he said. THis thought provoking statement by a friend made me think, not only twice but surely twice as much. Now, sometimes I wonder is it the genes that are dictating my life. Is it this inherited factor the cause of many a things I do? Or all the things I do?
Am I writing for the love of writing or my genes are making me do it? Am I or am I because of my genes? Do I have a wicked sense of humor? Or do you think am a spoil sport? Or I have fear for heights?Do I just blame it on my genes?
So, genes not only control the character but the human being as well. The selfish gene was the one behind all this – the this thing called life. This factor called gene is what is making me sleep so much? Making me the sloppy dancer that I am?
So, they say it’s the genology. Does it mean that the curly locks of my great grandfather, mixed with the luscious hair of my grandmother, together with the brown tan of my paternal grandfather with the straight hair of my maternal grandmother’s hair and the money and care from my parents .. I am bald. Oh genes.
Saturday, December 11, 2010
Friday, December 10, 2010
Playboy
The essence of a word is in the way we use it. The said word or the pictorial representation of it greatly adds sheen and attaches importance to a word. India, and its hypocritical social environment is so openly secretive about the taboo topics of physical intimacy and its acts. The state’s dictatorial demeanor of entertainment viewship is in no way inversely proportional to the related crime. Forcing a social façade by heralding ethical morality is not creating any ancient generation. The façade only satiates a generation and the self proclaimed moral policing fanatics.
Getting back to the word….Am amused by the abuse of the word, image and use of ‘Playboy’ in India. Yes, in India. As I make my way through the traffic ridden Bangalore lanes, there goes no day without the playboy bunny image. Be it stickers on vehicles, clothes, jackets ..they are there everywhere. Call it ignorance or the intentional use in the land of kamasutra, Mr. Heffner your orgasmic entity has lost its flutter. No one would twitch or raise an eyebrow in India on seeing the bunny. We have moved on. We are more worried about Big Boss house and Rakhi Sawanth.
Getting back to the word….Am amused by the abuse of the word, image and use of ‘Playboy’ in India. Yes, in India. As I make my way through the traffic ridden Bangalore lanes, there goes no day without the playboy bunny image. Be it stickers on vehicles, clothes, jackets ..they are there everywhere. Call it ignorance or the intentional use in the land of kamasutra, Mr. Heffner your orgasmic entity has lost its flutter. No one would twitch or raise an eyebrow in India on seeing the bunny. We have moved on. We are more worried about Big Boss house and Rakhi Sawanth.
Sunday, August 29, 2010
Gratitude to a master craftsman
I WANDER'D lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the Milky Way,
They stretch'd in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed -- and gazed -- but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:
For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.
- William Wordsworth
wonder how they put such wonderful thoughts into words. It might not be the host of golder daffodils; but the vistas of nature, the wonderfull dreamy things. so true, "what a wealth these show to me had brought..... They flash upon the inward eye which is the bliss of solitude..."
In gratitude to a master craftsman.
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the Milky Way,
They stretch'd in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed -- and gazed -- but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:
For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.
- William Wordsworth
wonder how they put such wonderful thoughts into words. It might not be the host of golder daffodils; but the vistas of nature, the wonderfull dreamy things. so true, "what a wealth these show to me had brought..... They flash upon the inward eye which is the bliss of solitude..."
In gratitude to a master craftsman.
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
My other chattels
Working to keep stride with the visibly floating population, I often wonder about my possessions. Possessions in terms of the old world furniture, the crockery, the umpteen number of upholstery sets and the small knick-knacks. Moving houses has always been the permanent change in my life. From my childhood to my days as a student in the US and now as a working professional, I have lived with certain things that I know not the reason for.
