Key To My Life

The Selfish Gene- Richard Dawkins

2011-04-30T08:43:00.000-07:00

The most interesting book I have ever read till date.

The book is a beautiful journey of understanding how life might have originated and how life is the way we know it.

You get to read and know about a variety of things like social behavior, game theory, psychology and of course biology, with a touch of philosophy if you will. It explains the chemistry and race between prey and predator, male and female, sexual selection, altruistic behavior among individuals and groups, replicators for cultural transmission as in fashion, music and other evolving trends. Considering the entire community of social insects as a single organism with the sterile workers as the support cells and the queen as the reproductive cells- that was a beautiful way of explaining the theory of altruism.

The writing style is very elegant, interesting, witty just here and there. I would love him as my teacher because of the way in which he builds up my understanding from nothingness to the level of being able to understand the effect of genes on the environment outside of the body which carries it.

Lately , I have been losing my interest in fiction and have been more inclined towards reading non-fiction. (a sign of ageing, perhaps?) However, the day I opened The Selfish Gene, that was the day I officially said good bye to fiction. This work of non-fiction by Richard Dawkins is more interesting than the most interesting fiction you get to read.
And the most interesting part of it is that it is not fiction.That it is real. The intricate method of replication and transmission is real and not sci-fi.

Contrary to what religious groups fear, the selfish gene theory has helped preserve optimism in me. I sometimes wonder what would happen to human kind in this world of increasing pollution, population and the impending scarcity of resources. The Darwinian theory shows that there is always a way in which we evolve and be better. May it be in terms of extra filters for lungs to cope with the changing environment or changes to adjust with hard water, life will go on. The only thing which may come in the way of it is the most interesting feature of humans- free will. Richard Dawkins ends the book with the note that "We( Human brains) , alone on earth, can rebel against the tyranny of the selfish replicators". Maybe the future is indeed going to be a battle between replicators striving to make copies and free will striving for uniqueness.

The Reacher-Settler Paradox.

2011-04-27T08:34:00.000-07:00

Every relationship has a reacher and a settler. Says Ted Mosby in "How I met your Mother".
Interesting theory. Marshall and Lily start fighting about who among them is the settler and who, the reacher. Interestingly, both of them want to be the settler.

At first, it looked understandable, natural.
But on a deeper level of thought, I was deep in dilemma. Which one of them am I? Which one of them do I want to be? The reacher or the settler?

You would want to be the settler which would mean you are more desirable than your spouse . On the other hand, you should not like to be the loser who had to settle for less. The very fact that someone decided to settle for less removes the superiority/desirability from that person and (s)he cannot be the settler anymore. Similarly, the very fact that the reacher had it in him to reach for his dreams makes him desirable.. The minute you decide that you are a settler, you are reduced to a less desirable person who may not have much to settle for anyway and the moment you label yourself a reacher, you gain the desirability of a settler. This is, therefore, a paradox. You can never decide on who you are - the reacher or the settler.

I decided to ask people to test my theory and one beautiful evening in Ooty, with a group of friends in a happy high state of mind, I asked my friend what she thought of herself in her relationship. She kept changing her mind. I didn't get a chance to ask her husband about what he thought. I am not sure if this was the result of the conflict between the human need to be the best and a possible female need for a superior spouse (She seems too cool to have this need, but you never know. Afterall, natural selection has had reason to preserve the set of genes in females to want to select the best of males) . I need to`ask a guy friend to understand more about this and I shall complete this post then.

2011-04-09T22:45:00.000-07:00

"The quality of your life can be measured by the number of things you do because you want to as opposed to the number of things you do because you have to."

The Orbit Theory of relationships.

2011-04-07T04:26:00.000-07:00

As we zoom out into the universe, there unfolds a picture of planetary bodies revolving around a centre in fixed distant orbits.
The picture is the same when we zoom in to see the structure of an atom. The electrons revolving around the nucleus in orbits.

If I make a sketch of me and my relationships, I get a similar picture.
I am the nucleus. The people in my life are the electrons in the different orbits. Every once in a while these electrons can shift orbits and be closer or farther away from me. The people closest to me are the ones in the first orbit. I have a comfort zone with them. The bond is strongest here and it is mutual. And I know they'll stand by me always. They do not jump out with their excess energy to go out of my system. If at all such a thing happens, that is something which will change the very constitution of my existence.

The valence electrons could jump out any time. They may be the very interesting category, of people due to their high and unstable energy levels but have short life or no much significance in your system.
It is important to know your electrons and where they belong.

The whole set of people we know are all nuclei with a set of electrons going around them. We may share electrons, we may not. We may have orbits which cut across others and electrons may jump on and off.

Such an intricate picture of the social network!
Such a cosmic picture of the Facebook!!

Disclaimer: The analogy may have overlooked details and may have flaws which you could find if you are a chemistry enthusiast.

The Cause-Effect Theory

2011-04-07T02:44:00.000-07:00

Back in my engineering college days, I was labelled as the person with the ability to make things come true (unfortunately, only bad things) by saying them. It has happenned more than once that I would make a thoughtless comment and it would just come true.
Once a friend(Sankar) was going back home from college and I asked him to drive carefully. He met with an accident on the way.
Another time, I asked a friend (Smitha) if she was scared of getting a shock from the various current sources in the electrical machines lab. We were preparing for the exam when I asked her this and she said that she was not scared at all. She really wasn't but she did get a shock on the day of the exam. ( Nothing bad happenned but she was convinced that I had the power to make terrible things come true by saying them :D )
There are more, but I'll limit the examples to two.

Whenever I think about these incidents, I get stuck in a loop of cause and effect.
Could they have been related?

There are 3 possibilities/explanations:
1: Because I said it, these incidents occurred.
Cause - I said it
Effect - The incidents took place.

