What you sow is what you reap

You may not want to accept it, but what you are is of your own making. Not in the "you're the master of your own destiny" sense, but in the sense that your past actions (perhaps not in this lifetime) have put you in the position that you currently are in, be it good or bad. To be sure, there are other forces that are at play too, but the strong believer in the law of Karma that I am, I can't but think that the presence or absence of even those forces are influenced by your actions.

Say you're going through a tough time in life. It may be someone who's just making your life miserable at your workplace; or it may be a real big problem in your personal life. You can be sure that there's something you have done in your past, perhaps not to the same people who are currently causing your problems, but some others. Contrary to popular belief, I feel that life is always fair, and we get what we deserve eventually, one way or the other.

That doesn't mean that we need to be fatalists who will do nothing to improve their own state of affairs, and bemoan the fact that fate has chosen them for her victims. No, not at all. You ought to do what's in your power - to the limits of your code of ethics - to pull yourself out of your current, undesirable state. Finding excuses for wallowing in self-pity is most certainly not what I'm advocating.

However, if you finally find yourself defeated in your pursuits, either by a human agent, or by an unkind Providence, the thought that what happened to you was nothing more and nothing less than what you rightfully deserved, may help in reconciling yourself to the defeat, and getting on with the rest of your life. In other words, it could serve as a resting point in the long and often tiresome journey of life; a theory that will kick in and explain events when other theories fail.

But - make no mistake about this - your pain will entirely be your cross to bear!

Gainsaying Gift-giving and other things

Of late, I find myself agreeing with The Luddite's views on many things, the latest being the obligation that people find themselves in to gift something to others. As I read through the article, I kept nodding and thinking to myself, "Yes, yes, that's how I feel. Exactly." I find a lot of social customs quite affected and unnecessary, especially ones that are anachronistic.

Table manners, for instance. Apart from the fact that we are conditioned to like people who know their soup spoon from their dessert spoon, there's very little to be proud about having impeccable table manners. As long as we're able to eat a table without making a mess at the table, it should be quite okay to use one spoon where table manners mandate use of another. These artificial rules are usually perpetuated by the snobs who consider such things to be the mark of gentlemen / ladies. As if being a gentleman has got anything to do with the way one eats one's food at a table. Such superficiality turns me off!

Gift-giving is another. I prefer to give gifts only when I genuinely feel like doing so, not because I am expected to. That's why I've come to hate attending weddings in which I am not exactly a friend of the bride or the groom. I mean, am I any less a person if I fail to get a gift? Is not friendship the greatest gift one can give another?

I like my gifts to be valued, not forgotten and thrown away the moment I step out of the wedding hall. That's also why I prefer gifting people in person, and not in a social gathering.

For two people with such extraordinarily different backgrounds, I am beginning to think of Tony Long as a kindred spirit.

Who is The Practical Idealist? Where did he come from?

I think I've wandered far enough in my blogging career to warrant a brief explanation about the choice of the name under which I publish this blog.

I call myself a practical idealist for two reasons:

1. I’m an idealist at heart (often the cause of many an angry moment for me)
2. I realise that I can’t go on forever trying to be true to my idealistic impulses in a less-than-ideal world, and so I compromise on those values at times.

Today, in my errant online wanderings, I came to know that the term “practical idealist” was originally used by Mahatma Gandhi. According to Wikipedia, it is “a philosophy which holds it to be an ethical imperative to implement ideals of virtue or good. It further holds it to be equally immoral to either refuse to make the compromises necessary to realise high ideals or to discard ideals in the name of expediency.” I wouldn’t have quite defined it in this manner, especially where it suggests discarding ideals in the name of expediency. You could say that not letting go of my ideals has often come in the way of my progress / success in life, but that’s the way I prefer it. I’d rather not be successful if success means compromising on your beliefs.

Of course, I'm not in the same league as the Mahatma, and have no illusions about it; I hold him in too high a pedestal to even compare him to me. It's just that he interpreted Practical Idealism as something, and I interpret it as something else.

For the record, my first exposure to the term “practical idealist” was in a book by Linda Goodman many, many years ago :-)

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Character Sketch; Introspection

Do you remember your school days? The English classes in particular? Where they used to read us a lesson and then give us assignments like “Draw a character sketch of such-and-such character”? Of course, the teachers used to give the answers to these themselves until we reached class eleven, but that’s not what I’m trying to drive at.

