A Novel and PT - My latest heartthrobs!!

Aaah!! At last I got some space in the fourth dimension for the blogsville. All this while my office kept me busy and it didn’t let me buy time for blogging at all. But that’s not all. Another reason for being away from writing was my newly developed hobby of reading novels. Oops!!! not novels but a novel. I found the title to be too intriguing; hence, I bought it at the very first sight. It’s penned by Richard Dawkins. So, if you guys know him then you can easily guess what it would be all about. Well I have always liked when someone questions the irrational beliefs and theories that exist in our society, especially on the grounds of religion. And the vituperative responses that are generated against such questioning only help me believe more strongly in the anti-belief that our society gruesomely refers to atheism. But I am not in the mood to talk about all this right now. Let me first finish this novel (which might take years as it’s quite boring and indiscernible due to its British author and his high-fundoo English). I hope ‘The God Delusion’ becomes the 2^nd ever novel in my short but long term list of 'Finished novels'J.

Well there is a little bit of masala news that I wanted to share. Porcupine Tree is coming to India. That too to Mumbai!!! And this metal head, yah this one- ‘the one writing this post’ is eagerly waiting for them as he  already has his tickets booked for their live show on 21^st dec. 

You guys will be surprised to know that I came to know about Porcupine Tree (PT) only a month ago from my friend. And I started listening to them then only. I then realized what I had been missing for all these years. What an impact they had on me!!Now  I listen to PT when i am in the office, when i am travelling in the bus and even before sleeping. Most of the times I refer to myself as a normal guy who is not crazy about anything but when it comes to music, there comes an exception. And I feel proud to say that I am crazy about Porcupine tree now. Though PT is a rare non-generic band, I will still refer them as ‘Rock artists who fuse different types of sound’ to keep it simple here. Their delusive lyrics, soothing and melodious guitar, heavy beats of drums and the very dexterous keyboard play will surely make this a dream concert for me. Still there is one month to go but I am already hyperexcited about it. My friends will soon start believing that I am suffering from logorrhea coz whenever this topic comes around in the discussion all I do is talking!!!

I hope some of you who are reading this are also Porcupine Tree fans (I know I am hoping against hope coz they are the most underrated stars of music industry, very few people know about them). Hope to see you guys in the concertJ.

Ba bye for now!!!

P.S.: I didn’t post anything in last 30 days and my IndiRank went up by 4 places. It’s 39/100 from 43/100. Hmm.. interesting!! I guess I will be IndiRank 1 if I quit blogging …what say?? :D

Five point some views!!!

My friend Bharathi wrote an excellent post - ‘The Indian dream’ a few days back. I request you to read it first for a better understanding of what's going to follow.


Bharathi's remarks on the political leaders and on our country are pretty intellectual but i kind of disagree with some of them. The aberrations in our opinions are not only restricted to the points of ‘corruption’ or ‘whom to blame for country’s situation’ but they also extend to the more subtle points like ’IST’ and ‘Whether Indians do their job whole heartedly or not’.


I have got so many thoughts running through my mind right now, so, instead of messing them up I will like to write them down into 5 points.So, here I go:




1) Comparison with the UK:


Let me start with this – First of all I don’t think that comparing a developing nation with a developed nation is a wise thing to do. This is because the differences between them are vast and often the root causes of these differences are never addressed.


The question of political corruption, the question of infrastructure, the question of good behavior, all of these have one common answer to them – ‘Money’. Developed nations have enough money to keep their citizens happy and the developing nations don’t. And I don’t need to reveal where they got all that money from J. Even the poorest there would be richer than his counterpart living in a developing nation. The problems that make a developing nation ‘developing’ can hardly be found in a developed nation. So one should not fixate his thinking on why this happens here only and not in the developed countries. You need to think deep to answer this. There is no comparison. The two categories of nations are at different levels all together. It’s like comparing a cat with a mouse and thinking when the mouse will actually be able to walk abreast with the cat. 

But yah, what we can do is that we can compare two rats together. Like two giant rats ‘India’ and ‘China’. Then we can figure out what these two are good at and what we should learn from them in order to achieve our goal of becoming ‘Developed’. That will be a better comparision in many ways. This is because it’s more likely that the two developing nations face similar problems. Thus, by learning how one of them finds a way out of the issues, one can help the other nation in pragmatically solving the similar issues. Our objective is to become better in our own ways. All the developed nations on their path of development were actually competing with each other and that’s how they became developed :). Same trend we should follow.




