Friday, December 29, 2006

an itchy incident....

What does it feel like to hurt??… and to feel helpless about it?!?!… what does it feel like to be unable to stop coughing for hours at a stretch…

waking up at 3 am with a mild cough and waking up every time u are about to fall asleep… then getting restless and getting out of the bed so that u are able to cough comfortably and get it over with… and then… slowly realizing that its getting severe with every thoracic jolt needed to help release that itching thing stuck to the insides of your throat … u want to reach out with ur fingers and scrape it off but u cant… slowly the cough becomes painful... as if u have been scratching a rash so long that by now the skin has begun to scrape off… now just the anticipation of the next cough hurts… its 6 am and u know the shops wont open for another 3 hours…

u make tea with an extra dose of cardamom and black pepper…. U manage to take one sip without coughing and another… u begin to feel relaxed… and another sip… and then suddenly u begin to feel the monster itch rise slowly in ur throat again… and this time ur muscles involuntarily push beyond u can manage and u puke out the 3 sips u had along with bits of last nights digested food…. And u have this strange feeling that some of that itchy monster has also found its way out… u feel relaxed… much better.. may be this is it… u finish the tea comfortably… its 7 am… u get ready for office…

U reach office by 8… the train travel has got u coughing a lil bit again… but u ignore.. u feel comfortable that the puke took care of it all… and then u pass thru this dusty road and enter an office that is yet to be dusted… …

… no… not again.. its rising again… this time u r tired of it… u let it come.. with as much force as it wud wish… u have given up… another hour to go before the bendryl life drug can be made available… u agonise and wait.. warm water & salt.. do something,.,. look for the first aid kit.. someone take money and go to the shop as soon as its 9….

Time passes … finally u r holding the benedryl bottle in ur hand… u gulp it straight from the bottle.. u cherish the feeling.. it tastes like heaven…


…..


ya… 3 hrs since then and not a single rising itch monster feeling!! … so I was able to concentrate on writing :)

cheers!

Thursday, December 14, 2006

from rhetoric to traffic jams... ADAPTABILITY

theres a strange kind of challenge in being able to drift your mind from the most critical... to the ignorable & small... and here i refer to the level of importance of the subject or thot n nothing else.. the challenge of thinking macro, n rethinking if the same would have a relevant interpretation at a micro level!!... and just to make life a little worse.. realising the irrelevance of the most critical macro thots at the micro level...

if life is bigger.. bigger than you (as rem wud put it;) ) then why do we remain engrossed in the complications of the irrelevant nitty gritty's of life.... "Small issues are irritants and hamper efficient working of the human mind"...

why do i call it a strange challenge?.. imagine the so called absent minded philosopher scientist Albert Einstein.. blissfully unaware of small issues like 'what if he keeps his car keys somewhere and forgets!!'... BIG DEAL... it shall be worked out somehow or the other.. but if he forgets a particular chain of thoughts while trying to work out a real life experiment to prove a particular concept that takes the general theory of relativity a step ahead so that time machines could be actually made... well.. thats a blooper!!...

so the challenge is for regular philosopher scientists like us.... we are neither lucky enuf to be absent minded like AE... nor, possibly, have given ourselves such strong high level goals to achieve, that ignoring the smaller issues becomes incidental...

here is my conclusion... (and its not mine :))...
...Educated men lay down broad general principles; uneducated men argue from common knowledge and draw obvious conclusions - Aristotle

Wednesday, September 20, 2006

a wildly romantic book called goa .. go slow!

ocean makes u think depth. it makes u think vastness, power, and might. it gets u to introspect... and sparks thoughts that never existed before.

...waves as high as you, a few meters ahead of u... on a early Goa morning. u wake up... and walk on the beach. even before you are conscious, the ocean and the sand has already hugged your feet and grabbed your shapeless thoughts. u see an old big ship anchored in the middle of the waves... holding grounds as if it was built into the sea...

a beach cafe... that serves old monk and your brand of smoke. no one in sight.. except the vast, slightly violent ocean. the stretch of the beach ending into greens, trees and a fort on one end, and ocean till the horizon at the other...

u talk of life, physics, beauty and danger... and wonder how beauty and danger both have a strange pull. is beauty dangerous! or is danger beautiful!? ...the ocean is a surprising mix of both...

