The Writing On The Wall

Really?

2011-04-04T06:12:00.000-07:00

Arjun Venkatraman
Anyone feel a tremor just now?

about an hour ago via Twitter · @arjunven on Twitter

Pinaki Joddar yep...
Drona Sharma Is this like 'the earth moved for me' or like 'leg it-there is an earth quake'

How would the two be distinguishable...if cross referenced agreement is the
only proof of reality then unless it was a group hallucination, the twitter stream would bear out that what I speak is the absolute truth rather than perceived reality. I have no idea why I wrote so much, but I suppose I must
be feeling loquacious. :)

Yep...loquacious is what I am feeling today. So if I imagined the earthquake and I imagined the twitter stream following it, shouldn't that leave everyone else around me wondering if they are a figment of my imagination?

More importantly, should I be worried about being the figment of someone elses imagination, like a character in a dream, conjured up in an instant as a hacked up, steroid-ed version of a repressed childhood memory, fully programmed and ready to play my part. In this instant, how do I know that this is not the first instant of my life. After all people in dreams must have back stories too.

How do I know that this movie didn't start five minutes ago, with me beginning a blogpost about what is really real?

A Christmas Carol

2010-12-24T06:32:00.001-08:00

The phone rings as I'm heading into the shower. A righteous Tam sounding kid on the other end tells my mother that my father is dead. She tells him she will call him back and turns to me. "Venky died" is all she says. Bullet time kicks in, everything slows down.
Each thump in my chest reverberates metalically against my eardrums. I look at mum. She looks horrified. And sorrowful.
I look at my stepfather. He is motionless. He's looking carefully at me, gauging my reaction.
Mum is saying something but I cant hear her, the thumping is too loud.
And then it stops.
In the silence I hear my own voice, promising my father that I would stand for his dignity. I listen to myself. I look to see if I compromised on that promise. I dont see anything inconsistent. Nothing stands out like a sore thumb. Nothing needs to be washed with tears. Nothing needs to be bandaged with guilt.
All that remains to be managed is the physicality of things.
I call back. The righteous kid answers. I ask him how it happened. He starts giving me an explanation that doesnt answer my question. I ask him again. He gives me a longer explanation. I ask him if my father is dead or alive. He still doesnt answer my question and keeps explaining. He is trying to explain to me why he's qualified to talk to me about the morality of what I'm doing to my father.
All I want are the facts. I tell him to cut the bullshit. That snaps him awake. He tells me my father is alive and asleep. I tell my mother. She takes the phone and hangs up.
Later my stepfather calls and has a decent conversation with the kid and explains why its a bad idea to use melodrama when facts will do.

Nothing changes, everything transforms. In one phone call, I go from uncertainty, doubt and fear of guilt, to being certain, clear and guilt free.

जाओ वहां न जाने कहाँ लाओ वह न जाने क्या

2010-11-22T04:22:00.001-08:00

Sax and Violins

2010-11-22T04:16:00.002-08:00

Thinking about women today

2010-10-07T22:19:00.000-07:00

“Tell me what a man finds sexually attractive and I will tell you his entire philosophy of life. Show me the woman he sleeps with and I will tell you his valuation of himself….. The man who is proudly certain of his own value, will want the highest type of woman he can find, the woman he admires, the strongest, the hardest to conquer – because only the possession of a heroine will give him the sense of an achievement, not the possession of a brainless slut.” ~ Ayn Rand

Thanks Trevor!

FIRESALE! Everything MUST Go!

2010-09-27T12:01:00.000-07:00

Of Facts and Feelings

2010-09-13T16:20:00.000-07:00

"Since propositions merely express facts about the world, propositions in themselves are entirely devoid of value. The facts are just the facts. Everything else, everything about which we care, everything that might render the world meaningful, must reside elsewhere. A properly logical language, deals only with what is true. Aesthetic judgments about what is beautiful and ethical judgments about what is good cannot even be expressed within the logical language, since they transcend what can be pictured in thought.
They aren't facts."

My propositions serve as elucidations in the following way: anyone who understands me eventually recognizes them as nonsensical, when he has used them—as steps—to climb up beyond them. (He must, so to speak, throw away the ladder after he has climbed up it.) He must transcend these propositions, and then he will see the world aright.
Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent
—Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus

http://www.philosophypages.com/hy/6s.htm

2010-08-30T22:15:00.000-07:00

A sharp listening is like a perfumiers sense of smell. A sharp nose can pick up a hist of basil in a strong garlic soup.

Oops...I lied!

2010-05-12T23:04:00.000-07:00

"Don't make me a liar" is a phrase I often hear in sales. For the longest time, it made no sense to me. If you already delivered a communication, it was either truth or falsehood. How could I now make you a liar or prevent you from being one after the fact? I've obsessed over this seemingly absurd statement for months at end, before finding my empowered context for it.
I can now listen to that statement as a request and an opportunity for enrollment into whatever the speaker just finished creating. Irrespective of whether or not that which was created is in existence for me right now, I can receive that statement as an invitation to create it.
As someone committed to making a difference I see it now as a phenomenal opportunity to be of service. Ad as someone committed to mastering the game of creation, I notch it up as a score when someone validates my ability by asking me to partner with them.

1984

2010-05-01T08:53:00.000-07:00

जब दूसरे बच्चोँ की माएँ उन्हे यह कह कर सुला रहीँ थीँ कि बेटा सो जा, वरना गब्बर आ जायेगा, तब मेरी मा मुझे कहतीँ थीँ, बेटा, Big Brother is watching... अब सोना है या नहीँ, तुम खुद सोच लो.
Big Brother isn't so scary after all...देखता है तो देखे...अगर Big Brother देख रहा है, तो कहीँ गुरु ग्यानी सुन भी रहा होगा

अपनी तो दोनो से ही बनती है...

जाओ वहाँ न जाने कहाँ, लाओ वह न जाने क्या

2010-02-14T22:42:00.000-08:00

To sense and comprehend after action is not worthy of being called comprehension. To accomplish after striving is not worthy of being called accomplishment. To know after seeing is not worthy of being called knowing. These three are far from the way of sensing and response.
Indeed, to be able to do something before it exists, sense something before it becomes active, see something before it sprouts, are three abilities that develop interdependently. Then nothing is sensed but is comprehended, nothing is undertaken without response, nowhere does one go without benefit

-The Book Of Balance and Harmony

जाओ वहाँ न जाने कहाँ, लाओ वह न जाने क्या
-रूसी दंतकथा

...and not to celebrate victory

2010-02-14T08:12:00.000-08:00

Those who assist a leader by means of the Tao do not use arms to coerce the world, for these things tend to reverse- brambles grow where an army has been, bad years follow a great war.
Weapons are inauspicious instruments, not the tools of the enlightened. When there is no choice but to use them, it is best to be calm and free from greed, and not to celebrate victory. Those who celebrate victory are bloodthirsty, and the bloodthirsty cannot have their way with the world.

-Tao-te Ching

I believe!!!

2010-02-06T21:59:00.001-08:00

What are the odds that I would end up having dinner with two women, both best friends of two of my ex girlfriends, they both work for the same company, are in the US working for the same client, live in the same apartment complex...and the apartment complex is across the road from my hotel, which was picked by HotWire....
Yep...I believe!

The metaphysics of Holy Cow Burgers

2010-01-31T13:22:00.000-08:00

What is a Holy Cow, if not a point of certainty in an infinite sea of choices?
Holy Cows work great for transport, they get you from point A to point B.
Each point location has a discrete set of Holy Cows that belong to it and are appropriate in its context
If a Holy Cow shows up at a point location where it is no longer relevant, it knows its about to be Burgered! And that works for the Holy Cow! Moksha!
This is the greatness of Holy Cows!
The greatness of humans is that we can point at J Random Cow and yell "Holy Cow!" and then be thrilled with wherever that gets us. Until the next cow catches our eye!

CTRL+ALT+DEL

2010-01-15T19:14:00.000-08:00

At the beginning of this year I was at the nadir of my existence. I woke up one morning and realized that the experience of life was that there was no one I could trust to stand for me.
I was working insane hours, making commitments I wasn't enrolled into out of fear and then losing power when held accountable for them and making more commitments to fix the loss of power. My only commitment in life was to look good while talking and get away with it. If I did, great! If I didn't, I'd put in more effort and make up the difference somehow.
Having tried every strategy I could think of to make myself more lovable, likeable and successful I realized that I suck at that kind of strategy. It does nothing for me, it leaves me untouched, unmoved and uninspired. There is a temporary experience of having "achieved" something, but having no clue how I really got there, I have no access to recreating it on a continued, sustained basis. I didn't know where to go from here. All I knew was that this life was not worth living.
Suicide was not an option. I wondered why it wasn't. I realized that the first thought that came to my head was that there are people counting on me. Rather, all I knew was that some people claimed they counted on me. That was it. I knew nothing else. I decided to find out if they really did, or whether they were just faffing. I wanted to know if this "being liked" business was actually worth it. Could I count on the people I was trying to be liked by so hard. Because if I couldn't then the effort was just not worth it and I should go look someplace else for a different set of people to create a fresh set of relationships with. The first people I wanted to know about were my parents. I started sharing cautiously at first and then more and more. I realized that I could actually count on them! WOW! Turn's out I'm not actually alone! That was something I made up. Knowing that my parents love me and will stand by me NO MATTER WHAT, I suddenly had the power to take on the world!
The next person on my list was my coach and friend, someone who gave me my first professional break. I realized I'd never had the power to hold him to account and make a request, because I'd always considered myself too small and insignificant to ask. With this newfound power, I was actually able to ask him to meet me and share. Before I met him that morning, I spent the night strategizing with my parents on what I would say. We were all worried as hell, because if he didnt take well to being held to account, I would need to move back to India. I kept thinking of ways to present things, reasons to provide and ways to manipulate, until the moment I actually met him. He said he was there as my friend and not as my boss. AHA! Here's something I can work with. The only thing I have the power to hold him to account on, is who he says he is to me.
And that I CAN hold him to account for, always! Ok, time to test this theory out!
I told him I missed that guy, the one who was able to drop being my boss and be just my friend.
By this time I was crying. Couldn't hold it back. But that's immaterial. This seemed to be working though. He was actually listening! I told him exactly what I was experiencing, the lack of partnership, connectedness and love. He got it! He shared what he had been dealing with that allowed that to happen and I got connected back to who he is. No more need be said. The world shifted in that moment. There's nothing like a validated theory to give you power!
That it! That IS it! From this moment on, I am on a rampage to validate every theory that calls me into action.
So far it's going great! Clearly the people in my life rock a lot more than I thought!
The truth of the matter is that I always knew this is the way I wanted to live, I just didn't have the balls to test it out.
My father asked me this week, what I wanted to have on my tombstone. I'm still exploring ideas, here's what it looks like so far:
"Here lies a man who actually got away with keeping his word"
This requires some promises:
1. I promise to give my word only when I'm touched, moved and inspired
2. I promise to play with everything I've got
3. I promise to stay in communication and never hold back from fear
4. I promise to always operate from love

This is who I am and this is what the world can count on.

