Dumb Post

If the state of being bored is boredom,
and the state of being free is freedom,
and the state of being a star is stardom,
and (coincidentally) the state of a king is kingdom,
what would the state of being conned be??

until next time, not to worry, this post is just random :)

Point Being...

Have finished both of Chetan Bhagat's books - the hugely popular 'Five point someone', and the heavily trashed 'One night at the Call center', and that doesnt mean i can write book reviews..:) because like i have repeatedy said, i am really bad at them, but that doesnt stop me from commenting on books anyway...

I happened to read ONATCC first, and i felt it was a fairly good book.. i doubt if it is meant to provoke a deep analysis of self and the cosmos.. but it does give a peek into the working of the industry that employs a large percentage of today's youth, and the lives of these guys..its a racy book and more importantly excellent value for money.. to all the literary critics, i would say that we sit and laugh at the 'No Entry's and the 'Meet the Parents' fully understanding that theres hardly any cinematic value to it.. in the nation's lingo its called timepass, and theres no harm if an author caters to that need at all.. and so, in essence, the book wont change your life, unless you took a day off from work to read it or something...

Five point someone also has a good pace, and while there are occasions which are too 'filmi' (like x thing happening to the exact x person at exact x time, which is too convenient for random coincidence), it is still a good read...i think the difference between the two books is that while FPS is a first person experience (for mr.bhagat), ONATCC is perhaps in a setting about which he only has another person's view of...and while the prologue in ONATCC says that the book is written primarily to accomodate the larger sections of youth untouched by the IIT (which is the setting in FPS), i feel that FPS also applies to most of the residential colleges because all have grading systems, weird profs, love lives, canteens, and stereotype characters.. i think that made the book successful, because most of everyone could identify it with the (arguably) golden era of their lives - college days..So, point being, i am really bad at reviews, but you should read the books :)
until next time, we pass time, and time passes us :)

Time.....

Finished reading a book a while back, titled 'Emperors of the Peacock Throne'.. it is a chronicle of the mughal empire, starting from Babur to a little beyond Aurangazeb's reign.. While the book did give a lot of interesting tidbits that were contrary to popular knowledge (like the fact that anarkali was actually part of akbar's harem, and was at least 13 years older to salim) a more interesting thought crept into my mind, as i read the last few pages of the book...

the entire mughal era, spanning over 300 years has been condensed into 500 odd pages of well written history (well written because it is more like a story than history).. but while i read about the conquests of babur, the administrative policies of akbar, and the feuds ofaurangazeb, these are, in my eyes, only characters in history.. what i later realise, on more thought, is that these are also humans, who had their own thoughts... and while these characters are at least represented in the books, there are millionsand millions of characters who were part of the background - ministers, soldiers, common people.each of them had a life, some boring, some interesting, some routine, some filled with adventure,but each with a story to tell... but perhaps never told by anyone..

the point i am trying to make - while we run around doing things that are seemingly vital at that point of time and place and our lives, perhaps we do not realise that in the absolute vastness of time and space, it is maybe of no significance.. or maybe it is, in some way we cant fathom -through children and grandchildren and so on... we would like to think so...not that we should stop what we do, but somewhere, sometimes also remember that we are but tiny cogs in His vast machinery, and realise our humble role...
until next time, how ever is forever??

Memories

...of the relatively ignorant bliss of childhood... of the roller coaster ride of adolescence, the exhilrating times of youth... so far.. and perhaps as we grow older, the realisation of middle age, and the inevitability of old age... by the time we reach the twilight of ourlives, perhaps these memories become one of the pillars of our lives...

something that we never work towards, and assume that our minds would automatically record and catalog it - by person, by time, by taste, smell and hordes of other things that cant be described..

I saw a malayalam movie recently, a movie i was looking forward to seeing, featuring my fave actor and directed by a one movie old director, who had set an extremely high benchmark with his debut movie.. and thankfully, it delivered, and how!! it reinstored my faith in actor whose performance screamed out that all he needed were good scripts and he would do the rest.

that was a necessary digression, because even the trigger for a post has to be acknowledged, specially one as deserving as this movie...the story of a man who, while having never accomplished his dream, retains his faith in his intellectual abilities, and hopes that he can live his dream through his son. a man who has to balance his duty towards his father with that towards his son.. and while he focuses all his energies on all these happenings in his life, gets struck with alzheimers.... i cant remember a malayalam movie in years which can come remotely close to this one .. and no, thats not because of any ailment, its because there hasnt been a movie like this in years...:)

its a movie that made me think.. day after day after day, we go around focusing ourselves on the short term and long term things we aspire to do.. some get a joy out of a night with friends, some get it with the knowledge that their investments are safe and sound, some get a joy out of having achieved something..but all of us get a joy out of remembering the good times we have had in our lives... what if we cant remember those.. in His infinite wisdom, perhaps he has answered this too, for if we dont know that we cant remember, theres no pain... we will live small lives, with joys and sorrows we would never remember later...
until next time, remember to drop in again :)

Beginnings and Endings

Saw a lot of new year resolutions on blogs, and that sparked a little post in my head, and it was given a little more sense of direction by a couple of posts - by Aqua and Hyde...

