Carnations

East or West, Heart is the Best

2012-01-08T17:59:00.056+05:30

The picture on the left, that looks more like some coastal place in India is actually a picture clicked in the US by a friend of mine. The one on the right, that appears more like a National Park in the US, is actually something another friend clicked in India. The one in the middle is what I clicked a few years back when I was probably flying somewhere in the middle of these two countries. You will understand towards the end the correlation between these pictures and the post.

I've had numerous discussions with people about the Western and the Eastern world. Before I first went to the US, I warned myself about the shooting incidents there. But when I did my research, I realized the absurdity of my assumption. How many such incidents happen in the US? Compare it against 30,000 murders that happen in India every year, 100,000 thefts and 50,000 riots. Absolute numbers can be misleading, I agree, but India's per capita crime rate is not very pleasant either. And these are only the reported numbers. You and I know how much of information is "reported" in India. My information weapon was thence vociferously destroyed!

Once, I was talking to a friend against the US and told him - "I hate this place because I feel it's all about brain and no heart here. I am happier living amidst my loving people, even if it means it's a sub-standard place". He replied - "I think that is an extremely biased statement. How is it that you feel politicians and gundas occupying your piece of land, that you so dearly earned with all your savings of life only to be threatened for life when approached, is all heart and no brain?" Viola, my socialism weapon was destroyed too!

To another friend I said, "I like being in India where I can knock my neighbour's door if I need some help in the night, I can stop my car on the highway and ask for directions, I can give my house keys to a nearby shop when I'm going out, than being in the US only to find out that even if my house is on fire, I've to call 911 for help." The friend replied, "Yes, but I'm not exactly sure how everyone has an opinion about your life, seeming to know so much about how you've to live than you know it for yourself?" Ah, my community weapon was also destroyed!

To friend three, I said "I like living in India where I can stay with my parents and relatives, sleep between them, grow among them, and be bounded by love and affection than by comfort and quality of life, without the togetherness". The friend replied - "I don't know how you can say this when all of you leave for office before eight, reach only after eight, spend three hours on the road daily, and don't even have time to spend with your children, forget about having time to spend with parents and relatives." The last of my weapons, the family weapon was also destroyed!

With all my weapons destroyed, I realized I was just biased - listening to everyone around me, many of whom have not stepped out of their town, many of whom still think North Indians are cunning or South Indians are dangerous, many of whom don't even know how many states exist in the North East, many of whom still don't let the so called lower castes into their houses, many of whom think India is so close to nature when you can't even breathe fresh air.

If living in the US is wrong, then all of us Indians living in the city should probably be living in the villages that gave our grandparents to this world. If loving the US is wrong or marrying some other country is wrong, then none of us should love or marry until our parents have left this world. If asking a superficial "How are you?" is wrong, then asking a heartfelt "How are you?" is also wrong, if you can't do anything about it if the other person replies "No, I'm not fine".

US-India is a combination I've evidently discussed a lot about, so I just stuck to it, but this is largely true about any West-East discourse. I think it's all about perceptions. Not all of what the East thinks about the West is right and not all of what the West thinks about the East is right. The truth is, every place is unique, every person is special. Whatever does exist superficially, as long as the trace of love exists in everyone, this planet will continue to survive. Be it the "Everyone together" philosophy of the East or the "First You" attitude of the West, I think it's not Home, but the Heart that is the Best!

Should you really cover up?

2011-12-25T21:21:00.030+05:30

I have long been wanting to write about this monster called ego, that stands between human growth and stagnation. I partly touched upon this in my "change" post, but wanted to unwrap it in a harsher way.

Facebook fell prey to hackers recently, and claimed that it was a browser issue. I do not deny the genuineness of the claim, but I was very surprised to see stereotypical messages posted by my friends working in Facebook - "There have been inaccurate reports of Facebook accounts being hacked. This is not true, and no accounts have been compromised." And this was at a time when there were a dozen newspapers reporting about many thousands of Facebook accounts being hacked worldwide.

There was a post I wrote a couple of years back, when Mr. Chidambaram, as Home Minister claimed that India is a completely safe country, safer than many other countries of the world. And this was at a time when India was bombarded with bomb attacks every two weeks. How does being safer than many countries qualify India to be a safe country?

I don't deny that a company or a country should talk responsibly, but is this just responsibility? Yes, we are used to hearing the CEO say "We are looking forward to the strongest results in our history", just a week before the company would fall overnight. Yes, we are used to hearing the Central Bank say "Our economics are fundamentally strong and rationally sound", just a day before the stock market would witness its sharpest fall. But the letdown is, we are so used to these cover-ups that we've internalized this vice within ourselves too. Let us take this head to head.

There was an article recently that slammed the idea of giving Bharat Ratna to Sachin Tendulkar. The rationale was that any country's highest award is supposed to be given to someone who has made a difference to the lives of people. I do not want to talk here about the article itself, but about a comment that disagreed with the author, noting that India is a young nation and that we need to pat ourselves even for small achievements. I didn't quite understand the logic here because, I thought we were one of the oldest nations, claiming to have built marvelous cities when the rest of the world didn't know what civilization was.

Why talk about unrelated people? Try criticizing a good friend of yours, you will know. And when you lie down on bed that night after being surprised by the way your friend reacted, just introspect and find out how you had behaved all your life for any criticism you had faced.

Is this self-righteousness? Is this pride? Is this ego? Or is this just normal human behaviour? If even after tens of thousands of years of existence, mankind has not got egos out of their way, I'm afraid this can be called normal. If we can't even conquer ourselves, what are we trying to prove with our existence? If shame is the first step towards accomplishment, it's high time we took shame on ourselves and started accomplishing.

Let us stop covering up, let us start uncovering the beauties that exist within this wonderful creation called mankind!

May have been for business, but a trip nevertheless

2011-12-18T18:38:00.001+05:30

It was a business trip to meet industrial customers of Western India. Cement, Textiles, Chemicals, Fertilizers, Pharma, Rubber, Power, Metals - you name and I can now smell them all even from a distance.

I flew down to Jaipur and the trip started from there. Joining different team members on the way, I had to cover ten cities in two weeks, so I didn't stay in one city for more than a day. Except for a couple of train journeys, I mostly took the road, travelling through some of the most rustic parts of rural India.

It was of course a huge learning opportunity for me to understand the business, interacting directly with customers. But this post is not about that. I seem to have discovered the child back in me during this trip and this post is about that. I may not do anything about it for some more time, because I still haven't solved the riddle of how or why I should retain things in me that I feel are not of any use to this world, but at least I was happy that the child in me was still alive.

Almost all of these factories had huge lawns covering a wide landscape, and I felt like playing in those lawns; I don't remember when I last felt that. We visited Nirma factory, and I wanted to sing the Nirma song, but you know, I was on a business trip. We visited Chittorgarh, and I wanted to visit the fort, but no one seemed to be interested. There were these cooling towers in the plants that had water dripping down like a waterfall, but no one was playing even in those. Oh yes, this was a business visit, I was not supposed to play in those either.

Ah, am I talking about being a child and such things too often now? Am I beginning to lose track? Am I starting to feel individual happiness is the way to collective harmony? Come on, it can't be.

Ok, we will leave that for now. The most wonderful part of this trip was interacting with the rural people of Rajasthan. So naive, so unsophisticated. We stopped at many roadside shops and had authentic Rajasthani food. I may have liked the food even better if I was not running temperature, but I surely enjoyed the food getting served by them. Wish I could just become one of them! But wait, I still haven't figured out how to be useful to this world by being one of them.

May have been for business, but this was a great trip nevertheless!

There will be another day

2011-11-25T20:46:00.001+05:30

"On a train from Shimla to Delhi, there was a halt in one of the stations. Sachin was nearing century, batting on 98. The passengers, railway officials, everyone on the train waited for Sachin to complete the century. This genius can stop time in India!"

There will be a myriad of articles felicitating Sachin Tendulkar's 100th international century when he eventually gets it, but I felt like writing one today, not to praise his mastery of the game, for which there are enough, but about the person that I see in him.

Yes, I was also one of those who couldn't see his guilty face when he walked back to the pavilion after making just 18 runs in the World Cup final. But the guilt on his face today was not any batsman in the world would've had to endure. He walked back after making 94 and the disappointment in the crowd was still the same. It wouldn't have been hugely different even if these were not the occasions of the World Cup or his 100th century. The truth is we just can't see him make anything less than a 100, every match. Such is the expectation that he has been shouldering for two decades now.

What makes him the person that he is? "Excellence is not impossible, if you marry a phenomenal work ethic to the talent that you are born with. Combine that with perseverance, and you've Tendulkar". True! But I would say he is probably one of the most praised as well as criticized.

He has heard a billion comments from a million people who never in their life have played a game of cricket. Yet he listens to them modestly. In fact, his disposition to listen to everyone did not make him a good captain. But that is not his fault, that is his character. You may not find him talk inspiringly on the mike, but that is not his fault again, he is just shy and reserved. He may not be the person who excels in pressure the most. Still, that is not his fault, that is his personality.

He is the best when he is his natural self, and that is to be the child that he is. He runs between the wickets as if just that one run was needed to win the match. He is elated taking a catch as if that one wicket was needed to gain the match. He doesn't take guard without a match practice the previous day. He doesn't face a ball without his helmet on. Because to him every match is his first. Because he knows he can't take things for granted. Because he knows he still has so much to learn. But more interestingly, because he knows he has to go on. And on. And on.

There will surely be another day for Sachin, but time we took lessons not just from his bat, but from his heart too.

Just another, not lemon but, lonely tree

2011-10-05T19:00:00.020+05:30

"Never regret anything that once made you smile" - I read this somewhere and my emotional and rational personalities had to fight again. It could be "anything" or "anyone", but "anyone" is easier to debate about. Its direct meaning is obvious - if someone made you smile some day, do not regret when the relationship turns sour some other day. True, if that happens, the only regret should be for having strained the relationship itself and surely not for having had it.

Yes, it is difficult to connect back with the same closeness after either some tartness or a natural separation, but I feel earnestness can win anything. While I feel no void created by one thing can ever be filled by some other thing, if only everyone makes that effort to understand the truth rather than the externality, I think the voids themselves may cease to get created.

But if I've to analyze this crookedly, I'm not sure if this world was meant to be loved so much that you let a void be created in you. Even if it does get created, only you're responsible for it, because you let that happen. However the void itself may not be a bad choice compared to not having had that relationship at all. Or maybe it is, if you're prepared to wage a lone battle.

The hurling questions and the warning replies

2011-10-02T16:20:00.037+05:30

Shane Warne proposes to Elizabeth Hurley with a 30,000 pound diamond ring that very closely resembles what Prince Charles gave Princess Diana. This is the top headline on any news channel you would've tuned into, yesterday. I've never liked poking nose into the private lives of unrelated people, but there are a few general questions here that are a little uneasy to answer.

The simpler ones first. Are diamonds really so precious considering that the diamond cartel artificially keeps the prices of diamonds high by ridiculously reducing their supply, is question one. Are diamonds really human-safe considering that scores of humans are tortured and beat to death in the fields of Africa, is question two. If you have answer to the first question, you almost have figured out your way to happiness. If you have answer to the second question, you almost have figured out what is right and what is not. But considering that none of us could've immaculately figured those out, we will leave them free.

Let us create a better question. Are sports and entertainment two fields that do not contribute to human progress but celebrated the most? Though the fact about celebrity status may be true, the fact about contribution to human progress may not be. In a way, everything contributes to everything, isn't it? Anyway, human progress cannot be the only motivation behind something. And it's really individual preference and discretion to choose who should be made a star. Hence the question three about whether it is a great idea to create celebrities out of movie stars and sports heroes, and not out of space scientists and social workers is also difficult to answer.

All these are so subjective questions that can be extrapolated to most things, if not everything. So before we can create one more question, let us batter these a little more. If diamond is artificially over-valued, almost every other thing is too. If diamonds are not human-safe, almost every other thing is not life-safe in some way. If sports and entertainment do not contribute to human progress, almost everything else can be argued against in the same way. So let us ask a more practical final question. Are these disparities in earnings and rewards right? Is it not an irony that a porter has to whistle and applaud a film hero cast as porter in a movie? Shouldn't it be the other way around? What is skill and what is not? Who are we to decide?

If a restaurant's business is counted in a country's GDP, so should a mother's cooking be. If a school's business is counted in the GDP, so should a father's teaching be. But should we really attach money value to things invaluable? Maybe it's a better idea to just leave them noble?

Is it then a better idea to leave the real heroes of the world materially uncelebrated? I would say yes.

Whose happiness is it anyway

2011-08-26T21:00:00.041+05:30

A little long ago, I used to think that people should do what makes them happy, and that when everyone does the same, the world is going to be a happy place. But when I later realized the inherent flaw in this logic, I felt timid. How ignorant was it to assume that the world will have the maximum happiness if everyone does everything that gives him or her the maximum happiness!

With due respect to the concepts of free will, I will have to acknowledge that they are so alluring that you will be enticed to believe that individual happiness is the way to collective harmony. But then, it takes a little bit of extrospection, if I may be allowed to construct that word, to realize that the other way around may perhaps be a possibility, but pure individual happiness may not lead to collective harmony.

So, does everyone have to sacrifice own happiness for the bigger harmony? In some cases, they may be sacrifices that are worth making, but in most cases they may not be sacrifices in the first place. I can give you a few examples. If you think stopping on a red light is making you unhappy, then there is some problem with you, not with the system. If you think not coaching a junior is the best way to ensure your own safety, you've got the fundamentals of ecosystem wrong, the ecosystem itself is not wrong. If you think blocking imports is the best way to grow trade inside the country, it's again a problem with your understanding of economics, not with economics itself.

Before the examples get more complex, if you have still not learnt to derive self-happiness out of keeping the system happy, then I think it's you who has to grow before the system can start growing again. If you believed individual happiness comes before collective harmony, think again, you might be cutting off the branch on which you're sitting. There might be a hundred ways to not have individual happiness while upholding collective harmony, but there may be at least one way for each one of us to ensure both. After all, the system comprises of all of us. The question is not about whose happiness it is, the question is, whose happiness is it anyway?

The balance, the poise and the equilibrium

2011-08-14T13:10:00.033+05:30

My blog is essentially "my take on life", as a friend of mine used to describe. Many of my posts are born out of some lateral thinking spun from an agreement or a disagreement I would have with worldly affairs, or just sprouted out of an experience, an observation or a discussion. But there are some posts that are all of these. This is one such post. I seem to suddenly be relating this to everything, everywhere. In fact this entire post is taken out of what I wrote somewhere else.

Contrary to the popular adage that claims you cannot both have the cake and eat it, there is a balance you can mostly strike with everything in life. This balance is not exactly like eating half and having half, but this is almost like having as well as eating. For example, you can be patient for success as well as be impatient for progress, you can be responsible with age as well as be sparkling with childhood, you can be serious at your job as well as be playful with your people. And you can apply this to your integration with the society too - you can very well be adhering to the societal norms as well as be protesting them in your thoughts, you can follow a rule as well as break it, you can be very similar to the rest of the people as well as be very different.

Maybe there are hundred ways to not be all of these together, but I feel there is at least one way for each of us to be all of these and still be ourselves. We do strike this balance with most things in life, just that we don't notice, and consequently fail to extend it to the rest of the things. Think about the clothes we wear. Do we wear it for the world or for ourselves? Both - we cover ourselves up, but we wear what we like.

Imagining it poetically, I feel each of us lives in two worlds - one inside and the other outside. The inside world is for us, we can include only the things and people we want to. And then there is the real world where we have to operate within the reigns. But once we realize the freedom within ourselves and the harmony we need to create outside, it's only a matter of time before we can expand this inner space and accept that the inside world is just part of the outside world. The acceptance already means that we're happy both being ourselves in our world and being like how others want us to be in the outside world.

It may look like a trade off, but it's actually a balance, between what we want to do and what we can do. If you thought either of those are limits, think again, because we can keep expanding what we want to do as well as what we can do, as we know more, learn more and grow more. It is this balance and poise that, I feel, could give us the equilibrium that we would not want to miss.

To Plus or Not to

2011-07-28T19:24:00.023+05:30

I'm a huge fan of the idea of social networking, after all man is a social animal, but I decided to play the devil's advocate in this. If you find animals more social than humans are, I'll concur with you in a different post, but this post is only about humans.

When I created my Orkut account many years back, I looked at it with awe as well as with fear. With awe because it let me connect with my oldest school friends with whom I would've never got a chance to connect otherwise. With fear because it was making more of private information, public. But evidently not being able to meet the needs of gen-Next, Orkut began to rust. People slowly bid adieu to Orkut and started embracing Facebook, with the hope that everyone would migrate to Facebook someday.

Facebook inspired more awe as well as more fear and clearly went on to become the social networking leader. But I'm hearing about Ice Age again. Is it time for one more migration? Is it time to ditch all our old friends once more and continue with the hope that there will be light at the end of the tunnel? Oh yes, if change is for good, let it happen.

I clicked on a Google+ invite, but thanks to my office network that blocks all social networking sites, I was not able to proceed. If my office thinks that these sites will make me less productive and less useful, have I made myself less productive and less useful over the last few years? If the little time I'd to do anything else was gone on the internet doing the so called less productive and less useful things, did I make less out of my existence these years? If I just did what gave me momentary happiness without thinking all of this, did I really make worth of my Creation these years?

To Plus to not to? I'll postpone the decision till I get more enlightenment.

If change is for good, let it happen

2011-06-26T08:21:00.057+05:30

Pre-Darwinists or post-Darwinists, evolutionists or intellectualists, capitalists or socialists, change has always been a sought after phenomenon among everyone. I'll restrict myself to the intellectual change and also to the change that happens for good, because I can't really have my freedom writing about the other changes. But whatever the change is, it's a fact that if we don't cope up with it, we're only exposing ourselves to some tough time ahead.

