Tatvadnyan

The Prisoner's Dilemma

2010-11-21T09:14:00.010-05:00

Recently, I came across something that I see played out often in human relationships.

Its called the 'Prisoner's Dilemma'.

Basically, lets say two people have been arrested for theft and placed in separate cells so that they can't communicate. The following offer is made to each. “You may choose to confess or remain silent. If you confess and your accomplice remains silent you go free & your partner gets punished. Likewise, if your partner confesses while you remain silent, they go free while you get punished.

If you both confess, you both will get punished, but a little less.

If you both stay silent, I will let you both out with a fine, but no prison.”

The “dilemma” faced by the prisoners here is that, regardless of what the other will do, each is potentially better off individually, by confessing than remaining silent. (Take a moment and play out the cases if you like). On the other hand, if both confess, they both end worse off.

The possibilities of substitutions are many.. For example, try replacing

"robbing a bank" with "had a fight",
"communicate" with "read the other's mind",
"stay silent" with "admit mistake",
"confess" with "refuse to yield",

and "go free" with "take advantage", you'll see what I mean..

You can even entertain & convince yourself by choosing cases like business partnerships, romantic situations, etc.

The scenario becomes interesting when played multiple times in succession between the same 2 people.

E.g. two people have successive fights. Maybe, after the first fight, A would admit his mistake. Now, B's reaction will determine what A does after the second fight. And so on. Its clear that if at any point either of them puts self above the other, they may benefit in that one iteration, but BOTH lose in the long run.

Then, we get to the most interesting case, where
A experiences the first iteration with B, (say, A loves B) then B cheats A
A experiences the second iteration with C, (say, A manages to fall in love again, with C) then C cheats A too

A doesn't learn from the past and enacts the third iteration with D, (i.e. falls in love once more, this time with D) ..

In this case, lets assume for a moment, that D is playing fair. I.e. D is not going to cheat A, and D reciprocates A's honesty. Given the past, A will almost certainly penalize D, either by being suspicious about D's intentions, or not really putting 100% into the relationship, or by just forcing himself/herself OUT of, or AWAY from the relationship as a self-defence mechanism.
D, now, in turn would go about penalizing potentially harmless people because of A.. Lets pause and think of alternatives.

There are many suggested solutions to maximize the group benefit. (You can read more, http://www.google.co.in/search?sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=prisoner's+dilemma)

But in the context of human relationships, I see one overlooked possibility..

IF the two people in any iteration trust each other completely AND each cares more about the other person than themselves, there's no dilemma.

Even in the most interesting (multi-person) case, if A can take a leap of faith after knowing D is trustworthy, A & D would both benefit.

Spouses

2010-09-27T14:40:00.002-04:00

i cant sleep so i've come up with a theory. There are 4 types of spouses:
1) Compromises
2) Bad
3) Sexy/Romantic
4) Friends

Compromises are the ones you marry because you don't have any other choice. Basically you decide you are better off spoiling two lives instead of one, and you strike a compromise. Forever. Its a gamble that can evolve into Spouse type #2, #3, #4 or eternal boredom. Bad spouses don't need any further clarification.

That brings us to the interesting ones- the sexy / romantic ones. The ones that make the heart go 'Ding'. The ones that make you crave for them. The ones for whom you would ..er.. you get the idea. Trouble is, unless the 'Ding'ing is mutual, the 'Ding'ed is at the mercy of the 'Ding'er. As with any relationship, the more one person gets to know how much the other adores them, the more the one who adores becomes the object of contempt and neglect for the other. The one being adored knows they have the other by the proverbial chain. So those feeling the 'Ding', ask yourself if you hear an echo. If not, you need to look out for more sonorous hearts to bounce against.

So finally we come to the "Friends". These are the ones who will hold your hand tenderly and give you a shoulder to cry on. They are the ones you know you want to be around when you can only see fingers when they are waved no farther than 5 inches away from your face. They are also the most boring ones. They won't set your passions on fire. No ding-ing around them - its more of a faint, silvery chime.

So there you have it. the four types. Its pretty much guaranteed that with #1 & #2, you were better off on your own. With #3 and #4, its interesting. You will want one, and a week later you will wish you had the other - especially when your friend has the other type. The staid back type is an eternal wuss in comparison to the dashing damsel, until of-course you hit a bump on the road - that's when the boring friend is a comfort while the dashing one has labeled you a wet blanket. But no sooner is the crisis gone, than you wish the arms you nestled in belonged to the dashing one. Thus begins the endless list of "I wish you were..." and "Why cant you be..." and thus goes the seesaw of attempted conversions .. until one day, you can't see 5 inches ahead.

Whats in a (birth)day ?

2010-02-11T23:29:00.002-05:00

In the run-up to my birthday, I was always wondering. Of all the 365 days in a year, whats so special about a birthday after all ? Is it the parties and pastries? Is it the gifts? Or is it a personal milestone? A gauge of experiences acquired?

This year I was in a reclusive mood. So I quietly turned off my birthday reminder on facebook, hoping that a few chosen people very close to me would still wish me nevertheless. And they did.

That's when it dawned upon me. A birthday is a celebration of what you are, what you have become. Its a humble tribute to your parents and friends - for having moulded you into somebody worth remembering. Its a day to become aware of how many people know you, and care about you enough to take the time to wish you on the Day or belatedly afterward. Or feel bad if they forget about it. Even for those with a maverick, lone-wolfy streak like yours truly, its a reminder of how perfectly barren life would be without these people and their goodwill. And its a way to bring people closer after their hectic lives and busy schedules have flung them away from each other.

So whats in a birthday? Definitely much more than just a day or a milestone. Its a 24-hour cocktail of joy & humility, a day of reflecting back and thinking about the paths our lives have trodden together. And I thank all those who called, emailed or SMS'd me for making it possible. For making me possible, over the years.

What's in the stars?

2010-01-18T01:31:00.009-05:00

An old post.. was reminded of it while going thru the pictures we took during our stargazing outing at Vangani..
-------

With nothing to cook at home, my flatmate and I decided to go out for dinner, and trade stories about our recent India trips. The discussion veered to marriage and then onto a pretty controversial topic: astrology.

My flatmate and I take nothing at face value, and question things that we deem logic-defying at first glance. Astrology is something I especially love to pick holes in. But more on that later. Given my flatmate's disposition to disparage all superstitions I was surprised to learn that he was not too too hard on astrology, and whetted my appetite for an interesting discussion.

Initially he started with a cynical view of astrology, refusing to call it a science. But then again, he accepts he's young and doesn't understand everything in the world. So he's been willing to be proven wrong about astrology as well, rather than dismiss it as nonsense outright. Secondly, his approach to astrology is quite different from other people. As he sees it, there are some extreme variants of attitudes: people like me, who do not follow astrology at all, and others who only follow astrology. According to him there exists a compromise, where astrology can be used as a guide when you have multiple equivalent options with no tie-breaker. The example he gave was, say someone wants to choose a business to invest money. The person has narrowed down the options to diamond trading and fabrics. But is unable to figure out which one to go for. Such a person in the end is anyway going to go with a "gut" or instinct-based choice if not other comparator is available. In such cases, [he said] astrology could be the final comparator.

So really speaking, my flatmate suggested, astrology could be used to minimize the potential of risks when possible when no other guidelines are present to show you the way.

My immediate reaction was, a person who doesn't know what way to go needs to keep digging further. The perceived equivalence of options is always the outcome of ignorance. Case in point - the person in the example above, who was ignorant of the internals both trades. If that person would have spoken to some experienced people, he/she would have certainly received more insight which would have led to a more informed decision rather than gut based choices.

My mistrust in astrology stems from the flimsy foundations it is based upon. The so-called "science" uses a person's birth-date and time of birth to extrapolate all future incidents in his/her life. To me, a person starts life at the moment of conception - in the mother's womb. No one knows that time. Then, the definition of "birth" according to astrology itself seems flawed to me.

What if a child were born via C-Section, prematurely, say by 1 month. What birth time would you use? Would you add 1 month to get the baby's "expected" birth time and use that for astrological calculations?

The next issue is more fundamental: of the measurement of time. Astrology demands birth time be recorded down to the minute. But time as measured by humans is prone to error. And I am talking of two sets of humans: the ones who prepare the astrological charts for celestial bodies, and the ones who actually record the time of birth for a baby. There is huge potential for errors in both measurements. Nothing in nature changes suddenly. All changes are gradual. So why does it matter what exact minute you were born? What if the exit of a baby from the mother's body was accelerated by medications? To me, a one-year time resolution would have sounded more logical for astrological calculations, given that a baby already spends the first nine months of its life in the mother's body. But that's not the case.. and hence, my continued opposition to the use of astrology.

Lives and dreams are made and shattered each day by these innumerable gas giants, twinkling back innocently at us. If only they knew.. but how can they.. born from nothing and blazing away to nothingness, they don't know their own fate.

Impressions

2010-01-12T12:01:00.013-05:00

Dec 02, 2010
The one who cares knows how to worry
The one who guides knows what to do
The one who understands knows when to shut up

May 1, 2010
Potential is always more enticing than fact

Jan 28, 2010
Only those with fuel get a fire; the rest just have blunt stones and scarred fingers.

Jan 22, 2010
The mind never knows what the heart wants. What the mind wants, the heart doesn't care.

Jan 21, 2010
I could have done something productive with my time. Better judgement prevailed and I took a nap.

Jan 20, 2010
Experience is the brain telling the heart "i'm the boss"; courage is when the heart sticks its tongue out and goes "pffft.."
... Confusion is when both remain silent

Jan 19, 2010
When i refuse to give up, i'm Determined. When you do the same, you are just being stubborn.

Jan 18, 2010
The sober, enigmatic fellow always gets more respect than the cheerful down to earth chap - even if both reside in the same body.

Jan 17, 2010
Don't rest on your laurels. Laurels don't smell good if you sit on 'em

Jan 16, 2010
Stuff that you acquired easily is the stuff that will stay with you the longest..
[comment] eh? like easy money, you mean?!
[response] Well. Easy money is really a misnomer. :)
Back to the status.. flip it around - if you worked hard to acquire something, you need to work harder to keep/maintain it.
Why?
To begin with, things are easy for people who have a natural talent for them. For example, I needed to take a class to learn painting, MF Hussain didnt. MF Hussain may need a class to learn PHP, I didnt :)
One has to work hard on areas where one doesnt have natural abilities. So if abilities are acquired by training, they need to be in use or else we would forget our "training". Which means, any material or emotional possessions gained by using those "trained" abilities also may go away if you work less harder.... See More
It could be the shiny new car, N-pack abs, or the pretty girl next door accepting the date. Unless you got it easy, you better be prepared to slog harder to make it stay :)

Jan 15, 2010
The bliss of madness can be appreciated only after sanity becomes a burden.

Jan 15, 2010
Sanity is not appreciated unless madness is the norm.

Jan 12, 2010
A rolling stone acquires a well rounded character

Jan 11, 2010
Its better to declare ignorance than stay silent and remain dumb.

Jan 10, 2010
The bigger challenge is not getting on the bus you want, but to evade the one that everyone wants to shove you into.

Jan 09, 2010
Holding on too long leads to burnt fingers..

Jan 08, 2010
The fittest may survive more but the happiest live better.

Jan 07, 2010
Some people rest on their laurels just because they are tired by the time they get any..

Jan 05, 2010
Loyalty is a monkey that humans love to see on others' backs and shaken off their own.

