Ali's Page

Superbowl and super-droll

2012-02-07T14:34:00.000-08:00

SUPERBOWL!! The New York Giants won the Superbowl, and New York was all blue for it. This was the biggest victory the city had seen for quite some time. The parades, the news it all was affected by the Giants. It couldn't be bigger. But for a section of the city, it was. And no, I don't mean the bookies, I am talking about the marketing people making advertisements.

Let me dedicate this post to all the people of this city, and to the people of the country; who have created a consumption society that is beyond belief. Driving this consumerism is a desire to buy, a desire to own. Pushing this desire? Ads. And the Superbowl is the big stage for Ads! In come the marketing people; creating slick 30 second spots to inspire, entertain, and in some cases, disgust (last years groupon commercials, anyone?). Each one of these spots costs a cool $13 million, plus the cost to make the ad. This is more money than 30 minutes of a main stream movie would need. Its heaven for marketing people.

But this utopia came to an abrupt standstill when Chrysler aired its Halftime commercial. This piece featuring Clint Eastwood is both awesome, and inspiring. Republicans, on the other hand, think it is a Obamaphilic ad!
Let see why that is:

It has a strong message, and a coherent one
The message is laudatory, in a way, of the Obama bailouts
Most of the US heard the message

The first two, not so much. The third: Absolutely scandalous! How could a corporation subtly promote Obama in a commercial? More aptly, how could the democrats use a play straight out of the Republicans playbook? They are crying foul; but no one seems to be listening. This really is sad, though not unexpected in an election year!

The makers are quick to say they did not politicize the ad. And therein lies the marketing dystopia. Its a lost cause. It is not going to be simple to find out whether or not it was in Obama's favor.Which gets me to my next question, what if it was? How many people actually understood it? I am sure most people were more enamored by a certain singer praising herself! And how subtle is subtle enough? This ad may have hinted at Obama being the nominee of choice for Chrysler. Chrysler=Corporation. Corporation=People. People=freedom of speech. Speech=Money. Ads=Money.

What if it did not? What if every Chrsyler employee went and voted Romney in the elections? (Yes, I am certain he will be the nominee, Mormonism notwithstanding) It would still not change the pundits views on this ad. To put it simply, they have created a cynical mindset where long form and short form birth certificates become the mockery of the world, where stalemate is the order of the day for the government. This is the superdroll part of it.

Understanding to look beyond the rhetoric, the doctored metrics and hearing the facts rather than fiction is the order of the day. Lets's go out at least try to clear this mess up!

Government controversies

2011-12-07T19:34:00.000-08:00

Living in New York, you get to see a lot of famous people, and sometimes, you are living right next to one. This is the story of how knowing that one man is connected to you, probably still 6 degrees away, fuels thoughts never felt and imaginations never experienced.
This had to do with stopping in front of a friends house to find it mobbed by camera people sometime this summer. Turns out a famous Frenchman's daughter lived there. This Frenchman was accused of sexually assaulting the household help; and the ensuing case was filled with more twist and turns than a badly produced pseudo Spielberg flick.
So this forged a kind of connection, and I started looking into the theories, and the conspiracy theories surrounding his arrest, trial and subsequent release. Most of them had to do, in some way or the other with this being a government conspiracy.

I laughed.
Loud.

But then, you go back and any event- major, minor; significant or not.. just about any classification you want to give it, will be a government conspiracy. Which is not possible. Or is it?

To answer this question, I would turn to the one person, who recently died, but before dying got us alien technology and charged us premium prices for it. May his soul rest in peace. Was his technology from the famed Area 51? Did he have secret government access? It surely does seem that way. But it isnt. all the tech was existing. It was great packaging and salesmanship. It was creativity.

So what should really be government controversies? Lets see: maybe the bills they pass! Do we look at them closely? I mean this not only for my Indian or American readers, but every person from a democratic nation. We have a gift, which we don't use, and later feel bad that it was destroyed. This is what matters, make it matter more!

Dreaming in Color

2011-08-22T02:03:00.000-07:00

This post is dedicated to a country and a people who have been oppressed to the level where oppression seems normal. A people who suffered a genocide at the hands of an empire long gone. A people whose resistance is still legendary. A people whose country is unknown, a people who's fate is out of its own hands. A people who still persevere to reach heights that others still do not dream about.
Which brings me to my post, one written after day dreaming for hours about places unknown, and people unseen. I realized that the power to dream is not a power, but more like a right. The right to dream is given to those who can try to dream enough. To those who can understand the strength these dreams possess.
I recendly read an article which talks about India and its people and how they dreams are all blue.. The color of the Indian side's jersey in cricket.
And then, you reach the connotations of that blue-ness. India seems to be a country that revels in the depression the color signifies. But wait!! Indians, known for their jugaad, have dreamed up an anti-depressant: to be taken with a pinch of salt is the new aphrodisiac for the country. His name is Anna Hazare. While none of us will eat his flesh and blood at holy communion, he is the light that everyone thinks is there at the end of the tunnel. This man, and his bill will pave the way for lower inflation, lower corruption, and might, just might, bring about world peace.
Needless to say, my stance on the current 'second revolution' is easy to fathom. In our national search to find a leader who is untainted, we have found a man who is not corrupt and is a model citizen. His village has proven to be more than a model for us, and we need to emulate the sustainability inherent in the village. However, the model SHOULD not be replicated. The reason is simple. In Mr. Hazare's model village (which again, I must add, I admire), has chamar, mahar, chardi and other people from the backward classes, who are there to follow the profession dictated to them by their castes. Consequently, while the total population rose from 1982 (1991) to 2306 (2001), the scheduled caste and scheduled tribe populations decreased from 233 (1991) to 171 (2001) and 49 (1991) to 32 (2001) respectively.
Thus, while the upper classes favored a reverse migration, the lower classes preferred to leave the village which was providing them employment in favor of unknowns. Call me stupid, but my idea of a model village is one which at the very least is egalitarian in its outlook towards the disadvantaged. Unfortunately, this is not the case.
The one way to correct this would be in the gram sabha elections that the villages hold to decide policy and governance. . But wait! Ralegon Siddhi has not had one of those in the last 15 years! A simple conclusion would be to say that lesser governement and more direct control is the answer to all of India's problems. Which is exactly what the Jan Lokpal bill is. Creating a super umbrella to fight corruption, we are undermining the very pillars of Indian democracy in favor of a body that should not be corrupt.
Here's an idea.. what if it is corrupt? What, then, happens to the whistle blowers and the multitude of people fighting against corruption?
These are thoughts I leave you to consider. And remember, nothing is in black and white, it is all in color. Before saying good and evil, or black and white, or even just blue; remember, there is more at stake. There are more colors that make up the palette: use them to dream more and think better.