I invite the world to brainstorm with me on this. Worst case scenario, I'll learn something!

Bonus discovery of the week:
Here's what I discovered gives me power to make unreasonable requests:
1. Saying exactly what's so and what's not
2. Being willing to take the consequences of (1) NO MATTER WHAT!

What I learnt today:

2010-01-13T22:21:00.000-08:00

It's more fulfilling to commit from my heart and use my brains to do the job than the other way around

Building Teams

2010-01-13T10:44:00.000-08:00

I learnt something about building teams today. I cannot build a team as long as my primary commitment in life is saving my own skin. When I give that up, the whole world is my team

From Scribbles: The Mango Tree (Adapted from Hindi)

2010-01-03T23:28:00.000-08:00

Scene 1:

Morning. The Secretariat. A solitary sweeper, raking up the leaves and slush from last nights storm. Muttering under his breath all the while.

Sweeper: .... [grumbling] Bah! Storms in June! Next we'll be having snowflakes. What's the weather coming to these days? All the more trouble for me. Bloody babus. All they can do is order us little folks around. If I was the secretary.....I'd ban storms in June. That’s what I'd do!

Enter Peon from left. Very breathless.

Peon: Big problem! Very big problem! Stop sweeping and come with me! We have a crisis at hand. The mango tree! The mango tree has fallen over!

Sweeper: The mango tree? You don't mean the one in the middle of the compound, do you? Good God! I have to see for myself!

The both exit right.

Compound.

Peon and Sweeper run in from left. The tree is center stage. There is a man under it.

Peon [sorrowfully]: Just look at it. Such a beautiful mango tree. Remember Sweeper? What fantastically juicy mangoes it always had in summer. My kids used to be crazy about them. Oh my poor kids! All seven of them shall mourn the passing of the mango tree. I better break it to them gently.

Sweeper: Forget your kids. What am I going to tell my wife? She's called her mother over next month just for the damn mangoes off this tree. And now this accursed wind......If I was the secretary, I'd put a board outside the compound stating n big bold letters, “Wind Prohibited!” Why does my mother in law have to be a mango addict? My life is ruined!

Man Under The Tree: Help! Somebody! Please! I'm stuck under here!

Peon: Huh? Who are you? And what are you doing under the tree?

Sweeper: Why did you have to go crawling under a fallen tree? That's not very respectful of you! This is a much loved tree!

Man Under The Tree: You abysmal fools! Go get help! I'm stuck! The tree fell on me!

Sweeper: Now that’s a likely story! You expect us to believe that the tree was just standing there waiting for you to pass by and just when you were under it, it decided to topple over? Hah! What kind of idiots do you take us for?

Man Under the Tree: Listen! I cannot take this too much longer! Can't you see? This stupid tree crashed on top of me! I think some of my ribs are broken! Please! Get a doctor! Get a crane! Get this off me!

Peon: Wait a minute. What are you trying to imply here? That our tree is some characterless roadside tree, who has nothing better to do than crash on people?

Sweeper: I think I know what's happened here. This guy must have done something to make the tree fall. Otherwise how could this tree just fall over like that?

Peon: How could you do something like that? Have you no concern for trees?

Man Under The Tree: Look! I am trying to tell you something. I need help! Please....just get some people and take this tree off me. It's too heavy to bear!

Peon: Hmmm. We must get to the bottom of this. But first we need to do something about this guy. I'll go get the Junior Assistant to the Undersecretary! He'll know what to do! Sweeper! You stay here. Make sure this guy doesn't go anywhere! I'll be right back!

Peon runs out left.

Sweeper: Now you're in trouble. The Junior Assistant to the Undersecretary is coming. He'll take you properly to task. That'll teach you to go messing around mango trees.

Man Under The Tree: uhhhh!

Peon returns with the Junior Assistant to the Undersecretary.

JAU: What's all this? Where's this fallen tree? Oh! Not this tree! My god! Where are the mangoes going to come from this year? Oh...hello. Myself Junior Assistant to the Undersecretary. Soon to be promoted to Senior Assistant.

The present Senior Assistant is soon to retire, you see. I should get his job considering I am next in line.....

Pleased to meet you... [extends hand then realizes that the man under the tree can't shake it.] Oh sorry! I didn’t realize. Peon! Why didn’t you tell me? This man needs help!

Man Under the Tree: Yes! Yes please! Get me out!

JAU: Peon! Sweeper! Come on! Help me pull him out from under there. I am sorry sir! These uneducated bastards! Good for nothing! Just a moment we will pull you out from there. Oh come on you lazy idiots!

All three of them try to pull the man out. It doesn't work.

Man Under the Tree: I think....uh....You will need to....ugh......Cut....cut some of the tree off so......so that it becomes easier to move.

JAU: Hmmm. Well! That seems like a good enough idea. But I'll need to consult with the Senior Assistant on whether that can be done or not? You see I'm next in line for a promotion...and I'd like to stick to the rules as far as possible.

Just a moment. I shall be right back!

JAU leaves from left.

Peon: Humph! Stupid fool! Just who does he think he is? Ears only three hundred more than either of us and thinks he can call us names.

Sweeper: Just wait till the Secretary gets in! I'm really close to him you know. He'll listen to me. I'll see how this one gets his bloody promotion.

Stick by the rules indeed.

Man Under the Tree: Please......hurry!

Sweeper: Wait! You are in a government office. Things must be done by the rules here. How do you expect us to risk our jobs moving this tree without permission from a senior official? Are you out of your tree? Oops! Pardon the language! [Sniggers]

JAU returns with a bothered man in tow.

SAU: Three months from retirement and a crisis has to pop up! Oh no! This tree? There goes my retirement gift. They usually gift the outgoing employees a jar of pickle made from the mangoes of this tree. We finished off the last years stock when the Senior Clerk retired last month. I was counting on this year’s crop for mine.....

Oh, good morning! How are you feeling? Can I offer you a cup of tea?

Man Under the Tree: [sarcastically] Yes please! Two spoons of sugar and very little milk! No! I don't want tea. Just get this tree off my chest! I’m dying! Can you not see? Are you blind?

SAU: Well there’s no need to be impolite about it! Be nice to some people and they just assume they can sit on your head! What's the world coming to?

Anyway! I can't authorize the removal of the tree! This particular tree was planted by the wife of the Chairman of the Forest Department. Technically the tree belongs to them. They have the right to the wood. They'll have to come and collect it. I'll go place a call. They won't be open yet though.

Man Under the Tree: Can't you do anything at all? Please help me! This tree is killing me!

Sweeper: There he goes accusing the tree again! What's the tree doing to you? All it's doing is lying there. How could it be killing you?

JAU: Oh be quiet! Can't you see the man's in pain. [to the SAU] Sir....since the Tree is in the Secretariat compound, I think it comes under the property of the Secretariat. That means we can move it. I think the Forest Service people sent over a circular to that effect. Gifting the tree to us or some such....

SAU: Hmm..... now that you mention it..... the file is with the Undersecretary. I'll go ask her if the circular says anything about the tree belonging to us.

He leaves from left.

Man Under the Tree: Uuhhhhh! This tree is getting heavier by the second. Please help me! I'll pay you once you get it off. Just get it off.

JAU: Are you trying to bribe me? Of course not! I am a man of principle! I do NOT take bribes! And do you know you could go to jail for saying that kind of thing to me? You're lucky I'm not reporting you! Humph!

Man Under the Tree: God! Help! Someone help!

SAU returns with the Under Secretary

US: My favorite tree! Oh NO!

Man Under the tree: Madam! Please! You can bemoan your tree later…..

US: Just a minute…….I think my cell just went off…… [hunts in an oversize handbag] aaah yes!.....hello……oh hi!!! No I couldn’t go……really? Wow! Get two for me as well……I can’t believe this…..cushion covers at half price? This seriously has to be the deal of the century! Yes! Yes please! Thanks sweetie! Okay I have to go…..no... some trouble with a tree…bye then!

Man Under the tree: if you’ve finished madam….

US: Oh yes….the tree…hmmmm….I think I have the file. Just a moment.[Runs out]

JAU[to SAU]: Madam is soooo brilliant no? see how she handles her social and professional life with such ease. And beautiful too…..

SAU: Be quiet! Work with her for two years you’ll start hating her as much as I do. Always making her assistants do all her dirty work. [mimicks the US] Oh please! Would you do that? Oh how sweet! [bats his eyelids for effect].

JAU: Oh come now! She couldn’t be all that bad.

SAU: Oh worse! Always flirting with the secretary too. I wouldn’t be surprised if….[makes a knowing sly sort of face]

JAU: You don’t say!!

US comes back with a thick file

US: Lets see now. Circular regarding change of tap in fifth bathroom of third floor. Circular regarding presentation of bouquet to neice of the secretary on the occaision of her eleventh marriage. Ah yes! Here we are. Circular regarding donation of mangoes from leased tree to secretariat from the forest department. Mangoes? Lease? Oh my god! Do you realize what this means? The tree wasn’t ours! Only the mangoes. The tree was on a lease! Let me see….lease of tree…..period of 8 years…..SAU! when was the tree planted?

SAU: Yes ma’am? When? Well it would be just after my second son’s third marriage anniversary and his oldest kid is five so two and three makes five yes ma’am three years ago!

US: Oh no! then the lease still has five years to go! The forest department isn’t going to like this!

Man Under the tree: To hell with your forest department and its leases! Im dying under here! Help me please!

US: Oh shut up! Can’t you see the gravity of the situation? We are in the midst of an interdepartmental crisis here and all you can think of is yourself. I must call the Secretary.

[runs out]

SAU: see! All she needs is an excuse to meet him. [Makes a disgusted face.]

JAU: I see what you mean. I would never have thought that madam….

US returns with Sec:

Secretary: This is indeed a very grave situation. The forest department has always been on very good terms with us. We cannot afford to lose their respect. How could this happen? And now? In June?

US: Sir! Perhaps we could call it an accident….

Sec: Well we could I suppose. But then….who will explain it? And this man? Hello! Who are you exactly?[doesn’t wait for a reply] No! No! No! It will never stand up to scrutiny at the enquiry that’s sure to follow. We must think of a way to subvert this crisis. I must think……

SAU: Sir, perhaps clause 18 of the subsection A of the fallen tree removal act….

JAU: No! that’s not going to work, you need to prove the tree fell of its own accord, and we don’t have a witness…. I suggest article 19b of the anomalous fruit tree afflictions act.

US: I still say we call it an accident!

Sec:[suddenly brightens up!] I have an idea! Hey you! Do you want to get out of under there?

Man Under the tree: More than anything else sir! Can you please ask them to cut the tree up?

Sec: Relax friend! I am here now! [turns to the US and whispers something in her ear]

US lights up, calls all the other aside ad a low conv ensues

US:…confession….

JAU….signature….

SAU:…brilliant…

Sweeper:….hmmmm…

Peon:….explains everything….

They all disperse and return a moment later each with one article in his/her hand: pen paper, stamp, pad, envelope.

They converge in one corner and write something on the paper.

The US takes the paper and hands it to the Sec.

The Sec takes the paper to the Man under the tree.

