I have found myself

There was a slack period over the last few months. I didn't lose track, but I had a good contemplative resting period. Over this period, I've realized
1. You're the master of your own destiny.
2. You can take help, but you've to find yourself only within you.
3. Be a little selfish, say no when you don't like, and yes when you like.

I think I've found out my short-term and long-term goals - "Creating the vision for a business unit, defining strategies for a successful organization, delivering stretch targets while satisfying stakeholders - I aspire to be an admired leader in the tech-industry. I want to take that experience to realize my long-term dream of being a social entrepreneur when I can use technology to impact the society."

Phew, one month I literally whiled away time in office. I'll not allow that to happen again, especially when I now know there's not much use in spending that time thinking about friends without being reciprocated. Actually, I didn't have that many either, I'm only as capable as I am, I can't help it. But now time's come, not to bother about such small things and start thinking about bigger things in life.

An MBA in the next two years, marriage in the next three years, a house and a car around that time, director or above in the next ten years, a social entrepreneur at 40 - well, this is my dream stint. Some of these might not happen or something else might happen, but then I'll seriously try to avoid anything that discourages this and pursue anything that encourages this.

I want to thank everyone who's come in my life so far - some of whom have inspired me, some of whom have been with me, some others who have advised me, and some others who have shocked me. I am now moving to the next phase in life - the phase where if you don't work out, you get a tummy, if you don't take care of your hair, your head starts shining, if you don't realize what to do in life, you lose the race. The romantic phase is over and I'm now into the executing phase.

Let me wish myself all the best.

I'm still searching

It's been a month since I landed back in India. I call it my one-year honeymoon in the US when I speak about the trip to my friends. If not anything, I was learning something everyday. Wow, what a land it is! How much do I love US? To an extent that I just want to stay there. But will I relocate? No, I want to be in my country and do whatever I can to transform it. Will I achieve what I want to? Well, even a fool would answer no, and I'm not going to say a yes, but then I'll be happier being here and "trying" to do what I want to than being there and enjoying all of it. But who knows, I might lose the zeal as time sails and in 2020, I might have taken an apartment in the bay area.

What has changed in the one year? Well, Bangalore roads haven't. Bomb blasts and terrorist attacks have become more than fortnightly events. My parents have started talking about my marriage. My friends are getting married one-by-one. I visited Madurai to just see how much of it has changed, mm not much. In all, there are many changes and there aren't many. Well, most of these I expected. But there is one thing I definitely didn't expect - the lack of cheer in my great old friends.

Coming after a year I felt like hugging and kissing everyone right at the Brigade-MG Road junction, but then I don't see that old cheer in many of them. I don't know who has grown old faster, but there's a definite disconnect. I agree, people change, people get new friends, their priorities change, we could've spoken for one hour then, but now even five minutes would be difficult. That much I expected. But then I also expected five minutes of "wow, so long, things've changed so much" kind of conversations. But what I see are dull "mm", "oh" conversations. I HATE THIS.

I am not complaining, but I know it's time for me to transform too. I've started my transformation. If my old friends who still have not transformed, speak to me after a year, probably they'll be as shocked as I'm today. May be I've already shocked many. Or may be I've not matured enough. I don't know, but I know I need to move on. I don't want to be a loser. All I wanted to say through this post is "Sorry" to some of my friends and "Catch you soon" to a few others. If you're my friend and reading this, you know which of those I'm telling you.

Arasa maratha thedi

Arasa maratha thedi

Oru paatu onnu paadi

Thai naata naadi
Naan varren aadi

An attempted translation:

In search of the peepul shade

Humming a song that was homemade

Towards my motherland that doesn't fade

I'm on my way to invade

I hate rules as much as I hate to break them

This title, from a mail I sent to a dear friend yesterday, I think is going to essentially decide what I am going to be doing in my life. The last one year in the US, I have had numerous discussions with the small gang that I came along with from Bangalore - starting from petty things like speed limit to going far beyond talking about moral values, money, lives, wives, parents, friends, love, hatred, socialism, communism, democracy, dictatorship and what not. However, breaking rules had been the most frequent topic.