P.S. Fun read: http://www.hindustantimes.com/images/HTPopups/170811/DraftJanLokpalBill.pdf

Back with a bang

2011-02-28T12:20:00.000-08:00

So a person inspired me to write this. This person is one of those natural born leaders you seldom find. This post is dedicated to that person, a person who has recently taken up one of the toughest hobbies (heavy physical workouts), and who has decided to blog about it. So, every time I see a new post there, I post here. Something like a motivation for me to work.
In the past few weeks, my life has been turned upside down. I lost all backups and my laptop through a weird combination of circumstances and coincidences, and was left holding a blank pen drive and a laptop case. So, I needed a port for the stick and a laptop for the case. So I went onto the stores, and could not get the configuration i wanted for the price I needed. I then went to the 'outlet' stores, and there lay a revelation. I found what I was looking for, albeit in a color that caused a close family member (who was a generation older) to say YUCK. That aside, this machine works as advertised, and I have almost started working as advertised.
Which begs the question.. You, as advertised? That makes no sense at all. That is where, my dear readers enters the resume. This one document has been my nemesis for long enough, so I took the opportunity to rewrite from scratch.
Which is when I noticed that I have really accomplished something in my life. But I notice it is not enough. So I really need to push myself to do more, to be more. So today I declare, like the person, who in 30 days will be much fitter, I will continue as long as it takes to be the best I can be.
And to those of you who have in the past inspired me, you do so more everyday as I learn how difficult it has been for you. I will live up to every expectation you throw at me. Except perhaps becoming the Prime Minister of the country. I am truly back with a bang.

The New World

2010-10-05T04:17:00.000-07:00

To my readers, especially those who have visited this site and found no updates, I apologise. While this blog has been hibernating, I have been enjoying the beauty, amazing weather and the experience that is Columbia University.
However, in the spirit of full disclosure, all is not rosy here. In fact, its just the opposite. The experience I have been enjoying so far is only Netflix; and most recently a show about a man with too many problems in life caused by his love for the bottle. It struck me as odd that this show had to coincide with some of the other things happening around me.Lets go into this in more detail, if you will allow me to do so. I have never been addicted to anything. Alcohol? Check. Cigerrettes? Check. Porn? Check. Nothing had a hold on me, except me.
Then one day, I discovered netflix; and took to it like a priest to a little boy. It was a guilty pleasure that was hidden in the closet, by something I could not stop myself from thinking about.At first it began inoccously enough with Season 1-6 of the Office, after which, I can proudly(shamefully?) say that I have seen over 30 seasons of different episodes. Do I lack the self control to stop? No, I told myself on and on and on again. But, guess what? I was wrong. I did not have the control over myself to stop watching. Netflix had me hooked. But I told myself I was not addicted. After all, I did manage to complete my assignments on time, and to score well on them (usually a 100 percent)But then came mid terms and the most important piece of learning.
I am now responsible for myself. Classes are merely dialogues which buffer the real thing: Self study. The self was what I was now thinking about to the point that I realised that I missed me. I was, in all respects an outgoing, social, fun loving guy; albiet one with a serious problem in the closet.I ditched Netflix.And realised that I love what I am, what I do. I grew out of a shell I lived in for 21 years. I now realised the true meaning of being me. That I hold in my hands the power to change not only the layout of the blog, but also my own life. In ending small shows, I saw a big difference. In change, I saw hope (not the Obama-esque hope.. Real hope)
The New World welcomed me with Netflix and taught me how to grow up. I grew. This blog is dedicated to one reader, to the fake ID used to chat, to a coffee cup in a mess waiting for its bournvita. I know this blog is garbled, but isnt that how life really is?

Guns and Roses..

2010-03-02T11:50:00.000-08:00

There are over 112,000,000 indexed blog in cyberspace. The one I was reading was authored by a senior at IIMS, and he described Shillong in the following words: "This isn’t a hill station, it’s the world's second highest battle field".

Having been in and out of there for over three years, I am bound to agree with him, albeit for different reasons. At the stroke of five a clock, in any other city, my friends and I would get our cycles, or cycle-pool (usually, caused by me having done something to make my cycle unusable) to any place. In Shillong, the 5 o clock chime is not a signal to go out and play; rather, it is a warning to stay indoors. Considered a "safe city" in the North East, in Shillong you will find gun totting security men at every turn. It’s a city under siege. But the siege is not caused by any real threat. Rather, the threat is in the minds of the security officers posted to the city. And, unfortunately, that is becoming worse. As is the feeling of terror in any person's mind.

During the time my family was in Shillong, I was at college on the other side of the country, in Punjab. The last time I was here was when my father was posted to Ferozepur, a sleepy border town. It is comparable to Shillong in quite a lot of ways: both have a single lane for a market (grrr!), both are small, both are sleepy; both have a large army presence!