Explanation: Because I said it, a seed of doubt was somewhere planted in their minds which led to the wavering moment when the incidents took place.
To put this another way, by the law of Attraction explained in "The Secret" by Rhonda Bryne, listening to my words probably attracted those things into their lives!
I have black dotted tongue which is generally associated with witch-like powers according to legend. The fear it might have unconsciuosly intstilled in my friends (who are aware of the legend and of the color of my tongue) might have been strong and therefore, the seed of doubt might have been quite fertile.

2: Because they were going to happen (and I am very sharp to read the signs ;) ), I said it.
Cause - The incidents were going to happen.
Effect - I sensed it and said it.
Explanation: - Though I might have said it thoughtlessly, I may have picked up signs from their general demeanor, which I was not consciously aware of, but led me say those things. For eg, Sankar might have looked tired/sleepy or excited when he said bye before going home or Smitha was tensed about the lab exam, so I sensed the nervousness which might have actually caused the shock.
3: These are noise and there is absolutely no causality.
For reasons attributed to our genetic constitution, option number 3 may not be interesting to explore. Read more about this in Fooled By Randomness by Nicholas Nissam Taleb.

Fooled by Randomness - Nassim Nicholas Taleb

2011-04-05T02:32:00.000-07:00

.

While reading the book and after, I could not quite decide if I liked it.
I've always liked the "elephants in the cloud" thought ( that human beings are wired to find a purpose and meaning to everything, to find patterns in the chaos that surrounds us) and the author has explained the idea very well in his field of risk analysis and has been able to extrapolate them it to life in general, in his random thoughts. I learnt a lot of new things from the book and I liked the book for that.
However, I believe that it could have been written a little better than this. It was more like a compilation of scattered thoughts and examples which I could not quite classify as a writing style. I really didn't see any reason why the things in a particular chapter were consolidated to be in that chapter. They might as well have been in another section. I am not sure if there was something huge in the book which I totally missed due to which I missed that connection and order. To conclude, the things he talked about have not found their way into a single sector in my mind.
Now, that may be because of my ignorance in the area of probability, I might have had to spend some extra effort on it which might have spoilt my ability to appreciate the writing style, if there is one :). This opinion is likely to change if I attempt to read it a second time.
It is a lot like Outliers, Tipping Point, Freakonomics and the likes and I find the social behavioral economics /psychology and the cognitive bias studies and game theory experiments very interesting. So, the book kept me interested. In short, good read.

PS: I am again trying to find patterns when I wonder if there was any reason why I picked up this book soon after completing The God Delusion. It was more like this idea keeps coming in the books I pick up to read:).
That leads me, yet another time, to the 'cause-effect theory' which has always been playing in my head for quite a long time. More about that later.

'The God Delusion' by Richard Dawkins

2011-03-22T04:41:00.000-07:00

An interesting read.
I admire his writing style and choice of words. The book encourages arguments in the reader's mind for and against the idea being debated. It helps you ask more questions to yourself and understand the God in you a little better and be one level stronger, spiritually.

Technically, the book is not so much of an attack on the God hypothesis as it is on religion. Calling the book God Delusion may not be acceptable for people who believe in God but take the religious beliefs with a pinch of salt. Labelling God a delusion, for the flaws of religious beliefs is like saying patriotism is a vice because they cause wars.( I do not attach too much value to patriotism as such, but that is a different story.) He argues desperately for the non existence of God and speaks against agnostic views and that seemed to me to be fanatic. He has not been successful in convincing the reader that he is not a fanatic in forcing his theory to people who do not believe in it.

The argument against the existence of God , put forth by Dawkins, is the theory of evolution. However, for argument's sake, evolution and God are not mutually exclusive. Even if there is a physical God overlooking the day to day activities in the universe, evolution theory can still coexist with this idea. Evolution can only prove that the religious texts are fictional, at least parts of them.

Religion has led to the idea of creationism and has laid down numerous rules to lead lives. I am glad that the school I went to did not drill in any such ideas into the heads of its Christian and non-Christian students.(There are exceptions). We understood that the Bible was not meant to be taken literally. We learnt about evolution in Biology and we embraced the idea. No parent had a problem with that. As a student, it was absolutely agreeable to me to believe that there could be a God and he could have a hand in "designing" the idea of evolution. If there is an omnipotent God, what a marvelous way to design a universe where the only simple rule is for all genes to strive hard to thrive. There is no better credit to any God than that of designing Evolution.

I am agnostic about the existence of the widely accepted idea of God ( I say this at the risk of sounding clichéd ). According to me, God is a personal idea and it varies from person to person. What is right and what is wrong does not matter; what works for me may not work for you. My idea of God is one that is evolved from the time I heard about it and is still a work-in-progress. I am happy that my grandmothers were able to tell me about God with enough embodiment of the idea for the kid in me to understand and enough abstraction for me to later develop my own concept. My parents told me that God is to life what salt is to food. We all like it to be just right for our taste.

Here is my answer to Dawkins. I am with Dawkins in all his protests against religion and its evil side effects. I agree that being overly dependent on anything or anybody other than your own self is not appropriate. I agree with the biologist in that there is most certainly no God who supervises the world as we know it. However, there definitely is a God in my head. If I want an entity called God to exist, it is because I would like to believe that the things happening to me and around me are not entirely random and chaotic. I would like to see a pattern, a theory with which it works. If this is in our genes, it is pretty thriving and we have not evolved into anything better yet. If we are wired to see patterns and if this is my natural constitution, I don’t see a reason why I would want to disturb it by strongly opposing the instinct in me to believe in my God. It helps me be optimistic. It helps me dream and want to achieve more. My God is the poetry in my life. My God is Hope-personified. And Professor, yours is maybe, science. We just call them differently.

