Everything and nothing

Running on the invisible trails

2011-11-24T21:27:00.000-08:00

After last 7 days of travelling and incessant (and mostly unnecessary) marriage shopping and sweets-and-spice-profused Indian food, I finally got an opportunity to run this morning. I started late at 7:20 but it was fine because of the mild winter and a late and lazy sun. I started from our college ground and targetted to run for about an hour.

While my intention was to run straight on the main road (going to Dungarpur), I found a side trail seemingly going to some huts. With some apprehension of dogs and unknown territory, I decided to take it and found myself on soft grounds, huts and a cool village within the town, which I had never seen before. I had been on this road many a times, but always in the school bus or on my bike. This finding was quite surprising and soothing, although 500-700 m inside, I found the city dwellers encroaching upon the last remains of farmland in the town.

I came out on the main road and continue looking for such side trails. After another short trail, I finally found a long one - at least going 1.5-2 km and all soft road. Passing by the villagers in the morning is nice - I shouted 'hari aum' to the old ones and waved hands to the young and the kids who looked curious or gave a smile. There were full range of reactions from unimpressed or unaffected to curious, smiling and surprised fellas. The most impressive sight was seeing an old man, likely in late 50's or even in 60's, limping on a foot, yet walking as straight as humanly possible, and carrying a plough on his left shoulder.

Needless to say, I also mentally noted people and places that would be very good photographic subjects - many small stone idols below a tree, trees cut out for firewood (my guess), farms and small lakes, a man with super-athletic body (definitely a hard-working farmer or labourer) taking a batch in a canal and finally kids of all types. I refreshed myself with water from a hand pump.

Before turning back, I ran up to my alma mater - New Look Senior Secondary School. I had heard lots about school building made bigger and grander, but somehow I couldn't catch the same impression when I saw it. It looked almost the same as I left it 11 years ago! May be the interior or facilities have changed - I need to go and see it and also motivate kids about playing more sports and taking less stress in their formative years of life.

The run back to the college ground was slightly heavy on my legs - especially on my ankles and achilee tendons, but the breeze and the sun made up for it. Dedicating this short run to Robert Frost for inspiring to take "The Road Not Taken" and to Vinayshankar Kulkarni and Caballo Blanco for inspiring to take the trails.

Racists

2011-05-01T07:35:00.000-07:00

I found Racists by Kunal Basu first at a bookshop in Bangalore and was immediately intrigued by the subject. However, given my have-many-books-but-not-read-yet-guilt, I ordered it years later at Stack your Rack (new online books store in India).

The plot of Racists is set up in 1870s and revolves around two scientists, who have different ideas regarding racial differences and the fundamental reason behind these differences, i.e. the alleged superiority of the white over the black. Samuel Bates, the English scientist, believes that all races originate to Adam, and it is only the craniological differences (skull shape and size) that makes white superior to black. Jean-Louis Belavoix, the French scientist, believes that these races are different, and given equal opportunity to grow, they will grow equals. Bates is the real laboratory scientist type, stressing on measurements. Belavoix is the observer type.

To resolve the differences for good, they decide on an experiment – have a black boy and white girl brought up on an island far from civilization, let them grow naturally in the natural environs of the island without any instruction, education and even speech, monitor regularly by visits and specific tests, and make a decision at the end of 12 years, about time when the children reach puberty. Bates is confident that the white girl will emerge the winner due to bigger skull size and finer bone angles, whereas Belavoix predicts doom that because they will grow equals, one will end up killing the other.

To facilitate the experiment, they have a mute nurse, Norah, to take care of minimum physical needs of the children at the island, and Bates’ assistant, Nicholas Quarterly, to make arrangements and take records.

Isn’t it intriguing and very interesting? I thought it was, primarily supposing that Belavoix’s idea of equality will win in the end and I was all fascinated to find out the proceedings towards this conclusion.

I wouldn’t tell much about the story, except that the book isn’t all about the ‘competition’ of the races. There is rivalry of the scientists, which itself speaks of the differences Europeans had, and still have despite the European Union and what not. The rivalry is big enough to consider the children as mere experimental subjects and have no compassion for their present of future. Then there are the hardworking poor – Norah and Quarterly, who are more humane and sensible in their outlook towards the whole experiment. There are the financiers, who are all about results, fast delivery and their own racial prejudices. And last but not the least, the children themselves, fully natural and ‘savage’ in their own outlook and actions.

The best part of the novel is the growth of the children and their relationships with each other, with the natural environment and mute visitors around them. Both grow naturally in different capacities, which has to do with sexual and racial differences. Their plays with the nature – birds, rain, sea, rocks, earthworms etc. is full of life and their instruction-less-savage-yet-human-in-many-ways-nature sounds very realistic for the circumstances.

There are many unexpected turns (the best one a very historical event that shoots the experiment tangentially towards the end) and after some thinking, I found that focusing the whole story on the experiments itself wouldn’t have been as much vivid and revealing as the side plots and the turns. The end is quite dramatic, cruel and savage – something on the lines of Chandni Bar (and I think I have said too much).

Something about the author – Kunal Basu’s writing is very rich. He makes me proud because the only other Indian author of English novels that I have read is Chetan Bhagat and, notwithstanding his popularity, he wouldn’t pass in Kunal Basu’s English class. Apart from his fascinating execution of the language, he also has a good hold over history, landscape and botany. I wouldn’t consider it exaggerating to compare him with the likes of J.R.R. Tolkien (undoubtedly, the sales of Racists pale in comparison to The Lord of The Rings). Reading about him in Wikipedia, I wasn’t surprised to find that he was born to parents who were ranked members of the then Communist Party and exposed to culturally rich and diverse visitors.

Overall, it is a slightly heavy novel, and my kinds need to keep a dictionary at hand to appreciate some parts. That apart, it is a beautiful piece of literature, drama and history, and one of my best reads ever (after Gone with the Wind and The Lord of the Rings).

Looking forward to:

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Douglas Adams)
The Miniaturist (Kunal Basu)
Piccadilly Jim (P.G. Wodehouse)
The Fourth Protocol (Frederick Forsyth)

Shaadi.com vs BharatMatrimony.com

2011-03-19T21:46:00.000-07:00

This is a long due blog – due to the winner among the two and more so to my friends who are still hunting for a soul mate and are considering/using matrimony website(s) as one of their Stairways to Heaven.

Shaadi.com (henceforth referred to as Shaadi) and BharatMatrimony.com (henceforth referred to as BM) are the two largest matrimony websites in India. I do not have first-hand knowledge about JeevanSaathi.com or other websites. Before I jump into the comparison, I would like to dwell into when one finds his/her way into matrimonial websites, the dangers/prejudices it holds and where and when it works.

Philosophy and reality of matrimony websites

Matrimonial websites are rarely the first option for partner seekers, but they are good, and over the years, they have been very successful in getting the right match, and in some cases, an acceptable compromise. In my case, it didn’t give the solution in the end, but I learned well about Shaadi and BM and have a reasonable idea which one would give a good success rate for which type of people.

So, let’s start with general sphere of influence of these matrimony websites. They are:

Effective for

Agarwals, Jains, Maheshwaris and the likes – basically big castes with a good array of mates to choose from. Also effective for Brahmins who are flexible with Brahmin sub-castes.
Where marriage must happen within the caste – do or die, billionaire or blind.
Doctors and Chartered Accountants, who prefer partners from same profession.
Professionals seeking a professional partner without bias for caste.
Bohras/Muslims/Christians/Jews – a small array to choose from, so either you find it or you don’t, but at least you don’t waste your time.
Beautiful girls – I am not being sexist about it, but they will get many proposals, no matter what, as most guys would sacrifice many other parameters to have a beautiful wife.

Not very effective for:

Boys from Banswara – I mean guys small towns or cities. I found that a lot of families/girls have preconceived negative notions about not marrying into a family from a small place, even though the guy is working in a big city or outside India. The same notion isn’t reserved for girls from smaller cities, as they will be move into the bigger city family after the marriage.
Seekers from small castes or sections, who are flexible to look out.
Run-of-the-mill (read too many available) engineers and management professionals.
Professionally successful women beyond the socially accepted marriageable age.

Needless to say – above isn’t a rulebook, but should have a good 80-20 or 70-30 applicability.

Psychology when using such websites

Psychologically, one looks for more superior partners on matrimony websites than what one would be looking for within one’s comfort zone of caste or city. This happens because:

As I said before, a matrimony website is hardly a first option. Generally, we search within the caste, then through near or far relatives or friends. Then we start looking out of the caste into other acceptable (usually ‘higher’) castes within our city/region. At some point, especially these days, parents also ask the son/daughter whether they like or love someone from a good caste (same level or higher). When all frontiers are lost, a half-hearted registration to these websites is made.

Now, my search criteria was as follows (and I think the MUSTs apply in general to a large set of people):

1. Good character/soft and good nature. (MUST)

2. Good family. (MUST)

3. Good education. (MUST)

4. Average-good looks. (MUST)

5. Preferably working, otherwise a housewife, but definitely not very career-oriented. (MUST)

6. Interested in spirituality. (WANT)

7. Very beautiful. (WANT)

8. From a very educated family with parent(s) having a reputable job/profession. (WANT)

9. From a place preferably closer to, or at least easily to reach from, Banswara. (WANT)

But when one looks at matrimony websites, the confidence that these criteria (especially 1, 2) are actually met is low, for there is a chance of misunderstanding, or even worse, cheating. And therefore, we look for and would accept far better partners from matrimony websites than we would within our own castes or region.

The proof of the pudding was seen in the proposals I sent and received on BM. I hardly liked the ones I received and I was rejected or not responded to by the ones I proposed.

The comparison, finally…

Now coming to the comparison, I will do it categorically:

1. The name: When it comes to the name, Shaadi is clearly a winner, for shaadi in Hindi means marriage. In mind, it sounds like the obvious choice. BM’s name has a bit of a hybrid touch. “What is in a name”, they say, but it is for nothing but the name that Shaadi is the biggest matrimony website!

2. Fee: Both websites allow you to look for partners with a free login. But to get contact info, one has to pay. Both are expensive, at least costing above 2k for 3 months (minimum registration period), but BM was slightly cheaper than Shaadi when I registered.

3. Login and ease of handling: BM is easier to use compared to Shaadi. The login to Shaadi is a bit cumbersome and it opens as a pop-up window where tabs cannot be managed, whereas BM works in normal window, where multiple tabs can be opened.

4. Search: The search function in both websites is effective – with enough options of age, height, religion/caste, region, salary etc. to choose from. However, looking at the search results, I always felt that BM offers you a better array of results than Shaadi – this might have something to do with appearances.

5. Appearances: Appearance-wise, BM is far superior to Shaadi. Apart from browsing and tabs-management, the profile and photos look far cleaner and better in BM.

6. Details: Shaadi is horrendously ineffective when it comes to partner details. It is rather strange, for Shaadi profiles are usually uploaded with support from their executives and after their review, whereas BM profiles are developed individually and only some things such as photos are screened before display. BM lets you give as much details about yourself as you like in an organized form (Personal Info, Occupational Info, Religious Beliefs, Hobbies etc.) and at the same time, it lets you share your expectations from life partner in an organized way. Shaadi, on the other hand, is less detailed and doesn’t have an option for describing your options except in the Comments section. In fact, Shaadi by default won’t reveal the person’s name and you are lucky if it is given in Comments section. BM doesn’t have such illogical issues.

7. Horoscope match: Provided you and the searched result have both put the required details of birth date/time and place, the website will auto-calculate the horoscope match and display it just below the profile ID.

8. Contact info and contact: Here again, BM is very effective. You can either dig the person’s phone no. or you can send a message without knowing their email ID. For your account type, you have a certain limit on messages or phone numbers, which is reasonable. In case of Shaadi, they are still living in the stone age. They will mail you the contact info rather than email it, and even then, they will mostly forget or take too much time to respond.

9. Expressing interest: BM offers a good range of choice here, including phone number, text messages and voice messages. If the user is online, you can also do a text chat. Shaadi on the other hand only gives you the contact info after long chasing.

10. Customer support: BM’s customer support is very good. They called me a day after I created my paid profile to inform my about my benefits. Shaadi on the other hand is seemingly full of ineffective conmen. Even after my repeated requests of sending the profiles on my email rather than my mailbox, they didn’t respond and it took 2 personal visits from my sister to resolve the issue.

Conclusion: I think they are right when they say, “What is in a name”?

Disclaimer: All thoughts or notions expressed in here are solely that of the author and are not intended to malign the already maligned reputation of Shaadi or boost the business of BM. The author doesn’t have any profit sharing agreement with BM and will definitely not receive a penny from Shaadi. His sole intention is to reveal the truth as he sees and direct his friends and blog followers to the relatively right path. The comparisons are based on his solumate search on Shaadi between August – November 2010 and on BM between December-February 2011.

Meeting with an accomplished man

2011-03-12T06:21:00.000-08:00

Different people have different opinions or notions about what an accomplished man/woman or an accomplished life would be like. However, one notion shared by a wide group is that if one has done and achieved one could do and achieve, then he/she has fully lived the life. I met such an accomplished man today. I will limit my opinions and try to capture most of our conversations.

This gentleman, named Mokhtar Adb Razak, drives executive “limousine” (Toyota/Kia MUV cars). On request of the Park Royal hotel concierge, I agreed on taking a slightly expensive but good quality limousine instead of a regular taxi at a premium of 20 MYR (300 INR) and that was a very good decision.

Preamble

Mokhtar (M): Hello sir, how are you?

Kumar (K): I am fine, thank you.

M: So sir, where are you going?

K: Bintulu.

M: Flying by MAS?

K: Yes.

M: OK. Just need to make sure I send you to the right airport J.

K: OK.

M: You work in Bintulu?

K: Yes.

M: Which sector? Oil?

K: Yes.

M: Which company?

K: Shell.

M: Oh, that’s a very good company. I have seen many people working for the company for 20+ years. It must be a good company to work for, for the people are staying that long. (Sayan and I had a similar discussion yesterday on how sometimes people feel that the company isn’t good enough or fair enough at times, but if you talk outside, you realize you are working for one of the better employers, if not the best, in this region).

Traffic and Taxi business:

M: This morning, there was a terrible jam on the roads coming into the city.

K: Yeah? Actually last night was even more terrible. (Had a storm last night).

M: That was because some old trees fell and four cars were crushed under it.

K: Ohh, anyone got hurt?

M: Luckily no. But unlucky for them, the insurance doesn’t cover the acts of God. They only cover for manly acts of accident and negligence.

K: (Thinking about the driver’s intelligence…) Hmm.

K: So is this your own car or you rent it?

M: Rent.

K: How much do you pay per month?

M: 100 MYR per day.

K: And how is the business?

M: Survival. One cannot become rich as a taxi driver, but it is enough for survival. (I took these remarks as general, but found later that they had a solid foundation from this man’s life).

K: You have family? (This question is almost redundant for a man of M’s age in the East, but this is a poor practice of not assuming anything that I carry from my years in the West).

M: Yes, nine children.

(I was like Wow! I was inclined to immediately ask how many wives he has [in Malaysia, Muslims are allowed to have 4 wives], but thought it would be offensive, even if I add “If you don’t mind asking” bullshit in the beginning of the question … why would one ask a question if he/she thinks it might offend the other person? Then another question came whether Islam too, like Roman Catholics, has ideas that protection shouldn’t be used, but thought that that would be even more offensive. Anyway, this was a turning point in our conversation and it revealed how accomplished a taxi driver with Muslim tag and 9 children could be from within. BTW, there is a great book called as Taxi Driver Wisdom, which I came across in our Mission library in Chennai!)

Family and children

(After a lot of consideration…)

K: Wow, 9 children.

M: Actually I wanted 12, but God’s will was 9. 9 sounds a lot, but once they start going to school and college, it isn’t a lot. Now, there are only 4 left at home (Phew… only!).

K: In this age, people think hard for even having a 2^nd or 3^rd child (referring to the East, the West is further off!).

M: People are worried about children because they equate children with money (which is true in a sense), but I believe that things fall in place anyway (and it did if I see this man – a taxi driver by profession, 51 years old but looking 45, short but fit, a bit bald but still all black hairs, having 9 children and still lamenting about not having 3 more, and most of all carrying a smile and subtlety on his face that shows only the tip of his maturity iceberg).

K: You must have a lot of faith in God.

M: Yes, I do. I try to be a good Muslim.

(After some moments...)

M: Generally, money is tight twice a year. Once when the school begins – to get their clothing, books etc. And the second is during Hari Raya (Ramzan/Ramaadan). However, I am still surviving (with a very gentle smile). And tough times come and there are times when things are very relaxed too. These things come and go.

God and religion

M: Are you Muslim?

K: No, I am Hindu.

M: Oh, so you worship Hindu god?

K: Not really. I am born as a Hindu, but I don’t follow Hinduism in that way. I practice meditation – that is my way of God.

M: OK.

M: If you get an opportunity, you should try to read Koran. (This was said in very positive spirit of sharing something good and not in the converting spirit I have seen with some in the past.)

K: Actually, I have the fortune of having two of my best school friends as Muslims, of which I have very close association with one’s family as well. And then, I also found this nice book called as 365 readings from Islam. Actually I practice meditation, but I like knowing about other religions, what the founders said and how the religions have shaped through centuries.

M: Good, it widens your perspective.

K: (now in boasting mode) You know there is one thing given in the book which I like the most which most of my Muslim friends don’t know and most of them even deny it, as the book has been written by a Dutch man. But these western people are very methodical and I believe in what she said. So, I will ask you the same question – why is Friday a special day for Muslims?

M: You see in Islam, we have a concept of Jamaat (gathering). But before I gather with community, I must gather with my family, and before I gather with the family, I must gather with my wife, and before I gather with my wife, I must gather with myself! (sidetracked as he didn’t understand my question well, but very wise thoughts; later, he also told me something new – that the prophet recommends mating on Thursday night and Monday night to get well-balanced children – Thursday one of course in line with the above thought).

K: That is a very good thought, but my question is – why Friday? Why not Tuesday or Thursday?

M: In Islam and Bible, they say that God created Man in 6 or 7 days depending on reference. Starting with Sunday as first day, the man was completed in 6 days (he gave details that I wouldn’t go into).

K: OK, what you say is one opinion and something that no one has told me before. However, I will tell you what the book says. When Mohammed moved to Medina, he got the idea of doing prayer in-group. He first thought of Saturday, but decided on Friday because Jews are busy on Saturday because of the day of Sabbath, and he thought that by keeping it on Friday, it would also allow Jews who want to join to take part. It shows the openness and consideration of that great man.

M: OK, that may also be right.

(After some moments...)

M: You know I don’t see religion as a way of just following the rituals. I see our prayers as means to reconnect to our creator. That is why we have 5-times prayer of 10 minutes each – to purify our thoughts and to re connect.

[Interesting point – 365 readings on Islam says that when Mohammed first asked Abraham (called Ibrahim in Islam) on how many times we should pray in a day, he got 50 as the answer! Knowing how difficult it would be for people to follow, he requested this to be reduced to 5. How wise!]

K: Your thoughts are very modern and refined and I doubt how many Muslims think like you (in fact, for most people, this man would be called as a heretic; and to be further clear, this lack of openness and refinement is applicable to a big percentage of almost every religious and spiritual group).

M: You know I also don’t believe that Allah is God (whew!). Allah is Allah and God is God. If there is no man, there is no God. God creates man so that he can get recognition (said with a slightly mocking, yet decent laugh). In fact, I think that the God is in each one of us. He created us and what do we do? We can make cars, buildings and what not, but can I make a baby girl if I want to? No. All we do is derive pleasure out of it, but the work of God is done through the intercourse – we create children as God created us. Therefore, I think I am also Mohammed – the messenger of God, bringing creation into the world and continuing God’s existence.

(By this time, I had already started wondering if this man is greatly educated or what? He speaks good English, has bright ideas and sometimes uses very sophisticated and relevant words. However, further conversations revealed that his wisdom stems from experiences of his years, his search motive and his natural living.)

On conversations

M: Although it is not given in the Koran, the Prophet has once said that it is good to have conflicting conversations – truth will emerge out of the conflict, but it is required that both persons are honest and are searching for the truth.

(Thinking later, I thought it is perhaps also true for a married life; these days, people worry so much about the perfect partner and all that, but every couple fights, everyone has tough times in life and so on. However, honest duo in the couple would help each other learn the truth and relish the juice of life).

I don’t know where our conversation ended, but it did end when I reached airport. I felt lucky that I didn’t use the iPod I had taken out when I entered the car and that I followed my natural instinct of not doing anything (in fact the desire of doing a lot in life is most of the times a reflection of own insecurity or smallness).

I felt and still feel very happy – and the right words of the feeling would be that it was the happiness of meeting a pure hearted human being, who has not wasted his life and has rather evolved beautifully through it.

PS: There is an amazing book Meetings with Remarkable Men by G.I. Gurdjieff, which is far better than my blog, but this fact deserved mention only at the end.

Pattaya Potpourri

2011-02-19T18:41:00.001-08:00

Most of my friends who learned that I am in Pattaya claimed that I had advertently chosen a course that suits my trip, and it would be very difficult to convince them otherwise, but so it is. Inadvertent and unplanned though, the trip turned out to be quite an unexpected, and mostly pleasant, surprise. There aren’t many photos though, as I didn’t have a camera.

First impressions

The first impressions weren’t great. I was placed in a “Villa” in Chonburi, a province of which Pattaya is one city. I hadn’t expected that finding vegetarian food and English-speaking people would be so difficult. Next day, I just packed my bags and left the villa for the course, not knowing where I will end up. I found out later that most hotels in Chonburi/Pattaya are fully booked due to Chinese New Year (who would think of that?); fortunately I ended up in Sabai Wing on Soi 1 on Pattaya beach road. Boy, life here was different!

People

In the small street where Sabai Wing was located, and in other small streets in Pattaya, you would find more westerners than local people. Pattaya receives heavy dose of tourism owing to great weather, beaches, low cost living and that-which-should-not-be-named (aka prostitution). Westerners are mostly busy with hanging out at beach or water activities, sports, eating outlets, and of course, many with their temporary or long-term partners. Average westerner age could be easily above 50, for Pattaya receives a large number of Europeans retirees for permanent settlement. The local people are mostly into tourist services and very friendly and welcoming. Thailand is perhaps the only country other than India where Namaste is still the primary mode of greeting. It is called Sawasdee. People in TWI office (where I attended the course) were also friendly and helpful; one of them took me out on Friday to Buddhist temples.

Business/Economy

Every 2^nd shop in Pattaya is either an eating outlet, a tattoo shop, a go-go or equivalent bar or a massage shop. Finding vegetarian food was initially difficult, but once I was along Pattaya Beach Road, I found at least 5-6 Indian restaurants – I tried only one, which was opposite my hotel. Aangan Restaurant, which is operated by a Gujarati Brahmin family, is a very spacious and good quality restaurant for vegetarian food. Friendly owners and very high quality food. For 200 Baht (INR 280), you will get 8-dish home cooked menu. I had dinner once in The Pizza Company, but the vegetarian pizza was disastrous – good bread and crisp but horrible selection of toppings – corn, tomato, mushroom, pineapple.

Food and other things such as massage, clothes etc. are cheap in Pattaya and that is one reason I liked the place. Things aren’t overly priced. I think seafood is good and cheap as well; alas, not for my vegetarian palate.

Central Festival

Is a huge shopping mall; one the biggest I have ever been to (and the biggest beach mall in Asia). Malls of such size, which are also to be found in Bangkok and Singapore, bog me down like anything. It takes considerable time and effort to accept one’s smallness in such a big mall. Had a nice mixed fruits crêpe there for 90 Baht (130 rupees) and later found an amazing gift for a good friend who has recently dropped smoking and is hoping to make this effect permanent in my “good” company (of course, my good intention was that he learns to avoid smoking despite a lighter at hand, so that his transcendence becomes irreversible ;-) ). But God had his own will; this nice lighter with flashlight was confiscated in Mumbai airport on my way to KL. It wasn’t confiscated in Bangkok or KL, but Mumbai airport seemingly doesn’t permit any lighters.

Any way, Central Festival is BIG and has most of the well-known brands. Cameras, the reason for which I visited this mall, were extremely expensive here and same models are cheaper in India, Malaysia and Singapore. Apparently, LCD/LED TVs are very cheap here.

Massage and Prostitution

Definitely different subjects, but they are intertwined at certain locations in Thailand.

I am still not sure how to differentiate between one that provides genuine massage services and the one that also provides “add-on” services. I went for a foot massage one day – paid 200 Baht (about 300 INR) and got 1 hr massage. Not a great experience – this was my 1^st foot massage and I was perhaps over-expecting, but the lady, about my mother age, was very good-natured, and diligently carried out the rigmarole. Based on the ambience of that parlour, I can say that the genuine ones would be more open (glass windows) whereas the notorious ones would be veiled. Sabai Dee Massage parlour was one of those – very big massage shop but all closed. Only when I went close to the door to check out, I saw girls standing in a row, waiting to be picked by the interested party. It is one of those things that would disturb almost every nationality, but it happens here – unwarranted but unchallenged.

Go-go and equivalent bars also have single ladies, and so is the case for singles’ groups hanging out on the beach road. However, I think the mantra there is that the guy should woo and haggle. That is as much as I learnt from distant observation.