2) Our political leaders:


Bharathi in his post said that our leaders are no different than us –


‘I feel politicians and corrupt officials are not born straight from sky. They indeed originate within us. They reflect the culture and practices of our entire nation. When we are pointing fingers at corrupt politicians, can we tell that our common people are free of guilt?’


Absolutely true Bharathi. Neither do the politicians come from the sky nor is the common man free of guilt. But leaders like Mahatma Gandhi, Sardar Valabhbhai Patel, Jawahar lal Nehru, Lal Bahadur Shastry (and the list of great leaders go on..) also existed with us. Leaders are those who make people follow them, who are considered as idols, who are respected and loved. They are not the ones who follow what a common man does. They are those who bring reforms. They are not the ones who leave their nation and society as it is. Common man needs someone to lead him. A common man’s thinking can be changed by his leader. Leader has to be influential rather than being a dumb listener. Just like Raja Ram Mohan Roy who went against the Indian society and culture to abolish ‘Sati’ system, a political leader’s role is to improve the society by bringing reforms and not to merely accept the society from where he has come from. So, I don’t think that a leader should reflect the culture and practices of the entire nation. If our society is wrong then leaders can only correct them. The sad part is that in India the kind of people who volunteer in elections are not actually made up of leader’s material but are merely representatives of people who don’t even know them. Do you think we have any strong leaders now?




3) We don’t mind litter the space when we are out of our home:


I can understand that this happens due to two reasons-

a) India is still highly uneducated.
b) India doesn’t have appropriate infrastructure.


There is a difference between literacy and education. You can earn well, you can speak well if you are literate but literacy doesn’t guarantee ‘good behaviour’. Sometimes in Delhi I feel that richies are less educated than the middle and lower class. I guess our education system has failed to provide proper education to not only to the children of poor but also of wealthy people.


The other point is that those who are educated and understand that keeping places clean is their fundamental duty, actually land up littering a place cause they can’t find proper arrangement for that. I can hardly see dustbins on the roadsides and public conveniences are rare species too. How can you imagine someone controlling his pee for more than an hour in a search for a public toilet?? How can you imagine people walking miles on the roadside in search of dustbins that never exist??




4) Job inefficiency:

That’s a very important point that you picked up Bharathi. But if you dig deep into the reasons as to why most of the Indians are not that job efficient then you will find that – ‘Indians are not usually happy with their jobs’. Not because it’s paying them less but because they are least interested in the kind of jobs that they do. Now why will someone take a job which will not interest him much? The answer is ‘Family’ and ‘Society’. Indians are wild social animals. And our culture defines our duties; Duties like taking responsibilities of your family, earn some name and respect in the society. You don’t always have a freedom of pursuing what you want to.


I am working in IT industry (no surprise there) and I can see that 70% of people in IT don’t actually like what they are doing. They are doing it just because jobs are in IT sector and nowhere else. They are killing their interests for the sake of money. How do you expect someone to work efficiently with something that he doesn't like doing. People who took biology in their PUC land up becoming an engineer due to their parents' pressure. And no wonder the same logic applies in the govt. sector. The main reason of inefficiency there is that people jump into the govt. offices regardless of the job profile as they are offered permanent jobs. That means tension free life.

Thus I feel that IST is also a product of our job inefficiency. Those who do the things that interest them never actually get late in finishing it. But for others it’s always Indian Stretchable Time.




5) ‘What you can give to the UK’:

As of now what you can give to the UK are the condolences and sympathies from the Indians, directed towards their cricket team :). After all their largest past time colony or what I should say ‘Slave’ is currently the ‘King’ of the game that they invented centuries ago. What else can you give to them??? Just kiddin’ :p.


Well this was a long post. I think I have made my views really clear. Feel free to disagree :).

The Curious Case of Our Nation!! (Reiterated)

I don’t have to go across the globe to write about a curious case. I just need to look into my nation.