But in Ferozepur, which has our friendly neighbours in walking distance, the only place where any guns can be seen are at the "Change of Guard" ceremony at Hussainiwalah. A little farther is a picture that I do not think I will ever forget. A farmer in his tractor coming till the fence to till his fields. Quaint, peaceful, beautiful.

Let’s assume that the farmer was sowing Wheat.

Now, the logistics kicks in! The farmer puts his produce for auction and the Govt. buys it. After languishing for some time in a FCI warehouse, it is resold. This time the Govt. of Meghalaya buys it for distribution to the residents of Shillong.

At the consumer end, is someone, still terrified because of the weapons around him, nonetheless, having a nice dinner with some derivative of the Govt of Meghalaya wheat.

Wheat that was made in peace, in a place which is anything but peaceful; is being eaten in a place under terror, but one which is actually peaceful.

Ironical, isn't it?

Final Year, Finally!!!

2010-02-17T06:43:00.000-08:00

Sun bathing isn’t exactly uncommon, but to see 43 people sprawled on the grass outside the department of Industrial and Production Engineering was a very pleasant surprise, to say the least!

The reason ? Well, all 43 were final year students of the department, and this was one of the rare occasions that they all decided that the classroom may be conducive to them!!

Alas, the teacher was on leave, so the whole class came out to soak in the rays, quite literally! It was then that indolence set in. Most of us were sitting and talking, one was trying to take pictures to add to his orkut profile. And then began a series of dassa's (a literal translation would be a bad, indigestible joke, after listening to which, you wish you never heard it; but then you do laugh.. Slightly complicated, but you will understand as you read along)

The first one went to the king of misfortune, A. After a series of unfortunate events ( :P ), including; having his retina detached from hs eye, and getting at least one exotic health problem once a month, losing his bag on the Delhi metro, and many more (you should get the idea!); our man went to buy a pair of specs. But cautious as he needs to be after his prior, ahem, experiences, he buys two. And gets them fitted with top quality lenses. The dassa here?? He used a WRONG PRESCRIPTION!

Another one was by our very own convenor sahib, B. Dressed in shorts and a sweatshirt, B was most annoyed with the cancellation. He had, by his own admission, spent a lot of time dressing up!! Believe it. That does surely raise the suspision of wheter or not he slept naked!!!

But the biggest dassa was caused unintentionally when our lecturer arrived with some of his friends. It was explained to him how most of the students had not come because they were "studying" for the exams. He was taking a stroll around the campus. Seeing him, everyone decided to run. And the sense of unity was so strong that all of us ran in the same direction!!!But I think the gravitrons emanating from the crowd did their job.. The lecturers' followed us all around the Industrial department, while w were trying to blend in with the buildings!

And then, after safely escaping, I came back to my room; and my project. Back to my project work, something struck me..

This,my readers is what final year in college feels like.
Good to feel that way. Finally!

The tale of WHY we are idiots!

2010-02-13T11:09:00.000-08:00

3 idiots is a revolutionary movie. It has actually made people sit up and think: "What is education in India all about??"
Answers to this are present in more than one form, but they all point to the same thing: education in India is not about learning, understanding, or for that matter even rote learning. It is about competition. About beating the other person, at any cost. And we are loosing out more than we are gaining because of this attitude. I realised this recently, and I am writing this post, because of two different incidents. One was the comment that "Usually ppl dont disclose outside what they are applying" (quoted verbatim). This was in the context of applying to a university outside the country. The second incident was that of two of my classmates desperately trying to hide that they were selected for a paper presentation.
In both these cases, the cloak and dagger is to ensure that the competition remains one step behind. The logic baffles me. In any case, eveyone will know about the admit/paper, why hide it?
Even more so when hiding stuff like this puts the person at a disadvanage, while revealing it may actually help!
That is why Journals were made, why Web 2.0 is not merely a concept. Hell, that is why Patents were made.
TO SHARE KNOWLEDGE.
Hide your list of universities, but what d you do when 10 people apply to the same place and have the same recommendors??!!
Is your paper of any use if you sweep it under a carpet?
These are just two examples. People try to hide everything. From their intentions to their own selves, with the hope that the competition gets left behind., and that is the problem with our education system. It does not impart an iota of scientific spirit.. Just a thirst to beat the competition, in any way possible.
But, some people do mix this thirst with some spirit (usally found when they go to another country), and become successful.
The rest are hired to the best companies out there, and in a recession, laid off.
Now, to divert the discussion a little, why do Indians imbibe the scientific spirit when they go abroad? Becuase the host country forces their outlook to become more cosmopolitan. Only there do we learn to beat our opponents on their strenghts, not weaknesses. Back stabbing is then resorted to only occasionaly, and is not the first solution!
The problem in our education system is not to change the manner of teaching, but the manner of the taught. It will take more than education reforms to clean that mess!!

Esmile Puhrleese

2009-11-29T09:06:00.000-08:00

OR should I say, "smile please" or whatever it is in your language to ask someone to smile towards the camera. And sometimes, we dont need to say cheese. It just happens. And we catch it on camera.

These days, kodak moments have become more "capture-able" because of recent advances in technology. We have upto 8 megapixels of CCDs on our cell phones to take pictures.
But you know what? We waste them. When was the last time you took a picture that actually had meaning? A picture that would end up on the mantel piece and not just on your SD card?

Well, the answer to that will vary from person to person, but the simple truth is that most of the pictures in the world are not picture perfect. We can surely find a flaw in it. Just like most scenes, just like most people. Just like just about everything.

There is however one image, that can be picture perfect; and that is a smile. A genuine smile, no matter when, no matter where, is picture perfect. But smiles are now reserved. We fake them for the cameras all around us. People are not in the "to smile to" category. Sometimes, even our family cant get it.