[ this was a 7 am walk on Candolim beach, ending near Aguada fort. We almost gatecrashed into the Taj from the ocean facing end. The waves were hitting the walls and we walked though them :)... the cafe is in palm beach resort. ]


is it a house? ...someone sure lives here!!... hey look there, a lovely collection of books this guy has.. all those deliciously strange old books that you only get to read from a similar delicious strange old library, but never get to buy!!! ...and look here, an entire room full of the latest best seller stuff...

and then you realise this nice homely place is actually a bookshop. of course, a residence converted into a bookshop. sit here for as long as you want... order some nice homemade cheese sandwiches and kokum juice... and bury yourself for hours into those lovely pages, and smell of old books. one of the best book places i have visited ever...

[ this was Literatti... the book shop. on the way from Candolim towards Baga beach ]


the afternoon begins with some Goan clothes shopping... a floral print bright shirt and shorts... a hat and an OM kurta... well equipped, you cross the regular Tito’s and end up at Britto’s :)... at the beach...
a little food and a few drinks later you realise the onset of dusk... they got candle like stuff they place on your tables...
you are on the first table facing the sea... and you sip your drink with the most extreme relaxation you could ever feel... you talk in breaks and pauses... relishing every second for many many minutes... life is peaceful... slow and just right!

[ this was Britto’s at Baga Beach ]


another morning... another sleepy eyed mind, another short walk towards the sands... and here you have a cup of tea after the ocean winds have woken you up... of course a few dog foot marks on the sand don't hurt the eyes much... but try not looking at a the dogs being overtly playful at this early an hour...

a dip in the sea to tick mark that 'you had a dip in the sea’ ...and you move back to relaxing, living moments, and living slowly...

oh! was that a dolphin u saw jumping out of the ocean 30 meters ahead!!!?!? :)

[ this was Palolem Beach, and on it an otherwise neat and lovely beach resort called San Fransisco... they have an amazing speed of getting food... seems like they outsource each meal straight from San Francisco :) ]


a secluded beach.... there are very few things of more value than a long evening spent here, entering into the night. and entering deeper into your own thoughts...
a setting sun and a rising realisation of something that you always knew existed... answers to long forgotten questions!!

[ this was the Palolem Beach end in intercontinental the grand resort territory. No Dogs ]


am sure in love with goa!

Tuesday, August 29, 2006

full circle incomplete

... dont know who is a friend... who is WITH me in my journey.. or will i keep looking for someone to "be with me" while i keep travelling alone ...

life ..they say..comes back a full circle... and this suddenly robs me of all the possible excitement... i guess the circle never completes itself... and when it does... well... may be u dont feel its an end... but its an infinite begining....

whtever... finding peace in transcendental thoughts while real life is sucking the soul out of ur listless body... no motivation to be greedy for happiness.... and i guess that keeps me going... NO GREED FOR HAPPINESS.... ain't that a good feeling..!! :)

when laughter becomes just a twitching of a certain number of facial muscles and not the existence of a sparkling soulful eye.... one tends to get lonely....

...no cure for this...

Monday, August 07, 2006

concerned!

...heres an old thought revisited...

there are very few things more crappy than superficial concern....

..although the concerned may never realise, but more often than not, the "concernee" (yes sweethearts.. i have coined that word just now and it implies the person for whom the "concerned" is concerned) ... so... the concernee, almost always looks through it...

i rest my case!

cheers and trumpets...

me

Sunday, August 06, 2006

further in a certain direction

___________________________________________________
11:06 PM 7/3/2001
There are certain unquestionable rules that must be created simply to drive your life and help you take decisions. They NEED NOT have a reason. They are like that arbitrary starting point on your life's infinite graph sheet which only creates a reference for you to start plotting the rest of your life's graph.
"Liquor is bad and must be avoided at all costs" is possibly one such rule.

3:52 PM 12/6/2003
i am not learning... i seek more of the same... i feel as if things are being forced down my throat by myself... like that nasty dry torrid taste of liquor that gives me a high i never craved for... much smaller things in life give me bigger highs.... ya i know.... i might be just not lucky anymore

12:03 AM 6/8/2006
another tight day.. have not slept much since the last 72 hours... hectic flight schedules and pending work in office when u r back... drains you.. dont really enjoy this on a saturday night.. but then... once in while being dedicated to your company helps... u learn stuff urself....
a drink wud do me so much good... and may be a few more... ;)
____________________________________________________


i still question the rules!


