Perceptions

Electric Cars and Bikes - The Myth of clean energy

2012-02-10T07:39:00.002+05:30

Of late I have come across many advertisements and articles which tout electricity powered vehicles as being environmentally friendly and clean. This information is grossly incorrect. The sight of an emission-less vehicle as compared to one which spews out noxious exhaust fumes is embedded in people's minds. This perception often makes people believe they are indeed adopting cleaner transport. But are they?

In India, close to 65% of the energy generated comes from coal based power generation. For every unit of energy consumed as electricity, 0.65 units is produced from coal, one of the dirtiest known energy sources. And by the time that energy is delivered to homes, over 30% of the energy goes wasted due to various losses. So, the energy companies end up producing more electricity and burning more coal to compensate for the losses.

By shifting to an electricity powered vehicle all one is doing is centralizing pollution and shifting the 'dirty' fumes to a remote location. But that's not all. The creation of infrastructure required to move the dirty fumes also end up polluting. So, there goes the myth of 'clean' electric vehicles.

The Two Fundamental Levers

2012-01-26T21:24:00.002+05:30

What more can I do?
How can I get better at what I am already doing?

Everything else follows.

Caffeine fixation

2012-01-05T23:22:00.002+05:30

How could I have not thought about this earlier? :) When you have Coffee and Chocolate syrup at home the most obvious thing to do is to add the syrup to coffee!! Yes. That's exactly what I am going to do tomorrow morning (assuming that the morning does come). In the meantime I am getting curious about how the mix might taste. This experiment might just spur me on to try a few more flavored coffee variants. You might have already realized that I am a coffee addict. If you haven't.. well, you have the answer! So long...

In pursuit of....

2011-12-18T20:51:00.004+05:30

I had gone out this morning to meet a friend of mine. I was not very sure about the route to start with. And being tired of driving all the time, I chose to use the public transport. On the way back, I was talking to family over the phone and just kept walking along without realizing where I was going. For the initial part, I kept going in circles without making any progress. But after sometime, I intuitively figured out the way to not go in circles.

I kept walking for 6.6 km or so this way and this lead me to the metro station. Now, I must say that it had been my wish to travel on the new Bangalore metro for quite sometime. For some reason or the other I missed doing it. Today it finally happened. I found the ride on the metro to be enjoyable after a long walk! After getting off the metro, I took an auto to reach home. So, why am I posting this?

Often in life, you are lost and wonder where you are heading to. The thing is, everything usually sorts itself out and along the way you also end up doing what you wished to do. This was my learning for the day and this is how I am signing off the end of this weekend, on a positive note! :)

The rear view mirror

2011-11-03T18:14:00.003+05:30

You look into the rear view mirror while driving your motor car. Doing it every now and then helps you navigate forward. Doing it a little too often tends to slow you down. Being fixated on it draws your attention away from what is in front of you.

I think the same holds true for life. Introspection is a necessary thing so long as it is in a limited quantity. You can look back every now and then to help you on your way forward. Too much of it just gets you stuck where you are.

The rear view mirror is not provided to look back all the time. The past is not embedded in our memories to keep thinking about it too often. The only purpose of the past is to enable us to face the future better prepared.

Three Musketeers - A good watch

2011-10-16T07:45:00.004+05:30

The movie 'Three Musketeers' is a must watch. Ignore anything the reviews have to say about the movie. It is an entertaining watch and is fully worth the money you pay for it.

2011-10-04T20:36:00.001+05:30

Wow, times have definitely changed... I blog sitting in the train and i have a bunch of people around me sitting with their laptops. And you had those 'good old' days when people just read books or mags or simply stared out of the window.

2011-10-01T01:19:00.003+05:30

Here is a tribute to all the frozen friendships and broken ties. While they lasted, my life was enriched and I am grateful for that. I am an optimist (except over weekends :P) and I hope that sometime in the future some of the ties will be resurrected.

Appetite for the rainy season!

2011-09-10T23:36:00.003+05:30

Tomato basil soup (served piping hot) + plain garlic bread at pizza hut - Two Things worth dying for this rainy season in Bangalore :) Surprisingly, the non-pizza menu items at Pizza Hut taste much better these days!

2011-08-20T11:06:00.002+05:30

And in hindsight why does everything appear obvious? What separates the past from the now and the future? Strange are the ways of nature. It provides the experience of the past to learn from. At the same time it throws at us a future that is uncertain. Is it supposed to be a test of our past learnings or past un-learnings or a combination of both?

Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara

2011-07-29T09:26:00.002+05:30

Very entertaining movie, fun to watch and all the songs are good. My favorite one being - "Der lagi lekin"

On a side note, Zindagi Na Milegi Dobara.. So What? In a wide wide vast universe we live in, we are not even a speck worth considering. So why all this self-importance! Deal with what you get, be happy if you get lucky, else move on, and that's all there is to it.

It is a good life! :)

2011-06-13T00:22:00.004+05:30

A very peppy tune :) and I am humming,

Oh this has gotta be the good life
This has gotta be the good life
This could really be a good life, good life

Say oh, got this feeling that you can't fight
Like this city is on fire tonight
This could really be a good life
A good, good life

When it matters...

2011-05-23T21:58:00.003+05:30

A couple of weeks ago I was part of this interesting training program on 'Customer Relationship Management'. The guy conducting this program was a seasoned veteran from the industry. He was giving an instance of how you win life long customers. In his example, he spoke about a situation where a customer is desperately looking to get a service/ product. The situation is so grave that his good reputation depends on successfully completing it. At that point, the business could take it as business as usual and say 'Oh, but my order log is full and i can deliver it to you in a month's time'. There would still be nothing wrong about it. On the other hand, if the person responsible for delivery senses the urgency and desperation of the customer and prioritizes this delivery above all else, and ends up delivering the product when it is needed the most, he wins the customer's loyalty for life.

Since this trainer was also giving a lot of gyaan about life in general, it struck me then that the same thing would also hold true for personal relationships. Sometimes people are the customers and sometimes they are the business. People never remember all things in the same way. All they remember is of times which mattered to them. When it matters, where you there? When it matters, did you keep your promise? When it matters, did you make a positive difference? Nothing else matters.

Of Questions...

2011-04-24T00:53:00.002+05:30

And having broken the first and second cardinal principles, he now stood on the cusp of breaking the third one. It was always going to come to this. And sometimes he just wished a few things were simpler, straightforward and old fashioned. Why was this resistance always present? Why not just let go and roll down the slope like everyone else, if it were anyway to come to that. What invisible string holds him and ties him down to where it began? Why was there this perpetual worry about having to stay on the right side of an increasingly blurred boundary?

Theory of agnostic cause

2011-04-05T21:02:00.001+05:30

The theory of agnostic causes states that an effect is not latent in the cause.

2011-03-29T22:35:00.002+05:30

When a basic collection of alphabets of a language can result in a complex literary work like JRR Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, would it be a leap of imagination to think that life emerged from a source which was simple and had the potentiality to become complex? Would a transformation towards a complex system need an intelligent hand or could that be achieved through randomness, provided sufficient time is allowed to pass?

2011-03-24T23:24:00.001+05:30

Actually, it is true - Everything happens for one's own good :)

The Moving Finger Types and Erases....

2011-03-23T23:33:00.002+05:30

My hand begins to type what is on my mind and then a finger starts working on the 'backspace' button. And now I wonder what Omar Khayyam would say to that! :)

"The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.

~ Omar Khayyam

Idiotic Economics

2011-02-26T16:07:00.002+05:30

Ok. Inflation sucks. Guess what they are attributing inflation to? Food demand and a growing class of consumers whose per capita consumption is growing faster than supply. Sounds like a reasonable explanation no? Actually, it is all hogwash. Demand growth is not the culprit in the current inflation equation. The problem is a supply-side one. And the supply side issues have been created by esteemed idiots sitting in the ministries of economics, agriculture and other defunct organisations. At this point let me slip into a story.

Ramu was a village simpleton and a labourer employed in agriculture. His master was a landlord who grew rice and paddy. For many years, all the landlord had to grapple with were unreliable monsoons, pests, price for his produce and of course the shark moneylenders. Then came a new devil. It was called NREGA. The government's new agenda to prove it's retardedness. Not to mention a new revenue stream for the corruption portfolio. Meanwhile, all was well for Ramu. He stopped working in the agricultural fields. Why would he need to? NREGA was providing him with a better source of income for digging up the soil and creating empty pits. He always wondered what those pits would be used for but never understood the purpose of making them. The landlord offered other labourers even more wages to stick to the farm but not too many were interested when there was NREGA to fill their pockets. Those who stayed back got more wages for their work. The prices of food commodities went up because of wage inflation and reduced supply. Monsoon was blamed. Moneylenders were blamed. And the black cat which crossed the landlord was also blamed for pushing up inflation. The NREGA policy makers realised the damage under NREGA was not enough. They felt linking the wages under NREGA to inflation would speed up their goal of looting the public even faster. Now wages would rise faster in rural farmlands, pushing prices higher and reducing supply even more. Masterstroke. So, in this way, the food inflation got out of hand. Now the Government is looking at grappling inflation with serious intensity. It has resorted to PR and confidence building statements to reduce the inflation menance. They are also considering re-indexing inflation to show a lower % change. Very ingenuous ways to tackle inflation. Polcy makers all around the world have an important lesson to learn from the Indian experience. Letting inflation slip out of hands is not the important part in all this. At the end of it all you just need to make positive statements which are farthest from the cause and also issue impossible inflation reduction targets for the future as outlooks. Neat work!

2011-01-20T00:03:00.002+05:30

Why does it always have to be fundamental and never superficial or trivial? I am not trying to be cryptic for halo effects.

When choice becomes stressful

2010-12-28T09:39:00.002+05:30

There is an inherent limit to the value of choice. In other words, negative return sets in beyond a point. Everyone finds the idea of having a basket of alternatives to choose from quite comforting. This probably works at two levels. One, it soothes our ego and provides an illusion of free will. Second, it gives us a datum to compare with. Good is not enough. It needs to be better. Better than what? The alternative.

If someone were to say the price of an item is $100, the human mind needs to estimate two things. The intrinsic value of the good as well as the value that good holds for them. When there is no comparison to look at estimating the value can become very difficult. On the other hand, if the price of an item is $100 and another with very minor value addition is $150, we can immediately perceive the first item to be a clear winner. Likewise, if one item offers something we like better than another, we can clearly see the differentiators. In a way choice makes us feel good about making a decision. It gives us the confidence that we are taking the right decision. That we are picking something we really want to.

