A Glimpse

Learn from the past, live in the present and dream for the future. I have heard so many punchlines I never know which one fits where. "If it is meant to happen, it will happen" - but what if you take control and make things happen for yourself? Ofcourse, people could still say you were meant to be that way and do those things you did. 'Everything happens for a reason' - in that case believe in the reason and make it your aim. I am not an atheist, I believe in the Almighty. But I do not think he pre-writes a fixed story for each one of us. I think our life story keeps changing, depending on our past deeds and the one factor we don't have control over - luck. You have to observe the changes in the lines of your palm to believe this.

Sometimes, this luck can give you a glimpse of the life you always wished for but never thought you would have. Everything feels surreal and amazing at that moment. And you wish that moment would never end. And if it does have to end, let it come again and again in your life, maybe even get better. What is the best approach then, let life take its course or make an effort to chase this happiness? More often than not, it is a special person who is the cause of such memorable moments. Everyone is greedy and everyone is selfish in one way or the other. Yet in a feeling of gratefulness, you want this special person to be happy, and would love a chance to be their cause of happiness for as long as possible.

There is nothing in the world not fraught with risks; and so are relationships between people. And so when you make a commitment, you take a risk. Relationships and people succeed and fail, but failure of a concept should never warrant its exclusion from you life. You learn, and take risks again coz you believe your risk would one day earn you rewards that would be worth all the failures. A line in a movie I heard said: It happens in a blink of a moment. One moment you're having dinner with them and the next moment you're thinking how you ever lived without them. So if you have had this moment, make it count..Be selfish and greedy..and try to make this happiness a part of your life forever. Make the glimpse a permanent reality.

Of all the things we do !!

Life is a tight-rope. The balancing act is up to you. You stumble and you bend awkwardly, but all you really have to do is use the balancing rod, the supports in your life, and you keep walking. But people slip; and people fall. And as they fall off through the various levels of sanity, they wonder if there is a ladder somewhere which can get them back on the rope. Consider yourselves lucky if you do. For many slip so far down, they simply do not know where to go, whom to ask for help and whether second chances will ever be in their fate again.
Humans are intelligent creatures, we can rationalize, we can learn and we can adapt. We have the power to think, a gift so often misused. The concept of freewill is for the betterment of the self and of others around you. Yet do we not abuse, delude and destroy what we otherwise cherish so much? One wrong statement, one misled thought, one act of stupidity hurts your loved ones, which in turn hurts you so much more. And all that is left - is regret and the 'what ifs'. What if I had thought before speaking? What if I had been more sensible? What if I had slept early? What if I had not had those drinks and indulged myself in acts of mental disbalance, which never could cause any good to anyone? What if none of this would have happened, was there a beautiful part of life awaiting me?
Life can only go on then. You pick yourself up, dust yourself off and hope the stains would go with time. If you're a favorite son of fortune, you'll get another chance. At those times, a simple apology, a simple act of selflessness or simply admitting the truth can help you recover what you have lost. Inexperience at certain aspects in life will make a fool out of you, and maybe you've fallen so far below that the hand that held you straight lets go forever. At the point where you think there is no return, you learn and move on...for the things you've left behind, you can only hope they will return and forgive you.

Mes expériences avec la vérité

Truth: has a whole new meaning. Ever since philosophers and politicians gave too much importance to 'everyone having their own view', humans have lost the common basis on which validity of people's words could be judged. No more is truth brutal. Brutal though, is the effect this new version has on the interactions between two people who neither share the same beliefs nor would perform the same actions under similar circumstances. Have you never felt it was alright to plagiarize just because everyone else did so? If everyone states the same opinion, does it become the truth? Are laws a form of truth then? If you say a lie a hundred times, you can observe how your mind actually starts believing in it.
Misunderstanding is a much simpler concept. It is an instance of ineffective communication. The current phenomenon though, is somewhat more sinister. We have amongst us, a tool, by which we can harm one another, by simply refusing to acknowledge facts. All we have to do is create another version of the truth, one based on different viewpoints and understanding. This is not a new phenomenon, it has been happening for years in closed rooms between men and women, an observable consequence of which is a divorce where it is impossible to point out the guilty after having heard both sides of the story.
I am not trying to preach; I sincerely believe we're entering a stage where chaos shall be abetted by these different versions of truth floating amongst us. In such circumstances, only those with strong and just beliefs - people who know themselves better, who have introspected on who they are and what they want, shall stand unshattered at the end of it all, as they will be the ones who will take decisions, after listening to others but doing what they stand for. For weaker mortals, this is not good news....