Prostitution in Pattaya accelerated during Vietnam War (before which, it was merely a small fishing village). Prostitution as a business exists everywhere in the world. My previous assignment in Amsterdam has exposed me to such environments. However, there it is legal and accepted by the ‘open-minded’ Dutch society. In most of the other locations, where it is illegal, prostitution is either forced (by middle-men) on women or it is done out of need for basic necessities of life (food, education for children etc.). Here, the scene appeared a bit different.

There were girls who appeared obviously poor and others who were well dressed and (over) made up. Appearances can be deceiving and it may be so in view of investment for higher anticipated gains, but in a place like Pattaya, basic necessities can be earned from many different ways. So, when I saw a lot of these girls with older western men (very old; perhaps an age difference of 40+), it appeared that in many, if not all cases, the driver here is a better/rich life and not basic necessities. I checked it with one of my local course-mates and he also confirmed this idea.

It might sound weird, but I don’t abhor prostitution as done orthodoxly. I mean most of us subtly do sell our body, mind and soul in working or personal lives. However, this whole process, while profitable to the western old people from company or pleasure point of view, is very disadvantageous to the girls, for they need to be in a constant look out for customers or worse, end up marrying an old man for his money. The whole cache is that life is lived for smaller goals rather than bigger ideals. A poor girl, twice as hard working and earning half as much in a regular profession, would develop significantly in other dimensions, of which the most important are self development and family.

Beach and Walking Street

The beach road offers a good walk through a packed marketplace. On the left are shops and beach on the right with fairer singles discretely distributed. I never went to the beach except for a short minute on the last day at 9:30 AM – blue water, clean beach though small of which most is occupied by easy chairs. I saw at least 30 people parasailing that early in the morning. I heard that all adventure sports and corals watching trips are very reasonably priced in Pattaya.

Walking street is a continuation of beach road, though as the name suggests, it is for walkers only. It is basically an agglomerate of food shops, go-go or otherwise bars and some adult entertainment studios. Someone highly recommended it to me, but I didn’t find it very impressive.

Buddhism

Buddhism is the religion of more than 90% of Thai population, and like India, people are very religious. However, most of the Buddhists are non-vegetarians. This was initially surprising, but if I compare these with east and south Indian Brahmins who also savour seafood, it makes sense that food habits and everything else are adjusted to one’s own ease. Or as Osho puts it beautifully, “We put ourselves at the centre and god at the periphery.” I am not really arguing for or against vegetarianism or otherwise – it is as it is, but people do not follow things completely, though they will kill people for the cause (not referring to Thailand here).

My classmate Sathit was kind enough to offer a visit to Buddhist temples on Friday evening. Quite a trip! First we went to Khao Chee Chan, a place where image of Buddha is carved in gold using Laser (not sure how that was done; need to research). Not a great touristic spot, but beautiful for one visit.

Then we went to another Buddhist temple and that is the strangest temple I have visited to date. Have a look at the picture below; who can tell me that when we go inside, we will find nobody, darkness, lots of dust and shattered glasses all over the place. The place was totally desolate, except for stray dogs in remarkably poor health (under-fed). For sake of time and security, I dared not to go upstairs.

Hydrogen and Helium

This isn’t anything about Pattaya, but during the course, Mark, the instructor, was talking about Hydrogen and Helium in some context. While what he explained was high school stuff – hydrogen is active because it lacks an electron and helium is stable because it has sufficient electrons for its orbital – it suddenly dawned on me that this is true even for people. Activity arises from a feeling of incompleteness; peace arrives with the feeling of completeness. Which is better is left for individual to judge for oneself, but most of us do look out for activity that would lead to inactivity.

Final impressions

Have a look at the photo below – Pattaya coastal line (borrowed from internet; another very beautiful can be found on Wikipedia). It is a very beautiful place; things are reasonably priced; good people; many touristic locations and water activities options (I didn’t explore the bigger and famous Jomtien beach, Big Buddha Image etc.); slightly dangerous for desperate souls (or pleasurable depending on point of view). I shall come back here once again in my lifetime.

Near Miss

2011-02-14T01:52:00.000-08:00

I had the biggest near miss of my life yesterday. ‘Near miss’ is normally used as a safety term in manufacturing industry, where it refers to nearly missing an accident that could have led to serious physical harm to an individual (including fatality). Mine was a near train miss (Borivali – Ratlam), but it was still a phenomenal incident.

I am usually lax when it comes to travel – don’t plan too much, never reach a station or airport too early; I just make sure I have the necessary documents and charged wallet & mobile. My father always worries about me (and he did yesterday too), but I am one of the people on right side of Bell Curve who are very lucky when it comes to not missing train or plane. Or as Juedu used to say, “Anything would happen, but a train won’t miss Kumar.”

Bell curve showing that most people (~70%) stay average, whatever it may be - luck, intelligence, money, happiness etc. (graph taken from another blog)

The last near miss was nearly 2 years ago in November 2008, when I returned from Amsterdam for good. I was in Mumbai then too, and left for airport a bit late from my sister’s house in Thane. I reached about 15 mins before flight departure. The Jet Airways staff were kind enough to ask me if it would be OK if I board the next flight to Bangalore. But one of them panicked after she (and I too) realized that I had a business class ticket (thanks to Shell!). So, the record was maintained. That wasn’t bad enough and I needed to learn better, so this real near miss happened yesterday.

My train was scheduled at 7:45 PM from Borivali and I left my sister’s house at Thane (near Hiranandani Estate) at ~ 6:15 PM. They had said earlier that it would take about 40 mins – 1 hour and God only knows what I was thinking when I ignored my sister’s advice to leave the house latest by 5:45 PM. Even after leaving at 6:15 PM, I first went to bus stand with my brother-in-law; not finding a bus there, we started hunting for auto/Meru cabs. I caught one around 6:25 PM and I was haggling for 50 rupees when the guy asked for 250 rupees. Finally, I Okayed and the journey began.

When I was considering missing the train, I felt a very positive feeling in my heart. Many people know that I practice meditation, but many of them do not know that it gifts the practitioner a better sensitivity; mine isn’t great, but this was one time, when I felt that very positive, breeze type feeling and I knew I would make it.

After about 15 km of smooth and hassle-free traffic, we came across a 4-5 km of traffic jam. Traffic jams in Mumbai can be totally blocked (unlike Bintulu J) and I should have accounted for that. Anyway, thanks to this gifted auto driver, who didn’t think a second about his auto’s tyres and suspension and took every narrow space available in the left to transcend the traffic jam. He easily saved 15 minutes there. I gave him 50 rupees extra for his selfless effort.

This auto driver dropped me at Dahisar naaka (junction), as his auto isn’t allowed to go beyond. Now this is really stupid. We have made countries, states, cities, and divided the earth, but that isn’t enough. Within Mumbai, autos are restricted to work in specific (reasonably big) areas. The discomfort it causes to the users is undeniable, but they too lose out in the whole business. Someone may want to justify it as protection of interests of auto-drivers of that region, but one should think what my Master beautifully said in one of his speeches, “When you close your door, you aren’t only stopping others from coming in but also locking yourself.”

Any way, right there at the junction, auto drivers ask for horrendous amounts of money (almost 2-3 times the normal), and I was advised by my BIL that I should walk a bit further and take an auto at normal rate. I did so, despite only 25-30 minutes left. I walked and found that most of them were not interested in going to Borivali station as it is near destination. I kept my cool and tried one after other. Finally, one good man let me in.

With traffic and his relaxed driving, I started getting a bit uneasy. I asked him how much time it would take to reach to the station, making sure to sound casual. He said about 20 minutes. Well, now I started to get worried. I asked him to rush as much as possible and he did. I reached Borivali and was half sure that both inter and intra city trains run through the same station (unlike Dadar). I rushed in, couldn’t find platform number on the entrance platform (my BIL had said it mostly comes at platform 4). I asked one guy there whether both inter and intra city trains are accessed through same station. He asked me where did I want to go. Ratlam, I said. He said intercity trains are at platforms 4 or 6 and directed me.

It was already 7:45 PM, so I took his advice and rushed to the bridge. I saw platform 4’s electronic board without any details, so I hurried down. The stairs are so capped from above that I couldn’t see if any train was already parked. As I just set my foot from the last step, I saw my train in motion. Panting, I asked one guy there whether it is leaving or just arriving. He said it is leaving. My heart sank like feet in the marsh. And then I saw the train slowing down. I almost yelled at the guy for giving me wrong info. He apologized and I said not to worry (was he? J). The spirits rose like ether. My coach stopped right in front of me and I boarded. In 2 minutes, the train departed.

For about 5-10 minutes, I sat in my seat, wide-eyed, still not believing what has happened and wondering whether I have boarded the right train. Right it was – 2961. I thanked God for it and wondered how Scott Adams stood against God. Scott Adams, in his book God’s Debris, postulates that what we call as sheer luck that constantly hits some people who are termed as God-blessed are nothing but a small probability or a small percentage of people who are on the right hand side of the Bell Curve. His argument is solid, because prayers aren’t always answered for everyone and only a few have their prayers answered consistently. In my case, however, I preferred to thank God, because the knowledge of success was already instilled. Someone might argue further that that too could be a coincidence, but there is no end to argument.

My lenience is primarily attributed to not spend extra time at station/airport. However, I sacrificed people’s safety, autos and what not to just meet my ends, which could have met more simply. I was not very stressed, but I am sure I grew older faster by some fraction (which we always do under stress), without having to travel at speeds approaching light.

My record stands better than Kareena of Jab We Met,but it is not worth it, so I make a resolution today (not 2012) to start early for my travel such that I can safely reach airport/station at least 1 hr in advance. Time spent in present and lived peacefully/happily is time well spent.

Foundation trilogy by Isaac Asimov

2011-02-02T07:40:00.000-08:00

I came across Foundation trilogy 2 years ago through one of our Master’s speeches, where he recommends reading it. I don’t remember the context, but it should be something related to learning about human psychology or relationships. Anyway, it was a great recommendation to follow and I am going to advertise it further for the joy and exhilaration it has given me for as low as 30 USD.

Few words about the author. Isaac Asimov’s stature in Science Fiction may be compared to Gandhi in Politics and Einstein in Science. The guy really had imagination for words, phrases, situations, science, and most of all, the mind. So much so that this phrase of his doesn’t seem egotistic at all: “People who think they know everything are a big nuisance to those of us who really do”. He has written 470 books on very diverse subjects (some even on Biochemistry, in which he graduated!).

Foundation trilogy is very diverse and enjoyable. Two great things about it are the creative and the unexpected.

Foundation novels are based in a Galaxy dominated by a strong Empire centred at Trantor. Hari Seldon is a psychohistorian – someone who predicts future based on psychological reaction of the masses. He is the real hero of the series, though he hardly lives even 10% of it. He predicts the fall of the Empire and 30,000 years of barbarism following it before humanity will return to normal. He establishes two Foundations with the intent of reducing this span to 1000 years. That is what Foundation trilogy is about, and much more!

Foundation is about First Foundation – a lonely planet established at periphery of Galaxy for the purpose of preparing encyclopaedia to retain knowledge through the period of barbarism. Very soon, the intelligent ones identify that that cannot be it. And then crises come one after other – all seemingly unsurpassable. Only those, who are able to see beyond the obvious and have courage to do what needs to be done, are able to bring them out of the crises. What Asimov really does well is changing the reel fast – from encyclopaedists to diplomats to traders, the situation at Foundation changes every 50 years, like political situation in any country. That makes the novel very interesting. Foundation produces many heroes, but my favourite is Salvor Hardin. Two of his quotes are my all time favourites:

a. Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent.

b. Don’t let your sense of morals prevent you from doing what is right.

Foundation & Empire shifts gears. The Empire senses Foundation’s growing power and wants to curb it before it is beyond its own. Once again, mind wins over the muscle; however, a mutant called Mule turns up and he changes the whole power game from physical powers to psychic powers. The novel is the sort that is nice but starts to get tiring because things stop making a point. However, the last chapter really covers up for this seeming pointlessness of the remainder of the novel. It is like 3 Deewarein or Life is Beautiful, where the end makes everything sane, but this one really comes with a Bang! One of the best thriller endings ever.

Second Foundation is a further shift in gear (lower gear perhaps) – it is all about psychic and emotional powers and is a bit difficult to read, both due to heavy psychic wars and tough English. The fight between Mule and Second Foundation is really cool, but the fight between First and Second Foundations starts to drag. One aspect that I liked very much is the fear of the emotional control – one group always fears of emotional/psychic control by the other and is never sure whether what they think is original or not. This happens in life too, and people who read too many books, watch too many movies or listen to too many people should be aware of missing originality. Any way, Asimov handles emotional control very well – until the end, he lets you guess when emotional control is present and when it is absent.

Before it drags too long, let me end the blog here. Try “Foundation” and if you like it, go for the next two in the trilogy. These are really fast read 250 pages novels. For myself, I will read the prequels, which I am told are good (the sequels to Second Foundation are reported to be a drag).

In the queue: The Ultimate Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy!

Palming

2011-01-16T02:41:00.000-08:00

Palming

In Mumbai, I was staying at Br. Rajesh Kothari’s house. While talking about health and yoga in general, I learnt about “Palming”.

Palming is a technique of eye relaxation discovered by Dr. William H. Bates. Actually Dr. Bates has developed a full practical science of eyesight improvement, with some of his propositions rejected to date by mainstream ophthalmology. But that is not relevant, because Palming works, at least for me.

In the past 6-9 months, I have been feeling excessive strain in the eyes. This usually happens in evenings. It happens if I have worked on the computer for the whole day and it is more aggressive if I am spending time on my MacBook in the evenings (such as now). Reducing time spent on computer and good sleep helps. Reducing brightness of screen also helps – this was a bit difficult as I like bright places and screens, but actually reducing brightness helps. Palming helps when everything else is unavoidable.

Palming is very simple. It is done by closing eyes and putting palms over the eyes such that light is avoided completely (or as much as possible). The palms are put in such a way that there is no pressure on the eyeballs, the heels of palms rest on cheekbones and the fingers on the forehead. Actually there is a great degree of freedom in choice of how to cover one’s eyes and one has to find what fits best.

I have used Palming only 4 times now. It worked 3 out of 4 and it did not work when I did it lying down. Recently, I read it should be done sitting. I do it only for 5-10 minutes and it works magic. It brings down eye stress and thereby mental tension considerably. It is a versatile exercise in a way because it can be done anywhere and anytime; the efficacy would of course depend on how involved and focused one is in the activity.

I think most people suffer from eye stress these days and this is worth a try. A more clear explanation of the technique can be found here.

PS: Actually a number of books have been published on Bates’ method by Shri Aurbindo Ashram’s publications and are widely available. Dr. Bates have quite a number of propositions that stand in contrast to the current ophthalmology. I don’t remember all but some of these are around how eyestrain is actually caused, how corrective lenses are unnecessary and how fine print reading can improve eyesight. From a purely physical eyeball movement point of view, his theories do appear simply logical.

Buried

2011-01-05T03:37:00.000-08:00

Thanks’s to Vinay’s suggestion, I watched Buried in Miri on the New Year. It is one of those movies, which wouldn’t be very inviting from the poster or description. In fact, the multiplex had only 2 A4 size black & white posters, and one wouldn’t be surprised to find only 6 Homo sapiens sitting in the audience.

Buried is not a New Year eve’s movie and thank god I do not have any infatuation with the New Year. Buried is a drama-thriller. But, it isn’t like the normal ones. Everything about the movie is unusual. It is about an American truck driver in Iraq who is taken hostage by insurgents and buried alive. He is left with a mobile phone, few lights, a knife and a lighter (his own) to entertain the insurgents. The whole movie is shot in the coffin and is 99% time focused on a single character – Paul Conroy, played by Ryan Reynolds (these aspects mark this movie as an undisputable piece of art). The movie shows his struggle within the coffin, surrounded by four main themes – fear of death, love for family, dependence on U.S. army/employers to save him and threat of insurgents. The only real hope he is given, rather maliciously, is a mobile phone.

Since the shooting area is limited, it focuses perfectly on human emotions. And perhaps everything is covered – fear, hope, anger, love, care, adrenaline, patience, impatience etc. The movie also captures some very realistic conversations and shows the difference in how people would behave lovingly (family/friends) and practically (e.g. your boss) in real-life situations. Some moments are very touching, for instance one where Paul calls his mother and just tells her he is OK without troubling her with the situation he is in, in the hope that he would come out of it.

Some scenes also mock on the U.S. system. For instance, in one case the guy is calling some department for help and she insists him for giving his social security number. When all hope is lost and he is recording a speech, he records his social security number to make a point. But in the bigger picture, the movie also mocks at the U.S. invasion of Iraq and the troubles and losses the U.S. army had to endure for one man’s whims.

However, what the director does the best is swinging the hope from high to low and back to high, and as the movie progresses the amplitude of this wave increases, making you to hold on to your seat and pray for the good ending. Of course, I won’t tell you the ending here, but it is one of the most dramatic ending I have ever seen (comparable to American Beauty or Amadeus) – it is expected, yet very unexpected.

Perhaps the only unrealistic part of the movie is that after finding himself in the grave, Paul has ‘life’ left to try and save his own life. To insurgents’ credit, they leave lifelines such as mobile phone and torch lights inside. And perhaps to protagonist’s credit, these situations make you behave like no one. When all is on stake, you give everything or you lose yourself.

Babuji Maharaj, on a question on “what is wisdom” said, “Live your life as if you are going to die the next moment.” While death within a moment is difficult to imagine, dying after a day or a year is less difficult to imagine. What would you do if you knew you would/could die in a year? Way of living would change radically. One would be less angry, more loving, more giving, more joyful and thankful for the time one has and at times cry for the inevitable (check out Randy Pausch’s Last Lecture if you haven't seen it before). Paul also shows these emotions very well, except that he is not sure if he’d have time to make up.

To cut a long story short, check this movie out if you like art and quality and if you don’t mind seeing a couple of disturbing scenes. Not recommended for pregnant women, children less than 13 years old and those who are old by spirit.

Pampering Children

2010-06-20T21:11:00.000-07:00

I am at home currently with my nephew (Tumi, aged 5) and 2 young cousins (Kabir and Nihar, aged 4 and 10). All have been much pampered all their lives and are quite a trouble to their parents when it comes to get anything done such as meals, bath, getting ready or whatever. And these children will do all this from me without any pampering – with some love and some discipline, and they are behaving themselves. It is not a show off; I want to make a point here. There is another one, Prahald, Anand’s son (Anand is my sole Indian colleague in Bintulu). He too really likes me (… apparently more than his parents).

What am I doing different from all the really nice mothers of these children? Probably I am thinking and observing before dealing with these gold of our future.

Master (Shri P. Rajagopalachari) has once said that a combination of loving (pampering) mother and disciplining father is best for a child’s growth. Two of the three fathers above, in my view, are quite wise, and deal quite similarly with the children as I do, but the fact is that a child spends a lot of time with the mother (and other relatives who are not behind in pampering) and thus their behaviour is shaped such. One further disadvantage of this is that when all the pampering is showered and the child still doesn’t agree to say have a proper meal, it is often followed by anger.

One of the general laws of human relationships is that the more one goes after the other, the further the other runs from the one. Adult relationships and friendship actually start on a note where attention begets attraction. This does change later though in many cases. But in a mother-child relationship, the love of a mother for the child is complete, and worse enough the child knows it. The child thus knows that it can escape or run the mother around to its demand or satisfaction. This isn’t to say that the child doesn’t love the mother. But a child’s id (refer Freud’s theory on development of I in a person) is strong and thus it wants a lot.

My elder sister is good with children and she used to, many years ago, use the rule of the opposites. She used to give or suggest the opposite to the child to get the right thing done. It is quite effective in a way, but my way is different.

My way is to let know the child that obedience and discipline are necessary, and then leave it free. This isn’t applicable to children below 3 years who aren’t very capable of conveying messages or heavily depend on right input of food. But once that demand is slackened, experimentation with child’s psychology is possible, and for me at least, has given good results. I know that I don’t have a mother’s heart – I can keep a child crying for a while for not acknowledging / conforming to its demand or leave it hungry (say skip a meal) if it says it is not hungry or doesn’t want to eat. But it works wonders – at least it has in the above cases.

Understanding the child is the key. One difference between a child and an adult is that the former doesn’t hold an impression for long. Its memory is strong but it doesn’t hold and impression for long. You divert its attention indirectly and it will mostly forget what it was earlier crying for. The other thing is to leave it free.

All of the mothers above stuff their children with a fix amount of food and will slacken only in extreme cases. The child will deny – the mother will pamper – the child will run away – the mother will run after – the child will play fool – eventually he will get a shout or slap – then it will cry – then it will be further pampered – stories will flow – and finally it will gulp down or eat the food. The aim is achieved, but not too nicely. It can be optimized and made less noisy or emotional.

Take example of my friend Hakim’s father on the other hand. He and his sister were particular about not eating this and that. Result – they won’t get their dinner for the day. Very soon, they started eating everything. It is not that their father didn’t love them. As Master says, love is there behind the discipline. And it is not love, if it cannot discipline. In his talks in Europe in early 90’s, he openly spoke about the inability of European parents to keep their children away from drugs in name of their freedom.

At a deeper level, it is fear behind the apparent pampering. Fear is there at two levels – genuine fear of something happening to child (say if it doesn’t eat properly) and an inappropriate fear of losing their love or attention, or worse, receiving rebuke from them. I know mothers hold their child the dearest, and hence the latter is also not completely wrong or inappropriate. But instead of permitting this fear to decide their actions, they should think about the long-term consequences of their actions. Take example of drugs – a few slaps or two days inside a locked room may be much better than leaving the child run free on drugs. I have said ‘may be’ because such actions might also have serious psychological repercussions. Every child is different and hence understanding is the key.

On a side note, I would also like to suggest that we should give children minimum impressions of what is right and wrong and maximum freedom in terms of what they can do or not. When I am walking with Prahalad on the nice roads of Sanctuary Villa in Bintulu (Malaysia), I let him do what he wants but keep an eye and the right distance from him to make sure he doesn’t come close to danger. Sometimes his mother is feeding him the same dosa that Anand and I are eating. But he comes to Anand and me with his million dollar smile and eats from our hands. His mother, given up, says, “I am feeding you the same thing.” And Anand replies, “He doesn’t want to eat dosa. He wants to eat what Kumar is giving him.”

In end, I concede that I am not a father yet and handing children for a few hours or days may not be the same as handling them on a daily basis. I think they will behave just the same will this type of dealing, whether for days, months or years. One more thing – man’s and woman’s psychological construct is different and hence the same cannot be expected from both.

The creator knows why things are the way they are. So mothers, if you read this – please don’t be offended. Just try a few tips that have worked for me and feedback if it worked for you or not.

Chokher Bali

2010-06-20T21:04:00.000-07:00

Chokher Bali – best translated as “A grain of sand” according to the translator is one of the first novels from Rabindranath Tagore. The reason I picked up this novel was to see how Tagore writes (badly forgot all his poems; and then poems and novels aren’t same). In addition, I was impressed with Rituparno Ghosh’s Raincoat and he has also directed Chokher Bali.

I haven’t watched Chokher Bali yet, but its story is in stark contrast with Raincoat. Raincoat was a slow moving story where the end literally completes the movie’s story. Chokher Bali on the other hand is a non-stop drama.

Chokher Bali revolves around six characters:

1. Rajalakshmi: A widow mother who has spoiled her son.

2. Mahendra: The spoiled son, who thinks everyone is there to fulfill his wishes (or as my dad jokes: “When anyone is born, God whispers in his/her ears: you are my best creation.”).

3. Aunty: Mahendra’s aunty – widow as well, a devout and peaceful lady.

4. Behari: Mahendra’s best friend – a very practical and skillful person.

5. Asha: Mahendra’s wife – an orphan wed to Mahendra at the age of 14-15; good at heart but hollow at mind and worldly dealings.

6. Binodini: The life of the novel – a widow, but a very intelligent, quick-witted, bold and beautiful woman. She knows (most of) her powers!

The novel starts a bit low in the sense that Tagore presents a lot of background information at the outset without weaving a story and then coming to central characters and events. However, that is understandable, because the novel was originally written as serialized articles for a Bengal journal and you probably wouldn’t want confuse people too much in beginning otherwise their interest will wane! But after 40 pages or so, he starts to pull strings and weave the web.

The incomplete story in short is thus: Mahendra and his mother are very dear to each other. Mahendra is married to Asha and their magical honeymoon life begins. The boy forgets the mother after marriage (as it normally happens!). The desolate mother goes for a retreat where she meets Binodini. Mahendra was once proposed to marry Binodini, but he declines her because he wasn’t interested in marriage at that time. Binodini becomes a widow as her husband dies prematurely. Mother brings Binodini back home. Binodini and Asha become friends. Mahendra is drawn towards Binodini due to her beauty, wit and charm (plus her efforts). Binodini likes and wants this, but she is really attracted towards Behari as he is good at heart and is a very practical person. Aunty comes and disappears from the scene as a source of peace or consolation.

