Amina clap clap clap
Katamina clap clap clap
Sing-a-Song clap clap clap
Ding-a-Dong clap clap clap
Carrom Board clap clap clap
Barom Board clap clap clap
S.T.O.P Stop :)

(I wasn't happy to find that all my friends and cousins remembered the last two lines and I did not!)

In the last eight years, I have successfully transitioned from crying at the sight of roadkill to casually commenting on it. Now when I see a dead deer or raccoon, I am thinking "Fresh Kill" or "Flat Meat" like I am about to pull over and decide which one to have for dinner! It still makes me queasy and I go quiet for a few minutes, but I think I am less sensitive to it now.

In some U.S. states it is legal and even encouraged to eat roadkill. Makes sense! Take just the fact that 1.5 million deer meet their end on the road every year in the US. It made me wonder if the homeless shelters could somehow take advantage of this ... perhaps with the help of the State Trooper Association or the Dept. of Transportation?

There are tons of recipe books and websites dedicated to roadkill --- deer, raccoon, skunk, moose, bear, wolf, dog, cat, rat, elk, armadillo, small and large birds, rabbit, turtle, kangaroo, opossums, some snakes and reptiles, and hold your breath... porcupine!

It was as though the entire zoo was let out on the road to be tattooed with tire threads! You could just look out your car window for some nature time (even if it is more morbid than seeing live ones behind bars)

A few years ago, we bumped into a very friendly couple in La Jolla in Sandiego who (apart from teaching us how to pronounce La Jolla) enlightened us on local culture... there was a whole assortment of facts peculiar only to san diego that we were happy to learn about... But related to roadkill, I remember being told that Roadkill Bingo was a popular game in the west coast. It is a nice way to kill time in long distance travel while encouraging kids to learn the animals of their natural habit.

Roadkill undoubtedly is a worldwide phenomenon (at least wherever there are roads with lots of traffic) There is clearly a lot of culture developed around it... For instance, I saw an interesting book that teaches you how to cook directly on a running car engine... I bet it was written by a very resourceful person who had a lot of experience making delicious meals out of fresh kill.

Having read Yann Martel's Beatrice and Virgil recently, I thought it was possible that roadkill art is popular with taxidermists. They could probably make a living by choosing to do just roadkill! So I went on a web search frenzy and found several sites full of roadkill art.




I also found lots of roadkill toys. Some look disgusting, or creatively mean-spirited, but there are a few that are actually not too bad. There is even a roadkilltoys.com (!)

About five years ago, Kraft Foods was forced to kill one of their gummy products. Their Trolli Road Kill Gummies were gummy-animals shaped like roadkill complete with tire threads. People thought it sent out a very bad message to kids. I wonder what that bad message was! Especially given that New Jersey, which strongly lobbied against this gummy actually lets you eat roadkill if you have a permit. Why then do they think it offensive to eat fake roadkill?

It is the equivalent of letting you eat a real human brain and banning the human brain shaped jello!

That also makes me wonder if there is protest against all other kinds of gross candy. I see several in candy stores. There are jello molds shaped like human body parts - heart, brain and intestines, candies shaped like eyeballs, sour gummies shaped like toilet plungers, bugs and worms, pigs pooping out candy. Is anyone protesting against them? (Not that I mind either way.)

One of my favor go-to comic books is Stone Soup's Road Kill for the Closet. FYI: It has nothing to do with roadkill. The comic is about a single mom bringing up her two kids. Living with her are also her mom and her recently-divorced sister who is in love with her neighbour! As simple as that. It is the most endearing comic I have read. Funny, heartening and absolutely lovable. Since the title has Road Kill on it, I thought now might be a perfect time to promote it. :)

I wonder if I might find this in my library: Flattened Fauna: A Field Guide to Common Animals of Roads, Streets, and Highways

I'll tell you what a perfect left-handed-compliment-almost-leaning-towards-the-compliment is! It is when someone says, "THAT lipstick post you wrote on your blog was lame. Most people reading your blog are undoubtedly men and may even be single. They won't dig that syrupy stuff unless it came with a pinup of a sexy woman wearing nothing but a pout... you even alluded to something nude"

That's right. I said Nude "lipstick"!

And guess what in that sentence really caught my attention? :)

Whether I inherited my grandmom's beauty and aesthetic sense or not, I certainly inherited her taste in lipstick shades! She always uses lipsticks in the most uncompromising shades of nude that are striking and subtle. And finding those shades of pink and red with the perfect amount of sheen of her liking is exasperating. But, I'll do it for her :)

Nude lipsticks are never nude in the true sense of the word. They have just about the right amount of color to complement one's attire and enhance the oomph that one needs to make a statement. I think it is especially sensuous when paired with smokey eye makeup.

But, I wonder if I use nude also because I don't have the artistic flair to try out other looks. But, if I did, wouldn't it just be lovely? Especially now that I feel like I need a miracle to look half decent!

I was sitting across this really pretty asian girl (also immensely-talented, as evidenced by her makeup) who looked so much like Kim Kardashian. She wore a figure-hugging black dress with cascading frills, some bold shimmering accessories, and dangerously high stiletto heels... But, it wasn't any of that or her long gorgeous hair and smokey eyes that I was covetously admiring.. It was her voluptuous lips in a shimmering silver! (and mind you, it looked far from glitzy... in fact, it was delicate and almost muted because of the way she wore it... in varying hues) It occurred to me that I have never tried that color on my lips! My life suddenly seemed dull and hollow. :)

Makeup is such a beautiful and intimate form of self-expression. One would think that all the skill and imagination it requires, the reciprocal interaction that it inspires, the emotions it conveys and the stories it tells would have made it an admired art form, but it only seems to have achieved that status in some circles! I wonder why that is... especially given that it is so ubiquitous (and varied)!

(With Nainamma- Dad's mom and Ammamma - Mom's mom)

I just got back from spending several weeks in India with family. The only way to describe the last few weeks is to go the Victorian novel route -- which is to use a million analogies and adjectives to describe the collision of emotions I felt with every breath. Either that, or I spend the next several weeks *scratch that* days processing my experience before presenting it to the external world. There is a fear that the longer I wait the farther I will go from it.

How do I go back and freeze time? How can I move on?

I am contributing to the million articles written by patients about weight gain from taking inhaled (like albuterol) and oral (like prednisone) corticosteroids for asthma. Stating the obvious, the side effects of these medications vary from person to person and also depend on the dosage and the length of time they are taken. If you've taken them long enough and have talked to a doctor, you know what these side effects are and also know what to do to deal with them. I realize that being a patient does not in anyway qualify me as an expert on this subject, so doctors, please don't hate me for sharing my experience. :) Here, I only speak of what I do to lose weight after my treatment. Correct me if I am wrong.

Every year, I gain at least 20 lbs when I take my medications and I try not to lose sleep over looking full-faced! It takes a lot of convincing to tell myself that the weight gain is a fair sacrifice for mending my breathing. But, the good news is that the side effects of steroids is temporary and with diet and exercise the weight gain can be easily reversed in a few weeks time. I find that the best way to go about undoing the weight gain is to first understand what causes it. From reading online and talking to doctors, these seem to be some reasons why steroids cause weight gain:

One, that steroids cause sodium retention and potassium depletion in the body. The two together cause increased fluid retention (edema) and swelling. I have a swollen face, and fair amount of fluid retention in my legs. I have been told that restricting the amount of salt you take and having a diet that is rich in potassium can help reduce fluid retention.

Two, that steroids cause an increase in appetite. This, in my opinion is the real enemy. Now it is easy to say one should be careful about their food intake, but when you are ravenous and feel like you can eat an elephant alive, this idea of self-control seems impossible to follow and "hard to swallow". What makes it worse is, even after you are off medication, you still continue to remain a slave to this eating habit that you developed during your treatment and keep blaming the steroid for your vices! I can see that I am becoming one of those people who is eternally fixated on food (especially the rich/junk kind) and keep blaming the steroids for it.

Three, that steroids cause us to excuse ourselves from physical activity. A part of this excuse is valid of course. You can't possibly work out if your asthma is exercise-induced, or you are wheezing or coughing incessantly and are breathless all the time. Also, steroids cause high blood pressure, body pain, muscle and bone weakness, and decrease in stamina (especially long-term use). In my case, the real reason for lack of physical activity is lethargy. Being on steroids sounds like a convenient excuse not to exercise, but it really is not. Ironically, lack of exercise leads to obesity and obesity increases chances of asthma and asthma intern leads to obesity (through steroid intake).

Medics seem undecided on whether exercise helps with prevention of asthma or not. Some suggest that some kinds of exercises (like pranayama and buteyko) stretch the lungs and bronchial tubes, which may help reduce resistance to breathing and even encourage normal diaphragmatic breathing. Exercise also improves one's tolerance to physical exertion. That being said, sustained aerobic exercises might trigger an attack, so talk to your doctor on what might suit you best. It is generally advised that asthmatics should exercise towards the lower end of their target heart-rate. Here are some exercises listed in the order of "least to most-likely to induce asthma": swimming, walking, cycling, treadmill running, outdoor running!

To summarize: eating many small meals throughout the day, decreasing calorie intake, salt and sugar intake (sugar because steroids also increase blood-sugar level), increasing calcium and potassium in-take and exercising should do the trick.

I know that sounds like a lot... especially considering that this cycle repeats itself every year. But then again, looking good in a month’s time and for a good 10 months at a stretch is reward enough.

This post does not address other short and long term side effects of corticosteroids, which I might write about when they begin to bother me as much as weight gain currently is. But, I am off my steroids for this year (I hope!) and am getting ready for my workout. Wish me luck :)

I find myself eating a lot of ice cream every time I think about money. It makes my stomach bloat from the lactose and exacerbates my asthma. Given the little money I have, it actually makes sense to either spend it all without worrying about my future OR squirrel away my savings under a tree and forget about it until I have become really old. Why must I put myself through this futile, soul-destroying obsession with accumulating mass (both weight-wise and wealth-wise)?

Today I was looking at some ancient coins from around the world with beautiful images of kings and celestial beings, royal emblems and cyphers, nature and art... all chiseled intricately in every kind of metal and in every possible shape. There is so much to appreciate in old money. The coins alone were designed to give pleasure through beauty, a concept I hope is true for today as well, although it is only in nostalgia that we sometimes appreciate beauty.

For instance, I think of India's early decimal coins (post-independence) that I used to find lying around in some drawers at home - the flower-shaped 2 and 10 paise, the square shaped 5 paisa, the hexagon shaped 3 and 20 paise, the round 25 and 50 paise... there was a variety in metal (bronze, copper, aluminum and nickel) that I don't think exists today. It is probably all ferratic stainless steel now. But when the steel coins were introduced, I remember being so beguiled by their smooth, shiny surface that I eagerly got rid of the old coins whenever I could to exchange them for shiny steel ones. Even now, I find new coins beguiling... I save dollar coins every time I get them, because they are so rare (I don't understand why!)... but I miss the variety in the old coins. Now I realize that all those old coins I took no notice of had stories to tell that I am only learning about now, after their disappearance.

I don't mean to go off on a tangent... but what the heck! I can speak of currency notes, can't I? It's not entirely off topic. :)

I remember the animals on Indian currency notes: the tiger, the rhinoceros and the elephant, all three of which I can't help but notice have dwindled to a few thousand in population today. I wonder if we will look back at the notes with these animals in the future and speak of them in a mythical way... Will we speak of them in the same way we do the coins of the old times with kings and celestial beings, royal emblems and cyphers, nature and art?

Suddenly money is looking more meaningful to me.

I read some very interesting stories on how money have been used over the years and how it has changed over time. I quite enjoyed the legendary stories around currency. It was compelling to see how it changed the course of history from time to time and easily created and destroyed empires and nations. There were also some fascinating articles on money in fictional works like books and movies. It was interesting to see how fiction borrows from reality, but also to see how it manages to be very different from all modern, and historic currency as well. In a way, fiction is exploring money in ways we haven't considered with much seriousness in real life.

By the time I came to our nonfictional present, the money world got very complex. For one thing, it is oftentimes not in a tangible form. Some of it went over my head, especially where it spoke of how money is organized today (I clearly live in some storybook world seeing as I find the past and the fictional world more relatable). I figured however, that the sheer complexity of today's financial markets, of currency management, exchange rates, financial infrastructures, foreign investments are overwhelming, but also fascinating. It is a beautiful world we live in where money flows in simple and complex ways almost artfully. I can imagine a whole orchestrated dance with several contrasting movements and prominent themes, competing for space and attention, while playing almost harmoniously... there are parts you can only perceive but can't see, so it can be as abstract as art... There are of course the discordant bits, but I think they only make it more real. (Art can also be discordant, can't it?)

Now I am ending my day with thoughts on how I would like to see myself... A money hoarder (of the realistic world with an eye on the future) or a coin collector (absorbed in a more abstract world with an eye on the past). The latter seems to be more promising of acquiring mass in a less soul-destroying way. Moreover, numismatics (currency collection) sounds so much more cooler than saving or investing.

Looking back at the last five years, the two things that have been consistent is how perfectly my age catches up with my waist size and how change has been the only constant!

Last year, I quit my job to pursue an entrepreneurial dream, worked on some interesting educational projects, went on a few vacations, survived some freak accidents, missed my husband sorely, but things haven't been entirely unpredictable... Everything I did, including choosing a risky career path, were conscious decisions! There have been times when I have forgotten that. I have been so caught up in this raw change and with questioning my dubious choices that I haven't relished the good times that have been staring at me. I have spent many days just thinking about how inadequate I am, and how alone I am in this inadequacy. There is always this wonder and amazement and how well everyone else seems to be doing, and how much more commendable their life choices are.

I have been telling myself that by 30 I want to be where I can look back at my life with some sense of self-worth, so that I can look forward to a more contented future. But, that would make 29 the cheerless gateway to an equally unknown decade. So perhaps, this year will be better spent regaining some spunk and clarity, and doing the right things with confidence?

Now I'm off on my awesome dinner date with my most favorite person in the whole entire universe!

---

I always do a gifts list cos I get the coolest gifts ever. :)

This year, I got:

The Taste of Tea DVD, 
Snap Circuits, 
6-in-1 solar robot kit (wrapped in this really cool paper with a little dog stuck on top of it), 
An ipad, 
A wireless keyboard, 
Tickets to The Blue Mug play, 
Tickets to Vijay Iyer's Tirtha concert (with R.Prasanna and Nitin Mitta), 
A few inches in my new TV :)
A pretty salwar with matching necklace and earrings, 
Two beautitful vases (to paint on)
Some pretty handmade earrings,
An amazing pencil sketch of me,
Tons and tons of birthday wishes - some very endearing emails, birthday songs, some old photographs,  
Lunches, dinners,
Some IOUs

For many years, it was a struggle finding a bed to sleep on in my house. Every night, I would have to look around to see if there was an unoccupied bed in one of the rooms that I could sleep on. Sometimes, it would help that I slept off while watching TV in the living room, and then my dad, or older brother, or one of the uncles would lift me and drop me on some bed. The next morning I would get reprimanded for putting them through the agony. It never really occurred to me to complain that I had no permanent bed to sleep on. It was almost an absurd thing for me to ask for... like a kid demanding his own car. For one thing, I didn't see my brother or cousins demanding a bed. I didn't know how they dealt with it. It seemed like a thing to figure out on your own and I clearly wasn't smart enough. So, I was both sheepish about this ploy of mine where I acted like I fell asleep while watching TV, and at the same time proud of outsmarting them.

For a few months I used to sleep in my grandfather's room, except for the few days that his brother, or some other relative visited us!

If I was tired of looking for a room, I would knock on my parents' door in the middle of the night and ask if I could sleep next to them. Mom always thought it was because I wanted to snuggle with her, and would choke up with motherly affection. When mom's maternal instincts kick in, she can give the melodramatic soaps a run for their money! But soon the halo of maternal love would fade and give way to her whining about this becoming a routine. Dad would then arrange for a place for me to sleep and all balance would be restored! (at least for a few days until I was forced to go back to my nomadic existence and this cycle would repeat itself again and again)

Then came the festivals and functions. You would think having a house full of guests would make my life hell. But, working out where I would sleep was the easiest during this time. Come night, when it was time to go to bed after all the festivities, the living rooms and studies (yes, we had multiple studies and also many empty, unused rooms) would be transformed into sleeping areas, with dharis (quilts) spread out all over the floor to accommodate everyone. All I had to do was settle on one of them and that was that! Imagine my excitement when suddenly I was indulged with choice! Usually all the kids were accommodated in one room, and we would stay up all night, talking and playing until we were so tired that we fell asleep clueless about how or where we were sleeping.

All this was new and exciting to my visiting cousins, but to me, it was an everyday affair! The excitement for me was in that both entertainment and accommodation were both getting resolved!

In summers, a lot of us would sleep in the "triangle room", which was the main living room that opened to an indoor courtyard! All the bedrooms had air-coolers, but we were still too young to enjoy the privilege... so "triangle" was where we slept. Hyderabad winters are quite hot. In the month of May and June, the temperature rises up to 44 degrees. But, the nights would occasionally get breezy, and it would sometimes rain in the courtyard and the room would smell of earth. This was my most favorite part.

Then one day, my uncle and aunt who were in the room next to my parents' room moved to their own apartment! I then jumped at this opportunity and bawled to my mom that I wanted a bedroom like every other normal kid in the world. I finally thought I was old enough to demand it! (I was about 13 or 14)

She thought it was a fair demand, and was quite surprised that I didn't express this desire earlier... dad on the other hand thought it was "highly unnecessary". Bedrooms were considered something of an extravagance and he didn't want to spoil us with it. But, finally, mom petitioned for the room to my grandparents who halfheartedly agreed, and it was the greatest day of my life!

I have to clarify here, that in a joint family like ours, we constantly had guests coming and going, who would sometimes stay for weeks or months with or without notice. And it was therefore necessary that we always had furnished and unoccupied bedrooms to accommodate them whenever they wanted to stay over. Bedrooms therefore were a luxury! I can appreciate that better today than I did as a teenage kid craving my own space.

But I finally got my bedroom and was to share it with my two brothers who were as thrilled about it as I was. My younger brother especially was ecstatic. I still remember that sweet toothy smile he had plastered on his face for days. We first ran to Synthesis library next door and picked up two posters - a huge one of Shahrukh Khan, another small one of Aamir Khan, and some stuff toys. My younger brother also bought some stickers of Yokozuna, Hulk Hogan, Undertaker and a few race cars. We then went with mom to the fabrics store to pick curtains and bedsheets. We got flashy mickey mouse curtains for the doors and windows, and I picked a bedsheet with lots of cartoon characters for my bed. My younger brother picked a batman bedsheet for his bed. By the time we came home, there were three old, rickety cots, each of a different dimensions arranged in a row in the bedroom. On them there were three really dusty mattresses, each of a different thickness! With the help of the servant, we got off as much dust as we could and got on with decorating the room. Our decoration sense was less governed by aesthetic and more by the stereotypes of what we dreamed "kids bedrooms" were like. So we tried to incorporate as many of the cliched styles as we possibly could! Who knows how long this bedroom extravaganza would last!

My older brother eventually moved to his own bedroom. In fact, it was an outhouse bachelor-pad with two rooms, a courtyard and a terrace, a separate entrance from everyone else, and also a makeshift-study in a small area behind the staircase that could fit his study table and a book shelf. I think he was the only person in the house to whom it occurred that the empty rooms could actually be occupied! To everyone else, it seemed like sacrilege to break this tradition of letting the empty rooms be! Why did I have to wait for my uncle and aunt to leave to claim my space?

Still, now I was lucky that my bedroom was the biggest one in the house! It was also next to a huge verandah the same size as my room! With mom's help, I planted a few flowering plants and maintained a little garden there. My uncle also gave me a passion tree that I tried to grow rather unsuccessfully. Part of the problem was that I had to battle with the monkeys that visited that verandah every evening and broke my pots! To add to this, at one point mom also bred some rabbits in that verandah for her school. They were white rabbits with bright red eyes and looked adorable. But, rabbits are also smelly and multiply very quickly. It became a nuisance having them around. But, I couldn't complain.

Eventually, our bedroom acquired a small tape recorder, a 17" color TV, a large aquarium with over 15 fishes (my younger brother was crazy about fishes)... four steel almirahs (that I hated but had to live with... although until I had a bedroom I had no closet for my clothes and had to make do with a shelf in my dad's closet...so it was a privilege that I could have appreciated, but didn't!) Life was blissful!

Eventually the novelty of having my own bedroom wore off. I also missed my nomadic adventures. Then one day, my aunt had a really bad accident. And being the workaholic that she is, she needed help with typing her reports into a word document on the computer every night! At that time, I was also addicted to the internet and thought it was a perfect arrangement that I could use the computer for my pleasure, also help her out with her work, and sleep in the bedroom next to her. Eventually, I did this for over a year, and found myself becoming more and more interested in her work. It was the last room I was to sleep in before I moved out of the house! (Incidentally, the room was called "question mark room" because of its unique shape... and it really settled the question of where I slept in that house)

It is no big secret that Math and I are as far removed from each other as night is from day! But today, I was looking at my tripod lamp and wondering if I remember anything at all from my trigonometry class in high school. You can imagine my utter delight when I remembered:

Law of Sine

a / sin A = b / sin B = c / sin C

Law of Cosine

c2 = a2 + b2 – 2ab Cos C

Law of Tangents

(a – b) / (a + b) = tan [1/2 (A – B) ] / tan [1/2 (A + B) ]

I can't wait for Tapi and Anand to see this post! (Do you think they will be impressed?)

Did you know that the Anagram for Relationships is "Phoniest Liars"? And we wonder why relationships are so troubling! :)

First a disclaimer: Seeing as most astute people in the world give relationship advice only if they can rake in profit (self-help books?), you will have to credit me for being less opportunistic! I am not trading my relationship-wisdom for your "rainy day" money! I am giving it away for free. Also, there's a chance you might think I am being very boastful, but don't judge me too badly for it. Afterall, boastfulness may be a disreputable virtue, but it is not the antithesis of truthfulness. So I request you to focus on the truthfulness of this post, while I focus on the boastfulness (and being disreputable!). :)

I was telling a friend that had I not been married to Tapi, I would have been disqualified from all matrimonial websites by the uncles and aunties of the world! (also, as someone rightly pointed out, even being married to Tapi disqualifies me from matrimonial websites). They would have written me off as a disaster and ostracized me for maligning their morally pure online space!

Every marriageable man and woman listed on these matrimonial sites are an epitome of beauty, comeliness and perfect-morality! They seem to have no flaws!

I on the other hand am short-ish, dark (in matrimonial terms: "not entirely white-ish and somewhat wheatish" complexioned) (!), chubby-ish, not much to look at, casteless (with no tradition of arranged marriages in three generations on both sides of my family... except rarely and that too disastrously...), in an unconventional line of work (also currently without job!), easily attracted to men (the more the merrier), need constant entertainment (whether with spouse or otherwise), borderline alcoholic (to brahmin standards), not religious (except second-handedly... erm.. i mean, i maintain some high-level curiosity), don't cook (note: i didn't say can't cook), prone to hiding my favorite food, love to hate family, don't (yet) care about having kids, and in the rare occasion that I do have some unquestionable values they are unconventional and one doesn't know what to make of them... I am opinionated, judgmental and argumentative.

But, somehow, seeing as I have been in a long term relationship for over 10 years with one very admirable man, I can take credit for excelling at this committment-thing like nobody's business! (TAKE THAT you judgmental uncles and aunties! Slap!) :) I can challenge most people that my marital life is more honest, peaceful and exciting than theirs! Tapi and I quite enjoy our questionable lives together (although his life is much less questionable than mine) and are madly in love with each other! I can't remember the last time we had a fight. I get jittery if I don't hear from him for two hours when he's at work. I rarely take a vacation without him, and when I do, I drive people nuts with my sulking and whining until we are back in our intertwined hug like Richandamy in Zits. My family thinks this obsession we have for each other is borderline unhealthy... and we might come to regret it one day, since we make no time for social life. But so far, so good! (Social life doesn't seem to miss us either!)