I think I've seen four kinds of people with regards to their willingness to change. While I've broadly tried to categorize people here, which in the first place is a wrong attempt by itself, it is fair to note that all of us traverse among these different categories during different confrontations and phases of life.

1. The proud and immutable: These are the people who are partially self-righteous and are very difficult to induce change into. For example, if they believe in something, they're probably going to feel superior about their belief and silly about any other belief that they might reject other beliefs. These are the people who don't seek to rationally evaluate the confrontation.

2. The proud and hungry: These are also the proud people, however they're open to change. For example, if they believe in something, they may or may not feel superior about it but will surely accommodate any other belief, at the least. Sometimes however, these people are a little stuck on not losing what they're that they fail to look at change in an unbiased open manner.

3. The humble and hungry: The crave in these people to know more and grow more is so very evident because they do not let their pride interfere with knowledge. For example, if they have a belief, they know why they believe in it and so will be able to figure out the rationale behind any other belief too. They don't just accommodate other beliefs, they appreciate and accept too.

4. The humble and mutable: These are people who dangerously tread at the border. For example, today they might believe in something while tomorrow it could be something else. They just go far beyond accepting to actually embrace. They may not make popular leaders, but they surely create conducive confrontations.

Trying to find out which category is better is like trying to find out whether the tiger is better or the deer is, in the ecosystem. Everyone has to exist to complete the ecosystem. For the sake of the concluding paragraph of this post, let me try to differentiate personality from character. Personality, I feel, is something with which people try to identify us and is unique to us. Character, I feel, can usually be classified as either a virtue or a vice and is something we imbibe as we go.

I think as long as we save our personality and change our character for good, we're in the right direction. I'm not sure how much it's possible though to disintegrate personality from character, but life is not that simple anyway - sometimes we've to change our personality too. If change is for good, let it happen.

The relative necessity and the absolute luxury

2011-06-19T11:45:00.016+05:30

I think it was when news about Ambani's luxurious home in Mumbai penetrated the Indian media, I thought about this again. People had all kinds of abuses about this act of his, which in the first place was very much his personal choice. If you questioned Ambani's choice of building a luxurious home, you're probably not too far from questioning Ambani's choice of getting married, which he obviously made many decades back without anyone's frown.

Let us leave the discussion of evaluating what is personal and what is not to a different post, right now let us focus back on luxury and necessity. I think while we're a little generous talking about necessity in relative terms, we're very scrimpy when it comes to evaluating luxury. This evaluation is even more skewed in a country like India, where the disparity between the rich and the poor is huge. For example, when you buy a small car, there is always someone, who can't afford a motorbike, who thinks you're spending on luxury. When you buy your big car, there are even more people who think so. And when you buy a luxury car, almost the entire country is going to be thinking so.

The value chain of abuses is so complete that it starts right from the slippers and clothes you wear to the cars and houses you own. I think before we start questioning people about the lavish slippers they wear, the pricey clothes they own, the expensive cars they drive, or the luxurious homes they stay in, we should just look behind us for a moment. Before we preach them altruism, we should evaluate if we would sell our car and donate it to the poor. Before we preach them detachment, we should examine if we can stay in a house that is as much cheaper.

If necessity is relative, please let luxury also be relative.

The damn love and the goddamn marriage

2011-05-18T22:42:00.088+05:30

My mom still talks in wonder, how as a kid, I climbed a fragile tree and was sitting directly above a well when she saw me. Sparks of childhood, perhaps. I'm sure every mom has numerous such things to tell about her kid.

However the sparks don't continue for long, maybe because we grow out of those or because life's responsibilities creep over us. And as we realize those responsibilities, we start to stay away from adventures that could cause liabilities to ourselves or to people around us. We self-impose restrictions on our own freedom that can otherwise hinder us from catering to those responsibilities. Some of those responsibilities are true, and are probably related to our life's purpose if there was any, but many of those are false, and are probably related to our attachments.

As we grow even older, we may also develop what I would like to call the "detachmental indifference", that helps us reach a more mature, more stable state, from where, doing or not doing something, or having or not having something, does not make a significant difference to us. We may not perfect this for a long time, so we may try to combine the partial indifference with our conscience, to guide us during uncertain moments till then.

When I was possibly at this stage, I found myself in many interesting dilemmas. While I didn't want to leave existing false responsibilities unfulfilled, I was so bent on not creating new such ones. While I didn't want to withdraw from existing attachments, I was so bent on not forming new ones. But then there are some things you can't resist beyond a point, especially when you don't know how to. Voila, I've now decided to fall prey to the very unit called the family, that so much bothered me, that I believed primarily upheld human selfishness, that I believed even makes love selfish, and I'm sorry to say so again, that I believed even makes love impure.

The one question on this I want to ask God continues to be the same for years - "Did You create man so he can love everyone equally or did You create man so he can love the world in tiers?" Not having got the chance to meet God so far, and evidently not having found the answer to this question so far, I had no other option but to yield.

But what is all that the society trying to do with marriage?

Don't we want someone for ourselves?
Sure, but if there was no family and everybody was there for everyone else, why do we need someone for ourselves at all?
Don't we want to bequeath our own genes?
Exactly, that is the selfishness I'm talking about.
Won't human species go extinct otherwise?
If we really thought so, we should be saving the millions of children dying in Africa and Asia, before trying to create and save our own.
Don't you think a family is bringing some order in the chaos?
Yes, agreed, and I guess there stops all the reasons for marriage. I think any other reason to falsely sanctify marriage is ill-founded.

This is just my opinion. It can be as right or as wrong as yours is.

A wrong topic ends with a wrong conclusion because it had a wrong analysis, let me come back to this with a better analysis after finding out why marriage has survived for so long to create the order we so dearly need in our system.

The damn love and the goddamn marriage

2011-05-08T09:51:00.001+05:30

I need a couple of hours to write this down ... let me see when I can do that.

The disremembered invisible reign

2011-05-04T12:27:00.022+05:30

It was a while back when I had a discussion with a friend about whether humans are born bad and then imbibe good qualities or are born good and then acquire bad qualities. I’ve read articles that talk either way, so maybe it is not a clearly known fact. Today I got the time to reflect on it again.

If we’re supposed to learn moral ways of doing things from others, it means we were born bad and then try to grow good. But if you ever watched a kid grow, you would’ve been intrigued by the way the kid started to tell lies. It would've become obvious to you that nature’s adaptation process has touched the kid too. So, are we born bad and then become good or are we born good and then become bad?

One argument can be that if something comes naturally and easily to us, that’s probably our original self. Vices come naturally, but virtues have to be practised. If you’re someone who loses temper at the drop of a hat or someone who loses patience for every small botheration or someone who tries to procrastinate as much as possible or for that matter someone with any vice (I assume this includes all of us without exception), you’ll know what I’m talking about. But then you might not have had the vice to begin with, you would have acquired it as you grew. So, the question still remains unanswered.

Another argument can be related to chaos theory. One thing that I both admonish and admire about nature is its chaos. Though every single thing in nature tries to live in anarchy, there is a beautiful control that exists – the invisible reign of nature. As much as renowned philosophers might want to call this anarchy the free will of nature, self-proclaimed philosophers of the modern era (I think this again includes all of us) would want to call vices in people as free will too, especially in an attempt to support the existence of vices in themselves. But I think we willfully or ignorantly forget to correlate the invisible reign of nature to the invisible reign of conscience. Or maybe we tune our consciences on the fly, heavily biased for ephemeral gains, satisfaction and happiness.

Whatever may be the argument, most of the above accusals can be sanctified if we just take a moment to step back and perceive our own invisible reign of conscience. But where is the time to perceive conscience in an era where we don’t have time to even sleep well. I’m sorry, I think I asked for too much.

Top three learnings?

2011-04-16T00:00:00.028+05:30

A friend asked me what my top three learnings from MBA were. I said I need to think about it, and now I got the time to think. Leaving the technical part that includes finance, accounting, statistics, economics, operations, etc., the remaining part of MBA, as is rightly rumoured, is more or less a training in common sense, with a scientific structure to it. Depending on your experience, exposure and education, this remaining part might fall under one of these in different proportions:

Things you already knew that get proved
Things you thought you knew but get disproved
Things you never knew

Maybe a couple of the technical learnings will be in my top three, but I'll just focus on the "remaining" part that is non-technical. My top three out of those would be the ones below.

1. Null hypothesis: I mentioned this in an earlier post too. If you’ve to prove something, assume the opposite and disprove it rather than assuming what you want and looking for the first opportunity to prove yourself. Interestingly, most of us will appreciate this but would hardly practise.

2. Sunk cost fallacy: When you’ve to make a decision, do not consider all the prior investments, but consider only the future investments. Of course, you can’t ignore all that have gone into something and can't just focus on all that need to go in. So, you won’t accept this if you wrongly interpret, but there is truth in this. Think about it, else reach out to the internet.

3. Game theory: Game theory mostly talks about making your move depending on how you expect your opponent to move, which also means the opponent is doing the same, and so the theory advises you about making a win-win decision. But there is a subtle corollary to this. Make your first move keeping your last move in mind. Rather, take your first step thinking about how you want your last step to be.

As I was thinking these, flashes of classroom scenes and the one year journey lit through my memory. The registration day, the orientation week, the first class, the first quiz, the first assignment, the first exam, to the last class, the last exam, graduation, friends, music, fun … what nonsense, let me stop the emotional rubbish!

The complexes that won't die

2011-03-25T16:24:00.036+05:30

I'm not a psychologist to talk about human complexes, but I want to store here what I've understood so far about one such pair - inferiority and superiority complexes. Because I don't have a formal education in these, I will just call them mediocrity and meliority complexes. Meliority may not be the right word to use, but it sounds rhyming, so I will just continue. I'll try to keep this equivocal, because I'm still finding it ambiguous myself, as is true with most of the topics that I write here anyway.

A villager looking at the city life can get two kinds of feelings, either a 'wow' or a 'yikes', that can keep internally transitioning, in different magnitudes. Somewhere during one of those transitions, he might convince himself with a "No, this is not for me" feeling, and when posted with arguments from the other side, he could get defensive. On the other hand, a person from the city could have an opposite feeling during one his transitions between 'wow' and 'yikes' about village life. He slowly starts to convince himself saying "My God, I can't live here", and when posted with an argument from the other side, he could get snobbish.

While the apparently mediocre person in the first example, during his defensive conduct could appear to be having a meliority complex and while the apparently meliorative person in the second example, during his snobbish conduct could appear to be having a mediocrity complex, those might not be the right interpretations. Combine these with human emotions and cursory feelings, you have an intriguing case study to analyze. As long as mediocrity brings in strength and meliority brings in humility, we're in control of our emotions. But the moment it swings the other way, we're inviting trouble, not just for ourselves, but for people around us too.

Given the fact that we live in a world that is far from ideal, it is difficult for anyone to be devoid of such feelings. When we've a mediocre feeling about something, it's so difficult to get rid of it unless we can substitute the feeling with a sense of achievement over either the same thing or a different thing. And when we've a meliorative feeling about something, it's so difficult to get rid of it unless we become empathetic and believe that we could have very easily been on the other side. Even if nothing of that is possible, I think if we take the pain to listen to others as well as spend some time being introspective, we may be able to put these complexes to rest over time.

It is during these moments that ...

2011-03-14T22:20:00.038+05:30

Nature always awes us. The night sky looks so beautiful when you just look up lying down on grass, but you're left breathless the moment you start imagining that our own sun is a star and that every other star could be hosting a set of planets too. Maybe there are million other earths? Maybe there are humans in each of them? Maybe they're not humans at all?

I was just watching the videos from Japan and started wondering about nature, again. Houses floated, cars washed away, thousands killed. How good is our house in a storm? How good is our car in water? How good is our life in death? Yes, our prayers are with the Japanese, but I've no clue how prayers help someone in suffering. Maybe they do, I don't know how God operates. Wait, I think I don't even know how I operate.

In a team meeting a couple of years back, as my manager announced the demise of one of my team mates in the US who had died of stroke, he said "It's during these moments that you realize work is just one part of your life. The company will run the same way without you, but your family may not. Spend time with your family. Go, enjoy with your friends. Do things that you always wanted to do." As he was saying this, his eyes started becoming wet. Yes, he was telling this to himself too.

True, it's during these moments that you realize that you're just a small part of something big you never can imagine. It's during these moments that you understand that all the races that we've created for ourselves are so untrue. It's during these moments that you question yourself if you were ever useful to anyone. It's during these moments that you wonder how many people you have made happy. It's during these moments that you start believing that life is for living.

Whose love is it anyway?

2011-03-12T12:38:00.075+05:30

India could've been the land of sages and serpents, but the serpents have now transformed into cell phones. On the face of it, India might appear to be the domicile of the poor and the needy, but inside this mysterious place is the thirst and hunger to beat the world and be number one. You step inside and the vibrancy will touch you. This is a nation that is transforming.

But one thing has long stood the tide of transformation, the Indian wedding. Neither has the money spent in nor has the prestige associated with weddings changed for centuries. Statistics say ten years of savings are wiped out during every Indian wedding. And this trickles down all the way to the bottom. Banks say most farmer loan defaults happen because the borrowed money is not spent on agriculture but on weddings instead.

But all of this is not to celebrate the union of two souls that were in love for many years. In fact love in most Indian marriages starts only after the wedding, for the couple had just got introduced to each other a few weeks earlier, through their parents, and couldn't have managed to fall in love yet. If the introduction happened the other way around, well, you'll not find too many like that, but if any, such marriages will not happen without frown from the parents or scorn from the society.

But then, is one kind of marriage progressive and the other, regressive? To answer this question we need to know if one marriage is happier than the other. Again, statistics don't say so. You talk with couples, they don't say so either. Well, then there is no logic in arguing about which one is better. Probably the one that better upholds love, will and hope is better. But whose love are we talking about here? Whose will? Whose hope? Wait, do we even care about these four-letter words anymore? I'm not sure. I hear a few other four-letter words much more often these days.

Whose marriage is it anyway? No, I think the question should be whose love is it anyway!

Humans belong to the most civilized species?

2011-03-04T19:52:00.057+05:30

Bangladeshi fans hurl stones at the bus carrying West Indian players who were on their way back to their hotel. That's because Bangladesh were bundled out for 58, possibly the lowest total in Cricket World Cup. Police say the fans mistook it for the bus carrying the Bangladeshi players. Whatever it is, I don't think this demonstrates any kind of civilizational act. I remember Dravid's house in Bangalore being guarded for a few days after India's first round exit in the previous world cup. The terrorists are not far behind either. The cricketing world cannot forget the free shooting attacks on the bus carrying Sri Lankan players in Pakistan a couple of years back.

Not very long ago, I remember there were bomb blasts happening every other week, in different parts of India. I think Australia or New Zealand refused to come to India for a cricket series during that time. And Indian newspapers blasted them saying they're chickening out. How irrational was that! If we risk our lives everyday, why do we've to expect others to risk their lives too? If we are fools, why do we've to expect others to be fools too? When last did India play a game in Pakistan? So, aren't we chickens too?

Maybe a good moment to relate this with our growth process. I still remember when our home minister rubbished away the rationale behind the US travel advisory to Americans in India post the Taj-attack, when he said "India is a completely safe country, safer than many other countries in the world". Didn't India issue a travel advisory to Indians in Egypt? Aren't we evacuating our people from Libya right now? Don't we make fun of the security situation in Pakistan? Come on, if we're bad at something, let us accept it, only then can we grow. By desperately resisting and defending, we're only losing an opportunity to grow. And by ridiculing, we're only becoming worse.

As I'm saying this, I'm thinking for myself, occasions in my life when I've desperately resisted or defended, or ridiculed. But I'll save myself for some self-blasting till some other time. Impatience, Greed, Wrath! And we call ourselves humans? Revenge, War, Blood! And we call ourselves civilized?

The trip is about to be over, the journey will continue

2011-02-26T18:14:00.003+05:30

Management, as cliched as it can get, is we all know, both an art and a science. The truth about such things, that are both art and science, is that how much ever scientific you get, you can never substitute an artistic skill. But then science will give you the analytical toolkit that will help you sail through uncertain situations easier than if you believed just in art. An MBA will surely get you one such toolkit, not just for career, even for life. But then I can't vouch for this right now. I don't know if I can vouch for this ever, because life is a complex piece of heavily interrelated connections, that you can't really pin-point the cause-effect relationships so clearly.

The last one year was surely exhausting, but never did I've to think if it was all worth, because one, such questions are exclusively patented by the travails of the construct called marriage, and two, the learning more than compensated for any reason that could've made me feel so. It might not be the most politically correct statement to say that this was easily the best way I could've spent this one year, but I think that's almost true.

Every good thing comes to an end and so does every bad thing too. Whatever it is, it's all about to be over. Or is it? With every ending comes a new beginning, isn't it? Before I can find the answer to whether management is an art or a science, I need to find out if life is an art or a science.

The trip is about to be over, but the journey will continue.

Leap of faith

2011-02-14T01:48:00.012+05:30

There used to be a time when I believed there was only one "good" and one "right" thing. Blame it on ourselves, blame it on our books, blame it on our society, or maybe there's no one to blame here, but that is where most of us begin.

However, over the years I started to realize that there could probably be one "right" thing, but there are surely many "good" things, for good to me could be bad to you. I had indications that one fine day, I will also accept the fact that there is probably no such truth as the one "right" thing either. And that is happening. I've started to accept that right in one context need not be right in another, and the analysis of the context is subjective. I've almost started believing that anything did with an intention that "perceivably" creates better harmony is good and is right. But perceiving better harmony is not really easy. You have to weigh all that you can, and if you can't, there are always "rules" and "guidelines" our ancestors have created to help us out.

I'm happy that I've been capturing this transition of mine in this blog. Rationality-Emotionality, Detachment-Attachment, Good-Bad, Right-Wrong - I have dissected all that I could and am very much looking forward to more dissections. Thanks to all of you for all the torture you bore from me all these years, I might spare you a little going forward because I'm just about to get caught in a vicious cycle of attachment and achievement.