Different people have had different opinions, we have never come to a conclusion, for the discussions were not for concluding anything. But I just have one opinion - "follow the rule as long as it is required to maintain harmony, the moment you realize breaking it is going to create better harmony, go ahead and break it if it does not do a perceived harm to anyone." After all, good to someone can be bad to someone else as much as bad to someone can be good to someone else.

One thing is for sure - how much I am going to follow or break rules is going to decide so many things in my life. How much of a maverick am I going to be and how much of a conformist am I going to be ... how much am I going to stand out from the crowd and how much am I going to stand with it ... how much am I going to be unconventional and how much am I going to be conventional ... whom do I marry, where do I see my career a few years later, what am I going to be doing at 40, well, so many such questions will be answered as I keep deciding all through my life - how much do I follow and how much do I break! As I decide and keep moving, if I realize a little later that I made a wrong decision, I am not going to be repent because I know I would have used the best of my resources to make the decision at that point in time. I just hope all those who are concerned or affected by my decision also feel the same way.

Heart and hope - well, those two have had little meaning to me so far, but then I'm feeling their increasing importance as I sail through the ocean called life and as I keep realizing more and more that there is no right or no wrong thing. God, please help me reach my destination.

Animal rights mystified

I'm in a criticizing spree - first I criticized myself, then I criticized vegetarianism, and I'm still not done; not to mention my earlier posts, there was one that supported reservations and there was even one that supported terrorism. Now I feel like picking apart the animal rights activists. As always, this is only a crooked thought and I am not against animal rights; I'm not an animal-hater and I respect all the animal rights organizations for the wonderful job that they're doing. So, you read and forget this.

Can a non-vegetarian love animals?
I do love animals as much as I do humans, but then I am not a vegetarian. Does that mean I can't love animals? No. Morality to a saint is being away from all the material wealth and earthly pleasures, does that mean normal people are immoral? No. People ask me - how is an animal different from a human? If you eat an animal, will you eat a human? Well, I can also ask a counter-question - why do you do certain things with your wife that you don't do with your mother? It's your discretion, you like to do certain things, you do it. If I like them, I would do, otherwise I would do something else as long as I'm not violating the laws of "g"od. You decide not to do something, but that doesn't mean people who do it are wrong. They could perhaps be wrong as much as you're perhaps wrong yourselves. I've seen animal rights activists protest against horse-riding, etc. Are they going to stop taking vaccines that were tested on rats and monkeys? When they buy a vegetable, do they make sure that the vegetable is from a field that was ploughed only by a tractor and not by a bullock? And what should the millions of poor farmers around the world who can't afford to buy a machine do? Closing your eyes doesn't mean it's dark.

I prefer to shut up if I can only declaim
"Street dog mauls a 10-year old again" is more than just frequent news in the Bangalore papers. I am not saying we should cruelly kill the street dogs, but why not kill them mercifully. Some animal rights organizations are fine with humanitarian killing, but some don't want them to be killed at all; because they know their children do not play in the slum streets that are infested with these infected dogs. If I don't know a better way, I prefer to shut up rather than declaim. I am not saying people should shut up, but till we find a solution, we need to do some damage-control. Darwin's theory of survival of the fittest does not only say that we exist because we are fit, but also says that we'll not exist if we are not fit.

I am a hypocrite myself
People in the US, I admire them for certain things - they're not too much bothered about what others think, they do what their heart tells them as long as they know doing that doesn't harm anyone. For example, I heard that a 40 year old once quit my company and went to study law. I can't imagine anyone in India even thinking about doing something like that. But one of the things that I don't like about them - they create so much fuss about their pets, but I'm sure they had beef for their lunch. I'm not saying don't love your pets, but isn't this hypocrisy? Well, I'm a hypocrite myself.

Sense to me could be nonsense to you
Somehow, everyday that passes is making my feeling that "nothing is less important and nothing is more important" stronger and stronger. I'm not sure where this "everything is noble" attitude is going to take me to, but at least I'm slowly starting to discover a state of happiness, from a satisfaction gained from a realization that I didn't have, all these years. Terrorism to one person is freedom struggle to another, killing to one is eating to someone else, reward to one person is punishment to another, important to one is trivial to another, good to one is bad to another ... sense to me is nonsense to you!

Whom should I care?