Here is what I think about most 'rocky' marriages (please forgive my generalizations. Today I am celebrating Blanket Statements Day.... which happens to coincide with Prabha is the Greatest and the Best Day)

I think it is very petty why most people get married or divorced! And this I think is true not just for arranged marriages. It maybe true for every kind of relationship that ends up in a marriage. When you get into a relationship it is because of a long laundry-list of qualities you like about a person, and when you get out of a relationship it is with a long laundry-list of complaints about the person... Finding a spouse seems to be no different from finding a roommate or buying a hair product! Then there are these "surprises about" and "disappointments with" each other that keep us amused or frazzled. Everyday is like an episode out of a soap opera. You feel like you have to have a say is what this other person IS... you comment on their values and choices as if you have earned your right to do so. (I so despise the nagging-variety couples... especially when they nag the hell out of each other in public and think it is funny, or acceptable! It is disrespectful beyond words... not just to each other, but to everyone they put it through)

I constantly keep hearing words like compatibility, adjustment, compromises, sacrifices, expectations and rights when people define marriages. In fact, these words seem more synonymous with marriages nowadays than they were a generation ago! (Am I wrong?) Is this all people think marriages are about? (Come to think of it, my single friends impart this wisdom about "adjustments" more than my married friends do!... ok... some of my newly married friends do as well...This I think is ironic. How can people (want to) get into a relationship feeling THIS pessimistic about it? If it makes them feel better, I'll say, I don't find happily married people using these words to describe their relationships! Also the "not-married-but-madly-in-love"-varieties can't be bothered about defining their relationships... which is lovely and refreshing to see! They look so smitten and adorable.)

In fact, getting married is not "life changing" at all... sorry to disappoint. It is really nothing! While change has been the constant in my life, change because of marriage remains an elusive concept! (Likewise, Tapi may be losing hair, but I have little to do with it! I can only take credit for his good looks.... they say when two people live together for a long time, they start resembling each other ... If you don't agree with me, wait till I lose hair!)

If physical attributes or a person's interests or character are the only things that attract us to them... then seeing as these are not permanent attributes, and that we could also be wrong in our judgment of them, it makes more sense to get into such a relationship in a non-commited way than in a committed way! If you suddenly find yourself less attracted to a person... isn't it more convenient to get out of that relationship without having to make rounds to the court than otherwise? There has to me more to a marriage than physical and intellectual attraction! There has to be that whatchamacallit that will never cease to exist! There has to be that whatchamacallit that continues to exist even after the novelty of the physical and intellectual attraction wears off. And that whatchamacallit can't be something you can define in words!

I am also quite certain that it is near impossible to adjust, compromise and cater to the expectations of a person in the long-term... At some point it is bound to boomerang and all hell will break loose.

Committed relationships are more about being and letting be. It is about two people ungrudgingly letting each other make selfish choices and taking pleasure in seeing them feel blissful and contended. It is the most deferential and considerate thing you can do for your loved ones (also applicable to other family members and friends!) :) I think it helps to focus less on what we like about our loved ones and more on that we love them!

Moreover, divorce is the worst thing that can happen to good people (when I say good people, I mean those who otherwise don't deserve to go through that kind of hurt)! It is disrespectful, condescending and speaks very little about your own morality! ... how can you marry someone and then not find anything nice about them to like, to the extent that you don't want to see them for the rest of your life! If divorce makes you happier, you have to question your motive for marrying this person in the first place. Like I said, this is more understandable in a non-commited relationship than in a committed relationship (I'll even say, the break up in a non-committed relationship is less disrespectful even)... And why must we like or not like people that badly, especially if we don't find them morally reprehensible?

I don't know if I have this relationship thing figured out. So this is just a thought that I am going to consider... and I am going to consider this for my other relationships as well. The world is so full of attractive people. I think we ought to work on creating meaningful, committed and non-committed ties of many different kinds with everyone... :) (Ok. Stalkers. Keep out!)

(By the way my blanket statements don't apply to unequal relationships dictated by chauvinism, or the kind of arranged marriages where two people are forced to come together whether they want to or not. In these, the rabbit warren is more convoluted and confusing. I won't know how to find my way from one burrow to another. I am safe for having not entered it!)

Final disclaimer: This post is full of generalizations. As I read it I can see some erroneous statements. But, in my defense, I also scattered disclaimers all through the post, and also couldn't have explained myself anymore, seeing as it is already so long!

Since ACs and I don't get along, Mom wanted a portable fan -- the standard oscillating pedestal kind with circular blades enclosed behind a steel grill. I can't bear the thought of that "homely" fan sitting in my living room. I can deal with a small, quiet, aesthetically pleasing tower fan maybe. -- like this one or this one. But, the monstrous, space-hogging ugliness she wants I just can't do!

To my utter delight, the tower fans have better reviews than the standard pedestal fans. They come with multiple speed settings, a remote control, dust/pollen filter, and an automatic shut-off feature. More than anything, they are lightweight, and less prominent!

Of course, I show this work of art to mom for approval and she views it with apprehension. What she wants is a fan that will blow air like a wind tunnel. She is used to having the ceiling fan on full blast even in winter, and is addicted to that breezy feeling with the air circulating all the time. For that purpose, the pedestal fan is a tested and proven contraption that has serviced mankind for generations! I call it the "thatha fan" (not that my granddad ever used it! It also occurs to me that our house never had one in all the years that I have lived there... but thatha fan it is)

Anyway, the phone conversation with mom was getting frustrating. For one thing, I wanted her to see beyond my predilection for aesthetic over comfort. I wanted her to acknowledge that the tower fan was more practical and sensible from every point of view. Just take the fact that we will use it for 10 days in a year when mom is here and won't know where to store it after she leaves. No matter what I said, and how I said it, she insisted that all I care about is the aesthetic! I lamented that reasoning with her was no different from reasoning with a blind man about color or a deaf man about sound! "I don't care about color or sound, give me breeze", she said!

Then, I wanted her to see that bigger is not always better and "small and sleek" does not mean "less powerful". I went on an analogy rampage: Gramophone vs. ipod, Air Cooler vs. Air Conditioner, Tube TV vs. Flatscreen, Grandfather clock vs. small digital clock... Much to my annoyance, my analogies had the opposite effect on her. Mom went off on a nostalgic excursion. I don't blame her. I could see myself buying into her nostalgia and craving the Gramophone, the Air Cooler, the Tube TV, and the Grandfather clock as well. :) But Screw nostalgia. I was not going to give in so easily!

Much to my disadvantage (and hers, I insist), Mom is stuck in her old world of tubelights and tape recorders and continues to adamantly disregard the awesomeness that is the 21st century... :)

So I finally screamed:

"Mom. Tower fan is all you are getting, period. It comes with three settings... Setting 1: Balmy October Night in Hyderabad; Setting 2: Blustery Evening in Besant Nagar Beach; Setting 3: Netherlands Wind Turbine. Setting 1: Underwear; Setting 2: Shorts; Setting 3. Sweatpants!"

"Fine. Wind Turbine Explosion in Sweatpants sounds good", she said.

Why do I feel like she won?

In the mean time, Tapi had a fun time representing our argument in paint!

I love giving out health reports on my blog. (Easier than talking to mom about them on the phone). Also, I have been told my health reports are fairly entertaining... so here goes.

Today I have an appointment with the doctor about the cough I've had for over a month now. For the most part, I feel fine during the day (I cough less), but my nights are punctuated with the singing of birds and crickets in my throat (cough cough cough)... at some point in the night, I begin to croak like a frog and it becomes unbearable. At this point, Tapi (who otherwise sleeps enviably well through my bird songs) wakes up and sits there staring at me 'in concern n all'. We then walk to the living room; he makes me tea; and I cough and read a book while he waits for my throat/lungs to settle! (which it invariably does even before I get to drinking tea). Then I get carried away by the book I am reading... and while I still cough intermittently, I could care less that I am coughing (much like during the day)!

So I figured, it may not be a morning-night thing after all. It is a vertical-horizontal thing. But, then again sometimes I am horizontal and I don't cough. It is a mystery to me how it appears and disappears the way it does. It is not quite clear to me if I cough more when I am outdoors, or running! Although I do cough sometimes and have thrown up once while/after running! It is all very puzzling to me.

Lately, I cough every time I change position. Like when I go from sitting to standing, from standing to walking... when I toss and turn in my sleep, when I open the window, when I close the window. It is as if every action I take is auspiciously marked with the echo of my throat.

Last month, I had deadly headaches all through the day, my jaw would vibrate every time I closed my mouth (I also locks up), and I would feel unbearable pain in my ears with a ringing sound, followed by my nose feeling pressure and I thought I showed all the classic symptoms of some rare unidentifiable disease. Strangely enough, if I think it is some rare and unidentifiable disease, I avoid going to the doctor lest he think this is all sham and too unreal... and wolf down sudafeds and the like until the symptoms vanish! Eventually everything else subsided except this stupid unrelenting cough.

Now when I go to the doctor, I won't have the drama of last month. I don't cough as much during the day and can't recreate my night scenario. So I am going to look incredibly stupid to him! Perhaps it will help if I tell him that Tapi thinks I am allergic to him, cos the cough only happens at night!

Do you think my doctor should read my post? I am tempted to give him a list of possibilities I dug up from the net. TMJ Disorder (lock jaw n all), Cough-Variant Asthma (which I was diagnosed with last year), Sinusitis (possible?), Spring Allergy (pollen in the air n all)... I wonder what my favorite doctor cousin Sveta thinks. I'm going to forward this post to her.


---

Back from the doctor. Asthma it is. Hail WebMD, FamilyDoctor and Google :)

My grandmom's sister had her clinic at home. It was this two-room outhouse with the bare minimum - a bed, medical supplies, some miscellaneous equipment ... like I said, the bare minimum. I don't really know how much she used the clinic. She worked in the hospital for the most part, but I presume she had a lot of patients visiting her at home as well.

The things that fascinated me most in her clinic were the stethoscope, the BP monitor, the weighing scale, and the old-style typewriter. Every time I visited her place, I would check my weight, feel my heartbeat (unsuccessfully), and then type out a complicated diagnosis for myself (mostly about not finding my heartbeat). I used to think the prescriptions doctors gave out were rather cold and impersonal. If a person needs poetic assurance about their life, it makes most sense to give it to them when they are ill and scared, than at any other time and by any other person who is not a doctor. I had all kinds of ideas on what kind of poetic assurance would make me feel better. For the most part, because my family is full of doctors, I didn't need to assure myself of getting better. My prescriptions came with the warmest hugs and I knew I would get well soon.

It's nice to have doctors at home, except when you want to be pampered (beyond the warm hug that is). I remember my friends' parents making them the nicest comfort food and indulging them with every attention (short of singing them a lullaby) throughout the period of their sickness (usually mild fever). It was as if their expressions of tenderness would nurse their kids back more than the doctors ever could. My family on the other hand, refrained from the melodrama but surrounded me with more doctors than I needed (including medical intern cousins showing off their knowledge and discussing the prognosis in unnecessary, complicated detail). Moreover, what was especially irksome was being used as a guinea pig for all the "sample" medicines that came their way. At my uncle's place where I lived for two years, I wished sometimes when I had a fever that he would give me a crocin (by mistake), instead of some nonproprieteric paracetamol tablet he wanted to try on me. Sometimes, these medicines came in boxes that didn't even have proper labels on them, which was scary. If my uncle and aunt (who too is a doctor) weren't related to me, I'd be sure as eggs is eggs that they were hellbent on dispatching me once and for all.

I don't quite remember having to go to a non-family doctor for medical treatment... except for my dentists, who too were either family friends or my cousins' bosses. I've had quite a few dentists who've treated me over the years and they've all ended in disaster. I have a fairly normal oral hygiene and am part of the statistical majority, which means I have more fillings than I have teeth. But, the reason it was disastrous had nothing to do with my oral hygiene. Every time, I warmed up to a dentist, he either got transferred, had to retire after a serious medical condition, or died of natural causes or accidents. There was one young dentist (my uncle's close friend) who lived next door. He stayed with me for the longest period, which is three years... until I moved out of the city! Now, I refrain from going to a dentist unless absolutely necessary... which is to say when my life and well-being is more important to me than theirs! Still, I couldn't be entirely wrong if I said dental treatments were bad both for me teeth and my dentists? My teeth are still rotten, terrible!

Have you ever noticed how sometimes you feel sick as a dog, until you drive to the doctor? ... and then all of the sudden the symptoms vanish and you feel like a goofball wasting their time? I hate when that happens. It doesn't help that my mom's side of the family is full of hypochondriacs (very unlike my dad's side). I have an uncle who drinks only bottled water even when he is at home for fear of getting sick from some incurable water disease! He was a police officer having nothing to do with the medical field, but his study has medical books of every description. He even authored a few books on health and medicine (I don't know how popular they are... but that's besides the point).

My brother and I inherited some of this hypochondria from my mom's side. I wake myself up in the night at least a few times just to make sure that I am not dead. Interestingly enough, I tolerate a lot of pain and avoid having to go to the doctor if the injury doesn't have to do with my respiratory system. For instance, I didn't go to the eye doctor for over a year until it became dangerous to drive without a new pair of glasses! (My myopia increased from -3.5 to -5 during this time) On the other hand, the minute my nose gets blocked, I rush to the doctor to make sure my lungs are getting enough oxygen. Last night, I was hyperventilating because my nose got cleared and I could breathe more easily than I ever have! This should have been good news, but I thought my lungs may not be able to handle the extra air supply all of a sudden.

My hypochondria is always logical or consistent. For instance I enjoy some kinds of outdoor activities that one would think would trigger my asthmatic symptoms! But, every time Tapi gets really ill, I start hyperventilating out of fear that should something happen to me that is life threatening, he might not be able to drive me to the doctor. Then the fear manifests itself with physical symptoms like the chest getting tighter, the heart beating faster, my breathing getting weird and before you know it, I have a full blown panic attack for a few minutes until I reason it out to myself or Tapi assures me that he can drive me to the doctor! Even now, when he gives me a tablet, I check the expiry date, the dosage, and make sure he opens the pill in front of me (or I open it) for fear that he may be (unknowingly) poisoning me! (I hope my mother-in-law isn't reading this!)

Did you know that doctors google their patients all the time? I wonder what my doctor(s) here, at home and everywhere think of my post!

(Please be forewarned. This post is full of incongruous tangents, as happens a lot when I am ranting)

One of the things I do often is make a list of all the feelings I bought myself in a day and think about whether they were worth my time or not, and if they should have even been allowed.

I think we all do this subconsciously. Our tweets and facebook statuses are evidence of this. Some of us steer clear from publicizing our feelings, but that is because we like to keep them to ourselves without feeding people’s curiosity or eagerness to judge us.

But, our whole life can be summed up as an activity of collecting feelings. Some of us choose to collect a wide assortment of them, and some of us stick to collecting a lot of the same few feelings we think pleasurable.

But, if you consciously list out the feelings you bought yourself, you will start to see patterns in your attitudes. I do this mainly to keep myself entertained when I am occupied in some mundane activity. It’s nice to let your mind go off on tangents and think about random things with the tap running in the background when you are doing the dishes. :)

But I encourage you to try it. Here are some starters.

Who did you meet today and what kind of social conversation did you make? What do you like most about that fragrant, all-natural organic handmade soap you bought at the specialty store? What do you think of abstract art? What was the last movie you watched that you found so offensive that you thought it shouldn’t have been made? What kind of advertisements appeal to you?

The thought that’s currently occupying my mind is on the subject of creativity. I have been wiki-hopping and picking up all kinds of thoughts about this seemingly uncomplicated word.

What I set out to do was understand the value of creativity, mostly related to my work. Sometimes I am vexed by the limitations I need to conform to when I am thinking of ideas for my projects (because they make no business sense!). Then, I take a little break to encourage bitter thoughts about how my brilliance and creativity are being thwarted by these imbecilic notions of what makes sense and what does not! Why can’t people just accept that “I am talent” and shower me with praise (and money)

Mainly, how is a person to engage in the activity of being creative (or innovative) if people are constantly drawing perimeters around what is creative and what is not, what should be allowed and what should not?

As I was moping about all of this, my mind wandered slightly off-topic (although, if I want to, I can connect the dots and make them seem related). I was thinking about art. What if the role of art was not to entertain or make a compelling point, but to simply be art! By this, I don’t mean creating anti-art or anti-anti-art, but embracing the idea that art is whatever is presented as art.

The minute you define art even as one that rejects all prior definitions of art, you are creating a new definition, which too should be rejected by that same logic. But, what if we stopped defining art and started embracing everything more open-mindedly. By this I don’t mean we should accept everything we don’t find beautiful as beautiful, but that we could accept that everything need not be beautiful or compelling! Can we not collect more feelings from art than just the small set that we have assigned to it? Can we also not assess one art as being better than another because it possesses more layers of meaning?

This brings me to another of my peeves. How do we decide which cause is worthy of prioritizing over another? I keep looking at how cause marketing is evolving and making remarkable things happen. We are suddenly more aware and more pumped up about creating change than even before. I find that I am on both sides of this equation (I am the “marketer” and the “marketee”), but I especially enjoy looking at what kind of feelings businesses and nonprofits are tapping into (beyond our feelings of empathy and compassion that is) to make us respond to their satisfaction.

For instance, I was thinking about the environment, and how one of our justifications for saving the planet seems to be that it is beautiful and therefore worth saving. I am constantly watching wildlife documentaries and wondrously admiring these animals, as if the only reason they need to be saved is because they inspire wonder or awe! What if they were not so beautiful and do not inspire wonder or awe? Shouldn’t we still save them?

What if we are to prevent the extinction of tribal communities, not because we think they have a rich cultural heritage and are full of ancient wisdom, but because they deserve to live on this planet as much as we do regardless of whether we can appreciate them or not!

How about we let people, nature and things be, simply because they deserve to be and not because they appeal to our sense of gratification and our estimation of what is worthy of keeping!

You can see how my mind keeps wandering aimlessly. Now that I have ranted and gone off on tangents, I have lost the initial anger I felt a few minutes ago towards my work. Now I can go back to it in peace and conform to the limitations imposed on me without feeling so bitter :)

Last week, I had a really dull heart. Nothing would inspire the slightest amount of joy and believe me I tried! But, it didn't help that I watched a film about a young girl abused by her parents and made pregnant twice by her own father, another film about a Holocaust survivor who was used as a human guinea pig in genetic experiments, and a third one about a girl kidnapped and sold to prostitution at the age of 7!

In retrospect, I didn't try hard enough to cheer myself up.

It was depressing because I had to say goodbye to a few friends. Some of them moved to a new city and that's fine. I don't mind those kinds of farewells at all. They mean a whole new world of possibilities for them and I hope they will translate to joyous reunions at various points in our lives!

But, the worst is where you lose your friends forever. They are gone whether you say goodbye to them or not, and their absence is the only kind of presence you are left with for the rest of your life. Sometimes these farewells happen suddenly where you have no time to prepare, but they leave behind a deep scar that may never heal.  

But what do you do about the kinds of farewells that come with a lot of notice? How do focus on the now, and make the best of the time you have without thinking of the eventual end? And what if you can't make the best of the time you have but don't want to look back in regret!

Death is really cruel on people who are alive. I realize with each person I lose that it becomes harder and harder to cope with.  
   
I used to sit in front of the green screen in the film studio wondering which part of the world it could put me in. I could be in the dystopian future or standing in front of the blue waters in some tropical island or driving a flying car in space... My favorite places to go to were the busy streets in Hyderabad. Sometimes, I liked to imagine that I was sitting in the verandah with my grandparents and watching the rain while having one of those loud, passionate discussions about really absurd things.
   
The reality was, I was setting the green screen up for someone else who knew exactly where it would put them. And soon they would not only be able to see themselves in that world but also make us believe that they belong there. I was to make that happen as believably as possible!  

Still, I used to tell myself that I was luckier than the actors for several reasons. For one thing, I can't act to save my life. But more than that, I was lucky because these actors couldn't let their imagination go wild like I could. They were limited to their preordained roles in a preordained setting! If the scene demanded that they fight a giant squid in the middle of the rainforest, they have to put that thoughts of driving a flying car to rest and pull out the sword and attack the now defenseless (and invisible) squid to the director's screaming instructions! 

The other exciting thing I could do was go into the editing suite and change the backgrounds behind the actors as many times I wanted. So the fight could take place in Mordor, in the realm of Sauron or in a Jedi temple. Of course, I would have to eventually put them back in the rainforest as was ordained by my boss!

These were the small perks of working as an entry-level cinematographer or editor. I think of my green screen days when I am reminiscing the good times with my friends... only, now I am beginning to feel more and more like the actor whose character and story was predetermined, and there is nothing left to imagine.

In the next few days, while you won’t even have noticed I’ve gone, I will have been accomplishing something exciting. :)

A thought came to mind. There is a certain age where you have the energy and drive to take risks and do unimaginable things. It is also when you wish you had the means to do more. You hold on to the thought of acquiring those means eventually. That’s what keeps you going.

Then there is the age where you lack the energy, lose the drive (to pessimism maybe), but achieve a state of mental stability that keeps you grounded in reality. It is also when you have the means to do more, but no desire to. Your lack of aspiration becomes your key to contentment. What little desire you have, you pin on your children, or get yourself a Bugatti Veyron (if you can afford it)

Wouldn’t it be nice if you could arrive at the age where you had the energy and drive to take risks, and the means and desire to do unimaginable things, while staying grounded in reality?

Seeing as I am not driving the Bugatti Veyron, and am not getting any younger, I am left with some energy, some drive, some mental stability…

They say my desires are not grounded in reality. But, I have a lot working in my favor. Shouldn’t I put them to some use before I am left just desiring with no means of fulfilling them (to whatever possible extent)?

Sometimes it helps to have a blog. You can say things on it without feeling self-conscious or obliged to explain your actions. You can just say, I will be gone for a bit to accomplish something exciting. :)

(I will be on twitter if I can’t help myself)

In the spirit of the snow season, and because the atmospheric water vapor in the Deece threatens to freeze again and form a mass of ice crystals and fall as white flakes (possibly for the last time), I am going to allow myself some Snowbama humor on this blog. :)



Today, I walked two miles to a diner on a slippery main road next to a sidewalk piled up with snow and wasn't happy about it at all. Moreover, my friend who accompanied me on my way back slipped on ice and bruised her knee quite badly. I was wondering whose responsibility it is to make the roads pedestrian-friendly. Does my city council's snow ordinance say anything about requiring the sidewalks to be clean and safe to traverse at all times? It absolutely does!... I called their hotline with the intention of reading their ordinance to them and lamenting about the hazardous walking conditions they are having us live with, but their hotline is warm at best and directs you to an answering machine. Very annoying! If they don't do anything to clear the snow after tonight, I am going to try the Public Works Department next. Think that might work?

Sitting on a warm bed.

Sunlight pouring into the room.

A book in hand.

The sound of traffic.

The smell of jasmine

Mom’s long winding conversation on the phone.

Cousins floating in and out.

Laughter.

Unbearably loud TV.

Servant sweeping the floor.

A nanny for every kid. A driver for every adult. A helper for every task.

The smell of rain.

The taste of mangoes.

The sight of my grandmom. My missing granddad.

The company of my grandparents.

Their beautiful study. Lovely old books. Their old furniture.

The gardens where time stands still.

The arguments. The opinions. The pride. The criticism.

Politics. Money.

The gossip. The lack of silence.

Variety in Advertisements.

People selling things.

People staring...gawking... gazing.

Me Avoiding, ignoring.

Us Fighting, Bargaining...always Negotiating.