What I want to bring your attention to is the fact that these days, such a thing as a character sketch seems so...outmoded. This is after all the age of fast food, two-hour Carnatic music concerts and instant gratification; who really has the time for character sketches? In our relentless pursuit of more wealth, more enjoyment, and more entertainment, we don’t pause to think about people; not their words, not their actions. Most of the time, we are obsessed with what’s happening elsewhere, definitely not what's roiling within our own minds. Most of us are not even aware of the punishing pace that we put our bodies and minds through. We've been fed the idea that more is better, and we gleefully submit to the consumerist indoctrination. We don't stop to think about our own lives, where we are going and what we're becoming. The media – TV, newspapers, websites – feeds this dangerous superficial extroversion and seldom makes us introspect.

Even when we’re with friends, we’re talking something all the time; it’s almost as if we’re scared of the silences that may engulf us if we don’t make small talk. As somebody said, it’s only in the depths of silence that the voice of God can be heard, but we seem to be afraid of the truths that may emerge from the stillness of our mind. Indeed, we're frightened by the very thought of introspection. Silence and stillness are looked down upon, if at all they manage to not be overlooked, these days. The mind tends to be restless, but it’s only when it is stilled that concentration can be achieved; and without concentration, what can we really hope to achieve that has any lasting value? We prefer the company of people, even those that we're not particularly fond of, to a few moments of undisturbed solitude.

What exactly is it about solitude that scares us? Why are we afraid to look within? Are we scared that inconvenient truths about our own selves may bubble up, once the insignificant thoughts crowding our minds are pushed aside? Are we scared of who we may actually be? If that's indeed the case, if what we may really be scares us badly, then it's imperative that the pain be borne while we look inside. For, the problems of the inner world manifest themselves as problems in the external world. We vent our anger on our family when we are faced with a situation in which we are unable to assert ourselves; our inability to solve problems in the workplace may get translated into cruel worlds spoken to our parents / children.

If we're to be at peace with the world, we have to first make peace with ourselves, for the two are inextricably intertwined. Without one, the other can't have an enduring presence.

As the year draws to a close, it's as good a time as any to look back at what we have done over the year; what we have learnt about ourselves - no matter how bitter that may be or how uncomfortable that may leave us; how far have we come in the quest to be the best that we can be. There's no need to be overwhelmed by how much we have to learn yet; instead, we can satisfy ourselves by the progress we have made in our journey towards self-actualisation.

Indian culture - another perspective

Culture is essentially one's way of life. Which is why my parents' culture is not necessarily mine, though it contains a good deal of what they practise / believe in. Thus, Indian culture is the Indian way of life. To state the obvious, it has changed - and how! - over the centuries, a good case in point being the way we celebrate Deepavali (worshipful / meditative versus boisterous), or the way we greet people nowadays ("hello" versus "namaste" - the latter having spiritual overtones and hence zealously avoided).

On a related note, I find it endlessly tiring to tolerate people who think sticking to one's "culture" in a foreign land is the same as visiting temples and observing festivals like Deepavali in the traditional way. Even the Manu Shastra says that it's wise to adapt to the changing ways of society, at least to the extent that we find reasonable.

Indian culture - a cynic's perspective

What is Indian culture? A definitive description:

1. Be religious. For meat-eaters, this means eating meat whenever possible, and not eating meat on "holy" days. And yes, you have to, absolutely, visit temples once in a while, even if you're in a foreign country (perhaps, "especially if you're in a foreign country"?). Otherwise, you'd forget your "roots"...
2. Be respectful to elders. Even those that you absolutely detest, and about whom you make funny jokes. That's a very essential part of Indian culture.
3. Never, ever, mix with locals and strictly avoid adopting local customs / practices when you're in a foreign land (repeat this if you're a Brahmin). Never forget that you're Indian and consequently, eat only Indian food, have only Indian (or desi) friends; never travel alone - because the foreigners are out to get you!
4. Follow cricket matches on TV / the Net. Cricket is as essentially Indian as idli / dosa / roti / paneer tikka is.
5. Never spend more money than you can get away with. If that means sharing a single bedroom flat with five others even when your earnings are enough to let you rent a flat all for yourself, then so be it! Thrift is an essential Indian quality, and living comfortably, let alone lavishly, is a sin.
6. Auxiliary tenets: i) always travel in a group when you're in countries like the UK, because a group ticket is cheaper ii) Always purchase second-hand goods, be it a car, a tv or a bike iii) Scour ebay for the best deals, even when you're hard-pressed for time in making a purchase.
7. Publicly scorn obscenity in movies, especially English movies; lament about the degradation that they bring into our culture, all the while watching such wonderfully culture-enhancing regional flicks in which heroines show skin and indulge in hip-gyration and other gestures which are none-too-subtle. After all, all regional flicks show Indian women in such a lofty light, especially when they're dressed in their wedding garbs.

