Everything was going well. Mr. Chim P. Anzee and Mr. Orang U. Tan were dangling from the branches, chomping on their bananas and were discussing the finer points of existence itself. Mr. Anzee was wondering if the existence of fruits would have been fruitful if he and his kind had not existed to enjoy the fruits of their existence. Mr. Tan on the other hand was wondering if climbing up and down trees was the sole purpose of his being. Why did he have to climb up trees? What would change if he were to just live on ground and never climb up trees? He proposed the idea to Mr. Anzee who, on hearing it, was quite aghast by the idea of giving up fruits. But Mr. Tan was convinced. He would be happy to live without ever having to climb a tree again, even if it meant giving up fresh fruits. I'll just pick'em off the ground, he thought. A life of laziness where he would be just lying around doing nothing was just too much for him to resist. So he packed his bags, said goodbye to Mr. Anzee and headed south. And the rest, as they say, is prehistory.