My brother on the guitar.

Dad on his cell phone.

Several pictures on the wall.

Newspapers and magazines all over the table.

Missing memorabilia, fading nostalgia.

The battle with the geaser.

The whirring of the fan.

The sight of a lizard next to the tube light. Roaches in the kitchen. My mom’s denial of their existence.

Cousins in palatial houses. Cousins in tiny flats. English speaking cousins. Artsy cousins. Intellectual cousins. Brainiac cousins. And the rest.

Idlis for breakfast. A jam session with food. Variety, spice of life.

Concerts. Music. Movies. Entertainment.

Art exhibitions.

Drinks. Chaos. Mayhem.

College kids. Fat bellied men. Beer.

Crowded pubs filled with smoke.

Being driven and then driving :))

Nature. Old trees. Cows. Dogs.

Buildings of every kind and size.

Zoos, Museums and other pretentious “avoidables” that I must not avoid!

Fashion. Bragging. Class. Mass.

Abundance of religion.

Shopping malls. Markets. Book Stores. Tiny Shops packed to the brim.

Weddings. Parties. Gatherings. Socializing.

Dad's constant traveling.

My touristy explorations and wistful pursuits.

Living it up. Fitting in. Getting out.

This is the India in my head. Is this the India of May 2010?

There is nothing natural about being me. 

On an average occassionless day, what I am is a result of painful facial waxing, careful primping and preening, battling with frizz and then straightening or curling, scrupulously concealing, calculatedly revealing, managing my everyday fragrances, selecting my "occassionless" makeup, choosing the right dress and then the right accessories, and then after all that making a statement about who I am and why I am through how I am!  If I don't look dolled up enough, don't let it fool you into thinking I am what I am because I could care less, or want to look real. There is nothing simple and natural about being me! 

Today, is not an average occassionless day and the pressure of living up to it is daunting!

I am going to ignore those who are plain sick of Hallmark’s internationally anointed day of love. I would much rather celebrate a day of forced romance than anything else.

But, I was thinking about how awful tomorrow can be for broken hearted people world over. What a painful reminder it is that life isn’t what you hoped it would be.

What is even more disenchanting is the results on googling “ease a broken heart”.

The first link says

“Acetaminophen, the active ingredient in Tylenol may not only ease physical pain, but the pain of social rejection as well!”

The second link offers a pointwise solution that begins with

“Let your broken heart be broken. Don't hide it. Don't bury it. Don't ignore it. Don't numb it. Don't curse it. A broken heart is proof that you took a risk, that you were open, that you followed your energy, that you saw possibility, that you believed. But now you lie shattered and split, and it feels terrible. You want the pieces back. You want your heart pounding as it did before. But life is not meant to be filled only with rousing beats; it needs monotone hums as well. Just as things are built, they are crumbled; just as plants grow, they wilt; just as we live, we die. Do not let the significance of this moment be lost in a mad rush to put the pieces back together. Be broken for a while. A heart has a way of mending on its own.”

The third link points to a witchcraft website that offers a magic spell to ease the broken heart with impossible-to-find ingredients.

“Strawberry tea bag, a stick from a willow tree, sea salt, 2 pink candles, a mirror, a pink drawstring bag, one quartz crystal, a copper penny, a bowl made of china, a teaspoon of dried jasmine, a teaspoon of orris root power, strawberry leaves, a teaspoon of yarrow, ten drops of apple blossom oil and ten drops of strawberry oil”

My "happily single" friends seem to be coming up with some desirable celebration ideas. Perhaps there is some lesson to be learnt from them? In the meantime, Tapi and I will try to keep out of reach of the disillusioned lot while celebrating our undying love.

Ok! Here's my two cents for the broken hearted. Tomorrow might not be a bad day to watch 500 days of Summer or Prime or The Break Up.

Happy Valentines Day!

I am afraid I will keep going off on tangents with this post. Therefore, I will begin with clarifying that this is just my musing on my actions and reactions. There is a sensual side to seeing and doing, reading and watching, interacting and sharing, thinking and dreaming... and in my case I think they all point to my unhealthy interest in myself, in you, and your excessive interest in me! :)

Nothing excites me as much as foreplay and persuasion. I am a big sucker for reciprocal action and could be happy giving or taking from an interaction as long as it encourages pleasant afterthought. What I also like is living vicariously through people. I like taking in their experiences and getting into their minds and seeing the world through their unique perspectives. It is something of an exploration of their physical and abstract selves as if I was them, or with them, even if I am only observing them on the quiet. This establishes me as the average voyeur -- the curious majority. As far as I can tell, if you are reading this post, there is a good chance that you are a lot like me in this regard.       

One would think that if you take excessive interest in someone else, it is the opposite of narcissism. But, your interest in them has mainly to do with gratifying your own self. Your excitement for them, your empathy and sympathy even have mostly to do with gratifying yourself with that emotion. I speak not only about people, but also about the stories we enjoy and the news we read everyday!  

Our narcissism doesn't end with our vicarious living. We also cater to someone else'sz narcissistic interest in us, and in that again lies our own narcissism. The importance of our lives and thoughts lies primarily in what others think of them. Everything we experience is less about going through the experience as we would naturally, and more about how we would present our feelings about it to people.

We take it on ourselves to impart wisdom to the world and make our opinions known as if without our input the world would be deprived of a certain enlightenment. Then there is the other side to us that makes us want to share the mundane. The unremarkable details of our everyday life, our ordinary triumphs and failures take on a role of importance. You end the day not thinking of falling on your bed in utter exhaustion but finding ways to express that exhaustion and how you have fallen on your bed!

I suppose it is okay to see importance in the mundane. What I am worried about is that my mundane is deriving its importance from the interest of others in it, rather than on its own. The things I do don't matter unless I think them tweetable or blogworthy!

Does the fact that I constantly need affirmation for my feelings and actions tell you that I am self-deprecating? Or am I, as a result of all this self-absorption and craving for admiration, being narcissistic!  

This self-absorption doesn’t end with voyeurism. Like I said in the beginning, nothing excites me as much as foreplay and persuasion. Let me speak purely in sexual terms before I extend it to other spheres.

Let us say a person obliquely indicates an interest towards you by designing his words with suggestive meaning or using his body language to express the right amount of intimacy. You can tell he is gauging your interest in him behind that cloak of playfulness. His double entendres are even more charming when he lets slip his anticipation of what might happen after this prelude. His intention becomes less devious and his next move more apparent. If you play along, you have become the audience of persuasion.     

Let us say the very same person is less flirtatious, but just keenly interested in you. With your best interest at heart, he sets out to impart wisdom through personal stories and promote his opinions on things. This he does while making you feel like he is providing you a captive audience, while at the same time showcasing his astute wisdom. If he has your attention and the conversation lingers, you have become the audience of persuasion.    

Now let us say the person does not know you. You watch him on TV as he expresses his opinion on an issue. You are beginning to be discern his point of view and find yourself reacting to it either in approval or disapproval. He has stirred your emotions and created a ruckus in your head. You turn off the television and the discussion still continues to inspire thought. You have become the audience of persuasion. 

Seduction is such a deceptive word. People often think it is about sexual desire... what it is is the gratification of your senses, or your ticket to pleasurable emotion. You could be seduced even when you are not the recipient of seduction! For all you know, you could be seduced by looking at someone else being seduced, or watching him dance to a trance unaware of you or the world around him, or even addressing a political concern - a far cry from wanting to be considered desirable! What about it persuades you to keep watching him if not for that you have been seduced!

Now to think of seduction and foreplay in broad terms. Let us say you have gone off into your cocoon of random thoughts. You could be keeping yourself amused by reliving an experience you just had, analyzing a news story you just read, fostering an idea you came upon, or dreaming about a hypothetical date you’re your infatuation. If you catch yourself smiling as your mind drifts away, or admiring your chain of thought... you have become the audience of your own persuasion... 

Isn't it true that everything we enjoy doing could arouse sensual desires if not sexual?    

I think about why we clink our wine glasses before we drink. It is said that tasting wine involves four of the five senses. You hold the glass of wine in your hand, appreciate the color and the finish of both the glass and the wine, savor its aroma and taste the many layers of flavor. When you clink the wine glasses as you make a toast, you include the fifth missing sense - hearing. Now say you swirl the glass and let it breathe, and the wine gets better with each sip, isn't it a bit like foreplay? The only difference perhaps is while we can have wine in a crowd by engaging all five senses, I highly doubt that group foreplay will ever be morally acceptable! :)  

Still if you have a story to tell, an opinion to share, a perspective to promote, a product to sell, an idea to hash out, you are in essence (intentionally or otherwise) flirting with your audience. And while artists, storytellers, columnists, op-ed writers, critics, editorial cartoonists, commentators and opinion journalists are infatuated with their conception, you are their unwitting muse... until you find yourself persuaded or seduced!

What does it say about me that my website received most hits when I was least active!

I am back from my vacation and feel a lot like Alice after her adventure in Wonderland, like Gulliver after his voyages through Liliput, Brobdingnag, Laputa and Houyhnhmns, like Dorothy after her return from the Land of Oz.

For one thing, my monopoly board game came to life and in such style! We arrived in London on Christmas day and drove the night through eerily empty streets, all brightly illuminated with Christmas lights of all varieties. It resembled an impressively geared-up set just before a flamboyant musical is about to begin. And just like that, over the next few days, the curtains opened and the streets began to fill up with traffic, the sidewalks came alive with the hustle and bustle of a teeming metropolis, much like in Time Square on a bad day with no place to drive, park or walk!

Most people I met were dressed in colorful costumes of fantastical creatures, and did things like playing the violin while walking a tightrope, juggling five balls with their mouth, singing and dancing in the most evocative ways.

We sat through a glorious performance by the Belmont Ensemble of London in a beautiful baroque setting at St.Martin-in-the-Fields. The violinists played familiar yuletide masterpieces by Vivaldi, Bach, Handel, Mozart, Corelli, and Torelli.

Then one frosty morning, we witnessed Christmas Crackers, a very festive blend of acrobatics, comedy, music and burlesque in a vibrant setting at Shakespeare’s Globe. It was a bit like a Pantomime with actors walking amongst the audience, telling stories through jokes, songs and dances, mostly satirizing Shakespearean plays and Christmas carols.

We also watched a traditional Pantomime of Snow White and Seven Dwarfs in Manchester, with kids in the audience booing the horrible witch and cheering the Prince as he saves Snow White.

There was a beautiful jazz concert by the Scott Hamilton Quartet at the Jazz Club Soho.

The highlight was a dazzling Cirque du Soleil in the Royal Albert Hall. Every time, a winged creature gracefully tumbled from heaven onto earth, rotating, whirling, spinning, spiraling in unhumanlike ways, I lost my capacity to react.

It was very unlike what happened at Mathew Bourne’s Swan Lake ballet at Sadler’s Wells the night before. The dance sequences with the male swans were so graceful and emotive, that I could see myself drawn to their sensual beauty and physical expression like a moth to a flame. The intense scenes of romance were titillating, those of loneliness causing physical pain.

The concerts and shows are one side of London. There was a divine side to the city, with cathedrals and churches of beauty seemingly unmatched anywhere else in the world. We walked into Westminster Abbey, St. Paul’s Cathedral, and a small Anglican church, each time expecting to get out in a few minutes, only to be drawn to the extraordinary beauty of the sanctuary. The ambience stirred feelings of awe and wonder and we stayed on for a few hours. I have never thought myself religious, but how do I explain that transcendent joy I experienced when listening to the Evensong in this sacred setting. I saw myself crying my eyes out in what felt like an overwhelming feeling of religious guilt and love for God.

I have heard so much about the unthinkably old pubs in London, their architecture competing with their reputation, their beers with their character… we went to a few over-packed pubs that more than lived up to the buildup. I couldn’t also help admiring the contemporary ones, and some small street-corner locals. (To my beer-loving friends: I liked some of the well-hopped pale ales, but I still prefer to be “lager than life”). The coffee shops and bars were just as charming.

We did a few touristy things as well, including some guided tours through museums and such. When there was no guided tour, there was the distraction of very good company to keep us entertained. (It is never a good idea to go to museums with really good company… especially not in London where there are both buildings and artifacts in the buildings to admire!)

The (window) shopping experience was splendid… all those secondhand bookstores at Marylebone High Street and Charing Cross, toys at Hamleys, the vintage clothes at Seven dials, everything at Harrods, everything else at Westfields… the visits to American stores in London… the food... the south-asian food! It was a sensual feast, a tactile banquet... a very expensive sensual feast, an overpriced tactile banquet. :)

I am left feeling a yearning still. Like this was just a prelude to many more vacations. There seems to be so much to see and do in London and I haven’t even begun exploring. I feel like an actor in a musical who has been asked to wrap things up after the interval, without finishing my performance because I have already been singing and dancing too much! And when I am not feeling like the actor, I feel like the audience who is waiting for the actor to show up after the interval, only to find that the show has been declared over, because I have already been given my money's worth!

I think I most regret not watching Sherlock Holmes (the movie) in Baker’s Street. I also regret watching the New Years parade. It was a "profound" disappointment (profound because it brought to mind a lot of philosophical questions that I would much rather not think about!) ... But it was exciting to be in Covent Garden right where the My Fair Lady scene takes place, or Darcy’s home in Lyme Park, or the Poet's corner in Westminster Abbey … among other things.

Some of my most favorite people in the world, also the most talented people I know personally live in what is now one of my most favorite cities in the world. I have had extraordinary experiences with them… traveling with them; meeting their "famous" friends; pouring our hearts out; listening to them recite their poems, sing with the choir, play the piano and the guitar… It’s been one heck of an emotional (borderline melodramatic) and memorable trip.

We also went to Paris… which felt like the sequel to Alice in Wonderland. Through the Looking Glass?

It’s a long post in itself, but I just don’t have it in me to dash off some more … :)

But here's something that occurred to me. Why do people say the Brits and French are not friendly. I have had the most interesting conversations with complete strangers.... it's not quite my everyday experience in my talky adopted country even!

All I want is to take a relaxing vacation with my cousins! I want to see some places, eat some good food and luxuriate in uninterrupted comfort. In my mind I am picturing a lazy person's perfect, self-indulgent holiday experience! I have the time for it, the company, the wherewithal.. I am any country's textbook example of an ideal tourist... the kind they should care for.

The problem with being a lazy tourist however is that I am also not made for the paperwork I need to fill out to get to that lazy holiday! It is a very sadistic exercise full of irony. I am trying to fill out these "tourist" visa applications that require me to attach a million documents, many of which are letters from my bank and insurance companies indicating that I can financially support myself in these countries at all times. I am not averse to the idea of proving my financial worth, but the multitude ways in which I am to do that is off-putting and unsettling even. I feel defensive, like some fraudulent criminal trying to pass off as being law-abiding... when in fact I am sometimes more law-abiding than people find convenient!

Now I am waiting for one last letter from my insurance company and have had to postpone my visa appointment to a week before I leave. I am not sure if I will still receive my letter by then, or if it is enough time to get my visa. I am beginning to question if it is worth going through this trouble at all. Do I need a vacation that badly?

You must think I am making a mountain out of a molehill, but this visa application process has begun to raise a lot of questions in my mind about my self-worth... which is somehow tied to the fact that I am an Indian (living as an alien in another country!). I am angry with myself. I feel letdown and also like I let myself down.

To all those clean-shaven people who think your face needs to be just as it is in your passport when you travel abroad, good news! You may grow your dreadlocks, shave off that beard, color your hair crimson, and do as your mood dictates! Just keep that hair off your eye, and bring down those glasses. There are no restrictions on how and where you wear your hair!

The biometric recognition techniques only want you to keep the area around your eye, nose and mouth clear, as it measures the precise distance between these facial features, as well as patterns on the iris.

Now that I have made my point on a matter I spent hours discussing with some fickle-minded fashionistas who bust out a new look every day, I will focus on getting some real work done.

All our furniture has disappeared to the new place, but Tapi and I are still in the old apartment taking care of itty bitty things like going over boxes of important papers. Let me know if you care about finding us (we have a new landline number as well).

The next few days are going to be fun as we make a home out of our apartment. We imagine it will have a lot of study and media areas, given that they are our only exciting possessions at the moment.

If you have ideas for where we might find an assortment of nature-friendly but easy-on-the-pocket shelves and accent pieces, we are your audience. The keyword is inexpensive (although we are open to accepting expensive gifts!). Right now money seems to be as pocket-friendly as an angry hedgehog!

How much do we need to know about something before we are willing to commit to it? Is our decision based on a mathematical number or gut feeling?

I have been thinking about the thought that goes into making big life decisions! I find that I rely on my gut for the most part and let the thinking happen subconsciously.

For instance, my gut says I might mess my pants if I were to dive down from a bridge with an elastic cord tied to my ankles. But it also said, diving down 50 feet in the middle of the ocean with a tank strapped to my back is a good idea. I have never bungee jumped, but I would scuba dive again and again (even though I had an accident during my last experience, when my oxygen mask gave way after I made it all the way down to the bed)

But going with one’s gut is not just about making life-threatening choices. They also have to do with the matters of the heart like quitting your cushy job to pursue that wild dream, making a commitment to your relationship, deciding if having a baby would jeopardize the good things you have going for you, believing or not believing in god and so on.

While I have gone with my gut on all of these decisions so far, I cannot still quantify how successful I have been with them thus far, and will be in the future. I doubt that I will ever think of them as being 100% successful only because I don’t know what that 100% is or if what feels successful now will turn out to be unsuccessful later! I can only say I have no regrets as yet. How then do I quantify the ramifications of life decisions made on intuition?

Not many days from now, we will carry this little game-theory thingamajig to help us make these decisions. But, how far can it take us with the matters of the heart? How successful is successful, or happy is happy! How do we quantify superlatives. How do we define infinity.

Will the thingamajig leave us feeling just as unsure of our future? Will it deprive us of the pleasure of making decisions on gut feeling? Or should I on gut feeling reject the thingamajig!

[A thought comes to mind. There are days when I listen to music on the radio because the station I tuned to has created a mood that I want to be in. I like the unpredictability of it all. There are new songs interspersed with ones that I am familiar with, each winding down to the deep, rich voice of the host and his antics. You feel like you are in a conversation with him, and are being entertained without having to say anything. Then there are days when I want to be in control and in familiar territory. When I am sure of what mood I want to be in, I pick an artist or a genre in Lastfm or listen to Genius in itunes. When I want to be all over the place, but with songs I am familiar with, I go with Shuffle. I also have hundreds of playlists I created, some with as few as four songs, and some with as many as 30, and I play them again and again, until I have heard enough.
This thingamajig gizmo I was talking about, might be the kind of thing I would use when I am in a mood to listen to the radio]

I was looking at the Economist's 2009 MBA Rankings and was excited to see Tuck School of Business was ranked 6th in the world. My brother graduated from there two years ago and has been the golden boy ever since. :) Tapi's school ranks 48th, so we are celebrating the fact that we made it to the Top 50. The real shocker was seeing only one Indian business school in the list. IIM Ahmedabad ranks 99, which is way below several unheard of schools and programs. So I read through the ranking methodology hoping to see if there was some oversight! I really can't tell.

But, does it matter that IIM ranks so badly in the world?

This is the first weekend in a long time that we’re sitting at home without agenda.

Yesterday. Saturday.
We watched Kabbadi, filled out some application forms, sold some furniture, watched Wake up Sid, drank loads of Hefeweizen while dreaming of OktoberFest beer, caught up with all the Heroes Season 4 episodes, and began reading Rohinton Mistry’s A Fine Balance.

Today. Sunday (morning).
I can’t handle any more TV. I could continue to read Rohinton Mistry’s book, but sitting in one place for too long is making me twitchy. I seem to be able to read books only on the train, or outside in the open!

I am fighting the temptation to go out, although I keep making excuses to absent myself from home… like

I can be in any of these places to enjoy the fall colors.

I could be looking at the Solar Decathlon houses. We went there last weekend when they were still preparing for the competition. The houses looked very impressive. They are now open for public.

I'm curious about Obamanologues. It is sort of timely giving the ruckus he's been creating lately by being audaciously full of hope.

There's that Sugarloaf Crafts Festival in Gaithersburg, which sounds promising.

Hobey Ford’s Animalia sounds interesting. I could watch that and Sophia Serghi's performance at the Millennium Stage.

I could just sit at Kramers or Barnes and Nobel and read a book.... then again, fighting the lure of book-buying is impossible.
.
.
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This is not what I set out to do with this post! I was going to convince myself to stay at home and listen to music and finish Mistry's book. Tapi seems to be doing fine. He's catching up with family on the phone, and has class projects to finish. As I think about his day's routine, I feel the urge to pretend like today is a weekday and do something of value. But, as soon as I think of the week ahead I have a queasy feeling in my stomach. OK. The queasiness is taking over! I need to wash this feeling off with outside air!

Now. Sunday (night)
It turns out, we had a long and eventful day after all! We were at the Capitol where tens of thousands of gay rights activists rallied to bring attention to "equality" issues. We then walked up to the National mall and toured some extraordinary houses at the Solar Decathalon. There was also some breast cancer event going on where hundreds of people wearing pink spoke about insurance coverage and health reform (i think... we skipped it). We had the best Veggie Burger and Oolong tea at my favorite Teaism (if you haven't been to one, I highly recommend it. Try the 7th Street one. It's a lot bigger than the one in Dupont). We then picked up Arvind from the airport and drove to an Ethiopian restaurant in Silver Spring called Langano... spoke about his enviable vacation in Boston and Vermont. So that's that! I have a lot to say about dissent and innovation and share some pictures as well, but that will have to wait until tomorrow. I will feel queasy if I don't end the day by reading that Rohinton Mistry's book! Good night :)

That friend of yours, who is a doctor or works for google (I can't remember which), who is back from a six-month long volunteering and backpacking gig in South America, and went to a three-week long vipaasana meditation class, works in an organic farm now to pay for the house that she and her boyfriend are building from scratch with the help of some equally enviable friends they met at those contra dance events, plays two musical instruments and sings well, reads every kind of book in the world when she is not watching every kind of movie in the world and seems to know a hell of a lot about everything current and historic, social and political and lives up to her admirable liberal ideals! Can I be her?

I have heard myself say this about quite a few people over the last few months. I was beginning to wonder if they were putting on an act. But, the particulars add up so well. The dates match, they dance and sing well, they talk well, they have flickr albums with pictures of all their activities, and blogs with descriptive write-ups about their exploits. If all this is a sham, then maintaining this sham is more effort than actually doing this? No. This has to be real! They have to be doing all this! Can I be them?

It brings me to the real question. What do I want to be!

I think I am happy where I am.

Ya.

This is good.

It was almost 7 years ago that I first experienced sleep paralysis. The first few times of being mentally awake, but not being able to move my body were terrifying beyond words. There are hallucinatory thoughts, where the real world blends into the dream world and you are laying there paralyzed and helpless as your worst nightmares unfold around you. I imagine people in the room even though they are not there. They are right in front of me, talking to each other or looking at me like I am asleep, not knowing that I am calling to them for help. There are others who know I am open to attack. Sometimes when I wake up from my paralyzed state, I find that I am not even in the room I imagined I was in, even though it felt so real.... and I wasn't entirely dreaming either.

It is a physical problem that I know now is not a serious one. In a normal person, when deep sleep occurs, the brain shuts down body movement to prevent us from accidentally hurting ourselves. It also makes sure that we don't act out our dreams, including walking, talking or doing something we might regret later. For the most part this system works perfectly, notwithstanding some rare instances where we say embarrassing or nonsensical things that we would much rather keep to ourselves, or walk into the cupboard in an attempt to go to the bathroom. But when things work well and the REM cycle comes to an end, the mind and the body awaken at the same time, and we never perceive the state of physical paralysis.