I read this somewhere - "Don't let someone be your priority when you're just an option for that someone".

This affected me so much that I spent days pondering over it. But it was actually better than ruminating about people who don't spend any significant amount of time thinking about me. There've been so many sleepless nights wondering about some of my friends whom I consider close enough; about something that worries them, annoys them, exults them or whatever be it. But then I failed to realize for so long that I can only go half-way, and that I can't meet them unless they come half-way the other direction. I usually like to put friends into three buckets:
A. Friends who're really close and whose reaction to a random situation I'll be able to guess.
B. Friends who're not too close, nevertheless we like each other and our wavelengths match.
C. Friends who're just acquaintances and I'm usually not too bothered about what they do.

"A" are normally not a problem, "C" could be a problem, but I don't care. But those in the bucket "B" are people whom I like, for whom I care and about whom I'm bothered. The problem is those in my "B" might not be having me in their "B", I could be even in their "C" (whether I could be in their "A" is a difficult question to answer, it's totally subjective). I can knock at their doors and wait for sometime, but then, I should start walking back at some moment. As I walk, I can even turn back every now and then to look if the door's opening, but beyond that I have other things too, there are other people who're bothered about me and I need to respond to them. After some thought, I think I have classified friends into how I need:
1. Friends for whom I'm a priority.
2. Friends for whom I'm definitely an option, but not a priority.
3. Friends for whom I'm just an option or not even an option.

The A-B-C classification was based on what they're for me, but I guess I need to quickly learn about the 1-2-3 classification, which is based on what I'm for them. I think I know whom to place where, but I want to find out soon enough how exactly to befriend them, how much do I care for them, how much do I bother about them and how much do I actually think about them. I only hope that I don't misclassify people and that I don't lose some of them because of the misclassification.

I'm already starting to feel I've got a lot of time these days because I've almost stopped thinking about some of whom were a priority to me but for whom I was probably just an option. I can instead use this time to think about so many of those who don't have anyone to care about. I think I'm proceeding in the right direction, to what I should be doing when I'm 40, to what will give me the feeling of bliss, probably for which I came to exist in this world. I want to, as early as I can, stop doing things that I'll not be doing at 40 and start doing things that I desire to be doing at 40. What exactly is it? I'm still trying to find out.

Vegetarianism mystified

This is just a funny post, that blossomed through some lateral thinking. I have no intentions to hurt anyone. So, read it and forget it.

Search for "Fruits continue to live and respire after picked" in google, there are so many articles that say how fruits and vegetables continue to breathe long after they're picked. Besides uprooting and killing plants of potatoes, onions, carrots, beetroots, radishes, etc., vegetarians not only inflict pain on other plants by plucking their fruits and leaves, but also gain satisfaction from eating them live! At least non-vegetarians kill the animals before eating! If vegetarianism is about not killing, I'm not convinced that it does what it wants; if vegetarianism is about not inflicting pain, I'm still not convinced because plants do respond to stimuli; if vegetarianism is about not causing blood shed, well I remember reading about xylem and phloem in plants.

God has given us canine teeth (no herbivore has canine teeth) and the inability to digest cellulose (no carnivore has this ability). He also gave us the sixth sense I agree, but who knows, probably a lion has a seventh sense. Jainism mandates pure vegetarianism to an extent of avoiding anything that involves uprooting. But I'm not sure if Jains don't do woodwork for their fancy houses. Sikhs don't serve meat during religious occasions, but the rest of the time they do balle-balle. There're conflicting evidences for Buddha preaching vegetarianism, but then no Buddhist country follows vegetarianism. When it comes to Hinduism, there are evidences of the Veda allowing ritual sacrifices of animals though it opposes meat-eating because of the negative Karma that surrounds it (Disclaimer: I don't understand sanskrit, so I don't know what the Veda actually tells, I can only believe what I read and what I was taught). Interestingly, the concept of vegetarianism started and has been religiously preached only in India, I'm not sure if there is any other country that practices vegetarianism in religion.