So this should mean that having more choices is a welcome thing. But it is not. The reason being cost. There is a cost associated with evaluating choices. Choices are comfortable only so long as the alternatives clearly provide processable differences. As long as the choices are limited in number and variety, the mind can pick attributes from various alternatives and weigh their relative value. This ultimately results in picking out the item with the highest relative value among the alternatives. But this cannot go on forever. Beyond a point, the ability to hold onto the differentiators become excruciating and the mind feels cluttered. Suddenly, the problem of too much information overwhelms us and makes us feel insecure about our evaluation of choices. Many alternatives are quite similar in their value and the mind can no longer bucket the alternatives in compartments. It rather becomes a continuum. When this happens, there is an associated anxiety with picking the wrong alternative.

In other words, when there are choices, they also need to be accompanied with significant differences among themselves. Not just that, the differences need to find traction in our mind. The ability to process those differences reduces when the dimensionality and size of choices grows. The frustration of not having choices gets replaced by the frustration of not being able to choose from the available alternatives. This is also accompanied by fear of making a wrong decision. This is when choice becomes stressful and dreadful.

Life's tunes!

2010-10-24T16:33:00.003+05:30

There is a tune for everything. Have you ever wondered why certain tunes are more appealing sometimes than the others? Emotions play a part in that. There is a tune for a new beginning, one for inevitability, one more for redemption. There is one for joy, another for sorrow, one for a shade of indifference and numbness. It's not the tune which is good or bad. It is how we feel then which determines what we make of that tune. Some evergreen tunes never fade out. There are somethings in life which don't change as well. Maybe the next time you are listening to a tune, you will attach an emotion to it.

2010-09-11T00:13:00.002+05:30

I am an archer in pursuit and I am going after a beast which is elusive and impossible to capture. Maybe I will tame it. If not, I might become the weary traveler who has seen many things on the way. Perhaps i would end up finding my destiny en route. No matter what happens, I will still be better off than who I am now.

Ramblings of an unstable mind!

2010-08-29T11:16:00.005+05:30

Information visualization can reveal stunning insights, some of which are quite contrary to intuition. They reveal the world as is and help us frame theories based on facts
A reference or datum is very essential in understanding and perception. The question of 'so much' as compared to 'this' is more important than just 'so much', which can be misleading sometimes
We tend to overfit one cycle and thereby lose on accuracy to predict other cycles. Connecting the dots needs to balance the ability to weave a story against the long term play of nature
We are good story tellers because of our evolutionary trait to create rules to compress data in the brain. We are not good at anticipating disruptive changes precisely due to this ability.
The law of cause and effect tends to go out of sync with the passage of time. There is always an expiry date associated with the theories of cause and effect
Order and chaos are both intrinsic to the design of nature. Order is the portion of nature where we impose 'understanding' on and consequently Chaos is the portion which cannot be understood with a consistent explanation
Order and chaos are intertwined. They emerge from and dissolve into each other.
There are two sides to a coin. The unseen can be inferred from what is seen. What is not spoken tends to carry more important messages than what is spoken.

Of Rehearsals

2010-08-15T00:01:00.004+05:30

How often do you come across a situation where there is a requirement for rehearsing something? At some point or another, we all rehearse for that important speech in front of a distinguished gathering, we make that dummy presentation pitch before a crucial client delivery and we do a lot of preparation before that actual talk. I have on many occasions spent time working on a write-up or a short talk. I have found it helpful to go prepared beforehand. Sometimes I ask myself this question as to whether I am being honest when I rehearse for something. Very often, the act of rehearsal involves posing hypothetical questions, framing suitable answers and forming strong positions to defend a point of view (sorry, if it sounds like a chess move;)).

The point being, does a rehearsal hide my true self at the cost of showing my best/ better self? Here, I feel, it is upto the person to decide what they want. It is quite possible to put up a facade which is genuine enough with adequate practice. Likewise, it is also possible to put the true feeling or thought in the best possible way, by working on it. I am fine doing the latter because I believe we are eventually trying to place our opinion for consideration in the best possible manner. There is nothing wrong in portraying your true self in the best possible manner. What I have issues with is in trying to pass off what is not genuine with an honest face mastered by the art of rehearsals.

Online Book Shopping!!

2010-07-31T21:35:00.002+05:30

Welcome to the era of online shopping! I am quite excited about the arrival of e-commerce in India. I am already hooked onto it for buying books. There are a lot of benefits when it comes to online purchase of books:

There is a clear display of best-sellers, new arrivals, classification of books by various genre. This enables you to quickly narrow down the search to what you are specifically looking for.
The book review can be read in parallel from review sites and you get the idea of whether the book is of interest to you or not
The book is typically available at a 25% discount to the cover price, which is a significant saving of cash in your wallet. You can now get a lot more books for the same budget.
There is no need to stand and wait in long queue's at the billing and checkout counter (also add the time wasted in traveling to a bookstore, waiting in traffic, walking through a maze of crowded shelves unable to get what you are looking for)
The book is delivered to your doorstep (typically, free of shipping charges) in a neatly wrapped cover. So far I have not faced any issues on this front

With all these advantages, I am now a complete believer in online shopping when it comes to buying books. I would suggest you to try buying books online. There are a couple of good sites which I have found to be reliable. I usually compare prices and delivery options across:

www.flipkart.com and
www.landmarkonthenet.com

The Immortals of Meluha

2010-07-23T22:41:00.003+05:30

Just finished reading this book called - The Immortals of Meluha. I liked the simple and yet engrossing style of writing of the book. The author doesn't hesitate to use contemporary ideas, culture and language while describing the characters set in 1900 BC India. This makes the plot interesting and understandable to a person unaware of ancient Indian history. The main theme of the novel seems to be a search for meaning. Meaning as conveyed by concepts such as good and evil. The author suggests that varying from the norm is often considered or portrayed as evil. He brings this idea to the fore by delving into the root cause for war between the two sparring tribes, each of whom are counting on the same legend to redeem their way of life.

Another undertone in the novel is about the makings of the present day Indian society. The author explores the two ways of life which have interwoven themselves into the Indian society - the stratified society bound by systematic laws and a democratic society founded on individual freedom. The idea is to provide an explanation to the emergence of the present society from two distinct social orders, each with their own advantages. The book is the first in a three part sequel and so the story doesn't end with this part. The author leaves the audience guessing in the end. The protagonist Shiva and his consort Sati are under attack by the Nagas. Have to wait and read to know how the plot unfolds :)

Dehumanization and Web 2.0

2010-07-21T00:43:00.003+05:30

The advent of online social networks, text messages and instant messages has lead to dehumanizing emotions. I have decided to go all out against this kind of attitude because it risks breaking all essential human bonds by making bonding a big joke.

Today, the youth are particularly inclined to live efficiently rather than effectively. By efficiently, i mean going through the daily motions of life as optimally as possible. This is ok as long as it's for paying bills online or getting work done. But it has become a fad to stretch this to unbelievable proportions.

I hate it when I see my name as part of a group wishing list, be it in mail or on text messages. Group and bulk SMS's irritate me and when i am lumped with everyone else I take it to mean that I am just a part of a group of people who need to know something as a formality. WTF! I would rather wish a few people personally than make it a show of sending 100 sms' and receiving so many, knowing fully well that it means nothing to the sender or receiver.

Moving on to instant messages. When the instant messaging service was first conceived, it was probably meant to be for quick hello's for those living on two different continents. Today it has become an escape route for making life 'efficient'.

What is more, most of them need to be prompted to say about what is happening in life. It is as though everyone is living a secret life, closed and hidden. I believe that when people behave this way, they think too much of themselves. And everyone does this following one another, resulting in the - 'Hi, how are u?' syndrome.

Hi, how are u? I am fine

How are u? I am fine

When I see this, it reads to me as:

Hi, I am alive, are u?
I am alive too, how alive are u?

Why should I say anything more about my life, when you cannot say something about yours. Something which is different from the list of status messages you have already put elsewhere.

What can you really make out from text? Can u understand what is 'I am fine' or 'i am ok' when you don't even hear a person's voice? It is just a formality for the sake it. As if this was not enough, the inability to know one's emotions on messaging has made it almost mandatory to include an emoticon. Imagine saying 'get lost' with a :D smiley and without it? It can reflect two entirely different emotions. More often than not, lots of misconceptions arise because of emoticons alone.

I strongly believe that if you value someone, you should make it a personal gesture to remember or uniquely identify them. There should some meaning in communication. Not in a manner of a sham where everyone is treated the same. You will be treated in the same way as you treat everyone else. And this results in what can be termed an 'attention deficit syndrome'.

Those who matter and would have cared for you, have been cast away because of impersonal behavior. Those who don't care will only send bulk messages. What happens when you desperately want someone to pay attention to you? There is no one left and you start putting up status messages online. It is a sign of desperation. The individual wanting the recognition of identity over collectivism. The same individual who dissolved the identity by making everyone equal wants to be attended to. The notifications and status messages hoping to catch the eye of one in a hundred who will ask you 'what's wrong?' and go beyond the 'hi, how are u?'

Nothing extraordinary needs to be done to recognize people as individuals. Just be normal. Don't try to optimize and make human relations an efficient process. In the end what will happen is that when you feel human, everyone will treat you like a robot, sending notifications and nothing more that that. No point ruing over loss of human touch then!

A place called home

2010-07-07T20:32:00.005+05:30

There is a place called home. It is the only home we have ever known. It is our planet Earth. Earth - Home to all forms of life. We, the humans, constitute a tiny tiny part of the diversity. Yet, it is we who are causing the biggest impact on the planet.

Through our actions, inactions, mistakes and ignorance, we are destroying it. It is not a slow death by any means. Nature is dying. With it's death, the environment we have so long been used to will change, accelerating the extinction of life forms which thrive in these conditions. When nature goes, so will man.

At the twilight of our existence, I want to quote Carl Sagan's profound message about the Pale Blue Dot our dear Home (see that tiny blue dot caught in the picture of the sun beam taken by Voyager from 6 Billion kilometers)

"From this distant vantage point, the Earth might not seem of particular interest. But for us, it's different. Consider again that dot. That's here, that's home, that's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand."

Time to Win!!

2010-06-02T23:38:00.002+05:30

This is one poem I had read a long time ago and it motivated me big time. Rediscovered it today during random browsing. Life does come a full circle.

The Victor - C. W. Longenecker

If you think you are beaten, you are,
If you think you dare not, you don't.
If you like to win, but you think you can't,
It is almost certain you won't.

If you think you'll lose, you're lost,
For out in the world we find,
Success begins with a fellow's will.
It's all in the state of mind.

If you think you are outclassed, you are,
You've got to think high to rise,
You've got to be sure of yourself before
You can ever win a prize.

Life's battles don't always go
To the stronger or faster man.
But soon or late the man who wins,
Is the man who thinks he can.

