Lost in Traslation

Somewhere I read ... Nothing is more beautiful that something that will not last ...
Sophia Coppola has attempted rather well to picturize the craving for humanity to find someone of their kind in Lost In Translation ... Somwhere ... somehow you find that person who just tries to complete you .. for a moment though .. but then it feels like a life time ... and then suddenly even before you start enjoying the moment ... you realise that its past you .

True .... Everyone wants to be found.

Todays changing feminism

Encountered this strange chain of thoughts of changing attitudes of the male-dominated society towards the feminine gender. Twenty years ago, it was unimaginable to think of wives earning more than their husbands, now the male-society has more or less accepted this fact ! ( even though in India , its sometimes considered ... awkward )

Consider these ..

a) Lots of wives earning more than their husbands, therefore turning out to be the obvious bread winners of the family ( and males tending to be more free-er and taking up the job of looking after the kinds )

b) Elderly women dating much younger men .

and..
c) on a higher contrasting but surprising side .. University-topper girls increasingly moving towards a stay-at-home life . ( dont mention the waste of their degrees ... maybe not a waste ... afterall ... education is not merely for earning money ) .. that reminds me that ...

Education is for a life ... not for a living .

Why do I write ?

Almost all the people whom I email say that I write long and absurd mails .. but once you get the drift of it .. it seems as if Iam talking to them somewhere from a distant corner of cyberspace ... Its wonderful how you can express your thoughts in simple words ... writing somehow is a perfect way of bringing the world a step closer to you or taking you out to the world....
For me .. it just makes me feel good.

And when Rushdie was asked .. Why does writing make you feel beautiful ?
He said .."When you write, you write out your best self. Everything else drops away...."
How very true !!

Change of clothes

I decided to move out of this place which was 'home' for me for little more than a couple of months. And yeah my wagabound gypsy instincts told me thats its time to move on. Plus i have tonnes of reasons ( justifications ) to back my decision.

a) The workplace is far from here . And the place where iam moving to is just a stone throw away ( there are no stones near to where i stay .. and the windows are not made of glasses ;-) )

b) I need privacy. This place with my room-mates ( yeah I have varying numbers of room-mates , on and off .. in and out .. as random and unpredictable as the weather here ) .. Not that I dont enjoy their company .. I can come down here anytime ... on the weekends , have a nice time .. and still do justice to myself !

c) There is no time for independent thinking and relaxation.( gradual lengthening of my neurons , with the number of connection remaining the same ;-) )

d) Iam into something new ( maybe later on this ) and that needs a peaceful environment without any distractions. There was a TV in the new place and I told the owner that I didnt need one. ( "voluntary abstinance" from non-informative and random time wasting pleasure rides of the tube )

e) Iam like this. Its my nature. ( remember the Frog and the Scorpion story ? ) ( http://allaboutfrogs.org/stories/scorpion.html )

In the previous city I had stayed around 7 places in 2 years and finally settled to some place where I stayed for almost a year and a half, unless not completely happy ... I dont settle for things .. Its again ...my nature. History ( and my-story )... repeats itself .. well not quite the exact way though .

A few good things

Off late the media is a little kind to the common man ... They seem to have slowly shifted from the grotesque picturisation of murder, theft, cheat and corruption .. to better happenings around us .

A few news that make me happy :

a) Somewhere in the north India , a beggar was elected as the sarpanch ( the village head ) .. In a caste system where untouchability was banned 50 years ago .. but still is practised clandestinely, this seems to be a fantastic achievement. This newly elect was known for his integrity, hard work and dedication ( It is heard that he had funded the education of his brother ) ...The vision of the Mahatma ( Gandhi ) is finally coming true .. ( slow but sure )

b) Mumbai is hit again by its second wave of "floods" . But this time the government is better prepared .. the people are cautious and the media is a little kind with the pictures. ( those cicatrisations are still fresh in the nation's mind)

c) The sensex spiralling up above the 8000 point mark .. And still the p/E ration is evaluated to be a moderate safe one . ( read ... the market is not over rated .. and is not working on sentiments ... it safer than the maddening zoom of the Harshed Mehta ( the big Bull ) times ..

