Random thoughts on a lazy Saturday afternoon

Its 3:30 PM on a lazy Saturday noon. I have enqueued few of my pal songs on the winamp and just wanted to write something. Its long since I have posted anything here so wanted to make up for that. However to be honest, I do not have any idea on what to write. I am hoping as I continue some direction or topic will come up, if you aren’t used to lost and random thoughts, you may want to call it a quit at this point.

Over last five years great deal of things have changed for me and my taste of music is certainly one of them. I hardly knew an English song or singer then and now I know reasonable number of those. Thanks to assorted CDs burnt during late nights of last few months at college, Worldspace and VH1. In the right side tab of this blog, you will see few songs that I have recently come across (Not necessarily new songs) and kind of liked. If you click on the song, it should take you to the lyrics. However a word of caution, most of these lyrics will be abstract and shady. I guess, off late most of the singers (If you exclude hip hop) are singing along less happier lines or may be my antenna for noticing happy songs is tuned out.

Let’s talk about dynamics of two important fellows those have made us what we are and will determine what we will be tomorrow; welcome Mr. Mind and Ms. Heart. Mind is a typical analytical creature who will dissect every little situation and apply all possible models (What-if, what’s in it me, Return on Efforts, time value of decision etc.) to arrive on a risk free, minimal effort, socially acceptable and practical response to the situation, very typical of we guys and so lets give a Mr. prefix. On other hand, Heart has a different way of looking at things. Heart is extremely spontaneous, follows the intuition, believes everything is possible, isn’t scared of expressing the emotions and most importantly, gives a damn to all models followed by Mr. Mind, very typical of girls and so the prefix Ms. Now the problem is that these two fellows do not have a clear demarcation of roles and responsibilities for enabling you to live a hassle free life.

You better do not let your heart drive you on a bad day at work. Heart will say “f*** it, I can’t take this crap, I deserve better, let’s put in papers”. Mind will tell you “where will you go? You don’t even have a resume ready and job market is horrible. Also let’s honestly accept it that you were lucky to get in this job itself. Forget even serving notice period, they will be more than happy to release you with immediate effect. Your monthly fixed costs (House rent and Car EMI) are three times than your current bank balance”. I guess listening to mind is an obviously convenient choice in this case. Take other extreme, you have been asked out on a date that you have daydreamed for months. Mind says “boss, where do you have time, money and energy for all this? Remember she has dumped her last bf because he wasn’t in town on her birthday as he needed to attend an urgent meeting in States. If she dumps you, you will be all around the place being Devdas reloaded, remember what happened to you when that colleague of yours with whom you were still planning to start conversation changed the job. This girl has grown up listening Nirvana and for first twenty years of your life you thought Nirvana is a religious western groups like our ISKON. Plus this girl is not from your caste, she doesn’t even speak Hindi. Will there be any future with her anyway? Your mom will freak-out seeing her” Heart says “you love her and love is blind, who cares about the rest. She has asked you out and you both have amazing chemistry. Your love is taller than erstwhile WTC towers, caste and language can’t be a bar among loving hearts. You can remember all Nirvana lyrics for her and you can make this relationship work because it’s worth it” Now it’s your call to whom you want to listen in this case () but the bigger question is that where do we go from here and how do we live this heart-mind paradox?

Whom should you generally listen to? I guess I will leave you with this thought for now. Have a good weekend.

In the circle of life, don't run, life catches up...

Ever thought about a circle? No, I am not kidding; however, I do realize that it takes lots of beer to get to that kind of thought process (for me it was four). Coming back to my circle, isn’t life a circle? Two things about a circle; first, you go around a time or two just to waste your time and realize that you are back to where you started from, second and more interesting aspect is that when you are back to where you started from, you are never on the same side; you are now facing to what you were showing your back. Isn’t that life? You conveniently turn your back on things you want to put behind and start walking away with a hope that every step is taking you far from those unpleasant realities. However, life standing still where you turned your back at it smiles at you. You pace up to get away, more you pace up shorter it takes to get back, and eventually on one turn you realize something familiar is around the corner. “Welcome buddy, how have you been? You came back pretty fast, huh” grins familiarity. You are facing what you avoided, life catches up, and it does almost all the time. Cheers, ;-)

Back in Battlefield

I was on a reasonably long vacation and returned two weeks back. I was holidaying in remote sandy corners of Rajasthan. Obviously that doesn’t sound such an exotic or great idea about vacations in peak summer but it was fun. I guess the vacation was necessary to get over few of the things those I had running through my head for a long long time. I thought I succeeded a bit in doing that. On second thought, may be not. What the heck, why am I such a spineless stupid?

Thy name is woman...