Jan 04, 2010
Failed relationships are like amputated limbs; sometimes you feel pain in the part of you that no longer exists.

Jan 02, 2010
If it seems too good to be true, have fun while it lasts..

Dec 29, 2009
Failing at the impossible can be more satisfying than success with the mundane..

Dec 28, 2009
A misogynist is created by females who wont leave him in peace after leaving him in pieces..

Dec 27, 2009
Most people are somewhat worse than they like to think but also much better than the stereotypes they are jammed into by those around them...

Dec 21, 2009
Life is defined by the continuous struggle between the audacity of hope and the tenacity of despair..

Dec 20, 2009
People mired in the past get to admire the soles of those leaping over them into the future.

Dec 19, 2009
Life in the fast lane,
A heart shattered by pain,
The peaceful glide to the eventual waterfall..
Sums it up for those who've been there, done it all

Dec 18, 2009
Half the world's problems might be solved if people actually listen to what they hear.

Dec 17, 2009
Sometimes people love the feeling of being in love rather than the actual person; the former is rooted in self-centeredness and the latter in "giving"; this small difference probably separates a purely functional relationship from a happy one.

Dec 16, 2009
Men who offer a shoulder to cry on should invest in stain resistant suits.

Dec 15, 2009
A real hobby feels like an extra-marital affair; each time you guiltily conceal your passion and return to your routine, awaiting the next tryst.

Dec 13, 2009
Pride is the most underutilised energy source - ask any politician.

Dec 12, 2009
Any one needing patience training should become a Saree salesman for a week. Few can keep a straight face after seeing their work of many hours washed away and yet indulge the next whim.

Dec 08, 2009
Emotions are the masterstroke of evolution - putting those into humans is probaby its biggest mistake.

Dec 02, 2009
Main aur meri tanhai ,aksar yeh baatein karte hain .. Tum hoti to baatein karne hi nahi deti.

Nov 25, 2009
Probably a common prelude to a proposal. 'I like her.. I like her not.. Oh to hell with it- where's my vodka?'

Nov 20, 2009
One wonders why so many who claim to have 'settled down' seem so unsettled ...

Nov 19, 2009
Life in the fast lane is fun only on unpredictable roads

Nov 17, 2009
Memories are nothing more than sirens that lure fools into crashing against the rocks of times gone by.. and be sucked into whirlpools of times that could have been...

Nov 03, 2009
There are only two religions- bachelorhood and matrimony, with enough ardent, fanatical followers on both sides scouting for converts.

Nov 01, 2009
Cynics can neither love nor hate They're the happiest, i bet.

Oct 31, 2009
I want to be a man of few words and fewer actions

Oct 20, 2009
The romantic loves madness. The pragmatic gives it a wide berth. The cynic hosts a talk show and pokes fun at both.

Oct 16, 2009
One wonders if Donkeys Light Year is a bigger distance than a plain light year. And if so why dont astronomers use it.

Oct 07, 2009
Whoever coined the term 'falling in love' was just trying to warn everyone else.

All quotes 100% original. Until proven otherwise, they are copyrighted too.

On names, marriage, family

2009-11-26T10:09:00.002-05:00

A friend of mine is getting married, and happened to mention that she will be changing her name (same first name, middle and last names changed to husband's). Though I come from a conservative Hindu family, this struck me as particularly odd. It’s probably because every now and then, I play this little mental game of putting myself in someone else’s situation to see what I would have done.

Think about it. Go back a few hundred centuries. Assume that some spunky woman somewhere, sparked off a social revolution which led to a convention where males would change their names after marriage, so I, Mr. M V K, after getting married to Ms. A B C, would become Mr. M A C.

The idea makes me shiver. Not because of the implied submission to my spouse's authority. No, its probably because, to me, my full, original name is a proud reminder of my family history, a tribute to my roots. It’s a link to the ingredients that have made me what I am today.

But then again, I do have reservations about how my name works today. It has only my father’s name and his family name in it. No mention of my mother anywhere. Seems pretty unfair to me. The lady gave birth to me, and should at least get a mention in my name, wouldn’t you think? What if I become the President of India tomorrow? Is it only my father who will be remembered each time I sign my name? Our society does manage to create a big hodgepodge of things.

Once I read about an interesting convention that was followed in places like Scandinavia, Wales, Iceland and Denmark. It was called the patronymic naming convention. Very simply put, a person’s last name would be the father’s name, suffixed by “son” or “datter / dotter”. Even more interestingly, Denmark has re-enacted a law that also allows a Matronymic naming convention.

It still doesn’t satisfy me though. My gripe is that only one parent is still mentioned in the complete name.

So, back to the main question. What would I have done, if I were in a matriarchal society and were to get married? Very simply, I would proudly retain my original name. Conversely, if I marry, I would happily insist that my wife retain her original name. On hearing this, another friend asked, would my children be okay with that - having a mother and father with completely different last names? I think they would. I really think they would… It would be a simple matter of getting them used to that convention. Dealing with the strange queries that would pour in from social circles would be a bigger challenge, but, to quote a famous line -- frankly, I don’t give a damn.

Finally, to wrap up: what name would our kids have? I have a simple solution in mind that probably wont hold up well in today's society - Ditch both parents' surnames; give the kids a first name, use one parent's first name as the kid's middle name, and the other parent's name as the last name. It makes logical sense, since a kid is the represenation of the union of the parents. At the very least, the kids would not forget half the family tree that was responsible for their birth.

Kondy's Wiggle

2009-11-19T11:36:00.002-05:00

"Everyone's unique!" they say. Liars. Just walk into a doctor's clinic - or even better, a hospital - and you'll realise how woefully alike we all are when it comes to illnesses.

I pity the doctors even more. They cram kilograms of knowledge for a decade, and all they get is a steady stream of people before whom they regurgitate it all. There's no creativity in that. Why, just wait a decade and some bright kid in Japan (or Kharagpur) might invent a robot that does just that - they might even create shiny, personal ones, in bright colours and have Apple sell them as iDoc.

Anyway, how in H do you - if you are a doctor - apply creativity, when the chap who pays your kids' school fees (aka the patient) has the same affliction as 99 others before him? Can't tell him "Hmm. Lets try these nitrates to cure that sprain of yours.. lets see what we get. Take two every hour, stop when you see psychedelic colours all over", can you...

Come to think of it, my IT admin is happier than the brightest doctor I have seen. I tell him, my DBArtisan software freezes frequently. "Oh. Interesting. You know, we'v been hoping to work with someone facing exactly these symptoms for quite some time now. Can I install a tracer on your system?".. I havent seen a more creative or chirpier person I tell you.

Fancy a doctor telling you that. "Hey! Great to meet you, old chap, never seen someone with that sort of rash. You made my day.." No no ... Doctors are dull, boring people. Whatever you may have, and however you may be convinced its new, they have a nice long geeky name for it.

I went sniffling to my Ophthalmologist one day, swearing bloody murder at my eye. Judging by those standards, I expected a ponderous examination.. some mumbling and scratching of the head. But there's no sense of adventure around these people. Thirty seconds of peering into my eyes was all it took him to declare "You have a Floppy Eyelid Syndrome".

"Is it rare?" I ask with some anticipation.

"Well... "

'YAY'

".. maybe. I'll prescribe an ointment". Crap. Anything that's already got an ointment is definitely not rare.

If I'm to take ill, I want to go down with something new. You know, make the medical folks sweat it out, make them work for the money that I (or hopefully my insurance) will pay them. I want to see that lost look on my doctor's face after he examines me.. I want to see him scurrying back to the dusty bookshelf with dusty books.. I want him to get on the line with his bosom buddies and tell them "Hey I have an interesting specimen here.. wanna take a look?!?".. I want to see that gleam of being challenged in his eyes.. and I want him to cure me and get the Nobel for having discovered and cured a new illness in record time (heck, I dont want to stay ill for longer than a week just because the bloke needs a challenge). And I want him to name the newly discovered illness as "Kondy's Wiggle". Fancy that. An illness named just after me. Years down the line, my doc pal would write a book

"Kondy's Wiggle - Then and Now : A Practitioner's Approach"

and eager students would cram it for their exams.

Well. One can always hope.

Happy new year. Why?

2009-01-01T12:30:00.003-05:00

I am unable to fathom the sudden rush of messages wishing me a happy
new year. Call me a cynic but i dont get it. I wouldn't mind it one
bit if at the end of two thousand seven people had said it had been a
jolly good old year for in some ways it was. But what of two thousand
eight? We had a global meltdown a terrorist attack and many more
tragedies with no signs of things getting any better. How can the
clock ticking over into a new date wish all that away? I have no
problems with folks using it as a reason for revelry. Do so by all
means. I would even suggest that people start celebrating every new
day or for that matter, every new minute. Just dont be so naive or
expect me to be the same when you wish that a simple inevitable
event will suddenly make everything better. If the year is indeed good
for you, come back to me in december and enthrall me with tales of how
good the year was, over a few drinks and i'll join you in proclaiming that it was indeed a happy new year. But till then, please keep the wishful thinking away from me. For those who have spent the last minute in reading this, i wish you all a happy new minute.

--
Sent from my mobile device

.:.:.

If the parts are better than the sum

2008-12-01T15:59:00.005-05:00

(This is not a hope-giving, elevating, euphoric post. More often than not, it may leave you depressed. Your last chance to stop reading is at the period after this line.)

Synergy.
Its a good thought, but the cynic in me finds it difficult to apply to myself. If I die right now, two blind people can each see through one of my eyes, theoretically my heart can pump someone else's life, my lungs may thrive elsewhere, my kidneys may save two lives, my bone marrow can save someone, and atleast one more person can get my job. And yet here I am. Which makes me wonder : Am I really worth more dead, than alive? Am I - as a whole - better than 6 or seven people who may benefit from my death? Among millions of incomplete lives, what is the purpose of my being complete? No recollection of anything stupendous. No testimony of me having made any difference to any life other than my own. Just a body of water hurtling towards an inevitable plunge into the deep. A happy memory in some peoples' lives? Yes. But a memory does not have to be alive. No one's going to want any of the things I mentioned above after I am 70 or 80 and kick the bucket - the parts would be rusted, or non-existent. So I wonder : Is today's sum of me really better than the individual parts?

.:.:.

2008-03-21T13:36:00.009-04:00

There are four dimensions to life..

1) What you get
2) What you need
3) What you deserve
4) What you want..

You have a good shot at being happy if (1) overlaps with two or more of the factors above. But you have a jumbo-sized problem on your hands if (1) is light years away from all the remaining three.. In fact, you can pretty much scratch "what you need" from consideration. "Need" is a relative concept that degrades rapidly in the face of moderate adversity. Do you really need French bagels? Hmm, no. You could live with wholegrain bread. But then do you really need wholegrain bread? Maybe not. You could live off plain bread. But how much plain bread? Do you need 5 slices, or would just one suffice?

You can see my drift. "Need" tells you what will allow you to exist. No more. It doesnt tell you what will make you feel alive, rather than just exist. That's where what you "want" comes into play. Ofcourse, you may want all of Bill G's wealth. So you moderate the want by thinking about what you deserve. And almost everyone with a balanced mind knows what they deserve. And what pisses me off infinitely is when I am made to realise that what I deserve, may not be what I will get.

There are some things you make yourself capable of deserving by upgrading yourself. Take for example, a 5-figure income. You may not deserve one just on the basis of a college education. But, you can take the pains to become deserving of one, by getting a degree or two. But thats the farthest you can stretch that approach. You can only apply it to stuff that's objective and pliable. You cannot successfully deal with all aberrations of luck. Or society. Or religion.

