new year special

few quick lines before i wrap up the year

what is the summary? who or what is the year dedicated to? my niece wins by a large margin.

life is a great balancing act. i am going to give positivity its importance. everything has positive sides. everything.

and so i was going to say how i have been aware of some bad decisions but then i realize it is a cycle and your opinions change. yes i am going to control how i am going to change.

what are the learnings?

proactivity has a value. things never have same effect if you do it after being reminded of.

take some time. always take your time.

speak clearly. speak to an audience. dont speak to yourself. speak honestly. trust that people are intelligent.

marriages.. how many of them got married already.

poem

a sense of loss
only if i could always be in that constant tension
i would have deviced ways to take off my mind, only unseccessfully, doing great things on the way
hoping that one day, i could have some sense of pride
to tell her that i deserved her
but that will never be
and somewhere i never expected to be accepted
but just be able to tell and have her listen.

This was back in 2006-2007. My sister had this big interview that we
prepared for together. This was about time that i visited many temples
incidently. On each of these visits I asked for only one thing.

There is some background to it. As a child I was very obidient. I still am.
Now that i think about it i could have participated and won in the
competition for most obidient kid. Not that i am proud of it. Its kind of
sad in its own way.

So my father wanted me to light diya every evening before we sat down for
dinner. I would invariably be home in evening light diya. I would also take
a tiny bit of bhaat and dedicate it to diya. MyEnglish fails me.

Effectively I was a worshipper. Then the result of interview came and I
stopped it.

Now the history has a chance to correct itself. I am better prepared.

Naa sukh hai, na dukh hai. Na din hai na dukhi. Bus main hun. Says the
Guide.

test

test

i believe in miracles.. and a miracle has happened tonight.

i was watching a really engaging movie - the skin i live in. the movie has one of the very shocking revelations i have seen in a movie. pure scare. gives you a benchmark for the depth of darkness a human mind is capable of.

in parallel, i was watching tv. dd 1 to be specific. bharat ki shaan to be very specific.

you see, when you are watching a movie and are involved in it, you always know when something bad is about to happen. it scares the shit out of me. and tv is my exit strategy. it is my connection to the world - kind of one insanity that protects you from another kind.

so i pause right when i know the worst is about to happen in the movie - its my own version of worst and i need a break before i face it.

this is a music talent show loosely copying new version of saregama. but its better. ismail darbaar is still there but toned down. and there is usha uthup. i like her. and i like the host. manoj tiwari. and i like the participants. and i like the songs they sing. and i like the way they sing it.

the show also has an improvement. a true innovation, they select five persons from general public who judge the participants as well. and yes i love that as well. like and love - difference of a degree. or maybe no difference at all.

but that is enough of introduction already.

so i paused.

and the participants come. to sing. its kind of near the end of season. and the round is really tough. the participants are required to sing without music. very nice round indeed.

the boy comes. sings awaarapan, banjaarapan. quite decent i thought. judges from audience are happy. he gets five stars from them. usha uthup is happy as well. the participant is from usha's team so ismail gets to give stars. he is not very impressed. two judges get into an argument. ismail gives three stars. the participant cries.

i dont see my strategy working. is there no escape? i think.

a break comes. i put tv on the mute.

i unpause the movie. and it happens. shit. i smoke. i kind of try to re-evaluate the happenings in the film in view of the new revelation and i shiver.

but there is more to come.

and i pause.

i unmute the television. the girl comes. she sing 'ae maalik tere bande hum'. i kind of imagine the judges as gods as the lyrics flows in the air.

bada kamjor hai aadmi, abhi laakhon hai ismein kami.
par tu joh khada, hai dayaloo badaa. teri kirpaa se dharti thamee.

but the girl is no lata mangeshkar. and ismail is no god. judges from audience give four and usha gives four. i liked usha. the girl takes it with more grace than the boy did. i like the girl as well. happiness is contagious.

i put tv on the mute during the break.

i play the movie. the worst is about to happen. i hope it does not.

the girl goes down stairs. takes the gun. comes up and shoots him. i feel relaxed. the sound of a gunshot wakes up the 'lady' care taker. she takes her gun and comes up to the room, looks at the dead body, trembles and looks for the girl. what will happen? please don't let it be the movie where everyone is dead in the end. and it doesn't. the girl come out from beneath the bed, shoots and kills her. i feel happy.

the girl visits her mother's shop. she and her assistance look old. the girl loved the assistance and tells her her story. i hope that cops dont come now to arrest the girl for her crimes.

the credits roll.

i feel relieved.