With the risk of being termed a MCP, I dedicate this post to all the girls I have known and will know in times to come (I feel like god :)). I bet anyone who has known a woman (including women themselves) will agree that this poem is so damn true. Enjoy...

An angel of truth and a dream of fiction,
A woman is a bundle of contradiction.
She’s afraid of a wasp, will scream at a mouse,
But will tackle her boyfriend alone in the house.

She’ll take him for better, she’ll take him for worse,
She’ll break open his head and then be his nurse.
But when he’s well and can get out of bed,
She’ll pick up the teapot and aim for his head.

Beautiful and keenly sighted, yet blind,
Crafty and cruel, yet simple and kind.
She’ll call him a king, then make him a clown,
raise him on a pedestal, then knock him flat down.

She’ll tell him that he is the best guy she ever met,
Then she'll ask him why can’t they just be friends.
When she is upset, she'll like him to leave her alone,
And if he does so, she'll tell him he has a heart made of stone.

She’ll inspire him to deeds that ennoble man,
Or make him her lackey to carry her fan.
She’ll run away from him and never come back,
But if he runs away, then she’ll be on his tracks.

Sour as vinegar, sweet as a rose,
She’ll kiss you one minute, then turn up her nose.
She’ll win you in range, enchant you in silk,
She’ll be stronger than brandy, milder than milk.

At times she’ll be vengeful, merry and sad,
She’ll hate you like poison, and love you like mad.

Note: This one is not original; it is by a Mid Day correspondent and was published in March 2006 in Mid Day, Mumbai. However, I have added one paragraph in the original one; I hope it has fit in well. No prize for guessing but no harm in trying either.

One thoughtless political decision, one giant setback for meritocracy

Never write off politicians. Just in case you did, they have come back. They were ignored for a long by youth, who gave a damn to them. They lost their front page print media space and their time share on TV channels to shining stars of India Inc. Dalal Street started making more news than Indian Parliament and I thought we are moving forward. Moving forward to building an India where the country has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls of religion, caste and gender. I thought we are inching towards making India a country that is built on foundation of meritocracy, an economic powerhouse where results matter and not reasons, a future that puts the ghosts of our political blunders to rest and a political environment where youth can stand united and fight to regain and restore India’s supremacy. They yet again proved me wrong.

The Human Resouce Ministry has recently proposed to introduce reservations for other backward classes in higher education institutes, including the IITs, IIMs and 20 central universities. If implemented the overall reservation in the central government institutions will be from the current 22.5% for SC and ST students to 49.5%. The politics of reservations is back and for politicians definitely make great sense ahead of the Uttar Pradesh elections next year where the OBC vote could change the political landscape.

I was in school when Mandal commission report stirred the whole country. I still can’t unremember the burning pictures of Rajeev Goswami (The poster boy of anti-Mandal agitation, 1990) on India Today cover page and what followed it. It started the series of self-immolation incidents all over India. He was a Hero for me in my childhood and in my teenage years I developed a sense of anger for reservation due to the cost I paid. Rajeev never got a government job and died a lonely and unnoticed death last year. Barring a few cursory references to the act that had once catapulted him to iconic status, it was an unsung death. Why Rajeev Goswami died unsung? It’s because India has changed so dramatically in the last 15 years that neither the cause he espoused with such violence, nor the methods his opponents employed to crush the agitation are relevant today. But I guess there are still people around who want to bring back the ghost of Rajeev.

I believe with age come wisdom but I guess not for politicians. Though I had been deeply involved in caste based politics and gang rivalries during my early undergrad college days, I matured and put behind the caste discrimination. Our politicians still seem to be stuck with caste based politics. My point is that everybody needs to be judged based on his/her capability. In what caste one is born is something which he/she doesn’t have a control on. So why differentiate based on caste? Are we saying that everyone born in upper caste is born with a silver spoon? Are we to believe that all backward caste families are below poverty line in India? Yes, we need to support under privileged social groups to elevate them to even levels in social strata but at what stages and up to what extent? India has had reservation system in place from ages and politicians need to accept that it has not worked the way it was envisaged. If we want to do the same thing over and time again but expect different results, that’s pure insanity. This caste based reservation has just divided the nation at grass root levels.

The recent government proposal is a giant setback for meritocracy and forced me to initiate this caste Vs merit debate. I don’t believe that caste should be criteria for reservation; rather it should be economical status of an individual. If you want upper caste kids from lower middle class families to score almost double marks than their lower caste, higher class counterparts and still be out on stands, go ahead. If you want to penalize him/her because he/she is born in an upper class family, go ahead. If you want few more Rajeev Goswami, go ahead. Else, rethink.