Lot of drama goes around these people and there is a lot of to-and-fro from one situation to another and back to the same situation. However, nothing looks futile because, for instance, the time that Mahendra takes to advance towards Binodini, her ways of keeping distance while charming Mahendra at the same time, the confusion of letters, the faith in husband and many such events are so natural of that time (100 years ago!).

The novel’s real USP is Tagore’s portrayal of people’s emotions and thoughts and their analysis. He proves himself true to his self-portrait I had seen in Kolkata – a wise old man who knows everything. Some of the very practical and basic nuances of life he explains by means of the story are:

1. How differences and formalities are forgotten at times of misery. On the other hand, how friends and well-wishers are ignored when joy is in bounty.

2. How everyone thinks and justifies he is right.

3. How those who don’t learn things early have to learn it later in life (usually the hard way).

4. How veils of illusions are shattered by shock of reality, and even then, how strong illusions still maintain their place in our life.

5. Patience bears its own fruits and right actions lead to right consequences.

6. How the mood can colour the weather and circumstances (e.g. how a good weather may feel sulky because I am sulky). The other way around is also true, of course.

7. Natural surrender of woman to man and God, which by the way is much misused by man.

All characters in the novel are very realistic, except may be that of Mahendra, who is shown to be too loose and much too dependent on others. However, all probabilities are probable according to the Maxwell bell curve! Binodini’s character is very strong with her extreme goodness and stark darkness shown at different times. In fact, she convinces me even more that women folk can never be understood or predicted. Behari’s character emerges out the strongest at the end and he really gives a fight to the classical Rhet Butler from Gone with the Wind (my favourite character to date after Mahabharata’s Lord Krishna).

The ending is also superb – joyful and sorrowful at the same time; this is really where Tagore really stands out. It has always been difficult for me to accept sad endings and this too made me a bit sad (I was VERY sad after reading Gone with the Wind). However, for the first time, I understood that things cannot be just undone by joining hands once again and living happily forever (dream). The tangles that are created by too much involvement / indulgence are to be best undone in separation. For probably the first time, I have accepted the harsh, sad end of Gone with the Wind.

An enjoyable, fast reading novel with many things to learn about life, how people think and do. And yes, I do look forward to watch the movie.

Samsara - The Movie

2009-07-13T03:26:00.000-07:00

Samsara is a westernized word for Sansar, which in Hindi means – World.

Samsara is a movie by Pan Nalin that is centred around the life of a Buddhist monk Tashi. In this blog, I am going to discuss the whole story and especially the very interesting climax (before discussing which I will give a spoiler alert), as it gives a good food for thought for the material and/versus spiritual life.

The movie starts with a scene where Tashi’s fellow and senior monks go to Himalaya to awaken him out of a 3 year meditation. On their way, an eagle picks up a stone from somewhere and drops it in the sky on one of their lambs, which immediately dies due to the strike. After waking up Tashi, they take him back to their home, treating him slowly on the way to bring his body and senses back to normal. On the way, Tashi reads writing on the stone – ‘How can one prevent a drop of water from ever drying up?’

On return, Tashi is honoured with the status of Lama because of his discipline and outstanding achievement of rigorous meditation. While Tashi and his fellow monks are happy with this, Tashi suddenly stars to feel a sexual surge in his body and cannot avoid stealthily noticing women in the day and inadvertent ‘bad’ dreams in the night. On the senior monks, Apu, realizes this but continues observing without saying anything. On the other hand, a junior monk is filled with grief and horror because of the sexual inclinations of his ideal.

On one of their trips to a village, Tashi accidently comes across a very beautiful lady, Pema. Pema sees the deep desire that Tashi is suppressing under his Lama-hood and decides to give him some comfort by just sleeping by him (Tashi takes it for a beautiful dream). On return, Tashi cannot forget Pema and cannot justify his celibacy. Apu tells him he should follow his own way and that what Tashi thought of as dream happened for real. And thus Tashi sets back to meet Pema – towards a material life. This change is beautifully dramatized by him entering a river as a Lama and coming out as a normal man and his dog Kalu declining to recognize his Master.

After some more drama, both get married. While sexual desire was his launching pad into material life, Tashi starts experiencing other aspects of life such as greed for money, enmity etc. While he and Pema continue to love each other heartily, they differ in their approach to life. Pema believes in natural living, living with resources in hand and in harmony with neighbours. Tashi on the other hand starts gets into profit maximizing (retrenchment) and modernizing with some exposure to the city life. He also starts falling prey to temptation of another woman.

After yet some more drama, he is suddenly on loss with his inability of coping up with the material life, guilt of infidelity and the bad news of Apu’s death, who writes in his last letter: “I know I am coming back to this world [i.e. not liberated yet] and I am sure I will meet you in my next life and then you can tell me what is more important –satisfying one thousand desires [material life] or conquering just one [liberation, which is also a desire]”.

*** Alert - spoiler begins***

Tashi suddenly has a ‘realization’ and he decides to leave his family material life with a heavy heart to go back conquest of his pursuit. He again enters the river and comes out in his Lama clothes – his dog is not there but the sound of his barking is there! One would think that the story would end here or would continue on the subject of liberation. And Lo – Pema is back. Seeing Tashi – bald, in his Lama clothes (which she had expected), she begins:

Quote
You know Yashodhara [Buddha’s wife]? Everyone knows Gautama, Buddha, Siddharatha, but how many people know Yashodhara … he left them when they were sleeping [like Tashi does] … Who can say if Buddha owed his Enlightenment to her? … How can we know if she fell victim to anger, bitterness and loneliness after Siddhartha left him … how could she answer the eternal question of their son Rahul, ‘Where is my father?’ … only a man can leave his child in the middle of the night … Tashi, if your thoughts towards Dharma were of the same intensity as the love and passion you have shown me, you could have got liberation in this very body, in this very life…
Unquote

Tashi asks for forgiveness to return to the house but Pema leaves him. With the whole drama happening in such a small time, he is heartbroken and cries like a child in the open sun. But once he has cried, he gets up, quiet and serene again [supposedly free of the heaviness – this chapter has passed]. Not knowing where to go, he finds the same stone there - ‘How can one prevent a drop of water from ever drying up?’ On the back it says – ‘By throwing it into the sea…’, which has at least two interpretations:
1. The only way peace is possible for man is by his merger with the absolute.
2. Man’s real place is in Samsara – the ocean of which he is a drop.

And then our lovely eagle comes. Totally blank, he watches up, closes his eyes, expecting a stone to take him out of his misery. But the eagle is gentle this time and the God not so benevolent – he has to continue with life, probably because he has more to learn. And that is THE END.

I guess the storytelling was very important for this blog to discuss some aspects.

First, man’s search for ultimate should be in the middle of the world. It is easier to meditate in Himalayas where there is no noise, no disturbance of any kind, no temptation – nothing. But to be able to meditate deeply in daily life is a quality. Additionally, as Master says and the as the movie rightly shows, there is a danger of the world hitting you hard if you are even accidentally exposed to it as all that which was suppressed in a quiet environment will come out in this mad environment.

Second, material life is indeed imperfect and difficult. While Pema is more stable and content, there are things that bother her too (though less). So happiness in total sense is probably impossible and the only way it is possible is when we don’t depend on external sources to keep us happy.

Third, a man has to fulfil his duties. I am not in a position to comment on what Buddha did but I understand that every action of ours has a purpose and a reaction (on both parties). Leaving one’s family or duties for some attainment in most cases may not be justified. On the other hand, if we are aware of both (purpose and reaction), a conscious decision can be taken even though it might hurt someone else. It might sound odd when I say this but I say this in light of the fact that good and bad are decided by the society we are living in and if something that is consciously good for a person, but bad for somebody else or according to the society, we cannot always judge in favour of the latter.

Last, but not the least, life has to continue till it is ‘completed’. To continue to walk is very important. Many a times, people don’t find ways just because they are too lazy to walk [pun intended] or because they are afraid. Here, I remember what Master says [and what Gurdjieff also says] – if you are not going up, you will come down. You cannot continue to stay at one point.

Leaving all the mind-full stuff aside, the movie’s direction [pointed and optimally dramatized with a stunning climax], background score [very natural, deep and soothing] and cinematography [full of nature and colours] are excellent and worth a lot of praise. At times it is slow but for a good reason and it always keeps you glued to the screen. For people interested in the subject, but also for people interested in a good movie, this would be a very good watch.

Nice trip

2008-09-23T12:26:00.000-07:00

I met Praveen and Leila during my trip with Master to Satkhol (near Nainital). They live near Nice (pronounced as Niece) in France, where Shri Ram Chandra Mission has recently built its ashram. Before my return to India, I thought it might be nice to visit Nice, to see the Mediterranean and also visit the Nice ashram. I had to pay a heavy sum for the tickets, but as soon as I reached there, I realized it was more than that worth. Below, I will share some places and stuff I saw and readers will see that it is not the type of travelogue I write – in fact the trip was more about ‘in Nice’ than ‘about Nice’. Off late, I am also avoiding the tendency to click everything I see, because with a camera, most people indeed miss the forest for the tress. So, at places, pictures will be missed.

Thursday evening

The landing in Nice was the most beautiful landing ever. Water, very beautiful water, as can be seen in some pictures below, and chunks of land surrounded by water, created a very beautiful view just around dusk. There were many yachts ‘parked’ in the sea as well. Another peculiar observation from top was many (Olympic size?) swimming pools, most likely personal, with clear blue water.

Anurag, Praveen’s friend, landed ½ hr after me. Since it was already late evening, we drove back to Praveen’s apartment in Vallauris. In the after-dinner discussions, I discovered that Anurag is a big time book reader (he has just finished his PhD from University of Berkeley and is returning to India to be an Assistant Professor in IIT-Kanpur). Starting from discussions over the recent CERN LHC experiments, the topic changed into science and spirituality. Anurag made a very good clarification to me during this discussion.

I said that the difference in science and spirituality is that in science, there is a basis on which you build upon something, whereas spirituality is really like throwing your cord to an anchor that does not exist (difficult to explain, but basically in spirituality, you go without really knowing where you are going; you have to depend on something inside that is as perceptible as ether). Anurag said that the same is the case with science and while science proves things by practical measurements and so on, it is nevertheless based on axioms and a real scientist accepts that he does not know beyond a certain point and sometimes does things without really knowing what to expect. He added that most people believe in science and do not really know science, and that is quite correct. I would like to consider this as ‘belief on scientists’ intelligence’ than actually knowing science. Later, I drew a parallel between people who believe in God because they have been told so and between people who explore the existence of God. An analogy could clearly be drawn here between science and spirituality.

(Coincidentally, I started reading Code Name God by Mani Bhaumik in the flight and that deals very well with concepts of science vs. spirituality.)

I also discovered that Anurag’s reading style is very different (tending to unique). For him, he says, the books are his companions and not merely source of knowledge or entertainment. For him, books are tools for self and spiritual evolution. I still maintain that books can only take us to certain extent, but I also know from experience that without imparting the understanding, a book can impart/transmit its content if you are in the right receiving state. In this way, a book can also bring one to the level of the author’s evolution.

Friday

Coming back to the touristic part, Vallauris is a small town, well known for inhabiting Picasso. I am not sure but this might be the place where he developed his ceramic art. Next morning, in a sunny, clear sky, we spent more than 1.5 hrs in the Vallauris ceramic/porcelain market. Some of the shops actually have a small factory on the backside where they make these items. It is a very beautiful and colourful market and gives a taste of quiet, easygoing town life. Some items were pretty expensive but were piece produced and not mass produced. I bought a ceramic jug for gift and broke it in ½ hr.

Gives a flavour of the kind of shops in Vallauris market

I observed a unique scene that morning. They have a nice local market in Vallauris (equivalent to Sabji Mandi in India, a bit more spacious and cleaner). A guy selling Baguettes was tearing them in two parts (for selling) and dropping the crumbles on ground for pigeons to eat. He dropped the baguettes in a wooden box on the floor. Wonderful enough, there were 6-7 pigeons, all except one of a different feather colour/texture, and they ate the crumbles together but none went even closer to the wooden box to get a bite of the baguette (no one was looking!). Simple though, it was a nice example of harmony in the small village.

Baguettes and piegons; note that all pigeons are different

We (I/Praveen/Anurag) went to Theoule sur mer beach later around noon time. Travelling on the beach line was quite pleasant but observing the chemistry of Praveen and Anurag (old IIT-Roorkee friends, meeting after 6 years, geared back into the college mode) was more fascinating. We had a little sandwich picnic after which we spent some time in water. Although the beach was sandy (artificial), the seabed was usual rocky. Honestly, I never knew about this peculiar aspect of the Mediterranean before exploring about Nice. Another peculiarity of a rocky seabed is that it can go from, say 5 ft to 9 ft in one step and hence the likes of me who do not know swimming need to be very careful. Swimming wasn’t a good experience as seabed was sharp, rocks had a lot of algae on them and there were too many small fishes in the water. After swimming, we had a nice 1.5 hr trek along the beach. I fulfilled my hobby of pebble throwing but couldn’t pass my own record of 6 bounces.

Beautiful water; I also liked the idea of these floating platforms not far from beach

Theoule sur mer; I liked in particular the close-packed houses on the hills alongside the beach

Saturday

It was the nicest of the three days. It was another nice, sunny day to start with. We made a long drive to reach the The Valley of Marvel, but ended up somewhere else as we were not very clear about the route and later realized that this place was many hours drive further. Nevertheless, through winding roads, we reached a height of 1.5 km where we parked the car. Leila and Shriram (IIT hostel mate who was in Europe for a conference) also joined us on this day.

We started for a mountain trekking and found ourselves in a very natural, rather barren, but very peaceful area (‘‘tranquil-ion’’; the French would understand the joke!). We, and a few other ones, were the only disturbing elements in the whole place. The long hilly terrain was good for the legs and the atmosphere good for the lungs. While spending most time in the cities, we almost forget a better, more natural environment that still exists in places less touched by humans. The spiritual atmosphere of the place, I felt, was also good (closer to nature). Most people we found trekking there were old (50+).

I am not a big fan of barren places – I prefer lush-green and colourful places, but I really liked this one. The mountains had a beautiful stratigraphic pattern and that too varied from hill to hill. We found different small berries on the way (‘Blackberry’, red berries). We had a picnic after about 2 hr trekking, sitting on a rock, enjoying the view. By this time, it had become colder as the day was passing and we were at a higher altitude.

Beautiful rock patterns

Shriram (same old IIT fella with thicker glasses and a beard)

Anurag (returning to the country)

After picnic, we continued to trek up. We were looking for a lake at some high point in the hill. At one place on the top, it appeared that the lake had dried up, but when we continued to walk, we finally found a lake, albeit very shallow, surely dried up. But it was, again, very beautiful. In this shallow lake, I finally bettered my pebble throwing record by achieving 9-10 bounces! We also spotted some deer, although not of the normal breed.

Where there should have been a lake

Deer; alert from my-Shriram's loud talking

Finally a shallow, but beautiful lake; another beautiful rock (with a little illusory pattern)

We didn’t stay longer at the top as it was getting colder and we could see dark clouds drifting towards us. Coming down was much quicker and easier. The return journey to Vallauris was very tricky for me, given my car sickness in such roads. But we got to see very beautiful sunset (sunset without sun as we were still in the winding roads). Finally, we had excellent pizza for dinner (Nice, being close to Italy, serves very good Italian food).

Perfect ending for the day

Sunday

Sunday began with visit to the Nice ashram. The ashram is really beautiful (I like places with predominant white paint) but it also came as a surprise because it is located quite in the centre of Nice, it is quite spacious and even more, it has been constructed from scratch by Nice/French abhyasis (this is the normal course for ashrams in India but in Europe, most ashrams are parts of a building, bought almost readymade). After the satsangh and a video show, I and Shriram left to see Nice (finally).

Nice ashram meditation hall

We spent some time looking in the local market and were looted for a colourful equivalent of petha (actually fruits soaked in sugar syrup for hours and dried). The lunch wasn’t a very good experience as we were served by a very arrogant guy.

Later we went to the Nice beach. While the seabed was still stony, round pebbles were laid down on the beach to make a comfortable sitting/lying. In fact, it was not very uncomfortable compared to a sand beach. However, the water was forceful and after spending a few minutes, we lost energy and enthusiasm to spend time in water. I had another peculiar experience –while I was taking the final shower, I saw small rainbows forming in/between the droplets of water – obviously real, but very beautiful and rare.

Central beach in Nice (beauiful but unfortunately strong waves)

Later, we went to the Collin du Chateau, which is quite famous for its panoramic view of the city (very nice view of the beach, the buildings alongside and a small harbour), its garden (nothing great) and for its antiquity.

View of Nice old city from the Chateau

Overall…

Nice was a very good experience … in fact I didn’t see much of Nice and I hardly toured it as I tour other places (running and trying to see every famous spot). I did not see Monaco or Cannes, which are very famous for their own good reasons, but not of liking of most of us. Most of the time we spent was in places close to nature and I also fulfilled the wish to see the Nice ashram.

There were many small things that won my heart, most of which I have mentioned above. However, without the company, accommodation facility and hospitality of Praveen and Leila, it could not have been as homely as I felt in Nice. Both of them lost quite some sleep and order with three guys in their apartment. Additionally, the spiritual atmosphere of their apartment was also good and I felt it in all my meditation sittings in their house.

Tired hosts, still managing a smile!

His Dark Materials

2008-07-11T23:02:00.000-07:00

His Dark Materials is a trilogy of the following three novels by Philip Pullman:
1. Northern Lights (aka The Golden Compass)
2. The Subtle Knife
3. The Amber Spyglass

I will try to give details while being careful not to put in any spoilers.

His Dark Materials is a fantasy with the Christian history and philosophy in its background. The story considers aspects such as creation, temptation, God (referred to as Authority for specific reason), Church (its roles and actions), angels, heaven, body/spirit/soul etc. The story is more or less a critic of the traditional views of these ideas except for the one of body/spirit/soul.

The central characters in the story are two kids: Lyra Belacqua and Will Parry. There is a prophecy about Lyra that she will change the destiny of the world if things fall in place and if she is unaware of what she will do till she does it. The story takes place in several worlds.

THE BOOKS
Pullman does not appear to be a great writer in terms of his literary skills. Compare His Dark Materials with Gone with the Wind and the former will end up deep down an abyss. The style is very simple and it does not create any enigma, which, for instance, Midnight’s Children creates. Which brings us to the conclusion that there must be something about His Dark Materials that I am writing such a big blog and that all these books have turned out to be the bestsellers. I think that something is the story itself and the storytelling ability of Pullman, the ability to create vivid characters, the sense of disclosing a secret or pulling a turn at the right time and finally the ability to play the fine cords of human emotions.

Northern Lights
Northern Lights is based in a world different from ours, where every human being has a demon of its own. The demon is an animal of sex opposite to the human being it belongs to (generally). The demon does not refer to a devil or so; in fact, it is the soul of the human being, but present outside and it can talk as well.

In fact, these ideas, first seen in the movie The Golden Compass, aroused my interest in these books. Lyra gets an alethiometer – a truth teller, which Lyra uses throughout the story. Other important characters are Mrs. Coulter (works for the Church) and Lord Asriel (aims to end the Authority). On a side note, these are played by Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig and in my opinion, no better actors could have been found for both roles.

Two salient features of Northern Lights are:
1. Lyra is always present in the scene, so basically the story goes where she goes. This is the first time I am reading a book where one character is always present. The trend does not continue in The Subtle Knife and The Amber Spyglass. Lyra has a persistent character, she can do all for people she loves and she can lie very well (Lyra and Liar sound quite common, as is outlined in The Amber Spyglass).
2. The aspects of relationship between a human and its demon are revealed slowly in the novel through various events and that is very beautiful. Some such aspects are: human being and his/her demon generally cannot go very far from each other; it is blasphemy of highest order for a human to touch other’s demon or vice-versa etc. Novelists tend to explain many aspects of certain thing or person or relationship as soon as they introduce it but Pullman does it during an ongoing act/scene and as such, intensifies the effect and creates a mark in our memory that we do not forget it.

Northern Lights is very fascinating in terms of the above and also for the superhuman characters which it introduces – bear kings and witches. Northern Lights also made me feel that I should actually go and see Northern Lights (Aurora Borealis) some day in my life – the description is just too good.

The novel's end is truly spellbinding beyond expectations or thought and this is one thing I would never understand about the movie The Golden Compass, where they end at ~ 80% of the Northern Lights story and do not show its end at all. The end is really apt as it makes entry into other worlds and thus makes a case for the next book – The Subtle Knife.

The Subtle Knife
The Subtle Knife goes around in three worlds, in a world which is same as ours, in Lyra’s world and in a world different from ours and Lyra’s. The Subtle Knife is smaller than Northern Lights and lacks the charm of concepts that Northern Lights has, but it is really a great foundation for the last book of the trilogy. The book introduces other characters: spectres, angels and shaman (a man who has high level powers of the spirit). Will Parry is introduced and shown as a character with unsurpassable ferocity, though he is only 12 years old or so. He comes from a world like ours. Will and Lyra meet in the third world and become friends and helpers of each other. Mary Malone (the serpent/tempter) is also an important character introduced.

The Amber Spyglass
The Amber Spyglass is really a great culmination for the trilogy. It is also the thickest book of the three and it made me realize that the depth of the story, the characters and their handling are much beyond and better than the famous Potter “heptology”.

The Amber Spyglass introduces other characters - the Gallivespians (the spies), the mulefa (diamond-legged creatures running on wheels) and the dead! All characters from all the three books come together and that makes the novel very intense and action-packed. The novel also introduces the Authority and his regent Metatron, however, the novel’s dealing with these two characters is almost sarcastic. Although the book is about war with the Authority, there is more of human emotion than action and that makes it special. In fact, the war only goes for about 1-2 chapters out of 38 and Pullman does not care enough to discuss the results, although that is obvious! I think that except for 2-3 small things, the novel captures all questions or secrets built up during the course of the story. The only dark spot in the moon is the story that runs in mulefa’s world, which I think could have been swifter.

The novel’s end is very sad and heart-wrenching, which makes it so special again. The end could have been a feel-good end for all, but that would have hardly had any impact compared to its actual end. The end also considers that universal good is more important than personal good.

THE SUBJECT
There is no denying that another reason why the trilogy attracted my attention was its dealing with theological and metaphysical aspects, which it introduces as Dust:

1. Dust connects all the worlds and universes and is shown as golden particles that fill all the space.
2. Dust is what makes us human.
3. Dust is produced and enhanced by human creativity and consciousness (if this is true, readers would [should] find some Dust around this blog!).
4. Dust affects a human through his/her demon.
5. Dust is something which the Church wants to destroy and the more rational beings want to preserve.

Another crucial feature is that Dust does not fall on kids as it does on adults. The books deal further with this aspect and discuss innocence of children vs. maturity of adults, flipping demons of kids vs. stable demons of adults and why Spectres attack adults but not children.

His Dark Materials indicates that something happened 30,000 years ago when human consciousness took a turn and led to Dust. I am not sure if it refers to the temptation of the Eve. The novel also indicates that something happened 300 years ago – creation of the alethiometer and the subtle knife, origin of the Spectres and so on.

The dealing of this subject was a little disappointment to me. I expected a more realistic approach towards the subject and its aspects, but the novel ended up creating a (very beautifully crafted) fictional web around the subject and dealing it from a pure Christianity point of view. I would not blame Pullman as his knowledge or appreciation or acceptance of other religions or theories may not be of the level of Christianity.

My understanding of the novel’s conclusion is that matter is the most important (though soul and spirit too exist), that the Authority is powerful but not the ultimate creator (and there is not Authority) and that this life is the only life to deal with. The fiction deals well to arrive at these conclusions but two things which I think Pullman has been unable to justify are:
1. Acceptance of certain ideas of Christianity such as body/spirit/soul, angels etc. but denial of others such as heaven, temptation etc. purely based on the story’s requirements.
2. How many things happened simultaneously 300 years ago in many worlds to bring the prophecy true, if there were no God behind it?

OVERALL
The books overall have been a very good read and despite my disappointment with dealing of the subject of Dust, the story and the flow are very captivating, the characters very strong and vivid and the fantasy very novel. The handling of many worlds has also been very fine and artful.

Like Gone with the Wind, where I think that Rhett Butler (male protagonist) was stronger than Scarlett O’Hara (female protagonist), whereas the novel was about the latter, I would consider that the portrayal of Will Parry is stronger than Lyra Belacqua, although I am sure Philip Pullman would disagree.

Many cheers to him though for writing such a fantasy. Overall, I would rank the novel as my top 3rd or 4th.

PS: I would like to end with my favourite from the novel:

"Well, where is God, if he is alive? And why doesn't he speak anymore? At the beginning of the world, God walked in the garden and spoke with Adam and Eve. Then he began to withdraw, and Moses only heard his voice. Later, in time of Daniel, he was aged - he ws the Ancient of Days. Where is he now? Is he still alive, at some inconceivable age, decreipt and demented, unable to think or act or speak and unable to die, a rotten hulk? And if that is his condition, wouldn't it be the most merciful thing, the truest proof of our love for God, to seek him out and give him the gift of death?"

Not that I support it.