d) Indian youth is becoming more aware of the F1 races, there are pubs that screen these live on very big screens and serve beer ( 1 free for every 2 ) ... free just after the lights go off and the chequered flag falls. ( Call these fast happy hours ) ... Today is the Belgian GP and yeah iam sure to be there gulping my share of beer and cheering for Kimi Raikkonen ... ( though he is just behind Montoya in the pole positions) .. F1 is something that demands the undivided attention of the racer ... not to dither from the tracks even for a spilt second. ( and thats no exaggeration .. you know it ! .. )

e) Kim Clijsters enters into the Finals of the US open . She was/is my all-time favorites ( in Ladies Tennis after Sabatini .. and Capriati) ... I like her ( Kim's ) fighting spirit ... calm composure and her ability to stay on ! ( this is a game of stamina, discipline and com posture .. )

More good news later .... Stay tuned ! :-)

Left to swim in cold waters

Is it better to be taught something or to learn it the natural way ?

During my school days I was always a little ahead in knowing about the things that were new in and around us ... ( blatant self promotion ) .. but when it came to learning about it and then mastering it ... I would be the last one to do it ! ( sceptic and questioning still ! )

I learnt cycling when I was 14. ( 4 years late than an average kid ) .. I learnt swimming when I was 18 ( very late ) .. but by then I had put my fingers in almost everything ... It was just the initial fit of excitement.. it would never last long ... As a kid I learnt dancing for more than 4 years ( Bharatnatyam, a traditional dance of south India ) .. I was trained in carnatic music for almost 8 months .. was trained in table tennis for almost 6 months , personally trained in guitar for 8 months, was professionally taught chess and painting, I tried Japanese for 3 months ( yeah i got a certificate for that ) and French for a month . And if I were to list the things I tried myself ( and soon gave up ) ... that would be more than lengthy ...

I always believed that learning should not be imposed .. it should come naturally .. let me underline this fact by citing an example that I thought of when i was travelling today morning .. Given a chance to train two dogs to swim ... which one do you think would be a better swimmer in a month ? One trained by a human in a controlled environment or one who is thrown into a pond and left to itself ? Now lets extrapolate this to humans .. who do you think would be a better swimmer in a month ? One trained in a warm swimming pool ? or a fisherman kid ... who has the urge to learn swimming for his survival ..and has the cold ocean as his testing bed ?

Argument for Arguments sake

This is probably the tenth or twentieth time Iam "arguing" with my (elder ) brother on the lamest of all topics -

Are first-born children better achievers?

My argument ( along with my sister-in-law's ( "incidently" my brothers wife ) was that first borns are prototypes of nature. The second borns are the real product out of the engines of creation. My brother simply refuses to accept it .. he has his own ways of getting to a conclusion ... and he replied back in a mail with the following link ... here is BBC for you .. on the same debate ..

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/talking_point/4173768.stm

But I think the more I try to debate .. the more I move away from a fruitful conclusion.

Guilt ,Shame and ethics

What is the difference between guilt and shame ? Read a page from a book that goes ahead in helping the reader find his perspective on it. And the author provides a generous helping of this thoughts thus ... Guilt is when you feel that you had done something wrong. Shame is what you feel when others discover that you have done that wrong . Why do 'adolescent children' run away from homes ? Is that shame or is that guilt .. or an un-proportioned mixture of both ?

Guilt and shame could happen together. And its not necessary that either happens too. That brings us back to the question of morality, ethics and whats right and wrong. ( Probably I have read, thought and written about it more than a dozen times ) .. but something that still has not been satisfyingly answered by myself. ( This is purely subjective and a matter of ones perspective .. the generic laws of society fail to suit all individuals in the same way , therefore it necessitates the framing of ones own personal commandments )

The man who knew infinity

I was always enthralled by Mathematicians though I never had any particular fancy for Mathematics. Ramanujam is one of them .. ( John Nash and Turing are other ones). Currently the book that i have delved into is a biography about the strange but naive life of Ramanujam the super mathematician of India.
The life is more interesting than his works ... The house in which he was born, is still intact . Someday I plan to go to that place, walk around , smell the air , go into all those temples and walk my way down to the roads that he used to travel while in college .. That should be cathartic .

If

One good thing that I came across today was the poem by Rudyard Kipling.. "IF" .. Here is the one ... Have bolded and underlined a few lines that I felt was good ... maybe I would come back again to this entry ... whenever I want to feel good .