Well, my intention is not to justify or unjustify anyone or anything, but then I'm slowly starting to believe that nothing is good and nothing is bad and that nothing is more important and nothing is less important. I don't think God created man presuming he should be the most sovereign race on earth, but then somewhere down the line, something has gone wrong. I was not born a billion years ago to understand all of this! I could be right or I could be wrong, but I'm not going to regret when I disprove myself later. I only know so much now, I can only do so much; when I know more, I'll do more. For now, let me continue to float in thin air.

Vaishnava Janato

Vaishnava Janato

I've heard this song multiple times but never knew the meaning, a wonderful Gujarati song. I found the transliteration in Wikipedia, thanks to Shubha for pointing it out. If only everyone does what is said in the song, what a wonderful place will this world be! Though the song mentions about Lord Rama, it has nothing to do with Him, you can as well substitute Him with any other God or with no one at all. [Well, the God here needs capitialization because the song refers to the God himself and so let's not bring in discussions of the previous post here :)]

1. vaishnav jan to tene kahiye, je peeD paraaee jaNe re
[He is the true Vaishnava who knows and feels another's woes as his own]
par dukkhe upkar kare toye, man abhiman na aaNe re
[Ever ready to serve others who are unhappy, he never lets vanity get to his head]

2. sakaL lok maan sahune vande, nindaa ne kare keni re
[Bowing to everyone humbly and criticising none]
vaach-kaacch-man nischaL raakhe, dhan-dhan janani teni re
[He keeps his speech, deeds and thoughts pure; blessed is the mother who begets such a one]

3. sam-drushti ne trishNaa tyaagi, parastree jene maat re
[He looks upon all with an equal eye. Having rid himself of lust, he treats and reveres every woman as his mother]
jihvaa thake, asatya na bole, par-dhan nava jhaale haath re
[His tongue would fail him if he attempted to utter an untruth. He does not covet another's wealth]

4. moh-maayaa vyaape nahin jene, draDh vairagya jena manmaa re
[The bonds of earthly attachment hold him not. His mind is deeply rooted in renunciation]
raam-naam shu taaLire laagi, sakaL teerath tena tanmaa re
[Every moment he is intent on reciting the name of the Lord Rama. All the holy places are ever present in his body]

5. vaNa lobhi ne kapat rahit chhe, kaam krodh nivaarya re
[He has conquered greed, deceit, passion (lust) and anger]
bhaNe Narsaiyyon teno darshan kartaun, kuL ekoter tarya re
[The sight of such a Vaishnava, says Narsinh, saves a family through seventy-one generations]

Does god believe in me?

The title is not a semantic typo, this post is not about whether or not you believe in god. Theists, don't get offended because I am not capitalizing our subject as "God"; this is not vandalism, I respect god as much as I respect anything else in this universe, because after all the universe is the god. You'll find your answer at the end. Atheists don't have to stop reading because I am not going to correlate god with gravity, saying whether you believe it or not, he exists. There's nothing in this post that hurts anyone, this is just an open-ended thought. But sometimes I think I've hurt people during discussions and arguments because I stand rigid at what my rational sense tells me, even if it were against me. So, if you think you might not like reading this, don't.

Newton wondered about falling apples, there could possibly be a few more people who had wondered too. Some of them could have even realized that there is some force that is operating between the apple and the earth, the others, may be didn't have that realization, nevertheless, most of those who had wondered should have understood that the reason why the apple fell down was because of the same reason why they fell down when they misstepped. Newton gave his realization a name and then tried to prove it mathematically, we all know that he was successful in doing that. Now all of us understand so much about gravity that there are even funny quotes that read "You can't blame gravity for falling in love" or "Gravity is a myth, the world sucks". There's nothing about believing in gravity or not believing in it, whatever you do, it exists. If you believe in it, you can save yourself from a few bruises when you walk down a slippery floor; if you want to protest against it, no one stops you, you can be the world's best pole vaulter.

Everything is equally important
Reading this blog can be less important to you and could be more important to someone else, or for that matter be it working or playing or sleeping or eating or making money or not making it or loving or not loving or whatever anyone does during any instant. We do something because we realize the importance of it or we don't realize the importance of something else. We can in fact be doing something even while we accept the importance of something else. For example, I am a software engineer and not a roadside cleaner, not because I don't realize the importance of cleaning, but because I know I don't have to do it and that there's someone else for it. Even if I know there's no one, I would probably not be doing it as my job because I'm not god; I'm not god to whom nothing is more important or nothing is less important, but then I know that I'm not doing any better job. There's something that resides in me and makes me the man I'm, which is so close to being something like a mini-god. Well, I'm not god, but I've god in me; if the universe is god, I'm a proud part of it. The god inside me makes me realize the importance of one thing while not of the other, but the sum of all such gods is a realization in which everything is equally important.