Requiem for a Dream

2008-06-02T06:27:00.000-07:00

A book by Hubert Selby Jr. and a movie based on the novel by Darren Aronofsky

Requiem means ‘a mass for the dead’. I could not understand the name in the first instant. I had heard a lot about the movie, but later found that it is a novel too. I decided to read the novel before watching the movie. I was also warned that this is probably the most depressing movie ever!

The novel turned out to be a real depressive. It is based on 4 people - a woman, her son, his friend and girlfriend – their baseless dreams, how they stick to their dreams, not realizing and even failing to recognize the lives these dreams push them into. Most of the story runs around drugs, addiction, hallucination and the overall resulting foolishness. The first half is easy to read although you see build-up for a depressive second half. The second half is killing depressive. You read and re-read the depressive happenings in their lives and towards the end, the worst extreme one’s life can go into. And you just wish that this soon ends.

When I started reading the second half, I knew I had to finish it in a go because I could not take the sadness into installments. When I watched the movie, it turned out to be a cakewalk compared to the novel. Or the way someone commented on me, “Now I know the extent of your gross imaginations!”

But jokes apart, the movie is fast and the way it is directed, it does not make life of the viewer that hard, whereas in the novel, Selby really scratches into the (defunct) thought processes and inner feelings of the individuals and that is really difficult to accommodate to. In fact, I wondered at a certain stage if these things can really happen in an addict’s life or this is mere exaggeration. Not that I can tell now, but I think it is possible.

Another reason the novel was very hard on me was because it reflected me in its characters and that tore me apart. Not that I take drugs or have hallucinations, but on a more general level, I too take life for granted to a certain extent, take certain things lightly than what they deserve and procrastinate the probable essentials, expecting that future will provide me sufficient opportunity to deal with the priorities. I may not end up into an end as deteriorated as these characters’ but that does not mean we should not strive to live our priorities. I prefer not to dig into examples as that would be difficult to explain, but I feel that I am no exception and this applies to most of us at one or other level.

The novel was quick read but had difficult slang usage at places. Further, the novel is written in big paragraphs, very unusual to my knowledge, with many characters talking in one paragraph and the reader is left to decipher who is speaking what from context, style etc. The novel is not great from a writing point of view; it is the content which is the heart of the novel.

The movie’s direction and colors are very good. The movie’s OST is probably one of the best I have heard and the theme songs (Summer Overture/Meltdown/Lux Aeterna) are too good with a fabulous use of electrical instruments. Two scenes of deterioration in the end are very well shot and are the only parts better elaborated than the novel.

Ellen Burstyn’s lead performance is one of the best female performances I have yet seen – it seems that she has a tremendous control over her face movements; so much that it seems she can move any muscle she likes and keep the rest at rest. Found Jennifer Connelly to be very beautiful and her acting is also very good. The guys in the movie are OK.

Overall, I would count Requiem for a Dream as a good novel and movie and despite its depressive character, I would recommend people with some heart to read/watch it.

Living life

2008-05-20T18:30:00.000-07:00

Like people hardly remember God when life is going good, my blogs hardly come when times are good. And that is ought to be because in that state, mind is not looking for answers to questions that otherwise pop up and create a stir in the stable life.

I have been living a life of quite some discipline in the past 3-4 years and spirituality has been the prime driver for that. Having a disciplined spiritual life brings about discipline in other aspects of life as well, which in my opinion are physical and mental. Physical discipline is achieved as daily routine is more easily established, the food intake is healthy, sleep is sufficient and deep and breathing becomes more normal. More importantly, mental discipline is established as mind does not wander off too much, ambitious tendencies get limited and turn into aspirations, there is satisfaction with things at disposal and mind is balanced and focused on the most important thing.

Not that the above have been permanent features of my life of the past 3-4 years, but I have seen them happen to me sufficiently, these features established for different lengths broken by spells of a lesser degree of balance. As it would not be difficult to interpret, the thoughtful present period is one where the balance is not fully established; there are strong waves in the ocean. I again observe that the driver behind physical and mental imbalance is some sort of spiritual imbalance. Why that imbalance comes into picture is another story in itself.

It has been my regular observation that it is very easy, almost natural for us to fall back or into old, bad patterns. I know good and bad can be qualitative and subjective, so I will try to give some examples below which may indicate my good and bad:

1. Sleeping late for various reasons, most of which are avoidable. Bad because I would like to get up early in morning for my meditation and may be a fresh walk. But be it internet surfing, excuse of replying to emails or just watching a movie, I can always find an excuse to stay wake till late.
2. Greedy shopping, as I have done in the past few days in the cheapest place in the world (US). In fact, one of my colleagues was doing the same in the first week as he was to return two weeks earlier than me and since he is not a friend, I had to control myself giving him some geeta-pravachan (about not being too greedy and not falling prey to desires etc.). Come my last week and I am no different.
3. Eating - eating more when the food is tasty and eating even more when it is more tasty. Very few people eat as much as should be eaten.
4. Becoming ambitious with regards to my work, sometimes working too hard, thinking that I can still balance my life despite a long working day, thinking that I won't work overtime tomorrow, thinking that I can work like this all my life without even losing an inch of balance.

Now these are just a few examples and the list can be even longer. I am not feeling guilty about them. But it surely makes me think that many of these patterns often repeat themselves. When they do and imbalance comes into picture, I feel that I got across a stumbling stone, that I have got some harsh experience and I got wiser in the process and will behave better in the future. Does not work out in many cases. Why? Patterns repeat themselves because as I said earlier, it is always easy to fall back or into bad patterns.

What I would really like to do is to get free of them. Why patterns repeat and how to get free of them is another epic in itself. In Sahaj Marg system, patterns are explained in terms of effect of past samskaras (impressions left on us by past thoughts and actions) and the solution is practice of cleaning these impressions. I vaguely remember my mama once telling me that Gurdjieff has explained this in terms of bridging 2 points in evolutionary ladder by help of a source higher than oneself and which otherwise are always disconnected, sending one back to square 1. The Hindu philosophy of reincarnation till liberation is another way of looking into it.

All I am trying to say it is that when patterns repeat and wisdom re-dawns on us a nth time, we should become careful. Actually the sad part is that many people:

1. Either do not observe it at all
2. Or think that falling back into these patterns is natural and a way of life
3. Or think that they will do something about it later
4. Or just give up on these after certain attempts

I was talking with a very good friend the other day and found that something similar to ambitious work orientation has resulted in a quite bad health patch in his life. And I bewared him again of repeating patterns, as I have observed myself in his case. Now he knows that he is in trouble and wants to do something about it but does not want to give up on his working habits because like always, it is an important time in his working career.

I am many a times challenged for my ways of thinking and living by asking me why one should attempt to do something or achieve something when the natural reactions tell otherwise (is natural reaction not an oxymoron in itself?). Take examples of late night out, eyeing other women despite being committed, ambitious work practices, lust of money, jealousy of others' luck - all is natural. Why to make effort to change?

Perfect argument and it surely challenges me. Especially because if I try to do things in a certain way that do not happen naturally, I am indeed pushing it - mentally or psychologically. In that way, it may be a gap in my psyche or my understanding that I am pushing it in a certain way instead of having it have its natural way.

I have been studying solid state chemistry and movement of atoms within a lattice for the last 2 days. One of the pet statements of our instructor is - Mother Nature always want to go into a state of lower energy. Would I try an anti-gravitational field so that my chair stays in the air instead of on the floor? Surely not. Or would I not eat even when I am dead hungry, just to practise fast? Surely not. Why then to control or regulate other natural occurrences or instincts?

Good question. I do not know an absolute answer to it, but I surely know that one surely feels wise when a bad patch has passed or has been overcome. And one decides to deal better with life in future. I remember this guy from the movie Euro Trip - every time he wakes up in morning after a night full of drinking, he says that he would not drink again. And of course, he does, falling back into patterns.

Brian L Weiss, the author of Many Lives, Many Masters summarizes it beautifully (albeit intellectually too) - "The experience is necessary to add emotional belief to intellectual understanding. But the impact of experience always fades to some degree."

I also think that there is a difference between atom and human beings; human beings have been successful in using atoms to make atom bombs, but atoms have never been reported to use human beings. If we were only an aggregate of atoms, we would behave similar to atoms in a metal or a liquid or a gas; we are a mixture of all physically, are we not? Thus something non-atomic, non-material is there in the picture, which drives us to think, makes us feel wiser, drives us to sometime go unnatural to break patterns.

It may be my mind, my soul, both or something else. But something is surely out there and that creates a difference. That also makes us special, but that also makes us responsible. Atoms do not complain on being stretched or compressed or heated or quenched, but we surely would - in ALL cases! And here, I think, one of the precepts of Christ proves to be important, germane to our existence - "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you".

And well, as for using our wisdom for a better tomorrow, another saying (Christ's as well?) that applies is - "Charity begins at home". I hope charity will begin in each home.

Raincoat

2008-01-05T01:29:00.000-08:00

I am quite a laggard when it comes to movies. Raincoat was released in 2004 and I watched it for the first time last night. As such, this doesn't deserve a big blog since most people would have seen it already.

However, for those who have not, I must mention that this a rare drama produced by Rituparno Ghosh. The inspiration is a famous English story but the drama, I feel, transcends the great story itself. The story is about 2 old lovers - Ajay Devgan (Mannu) and Aishwarya Rai (Neeru). Neeru gets married to someone else and after 6 years, Mannu comes to Calcutta. He goes to Neeru's house to pay a 10-minute visit, to end up in a spectacular drama, that is so unlike of Bollywood.

In terms of the pace, sometimes, I felt this is like Life is Beautiful - things happen at a certain, slow pace but one doesn't really understand why. At times, I was so frustrated because of the way Mannu and Neeru continue to behave the way they staretd and it gets more and more dull. But it is the end which fits the whole drama in hindsight. Unlike Life is Beautiful, the last scene has been left to viewer's interpretation, but the end in itself is very moving and fills you with a deep feeling of bonding and wonder.

Although the movie is centred around Mannu and Neeru, there are 2 excellent cameo roles by Mouli Ganguly and Annu Kapoor. The drama is centred around Mannu and Neeru, but I think that the most spontaneous and revealing exchanges of the movie are between Mannu and Mouli Ganguly. Aishwarya has given a outstanding performance, especially given her anti-doll get-up and role. Ajay Devgan is sometimes lost for expressions but the story covers for that. I think SRK or Aamir Khan would have done more justice to the role though.

I would strongly recommend it to everyone who wants to watch a quality movie and has a little patience for the story to end.

PS: And by the way, the name sounds very funny, but it is a very apt choice for the movie.

Normal, are you?

2007-11-17T09:41:00.000-08:00

If someone would ask this question to people who know me a little more, most of them would say, a little reluctantly, a little unsure - “Yaar kuchh to alag sochata aur karta hai, normal to nahin hai” (He is a little different, he is not normal). If you ask me the same question, I would say, “Surely not”.

What about normalcy? This morning, when I was meditating, suddenly this thought came to me that normalcy doesn’t have to do with the word ‘normal’ as we use it in equivalence with the word natural (for example, it is normal to take wine for your host when invited for dinner or as Christiaan told me yesterday, it is normal not to open the same wine for dinner) but it is rather to do with a derivative of the word, used in statistical or economic context – normalize, which means dividing an array of numbers by their mean or scale up or down quantity or price of a thing to set it to 1.

The etymology of normal leads to ‘norm’ and in one instant that makes it different from the word natural. In this context, it would be ideal to quote the following definition of normalization from sociological point of view:

Normalization is a process whereby behaviours and ideas are made to seem normal" through repetition, or through ideology, propaganda, etc., often to the point where they appear natural and taken for granted.

Thinking of human behaviour and tendencies and pondering over them in light of ‘natural’ normal or sociological normalization, all would agree that what is done by most people or what most would instinctively do is normal. For example, even married or committed men don’t shy and rather come bold in arguing that flirting with or eyeing other women is normal.

For babus (clerks), bribery is normal. For babus of the west, not taking bribe might be normal. For people in India, working overtime is normal. For people, at least in Netherlands, not staying in office after 5 pm is normal. Always wanting more money and power, always appearing good and talking sweet, patriotism, being crazy about one’s girlfriend or boyfriend, sympathizing with sorrow of others (and hardly empathizing) and so many things are normal. Forgetting god in good times and remembering in bad times (and boldly or sheepishly blaming him too) is also normal.

In the light of above arguments, normalcy in first context (‘natural’ normal) is union of items, which are socially acceptable (norms!) and instinctively human. What about normalcy in context of the meanings statistically or economically normalized have?

Take for example 10 people, with asset holding in proportion of 1 to 10 (i.e. 1, 2 …, 9, 10). What would be the normalized asset holding. Too simplistic I know, but well to start with. I would quote the principle of communism that my father told one very ardent communist once:

Communism means working according to capacity and payment according to need.

What about the everlasting quench for money and power. I don’t want any? Doesn’t help, can’t live. I want all. Surely you are in mess. Normal, in this case, would be something, which is good enough and sufficient for my needs.

To talk about behavior, I must admit openly that I am tired of western politeness. Saying things even when most of the times you don’t feel them. What is normal? Of course there are times when I feel thankful of people, of God and I should convey it. Or at least feel the gratitude. To say it mechanically every time – sorry!

To talk about politeness – being nice even when you feel like shouting at someone. Is that normal? I remember a very good incident when we went for a full Sunday satsangh (group meditation) program to Brussels and we had one of our European center-in-charge there. He was in a little rough mood today and somebody asked him why is he in such a rough mood when he has come for such an event. He replied curtly, something like, “I am not expected to be nice all the time”.

I have brought myself to stalemate because all my reasons are indicating that normalcy has to do with being natural. Anywhere you feel a stretch from natural while doing something – there must be some deviation from natural.

But mind you, being natural is not being instinctive which most of us take to be natural or normal. For most of us, instinct is a product of processed information and experiences. Bad pizza at New York Pizza and there is an instinct the next time. Friend says Switzerland is heaven on earth and there is an instinct.

So our instincts don’t only determine our future actions but also our response. On the other hand, natural behaviour is a product of nature with nothing in background.

I am sure life would be more simple and happy in the normal I see. My experience of this ongoing transformation is that the spaghetti in the brain dissolves and you feel a relief you can’t imagine. Hopefully the dissolved spaghetti would evaporate one day with nothing left.

I am sure readers would find arguments and exceptions to my reasons and I would be the most happy to learn about them (when Richard Bach can find loopholes in Christ’s saying, my arguments are hardly at stake).

To end with, I would quote Richard Bach from Illusions; I think he hints a way back to real normalcy:

In order to live free and happily, you must sacrifice boredom. It is not always an easy sacrifice.

Luxembourg

2007-09-10T10:03:00.000-07:00

4 of us including me, Zubin, Rishabh and Rohit went to The Grand Duchy of Luxembourg the last weekend.

Luxembourg as a touristic place has 2 main attractions: its natural beauty and its castles. After a long 5.5 hrs train journey, we reached Luxembourg city. Since we had limited time, we didn't spend any time in the city and went straight to Echternach.

Echternach is one of the small towns in the region of Mullerthal (Luxembourg is geographically divided into five regions - Ardennes, Mullerthal, Luxembourg city, Moselle and Red rocks). Mullerthal is also called as "the little Switzerland". We reached Echternach around 2 pm and spent a lot of time in finding a place for eating with constraints of being cheap, a place where people understand English and the biggest one being the constraint of finding vegetarian food. Ultimately we found one (though "horror stories" were revealed to me later!).

View of the centre of Echternach

After having some good meal, we started with the real tour. Echternach is very famous for its forests and many trekking trails. Following Lonely Planet's recommendation, we went for the "best trail", i.e. a 2.5 km trail named as Trail B. The recommendation turned out to be indeed very good. Despite a tiring and sweating start (mind it, this was my first real trekking in life!!!), we really got attuned to the roads.

The photos session begin but also the difficulty and challenge of taking pictures in the dark when we were in the middle of the forest. Rishabh has a good digital SLR, good photography sense and good command over the camera. Rohit too knows more than me (we have the same camera). I was feeling a little bad about not exploring the features of such a good (and expensive) camera in the last 6 months. Zubin was hardly taking any pictures :-P (a little shameful of not having a "hi-fi" camera like the three of us).

Zubin on the foot of a fallen tree

A confined area with steep ladders leading you further

You may see the not-so-good quality of photos (dark) above but that's close to real! Two characteristics of the Echternach forest are special: its dense-packed lanky (long and slim) trees and its rocks. The lanky trees are either be very green or dry with many thorns (could be season-specific feature).

Trees' density could be double or triple of these! Many big beautiful rocks

Four of us on a fallen tree's trunk

I really like them and they look even more beautiful when seen from the roadside. If only I had my Madhuri Dixit, I would be running around the forest singing romantic songs! The rocks are really large and many shapes are close to devils with one eye or no nose or big mouth.

The calm of the forest and its fresh air, it seemed to me, not only rejuvenated us but also cleaned/opened some sort of physical obstructions in my body, which might be a result of the city living with polluted air and very less physical work. The spiritual atmosphere of the place was very good and the relationship between human interference or indulgence and the atmosphere (physical, spiritual) was very clear. I think this applies to the whole of Luxembourg when comparing it with other European nations, as is my feeling. I really wanted to sit there in the middle of forest and meditate for some time but that would mean unnecessary waiting for my companions.

It started getting dark and we started getting a little worried about the trail. Trail B finished somewhere and Trail B1 was seen. We had to get out somewhere on the road from where we could catch bus.

While searching for a way out, we also came across one (as it looked like) arena. Not sure whether it was used by kings/knights in the past or it is a recent construction for some performances, but we were happy to see it. After some photographs and some rest, we continued with our search and finally found a way out.

The arena

Thanks to the guidance of a bhalaa maanav, we found the bus stand. Now comes the criticism. If there is something not good about Luxembourg, it is its public transport. The buses and the trains are the best looking lot I have seen in Europe but the frequency is very bad and poor guys like us who depend on public transport suffer great deal waiting for buses. On almost all connections, the frequency is once an hour or at best twice an hour at peak hours. Further, there are not many direct connections even between famous stops.

Having said that, the frequency of buses is agreeable with the population and with the fact that most of the families would have cars. But after all this, something egregious happened with us. We were waiting for a bus after finishing out Echternach trek. A bus, supposed to depart at 20:25, came and left at 20:15, while we were just going towards it to board it.

Another not-so-good thing about Luxembourg (may be an Asian's criticism) is the extreme-chill life people live there. Most of the shops - even restaurants - were closed by 6 pm and thus you are reduced to a few options. The debacle of bus timings and restaurants scarcity had a combined adverse effect to the extent that we had nothing but an icecream between 3 pm and 10:30 pm.

A single building, a hotel in a whole sq. km area of more!

After all the criticism, few words of high praise about the hotel receptionist (guy) of the youth hostel of Hostelling International. In such a chill country life, it was great to find a guy who waited for us at expense of his delay and served life-saving good breakfast food as dinner 2 hours after the actual timings of hotel restaurant. I was quite confident that despite a tiring day, most of us would be unable to sleep with such an empty belly. This event also made me realize how affluence is killing all our tolerance and that despite all affluence, times like these may come, leading into self-reflection.

On Sunday, we visited the castles in Beaufort and Vianden. Although Vianden is more famous, I personally liked Beaufort more because of the beauty it holds in its ruin. We didn't spend much time in Beaufort because there was a (supposed) free English guided tour at Vianden at 1 pm. Those 20 minutes spent there were good enough since it is a small castle. Got a few photographs of the castle, a few rooms including the torture room (not putting pics here to avoid any haunting imaginations) etc.

Sunny day from the Beaufort castle

Beaufort castle (one of my best photographs)

On our way to Vianden, we read a pamphlet given in Beaufort on the feudal system of the middle ages. It was quite an interesting read to find how such a small country was divided under so many small towns/forts leading to so many castles and much feud later (wondering if the word feudal and feud are etymologically linked!). It also talked about how sons of higher families were either doomed to become knights (the stronger ones, the elder ones) or end up in monastery (the youngers or the weaks) and how these knights ended up encroaching upon the monastery lands and later into robbery and dacoity and later got the reputation of "robber knights".

I liked the part where they were sarcastic about knights' idle ways of life. In Vianden, we took a free (again!) chair lift to the top of a hill. The chair lift was OK - I had a misimpression that it would be adventurous but it was dead slow for adventure standards. It was actually just a mean of transport.

Free chair lift to the top of the hill

We had our lunch at the hilltop. This is where I came across horror stories about penetration of non-vegetarian food into life, at least in the West. Examples like French fries fried in beef-oil to make it crispy irritated me and I suddenly came into contemplative mood as to where draw the boundary.

Anyways, we had a spiral trip through the woods from here to the Vianden castle. Rishabh clicked a very beautiful photo of the Vianden city along with the castle.

View of Vianden city (courtesy Rishabh)

The free guided tour of Vianden (comes free with the family pass) never happened. We were told it has never happened in history except for pre-planned and pre-booked tours.Vianden castle is also good though not as great as was highlighted in Lonely Planet. Some photos from the Vianden castle are here:

Vianden castle (courtesy Rishabh)

Solid entry into the Vianden castle

Robots of the past - wonder how easy they walked 100s of miles

Devil's eyes (just one of the rooms)

The devil himself (जल्लाद के अस्त्र शस्त्र पर ज़रा गौर फरमाइये)

मैंखाना (look at the barrles of alcohol)

So, all in all, a very good trip. A few tips for people planning to spend their weekend there:

1. Reach there by Friday night if possible. Spending saturday morning in Luxembourg is more worthwhile than spending it in the train.

2. Get the family weekend pass of 34 euros for maximum 5 people if you are in a group. Very cheap and gives free access to all internal public transport and many castles and the chair lift.

3. If you have car or motorbike, life can't be better in Luxembourg.

Q&A

2007-08-26T10:30:00.000-07:00

This should be a small one and that should reflect my impression about the novel in the very first line.

The book is centred around a 18 year old boy, living in Dharavi and working as a waiter in some bar. He ends up winning the largest amount on a show called as Who Will Win a Billion (W3B). This is followed by an arrest because of the claims of fraudulent win and 12 stories narrated afterwards to a lawyer - of 12 different incidents and happenings in his life, which gave him the answers to all questions, coincidentally striking luck with events of his life. Each story ends up with the related question.

The novel started as a good one, I must say. Different stories giving highlights of the real picture behind Indian metropolitan slums, foreigners' view about "Bloody Indians", poverty, molestation. Even homosexuality (not sure how realistic that is in a statistical sense of word).

But as I say all of the above, it becomes already clear that all negative features are well manifested and projected. Something that doesn't feel right. Not only for my love for the homeland but also from a realistic point of view. All the above considered (still not accepting homosexuality to the levels it has been projected ...), there are also good things about Indians. Things which are more innate in nature.

What is further not-so-good about the book is this aspect of serendipity and the "revelation" that the world is round and it is getting smaller. I mean everything goes well in the end and all bad people are finished, all good characters are united in a family. I was hoping (badly) that one coincidence would not come, but alas, that too came.

Some stories are very interesting and very well narrated and that is a good part of the book. The book is also simple to read - very easy English. Hence, it is not very strong from literature point of view but then it is easy to finish it at a go even for someone like me (what to say of my voracious friends?).

Anyways, for people who like to watch chiller Bollywood movies to appreciate Hollywood or better Bollywood movies more, this is an (anyway) entertaining novel. After reading it, you would definitely appreciate a better novel ever more.

The novel, I read, is set for becoming a movie and theatre. Strange, interesting stories with the feel-good and coincidental aspects, I still maintain that it will be a good and entertaining movie.

Being John Malkovich

2007-08-26T09:05:00.000-07:00

When I first heard the name, I had a mis-impression that it would be more like a biography film on the actor John Malkovich, who would have lived a strange or special life and this movie would cover that. But this movie, was really about "being" John Malkovich. And it is not one but many being John Malkovich.

The main poster (or the punchline at the bottom) says it all:

I don't know which genre would best descibe the movie. Drama yes. Sci-fi - people might disagree but I think it is a subtler sci-fi than the likes of Star Wars and others who have crazily dressed people and out-of-the-world guns and instruments (no offence!). This is imagination which feels plausible at the psychological level. I would like to call it bio-psy-fi.

The movie is centred around three characters, one of whom (a talented and unsuccessful puppeter) finds a secret portal which leads into the mind of John Malkovich, from where one can peep into, involve into John Malkovich and also compell John Malkovich into doing something - for 15 minutes. The wife of this one discovers herself to be transexual when she has peeped into Malkovich. The third one directly meets and indulges with Malkowich. And with the wife.

What turns out is a total mess of which the biggest victim is John Malkovich, the puppet, himself. There are other suspenses and twists-n-turns in the movie, but I better don't disclose them.

The story writer is none another than Eternal Sunshine of Spotless Mind and Adaptation fame: John Kaufman. He is fast becoming one of the idols for me and I am definitely going to buy Adaptation. As for rest, the characters and performances don't need any mention. Í couldn't recognize Cameron Diaz first and I hadn't seen Catherine Keener before (am telling myself, "Zindagi barbaad hai meri, abhi tak Catherine Keener ko nahin dekha tha" :-P). And I hadn't seen John Malkovich too before. His performance too was stunning.

