Is music the closest I can get to being myself?

Seems like it. We all learn a lot from our surroundings, but those lessons are not all there is to us. I've gone through days when the facts suddenly become too much to handle. That important link between gathering facts and processing them seems to be some kind of bottleneck. That's when I need to shut out the physical world. I invariably resort to music, if not meditation. Sometimes both.

Now I'm trying to see if I'm just pleasing my auditory senses here, or does the relaxation happen because of some other factor. True, some good sounds that hold you in rapt attention can take your mind off the reality you just faced. So temporarily, your energies are devoted to something pleasant. Which means, there was something about the real world that made you tired, de-energized, and there's something about some well harmonized sounds, that
1) ease out your tiredness and relax those constricted muscles
2) make you hit the roof with excitement ( if the song's one of THOSE types)

The second part happens when there's visible gaining of energy ... somewhere some resource is being unleashed in your body and as you get absorbed in the rhythm, melody ( or whatever it is you look for in a song)... and as the intensity of the song picks up, you feel your energies returning full strength, and these keep increasing till the end of the song, leaving you on a high.

This intensity of the song, causes your own positive energies to come out and spread themselves on you. Leave the energy transactions for now. Let's look at the song. The song is a collaborative effort of a few people who got together and established contact with their inner energies and instincts and expressed whatever they felt then. It could've been their rational minds exploring a technique or a scale, or it could've been their feelings taking them up and down the scale. Either way, their rational mind or their emotions, contact with something inside has to be established before their skill can express it. Their skill can only express it.

So when I listen to bands that take off on lovely riffs or ones like Shakti, where each person is spontaneously exploring their domain within the framework of the song, I feel that my reaching a high has as much to do with seeing this contact they've established with their inner selves, as with appreciating their skillfulness.

I don't know yet, but on some level, my inner peace gets unleashed, the frown vanishes, the set jaw relaxes, the gaze softens...
If the song's the types the build up on intensity instead of just soothing its way till the end, then I can actually feel my toes and fingers bubbling with energy towards the end. After these visible energy changes, I feel like I just shrugged off those silly inane worries.
More importantly, when I get around to the keyboard to play, I can visibly feel this connection happening. When I listen to a classical piece, I can see the singer so much in contact with the feel of the raaga, and yet retaining judgement to express skill within it's framework. Maybe it's not just music. Maybe it's directly rejuvenating to see anyone establish a moment's connection. Music is more instantaneous to me because I posses some basic skill. But I'd be wrong if I tried to limit all my happy moments to music.

It may be a piece of art, it may be a deed of kindness, or it may be a program that worked after you spent all your energy on it trying to make it work, or just something you cooked that turned out well. It's all a matter of taking a step backwards for just a second, and savouring that moment. The very next moment, you're already smiling.

Music, art, work, anything... they're all reflective of human thinking, and human transcendance. It's the transcendance that moves you, reaches out to you. It's upto you to take a moment off to step aside and shake hands with it.

I wonder as I wander .. right under the sky..

Don't ask me why that song came to my mind. I can't even remember the second line. Just another one of those "apt" sounding thoughts that cross your mind when you start typing. Why apt? Well because curiously, today I'm back in full circle at this point. Don't know exactly where on the sine wave this point comes, but I've been here before. On a different instant of time maybe, but the magnitude of this sinewave is something I've seen before repeatedly. Can't say it's close to the crest. And I've learnt that nothing is rock bottom. But this surely figures somewhere on the lower half of the sine curve.

What actually happened was this Missed-it-by-just-that-much routine again. I've been there before, and have even seen my future dangle by a silken thread all because of this repeating pattern. Today again I missed going to DHL by a cat's whisker. I needed to take some printouts, to send them out, and I manage to print 5 pages out of 6, when there's a power failure. My printer isn't hooked up to the UPS, so it won't work even if the UPS gives me a 15-minute back-up. Also, I'm printing the application off the internet, and I get automatically disconnected from the internet when there's a power failure.There's also my SoP to be printed out. Now if I'd got 10 minutes more, I'd have finished my online business with the printer, reached DHL hours before 6:30 (hmph!) and sent off the packet.

But that was not to be. No big deal really, I can always send the packet tomorrow, I'm well within the deadline to be able to afford a lot more delay and still be comfortably in. Just this moment's deja-vu that I'm trying not to notice. Just telling myself it's a dumb power failure we're talking about. That I must really stop trying to guiltily trace this back to the 10 minutes when I was just listening to a song and doing nothing else, before I got to work on the comp. This whole thing of tracing back the root cause of such close brushes leaves me going around in circles. Because I've seen people who really go easy on themselves get by with what seems to be a stroke of luck, which they've themselves confessed to. In my case, forget stroke of luck, I miss things that I've slogged towards, by such a small margin, it's almost apalling.

Either I'm still missing the lesson. Or there isn't any.

Help

No one can deny not having taken it, or having given it. Yet, all too often, we take/give help without being aware that our deed falls under this category. In fact, what seems to be a memory of the distant past, suddenly turns into a form of help, suddenly turns into a broomstick :) that you can sweep out old corners with. Suddenly an old corner of your mind's all

• clean and neat, tidied up,
• sorted out,
• and even brightened up with a nice flower.

To put it in more concrete words, at the risk of spoiling the beauty of it all, there was a time when I didn't understand why someone behaved in a particular way. The memories I have of those days were a confused lot. I didn't know what to label each memory as. So had put all those in a box labelled To Be Sorted - Further decisions pending till box is sorted out.
Which basically means that I'd been refusing to make any judgements about that person, or the acts, or the experience I had, till I reach the root cause of the behavior. I was quite prepared not to ever understand this, and to carry the box with me to my grave. Only wanted that I don't decide anything when I don't know the other side of the story. Put more simply, I gave that person the benefit of doubt in all future transactions we'd ever have between us. Total non-judgement.

That has helped preserve cordiality, because my general affection for everyone I meet is usually enough to prevent any ice from forming. If the air starts to nip, then it's mostly because in some corner of my mind, I'd have decided to LET IT nip.

Now recently, an old thought about that person just sprang up in my mind, all by itself. And as is my habit, I started out trying to follow that thought and picking up old pieces of thread and unravelling the knot. I reached my answers about WHY that person behaved that way. Now all of a sudden, I'm glad I didn't judge that person at that time, and didn't decide to sever all ties (as I was honestly tempted to do).
I can't blame myself for wanting to opt out of the relationship then, because things did seem hurtful at the surface. It would have been acceptable to do that, given that this person didn't seem the least bit interested in clearing up the air, let alone feel bad for the harm done.

But now when answers are clear to me, I'm glad I didn't raise those questions then.

For I see the answers in better light now. And no matter how unpleasant it all seemed then, going through that has made me more insightful. I even find myself wishing I'd had such insights then, so I could actually help that person see things in better light, instead of spending time sweeping my own feelings of hurt under the carpet. There would've been no hurt, then. Right now, I see that this person hasn't moved on from that frame of mind, even so many years down the line. Just wish I hadn't let my feelings of hurt ride above my affection. Then I'd have been able to help the situation ( and that person), just like how the situation's helped me understand some fundamental things right now. Here's to a brightened up corner.

A different world

Attended the first day of a 3-day International Telemedicine conference held in Bangalore. I knew that there wasn't a lot in it for DSP engineers, but the DSP is what makes the whole thing possible, so I went just to see how it's shaping up in our country. Glad I did, because not only do I have a larger picture of things now, I also lived for a few hours in a completely different world.

There were hardly any non-doctors present there. The event was mainly to popularize the far reaching effects of technology with the Hospital Administrators. Telemedicine started 2-3 years back in India, with ISRO chipping in with satellite bandwidth to help move the huge medical data of the patient to the superspecialist doctor sitting smug in his air-conditioned office in a city. The whole reason why Telemedicine is important in India, is because the population is largely rural-centric, and specialization and then super-specialization is almost completely urban centric. Something has to be done to bridge the gap.

So the Telemedicine can be used to
1) Reduce the influx of rural residents to urban hospitals for specialized treatment, by providing them with timely advice through a video conference
2) Reach urban (often international) expertise to rural people. It's not like they don't NEED super-specialized care, just because it doesn't exist in those regions.
3) Save time, money, lives. Not in that order.

At the end of the plenary sessions, I was seized by this huge urge to go grab the mike and give everyone at ISRO and the IT ministry a piece of my mind. Since there were a lot of doctors sitting there, whose time I didn't want to waste ( the conference was held mainly to lead them by the finger and help them use telemedicine, so they'll embrace the change - engineers would get bored in 5 mins flat), I didn't shout. ( Ok.. there were other reasons too...)