If you protest against gravity, you can probably be the best pole-vaulter, but you've to come down eventually to accept the realities of nature. When you do come down, you realize that the world is in fact more beautiful from the ground than it was from the top. Or maybe it's not, I don't know. After a long protest with myself about why I should get married, I finally decided to give up. Now life seems more beautiful than it was before. Or maybe it's not, I again don't know. There are only a few things that we can control, for everything else, there is destiny.

It is not difficult to guess, yes, this is an announcement. She is doing her masters in surgery, and I asked her one day, "Do you know there is a life where you can use the knife and cut, but nobody's life is at stake?" She exclaimed "Oh wow!" and I said "Let us get married, I will make sure you don't come out of the kitchen". Sorry for the poor joke, let me talk seriously.

Between the devil of marriage and the deep blue sea of life, we've chosen the devil and together we've decided to cross the deep blue sea. Was that serious enough? I don't think so. Sorry, I guess I've lost the seriousness in life.

To invoke the blessings of Lord Destiny and to seek all your wishes, we're getting wedded later this year. It's a long time still, but our contributions to the $25 billion Indian wedding industry have already begun. Leap of faith they call, and we've decided to take the leap, just as everyone else decides to. Where is this leap going to take us? Well, time will tell. But right now, it's celebration time, why think about dirty philosophies!

Glad till the dancing stops, and the lilt of the music ends.
Laugh till the game is played; and be you merry, my friends.
(John Masefield)

An idle Sunday and a devil's workshop

2011-02-06T16:39:00.018+05:30

I wanted to create a real video something similar to this, with maybe Agam doing the music, but all I can do right now is a PowerPoint slideshow. Will do something better some other time.

Thanks to all those who clicked these pictures and to Manickam Yogeswaran for the sound track.

Is good parenting the need of the century?

2011-01-24T12:50:00.031+05:30

I recently read an article “Teaching Kids Patience”. "Today, parents cannot digest the idea of making their child wait for anything from a chocolate to a car. Most parents do not understand the psychological principle of delayed gratification because they themselves are a generation of impatient people. But impatience can cost you money, relations, pain and suffering. The best way to teach your children patience is to set an example and be patient in your own actions."

In another article on "Good parenting can stop teenagers from drinking", I read "Don't be too strict or too affectionate towards your children as it could double their chances of going wayward. Parents need to realize you need to have both accountability and support in your relationship with your kid. Make sure that it's not just about controlling their behaviour - you need to combine knowing how they spend their time away from home with a warm, loving relationship."

In another article I read about why Asian kids are stronger in maths than their American counterparts. It has been found in research that till they are around the age of 10, both the Asian and American kids are at par in their mathematical abilities. But it falls for American kids on an average after that. This is because when the American kid performs bad in maths, the parents tell him "That's ok, maybe you're not an engineer. You might be good at something else", but the Asian parents tell the kid "If you are willing to work hard, nothing is impossible".

In a speech by Dipak Jain, the former dean of Kellogg, I heard him say - "The biggest advantage of Asia, especially India and China is the parenting. It is very rare in other parts of the world to see a parent wake up at five in the morning, make coffee for the child and put him to study. Even when there is no money for the next meal, parents in these countries take pride in sending their children to school."

The world is changing, as it always does. There are so many great facets of the Western culture that I admire. It was when I went to the US that I understood what it means to follow one's heart. But I think it is so important to strike the balance. While we absorb all the good things, it's important to not give up what we're originally good at. This holds for many of us who treat life like a business too, because that's what we're taught in business schools anyway.

Is parenting mankind's core competency? If yes, let us continue to carry forward the parenthood we'd been blessed with.

What is your generation?

2011-01-20T22:45:00.060+05:30

There are different generations of people we encounter and just as how many of us do, I too spend time analyzing the differences among generations - grandparents, parents, friends, and nephews and nieces. Today as I was watching some movie song in the cafeteria during dinner, I started attaching people to the different generations of songs. Most of what I've watched are Indian, so I started correlating generations of people with those of Indian movie songs.

I thought I'll classify Indian movies with regards to how the songs are shot. This is not a strict classification, because every movie or generation of movies has a mix of all of these, but if there was only one way to classify movies based on how the songs are shot, I would classify them this way.

The earliest generation was when most part of the movie was just songs. People didn't talk, they conversed in songs. Yes, this was the generation of my grandparents.
Wow, people had so much patience to just sit and watch all this!

The second generation of movies had songs where the hero and the heroine kept walking, now and then trotting or making some pleasant dance moves. Surely this was the generation of my parents.
"Well, the sitting people have started walking."

The third generation of movies had songs where you had no clue where the hero and heroine were running to, dancing all the way, but they kept dancing and running. Ah, this was my generation.
"Finally people have started running. Sometimes they had groups behind running and dancing too."

The latest generation of movies have songs that can wake you up in the middle of the night. They have the fast rhythm and impatient dance steps. Right, this belongs to my nephews and nieces.
"If you keep running, is this where you will end up?"

I don't have the time right now to analyze what I wanted to get at with all this, maybe I'll do it some other day.

Some things I had noted down long back

2011-01-13T15:40:00.027+05:30

I wanted to write different posts on each of these, but I'm not sure if I'll find the time for it soon enough. So, let me at least note them down here. These are based on articles that I've read from different sources at different points in time. I didn't care to store the sources, so please excuse.

A) I've read about friendship and relationships at many places, but this one was different. This was not something unknown but it was very blatant and I liked it. You're not a great friend:

If you're friends with others only to use them
If you manipulate friends for your own benefit
If you spin stories to save your face
If you messed a relationship between two friends
If you complain about all your friends to every other friend

B) There are different degrees of selfishness. While with one logic you can classify any selfishness as selflessness, you can apply a counter-logic and classify any selflessness as selfishness:

I order: You can do anything for yourself
II order: You can do anything for your family
III order: You can do anything for your friends
IV order: You can do anything for anyone

C) There are different degrees of self-sufficiency. I don't know which one is better, but I feel the last one is the most difficult, because that's the self-sufficiency that comes out of an informed attempt to analyze both having and not having something, while you very well know what each of those mean:

Natural self-sufficiency: When you've sufficiently indulged in something, you get a natural feeling of cloyingness and then you no longer depend on that. That's a naturally stable state.
Artificial self-sufficiency: When you're self-restraining from the start, you've never indulged, but you're not sure how you'd handle given a chance to indulge. That's a metastable state.
Voluntary self-sufficiency: When you deliberately give up something after you very well know what it means to indulge, you reach a nobly stable state.

There is nothing I want to conclude nor are these related, I just felt like storing them, so I did.

Sometimes ...

2011-01-08T19:37:00.012+05:30

Sometimes, peace is the most belligerent form of war
Sometimes, silence is the most powerful form of speech
Sometimes, modesty is the most appealing form of presentation
Sometimes, simplicity is the most sophisticated form of expression
Sometimes, love is the mightiest form of retaliation
Sometimes, renunciation is the purest form of love
Sometimes, being yourself is the greatest form of you

All my ISB courses

2011-01-05T19:02:00.024+05:30

Some had asked me for courses that ISB offers. It is available on this link, but let me also store here the courses I did, just so I can answer later when someone asks me "What the heck did you study at ISB?". The first four are core terms and the last four are elective terms.

Term 1
.... Statistical Methods for Management Decisions
.... Financial Accounting in Decision Making
.... Marketing Management
.... Managerial Economics

Term 2
.... Competitive Strategy
.... Decision Models and Optimization
.... Global Economics
.... Marketing Decision Making

Term 3
.... Entrepreneurship
.... Operations Management
.... Managerial Accounting and Decision Making
.... Corporate Finance

Term 4
.... Management of Organizations
.... Government, Society and Business
.... Investment Analysis
.... Strategic Analysis of Information Technology

I am trying to complete a double specialization in Strategy and Marketing. I hope I am able to, maybe I might just end up with one if I don't have the energy to do enough courses in term 8. The ones in [brackets] are those that I just attended without taking them.

Term 5
.... Pricing
.... Entrepreneurial Decision Making
.... Corporate Development, Mergers & Acquisitions
.... Business-Business Marketing
.... [International Finance]

Term 6
.... Power and Politics
.... Marketing Services
.... International Marketing
.... Negotiation Analysis
.... Managing Teams
.... [Financial Statements Analysis]

Term 7 (kept a little light for placements)
.... Technology Strategy Consulting
.... Strategic Challenges for Innovation based Start-ups
.... Economics of Strategy

Term 8
.... Consumer Behaviour
.... Rural Marketing
.... Indian Financial System
.... Project Management

I don't think I could have found any other better way to learn so much in one year. I am sure any MBA program around the world is equally wonderful, if not better. For that matter I think any kind of education is going to teach us wonderful things. But wait, isn't life itself a wonderful teacher? Ok, let me stop philosophies and get back to talking about ISB. The prominent disadvantage of ISB compared to other top B-schools of the world is that other than the exchange students, there is only a handful of students with no Indian origin. But one distinct advantage is that most of the professors here are visiting, so the world's best faculty teaches at ISB.

Just give up life before you come for an MBA and I assure you there will be sufficient compensation. But before that, prepare for three months and take the GMAT :-)

Some interesting quotes from class

2011-01-02T13:04:00.020+05:30

Statistics: "When you've to prove something, assume the opposite and look for reasons to disprove it, rather than assuming the hypothesis and looking for the first opportunity to prove it." True, else we are just going to fall trap to confirmation bias. That was during a class on null hypothesis test.

Corporate Finance: "Assets are classified into two types, based on their relationships with the market. High beta assets are like bad friends, they rise with the market and fall with the market. Low beta assets are like good friends, they rise when the market falls. They are the ones that will save you during bad times".

Management of Organizations: "When a frog is thrown into boiling water, it leaps out immediately. But if you put the frog in water and boil it slowly, the frog dies. It's because the frog incrementally thinks the temperature is fine, until at some point, it gets killed. In a mouse experiment with water, the mouse is thrown into water, but is pressed inside whenever it tries to come out. After repeated such trials, when the mouse is thrown into water, it sinks even when you don't press it down, because it no longer tries."

Corporate Development: "It is good to be smart, but don't think you can substitute hard work with smartness. Smartness can probably take you to the top, but won't keep you there. If you think you're smart, I can find ten guys smarter than you're. But if you tell me you are hardworking, I might not be able to find someone more hardworking than you're."

Pricing: "When you find your first job, keep your last job in mind. Get into the job that will take you to where and how you want to retire." It was a reverse application of game theory.

Power and Politics: "Facebook has kindled narcissist instincts in people. Within our networks, we have started believing that we're celebrities and have started updating with statuses like 'I've bought a puppy'. Such is the power of networks. Build your network and gain power".

Managing teams: "Most leaders are extroverts by nature. But during an experiment, it was observed that extrovert males tried to show leadership skills only when there was a girl in the group, not otherwise. And many researches later have also found to prove the same." Guys never change, do we?

Negotiation Analysis: "If you want to convince a guy, send a girl and vice versa for a girl. However there is a difference. In the former case, if the girl just taps the shoulder of the guy, the guy is almost convinced but the same is not proved so far for the latter case." We cheap guys!

Economics of Strategy: What may appear irrational behaviour is often quite rational to the other person who may simply have a different belief system. Consider yourself to have failed if you assume others are irrational.

The ironies of appreciation

2010-10-31T20:29:00.012+05:30

A great photo is the one that looks like a painting.

A great painting is the one that looks like a photo.

The list can go on. A great voice is the one that sings like an instrument, effortlessly and impeccably leaping between notes. A great instrumentalist is the one who plays like real voice, that you feel like hearing someone sing. A great father is the one with motherly warmth, a great mother is the one with fatherly protectiveness. A great friend is the one that treats you like family, a great family relation is the one that treats you like friend. A great leader is the one that understands labour, a great labour is the one that understands leadership.

Why did I write this now? I don't know, will come back to this when I know.

A sorry and a thanks we owe them

2010-10-15T20:48:00.076+05:30

I woke up to some vedic chanting in a distant temple this morning. I'd forgotten to keep my alarm, but this was such a pleasant one! I sat to study but my concentration was slowly drifting towards them. I was thinking about one of the greatest classes of people this country has ever produced – the Brahmins.

Clear eyes, serene features, peaceful face - you can mostly spot them from a distance. Go to the US and people will tell "You vegetarians from India are really smart people". A Tambrahm is a popular term even there. You can't stop admiring Brahmins for their shrewdness. This country owes a major pie of its knowledge to them, for they were always the knowledge powerhouse of the Indian society. But their contribution is often undermined, for they're not the majority. Nor do they enjoy any kind of good will from the rest of the nation, for humans don't like someone else to remain at the top all the time.

They've struggled hard to reach here. They still keep struggling hard, unfortunately they don't often get what they truly deserve. They live in a country that is scrambling to achieve comprehensive inclusive growth and thence are forcefully discriminated for the so-called welfare of this society. Discrimination though, has been a necessary evil since time immemorial. Regrettably, it's an eye for an eye now! Remorsefully, the wrong eye! Still, just look around, you'll find them holding lead positions in government organizations, private companies, educational institutions and wherever little our discriminatory reward system has allowed them to enter into. We surely owe them the deepest sorry for what we're doing to them right now and an even deeper thanks for all that they've done for us so far.

I hope that one day the children of the brahmin family and the children of the tribe family can hold hands together like brothers and sisters, and step in to shaping India's future, spreading shock waves around the world.

All we moralists

2010-10-14T19:50:00.017+05:30

It was during one of our Macroeconomics classes that the professor remarked, "If you keep aside the interest payment trend that Bush senior adopted, Clinton did a remarkable job. That's why you see all these lines go up in the graph during his period as President. You can't blame him for the past sins committed by others. Of course, he committed a different set of sins". And then the class erupted out in wild laughter. It's perfectly fine to crack a joke like this and it's also fine for everyone to have a good laugh at it. I laughed too. But I didn't like the ridicule filled in the laughter that I saw around. How I wish I was able to do this!

"Sir, if you may permit I would like to take one minute of the air time and talk to the class".
"Sure".
"On a scale of 100, let us subtract 50 points for Clinton for his sin. So, his chastity score is 50. Is that fine with everyone?"

Everyone agrees.

"Now each of you take a piece of paper and write 100 at the top. That's your score. If you've ever gazed at a girl on the road amorously, deduct 10 points. If you've ever dashed into an unknown girl with immoral instincts, subtract 15 points. If you've ever watched porn, take off 20 more points. If you ever fantasized a girl in your imaginations, subtract 25 points. If you had a girlfriend and indulged with her before marriage, subtract 30 points. If you've ever been intimate with any other girl other than your wife, subtract the same 50 points. Anyone who has scored above 50 can laugh now."

The class goes into utter silence.

I was not able to do this in class, but I've a place to tell all that I can't tell elsewhere - my blog!

Stay away from yourself, Stop living

2010-10-13T14:10:00.014+05:30

1. Relations are material quantifications to an invaluable feeling called love. Stay away from relations.
2. Family is the first boundary that upholds such quantifications. Stay away from such fragmentation.
3. Marriage is an invention to fortify that boundary. Stay away from marriage.
4. Stay away from cruel people who can't equally love all the people in this world.
5. Stay away from vicious people who don't do unto others as they want others do unto themselves.
6. Stay away from spineless people who assume what they do is right because the majority does so.
7. Stay away from biased people who believe there's only one right thing.
8. Stay away from selfish people who are not bothered about the consequence for others.
9. You're the worst person you've ever seen in this world, stay away from yourself. Stop living.

I just realized that I am cruel, vicious, spineless, biased and selfish and that I uphold all kinds of materialistic boundaries and fragments. Darnit!

Hope marriage doesn't make me stupid!

2010-09-08T16:32:00.043+05:30

I have a long list of things to preach myself on marriage and its associated nuances. Before my parents tell me some day, "Next week is your marriage, you better get married now" (sob sob!), I need to start my self-preachings. Let me follow my usual strategy of preaching what I think I will find difficult to practice, so I can blackmail myself when I don't follow later. First on the list is what I like to call as "emotional bias".

A friend once told me:
"Though we haven't met each other, I know I'll not be in his good books. His girlfriend doesn't like me. You will mostly not be in the good books of someone, if you're not in good terms with his girl. Same the other way too".

A few days back, I was hearing from some other friend of mine:
"I think it was just a few months after marriage. I remember when I called her cousin and shouted at him badly for making my wife cry for something. How stupid of me! Later I got to know that it was actually my wife's mistake. Even otherwise, it was stupid. I felt really embarrassed. But her family is so cool. Her cousin just laughed it off later."

I'm able to guess that such feelings shouldn't be very uncommon. I remember, as a child, I used to blindly presume that whoever makes my mom sad is bad, and whoever doesn't is good. Forget about those who make my mom cry, they will immediately become my villains. They call it the "confirmation bias", a bias that favours one's own preconceptions. I thought people will grow beyond such biases over time. But if you ask my strategy professor, he'll say it only worsens as people grow old. Why ask my strategy prof? Ask me, I know I've only grown worse with all those biases. Forget the confirmation bias, shouldn't we at least grow beyond such "emotional bias"?

So what if my wife cries because she fought with her cousin? Of course, I will give her the moral support and if I can I will try to pacify both of them and help them make peace with each other. But I don't want to make the foolish mistake of falling into the trap of this emotional bias. I'm sure I'll make her cry more number of times than she ever cried all her childhood. Probably her cousin should call me everyday and scold me.

Hope marriage doesn't make me stupid!

Some thoughts that have long been in my queue

2010-09-06T19:01:00.025+05:30

I have been wanting to write about some of these thoughts below. But I've been postponing them ever since I landed here in ISB. At least let me jot them down now, so I can expand on them some day (?).