The chain reaction
I wrote this blog because there were hundred reasons that made me write it, and there are hundred more reasons why you're reading this blog too. I can feel the gentle evening's breeze walking over my window, the breeze exists because there was some variation in the air pressure somewhere, it's pleasant because of the time of the day, it feels good to stand by it because it's a beautiful season and that's because the northern hemisphere is just around the Spring Equinox. The chain reaction just goes on. Probably Osama is right now thinking about the next place to bomb, and he has a hundred reasons to do it. Whether he decides to bomb or not can even be related to where the earth is right now in its orbit. I can as well tell you a real fictitious information that just as he bombed New York on Sep 9 2001, Osama will bomb Washington on the American independence day of July 4 2010 because the Jupiter will be at some specific relative position to the earth or that the earth will be at some specific angle from mercury or both or whatever, it can get as mystic as possible. If I don't understand whatever I said, I'm ignorant. If you don't understand whatever you read, you could be ignorant too, or may be you're not because you know some other reason for what I just said. Well, I just wanted to say that I am doing something not because someone's controlling me, but because I chose to do it. There're a hundred reasons that I know of, that made me choose it and a thousand others that I don't know of.

My religion
Assume a world where everyone knows he's a god and everyone knows that everyone else is god too. Nothing is more important or nothing is less important to anyone. That doesn't mean everyone has to do everything. Anyone can choose to do anything, but then in that world, everyone knows that no one is better than anyone. There is nothing good or bad about anything. If the god inside me tells me to speak the truth I will. If the god inside Osama asks him to bomb, he will. But then probably he might not, if he realized that nothing is more important than the other. Lets extrapolate it to the whole of the universe - every human, every animal, every plant, every planet, every moon, every star, every galaxy, or in short every god understands the fact that every other thing is god too. In that universe, a lion killing a deer is not gory, a cannibal eating a human is not barbaric, a tsunami destructing a country is not cruel or the earth getting destroyed is not the end of life. If you think something is bad, that doesn't mean it actually is bad. In that world of gods, there can be only one thing that can happen - and that is good!

Who is god?
You probably ran for ten miles because you believed you can do it, you climbed the tallest peak in the world because you believed you can do it, you are thinking about what you're actually thinking right now because you are believing that you can think about it, now where is god when it's actually belief that is driving the universe, well that belief for you is the god. It could be something else for someone else or some completely different thing for something else that can't believe at all. But then whether you believe in god or not, god believes in you, that's why you exist. Whether you think about god or not, god thinks about you. And who's that god - that's you, that's me, that's everything else.

What does it take to be a god?
I'll probably stop doing anything that takes me away from what god believes in me. And what is that? I might probably not harm anyone if I know I'm doing harm, I might probably not say a lie when I think it's a lie, but does that mean I will not harm anyone or that I will not say a lie! That's not how the universe operates. I will probably not jump from the terrace; I know I will then be destroying god. May be I might not destroy the god in me, but I will surely lose the god in me. But then someone else could do this or I could be doing this to someone else. If I do only good, then I'm god, but I'm not god! Or may be I'm. Good to some god could be bad to some other god. But when I add them all up, ah, I can't do it, because I'm just part of god and I'm not the whole of god.

Does god believe in me?
Well, the reverse form of the question could be one of the most common questions other than "What's your name?". But then there's actually nothing about having to be believing in god. What I call as god could be energy to someone else, could be eternity to some other person, something else to one more person or probably nothing at all to many others. People, countries, continents, religions, philosophies, seasons, eras - could give different perceptions to different things, but the truth can neither be hidden nor be exposed, it just exists. And what is that truth? Well, I know what I should be doing and you know what you should be doing too. I've stopped searching for the God long time ago, because I know that I'm god and I know that you're god too. You and I don't need any capitalization; I believe in you, do you believe in me? I believe in god, the question is does god believe in me?