But though the technology is evolving, what needs to be worked out is a pliable business model for this whole thing. Software and hardware vendors are ready with telemedicine software and equipment. But all too often, for business interests, their softwares don't speak the same language to each other. All telemedicine equipment and software MUST be made interoperable, and for that, you need to define standards and have them confirm to that. There should be this national grid, where any doc anywhere , any chain of hospitals ( you thought hospitals were just about saving lives? they're business too, for those who see them that way.) should be able to plug in to the national resource anytime and either

1) do his bit towards a patient, or
2) gain some knowledge at any point. ( Video conferencing is a great way to teach specialized things or rare cases to docs across the globe. The conference gave examples of how sharing of rare experiences by old docs has saved many a life).
Now the Ministry of Information Technology has defined standards, but they're largely just following footsteps.

So interoperability is a huge factor that needs to be outlined, guidelined and enforced.

The main thing is that business models of this entire concept are yet to be worked out. There should be a pre-implementation phase, where the needs and resources are assessed, then the implementation, then a post-implementation phase, where there's a hand-holding period and then the software firms gradually ease themselves out of the set-up, providing back up support only after that. The sad thing is, while frameworks for this noble venture are still being worked out, we have medico-legal implications already turning up . Framing laws takes a lot of time. We'll be behind the revolution's curve if we don't prioritize soon. What NEEDS to be done at this point is to set up a stringent skeletal framework for technical concurrence and GET started. Once the benefits reach, other developments can be phased out.

Other than that, it's the fact that ISRO is largely importing technology, that saddened me. I have quite a few friends abroad, who're willing to give up their rich jobs and come down to India to break new ground, but forget financial lure, the Govt's enterprise is so full of dogmatic old people that they're not even willing to hear anyone out. I met a few electronics engineers at the conference, who'd come from some company ( Infinera.. something... darn.. they all sound so like each other...) that'd been roped in to set up the video conferencing equipment, and these guys , working for the last few days with ISRO, say that they've seen what the ISRO guys do.. the usual working day at ISRO is full of breaks, at least 3 half-hour coffee breaks, 1 hour lunch breaks... these poor (outsiders) engineers took 4 days to do a 2 -days job because everyone at ISRO starts packing up by 4:45 and leaves by 5. These engineers are a year younger to me, and were willing to stay up till 10 to do their work.

Hence the brain drain. We'd all heard about it, but to see it happen and feel those vibes of stagnation that the 50-60 year old smug emplyees give out... that's something else. They pat themselves on the shoulder after having brought in what's already in practice elsewhere. What happened to the concept of breaking new ground, sitting here on home turf? It's another sad thing that Macaulay's education system was designed to turn out clerks for the British to use, and still hasn't evolved enough to get the individual to think on his feet. It's still producing people in hordes, only, they're not clerks, they're engineers. What's the big idea putting inexperienced junior teachers to teach us when we step into our branch? Most of these didn't manage to land a job in a software firm.. and are hence teaching. Not like love of teaching is their reason to be there. Our very basics are hollow, and if anyone managed to get the basics right, then he was swimming upstream against the thousands that come out everyyear, with high percentages to show and nothing else of any consequence.

From what I hear now VTU's scrapped the mini project in 6th sem, and has introduced 5 subjects in the 8th sem. I don't even want to talk anymore.

Anyway, getting back to the the vibes in the air at the conference.........

Also in the air was this sense of purpose that every doctor inherently carries with him. It felt good to be surrounded by people who do such direct service. I happened to take in the fact that each one of them goes home gratified at the end of a day, no matter how tiring it is. This line of work ensures instant gratification. Kinda like Teaching.
I'm not saying other professions are not worthwhile, each has its place under the sun.. just that we're measuring how direct/instantaneous the gratification is.

After a grand lunch, there was a hands-on training session, in which they were able to accommodate only 230 out of some 350 delegates, to give each one individual attention for a span of 15 mins to teach them how to work the software. I decided not to deprive any young doctor of his training , and never gave in my name for that. But that left me with nothing to do till 4:30, when the Governer comes for the inauguration. I had more important people to meet, so spent the afternoon and much of the evening with my grandmother's younger sister and her husband, who stay nearby with my cousin.
Had nice chat sessions with them, and took in vibes that accomplished, loving, contented and retired grandparents give out. My grandmother's sister happens to be the first woman doctor in the community that I belong to. Found that out yesterday. Watched a rare live concert of MS ... mind blowing!!
Eventful day. But I'm bunking the next day's session. Will go on the last day ( Saturday).

Lotus Feet

There's this song by Shakti, I recently found it when I was looking for something else. It's got to be the best piece I've ever heard. Since I played it yesterday night, it's been playing continuously, it's the only number enqueued, and I must've heard it close to 50 times since yesterday. All of today morning, most of afternoon..

This song moves me to tears. Especially towards the end, when the tabla picks up to a beautiful complexity, in perfect synchrony with the ghatam. All the while the flute carries on with the lilting melody, above these patterns. It's more than lilting melody. It touches something very deep somewhere. There are these songs that make you feel divine presence.This is one of them. No words, only instruments. I don't even know what Raga the song is based on. This one's about how experts can come together to create a masterpiece.

The flute plays continuously in the song, sometimes long mesmerizing notes, other times softly playing around the scale on shorter notes, all the while the tabla and the ghatam show me how deep resounding booms can co-exist with light-hearted taps on the surface. No display of strength. Only of variety. Of patterns. Of synchronicity.

A lot of things I know theoretically, or felt intuitively, but never really felt deeply, swam up to the surface during those wonderful moments. Firstly, this thing about vibes being a universal entity is true. It knows no languages. Physics can't define aura and energy radiance that we each carry, but the ancient texts do. The song has its own vibes, the tree , the dog, the bridge ... they all have their own resonant frequencies. So do people. Some people we resonate best with, are our close friends. Others cancel out our fond beliefs, so we tend to stay away from the likes. The song is based on a raga ( scale) , that's scientifically defined to have a particular effect on the listener. How on EARTH did they classify ragas so accurately? They must've known more about vibes than we can ever fathom ( as long as we hold on to detached scientific objectivity in such things, we'll never fully know - True realization is extremely subjective. No matter how scientifically accurate.)

This song resonated with the core of my being.

When we're mentally connected to the energies around us, we often "see" more than is visible to the 5 senses. It's a beautiful state to be in, events work out, things happen and most importantly, you're at peace even if they don't quite happen your way. Happy to suddenly be in contact with a bigger picture, a larger family. It's one thing to know about such things, it's another story to really experience that for a moment. It's that momentary lump in your throat, when you're with every beat, every note of the song, feeling it in entirety, when you suddenly feel the beauty.

The Centre

There are continuous sinusoids in my life. Everyone's life, I guess. I say sinusoids because it just feels like a natural state of movement. It’s also got to do with the fact that there’s some constant DC that you can hold on to, when in the throes of such ups and downs. The ones that don’t find this positive direct current, are the ones who bob up, get pulled down, bob up again for a breather, get pulled down again, with each wave that comes at them.
The wave appears to be lashing out at you only if you only if you cannot hold your footing against it. As long as you have something to hold on to, you might actually enjoy even the most threatening of waves. In fact, the bigger they are, the more the thrill. As long as you know you’re safe holding on to something.

That DC is what I call as the centre of my being. As long that’s in place, everything else falls in its place. When that gets displaced due to random noise signals that I give too much importance to, then the size, height, depth of the crest or trough suddenly starts to matter, since I’ve lost sight of my foothold.

That centre has to be kept in sight all the time. Do whatever it takes to do so. Keep your body in good health, eat good food, drink healthy stuff, and that’s usually a big step towards keeping the mind in good health too. And that’s what brings you closer to that complete faith.

Ask children at a beach, swinging wildly between their parents’ firm hands. They’ll tell you how the initial excitement, apprehension, the butterflies in the stomach seeing a BIG wave approaching, finally turns into complete exhilaration when the wave crashes down on you. The loving hands grow tighter in grip, leaving you free to do dare-devilry like swinging your legs up.

You love many things at that moment.

The sheer quantity of water that came crashing down on you, your own tingling excitement that grows with every spray of waves.
The hands that hold you tight, so you can have your share of fun trying to kick higher than the wave.
The feeling of victory when the wave’s dissipated itself and is receding back, bowing down to the strength of your support.
The feeling of implicit faith. Never once thinking that you’re all alone against your troubles, or that the grip might grow weak. No Doubts at all, anywhere.