2009-06-10T11:35:00.000-07:00

You are the poem I forgot to write,
You are the song I tried to sing,
You are my voice which never came out
You are the tune I dont have notes for.
You are my dream, you are my pain.

You are the full moon behind the clouds.
You are my dream which never came true
You are the corner of my heart in my loneliness.
You are the reason I smile to myself

You are the soul of my sigh.
You are the breath I took in
You are the air that I couldnt exhale.

You are the sleep I never slept through.

You are the soft breeze which blows on my wounded heart
and makes me feel the intense pain.

You are my child which was stillborn.
You are the feather that turned me on
But you flew away before the ecstasy.

Spirituality- Knock Knock.

2008-05-26T10:37:00.000-07:00

Back in my first year of engineering, there was some sort of college tech fest going on, in which my answers in a questionnaire in some stall stamped me to be too spiritual for my age. I was depressed and unhappy with the results then. I sometimes listen to Gita saransh with my father, that really is an eye opener. These talks-they always make me think, they make me question myself and my own beliefs. The tryst with these spiritual ideas made me move on from a confused theist to an agnostic to an atheist to a state where I am not sure what I am.
God is like the thread in a garland of flowers. Each one of us is the flower, each one of us have God within ourselves. The flowers get spoiled in a day; life is that short, but the thread remains, it does not go down with the flower. Flowers get pulled off the thread and some dry up but the thread is in tact. This thread is what they call God. I still do not understand why w e should worship it. Worshiping is probably jus t a means to get to know the thread and bring us close to the realization that it is the thread which is eternal and that it is all one or part of one whole. Worshipping probably helps us love ourselves better.
I just happened to go to the basic course of Art of Living -all out of curiosity and also due to an attraction towards the man with the smiling radiant face. There should be somehting about him which comes out as the sparkle in his eyes. I, unlike many authors of such a column , didnt feel that it changed my life, but it did help me think more and more about the order of the universe and how big problems are just part of a bigger scheme of things.

2008-03-11T11:08:00.000-07:00

Reality check:

Its very important in life. Do a reality check every once in awhile to be down on earth from that beautiful cloud numbered nine. Yes, do fly high up there and enjoy life but dnt forget the reality check, otherwise, you might once just fall down from the heights and the impact wil be huge.

Fall Colors.

2007-10-11T18:13:00.000-07:00

( Written in Fall, 2007, Boise, Idaho,US)

Life looks so much better with the fall colors around. The fallen leaves make the streets look beautiful, like the pretty girl with her hair left carelessly open and the wind playing with it. The trees which make Fall beautiful, they are so exquisite. They are red, orange,yellow and lo, I see the greens too. But these arent the lush green "greens" . They are the evergreen greens, which sadly arent so beautifully green.

I suddenly felt thtat they almost spoilt the view. But they took me deep into thinking about the highs and lows of life.

There would come a time down the lane where these "full-of-life"trees would shed all the leaves and look barren and make the place look depressing. The corpses of these trees are like the low times in life. Even while they embrace death, they do celebrate. But then whn everything is cold and freezing and dead, the evergreens are still green, they still stand tall amongst all the dead trees and frozen lakes. One kind of a saintly life, no extreme happiness, no extreme sorrow.

Which of these lives would be better? I suppose a colorful life is much better and eventhough the winter buries it all under the snow, one could know for sure that spring isn't far behind.

Remember, dreams do come true..

2007-06-03T00:33:00.000-07:00

DisneyLand must have been a dream come true to many people.

But when I stepped in, I felt that this was a stale dream which was coming true. I would hav enjoyed it so much more if I had gone there as a child. There was but another dream which was coming true, which I enjoyed nevertheless-Going places with my friends. We had a perfect holiday, going wild in the roller coasters and having fun roaming about, but Disneyland left me thinking that night and the days after . What is the meaning of a dream coming true when it is not the right time or when the right time was long gone.? What is the meaning of working to make your dreams come true if it could just change any moment or gradually over a period of time and then you come to know that all you have planned for wasnt worth all the trouble and was afterall just a silly dream?

While looking up at Disney's castle in the wild colors and artificial drops of fire in the sky with the soothing music and the luring voice tellin me that yes dreams do come true, I felt purely happy. As much as I enjoyed it, I felt a bitterness creeping up about dreams coming true.But this one visit definitely left me with another dream..of visiting the place with my kids. and of seeing them beam with happiness and of being happy about making their dreams come true at the right time. but then, I can't dream my child's dream, can I?

2007-03-07T22:37:00.000-08:00

What man achieves in life is basically a matter of what he wants.
and how and how much.

What is your ambition has been a question which has been asked to everyone of us.
My answer has metamorphosed from teacher to doctor to engineer to artiste and finally to something very vague.

At different points of our lives, we would hav had different answers to the same questions.
And the point is that it keeps changing through out your life. And it really is a mystery what decides what makes you happy. Sometimes something which you have always wanted might not make you so happy as somthing which you had not given one thought..
There is a naughty child in everyone. We crave for something which is out of reach. Whn you know you cant have it, you ache for it. but once it is ours, we just throw it around or worse still, ignore it and forget its existence..

Aimless in Seattle

2007-02-18T17:32:00.000-08:00

A perfect holiday. That is what I am having in Seattle right now. Washington is indeed a green state. On the drive through the freeways, I couldnt help thinking how much of a part of our skin and souls the greenery of a scenery is. Lost in some freeways due to a lack of sophistication to set the GPS, I had a great time finding our way to the hotel. Drives, they always drive me crazy, more so when there is music around. We were hungry and tired but the feast to the eyes was crawling its way down the heart to our digestive system as a solace.
A new group, new city, new fun. I could be alone when I wanted to, but I never once felt lonely. Was enjoying the detached feeling in the group. My outings have been almost always with the best of my friends as I know that anything can be fun when I am with them but here I loved the anonymity, as the group was good fun.