Every Master's student with a 3.5+ GPA deserves a well paying job. Many didn't get one in the turmoil during 2000 - 2003. Even then, such a person could pursue a PhD, and then try or a job. There's still hope in these cases.

But take a different example. Everyone deserves good health. How many actually get it? You may be gifted enough to become a pilot, but what if you turn out colour blind? You see what I am talking about.

There are those who say "if life gives you a lemon, make lemonade". I say that's a nonsensical sound bite. A life that hands out hopeless lemons more than 50% of the time is depressing, no matter how much lemonade you try to make out of it. You are always going to find yourselves swimming upstream. And if you are like me, you are going to end up being mighty upset and disillusioned about the whole affair every once in a while. Anyways, this is just a post to get the sting caused by some unfair things that I observe around me, in lives of those I care about, and there's nothing at all I can do to change them..

Prayer

2008-02-22T06:17:00.007-05:00

I'm a big fan of George Carlin, Robin Williams, Seinfeld and other comedians because they talk about facts and point out the follies of some of our ways. Take Carlin for example. One of his tirades goes

I've often thought people treat God rather rudely, don't you? Asking trillions and trillions of prayers every day. Asking and pleading and begging for favors. Do this, gimme that, I need a new car, I want a better job. And most of this praying takes place on Sunday God's day off. It's not nice. And it's no way to treat a friend.

But people do pray, and they pray for a lot of different things. And I say, fine. Pray for anything you want. Pray for anything, but what about the Divine Plan? Remember that? Long time ago, God made a Divine Plan. Gave it a lot of thought, decided it was a good plan, put it into practice. And for billions and billions of years, the Divine Plan has been doing just fine. Now, you come along, and pray for something. Well suppose the thing you want isn't in God's Divine Plan? What do you want God to do? Change the plan? Just for you? Doesn't it seem a little arrogant?

And here's something else, another problem you might have: Suppose your prayers aren't answered. What do you say? "Well, it's God's will." "Thy Will Be Done." Fine, but if it's God's will, and God's going to do what God wants to anyway, why bother praying in the first place? Seems like a big waste of time to me! Couldn't you just skip the praying part and go right to God's Will? It's all very confusing.

Prayer is intended to make the person feel God's presence. But we have converted prayer into a quest of self-fulfillment. We constantly pray - not to acknowledge the fact that we living beings do not control anything. We pray to ask for more. We pray to demand more. We bribe God by offering material gifts. We hold God at ransom by fasting or through self-denial of things we like. Why? Because that's what we are taught we need to do to get something. And I think we were taught wrong.

I myself pray. I don't expect the prayers to be answered, but I do it "just to be on the safe side", in case God really is listening. So in case God's listening, I choose not to waste God's time by praying for myself. I pray for those I love. I pray for things that will make their lives better. And going by my past track record, there's almost a 99-1 split - my prayers for others have worked wonders, those for myself have been a shaky-flaky affair. So I continue to pray for others.

And I dont choose a place or time to pray. I make it spontaneous. I have prayed in trains, I have prayed during meals. I think those are the best forms of prayer, the spontaneous ones. Its when you really want to feel a connection, want to make sense of what you see. And I pray when something good happens to me. Just a quick "thank you". I reckon its common courtesy to say atleast that much to a friend who helps you out.

As a signboard outside my church put it:

"Prayer does not change God's will...

It helps us understand God's ways."

.:.:.

2008-02-20T06:18:00.001-05:00

And a blog is born.

http://wierdideasfromme.blogspot.com/

Timing

2008-02-19T21:04:00.002-05:00

Timing, I have realised, is a state of mind. Or atleast an indicator of the contrast between what the mind wanted, and what reality presented. Our judgements about "timing" reflect how much we wanted something. The more extreme the reaction, the greater our desire. You want to go for a dinner with your spouse on your wedding anniversary, and your parents show up just as you are about to leave. Good timing for you and your parents, probably not timing for your spouse. Of course.. if it was your spouse's parents showing up, it would have been bad timing for you.. and all good news on the other end.. hm?

My mind's bit bent out of shape today due to some jet lag so this post shall end soon. But I wanted to write about this because I started, and lived my day very wierdly. I woke at 3, dozed off at four, had a few good dreams, woke up late, was jolted out of sleep by the shower that refused to spit out warm water initially, forgot the combination to my bag's lock, but remembered it just as i was about to break the bag's zipper, skipped breakfast, but reached office in the nick of time for a meeting, felt brain-dead during a meeting at 4 pm, but was perked up two hours later after hearing the wind scream outside my hotel's 46th floor gym while I jogged for a little longer than I normally can.. in the end, i realised it really didn't matter whether the timing of the event was good or not. Even if the timing was bad, the moment is gone.. all that remains is your reaction to what you wanted and what happened...

Say the truth, but..

2008-02-12T22:06:00.006-05:00

There's an old anecdote about Birbal. An astrologer (how much ever I hate their breed, its relevant to this post) was once at a rich man's home, predicting his future. All was fine until a deep furrow appreared on his forehead and he said "Hmm. All your relatives will die before you". He was thrashed and chucked out before you could say "er ?".

Would have made me glad to participate in the thrashing, but anyways, while the guy was lamenting his own fortune, Birbal walked by, and listened to his tale. After a while, with a fake moustache, and a pagadi the astrologer was back at the rich man's home, and was ushered in. This time around, he said "Ah! Great news! You will live longer than your whole family!". By the time he was out, he was laden with jewellery and cash.

While frying my brains in meetings every day, I have realised the importance of saying things nicely. For example, rather than saying "We are sorely lacking on the depth planning and delegation in our execution", I say "In addition to all we are doing, we need to add more depth and delegate better." I have seen it work wonders even with the nastiest of people. Try it sometime. Don't say something's "cheap". Call it "economical" or "value for money". Dont say what you could not do. Talk about what you *did* do.

Ofcourse, take it all with a pinch of salt. Don't say your boss "Is good, and could be better". Just say (s)he sucks, if (s)he really does. And if you are asked "do you really love me?" start chewing gum and act as if you are choking on it..

2008-02-07T13:38:00.000-05:00

Me and the folks in the team started discussing origins of religions over coffee, and I made a statement "I'm an accidental Hindu".. it caused a bit of a stir as people tried to figure it out. All I trying to say is, no one belongs to a religion at birth. We just "happen" to be Hindus or Muslims or Jains or Jews.. and ofcourse, there's the question of multi-religious parents.. what happens then?
Here's an interesting page:
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/30953/questions_and_answers_about_raising.html

A riddle

2008-01-27T19:57:00.002-05:00

The dogs on my street have convened a conference and seem to be debating something important. So I've pretty much kissed my sleep good bye. Which isnt too bad.

Given the excess time on hand, I started mulling over a couple of tricky spots I've been in. I'll drum up an analogy.

Lets say you see me walking on the road, and there's a tree ahead of me in full sight. You call out to me, and right then I bump into the tree. Who's fault is it? Mine, yours, or the tree's ?
Ah. Hold that thought. I haven't told you that I bumped into the tree because I slipped on a banana peel. So who's fault is it now ?

"We see the world not as it is, but as we are.."

2008-01-26T06:57:00.000-05:00

Stumbled across a good post. Most would find it very true. Atleast I did. For example, when we try to help or advise others.. we think we understand their point of view.. In my experience, however hard I tried, I was seeing their world with tinted glasses. Which bothered me somewhat. It meant when I was asking others for advice, despite their best intentions, they might have been telling me what they would have done with their life... and there's a case in point.
URL

Of people and situations..

2008-01-25T01:11:00.000-05:00

To me, its a logical analysis of my experiences thus far. But some may perceive this as a negative post. So be warned, before you dig in.

Life depends on three pillars.. you, the people around you and the situation (or environment). Without confidence in yourself you are pretty much done. There's no debate there. Lets dwell on the other two.

It would be nice if one could have the right people around you, and be in great situations all the time. I dream of that sometimes. I'v heard many others do as well. Anyways, assuming you are of a stoic, steady heart and mind, and as always, life puts you at a fork where you have two choices:
A) Great situation, not so great people
B) Great people, not so great situation
What do you choose?

You may claim these are not mutually exclusive cases, but really, they are, almost 70 to 80 percent of the time. I had the choice of staying in a great situation - as technical director, master of my domain, established relationships in the industry, ensured of a good future; except, I stayed half the world away from almost everyone I trusted and loved. That's Exhibit A.

Or, I could go to the people I cared about, and risk entering a fiercely competetive, completely unknown industry, with colleagues I had only spoken with on the phone, unsure of the future. Exhibit B.

How does one choose? A comfortable situation is great. Many pine for it. But to me, its no use if you do not have people to share it with, or to turn to for advice, or comfort. And I'm not referring to a single person. You need friends to hang out with. You need family to appreciate and care for you.

On the other hand, even if you are in a tough spot, if you have the right people with you, those same people will see you through. Tough situations can be overcome. They may lead to other tough situations as well. But you end up winning because the synergy drives you on.

There's a more subtle distinction. Situations can always change for the better or the worse. Good situations can quickly become bad. Ask a stock market trader, or the star developer who's high-profile product crashed during its launch. But good people never turn bad. No matter what you do, they will stick by you.

And then there's the challenge and moral boost. I would rather have the "Yes I DID it" surge after overcoming a tough patch in life, and appreciating those who matter, rather than ponder "hmm. another decent day. Watched a movie, did shopping, food music, Good for me." before dozing off to sleep. But that's just me..

Its not an easy choice. Once in a while a person has to choose the situation over the people: you have compulsions and obligations that force you to take those decisions. You even have to go into a cyclic pattern. But in the long run, if you look around, those who gravitate towards their people are probably the ones with more smiles on their faces..

(p.s.: I would like to acknowledge Rahul, a close friend who was largely responsible - by sharing his experiences - and helping me realize these subtleties when I was taking my decisions)

Outsourcing social work

2008-01-20T23:34:00.005-05:00

The post below is written in the spirit of "Its better to be satisfied than just feel good. But its better to feel good, than not feel at all.. "

Having said all I say below - I still remain on the hunt for a way to directly make an impact in some way beyond money, so that I can feel satisfied, not just good about it.

Suggestions most welcome.
--
Still mulling over my last post, I started comparing the two countries I have lived in. One, a capitalist behemoth, whose supremacy is being challenged daily. The other, a pseudo-socialist setup, increasingly flirting with capitalism, in a sort of "I love it... I love it not" phase.
What makes the US tick is the fact that they have perfected the art of blending money, vision and talent to achieve a heady mix. So a company manufacturing PCs does not hesitate to hire a CEO (Lou Gerstner) who's resume doesn't have a byte of IT related experience. Lou didn't need to know nor try to learn programming or chip design to take IBM out of the doldrums. He didn't have the time. Instead, he used IBM's money to build a team of technical superstars who knew their jobs well.

Whizzing around to that conundrum called India, which has everyone sucking their thumbs in awe and fear, I thought of my own dilemma. I have a small vision: that I should be able to change someone's life for the better. Thus far, I have tried to implement that vision on my own. I have tried contacting NGOs, visiting them on weekends, running with their logos. But largely, my goal of making a direct impact has been largely unachieved, because I cannot shirk my other duties, nor take enough time out of my job to do something meaningful. But there are others who are wizards at this sort of work. They eat, think, and live in terms of figuring out the next better way to help the underprivileged. They are the ones who are willing to spend a day slugging it out at a BMC office, filing an RTI appeal to find out what happened to the 12 crores that were earmarked for Mumbai's public schools. My guess is they do not have the resources to do their tasks well.

