The season of mists is past. The rain Gods are hiding in the skies, perhaps angered by something or somebody or just waiting for us to grow weary of the dry like we had grown weary of the rains just to impress upon us the importance of precipitation. Of late I had been evaluating these five and a half months spend here. One important thing that I have learned here is the importance of thinking objectively. As I was objectively trying to assess others I did a bit of soul searching myself and found that I had been judging people without knowing them. There is more to a person than what meets the eye. The face that a person puts up in public is not the true parameter to form an opinion about him/her, going deeper into why that person is behaving the way he is I found that I too displayed or would have displayed similar behavioral traits in similar circumstances, which does not give me the right to judge the person. I learned the importance of seeing the best in others. It is easy to follow the waves of emotions when they get overwhelming but showing restraint in these times determines whether or not we can call ourselves truly educated. It is very easy to criticize people and blame our failings on the circumstances, very difficult to own up to our shortcomings. But owning up to them gives this immense freedom to be ourselves, not imitating anybody or putting up a show just to reinforce our public identity. The statement "I am myself" is truly eulogized in the feeling that one has when there are no pretensions, no self imposed fetters that threaten to choke and suck out the vitality. The air gets fresh again and it is not difficult to breathe anymore.
It is our achievements that elevate us to the level of the gods and our failings that help us remain on the ground with the knowledge that we are still humans after all.

What is it like to be free of all the biases, all the idiosyncrasies that plague our vision and distort our ability to see and get to the truth. The mind plays tricks on the the self, distorting reason and judgment. The mind has its tricks of the trade like self- delusions, hallucinations and delirium being the extreme forms of it, self deception through false ego, fear, social conditioning are the other reasons why the mind is clouded. Reason and logic is one way of dispelling the unreasonable. This is but a blessing bestowed upon a few. A majority of us live in a world which is either a creation of somebody else's ambition or a dream which we have composed for ourselves. However good or bad the dream we might nurture it is after all a dream, a projection of how we would want to see ourselves in the future, which means that the present is compromised just to make sense of the future. When the dream is realized we feel the joy of achievement, and then move on to yet another set of dreams. When we feel that we have finally realized our destiny we are worried about the lives of our children and their destiny, driving their dreams and making them see ambition in their lives. Life passes by, the mind still clouded by dreams, biases(both old and new arrived by our experiences during the journey). If our experiences are good(i.e.we achieved what we set out to do) we feel that our presence here made a difference. If the experiences are bad(i.e. we fail to achieve our dreams or the dreams of those close to us) we feel at an extreme that the world is cruel to us or reconcile ourselves to the fact that it was just not meant to be. At the end of it all, when the youth is long past and the end is imminent some try and pass on this advice to the youth - see reason, do meaningful things, do things that make you happy, try and live in the present, and all the numerous things which we failed to do but realized there value only at the fag end of our lifetime feeling that we might make a difference by passing on the acquired wisdom to the next generation. The youth in its brash unreasonableness sees senility in wisdom and follows the same cycle. It nurtures the same dreams, the same stories of achievement and failure repeat themselves. The same wear and tear teaches the worth of those words heard in the youth. But learning is not rote memorizing, learning lies in seeing value in the things that we perceive, learning lies in understanding our surroundings and knowing why things happen the way they do. But this learning is a light with which we guide ourselves through the dark tunnel of the old age when the only bright light seems to be at other end of it. We hurry to pass on this acquired experience to our younger ones hoping that they will be more reasonable then we had been. But some there are who discover the veil and learn what lies beyond what meets the eye. Barring these few the cycle continues...

"Take this kiss upon the brow!
And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow-
You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.

I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand-
How few! yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep- while I weep!
O God! can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?"