Had our fill of good Indian food and I almost felt tears inmy eyes, due to the spice ( after a break of 4 weeks) and alsodue to some feeling of patriotism (I agree Karan Johar is too melodramatic, but I understand he has point there :) ) For that matter, we had earned this tasty food as we walked uphill along the road and waited for half a.n hour for the restaurant to open, because, though we were hungry, our taste buds werent ready for compromises.

My friend came to pick me up and we chatted away to glory till some time in the night updating each other with the details of our lives and calling up all our friends around and teleconferencing.
Went out on a drive with her and did a 'heart-ful' of shopping with her. Listening to one of my fav songs along the drive I just could nt believe that this was happening as it was too good to be true. I realized that it truly was a dream come true as I looked at myself from some elated state of being.

Hoping for a fulfilling third day of vacation before joining back to work.

"touchwood".

2006-08-06T22:00:00.000-07:00

A part of a little something I had written a year ago:

For some reason, she wept a lot that night. Came back home and wept her heart out. For not doing anything she wanted to do in life. For having done everything she had not wanted in life.. For having lost the one and only one self earned love in her life..For not having enough fun , for her folly of still waiting for that something which might toss her head over heels in ecstasy.. Yes, she has been ecstatic and happy but then, still, something is missing..Is it going to be death that she is waiting for?

He stirred in the bed.
He didn’t wake up as he was fast asleep after tucking Baby into bed.

She realized that she was not going to sleep for the whole night. After the tears dried up for the time being, she got up from there, went up to the PC and put some soft music and started browsing through the snaps..

She went for his wedding today. Met some old friends. Most of them are abroad making money and having fun.
He has found his woman for life by himself. A smart girl 5 years younger to him, whom he met in the US. He fought her way into his Orthodox family.
He was never ready to do this for me. He never would have fought for me. She thought desperately with a sense of loss and hurt pride. But then, neither would she have changed her priorities for him. They had not even talked about it. He never was free to talk about it, back then.
She felt acidic with a feeling of jealousy to see him do a love marriage.
And a feeling of having lost something precious.
He was always the shy kind. And therefore very desirable. and he still is. He looked so different. He has changed so much. Looked more matured. and therefore more desirable..She has grown used to feeling for him at times that she no longer feels guilty for the momentary emotional adultery. She has acknowledged and accepted this nameless relationship she secretly had in some corner of her heart.

She has had lots of friends and occasional crushes, interests, soft corners, flings and flirting sprees to make her life colorful and interesting and exciting during her pre-marriage years, she now remembers this relationship as a bit distinguished, as it had somewhere in her heart, struck a tender chord to add to the music of her life.

She has not talked to him after her wedding. And to think that no day had passed without talking to him for about a year before marriage.And then, after quite a long while, he called her to invite for his wedding. A long silence after he told her the news. He in his thoughts, she in hers, or maybe they in theirs..Words Unspoken.

Though it had been just a period of emotional stir and hormonal tide for her with him, the taste it left has lasted so long in her. She kept all that safe in her heart so that she could savour it any time she wanted. She felt she had lots to talk to him now..and today when she saw him she knew tht even he would want to tell her lots .. with refreshed memories of all the old talks they’ve had..to pour out lots of emotions to each other..but they both know how important it is to leave so many things unsaid so that it works out well in everybody’s hearts.. The little-too-long-a-moment their paths crossed has left the fragrance in their lives and some part of him is still green in her.

She got up and stood in the balcony to see the night sky ,took a lungful of the fresh night air, hoping to cleanse every breath of thought she was having and exhaled her infidelities which got frozen in the chill night..

All characters in this story are fictitious and are figments of my imagination. Any resemblence to anyone living or dead is purely coincidental or a figment of your imagination.

Return to Love

2006-07-27T21:42:00.000-07:00

Last weekend, we(me and my roomies) went out shopping. The four of us had set out to buy sarees to wear for our roomie's wedding. We all were on a shopping spree and bought many good things and got all that we wanted and much more, of course, and by the end of the day we were contented with the result of our great shopping day. We decided that good shopping is the most refreshin exercise and sport. Take home was about 10 covers of stuff and a slight heart ache for me.

No, you guessed it wrong.It was not my thin wallet that caused the heart ache. It was love. Sipping the bitter musambi juice at the end of the full day exercise, my mind was working on a lost love, a bittersweet feeling. Friends, towards the end of the shopping day, I fell in love and lost it before I realized it. The subject of my love: a very ethnic looking salwar suit. It was the perfect color combination of red and blue and had an "earth-look" ( can't define what I mean, sorry) to it and the most feminine kind of a dupatta. It looked like that piece of cloth which I had always wanted in my wardrobe. I knew I'd look good in it. I loved it but ended up not buying it.

It was an ordinary salwar suit by looks but the price conveyed something different. It just was not worth the amount, with respect to the grandness of the dress. Well, discouraged by my friends and owing to my fatigue to fight back combined with the hollowness of my bank account after a long shopping day and also due to the lack of time, I decided not to buy it. I declined my heart the pleasure coz my head said so. My heart wud not have felt heavy if I had not seen it at all.