I challenge anyone to poke holes in the above.

What type of blog are you?

The other day, I happened to be thinking about blogs. Not any particular blog, but generally; along the lines of "What does a blog say about the person who writes it?" Hmmm, interesting question! Does one's blog reflect one's personality? Does it even make sense to try and relate a blog with its author's mindset?

Let's try to understand what exactly a blog is, and maybe we can then come up with an answer to that question. The word blog is a contraction of the original word weblog which itself was originally two words - web log - and which meant something like a journal of events that happened in one's life. Of course, a blog has now expanded to mean something much more than a mere journal of events. People vent their thoughts about certain topics, review products, movies and the like, and some go so far as to rant about their pet peeves. In fact, a blog can be used - and is being used - to say just about anything that crosses your mind, including how much you hate that person / object / idea. It taks all kinds to make the blogosphere!

Many of the blogs that I read fairly frequently concern themselves with their authors' thoughts about many things - people, traditions, movies, cultures, sports: you name it! As such, one can begin to get an idea of the mind of the blogger, however inaccurate that may be. Let me analyse my own blog, and see where it leads.

Regular readers of my blog - a rare species, unless I'm happily mistaken ;-) - will notice a particular style of writing: often reflective, preachy at times, and occasionally presumptuous. In fact, if you take a guess and say that I'm not exactly sociable, you won't be far off the mark, really! If you just did that, and you didn't know me before, then congrats; you've proved what I suspected was possible: it's possible to deduce what kind of a person a blogger is by looking at his / her blog!

To paraphrase, tell me what your blog is about, and I'll tell you who you are ;-)

The Tamizh Practical Idealist!

A recent online conversation between a friend of mine and me:

R: when r u leaving ???
Me: next sunday
R: kool
here for diwali??? ok..kool
Me: deepavali
R: next sunday what time??
Me: kaarthaala
R: [husband]'s nov fest concert is next sunday
Me: around 9 or so
R: we were just talkin about u yday
Me: all good, I hope ;)
R:[my husband] wanted to give u a cd
of his with anil and sikkil gurucharan
Me: all cds welcome :-)
Me:is he in town? for how long?
R: he will be here until diwali
M: deepavali

Am I really going crazy about Tamizh? Or is it the purist in me who doesn't want to mix Hindi words with Tamizh? I don't know, but every time I hear a Tamizh friend saying "Diwali," I visibly frown in disapproval. Call me regionalistic, if you will, but I'm a stickler for using Tamizh words in Tamizh conversation where possible.

Race doesn't matter? Yeah, right!

What would you say about a technology that helps law enforcement officers track suspects with near-100% certainty on the basis of their racial characteristics? Brilliant? Maybe not, according to some of America's colleagues-at-law.

For a lot of people, any chance that police officers get to narrow down their list of suspects in an effort to nail the culprit would be a welcome improvement in forensics. But for the man behind this latest bit of progress in genetic applications, it's highly frustrating, and not merely because many people don't think that his science is up to snuff: the company that he founded may face closure if his novel genetic technique is not more widely called upon to help investigators gather clues about the culprits, because until the time that the drug that he has pioneered passes FDA approval, the company needs to stay afloat and is pinning its hopes on crime investigators using its often-misunderstood technology to identify clues about the identity of the criminal.

See original article by clicking on the title of this post.