The best part of the story is the end. I must admit that I had misunderstood the end a little before I got it clarified from the internet. But anyways, all my top favourites have something about the end - drama, beauty, tragedy, shock etc. - but of a higher level. But this is one movie, that has in its end - happiness (for the girls), , drama (all), comedy (on end result), tragedy (for man) and beyond all - wonder (for all the occupants and subsequent vessel).

Sorry but not more disclosures but I recommend all to watch it. There is a lot of adult talk and little adult stuff in the movie and if that is not a barrier, it is a movie worth watching (unless you don't like or appreciate complex movies).

After all, some movie, after long, has finally managed to surpass my favourites (the likes of Life is Beautiful, American Beauty, Eternal Sunshine of Spotless Mind, Amadeus and The Matrix) and emerge as the top favourite on the list.

B E A utiful

2007-08-04T10:32:00.000-07:00

I have never been very creative with words, so I am just exclaiming with the Title as Jim Carry would do, had he seen such a beautiful nazaara. I was thinking of giving the title as 'The Ultimate Beauty' but my English savvy friends would regard that as a cliche and possibly disregard the post as unworthy. Then I thought of something more complicated like 'Sundartaa ki Paraakashthaa', but I fear many of my young Indian friends would ask me whether this is Hindi or Sanskrit and bring the language to a shame.

I came to India at the worst possible, but at least for me, the best possible time. Although it was raining hard in Mumbai and Pune and later in Banswara (what to say about the excellent weather in Tiruppur!!!), it killed the heat, which otherwise would have killed this spoiled Dutch boy.

Coming to the point, I was flying Ahmedabad to Mumbai by Jet Airways (and again digressing...) and as all my India visits are, this one too was full of running (despite all rains!), trying to catch up with as many friends and family and relatives as I can, not forgetting to mention visiting the Ashrams and meeting the Master. So it was a morning flight and I was very tired.

The breakfast 'bell' woke me up. I was sitting on a window seat with my sleeping face turned towards the window and then what I saw was pure beauty!

My Gujju neighbour was kind enough not to mind my disturbing his (already served and started) breakfast and getting the camera out of my bag. In fact, he too took out his mobile and started clicking pictures.

Now what would you call it?

I really have no words. My breakfast was still waiting and later the flight attendant too but I didn't mind.

I continue clicking pictures, keeping in mind the scratches in my window. My Dutch colleagues and acquaintances must see these pictures and then they will realize (they already know) that what they call heavy rain is nothing more than a drizzle for us.

The following is the best photograph from the lot and possibly the best photograph I have ever clicked. Just look at the split sun, the vivid colours, the ocean of clouds ... ah! I never believed G I Gurdjieff when he says, "The power of the sun is divine", but I don't mind agreeing him for the moment.

I also tried catching the clouds without the sun. Luckily I found some gaps and but we were at a height of 11000 m, we could hardly see the ground. Rather, the gap looked like liquid water contained by these enormous clouds, ready to burst and let the hell loose over the doomed.

This is another beauty I clicked when I was lucky to find a mountain of cloud in this ocean of clouds.

In the beginning, another name that occurred to me was 'Kahin Khushi, Kahin Gum', because though I and others were feeling lucky above the clouds, people below were praying or doing a yagya or just cursing Indra bhagwaan (while fearing at the same time his powers and rage to repeat 26th July or recreate the history).

After clicking such rare pictures, I got a little easy and the pictures to follow are marred by the scratches in the window. Nevertheless, they are a small treasure, which will be with me. I also took 3 vidoes but I doubt they will add any beauty to this blog. Anyway, they are more than 50 MB and I dare not to upload them and later give the link to others. The end had to come and I also had to finish my breakfast. I was the last to finish, just about the time when the plane was preeparing to land.

Towards the end, the clouds started resembling ice, especially at the distance. Ocean and Glacier, at the same time!

I have waited long to write and publish this because my desktop doesn't have a slot for the SD card and well, I did not dare attempts to upload so many pictures on my gaanv's dial-up network. But now that I have done it, I feel happy about it. If someone wants these picture(s), just mail me the picture number(s) from the top and it (they) should reach your inbox in 2-3 non-working [:-)] days. Tot ziens!

Aspiring...

2007-08-04T10:28:00.000-07:00

Jim Morrison

Aspiring Jim Morrison

Not too far, Bajjy!

Liability

2007-07-11T06:57:00.000-07:00

I bought a new t-shirt from Mumbai during my 2-days stay there. It is a little expensive but it is probably the best t-shirt I ever bought. I also got a blue Lee jeans, which is not-bad-at-all and again expensive.

I came home Banswara a week back. I found a black jeans – a little old, a little shabby and to my greatest amazement - still fitting! I also found a dhinchak Govinda-style shirt, which looks more of a post-holi shirt except for the fact that it is not torn.

Now it is raining all over from Mumbai to Banswara. When it is raining, one always avoids new clothes and so did I. However, situations sometime demand smartness from you and good clothes are inevitable under such circumstances.

No more bullshitting around the bush and coming to the point – I saw that the attention these new clothes demand (from normal human beings) to avoid rainwater or fountain-splashes from automobiles or any other foreign particles in immense. On the other hand, I don’t care a damn if my old jeans is sweeping dirty water or humbly accepting any splashes.

And that’s when I thought of liability. One of the definitions I got for liability is “troublesome responsibility”.

Like the great Dilbert, to puff up my already big ego, I’ll try to conjure laws on liability after my own name. Since Kumar appears more often than Dosi in the history of mankind, I prefer to use my last name for these laws. I also don’t fear any rebukes or exceptions on these laws because even the great Newton and other scientists suffered exceptions and contradictions to their laws and theories.

Here comes the first of Dosi’s three laws of liability.

Dosi’s fist law of liability states that the liability of any possession is proportional to nth power of its subjective value or price, where n is greater than or equal to 1. The words possession and subjective are of great significance.

Please allow me to go a little off-track before coming back to liability. I was browsing through a book “Mein mrityu sikhaata hoon” from Osho this morning when I came across the concept of 2 types of dhyan. Osho says that the first type of dhyan is concentration when you are focused on one point or one object and everything else is in dark. The second type of dhyan is awareness, which is objectless or unfocussed. Instead of prakash on one point and darkness elsewhere, as in concentration, awareness is about aabhaa (very little widespread light which is present between end of night and rise of the sun).

I don’t think I went off-track at all. Liability, I think, is more about concentration than value. Anything that demands more concentration from you than normal is a liability. Expecting to be drip-less and splash-less, when coming out of heavy rains, is a liability. Trying to looks smarter than what you are is a liability. Producing extraordinary results at workplace can become a liability.

Dosi’s second law of liability states that the liability of anything is directly related to the concentration it is given. This is, in fact, a refinement to the first law because it expands beyond things and possessions into the non-material arena. Concentration well covers up for subjectivity.

What is this possession and what is this subjectivity? Possession is simply what is mine. I know my friends will laugh off (or will they not?) on my childish attitude if I talk about a stain on an expensive t-shirt and I’ll just wait for their turn because they’ll also cry about it when the possess it. Subjectivity goes beyond possession because the reaction and its extent are very individual and time-dependent. If I have a greater liability, I’ll probably ignore or just laugh off on a smaller liability.

With my third and final law, I want to get rid off factors like possession and subjectivity. I mean there should be a bigger umbrella encompassing all these human trivialities. In fact, my idea is also to get rid off liabilities – who wants troublesome responsibilities? When I thought of it, the only thing that came to my mind was being natural.

Taking the example of expensive jeans and splashing of dirty water on it, buying an expensive brand can be a liability in the first place because a similar cloth and jeans-wash can be found at a lower price if brand is not essential. Brand is a big liability these days. Worrying about it getting dirty may be a liability because it may be easily cleaned off in the next wash. If we expect it to get dirty beyond surf excel wash, we shouldn’t wear it or at least fold it, but looking good can be a liability. If we have enough money to buy a new one, worrying about it is definitely a liability.

Dosi’s third law of liability states that anything that is unnatural is a liability.

Being possessive about friends and girlfriend can be a liability. Earning more money than required can be a liability. Smiling on outside, when from inside, you just want to kick @$$ of the person in front of you can be a liability. Keeping your blog updated can be a liability.

One of my friends showed some concern on reading my last blog. One line of his response was - your detachment and indifference attitude sometimes bothers me. I’ll quote Babuji Maharaj (Role of abhyasi in Sahaj Marg) here, and this again, in an off-track way, is related to liability.

He says: Renunciation truly means non-attachment with worldly objects and not the non-possession of things.

Disclaimer: Life can't be relieved of liabilities. But I think that liabilities can be minimized by simple and natural living.

Rafta Rafta

2007-07-08T10:42:00.000-07:00

Life at home was ever the same but it is very different this time. People who know me well know had kept me, my mind and my time most occupied during all my previous visits/stays and it is no wonder that the life is different. The effects, however, are more far-fetched than what people predicted and what I could imagine.

Days have been silently busy. Time is passing swiftly in talking with family, meeting a few people, doing small jobs at home, reading books (someone’s eyebrows are raised?) and of course my spiritual sadhna.

To be very frank and also a little offending, I am not missing the part, which people deemed very essential to the swift flow of my time and life in this small town. In fact, life seems completely changed, partially by the absence of the “essential”, but more so because of a change of potential, which I am feeling very clearly and which is also giving me a very clear direction.

This change of potential, again, is not the difference between the presence and absence of the “essential”, but rather, the difference in life in Amsterdam and Banswara. Pardon my strange comparison, but to me, Amsterdam and Banswara wouldn’t make a big difference, but for my state of mind – whether it is totally busy with thoughts of doing things which it has to do to satisfy certain worldly requirements of office or home or it is free to linger where it wants or where it thinks it should.

2 days back, my father told me a very beautiful definition of work. It gives a better feel in Hindi: Jo karna pade, woh kaam hai! Playing cricket, for example, is something that can naturally come to a child, and hence for him, it is no work. Accountancy is something that naturally comes to my father and he enjoys it very much and hence for him, it is play. He struggles when he has to learn new things about computer and that, for him, is work.

This exactly, is the difference in my condition here at home and back in Amsterdam. I don’t deny the fact that we have to work and that play alone can’t occupy life forever. The real challenge is to convert every work to play (and also every play to work!) and I’ll work on it when I return to Amsterdam.

I must also point that with all the play and easy stress-hassle-free life, I am not being lazy at home. Rather, it is totally opposite. My mind and body feel more ready to jump on any task than ever.

Another extremely important feature of my stay this time is the stillness is heart. There are very few friends (or none?) around and more so, there are not many people whom I wish to meet. I like conversations which are novel in nature, whereas most people whom I meet stumble after asking a few basic questions: Aur kaisa hai? Sab badhiya? Kaam kaisa chal raha hai wahaan? Kahaan, Holland mein hi hai naa? Waapas aana hai ya wahin settle hona hai? 1 Euro mein kitne rupaiyee hote hain?

I hardly get people with whom I can have novel conversations and still, I hardly feel alone! My thoughts, my spiritual practice, my family and the books look sufficient. I would like to talk with a few friends, but I am not dying without them.

Another yet remarkable feature of my time here is the clarity in thought process. Most of the times, mind is never fully certain about thoughts and actions but this time, things are unfolding so smoothly and it feels really good. I also strongly feel that some knots (used metaphorically, not the spiritual knots!) inside are loosening and I am able to see reality of things more freely.

This clarity in thought process and novel thoughts are also motivating me to write those thoughts in the blog. I’ll try to word my thoughts and express them here as much as I can. There are 2-3 more interesting ideas for photos-dominated blog but my poor old computer doesn’t have a slot for my camera’s SD card.

I am also going around very freely this time. I got liberated from my mobile. I am hardly carrying it since it is on international roaming and I hardly expect any calls. I don’t expect to get many calls on my temporary national number and I wouldn’t mind missing calls, quite unlike the past. My watch was lost in Pune. Most of the times, my wallet is not with me and if I anticipate to spend some money on the way, I just take that rather than carrying the whole lump.

I know I’ll not have the above luxury back in Amsterdam. But what I feel more strongly is that instead of the physical feeling of wallet or mobile, their effects on mind grip my attention much more. A feeling of loss and a feeling of missing any calls or messages is always associated with wallet and mobile, respectively. And in such instances, it is possible to free oneself of the hold if attention is drawn away in a proper manner.

It rained heavily in Banswara today and I went out and got wet and enjoyed the rains after so many years. We loose loads of things when we become adult and this is one small bit.

I am reminded of the song Scientist by Coldplay. As a whole, I really think I am going back to the start. I am very happy.

Biking in Amsterdam

2007-05-12T10:01:00.000-07:00

Last Sunday was the biking day. Sis. Anne Marie van Steven (prefect for meditaton here, henceforth mentioned as Sis. AM) asked me after the morning group meditation if I would like to join her to Ouderkerk (old church) where a 17km race is being organized and her husband Dirk is participating. Despite the fact that I had a lot of housekeeping work to do, I joined the wonderful opportunity. Ouderkerk was 20km far and we had to make it in 1 hr to manage to see Dirk's finish.

Netherlands, as some of you may know, can be really called as the 'Land of Bicycles'. Bicycle is more commonly known as bike. A lot of models similar to scooty and other lady bikes are more common and then the next level is the Dhoom-Hrithik-fame BMW's. The intermediate Hero-honda or Pulsar type motorbikes can hardly be found here.

Coming back to the 'Land of Bikes', Netherlands, as a country, promotes biking. There is no class-bias when it comes to biking and big managers of big companies may literally be seen zooming the roads with their bikes. I may also boldly claim that except for the people with physical/mental disabilities, everyone bikes in Netherlands. There are special bike pavements on most of the roads and bikers are also given preference when it comes to the road traffic and lights.

The book The Undutchables say that there are more than 17 million bikes (more than population!) with 750000 in Amsterdam alone and it is growing at 15% a year. More than 10000km of roads are devoted to the bikes and 91% of the families own at least 1.

The most amazing fact is that Netherlands is also notorious for bike theft, especially my Amsterdam. More than 80000 bikes are stolen every year and many of these are found in the canals of Amsterdam. The story goes like these - many people who are drunk and have spent all their money on alcohol or gambling, just break a lock, steal the bike and throw it in a canal once they are near home. Not sure how much this is correct though. The bike theft is so serious that sometimes thieves manage to break three locks and steal the bicycle. Many people pay huge sums on the bike insurance. Needless to say, I keep it inside my house every night.

On top of it all (or may be this is the primary reason), Netherlands is a very flat country and biking is really effortless. So 20 km in an hour was by no means an overestimation.

Jeroen also joined it since it was a good opportunity. The beginning was slow, since we were still in the city, but once when we were out, it was fast and fun. We biked more than 10kms along the Amstel river and it was very good because the weather was very pleasant.

With Jeroen near the finish line

With Sis. AM

We made it to Ouderkerk in an hour, to realize that the race started late and we had to wait for some time before Dirk appeared. He came out first in the 60+ category. In the meantime, we just enjoyed the nature. It was so good and fresh air that can not be expected in Amsterdam (I still love Amsterdam). We saw two cute chicks in a small channel of water. Sis. AM told me about Heron (a bird) which likes to eat these chicks very much.

Dirk: on the right (515)

On the way back, the weather turned overcast but it was still good. I and Sis. AM halted at a few places. We saw a Heron patiently waiting for the chicks along the bank. It is really wonderful to see how the bird can wait patiently, motionless for such a long time for its prey. We stopped by the a park with a statue of Rembrandt with a windmill nearby (did I also mention that Nethterlands is a 'Country of windmills'?).

With the Great Rembrandt

Windmill

I had some pain in my left thigh on my way back but I managed. It was gone the next day. But I was very satisfied. The weather is very uncertain these days but once summer arrives, I am going to do more of these biking trips.

My own sudoku

2007-04-01T04:55:00.000-07:00

Result of a not so highly creative mind wanting to do something more useful than the boring lecture it was not attending. Dedicated to my sudoku fan - Bajju.

Eternal Sunshine of Spotless Mind

2007-02-25T05:09:00.000-08:00

Well, finally something was finally able to bring this spotless mind into the blogger light after so many months. I won't say that it was spotless, but just that thoughts were too random or not so disentangled so as to put them here. However, this movie made me write one as a suggestion.

This fantastic Charlie Kauffman story revolves around two characters - Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet, who love each other, but after a sour period, undergo an operation to delete the other from their memories.

The movie can be placed in genres of drama and romance. But it is unlike any other romantic movie - neither like the 'love-ful' emotional romantic movies, nor like the teenage comedies. But still, a drama so strong, which is more romantic than any romantic movies and more hilarious than any comedies. Kate Winslet goes first followed by Jim Carrey. The movie is focused on Jim Carrey's part of the memory deletion process.

The memory deletion process involves targeting these memories, portrayed as points in different part of the brain, and deleting those points. Like any other mind, there are superficial layers and there are deep embedded layers. The bad memories of their relationship are superficial and get removed easily. However, when the deeper layers of love surface during the operation, Jim Carrey realizes that he doesn't want to lose these memories.

And then begins the mental struggle to run away from the process (he is in sleep so can't run away physically) into neverlands, wonderlands, childhood etc. To run and hide at least some memories, so that he can wake up before all are finished and go back to Kate Winslet for a fresh start (who by the way has lost all her memories). In these endeavours, Kate Winslet's projection of his mind also helps him.

Elijah Wood (LOTR's Froddo Baggins) also plays a small part in the movie. He mentions in one of the interviews that Michel Gondry (director) hasn't used a single special effect in the movie. I don't know how he managed to move the frames of memories but if Elijah Wood is true, the cinematography is real magic.

A pleasant surprise to find three Hindi songs as background music in a scene. Probably all Lata's, the one I remember is "Vaada naa tod". Also two very good quotes in the movie, which I would add here:

1. Blessed are the forgetful, for they get the better even of their blunders.

2. As the movie says: by Alexander Pope

How happy is the blameless vessle's lot!

The world forgetting, by the world forgot

Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind!

Each pray'r accepted, and each wish resign'd

The romantic part of the movie is OK. I mean everyone knows that relationships are so good and attractive in the beginning and at a later stage, disagreements always appear. But the dramatization of it is true masterwork. There is only one word for such a drama - beautiful.

I read somewhere that this movie will appeal to only people who have been in such a love. However, I would say that it is also interesting from a psychological point of view and suggest this movie in case you haven't seen it. Definitely in my top 5 favourites' list.

Tour de Paris

2006-10-22T11:24:00.000-07:00

Paris was blessed to have seven young guys from India visit her during the first weekend of September’06. Well, at least special for us ;-).

To start with, let me introduce you to the seven Indians I am talking of:

Rahul Pal (my twin brother), Me, Zubin (Dude), Narsi (Saanp), Pranav (Buddha), Aveek (Penguin) and Louis (Louis)

After the dismal results of the Brussels visit (all but me :) ), the guys planned a “planned” visit to Paris and decided to keep me out of the planning. Well, it worked out well for them and me too!

We reached Paris early on Saturday morning and after a few but very important exercises (:-P), we headed for the Metro. First of all, let me express my admiration for the Paris Metro.

The Paris Metro was a very welcome change from the suffocating and swaying Netherlands trams. One can get a weekend pass for 13 Euros and I am confident that an average-brained man with just a Metro map in hand can travel in Paris without anyone’s help. The rail system is very extensive. Additionally, the stations are beautiful; each station has a different design in terms of wall structures, chairs’ design & color and even the way names are written. The only common part was frequent, punctual trains and the indicators on stations – they don’t leave a single stone unturned when it comes to directing you to another platform, a tourist spot or just the exit. I am really in love with the Paris Metro!

The first location was Notre Dame, a famous cathedral. Even before reaching there, we had understood from the old beautiful buildings, the bridge and the river just outside the Metro station that Paris has something really good in store for us. And Notre Dame proved that we have started right with our expectations.

The instant I saw the cathedral, I started clapping hands in excitement and applause, and stopped when I realized that it was Europe and not India. The cathedral visit started with photos.

Inside it was much quieter than the one in Brussels but not as beautiful. However, the sculptures were very good – different poses with weapons & armor. There was a new thing I observed there. In a few pictures/sculptures that depicted crucifixion of Christ, there were 2 other men who were shown crucified on either side of Christ. I didn't know who they were at that time but later, I came to find that these were two thieves and were hanged on either sides of Jesus Christ so as to signify that Christ, like them was an enemy of the state and the society.

Similar to the Brussels’ cathedral, there were a lot of donation boxes and sculptures of faintly dressed men – it always surprises me how all the sculptures manage to hide “the thing that should not be named”. It appears that the sculptors of those times were very careful while sculpting the male form, because they left no stone unturned in exposing women. Anyway, I bought a pencil painting of the cathedral in a shop outside and then we started for Montparnasse.

On our way, Narsi was able to capture the best of the dude twins:

Montparnasse is the tallest building in Paris. Clad fully in black glass, the building seems to climb into the sky when seen from ground and in fact, contrasts well with the sky. One can go to the top and get a full view of the city. We, however cancelled the plan as we had Eiffel Tower in our itinerary.

The next location was Assemble Nationale. Though I am not sure, I guess this is some sort of Parliament for France. We got down at the nearest Metro station but before we could go there, nature intervened.

Back at the Assemble Nationale, we headed towards a nearby museum (Musee d’ Orsay) where we hoped to find such a place. We reached the museum and I (the victim of nature) went inside without a ticket (it was expensive!), followed the command and stealthily returned. I can’t deny that I was afraid of being caught but as we say, all is well if it ends well. I had a look at the museum during this short visit and I liked it. But, we decided against going inside. We clicked a few snaps outside and then we moved towards Assemble Nationale.

We were not allowed to go inside and anyways, it looked like just another old heritage stuff. But the day view of Paris from this place was just amazing. On our left, we could see Eiffel Tower rising out of the greenery:

Straight ahead of us was a beautiful bridge, with four gold (or gold-plated) statues on four pillars at the beginning and end of the bridge, leading towards another prominent building:

Towards the north-east was Arc de Triomphe and at our right, we saw a flat and tall pencil-shaped structure (Obelisk of Luxor) and a beautiful fountain. Later, I d that the square is one of the most famous squares of France and is called as Place da la Concorde. This was truly the first moment of realization of the beauty Paris holds:

We went to a garden nearby, had some food and sat idly for sometime. A mild cold breeze was blowing and at times, it brought showers from the fountain on our face, further refreshing us. From here, we moved towards our youth hostel. On our way, we also saw Queen Diana’s Memorial – and would you believe it – we were on the same highway where a few years earlier, her car crashed into a wall at high speed while she was being followed by the paparazzi?

We managed to find a Pakistani restaurant near our hostel and had some good desi food there. Finding an eating-place that serves food native to your country in a foreign land has always been a very satisfying feeling, especially when the food is good. The same was the case here. I would also like to highlight the good treatment we received from many Pakistanis here, be it the chef in the Shell EP building, taxi driver, just a neighbor on a restaurant table or the restaurant owner in this case. I think that being away from home in a western country where we can at least find commonalities of region and history brings this harmony despite the tension that prevails at home on the political front.

After a nap, we started for Basilisk Montmarte. I don’t remember much about it except the things it had in common with the cathedrals of Brussels and Notre Dame. I also bought a few cards here. I am not really sure why I’m purchasing all this stuff, because I’m not much of an art or showpiece freak. May be I’ll distribute it among friends and relatives. But it always feels good to buy some souvenir when you visit a tourist spot.

Other than being a Basilisk, it also provides tourists with a breathtaking view of Paris from the top. All but me went to the top (well, it was expensive and we were anyway going to see the Eiffel Tower):

I went down, had a very refreshing Cappuccino, and bought few more paintings, calendar of all hot spots and gifts for folks at home. And then we started for the Wonder!

I’d seen Eiffel Tower from different parts of the city and it really didn’t look that great from a distance. It was just another tower – may be very high and very large but more rusted than others too. But my impressions changed as I arrived closer. We first reached a park in front of the tower and sat there for some time. We had some good photo sessions as well. I thought of calling people just to express the joy. I started with the fair crowd but finally had to stay happy talking to Mayank (well, he is very fair at least!):

2 of us decided to go to the top by lift whereas the remaining 5, including me, chose the option of using stairs for the first 2 floors and then the lift. I think the latter was a very good option since it didn’t just save on money but also gave us an opportunity to read many interesting facts related to the tower. For example – When skating was started on 1^st floor, it was a bear from Moscow circus to first skate or about a guy who first used the stilts to climb up to the first floor or about how a solider climbed the tower against German Army during the 2^nd world war and hosted the French flag. The view from the first and second floors was completely amazing, but the best was yet to come.

It was dark by the time we reached the top. The view of Paris from the top of Eiffel Tower can be described as out of the world. Be it Montparnasse, or Arc de Triomphe or Montmarte, the whole of Paris can be viewed from the top. And then you also see couples hugging and kissing and you realize what you miss there! It is really a very romantic place with the cool breeze and the entire view. Nevertheless, we still managed to enjoy without the missing ones - theoretically or practically:

It was around 9:45pm when we realized that there was a light show between 10:00-10:10pm and we took the lift for the second floor. We reached there by 9:54pm and there were only 6 minutes left for the light show. And then we ran! I know that if any senior Shell employee comes to know of it, he’ll give us a stern talk but honestly, we ran while holding the handrails (thus keeping it safe!). Still, I know it was a little dangerous but we literally managed to reach down in 6 minutes. I think that was the best part of the Paris trip! And I came 1^st in the race (proud blushes) :-P.