So why can't we apply Lou's example here? I have belonged to the "noble brigade" where people don't believe in "throwing money at the problem" and "doing something" about it. Frankly, I can do nothing about it except on weekends. Which is useless in all ways. And from personal experience, I know that those who belong to the above-mentioned group end up neither contributing nor acting upon their vision. To all such people, I'd like to say that its time to outsource social work. Life is short, by the time you have more time, you will no longer have the energy or money to be of any use. So do what you can, now. You have the money, give it to some charity that fits your vision of how to use it, let them execute.

The dilemma

2008-01-20T09:40:00.000-05:00

Having plonked down 2000-odd rupees (that's approximately 2000-odd dollars, in six-month's time I guess. Today its 50 dollars) for a pair of ruff-n-tuff woodland shoes I trekked out of the mall when I noticed a beggar with a kid laid out in front of her. By sheer habit I breezed out of her path, fuming at the atrocity of the woman, using her kid to beg. But two steps later i remembered there was a bandage around the kid's head. And my conscience started pricking me. I pulled myself further away, only to make a u-turn to go back to the beggar. Tried asking her what was wrong with the kid (I wasn't ready to just throw money at the problem.) But she couldn't understand me and simply kept on pleading.

Finally, I relented in frustration and gave her 10 rupees. Why not hundred? I dont know. I'd just run 6 Km in a CRY t-shirt. But somethng withing me kept revolting at the idea of giving money and putting the scene past my mind. Even now, I'm not sure what I should've done back then. Should I have called a doctor? In hindsight, maybe. Which doctor? Dont know. It was a Sunday evening. The only possibility was the government hospital. Didn't the woman know that?

I do not know that either. Except, despite having silenced my consience, I still continue to feel guilty somewhere.

Eureka

2008-01-06T12:31:00.003-05:00

I'm known to ramble theoretically about real life things. So here's another theoretical thesis.

We all agree love goes through phases.. You have the 'Boing!' moment where you see someone and you feel light in the head. Then you have a crush.. (i'd like to meet the chap who coined the term. I want to have a crate of whatever he was eating or drinking that day. It must have been a guy. Guys are precise and to the point. Crush. Darn. Heck. Cool. etc. Simple guy words, conveying the entire meaning.)

After getting crushed you have the "impress" round. It works both ways. Girls flapping their eyelashes and putting their charming ways on display and guys flashing their muscles or motorbikes and relieving their parents of their hard-earned money to buy gifts.

Your sole desire in life is now to be with the other person, hear them speak and brainstorming with some poor soul about how to "get things going your way"..

Somewhere in between, comes a phase, where you love the other person so much, that you start feeling its best to start keeping a distance from them. You realise (s)he is perfect, what you have between you is perfect, and start feeling afraid that knowing each other to a greater degree will destroy all that exists between you. You no longer desire to "spend the rest of the life together until death do you apart".. Rather you now want the other person to have THE perfect life.. which ofcourse, you, now know isnt possible with you (because neither of you is perfect, remember?)..

Ok, Eureka moment over. What do you do when you hit this bend ? Do you spend the rest of your life pining for the other person and watch them marry someone else, or do you marry them, and after your first fight (hey. where there's a marriage there's a fight. Many fights.), start thinking the one you love might have been happier with someone else? The selfish part of me would choose to marry no matter what. The caring part of me might choose to let go rather than be the cause of any unhappiness to the other person..

On engineers..

2007-12-23T04:23:00.000-05:00

There's an old anecdote. Probably fabricated..
The CEOs of 5 major software firms boarded a plane. Minutes before takeoff, each was informed that the plane used some software components designed by their firm. Each of them promptly remembered something urgent and walked off. Except the last one. "How many flights have you had so far?" he asked. "27 on this plane" said the stewardess.

"Ah. Then I'm good. You may want to take a holiday on the 30th one."

I was reminded of this while at the doctor's yesterday. Wasn't there for me.

I wanted to try the same exercise on whoever created us. You know, walk up and ask.. "Er. This body was created by you. Care to live in it ?". I hope God wouldnt walk away. No, God wouldn't. God would know what exactly would cause the body to break and stay away from all problems. Sadly, we weren't exactly handed an owner's manual at birth, and never know what's up next round the corner. Got to admit though, God's arranged for some pretty brainy engineers to maintain stuff.

Anyways.. I'll keep this short. Thought the analogy was interesting so put it up here. Here's wishing everyone a healthy life, or atleast access to a good doc.

On Existence

2007-12-02T14:02:00.009-05:00

I think life in itself is a random set of occurrences...

The power we call God can be thanked when things go right, but just the same, we will never know how and why we got created, why sometimes things go right, and at others they simply dont.. Just like we wont know why apples are red, goats bleat and babies babble.

Forget days, the one lesson I'v learnt is you can do nothing about the minute that went by, or the one that will be coming your way. All you can do is make the right decision in your "now".

We can never try to explain God, because there's always a suspicion that probably, God doesnt exist. We can never tell for sure. My mind's fickle. I get promoted, or a loved one sends in good news, I feel "Yes there's a God". I see a kid starving on the road or a 21 year old friend dying, and I feel there cannot be one - if I, a mere human can melt at that sight, how can an all powerful God just stand by and watch?

I may be debating the wrong issue. It doesn't matter if God exists or not. I exist, and that's what matters.

I'v pondered on my mortality often, while trying to figure out the meaning of my existence. I wondered if anyone would miss me.I kept thinking back wondering of I had made a difference to the world.. I think the answer to those questions is yes.. and as long as that remains the case, I dont care if I were to fall dead the next minute..

The right approach, in my esteemed opinion (too many people say "in my humble opinion" anyway. If they are so humble, why offer their unsolicited opinion). Anyways. In my Esteemed Opinion, its best to play each ball on its own merit, and live each day the same. Some days you hit six sixes an over, some days the umpire fouls up and gives an LBW. What matters is the applause as you return back to the pavilion.

Opportunity of a Lifetime

2007-11-26T20:12:00.000-05:00

"What does your surname mean?", was the innocent question.

Frankly, like countless last names, I have no idea what mine means, and have no idea why some ancestor of mine thought it appropriate enough to append to his first name. Maybe people in those days were in the habit of rattling pebbles in a tin can and creating last names that sounded like the resulting noise. Me and my last name have twisted many an American tongue. Mercifully, my first name's much simpler (though the aforementioned American tongue slipped often on that too). But I digress.

I was busy baking my noodle about my last name's meaning, when I had an epiphany, much like the shoe salesman who went to Africa and called back saying

"Great news Boss!! NO ONE wears shoes!!"

So I had a last name that meant nothing nothing to me, much less to anyone else. Twisting the point around, the question was no longer what it meant. The real question was, What did I want it to mean....

Roughly speaking, given that I have spent 30 years so far, and probably have an equal amount left, that is a good question to ask. What better way to leave behind a legacy, than one created through your actions..

Take for example, the word Tata. You say that name, and you think of vehicles, finance, software, watches, the works. And ofcourse, Tata Young (but thats a completely unrelated story). Who cared what Tata meant, until a chap named Jamshed arrived on the scene. For that matter, who cared what JRD or Ratan meant until they arrived on the scene. But each of them gave a unique meaning to their names. Veni, vidi, vici, vi-name. They came, they saw, they conquered, and they redefined their names to mean something much more that before.

No one knows my last name today, and the only reaction I get when people hear it, is a blink followed by a confounded look. Given 30 years, I could start a school or an orphanage, I could become a writer, I could become an accomplished musician, come to think of it, I could become the President. Or I could simply while away the remaining half, doing nothing meaningful, and slip into oblivion. Thus far, I used to kindof detest the meaninglessness of my last name.. But the chance and choice of imparting a meaning to my meaningless last name, has become an opportunity of my lifetime..

Why is 'He' not an 'It' ?

2007-11-11T21:58:00.001-05:00

In my school days we used to have a prayer that went
"Our father in Heaven,
Holy be thy name.." and so on.

Looking back, I am puzzled why and how someone ever thought there was only a 'Father' in heaven. And no Mother. Basic biology suggests that a Father cannot be a Father without a mother in the first place. And humans, being intended to be an image of God, the converse should apply too - (ignore for a moment, that a cat also might think there's a Cat with 10 arms up in the air somewhere, with a slain dog at its feet).

But no. The powers that be, have decided that all religions should have a single supreme male deity. In my own religion, Hinduism, we have one male creator - Brahma - who, seemingly creates people to earn his paycheck. Finally, we have one thing on which some religions agree, and it ends up being the wrong thing.

The whole thing seems a sham, if you ask me - nothing more than testosterone and gender politics at work. Else, how can you explain why there's no female Pope, why no one has ever pondered the absence of a Daughter of God (how could a Father be so partial), why there's no female power in Islam, why most Hindu female deities (there are 1 or two exceptions) have second-class roles (like there's a Goddess for wealth, another for wisdom, but they more or less seem to sit by smiling while the all powerful male gods get all the fancy weapons to destroy evil in Hindu mythology), and why Adam was created first, not Eve, and why Eve gets the blame for the apple-eating - was Adam's mind out grazing grass at the time?

This is important. Because what we learn in our temples, mosques and churches affects our outlook in society. We are being primed by religion to assume male supremacy from the day we start taking cognizence of the world around us. Coupled with illiteracy and ignorance, this is the stuff that eventually leads to crimes against women - be it female foeticide or rape. A friend of mine recently had an outburst "All guys should be reborn as women some day". I find justification in her outburst. Society takes great pains to embed the thought that only a Man can be a Supreme Being. Perhaps, it would really help if one of the Shankaracharyas were to be reborn as a woman. For good measure, lets hope ALL the four Shankaracharyas are reborn as women. I bet they'd break into a cold sweat at the thought.

Religion seems to have eliminated all traces of female authority and relegated women to bearing and rearing children (Parvati, the consort of Hinduism's uber-god Shiva apparently created a new son to guard her. Hmm. She didn't think a daugther would be as effective?). No matter how liberalised women may seem to be, at the end of the day, they are forced to worship a 'He' and ask 'Him' for blessings or forgiveness. Think of it, there's no single religion that was ever lead by a woman. Or maybe there were many, but they got all squashed out. All this brings one of George Carlin's commentaries to mind. To paraphrase,
"War, crime, poverty, disease... do not belong on the resume of a supreme human being. In any other decently run universe, this guy would be out of a job in no time. And I say this 'guy' because no woman could or would ever muck things up like this.".

If God is really a "He' and not an 'It', men ought to be ashamed.

Reverse gear

2007-09-30T05:13:00.000-04:00

This has been an email that never fizzles out. I received yet another version of it today, and having run out of things to talk about, decided to put it here.

I want to live my next life backwards.

You start out dead, and get that out of the way.
Then you wake up in an old age home, feeling better every day.
Then you get kicked out for being too healthy.
You enjoy your retirement and collect your pension.
Then, when you start to work, you get a gold watch on your first day.
You work 40 years until you’re too young to work.
You get ready for high school, drink alcohol and party, and are generally very social.
Then, you go to primary school, become a kid, play and have no responsibilities.
Then you become a baby.
Then, you spend your last nine months floating peacefully in luxury in spa-like conditions, central heating, and room service on tap.

I rest my case.

-Author Unknown-

(In case of any copyright infringements, please let me know and I shall either take it down or seek permissions from the original author. A similar quote has been attributed to one Robert Benson.)