1. It is so easy for people below to criticize those at the top. I've seen this happen in school, I've heard this in office and I keep witnessing this everywhere. "If I study as much as he does, I'll also score equally, what's the big deal?", "Come on, he doesn't deserve to be promoted, what has he done?", "I wonder how he became the manager. I can do a better job than what he does". Saying these for fun or out of frustration is fine, but when people mean it seriously, I get reminded of myself a few years back. I used to feel the same way too. But I would tell myself - "Who stops you? Go, become. They're there because they've done something to win the choice of those who're supposed to make that choice. Yes, sometimes there are undeserving rewards, but that's life. I'm sure you've not got everything in your life only because you deserved every bit of it. Are you sure if you reach that position there will not be anyone talking the same way about you?"

2. This is a little silly, but it taught me something. I have seen some people reply to every mail, every missed call and every message, and I've also seen people who don't reply unless you call them and prod them, both in the professional and personal life. Looking at people who don't reply, I thought it was a cool thing to do until I got a manager who sincerely replied to every mail he received, even if it meant just sending a ":-)". Some day during a conversation, someone said "I'm not sure if he read my e-mail", for which people around starting replying "Oh, don't worry, he is such a sweet person. He would've replied had he seen it", "Oh yes, he would at least send an ok, if he has seen your e-mail". And he was one of the most respected senior managers in my office. Yes, respect is not about one thing, it's about every small thing.

3. Over the last few years I've spent sufficient amount of time thinking about relationships. I've talked so much with people, and I've been through a few hiccups myself. But almost every person I've talked with, who has lost a good friendship or love has without exception told "Your heads will hit only when you come close, not when you stay far. If they don't hit, you might have to perhaps evaluate if you really got that close. How I wish we could get back to our old days!" But if everyone feels the same way, why are most broken relationships not repaired?

Let us take a married couple - they fight with each other more than they've ever fought with all others all their lives. Still they go on. Maybe is it then out of compulsion? Partly yes, but mostly I would say no. It is the deep emotional bond that brings them back on track every time. Why is this not always the case when it comes to people beyond our homes? No offense meant to all those who go all out reviving a lost relation or who have genuine reasons not to do so. But I don't think that's the case in general. I know a friend who had sent at least some 50 mails to her old friend, not to get even one reply. No one can be right all the time - not me, not you, not anyone. So, why not just forgive or forget, who knows, the mistake was probably yours.

4. I feel human growth process is cyclic. If you're perfect in something, the only way to improve is to go beyond your perfection limits and try something new. In the process, you might fall a little below your original perfection levels, but I'm sure you'll only become more perfect when you come out of that learning loop. If such is the case for an original perfection, I don't think we should shrug when we fall from an original imperfection. It mostly means we're on the path towards perfection. I can give my own example. I was that passive boy in school who no one would've seen get angry. Even today, not many would agree that I can get angry. But I know I'm not how I used to be in school. I started feeling frustrated and getting angry looking at many imperfections in this world as I grew. But only when I grew enough that I realized I'm not perfect myself. That's when I learnt the art of controlling my anger. Of course, I've not mastered it, but I surely know something more than what I knew earlier.

A long pending list of things to write is off my queue now. As always, these are my personal views and I'm still thinking about these. I might probably write a post a few years later totally contradicting what I've written here ... after all my growth is cyclic too.

It's not just you

2010-08-02T03:14:00.043+05:30

It's 3:00 am on a Sunday and I'm working. I used to feel frustrated when I've to stay up late during college days, but not any longer. One obvious reason is that I've realized it is me who has voluntarily chosen this life, so there's absolutely no point feeling frustrated about it.

But there's a second subtle reason behind my lack of frustration. While I was traveling in a taxi once, I learnt from the driver that most of the cab services in India operate drivers in a full-day shift. They got to stay awake for 24 hours and then they can take off for the next 24 hours, but the latter is not guaranteed. I was talking to a couple of doctors, now students at ISB, and was totally surprised to know that they have regular 36-hour shifts and worse, they can get woken up anytime.

I was chatting with a few working couples and their plights seem to be even worse. Most of them sleep post midnight and wake up by six, almost everyday. Forget about those with children. I was talking to a senior executive in a company and he was telling me how he has a tough time keeping his people at home and his over-demanding boss happy at the same time. So, people at the top are not any better off either.

These are just simple examples of the manifold inclemencies of life. Life is a roller coaster and you can survive only if you enjoy every moment - every up and every down, every struggle and every success, every boon and every bane - unless you want to admit you lack the will and get out of it. No pain, no gain. If you're wondering "Why me?", be assured that it's not just you!

Be good at what you're good at

2010-06-11T17:45:00.021+05:30

Another cricket article - you don't have to know cricket, you don't have to know about Yuvraj - but this can motivate you whenever you feel you were let down. I'm not posting this to opine about Yuvraj, but just storing it because I'm sure this will be useful at some point in everyone's life - no one can be at the top all the time after all. Self-pity, anger, emotional support - none of these will take you to where you are supposed to reach. There's no substitute for hard work, no better motivator than passion and no better teacher than introspection.

It takes two to tango

2010-06-06T16:10:00.059+05:30

I was having an interesting conversation with someone and she was telling me about why she feels guys are strong in rational intelligence and girls are strong in emotional intelligence. We spoke a little bit about conflicts, we talked about why someone thinks he or she is right in an argument, etc. After we got bored scoring our goals, we decided to score some self-goals. One of her self-goals impressed me. I'm writing it here with her permission.

She said "I can tell you why I keep thinking I'm always right and my husband is always wrong. It's because he mostly doesn't tell me when I'm wrong. For example, before we got married, I once made him wait for very long on a chat. When I pinged him back, he was just cool. But a couple of months later, when he made me wait on a chat, I just blasted him. He just told he was sorry. But it was only after our marriage that I recollected both the incidents and apologized. But had we broken up, not necessarily because of such a small incident, but because of accumulated such small incidents, we would've both lost each other. You know, problems can just blow up in a relation."

This reminded me of something I heard on TV a while ago. A couple seeking separation goes to an elderly man in the town for advice. The man picks up a piece of string and says "I will hold one end, you both pull from the other end. If the string snaps, you both can break up". Evidently surprised, the couple agreed to the experiment. The moment the couple started pulling the string, the man moved towards them. The more they pulled, the more the man moved. The string obviously didn't snap. The lesson was obvious. The couple just thanked the man and went away.

"Never regret anything that once made you smile" - how true! Yes, any relationship, love or friendship, is about two people and I don't think there's anything as the right or wrong thing. Good or bad - both of them will have to take equal responsibilities. There are not many in this world who wish good for us, why shrink that even further? Now, why did I write this? Just to keep reminding myself for the rest of my life that it indeed takes two to tango.

Survival vs Morality

2010-06-01T18:58:00.013+05:30

I was reading this article about cricket laws that need changing - http://bit.ly/aRrSNR.

Ban overthrows for direct hits

A pet peeve of Sunil Gavaskar's. Why should a fielder pay for a direct hit, a show of excellence?

Also, rewrite the laws so a batsman can't take an overthrow when the ball ricochets off his bat while he is trying to slide it into the crease. Why appeal to his spirit of sportsmanship and hope he doesn't take the run? As of today, some do, some don't, and it sometimes leads to conflicts among players. Would the batsman who refuses to take the extra run in most situations do the same if he requires that run off the last ball to win a World Cup final?

I saw Tendulkar not walk off by himself when he nicked one to the keeper during the IPL - I know he usually does walk off. For a moment I felt betrayed but I was able to realize that he has to compensate for some of the harsh umpiring decisions that have gone against him too. Either follow your conscience or follow the law - if you follow both, you're overly giving yourself a tough time. Saraswat Brahmins started eating fish after a severe famine hit their region. If they didn't do that, probably there might not be any Saraswat living today. If Saraswats were not wrong, I don't think Tendulkar was wrong either.

I think it's just a reason of survival, and survival is not necessarily about just life and death - there are so many spells between life and death and we need to survive each one of those. Even otherwise I don't think we've any right to talk about someone else when it comes to subjective decision making. On a number of occasions we ourselves don't stand for what we should stand for. We go against our principles to make either ourselves happy or someone else happy. Interestingly, most of the times we successfully manage to convince ourselves that we in fact did the right thing. Many of those could be trivial, but I don't think that's a valid excuse.

If we think someone's bad, maybe we'll find no worse person than ourself? If we think someone's a hypocrite, maybe we'll not find a sorrier hypocrite than ourself? If we think someone's selfish, maybe we'll tag ourself the most selfish? I would think so, because each one of us needs to survive - and no one else knows our own survival instincts more than we do. I think all it requires is just some introspection and some honesty.

I typed till the line above and went back to read it all over again - I think I should just stop here and let each of us continue with our own ways of legitimate survival. I'm sure the legal systems of our consciences are much stricter than any other legal system documented.

An ad we created for a case presentation

2010-05-25T18:39:00.029+05:30

This was for one of the presentations we had to do in class for a marketing assignment. We were supposed to come up with, what these people like to call as strategy and I like to call as nonsense, and end it with an ad. We decided to do a video ad. The case is about a niche consumer electronics retail store facing competition from huge discount stores. The store had to uniquely position itself to survive. Whether the store survived or not, we survived through the case.

What next? A quiz tomorrow, three more assignment submissions this week and end-term exams next week. But who cares about all this - I'm just waiting to go to Bangalore to see my girlfriend. Oh wait, she's now officially become my wife - the house warming happened earlier this week. I wasn't able to go, so the wedding happened without me. Friends in Bangalore, please don't mind for not inviting you - I wasn't even there to invite you. It was just a small formality-ceremony.

Girlfriend in Hyderabad, wife in Bangalore - I'm loving it!

Start the music, continue the dance

2010-04-23T23:47:00.113+05:30

Some of you had asked me to keep writing about my time in ISB. I'm not sure how much I'll be able to do that, but whenever I can squeeze it in, I surely will, as I've done now. I know some of you are MBA aspirants, so I'll keep that in my mind while I write.

First things first, ISB is indeed a great school with almost everything you could expect from a top educational institution - a truly world class curriculum, a strong faculty and state-of-the-art facilities. You've a wi-fi campus, e-enabled course delivery structure, classrooms with tablet PCs, air-conditioned "student villages", huge lawns, the list can go on. The visiting professors in ISB otherwise teach at the top B-schools of the world. The resident faculty is doing good amount of research work, else ISB couldn't have figured in the global FT rankings.

But if you join ISB instead of Kellogg just because FT puts ISB ahead, I would ask you to reassess. You must understand that "India is held back by a financial system that is reluctant to invest in unproven ideas, an education system that emphasizes rote learning over problem solving, and a culture that looks down on failure and unconventional career choices." How much ever globalized it be, a B-school in India is cuffed by these truths. Sure, you're going to meet smart people but you need to set your expectations right, if you're evaluating ISB for yourself.

Let us get back to discussing about the school. When a two-year program is wrung to eleven months, you obviously got to be prepared for a fully packed schedule right from day one. First week is the orientation week when you get all the gyan about what all ISB can do to you and what all you can do to ISB. The O-week as it's called, is the hand off week from the previous batch. Don't be surprised if you get an 11:00 pm meeting invite on a Sunday from the Business & Technology Club.

The second week is the week of pre-terms that covers some of the basic concepts you'll require during the marathon. But from the week after that when your regular courses start, you don't have time to even realize what you've gotten into. There're only two 2-hour classes everyday, but the system ensures that you will not know when it's day and when it's night. There're no classes on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, but the system will again ensure that you really don't know when it's a weekday and when it's the weekend.

You've pre-reads for every class. Most profs will assume that you've done the pre-read and will just rush through the content during the class. If you don't follow in the class, you're going to be having a tough time. Because when you come home, you need to prepare for the next day's class. It's almost impossible to catch up during the weekend because you'll have a couple of assignments to submit before Monday 8 am, you might have a case submission, you'll have a quiz in at least one of the classes - and these are just the few possible things.

This goes on for two weeks and you suddenly see Mid-Term exams in your calendar. What? Yes, every term is only for five weeks and there're eight such terms. So there're mid-terms after two weeks and end-terms after five weeks. You'll have to master four courses during this time. There's a 5-day break between terms (including the weekend), but you've a footnote that says workshops, projects and leadership trainings will be scheduled during this time. Wow! Now the big question - how many hours of sleep do you get everyday? Well, I leave that to your imagination. But then amidst all of this, you find one thing that never misses in ISB - fun. You've parties every week, you can see people chilling out in the pool, playing in the recreation centre, going out for dinner.

Life is always about dancing, to different music, isn't it? One such music has begun a few weeks back for the 580 of us and we've all started to enjoy dancing for it.

Where are my wings?

2010-04-18T03:43:00.027+05:30

Friends, I have been making a short film with a childhood friend of mine. It started as "Can your band do music for my film?" and then we both worked together for six months on the hundreds of rushes (technical term for video clips of a movie) that were shot in the slums of Bangalore. Most part of the story is inspired by the interactions we have had with, stories we have listened from and the shoveling we have done in the slums. The 18-min film revolves around the life of a rag-picker.

I was first swept off when I saw the effort my friend had put into acting in the film. I was swept off for the second time when I heard the first draft of the song. Meanwhile, I was just happy doing the cut-copy-pastes, so I became the editor.

Direction - Sukiyan, Music - Agam, Editing - Myself. All rights reserved.

In case you're not able to access it, try here.

And dollars to make before I wake

2010-03-20T12:50:00.014+05:30

I let the romantic me write this post first. But at the middle of it, I felt "This is not what I really feel". So, I let the unromantic me recompose it. But at the end of this I felt "Can I be happy ever?" If I've to be true to myself, I've to store both.

This is not what I really feel

I had seen her sometime ago, but it was just part of the exploration. When I went there again after a few weeks, late in the evening, I was surprised to see that the street dogs weren't barking at me. Did they already know I belonged to this place? I brought my parents later and they liked her too. But I found the girl too rustic and knew we will surely take a long time to adapt to each other’s ways. So, the discussions about this girl were suspended in thin air.

For three years, my parents kept reminding me about this girl. Meanwhile, the memories of my love also kept haunting me. Destiny as you would call, there were hurdles everywhere. I told my parents “I am still ruminating in the thoughts of my love. But, I'll surely recover, just give me some more time”.

I used this time to not just recover, but also to adapt myself to the girl even as I saw the girl adapt herself to me. I also sought out to some enlightenment from religious books that bolstered my beliefs - “Just because you know someone in this birth, don’t take ownership of or dependency on the person. Do you know how you were related in your previous birth, or how you will be related in your next birth?” I used to disbelieve in all these, but now I’ve stopped to disbelieve in things that I don’t know anything about.

During our courtship period, I started to realize what true love is. I surely had to compromise, but every time I did that, I heard thanks off her lips. She was no less; if I tried hard, she tried harder. Slowly, both of us began to understand what each other wanted. Not just in the bedroom, our love was shimmering all over the house, even in the kitchen.

Can I be happy ever?

A few years back I had a small problem in my leg - from a small pressure while walking to a gentle hobble and then to a visible limp, it aggravated in the span of a few months. For the medical illiterate that I was, I ignored it until I wasn't able to walk even across a street continuously. I finally met a doctor and took a few tests. And then was the great evening that I can never forget. The doctor lambasted me for ignoring the problem for so long and wondered how I managed to walk all these months. He even told me this could be because of the same bacteria that causes tuberculosis. I just smiled and the doctor was surprised. Obviously, he wouldn't know I smile like a fool for everything.

Thankfully, it was just a small lump that had created a swelling inside and it just vanished after I took on to jogging for a month; that's the magic of being young. But between the evening the doctor blasted me and the evening when he actually confirmed that this was not even an infection, I had the most introspective nights of my life. Of what use have I been to this world so far that if at all I have to succumb to destiny's whip, I can rest in some peace. Well, I had not been useful to even my family so far, the world was still far ahead. The best of those introspective nights was when I recollected a chapter in elementary school on "serving the people".

A doctor was the first on that chapter. I thought well, everyone can't be a doctor, but people can at least try to be of some help to those who come to them for problems. An engineer was next on the list. All of us can't be engineers, but we can at least think scientifically when confronted by disastrous human emotions. A teacher was next. Again, not each of us can be a teacher, but we can surely make an unbiased effort to know what is right and what is not. The list went on and ended with a firefighter. But the quest started then and hasn't ended.

That was when I began to appreciate one of Gandhi's famous quotes - "The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others." But as my memories of limping faded away, my thoughts about people also faded away and I stand before you having taken care of Me, Myself and Naren. One of the greatest testimonials of that is what now stands on the plot I'd bought four years back. “Make your first one million dollars and then think about doing anything different” – as long as I remember these words from whom I consider my mentor, I will continue to showcase even bigger such testimonials in the future. Yes, until I wake, I've dollars to make!

Where art thou?

2010-03-07T22:35:00.011+05:30

Tomorrow the parliament is going to vote on women's reservation bill. Where're the patriots who opposed caste-based reservations? Where's the media that tore apart the supporters? Where're the egalitarians who staged protests? Where're the doctors who did not attend to their patients so that they can participate in the strikes? Are they all silent because they know at least the women of their families will get benefited out of this as opposed to no one in the case of caste-based reservations? Or are they just tired having to protest for everything? But I won't agree that the media is tired. Either oppose both or support both.

Can we get more selfish? Can we get more biased? Can we get more hypocritical? If the men of the society didn't create fairgrounds for the women, then the men better be taught a lesson and the women better be given justice. If the upper caste didn't create fairgrounds for the lower caste, then let the same justice prevail there too. It's so hard to practice what we believe, but at least let us make an attempt to talk what we believe. I'm extremely sorry if I'm out of touch with news, but I don't think there's wide-spread protest against women's reservation. I'm equally sorry if I've failed to note the difference between the two reservations.

But I'm happy that people have started to realize what reservation means and have begun to accept to pay for their mistakes.

Please take care

2010-02-08T21:25:00.008+05:30

"How about morning at 8:30?"