Two choices that we all have. Thrills, apprehensions. Or Faith.

Wakey Wakey!

I woke up to this truth recently. The truth that I belong to this feminine gender and that ( at least lately), it seems to make a difference to the way people interact with me. Some orkut mails, that came my way only because I belong to the " fairer" sex, caused some initial agitation in me. It's sad, the sleaze you attract just because of your gender.Makes you wonder what you did to ask for it. Now I know it's not me, it's them. Anyone'll do. As long as she can read emails and is a girl.

I'd tried to get this gender boundary out of my mind ages back (why? consciously? or unconsciously? I still don't know), when I was transitioning from being a kid to being a teenager. Girl Teenager. To me, even if I was aware of the gender of the person in front of me, it didn't figure in my list of things to look out for. I don't know if I started expecting the same from all who crossed my way, but it didn't matter as long as I knew what I was looking for.

With the wonderful childhood I had, I grew up looking at the world through rose-coloured glasses, and still do. The seamy side of human existence has never held my attention for long, because I'd switch off when the negative vibes got too much to handle. It doesn't do to dwell on vibes. Good or bad. So, once in a while, a coupla close-shaves, or nasty moments while I was out exploring the hills, would jolt me back to reality, and remind me of my physical appearance. And remind me of the fact that I'd been living in this virtual, genderless world. That was far removed from reality. Which is why I found it easy to spend hours a day with anyone at all, at any unearthly hour of the day, and be mindlessly unaware of their gender. That of course, was interpreted by other people ( more aware of physical and gender differences than I was) as me being a flirt, having no qualms about spending hours with people who don't belong to my gender. I don't blame them for their perception. Or the lack of it. Anyways, the misinterpretations led to some explain-yourself sessions, which I did, but still couldn't get my point across. Because they couldn't understand that I don't look at myself as being just a girl. Neither could I explain why so. I gave up trying to explain that gender doesn't figure in my list of priorities, because it was heartening to note that this wasn't all they saw in me.

Now when I enter this "marriagable" age ( ok, this is NOT the primary reason), I am trying to draw lines and segregate where the child ends, adult begins, girl ends, woman begins, I end, others begin,words end, realizations and experiences begin, creator ends, the created begins. These lines are fleeting, ephemeral, flashing at me from somewhere, and when I reach there, they playfully flash from somewhere else. The last year has been successfully utilized in drawing a skeleton sketch, when this whole game of self-realization began, but there's still plenty of no-man's land. I think I need to label flags and plant them there, draw clearly defined lines, before I agree to things like marriage. It seems like such a far-away thought, even at the "ripe" age of 24

It's almost as if I'm not the one being spoken of.

Sound of Silence

Simon and Garfunkel... listening to that song after a long time. It seems like my period of isolation is about to end. Self imposed to an extent, but largely driven by events that kept unfolding throughout the year. It's not the done thing, it's not honourable to stay at home when you're supposed to be earning, blah blah. But since I'd done my share of earning, and even paid for my B.E expenses partly, my parents know I'm not the types to splurge on myself even if I want to, when there are education loans waiting to be paid back. They have faith that I have my priorities in order. Which is why, they perfectly accepted, even if they didn't understand, when I didn't follow the crowd to go earn my moolah after the initial few months ( just a taste of financial independance to see what it feels like). I felt the need for independance on other levels though. Financial independance can happen anytime I wish. But if I don't break free of limitations that I have identified on other more important levels, then I might just end up spending my life circumscribed by them. Because personal space and time is limited once you go out into the world. Routine numbs a lot. Enhances all others.

I needed to find myself after I came out of the bandwagon ( read: B.E). I needed to do that more than I needed to earn, splurge, etc. But it wasn't a conscious decision to stay at home. That, just happened. And because of circumstances far beyond my control. So far beyond my control that it borders on the ridiculous. But I've known more impossible circumstances in my B.E, so this was't so hard to believe for me. To the outsider, it might not make sense at all. But while I was at home, it was a conscious decision not to spend much time hanging out with my different groups of friends. Though I got to know a lot of people very well, I spent more time just being myself, to find out what the core of my being is made up of. To see whether I really have any likes/dislikes (not influenced by my sun-sign or upbringing) in life.

Turns out that I don't.

All things I discover about myself seem to have something to do either with my Zodiac Sign ( there it comes.... tadaaaa!) or with my upbringing's influence. I've spent a lot of time on pattern recognition, last year. Not like I was in the Thinking man's pose, waiting for insights to dawn on me, but all this happened while I went about my daily business, learning what I had to, unlearning most others. But invariably, almost everything that I do or don't do in my daily life, is a shadow of some element of someone's personality, or an element of my Zodiac. The other signs have it easy, they have fixed routes to follow to a large extent. But the piscean is always mutable. The biggest truth about me that I've discovered is that I can be anything. It's SO easy for me to transform my thinking according to that of who ever's next to me, or talking to me.

Once the transformation is done, I can almost predict what they're going to say next. And after they say what they have to, I can feel the energies in their mind after they've said so. All this is stuff that'll land me in NIMHANS if my parents get to hear of it. To others who don't care, this'll be the last sign they needed to classify me as insane. But to me it's the greatest truth. From the beggar on the street who pulls my sleeve, to the don't-know-what-to-do-with-so-much-wealth types I saw in Hyderabad, to the brain-dead, soul-empty software engineer I met on the train to mysore, to the lovely vibes that my uncle and aunty in mysore give out. I can feel it all. More importantly, it becomes a part of me while I'm with them. I carry those vibes home with me. I don't want to do that. But I've been doing so all my life without realizing it. I am overstocked with vibes right now.

Which explains the occasional stack overflow in my mind and the consequent hang up, because all resources are being utilized by some infinitely recursive pointless operation. That's when I switch off, not consciously intending to. That's when I lose awareness of what's happening around me. There're only two stages.
1) I'm in your shoes, and have understood why you walk like that, and inadvertantly have started walking like you.
2) My mind's switched off.

I needed all of last year to find an in-between state, where I'm not being someone or something. I realize that as the higher purpose behind strange quirks of fate making those interviews not happen ( you have to be super dumb not to get thru that kinda nonsense), dragging on a simple passport process for some 3 months, and scores of others that I don't care about anymore, to list down.

While there were colours of upbringing and circumstances and people being mixed in my palette, there was also a parallel stack building up. That of experience. This, along with some basic principles that I have, are the basic cornerstones of any decision I've ever taken in my life. The experience stack is culled from other stacks ( MoS - Moral of the Story Stack, Feel of the Story Stack, Cause of the Story Stack) which stored the vibes. I needed to take stock last year.

The progress : Meditation classes happened, I meditated, battled all the negativity that was being thrown up ( and still is), learnt to live with cycles of complete withdrawal and complete exuberance alike. With cycles of extreme negativity and peaceful contentment alike. I needed to be alone for this state of mind to happen. I now know what part of me takes decisions, is influenced by what factors and why so. I have also realized that some higher force had ordained for this one year gap to happen. It would've happened in the middle of my B.E, had my prayers not caused a miracle. Sounds like too much to take, I know, but those who know what happened agree that what happened was far beyond usual expectations. But since I managed to avert what seemed like a crisis ( losing a year in B.E is a deep stigmatic thing here, no matter what the explanation is), I realize that I'd only succeeded in post-poning it. I needed this year to find out if I even exist as an individual. I had to sort out the different colours mixed in my palette and arrive at my shade.

Turns out my shade IS pure white. All colours mixed. I can be anything, anytime. My identity IS that my identity can be anything. I can feel for, understand, carry home a part of everyone I meet. Maybe I should stop tracing reflections of everyone in my personality and just BE.

But it's been good to have established contact with my inner yardstick and see how it works.
It's been good to have seen different levels of quality in me, coming out as a reflection of my state of mind at particular instants.

It's time to look at more tangible things now.

The Establishment

Or the importance of it.

How many times have I wondered what'll happen if judgementalism was totally dispensed with....
What would we see around us if no one belonged to any of the classifications we've all been taught to make? How much time would we save if we didn't try to fit every person into a box whose dimensions have been mostly handed down to us? What is the necessity to see people as this or that? Why not see them as quantized units of XYZ, where xyz is MY yardstick? Now, I don't want everything under the sun to be described w.r.t its relationship to me ( to partly quote Dogbert). I too am as much a part of this game as the next blade of grass is, and even if I have my own yardstick, I still have to guage prudently.