Where there would be a unit of fun and laughter and smiles, we have now created functional units where relationships are merely tags. Mum is the lady who drives me to and from school. Dad is the guy with the money. And we donot even fake smiles for them.

But we surely will for the cameras.

And we call ourselves a superior race? Even ants communicate, and I am sure they smile to each other! So here goes: Picture perfect does exist. It exists when there are genuine smiles. When the world dos not sap the innocence from the smiles.

This post is dedicated to all the people who make me smile. My family, my friends who form my extended family, and to every one who has ever smiled because of me. I consider you all my family. You are the people who make pictures perfect. Your smiles brightens up not only a view finder, but colours a life.

Esmile Puhrleese, its more than you give it credit for! It could change a life!

Wordless!

2009-11-24T07:57:00.000-08:00

Hi everyone.. To those who follow this blog, and the others who were forced into reading it! I have been away for a while (Doing what? Even I dont know!!), but as I sat messaging a friend today, my fingers remebered the joy of words, and.. Am back!
All this time away from the blogsphere has not left what you would call a gaping hole, but has made my last post date almost ancient. And as I write this I remember the passion that goes into anything, major or minor. This is the passion that brings us together with other people.
I dedicate this to one such person who makes my day with words, but remains wordless! Confused? Well, this person IS the words that emanate from her. But somewhere deep inside, the effect is wordless!

People come into your life as a blank sheet of paper. This is the paper of your emotions, your soul. Some people are merely a pencil mark on the paper: readily erasable, easily forgettable. Others make small marks with pens. Some are like calligraphy. And there are a few, who mark themselves wordlessly as perforations in the whole sheet (kinda like the exam answer sheet markings!).
It is these people who I will talk about today. Everyone expects everyone else to have that one close friend, the one person to miss, the one person to remember, and that one person you share everything with.

And that one person becomes a part of your life. A very integral one at that! But why so?
A simple explanation is there in the Twilight series. Vampires usually exist in pairs. So do we. These pairs can be friendships, or other relationships. In every group of people, you will find that one person.
I cannot generalise how that one person is. Usually, the person will be like your favorite brand of chocolate. You love the flavour, you love the smell, you love the texture. You love everything about it.
And most off all, it usually has enough caffiene to give us the kick we need! And in the manner of chocolates, the one person gives you that kick you need. Its awe inspiring!! At the basic level, this person leaves you.. Wordless!
If you have reached here and not got a name, go out and find that person. It need not be the partner in your relationship, it may not be your best friend, but it is there. You need to have another side to the coin that is you.
Only then can you describe it, and believe me, you will be: wordless!!

Micro skirts in a macro mindset?

2009-07-01T11:04:00.000-07:00

A city which is the adobe of the hep-est university in India, Delhi University.

With 2,20,000 students; most of them carefully reared into making DU hep, the campus is a favorite for newsies, politicians, and a wide array of other such characters.
The newsies, of course love this place. All manner of articles can be seen from this one university. One that caught my eye quite recently was titled "DU students show the latest Fashion", and showed a photo of two girls in skimpy clothes (that was what actually caught my attention!)
Well, Fashion=Skimpy Clothes???
Help me out a little. I thought fashion meant the latest and most admired style in clothes and cosmetics and behavior, but here in Delhi, it seems to have a absolute different meaning.
Lets explore this meaning further.
And to do it, I have asked a few people to answer some of my questions on 'fashion'. This post is dedicated to you guys!!
Back to the topic, but lets move to Mangalore. Remember the case where a few decided to make a point by roughing up some girls who were trying to have a good time? That was meant to be a political statement.

POLITICAL STATEMENT??!! you ask.
'Yes' I aver.

What sort of democracy allows for such statements?
The same sort where the only meaning for fasion is showing enough skin.

Which brings us back to the topic of this blog. Our mindset is still stuck somewhere in the early 1900s, and that is why we are here. We have had a woman prime minister, a woman speaker, hell, even a woman president, but we are still chauvinists deep down inside.
This deep down, is, unfortunately coming up to the surface now. It is singeing everything else around it.

Thats why DU is only fasionable as long as there are skimpy clothes on campus, and the only sort of statement that works is one where women need to be "controlled" (their words!!)

Where does that leave the aam aadmi, who is trying to widen his horizons and globalise his mindset?, it leaves him burnt, and he also goes back to the stone ages. He also decides that the teenaged girl at home shoud be controlled. That if she looks at a guy, she is lusting for him. That if she is fasionable, its a curse! And this is the same person who calls himself a 'broad-minded man'!

Wake up people.

We are allowing fanatics with rabid emotions to control our lives. The sooner e notice this, the better it will be.
And that will usher in a macro-mindset, for real

Addendum: Tuesday, July 14, 2009 : 13:56 hrs

This just in! Yesterday's news reports that the governmment of a certain indian state was helping a lot of girls from under-privelaged families to get married. But, guess what? The 150- odd girls first had virginity checks done on them to ensure they were pure enough to be married.

That the party conducting the tests was the same one involved un Mangalore (they try to wash their hands off it, but we know better; dont we?!) was no surprise. What was surprising is that it rocked the house of parliment. And thats good. But, the mud slinging began, and it became a political fight.

So much for Macro mindset, huh??

You take away all the dignity that a woman has on her wedding day.

You take away their dignity in pubs.

You dont let them work.

And you want to call India a growing democracy?

Yup it is! India.. the growing democracy with a rapidly shrinking mindset.

Of staples cabinets and dots

2009-05-21T11:40:00.000-07:00

As i type this, there is a small bar on the top allowing me to change the font of this article. A few days back, I found out why this existed.. Some programmer had taken a caligraphy class in college! He said it al came down to "connecting the dots".