The value of these physical objects is recognized by the grazing look it gets as we tread past. The dust piled in the crevices, in those unreachable cleaning spots, describes its antiquity. The days we ogle at its long forgotten beauty is when we proudly present its presence to a guest. The other hundreds of days, it’s an object for cleaning. The physical weight and space occupied and the emotional weight and space occupied take precedence based on the mood of the day. The broken objects that stick on in the small places available in the bottom racks are only there because of the emotional weight that we cannot shake off. We wonder how we can NOT keep these things that have been with us for …hmmm, let me see… don’t know how many years. What happens if we just discard (the word throw is emotionally hurting) them. Will someone with lesser opportunities in life find it and make it a useable object in their life?
The money invested in visual temptation result in accruing physical object stack. The bonding will be created unconsciously by the money spent on it. This makes it unmovable and after a couple of years, unfashionable. It is neither an object of envy or one for Christie’s. The small ceramic figurines and plaques with happy b’day on it, the number of candle stands, the small idols of god; all gifts from ..ah..guess friends from school or belongs to my brother or ..the or’s could include all family members. The gifts from oblivion are in the stack too. These can be used by the archeological department to pick dust from fissures and practice their carbon dating techniques. The ancient gramophone cum radio is pretty sturdy and is now a stand in some relatives home.
The bags with upholstery sets remain enclosed as a prized possession. They remain wrapped in clean covers. Have seen the expensive silk ones powder after years of safe keeping in the hidden darkness of those totes. Not to mention my skirt from my kindergarten days, shoes that I loved, socks that are pretty, the cute container (so small that it sits prettily in my desk), the boxes of some curios, the beautiful plastic bags. If we remove the adjectives from these objects, it will possible be the reason of anguish.
The heirlooms are part of our tradition. The royalty of ancient years owned them to display power and culture, the lesser mortals then heralded it for some obvious public acknowledgement of association to power and now we keep it for emotional reasons we don’t question. We are just preserving our culture where we never discard useful things or rather things we inherit. No matter how often we use them or how many of them we have, or even if it’s broken.
I am not an ungrateful kid or grandkid that I don’t understand the value of possessions. But then…
The value of these physical objects is recognized by the grazing look it gets as we tread past. The dust piled in the crevices, in those unreachable cleaning spots, describes its antiquity. The days we ogle at its long forgotten beauty is when we proudly present its presence to a guest. The other hundreds of days, it’s an object for cleaning. The physical weight and space occupied and the emotional weight and space occupied take precedence based on the mood of the day. The broken objects that stick on in the small places available in the bottom racks are only there because of the emotional weight that we cannot shake off. We wonder how we can NOT keep these things that have been with us for …hmmm, let me see… don’t know how many years. What happens if we just discard (the word throw is emotionally hurting) them. Will someone with lesser opportunities in life find it and make it a useable object in their life?
The money invested in visual temptation result in accruing physical object stack. The bonding will be created unconsciously by the money spent on it. This makes it unmovable and after a couple of years, unfashionable. It is neither an object of envy or one for Christie’s. The small ceramic figurines and plaques with happy b’day on it, the number of candle stands, the small idols of god; all gifts from ..ah..guess friends from school or belongs to my brother or ..the or’s could include all family members. The gifts from oblivion are in the stack too. These can be used by the archeological department to pick dust from fissures and practice their carbon dating techniques. The ancient gramophone cum radio is pretty sturdy and is now a stand in some relatives home.
The bags with upholstery sets remain enclosed as a prized possession. They remain wrapped in clean covers. Have seen the expensive silk ones powder after years of safe keeping in the hidden darkness of those totes. Not to mention my skirt from my kindergarten days, shoes that I loved, socks that are pretty, the cute container (so small that it sits prettily in my desk), the boxes of some curios, the beautiful plastic bags. If we remove the adjectives from these objects, it will possible be the reason of anguish.
The heirlooms are part of our tradition. The royalty of ancient years owned them to display power and culture, the lesser mortals then heralded it for some obvious public acknowledgement of association to power and now we keep it for emotional reasons we don’t question. We are just preserving our culture where we never discard useful things or rather things we inherit. No matter how often we use them or how many of them we have, or even if it’s broken.
