"Man is a social animal"

...said my class two textbook. Is that why we struggle so hard to belong somewhere, to someone, to a certain group of people with certainty and love? Is that why, identity, the curious remarkable thing that defines itself by being defined by everything around it, is so important to us that we constantly seek to establish and hold on to it? Is that why no matter how used to you've grown to walking alone, sometimes you still crave for a companion? No matter how independent and self-sufficient you are, even you need someone to laugh and cry with, even you hate eating alone sometimes?

Why does a sense of security come with reaching out to someone, feeling close to someone? Why is the nothingness of hours, the silence of the wind, the coldness of 'friends' felt like this? Why do we seek escape into illusions where we have no time to realize how lonely we are?

Rehne do, I don't even wanna know. You wouldn't understand.

Questions this week

One for the techies: Is Cuil the next big thing in search, competing with Google, with thrice as many web pages and former Google brains behind it? It doesn't impress a LOT yet though, even if it's slicker, because of a greater upload time and an apparently special aversion to "google" pages, e.g. Blogspot, which almost do not show up in results at all...Interestingly, it openly criticizes Google's "personal" information collection snooping policies by claiming "We believe that analyzing the Web rather than our users is a more useful approach". Also, what do you think, will Google's Knol manage to be bigger, better than wikipedia, eventually??

On stuff considering lesser mortals next, are we really that stupid, that naive a country that while thousands die in terror attacks every year, we spend the days after 23 blasts spanning two major cities blaming Govt and opposition parties and claiming political conspiracies to unsettle state govts. (do they have a sane head on their head? any of them?) instead of reassuring people, preventing fear and rumor and taking strict action. Seriously, every time something so tragic happens, it makes me think about the heartlessness and the mindlessness with which some people do these things. And about the inefficacy of the politicos, though seeing PM walking with the Gujarat CM to the victims was a reassuring glimpse of sanity. But frankly, what doI expect from a country where someone like Mayawati actually has a real chance today to become Prime Minister of India on some frail stitched regional support. How tragic will that be!!! Scares me to death. For good or for worse, the rgional parties in India have gained a lot of muscle at a national stage in the past couple of decades and one of the worst things that has done is creation of divisive ideologies in India, Hindu vs Muslim, Gujjar vs Meena, General vs OBC, Dalit vs Manuwadi, and endless such crap. Shameful.

On another note, this Sunday I was in CP with an hour to kill, so ended up at Oxford bookstore and chanced upon this small but interesting book "Games Indians Play" by V. Ragunathan that basically uses Game theory to find an insight into why are we, the Indians, the way we are? Quite simply, adding a why to "hum aise hi hain". It says a lot of interesting things, including that Indians suffer from a lack of regulation as well as self-regulations, are privately smart and publicly dumb, and are extremely akin to the situation in the Prisoner's Dilemma where everyone rationally chooses a non-cooperation strategy for personal gain and community loss, except without realizing it is a dilemma at all. It attempts to explain why we tend to jump queues or red lights, have poor public hygiene, take short cuts and tend not to keep our part of the bargain fairly in one-off deals. It also hints on half a solution, or half a strategy that makes a lot of sense to me, hence here it goes: The strategy is called Tit for Tat. It says, never defect, that is never not-cooperate, or be unfair to someone, or cheat a rule etc, until the other party cheats on you, and defects first. Then at the next time, you defect, but see if it co-operates. If it does, co-operate again the next time. In short, remember only the previous behavior of the system you interact with and act accordingly, but never defect first. So, each time someone you say hello to someone who ignores you, do not go into the "never again" revenge modes...just avoid until other person decisively greets or and act on this reaction from the next time.

But all this theory apart, you tell me, what do you think, why are we the way we are?

Of laptop ports and crazy hospital staff

So, summer is over and yet another semester begins tomorrow morning, although I don't quite have a class tomorrow. The LAN port of my laptop was slightly loose so the connectivity was maintained only when u pressed the wire a little, however finding a repair for this simple thing took three days as Lenovo wanted to change the motherboard (at 15k!!) and most people asked 2k for opening the lappy to replace something that's worth 40 rupees. That's when I discovered thank-you-Chinese-electronics in the shape of a USB-connected external LAN port for less than 300 bucks, happily sitting as an appendage on my laptop now.

That said, I was at home last week, and you know at home nothing really happens :P Except this week I was brave and finally forced myself to do some shopping, which, unlike 99.9% of girls, I hate. It's a tiring chore, and my inertia against it is so immense that I hadn't bought any summer clothes at all in the last 2-3 years and the only additions in my wardrobe were a couple someone else had brought. And I'd forced my mother with all the protest over her "choice" to not get anything for me on her own. Which is why on Thursday, after dilly-dallying the entire summer, I had everything from shoes to bag to clothes to sun-block on a shopping list, and I forced myself to go through most of it with Mom's help. Eesh.