-A dream within a dream
Edgar Allan Poe

A trip to Bangalore after the mid terms was a great experience. I left Kozhikode at 2200 hrs hoping to do nothing but catch up on sleep in the bus. The five months spend in Kozhikode has had one change in me: I have become a creature of the night and it becomes a toil if I am supposed to sleep at fixed and early hours. The bus ride also did not help much. Though traveling in a sleeper coach the periodical bumps ensured that I did not enter the state of slumber. This awakened state made me open my window pane and stare at the dark outside of the bus.Though I undertook the journey during the dark hours the view outside was captivating. We were cruising through a hilly terrain and there was a mist cover spread over the sleeping mountains. I would love to undertake the journey again during the day time.
Coming to Bangalore after 5 months was a great experience. The place is air conditioned and unlike Kozhikode it doesnt rain here that often. Reaching the city during the wee hours of the morning I got down at the forum and then took a stroll, braving the morning chill, through the Koramangala area to get to my friends' place. It felt great meeting up with my roomies for 5 months. Then during the evening met up with a couple of friends and enjoyed the memories of the good old days spend here. The memories of those days kept coming back all the time and somehow it felt that I had never left. The place had appalled me when I had come here for the first time with the rush for work in the morning, and my own working hours did not help much. I met wonderful new people here and made friends with them. This was the place where I first started to live and see the world through my own eyes. A place for a lot of "Firsts" (cant mention them here). Tonight I go back again to that place on a hill which is my abode for the next one and a half years. But after taking the journey I feel change is necessary in life to make you appreciate the things you have and bring a sense of excitement in life. Monotony makes us lethargic which can be countered only by a change. I go back now a refreshed person raring to go again with the daily bustle of that life on the hill.

Sitting inside the room still and unmoving clinging on to books preparing for the elusive perfection to answer with precision to something that is inherently chaotic, sometimes random and utterly perplexing, I am thinking... Thinking hard 'mind you' to understand how a family of indifference curves describe my preferences, how the market behaves and signals to keep off the low productive workforce, and how I have discovered fortunately or unfortunately that I belong to a class of low productive workers(output/input ratio hinges on the other side of zero). Among all this I sit inside my room silent and still 'slowly and slowly' giving up the future course of my actions in the hands of fate.
But 'mind you' this stillness starts speaking, I start listening to my own head, after a really long time. It aches for freedom, freedom not to think about competition or stress but of being myself and appreciating things, freedom of sitting in this wonderful place with a mug of hot soup and a book to amuse myself, freedom to visit the beach again and give myself to the waves of the sea.
I sit inside my room silent and still but the silence speaks to me in a hundred voices - the financial markets crumbling like a pack of cards, the next paper to come, the blasts in the other part of the country. The silence is then broken by a bang on the door, a call for lunch by a friend, and I happily go amidst activity again. But I am thinking.... preoccupying myself with this clamour of silence.

"Man goes into the noisy crowd to drown his own clamour of silence."
‘Stray Birds’ (1916) Rabindranath Tagore

The question of caste put forth by the nutty prof, surely hit many in the face. We have grown in a society which was not open to inquiry at times and many things were explained to us during the course of our development as if they were for granted. Almost all of us knew about the existence of the caste system in the country, its history and the scientific explanation provided by the fascists of a past generation that still has its impact over the youth of that generation and through them in a sense percolated to the youth of this generation.
The youth is the phase when our impressions are formulated and we develop a point of view of the world. A majority of us is too lazy or should I say too caught up in existential issues that they do not challenge the beliefs and customs which are now so deeply embedded into their very nature. By carrying out this great conditioning of the mind the society ensures that conformity is maintained. Though these issues may raise their hood through the vagaries of some concerned or perturbed soul, and influence us into questioning our very own self as to the nature of the whole system, we so conveniently forget about them over time. These issues are now so embedded into the fabric of the system that nothing but a great reorganization is required to strike at its roots and nip it at the bud.
We sometimes fight over issues like reservation- whether they should happen or not, whether merit is the criteria for education. Issues like the skewed distribution of wealth in a capitalist society and how it rots and eats away the society making its hedonist coefficient increase exponentially over time. How a communist society is also not an answer to the problem because of its inherent fallacies. Why in a society like ours where the bulk of the population is reeling in the throes of poverty we find time only for cricket and cinema. Why whatever we do adds to the chaos and our reluctance to find a solution just simmers this chaos under the garb of peaceful existence. I wonder whether this is just a lull before the storm.
History has taught us the implications of forcing a man or a group to its tipping point. Perhaps the tipping point is not that far away...