I won’t say that the light show was something really special but it was good – it looked as if stars are running at lightning speed throughout the tower:

What looked more beautiful was the closing of the light show when it returned to the yellow and black form (i.e. with normal lights turned on); it was like a flowerpot being put in water with just a difference that it was more beautiful afterwards:

With tired legs and empty bellies, we returned to the hotel and had some sort of dinner at McDonalds’ on our way. To our surprise, we could also see the Eiffel Tower from the hotel room window and the light show as well. Again, not something very wonderful but still ‘feel good’.

My friends started for Louvre the next morning whereas I left for the Ashram in Paris (I joined them later). Without much difficulty, I reached the Ashram and spent some time there after the group meditation. It is always good to meet abhyasis from the West. There is something special about them. As it has been my observation, India or East provides good ground for spirituality and its development. On the other hand, West is very different, very materialistic (not that materialism is not there in India, but not as much and people respect religion and spirituality more than in the West). I am confident that with so much materialism in terms of money, bigger buildings, higher standards of living, “rich” history, “more beautiful” chicks and “advanced versions of sex” available, it is always difficult to change orientation and move towards spirituality and continue in that direction.

After the group meditation, I went to join my friends in Louvre. For a moment, it seemed like a loss of time as I missed a few hours in group meditation, but after seeing Louvre, I realized that it wasn’t so. I know that by saying so, I may be disappointing many art freaks (or may be inviting their wrath), MonaLisa-lovers, people who have read The Da Vinci Code or those who have just heard too much of Louvre. Louvre is great. It is just that after roaming around for an hour or so, you just get too tired of all the art around. If I’ve to justify what I say, lets take the case of MonaLisa. Yes, it is world-famous and everything but how many of us can really appreciate its beauty or the secret of art or reality it holds. Hardly a few!

Not that I’m negative. I am saying it in a positive sense because everything around is just too good some way or other. It is just that it’ll take days to really consume all the stuff that is on display. A few highlights were :

Napoleon's Room (don't know how they managed to bring everything out there), which embodies the peak of luxury and ostentation. I think the King's Palace of Brussels (which was the most ostentatious palace I'd ever seen) was nothing compared to Napoleon's - and to me it makes sense. After all, Napoleon was king of the kings.

MonaLisa – just for the name

The Grand Odalisque (don’t blame me for putting it here – it is just a piece of art):

The wedding feast of Cana:

The victory of Samothrace:

Venus de Milo:

The seated scribe:

Inverse pyramid (suspected location of Holy Grail as discovered by legendary symbologist Robert Langdon :-P):

Just to make sure once again that my comments about Louvre haven’t been misinterpreted, it is really beautiful and worth many hours of inspection. Just be ready to get tired of walking and the impossible attempts to absorb the art it withholds. I purchased a MonaLisa ceramic coffee cup and a book with most famous paintings and their brief history.

We left Museu de Louvre at 3pm and started for La Defense. Just as we stepped out of the metro, the grandeur of the Grand Arch and the size and architecture of the buildings left us wide-eyed and open-mouthed. To add to the whole effect was the breeze. Sometimes it is really difficult to determine what is the best and Paris was revealing it with every new spot. Other than the Grand Arch (which was literally impossible to be captured with the simple digital cameras and amateur photographers that we had), there were some high-rise glass buildings (none higher than Montparnasse though) and the effect of reflection of buildings into one another was very beautiful.

And what to say of the breeze – such romantic and lovely breeze, and it reminded me of the Marine Drive of Mumbai. On the other side of La Defense, we could see beautiful farms with colorful interceptions followed by buildings once again.

From here, we left for Champs-Elyses and Arc de Troumph. We went to the bridge with four gold sculptures this time and tried to absorb their grandeur and beauty.

There was some other architectural work done around the bridge and it was also equally diverse and beautiful.

With legs already overworked beyond their limits and bags heavier than ever with all the purchased stuff, we started for Arc de Triomphe along Champs-Elyses. Champs-Elyses is the famous avenue, which leads us to Arc de Triomphe and it houses one of the costliest shops and the best chicks of the country.

Now that I’ve come to it, let me also write some words in praise of the fairer world of Paris. They are the best in the world – with fair faces and black hair (and what not - I am not going to mention the unmentionable). Even when we talk of figure, we observed that almost everyone here has the best of it, which is a unique feature in itself. It is further decorated with the costumes and designs of the fashion capital of the world which makes it a deadly combination. And sorry since I have no photo proof!

Arc de Triomphe was another beauty but I must admit that we were very tired when we reached there and we just lay there for a few minutes and then we left.

At this point, we experienced the saddest part of the Paris trip. We were thinking of clicking a photograph at Arc de Triomphe such that the whole avenue from Arc de Triomphe to La Defense is covered. (Would you believe it, it is a straight line avenue for many kilometers, and includes Champs-Elyses?). It would have been probably the best photo of the whole trip and at the precise moment, Mr. Murphy entered the scene and lo, the batteries were empty.

However, the Paris trip ended in a very comfortable manner with us luckily locating a South Indian Restaurant. Idli, Sambhar, Rice, Rasam and Sambhar in this far land were like heaven. We filled the empty bellies more than it was necessary and returned to the bus stand to catch our return bus. We found satisfied faces everywhere (I forgot to mention but around 20 of us in 4 groups were there in this Paris trip).

Finally, I know that this blog comes very late but then it was hard work and with my busy schedule here, it got delayed. In this one month, another group of 20 visited Paris and they mentioned a few more places, which are worth watching in Paris. We knew a few of these like Palace of Versailles and Disney Land but they didn’t fit in our tight schedule. But they mentioned a few others as well which we could have covered had we known about them. One more thing we missed was canal ride that starts from Eiffel tower and takes us around the city through 7 top spots and I’ve heard that the canal ride, especially in the evening is a great experience.

Well, I can just say that after so much travel and the satisfaction I obtained, I can see a lot of scope for exploration. Honestly, we are unsure if we can find a better place in Europe. Hopefully Italy (Rome, Vatican, Venice and what not) will try to match the standard set by Paris. Another trip is surely on the cards!

How much land does a man need?

2006-10-13T13:03:00.000-07:00

This story is another of my father's favourites (Gosh, he deserves a lot of credit for these blogs which he isn't even aware of!). I am not really sure of the characters and their relationship with each other but that doesn't matter much since the message is very important!

Once upon a time, there was a rich man. In fact, calling him just 'rich' would underestimate his richness. He was one of the richest men of the country and a large chunk of his property was in land, which itself was a big pie of the whole country's land. But he was old and he realized that his end could come any day. And did I not mention? He had no heir for his property.

The man didn't want to just give away his property. He wanted to give the property to someone who "deserved" to own it after him. He wanted the beneficiary to win it. The rich man loved athletics and was fond of athletes. Thus he invited the fastest athlete of the country to give him a chance.

There was only one rule of the game! The athlete had to start at sunrise, finish at sunset and had to reach your starting point before sunset so that he could claim the closed area that he covers. And finally the D-day arrived.

The athlete saw the vast fields that constituted the land owned by the rich man. He had a whole day from sunrise to sunset to cover as big a chunk as he could. He started running and ran fast. Of course he was the best athlete in the village and this was the moment to prove his worth as well as get the whole property of the rich man.

With full confidence, he started with the ambition to cover the whole fields during the given time. He ran fast and ran without halting. When noon arrived, he realized that half of the day had passed and he hadn't been able to cover half the distance and he was already tired.

Instead of taking the straight-line path that he would possibly be able to cover before sunset, he furthered his conviction and made up his mind to get the whole land and started running even faster. With the faster pace, he started getting near to his goal. But the vast fields were indeed very fast and it would be appropriate to say that it was "so near but yet so far".

With only an hour left or so before sunset, the athlete again analysed the situation. He was already very tired and he calculated that it would be indeed very difficult to go the whole round and reach the starting point. But alas, greed overpowered wisdom. He argued with himself – Limitations are created by mind and not by body; I can do it. With his belief enhanced, he started running even faster and ran without giving any heed to the tiredness and pain growing fast in his body.

And at last, he saw the bright circle drowning into the abode of the mountains and at the same times he saw the starting point. His happiness and enthusiasm were boundless and he just ran to make sure that he makes it to the flag at the starting point before the sun fails him.

In a very Bollywood or even Hollywood fashion, he touched the starting point as the last ray disappeared. And he fell down. Forever!

How much land does a man need? 6 ft X 3 ft, gravely enough!

I am beyond that!

2006-09-23T10:27:00.000-07:00

A story narrated to me by my father, taken from a book by Osho and one of the finest short stories I have ever heard. My guess is that it will sound best in the original tongue, i.e. Hindi but I'll try my best to translate it. I am not sure if you will enjoy it as much as I did, but if you are even slightly inclined towards spirituality, I think that you will surely like it.

Once upon a time there was a woodcutter in a village. He used to go to the forest daily, cut wood, take it to the market, sell it and bring some money back home. On some days, he would find a Sufi saint sitting on the sidewalk (Sufi saints are well known mystics and wanderers and rely on alms and donations for their minimum livelihood requirements).

One day, when he was returning from the forest with the day's wood, he found the Sufi saint sitting there. The Sufi saint asked him where he was coming from. He replied that he was a woodcutter and had been going to the nearby forest for last many years for getting wood and then sold it in the market. The saint said, "You get satisfied very early. Just beyond this forest, there is a sandalwood forest. You can go there and get sandalwood and earn more money."

The woodcutter went beyond the forest and to his astonishment, found a sandalwood forest. Happier, he started going to this forest daily and got richer. After a few months, he again found the same Sufi saint on his return way. He thanked the Sufi saint for helping him get richer with the sandalwood business. However the saint replied that he was easily satisfied and told him that beyond the sandalwood forest, there was a silver mine and he could dig silver and become more wealthy.

As you may guess, the story goes like this, the Sufi saint's advice led him further to gold and then diamond mines and made him wealthier than never before. One day, when he was returning from the diamond mine, he found the same Sufi saint at the sidewalk. The Sufi saint enquired about his whereabouts and he replied, "I am mining diamond these days and have got even richer. Thank you for all your directions".

The Sufi saint laughed and said, "You are still very complacent. If you had gone a little beyond, you would have found something even more precious." Ignorant and frustrated, he asked the Sufi saint, "What can be more precious than diamond? What is it that is more precious than diamond and beyond it?"

The Sufi saint smiled and said, "I am beyond it!"

--
Inspite of being aware of all these "materially-enriching" resources, the Sufi saint was still not running after them. Pink Floyd has very appropriately put this running after "more and more" in Breathe as:

Run, rabbit run. Dig that hole, forget the sun.

And when at last the work is done.

Don't sit down It's time to dig another one.

Rather, the Sufi saint had achieved a state of existence where he had no attachments for these material allurements (I don't advocate mendicancy, but well that was the way of living of Sufi saints in old times!). He was able to selflessly direct the woodcutter towards these sources while staying a mendicant himself and finally bring him to learn what he had learnt – I am beyond everything and if you discover that I, which in spiritual jargon is also called as the Self (so self with an upper case S), you'll reach the destination of life.

Do you remember the last scene of the movie Guide, in which Devanand says, "Mein hoon, Sirf mein hoon"? There too, mein is indicative of the Self and not the normal egoistic self. And when that is realized, I guess there will be no further need to run.

The Irony of Advising

2006-09-23T09:39:00.000-07:00

There are many instances in life when we find friend/relative/ colleague in problem and it comes down to advising. I have carefully observed these happenings, at least in my case, both while taking and giving advice.

Advising someone on something is kind of a hobby/pastime for many of us. It really feels so good to advise someone. The good feeling is associated with it because it satisfies our ego that – I know which the other doesn’t, or I am able to think/decide, which the other isn’t. I don’t undermine the good intentions behind advising that may help the troubled, but in most of the cases, these intentions are associated with the subtle feeling – I (I, the egoistic I) am helping someone with something. Or rather, I can help and the other needs help.

And when you somehow realize this I behind the advising, it is never the same, never that easy.

The first essential of advising is that before one does so, he must make sure that he has experienced what he is advising on. It shouldn’t be based only on logic and knowledge. Experiences must assist him during the advising work.

I remember all the late night sentimental chatting with a friend at IIT. And there went discussions about love, emotions, relations and what not. Discussing issues and advising each other was an essential part of all this and I daresay that at that time, my friend was at the receiving end of all these advices. Why?

Well, very simple! His life wasn’t going as simple and easy as mine. So he needed advice and I could give advice (really???). I really thought that I could advise because I have been through such a relationship (I am getting cryptic intentionally, but I have to be). I was partly wrong because though I had been through such a relationship, I hadn’t been through the tough part of it that used to bug my friend at that time.

I realized this mistake when time became tough for me the last summer. And I had the luck to be with my friend once again and lo, this time it was my friend advising me. And one can guess by now that things were going relatively smoother in his life (and not so smooth in mine).

So that was my first learning – Don’t give advice unless you have yourself experienced or underwent the situation. But life isn’t that easy, is it?

The second major time when I faced this dilemma was while advising two friends (A&B) on the career front. I remember the tension full days of placement time and how friends (A&B and others) used to pacify my negative thoughts – Be patient! The right thing will come for you at the right time. Or things like – It’s finally good that you didn’t get this company. Or - Your career mayn’t start perfectly but things will improve with time. All true but still crap. Crap because either the advisor is speaking out of logic or knowledge but not out of experience. And even if he is, he isn’t in the trouble at this moment.

By the time sides flipped and it was my turn on advising, I had experience, but unfortunately for my friends and fortunately for me, I still couldn’t advise. I observed that though I had steered through those though times, I was doing fine now (I guess life was generous on me). Now I couldn’t really step into the shoes of the advisees. To cut the long story short, I could assess things objectively, but not subjectively.

On the other side of the argument, I really see a point in advising objectively. The fact that the advisor can’t step into the shoes of the advisee actually helps. Being away from the trouble, the advisor can actually see the situation without involving any emotion/fear/selfishness.

To put it in an example, consider a man in a maze looking for a landmark that is really difficult to find because he can see things which only surround him and not otherwise. Such situations are added by complexity, frustration of being trapped and inability to come out (subjective situation). Getting out of the problem becomes primary whereas getting to the landmark may become secondary. On the other hand, a person looking the maze from above can easily guide him towards the landmark since he can see the landmark and the leading ways. Nevertheless, I would never be in favor of advising when it is not accompanied by an experience.

Another aspect of advice is its simplicity. Sometimes as an advisee, we tend to reject simple advices, because generally we know them. But it is always good to spend a minute on what the advisor is suggesting and without involving oneself (I know it is difficult), see how it applies. And I’ve generally found that it either works or at least gives us a better direction of thinking or going towards the landmark in the maze.

I would like to touch upon ‘the necessity of taking advice’. Most of the times, we are in a fix only when we are bound either by fear or temptation or emotion, all of which generally make us do things at times which we wouldn’t do if those were not there in the first place. If we can consciously observe it and try to get free of it, most of these requirements will automatically finish. And if at all, there still remains something to be advised upon, I believe we should only approach experienced people.

Finally a quote by Roman author Publilius Cyrus: Many receive advice, only the wise profit from it.

I hope you’ll take advice only from one who really can give it, and if you take, you’ll also benefit from it.

Rendezvous with Jeroen van der Veer

2006-08-11T11:00:00.000-07:00

Jeroen van der Veer is the CEO of Royal Dutch/ Shell.

After coming to The Netherlands, we have been watching bigshots coming and meeting us in welcome or drinks sessions and that gave us (the new recruits) a feel of the importance they are giving to STI (Shell Technology India - for those who don't know about it, STI has been set up recently with a vision of 'Building the Future' [that too very fast as it seems :-P] and will be third major technology centre of the Shell Group after Rijswijk/Amsterdam in The Netherlands and Houston in USA).

But there came this bouncer – invitation for a dinner with Jereon van der Veer (just for information, J is pronounce as Y in Netherlands, so it’s pronounced as Yoron with lesser stress on ‘n’. And for the first time, we got a measure of the real seriousness with which Shell executive board is taking STI. Thinking of it, I realized that there are many people in the STI’s leadership team who had never met him before (and mind you, the experience of these people range between 20-35 years) and here we are, new born kids of the Oil Kingdom and getting an opportunity to meet with the King just in our third week.

And how can I forget the eyes of disbelief from non-STI Shell employees (yes, even bigger that :-O) – Oh, you are so lucky! And yes, the day after the dinner, when this experienced guy was giving some presentation and Jereon’s name came and he just asked, “Jereon, you know him, right? He is our CEO.” And you may understand how land escaped him when he found kids’ luck.

Another bigshot present there was Linda Cook, the CEO of the Gas & Power division, head of Shell Global Solutions and In-charge of Middle East and Asia. Just 26 years (yes, it’s just in the oil industry) and what a peak she is on. The grace in her demeanor and the sincerity in her speaking were worth observing. As they say it, as you go higher up the ladder, the way you manage your relations (other than your abilities) count a lot and this was one clear example.

And what to speak of Jereon? I know it is said that top seats can’t be acquired without the effect of Power and Politics, but I think it these are “additional” to what is really there in you. His body speaks of the confidence of his experience and position. And his voice is something that always talks of depth associated with people of dominance.

Very casually, he came and shook hands with a few of us and suddenly started bombarding questions. Poor us (well many were extremely poor) - we had a long time since we prepared for campus placements and again facing the same age old question – Why Shell? Why oil industry? Well, we had to speak good and articulately and all (On a different note, I don’t find this question fitting in picture at all. I met a guy who is there in Shell for last 33 years – at some good position and when I asked him about how he came in, he told us that at that time, Shell gave house to its employees and he and her wife needed a house badly, so he joined Shell. Funny but realistic!!!).

Anyways, there he came with a bouncer and I felt it was an important one. He talked about loyalty and asked what we thought about it. I just kidded, saying that, “Seeing you, we feel like staying in Shell for life”. But I realized that the question was for set of ladies standing on his right and I really found it so horrible for them not even to reply it with a simple answer (Yes, we believe in it!), leave alone a cracker! I can say he wasn’t very happy.

We had a three-course dinner with him. I had a good chance of sitting and chatting with him but I missed it in all niceties and behavior since I already had occupied seat on a different table.

There are some things worth mentioning. He started with his speech saying it will be a 10-minute speech and he finished in 9 minutes 50 seconds. On dinner table, he talked about his experience in Shell and told how he got a jump of 3 grades within 2 years in Shell (believe me, people take 20 years for this) – really remarkable achievement. He also said that don't be too too nice to your bosses because then only they maintain their humility :-P (well, not all do!). Finally, in his speech, he talked about making a technology centre, which is INDIAN, while retaining the Shell culture. I still don’t understand how a balance can be struck – may be he said it to just make us feel good! And it did feel good :-).

Overall, it was an eventful evening, giving us a lot of inspiration and the burden of expectations Shell has from STI (yes, loads of expectations and we are the pioneer batch!). More on Shell later!

Reservations

2006-06-04T01:12:00.000-07:00

Hehe, finally one on reservations too! Sometimes this blog idea sounds pretty fool given that the Supreme Court orders have already diminished the flames by quite a good amount (at least as of last two days). I may also be alien to many subtleties and concepts related to reservation for I don’t read newspapers much, but I think I have something to write which would be new, at least for a few.

Till I attended a course on Urban Sociology in my fourth year, I always thought that the fundamental behind Reservations is the lack of monetary capacity on the part of most people from SC and ST. But the course gave another dimension to the whole problem, which dates many centuries back.

A large part of Indian history has seen people divided into four sects: Brahmin, Kshatriyas, Vaishyas and Shudras. Everyone had their golden times; everyone but Shudras (as my papa fondly says, today is the time of Vaishyas – everyone is a businessman and everyone except a few has eyes on money only). Oppressed and denied of education, military, business or any other form of training. Oppressed for centuries.

And this oppression and denial have created a general lack of capabilities in their posterity. No doubt that these people continued with their traditional works and mastered in those skills (say goldsmiths, blacksmiths, cobblers etc.) but society denied them other opportunities. And this has created a difference that will take generations of reservations to overcome.

Reservation according to income level doesn’t make any sense to me now. Rather, a good scholarship system can be introduced for the poor who can make it to good academic institutions. So Reservations is about giving the oppressed an opportunity to equalize with the general people. Or in the Humanities & Social Science jargon, it is about creating a level-playing field.

When India got its independence, Sardar Patel (or was it Dr. Ambedkar, not sure) was the first person to introduce this concept and that too only in Parliament on a trial basis of 10 years. But then these 10 years always extended into another 10 years and the process has established a permanent place for these people in the Parliament. In the meantime, out of the same reasoning or the ‘vote politics’, reservations permeated and made their way into other institutions too. Worse started happening with more and more castes trying to get an SC or ST status. And many a times the status was given to wrong castes and identified too. But then this is India and once given, the government can only wager elections to snatch that status back.

So as far as I understand, Reservations is about giving them a head start, a 10m head start in the 100m race (in fact comparing the cut-offs for general and reserved castes in exams like IIT-JEE/CAT, it is a head start of 30-50m). I’ll take up some prominent issues one by one now and will try to make way to my conclusion:

1. 27% Reservations for OBC: As I already said, it is not possible for the government (or rather they won’t do it) to take back any SC or ST out of the reservation quota. OBCs, no doubt are backwards too so they too should be given an opportunity, but is it fair to give 5 people such a big head start in the race of 10? I doubt it. And even then, the start you give them is something to be decided because even Carl Lewis can’t expect to win a race against me if he were to give me a start of say 70m).

2. Purpose: It would be a cliché, but I’ll cover it nevertheless. An issue that will add good bulk of votes in the coming state elections and the next parliamentary too. And then it’s a situation of stalemate for other parties; they have to accept and sing in tune with Congress (and as my dad says, two bills always pass in the Parliament without any opposition – one is on introducing/increasing Reservation and the other is an increase in salaries of MPs).

3. Meritocracy: Many people argue that Reservations defy merit. True indeed but my dear ones, there were times when our forefathers suppressed them and it’s time they come back equal. Of course, we may logically deny taking burden of their faults, but tell me – if you were born in an OBC family, what would be your point of view. I don’t need to highlight the importance of equality and this is but an attempt to establish the same, though with vile purposes.

4. Reservations till eternity?: I always think that it will take the oppressed many generations to come to the same mental development level that the general caste people enjoy (no offense to the oppressed but I’ve seen the trend in results at IIT Bombay itself). So we have to take some burden of the mistakes of our forefathers, but we can’t expect to be oppressed throughout our lifetime. A man generally sees 3-5 generations in his lifetime and an attempt should be made so as Reservations don’t affect his observations of all these generations. Some policy has to be devised which assures this – may be no reservation for the posterity of parent(s) who already has enjoyed benefits of Reservations. May be something else if someone has better suggestions.

5. Reservations in Promotions too: Now this is height. You’ve been given an opportunity as good as a general caste person and now its high time you prove your mettle and lessen the difference marked by generations we talked above with hard work. Fundamentally too, it is unreasonable to promote a less deserving person over a more deserving one and let him boss around the latter. This is like giving a 50m head start to all 4 members of the team in a 4*100m race. You get the head all the time. Pathetic!

6. Private Organisations: They are the ones who will talk the most about meritocracy if attempts are made to enforce reservations there. And probably they are correct too because though these organizations have some responsibility towards the development and improvement of the society, they can’t afford to loose many millions and billions and many clients (including global) just for this sake.

I’ve talked about logics, profits and numbers. Finally, I would just like to consider the human side of it. Every one of us is selfish – the politicians are looking their vote interest, we are saving our ass and of course OBCs want this once it is announced. But we have to be wise, we have to be considerate. One can always deny reservation but I’ve always felt that ‘walking in other person’s shoes’ is very important. It is important because some people are in ditches and they need someone’s hand to come out. It can be a general’s, SC’s, ST’s or OBC’s but hand it has to be for the ditches are too deep in some cases. What if I or another general person were in those ditches? We would just be praying for some help as they are doing now. At the same time, I can’t pull that person out and allow him throw me into that ditch.

These matters are all subjective and some wise people can help bringing a balance for both sides, and it is possible. Only one thing is required. These people work with a purpose that is good, that is sacred, one that is good for the overall development of the nation and world as a whole. And if they work selflessly, it will just be left for the people to accept and follow rather than create more hurdles in the working of the country.

Media, Controversy and Faith

2006-05-21T20:14:00.000-07:00

The Da Vinci Code is on its way towards Indian cinema halls. Consider these:
1. Rajasthan Patrika, a Hindi daily says that the movie is ‘about a secret code hidden in Leonardo Da Vinci’s most famous painting - The Monalisa. What can I say? Dude, we know yours is a Hindi newspaper but at least take the pain of reading the novel once before printing information just by viewing the first ad of the film, which obviously was made to arouse curiosity and was not related at all.
2. Aaj Tak, the pioneer among the news channels focuses more on the fact that the book shows Jesus taking wine (and believe me, it highlights this like anything) whereas it was mentioned only once in the novel and that too as a matter-of-fact rather than any claim.