Have been wanting to write for a couple of days, but somehow circumstances haven't been exactly conducive. Yesterday Ma fell ill and was hospitalized for the night. I had just reached IIT an hour before Dad called and asked me to come, and it was a scary one hour when I wasn't sure what all was wrong, Dad's phone wasn't reachable and the confused hospital authorities made me run for 15 minutes across the hospital from ICU to wards to labs. The staff there is half crazy, I swear ,divided into three clear groups of the Sardarnis , the south Indian nurses and people who are mute. Thankfully mom is all right and home now and tests are normal too, so nothing to worry any more, but for some time I know how scared I was beneath my calm and positive exterior, but nobody will understand that. Thank God it's over. Should be more regular now on in blogosphere.

Among other things, I need to find a way to stay occupied, and find some friends, in order to survive the coming semester. And to learn to live in this new room. Suggestions welcome.

The Great Indian Drama: What's the big DEAL about?

Let's face it: there're plenty of disadvantages of omniscient omnipotent media, not the least being the persistence with which it serves you Dirty filthy politics Live 24X7 day in and day out. It's making me sick in the stomach, the open mud-slinging and disgust on display ever since the drama began on the Nuclear Deal. And even though the Govt continues to stay in power for now, the only victor today has been Mayawati, with an enhanced stature and a real chance at becoming India's PM (yuck yuck, I swear)
Recap, early July: The Left withdrew support as the UPA refused to back out of the 1-2-3 agreement with the US and thus began the numbers game. Frankly, the Indian public has come to expect much of what transpired, and so nobody was surprised. If anything, Left leaving was slightly relieving as it brought hopes that maybe, if the Govt survived, some reforms would go ahead without the political compulsions that Left's persistent threats gave rise to. Afterall, the last four years India has hardly seen an Opposition, with the NDA mostly asleep, and the Govt had to keep fighting tooth n nail within itself thanks to the communist parties. So, in the first part of the July, when political scene heated up with BJP finally seeming to wake up a little, SP abandoning its Congress hatred and coming to the Govt's rescue (for a price much greater than renaming Lucknow Airport, I'm sure) and a third front seeming to re-emerge, nobody was shocked.
If at all, I was amused, watching the constant debates on newstertainment channels. Nobody has a clear stand. Nobody really opposed the nuclear deal as well. NDA would have supported it had it been in Govt, for sure, but as Opposition they must prevent UPA staking credit and hence wanted a "re-negotiation" with US. SP swore by Kalam's word on the greatness of the 1-2-3 and made that their excuse of seeking shelter with Congress, though the political realities of UP and the SP's dire need of survival is hidden from none. And BSP launched daily attacks on SP, UPA and everybody under the roof, with Behenji going to the extent of saying that the Nuclear deal is anti-Islamic and that US will attack Iran the day the deal is through. Wtf, I say. The Left stuck to their anti-deal position, and stuck to the pro-China lobby with heavy anti US criticism, meanwhile throwing the "secular-forces-unity" out of the window. And Congress came out as the hapless appeasement messiah running helter-skelter to garner support. All this while media channels had a field day running contests on the guessing game of numbers and analysing every single analysis.
And even all that at the end of the day failed to shock the common Indian man, mere spectator in the deals behind the Deal. But the last two days, just watching Lok Sabha proceedings on TV fills me with a deep sense of shame. So much, that I really hope we stop calling our inter and intra college debates as Parliamentary debates, because the Parliamentary behavior on display was deeply disgusting. More than once my heart went out to the Speaker, surrounded in no less media controversy of late owing to his CPM origins, for the amount of patience he had to exercise and watch the house make a mess of itself over and over and over again. Are these people fit for representing us internationally?
90% of the time the debate on the house, when someone was allowed to speak and so there was one, concerned everything but the deal. Blames flew in all directions and there was so much mud-slinging that eventually everyone was neck-deep in mud. You could hear everything from Kandahar to 1976 to Pokhran-I to inflation to Rajiv Gandhi's assassination on the floor. When Lalu sounded like he was herding cattle, it ironically felt apt. When Mr. V.K. Malhotra, aspiring Delhi CM (?), went on from the offensive to the abusive, you wanted to cry. There were a few gems, notably Omar Abdullah's and Rahul Gandhi's speech, as well as the seizing of opportunity of North-east and small party MPs to voice regional issues when they had the mike for a change. But fact remains that the PM wasn't even allowed a reply speech at the end in all the mindless yelling and indiscipline.
But the darkest moment of the day came when BJP came up with 1 crore cash inside Parliament alleging bribery. Did the Congress/SP bribe? Did the BJP plant the money as they were losing anyway? I'm sure the media is going to debate this for a long long time, and this is not the last we've heard of all that transpired, but for now, for tonight, I've one question for every single Indian citizen: Do you really care about the answer to that question? Whether this money was given or planted, you know already money's traded all sides by all parties, don't you? You know nobody's clean, not even the holier-than-thou Dr. Manmohan Singh could claim unimpeachable honesty and alienation from what his party does. You know about the trades, whether or not this one is true and whether or not anything is proved. All parties are dirty.Do you really care about one versus another over the money? Whoever gets it, it's our money that should be used to build our houses and fill our stomachs, not of those on-sale commodities they call ministers.
I guess nobody really cares about whose hands on the money, but anyone would be disgusted by the lack of respect for Indian Constitution and Indian Parliament shown today by our leaders. Such a shame for democracy. Such a shame for a "rising superpower" that they want us to believe India is.
I have an appeal too: Waving your head in disgust alone is not going to solve anything. Let us all, every single one of us, people educated and mature enough to understand what's best for the country, let us all vote next elections. Most students I know don't, a majority of India's middle class does not, and I'm not saying this alone will solve all problems, but it could be a start. It could, at least, turn a few collections awry in a few constituencies if all the students turned up to vote. How tough is it to do? After all, it's our future at stake, and I'm sorry to say, it doesn't look good.