Firstly, there'll be as many yardsticks are there are heads. ( 2 for Siamese twins). And all those yardsticks will further be subjected to judgement on count of how accurately each one defines people. This Big Yardstick that judges the smaller ones, is nothing but our daily life. Our deeds, their effects, their timeliness et al, and how those affect the quality of life we lead, on levels that matter to us - that's the only proof we each have, to see if our judgements have been accurate. This is the only true reflection of whether our perception and consequent judgements ( our respective yardsticks) have been accurate or not. The establishment known as human civilization, chronicles every second of existence, but largely in the form of things done, or not done. The human spirit by itself, has to be communicated to the external world, through actions. No one would know what a beautiful mind Einstein had, if he hadn't taken the trouble to get his work published. It is ultimately what you do that counts, even if what you think is great. Since perception of man is largely limited to the inputs the 5 senses give the mind, one has to bring out visible results before one becomes accepted and revered, or castigated and ostacrised. Till such a stage where man becomes receptive to inputs from sources other than his 5 senses, we'll all have to "show" our spirit through work, words, art, music, and other ways that are percievable.

The Establishment ( read : world as percieved by the 5 senses) is one's only method of giving meaning to the beauty in one's mind. The most beautiful ideas a potter has are of little use unless he dirties his hands to give shape to them. In his daily life. So to that extent, the Establishment is important, and to that extent, judgemental skills are important. His individual yardstick and how he measures the worth of his creativity (or anything else) is of no importance to anyone, unless they can see that. It's all about the utility quotient. We all have to "establish" our spirit's "worth", because the most common yardstick that societies have, is that of usefulness.

But having individual scales of measurements, or individual yardsticks, still only means that we now slot people into boxes that we've ourselves determined the dimensions of. The dimensions haven't been handed down to us. But we're still judging.

Why DO we make judgements about things at all? Ok, looks like a basic need, because to dig a flower bed, you first gotta call a spade, a spade. No work will ever get done if there wasn't constant judgement, decision making, error control, feedback going on.


When we make judgements, we're just technically classifying. When we make decisions based on these judgements, we need to think with more than just the rational mind. When most of our decisions are based almost entirely on the rational judgements we make, then we fail to take into account our own active thinking ( influenced and limited only by the principles we've built into our lives). Active thinking forms a part of other factors that influence decisions ( other factors like intuitive judgement - again, not pre-conditioned intuition, but a more genuine element of our being).
So most decisions we take ( which define the way we live our lives ) do not always depend on rational slotting/classification.

But then how many of us have drawn the line between making judgements and living by them?


We forget that not all flowers grew on the same soil, not all of them need the same kind of manure, and not all of them got the kinda manure they needed. We don't even know what colour they were supposed to be, because who knows what colours their dad and mom each had? Who knows which wind carried what kind of pollen grain and dumped it on what?

If it was inanimate objects like spades and shovels, anyone's sense of judgement would work, since there's no complex thinking that the spade does. As long as it subscribes to a broadly defined shape and size, it'll work as a spade. When it comes to people, the same sense of judgement doesn't quite work. You can look at a pink flower and say this one was born out of a white and red combination. Botanists and Genetic Engineers can only tell you that these genes are dominant and those genes are recessive. And after extensive research, spanning several generations back, they MIGHT be able to tell you why such traits became dominant/recessive. But lets face facts. The recursion never ends.

Or you can accept the fact that the the flower's pink, and enjoy that colour for a second and move on.

Alternately,if you find beauty in the fact that such brilliant combinations of genes exist in a flower, then its colour isn't as beautiful to you as the intricacies are.

It's a sense of beauty that we all seek. Not just the colour, not just the technical intricacies.

Captain Planet

Lately there's been lots of light around me, and I've managed to trace back certain tangled threads. Most battles I fight on a daily basis, emanate from a single source. Now when the realization dawned on me, my intellect would've probably ROTFL, but since it now knows better than to speak all the time, it maintained silence while the truth sunk in. The truth is, I'm fighting my Zodiac sign. Almost all the time. I know, borders on the crazy, but it's been the biggest truth of my life and I just realised it NOW .

Yeah.. yea... my intellect too had that half-raised-eyebrow look about it, but facts are facts.

Ok, to start with, I'm a piscean, and the symbol , the twin fish swimming in the opposite directions, symbolise my entire life. The symbol represents the choice I've always had. Success was always upstream and delusion was always an easier option, waiting to engulf the ones who took the easier way out and travelled downstream. Uptill recently, I didn't even accept that I was under a lot of delusions... my intellect was too profound to accept that. It's only now, after I've rediscovered life that's above and beyond rationality and emotions, that I see the truth. And the delusions.

The other thing is, I've never been blessed with bountiful energy . Just about had enough to make it through. Now I know that physical energy is never sufficient to carry you upstream if your mind isn't guiding it.

a) If your mind's is busy soaking up the serenity of calm waters, or the sublime expressions of man's thought processes, the arts, the sciences, the wonders in the smallest of things, or the insignificance of the seemingly great......... then you're not deluding yourself for just that instant. But you keep trying to reach that happy moment again and again, consciously, then you're deluding yourself if you think you'll be happy with just that. Because such wonderful moments happen often during childhood, but as responsibilities increase, the mind that seeks to please itself even in adulthood, must make sure it's not at the risk of being irresponsible in the real world.

b) On the other hand, if the mind's soaking up the misery ( it'll be stupid to deny it's existance in the real world ) then the body can't do much if the mind's spending precious energy feeling utterly miserable at what's happening around it. If my feet are firmly on the ground right now, I have to thank my family for this. They introduced me to the fact that there's nothing you can't move on from. But they can't fight my zodiac battles for me. When I get overwhelmed, ( sheer beauty, sheer misery, anything), I have to find my feet on the ground. Before I get swept off my feet by such brewing cyclones. Not that other zodiac signs are not sensitive to their surroundings. But not as deeply as a piscean, and certainly are not the types to give it the amount of importance that pisceans do. What's a thundering hailstorm in my head, is a small ripple in the pool for the steady taurean, or the earthy capricorn. This I say out of experience. The bull and the goat have their foot steady on the ground. My battles are mere trifle to those.

But yes, we all have our mountains to climb, and of all the signs in the zodiac, it is the fish alone that gasps without water. All others can manage without water with no trouble at all. At least no visible trouble. Even the other water signs are amphibian. I wouldnt be typing in all this if I hadn't realised them one by one.



It is this line between reality and the unreal that I've never been able to draw, and going by what descriptions of my sunsign say, it's unlikely that I'll be able to. Pisceans, the twin fish, live between two worlds. While for most others who live in two worlds, one world is that of truth, the other world is that of false illusory reflections, for the piscean, the worlds are that of happiness and sorrow. For them, truth , reality, false impressions and illusions have evenly distributed themselves among these two worlds. Whatever it may be, ( truth, illusion, bare naked truth, multilayered illusion... anything..) it's either beautiful and happy, or it's really sad.

Sounds like factual interpretation and Logic have no place in a piscean's life huh? They do, but only in the brain. Which is mostly recessive compared to the heart, which is loud, strong and binary. Happy or sad. This is the reason why the pisceans soak up vibes around them like a sponge, and don't even realise this. And continue to get affected by this till their brain puts its foot down, isolates the weak link and heals it. Or till some flash of realization happens in its own time and space, and the piscean then either gets to see the whole truth (the thorns that surround the rose, or the rose that blooms in the thorns). This flash of realization happens in that one moment of connectivity, when I've gone too deep into my shell, to either escape the intense beauty or the immeasurable sorrow.

There's this one thing I read, on some astrology.com or whatever.. that recently corroborated all this intuitive realization.

You'll Be a Pisces Too

By the end of February, Mercury, Uranus, Venus and the Sun will all be residing in dreamy Pisces, the last sign of the zodiac. Pisces represents the end of a cycle and inspires the preparation for new beginnings (spring cleaning, anyone?). Ruler of the subconscious (and, therefore, dreams), it is also the most sensitive and spiritual sign. Pisces folk are much more aware of all that goes on around them -- soaking it up like a sponge -- and much of what they experience goes straight to their subconscious minds. Now, with four planets shining their spotlights on the sign, we'll all be feeling like a Pisces -- from preparing for fresh starts to becoming more attuned to our inner-selves.