Sitting in the auto on my way back, I said good bye to my lost love. And it got me thnking, the cold night wind blowing against my face tickled so many questions in me which I tried to answer. Once I get the taste of love, will I be able to forsake it with a light heart? I'd have been happy before it came but once it comes and goes, the void, the vacuum, would it not be enough to suck happiness out of my life? Is this what I'll do to my love if I ever find it? Will I not fight for winning my love, the love which I know is suited for me? Will I be discouraged by the whole world and my own head owing to such worldly reasons, even though I know that this was The One I had waited for, all along? Won't I ever change my priorities? Will I not attend to my heart ache? What would I be waiting for? Divine Intervention?
I did not get any answers to any of these questions. But when I reached home, I had decided that I am not going to wait for Divine Intervention but will manually go there myself and get the dress, the love for which taught me something. It is my head which decided to buy it realizing the worth of the dress not really in terms of money but in terms of its importance in my wardrobe. And it will be my head which would decide the real worth of my efforts in love in terms of his importance in my life. Yes, my head does listen to my heart. I can count on my head to serve me as the best filter by asking questions and finding out how desperately I want it and will eventually win back my love, if it is beyond some frivolous emotion brought about by the chemicals and hormones in my system.

And the next day morning, I called up the shopowner to tell him to keep my dress safe for me till I come and get it the next weekend.

2006-05-09T02:45:00.000-07:00

Meeting Rhett Butler.

Talked to a friend after a long time and he reminded me about an old crush of mine.

I had a big crush on Rhett Butler, was head over heels for him after reading Gone with the Wind. His personality and the perfect romantic picture his masculine presence in the novel, imprinted on my mind, had blown me off my feet . As much as I hated Scarlett O ‘Hara, for her snobbishness, I liked her for her spirit. But I kept feeling that it should not have been her who should have been with Rhett!!! I hated it that a snob like Scarlett got all his attention. My crush on Rhet Butler would have been probably like Scarlett’s feeling for Ashley. (When she finally could have won Ashley, she realized that she is no more attracted to him.)

Looking back, I realize how silly a feeling it was because I have come to realize that a Rhet Butler really does not exist, for his very existence will spoil his magnetism. Rhett Butler is like that complicated yet beautiful song which I had imagined myself sing and had felt happy, but which if I really had sung , would have suffered from damage of degree one. A Rhett Butler in real life might be considered to be a “horrible male” and the sparks might really not work out . I have realized that the people I have taken a liking to, are miles away from Rhett Butler. And now I know that I’ll never meet my Rhett Butler, as there isn’t one.

But the ever-so-romantic in me still beams at the picture of myself waltzing with the very imaginary Rhett Butler.

The Lost, the Found & the Unknown

2006-03-20T07:21:00.000-08:00

A tear shed for the found love,
A tear shed for the love unfound..
And a tear for the lost.

A sigh for the found happiness,
one for the glee imagined,
And one for the happiness lost...

A tear for the laughs together,
A tear for the laughter undone,
A tear for the laughters missed.

A tear for the lost pride,
One for the ego boosted,
And a smile for the worthless vanity.

A regret for the spoken words,
A regret for the words unspoken,
A regret for the words lost..

A yearning for the tunes unsung,
A yearning for the tunes unheard,
And one for the beats missed..

A thought about the lost time,
One for the seconds gained
And one for the hours wasted..

A hurt from the friend found,
A hurt from the anonymous..
A hurt for the friend lost..

A smile for the thoughts found,
One for the unfound
And one for the lost thoughts..

From the one lost in thoughts..Lost in the unknown.

Lost & Found , Found and Lost, un-Found & un-Lost.

Of men and sandals.

2006-02-09T21:33:00.000-08:00

At this juncture, my groom hunting has lots of things in common with my quest for a nice,decent pair of sandals. My friends know how fussy I am in shopping to get only the perfect ones, be it clothes or sandals or anything. They dread the thought of coming with me to look for a sandal for me. Perfect Sandals For Me, I believe are as rare as a perfect alliance! I have always mercilessly ignored stuff like clothes,shoes if I don't like them cent percent. Even if they are gifts or are carefully handpicked by my parents with lots of love. Now, that could be deadly in the case of a husband.;)

My idea of a perfect sandal would be:
1) It should be comfortable to wear.
2) Should look good on my feet.
3) Should not be too expensive.
4) Should last enough

I believe, broadly, this would be eveyone's criteria while buying a pair of shoes or sandals, though there could be ppl who dont care about point no:3. But there would be different factors for different ppl for each of these points. Like for eg, there would be short/striclty stylish girls, a high heeled-platform or pointed shoes/sandals would be the right one. And a pair of sandals looking good on your feet would depend on if your feet are broad and short or thin and long or fair or dark or petite.

So THE one for me would be flats as they don't make me look taller and also because they are better for my spinal cord, striclty with backstraps which gives me the proper gait. And for it to look good on my feet, i would go for less broad sandals with thin-strapped, light coloured, preferably beige, sandals. Also, I can't think of wearing something very expensive out to the dirty roads.

(Of course, groom hunting problem is of greater magnitude than mere sandal shopping due to many reasons, one reason being the fact that I myself am not clear about my idea of a perfect life partner. So no exact definitions for points no:1,2,3 and 4.)
I might never be able to find the pair of sandals which suits me, I might have to be just happy with the okay ones..
Since shopping for a sandal has always been so difficult, I have stopped the search and thought that I'll wait for the right one to come along. So whenever I go out shopping for anything with anyone, i keep my eyes open for 'Merawala Sandal' just to find out if it is out there somewhere...
something somewhere is made for you.....:)

PS: Please note that I am no feminist and there is no intention of projecting an analogy:men and sandals. Any resemblance of the kind is purely a coincidence.