----------------------

Tuesday, August 01, 2006

a lost note

i wake up...rubbing my eyes,...looking around ..searching for something again....
yet another day. yet another illusion to be broken...
pessimist is not something i am...
hope is something i hold on to...but when where will i ever find that peace...
i get lost with words these days....
same familiar drifting of thoughts....
hope these thoughts touch u some day


.....

touched... forever .

Friday, June 09, 2006

Psychoanalysis of wearing a tie

"Psychoanalysis of wearing a tie" doesnt lend itself to any relevant google hits... so i felt it more than appropriate to present my views on the subject as a part of my contribution to humanity...

they say that the french started it ... King Louis XIV took it up after seeing the victorious Croatian mercenaries during the Thirty Years' War...

as much as it started as a fashion accessory as it is today... but, somewhere in late 19th century it served the purpose of showing the wearer's affiliations...

history apart... lets look at the need/effect of such a piece of clothing...

why is it professional to wear a tie?
why does it look impressive?
how can it make you feel more confident internally?
is it just a cultural reinforcement?
is there more to wearing a tie than what has been told to us?

is there a psychology associated with it, that is so unique and inherent that even if a caveman was made to wear a tie he would feel a similar amount of boost in his confidence?

may be i am reading too much into it... but heres my theory :)

neck/throat is a very vulnerable body part for any animal... carnivores know it instinctively and attack a prey accordingly... a noose around the neck is used to guide cattle... to "direct them" where the "owner" wants to take them...

wearing a tie is a mark of acceptance of your vulnerability... to put it mildly, its a positive sign as it says that your weakness along with your strength is wide open for anybody to figure out... this can happen only when you are completely confident of your strenghths... thus a tie makes you humble and very confident... even if u r a big shot... it adds a sense of humility to you and thus makes u seem more professional ...

well... that was me on ties...

gosh.... weekend starts... this is a sure sign i need a break ;)
cheers

Saturday, June 03, 2006

yes i am angry

...there is this inherent reflex to initiate any such thought with an exclamation called .. GOD!! .. and then atheists like me developed mutilations/hybrids of the expression to express the same agitation without having to feel guilty of succumbing to the strength (or the lack there of) of the "faith in god" phenomena... such expressions sound like .. GOSH!, etc

thats besides the point...

i am agitated at the plight of our system .. and more at the plight of the right/sensible people surviving in the system... two glaring examples...
the political class's attitude to the reservation policy... and the same fraternity's reaction to Mr Kalam sending back the "office of profit" bill ...


I need not furnish the details.. its just too glaring to be missed...

the sad part is that may it be a group of doctors with possibly zero political clout, or the president of the nation... both seem to be forced to bend down to whims and fancies of senseless politicians who get elected not by majority vote but due to majority INDIFFERENCE ,,, the working class that makes sense... doesnt vote...

BUT

above all this... one phenomena that may be clearly pointed out as the BIGGEST and possibly the only reason of such turn of evens is the SPINELESSESS of the PM.. manmohan singh has clearly displayed lack of sense, spine and sex ....

May the truth set us all free..... !!!


ggggggrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
ME

Wednesday, March 22, 2006

life, dogs and dancing schools

humor and money took a back seat... no.. at least they have not been kept out of the journey ...


at times i am amazed how easy it is for people to talk abt break ups and relationaship upheavels... as if it was just another tiny problem of a routine nature,,,,

o life.. its bigger....!!

and then there are instances when life magnifies itself to a minuscule spot... irony.. when someone who was so close to you and so much a part of your life in ways, for describing which no metaphors exist.. suddenly uses superfluous words to point at the vagueness of it all...

lifes a journey not a destination... ya... the bloody words mean it bloody well... and journeys always take you somewhere... u cant help not stagnating ... its always for something good.. something better... something more...

and just keep the humor element alive... why dont dogs make good dancers?.. besides the fact that there arent many dog dance teaching schools...

...they got two left feet!!!


no... there is NO message in there

cheers
me

Sunday, March 05, 2006

humor n money

heres raising a toast to the N'th philosophy created by the inquisitive being... there are two things that can get you thru anything in life...and i mean ANYTHING...

thats the title...

the catch is .. if u don have money.. u need a LLOOOTTTT of humor...

here i must add that humor is what ur own mind enjoys for no particular reason or logic ("no particualr reason or logic" is the operating phrase)... a deeper appreciation of the subject will also lead us to the fact that earning money thru humor is the ideal career for one and all... and thus the emergence of the breed of "great indian laughter champions" and the old stand up comedians...