But what rules at the end of the day is above logic and emotion, above real and unreal, and above happiness and sorrow. What keeps everyone going is, their contact with their intuitive selves. That's probably what drives the world, despite it's not-so-tangible presence. We come in contact with a moment of quality intuitively, when we see beyond the logical and the poignant. It is how much contact I have with my instincts, that determine the pace of my growth. Growth? On which level? Here's the dough... evolution is uni-dimensional.Though Bi-directional. It's either upwards or downwards.Uni-dimensional. Depends only on the amount of quality. Which in turn is a universal entity. Doesn't depend on anyone's yardstick or vocabulary. Its level in you depends on daily acts. That's where the real world comes in. For me.

Hyderabad - I

I have to agree, little trip changes your perspective for a little while, and when you get back, you view things differently. Noticed a lot of things this time, without intending to.

Firstly, the city has a feel of ostentatiousness about it. I don't know if the people there're so used to being showy that they don't notice that the trees planted all along the length of the road don't quite appreciate being strapped up with lights that grow pretty hot when they're left on all night. Someone places a burning light on your wrist, the cells below the light are bound to lose their functionality at higher temperatures. And at night, when all the rejuvenation happens in the cells, it has been ordained that such things happen at certain temperatures , which in turn affect the pH levels in the cells. It's disgusting that a coupla broad highways don't even have streetlights on, the only light was that of the glaring headlights of each vehicle and the poor fledgeling trees ( yes, the tree-planting has been a recent venture, so we're not talking of broad, 60 year old tree trunks here). Most of the jewellery in the city is gaudy, not to mention the salwar-kameez cloth... garish, loud, gaudy.. that's also what I can say about city's major landmarks. Except the historic ones. Having been raised in a family that believes simplicity is the highest truth, I wondered what kind of a superficial person I'd have grown up to be, if I attached so much importance to fast cars, and spangling jewellery. I'm really not against extreme wealth, I've seen extremely wealthy people take a pillow and sleep off on the floor during summer afternoons. That's having wealth, and not living for it. Showing it off for egoistic purposes seems to be an important element in Hyd. Wealth seems to be the driving force in that city. That's a sad thing, IMHO.

Secondly, Ramoji film city has only one pure veg restaurant, and after 5 hours in the hot sun, none of us felt like ordering the 15-course veg- meal for 85 rupees. No sharing. That's what a board there said. And between 11:am to 4 pm, only meals is available. Not even a glass of buttermilk that we'd had there just 3 hours back. The meal was an unlimited thing, but god, at 2 in the afternoon, all we wanted was some curd rice, and there's no hotel within 4 kilometers that offers it. My dad had a stomach upset the day before, and despite being a diabetic, had lived on buttermilk the entire day. His sugar levels would drop if he didnt' have any solid food soon, and there's NO PLACE that offers him curdrice. We finally had food at a place that makes both veg and non-veg, the only thing we could have being this spicy, oily north Indian dish ( that grease kept coming up our throats thru evening...yuck!!) with some Roti. Dad stuck to buttermilk again, and actually had a chocolate to keep the sugar levels from dipping (Ramoji "personnel" check your bags at the entrance to prevent you from carrying food inside. Not even a packet of biscuits for diabetics. Wretched, I'd say). We decided enough is enough, we were all terribly angry at how they make use of people's desperation to eat at a pure veg restaurant. I understand beer is cheaper than water in France and Germany, and that in Brazil, even the popcorn is laced with pork.. but to deny vegetarians in a country like India, where vegetarianism is so deeply revered by the vegetarians here............. you gotta be really measly and money-minded. For god's sake, Veggies here are not "into" vegetarianism for some fad or fancy that's caught the market, but because it's their way of life, and because its benefits are best realized, than spoken of. It's their faith, it's a symbol of their beliefs. For an entry fees of 200 rupees per person, you'd expect some basic ethics. How much money do they need to make? What about old people who're on diet restrictions, and are dogmatically against having food that's made along with non-veg ? Really the pits. If I ever meet that Ramoji, I'd slap him, seriously. Dad was so tired, we called it a day and went home. There wasnt even a bus shelter outside the place, we stood in the sun for half an hour, before a bus came. Dad wasn't willing to take an auto because 3 of us in the family have weak back muscles and the last thing we needed was to have our bones rattled for 2 hours in an auto rickshaw. This place is really far off from the city.

Truly materialistic, that city. On the nicer side, the city's traffic management authorities have taken their job seriously, the roads are well planned, the auto guys are UNBELIEVABLY honest. I was amazed and touched, at the amazing concurrence with which every auto guy asks for exactly 5 Rs. over the meter cost, for 4 people. Bangalore auto guys would have a field day.. we'd have spent hundreds more for the same amount of travel.

I also noticed that my parents have shown some excellent, prudent decision making, without spoiling any fun. Their priorities are in perfect order. We all needed 4 days total getaway to shake off work. Now when we all get back, the pile of work seems small, easy to finish :D
I'd been concentrating too much on not letting it pile, than on doing what's in front of me. The quality suffered a bit because of that. It's important to shake off the water like cute doggies do, to feel light and alert again :D

Hyderabad 2 . The Wonder Woman

Next, a home visit ( cousins) made me thank God for making me see what silent strength is all about. I couldn't survive a minute in a house that asked me to bring 20,000 in cash when I'm 5 months pregnant, because my mother's ill with tuberculosis and she can't help me deliver my first born, as is the tradition, and hence my in-laws will have to do the honours. Hence the 20000 cash, for "expenses". I can swallow the worst of words, but to do it daily, to have a husband who can't stand up to his ULTRA dominating mother, who can't stand up for the truth, who is 6 ft tall, but lacks a spine altogether, to have a mother in law who's only achievement in life has been emotional subjugation....I don't think I'd survive a second. And after looking at my cousin face all this without batting an eyelid, after having seen the free-bird that my cousin was,I wonder if Indian women get their famous emotional strength AFTER the marriage, or in the face of such poisonous atmosphere. We're the same age, and have both seen too much love at home to get used to living under someone's emotional manipulation. This cousin of mine was born and brought up in Delhi, and can't even speak English without sounding like a Delhi-ite. Kannada is out of question. She even dreams in Hindi. I myself know the intonation and accent that Hindi leaves with you is very difficult to get rid of, but this lady's transformed herself from the beautiful , swabhimani girl she was, to this ultra traditional , obedient daughter in law, who can still love her husband despite seeing that behind his suave looks, was a spineless man. To her credit, she's lived a life of jokes and laughter ( her entire family in delhi was known for being the liveliest of the lot), and has still kept her cheer. She has never played cunning games of domination, and her only intention was to make her in-laws see that. The lady's therefore, given up a career, ( her first year MCom exam was 2 months after her wedding, and second year Mcom exam is 2 months after she's delivered a baby boy. She gets up 10 times in the night to feed the 3-month-old baby, leaves her books 30 times in the day to change its daipers, when she's done with the cooking and cleaning, that is. ) , she 's given up her loud laughter, and has proved to her parents in law and husband that she will not get down to playing the one-upmanship games. She's given in to EVERYTHING they've asked for her. She learnt kannada, didn't bother about the accent, and learnt devarageethe and sang at a wedding just to please her mom-in-law. She knew how bad the song sounded because of her hindi accent, but didn't care about making a fool out of herself. She's even gone ahead and concieved despite knowing how her in-laws are. Nevermind the Masters in Commerce. Her mother in law was proudly bragging to us 2 days back that she's transformed my cousin from being this yo city girl to being this sarva-guna-sampann housewife. I looked at my cousin smiling at this, and had tears in my eyes for a second.

When I spoke to her , I told her that her real identity is her dignity and goodness of heart. And that she hasn't let them take away those. They don't even know that her identity is defined not by the clothes she wore, or the language she spoke ( which they've made her change), but by things far more abstract. Intangible. She nodded and said she's glad someone sees the truth.

Her ma-in-law now DOTES on her totally. Takes care of all her needs, tells us what a nice person her daughter in law is, and that she thinks her daughter in law is "GREAT" because she saw the fact that she doesn't have that cunning buddhi in her. Point has been made, cousin, congratulations.

I'm now inclined to believe that when the worst hits you, you somehow get the strength to face it. No amount of mental preparation works , it's all about how you tackle your feelings at the instant it hurts the most. The brain can only say " I told you so", and while its foresight and hindsight may help you chart out a course of action, it largely depends on your goodness of heart to take the right step.

My cousin says her husband was brought up to be mama's boy, and has known no other way of life. Her MIL was brought up seeing these domination games, and has known no other way of life. She says" I have to live my life with them to make them see other levels of existance. No amount of words will do the trick here, it's got to be my actions that'll reach their heart strings. Their minds will become easy to talk to once their feelings for me change. " I just wonder if they know how forgiving my cousin is. I just wonder how they'll live with themselves after they realise that. I wonder how proud her dad's soul must be feeling, knowing what a dignified fighter his youngest daughter is.