2006-01-05T03:38:00.000-08:00

People can widely be categorized into different groups depending on their influence in your lives:

Some people are extremely essential for a happy existence. They are enrichment to your souls and refreshment to your mind and deprivation of their company or their presence in ur life for a period of time ( the duration, depending on ur tolerance level!), once you have known one of this kind could be devastating. You could feel the moss getting deposted on ur soul.
Here is where you see sharing of thoughts much more than sharing of daily events. You might go without knowing where exactly he is but never miss to find out how exactly he feels.
Such people come to your life not very often, and their words and moments with them are worth treasuring either for the sheer quality of the person or for the very happy times you have had together, the happiness which would have nourished you much more than a "chicken soup" could have done to the souls.. This is the kind with whom you would feel the existence of a bond strong enough to be sustained even if you don’t see/ talk very often.
Though you can not deny His strings in the matters of the mind, a relationship of this kind can always be thought upon as a matter of choice, where you flock together purely by choice.

There are some people whom you get used to, like a habit. You get so used to sharing your daily lives that you reach a point where you feel his void if he is not around. You would want to talk to him on a regular basis, so religiously like your looking for saunf after a heavy lunch. You know you could very well do without him but not quite do so, owing to your habit.

Some people go around with you for mere company. You don’t mind his company, once in a while go even to the extents of liking it but not quite so much to even cast a thought about him in your free time when you are alone. You might go around together for the fact that you somehow got together by the games played from Above and yielding to it, acting a part in His huge drama of destiny, you stick together rather than being alone.

Then there are these kind of people who are great threats to your pleasant countenance. They could be pests, eating your soul and thriving on you. They could be predators looking out for company and jumping at it, the first opportunity they get a glance of it.I'd stay away from them. They could really dwell on you and your patience and enrich themselves by satisfying their hunger for another human presence in their lives , they are gluttons, feed them and they eat howmuchever you give, grow so wide and huge , enough to obscure your visions and flow of thoughts. They are the kind who can’t tolerate their company themselves, so look for others to inflict it on( so says my friend,apparently after a thorough obseravtion of ppl of this kind). You would love your own company much more than theirs. I would rather be alone, left to my thoughts, even for a long time than be with them even afor a short while.

There could be many many more kinds on which I might be able to give my comments, I shall update as and when I can think about one and let this post grow as I grow wiser.

Well, these categories are all relative and somebody who is "soul enriching" for me could be just a “habit” for you. Though there are less chances that a soul enriching person to me can be a pest to you, the chances of such a thing happening cannot be overlooked as the human mind is so differently designed that the habitat inside each could be so different.
There could be many many categories, come to think of it, but then I might have to sit and write about each and every single person in this world which could be quite a trouble for me as much as it would be for you to read.

But there is something which is common to all these different knds of ppl . Whatever kind they are, they are sure to leave a void, a hole( like the Miss Mitten shaped hole felt by Estha and Rahel) , if they leave you after coming into your life, or shift their existence from one group to another wrt your state of mind at that point of time (The change would have been in you or in him or in both) . You see it as a bright hole or a dark one is upto you but the absence of each kind will be felt, with varying intensity depending on what and how much they mean to you, at some point or the other or always, if they ever happened to cross your path and meet you at least long enough for you to classify them to these groups.
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Just thought of another kind of ppl..Those whose opinions matter the most to you..With them you would feel intellectually equal and can have long discussions and arguments which could give the impression to the spectators that they could be fighting. But the fact is that each person, howmuchever different their perspectives are, respect the other's view and is ready to give it a try to see it the other way. Irrespective of what the listeners think they fight their way to a conclusion, if any, or otherwise, nourish themselves with the new perspective they were introduced to, by the other. They are the best to talk to and spend time and with time, you become aware of a strong bond which is unshakeable, inspite of all differences. These kind could very well be a subset of the first category.
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Man, this has left me thinking and the consequence of having started wrting this blog has been a lesser attention to my work, thereafter.. I thought I could have the code built while I am writing and thereafter forget about it or keep it running as a background process, and set off with this little piece of a post, but little did I know that this one was going to capture my full attention and was going to strive with all its might to come out of the background and perform. So I was interrupted by these thoughts while I was trying to continue my work after the break I took to put up this post..

And then there are these kinds of people who are really nice and whom you respect really lots but not too nterested to go near or not had a chnace to. They could pose a slight danger of boredom in that they could be a lil too nice and too perfect and so not compatible enough to you in that respect.

And then of course, there are peolpe who are a lil of all or some of all the above categories..

2005-12-30T03:50:00.000-08:00

Whats in a dream?
My colleague sent me a new year e-card, wishing me a new year full of a whole lot of things, out of which what struck me was happiness. "Happiness, the kind that you have when your dreams come true." was the wish.

True. The happiness you get when your dreams come true is so round, so fulfiling and beautiful.
But what about the disappointment when your dreams are shattered?

Dreams are His way of showing us something which would grow as a vision (so says my friend - he thinks dreams which would be fulfilled later on are called visions and therefore, only a loser has dreams, the winner always has visions).

When we were kids, our dreams, our wishes and fancies knew no bounds and we would crave crazily for even the most unattainable things, which more than once has landed me with disappointment. But we don't care then, we dream, laugh if we get them true, cry if we don't and move on.
But the disappointments which surface from our dreams now affect us more. Is it because we were more mature as kids to deal with our dreams? (Its nice to observe kids smiling and crying in their sleep. Probably , they are living the dream they have in their sleep.)
I have always dreamt of everything perfect in life, as a child. As I grew up, I came to the realisation that perfection is unattainable. Whatever be it, there is bound to be some imperfection which you would have to live with. The realisation made me cautious in my dreams to come. I would keep reminding myself "dreaming feels nice, but dont fly away to paradise with it ,come down once in a while and realise that it could always be shattered, could always be turned unworthy of reality". Well, man grows more practical as he grows up. So did I. The more practical me, therefore tended to dream less, so as to avoid heartbreaks.
As years go by, I grow more practical. Am I giving up dreaming now? Am I scared of the disappointment which awaits me on my inability to transform them to reality?Am I scared, if I have dreams and not visions, I will be stamped a loser, will be looked down upon by myself? On the other hand, if I don't have dreams and something nice happens, it becomes a surprise and I would be delighted to great extents at the unexpected flash of Lady Luck's divine smile. ( which is, of course not so fulfilling as the happiness which you feel on seeing your dreams coming true).
Some say, okay, don't dream sooo much, pursue attainable goals..But what is "attainable"? How much can I dream? Is there a limit?
Having a dream of attainable goals and pursuing to make the vision come true is not "dreaming", it is planning. So does that mean, dreaming is not good? Does that mean, winners never dream, they just plan? Even they are scared of dreaming? What about the loser who dared dream even his not so "attainable" and let go off the fear of disappointment and had the courage to see the dream eye to eye, to make his heart happy for a while? Who is the loser? The one who had a vision and dared take only calculated risks or the one who dared to let his heart go and fly high? Who is the loser? The one who didnt dream or the one who did?