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Maya and The Matrix

A long time ago, more than seven years ago in fact, I was in Coimbatore (a S. Indian city famous for its industries) visiting a friend of mine. There was this English movie that had just been released and which had a rather fascinating story. The Friday review on The Hindu was favourable, and so my friend and I decided to watch it. Later that evening, we went to this theatre called Central, waited in a queue for nearly ten minutes (there was quite a rush since the movie promised some amazing stunts), and finally got into the hall. What we saw, no, experienced, in the nearly two hours or so was absolutely mind-blowing; it came quite close to an ancient Indian concept called Maya. If you haven't figured out what the movie was, well, it was The Matrix.

Since then, I have become a huge fan of that movie, and to a lesser extent, its sequels. How on earth, do you ask, can one become a fan of a movie? If you think that it's not possible to watch the movie over and over again, let me assure you, that thought is quite incorrect. I have, as a matter of fact, watched the movie over a dozen times, and have not grown tired of it yet. In fact, one of the questions that one of my best friends - who is now in the UK - asks me is whether I've seen it recently. Needless to say, I usually answer him in the affirmative ;-)

Anyway, I am digressing. What I wanted to ask you was whether you had noticed how extraordinarily well thought out the whole story is. I mean, starting from the names of the characters, right up to the very end of the movie. The movie's basic premise, or set of premises, to be more precise, is that we are not whom we think ourselves to be, or where we think ourselves to be; we have a veil that's very cleverly drawn over our eyes, thus making it difficult to see the truth beyond it; that we have the power to be whatever we want to be, because there are no limits to what we can do; that the world we think is real may not really be so; that it may be a mere figment of our imagination.

Now, note the parallels with the Indian concept of Maya. We ordinarily identify ourselves with this body. Nothing wrong about that of course, except that it's not terribly ingenious. To summarise a lengthy theory, what's closer to the truth (as per my beliefs, at any rate) is that we are a body-mind-soul complex. Next, we have a veil that's very cleverly drawn over our eyes, etc. If this isn't readily apparent, think about some of the scariest or most vivid dreams that you've had. For the duration of those dreams, have you, even for a moment, ever doubted the veracity of the experience? During the dream period, was not your "reality" all too real and, in extreme cases, overwhelming to the point of making you cry / scream? Now, how do you know for sure that it's your waking life that's not the dream? That the whole world as we know it would not vanish like a, well, dream the moment we wake up?

The truth beckons, and is out there, as they say, but are we prepared to accept it? What is the truth? Unfortunately, to paraphrase Morpheus, no one can be told what the truth is; you have to experience it for yourself.

What's in a name - II

What's in a name? Plenty, it turns out. Now, that's something I'd never even suspected. I mean, while I knew that a name like Jestin Azhagusundaram would not really sweeten the tongue that utters it, I never realised that it would make him die a few years sooner! Poor chap, his fate was decided right after he was born and he had no way to stop it.

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Deities, statues and devotion

In Hinduism, it's an accepted practice, and sometimes even recommended, to have an image / statue / icon of your favourite deity in your altar so that you something to help you focus your thoughts on it. There's an elaborate set of rituals on how one must take care of such an object, which is considered not different from the very God whom it represents. In other words, the image / statue / icon IS God. For those of you coming from Christianity or other reasons, this may seem quite heathenish, but that's quite all right, considering your credo. Anyway, it's not my intention now to expound on idol worship and its pros and cons.

I'm here to talk about (rant, if you will) something that ticks me off. Quite a lot! With such a wealth of meaning behind the use of idols, it's a disgrace when one dances brazenly in front of an idol, that too under the guise of devotion. It speaks of many things - stupidity readily comes to mind - but what I mainly think of is the insolence of the whole thing. Wait, let me come to the point.

It's the Vinaayaka Chathurthi (Ganesh Chathurthi anywhere north of South India) season and in this moronic city, the morons take to the streets and start their kootthu (that's revelry in Tamizh). If revelry is their primary motive, I wouldn't be filled with so much loathing, but when they display the God's idols and then play "Dhoom machaale" and then dance in a demeaning way to the beat of that song (a rather mindless one at that, I must add), I find that my tolerance has been breached. What takes the cake is the organisers of these so-called religious festivities get drunk in the nights before the revelry starts!

When are we ever going to learn to be truthful to a concept or an ideal? These humans! Yuck!