On Religion

2006-09-26T05:57:00.000-04:00

Multiple reasons and incidents have prompted me to mull the place of religion in my daily life - anti-conversion debates, religious leaders issuing commands to people to increase their respective populations and so on, just to name a few.

So, to start with, what is Religion? Its a framework of principles and beliefs that came into existence due to the need for man to assign a meaning and discipline to life, to allow people to live life according to some rules, to give people something to hold on to during difficult times, and to allow for the creation of a society that can offer mentors to provide spiritual guidance at crossroads in life.

I believe all religions started off either as a set of rituals and practices followed by groups of people (for example Hinduism), or as a set of tenets preached and developed by founders of those religions (such as Buddhism, Jainism, Christianity, Islam etc). If you look for the lowest common factor, all religions define certain rules that a follower must follow and define rules and guidelines that define what the religion considers "good" and "bad". All these principles differ from religion to religion. So Hinduism says you can't eat beef or pork, Jainism forbids consumption of any animal-based foods, to cite a few examples.

One has to bear in mind, that such definitions of "good" and "bad" were based on the thoughts of the founders of the religion. But, the followers of those religions should also exercise their own logic to decide whether those rules are really meaningful or not. So, for example, if tomorrow I (born a Hindu) have nothing to eat, I would have no qualms in consuming beef or pork, since I know God doesn't want me to die of starvation. Starving because someone told me "my" God doesnt want me to consume beef is absurd. This train of thought also leads us to conclude that following or not following a religion is in no way connected to a person's belief in God.

Having stated those basic points, the next point to ponder is whether many of these religions have to really be mutually exclusive? Why should a person follow only one religion? Why cannot I be a Hindu, a Christian and a Muslim (Moslem) and follow all the things that I find good in these religions? Why is religion considered a part of my most fundamental identity? To offer an example, why do Hindus not name their children Paul or Abdul or Catherine; -- and so on, even for followers of other religions?

The question can be broadened further to challenge the relevance today's religions. The rituals in all religions were laid down centuries ago, by people who were probably unaware of a lot of things about the world. They were also unaware of the existence of other civilizations. For example, the founders of Christianity or Islam had no way of knowing Aryans had started establishing their own religion somewhere in Asia, and vice versa. Given that, there is a need for people to start understanding that religion is not what defines them, that a person belonging to another religion is inherently that same as they themselves are, and has just been subjected to a different ideology due to the society and family into which they were born. No one's religion can bind a person. Indeed, a person can follow any number of religions as they choose, if they wish to. So why the talk about conversion and anti-conversion, why not just stop categorising a person by their religion? If a person can follow a profession of their choice, why not allow them to also follow the religion(s) of their choice too? If I am disillusioned by my religion, then why cannot I simply switch to another religion whose principles I find more appealing and logical? Why do people make such a big fuss about conversions?

Today, there is the need for people to start going beyond their own religious beliefs. Indeed, there is the need for religious leaders to start encouraging their followers to experiment with other religions. Ofcourse, that's a wish that will never come true, since every religious leader wants to propagate their own faith. Given which, its up to normal people to start experiencing and embracing multiple faiths voluntarily, to enrich our lives and minds, if nothing else. Ultimately, what matters is whether a person has the courage to follow their conscience, doesn't it?

On Marriage

2006-04-20T09:03:00.000-04:00

Many people close to me have reminded me that I am still single, and painted scenarios that would result from my staying single for long. Suggestions pour in, about registering online on marriage websites, meeting people and so on, so I can hopefully like someone.

I know the concern is well intended, so my questions have been simple:

What would be the basis of my marriage: necessity / compulsion, or love? If I got married to someone I dont even know, love or care about, would I be happy?
Do you really understand the kinds of issues I face on a daily basis, and my priorities in life, to suggest that marriage is the panacea for all those problems?
What if I follow your advice, meet someone, and I like her and she doesn't like me, and then I become sad, because she rejects me. I have been through that, but atleast I fell in love in a natural way, and it was a great feeling. Why should I put myself through pain intentionally here?

The reactions are varied. I've been told, a "good" spouse would guide me, be my equal and we could together build a better future for ourselves and our respective families. Possible, given a 50-50 chance.

But, does that mean I should actively start hunting for a spouse? Should I start abandoning my work duties, my family duties and go about evaluating people and getting myself evaluated like you would, say, look for a good shirt by going to different stores? (and by the way, there's no money-back policy here for both the people if you don't like the offering later). Even if we assume the answer to that is "yes", how does one even evaluate a "potential spouse" ?

Here's my issue: Two people are trying to get acquainted, without any prior knowledge of each other. They have their own ideas of how to live life. Each of them is also under a lot of pressure from family and society to get married by a certain age. Naturally, they take the "project-based" approach and try to set a deadline by which they would try to understand the person and see if they can get along.

I don’t think its fair to set a "deadline" within which people are supposed to decide if they like each other - it’s just not natural. Marriage should be based on love, caring, trust and faith. These emotions must grow within people. How can all these emotions develop in the span of say, a month? You can maybe start liking a person in a month. Then you get to know their good side and their bad side. So do you spend 3 months to evaluate someone? What if at the end of 3 months you figure out that things are not working out though you initially thought they would, and now, you are already emotionally involved? I find the emotional tangle quite scary and disturbing, more so, because its self-inflicted.

Another undercurrent makes me feel queasy about the process. When people meet with marriage on their mind, there's a subconscious desire to project your best side, and make yourself as appealing as possible to the other person while at the same time evaluating them. It’s mostly unintentional, but it’s invariably there at the start. Above all, it also means that any initial feelings and expectations about the other person are not based on what the person really would be in normal, natural circumstances. How justified is it to decide to live one's entire life on such a flimsy foundation? Would I be able to confide in such a person? Probably not.

To me, its always been more important to marry because (and only if ) you love someone. If you love someone, you love them not despite, but because of their faults as well. It’s like watching your favorite movie. You watch the whole thing even if some parts are not very likeable just by themselves. Similarly, the good and bad things about a person make that person loveable – at least, that’s my way of looking at it. And I say it from personal experience. So converting marriage from an experience to a process seems very wierd. And marrying to cure loneliness sounds like fitting a round lid on a square hole.

For now though, marriage is not a goal, nor is finding an object to shower my love upon. Rather, I prefer to wait, till someday I love someone who also loves me back.

On aiming right

2006-02-22T10:26:00.000-05:00

Lets start with a contrived tale.

A kid wanted to learn aiming his slingshot. A friend of his was an expert so the kid asked the guy to teach him. The two of them went to the backyard and the expert said “You see that small temple, right? We worship there, don’t hit it.” So the kid promptly took aim at the fellow’s dog, which yelped in pain and scurried off. The expert was livid with anger “Now what made you do that!” he fumed. The kid said “Why didn’t you tell me not to hit the dog also? Better, why don’t you just tell me what to hit, instead?”

If you think of our minds as the kid, our bodies and brains as the slingshot, our efforts as the stones aimed by the slingshot, you may realize we sometimes behave like the “expert” who knows what not to aim for, rather than the other way round.

The thought dawned upon me over the past couple months as I spent a lot of time in soul-searching and goal finding. I needed to figure out what I wanted to be and how I wanted to live my life. Over time I had jotted down quite a few thoughts such as “I don’t want to remain a software programmer all my life”, “I don’t want to stay in USA forever”, “I don’t want to have to worry about money in the future”, “I don't want to be lonely”, and “I don’t want to marry just for the sake of getting married”.

Along the way, I noticed that most of my thoughts were stated in a negative way. Rather than go towards a definite target, I was trying to go away from something: be it my current job profile, future financial insecurity, loneliness or making mistakes in marriage. The thing to note is, though I wanted to away from unwanted things, there was nothing I wanted to go towards. With nothing to aim for, I ended up stagnating in the same place where I was, away from unpleasant things, but not anywhere close to the things that would make my life better.

And so I started feeling frustrated. Life became a drag, like a stream on which I was simply a log taking a ride, knowing only how to avoid getting stuck in the bushes and creepers, but not knowing where I was going, and worse, not knowing where I wanted to go.

So I tried eliminating negative goals. For example, rather than say “I don’t want to be a software programmer”, I tried “In the next 3 years I want to analyze and design applications, interact with customers and manage development teams; following which I want to move into upper management”. Rather than say “I don’t want to marry just for the sake of getting married” I tried “I want to only marry someone I love, understand and care about”. Instead of “I don’t want to stay in USA forever”, and “I don’t want to have to worry about money in the future”, I substituted “I will return to India after I save 20-30 grand more, over the next 2 years”. And I committed myself to re-evaluating all these goals every 2-3 months. Because life changes, and you have to adapt accordingly.

It was very hard at first, I must admit, because I was approaching specifics. Just like an obese body refuses to be driven to activity, my mind was used to the comfort of being non-specific, and wanted things to stay that way. But once the inertia was eliminated, the difference was astonishing. Just by restating goals in a positive way, I had narrowed my aims to a set of targets I wanted to achieve. Realizing those targets was now only a matter of making the right choices and putting in the right amount of effort. Even better, in the process, I began to understand my abilities, my feelings, my desires; I realized I wanted to pursue some hobbies and enrich my mind - I began to understand myself. And the joy of those discoveries can only be experienced, not described.

On destiny and ways to live life

2006-02-14T17:24:00.000-05:00

For almost a decade now, I have wrestled with a single question: How does one live life? I have not found the answer yet, but I seem to have accumulated enough material to create a blog post..

I have studied and experimented with many different philosophies about life, and all those seem to be right at one point or another.

You have The Gita telling you to perform your actions and dedicating them to God, without expecting anything; for we all have been created with some purpose and the world is a big puzzle where we all fit in; aparently. This concept in itself is fine. But its easy to twist around in a fatalist way, many people (including myself) using it as an excuse to accept defeat, while others have used it as an excuse to avoid all action altogether.

You also have religions such as Buddhism which advocate renunciation of all desires. Essentially, the basis of that channel of thought is desire leads to sorrow. So to eliminate sorrow, you eliminate desire. However when I tried it, there seemed to be a loophole in this thought process: you end up with a desire to have no desire. And if thats not messed up enough, what do you do when you realise that the world has gone by while you renounced all your desires and so-called worldly pleasures? Not to mention the fact that you could have atleast nurtured a good desire to take care of your family and maybe do something useful for society.

Then, you have the new-age motivational thinkers exhorting you to follow your dreams. The logic being, ultimately everything has its own risks. But when you do something you also desire, you are better equipped mentally to tackle the problems that you face. Some people misconstrue this is recklesseness, while others use it as an excuse to be reckless. Some others lack the patience thats needed when following such a path, because in life nothing happens over one day. Things take days and months to work out, and expecting miracles in a short term only leads to disappointment later when you realise that some defeats are imminent no matter what you do. The other side is, its hard to take some risks when the future of your family depends on you.

By far, the most practical advice I gleaned was from the book "Who Moved My Cheese", recommended by someone whose judgement I trust. The book didnt expound any new philosophy. Rather, it made me understand the simple fact that life is always changing. And what matters is how fast you can adapt to those changes. You fall in love one day, you switch jobs another day, you take a new challenge some other day. You are better prepared to take on the risks associated with these changes when you expect change to occur. That makes you more receptive and you start looking out for signs that signal the onset of a new phase in life. Ofcourse, you also get tired when you only see changes, because its extremely exhausting and frustrating to always chase a moving target. But you cannot complain about something that is anyway out of your control. The best you can do, is adapt.