Frustrations of a weird kind

2010-05-25T22:42:00.005+05:30

I am frustrated. Nothing more needs to be said. I have been for a while now. It has to do with delays. Everything pertaining to what I want to do or what I hope will happen, gets pushed back. This thing is a perennial occurrence in my case. When I yearn for something, it goes one step away from my hands. Then I lose interest in it. And as if fate could read my mind, I get the object I had desired for. But there is a small problem. I have moved on in search of something else. And the same thing repeats over and over again in an infinite loop.

Is it because I lose patience at the last minute? Or is it just a characteristic of my life? Whatever the hell it is, I am tired of it. I just wish sometimes things happen in a normal way. Like it does for others.

Subjectivity

2010-04-18T13:18:00.003+05:30

There are two groups of people. They are the only people who exist on this planet. One group is outside in the open, sitting in a park ground. Another group is sitting in a completely darkened room, watching a day long horror movie. They meet after one day to talk about what happened in the last 24 hours.

First Group in the Park: We were having a good time at the park until it started raining and we had to huddle under a tree for shelter.

Second Group: Rain? There is no evidence of rain. The ground is dry. The sky is clear.

First Group: It did rain. And after that there was a rainbow.

Second Group: We disagree. We did not observe the rain. There was neither rain nor was there a rainbow.

Question: Is existence only possible by the act of observation?

Forbidden Friendship

2010-04-10T21:40:00.003+05:30

For some reason this music seems to pacify-soothe-placate-control my anger

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pM0sOrwocCI&feature=related

What is going on?

2010-04-03T13:22:00.003+05:30

Each time I start to write something, I feel like I am missing an essential ingredient. I am unable to understand what it is. I am not going to attempt to post something when I don't feel right about it. Let me wait for some more time and figure out what exactly is missing. Until then, this space will be without a post. This is really sad. I have so much time but no will to write.

The semantics of Duality

2010-02-25T17:19:00.005+05:30

The concept of duality is an ingrained thought in us. We can seldom go outside the matrix of opposites. To every aspect described, there is a contra. So, what exactly is duality? This is a question I have asked myself a lot lately. It is something I strive to understand, because of the fundamental position it occupies in the way man has come to see everything. Think about it.

Man and nature; mind and body; spirit and man; self and man; good and bad; pleasure and pain; knowledge and ignorance; system and environment. The list goes on. In fact it is endless. Take any aspect and you can always create its complement. In my thoughts about duality, I have come to see there is a bias in the way we see things. When we refer to a pair of opposites, our thoughts compress it into a binary logic. That either something is present or it is absent. There is no middle ground. The deterministic view of things. The Newtonian way of understanding. The world at the scale we see.

But is the world 'organized' as such? Personally, I am beginning to think the whole idea is flawed at its core. My reason for such an argument is ground on the presumption that duality is a simplified view of a more fuzzy world. We don't deal with 0 and 1 in reality. We have a spectrum ranging from 0 to 1 passing through everything in between. There is a continuum. The problem of duality is centred in the act of communication and is not a reality in itself.

Take the case of an important human emotion, viz. happiness. Our intuitive understanding of such a feeling is binary. When I say I am happy, it precludes the possibility that I am sad. That is because we see happiness and sadness as two binary states. But if such a case were true, then what is the meaning adjectival qualifiers like very happy, delighted etc. Certainly they do denote a greater or lesser happiness. Another duality? This would only result in an endless regress.

What I want to say is that when we deal with duality, there is a degree associated with it. For eg. Happiness is not merely a state. It is a state with a degree or extent. Happiness then is not a pure quality. It is rather an admixture where the quality of 'happy' is more than 'sad'. I might then go on to add that when we are neither happy nor sad, it is a case where the two qualities are in equal proportion. The state of indifference.

The key idea here is that there is no boundary in duality. The perception of duality is the passage of the aspect from preponderance in one end of the spectrum to the other side. Both qualities exist at all times nonetheless.

Insanity attacks :|

2010-02-14T00:21:00.003+05:30

Causality, Spontaneity, Evolution and Interdependence.... i am going in circles now :(

This is driving me crazy. It's official. In the event of my madness turning into a chronic disease, i hereby attribute the result to the Universe (if it exists), to myself (if it were my dream), to the lord (if it were it's dream), to the void (if nothing exists)

To the Unknown Woman

2010-02-09T21:54:00.007+05:30

there is this connection with you,
i've not felt even with the closest few,
the freshness of the morning dew,
reminds me each day of you

there is a mystery surrounding you,
everytime, it's something totally new,
i've tried hard to think it through,
but it remains an unsolved clue

there is a certain charm 'bout you,
it shakes me up, out of the blue,
i'm frozen, i know not what to do,
do i've to say anymore, take the cue

i've wanted to say this all along,
when you're with me, i'm brave and strong,
without you, i'm like a lyric without a song,
for your love, i shall wait forever, eternity long

Universal Confusions

2010-02-09T00:01:00.003+05:30

I am going insane. It has to do with this damn universe. Seriously. It taunts me with impossibilities. It makes me see inherent contradictions in its existence. And yet, here I am, typing out mumbo jumbo about it. I cannot sleep properly. My head spins trying to figure out what stuff this universe is made of. Cosmology has the answers. But the problem lies in asking the right questions. And I am stuck here. What do I ask? What is it I want to know?

Is it how big is the Universe? The Universe can be as big as you want it to be. Multi-verses stacked upon a solo universe floating in vacuum. The ad infinitum progression of universes to perpetuity. Who can ascertain if the Universe (i.e. the mother of all multiverses) is finite or not?

What exists on the other side of the point-sized Universe at big bang? Does the other side have a meaning at all.

Where did it all begin? Did it begin at all? Is there an 'it' in the first place?

There must be some way all the contradictions are reconciled in an underlying substratum. The Ouroboros keeps frequenting me. It is floating in my mind. The head trying to bite of its tail and complete a cycle.

Suddenly the question 'why' seems to be a totally wrong question to ask. Causality is at the scale of the Universe where Newton rules. In Einstein's world, does 'why' have a meaning? What happens when the Universe has an Einstein world size and a Newton world density.The head meets the tail. The beginning meets the end and everything goes haywire.

What is space? Is it a positive entity? Or is it nothingness. But then what is nothingness. Is nothingness infinite. Then again, another contradiction.

How do i frame the right question? Do words retain their meaning in those questions? I don't know what to ask. All I am left with is silence. I am in awe. I live in an Universe which defies imposition of any kind of rule over its existence. I can hear it say, "I am here to break all the rules you pesky humans make. You can never figure me out. Good luck with that."

It's not what you think ;)

2010-02-03T00:20:00.002+05:30

The decision had been pending. With breakfast out of the way, I turned my attention to settling a more important matter. It was time to take a decision. I started weighing the pros and cons. The first one was quintessentially a native of Hyderabad while the second one was a pucca Southie and largely a product of Chennai.

I was torn between choosing from the two. Which one would be THE ONE? A matter of great importance, I am sure you would all agree.

My mom was more amenable to the one from Chennai, while my dad felt the other one was better. My sister liked both of them equally. More than all that, I had known each of them personally, from childhood. The neutrality of the situation should explain why I was facing such a dilemma.

Time was running out and everyone around me was getting impatient. I had kept everyone waiting long enough. It was time to choose.

Eventually, I placed the order for filter coffee at the counter. Tea would have to wait for another time.

Winds of Nilgiris - Concluding Part

2010-01-30T23:49:00.009+05:30

This post is actually the combined work of two friends :) The first part was written by Vasumathi and I have tried to complete it.

The first half of the story is here: Winds of Nilgiris - Part 1

For what seemed like an age, the two of them sat dazed, too shocked to respond to what was happening. The car brushed past the trees and foliage as it careened down the fateful slope. Sajan and Anjali pushed hard against the door lock only to find the doors jammed. As fate would have it, the car's impact with the trees had dented the car doors severely. It was impossible to open the damaged door. The window glasses shattered as the car scraped against the last few trees that could have halted the car.

Life flashed in front of Sajan's eyes as the car relentlessly rolled down the steep slope. Beside him, Anjali was staring ahead, horrified, at the approaching abyss. Sajan desperately tried to force the car to a halt. The brakes were to no avail. Heavy rains had loosened the soil on the hilly slope. The flowing soil was dragging the car down, and with it, the two passengers. They watched helplessly, as the car was being pulled into the world of death.

Anjali squeezed Sajan's palm tightly. Tears were flowing profusely from her eyes. She had not cried so much in a long time. The dreams of a rosy future, all the plans for a happy life were now on the verge of being destroyed. "Everything that has a beginning has an end", she remembered the lines she had read somewhere. It was coming true. She could see the valley below, dotted with houses. "Where is that miracle that I have always believed in", she wondered, looking ahead at the sky.

What came next, they would remember for all times to come. Ahead of them, to their left, a telecom tower stood precariously, over the loosened soil. With much of the soil under it washed away, the tower was beginning to tilt, dangerously close to falling down. All it took was a gust of wind to set the tower falling. The two of them watched, horrified, as the tower started to topple. It looked as though the tower would crash into their car. But then, they got lucky. The falling tower missed them by a few feet and fell across the path of the car. This stopped the sliding car from going further down the slope. Somebody had heard Anjali's plea.

The two of them sat still, not knowing what to say. Their lives had been changed forever. As they waited for help to arrive, they watched the dark clouds clearing up and giving way to sunshine. A gentle drizzle continued to come down, even as the sun shone brightly. There was a spectacular rainbow on the horizon. It was a new beginning for the both of them.

Pattern Recognition Bias

2010-01-17T00:10:00.002+05:30

If i gave u a sequence of numbers: 2,4,6,8,10,12,.... what can you predict about the rest of the sequence?

The most obvious answer coming from our long education history would be that the given sequence is that of even numbers. This is an example of pattern recognition bias. Our left brain which is responsible for logic (nothing but pattern recognition) makes us connect the dots in such a way. Sounds familiar? Occam's Razor, the principle of parsimony, crudely states that the simplest explanation to a given problem is the most likely of all possible solutions. That is how our brain sees this sequence. We store rules that can be used to generate specific instances. A very powerful data compression principle employed by the brain. In a largely random world, we breakdown data into pockets of order and define a function to impose order on the limited sample space. Are there consequences? Yes. Since we assume a linear and logical world, some of the events appear to come out of the blue, unexpected or rare.

Let me take the earlier sequence itself: 2,4,6,8,10,12.......

Lets say we know more about the sequence: 2,4,6,8,10,12,14,16,19,20,23,28...

Until 12 what we had was the past and the present. Beyond 12 is the future. When at 16 we see 19 emerge, we are taken by surprise because the expected trend of 'even numbers' is no longer valid. Instead, the sequence turned out to be an ascending sequence. Our expectation of the unexpected is tempered by our expectation of a linear, orderly expected world.