Sec: All you nee to do is sign this and you will be out in a jiffy!

Man Under the tree: Give it here! I’ll sign anything. Anything at all! Just get me out of here![signs]

Sec: Perfect! Peon! Sweeper! Get axes! Cut this tree down! We have a life to save.

Sweeper and peon Walk out leisurely.

Sec: SAU! JAU! Go inform the police! They must come immediately!

JAU and SAU leave.

Sec: Come my dear! A cup of tea is what’s needed after a day like this.

Man Under the Tree: What about me! Wait! Wait! Help!!

Offstage:

Sweeper: I need a lunch break first! I cant do heavy work right now. Labor rights entitle me to lunch!

Peon: But what about the man under the tree?

Sweeper: Well if he can live for so long another hour isn’t going to kill him! This is a government office after all.

Peon: I think you are right. Lunch must be had.

JAU: That police inspector was just too much! I’ll come in the evening indeed. Whats the law coming to….

SAU: Oh let it pass! Our job is done. Come its time for lunch!

JAU: Now that you mention it…..

Sec: More sugar my dear?

US:No! You’re so sweet! If I take more sugar I might get diabetes…[giggles]

Onstage:

Man Under the tree: Somebody….please….help……[dies]

Narrator: Good Evening! The News. In a dastardly terrorist strike on the secretariat this morning, a miscreant brutally murdered a blameless mango tree. However, Justice was served, as the terrorist himself was crushed under the fallen tree.

From Scribbles: Using Your Dad's Tool

2010-01-03T23:26:00.000-08:00

“Using your dad’s tool” is a phrase that sounds rather incestuously pornographic, but that’s the phrase that keeps resurfacing in my brain whenever I think about the bunch of kids I meet these days. Let me clarify here. By kids I mean anyone more than two years younger than me. A little more descriptive verbiage here: sheltered, clueless, yuppie, spoilt brats. Nope! I don’t hate 'em. Not in the least bit. However, they belong to a class of people almost completely alien to me, which is surprising, since exactly four years ago, I stood exactly where they are standing now, and I remember myself very differently.

Actually come to think of it, I didn’t stand exactly where they are standing. Things were a lot different. “Back in my day” is another phrase one doesn’t really feel comfortable using at 21, but hell, back in my day 21 year olds didn’t seem all that different. They seemed pretty much on the same platform as us guys.

The short break that I just took to go to the toilet has shifted my focus a bit. Apologies. I shall return to the kids and us in a moment.

There is a story by Isaac Asimov, which describes a world of the future where all calculations are done by machines. Technology has evolved to the point where humans do not need to compute at all. In such a world a man who is able to calculate by hand becomes a novelty. It’s an amazing story. But thinking about it now gives me a slightly different angle on it. Let me expound with an analogy:

There is another story, a well known one, called Jurassic Park, by Michael Crichton. Now this book was not written in the ‘90s. Let us for a moment assume (it’s a far fetched assumption, but bear with me, I shall attempt to elaborate) that Mr. Michael Crichton did not live in present times, but was born as a dinosaur in the Jurassic period. Let us also assume that this twist of fate did not rob him of any of his literary abilities. Let us say he wrote Jurassic Park in the Jurassic period. Now the question I wish to pose is this: What would be the reaction of J. Random Dinosaur be, to this fantastic novel written by the Crichtonosaurus?

I assume it would be something of the order of “Ha Ha! This saurus is brilliant! He actually hypothesizes that dinosaurs will cease to exist in a mere sixty five million years. Where do these author lizards get their ideas from? What imagination!”

This sounds reasonable when one looks at the reaction of a present day human to Asimov’s story about the calculating man.

It is inconceivable to people that what they hold to be basic axioms of existence, will change.

This brings me back to the discussion of kids and us.

When we were kids (that would be around the time we left home for college), we left home with the knowledge that we were stepping out into the big bad world, where we would be required to perform trapeze acts without a safety net.

Therefore, it became necessary for us to learn, in any way possible, the fundamentals of survival in a big bad world where people get their jollies out of watching other people fall.

We knew that if there was real trouble, we might be bailed out, but the price would be steep. And then again there was the drive to prove ourselves.

I shall choose three keywords from this little homily about ‘us’.

Fundamentals

Safety net

Drive.

We, since we were learning survival for ourselves, had to work our way up from the basics. Therefore, we naturally attach a lot of importance to fundamentals. Fundamentals, “life ke funde”, the basic truths.

E.g. Rule #1: Don’t get into it if you cannot get out.

Rule #2: Cash is always an issue. Don’t believe anyone who says it isn’t.

Rule #3: Your best pal is going to be the one to inform your parents about your love life, so if you want to keep it a secret, forget it, it’s impossible.

Rule #4: A closed mouth gathers no foot.

And so forth.

Kids today have no real need for this sort of rule book. They come from backgrounds which have been created by people who made up these rules, and then provided a cushioned layer on top of them to protect their future generations from the harshness of life. That’s what I mean by “using your dad’s tool”.

When we see these children, we see children because we know the underlying realities of life, upon which society stands. We see young people unequipped to handle the world that we handled and (immodestly) conquered.

We see kids who don’t know the fundamentals of life.

I suppose we must take into account the fact that kids today have a completely different set of basics. We forget that the basics we learnt have formed this new set of basics.

I suppose that’s how the concerns of society have evolved from “Where’s my next meal coming from” to “Is 40 GB really enough space for a hard drive?”

Safety nets were something we learnt to do without. Hence our actions were somewhat limited by fear. Those of us who have succeeded and will continue to succeed are the ones who are daring enough to perform crazy stunts despite the lack of a safety net.

Possibly, the generations above us would yell out loud at this heresy. Their justifiable anger would be based on their claim that they did provide us a safety net.

But this stems from the fact that they possibly had even less of one. Again, evolution.

What is scary about this evolutionary trend is the visible effect it has on drive.

The jump that our parents managed was immense, given the platforms they had. The best of us will just about reach that magnitude of jump with great difficulty. It is a different matter that a jump proportional to the one our parents took would land us in heights which are too dizzying to imagine.

However, it is increasingly obvious that the closer you are to the sky, the more vision you need to realize that there is in fact outer space beyond the blue.

I remember having this conversation with my father, before I left home.

The topic of discussion was: Why is it that the most successful of people come from the most impoverished backgrounds?

Dad’s theory was that people, who come from poor/uneducated/violent backgrounds, have nowhere else to go but up. This struck me as a very accurate account of things.

What one needs to do in order to move up in life is to be dissatisfied with the current state of things. The problem is, the higher you start, the more difficult it is to believe that you can do better.

That’s the ‘trouble’ with modern kids. They have it all. Why would they ever want to do more? I know from personal experience what kind of effort it has taken me to create an atmosphere around me that breeds dissatisfaction. A modern kid living at home would have a hell of a lot of trouble managing the same.

What would be interesting to see is the amount of achievement a modern dissatisfied kid could manage.

I think I’m going to teach my kids the following:

1) Math

2) English

3) The art of being dissatisfied.

I’ll leave the rest to them.

From Scribbles: One Sultry Predawn

2010-01-03T23:25:00.000-08:00

So! So you think you can tell

Heaven from hell?

Blue skies from pain?

Can you tell if you’d feel, from the cold steel rain?

Did they get you trade your heroes for ghosts?

Hot ashes for trees?

Hot air for the cool breeze?

Cold comfort for change?

Did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage?

-Pink Floyd-“Wish you were here”

Wish you were here!

Have you ever stood on the edge of a cliff and looked straight down and contemplated not whether to jump, but how best to jump in order to avoid splashes of blood on your clothes?

Would a gory looking corpse be acceptable to society as the last remains of you?

Jump I must but I must be neat about it!

“Oh my gaaawwwd! Splashes???? Of blood???? Eeeuuuu!” and “Can you believe he jumped? I to never thought yaar!”.

It might be interesting to observe the reaction of various people post your own mortem.

If there was any proof that such an observation could be made, it might even be worthwhile to kill yourself just for kicks. However, such proof does not exist, and therefore it makes suicide too big a risk. As Kafka puts it, there might just be an exactly similar room outside! What happens if you die and then discover that you’re in a parallel universe exactly similar except that you can’t even die because you are already dead!

Then what do you do?

What do you do if you suddenly realize that you exchanged a walk on part in freedom for a lead role in a cage!

Simple, you don’t do anything, you grin and bear it, and the minute the cage door opens, you sneak out and raise hell.

And then the shit really hits the fan, cause remember, it’s a lead role! Everyone’s looking.

That’s when fucked takes on a whole new meaning.

Finis

From Scribbles: Schizophrenia

2010-01-03T23:23:00.002-08:00

Alter 1 : You know you are in deep shit, when the prime decision of the day reduces to whether to use your right or left hand to jerk off.

Therefore I'm in deep shit. There is a certain advantage though to being buried in manure though.

Cut off from the mundane emotional inputs/traumas of day-to-day life, one can delve deep into ones one psyche and find answers to a lot of crap. The amazing discovery of the century has to be that the answers to all the fundamental questions of life can be expressed in one of two choices. The 1/0 principle. Kind of restores your faith in the digital fundas. Guess old whatsizname wasn’t that far of the mark. Disturbing though, that I cannot remember the name. I technically should, considering his discovery is going to pay for my livelihood in a few years.

Alter 2: Pissing!

Alter 1: I have also come to the conclusion that two people can indeed spend their lives together, but if and only if they are willing to completely stop talking to each other. Don’t raise those eyebrows; I know all the crap about communication and the rest of the bullshit surrounding love and matrimony. The idea is to remove verbal communication. All communication should be physical. Sign language when sex is not feasible. Sex, when possible. Telephones should be used strictly for business.

You see when one is communicating physically, there is much less possibility of mistaking signals and making wrong assumptions. I'm sure god has a reason for not providing most creatures on the planet with the faculty of verbal communication.

Language should be used only for communicating with people you don’t live with.

That way even if you make a mistake in understanding the other guy’s words you don’t have to pay for a lifetime. Actually I correct myself. The physical communication thing should be used only with romantically involved people. Those happen to be the ones who make the maximum stink about misunderstandings.

It may seem impossible to communicate physically at first, but it’s better than having two emotions completely confused solely due to different levels of vocabulary.

If you don’t believe me check out any bunch of stray dogs. The only time they use their mouths to communicate is when they are fighting. Bow wow yelp!

Alter 2: But hell people have different physical vocabularies as well. I mean look, some people find sex dirty and some others find it even boring. How do two people on two completely different plateaus communicate then?

Alter 1: Hmm! Interesting idea. Guess humanity is fucked then huh?

Alter 2: Yeah, guess so.

Alter 1: Too bad. You know I don’t really like you Alter 2. You poke too many holes in my theories. Just who the fuck do you think you are?

Alter 2: I'm you buddy. We are the two facets of the same coin.

Alter 1: Hah! My arse two facets! What coin? You don’t seriously subscribe to the same old crappy ‘each man is a coin’ theory do you?

Alter 2: Of course! Don’t you?

Alter 1: Certainly not. I'm much more advanced, I believe in the concept of credit cards. Ha ha ha ha!