Well, the media has a knack in uprooting controversies whether the roots exist or not. The movie has been received quite critically from Christians all over the world including India. I was watching news on another channel where it was showing some Christians on a hunger strike to ban the movie to be premiered and shown in India. A priest comments, “This book is trying to go against the Church and the God which ¾th of the world’s population follow.”
My dad was sitting there and he just made an interesting remark, “Hehe … ¾th don’t follow”. And though it was spoken with humor, it is a truth indeed. To follow Christ and to be a Christian are altogether different things. I believe that more than ¾th of the elder Christian population drinks. So, do they follow Christ (who Bible proclaims didn’t drink and according to which it is a sin)? I wish to ask how many people who were sitting on that hunger strike have actually read The Da Vinci Code. I am convinced that the number of those who haven’t read it will be more than ¾th.
And even if all that is there, if your faith is strong, what is the need to worry? A weaker faith will fail anyway in time of difficulties (or rather at the time of test). I was really surprised to see even Pope commenting and condemning it directly. And to me, Langdon’s words in the book seem so appropriate to mention here - "It's important to remember that the modern Church's desire to suppress these documents comes from a sincere belief in their established view of Christ. The Vatican is made up of deeply pious men who truly believe these contrary documents could only be false testimony."
In fact I forgot to mention that Aaj Tak also highlighted that Dan Brown has claimed that Jesus was married and that the ‘Royal Bloodline’ still exists. I disagree because the book is an interwoven work of facts and fiction and the ultimate product is only a fiction and not a claim. One has to understand that whereas all documents and rituals mentioned are accurate, all clues left by Jacques Sauniere, all cryptography involved and the final disclosure of Sophie as Merovingian were all but a matter of fiction. I doubt Brown claims that the Holy Grail is there in the Louvre as is indicated in the end.
A little confusion also arises from the fact that Dan Brown gives an accurate description of the documents, rituals etc. (he has mentioned it in the very beginning) and therefore at times, I also got a doubt if it is real or fiction. For example, consider the books that Teabing shows to Sophie for explaining Holy Grail. Now, are they real or fictitious? I take them for real.
And even on the controversy over Jesus’ marriage, I understand that the priests and bishops of Church would practice celibacy but I am not sure if they teach and preach the same. Is marriage an evil for Church and if so, how do they justify creation? Should a married person divorce when he understands Bible from his heart or when he wants to become a priest and serve God? Pardon me for allowing my mind to wander so randomly but I just wish to emphasize that being a married person doesn’t make any difference in your having godly attributes and Krishna is the best example for the same.
The controversies to me are baseless. Does it really matter if any Merovingian is alive on this earth? I mean the son/daughter of a good father turns out bad in this world. Here, we have a span of more than 20 generations. How does it matter even if the Priory of Sion is trying to protect them and why should the Church be bothered about them? You’ve to see where you stand, what you want to believe in and just do it!
I believe that Dan Brown has indeed created a work which shacks your faith but at the same time it is a good thing to understand another perspective. Does it really matter if Jesus Christ was ‘Son of God’ or a mere human being who achieved apotheosis in his lifetime? He had inspired many during his lifetime anyways and His life and actions are still worth emulating.

Disclaimer: The above post is not an effort to disregard Bible, Christianity or its practices. I am just trying to emphasize that one should try to penetrate the surface and get the essence rather than just allowing oneself to get entangled in the spider’s web. When we understand the true inner meaning/essence, we really follow and don’t remain as mere followers.

The Da Vinci Code

2006-05-21T20:12:00.000-07:00

I was a little apprehensive about posting this entry, given the fact that I am possibly the last person on the earth (at least among the visitors of this blog) to read this novel. For long, I was trying to get my hands on it and considering its popularity, I finally decided to spend some bucks on it. And the book was worth the money, or rather much more than that!
Angels & Demons (A&D) is another Dan Brown’s that I had read before (a good one) and I found The Da Vinci Code similar to it in terms of the plot, characters and even the sequence. But there was so much more to it that never made me feel that the repetition made it boring.
Actually, the anagrams, cryptography, the whole Jesus Christ, Mary Magdalene, Sangreal and Holy Grail affairs were far more interesting and deeper than the ambigrams and running around across the Vatican in A&D.
In fact, the only thing where it lagged A&D was the suspense. Here, it was far too obvious, considering the knowledge and power that ‘The Teacher’ wielded and the fact that not another character developed till last few chapters seemed suspicious (except Bezu Fache and the clouds of suspicion created over him in the middle were actually a beauty to see). The ending too was a little disappointing – I mean Holy Grail wasn’t expected to be found but the way speed and excitement were built in the middle was something Brown couldn’t continue till the end (personal opinion).
I would like to shift the focus on the peak part of the novel (the purpose for which I wrote this blog regardless of the apprehension). And that is – the Holy Grail. Personally, I didn’t know much anything about it or related stuff and I doubt if anyone other than Christians (I doubt many of them would know much about it) or Christianity historians and symbologists would know much about it, but in this sense, it was a great eye opener.
The few pages in middle where Langdon and Teabing disclose fundaes about Holy Grail and Mary Magdalene were awesome. The sequences and secrets were quite convoluted but yet well-woven with documents, cryptology and etymology – especially when all were directly or indirectly, but in a simple way, related to the ‘sacred feminine’.
On the issue of Jesus Christ, I, in fact never knew that Bible proclaimed Him as ‘Son of God’ and always considered Him to be a member of the rare group of people who had achieved apotheosis in their lifetime. I don’t deny the possibility of him coming as an Avataar. If the Church deliberately changed the reality, I doubt that there was a good reason to do so because whatsoever was the case, I doubt it changes the basis of following Him. In that sense – “The divinity of Jesus was decided by the Council of Nicaea” as the book mentions invites intrigue, pity and humor. I also loved Napoleon’s quote – “What is history but a fable agreed upon?” and we are literally observing this in the history class books of Rajasthan where a lot of condemnation of Christianity and their practices have been introduced after the BJP Government came into power.
Cryptography & Sacred Feminine, Opus Dei & Corporal Mortification, Priory of Sion & Issac Newton as grandfather, Knights Templar & Sangreal, Merovingian and Holy Grail, Jesus Christ & Mary Magdalene – just too much! I am not much of a reader but I find that the book is a thriller beyond match, especially because it creates the fiction around facts and that too something that hits directly in the head. Hail Brown!

PS: Anyone who knows about some good source for related reading may let me know.

PPS: There is an illustrated version of the book available for around 600 bucks. A little hefty for us poor but a really good one with more than 150 pictures placed at relevant positions. It’s worth buying for those who can manage. I’ll just borrow ;-)

PPPS: I had seen the movie trailers before reading the book and I just thought that the movie will be a great piece as the novel is so popular. Mayank told me at that time that it is not necessary but I didn’t get it. Now, even I doubt that it would be easy to fill up this much information in a 2-3 hr movie. But the cinematography looks great prima facie, after all the locations too are mostly real. I’m going to watch it anyway!

The Pyramids are beautiful, aren't they?

2006-05-17T09:53:00.000-07:00

This thought struck me an hour or so after my final presentation May 2. When I started thinking over it, I realized how this applies so beautifully in our context too.

Even after studying Chemical Engineering for the last four years, I daresay I'm fully confident even in a single topic and I am very sure that many of my batch mates would agree with me on this (I hope ;-) ). Mostly, it is about mugging before the exams and really not about learning. To reinforce my claim, most of us are out with a non-technical job.

For an average and sincere student, I think no one enjoys the engineering student life more than an IITian and when I say it, I literally mean it. I have seen people from other engineering colleges fighting real hard with labs, assignments and projects whereas most of us in IIT peacefully manage all these and yet again when I say "manage", most of the times, it is through faulty and dubious means.

I really feel that the real fight is in clearing the JEE (Joint Entrance Examination) and once we are done with it, not much is left to do. I mean it depends on what your aspirations are but the fact remains that you can get away without doing much. The placement results are too evidence to the above claim.

Having said all this, the life still remains busy for those who involve themselves into other activities, whether with a sense of aspiration or ambition. There is a lot of running around and time-management involved in all these activities. Albeit I haven't been a major success on the academic or non-academic front, I sure have done a lot of running around. And I really feel it helps. Because considering the academic scenario of IITB that I've presented above, I question myself if I have learnt anything in the past four years?

The answer is yes because o/w this post wouldn't have come. And to mention the two most important of them, they are 'common sense' and 'how to deal with people'. Not that I didn't had common sense when I came here and that I just 'deal' with people now. The 'common sense' here is used in a broader and holistic sense and it has surely developed over the last four years. When it comes to 'dealing with people', it is essentially about coordinating and developing this ability to work with them rather than the usual meaning of 'taking work out of them'.

Developing these two take time and more so experience and that's why I said that one needs to involve himself/herself into many things which give opportunities to experience. And as I said, a lot of running around is required. There was a very common observation across most of the final year students in the last few days – all of us were just feeling like running away from this place. I see it as the result of tiredness of all this running around and now that there was a window to escape, we were all going restless.

Like Santiago of 'The Alchemist', I felt like asking the old sorcerer about all these efforts and that were they really required. But I knew that the answer I ought to get was the same that Santiago got - "If I had told you, you wouldn't have seen the Pyramids. They're beautiful, aren't they?" The efforts and patience anticipated for these small but highly important learning is a lot and only when they are spent, we get to see Pyramids at times too. And the Pyramids are really beautiful too :-).

Have I stopped blogging?

2006-05-14T05:34:00.000-07:00

Not really! I know that it is more than a month that I posted but these were the final days at IITB – full of treats and lukkha interspersed with things like exams, CD writing, late night chats etc. The life literally had become so frivolous that you couldn’t expect good ideas or happenings to originate (especially purposeful). Actually a few ideas struck, but then I was too lazy and "busy" to ponder and write on them.
Thankfully, I have written down some of the titles which I can expand upon even now and I’ll try to do so. It also came to my mind that I can post some fillers (some things which aren’t my original but are worth sharing and expanding upon in the blog) but again the laziness factor crept into the picture.
I hope that after writing all this, I’d be able to continue with the blogging at least for the coming two months when I am free and I am home.

Farewell Begins: H13

2006-04-02T11:22:00.000-07:00

Well, it started with H8, but I'll be reporting a few special cases, the profiles of which were at my mercy (of course as a part of the profile writing group) and a few which just stand out.

All hostels in IIT Bombay have a tradition of celebrating its Valedictory Function (Valfi) for the passing out junta just before the final endsems. We have 10 UG hostels and therefore we'll be having 10 Valfis as such. At Valfi, we have hostel award ceremony, dinner and finally the profile reading. The profiles are prepared by wingmates, batchmates and close friends and all profiles have one thing in common - the whole profile but the final paragraph is pure bantering & slandering and only the final paragraph contains the goodie part about the guy. The profile reading is followed by a Q/A session and finally comes when the victim is allowed to speak his heart, popularly known as senti.

In H13, there were 5 stages set for a total of 110 'Batch of 2002' students. On each stage, it displayed photos (exquisite ones) of students whose profile would be read at that particular stage - I guess it was an innovative idea and it looked great.

Bajjy: On bottom of second column from left

I'll be covering Bajju and Jinx and this one is specially for our HLRC friends.

Bajju:

Bajju was my first friend at IIT. Our friendship grew stronger in the 2nd semester due to common thinking and common objects of criticism. I still remember the day when we returned on the first day of the third semester and we hugged like we were great childhood friends meeting after years. Over the years, our thoughts have parted ways and as he himself quoted in the senti part but then friendship seldom demands commonality in thoughts; all it asks for is acceptance and support of your friend.
Bajju's profile was mainly centered around his despogiri, chillergiri, kaminapan and his latest successes on the girl front. We were quite impressed by his openness and verity during the Q/A session where he talked openly on sex, his thinking, Bihari instincts, freebees, his girls, investment theory and its origin, the source of Bharpur and what not.

Bajjy: Standing tall!

The best part of Bajju's profile was his senti. For one, quite unlike the people who spoke before him (these four years have given me a lot, best part of my life and blah blah), he didn't sound cliched at all. He was speaking from heart and finally through eyes too. Yeah, even I couldn't believe he would do so and on top of it, he dragged Kundan too in the wet zone. He ended beautifully with Mehdi Hasan's lines:
Agar tu ittefaqan mil bhi jaye, Teri Furqat ke sadme kam na honge
(Furqat means separation; so it means that 'Even if we happen to meet again incidentally, the scars of our first separation will never heal')

Love you Bajjy!

Jinx:

This was another profile I thought I can't afford to miss. Jinx is one of the few persons in IIT who have been able to greatly impress me - his diligence, determination and strength of character all awe me. The only stain in his personality, I would say, is his above average ego, but then he expects the world to be at a much higher level compared to where it is (mainly in intellectual terms).

Jinx: The non-stop laughter!

His profile reading was simple and really lacked the masala which we had in Bajju's profile, but boss, the way he talked in the Q/A session was just too much to expect from a person like Ajinkya. Some glimpses:
1. When he came into IIT, he thought that the minimum criterion for any girl to become his girlfriend would be to be able to solve Physics problems at par with him. He found such girl in Shweta. And the best part was that he got a CC in the 1st Physics course, where Shweta I am sure would have got an AB or an AA.
2. The 2nd crush was PJ and well, after long discussions with PC about her availability and the feasibility analysis for taking any step further, it too resulted negative.
3. He and Pursha had designed a virtual feedback loop for Sneha (a painfully intelligent and diligent DASA). He had said once that he will marry Sneha, take her to Himalayas on honeymoon and will ditch her at the highest point and will come back for the good of all humanity.
4. Levels of give-up display of knowledge and brain usage by Abhinav Khare, one of the top rankers in the department.
5. The way he told Shweta (his present girlfriend) that 'Da Vinci Code' isn't available at IIT, so that he could meet her twice, first while taking and the second while returning back; his daydreams of walking from IIT to Sion and then propose her or to run after the bus she boards in and publicly propose her.
Phew! Those who were there couldn't stop laughing and this guy was speaking w/o even any further instigation. And the way he framed every case so vividly made his profile real special.

Hats off to you Jinx! Hope you get some good news soon!

Just another photo: Taken just before we departed!

Missing Daga

Deja Vu!

2006-03-28T12:49:00.000-08:00

The last PAF of this year, undoubtedly the best PAF of the year and probably the best in IITB PAF History. The title was Deja Vu and it was probably the first PAF in the history with central theme as IIT. If I were to try and draw a good analogy, Deja Vu was to IIT as Rang De Basanti was to India. Those who have seen it would know what bullshit this blog is in front of the actual PAF. But this blog is to share the PAF with many people who visit my blog but are not a part of the present IITB fraternity.
The list includes a few who lament for not being in IIT, a few who have already passed out from this institute, some fools who missed it for something that in any case would be petty before it, some who just dabble through this litter of mine and my many friends from other IITs. A word of caution: It's going to be long but I'll try my best to make it as interesting & picturesque as possible.

Just to introduce about PAF to the ignorant souls, PAF stands for Performance Arts Festival. These are dramatic shows of huge scale and budget (not very sure but somewhere around 50k) with each PAF organised by 2-4 hostels. PAFs are seen as one of the biggest events at IITB and the hostels which lift the PAF trophy don't leave any opportunity to show their pride and abuse to the losers.
Deja Vu starts with a regular scene of how parents urge their children (in this case, a guy named Sonu) for taking JEE (IITs being one of the most promising institutes in terms of getting a good job and adding to their own reputation). Sonu works hard and faces a lot many expectations from his family, peers, girls and the old. The result finally comes negative and he finds that his parents have given up on him; he also faces insult from others. He just couldn't take it anymore and he commits suicide. The prod work is amazing with OAT (Open Air Theatre) in the centre and the IITB main road in the background.

IIT Main Road and OAT (green coloured structure) in background

The whole scene was carried out by an odd 12-15 people on a continuous and rotational basis; they served both as different characters in different scenes and as the objects of use as and when they come. Only 2 characters (Sonu and his father) were kept constant and the rest exchanged positions as friends, relatives, computer keyboard, gate, seat, questions of JEE paper and what not! The swift rotation of positions and designations was just mind-blowing and was the first hint of a great PAF in its unfolding.

First scene team

Sonu checking his result on internet

Sonu committing suicide

The second sequence is about a guy named Dumdum talking to his own self (heart/soul) about his failure at IIT (3 backlogs, lying to family, lost purpose etc.). Dumdum and Sonu are from the same town/city and it was Dumdum's father who bashes Sonu's father in the first scene when Sonu fails to clear JEE. He is one regular proud father of an IITian and as is in most of the cases, a regular mis-conceived father as well. Dumdum sees many issues with the students, their dreams & goals and thinks of making a PAF on these which his self flatly denies.

Dumdum (right) with his self

This guy is called by his BTP guide and the later sincerely tries to uncover the problems and also offers help to Dumdum for passing his course and BTP. There is a short appearance of a Cracku whom Dumdum hates/is jealous of. The scene shows so simple but so-true thoughts going on in Dumdum's mind when he talks to the Prof and when he sees Cracku. The scene was like a mirror - reflecting the self of almost everyone sitting in the audiences to some or other extent.

Dumdum with BTP Guide

A number of symbolic gyrations were fused into the middle of the PAF showing the guy unable to realize his purpose of existence - credit given to people and society who are but an obstruction in understanding the purpose of his existence and realizing it.

Attempts and failure in reaching the goal

In another scene, character sketches of 2 of his friends are drawn. One of them is a mediocre guy (who claims to share the dream of making big drams one day) whereas the other (Laddoo) is below-average guy (worried on the girlfriend front). The two dramatic dreamers (Dumdum and mediocre guy) have also submitted one of their works to Prithvi Theatre and are waiting for result.

Dumdum with Laddoo (left) and mediocre guy (middle)

The PAF here takes a turn with showing the making of a PAF within the PAF by 4 hostels combined - 1,4,9 & 11 (11 being the girl's hostel). Things like despogiri of an IITian male (and gleams of hope from a PAF with girl's hostel involved) and typical subjects of PAFs (freedom, riots, kingdoms or other contemporary issues) were sarcastically dealt with. And here begins the mockery of the previous PAFs of this year and of the yesteryears as well (they didn't even leave Kasturi - H4's last year's PAF which was universally criticized). Then begins the visualization and script writing of the PAF team – it is about a kingdom with all types of shady people from the king to the aam aadmi.

Conceiving PAF within the PAF

For some minutes, I couldn't understand the relevance of these scenes but later I realized it when our protagonist (Dumdum) turns up and urges these people to consider his script of a solitary & depressed IITian. This idea is unanimously rejected on the basis that who would come and see a PAF about a solitary IITian; it lacks the most important thing - masala.

At this point, I would like to mention Anshul Singhal's (I think the main person behind this PAF) studgiri. While the PAF team was visualizing the scenes of kingdom, they realize that an IITB PAF has to have choreo (dance) sequences and then they visualize having a salsa (sarcastically opposite to the kingdom PAF). A person there actually misses a step and also confuses the nearby couple and requests the sound box to replay the music. Now, I understand that a lot of effort is put into these things but asking for a replay in front of a crowd of 1000s can be nothing short of foolishness. And from nowhere, Singhal jumps into the sound box and shouts impromptu in the mike, "Band karo. Yaar, yeh choreo waale to hameshaa aise bhi puch hi maarte hain. Nikal jaao yahaan se (Stop it. The dance people always fail in performing up to the mark. Get out)." And the choreo junta walked out without it becoming a real puch. In one word, it was God-giri.

The salsa puch that was beautifully avoided

Anyways, our dejected Dumdum comes to his room just to find another source of dejection waiting for him - an XX grade, which means that he'll need to repeat the course next year. The mediocre friend who got a good job on the same day comes. He apologises for not being able to continue dreaming with him any further on the dramatics front (he is like the bakery shop guy of The Alchemist who thinks that he'll go after his dream after he has achieved and accumulated enough for a secured future). Our guy calls Prithivi Theatre to find the last ray of hope lost in the dark - a reject for their work.

Medicore guy gets a job

He pukes his anger and frustration on a freshman who isn't working for PAF as has a quiz the next day. The freshman complains the Authorities resulting in DAC (Disciplinary Action Committee) sitting on Dumdum (on a funny note, DAC is/was called as DISCO in IITD as I learnt from Five Point Someone). The DAC committees are notorious for their ways of handling such cases - the guy sitting in bulb light focus whereas the committee members in the dark (typical police station style) putting pressure on the offender from all sides by non-stop abuse. In the end, Dumdum gets an year of sit-back-at-home punishment, thus delaying his degree by one more year (a year delay already attributed to his 4 backlogs). This acts as the last straw in the camel's back and in all this depression, he decides to commit suicide.

Attempting a suicide

In an amazing turn of events, just as he was about to cut off his nerve on the right hand, his mediocre friend comes in his room and reports that Laddoo has committed suicide by jumping off from the Hostel's roof. In all these convolutions of thoughts and desperation, he continues with the suicide attempt but eventually fails. On the other hand, Laddoo succeeds (or in other words, fails his life).

Mediocre guy informs about Laddoo

Dumdum continuing with the attempt (symbolic)

The next scene is a sharp mockery on the Press who takes up an issue and use it for their own good. It also displays different attitude of people towards such a grave incident - a guy is running for getting some notes xeroxed and doesn't have time to respond, another doesn't want Press to make a story out of it, the third one doesn't know how people can get so depressed and the fourth one tries to give his expert comments as we see in the Fourth Umpire.

IIT Main Gate, Coffee Shack and the Reporter

The scene also showed some amazing Prod-shifting and revealed some mind-boggling Prod work as well. The main road of IIT is smoothly removed from both sides like curtains of a play and lo! We saw a live Coffee Shack (the most active place at IITB) - it was as if they had just removed the complete structure from the actual Coffee Shack site and put it up there at OAT for the PAF Performance.

In the next scene, our failed guy meets a psychiatrist (our Student Councilor) who tries to pacify and assure him of himself through various psychiatric techniques. But Dumdum doesn't feel what she says from within. And then enters our Cracku. Our guy is all :-O to find Cracku too coming for the psychiatrist's help who tells Dumdum that Cracku suffers from some Narcissistic Disorder. And our guy is suddenly all happy - Wow! Even Cracku has problems and even he is lost.

Dumdum with the psychiatrist

On his way back, he just thinks how amazing it would be if everyone has the red glasses similar to Mr. India's through which they can see the painful inner self of every person well-hidden into their happy exterior. The red lights are turned on and he sees pain in everyone's life; he realizes that this happiness and satisfied looks are mostly for the exterior demeanor.

Dumdum looking at "happy" people

Inner pain visible in the Red Light

In the final scene, the red lights are still kept on (meaning that the 'seeing-inside' work is still on). A lawyer puts Dumdum, his mediocre friend and his BTP guide on the vertices of a triangle and throws a number of questions before them, seeking insight into the matter. The crowd (including the real PAF judges) is both the judge and the observer of this trial. At every important point, the lawyer says to the crowd, "Point note kiya jaaye", which is received greatly by the chorus as, "Point noted". A very important point among these was giving more time to one's friends/classmates/wingmates - we crib that there is no time and there is heavy academic pressure but we always find time to see movies, play computer games etc.; there is no disagreement in the fact that these comes lower in priority than your friend's life. So both faculty and the student community should give more time to the student and that is the only way these sad incidents can be avoided.

Lawyer, Prof (left), Dumdum (back) and Mediocre Guy (right)

Just when I think how gripping the whole PAF was, I realize that it exceeded at least 15 minutes from the given time limit and not even a single guy made any disturbance - we were all stuck to our seats just waiting to see what happens next. The PAF team got a standing applause and rounds of hugs from friends and appreciators. And I can understand why it made such a deep impact - there was something for everyone, some character for everyone.

Appreciation and felicitation

The two places where I think improvements could have been made were lights (mainly the moon - I found the light people fighting hard to focus the moon and move it as characters moved; rest lighting was good) and voice overs (again perfection is difficult when you have too many characters). The one perfect in all senses was Shantimrigyam - our first year hostel PAF, but then the script was masala kingdom once again.

All said and done, it still stands as the best PAF I have seen in IITB. A formal thanks to Hostels 1, 4, 9 and 11 for giving us such a performance before we pass out of this institute - there could be no better ending to these big dramatic projects and performances as far as we are concerned.