"I have to drop my kid at school."
"Ok, how about 8:30 in the night?"
"I would just be putting my kid to sleep."
"But later than that will be difficult for you, right?"
"At 10:00? I would just have finished dinner and cleaned vessels."
"But why do you've to attend. I'll take care. You just take rest."
"No, I want to dial in."

If someone replies like that when you ask what will be the best time for a call with the US folks, you really don't know what to do. I just felt like writing a post dedicated to all mothers, but I don't think I can do any justice. All of you mothers, please accept my humble token of both appreciation and gratitude.

The egg that created the chicken

2010-01-12T23:08:00.010+05:30

I used to wonder how this world became such an interlocked place of extreme dependency. Today, I thought about it again, when I looked at this picture.

If we just have to live alone in a jungle, we would almost not need to depend on anyone. But in an attempt to protect ourselves, we might try to cling. In the process, we might enjoy the feeling of being together. However, when we start thinking about what remains after we're gone, we probably would think of leaving something after us. That is when we would try to bring in more things and people around, including our own children. From here on it doesn't take long to transform our thoughts into creating what we call a society.

But we never realize the intensity of what we just created until we get overwhelmed by it. We slowly start to depend on the various elements that constitute a society. One fine day when we realize "Ah, did we just create a chicken-and-egg problem?", we start questioning ourselves. We try our first line of defense. Without realizing that it was we who created the system, we start listing down its absurdities.

First, we require people to give us things that we wouldn't have otherwise needed in a simpler system. Absurd! Second, we cannot always give back to people whom we take it from. More absurd! Third, from a cooperative mode that we thought our society would behave, we get into an ambitious mode where cooperation is a nice-to-have. Even more absurd! You can continue to grow this list of absurdities and it can get quite complicated.

Surely, the society is a good and a bad creation of mankind that comprises of many dimensions that are built upon some of the weirdest chicken-and-egg problems, of which dependency is just one dimension. As you keep thinking along these lines, you traverse through thoughts about selfishness and about usefulness. And then you go back many years and try to dig out the purpose of your birth. Now you get stumped.

You don't know how to begin because the start is the universe. You attempt to reverse-engineer and try to find out how it could end. Even that doesn't help because the end is also the universe. Does the sum of all our lives add up to zero or to eternity? Now you're confused whether the system is absurd or you're absurd. That's when you most probably try to give up, because your eyes are already closing, asking for sleep. You need to address more dependency concerns of either yours or of others, the next day.

Are we faithful?

2009-12-17T23:48:00.076+05:30

What has changed in this one month for the tiger? Well, the world knows something that it didn't know last month. And what is it? That the tiger was unfaithful. Isn't that his personal matter and not something that you and I should be commenting at? I don't think our respect for the tiger should enfeeble unless we come to know that he cheated to become the tiger. Thinking laterally, what has he done that none of us has?

If having a crush on someone during high school and loving someone else later is infidelity, I'm sorry, blame 80% of the men. If having loved someone and marrying someone else is infidelity, blame 60% of the women. If having married someone and remarrying someone else when the partner leaves is infidelity, blame social reformists like Raja Ram Mohan Roy. But if you're blaming someone because he did not follow the rule that biased people created for their own benefits, I'm sorry, I beg to differ - all of us have just escaped because there's no rule against similar acts that we otherwise keep doing.

If as a child, you think your love for your parents doesn't reduce after you get married; if as a spouse, you feel your love for your partner doesn't reduce after you become a parent; if as a worshipper, you think God's love doesn't reduce because he gives you failures; as a rational interpreter, I should only think that someone's love doesn't reduce because he loves someone else too. I agree, that might not be the case every time, but if there's anything, it's up to the concerned people to clarify it between themselves and not for anyone outside to evaluate. We should just stop ridiculing and ask ourselves - Are we faithful? If our answer is yes, I think we're mostly lying.

Disclaimer: I am not against the concept of marriage. I don't believe you should love someone more than you love your spouse. I am not saying people should follow whatever their mind says. But according to me, infidelity is to tell someone "I love you" when you actually don't. And nothing else. I am surely not a supporter of adultery, but to me this is like how Sanyasa disapproves Grihasta; it does not mean Grihasta is sinful. Scholars please excuse me for my ignorance. You're welcome to disagree, after all that is what this post is all about - tolerance to different faiths.

Ena Meena Rana

2009-12-12T07:18:00.141+05:30

Ena: Have you lifted your self-ban on going for a movie yet? I'm getting bored. I know you prefer to sit and chat for 3 hours than watch a movie, but just checking.
Rana: Yes, you're right. 12 hours every day go in taking care of my own chores, including sleeping. 9 hours go in office working for someone else. Weekends go in catching up. So, I've only 3 hours a day for anything else I would like to do, and fun is the last thing that comes to my mind now.
Ena: Ya, you've even told me there's no time to spend on unstable emotions that don't have any meaning the next day.
Rana: Considering all those 3 hours that I've spilled so far in my life, I think I can't afford to spill them right now.
Ena: I'm sure I was responsible for most of those wasted hours.
Rana: I don't think so, and those're not wasted hours either. You can surely find a use out of anything you do. And breaking monotony is healthy too. Just that I don't need a break right now.
Ena: I think I too don't need one now. Fine, we'll go for a movie some other day then.
Rana: Sure, who else can understand me more than you do? I know life's too short not to enjoy every moment. I'll surely lift all my self-bans some day. Hope you don't take it personally till then.
Ena: Oh no. I know you won't support your people just because they're your people. But I also know that you'll stand by them whatever happens. How can I forget what you told me about reservations.
Rana: Yes, I support reservations because I know that my people oppressed a few others and it's time for the oppressed to win the lawsuit against my people, just as how, for example, AMD won against Intel. "You win, I'm happy. But if you snub me, I'll sue you".
Ena: Yes, I too thought about it. But don't you think someone was oppressed then, and someone else is enjoying now. Where is the justice here?
Rana: When the murderer gets punished, is the victim enjoying the justice?
Ena: We want to warn the rest of the people against such crimes.
Rana: Why do you think it's different in the case of reservations?
Ena: Here the culprit is not punished, but his progeny is.
Rana: The son has to pay his father's debt. He can't just enjoy and then escape.
Ena: But don't you think reservations are being abused? Many of those benefited don't really deserve, and many of those penalized are the ones who actually need.
Rana: That's the unfortunate part. I wish reservations were adaptive enough.
Ena: I would just say my ancestors were intelligent enough to exploit a few others, you can't blame them for using their brains.
Rana: Exactly! Now the exploited are using their brains. Unfortunately, an eye for an eye! Well, the honest answer to your question is "Yes, I hate reservations. But I'm rationally forced to support it after weighing without bias, all I could".
Ena: Let me wait till you're married. You'll then know why all this logic wouldn't matter any longer.
Rana: Yes, that surely scares me. I definitely don't know how I should handle the dilemma of what to care for - my family's mosquito bite or someone else's snake bite.
Ena: If you don't care for your family, who else will? And what can you really do about someone else's snake bite even if you're not in a family?
Rana: I agree with you. I certainly want to care for people for whom I'm the first. But I also want to care for people for whom I'm not the first. I'm not sure what exactly that means, but it pains me to know that there're many who're not the first to anyone.
Ena: Well, if you're more bothered about others, why don't you give all your money to others?
Rana: No, I'm a capitalist, but a social capitalist. I don't want to beg for food, so I'll earn. I won't get a house for free, so I'll own one. I want to lead a dignified life, so I'll buy clothes. I want to live comfortably, so I'll even spend on luxury. No compromises there. All I want to tell myself is I should be useful to this world. I know with all this nonsense I'll end up hurting or at least disappointing people who matter to me, but I can only hope they don't mind.
Ena: Don't worry, even if they mind, they will one day understand what you're saying and realize what you're doing. Not all those with a heart can love, not all those who love can keep expectations low, not all those who keep expectations low can think for others, and not all those who think for others can sacrifice love for the sake of love itself.
Rana: You got it! I want to reach a stage where I'm 100% happy. I think if you're 100% good and can love 100%, you're 100% peaceful. If you keep wondering what good is, you cannot love. And if you can't love, you can't be peaceful. Happiness is always about that inner peace. Unfortunately, I'm right at the bottom still figuring out what 100% good is. Imagine a life with no disappointment, no insecurity, no anger, no selfishness, no bias, no dishonesty, no immaturity.
Ena: Why do you've to live then? That's like being a stone.
Rana: I don't mind being a stone, but I want to be a good stone that treats everyone equally and is peaceful and happy.
Ena: So you agreed you're a stone. Don't you think I've this uncanny knack of making you feel guilty every time? But I know I need to start thinking beyond myself.
Rana: I too need to, and that's needed especially in a relation. You need to ensure that the other person is living a better life with you, than without you. Not the other way around. Allow him to do what he wants to and help him achieve what he wants to. If you can't be a ramp, at least don't be a hurdle. If you can't be a symbiont, at least don't be a parasite. The easier thing to do when you know something is to preach. It's much more difficult to practice. I'm right now doing the easier thing.
Ena: Why am I here for? I'll help you practice what you want to. You've done so much for me.
Rana: Yes, but you be yourself. This world survives not because of people like me, but because of people like you. I can build a house, but only you can make a home out of it, the home that unconditionally loves me and gives me the freedom to do whatever I want to.

And today's fight ended between Emotional Naren who wants to make everyone around him happy, and Rational Naren who thinks he was born for a bigger purpose. But I'm sure something else will come up tomorrow, for them to fight again.

Social what?

2009-11-28T06:35:00.047+05:30

This blog for me, has become more than what I thought it would be. I store here some of - what I believe so that I am impelled to follow, what I learn so that I don't forget, what I feel right so that I could be proved wrong, and what I don't understand so that I can come back to them. Most of all, I store here the treasure of all your comments, the comments from people who don't cringe to say the truth. How I wish all your mails, calls and chats also get captured here!

I am usually a very slow beginner. I take my own sweet time to come to terms with anything. For example, I might appear as if I am outright dismissive in an argument, but it's actually me fighting with myself. My most peaceful sleeps are when I am proved wrong, for whenever I am proved right, I become skeptical. So you can surely read this and tell me why I'm wrong. You know I am planning for an MBA. I can put it to any short-term use, but I want to use it in the long term to change a social pattern, however small it is. I don't mind even if it's only after my retirement, but by writing down, I want to remind myself constantly.

Charity needs a noble soul, so I am really not talking about social service here. I want to venture into it and assume the risk for it, so you could call it social entrepreneurship. I want to surely make money too, so may be I've to call it social capitalism. But I want to help someone lead a self-sustained life than do something charitable. I'm not saying the former is better, just that I feel the former suits more the person that I'm. Even in a relation I like if it empowers someone to stand alone than be dependent. So may be we should call this social empowerment.

I am not undermining the difficulty of taking care of oneself and family, my earnest appreciation to all those who do that job remarkably well. I don't know how well I can do that, but I want to be useful to at least one person outside my family, not by any complex root-cause cycle but directly, not through charity but through a way of self-sustenance, not out of good will but out of responsibility. I bow to people who can put others before self; I don't know if I can even reach a stage where I can put others equal to myself. But if you're someone who's already doing that and wanting to make a difference, come let us have a chat and work out a business plan.

Social what? This is social hunt!

Be reckless?

2009-11-18T22:02:00.103+05:30

Many quotes are embedded, didn't apostrophize for the sake of congruity.

Don't be reckless with other people's hearts, don't put up with people who are reckless with yours - I read this some time back. Though I was able to appreciate it emotionally, I wasn't able to agree to it rationally. Blame it on your own growth, sometimes you really can't avoid being reckless with others. When you extrapolate it, people being reckless with you becomes an unavoidable behaviour too.

All of us are engrossed in our own quests to become the person we desire to be. Probably if we don't know where we're going, any road can get us there. But when we want to go somewhere and not just anywhere, we have to keep opening and closing doors, sometimes our own, sometimes of others. The harder we try, the blinder we get. In the complex and dynamic maze we're in, sometimes we stare so long at a door that is closing that we see too late the one that is open. While we keep staring, we fall prey to parasitic emotions and narcissistic compulsions that end up retarding our own growth. And the lesser the growth, the more the recklessness.

I thought I got the answer to my disagreement when I read - It is a hard quest worth making to find a comrade through whose presence one becomes steadily the person one desires to be. I tried customizing the quote in the first line - Don't help someone become the person he desires not to be, don't put up with someone who helps you become the person you don't desire to be. This came close, however was still not entirely agreeable. I decided to stop the self-torture and went to sleep.

Is your eraser wearing ahead?

2009-11-05T22:50:00.026+05:30

"To err is human, but if the eraser wears out ahead of the pencil, you're overdoing it." True, but most of the times, we commit a mistake without realizing we're committing one. That's when even if we don't forgive ourselves, others might probably do; or is it the other way around? But when we commit a mistake while we very well know it's a mistake, I think feeling sorry then doesn't mean anything, unless there is a really worthwhile reason. I, for sure, know some instances where my eraser was ahead of my pencil and I don't think I can prevent that in the future either. Yes, life is lived forward but understood backward! I guess we should just move on taking Einstein's consolation that "Anyone who has not made a mistake has never tried anything new".

Glass houses

2009-10-28T21:08:00.016+05:30

As I was beginning to learn the Kannada alphabet, I found it both difficult and confusing, as is mostly the case with any new thing you try. Letters like ಒ (o) and ಜ (ja) that have no connection between them looked similar, as if they were vowel variants of the same consonant. Similar to this were ಘ (gha) and ಫ (pha), just to name one more pair. When I looked at the Tamil alphabet to see how it was doing, I realized that it has many such pairs too - ஏ (ae) and ர (ra) , ள (la) and ன (na), etc. Hindi was no exception, for example इ (i) and ड (da), घ (gha) and ध (dha); I'm sure English has such pairs too.

A Tamil friend who went for a six-month German class before his six-week Germany trip made fun of me for roaming around with a Kannada book. I asked him why hasn't he learnt Kannada these six years in Karnataka, of course with a jovial tone. I would've been happy had he told me he was lazy or didn't find time or found it difficult or felt it was not needed; I know we don't have infinite time and energy. But his answer was "Come on, I can't learn this jalebi, all letters look the same". I told him "Believe me, Tamil is no better and its letter இ (i) is the most complex letter I've ever known and most closely resembles a jalebi." I felt like receiving a slap myself, for I was no different some time ago. Now I learn and forget, refresh and remember - but I'm ashamed that I can't speak Kannada fluently even after these many years in Bangalore.

Through this post I want to tell myself that when we live in a glass house, it's sometimes ok to throw stones at others if we have good intentions; that is like our parents advising us to become doctors and engineers, even though they're not one themselves. Sometimes we even tend to slip though we take extreme care to preach what we believe and follow what we preach, which is also perfectly fine; we're all just humans. But I think many times we ridiculously fall prey to our own contempt and either trivialize things we don't believe in or get biased by people we are more bothered about. I think with thousands of years of humankind, it's time for us to not just accommodate, but also appreciate each other. Wait a second, are we even accommodating yet?

All the world's a school

2009-10-18T12:44:00.087+05:30

I can't list down all my learnings in life, but if you give me just a few seconds to think, I would say - my best learning in school was when the same teacher who taught me "Truth triumphs", also taught "Sometimes untruth is the best truth"; the best learning from my father was when he who helped me know what I like and what I don't, also said "If someone asks for the red, you should take the blue, even if you like the red"; the best learning from my mother was when she who taught me to live by myself, also told "The best use of life is to be useful to others".

And this post will be too short to tell the best learning I have had from each of you. From small things like "You use too many exclamation marks in your sentences" and "You should brush your teeth before going to bed", to deep thoughts like "Everybody thinks he has to adjust for all others every time" and "What seems right to you is not necessarily right to everyone"; the list is endless. I still can vaguely remember the scene when I cried as I was left into what I thought was my first classroom, I didn't know I was already admitted into this school of all of us three years before that. How many teachers, how many peers, how many seniors, how many juniors - and strangely enough all of us keep switching roles!

You have helped me learn so much in this school - pseudo-races for me to know what it takes to come first and what it means to come last, pseudo-tasks for me to know what it takes to lead and what it means to follow, pseudo-happiness to know why I should make others happy, pseudo-pains to realize what everyone goes through otherwise, pseudo-successes to understand what progress is, pseudo-failures to know what the process is. Some of those threw me out of my equilibrium and some helped me gain it back; some made me feel good about this world while some pretended to do the opposite, everything just for me to learn.

I am learning everyday and phase-by-phase. With every phase I'm looking myself from the opposite side, and then I turn back and face the same side. If I don't contradict myself, am I probably not growing? If I find myself great, have I probably not examined myself carefully? If I don't learn, am I probably not living? Regardless of whether or not I do all this, you still try to teach me in the best possible way every time, even if it means the harshest way; I've enjoyed so far and am eagerly looking forward to more enjoyment. This post is my gratitude to all of you for having me in (y)our school.

Learning is not compulsory, neither is survival - Edwards Deming.

Are you the right you?

2009-10-09T22:23:00.057+05:30

Nobel peace prize for Obama - while I gasp a wow, I don't think anyone would have expected this. I'm sure there're going to be multiple debates on this, so I'll choose NOT to discuss about the worthiness of the award. But my first reaction - it does not matter who believes in you or who doesn't, as long as you believe in yourself, you have a leader in you.

I was fortunate to be in the US during its last election and I was able to see a country cry for change. Their elections are a little different from ours; apart from the processes, the striking difference I found was people do not fear to tell in public whom they voted for; such is the transparency in their operations, such is the advancement in their society and such is the protection in their legal system.

Whenever I got the opportunity I used to ask my American colleagues, "Do you believe in Bush?" and without exception they replied "Not any more". The rising terrorism, the wars, the economy, global warming - people definitely needed a change. And Obama was their ray of hope, his dreams were surely bigger than any other person they knew to be living. Even as the orthodox, the rascist and the regressive did not approve of his nomination, the wave gently shifted towards Obama as he won over Clinton for his candidature, over McCain for his presidentship and over critics for his leadership.