It is possible to superimpose more than one type of pattern on an unfolding event while giving a very coherent and consistent explanation of the past and present. But there is an inherent bias based on our tendency to assume known patterns. If you noticed, I re-interpreted the sequence to be an ascending sequence from an earlier assumed even number sequence. I have made another likely error.

What if the sequence were: 2,4,6,8,10,12,14,16,19,20,23,28, 27,18....

Most of the times we try to confirm and assert a post-hoc explanation. History appears to be logical, business cycles appear to be logical, wars appear to be logical, rise and fall of civilizations appear to be logical. But if we were to ask people of those times, if they expected events of such scales, it is very unlikely that they would have seen it coming. In effect, the logic is to suit our needs. This logic however cannot be expected to hold reliably to forecast the future.

Coming back to the sequence 2,4,6,8,10,12,

The most obvious and probably the only truth that is confirmed is that the given sequence is not a descending sequence. From the start and middle, what we can reliably say about the 'full picture' is not what it is, rather what it is definitely not. We can rule out a pattern based on what we know. We can never confirm a pattern using the same premise.

“We now know a thousand ways not to build a light bulb” - Thomas Alva Edison, on his failures before finally inventing the Light Bulb

An Autobiography of Time

2010-01-16T23:44:00.001+05:30

I am the chaos that surrounds your life. That uncertainty which throws a spanner in your works. I am that thing which Murphy talks about. I am not cruel. Nor Am I insane. I am just playing a game. A game to make your life worthwhile. I am your ego buster as well. For if everything went according to plan, then you would believe yourself to be God incarnate.

Some say I am fate. Some call me destiny. Others refer to me as fortune. I am all of these and more. I cause the unmanifest to become manifest. And in due course, for it to become unmanifest again. I am death. I am nature's controller. The world's arose from me. So did the deities and the forces of nature. Knowledge came from me. From me came the seven sages, the seven steps of heaven, the seven rivers, the seven swaras and all that is known and will ever be known to man.

In me rests the experience of man. I prevent things from being undone and hide those which are yet to come. I am the divider of experiences - the past, the present and the future. I hold sway over everything that goes on in the world. I am time. The reckoner of all.

Cogito ergo dumb?

2010-01-10T17:02:00.005+05:30

Everything happens for a reason. Really, Is it so? I want to ask. This is one of those very convenient phrases used to provide an answer to everything. Let me see. I failed. It happened for a reason. I succeeded. It also happened for a reason. What in the world does not happen for a reason then? It is one of those words like "gen" where the answer to everything in this whole wide universe is gen. Why did God manifest this Universe.Gen.

Humans like to believe in their ability to ratiocinate. It is a matter of pride for us. Ah look at that donkey there. I bet you a 100 bucks it cannot think like me. We are smarter than all the species that have existed so far. Oh really, how do you deny the existence of anyone smarter than us. Simple. I don't perceive. Nor can I prove. Hold on. In the perception of an ant, whatever that may mean, do we"humans" exist? Can't say. A blow lands on an ant and it goes into deep sleep. We are struck by an earthquake. We goto sleep as well. Wait. Was a man or supernatural involved in those two cases respectively? Eh, it was an act of nature. Of course it was.

But seriously, are we rational or rationalizing. Is reason a tool for justification or does it have any intrinsic value by itself. I believe reason is merely a pattern recognition software meant to compress data into rules which makes us store information much more easily. A genetic benefit to mankind. The "reason" i say this is because if reason really had a value, we would have the ability to predict the future. Why is that reason can so easily explain the past but not the future?
Evidence. There is evidence in the past. A set of points through which we can loop an explanation to make it consistent. More like story writing having a few pointers for the plot. Whereas future is chaos until it manifests. No reason can explain chaos. Although one can "create" order pockets within chaos.

Nature has endowed different species with multifarious pattern recognition softwares. For humans, it is reason. It is nothing special in so far as nature's scheme of things are considered. Remember, the dinosaurs lasted a 100 million years even without such a thing as reason. We, the humans, have been around for a few million years. Can reason save us and help survive longer? If it cannot, some other species, a few hundred million years from now, will be learning about how "reason" resulted in our eventual destruction. Oh that is, if their biological evolution is also premised on reason!

Lost in Paradise - My New Year Experience !

2010-01-03T11:02:00.011+05:30

The trail ended abruptly. The eight of us were at the gates of a lighthouse, which stood at the edge of a cliff, facing the expanse of the Sea. We looked around to see if there was any help at hand. No one was inside the lighthouse. The early morning breeze was giving us a much needed respite from sweat and tiredness. Below, the waves splashing against the rocks produced a steady symphony. The near full-moon was high up in the sky and the entire shore was basking in its silver light. At some distance, there were lights at the shore. Was it the same place we had originally planned to goto? No one knew. We were lost. Stranded in the middle of nowhere, with dying cellphones and little signal. It had all started with an innocuous, "What plans for the new year weekend?"

The entire day, we had been staying at a beach front, splashing in the waters, eating and gazing at the splendor of the sea, rocks, cliff and sunset. We had gotten to this secluded beach named 'paradise beach' by boat because there was no land access. In the course of our unhindered merriment, we had missed boarding the last boat out of the beach and were left behind without any night clothes or tent. Our initial plan was to get through the night, sleeping in haversacks and makeshift mats. However, as the night wore on, the prospect of getting any sleep at all, got dimmer. A combination of wet clothes, mosquitoes and the blistering chill of december got us thinking.

We then learnt from the beach-restaurant owner of a trekking trail which would lead us to a village. Our plan was to call up our cab driver and rendezvous at the village, from where we could head back to denser human settlements. The cab driver reluctantly agreed to meet us at this village, and after intense bickering within the team, it was decided that trekking at midnight through the wilderness would be the way out. Most of us were apprehensive about the whole thing. The hill we were to trek through looked quite densely foliated. The most voiced about concern was of encountering snakes and possibly some wild animals. However, by the account of the beach owner, the trek was supposed to be a straightforward thirty minute one, with little scope for getting lost. But it wasn't. Something was different, as it always happens to be. Will come to that soon enough.

We started our climb at 1.30 AM. The moon was casting a brilliant swathe of natural light across the entire beach. The trail was clearly visible in that light and we started out quite confidently, without carrying a torch light. As we went deeper into the hills, the path got narrower and steeper. Rocks and loose stones were jutting out every now and then and some of them kept coming off. The canopy of trees became tighter. The clear light became a haze of dancing shadows produced by the foliage. The place was engulfed in a foggy darkness. We were soon chanting, "all izzz welll" and occasionally taking roll calls. It was the kind of setting which would make a good plot for the-last-person-in-the-line-disappears type of ghost movies. We tried to quicken our pace and get through the deeper hills in good speed. After a while, we were out, into a clearing and along the shores of the sea.

We could see street lights emerging at a distance. Satisfied that we were not lost, we closed the gap between us and the light in rapid strides. We were pretty close, the next turn and we would be at the lights. Or so, we thought. When we took the turn, we came to a point where from the trail turned into a steady up climb having a cemented road. The lights we had seen earlier was now seperated from us by a stream of water, perpendicular to the trail. It had been over 45 minutes since we had started off. All along we believed those lights to be our destination. Now, the water separated us from it. And there was a road ahead. Where were we to go? The presence of a good road, made us infer that we had to go along that road to reach the "village". And so we took it. We were baited. For the next 30 mins, we trudged along a steep climb until we reached a dead end. The lighthouse.

A while later, we were sitting in the car, thinking about what had gone wrong. Someone mentioned that it was a bad idea to trek at night. Another rued about the guide not giving us specific details. Yet another said, we should have taken a torch light, which would have saved us from getting lost. I believe that the charming moon had pretty much ensnared us that night. Sure, it did give us the light. But we had not thought of one important thing. A full-moon is a high tide period. And we were probably trekking at a time when the moon induced tidal action was at its zenith. The water that had separated us from the other side was probably the making of the high tide which the beach owner might not have anticipated. And without a torch we could not gauge the depth of the water.

While at the lighthouse, we called our cab driver to inform him that we were lost. By then we had lost all bearings and the belief that the the lights were our destination had faded from confidence to confusion. It was then, that we got lucky. Our driver told us that he could see the light beam coming from the lighthouse. We asked him to tell us whenever he spotted the beam, and that is how we regained our direction. This took us back to the original spot where our confusion had begun. This time we were sure that we had to cross this patch of water. We walked along the water's edge, which took us inland and to a patch of fields. The fields had boundaries and dikes preventing the intruding sea water. We walked over those boundary walls until we crossed over to the other side. From there, getting to the car was a cake walk, literally! This was the way, my new year started. Lost and found at Paradise Beach, Gokarna.

Lessons for life

2009-12-24T21:31:00.013+05:30

The fallibility of man is seldom a respected concept. The innate belief is that we are all perfect and we cannot fail. It is often spoken of as a curse. Nobody likes to fail. But we all do at one place or another. And yet, there is so much stigma attached to it. The society watches us. It gauges and measures our ability. Are you good enough? What's your worth in this world?

There is an uneasiness in every big step we take. Is it going to work or is it going to break? When defeat stares us right in the face, there is an irreconcilable reluctance to accept the outcome. How could this happen to me? I did everything I could. And yet I did not get what I wanted. A misplaced grudge against fate, destiny, God, man and maybe even animals. An urge to stop trying completely, going into a shell, fearing further failures.

I don't think the adage - prevention is better than cure - applies here. No one can really control the factors that go into what shapes the outcome. The secret is not of how not to fail. How we pick ourselves up when we fail matters more. For in that lies the ability to lead. A man who knows how to pick himself up from his failures knows what it takes to lift others from their failures as well.

I often wonder about the value of 'leadership skills' and the way it is nurtured. Leaders are not made. They develop. They are not the most talented. Neither are they the wisest. Nor are they the strongest. They are the ones who know how to dust off and get up. And in doing so, they know a thing or two about falling. And when they know that, they know how to motivate and inspire those who have fallen to rise and stand up once more.

I believe this is what our failures are for. To learn how to rise higher with each fall and in the process take a few others up as well. I don't think failure will tie me down, for now, I have lost the fear of failing.

A dog named Rocky

2009-12-23T22:51:00.003+05:30

There are two kinds of people in this world: those who have had a pet dog and those who haven't had one. If you don't have one, go ahead and bring one home. That is one decision you will not regret. Dogs are amazing creatures, with high intelligence and emotional quotients. I would go on to say that they are humans in a merely different form. Recently, I came across a dog, which greatly resembled my dog, Rocky. Not just that, this one was so friendly with me that I felt it was Rocky in a new life. Reincarnation? Maybe, dogs remember their past lives.