I am not an ungrateful kid or grandkid that I don’t understand the value of possessions. But then…
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Toe-ma-toe or Toe-may-toe? Po-taa-to or Po-tae-to?
Whatever. I prefer, or rather have been used to saying Toe-may-toes. My Cambridge educated English teacher in primary schooling days has instilled strong pro-nun-ciation in most of the English words I use. Then, I did not fancy my English classes when my English teach made us make weird sounds to practice pronouncing words; like saying…wooo making a round ‘O’ with your lips to pronounce the word woman or making a small ‘o’ for the word police. Hearing her say ‘phonetics’ in school made me feel like Calvin when the planes go way above your head and one wonder what is happening there. Could not make much sense of much of the words she used. The Oxford English pocket dictionary that we had to compulsorily tag along to the English class, did not help. Two reasons, the spelling was wrong because of my misconstrued imitation of the word or the second – that my imagination took over and with time my laziness caught up too and did not open the small book in class.
Albuquerque, would surely have been Albuquer-queue if not for my teacher. E-co-noh-mic would be echo-nomic. The examples are ample. From my school days of wanting to skip the English class to being thankful for the wonderful strong basics. Thank you ma’am. Yes, many, if not all of them have remained in my head.
... and Anandh, this is for you ;)
Albuquerque, would surely have been Albuquer-queue if not for my teacher. E-co-noh-mic would be echo-nomic. The examples are ample. From my school days of wanting to skip the English class to being thankful for the wonderful strong basics. Thank you ma’am. Yes, many, if not all of them have remained in my head.
... and Anandh, this is for you ;)
Friday, May 28, 2010
Regionalism takes over
Color, food, climate, animals, plants are few things that I could associate with regions. But thinking on another level, being amongst the educated, I have noticed the recreation of the wheel.
In my growing-up days, I noticed how my neighbors were pleased to get new tenants who belonged to their state, or the store keeper was thrilled to sell a more fresher bunch of sprigs to someone who spoke the same language as he.
Switching a couple of decades later, after good amount of years educating myself the tried and tested way and pocketing a few degrees and landing a job in the IT industry, I feel somethings don’t go away. They just come back. I still see the happiness and excitement in the teammate who welcomes a member with more glee as he is from the state as him. I see the enthusiasm in a group when they find new members who speak the same language. I see the wave of change in company elite as the new member takes over. They seems to display their fondness or liking in selecting their counterparts - consciously or unconsciously or subconsciously. Are sentiments of regionalism so etched in our system that we cannot think out of it? We are animals after all…territorialism is our defense, attack, offense and growth mechanism.
In my growing-up days, I noticed how my neighbors were pleased to get new tenants who belonged to their state, or the store keeper was thrilled to sell a more fresher bunch of sprigs to someone who spoke the same language as he.
Switching a couple of decades later, after good amount of years educating myself the tried and tested way and pocketing a few degrees and landing a job in the IT industry, I feel somethings don’t go away. They just come back. I still see the happiness and excitement in the teammate who welcomes a member with more glee as he is from the state as him. I see the enthusiasm in a group when they find new members who speak the same language. I see the wave of change in company elite as the new member takes over. They seems to display their fondness or liking in selecting their counterparts - consciously or unconsciously or subconsciously. Are sentiments of regionalism so etched in our system that we cannot think out of it? We are animals after all…territorialism is our defense, attack, offense and growth mechanism.
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
Wonder why
The beautiful flowers are gone by the time I want to enjoy the sight
I have constants in my laws of attraction
The weekend is the shortest when I want to relax
People assume
Rudeness exists
There is a race to earn more
Death is not a happy ending
People live in pretence
Dictionary is considered a gospel
There are no theories or formulae for emotions
I have expectation from human beings
I have so many questions
I like some and hate some things
I wonder….