When people make fun of you for your middle name, when people abuse you for your colour and when people criticize you for your inexperience, it needs a strong character to stand up and tell "Look I believe in myself, will you believe in me?" Well, even Gandhi was hated by half the country, and there're people who don't believe in God. Why get bogged down by people who ridicule your capability, why go into a shell when you face failures, why get affected by criticisms, why settle cozily in your comfort zone? Just believe in yourself!

Yes, you've to be at the right place at the right time, but before that, you've to be the right you. Are you the right you?

How often do you witness such courage

2009-10-04T12:04:00.020+05:30

I saw a TV programme where Kamal Haasan was answering a question in a live debate - "I've lot of respect for the institution of family because it symbolizes unconditional love. But marriage is a legal handcuff that caters love based on conditions. Why do we expect a few things from our spouse that we don't expect from our parents or siblings?" In short he was trying to ask an obvious question - why do you expect your spouse to be so-called-faithful TO YOU when you don't expect it from the other entities of the institution of unconditional love called the family.

A tight slap on each of our perceptions, ego, self-centredness and what not! You'll notice that the slap was even tighter if you realize that these rules were mostly set by the men of the society and the women got a pretty raw deal, just as how the upper caste set the rules against the lower caste of the erstwhile Indian society. If you're someone who thinks marriage is a nobler bond than any of the other bonds in the society, you might find it difficult to appreciate this. But if you're someone who thinks possessiveness is just a decent term given to selfishness in a relation, you will surely appreciate this. I'm right now scared to type more, I'm not as brave as Kamal. So I'll choose not to continue until I see how I handle this selfishness myself.

Thanks and No, Thanks Media

2009-09-28T22:22:00.044+05:30

"Julia Roberts is spotted in a village in Haryana" was the hot news in a national TV news channel today. I was able to quickly recollect a couple of other FlashNews of the past - "Sanjay Dutt goes to VaishnoDevi, his girlfriend accompanies him" and "Aishwarya Rai falls ill"; and then hot debates on "Is the T20 victory bigger than the 1983 world cup victory" and "Is Sharukh a bigger star than Amitabh". The funniest part of these debates is the SMS question. I'm sure this will be the SMS question on some channel tomorrow - "Do you think India can make it to the semis in the Champions Trophy?"

I attended a talk by the CEO of redbus.in who was grateful to the media which made the company popular in matter of just a few weeks. He felt that the biggest reason for that is the huge number of news channels who need "some" news. Yes, that way the news channels are helping even in their "irrationale". But the rest of the times, they waste so much of the viewer's time that I personally feel could be dealt better.

I'm sorry, I made the media unethical last week and I'm making it irrational this week, but I've a huge respect for the media. I owe a big chunk of what I know today to the media and the country owes a special thanks to the media for its efforts to bring injustice and malpractice to the floor apart from doing its routine job of spreading the news wonderfully well. The very reason for me to still continue watching these channels is the quality of information discoursed.

But I feel a little more thought away from capitalistic ideologies can shape the country and its people in a big positive way. May be the media is already doing it, perhaps people look to media mostly for entertainment or I might just be watching at the wrong time. But if Jack Welsh says "shareholder value is the dumbest idea in this world", I think it's time for us to think more about stakeholders than just about shareholders.

Small things, Big efforts

2009-09-26T15:01:00.061+05:30

If you let me to do so, I would call this the cross-section of a single-floored house. You can say 20% of your house is complete with the foundation, 50% with the roof, 80% with the plastering work and 100% with the woodwork. Extrapolate if you have more than one floor. My house's right now at the ground floor's lintel stage, so I had to freeze the floor's door, window, sunshade and loft positions.

Here is one simple example that testified how small things can require a lot of effort. Initial plan was to not have any loft opening out into the modular kitchen. But parents showed dissent, for they're used to seeing lofts on at least two sides of any room they've used. Multiple phone calls with the architect and friends, visits to modular kitchen showrooms, consulting with interior designers - finally we decided to keep the loft on one side of the kitchen that is not visible from other rooms in the house. Now everyone's happy!

Every week there's a new topic and every day there's a new concern. To build the house according to the wishes of the contractor is a little easy, to build it according to the imaginations of the architect is a little difficult, to build it to your requirements is even more difficult, but to build it to the satisfaction of everyone is really difficult.

I'm surely starting to learn the art of "striking the balance", I hope this helps me in things beyond the house too. This learning experience is definitely more wonderful than the humbling experience of getting bankrupt. But the most wonderful of all is the realization that there're million others doing the same thing and I'm not doing anything unique. Well, this's true about most things in life, isn't it?

Was Buddha selfish?

2009-09-23T21:07:00.023+05:30

"Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live" - an interesting Orkut fortune and I thought I'll make it a little boring.

On one hand if you think Buddha preached renunciation, on the other hand you can argue that Buddha himself wanted people to not have wants. Charles Darwin could tell that adaptation is the cause of the origin of new species, but Bernard Shaw would say that all progress depends on the unreasonable man who adapts the world to him and not on the reasonable man who adapts himself to the world.

Here is my take. I can surely say that the worst of my growths have happened when I egotistically convinced myself that I was right and that the best of my growths have happened when I listened to people who told me I was wrong. An unemotional example would be the way I walk. In school, I used to have a funny stoop in my gait until people pointed it out to me; It took me two years to correct it. I no longer walk the same way, so am I no longer the same person? I would say "No, I'm still the same person who walks better."

Was Buddha selfish? I don't think so!

Put on your own mask before you assist others

2009-09-20T21:33:00.042+05:30

I happily used to neglect my health till sometime back. I would know that I roamed too much in the sun only when I get fever the next day. I would notice that I worked for too long in the night only when my back starts paining. I would agree that I walked too far in the cold only when I start coughing. As I was beginning to know that I was ignoring myself, a friend yelled at me - "Do you think you're God?"

Till that moment I was fairly convinced that taking care of oneself is a selfish act. I had just restarted my gym then and I realized that my year-old back pain is slowly subsiding, both because I'm working out and because I'm not online late nights. Yes, it took me this long to understand that you need to set your foot strong before you lend your hand.

I'm losing track of what's right and what's not

2009-09-17T21:30:00.033+05:30

With exploding number of media channels, news ought to be blown out of proportions. But I sometimes feel moral limits are being crossed. I can cite a dozen examples, but what pains me the most is the denigration this explosion has brought to affected middle class homes. One small mistake by a petty officer in an entrusted job or a slip in the otherwise cautious life of a family person, the media just tears apart. But what happens to the families that can't bear this shame?

Bribery is the easiest example I can think of. Yes, I did write about why I feel corruption is a shame to our country, but then I should admit that I also have a soft corner for the middle class officers who are after bribe. I was happy to know that some of you also share similar views. One of you very rightly even pointed out that their pathetic salary levels is probably the biggest reason, how true!

Let us get back to the morally irresponsible media. Even today, the news channels are ripping apart the Chief Justice of Karnataka for his "alleged" involvement in corruption. Every half hour there're different pictures of him from all possible angles. Yes, I agree it is a shameful offence, but then how would the people at his home face the world tomorrow? I am not trying to justify, but let us list down possible levels of corruption:

pocketing money for going beyond the routine
pocketing money for doing the routine
pocketing money at the cost of the routine

Now let us draw some funny equivalents at our own workplace:

taking a one-hour coffee break after completing work
taking a one-hour coffee break during work
taking a one-hour coffee break at the cost of work

We don't get a break, so we take it whenever we can. Some don't get money, so they earn it however they can. Well, I just realized I do all the latter three, so I will just shut up right now and hope that the media doesn't become responsible for increasing the suicide rate in the country.

The captain was acquitted

2009-09-07T22:03:00.017+05:30

I don't know whether this is real, but I was told so. I found it interesting as I recalled this while I was thinking about the earlier post on "relative perfectionism".

The captain of a ship was investigated in the naval court for a wreck that he was charged for. Apparently he was able to save the wreck from becoming a major disaster, however he was not able to avert the wreck itself. The court appointed a three-member committee to give a report on the case. The committee came back after six months and listed three salvage options that the captain could have tried to prevent the wreck.

The judge asked the captain "Do you have anything to reply?" The captain said "I know my mistake and I am not going to plead innocence. I appreciate the committee for producing a flawless report, I agree that all the three alternatives would have saved the ship. But I have one thing to say. The committee had six months to come up with three solutions. I had just six seconds."

The captain was acquitted.

Let us grow together

2009-09-05T09:40:00.023+05:30

A friend asked me "I wonder how your love letter would be!" I laughed and said "Well, that depends on how I decide to propose, but I would like to tell her a few things after I propose, for both of us to practice:

We were independent individuals taking care of ourselves before we knew each other. Let us not expense our time and energy with workaday updates, unless required. Instead we can focus on other great stuff that we've been destined to take care of.
If we choose to give more attention to someone else at some instant, let us not doubt if our love has reduced. Let our love be selfless.
Let us keep emotions away and practice detachment while making rational decisions.
When there's a conflict of opinions, let us respect our individual freedom of thoughts.
Overindulgence does not do good to either of us in the long run and so does worrying over things we can't control or influence.
Let us not blindly support or oppose each other with extreme prejudice. We will help each other understand both our strengths and weaknesses and try to complement them.
Last but not the least, let us be honest in both admitting our mistakes and accepting our incapabilities. No one is perfect, it's the other's responsibility to adapt and forgive.

But even while we practice (or don't practice) all of these, let us not think we're the best (or the worst) couple in this world. That is an extremely biased statement filled with contempt for others (and ridicule for ourselves). For all we know, we might actually not be (or be) the ideal match. Let us just learn and grow together."

Seeing my friend yawning, I stopped here :)

Where's the chopper anyway?

2009-09-02T22:11:00.018+05:30

Chandraayan sends images of Apollo 15 landing, finally a non-American article vouching for the moon-conquest of the US astronauts. I can't talk about the veracity of this article, but I was happy to see it. I once wrote about why people at the top should only be aggressive and not be arrogant. But there's something that I feel about people not at the top too.

I think all of us are taught to push ourselves up and not to pull others down if we've to succeed. But our non-adherence to that learning starts from school - "Ma'am, how can you award more marks to him when he has written the same answer as I've?" As we grow up, we can't see one team always win tournaments, one company always succeed, one country always be at the top; the list goes on.

We say the Western world practices racism, but are we not racists too? We have been practicing a deep-rooted racism called casteism, then an absolutely reasonless racism called regionalism, and then the popular insider-outsider racism. If a Tamil holds racist feelings against a Malayalee, I am 100% sure that an Indian will hold a racist feeling against an American. I don't want to list examples here, but let us be honest to ourselves and accept the fact that we're racists who try to pull down people at the top, ridicule people at the bottom, and both pull down and ridicule those who we think don't belong to our race.

It's really wonderful that we've traced the Apollo landing done many decades back, but let us now trace our own chopper!

Emotions engineered

2009-08-28T07:32:00.018+05:30

When two engineers talk about emotions, it can't get worse than the above! Finally when they conclude that anything on the left hand side can pair up with anything on the right hand side, you actually start checking if it really makes sense.

I picked what I thought was an improbable pair - dislike and love. How can you dislike something that you love? I was surprised to find an example. As I was learning to ride my bike, I liked it. Slowly I started loving it. But over these years, the dust, the sun, etc. have made me develop a dislike towards it. But I still absolutely love it. I scratched my head in disbelief only to find that this's true with people too.

But can you really hate something that you'd loved because now your contempt surpasses your adoration? Isn't love such a wonderful feeling that unless you decide to renounce, you will continue to love? I don't know, may be the love that comes from like cannot transform itself into hatred? Even if it does, I feel that's a little lesser-mortalish!

Ok, now the next pair - can you hate something and still like it?

People know what's right and what's not

2009-08-10T21:39:00.072+05:30

Viewing an imperfection as a responsibility to fix something has been a trait that I am not sure how I developed. Blame it on Gandhi for "It must be the friend and not the mistake that we support" or Oscar Wilde for "A true friend stabs in the front", I started to believe that friendship or for that matter any relationship should encourage the right thing and discourage the wrong thing.

But then you run into problems doing that. You become the bad guy when you point fingers at people who don't have any compulsion to listen to you, because they don't understand your intentions. You become worse when you misconceive a perfection as an imperfection, because you then are self-righteous. You become even worse when you repeat yourself because you then are not able to accept people as they're. Most people get defensive at this point because they think this is intrusion. Even people who go back and evaluate themselves later appear defensive at that moment, this includes me.

Sometimes the most perfect way might not be the happiest way. Watching cricket had given me so much pleasance some time ago. Now I've stopped watching but I've surely not found a substitute so far that can glue me to eight hours of delight. Sometimes our own maturity level inhibits us from doing the perfect thing. I think it was in class 5, I still remember the exact scene when I stood up for not doing the homework and lied that I had a bad head ache. I was thrilled at that moment but I repent for it even today. Sometimes there's a genuine reason for us to not do the perfect thing. During the final months of my class 12, I'd vowed to myself not to play the guitar till the exams. When I refused to play during the school farewell, I surely made some of my friends angry and I still feel bad about it.

But as I recollect such incidents, I feel people should be allowed to do what makes them happy, because perfection in real life is both a relative and a subjective term, and not an absolute term as a dictionary would suggest. With this assurance of self-happiness, I want to be able to grow myself to say yes when I like and no when I don't, to stand for things I believe in and against those that I don't, or to sum up to be myself. I have a long way to go, but I am convinced that people know what's right and what's not for them.

Oohlalala

2009-08-09T09:11:00.006+05:30

Remember we had won the Oohlalala competition on Sun TV two years back? The Oohlalala album with one song each from the six bands that had won was released by AR Rahman on Aug 7, 2009.

In the photo -
Top: TPK, Me, Swami, Vicky, Harish, Shiva, GNR (the band Agam)
Bottom: Andrea, Saregama MD, Rahman, Gautam Menon, Shruti Hassan

Our performance in the first round (2:50 to 5:50):

First step towards reservationless India?

2009-08-04T23:16:00.024+05:30

I'm not sure how historic the Right to Education Bill is going to be, but it is definitely a step towards an India that might not need reservations in higher education at least in some distant future, closer than it seemed before this bill.

I was just reading through the news article - Free and compulsory education till the age of 14, fully equipped schools, properly qualified teachers - I'm not sure how much of these are going to come into practice, how wonderful will it be if they do! But I was really surprised to see this - 25% reservation in private schools for disadvantaged children from socially and educationally backward sections. How much I wished to see this for many years now!

I'm sure no one can argue that admission into primary schools is based on merit; it is actually everything except merit that goes into a primary school admission and it will be ridiculous anyways to be talking about academic merit for such tender age. So I assume people cannot stigmatize this reservation as talent pool dilution. However, I would have been even happier if I saw the bill also say something along the lines of either "refusing higher education quota for students who got reservation in primary school" or "reducing reservation percentages in higher education decade-over-decade". The minister says that this proposal has become a bill after 16 years, so may be it might take another 16 years for something like the above in italics to become a bill? Nevertheless, this is a non-trivial attempt towards building an India that all of us are dreaming of. I hope this exponentially improves education standards among the unfortunate children of our society. It's time we lived up to our childhood pledge of "All Indians are my brothers and sisters".

If you started to follow my blog only recently, please note that I am not against reservations, at the same time, I am not for reservations in it's current format. However I try not to blindly oppose anything and everything that does not benefit me nor blindly support anything and everything that benefits me.

My long confession

2009-07-26T12:44:00.059+05:30

Disclaimer: The terms "attachment" and "detachment" that I've used here may or may not convey the same meaning as they do in spiritual books.

It was some time around my mid-college times that I realized I was missing something in life. How is it that people live through a moment so much? I moved my clock to the past. My name was in the local newspapers for securing some material rank in the school board exams, but I was not elated by it. I think I was not "attached" to the result of the exams; my parents enjoyed the moment more than I did. Then the dilemma between medicine and engineering, I just didn't have any preference, for I was not "attached" to either biology or maths. Off I joined college, students missed their home during their initial days of hostel life. But I don't think I ran through those emotions as well, for I think I was not "attached" to my home.

And then expressions. I believed that what exists in the heart is worth million times more than what is expressed. "All the best", "Congratulations", "Have a nice day", "Happy new year", "Happy vacation" - all these were mere formalities to me, for I was fairly convinced that they're words wasted and will not control any outcome in this world. Some of my friends still make fun of me for giving a nil-reaction when they told me I had got through a job interview during the campus season.

That was when I forcefully decided to slowly "attach" myself to this world. I thought I would be able to understand people better this way. But I didn't know that once I get in, the chain would take care of my entanglement and I will forever be lost in the illusion of "attachment". It started with people first. By the time I passed out, I got myself attached to my closest set of friends that I remember crying many nights for having to be separated from them. After college, I attached myself to my job. Success in getting something to work motivated me to achieve further. But minor disappointments arising from small expectations affected me. I even started to show my outside frustrations at home. Sometimes there were conflicts of the attachment priorities too, say, when my people were unhappy about something, I was not able to concentrate at work.

I started to realize that today it could be my closest people or the dearest things, but tomorrow it could be any Tom, Dick and Harry that could throw me off my equilibrium. The chain of questions started. Since when did I start getting disappointed? Well, since when did I start having expectations? I started tracing back since then and it was not until recently that I root-caused this to the experimentation I had started a few years ago. Phew, I became a prey of my own experiment. It became such a progressive process inside me that even I didn't know when it started and how it coursed itself through.

After my ISB battle, I was upset for a few days, but I think in a detached life I wouldn't have got affected. I am able to confidently say this because I am going through something similar right now. I am loving my house construction just as I love my MBA aspiration, but then there's a difference, I am less attached to the house. The construction is waiting on the bank loan. Thanks to a human error made during the conversion of housing authorities, my loan has come to a hiatus at the last moment. I've been trying for the last two months, but thanks again to all the politeness and sincerity I got to witness in government offices, the struggle might take longer. But I'm definitely able to handle this better; my parents are more disturbed than I'm.