The population of Indians in Britain makes British feel so out of place. The prejudice we showed to our neighbors made them remember ‘India’ as a synonym for ‘hate’.

Such has been our unity in the past that we were ruled by almost every might in this world. Such is the case with terrorism in our country that hardly anything has been done.

Such is the craze for Cricket that players are treated as kings as well as waste. The condition of other sports makes them so out of taste.

Such are the IT engineers here that most of them don't even know C. And still India is the number 1 preference for all the IT companies.

Fuming faces when a Muslim girl is on the Tennis Court is what we get to see. The same faces grin when a Muslim actress wears two piece bikini in a movie.

Such are the filmfare awards here that the best of the actors actually boycott them!! Such is the adulation for some that people actually worship them.

Such is the literate society here who spends tons of money donating to the ignorant priests. The plight of a needy is that he can never rest in peace.

Such are the people here who despite of knowing the truth, elect the culprits of ‘Gujrat riots’. Still they don’t agree that they are religiously biased.

The world thinks that India is changing and so do we, but what remains the same are the slums in Mumbai.

India’s 8% annual growth is just an irony. Power cuts in major cities are the sights to see.

Culture, cast , religion are said to be the things that every Indian boasts about. But the tiny box thinking of ours has left us with hate and nothing to be proud of.

Even a nursery going kid in Australia now knows who Indians are. We call them racist, forgetting who we actually are.

The only hope left now is our new generation. But our ignorance still keeps me in suspicion.

I know many may argue that this is not what India is all about, may be yah, but can’t you see the ‘Dance of hypocrisy in the world’s largest democracy’?? That’s what I wanted to bring out.

A Piscean's anger

It’s one of those days when I am cursing myself, loathing myself for being a Piscean. The strengths of a Piscean succumbed to its weaknesses today. It’s frustrating, it’s demoralizing, it’s grim and most of all it has taken away an essential element of my life from me.

The most famous Piscean weakness has to be this – ‘Pisceans are sentimental beings’. It doesn’t mean that they are mawkish but the fact is that they get affected with the subtlest tender and emotion on this earth. I am sentimental and I hate being this. It makes me weak. It confuses me. And most of all, it hurts me. It hurts me when people can’t understand my sentiments. It hurts when some insignificant issues spawn sentiments in my mind. And we know this world, don’t we?? Is it good to be sentimental in this ruthless world?? No!!! Absolutely not. But I just can’t get away with it. I am hapless.

Adding to the helplessness is the evergreen and eternal word, ‘Expectations’. And it is the root cause for most of the problems. Knowing this, still I expect. People disappoint me a lot. But why??? Cause I expect from them a lot. Expectations arise when people are close to you. But not everyone expects like I do. So, others can’t understand why I expect so much. It’s a deadlock. How can I exorcize the devil of ‘Expectations’ from my mind?? It’s inherited in me, again there is no way out.

Last but not the least, a Piscean’s foremost weakness is that he blames himself for all the wrongs. I think I am doing this. See, I am cursing myself. I am cursing myself for my weaknesses. Am I fully responsible for hurting myself??? I don’t know. I can’t answer it. Damn I am a piscean and I will obviously feel so.

I don’t believe in horoscopes. Neither do I believe in Astrology. But still am venting out frustration on my zodiac sign. Gosh!! I turned into a hypocrite. But I am doing so because I just want to. And was that me being irrational?? Yah, the preacher of rationality is practicing irrationality today. Isn’t it incredible?? How one sad incident in your life can change you as a person? All your ethics, all your beliefs, all what you preach, all of those go down in drain. Just one heart breaking incident is enough; you will be a changed person ever after.

But I don’t want to change. I want to sustain my beliefs that have designed me into what I am. Right now all the negative thoughts are running through my mind. That’s why I wrote this piece of crap just to vent out my anger and anguish. I feel a little better now.

Excuse me for such a retarded post. I hope I will get back soon from this aberration.

Money money money!!

There's somethin' wrong with the world today
I don't know what it is
Something's wrong with our eyes
We're seeing things in a different way
And God knows it ain't His
It sure ain't no surprise
We're livin' on the edge
We're livin' on the edge
We're livin' on the edge
We're livin' on the edge

Steve Taylor’s classic is running through my mind. Don’t know what the great Aerosmith’s vocalist had in his mind when he penned down the above rhythmic but since I gained conscience about this crazy little world, I have been thoroughly impressed by the aptness of the same.