To some people like me, the mind sometimes awakens before the body. This leaves us fully conscious but unable to move for several minutes. During this time, we experience terrifying hallucinations. The sense of danger we perceive is something equivalent to a three dimensional horror film where you are the protagonist being haunted by the devil.

I speak of this today because I haven't had sleep paralysis for a year now, except occasionally (once a month). This is a big deal. I still jump up from bed abruptly a few times every night to make sure that I am not paralyzed. When I am, I can tell I am, and I try to be calm about it until my body is ready to release itself.

I am not a doctor, and I don't know if I am right from a scientific point of view, but what has helped me most is avoiding short power naps (this is the trap that seems to trigger a disturbed REM sleep quickly... leading to paralysis). I now sleep long and well whenever I do and stay absolutely active the rest of the time. This seems to many like, "duh", the logical thing to do. To me, it is something I have had to make an effort towards. I am neither an insomniac nor a narcoleptic, but I enjoy staying awake at night, as much as I enjoy sleeping through it... and likewise, during the day, I find a long nap just as enjoyable as staying active and awake.

Every sunset marks the beginning of a new day just as every sunrise does. The hours of light and the hours of darkness have two very distinct kinds of experiences to offer. As the sky changes color, you are a different person from the one you were, and the world is a different world from the one it was.

So I figured, I will let the strength of this feeling decide what I must do, and when, as long as I can afford it. I follow an interesting and "highly regulated" sleep routine which seems to offer the benefits of sleeping and staying awake during the day and during the night in an interesting sequential pattern. As a result, I am refreshingly active more number of hours than an average person and also asleep a lot more! No more sleep paralysis for me!

From my living room, I see a female brown northern cardinal hopping behind a male red cardinal from the right of the balcony to the left. I have lost sight of them. Now the male red cardinal is hopping behind the female brown cardinal. The female is undecided on which way to go. They are gone!

The place we are moving to in a month's time will have no balcony. I can't sit out in the sun or in the rain and complain about the wind playing havoc with the pages in my book; I won't have to juggle a drink in hand and a laptop in another. There will be no view of tall coniferous trees.. of birds on snowy branches, of deer walking in the woods, of geese running on the grass, of little brown rabbits or black rascaly squirrels. There will be no kids sliding in their little sledges, rolling on the ground, laughing and throwing snow balls at each other.

I am skimming through old pictures taken from my balcony. There are several blurry ones of birds that visited my balcony, of butterflies and cicadas, of spider webs and ants under dry leaves. All failed attempts at capturing nature in action. Now I have a lingering knot in my stomach. What am I trading all this for?

We are moving two blocks away, to a bigger apartment. I am trading the bad over here for the good over there. But, what about everything that I have come to love about this little nature haven? How do I let go of them?

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Even after six years, the novelty of orange cauliflowers, purple peppers and scarlet red cabbages hasn't worn off. The variety of greens from peppery to mild; of herbs from earthy to woodsy; of edible flowers sweet and sour; of stems raw and baked; of crunchy seeds and nuts draw me towards them, absolutely and irresistibly. I fail miserably at using them the right way, and then sometimes I get it so right, it makes all the trialing worth it.

I love going to the farmers markets. You are right where all the food action is taking place. It's delightful how they arrange the veggies, like little attractive bouquets spread all over the counter. When I saw a counter full of tomatoes of all different sizes and shapes, from the big wild green ones with red stripes to the tiny sweet ones that you can pop into your mouth, I was delirious.
I didn't know shrimp came in so many colors. That there are ones as big as lobsters, and as small as bumblebees.

I take pleasure in knowing that these will stay with me.

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I am listening to songs that make me feel like I have fallen in love with someone I am about to lose. I have been through this feeling before. The pounding of the heart, the feeling of ecstasy, of giving in, and letting go. I am looking up how to get over a break up, like it is a person I am about to miss. I have dreams for the new place. I have paintings I want on hang on the wall, and little projects of decoration. I have a vision of how I will live my life, the things I will do differently, the changes I will make to it. It's only two blocks away, but I see it as a fresh start, which looks promising. Why then is it hard for me to leave the old?

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Love and Longing

Restless - Alison Krauss & Union Station
Blues In the Night - Katie Melua
Corner of Your Heart - Ingrid Michaelson
Lies - Glen Hansard
Such Great Heights - Iron & Wine
The Hill - Marketa Irglova
Michael's Muzurka - Childsplay

I learnt today that I am a favored victim of Gedanken experiments. I sit in a room, there is an interesting story being narrated by someone; there is a powwow session going on among some people; there are one or two of those smart-alecky folks trying out their wisecracks on a very amused audience - I am usually that audience! In fact, I am the "willing" stooge in all these scenarios.

The advantage of being a stooge is that you are under no pressure to make sense. You, the seeker of knowledge from the giver, take the subservient stance. All you need to do is be obtuse and inquisitive, which I am in every respect!

Here is how it works. Your "theorist" friend has had a little too much to drink, and is feeling bladdered and excitable. He decides to make the most of this state of mind to pontificate about such things as "existence" and the "why"s of things! He takes a life scenario like falling in love, managing an intern, throwing ugly recycled shoes at a politician and relates it vaguely to some philosophy or scientific theory he may have encountered through his work or in some other way. All you have to do is sit through his fascinating hypotheses and speculate who the moron in the conversation is --- you for listening or your friend for thinking you are a moron who is willingly sitting through his tripe. But, in general, if the answer is "both you and him", it means that you have both had a swell few hours and look forward to having many more swell few hours. I can say I have and look forward to many more.

Over the next few days, I will list out some of my favorite Gedanken Theories and "catch words" that turn up in usual conversations with friends. I’ll begin tomorrow after spending the night pondering over these theories and putting my parents through some of them over dinner! They will be MY stooges for a change :)

Wake up at 7

While away time till 8

Work till 12

Read a book, watch a movie, or have lunch with friends till 2

While away time till 3

Work till 7

Head out to dinner with friends till 10

While away time till 11

Work till 2

Spend weekends in play

I am going to stare at this schedule for some time and contemplate the equal split between work and entertainment.

The only thing that disturbs this beautiful balance sometimes is doing chores!

To the soft sweeping music, I dance beautifully, twirling en pointe and pirouetting with my hands above my head and my foot pressed lightly on my knee.

I yield to the dictates of an invisible sensual pull, as my long body flows like silk, and my slender form moves ever so slowly with effortless grace to the stance of my desire. My movements are fluid and airy, my poise ethereal. I supplely lift my legs in the air and bend backwards onto myself. With my head facing the sky above, I spin around on the tip of my toes before landing lightly on my feet.

Another slow flight through the air, another effortless landing. My feet change position as I ascend and slide forward and then backward, before springing with my legs split in mid air, in unfolding motion.

I descend to the ground and turn around without arching, only to wait stoically before changing my emotion to the rising new accent of my song. With hands stretched wide, I stand up on my toes and extend my leg out. I have wings on my back with long white plumes and my dress is a shiny sheer with light passing through it and exposing my lissom physique. I sway softly but steadily with tiny nibbling steps, and flutter my body to the dance of my wings. I bend down at the waist, and reach out to my stretched leg and whirl downwards and upwards, round and round in bewildering succession.

And so I dance all through the night, exposing my visceral feelings. I experience the thrill and the anguish of love and make peace with my deep inward senses.

Only now as I wake up from this beautiful dream, I wish I wasn't just dancing in my sleep. I wish I could spin round and round for real, until I am so dizzy and the world has disappeared. I want to take flight, and soar high above the ground like a dancing ballerina on wings. I am here now, in my shiny sheer dress, looking podgy and graceless; my lifeless white wings silhouetted as I stand in front of a bright glass window with darkness all around me.

With this post, I will be taking a transient break from expressing my thoughts on this blog for a few weeks. Expressing myself unabashedly has become something of an addiction, so I don’t know how long this will last. But, I want to experience my emotions without feeling the need to fit them within the vocabulary I am familiar with. Here’s to purging all narration.

Every now and then I feel like whittling away at random theories on democracy and making preposterous generalizations. :)

I remember reading in Naked Economics that policies that benefit a minority are much more easily agreed upon by the majority than policies benefiting a majority. They usually cost less; they are implemented easily and in a short time-frame; their successes or failures don't stir up a lot of mud; and at the end of it the politicians get a good name for acting in favor of the repressed minority! So it is win-win all around. That being said, the policies benefiting one small group are always at the expense of another group, so the cycle of repression goes on and on in a round-robin fashion.
 
In contrast, the decisions affecting a majority go through endless rounds of deliberation, because there is usually a lot more at stake, and a lot more people with vested interests and varied opinions riding on them. People are generally skeptical about supporting long-term projects whose benefits are not directly realizable. Some concerns don't even seem precisely comprehensible. Take global warming for instance.. how does a person who does not experience the impact of this nebulous concern, support it wholeheartedly! How does he vote in favor of policies that speak to mitigating global warming if he does not understand the outcome. How then is it true democracy if he is allowed to vote on gut-feeling and his inherent prejudices rather than real understanding or rational thinking.

There are several exceptions to this majority-minority theory, and I haven't completely bought into it (especially now that I am reading India After Gandhi and see outcomes, both positive and negative, that shoot down rational suppositions), but I do see the rationale to some extent and get the whys and wherefores. I found myself thinking a lot about it during the Indian elections! It was intriguing how even though there were so many calamitous events taking place around our country and within our country, the parties chose to focus on superfluous issues, none of which were of any major consequence! Concerns related to minorities seemed to have completely eclipsed more pressing issues, such as those affecting the very security and stability of our country.
 
The whole world seems to have lots of strong opinions on all the major crises we face today! I sit in the living room at a friends place and there are a group of engineers throwing in ideas on how to combat the war on terror. What is to say, the government can’t hire them in a larger living space to discuss their vision for a better world? Of course, having a disease and following the doctor's treatment plan does not make one the expert in the disease.  

But, I was suggesting to a friend that governments should outsource big policy decisions the same way they do other jobs requiring specialized skills. By this I don't mean Mckinsey working with the Indian Railways to restructure our transportation system or Bush's idea of outsourcing Federal jobs offshore. I am speaking of involving regular bright people in recommending policy decisions for such nebulous things as global warming. I can already see some Astrophysicists coming up with brilliant ideas to calibrate solar activities to keep global warming in check! ;) 

Will it put an end to every global crisis we face today? Certainly not! But, expecting theorists to make our world problem-free is as idiotic as expecting doctors to make our world death-free! But, while people are sick or dying, we need doctors. And as long as we have problems in this world, we need theorists. 
 
When I suggested my idea to a friend, he thought I was being naive, and so I did the most obvious thing, which is to google my idea - "Outsourcing the Government" !! Guess what I found. Chip Conley thinks the US Government should be outsourced to Walmart! I'll take it one step ahead and even suggest that we should sell the government to Walmart and lease it back when the performance indicators fulfill our predefined expectations. ;) This way the government will never be in debt and we can all live in a cheaper if not better place! Walmart. Save Money. Live Better. :)

But going back to my idea, of the government luring smart opinionated people in to thrash out ideas to solve various global problems, I see nothing but good coming out of this. Even at the rate of 100 bad ideas for every good idea, the risk-to-reward ratio is pretty darn awesome-- such as the solution to global warming. If they underperform, the government is in no obligation to keep them employed. And at no point is the government obligated to implement the recommended solutions (although I don't see why not. Who has smarter solutions to problems than the world's greatest eggheads)   

There is the likelihood that some of these employees will eventually serve as mouthpieces to corrupt politicians, and will relay the solutions spoon-fed to them. Even so, most corrupt politicians too embrace good policies because it serves as a way of getting elected. Voters too have the choice of electing people based on whether they support a recommendation or not! They can even come up with their own recommendations, which will be rated by other users through an automated voting system, much like digg.com where the best ideas get pushed up the queue. This way everyone's competing to outperform the other in coming up with solutions to big problems! People will actually contribute to the democratic process and make a more informed choice in electing their government, as opposed to blindly selecting a party that will tell you exactly what you want to hear, with the help of fuzzy statements on where they will take the country.

The interesting thing about the outsourcing these decisions is that the solutions can come from any part of the world! Not necessarily from one's own country. And the benefits to this would be just the same as the benefits to International trade. Here, ideas replace goods and services! This will not only promote global citizenship, it will foster better relationships between countries, and will also build in a much required "unbiased third party" opinion that most countries need. But, since the solution suggesters don’t know the social intricacies of the country that will benefit from their recommendations, the politicians will have to do the selling, which in any case is what they are best qualified to do! 

Think of it like Switzerland’s direct democracy on steroids. Or even going all the way back to 500 BC in Athens, which is the very first known democracy, where people did not elect representatives but voted directly on legislation and executive bills. Interestingly, the public opinions were greatly influenced by theatre and political satire performed by comic poets. The only times the law excluded decisions of some citizens is if it was felt that they had a personal interest in the outcome of a debate, such as decisions related to war by citizens with property close to the wall.

My idea is only to extend the Athenian democratic model to a global scale. And who knows, if this theory works well, countries can start outsourcing the voting too! That way educated people around the world will be allowed to make electoral decisions for all countries, which might cut down on global conflicts as well, since everyone will be allowed the chance to speak up in the election. Moreover, with International trade, where your country's economic performance is dependent on the performance of other countries, it is only logical that the people have a say in matters relating to those other countries as well! 

With this I have established that I am true global citizen!  :)

People keep throwing numbers all the time to validate their personal opinions on things. I find numbers persuasive, but they are not enough to propel me to take action.

On second thoughts.. instances come to mind when numbers affected me emotionally but I was paralyzed by the magnitude of the problem and didn’t know how to take action.

I remember the war in Darfur because it summons up dreadful images of violent deaths to about 500,000 people. That is almost the population of the city I am currently living in. AIDS currently affects over 35 million people in the world. There are about 40,000 reported cases of Swine flu in the world.

Perhaps, it is unfair to make a point about the relevance of numbers when we speak of something sensational like genocide or diseases. Their relevance mostly comes from numbers!

I have been reading amusing and distressing news stories related to endangered species in ecoworldly. Read this:

A species of bird so rare it was thought perhaps to be extinct was captured on video and still images in the Phillipines province of Nueva Vizcaya… right before it was cooked and eaten. Read more

Scientists succeeded for the first time in achieving the holy grail of conservation: bringing to life an extinct animal through cloning. For seven minutes. Read more

Last year one of the most critically endangered birds in the world, the Northern Bald Ibis, nested in Spain for the 1st time in 500 years. Terrific news has now arrived that a pair is nesting again in the same location this year. Read more

According to a new study, climate change could drastically alter 88% of the waters where dolphins, whales and porpoises are found. While some species may stand to benefit from the changes, the research concluded that one fifth of cetacean species could be lost forever. Read more

There are many more. If you have read this far, I highly recommend subscribing to ecoworldly. :) They have much more than news about endangered species!

As I read this kind of news every morning and become affected by it, I realize it may be the effusive way in which the numbers are relayed in these articles that makes me feel remorseful. Talk to me about something with a lot of interest, wax lyrically, even lose your sense of proportion, and I will listen to you. If you are convincing enough, I will act with you and become a champion of your cause.

That being said, if there is only one of a species left in the world, or thousands of people slaughtered in a distant country, what can I do to help! How about giving me action steps to take aside from affecting me emotionally with effusion!

I have been thinking about our sense of morality and where it comes from. It can’t all be a result of our individual conscience. It can’t also be prescriptive or based on long-standing custom through an institution like religion or the government. It has to come from a combination of blind-faith and skepticism, only, how they are combined varies from person to person. Which is why, some kinds of morality have changed over time, like our views on marriage or the way women are treated. And some have remained the same, like our views on murder and burglary.

Needless to say, there are those for who the question of morality is in a state of uncertainty, like war or abortion or capital punishment. But, we would much rather leave these decisions to the cat that is willing to bell itself!

No matter where our sense of morality comes from, it is certain to some degree at least that it has little to do with numbers. At least, our sense of right and wrong does not come from how many people agree or disagree with a value. Around the globe, over half a million people kill unlawfully every year. Does the vast number of people who take to murdering makes it morally acceptable? What we sometimes deem as deviant behavior are acts of millions of people! If our moral judgment tells us homicide is immoral, it is not because of how few people take to killing or how many people are killed. It has to do with how we define ability to empathize in another and how our conscience guides our sense of rightness and wrongness.

I am reminded of my ethics class in grad school in which I learnt of the many ways of looking at morality and ethics. It’s bewildering how much thought has gone into this area of study. As you learn about moral absolutism, relativism, realism, anti-realism and so on… where each kind is as convincing as the other, you realize that it is impossible to be right about anything, including what we now perceive as natural instinctive states of mind like empathy and compassion!

Added to that, as I read about the scientific studies on behavioral neuroscience, like how mirror neurons affect our capability to share our feelings and understand another's feelings, it makes me want to question why I feel morally answerable.

Could it be that we use these devices such as numbers and effusive expression to force a false sense of morality?

Height: 5’5’’
Weight: 129 lbs (Acceptable: 120-140 lbs)
Body Fat Percentage: 30% (Acceptable: 21-24%)
BMI: 21.5 (Acceptable: 18.5-24.9)

Most people would deem this as decent. My weight and body mass index are just where they need to be, but a fitness expert would call me obese.

It’s the converse of what a hot 200-pound studmuffin athlete would encounter. He may get dismissed by all height-weight charts for being overweight, but may in fact be in the most perfect physical shape possible -- all brawn with less than 10% body fat.

I, on the other hand, get kowtowed by the charts, but a recent visit to a doctor indicated that I have very high cholesterol. My personal trainer alleged that my body fat percentage puts me in the obese bracket.

By her standard, I suspect I have been obese all my life, even when I was considered extremely underweight. A year ago I was barely 110 lbs, but was out of shape and seriously lacking in endurance. Over time, as I ran more and ate well, I gained a good 20 lbs and am now pleasantly plump. But now, if I don’t act soon, I can start calling myself unpleasantly podgy. :) 

I decided therefore to eat right and exercise. My personal trainer and nutrition planner thinks she ought to begin by ridding me of currency. So that’s where we have begun.

Wish me good luck and I'll keep you posted. :)

This will embarrass my dad and my brother. :)

On my way home from work, I saw a board on the street that said Log base 2. For a second there it evoked nostalgia of high school until I realized I didn’t remember what a logarithm was!

And then as I continued to walk home, I recalled log (x) + log (y) = log (xy)

That was some progress.

I wondered what that thing was where the number on the top on one side goes to the bottom on the other. There was also that thing where the power of a number went before the log**. :) 

It took me a whole metro ride home to remember all of this. Here it is:

If x^y = z then log_xz=y

I remember thinking of this as the “one level down” formula. The x went one level down, and then the y went one level down too, but onto the other side because the log pushed it out and pulled the z in. The “equal to” sign is the diagrammatic representation of the log. :) It may make no sense to you, but this is the nonsensical way I remembered a lot of my formulae. It all came rushing back to me.

So then of course the logic of logarithms became somewhat obvious, that if 10 x 10 x 10 or 10³ is equal to 1000, then log₁₀1000=3

Now here's what I meant by the power of a number going before the log bit**

log_a(b^c)= clog_a(b)

How cool is that!

Since coming home, I sat on wiki and read a whole lot more on logarithms, which was both revealing and also brought to mind so many things I had completely forgotten and loved.

Logarithms used to be one of my most favorite things in math. I also thought they were conceptually brilliant. I liked all the shuffling of numbers this way and that, up and down and magically coming with that cool looking formula-like thing and eventually the solution. More than anything, it was fun looking up numbers in the log table.

I want to read a basic math book just to dredge up those funny ways in which I would try to learn formulae or understand concepts.

At least, I don’t want to have to say “what the hell is a logarithm”!

I've been in a happy place this week. One of my heroes created history and the other is doing well to shape it!

Advantage Obama
Video: President Obama Speaks to the Muslim World from Cairo, Egypt
NPR Article: Obama Seeks 'New Beginning' with Muslim World

Championship Point Federer
Video: Roger Federer finally wins French Open
WSJ Article: French Open Diary

I would imagine that the speech and match were both widely viewed all over the world, and am thrilled to see all the varied analyses coming out, although I don't quite know what to make of the reactions yet! But all the unconstrained tittle-tattling going on this weekend, both positive and negative, is absorbing as hell. Oh perfect happiness, heavenly joy!

My brother's blog and his quips parted ways over a year ago! But, here's something he wrote on his flight to India, which I hope will bring his blog back from the limbo!

My struggle with the bat has reached historic proportions. It has been more than a year since I scored a meaningful run.
 
The last time I scored a few runs, three to be precise, was in an early season game last year when I frantically waved the bat at the bowler like an impotent wand before I was put out of my misery by an apparently innocuous delivery that homed in on middle stump. I walked out to greet the ball, flailing wildly like a marooned sailor would at a distant ship and heard the deadly sound of timber behind me. Suddenly I find that regaining hand-eye coordination is a challenge that is as compelling as finishing the Boston marathon.
 
I shall first state two facts. The first fact is that I have not played much cricket in the past three years. I managed to squeeze in four games during this period for my local club in Nashua , and have nothing to show besides those aforementioned three fortunate runs. I was out for a golden duck each other time, which truly reflects the state of my batting form. The second fact, perhaps the more relevant one, is that I am not the second coming of Sir Ranjitsinhji. As lovely as I have managed to look in front of a mirror or even on the shadowed wall, my game has always been what one would call highly limited. So my recent batting struggle is not particularly shocking, but it is worrisome only because I make such a big deal of it. After all, the air I breathe has three elements to it, family, cricket and tennis, not necessarily in that order.
 
Let me submit to you a little bit of my cricketing history, since I find that it is so important in the larger scheme of things. As a young teenager, notably the puniest of my age group, I spent many months fielding in corners of the field where devils wouldn’t venture. My comrades wisely knew that I wasn’t capable of doing much more good than avoid the cricket ball. So it came to be – I was an afterthought in the batting order and never bowled a ball in anger at any living soul. I did, however, diligently practice my trade at home bowling to a yellow battered wall that morphed into the entire Pakistani batting line-up while I kept score in a way that would make Narottam Puri proud. In my spare time, I would commit every living statistic to memory, including Neil Foster’s 11 for 163 at Chepauk in 1984-85 in the test where Fowler and Gatting both scored double centuries. I think I secretly aspired to be a Richie Benaud on Channel Nine, and would have reasonably settled for being an Anupam Gulati on Doordarshan.
 
Two things changed my life. First, my father caught hold of my frivolous notions firmly put my career on the infinitely more grueling engineering track. Second, I had a growth spurt that matched Laxman’s career path. I grew a foot in about a year as a fifteen year old. In my friends’ circle this amounted to conferring some long-deserved respect. Suddenly I found myself batting at number nine (a big promotion) in a key “bet match”, and our pocket money depended on the outcome. In the 110 degree heat of the Gymkhana grounds at Hyderabad , I announced myself to the world as young Sachin did in Karachi , scoring my first two runs ever against real humans, off the last ball, to win the match. At 2 not out, I was a hero and carried off the field. My batting prospered that season because my captain, one Karimullah, took fancy to my match-winning talent. I was the scrawny kid who couldn’t buy a boundary but would never get out. By the end of the season, I was opening for my team, like Ravi Shastri, my other hero.
 
I humbly state that my cricketing graph grew non-linearly afterwards. I nearly topped my college batting averages in my first year, even scoring the first six ever on one of the large grounds. Mainly I had acquired the knack of staying unbeaten. Through sixteen matches in my junior year, I was dismissed only once and I grew confident enough to start imitating my new batting idol, VVS Laxman. Cricketing statistics took a backseat for real exploits and I could not have been a happier kid. Sadly I realized that I had probably reached the peak of my skills at age 19. In a year, I was about to embark on a journey to America, where a baseball bat would be more apt and I would be consigned to memorizing those damn scorecards yet again as I pursued my graduate studies.
 