The night has extended into that hour when I am hoping that sleep does not impede me from doing what I must. The day was long and was mostly spent in doing what we had to do by compulsion. It sometimes seems so intriguing how futile somethings can get. The subjugation of the individual will, the necessity of doing that which you do not want to but are forced to by compulsion. Putting up with something that you do not understand and ask stupid questions which lead your intelligence nowhere, when learning is not the focal point and mere numbers that which count.
I wonder how the very elected representatives roam around giving instructions to keep quiet like we were a bunch of stupid school children. I wonder again how stupid does that make them who are elected by us stupids. Communication of essential manners to the intelligentsia of the nation makes me think: if we are to be told how to behave in front of a distinguished presence do we deserve to be in a place where we find ourselves.
Reminding of the value of motivation and hard work seems so mind numbing when you have a bunch of the so called chosen members telling you what is good for you especially after you have taken those pains of subjecting yourself to the discipline that made you reach to the place you find yourself in. I agree that this might lead to a no show. But that is exactly my point, if you do not have an inclinaton towards something why should you be subjected to carry that task out. A better way could be to identify individuals who are voluntarily willing to participate in such events and derive some real benefit out of the discourse.

I sometimes feel like the real person inside me has nothing special to offer to the world. I sometimes feel that the whole point of my being where I am is not to prove my intelligence or that I am better or worse than anybody. If each one is special how can the same evaluation scheme be justified for alike. The purpose of my life is not to sell some stupid brand to some more stupider buyer who cannot even decide by himself his tastes and preferences and has to be communicated that. More such machines are getting programmed to serve the capitalist system, as our dear nutty prof would put it makes me think of the relevance of the time I spend here. I don't want to be someone who the system is proud of and looks up to. I am what I am and want to live so that I don't have any regrets when my time comes...

Time is a quirky fella. It seems to take ages when you want it to speed away, but it does so only when you want each moment to be as long as eternity. How wonderful were those days back in school when the heart leapt up to pluck the stars, the possibilities were endless, and everything seemed within grasp. Then came the realization that not all things are meant to happen the way we want them to. A little bit of pain and then the reconciliation that happens when the pain becomes unbearable. Again the flowers start blossoming and you realize that not all things are bad after all. Life becomes a happy hour again in the company of those you love and admire. Certainly these seasonal variations give spice to the rather mundane existence of being born and doing what everybody else is doing, and thinking that perhaps we might make a difference someday. All that we do is touched by mortality which is a by product of being bound by time. We get caught up in little things and waste away the little moments of enjoyment that are gone forever, only to realize that too late, some of us don't even realize that at all. This transience perhaps is the greatest gift bestowed upon us for nothing that is permanent is beautiful as we will never realize its value. Only the things that are taken away from us seem precious. The knowledge that what we have will be taken from us makes us enjoy those things even better for the time we claim them as our own.

“I asked God for strength that I might achieve.
I was made weak that I might learn humbly to obey.
I asked for health that I might do greater things.
I was given infirmity that I might do better things.
I asked for riches that I might be happy.
I was given poverty that I might be wise.
I asked for power that I might have the praise of men.
I was given weakness that I might feel the need of God.
I asked for all things that I might enjoy life.
I was given life that I might enjoy all things.
I got nothing that I asked for, but everything I hoped for.
Almost despite myself, my unspoken prayers were answered.
I am, among all men, most richly blessed.”

“All evolution in thought and conduct must at first appear as heresy and misconduct.”

George Bernard Shaw

Ever wonder how different we are from those who lived a thousand years ago, or those who lived a thousand years before them. We argue we are more advanced in terms of technology and thought, technology may be but thought I don't think so. How many times do we realize that these so called technological advances were possible only because someone somewhere had the courage to say I don't believe in what you teach. I don't believe in the age of the so called truth only because I must. The truth should be accessible to all and open to discovery. It is not to be held in the ivy towers of the intelligentsia but percolated into practice by the masses. Truth is something that should stand by itself and not by the support of any external agent, for in that case that truth is better not to be had. Whether the truth that our ancients practiced is the same today is another question. All things however small evolve. Does that mean that what was true yesterday is not so day.Certainly, for truth keeps evolving like the rest of the things in nature. But the mentality of following the herd coupled with the law of inertia keeps us from discovering this newly evolved truth. The fear inside us has stopped us from evolving, and when evolution stops the species is not fit for survival. Nature will follow its course and if you are not fit enough to follow the train you would be left behind.
But what I am talking about is not only about evolution. Evolution in itself sounds more like following somebody again. We have changed the one to be followed from man to nature. Life is not about keeping up with change and always being on the run. What we have to do is to go one step ahead, stop being followers and start charting the course of our own future. Not being afraid of the consequences of our actions if we truly believe in them.