I have constants in my laws of attraction
The weekend is the shortest when I want to relax
People assume
Rudeness exists
There is a race to earn more
Death is not a happy ending
People live in pretence
Dictionary is considered a gospel
There are no theories or formulae for emotions
I have expectation from human beings
I have so many questions
I like some and hate some things
I wonder….
Oh yes…
..I do stereotype. It helps remove the clutter (like GeorgeC says in Up in the Air). I so loved the way this was used in the movie. I cannot get it out of my mind and cannot stop thinking about the stereotypes I have.
I don’t
Follow vehicles with non KA registration while on the road in Bangalore city. They, 99% of the time don’t understand the urgency of us Bangaloreans.
Trail people riding older bikes. Like Splendor, scooty or even a maruthi car. They are damn slow – vehicle problem or a mindset problem.
Talk to guys wearing very tight T-shirts. Am pretty sure they will bore me to death…if they have not been able to win over the mirror...how would they talk sane things.
Like smiling families in the US. They are usually these chain marketing teams who will lure the poor-hungry-jobless Indian students to a free lunch and then make you sit through 3 hours of marketing (read: how to become rich) gyaan.
Eat fried food that is orange in color. Oh honey, that color remains like henna on ur hands n I believe it also coats your stomach.
Believing in correcting assumptions. Then I have to talk a lot…about things I don’t want to.
Like people in bright colored clothes. I believe they will be overly annoying in their talks.
Talk to pretty girls… I end up staring at them and wondering how god made such a nice thing and forgot the brain.
Drink coffee or tea when sugar is already added (if I don’t make it). I am usually sure that it will have more sugar than I want …more sugar gives me a headache.
And more..
I don’t
Follow vehicles with non KA registration while on the road in Bangalore city. They, 99% of the time don’t understand the urgency of us Bangaloreans.
Trail people riding older bikes. Like Splendor, scooty or even a maruthi car. They are damn slow – vehicle problem or a mindset problem.
Talk to guys wearing very tight T-shirts. Am pretty sure they will bore me to death…if they have not been able to win over the mirror...how would they talk sane things.
Like smiling families in the US. They are usually these chain marketing teams who will lure the poor-hungry-jobless Indian students to a free lunch and then make you sit through 3 hours of marketing (read: how to become rich) gyaan.
Eat fried food that is orange in color. Oh honey, that color remains like henna on ur hands n I believe it also coats your stomach.
Believing in correcting assumptions. Then I have to talk a lot…about things I don’t want to.
Like people in bright colored clothes. I believe they will be overly annoying in their talks.
Talk to pretty girls… I end up staring at them and wondering how god made such a nice thing and forgot the brain.
Drink coffee or tea when sugar is already added (if I don’t make it). I am usually sure that it will have more sugar than I want …more sugar gives me a headache.
And more..
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
...I believe
...in the foundation for Existentialism that theorized; an individual is solely responsible for giving their life meaning and living that life passionately and sincerely, in spite of many existential obstacles and distractions including despair, angst, absurdity, alienation, and boredom.
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
….it happened one evening
It was past the twilight hour. The gentle evening zephyr overtook the hot sun that shone down to bake the earth. In a lonely hour at this pleasant evening, my eyes hunted for some distractive amusement. Did I think too loud I wondered…when my eyes were glued. We never let each other out of sight. Although, I must admit I sometimes lost sight...could not keep up with this hide and seek. The camaraderie of being in one room with the still air to disturb and the sound of bated breath to distract…revved up a storm for more. How could I resist..but walk up and say… I need the doors closed. Then I let the stillness take over and then let it all settle. Then I noticed this unsettled distraction…who could it be other than me. Or was it me at all? I wondered. And realized it was the small fruit that the fly was attracted to. I opened the door to the wind and let nature lap its creation.