But think again.

The dots havent been conected at all. Its more like a curve fitting, where the dots have been pushed into the the line which is supposed to be connecting them.

I feel it is more like paper. Each episode is a piece of paper. We staple them together when we feel the dots are connected.

If the curve gets out of bound, we open the staple, shuffle the pages, put in some new ones, pull out the old ones, and staple it again.

The papers we pull out get filed away. Into some little nook in a filing cabinet.

Some days, when we need to open the staples, our lives are in a disarray. We grovel for order, and wheedle ourselves into connecting the dots yet again. The papers all come out, the stapler ready as a virgin, and we sift, we sort, we screen, we classify, we arrange, we order, we rank, and then we staple.

Our life moves on till the next incident.

And this is repeated

Imagine the filing cabinet is lost

That will be the day we learn to live our lives. Yes, we will look back, but we will look at a life well lived, for good or bad.

But what is lost?

Our ideas. The only legacy we leave is our ideas. People will forget the Mahatma, but not non-violence. We dont connect the dots to see what we have achieved, rather to ensure that we achieved something.

All boils down to the good ole self-realisation.

So if we loose the cabinet, we loose the only source of self-realisation! The same man who spoke about connecting the dots felt that in his failures, he let down a generation of entrepreneurs.

Wake up!

It didn't matter to any of the entrepreneurs! You just stapled the pages wrong.

Staple them again, and your whole life changes.

That is the difference between an optimist and a pessimist.

At the end, the order is immaterial.. People come and go, their cabinets go with them.

As do their neatly stapled files.

So staple away to optimism or pessimism.. to joy or misery.. The stapler's in your hand!

Dynamism: A Tribute to all the Martyrs

2009-02-26T09:23:00.000-08:00

What drives you?
What makes you feel alive?
Is it eluding you?

Well, think about it.. This is for the person that awakens a sense of immanence in me ( continuing with my devoted to you series), and to a blogger I ardently follow ( thanks for the title!).

So back to the story of a life , and of a relationship. Most relationships follow this at some point of time, so it isnt something new to us. Condone the banality of the passage, and bear with me.

Boy meets girl, they fall in love, shit happens, they fall apart, and then, et voila back again!!

Whew.. That does it. But this scenario is what the Warner Brothers, and their co-conspirators earn millions from. What makes it so magical?

We do. We see the magic in it. And it makes us feel alive!

We see the magic in simple words and transform them into feelings. These can be awakened by characters so far away, so displaced from us that we will never understand their world. But we know it is also our world.

Whether you are in the third row with popcorn in one hand and that person on the other, or in a dark and depressing room, you feel the dynamism get you.

This dynamism is what we live for. Some get it from money, some from power, some by a face.

But what when you have neither of these with you, but everything you do defines this for a billion people, where does the dynamism come from?

It comes again from us. All our armymen know that one smile is all that they want. A gesture of love, a minute of rememberance. In their dynamism lies death waiting, but they want us to remember what keeps us going. It keeps them going.

The worlds a stage, a major play is on, but someone goofed up on the script. All the men were players. Now all men are merely in the stands. The script is written only for the armymen.

And death is repeated.

Lets try to change the script.

And while watching your next movie and feeling the dynamism creep through, remember, that those who let the love story happen, were themselves in something far more deific.

2008-07-13T10:37:00.000-07:00

Figure out for yourself my lad,
You have all that the greatest of men have had,
2 arms, 2 legs, 2 hands, 2 eyes,
And a bran to use if you would be wise,
Will all this equipment they began,
Do start from the top and say 'I can'.

Look them over, the wise and the great,

They take their food from a common plate,

And similar knives and forks they use,

With similar laces they tie thier shoes,

The world considers them brave and smart,

But you have all they had when they made start.

You can triumph and come to skill,
You can be great if you only will,
You have arms and legs and a brain to use,
And a man who has risen great deeds to do,
Begins his life with no more than you.

You are the handicap you must face,

You are the one who must choose his place,

You must say where you want to go

How much will you study, the truth to know

God has equipped you for life, but he,

Lets you decide what you want to be.

Courage must come from the soul within,

The man must furnish his will to win,

So figure it out for yourself my lad,

You were born with all that the great had,

With your equipment they all began,

Get hold of yourself and say 'I CAN"

-Unknown Author

This was put up on a door somewhere and is the most inpiring poem. Ever.

The mascot

2008-06-16T12:55:00.000-07:00

Told you i changed my phone?? This one i way cooler than the thing i used earlier. That made me finally get down to actually doing some stuff that i was planning to with my phone. For starters, I attached a picture to each name. That is when the dilemma Which picture do use for the home landline?? For all other numbers, there was one person who would be most lkely to call, or answer the phone. I started thinking, and voila, i got the answer...

And this post is dedicated to him, the family mascot, Ochre.
He is a small cute cocker spaniel with a big apetite for food and tummy-rubs. He can melt your heart with his eyes..Make you love him. That is the power of a mascot. When you com home to meet the family, the mascot is always on your mind.
That set me thinking (thank god it did, or else I would never be able to write this post). What will the mascot for earth be when we have found extraterrestrials(or maybe settled on mars)? What defines Earth?
LIFE
D-uh, life already exists on another planet now, right?
So I was thinking again.
And i got it.
POVERTY
that is the one thing everybody on earth suffers from.
Bill Gates from the poverty of time. The roadside beggar from the poverty of money. That african in the middle of a sub-saharan village with no water: poverty of hope.
We are poor not because we have less, but because we want more. Too much more.
Isnt that human nature?
I guess so. In our quest for more, we get more. To become developed.
And we have lost the world.
So when we have found the other "worlds", will we hate this planet we have come to take for granted?
I dont know. But hope that there is an answer.
What i do know is that the flag of this earth will have one theme.
And I am sure you already know what it is.
Change the poverty.
Not by giving alms, but by changing mindsets. Becuase you need an Ochre-ish mascot. Charming and Lovable.
Not poverty.
Because it is the mascot that flashes everytime a call comes.
And it sticks in your head.