It is customary to fix a few resolutions on New year, or so they say.. from going to the gym to stop being rude to others to control on number of parallel love lives, it could be anything, depending on subjective fancies..some of us keep it, and some of us just keep it...

On a larger canvas, by the time we reach the age when we can decide about ourselves, and have quite about decided on ourselves, there are some goals we set for ourselves - personally,professionally and a lot of things that are general, and having to do with the fact that we will be living a certain number of years on the planet... things that we must do (we feel),things that we aspire to do, and things we would love to do... (i wonder if the higher power interferes while we set these)

as we progress in life, and as our lives progress on us, a lot of these get changed, because of time, the people we interact with, and ironically also because of the sheer inertia that prevents us from changing our habits... (i would love to be at x kgs all my life, but i cant wake up at x am daily to exercise)..and suddenly one day, when we sit staring at the stars, we realise how much we have changed,and how different we are from the original age when we had set these goals... the arbit comments we make on ourselves like 'i had never thought i would do this' are only words and we are perhaps not aware of the statement's depth...

maybe the initial ideals were right, and maybe the current 'us' is right... there is no way to anlayse the paths that might have been... do we owe something to the first time we set our goals, and do we owe something to a higher power which might have set a goal for us...meanwhile, life happens, and perhaps we only happen to be in it....
until next time, whats happening??

Papa Preach!!

It must be because all of us are around the same age, or maybe its the template way of our existence.. anyways, have recently read at least 3-4 posts that have to do with parents' retirement.. and again due to the typical way of our existence, its mostly dads who are written about... also interesting are the comments, that in some way identify with the situation...

while i do agree that retirement in some way creates a void in life thats difficult to replace, i have also begun to think that the above set of dads have achieved more than what we have, or will... and thats perhaps the better way to look at it...

They have the respect of their sons, daughters.. they have settled themselves well, and even provided for their children.. they may perhaps have never known a career crisis... and they are proud of the work they have accomplished in their career...they havent worked so hard that they never had time for the little joys in life.. they have passed on a value system to their next generation..they can look back and say that they did justice to their parents, in terms of time and attention..

yes, they might offer you advice that you wouldn't follow, and bore you with what they did and how, but that, i guess is a nice way of knowing about a way of life that once was...

until next time, father figures...best

Two thousand sicks

No, i wouldnt be able to manage that many sicks

so the few below are my picks..

Its another year, so lend me your ear

and listen to this year's list of what will be fun to hear...

Harry will object to the British tabloids' findings that he is a half blood prince.

Ajay Devgan will become the first actor in the world to respond to all incoming calls.

Paris Hilton will finally get married and become a Desperate Housewife.

Pawar politics will not hamper the future of Indian cricket.

Yana Gupta will get intelligent enough to play chess, and perhaps then checkmate me ;) (that should be easy)

Natwar Singh will get cholesterol conscious and have less oil in his food.

Ekta Kapoor will launch Kkaun Banega Mera Pati?

Williams, driven by Narain Kartikeyan will narrowly lose to Michael Schumacher's Ferrari.

Young Indian bloggers will get the global recognition they deserve.

English Premier League champions ManU will thank this blog for its continued support.

Aamir Khan will get married to Kiran and on his honeymoon will hear a familiar voice saying kkkkkkiran, if you aren't happy with The Rising, Main Hoon Na....