..more in the next blog... think deeper

Friday, March 03, 2006

please...........

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Monday, January 30, 2006

... part time blues

Where do i go nobody knows,
I’ve gotta’ say I’m on my way down,

God give me style and give me grace,


God put a smile upon my face ..



u know whats required to sustain a relationship?!? ... just willingness

and now answere urself

Thursday, January 26, 2006

irony

hi... i just wanted to be with myself for a few minutes... so thot i shud talk to u..

ironical rt?

what if this irony repeats itself everyday?

Wednesday, January 25, 2006

office, incompetencies and life

ya.. its tiring...
...its tiring to keep fighting against time to achieve goals made distant by incompetencies all around... its tiring to put up with ppl who lack sincerity and its tiring to talk to ppl who care a damn that they do...
...working for almost 16hrs a day ... its literally tiring...

am in office rt now.. ya ya.. i know i need not have said that....

talking abt incompetencies... i believe its relative...
a person more competent than you, can make you look incompetent.. and the success lies in makin as many people 'look' incometent as possible..
well.. sun tzu never wrote an "art of working in a professional environment" else the above dictum wud surely have found a place.. :)... pat ur back mr chaturvedi

coming back to real thngs.. for eg life... the best things in life, as usual, are least expected. i dont think many wud agree to this... i dont.
the question being..then why dont we all realise this and try makin evey moment as unexpected as it can become?!?!.... only because then it wont be unexpected anymore :)... its called random...

and here i have found smthn really good in life which is ... neither random nor UNEXPECTED... an intended search for a goal... leads me to the goal.. and i am happy.. thats good rt?

so while she is arnd.. sweetly tucked in a corner with her eyes closed... while life remains a war against incompetencies, restlessness and smtimes urself....while u know that life is not only a war and there are the pure sands of sam dunes to give you peace... and while u know that there are worse thngs in life apart from the above mentioned wars.. such as media, i'd just like to end on another positive note...

children make so much sense... :)

Saturday, January 14, 2006

all i will crave for..

all i will crave for is a kiss...

when u have run around half the world and are too tired even to sleep....
when i have spent another successful day being not what i am but still having enjoyed every moment of it...
when another hit will cause me to shake up from my reverie..when some strange thoughts will begin haunting me again and i wud want to run away...
when learning would mean much more than myself and even more of the world ...when number of friends would mean nothing more than the number of parties i attend...
when logic would defy itself and i will feel the need to start all over again...
when i would have grown as a person but not as a professional... and when i would have grown as a professional but not as a person...
when i wud forget to call my parents and remember my appointments, when i wud surprise my mom with a visit for no reason ...
when i would be as big as i had dreamt to be ... and when my dreams would have grown even larger with time...
when i wud feel like reaching out for silence and not myself ... when i wud want to freak out and let go of myself ... when we wud be far away but closer than ever ... when i wud feel that i still don't know you..and feel the same for myself....
when peace would mean nothing more than u in my arms...when i wud need the strength to set things right for u.. when i wud see u on top of the world coz i was the one who set things right for you....all i will crave for is a kiss.... and i'll set things right for... ahem...well...to cut a long story short ..... feel like kissing you ...

Friday, January 13, 2006

...still got the sand in my shoes



.. wht do we do for the new year?
.. i wanna sit in the desert sand and have a drink
.. done

...this is how the decision was made, hardly 3 days before 1st jan 2006...

this was my first trip to rajasthan and was to cover jodhpur and jaisalmer... diamond merchant nandi and i enter the train from bandra and the journey begins...

to begin with.. someone called DM is a cotravellar, and she is gifted with ESP... nandi, who himself is a very intuitive person, finds someone who can look into his eyes for the first time and tell every thing about him in a speech lasting about 5 to 6 minutes... and i am forced to acknowledge that she is right...

well... the 18hrs didnt take as long as they usually do... and i step onto the land called Suryanagri (or Jodhpur/Suncity as is commonly known) ... at dawn on 31st dec 2005

first on agenda is reaching sam dunes at jaisalmer…
we (group of 4 now) travel by road.. SUV .. from Jodhpur to jaisalmer … roads always fascinate me… and more so in rajasthan when u can see vast stretches of land..unhindered.. reaching out to kiss the low lieing bright skies.. love life in slow motion… the jeep was traveling at 90+

on the way is a place called Manvar (pronounced as Maanvar – which means welcome) … amazing place.. done up like a rajasthani traditional haveli cum village area.. a place with just the right combination of intimacy and distance…
you know what... the essence of rajasthan is ‘the culture of respect’.. everybody gives it and everybody expects it back… and with this respect comes a certain amnt of distance.. something that a son might feel from his father …
well.. Maanvar lives upto rajsathan.. and we spend 3 hours celebrating the solitude with conversation and antiquity…