Quote of the day: The truth is more powerful than any weapon - Gandhi.
Video of the day: Love is God

Today's one of the happiest days in my life

News about Supreme Court judgement on reservations: I missed this, didnt follow the Indian news last week, got a little busy trying to do the material race activities at work. The Supreme Court has advised that reservations at top institutions should benefit only the econmically challenged people in the society, yippee! I really felt like jumping up and down in joy when I read this. Finally, there's something good happening in independent India even as the inflation is rising to 7.5%. There were a few points I liked in the article.

1. The Court has ruled that creamy layer will be excluded from the quota benefits.
2. The Court wants Government to review the 27 per cent quota after five years.
3. The court has said the concept of social equity must prevail over any concept of merit.
4. Reservations are for those dispriviledged for centuries in order to ensure they “come up”.
5. Caste, social and economic backwardness, all of them need to be considered. For example, if more than half of the caste is not graduate, it can be a criterion.
6. Until social inclusiveness is totally achieved, it's not time yet to talk about leaving people out.
7. Quotas were started by the royals – Maharajas of Kolhapur, Mysore, Travancore and Cochin – who did not even care for votes.

I am not sure how much the government is going to manipulate the judgement and how it is going to translate it to the benefit of itself, but at least this is a step towards an amazing India where I would like to spend the rest of my life - a place where poverty is just in the dictionary, where all of us realize everybody needs everybody else for own happiness, where men know only men can help men. Two years back I said "I agree that there could be nothing like if we are able to implement reservations based on economy, but in a country where we keep moving on a red signal and where there is unofficial movement of money even to perform normal duties in a goverment office, I will not be surprised if Ambani's son gets a seat through reservation citing penury." I am so happy that the first part of my sentence is probably going to come true, but I just hope that the second part does not.

Today's easily one of the happiest days in all my life.

What've I done to my country?

I am just storing through this blog a mail that I had sent to a few of my friends sometime back. When I come back and read this blog later, if there is nothing that is done to my conscience, then I've lost both my brain and my heart in the material race. If I feel guilty, then I had lost my brain but not my heart. But if I feel happy, then I didn't lose either of them, probably I had started serving the people.

Hey,

I'm slowly starting to lose my satisfaction at job. I no longer seem to be having the fiery passion for it. Not that the job is any bad or has it become redundant, it is as good as or better than it was ever. But I'm beginning to feel that I'm not doing anything good for the people. I've been experiencing this for the last couple of years, being in the US is only aggravating it, I feel living aloof from the masses and the villages and the poor people. I seem to be enjoying the world around me when so many people do not know how to live the next day. For the first time, I'm beginning to feel if I should've chosen medicine; I could have served the people, those who needed help. I was selfish when I chose to fly to Pilani after having got admitted at the Madras Medical College, I was bothered only about my life, my growth and my prosperity and failed to realize that all these are absolute rubbish when the majority of the world around is lacking every damn thing of it.

I am not sending this mail because you could send me some consoling words, but I'm just trying to find if doing it will make me come out of this because this has been more than just pestering me. Not that I'm not able to concentrate at my work, but I'm fearing if that would happen some day. I'm feeling like selling myself for nothing but money. I want to do something for my country, my land and my men. I know I can still do it, but I don't believe in part-time charity work or percentage donations. And I am starting to wonder if the world will fine tune me one day and make me do only that, if at all I do something. I don't know what I'm saying, but I'm just penning down my pains. Be it starting a school for children or installing computers and internet in the villages or starting a journal to help people get what they deserve or something else, I feel I'm not doing anything of those right now.

Let me see, may be I'll come back, do my MBA while sustaining to barely do some work, then I want to start something, some organization that people will know without doubt that it is for them and only for them. But most probably I'll not do any of those for the wicked self that I'm; I will end up growing myself and my family, and continue to cheat myself that my work is doing good for the betterment of mankind. But then, the day when I get this same feeling again later after all those years, I don't know what I would do.

Nats
Video of the day: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ul9Xvjt83eI

Learning is not compulsory, neither is survival

Some hackneyed quotes that I liked, these are not forwarded ones but those that I accumulated over time.

