The calling...

thats a good band, but this post aint about them, its about us..
virtual acquaintances- to each other, thats mostly what we are..
my tryst with yahoo messenger began during my post grad days, i think it was the place where 'manuscrypts' as a term originated... all my yahoo friends were people who were known to me 'really'.. so there was no question of 'virtual personalities'..it's only blogging where most of the people i know are 'virtual personalities'.. to a certain extent, they are only as virtual as their photos online.. but then again,i think i've seen only simon's, pradeep's and wings'. to be fair, images helped me find a cousin who blogs, but that, i think, was only an aberration...i have never been too fond of blogmeets, simply because i love the anonymity and the'someone, somewhere' feeling (no, not the 'made for you' one, a little more ordinary)..
more importantly, to maintain a forum where judgements are made only based on thoughts and words, not the physical manifestations... to put it a lil more bluntly acne, dandruff, body odour etc dont matter on the net.. at a similarly superficial level, nor do complexion, looks etc... personalities are what they write...but, increasingly, i find that more friends are being made on blogs than in real life,maybe because, there is no compulsion, i can read someone's writings, if i like what i read, i'll be back, else i wont.. simple, and no baggage.. and people take hints much better online..hehe..
maybe its easier to reach a comfort level this way, without the regular constraints... the next step in evolution, is to find out whether once the comfort level is achieved, can it be scaled upto the real friends level? times have changed, havent they? from building friendships in the real world and facing the challenge of maintaining them online to building friendships online and facing the challenge of maintaining them in the real world?
someone in the list is coming to bangalore, so here's calling all creatures of the web, what about a meet over coffee??
until next time, virtually yours...

Home run

both posts this week on home, but this week being the way it is, i shall stay with the spirit of things and write a 'homely' post...
all things arranged exactly the way i want it.. and changeable whenever i feel like it... always there whenever i decide to be there... a safe haven, a place where friends come to visit me, a place where i could spend hours on end, a place for which i could spend endless hours shopping..where every little thing is a manifestation of my self in some way or other... a place which could even reflect my changing mood if i so wish...few places could be so comfortable, this place that has been made according tomy specifications and for me...thats what is home.. amazing, home can also be spelled 'blog', and the feeling still remains the same.. maybe they did think about it when they coined 'homepage'....but a question lurks - is it comfort or control that makes home 'home'?
menawhile, here's a good dee for the day... will leave you with some lines from my fave band...
" A long time ago came a man on a track
Walking thirty miles with a pack on his back
And he put down his load where he thought it was the best
Made a home in the wilderness
He built a cabin and a winter store
And he ploughed up the ground by the cold lake shore
And the other travellers came riding down the track
And they never went further, no, they never went back...."
until next time, enjoy your home...

Small Town blues

No, its not about SwB..hehe.. its about guys like me, who have migrated to a bigger city,managed to find a particular groove here, and are comfortable the way they are.. except for the moments when the 'small town blues' hit them...
i have always said that you are lucky if you are born in a big city, no, not because of the neon lights, but because you can choose to spend your entire life in a city you were born in.. of course, all of us do have that choice, but the small town guys make most of their judgements with a lot of constraints' baggage, the biggest these days being job availability...
there is a certan joy of travelling on the same roads, watching things change, going by yourold school, seeing familiar faces, walking in the parks that you played in as a child, feeling the sea wind on your face and watching different ships on the same port, feeling safe, speaking in a language you have been speaking forever, hanging out in places that you know inside out, seeing the night lights - forever growing brighter...
of course floyd has a different version in 'time' -
"kicking around on a piece of ground in your hometown,
waiting for someone or something to show you the way.
tired of lying in the sunshine staying home to watch the rain,
you are young and life is long and there is time to kill today,
and then one day you find ten years have got behind you,
no one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun."........
(speaking of floyd, please check this out)
but i'd still say that for people born in a big city, there are memories of a time that once was,for us, there are memories of a time and place, that once were.... "but i guess thats why they call it the blues"
until next time, blue is my favourite color