i unmute tv. final participant, a boy, comes. sings 'roop tera mastana'. murders it. the judges from audience give one star. manoj thanks the person who voted for the boy and in the way made the show 'classier' than anything i had seen from tv recently.

ismail gives three star. four stars,in total, seal the fate of the boy. eliminated.

final showdown. all the participants are up the stage. so are the judges. and so is manoj. usha starts crying.

manoj says - usha aap veto ka ishtemaal kar sakti hain. usha nodes in denial. manoj says again but now with a conviction that eludes me forever - ushaji, main chahta hun aap veto ka ishtemaal karein. usha looks at ismail. ismail smiles and says 'bilkul, khusi se'.

and that was how the boy was saved.

and that is how i hope you get saved as well.


so there are so many things that one can be good at? then why do we not try any of them?

i am not an initiator. i am not a driver. i am not a team player. its difficult to believe that i am still surviving. thats it - i am a survivor. corniest line ever.

indestructible but low form of life. i dont like the example of cockroaches.

but i am thinking now. hopefully i will be an initiator and a driver.

AUGUST 5?  yes. no major epiphanies yet. i actually mistyped 'epiphanies' before and one of the suggested words was phoniness.

anyway, where was i? or more importantly, where am i? you know, the quintessential 'existential' question? do i belong here and if not here than where kinds.

so while i stay at home to nurse my fractured collar bone, i thought i would give this question some more thoughts.

i watched few of the woody allen movies and i must say that i identify with the guy. unsure, pseudo-intellectual and almost pathetic, i am starting to wonder how he managed to move on. inspirational stuff.

one of the short term goals would be to chase after material success. money, i meant. and comfort. one of the drivers is to see if over indulgence finally wears it off.

the way to the goal - i need to be good at communication. stop seeing it as a way of tricking people into believing that you are saying something important and see it as a major tool like sas that can be used at different level of expertise and should be perfected even if there is no reason for doing it. but i do see alot many usage of it - it will help me set expectations correctly, it will make my unwillingness to communicate proactively barely feasible and on the way i could analyze my weaknesses and bask in the contradictory glory.

whats the matter with my communication in addition to my unwillingness to accept its importance -

balance, i need to appreciate the balance, like getting the amount of salt correctly in a dish. i have a content that i want to share, but i don't want to memorize it all because then i am not participating in the conversation as the sudden objective become to be done with the conversation in a single breath.
but i should have an organization of thoughts, major bullet points that i want covered.

now the one hand i am using to type it is in pain and i want to finish it now.

some finer points were - pauses, emphasis, repetitiveness, summarization, to the point.

wow. r got promoted.

i was thinking whether to mention it or not.

i have always been confused around such kind of decision. i somehow remember the indecisiveness i showed in case of p. in retrospect, everything is so clear. hopefully i have learnt. its always better to be prejudiced than not have an opinion at all. i still dont believe in that statement.

i had these big ideas i wanted to write about. major epiphanies. life changing. its his way of making our lives interesting i guess.

so i was talking to s and as it always does the subject just drifted to marriage and related topic. he mentioned that he will say yes to the first girl he meets. all girls are good, he said. munh kee baat chheen li.

and i told him that we have got matured over these years. i guess i was talking for myself. now i dont crib why they dont call me more frequently. now i just feel happy that they called. patience. the greatest virtue of all time.

and i also like the words 'drift' and 'converge'. i hope my life is a converging series even though it might seem drifting away.

and i feel a serious shortage of money these days. i need to earn some extra money is what i feel. i need to work on it. i am also thinking about registering for courses. lets see how that goes.

she comes into my life. and she smiles when i sing. and she also scares the shit out of me.

i had something to write about. cant remember it now. that is one of the reasons why i wanted to buy note. dont have enough money though.

i was just looking at a rooftop view of a landscape most probably taken in Bangalore. I will own a home at 19th floor of some building in Bangalore. I like the idea.