After coming to the US , playing cricket became a distant pipedream that rivaled dating a certain Ms. Salma Hayek. All changed in 2003, when I ran into a group of enthusiastic cricket aficionados who had recently formed a cricket team, Nashua Spearheads. My enthusiasm knew no bounds when I met them – while they did not play with a real cricket ball, they played with a hard tennis ball and that was good enough. My cricket starved senses didn’t mind it one bit, I showed up for practice at the neighboring baseball fields that summer and was thrilled to see many others that shared my interest. Like an old flame that shows up at your doorstep begging for forgiveness, I went back to cricket despite knowing things would never be the same.
 
Maybe it was the ball, maybe it was my waning focus, maybe I did not play enough or maybe those four years in college were just an illusion, I never regained my batting mojo. I was an average batsman for my new team in America , but luckily I hadn’t regressed to my middle school days when I was a water boy. Hitting the hard tennis ball required strength that I never possessed and I never really played with the free mind that guided me through my youth. Like a pianist that loses his spontaneity with age, I lost my ability to place the ball through narrow gaps. Still I was a little kid in his playground every time I joined my merry band on weekends.
 
Three years ago, I stopped playing cricket because worldly ambitions and general drudgery took over. I missed the game once more as I grappled with everything else in my life, including the birth of my new breathing apparatus, two lovely children. Cricket does not hold the place in my life it once did, yet I long for the occasional taste of nostalgia.
 
So I rejoined my group and showed up for play last weekend. My turn to bat came pretty soon, and it was not against one of the better bowlers on my team, and here I am being generous. I took my guard pointing to my left leg. The handle of the bat felt cold and strange. I patted the bat hard on the ground to proclaim that I was the master even if I hadn’t ridden this horse in a while. The bowler ran in, and I heard every step. The ball was wide off off-stump and so friendly I might have been tempted to ask it out for a drink later that evening. Instead I swung hard at the ball aiming somewhere between long off and outer space.  The ball took the edge of my bat and went spiraling upwards towards the one fielder who wouldn’t drop catches in his sleep. I felt a sense of doom even as the ball descended.
 
Another duck, a golden duck, and my horror run continues.

High sign in red: This is one of those unpopular "dear diary" posts my friends will be forced to read. Rest, be forewarned! ;)
 
The weekend in Syracuse was eventful, although oddly unremarkable. I met some new people, we did a few fun things, but at the end of it, there was something missing. A hollowness of some sort! I can't seem to put my finger on it. It may be that it was Mother's Day and I was missing mom!
 
The two days in Syracuse went by like an evening of bar-hopping with no time to have any drinks in between! We got from one place to another with no real agenda, meandered a bit, performed some tasks, and that was that! There were times when I wanted to ignore everything around me and take in the ambience, the beautiful still lakes, the open fields on our drive to the winery, the imposing churches, the assortment of colors. There was so much to absorb, but my mind kept racing from one moment to another quite restlessly, and we covered more and more ground without assimilating anything! This is usually fine by me, given that my typical weekends are even more haphazard, but we let ourselves go and have a really good time! This one just felt like an assortment of cocktail snacks at a dinner party that you relish greatly, want to have more and more of, even though it won't fill your appetite. There was no substantial main course in sight! The food distracted me from the people, the people from the ambience, the ambience from the experience, the experience from the absorption! There was no stimulation, no provocative discussions, no mindless bantering or funny repartees!
 
I could have reflected on the commencement speeches at the graduation ceremony. There was Colin Fanning, the university scholar with a very eloquent and charming speech about the importance of play in a world burdened with obstacles, then there was Joe Biden earnestly persuading students to reshape history by embracing the promise of change!     
 

Your hands are on the steering wheel, the automobile is going straight, and one slight turn sends the car into a direction fundamentally different and initially unalterable from the direction it's been going in. Few people get to put their hands on a steering wheel at that moment. There's not a single decision confronting us now that doesn't yield change from non-action as well as action. My favorite poet, William Butler Yeats, writing about Ireland, in 1916 wrote a poem about the first rising of the 20th century called "Easter Sunday 1916." In it, there was a line that's more applicable, in my view, to today than it was to his Ireland in 1916. He said "The world has changed. It has changed utterly. A terrible beauty has been born." Well, it’s clear things have changed utterly in the last 12 to 15 years. A terrible beauty has been born. It's a different world out there.

I sat through the speeches, amused, inspired, but kept feeling the need to suppress my animated reaction for some reason. I came out of the stadium pretending to be dispassionate, as if the words I just heard made no dent on me, as if they were like any other I had heard before -inspiring as the event demanded, but quite meaningless for all practical purposes! But, no. I don't quite see it as flaccid words in a flaccid speech. Biden said something that I am inspired to act on. I need to know how! Perhaps, it is not knowing how to act on his words that is frustrating me at the moment! It's been the lingering frustration that I have been feeling for a few weeks now. This constant desire to do something substantial and not knowing how is getting to me! I am in a state of suppression! 
 
I thought a lot about rivulets and tributaries, and it bothered me that i didn't know the difference between the two! I wondered if the former was just another word for a brook! I wondered how a creek was different from a stream, if bayous were synonymous with lakes, if most ponds are man-made, if springs emerge from caves, if basins were lands naturally drained by a river, if burns are the meetings points of rivers and seas. I wondered about how many different types of waterfalls there were, if falls cause erosion, or if erosion creates falls! My head was exploding with questions and it got to me that I didn't have the answers! How can I be in love with nature as much as I am and not know one kind of stream from the other! How can a mechanic not know the difference between a nut and a bolt! Would it have been bizarre if I lived on earth all along and did not know what a mountain was or a desert? At what point is it okay to be unaware!
 
I came home and read about streams and fluvial landforms. I am less ashamed now. Suddenly I am aware of how little I know, and how little I will know no matter how much more I read! There is a world out there that I can't even begin to fathom, let alone acknowledge! I can only hope I will pick up more and more books on rivers and absorb as much as I can about them until I run out of patience if not interest!
 
I think I am being hard on this unplanned weekend drive. The 6 hours of continuous music back and forth, and the company of fun people should have done it! I think it did! At least the people did! :) But, I need to go back and do some more soaking up! Not now! The hollowness is still raw! Maybe when I am ready for Syracuse, and not when Syracuse is ready for me!

I will be spending this weekend in absolute, blissful lethargy. I won't be making plans, going out, meeting friends. Life is looking good!

The political compass test was quite provocative and interesting! It really made me think about how I see the country (US) and the wider world, what my attitude is towards the economy, how my personal social values and my opinions on religion and sex substantiate my views on politics! I thought the quiz was quite all-encompassing, and also liked that it was slanted or ambiguous at times.

It was challenging to choose between agreeing and disagreeing with each statement, but at the same time, I am glad there was no "i don't know" option, because I am prone to ducking difficult questions.

The underlying principle of the Political Compass is that political views may be better measured along two separate and independent axes. The Economic (Left-Right) axis measures one's opinion of how the economy should be run: "left" is defined as the view that the economy should be run by a cooperative collective agency (which can mean the state, but can also mean a network of communes), while "right" is defined as the view that the economy should be left to the devices of competing individuals and organisations. The other axis (Authoritarian-Libertarian) measures one's political opinions in a social sense, regarding a view of the appropriate amount of personal freedom: "libertarianism" is defined as the belief that personal freedom should be maximised, while "authoritarianism" is defined as the belief that authority and tradition should be obeyed.

Yay to personal freedom and also the network of communes!

I am not averse to the idea of eating on the throne, even though I am disinclined to try it. (Someone just told me that perhaps I will be averse to it if I call it the commode instead of the throne) But, I am slightly put off by the idea of placing kitchen gadgets next to the "commode" or the tub.

It may be that I am a huge fan not just of convenience but also of appeal. I am big on the philosophical principles of aesthetics. I am very conforming like that! I am constantly negotiating the sights and smells of my universe, and am most at home when I've reached my optimum esthetic balance!

I like arranging every element in my life into some structured, efficient system. It is besides the point that my kind of organization doesn’t fit the standard definition of orderliness. For instance, I have books on the dining table, clothes on the floor, food in the bedroom, makeup in the car, pillows on the kitchen table … There is an order and purpose to everything. To an outsider, my world is the embodiment of mess! Mom for instance, has this incessant urge to neatly fold my clothes and put them back in the closet whenever she visits me.. It takes me a whole two weeks to redo the house the way I like it after she leaves! I don't see any of this as being messy, or dirty or disorderly, for I spend hours at a stretch creating my chaotic world. But if I must justify my way of life, here's one thought: a shoe in the shoe stand is not any cleaner than when it is sitting in the middle of the living room. And if you think the clothes on the floor are dirtier than on the shelf, it's time to clean the floor!!!

What I find most hypocritical is the pretense of cleanliness, like when I have to stuff things into closets even if they are dirty and don't make organizational sense, because I have people over! As a result, my whole world falls apart, because I can't find my things when I need them, and it takes me twice as long to clean everything!

Here's another thought: More often than not, when things are crammed into small spaces for too long, even if they are neatly folded or arranged properly, the chances are that they are accumulating dust faster than if they were outside, getting a blast of fresh clean air every so often!

One example would be the naphthalene balls from my childhood days, that we used to put in suitcases with old clothes that we meant to give away eventually. While the balls did a good job of combatting silverfish, they not only left a pungent smell, but also did little to keep the clothes clean.

I find the whole concept of distinguishable rooms - living room, bedroom, study and so on absolutely inconvenient! If not a waste of space, it is certainly improper use of it, and extremely inconvenient for many different reasons. By this, I don’t mean that I want to bring down the walls between rooms quite literally, but that I want to bring them down figuratively! The thought being-- why must the living room have just couches and side-tables, bedrooms have just beds and so on… If the purpose of distinguished rooms is to define spaces and make it more practicable or convenient, then it has been doing anything but that for me! I see the benefit to defining spaces and creating a system, but it does not have to conform to established norms that have very little functional value!

When I conform to these standard room types, I am making use of less than a quarter of the 1300 sq. ft space that I currently rent. When I am home, I am either on the couch, or on the bed, or in the kitchen - with the couch being the most occupied piece of furniture and space in the apartment! The wastage defeats everything I believe in – a) it is an ecological waste - seeing as I have literally increased my footprint on this planet with no quantifiable benefit to me! It’s a waste of space, energy, resources, what have you. b) It makes no economical sense to buy more than I require! c) It is in no way creative use of space!

That being said, I can’t bring myself to live in a 400 sq. ft space even if that is as much area as I will be using. The unused area is something I still need, and its purpose is just to give me that “breathing space”, like the blank spaces in a busy painting! But, my peeve is when I am not using it creatively or efficiently enough when I want to!

I think it is ironic that the more money a person makes, the less say they have in the things they do or buy. Every house in the world is more or less alike in the overall organizational theme, even when it comes to aesthetics. They only differ in the price of the possessions, but in general there is nothing in the world that brings all humans together like the concepts of living rooms and bedrooms! Couches arranged horizontally and vertically, with a painting on the walls behind them, a tv in front of them, a few side tables, a book shelf, some artifacts or plants –- that's the definition of a living room in every part of the world!

I want a bookshelf in every room with comics and magazines in the bathroom, non-thinking novels in the bedroom, thought-provoking books for the metro, conversational books for the living room and so on. I want a pingpong table whereever it will fit, even if it is right in the middle of the living room, I want to be able to make coffee closest to the patio or the couch where I watch tv, read a book, talk on the phone and spend the most time drinking coffee! I want to replace my large fridge with three tiny fridges that I can spread out in the areas I most use so that I don't have to walk too far to get myself a beer or a glass of milk! (By the way, three tiny fridges is more energy efficient than one big fridge). I want an easy-chair in the kitchen to read a book or listen to music while I wait for my food to get cooked! I can go on! The point being, I want to imagine a world where every room had a little bit of everything neatly arranged into a system, but not quite in the "bedroom, living room, kitchen!" sort of fashion. Imagine little compartmentalized areas based on activity. The "comics and magazines" area, the "bird watching window", "the laptop couch", "the kitchen sofa" and so on..

I also want to bring the outside inside as much as possible. I don't like the idea of seeing nature only when I get out of the house, when in fact I AM a part of it and it is meant to be all around me!

I want the best bang for the buck, and the kind of bang that is both appealing and convenient (Speaking of bang, it seems to apply to other aspects of my life as well .. ;-) .. but I digress!)

People who have known me long enough or seen this about me, know this about me! So this post is yet another redundant discussion on my biggest rant about cookie-cutter houses, but I can't say it enough. I don’t come all the way to America, to the land of freedom and opportunity, to live in a cookie cutter house!

DAD COMPLETELY AGREES :D
MOM SAYS SHE CANT WAIT TO COME HOME AND CLEAN MY CUPBOARD, AND THINKS I AM MAKING EXCUSES FOR BEING LAZY... AND THAT THE "NO ROOMS" CONCEPT WAS INTERESTING!
TAPI LOVES ME NO MATTER WHAT! :D

A pastiche of planners, a staff of employees, a board of directors, a panel of experts, a circus of managers, an audience of listeners.

An agenda of tasks, a breakdown of plans, a wealth of information, a dossier of documents, a vagary of impediments , a number of mathematicians, a rabble of remedies, a compromise of mediators.

A crump of pensioners, a yearning of yesterdays, a wonder of stars, a wash of emotions, a gulp of swallows.

The Progression of Recession!

SIRC's Guide to Flirting: Do I need it? or Do I need it or what! :O

Footsie? ( or the feet under the table?)

Never! I abhor like how!!

Protean signals? (or casual touches, such as touching one's hair or gently touching a man's arm?)

My favorite. (although it is more like ruffling one's hair!)

Interpersonal distance?

Somewhere between the personal and intimate zones, (when it is not intimate that is! ... the lines get blurry sometimes)

Giggling (or laughing encouragingly as the slight hint of intimacy?)

I do all the time!

Smiling suggestively?

I prefer playing coy!

Sending notes, poems or small gifts?

Sometimes

Verbal Flirtiing?

Or what I have come to call (through my wide experience in this matter) - intellectual flirting! It's light-hearted flirtatious banter, where I play dumb and have the guy explain things to me, as I stare at him in flirtatious admiration - balancing the art of looking interested, while leading on when you have zoned out of the conversation is the toughest skill to acquire.

Turn Talking?

I never know when it is my turn to talk! Serious impairment that ruins the flow sometimes!

Flattery?

My most favorite!

Teasing?

More like getting teased ;)

Coyness, affectedly shy or modest, marked by cute, coquettish, or artful playfulness.

Sometimes I overdo!

Flirt by pointing, not with your finger, but with your body.

Do I?... or Do I do it or what! :O

Non-verbal leakage? (while we're busy controlling our words and faces, our real feelings 'leak out' in our posture)

Too much leaking happening ya! What to do!

Staging of chance encounters?

Seems to be the only thing I missed!

Married?

Very! Although I hurry past the flirting with him and get to the point!

All of the above with the spouse?

All that and more!

All of the above with others?

Almost! Can I also just say, I am super picky about who these "others" might be and love them to death!

"Research shows that men find it particularly difficult to interpret the more subtle cues in women's body-language, and tend to mistake friendliness for sexual interest."

absolutely you guys!!!

"Research has also shown that men have a tendency to mistake friendly behaviour for sexual flirting. This is not because they are stupid or deluded, but because they tend to see the world in more sexual terms than women. There is also evidence to suggest that women are naturally more socially skilled than men, better at interpreting people's behaviour and responding appropriately. Indeed, scientists have recently claimed that women have a special 'diplomacy gene' which men lack."

"Another problem is that in some rather Puritanical cultures, such as Britain and North America, flirting has acquired a bad name. Some of us have become so worried about causing offence or sending the wrong signals that we are in danger of losing our natural talent for playful, harmless flirtation."

Can someone please slap the initiator of facebook's "25 random things about yourself"?

This is my return gift to many people who have waited (im)patiently. It is not quite 25, but certainly entertaining I hope! But, if you MUST want one of those random facts about me, here's one:

I can never share a banana. I can't eat half a banana and save the other half for later. When I eat a banana, I neatly cut the stem with a knife, make four angular cuts to peel the skin and work my way down methodically! I could demonstrate this for you, except that bananas are best eaten in privacy! I don't like bananas in icecream, or doused in sauces and nuts. I love bananas with milk and sugar. I can enjoy a good banana milkshake, as long as I don't see it being made, unless I make it myself, in which case I chop the banana in perfect circles before dropping the banana into the processor. I don't have a problem with referring to the banana as "it". I am just being ridiculous.

I heard bananas can make you both constipated and have the squirts! I love bananas!

A Brief Tour of Human Consciousness: From Imposter Poodles to Purples Numbers

A Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat: And Other Clinical Tales

Phantoms in the Brain: Probing the Mysteries of the Human Mind

The Island of the Colorblind

I can’t be the only person navigating towards these books in the bookstore. Someone else has to find these titles just as intriguing. Someone else has to find these books just as staggeringly fascinating. They are all books that tell you how to grasp the marvel that is the human brain.

At any given point in my life I am reading or making up theories about the brain. My favorite random theory is that it is the only organ that exists in the body. Everything else is a result of its imagination, including the universe, if there is a universe. If you must question this theory, you should first consider the endless list of questions that arise as a consequence of challenging this theory. For instance, what is to say that even the brain exists? and "so what!"

The "so what!" question leads to other queries such as - supposing the brain is the only part of the body, why do we perceive ourselves to be physically stronger or weaker than others, why can’t we hold a musical note in high pitch, why can’t we fly or defy the laws of gravity, or dispose off societal structures at a whim. Did it take us four years to unseat an idiot president and conjure up a rockstar as replacement?

I haven’t even begun to talk about consciousness and it is a whole other universe that I won’t get into now. :)
 
I learnt that there is no wrong question when it comes to the brain. You can make up the most absurd question, and it will still not be ridiculous enough to elicit a shocked reaction. If anything, it will educe an equally stupefying or absurd response, if not scientific, then philosophical. So then, the thinking involved in arriving at that fascinating question becomes the exciting challenge.
 
The net is full of interesting articles on how Art, Religion, Music, Addiction and so on relate to the brain. Then there’s another brain-related genre that recently made it to my to-read list, like how technology has made it possible to restore eyesight and hearing, or control stammering. How tiny blood-cell sized devices (nanobots) can be inserted into your brain to perform therepeutic functions and so on.
 
Now I am in the phase where I make up my own theories on why we do what we do. I think I have it all figured out. Ask me why a tune gets stuck in our head all day, how time is represented in the brain, why we zone out of boring conversations, or how dreaming is different from imagining and I can totally whip up a good response. If it is not true, it is certainly something to think about! But, just like asking absurd questions, coming up with seemingly logical responses is entertaining as well. It produces a whirlwind of thoughts and ideas that will leave you feeling awed and humbled by this thing that controls everything that we are, and everything that we are perceived by others to be.

While meditating now, I try three very different things, one to let my mind go completely blank, two to let it go haywire and see where all that erratic whirlwind of thoughts take me, and three to introspect, which is to think consciously and be aware! I have clearly not mastered my mind, or rather my mind hasn’t mastered me, because when I choose to do one I do the other.

Despite this constant fascination for brain books, it beats me why I can never remember the anatomy of the brain. I have the back of the brain figured out, the Cerebellum and Medulla Oblongata. There are the Frontal, Temporal, Parietal and Occipital Lobes, the Gyruses, and some random odd things here and there. But why I can’t remember what they do, and where my thoughts and my skills reside I don’t know. Can’t the brain just be what I want it to be?

Like when someone hits me I want to know where I was hit. When I sing, I want to know which cell in my brain is being tickled. When my stomach growls, I need to know where to put the food so that it travels down and appeases the growling, when my brain wants answers I want to know which neuron to connect to another and create the required synapses.
 
I have been reading This is Your Brain On Music by Daniel Levitin in bits and pieces. It may be the next book I read, but even before I have read it I have all these thoughts on music, which seem more profound that what the book may be able to offer.

Will someone give me my PhD please?

-----------

Where did the brain go on vacation? to a Hippocampus! ha!
and what did the Hippocampus say during his retirement speech? Thank you for the memories. :D

Louse you Tweedybadooodees!
Thinkinofyou
missinyu loads
I'll be back quickymouse!
Moshquitotees xx

Eat'em ferrarorochers
for our foist smoochyvoochees
im still your noitcase
you my sweepea kuttis.
Louse you teddybear xx
ok na aanch?
aanch?

When I'm back
n we huggycuddly
stare into the battlestoirs
and gallacticas
heroes and peterpetreilis
"lost" in scifi
poinder 'em comics
n magazoines
we be couplets my muppetsxx!
toipeepatootees xx

Happy Valentines Day
Study off nicely nicely and get an A ok?
work off like a gooboy
doint do dishes
or npr
or google joibs.
drink em beers
You the best duddlysxx

Take care of my self
My sheesh kabobx
Eat loids
Sleep well
my karpuris
nightynightys

Chickidybuckidys
tootsiewooties
ticklypies
chicklet
pickles
tickitoos
snoozyboims
FATTY!
halleluah
i love you!

- Youvars Louvingly
Proibax

Making open declarations on my blog has helped me keep my resolutions (for the most part).

From now on I
Eat Right
Drink Less
Workout Daily

Coloring flowers
Buttering sandwiches
Picking blackberries
Blooming blossoms
Planting trees
Warming breeze
Growing grass
Sprinkling dew
Laying blanket
Cueing bird songs
Stealing picnik basket
Floating kites
Applying sunscreen
Fluffing clouds
Painting sky

As Flickr loads the editing tool called Picnik, the status displays these two-word phrases, which make me smile every time I see them :)

Ever since I came back to DC, I haven't been able to sleep beyond 2 in the night no matter when I go to sleep. While staying awake all night is not new to me, waking up so early once I have fallen a sleep has never happened before. It is not even like I am sleeping during the day, even though the antibiotics are making me drowsy.

Today, I am awake at 2 after a very disturbed sleep. I was dreaming of rocking ferries and tornadoes and feeling sea sick, wanting to throw up. I woke up feeling nauseous. It felt like I had slept for a very long time, but it turns out I was in bed for 3 hours. Aren't the antibiotics supposed to make me feel drowsy? I am feeling languid and washed out, but I can't seem to sleep.

It's been over two days since I ate anything and I am not hungry. But, on the whole I am feeling better.

In the last two days I have been advised to "give a few days before I blog about any event in my life, so that I am able to disqualify unimportant details from my post that might seem dramatic now, but trivial later" So I'll do just that!

In the mean time, here are some telugu and tamil proverbs that I thought were quite ambiguous and even funny.

"Count the bamboo bars in your host's house"

What could this possibly mean! It is a very mysterious trope. Bamboos are not expensive, so it can't be the metaphor for money. But, they break easily, which gives the guest a chance to escape in case he has been taken "host"age :)

"The shouting donkey came and disturbed the eating donkey"

The only way this makes sense if I am the former and Tapi is the latter. I see NO problem with it whatsoever, although Tapi might think otherwise.

"Yenki's marriage has resulted in Subbi's death"

Were they lovers? I have a feeling this is to imply that the former's happiness was at the expense of the latter's life. Still, what a strange way to put it.

"He shakes more and pees less"

Ok. This is about false pride or bragging without any real achievement. But, what a way to say it!

"Even when throwing in the river, measure what you have"

Now why would I want to do that, except to prevent pollution! If you ask me the proverb should say "Never throw anything into the river"

"Even waste should be measured and discarded"

Ok! This is the same as the one above. But, I am willing to discount the "original" meaning (whatever it is, I really can't wrap my head around it) and credit it as a brilliant idea for recycling :)

"How much rice do you have? I have enough beans"

This is a Malayalam proverb. But, given that there is no coconut involved, the former is clearly not inviting the latter for a cooking party!