Evolution and the Theory of God

have finished reading a book called 'Tomorrow's God', which got me to relook at my spirituality, thereby adding some twists to my earlier posts on the issue...
though i wtote of a system, i had God in it. this book eliminated God as we know him (to be fair, the book warns of this at the outset)... it spoke of a system, of which everything is a part and evolution happened because random objects/organisms moved to a higher state of frequency randomly.(this might help)..the book vehemently opposes the present version of God, because it believes that things become far too easy when we can blame it on a God over whom we have no control, our actions,our behaviour etc can be easily attributed to the way God made us... actually, we are all messiahs of ourselves with our own selfish agenda.
the book advocates a system, with every part of the system being responsible for whatever happens in the system...that is, all that occurs in the system is our responsibility, collectively and directly proportionate to our actions...it means that whenever we do something, anything, we should also think of the effects that action/inaction will have, not just on ourselves, but everything else in the system...good thought, huh??
but, meanwhile, i also get reminded of mel gibson's words from 'signs'...something that meant "there are two kinds of people in this world... group 1 - who believe that nothing happens by chance.. in times of crisis, deep inside them, they believe that someone is watching over them, that gives them hope... and group 2- who believe that everything is a random occurence.. in times of crisis, deep inside, they know, they are all they've got, that fills them with fear...
until next time, have faith in your god...

soldier of fortune

it wasnt as though he had been forced to go. he had made the choice himself, knowing fully well, the dangers, the obvious ones as well as the hidden ones...this mission was particularly dangerous, because the terrain was unfamiliar. well, not exactly, but times were dangerous now, and the roads on which he once used to whistle aloud, were fraught with danger, danger lurking in every bend..and it was dark..
but the prize was worth it, and he had committed anyway..he started out, moving carefully. though these paths were ones he had done a reconnaisance the same morning, he was careful, because a harmless looking shack could suddenly become a hive of activity.
suddenly the explosions started, but these were the ones he had expected, he gritted his teeth and moved on... there was a period of calm, but as he edged closer towards his target, the explosions began again. he had to be more careful now, because these were not paths he had visited in the morning, and it didnt help that the enemy had dug trenches all over the place...
speaking of the enemy, there were so many of them... and so many weapons, of different kinds.. the world had progressed so rapidly that the weapons he had been trained in were almost obsolete now.. but that was quite some time ago, and he was no longer as young and agile as he once was...
finally he reached his destination, the prize was there, and worth it..he took his time, savouring every moment, but secretly fearful of the return journey...
soon,it was time to go, he knew he had to be more careful now, for the prizehad made him a little less alert. but the consolation was that he knew the paths better now... but that consolation did not last long, because he realised that the explosions had increased.. once, he saw a guy in front of him swerve and struggle to retain control, as a shell exploded right in front of him.
the last stretch proved to be the most difficult, as consecutive explosions behaved as though they were specifically targeting him!!finally, he was back..as he took off his helmet, he moaned at what he had to go through for a dine out on diwali night.. hell, it was no longer a celebration, it was war... and he had indeed been a fortunate soldier to get back in one piece...
until next time, dont burst with excitement!!

Lights... Action!!

four days of holidays ahead, so the grateful self thought he should write a few words about the phenomenon thats making it possible..diwali...
the earliest memories are getting dressed up in the white kurta,pyjama set(the one for special occasions), going into the storeroom, taking out the earthern diyas, cleaning them and arranging them on the window ledges... career highs included being allowed to handle oil and light the diyas myself...
simultaneously happening was the cracker department, which had its own career path- from a rookie user, who was not allowed to handle stuff without permission, to the gradual scaling up of the stuff that could be used..the pinnacle being the rocket, i guess, which had to be launched carefully lest it created a "neighbour's envy, owner's pride' effect in the neighbours'house... and finally , the top seat being the buying of crackers and their division among users.....well, once we reach the peak, the only way is down..
i stopped celebrating the year we shifted residence...did celebrate in patches later, but more as a desperate effort to recreate the magic of the days that were gone... a lost cause that redeemed itself only in the joyful faces i saw around me.......
P.S. though south indians usually use 'deepavali', these days, in our house, it is 'diwali', since 'wali' pronounced slightly differently, means 'fart' in malayalam, and....
until next time, have a blast :)

A piece of history........