Alter 2: This conversation is degenerating and fast.

Alter 1: You noticed? I have a theory about that too.

Alter 2: You and your stupid theories. Lets have it then. I don’t suppose you're going to lemme leave without it.

Alter 1: You're perceptive I’ll say that for you. Okay the thing is, this conversation is being typed, right? So when the dipshit on the keyboard presses enter, the page goes up and the conversation goes down. Voila! Degeneration!

Alter 2: Can I leave now? Please? Pretty please?

Alter 1: No one appreciates me! No one loves me! Boo hoo!

Alter 2: Look who woke up! You see now that you’ve realized this basic fact perhaps you will be a happier person! You know, knowledge is the root to enlightenment and happiness.

Alter 1: Oh yeah? Then how come women aren’t happy? They always know it all!

Alter 2: Simple answer! They only think they know!

Alter 1: Whatever! I don’t want to get into a conversation about women right now. They bore me and besides I have a lot of work to get finished.

Alter 2: You started it.

Alter 1: But I still haven’t solved my basic problem!

Alter 2: What’s that?

Alter 1: Should I use my left or right hand to jerk off?

Alter 2: Bye Bye!

From Scribbles: A Park Bench

2010-01-03T23:23:00.001-08:00

A park bench, behind a stack of pipes, which my girlfriend tells me, are used for phone cables. The smoke from a cigarette, desperately trying to remain coherent and disciplined, but blown every which way by the wind. A cow, mainly black with white patches, or is it mainly white but mostly covered in black? The graying sky, promising rain in a few moments. Large orange flowers, whose name I cannot recall (is it tesu?), some decaying, some waiting to decay, lying around on the ground. Three or four shrines, built by the believers, scattered around in a disorganized manner, around the clearing.

Thoughts, many and incoherent, rushing through my brain, each vying for attention. An urge to write and keep on writing until the rain forces me away. A wish to see things resolved. But desperation as the rain threatens to wipe out, wash away the efforts of a confused mind.

Perhaps it would be wise to keep it away and pray for a dry day when Gods pleasure doesn’t make a mockery of mans desperation.

‘Tis amazing how a little rain can be such an irritant when one wishes to be a certain way. God smiles, allowing a few more instants of dryness, perhaps telling the foolish mortal that this is not time given to write, but time given to put away pen and paper, gather up belongings and head for cover. But the mortal is adamant. He assumes he is invincible, and so is his ink. He remains where he was, as if daring God to do his worst. Amusing, these mortals. They seem to enjoy being reminded of their inadequacies. A warning gust of wind. For an instant the mortal is afraid. What if people reading this laugh at him. But then, o one asked him to display his writings. But the mortal is vain. He wishes to be applauded. He feels he can take a little rejection. A small risk compared to the glowing feeling of accomplishment he expects when he is rewarded with the accolades of other mortals, all of whom are playing the same foolhardy game of hide and seek with themselves. The flow of writing takes the mortal on and on away from where he started. Into the narrow alleyways of his own mind where he dare not tread for fear of being confronted with a mirror, more clear and honest than any other. The mortal does not fear God for he knows that God is his own creation. But he fears himself because after all God created him. This recursive relationship is confusing. But the mortal believes steadfastly that he knows it all. This supreme confidence, this fantastic disdain is perhaps what makes him mortal. But the mortal does not care. He continues to explore further and further into the reaches of his conscious until with a fatal finality, the phone rings.

And with that ends another journey with no record left except a few squiggles on a damp piece of paper.

It and I

2008-11-18T01:05:00.000-08:00

It is a three year old pissing in fear after getting smacked for the first time. It is a confused six year old trying to make sense of a weaving drunken father. It is a defiant eleven year old venting the frustration of a lost parent on an oil drum in the backyard. It is a spoiled fourteen year old lighting his first cigarette. It is a lying eighteen year old stealing money from his parents. It is a smart twenty one year old paying lip service at his first job.

It is a boor with no appreciation for the finer things in life, which it scoffs at by labeling “baubles” for the “spoiled brats” or “veneer” for the “evil”. It hides its fear of being outcast by subtly rubbing everyone’s nose in the dust. It smirks at the failures of others as a justification for its own inadequacies. It shrinks at the thought of an acknowledgment while craving for appreciation. It manipulates and convinces. It charms and it outfoxes. It lives in fear and hates being a coward. It covets. It craves. It holds nothing sacred. It is proud of being emotionless. It completely buys its own illusion of invincibility.

It is a parasite that feeds off a host and gives nothing in return.

It is a machine. A supremely efficient machine, whose only job is to survive. It is a shrewd and calculating machine, which sees everything as prey or competition. It must either consume off the entities that compose its’ environment or destroy them and eliminate their claim on its’ resources. It feels no love. It has no friends. It survives.

I created it. It was my first authentic creation. What a creator am I, that I created this most exquisite piece of machinery that is both self sustaining and life preserving. And so what if I forgot that I created it. And so what if as a result of my forgetting, I spent some time believing that I was trapped by my machinery.

I am free now, in this moment. I acknowledge my power to create. As evidence, if needed, I count my machinery, my IT.

And in this moment of acknowledgment, I am here.

What happens when an unstoppable force meets an immovable object

2008-09-14T15:18:00.001-07:00

One of them gets their illusions dispelled

Mendocino...

2008-03-23T20:27:00.000-07:00

My enduring memory of Mendocino shall always be waves on a rocky coast. The rock, pretending to be unyeilding, yet eroding away little by little against the persistence of the waves. The waves, unrelenting, insane, almost as if each wave were driven by a crazy sergeant major, who believes that if he has enough men, they can overwhelm any enemy.
Chill wind, in a meadow with chardonnay, and sheep pretending to be buffalo.
The company of friends. The absence of something to do, somewhere to get.
The now-ness and the here-ness of the moment. That is a memory worth having!

Freedom IS the Freedom to choose your own chains

2008-01-17T12:50:00.000-08:00

Think about it....it is!

Thanksgiving

2007-11-23T23:08:00.000-08:00

Life is beautiful
So much sensed
So much remembered
So much to be thankful for

The smell
Of whatever you wash your hair in
Of a familiar kitchen
Of new electronics, fresh out of the box

The touch
Of cold fingers on my warm back
Of a well used shirt
Of a canvas kickbag, against raw knuckles

The taste
Of chocolate ice creams, in a snowstorm
Of warm honey and brandy
Of moist skin

The sound
Of a neighbor's television
Of fingers on a keyboard
Of the rustle outside a door, fumbling for keys

The sight
Of a familiar face
Of a muscle flexing, under perfect skin
Of rushing blackness, underwater in the Ganges

Life is beautiful
So much sensed
So much remembered
So much to be thankful for

Connection Of The Day

2007-09-04T03:44:00.000-07:00

Goal: Connect Apple to Orange in as round about a way as possible

Apple->Was founded by a pair of guys, both called Steve, Steve Waugh is an Aussie cricketer, the Kookaburra is an Australian bird, the kookaburra features in an old Indian Boy Scout's song, the Indian Boy Scouts were founded by Baden Powell, who was a close associate of Annie Besant, after whom the Besant Nagar beach is named, which is in Chennai, which is a major port, port is a kind of wine, which is best had in France, where Asterix comes from, which is a play on the word asterisk, Asterisk is also an open source IP PBX, IP telephony is causing a lot of pain to telecom giants, one of whom is -> Orange

What the F***

2007-03-07T10:50:00.000-08:00

The first of what I hope will become a series of accounts of incidents that evinced the exclamation

1900 Hrs on a Weekday
Richmond Road, Bangalore

At an intersection, traffic is stopped by a constable. Just beyond the intersection, the traffic is piled on waiting for a signal to go green on the next junction. On the perpendicular road coming up from Residency road, traffic is moderate by Bangalore standards, but still heavy enough.
In a couple of minutes, the traffic from Residency Road trickles down to one or two vehicles.
The traffic beyond the intersection has not moved more than an inch. It is evident that the cop would rather keep the perpendicular road open, rather than let the traffic on this side of the intersection add to the already existing jam on the other side, thereby blocking both roads simultaneously.
The traffic on this side of the intersection starts to get restless, as only Bangalore traffic can. It is quite a sight to see. One usually associates words like heaving and pulsating with organic life. In Bangalore, they are just as applicable to traffic held back by a cop. Every few seconds, a bike engine will be revved a little. A car will jerk forward and fall back as the driver attempts to demonstrate his urgent need to get somewhere. Someone will honk their horn at no one in particular. The entire crowd will inch forward slowly, in defiance of the 'unjust' policeman, as if trying, in their own small and insignificant way to replicate a mini Satyagrah.

As the fumes from a hundred internal combustion engines get more and more oppressive, one solitary Kinetic Honda goes beyond the accepted inch and travels a good three feet beyond the line that marks the intersection and pulls up next to the cop. The cop turns, looks at the traffic across the intersection and shakes his head in what I interpret to be amazement at the stupidity of the Kinetic driver, who would prefer to be two inches behind the last vehicle in a traffic jam and jam another road, rather than wait 20 feet away and let traffic on another road flow smoothly.

The funny part was that the guy was so busy arguing with the cop, that he failed to notice that when the cop turned to argue with him, he simultaneously waved the traffic on.

The Rise and Fall of the Whistling Bank

2006-09-18T13:36:00.000-07:00

I first visited ICICI Bank in 1999 with my parents. The air conditioned office, plush chairs and polite and well groomed staff were such a pleasant change from the usual Indian government bank that I came out raving about the improving quality of service in Indian banking and how capitalism and commercial banking would revolutionize the Indian economy. 7 years later, I realise that my joy at age 16 would soon become the root of my personal disgust at age 23.
Let me expound:

1999:
I enter ICICI's N Block branch in South Delhi with my mother, feeling irritable at the prospect of going to a bank. I mean, hey, who goes to banks? It just aint cool! Hot waiting areas, paan stains on walls, the smells of Indian beurocracy and decaying documentation...ughhh. Who wants that???
But instead of that I find myself in a brightly lit, spotless and odorless room, with the cool air from the air conditioning doing wonders for my system overheated from Delhi's blistering summers.
A very businesslike looking young lady greets my mother and even shoots a smile my way. While mum transacts her business, I enjoy looking around what looks like a very illustrious business office. Flowers on tables, magazines in racks, water dispensers with clean paper cups stacked neatly. I could settle down here, I think.
Mum finishes and we leave. I decide my first account is going to be in ICICI. Then I hear that their minimum balance is a rather exorbitant figure. This doesnt bother me except for the fact that it just means I will have to wait a little longer to open myown account.