Cricket match and the human psyche

There I was, sitting quietly in front of my laptop, and involved in my daily post-office routine of reading news, checking mails, talking to people, etc., when loud noises from downstairs disturbed me. Within a moment, I realised that it was human noise (yeah, I'm way too quick) and that it was most likely in response to some cricket update on the idiot box (India is playing a match against England now). Even as I was thinking why people must shout to let their happiness (or frustration, as the case may be) be known, I was assaulted by similar, animal-like bellowing from below, presumably from the same house. Twice, mind you!

Undeterred by the feeble attempts to distract me, I let my mind come back to the new line of thought that it was trying to pursue. So, why exactly do people who are merely watching a sport on TV shout out loud when something happens on-screen? Would they do the same if they were alone at home? Or maybe alone in a marooned island (ignoring for the moment where they would have gotten a TV in such a place)?

My powerful brain did its thing, and gave me an answer within a few seconds (I told you I was quick): No. They wouldn't do that if they didn't have company. Not satisfied by my own intelligence, I probed further, this time into my own mind: would I have shouted out loud while watching a match on TV alone? I thought back to such instances, and remembered that though I haven't screamed, I have definitely let out happy / frustrated comments. So, to be fair, I reasoned (for I'm a reasonable man too), it's not beyond the realm of possibility that what commenting is to me, shouting could be to others. Hmmm, interesting!

However, my brain was still not satisfied with this simplistic explanation. I longed to bring my knowledge of Transactional Analysis in the picture. People shout, I told myself, mainly because they want to be stroked. Now suddenly, that made more sense. It also fit in with why people tend to shout / scream more when in the presence of others, no matter who the others are. The so-called "mob psychology" is essentially the craving of a stroke-deprived people to be recognised for something, anything, that would elevate them from the mundaneness of anonymity. Pretty smart, huh? (I told you I was smart!)

Triple Filter Test

An email I got recently:

In ancient Greece, Socrates was reputed to hold knowledge in high esteem. One day one fellow met the great philosopher and said, "Do you know what I just heard about your friend?". "Hold on a minute," Socrates replied. "Before telling me anything I'd like you to pass a little test. It's called the Triple Filter Test."

"Triple filter?" "That's right," Socrates continued. "Before you talk to me about my friend, it might be a good idea to take a moment and filter what you're going to say. That's why I call it the triple filter test.

"The first filter is Truth. Have you made absolutely sure that what you are about to tell me is true?" "No," the man said, "actually I just heard about it and...". "All right," said Socrates. "So you don't know if it's true or not.

"Now let's try the second filter, the filter of Goodness. Is what you are about to tell me about my friend something good?" "No, on the contrary..." "So," Socrates continued, "you want to tell me something bad about him, but you're not certain it's true.

"You may still pass the test though, because there's one filter left: the filter of Usefulness. Is what you want to tell me about my friend going to be useful to me?" "No, not really." "Well,"concluded Socrates, "if what you want to tell me is neither true nor good nor even useful, why tell it to me at all?" This is why Socrates is considered a great philosopher even today and held in such high esteem.

A week of sheer pleasure in the mountains

I had gone on a trek to the Himalayan mountain ranges last month, and the experience was something that left a lasting impression on me. Serenity, beauty and simplicity all competed for a spot among the top reasons why this is quite easily the best ever trip in my life so far. Now, if only I could make somebody pay me for living in such a lovely place for the rest of my life! Sigh!!

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Life - what exactly is it?

We're born, we go to school, then pursue "higher education" at some college / university, start our professional careers, get married, produce kids, and then die. Of course, some of the luckier ones among us have a lot of fun in all this. My question is, is this what life's all about? I can quite understand that as humans, we need to eat, sleep and, pardon me, pee - these are inevitable things indeed.

Beyond these things, however, do we question our actions? Why do we go to school? Because our parents sent us there, and we didn't really have a choice. Why do we go to college? Because we start feeling vaguely uneasy that if we don't, then we'd perhaps not get "ahead" in life, or maybe because we feel that it'd be fun to spend some time there; more common, I've noticed, is the inner voice that tells us that a good degree ensures a good job - after all, an engineering degree is usually a gateway (in India, at any rate) to pursuing higher education abroad; and that higher education is a means of gaining a higher salary. A genuine desire to learn for the sake of acquiring knowledge is probably the least common of the reasons why we study.