This lady's battle is on a totally different level, one that her in-laws can never percieve as a battle zone. She has given up every battle, every second, to win a war. She has even given up her identity to them. All with no hopes of changing things, just knowing that she can't really talk back on the same cheap level, and that the least she can do is hold on to her dignity and inherent good nature. And the fact that she's alone in Hyderabad facing all this for 2 years, never once mentioning about her sorrows to her bed-ridden mother back home in Delhi, or her happily married elder sisters in Bangalore and Delhi, or to her exhausted brother; shows me that this lady's made of iron. She'd cried telling me about this once during her brother's wedding last year, that was when she was 5 months pregnant, and her mother in law had just placed a demand of 20k then, after seeing my cousin's mother lying down and witnessing her son's wedding, and he'd cut down on his wedding expenditures to pay that 20k. I'd seen the resolve in my cousin's eyes through all the tears in our eyes.

It is now, that the mother in law, whose husband doesn't dare to speak out against her and a son brought up to support her even if she's 200% wrong, suddenly finds her son's quit his high paying job at an MNC bank to join another one in Bangalore. The bird hasn't found its voice yet, but has developed wings to fly away. Sometimes, words just don't do. You gotta act to prove your love, you gotta act to attain love. After seeing the lively girl he married transformed to being what she is, all to keep peace at home and maintaining her dignity through all this, the man's moved, no doubt. He's probably never seen such strength in his life. It makes him want to give her all he has. This one's all about winning hearts.

WHADDYA KNOW!!

VACATION TIME!!!!!!!!!!
The first family sight-seeing trip in 10 years. We used to holiday every year before that, but since 1994, we've been only visiting grandparents, or small family get-togethers. Hyderabad, 4 days, starting tomorrow night. This time is about the only time all 4 of us will be around together. Unless I defer my admits.( Talk about counting chickens before they hatch... just about mailed those packets out).

Visited a Universities Fair today. The poor representatives were shouting themselves hoarse and trying not to get mad at people who didn't do their homework before shooting out questions. Sample this : " Do you have anything for Electrical Engineering? "( Yes, I have feelings for it, if that'll do.. ). This was the first question I heard as I walked up to the counter. And that was the student's first question as well. We're all given carefully prepared brochures so we can look up the courses offered by the participating Universities and ask more specific questions.

If stupid questions didn't drive the representatives up the wall, their repetition by every mindless batch that passed by, did. Initially most of them were in jovial spirits, and were speaking of Indian Thali and how odd jobs on the campus can get you enough money to get those. One particularly cheerful old man was animatedly discussing the courses they offered, and happened to read out Transport Management. And paused for a second to see the reaction of the crowd. I knew what was on his mind, and I couldn't help agreeing, he read the half smile on my face. Then he said " God knows this city needs more of you guys taking up that course." But slowly most were losing their sense of humour. I have to hand it to them for holding to their enthsiasm each time they saw a new face. They kept their wide smiles even though their eyes gave them away. But I do wish some of them did THEIR homework. They ought to look up statistics and understand the fact that Electrical engg, Comp Sc. Engg and MBA are the most sought after, compared to the newly budding biotechnology or biochemistry, or the non-existant Transport Management. When the crowd gets too specific, they direct you to the website, give you someone's email address. I understand I can't have them looking at my profile independantly, but they really ought to know the typical scores that form thresholds that we can refer to. And they ought to give us more than general information on the NSF funding grants for these branches at least. Or on the current aid scene in these branches. Almost nothing they say, that I haven;'t already looked up on the website.

One more thing that surprised me was that Purdue University was there too. Why WOULD a University such as Purdue need to even advertise itself through such fairs?????? I understand that University of Alaska, Anchorage needs to make itself known ( Not that it worked, even the most ignorant of the students knew that Alaska is kinda off-limits because of its weather.. so the Lady from Alaska was most of the time sitting by herself, drinking water she didn't need to, while others finished a bottle after shouting themselves hoarse, opened another and couldn't even get away for a second to visit the bathroom! Kept shifting on their feet even while talking to just one person. ) But seriously.. Purdue coming to Linden tours Fair...they must be FLOODED with applications as it is. Why ask for more?

Anyways, I'm off to sleep, have to be up early tomorrow to pick up my brother.

:)

My reasons to blog

Quite often, I understand my piece after I've written it. After the flow's stopped, I take a look, read it fully, or in parts, and then come to know what was in my mind and later, realize why. I'd stopped writing for the last coupla years, for reasons I'd rather not think about. I just never gave the importance it deserves, and slowly it became easier to not write at all. This GRE essay-writing got my writing juices flowing again . It took a 45 minute deadline for me to write about a given topic. And after the essay was over, I proceeded to finish the rest of the test, but the feeling of clogged pores washed clean and the new found feeling of cleanliness remained. This continued with the next few essays that I had to write under similar deadlines. That's when the importance of regular writing dawned on me. It's my breath of fresh air. My 15 minutes of contact with myself. And since I can't store like camels , I gotta take in the fresh air lungful at a time. I am fundamentally against deadlines and restrictions like that, but I have to admit it gets the adrenalin flowing. Left to myself, there's always other important work ( ones with more visible and more instantaneous results) to be done and writing a piece takes a backseat all the time.

Blogging is like my captain's logbook. You cant put it off for later, or you'll lose track. This whole process of " keeping track" has taken precedence over my fundamental apprehensions about being " on-stage". I have spent quite some time in the limelight, but have always hated it. Blogging didn;t happen for months because of this thing of "publishing". But left to myself, every piece I write is scattered in a different word document in a folder, the feeling of continuity vanishes, and the pieces take forever to complete. I keep making changes to them months after I've written it. Because of that, it no longer remains a true reflection of my state of mind when I wrote it first.

Because blogging is an orderly log , I can draw parallels, reminisce and correlate better because of its orderly presentation. It's not the date and time that matters to me, as much as the sequence of my writing. I am not too many posts old, but I've already been able to see patterns repeating. One such pattern is that of perspective. I'm either looking outside or looking inside. Mostly, I correlate outside happenings with my state of mind. But reading my posts, I can at least make out circumstances that cause me to look inside or outside, and my response , and the degree of response to that.

This entire thing is the reason why my blog doesn't have a blog-hits counter, or any other accessories. I'm already bored of unkymoods, though I find it rather cute. Contentwise, since my main aim is to clear the fog in my head through writing, there won't be political discussions on this blog, there won't be reviews of books or music ( though if I feel I've really been affected, I might blog about it - the effect, largely). In fact, there'll be none of the stuff in this blog that I myself find interesting about other blogs that I read. At least not at this stage. However, I am planning to put up a Links and " currently into" Books and Music section, again, for better evaluation of the circumstance. Half an hour a day for blogging is more than enough time for all the introspection I need to do. And it's about as much time as I have. And you don't always have to strike a pose of the thinking (or the blogging) man to get into introspection. It happens even as I hang out the day's wash.

This said, I'd like to post some good news that I got today morning at 6. My cousin's won the State level NTSE scholarship!!! :D I'm gonna loot him today .

Greener Pastures III

This whole "Greener Pastures" business will continue I guess, for as long as I have choices to make, and for as long as writing remains a good option for me to delve beyond the visible. I'm not sure if the choices I've made so far in life are correct or if they'll take me closer to my intended destination. Heck, I'm almost not sure of my destination either. I just about know where not to go, and while that considerably narrows down my options, there's still a lot to choose from. And knowing where not to go never motivated anyone to achieve great things in life. At least not those who really achieved something. The real reason behind working/hoping for spectacular accomplishments is often,
a burning desire to prove oneself ( while it works, this is rather sad, because the motivation arises from insecurity). This reason immediately implies the presence of others, others to whom the point has to be proved. IMHO, anyone who did something to please others can never derive ultimate happiness from the accomplishment. Because primarily, happiness is derived from the approval one gets, in this case. Personally, this can never be my reason, because my heart is often stronger than my head and my work has to be a primary source of joy for me. Not secondary. The best moments I've had are when there's not a single soul around me , when there's only me and my music in this entire world, not afraid to go wrong, not soliciting approvals, no other thought except the ones in my mind about music. I realise that all is bliss only when the child in me was happily experimenting with all sorts of sounds and techniques and somewhere down the line, after the warm-up, the connection happens and the music starts flowing. All techniques, all methods fall in their places and the child is elated at the music, at perfecting a piece, at creating something. The adult in me is happy at the technical accomplishment, happy seeing the fruits of concentrated labour, and happy at having established a small moment of connection. But the truth is, the person who experienced the connection was the child, not the adult.