Rocky was a dobermann pinscher. He came to my house because my sister used to pester my dad to have a dog. I was dead against having pets at home. Which meant that my dad would eventually get a dog. Rocky came from our carpenter's work yard. The first time I saw him, I thought "this dog is going to kill me one day". But I survived. Not that he tried. Anyway. Long story short, it turned out to be a life-enriching experience.

Dogs have a religion. That religion says, There is One and only One true master. Most dogs are believers. My dog was one as well. So, he listened to my Dad. The rest (which included my mom, sis, and our driver) were largely taken for a ride. With me, it was a case of sibling rivalry! I could not help it. He saw me as competition, a brother to wrestle with. He had quite a few friends in the kids from the school nearby. And he had one enemy. Tiger.

Tiger was the name given to the stray street dog. Now dogs are very particular about their territory and any intrusion by other dogs is seen as a sign of aggression. Rocky and Tiger had an uneasy LoC, i.e. our gate and the adjoining wall. It kept them from tearing each other apart. They did manage to get into a biting argument a couple of times resulting in a few rounds of injections and blood wounds. Thankfully it did not result in any complications.

Rocky was a very intelligent and comforting creature. In the initial days of his stay at home, we would barricade the kitchen and the puja room. He realised that those spaces were out of bounds for him and would not enter even after we had stopped barricading it. He would know exactly when to take the liberties and when to be the obedient hand/face licking dog. He could precisely gauge my family's mood and would act accordingly. There is so much more that could be said about his behavior. I could write on and on about it.

Everytime I think of Rocky I am reminded of happy times. His company was a pleasure. He was a sight to watch. A bundle of hyper energy. Jumping. Pouncing. Running around with a ball or his feeding vessel. Hanging his nose out of the car window. Profusely licking my palms. Ah, I miss him a lot. Cheers to my brother, friend and pet!

New Year Resolutions - What's your five?

2009-12-18T19:12:00.004+05:30

Things to look forward to:

Watching movies on DVD player :)
Traveling and visiting new places
Meeting people and making new friends
Playing Badminton and TT
Jogging early in the morning

Things to do:

Get license for car and bike (atleast for the bike)
Restart violin classes
Read up classics and contemporary best seller’s
Read up atleast Samkhya and Yoga philosophies
Do a bit to improve environment and make home Earth greener

Things to not do:

Laze around – the lying around and do nothing thing
Delay filing of taxes and other torture procedures
Junk and impulsive purchases
Jumping signal on bike/ overspeeding on the road
Delay payment of card/ phone bills

Things to improve upon:

Implementation of Plans (atleast the short term ones) :)
Paying attention to detail
Increasing attention span and focusing on one thing at a time
Prioritizing reason over emotion
Financial planning and management

Equivalent Exchange - Law of Alchemy

2009-12-17T20:02:00.002+05:30

Humankind cannot gain anything without first giving something in return. To obtain,
something of equal value must be lost. That is alchemy's First Law of Equivalent
Exchange. In those days, we really believed that to be the world's one, and only, truth

But the world isn't perfect, and the law is incomplete. Equivalent Exchange doesn't
encompass everything that goes on here. But I still choose to believe in its principle: that
all things do come at a price. That there's an ebb, and a flow, a cycle. That the pain we
went through did have a reward and that anyone who's determined and perseveres will
get something of value in return, even if it's not what they expected
~ Alphonse Eric, Full Metal Alchemist

November Musings

2009-11-22T17:36:00.000+05:30

at the birth of dawn, emerges the lazy november sun,
ah, sleeping until late in the morning is so much fun
and then there is bouts of that special afternoon shower,
silver beads of water glistening on a bright red flower

there is somethin' special 'bout the november sky,
gazing at it, you never know how time passes by,
the smooth touch of the gentle evening breeze,
makes you go silent and pass into a motionless freeze

shadows of outstretched branches, on a november night,
dance to the sweet tunes of the filtered moonlight,
the moon plays hide and seek with the passing clouds,
making you wonder what mystery the nightfall shrouds

Memories Of Hyderabad

2009-11-22T16:51:00.002+05:30

The place where I hail from has this laid back culture which affords a distinct quality of laziness, unseen or unheard of elsewhere. Yahan pe sab kuch chalta hai. Sab kuch dhere chalta hai. Sab ke paas chai peene ke liye samai hai. Tension kyon lete ho yaaron, main hoon naa. This is the quintessential nature of a Hyderabadi. Good natured, lazy, Tom Sawyer like attitude to life. No qualms about wasting hours over a cup of tea, in the company of friends :).

Well I may be a wee-bit idealizing here. I have some really great memories of this place. Of the times I have bunked classes in school, only to climb a hillock, lie down and watch the airplane's land and take off from the adjoining Begumpet airport. Jobless. Yes, that is Tom Sawyer for you. I remember the zillion occasions I have had pani-puri in the worst possible places knowing all too well the impending bout of fever and cold it was going to cause. I reminisce of those summer mornings when before the scorching Sun rose up high in the sky, a lineup of gully cricketers displayed their wares to the rest of the street. I think of those clashes with grouchy neighbours, ever complaining about our favorite pastimes being a nuisance to their serene existence.

I remember pedaling up and down the Begumpet flyover for years, on my cycle. I remember going late to school each day, and being made to stand in the line for laggards. I remember imagining my hardy competitors in school to be aliens bent upon not allowing me to do better than them in exams. Weird, yeah i know.

Whenever I think of the land South of the Vindhya's, I am reminded of the plateau of the Deccan.

The Vigilante's Revenge

2009-10-31T15:20:00.009+05:30

The case containing the ArmaLite-AR15 semi-automatic weapon hung on his shoulders as he slowly made his way up, to the top of the terrace. It was a breezy October night. The moon was completely hidden, covered behind the dark, rain bearing clouds. The menacing clouds that enveloped the entire sky spread a blanket of darkness over the city. Streaks of lightning kindled the sky with momentary flashes. It would soon start to rain. These conditions were ideal for the mercenary to execute his plans.

He had traveled a long way to reach the spot from where he was going to assassinate his target. As he made his way up to the terrace of the abandoned building, he started to mentally rehearse the entire plot. The timing had to be perfect, for the man he was going to gun down was no ordinary person. He was the final one in the list of four the assassin had vowed to eliminate. His quarry's death would initiate a sequence of events which would have serious ramifications for many powerful men around the globe. The plan to kill was immaculate and made to the last detail. There would be no leeway or Plan B, and above all there wouldn't be a second chance.

The assassin reached the roof top and laid down his assemblage in a dark corner. He slowly stretched himself to relax the tension that was building up in his muscles. His hand made its way to the breast pocket to retrieve the cigarette and match. As he struck the match, the flare of light revealed his scarred face for an instant. The scar on his left cheek was an old one, made by the slash of a sharp edged blade. Its manner of healing suggested that it had been there for a long time. The man who gave him that scar was going to die that very day. It was a vendetta to be redeemed long past its due date, with plenty of interest to compensate for the delay.

The man sat down and opened the case which contained the ArmaLite semi automatic rifle and its accessories. He took out the entire set and arranged the pieces of the potent weapon in order and started to re-assemble it. The weapon had not been used in a long time. And tonight would be the last time it would be used. He mounted the telescopic sight and the laser focus on top of the rifle and loaded it with a 30-round Stanag magazine. He then set the tripod on the parapet wall of the terrace and mounted the rifle on the tripod to get his elevation and bearings right. There would only be one shot to take and that would be directed to rip through the target's heart.

The rifle was aimed at a precise point on the marked door. The target would stand at the doorway for less than five seconds before entering a heavily shielded limousine, which would transport him to another secret location. Two guards would lead the way out of the house and protect him from the front, one guard each would stand by his two sides and two security personnel would complete the rear. However, the view from the top was not hindered by the presence of those security guards. This loophole was to cost the target dearly. The deep cloud cover provided by the soot colored sky ensured that the assassin's position was not given away. The man and weapon were camouflaged in black to keep them concealed from the roving eyes of the guards

The target was a man of sixty one. He had been a dictator of a gold-rich impoverished country. Under his aegis, his three military generals had engaged in full scale genocide. He had powerful friends, backers and supporters, whose names were secretly stashed away in the locker of an obscure bank. If he were to die prematurely, those details were to be released to the world by his trusted aide, causing heavy damage to all those implicated. A pact was made between him and the powers that be to shield him from the prosecution of law and protect him from his enemies. In return, those names were to be kept a closely guarded secret. It was through this arrangement he eventually gained asylum to a country which could not be reached by the justice of international courts.

It was half past nine and another fifteen minutes remained for the dictator to emerge through the doorway. The assassin sat by the side of the parapet wall. His palms and forehead were drenched in nervous sweat and his heart was beating at an incredibly high rate. He wiped off the sweat and took a few deep breaths to bring his thumping heart back to normal. The moment was upon him. He raised himself to a crouching posture such that his head was level with the telescopic sight. His fingers were around the trigger and his eyes were focused on one spot on the door marked by the red-dot of the laser beam. The hunter patiently waited for his prey to emerge from its lair.

At 9:45 p.m. the door opened and two guards stepped out to secure the front and then another two came through to secure the sides. The dictator came into view and stood right at the doorway, waiting for the approaching limousine to halt. At the same moment, the assassin, high on the terrace of the building, quickly re-adjusted the rifle to locate his target and squeezed the rifle’s trigger. The multiple bullets found their mark in the dictator’s heart. Not knowing what hit him, the dictator quietly slumped to the ground, motionless and dead. Pandemonium broke loose instantaneously. Shots were randomly fired in the dark by the guards and the call that the dictator was dead went out.

The sniper discreetly escaped in a four wheel drive while commotion reigned in the parallel alley. He reached the point on the river front where he was to rendezvous with his transporter. From there he was to be transported to the neighboring country, where he would hide for a while and then make his escape to obscurity, once the dust over the killing settled down. The boat he got into was a small motor boat with no room for extravagance. He settled down in one corner of the boat and watched as the distance between land and the boat began to grow. His mission was accomplished.

He remembered that infernal night when a group of militia had razed his village to the ground twenty years ago. On that day, he had been unable to put off the fire that had consumed his family and the village, while he stood humiliated in front of the dictator. For over a decade, he had fought for justice against a system built on corruption, power and wealth. When all efforts to punish the perpetrators failed, he had resolved to deliver justice all by himself. That task was now complete and the fire in his heart was finally doused.

Universe and consciousness

2009-10-17T23:06:00.004+05:30

Did the Universe exist before I was born?
Will it exist after I die?
Did I create the Universe by becoming conscious or did the universe create me?
What is beyond this Universe?
What is time?
Is the Universe governed by order or by chaos?
What is the meaning of purpose?
Is reason, reasonable?
Are emotions only chemical concentrations in the brain?
Is there anything absolute?
What exists beyond duality?
Are there things we will never be able to find out?
What is the origin of man and when is his end?
What happens when man evolves, does he remain or does he become another species?
Are there higher levels of reality?
Is it possible to transcend time, space and duality?
Is immortality a reality of this world or any other worlds?
Is the Self, a real entity, or a hypothesis?