Headphones

2008-06-12T09:44:00.000-07:00

Every book I read, every research paper I try to swallow, every piece of paper that is written, is dedicated to somebody. That is because some thought goes into it... And when you think of anything, you think of someone else... The one person who made you think the thoughts you r thinking...
So this is dedicated to her; I am sure she will know it’s her... And, for those of you waiting with anticipation, I don’t think I will name her. That brings me to the blog!!
Why were you waiting to hear the name of the dedicatee? If you know me, you will say it is curiosity. If you don’t, well, you will still blame that minor emotion called curiosity!!
Curiosity is a great thing. The starting of everything was because of curiosity. If we were not curious, we would be worse than the cockroaches who roam this world. Even they look for something new in the dirt.
Curiosity, "an emotion that causes natural inquisitive behaviour such as exploration, investigation, and learning, evident by observation in many animal and human species", is a weird emotion.
Where curiosity is necessary, law regulates it. Where it is not required, privacy negates it.
Here, privacy is not an option. A similar thing happens in hostel.
Hostels are amazing places. The whole idea is that a group of people immerse themselves with their friends to enjoy all that life has to offer, and the joys that friendship has.
But, these friends become liabilities when you need privacy. Privacy is what hostel life is supposed to make you forget. Some can, some can't.
So much about privacy... Let me tell you about something I bought for my system sometime back. It’s called a headphone. The prefix is more important. Curious about what that is?
Noise Cancellation. This was to get some peace and quiet, which till then, was something that could be found only in Antarctica. And what a feeling it was. The rediscovery of peace was something gargantuan in my college life and stay on campus.
That set off those rusted clogs in my head. Sometimes all of us need a little space. Some place where we can grow, and have a life, which we can live without the curiosity of the world!! Why take a vacation to lose those nosy neighbours? Create that little sphere around you, let those things that matter get in. Let only the un-intruding curiosity penetrate it.
Or, get yourself a pair of noise cancelling headphones. Watch the noise stop and the music start!!

The DEADE identity

2008-03-07T10:51:00.000-08:00

In my last post, I had written about identities. But in retrospect, why did I do it? I don’t know. In this place where education is merely an excuse to homogenize people, to make them similar; and where people want to be homogenised. They want to fit in with the crowd.
Fashion is a major homogeniser. We all want to be hep and wear the clothes that are “in”. These clothes may or may not suit us, but to be with the flow, we wear it. I can never forget how my 120 pound, 5foot 2 inches of a friend wore a tank top with mini. Why?? Because it was in.
Another thing is sports. We may hate some stars, and like some others, but the game is shaping us to a very great extent. The game is what matters and it matters a lot. People can be killed over a game of cricket, or soccer and their killings justified by the media. Recently there was an umpire in cricket who gave, umm, questionable judgements. We all rose like a gaggle of pecans to get in for the kill. And kill, we did.
Not Buckner, but another voice of sanity. Had it just been about the game or patriotism, it was ok. But now I see people making it a point to mention him as if he has done them some major wrong.
As if their family is affected.
So we are getting more and more homogenised. We have our individuality, but a sense of identity is very fluid. It is there and not there at the same time. It changes with the crowd. I guess our identity is what politicians call the issues during elections. We have become people who revel in living in issues.
Unity is different from the discussion above. Unity is more about how we, as a people, react. Identity is about how, u as a person, are. With borders narrowing down and the world becoming a global village, our identities’ should expand. But it is just the opposite. Our identities are narrowing down.
And the remainder of the identities are within fixed parameters. We only want to know something about people, and usually that is all that people soon know about themselves. This is a small part of us. And usually not the most important part of us.
Does it matter whether you are a 7 pointer or even a 10 pointer? Not if we look at our identities. But these numbers soon become our identities!!
“Hi! I am so and so, from nit, and I have a gpa of 7.3”.
Is this really us? Are we made to be mere figures? I guess not. The people around us have to judge us. The simplest yardstick to do this are numbers. If I am earning it is the footage of my house. Or the length of my car.
So is it very wrong to say that “ hi! I am so and so, and my house is 400 sq. Yards, and I drive an imported car”?? not at all!! This is what people want to hear.
If we talk within some set parameters, we live within these parameters.
Is this, then, The dead identity??

Identity

2008-02-06T00:01:00.000-08:00

Sometimes you are bored... sometimes this boredom almost gets the better of you. This is the situation I was in aboard the INR 2723, going to Delhi. The brits have left us this beautiful train system that spans the length and breadth of the massive nation of India, but it leaves us bored when no interesting company is present.

So I was talking to my friends and I asked for a topic to write about. And what I was told was identity.

I dint think it worthwhile. Because identity is not that tough. I’m an Indian, an engineer, and a member of the student community. Somewhere in my mind I am an armyman’s son, a brother, a pet owner and a blabberer!! Sitting here, all of these identities come to life one by one. My affiliation with the army to the colonel sitting across from me. My engineering degree to the IT professional on the berth below mine. My blabbering to everyone!!

Although I can have this identity, it is not overpowering. Im sure, in some little way, all these people will provide to my identity a part of their own which will remain that way forever. But talking to them, I was very bored, you know, I found that I can put people into a few stereotypes:
• Those who don’t want an identity.
• Those who want it, but not the identity they already posses
• Those who flaunt it
• Those who flaunt it, but don’t have it
• Those who have it and are happy with it
Weirdly, unlike hair, people are usually pretty happy with their identities. They don’t want them to be different.