The reason for holding down a job are pretty obvious, so I doubt if I should discuss it at all.

Marriage - this is possibly the most discussed topic among people who have crossed a certain age (ask, and I shall tell you!). It's also the most often quoted ingredient of the act of "settling down" in life; in fact, in some communities, settling down and marrying are almost synonymous. Please indulge me as I make the (admittedly stupid) assumption that the reasons given by a very small sample of the human population (of roughly a dozen or so friends and strangers) to be representative of the entire human race. Here are the top reasons why people marry:

1. Everybody marries! ("...so why shouldn't I?")
2. What else will you do in life later on? ("come on, there isn't much fun in life without a marriage!")
3. One has to settle down in life, you know (whatever that means!)
4. We need companionship in our later years (hmmm, seems to make some sense)
5. I love him / her, and want to spend the rest of my life with him (this makes sense too)
6. I love to have kids! (really? Why don't you adopt some orphans then?)
7. Mmm, er, it's a legally sanctioned way to, you know, make out, you know what I mean? No? (looks of embarrassment) Well, you know, you can make love with a member of the other sex all your life (that's pretty direct!)
8. I want to let the human race survive (ah, behold the great philanthropist at work; he's perhaps the one that smokes so that employees of tobacco companies don't go starving)
9. Peer pressure (I dig this!)
10. It's the done thing (oh yeah?)
11. My parents want me to marry, and I don't want to disappoint them (duh?)
12. I don't have the courage to face life without a life partner (this person is at least honest)

I'll let you form your own conclusions from the above. However, you'll notice that a lot of people don't really seem to have honest answers, and usually pass off other people's views as their own, or maybe they've hypnotised themselves into believing those views.

The last act of any human being is that of dying - and this is something over which we don't have any control - at least, not unless you're a highly evolved yogi - so it's pointless discussing this either.

In summary, I think we go through life mostly in deference to opinions that are not necessarily our own. To be fair, there are many situations over which we have no control, so that ought to somehow mitigate the charge of our actions being mindless, but all things considered, I can't help feeling that we are mindless automatons, most often programmed by society, and somewhat less often by ourselves.

Mind over matter

I am often amazed at what the human body can achieve when it's backed by human will. We can do much more than we think we can, and I daresay we'd be much happier individuals if we listen to our minds than if we listen to the complaints of our bodies. But again, that's a topic for another discussion :-)

On a bright Sunday evening, my neighbour's son, who's a very accomplished amateur trekker, and yours truly decided to venture out on a not-so-often-travelled trekking path; a path, to be sure, that many trek rookies are hardly aware of; something to avoid if yours is not the iron will ;-) To wit, we chose to cross the hills that stretched out from Katraj to Sinhagad. We reached the Katraj ghat section at precisely 5:30 and started out. We were armed with a few litres of water, two half-litre bottles of mango juice, some jam sandwiches, a mini-towel each, and, speaking strictly of my companion, tremendous trekking experience. Within half an hour, we had reached the first of many hills that we had to cross, and had soon crossed it. Within that time however, I, who had not been acquainted with physical activity that even moderately stressed the body, for a period of well over two months, began to be assailed by doubts about my ability to complete this seemingly impossible trek. My co-trekker, however, refused to let me give up, giving me every possible encouragement. I succumbed to the power of his speech, and chose to continue on till either the journey was complete, or I fell down exhausted.

He (my co-trekker and guide) had promised me that as the evening wore on and night fell, the trek would be more enjoyable, especially since we had chosen a full moon day. I found that he was absolutely right. Soon, under the hypnotic spell of the full moon, my negative energies left me, and I was filled with nothing but a desire to see this trek through.

As the evening wore on, we made good progress, though I couldn't really keep up with his scorching pace and stumbled here and then, not as sure of my footing as he was. But I'm proud to say this - I didn't slow him down significantly, and found reserves of energy within me whose existence I never even suspected. As we stopped for dinner, we gazed at a fantastic moon-rise - the most spectacular one that I've ever seen - and mused on the beauty of Mother Nature.