Nowadays, the only thing left that is most sacred to human beings is ‘Money’. It’s above everything now. And I don’t want to question its potency. I guess everyone reading is well aware of that. But what baffles me is that how money has become a reason for ‘confession’ in these days. Yah, I am talking about confessing truth, ‘The moment of Truth (aka Sach ka Samna)’. Contestants come in front of the whole world, they face the cameras, they face the polite host of the show sitting in the front and their families on the left as they try to answer 21 throat cutting, heart breaking and mind boggling questions committing that they are gonna speak up the truth today. Well, now that’s courageous.

But they aren’t born-courageous, are they?? The kind of truths they reveal suggest - negative. All the confessions made are just for one reason – ‘Money’. They come to this show and embarrass themselves and their families in front of the whole world for all the wrong doings in their lives and get a little wealthy. But they won’t agree with my last statement. I don’t know whether it’s their perception or their greed that brings them on that stage. But what I will say is that their perception has been corrupted with ‘The Omnipotent Money’. I mean come on, why at first you want the world audience to be staring at you in disgust when you confess the ugliest truths of your lives? What has the world got to do with you? I wonder is it money or the guilt that drives them to reveal the unspoken and the unspeakable truths of their lives. Surely it’s money. Ask them if they will like to come to this show and bring out their true selves in front of the public if they are not granted any money to do so. Well, they need a reason as to why to risk their lives, right?? Money is the best reason.

The most hypocritical thing about claiming truth in front of the world is the fact that you never really cared what the world thinks or may think of you. If you would have really cared you wouldn't have been on the hot seat at first. People are well aware of the fact that how they will degrade themselves in the eyes of the society and their family if they reveal things that they have done in their past life, for most of them ‘money’ was the reason. So, they think that by accepting the truth (at the exchange of money) will bring their family some kinda pride?? No. So, why do they want to devour their family’s reputation in front of the world? If they really want redemption, why don’t they bring out the confessions in their own house where their family can actually hear them with much more pleasure rather than pain? Somethings are so personal that people can’t really understand them and by revealing them in public will only help society in making a negative impression of you. And guess what, society is smart. Anyways, It won’t buy your faithfulness and sincerity in claiming the truths because you are exchanging them for money. Confession in the form of redemption must be unconditional.

So, that brings us to this question!! People lie for money and now people are speaking the truth for the same? Yah and this is the interpretation I drew from the show ‘Sach ka Samna’. Their souls have been tainted with the greed for money. So, even in the process of redemption they want to earn money through some or the other way. If there were no shows like ‘Sach ka Samna’, so many people wouldn’t have confessed their truths and would have continued living with the lies that they sold to others. Strange it is. They feel alleviated after answering all those questions. And I just wonder that how they again create an illusion of doing something right by committing another grave mistake in their lives – ‘The mistake of selling their family’s reputation for some million rupees’. Their fathers never did the same. Cause for them reputation and self-respect was more important than money. They never took a wrong path even when they were living in penury. They were better humans. Money wasn’t everything for them.

But people have changed now. They view things differently. Respect is a secondary word for the most. Money is first. They come to Mumbai to find a job. And when they fail, they lose their souls there. And who is the rapist? Money.

Why don’t this new generation go home and tell everything to their families if they are overwhelmed with guilt?? Why now people are speaking truth only because someone’s paying them for it!! Why don’t they realize that even this money is not coming free of cost to them!! It takes all the reputation and respect out of them. Do they think their families will ever be proud of whatever amount they earned from ‘Sach ka Samna’??? I think no family will like to answer this.

Wednesday's vicissitudes

Life is full of accidents, some fortunate and some unfortunate. But when both of these inverses stamp together, they make one hell of the day, right? Wednesday was such a day. It was one of the weirdest days that I have ever experienced. It was full of emotions. Emotions that changed their phase as the day passed by. Let me share some of them with you.