Looks like we have something in common with Greeks beyond the Big Fat Wedding! We have our own version of Delphic proverbs. Perhaps they are meant to be deliberately obscure.

Out of desperation comes creativity and bad humor I suppose. (Fine. I laughed!)



The Hot Chick Dig website is provoking, although I am not sure if it's provoking in a good way or bad. Some parts of the site are very clever, like the "Hot Wheels" section and the galleries. Their blog too is interesting. I am curious to see if their project is really working, or if it is just us wannabe-environmentalists who are totally digging the Hot Chix even while in moral dilemma!

I am curious to know what you think!

On a different but related topic, it turns out that this Hot Chix (me!) has bronchitis and asthma. That's right. The verdict is out! I was subject to the compressed nebulizer for 15 minutes to some avail, and have been asked to rethink my resolutions for 2010 (long term plan). Such things as climbing Mt. Everest or Altitude diving may have to wait until much later, except in book-reading form or in my imagination (like right now!). However, my mind is currently occupied in such disturbing thoughts as me being one of the Hot Chix Warring Against Greek-God-like Bacteria with my UberCute Purple Advair Diskus and Antibiotics! I'm totally Digging! I even get a Nasal Spray! How cool is that! :D (That's right. This post is a result of the lack of enough oxygen supply to my lungs and brain!)

I have my favorite robot t-shirt on (you have seen it several times, for example: here with the cool animation), my bright turquoise blue and florescent green flannel socks, my white flannel flu jammies with magenta hearts, and a red woolen monkey cap! And I'm having loads of creamed soups, creamy mashed potatoes, creamy mac & cheese and idlis... im nonthinkingly reading comics and easy books, watching cartoons and other such entertaining tv, blogging, surfing, snuggling, cuddling. Life is great! :D What a way to end the year!

Have I been WAY too lucky so far? Bones intact, I survived underwater with asthma despite losing my regulator for a few seconds! I hope 2009 brings you and me LOTS AND LOTS MORE GOOD LUCK and SENSE!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

The wheel of fortune and the force that works to restore all balance in the world does a good job on me. There is always the bad after the good, great weather followed by a storm, sickness after health. So last night, I arrived in cold DC from warm Cancun and was welcomed by a flu! 103°, painful throat, cough and cold! Life sucks!

But it's great to be back home in my messy living room, listening to Gangsta Blues (Slumdog Millionaire) and eating rice and feeling safe!

If you thought falling from a tree was eventful enough, wait till you hear all that followed. The fall was only the overture. There were dramatic orchestral compositions that played one after the other. We rode a moped through the island of Cozumel, almost lost my life in the ocean! threw up "while" scuba diving in Barracuda, also snorkeled there and in an underground river, walked, ran, climbed a lot! Went in several modes of transport and even did regular touristy stuff and things like lazing on the beach! It was the most "active" and also the most "relaxing" holiday I have had.

Since there is SO much to write down, I am going to start a separate Cancun page that I will update over the next few days, so that I don't flood my blog with just my travel notes. But, for now, here's one of many exciting experiences!

We did Snuba, which is Snokelling and Scuba Diving combined, near a coral reef called Barracuda. The assumption was that we would kill two birds in one shot, but what we didn't realize was that we were the birds getting killed! We assumed it would be a milder version of Scuba Diving, but it turned out that "combining" snorkeling and scuba diving meant doing one after the other! The ship took us to the middle of the ocean to a coral reef. There was no land in sight, just a 360° horizon with a straight line separating the water from the sky in all sides. This in itself was daunting as hell. We were handed a diving mask, an oxygen tank with a regulator, large fins, a heavy lead weight belt that you wear around your waist for "neutral floatation" (On wearing the belt, you "literally" become the stone being plopped into the ocean. The only way you will go is down! or like the instructor explained "the belt will help you sink").

The instructor quickly muttered some instructions, like "always breathe with your mouth", "don't hold your breath" (!), "blow out air from your ear every few minutes to release pressure", "if you lose your regulator, don't panic. Slowly make your way up to the floating oxygen tank!". Now naturally, I had questions on what might happen if I accidentally breathe through my nose, or can't release ear pressure when I am thirty feet under water. There was the hope that I might hear the instructor say "you will be fine", instead I heard "You will have serious lung problems, but don't panic because you will lose clarity of thought and won't be able to follow instructions". Gulp! Then there were several hand gestures that we had to learn to indicate "how we are doing"... The only thing I learnt well was the hand shake to indicate "i'm not ok". I didn't see a need to learn anything else and as anticipated, it came in handy and saved my life!

So the boat stopped at the reef and we stood by the edge wearing our gear, shivering, legs shaking, when suddenly we heard "Jump!". Before we knew it, we were in the ocean. I cannot describe the feeling of total lack of control. It is NOTHING like being on the deep side of the swimming pool. You are trying hard to keep your head above the water and have to fight against the tide to get to wherever you are being guided. And even before you can acclimatize to the gear and being in this new environment, you are forced to dive into the depths of hell!

The water is not as frigid as you would imagine even though we were in our bikinis and swim trunks... and is also unbelievably clear. You can see all the way down to the ocean bed from on top. When you go down, there is life all around you - tropical fish, sea turtles, plant life. You are swimming amongst life that you've only seen from behind a glass wall! It's unreal! But, despite all the beautiful life around me, all I could think of is "hold on to the regulator tightly and breathe through your mouth". I also had open wounds from my tree fall that I was (belatedly) worried would get infected despite the waterproof bandages. After making it down 20 feet, my mask gave way. I panicked and gasped for breath!! As a result, I breathed through my nose, and gulped down salty water!! It was the single most painful experience of my life! I started to quickly make my way up and swam to the oxygen float! (by now you know I haven't followed any instructions on what to do when things go wrong) I felt throbbing pain in my head and breathed loudly thinking to myself "I am alive!". I looked around me, hoping to find assistance. There was no ship in site! Not ONE person. It was just me and a lot of quiet in the middle of the ocean. There is nothing in the world as scary as that. I tried hard to find the other floating tanks (and thereby the people connected to them), and after a desperate look, I spotted one a good distance away and realized I may have moved much away from the rest of the team! Tapi and I shared the same tank, so I knew he had to be around! I mustered some courage, wore my mask again, put the regulator in my mouth, and went down with the hope of finding him! This time, for some reason, I was able to appreciate the life underwater even more! The coral reef, although not as colorful as I had imagined (from all the Nat Geo shows I watched on TV) was still spectacular!!! As I was swimming in the reef, I saw the guide (still no sign of Tapi) and felt some relief. He asked me to follow him, and I saw more and more life. There is so much going on in the ocean unknown to us, and in such silence! It was surreal and almost awe-inspiring.

After a while however, I was beginning to feel nauseous, either because of fatigue from all the exertion or just being sea sick. I indicated to the guide that "I'm not okay". We went up and I tried to explain my problem! Since he spoke no english, he did not understand what I was saying. He played around with the knob in the oxygen tank and said "all ok". At this point, I managed to tell him that I would rather snorkel than dive again. So he took the weights off my waist and I swam in the ocean, looking down at the bed for a good half hour! It was the most enjoyable swim of my life! I almost felt like I could have swam for hours and hours and not get tired! Perhaps, my brain gave way! I could only feel numb satisfaction. I began to think of all the stories of Gulliver and Flashy who swam for miles in the ocean to get to land, and feel like them! It was a very heroic triumphant feeling.

When the time was up, I reluctantly swam back to the floating oxygen tank, because I was thoroughly enjoying snorkeling. We held onto the rope of the raft with the oxygen float for a good half hour waiting for the ship. During this time, I was slowly beginning to get tired and "green around the gills" (read: nauseous). The bright sun glare made it worse. Tapi looked sapped of all life! He said "was there no oxygen?" and then I realized the poor guy was under water all the while breathing less air and not knowing why! The fidgeting our guide did when we came up must have reduced supply! There was no sign of the ship still, and the guide was trying to keep us conscious and mumbled things like "you from india? elephants, camels? I know tantra mantra. I do everyday. It give peace"... At this point I threw up in the ocean!

Now, here is the deal. When you finally are in the middle of the large water mass throwing up, the feeling is one of unison. Now, the ocean knows you "in and out" and throwing up feels like most natural thing to do, especially since I was only throwing up all the water I drank when I was drowning. There is this feeling of intimacy of an inexplicable kind. You are one with nature, and nature is one with you!

The ship finally arrived. The guide took off my fins and said "Swim". It is only then that I realized how much of the work the fins had been doing. My legs felt so light without them, that they were as good as nonexistent. There is no way I could swim without the fins! I had no idea why the guide had to take them off! But, I was obviously too tired to argue and tried to make the impossible possible. I made it to the ship, gulping down more and more water, but this time without panicking because I knew I was around people who could pull me out if I went down. Then, I threw up from the boat again for as long as we were heading back to the beach and I almost lost consciousness. But, isn't the mind really weird? Despite everything I was still looking forward to the water activities we had planned for the next day at Isla Mujeres, which is snorkeling (again... although closer to the beach) and sailing on catamaran!

When I was on land, I realized I may have hit something under water, because I had some more fresh wounds on my ankle! But, all worth it :)

The only regret in this trip is that I have no pictures. I took my water camera with me, but there was NO way I could take pictures amidst all this chaos! Maybe next time?

By the way, when our Cancun trip began, we had decided that I would do all water activities on my own. Tapi did not want to venture in the water at all! But through some miracle, he mustered up courage and decided to join me despite very little swimming experience and his phobia. He's really my hero! :)

In one of my VERY stupid moments yesterday, I decided to climb a tree in the middle of no where, near this Mayan Ruin at Playa del Carmen, and fell down at least 20 feet amidst sharp stones, branches and debris, but miraculously got away with no major damage!

In fact, I am as fine as can be! Everyone around me was quite perplexed at how I survived the fall without a fracture even! It was quite miraculous. I clearly have free-falling talent! There is no way you can tell that I fell without looking very closely.

It didn't in anyway hinder our plans and we did a lot of walking for at least the next seven or eight hours on uneven ground at the bird sanctuary, the beach, Quinto Avenida (a.k.a. 5th avenue, which is the main street that runs parallel to the ocean, with the most colorful and never-ending flea market I have seen)... we then took two buses, and walked back to the hotel. Interestingly, my hotel too demands a walk up hundreds of stairs - so the journey back to the room everyday is quite dramatic (symbolic of the end of the day's pilgrimage, sort of).

When I woke up this morning, however, I wasn't as bright-eyed and bushy-tailed as all that. I noticed a lot more minor scrapes here and there, and the right side of my body was swollen at the neck, shoulder, waist, hip, thigh, knee, calves and ankle. The pain seems to have worsened for some reason!! The other side's relatively intact.

By the time we were ready to head out at 7, I was feeling fine enough and off we went to Chichen Itza. Although we were pre-warned several times yesterday that it is physically demanding, the place turned out to be such a REAL WONDER that you disremember such trivial things as bruises from trees! (more about Chichen Itza and everything else Cancun related after I get back in a few days!)

I just couldn't wait to share the news about this awesome fall. It was only a few days ago that a thought occurred to me about how physical scars from "accidentally" falling down are the only things that diminish as a person ages! You fall lesser and lesser, even though, you might think that the probability of such occurrences increases over time and the wear and tear on any "thing" including ones body increases with age! Isn't that some thing?

That being said, I don't intend to fall again!

Few more thoughts! As soon as I fell, the first thing that came to mind was if Tapi and Avu think I am a wuss who can't even climb a tree properly.. and then I was a little disappointed that they didn't get a picture of me in mid-air when I was falling! I wanted to ask if my camera was fine! I didn't even think to see if I was ok or if my dress was torn! What does all this say about me? Shallow, Obtuse and Downright Shameful no?

Off to Cancun for a bit. So Hasta Luego! and Hola Margarita! :D
I will have my laptop with me while I am there, but I think there is more value to sharing all exploits after I am back. So wait with bated breath! You know I don't disappoint! :D



Feliz Navidad (Merry Christmas) Amigos! POmp up theE Jam n Ho ho ho!

---

Oh by the way!



Not quite cathartic no? I'll get there! I promise!

Ok! What am I getting at?

Wired has an article about a student who was sentenced to 15 years in prison for uploading a video on youtube on how to convert a remote-control toy car into a bomb detonator. The guilty egyptian student looks so much like Tapi! Scary no?

Did I mention I gifted Tapi a remote control car for his birthday?

Not to mention, few days ago I wrote a post about how I don't want to mess with batteries because I am afraid they might detonate!

And then there was another post about youtube and vimeo!

What is this? Christmas or Halloween?

I am looking forward to my vacation in Cancun, but I am afraid to say "I hope to have a blast" now.

I hope this means that Tapi is the "good" Amitabh Bachchan in Don! :D (even if in my example pic, it is Tapi who is not smiling! Irony or what!)

----

ps: What has all this got to do with Abhishek Bachchan you ask? Or is what I am thinking obvious! :D

I decided to beat everyone in thinking about the year ahead. :-) But first, let me cast an over-the-shoulder glance at '08. The year hasn't ended so I still have time to keep some of my resolutions. :-)

A new job aside, 2008 has been uneventful. Nothing I did stands out as being mention-worthy, but I have kept some of my resolutions and made some more meaningless alterations to my life!   

I wanted to reduce my ecological footprint and learn more about environmental issues. It's hard to gauge if I am realizing this resolution, but I have made some alterations and am acquiring knowledge (albeit slowly). I think I need to crank it up even more. Here I must also add that being environmentally friendly is proving to be very expensive! But, I'll blame it on my shopaholic tendencies than anything else. In '09, I hope to continue to learn more, footprint less, and shop least!  

I wanted my days to be more productive, but in the last few months I have been "work-shy", to say the least. I blame it on everyone and everything that's been distracting me. :-) But, no more distractions. I am determined to settle down into a routine. Finger's crossed! 

I wanted to be unprejudiced in the kind of media I consume :-) ... especially in terms of the books I read, the TV shows or movies I watch, the music I listen to, and all online web content I consume. I also wanted to read and watch the news everyday. However, what little I have accomplished in this regard I attribute to improved technology and superior quality of entertainment. I am consuming more media now than ever before. As a result my range has increased, but I am probably still prejudiced (Zee TV, sorry we are unsubscribing you). But, it doesn't bother me anymore. I am more concerned about taking a structured approach to consuming media in 2009 than being less biased. More on this later.  

I wanted to exercise and eat right! This I'm embarrassed to say, I haven't even started. I will. I fast every Wednesday. I don't know why. I will continue to do it in 2009. I also learnt that my once a day meal routine may be causing my body to go into "starvation mode"... it is slowing down my metabolism and eating away my lean muscle mass. My body is preparing for that ill-fated day when there might not be another meal! It is converting what little calories it gets into fat and holding on to it in case of a food crisis. Why do I do this? I don't know. I've been this way all my life. Mom calls me a camel. You will either find me pigging out like crazy or not eating for days. I find the whole activity of eating time consuming, and sometimes I even forget to eat. I think my eating habits deserve a whole post cos I have loads of theories! :-)

I wanted to bring down Starbucks consumption to once or twice a week. I haven't gone to Starbucks at all in over 6 months! YAY! :D

I cut down on email and cell phone usage. I am not happy with my dependence on them still. They keep luring me back and on some days it's harder to resist the temptation than some others, but I feel strongly about 2009 being the year of improvements! 

To this list I am adding newer resolutions that are mostly career-oriented, like setting out concrete short and long term goals and doing whatever it takes to accomplish them. 

I also want to be less conceitedly dogmatic in my opinions.

I want to focus less on being right and more on doing what makes everyone happy (whether I like it or not).
 
I want to say I will donate more to charity, volunteer with non-profits, but I am currently peeved with the whole process. Non-profits make both these "activities" very very difficult and non-trustworthy. I need to think about this a little.

In the mean time, I want to do my own "nonprofit" related thing. More on this later, but for now let's just say it has something to do with making my days more productive!

I have a whole month to think about how I will alter this list... Isn't thinking about life the most worthless and self-absorbed activities ever?

Even as the horror of the attacks in Mumbai is still unfolding, I am beginning to worry about what will happen in the days to come. Will this lead to a bigger unrest and greater destruction around the world, should we expect or even hope that anything will change for the better, will we have moved on and forgotten about the indiscriminate slaughter of hundreds of people, and would forgetting in fact be the most appropriate response to terrorism - a luxury we can hope for - a world without hatred, eternal peace.

It may be too early to worry about this. But, I feel fear. I hope this is not a prelude to a war.

(Quick link for my own personal reading: Terrorism in India since 2001)

I wrote a post about a discussion I had with Nandu on aerial views from a plane and how it got me thinking about things. But then I figured it would make more sense for Nandu to exercise his innate intellectual capabilities directly on my blog. :-) Enjoy!

- THANK YOU NANDU!



It happened one day. My Chitti was visiting Washington DC and then asking about her upcoming flight to St. Louis. I saw her seat number 12F and casually said, “You’re on the right side of the plane to see the DC monuments, if the aircraft takes up the right way. Wait… it is close to winter and there should be the winds from the Northwest. The aircraft is very likely to take off the right way. You should get a good view of DC.” It was only when I saw surprised faces that I realized that what I said sounded strange to all, and that they couldn’t quite get how I could make such a statement. At that time, I thought that a little explanation would suffice to explain the obvious. It took much more than that. Looking back, I guess this thing was a coming together of many interests of mine and of course, my numerous trips to St. Louis from DC Airport (DCA).

When flying in an airplane, I love to look out of the window particularly during landing and taking off to see if there is anything I can recognize. I get a thrill in recognizing I-95 or the interchange between I-95 and the Baltimore beltway, or perhaps the Chesapeake bay. Most people are content getting an aisle seat and taking a nap or reading during the flight, whereas I look forward to the take-off and landing along with whatever else I get to see, clouds and daylight permitting. Then again, things are boring if I’m landing in a place I don’t know, or if we’re taking off over countryside. There is nothing I know about Denver, and all farms look alike from the air.

I never flew out of the DC Airport (DCA, although actually in Arlington, Virginia) until my sister moved to St. Louis. While the other airports in the area, Baltimore-Washington International (BWI) and Washington Dulles (IAD) take off far in the suburbs, DCA is in the heart of the city with all the famous monuments. Initially, I would wait for the plane to take off and try to see what I could. With each trip to St. Louis, I began to learn more about the airport and the surroundings. There was only one runway used. If you were lucky, it took off or landed the right way and you could either see the monuments of DC, or the tall buildings of Rosslyn in Virginia. Doing it long enough, I began to trace the plane route all the way until the outskirts of DC metropolitan area. If I do it long enough, I'll probably trace the route until St. Louis!

Having biked to UMD campus for a year, I learnt about the ways in which the winds blow in the area. Encountering a particularly difficult windy day on my bike, I would check weather.com to see what direction the wind was in. Winds were strong in winter, and usually came from the North-West, blowing steadily at a whopping 30-40 km/h. Biking against the wind feels like someone holding your bike from behind preventing it from moving. Biking with the wind allowed me to hit 62 km/h (as measured by my bike speedometer), the only time I violated the speed limit! You could measure the speed of the wind if you were lucky to be moving in the exact same direction. When you hit the wind speed, the air around you is suddenly absolutely still, giving a surreal kind of feeling when you're moving that fast. After the necessary calibration, I became so good that I could do a bike ride and then reel out the temperature, wind direction and wind speed.

Reading up about the weather, I found out that the cold winds came from the Great Lakes in the North west. A north west wind was a precursor to cold weather, while the rare south east wind made things warm, cloudy and a maybe a bit of rain. I came to appreciate what the Himalayas saved the Northern plains of India from.

If there was one thing I learnt from my father being in aeronautics, it was that planes always take off and land against the wind. Wind flow on the wing of the plane provides the necessary lift. If the plane flies with the wind, it gets no lift and will simply fall like a rock. So, if the wind was from the NW at 50 km/h and you needed a wind flow of 300 km/h to take off, taking off against the wind requires you to go from 0 to 250 km/h, while taking off with the wind needs you to go from 0 to 350 km/h. The first flight used a 43 km/h head wind. Other constraints apart, runways are built so that aircraft will most likely take off against the wind. If the wind direction is reversed one day, planes will reverse their direction on the runway for that day. As you might expect, the DCA runway is expectedly built NW - SE parallel to the river. Taking off or landing from the NW gave you a view of the monuments.

When people talk about taking a tour of DC, they usually mean either walking the mall or perhaps driving Pennsylvania Avenue, where you see all the monuments. However, I had the fascination of seeing all the monuments at once from an aerial viewpoint. They look prettier from outside and sometimes even from a distance. Most visitors I’ve taken to DC have been content seeing the monuments from outside. With my fascination for views from the plane, I wanted to have the complete air tour of DC. While that happened early enough, I wanted an encore, but this time with my camera ready. It turned out to be one of those elusive things where I couldn't get everything right. I was on the wrong side of the plane. The plane took off the wrong way. It was night time. It was misty. Some things were easy to fix. I always had my camera with me. I made sure that I was on "row F" while taking off and "row A" while landing, so that if the aircraft did take off or land the right way, I would have the good view. Of course, other things weren't in my control and so I just had to hope that if I did it often enough, I should eventually get everything right.

Finally, it happened. After nearly a year and 6 flights to St. Louis, I was on the right side of the aircraft with the good view. Being October, the winds from the NW had begun, the plane took off in the NW as I would expect, and I was on row F ready with a camera. There was still some mist, but I got things nevertheless. Mission accomplished! When returning from St. Louis that time, I was on the afternoon flight. As with habit, I had chosen Row A. I expected the plane to land from the South East (so that it would be against the NW winds). But as it came near, the flight didn't take the usual path and suddenly it struck me, it was going to land from the NW, it was sunny and clear outside and I was on Row A ready with my camera. It was an absolute treat and rather than describing it, here are the pictures

http://picasaweb.google.com/anandr.umd/DCAirPictures#

All that done, we come back to the present, and I hope I've been able to explain myself. As to whether Chitti got the air tour, it turned out that I was right and she got the tour. However, a minute into it, the plane went into the clouds! There are some things you can't predict.

In an unexpected discussion one night with Nandu about flight seats and such, he declared to Sudha Chithi that her 12F seat would give her a good bird's view of downtown DC, because it was a right side window seat and the plane usually takes off in the north east direction to go against the wind! This, I later found out from Sudha Chithi was accurate, except that our scientist forgot to consider weather conditions and her view was interrupted by the clouds!  
 
Soon I was audience to some astonishing pictures he shared with us of Washington DC taken on a flight to St.Louis and back. There they were: the US capitol, the Cathedral, the Kennedy Center, the Mall area... all as magnificently imposing as ever. As the plane went higher and higher, we saw spectacular views of the city, astonishingly lush, with the potomac river positioned long and still in the center of it all.
 
I am a little embarrassed that even the thought of taking pictures on a flight had never occurred to me until now! It is not to say that I haven't seen people take pictures on a plane, I just haven't felt the urge to take them myself. I don't take the breathtaking views for granted. Everything about the view from the window fascinates me -- the well planned cities during the day, the glittering spectacle at night, the floating clouds above and below, the clear blue sky, they is all very supernal. 

The fact that I am seated comfortably in this conveyance up in the sky, looking down at the earth is hard to swallow. The littleness of the biggest skyscrapers destroys any pride I have about the significance of my existence on this planet. How much more bizarre should it be for rocket scientists looking down at the globe and seeing earth like we do on a map.  Even the idea that we know what earth looks like and that the world can be drawn on a sheet of paper blows my mind. I am not convinced that the world map is fully kosher :) All the things I know of it and see of it, and know that I haven't seen or will never know of it, only tell me that the earth is imponderably vast and undefinable. Earth does not exist in shape or form except for what we see and touch. Things just materialize in front of our eyes, instantaneously, just like the cylon basestar in Battlestar Gallactica transforms its ambience to whatever you imagine it to be.      