This post is an expression of my personal views. I do not intend to offend any body. If you agree with me, please sign the petition against proposed reservation (Link below). I do not know if this will change anything but I still want to do my bit for supporting a cause:

http://www.petitiononline.com/No_Quota/

Outlandish disorder

The idea of this post is not to bitch about life or generate sympathy by self pitying. These are random thoughts to vent out something which I have no clue about. I am going through some very strange syndrome; don’t know what it’s called coz it never happened before. It’s strange and definitely not fun. I am not myself anymore. Last I remembered, I was right on the top of life, couldn’t have complained about anything not going my way. When everything seemed so perfect, just right then something swept me under my feet. I guess I have a reasonable idea about this ‘something’ but no clue on what followed it. Funny part is that being swept is not new to me. Life has tried that many times before too, but this time looks like life fellow got it right. So here I am, down and out in myself.

Everything that can go wrong, have gone (Murphy must be pretty happy to see that his law works, I bet it does). You name it, I got it. “Identity crisis”, “Directionless life”, “Comparison Blues”, “Crushed spirit” and “Evaporated confidence”. I am still doing fine enough to not generate even a minor blip on external radars about my state of mind, I guess of late I have become damn good at it. What has got hit is definitely something in me.

Living life with lost confidence is something that I am not used to. Its painful coz it makes you forget everything which you were so proud about and good at. It makes you realize what all you have lost and how miserable you are. Your flaws and limitations seem larger than life and you hate yourself for whatever you are. You lose sleep and start operating in a pre programmed manner. I guess right somewhere there I am. I thought giving time to myself will make a difference but this seems to be one of those things that get worse with time. Just when you think it can’t get worse, something happens.

I guess one good thing in this syndrome is that I am getting to know myself and knowing your limitations is not bad if you have never admitted those. At the end of the day I am not a perfect person and when I come out of this syndrome I will just want to be what I am. Until then I am lost, will not let system get me down but got no energy to fight back either. Gonna try everything other than giving up :-)

SSDD Demystified

If I ask you to remember and list significant days of your life, how long a list will you come up with? Fifty, hundred, five hundred? I sincerely doubt if anyone can list more days than that. So now what is your age? Let’s say twenty five years. Now tell me if you just remember hardly two years of that, where did other twenty three years go? Other twenty three years of your life can be termed SSDD; Same Shit Different Day.

SSDD is vastly misunderstood and is considered as a negative way of looking at life. However, I firmly believe that one agrees or not, SSDD exists in everybody’s life. Let’s face the truth; in life there are two types of days, few to live and rest to survive. It’s like they tell you in cricket, not every ball is to hit. You need to leave tough ones and hang on there until that loose one comes your way on which you can free your arms. Similarly in your life, you go through ordinary days in ordinary ways doing all the ordinary stuff, don’t you? So there is SSDD, isn’t it? However, you obviously don’t sulk and become full of pessimism when you are letting an ordinary day go by. So you see SSDD is not a pessimist phenomenon, its rather your way of telling life that you will not let ordinary stuff divert you from stuff that you are really excited about. So next time when you realize that life has thrown an ordinary day towards you and someone asks you how is it going, what are you going to tell? Tell the truth, embrace SSDD.

Life goes on, day by day, SSDD way...

If I look back to May 2003 time frame it was euphoria and ambitions of conquering summits of excellence in our professional worlds that helped me bidding a courageous farewell to all that I loved. I mean it was never easy to imagine life without System Lab and Gurunath kind of things. Somehow things changed a lot after that, partly with time and partly due to circumstances, and hopefully all for the good. I still had a PC with almost similar configuration until last summer as I had in sys lab and I still do drink coffee from a Nescafe vending machine, however neither sys lab nor Gurunath is a part of life. All this is not sheer nostalgia; somewhere down there lies the truth of my life. I still remember, while sitting in Gurunath on a late summer night, me, Deepak and Swapan talked about the same funny thing called life. We went all over; friends, family, love, career and what not. During all that discussion Tidel Park building in distant background with all its glow was a kindda representative of an immediate milestone for times to come; a beginning of new chapter in our professional life. Months later I ended up getting a job in that building, and several months later to that, every late night I walk to office pantry, forcing my face as close as possible to the screened glass wall in a hope of getting a glimpse of dim lights of Gurunath; never succeeded, lights are too bright in pantry and too dim in Gurunath. That’s life; hope you are getting the theme.

Past thirty three months have been a fairly good time, but if you ask me am I happy, I don’t have an answer. Logically I should be; if I go by numbers, I should still be. Though there have been significant things to be happy, cherish and to be proud about, looks like the average duration for which this happiness lasts has reduced exponentially. Now a days happiness lives for minutes and disappointment may prevail for days. People wonder what the hell else you need in life if what you have is not enough and you complain what the hell I should give more to life to get what I need. Lots of ‘What’ and nobody seem to have any answer, even you. Seems funny? Amidst all this life still goes on, day by day, SSDD way.