• The reasonable man adapts himself to the world, the unreasonable persists in trying to adapt the word to him, and all progress depends on the unreasonable man. (G. Bernard Shaw)
• The irony of life is that it is lived forward but understood backward. (Soren Kierkegaard)
• What I hear, I forget, what I see, I remember, what I do, I understand. (Confucius)
• Formal education will make you a living; self-education will make you a fortune. (Roosevelt)
• The minute you settle for less than what you deserve, you get even less than you settled for. (M David)
• A pessimist complains about the direction of the wind, an optimist expects the direction to change, the leader adjusts the sails. (William Arthur Ward)
• Education’s purpose is not to fill, but to open an empty mind. (Malcolm Forbes)
• The only time success comes before work is in the dictionary. (Anonymous)
• There’s plenty of room at the top, for those who’re willing to spend the time and effort climbing. (Anonymous)
• The only thing I like about stones that come in my way is that once I pass across them, they automatically become my milestones. (Anonymous)
• The glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time you fall. (Chinese proverb)
• Sometimes we stare so long at a door that is closing, that we see too late the one that is open. (Alexander Graham Bell)
• I have not failed; I’ve just found ten thousand ways that won’t work. (Thomas Alva Edison)
• Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new. (Albert Einstein)
• To err is human, but if the eraser wears out ahead of the pencil, you are overdoing it. (J. Jenkins)
• The reward for a thing well done is to have done it. (R.W. Emerson)
• God does not require us to win, He only requires us to try (Mother Teresa)
  
• Learning is not compulsory, neither is survival. (W. Edwards Deming)

There goes he again

Osama slams EU over Prophet cartoons: That's news about Osama Bin Laden's tape this time threatening the European Union against Prophet's misrepresentation. Though my first reaction was "Oh this guy doesn't want good in this world, why can't he let the people live in peace?", a few minutes of thought made me reconsider. Why did Osama come into the world at all. There are multiple reasons to it, but the most philosophical of all, but quite true, is people didn't follow the golden rule "When you're at the top, be aggresive, that will keep you at the top, but dont be arrogant". He's doing all this because the people at the top were arrogant. Of course Osama is now doing the same mistake too, may be someone else will retaliate Osama later.

Be it the country of US or the Australian cricket team or the newly rich IT crowd of Bangalore, I can say a dozen of other examples. I've noticed that whenever someone reaches the top, even if he were humble, people try to pull him down; if he were aggressive, people get together to device plans to bring him down; if he were arrogant, people try all possible means to push him to the abyss. If Osama is not humanistic, neither is the US and neither is India nor is Pakistan, Israel, Palestine, the list continues. Just that different sets of people weigh one over the other.

In my opinion, people should have good moral science classes in their childhood, I didn't find a lighter way to say what I wanted to; otherwise saving this world is going to become increasingly difficult. An easy example that suits the moment is cricket. If Indian cricket comes to the number one position, the same will happen to Indian cricket if the players are going to be arrogant; every country will then want to bring India down. I'm really not sure what Harbhajan Singh and Ishant Sharma are upto, playing in Australia. You can argue that this is what we need to do to a sledging Australian team. But that's just not the way how things work. You have no business to show the batsman the dressing room when he's walking out whatever he does to you, come on, this is nursery school stuff, we are all taught not to do that. How can you forget it twenty years later? Ishant Sharma should probably go back to his school and pass it again.

If Ilayaraja can create wonders in music, why hasn't he risen above South India? If Microsoft is such an endeared company at every household, why is the rest of the industry against it? If US is the economy driver for the whole globe, why do most countries hate the US? All of them are arrogant!

Man thinks he's part of the supreme race to have ever been created by God. God tries to prove him wrong at every moment, but he fails to understand it almost always. I think it'll all stop only when he destroys himself. If that should not happen, man has to do a little bit of self-examination and realize that nothing is more important than the other, everything needs everything else to live in harmony.

Om Shanthi (Let there be peace)!