"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man." - George Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman (1903)

It is 4 in the morn. The mind numbing sensation when you dont have enough of sleep has already begun having its effect. The fast approaching day holds a few classes, a quiz, a possible game of TT with the seniors, a report finalization, an official blog to be written, a newsletter to be conceptualized. Yet I dont know why in spite of this sensation in the mind my soul doesnt want to go to sleep. I can feel the clear distinction of the body from the soul, where these two are seen as different entities. The mind is weak, body even weaker. They cant keep up with the soul, which is forever zooming into the space beyond.
Yet the perpetual game of ping pong carries on between the soul, the mind and the body (I dont know how I can justify ping pong as a game involving an odd number of players, so please dont bother to ask). At one moment the consciousness is in this court (mind and body) the next moment it is in the other(the soul). The body is aching and pleading that I go to sleep,the mind is telling the soul to be rational and gear up for tomorrow and get some rest, but the soul is untired and raring to go. It feels free from the bondage of the body and the mind.
Tell me, how can I stop any of them, when I am not myself but just that consciousness which is being played around with.
Finally after a long game of ping pong at 4:30 in the morn the soul gives in to the pleadings of the weary body. Here I go to slumber to be woken again in a few hours to begin the journey yet again.

I believe that in order to walk through the grief, fear, loneliness, despair, confusion and anger without recourse to drug, alcohol, over eating, over-sexing, or the endless mind numbing distractions provided by Western Culture, one must become a spiritual warrior. I further believe that the pay-off for enduring suffering, for soberly embracing the inevitable bouts of emotional pain that life brings, is wisdom and serenity in the face of calamity. But make no mistake here, the path of the warrior is treacherous and cannot be walked alone. To survive, he must have brothers and sisters-in-arms to carry him when he buckles. When we lived and died in small tribes, this principle of mutually supporting one another through the trials of life was deeply woven into the fabric of the group mind. With the advent of towns and cities we forced to live with the daily dilemma of being desperately alone and yet desperately needing one another. Which is why we are, by design, always seeking new tribes. With that in mind, I humbly offer a simple guideline to evaluate the efficacy of any tribe you might find on your path to becoming a spiritual warrior: if they ask for your money to access to your crotch, run away. If they ask for your money, smile unceasingly, never blink, and guarantee to make you a demi-god, running away will not suffice. Change your mailing address and briefly reconsider drugs, alcohol, food, sex and TV.

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; because there is not effort without error and shortcomings; but who does actually strive to do the deed; who knows the great enthusiasm, the great devotion, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly. So that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat.”
Theodore Roosevelt,26th US President(1901-1909)

Ambition and happiness. Are these two mutually exclusive or is there a correlation that exists between them. Ambition is the all consuming flame of achievement which propels you forward to achieve great heights. It needs to be differentiated from pretension which suggests ardent desire for recognition of accomplishment often without actual possession of the necessary ability and therefore may imply presumption. Ambition is essentially a desire for personal advancement or preferment, a desire nonetheless which entails sadness in its wake. A desire devours the energies of the subject making him think of nothing else but the object of desire. So can happiness ensue from a desire, like ambition. Or are they diametrically opposite. Happiness or sadness depends on the properties of the object of desire as well. Each one of us has the freedom to choose the object of his/her desire, but do we really choose the desire judiciously or just fads which we were tricked into believing to be our wants.When the object of desire turns out to be not that lucrative or not as wonderful as we had imagined it to be we feel sad because we felt that after achieving the goal we would feel happy, which is not the case.
Happiness lies in identifying the little and the not so little wants and then working day and night to realize those wants. Once we realize the want,they no longer remain active wants. This leads to seeking another want to be identified and again the same routine of nonstop effort. Perhaps this is why ambition and happiness are interlinked because there is no absolute happiness, just the pursuit of it...