My Experiments with Coffee!

2009-09-29T09:19:00.005+05:30

Veritably, Great Souls can afford to Experiment with Truth. But lesser mortals like me have to settle for more mundane things such as experimenting with coffee. I cannot access the philosophical realms of my mind, wherein lies the key to greater pursuits of human life. So, I have resigned myself to talk about a more trivial matter i.e. of my mad-scientist-like experiments with coffee. You might be a tad bit curious to know why coffee? The answer to this lies in the climatic conditions prevailing in my immediate neighborhood and the constant stream of 'You always look tired' comments.

Having heard and had enough of these lamentations about my perennial somniacal countenance, I decided to research on ways to keep myself alert and active. And guess what? The first thing I stumbled upon in my literature review - Coffee. Before going any further into my description of the problem statement, I should give you a background of my caffeine habits. As with everything else, there is a long history.

I don't quite remember when I had my first cup of coffee. What I do know is that there were two sparring groups in my house, the Caffeine Democrats and the Lactose Republicans. The former favored passing the law to introduce coffee into my system while the latter opposed such a move vehemently. Both sides had valid points to merit their case. For instance, the Caffeine Democrats argued saying, "Only cats drink milk". The Republicans were not left far behind, they countered with a reply, "Cats don't drink chocolate milk". The strength of the Republican's prevailed for a long time. Then came the mantra, "Change" and "Yes, we can". I wanted a change too. So I started favoring the Democrats and thus the law for "Caffeine in Sumanth's veins" came into existence. By then I was in junior college and the Republicans deemed me fit for coffee anyway !

Suffice to say, coffee was not by any means a significant contributor to my body's activity quotient. Now that I look back, I wonder if it was just coincidence that even then I was commented upon for having a lethargic and droopy appearance. Anyway, coming back to the description of the present malaise, the effect of a hill station climate coupled with my usual lazy, easy going attitude were earning me more accolades than the amount deemed decent. So I decided to do something to boost my activity levels. Having read a great deal about the merits of coffee for doing exactly this, I hit upon a plan to experiment with coffee. Instead of the occasional coffee, I started having 4 cups each day. Here is the gist of the results obtained so far:

Effect on Circadian Rhythm: For the uninitiated ones, circadian (circa-cycle; diem-day) refers to the daily biological cycle of the human body. There is a marked difference in my routine. Caffeine's effect seems to linger on for about 3 hours post intake time. I don't feel drowsy and there is clarity in my understanding. A few hours after my last cup, I feel extremely sleepy and drop dead asleep. My sleep is marked by more intense and deep sleep. I have little recall of my movements in sleep (something i remembered earlier)

Effect on reaction time: My reaction time shows improvement as measured in my TT games after a coffee. I can anticipate the ball path quicker although i still suck at TT in general :). During the post coffee period, I feel alert and experience higher levels of awareness of the surrounding environment. Concentration is higher in the usual office tasks.

There are a host of secondary effects as well which i shall reserve for another time. In the overall sense coffee seems to be showing positive effects. The next steps would be to study the "Reaction kinetics and post withdrawal symptoms pertaining to caffeine inhibition" :)

My half-gone shoe!

2009-09-21T21:20:00.004+05:30

Ever since the time I set my eyes on you,
I made you mine without further ado,
you were fresh n bright and sprightly new,
I totally adored you, my precious Woodland's shoe

you protected me from dust and rain,
and stood by me through joy and pain,
I really trusted you, for you were totally true,
I'd have done anything for you, my darling shoe

on tough days, i was harsh with you,
and then sometimes, I was hurtful too,
but you never did mind my outbursts few,
I was blessed to have you, my committed shoe

and the passage of time took its toll,
slowly you lost all your body and sole,
I desperately tried to mend and fix you,
I was worried about you, my favorite shoe

now I see you lying here, faded and dying,
I am filled with sorrow and half-crying,
wishing I could do something to revive you,
without you I am incomplete, my dearest shoe

The cat on the front porch

2009-09-03T22:23:00.006+05:30

My eyes caught a furry ball darting across the entrance of the flat I was moving into. The sight of a cat crossing my path on the very first day made me wonder if it was an ominous sign of misfortunes to come. The feeling was probably on account of having experienced an eccentric grandmother uttering scary happening's and then following it up with remedies for various maladies caused by strokes of bad luck. I quickly dismissed those thoughts as remnants of superstitions repeated by granny in those days of folklore and mythology.

All of this reminded me of my tryst with sinister creatures, which henceforth I shall refer to as Close Encounters of the Fourth Kind. The reptilian species, arachnids and feline races have crossed my path at different stages in my life. I hold the record for stamping a snake as a small kid, the ignominy of getting scratched by kittens during school days, and the embarrassment of suffering from a painful bite by an unknown creature in my final semester at college. Rest assured, I feel that my fellow species on this planet and I are irrevocably bound and intertwined in this journey of life. Therefore, the presence of this four legged critter was subconsciously accepted.

The cat at the front door had an eerily shiny fur coat. Its body was velvety black, with eyes resembling reflecting glass beads. The feline eyes wore the look of ultimate deception, like a femme fatale enticing her lover into a bond of irresistible desire. The black beauty had an alert pose, ready to make an instantaneous dart, like a cobra with its hood raised, waiting to strike down its enemy in a split second.

I was very much impressed by this creature of nine-lives. And after our initial acquaintance, I believe, she was equally awed by my presence :). Over the next few days, we treated each other like wary adversaries. At first, she would carefully watch me coming towards her, readily waiting to streak across while I would be readying myself for a feline pounce and attack. And then over time she got used to my approaching footsteps and stopped preparing for the final sprint of her first life :) . For my part, I slowly got over the fear of being scratched by yet another feline. I did not want a parable like 'Once scratched, twice shy' coming into use due to me.

Slowly, the cold in our relationship thawed. She became more friendly and I started to relax. On my arrival back from work, she would lead the flight of steps to my third floor abode. At each landing, she would stop and turn around to see if I was still behind her. And finally, she would drop me off at my door and head back to her ground floor resting spot. Once in a while, I would feed her tidbits of edible items. She would inspect the food items with great dignity and consume them only if it was deemed good.

Ever since the time I first met her, she has always remained a regal black feline, unlike her lazy counterparts. She has a way of her own. Going around the neighborhood, like a queen inspecting her subjects. I don't see her very often these days. Once in a while, I spot those shiny green eyes in the dark alley leading to my home and I know she is out there, bewitching yet another admirer.

This part fact-fiction short story, for whatever it is worth, is dedicated to Ruskin Bond, whose works I am presently reading.

After three years....

2009-08-27T23:42:00.002+05:30

They had last seen and spoken to each other over three years ago. It was mutually agreed upon that their paths would never ever cross again. But fate is not without a sense of irony, is it? At the most unexpected time and in the least expected of all places, the impossible happens. And that is how they came across each other. This might prompt you to think of an appropriate closing, "..... and they lived happily ever after"

But this ain't a bollywood feel good movie or a hollywood mush-flick. There are no happy ending's in reality. Life is driven by selfish pursuits of egoistic individuals, the clash of which produces irreparable consequences. There is a way out at each stage. There is a compromise available at every point. But no. Vanity is more important than anything else. That alone drives and defines who we are. And so does everyone have to live with the choices they have made. Enough of this gyaan now. Lets get back to the story.

That day had begun very well for both of them. Vikram had just got off the call with his boss who had informed him of an upcoming promotion. Suraksha was about to get her first novel published. The editor of the book house had broken that news to her just a few hours ago, that morning. They were headed to the same place, the popular sweet shop on the corner of the main street. Both of them were celebrating for the first time in three years. Happiness and achievement are rare things in this world.

To be continued ....

ps: A statutory warning. I don't have a complete plot yet.

Improv Acting

2009-08-18T23:53:00.002+05:30

Improv acting is a term i recently came across. It is a very interesting concept. There is a play and there are actors on the stage. But wait. Something important seems to be missing?

That something happens to be the plot. In this type of acting, the plot develops dynamically on the stage. Every character assumes some role and starts a dialogue. It is upto the rest of them to improvise on the situation and keep the dialogue open ended.

The idea here is to keep the dialogue going for as long as possible. One of the interesting elements of this kind of theatre is the need to be open minded and have a lateral thinking ability to respond spontaneously to a situation.

The idea behind such a thematic acting is develop skills of quick thinking, decision making and rapid assessment of situations.

Parthasarathy - My Lord, philosopher and guide

2009-08-14T22:47:00.006+05:30

Happy Krishna Jayanthi :)

The Lord, the source of everything big and small,
The Lord, the strength of objects that stand tall,
The Lord, the power behind those who never fall

The Lord who has the fiery disc and the mighty mace,
The Lord who has a serene smile and resplendent face,
The Lord who presides over eternal time and infinite space

The Lord of unsurpassed will and unmatched might,
The Lord of the good men and what stands for right,
The Lord who causes the evil men to cower in fright

The Lord who holds the universe in his palm,
The Lord who tormented his mother's calm,
The Lord who played cowherd on the village farm

The Lord who set the commandment and the norm
The Lord who cleared the archer's mental storm
The Lord who showed the world his mighty form

The Lord who is sought even by men devoid of desire
The Lord who is always there to douse the mind's fire
The Lord who is never away from a calling dire

Dedicated to Mom - Awesome Song

2009-07-23T22:12:00.004+05:30

www.youtube.com/watch?v=NovCNFS1O1M

Blink - Thoughts in a flash !!

2009-07-23T13:22:00.002+05:30

I am reading this book called ‘Blink’ by Malcolm Gladwell. It is a book on decision making based on thin slicing, in common parlance often referred to as ‘split second’ decisions. The book attempts to investigate the ‘blink’ decision making phenomenon through a series of real life examples. It makes a case for quick decision making as an acquirable ability. I guess I need to read the book once more to get a firm understanding of the idea it conveys.

The book has however set my thoughts rolling on a hypothesis for decision making. Decision making is a circumstantial act. But it’s driven by a lot of factors which occur before and during the event itself. I can think of the following drivers for decision making: genetics, experience, environment, priming and improvisation.