My Intuitions and Introspections

This is not another complaint or a rant of another Indian on India. I respect my country and I am so much passionate about my people. This is purely my opinion on the differences between the Indians and the rest of the world that I see from whatever little experience and exposure I have been having in the US. There are so many things where the Indians take a comfortable edge over almost any other mass in the world. I have listed some of them below.
1. Doing a job to perfection
The reason why Indian service industry is so popular
2. Showing aggression when you succeed
The reason why the world fears when India succeeds
3. Feeling ashamed when you have to act on instructions
The reason why bosses don't want to order Indians
4. Mastering something and persisting after that
The reason why people are happy having Indians in their teams
5. Willing to collaborate to get a job done
The reason why many teams need one or two Indians within
6. Take full responsibility of something that people expect from you
The reason why people are willing to give jobs to Indians

But thinking it from the other angle, I see some subtle differences where our culture, our society, our education system and our rewarding system modulate and tune us so much that we lose our individuality in the process (Indian cricket fast bowlers for example). I just rephrased the bullets 1-6 above to give them a slightly different mood.

1. Indians: Do their assigned tasks so well.
Americans: Create work that can assign them tasks.
2. Indians: Sledge at the batsman walking out.
Australians: Sledge at the batsman walking in.
3. Indians: When you don't know to lead, you find it difficult to follow too.
Chinese: Everyone knows he has to follow if he can't lead.
4. Indians: When you get into your comfort zone at a task, you want to manage the team.
English: When you get into your comfort zone, switch to the next where you aren't comfortable.
5. Indians: You don't know something, ask around, take help and get it done.
Russians: You don't know something, look around, analyze, give your best, you'll find the solution.
6. Indians: When you can't meet the date, stretch, finish it and let know everyone you stretched.
French: When you're not on schedule, stretch, complete, but tell yourself this is not the way.

An American kid is taught to do everything on his own at school while an Indian kid is told that Parents, Teacher and God are always there watching you, guiding you and making you better. An Indian kid is made to believe that the best success is the one with minimum investment, an American kid is taught to believe that no success can reach you unless you respect the hardships that you have to put into for it. An Indian walks into a supermarket and asks the helpers around if he doesn't know where an article is, an American walks into a new store and asks for help only if he can't find the article. I am not saying that one is better or the other is worse, but these are just different ways to do the same thing. There is no question about the family values or the social fear that keeps a permanent check on Indians and about which India can definitely boast of, but this is not yet another "Vande Mataram" or "Jai Hind". These are just my "Intuitions and Introspections".

May be some of you might agree, many would disagree, but this is what I have been learning. I intend to change myself, I want to take the positives from both the worlds and be a better man going forward.

So, what is it on day 5?

I wanted to get rid of this habit of following cricket with more than just passion, but somehow I still haven't gotten rid of it completely. The recent test match series between Australia and India has enticed me too much that cricinfo is always an open window on my laptop. I just imagined what would be there on the Indian papers before the last day's play and here it is.

"We want to win it for Gilly" declared Clarke on a day when India did not demonstrate any trait to beat the world champions. "Australia have to bat last and nobody can say what's going to happen" averred Pathan who got his first and his hundredth test wicket in this very ground. In what appears to be vastly an uninteresting finish to the cricket lovers who were taken more than once during the test to a decade or two back with a couple of hundred runs scored and just a few wickets falling on a day, these statements from the campaigners Down Under are more of a rant than a declaration; you can as well wipe them off as a splash of water on glass.

Indians have manifested time and again that they cannot just stand the fifth day's wicket under pressure even as the Australians have taken every oppurtunity to slap it on the opposition when it comes to proving why they always are the number one. But then neither will the highly famed batsmen of the peninsular nation allow resoluteness to take over their class nor will a bowler like Kumble reel to any sublimation when challenged.

Whether it is going to be a Sehwag cracker with support from the special four in posting an unreachable target and then an outstanding display of accurate bowling that can give the guests a chance to level the series; or a defense breaking bowling and then a spectacular exhibition of power play from the hosts to give them more than a convincing series victory; or a complete batting collapse of the touring side with Dravid and Laxman humbly trying to save the game; or an unsporting declaration from Kumble batting almost till after tea against a team that knows the only way to win a test match is to attack; whatever it be, everyone's sure that there's going to be a lot of heat around the Adelaide Oval on the final day of the final test match in a series that has been flashing in the front pages for more than just cricketing reasons.