2002:
ICICI launches its Bank@Campus scheme, wherein neophyte engineering students can open an account for a minimum balance of a paltry Rs. 600. I am thrilled. I can actually have a bank account in ICICI. Yippee!!!!
I tool over to the Koramangala, Bangalore branch with my precious 600 and documents which prove that I am me. The idea of a personalised cheque book is making my hands itch already.
When I arrive at the bank after a long and hot bus journey on Bangalore's excuse for a public transport system, hoping for respite at the Mecca of banking, I am faced with a stern looking security guard who asks me what I want. I tell him I am here to submit my application for a banking account. He lets me through with a slightly doubtful look on his face. I enter the bank's main chamber and for the first time, I see a crowd in ICICI. However, all of the staff looks completely at ease. They are all smiling and politely trying to ensure a smooth flow of business.
I approach a rather capable looking young man in a starched shirt and shiny tie and ask him for directions to student form submissions. He tells me that they take student account particulars only on Tuesdays and Thursdays and today is neither so I will have to come back another day. I politely tell him that I live across town and since Koramangala is the only branch which offers student accounts, can they not please make an exception in this case. He is hesitating when an angelic looking middle aged lady walks up and asks what the problem is. He tells her and she says that even though they don't normally do it, they can make an exception in my case and they will accept the form now, but the processing will be done only after Thursday. I am overjoyed. I come out with my belief in ICICI re-inforced.

2004:
Panic!!! My debit card is lost. It is a few months after I have recieved a mailer from ICICI telling me that since my account is a student account, they will allow me only a limited number of over-the-counter transactions per quarter, after which I will be charged for every transaction.
In addition to this, I have realised that may cheque book contains only crossed cheques, which means that I cannot write cheques to myself. Which further means that without my debit card, I cannot touch my money.
I borrow a bike and ride over to Koramangala, in Bangalore's traffic which is already becoming legendary for its irritation value.
When I enter the bank, the air conditioner is not working. The staff looks distinctly overworked. The crowd is larger than usual. There seems to be a crisis on. The smell of panic is in the air mingling with the smell of sweat trapped in a room intended to be air conditioned and therefore sealed off from the outside world by glass windows which add to the greenhouse effect. I assume that it looks bad because I am in a state of panic. For the first time I find myself in a queue in ICICI. The lady at the counter is trying hard to be polite despite the heat.
When I step up to her she gives me a tired smile and asks me what I need. I sheepishly tell her I've lost my debit card. She asks me if it's really lost or just misplaced. I tell her it's gone. She grins and asks me if it's been whacked. I grin and reply that it has. She gives me a form, I fill it out and leave feeling somewahat reassured. Three weeks later I have my new card and pin. ICICI has done it again.

2005:
I need to get a bank draft. It is 6 P.M. I feel no fear, since ICICI has started its 8 to 8 banking service, which means I can get a draft after work. I arrive at the new location of the Koramangala branch at 7 P.M. I enter the bank and am struck dumb at the sheer number of people there. I walk over to a counter where a harried looking young man in a tie that is obviopusly an encumberment, is busily writing something on top of a printed form. I ask him for a draft form, at which he looks up and tells me to go get a token. He is obviously unwilling to divulge any further information until I get a token so I go in search of one. I realise that there is a machine that dispenses these tokens and then the numbers are announced via a screen. The token machine has a number of options, none of which seems applicable to my scenario. I take the one that looks closest to what I want and sit down. I look up at the screen and realise that there are about 50 people ahead of me. I look towards the row of numbered counters and realise that there are four counters in operation. I try to calculate the average time a customer takes at the counter in the hope of applying queuing theory to this situation, in order to deduce how much time I will be waiting. From what my Operations Research professor told me a year ago, I conclude that I will be there for about 25 minutes. At the end of half an hour I have realised that Operations Research in theory is different from operations research in practice. There are still thirty people ahead of me and life isnt going anywhere in a hurry. I decide to come back early the next day, since the time is 7:20 P.M. and I am sure the bank will close before everyone is served anyway. I leave the bank to find that my bike has been towed away from ICICI bank's parking space. Ultimately the draft does not get made and I make my payment in cash drawn from the ATM.

2006:
A friend in the US has just received a mailer telling him that his bank documents, which were stored in the ICICI Mumbai branch have been washed away in the recent floods.
He needs to resubmit them before September 30th if he wishes to keep his account active.
He sends the completed forms and other documentation to his family in India. I take them over to the ICICI Direct office on Infantry Road, where I have been sent from another branch, who refused to accept them. Apparently networked computing doesnt work for ICICI any more and branches are becoming more autonomous.
At the ICICI direct office, I am greeted by a thirtysomething man, who takes the form and looks through it, before informing me that the form needs more signatures. I ask him why this is so. He tells me that some of the columns were not supposed to be filled and have been filled, and he has had to cancel them out. However, a scratch on the form requires a signature from the account holder. Therefore for 10 of these scratches 10 more signatures are required all over the form. I inform him that the account holder is in the U.S. and signatures will not be easy to procure. He tells me that the form cannot be accepted without them. At this point an enterprising young lady who has been listening suggests that she will call the head office and confirm. She does so, only to be told by the head office that she cannot accept any "incomplete" forms. I tell her that the fact that the records got washed away in the first place is the bank's fault and therefore the consumer should not suffer. She agrees but can do nothing.
I ask her if there is any way of doing this online. She tells me that there isn't. I suggest scanning the forms and sending them across. This seems to strike gold. I tell her I will return on Saturday. I have not been to the bank since. The forms have still not been sent.
ICICI continues to function as one of the largest commercial banks in the country. And I continue to transact with them in the hope that something will improve. But from the looks of things, next year, I confidently expect to be told that my money has been eaten by rodents in the recent infestation and if I wish to preserve my account I need to deposit back the ammount that was originally in my account. In denominations of 1 and 5 Rupee coins, because the slot machine that I will use for this purpose cannot handle paper money.

浪人 (Ronin)

2006-08-24T05:20:00.000-07:00

The japanese word "ronin" (浪人, rōnin), implying a warrior who serves no master, but is not a master yet himself, literally means "wave man". A man who is thrown around on the waves of fate. Or perhaps they mean a man who has the balls to throw himself in the ocean and relax...until he needs to swim.
I am a ronin.
I am on the eve of quitting a secure job with a firm that loves me. Or at least, certainly appears to love me, so far. The last sentence of course is the little guy with horns and a spear who sits on my shoulder and periodically pokes my ear with the spear, telling me that actually the world is composed primarily of excrement and I should see it as such. However, to come back to the point, to use a nice analogy, I am about to leave the service of the East India Trading Company and join the crew of what looks like the Black Pearl.
As I remove the insignia of my former lord and master to become a ronin, a multitude of fears plague me.
Will the lack of a masters sheltering hand over my head leave me exposed to the ravages of fate?
Will my capabilities, without the brand value of my master, keep me afloat in the ocean?
Will my wife leave me, the way Oishi Yoshio's did when he turned ronin?
Screech!!!!!!! Hold everything! Wife??? Leave??? I'm not even married!!!
But none the less...if I get married will my wife leave me, the way Oishi Yoshio's did?
As is obvious from the last of my 'concerns', I'm basically a neurotic who likes to think bad things will happen.
It's just my way of scaring the bejeesus out of myself, so that if something bad does happen, I can say "Heh! I knew that was coming"
Probably, ten years down the line, I will be Frosting somewhere with a glass of sherry, "Oh, I took the road less travelled and that has made all the difference".
Alternatively I could be sitting in the GuruShree bar on the road to nowhere with a glass of cheap whisky and a tear in my eye, mourning the good old days when I was not a ronin.
What will happen to this Ronin??? Will he Frost his way to the top? Will he slowly sink to the bottom?
The answer to these questions and more...coming soon on...."Arjun Venkatraman: The Ronin Story"

A weekend in pictures

2006-05-13T14:37:00.000-07:00

Friday Night...

I am still at work, trying to make some sense of an unintelligible stream of statistical data. Bit like staring at the Matrix actually...that data does represent a bunch of people doing things...of course, my standing NDA forbids me from revealing what these people were doing... "Unfortunately, no one can be told what the Matrix is..."
So as "mere do anmol ratan" i.e. the two beauties on my desk whirr around trying to do my job a little faster and a little better, I decide to go online and do some chitter chatter with the gals...Google zindabad!

Friday Night...later
I return home. The place is a mess...as usual. I spend the next hor cleaning up and manage to make it look somewhat habitable. With a chick flick on the television...I continue to work

Saturday Morning
I finally crawl into bed around 5:00 AM, only to be woken by my shreiking phone, which substitutes for my alarm clock at 9:30. I have a small change to make over the network, which takes me till 11:30 AM...at which time, I am invited to head out into the great city of Bristol...A-gain!
So I go out into the great city of Bristol...A-gain!
Only this time...I have...(you'll never guess)...

A Camera!!!

Yes, a camera boys and girls...a little gadjet of delight and a digital one at that! Which means that you can see what I saw...
So lets see...first we have a warehouse...an ordinary, red brick warehouse...

But wait! This is not just any warehouse. It is one of the many warehouses that line the Bristol harbour. Once, these warehouses stocked the tobacco that filled the cigarettes that most of the Commonwealth smoked. Bristol was the origin of a number of the cigarette brands of the day, including the exalted Wills, which still sells in India. In fact there's a brand of cigarettes called Bristol too.
These great bastions of the smoking faith have now been remoulded by society aiming to be smoke free, into office buildings and other such mundane establishmens. The picture above represents the end of a hazy era...

To be continued...

A Sugar In a Plum...

2006-04-26T17:57:00.000-07:00

Here I am, in the land of bending footballs, immaculately trousered legs and insanely expensive cigarettes.
In the words of Spielberg's Mr Gump, "It's strange what a young man recalls".
My impression of Britain, at least so far is not the one I have heard most people voice so far.
In fact most of the things that stand out in my mind about this country have never been mentioned to me, perhaps because most of them would be too insignificant to be noticed by most.
As a direct result of having a population that's too small even to crowd up a tiny little island, each person here has a value.
I'm yet to get used to not being asked to leave my rucksack at the security counter when entering a store.
Back home, we've become so accustomed to being mistrusted, that the minute one enters a store the first instinct is to shrug off the rucksack and look around for a security counter. In fact here, the only time I've been asked to remove my rucksack is while in a museum and even then the idea was that if I carry it on my back I may accidentally knock something over while turning. I was still allowed to carry it all over the place. In Britain, if you told someone to leave their bags at the security desk, they'd either refuse and never walk into the store again, or probably sue for emotional damages.
They say in India that the West has a hard and cold approach to life. I wonder how can it be concluded that a people who have time to consider emotional damages in courts of law are cold and unfeeling?
I was told by my uncle to avoid English pubs because they are rarely friendly. The very next day I walked into the Great White Lion, where I quickly made the acquaintance of a man who I know only as Roger, who drives trucks at the Bristol docks for a living. Among all the peopl present at the Great White Lion that afternoon, he appeared to be the "pub loudmouth". The others were all quiet and gentle folk, happy to sip their beers and feel happy about life.
Roger however seemed like a man fundamentally unhappy with his lot in life. As a result he was overly vivacious and ebullient. He had also had a tad too much to drink.
I was towards one end of the bar, with my pint of Guiness (which by the way merits a whole post dedicated to it....soon to follow), while Roger commanded the center of the bar, attempting to pick up a conversation with almost everyone in there, but mostly succeeding only in elliciting expressions ranging from strained politeness to mild disgust.
His soliloquy was concentrated on different British accents and how the Blacks and the Asians speaking flawless English was surprising.
After a while he turned his attention to me. He first though I was Pakistani, and so expressed surprise at the Guiness. He seemed to have the impression that Pakistanis don't drink. He also wanted to know what I did for a living. When I told him I was Indian and a geek at that, he seemed a tad surprised. Then he asked me if I had been born in Britain. I told him I had been here a week. This really bowled him over. He went back to his beer muttering someting about "fuck'n good English". A couple of minutes later, I asked him what he did. He told me to mind my own business. I told him I was happy to and went back to my drink. This seemed to take the wind out of his sails. I think he was hoping for a brawl. He asked me to guess what he did. I told him I was terrible at guesses. At which point he revealed that he was a truck driver and that he had been doing it for 20 years.
After a few more pleasantries, when my Guiness was all gone and I was leaving, he shook my hand and told me to take care of myself. And that my English was still "fuck'n good for just a week in England"
To any of the other Indians who live in England, at least the ones I know of, this would tantamount to an unpleasant experience. Which leaves me in doubt as to whether I am in wrong company, or am I just different?
As I see it Roger is just another guy, unsatisfied with his life, who would rather concentrate on other peoples lives than his own. I've seen Rogers in every place I have been in, encompassing every color of skin that exists.