The adult only processed the data in real time, it was the child who made the data meaningful unconsciously.While the adult purposefully intended to make it meaningful and to decipher the meaning of the connection, the child was the one who got it. The adult was the one who intended to get it but never got it.
I realise now, that when my prayers turn really strong, it's the child talking. My adult came into being when I started understanding the world around me at a tender age. It was created at a time when my mind was transiting from the childlike " only me and my sandpile" stage to the "me and the sandpile and the beach and the tools I have to make a castle with, and the tools I don't have , and the tools the other kid there has, and the ones he doesnt have, and the sea and the people in the beach and how they behave" stage. Since the concept of God and importance of praying were taught to me before the transition happened, the child before the transition (Child 1) had already made those connections with the higher force . After the transition, the child with a brain now stuffed with information (Child 2)still turned to the pre-transition child when it came to prayers. That's how it's been all these years too. Child 1 knows only what it can do with the sand pile and to pray . Child 2 knows the techniques that others have developed to make a fantastic ,enormous sand castle, it has tried those tools and techniques and enjoyed the results , it slowly learnt how these tools are made, and then how bigger tools have been made. But it never created a tool of its own. It processes data, and quite often, it processes pre-processed information. Child 1 didn't know mugs were used to make pillars for the sand castle, but it saw a half opened coconut and fooling around with it, discovered that it can be used to make a dome for the main palace. But as child 2 slowly became more dominant, child 2 would take better mugs and tools from home and make a sand castle.

Over the years, child 2 became a database, correlating information with ease. Correlating information with other information in the data base or those in the outside world. But it never correlated data that hadn' t already been correlated by someone earlier. That, Child 1 did. Child 2 just applied principles, never discovered them. The complexity of the principles it applied kept increasing, till a stage where the Adult had to take over. In between, anytime child 1 surfaced, child 2 and later the adult discovered something new about analysis, suddenly found more meaning in some of the data they processed. But most of the time, it was just plain ol' data processing and later, pattern recognition going on. The truth is, anytime Child 1 surfaced, it was when the adult forgot about the surroundings for a moment.

Having understood all this only recently, I don't think I want to spend the rest of my life letting my adult take decisions that make it confirm to higher, pre-defined standards. I'm not saying I'm gonna be next big inventer on the horizon, but I know for a fact that I don't intend to suppress Child 1 anymore. I will not spend time letting my adult do the kind of analysing that it's expected to do. Not that I can call the shots here, but I can't let my adult follow the crowd while I wait for Child 1 to swim up to the surface. I still don't know what I'm going to DO about this thought.

Heady, hectic day.

There was a housewarming ceremony today. The entire lot had turned up, all relatives, near and far, all children, all grandparents. Good to hear so much noise after so long. The buzz, the hectic activity, the loud fulfilling chants, the sights and sounds and smells of a pooja, the groups scurrying around getting something done, attending to minor arrangements, little kids eager to carry flowers, or anything you give them and race to the destination, the cheek pulling, the catching up, the building bridges, the decorative arrangements, the FOOD(!!!), the footwear spread all around the sit-out, the gifts, the smell of camphor,the constant chatter, the pair of 4 year old twins( girls) that turned up looking unbelievably cute, another pair of twins ( boys) coming up a little later and the looks exchanged by all the 4 year olds, the grandpas and grandmas finding their love in those kids, the bantering, the fun, the singing along for no reason, the morning tiffin, the half cup coffee, the extra chiroti that the kids flicked.....till the final goodbyes towards evening. Till the sinking in of the fact that it takes a family occasion to meet up.

Sigh, so senti.

But also to be seen are decision taking skills, multitasking capabilities, overall control of the arrangements, foresight, planning, creativity, error correction, the gamut.

chirp chirp chirp

My little 8 year old cousin from Chennai has come over home for the weekend. There's a house warming ceremony in the family. This little one goes chirp chirp chirp, has a keen eye for art, paints like a pro, knows 4 languages, talks like an adult. Probably because she's the only child and almost always has adults for company. Her favourite company is that of yours truly. We sit and "talk" for long hours.

This girl's fast becoming a touch-me-not kinda lady. Her parents are paranoid about her health, and she's far from the tomboy that I was at her age. The last frilly frock I had was when I was too small to wear my clothes myself. My mom had to struggle to get me to wear girly dresses at least on occasions. This girl almost always has nailpolish on, most of her dresses are the frilly types, her footwear is clearly the delicate types. A pretty sight to see, but I dread to think of her state of mind when she wears clothes like that.Now's not the time to feel pretty. Now's the time to feel smart. So much attention to outward appearance at THAT age? This girl doesnt have a pair of sports shoes other than the compulsory white canvas shoes for Fridays at school. Her intellect is good, vocabulary even better, and sense of alertness is better than that of both her parents combined. Loves to read books, understands what I tell her about being with friends and how to behave and why. I love those wide open eyes, waiting to take in every little detail.

I told her a thing or two about her overgrown, painted, filed, shaped nails. At 23, I still have never had long nails, and the last time I put nail polish was for a school play. I used a sketch pen for that. The little lady was so taken by the concept of neat and elegant as opposed to showy and garish, that she asked me to teach her to cut her own nails so she could do them herself. Which I did for the next half hour. I love her open mind, always looking for something new to take in.
Wish some adults I knew were like that. At least open enough to take a hint, if not a whole new concept. This girl has High Thinking, all she needs to learn about is Simple Living. She goes to one of the best schools in the city. She has to fight household influences that will surround her and make "looking pretty" an important part of her personality. A child's attention is too precious to be diverted to that. Presentability, is another issue of course, but children are pretty enough without those extra efforts that go into making them look pretty.
Lunch time, gotta go have lunch with the little sparrow :D
I distributed my enormous Tinkle collection to my many younger cousins. This lady has almost nothing left. Gotta go recover the books for this little birdie.

Serious reconsideration here.

I really gave up today. After the worst was through that is. The day started with some plans already going haywire. But finished a final round of checking up each packet. That final round kept happening the rest of the day, at recurring intervals. No point listing out all the things that went wrong. But the day ended with me and my brother wanting to strangle the DHL fellow.

Honest, the man needs to be shaken by the shoulders before he drives someone else insane. Lucky we had each other for comfort. We'd taken 3.5k with us, after having confirmed rates on the phone. 2.5k would be more than enough, if I had to take Mr. Dumb Representative's word for it. But being ultra cautious ( I shud have more faith in my bad luck than my good luck, going by recent trends) ,we dropped in to my dad's office to pick up the extra 1k. Just in case. We reach the place after wading through hellish traffic ( ok.. biking through.... you can wade through faster..) and Mr. Don't Know My Job says " this would cost you 4954 ". Before our jaws dropped , we managed to ask him whether he was the one who'd told us abt the Rs. 2500 bit on the phone. He affirmed with a smile, and said that was for 500g, this weighs 2kg. He was actually giving us a discount on it. Sweet, huh? I wanted to ask him if he hadn't heard me mention 2kg on the phone earlier.. but I didnt want to pick a fight with someone who didnt even have the grace to feel apologetic, let alone express it. We told him we'd got only 3600 with us. And that we'd have to come back tomorrow. This at 5:45 in the evening, and DHL closes by 6:30. We couldnt imagine coming through that traffic again..but my eyes lit up when I remembered that my aunt works around there. Made a few phone calls, got her number, called her up, she said her bank's ATM is closeby and that she'll keep the money ready. DHL is 2 Mins by bike to her place. It took us 10 mins to reach her office, after crossing 4 signals, at about as much breakneck speed as Dharam Singh can possibly sprint at. Aunt's account doesn't have balance, she recently drew most of the money. She gets a card from her colleague and we go half jogging to the ATM, draw money, bid goodbyes and thank you's and it's already 6:15. We rush to DHL at BREAKNECK speed ( we touched 30kmph ok? At peak traffic hours. on MG Road. Lets see Narain Karthikeyan do that) . And reached the place just when they were about to turn off the comp for the day. We ask him the total amount, the man says, 2954. I almost pinched myself. I look at my brother and he was as much in disbelief as I was. We made the DHL guy repeat the rate some 5 times, till the manager asked us what the problem is. The manager was as thick as a brick ( Yea.. Tull..) and needed to get a life too. We figured it was best to pay and come out while we're still young. But the dumb assistant, the root of all this anguish, NEVER accepted his part at all. I had to pull my brother away from there, after he asked the same question for the 4th time patiently. And got the same dumb reply. " I told you, you only misunderstood sir..".
Brother : " Didn't we tell you we had only 3600 with us? Why did you still say 5000 then?"
The birdbrain: " I thought you had only 1600 sir"
Brother: From where did the 5000 come in at all?
The .... Nevermind.. : Sir I told you, I thought you have 1600".
Didn't he see me gesture "3" with my hand??? Damn right he did. His nose was 10 inches away from my hand. Does he think we can't lip-read between 4 and 2 when he tells us the amount???? "four" thousand 9 hundred odd the first time and "two" thousand 9 hundred something after we get the money? And forget the first amount on the phone.