The base template for our decision making lies in genetics. By genetics, I refer to the long line of traits, characteristics and attitudes we humans at a fundamental level and individuals at a specific level have acquired from our ancestors. They store the combined experiences of actions which have enabled survival and also the instincts which sense danger. The disparity here has to do with the level of experiences and difficulties our ancestors faced. Our genes store the broad framework for the way we are ‘expected’ to act. This sets the starting point. But genes alone are not the deciders. There is interplay between genetic information and external environment. Modifications to genes based on information acquired in one generation are likely to be embedded in the succeeding generations. This sets the process for sequential learning which is overwritten, modified by more recent generation’s experience. I am tempted to call this a ‘genetic moving average’

The second important factor is environment. By environment, I refer to the condition in which we have grownup. Our family values, social circle and people influencing our life are some examples of the environment. This shapes the context in which we base our decisions. Environment plays a particularly important role in childhood, teen and youth periods of life. That is the time when impressions are developed, stereotypes are built and mindsets reinforced. What we decide during this period about ourselves and the rest of the world forms the basis for the way we see the world and the way we want the world to see us.

The third factor is experience. Experience refers to specific significant events which shape our outlook. Over time we have experiences which impact the way we see a similar situation. Inherently, we acquire the idea that a similar event is going to have a similar outcome and we start making decisions accordingly. This is why bad experiences are more often than not termed as psychological scars for the imprint they leave. A lot of times, this results in people expecting life to turn out in a particular way and eventually that’s what they end up getting. It’s not so much as life is such and such. It is more like, I did this and this happened as a consequence.

The fourth factor is priming. Priming refers to an immediate event which precedes the time of decision making. It is a situation which alters the state of mind and sets different expectations from the event at hand. For eg. a bad start to the day gets you into a mode where you start to see bad things happening for the rest of the day. This makes you have a foul mood which only makes things worse off. Or you witness something which keeps you expecting for that to happen to you. They dont have to be a conscious effect. Priming in most cases are subconscious influences but because they are the most recent in memory, the decision is most impacted by the priming.

Finally, coming to the fifth factor i.e.improvisation. Improvisation refers to the actions which are enacted while the event is in progress. These actions are the sum total of all the other factors embedded in a person acting in consonance with the reaction of the counter-agent (which maybe another person, environment etc.). What this means is that your response is shaped to match the ongoing response from the counterparty. For eg. the way you drive on the road here in India is not entirely rule based. It is more an act of improvisation. You see how the person ahead, on the side and behind you is driving and anticipate their next position and automatically evaluate where you ought to be. All this is done subconsciously. This is done dynamically by each person by evaluating future positions constantly, so much so that you know intuitively as to when to brake, when to accelerate etc. When one person messes up the dynamic evaluation, you know what happens.

In conclusion, what we do is based on many things and how we decide is based on many factors. While we tend to simplify and say such and such is the cause and so is the effect, decision making happens as a complex web of interactions which cannot be broken down into parts. The next time you want to attribute a cause or blame, make sure you think through the situation in its entirety :)

The haunting question

2009-07-13T00:16:00.003+05:30

I was having dinner this evening and it so happened that an old man selling his wares came to hawk his items to those present there. He was carrying some packets of biscuits and chips and earnestly pleading with people over there to buy something saying he was out of money for dinner. It was quite clear from his face that he had not eaten properly in a long time.

Sad part was no one in that place including me were willing to buy anything. Mostly out of lack of any necessity and also because of the fear of eating some low quality stuff whose source we are not aware of. That old man was almost in tears. He came to the hotel cashier and begged him to give something to eat. But nothing happened even then. I was eating all this while and watching him doing nothing. Actually I felt nothing all that while. Then while leaving, he looked me sorrowfully in the eye and then looked at my plate and left without a word.

I did not need anything to be told any louder. It struck me then. No man should lose his dignity and self respect over food. Feeling very guilty about the whole thing I wanted to go after him and give him some money to eat. By then he had moved a couple of places ahead and was standing in front of a couple. They were giving him some money. I got to see what they had given him. One rupee. That man was respectfully placing it away. I had the biggest lump in my throat seeing that. What can u get for one rupee these days. In my eye that was the ultimate humiliation to suffer.

I went to him and gave him a 20 rupee note hoping it would be enough for that night's meal. Definitely nothing to help him for life. But it kind of made me feel and ask a lot of questions about life. Why do some people suffer more than the rest? Why are some born the way they are? What is the point of this living? Yes. there is a law of karma. And probably thats what drives everything. But it is one hard fact to digest that while one man makes a killing, the other man is killed trying to earn.

The Life of Drudgery

2009-07-09T23:54:00.002+05:30

By the window, I stand and stare,
watching wearied traveler's full of care
forlorn creased brows they wear,
living their life, like a daily nightmare

for some, it is the life they choose,
for others it's something they cannot refuse,
whatever maybe each one's excuse,
there is little to win and a lot to lose

you are too busy writing your own tragedy,
furtively watching a trippy censored comedy,
soulfully listening to yet another hyped up melody,
mournfully contemplating that life's just a parody

and so will your time come to pass,
doing the usual things, and following the mass,
when all this will be seen through the looking glass,
it will appear to be an unbelievable farce

of what worth is this life which is so rare,
when you don't have the time to stop and stare?
at the infinite bounty nature has to share,
and feel the rain and breathe the fresh air

The thing about conference calls...

2009-07-09T11:25:00.003+05:30

The first time I sat through a conference call i was quite amazed and overawed by the setting. A group of people sitting on either sides of the call. Round table. Possibly, men in suits and speaking sophisticated terms. Part of big institutions we hear about in the news. There was a thing about conference calls that made me nervous.

Here were two groups of people, probably never seen each other before. Maybe they had spoken or prior occassions, maybe not. I don't know. Sitting through the call, I used to watch the seniors talk, make gestures, type out things to be spoken and those not to be spoken. I am sure similar things happened on the other side as well. Mind you this was a teleconference call. Not a video enabled one. So, one did not know what the other side was doing. Were they sleeping. Did they understand the message. Was their reaction positive? The only thing available was the voice and tone. Ok.. i know. Not too many people will think so much about a small matter. But for me, feedback is essential. Is my communication accepted? Am I getting my point across consistently? What is their perception of me? None of this is possible without visual aids.

More than this, i used to wonder how people could talk into the phone and at the same time be monitoring what other people had to say. How did they stay focussed without losing continuity. I know my answer now. Practise. Since the time I sat through the first call, I have moved on to participating more. I know a little more about how fast i should be. How to evince feedback and know more about audience attention. When to pause. Those little things which go unnoticed.

More than all this, i have conquered the fear of having to face unknown people. I guess, all this is a part of growing up. There was a time when I used to shiver to read news in front of the school assembly. Now i don't fear con calls.

I-touch

2009-06-27T18:11:00.003+05:30

My first gadget craze :P

got an i-touch! Unlike me, the material conservative. It has really cool features. Will put everything in its genre to absolute shame. Has a really sleek body, a metallic + steel finish. Wifi enabled which means i can access u-tube, mail, news, weather, browse etc etc.... Next on line is HTC with android once it is launched in India. Hopefully by then 3G will be up and running in India.

news from this side :)

2009-06-16T20:55:00.000+05:30

I have lots of things to say here in this post :). So much so don't know where to start. Life goes in cycles much like a lot of other things. Sometimes, there is a recession as well. But for most part, it is a happy journey. And why not. The power and will to be happy is entirely in our hands. Sometimes, everything seems to work right, at other times it just feels like nothing right can happen.

Whatever happens, I have come realize, it is important to stay put with the task at hand. Fire and ice. The burning desire to achieve your goal and the ability to do it in a calm and composed manner. That forms the core of my motto as of now. will. the strength and courage to do what it takes to get there. perseverance. To go on trying without feeling lost.

Updates. Lots of it!! I have moved to a new place. It is compact, more like a hostel room. I like it here for now. It has a neat little sit out with a good evening breeze blowing. Next, I have got a bike!!! yea, well only a guy can understand this excitement. A conscious decision to conserve cash on auto, after a year of getting ripped off. Then, I have joined violin class. This was a long pending action but finally it has taken off. So far it has been good. Have to see where it goes!

Hopefully if I dont flunk in the D/L test for 2/4 wheeler, that should be another achievement as well :). Lets see how things go from here on....

Philosophically Random !!

2009-06-03T22:56:00.001+05:30

Well, a bit philosophical, random and arbit at the same time :)

with each day arrives, a chance to rise and shine,
from ashes reborn, to illuminate the family line,
blessed are those who tread the path divine,
and humble are they who hold high, the sacred sign

obeisance to thee vAyu, the wind that steadily blows,
praise to thee Agni, the fire that brightly glows,
salutation to thee varuna, the waters that rhythmically flows,
adoration to thee, Atman, the immortal which rarely shows

the first being manifested all this by self sacrifice,
whence from man came into the world with virtue and vice,
immortality was promised to the self which defies,
purpose of the works was understood by the wise,
all of which resulted in the breaking of worldly ties

from then on was the path of all taken alone,
to each one, the light from the heaven shone,
while the journey was forever unknown,
there was always a marker and treadstone,
guiding the lost to one's self image own

Sometimes, when I wonder

2009-05-08T07:27:00.001+05:30

shrug, sigh, wonder why
what's beyond the yonder sky,
mercury, venus, moon and mars,
countless galaxies and infinite stars

shrug, sigh, wonder why
forever thinking about who am I.
the immortal self that dwells within,
or the body clad with an aging skin

shrug, sigh, wonder why,
there is a strong desire to run and fly,
from the farthest mountains to the sea
to fulfill the purpose of being born free

shrug, sigh, wonder why?
a rekindled spirit to touch the sky,
a renewed purpose to rise and shine
with an intent to redraw the broken line

shrug, sigh, wonder why?
when cometh the day I die,
everything with a beginning has an end
except the one without a second

Lessons from a few readings

2009-05-01T09:06:00.005+05:30

Of late, I have been reading books on time management and self development. It appears to be helping me with prioritizing my goals and also with developing my sphere of influence. There are two concepts, one from each area, which i feel is immensely helpful to keep you doing the right things at the right time.

One of the essential items in time management is to make a written list of all things that need to be done each day. Start off each day by working with the item which is considered most tedious or difficult but the completion of which is important. From the list, identify the top 3 things you want completed and work towards finishing it fully. Completing a difficult thing upfront is very motivating. It is the first level of satisfaction or fulfillment. A difficult task needs to be sliced and diced until it can be broken into simpler sub-tasks and taken up one by one to complete. That way, the overwhelming thought of not being able to complete a huge task is replaced by working on finishing smaller tasks and achieving them.

In the area of self-development, a key attribute is being pro-active in outlook. Now, this holds true for situations in life as well. The idea of being pro-active is to take responsibility for outcomes. In contrast, being reactive would mean to assign causes of outcomes to the external environment. The need to be pro-active is very important. I am coming to realize this. The idea here is the level of control or influence one has in managing a situation. A proactive person would look at a situation as a consequence of his own actions rather than the intervention of the environment. A reactive person looks at a situation as a making of external factors outside his control. Therefore, a proactive person takes responsibility for failures. That forms the first step in identifying the areas for improvement. On the other hand, a reactive person is a product of his environment. Failure is assigned to external factors, and mistakes are on everyone but him. This is taken more as a justification for having failed. While a proactive person looks at every situation with a view of self-improvement, a reactive person looks at it with a view of rationalizing his present state of existence.