P.S. Haven't slept all night. The fairies of the night are blurring away with the blazing rays of the morning sun, aah there it was i.e. the sun, but now it is not. Its started raining :( again.

Read through the article to observe the banality and the sense of entitlement of rich students at Harvard.

http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?storycode=402674

Time : past 2am
Song : Six feet from the edge, Creed.
Mood : Expressive (weighing more towards the rebellious)

The infinite search for the meaning of life continues. Why do we do something we do? What propels us to put our souls on the line when we know that our ultimate fate is going to be no different than the lousy SOB next door. But people achieve great heights in what they do, not as a matter of chance but by slogging it out just to grab that extra moment in the sun, that elusive limelight. The limelight goes not to the most talented or to the most prepared but the most daring. Must say that it requires real guts to stand up to somebody again and again who is constantly trying to embarrass you, real guts mind you to put yourself upto that shit which most other lousy or the not so daring souls have already forsaken. But guess that shit is the reward of the hard effort when all the others gave up.
Is any of this making sense, are you getting what I'm trying to point at. Anyways I don't give a damn nor do those who take the shit again and again and again and whenever there is shit to be had guess who is putting up their hands again.
So when a question is put up in class and there are CP points to be won, no matter that it is just 15 mins to the next class or 15 past the time "Will the real slim shady please stand up".


Disclaimer: This is a fun article not intended as a pejorative at anybody.

Time: About to be 1:00 am
Tomorrow have MIS and MC.
Songs: Aasman ke paar koi, raat hamari toh, tumse hi.
Feeling: Nostalgic.

Read an article that appeared in the Business Standard. The article attracted my attention as it had the photo I had seen recently. Someone on IP Msngr (The internal communication tool of the institute) had spammed his photo asking his name. The person looked like Rahul Dravid's relative.
The article was from Aswath Damodaran, a guru on evaluation of stocks and portfolio management, a prof at the Stern School of Management, NYC. The article was about the markets. The interviewer seemed to be lacking insight into the work of Damodaran, as he kept on asking the questions which i guess he would have surely answered in his book, like in what ways would you arrive at valuing a loss making company. Damodaran seems a cool guy, taking questions and answering them with the ease of a master, has the manner of a person who knows something about the stuff he is talking about, an insight which others seem to lack. An awesome feeling when you know something which is still a secret to the public in general. Take this from his webpage:

"I am lucky enough to be in a field where a little knowledge and a dose of common sense goes a long way, and achieving guru status seems relatively simple. What I do know is neither profound nor earth shattering, but I would like to share it on this site."

The man seems to ooze confidence, but with the quite smile of the sphinx, like he knows something we don't.

Had the first mid term paper today. The first was management accounting, which seemed quite doable, but messed up in their with a few questions. The other one was that of Social Transformation in India. There was a lot of stuff to be read in the notes, but having heard stories about the prof being extremely cool with the numbers, gave my instincts a shot. Didn't read much and was in the test fending for myself. It didn't go that bad.
Killed some time with friends and then came to the room. Last night a friend had called, so called her back and had a hearty chat. She seemed quite knowledgeable about my ability or the inability as I may put it of not being able to open myself with new people. She had asked about what I wanted to do with myself, I said I wasn't sure, and that was true. But I have one thing in perspective: my priorities. I want to live my life, not getting upset over silly things as the time is too short for that. The opportunities that I get here are aplenty and the worst that I can do is to lie down doing nothing. So here it is to action.
Got two more papers coming up tomorrow - Marketing and Organizational Behaviour.
Marketing seems quite interesting to read as it doesn't feel like reading curricula but a magazine. Organizational behaviour on the other hand is also interesting but only till you take it as play, if I try to get too tough with it, it refuses to seep through the grey matter. Ohh I forgot one more thing am watching heroes currently. Think they could have been better with the story which sometimes walks the tight rope between being classic and foolish. There are some parts which are not that appealing like the way Mohinder Suresh, the geneticist is portrayed. He seems quite a foolish guy, believing everyword the others say, does everything except working on genetics, works on some lousy program his dad had manufactured which just goes on giving random values, but Suresh is working day and night at it, God knows at what. There is an honest attempt to connect so many different characters, but at some point of time the connection is too complex to generate interest. The concept is good, though a major part of it seems to be adopted from X-Men, but the implementation could have been better.