After going through all these mind and personality benders, I have realised that none of them really works always. What does work, however, is a healthy dose of realism, confidence and discipline. It helps to know what you are capable of. It also helps when you know you have people in your life who will be with you when it counts, especially your family, and your spouse, if you are lucky enough to be married. Above all, you need to have a lot of self-belief and faith in yourself. Its amazing how many people ignore that one detail. They have faith in God, and forget that when God created them, they were also endowed with enough good qualities as well to build a good life. At the end of the day however, the ones who are left standing are the ones who believe they can.

In the words of a famous person,

If you think you are beaten, you are,

You've got to think high to rise.

You've got to be sure of yourself,

before you can ever win the prize.

Life's battles don't always go to the stronger or swifter man.

But sooner or later, the one who wins

Is the one who thinks he can."

Of things good and bad

2006-02-09T10:23:00.000-05:00

Once I met a person who would go out of his way to help others. He helped me a lot as well, to get on with my life. I admired him, and yet, could not fathom why he would do such a thing, for such is the paradox we live today - we hope people will help us, and yet are completely confounded when people actually help us. So anyway, one day, curiosity got the better of me, and I asked him.

His response was simple, and to the point: "Because I can, and more importantly, because I have received a lot myself from others". This did not seem very satisfactory to me. After all, he had a life, and a family to take care of. Why would such a person with so many worries waste his resources on someone else, who would probably not even help him back? Pat came the reply, but more detailed this time

"See, life is not only about what you will get. There has to be a balance between what you take and what you give. I once knew a bania (vendor), who, for every loss he incurred, made sure he obtained atleast twice the profit elsewhere. While at his shop one day, I thought of applying the principle in reverse. From that day, I made a pact with myself - for every say, 3 or 4 good things that happenned to me, I promised I would try and do something good for someone else. It did not matter whom I helped, or how big or small my help would be, as long as I helped. Obviously, I cannot maintain a 1:1 ratio, of the good things that happen to me and the good things I pass on, because I have my own responsibilities to attend to. But I also ensure that my responsibilities and worries do not become an excuse for not helping others.

In return, this helps me in ways more than one. For starters, for quite some time, I had been feeling like a sink - because I was receiving a lot of help from many people, but had not given it back to anyone. Helping others gave me a sense of immense satisfaction, and made me feel I was finally part of a bigger circle, where good deeds pased on from person to person. Strangely enough, for each good deed I did, I kept on receiving more and more back. And obviously, the more I kept on receiving, the more I felt like giving back - something like the compound interest concept. ."

I sat back and thought a bit about what he had said, while he took a phone call. When the call was over, I had one last question for him: "What happens when something bad happens to you. Do you pass it on as well?". The fellow smiled at me and said

"Bad things happen in life. I accepted that long ago, its a rule, and so its out of my control. However, what I do know is that I can control my reaction to a bad incident in my life. When something bad happens to me, I know I have two simple choices: have a bad reaction, or a good reaction. I have never been able to completely ensure that my reaction is good. I may bang my fists, I may say bad things under pressure, but still, the desire to respond in a good way takes over and I go into damage recovery mode. From then on, things get better. Mind you, whatever be my reaction, I try to ensure that no one else is adversely affected by it.

So, to answer your question, No, I choose not to pass on anything bad that happens with me. I would rather absorb the bad, because just like good things lead to other good things, bad things lead to more bad things if allowed to propagate. Let me explain with an example. Its like a big nuclear reactor: each bad thing can potentially lead to 5 or 10 more bad things unless someone steps in and absorbs some of it. If no one steps in, you have a big, uncontrolled chain reaction, which in time can only lead to an explosion.

By absorbing - or atleast making an effort to absorb - some of the bad things, I know I am making a difference. That gives me the strength to go on."

Having said that, he turned around to take another call, while I left his office to ponder a little more. As I stepped out, there was a smile on my face and my mind seemed to be a little more at peace...

On character, boringness and sin

2006-02-09T09:00:00.000-05:00

A friend recently made a trip to Rome, where he and his family attended mass at the Vatican, and were fortunate enough to be present when the Pope gave his address. After reading the transcript of the address, some lines lingered on in my mind, I have pasted some extracts here:

"... The human being does not trust God. Tempted by the serpent, he harbors the suspicion that in the end, God takes something away from his life, that God is a rival Who curtails our freedom and that we will be fully human only when we have cast Him aside; in brief, that only in this way can we fully achieve our freedom.

"The human being lives in the suspicion that God's love creates a dependence and that he must rid himself of this dependency if he is to be fully himself. Man does not want to receive his existence and the fullness of his life from God.

"He himself wants to obtain from the tree of knowledge the power to shape the world, to make himself a god, raising himself to God's level, and to overcome death and darkness with his own efforts. He does not want to rely on love that to him seems untrustworthy; he relies solely on his own knowledge since it confers power upon him. Rather than on love, he sets his sights on power, with which he desires to take his own life autonomously in hand. And in doing so, he trusts in deceit rather than in truth and thereby sinks with his life into emptiness, into death.

"Love is not dependence but a gift that makes us live. The freedom of a human being is the freedom of a limited being, and therefore is itself limited. We can possess it only as a shared freedom, in the communion of freedom: only if we live in the right way, with one another and for one another, can freedom develop.

"We live in the right way if we live in accordance with the truth of our being, and that is, in accordance with God's will. For God's will is not a law for the human being imposed from the outside and that constrains him, but the intrinsic measure of his nature, a measure that is engraved within him and makes him the image of God, hence, a free creature.

"... [in our minds] we have a lurking suspicion that a person who does not sin must really be basically boring and that something is missing from his life: [we have a lurking suspicion that] the dramatic dimension of being autonomous; that the freedom to say no, to descend into the shadows of sin, and to want to do things on one's own is part of being truly human; [we have a lurking suspicion] that only then can we make the most of all the vastness and depth of our being men and women, of being truly ourselves; [we have a lurking suspicion] that we should put this freedom to the test, even in opposition to God, in order to become, in reality, fully ourselves.

"In a word, we think that evil is basically good, we think that we need it, at least a little, in order to experience the fullness of being."

"We think that a little bargaining with evil, keeping for oneself a little freedom against God, is basically a good thing, perhaps even necessary."

(The complete homily can be viewed online on many websites, such as "My People")

The words above give us a reassurance that its still OK to do what your conscience thinks is morally right, to stick to what you think you would do in the absence of peer pressure. For, like they say, the cosncience is also like a kid - that kid speaks out only when you listen to it; and the more you start ignoring it, the muter it grows, till one fine day you realise you have lost it. No one is given a strong character but there still seems to be hope that we can make it stronger, by listening to the whispers of our conscience when we are at a moral crossroad..

Those little things that can be done

2006-02-02T10:03:00.000-05:00

"What I can do, I must do"

These words are attributed to Rippan Kapur, founder of CRY (Child Relief and You)
When I first read the line, the words leapt out at me, my mind seemed to stand still as I let the meaning sink in. Apart from the obvious meaning - that if you can do something good, you must do it, no matter how big it is - there seemed to be something else that I was beginning to realise.

Too often we go through life thinking about us, ourselves and our life. I do not say that is wrong. In fact, it is the prudent thing to do. If your life is not moving the right way, there's no use trying to put someone else's life back on track.

But what we fail to realise is that help need not be something big like putting someone's life back on track. Somehow, our minds assume that people can be helped only in a large-scale manner - that help is good only if we do something big which inconveniences us or causes us pain in some way. Wierdly, the possible degree of trouble involved seems to be a measure of the help offered, And then, that becomes an excuse for not helping.

Nothing could be farther from reality. There many small things we can do, to touch the lives of others. If you look back on your day or week so far, you may probably be able to identify atleast a few things that you could have done, some way in which you could have been nice to someone. Maybe you could have given up your seat in the train. Maybe, you could have taken the trash out in your office, rather than let it sit and stink there. Maybe you could have offered a cab ride to the lady waiting for another cab to show up. Maybe you could have given up your place in the line so an old person could go home sooner.

However, in some strange ways, we seem to have trained our eyes, ears and mind to ignore all such opportunities. Rather than doing what we can do, we spend time convincing ourselves that we may repent having helped the person. So we dont give up our place in the line because we are afraid of being late to work, we dont take out the trash in the office, because we feel then the cleaners will get into the habit of not taking it out regularly, and we dont give up our seats in trains, because we are afraid of getting exhausted by the time we reach home or work.

Thats why the words seemed to stir something in me; they made me realise, it doesnt matter what you can do, or how small it is, but its alright to just do it, if you think it will make someone else feel better. I have been lucky to have met many such people, who have made me feel happier by their innumberable small actions. They have inspired me to behave in the same way. But it would be a much better world if such behavior were the rule, not the exception.

The exercise of doing nothing

2006-01-28T07:22:00.000-05:00

One day I realised I had become a compulsive thinker. Each waking moment, I was thinking of something to be done, or bought, or needed to be said. If I was not thinking I was planning, or I was worrying. If nothing else, I would catch myself day dreaming about things that I would love to have in my life. And if not day dreaming, I was reading or listening to music. There was no end to it. I was constantly asking my mind to do something, or to process some kind of audio, visual or sensory input. Almost as if I had put my mind on a treadmill that would never stop.

The relentless thought process had a telling effect. At the end of the day, I would feel fatigued and exhausted, even if I had done nothing physically demanding. My physique suffered, consequently my mental image of myself suffered, since I no longer thought of myself as an appealing personality. Pretty soon, I was headed towards a negative complex, where I started believing not many people would find me likeable.

It was not obvious that all these negatives had stemmed from mental fatigue, and yet, that precisely had a large role to play in the decline of my physical and mental health. I had stretched my mental muscles too far, without giving them a chance to relax.

That was when I remembered something about a relaxation technique I had read about in my teens. The technique was simple : you had to try and do nothing and think of nothing for some time each day. Before applying the technique, it was essential to run a test to find out whether you are a compulsive thinker: What would you do if you were asked to wait in an empty room for some time, with nothing else at all to do. Would you be able to just sit, and wait the entire time, or would you start going over something, and try to find something to do just to pass your time? Would you force your mind to think about something? If yes, then you may have just realised that you are driving your mind crazy by compulsively thinking.

There are many reasons people think compulsively. For some its a defense mechanism to prevent negative thoughts from entering their mind. Some do it without realising that they have not given a moment's respite to their brain, because they have so many things to cram into one day. Whatever be the reason, it is damaging to the brain in the long run. And then the mind reacts by reporting fatigue. When you feel fatigued, your mind is telling you it needs to shut off. The body may not experience any exhaustion at all, but your brain cannot take the strain any longer. You may have experienced that when you just fall asleep while watching TV after a busy day.

Meditation is the best way of helping your mind relax, but many people find excuses not to practise it every day, so to get started there is an even simpler exercise: doing nothing. Quite simply, it means just that - doing nothing, and thinking nothing for a few minutes once every few hours each day. You could be travelling in a bus, you could be in a restaurant, waiting for your food to arrive, or you could be at the shopping center. All you have to do, is shut off your mind to any thoughts whatsoever. You may find out that its a hard thing to do, after having spent a lifetime as a compulsive thinker, so initially you may benefit by trying it out in a silent room.