this post whirled into my mind, due to a comment made on my shoutbox sometime back... :)
the written word has for long been a great tool for storage - storage of thoughts, of happenings and whatever one feels should be recorded somewhere... of course there are some who feel that a picture would do the trick, but to each his own, is all i'll say about that.. and it doesn't actually matter because this post would also relate to photographs - after all they are also storage devices...
whether it is the written word or the photograph, the creator, at least in his subconscious, feels it is for posterity... a tool which would give himself or others an account of the moment/era in which it was taken, whenever it is seen again.... but as time passes, and i mean, a long time, they either get lost or if they do appear, do so in museums or private collections..i dont know about the photos, but the written words do get called manuscripts.
pieces of history which gives us glimpses of what had been..only glimpses, because though the creator would have wanted it to be a complete explanation, we can only make calculated guesses, and whether we are right in our guesses, is also, only a guess........
millions of bloggers worldwide writing daily accounts/ thoughts on the world they live in, the world of their dreams, technology, music, sex, philosophy, careers... what kind of glimpses will they provide to the people in 4004, words staring back from a visual interface, perhaps loaded from an ancient server...
so, is it history we are typing? our present, someone's history... called manuscrypts, bloughts, whirlwings, jabberwhackies... all with their own explanations.....
until next time, keep making history :)

In my dreams....

a couple of days back, someone told me about a movie called 'waking life'. think its an old movie (2001), but have somehow managed to miss it. in it, there is a hypothesis - what if our dreams were the reality? and the converse.... reminded me of the old one liner-"consciousness - that annoying time between naps".. but what if...
but thats not what this post is about, this is about dreams, the same dreams, but in a different context...
once upon a time people used to have dreams.. a bunch of dreams that would be achieved over a lifetime, and the joy that came about due to the fulfilment of dreams was one of a kind..we have ambitions and aspirations now, but are we dreaming now?
if i had to compare 'dreams' and 'aspirations/ambitions' , i'd say that 'dreams' are more humane. i wonder if you understood that, but i have no tangible way i can share it with you, its just a thought... and the way we have changed 'dreams' into 'ambitions/aspirations'is by making it a lot easier to achieve them.
earlier people dreamt of buying a home, but now its just an emi away, same goes for a car, consumer durables. instant gratificationis the new mantra - from flat screens to flat tummies and from intercourse to interactive TV..
love, which is arguably the biggest dream factory, is also a very attainable thing - from confessionsof love by sms/ e-cards to marrying the one of your choice (which have moved from taboo stage to norm)....the argument would be "isnt it better that way"... yes it is, but not at the cost of dreams..
once upon a time, a guy called lennon said "Imagine all the people living life in peace. You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one." wonder if he would say that now..
until next time, dream
(P.S. the title also happens to be one of my favourite songs :) )

Losing my religion - II

the system
since i essentially slept through the weekend, and had a very uninteresting existence, i thought i would stick to some gyan distribution..tell me when the series gets boring..hehe..
the auto pilot- that which propels us through the mundane things of life,and mundane here is an extremely wide array of things. propels us to do things in a predictable way..the auto pilot is an essential part of the system, but the key is the higher being inside us. if we can find it and awaken it, it will guide us to higher levels of consciousness.
heres an interesting example i picked up from "Tomorrow's God" that best explains the working of the system - consider a rock, it is at a particular frequency..left to itself, it will become a diamond, after eons of temperature/pressure fluctuations..now consider the rock in the hands of a human, who, within hours can get the diamond out of the rock, with his science , because he is at a much higher frequency/ level of consciousness.
from the rock's point of view, the rock is the highest state of frequency,but we humans know it is not. but we humans also think we are at the highest level, no we are not..but the good part is that higher the level of consciousness, the easier it is to move ahead..think about this, millions of years to move from cell to organism, lesser millions of years from organism to 'human' form, tens of thousands of years to move through hunter/gatherer mode, thousands of years to move through agrarian civilisations, hundreds of years to move through industrial revolutions, decades to move through technological revolutions.. if you look closely you will see a movement starting with collective consciousness,(a system whose constituents were aware of its existence) to self consciousness, where we are now.. it is a cycle and now its time we started to think of collective consciousness again....the collective consciousness is the system where conscious thoughts and therefore actions are not based on 'i', but on 'us'.and the collective consciousness is the fastest way to the higher 'us'.
before i extol the system, there is a small deviation i will take...until next time, be conscious....