@Home

1. People get bored.
2. People wonder about inane things.
3. People realize they've put on so much weight and are yet placed in what must be a paradise for food as compared to hostel so it's impossible to start losing some.:P
4. People sleep. A lot.
   
5. People randomly surf 150 channels on the TV and claim it's idiotic. After watching re-runs of TV programmes they've already watched sometime previously, that is.
   
6. People even start enjoying live Lok Sabha debates. "The govt is in ICU" "Opp leader has amnesia" "We worship Behenji" et al.
   
7. People miss people.
8. People suddenly find the net not-so-fun too. For not-so-long that is. OR when nobody's online.
   
9. People debate the merits and demerits of having a bath when they're stuck 24 hours between 4 walls (and a ceiling) anyway.
   
10. People write crapy posts and crappy comments on others' posts (so much that you need to stop to avoid blog-nikalaa)
    

It's all in the head :)

I've been wanting to write for a few days now, but everyday, something or the other mutes my words. Not much of an excuse, but then, nobody can force anyone to write anything, including yourself. Hence my musing has been confined to talking aloud, which is what this post is going to sound like, most probably.

The summer semester is finally over. I'm thinking of taking a break now for a week before the next semester begins. I don't know how that's gonna feel like, with no friends, little work and the feeling of being terribly old. But then, I guess it's all in the head. When I speak to some of my old friends struggling to come to terms with their new work lives, I realise again, it is all in the head. :)

Thankfully, I'm much more at peace than I was two months ago. Life feels not bad most of the time, and that's a happy event. The feeling of not being listened to has been replaced by the urge of not wanting to talk, and it's liberating because now it doesn't need anyone, and is just happy when someone's there, not too sad when someone isn't. Speaking of which, Doc's going to US tonight(!)...I hope he's back soon enough, but I hope more that he has a blast there (and brings me chocolates :D). Jokes apart, it feels good to have some friends who want to see you sometimes; it feels great to see them once in a while and laugh like crazy. Real good. Touchwood.

Though underneath it all, the feeling of everybody moving on is sorta sunk in. How long can one live in denial anyway. Everybody has a life, their needs, their musts and their wants. Everybody moves on with it, and their relationship with you moves on to a different level as well. It could be indifferent oblivion, it could be a nominal hanging-on, or it could be something equally deep manifested at another level. I don't know why we are so scared of change, especially when it changes what we mean to someone. I know it's an awful feeling to feel unneeded all of a sudden, especially when you need them just the same still, and it's something that one can take forever to come to terms with. Yet, all I can do is hope it's for the good. And that I would know, and be strong enough to act, when the love's fizzed and it's time to move on. I hope it's not all in my head. I hope it's all for the good. :)

I shifted my room yesterday in my hostel, which meant hours of climbing up and down with enormous luggage (how much luggage do I carry!!) that I still haven't completely sifted. After 18 months of living in a dark corner whose darkness I'd fallen in love with so much that most of my waking hours were spent without the tubelight on, this one has a bright window behind my head. I wonder if that is a sign of things to come in the following year. I hope it's good.