Will

2009-03-31T22:45:00.004+05:30

The Will to do what is right,
The Will to take on insolent might,
The Will to stand down in a fight,
The Will to hold arms tight,
The Will to hold all equal in sight,
The Will to stay on the path of light,
The Will to get through the night,
The Will to take to flight

Spring

2009-03-09T19:47:00.005+05:30

as the winter's frost fades away,
the temple bells herald a new day
waking nature up from its hibernation
nudging it to life with silent invocation

here approaches the king of seasons,
a time for the heart to sing without reasons,
here approaches the pleasant spring
and all shall hail the return of the king

clear blue skies adorn the new dawn
and nightingale's sing on spring's first morn
the forest is brought to stand on its feet
watching the peacock dancing to the beat

the sun shines bright with rays ever so warm
lighting up the day with its magical charm
a cool breeze blows on a moonlit night
bringing eternal joy and wondrous delight

Chinamer

2009-03-08T13:00:00.005+05:30

I was thinking about the recent mergers and acquisitions between various financial institutions on Wall Street. One can make a similar argument in the case of China and America. Lets see. China is good at savings, investment and production. America is good at spending, consumption and innovation. Why not merge these two countries?

That way, the bad assets on the balance sheet of America i.e the US Federal Reserve can be absorbed by the Chinese and the goods produced (i.e. the measure of level of unemployment) by the Chinese can be absorbed by America. Neat solution to avoid the problem of currency, deficit, reserves, free trade, WTO etc etc. The North American region will become the state/ province of Western Chinamer while the Asian China region will become the state/ province of Eastern Chinamer. The political systems in each of the provinces will remain the same as it is now. The financial systems will remain the same as well. The citizens will get dual citizenship but they will not be allowed to immigrate geographically. McDonalds and Starbucks will continue to goto China. Noodles, textiles and toys will come to America. There wont be any recession for a long time.

By the time the next recession comes, India will be ready to merge with Chinamer. That way recessions will be perpetually tackled on Earth. Then we can think of space colonies! Ah damn my imagination. Huh. On second thoughts, 'Chimera' seems to be a better name.

The Indian Economy is different

2009-03-03T09:45:00.006+05:30

The Indian economic engine is distinctly different from economies of the past and the present. This is not so by design. It is largely circumstantial. Despite laboring under the heavily clad vest of bureaucracy, the pace of growth continues to be robust. Yes. It is not racing like the Chinese hare or floundering like an African snail. The tortoise goes at its own pace. It draws itself into a shell and shields itself at times of danger. When the danger passes, its head and legs emerge out of the shell, to restart the journey. A tardy pace of economic progress is the price the tortoise has to pay for carrying the weight of the shell.

The fall of consumerism

2009-03-01T11:19:00.003+05:30

I get spammed incessantly on the phone with offers for free credit card, free sim card, free insurance, free this, free that. Bah! Then there is the SMS spam. Download this ringtone, listen to our astrologers, play these games, blah blah. I hate this kind of marketing. Promotional campaigns about products which I dont need.

I see this type of consumerism as a societal malaise. Consumerism is the consumption of beautifully wrapped and lavishly marketed useless products. It has become the bane of modern economy. Profligate spending on meaningless items backed by a thrift system seeking to make a quick buck. How can this be a sustainable approach to human progress and welfare development? All one does here is create catchy phrases, colorful wrappers, and loads of marketing BS. Is this business innovation? Is this a business model? Does the product serve a requirement. Nothing. A wasted creativity on a wasted product on a wasted purpose.

The present crisis has brought to the fore, the issue of consumerism. As discretionary spending is replaced by necessity spending in the recession and slowdown economies, the markets will temper consumerism with a measure of sensibility. Brands will most likely be replaced by their cheaper generics and product substitution (particularly in the case of electronic goods) will decrease.

Obama Mania

2009-02-22T13:01:00.005+05:30

Just because a man is halfwhite-halfblack, halfcross-halfcrescent, halfamerican-halfkenyan, he does not become the Narasimha avatar everyone seems to think he is. Barack Obama is the man. Jon Stewart of the Daily Show had to say this hilarious thing about Obama's pre-election trip to Germany, "There is something strangely familiar about a charismatic leader drawing huge crowds of German's to the Central Square" obviously alluding to another such 'leader' who caused extensive damage to his supposedly superior race and the rest of the world.

I dont have anything personal against Obama. I think he is a very idealistic guy and has leadership capabilities good enough to inspire and unite the Americans during this time. My concern is that people are considering him to be a once in a million year phenomenon and expecting him to do something impossible. Lets face it. Obama is the sum total of all hopes expressed for change. In fact, his very unique background is a testament to the fact that people want something different.

But,
1. Does different here necessarily mean good.

2. How much different is Obama's change going to be from the past.

Musings at midnight

2009-02-21T00:59:00.002+05:30

My blogging frequency has gone awry. Now I wish I had not deleted the earlier posts I had in a different blog. They would have served as a good memory for renewing my blogging. However, no regrets. What is in my hands is the present and I am happy to use that to shape my future. Also, I am sure that once i get back to blogging, I will recollect my earlier posts sooner than later.

So, whats going on in my life right now. I am acutely aware that I am a half man half boy right now. seriously. thats the way you feel at 25. The boyhood in me makes me behave rashly and immaturely at times and the manhood in me makes me realize and learn from experiences. Sometimes I wonder what is the point in growing up if all it does to you is make you dull and dumb and monotonous. The routine starts to grow on you and kill the spontaneity. People treat you as an adult and expect you to be all understanding and all prepared to take on the world. I am still a kid at times. I like to be so. Thats were the fun lies.

Its pretty much life at the half way stage. A general lack of direction. I sometimes wonder if I were Alice tumbling down the hole. I come to the cross roads and see roads going in different directions. I dont know which one to take. I dont know where I want to go. Just a curiosity to know where each road leads to. However, the Cheshire cat reminds me that if i dont know to what end I am heading to, then it does not matter what road I take. The answer sounds appealing but i am still not convinced. Everyone around me seems to know which road they want to take, almost as if they were aware of the end destination they are headed to. But i know that they have taken the road based on how far of it they can see. They dont know where they are going either.

Many memories of childhood race through my head. It is not nostalgia. It is not about happy days and memorable days. When there is a lot of change in you, you become acutely aware of the past. You keep seeing distinct snapshots that remain etched in your head for all times to come. They are always there to remind you of incidents and circumstances that have made you the way you are today. Sometimes you wish things would have been different. At other times you just want to keep it from rising to the surface and overwhelming you. And then a general sense of calmness prevails.

Fire - As it is

2009-02-17T15:10:00.012+05:30

This one is to illustrate how different people tend to perceive the nature of fire (as a personification of both good and bad)

the invisible force asked the kid, "who am I?"
and the child exclaimed, "you are the golden orb lighting up the sky"
"very true", replied the inner essence of the sun,
"i watch you playing all day and having fun"

"recognize me?", asked the invisible force of the forest fern,
and the tree yelled, "Oh No!! here comes the one that makes me burn"
said the force then, "surely, you must know, that was never my intention"
cried the tree, "whatever you might say, you bring forth my destruction"

"do u know me?", asked the invisible force of the lady of the house,
said the mistress, "you are the heat that cooks what is unripe",
"quite true", responded the invisible one,
"I help you prepare the food that everyone likes"

Everyone exclaimed in unison, "pray tell us who then are thee!"
the invisible force answered, "fire is me"
"i am to you, what you want me to be,
of my own, i have no nature"

I am the fire that lights up the funeral pyre,
I am the fire that is invoked by the holy sire,
I am the fire that burns with consequences dire,
I am the fire that fills up the heart with desire

Color Psychology

2009-02-12T12:53:00.001+05:30

I recently read this article on the impact of colors on human thought. It so happens that colors have some effect on the way people think. According to a study published in the journal Science, the color red boosts attention to detail in tasks such as memorization, while blue encourages creativity.

I was curious to find the effects of other colors, including yellow, as it happens to be my favorite color.

Here is what some prominent people had to say about different colors:

Black: Black is real sensation, even if it is produced by entire absence of light. The sensation of black is distinctly different from the lack of all sensation. -Hermann von Helmholz

White: White...is not a mere absence of colour; it is a shining and affirmative thing, as fierce as red, as definite as black...God paints in many colours; but He never paints so gorgeously, I had almost said so gaudily, as when He paints in white. - G. K. Chesterton

Red: Red has guts .... deep, strong, dramatic. A geranium red. A Goya red ... to be used like gold for furnishing a house ... for clothes, it is strong, like black or white. - Valentino

Blue: Blue color is everlastingly appointed by the deity to be a source of delight - John Ruskin

Green: Green, which is Nature's colour, is restful, soothing, cheerful, and health-giving. - Paul Brunton

Yellow: How wonderful yellow is. It stands for the sun.- Vincent Van Gogh

Melancholia

2009-02-11T15:21:00.003+05:30

the filtered day draws to a close,
and the mind goes into a tailspin morose

a deep sorrow veiled behind a smiling face,
wishing for better times, as the heart slows in pace

moments of despair follow moments of pain,
a memory of happiness is all that remains

a silent prayer in the middle of the night,
to bring back from the shadows, the source of light

a worn down spirit passes into effortless sleep,
with thoughts of tomorrow's promises to keep

a new day begins to dawn once more,
with hazy eyes staring at the empty floor

Self Perception

2009-02-09T15:23:00.001+05:30

Most of the times when someone is confronted with the 'tell me about yourself' question, the context is largely a formal or social situation. Also, the focus in such cases is on presenting our best self, and not necessarily our true self. It is very seldom that we introspect on our own character, nature and beliefs. I have tried to do this and this is the way i perceive myself.

I am neither a philosopher, nor am I a fool,
I belong somewhere in the middle school

I am not a writer, neither am I a singer,
Nor am I a soothsayer or death’s harbinger

I am seldom to be found making the news,
But I surely do have my share of views

Sometimes I collaborate, sometimes I compete,
Sometimes I conquer, sometimes I concede

I am mostly warm and gentle and calm,
But at times I turn into a raging storm

I believe there is a Grand Author writing the plot,
picking names for all the roles, by drawing a lot

I think it is better to make thoughtful amends,
than take hasty decisions in a matter of seconds

I see life as a game of chance,
At times you cry, at times you dance

I believe that love and forgiveness go together,
When one is absent, you will not find the other

I think that of all sights and sounds,
Sleep and silence are the most profound