The apping saga - written in IIT on Jan 29, 2003

The Apping Saga

Come penultimate semester and you find hordes of people attending classes and listening intently to the theory of Zisbrowliscunus as taught by someone who looks the same and you doubt your belief that final year is not to do and die. Then you find these hordes sitting hours in front of the computer switching pages between good quality babas(desi is good) and abodes of higher education present right from States to Timbucktoo; ofcourse there are always a few people(as Mr. Murali M Joshi put it or something to this effect) who will have to wait before they can learn to use the internet.
Though not into this business myself, I have seen many friends wasting their time trying to complete their assignments when they should have been playing Counter-Strike. Men should be men, or atleast they should look like men and go to the gym. Not that I say the apping process is just for men, but where we study we dont find anything but men and trees.
The requirements for applying abroad resemble the demands of the tribals who usually give out the war cry 'cholbe na'. There are forms and recos and SOPs and blah blah and each work is tougher than using the toilets in coaches of Indian Railways. The funniest part is the student-guide interaction where both know what lies beneath :
Guide : Have you read the research paper I asked you to read ?
Student : goo goo !! gee gee !! hee hee hee !!
Guide : Why haven't you been attending my classes ?
Student : goo goo !! gee gee !! hee hee hee !!
Guide : If you continue this way, I shall have to fail you.
Student : bohoo !! bohoo !! wah ! Sir, I would like your recommendation for applying abroad..
Guide : goo goo !! gee gee !! hee hee hee !!
The SOPs are a good example of the world our great leaders dreamt of before they died writing about it. " I am a self respecting, honest and hard working individual and have been involved in the field of signal processing using neural networks and advanced hyperterminal of fourth degree since my childhood ". Ofcourse this is a replica of the bold statements made by the seniors passed out, but unless you are Gautam Pande you cannot carry this shit around with dignity ; no self-respecting man can.
And finally when you finish your journey apping, there is the long silent wait where guys behave like Vietnami Pigs. Vietnami Pigs are those animals who look like complete morons after they've finished applying to universities abroad. And then everyone starts hating Zisbrowliscunus just as much as I do.

Kapiche ?

If you do not know the meaning of the the title, don't panic ! You're simply a dumb, ignorant mortal like me, only one with more salary. Ignorant people can read and write without any adherence to the general directions of short, to-the-point writing and to the acceptable quantities of beer by a human body. They go where no man has ever gone before; how many women have gone there is a question for different time and space. Such questions should be addressed in the year when Saturn is in the 6th house with Venus, prompting the Sun to say 'they surely must be partying while I burn my ass off'.
If you think that life, in general, sucks and then you find people telling you that this is just a phase; you would also agree that such people suck. When you're lying in a pit full of poo 20 feet below the earth's surface, the last thing you want to hear is someone say 'you'll get over it'. Sympathetic people are a menace to the society and should be whipped with cream, bare-naked, till the point of reverse-excretion is reached and they no longer need a free lunch. Aww ! I hope they get over it. Ofcourse, you could also save all this cream and feed it to Sharapova to have your own version of Sharapatra; a hybrid, not between Maria and Cleopatra, but between Maria and Mr. Patra who lives two blocks away and looks ready to eat the two blocks as well incase he doesn't find the pastry shop open.
The AB annual meet planning is finally underway; for people who do not know what AB stands for can click here . Ofcourse, it is a circle where there will first be planning done for when and where, and then 3-4 others shall plan and veto the place, while 2 others shall do background checks and find that they have never spent their entire day of 24th december on the pot drinking hot-choclate and would like to do it this year, and so the dates for the meet should be rescheduled. Finally, it would be decided by 5-5 majority (1 member against all democratic processes, including bombing any country) that there must be a planning team to decide on all matters relating to the meet. Then there shall be elections for the head of this team, and atleast 4 people shall plan on how to win: which essentially means deciding what constitutes a better bribe - Chivas Regal or Glenfiddich. After team-formation, and the traditional 'Hail our leader, he spoilt our liver' chants, the planning team gets down to the business of deciding whether their posts should be made permanent. Discussion continues, there is a coup attempt, everyone is disgusted and until one of them throws a booze party for no reason and everyone travels to his house. This is how AB annual meet would presumably take place if things go naturally.
Laughter is the best medicine, atleast until they invented condoms (hey, which one protects you from AIDS?). So you would assume that stand-up comedians would have a healthy life. However, I am sure if I tried stand-up comedy it would be considerably shortened to the point when even a perfectly sober and docile housewife would learn to use a shotgun. So I don't do comedy shows, which has prompted many of my friends to switch to 'Whose line is it anyway'. Now that is a joke of a twisted kind.... No?....Yes? - Kapiche?