Being here, I've learnt something about my countrymen too. A general apathy towards anyone who is not Indian is common.
The other night, a colleague and I stood on a sidewalk smoking. A child, no more that 12, pedalled up to us on a bicycle. He removed a pack of cigarettes from his pocket and asked us for a light.
I asked him if he wasnt too young to smoke. He gave me a very rude "yeah". Before I could give him a line about how starting off on tobacco at 12 was not particularly smart, the gentleman I was standing with handed the kid his cigarette lighter. The kid pedalled off leaving me in a state of extreme disgust at the man I was standing with. What compounded it was that after the child had left, my colleague's concern was for his lighter, which apparently still had 25p worth of gas left in it.
In India, this same person would probably have giver the kid an earful about not smoking.
How it can be dfferent in a foreign country, I cannot understand. A child is a child. Black, brown, white, doesn't really make a difference.
I started to smoke when I was 14. I know the attendant problems of starting that young. I would have been happy to have a discussion with the kid about this. hopefully, I would have been able to convince him not to start.
However, my gem of a colleague scuttled that completely.
Has living in a constant crowd left us with no regard for other people?
I have made four British friends so far, Norma, the Tesco checkout clerk, Jennie, the bank clerk, Roger, the truck driver and Maria, the second hand bookseller.
These are the common people of Britain. They are not that different from Indians. As I spend more and more time observing this place, I become surer and surer that the sense of being a stranger in a foreign land that Indians claim to feel here comes purely from within themselves.
Which is strange for a people who come from a land where it is said :

"Udaar charitraanaa tu, vasudhaiva kutumbakam"

To him who is generous by character, the whole world is family.

Children of Lesser Gods

2006-03-16T04:25:00.000-08:00

I am an Indian. Every morning, I wake up and compete with 1 billion other human beings for survival, all of whom I am expected to acknowledge as my brothers and sisters. My family is so large, and the contributing members so few.

I am an Indian. Everything I want must be fought for. Whether in queues or in competitive examinations. Our aspirations are so many, our opportunities so few.

I am an Indian. Every radical change I envision, must survive the bludgeonings of chance. The statistics are so many, the exceptions so few.

Social Science never really was a subject I paid much attention to. As a student in Kendriya Vidyalaya, I used to pepper my examination answers generously with a few stock phrases such as "population explosion", "vicious circle" and so forth.
Now, when faced with the realities of life as an Indian citizen, those stock phrases seem to come back to haunt me.
As my mother battles with Bipolar Affective Disorder and I prepare for my first independent trip abroad, I realise how population can be a problem.
When you compete with 1 billion other human beings for survival, living must take priority 2.
You may wish to pursue your dreams, but that requires a passport, which can be obtained only by competing in some measure with a number of other people who also wish to pursue their dreams. The metric that will ultimately determine the length of time that you take to achieve what you desire then reduces to deciding who can stand longer in a queue. He who cannot stand must fall over and die. Survival of the fittest, more cruel than Darwin ever described it.
I once read a joke about Communist Russia. When people see a queue in Russia, they just go and join it, irrespective of what's being distributed. It seemd funny at the time, but I can now relate to the desperation that the speaker must have felt when he made the crack.

I love my country, because I see it's potential. I hate my country, because I see the odds.
This bipolarity could help create the vibrations of a Requiem. Or it could tear me to pieces.
Tagore said:
"Where the mind is without fear,
And the head is held high,
Into that dawn of freedom, my Father,
Let my country awake"

But if all of India wakes up at the same time, wont the queues outside toilets stretch the length and breadth of the country?

When one is at one's lowest, one turns to God.
But which God do I turn to?

I am an Indian. For 1 billion Indians there are 330,000,013 Gods. With so many Gods, we still have a deficit. The children are so many, the Gods so few.

Generic Analysis and the Infinite Monkey

2006-03-10T12:30:00.000-08:00

The four years I spent obtaining my professional degree from the Visvesaraiah Technological University, Belgaum, Karnataka, India, would have been a complete waste had I actually studied only Computer Science & Engineering, which is what my parents thought they were paying for. Luckily for them as investors in my future, I was a consistently lazy child. As a result almost all of my exams were passed on a week's work. But what I did learn, besideshow to con my way into the teacher's good books, was that the worst thing you can ever do to yourself is to specialize in a given area. I do not advocate my methods, because aerobatics without a safety net is not exactly a smart thing to. However, by not limiting my specialization, I have gained considerable mileage from scenarios where most people will not

Chaos theory tells us that it is impossible to predict the behaviorof complex systems.

The insane amounts paid to enigineering graduates to work in the Great Indian IT Industry, irrespective of their specialization and particular branch of engineering, bears testimony to the fact that market value of a professional has less to do with what he knows, and more to do with what he has the ptential to learn and do in the future.

Mentoring: Obi Wan has taught you well...

2006-01-18T10:33:00.000-08:00

[Note:
1. Readers who are unfamiliar with the Start Wars series, will please run a search on Google with the keywords ‘Jedi’, ‘Star Wars’, ‘Padawan’ and ‘Darth Vader’, and keep the search page open while reading.
2. Non-Indian readers will please run a similar search with the keywords ‘Gurukul’, ‘Acharya’ and ‘gurudakshina’
3. Readers, who are both unfamiliar with Star Wars as well as of non-Indian origin, hope you folks have no trouble juggling three windows.
4. Feminists and politically correct readers will please assume ‘he’ to mean ‘he or she’ at the appropriate places
None of these instructions have to be adhered to. They’re just there to enrich your reading experience]

“Obi Wan has taught you well” Famous words from Lord Vader himself.
To all those who thought this was going to be about teaching: Allow me to explain.
I’ve been reading the Star Wars literature for three hours non stop, which, apart from reminding me of my total idleness, spawned a few thoughts. Yes, about teaching.

In our professional lives (and being a student is also a profession in this regard), how often does it happen, that when asked where we learnt a particular skill, we find ourselves responding, “Oh, its something I learnt at college…” or “Well, just picked it up on my own I guess…”
Why is it that we are never in a position to name the exact person we learnt it from?
A number of answers are possible to the above rhetorical question.

1. Well, teachers aren’t worth remembering
2. Teachers are bad people, who make you work
3. Teachers aren’t qualified to teach anymore.
4. Teachers? Who needs ’em anyway?”

Which brings us to Lord Vader. In the Star Wars series, the entire concept of mentoring and apprenticeship is one of the mainstays of the story. There is also a marked emphasis on complete education rather than specialized knowledge. Padawans at the Jedi Academy are taught to master their emotions, control their impulses, hone their moral and judgmental abilities, the fundamentals of etiquette, and once they have mastered these basics they are assigned to a Master, whose responsibility is to round out their education, and provide adequate experience of the real world, so that when the Padawan becomes a full Jedi, he has already trained himself to be what is expected of him.
Expanding the view a little, one would find that almost every efficient form of passing on knowledge from one generation to the next uses a similar Master-Apprentice system. Martial arts require you to train under a master, who will be the judge of your performance and progress, hacking, where you need to spend time learning from an accepted guru who may or may not be formally qualified or even family business, where it is common for sons of industrial families to apprentice under their older relatives before actually taking on responsibility. An interesting thing to note about business empires is that they are often limited to single families and passed generation to generation, without many or sometimes even any of the members taking any formal business training. These are the guys who hire the MBAs.
But despite this evidence which is open for everyone to see, every year we have thousands of students, the so called ‘seekers of knowledge’, flocking from one educational institution to the next, without any clue of why or what for, chanting “I must get a good school/college. I must I must.”
They neither know nor care who teaches at these colleges, nor are they concerned with what they wish to learn or whom they wish to learn it from. Institutions understand this, and accordingly charge ever abominable fees, merely for a name, a stamp, a tag.
How is it that very few if any institutions advertise their faculty by name? What is usually said is, ‘qualified and dedicated faculty’. Qualified to do what? Dedicated to what purpose?
Tests are held by institutions en masse, and admission is often based on ability to pay rather than ability to learn.
Personal interviews with teachers are non existent. Assembly line speed does not permit it.
In addition, teachers have little if any say in what kind of students they will teach. Every teacher has a personal style. Those that don’t are not teachers. How does subscribing to a generally agreed upon standard for students to be accepted allow a teacher any personal choice? In an environment where specialized skill must be imparted, the teacher’s style matters a great deal. If the teacher’s style of teaching does not match the pupil’s method of learning, how can any logical interaction take place? In technical terms how do you communicate despite a protocol mismatch?
Add to this the fact that teaching is the most poorly rewarded profession, at least for the majority, and you have Dante’s vision of Educational Hell!
Would it not be saner for a larger number of mentors to take on as many apprentices as they felt they themselves could efficiently teach, demand a return in whatever manner they saw fit, and guide in their own unique styles, those apprentices who came to them with knowledge of what they were getting, from whom, and on what terms?

What happens instead is that the institution as a whole becomes bigger than any of its teachers. The management, the infrastructure etc etc etc, all become part of the simple act of imparting a concept, which shouldn’t require much more than word of mouth.
We Indians are conditioned to the idea of classroom learning. From the vedic age it has been customary for seekers of knowledge to journey away from home to gather such knowledge.
Once arrived, they would then be segregated into groups. Each group would be taught by the master or Acharya separately. This is the portrait most educational institutions have of themselves, and it is also the perception most of us carry, if subconsciously.
However, the key factor that we all seem to miss is that all those seekers of knowledge had one thing in common, and it had nothing to do with an institution. They didn’t go to a commercial establishment and purchase a packet of the Powdered Wisdom For Dummies drug, dissolve it in their morning coffee and drink it up. They went in search of a mentor.
A mentor, unlike a teacher handling a classroom-full of children, is focused on a smaller set of pupils or apprentices. His goal is not to collect a paycheck but to earn whatever he values, from his students. The concept of gurudakshina has existed for centuries in India. But there is a difference between gurudakshina and fees. The gurudakshina is given at the end of the course, when the teacher and pupil are both satisfied that they have accomplished what they set out to do. It is asked for by the teacher at the time of the student’s departure from his care. It is asked for in proportion to the teacher’s evaluation of the knowledge he has imparted himself. And it is asked for when the understanding and personal relationship between the student and teacher has developed to the point where the teacher can ask for whatever he wants, with the knowledge that his student will have understood the value of what he has received, and will consequently not grudge giving that which his teacher asks for. Gurudakshinas have been known to be outrageous in nature, ranging from a thumb (Ekalavya) to defeat of an enemy in outright war (Arjun).
One could say that institutions provide structure to the concept of learning, but one must also keep in mind that education by its very nature must be free flowing with the direction being from master to student. Structure is always an advantage but too much structure kills innovation, spontaneity and enthusiasm.
The old arguments in favor of structured classroom learning are always along the following line:
“All jobs have a certain requirement. Structure allows employers to have standard to adhere to while hiring. A certain minimum is necessary”
Let’s follow this line.