All you have to do is let go of all thoughts. There is no need to even focus on your breathing, In fact, the whole intention is to focus on nothing, because focussing causes the mind to exert itself. Instead, you let your mind go blank, maybe for only a few seconds initially. As time goes by, this will change, and slowly, you should be able to tell your mind to go blank and stop thinking at will. Be it in a doctor's waiting room, or at the mall while you are waiting in line at the cash register. Such self-imposed bouts of mind-blanking lead to mental relaxation, because now your mind gets a chance to reorganize itself, and it can focus better once you start working again.

There is no tried and tested method for relaxation, but I have found this works the best for me. If you know of anything better, do post it here.

Moody Mondays and Bluesy Fridays

2006-01-27T08:34:00.000-05:00

Once upon a time, on a rainy day in June my parents took me as a kicking and screaming 3 year old to my first day in school. 25 years later, as I got up today, I got the same feeling. Probably my office will need to hire wild horses to drag me there today.

Fridays and Mondays have never been favourite days of mine. When I was a workaholic, I used to hate Fridays - I dreaded dropping whatever I was working on for 2 days, and then scractching my head after returning back on Monday, to figure out where I had left off - and consequently, I used to hate Mondays too. The weekend was just one big interruption in my flow of thoughts, and those two days bore the brunt of my hatred and displeasure.

I am no longer a workoholic, having realised the world was passing by while I was hunched up in front of the computer. I realised I had to get a hold of myself before I started calling my computer by pet names. And so I stepped out of my self-created shell, and smelt the fresh air, took to exercising, read books and started going to places and talking to people (unlike chatting like in the old days). Weekends have become more fun now, even thought I still have to do the usual dull things like throwing the garbage, washing my clothes and stocking up on groceries. Despite those tasks, there are many more things to do now, and suddenly 48 hours seem too less some times.

And the the circle is complete. My fridays are full of anticipation and planning for the weekend, and Mondays are filled with resentment. The weekdays now seem like an interruption between weekends. Dont get me wrong, I love my work. But having found what I had missed out for so long, I suddenly feel a longing to make up for lost time, go on all the treks I could have gone upon, fly to different cities I have always wanted to see, and meet the people I have not met. It becomes hard to stop reading a book at 11.45 PM on a Sunday night becuase you have to wake up to go to work on Monday.

Some people I know have a different take on this. Come friday, and I hear them lamenting "Man.. I am headed out for my second job now. The wife and kids need things done around the house." Thankfully, I have none of that ;=)

On helping someone...

2006-01-27T06:36:00.000-05:00

I have often found myself freaking out because I am worried to death about someone else and whatever problems they may be facing.

The question is, how far should a person go, when it comes to helping people? I am not asking how far I should go in terms of investing my time or money - I dont have reservations about either. Rather, I am confused about how much do I persist in terms of recommending solutions.

There have been occasions when the other person has not really told me the whole story, or worse, I have misinterpreted the situation, and related it to some different experiences I may have had previously. Should I even hazard a solution in such cases? How do I know if my solution won't cause more damage instead of helping? If by an unfortunate turn of events my so-called solution causes more problems, how much of responsibility is mine? Can I in good faith shake off all accountability and say the person who listened to me should have thought more about it? What if the person who asked me for advice was not in the mental state to make a judgement, and relied on mine instead?

Sympathy and empathy for someone are good, but do they become dangerous emotions when mixed with persistence? In the past, if someone asked me for my opinion, I used to strongly impress and maybe impose my solutions upon them, without realising that the person asking me was also thinking of other options, and my opinion was meant to be just that - an opinion, an alternative, nothing more. Today I realise with a shiver that I probably may have come off as posessive or compulsive on those occasions. Worse, what if I ended up alienating people because of that?

Sure, my intentions are good. But is that justification enough, to impose my opinion to the extent of interference in someone's life? Probably not. And yet, on many occasions I have felt frustrated when someone has asked me for advice, listened to it, and done nothing at all, not even executed any other plan of action to resolve the situation. I used to relentlessly pursue such issues and keep enquiring of such people out of concern, whether they were able to resolve the problem or not. Questions such as "What if the person has other things that he or she cannot tell me about?" or "What if the person has other bigger problems to handle?" would not cross my mind often at such times; they do now.

So thats why I always get worried about how far do I go, when I care about someone and want to help them. I worry whether in my zeal to help them out, I have started intruding into their life. Worse, I start doubting if I was simply expected to offer advice, rather than also go beyond that and help. There comes a moment of reflection when I start wondering if my persistence has made me unwanted, and the person I am trying to help, is not saying that to me, to avoid hurting my feelings.

The conclusion reached so far, is that its better to hold back a few urges to express your opinion rather than go all out and then realise you have crossed a fine line while you were blinded by concern. If you get the feeling you are over-doing it, you probably are, and in that case it may be a good idea to have a reality check and have a frank talk with the people involved. Metaphorically speaking, you may guide the horse to water, but you should not drag it there. To stretch the example further, it may be a better idea to also ask of the horse if it needs water in the first place, and if its found other ways to get it. Finally, its not your life, its someone else's life, and they should finally decide how to live it, on their own. You can offer support, or atleast listen, but you cannot live it for them. To look at it in another way, you can help them understand the situation better, and help them realise what options they have.

The trick seems to lie in helping someone stay calm and composed when their head is swimming, so they can take the right decision.

Patterns of life

2006-01-25T11:57:00.001-05:00

Every now and then I start pondeing about what I have seen in the world so far, about what has happenned in my life, and in others' lives.

On each occasion, I cannot but help wonder how differently - and yet in a way, how similarly - so many of our lives proceed. Its as if there were only a few patterns really, and all lives were moulded and created into those patterns.

For example, take those people whose lives roll along at a steady pace, like a mathematical function. Ever since the day you have known them, you could have predicted what they would be doing at what age. You knew that person so-and-so would be pursuing his MS or PhD, then join a big company by such-and-such an age, and would then get married at so-and-so time. Kids would follow and so would promotions at the job, maybe followed by a stint at MBA, and probably a stab at starting a new company. You knew all of this years back, when the person was in your class, sitting next to you. And happily, thats how things turned out.

Then there are those who seem to be always missing out on something at the last moment. They take a descision at the last moment, only to learn that they were a few seconds late. They came from India to USA just one year later when the job boom was gone. They decided to not propose to the girl they loved only to learn that she would be getting married to someone else, without ever knowing she was also loved dearly by someone else. They are the perennial chasers, always running to catch a dream, and life in its cruel twists always snatching the dream away at the last moment. Yet, they are also the ones who never give up. They are also the ones who keep saying "yeah, tough break. I will try better next time". Makes you wish you could atleast just once give them the push, to help them reach their goal, give them a chance to smile.

That leaves us with some others who know what they want, and fight night and day to achieve it. Life again assumes its wierdest moods and makes life intorably tough for them, making them cry and sweat till the last ounce of energy has been squeezed out, befeore handing them a small portion of success. Some break down before they reach their goal, some others frown, not realising they have received what they needed, not necessarily what they wanted, while others (the happiest ones) just beam on and say "Atleast I got something...!"

Have you spotted any such themes in someone's life? Go ahead and post your thoughts here..

On being a bibliophile

2006-01-23T16:52:00.000-05:00

I wish someone would pay me to read books. I would read them all, without stopping for nothing other than the basic necessities of life. I would read kids' stories and war reminiscences and traveller's notes. I would then write reviews on them, scathing reviews about the pessimistic authors, to ward off other innocent readers from attacks of depression, and lauding the good storytellers would would narrate tales of courage or just plain humor. Yes, that would be paradise for me.

It all started as a kid - as the only kid, to be precise. I had no brothers or sisters, and my parents had to go to work. So my mom got me a subscription to a library and thats when my life-long affair with reading started. I started off with comics like Tinkle and Amar Chitra Katha, followed by books for kids and interspersed with bouts of Tintin and Asterix. There were also gems from Indian literature, ranging from P.L. (Pula) Deshpande to Premchand.

Each day after coming home from school I would gobble up my lunch and curl up with something to read. I couldn't care less about my weak eyes and the ever-thickening eyeglasses. My favourite days of the month were those when I used to get the montly issues of Tinkle and later, Reader's Digest (in India, Reader's Digest is a very well managed and respected magazine, unlike the gossip tabloid its become in USA). I read with a feverish, insatiable hunger, leaving my mom yelling at me to actually also study a bit...

Reading allowed my imagination to run wild. I could imagine the setting of each scene, of the tone and voice of each character as I read their lines. Movies were great, but books were more fun. They contained more descriptions, which I could read over and over till the scene emerged in my mind. In a movie, the scene went by you in the blink of an eye.

Books have sometimes changed my perspectives in life. As a kid, I read "Shyam chi Aai" - it was written in my mother-tongue, Marathi, and the title means "About Shyam's Mother". The book changed my perspective towards my family. I started noticing the numerous things my parents were doing for me, without even so much as telling me about the trials and tribulations they had to undergo to ensure I would have a good life. Later, during my college years, my emotions were acting up and I was turning into an angry young man, frustrated by seeing bad things happen to good people, I found solace in the Bhagwad Gita and in its advice on how to deal with life. I learnt how to accept things, how to deal with failure and success, as and when they were thrown my way. I learnt to appreciate and understand life as it unfolded. On many occasions, I started acting like an observer to the events occurring in my life and marvelled in amazement, realising that only one being could handle such a complex jigsaw of lives and make it all fit together. I learnt how to do my best and then submit my actions to God, when everything else would seem beyond control.

Yet, there was a time when I almost gave up the hobby that has moulded me to a large extent. After landing in the US of A to pursue my MS, I gave up reading, and got engulfed in other mundane tasks of life. I worried about my grades, fretted about jobs that were not coming my way, and wondered when I would get to meet my family again.

I would probably have stayed that way. Luckily I met someone who rekindled my passion for reading. We started trading book titles. As time went by, the hunger for reading was back with its old fervour. I was again browsing the aisles of the Public Library digging into shelves looking for books and wincing in anguish after finding out that someone else had already checked out the title I wanted. There was sweet satisfaction in grabbing the only copy of a book before someone else took it. That was also the time I discovered Shakespeare. (Truth be told, I had never dared to read Shakespeare - I gave it a shot just because the person whose book reviews I trusted was recommending it - but hey, I actually liked it!)

To this day, given a choice between going out and stretching out at home with a book on my lap and a warm drink in hand, there's a 50% chance I would be loath to give up the book. I still drown myself in mundane tasks each day. I still fret about my future, my family in India. And yet, each time I make a trip to India, I return with a bag full of books, always worried about how much I have not yet read, always worried how and when will I find the time to even read so much. But having almost given up reading once, I know better now.

Negativity in media

2006-01-19T17:36:00.000-05:00

Of late, I have started becoming more and more frustrated by the negativity in media - be it television, radio or print.
I start my day to watch the news, and what do I see ? A few explosions from Iraq and Israel, followed by a few kidnappings, and later, some stocks crashing down. On some days, the presenters also add a healthy touch of scandals, not to mention off-beat news such as the guy who goes slashing tires of all vehicles in his neighborhood. Logon to a news website, and hey - more violence, deaths and kidnapping.
Its hard to understand the media focus on the feel-bad theme. Agreed, people need to know the facts. But its very hard to believe that there are only bad facts. Why dont we get footage of red cross volunteers in Somalia? Why dont we get more footage of children going to school in Iraq?
Why dont we see more interviews of doctors doing voluntary work around the world? Is it because good news is too "sweet" and has no shock value? Maybe in the race to grab our attention by our eyeballs, media companies everywhere have started a relentless campaign to bring out more shocking and disturbing news, leading to a general feeling, that no good exists anymore in this world.
In the 40's, a single murder in the papers may have shocked people. Today, we chew on our cereal as we watch skeletons and flesh blown away by a blast. Negativity in media has finally begun desensitising us, to the point where we no longer feel much, unless it happens to us. Tsunami in Asia? Hmm. Very bad. Katrina? Yeah, thankfully it didnt happen to me! Snipers in DC? Lets go elsewhere for our July 4th trip. Maybe if we had a little respite from these things, from all the carnage and violence, public sensitivities would return back to more healthy levels. Maybe, people would start donating more to charity, if they did not feel at some level that whatever they do, the next day will bring out even more, and even worse situations.
Are these really the things we want to surround our lives with? I would like to wake up one day, and see a "Global Literacy increase rate" chart instead of the usual Terror Alert level...