Pulp Fiction results !!

You are the king of smooth -- enough said. Take the What Pulp Fiction Character Are You? quiz.

The post GO-LIVE

And thus a journey that began with hopes ended in but a whimper. Life always deals in alternates with time; does it not? And when luck makes you skip the alternates of a certain kind, that is when fate kicks in. For people who hope for too much, people like me, the better alternates usually seem missing, time after time, for the same aspects. And should you then lose faith and give-up, or should you reason that life is such and you must keep stumbling? We all have a secret wish that our time shall come, and if we grab our time, we will meet the alchemist, or we will reach our journey's destination. But until then, what does one do; stay still and keep on the look-out, keep fighting and earn failures, and look for something else with a degree of risk of losing the sight of the opportunity which shall lead us to our goal?

Alas! The fortunes of the bravest

Shan't ever better their own destiny;

For when the hand falls, the shadows cry,

And meanders moral morale merrily.

Undo my shackles so I may see

The valleys of dark, the mountains of light;

And bloom into my own marigold

Or fall to the dust and become blind.

After Rang de Basanti

Funny how people concern themselves with stuff that never affects their lives. Funny how we live in a world full of cynicism and blame it for our troubles. And when all lights go out, how afraid we can be of man. Sometimes, it doesn't matter what you think; you are not important. And yet, one can be pushed over limits, till he fears nothing. How complicated is this relationship? Man fears of what lies on the other side, and does not wish to venture close; but when pushed over it by others, the fear is the first thing to disappear, and he can be at peace. Thinking clearly is an art not many shall learn, atleast not until we have someone to make decisions for us and then we make mistakes, errors in judgement that hammers our spirits into submission. Prodding along seems like a fool's errand and all around seem to ridicule. Until the day arrives that brings to our eyes our destinies, shows us where we are and where we should be, to find our path to achieve what we must.
When life began, it was not easy, but it was never this tough, for animals can not think like man does, do not communicate like us and such was man himself if Darwin is to be believed. Randomness in the world increased, and so did the human mind and heart; where emotions superceded the acts to 'simply survive'. It is unfortunate though that the more random the universe gets, the more the desires take control of the mind over rationality. The question then pops-up 'Is it rational to be rational all the time?'. Can we let-go and mock civility? Civilization emerged by the will of men to whom we have no connection barring the blood; then can we not consider that it was forced upon us? What would you be if you forgot the rules that govern the world of humans, were we created to be a part of a system?
On another note, why are we blind to the fact that we are controlled by emotions? And yet if we do accept it, why can reverse the control? What is it that makes us so fond of something over time that it burns us to see it being taken away, or being parted by it even of our own devise? I guess there is more to 2 objects than just gravity, and more so to 2 people. No one can create laws for what remains invisible but strong enough to move a complicated machinery to be indifferent to all its systems against preference for one. No amount of repetetion can guarantee desired results. I guess that is what we call love.