IF
By Rudyard Kipling

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 imposters 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 wornout tools;

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it 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!

Paul Graham

I was reading Paul Graham's site that talks about (almost ) everything to do with programming intelligent softwares or .. intelligent programming languages ..while I randomly came across when I was searching for some instructions on some pet project Iam into these days . If you didnt know ... All programming languages have an underlying philosophy behind them and the creators are more or less philosophers themselves.

Paul is one .. his essays are good read ... and hmm pretty well makes us accustomed to his philosohy . ... more all less its all about computers !( http://www.paulgraham.com/articles.html )

He also says why teenagers do almost anything : because of their boundless confidence in anything coming out of ignorance . !!

Larry Wall ( creator of perl ) is another one ! "Theory is good, in moderation ... and Moderation is good, in theory" ;-)

Angels and Demons

I simply cant conceive the fact that angels are good looking and devil is not good looking !!! Why should it be like that everywhere .. in all religions ??

Usually we* like to imagine that demons are ugly,dark and scary and angels are beautiful young and good looking with glowing skin and youthful clarity !

Imagine this ...

Angels - old rusty folks with beard, are over-weight, can hardly move around, donot have any teeth and hardly any good at anything other than giving advices. ( And yeah they have a bad breath too .. ) Hmm the wings and halo doesnt serve any purpose .

I generally had an idea of devil to be a male !! Devil should really have been a female !!! ...that too extremely beautiful and tempting too ! Too good to resist, too smart to outwit, too prominent to ignore.. charming young and sexy !! That justifies why people are easily lured to evil . ( and then again .. why should evil be always bad ?? )

Why should it be that God is male too ?? He is always referred to as He not She !! This way I see justification of God getting jealous and being irrational ..

Past Perfect , Future Tense !

Spent most of the time in useless thoughts about my future ... only to realise that "worrying about it is as effective as trying to solve an algebra problem by chewing bubble gum."

Accompanied my parents ( rather uncomfortably ) to go to one of our relative's place ( branched from the family tree 3 generations ago ) who stay pretty away in the country-side leading very normal lives. The place was so silent and still ... the only moving thing was the pendulum of the old grandfather clock prominently hanging on the otherwise dull looking wall. Everything was silent ... the tick-tock of the clock was thankfully breaking the monotony. I slept there for a good 3 hours.

Once I was back, I settled down with a book. Rushdie was luring me again.

"One may read and like or admire or respect a book and yet remain entirely unchanged by its contents, but love gets under one's guard and shakes things up, for such is its sneaky nature.

When a reader falls in love with a book it leaves its essence inside him, like radioactive fallout in an arable field, and after that there are certain crops that will no longer grow in him, while other, stranger, more fantastic growths may occasionally be produced. We love relatively few books in our lives and those books become parts of the way we see our lives, we read our lives through them, and their descriptions of the inner and outer worlds become mixed up with ours, they become ours. "

-Salman Rushdie

In the name of the son ...

My parents were here at my place, staying with me for a couple of weeks ! And they were "taking care" of me ! Making food, arranging my clothes and things ..doing chores ... etc etc .. I told them ... probably these would be the last few days I would get to spend with them before my marriage ! ( I dont plan to get married any soon now anyways ! )

My father has this rather unusual habit of writing MY name on everything thats mine ... He writes my name on my books ( atleast in 3 places ), on my scissors , my pen , my clothes , my pillow , my bed sheet , my keyholder , my iron box , my TT racket .. phew ... you name it ... I have my name on it ! And Iam pretty annoyed of that !!! Sometimes I think its rather his fear of me loosing things, or maybe .. his fear of forgetting what his son's name is ! ( the name bears a constant reminder of who's who ! hah ! ) . And I told him to get over his unusual hobby ! but it was a little too late ... There are only a few things of mine that has escaped the torture of having to have my name inscribed on them !

Nat Geo

Read National Geographic all day yesterday .. I lend this from a nearby library . Unlike the usual libraries, this one lends the latest magazines ( and books ) for 2 days, for a "fee" of Rs.10/- per magazine. ( that comes to around a quarter dollar ) ... to read ! and the older issues come for half this price !

http://magma.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0505/index.html ( this is the May 05 online edition .. almost as good as the paper based edition ....but never as good. )

Did you know that the US govt tried to deliver to Cuba a box full of cigars soaked with botulinum ( a lethal biological poison ) during the 60s to kill him ? (him = Fidel Castro ...)