So, has all this experimentation deteriorated my journey towards things beyond life. May be true, but I personally don't think so. I have surely learnt so much during these "attachment" years. The most prominent of those is my belief in what I don't understand as God. It might take more than a life's time for me to understand, but then I know what has changed in me. I've also experienced the greatest of my delights and celebrated the happiest of my moments. But I've also suffered the worst of my disappointments.

What concerns me now is, was I "useful" to anyone during those phases of disappointments. I think to be "useful" to anyone including myself, without attachmental prejudices, I need to be in equilibrium first. If attachment is going to throw me off it, I don't think I need it. Frankly I don't know which way to go, but if my love to people will not reduce, if my hunger to achieve something in life will not mince, if my dedication to my actions will not subdue, or in short if my commitment to life will not suffer - I think I should make every effort not to stay "attached".

I'm sorry, one more on relationships

2009-07-15T21:28:00.011+05:30

Again a TV show, this time a debate - "Whether it's love or friendship, you give your 100%. If the other person is giving only 70%, it's he who's losing the 30%". For a change, it was not a guy and a girl arguing, but they were two guys, who are long-time friends in real life.

I can definitely see the truth in it, at the same time, I can argue with myself against it too. You give your best, you'll gain the most; you don't doubt, you'll derive the maximum bliss, agreed. But how do you handle when your expectations are not met. Expectations are the cause of all disappointments, but then can you really lead a life without expectations? When you give 100%, it's very unnatural not to expect 100% back. But thinking laterally, I think these expectations and disappointments are a little malformed because according to the laws of probability if not the laws of life, we would ourselves be failing to meet the expectations on the other side by the same amount.

I think a relationship, as one of my friends puts it, is like a flowing river. It goes through an amazing journey, but the true test comes when disturbed. You throw a stone, you'll know how clear the bed beneath is. The muckier it gets, the more rotten the relationship is. But the quickness and longevity with which the muck is cleared will demonstrate the purity and the strength of the relation. Flood and drought, well, they're part of the package too.

I've nothing to opine, nothing to conclude, so I leave it open.

Stay selfish, Stay foolish

2009-07-12T17:33:00.018+05:30

That's a title inspired from Steve Jobs' speech at Stanford on "Stay hungry, Stay foolish", but it suits this discussion. Of late I've been having funny conversations with friends on the concept of marriage, to see how they react, and of course with a selfish interest to learn.

I would start like this - When we're one big happy family, and no one has "vested" interest in a different family, where'll there be problems, who'll think about God. So, marriage is a concept invented by God to divide and rule us. Marriage by itself is not the only problem, we create more problems around it, the most prominent being our children. We solve this new problem that we create by growing the children. Finally we get them married so that they can also create more problems and solve them. In all, we don't solve any existing problem, but convince ourselves that we're doing a great job. I would go on speaking more nonsense.

Finally, the discussions would boil down to one argument. When's the best result achieved - when everyone's selfish or when everyone's selfless? If everyone's selfish and takes care of own and the family, isn't the world taken care by itself. Well, most management concepts will tell you so, but is life another capitalistic playground? Help yourself, help your family, help your friends - be selfish, why care about the rest of the world anyways? But then if everyone keeps the house clean, who cleans the street? Well, it'll be someone who's paid for it so that he can take care of his own family. The argument would mostly stop here.

I included helping friends also in the list of selfish acts above. That doesn't mean I advocate charity as the most selfless act. I personally am not a big proponent of charity. But I am a big fan of communist ideas like bridging economic inequalities, reservations, etc. if they are rationally implemented. Recently I heard someone, who I remember once spoke so vehemently against caste-based reservation, come out openly in support of reservations for women. I didn't quite understand that though. Anyway, that's not relevant to this discussion. Let us hope that some day reservation becomes clean, and it takes suppression, economy, exposure, and everything else other than caste into account. May be when we reach that stage, reservations might not be required at all?

Coming back to our discussion about marriages and children, I am still having such funny conversations and still learning. If you've something even funnier, let me know too.

Raise your voice, Get your share

2009-07-11T17:54:00.019+05:30

My "halli" only had Reliance Wimax connectivity when I came back to Bangalore. I was disappointed because I was not confident that Reliance will give me a satisfactory broadband connection, for I knew Reliance is known for its over-subscription.

True to my assumption, the connection was pathetic. But I convinced myself that this was the best possible and that I had only a few more months to leave Bangalore anyways. Now that I didn't go anywhere, I complained and got my antenna position shifted towards a new tower. I'm now getting a real cool connectivity of almost 1 mbps most of the time. Just in case any of you is using Reliance, I think you'll not get your share until you raise your voice. I think this's true about many things in life? Let me wait till this new tower gets over-subscribed.

Trust vs Loyalty

2009-07-08T20:40:00.017+05:30

After the "glimpse" of a megaserial, now it's about a "glimpse" of a movie. A millionaire, after an accident, is pretending to be blind to learn about some frauds happening at his home. The heroine, the only other person who knows he is not blind, is in his house as a nurse. The hero, who also works in the house, happily flirts with the heroine every now and then and even in front of the millionaire. After one such flirting episode, the millionaire tells the heroine "I'm really impressed with you, you've not even disclosed the truth to your boyfriend".

But does this happen in real life? I knew a friend who wanted to shift teams within her company. She just enquired about the role to the new manager and asked him not to tell her old manager before she finds the right time to tell. Even if the new manager wanted to get some feedback, he could have just waited for her consent, but he didn't do that. Now she can't face her old manager. I was discussing about this today with a friend to whom I go for such enlightenment, for she's an excellent scholar of Hindu philosophies - "I tell you something and ask you not to tell your husband. If you tell him, you break my trust. If you don't, you break your loyalty to him. What'll you do?" She said "I'm not sure if the latter is true, but I for sure know the former is true, so I'll not tell him".

Truth vs Gain, Peace vs Truth, Duty vs Peace, Loyalty vs Duty, Trust vs Loyalty, the chain can go on, but I think in all of the above, I would want to "rationally" choose the former whenever I can. But yes, I agree that exceptions can be made for a "selfless good". There would surely have been a few instances in my life, where I might not have practiced this, by writing it down I want to make sure I practice it. If you're my friend and you expect me to uphold loyalty to you at the cost of breaking someone else's trust in me, I might probably decide to resign from your friendship rather than breach the trust. I'm sure I will run into a quandary with my wife on this, I will use this to tell her that "I'm sorry I'm following this from Jul 8, 2009." ;)

I will just end this with a verse from a Tamil epic, Thirukkural -
Poimaiyum vaaimai udaithu puraitheerndha
Nanmai payakkum enin.
Even falsehood has the nature of truth, if it confers a benefit free from fault.

Still they remain

2009-07-05T19:41:00.010+05:30

Truths that disdained my beliefs
Discords that wrecked my resolve
Events that shook my strength
Losses that crumped my confidence

Comforts that solaced me
Stories that grained me
World that endured me
People that shaped me

All that I was yesterday
All that I'm today
All that I'll be tomorrow
All that I was born for

Stored in memories that I forgot
Stacked in papers that I lost
Stocked in discussions that I drowned
Stashed in disks that I erased

Over the last three years as carnations
I put them in the networks
Still they remain
Me, myself and Naren

Not another denouncement of megaserials

2009-07-02T21:29:00.023+05:30

I try my best to match my dinner timing when mom's not watching one of those daily TV serials, but it's not always possible. I don't try to do it very earnestly though, because now and then when I peep into those megaserials I definitely learn something. I would say the popular anti-megaserial sentiments emanating from public ridicule is a little skewed. Sure, they're funny and so slow that you can follow even if you watch them only once a week, but I bet you'll "learn" more from watching 16 episodes of a good 30-min megaserial than from watching an 8-hour game of one day cricket. Sorry for such a poor joke, but megaserials surely deserve some respect for being the only form of entertainment to the millions of housewives in India who are worn out from years and years of household chores.

I would like to document one such "glimpse" of an episode that made me think. I right now don't know the answer, but I will come back to this post when I know more. There's the usual "good" heroine of the story who's faced with persistent cruel obstacles to her career and life from a villain guy. The heroine finally gets exasperated and tells "He's got all this time to cause so much havoc in my life because his business is running fine. I think I should create problems in his life, only then my life will be saved and he'll learn his lessons." I didn't watch the episodes after that, I'm sure, she would only practice moral hinderances for the "good" heroine that she is. Nevertheless, this made me think.

By creating problems in his life, is she commiting the same mistake that he did. Yes, but then does she have any other way out? Probably no. Has she done enough to maintain harmony till now? Yes for many years now. So, is she justified? I think yes. Even Bhagvad Gita asks us to fight against immoral acts done against us, even if it means being "violent". May be I shouldn't have taken Gita here because I don't know anything about it, but it at least suits the context.

I right now leave the argument open. I myself have been in this dilemma many times only to have ended up practicing non-violence. But I think I've been a coward trying to do that. I'm slowly starting to put up fights when I feel I'm being taken for a ride. But I'm doing that without full self-consent. I need to quickly find answers to help me surf through such continuing situations at least in the future.

Catch me at your own risk when I'm bored

2009-06-22T22:11:00.013+05:30

9 pm, 13 July 2007

I want to leave for home now, but it's still raining. Even yesterday I kept waiting for the rain to yield, but finally decided to ride my bike in the rain, for the rain never did yield. I can't blame God for this because He's neither my mom to understand that I'm hungry, nor my dad to guess that I'm tired for the day wanting to go home and sleep, nor my sister to give me a call asking me to take a rick and get back home, nor my brother to pick me up in his car, nor my friend to come over to the office and give me company.

But isn't God supposed to be my mom, dad, sister, brother or friend whenever I need him to be. Ah, I know why, he's at too far a distance to see me waiting and even worse, it's dark. Ok, let me go back to peeping through the window to see if the rain has at least softened enough to make me wonder if God had a really sharp night vision!

[I had written this on a friend's cube in office while I was waiting for the rain to stop]

How well do you know me

2009-06-20T18:45:00.013+05:30

I had to return a questionnaire with this title to a friend. I'm posting some of those here so that you could know me more too, if you want to.

What are you most afraid of? Sun
Favourite food? Chinese Manchurian
Have you travelled? To the US and Canada
Loved someone so much it made you cry? Love is the only thing that can make me cry
BMW or Mercedes Benz? I think about material things only when needed
Favourite day of the week? Saturday (evening)
Favourite sport to watch? Used to be cricket, now I don't watch any
Disney or Warner Brothers? I don't pay attention to whether it's Disney or WB or Kottampatti productions

How many times you failed your driver's test? Once, California's

Before this one, what was your last e-mail? College wing e-groups mail
What do you do most often when you are bored? I start thinking why I'm bored

Bedtime? I still keep thinking

What means the most to you? Honesty
Favourite TV shows? I watch TV only for news
Dating males or females? I don't find a difference, both are sweet and are rich in iron
Tall or short? Doesn't matter
What is your favourite colour? Used to be black, now I've started liking pleasant red
How many pets do you have? I used to have an aquarium
Age: Above or below 29? I want to quickly reach 30
What would you like to accomplish/do before you die? I want at least one other family to cry for me when I'm gone.

The money and the black

2009-06-13T10:37:00.031+05:30

Is there anywhere else I can post this so that it has some effect? I wouldn't think so because I am not going to tell something that no one else knows; every citizen who has gone to a government office will tell you stories. A percentage of the property registration cost being asked as registration fee is valid. But another percentage being asked as bribe, is ridiculous. Why would anyone register for the full amount if he knows that some percentage of it has to go to feed the mouths of totally unrelated people. It doesn't stop here.

Let us take the property processes in Bangalore for example. After registration, you need to get the name transfer called Khatha done for which the fee is around 500 but the bribe is 2000. CMC (City Municipal Corporation) was taken over by BBMP (Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike) last year. So, you need to get this Khatha converted. The fee for this is around 1000, but the bribe is 5000. To build a house you need to get a plan approval, the fee for which can go up to 5000, but you have to pay 20000. For an electricity connection, the fee is 1000, but you will have to pay 5000. Even to get something as small as an encumbrance certificate for which the fee cannot go more than 500, you will have to pay at least 1000.

I have only gone that far, I don't know how much more I will have to shell out to fill all those corrupt vacuums that come my way in the future. All this bribe not to get some work done beyond what is legal and beyond what comes under the normal operations of the officers; these are just the fully legal routine tasks. At the end of all this, still no road and no water! Can nothing be done about all this? It's a shame that Gandhi has to adorn all the Indian currency notes.

My hibernation

2009-06-11T10:41:00.014+05:30

Dear friends,

My girlfriend is keeping me a little busy. Not that I can't manage, but my year-long back pain is beginning to show up on my productivity; I am finding it difficult to stay online late evenings. With a non-Bangalore architect, my phone bills are already shooting up. With people at home belonging to a slightly older generation too naive to cope up with this cruel world and too bare to appreciate the modern-day house construction gymnastics, I realized that I will have to be around for every small thing.

I think this house construction task has come just at the right time while I was thinking to withdraw myself from social life temporarily. Almost all of you close friends are either married or committed and I was finding it odd to disturb you. Now I have a reason not to disturb you, I'm also committed.

Please expect my frequency of mails, chats and phone calls to come down drastically. Probably as a result, my blogging frequency might increase!

Regards,
Naren

"India is a completely safe country"

2009-06-05T12:20:00.021+05:30

Those are the words of our Home Minister P. Chidambaram who I guess is more optimistic than I'm, and I'm pathetically optimistic about everything. I remember he said as a finance minster "Our market fundamentals are strong, whatever has happened is a small market correction and our markets will stabilize from now" when the sensex dropped from 20K to 15K. But we all know that it went from there till 9K. Anyway, economy is anyone's guess, so what he said as a Finance Minister is what anyone at that crucial post should do, to spread "positive sentiments".

But now I can't agree to what he says.

US in its travel advisory on India has said "As terror attacks are a serious and growing threat, US citizens in India are urged to always practice good security, including maintaining a heightened situational awareness and a low profile". Now PC replies "India is a safe place, it is safer than many other countries in the world. Thousands of tourists come to India and we look forward to welcoming them." The same day there is high alert in South Indian cities for possible terror attacks by three terrorists.

What has being safer than many other countries got to do with what the US thinks about India. I feel India is definitely unsafe and I advise all foreign citizens, especially from countries safer than India, to please take care of themselves; I don't think India is a safe country.

My evolution

2009-05-27T00:29:00.024+05:30

[Read the Apr 13 post before this]

Evolution, I thought was mostly about monkey becoming man. But yes, as we all know, there's an evolution happening internally in each one of us as we grow. I've changed so much, within myself from the simplest things to the most complex things of life. One simple example, I had never hesitated to borrow something from a friend during college days, be it a little bit of shampoo or some money. But now, I prefer not to do that. I didn't have a blazer for my ISB interview, but I decided to go without it than borrow. Yes, I'm liking being less dependent. I'm sure many of you are feeling the same way too.

A few days back, some of us, old friends had a get-together and they wanted to watch a movie. It's been really long since I stopped watching movies unless there's no other better way to spend the time together. A few years back, I would've been the first person to suggest a movie. But now I said "No, I don't want to watch any movie". Well, that's another change, I've started saying no for things I don't like.

Yesterday, I saw my street getting leveled with bulldozers and road-rollers. I asked them "So finally, road"? They said "No, the MLA's father has expired, we're leveling road to the graveyard". What a reason to get the road leveled! Not long ago, I would've just had a hearty laugh at this. But yesterday, I got angry. This feeling of anger and frustration at things around me about which I am not able to do anything, is definitely a change in me.

But, the most wonderful change of all, I have learnt to move on. I didn't expect I would forget about my girlfriend within a month's time of losing her. Now and then she definitely haunts me, but I think I'll be able to manage. Yes, I've found a new girlfriend. We're planning to get engaged in a couple of weeks; marriage would be sometime early next year. I have uploaded her picture in picasa. More details about her soon.

My ugly mathematics of falling in love

2009-05-12T16:45:00.040+05:30

(scripted ... sorry, feeling too bored)

Friend: Hi
I: Hi, I've been listening to this Tamil song Netru illadha maatram since dinner over and over. I don't know if I listen to this song when I'm in a romantic mood or get into a romantic mood when I listen to it, but I'm feeling romantic now.
Friend: I can see something fishy here. Let me also listen to it.
I: I'm happy today for no reason. At the same time I'm feeling bad that I'm missing something. I think I'm in love ;-)
Friend: Wow, who's the girl?
I: I don't think it's a girl, because I'm sure I'll know if it's a girl.
Friend: What? Is it a guy?
I: Oho! I think I'm in love with life as such.
Friend: That's even worse, now don't kid. Tell me who's it.
I: There are so many uncertainties in life. We plan something and something else happens, we re-plan. There's a change again and then another plan. Still something goes wrong somewhere. I'm just loving this challenge.
Friend: I won't believe all that. Who's the girl? But yes, love is a wonderful feeling. It might be a pain to call everyday and say "I love you", but then when you are in love, everything around you is so nice, even if your manager yells at you.
I: Have we spoken about my mathematics of love?
Friend: Now what's that?
I: I'll tell only if you agree not to beat me up next time we meet.
Friend: Haha, sure.
I: Well, there are different stages of love. When you reach stage 'n', you'll start to question yourself if you're in love. When you're in 'n+1', you'll know that you can't live without that person. When you're in the 'n-1' stage, you'll know that the person is coming closer and closer to you. But you'll have that one last chance to arrest your feelings and see clearly, beyond which you'll already be drowned in love. But the problem with this god damn love is you'll meet that one person who'll make your n-1=n=n+1 in zero time. I don't think I've met that one girl till now. Or may be I've, but either she didn't come to a stage close to n, or I stopped myself voluntarily or involuntarily.
Friend: I couldn't appreciate in the first reading, but I read it the second time and it is nice. It makes sense.
I: There was a time when I used to think arranged marriages are inferior to love marriages. But, thanks to the equal number of my friends who've had arranged marriages and love marriages, I now know that both marriages have the same kind of problems and pains, and the same kind of happiness and bliss. The only question that remains is will our parents be able to find the right match for us as much as we'll be able to. There's a variable called probability, another one called destiny and so many more. Whoever finds the girl, all these variables can do anything to our married lives. So, I've not only got hope in arranged marriages now, but also started to believe that nothing is superior or inferior.
Friend: Yeah, that's true. With that note, I'll listen to the song one last time and go to sleep.
I: Hmm, I'll also. Good night.