Great.

for sometime now, i cannot sleep. is it ac? is it physical discomfort to begin with. dont know.

yess. now i remember. i wanted to write about mag n. he is one of a kind. and he irritates the heck out of me. but i like him. mostly because i think that he gives me the feeling that i understand him. that was some realization.

and i remember again. i have an inertia towards change. seriously man. you need to be in control. understatement. dont worry if you are not completely expressed by the time you die, it will still be better than adulteration. be thankful. but be quiet.

and i remember again. i wanted to talk about the idea of home. i could write an article on it. i remember about it when i hear - where do we go now?! - played. that one phrase sums up the idea of home. you can always go home. that is your exit strategy.

also i need to relax and not care for few things irrelevant. see how that turns out. dont pretend that you care. be honest etc.

this turned out to be above average post.

what do i want to write.

on my flight, back from raipur, i gathered courage and vanity to talk to a girl sitting next. it was inspiring. thanks to mag n.

and what else? this is may. supposed to be very hot. as a child, i liked summer. i did my bit of kite making and kite flying. and we generally roamed around. on burning earth. played cricket. it was good. definitely.

i cant remember when i was happy the last time. i see some fleeting images. but not any concrete incidences.  first year at iit was the best. infinite lukhkhaness. will never come back.

for a couple of weeks now, i get a depressing feeling at morning. not good.

finished reading anna karenina. i dont feel like reading anything else now. bought a book on indian history but it would be a long time before i read it.

what else? i need to find a way of passing time. killing time rather.

this is a depressing post. like most of my depressing post, i think it is pointedly exaggerated and i am not as sad.

after so long.

i went home. came back. bought a dongle back home and now we video chat. great stuff.

i fell sick. the normal kind. the one that makes you miss your family terribly and make u wish that u had the courage to quit and return. this is not the first time i fell sick. i felt sick at iit. realized there that if you have fever you shud not wrap yourself in blanket, rather endure the coldness and hopefully fever will go.

in bangalore, it was more terrible, u were supposed to go office and work. shit that was some experience. how did i get better. i guess it was a matter of time. i will eventually go and see a doctor. have blood test etc. a friend recommended dolo 650 and that was a life saver.

here in gurgaon, i went office but was scolded and sent back. a colleague/friend also took me to see a doctor. real nice of him. and i did not go office for the rest of the week and missed  home terribly. multiple times i thought how i was gonna spend my rest of life. places like these give u a feeling of being stuck forever.

i also went and watched a movie alone. did not like it much. vicky donor.

what else can be done. i am generally fine with being alone. i should not think that i am missing out on life.

and work is particularly boring these days.

ok. wrapping it up.

Continuing on my 'cowardice' theme.

Artists are cowards, mostly. 'Artists use lies to tell the truth,' as pointed out by V. And I agree. It makes perfect sense. Isn't fiction or poetry a mean(should there be an s) to conceal your secrets? Artists also want the approval of the audience. Which also makes them sad. Anyway, that would be a different time.

So, I was thinking of different stories that could emerge out of a seed situation, a trigger incident and 'cause and effect' relationship.

It all comes down to understanding the basic setup I guess.

What would be some of the interesting seed situations? A seed situation could be about a person (obviously me) realizing contradictions. Trigger could be his attempt to bring consistency to his behavior. So that's it. A trigger is an agent of change. Experiments. I feel pathetic. And yet relieved.

But I will write a story.

when are we most funny? 'when we are honest,' i concluded.

honesty also means courage. courage to say the truth. be ready to accept the consequences.

'am i honest?,' you ask yourself.

being silent. playing safe. is that cowardice? i think it is. it is also maturity. maturity and cowardice are so inter-related. it is a matter of point of view i guess.

these are all fragmented thoughts. left as cues. and one day, i will read it up and compile it into story of my life. that was tragic.

i feel particularly pathetic nowadays. greeting people up in the morning is so not me. also i have a style. i should maintain the style. under-expression. oh yeah.

i went to see chiriyaghar. it was the first occasion i was truly impressed with delhi.

is that all?

so there is a movie, where different characters are characters. so you have vengeance fighting duty for supremacy.

and what is important?

this is a sad post. different but sad.

It was a Saturday. I got a call from my brother in law. He said that he was forced to observe fast on the occasion of Shivaratri. And I thought I will not eat today as well. I thought I will do it the proper way and hence not drink water as well. I felt ridiculous at the thought of not having done it before. 27 years already, high time. But then I became little reasonable. I said I will drink water. So I went to meet my friend as planned. He asked me whether I wanted to eat. I said no. He said OK and started eating. And I started eating as well.

Why am I writing this? I definitely had a point.

Yes. So I am trying to define ultimate rule set. Things that I will do when encountered with the mammoth task of making a decision.

So I went home. I didn't smoke for a week. While I was at it I though that I will not smoke again for rest of my life. I had tried that before. I met recently-to-be-engaged Mr J and I thought that I will smoke as soon as I had company. I came back and did not smoke for 5 days. Then I smoked again. Today I smoked again. What is the rule set here?

One rule, working for sure, is that all rules can be bent. Unless I make that an official rule and then break it. Not funny at all.