Did you know that India is a country with 80% of its population as Hindus .. ( India's population is a billion+ and growing steady ), with a sikh ( not sick ;-) ) Prime minister , a muslim president and with a Christian leader for the ruling party ?? ( can it be more politically secular ?? )

Living the Brdige way !

In the last few couple of days .. I read more than I had read in the last month . Read Bridget Jones Diary ( yet another time ) and towards the end of the book she writes "silently spending the weekends reading books and listening to classical music ... " . Mine was almost like that just for the 'subtle' difference that I took a trip yet another time to pondicherry ! Visited Auroville yet again and ate from the same beach side hotel yet again ! ... ( sometimes I wonder i used to like to ask myself "When was the last time I did something for the first time ??" - ad from Malaysian airlines . )

Started to read this rather interesting thing called Google Hacks and Iam pretty interested in that already ! I generally dont read tech books that rampant. But I felt this was quite interesting and try-it-out kind .

Thought for the day

Imagine if every Thursday your shoes exploded if you tied them the usual way. This happens to us all the time with computers, and nobody thinks of complaining.
— Jef Raskin, interviewed in Doctor Dobb's Journal

pretty interesting huh ? ..well ... why dont we complain .. and rather just restart ??

Back to a sense of hollow-meaninglessness

All my work at office is done . I got the necessary appreciation and it is all over with it .. now it feels like .. All-is-done-we-dont-need-you-anymore kind of feeling. The better side is I get a lot of time to read. And Iam reading two books at a time . I switch between them when I feel like ..

• Time quake - Kurt Vonnegut
• All I really need to know I learned in Kindergarten - Robert Fulghum

Both are good in their own ways . I like the insight in Fulghum and the language in Vonnegut ( Haven't you heard about the email hoax with Vonnegut's MIT commencement speech ( sunscreen speech ) for the class of '97 ?? )

Thought for the day :

Do one thing every day that scares you. (.. from Kurt's hoaxed commencement speech at MIT )

A Random Review of Music and the Lyrics 'behind'

Miss Sarajevo ! and The hands that built America - U2

Taking you slowly to the move, raising you to the mood and the rising tempo makes you go higher and then just carefully dropping you high up there .. just to let you float back to ground like a little orphan feather coming from an unknown bird . Slowly as you approach ground you realise you have been falling ... and the end is near ... but you still want to glide.. Alas its all over a little too fast.

Where the Streets have no name . - U2

The seemingly "endless-monotonous" guitar at the very end makes you spin around in circles

Hello - Stevie Wonder ( "Infact here's just another Ordinary day .... I just called to say I love you" )

You probably wont have a reason to call up the one you love ... but still when you call .. and talk.. it goes on for hours ... and you end up talking nothing !!

.......... to be continued someother time

I lost myself in the summer rain.

What more could be the signs of a beautiful day ?

• Finishing the 15 day-stretch of work early in the morning ( 0430 ) and going to sleep with a happy feeling.
• It rains after almost 9 months .
• standing out in the open and just watching it rain... and patiently waiting for it to subside ( and all the way enjoying it ) .. so that i can start to office ..
• Singing while riding bike on the way to office.
• Absolute feeling of refreshed enthusiasm and the false feeling of a different world in the office.
• Having coffee with someone whom I knew for the first time . ( known for three years )
• joining the people who are standing outside the office .. just to watch it rain and talking to them.
  
• and ... calling your best friend just to tell that its wonderful seeing the rain after a long time . ( I hear from the other end .. that its unbelievable ( but wonderful ) to see it raining !! )

Water and Rain ... I know how much it means to the people here .. And staying here for 3 years .. I have started to share their feeling.

Less-than-a-Million dollar Baby !

My brother told me to watch that movie .. when ever my brother suggests a movie .. I bet its worth it ! .. he suggested My Life as a Dog, Pulp Fiction, Dog Day Afternoon and Shawshank Redemption. and now ...the Million dollar baby .. Somehow I just could not fully appreciate it .. though partly I got into the swing of it . It was much hyped for me . Maybe its the company that matters.