Radha will remain a character in Hindu mythology and will not reincarnate in the form of people like Panda.

until next time, that does make a Happy New Year, you know :)
PS: Last year's list

New Year

Two Thousand Sikhs

Yup, Happy should be in there too!!

until next time, next post, next year :)

Quite Contrary

Jo was thinking of the day he had left his small town.. He hadnt been a happy man then .. his trade wasnt giving him the kind of money that would enable him to lead a comfortable life, it wasnt even giving him enough to survive.. and to top that he had recently gotten himself engaged to a beautiful woman. Not that it was bad in itself, but the shameless young men in his town had made it a habit to ogle at her, and the frequent fights he was having with them had put off several potential customers...he wasnt suspicious of his wife to be, but it was just that it wasnt in her nature not to smile back at anyone who smiled at her, and several guys took this as very suggestive...And he so desperately wanted to wed her, but he felt he wasnt financially secure enough to do so.. and so, one day, when she told him that she was pregnant, he didnt quite know how to react.. for all his friends knew how, inspite of his intense desire, he had been keeping himself in check... and no one would believe that there was a divine intervention in his becoming a father..

And that was how he had left the town. now several months later, here he was, in the small town of Jerusalem, looking at Mary, who would deliver the child any moment.. Here he could claim the child as his own, and celebrate its birthday every year in peace...He felt bad that she was going to give birth to the child in a stable, but he was a confident that things would take a turn for the better soon. Yes, Jo was a happy man now..

until next time, hope it was a merry christmas :)
PS: last year....

Marginal Utility

I can see all those with a fair knowledge of economics arch their eyebrows upward :).. to confess,i dont know it in depth... all i remember is the 'orange' example... and so (for the benefit of those who dont know the theorem) here goes, the satisfaction you gain by eating oranges decreases with each orange that you eat... and orange was only an example (for those who dont like oranges, and those who dont eat more than an orange at a time, i dont think you were considered while formulating the theory)... well, now since everyone is on the same page, the reason for the reference is to do with happiness... does the law of diminishing marginal utility apply to happiness..

i faintly remember the prof saying that it was only applicable to (thats when i slept off..)....and so, i will humor my thought... even though happiness can come through different sources -listening to good music, an appreciative comment, good food, pay hike, doing a good deed, landing a good job, a good spouse and so on and so forth, could it be that our chances of deriving happiness out of something- anything, could be decreasing.. if not chances, at least the amount of happiness that we derive...

if we keeping getting all the things that make us happy, maybe we start failing to appreciate them, which is perhaps what is happening to us right now... with so much of currency floating around, EMIs and credit card swipes may have changed the way we look at happiness, and made 'happiness' more easy, to the extent that even happiness is commoditised... maybe thats exactly whats wrong...
until next time, laws are meant to be broken...

Stop or my Mom will shoot....

Isnt there a movie by that name? But nope, nothing to do with the movie, but felt that the title is somehow appropriate to what this post says....

Its every Mom's dream that her children grow up to be the best possible... and she will give them proper guidance and try to inculcate the right values.. she will make sure that the paths that they choose are the correct ones, and will not affect them, or the ones around them adversely.. if she has more than one child, she will shower on each, love in equal measures and make sure they are happy...

Sometimes, she will give a good spanking, when needed.. if they dont learn, maybe she will make them go without food for sometime... she will tell them examples of children gone bad, and how they had to suffer for it...maybe she will make sure that some of the stuff they take for granted disappear, so that they realise that they are doing something wrong...

she will be patient for a long long time, but if driven to it, she will be willing to take away the life she herself created... all the tsunamis, all the hurricanes, all the earthquakes, all the extra hot summers, and the extra cold winters, all the horrible showers, wonder if the children are learning...

until next time, hope we dont get shot...

Breaking news....

Its not exactly breaking news that the media industry is looking at a phenomenal boom in the next few months.. and thats across the verticals - print, radio, television and so on..which raises the question of how much 'news' acually happens in the world on a daily basis.. is it so much that the existing entities are not enough to make sure that all of it reaches the world, and if not, then what justifies the mushrooming of more of their kind? which is, i guess, when we get into creation of news, sting operations and overall sensationalising of trivia.. when a malayala manorama in kerala would carry the 'news' that your neighbour's cow broke its tether and damaged your fence, and NDTV would get its video footage and classify it as 'Breaking news'.. you would be happy, so would your neighbour, since any publicity is good publicity.. but will i, sitting hundreds of kilometers away and not having any specific interest in bovine revolutionary tactics, be interested in the news? i guess not..

the argument would be that 'you dont like it, dont watch it', but what if all the channels/publications think its worthy news, what option does that leave? nothing, and sadly we have only ourselves to blame, because we are less interested in reading/seeing Chidambaram's fiscal policy than Nigar Khan's physical policies...

but what prompted me to think about this entire trip was manorama's week long front page coverage of the death of a malayali in afghanistan.. isnt that exactly what the terrorist group would want? extensive media coverage and a sublimal building of fear in the citizens? on a parallel note, a murderer would get much more prominence in coverage than a guy who might have saved a life..

by creating sensations out of every possible trivia that happens in every remote corner, isn't the media encouraging a whole lot of wrong things? there is a thin line between right to information and right information, and it takes a lot of maturity to walk the line...and so it aint so strange after all that lives full of trivia would slowly but surely get converted into trivial lives, for who wouldnt want their 15 secondsof fame?

until next time, what news??