An identity essentially, is you!! The factors that have gone into making us have actually gone into making our identity.

The people around me all have different identities. There is the hyderabadi-IT professional-mum-dancer, the andhraite-armyman-father, and so on and so forth. These people have no qualms about flaunting their identity.

I had once chanced upon meeting a vicitim of sexual abuse by her grandfather. The experience left her traumatised. Not so much because it happend, but because now, she has no identity. The one she believed in, the one she knew, had gone. She was left emotionally weakend by the incident. Till now, im sure she has not changed. You loose trust in those you should trust the most. You lose everything that you hold dear to you in a split.

But some people would want an earth shattering experience. A challenge sometimes does it for you. One person was challenged to make a programming language. He did it in 7 days. You may think it was some limited usage language. It was not. It was the beginners all purpose symbolic instruction code: BASIC. The person who did this was William Gates. This is one experience, one instance that changed him forever. Maybe because it was the beginning of his rise to fame or his starting point as a computer genius, but 7 days changed a life of 25550 days.
The smallest of things make up this large identity.

If I had to call my identity anything, it would definitely be the experiences, the emotions, the feelings and the tiny moments that I have experienced.because that is what i am.

I had a dream

2008-01-10T06:19:00.000-08:00

I had a dream... A minor fantasy, if you please. I still cultivate that fantasy.The fantasy of an ideal world. This was the dream world that we all believed in till we believed in the tooth fairy!! Today the real world seems to get further and further away from the fantasy.
It began when I found that there was no Father Christmas. It was a heart-wrenching moment knowing that the Jolly figure was just that, a figure! That moment changed everything forever. I came out of the dreams that had sustained me for three years of my life. Then I started looking around: Actually feeling the world I live in. This world is not good. Every day is not a noddy cartoon where everyone goes about their business looking, or even acting, busy. It is more like a gaggle of orangatuans; with people swinging from branches trying to poke their noses where they don’t belong, and are not even wanted. Where relationships are a façade to hide peoples true feelings. Where work is only for money and personal glorification. Where we all live. What we all are.
Going deeper, we find that its just human nature that is beginning to show itself in the people because the norms that the society had imposed on the people are beginning to fade away. These norms provided the required safety net for people to stay in. We still pretend to be bound by this society’s norms, but in reality, are we?
No. That is the simple answer to this question. Just getting manicured nails and slipping into an Armani is not being civilised. To tame the body means nothing. We should be able to tame the beast within us, the beast that haunts every fibre of the peoples of civilised nations. Within us, resides this beast, and within us will it remain till the end of time. But the society does not take this into account. They also seem to live my fantasy. An ideal society with less-than-ideal people could never work. Now it has disintegrated.
Man WAS a social animal. Now man is just an animal, because there is no society or social left anymore.
So do we need the society? Let’s dissect the matter at hand now. On one hand is help and bonding. On the other is the too much help and bondage. What was so eagerly sought after is now discarded worse than a stray dog. People died searching was the true love, the true way, the true life. Today this is but a fiddle. The society was the patchwork quilt meant to hold everything inside it. The universal truths of life were all imbibed in it. Not now. Now it’s merely patches. All that was sought after is openly available. So no one wants it. Guess if money grew on trees, that is just what would happen. No one would want it any more. No wonder leaves have no value!!
In my fantasy, all is good and values are respected. But here, to have good values you need to carve a niche for yourself! Or for that matter a niche for the values.
As I type this out, my iPod is on so that I can isolate myself from that so and so on the saet next to mine. I have not even spoken to him, neither will I. I will never know if he shares my interests. To find someone who has that, we have social networking, the devil’s alternative to society. I wish that someone has enough sense to reject social networking as merely a gimmick. But no!! We have to join the club of people who want to be tech-savvy and thus, forget thta they invented computers, and not the other way around.
So when we have no social interaction, and know killerX (or your favourite guy from your playstation) better than your room-mate, and then you don’t understand why he behaves the way he behaves, we can know what it means to be in a wired society: Wired to virtual reality,, away fro reality.
Till now, I have presented a pessimistic view of the “adapted” human nature and I may be a pessimist in your eyes. Actually, this is neither pessimistic nor optimistic, or for that matter even realistic.
It is real.
And that makes my dream even harder to grasp
Till the day I get it, I HAVE a dream!

Lala

2008-01-05T16:34:00.000-08:00

"lala" is the name of my 2 and a half year old cousin's stuffed toy, a monkey
Recently he has begun to chatter away at all times.
When i was sitting playing with him, i hid his "lala".
Imagine my surprise, when he started talking in a high shrill voice. I was about to call 911 when he told me that he was Lala. Thank god for that. It saved me tons of trouble ( and my uncle and aunt for that matter!!).
And this pretence continued for sometime till the real lala was found, and my cousin finally became himself again
But it made me think
Is this what they call innocence?
Of course it is.. He is a tiny baby about to come into this world. To be let loose, if i may say so.
Lala is his alter-ego.
So we start young! Today, all over the internet people have their alter egos.
From being president Bush to winnie the pooh, people have alter egos with varying degrees of resemblence to their real self.
For those of you who don't speak in anything more than mono-syllables, an alter-ego can be an imaginary person within you, or one that you would create in a world of your coice.
So all of us have alter-egos.
These are the real us. The alter egos are free of all pretence, of any reality, and of this world.
The self that is exhibited on this planet is the one that is really the alter ego.
No matter how long we live, we dont know the people around us.
We know the facade that they show us.
Sometimes they are the real people. i think the only people who shed their facade are those who have nothing to hide or nothing to loose.
But most people have their emotions to hide.
They have something or the other that is not correct for the society thay live in.
Be it thier burping habit (gross) or thier background, these are the aspects no body should know about as per some people!!
Some of us, however, are true to ourselves. Our lala's are the images in the mirror.
more and more people know this is true.
But the Lalas will remain!!!
The only thing people are, if not genuine, are purple cotton monkeys.
look at them and say "hi! lala"
And smile to youself, because know that the lala's will remain to be so.
Even a two year old learns to be himself when his lala is revealed.
Don't laugh at the person who is true to himself.
For he looks at the mirror everyday to a person.
Not to Lala!!