I don't know the answers. I feel, the more you dream, the more happy and unhappy you become, the more you get to taste the flavors of each.
But thats what life is about. Tasting the tears and fun. The more you have it, the more of life you would have seen, the more of life you would have lived.
So dream and live life more.

Happy New Year ! Have a lovely wonderful year with fulfilled dreams..

The highs and lows of love?

2005-12-30T02:20:00.000-08:00

Below, I have copied excerpts from my personal notes ( where I used to 'blog in' my thoughts ).

This was a piece written with a sudden rush of adrenalin . Most of you could disagree with me in this but this is the very thought which passed my mind that very moment when I barfed it all out from my mind. No offense meant.

Dec 17th,2004
Love:

That divine feeling which puts you in an ecstasy of needing someone and feeling needed, your world will consist of just the two of you, being happy together, no matter what.
Enjoying pain together, no matter what.
Tasting life together, no matter what…
Complementing each other, complimenting each other,
Satisfying egos of each other, no matter what..
Loving the self more,consequently.
where you discover things like " your soul " and a mate for it!, whose existences were unknown to you till then!

A state where you have a tender heart,a soft heart..soft ONLY for the beloved.
Hard elsewhere…So hard that a person with a full view of the entity called the heart would be nothing less than confused! Its a feeling whch makes you extremely sensitive to the beloved(alone)and utterly insensitive to everything else seemingly ‘foreign’ to the heart!
I see two mutually exclusive worlds here. The feelings in one seem to have no place in the other…The thoughts in one world don’t fit in the other..The brain transforms into heart!!And problems caused by a lack of brain is deadly!! The ppl in love-the brain dead, or shall we say ppl in love tend to hate that entity called brain and kill it, gradually??

After all, what is absolute? happiness or peace? I used to think they are dependent states of mind,now I am beginning to see tht they are necessarily not.It all depends on how much of your brain you have killed and how much you are able to see..Well,if there is unhappiness around while you are in ecstasy but you never even see the unhappiness, then whats wrong? For you ,you have your world and you are happy.You never even know the unhappiness around. Is it true happiness? In a way it is..only in a way..
It is, if you are sure you will never open your eyes to see the full picture ever again..It is, if your dead brain cells never grow back. But then for the cells to never grow back, the brain has to be fully dead and tht wud mean they will never grow back, and that would also mean you re dead!But the fact is tht unless you are dead, the brain cells do grow back with time and your eyes do open at some point of time to bring you to the reality of the unhappiness dwelling around ..just to make you unhappy for all the happy times you ‘ve ever had…

Well, whatever it is, no doubt that its the best and strongest feeling given to human kind. And that there is no heart not wanting to taste the flavour of love..
So much for the power of hormones!

Dec30th,2005:

I sometimes feel, the elation which I feel when I listen to a good romantic song , which is the same in timbre as the elated feeling I have always associated with that feeling called love, is a virtual thing. I sometimes doubt the reality of the feelings I have always attributed to falling in love. .Well they have been imaginary in my life and now I feel they will always be, for probably, I had been wrong all over. The real experience of it could be totally different from my illusions.I have always thought of music as a good simulation of love… Music has a power which can compare itself to the intoxication brought about by being in love. It can make me feel elated or just happy or very sad or bitter or anything for that matter, even though there is no reason to be feeling any of these! Well, this is how you feel when you are in love, or so they say.
Once the music gets over you are back to Mother Earth with a thud! Yes, I have felt the thud, the disappointment when a song ends. Yes, I can listen to it n number of times and again, n more number of times but each time, it would be an experince different from how I felt when I listened to it, the (n-1)th time.

I have always believed in love and shall continue to do so. The above perception, dated 17thDec2004, quoted from my diary, is just my exaggerated interpretation of how people tend to renounce the rest of the world without a flinch( or with it, for flinching does not help, anyway), for their 'cause'.

2005-12-29T06:48:00.000-08:00

I smiled, thinking of the futility of feelings and the futility of analyzing them.. Life is all about this. There is no final destination you’ll reach but the journey is what it is all about. Each person you meet, each incident in ur life would have diffused lots of positive and negative elements into your life. There'd have been lots of people who would have left a lasting impression in your life sometimes by making you happy or sometimes by leaving you hurt or sometimes both . That’s the whole point. Try to imbibe what you think is the best along the path of your journey so that you become one moment richer , or one memory richer(good or bad, you have only gained!), or one scene richer, one feel richer, as you go on along the road ahead. It’s like the road paved with sometimes flowers, sometimes stones, with the scenery around becoming more and more clear as you move on, with each pixel revealing itself with more clarity as you move further. Those pixels which you seek out become visible to you more, with each person in that long wide road getting his own version of the image around, seeing only those aspects which he is passionate about, only those pixels he is interested in, tuning himself more to the wavelengths of the colors of certain fragments more than that of certain others..
Its like a jigsaw puzzle which extends itself more as you think you have come closer to the solution, guided by the beautiful, bright and mellow colors of the different pieces you have managed to find out from the infinite collection of the pieces, each one specially designed for you with God’s own palete and paints. Our folly would be to hurry up through the pieces in an attempt to get the final picture which does not exist, without taking time to appreciate and enjoy the beauty of each .