Eventually, four and half hours after we'd started, we reached our destination, the top of Sinhagad. Since it had become quite dark by then, we couldn't hitch a ride, and had to walk down the road, all the way to the base village. Once there, we managed to persuade some strangers into giving us a ride till the edge of Pune city, had dinner at a "Chinese" eat-out which was just closing down, managed to flag down an auto-rickshaw to take us to our homes, and then made our way to our respective apartments for a night of rest, each filled with a sense of achievement.

We plan to do this again during / just after the monsoons too, if everything goes well.

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Stupid is as stupid does; or, Objective is subjective - I

What exactly is stupidity? Is it the tendency to act in a way that betrays a lack of good sense / judgment? But if that's the case, then isn't it all entirely subjective? After all, the person whom we think is acting stupidly is doing whatever he is doing because, to him, his judgment is pretty sound, just as we think our judgment is sound.

Expanding on this theme, is there anything that we could talk about in absolute terms? Even God? I'm afraid there isn't, because for each thing we think is absolute, there's a likelihood that to somebody else, it's not so; it's also likely that to that person, there's something else that's an absolute. At the risk of oversimplifying it, I'd like to state that reality, truly, is purely subjective; objective reality just does not exist. We create the reality we live in, otherwise why would Osama bin Laden have supporters? Sometimes, though, we choose to alter our view of reality (or are made to shift our viewpoint), and thereby experience "paradigm shifts".

The dynamics of human relationships

It's strange how easily I get put off by the behaviour of some people, especially when I'm quite tolerant of the same or similar behaviour by some other people. Guess I am not as impartial as I want to be. Maybe you'd think of it as sick. Take your pick, it doesn't affect me as much as you think it would, or perhaps should! ;-)

For example, I have some friends who call / mail me rarely. Let's categorise these, for the sake of convenience, under "A". I also have my share of friends who keep in touch quite regularly. Let's categorise these, for the sake of convenience again, under "B". Now, I'm not generally annoyed with my "A" friends as long as they don't tell me things like "hey, why don't you call me often?"; once they say that, I get really upset because I am the kind of guy who usually reciprocates people's love many times over, and I feel hurt that they're trying to place the responsibility for non-contact / rare contact entirely on my shoulders. Come on, it's not like I stopped you from mailing / calling me!

Anyway, I digress. The thing is, much as I'm not irritated by the category A friends, I get put off that much more easily by the category B friends if they stop calling / mailing me with no explanation whatsoever. I've had such category B friends who haven't a. returned calls, b. replied to mail, but who complain loudly when I fail to do the same occasionally. Man, I get really pissed off when they do that. But being a person who usually avoids confrontations (unless pushed to the extreme), I laugh it off or let it pass without comment. But until such absences are properly explained, I usually go crazy (when I think about those instances) trying to figure out why they did that to me: it's like a splinter in my mind which will leave me peaceful only when it's gone.

Now, the really interesting thing is, even among the category B friends, I have a few whose unannounced absences don't bother me much. I haven't been able to figure out why that's so, short of coming to the rather unpleasant conclusion that I'm biased towards some :-( To paraphrase George Orwell, "All friends will be treated equally, but some will be treated more equally than others" !!

Just to make a few things clear: I'm not the categorising kind of person all the time, but I do like to sort things out once in a while, if only to know where I stand. I don't believe that the measure of a friend's love for you is the number of emails / calls you receive from him / her, but I do feel like I should constantly stay in touch with my friends because they mean so much to me.

Have you felt this way towards your friends? Do you treat all your friends the same way? Or is this madness peculiar to me?

I'm sorry grandpa

Dear Grandpa,

I was looking at some family photos today, and happened to come across some of yours. That's how I remembered you after all these years. The photos were taken on the occasion of your 70th birthday. You seem to be very much in control of yourself in these pics, so I guess it must have been before the world lost a sane you. Perhaps for the first time since you passed away, I miss you.

I miss those pleasant summer nights when you'd tell us - your grandchildren seated around you - stories from Indian mythology, folktales, or just about anything that you thought would capture our interest. I want to tell you that your storytelling usually had us in rapt attention. Of course, being the attentive man you always were, you'd have noticed this right then. Years later, I can still remember how thrilled I used to feel listening to them.