Monday, February 22, 2010
Jotting a day in my work life
I give myself no buffer time…and buffer here includes time to stay in front of the mirror more than the time required to pull my comb off the dresser, or time to make nice cuppa or even the lavishness of fixing a lunch. That’s how a weekday starts. Giving myself half hour to from the time I get off the bed to get out of the house and onto the road to work. I mean a long winding road that I take to work. I ride (I should mention…drive as well. For all those who still exercise their jocular vein about wondering if I drive). I start usually unfazed by the 26km ride. I don’t get tempted to race with people of time.
I just follow my bike’s rules. I have Honda dio and I know it cannot do more than 70km. I don’t zig-zag or tease other drivers with speed. I am just a conscious rider always acknowledging that fact that the road to work is my personal yard. The road is weird…the first half of the stretch from home to work has 2 signals. The second half has around 7 and a two flyover construction points. My peaceful self, singing (one to two lines is all I can memorize…) and suddenly realizing that it is the road to perdition (for the love of the word and the lack to finding another beautifully fitting word here). All drivers on the road (most of them) are rogues. There are days I anoint on my mindless 26 km ride…some are ‘lorries day out’, ‘rogues day of fun’, ‘bad dressers day out’, ‘breakdown day’, ‘dress down day’, ‘brainless people’s day out’, ‘less clothes day’, ‘ogling men’s day out’, ‘good looking guys day out’, ‘my sad days’, and all that and more.
I traverse through the parked, over speeding, moving, not so moving, kinda vehicles and reach work. Oh no… not yet. Am in front of my office but on the other side of the road. Have to go ahead another half a km and make a ‘U’ turn and then get to my work spot. Once in…usually am (un)welcomed by the guard. Let me script the answer to the previous statement. The entrance to the business park has a guard station and there are many of them…who on some days insist of being on duty. There is a synthetic road hump, strategically placed. The sunlight pokes into your eye. The guard stands at the base of the hump, literally. There is no way you have single hand a bike on the hump and escape the glaring sunlight and then use the other hand to pull the id out. If you insist on clearing the hump and then doing the unnecessary task…the guards will sometimes dauntingly stare and utter undecipherable words. Which I am sure is something unpleasant.
As I make my way in and park the bike and walk and climb up the stairs to reach the 3rd floor (a mistake..out of the routine I followed the last 6-7 months), I then go to the fourth floor. Welcomed by the empty cubicles, I settle to pack my keys in my back and launch Outlook. This makes me feel at work. After ensuring the quarantine mail from Aditi, I settle in to a breakfast, usually of idli and the sometimes edible chutney, at the café on the 8th floor. Then, I see people trickle in to work… The sounds of noise from the team in the next cubicle wakes me time and again through the day.
This is just like 10.30 am.
To summarize the rest of my day… lunch, chats, test drives (these days), treats (sometimes) all this together with music, is the rest of my work day.
At 7.30 or 8 I start back toward home..and pretty much live my journey to work again.
I just follow my bike’s rules. I have Honda dio and I know it cannot do more than 70km. I don’t zig-zag or tease other drivers with speed. I am just a conscious rider always acknowledging that fact that the road to work is my personal yard. The road is weird…the first half of the stretch from home to work has 2 signals. The second half has around 7 and a two flyover construction points. My peaceful self, singing (one to two lines is all I can memorize…) and suddenly realizing that it is the road to perdition (for the love of the word and the lack to finding another beautifully fitting word here). All drivers on the road (most of them) are rogues. There are days I anoint on my mindless 26 km ride…some are ‘lorries day out’, ‘rogues day of fun’, ‘bad dressers day out’, ‘breakdown day’, ‘dress down day’, ‘brainless people’s day out’, ‘less clothes day’, ‘ogling men’s day out’, ‘good looking guys day out’, ‘my sad days’, and all that and more.