A fine line

2005-12-28T05:37:00.000-05:00

So where exactly does infatuation end and love begin?
Maybe its more appropriate to backup a bit and consider the context. Assume you know a person very well, and like that person. Like your favorite dish, you like to hang out with that person, when you are with her you want to keep talking on, you want time to go slower so that you can observe each detail - the lines on the face, the angle of the lips when they part to smile, the ups and downs of the voice, and her posture while you walk, taking pleasure in the small fact that she's slowing down to a crawl so that you two can talk more. You think of her when you are not with her and you care for her.
Is this love, or is it plain infatuation? Is love the next stage of infatuation, or is infatuation almost always doomed to fizzle out?
How you you know if you really care for the person out of love, or if you care for the person because you just really want to be around that person?
Its hard to maintain a balance with the tumult of emotions chasing each other accross your mind. One day, you are happy just to hear her voice, and the next you are staring at the phone waiting for a text message to arrive from her, so that you can atleast call her. Will she take the call, or will she say she's busy? Would she want me to call back later, or would she feel I am too intrusive?
Its a fine line to walk, where you are not sure how much to persist and yet you are afraid of letting a good thing slip by you.
Such is life, and such are matters of the heart. A rollercoaster of emotions at best, a seat of thorns at worst. Maybe its simple better sometimes to let go and do what your guts tell you to do, within the limit of being reasonable. Or is it ?

Email Monitoring and ethics

2005-02-22T09:41:00.001-05:00

Ruffled a friend's peace of mind by emailing some pictures of our group from the Master's days accidentally to her office email ID. There wasn't anything wrong with the pictures themselves, but I forgot that her company monitors all email traffic so the folks who do that got pissed I guess.

Should companies monitor email? If you are talking about outbound email, definitely. You don't want corporate secrets going out. Should they establish an email policy? If you want to avoid lawsuits, definitely so. Check out these links if you feel interested enough:
http://www.email-policy.com/
Is Email Monitoring Legal?

Of course, then there's the other issue of privacy. The fellow reading the emails becomes privy to all personal and corporate information flowing through the mail server. That person or set of people would know the pulse of the entire company. Would they use the information for any unethical or illegal purposes? Would they start telling the higher-ups that the people under them are exchanging complaints about a certain manager and his policies? Would some higher-up start harassing these people for more information? Its a scary situation.

Coming back to the case I mentioned at the start of this post, the monitoring folks took exception to an inbound email. I could never understand why. Monitoring inbound mails does not make sense at all. It seems more a waste of resources and maybe shows a weird taste for details in people's personal lives. I would not care is my employees received MP3s in their email as long as my company bandwidth was not bogged down.

Add to that the issue of long work hours. Employees in the IT field today work for anywhere between 12 to 16 hours. Of course they cannot spend a lot of time calling up people on the phone, while they are at a job. Its never possible to call all the people you know on a weekend. Email is a boon in these situations, it allows people the luxury to carry a dialog over days, at their own leisure. A "hi" sent on Monday may receive a "how are you" response on a Wednesday, and everyone's happy. So whats wrong if these people receive emails from their near and dear ones? It keeps them happy, and a happy employee is a good employee.

My company realises these things, and just to protect company secrets and network integrity, they have an outbound automated filter on attachments, and an inbound virus checker. Hopefully, other companies start realising these things and start releasing their strangle-hold on employee communications.

Keeping the water out...

2005-02-13T18:16:00.000-05:00

When I was in Bombay, I attended a personality development session by the kids' favorite, Anant Pai, aka Uncle Pai, of Tinkle and Amar Chitra Katha fame. I learnt quite a few good lessons about life from that session. Many of those I do not remember exactly to cite here, though I subconsciously follow them. And there are a couple that I continue to remember to this day.

He put it very simply. "Water that can drown a ship is all around it. But the ship floats, because it does not allow that water to enter it."

Yes, yes, I can hear the naysayers saying thats its easier said than done. Its too simplistic. Life's not that easy, I do agree. But what do have to lose by being positive? Rather, what do we gain by allowing the negativity to creep in? Maybe we should try to condition us, our minds, to stop the negative thoughts and things that surround us from entering our mind.

Think of the times when someone told you something was impossible or when conditions seemed pretty hopeless. Did you get discouraged, and brood over the hopelessness, or did you simply shut off those thoughts and decide to go ahead and give your best shot anyway? Maybe you still did not achieve what was seemingly impossible. But did you not atleast benefit from the experience of trying?

Bad news is there's water all around. Good news is that you can float on it if you dont let it in.

The other lesson I learnt was on discipline - "A river that flows without bounds causes flood, misery and destruction. Put a dam accross that very river, and you will be able to spread prosperity."

The human mind's worst emotions and desires are very much like a river. Unrestricted, they can leave a trail of destruction, not only in our lives, but also in the lives of others. Words once uttered in anger cannot be taken back, actions once committed cannot be undone, hopes once shattered cannot be repaired. Every time we have a rush of blood, we have the option to hold back those feelings, to channelize those emotions to fuel our efforts. Every time we feel like damaging something, we have the option to hold back and think "Can I put my time and energy to better use, to remedy this situation?".

Its not possible to always follow these principles, else the world would have been a much better place today. Yet, we can always try..

Just a thought, as we end one day, and get ready for another.

Social Security

2005-02-07T10:50:00.000-05:00

Social Security.
Two words, that can be twisted and mauled into any meaning. Or can by themselves imply any one of numerous meanings.

My mind went off on a tangent when I saw an article on TIME magazine's web site, about the US President's plan to overhaul Social Security (http://www.ssa.gov/).

So first off, a little SocSec 101 (thats what they call or number an introductory course in a university. Like MSWord 101, English 101 etc etc.). In the USA, every working person pays about 6.2 % of their income to the social security system. The funds from this system are used to pay checks (cheques) to the elderly who have retired and the qualified young who are unemployed. I am not aware of who qualifies for the SS checks (also called SS benefits), but in one line, its basically how the younger (working) generation / group contibute to the welfare of the less fortunate ones or disabled / elderly people who are no longer capable of performing any physical or mental labour to support themselves. Hence the term Social Security.

Or is it really? Have we really come to a phase where people are no longer supported by their own family, and rather have to rely on the government to pay them money? I come from India, and we have a similar system. Its called Pensions. But its applicable only for retired employees of the Government. However, my question still remains. Why do the elderly or the disabled have to rely on the Government so much for living their lives? I do understand that many people lose their means of support in tragedies, and yes, they need a helping hand surely since they have no one else. But that should be a minority. What about the numerous other people who have sons and daughters who earn enough money to spread around a little? More pointedly, have we, as a society become selfish to the point where we no longer have enough charity in our mind to even take care of our parents? Have we become so fiercely Individualistic, that as soon as we get married or grow up, we have to leave the nest, never to return back to it, and in fact, create a new nest elsewhere and devote all resources to it? And then the people who created us have to resort to retirement funds and social security checks ?

I do not grudge anyone their happiness or their ambitions. Yes, its everyone's privilege. But, dont we also have duties? Arent we also bound by ethics to take a pause at some point and start looking back upon life and start trying to make the lives of our parents or disabled siblings a little more comfortable? Giving up a slice of our pie, so that those very people who made sacrifices for us can live a little better?

I am not saying no one does it. The sad part is, the majority does not do it. Or else, we would not have such a large majority of people depending on social security or pensions. Many people do realise this. Some realise it too late, when they start getting their checks.

Hopefully, the current generation of working people starts making a difference. Maybe start creating an "internal security" fund, save a certain percentage of income each month for parents, maybe not maintain big huge independent houses, but get smaller homes closer together, for you, your parents and your spouse's parents too.

Definitely not one home, because different people have different ways of living life, and 3 families cannot stay together. But its always possible to stay in the vicinity. If I were to get married someday, I would certainly want not only my parents close to me, but also my wife's parents. Because the way I see it, when you marry someone, you also marry their family, and any problems they may have, big or small, are your problems too, and I would stand by that.

Yet we see people going the other way. Why so much individualism, that parents and their children do not stay closer in the long run, when the lives of the children are stable? Could someone explain this to me? Most people need to start reflecting on how we can really start making a difference - by making the lives of the elderly and disabled within our own family a little more secure..

Treat those two impostors just the same..

2005-02-06T13:46:00.000-05:00

For long, I have always been inspired by the lines on the huge sign on the door leading to Centre Court at Wimbledon. These lines are from Rudyard Kipling's "If"..

" If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;"

Yes, that would be the holy grail of life. The final reversal of the master-slave relationship where you control your emotions and not the other way round. I stumbled upon the poem again while reading an Inormation Week article (http://www.informationweek.com/816/16uwbe.htm), and felt it would be relevant to in this blog.

For the interested, here's the entire poem by Kipling.
(www.swarthmore.edu/~apreset1/docs/if.html)
[IF]

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too,
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream--and not make dreams your master,
If you can think--and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breath a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings--nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much,
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And--which is more--you'll be a Man, my son!

--Rudyard Kipling

The spice of life

2005-02-02T18:25:00.000-05:00

Change is the spice of life, or so they say.. I certainly like variety. Nothing like a bit of marinara sauce after having tasted Heinz tomato ketchup for weeks on end. Or a trip to Florida after having shovelled bundles of snow during winter. Its all good and welcome, except when there's too much of it, and when its in the places where you least want it. Like too much spice, you start getting ulcers some day. Especially when the changes all kinda jump on you at the same time..

Thats when you need to start learning how to sidestep some things and take others head-on.
My life is currently in such a phase. Changes everywhere I see them. In my software (I am a developer), in my life (I am changing apartments, I am also changing room mates, but thats a story for another day), in my food (I am not sure what I can eat any more. Being an obese fellow, I have started watching my diet) ..

Some days you just wind up saying "Oh what the heck. I am fed up", while on others you say "Hmm. lemme see what my pal ABC has to say about this". The former is when we go deeper into the quicksand of frustration and the latter is when we atleast get some relief. A pressure cooker would burst if it couldnt atleast let off some steam. All my life, my friends have been that outlet for me. Not that I scald them with my internal stress and pressure. Just that speaking to them makes me cool down and think more about whats really bugging me. Is it the food that was eating till yesterday until I found it had 1500 cals per serving? Or is it my apartment's leasing office dragging their feet in assigning me a new place to stay. Or maybe, its the uncertainty of the fact that I dont know where I will be living next week. And with whom. Maybe its the fact that while I am juggling these balls in my head in my evenings, I am also redesigning some of my software in the day time when I work in the office, thus leaving practically no time for my poor brain to rest.. Maybe that is it.. Maybe my brain's yelling out at me, "For heaven's sake man, cut me some slack"..

All I hope is this changes soon.

As they say too, the only constant is change...