A month to a year (Me contd..)

2008-01-04T02:16:00.000-08:00

those were the days, my love.
Verily, these are the days, my love
i am now 18 years and 11 months, in a month i would have done another year around here!!
at the risk of sounding cliched, another year of existence.
"so wat have you achieved?" Ask my nearest and dearest, the people who have shaped me.
my response could be
An individuality.
A persona.
A sense of self.
I know who i am.
You may say thats really not much for 18 years.
Is it?
well i think it is.
Its more than enough! it is a major thing that i have achieved.
But, you know something, i want more.
No, not individuality, not persona, i want more knowledge.
that i feel is everyones aim. Some people want knowledge of their course work, others of the thoughts of a girl at the bar!! But yes, they want knowledge.
That is what i want. I want to know why i think of the things i do.
i want to know why i make the friends i do.
I know who i will. But why? That is something that will take time.
So this one month, i will try to blend in, to be a commonplace citizen of this world. That should give me an insigth into the minds of people i interact with. That will also tell me why i am usually considered different.
This one month is an ode to the people who have shaped me.
I repay you by becoming normal.
By understandin this world.
Not because you asked to be paid back. not because you asked me what i achieved.
But because that is the least i could do for you.
A month to a year.

right here right now

2008-01-04T01:10:00.000-08:00

So why not..
but why..
why not..

Havent we all gone through this. the positive, the negative; the true, the false; the whole thing.
but here is the question that strikes me as odd
why not
things happen only when you do something, it could be a small thing like getting a diffferent flavour of coffee( which you have been ying for weeks now) to buying a new car( your childhood dream car)!
so why not
we blame it on millions of things, from the omnipotent boss to the veritable salary.
but that is just an excuse
Today i finally said why not
and you know what? i have burnt a hole in my pocket, and wen i write this page, i feel happy to have done it.
its over. im not a slave of this world anymore. i am definetaly an identity now.
life changing, isnt it??
no. i will now be what people refer to as flamboyant. a colourful character!!
out of the ordinary.
why not
so what do you have to loose? nothing. try it.
dont just stand out because everyone else wants to.
be yourself, and believe me, you will stand out.
for better or worse, you will change for sure.
yes.. it is not always for the better!
if you are thinkin about robbin a bank, and you say why not, well, mate, you know the drill!
thats all for now.. gotta cook ( why not!!!)

me

2007-12-24T22:41:00.000-08:00

Me. my life.my lane.
i follow the rules of the road but like to keep in my lane. NO, its not the "straight" lane, nor is it the easiest.
i dont want it to be.
It is however, crazy!! i live a crazy life.
its full of me!
its artsy, its complex, its fast, and its me
my life does not revolve around one city, rather, it revolves around the country. i am, by my own reckoning an avid traveller. i love to see the world, the mystique, the life that is holds for us.
while travelling, i love to keep the local music in my ipod. Its add to the flavor of the place!bacause, with industrialisation, all places are concrete jungles with the same types of roads, cars, pollutions, etc,etc
travelling brings with it a realisation
that we are all so different yet so similar
You can look at a potrait, and love it. it can be thai, korean, hell, even mordern art, but what difference does it make if you like it??
none!!!
so back to the topic..
people are different because they think differently, i will not go into this, the HSBC bank ads have done that for me.
every place also brings its own culinary delicacies with it (FOOD). this is the best part of travel.
this is where i get the most out of travel. even a simple thing liked mashed potatoes are different in different places.. somewhere it is the staple food, and at other places it is treated with suspicion!!
this is what i love
This is the lane i live in..
more later!!

Anger Therapy

2007-11-12T10:49:00.000-08:00

How many times have you met people who can not control thier anger?
many i presume.
but if you are one of those people who has not encountered anyone with a sense of anger, meet ME
for me it is a sense, not an emotion. this emotion is not an agressive one. On the contrary, my anger is peaceful.
i dont try to break glasses when I am angry. I use this anger to propel me. To make me better. That is why I love my critics. Because they can anger me
Anger therapy for me is being criticised. It does not invlve sitting on a doctors chair, trying to figure out the wrongs this life and people around me have done.
It involves me. knowing what I have done.
This has been what I have done for a long time.
But now, it takes a lot to anger me.
however , if you are close to me, then you can anger me to no extent. Because you are the people who matter to me. Criticism from you does anger me as much as it would coming from someone else. But you guys are emotionally close to me. Here is where my emotions mix with my anger. And here is where the therapy breaks off completely. This is the point where it is no longer therapy, but uncontrolled emotions!!
So then I did something else. Controlled these emotions. And you know what, it just wasn't me.
I am not someone who is made to hide his emotions.
Call it plain pig-headedness if you may, but its true.
so it was back to therapy for me!!
But by now, im used to criticism, so what angers me?
Nothing??
i would guess so.
and i lived happily
Till my anger burst today. Like a flood. One single line was said and that was like an ocean breaking through a dyke.
and it felt good.
but left scars on the people around me, till it reached me and made me feel bad too!!
But know i know something.
we are built to be able to take anger. Sometimes this is what strenghtens relationships.
but use it with caution.
Anger is like fire ( the usually the emotion related with it too). Used well it cooks our food.
Misused, it razes our houses to the ground.
So now, i keep it out of my life totally. Because anger can be changed.
And with it we become better people!
That is now my Therapy