But what's with this? I think it could be a good life. Rule based. I am experimenting with them. That's the only way to truth. Experiments. Otherwise you will never know.

I am procrastinating again. You would not believe it but I spelled that in one shot straight. I get a feeling that I am about to do something. I just need to get the feeling that I am 'in the moment'. For quite sometime I have been looking at myself as someone from outside. I need to take control, talk less and do something.

i was sitting on this railing kind of structure waiting for my friends to come back. and i was thinking about what it is that makes someone great. essentially about its knowing what to do and then having the courage to do it. intelligence and courage, i summarised. at that point, it struck to me that i had arrived at these two qualities with some logical deduction which appeared very novel, but as i write this i am not very impressed.

so a friend visited. met him almost after 5 years. wow. and it didnt feel like he has changed. whcih basically proves tht people dont change. and is that not true?! we only learn to manipulate our image.

so suppose, that this world started with an initial state. and there are n variables that define that state. if you believe in cause and effect which incidently i do, you should be able to clearly draw out a map of all future states.

but there has to be an element of randomness and that is why i think that initial state must have been in an equilibrium with equal probability of things turning their course into two opposite sides. and ones they are far from that equilibrium state it can not be reversed.

at this point in time, i have a strong urge to put a disclaimer that says that i feel idiotic pretending that i have realised something new, and even though i have done it already, i resolve to not do that in future. in a way, this is one disclaimer for all future posts.

coming back to the point - people not changing - is true but there are still some traits that they have not shown - and these are the traits that should be exhibited with extreme care to draw that map of future and may be that is why you should take extra time to resolve your moral dilemma because once you have decided everything else is benchmarked and kind of decided.

i know that few examples and a smoother language would have made this post really thought provoking. for the time being, i am just happy that i was able to put it out as text.

This is going to be a year of resolving contradictions. At least a year that sees me giving awareness a chance. And as I keep on talking about this my ignorance is at its peak. This kind of pride can only originate from ignorance. Ignorance that accomplishment is only a matter of resolve.

I am almost lyrical there. And I am making a conscious effort of connecting with the reader and it’s me taking my first steps.

So I watched this Japanese drama series. A pianist is asked by his teacher – ‘whom do you play for?’ and he says ‘For myself.’ The pianist is not well recognized but the teacher is aware of his potential. Eventually the protagonist realizes his full potential when he plays piano for someone else.

Khi, khi. Yes I am that pianist. And this is me trying to protect original me. I am not sure if you ever noticed but sometime quite early on this blog I wrote – ‘with each passing day, we lose some part of originality’. Don’t you think it was quite deep and futuristic for that time? I think it was still something better though. And I feel proud that I wrote that. And I can totally feel ashamed right now seeing this post as a lame attempt to a writing practice class. I finally feel home.

But the question remains - do I edit or do I not. I don’t know what I am trying to protect when everything is borrowed anyway. That’s another deep thought. I am going deeper in shit, is what I feel.

Anyway, this post was supposed to have an objective - more of an experiment actually where I consciously give serious damn to make some sense. Maintain a flow of thoughts, exemplify, simplify and see if that makes me feel better. If that brings additional clarity. If that takes me closer to the truth. That’s three in a row.

So I had this rather honest conversation with a relatively younger person - an ex colleague actually. And he doesn’t even know how lucky he is to find an anonymous mention here. So he talks a lot. And I don’t mind actually because I find it incredibly hard to talk randomly even though it may sound random. Hehe. And I laugh. Excuse me.

Ok. So we are rather discussing this point. To express or not. Particularly, if you feel something very strongly – should you say it out loud or not. I told him that if we do that, we are looking for approval, external validation and that shows lack in self belief. This was a catch 22 situation. I hope you realize that.

this will be a quicky. i am not quite sure what i an going to write.

and i could end the post right here saying that i dont give a damn.

anyways, my weekends have been crazy busy lately. let me count. sister, brother, bangalore, agra, home. seriously. and i wanted to do so many things. and its already two months. and here i am.

but it put things in perspective. once you find something, you need to hold to it, not give it up so easily.

and i am a very neutral person, without preference. and i think that is bad. and i look for consistency when i am not consistent when it comes to me and the world. that sucks.

what else?

time flies by.

and that sounds as if i am writing this watching my grandson getting married or something. but isnt that truth. so lately, i have become quite indifferent to the fact that i am writing quite explicitly. its not good. honest is never artistic.

so i finally went and attended a wedding. and i want to write so much about it. good times. communication is a recurring theme. its the only way of connecting. and there is so much background to that one moment when you connect to someone else. gives you the feeling of an end. i wish i could be more happy. and i wish i could be ignorant.

there was this movie, i guess in some foreign language and i happen to put it on tv as it was going to end. there is this girl in a school uniform. and she boards a bus. she stands near driver and looks out of glass window. for initial few seconds you think that she is looking at something, maybe on road. but after those few seconds, you realise she is looking at you. and at that precise moment, i knew the movie was going to end.

what else? there are few more things that i want to write about. but i have come to realise that sometimes its best not to express. sometimes, its best to build up on it till its actually the end.

thats quite some line.