I have stumbled on a few blogs of first and second year people recently, and each time something or the other becomes a mirror to the times that were, the excitement that even I was a part of. The archives of this blog help in remembering some of that, but the fun is when my statcounter tells me a number of users, some of them the same juniors, went through the archives just like I did. I hope they don't commit the same mistakes as I did.:)

For whom the heart toils

For insanity I yearn
I crave for freedom from logic
To lose all rationale
To honestly believe in magic
I dream of living in the castle
of day-dreams and reveries
where nothing is truly impossible
No measured adjusted deliveries
I wish to be free to be the crazy me
That hopeless romanticism in life, my plea...

...sigh

The eternal chase

Humse woh pyar yoon kar na sake
Jaise humne pyar un par lutaya tha
Tum par woh aitbar hum na kar sake
Jo tumne humse pyar kar hum par dikhaya tha
Har dil mein chah hai kisi dil ki
Har dil ko chahne waala koi aur hi dil hai
Khuda ke khel khuda hi jaane
Ye dilon ka hisaab bahut hi mushkil hai

That funny feeling

That funny feeling
something tingling inside the stomach
like rats or ants or hippogriffs really small
something popping up in your mind
from nowhere in the middle of nothing
over and over, for no reason
something waking you up from a nap
then disappearing from memory
and leaving you smiling to yourself
over and over, for no reason
That really silly funny feeling
what is it called?

Feminism

Summer 2007, 2008

I never review movies etc on my blog, but have to say Summer 2007 is a good watch. (So is Jaane tu...., while Thoda Pyar.... is sooo cliched and Love Story 2050 is so not watchable:P) The reason I say so for Summer 2007 despite an almost unknown cast and not the best direction in the world is the story and a not bad at all acting by at least Gul Panag and Ashutosh Rana, and even though the movie could do with some editing in the beginning (too many sub plots) and a tighter control on the script that would help develop each of the five main characters properly. In a lot of technical ways and norms of movie-making then, it is just about there, but not quite. Each of the five characters undergo a catharsis and reach a Rang de Basanti types awakening in the end, which albeit a fresher option than miraculous healing and closure of the entire problem, but the characters are so poorly developed you almost miss that catharsis and awakening at the individual level. Most of the rest of the cast looks promising, but again, more like getting there. The title is weird, it so doesn' resonate with the essence of the movie.
But still, I maintain it's a good watch because it's effective so far as its core issue is concerned. It manages to look real and disturbing and does not adhere to stereotypes (one of the villains is a modern, karate-knowing, slick, sexy, English-speaking female police inspector) And the movie almost made me jump and run and want to do something concrete, something helpful.
Ok, enough of this. I'm sure I'm not good at reviewing etc. Moving from summer of 2007 to summer of 2008, that is the here and the now, life is getting, or at least, feeling more pleasant lately, as I said in the last post. At least as much as it could get in boring vacations. It's the time of the year when my life is entirely dictated by the inertia of rest. I don't do anything hence I can't hence I don't. :P :P

But I like the nothingness sometimes, anyway. The rains, the pakoras, the slow pace of work, the gossip, the movies, the walks, the games. Not thinking is cool, I say. Very cool. :D

Seeing is believing

What we see depends largely on where we see it from.
Some of the events, conversations and feelings in the past few days have repeatedly brought back the above sentence to my mind. It gives me hope when things look ugly and skewed, because I can blame it on my vision and perspective, both correctable. It also reminds me that most of the joys, comforts and conveniences are illusory too. All of us are living at least partially in denial. As Calvin would have put it though, we are just selective about the reality we accept. :) :)

After a good weekend, full of my favorite people and amazing sports (probably the best tennis match I've seen) and good weather, I hope the coming days freshen up my lazy rotting mind and give me some crazy stuff to do.

Some days back I was wondering if I should blog anymore for I'd practically written everything I knew and felt and saw and had to say and couldn't think of a post. Now, reading that line again, I know I can write, because I'd stand at a different place and see something different. :)

Of Martian men and women from Venus.

This one's a purely जनहित में जारी (Issued in Public Interest) post marked by a special guest (re)appearance of LoveGuru, one that I suppose everybody can use for today I'm going to teach you something that everybody should know to make life a little simpler। A lot of people learn this the hard way, anyway, but people, to put in simple terms, men and women have different genetic hardwiring in their brains, and hence just like hundreds of other things, they also communicate differently.