Sometimes I feel that it has all just started, I feel young and yearning for something which eventually makes me sad as I know there is nothing much to yearn about. There is going to be no big surprise in the end. The journey is what it is all about. What I am yearning for is what I am going through.

Life ..is okay ..with occasional highs and lows...moving on..Is life, a perennial state of wait? .. A long wait for something anonymous. Probably this is God’s way of making me look forward to each rising sun and each falling leaf..

On Boredom.

2005-12-27T04:09:00.000-08:00

Boredom :
The other day, I was travelling back home from office in the Wipro bus..Bus journeys to and from office are okay for me. On the way to office , I read something and coming back, I listen to radiocity. Listening to songs while travelling is one thing I just love and so the traffic is okay for me as long as Dorais plays me good music. But then, the same old ad breaks which are not as captivating as the songs or Dorais' voice and his "whippings"( oh I just like it when he whips himself after going slighly naughty on air) helped me fly off and wander across the meadows of my mind. I was just thinking of boredom. Thought quite a lot, felt like writing down, didnt have anything, so typed it into my cell. I had quite a bit of problems trying to archive it as my message memory was getting full.. Thought I can blog it all..and here I am sitting down to copy and paste it.
Well, copying is not happening..Its not fun..(Ha, I have done copying for exams once in a while and it used to be fun, though) Well then, I shall put down the gist of what I was thinking..
You know what? no moment in life is similar to any other one.The moments just pass by, never to come back to you, whatever back up you depend on( in this case, my Nokia 6610 without eye), to restore the essence of the gone moment. What remains is a trace or a memory of the whiff of that gone fragrance.

So whatever is put down will only be a shadow of what I was thinking in the bus that day evening on my way back home when Radiocity and Dorais where not entertaining me well enough..Any loss in its shape or form compared to the original( which of course nobody will find out -I shall nevertheless put a disclaimer) should purely be accepted as inevitable.

I was thinking..
What is boredom? A kind of emptiness? Or a feeling of fullness? I am not sure. I have sometimes felt that I get bored very easily in a group of two- myself with another person's self. Somehow the conversation is so channelised that inputs are less..What is to be said, all pleasantries, seem to get exhausted and then there is a slight friction in the movement of things then on. Further conversation looks quite strained and the extra effort required to hide this strain makes it all look artificial, awkward and all wrong and leaves me wondering who I am trying to please afterall and above all, why the hell!! This does not happen always but the few times it has happened has left so bad a taste in my mouth to last long enough.. Like a switch has been turned off, I might feel the smooth flow of comfortable conversation cut off just like that. The fact is, I get bored with people easily.
Hmm, let me do a post mortem on this idea of mine. Yes, a post mortem 'cuz as I am thinking I can feel that the idea is dying, indeed. I realise that its my fear of getting bored coming in my way of smooth conversation and cutting it off. I am scared if it will prove my incapability of keeping the other nterested in me.. Yes, this could be the reason, at least part of the reason. When a third person is involved, I realise that it's not my responsibility to keep up the fun in air and therefore my carefree mind gives it all. ( A couple of my friends have told me that I am fun to be with :) wait, of course without me asking them !! I choose to believe them).
Well, its my fear of getting bored which comes in my way of lots of things which could turn out to be exciting if tried out.
Just searched to see what people think of boredom and came across this.
Boredom is a vital problem for the moralist, since at least half the sins of mankind are caused by the fear of it: Bertrand Russell
Man, I could be a moralist. I could also be dangerous ...
Come to think of it in Bertrand Russell's terms, it really is something to think about..

Boredom is the price you pay for being intelligent.:)

2005-12-20T01:47:00.000-08:00

Many a times, it happens that you might think that something will make you happy and then wait for it, your whole life, sometimes being happy for the thought tht you're going to get what you want and being happy at your own imagination of the prospective happiness and sometimes being sad that you have not actually achieved what you wanted so much in life and imagining the depth and darkness of the void it has already created in your life. Now this is the way to happiness. Probably in the end, when you actually go and achieve it and reach your goal, you might not feel as happy as what your imagination had projected and extrapolated for you.
And then there is a blank in front of you. You will want to believe that you are happy; you would not really want to admit it to yourself that your imagination has let you down. Then you come down to reality and settle for the real thing which was waiting for you. And then you realize that happiness does not really have a single dream-like face and associate it with the myriad real feelings so different from the surreal ones and drink in the actual dish tasting each ingredient in the process.

And, sometimes, it also happens that you actually experience the real happiness which you had imagined( mostly out of the blue and unplanned), then you will be in the culmination of happiness and then the thought that you can't be more happy tones it down and you finally come down, cherishing the memories and savoring them in an attempt to relive the moments. After a while you find yourself trying to relive those cherished moments from beneath the moss and rust settled on them with time, with disintegrated elation each time though you are still aware of the fact that those moments when they were in the present tense gave you the best happiness of your life.

2005-12-19T00:55:00.001-08:00

My thoughts..aren't they too close to my heart for me to share?
Do I not want to relish that secret happiness of smiling at my mind's musings, myself?
Don't I want to laugh at something for some reason which only I can understand and only I can enjoy?

I was always here somewhere around the corner to see whats happening..Why not make something happen? And here I am!

Well, there are so many things so close to your heart and soul that you really can't share.
For everything else, there is this blog. :)
This blog, a key to my mind, a key to my life!