I miss your presence among us; you, the person who was instrumental in making sure that we (my brother and I) continued our education in a CBSE school. I never knew the difference between school boards at that time, except for the vague feeling of superiority over the "lowly" state boards and their ridiculous syllabus. You never made my parents feel the pinch of giving us an expensive, but an ultimately rewarding education (at least in terms of what they call "worldly" success).

I miss my affectionate grandpa - the one who never used to think twice about visiting us from as great a distance as 10km (in those days when public transport was not any better than today (in Madras), and when travelling by autorickshaws was not really an option for us middle-class people, any place that was not covered by PTC was indeed a great distance away) just so that he could spend some time with his daughter and her children, and thrill the kids with a few surprise gifts. I remember one instance when I didn't even bother to invite you inside our house when you'd travelled in spite of the mercilessly hot weather just to see us - I was too busy playing with the neighbours' kids. I wish my mother had given me a good beating then - not only would I not be feeling so guilty about it now, I might have also learnt a valuable lesson then on how to treat people who are important to us. I am sorry grandpa.

I'm sorry too, that I didn't take as much time as I should have taken to pay my last respects to you - I was too busy helping a friend do her website! Can you imagine that? I was dumb, really, horribly dumb! Every time I think of it, I feel like an absolutely heartless cretin. You were one of the many caring people who are responsible for where I am today, and I couldn't even spare time to pay my last dues to you - it's just too sick for words!

I wish I had made a better effort to understand your state of mind when everyone started to think that you'd lost it. I didn't think so, but that's only because I didn't know what it was that afflicted you, and that was because I was confused by the different theories put forward - you were upset because your business associate of many years cheated you out of a huge amount of money; you were the victim of some voodoo magic; I was simply unable to come to any conclusions. I am not sure if anyone in our family really knows what happened to you in your last years, because nobody seemed to have thought of taking you to a neurologist or whoever the doc is who scans people's brains to check for problems.

Whatever it was, I know it was painful to you and your wife, my grandma. Perhaps you were unaware of how much trouble you caused her, but I have to tell you this - she was devoted to you unto your last. Though she complained about having to take care of your smallest needs (because she herself was ailing physically), she never shirked the work. I wish now, when it's too late, that I had done more to ease your pain. I wish I'd been a source of some comfort to grandma, and I know you'd have approved of it.

Thank you for having been there for me when I needed it, even when I was not intelligent enough to understand the need myself. Thank you for having spent time with us when you could have done numerous other meaningful tasks, or even lost yourself in one of your favourite pastimes - listening to Carnatic music. (In fact, I owe my many hours of great pleasure in listening to this genre of music (to me, the only music now is classical) to you directly or indirectly (through your daughter)). Thank you for having been who you were - a loving and caring grandpa - even if I acted like an ingrate. I hope you will forgive me, not because my remorse is sincere if late by many years, but because you're my grandpa.

Yours with love.

Two sides of a coin

You may have noticed that many things in life have the proverbial "other side" to them. E.g., the Amazon rain forests have a positive effect on the Earth (they give back life-sustaining Oxygen, inhaling the greenhouse gas Carbondioxide, thus regulating its temperature too), but chopping them down for money assures livelihood for a lot of people; America invades Iraq for, allegedly, oil interests, but then a dictatorial government is only one step away from a Hitler-ian situation; one should have tolerance towards other people's mistakes, but the saying goes "the only thing that's required for evil to spread on earth is that good men do nothing"; "it doesn't matter whether you actually were able to do something good, it's the intention that counts" vs. "Actions speak louder than words" or even "Hands that serve are holier than lips that pray". The list is endless, and this post would quickly become too lengthy if I were to go on and on.

The point is, we live in a world of duality, and almost everything can be argued to have a negative side to it. What are we to do? How do we reconcile the unmistakable evil that we see around us with a good and compassionate God? Is all this duality, like the Vedas say, only an illusion? I'd like to know, with certainty!

Say "Bye bye, world!" with a difference

"Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention to arrive safely in a pretty and well-preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming: Wow!! What a ride!" Now, how's that for a great quote. I found while reading through http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/15.01/ultraman.html. Though the article seems to be somewhat humorous in its tenor, I found this line spot on when it comes to the attitude one might adopt to lift oneself out of stupor and / or ennui.