I traverse through the parked, over speeding, moving, not so moving, kinda vehicles and reach work. Oh no… not yet. Am in front of my office but on the other side of the road. Have to go ahead another half a km and make a ‘U’ turn and then get to my work spot. Once in…usually am (un)welcomed by the guard. Let me script the answer to the previous statement. The entrance to the business park has a guard station and there are many of them…who on some days insist of being on duty. There is a synthetic road hump, strategically placed. The sunlight pokes into your eye. The guard stands at the base of the hump, literally. There is no way you have single hand a bike on the hump and escape the glaring sunlight and then use the other hand to pull the id out. If you insist on clearing the hump and then doing the unnecessary task…the guards will sometimes dauntingly stare and utter undecipherable words. Which I am sure is something unpleasant.
As I make my way in and park the bike and walk and climb up the stairs to reach the 3rd floor (a mistake..out of the routine I followed the last 6-7 months), I then go to the fourth floor. Welcomed by the empty cubicles, I settle to pack my keys in my back and launch Outlook. This makes me feel at work. After ensuring the quarantine mail from Aditi, I settle in to a breakfast, usually of idli and the sometimes edible chutney, at the café on the 8th floor. Then, I see people trickle in to work… The sounds of noise from the team in the next cubicle wakes me time and again through the day.
This is just like 10.30 am.
To summarize the rest of my day… lunch, chats, test drives (these days), treats (sometimes) all this together with music, is the rest of my work day.
At 7.30 or 8 I start back toward home..and pretty much live my journey to work again.
Savings. for?? I wonder what?
Toward the end of January and early February I start philosophizing life. Why do we have to save? Yes, the very weeks when everyone is talking about saving and tax in the corporate world.
We are all gonna leave it behind and go away one fine day. The only obvious truth about life – death. Why do we strive to make a pile of money for after life and not use it for life? If we all learnt to earn and live..we would stop to think about saving and leaving something for future generations which only wake up many future lazy souls. Isn’t that something that would help the world become a better place?
We are all gonna leave it behind and go away one fine day. The only obvious truth about life – death. Why do we strive to make a pile of money for after life and not use it for life? If we all learnt to earn and live..we would stop to think about saving and leaving something for future generations which only wake up many future lazy souls. Isn’t that something that would help the world become a better place?
Pesky (ies)...
How the small irritants are the things we sometimes think about … rather than the nicer times in life gone by. I just moved to another team at work…and with it came a change in cubicle and floor. And I think about the noisy slurping tea drinker who sat by me, the annoyingly loud team who insisted of discussing everything on a full-yell mode. The long walk to the restroom, the emptiness on one side of the floor, the stupid (meaning pretty and boring) women and men (the showoff and irritating kinds), and the big pantry with two small tables and the one loud sound making fooseball table and the people playing that game. The nuisances of one time are more deliberated upon than the pleasant times that went by.
The small irritating pesky people are the ones I think of most – oh I remember that irritating thing about that guy and my uncouth roomie and her slimy boyfriend… blah blah blah. Or I think about the nicer things that hoped would have been the case with somethings or some one nice. Phew… my mind has a tough job.
… merrily, merrily, merrily… life is but a dream.
The small irritating pesky people are the ones I think of most – oh I remember that irritating thing about that guy and my uncouth roomie and her slimy boyfriend… blah blah blah. Or I think about the nicer things that hoped would have been the case with somethings or some one nice. Phew… my mind has a tough job.
… merrily, merrily, merrily… life is but a dream.
Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Born to loot or be looted
On one of the sunny afternoon on a long ride back home… I wondered how the world looked from the eyes of a thief. As uncomplicated as it can get…it was divided into two – the looter and the looted.
All living can be classified as a looter or the looted. The list might defer…but there rarely is a middle line here. There could however be an undecided category but never a thin line.
The story goes…we are both the looted and the looters at some point in life.
All living can be classified as a looter or the looted. The list might defer…but there rarely is a middle line here. There could however be an undecided category but never a thin line.
The story goes…we are both the looted and the looters at some point in life.
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