But, before I habitually digress into my favorite topics (earth and sci-fi), the conversation with Nandu raised a lot of questions in my mind that I want to address. One is with regards to human reasoning and our ability to observe patterns and make sense of things. What boggles me is not just the human capacity of thought, but also the type of things we assimilate in our subconscious mind unknowing to us that transform our world view. That the seat and flight direction of a certain plane is observed, retained and taken advantage of says a lot about our mind, especially since it was not done consciously.  

Then there is this whole activity of flying - our passive attitude towards something as extraordinary as stretching the laws of gravity and roving about 30,000 feet above ground over the deepest parts of the ocean, leaving all trust in the hands of an unknown faceless pilot in an invisible corner called the cockpit. You sit in your seat for however long it takes for you to reach your destination, watch a film, flip through a book, sleep, snore, foam, froth, and are woken every few hours by this person in a bizarre hair dress and an uptight uniform serving tasteless food in a neatly packaged container. It's a monotonous, mechanized activity that we all willingly succumb to. There is no thinking involved despite all the things you find in the plane to stimulate your brain, like the voice of the pilot or the flight attendant with information on weather and location, the safety booklet (an utterly useless manual which will tell you everything you either know or wont have to), display screens with more useless information on wind speed and such.,,

I figured, in all this, that my lack of interest in taking pictures on the flight may have to do with all the restrictions that the planes impose on us by not permitting the use of electronics during different times throughout the journey -some while landing, some while taking off and some at other times during the journey. It's all very hassling and easier not to use electronics at all. But, in giving up, I am succumbing to a rule which has no use in the first place. There is no reason why a flight should restrict us from using electronics. It has been proven that cell phones do not interfere with air waves necessary for flight manaeuvering. Other electronics too don't in anyway cause hazard. The rules are just to keep us as disciplined and quite as possible. This may be good given how noisy and chaotic the planes might get otherwise. But, some honesty on the reason behind the rule would have been the respectable thing to do! 

During the long flight journeys to India and back, I had always found it amusing how the display showed the speed of flight and the strength of wind that influenced our movement forward. It's not the kind of information you can do anything with, or know how to react to, but it is brilliantly entertaining and does what I think the airline wants, which is to give us a certain informed flying experience, so that we can pretend to be actively participating in manaeuvering the plane alongside the pilot, when in fact we are sitting languidly hyponized by the moving plane icon over the map of world.  
 
Then every once in a while, the pilot himself announces that we are either being pushed by tailwinds or pushing through the fasted headwinds he has ever experienced, and we hold our breath in anticipation wondering what all this means and how he and thereby we will get past this situation. Naturally there is nothing we can do, but it keep us nervously entertained! 
 
In an international flight, when you are sitting 30,000 feet above ground, with the windows shut and no sense of where you are, or when (given the time lapse), there is certainly no use to knowing this information, there is no sense in reacting to anything journey related at all. If anything your emotion at this stage should be in line with what Buddha preaches on how to perceive your life on earth! Aware but pacific.
 
Speaking of helplessness, I read the inflight-safety instructions manual every time I get on the plane, even though I know it by heart. I can never bore of it. My mind is full of questions on when I am to have that experience which will put me in the situation where I will need to change my seat into a float, walk to the emergency exit, slide down the wing, float on water until rescue arrives. The flight attendants' little skit on the plane to explain how to wear a seatbelt is just as amusing. I saw a George Carlin standup on TV about it which was uproarious! 



All that said, I have had some experiences with planes and airports with birds gettign stuck in the wing, emergency landings, deaths of people, riots outside the airport, and one very surreal experience which I won't go into now.

But, what I find most astonishing is how little we know about the one thing that could mean life or death to us, about what goes into taking a plane from destination A to B. There is so much security surrounding it, with all kinds of threats - deliberate and accidental, and so much at stake for each person on the plane and still we pretend like flying up in the sky it is the most natural thing that we can do as humans. Why? I feel most safe when I am on a plane!

Forrester: Now, about this professor of yours. How did it feel having him tell you what you can't do?

Jamal: Like he knew he was better than me.

Forrester: Then let's show him what you can do.....Why is it the words we write for ourselves, are always so much better than the words we write for others? ... Sit…Go ahead.

Jamal: Go ahead and what?

Forrester: Write.

Jamal: What are you doing?

Forrester: I'm writing. Like you'll be, when you start punching those keys… Is there a problem?

Jamal: No. I'm just thinking.

Forrester: No thinking. That comes later. You write your first draft...with your heart. You rewrite with your head. The first key to writing is... to write.
Not to think.

Jamal: Jesus.

Forrester: Is there a chance you might sit down?

Jamal: "A Season of Faith's Perfection." What's this?

Forrester: Start typing that.
Sometimes the simple rhythm of typing gets us from page one to page two. When you begin to feel your own words, start typing them. Punch the keys for God's sake!

Jamal: Yes!

Forrester: You're the man now, dog.

I love reading film scripts and screenplays, and I read them with great interest after I watch some films. Watching a movie and reading the script are two very different things. They are both captivating in their own way. Think about it like owning an awesome gadget and playing with it, and then opening it up and marveling at the inner workings. They are two very different things, each with its own value.

I find sometimes that the scripts of some movies are way better than the movies themselves. I have also seen the contrary. This makes it all the more fascinating when a book adaptation metamorphosizes into a film script that in turn becomes a film. When the book works and not the movie or vice versa, it makes me wonder where the film script stands in all this.

These are all things to talk about at leisure. I could dedicate a whole blog to them. But, I really want to talk about this Finding Forrester scene. I had been thinking about this scene all day today. It’s not the most engaging film, but it has its moments and some of the dialogues are quite compelling. I wish I could find the script somewhere. I found the transcript however, with just the dialogues, but it’s not quite the same.

Still, there is something about this one scene that I find rings true for me. I relate to his theory of writing in a lot of ways, even when it comes to things like making changes to my life. I don’t always act on sane judgment, but it has worked out well so far. If anything I have come to realize some things about myself, and have grown as a result. I almost feel like when one acts on impulse, they are creating their first draft that they type out without thinking. I have a lot of first drafts that I need to develop beyond raw thought and impulse, but I am hoping that with time, I will come to see at least one "complete work" that I can be proud of!

Speaking specifically, I have decided to fast every Wednesday. I haven’t quite thought of why, but at the moment, I feel like the act of fasting to me is more important than the reasoning, which I hope will eventually come, perhaps as a consequence of the action.

A year ago I gave up leather and other products that kill animals. That was a more deliberate choice. Back then I felt like it was illogical that being vegetarian I should dress in animal skin. My act was more to defend my vegetarianism than out of genuine compassion for animals. But since the time I gave it up, I have developed the sensitivity. Now the sheer thought of dressing in leather disturbs me. I haven't discarded some of my leather boots that I bought over a year ago and I continue to wear them in pain! I can't bring myself to throw them away. There is also the thought that whether I have them at home or throw them out, I have already done the damage of buying them. How does it matter whether they exist in my apartment or outside? How can it be okay to waste them? How can I gift something that I feel ethically wrong about to someone as charity? Moreover, they are the only real formal shoes I have for work! I have all this to think about. But, until then I will continue to be pseudo-ethical and work on improving it bit by bit.

There are instances where my thought-out decisions haven’t really benefited anyone or myself. Six months ago, I gave up Starbucks coffee. At that time, I felt that I would donate the money that I had been spending on starbucks to a cause. Based on some "sensible" reasoning, I felt like I can never bring myself to donate 1000 bucks to a cause without feeling the pinch of it, even though I unthinkingly spend much more than that amount frivolously on things that I can’t even remember. So I figured, the only way I will do it is to give something up that I pay for on a regular basis and donate the amount to a cause. I do donate the amount, but I don’t feel satisfied. If anything, I feel guilty. I can’t seem to figure out why.

Six months ago I gave up using the cell phone, except to talk to my mom and sometimes my brother. I love talking to mom on the phone, she may be the only person I can talk to for hours without wanting to put the phone down, except when we get into a huge argument about what I choose to do with my life or how she chooses to live hers, at which point we end up banging down the phone and calling each other several times over the next few minutes until we have temporarily resolved our differences. Here I would also like to clarify that I am usually always right, but I give in because of my unconditional love for my mom. :-)
 
With mom and my brother as exceptions, I have stopped using my cell phone almost completely.  I carry it for emergencies, but beyond that it is as good as nonexistent to me. My friends call me at home, they send me emails, which have become longer and more entertaining overtime, they chat with me, and I meet them more often. I have come to realize that I have more meaningful conversations with them now than I did on the phone. I have also noticed that my social life has become more entertaining. I go out a lot more, I meet new people and I like what I do with my time alone as well.
 
Interestingly, I have noticed that fewer people call me at home than on my cell. I really don't know why. It is almost like people feel restricted by my use of a home phone. But it has worked out well for me. I seem to have narrowed down my options to close friends, family and tele-marketers. :-)
 
I have been having a tough time deciding what to give up next. I feel like saying email or gtalk, but I dread to think of how I would survive without them. I decided therefore to use them as minimally as possible. How I define minimal is a whole different issue. For one thing, I like the idea of checking and responding to personal emails twice a week. That's reasonable enough and even challenging given that I check my email every few minutes now. I could use gtalk over the weekends, and access facebook twice a month. But, would all this constitute as giving something up? Perhaps not.
 
In the latest Wired, there is an article by Scott Brown about facebook in which he says

“Thanks to Facebook, I never lose touch with anyone. And that, my Friend, is a problem.”

They're all there: elementary school friends, high school friends, college friends, work friends, friends of friends, friends of ex-girlfriends—the constellation of familiar faces crowds my Friendbox like medals on Mussolini's chest. I'm Friend-rich—at least onscreen. I've never lost touch with anyone, it seems. What I've lost is the right to lose touch. This says less about my innate lovability, I think, than about the current inflated state of Friendonomics.

…keeping friends requires almost no effort at all. We have achieved Infinite Friendspace, which means we need never drift from old pals nor feel the poignant tug of passive friend-loss. It also means that even the flimsiest of attachments—the chance convention buddy, the cube-mate from the '90s, the bar-napkin hookup—will be preserved, in perpetuity, under the flattering, flattening banner of "Friend."

It is true. It seems like there is no such thing as falling out with old pals and moving on. You are stuck with them and even their buddies for eternity. But, I have a lot of old school and college buddies that I have come back in contact with through orkut and facebook and it is exciting to talk to them after several years. I can't think of people I wouldn't want to keep in touch with, moreover I have made new friends and love them to death. I can only see benefits to using these sites. But, I miss having private conversations with close buddies. I also miss the idea of knowing everyone on a personal level. I need that. I think I am getting that more now with my communication restrictions than ever before.

Tapi insists that I should put this on my blog with "Mega-Nerd to the Power of Nutcase" as title. We were looking out the patio when I saw a tree that was completely red on one side and green on the other and I said "It looks like this tree can't make up its mind on whether it is coniferous or deciduous". =)
In my defense, that does NOT qualify me as nerd or even fractional nerd because:
a) They are not opposites and may have been if i said "evergreen" instead of coniferous.
b) The statement was simply a memorizing mechanism owing to that brilliant Nature Handbook that I have become addicted to. I challenge anyone to pick it up (and peruse for at least thirty seconds) and not be enslaved by it.
c) Most importantly, I don't even know if that statement makes sense, thereby proving that I was wrong and that in itself automatically disqualifies me as nerd.

(commiting to memory: coniferous deciduous coniferous deciduous ... deciduous diminishing coniferous evergreen deciduous diminishing coniferous evergreen ... )

In one of my stupid moments as soon as I came back home from work, I decided to do a voice post, mostly out of sheer boredom, and the desire to be in the now! I realized there is nothing tougher than talking at the spur of the moment. While, I am embarrassed at my effort, it has definitely renewed my admiration for great speakers, tv hosts, comedians and even indian veejays who are able to extemporize and entertain with so much ease and confidence.

I wont have this post up for long. Maybe a week at the most, to justify the time spent on it.



Kudos! Bravo! Rousing Cheers! to speakers.

I probably have the most common face in the world. Almost everybody I know seems to know someone who looks like me. In fact, mentioning that has become the pre-requisite to all first conversations. There is no "Hi", or "Hello" anymore. The new aloha is a very delightful "Oh my god, you look exactly like someone I know." Really? Are you kidding me?

Surprisingly it's not just Indians who have said this. I think I have heard it from everybody. Throughout my educational pursuit, right from kindergarten to my Masters program, my teachers constantly mistook me for my classmates. Believe it or not, there are fewer perks to looking like someone else than you can imagine. One, you get blamed a lot. Two, I think I tend to run the risk of looking like the "bad version" of that person. People have not said that so bluntly, but you can tell from their muddled expressions and a comment like "I can't pinpoint exactly how you are different, but I think it maybe your nose". I know my nose has never been a winner. Anyway, the running joke in my family is that, everywhere I go, I make a friend who looks just like me. In the process I have what they think are my clones for best friends.

Now that the novelty of people's observations has died, I've decided to get to the bottom of this. My double-o exploration has begun!

A few months ago, I bumped into a profile on orkut, where a college student was displaying my husband's artwork as her own. I was shocked, but mostly amused to find such blatant infringment. It is a miraculous coincidence that I should have bumped into her page through a community that I was not a member of on the very same day that my husband joined orkut. It was his first work on Windows Paint, of a dude smoking away on a bench next to his dog, looking completely wasted. Naturally, he was flaterred, but that didn't last very long. Ironically, the "orkut girl" was going to send it to an anti-tobacco ad competition in India, which depressed my husband, since the coolness factor according to him was in "the whole feel of an art school drop out type of guy doing his thing". From that point on, he was vexed to no limit. I, on the other hand, sent a distressed email to orkut on his behalf and got her outed from that community. I then left her a message expressing how I felt, in the most polite-but-conscience-questioning way possible. :-) She responded by quietly removing that image from her profile.

Today, a guy commented on my blog asking me how I went about creating my art slideshow. When I clicked on his name to read his blog, I was speechless to find my own article on Ford's eco-friendly car completely hijacked by this guy. The post was copied, word-to-word, image-to-image, layout-to-layout, link-to-link.
What is funnier is that he didnt even try to edit the article to make it realistic to his life in India- his favorite films now include Sundance Channel's Big Ideas for a Small Planet: Paper or Plastic, which is not even being aired in India.

How does one react to such shameless plagiarism? I am even too baffled to react.

“A blog is an ideal way of doing a brain dump on a daily basis of what is going on right now, the weird, the exciting and the awful things ... I also wanted to have a record for myself, just for posterity.”


Agreed, but what am I really here for? Brandishing an invisible pen and showing off immense talent. Hah!


(my pen is next to the pen you see in the image. didnt i say it is invisible?)

Sometimes, I pick a book off my shelf and randomly open a page and read the first line that catches my eye, hoping to find some unexpected wisdom or something to reflect on.
And then, I keep picking out books and reading lines from random pages.
All of a sudden, it occurs to me that they all have the same thing to say, the same predestined message.
And everyday, it's a new message.
I wonder if it is that I have already decided what I want it to say, and then twist the words and interpret them in a way that fits what I want to hear, just the same way that we read the vague and amorphous astrology section of the newspaper. We know that it means little or nothing, that it could apply to anyone, at any point, in any given circumstance, but we read it anyway, hopefully but questioningly, since the prediction is addressing us - the determined taurean, the noble sagittarian, the harmonious arien, and then, we wonder if it will turn out to be true. Most often than not, it doesn't even come to that. We read the prediction and are suddenly aware of our day. We look ahead keeping in mind this foresight. Before we know it, we are in the day, and it goes by smoothly, awfully, predictably or unpredictably, during which time, our life takes over, oblivious to that prediction we read in the morning. It is almost as if we had never read it.
That's what make's this mind, this mischievous thing, so beautifully inexplicable.

It is confimed that I am going through the quarter-life crisis. My lack of self-worth has been discussed quite extensively by grown up adults. Here is Wikipedia's summary of my symptoms...only it doesn't say what I should do about it. :-(

¢     feeling "not good enough" because one can't find a job that is at his/her academic/intellectual level
$     frustration with relationships, the working world, and finding a suitable job or career
¢     confusion of identity
$     insecurity regarding the near future
¢     insecurity regarding present accomplishments
$     re-evaluation of close interpersonal relationships
¢     disappointment with one's job
$      nostalgia for university or college life
¢     tendency to hold stronger opinions
$     boredom with social interactions
¢     financially-rooted stress
$     loneliness
¢     desire to have children

Tell me I am not alone.

Advanced Big 30 Personality Test Results Sociability |||||||||||| 37% Aggressiveness ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| 95% Assertiveness ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| 91% Activity Level ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| 99% Excitement-Seeking ||||||||||||||| 45% Enthusiasm |||||||||||||||||||||||||||| 81% Extroversion |||||||||||||||||||||||| 74% Trust ||||||||||||||||||||| 65% Morality ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| 95% Altruism ||||||||||||||| 41% Cooperation |||||||||||| 40% Modesty ||||||||| 24% Sympathy ||| 6% Accommodation ||||||||||||||| 45% Confidence |||||||||||||||||||||||||||| 86% Neatness |||||||||||||||||| 52% Dutifulness ||||||||||||||||||||| 68% Achievement ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| 93% Self-Discipline ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| 93% Cautiousness ||||||||||||||| 43% Orderliness |||||||||||||||||||||||| 72% Anxiety |||||||||||||||||||||||| 75% Volatility |||||||||||||||||||||||| 74% Depression ||||||||||||||||||||| 68% Self-Consciousness ||||||||||||||||||||| 69% Impulsiveness |||||||||||||||||||||||||||| 89% Vulnerability |||||||||||||||||||||||| 78% Emotional Stability ||||||||| 25% Imagination ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| 91% Artistic Interests |||||||||||||||||||||||||||| 86% Introspection ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||| 95% Adventurousness |||||||||||||||||||||||||||| 87% Intellect |||||||||||||||||||||||||||| 84% Liberalism |||||||||||| 38% Openmindedness |||||||||||||||||||||||| 80%

Take Free Advanced Big 30 Personality Test
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Trait	.	low score	high score
Sociability	37%	socially reserved, detached	friendly, open
Aggressiveness	95%	mild mannered, uncompetitive	predatory, domineering
Assertiveness	91%	introverted, loner	controlling, aggressive
Activity Level	99%	relaxed, laid back	vigorous, high energy
Excitement-Seeking	45%	sedate, restrained	adventurous, wild
Enthusiasm	81%	somber, pessimistic	cheerful, optimistic
Trust	65%	suspicious of others	trusting of others
Submissiveness	95%	rebellious, lawless	dutiful, obedient, compliant
Altruism	41%	selfish, cold, austere	helpful, selfless, indulgent
Cooperation	40%	argumentitive, confrontational	conflict averse, meek
Modesty	24%	arrogant, self-satisfied	humble, unassuming, doormat
Sympathy	6%	callous, heartless	empathetic, warm
Confidence	86%	not confident in work	confident in work, egoistic
Neatness	52%	disorganized, messy	planner, clean, anal
Dutifulness	68%	dishonest, derelict	honest, rule abiding, proper
Achievement	93%	lazy, unmotivated	driven, goal oriented
Self-Discipline	93%	procrastinator	responsible, efficient
Cautiousness	43%	spontaneous, daring, reckless	careful, controlled, safe
Anxiety	75%	relaxed, fearless	fearful, worrier
Volatility	74%	calm, cool	touchy, tempermental
Depression	68%	content, balanced	emotional, self hating
Self-Consciousness	69%	confident, assured	low self esteem, shy
Impulsiveness	89%	high self control	low self control
Vulnerability	78%	resilient, unphased	confused, helpless
Imagination	91%	practical, realistic	dreamer, unrealistic
Artistic Interests	86%	artistic indifference	art, nature, beauty lover
Introspection	95%	not self reflective	self searching
Adventurousness	87%	conventional, safe	spontaneous, bold
Intellect	84%	instinctive, non-analytical	intellectual, analytical
Liberalism	38%	conservative, traditional	progressive, open

Take Free Advanced Big 30 Personality Test
personality tests by similarminds.com

500,000 Protesters from around the country joined a march in Washington D.C. organized by ANSWER Coalition and United for Peace and Justice to promote peace and an end to the occupation of Iraq.



The above image could have been better - the blue board on the left says "end the war" and the road sign says "one way"

New York's full of surprises...Here's something I found on this trip... gazzillion bazzillion places that make IDs and social security cards.

The fact that I have graduated hasn't sunk in fully. On the one hand I am elated, on the other I feel stripped of everything that I am familiar with. I have plans of making a movie, writing a book and living the dream, but everyone around me is waiting for the apple to fall on my head.
I want to go with my hunch, not the facts but my interpretations. I know that castles can be built in the air, that the floor is my ceiling and that the emperor was in fact wearing his clothes despite what the world wants us to believe. There is a lot to imagine and a lot of reality to aspire for.
Some day, I want to stand above everything I perceive, above the world of mimicry, beyond the potentially dull and unworthy, above the doubtful ridiculing minds. I want to stand with my ideas and watch them in action, faltering but functioning, moving while energizing, stressing on stressing. I want to stand and watch my reality take shape.

(pardon my tinglish)
I miss diwali
the hundreds of family members
together in marredpally
including some new faces, young and old
who join in the fun, very amicably without an introduction
i miss fighting for the thousand wala ladis
hiding some in secret places
preferring the smooth sparklers to the karkar ones
lighting two three flower pots at once
jumping over vishnu chakrams
playing laddi wars
usurping all the sirens and other cool crackers
I miss byhearting the names of the crackers
Cribbing about the rockets that always go sideways instead of up
being audience to uncles who show off their rocket launching techniques
some successfully and some blaming the wind
i miss proving to grownup cousins that im not afraid of hydrogen bombs
and then using agarbathis instead of sparklers to burst them
i miss arguing about whether its pataas or tapaas or pataka or tapaka
and teasing mom that tamilians say "theebavali" and not "deepavali"
i miss getting burnt every year despite all precaution
i miss getting yelled at for not wearing shoes or "at least chappals"
throwing bombs into the bonfire in the end.
not washing my hands and smelling like crackers until the morning after
I miss diwali, my family and friends.
i even love the mellow diwali at waratah house the night before
with just me and my two brothers
playing with tukadas, flowerpots and vishnu chakrams
with ammamma and dadpop watching on the side
I even miss bursting crackers in the office terrace
but more than anything, i miss the expensive clothes
that i used to buy every diwali knowing very well
that i will be wearing them only once
but never feeling like i've wasted money
even with dad rebuking that
"i should have been feeling ashamed about barely passing my half yearly exams"


Now diwali is all about missing diwali and talking endlessly about it over dinner at a chinese restaurant. :-(

It’s dark, it's raining. I sit in my car, wear my seat-belt, Pull out my wallet from my jacket pocket Put it on my lap Put the hand-brake down, Start the car, turn on the lights. and drive to the counter at the parking lot. There’s a long queue. Two cars in front, many more behind. I suddenly can't find my wallet. So I fidget around to find it, In the mean time, The two cars in front make it out of the exit The man in the car behind is obviously not in a mood to put up with my hunt He starts honking. I stay cool, indicate, turn around and drive back to the closest parking spot. There! my wallet was right on my lap Exactly where I put it. So again, I wear my seatbelt and reverse the car. I make it to the counter area, but this time I’m not close enough to swipe the parking card through the slotted device. So I unbuckle myself, open the door, stand on one leg, stretch my body and swipe it! I unstretch myself, close the door and drive out of the exit. After driving a block I realize I don’t have my seat-belt on. So I wear it as I am driving. There’s a red light ahead and the cars in front stop. I stop. The lights turn green, and I follow the cars in front, I drive slowly, jerking every few seconds, I change the gear back to first but no luck. Then I figure my hand-brake is still on. I release it and drive without incident past a few more blocks. At the second light, the car on the opposite side honks. The driver screams "you have your lights switched off" So I switch them on and drive a small stretch before I reach home. There, I sit staring at the steering wheel. All of a sudden it occurs to me that it’s bloody tough driving in the rain without the wiper on Why the hell did I not think of it? It’s a miracle I made it home safely. I have been driving the same route everyday Yet, it seems like the rain really messed with my head!