From tomorrow the mid terms start. The mood in the hostels has changed. No more loud songs from any of the first years' rooms, though they can still be heard coming from the seniors' rooms(their mid terms are over). People who were into watching movies, playing games and doing bakar(aimless chatter) have taken to the solitude of their rooms. People say the best way to allay your fears is to face them, I think exams are an exception to this rule. These qualified people who have given exams throughout their lives behave like normal children in their fear for the papers. You can see it in their status messages in gtalk or on orkut, or the topic of discussions during lunch and dinner. No more loitering around the campus.
But there is something else that is visible. The level of cooperation that the students have shown. With the relative marking scheme put into place by the institute one would think that keeping information to oneself would be a dominant strategy for each player. But here I observe something 180 degrees opposite. There are mails giving lecture slides, some of the students have taken it upon themselves to show their passion towards the Right To Information. Seniors are also in a generous mood, sending previous years' question papers, and advice.
For me its just another paper. These things never seem to end. You motivate yourself by saying just this once, after that it will be alright, but then it comes at you once again. I guess there is no escaping. So I have stopped thinking about it. No more wasting of the precious time that I have here to the vicissitudes of student-dom. I am a free soul and will stay free come what may.

contd. from the Morning Rigour

When we had landed at the orphanage, we saw a place bristling with life. Actually the place, spread over an area of 13 acres, was an institution in itself. It had a school for the deaf and dumb, a school for the blind, a school for the orphans, vocational training facilities, hostels , a playground, training facility for the teachers. The place was started by Mr. Moinudeen Koya, retired ADM of the city, in the year 1977. The place had grown into an institute serving 350 blind and deaf and dumb children and about a 100 orphans.
When we got to the place I was wondering to find my way through people who spoke only in sign language (there were no teachers around as the teaching hours were over already). We managed to find the principal's office. He welcomed us with great warmth, and answered most of our queries. Then Mr. Koya alongside Mr.M. Mohammad, the secretary, came to us and gave us information about the institute and its working. He took us to visit the place and showed us around.
There was much more life in their than a normal educational institute where people keep sitting on their computers, either playing games, watching movies, or surfing the net. There was much more life in the place, hardly any students stayed inside the hostel once the classes were over. They were out into the fields playing. Even the blind were out in the cool breeze that was blowing outside and didn't keep to their rooms.
We met with Razzak, a blind guy who sang for us in Malayalam. They were eager to know about us and meet up. I was told that the world does not accept them as it does not have patience enough to know what they are communicating. But these students seemed so easy to talk to and so much more open to people that we made friends with them in a jiffy. Then we met up with a girl Ayesha, she was talking to Mr.Koya in Malayalam, I didn't understand a word but she seemed to throw out warmth in some way. She was about 3 feet tall, very lean and blind from birth. Were told that she was 12 years old. We curse everyone for our small misgivings. Here I saw people who were disadvantaged physically, but were mentally more at peace with themselves. The seemed so genuine and accommodating that when we went to the school for the mentally challenged we were greeted by handshakes and smiles.
When we left the place I was no longer tired, felt rejuvenated and ready to take whatever came.

Today I had to visit an orphanage. I was volunteering for the Social Services Group of my college, where we were to help out NGOs with structuring and management, provide them consulting to work better. When I had volunteered I thought I had the gusto in me to go all the way, but like other things in my life I thought I would be better off watching a movie in my room, or hang out with friends, especially after we have had a whopper of an accountancy paper.
I slept at around 4 in the morning, woke up at 9. I didn't even had the usual choices of either bathing or having breakfast, had to rush to the class to be on time. We had to prepare for a case which I had not done, prioritizing the quiz over the case. Somehow managed to read the case between the classes, but when the case class started I was too tired to even open my eyes. The class stretched to a half an hour more adding to everyone's misery, as it left no extra time to see the notes(they would have been no use had we only seen what was coming).
After a quick lunch, had to rush to the class for the quiz. 20 minutes later everyone was wondering what hit them.
The time was 3:00 pm and the meeting with school was scheduled for 4:30. God also seemed to be testing our commitment. It started raining while we were in the class, and it continued during the lunch break. The place was a good 30-35 km from the campus and going by a bus seemed an improbability in that weather. So we called up a cab and started for the place.
Managed a quick nap in the car. The cab seemed to be going on and on. We wondered whether we had lost the way. But an hour and a half later we were there.

contd.