Turning 35...

No, you evil people, not me.... its still a decade away, okay, 8 years away... i was referring to sachin's record breaking 35th century..During the initial years of his career, i had always been a skeptical 'okay, how long before he burns out' observer.. a bit later, when his schoolmate joined him in the team, i was supporting him - vinod ganpat kambli.. i have this default thingie of supporting the underdog...ironically, it was kambli who burnt out, and never played to his potential..well, almost never ever.. and then the match fixing controversies made me less of a keen observer of the game...

but while all that was happening, my admiration of the little master was growing, grudging at first, but growing nevertheless.. i even remember a friend during my post grad days, who was a die hard fan, whom i used to chide whenever sachin failed to score.. times had begun to change when i used to counter his high scoring with the point that he never clicked when we needed him most to applauding his efforts.. i still remember the two matches against australia in sharjah (?),centuries in consecutive matches - match winners...but wait, before i digress and throw off the non cricket aficionados, this isnt about the game, its about the man...

i think what makes him great IMHO, is that he remains untouched by his greatness.. on the contrary, it has made him better... it takes great character to resist the temptation of letting yourself talk instead of your bat, especially when there are jibes and barbs hurled at you by people far inferior to yourself... and so, when the man finally silenced yet another group of question marks after a year (between #34 and #35) its defintely an occasion for a post...

and i couldnt help but notice the contrast between the two men occupying the crease...sachin tendulkar - an all time great who has just scaled another height, and yet the epitome of humility... and sourav ganguly - who has fallen from heights, and who is perhaps just realising that in the path to greatness, humility is indeed a great asset...
until next time, bowled over.....

Sikandar

Its one of the names i have a fascination for... from the Indian version of Alexander's name to Anil Kapoor in Trimurti, it conveys (to me) someone who can conquer all, someone who is on a plane above normal humans... the reason why the name is the topic of discussion is because i happened to dine in a restaurant by that name sometime back..

while i dont consider myself competent enough to put together a food review, i can safely say that it lived up to its name..of course, i could have been extremely biased because it offered me the opportunity to indulge in another of my fascinations.. sitting at a height and watching humanity move along on the roads below... walking, driving, just moving on, into the night...

i bet thats one of God's favourite views..wonder what freud would have made out of this... a desire to be above current levels in life? a need to be objective all the time? at a subconscious level, perhaps these could be factors, but at the conscious level, to me, it is a humbling experience, like looking at a starlit sky and us humans below, because it is moments like these that seem to tell me that i am a small part of a huge canvas, an experience that i have no idea about...
until next time, 'We are all made of stars'......

Seasons...

Its chilly in Bangalore... not the bone numbing chilly, but the kind of chilly that gets taken care of by a jacket, the kind thats pleasant, the kind that i associate with a hot tea, a good book, snuggling under the blanket.. and reflecting about the seasons...yes, we are talking about the weather :).. because the pleasantness of it makes it interesting... well, okay, maybe i didnt have anything else to write about... :)

but theres definitely something about it that inspires a post.. its one of the times when time makes us objective, step outside ourselves, and reflect on the things that have been happening,things that we have been doing unconsciously in the daily rigmarole of living, and get reminded of when we actually start thinking about it...

the last three months of the year.... in some places - winter.. in chennai - the time when it takes exactly 3 more seconds for an ice cream to melt (pleo, was it, who wrote that), in kerala - the time when the one and a half hour non stop bus journey to the engineering college early in the morning became all the more unbearabale, and your beacon is the hostel loo, at the end of the journey, a time long long ago... the time spent in writing mock tests to land up in a good management institute, the rush to beat the three hour clock, a time long long ago....in goa - amidst all the sun and sand and scary tests and assignments, counting days to the christmas vacation when you could go home, a time long ago.... back to kerala - balancing sales targets, and a desire to be in bangalore with the wife to be, sometime ago :)...

and finally bangalore - listening to 'Walk of Life' and smiling away at the post that just got written...yes, seasons, i guess it is just nature's clock ticking away, reminding us of the good and not so good times that have been happening to us, and around us.... long long ago, long ago and now..

until next time, nice clock, no cause for alarm....:)