Sometimes I repeat the same joke thrice to the same person just to enjoy that priceless change in expression from "I don't get it" to "Stop it! it's getting old" to "WOW! that's brilliant".
But, it ends up going from "WOW! that's brilliant" to "Stop it! it's getting old" to "I don't get it"
And, that's priceless too =)

Sometimes I repeat the same joke thrice to the same person just to enjoy that priceless change in expression from "I don't get it" to "Stop it! it's getting old" to "WOW! that's brilliant".
But, it ends up going from "WOW! that's brilliant" to "Stop it! it's getting old" to "I don't get it"
And, that's priceless too =)

Sometimes I repeat the same joke thrice to the same person just to enjoy that priceless change in expression from "I don't get it" to "Stop it! it's getting old" to "WOW! that's brilliant".
But, it ends up going from "WOW! that's brilliant" to "Stop it! it's getting old" to "I don't get it"
And, that's priceless too =)

and sometimestimesimes I justjustust repeateateat everythingthinging.. =) =) =)

Tapi insists that I should put this on my blog with "Mega-Nerd to the Power of Nutcase" as title. We were looking out the patio when I saw a tree that was completely red on one side and green on the other and I said "It looks like this tree can't make up its mind on whether it is coniferous or deciduous". =)
In my defense, that does NOT qualify me as nerd or even fractional nerd because:
a) They are not opposites and may have been if i said "evergreen" instead of coniferous.
b) The statement was simply a memorizing mechanism owing to that brilliant Nature Handbook that I have become addicted to. I challenge anyone to pick it up (and peruse for at least thirty seconds) and not be enslaved by it.
c) Most importantly, I don't even know if that statement makes sense, thereby proving that I was wrong and that in itself automatically disqualifies me as nerd.

(commiting to memory: coniferous deciduous coniferous deciduous ... deciduous diminishing coniferous evergreen deciduous diminishing coniferous evergreen ... )

Of the Indians I have met in the US there are two groups:

• those who love being around other Indians, look to living in cities with large Indian communities and keep away from non-Indians as far as possible outside work

and

• those who don't want to have anything to do with Indians, or at least don't go about actively seeking Indians unless they are family or friends.

This is not a generalization of the entire Indian population in the US, just my observation of people I have met so far. But, whenever I meet an Indian, I automatically pigeonhole them into one of these two categories.

I don't think I have a bad opinion of either. Everyone comes to the US with a vision of what they want out of this country and that essentially dictates how they live their life here.

I think I fit in the former category, except I seek to interact ONLY with the indians in the latter category and as a result have become ostracized from both and find solace in the company of other immigrants (not necessarily indian). =)

Sometimes I see the hole in my t-shirt and hope that it will mend itself. Sometimes, I like that it is there, perhaps as a reminder of the good times, perhaps to instigate my imagination. A time may come when I will have to say goodbye. I know. Still, that time is hard to imagine.

“He who knows others is wise. He who knows himself is enlightened.”

Lao Tzu (600 BC-531 BC)
Founder of Taoism

There are individuals in this world who are able to appear in two or more places at the same instance in time. Everywhere they appear, they interact with the surroundings, move around, talk to people, touch objects, experience sensations as naturally as we all do. They are not ghosts or spirits or apparitions. They are great monks who can bend time and space.
By the end of your life, you will have seen at least one such great monk, but beware of the evil Doppelgängers. They are harbingers of bad luck and impending destruction. They cast no shadows and have no reflection. When they appear, they make themselves known as advisors. Heed not the word of the Doppleganger! Be especially wary of the ones that look just like you.

And if you still should want to see yourself in a different form,

					over time
					as a different tribe
					inspiring thought
					as the other sex
					a primate
					or even just with a befuddled mind

When I played House House or Office Office as a kid, these were 10 things I did not pretend to do.

1. Use fax machines (especially those that make coffee) or fix printer jams (as a result of a stuck coin, pen, candy!!!!)
2. Debug someone else's code.
3. Figure out browser compatibility when designing websites
4. Compress audio/video files for every kind of media gadget in the world
5. Design "secure" interactive DVDs that work smoothly on a computer and tv.
6. Make Coffee from huge machines with lots of complicated buttons
7. Mail things
8. Disagree politely
9. Not zone out when negotiating on the phone
10. Renew passports and switch visa statuses.

Thankfully, my real life at home and real job make it worth getting rattled by the above. But, wouldn't it be nice if life was slightly simpler?

“The one who is not communist till the age of 25 doesn't have heart and the one who is communist after 25 doesn't have brain!”,

said a close family friend of my in-laws, quoting a great person whose name I didn't know, even though I had heard the saying many times before.

It was a day after my wedding. I was 23 then, idealistic and taking pride in my liberal outlook. The man I spoke to was conservative or perhaps cautiously moderate in his viewpoint. He was used to commanding respect. Naturally, I didn’t make an impression on him.

It may be that he didn’t believe in change or that he took pride in preserving the existing form of society. I wish I had told him that being liberal didn't mean being left, although not being left didn’t really endow me with a heart or a brain. I told him that I saw nothing wrong with my views, as it made me very tolerant of other beliefs and philosophies. I was lying. Any belief right-of-center did not sit well with me. He only said, “That’s all very admirable, but come back after you are 25”

It is two years after 25 now. I still haven’t changed. I don’t know if I am right (no pun intended), if I am receptive to new ideas, if I am being unrealistic. But, whenever I am told that I am idealistic, I am aware that it is not said to express praise but to satisfy me and my accepted wisdom, even though their real perception of me is that I am naïve and have a trusting view of the world. Even supposing that idealism is what I am seeking, I am not satisfied with fake acceptance.

For my part, if I could fill my head with pleasant thoughts, of hopes and wishes unlikely to be fulfilled; if I could indulge in daydreams even if they distracted me from my actual existence; if I could allow myself to pander to my fantasies, I most certainly would. But, it is also true that I am not dwelling on the impossible. My view of the future is only hopeful and full of desires that are not out of reach.

But, there comes a time in your life when you are burdened by a strong feeling of idealism. All your words without action, despite your excessive enthusiasm, weighs you down.

What precedes this stage is one where you find a way of life admirable, you aspire for it, you fantasize about being triumphant in the attainment of your world. You play out the scenes in your head - your long challenging journey of idealism, your act of setting yourself free, but along with seeing yourself reach that place of significance, you also see happy people in a world characterized by happiness, all owing their merry state of existence to you. Huge crowds of people cheering joyously, bowing down to you, holding you in reverence, for having achieved an estimable feat. You are flawless and your qualities have become so important that they’ve taken over your life and your being.

But that dream never materializes because even in your head you haven’t taken that selfless leap, you haven’t done anything that would make you worthy of merit. In fact, you have become self-centered, concentrating selfishly on your own hypothetical greatness.

Your narcissism becomes the impenetrable glass standing in your way, keeping you from going to the other side. You can see that idealistic world and know what it takes to reach it, but you still stand there, paralyzed, letting your imagination run riot.

Perhaps that is the problem; my hunger for admiration, whether I am worthy of it or not. I have needed people to regard me with pleasure, in the same way that I have regarded them with a sense of wonder.

Once in a while, when I become aware of a greater world and feel the need to lend a hand, I stretch it, only to find that I have stretched it in a direction where there is no one willing to hold it and take me where I am needed. Repelled by my self-absorption, they prefer to put up with their misery than take my aid and satisfy my ego.

So that’s where I am. I want to do my part, but I don’t know how. I have become a prisoner of my self. I have let my triumphs in my imagination overshadow my real inability to respond emotionally. But, unlike the past when I was satisfied with imagining my greatness, I feel nauseous and guilt-ridden. People have stopped admiring me in my imagination as well. They don’t even blame me for being vain. They disregard me, like I don’t exist. My dreams have failed me. My actions might too.

In the last three weeks, a tree fell over a metro track at Falls Church, a train derailed at Rosslyn, and a track caught fire near a tunnel in Metro Center. Fortunately, none of the incidents caused any major injuries to passengers.

The last mentioned incident affected me today morning. I was stuck in the train near Friendship Heights for over an hour because of the fire at Metro Center. Somehow the incident did not affect me or anyone around me. I continued to read my book and people around me read their newspapers and within an hour we were where we needed to be.

When I got out the train, the metro station was dark and running on emergency light. It so happened that the fire was not the only exciting event of the day. There was a major power outage at Pepco substation that cut electricity in several metro stations in downtown DC. 10,000 customers (offices and residences included) suffered as a consequence. With the escalators not functioning, I had to walk up 150 stairs, all the while wondering how the older folks I saw in the train would manage the hike. After I got out of the metro, I began to walk the usual mile to my office. What should have been normal outside was chaotic too. The road was full of ambulances and fire engines rushing past the station. I wondered if they were on their way to attend to people in need of aid due to the fire or if they were attending to some other unknown emergency. I hear sirens from cop cars, ambulances and fire engines everyday at Dupont, and fire alarms in buildings go off every other day. But, these sirens I heard today didn't seem like a drill. There was something going on.

I wondered what kind of chaos such an incident would have caused in India and if a track on fire would be considered minor or major. Here, even in the middle of a tunnel, I felt assured that everything was being taken care of. There are cameras everywhere and lots of security guards, the train driver was making announcements periodically and keeping us updated on the progress. I realized today that I was not alone in resting my faith in the system (and in technology.)

When you live in the capital city with cops everywhere and with every nook and corner being monitored, you may hear some whining about the lack of privacy, but there is no denying that it feels safe. There's an overall sense of safety , and orderliness in the way things are handled.

The two incidents in the previous week did not bother me either. When a tree fell on the track, my colleague was forced to get out of her train and walk three hours to get to her place, but she didn't seem bothered by it. Just amused. When the train derailed too, there was no paranoia. Life went on.

Back in high school we were taught a poem to help us remember the first 20 elements of the periodic table. I have been trying to find it on the net. I always wondered if there was a less nonsensical version of it. As far as I can remember, it went like this:

"Her Highness Lady Barten Boon, came near old Florence Nightingale statue, making Alice sit poised, suddenly Charles Armstrong passed casually"

If you remember Chemistry 101, it should be obvious to you that Her stands for Hydrogen, Highness stands for Helium, Lady stands for Lithium and so on...

Apparently, the poet took the "periodic" table quite literally (or should I say literaryly :D) .

Alice, is most definitely Alice from Alice in Wonderland, who was about 10 years old in 1865 when the book was published. (Interestingly the book too is said to be the surreal work of "literary nonsense", but we won't credit Lewis Caroll for this absurd poem)

I don't know who Lady Barten Boon is, but it seems like she enjoyed a regal status and commanded a lot of respect (at least enough to make Alice sit poised).

Florence Nightingale is most definitely the famous "Lady with the Lamp", born in 1820 and alive all through the 1800s, until 1910. I doubt that her statue was erected when she was still alive. That being the case, Alice was at least 45 years old when she was found sitting by Florence's statue. The middle-aged Alice was probably not like the adventurous young-Alice who fell down the rabbit-hole. With age, I suspect one gets wiser and less imaginative. ;-)

Charles Armstrong (I gather from wikipedia) was an American physician in the US Public Health Service. He was born in 1886 and lived until the mid 1900s (I was thrilled to learn that he lived in Bethesda, MD... so close to home). Could he have visited England for a bit and walked past Lady Boon and Alice in front of Florence's Statue? Highly unlikely, but again not impossible. Alice is at least 30 years older than Charles and very famous way before he walked past her. I would have thought he'd stop and greet her, but, he was either ignorant or vain, and that's not saying much about him. Come to think of it, he must have been a very young lad, after all, he was only 15 when Alice was 45. On the other hand, Lady Barten Boon has no excuse. She is most certainly ignorant AND vain. If you ask me, she should have been the one sitting poised. In fact, I think she should have been lowering her torso and bowing all the way down to do a reverential salutation to Alice.

And the poet was clearly out of his mind :-)

In trying to find the poem, I bumped into a website with clever poems for each element in the table. They are all worth reading, and some of them are actually enlightening. I wont say more. Read it if you like.

My search continues.

I know I know. You think this is about my obsession with photoshop, but hear me out.

Wired Magazine has this section called "Mr. Know-it-all", in which Brendan Koerner answers (absurd) questions of readers to "help them navigate life in the 21st century"
One of the questions in a recent issue was:

"Is it OK to Photoshop my wedding pictures before I post them on Flickr? I just want to do something about my crow's feet."

Here's Mr. Know-it-all's response:

As long as you don't go overboard with the improvements, tweaking your soon-to-be-Flickr'd pics is perfectly copacetic.
Professional wedding photographers, after all, regularly blot out blemishes. "I touch up photos so people look as good in their photographs as they did in real life," says Scott Kelby, editor of Photoshop User magazine, who has shot dozens of weddings. And while such modifications might be verboten in the ethics-constrained world of photojournalism, your nuptials aren't exactly front-page news—no matter what your mother says.

I'm reminded of my arguments with my photographer in India who insisted on touching up my face in passport photos despite much protest. He whined about my lack of gratitude, but chose to be the bigger person anyway and give me a free makeover whether I was appreciative of it or not. Recently, a cousin showed me his family photo, in which he was made to look fairer, his birthmarks removed, lips painted a delicious plum. Everyone else in the picture too was given a makeover, including his 5 year old daughter and 2 year old son, but his face went through the most dismembering.

Indian matrimonial websites are full of photoshopped pictures of "dashing" men and women, most of whom willingly get their faces photoshopped. The photos are usually taken in a studio, where a woman is seated by a table with a beautiful flower vase full of red roses or orange gerberas, a glowing light illuminating the top of her head, and a soft secondary light eliminating any shadow on her face created by the key. She is made to rest her hand on her chin and smile coyly at the camera. Once the picture is taken, the photographer pimps her picture up by adding some more makeup to her face, removing any natural lines, and changing her facial expression to an anatomically incorrect but flawless barbie-dollish one. The girl is usually ecstatic with joy on seeing her beautified face. Men too willingly go through the same ordeal. They sit by the same table, with the same red roses and a kittenish smile that masks all signs of masculinity, their neatly trimmed mustache only making them look more effeminate (somehow).

People who like getting their face photoshopped are basically "amnesia shoppers". They hope that their friends and family will see their dolled-up picture and forget what they look like in real life and that prospective suitors will only remember the face in the photograph even after they present themselves in person later.

Likewise, photographers who photoshop their subjects' faces without their consent secretly wish for amnesia-accepting subjects. They hope that on seeing a dolled-up version of themselves, their subjects will forget what they look like in real life.

I haven't gone through this matrimonial drill myself, but I am guilty of dragging pictures of friends and family into photoshop and monkeying around with their faces. I don't do it with the intention of "bettering" a face or making it look funny even. I do it out of habit, for the same reason that I mindlessly eat bags of chips when I am watching tv, whether I am hungry or not. Like Scott Kelby, I touch up photos to make the ambiance and subjects look close to what they were like in real life. I like to believe that this type of photoshopping is fairly harmless.

But, amnesia shoppers and amnesia photographers are a totally different class. That people are not willing to look like themselves or that photographers feel the need to photoshop people's faces without their consent is amusing and pitiful at the same time. I know I should let people decide for themselves if they should consider this as an issue of self-importance or the lack of self-worth or just plain ok. But, I can't seem to be indifferent.

Where do all the pens go?

My blog is on forced-leave for a week as a result of a beer accident. My laptop got drunk on beer a few days ago, the display screen looks blotched and the keys are all messed up.

We took it to the Apple store for a partial but expensive detox. I have to live with the blotched screen but I get to say goodbye to my keyboard. Perhaps, when it is back, I can blame my inebriated display for contorting brilliant ideas and producing badly written documents.

At work, I have been retraining myself to use windows for a few months. Microsoft Office 2007 has a very funky interface that is taking a lot of getting used to. It is a necessary exercise in the Buddhist tenets of patience, tolerance and acceptance.

I believe these are the same three tenets that Tapi has been using on me ever since he read "Happiness" by Mathieu Ricard. I believe I am the "windows" to his life.

Anyway, Adios till later?

A few people have been asking me why there is a sudden lull in my blogging activity, if it is because I am busy or going through a writers block or lacking inspiration. I am quite flattered that people think these could be possibilities, implying that I may have a life outside this blog and that my writing may have shown inspiration or creativity at some point.

Really, the respite is a result of growing up. I have suddenly become mindful of what I write about and how people might perceive me as a result of it. Sometimes I begin to write a post and even before I finish the first paragraph, I decide not to go through with it out of fear that I may be typecasted. I become that one thing I talk about, and everything else that I am ceases to be a part of me. Putting it mildly, how I am perceived has become a bigger priority to me than what I write about.

I have never seen myself as a writer. My writing has never been creative. It neither shows use of imagination in coming up with new ideas, nor does it make imaginative use of ideas or resources already present. I don't quite see that as the purpose of my blog. This is more a spectatorial activity. I see things, I feel things, I write about how I feel about what I see.

But now, in consequence to feeling acutely aware of people, an aspect I associate with growing up, I find inspiration everywhere and am unable to express them because of my inhibitions. But, enough is enough. I am taking back control and rejecting everything that prevents me from behaving spontaneously.

It is the middle of the week and I am anxious about something that I should be looking forward to. The weekend!

I want to address this whole concept of time management as authored by many self-help gurus. I won’t lecture on what it is, seeing as it is the most puffed up of all vocation-related virtues and everyone is an authority on it. I am only concerned about where all the weekends go or why they go by so quickly! Self-help gurus don’t seem to have any words of advice on this.

I have a feeling I am not managing my weekend time well. I have it all figured out for the weekdays. For the most part things go just as planned during the weekdays, as if the schedule is made of cogs and a wound spring (like clockwork), “precise and with unvarying regularity.”

Weekends however are mysteriously short whether I jam-pack them with activities or lay languidly on my couch doing nothing. Nothing seems to help.

The latest trend among the new wave of Type As seems to be to refer to time management as a mislabeled problem - “because time just is, it cannot be managed.” Whatever that means! If you ask me, I might just rephrase that proverb to “because time just was, it is gone”

If you think of time as a force capable of acting on people, just like the other forces of nature, only without obeying the laws of nature, then it may explain why my weekends go by quickly. It follows that time affects the way I feel, rather than being a period during which action occurs, which is why my “conscious” hours seem longer on the weekday than on a weekend.

I remember reading Einstein’s Dreams by Alan Lightman, in which the author narrates Einstein’s dreams in 30 short stories, each exploring how time might behave in different realities. In one story he speaks of how mothers move with their children to the center of time to avoid becoming old, because time stands still in the center. But, those living in the center of time don’t experience it because “experiencing” requires movement of time.

I wonder if Wednesday is the center of time, where time stands still, moving neither backward nor forward and the further away you move from it, the faster the time passes. Since weekends are the farthest from Wednesday, they slip away even before we can acknowledge it. This also explains why I don’t experience the beauty of time staying still on Wednesday. Time is so still today that I am not “experiencing” it.

To corroborate my theory, the last working day in the middle east is Wednesday. Cos, they are in a different time zone? :-)


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On reading this post, Deepan had some great ideas that I take the liberty of posting without his permission. He uses the Wednesday theory to simulate real things.

If we assume Wednesday is indeed the centre of time then there are probably parts of the world where the day is always a Wednesday. It could be any other day, but since each day is exactly like the day before and the day before that it all seems the same. Two thoughts come to my head - deep inside a tropical forest where probably the sun doesn't even reach the land, each day would seem like the last one... or a poor man who sleeps every night hungry and wakes up every day not knowing where his next meal will come from, for him each new day is like the day before and the one before.

How cool is that!

Orkut thinks today's a good day for my husband to consider a sex change operation!

My fortune reads: "You and your wife will be happy in your life together"



And his reads: "Your dearest wish will come true"



I knew it! I should have guessed when he walked into that store called "Pink".

Is genocide a strong enough word? I can only answer for myself. I don’t think it is strong enough. It doesn’t evoke enough horror. When I think of everything that the word represents, I feel knotted inside in a way that is hard to describe in words. I am imagining very shameful acts that should not be imagined, and there are some acts I suspect that are worse than anything I can imagine. I can barely form images of what I am told of in my mind.

Feelings of empathy and powerlessness come easily. What do I do about it?

I buy a grande white mocha with whipped cream in starbucks every weekday morning. That is roughly $80 on coffee every month. It is a part of my daily routine now, and I drink it whether I feel like it or not. I spend over a thousand dollars a year on coffee. I am a self-proclaimed coffee hater. I hate the smell of coffee. White chocolate mocha, I love.

There was a cyclone that killed thousands of people in Myanmar recently. People are still dying or living a life worse than death. I research for hours carefully on relief organizations working to rescue them. I go back and forth with family on how much is a good amount to donate. “50 is enough” “who knows how those organizations will use your donation” “You cant help everyone in the world even if you give away your lifetime’s earnings” “There will be some other crisis tomorrow, what will you do then” “why Myanmar? donate in India. Here too thousands are dying” In the end, I spend half as much as I do on a year’s coffee.

I discovered for myself that I react spontaneously to satisfy my desires. I don’t research a company’s trade policies or their ethical stance before I buy their clothes or shoes. But, when it comes to doing things out of good concern, there is endless discussion on whom to approach and whether it is an endeavor in futility or not. It seems, magnanimity is a trait to be cultivated, so that you react with compassion as spontaneously as you react with desire. How does one cultivate it?

We are seeing an end of a species. There are only 720 mountain gorillas left in the world. It is such a small number that their survival is considered genetically unviable, meaning our kids may not see mountain gorillas in their lifetime. Some of us haven’t even seen one in our lifetime. In ten years they will be gone if something dramatic is not done now.


Civil war in Congo is mainly to blame. As thousands of men and women are losing their lives and their dignity, you would imagine that this dreadful war is affecting only humans, but mountain gorillas and bonobos are being slaughtered mindlessly (even as we speak). Many are being killed systematically, in execution-style. And then there are poachers, illegal timber harvesters and charcoal traders making things worse.

The gorillas live exclusively in the Democratic Republic of Congo, in Virunga National Park, which is the only park in the world where these gorillas continue to exist.
In 1994, when 800,000 Tutsis were killed in Rwanda, thousands of refugees moved to the Virunga park border, cutting down trees to clear up space to live. Soon they began illegal charcoal production for their everyday needs and to fund the operations of rebel Tutsi fighters. Cutting down of trees and close contact with humans has resulted in the spread of infectious diseases. Several gorillas died as a result. Moreover, the rebels fighting the government have been killing the endangered apes to make a political point, or sometimes out of sheer ignorance of the effects of close contact of humans with apes.

Three issues fight for attention: War among humans, genocide and the extinction of a species.

As the incidences of genocides in the world are growing we are made more and more aware of a basic flaw in our humanity. We cannot relate to mass tragedy. We can act only if we see individuals suffer, like when we see a picture of an orphaned child dying of hunger, or a even an old woman crossing the road. But, somehow we are not able to see individuals within a mass. The more numbers we hear of people suffering, the more paralyzed we become into inaction.

A reporter on NPR pointed out that the death of two gorillas has become bigger news now than the genocide issue or the war in Congo, because with a number as small as two, it is easier for us to feel like we are capable of helping. We react immediately, and want to urge someone to pull the gorillas out of the park and into safety. But the war in congo is barely made known to the world, we too are indifferent to it.

Still the gorillas are dying, the humans are killing each other and destroying everything around them, and there is nothing we can do about the former or the latter. The problems are too big for us. We move on.