People wonder where the society is heading. They point out flaws in the system just for the sake. The other day an erstwhile professor, a doctorate in sociology, was pointing out how the concept of feminism is exploited by the media and the advertisers to show woman as a mere object of desire, how women are portrayed as sensual beings, how their body is used in subtle ways to convey the same cliched meaning time and again. He was pointing out that educated people with whom we expect good intellectual and relevant advertisements exploit the same stereotype of the skimpily clad girl leaving nothing to the imagination, to sell their wares. Let me ask a question: If you are selling a lipstick what aspect of the product do you want to emphasize upon. What does a lipstick represent? Desmond Morris in his book The Naked Ape: A Zoologist's Study of the Human Animal, says that lipstick is used by women to fake the appearance of the labia in their private parts to attract the male partner. With this implication of the lipstick how can one not associate it with anything but sexual feelings. It is a sexual signal as much as a fashion statement. It has deeper meaning than the mere mechanical application of just another cosmetic. So if an advertisement is showing that putting lipstick enhances your odds of getting a mate, then I ask what is so obscene about it? I do agree that the meaning of feminism is twisted sometimes. But in today's world where women have equal rights the mention of insecurity is sometimes absurd. True, women has been abused in the past but this age has empowered her to join the workforce at an equal level with the male, girls get opportunities to study in the premier institutes of learning. The cultural mix of the east with the west is helping the girls shed boundaries, be free and independent. So if you are hearing sir, Mr. Nutty Prof. you were awesome with the knowledge quotient but I beg to differ on feminism in the 21st century.

I had always garnered hefty ambitions for myself. When I was a kid I hoped of making it to the Indian Cricket team, played cricket in clubs, was a tad good at it, but got a rude shock when I was diagnosed with a problem in my right knee which prevented me from doing what I liked the most, bowling fast. Thus ended my cricketing career. A teacher once asked in class what do you want to be in life. I stood up and answered 'an engineer'. It was the only profession I knew back then apart from law and medicine. I thought of engineers as people who make bridges and tall buildings(never had this crazy idea that they sit in front of the computers doing nothing more than ctrl C and ctrl V in some plush air conditioned office). when I came into standard X I thought the only aim of my life was to score a good percentage in the examinations, which I thankfully did. Had not seen too much into the future back then so I just went with the tide. Took up science and started preparing for engineering. Got into engineering taking a branch which I had not thought I would be taking in my wildest dreams( I was a computer guy in school and took up biochemical engineering in college). But the stuff sounded exciting and really meaningful. So now I saw my future as some crazy scientist working with some more crazy people who meddle with the ways of nature. The college experience till the pre-final year did one thing to me, if I was lazy before, I was more so now, more than ever before. Being a scientist required reading a lot of stuff and updating myself with the latest in the world of science. But now science did not appeal to me at least the practical aspects of it. I was still interested in the theoretical part though. When the placement season was about to kick off in college I decided to sit for the IT services companies that make their rounds every year. This did not involve much work and at the end of the day I had to justify my parents' investment in me by picking a job from the campus. This got me started on preparations. I guess that was the part which helped me a lot as it changed my outlook towards many things. This was the first time I was having a prosaic perspective of things rather than the mere theory of it. I looked at things in a whole new light. A decent amount of preparation saw me through the placement season. I landed up with an offer from a top MNC in the services sector. I was too happy and overjoyed. A feeling as if I had accomplished something in life took hold of me for a couple of days. As the time passed I realized that something was missing still, as this was not what I had been dreaming about all along, it was intensified by the fact that the normal academic rigours of the final year did not appeal to me, and I thought of maintaining this new found excitement, the excitement of competition, the excitement of knowing that if and only if you could give your best shot you can make it. I realized it later that after all the true competition is not with an external person but with the internal one. The one who lies there inside you, who perhaps takes a nap for sometime, but if it goes into slumber it takes quite a while to awake him. Once awakened it can take you places you never dreamt of. I realized that I had to awaken this person inside of me. Sometimes everything seemed quite within the grasp and everything seemed to come naturally, at other times it was a toil, when nothing would seep into the hard shell the brain would become. It was a matter of going on, not stopping because I had a few bruised heels, but thinking of the rewards I would reap if and when I reached the destination. The question of 'if' was still there because till now I had been a fish in a small pond with little flowing water. Beginning from now it was a sea where there were waves and dangers aplenty. Where you always had to be on your toes to survive the day. I realized one thing, there was no point in throwing up my shoes. I had to try with every muscle in my body, with every cell in my brain to come up and beat this 'if'.