Q. Why study in a classroom?
A. To obtain a formal qualification
Q. Which will enable you to…?
A. Get a job.
Q. Ah! A job! Where?
A. Any reputed company.
Q. And the people who initially founded this company…what were their formal qualifications?
A. Ummm! No clue.

That is where the buck stops. Most often formal qualifications are merely a guarantee that a bare minimum will always be there. And even that’s not always true.
A significant majority of the biggest corporations today have been started by and are run by people whose formal qualifications are much less than their employees.
If one was to analyze all the biggest players in the corporate world, one would probably find that they are either totally self made, or they have had a mentor at some point in their lives. In the former case they would probably be mentors themselves.

So why is the educational system so indifferent to an obvious fact?
In terms of rewards for both master and apprentice, the rewards of the mentoring system are obviously far larger. The only probable losers would be the managers of educational institutions, and I suspect they’d find another scam to run soon enough.

However, I seriously doubt the wisdom in suggesting that the entire educational system be changed. I’d probably be put in an asylum and that doesn’t seem like a fun place to be.
What I do suggest is the formation of informal associations, where the mentoring concept can be put into practice.
Such an association would have no prescribed syllabus, or defined fee structure. It would consist of a set of people, who would be at different levels of hierarchy, based on the analysis of their peers. Each member would be either a mentor, or an apprentice, or both.
At the outset, the initial group of mentors would each state, or in more lucid terms, advertise those skills which he has, and is in a position to impart. The apprentices would then apply to the master offering those skills which they wish to learn. The master would then take on from among the applicants those who he deemed worthy.
An individual association would then be formed among each master apprentice pair, and the master would impart skills/knowledge in the style that he saw fit. The apprentices would likewise apply only to those masters who they thought were worthy of teaching them, and whose style of teaching matched their own style of learning.
The acknowledgement of mutual worth would be the binding factor. The student would gain the satisfaction of knowing that what he was learning was coming from the experience and understanding of his mentor, and not stemming from the requirement of fulfilling a quota.
The master would learn to organize his thoughts, put forward his ideas effectively, and most importantly, the worth of his own knowledge.
The master would be in a position to demand a suitable reward at such time as he feels deserving. However, since the relationship with the apprentice would be on a personal level, he would be required to learn to keep his demands in proportion to what he has given.
If the mentor has not worked hard enough to earn the respect and regard of his apprentice, the apprentice would be free to reject the demand of his mentor. This would also require the mentor to learn by experience how to judge an apprentice before taking him on.
The methodology can be elaborated on for ever.
What must be considered is the feasibility of such an enterprise and the ability to find the bare minimum number of initial mentors.
This is where I leave the topic open to feedback.

Carpe Diem!

2006-01-09T07:25:00.000-08:00

These days I love Americans, at least to the extent of their way of living. Their foreign policy etc., does detract but the way they love themselves is quite beautiful.

Indians make movies with such speed in the works. They try to cram in more and more data into that same small space. Americans take a smaller, simpler concept and handle it at such leisure.

Their points are subtly made, their dialogues are unhurried and never followed by the "did you get it? did you get it?" anxiety. Even their camera moves slowly.

Bollywood took this fantastic movie, "Dead Poet's Society", added that "romantic" touch to it, which pervades the entire Indian film industry like the smell of a silent fart, threw in a few forgettable songs and named it "Mohabbatein" a.k.a "Gurukul ki bhootni" (attributed to Ms Aishwarya "World" Rai's gho(a)stly appearance).

And the concepts they pick are also so much cleaner and simpler. No unnecessary addition of characters to sell the movie, no juvenile comedy to pull in the crowds. A movie is made for the movies sake. I suppose they do have their set of commercial pot boilers, but those are just what their name implies, "pot boilers" made solely for the purpose of keeping the makers' pots boiling on their stoves.

In India, I guess we're still too poor a country to allow filmmakers the freedom to enjoy their work.

Or software engineers to enjoy theirs.

We must keep the pots boiling. This fear of starvation seems to be killing quality everywhere. People work in some kind of stupor. Religion is the opiate of the masses and our fundamentally socialist nature, combined with the capitalistic tilt of the world, has made money our god.

We work in a religious fervor, trying to please the money god, hoping that he will heap his blessings upon us so that we may eat one more time at that new McDonalds opened across the road.

What we buy with that money is another story. More often than not, it's acceptance. We hope that our general affluence will buy us that square inch of space on the montage of life.

And here this guy says, "Walk at your own pace"

Our own pace is non existent. We move like sheep.

"Two roads diverged in a wood, and I, took the one less traveled by"

If I can say that at any point in my life, I'll be happy.

I don't want to earn money for the rest of my life. I don't want to worship money like a god. I want money to be my slave, my tool.

I want to teach. I want to write. But I don't want some snotty administrative jerk to come and tell me how to teach. I don't want teaching to ever provide my daily bread.

I don't want to write what publishers tell me to. I want to write what I wish to write, and if anyone is interested they can read it. I don't want to write pot boilers. I don't want to teach kids to keep pots boiling.

Schizophrenia

2005-12-05T22:40:00.002-08:00

Alter 1 : You know you are in deep shit, when the prime decision of the day reduces to whether to use your right or left hand to jerk off.

Therefore I'm in deep shit. There is a certain advantage though to being buried in manure though.

Cut off from the mundane emotional inputs/traumas of day-to-day life, one can delve deep into ones one psyche and find answers to a lot of crap. The amazing discovery of the century has to be that the answers to all the fundamental questions of life can be expressed in one of two choices. The 1/0 principle. Kind of restores your faith in the digital fundas. Guess old whatsizname wasn’t that far of the mark. Disturbing though, that I cannot remember the name. I technically should, considering his discovery is going to pay for my livelihood in a few years.

Alter 2: Pissing!

Alter 1: I have also come to the conclusion that two people can indeed spend their lives together, but if and only if they are willing to completely stop talking to each other. Don’t raise those eyebrows; I know all the crap about communication and the rest of the bullshit surrounding love and matrimony. The idea is to remove verbal communication. All communication should be physical. Sign language when sex is not feasible. Sex, when possible. Telephones should be used strictly for business.

You see when one is communicating physically, there is much less possibility of mistaking signals and making wrong assumptions. I'm sure god has a reason for not providing most creatures on the planet with the faculty of verbal communication.

Language should be used only for communicating with people you don’t live with.

That way even if you make a mistake in understanding the other guy’s words you don’t have to pay for a lifetime. Actually I correct myself. The physical communication thing should be used only with romantically involved people. Those happen to be the ones who make the maximum stink about misunderstandings.

It may seem impossible to communicate physically at first, but it’s better than having two emotions completely confused solely due to different levels of vocabulary.

If you don’t believe me check out any bunch of stray dogs. The only time they use their mouths to communicate is when they are fighting. Bow wow yelp!

Alter 2: But hell people have different physical vocabularies as well. I mean look, some people find sex dirty and some others find it even boring. How do two people on two completely different plateaus communicate then?

Alter 1: Hmm! Interesting idea. Guess humanity is fucked then huh?

Alter 2: Yeah, guess so.

Alter 1: Too bad. You know I don’t really like you Alter 2. You poke too many holes in my theories. Just who the fuck do you think you are?

Alter 2: I'm you buddy. We are the two facets of the same coin.

Alter 1: Hah! My arse two facets! What coin? You don’t seriously subscribe to the same old crappy ‘each man is a coin’ theory do you?

Alter 2: Of course! Don’t you?

Alter 1: Certainly not. I'm much more advanced, I believe in the concept of credit cards. Ha ha ha ha!

Alter 2: This conversation is degenerating and fast.

Alter 1: You noticed? I have a theory about that too.

Alter 2: You and your stupid theories. Lets have it then. I don’t suppose you're going to lemme leave without it.

Alter 1: You're perceptive I’ll say that for you. Okay the thing is, this conversation is being typed, right? So when the dipshit on the keyboard presses enter, the page goes up and the conversation goes down. Voila! Degeneration!

Alter 2: Can I leave now? Please? Pretty please?

Alter 1: No one appreciates me! No one loves me! Boo hoo!

Alter 2: Look who woke up! You see now that you’ve realized this basic fact perhaps you will be a happier person! You know, knowledge is the root to enlightenment and happiness.

Alter 1: Oh yeah? Then how come women aren’t happy? They always know it all!

Alter 2: Simple answer! They only think they know!

Alter 1: Whatever! I don’t want to get into a conversation about women right now. They bore me and besides I have a lot of work to get finished.

Alter 2: You started it.

Alter 1: But I still haven’t solved my basic problem!

Alter 2: What’s that?

Alter 1: Should I use my left or right hand to jerk off?

Alter 2: Bye Bye!

This has suddenly gained relevance for some godforsaken reason! Check this and other out at the writings section of my site, Scribbles

Journal Entry, Stardate somethingortheother

2005-12-05T21:39:00.000-08:00

We have reached the far end of the galaxy. No, I haven't yet done a binary fission and become two people. Nor has the reading of Ayn Rand's "Anthem" had a lasting effect on me, causing me to refer to myself as multiple entities. It just seemed like the right way to start something titled Journal Entry, so forgive me Kirk!

But as far as reaching ends goes, I do seem to have reached one of the ends at least.
Refer "Forrest Gump", the Spielberg masterpiece. This is the moment where I have to figure out whether I can swim, or would it serve more purpose to turn around and "just keep right on going"

Processing......

The Master Speaks

2005-08-28T21:26:00.000-07:00

The Master Speaks…...

………………...the Machine must become an extension of you.
The Code...like the lifeblood of that extension.
For as your hand is a useless piece of flesh,
when detached from your brain, so does the Machine
come to life, when you connect it to your self.

The mere act of pressing a key is a physical expression of a decisive choice, by means of which you have transferred a small bit of yourself into the Machine. When you press a key, the act is of the same nature as your heart pumping blood to your cells or your brain sending impulses through your synapses to your muscles. The kinetic force you exert in pressing the key is equivalent to a blood corpuscle or an impulse.

When your fingers instinctively do the translation from concept to Code, only then will your brain be free to create concepts.