Sorry, my girlfriend

2009-04-13T11:29:00.030+05:30

I have definitely heard about her before, but I think the first time I met her was in Jan 2001, during my fourth semester in BITS. I knew I had fallen for her the first time itself. You wouldn't believe, there was only one course in all the four years that I didn't miss even one class of, and it was this class that I met her in. No wonder I made an A, in spite of the usual reckless preparation I do before any test. I remember telling a friend "I think I love her." But then things changed so much after that, years just cruised over me. I even had thought I should ditch her. But I know all of you would agree that you could move on, you could probably rub if off aside as infatuation, but then it is so very difficult to forget your first love, or for that matter, any love.

Five years after Pilani, I still kept thinking of her. It was a dull drizzling evening when I was at a friend's house in Bangalore that I decided to propose to her; I agree, rainy days are the most romantic. But for the disgustingly analytical guy that I was, I made sure it was an open proposal - "I am expressing my interest in you. If you're also interested and if you think you would also benefit from this relation as much I think I would, please consider. We don't have to decide right now, there is still so much time ahead of us. I am equally fine with both a yes and a no."

Months sailed, I went to the US and I started missing her more. Not a day, I could spend without thinking about her. Finally, I decided to make it official. I did propose to her on the 14th of not February, but August, 2008. Yes, I took seven long years to know that I was in love. We met six weeks later, on 24th Sep and our rendezvous went as expected, no surprises and no shocks. I came back from the US and I just couldn't concentrate at work, forget about my tough times at home during those twilight evenings. I wrote to her parents on Dec 1st, they did get back to me and all of us met on Jan 29.

Two weeks later, I came to know that all of them were happy about our relationship. For six months, every evening, I would have a session with my parents about this and finally they too started believing that this is the best that could happen to me. In fact, I spoke with her parents only after getting the approval from my parents.

It was all set when on Apr 8th, my uncle came and said "I thought it was decided much before that you will be marrying my daughter." We were all shocked. I personally remember speaking about my love to my aunt and her daughter. In fact my uncle knows about it too. But my uncle decided not to budge. My aunt couldn't influence him, nor her daughter. I told my uncle "This is my life. Things change. I agree there has been some disconnect. But the blame rests on all of us. We have to do the best thing, for all of us now". But my uncle didn't move an inch. Finally I said "Ok, let us leave this for now. Let us think about this over the next one year. We will come back and discuss this exactly one year from now."

I have told my parents, my girlfriend's parents, my uncle's family and everyone concerned. Things are on hold till next year. Over this one year, I could change, my uncle could change, his daughter or my girlfriend ... anyone could change. Whatever the change is, I hope it is for the good, for the good of everyone.

All characters above are fictitious and any resemblance is purely coincidental. Starring, in the order of appearance:
My girlfriend - My MBA
My fourth semester class - Principles of Management
A friend to whom I confessed I am probably in love - my wingie in BITS
My decision to propose - I registered at mba.com
My official proposal on 14 Aug 2008 - I booked my GMAT
My rendezvous on 24 Sep 2008 - I took my GMAT
My letter to her parents on Dec 1 2008 - My ISB application
Meeting her parents on Jan 29 2009 - My ISB interview
My uncle and family - Cisco

All the world's a stage

2009-04-08T00:29:00.009+05:30

I wrote my previous post to tell all of you who were pinging me and asking me about my ISB preparations. I wasn't able to hide or explain, so I thought blog is the best way to tell you all. This post is again to tell all of you who are and will be pinging me to ask if I have started packing. I have not done any packing. And unless a miracle happens today, I will not be packing.

I have tried all possible means that my conscience and faculty permitted. In the end I had to succumb to world's truth that nobody cares about your life, if there is anyone it's probably only you. It is really unfortunate that things unfolded the way they have at office. There are some things that we can control, for everything else ... well according to me God is the sum of everyone of us. There are some things that we can control, for everything else there is everyone of us.

I always knew my over-optimism will hit me some day. Today it has hit me badly. Even now with 0% confidence, I am 100% optimistic. But who cares about all those? For most practical purposes, I am not going to join ISB this year.

"I just hope I have done more positives than negatives in my life and that something positive happens in the next few days." - well, looks like I haven't done more positives than negatives. I agree to take this punishment that God, no, all of you have given me. I will try my best to come stronger out of this.

The moral dilemma

2009-03-21T14:42:00.013+05:30

"Are you married?"
"No."
"So you don't have an earning wife. Are your parents working?"
"No, both of them are pensioners."
"Do you have a property in Bangalore?"
"Yes, I have a plot but that is under loan."

And I wanted a 15L loan. But after a whole-day of documenting work and one more follow-up, I got the loan sanctioned. Frankly, I didn't expect that it'll just be a one-day's job in a nationalized bank. But yes, I gave them at least some 50 documents, of mine, my parents', my sister's and my brother-in-law's. Had I not used some of my acquired negotiating skills over these years, I would have had to submit some 10 more documents, for which I would have had to run to Madurai.

But now the most difficult challenge - negotiating at office. The last one month at office has been more difficult than my GMAT preparation, the application process, the interview, the loan, the convincing I had to do my parents, the convincing I had to do myself and anything else related to my MBA. I am just back from my one-year US trip, so it was natural for people in office to expect me to stay for some more time. Forget about their expectations, I felt really bad to be quitting within six months of my return. But I knew my company does give long leaves for education under very rare circumstances in a case-by-case basis.

I spoke with my manager and the HR, then three directors and two VPs. Everyone replied alike - "Leave of absence is very difficult in our company even during normal times. Under the current economic roughs, thinking even one month ahead is a gallant effort and spending of every dollar is being scrutinized so heavily. So an LoA for a year is just not possible". That means I will have to run away by quitting. My conscience doesn't let me do that, but this MBA is so important for my life. If it's not now, it might probably not be ever.

Some people I've spoken with in office have been really friendly while some have been shockingly rude. Well, that happens everywhere - say with friends, some continue to impress with their hearts while some continue to disappoint with their indifference; say with relatives, some leave you in debt with their care while some make you run for the hills. It's a really complex equation that I'm still trying to understand - what is it that I have to do to "give" positive things to people and "get" positive things from them. I just hope I have done more positives than negatives in my life and that something positive happens in the next few days.

I am still speaking, still negotiating, still meeting more people to see if there is any door that can be opened for me. Whatever has to happen will have to happen in the next three weeks and I hope it happens for the good, for myself and for everyone around me. After all my MBA is for training myself for my social entrepreneurship.

Being positively proud sometimes helps

2009-02-18T12:06:00.002+05:30

The mail and the relief

2009-02-11T00:28:00.004+05:30

Yes, I made it to ISB. Finally the mail arrived welcoming me to the class of 2010. I don't have anything more to say here other than thank all you who helped me and all of you who wished me from your heart. I literally spent the whole evening calling different people and telling them the news. The excitement of telling so many people and sharing my happiness elated me more than the news itself. I always believe it's the people around you who make you happy and all of you made me happy!

Time for me to gear up and make the decision, I just have two weeks. I hope I make the right decision.

Love and Nirvana

2009-02-02T14:41:00.010+05:30

The Nirvana that I'm going to speak about here is in no way connected to the eternity that is written in books. This is just a different perspective, and not a controversy and speaks only about love.

I was wondering if there's something wrong in my beliefs. But over the last few months, I have met a few people who share my beliefs. So, I mustered the courage to type this out. May be it's a misfit to our generation, but my rational sense approves these thoughts completely - the concept of Lesser Mortals (LMs) and General Mortals (GMs). I decide to call GMs as General Mortals and not Greater Mortals because I don't actually see anything less or great in these categories - different people, different perceptions, nothing is less, nothing is great ... nothing is good, nothing is bad. Anything that creates better harmony is great.

There are three attributes to the classification:
1. The relative importance you give to self, family, friends and others
2. The feeling that "shared" love is not "divided" love
3. The understanding that love/marriage is not nirvana

The relative importance
Are you someone who treats self > family > friends > others in terms of relative importance? Before answering, you should know the difference between importance and priority. On a given day, I could ignore my family for work, that does not mean my work is more important than my family. That particular moment, I had to "prioritize" work before family. I might have to prioritize self before family before friends before others many times, but that does not mean they share a descending order of importance. Will I give up my comfort for family? Yes. Will I give up my comfort for friends? Yes. For others? Yes again. But in the process, I will have to evaluate the disharmony I create, both inside and outside me. That is when I will have to prioritize. But if you think you can't take any discomfort for the sake of anyone else, even if you don't lose anything in the process, then you are not a GM.

Shared love
I believe love is such a wonderful feeling that can be shared with 100 people at 100% for each. Love when shared is not divided. A mother does share equal love with all her children. At different moments, she might have to prioritize, but then the intensity will never change - she will give her life for all her children with the same feeling in her heart. This is why mother's love is so pure - the unconditional undivided pure shared love. Any love that you think is divided when shared, I feel, is not pure, not from the love's perspective, but from your own perspective. You are impure! If you think your mother's love is divided when shared, your love for her is impure. I don't mind saying a very powerful statement here - if you think your wife's love is divided when shared, your love for her is impure. Well, that could be the most controversial statement of the century, but I strongly feel it has the truth that I see in it. If you don't believe in any of these, you are again not a GM. If you're not a GM, you can neither believe nor practice shared love.

Love is not nirvana
We've been speaking about love and nirvana but if you think love/marriage is moksha or nirvana and that there's nothing more to achieve in life, then you're again not a GM. Life is actually much more. In fact love and marriage just mark the beginning of a wonderful journey for the rest of our lives. Once a friend asked me what is the one question you would like to ask your wife. I said - "I want to be part of your success in life. Will you be part of my success in life?" Love and marriage should be something that adds 1+1 to 3, if not more. It should increase my love for my parents, it should increase my love for friends, it should increase my love for people. Love is a tool to attain nirvana and love by itself is not nirvana.

I don't know which category I belong to, but I know I at least understand what I've told here and fully approve of it. I want at least one other family to cry for me when I'm gone. I want to "meet" lesser and lesser LMs and more and more GMs in my life, because I think that way I can achieve more than what I can individually and also make the other person achieve more than what he or she can individually. I want to make this world a wonderful place for whomever I think I can and for whomever I feel needs.

ISB interview

2009-01-31T21:58:00.010+05:30

And the day was fast approaching. I had booked tickets from Bangalore to Hyderabad for my interview on Thursday 1/29. Sunday, we got a call from Channel V saying the Cisco Band Omnifuse has been selected for auditions on Tuesday in Mumbai. An MBA is going to play a significant role in my life and ISB is more than just my dream fit. But with the drummer already dropping out, an absence of bass guitar will amplify the rhythm void. I decided to go for the auditions with the band. I booked flight tickets from Bangalore to Mumbai for Monday and then from Mumbai to Hyderabad for Wednesday. I knew it is going to be a stretch for me, especially considering the fact that I was planning to do a lot of "technical" ISB research in these two days, but I also knew the stretch was worth.

We got into the last 20 at Channel V Launchpad but did not have sufficient practice to take ourselves beyond. Tuesday evening, I went around parts of Mumbai and was impressed - at 2 am, I could see women walking alone, autos running on meters, families visiting beaches - this city just surprised me, Jai Mumbai! Next day I flew to Hyderabad. I went around the campus, attended a class, and spoke with a couple of students.

Two people, I believe one alum and one professor at the interview panel: "So, when did you come?" "Yesterday, from Mumbai". "Aren't you from Bangalore?" "Yes, I had gone to participate in a channel V competition with the Cisco Band". I now knew the stretch I volunteered to take was paying off. A few minutes about music, about the band and then questions on how will you take your band experience to work? Then a few minutes on a Cisco project, a BITS project and my US assignment. And a common question of why MBA and what after MBA. The interview ended like this - "What is the one weakness that you've?" "I think for 8 minutes and speak for 2 minutes, I know as a leader, I should be able to speak for 4 minutes with 6 minutes of thinking". "So, how long did you prepare for this 30-min interview?" All of us laughed and then I said "MBA is something that I've been thinking about for the last few years".

I felt like speaking with family at home rather than with an interview panel - so informal and so light. I will know in two weeks whether they were smiling or laughing. What will I be doing the next one year will be decided by Feb 10th.

What is your Zodiac Sign?

2009-01-03T12:25:00.021+05:30

I remember I used to hate about all the fuss over zodiac signs once upon a time, I think that was around the same time I used to wonder about all the fuss about God and if I am not wrong that was probably the time I was buried in my text books at school. That was the time when I used to think someone is either really good or really bad, when I used to think why shouldn't the world end that day when I forgot to do the homework, when I used to think my parents should never die, and probably when I used to think I can get away with my mistakes. But everything changed in a gradual span of a few years as I grew from a child to a boy to a man. I am eagerly waiting to analyze my transition from a man to a husband to a father.

One such feeling that I have always strongly held against is "love at first-sight". I used to wonder how can that ever happen. Of course, it can't happen when you don't know anything about yourself, forget about knowing others. But as you sail through the ocean of life, and keep "meeting" a dozen people almost everyday, you slowly start to understand what you're and what others are. You can never master, but then you definitely learn so much.

Well, I met a girl a few days back and we just had one hour of conversation when I realized that I've never "met" anyone like her before. She was almost exactly like how I imagined (if at all I did) my wife should be. We knew each other for around a year, but that was the first time we spent even five minutes together. I just saw my reflection in her and she saw hers in mine. We've spent more hours together now, and we've still not discovered anything tangential in our characters. Starting from daily activities, our perceptions on life, our ideas about relations and you name it, we think alike. I knew she was married, even before we met, else I'm not sure if I would've stopped myself from falling in love at first-sight (or may be at first-chat) with her.

So, I started doing some research about zodiac signs and compatibilities to see if that answers this feeling of "immediate" liking and I find "There will be love at first-sight between Taurus and Virgo". I was just blown away in surprise. There was no more surprise left in me when I noted that most of my closest friends belong to one of the five sun signs below that are compatible with Virgo. I realized we are all lesser mortals and that there is probably someone who knows everything about everyone, may be that could be God. I thought I'll store my research and some pointers in this blog so that I can come back and visit this as I meet more people.

Just hoarding for future research:
http://www.buzzle.com/articles/zodiac-sign-compatibility-traditionally-compatible-sun-signs.html
http://www.india-server.com/astrology/
http://www.gotohoroscope.com/compatibility.html
http://theastrologyroom.com/guides/zodiac-symbols-and-their-meanings

12 SIGNS OF THE ZODIAC:

Aries, Mar 21 - Apr 20
Taurus, Apr 21 - May 21
Gemini, May 22 - Jun 21
Cancer, Jun 22 - Jul 22
Leo, Jul 23 - Aug 23
Virgo, Aug 24 - Sep 22
Libra, Sep 23 - Oct 22
Scorpio, Oct 23 - Nov 21
Sagittarius, Nov 22 - Dec 21
Capricorn, Dec 22 - Jan 20
Aquarius, Jan 21 - Feb 19
Pisces, Feb 20 - Mar 20

CLASSIFICATION:

Fire: Aries, Leo and Sagittarius : passionate, energetic, creative and aggressive
Air: Gemini, Libra and Aquarius : thinkers, idea originators and truth seekers
Water: Cancer, Scorpio and Pisces : emotional, creative and intuitive
Earth: Taurus, Virgo and Capricorn : sensual, hard working, sincere and practical

COMPATIBILITIES:
Fire-Air and Water-Earth are compatible to each other.

Aries: Leo, Sagittarius, Aquarius, Gemini, Libra
Taurus: Virgo, Capricorn, Cancer, Pisces, Scorpio
Gemini: Libra, Aquarius, Aries, Leo, Sagittarius
Cancer: Scorpio, Pisces, Virgo, Taurus, Capricorn
Leo: Sagittarius, Aries, Libra, Gemini, Aquarius
Virgo: Taurus, Capricorn, Cancer, Scorpio, Pisces
Libra: Gemini, Aquarius, Leo, Sagittarius, Aries
Scorpio: Cancer, Pisces, Capricorn, Virgo, Taurus
Sagittarius: Leo, Aries, Libra, Aquarius, Gemini
Capricorn: Virgo, Taurus, Scorpio, Pisces, Cancer
Aquarius: Gemini, Libra, Aries, Sagittarius, Leo
Pisces: Cancer, Scorpio, Capricorn, Taurus, Virgo

No wonder - Virgo is first on Taurus' list and Taurus is first on Virgo's list. :-)

Anyway, as always these are only guidelines and all sources say that the happiest couple need not be in the above "compatible" list and the unhappiest couple could well be in the above "compatible" list.

I have found myself

2008-12-06T12:20:00.011+05:30

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

2008-11-30T20:17:00.019+05:30

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

2008-10-09T12:56:00.012+05:30

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

2008-09-29T23:48:00.018+05:30

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

2008-07-07T06:59:00.027+05:30

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?

2008-06-29T11:26:00.033+05:30

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

2008-06-08T07:59:00.024+05:30

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. At least non-vegetarians kill the animals before eating, vegetarians eat them live! 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! 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 to ooze, 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

2008-06-06T10:59:00.014+05:30

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?

2008-05-25T10:58:00.049+05:30

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

2008-04-13T04:58:00.010+05:30

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?

2008-03-25T12:43:00.007+05:30

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

2008-03-24T07:48:00.008+05:30

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)