And they say it is 7*

2006-03-24T08:37:00.000-08:00

Had a dinner with two persons from Shell - John Hoppe and Tom Hyde (the person who took my interview during the recruitment process) and it was in Renaissance - one of the best hotels in Mumbai.
Well, I have been to the place before and that was a pre-recruitment dinner with the UBS people. That time we (all shortlisted guys) were all into making an impression on them and were trying to hear all they say too because it could have proved useful for the interview. In all this, we had to ditch our concentration on the most important thing, i.e. food. When I came back, I had to order a Maggie in the hostel and well, as my friends say, it was a shameful thing to do. The UBS interview was just an icing on the cake in negative sense - a sad end to a sad happening.
And within two months came another invitation to Renaissance; this time from Royal Dutch/Shell (I never miss to highlight the Royal Dutch part ;-) ). And this time, I was determined to make this dinner a huge success. And there was another setback.
At UBS dinner, at least the food was typical Indian. Here, the food was total crap and I am not sure what exact menu it was - some mix of Chinese, Italian and Indian food but all (the soup, vegetables etc.) filled with leaves and arbitrary stuff I haven't seen in my life and which I didn't even find good. And there was this Chinese tea - just another version of hot water. And you are charging us a fortune for it. For what in the world? And then they say it is exquisite :-O. Even in the end, when we were looking for Desserts, we didn't even find normal Vertigo or Chocolate Avalanche. There were some arbitrary puffs and puddings which could be rejected on their very face. Thankfully we could make a special order for Brownie, which in fact was good.
IIT-D people were luckier in the sense that they had Indian people (Baljit and Deepak) with them and I am sure they had some great Punjabi lunch there (source: Nidhi Bansal).
All said and done, lemme also highlight the good parts of the Dinner. The first and foremost was meeting with John, Tom and the colleagues (meeting many for the very first time). Another was the beautiful backdrop of Powai and Hiranandani behind the glass wall. There was some good deal of interaction with all people there though we had to stretch out our ears when either of John or Tom spoke (we also came to know that there are some decibel limits in Rijswijk, the Netherlands office ... man, what will us Indians do there ... we are going to become the next whisperers :-P). But they talked about Netherlands and the seasons, they talked about the technologies, they talked a little about their plans and they talked about Shell! Amazing down to earth people and they looked highly motivated by the company's prospects in India and the upcoming projects. Even Nidhi feels the same from their meeting with Baljit and Deepak.
I know we are going to miss India and the food in Netherlands but it is going to be one helluva great work and fun there.

Height of carelessness

2006-03-18T04:54:00.000-08:00

In my post Final Midsems and Some Concerns, I tried to highlight some problems with the IIT academic system and the contributions of the students and faculty towards it. The best part of the blog was that I was able to change myself and I had started attending classes sincerely after that (barring Prof. Roy's where I had already missed loads of fundaes which were necessary for further lectures). And yet again, I am dwelling into something similar - this time my BTP (B. Tech Project) or the final year project as most other universities call it.
It has been more than 2.5 months and I have barely started with the second stage of the BTP which is worth a huge 15 credits (nearly one third of a regular semester). Now I have my excuses - the first month was all spent in job hunting and the next 15 days in celebrations, relaxation and the home trip. Not very genuine reasons but considerable. But the remaining one month (i.e. the last) has been a period of complacency and careless behaviour.
And this is not the case with me only but with more than 50% of my batchmates. Even I heard the likes of Aashwit Mahajan (both a nerd and a fighter in life) saying, "I just don't want an extension, anything else would do." Keeping in mind that he is hyping his carelessness and we all know he'll end up with some decent/good grade, the point worth noting is that the attitude of carelessness is all pervasive in our final year batch.
However, I believe in living life as it should be lived (adding value, doing something fruitful) rather than seeing what my peers do/expect and that is why this attitude has been bothering me for quite some time. And despite all this brooding and attempts, I have been unable to cross this activation energy barrier and initiate the task.
The worst part is that I believe I know the solution too because this is my experience that:
1. Interest generally develops once one begins the work, especially when there is some challenge and there is some success. Most of us fall behind, being prejudiced about the work and its results.
2. At times, work looks huge, unachievable but the most important thing in all these circumstances is to start, because once we start, everything else follows. I've observed this so many times and I see that during the course, we develop better and more efficient ways to do things and finally see ourselves as better and more efficient.

As it is obvious, this state of understanding is more difficult than ignorance because then I question myself, "Why not then?" And this is what I've been trying to dig out for the past week, always planning to do some BTP work (with ample time at my disposal) and always ending into relatively useless activities ranging from Orkutting to listening to music (as I said, relatively). And as I said this situation is more difficult because at the end of day, I find myself incompetent and irresponsible.
I was thinking on the similar lines in one of Prof. Roy's lecture and I guess most of others too were lost in their own preoccupations and somehow he caught it and said, "You know, I had a student who had the same small concentration span as you guys have now, but now he is working in an investment bank and with the boss sitting on his head, he can't even afford to take a single mistake. And he is doing the job very successfully"
This relaxed me a little because given the present concentration levels, I couldn't imagine myself holding on to Shell for long. But we needn't be concerned about it? I don't really think so. Everyone works under pressure when his/her job, reputation, promotion or for that matter grade is at stake. But what really matters is something else.
By now, every final year reader of this blog will become sure of my nerdness because the grades hardly matter to anyone now and I too am bragging around that I just want to avoid an FF and any passing grade would do. Bajju too was telling me not to worry as it is a matter of 2 more months. But really speaking, I am thinking of it neither in terms of grade, nor in terms of time. What really matters is to me is my attitude and character and these are the things which have their effects in long run and in all dimensions. It take time and sincere efforts on our part to develop, improve and groom them. I am seeking that improvement.
I wish for myself that work comes from within. I agree that everything in life can't interest us but then the reverse should too hold here - all guys of my batch reluctant to do the BTP. How is it possible?
I believe that that everything in life has a purpose and we are supposed to understand that purpose and work towards it. The same holds for BTP and even though half of the batch is going for a non-core job, we are expected to finish off the curriculum we chose. To think of it, not everything in life is acceptable because we want all goodies, all comforts which will but stay a dream.
Work has to be done for the sake of work and we all will understand it and hopefully follow too some time or other in our life. As is clear, this hasn't been a realization for me because although it has the knowledge part (again limited), it lacks the more important part - experience. But I believe that this realization will come for me and for all some day. Amen!

Keep Going!

2006-03-17T20:22:00.001-08:00

Arthur Ashe, the legendary Wimbledon player was dying of AIDS which he got due to infected blood he received during a heart surgery in 1983. From world over, he received letters from his fans, one of which conveyed: "Why does GOD have to select you for such a bad disease"?
To this Arthur Ashe replied: The world over - 50M children start playing tennis, 5M learn to play tennis, 500,000 learn professional tennis, 50,000 come to the circuit, 5,000 reach the grand slam, 50 reach Wimbledon, 4 to semi final, 2 to the finals, When I was holding a cup I never asked GOD "Why me?". And today in pain I should not be asking GOD "Why me?"

Happiness keeps you Sweet, Trials keep you Strong,
Sorrow keeps you Human, Failure Keeps you Humble,
Success keeps you Glowing, But only God Keeps you Going.
Keep Going!
--

A forward which I have already forwarded to tons and couldn't resist posting it on the blog as well. A very simple story but of profound impact because it teaches us a very basic but at the same time very important thing: to accept good & bad things or the so-called happiness and sadness with the same attitude.
I know I'll face immediate disagreements on this so please let me first clarify that this attitude doesn't ask people not to aspire for better & higher things in life. It just highlights the importance of acceptance of the moment, i.e. I have done this and I have received this - not accepting the result then is a folly. It is of course then our responsibility to become better because life is nothing but a process of improving and bettering things and ourselves. Stagnation is contrary to life.
I believe that there are still some people left in the disagreeing lot and I don't mind it because that is always the case. However, I would just point out that acceptance (of say a bad/inferior result of any action) is only wise and it doesn't imply that we have become complacent. Rejection of the result is but the denial of truth. It takes courage to accept failure and more so to stand again and work in the direction of betterment in the quest of finally reaching perfection!

Hakim finally gets a job!

2006-02-28T01:47:00.000-08:00

For those who don't know him, Hakim is my school time friend and one of the best friends I've ever met in life. Our journey started in Standard X when this guy, who used to pass by grace (a system of letting the student pass if he's failing only by a few marks or so) in 2-3 subjects every exam, suddenly popped up as a new entry among all us toppers during the half-yearly examination and caught everyone's attention. Well, my prime reasons of approaching him were different (related to some her) but we finally ended up studying together in the board exams and we cracked it too. And we never saw back again!

Hakim: His normal self!

To some extent, I can be attributed (or blamed as some may call :-P) for his choosing Science as the subject. The combined study (catalysed by aunty's exotic food which I still relish) continued for 2 more years and we went to Kota after Standard XII. Our ways first parted when I came to Mumbai whereas he landed at VIT (Vellore).
His field of study, Biotechnology first appeared to him as the field of the future but he realized later that he is not game for intensive research which Biotech is all about. In my knowledge, he should be at least in the top 100-150 students at VIT both in terms of his abilities & skills and his CGPA score. However, destiny had more difficulties in store for this guy (well before this, he had found difficulties on the front of Girls and GOD :-P) and even after a placement of some odd 500 people, this guy stood unplaced for reasons which even he couldn't determine.
Things are relatively easier in IITs as we're done with 70% of our placements in less than 3 months and that too has been great. On the other hand, he has been waiting for a job for the past 8 months and it has been very frustrating, given the fact that a lot of junta supposedly less-deserving than him got one. Anyways, his run ended today when he got his employer in form of Easy Solutions (a software firm). And I can't express my elation in words!
And this stupid didn't call and rather messaged me about the job. On enquiring, he says he didn't do so because his pay is a bit less. So foolish of him! I just told him two things which two elders have told me at different times:
- You have to make a start, even though it isn't all that BIG
- Things even out in long run if you are dedicated and talented
I'm sure things will even out for him as well and just some patience is required.

I would also take this opportunity to tell that Hakim bhai is already engaged to Naiz, a beautiful girl who stays just in pichwada of Hakim's house :-). The engagement itself is a story worth a blog!

Naiz

He has so many plans ahead now that he is settled in life (mind you, marriage is not the one in the near future). And these plans also ensure that restlessness doesn't end for him here ;-). But well, it will surely be a sweet one!

Update/Edit:

Just came to know that another very good school friend of mine, also a room partner during JEE preparation - Chirag too landed up with a job with International Tractors and guess the placement site - one and only the Balle land of tractors - ooye Punjab!

Final midsems and some concerns!

2006-02-23T22:17:00.000-08:00

Just coming back from CL442 mid-semester exam. And with this, we are done with our final midsems of IIT stay (there might be one of Prof. Roy next week, but lets take it officially done). Like the quiz, the paper was a good one (given that it was theoretical) and had good variety of questions which could be done well if one has attended the lectures. The only midsem other than this was 'Principles of Management' and had good problems - general in nature but demanding careful dissection of the associated aspects and good insight into the management concepts.
However, my experience of examinations throughout my IIT stay hasn't been very cheerful (and I am not talking about grades here, which if not the best are quite good). Somehow, I have found that most of them don't demand much creativity and intelligence on the part of the student and most of the questions are routine classroom examples and problems quoted in the book (to the extent that me and Mayank joke many a times these days - "Yaar yeh log (Profs) chahte hi nahin ki hum padhe").
Thanx to the IIT Junta (including myself) that most of us don't even care to do that minimum and the grades we get reflect the need of an examination of same or lower standard for the next time. I remember how Prof. Anurag Mehra had once turned down the request of an open-book examination in the Mass Transfer II course saying that we don't even perform well in routine exams and an open-book exam will just add to our worries (for reasons I guess everyone knows).
At this point, I would also like to refer to Rishi Jajoo, the Harvard Student who was at IITB for a semester on a study abroad program. In the latest InsIghT issue, he pointed out some more issues concerning the academic front including teaching style and competency of Profs (to which I would also agree to a large extent) and the lack of hard work on the part of students (copying assignments and lab work). Since he wasn't here for long, he didn't realize that most of the examinations are also easily passed by just mugging up the notes and cogged assignments.
By now, I am pretty sure that I must have invoked fury of most of the IIT Junta who is reading this blog but may I ask them (and I have asked myself too) our purpose at IIT? Of course IITB provides a ground for all-round development of one's personality which should be properly utilized, the topmost priority remains as academics. I have seen people arguing - Nahin padhna, kya kar loge? or Hamaari apni priorities hain and IIT is no one to decide on that. This is like spitting on a road where it is not allowed except the fact that this is not directly punishable here. But there are some indirect consequences of that.
India and especially IITs & IIMs haven always been applauded for producing great leaders. But as Rishi points out - it is not for the academic grilling here but the so-called cream that churns out of the competitive IIT-JEE and CAT examinations. And sadly, JEE is becoming easier every year. I am not sure about its effect on the quality of the students clearing the coveted examination, but it can only be neutral or negative. What I want to reason from this fact is that despite the quality of input to IITs, a good atmosphere of learning and development (possible only when both sides do their job well) will surely foster better leaders of tomorrow than what they are producing now.
Rishi also questioned the lack of diversity of interests of students at IIT Bombay. Since this is another BIG and important issue, I would like to cover it in a different blog sometime (of course after some approval of the ideas posted in this blog :-P).
I don't know who is to blame in all this matter. Profs of course want their students to score good and feel better and then an overall bad performance of students raises questions on their performance as an instructor at the Department level (which mayn't always be the case). On the other hand, a collective transformation in the attitude of us students will be nothing short of a miracle.
It is always better to take some positive moves for change rather than keep playing the blame game. On part of Profs, sincere personal efforts have to be made in the direction of improvements in teaching style, course content and problem selection for class and examinations (don't know who'll tell the profs who don't introspect). As students, we should approach courses and professors with a more positive approach, try to take interest (and believe me, that half battle is won when an attempt is made) rather than staying prejudiced just by our own outlook or senior's feedback.
I would end the blog by telling about my discussion with a non-IITian friend of mine who has apped this year and is still awaiting a positive response. I was just telling her about the crack app scene at IIT Bombay this year (especially the Chem Engg Dept) and the immediate response was, "Yahi to problem hai ki hum IIT se nahin hai". I am still positive about her getting an app and so for the waiting junta here at IIT Bombay, but would just like to add that this is a unique platform available to a only a meager point percentage of student population in India and properly utilizing this opportunity is in our hands.
There is a lot to change in myself too and I'll try not to give final-sem-excuse for not being sincere in class the next time. Individual change is our first responsibility and once that is done, we can take some steps in the direction of collective change as well. Wishing all the best to everyone!

A perfect day!

2006-02-21T20:18:00.000-08:00

I generally don't like 'just reporting' on this blog and prefer dissecting the situation or happening but I'm limiting myself this time for the sake of occasion. Someone has truly said, "Great things always come unexpected." The yesterday's Pune visit was a perfect example of a perfect day I had, with almost everything unexpected.
It all begin on Monday night when Mayank buzzed and asked me to come with him, Sabby and Lord Voldemort (aka Bajjy) to Pune for ChEA Symposium work. I had a few works and 2 midsems on my head and I denied the idea. However, he kept pressing and I just thought, "Chalo yaar, chalte hain. Dekhte hain kya hota hai." Later, I also realized that it would be a good break from the bored routine life of a final year job-waala lukkha.
We were to leave the hostel by 6.30 the next morning and therefore I woke up at 4.15 am for getting done with bathing and meditation, and getting early was something I was really aspiring for (quite unlike my fellow IITians) from many days which the lukkha life was always denying me. And to my surprise, I was all fresh despite a 4 hr sleep. We left the hostel at 7 and went to Chembur for getting a bus. And to our great surprise, we ended up in a Volvo. The bus trip via Khandala and Lonavla (injected with good breakfast) was nice and we reached Pune by 11, discussing the work details in final 5 minutes :-P.

Volvo Pleasure

Mayank and Sabby left for Praj whereas I and Bajjy went for a light Brunch. Then after a few calls to Shobhana and Shweta, we charted our plan and left for Shivaji Memorial Society College. We did publicity in Chem Engg and Management departments and the respect we got there as IIT students by overwhelming. Daydreaming, we left for Cummins then (:X) and I must say that despite the less crowd at that time, which was disappointing (Bajjy was still elated), I could feel some axe-effect at the place which really took away all the tiredness and brought some fresh hopes in life ;-). Being the only guys there, we also earned some good glances :-D. After a lot of running around, we could locate Madam Jail (initially we took her for Jahil :-)) ) and were done with our work. Luck favored us and we also got to meet DY Patil College students there and we did that Publicity there itself. After that, we went to the reputed MIT and did further publicity in Polymer and Petrochemical Departments. Unimaginable respect was bestowed on us at these places too. Finally done with work, we met Mayank and Sabby and had some fattes at MIT Canteen (a broader and diverse version of our Coffee Shack).
From here, we left for NCL to meet Shobhana (old HLRC friend). I was under constant bantering with her name right from the time we left the Institute and well, these guys here started up murmuring songs like Ek baar aaja aaja and Bahaaron Ful Barsaao when we were standing outside NCL awaiting her and I was all ROTFL. Thankfully, they stopped as she came. Mayank and Sabby left for station from there whereas me and Bajjy roamed aroud NCL with her. Bajjy was sure missing Manisha as he was cornered and targeted by us two (I also appreciate his tolerance and conservativeness). We went into good old days and came to present. Bajjy showed some rare generosity too by paying for the treat in canteen :-P.

With Shobhana at NCL

Quite against the charted economical plan, we made a return from Volvo again. Watched Kalyug on our return in the bus (Gosh! How can they play such a movie in the bus with kids, girls and the old). Anyways, despite the unreal larger-than-life personality of the Protagonist (not only his physical strength and his perseverance but also his character ... aise log kahaan milte hain aajakal duniya mein?), I liked the movie's idea and its simplicity in execution. The music too rocks!
Thanx to Bajjy's perseverance, we ended up having dinner at BTC (Bhagat Tara Chand). The marginal utility of the food had decreased tremendously the last time I visited this place. But this time, it was just a perfect addition to the perfection of the day!

Basking at BTC

The whole day passed in a grand manner. Other than ChEA's generosity, I would also like to praise the execution capabilities of the Symposium's OCs here (and thank them too for such a great trip!). We just expect another such work-picnic (did I say work?) to Goa after the grand success of the Symposium and the B-plan competition. Amen!

Whats booze good for?

2006-02-17T14:29:00.000-08:00

Just returning from our Batch daaru Treat. And well, I was the alone non-drinker and thus am still in a condition to write something.
Everyone was taken into non-stop laughter mania by Singhania's performance. Don't know what affected him like that but even people like Dopa and Jaini couldn't stand before him even once, leave alone the scapegoats Daga and Manav. I couldn't even have imagined that beer and the so-called 'joint' can take someone to that stage. Hehe...now I understand the Dum maaro dum, Mit Jaaye gam stuff. The party o/w too was a hit and I believe that everyone who came enjoyed. However, some other issues - some light and other serious left me thinking even after the treat at 4 am in the morning (and I am still sane :-P).
First of all, I have apologies for my classmates (especially Avinash) who really wanted me to participate in the daaru treat and I denied them till the end. I know that it breaks heart and more so of a drunken man (hehe) and I am really sorry for that but there are things where I really can't compromise. And I never understand this compulsion of literal daaru participation. I mean it all boils down to participating in the fun which I was really able to do (accepting the fact that one doesn't fully open before 20 people w/o daaru but then there are other priorities in life as well).
Another arbitrary thing worth noticing was the way some people were serving and pushing daaru (many a times neat) into other people, while maintaining mild and small doses for themselves. The pleasure they get from this indulgence is beyond my comprehension.
However, the most important issue that arose in my mind was the condition that these people end up with after having so much of daaru and dope. I always thought that these things help people forget stuff and enjoy some higher state of joy or excitement. However, to my great discontent, I saw some people indulging into dispute and asinine activities which I never saw them doing in sanity. A few others were totally out of their mind and were just clutching their heads. And then there is pressure of others not to sleep or rest but to stand and stay till the end which makes thing worse for these people. A few others would wake up tomorrow morning feeling all dizzy with a headache. Really very few in my opinion will wake up w/o thinking - 'I won't touch this thing again in my life'.
If done in control, I think this stuff won't come as bad as it came today with a few of us. I lack experience with this yellow liquid (or for that matter, the grass) and therefore might be wrong in my observation. Daaru lovers might want to highlight my mistakes which they are whole-heartedly welcome to do. Accept my apologies by default :-).

Dravid is the man

2006-02-17T03:47:00.000-08:00

Well, I was going to write on India but this photo really did catch my attention. Such aggression on the face of a person considered to be a very calm and patient guy was surprising. However, a series win against Pakistan in such a convincing fashion and that too after a loss in Test series ... banta hai yaar.
India has displayed the best works of the game in the last three matches and the credit goes to everyone. The combination of youth and old is awesome and the way the batsmen (especially Yuvraj), the bowlers (on such flat pitches) and most importantly the fielders (wow, what catches!) have performed has left everyone in awe and wonder.
However, we are yet to prove our mettle against the likes of Australia and England, especially on their pitches which is not going to happen in the coming India-England series (when will India get out of subcontinent against these teams???). The coming series will be more of a confidence building activity and I am expecting a clean sweep in Test series and pretty good chances of winning the one-day series win as well.
I just wish that Rahul Dravid doesn't turn into another Sourav Ganguly (the aggression and self factor) and also that India doesn't become complacent with the recent success (hoping Chappell, Dravid and Tendulkar will keep a check). Amen!

The ever-killing despair

2006-02-16T08:49:00.000-08:00

The app time is running hot and many here at IIT are getting admit/scholarship/fellow from Premier Institutes across the USA. However, many expectants are still waiting, including Shobhana and Ajinkya. The worst part is that these people (including many others; Ajinkya a little more positive though) haven't even got many rejects and this generally drives them into concluding that their chances are pretty dim.
Even from my experience, I can tell that this is a real tough time and I would not mind comparing it with slow and brutal butchering of one's patience and faith. However, I have always felt that we stand nowhere against time and that waiting is what is really expected of us. I know it's relatively easier for me to say this, given the fact that my waiting has rewarded me with Shell. But really speaking, who knows of future - not to be negative, but I may end up finding my career goal diverging from what all Shell can offer. So even Shell is just a superficial reward in one sense. Finally, everyone is looking for that tranquility and sense of satisfaction.
So how can a (supposedly) good app get one what he/she really wants ... because most of the times, we even fail to understand what we want from life. I hope that is not the case with my friends. But I've only one request to them - respect time. Referring to Steve Job's speech at Stanford University - Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future.
I know that most of my 'learned' friends would find this difficult to digest, but at any level, patience and faith transcends logic and intellect. One just needs to wait, observe and accept.

Shell :-)

2006-02-02T06:19:00.000-08:00

Yes, this feels like it. Something I was missing when I got through PWC. And this is HUGE. I don't even remember how many times I hugged Zubin and Qavi in Placement Office (even poor placement nominee Bedi :-P), but it was definitely > n.
And today is Basant, a very auspicious day for me and now lucky too. What can I say? Training starts in Amsterdam and final placement in Bangalore <:-P. I'm in Shell!

My Ambigram!

2006-01-31T08:14:00.000-08:00

Got the inspiration to have mine from Dan Brown's Angels & Demons. But this doesn't come even close to Illuminati in beauty :-(.
You can make yours at http://towerofenglish.com/ambigramambigram.html

Rang de Basanti!

2006-01-29T11:29:00.000-08:00

Note: Please do ensure you have watched the movie before reading the post.

Very few times in our life are we actually stirred from the very inside of our existence. And this movie did ensure that this happens and at least this happened with me.
I really feel I have watched some real movie today after 'Life is Beautiful'. The two movies end in a strikingly similar fashion - end of life for some purpose. However the paths to the end are very different. Roberto Bengini works very simply and peacefully to save his son in Life is Beautiful. However, Rang de Basanti rests on passion of its protagonists and purpose they come to understand in the later part of the story. A bigger purpose indeed.
It is difficult to accept that a few of us can go out and kill some person and then go to the radio station and connect ourselves to the whole nation. However, that was the filmi part of the movie. The real essence is in Siddharth's final answer to a question - "Do you think you are going to change things like these? These politicians will continue to dominate and ruin our country like these...". And he just answers - "Every one of us has to bring a change in ourselves. Each one of us has a responsibility which we must fulfill".
I really believe this is the way life has to be lived. It must have some purpose. Rather than blaming others, we should be bold enough to accept our responsibility towards the overall state of the system. And if others don't support, we should at least fulfill our part. Who knows. If not the antagonist, the unwary roamer may flow into the slow current and does some good to the world.

Finally a job!

2006-01-28T09:49:00.000-08:00

It was not really the same as I thought or what others said they felt after getting one. And I never knew why - I was feeling just OK. Conditions are different today and I feel the much awaited lightness after landing at PWC (Price Waterhouse Coopers).
Dunno the reason, but it really didn't feel that light after landing there. May be it had to do with the way my interview went and made me confident that they aren't gonna take me after such a bad ending to a good interview (and for that matter, I wasn't really depressed but then I got a call from Shoumik telling me that I was placed). Or the fact that I couldn't meet the company people and shake hands and accept the offer in a traditionally anticipated manner. Finally I am happy and am just waiting for 2nd February when my placement will be officially done with.
The Placements are a real test of one's poise and patience. Mine was much late than what I and others had expected. To add to it, I signed and sat for this company without fully understanding the work profile (which ultimately is impossible too). But well, I am a believer of 'connecting the dots' and the problem was only with the waiting.
I am eager to see the remaining friends and batchmates get placed because this 'waiting' is something not everyone can appreciate.

The first one!!!

2005-12-29T04:33:00.000-08:00

It was real hard for me to finally decide to get a Blog of my own because I am not one of those who want to collect memories and incidents. I feel that things that are important remain in your heart and mind for the desired time and therefore to have forced memories in some or other way is just useless.
However, time has its own compelling beauty and something happened today that made me wish to have a blog of my own. As of now, I am against posting that particular incident, but I may do so in the coming days.
Ending here in my own cryptic way :-P