Tools were invented to do what limbs couldn’t.
Tools are therefore extensions of the Human Body.
A Machine is a tool.
Ergo, the machine is an extension of your body.

He who can Design, but not Code is like one who can see the Cup but is unable to lift it to his lips.
He who can Code, but not Design is like one who searches blindly for the Cup and is unable to find it.
He alone, who can both Design and Code, may drink from the Cup of Glory.

The larger the number of compile errors
The smaller the size of the problem
The larger the number of run-time errors
More monumental the stupidity of the Programmer

Once, two young men came to the Master.
“O Learned One”, they said “Teach us the sacred Art of OOP”
The Master smiled and said, “I will take you on if you can prove that you are ready to learn OOP”.
The young men agreed. They had both solid grounding in Procedural Programming, and were confident of their skills.
The Master handed them each a Disc.
“Each Disc”, he said “contains two functions, one for an ascending sort and one for a descending sort. I wish you to merge the two as you see fit”
The young men were puzzled, but took the Discs and went home
They both slaved all night, putting their best efforts into unraveling the mystery of the meaning of the word ‘merge’.
The next morning they returned to the Master.
The first one proudly took his Disc to the Master.
“It was truly a difficult task you set, but I have accomplished it. I have spliced both functions together so that an equal number of lines of each appear in the final product. With great difficulty I have patched it so that it compiles perfectly and even runs, although it serves no purpose”
The Master smiled and said, “You are not yet ready for OOP”
The second young man approached diffidently and said
“I am sorry Master, for I could find no way to blend the two”
“It seemed impossible to break them down without losing their function. So I merely put one in front of the other, bound the two together with an infinite loop and created a composite object which simulates a ripple on an array of numbers”
The Master rose, embraced the young man and said, “I accept you as my pupil”

Moral of the story: When you define an object by its function and not by its composite parts, when you can feel the indivisibility of an object, when in your mind the purpose of an object becomes its skin, hiding its internal workings, then and only then are you ready for Object Oriented Programming.

DAY - something

2005-06-22T02:23:00.000-07:00

Ok I guess I slipped up.
But I'm a graduate!!!!!
And loving it.
Telling someone you're an engineer beats telling someone you're a student. People dont like students. They dont seem to mind engineers though. I'm typing on a windows system which means I cant generate any cute comments. Plus this thing keeps lapsing into Hindi font. Lousy company, Microsoft.
Anyways, I'm on vacation, so why bother.
Adios for now amigos.

DAY 30,29,28,27,26,25,24

2005-05-16T00:31:00.000-07:00

Long week on the stage. WORK HARD, BUT PARTY HARDER> College fest caused a complete lack of time to write, read or think, and now work promiss to do the same.

AAAAAKKRAAAMAN!!!!

DAY 33,32,31

2005-05-09T21:56:00.000-07:00

Lazy Sunday, Hectic Monday
Terrible Tuesday
Deadlines approaching so mind not working at literary pursuits.
The human race is a race of cowards; and I am not only marching in that
procession but carrying a banner.
-- Mark Twain

DAY 34

2005-05-07T06:42:00.000-07:00

You havent written an internal assessment test untli you've written an internal assessment test with a hangover and a neck half broken from dancing. Party night last night. I love the work hard play hard ethic. This looks like its gonna become a habit.
With submissions and seminars by the bagful on the charts, this last 34 days is gonna be a blast.
Life is no fun without adrenaline. Here I go! Banzai!

DAY 35

2005-05-06T02:36:00.000-07:00

Packed day. Paper presentation in the morning, mock interview in the afternoon. internal prep thereafter, a dance show in the evening and a party at night.

Thought for the day:
If i must lose, let me lose to competetion and not idiots.

"He did decide, though, that with more time and a great deal of mental effort,
he could probably turn the activity into an acceptable perversion."
-- Mick Farren, _When Gravity Fails_

Take the quiz: "What Aura Colour Are You?"

Black
Having a black aura is very rare. Usually black auras are around a person who has passed. You may have an emotional illness, or you may just have a black aura. Dont worry if you have a black aura or if you see one around a person, for black auras do not mean death. However, if you do see a black aura around a living person, I advise you be careful.

>

Your Geek Profile:

Academic Geekiness: Highest

Fashion Geekiness: High

Movie Geekiness: High

General Geekiness: Moderate

Internet Geekiness: Moderate

SciFi Geekiness: Moderate

Gamer Geekiness: Low

Geekiness in Love: Low

Music Geekiness: None

How Geeky Are You?

You Are Incredibly Logical

(You got 75% of the questions right)

Move over Spock - you're the new master of logic

You think rationally, clearly, and quickly.

A seasoned problem solver, your mind is like a computer!

How Logical Are You?

You Are From Jupiter

You are exuberantly curious - and you love to explore newness.
Enthusiastic and optimistic, you get a kick out of stimulating intellectual discussions.
Foreign cultures and languages fascinate you. You love the outdoors, animals, and freedom.
Chances are you tend to exaggerate, so try to keep a lid on that.
If you do, you'll continue to be known for your confidence, generosity, and sense of justice.

What Planet Are You From?

DAY 36

2005-05-05T00:09:00.000-07:00

Exhaustion! Defiance!
All ye who deem me unfit to live, hear this:

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as a pit from pole to pole
I thank whatever gods may be,
For my unconquerable soul.

Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody yet, unbowed.

After a non stop night of work, i arrive at the lab to find more work. I take a break for lunch and the phone rings. It's the lab attendant screaming for me to come back right away. I tell him I'm having lunch. He makes out like my boss (the Head of the Dept) is having a heart attack. I talk him down from his panic high, and discern that some committee wants to view my work and thats what the HOD is calling me for. I explain to the hysterical man that I have ordered lunch and cannot unorder it even if I wanted to, which i dont. I am hungry.
Finally I get it across to the gentleman that I will be there in twenty minutes. By the time I arrive the committee has left. Oh well, I'll just have to handle the aftermath.
Banzai!

Kindness is the beginning of cruelty.
-- Muad'dib [Frank Herbert, "Dune"]

DAY 37

2005-05-04T01:43:00.000-07:00

Today is Star Wars day. No more Raja Sahab. For today I am Darth illuminatus, the 13th Dark Lord of the Sith in the making. I'm still not sure whether i should give myself over to the Dark Side though. The temptation is very strong, given the aggravation i'm getting.
I'm turning into a chronic hater. And this is not good. At this rate in afew months I'll get dumped in a hot pool of lava and end up having to wear a black helmet and breathing apparatus for the rest of my life.
Not fun. Definitely not.
I should really get some work done. As a result of exhaustion resulting from being grumpy about othr peoples stupidity, my productivity suffers. I must combat this. Time for some meditation.
Foo Mane Padme Hum!

Abstainer, n.:
A weak person who yields to the temptation of denying himself a
pleasure.
-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"

DAY 38

2005-05-03T00:12:00.000-07:00

An overdose of garlic and starch can really knock a guy out. Woke up late as hell. Coffee would have been a savior at a moment of agony like this but, unfortunately I omitted to buy any last night so....
The order of the day is that I am in an exceptionally royal mood. To aaj Raja Sahab ne ye nirnay liya hai ki aaj ka din Rajwade ki shaan ko chaar, aath ya baarah chaand lagayenge.
It is a day to spew rot and be generally useless. However, the retardedness of a certain segment of humanity is forcing Raja Sahab to abandon the crown for a while and become a common laborer.
To save the Rajwada from the forces of degeneration, the proud Raja Sahab leaves the warm company of his riends the Shah and the Nawab and arrives back to the place where he must yet again prove the might of the keyboard!
Yalgaar ho!!!!!

After a long day of warfare, the Raja returns to his lair. Reduced to subterfuge, tired of the continuous struggle to keep the Rajwada up, he wishes to relax, but no! before that can be accom[lished, a call for succour. A young lady is being attacked by the monsters of Boredom and Longing. the Raja must rush to the succour. Having rescued the fair maiden and sent her on her way, the Raja adds to his memoirs a single curious line.

Mission Accomplished.

After that he proceeds to add a few more, telling the world that the mission statement is in fact a secret. Is this an announcement of the Dark Side of the Raja? Is he in fact something more than what he seems? Keep watching. We'll be back, same Raja-time, same Raja-url.
BLIP!

DAY 39

2005-05-02T22:21:00.000-07:00

Day 39: Mucked up day. It's started bad. Actually it's a continuation of yesterday, which in turn was a continuation of the day before. Lack of sleep makes you lose track of the boundary between days. My two flatmates and I are in the throes of parting anxiety. we've been together for four years and we're family. So in our anxt we recently drove 100 kilometres for the sole purpose of sitting on a roadside dhaba and having tea. This kind of behavior is rather adolescent but hey! we dont have too much time left. In 39 days, impulsiveness will have to be shelved for the week, only to be taken out on weekends, given a longing look and put back in the cupboard, like an item of clothing which was once a hot favorite but is now too small to wear.......

A few hours into the day: It is our general consensus (by our i mean my contemporaries in my deweling) that the change from school to college was like a jump from a warm safe place into cold river waters. I personally tend to see the transition from college to work from the point of view of the fish in the river, heading very purposefully out to sea. To hell with the big fish!

The lab I'm sitting in is extremely hot. The logic of having one fan in the center of a rectangular room where the length far exceds the breadth escapes me completely. The chairs three feet to either side of the fan get no air, and the condition degenerates exponentially with each foot thence. As a result if you're sitting on either extreme you're likely to be smeling flatus, sweat, and other human/animal odors which may be your own(if you're lucky) or someone's who hasn't seen the other side of a bathroom door. For an engineering colleg with 'thinking' people, such gaucheries are not exactly expected. Such are the issues which nullify the fear of anything post 39 days. Whatever it is, it can't be worse. Nothing is worse than lack of thought.

Late Afternoon: After a lot of coffee and cigarette breaks, this place becomes almost bearable. I realise that in a couple of hours I'll have to go home. Sometimes, walking into a room you're soon going to leave can be a wrench in itself. But hell! We are the manly men. Yesterday, after a couple of cigarettes and some antaxari we came to the conclusion that three cities are soon going to be seriously messed up. Considering that while we are in Bangalore, we usually cancel each other's effects out. The balance of the 'Holy Trinity' is maintained. But once we have a number of kilometres between us, we wont be balancing anymore. And then God help the cities we're in.
It's seriously been an amazing four years. It's amazing how some of the people we usually accredit with very excitng lives are usually the most bored. The other day, talking to a friend from a hip cool college, we realised that despite being in a second string place for the duration of graduation, we've done and seen more than a lot of people manage in a lifetime.
This is decidedly fun.
I suppose this is a good time to put in some work. A new day, tommorow is.

The Dawn of the New Order

2005-05-01T02:32:00.000-07:00

The writing is on the wall. The new era shall dawn in exactly 39 days, when i graduate from the engineering college I've spent the last four years in and take the plunge into the big bad corporate world. To start with this is a countdown to the big event. After that it'll probably become a saga of the meteoric rise of a new star. Or it could be the tragic tale of a fallen warrior. Either way it wont be boring, So read on.