Now everybody knows that women have a much larger intrinsic need to communicate that men, their brains have bigger lockers marked for communication and that women are weird. That said, what's true is they also interpret and process the same words and sentences differently than men. Men mean a lot of what they say literally, and are naturally inclined to process information like that. Their brain is hardwired to work in logical flows only (the correctness of which maybe debatable occasionally, but whatever). Women on the other hand go by feeling the words a lot lot more than meaning them. 99% of the times, you cannot interpret it literally, especially all the poetic blanket nevers, nothings, and always.
Half the arguments in this world happen because of communication gaps like that. The woman wants to be made to feel loved n special for some minutes, or something like that and doesn't get it, n says, you never love me, or you never have time for me, or you never take me out. The man counters with hundreds of examples that counter such an obviously baseless lie, and the moment is doomed. The man says I love you as a matter of fact, it doesnt sound to her as he meant it, n she thinks now he's trying to distance away from me/hiding something/doesn't want to talk to me. Catastrophe. The man says I'm busy now and fails to convince her of that. She is convinced he's ignoring her. Women!

There are endless examples, and a lot of these real avoidable by choosing different words and by investing an extra minute to make yourself explicit and convincing, because after that point women also trust with immense faith. Women can be a little helpful by remembering to believe what's being told sometimes as it is too, though again, not at the cost of their sixth sense.
Men react to most problems by trying to solve them, and often withdrawing within themselves to reach it. Women on the other hand manage to solve half their problems just be talking about it, so they sometimes need to be simply heard to for all their crap without necessary solving them. Give her the patience he needs and she can be equally rational, and faster than men mostly, after that. So if you want to help a women, let her talk, let her feel secure n heard, n then she'd solve it n be fine on her own. If you want to help a man, give him his space and time, don't interpret his actions within that period as withdrawal or lack of attention to you. Just because he needs to focus on himself for sometime does not mean he's stopped loving you. Give him the patience he needs n just let him know you're around.

Ok, enough funde for one lecture. I'd end with a really common one. For example, when men are asked what's wrong and they say nothing, 99% of the times they mean nothing, or something really trivial that they can and would rather handle on their own. On the cntrary, 99% of the times when women say nothing they don't mean it the least. If it were something trivial, she'd easily tell you in as much detail and assure you can take care of it. But nothing is serious, and 60% of the time they'd be willing to tell you what it is if you sincerely asked them 2 or 3 times again. But, because of these huge intrinsic differences men and women interpret each other differently. Women think the man's nothing is something serious, and asks him again and again, completely irritating him and often resulting in "Leave me alone" "You don't trust me" kinda situations. Similarly, men take the nothing literally and do not pursue the topic, and she gets hurt feeling uncared and unlistened blah blah.

How complicated, right. But just knowing and understanding this makes people more patient and avoids misunderstandings sometimes. So, S, here the lecture ends. Hope it was what yu asked for.

Ciao.

~LoveGuru

The night time.

I didn't know this, one of the side-effects of listening too much instrumental music is that you start thinking on the rhythm. Here, look at how words ruin a great song, if you can make out which:

So awake in the night time
Wandering about
I want to ask what
I'm doing around
I want to know why
I wouldn't sleep
I want to know what
I want to keep
Lost in the night time
Looking for a plan
I want to want
and I want to know I can

Will I ever reach where
I really wanna go
Just what place is that
will I ever know
Reaching out in the darkness
Will you understand?
I just want to want
and I want to know I can.

More or less, to think about in spare time only

More or less, everybody has someone who thinks they are the best. More or less, everybody has a testimonial that says they are sweet, kind, helpful, wonderful, gem of a person. More or less, everybody loves, and is loved. Yet, people are different. Even those who believe everyone is basically a good person does not really believe it when they interact with everybody around them. Some are good, some are weird, some are adorable, some are worth ignoring and some are absolute selfish devils. The rest have nothing in them to avoid indifference. To everyone, someone is one of these. Does that eventually make everyone the same, or everyone unique? Or both?

More or less, everyone is trying to get somewhere. Or waiting while everything else around them changes so that they are automatically transported elsewhere. And passively being changed by the gradients of the environment. And actively trying to find themselves and changing for (what they think) the better. Isn't it possible, that in the craziness of all this motion, everything stays randomly distributed, effectively at steady state, effectively remaining the same all the time? Mathematically that would be a good model. Physically, it makes everything so pointless. More or less. But still, despite bursting with examples and arguments to prove otherwise to me, just sit and imagine for a minute a real model like that, or better, don't apply it to what I said...apply it to any plausible system, randomly distributed events in a pseudo steady state that keeps afloat the universe... then tell me what would happen if one of the factors that together create the randomness consciously stops acting an does nothing. Or just fails.

Are we, each one of us, not a factor?