This is 200th. I wanted to write that I want to make it special but I really dont. I will write few things here and there. In my earlier analysis, I had established how the number of posts is inversely proportional to quality of posts for a given duration. i think that is true. but mostly i guess it has to do with freshness of the posts. i think i will pull one this off quite decently.

and its 10 already? i completed one month in this part of the world. good good. and i want to finally settle in raipur. yess. i will own a home in bangalore as well. but that is different.

and how completely real things look. so completely within reach. its unbelievable at times. but then you become aware.

aah. i just remembered what i actually wanted to write about. when was the last time you heard your heart beat so loud you got scared that it would burst open. arent those the moments that you are so so aware that you are alive? extreme emotions. fear is one of them. and may be love is the extreme. okk.. now you think i wrote all this to talk about love. i wrote this last line in fond memory of more energetic ignorant happy and young me - i could have written rest of this post just in this point - i was talented back then. haha. i feel fresh.

coming back to the point - it was that night when i wanted to sleep to be able to wake up early next morning - i got so scared i woke up. and i thanked god as never before to have friends come over to my place for visiting me. i had two pegs, we listened to old hindi songs, mostly from pyasa and talked about how handsome dharmendra was and how talented sanjeev kumar was. good times - completely justifies consumption of alcohol.

another night was when i prepared some material for sas training. shit, it sounded so stupid. it still does. it was four in the morning and few hours before we get into session. i was so bloodly proud and happy, i could not sleep thinking i wish i had the class right now so i could teach them.

and to end the post - how much do you know yourself if you have never been in a fight? that is from fight club.

path to self discovery, is it?

it was 'timing', 'packaging' and 'summarization'.

the secret to money making is same as that to comedy - timing. i picked that up from 'a good day'. you need to be really thoughtful when you decide to take plunge. and i can recite examples of blunders that i have dont in term of timing it extremely wrong. however, i shouldn't think about it much. its only in the hind sight that you recognise simplicity of affairs. but it is still very difficult to keep it simple. i understand that quite well now.

i am diverting in thoughts now. i tend to be very mindful of what a stranger is thinking of me. i think its because of my self-deprecating behavior. i need to keep a check on it. the sad part is that the people that i know very well, i find it easier to say no to them. that last sentence does not make sense at all. and i dont mean just grammatically.

coming to packaging - isn't that the most important part of selling? i need to understand vanity and importance of this. projections are reality anyway. this world is not like matrix.. it is matrix.

and to know truly, you need to summarize accurately. that means taking much trouble in filtering and searching till you get what you want. a book that translates my technical understanding to philosophy of life is much awaited, i guess.

one more thing, i don't know why but i project this image of uncertainty around people mostly strangers - i think its my sad way of connecting with them. but there are people just talking to whom makes me know what i want. Isnt it too good a feeling to have such people around you?

It's big time that i start writing a book. i still feel that it will be a while before it slides all down-hill.

and i received roses from a girl. thank you.

I have something stuck between one of my teeth and i feel like using a gun to bring it out.

so its been so long since i last posted. i didnt have a laptop when i moved here and primary reason for me buying this was to be able to posted. it made me realise how much i liked blogging. i actually started writing stuff down on a diary. most of it was a more elaborate version of 'i am stupid' but what the heck! my hand writing is particularly bad. now that i have all the time in the world, maybe i will get my hand writing to a decent level. may be learn calligraphy etc.

see i had so much to write about and i am writing all the nonsense. and i am not even writing it to sound funny. Reading my past posts have become a habit lately. and i like the ones written very early (2007) and the later ones (2009-2010). transition time is always bad i guess.

as always i am doing a lot of self analysis now. the only question that remains now is - should i get polished or not? is it really worth it. maybe i will write a rulebook on how i intend to behave.

i also wanted to write about 'timing', 'packaging' and 'i forgot what it was'. well lets not bore ourselves by talking about what prompted me to say that.


have a happy new year satish.