We paid him, didn't even raise our voice, or even speak strongly in those last 10 minutes. And took home all the extra money we'd gathered. Was it me? Or has anyone else in contact with that guy felt like they were speaking to a bean bag? At least a bean bag does't give out random numbers and make you run around trying to get that much money after you take its word for it. Or is the man new at the job and hence no one's complained about him yet? Why do we come back with a heavy heart despite having done our best at any minute? I donno if I care about him or his kinds. I can't find a reason for him to be so foolish, or so incompetent about the price list. Or so unapologetic. Or so unconvicing. But I care about all the gloom that the end of such a day brings with it. I care about the fact that putting in all my efforts is just a small thing. It doesn't always balance the equation. But not doing that would certainly cause imbalance. Just don't count on it at all. Do my bit and leave the rest of the transaction to work out on its own. And to let the transaction bring with it whatever it is meant to. I care for the fact that the more I think of how such impossible situations happen to me, the more it seems evident that we're all being acted upon. ( this includes the DHL guy) .And If I choose to brood over the irritation, then I'll have to live by that choice. I've got better choices than that, but those nicer attitudes come as an afterthought. AFTER the initial heavy-heartedness has subsided. Why do some encounters bring out so much mental fatigue? I really gave up today.

Like they say, Night is the blotting paper of many sorrows. Gnight.

All the powers that be

One of those days when I'm left wondering whether I'm incredibly lucky or up against unbelievable odds. One of those days when you can't quite figure out whether the current is with you or whether you're trying to swim upstream. Or whether the whole stream just suddenly changed direction. The co-incidences are too many to ignore. Too uncanny to nonchalantly decide that it's all my doing and there's no divine hand helping me or pulling me down. (I believe most of the times, you shouldn't crib when you encounter a deep ditch in your path that you can't cross. Many a times, that's providence telling you there's a steep cliff right behind that. Just that you need to get over the anguish of the moment and see things in broad daylight later. All answers reveal themselves, but in their own time.)

For now, I'm figuring out whether I should thank God for making me see this bungle that could've cost me a potential admit that I've spent a lot of time working towards, or whether I should curse my fate for making such bungles happen in the first place. I'd gone to my college some 2 months back to get recommendation letters from my professors. Total mood change and all that. Set cog wheels in motion again in my head. This time when I went, the difference was my state of mind. I went in the happy state that one is in after one just solves a crossword. In my case, over the last few months, a lot of my questions within me were getting answered and this I suspect has a lot to do with the meditation that I've resumed. The results always surprise you when you're not expecting them.

Kinda like how children get excited when the sand castle finally takes shape. Not that they were specifically looking towards getting excited. They never do anything with the sole purpose of recieving happiness from it, in fact,of getting ANYTHING from it. They were building a sand castle because there was sand, there was bucket, there was flag and the deep blue sea. And sand castle was what came to their mind. Not the happiness that comes from getting some work accomplished.Their tiny minds associated a sand castle with the setting, not the feeling of victory that one gets after it's created. At least not at the outset. The thrill of accomplishment may make them do it again, but it was never the primary cause. Which is why, when the sand castle is finally done, the excitement on their faces is something that no result-seeking adult can hope to achieve.

True, work done well can make me happy, but I already know that. So by the time it's done, and in fact, even while I'm doing it, I am already expecting to feel happy at the end. That kills most of the possible happiness right away. The only happiness left then, is that this work is over with and behind my back now, so I can move on to the next thing waiting for my attention. Here's where the concept of karma yoga makes profound sense to me. Any work done simply because it's your duty to do it ( and it's your duty to do your duty well !) will naturally turn out to be close to perfection. While it lasts,every minute of it, you think of the work. This wisdom is thousands of years old. Pretty much forms the backbone of the Indian civilization. Once you decide where your duties lie, the consequences are not yours to seek. Children study well because they're supposed to do to it. Parents on their part provide a peaceful loving atmosphere at home for children because it's their duty to do so at that stage of life. Children look up to their parents and later save money to take care of them in their old age because parents took such good care of them when they were helpless impressionable toddlers and confused teens. It's duty for the sake of doing it. Parents had no tags attached about being taken care of in their old age. That love comes naturally to a child when he grows up and sees how selflessly his parents brought him up. At that instant, parents don't even have to ask to be taken care of. Duty done well and for the right reasons, makes it happen.

This new-age result oriented management mantra really gets to me sometimes. Results are bound to be good if all your attention was on the job, not on the result of it. Simple. Thanks to the penetration of such success-is-the-destination-and-not-the-journey oriented management concepts in the Indian mindset, we now have almost all of Bangalore looking at the higher rung even before their foot is firm on the first one. Heck, most of them haven't even chosen the very ladders they're climbing. Any kinda ladder the herd climbs, they climb. Any ladder that looks a little different and the herd avoids, they avoid. Oh.. nevermind.. no point..

Well, actually, the point is (getting back to "duty for the sake of it" ),that since I was meditating only because it's such a beautiful state to be in, I figure that nice things happened to my mind. The last few months have been pleasantly beautiful in my mind. Particularly because after I resumed meditation, I was expecting outbursts of negativity in my mind when all the cleansing happens ( Been through that when I'd meditated earlier........long back..). Here, I was not only happy that none of the angst manifested in anything, but I was happy that I'd been ready to take head-on anything that came my way,anything that did manifest. Sometimes things work out so well, it's really naive to attribute that to co-incidence. At other times, I'm run up against a wall no matter where I go, what I do. I was prepared for both this time. Either you're in sync with the vibes or you're out of sync.I really didn't mind either, then.

In this happy state, when I met surroundings that had changed me so much in the last few years, I felt glad I'd grown the way I did. Felt sad that some people hadn't bothered to grow. Those two days I spent there were like a dream. Running into a professor on the stairs at 11 o clock, who was leaving early that day and would be on maternity leave for 4 months after that. Getting all my work done neatly, time-managing it all, getting invaluable suggestions from a very dear Professor. I got the letters sealed and left to Bangalore quite happy and contented. Thanking God for making it all happen so pleasantly. I wasn't expecting half the pleasant co-incidences that happened. 2 hours before my bus to Bangalore, I even got to watch a rare Yakshagana performance ,courtesy my friend Aditya (who's like obelix and just as happy in life. Always ready to drop off everything and go attend a concert).

Cut to today morning. I confirm the pick up address from DHL.. all set to go courier my application packets today. After my morning prayers, I get this sly buddhhi ;) to go open one of the sealed envelopes and go through words of praise that I'd written for myself. The first one I open has a spelling mistake glaring at me. Communications is spelt as Compmunications. The letter was signed and sealed and I broke the seal out of a silly impulse. Failing which, I would have mailed it without batting an eyelid.

My guess is, with all the careful proofreading I did, the mishap (what else do I call it..) happened after the floppy had changed hands at the internet cafe down the college road. The guy opened the document, asked me how many prints I want, and must've pressed ctrl P. Only that he didn't press the ctrl key hard enough and the cursor happened to be between the two " m's", where the "p" got printed. He happily pressed ctrl p again when he didnt see a printpage window the first time, and printed out 10 copies of it. Since I'd proofread the soft copy at least 5 times before, I just took a cursory glance at the prints to check the alignment, and went up to the professor. Since he too had proofread it and had suggested some namesake corrections, he missed the error too.

Now, should I feel sad it happened , or happy that I didn't send it finally? How much of all this was in my hands?

Sometimes it's best not to decide.

Buying Time.

That's what I think is the best option right now. When no decision seems to be the right one. When even with the right decision, somethings still don't fit in. Buying Time usually doesn't exist as an option in anyone's "Actions to do in order to sort out the problem" list. But I think it deserves a place, not on priority, but somewhere down the list. Sometimes you gotta leave it to things. They manage to fall in place on their own if no one places them in the wrong sockets.