...and then we are on the road again… and this time stop at a rajsathani highway dhaba… I need not say more…the best meal I have had in the past year or so…

we reach jaisalmer and its almost 9 pm now… we had planned to go to Sam Dunes so that we can have a camp fire, drink along, and talk … sitting on the pure desert sand… and enjoy a few moments of life…
they have paid camp/tents over there…with camp fire and music and all that jazz.. this was the only let down of the entire trip

If you happen to go to Sam at night… during winters.. please carry couple of bundles of firewood … making a campfire of ur own among any of those dunes is the only way to enjoy it… paid tents are firstly not in the sand and secondly there's too much crowd.. with almost 20 tents in a small area…

We came back… tired .. exhausted… happy but .. I still wanted the sand…

I sleep....


Next day morning we go to the Lodrava Parshwanath temple .. a peaceful, serene place… with a 1000 year history and a baggage of myth and faith… a kalpavriksha that fulfills all wishes, a pair of “naag” that have been appearing for over 400yrs now … invasions by Muhammad Ghori and one more chap..forgetting the name… The architecure is amazing .. known for the rare stone carvings.. apart from the peace, architecture and myth my other treat on this visit was the 4 year old teen camel Kaalu… he gave me a cool ride in the nearby fort area…

by now we are hungry like wolves and finish 4 aalo paranthas each and a hot glass of ilaychi milk :)

And then comes the moment… we decide to travel to Sam again.. this time in broad daylight so that I can see the sand… feel it better… live it with all my senses …

We are on our way to Sam and the stones on the sides of the road slowly change into smaller stones.. and even smaller materials until I start seeing sand.. desert sand… thirsty yet beautiful… and we reach Sam… get down from the SUV... and I run onto it… I reach a high sand dune… all around me … I see it… ever changing in the wind… the dunes keep shifting shape and position right under your nose… every second… and the wind leaves beautiful wave marks … u make an impression with ur hand and u can see it fading out rt in front of you… its like... calm but always changing.. always fresh.. always new, pure, real, sand… i didnt wanna learn anything about life at this moment and i chose not to...

I spent around 15 – 20 min walking on the sand from dune to dune… and then we took a camel ride upto Thar… saw a small army camp there… we get down into a dune valley… relax and open our drinks….

THIS was the moment… ..............................................................


i feel it cud have been as good with a campfire at night… but the day time experience is not to be missed… when u can see as far as ur sight goes…. Either sky or desert…

On our way back we visited the Gadisar lake, Jaisalmer fort and well… Maanvar again… the place had caught our fancy…. Drinks poured and souls chatted…hearts felt glad…there was a live rajsthani folk dance performance and I got to do a “turn your world around” with two pretty lasses in ghaghra and whtever the traditional dress is… this consumed another 5hrs ..

and then we reach jodhpur … see the mehrangarh fort next day morning and leave back for Bombay…
the auto trip from borivili to andheri shakes me out of my dream trip and I say,… well back to Bombay.. with “aap ki kashish” blaring out loudly in my ears thru the huge rick speakers…

Time was less…
And time was more

theres still some sand in my shoes… there will always be…

too much crimson

like a true human being i'd like start with a lie... i think i dont understand life...

where as.. i have huge misperceptions that in fact I DO... and one of the examples is this blog.. which shall claim to display, manifest and possibly crimsonify life for the benefit of myself, friends, strangers and argumentators or philosphisers alike....

i believe there are only two types of beings in this universe... human beings or philosophisers...
philosophers are different from philosophisers and for all practical purposes are human beings...

i'd like to make clear that contempt and sarcasm are not my tools and i shall steer away from them unless i am drunk and typing...

rt now i am drunk..

and typing..

.. although i am a very positive person... and am hopeful and confident that every life has to come to an end ... i feel that people will not realise this unless they concsiously try and LIVE every moment... otherwise we are all in fact dieing...

NOW... wish it was that easy... the fact is that your definition of 'LIVING' is bound to change 11 out of 10 times... and u'll be left groping for u dont even know what...

so on this positive note i start...




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