The Client's meeting debacle

Wednesday was an important day for me. The Japanese partners of my office team had planned a visit that day. I was a little excited. This was my first face to face with the clien

ts (that’s what we call our business partners, yah it’s weird). So, I wake up early that morning (7 o' clk is really early for me), freshened up(everyone on this planet is forced to, otherwise, consequences can be disastrous), hurriedly took bath(so against myself) and groomed well(trust me, I always try to be well groomed) for the very first business meeting of my life.

You must have heard about JIT, right? Well for those who haven’t (I mean all of you), it’s an acronym for ‘Just- in- time’. This is something that Japanese preach and Indians loath. Japanese are known to be very particular about their timings and it’s like whatever it may take, they achieve it ‘just-in-time’. Contrarily, Indians follow their IST (Indian Stretchable time) standards. Of course no one insults the 4^th dimension of continuum as badly as we do. But urging to defy the common practice and being a wayward Indian, I left for office well before my usual timing hoping to reach there before 9 AM.

But that morning I forgot a famous adage.

Mr. Murphy had stated-

‘Anything that can go wrong will go wrong’.

I realized this when I found myself stuck in a miles long traffic jam. And it was bad. For the very first time in Bangalore, I found the traffic halting due to an accident and not due to a traffic signal. I didn’t know whom to curse, my luck or Bangalore (which is again due to my luck). None would have cruise me to office anyways. So, desperately I started wishing that my clients get stuck too. The traffic crawled cohesively and I was late to the office by an hour and a half.

Thousands of things were running in my mind. I could imagine my lead scolding me for coming so late. I could imagine the clients waiting for me (though I had nothing to present to them). My watch struck 10.30 AM when I found myself in front of my office’s campus. But just when I decided to rush into the campus, my teammate called up and said- “Ashish, due to the traffic jam, our clients have been diverted to our old office, so rush towards the old office”. Screwed, I was damn screwed. All the curiosity, all the excitement, all the thunder was gone in a split of a second. After spending two and a half hrs in traffic, my company wanted me to spend another one hr. with it. I expected a better morning than this.

My Best Friend’s Tales

Well the noon was no better either. My best friend got upset with me on some trivial issue. And me being a little senti moron, couldn’t stay normal as it happened. Now, let me admit that– ‘Women are the most talented species on this planet ’. They can confuse you on anything, they can accuse you for anything, they can threaten you on doing anything, all just with a beep of one SMS. First they recommend you to change yourself. Then when you start changing, they feel that this is not how they wanted you to be, so, if you continue to change then they will get upset and will ask you to be the same as before. Something similar to this was what my friend wanted and didn’t want from me. Complicated, right?? Girls are complicated and nothing is complicated about this fact. I bet that no guy can claim that he can understand a girl. If he does, then he is a big liar.

Even, Oscar Wilde said-

‘Women are meant to be loved, not to be understood’.

No offence to my female readers, I am not trying to be chauvinistic but that day my friend really bowled over my mood. A little series of messages were enough to piss me off. So, please excuse me for venting out my frustration publicly.

A twist in the afternoon

Money

After a screwed up half-day session, I wasn’t expecting things to get better. But call it a fluke or anything, all of a sudden the day turned green. At some 3 PM, I got news from my colleagues that we will be getting a hike this month. All tensed and grim I turned ecstatic and overjoyed in a second. The sudden swing of mood was sweet as sugar. I was waiting for it. I had enough being a mediocre for a while.

Like someone said-

‘A steady salary is an invitation to mediocrity’,

I will say –

‘Hikes are good; they keep you happy even on a screwed-up day’.

Apology

Well this was not all that the afternoon had to offer to me. At 4.00 PM my mobile beeped. It was my best friend again. But this time she was feeling sorry for whatever she had said in the morning. She knows how sullen I get when I fight with her. And she didn’t want to trouble me in the office. I know she cares for me even when she is upset with me. She is a sweetheart. I smiled when I read her apology. My mind was now a placid place again. She plucked out all the tension from it. I thought that I will give a call to her in the evening.

Perhaps she is the one best suited for this quote-

‘A best friend accepts us as we are yet helps us to be what we should’.

So, just like another bollywood movie, my ruined life had an happy ending at the EOD. But the last Wednesday was one of the few days where you get to experience both sides of the coin. For me, the coin of emotions flipped a little fast that day, making it an unforgettable Wednesday.