contd.

Here I am talking to myself again, thinking if I write will I be able to write an original piece or will I sound cliched because it has been really long since I wrote something. I remember sitting in the english class trying to come up with quotations and nice brownie point winning words to impress the teacher and earn a few marks more. But as I grew up the writing habit receded into the background. I was more into reading academic stuff interspersed with a dash of philosophy and biographical works. But the writing habit wouldn't come back. I lost the reading habit too coming into the first year of engineering, when I tried a couple of things. Tried to come first in class, I couln't, tried my hand on a few sports to see if I can make it to the teams, I couldn't. So I turned to my new found hobby of watching movies(as I had got a new laptop from my father, I could view movies at will, God I was so happy!!). Then in my second year of college my cousin and J.K.Rowling reintroduced me to the pleasures of reading. I was so much into Harry Potter that I read the fifth, sixth and seventh books on my laptop as an e-book, never taking my eyes off it. But this got me started and I continued with a couple more.
Now, here I am,engineering is over, my first job is over as well, am back into college for doing my MBA, but that one thought still haunts me that I discontinued my writing habit. With this blog I hope to rekindle that lost flame and try to crawl again in this amazing world of self expression where the boundaries are as limited as your imagination. With this start I hope to continue to discover the amazing worlds that lie inside me and unravel the same to you in an honest way.

I slept and dreamt that life was joy.
I awoke and saw that life was service.
I acted and behold,
service was
joy.
~
He who wants to do good knocks at the gate;
he who loves finds the gate open.
~
I have spent my days stringing
and unstringing my instrument
while the song I came to sing
remains unsung.

Stillness soars as a mountain peak,
Seeking its greatness in height.
Movement stops in a silent lake,
Seeking in depth its limit.
~
The fish in the water is silent,
the animals on the earth is noisy,
the bird in the air is singing.
But man has in him the silence of the sea,
the noise of the earth
and the music of the air.
~
There is a point where in the mystery of
existence contradictions meet;
where movement is not all movement
and stillness is not all stillness;
where the idea and the form,
the within and the without, are united;
where infinite becomes finite,
yet not losing its infinity.

Man goes into the noisy crowd
to drown his own clamour of silence.
~
Man is immortal; therefore he must die endlessly.
For life is a creative idea;
it can only find itself in changing forms.
~
Man's abiding happiness is not in getting anything
but in giving himself up to what is greater than himself,
to ideas which are larger than his individual life,
the idea of his country,
of humanity,
of God.

The Road Not Taken


TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth; 5

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same, 10

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back. 15

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference. 20

Take this kiss upon the brow!
And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow --
You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream;
Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.

I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand --
How few! yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep -- while I weep!
O God! can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?.

-- Edgar Allan Poe

Obstinate are the trammels, but my heart aches when
 I try to break them.
 Freedom is all I want, but
 to hope for it I feel ashamed.
 I am certain that priceless wealth 
is in thee, and that thou art my best
friend, but I have not the heart to 
sweep away the tinsel that fills my room

 The shroud that covers me is a shroud 
of dust and death; I hate it, yet
hug it in love.
 My debts are large, my failures great,
 my shame secret and heavy; yet when
I come to ask for my good, 
I quake in fear lest my prayer be granted.

 -- Rabindranath Tagore